RTHK: 'China, N Korea resume freight train operations' Cross-border freight train operations between China and North Korea appear to have resumed after a five-month suspension, South Korea's unification ministry said on Monday. The comments from the ministry, which handles relations with North Korea, came after Yonhap news agency reported a freight train from Dandong crossed a bridge to the North Korean city of Sinuiju. "North Korea and China have yet to officially confirm but looking at various circumstances, freight train operations between North Korea and China appear to have resumed today," ministry spokesperson Cho Joong-hoon told a briefing. Train crossings had been on hold since April 29, when China suspended services with North Korea following consultations due to Covid-19 infections in its border city of Dandong. Shortly after, North Korea reported its first Covid outbreak, which it now says has ended. The April suspension came less than four months after North Korea eased border lockdowns enforced early in 2020 against the coronavirus. Global aid groups have blamed the border measures for North Korea's worsening economic woes and risks to food supplies for millions. Last month leader Kim Jong Un declared victory over Covid and ordered the lifting of maximum anti-epidemic measures imposed in May, though adding that North Korea must maintain a "steel-strong anti-epidemic barrier". Meanwhile, North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Sunday, Seoul's military said. The launch is the latest in a record-breaking blitz of weapons tests by Pyongyang so far this year, including firing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile at full range for the first time since 2017. (Reuters/AFP) This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 ROMAN PETRENKO MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 17: 50 Investigative Journalists have said that "international observers" at the sham referendums in the occupied Oblasts of Ukraine have turned out to be long-time supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Source: Bihus.info Details: Dia Nader from Venezuela came to the sham referendum in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast as an observer. The Russians almost made a sensation out of her presence in the referendum in the first days of voting, Nader was actively quoted by almost all the main propaganda media. Journalists write that there are big doubts that Nader is voicing theses that are beneficial for Russian propaganda because she sees no problem in holding sham referendums and supports them in every possible way. Nader was born in Lebanon and educated at the Patrice Lumumba Soviet Peoples' Friendship University in Moscow. In 2019, Nader was charge d'affaires at the Venezuelan Embassy in Serbia and stated that "Kosovo is historically a part of Serbia, just as Crimea is historically a part of Russia." Her other statements relate to condemning the United States for the war in Yugoslavia and inciting hostility in other countries. These messages are now very actively used by Russian propagandists. Another so-called observer of the illegal referendums is Roman Blashko, former editor of the Czech communist newspaper "Halo noviny" and a politician. He criticised the Czech authorities for "tainting relations with Russia", and published an article for Czech audiences about the downed MH17 flight in 2014, in which he whitewashed Russia. Political analyst Lubica Blaskova from Slovakia, who is also the president of the Slovak Association of graduates of Russian and Soviet universities because at one time she graduated from the Volgograd State Pedagogical and Moscow State Pedagogical institutes, arrived as an observer for the pseudo-referendum in Luhansk Oblast. Story continues Journalist Sonia Van den Ende from the Netherlands, previously known for her propaganda statements, also came to Luhansk Oblast to "observe". As an example, she previously wrote about the events of May 2014 in Odesa, where, according to a Russian propaganda story, she talked about how "the fascists burned down the trade union building." In May, she took part in the so-called "press tour" with Russians in the occupied territories. Thomas Roper, who calls himself a German journalist and who is almost perfectly fluent in Russian, visited the occupied territory in Kherson Oblast as an observer of the sham referendum. In comments to Russian propaganda media, he boasts that this is the eighth time that he has visited the occupied territory since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. He has been living in Russia for more than 20 years, runs his YouTube channel in German and talks about his support for Russia in the war with Ukraine. In addition, Roper often appears in Russian propaganda media, and the "cherry on top" is the fact that he is the author of a book about Vladimir Putin. Andre Michel Claude Chanclu is French and is the president of the non-profit organisation "France-Russia collective". His sympathy for Russia is shown by numerous photos on social networks. For example, by a sticker in the form of the Russian tricolour, with the Russian tricolour itself (the photo in question dates back to 2013), or with a St. George's ribbon on his chest. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Become our patron, support our work! The massive anti-government demonstrations in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini continued unabated for the 10th day on Monday, despite authorities warning of intensified action without leniency. The number of dead during clashes between protesters and security forces increased to 41 people, including some members of the security forces, according to state TV. However, the real figure is believed to be much higher. Irans foreign ministry criticised the US and UK governments on Monday for their alleged support of the protesters, accusing the countries of destabilising Tehran. Foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told Nour that the USs attempts to weaken Irans stability and security will not go unanswered. Iran also summoned Britains ambassador to protest what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets. The state-run IRNA news agency reported that the ministry also summoned Norways ambassador to Iran and strongly protested recent remarks by the president of the Norwegian parliament, Masud Gharahkhani. If my parents had not made the choice to flee in 1987, I would have been one of those fighting in the streets with my life on the line, Mr Gharahkhani tweeted on Sunday. Irans judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on Sunday emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency against the core instigators of the riots, the judiciarys Mizan Online website said. The comments were in line with president Ebrahim Raisis statement that said the country must deal decisively with those who oppose the countrys security and tranquillity. The outpouring of anger that began with dissatisfaction directed towards Irans morality police has now spread to least 46 cities, towns and villages. More than 1,200 demonstrators have been arrested. At least 18 journalists have been arrested during the protests as of Sunday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Story continues A fifth member of an Iranian volunteer paramilitary group died on Sunday, succumbing to injuries sustained on Thursday in Urmia city, northwest of Iran, IRNA said. State media said the person died clashing with rioters and thugs. Other deaths of personnel belonging to Basij, a paramilitary organisation connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were reported in Qazvin, Tabriz, Mashhad and Qouchan. Visuals showed protesters chanting slogans against the government and also Irans Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, shouting death to dictator, Freedom, freedom, freedom! and We will fight, we will die, we will take back Iran! Her name was hadis najafi, a 20-year-old girl, bold and brave. she got killed by 6 bullets in the city of Karaj. She was only 20. Say her name.#_ #IranProtests2022 pic.twitter.com/mD4mcwOf6n Francis. (@sakuramikuwu) September 25, 2022 An emotional video showed the sister of an alleged victim of the polices crackdown on protesters, Javad Heydari, cutting off her hair on the grave of her brother. The gesture of women chopping off their hair across Iran has become a symbol of resistance in the country. Javad Heydari's sister, who is one of the victims of protests against the murder of #Mahsa_Amini, cuts her hair at her brother's funeral.#IranRevolution #_pic.twitter.com/6PJ21FECWg 1500tasvir_en (@1500tasvir_en) September 25, 2022 The protests have also spread to other countries, with Iranian demonstrators and activists raising slogans outside Iranian embassies in London, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among other cities. Twelve people were arrested and at least five officers seriously injured in clashes outside the Iranian embassy in London over the weekend, the Metropolitan Police said. Irans Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi called on activists and artists around the world to stand in solidarity with Iranian women. He said in an Instagram post that they were looking for simple and yet fundamental rights that the state has denied them for years. I deeply respect their struggle for freedom and the right to choose their own destiny despite all the brutality they are subjected to, Mr Farhadi added. VALENTYNA ROMANENKO MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 11:41 Ukraines Air Force says Russia has reduced the number of rocket strikes on Ukraine in recent days, but it also has increased the presence of drones in Ukraines airspace. Source: Yurii Ihnat, Air Force Command spokesman, on Belsat TV channel Details: According to Ihnat, the Russian forces are now saving expensive cruise missiles, using them less frequently; instead, they tend to launch more attacks with the use of kamikaze drones, which Russia had received from Iran. The Ukrainian Defence Forces are learning to effectively counter them. According to the spokesman of the Air Force, several hundred attack drones could have been delivered from Iran to the Russian Federation by four Il-76 transporters. Quote: "The Armed Forces of Ukraine faced a new challenge. In recent days, Kharkiv region, Odesa region and Mykolaiv region have been attacked by these loitering munitions. (To shoot them down) all types of weapons are used: small arms, machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, and anti-aircraft missiles; in perspective, electronic warfare may be supposed, too. All methods are currently being studied in order to be practised more effectively on these UAVs. 8 out of 10 among the first drones (launched by the enemy) were shot down; the enemy from his mistakes, and used new tactical moves, but we are also practising countermeasures. There is still a threat, but the target can be shot down." Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! ROME Her party's flag features a tricolor flame popularized by Benito Mussolini and she still uses a slogan favored by fascists "God, Fatherland and family." She opposes LGBT+ and abortion rights, which she has described as a "tragedy." She wants to set up naval blockades to block migrants from reaching European shores. But Giorgia Meloni, Italy's presumptive first female prime minister and the country's first far-right leader since World War II, has nevertheless promised that she will govern on behalf of all Italians, no matter their beliefs or whether they voted for her. "If we are called to govern this nation, we will do it for everyone, we will do it for all Italians and we will do it with the aim of uniting the people," Meloni said early Monday after claiming victory in a general election that puts the 45-year-old from a working class Rome neighborhood on track to become Italy's eighth prime minister in 11 years. "Italy chose us," she said. "We will not betray it, and we never have." Election results: Italy shifts to the right as voters reward Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party Giorgia Meloni shows a placard reading in Italian "Thank you Italy" at her party's electoral headquarters in Rome, on Sept. 26, 2022. The latest Italy has a coalition-style government, where like-minded parties join forces to form a government. Preliminary results show that Melonis Brothers of Italy party and its right-wing alliance partners the League, led by Matteo Salvini, and Forza Italia, led by former prime minister and billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, collectively won around 43% of the votes in the election. Because Italy's voting system gives Meloni's party extra seats as the largest party, winning around 26%, that gives her the inside track to become Italy's next prime minister if the parties work together, as they have vowed to do. The final tallies are expected later Monday or on Tuesday from Italy's interior ministry. However, the formal process of forming a government is a burdensomeone that is unlikely to unfold before mid-October. Meloni's frontrunner status has unnerved Italy's allies in the European Union, coming as it does on the heels of an election in Sweden, where more than 1-in-5 Swedes voted for the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party that can trace its roots to founders who were Nazi sympathizers. Meloni has in the past been an apologist for Italy's fascist World War II dictator Benito Mussolini and expressed support for Hungary's right-winter leader Viktor Orban, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin, though she insists she will be a reliable leader. Story continues What's next? Once the results are confirmed, Italian President Sergio Mattarella will consult with the major parties before asking one leader almost surely Meloni to try to form a majority coalition. That may be easier said than done, since Italian political parties are known for infighting and last-minute intrigues. But, if successful, Meloni will present a proposed list of ministers for Mattarella's approval. If she gets it, the new government will be sworn in before standing for a confidence vote. If that's successful, it will take the reins of power. FILE Brothers of Italy's party leader, Giorgia Meloni, takes a selfie with supporters during a rally in Rome, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019. With God, homeland and "natural" family prominent in her political manifesto, Giorgia Meloni, whose Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party with neo-fascist roots has been fast rising in popularity in view of the upcoming Sept. 25 elections for Parliament, is positioning herself to become Italy's first far-right premier and the first woman to hold that office. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) ORG XMIT: rom103 What are they saying? "When it comes to foreign policy, we will not see dramatic changes," said Oreste Massari, a political science professor at Romes La Sapienza University. "Meloni will have to be particularly cautious so she doesnt upset financial markets and to avoid worrying Italys allies. Domestically, she has promised not to increase the deficit, so well see how that goes. In terms of civil rights, social policy, that may change. The big challenge going into winter is energy. Italy cant sign its own unilateral agreement with Russia, so it has to do what the government is already doing: diversifying energy generation and finding new sources to replace Russian gas. "I like that (Meloni) has a working class background. Shes one of us," said Antonio Lori, 54, a public transportation worker who voted in the Rome neighborhood of Trastevere. "She understands regular people. Up to now, its been elites on one side and then on the other. Its time for a regular person to have a chance. Shes modern. She doesnt take orders from Brussels. Were a great country, and we arent always treated like one," said Annalisa Lubrano, 23, a university student in Rome. "This is the first time I voted in a national election and I didnt vote for a specific party. I voted for Italy to be treated with respect. There have been guarded reactions from European leaders, apart from Hungary's Orban, who wrote on Twitter: In these difficult times, we need more than ever friends who share a common vision and approach to Europes challenges. French President Emmanuel Macron's office said in a statement: "As neighbors and friends, we must continue to work together." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote on Twitter that Washington was "eager to work with Italy's government on our shared goals" including "supporting a free and independent Ukraine" and "respecting human rights." Why does this matter? Italy is one of six founding members of the EU and it's the blocs third-largest economy. In the past, Italy has played a valuable role as a bridge between Europe and antagonistic governments in Russia and China, and in some Middle Eastern nations. Meloni has already said that under her leadership, Italy will stand by Ukraine, and she has had to row back earlier calls for closer ties with Vladimir Putin's Russia. But she has said she wants to pull out of Italys Belt-and-Road infrastructure pact with China signed in 2018, robbing Beijing of a major European foothold (Italy remains the only major western country to sign onto the initiative). Her plans to blockade the Mediterranean admittedly dismissed by most analysts as a campaign applause line would not win friends in the region. More importantly, Meloni's win could shift the balance of power in the EU away from traditional powers like France and Germany toward right-wing governments in Hungary, Poland, and now Sweden. Few think Italy will leave the EU or NATO, but it will create a delicate balancing act for the EU when it comes to presenting a decisive, united front on climate or energy. Meloni's supporters see her as a kind of modern-day Margaret Thatcher, unafraid to challenge traditional powers. But that anti-authoritarian political DNA could also likely make Italy a less reliable partner in U.S.-led coalitions, though Meloni has been careful to steer clear of making comments about U.S. leaders. This is all assuming, of course, that a Meloni government is able to remain in power for more than a few months. Brothers of Italys success at the polls is significant, but the next government will be Italy's 74th in the 79 years since the fall of Italy's last far-right government, Mussolinis Fascists nearly one government per year. Want to know more? Italy votes: Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni's alliance leads national vote, exit poll Italy shifts to the right: Voters reward Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Giorgia Meloni: Who is Italy's most far-right leader since Mussolini? Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty Italys next prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, leads a party that can trace it roots to the fascist followers of Benito Mussolini and a coalition that features the parties of both the corrupt Putin apologist former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and of the influential ultra-nationalist politician Matteo Salvini (who is perhaps the most far-right of the bunch and also a big Putin fan). Following elections on Sunday, Melonis Fratelli dItalia party, Berlusconis Forza Italia party, and Salvinis Lega Nord party will be able to form a coalition that will give them control of the upper and lower houses of Italys parliamentand presumably enable them to advance an agenda that will be anti-immigrant and hyper-nationalist. How their euroskeptic biases and pro-Putin leanings will ultimately affext the function of the EU, and the Wests efforts to support Ukraine, are both big question marks. They also underscore the fact that maintaining trans-Atlantic unity is going to be an increasingly difficult diplomatic challenge for the Biden administration and our like-minded allies. Italy Set to Make Giorgia Meloni First Far-Right Leader Since Mussolini Meloni has promised to support Ukraine, but last week Berlusconi offered an ugly and rather pathetic defense of what Putin is doing to Ukrainegoing so far as to say Putin only wanted to get rid of the elected Zelensky government in order to install a government of decent people in Kyiv. Meanwhile, Salvini has regularly been accused of being a beneficiary of Putins support. In this, Salvinis Lega Nord is like the French right-wing party of Marine Le Pen, which has also benefited from the support of Putin and Hungarys Viktor Orbanthe anti-democracy racist who is a favorite of Fox News and the American right wing. Both hailed the rights victory in Italy, as did other right-wing parties across Europe. Those parties were already feeling they had some wind at their back thanks to the strong performance of Le Pen in recent French elections and the recent win by Swedens right-wing party in parliamentary elections there. Story continues Combine those developments and the lurch rightward of Britains conservative partyled by new Prime Minister Liz Trussand the right in Europe is feeling pretty good about itself. Silvio Berlusconi, leader of Forza Italia, arrives to cast his vote during the general elections in Milan, Italy on September 25, 2022. Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images If theres a fly in the far-rights ointment, its the fact that Truss first weeks in office have been a disasterwith the announcement of ill-timed, ill-considered tax cuts for the rich as the centerpiece of an economic agenda that has since cratered the British pound, which is now flirting with dollar parity for the first time ever. Of course, economic performance has seldom been a strong suit of the right (see Putin, Vladimir or Berlusconi, Silvio or, for that matter, Trump, Donald), except to the degree that it meant better returns for the elites surrounding far-right leaders. (These anti-elite parties are almost invariably actively pro-elite.) Instead, they focus on providing voters with scapegoats on whom to blame their problems, notably foreigners, different races, Jews, and anyone who threatens their national identity. While the achievements of the leaders and parties of the new right-wing movement are hard to identify, their destructive capacity is substantial. Brexit comes to mind, a Russian-supported joint venture with Britains hard right. They have also done great damage to democracy, as in the case of Hungarys Russophile prime minister, Orban. Take Trumps Warning of Violence for What It Isa Threat Concern about how these new right governments might weaken European unity and push for ever more draconian immigration policies is great, as are worries about how the more-empowered right might push for policies that weaken support for Ukraine or for sanctions against Russia. For this reason, the response to Melonis victory from the U.S. and other key allies in the Ukraine coalition has been focused on maintaining a constructive relationship and critical policies. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, We are eager to work with Italy's government on our shared goals: supporting a free and independent Ukraine, respecting human rights, and building a sustainable economic future. Frances Emanuel Macron tried to maintain a similar tone but sounded more grudgingperhaps given his near political death experience running against Le Pen. He said, As neighbors and friends, we must continue to work together. It is within Europe that we will overcome our common challenges." Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) gestures during a press conference at the party electoral headquarters overnight, on September 25, 2022 in Rome, Italy. Antonio Masiello/Getty Images Putin, who has been a financier, friend, and north star to many leaders in the ethno-nationalist right worldwide, must be looking at these successes with both gratification and, should he ever have a moment of honesty with himself, chagrin. His efforts to weaken Western alliances and global institutions via politically active measures across Europe and in the U.S. have been exceptionally successful by any measure. This could be a moment of real advantage for him in achieving his greater goals. But his decision to expand his invasion of Ukraine and his serial failures in managing that act of aggression have cost him the ability to capitalize on it as he might have. Still, he will, no doubt, use his ties to governments in places like Italy, France, Hungary, and to the GOP in the U.S., to mitigate the consequences of his Ukraine catastrophe. Blocking or diluting sanctions and new aid efforts for Ukraine, seeking opposition to the strengthening of NATO, or deepening engagement of Ukraine in European institutions all are likely ways Putin will seek to influence these groups with which he has close ties. As Bad as the World Looks Right Now, Its Actually Worse Next up for the global right are two elections of consequence. First, in October, Brazils right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro (who has also cozied up to Putin) faces former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Then, in the U.S., the MAGA-dominated GOP is seeking to regain control of the U.S. Congress. Bolsonaro is expected to lose, but whether he goes quietly or strikes yet another right-wing blow against democracy is something observers are watching closely. Bolsonaro has openly modeled himself on Trump, and there is every reason to fear he will behave Trumpily, should he lose. That said, the U.S. contest is what the Putinist right is watching most closely. GOP leader Donald Trumps softness on Russia is well-documented. More power to his party, which might enable them to oppose Biden's initiatives in Ukraine, or help the GOP win the 2024 presidential election, would be the one real non-nuclear Hail Mary pass that Putin could hope for. The rise of Europes right can also help him in his current crisis. It gives him the first good news he has had since he began the current operations in Ukraine in February. It could ultimately breed dissent in the EU and NATO in ways that can only benefit Putin. That said, Trumps reelection would be a true godsend for the Kremlin, a chance to re-sign up the most powerful nation on earth as a member of Team Putin at just the moment it might actually save the Russian dictator from reaping the full consequences of his signature strategic blunder, the military, humanitarian, economic and diplomatic catastrophe for Moscow that is the war in Ukraine. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Brothers of Italys Leader Giorgia Meloni who could become the countrys first female leader (AP) A right-wing alliance led by a party with neo-fascist roots has won a clear majority in Italys parliament, according to the first exit polls published after Sundays vote. State broadcaster RAI said the bloc of conservative parties led by the Brothers of Italy party, which includes Matteo Salvinis League and Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia parties, won between 41 and 45 per cent enough to guarantee control of both houses of Italys parliament. If the final result reflects the exit polls, it will send shockwaves throughout Italian and European politics. As a result, Ms Meloni will almost certainly become the first woman leader in Italys history, the latest high-profile female politician across the continent, and will lead the most far-right government elected by Italians since the Second World War. Italy is the European Unions third-largest economy and Ms Melonis victory comes at a critical time, as much of the continent reels from soaring energy bills, a repercussion of the war in Ukraine, and the Wests fragile resolve to stand united against Russian aggression is being tested. The comprehensive victory would also likely mean a return to the political top table for the veteran Berlusconi, who turns 86 on Thursday, and a senior government position for anti-immigration Salvini. Ms Meloni has vowed to continue Romes support for Kyiv, but suspicions remain that pressure from Mr Salvini and Mr Berlusconi, who have both championed Russian president Vladimir Putin in the recent past, could see Italys support for Ukraine weaken. Last week Mr Berlusconi claimed Russias president was pushed into war. One of the first leaders to congratulate Ms Meloni was Hungarys controversial leader Viktor Orban, who wrote on Twitter: In these difficult times, we need more than ever friends who share a common vision and approach to Europes challenges. RAI added that the centre-left alliance of former Democratic Party premier Enrico Letta, gained 29.5 per cent of the vote. The broadcaster said the exit poll had a margin of error of 3.5 per cent. The Five Star Movement are in third place, with 16.5 per cent. Story continues The result caps a meteoric rise for Ms Meloni, who only got 4 per cent of the votes at the last general election. Her traditional message has appealed to voters struggling with a cost of living crisis and an electorate that has shunned more established parties in recent years. Italian businesses and households are struggling to pay gas and electricity bills, which in some cases are 10 times higher than last years. Ms Meloni campaigned by claiming: I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian. She has sought to reassure people of her partys past as the Brothers of Italy was forged from a neo-fascist party formed shortly after the war by nostalgists of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. But a strong mandate could allow her, say critics, to reverse any progressive laws in areas such as LGBT+ and abortion, despite reassurances during campaigning. A crackdown on immigration is a certainty. Salvini, Berlusconi and Meloni at closing electoral campaign rally (Reuters) It is also likely that her government could form a powerful right-wing European alliance with parties including Polands ruling nationalist Law and Justice party, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats and Spains far-right Vox party. Her victory is also a demonstration of the growing importance of far-right parties and ideas in Europe, even those that did not gain power such as Frances National Rally party, headed by Marine Le Pen, who won 40 per cent of the vote in the presidential election earlier this year. Ms Meloni has been anti-EU in some of her rhetoric during the campaign, but it is unlikely her victory will lead to any great difference in Italys relations with Brussels as it is reliant on the EUs post-pandemic funds. The election was held six months early after premier Mario Draghis pandemic unity government collapsed in late July. Full results are expected by early Monday. ROME (Reuters) - Enrico Letta, the leader of Italy's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), plans to step down after defeat in the national election, he said on Monday. Letta told a news conference that he would stay on for the time being but not stand for the leadership at the next party congress which will be held in the near future. He described the election victory for a right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni as a "sad day for Italy and Europe". (Reporting by Angelo Amante; Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Agnieszka Flak) ROME (Reuters) - Italy's main centre-left group, the Democratic Party (PD), conceded defeat early Monday in a national election and said it would be the largest opposition force in the next parliament. "This is a sad evening for the country," Debora Serracchiani, a senior PD lawmaker, told reporters in the party's first official comment on the result. "(The right) has the majority in parliament, but not in the country." Provisional results showed that a right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party had won around 43% of the vote and was on course for a clear majority in parliament. (Reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Crispian Balmer) A Jacksonville man has pled guilty to a 2017 nightclub murder. Jyree Dominic Noel, 37, of Grants Creek Road in Jacksonville was arrested and charged on Dec. 22, 2017 with an open count of murder after shooting and killing 39-year-old Tyrone Lamont Bailey outside of The Cave Gentleman's Club. Noel pled guilty in Onslow County Superior Court Monday afternoon to one count of second-degree murder, one count of attempted trafficking cocaine and one count of malicious conduct by a prisoner. More:Longest-serving Jacksonville police officer believed to be longest-serving in the country More:Backlog pushes Earl Kimrey trial to fall, 16 murder cases pending in Onslow County At the time of his arrest, Noel was also charged with first-degree kidnapping; resisting a public officer; assault on a government official or employee; altering, stealing or destroying criminal evidence; felony possession of marijuana; and two counts of felony trafficking cocaine. Those charges were dismissed as part of the plea. He was sentenced to 288-358 months or 24-30 years in prison. However, Noel will receive some time served. The victim's son Christian spoke in court Monday saying his father was not a perfect man but had been working hard to change his life for the better. He said although his father didn't do right by him when he was younger, he left behind two daughters who will grow up without him. He added he's trying to figure out which direction to go as a man now that he no longer has his father. "Those questions will never be answered," Christian said. "I'm really forgiving, really loving. I know people aren't perfect and make mistakes, stuff happens. I don't like it, but that's the reality of life." Reporter Morgan Starling can be reached at mstarling@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on The Daily News: Jacksonville man pleads guilty in 2017 Cave Gentleman's Club murder TOKYO (AP) Japan expressed grave concern about Russias possible use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine as the top government spokesman on Monday announced an additional ban on exports of chemical weapons-related goods to Russia. As the worlds only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, we strongly demand that the threat or use of nuclear weapons by Russia should never happen, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a regular news conference. Matsuno was responding to a question about U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivans comments Sunday on CBS news that the United States will act decisively in case of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine. Asked if Japan approves of the possible use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Russia, Matsuno refused to comment on the grounds that it was a hypothetical question. Japan's government on Monday banned the export of materials that may be used for chemical weapons to 21 Russian organizations, including science laboratories. The measure was approved by the Cabinet following a decision by Group of Seven foreign ministers last week. TOKYO (AP) The Japanese leader who normalized relations with China 50 years ago feared for his life when he flew to Beijing for the high-stakes negotiations at the height of the Cold War, according to his daughter, a former Japanese foreign minister. Kakuei Tanaka's mission to normalize relations with China just two months after taking office was a huge gamble, his daughter, Makiko Tanaka, said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the 50th anniversary Thursday of the historic communique that Tanaka signed with his counterpart, Zhou Enlai. The then-prime minister told his daughter before his departure that he would resign if his mission failed, recalled Makiko Tanaka, who served as foreign minister and in other key posts from 1993 to 2012. Opposition was so fierce in Japan, she said, that some ruling party hawks came to their home the day before the trip to try to stop him from leaving. He told his daughter that he feared being poisoned in China, which was a largely closed country in 1972. Earlier that same year, U.S. President Richard Nixon had made his visit to communist China that would transform Chinas position in the world. His trip led to the U.S. establishing diplomatic relations with China in 1979 and the parallel severing of formal ties with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own. Much has changed, too, in the China-Japan relationship over the past half-century. The neighbors enjoy deep business and cultural ties. Japan has given China more than $25 billion in development aid over the years, and China is Japans biggest trade partner. But the underlying tension that marked Tanaka's diplomatic foray remains. China, a relative backwater then, is now the worlds No. 2 economy and a growing military power. Tensions surround Beijing's rivalry with Washington and its increasingly assertive activity in the region, especially around Taiwan. Japan considers China a security threat and is particularly worried about Chinese naval activity around Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that Beijing also claims. Story continues Top-level visits have stalled in recent years, and Japan has been steadily building its military, largely in response to China. Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas government has pledged to further reinforce military power and to nearly double its spending over the next five to 10 years. Japans alliance with the United States is a lynchpin of our diplomacy, but we should not isolate China, Makiko Tanaka said. She raised worries about U.S.-led groupings of like-minded democracies, including Japan, as a counter to China, and cautioned against pushing Beijing toward closer ties with Russia. We are just banding together and being confrontational toward China, said Tanaka, who was foreign minister in 2001-2002 under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. She criticized U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visit to Taipei in August for escalating tensions. Wang Jiaxun, president of the China Enterprises Association in Japan, which includes 150 Chinese companies, acknowledged difficulties but said the neighbors need each other as business partners. China and Japan have thousands of years of up-and-down relations, said Wang, whose association sponsored a weekend Japan-China festival in Tokyo in hopes of improving rocky ties. China has not forgotten Japan's support after the 1972 normalization, and even though his country has become a major power, the two countries can learn from each other. China can provide a huge market for Japan and further contribute to the Japanese economy, he said. When Tanaka, who died in 1993, made his trip, memories were fresh in Beijing of Japanese brutality during the first half of the 20th century. There was also opposition from anti-communist lawmakers in Tokyo. Makiko Tanaka accompanied her father on many foreign trips, but he refused to take her to Beijing because of safety worries. The main sticking points in 1972 were Japans apology for wartime aggression and differences over Taiwan issues that strain relations today. Kakuei Tanaka, however, was determined to make amends with China and change the state of the relationship with a country he saw as a growing power, his daughter said. He believed energetic diplomacy was the only way his resource-poor country could rise from the devastation of the war and survive global competition. Makiko quoted her father as saying that leaving the China issue dangling is not good for Japans future. She said her father was ready to lower his head and apologize to China (over Japan's wartime atrocities) to create a win-win relationship for Japans major benefit. Contrary to his worries, Tanaka was treated in China with extreme hospitality. His biggest relief centered on Zhous pledge to waive Chinas right to seek war compensation, which he said saved Japan from going bankrupt. Makiko Tanaka says the waiver was in exchange for Japans pledge to sever formal ties with Taiwan. The East China Sea islands dispute was not part of the 1972 communique. Kakuei Tanaka raised the issue but Zhou said he did not want to discuss it, according to diplomatic records released by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. In response to Chinese concerns, the Japanese side strengthened an apology over Japans wartime aggression in the communique. Makiko Tanaka said an improvement in the current political relationship between Beijing and Tokyo is hopeless, but she is pushing for deeper ties in the private sector. She has been invited to speak at Qinghua University in Beijing, and she is planning to invite a Chinese delegation to visit her fathers tomb in his hometown of Niigata later this year. If business, scientists and cultural exchanges were prompted more, there would be a sense of closeness between the countries, Tanaka said. Diplomacy is about people, and whether you can develop personal relations and talk when needed, but politicians who can do this are rare. Democratic Senate candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA) is welcomed on stage during a rally at the Bayfront Convention Center on August 12, 2022 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Nate Smallwood/Getty Images Fox News Host Tucker Carlson took shots at John Fetterman earlier this month over the candidate's tattoos. Fetterman responded by talking about the meanings behind his body art. "They are reminders of the people we have lost and what I am fighting for," Fetterman said. After right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson spent 20 minutes ranting about Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and his tattoos earlier this month, the Senate candidate responded to Carlson's insults in an NBC News op-ed published on Sunday. Fetterman's op-ed highlighted a specific portion from Carlson's September 7 rant where he said: "All your stupid little fake tattoos, it's a costume, of course. Duh, it's not real." Carlson also accused Fetterman, the former mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, of not being tough on crime. "Gun violence and violent crime might be a joke to someone like Carlson, but they are very real to people in towns like Braddock," Fetterman wrote. Fetterman said he has nine dates tattooed on his arm to represent the violent deaths that occurred in Braddock during his tenure as mayor including the death of a 23-month-old who was sexually abused and left to die in the snow and a man who was fatally shot while delivering pizzas. "They are not some 'costume.' They are reminders of the people we have lost and what I am fighting for," he added. Fetterman, a Democrat, is up against former talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, for a seat in the US Senate. Fetterman acknowledged that "etching art permanently onto your body isn't how most politicians would express their connection to their communities." "My decision to mark these deaths with tattoos was inspired in part by their permanence the fact that these people, their stories, and my town will be with me forever," he added. Read the original article on Business Insider Oscar-award winning director Paul Haggis. Jim Spellman/WireImage Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis is set to face trial next month on a sex-assault allegation. Haleigh Breest claims Haggis raped her when she worked as a film publicist in 2013. The judge has ruled that Haggis can argue at trial that the Church of Scientology is behind the suit. A judge cleared the way for Paul Haggis to argue that the Church of Scientology is behind a sex-assault allegation leveraged against him, when that civil case goes to trial next month. Haleigh Breest sued Haggis in 2017, accusing the Oscar-winning director of raping her after a movie premiere she attended as a film publicist in January 2013. Haggis claims the sex was consensual. Jury selection in the trial begins October 11 in New York City Supreme Court. Haggis won a major pre-trial motion on Friday when Judge Sabrina Kraus ruled that his lawyers would be allowed to argue that the Church of Scientology is behind the lawsuit. In a statement to Insider on Monday, a spokesperson for the church said it "has nothing to do with the claims against Haggis nor does it have any relation to his accusers." "The claim is absurd and patently false," Scientology spokesperson Karin Pouw wrote. Haggis was a high-ranking member of Scientology before breaking from the religion in 2009, and going on to publicly accuse it of being a cult. He was a key figure in the 2015 documentary about the religion, "Going Clear." The Church of Scientology building on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty Images Breest's attorneys wanted any mention of the church banned at the trial, saying Haggis' claims that the church induced Breest to make a complaint against him are "an outright lie" for which he has "not produced one shred of evidence to support." But Haggis' legal team said the evidence will show there's a compelling case that the church is behind Breest's allegation as part of their "vendetta" against him for leaving. According to a filing on the matter, Haggis' lawyers said that a former Scientology leader told the director that the church is "funding this case." Story continues One witness cited in the court filing said a senior Scientology executive directed her to search Screen Actors Guild files for "any claims or complaints" regarding Haggis "being aggressive, screaming, or violent behavior ... with a woman." A second witness said the church has a "black PR policy" for dealing with enemies, whereby they dig up dirt "to discredit them as a way to diminish their impact." "Haggis is no ordinary defendant in a civil case. He is the most public enemy of a notorious, nefarious, powerful and well-funded institution which is known to destroy its detractors," Haggis' attorneys wrote in their filing. Judge Kraus sided with the argument in her decision, writing that it's up to the jury to decide whether or not the church is playing a role in Breest's allegation. "The jury is entitled to be informed of any possible motive Plaintiffs may have and about The Church's efforts to discredit Haggis," Judge Kraus wrote in her order. Breest is not the only woman to make sexual assault claims against Haggis. A year after Breest sued Haggis in 2017, her lawyers filed an amended complaint, explaining that three other women had come forward to them with similar claims against Haggis. Haggis was also detained in Italy over the summer when another woman accused him of rape. But he was eventually released from detention and no charges have resulted from the allegation. Judge Kraus said Breest's lawyers will be able to use the testimonies of the three other alleged victims in their case, to try and prove a pattern of behavior. But the Italy arrest is off limits at trial, Kraus ordered. "The allegations in that case have not been sustained and were deemed insufficient to keep defendant under arrest," Kraus said. When reached for comment on the judge's rulings, Ilann M. Maazel, one of the attorneys representing Breest, issued the following statement: "Over Paul Haggis' objection, Judge Kraus ruled that multiple other women can testify that Haggis assaulted them, too. Their powerful sworn testimony will be damning to Haggis and stands in stark contrast to the complete lack of evidence for Haggis's sham scientology conspiracy theory," Maazel said. A representative for Haggis did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story. Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the Church of Scientology. Read the original article on Insider The Lubbock County Courthouse. District Judge John McClendon ruled Monday that Hollis Daniels' confession to Lubbock police detectives that he killed a Texas Tech Police officer in 2017 will be admitted at his capital murder trial. McClendon, who presides over the 137th District Court, issued his ruling after a Friday morning hearing over Daniels' motion to throw out the interview. Daniels appeared in court with his defense attorney Chip Lewis, who filed a motion stating his client's Fifth and Sixth constitutional rights were violated during the interview with Lubbock police detectives. Meanwhile, Lubbock County District Attorney Sunshine Stanek argued Daniels did not clearly invoke his rights during the interview since he continued speaking to detectives unprompted after they read him his Miranda warnings. Daniels, 25, is charged with capital murder in the Oct. 9, 2017, fatal shooting of Texas Tech Police Officer Floyd East at the police headquarters. He faces punishment of life in prison without parole or the death penalty. The Lubbock County District Attorney's Office is seeking the death penalty in the case. A trial is tentatively set for Oct. 10. Daniels was arrested on the Tech campus at the end of a two-hour manhunt after a gunshot rang out at the Texas Tech Police Department headquarters where East was filling out paperwork for Daniels' arrest on an unrelated offense. Daniels reportedly told arresting officers that "he was the one that shot their friend," according to an arrest warrant. Shortly after his arrest, he was interviewed by Lubbock police detectives Thomas Bonds and Daniel Williams at the Lubbock police headquarters downtown. During the hearing, Bonds told the court that Daniels was brought into his office wearing a "spit hood." Court documents filed in 2017 also state that Daniels spat at a police officer during his arrest. However, Bonds described Daniels -- who was 19 at the time -- as polite, respectful and compliant during the interview. Story continues The video of the interview was not played in court during the hearing. Instead, McClendon reviewed the video prior to the hearing. McClendon issued a news media gag order in the case shortly after Daniels was indicted in 2017 to avoid providing grounds for a change of venue. The order prohibited law enforcement agencies, prosecutors or defense attorneys from directly providing information to news media outlets about the case. "Due to the fact that this case has not yet been tried, the Court is of the opinion that the release of any reports, audio, video tapes or other information in the possession of law enforcement officers, prosecutors, or the defense attorneys could potentially cause grounds for a change of venue in the trials of this defendant, the judge wrote in the order. However, the state's response to Lewis' motion to suppress the interview with detectives included an outline of the recorded interview, which spanned about 13 minutes. According to the response, which was filed Sept. 20, as Daniels was brought into Bond's office before his Miranda rights were read, he told the detectives that he "[expletive] up." After an introduction, Daniel's handcuffs and spit hood were removed and Daniels could be heard saying that he "knew [he] was going to jail for the rest of [his] life." Stanek agreed that Daniels' statements before he was given his Miranda warnings were inadmissible. After the detectives read Daniels the Miranda warning, he asked the detectives if his attorney should be present at the interview and they told him it was "up to him." Daniels could be heard saying he didn't want to end the interview. "I want to cooperate with you guys," Daniels could be heard saying, adding that he wanted to talk about "all this," but that he "(wanted) to have (his) attorney present though as well" but said he was willing to answer certain questions and asked them what they would like to know. The detectives did ask Daniels to clarify if he wanted to speak with them. Daniels asked if they wanted him to tell them "the whole story." The detectives told him they would if he was willing to do that. However, Daniels told the detectives that he was going to remain silent if they didn't know the whole story, and the detectives told him that it was "up to him." Daniels immediately talks about the shooting unprompted by any questions from the detectives. He gave detectives detailed events that led to East's shooting and explained his thought process when he shot the officer, the response states. "He just started to talk," Bonds said in court. Bonds told the court that neither he nor Williams asked Daniels questions specifically about the shooting. The detective said in court that Daniels asked more questions during the interview than they did. In the video, as detailed in the state's filing, Daniels could be heard asking the detectives about the range of punishment he faced and where he would be detained. After making his statement, Daniels told the detectives that he was ready to return to jail and asked if he could call his father. Bonds told the court that he used his phone to call Daniels' father and the conversation was recorded. In his motion to suppress the interview, Lewis argued his client's Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the detectives failed to end the interview after Daniels said he was going to remain silent. "The entirety of the interview should have been concluded when he said he was going to remain silent," Lewis told the court. Stanek referred the court to the arguments they made in their response that stated the video showed Daniels did not clearly invoke his right to an attorney when he asked the detectives if he needed on at the interview. "Thus under the circumstances, Detectives Bonds and Williams were not required to cease the interrogation since there was not an unambiguous request for counsel during the custodial interrogation," the response states. Prosecutors also said that Daniels did not clearly invoke his right to remain silent since he immediately made unprompted statements to detectives about the fatal shooting. Daniels remains held at the Lubbock County Detention Center. His bond is set at $5 million. This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Hollis Daniels police interview to be admitted in capital murder trial Theres a new COVID-19 booster shot available that provides better protection against the variants that are currently circulating. Its a bivalent shot, meaning it targets both the original strain of the virus and the highly contagious omicron subvariants including BA.5, the current dominant strain in the United States. Dr. Onyema Ogbuagu, an infectious diseases specialist and associate professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, noted that the new booster shot is here in anticipation of a fall surge in COVID cases. (Keep in mind that the Moderna booster is only available for those 18 and up, while Pfizers booster is available for those 12 and up.) So, when should you get your booster? As soon as possible, in order to help fend off a fall wave and keep yourself healthy. But while those who have not had a recent COVID infection can get their shot now, the timeline guidance differs for those who recently had a COVID infection. Heres what to know if you just had the virus: You should wait at least two months to get your shot. The official guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that vaccinated people can wait two months after a COVID shot to get their booster. And the Food and Drug Administration authorized the bivalent booster in people who are at least two months out from their most recent COVID vaccination. For those who were recently sick with COVID, though, both Ogbuagu and Dr. Andy Pekosz, co-director of the Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said you need to wait two months for the bivalent shot, but can choose to wait up to three months. So, if youre looking for a hard and fast rule, its safe to say you should wait two months after infection (or vaccination) to get your new shot. Some experts, however, think you can actually wait longer. There are some immunologists that think spacing that booster out longer might help generate longtime immunity, Pekosz said. An infection should give you pretty good protection for four to six months, which means you probably dont need to take the booster shot before then, he said. Story continues But although immunity can last for four to six months in many people, that is not always the case, Ogbuagu said. Ogbuagu agreed with the CDCs guidance and noted that data has shown that immunity wanes in some people, particularly if they had a mild illness, before the two-month mark. While this is a rare occurrence, a Danish study from earlier this year did find that a small number of people were reinfected 20 to 60 days after their initial COVID infection. And theres some evidence suggesting that newer subvariants can circumvent natural immunity more quickly. Anyone who recovered from COVID certainly can consider delaying vaccination, but I dont think they need to wait as far out as three months, Ogbuagu said. Since the shot is so new, guidance varies and it may differ from person to person. If you were recently infected, you should wait at least two months after your infection to schedule your shot and you can consider waiting up to six months. If you want specific guidance based on your personal health records, get in touch with your doctor. In the end, Pekosz said, its better to get the booster than not get the booster, even if its not an optimal time. You should not get the new COVID booster immediately after having had COVID-19. (Photo: Maskot via Getty Images) You should not get the new COVID booster immediately after having had COVID-19. (Photo: Maskot via Getty Images) But if you are high-risk, you should not delay too long. Ogbuagu stressed that certain groups of people who are at high risk for COVID should not wait too long to get their booster shot. This goes for elderly people or people who are immunocompromised. He noted that people who fall into these groups should not get the shot before the two-month mark, but they probably also shouldnt wait much longer than two months to ensure theyre protected against the dominant strain. Booster shots tend to work best when theyre spaced out from a previous shot or infection. According to Pekosz, the reason behind the differing opinions about the timeline of the new shot is that booster shots traditionally work best when some time has elapsed since the previous infection or vaccination. If an infection and the booster are too close to each other, your immune system is [still] ramping up and you dont get the real benefits of the booster, he said. When you give your body ample time to drum up its immune response to an infection and then slow down, the booster can jump-start that immune response again, he noted. While the exact timeline is still being debated, there are no safety concerns whether you decide to get your booster after two months or six months, Pekosz said. And whether or not you recently had COVID, getting your booster is important. Vaccines are the best and safest way to strengthen your immunity, Pekosz said. He noted that earlier variants of the virus provided better protection against reinfection, but this is not the case for omicron. Plus, the latest bivalent COVID booster is a better booster, one that can keep you from developing severe outcomes like hospitalization and death. The new booster improves your responses to the original vaccine and gives you protection from BA.5 that is currently the dominant variant in the United States and most of the world, Pekosz said. So, even if you had COVID recently, you should still get this new shot. That being said, if you were infected and are unvaccinated, you have to start the vaccination series from the beginning, Pekosz said. You cant just jump ahead to this bivalent vaccine. Whatever you do, getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself. Experts are still learning about COVID-19. The information in this story is what was known or available as of publication, but guidance can change as scientists discover more about the virus. Please check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the most updated recommendations. Also on HuffPost This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Kanye West has seemingly compared his divorce from ex-wife Kim Kardashian to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. On his Instagram Story on Sunday, the 45-year-old rapper, known as Ye, appeared to reflect on his past relationship while addressing the Queens recent passing on 8 September. LONDON I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL, he wrote on his Instagram Story. I LOST MY QUEEN TOO. Wests Instagram Story arrived only days after he appeared on Good Morning America, where apologised to his ex-wife for any stress he may have caused her. This is the mother of my children and I apologise for any stress that I have caused, even in my frustration, because God calls me to be stronger, he said. I need this person to be less stressed and of the best, sound mind and as calm as possible to be able to raise those children. Kardashian officially filed for divorce from West in February 2021 and was ruled legally single one year later. The former couple share four children, North, nine, Saint, six, Chiaco, four, and Psalm, three. Despite their divorce, West has continued to use his social media platforms to discuss the former couples relationship, with the rapper publicly criticising Kardashian and her ex-boyfriend, Pete Davidson, who she dated for nine months. Elsewhere in his recent interview with Linsey Davis, West discussed co-parenting with the Skims founder and the importance of having a voice while raising their children. Im their dad. It has to be co-parenting. Its not up to only the woman. Like, men have a choice also. Mens voices matter, he said. As a dad and as a Christian. And I have a right to have a voice on what my kids are wearing, what theyre watching, what theyre eating. (kanyewest/Instagram) His co-parenting comments come one week after he addressed how he and with his ex communicate with each other while appearing on the Alo Mind Full podcast. After explaining that he still gives Kardashian advice on things that can help when it comes to raising their children, he went on to note that shes the one whos with them 80 per cent of the time. One day after the Queens death was announced, West also paid tribute to the British ruler in a since-deleted Instagram post, which included two pictures of the monarch and a caption that read: Life is precious. Releasing all grudges today. Leaning into the light. ALMATY (Reuters) - Kazakhstan, one of Russia's close ex-Soviet partners, will not recognise the possible annexation of Ukraine's eastern regions by Russia through referendums held there, the Central Asian nation's foreign ministry said on Monday. Voting took place in four Ukrainian regions mostly held by Russian forces, the start of a plan by President Vladimir Putin to annex a big chunk of Ukraine in what the West says is violation of international law that significantly escalates war in the country. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine "a special military operation". "As for the holding of referendums ... Kazakhstan proceeds from the principles of territorial integrity of states, their sovereign equivalence and peaceful coexistence," ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov said. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has repeatedly called for the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict in line with the United Nations charter. "We reconfirm our readiness to provide all possible assistance to the establishment of a political dialogue," Smadiyarov said. "At the same time, our country believes that maintaining stability at either regional or global level is the most important goal." (Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell) Kim Kardashian has been mocked by fans after struggling to walk up a flight of stairs in her Dolce & Gabbana dress. The 41-year-old reality star attended Milan Fashion Week over the weekend for the debut of her collection, Ciao Kim, for Dolce & Gabbana. For the official Dolce & Gabbana afterparty, she wore a floor-length silver sequin dress, which featured criss-cross ties on the sides and front. She completed the look with silver jewellery, a purse, and silver stiletto heels, while her blonde hair was in an updo. On TikTok, Kardashians friend and the former assistant of Kardashian West Brands, Stephanie Shepherd, shared a video of the Skims founder while she was attempting to move in her couture gown. The video began with Kardashian hopping up each step while holding onto the railing, before switching to a close up of her feet as she struggled to lift them up the steps. The video then proceeded to show the shapewear mogul continuing to make her way up the steps, this time with someone holding onto the back of her dress. The conclusion of the video emphasised how difficult it was for Kardashian to move in the gown, as she could be seen struggling to jump into the back seat of her car with the help of her team. As of 26 September, the video has more than 5.6m views, with TikTok users in the comments finding amusement in Kardashians dedication to fashion. Omg Kim will do anything for fashion and I must respect her for that, one person wrote. Her team needs to be fired for not having her carried up those stairs, another person added. A third viewer wrote: Ok but would it not be easier to just hike the dress up above her knees so she can get up the stairs? While some applauded Kardashians dedication to the dress, other people made jokes about the small jumps required for her to move up the steps. The jumping reminds me of the lamp that jumps up and down at the start of a Pixar film, one person wrote. She looks so gorgeous but fashion is hard work, another wrote. Im exhausted just watching this. Story continues According to someone else, no outfit is worth this kind of struggle, while another person suggested that the video of Kardashian depicts first-world problems. Kardashian is not the only member of the famous Kardashian-Jenner clan captured struggling to walk in couture, as her sister Kendall Jenner also sparked similar amusing reactions when she was filmed by her sister Kylie struggling to walk in the Dolce & Gabbana champagne-coloured dress she wore for Kourtney Kardashians wedding in May. At the fashion show on Saturday 24 September, Kardashian, who is a guest curator for Dolce & Gabbana, sat in the audience for the release of the houses Spring/Summer 2023 collection. On Instagram on Sunday, the reality star posted a video from the event and expressed her gratitude for the clothing line in the caption. Not only did the D & G team allow me to curate the collection they also trusted me & my team to create all of the content, the short film, music & creative direction of the show, working along side their incredible team. This process really allowed me to express my creativity without limitations, she wrote. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to Domenico, Stefano, the entire team at D & G & to everyone who made this show possible. The Prince of Wales tasting traditionally made Cheshire cheese in 1995 King Charles III is famous for his support of environmental and social causes over the years, but did you know he played a decisive role in the renaissance of traditional artisan cheese in the UK? It is a perfect example of the way he has used his position to help support the issues he cares about. It may also hint at what a modern Carolean monarchy could look like. The story begins back in the early 1990s when a series of food scares had shaken confidence in British food. A raft of new hygiene rules designed for industrial cheesemakers was being applied to dairies producing farmhouse cheeses - including a potential ban on the use of unpasteurised milk. Across the country artisan cheesemakers were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Randolph Hodgson was worried, as he had spent the previous decade attempting to revive British cheesemaking by promoting the best produce through his cheese shop in London's Covent Garden, Neal's Yard Dairy. "I really believed it would be the end of the great tradition of cheesemaking in the UK once and for all," he says. Cheese matures at Neal's Yard Dairy in London. Mr Hodgson had set up the Specialist Cheesemakers Association (SCA) to lobby for the interests of artisan producers and the association's work had caught the attention of the then Prince of Wales. Cheese is only as good as the milk that goes into it and the prince was keen to support the high welfare and environmental standards on the dairy farms producing artisan cheese. He was also interested in preserving traditional British farming and food productions skills. He had become a patron of the SCA in 1993 and got wind of the troubles the industry was facing. His response was typical of the his approach to problems, say former advisers. He decided to convene a meeting over lunch at Highgrove, his residence in Gloucestershire. The King likes "connecting people and organisations in ways that open up possibilities and create solutions", explains his former press secretary Julian Payne. King Charles doesn't tell people what to do, but brings them together to see if they can work out a solution among themselves, he added. Story continues The Prince of Wales tastes cheese in Preston in 2017 Charles invited cheesemakers and cheesemongers to his country pile along with civil servants from the Ministry of Agriculture and government ministers. Mr Hodgson remembers the 1999 meeting well. "Do we think it is important to keep these cheeses and traditions going?" Charles asked. Everyone agreed it was. "So, what are you going to do about it?" was his next question for the room. The meeting ended with the civil servants agreeing to work with the cheesemakers to draw up a code of practice to ensure good hygiene in small dairies. It was, says Mr Hodgson, an "incredibly important moment" in the history of British cheese. "He wasn't seeking attention for his support, he just brought everyone together and found a path through it all," he remembers. His intervention worked, says Tim Rowcliffe, a former chairman of the Specialist Cheesemakers Association. "From that day on, we had a dialogue with authority rather than going to war," he says. West Wales Cheesemaker Patrick Holden says his farm was saved by the efforts of King Charles III And the industry has thrived. Up in the hills of west Wales, I met Patrick Holden and his wife Becky who make a cheddar-style cheese called Hafod using unpasteurised milk from their 75 Ayrshire cows. Patrick says his farm was saved by the efforts of King Charles. "He saw the need for farmers to add value to their milk," explains Patrick, who says his farm is only viable because he can treble the value of his milk by turning it into artisan cheese. Patrick is not alone. There are now more than 700 different British and Irish farmhouse cheeses on the market: "Probably more than the French, dare I say it," laughs Mr Rowcliffe. Artisan cheese has become a multimillion-pound-a-year industry supporting hundreds of small farms, thousands of jobs and which now exports British cheese all over the world. The King has quietly helped drive forward all sorts of other causes by convening meetings, building bridges, and just getting people talking together. The rules have changed, of course. Now he is King, Charles must remain politically neutral, but it is unclear if that will prevent him championing the causes he cares about. He is planning a low carbon coronation, for example. Royal sources have confirmed to the BBC that deciding who will attend will be a "balancing act" between sticking to royal protocol and keeping the carbon footprint down. Buckingham Palace may tell Commonwealth leaders they do not need to attend, to reduce the number of aircraft flying to London, for instance. The King is also expected to use a state visit to France next month - the first of his reign - to highlight a scheme to plant millions of trees in Africa. We understand he is unlikely to be promoting the virtues of British cheese during that trip, however. Much has been said about Prince Andrews involvement in Queen Elizabeths funeral proceedings but his future is clear to one royal filmmaker. "For Prince Andrew, his life as a working royal is well and truly over," True Royalty TV co-founder Nick Bullen told Fox News Digital. "We wont be seeing very much more of him in the coming weeks and months. I dont believe that he is a part of the kings plan for the future of the monarchy. The king has been very clear in saying that he wants a slimmed-down monarchy. Hes focusing on immediate heirs. Having [his grandchildren] Prince George and Princess Charlotte as part of the funeral was a very clear message this is the future." Bullen is an award-winning documentarian who has been producing programs about the British royal family for 20 years and has worked closely with King Charles for about a decade. The subscription service is launching two specials for streaming: "The Royal Beat: Her Majestys Final Journey" and "Recollections: Memories of Her Majesty." Both feature royal experts and palace insiders weighing in on Elizabeths life and legacy. Bullen noted that Charles primary focus will be on his eldest son Prince William, who is next in line to the throne. QUEEN ELIZABETH II'S INSIGNIA MISSING FROM PRINCE HARRY'S UNIFORM, WORN BY PRINCE WILLIAM AND PRINCE ANDREW True Royalty TV co-founder Nick Bullen believes that Prince Andrew has no future in the monarchy as a working royal, especially now that Charles is king. Neil Mockford/WireImage "I think thats where you will see the king focusing all of his attention on the Prince and Princess of Wales," said Bullen. "A role for Prince Andrew just doesnt exist anymore. He wont be given any of his military titles again. Hes not going to be a working royal again. So I think we wont be seeing very much of him on the public stage again." The Duke of York is no longer a senior working royal in the wake of his friendship with late American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. After a disastrous BBC interview, the 62-year-old announced he was stepping back from royal duties. Andrew, who was accused of sexual assault by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages in January of this year. He was also banned from using his HRH title. The father of two has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Story continues CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER From left: Britain's King Charles III, Camilla, Queen Consort, Princess Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Peter Phillips, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, watch as the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II arrives at Wellington Arch from Westminster Abbey on Sept. 19, 2022, in London. Bryn Colton/Getty Images On Monday, Andrew joined the royal family for the queens state funeral. Buckingham Palace previously announced that only working members of the royal family would wear military uniforms during the events leading up to and including the queens funeral. Andrew wore a dark suit to join the procession. An exception was made for Andrew once to wear his uniform during the mourning period. The duke wore his military garb for the Vigil of the Princes, where he joined his siblings in standing a symbolic guard over their mothers coffin. When Andrew agreed to his now infamous interview in 2019, the prince had no idea that the televised sit-down was a disaster at first. He was interviewed by BBC Newsnights Emily Maitlis in hopes it would finally put to rest any lingering concerns about his ties to Epstein. He also wanted to address accusations that he had sex with a 17-year-old arranged by the convicted sex offender. The interview proved to be a public relations disaster. "Thats probably the most extraordinary moment when we get to the end of the interview," former BBC Newsnight producer Sam McAlister told Fox News Digital. "As I lifted my eyes to survey the scene, the chaos of television the cables, the wires, all the crew the thing that is most shocking to see is how cheerful and upbeat he is. Hes feeling so positive that he offers us a tour of the palace. The pictures that the world saw of [him and Maitlis] striding down the palace were taken after the disastrous interview took place. That gives you a taste of just how well he thought it had gone." PRINCE ANDREW'S EVERY MOVE WILL BE SCRUTINIZED AS HE REMAINS THORN IN FAMILY'S SIDE: ROYAL EXPERT Prince Andrew attends a vigil with his siblings around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 16, 2022. Hannah McKay/Pool/AFP via Getty Images McAlister detailed how the car-crash interview came to fruition in a book published on Sept. 13 titled "Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBCs Most Shocking Interviews." In July, it was reported that McAlisters book was optioned "almost immediately" for a film called "Scoop." A spokesperson for Clarence House and Kensington Palace did not immediately respond to Fox News Digitals request for comment concerning the book. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital, "We dont comment on such books." "He had lived a life of exceptional privilege," McAlister explained. "He has what I called, the royal delusion. I dont mean that obnoxiously or pejoratively, but the lifestyle had put him in a position where he believed that he was capable of giving good answers. He believed that he would be able to vindicate himself and return to the life that he led. He wanted to walk Princess Beatrice down the aisle. His birthday was coming, and he probably wanted to have a big party. And he wanted to try to set the record straight. Its my understanding that he felt he could give the answers that would vindicate him, because you would not do that interview unless you believed you had good answers, ones that would put you back into your position of power." McAlister claimed she had been in discussions for up to a year with a publicist working for Andrews initiative to support entrepreneurs, as well as with his private secretary. She said her first "face-to-face completely alone with his chief of staff" took place in May 2019 at Buckingham Palace. The interview was broadcast in November of that year. VIDEO SHOWS PRINCE ANDREW HECKLER GETTING ARRESTED AS CROWD CHANTS GOD SAVE THE KING "Every time the story changed, Id get back in touch with his chief of staff," McAlister explained. "It's another negotiation after months of lets be frank cajoling, pleading, begging. And then finally she agreed to see us again. In October, I took my presenter, the brilliant Emily Maitlis. We saw her alone again for a couple of hours. And then the final negotiation was on the Monday of the week that the interview took place. Negotiations Monday, a yes on Tuesday, panic on Wednesday, the interview on Thursday, editing on Friday, and then it went out on Saturday." McAlister claimed that Andrew was accompanied by Beatrice for his final negotiation before the interview took place. "It was a curveball," she alleged. "He went, I hope you dont mind. Ive brought someone with me. I was expecting a lawyer, someone who was going to close this down. Instead, his young daughter comes around the corner. You can only imagine what it was like to have a conversation as delicate as this one involving the allegations that were against him in front of his daughter." "She was exactly as you would imagine a concerned daughter who is protective of her father," she continued. "I appreciate these are extraordinary circumstances, and the allegations against him are exceptionally grave. But when it comes down to it, shes a young woman who clearly loves her father and is looking to protect him. The dynamic between them, despite the extraordinary circumstances, was a protective daughter listening to us, concerned about what he might be doing. She is very receptive, polite, clever and interested in the process itself. A daughter is the same, whether youre a prince or a pauper. And thats exactly who she was." A LOOK BACK AT QUEEN ELIZABETH II'S CHILDREN: KING CHARLES III, PRINCESS ANNE, PRINCE ANDREW AND PRINCE EDWARD Following his disastrous interview, the Duke of York stepped down as a working member of the British royal family. Samir Hussein/WireImage McAlister alleged that during the interview, she noticed Andrew nervously tapping his foot as he became "increasingly uncomfortable" over the questions. She assumed that Andrew would be "polished up" and trained by advisors to appear more confident in front of cameras. "We all know somebody like that, right?" she said. "Somebody who we give great advice to. And then the second they go to do the actual thing itself, they forget it, ignore it, or do their own thing. Now magnify that a thousand times over for a member of the royal family. His chief of staff was a very sensible woman who was extremely controlled. Im sure she gave him every piece of advice under the sun. But the second the cameras go on, none of us know how were going to react in that kind of environment." "He was in his home," she continued. "He clearly had things he wanted to say. [But] I felt he just got further and further away from the position you might have expected, which was a simple apology, to show regret for the friendship [with Epstein] and to show real pain for the damage that Epstein and his associates had caused He never managed any of those things. I feel the space between what was rehearsed and what happened was very vast. But well just never know." Many in the media were quick to deride Andrew for not only defending his friendship with Epstein, but also for failing to show empathy for the convicted sex offender's victims. PRINCE ANDREWS DISASTROUS BBC INTERVIEW TO BECOME FEATURE FILM SCOOP' Virginia Giuffre previously alleged she was abused by the Duke of York when she was underage. Getty Images Giuffre has said that Epstein forced her to have sex with Andrew in 2001 when she was 17. She alleged that Epstein flew her around the world on private planes to have sex with powerful men, and that she had sexual encounters with Andrew in London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Epstein died in jail on August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. He was 66. In March of this year, a U.S. judge dismissed the sex abuse lawsuit against Andrew, three weeks after attorneys for Giuffre had reached a deal. The prince was to make a substantial donation to his accusers charity and declare that he never meant to malign her character. In a letter to the judge from Giuffre's attorney David Boies, a statement was included that said, in part: "Prince Andrew intends to make a substantial donation to Ms. Giuffres charity in support of victims rights. Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffres character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks." ROYAL PRINCES REPORTEDLY AT WAR: ANDREW, CHARLES AND WILLIAM WILL THEY EVER REUNITE? With King Charles III and his eldest son Prince William leading the British monarchy, royal experts have said the public should not expect to see Andrew anytime soon. Hannah McKay/Pool/AFP via Getty Images According to the statement, the duke acknowledged that Epstein trafficked "countless young girls" over many years. He "regrets his association with Epstein and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others." McAlister said she wondered what the future held for Andrew, who was described by many as "the queen's favorite son." MEGHAN MARKLE HAS WON OVER SOME IN THE UK: EXPERT SHARES WHATS NEXT FOR DUCHESS OF SUSSEX AND ROYAL FAMILY "I think he's in a position where he wont be returning to anything like the kind of profile he ever had, or any kind of profile at all," she said. "We understand that the relationship he has with Charles is not the same as the close relationship he had with his mother." "I feel that and this is only my impression he was regretful of what happened and the outcomes and the effect upon him, his daughters, his ex-wife, his mother, the monarchy," she shared. " [But] I dont think we ever saw that in the interview." covid-19-variant-vaccine Credit - Getty Images Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, health officials have warned that the biggest barrier to controlling the virus would be its ability to mutate into ever more infectious and dangerous forms. The latest version raising alarms is an emerging subvariant of Omicron called BA.2.75.2. Its already gained the ability to evade the immunity provided by current vaccines and cant be neutralized by many of the antiviral drug treatments available. So far, the strain has been reported in 47 countries and in 39 U.S. states, where it still accounts for less than 1% of COVID-19 cases. Heres what we know so far about BA.2.75.2. Where did BA.2.75.2 come from? BA.2.75.2, as its nomenclature suggests, emerged from the BA.2.75 subvariant. Its growing quickly, particularly in Indiaalthough BA.2.75.2 accounts for only 0.5% of cases so far around the world. Because it shares many similarities with the existing subvariant, the World Health Organization has not designated BA.2.75.2 as a new variant but singled it out as an Omicron subvariant under monitoring, which means that health officials should prioritize tracking cases in order to hopefully prevent surges in infections. Some experts have unofficially started calling it Centaurus, after a Twitter user gave it that nickname. Why BA.2.75.2 is worrying public health officials BA.2.75.2 has picked up three additional mutations from BA.2.75, two of which are where the virus binds to human cells in order to infect them. According to one study by Swedish researchers published Sept. 16 as preprintmeaning the research has not yet been peer-reviewedthese aberrations are helping BA.2.75.2 evade all of the currently available antibody treatments authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration except for one: bebtelovimab. Made by Lilly, this monoclonal antibody treatment is given as an IV infusion to people with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms who are at high risk of progressing to more severe disease. But because the drug targets only a specific portion of the virus spike protein, theres no guarantee that the virus wont develop mutations to evade it, too. Story continues On Sept. 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Japanese scientists reported slightly more encouraging findings in their tests of BA.2.75 against available treatments. They too found that bebtelovimab could neutralize the variant, and also reported that some of the first antiviral treatments developedremdesivir and molnupiraviras well as the latest one, Paxlovid, also remain effective. But resistance is a feature of BA.2.75.2, which is why health officials are concerned. The Swedish scientists also reported that virus-fighting antibody levels from blood donors, some of whom had been vaccinated or recently infected with SARS-CoV-2, were five-fold lower against BA.2.75.2 than against the currently dominant Omicron variant, BA.5. They also found that BA.2.75.2 was resistant to the antiviral combination therapy Evusheld. Taken together, the scientists concluded, this variant effectively evades the current [antibody] immunity in the population and represent[s] the most resistant variant characterized to date. How well do vaccines work against BA.2.75.2? Right now, the picture is incomplete. Human studies of the latest COVID-19 booster shotwhich targets two other Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5have not been finished yet, and its not clear how effective they will be against BA.2.75.2, either. But there are hints from studies involving the original vaccine about what kind of protection people might expect if the variant becomes more widespread. David Montefiori, a viral immunologist at Duke University Medical Center who oversees testing of Modernas mRNA vaccines effectiveness against new variants, is now studying how blood samples from people immunized with Modernas vaccine stand up against BA.2.75.2. In earlier studies against BA.2.75, the results were encouraging. In a correspondence published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Sept. 9, he and his team reported that while levels of virus-fighting antibodies against BA.2.75 were more than four times lower than levels against the original virus among people vaccinated with Modernas shot, they remained effective. However, BA.2.75.2s three additional mutations could potentially make the virus less sensitive to neutralization, he says, but we have to test it and find out. Results from those ongoing studies, funded by both Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, are expected in October. The Kremlin told reporters on Monday that errors have been made as the government drafts eligible men for its war on Ukraine. Instances of non-compliance are decreasing, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said of the mobilization decree, according to The Moscow Times. He continued: We hope this will speed up and that all errors will be corrected. Peskov admitted that the decree to mobilize civilians, made by Putin last week, has been violated at times. Indeed, there are cases when the decree was violated. In some regions, governors are actively working to rectify the situation, he said. However, the Kremlin spokesman denied rumors that Russia would close its borders to prevent eligible men from fleeing the draft. I dont know anything about this, Peskov said in response to questions about sealing the borders. At the moment no decisions have been taken on this. Putins announcement of the draft whipped up protests across Russia, resulting in the detention of at least 876 protesters in 38 cities on Wednesday. The Russian Ministry of Defense rolled back the original decree on Friday, saying that citizens who work in highly respected fields like banking, information technology and telecommunications will avoid military service. Russian citizens are being mobilized following Ukraines successful counterattack earlier this month that drove Russian troops out of a number of cities in Ukraines east and south. The draft could force almost 300,000 more men to join the Russian army in its war on Ukraine. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. (PA) (PA Archive) Labour has pledged to deliver rapid deals with the EU on trade issues linked to Northern Ireland if it wins power. Labour shadow Northern Ireland secretary Peter Kyle also told the partys conference in Liverpool that the Conservatives have squandered with lies and neglect a Labour legacy of a Northern Ireland increasingly at ease. Mr Kyle said there are problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol, but said they can be solved and insisted negotiation is the only path forward. Prime Minister Liz Truss has said she would prefer a negotiated solution with the EU over post-Brexit trading arrangements, but she is also pushing ahead with the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol Bill which the EU and other critics say will breach international law by suspending elements of the agreement. Mr Kyle told the conference: Labour bequeathed the Tories a Northern Ireland that was increasingly at ease, but they squandered it with their lies and neglect. It was the Tories who proposed, drafted, negotiated and signed the Northern Ireland protocol into international treaty. Yes, there are problems with it, but they can be solved. We know that negotiation is the only path forward. Addressing his partys proposed solution to the challenges, he said: A Labour government would deliver rapid deals with the EU on the flow of goods, the sharing of data, and making it easier for agricultural products to move around the UK and the island of Ireland. Labour delivered peace, prosperity and confidence to Northern Ireland. The Tories cant even negotiate a prawn sandwich across the Irish Sea, he added. Local law enforcement gathered Monday morning to travel to Richmond, Indiana, where funeral services for Officer Seara Burton will take place. >> PHOTOS: Local law enforcement gather to process to Officer Seara Burtons funeral Members of law enforcement from police and fire agencies across the Miami Valley met at the Dayton Airport Expo Center this morning for a processional to attend Burtons funeral. >> Funeral services for Richmond Police Officer Seara Burton set for today During this time our hearts go out to her family, all of the members of the Richmond Police Department and the Richmond community for losing a great hero this past week, said Vandalia Chief of Police Kurt Althouse. I think its so important for the community to realize this is an individual who obviously served the Richmond community and someone that protected the streets of Richmond, Indiana, and what we want to do here today is honor her service and honor her memory and leave a legacy for her family and the members of her department to remember her by, Althouse said. >>Im praying for that family; Richmond community pays respects for fallen officer at public viewing Services will be held between 12:00 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. at the Tiernan Center at Richmond High School. Once the funeral is over, Officer Burton will be taken to Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. The drive from Richmond to Indianapolis is only about one hour, however, because of the number of cruisers and other cars joining, the entire procession is expected to take about three hours. On the way, the procession will stop at the Richmond Police Department, where Officer Burtons cruiser is, and the final 10-42 call will sound. Two juveniles were taken to a hospital after a shooting in Pittsburghs Sheraden neighborhood. City officials said they are investigating the 500 block of Sherwood Avenue. Allegheny County dispatchers said emergency crews were called to the scene at around 8:45 p.m. When police arrived, they found the juvenile suffering a gunshot wound to the leg. Medics applied two tourniquets to the victims leg. Police were notified of a second victim shot in the foot shortly after. The status of both victims is currently unknown at this time. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: LATEST UPDATES: 3 people, including 2 teens, shot inside Kennywood Park Saturday night Everyone started running: Woman recounts moment shots rang out at Kennywood Park PHOTOS: Police swarm Kennywood Park after multiple people shot inside park VIDEO: Local council member responds to death of inmate from Allegheny County Jail DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Japan and China will mark 50 years of diplomatic relations this month with little public celebration, as increasing friction over territorial rivalries and military spending frays ties. The world's second and third largest economies are key trading partners and just a few years ago seemed poised for a diplomatic blossoming, with plans for a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Since then, ties have soured significantly as Beijing bolsters its military, projects power regionally and beyond, and takes a harder line on disputed territory. In recent months, Chinese missiles are believed to have fallen within Japan's exclusive economic zone, and Tokyo has protested what it calls growing aerial and maritime violations. Japan also regularly complains about Chinese activity around the disputed Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands, which Beijing claims and calls the Diaoyus. "Chinese ships are loitering for dozens of days in the East China Sea, while an artificial island and a base have already been built in the South China Sea," said Kenichiro Sasae, head of the Japan Institute of International Affairs. "That makes us wonder -- how much further will China's ambition go in terms of naval power?" added Sasae, a former ambassador to Washington and vice-minister of foreign affairs. The war in Ukraine has only deepened the divide, with Japan backing Western allies opposed to Russia's invasion while Beijing avoids criticising Moscow. And the conflict has refocused attention on whether China might try to forcibly reunite Taiwan with the mainland, prompting Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to warn the Ukraine situation "could be East Asia tomorrow". - 'Anxious about China' - Beijing and Tokyo normalised relations in a joint communique on September 29, 1972, that officially ended their state of war and saw Japan drop its recognition of Taiwan. Economic ties grew quickly and steadily, but political relations have been more unstable, weathering a series of crises, including over the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu islands. Story continues Beijing's growing power has left Japan "anxious about China", said Rumi Aoyama, director of the Waseda Institute of Contemporary Chinese Studies. "Japan sees China's activities in the Senkaku islands as problematic, and involving a 'core interest'," she told AFP. "But the problem is, China doesn't understand this Japanese perspective. Instead, it tends to see Japan as just following whatever the US says." Tokyo is a longstanding and key US ally, but it has been expanding its partnerships as a bulwark against Beijing. It backed a revived "Quad" alliance with Australia, India and the United States, and Kishida in June became Japan's first leader to attend a NATO summit. "China is gaining power and confidence, that's a trend that can't be ignored," said Ken Endo, an international politics professor at University of Tokyo and a security expert. Japan must "consistently state internationally" that changing the status quo by force, whether in Ukraine or Taiwan, is unacceptable. And he says Tokyo needs a more robust defence capacity, something Kishida and his ruling party have already publicly backed, to show that "it'll cost a lot if you invade us". - Trading partners - Japan is reportedly weighing boosting defence spending up to two percent of GDP within five years, from the current one-percent level. That would represent a sea change in Japan, whose pacifist constitution still limits its military capacity, but a modest increase compared to decades of additional spending by Beijing. It could also carry its own dangers, stoking regional tensions, if communication with China is not handled carefully, said Sasae. "Every country has contingency plans, including China, but Japan should make clear that it does not want military confrontation." Japan's brutal occupation of parts of China before and during World War II remains a sore point, with Beijing accusing Tokyo of failing to atone for its past. Visits by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni shrine that honours war dead -- including convicted war criminals -- regularly prompt anger from Beijing. For all the tensions, the two countries remain economically intertwined: China is Japan's largest trading partner and Japan is China's second-largest after the United States. And reports suggest Tokyo could be seeking Xi-Kishida talks in the coming months, online or in person. Business ties are "a decisive factor in stopping a free fall of the relation", said Aurelio Insisa, a history professor at the University of Hong Kong and author of a book on Sino-Japanese ties. But they may not be sufficient to thaw ties. "Beijing's behaviour in its neighbourhood, and Tokyo's perceptions of it, are the two main factors capable of changing the current dynamic," Insisa said. "I would not bet on any improvement on these two fronts." kh/sah/skc/aha Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., says she will leave the Republican Party if former President Donald Trump is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee. If he is the nominee, I wont be a Republican, Cheney said in an appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday. Cheney, who lost her bid for reelection in the August primary against Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman, also said she would be willing to campaign for Democrats in 2022 and 2024. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., prepares to give a speech in Jackson, Wyo., on Aug. 16, following her primary election loss. (David Stubbs/Reuters) "I certainly will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isn't anywhere close to the Oval Office," she said. Cheney said the same when asked about Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a supporter of Trumps false claims about the 2020 presidential election. "I am going to do everything I can to make sure that Kari Lake is not elected," Cheney said. Asked whether that meant potentially campaigning for Democrats, she replied: "Yes, it does." Cheney speaks during a Jan. 6 committee hearing on Capitol Hill on July 21. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Since her primary loss, speculation has swirled around the possibility of Cheney launching her own 2024 presidential bid. But she was not interested in discussing any plans on Saturday. "What are we going to do to make sure that our kids know what it means to have peaceful transfers of power?" she said when asked about a possible run for the White House. "And what are we going to do to make sure that we don't contribute to the unraveling of the republic? ... That's what I'm focused on." Cheney serves as co-chair of the House select committee that is investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, which will hold its next hearing on Wednesday. We dont anticipate that it will be the last hearing, she said. Congressman Liz Cheney has hinted publicly that she could run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, but now says that she may not be in the GOP past that point at all. The Wyoming Republican told an interviewer at the Texas Tribune festival over the weekend that she would not be likely to remain in the Republican Party should its voters once again select Donald Trump as its standard-bearer in 2024. Ms Cheney has become notable over the past year for her resistance to Mr Trump in the wake of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the subsequent siege of Congress; she herself lost her seat to a Trump-backed primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, in August. Its not about me or making a decision about what Im going to do, she told those in attendance. I certainly will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isnt anywhere close to the Oval Office. She added: Im going to make sure Donald Trump, Im going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee. And if he is the nominee, I wont be a Republican. .@Liz_Cheney says if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024, she will not be a Republican. #TribFest22 pic.twitter.com/3PXuOTBTDy Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) September 25, 2022 The admission would put her in line to follow the path of numerous other anti-Trump conservatives like Paul Ryan and others who largely find themselves without a party after dominating the leadership of the GOP in Congress just a short time ago. While other Never Trumpers have come around to supporting the president, others have launched anti-Trump conservative publications like The Bulwark and groups including the Lincoln Project to wage war for influence over the party. Ms Cheney herself announced the formation of such a group upon her loss to Ms Hageman last month. She remains vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6 as well as she serves the remainder of her term on Capitol Hill. Republican Lafayette Rep. Stuart Bishop, chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee in the Louisiana House, has checked himself into a rehab facility to be treated for alcoholism. Bishop issued the following public statement: "Over the last 12 years I have worked very hard to serve the people of my district and our great state of Louisiana," he said. "I recognize I have some challenges to overcome for the betterment of myself, my family, and the state of Louisiana. "I have made the choice to seek help and I will be away for the next 30 days in a program to focus on my alcohol dependence. My goal is to put my family, health, and well-being as a top priority so when I return, I can be the best husband, father, and community servant possible. I appreciate your support and encouragement and I ask for your prayers and understanding. I look forward to getting back to work soon and fulfilling my duties and continuing to serve the people of Louisiana." Bishop, who is serving his third and final term in the House, is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He told USA Today earlier this month that he won't seek another elective office immediately following his final term in the House. "I plan to take a break, but I'm not ruling anything out in the future." State Rep. Stuart Bishop, R-Lafayette, has checked himself into rehab for treatment of alcoholism. Bishop said his wife Kim will run for a state Senate seat. Republican House Speaker Clay Schexnayder of Gonzales praised Bishop for his decision to seek treatment. "It takes a lot of courage to admit you need help in public and even more courage to do something about it," Schexnayder said in an interview with USA Today Network. "I'm proud of Stuart. He's my colleague and my friend. "I think he can serve as an inspiration to others who have this disease." More:Trina Edwards, widow of Gov. Edwin Edwards, is marrying another Louisiana political legend Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1. This article originally appeared on Monroe News-Star: Chairman of Louisiana tax writing committee checks into alcohol rehab (Bloomberg) -- Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is stepping up efforts to sway supporters of candidates who are trailing in Brazils presidential race in a last-minute attempt to clinch an outright victory next Sunday. Most Read from Bloomberg The leftist leader, who pollsters say is closer than ever to winning on Oct. 2, will receive the explicit backing of several Brazilian artists on Monday, part of a strategy that has placed him as the head of a broad coalition against President Jair Bolsonaro. Last week, he got the support of eight former presidential candidates. Im working to win in the first round, Lula said during the meeting with former candidates, including ex-Central Bank chief and Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles and ex-Environment Minister Marina Silva. Every gesture I make is intended to show that I want to win. An outright victory would mark a resounding comeback by the former president, who had his reputation tarnished by corruption allegations that landed him in jail in 2018, before having his sentence annulled by the nations top court on technical grounds. Since the countrys return to democracy, only Fernando Henrique Cardoso won elections in the first round, both in 1994 and 1998. Read More: Lulas Strength in Key Poll Points to a Possible First-Round Win Lula would need more than 50% of valid votes, which exclude null and blank ballots, to avoid a run-off against Bolsonaro on Oct. 30. The latest Datafolha poll released last Thursday showed him with 47% of voting intention, against 33% for the incumbent -- meaning a second-round vote still remains as the most likely scenario. It is not possible now to say whether or not Lula would win in the first round because he is within the limit of the margin of error, Luciana Chong, head of Datafolha Institute, said in an interview. About Bolsonaros chances of an Oct. 2 victory, she was more clear: It is very difficult. Story continues Bolsonaros Strategy Yet the president keeps telling his followers that opinion polls are wrong and that hell certainly win in the first round. During a speech to supporters in London, where he attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, he said only something abnormal at the electoral court would prevent him from finishing with at least 60% of the votes. Remarks like these have raised concerns that Bolsonaro is following Donald Trumps play book and preparing to challenge the elections result, should he be defeated. Two members of Bolsonaros campaign said, however, that the presidents goal is to keep his base energized to avoid an outright victory by Lula. The people, who requested anonymity to discuss private marketing plans, said the incumbent needs more time to reap the fruits of more generous cash payments to the poor and to increase Lulas rejection rate while softening his own image. Crucial Week The final stretch of the presidential run will be crucial as many Brazilians may switch allegiance at the eleventh hour. While voting intention for the front-runners is pretty much crystallized and the percentage of undecided Brazilians is substantially lower this time around, a significant number of supporters of leftist Ciro Gomes and centrist Simone Tebet could still change their mind. About 10% of Brazilian electors consider switching to a candidate more likely to win, according to an Ipec poll released last week. That might be enough to give Lula the votes he needs for a first-round victory. His challenge, pollsters say, is to ensure that his supporters show up to vote, given that abstention rates are usually higher among low-income Brazilians who make up most of the former presidents support base. Read More: Goldman, Hedge Funds Say Brazil Election Tighter Than Polls Show Moreover, Gomes and Tebet, who together claim 12% of the electorate according to the latest Datafolha poll, have been trying hard to dissuade their followers from casting a so-called strategic vote for one of the front-runners. Strategic voting is voting with your conscience, Tebet said during a televised debate Saturday night. Yet 89% of Brazilians would like to see this years polarizing election resolved on Oct. 2, putting an early end to the bellicose atmosphere surrounding the contest. Lulas plan to seek a strategic vote may work, Datafolhas Chong said. There are voters of other candidates who havent completely decided yet and may still change their mind. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. Luna classic (LUNC), the remnant token of the failed Terra blockchain prior to its reboot, surged on Monday after Binance, the worlds largest crypto exchange, unveiled a scheme to reduce the supply of the token. The LUNC price jumped as much as 60% on the news, reaching as high as $0.00032, according to cryptocurrency price tracker CoinGecko. The token was changing hands at around $0.00029 at press time. The sudden rally caught many traders by surprise, especially because many of them had bet that the LUNC price would fall on the news that Interpol had issued a red notice for Terras founder, Do Kwon. Some $1.5 million of short positions have been liquidated during the day, the highest in at least three months, according to Coinglass. Traders who bet on LUNCs price to fall after Interpols red notice on Do Kwon were liquidated after Binance's announcement. (Coinglass) The Terra ecosystems collapse in May was one of the most dramatic implosions in the crypto market. It wiped out $60 billion in market value and caused some crypto firms to become insolvent. Earlier this month, South Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kwon on charges of fraud. Many developers who were building applications on the original-and-now-abandoned blockchain have moved over to the newly rebooted Terra blockchain or to other networks like Polygon or Kadena that are seen as having more staying power. At least one analyst has suggested that LUNC is now a meme coin, with few use cases beyond providing traders with speculation and quick profits (or losses). Read more: Luna (LUNA) vs. Luna Classic (LUNC): What Is the Difference? Earlier this month, the LUNC token surged in anticipation of a community-approved plan to reduce the tokens hyperinflated supply. The so-called supply burn plan aims to destroy burn in crypto terms 1.2% of every LUNC transaction on the blockchain. The mechanism doesn't apply to buying and selling tokens on exchanges, but some crypto exchanges such as MEXC voluntarily decided to adopt the supply reduction mechanism. The burn scheme Binance just announced, however, may have less of an impact than many traders hope. According to a statement, the crypto exchange will destroy the equivalent of the trading fees when a trader sells or buys LUNC. Traders on Binance may opt for applying the 1.2% burn fee voluntarily. Given that trading fees on Binance range from 0.1% to as low as 0.02% for large traders, the burn rate is just a fraction of the 1.2% transaction burn rate. Traders who move the most volume on the exchange, such as market makers, are unlikely to voluntarily choose the 1.2% fees, crypto trader Ogle pointed out in a Twitter post. Binances burn scheme is almost totally useless to LUNC folks, but they dont realize it, he told CoinDesk. The community will lay Richmond Police Officer Seara Burton to rest on Monday. Officer Burton was shot and killed during a traffic stop last month. People lined up for hours Sunday to say their final goodbyes at a public viewing. >>Richmond community begins final goodbyes to fallen officer The line grew long to get inside the viewing stretching from the entrance to Richmonds city building all the way to the street. Theyre coming out to be with her because it feels like theyre all family to her, Josh Bowers told News Center 7s Brandon Lewis. When you lose someone in your family, the pain can be unbearable and the grief can be overwhelming. These are just some of the emotions Richmond Police are feeling, according to a psychologist. First it was the shock of Officer Burtons shooting and then the fact she survived after life support was discontinued and the waiting game was so devastating for each and every one of them, said Kathy Platoni, clinical psychologist. It was also for Officer Burtons loved ones who have been by her side for the past six weeks. So now, Im asking God Im praying for that that they will find that healing and joy back in their hearts, Brenda Jarrell told Lewis. >>PHOTOS: Visitation held for fallen Richmond Officer Seara Burton That may take some time but in the meantime, the outpouring of love and support can only help. Pray for Richmond and we are going to be okay, she said. We are going to be okay. Im sure of that because were standing together. Look at the crowd, were standing together. Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) All this for Officer Burton who was on the force for just four years. While that times was short, it will still long enough to make an impact. This is wakeup call for everyone, Platoni told Lewis. The dangers of law enforcement work which makes their sacrifices and what they do everyday that much greater, so we can not fail to rally around them. Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) Photo by: Brandon Lewis (Staff) An evacuation order has been issued for personnel at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, in anticipation of Hurricane Ians landfall later this week, according to a Sept. 26 tweet from the official base account. Col. [Adam] Bingham has issued an installation-wide mandatory evacuation to be completed by Tues. 27 Sep @ 1200L for non-mission essential individuals, including uniformed service members/dependents, the tweet said. Hurricane Ian is anticipated to hit the Florida coast as a Category 4 hurricane by the middle of the week, as forecasted Monday morning by Accuweather. As of 11 a.m. local time Monday, Hurricane Ian was generating persistent winds of up to 80 miles per hour and was located about 100 miles west of Grand Cayman Island and 240 miles southeast of Cuba, the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane-force winds are extending up to 25 miles from the storms center, while tropical storm-strength winds are reaching up to 115 miles outward. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis placed the state in a pre-landfall state of emergency on Sept. 24. As the volume of migrants illegally crossing the southern border into the U.S. exceeded 2 million this fiscal year, a new poll finds that most registered voters approve of the decision by some Republican governors to send illegal immigrants to Democrat-run cities, and many see it as an effective way to draw attention to the immigration issue. The CBS/YouGov survey found that 51% of registered voters approve of sending illegal immigrants to Democratic cities, compared to 49% who disapprove. Additionally, 88% of those who approve say it is an effective way of bringing attention to the issue of illegal immigration. Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., recently flew 50 illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, a famous vacation spot for the wealthy, angering many on the left. Within 48 hours of their arrival, Martha's Vineyard called in the National Guard and swiftly relocated all 50 migrants out of the beach town. Some Democrats called the GOP governor's move a form of "human trafficking." MEDIA, DEMS POINT FINGERS AT REPUBLICANS FOR BORDER CRISIS, SKIRT AROUND PLACING BLAME ON BIDEN Migrants who recently arrived from Venezuela after crossing from Mexico wait to be assigned a hotel room provided by the El Paso Office of Emergency Management on Sept. 21, 2022, in El Paso, Texas. Joe Raedle Support for migrant busses and planes falls along partisan lines, according to the poll. Just 20% of Democrats approved of the practice, compared to 87% of Republicans who said they back the move by red state governors. Independent voters disapprove by a 4-point margin, 48% to 52%. BIDEN ADMINISTRATION CONSIDERING LITIGATION AGAINST GOP GOVERNORS OVER MIGRANTS SENT TO DEMOCRATIC CITIES Gov. Greg Abbot, R-Texas., who is facing the crisis head on in the border state, has sent dozens of buses full of illegal migrants from Texas to Democrat-run cities like New York and Washington D.C., as the deluge of illegal migrants into his state intensifies. Over 2 million migrants have come over the border this fiscal year, with more than 203,000 in August alone. According to Customs and Border Protection, El Paso, Texas is seeing roughly 1,500 encounters daily. Many of the Democrat-run cities, some of which are also so-called "sanctuary cites," claim to have been overrun by the new arrivals. Earlier this month, Washington, D.C., Mayor, Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency after busloads of illegal immigrants arrived from Arizona and Texas. Story continues Approximately 30 migrants disembark after arriving by a bus from Texas, at Union Station near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., July 29, 2022. REUTERS/Ted Hesson/File Photo The CBS/YouGov poll was conducted from September 21-23, 2022 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report. A man was arrested last week after allegedly forcing his ex-girlfriend to give him a ride while threatening to slit her throat and stab her. On Sept. 22, officers with the Memphis Police Department (MPD) responded to the 4600 block of Summer Avenue. A woman told them her ex-boyfriend, identified as Elijah Gravatt, 21, got into her vehicle in the 2800 block of Summit Arbors and told her to drive to Mississippi, according to an affidavit. When she said she couldnt, Gravatt allegedly pulled out a knife and said, Ill slit your throat, according to police. The victim agreed to drive Gravatt. While they were in the car, he allegedly pulled her hair and put the knife to her neck. The victim pulled over in the 4600 block of Summer and attempted to get out, but Gravatt allegedly made threats to stab her, police said. He had the victims phone during the incident and refused to return it. The woman was eventually able to get out of the car and go inside a business, where the manager contacted police. Gravatt was taken into custody at the scene. Police found a knife in the victims car. Gravatt is charged with Aggravated Kidnapping and Aggravated Assault, records show. Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Trending stories: A New Hampshire man is under arrest for driving over 100 mph down a busy highway Saturday night, according to authorities. Franklyn Julian, 22, of Candia, New Hampshire, was charged with reckless driving and a solid line violation. New Hampshire State Police say just before 10:30 p.m., officers clocked Julians 2010 Infiniti sedan driving 140 mph on Route 101 in West Epping. The alleged crime occurred between exits 8 and 7, according to police. Julian was promptly pulled over and arrested. He is scheduled to appear in court on November 1. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW An investigation that began in June has landed a man in Talladega County Jail for sex offenses involving a child under 16, Sylacauga Police Chief Kelley B. Johnson said, after the man fought extradition from Alaska. James Everett Steen faces charges of transmitting obscene material to a child, second-degree sodomy and second-degree rape. The charges are Class B felonies; if convicted, he faces two years to 20 years in prison on each charge. The investigation began in June when police received reports about an inappropriate sexual relationship, Johnson said in a press release, involving Steen and a child under the age of 16. Just hours after learning of the allegations made against him, Steen fled Talladega County and flew to Anchorage, according to the chief. He was met by authorities in Alaska as he exited his flight and taken into custody. Johnson said Steen fought extradition back to Talladega County and was held in custody in Anchorage for about 60 days before he was ordered to return to Alabama to face charges. Sylacauga police officers carried out Steen's extradition on Sept. 21, and he was booked into the Talladega County jail. This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Man brought from Alaska to Alabama to face sex offense charges The ambulance team that arrived at the scene provided first aid to the victim The incident reportedly occurred near the citys central bus station. According to eyewitnesses, the man started shouting that he did not want to go to war in Ukraine, after which he set himself on fire. At the same time, none of the eyewitnesses even tried to help the man who was on fire. Read also: Videos show Russians sent to war in Ukraine under Russian mobilization The ambulance team that arrived at the scene provided first aid to the victim. Police officers also arrived at the scene. Todays incident turned out to be not the only one related to Russians dissatisfaction with the Kremlin regimes decision to send them to war. Read also: Mobilization wont solve the many problems of the Russian army, says Pentagon A 25-year-old reservist reportedly shot a military commissar in Irkutsk Oblast to disrupt the mobilization. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin early on Sept. 21 declared a partial mobilization in Russia and his readiness to use nuclear weapons in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. Later Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that 300,000 reservists would be called up during the partial mobilization. He estimated Russias mobilization resource at almost 25 million people. Read also: Putin plans to mobilize a lot more than 300,000 troops, analyst says After the announcement, Russians began to buy tickets abroad en masse to avoid participation in their countrys full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In turn, the Kremlins puppet in Chechnya, warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, said that he was not going to mobilize locals as the republic had already surpassed the target for providing soldiers for the Kremlins war. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Residents in parts of Tampa, Fla., received mandatory evacuation orders on Monday as Hurricane Ian barrels toward the states Gulf Coast, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) warning more evacuations are likely to come. The evacuation order spans waterfront areas in Tampa and elsewhere in Hillsborough County, while officials also issued a voluntary evacuation order for areas slightly more inland. The National Hurricane Center forecasts Ian will continue strengthening into a major hurricane in the coming hours as it hits Jamaica and western Cuba before traveling north toward Florida, possibly bringing life-threatening storm surges along the states west coast. Were asking everyone to go ahead and while the weather is cooperating just get out of those high-water areas, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor (D) said on CNNs At This Hour With Kate Bolduan. Castor said residents dont have to travel far, but should get away from areas that could see the impacts of storm surges. If you can leave, just leave now, and we will take care of your personal property, she said on CNN. DeSantis, during a press conference on Monday, urged Floridians to not panic buy, while warning that more evacuation orders are likely still to come. He said the storms large diameter could mean widespread impacts across the state, including power outages. The important thing for people to know is to know the zone that youre in, the governor said. You will have counties probably throughout this morning and into this afternoon identifying areas that are vulnerable for evacuation, so you should anticipate that. The National Weather Service has issued hurricane warnings and watches for parts of Floridas coast. Some school districts have already announced school closures as the storm approaches, with some schools closing early on Monday to prepare the facilities as shelters. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. What tricolor bats lack in size, they make up for in their important role in insect control and pollination. But their survival is being threatened by biological and environmental factors. The tricolor bats' range includes Maryland and the Eastern Shore. They weigh only 6 grams, with a body length of just slightly over 3 inches. Despite their diminutive size, they serve a big role in pest control by eating a number of insects that endanger crops. For an animal weighing roughly the same as a quarter, it's one of the most prolific natural control measures of grain moths and beetles. It has distinct tricolored fur that appears yellowish-brown and is dark brown at the base, pale in the middle and dark at the tip. Its lifespan of a mere four to eight years makes it all the more vital that its hibernation not be disturbed. Formerly known as the eastern pipistrelle, it is the smallest bat in Maryland. The bat can be found east of the Rocky Mountains in 39 U.S. states, including Delaware and Virginia, and parts of Canadia, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Nicaragua. What is killing tricolor bats? The most serious threat to tricolor bats is white-nose syndrome, but that's not the only factor that has precipitated anywhere from an 80% to 100% decline in populations in some areas, depending on the season. "The species used to have one of the highest numbers of hibernating bats in the state as well as high numbers in the summer. But now they're in much more limited numbers due to white-nose syndrome and wind-related mortality," said Dana Limpert, eastern region ecologist for Wildlife and Heritage Services in the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. White-nose syndrome results when a European-based fungus grows in the caves and mines where the bats hibernate. That fungus eventually gets on the animal itself, causing it to disrupt its hibernation at the cost of gaining the necessary fat stores needed to survive the coming season. It has led to many bats leaving hibernation early without the necessary strength to survive. Story continues Research into artificial hibernating structures that have been decontaminated from the fungus may present a sustainable solution considering they would use those structures anyway. Although in its early stages, results have been positive. FOR THE BIRDS: What can be done to save terns and black skimmers SHARKS: How are sharks getting protected in Eastern Shore waters? According to Lampert, land-based wind turbines create a less consistent air pressure when spinning at a certain speed, causing passing bats to have their lungs explode. It is a condition common to a number of other bat species as well. The remedy is regulating the speed at which such turbines can rotate. Also noted as factors by U.S. Fish and Wildlife are changes in temperature and precipitation, include disturbance to bats in their roosting, foraging, commuting and wintering habitats. How are tricolor bats tracked? The state's Department of Natural Resources contends a sharp decline in population strongly indicates tricolor bats might not be using their traditional caves and mines anymore. "Being so small, we can't put radios on them to track where they're roosting. What we have done is some acoustic work to locate their echolocation calls and then we can classify that," Lampert said. "With tricolor bats, they're very distinctive calls. "The work we've done in the summer showed there's been a decrease of 80% or more," Lampert said. In terms of the white-nose syndrome, some research indicates some tricolor bats can recover from being covered in the fungus. Yet that hasn't stopped Maryland from already listing them as a state-endangered. Bolstered by proposed federal endangered species protection, the fight to ensure a future for tricolor bats could get easier. "One thing (federal protection) would do is take a research to create habitat management recommendations for winter and summer. That's mainly forest, so anything related to cutting of trees near caves or mines would have to go through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," Lampert said. What is the latest on federal protection? Tricolored bats are the smallest species of bat native to the Eastern U.S. with adults weighing only 0.2 to 0.3 ounces, or roughly the weight of a quarter. White nose syndrome has contributed to a 97% loss of tricolored bat populations in the US to date. In September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal to list the tricolored bat as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The determination was announced under auspices that the species faces extinction due primarily to the range-wide impacts of white-nose syndrome, and a deadly disease affecting cave-dwelling bats across the continent. "Bats are essential for healthy ecosystems and contribute at least $3 billion annually to the U.S. agriculture economy through pest control and pollination. The growing extinction crisis highlights the importance of the Endangered Species Act and efforts to conserve species before declines become irreversible," a release by the federal service said following the announcement. According to the federal office, the proposal to list the tricolored bat comes after an in-depth review found that the species has declined so dramatically across its range that it now meets the definition of endangered under the current law. "The Service has a strong foundation in place for working with stakeholders to conserve bats while allowing economic activities within the range to continue to occur, and will continue to build on these in light of the tricolored bats endangered status," the statement said. BUTTERFLIES: Monarchs get protected, here's why As an example, the federal department cited the use of habitat conservation plans in wind energy projects so as to move forward after minimizing and mitigating their impacts on tricolored bats. White-nose syndrome is decimating hibernating bat species like the tricolored bat at unprecedented rates, said Martha Williams, service director for the agency. Bats play such an important role in ensuring a healthy ecosystem. The Service is deeply committed to continuing our vital research and collaborative efforts with partners to mitigate further impacts and recover tricolored bat populations. The Center for Biological Diversity was among the groups with the strongest support for the decision, noting much of the population decrease trends as to why. "Its baffling that the Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged that habitat loss is one of the biggest threats to the tricolored bats survival but decided not to designate any critical habitat for them. These bats urgently need their homes protected to stop them from going extinct," said Will Harlan, a scientist at the center. This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: Tricolor bat to be considered for endangered species act protection Hello and welcome back to Max Q. This past week, thousands of people traveled to Paris for the International Astronautical Congress 2022, one of the world's largest space conferences. Alas, I was not one of them. But it means there's tons of news, so let's get to it! In this issue: An analysis of Intuitive Machines' SPAC bet Rocket Lab is expanding its U.S. footprint News from ArianeGroup, Rocket Factory Augsburg and more Over at TechCrunch+, Alex Wilhelm wrote an excellent deep-dive into lunar infrastructure company Intuitive Machines' SPAC deal, which will see the combined entity valued at just north of $1 billion. (I reported on the deal last week.) It's a sign that the space SPAC craze isn't as dead as we all thought, despite plummeting stock prices of companies that went public last year, as well as a handful of mergers that were cancelled before they could be finalized. Indeed, Intuitive Machines will make its public market debut as a unicorn if all goes to plan. But that depends upon a number of factors -- not least of which, a growing market for lunar services to generate the steep revenue growth Intuitive Machines projected. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, and I'll be paying attention to shareholder redemptions, stock price and more. lunar lander concept Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander concept render. Image Credits: Intuitive Machines Rocket Lab is a U.S.-based company, but until now the bulk of its activities have been conducted in New Zealand. While the company has been public about its plans to expand to both hemispheres for a while, executives released a slew of updates on Wednesday detailing their goal to make the U.S. home to an even greater share of launches, testing and manufacturing. The company shared the news with investors and the general public during Rocket Labs Investor Day. While the event livestream hit a technical snafu, Rocket Lab shared all the updates in a long tweet thread concurrent with the event (read it here). Story continues One of the biggest takeaways was news that the company will be conducting all testing of its reusable rocket engine for Neutron, called Archimedes, at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Also, the company finally set a firm launch date for the first Electron launch from the Eastern Seaboard: this December, followed by a second launch in January of next year. rendering of rocket launch facility at the beach Image Credits: Rocket Lab (opens in a new window) More news from TC and beyond SpinLaunch accelerator Image Credits: SpinLaunch (opens in a new window) Redwire Space developed a retro, computer-style game in honor of the forthcoming DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission. They're calling it Planetary Defenders, and it's an apt name: In the course of the mission, NASA will smash spacecraft into an asteroid to try to deflect its course. Redwire provided power and navigation tech for the spacecraft. Play the game here. Max Q is brought to you by me, Aria Alamalhodaei. If you enjoy reading Max Q, consider forwarding it to a friend. Mecklenburg County health leaders held a news conference Monday to provide an update on the state of the West Nile virus, monkeypox and COVID-19 in the county. Officials said last week, they found two people with West Nile virus. Since then, they said theyve found several non-active cases in blood donations. PREVIOUS: Mecklenburg County alerts residents about increase in West Nile virus activity in state As for monkeypox, Health Director Dr. Raynard Washington said cases are starting to level off. Mecklenburg County has seen 201 cases since the start of the outbreak. He said now, the county is offering the monkeypox vaccine on a walk-in basis. On the topic of vaccines, Washington also encouraged people to get the updated COVID-19 booster as we head into flu season. Again, I know its a surprise, seems like a constant vaccination campaign, but certainly its important for us to have as many people taking advantage of the vaccines in our community that are available because they certainly work. Theyre effective, he said. Dr. Washington said about 20% of COVID-19 cases are in people under the age of 18. He said he expects case rates to rise as kids return to school. >> In the video at the top of the page, Reporter Almiya White speaks with a mother about the newest information from Mecklenburg County Public Health. (WATCH BELOW: People likely to need annual COVID-19 vaccine boosters) Russian soldiers in St. Petersburg on August 25, 2022. Photo by OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty Images After Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" into Ukraine, some men are fleeing to avoid the draft. Some companies in Russia objected to the draft, saying it could hurt how they do business. The Russian Ministry of Defense said some men in certain white-collar jobs will not be drafted. Some Russian men in certain white-collar jobs, like banking and IT, will be exempt from the country's "partial mobilization" of additional troops into Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense said. In a Telegram post from last Friday, the ministry said, "In order to ensure the operation of certain high-tech industries, as well as the financial system of the Russian Federation, a decision was made not to enlist in the military service as part of the partial mobilization of citizens with higher education in the relevant specialties and areas of training," which include working in information technology, telecom, Russian state media, and banking. Some of the specific roles that the ministry listed include telecom operators "involved in ensuring the stability, security and integrity of the functioning of communication facilities, data processing centers, as well as public communication facilities and lines of the Russian federation." Russians who work in "organizations in the field of information and communications," are also exempted, which, as Insider previously noted, includes media figures who are responsible for how the war is reported to Russian citizens. The post says workers on lists submitted by leaders at relevant companies also will be considered for exemption. Putin announced last week the "partial mobilization" of 300,000 military reservists to continue fighting in Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the draft would only apply to Russians who have combat experience, and that students and conscripts would not be drafted. According to The New York Times, backlash to the draft from industries like tech and agriculture, which said the draft could negatively affect how they do business, leading to the ministry's announcement. Story continues Forbes Russia reported that The Association of Software Developers in Russia sent an appeal to the Ministry of Digital Transformation for IT employees to be exempted from the war draft. Russian economics newspaper Kommersant reported that airline and airport employees received calls to join the Russian military, and three companies estimated that 50% to 80% of their workforces could be mobilized. According to Kommersant, a majority of airline pilots are reserve officers who've received military training or have previously done military service. Some airlines in Russia are already facing IT staff shortages, Kommersant reported, and airlines said losing "even a few people" to the draft "will seriously complicate or even paralyze the work." Airline and airport employees were not mentioned in the ministry's Telegram post about workers who could be exempt from the draft. In the hours leading up to Putin's speech last week, Russians who expected he would announce a mobilization and "referendums" in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory went to Google "How to leave Russia," leading to a spike in the search term. Plane tickets out of Russia into countries like Turkey and Georgia, where Russian citizens are still allowed without a visa, skyrocketed in price and some sold out. Other Russians trying to flee the country by car were met with traffic jams on the Georgian and Finnish borders. The lower house of Russia's parliament recently passed legislation for draft deserters can face up to 10 years in jail, and that the law could affect draft dodgers too. Read the original article on Business Insider A couples plans for a birthday night out at a local comedy took a turn once they realized the tickets they purchased online werent legit. Channel 2s Veronica Griffin talked to the victim who said they were surprised when they presented the tickets at the Atlanta Comedy Theater in Norcross. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] My reaction was like what? Thats crazy, Kaliah Henton-Jones told Channel 2 Action News. Kaliah Henton-Jones and her husband purchased the tickets from a third party ticket brokers website, Vivid Seats. The problem with this is the Atlanta Comedy Theater states clearly on its website that show tickets are not to be purchased and resold. Management said this disclaimer is often ignored. TRENDING STORIES: The policy is designed to cut down on multiple copies of the same tickets being sold and to help prevent price gouging. Henton-Jones said a policy intended to help consumers can be a bit frustrating when rules are broken. First it was like how do you get fraudulent comedy theater tickets? It doesnt seem like something someone would kind of bootleg or sell as fraudulent ticket, she said. Atlanta Comedy Theater management told Channel 2 Action News they will work with customers whove been duped. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: Sep. 24The Legislature has met its obligation to spend more to meet the mandates of a 2018 court ruling that said New Mexico was not doing enough to ensure at-risk students were receiving a sufficient education, according to a presentation to lawmakers Friday. The Legislative Finance Committee education brief said, accounting for inflation, the state has surpassed a 2008 funding benchmark report the court used to demand lawmakers do more to provide educational resources for at-risk students following a historic four-year court case. The 2008 American Institutes for Research report said New Mexico would have to invest about $336 million a year into the state's per-student funding formula to meet equitable education standards for all students. The new education brief said the state is now investing about $3.45 billion into the formula, which exceeds inflation-adjusted goals. As a result, the state has made progress toward meeting the court mandate, including raising teacher salaries, creating and providing more instructional materials for students, and putting more money into early childhood education programming, the report says. "All of these things are some pretty significant progress the state has made over the past few years," Rachel Mercer Garcia, a program evaluator for the Legislative Finance Committee, told lawmakers Friday morning during a hearing at Taos Ski Valley. The Legislature has appropriated funding to address all the court's major concerns and findings, she said. However, that does not mean the state is making progress in actually helping those students grow. Earlier this month John Sena, recently appointed deputy director of the Legislative Education Study Committee, told lawmakers that due to a lack of assessment data and an inability to track other advancement measures, it is "unclear if New Mexico students, and particularly those named in the lawsuit, are any better off" because of the investments. Story continues Melissa Candelaria, education director for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, said that while she hadn't yet fully reviewed the report, "education in New Mexico is still clearly underfunded." She said the state should "conduct a cost and budget analysis" to determine how to address the deficiencies the court identified. "Much more needs to be done to fully comply with the court's order and to ensure that all our at-risk students low-income families, students with disabilities, English language learners, and Native American students are receiving the necessary programs, services and support that would prepare them for college, career and life," she said. That Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit was brought by a coalition of parents, students, lawmakers and others in 2014. The plaintiffs charged New Mexico had not done enough to address the needs of Native Americans, English language learners or disabled and low-income students. The update issued Friday notes that not all school districts have yet implemented the programs needed to meet the court's remedies for the case. That's because those districts, as well as charter schools, have more autonomy over how to best use the state money allocated to them for public education, the report says. Mercer Garcia also cited leadership turnover at the state Public Education Department four secretaries since Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham took office early in 2019 as a challenge. She added the department has not yet put together a "comprehensive and consistent implementation plan to address" the needs of the lawsuit. Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus told lawmakers his agency is preparing that plan and should have it ready within a month. He said his department has been hiring people to "address what you just heard in this report." "Are we anywhere close to where we need to be?" he asked. "No. But we are on a path." He said the report will include details about improving attendance and achievement levels as well as what Steinhaus calls "attainment," or graduation, rates. The education brief noted recent legislative-driven salary increases for public school teachers depending on their license level, they start out earning $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 have had an effect in ensuring the state has enough instructors to meet those students' needs. Still, the state is awaiting data next month on just how many teacher vacancies remain. The legislative brief says preliminary estimate put that figure at 635, down from the 1,048 reported last October. "We're recruiting teachers from other states," Steinhaus said. "We are getting people to come back." But he added it's "going to take a long time" to totally fill those vacancies. Though the Legislature has appropriated funding for more extended learning time programs, not all districts have taken advantage of it to date. When Sen. George Munoz, D-Gallup, asked Steinhaus to name three things the Legislature could mandate to satisfy the court's requirements, Steinhaus said the first thing he would pick is "time," meaning more learning time for students. Munoz, who said the state has to get out from under the Yazzie/Martinez case "very quickly," said if school districts don't fall into line with what the Legislature wants in terms of such programs, lawmakers should put the onus of the legal responsibilities on those districts' shoulders. "I think the Legislature should come back and countersue and say [to districts], 'You're not following the intent of the law so we're going to put it on you,'" Munoz said. "It's kind of rough, but I think it's something that needs to happen." School Shooting Parole (ASSOCIATED PRESS) Michael Carneal was just 14 when he walked into the lobby of his Kentucky high school on the Monday after Thanksgiving 1997 with a large bag full of weapons. A member of the school band and a victim of bullying, Carneal loitered in the lobby that morning, then put in earplugs, picked up a handgun hed smuggled in and opened fire on a prayer group meeting before class. He killed three students and injured five others, including some whod considered him a friend. The teen was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. A quarter-century later, that day has come and its a rare circumstance. Few fatal school shooters have reached this point. They often take their own lives, are killed by law enforcement during the incident or sentenced to life without parole. Notably, Carneals massacre took place in 1997, even before Columbine footage shocked the world less than two years later, cementing school shootings as a dreaded but oft-spoken part of the US vernacular. School Shooting Parole (Copyright 1997 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) A female school shooter who killed two and injured nine in 1979 received the same life sentence as Carneal with eligibility for parole in 25 years. Shes been denied it six times. Last week, Carneals victims and their relatives spoke before two members of Kentuckys State Parole Board; all but one argued for his continued imprisonment. The shooter also gave his own testimony, but the members were unable to reach a unanimous decision. On Monday (26 September), the full state parole board will consider Carneals case. They have only three options: Let him out, keep him in prison or defer the parole decision for years. There is no option to transfer Carneal to a psychiatric facility instead of prison. But Carneal himself last week told the two board members that, despite 25 years of treatment and a course of three psych meds, he still hears voices. He appeared fidgety and nervous during his testimony before chairperson Ladeidra N. Jones and board member Larry Brock. Story continues I know now that its not something that I should do, and Im able to not do it and rationalize that its not something that I should do - and what Im hearing is not real, he said. Even at 14, Carneal said he knew right from wrong but blamed the massacre on a combination of factors. I was hearing things, and I was extremely hyper suspicious, he told the board. And I had felt for years, feeling alienated and different, and I think that when I startd to develop mental health problems, that it fed into that - and it kind of ... it made my mental health problems worse, that I spent those years feeling like that. Michael Carneal, now 39, was just 14 when he killed three and injured five at Heath High School; hes up for parole this month (Kentucky Department of Corrections) And it got to the point where I was hearing things in my mind, to do certain things, and I was doing them. I wasnt strong enough or I wasnt thinking properly enough to evaluate what i was being told to do, and I just found myself doing them. Heres what Carneal did: He stole guns and ammunition from his father and a neighbour and disguised them as a class project when his sister drove him to school on 1 December 1997. He walked into the lobby of Heath High School, where students were chatting animatedly after Thanksgiving and some were gathering for a prayer group that happened voluntarily before classes. Carneal had rifles with him, but he didnt use them. Instead, he fired a 22-caliber semiautomatic pistol around 7.45 am. He shot Nicole Hadley, 14, in the forehhead, then fatally shot Jessica James, 17; and Kayce Steger, 15, as well. Carneal injured five more people, including Missy Jenkins Smith, who has been paralyzed from the chest down ever since. Before that day, several of his victims had considered him their friend. Carneal admitted that hed liked some of his victims while testifying on 20 September before the two board members. Jessica James was always a leader, a positive leader, in the band, he said, known for helping the younger people out. He killed her. Carneal killed and injured eight people before he was approached by the principal, Bill Bond, who took him back into the school offices to wait for police. He faced murder, attempted murder and burglary charges and pled guilty, focusing his defence on mental illness and bullying. Missy and her twin sister, Mandy, were both in the hallway at Heath High School when Michael Carneal opened fire on a prayer circle in 1997 (Missy Jenkins Smith) Missy Jenkins Smith, his bandmate whos been wheelchair-bound since that day, was friendly enough with Carneal and admits that Heath High School had a severe problem with bullying. Before the shooting, she said, there were times where [Carneal] might do something - and I always thought he was funny - but there were some people that, you know, would treat him like he was, you know, annoying or whatever it may be ... so he dealt with that, but that doesnt mean I give him an excuse whatsoever. She says she remembers being slightly jealous, in fact, at how Carneal seemed able to brush off the bullying - until the day he unleashed a bloodbath in the high school hallway before he stopped shooting. He was the last person she thought would be responsible for such horror on a day that started so normally. Missy was rushing to leave the house that morning so her older sister wouldnt leave for school without her; to this day, she regrets not telling her parents she loved them as she said goodbye. Shed face her own mortality minutes later. After getting to school, she and Mandy were in the hallway when the announcement was made for the daily prayer circle, as students gathered before class to reflect and pray about anything that might be on their minds. Thats when she heard what sounded like firecrackers. She saw Nicole get shot and, she thinks, went into shock - right around the time a bullet hit her, too. I dont honestly honestly think that he was after the prayer circle, Missy told The Independent. But he was after a big group of people. Ms Jenkins Smith visited Carneal in prison with her twin, Mandy - who was present for the shooting and tried to shield her sister - ten years after the incident. She then wrote books and became an advocate, and her testimony to the Kentucky parole board on 19 September was jarring. I want you to consider how long its been that hes been taken care of by others, Missy, now a married mother of two, told the board. From the age of 14 years old to his present age of 39, he hasnt had the responsibility to take care of himself and has been cared for for the past 25 years. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, Missy married her husband Josh, had two boys, wrote books and gives speeches (Missy Jenkins Smith) How could anyone say with confidence he could to that for the rest of his life? she asked, adding: What if stressors in this new world begin to weigh on him having trouble finding a job after jail time for murder or attempted murder, running into people who know who he is and what he did? How sure are we that hed be able to handle this new world thats changed around him? What if these problems affect him so much emotionally that he chooses not to take his medication? What if it affects him emotionally enough that his medications arent helping anymore? There are too many What ifs to assume that he would be responsible enough to take care of himself and to not let his mental illness cause him to harm anyone again? Continuing his life in prison is the only way his victims can feel comfortable and safe without being haunted, she went on. Her sentiments were echoed by the parents, brother and sister of Nicole Hadley, but Hollan Holm, who was shot in the head by Carneal and still bears the scar on his hairline, argued for his attackers release. I was still a child, said Mr Holm, who was 14 at the time of the shooting and will turn 40 in December. Everyone in the lobby of Heath High School that day, including Michael Carneal, was a child. Its taken me 25 years to fully appreciate how little I knew on that day how much of life I had not lived and how far from adult I was in my thinking and my capacity. I am a different person today than I was on that day. Ive gone from that day to start a family and have a career. Still, Mr Holm did not make light of the ramifications of Carneals actions. Hollan Holm was 14 when Carneal shot him in the head but is arguing for his attackers release (Zoom) I still have trouble being in crowds of people, he said. I get anxious when Im seated in a restaurant with my back to the door, when a series of small fireworks or popping balloons approximates that deliberate pattern of the gunshots from that morning. I can feel the colour drain from my face in panic. During Carneals appearance before parole board members on 20 September, he said he was sorry for his crimes, but Ms Jones pointed out that, from medical records, the inmates prognosis remained poor after decades of treatment. He continued to experience paranoid thoughts with violent visual imagery. Ms Jones also noted that Carneals family and legal team had sent letters to the board regarding his plea and plan for release, but theyd not received anything from the inmate himself, who seemed ill-equipped to handle the hearing hed anticipating for more than half of his life. He also told board members that he does not pay attention to his mental health diagnoses, only doctors instructions. Despite that, and his medication, he admitted voices were still telling him to do things as recently as a few days beforehand. Watching his testimony, Ms Jenkins Smith was unswayed by his plea and shared in a Facebook post that she didnt think things went well for Michael today. I was surprised the board couldnt come to a unanimous decision, but I trust that the full board will do the right thing next week. I didnt see any evidence that hes any better today, 25 years later, or that he put much effort into preparing for this hearing, and I think the board saw that too, she wrote. From my view, hes functioning and safe in prison, and so are we out here. Lets keep it that way. A reservist shot a military commissar The incident was caught on video by one of the eyewitnesses. It shows Zinin, on the stage of the assembly hall at the military registration and enlistment office, shoots at a military commissar on the stage, after which other mobilized people flee the premises in panic. According to witnesses, before opening fire, the shooter promised that "We all will head home now." Zinin has since been detained. There is no reliable information about the state of the military commissar at this time. According to some reports, he survived, but is in serious condition. This is the most serious, but by no means an isolated case of violence provoked by the Kremlins mobilization of Russian men for its failing war on Ukraine. Since the beginning of mobilization, there has been a series of arsons attack on military registration and enlistment offices in several towns in Russia. To date, at least 20 such cases have been recorded in a number of Russian regions. Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" in the country on Sept. 21, According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, he plans to send another 300,000 reservists to the front. However, sources said to be from the Kremlin have told Russian journalists that this refers only to the first wave of mobilization, and that three or four such waves may be planned, which would imply Russia will mobilize a million or more men. Read also: Ukraine advances on Lyman while discontent with mobilization rises in Russia, says ISW Following the announcement of the mobilization, Russian men began to buy plan tickets to other countries en masse in order to avoid being sent to the war in Ukraine. Russian citizens fleeing the country have also created many kilometers of queues at its borders. Sources in the FSB, the Kremlins successor to the notorious KGB secret service, say up to 261,000 Russian men may have fled the country, independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported. Meanwhile, the Kremlin's puppet leader in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, said that he didnt intend to mobilize the residents of his republic. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine The U.S. and Japanese militaries continue searching for an Air Force member who was sucked out to sea while snorkeling off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa. American military ships and aircraft, with the help of the Japanese Coast Guard and local fire and police departments, continued the search for the unidentified airman Monday after he was sucked out to sea while snorkeling with a group of fellow service members, according to a report from Stars and Stripes. The airman was one of six Americans snorkeling near an offshore reef when three of them were pulled away from the group by a current and waves, Air Force 18th Wing spokesman Staff Sgt. Kyle Johnson told Stars and Stripes. NAVY LIEUTENANT SENTENCED IN JAPAN CAUSES OUTCRY AMONG FAMILY, US LAWMAKERS Coral reefs are seen along the coast near the U.S. Marine base Camp Schwab, off the tiny hamlet of Henoko in Nago, on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. REUTERS/Kyodo Two Japanese swimmers attempted to rescue the three Americans by chasing them down with surfboards and floats, with a 20-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman assigned to a nearby base being rescued and receiving aid on the scene before being transported to U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa at Camp Foster for further treatment. The third service member remained missing, causing the Japanese Coast Guard to dispatch a helicopter and begin a search for the American on Sunday. CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The other members of the group who were rescued escaped with minor injuries, while authorities said the search for the missing airman will resume on Tuesday. The Milwaukee Police Department has safely located a 26-year-old man who was reported as critically missing Sunday. Nathaniel J. Schieble was last seen at about 11 a.m. Sunday around the 7000 block of North 124th St. At 10 a.m. Thursday, police said he was found. Contact Hannah Kirby at hannah.kirby@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahHopeKirby. Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal. DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee police locate man previously reported as critically missing A Milwaukee police squad car sits outside City Hall in August 2019. Last week, the union representing Milwaukees rank-and-file police officers sued the city to replace all of its service weapons, which officers argue are vulnerable to firing without someone pulling the trigger. The lawsuit comes after the Milwaukee Police Department reported on Sept. 10 that an officers holstered gun fired inadvertently as he searched a vehicle and injured another officer nearby. Its the third time since July 2020 that a Milwaukee police officers gun fired without the trigger being pulled, according to Andrew Wagner, president of the Milwaukee Police Association. And its not the first time safety concerns have been raised about the model of firearm in question the Sig Sauer P320. Since 2018, the same year the Police Department began transitioning to that service weapon, at least 22 lawsuits have been filed in federal court against the German gun manufacturer, which has its U.S. headquarters in New Hampshire. In 2017, Sig Sauer created a voluntary upgrade program where owners can submit their P320 to the company for safety upgrades free of charge. But the company maintains on its website that the model meets and exceeds all U.S. safety standards, and that the upgrades augment safe handling practices. Heres what to know about the issues surrounding the gun carried by Milwaukee police: Sig Sauer P320 replaced Smith and Wesson M&P 40 in 2018 In 2018, the Police Department transitioned away from using a Smith and Wesson M&P 40 as its service weapon. In a statement, the Police Department said the transition began because the warranty on the previous firearm was expiring. The decision to select a new pistol was decided by then-Chief Alfonso Morales after thorough research and analysis based on the information known and available at the time, the statement said. The first incident came in July 2020. Police said officers were trying to take a man into custody following a brief vehicle pursuit. A struggle ensued as officers tried placing him into a squad car and a shot discharged from one of the officers holstered guns, injuring another 33-year-old officer. Story continues In its lawsuit, the union argues the gun fired randomly. In January 2021, another officer was getting out of a vehicle with his hands full when his weapon fired from inside the holster, Wagner said. Nobody was injured. Two months after that, the police union filed a notice of claim which is usually a precursor to a lawsuit against the city alleging the Sig Sauer P320 was prone to inadvertent discharges and demanded the city purchase a new service weapon for all personnel. The claim argued the city was aware of the random discharges before its selection as the department service weapon but did nothing to address the issue. On Sept. 10 this year, after a vehicle crashed into a building on Milwaukees northwest side, the holstered gun of an officer who was searching the vehicle fired and injured another 41-year-old officer. The police union filed its lawsuit against the city in Milwaukee County Circuit Court nine days later. It demands the city purchase new service weapons for all sworn personnel. Replacement recommended after inspection of gun After the first incident in July 2020, Sgt. Allen Groszczyk examined one of the department-issued P320s and discovered it was missing a part, according to the complaint. He authored a report stating concerns that the gun had a risk of accidental discharge. Around that time, Groszczyk was contacted by Major Pete Villani of the Department of Veterans Affairs, who said his agency also experienced an accidental discharge with the P320 that injured one officer, according to a complaint. James MacGillis, then a captain in the Milwaukee Police Academy, later joined Groszczyk for a conference call with Sig Sauer. Its representatives were unwilling to say the P320 would not discharge if it was dropped, slammed or jostled, and they said there was an additional risk of the gun not firing even if the trigger was pulled in certain circumstances, the complaint said. The lawsuit does not say when that conversation happened, but Groszczyk and MacGillis soon after recommended the Police Department immediately research a replacement service weapon. MacGillis was named the police chief in Wauwatosa in July 2021. Other issues with P320 around the country At least 22 lawsuits have been filed against Sig Sauer since 2018 alleging the P320 fired without anyone pulling the trigger. The lawsuits originate from Missouri, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Georgia and elsewhere. Eighteen have been filed since 2020. The complaints describe law enforcement officers and gun enthusiasts whose P320 fired while it was holstered on their hip, in their hand or in a bag, and were struck by the gunfire in their leg or foot. In one case, a bullet hit a Texas detective in the groin, narrowly missing her femoral artery. Sig Sauer has settled at least one case and won a jury trial in at least one other, according to online court records. Contact Elliot Hughes at elliot.hughes@jrn.com or 414-704-8958. Follow him on Twitter @elliothughes12. Stay in the know. Sign up to get NewsWatch delivered to your inbox every afternoon. Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal. DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What to know about lawsuit over Milwaukee police service weapons CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldova may revoke the citizenship of its nationals who go to fight for Russia in Ukraine after being called up because they also hold Russian passports, pro-Western President Maia Sandu said on Monday. Russia launched a "partial" mobilisation last week to reinforce its troops in Ukraine, and there are 200,000 people with dual Moldovan-Russian citizenship who live in the breakaway Moldovan region of Trandniestria. Sandu said there was a risk that some of those people could be called up by Russia to fight. "To prevent that happening, we are analysing the possibility of applying the process of revoking Moldovan citizenship for those people (with Russian passports) who fight on the side of the aggressor," Sandu said. "We are also looking at the possibility of making punishment harsher for Moldovan citizens (without Russian passports)... who are in the ranks of the aggressor's armed forces," she said. She said Moldova was holding consultations with Moscow to prevent cases of its citizens being called up. Russia has had peacekeeping troops stationed in Transdniestria since the early 1990s when an armed conflict saw pro-Russian separatists wrest most of the region from Moldovan control. (Reporting by Alexander Tanas, Writing Tom Balmforth, Editing by Timothy Heritage) HELSINKI (Reuters) - Almost 17,000 Russians crossed the border into Finland during the weekend, an 80% rise from a week earlier, Finnish authorities said on Monday, as the influx of people continued in the wake of Russia's announcement of military mobilisation. The border traffic had somewhat calmed early on Monday but remained busier than in the previous weeks, Captain Taneli Repo at Finland's southeastern border authority told Reuters. "The queues continue to be a bit longer than they've usually been since the pandemic," he said. Wednesday's announcement of Russia's first public mobilisation since World War Two, to shore up its faltering Ukraine war, has triggered a rush for the border, the arrest of protesters and unease in the wider population. Young Russian men who spoke to Reuters after crossing into Finland via the Vaalimaa border station last week, some three hours by car from Russia's second-largest city St Petersburg, said they left out of fear of being drafted for the war. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine "a special military operation". The Finnish government, wary of becoming a major transit nation, on Friday said it will stop all Russians from entering on tourist visas within the coming days, although exceptions may still apply on humanitarian grounds. (Reporting by Essi Lehto, writing by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche) (Bloomberg) -- Airwallex, a payment platform startup, is hiring Morgan Stanleys head of Southeast Asia technology investment banking, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Most Read from Bloomberg Justin Yek, an executive director who has been with the US firm for more than four years, will join the Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed company, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. He will be based in Singapore, one of the people said. Yeks departure comes amid Airwallexs rapid fundraising over the past year and its expansion in the region after securing permits in Singapore and Malaysia. The firm is valued at $5.5 billion and also counts DST Global and Mastercard Inc. among its backers, according to its website. It is considering an initial public offering as soon as 2024, people with knowledge of the matter have said. Before joining Morgan Stanley, Yek was a co-founder of Altitude Labs, an app design and development agency, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also previously worked at Citigroup Inc., the profile shows. Separately, Yuen Dezhao, an executive director at Morgan Stanley focused on power, utilities and infrastructure deals in Asia, is joining private equity firm Actis LLP, according to people familiar with the matter. Based in Hong Kong, he spent more than 10 years at the bank, his LinkedIn profile shows. Representatives for Airwallex, Actis and Morgan Stanley declined to comment, while Yek and Yuen didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. (Updates with Actis hire in second last paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Dahmer Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is the most popular show on Netflix, according to the streaming services public ranking system. Co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the docuseries premiered on Sept. 21, and, as the name suggests, it follows the story of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (played by Evan Peters). Reviews from critics have been mixed, and some victims family members have spoken out against the show. The second most popular series of the moment is El Rey, Vicente Fernandez, a Mexican biographical drama about the titular music icon. Starring Jaime Camil, the 36-episode show covers Fernandezs humble upbringing and rise to stardom. "Dahmer Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" on Netflix. (Photo: Netflix) A couple of other true crime docuseries are also trending on the streaming service. The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist details the infamous robberies of celebrity homes in 2008 and 2009, while Sins of Our Mother is a chilling show about Lori Vallow Daybell, who stands accused of murdering her son and daughter. And of course, the popular martial arts series Cobra Kai is back in the ranking after the premiere of its fifth season on Sept. 9. A sequel to the original Karate Kid films, the show stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka. Read on for the full top 10 list. And if you want to stay informed about everything joining Netflix each week, subscribe to the Streamline newsletter. (Photo: HuffPost) (Photo: HuffPost) This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Russian border checkpoints have seen a surge in traffic, including at this one at the Russia-Finland border on September 23. Kazakhstan, where the Cinema Park theater is located, has seen a spike in Russians arriving, authorities there have said. SASU MAKINEN/LEHTIKUVA/AFP via Getty Images A movie theater in the Kazakhstan city of Uralsk opened its doors to fleeing Russians. Many Russian men are trying to flee the country after Putin announced a military mobilization. Theater management said they see many on the streets "who are looking for an overnight stay." A movie theater in Uralsk, a city in Kazakhstan near the Russian border, opened its doors to those fleeing Russia. Cinema Park announced on Saturday that it would welcome those who were leaving the country and couldn't find shelter, after Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a military mobilization in his war against Ukraine last week. "We see many visitors from the Russian Federation on the streets of the city who are looking for an overnight stay," Cinema Park management said in a statement, according to Kazakh24.info. "Come to us, we understand everything." Cinema Park is in one of the largest shopping malls in Uralsk, according to Kazakh24.info. Russian men have in particular been trying to leave Russia in droves, as they face potentially being drafted in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Google searches for "how to leave Russia" skyrocketed after Putin's speech, Insider reported. Traffic has surged at the Russian border. Kazakhstan authorities said last week that the country has seen a surge in Russians arriving, according to a story published by Reuters on Friday. One source told Reuters that they had been in a queue at the border since Thursday, and that they saw "unusually" heavy traffic. Up to 300,000 reserves are expected to be mobilized. On Saturday, Putin signed a law that stipulates anyone who surrenders, deserts, or refuses to fight could go to prison for anywhere between three to 15 years. The independent Russian news outlet Meduza recently reported that Russia plans to ban men of military age from leaving the country, and only those who are granted "exit visas" by enlistment offices will be able to leave. Read the original article on Business Insider BOSTON High levels of bacteria in local water, mandatory drought restrictions and limited supply in South Shore communities has prompted the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority to waive the usual entrance fees for towns looking to join the regional water system. The MWRA Board of Directors last week voted to temporarily waive the fee new communities pay to join the system, citing challenges like stressed river basins requiring water restrictions, rising concerns about PFAS chemicals and the limits low water supply places on burgeoning development. The Quabbin Reservoir, which supplies the MWRAs water system, remains over 90% full despite an ongoing drought. The MWRA gets its water from the Quabbin Reservoir, which remains over 90% full and is well within normal operating conditions for this time of year. The authority said that even if the drought continued for several years, there would be adequate supply to fully meet the needs of MWRAs existing water communities and, if needed, to augment the supplies of nearby communities in need. Ensuring the availability of clean, safe drinking water is critical to public health, safety, and protecting our environmental resources, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Beth Card, who chairs the MWRAs Board of Directors, said in a statement. The MWRAs water supply system is a tremendous resource and by waiving the entrance fee for new communities, interested municipalities will be able to better assess their own communities needs and the hurdles that may impact them." Happening now: Continuing drought forces tighter water restrictions in South Shore towns Continuing drought on the South Shore has forced many local communities to tighten restrictions on outdoor water use. Weymouth changed its recommended water conservation measures to mandatory restrictions earlier this month, following the lead of towns like Braintree, Randolph and Holbrook, which are served by the Tri-Town Water District. Weymouth's Public Works Department said water levels at Great Pond are at their lowest in six years, dropping by nearly 6 feet since March. The 6 inches of rain that the town has recorded in the past four months is the lowest in more than 20 years. Story continues The Abington-Rockland Water District has prohibited all outdoor water use, and in Pembroke it is permitted one day per week. Restrictions on outdoor watering are in place in Hingham, Hull, Cohasset, Scituate, Marshfield and Hanover. A sign warning homeowners not to use water during this years drought at West Corner in Hull on Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. Quincy and Milton get their water from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which urges water conservation but currently has no restrictions on outdoor use. The MWRA has excess water to sell, and many communities near our system need water," Lou Taverna, chairman of the MWRA Advisory Board, said in a statement. The benefit for existing communities is a reduction in their assessments each time a new member joins. Thats why the advisory board began exploring the option of temporarily waiving the entrance fee. In addition to a lack of water due to low rainfall, many South Shore communities are also dealing with high levels of PFAS known as "forever chemicals" in municipal water. PFAS is an acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, man-made chemicals that have been used in a variety of applications since the 1950s, from nonstick cookware and water resistant clothing to food packaging materials and firefighting foam. They are considered a forever chemical because they don't break down and can accumulate in the body. Uniquely Local: Love of Marshfield summers, family sparks idea for brand of Hawaiian-themed flannel shirts Sports: Nate Sampson a big-play machine for North Quincy football in 36-6 win over Malden Catholic Communities like Braintree and Rockland have recently had to contend with installing new water filters to reduce the chemical levels to a safe range. Local towns have also rejected new developments in recent years, citing inability to provide water to new buildings. Weymouth Mayor Robert Hedlund earlier this month said the town won't provide water or wastewater service for a proposed hotel at Union Point. CP Endeavor Holdings 18 LLC wants to build a TownePlace Suites, the extended stay lodging brand owned by Marriott, at the 1,440-acre former air base in Weymouth, Rockland and Abington. "It's an unprecedented situation, where they're moving ahead and were saying, 'We are not giving you water,'" Hedlund said. Though the MWRA removed one barrier for entry, others remain. The admissions process includes a robust environmental review, pipes must be built to connect the nearby communities to the MWRAs system, and in some cases modifications to the MWRAs infrastructure must be made to meet the requested demand. Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Patriot Ledger subscription. Here is our latest offer. Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com. This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: MWRA waives fees for town water hook ups due to drought, bacteria levels A damaged structure in the Ukrainian city of Izium after the withdrawal of Russian forces on September 16. Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images For months, important facilities across Russia have been hit by mysterious fires and explosions. The incidents have little obvious explanation but seem to have affected a narrow set of targets. Some may be the work of Russians opposed to Putin; others show signs of military special operations. The war in Ukraine isn't going well for Russia's military. In a matter of days this month, Ukrainian forces managed to retake more territory than the Russian military had captured and held since April. But the Russian military's struggles aren't limited to inside Ukrainian borders. For months now, sensitive sites and important facilities throughout Russia have been hit by mysterious fires and explosions, which hint at a sabotage campaign that is the hallmark of special-operations forces. Mystery fires and explosions An oil refinery in the Russian city of Belgorod on April 1 after an attack that the regional governor blamed on Ukraine. Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images In May, as the Russian military was preparing to launch a renewed offensive in Ukraine's Donbas region, military outposts, recruitment centers, and defense industrial complexes across Russia started suffering mysterious explosions or fires. In all, there have been dozens of incidents at facilities throughout Russia, with little obvious explanation. The targets include oil refineries, ammunition-production and -storage facilities, aerospace and defense companies, and communications infrastructure. The attacks appear to be part of an effort to undermine and degrade the Russian military's offensive capabilities. The perpetrators may not all be working together. In May, for example, Russian authorities caught two Russian teenagers throwing Molotov cocktails at a military commissariat essentially a recruitment station. Dozens of commissariats have been attacked in Russia this year, which suggests some Russians, especially those likely to be drafted into the military, are opposed to the war. But the suspected attacks seem to focus on a narrow set of targets, and the incidents have largely aligned with what military special-operations units would be tasked with as part of an unconventional-warfare campaign. Story continues A guerrilla campaign inside Russia Ukrainian, Romanian, and US Army Special Forces soldiers during an exercise in Romania in May 2021. Romanian army/Capt. Roxana Davidovits Unconventional warfare is a skill set that the US special-operations community excels at and with which it has decades of experience conducting and training others to conduct. Since the US military isn't directly involved in the fighting in Ukraine, the source of the suspected attacks is likely Ukrainian commandos or Russian dissidents perhaps a combination of both. Such a guerrilla campaign may gain steam if Russia continues to fail in Ukraine, and it could take many forms, a Green Beret assigned to a National Guard Special Forces unit told Insider. "At the start, it may look like a disruption campaign, like the one we saw in Belarus with the trains. Targeting and attacking the supply lines and other soft targets is always on the list," said the Green Beret, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. "Next on the list would be harder targets, such as military convoys, bases, or even attacks on command-and-control facilities and headquarters," the Green Beret added. After 2014, when Russia attacked Ukraine by seizing Crimea and invading the Donbas, US Special Operations Command ramped up its training, assistance, and advising for Ukrainian forces. Smoke and flames rise at a Russian military base in Crimea after explosions there on August 9. REUTERS/Stringer Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group, which has Europe as its area of operations, have been pivotal in bringing up the Ukrainian special-operations community up to speed. The effectiveness of that American instruction is now visible to the world in the Ukrainian military's operations. Some of those operations appear to have struck inside Russian territory, including an attack on a fuel dump in the city of Belgorod in April that Russia blamed on Ukrainian helicopters and missile strikes on Russian bases in Crimea in August. "But eventually a guerrilla campaign would have to mature and adapt on the expected security measures that the Russian military and security services will take to respond to the attacks," the Green Beret told Insider. While many Russians have expressed opposition to or dismay about Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, the most difficult part of such a campaign for Ukraine may be winning over the Russian public, the Green Beret said. "A lot of Russians are fiercely patriotic, and Putin has spun the war quite smartly to appeal to the ordinary Russian," and an unconventional-warfare campaign "is very hard to pull off" against a hostile population, the Green Beret added. Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. He is working toward a master's degree in strategy and cybersecurity at the Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies. Read the original article on Business Insider Watch: Moment Nasa's DART spacecraft smashes into asteroid A pioneering NASA spacecraft has made science fiction a reality - or, at least, thats the theory. In the early hours of the morning, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully crashed into a small asteroid as part of a planetary protection test mission. While the asteroid named Dimorphos posed no threat to Earth, the aim of the mission was to demonstrate that dangerous incoming rocks can be deflected by deliberately smashing into them. IMPACT SUCCESS! Nasa tweeted after its spacecraft collided with the 170-metre wide (560ft) asteroid at about 00:20 UK time on Tuesday. The US space agencys staff cheered and clapped in a video shared online as the spacecraft successfully smashed into Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft prior to impact at the Didymos binary asteroid system (NASA/Reuters) And we have impact. A triumph for humanity in the name of planetary defence, a member of Nasas team said in a video recorded in the control room as the collision took place. The idea is familiar from Hollywood blockbusters such as Armageddon, but marks humanitys first attempt to change the path of a moon or other celestial body. Its the first step towards a real solution if an asteroid is hurtling towards Earth - a mission to knock potential doomsday asteroids onto less-threatening flight paths. The theory is that the fridge-sized DART spacecraft - travelling faster than a bullet - will change its orbit. The goal of the DART mission, which launched in November 2021, is to hit an asteroid with a spacecraft to slightly alter its trajectory. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) Read more: What are fast radio bursts, and why do they look like aliens? The spacecraft rammed the moonlet Didymos B, which orbits around a larger asteroid Didymos A, travelling at around 3.7 miles per second. NASA scientists will now monitor to see what effect it has on the 530ft rocks flight path. It took 10 months for Dart to come close to Dimorphos after launching last November on SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket. Two weeks ago, the spacecraft took its first pictures of Didymos system, from 20 million miles away. Story continues The collision was recorded by a briefcase-sized satellite known as the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube), which was provided by the Italian Space Agency. DART needed to self-navigate to impact successfully with Dimorphos without any human intervention. There are currently somewhere around 27,000 asteroids in near-Earth orbit. Rocks that are 140 metres (460ft) and larger in size and come nearer than 4.7 million miles (7.5 million km) during orbit are classed as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs). Watch: Launch of DART spacecraft lights up night sky An artists illustration of Nasas Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission as it closes in on the asteroid Dimorphos (Nasa) Nasas asteroid-deflecting DART spacecraft successfully slammed into its target on Monday, 10 months after launch. The test of the worlds first planetary defense system will determine how prepared we are to prevent a doomsday collision with Earth. The cube-shaped impactor vehicle, roughly the size of a vending machine with two rectangular solar arrays, flew into the asteroid Dimorphos, about as large as a football stadium, and self-destructed around 7.14pm EDT (11pm GMT) some 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth. The missions finale tested the ability of a spacecraft to alter an asteroids trajectory with sheer kinetic force, plowing into the object at high speed to nudge it astray just enough to keep our planet out of harms way. It will be the first time humanity has changed the motion of an asteroid, or any celestial body. Nasa has a live stream of the event, which you can find at the top of our live blog below. Key Points How to watch live When will crash happen? The key times Hello and welcome... Monday 26 September 2022 12:51 , Andrew Griffin ... to The Independents live coverage of Nasas DART mission, its plan to crash into an asteroid to try out how it might save Earth. Collision will happen on Monday evening Monday 26 September 2022 13:22 , Andrew Griffin Nasa predicts that DART will crash into its asteroid, Dimorphos, at 7.14pm local time on Monday evening. Thats just after midnight in the UK. (It might take a short while to know it has actually done so, successfully, with engineers needing to receive and then pick through the data.) How to watch live Monday 26 September 2022 13:24 , Andrew Griffin Nasa will be hosting live coverage from 6pm local eastern time, through its NASA TV platforms. The best way to watch them tends to be through YouTube, though they can be found on Nasas own website, and that stream is below: Nasa will also be providing images from the spacecraft itself, starting at 5.30pm, through its media channel. That will give just the pictures, without the explanation, so might be harder to follow but more peaceful. That stream is here: Story continues Nasa also looking towards the Moon and Artemis Monday 26 September 2022 14:27 , Andrew Griffin By the end of the day, Nasa could have a big success on its hands with DART. But it could also be dealing with yet more worries from another source: the Moon, and the Artemis rocket that aims to get there. The rocket was meant to set off weeks ago, and after delays was meant to be setting off today. But a variety of problems the latest being a tropical storm have caused it to be delayed. Today, Nasa could announce that theyll have to move the rocket back off its launchpad. If that happens then there wont be a launch until November at the earliest. How the DART mission could save life on Earth Monday 26 September 2022 15:28 , Andrew Griffin Scientists will often tell you about how their work is helping humanity. But its rare that its quite so obvious: the DART mission could one day stop humanity from being wiped out. Heres how. Artemis launch attempt cancelled Monday 26 September 2022 15:52 , Andrew Griffin Nasa will roll back its Artemis rocket from its launchpad, and give up on launching it any time soon. The decision comes after a run of problems the most recent being an incoming tropical storm. Full story here. (This doesnt directly affect DART, which is being run entirely separately, but it is a busy day for Nasa!) Webb telescope aimed at asteroid Monday 26 September 2022 16:43 , Andrew Griffin Another of Nasas big recent projects, the James Webb Space Telescope, is going to try and have a look at todays proceedings. Its pointing towards the asteroid that Nasa will try and smash into today. Full story here. Nasa says Earth strikes back against asteroids Monday 26 September 2022 17:37 , Anthony Cuthbertson Nasa has shared an animation of the DART mission to its official Twitter account, with a dramatic voiceover that rivals any trailer for an apocalypse movie. In a galaxy where asteroids have pummelled planets for millions of years, now, one planet strikes back, it says. For the first time in our planets history, Nasa will test an asteroid deflection technique. Its the first planetary defence method of its kind. You can watch it here: This is only a test of planetary defense. Today, our #DARTMission is set to crash into a non-hazardous asteroid to test deflection technology, should we ever discover a threat. Impact: 7:14pm ET (23:14 UTC). Watch our LIVE broadcast at 6pm ET: https://t.co/VAfF5ZXcYB pic.twitter.com/czGqnYJIGJ NASA (@NASA) September 26, 2022 Nasa live stream of Dart mission counts down to asteroid deflection test Monday 26 September 2022 18:34 , Anthony Cuthbertson Nasa is providing a live feed from a camera onboard its Didymos space craft for its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation AKA the Draco camera is the only instrument onboard. The real-time stream sends one image of the approaching asteroid per second to Earth. You can watch it live here: If youre wondering what youre looking at, Nasa explains: In the hours before impact, the screen will appear mostly black, with a single point of light. That point is the binary asteroid system Didymos which is made up of a larger asteroid named Didymos and a smaller asteroid that orbits around it called Dimorphos. As the 7.14 pm EDT (23.14 GMT) impact of asteroid Dimorphos nears closer, the point of light will get bigger and eventually detailed asteroids will be visible. Nasa says no cause for alarm about asteroid mission Monday 26 September 2022 19:11 , Anthony Cuthbertson Whoever is in charge of Nasas social media accounts has been busy over the last couple of hours since posting the theatrical animation of the DART mission. A lot of users appeared concerned that deflecting the asteroid could have a knock-on effect would lead to unintended damage to other planets or celestial bodies. There is no cause for alarm. DART is too small to knock Dimorphos out of its orbit around Didymos, reads one Twitter reply from the US space agency. This impact will change the path of the smaller asteroid just enough to be measured by Earth-based telescopes (less than per cent). This asteroid is both well known and well studied. Autonomous mode Monday 26 September 2022 20:12 , Jon Kelvey Nasas Dart spacecraft is moments away from transitioning to full autonomous navigation, relying on the computer algorithms that will guide Dart the rest of the way on its terminal mission to smash into the asteroid Dimorphos. Were about six minutes away from transitioning to autonomous mode in terms of navigation, Robert Braun told reporters at a press event at the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory around 3.10pm EDT Monday afternoon. APL and Jet Propulsion Laboratory enginers have been managing the Dart mission for Nasa and guiding the spacecraft in the months since it launched in November, 2021. Nasa and APL will be providing updates and background to the media throughout the afternoon and into the early evening ahead of the Dart impact, which is expected at 7.14pm EDT. Goosebumps Monday 26 September 2022 20:35 , Jon Kelvey Robert Braun told reporters Monday afternoon that when thinking about the Dart mission this morning, it gave him goosebumps its the first time humans will try to change the course of a celestial object. Proving the technology to deflect an asteroid, he said, thats something of importance to the entire Earth. The mission is also different than most other missions APL has been involved in with Nasa, Braun said. When youre landing on Mars, for instance, youre waiting and hoping for a first signal from the lander, and maybe some images. Here what were waiting for is a loss of signal, he said. Here what were cheering for is the loss of the spacecraft. Confidence of Darts success is high, but there could be uneexpected holes in the plan Monday 26 September 2022 20:54 , Jon Kelvey Nasa will know by 7.14pm EDT if the Dart mission was successful in striking the asteroid Dimporphos around 6.8 million miles from Earth. The world can watch the lead up however, as Nasa TV has begun showing images taken the Dart spacecrafts navigational camera, known as Draco, according to Robert Braun, the head of the space exploration sector at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which manages the Dart mission for Nasa. What you will see are images coming back from Draco on a 1 per second cycle, Braun told reporters at APL Monday afternoon. It will get bigger and bigger in the field of view, and I would suspect the last image may even be a partial image. That partial image would be due to the high velocity of Dart, which will strike Dimorphos at 14,400 miles per hour. And it almost certainly will hit Dimorphos, barring some very unusual circumstances, according to Braun since Dimporphos is too small to see clearly from Earth, it could hold some surprises yet. There are all kinds of crazy scenarios. We dont know the shape of what were goin to hit right now, Braun told reporters. Ao if we were right on course bu it was shipped like a doughnut, we might fly right through it. But thats unlikley. All eyes on Dart on Dimorphos Monday Monday 26 September 2022 21:06 , Jon Kelvey Nasas Dart mission is about to attempt the unprecedented in moving a celestial object, the asteroid Dimorphos. But hitting that asteroid is just the first part of the mission, according to Nasas Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen. The Hubble Space Telescope, The James Webb Space Telescope, and the Lucy spacecraft, a Nasa mission to the asteroids near Jupiter, will all be focusing on Dimorphos when Dart slams into the asteroid around 7.14pm EDT Monday, Dr Zurbuchen told reporters at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Monday afternoon. The question is will they see a brightening of that object, he said. That comes from ejecting dust and having that be hit by the Sun and therefore changing the brightness. The images will not be particularly large or clear, Dr Zurbuchen added. Just think of the size of these objects, they are minuscule, he said. Like seeing a football stadium from many millions of miles away, so that is what we are trying to do. Additional views Monday 26 September 2022 21:33 , Jon Kelvey Even as the big Hubble and and James Webb Space Telescopes turn their massive mirrors on the asteroid Dimporphos ahead of Nasas Dart impact test Monday evening, there are other, smaller eyes tracking the asteroid. The Italian space agencys Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, or LiciaCube, hitched a ride to Dimorphos on Dart before separating from Nasas spacecraft on 11 September. The microwave sized satellite is now following about three minutes behind Dart and will be positioned to observe Darts impact on Dimorphos from a safe distance. Those image likely wont be available for a day or two, Nancy Chabot told reporters at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Monday afternoon. Dr Chabot is the a planetary scientist and Dart mission coordination lead at APL. What LiciaCube will be looking for, she said, are the materials thrown out and away from Dimophos when Dart stikes the asteroid at more than 14,000 miles per hour, materials known as ejecta. That is one of main reasons to do the Dart test, is to see how much ejecta, Dr Chabot said. This isnt just billiard balls. No one really knows how much ejecta will be generated, because no one has gotten a close up look at Dimorphos, which is about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza large for a person, but very tiny when 6.8 million miles from Earth. Depending on what the asteroid is made of and its consistency, there could be more or less material thrown off by Darts impact. One thing is for certain however, Dr Chabot told reporters, in the combat between Dart and Dimorphos, the spacecraft will lose. The origin of the Dart mission Monday 26 September 2022 22:24 , Jon Kelvey Mondays Dart mission has its origins in the exercise habits of Andy Cheng, chief scientist for planetary defense at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). I conceived of the mission that would become Dart in my basement, Dr Cheng told reporters at APL Monday afternoon. In early 2011, I was doing some exercises, stretches, in my basement ... and I had on my mind, we should really do a planetary defense mission. Its time. But it wasnt the notion of planetary defense missions that was unique or new, it was Chengs recipe for conducting it. European scientists in 2004 conducted a detailed study of a potential mission to study the change in an asteroids orbit around the Sun after striking it with a kinetic impactor like Dart. But that required a second space craft, Dr Cheng said one craft to hit the asteroid, and another to watch. It cost too much, and never got off the ground, he said. Dr Chengs new idea was to target a binary asteroid system. A change in the orbit of a smaller asteroid around a larger one is much easier to detect that the subtle change in an asteroids much larger orbit around the Sun, and could even be observed by ground-based telescopes, obviating the need for an expensive second spacecraft. That idea stuck, and I took it to Nasa, Dr Cheng said. Asteroid Radar Monday 26 September 2022 22:43 , Jon Kelvey While ground based telescopes and space based telescopes will be monitoring the Dart spacecrafts impact of the asteroid Dimorphos at 7.14pm EDT Monday evening, scientists will wont just be monitoring in optical wavelengths. Radar will play an important role, and may make the definitive measurements that tell scientists just how much Dart changes the orbit of its asteroid target. Radar is extremely precise, Northern Arizona University Planetary Scientist Cristina Thomas told reporters at a Monday afternoon press event at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. We know right now, to a very high level, exactly where Dimorphos should be. So if you send that radar ping out and its not where it should be, that should tell you about that shift in position. Radar observations could detect a change in Dimorphoss orbit within a day or two, Dr Thomas added. That change could be very small at first, but will grow over time, and the small asteroids orbit around its larger companion could ultimately shift as much as 10 minutes. Dimorphos currently takes an hour and 55 minutes to complete one orbit. One radio telescope that will not participate in the Dart mission is the now defunct Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico; the telescope was decommissioned following irreparable damage after Hurricane Maria crashed through the US territory. Arecibo was planned to be used [for Dart], APL planetary scientists and APL Coordination Lead for the Dart mission Nancy Chabot said. The loss of Arecibo is still felt in the community. How to watch Dart Monday 26 September 2022 22:54 , Jon Kelvey Nasas Dart space craft is getting closer to its date with destiny the refrigerator sized spacecraft will slam into the small asteroid Dimorphos at 7.14pm EDT Monday, not much more than an hour from now. You can actually see Dimorphos and its larger companion asteroid, Didymos, as a single point of light in the feed from Darts camera. Nasa is maintaining a live feed from the camera on the space agencys media channel, and the image should update about once a second right up to the moment Dart crashes into the asteroid. Beginning at 6pm EDT, NASA TV will begin carrying a broadcast with commentary on the mission that will last through the moment of truth at 7.14 p.m. The Independent will keep you updated on this blog as the mission draws closer to its terminal destination. Nasa Dart broadcast is now live Monday 26 September 2022 23:03 , Jon Kelvey Nasa has begun its broadcast covering its Dart mission to alter the orbit of an asteroid, forever. You can tune in on Nasa TV at www.nasa.gov/nasalive. Could Dart deflect an asteroid threatening Earth? Monday 26 September 2022 23:18 , Jon Kelvey Dart is targeting Dimorphos, a small asteroid about 500 feet across that does not threaten Earth and will not, even after its orbit is altered by Darts crashing into it Monday evening. The closest this asteroid will ever get to Earth is 4 million miles, Northern Arizona University Planetary Scientist Cristina Thomas told reporters at a Monday afternoon press event at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Dart is designed to test the concept of a kinetic impactor, an experiment to see if a Dart-like spacecraft could be built in the future to deflect an asteroid that threatened our planet. But if Dimorphos, or an asteroid like were threatening Earth, would Dart itself be capable of diverting it? After all, Dart is essentially a very heavy vending machine, Dr Thomas said, that is about to collide with , essentially the Great Pyramid of Giza. We do think something like Dart would be big enough to deflect a Dimophos-sized object, APL Dart impact modeling working group lead Angela Stickle told reporters Monday afternoon, If we had a few years notice. Despite the size difference between Dart and its target, Dart is moving very fast, and, Dr Stickle said, it doesnt take a massive one-time blow to change an asteroids orbit. In space, little pushes can add up to a lot, she said. The push we give it will be enough to change its orbit by 10 minutes. Nasa detects Dimorphos Monday 26 September 2022 23:19 , Jon Kelvey Engineers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory announced at 6.14pm EDT that they have detected the asteroid Dimorphos in the Dart spacecrafts camera for the first time. Dart, which will slam into Dimophos in one hour, has been locked on to the small asteroids large companion, Didymos. Within the next 10 minute, Dart will lock on to Dimorphos, and fly autonomously until the moment of impact. To the naked eye, Dimophos and Didymos still appear as a small white dot on the Nasa feed of the Dart cameras. How to find Dimorphos in the Nasa live feed Monday 26 September 2022 23:28 , Jon Kelvey Nasa is broadcasting the live feed from its Dart spacecrafts navigation cameras online on Nasas media channel and Nasa TV, with a new still image downloading around every second. Clearly visible in the center of the feed is a bright white dot, which is the asteroid Didymos. Dimorphos, the small asteroid moonlet orbiting Didymos, and Darts target, is harder to find. To find Dimorphos, look at the white dot that is Didymos and then find two oclock, if Didymos was a clock face. Dimorphos can be seen very close to Didymos at that point on the clock, but is very, very faint compared to the bright Didymos. We are mostly looking at light from Didymos, Northern Arizona University Planetary Scientist Cristina Thomas told reporters at a Monday afternoon press event at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Dimorphos is only about 4% of the light from the system. Dart has locked on to its target Monday 26 September 2022 23:32 , Jon Kelvey The Dart spacecraft has now locked on to its target, the asteroid Dimorphos, according to Nasa. Dart has been flying autonomously since a little after 3pm. Monday, its SmartNav algorithms using the image Didymos, the larger, bright, companion asteroid of Dimorphos, to guide the spacecrafts flight. As of a few minutes before 6.30pm EDT, less than an hour from the moment Dart will slam into Dimorphos at 14,400 miles per hour, the spacecraft has its target lock. The currently small and faint image of Dimorphos will grow rapidly as Dart nears its final destination, and the space rock may grow to fill the entire camera view in the last few moments before the signal is lost, a sign, in this case, of a critical success for the mission. How big a crater will Dart make in Dimorphos Monday 26 September 2022 23:45 , Jon Kelvey Dart will strike the asteroid Dimorphos at 14,400 miles per hour, which is pretty fast. But its not that fast, according to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Dart impact modeling working group lead Angela Stickle. We are not going that fast in terms of these hypervelocity space impacts, she told reporters Monday. We dont expect Dart to vaporize. The roughly 1,200 pound, golf cart sized Dart, which is flanked by two, school bus sized solar arrays, could make a crater anywhere from four meters to 20 meters wide on Dimorphos, according to Dr Stickle. It really depends on what Dimorphos is made of; the space rock could be anything from a lump of sand to a solid rocky mass. Learning what an actualy asteroid is made of and how it really responds to a mission like Dart is crucial for modeling the effects of a future Dart-like mission to divert an actually threatening asteroid. We can do a lot in a lab on Earth, but there are no materials on Earth that simulate asteroids very well, Dr Stickle said. Nasa is moments away from hitting an asteroid with a spaceship Tuesday 27 September 2022 00:00 , Jon Kelvey If youre just tuning in, Nasa is just minutes away from smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid at more than 4 miles per second. Nasas Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or Dart, will smash into the small asteroid Dimorphos at 7.14pm EDT. Launched in November 2021, Dart is designed to test whether a spacecraft can change the orbit of an asteroid, a technique that could one day save Earth from a threatening space rock. Dimorphos does not now threaten Earth, and will not after geing struck by Dart, which is why Nasa selected the small astertoid for the test. You can watch the impact on NASA TV. Five minute to impact Tuesday 27 September 2022 00:10 , Jon Kelvey Dart is now five minutes from impact with the asteroid Dimorphos, which is now clearly visible in the live feed from the spacecrafts navigation cameras. Dart is 1,100 miles from its terminal destination. Success! Tuesday 27 September 2022 00:22 , Jon Kelvey At 7.14pm ET, Nasa made history by slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid, marking the first time life on Earth has altered the course of a heavenly body. Nasas Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or Dart, slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos at 14,400 miles per hour to test whether the impact can alter the asteroids orbit. A faint grey smudge in the Dart spacecrafts cameras just minutes early, Dimorphos grew to become a huge, greyscale dragons egg, studded with boulders, as the spacecraft drew close in the moments before impact. Nasa slams spacecraft into asteroid in first ever planetary defense mission No Doughnuts Tuesday 27 September 2022 00:57 , Jon Kelvey Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Dart impact modeling working group lead Angela Stickle joined reporters immediately following the impact of the Dart spacecraft to cheer for the successful mission and celebrate the the lack of weird surprises. It was not a doughnut! she cried. Stickle and other engineers had worried early Monday about the possibility that Dimorphos would turn out to be a strange shape that could have allowed Dart to fly through or around the space rock, despite being locked on with its navigation system. Dart mission press conference Tuesday 27 September 2022 00:59 , Jon Kelvey After a successful Dart mission making history by slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid for the first time ever, Nasa and Applied Physics Laboratory officials are holding a post-impact press conference at 8pm EDT available online on Nasa TV. Dart came within 17 meters of a bullseye 01:08 , Jon Kelvey While it will require later analysis of images of the Dart spacecraft impact to know for sure, Applied Physics Laboratory engineers believe Dart hit within 17 meters of the dead center of the asteroid Dimorphos when the spacecraft struck the space rock at 7.14pm EDT Monday. What next? 01:32 , Jon Kelvey As the image of Dimorphos grew from a faint spec, to a grey smudge, and then a real object in the cameras of Nasas Dart mission Applied Physics Laboratory Dart Mission Systems Engineer Elena Adams breathed a sigh of relief. That was the defining moment, Dr Adams told reporters at a post-mission press conference Monday evening. Dr Adams and her colleagues at the APL control room in Laural Maryland were largely able to stand and watch closely as Dart drew near its target, the asteroid Dimorphos, just as members of the public did, the spacecraft having been set to fly autonomously to its terminal destination in the last five minutes of its life. As we were getting close to the asteroid, there was a lot of both terror and joy, because we saw that we were going to impact this asteroid was coming into the field of view of the first time, Dr Adams said. All of us were kind of holding our breath. Now that its over, and successful, shes a little numb, she said. So many years of work are now complete. Dr Adams has been working on the Dart mission for the past seven years. But the mission isnt actually over yet. In the coming days, weeks and months, scientists will begin getting back images and data from telescopes and radar that will help confirm if Dart was successful in moving the orbit of the asteroid it struck. The ultimate conclusion of the mission is actually years away, when the European Space Agency Hera mission visits Dimorphos in 2026 to view the impact creater left behind by Dart, the first ever planetary defense mission. The James Webb Space Telescope is watching Didymos right now 02:21 , Jon Kelvey At 9.08pm EDT, the James Webb Space Telescope Observations Twitter account announced the big space telescope had a new target for the next 12 minutes: Didymos, the large companion asteroid around which Darts target orbits. I am now observing DIDYMOS using NIRCam Imaging for 12 minutes. Keywords: Asteroid. Proposal: https://t.co/CTkUkyFMgV 37:1 JWSTObservations (@JWSTObservation) September 27, 2022 Just less than two hours after Nasas Dart smashed into the small, egg-shaped asteroid Dimorphos at 14,400, the Webb telescope is using its Near-Infrared Camera (Nircam) instrument to survey the system, and may obtain infrared images of the ejecta thrown out from Dimorphos by Darts impact. Thats particularly likely given that the last images from Dart showed that Dimorphos is likely a rubble pile type asteroid, a loose conglomeration of material rather than a big solid rock. If this is actually a rubble pile, that means it is pretty low in strength, and that means you will get a lot of ejecta, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Dart instrument scientist Carolyn Ernst told reporters following the Dart impact. If you could hover over it right now, there could still be ejecta coming out because the gravity of this thing is so low. A cute pile of rubble 02:42 , Jon Kelvey Despite its approaching at 14,400 miles per hour, Nasas Dart spacecraft was able to capture incredibly detailed images of the asteroid Dimorphos before it slammed into the egg-shaped space rock at 7.14pm EDT Monday evening. That moon looked very egg shaped with a bunch of boulders on top like its a pile of rubble, Carolyn Ernst, instrument scientist for Darts navigation camera at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory told reporters Monday night. Its adorable, this little moon. Its so cute. Rubble pile asteroids are not solid rock or metal ore, but are instead loosely consolidated mixtures of other rocks,clay, sand, ice, and other materials. Learning more about what the asteroid Dimorphos was made out of was an important part of the Dart mission, as any the approach taken by any future missions to deflect an asteroid will depend greatly on that asteroids consistency. And Darts cameras didnt just provide exquisite images of the features on Dimorphos they also caught its larger companion Didymos as the spacecraft sped toward its fate. I was a little surprised by the shape of Didymos too ... it was a little more elongated than I thought, Dr Ernst said. As more images become available from other sources, she said, Were going to be able to tell a lot about how the system formed and what it has experienced over time. Those sources include ground based telescopes, the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, and the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, or LiciaCube, a small space craft that piggy backed on Dart until relatively recently in its travels. While images taken from the space telescopes and other instruments may take awhile to reach the public, LiciaCube images could be made public in the next couple of days. Nothing went wrong 03:15 , Jon Kelvey At the end of the day, the Dart mission went exceptionally well, according to the team of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory engineers and scientists that made it possible. This mission was right down the middle of what we expect and we made no adjustments, Mark Jensenius, a guidance and navigation control engineer at the Applied Physics Laboratory, told reporters after the successful Dart impact, Zero. I was actually kind of disappointed, APL Dart Missions Systems Engineer Elena Adams added. We planned for all these contingencies and then we did none of them. The mission control team at APL had practiced 21 contingencies in case something went wrong with the Dart spacecraft, which was almost entirely autonomous in its last hour of flight toward the asteroid Dimorphos. Those contingencies includes how to conserve propellant and come around for another pass if they somehow missed the small asteroid. In the end, they hit it nearly dead center, within about 17 meters of the bullseye. Sleeping well thanks to Dart 03:40 , Jon Kelvey Dart successfully impacted the small asteroid Dimorphos, proving that its possible to build a spacecraft to autonomously target and strike a distant asteroid at high speed. Although it will take longer for scientists to collect more observations and determine how much Dart actually altered the orbit of Dimorphos, the first big challenge, proving the concept of a kinetic impactor, has been met. That means the response to any future threat from a hazardous asteroid or comet can be met with models, planning and a physical response, according to Applied Physics Laboratory Dart Missions Systems Engineer Elena Adams, rather. Humanitys potential response to the kind of threat that once wiped out the dinosaurs is no longer purely theoretical. As far can tell, our first planetary defense test was a success, and I think we can all clap to the that, Dr Adams told reporters at APL in Maryland following the Dart impact, receiving a great applause. I think all earthlings should sleep better I know I will. Dart a real genefit for humanity" 04:30 , Jon Kelvey Nasas Dart mission was a major technical achievement that provided incredible views of a distant asteroid never before seen by human eyes, but it was also humanitys first step toward taking an active role in protecting ourselves, and all other life on planet Earth, from dangerous asteroid or comet strikes. At its core, DART represents an unprecedented success for planetary defense, but it is also a mission of unity with a real benefit for all humanity, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. As NASA studies the cosmos and our home planet, were also working to protect that home, and this international collaboration turned science fiction into science fact, demonstrating one way to protect Earth. While neither the 525-foot diameter Dimorphos, the asteroid Dart successfully struck at 7.14 p.m. EDT Monday, nor its larger, 2,560-foot-diameter companion asteroid Didymos, pose a threat to Earth. But thats what made the system a good laboratory for testing the kinetic impactor technique that could one day divert such asteroids if they were on a collision course with Earth. An asteroid the size of Dimorphos, if it struck the Earth, could generate as a blast releasing energy equivalent to 170 million tons of exploding TNT, according to University of North Dakota assistant professor of Space Studies Sherry Fieber-Beyer, far more than the 50 million tons of energy released by the most powerful thermonuclear bomb ever detonated. But engineers believe that a spacecraft like Dart could successfully divert an asteroid like Dimorphos if it were headed toward Earth, given a few years heads up. Now the data from Dart will help scientists and engineers adjust their models and learn exactly what they might need to do, and how to do it, if a big space rock appears with Earths name on it. Planetary Defense is a globally unifying effort that affects everyone living on Earth, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for Nasas Science Mission Directorate said in a statement. Now we know we can aim a spacecraft with the precision needed to impact even a small body in space. Just a small change in its speed is all we need to make a significant difference in the path an asteroid travels. Dart fly over your Google search results 05:02 , Jon Kelvey Nasas Dart mission made history Monday night, becoming the first spacecraft to ever target and slam into an asteroid in an attempt to change the asteroids trajectory through space. Now, Google has given the groundbreaking spacecraft a tip of the hat, or at least the search result. In the same playful spirit of the Google doodles that have honored scientists, artists, and the late Queen Elizabeth II, Google results currently feature a cameo by the now departed Dart spacecraft. If you type DART mission into a Google search bar, the Dart spacecraft swoops across the screen from the left and knocks your search results temporarily askew. Nasa posts the Dart re-run 05:14 , Jon Kelvey Nasas has shared a short video replay of the Dart missions successful final moments on the social media network Twitter. The space agency posted the short video shortly after its Dart spacecraft smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos at 14,400 miles per hour at 7.14pm EDT Monday evening. Did you catch the #DARTMission stream live or Didymos it? Impact is over, but the research continues. As scientists delve into data and telescopes release images of the asteroid from their POV, follow @AsteroidWatch and @NASASolarSystem for updates. https://t.co/ZNEYDQVA8Y pic.twitter.com/dn2veS6zbG NASA (@NASA) September 27, 2022 In the video, which was assembled from images taken about every second by the Dart spacecrafts navigation camera, Dimorphos is the smaller gray ovoid seen at the center of the field of view. The larger asteroid seen initially to the lower left of Dimorphos as Didymos, the larger companion of Dimorphos, around which the latter orbits as a moonlet. First ground-based images of Dart impact 06:09 , Jon Kelvey The first images of the Dart mission impact of the asteroid Dimorphos are now available thanks to the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or Atlas, a project of Nasa and the University of Hawaii. The Atlas project Twitter account shared a short video Monday night that shows Dimorphos as a bright light moving against a background stars. The Dart spacecrafts impact can be seen as a sudden brightening of the light followed by a whispy cloud that puffs off of the light, which is likely the material ejected from Dimorphos by the impact. ATLAS observations of the DART spacecraft impact at Didymos! pic.twitter.com/26IKwB9VSo ATLAS Project (@fallingstarIfA) September 27, 2022 The Atlas project automatically scans the night sky looking for small asteroids that have been missed by existing surveys. The project uses four ground-based telescopes, two in Hawaii, one in Chile, and another in South Africa, according to the project website. Dart mission could protect Earth against killer asteroids 07:00 , Jon Kelvey Big asteroid impacts are rare, but the geological record shows they do happen. The Chicxulub impact that wiped out the dinosaurs took place around 66 million years ago when an asteroid about 6 miles in diameter crashed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Around 790,000 years ago, a smaller asteroid impact likely wiped out 10% of our human ancestors living in southeast Asia at that time, according to University of North Dakota assistant professor of Space Studies Sherry Fieber-Beyer. But with the success of the Dart mission impact of the small asteroid Dimorphos on Monday evening, contemporary humans have gone a step further than our ancestors could ever have dreamed. By testing the possibility of diverting the trajectory of an asteroid, Nasa and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have shown that unlike the dinosaurs, we neednt be caught unawares and unarmed by asteroid or comet engendered Armageddon. DARTs success provides a significant addition to the essential toolbox we must have to protect Earth from a devastating impact by an asteroid, Nasas Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson said in a statement. This demonstrates we are no longer powerless to prevent this type of natural disaster. Coupled with enhanced capabilities to accelerate finding the remaining hazardous asteroid population by our next Planetary Defense mission, the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, a Dart successor could provide what we need to save the day. Aftermath? 07:42 , Jon Kelvey While the Atlas project has capture the ejecta flung from the asteroid Dimorphos by the impact of Nasas Dart mission, and more images are sure to follow from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, as well as the Italian space agencys Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, or LiciaCube, we may not know for some time just what become of Dart. Nasa and Applied Physics Laboratory engineers say that while Dart was traveling fast at 14,400 miles per hour at the time of impact, that wont be enough to vaporize the spacecraft, and bits and pieces could remain embedded in the crater it made on Dimorphos. And just how big that crater is will depend on the consistency of Dimorphos. In the close up images Dart beamed just before it struck the asteroid, Dimorphos appeared be a loose pile of rubble. That could have allowed Dart to create a fairly large crater of more than 20 meters in diameter. We may have to wait a bit for a full answer: The next large space craft to visit Dimorphos up close and personal isnt scheduled to launch until 2024. That mission, the European Space Agencys Hera, will visit Dimorphos in 2026. By the numbers 08:22 , Jon Kelvey Nasas Dart successfully struck the small asteroid Dimorphos at 7.14pm EDT Monday evening, providing a basic proof of the concept of a kinetic impactor mission to divert hazardous asteroids away from the Earth. The Dart spacecraft weighed about 1,260 pounds. Its not clear the mass of Dimorphos, but the asteroid is about 530 feet in diameter, or about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Dart slammed into Dimorphos asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour. For comparison, a .50 caliber machine gun bullet may travel at around 2,000 miles per hour. Dart traveled for 10 months to reach Dimorphos, striking the asteroid around 6.8 million miles from Earth. Dart flew the final 56,000 miles of its journey entirely on its own controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel Maryland were hands off for the spacecrafts final approach, ready to jump in if something went wrong, but otherwise on their feet, watching the live feed of the rapidly growing face of Dimorphos from Darts camera like everyone else in the world. Virtual Telescope Project also captures Dart impact 09:00 , Jon Kelvey Add to the Atlas Project the Virtual Telescope Project as one of those ground-based astronomy programs that has caught images of the Dart mission impact. A network of robotic telescopes around the world open to professionals and amateurs alike, the Virtual Telescope Project images might be the first images of the Dart impact shared by non-professionals after the project tweeted an image sequence out on Monday evening. We did it! #DARTMission slammed into #Didymos /#Dimorphos sistem and we recorded a hige increase in brightness and a dusty clouds! @nasa pic.twitter.com/SChqcMXji3 Virtual Telescope (@VirtualTelescop) September 27, 2022 SpaceX congratulates Nasa on its success 10:28 , Andrew Griffin SpaceX has congratulated Nasa on the success of the DART mission. Congratulations on successfully crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid! SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 26, 2022 (Nasa is a client of SpaceXs, using its rockets to take astronauts to the International Space Station, among other things.) When will we know whether DART successfully moved its asteroid? 10:45 , Andrew Griffin Nasa did crash into the asteroid. But we might not know for absolutely sure how successful it was until 2026, when it will be visited by another spacecraft. Thankfully, theres some important times and work to be done in between. You can read all about them here. 12:30 , Andrew Griffin A NASA researcher pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges related to hiding ties with the Chinese Communist Party while accepting federal grant money. Zhengdong Cheng, who also worked as a professor at Texas A&M University (TAMU) from 2004 until he was fired after his arrest in August 2020, was originally charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and making false statements. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to new charges of violating NASA regulations and falsifying official documents. As a result, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sentenced Cheng to the time he had already served in his pretrial incarceration, according to the Associated Press. Cheng also agreed to pay $86,876 in restitution and $20,000 in fines. Chengs prosecution was part of the China Initiative, a Trump-era program that sought to counter national security threats such as hacking, trade secret theft and economic espionage associated with China. It was terminated in February following claims that it impeded academic research and fuels anti-Asian hate. More from NextShark: Army vet charged for attacking 7 NYC Asian women had mental issues, wanted to learn Japanese, mother says Cheng was accused of willfully obscuring his affiliations and collaboration with a Chinese university and at least one Chinese-owned company for several years. The terms of his research teams grant which amounted to nearly $750,000 prohibited participation, collaboration or coordination with China, any Chinese-owned company or any Chinese university. In addition to the federal funding, Cheng allegedly reaped other benefits from his affiliation with TAMU and NASA, including access to the International Space Station, where China has been banned since 2011. Once again, we have witnessed the criminal consequences that can arise from undisclosed participation in the Chinese governments talent program, former Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said at the time. Professor Cheng allegedly made false statements to his university and to NASA regarding his affiliations with the Chinese government. The Department of Justice will continue seeking to bring participation in these talent programs to light and to expose the exploitation of our nation and our prized research institutions. Story continues More from NextShark: Weibo starts displaying users IP locations to discourage 'bad behavior' Cheng is relieved that this unfortunate chapter of his life is behind, his lawyer Philip Hilder told AP. Hes a proud, loyal United States citizen and he looks forward to getting back to being a productive member of our society, said Hilder. More from NextShark: 2 men accused of stabbing woman and Queens pizzeria owners who intervened indicted for attempted murder Featured Image via Texas A&M University / NASA Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark! Filipino family attacked at North Hollywood fast food drive-thru by man who called them 'so Asian' ATLANTA (Sept. 26, 2022) The Carter Center expresses solidarity with the people of Iran who are calling for the end to severe restrictions on women in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for a slight violation of Irans strict dress code and died while in custody. The bravery of the thousands of protestors especially the women, who are at particular risk when joining public demonstrations is inspiring. The Carter Center condemns the governments response to the protests, including internet shutdowns and the use of excessive force against demonstrators, which has resulted in dozens of deaths. We call for the reform of oppressive laws and policies that place undue burdens on women and for greater respect for human rights for all. ### Contact: In Atlanta, Soyia Ellison, Soyia.Ellison@CarterCenter.org The Carter Center Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope. A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide. The American space agency's Dart probe has smashed into an asteroid, destroying itself in the process. The collision was intentional and designed to test whether space rocks that might threaten Earth could be nudged safely out of the way. Dart's camera returned an image per second, right up to the moment of impact with the target - a 160m-wide object called Dimorphos. What had been a steady image stream cut out as the probe was obliterated. Dart's navigation system first had to distinguish the smaller rock (Dimorphos) from the larger one (Didymos) Controllers, based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL), erupted with joy as Dimorphos filled the field of view on Dart's camera just before then going blank. Initial calculations suggest the impact was a mere 17m off the exact centre of Dimorphos. It will be some weeks before scientists on the Nasa-led mission know for sure whether their experiment has worked, but Dr Lori Glaze, the director of planetary science at the space agency, was convinced something remarkable had been achieved. "We're embarking on a new era of humankind, an era in which we potentially have the capability to protect ourselves from something like a dangerous hazardous asteroid impact. What an amazing thing; we've never had that capability before," she told reporters. And Dr Elena Adams, a JHU-APL mission systems engineer, said "earthlings should sleep better" knowing they had a planetary defence solution. Dimorphos is probably a loosely consolidated collection of smaller rocks - a "rubble pile" Researchers will determine success, or otherwise, by studying the changes to the orbit of Dimorphos around another asteroid known as Didymos. Telescopes on Earth will make precise measurements of the two-rock, or binary, system. Before the collision, Dimorphos took roughly 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle its 780m-wide partner. This ought to reduce by a few minutes following the crash. Infographic Certainly, on the evidence of the pictures coming back from 11 million km from Earth, everything appeared to go exactly to plan. Story continues The Dart probe, moving at the relative velocity of 22,000km/h, had to first distinguish the smaller rock from the larger one. Onboard navigation software then adjusted the closing trajectory with thruster firings to ensure a head-on collision. Scientists were fascinated to see - albeit briefly - the different shapes of the two asteroids. The last whole frame to come down before the feed from Dart was abruptly lost Didymos, as expected, had a diamond shape. There were boulders on its surface but also some smooth areas. Dr Carolyn Ernst, the instrument scientist on Dart's camera system, was extremely excited to see Dimorphos. "It looks adorable; it's this little moon; it's so cute," she said. "It looks in a lot of ways like some of the other small asteroids we've seen, and they are also covered in boulders. So we suspect it is likely to be a rubble pile, kind of loosely consolidated." Infographic. Dart is an acronym for Double Asteroid Redirection Test. It was designed to do "exactly what is says on the tin", JHU-APL mission lead Dr Andy Rivkin told BBC News. "This technique, called the 'kinetic impactor technique' could be used if there were to be an asteroid that was incoming at some point in the future. It's a very simple idea: you ram the spacecraft into the object you're worried about, and you use the mass and the speed of your spacecraft to slightly change the orbit of that object enough so that it would miss the Earth instead of hitting the Earth." LiciaCube saw a plume of debris enveloping Dimorphos (top). Didymos is the foreground object Dimorphos and Didymos were carefully chosen. Neither was on a path to intersect with Earth before the demonstration, and a small alteration in their orbital relationship will not have increased the risk. But there are rocks out there that could potentially pose a danger to us. Although sky surveys have identified more than 95% of the monster asteroids that could initiate a global extinction were they to collide with Earth (they won't; their paths have been computed and they won't come near our planet), this still leaves many so-far undetected smaller objects that could create havoc, if only on the regional or city scale. Artwork: The Dart mission team is ecstatic at how well the targeting worked out An object of Dimorphos's scale would dig out a crater perhaps 1km across and a couple of hundred metres deep. The damage in the vicinity of the impact would be intense. Hence the desire to see if an asteroid can be nudged into going slightly slower or faster. The change in velocity wouldn't have to be great, especially if done many years in advance of the expected intersection with Earth. "An analogy is if you're wearing a wristwatch and you damage it, and it starts running fast by a little bit," explained Dart mission scientist Dr Nancy Chabot, also from JHU-APL. "You might not notice the error in the first day or two, but after a few weeks you will begin to notice that the watch is just not keeping correct time anymore. It's running fast; it's ahead of where it should be." Graphic: Asteroid populations Dart's image stream may have ended abruptly at impact, but there was a small Italian cubesat following three minutes behind. It was snapping away at the safe distance of 50km. The LiciaCube's data will be beamed back to Earth over the next few days. But even in the first picture returns it was evident that the cubesat caught sight of the plume of debris dug out by Dart. Four years from now, the European Space Agency (Esa) will have three spacecraft - collectively known as the Hera mission - at Didymos and Dimorphos to make follow-up studies. By Crispian Balmer ROME (Reuters) - In 2019, Giorgia Meloni made a speech that came to define her: "I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian, and you can't take that away from me," she told cheering supporters. Fast forward three years, and the nationalist leader is also poised to become Italy's first female prime minister. Provisional results from Sunday's general election showed Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) group topping the polls with almost 26% of the vote, propelling an alliance of right-wing parties to clear majorities in both houses of parliament. At the last general election in 2018, FdI won just 4.3%. As head of the largest single party, Meloni will almost certainly get the nod from the head of state to form a new government and face up to a daunting array of problems, including surging energy prices and war in Ukraine. "When this night is over, we must remember that we are not at the end point, we are at the starting point. It is from tomorrow that we must prove our worth," the 45-year-old Meloni told party faithful early Monday morning. The rapid rise in her fortunes is intricately tied to the transformation of Brothers of Italy, which has moved out of the shadows and into the mainstream without ever fully repudiating its post-fascist roots. Friends and critics alike say the surge in support is largely due to the steely determination of Meloni, who won her first local election at 21 and became Italy's youngest ever minister when, at the age of 31, she was given the youth portfolio in Berlusconi's 2008 government. MUSSOLINI'S SHADOW Her ascent is especially notable considering her humble background in a country where family ties often trump merit. She was brought up by a single mother in a working class district of the Italian capital after her father abandoned them following her birth, and has made no attempt to lose her strong Roman accent. Story continues In her 2021 autobiography, 'I am Giorgia', Meloni says she found a new family aged 15, when she joined a local youth section of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), created in 1946 by supporters of the disgraced fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Hard-working and feisty, she soon caught the eye of party activist Fabio Rampelli, who organised courses to train what he hoped would be a new generation of conservative politicians. "My idea was to imagine a right-wing government, which had nothing to do with the (fascism of the) 1930s," said Rampelli, who is deputy head of the Brothers of Italy in parliament. "Meloni was blonde, blue-eyed, petite, easy-going and witty. She was also very concrete and not ideological. All the characteristics we needed to take the Italian Right to the next level," he told Reuters. FLAMES AND ANGELS The MSI was folded into a new body called National Alliance (AN) in the mid-1990s before merging with a mainstream conservative group created by former prime minister Berlusconi. In her biggest political gamble, Meloni and a contingent of AN veterans left Berlusconi in 2012 and co-founded Brothers of Italy, named after the opening lines of the national anthem. The party maintained the old flame symbol of the original MSI group and Italian media occasionally publish photographs showing fascist memorabilia in the offices of some Brothers of Italy regional politicians. No such relics adorn Meloni's office. Instead there are numerous angel figurines, snaps of her 5-year-old daughter, chess sets, a photograph of Pope John Paul with Mother Teresa, and pots of coloured pens she uses to take meticulous notes. In an interview with Reuters last month, she dismissed any suggestion that her party was nostalgic for the fascist era and distanced herself from comments she had made as a teenager praising Mussolini, an ally of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in World War Two, as a "good politician". "Obviously I have a different opinion now," she said, without elaborating. Meloni compares her party to the U.S. Republican Party and Britain's Conservative Party. Patriotism and traditional family values are exulted, while "woke" political correctness and global elites are excoriated. "Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death," she said in a speech in June to supporters of the Spanish rightist party Vox. "No to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders, no to mass immigration, yes to work for our people, no to major international finance," she continued, speaking in Spanish, her voice raising to a crescendo of red-faced anger. "UNDERESTIMATED" Pollsters say the secret to her success lies in her novelty value in the old-man world of Italian politics and the steadfastness of her uncompromising messaging. Whereas her allies Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi joined forces with the centre-left last year to form a unity government under Mario Draghi, Meloni refused, saying appointing an unelected former central banker was undemocratic. The decision left Brothers of Italy as the sole major party in opposition, giving it a pass on having to defend unpopular decisions taken during the COVID emergency. Meloni has been cautious ahead of the election, urging her allies not to make pledges they cannot keep and promising to be a safe pair of hands managing Italy's fragile public accounts. She has reassured Italy's establishment, touting a strong pro-West message, vowing to boost defence spending and undertaking to stand up to Russia and China. "It will not be the usual 'spaghetti and mandolin' Italy that fails to show up when history beckons," Meloni said. All the tough talking inevitably draws comparisons in the Italian press between Meloni and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Italian leader has played on this, saying one of her main inspirations is the English philosopher Roger Scruton, who provided intellectual vigour to Thatcherism in Britain. Just as Thatcher shattered Britain's glass ceiling to top office 43 years ago, so Meloni looks set to follow suit in Italy. But this is not something she dwells on. She is opposed to diversity quotas to boost female presence in parliament or the boardroom, saying women have to get to the top through merit. However, she says that being a woman has its advantages in macho Italy. "When you are a woman you are often underestimated, but that can help you," she said. (Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Keith Weir) A North Carolina lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court could undermine democracy as we know it, by allowing state legislators to override popular opinion in elections for Congress and possibly even the presidency, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters. That potential result, I think, should keep every American up at night, Holder said in a Q&A session last week. The main focus is on gerrymandering. If North Carolina lawmakers win the case, states would have free rein to draw congressional district maps that artificially inflate the power of whichever political party controls the state legislature. Many states, both blue and red, have done that for decades. But in recent years a growing number of state supreme courts including North Carolinas, earlier this year have started cracking down on partisan gerrymandering. This case seeks to put a stop to that, by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to ban state courts from ruling on anything related to federal elections. In addition to gerrymandering, that could also affect issues like voter ID, felon voting rights or the rules for early voting, mail-in voting and more. The Supreme Court has shot down similar arguments multiple times, in cases dating back over a century. However, earlier this summer the courts most conservative justices agreed they should take another look at it. The court will likely hear the arguments later this year, and then issue a ruling next year, in time for the 2024 elections. The case may go beyond gerrymandering, too. Some are concerned the Supreme Court could hand so much unchecked power to state legislatures that theyd even be able to override their states popular vote in presidential elections and hand their Electoral College votes to whoever the legislature wants to win, regardless of who the people voted for. The stakes are higher now than they were even three, four years ago, given the number of election deniers who are running for state legislative seats, secretaries of state, governors, said Holder, a Democrat who led the U.S. Department of Justice during Barack Obamas presidency. Story continues Legislative leaders, however, deny that theyd get the final say over who gets North Carolinas votes in future presidential races, even if they do win this case. The case, called Moore v. Harper, is about who has the constitutional authority to draw federal election maps and has nothing to do with presidential electors, said Lauren Horsch, a spokeswoman for N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger. Overturning presidential elections? In seven swing states that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, Republicans tried creating fake slates of electors that wouldve given their states votes to Donald Trump instead. All of those attempts failed, and some of those involved are now under investigation. But in 2024 and beyond, Holder said, that strategy could become a real threat if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the North Carolina legislature in this case. State legislatures could, at least theoretically, decide which electors ultimately go to the Electoral College, he said, adding: On the basis of what theyve said about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, you have to genuinely be concerned about what would these people do. The News & Observer has previously reported that experts disagree on this point. Some agree with Holder. Others say legislatures still couldnt directly override the popular vote and reassign their states electoral votes, but that legislatures might have an easier time conducting politically motivated audits that could undo legitimate results. In addition to denying that North Carolina lawmakers are asking for this power from the Supreme Court, Horsch also criticized Democratic leaders for being hypocritical on the topic. If Holder is truly concerned about election deniers gaining power on the right, she said, he should talk to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Cooper is president of the Democratic Governors Association, which this year made the controversial decision to spend millions of dollars backing far-right candidates in GOP primaries under the assumption that theyll be easier for Democrats to beat in a general election than more moderate Republicans. If Eric Holder is concerned about election deniers running for office, then I hope he uses his time in North Carolina to have a conversation with Gov. Cooper and the DGA about their recent decisions to fund candidates they claim are threats to democracy, she said. A local case, with national ramifications While there are differing views on what the case might mean for presidential elections, no one disagrees that a ruling for North Carolina would give states more power to draw maps without state court oversight. The only disagreement there is whether its good or bad. Republicans control most state legislatures nationwide. So a number of national GOP groups are formally supporting the North Carolina case by downplaying the concerns voiced by Democratic politicians, voting rights advocates, election law experts and others. Although the legal issues that (North Carolina lawmakers) raise are rather straightforward, you would not know it from the overblown lamentations spewing from some corners of the legal and political communities, the Republican National Committee wrote in a Supreme Court brief. Locally and nationally, however, advocates are trying to get even more attention on the lawsuit. Bob Phillips, director of Common Cause North Carolina, said court oversight is important. He noted that every election here in the last decade was held using Republican-drawn maps that were later ruled unconstitutional, for either racial or partisan gerrymandering. In a domino effect, those cases ultimately led to a ruling last month from the N.C. Supreme Court that when Republicans held a supermajority at the N.C. General Assembly, it was likely only due to racial gerrymandering. Therefore, the justices wrote in a 4-3 ruling, with every Republican justice dissenting, GOP lawmakers lacked the legitimacy to put constitutional amendments related to voter ID and income taxes on the ballot in 2018. We feel strongly that the state courts should not be taken out of the equation, Phillips said in a media briefing this month. His briefing, as well as Holders, focused mostly on turning the national medias attention toward the North Carolina case. Reporters for outlets like CNN, NBC, CBS and Politico attended. Kathay Feng, who leads Common Causes national redistricting efforts, said its not only Republican-led states that gerrymander their congressional maps. She pointed to New York and Maryland as examples of Democratic gerrymandering. But aside from a notable brief to the court attacking North Carolina lawmakers arguments from the group that represents the chief justices of every state and territory supreme court in the country this case has, in large part, left Democrats and Republicans on opposite sides. The independent state legislative theory, as the North Carolina legislature would have it, would really just undermine our basic system of government, our tripartite system of checks and balances, the notion of separation of power and all the things that a lot of our fundamental democratic principles are founded upon, said voting rights attorney Abha Khanna, a law partner of Democratic lawyer Marc Elias. GOP lawmakers, however, say that theyre not the ones trying to blow up the separation of powers. Instead, they say theyre just trying to take back powers the Founding Fathers intended them to have, but that the judicial branch has wrongfully seized over the years by becoming more involved in deciding election-related lawsuits. The independent state legislature theory is a misnomer to scare voters into donating to these extreme partisan causes, Horsch wrote. Moore v. Harper is predicated on who has the constitutional authority to set election policy seven state Supreme Court justices or 170 state legislators. The U.S. Constitutions Elections Clause is clear that its the state legislatures, but recently state courts have taken it upon themselves to set election policy. And even though the Supreme Court has shot down similar arguments in the past, Republican politicians say things are different now. In one petition to the court, North Carolina lawmakers say it was virtually unheard of until the modern era that state supreme courts ever struck down maps for partisan gerrymandering, which is why the Supreme Court should rule differently now. For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at https://campsite.bio/underthedome or wherever you get your podcasts. The family of Errol Lindsey, one of Jeffrey Dahmers victims, is joining some viewers in critiquing a new Netflix series on the serial killer, "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story," saying the show humanizes the murderer and forces victims' families to relive the traumatic events. Dahmer was a convicted serial killer from Milwaukee who murdered 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. He died in prison in 1994 at the age of 34. Evan Peters plays him in the 10-episode Netflix series created by Ryan Murphy. Rita Isbell, Lindsey's sister, told Insider that Netflix never contacted her about the show, and called the series "harsh and careless." "I feel like Netflix shouldve asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didnt ask me anything. They just did it," Isbell said. "But Im not money hungry, and thats what this show is about, Netflix trying to get paid." TODAY reached out to Netflix for comment regarding Isbell's statements. Isbell added she would understand if Netflix gave some of the money to the victims' families. "If the show benefited them in some way, it wouldnt feel so harsh and careless," she said. "Its sad that theyre just making money off of this tragedy. Thats just greed," Isbell continued. Isbell said she watched the scene in which her victim impact statement she delivered at Dahmer's sentencing in 1992 was recreated, but that she didn't watch the rest of the show. "I dont need to watch it," she said. "I lived it. I know exactly what happened." Eric Perry, who said he is a relative of Lindsey's, also criticized the show in a series of tweets. Im not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge rn, but if youre actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbells) are pissed about this show. Its retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need? https://t.co/CRQjXWAvjx eric. (@ericthulhu) September 22, 2022 "I'm not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge rn, but if youre actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbells) are pissed about this show," he said. "Its retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?" Story continues Dahmer has been the center of other documentaries and fictional works, including the 2017 movie "My Friend Dahmer," about his childhood. Perry added his family found out about the series "when everyone else did," and that no one from the show contacted his family. "My cousins wake up every few months at this point with a bunch of calls and messages and they know theres another Dahmer show," Perry said. "Its cruel." Perry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TODAY, and TODAY could not independently confirm Perrys relation to Lindsey. Some viewers echoed Isbell and Perry's sentiments on social media since the series premiered on Sept. 21, criticizing the dramatization of Dahmer's crimes. Dahmer's later murders involved necrophilia and cannibalism. #DahmerNetflix is out, lets not romanticize Jeffrey Dahmer just because he is played by Evan Peters. Remember the victims. A tread about each victim and who they were. pic.twitter.com/3NAZpG40Dq hot girl jo (@sicssorluv) September 21, 2022 Its bad enough that this revolting @ryanmurphyprod show was made in the first place, but now @netflix is advertising it by dramatizing the violent rape and murder of a 14 year old boy? https://t.co/XLckT4Z57e Sam Donovan (@samueljdonovan) September 24, 2022 as someone who has interest in true crime, this is despicable. movies/docs should never be made about real life killers/victims unless they have explicit permission from the victims families and those families give permission to everything thats included. and one is enough. nic (@meltieshouse) September 22, 2022 I'm nearly done with the Jeffrey Dahmer doc on Netflix and I just need to know why they continue to humanise and even victimise these murderers, every single time??? cindy (@hotdemoncorpse) September 22, 2022 Others criticized the amount of true crime content in general, specifically regarding Dahmer, as dozens of television, film and podcast series have recounted Dahmer's vicious methods of killing, which included dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism. True crime media is a huge business and thrives off the pain and re-traumatization of victims and their families. I encourage everyone to consider these real human beings when you choose your entertainment and ask yourself how you'd feel if you were in the same situation. https://t.co/0CC17cWKgH StrawberryShortK8 (@shortk8ttv) September 23, 2022 wait?? why Netflix remade a documentary over Jeffrey Dahmer as if theres not already 3 previous documentaries over it? Capitalism is sick and this really disturbing to the victims dn (@hotdogbiscuits) September 26, 2022 Netflix also faced backlash on social media last week when viewers saw the series was tagged as "LGBTQ" on the streaming platform. Evan Peters, who plays Dahmer in the series, said in a video that while creating the show, they didn't want the audience to sympathize with the killer. The series shows the multiple failures that took place "We had one rule going into this from Ryan (Murphy), that it would never be told from Dahmers point of view," Peters said. "Its called 'The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,' but its not just him and his backstory: Its the repercussions, its how society and our system failed to stop him multiple times because of racism, homophobia. Its just a tragic story." Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TODAY. This article was originally published on TODAY.com The death of a woman found in a car in the parking lot of a Modesto church on Saturday afternoon is not a homicide, a Modesto Police Department spokesman said Sunday. It is classified as a death investigation at this point and will stay as such unless an autopsy says otherwise, Sgt. Kalani Souza said in a text message to The Bee on Sunday afternoon after the Police Department posted about the case on social media. The woman has not been positively identified, the Stanislaus County Coroners Office said Monday. But the Modesto Police Department post states that all indications are likely she is the missing person reported to the Ceres Police Department on Friday. That missing woman is 39-year-old Erika Lopez, and she is the person found in her car, according to her family. Ceres police Sgt. Keith Griebel said Lopezs family reported her missing at 11:06 p.m. Friday. We were actively investigating it, he said. We ran down every possible lead we could to find her, all the way up until Modesto informed us she had been found. Ceres police continue to work with Modesto police on the investigation, Griebel said. Until that is done, he said, he cannot release information about what efforts were made to find Lopez or what information was reported by her family. Lopezs daughter, Yaresli Lopez, identified on social media a man she says was threatening her mother and is the main reason she was missing. But the news release from Modesto police says, There is currently no one wanted or being sought by Detectives as part of this investigation. The release says the woman was found unresponsive and later was pronounced dead at the scene. It also says investigators are awaiting the results of an autopsy. This photo is posted on the gofundme.com page In The Loving Memory of Erika Lopez, set up to help the family of Erika Lopez. In an Instagram post Saturday, Yaresli Lopez of Ceres wrote that her mother called her Friday at 7:46 p.m. to say she would arrive home in about 30 minutes. Two hours passed and my mother never came home, the post reads. Me and my dad went all throughout I-5 looking for her but there was no sign. Story continues Saturday about 3 p.m., Modesto police responded to a report of a possibly deceased person in a car on the 1200 block of Maze Boulevard. The area around a black Honda sedan sitting in the St. Stanislaus Catholic Church parking lot was taped off, and a police watch commander confirmed a person had been found dead inside the car. The car matches the description of Erika Lopezs, and though the name of the person found has not been released by authorities, Yaresli Lopez told The Bee by text, It is my mother. Modesto Police investigate a possible death in the parking lot of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church on Maze Boulevard in Modesto, Calif., on Saturday, September 24, 2022. A gofundme page, titled In The Loving Memory of Erika Lopez, has been set up to help the Lopez family with funeral and other expenses. The creator of the page, Yeileen Espinoza, identifies herself as a family member and writes that relatives took it upon themselves to search for her where Erikas phone was last at and sadly her vehicle was found at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Modesto, CA where her body was also found. On the fundraising page, Espinoza calls Lopez an amazing, kind, and caring human being. She was someones daughter, sister, mother, cousin, friend, and more. She meant a great amount to a lot of different people. ... Generally, when a single insider buys stock, it is usually not a big deal. However, when several insiders are buying, like in the case of Nexus Industrial REIT (TSE:NXR.UN), it sends a favourable message to the company's shareholders. Although we don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions, logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. See our latest analysis for Nexus Industrial REIT Nexus Industrial REIT Insider Transactions Over The Last Year While there weren't any large insider transactions in the last twelve months, it's still worth looking at the trading. While Nexus Industrial REIT insiders bought shares during the last year, they didn't sell. The average buy price was around CA$10.57. I'd consider this a positive as it suggests insiders see value at around the current price, which is CA$8.84. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below! There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Nexus Industrial REIT Insiders Bought Stock Recently Over the last three months, we've seen a bit of insider buying at Nexus Industrial REIT. CEO & Trustee Kelly Hanczyk shelled out CA$30k for shares in that time. It's good to see the insider buying, as well as the lack of recent sellers. But the amount invested in the last three months isn't enough for us too put much weight on it, as a single factor. Insider Ownership Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Based on our data, Nexus Industrial REIT insiders have about 0.8% of the stock, worth approximately CA$5.4m. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. We consider this fairly low insider ownership. Story continues So What Do The Nexus Industrial REIT Insider Transactions Indicate? Insider purchases may have been minimal, in the last three months, but there was no selling at all. The net investment is not enough to encourage us much. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. We'd like to see bigger individual holdings. However, we don't see anything to make us think Nexus Industrial REIT insiders are doubting the company. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. When we did our research, we found 4 warning signs for Nexus Industrial REIT (2 are a bit concerning!) that we believe deserve your full attention. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions. 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. Join A Paid User Research Session Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here It is usually uneventful when a single insider buys stock. However, When quite a few insiders buy shares, as it happened in Zinc of Ireland NL's (ASX:ZMI) case, it's fantastic news for shareholders. Although we don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions, we do think it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. See our latest analysis for Zinc of Ireland Zinc of Ireland Insider Transactions Over The Last Year The Non-Executive Director Thomas Corr made the biggest insider purchase in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for AU$100k worth of shares at a price of AU$0.05 each. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at above the current price of AU$0.036. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. To us, it's very important to consider the price insiders pay for shares. It is generally more encouraging if they paid above the current price, as it suggests they saw value, even at higher levels. Zinc of Ireland insiders may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn't sell any. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date! Zinc of Ireland is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Insider Ownership Of Zinc of Ireland I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Our data indicates that Zinc of Ireland insiders own about AU$826k worth of shares (which is 11% of the company). We do note, however, it is possible insiders have an indirect interest through a private company or other corporate structure. Whilst better than nothing, we're not overly impressed by these holdings. Story continues What Might The Insider Transactions At Zinc of Ireland Tell Us? It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded Zinc of Ireland shares in the last quarter. But insiders have shown more of an appetite for the stock, over the last year. We'd like to see bigger individual holdings. However, we don't see anything to make us think Zinc of Ireland insiders are doubting the company. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Zinc of Ireland. Be aware that Zinc of Ireland is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 2 of those can't be ignored... Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions. 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. Join A Paid User Research Session Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here A New York City smoke shop worker was reportedly shot while confronting robbery suspects. The three suspects reportedly barged into the Orchard Smoke Shop located on Orchard Street near East Houston Street on Manhattans Lower East Side just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday and made off with an estimated $12,000 worth of merchandise and $300 in cash, the New York Post reported, citing police. A 35-year-old worker then came outside and confronted the trio. An NYPD spokesperson told Fox News that police responded at approximately 10:37 p.m. to a 911 call of a male shot in front of 186 Orchard Street, within the confines of the 7 Precinct. NYC SKI MASK-WEARING ASSASSINS GUN DOWN 17-YEAR-OLD IN BROAD DAYLIGHT DEADLY SHOOTING: POLICE Upon arrival, officers observed a 35-year-old male with gunshot wounds to the torso and an arm. EMS responded to the location and transported the victim to NYC Health & Hospitals/Bellevue in stable condition. "Further investigation revealed three unknown male individuals entered the establishment, ordered the victim to the back of the store, removed approximately undetermined amount in merchandise and $300 cash, before attempting to flee the establishment," the spokesperson said. "The victim further engaged the males outside the establishment prior to their fleeing and was subsequently shot. The males fled the location in an unknown direction inside of a black sedan. There are no arrests, and the investigation remains ongoing." A high-ranking member of the far-right Oath Keepers organization who has been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol exchanged messages in November 2020 with former Trump White House aide Andrew Giuliani about election issues, NBC News has learned. That same Oath Keeper member, Kellye SoRelle, also tried to text a White House number on Dec. 20, according to a new book from Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman from Virginia, and journalist Hunter Walker. That text message went to a White House switchboard line, so it could not be delivered. Riggleman, who lost renomination for his congressional seat after expressing opposition to then-President Donald Trump in 2020, joined the Jan. 6 committee after leaving office. He served as a staffer for the committee from August 2021 to April. Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, left, and Kellye SoRelle, in sunglasses, at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (via 4minutereport.com) Riggleman told NBC News that he had divulged details of the text messages in his book so that reporters would follow up on some of the crucial evidence that had not been made public. NBC News has seen a copy of the book, which will be published Tuesday. SoRelle, who was also a volunteer for Lawyers for Trump, a coalition of lawyers that was put together ahead of the 2020 election, told NBC News that she was in touch with Giuliani, who was a White House public liaison assistant during the Trump administration. He is also the son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was previously a lawyer for Trump. SoRelle said she only recalled being in touch with Andrew Giuliani in November 2020 but said that she could not check because the FBI seized her phone in September 2021. She also confirmed her December attempt to text a White House contact. Image: Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor, speaks to reporters in New York on May 18, 2021. (Lev Radin / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Andrew Giuliani, who subsequently ran an unsuccessful campaign for New York governor, was on leave from the White House to work on elections issues in late 2020 before departing the government on Jan. 20, 2021, when Joe Biden was sworn in as president. Andrew Giuliani told NBC News that the last contact with SoRelle on his phone was on Nov. 10, 2020. Story continues Until you mentioned her, until I looked it up, it didnt really ring a bell, Giuliani said. He declined to comment on whether the Jan. 6 committee had asked him about his contact with SoRelle. The revelation of the text messages adds to a growing web of links between people close to former President Donald Trump and his advisers and fringe groups charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and several other members are set to go on trial this week in a seditious conspiracy case that is anticipated to last six weeks. SoRelle said that the text messages were focused on election fraud and did not touch on Jan. 6. None of that was like Hey, we should go storm the Capitol, SoRelle told NBC News. It was like We have this affidavit, or whatever. SoRelle, who was on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol with Rhodes on Jan. 6, was recently charged with four counts in connection with the Capitol attack: conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of justice, and misdemeanor entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. SoRelle pleaded not guilty to all charges at her arraignment earlier this month. SoRelles attempted text message to the White House switchboard on Dec. 20 came in between two open letters the Oath Keepers wrote for Trump: a Dec. 14, 2020, letter that said millions of Americans were ready to answer your call if he invoked the Insurrection Act, and a Dec. 23, 2020, letter that said there would be supporters with mission critical gear stationed outside of D.C. and ready to respond if Trump called upon the militia for assistance. Federal prosecutors have charged that the Oath Keepers set up quick reaction forces or QRFs with guns outside of D.C. Several Oath Keepers have already pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, one of whom told a judge that he was in a hotel room with Rhodes on the night of Jan. 6 as Rhodes, while on the phone with a Trump intermediary, requested to speak with Trump and implored the person on the phone to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose a transfer of power. SoRelle previously told NBC News that Rhodes had asked for her contacts close to Trump in the lead-up to Jan. 6, but that she declined. SoRelle has said she would not testify at the Oath Keeper trial because, she said, You dont give the DOJ free shots at your ass. Riggleman told NBC News, I wish I could say I was surprised by the links between Giuliani and the Oath Keepers leader. The phone data my team compiled makes clear the militant aspect of the Capitol attack and high-level associates of the former president were inextricably linked together, Riggleman said. It is so important for the American people to be aware of the direct links between the Trump White House and militant groups including this newfound connection between Kellye Sorelle and a former White House aide. A representative for the Jan. 6 committee declined to comment on the connection between Giuliani and SoRelle. The panel will hold its next public hearing on Wednesday, the second day of jury selection in the Oath Keeper's trial. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Trial is set to kick off Tuesday against five members of Oath Keepers, including the far-right militia groups leader, as they face the most serious charges to come out of the Capitol riot yet. Theyre accused of a rare crime, seditious conspiracy against the United States, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars. The government hasnt won a conviction on a sedition charge since 1995, when Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others were found guilty of conspiring to bomb New York landmarks. According to prosecutors, the Oath Keepers were preparing for some seriously deadly violence to take place on Jan. 6, 2021. They dressed the part of modern revolutionary soldiers ready to fight back against oppression although, in reality, what they were opposing was the will of the American people, who had turned out to democratically elect Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020. The groups path to the Capitol grounds was over a decade in the making. Who are the Oath Keepers? In short, the Oath Keepers are an anti-government militia group with local chapters. It was founded by Elmer Stewart Rhodes. Heres how prosecutors describe it in court filings: [They are] a large but loosely organized collection of individuals, some of whom are associated with militias. Some members of the Oath Keepers believe that the federal government has been coopted by a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights. Though the Oath Keepers will accept anyone as members, they explicitly focus on recruiting current and former military, law enforcement, and first-responder personnel. Their name alludes to the sworn oath that members of the military take to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The group envisions a day where they will refuse to obey unconstitutional orders out of a sense of duty and patriotism. Such orders could include a federal assault weapons ban, which Rhodes has long pledged to resist. Story continues The group appears to have been successful in recruiting active law enforcement. Earlier this year the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism said its ranks included some 370 people believed to currently work in law enforcement, including sheriffs and other top brass. A senior figure in the Oath Keepers bragged to a reporter last year about how many active-duty law enforcement personnel they had. Who is Elmer Stewart Rhodes? Stewart Rhodes, pictured on Feb. 28, 2021, in Fort Worth, Texas, is the founder of the Oath Keepers. (Photo: Aaron C. Davis/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Stewart Rhodes, pictured on Feb. 28, 2021, in Fort Worth, Texas, is the founder of the Oath Keepers. (Photo: Aaron C. Davis/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Rhodes, 57, is a Yale Law graduate who worked on Ron Pauls 2008 presidential campaign. He saw an opportunity to direct the energy of Pauls Libertarian supporters into something new, and he founded the Oath Keepers after the election of Americas first Black president. Members appeared to be afraid of what action Barack Obama might take to curb the nations gun violence problem. The group officially launched in April 2009 with a rally in Lexington, Massachusetts, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, but Rhodes largely ran it out of Las Vegas, where he had family. Three of Rhodes six children spoke disparagingly about their father to the Southern Poverty Law Centers Hatewatch site. The children were all home-schooled, one daughter said, but the only history their father ever wanted to discuss with them was the American Revolution. They described him as a manipulative and abusive man who did not provide well for his family, as he focused all of his energies on the Oath Keepers. Dakota Rhodes, Stewart Rhodes son, wrote in a lengthy essay that he started to become disillusioned with the group in the later days of the Trump administration. What have they been up to in the past? Since their inception, the Oath Keepers have been part of the far-right extremism movement that has festered in the last two decades as federal authorities focused much of their resources on combating foreign terrorism. In 2014, Rhodes and the group played a role in the standoff between federal authorities and anti-government protesters at Cliven Bundys Nevada ranch. They did not cover themselves in glory. Rhodes estranged wife, Tasha Adams, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Rhodes went into a depression afterward because of the backlash the group had received for its actions on the ground. The Oath Keepers had taken seriously a rumor that the U.S. Department of Defense was about to launch a drone attack on the Bundy ranch, where a collection of heavily armed men had shown up to support the Bundys in their refusal to comply with a land management order from the federal government. The Oath Keepers fled. Then they were mocked. What are they accused of now? Rhodes is going to trial alongside four fellow Oath Keepers: Jessica Watkins, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell. Prosecutors say that the five conspired to amass high-powered weapons in order to be ready to engage in potentially deadly violence on Jan. 6, 2021 the date that Trump was holding a rally to oppose Congress official certification of the 2020 presidential election results. In late December 2020, Rhodes posted an open letter to the Oath Keepers website stating that tens of thousands of patriot Americans, both veterans and non-veterans, will already be in Washington D.C. for the rally and many of us will have our mission-critical gear stowed nearby just outside D.C. Watkins also allegedly expressed a belief that more violence was to come after Jan. 6, telling an ally that Oath Keepers were working on a bugout plan if the usurper her name for Biden was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2021. Lawyers for the defendants say they were just there on the day of the rally to provide security and protect Trump supporters from antifa. Yet evidence from the prosecution shows several of the defendants were part of the crowd that breached the Capitol. There is no evidence that Rhodes entered the Capitol, and he has consistently denied having gone inside. Instead, Rhodes allegedly walked to the nearby Phoenix Park Hotel to call a contact in the White House. He allegedly implored the contact to put him in touch with Trump because he wanted the president to invoke the Insurrection Act. I just want to fight, Rhodes said after the call, according to court filings. Prosecutors say Rhodes spent thousands on ammunition and supplies before the rally, while others allegedly came to Washington with 30 days worth of essential supplies. Rhodes was also undeterred in the immediate aftermath of the riot, according to prosecutors, who say he spent thousands more on guns and supplies in the two weeks leading up to Bidens inauguration. The biggest questions surrounding the trial include how far the Oath Keepers went to plan their actions and who, if anyone, they coordinated with in Trumps inner circle. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Photo: The Canadian Press Pfizer asked U.S. regulators Monday to expand use of its updated COVID-19 booster shot to children ages 5 to 11. Elementary school-aged children already received kid-sized doses of Pfizers original vaccine, a third of the dose given to everyone 12 and older -- two primary shots plus a booster. If the Food and Drug Administration agrees, they would start getting a kid-sized dose of the new omicron-targeted formula when it was time for their booster. FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said last week he expected a decision on boosters for that age group soon. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech also announced a new study of the omicron-focused booster in even younger children, those ages 6 months through 4 years, to test different doses. Updated boosters made by both Pfizer and rival Moderna rolled out earlier this month for everyone 12 and older. Theyre a tweak to vaccines that already have saved millions of lives -- a combination or bivalent shot that contains half the original recipe and half protection against the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron relatives responsible for most of todays COVID-19 cases. The hope is that the modified boosters will help tamp down continuing COVID-19 cases and blunt another winter surge. As of last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 4.4 million Americans had gotten an updated booster so far. A clip of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was shown to a Congressional committee investigating the January 6th attack Members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, are on trial in one of the most high-profile cases stemming from the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The group's leader, Stewart Rhodes, is charged, along with four others, with seditious conspiracy - plotting to oppose the transfer of presidential power. All have pleaded not guilty. Here's what you need to know about the case. Who are the Oath Keepers? A pro-gun, anti-government group launched in 2009, the Oath Keepers began with a rally in Lexington, Massachusetts - site of one of the first battles in the Revolutionary War. Its founder, Mr Rhodes, is a former US Army paratrooper who studied at Yale Law School and was once an aide to libertarian Republican congressman Ron Paul of Texas. The group is named after the oath of service that police, military and other officials take. Those taking the military oath, for instance, pledge to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". The Oath Keepers focus recruitment on people with military and law enforcement experience, along with other frontline "first responders". What did the Oath Keepers do on 6 January 2021? Prosecutors say Mr Rhodes began a campaign to reject the results of the November 2020 presidential election two days after the vote, while ballots were still being counted. On 5 November, the Oath Keepers' leader told supporters on Signal, a private messaging app: "We aren't getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit." Mr Biden was declared the winner of the election on 7 November, following days of vote-counting. According to a federal indictment, Mr Rhodes and others bought thousands of dollars of weapons and gear over the next two months, made plans to stash guns, and organised members into military-style units. Members of the Oath Keepers at last year's Capitol riots On 6 January 2021, a mix of groups - along with hundreds of individuals apparently unconnected to any organisation - assembled outside the Capitol after then-President Donald Trump held a rally nearby. Story continues Those who gathered included Oath Keepers, members of the all-male far-right Proud Boys, militia groups such as the Three Percenters, and believers in QAnon, a conspiracy theory. In the months since the violence, evidence has emerged of prior planning and potential co-ordination between groups. For instance, footage shot by documentary maker Nick Quested shows Mr Rhodes meeting Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, on the evening of 5 January 2021. There's no evidence that Mr Rhodes himself entered the Capitol on the day of the attack, but prosecutors say that other members of Oath Keepers did. What is seditious conspiracy? In total, more than 870 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, according to Department of Justice figures. The case against the Oath Keepers group is notable because it includes some of the most serious charges to date. Seditious conspiracy is a crime involving a plot to attack or overthrow the state, but which stops short of treason - waging war against the government. Mr Rhodes and others are accused of continuing to plot after the riot. On the evening of 6 January he sent another message: "Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what's coming." "This is certainly one of the biggest trials to date for the Department of Justice in their [6 January] prosecutions," said Jon Lewis, research fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism. The trial could also show how the group has splintered since the Capitol riot. Three Oath Keepers have already pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and could be called as witnesses at the trial. Which Oath Keepers are on trial? If convicted, the five could face up to 20 years in prison. On trial alongside Mr Rhodes are: Thomas Caldwell, a former Navy officer from Virginia who once worked for the FBI. Mr Caldwell allegedly helped prepare Oath Keepers teams to rapidly transport weapons from outside of Washington - which has relatively strict gun laws - to the Capitol. Prosecutors say he kept a "death list", which included the name of an elections official in Georgia. Kelly Meggs, head of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers. He and other Oath Keepers allegedly marched up the east steps of the Capitol and stormed a set of doors. Other legal filings alleged that Mr Meggs boasted on Facebook messages about creating an alliance with Proud Boys and Three Percent militia members. Kenneth Harrelson, also from Florida, allegedly roamed the House of Representatives chamber searching for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but did not find her. Jessica Watkins, an Afghanistan war veteran from Ohio. The indictment says she charged into the Capitol and encouraged people to push against a line of police officers guarding the Senate chamber. During the riot, Ms Watkins messaged other Oath Keepers, telling them that 30-40 members were "sticking together and sticking to the plan". In total, at least 20 Oath Keepers members have been charged with a variety of crimes, and Mr Tarrio and other Proud Boys members will stand trial on seditious conspiracy charges in December. MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 06:55 Russian forces used drones to stage an attack on Odesa Oblast: a military infrastructure has been struck twice, causing a large fire as a result of the detonation of ammunition. Source: Serhii Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odesa Military Administration, on Telegram Quote from Bratchuk: "Overnight the enemy once again attacked Odesa Oblast. Anti-aircraft defence forces destroyed one of the drones. Another two [drones] hit a military infrastructure target. Civilians are being evacuated as a result of a large fire and the detonating of ammunition." Details: Operational Command Pivden (South) said that early reports indicate there are no casualties. At the time of Bratchuks writing, the fire is still being extinguished. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Nearly 100 OG&E crew members are traveling to Florida to assist with Hurricane Ian. Ian, which is forecasted to hit Cuba on Monday, is expected to be a Category 4 storm when it strikes Floridas Gulf Coast later this week. Crew members left from Shawnee Monday morning and will stop overnight in Jackson, Mississippi before traveling to Tampa on Tuesday. Theyll be helping Tampa Electric when they arrive. OG&E will send more crews if needed. Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Courtesy: OG&E Sep. 26Forty-seven members of Ohio Task Force 1 left their Vandalia warehouse Saturday ahead of the incoming Hurricane Ian. The search and rescue team left by 3:30 p.m. in a convoy of 14 semis, trucks, buses, boats and trailers, according to a press release from OH-TF1s Facebook page. OH-TF1 arrived in Athens, Tennessee and by 8 a.m. Sunday, the team was back on the road with a new destination in Alabama, according to their press release update. "The situation remains fluid and the team remains flexible," the Facebook post read. Hurricane Ian is predicted to hit the Tampa Bay and possibly Miami and the southern tip of Florida Wednesday, according to a report from the Associated Press. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency Friday for the Florida Keys and other counties on the peninsula. On Saturday, he updated it to include the entire state. President Joe Biden also declared an emergency in the state and authorized the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts. A surge of up to 8 feet of ocean water and 10 inches of rain is predicted to hit the Tampa area, AP reported. Ohio Task Force 1 was activated Saturday as a Type III team with Virginia Task Force 1 and Virginia Task Force 2 for the incoming storm that increased in strength. "Everyone is healthy, in good spirits, and ready to do good work for the impacted area," Task Force Leader Jack Reall said. ABC News Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a member of Republican leadership in the upper chamber, said Sunday that he does not "condone violence" after Donald Trump lashed out at Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and suggested McConnell had a "death wish"-- but Scott stopped short of condemning the former president. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social website last week, wrote that McConnell must have a "death wish" after supporting a continuing resolution to fund the federal government. Trump went on to criticize McConnell's wife in racist terms, writing that he should "seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!" Trump was referring to Elaine Chao, who is Taiwanese. Oprah Winfrey on stage at the 74th Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Sept. 12. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Oprah Winfrey and Apple TV+ are ending their multiyear content deal, three years after the tech giant launched its subscription streaming service, sources familiar with the matter said. The partnership, announced in 2018, created original programs for Apple TV+. At the time, the deal was considered an important step toward showing Hollywood the A-list talent that Apple TV+ could attract and the iPhone maker's ambitions in streaming. Representatives of Apple and Winfrey declined to comment on the matter, which was confirmed by sources close to the companies who were not authorized to comment. The change comes as streaming companies are reevaluating what types of content best connect with consumers. Other companies, including Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, have made changes to their staffing as they look to cut costs. Winfrey helped put Apple TV+ on the map when it was a relative newcomer to the streaming space. Unlike competitors like Netflix, Apple did not have a deep library of content at launch. "Apple wanted to announce it had arrived and it was a force to be reckoned with," said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "Signing up Oprah was a pretty strong message." Now that Apple is more established, the streamer has less need for such a high-profile nonexclusive deal, Thompson said. What's more, Thompson noted, while Winfrey has brought content to Apple TV+, some of her most talked about work wasn't on the streaming platform. For example, her interview with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, was on CBS. Apple TV+ has evolved since the deal was announced, winning Emmys for its critically acclaimed programs such as comedy "Ted Lasso" and becoming the first streamer to win an Academy Award for best picture with the drama "CODA." Winfrey's most recent project with the streamer was a documentary on the life of Sidney Poitier called "Sidney" that launched Friday on Apple TV+. Story continues The Apple platform allowed me to do what I do in a new way, Winfrey said at an Apple press event in 2019. Theyre a company that reimagined how we communicate [theyre] in a billion pockets, yall. That represents a major opportunity to make a genuine impact. Apple and Winfrey will continue to work together on a project-by-project basis, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment. The news was first reported by Puck. Apple TV+, which charges $4.99 a month, has roughly 40 million paid subscribers, according to estimates from Wedbush Securities. Staff writer Yvonne Villarreal contributed to this report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. A screenshot appearing to show a report by Pakistan's oldest English-language newspaper Dawn attributing devastating floods to people "not reading the Koran" is circulating online, prompting Indian social media users to mock their Pakistani neighbours. However, the image was doctored and does not show a genuine article. The screenshot apparently showing an article by Dawn was posted on Facebook on September 1. It features the headline: "Flood in Pakistan is not due to Climate Change, but because people are not reading Quran". The article was purportedly written by Dawn journalists Saleem Shahid, Manzoor Ali and Iftikhar A. Khan and published on August 27. The post mocks the newspaper and its Pakistani readers. "It's also shameful for the Indian Muslims who rate Pakistan ahead of India," it adds. The two South Asian neighbours have been locked in a bitter rivalry since Partition in 1947 divided the two countries and sectarian bloodshed killed possibly more than one million people. A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post taken on September 23, 2022 The same screenshot was published here on Facebook and here, here and here on Twitter. The purported Dawn article spread after a third of Pakistan -- an area the size of Britain -- was battered by unprecedented floods, killing nearly 1,600 people and displacing more than seven million. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned that his country's worst-ever floods were a sign of climate catastrophes to come around the world during an address at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23. He also urged justice for developing nations that bear little responsibility for warming. The screenshot appearing to show the Dawn article has been doctored. The newspaper debunked the "fabricated headline", brandishing it as an attempt to "mislead (the) public". Screenshot of a Dawn report debunking the fake article, taken on September 26, 2022 The screenshot was doctored from a report published on August 27 by Saleem Shahid, Manzoor Ali and Iftikhar A. Khan with the headline: "Army called in as KP faces flood threat." Story continues KP is an abbreviation referring to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a northwestern Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan. "The fabricated headline shown in the doctored screenshot neither appears in the actual story nor anywhere else on the website," the newspaper said. "It has been shared multiple times on Twitter and Facebook, mostly by accounts identifying themselves as Indian users." AFP ran a keyword search on Dawn's website for reports from August 27 by the journalists mentioned and found the article about the army's intervention in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. AFP has previously debunked a string of false claims about the floods in Pakistan, including here and here. (Bloomberg) -- Pakistans rupee closed its best day in six weeks after reports that Ishaq Dar, known for his preference for a stronger currency, will be returning as finance minister. Most Read from Bloomberg The rupee gained 1.1% to 237.02 a dollar at close, strengthening as emerging-market peers continue to be pummeled by a strong dollar. The nations benchmark stock index gained 1.3%, the most in almost a month too. Dar confirmed the appointment speaking to reporters in a televised comments in London late Monday. He will replace Miftah Ismail who was appointed in April. Dar, an accountant by profession, had led the finance ministry three times in the past. During his last stint as finance chief from 2013 to 2017, he managed to keep the rupee stable. It was the most stable currency in Asia between 2014 to 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. My aim will be to break contraction in the economy and change its direction, said Dar. Pakistan economy that was already slowing down had seen a further cut in its growth forecast for the current fiscal year to 2.3% earlier this month following the floods from 5% in June. Dar wants to change the course to high growth, low interest rate and a stable rupee, he said. Dar is known to keep a close watch on rupee depreciation and had earlier hinted at strict action against speculators to strengthen the currency, said Faisal Bilwani, head of international sales at Alfalah CLSA Securities Pvt. Pakistan has already sought to clamp down on currency speculation after the rupee plunged even after the nation secured $1.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund to avert a default. Story continues Earlier this month, eight banks were investigated for quoting very high rates on some currency transactions. The rupee has declined by 35% this year. It will be interesting how Dars anticipated approach in managing the rupee will be perceived by the IMF that supports a flexible, market-determined currency. Pakistans financial woes worsened after the catastrophic flooding estimated to cost $30 billion in losses, prompting the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to issue an urgent appeal for debt relief last week. (Updates with Dar comments throughout the story) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Patrick Janelle always dreamed of living in a downtown Manhattan loft. The lifestyle influencer, who also runs the talent agency Untitled Secret, fantasized about an airy and industrial home as he spent the past decade climbing the rungs of the New York City housing ladder. So when he grew out of his most recent abode, a compact yet curated SoHo apartment, he knew it was time to actualize his goal. Im very romantic in my ideals about how I envision things for myself and my life in New York, Patrick shares. Ive always made a point that I wanted to be in Manhattanas cool as I think Brooklyn isand I never have had this quintessential loft moment. Since Patrick couldnt afford to buy the type of spacious loft hed been lusting after, he focused his hunt on rentals that would allow him to renovate. After a handful of viewings, he found exactly what he was looking for: a generous three-bedroom in an early 20th-century factory building with a very lenient landlord. He adored the prime Flatiron location too. In another stroke of good luck, the broker agreed to demolish a dividing wall, giving Patrick a head start on the remodel. By the time he moved in, the place boasted a palatial living-dining-kitchen space, a single cozy bedroom, and an office for the Untitled Secret teama main requirement in his search. Patrick was also charmed by architectural details: 10-foot-tall tin ceilings, elaborate moldings, and massive windows, one of which has French doors that open up to the patio-like fire escape. Even though the middle of the apartment gets kind of dark, there is nice natural light on both sides, [which] is a wonderful feature, he reflects. Though the existing hardwood floors werent historic, they were still worth preserving. Patrick sanded off the dated dark varnish and sealed the newly-exposed natural timber with a Bona Traffic HD matte finish. He replaced the old tile in the kitchen and bathroom with fresh oak planks to match. Story continues When it came to choosing an aesthetic for the overhaul, Patrick first consulted Lyndsay Caleo and Holly Waterfield from The Brooklyn Home Company. The duo suggested he follow his instincts in channeling a diverse blend of influences. He mixed elements of a SoHo artists loft, a Parisian pied-a-terre, and a rustic Upstate farmhouse to create a look thats uniquely his own. Im not one to adhere to a certain design sensibility, Patrick admits. If theres any through line, its just my really personal eclectic style. Its a little bit of a mishmash. To achieve this idiosyncratic vibe, Patrick opted for a neutral palette infused with tons of black accents. He painted the walls with light Farrow & Ball hues, each specifically recommended by a color specialist based on their placement within the home. She considered what you can see across the street [through the window] and how color is impacted by the light thats coming in, he remembers. It was really amazing. The living room is covered in Skimmed Milk White, a soft and laid-back tone that complements the exposed brick wall, fluffy Nordic Knots rug, and Hay boucle Mags sectional that Patrick separated into two distinct seats. The sofas meant to be all together, but when I was moving things around for a photoshoot, I split it up and changed the direction, he recalls. Suddenly, I was like, Oh, my God, I love this so much better. Patrick also prioritized flexibility by incorporating a series of small side tables instead of a coffee table. He installed a sleek Lulu and Georgia shelving unit that he can continually restyle with his collections of liquor bottles, books, and decor objects. The only item thats set in stone is the giant antique pier mirror he found at The Demolition Depot in Harlem. Its simply too large to rearrange. The dining areawhich is anchored by a vintage farmhouse table, Marcel Breuer Cesca chairs, and dramatic candle sconcesleads to the moody new kitchen. Here, Reform Basis smoked oak cabinets are paired with a veiny Arabescato Violet marble backsplash from BAS Stone NYC, a DeVol aged brass hanging rail, JennAir appliances, and a Blanco sink. Beyond the updated cooking space, the Untitled Secret office is secluded by steel and glass doors crafted by Kent Steel Co. The alcove is outfitted with vintage Cleo Baldon stools, a Gubi 9602 floor lamp, and a Bayou-inspired ombre mural from Calico Wallpaper, which serves as the perfect Zoom backdrop. Ive always loved their large-scale designs, Patrick says. Theyre really interesting in terms of what theyre able to accomplish with wallpaper. In contrast, the bedroom is intentionally simple and serene. Aside from a coat of pure Wimborne White on the walls, the only elements Patrick added were luxurious linens and new closets built by his brother and father. Its a real retreat from the rest of the apartment, where theres a lot going on, he says. As it should be. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest US President Joe Biden takes a selfie with supporters after speaking at a Democratic National Committee event at the headquarters of the National Education Association on September 23, 2022 in Washington, DC. Samuel Corum/Getty Images Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle said he's fine with having an 80-plus year old Biden running in 2024. "I serve in Congress. To me, Joe Biden is young," Boyle said, referring to aging House leaders. House Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn are all in their early 80s. Rep. Brendan Boyle said watching the House Democratic leadership's reigning octogenarians work the levers of power in Washington is proof enough for him that President Joe Biden is fit to run for reelection in 2024. "I serve in Congress. To me, Joe Biden is young," the 45-year-old Pennsylvania Democrat told CNN, gesturing towards the House chamber run by 82-year-old Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 83-year-old House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and 82-year-old Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. Boyle added that he puts no stock in attacks against Biden's cognitive or physical health because he believes "the age thing is a convenient place to go" for critics who'd rather see Biden, who's 79, fade away for other reasons. The vote of confidence clashes with responses gathered in a recent poll conducted as part of Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" project, which explores the costs, benefits, and dangers of life in a democracy helmed by those of advanced age. A majority of respondents said they considered Biden and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, who is 76, to be too old to serve again. Biden, who has already spent more than half of his life in public office, has repeatedly said that he'll run again. That sounds good to Boyle, who told CNN that having an 80-plus year old Biden at the top of the next presidential ticket would be something special. "It will be unique to have someone that age running for president," Boyle said. Boyle's enthusiastic endorsement isn't totally surprising, given that Biden stumped alongside him just days before the 2020 election. US Rep Brendan Boyle (@RepBrendanBoyle) November 1, 2020 Read the original article on Business Insider Photo: The Canadian Press Jeremy MacKenzie, right, a Canadian military veteran who served in Afghanistan, talks with an unidentified woman outside the venue where Omar Khadr, the former child soldier is speaking in Halifax on Monday, Feb. 10, 2020. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says he has referred comments made about his wife by MacKenzie, a popular, far-right streamer, to the RCMP. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he has asked the RCMP to look into "disgusting" comments made by the founder of a far-right group about sexually assaulting his wife. Jeremy MacKenzie was referring to Anaida Poilievre on an online video stream over the weekend when he suggested she be sexually assaulted. MacKenzie, 36, is the high-profile founder of the online group "Diagolon," which shares members and affiliation with the "Freedom Convoy," as well as those opposed to government-mandated health restrictions. He is facing assault and firearms charges in Saskatchewan and his native Nova Scotia related to separate incidents. Poilievre, who was previously photographed shaking MacKenzie's hand at a Conservative leadership campaign event in Nova Scotia, called MacKenzie and the other man in the video "dirtbags" and "losers" and said he will not tolerate people threatening his family. In an interview with The Canadian Press, MacKenzie says he was drinking when he made the comments and nobody meant any harm by it. A Catholic pro-life activist was arrested Friday at his rural Pennsylvania home and charged with physically assaulting a Planned Parenthood clinic escort last year. Mark Houck, 48, of Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, is co-founder and president of The Kings Men, a Catholic ministry that aims to spiritually mentor young Catholic men. Planned Parenthood signage separate from the clinic in Pennsylvania. Getty Images Houck's wife, Ryan-Marie, told Catholic News Agency that a "SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door." "They said they were going to break in if he didn't open it. And then they had about five guns pointed at my husband, myself and basically at my kids," she said. ZERO ARRESTS IN AT LEAST 17 JANE'S REVENGE ATTACKS ON PRO-LIFE ORGANIZATIONS A spokesperson with the Philadelphia office of the FBI pushed back against the SWAT team claim, telling Fox News Digital: "There are inaccurate claims being made regarding the arrest of Mark Houck. No SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved. FBI agents knocked on Mr. Houck's front door, identified themselves as FBI agents and asked him to exit the residence. He did so and was taken into custody without incident pursuant to an indictment." A senior FBI source told Fox News there may have been 15-20 agents at the scene, but denied 25 were there. The agents who came to the door had guns out and at the ready, according to this FBI source, but the guns were never pointed at Houck or his family and were lowered or holstered as soon as Houck was taken into custody. Houck was handcuffed with a belly chain, according to a senior federal law official familiar with the situation. In this process, the suspect's handcuffs are attached to a chain around the belly so the person doesnt have to sit in a car with handcuffs behind his back. In addition, a senior federal law enforcement source denied that agents entered the house. U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced Friday that Houck had been charged by indictment with violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The law makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone because that person provides reproductive health care. Story continues Prosecutors say Houck assaulted a 72-year-old man identified in the indictment as "B.L." outside the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Black Health Center in Philadelphia on Oct. 13, 2021. According to a Justice Department press release, B.L. was attempting to escort two patients exiting the clinic, "when the defendant forcefully shoved B.L. to the ground." In a second incident, Houck is accused of "verbally" confronting B.L. and forcefully shoving him to the ground outside the Planned Parenthood center, causing injuries that required medical attention. KAMALA HARRIS SUGGESTS YOU DONT HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR FAITH' TO AGREE WITH DEMOCRATS ON ABORTION "Assault is always a serious offense, and under the FACE Act, if the victim is targeted because of their association with a reproductive healthcare clinic, it is a federal crime," Romero said. "Our office and the Department of Justice are committed to prosecuting crimes which threaten the safety and rights of all individuals." "Put simply, violence is never the answer," said Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Philadelphia Division Jacqueline Maguire. "Violating the FACE Act by committing a physical assault is a serious crime for which the FBI will work to hold offenders accountable." Houcks wife told the website LifeSiteNews her husband drove two hours south every Wednesday to speak outside of abortion clinics for six to eight hours at a time and at times would bring their 12-year-old son. She contended that her husband had shoved a man who had gotten into the personal space of their son and said obscene things about Houck. She told the outlet that the man tried to sue her husband, but the District Court in Philadelphia threw out the case earlier this summer, and it was picked up again by Merrick Garlands Department of Justice. Fox News has reached out to the DOJ for comment. If convicted, Houck faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000. Online court records did not list an attorney who could speak on Houcks behalf. Associated Press Thousands of people in hundreds of cars took over northern Nevada parking lots and intersections Friday night and into Saturday, performing stunts in souped-up vehicles and leading to crashes and arrests, police said. Police beefed up nighttime staffing after social media posts urged people from San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, to come to the sideshow in Reno, Police Lt. Michael Browett said. The disturbances started late Friday as several hundred cars and their occupants met in the parking lot of a still-open Walmart store. By Adrian Portugal and Neil Jerome Morales BULACAN, Philippines (Reuters) -Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr conducted an aerial survey of damage on Monday brought by typhoon Noru, which left heavy flooding across several northern provinces as authorities rushed to get aid to thousands of evacuees. Five rescue workers were killed in Bulacan province, its Governor Daniel Fernando told DZMM radio, while residents there were seen wading through waist-deep waters and other stranded on rooftops. Floods submerged swathes of farmland and communities in the north, video and images shared by the president's office showed, after the category 3 typhoon dumped heavy rains and brought strong winds after making landfall at the weekend. "This is the worst flooding that happened here," resident Elpidio dela Cruz told Reuters in Bulacan, standing in a knee-deep water outside his house. "The water reached the second floor," he added. Another Bulacan resident, Teody Simbulan, appealed for aid. "People here need help like food, water and medicine," he added. The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, sees an average of 20 tropical storms yearly. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded, killed 6,300 people. Marcos ordered supplies to be airlifted and equipment be provided to help the cleanup in worst-affected communities. He also directed officials to provide emergency power to cut-off areas. Typhoon Noru weakened after passing through the Philippines on Sunday night and was headed out over the South China Sea towards Vietnam, where authorities were racing to prepare for its arrival late on Tuesday. The government has warned of the threat of Noru, anticipating what it said was one of the biggest typhoons to hit Vietnam in 20 years. Photos from state media showed people rushing to fortify homes, anchor boats and stock up on food. Schools have been closed and boat owners ordered to stay ashore in central provinces, while the government said it was ready to evacuate about a million people if necessary. (Additional reporting by Eloisa Lopez in Bulacan and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Martin Petty) A Pittsburgh man has been charged with killing two people and injuring a third during a pop-up car rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, over the weekend. Gerald White, 37, was arrested in connection with a Saturday night crash in which his 2003 Infiniti was at a standing stop before it took off and hit at least one vehicle and pedestrians, NBC 10 in Philadelphia reported. The crash occurred around 9:30 p.m. White first struck a 2014 Honda Civic then two pedestrians. White allegedly tried to leave the scene but was quickly caught and arrested, the Cape May County Prosecutors Office said. One of the pedestrians, 18-year-old Lindsay Weakland of Carlisle, died at the scene, the prosecutors office stated. Timothy Ogden, 34, of New Jersey, was transported to a hospital but died a short time later. White is facing a slew of charges, including two counts of death by automobile. Officials had issued warnings earlier about what they called an unsanctioned car rally separate from the Fall Classic Car Show taking place in the city. The prosecutors office said the crash occurred during an unsanctioned car rally self-identified as H2Oi or H2O22, directing hundreds if not thousands of people driving high performance vehicles to an area without any planning, staging or permitting, created the chaos that led to these deaths and injuries. The investigation is ongoing. The Associated Press contributed to this story. TRENDING NOW: LATEST UPDATES: 3 people, including 2 teens, shot inside Kennywood Park Saturday night Everyone started running: Woman recounts moment shots rang out at Kennywood Park Questions regarding Kennywoods security policies surface after three people were shot in the park VIDEO: Kennywood shares chaperone policy, questions arise following Saturdays violence DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Planned Parenthood Arizona on Monday asked a Pima County court to put on hold last week's ruling that effectively outlawed most abortions in Arizona. The emergency motion filed in Pima County Superior Court comes three days after a Pima County Superior Court judge lifted the injunction on a territorial-era law, which prescribes prison terms for abortion providers with the only exception allowed for saving the life of the mother. The organization noted in its filing widespread confusion over the the many Arizona abortion laws enacted in the past 50 years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion up until a fetus could survive outside of the womb. The confusion extends to a bill passed earlier this year, which criminalized abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Gov. Doug Ducey's office has noted the bill became law Saturday 90 days after the legislative session ended but has not addressed how it fits with last week's ruling. Attorney General Mark Brnovich offered a different take on Arizona's current abortion-law landscape. In a statement Monday, he said Judge Kellie Johnson's Friday ruling is the prevailing law in the state, overriding the bill that Ducey signed earlier this year. "If Arizonans disagree with the law, they should contact their legislators or the governor," Brnovich said in the statement. Planned Parenthood cited these differing views in explaining why it is seeking an emergency stay. "This confusion has forced Planned Parenthood Arizona to pause abortion services and cancel appointments scheduled this week meaning that members of our community once again have been and will continue to be denied medical care that they deserve and need while this decision is in effect," Brittany Forteno, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Arizona said in a statement. "This is unacceptable." In its emergency request, Planned Parenthood said it would not harm Arizonans to put Friday's decision on hold while waiting to sort out which law governs, as it serves the public interest to provide clarity. Story continues "It can hardly be disputed that a serious question exists over how Arizona's laws interact," Planned Parenthood attorneys wrote. They asked for an emergency stay of Johnson's Friday ruling until they can file a formal appeal. "This confusion is untenable and creates serious due process concerns," the attorneys wrote. For example, the territorial-era law and the law legislators approved this year conflict on exceptions to abortion, adding to the confusion, they state. That could lead to doctors hesitating to provide care to pregnant patients. "The absence of a stay will deprive many pregnant Arizonans of health care they require for an indeterminate period of time, while this case makes its way through the appellate process," the motion states. Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona abortion ruling: Planned Parenthood seeks stay of decision Two people were injured in what police said was a hostage situation that started Friday night and ended Saturday after law enforcement intervened, according to Fort Collins Police Services. One person was taken to the hospital with serious injuries, and one with minor injuries. Both are expected to recover, according to police. According to a news release, a man broke into an apartment in the 1200 block of Lincoln Avenue on Friday night and would not let the two victims leave. The suspect, who knew the victims, was armed with a knife, police said. Police were alerted about 11:20 a.m. Saturday when they received a report of a hostage situation from someone who received a message from one of the two victims saying they were being held against their will. The SWAT unit responded, and after learning one of the victims had been injured, the suspect was taken into custody shortly after noon, according to the news release. Police said multiple knives were recovered from the scene. Police arrested Victoriano Benavente, 38, on suspicion of kidnapping, burglary, assault, harassment, unlawful sexual contact, violation of a protection order and domestic violence, among other alleged crimes. He was listed as an inmate at the Larimer County Jail on Monday. A bond of $1 million was set Monday, and Benavente's next court appearance is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 6, according to Larimer County's online jail records. More:DA: Larimer County sheriff's deputy justified in shooting that left man dead in June Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective OLoughlin at 970-416-2571. People who wish to remain anonymous can contact Crime Stoppers of Larimer County at 970-221-6868 or www.stopcriminals.org. Resources for those dealing with domestic violence If you believe you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or intimate partner abuse, please contact Crossroads Safehouse or another area domestic violence shelter. Trained Crossroads Safehouse staff can be reached 24/7 at 970-482-3502 or 888-541-7233. You can visit their website at crossroadssafehouse.org. Story continues You can also call Alternatives to Violence at 970-669-5150. Crossroads Safehouse offers multiple programs and services to support those experiencing or who have experienced domestic violence, including: Road to Home Program: One of the most significant deterrents to leaving an abusive partner is the threat of homelessness, according to Jones. Road to Home is a transitional and rapid rehousing program that assists victims by providing housing resources. Danielles Safehouse SafeKeep Program: Another significant deterrent to leaving an abusive partner is the fear of leaving pets behind. In collaboration with the Larimer Humane Society, Crossroads helps provide temporary shelter for Crossroads clients pets, Jones said. In 2021, Crossroads Safehouse and the Larimer Humane Society renamed an existing collaborative partnership to Danielles Safehouse SafeKeep Program in Danielle Hoptons memory. Long-term care options for pets are also available through Colorado State Universitys Inclusive Health Collaborative. Other available resources for people in crisis include: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or call 911. SummitStone Crisis Stabilization Unit, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: summitstonehealth.org/services/ UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital and Medical Center of the Rockies crisis centers: uchealth.org/services/behavioral-health/ All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in court. Arrests and charges are merely accusations by law enforcement until, and unless, a suspect is convicted of a crime. This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins police arrest man in alleged hostage situation Photo: . Ekene Anigbo is described by police as one of the top six alleged gang members in Metro Vancouver. He's been handed a four-year jail term. A man described by police as one of the top six alleged gang members in Metro Vancouver was jailed for four years Sept. 26 after pleading guilty to Richmond gun charges. He carried two semi-automatic firearms into a hotel lobby, Vancouver provincial court Judge Reginald Harris said. There is rising gun violence with increasing death and fear in our community, Harris said. These offences are serious. Ekene Dillichuwu Anigbo, 23, pleaded guilty to possession of a prohibited or restricted and loaded firearm. He also pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm contrary to a court order. He was on probation at the time of the offences, Harris said. He was arrested in Richmond on Oct. 7, 2021. At the time of his arrest, Anigbo had a rifle, a handgun, and ammunition in his possession, Vancouver Police Department (VPD) spokesperson Const. Tania Visintin said at the time. From that October date, the charges were that he had a loaded P80 handgun without a licence or registration and a firearm without a licence or registration. Visintin said Anigbo "presented a risk to public safety" and was wanted provincewide for multiple outstanding arrest warrants, for breaching his probation and for assault. Harris said in a previous court proceeding report that Anigbo had pledged he wanted to turn his life around and committed to doing so. He said there was nothing to suggest Anigbo has taken any meaningful steps toward effecting change. With credit for time served awaiting trial, Anigbo must serve a remaining 33.5 months. On the breaching a court order charge, Harris sentenced Anigbo to 10 months to be served concurrently. His conduct is dangerous to the community at a time when gun violence appears to be rampant, Harris said. The judge also ordered a lifetime weapons prohibition. It was in May of 2021 that the VPD took the extraordinary step of releasing names and photographs of six gangsters they alleged were putting the public at risk because of their alleged gang violence involvement. The VPD asserted Anigbo, also known as rapper Lolo Lanski, was a Kang/Red Scorpion group member. Reuters Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two, declared by President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 21, has led to widespread discontent among officials and citizens over the way the draft has been handled, including complaints about enlistment officers sending call-up papers to clearly ineligible men. "In 10 days, several thousand of our countrymen received summons and arrived at the military registration and enlistment offices," Mikhail Degtyarev, the governor of the Khabarovsk region in Russia's Far East, said in a video post on the Telegram messaging app. Degtyarev said the removal of the commissar, Yuri Laiko, would not affect the mobilisation plan set by Putin. Passengers flying n an American Airlines flight from New York to Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It happened when a woman had her baby onboard. The whole occasion was caught on video and posted on Tiktok. The video of the pregnant passenger has gone viral and received 1.6 million views and thousands of comments so far. Kendalee Rhoden, the womans sister who filmed the unique experience, said the baby was born prematurely. She added that her sister was in the third trimester. Rhoden notes in subsequent videos that four nurses on the flight helped to deliver the baby in first class with about 90 minutes left of the flight. When the flight landed, her sister met the pilots who safely got them on the ground. Rules For Pregnant Passenger According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, occasional air travel is safe for pregnant women. Pregnant women can fly safely, observing the same precautions for air travel as the general population. Severe air turbulence cannot be predicted and the subsequent risk for trauma is significant should this occur. Therefore, pregnant passengers should be instructed to use their seat belts continuously while seated. Many commercial airlines in the US allow pregnant women to fly up to 36 weeks of gestation. Some restrict pregnant women from international flights earlier in gestation and some require documentation of gestational age. For specific airline requirements, women should check with the individual carrier. American Airlines rules for pregnant women to fly establish that on domestic flights, traveling up to seven days before your due date is a no go, unless the doctor provides a note and fills out a passenger medical form. On international flights, the company requires the same documents up to four weeks before the due date, and they can only be filled in 48 hours before take-off. President Joe Bidens plan to cancel large amounts of outstanding student debt for tens of millions of Americans will cost the federal government roughly $400 billion, according to a new analysis released Monday by the Congressional Budget Office. The report by the nonpartisan congressional budget scorekeeper is the first full, official cost estimate of Bidens student debt plan issued by a government agency. And it adds new fuel to the contentious debate over whether the loan relief to tens of millions of borrowers is justified or an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars. The CBO analysis examined how Bidens loan forgiveness program would reduce revenue to the government and how much that would cost the government over the lifetime of the loans, which can stretch out over 30 years. It concluded the cost would be about $400 billion. The Biden administrations further extension of the freeze on student loan payments through the end of 2022 is expected to cost about $20 billion, CBO said. The CBO analysis was requested by top congressional Republicans who have railed against Bidens student debt relief action. GOP lawmakers on Monday pounced on the CBO score, saying it bolstered their arguments that the program is too costly for taxpayers. The estimate shows this administration has lost all sense of fiscal responsibility said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the top GOP lawmaker on the House education committee, in a statement. She added that the estimate is just the tip of the iceberg because it does not include the Biden administrations expansion of other student loan benefits, including its forthcoming plan to reduce monthly payments and interest for millions of borrowers. White House officials have sought to focus attention on how debt relief would affect annual cash flows to the federal government, rather than the entire cost of the program. OMB said last month the debt relief program would reduce federal revenues by about $24 billion in the first year of the program. CBO on Monday said cash flows would be reduced in the first year by 0.08 percent of GDP, or about $21 billion. Story continues But federal law requires the government to evaluate the cost of the federal student loan program by projecting the cost across the lifetime of the loan. The administration will eventually have to produce an estimate that is based on that long-term cost. Senior administration officials declined to say on Monday whether their estimate would be higher or lower than what CBO concluded. They said only that they would be releasing that information in the coming weeks. Government estimates about the cost of the federal student loan program are uncertain and sometimes swing drastically from year to year based on long-range economic forecasts about how the loans might perform in the future and the governments cost of borrowing. The estimates have become even more complicated in recent years because so many borrowers are participating in repayment programs in which their monthly payments are determined by their income. That requires modeling borrowers future income for decades into the future, for example. CBO acknowledged that in its report on Monday that the estimate of the debt relief program is highly uncertain." It estimated that roughly 95 percent of borrowers will qualify for the program based on their 2020 or 2021 income. The Biden administration has limited relief to borrowers earning under $125,000 for individuals or $250,000 for couples. That is roughly in line with an analysis released last week by the Education Department. The agency estimated, using Census Bureau income data, that some 42.4 million individuals across the country would be eligible for debt relief. About 45 million Americans in total owe federal student loans. Bidens student debt relief plan would provide up to $20,000 of loan forgiveness to federal student loan borrowers who also received a Pell grant. Most other student loan borrowers will be eligible for up to $10,000 of relief. In total, CBO said, it expects that about $430 billion worth of debt will be canceled under the Biden administrations program. The agency said 45 percent of borrowers are expected to have their entire outstanding debt wiped out. But one key remaining question that will determine the cost of the program is how many of those borrowers sign up for the program. The Biden administration has said it plans to begin accepting applications in early October and continue to accept them through the end of 2023. CBO estimated that 90 percent of eligible borrowers would apply to the Education Department to have their loans forgiven. But administration officials have cautioned that may be an overly optimistic figure. One challenge this administration has been facing is that relatively few students receive many of the benefits we offer on student loans, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday, ticking off relatively low rates of uptake in other student loan programs. The bottom line is: There are a range of plausible estimates here, the administration official said. And we all hope for a 90 percent take-up rate. But even getting close to that number would be outside anything that I've seen in my 25 years working on the student aid programs. Proponents of Bidens student debt relief program have sought to contrast the spending on student debt relief to the 2017 Republican tax law. We dont agree with all of CBOs assumptions that underlie this analysis, but it is clear the pandemic payment pause and student debt cancellation are policies that demonstrate how government can and should invest in working people, not the wealthy and billionaire corporations, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a joint statement. Abdullah Hasan, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that the administrations student debt relief plan would provide breathing room to tens of millions of working families and free them up to start businesses or purchase homes. Its a stark contrast to the Trump tax bill, which ballooned the deficit by nearly $2 trillion and provided the vast majority of benefits to big corporations and the wealthiest individuals, he said. From taking a big Kremlin catering contract to personally recruiting convicts in a prison yard to fight in Ukraine, secretive businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have a unique role in President Vladimir Putin's Russia. The 61-year-old Saint Petersburg native on Monday broke cover to issue a rare personal statement confirming what many had already assumed -- that he is behind the hugely controversial Wagner PMC (private military company) mercenary group. But this is by no means the only controversy surrounding Prigozhin, who is sanctioned by the EU and Washington, accused of election interference in the United States and has issued threats against jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny. Prigozhin had for years irritably shaken off claims tying him to Wagner, whose fighters have waged battles in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Africa, Syria and now during Russia's 2022 intervention in Ukraine. On Monday he confirmed he had founded Wagner in 2014, saying a "group of patriots was born" who worked in Africa, Syria and even Latin America to become "pillars of our motherland". - 'Friendly team' - Earlier this month, a video surfaced of a bald man bearing a strong resemblance to Prigozhin in a jail courtyard, offering contracts to prisoners to fight in Ukraine with a chilling set of conditions. "If you serve six months, you go home and you are free. If you want to stay (with Wagner) you can. No one goes back to prison. "If you arrive in Ukraine and decide it's not for you, we will regard it as desertion and will shoot you. Any questions, guys?" said the man. "The first sin is desertion. No one gives themselves up," he said, adding recruits should have grenades on them in case of capture. "If you die, your body will be repatriated to the place you wrote down on the form." It is not possible to verify if the man in the video is Prigozhin but a statement in his name from his holding company Concord did not deny it was him. It cited him as saying: "Of course, if I were a prisoner, I would dream of joining this friendly team in order to be able not only to redeem my debt to the Motherland, but also to repay it with interest." Story continues He added: "Those who do not want PMCs (private military companies) to fight... then send your children to the front." - 'Putin's chef' - Prigozhin rose from a modest background to become part of the inner circle around Putin, who also hails from the former imperial capital on the Baltic Sea. He spent nine years in prison in the final period of the USSR after being convicted of fraud and theft, emerging in 1990 as the Soviet Union was collapsing. In the chaos of the 1990s, he began a moderately successful business selling hot dogs. From there he fell into the restaurant business and opened a luxury location in Saint Petersburg whose customers included Putin, then making the transition from working in the Soviet KGB to local politics. The Concord catering group he founded at one point worked for the Kremlin, earning Prigozhin the soubriquet of "Putin's chef". But the sheer range of his acknowledged and alleged interests have made this name something of a misnomer. - 'Troll factory' - Prigozhin shuns the limelight and there are scant images of the man who rarely makes public appearances. When he is captured on camera, it is with a shaven head, a piercing stare and usually in a dark suit. One of the best-known images shows him at the Kremlin in 2011, bending down over a seated Putin as he offers him a dish while the Russian leader looks back with an approving glance. Reports in Russian media have described him as a billionaire with a vast fortune built on state contracts, although the true extent of his wealth is unknown. He was sanctioned by Washington which accused him of playing a role in meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in particular through his internet "troll factory". Prigozhin denied any involvement and in March asked for $50 billion in compensation from the United States. - Feud with Navalny - He had until now always denied links to Wagner, which is accused of abuses and meddling not just in Ukraine but also Syria, Libya and countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In July 2018, three journalists researching Wagner's operations in the Central African Republic for an investigative media outlet were killed in an ambush. Western countries have accused Wagner of coming to the aid of the military junta in Mali, in a move that contributed to France's decision to end an almost decade-long military operation there. Prigozhin has been unusually vocal in the wake of the poisoning of Navalny, who fell ill on a flight in Siberia and was then transferred for treatment in Germany in 2020. The two have never made any secret of their enmity, with Navalny's anti-corruption group accusing a firm that worked with Concord of serving food in schools that was dangerous for the health of children. Prigozhin sued Navalny for libel and a court ordered that the campaigner's group pay more than $1 million in damages. Not mincing his words, Prigozhin said: "I intend to strip this group of unscrupulous people of their clothes and shoes." bur-sjw/tgb/imm Kate Middleton, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, and Prince William at Wellington Arch. WPA Pool / Pool / Getty Images The Mail on Sunday published an excerpt of Katie Nicholl's upcoming book "The New Royals." Nicholl reported that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's step back impacted Prince William's kids. The children are in the spotlight more than he and Kate Middleton intended, according to the excerpt. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's step back impacted Prince William's children, according to a new book. The Mail on Sunday published an excerpt of "The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth's Legacy and the Future of the Crown," an upcoming book by royal expert Katie Nicholl. In the excerpt, Nicholl wrote that Harry and Meghan's step back had ramifications on the whole royal family, but that it specifically "put a significantly greater royal burden" on William and Kate Middleton and how they are raising their children. Royal historian Robert Lacey told Nicholl that Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis' public appearances in recent years indicate the Prince and Princess of Wales shifted their approach to parenting in the wake of Meghan and Harry's step back. George, Charlotte and Louis at Trooping the Colour. Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images "We've seen the children performing in front of the cameras in a way that cannot have been part of the original plan," he told Nicholl. "We know that William and Kate want to bring up their children in relative seclusion and privacy, but the children have had to become a prominent part of the show," he added. Their most notable appearances in 2022 include George and Charlotte's attendance at a memorial service for Prince Philip, the trio's attendance at the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June, and George and Charlotte's presence at the late monarch's funeral. The royal children were also photographed with their parents on their first day at Lambrook School which would turn out to be the day before the Queen's death. The Waleses on the first day of school. JONATHAN BRADY / Contributor / Getty Images But Kate and William still seem to be shielding their children from too much publicity, given their recent relocation. Story continues The Waleses moved from London to Windsor Castle, partially to give the children a "normal" life, according to an anonymous source who spoke to CNN. Nicholl also wrote that William has not been able to forgive Harry for stepping back for numerous reasons, including the impact Harry's choices have had on his family. But the pair were seen together throughout the Queen's funeral services, with William inviting Harry and Meghan to a walkabout with him and Kate at Windsor Castle and the brothers walking side by side as they processed behind their grandmother's casket. There were also signs that Harry and King Charles III could mend their relationship in the wake of the Queen's death. Read the original article on Insider The Capitol riot. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images The Justice Department is racking up guilty pleas in the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history. Here's everything you need to know: Who's been prosecuted so far? Federal prosecutors have charged 910 people with participating in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, including far-right militia members, cops, doctors, business owners, a State Department aide, a New Mexico county commissioner, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least 81 former or current members of the armed services and 19 current or former police officers. Some of the most prominent insurrectionists have already been sentenced, including Jacob Chansley, the face-painted, spear-carrying "QAnon Shaman," and Robert Packer, whose sweatshirt that day read "Camp Auschwitz." An estimated 2,500 people stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and attempts to identify the rioters continue; prosecutors say about 2,000 of them could ultimately face charges. Most of the accused are white male supporters of former President Trump who say they were radicalized by his claims of a stolen election and were acting in response to his command that they "fight like hell" to stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory. At his trial, Dustin Thompson, a 38-year-old exterminator from Columbus, Ohio, said he believed that at Trump's Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally, the president had given "an order to do something," and "I felt obligated to do that." Are prosecutors getting convictions? Yes, although many cases remain pending. About 390 have pleaded guilty, and 34 were convicted at trial and sentenced. The average felony sentence has been about 33 months. Just one defendant has been acquitted of all charges a former government contractor who persuaded a judge that police allowed him inside the Capitol. Albert Watkins, an attorney for several Jan. 6 defendants, said guilty pleas were unavoidable given the selfies defendants took inside the Capitol. "It's hard to defend somebody when there's roughly 287 million miles of video footage of your client being where he's not supposed to be," Watkins said. Story continues What crimes were charged? Hundreds of insurrectionists have been charged with trespassing, and another several hundred face charges of obstructing Congress' certification of the Electoral College vote. About a dozen rioters have received more than a year in prison for assaulting police officers. Last week, Patrick McCaughey, 25, was convicted of seven felonies for grabbing a riot shield and using it to pin D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges in a doorway; a video of the attack shows a crushed Hodges screaming in pain, as McCaughey rips off his gas mask and beats the officer's head against the door. Are there any long sentences? A few. Retired New York City cop Thomas Webster was sentenced earlier this month to 10 years in prison. Webster wore a tactical vest to the Capitol and swung a metal flagpole at an officer before tackling the officer and pulling off his gas mask. Lonnie Leroy Coffman, a 72-year-old military veteran, was sentenced to 46 months after parking a truck near the Capitol filled with Molotov cocktails, a handgun, a rifle, a shotgun, a crossbow, a stun gun, a machete, and 11 jars of homemade napalm. Guy Reffitt, a Texan militia member who prosecutors said "lit the match" of the insurrection, was sentenced to seven years in prison after his own son alerted the FBI to his involvement. "If you turn me in," Reffitt had told his son, "you're a traitor, and traitors get shot." Cleveland Meredith received 28 months in prison for texting about plans to assassinate Pelosi by putting "a bullet in her noggin on Live TV." He was arrested a mile from the Capitol with a rifle and 2,500 rounds of ammunition. Are the charges sufficiently serious? That's been debated fiercely. Judge Beryl Howell challenged prosecutors for suggesting little to no jail time for many insurrectionists. "No wonder parts of the public in the U.S. are confused about whether what happened on Jan. 6 at the Capitol was simply a petty offense of trespassing with some disorderliness, or shocking criminal conduct that represented a grave threat to our democratic norms," Howell said. Others have praised the DOJ for differentiating what former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig called "the idiots from the leaders." Earlier this year, prosecutors charged 16 leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys with seditious conspiracy, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors have unearthed a nine-page document titled "1776 Returns," which appears to detail these white nativist groups' plans for "patriots" to storm government buildings. Are the attackers repentant? Some are, but others are not. "I'm just so ashamed that I was a part of that," said Florida business owner Robert Palmer after being sentenced to more than five years in prison for assaulting police. Another rioter, Stephen Ayres, urged Trumpists to "take the blinders off...before it's too late." But many attackers say they still believe the 2020 election was stolen. Before being sentenced to 44 months in prison for attacking an officer, Nicholas Languerand said in an online message, "In the face of tyranny violence may be the only answer," adding, "Next time we come back with rifles." How suspects were identified Over the past 20 months, the Justice Department has tracked down insurrectionists in all 50 states using phone location data, social media posts, and other tech-driven evidence. Investigators hired a contractor to help scrutinize hundreds of thousands of hours of video; volunteer online sleuths, nicknamed Sedition Hunters, have helped the FBI identify dozens of suspects. Many Capitol attackers left long trails of evidence. Robert Chapman of New York was arrested after posting on the dating app Bumble that he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, as well as posting photos on Facebook with the caption "INSIDE THE CRAPITOL!!!" Garrett Miller of Dallas was arrested while wearing a T-shirt that read "I Was There, Washington, D.C., January 6, 2021." Justice Department officials have asked for an additional $34 million and 130 new positions to track down and prosecute additional Jan. 6 insurrectionists, calling the probe "the most complex that this department has ever undertaken." This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here. You may also like 7 cartoons about DeSantis and Abbott's migrant relocation New Pacific island forms after underwater volcano erupts Arizona judge bans abortion statewide by reinstating 1864 law Storyful A woman was seen cutting her hair during a demonstration in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday, October 1, in support of protesters taking to the streets of Iran.Footage posted by Sabrina Melei showed a woman cutting multiple chunks of her hair on stage as the crowd cheers. In further footage, the crowd can be heard chanting, say her name and Mahsa Amini, and we want freedom for Iran.Close to 3,000 Australians rallied in cities including Sydney, Hobart, and Melbourne, SBS reported.Women have burned their hijabs and cut their hair during protests across the country sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody in Tehran over a fortnight ago.Saturday is expected to be the biggest day of global action of demonstrations in support of Iranian protesters following the death of Amini. Credit: Sabrina Melei via Storyful UKRAINSKA PRAVDA MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 17:44 People of Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkariya regions of Russia resumed protesting against the ongoing military call-up in Russia. Source: Kavkaz.Realiyi [a branch of Radio Liberty news agency] Details: Hundreds of people in Makhachkala and Khasavyurt [both cities are located in Dagestan, Russia] protested against the conscription of men for the war with Ukraine. The biggest protest occurred in Makhachkala: several hundred people took part in it. There are also reports that there was a mass fight between protesters and the police. Several dozens of protesters were detained. An estimated 100 people took part in the protest in Khasavyurt. Tough detentions occurred there as well. Another rally has also started in Nalchik (the capital of Kabardino-Balkariya). Local officials went to talk to the protesters. However, they refused to answer the question of how many people will be mobilised from the republic. Background: On 25 September, protests with mass arrests and fighting took place in Makhachkala. On the same day, anti-conscription protesters blocked the Khasavyurt Makhachkala motorway near the village of Endirey; the police fired into the air in an attempt to disperse those opposing the call-up. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Re. Gene Maskulak's letter Colour-code roundabout (Sept. 23) I know traffic engineering may seem simple. There must be many people who think so, judging by the number of traffic-related letters written to this section. We really have so many experts in our community. Unfortunately, traffic engineering is a complex, often contradictory field and a completely thankless job. We should begin by paying our traffic engineers a bit of respect before criticizing them, like having a well-researched position. The colour-coded system is sadly not practical, because we have quite a large percentage of our population with colour-vision-deficiency, approximately one in 12 men and one in 200 women. according to colourblindawareness.org. Its worth noting that men make up the majority of drivers, too. An 8% chance of a male driver confusing/misunderstanding an interchange is just too high. The real solution, boring as it is, is drivers education. We currently outsource this to millions of un-trained Canadian parents, and I think that ought to change. With proper education, we could use symbols (like the rest of the world) instead of text to indicate navigation instructions to drivers. Its remarkable just how much plain text we have on road signs in North America, and this is just lazy design. Text requires extra brain-power to interpret, whereas symbols allow the driver to receive instructions without the reading-lag. Im fairly anti-car, and I think even the most pro-car people out there would agree that the quality of other peoples driving these days is questionable at best. The flip side of adopting symbols of course is that many people already driving might not understand them. I promise that its not that hard to learn and maybe this points to a broader issue about our level of driving education. At the risk of being publicly crucified, (there is also) a need to send Boomers back to driving school. Im looking at you mom and dad. Spencer Lupul Protests have erupted in Russias predominately Muslim region of Dagestan against Vladimir Putins conscription order, as some claim that the region is being disproportionally targeted to fight in the war against Ukraine. Videos on social media appear to show men gathering in a public square and jostling with police, women protesting the conscription of their children for a war Russia started, and a police officer running away from women. Women in Makhachkala, Dagestan are desperately protesting against the war and mobilization: Why are you taking our children? Who attacked whom? Who attacked Russia? We are the ones who attacked Ukraine. Russia attacked Ukraine. No to war!https://t.co/S5T4QxhQ3g Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 25, 2022 Video sent by a friend at the anti-mobilisation protest in Makhachkala, Dagestan. Its very rare in Russia to see demonstrators tussle with police like this pic.twitter.com/kdBbzxDxfp Pjotr Sauer (@PjotrSauer) September 25, 2022 The protests come after Putin called for the mobilization of 300,000 reservists to join the war on Ukraine. Russia has claimed the only men to be mobilized will be those with military experience, but reports have surfaced indicating that ethnic minorities and men across Russia with no previous military experience have also been ordered to conscript. A video on social media appears to show a Russian man fatally shoot a commander after being told to mobilize. Mobilized man killed a drafting office commander in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk region, Russia. Alexandr Yeliseev, the commander, was shot four times almost point blank. The murderer is Ruslan Zinin, born in 1997, partially mobilized. He decided jail is better than death in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/s0IvHJZJBO Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) September 26, 2022 Tens of thousands of men have fled Russia since the mobilization order last week, according to the Moscow Times. The men have mostly fled to Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, where visas are not required, and there were over 3,000 cars on the Russia-Georgia border on Monday, the outlet reported. Story continues Four out of the five European Union countries bordering Russian have banned Russians from crossing the border, even if they have tourist visas. Finland is the only country allowing Russians to cross. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday that there is nothing to preview when asked if the U.S. will grant political asylum to Russians fleeing the county. More from National Review Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said Democrats know that if the 2022 midterm election is about President Joe Bidens record, they will lose. Ms Psaki, who left the Biden administration earlier this year, is now a contributor to NBC and will soon be a host for MSNBC. Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, she said that Democrats feel that if the election is about who is more extreme, then they can win, specifically citing Republican Representativer Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. If it is a referendum on the president, they will lose and they know that, she told host Chuck Todd. Typically, the presidents party loses control of at least one chamber of Congress in the midterm election since voters see it as a chance to voice dissatisfaction with the presidents party. She also said that Democrats know that crime is a major issue. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that Republicans have a 22-point advantage against Democrats when it comes to handling crime. Ms Psaki pointed out how in Pennsylvania, Republicans are hammering Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman for being soft on crime. Former president Donald Trump held a rally in Wilkes-Barre earlier this month where he accused Mr Fetterman without any evidence of taking illegal drugs. Similarly, Mr Fettermans Republican opponent Mehmet Oz has criticised the Democrat for hiring two men on his campaign who had previously been convicted for murder but whose sentences Mr Fetterman had helped commute due to flimsy evidence. In Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson and Republicans have attacked Democratic nominee Mandela Barnes for being weak on crime and supposedly supporting defunding the police, which Mr Barnes has denied. So yes, the economy is hanging over everything, but you do have to look at state by state factors and crime is a huge issue in the Pennsylvania. I'm not sure how that's done, she said. Want to have some fun, kiddies? Heh, heh reads the speech balloon emanating from a cartoonish man with stringy hair, a high forehead, bushy eyebrows and weird lips. That black-and-white cover art was the worlds introduction to an unassuming, short-lived, very small and vaguely historic 1972 Connecticut publication called The Purple Warp. That odd man is back in a facsimile reprint edition marking the 50th anniversary of the mini-zine. Besides the friendly cover image, the first issue also features an editorial, the four-page adventure of Crank Ludlow, [who] can pick his nose with his big toe, two stand-alone funny drawings... and thats it. The publication is only eight pages long and measures just 5 by 4 inches. The Purple Warp was a very early example of the mini-zine, made by folding a standard sheet of paper in quarters to create an eight-page booklet. Its founder, Allan Greenier, was a teenager growing up in Terryville when he released the first issue, taking on Tom Hosier as co-editor, whose other claim to 80s Connecticut pop culture fame was as a member of the esteemed local rock band Disturbance. Sixteen issues of The Purple Warp were released between 1972 and 1973. Greenier intends to reissue the entire run of the mini-zine as part of the anniversary project. The final issue was in a different, larger format so he may not decide to republish that one. I dont claim to being the first mini-zine, says Greenier, who now lives in the Westville section of New Haven, but I had never seen one when he started printing, folding and stapling his first Purple Warp. According to the book Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s, The Purple Warp was on the earliest tip of what would become a mini comix revolution, with countless thousands of zines being created, sold, traded and collected. Newave! arranges its selection of hundreds of zines chronologically, and its reprints of Purple Warp issues #1 and #7 come first. Story continues The Purple Warp section of Newave also reprints an amusing Courant article from 1973, which reports that the zines editors have reduced the cost of a single issue from 10 cents to 5 cents because they were making a profit. The story quotes Greenier: In order to make a profit, you have to compromise; you have to give people what they want. The article ends by noting Greener said they have subscribers in 25 states, and they may have to go down on the price again if subscriptions increase. The growth of mini-zines (and zines in general) paralleled the development of new, affordable, higher-quality offset printing techniques in the mid-20th century. Greeniers earliest zines were mimeographed. When he was in high school, he got in trouble for publishing an underground paper that mocked the schools principal. Years after he ended Purple Warp in 1973, a distaste for President George Bush led Greenier to start a new zine, SpaMan. He recalls getting an order for copies of SpaMan from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Generally, his work was not so much political, he says. It was mostly social satire. There wasnt even a lot [of] sexual content, Greenier says, which put them at odds with most other zines of that era. It was kind of innocent in that way. For his various zines, Greenier always solicited work from other artists besides himself. He says with pride that I was the first publisher of Brian Bolland, the now-famous British comics artist best known for drawing Alan Moores landmark Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke. Greenier shifted away from making comics and zines decades ago his main artistic pursuit for the past dozen years has been printmaking but he was able to turn what he learned from self-publishing into a career. From the age of 21 to 45, I worked in printing companies, something Id learned from doing comics. When everything went digital, I moved to New Haven in 1996 to work in software development. Greenier doesnt remember how many copies of The Purple Warp he sold back in the 70s, but he didnt keep a lot of extra copies around for himself. In fact, hes lucky he still has any to reprint. Im a terrible archivist. I have one copy of each issue. For the reissues, I said Allan, learn from your mistakes. Hes making and keeping extra copies. Hes also gathered a stack of cigar boxes, which he will use to create special box sets of the complete run of The Purple Warp once every reissue has happened. His mini-zine has a certain place in the history of comics, Greenier says. Im proud of having done it. The new edition of The Purple Warp #1 costs 20 times what the original did: $2 rather than 10 cents. Thats understandable, but Greenier adds that the new edition is better than the original. Its on thicker paper. The Purple Warp #1 can be ordered via PayPal to greenier.allan@gmail.com or the old-fashioned way, by sending a couple of bucks to Useful Knowledge Press, 1003 Whalley Ave., New Haven, CT 06515. Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com. Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin shows Russian President Vladimir Putin his school lunch factory outside Saint Petersburg on September 20, 2010. ALEXEY DRUZHININ/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted to founding the Wagner mercenary firm in 2014. "I cleaned old weapons myself," the billionaire, known as "Putin's chef," said in a statement. Prigozhin previously denied founding the group and sued those who reported on his Wagner ties. A billionaire and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged founding a shadowy mercenary group that has been used to fight the Kremlin's wars from Libya to Syria, claiming the group was instrumental in seizing Ukrainian territory back in 2014. In a statement to a friendly media outlet, Bloknot, Yevgeny Prigozhin the financier of the Internet Research Agency, whose paid trolls intervened in the 2016 US election said he founded Wagner Group eight years ago. The admission comes after a video surfaced of him recruiting at a Russian prison, offering detained men their freedom if they agreed to fight in Ukraine. "I cleaned old weapons myself, sorted out body armor myself, and found specialists who could help me with it," Prigozhin said, according to Meduza, an independent Russian media outlet. "From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later acquired the name PMC Wagner." Wagner was first deployed in Ukraine, allowing the Kremlin to annex Crimea while claiming it had not deployed Russian soldiers. The group was also active elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, where its forces could masquerade as pro-Russia separatists. "It was their bravery and courage that made the liberation of the Luhansk airport and many other territories possible," Prigozhin said of Wagner's mercenaries. Wagner's forces have been linked to numerous war crimes. In April, for instance, Der Spiegel reported that German authorities had intercepted radio transmissions in which Russian soldiers discuss mass killings in Bucha, a town outside the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv where hundreds of civilians were killed under Russian occupation. According to Der Spiegel, the transmissions showed that Wagner's men "played a leading role in the atrocities." Story continues A recent report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project also found that the group had regularly attacked civilians in Mali and the Central African Republic, where it has deployed to help embattled regimes fight insurgencies. Timothy Lay, a coauthor of the report, told Insider that Wagner's actions including widespread looting were akin to "criminal violence." Prigozhin, known as "Putin's chef" due in part to his state catering contracts, had earlier denied any connection to the group, suing Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins in 2021 for publishing and linking to reports on his ties. In May, a London court threw out his claims of defamation against Higgins. Responding to his admission on Monday, Higgins said in a statement to Insider that "this demonstrates exactly how the UK legal system has been abused by people like Prigozhin." The lawsuit, Higgins argued, was intended only to silence journalists by forcing them to incur legal costs for reporting the truth a tactic known in the legal profession as "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation." "I hope serious action against SLAPP cases are taken by the UK government," Higgins said. Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com Read the original article on Business Insider (Photo by YURI KOCHETKOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei disclosed on Monday that he attended a series of confidential meetings with European and American leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week. Those were meetings with Europeans and Americans. They asked us to keep our conversations confidential, Makei said, according to Belarusian state news agency Belta. The foreign minister of Belarus, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putins even as Russia wages war in Ukraine, declined to elaborate on the substance of the meetings. Makei only alluded vaguely to the idea that the meetings would be damaging to the United States should their contents leak out into the public eye. Belarus has probably reached such a potential that the information about the meeting might destroy even such a superpower as the United States, Makei said. The mysterious meetings come on the heels of a series of defeats for Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine, in which Ukrainian forces were able to push back Russias military from key regions in the south and northeast. The faltering approach has been followed in quick succession by some of Russias key international trading partners, including China and India, publicly chastising Moscow for the way Putin has been conducting the war. Putins Top Cheerleaders Panic Over Russian Army Mutiny And although Belarus has been an ally of Putin for years now, the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has long held a set of precarious relationships with other nations on the world stage. Belarus is in a union partnership with Russia in which the two nations work to enmesh their militaries, trade, and more, and the country has allowed Russian forces to stage attacks on Ukraine from Belarusian territory. But Lukashenko has expressed a distaste for the war in some instances, complaining that it has lagged in recent months. Historically, he has frequently adopted a view independent of Russias, diplomats who previously served in Belarus tell The Daily Beast. Story continues After the mysterious meetings, Lukashenko traveled to Russia to meet with Putin Monday. There, he and Putin have been lambasting Europeans for how their governments have been treating Russia and Belarus. If Europe finished seething, it must pause and think. I am not speaking about those across the ocean, Lukashenko said, alluding to the fact that he is concerned about Europe, not countries like the United States, according to Belta. I have already told Europeans three times that their future is with us, with Russia, which has everything they need. No one will tolerate being looked down upon. Neither Belarus nor Russia, a giant country, Lukashenko added. Putin chimed in, urging Europeans to respect Russia and Belarus. It was not clear what the Americans and Europeans discussed with the Belarusian foreign minister that could be so damaging, or if it affected the conversation with Putin on Monday. The State Department did not immediately return a request for comment. Makeis conversation about the private meetings is likely an effort to show the world stage that Belarus has other relationships with other countries beyond Russiaand that they still maintain leverageKen Yalowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Belarus, told The Daily Beast. Belarus right now really is in Putins pocket But Lukashenko, believe it or not, does not like to be seen or viewed as a total Russian doll, a total Russian puppet, Yalowitz said. Lukashenko doesnt want to be, you know totally in the Russian camp. Its a signal that Belarus is looking for a little bit of wiggle room, Yalowitz said. Belarus is looking to try to see if relationships can be improved with the West. During other meetings, the Belarusian envoy discussed bilateral relations and global security, Makei said. We discussed ways of strengthening our bilateral relations, global security in an absolutely friendly, constructive manner. It was, indeed, a conversation of friends or partners, Makei said. Makei was slated to hold bilateral meetings with diplomats from Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia as well. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Edward Snowden, former intelligence officer who served the CIA, NSA, and DIA for nearly a decade as a subject matter expert on technology and cyber security, speaks from Russia to the audience at a conference in Lisbon on Nov. 4, 2019. Photo by Henrique Casinhas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Putin on Monday granted citizenship to Edward Snowden, the controversial US whistleblower. This move comes amid historic tensions between Washington and Moscow. Snowden, who leaked classified documents about the US government's mass surveillance, has lived in Russia since 2013. Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to US whistleblower Edward Snowden on Monday, according to a decree published to a government website. The move comes amid historic tensions between Washington and Moscow. Snowden a former National Security Agency contractor has been living in Russia for nearly a decade and was granted permanent residency in 2020. In 2013, he leaked highly classified documents about the US government's mass surveillance to journalists at the Guardian and Washington Post. Snowden, who was charged with espionage over the leak, fled the US. He was ultimately granted asylum in Russia. Snowden remains a controversial figure in the US. Some have characterized his actions, which revealed vast surveillance operations both in the US and abroad, as a patriotic move that helped reveal government overreach. But others have decried Snowden as a traitor. In 2020, Snowden applied for Russian citizenship but underscored that he was not moving to renounce his US citizenship. At the time, he tweeted, "After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son. That's why, in this era of pandemics and closed borders, we're applying for dual US-Russian citizenship." "Lindsay and I will remain Americans, raising our son with all the values of the America we love, including the freedom to speak his mind. And I look forward to the day I can return to the States, so the whole family can be reunited. Our greatest wish is that, wherever our son lives, he feels at home," Snowden said. Snowden gaining Russian citizenship has raised questions as to whether he could be conscripted into Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine. Story continues State Department Spokesperson Ned Price on Monday told reporters that the US government's position on Snowden has not changed, calling for the ex-NSA contractor to return home to "face justice." Price added that perhaps the only thing that has changed as a result of Snowden gaining Russian citizenship is that "apparently now he may well be conscripted to fight in the reckless war in Ukraine." Putin recently announced a partial military mobilization, calling up 300,000 reservists, as the war in Ukraine rages on. Russia has suffered major troop losses in Ukraine, and is struggling with significant manpower issues. But Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti that Snowden can't be drafted under Putin's decree because he never served in the Russian military before, the Guardian reported. Read the original article on Business Insider Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to former National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Russian president signed a decree granting citizenship to 75 foreign nationals, according to the Associated Press. Snowden, a former security contracter, fled the United States in 2013 before leaking a trove of classified documents detailing the mass surveillance programme of the USs intelligence apparatus. The 39-year-old became a wanted man, and sought shelter from extradition in Russia after his passport was revoked by US authorities. He was granted permanent residency in 2020 and said at the time that he planned to apply for Russian citizenship, without renouncing his US citizenship. Mr Snowden is married to American Lindsay Mills, and the couple have two children. An attorney for Mr Snowden said in 2020 that Ms Mills was also applying for a Russian passport. In August 2020, former President Donald Trump said that he was very strongly considering a pardon for the whistleblower. The prospect of a pardon divided Republicans, with Liz Cheney tweeting at the time that Mr Snowden was a traitor who deserved to be prosecuted. Ms Snowden said in 2019 he would consider returning to the US if he was granted a fair trial. He has been accused of espionage and theft of government property and American authorities have, for years, wanted him extradited to face a criminal trial. Mr Snowden has 5.3 million followers on Twitter, and runs a Substack newsletter Continuing Ed in which he frequently criticises Joe Biden and the US intelligence agencies. In his last post on 20 September titled Americas Open Wound, Mr Snowden wrote that the CIA was continuing to carry out illegal extra-judicial killings. Mr Snowdens foes have noted that he has been curiously silent about Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine. He is yet to comment on being awarded Russian citizenship. On 21 September, Putin announced what he described as a partial mobilisation of 300,000 reservists to fight against Ukraine. KYIV, Ukraine The young man who walked into the recruitment center in Ust-Ilimsk, Siberia, early on Monday morning had told his mother he was going to enlist. But he had other plans. When he arrived, he calmly entered the building and walked up to the podium, where military commissar Alexander Eliseev, the head of the local draft committee, was working. The young man took out a concealed firearm and opened fire. According to Igor Kobzev, the governor of Irkutsk Oblast, Eliseev remains in critical condition in a hospital. When arrested, 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin told Russian media he was motivated by the drafting of his best friend into the army. Police officers detain a man protesting the partial military mobilization recently announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images) Russia is continuing to experience a wave of protests and civil unrest as its people come to terms with the implication of President Vladimir Putins partial mobilization, which he announced last week. Though it was initially said to be a call-up of 300,000 reservists, the Latvia-based independent Russian news outlet Meduza has reported that the real figure could be as high as 1.2 million. The same outlet also reported that since Putins order came down, the Federal Security Service (FSB), which controls Russias border service, recorded 261,000 men exiting the country. The most significant street protests so far have come in the region of Dagestan, where protesters filled the streets. Video posted to social media shows people blocking roads, fighting with Russian police and chanting antiwar and anti-mobilization slogans. There is also growing evidence of protesters becoming more organized and more determined to resist Russian police who attempt to arrest fellow demonstrators. The protests in Dagestan have partly been driven by the belief that the war and these latest mobilization orders are disproportionately targeting Russias poorer areas and ethnic-minority-dominated republics. The republic of Dagestan, a state in southern Russia that borders Armenia and Georgia, is one of several heavily Muslim-majority enclaves with a complicated history of insurgency, separatism and terrorism. Moscow fought two brutal wars against the breakaway republic of Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s; now the warlord president of that republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, is a staunch Putin ally who has deployed his own militants into Ukraine. Story continues Police officers block a street in St. Petersburg on Sept. 24, following calls to protest against the partial mobilization announced by Putin. (-/AFP via Getty Images) Research published in August by the BBC and the Russian media outlet Mediazona found that of 3,798 casualties they could identify via local media reports and the statements of families and local authorities, Dagestan and Buryatia a state that borders Mongolia and contains a sizable indigenous Mongolic population had suffered the largest number of confirmed fatalities: 270 and 245, respectively. By contrast, Moscow, home to 9% of Russias total population, lost only 14 people. In Buryatia, the campaign is called Bartholomews Night, after the 16th century Catholic massacre of Protestants in France, said Paul Goble, a former State Department and CIA official who specializes in Russias ethnic and religious minorities. Thats not something you hear very often in the Russian far east, is it? Dagestan is at the point where people are now talking of a Maidan in the regional capital, Makhachkala. Maidan refers to Ukraines revolutionary protest movement in 2014. The Kremlins bloody entanglement with the north Caucasus even has a historical antecedent in Ukraines post-Soviet development. When Ukrainians of all backgrounds voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union in a 1991 referendum, Russian President Boris Yeltsin prevailed in vain upon his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kravchuk, to bring Kyiv into a new union with Moscow. One of Yeltsins motives, as repeatedly relayed to then-President George H.W. Bush, was that without Ukraine, Russia would be outnumbered and outvoted by the Muslim republics, according to Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy. Police officers detain people during a protest in Moscow on Sept. 24 against the invasion of Ukraine and partial mobilization. (Getty Images) Nevertheless, Goble thinks a better indicator of where mobilization is hitting hardest is economic rather than ethnic or religious. Moscow is targeting places that are poorer because those people are more likely to see military service in a positive way, with the exception of those whove already seen people come home dead," he said. "And a lot of Buryats have done just that already. Moscow and St. Petersburg have had demonstrations on a smaller scale. Russian riot police have been deployed there to disperse crowds and can be seen beating and aggressively dragging off protesters or simply anyone standing in their midst. Videos published on social media captured incredibly confused scenes in which Russian police detained pro-Putin counterdemonstrators, even a woman bystander simply waiting at a bus stop. According to independent monitors in Russia, over 1,300 men and women had been detained following protests in these Russian cities early last week, with many Russian men of military age apparently being given their draft papers after their arrests. Sergei (not his real name) fled St. Petersburg within 24 hours of the mobilization order last week. He told Yahoo News that his best friend is a first-order candidate for call-up because he served in the military for a year seven years ago. Hes a businessman and supports his entire family, including his parents and sister, Sergei said. And hes really frustrated because he did everything right, paid his debt to the Motherland, and meanwhile people are claiming medical excuses many of them fake to get out of being sent to Ukraine. Russians are also turning to more extreme forms of resistance as peaceful protests have been predictably ignored or repressed. In Ryazan, a city southeast of Moscow, a man set himself on fire at a bus station while shouting slogans against the war and his impending participation in it. A protest in Moscow, Sept. 21. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images) Recruitment offices have been set on fire or attacked. Video released by the Russian media outlet Mash shows a station wagon ramming the entrance of an office in the Volgograd district before the driver tossed several Molotov cocktails through the doors and windows of the building, seriously damaging the office. Arson is also said to count as more than a symbolic gesture: Some observers have pointed out that the Russian army still largely relies on paper records, which would likely be destroyed in any fire. The Volgograd attack was far from an isolated event, according to Meduza, which claims that 11 military enlistment offices and six administrative buildings have been set ablaze in Russia since the start of the mobilization. The furor occurs against a backdrop of increasing discontent against the hastily implemented mobilization policy, whose critics include hawks and regime loyalists. Margarita Simonyan, head of the Russian state media outlet RT, complained that mobilization orders were infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite ... as if theyd been sent by Kyiv, while also grumbling that mobilization papers were being handed out to those too old or sick for military service. Vladimir Solovyov, host of Russian state televisions flagship talk show and another prominent Kremlin mouthpiece, called for those responsible for the botched rollout of the policy to be shot. Ukrainian soldiers at a collection point for destroyed Russian military vehicles after it was taken over from Russian forces in Kharkiv region, Sept. 25. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images) Anger at mobilization has been stoked by recently conscripted Russian men who have published on social media footage of the dire conditions and decrepit equipment theyve been issued. One widely shared video shows new recruits inspecting issued AKM assault rifles, which are covered in rust both externally and internally, appearing to be barely functional. Training barracks are shown to be in a substandard state, with conscripts made to sleep on filthy mattresses with no bedding. Other Russians have been complaining that their conscripted relatives have been sent immediately to the front, with little or none of the promised training. In the city of Lipetsk, the wife of a recently mobilized man told Russian media that her husband and 1,000 other men had been given just one day of training before being sent to join the 237th Tank Regiment, currently fighting in Ukraine. There comes a point, as Gorbachev found out, said Goble, when using repression is like throwing water at a grease fire the fire spreads. Additional reporting by Holger Roonemaa. These irreplaceable petroglyphs are ten times older than the Egyptian pyramids. (CNN) Near a dry, red rock peninsula on Australias far western coast, a dusty highway separates two communities with contrasting fortunes tied to an ancient land. One is home to the small but booming city of Karratha, a regional hub scattered with four-wheel drives that was purpose-built in the 1960s to accommodate a growing army of miners looking to extract the land's vast stores of iron ore, oil, and gas. The other is Roebourne, a former gold rush town 30 minutes up the highway, where the peninsulas Indigenous population settled after being driven from their lands by colonialists in the mid-1800s. For years, news reports painted Roebourne as a misfit town where everyone drinks, smokes, and cant take care of their kids, says Josie Alec, a proud descendent of the Kuruma-Marthudunera people, who raised her four kids there. In reality, she says its a deeply resilient community made up of families like her own, whose ancestors have watched over Murujuga the peninsulas Aboriginal name for generations, while keeping its vibrant cultural traditions alive. For Australias First Nations people, Murujuga is the birthplace of songs and creation stories explaining the laws of nature, told through more than a million rock carvings scattered across its deserts and nearby islands. These irreplaceable petroglyphs are 10 times older than the pyramids of Egypt and depict early human civilization, but some of their ancestral guardians fear they could be destroyed by pollution from one of Australias largest new fossil fuel developments. These irreplaceable petroglyphs are ten times older than the Egyptian pyramids. Experts say the prehistoric petroglyphs show extinct species and the earliest depictions of the human face The company behind the project, Woodside Energy, plans to extract millions of tons of gas from the Scarborough field in the Indian Ocean mostly for export to north Asia. Not only is there widespread concern about the sky-high greenhouse gas emissions the project is expected to generate over its lifetime, but there are also fears that industrial pollution from its processing plants could erode Murujugas petroglyphs, which show now-extinct animals and plant species, as well as some of the earliest known depictions of the human face. Story continues Woodside argues the impacts of its expansion have been thoroughly assessed by environmental regulators and says it supports a program by the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation (MAC) and the state government to assess risks to the rock art, which is due to file its first report next year. MAC is the legally appointed Aboriginal body tasked with advising the government and companies on the cultural implications of development on the peninsula. While MAC doesnt receive mining royalties, critics argue its ability to object to Woodsides plans is limited by longstanding agreements, and its reliance on industry for funding has created frustration and resentment among other members of the community who say its not doing enough to protect ancestral treasures. Mining country Murujuga is part of Australias Pilbara region, a thinly populated area twice the size of the United Kingdom known for its ancient landscapes, dry red deserts, and vast mineral resources. To White settlers, its always been mining country. The promise of gold and pearl brought colonists to the Pilbara in the 1880s, but today companies are more interested in its stores of iron ore, oil and gas. Resources extracted from the region have powered Australias economy and helped create some of the worlds largest mining and energy multinationals. But a comparatively small slice of the overall proceeds has filtered back to First Nations people, many of whom say their land has been exploited and sacred sites destroyed. And it keeps happening. Last month federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek said she wouldnt intervene to stop plans by Perth-based multinational group Perdaman to build a new fertilizer plant on the peninsula a development requiring some sacred rocks to be relocated. This idea that Perdaman is going to suddenly be built on that landscape is just unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable, said Benjamin Smith, a professor of World Rock Art at the University of Western Australia, who has spent years studying Murujugas petroglyphs. In a June paper, co-authored with other eminent rock experts, Smith found that industrial pollutants from other development on the peninsula namely nitrogen oxides are already eroding the outer layer of Murujugas petroglyphs, causing the carvings to slowly disappear. The paper draws on other published studies that agree that the rich red-brown patina of Murujugas rocks, as with other forms of rock varnish, is dissolved with increasing acidity. Smith says acid levels increase when sulfur and nitrogen oxides emitted from the industrial plants on Murujuga mix with moisture. Smiths findings contradict previous research partly funded by industry that claimed there was no adverse impact to the rock engravings from industrial pollution, which Woodside uses to back its claim that its gas plant activities arent harming the petroglyphs. In a statement to CNN, Woodside said: Peer-reviewed research has not demonstrated any impacts on Burrup (Murujuga) rock art from emissions associated with Woodside's operations. Smith and other experts have long argued that the raw data used to support those findings is flawed. In June, the Western Australian Environment Protection Agency (EPA) pointed to a lack of consensus on the issue and said it considers that there may be a threat of serious or irreversible damage to rock art from industrial air emissions, of which the most significant sources are Woodsides existing gas plants. Last week, the federal government responded to requests to assign an independent consultant to carry out a full cultural heritage assessment of all industry on Murujuga, with their findings to be reported to the environment minister who will then decide if the site is worthy of an official order to protect it. My family story lies in those rocks The independent review was the result of intense lobbying by Alec and Marthudunera woman Raelene Cooper, two traditional custodians, who traveled to Geneva in July to tell the United Nations that the potential destruction of Murujuga's rocks would amount to "cultural genocide." The two women started visiting the countryside around Murujuga as children in the 1970s and 80s -- around the same time, Woodside arrived on the peninsula to begin construction on its sprawling Karratha gas complex. For Cooper, that meant floating down the Fortescue River on hot days, while watching the local mothers wash their clothes and prepare food. Id swim in the river, have a feed out bush (eat outdoors). We knew industry was there, but we didnt see it ... back then even the iron ore mines were out of sight, she said. Like a lot of young First Nations people living across the Pilbara, Cooper eventually found herself working in the mines. For three years, she operated heavy machinery for Rio Tinto, but quit after questioning the damage it was doing to country. I realized my job was to protect Murujuga, not dig it up. The economy here shouldnt just be about breaking up the earth and sucking everything out of it. In 2016, Cooper was elected as one of MACs board members, a role she proudly occupied for more than five years until February, when she resigned over the corporations support of Woodsides Scarborough development. I felt the elders were being manipulated and had no understanding of the risks the project posed. It broke my heart to leave, but I couldnt support MAC approving the removal of our history, she told CNN. For Alec, protecting Murujuga is part of a journey to heal the bonds severed with her ancestors when she was forcibly removed from her mother as a baby and placed in foster care under a government policy from 1910 to the 1970s to assimilate First Nations children. The policy created whats known as the Stolen Generation, who carry the trauma of separation from their people. At the time, the government claimed it was for their own good. Growing up as an Aboriginal girl in a White world was tough, but I had a really good foster mom and dad and a strong family, Alec told CNN. Alecs adoptive parents eventually brought her back to Murujuga to meet her birth mother and learn about her ancestors. By the time she was a teenager, she was making regular trips to Roebourne and its surrounding countryside, and it was there she began discovering the traditional healing techniques her family was known for by learning to read Murujugas rocks. My mom was the shaman of the tribe, everyone came to her for healing, and eventually she passed that down to me. My family story lies in those rocks ... They take me home, so thats why I fight so hard for them, she told CNN. A tale of contrasting fortunes The contrast between extreme wealth and poverty thats come to define the Pilbara is clear in the recent histories of Roebourne and Karratha. While Karratha transformed from a small resource town to a regional city, Roebourne battled poverty, alcoholism, and racial violence. In the 1980s, the town was thrust into the national spotlight after a First Nations teenager died in a police cell, provoking fury and an inquiry into Aboriginal deaths in custody. Today, the fight for Murujugas rock art reflects long-standing and unresolved issues of race and power. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that consent from First Nations people for projects on their land should be provided freely, without coercion or manipulation, and that the self-determination and sustainability of their communities should be at the core of all negotiations. But in Australia, thats rarely been the case. Until the early 1990s, experts say little thought was given to Indigenous land rights due to the concept of terra nullius, which held that the continent belonged to no one before White settlement. In 1992, Native Title law was written to recognize Indigenous land rights, but it was only designed to secure First Nations people a share of the profits from exploration or mining activities on their lands, not to stop developments altogether. In order to avoid lengthy legal battles, Native Title lawyers say governments and big industry have historically sought out potential claimants ahead of proposed developments using negotiated agreements to acquire their land in exchange for financial benefits. Indigenous activists and Native Title lawyers describe this alleged practice as a divide and conquer technique that can cause bad blood between families because it pits traditional custodians against one another. Government and industry have this unique ability to foster division in vulnerable Aboriginal communities, said Kado Muir, a Ngalia Traditional Owner and Chairman of The National Native Title Council. They create a faction who endorses and signs off on the agenda a developer brings. Then eventually, the community is torn apart, and the cycle of poverty and dispossession continues. A volatile place to speak your truth In 2003, the Western Australian government compulsorily acquired Native Title on Murujuga through the Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement (BMIEA) a contract signed by the region's Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi, Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo, and Yaburara Mardudhunera peoples. In exchange for surrendering their land rights to the state government for the purpose of industrial development, the Aboriginal groups party to the BMIEA received financial benefits along with the freehold title of the Murujuga National Park. The agreement also led to the establishment of MAC as the approved corporate body, which shares management of the park with the state government and whose rock monitoring program receives funding from businesses that operate on the peninsula Woodside, Rio Tinto, and fertilizer company Yara Pilbara. MACs reputation among locals is polarizing, with activists like Alec and Cooper openly questioning its independence due to the funding it receives from industry. Members of the group have spoken publicly about the power imbalance that stems from those financial ties, including its CEO Peter Jeffries. In a June letter to the Department of Agriculture concerning the Perdaman fertilizer development, seen by CNN, Jeffries, a senior Ngarluma man, said the Circle of Elders that advise MAC repeatedly stated their preference that the rocks at the site werent moved, before agreeing to the companys proposals to shift a small number. More broadly, he wrote, There are serious issues that need to be addressed regarding the quality of negotiation between Aboriginal Corporations and proponents ... where proponents only consider a negotiation to be complete upon receiving the answer they want. Jeffries was less candid when he spoke with CNN about Woodsides project, in an interview arranged by the managing director of a public relations firm, who asked to sit in on the call. The firm which also provides services for Woodsides joint-venture partner BHP and the state governments development agency told CNN that MAC was the only approved cultural authority to speak about developments on Murujuga, and that it was crucial the right information was being shared about the views of traditional custodians in relation to the Scarborough expansion. In the interview, Jeffries was guarded when asked about MACs relationship with Woodside and its reliance on big industry for funding. In partnerships, youve got to take the good with the bad ... we have to work with industry, theyve been here for 30-40 years and theyll continue to be here, so its about how we co-exist," he said. Local leaders are uneasy about the influence they say Woodside has over MAC, and in March, 27 elders from Murujuga wrote an open letter to the Western Australian government, calling for independent" financing for the organization, so it could manage the cultural heritage of Murujuga without being compromised by relying on Woodside. In a statement to CNN, Woodside said it had engaged and consulted extensively with Traditional Owners about the Scarborough Project since 2019 and it was pleased with the support it had from Murujugas custodians. MAC is under intense pressure from all sides -- but First Nations activists CNN spoke with say that blaming Aboriginal corporations detracts from the real problem. Its easy to look in from the outside and say that Traditional Owners on the Pilbara are pro-mining, but its a volatile place to speak your truth about whats taking place on country, said Larissa Baldwin, a Widjabul First Nations Justice Campaign Director at GetUp, a not-for-profit that advocates for progressive policy change in Australia. People are afraid of having their livelihoods threatened in a place where there is no other economy, said Baldwin. Its the kind of power imbalance that puts Indigenous communities in a place of duress. Powering Asia Woodside hopes the first gas piped from the offshore Scarborough field will be processed and sent to Asian markets in 2026. The companys awaiting final sign-off from Australias offshore regulator but otherwise it has the go-ahead from state and federal legislators. The new Labor government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised higher cuts to emissions than its predecessor but maintains gas is a transition energy as the world moves to renewables. That stands at odds with the International Energy Agencys assessment that the world wont reach its target of net zero emissions by 2050 if governments approve new oil and gas developments. Gas, in general, is less carbon-intensive than coal, but its still a planet-warming fossil fuel, and there is a growing understanding that its infrastructure leaks huge amounts of methane a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the shorter term undermining the bridge fuel argument. Woodside estimates the project will pump out 967 million tons of carbon emissions over its lifetime. But researchers at Climate Analytics say that figure will be closer to 1.5 billion tons from 2021 until the project winds down in 2055 about the same amount of emissions Australia produces every three years. Woodside has told CNN it is committed to using technology to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions across its operations while it awaits the results of the rock art monitoring program, but it also confirmed that no new investment had been made into pollution control measures for its infrastructure since 2008. Smith says the existing body of science shows Murujugas rocks wont survive the coming decades if the Scarborough project goes ahead due to the sheer scale of its projected emissions. Its an obvious no-brainer ... there should be no new developments on Murujuga, Smith said. The world is turning against people like Woodside that make vast profits at the expense of the planet and the expense of our heritage. Smith also expressed concern about the transparency of the rock art monitoring program due to the absence of independent oversight and a lack of access to its raw data. At the moment, we dont have access to any of the data that has been produced. It has confidentiality written all over it. It shouldnt, he said. I cannot see any reason for secrecy of any form of something that is of such public interest. A spokesperson for the state Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) said the raw data will be peer-reviewed by a panel of scientists selected by the government in mid-2023 after the first full year of monitoring. The raw data will not be published, the spokesperson confirmed. In a country thats built its fortunes on mining and stands to make billions of dollars in gas exports in coming decades, few political avenues exist to stop Woodsides expansion. Theres no statutory timeframe for the independent assessors report into development on Murujuga, and in the meantime Perdaman and Woodside are pushing ahead with their projects. Alec and Cooper have welcomed the extra scrutiny, but they say the government's refusal to grant an earlier request to halt the Perdaman plant "reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of all consultation between traditional custodians and industry." Perdaman declined CNN's requests for comment. Alec and Cooper say they won't back down until they're convinced Murujuga will be protected. The rocks are ancient beings, Alec said. My job as a custodian is to share our stories and spread awareness in a way that makes people feel and understand the power of this place. Its a very personal fight, Cooper added. But its a fight for all of our people and for Australia. The-CNN-Wire & 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Hunter Martin stands near Lake Michigan over the summer. Martin said undergoing top surgery two years ago, at the age of 16, was one of the best decisions he ever made. He was part of a Northwestern Medicine study that found that teens and young adults who underwent the surgery felt less mental distress afterward. (Hunter Martin / HANDOUT) Advertisement Transgender and nonbinary teens and young adults who experience anxiety and depression at higher rates than others often feel less mental distress after surgery to remove their breasts, according to a study out of Northwestern Medicine published Monday. Its a finding that comes as a number of states are attempting to ban gender-confirming surgery for people younger than 18, and as hospitals, including in Chicago, have been criticized, and sometimes threatened, for the care they provide to transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming children. Advertisement Our findings are that top surgery (to remove the breasts) benefits these teenagers and young adults, said Dr. Sumanas Jordan, lead author of the study, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Pediatrics. It is so important to be able to have evidence and treat them not based on politics but based on science and medicine. The studys authors compared two groups of patients ages 14 to 24 across three Chicago hospitals: one group of 36 patients who chose to undergo so-called top surgery and a control group of 34 patients who sought out gender-confirming care but did not undergo surgery. They questioned participants over time, and found that three months after the surgeries, the patients who had top surgery experienced significantly less chest dysphoria, which is distress related to development of the breasts, than they had before the surgeries, while patients in the control group experienced about the same levels of chest dysphoria as they had three months earlier. Patients who underwent surgery also experienced less body image dissatisfaction and more gender congruence, which is when people feel that their appearance matches their gender identity. Jordan called the decrease in feelings of chest dysphoria pretty dramatic. Chest dysphoria has been associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. Research suggests that transgender and nonbinary youth struggle with depression and anxiety at higher rates than cisgender teens. Nearly 51% of female-to-male adolescents surveyed as part of a study published in 2018 in the journal Pediatrics had attempted suicide. Adolescence is a pretty turbulent time, but to have that burden of that extra chest dysphoria and gender dysphoria thats untreated, I think does a lot of harm, said Jordan, who is an assistant professor of plastic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and system director for the Gender Pathways Program at Northwestern. Critics of gender-confirming surgery for teens say they are too young to make irreversible decisions about their bodies. Last year, Arkansas became the first state to ban gender-confirming treatments and surgery for people younger than 18, though courts have temporarily blocked that law from being enforced. Since then, more than a dozen other states have introduced similar legislation, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In February, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed a state agency to investigate gender-transitioning procedures, including top surgeries, as child abuse when performed on minors. In Illinois in 2019, half a dozen Republican lawmakers, including gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey, sponsored a bill that aimed to make gender-confirmation surgeries and other treatments illegal for people under age 18. The bill didnt go far. Advertisement The procedure is irreversible, said Rep. Tom Morrison, R-Palatine, who was the chief sponsor of the bill. There are all kinds of practices that we prohibit minors from partaking in because they are not able to fully consent or have informed consent or have the maturity to understand the kind of lifelong decisions theyre making. Doctors involved with gender-confirming care, however, stress that no one takes the decision to perform such a surgery on a teen lightly. Hospitals require parental consent for anyone under 18 in Illinois having top surgery, and patients must fully understand the surgery, its risks and benefits and be deemed mature enough to make a decision, said Dr. Loren Schechter, director of gender-confirmation surgery at Rush University Medical Center. Schechter is a co-lead author of the surgery chapter in the most recent standards of care from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which gender development programs at hospitals follow. Not every transgender or nonbinary teen wants to or should have surgery, he said. Some teens might be treated with medication that can delay puberty or hormones. Others might not need or want medical intervention at all. Surgery happens after a thorough assessment by a team of doctors and discussions over time with parents and patients, he said. This is a very, very considered decision, and its a decision between parents, the individual seeking surgery, the surgeon and the multidisciplinary team, the mental health professional, the pediatrician, Schechter said. Its taken very, very seriously, and that includes the times at which we perform the intervention. Advertisement Its uncommon for the surgery to be performed on teens younger than 16, but doctors consider patients on a case-by-case basis, he said. Other previous studies have also shown that top surgeries performed on teens and young adults are safe and effective, said Schechter, who was not involved with the Northwestern study. Jordan, the new studys lead author, said it doesnt make sense to delay top surgery for all teens until age 18. If you had any other medical conditions where you said, Im not going to treat your diabetes or high blood pressure until youre 18 or Im going to hold off on treating you for years, its not ethical to withhold care for that long, Jordan said. She said shes seen parents, who were initially against the surgery, change their minds when they realize its either treat them or lose them. Jordan and other researchers plan to continue to follow the teens and young adults from the study to see how they fare long term. One of those patients, Hunter Martin, is about two years out from his top surgery, and said it continues to be one of the best decisions hes made. Advertisement Martin was 16 when he underwent top surgery. It took years to get to that point, he said. Martin knew he wanted top surgery by the time he was 12. By freshman year of high school, Martin had told everyone that he went by Hunter and to use the pronouns he/him. Throughout that time, he wore a chest compression garment, but it wasnt a perfect solution. His back ached and the garment made it difficult for Hunter to sing, one of his passions in life. He was a senior in high school by the time he had surgery. He remembers, clearly, the moment he opened his eyes after the procedure, to a nurse adjusting his bandages. As soon as I woke up, I just had this intense feeling of relief wash over me, he said. That feeling has only intensified over time, he said. He feels more present in his body, and appreciates things like being able to throw on a T-shirt and walk out the door. Advertisement Every moment that I realize and recognize this is something Im doing now that I couldnt have done if I didnt have access to this surgery is another moment of relief, of euphoria, Martin said. Secretary of State for Justice Brandon Lewis - Rob Pinney/Getty Every rape victim will get the chance to avoid the trauma of facing a courtroom in a drive to stamp out blame culture, the Justice Secretary has announced. Writing in The Telegraph, Brandon Lewis said technology for victims to pre-record their evidence on video will be available at all 83 crown courts in England and Wales from Monday, sparing them the stress of facing their alleged attacker while being cross-examined. He said it was part of a series of measures to transform the way the criminal justice system dealt with rape and serious sexual offences as he admitted victims were still not getting the attention and treatment they deserve. In his article - the first since he took up the post, Mr Lewis backed efforts by the police under Operation Soteria to end blame culture by focusing investigations on the past and present behaviour of alleged rapists, rather than testing the credibility of victims. He also pledged to explore every possible avenue to bring down the crown court backlog, to resolve the barristers dispute as soon as possible, and to give powers to ministers to block the release of the most dangerous prisoners to protect the public from the risk of harm. The video evidence move, which aims to improve a rate of as low as one conviction in 70 reported rapes, enables victims to apply to be cross-examined by lawyers in front of a judge in advance of the trial while their memories remain fresh. With most rapes taking two years to come to court, pre-recording their evidence enables victims to get on with their lives without worrying about the prospect of facing a live trial. Its supporters say it could also boost convictions, as defendants often delay an admission in the hope the victim will drop out. About 40 per cent of victims withdraw from prosecutions over fears of reliving the crime in court, intrusive police investigations and lengthy delays in coming to court. The measure will be available at a final 20 crown courts in Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, Essex, London and the south east of England, bringing the total to 83. It will spare many the agony of testifying in the glare of a live trial, said Mr Lewis. Story continues We are working across Government to stamp out the blame culture that undermines victims confidence to come forward. With the expansion of Operation Soteria, we are making sure that rape investigations focus overwhelmingly on the suspect, so victims dont feel as though they are the ones under the police spotlight. Mr Lewis has already met leaders of the barristers strikes, paving the way for conversations about how the dispute could be resolved. I will work tirelessly to deliver a justice system that works for everyone, especially victims. That means speeding things up. We must get the wheels of justice moving again, getting barristers back to work as soon as possible, he said. He added that efforts to bring down the near-60,000 crown court backlog would have a particular focus on serious sexual violence cases, so we can get victims the justice they deserve, prevent them being continuously let down by delays and give them the space instead to start to move on with their lives. His predecessor Dominic Raabs British bill of rights has been withdrawn and is being re-written to focus on immigration and deportation to unlock the asylum crisis, worsened by the record numbers of Channel migrant crossings. But Mr Lewis made clear he would press ahead with Mr Raabs plans to overhaul the parole system by restoring the power of ministers to block the release of murderers, rapists, terrorists and child killers. Perpetrators must be punished and parole decisions must be proportionate, he said. He also pledged to tighten the criteria under which offenders are released so that, even if a parole board found a prisoner to be no longer a threat to the public, its decision could be overridden if it was felt safer to keep them behind bars. My vow to victims is this: I will champion your cause. I will give you a stronger voice. And above all, I will rebuild your confidence in the justice system, he said. Victims will be given a stronger voice and we will rebuild confidence in the justice system By Brandon Lewis, Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice As the new Justice Secretary, guaranteeing victims swift access to justice in a faster, more supportive criminal justice system is my top priority. We have made some good progress. Convictions for rape offences are up two-thirds on 2020, and by a quarter compared to levels before the pandemic hit. We have invested heavily in support for victims and witnesses - a massive 460 million over the next three years. And soon, victims will be able to attend parole hearings for the first time, so they can see justice being done and understand why decisions are made. I will be looking at how we can further improve the parole system so decision-making is clearer and more accountable to the public it serves. Public safety must be paramount. This Government was elected on a manifesto promising a better deal for victims and despite the great strides we have taken in the right direction, Im under no illusion that we have a long way to go. Nowhere more so than for victims of rape, who all too often, are still not getting the attention and treatment they deserve. Today marks a crucial step on our journey, with all rape victims across England and Wales now able to apply to pre-record their evidence in the Crown Court. It will spare many the agony of testifying in the glare of a live trial. Expanding this special measure across London and the south east completes our nationwide rollout, and makes good on a commitment we made in the Rape Review and subsequent plan of action. Its just one of the steps were taking to transform how the system responds to rape and serious sexual offences. We are working across Government to stamp out the blame culture that undermines victims confidence to come forward. With the Home Offices expansion of Operation Soteria, we are making sure that rape investigations focus overwhelmingly on the suspect, so victims dont feel as though they are the ones under the police spotlight. And we are boosting the accessibility of support with a new 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, offering victims the help they need, whenever and wherever they need it. I will work tirelessly to deliver a justice system that works for everyone, especially victims. That means speeding things up. We must get the wheels of justice moving again, getting barristers back to work as soon as possible. Ill be exploring every possible avenue to bring down the Crown Court backlog as quickly as we can, with a particular focus on serious sexual violence cases so we can get victims the justice they deserve, prevent them being continuously let down by delays and give them the space instead to start to move on with their lives. And Im determined to continue the reform of the parole system. Perpetrators must be punished and parole decisions must be proportionate. We will bring in a stronger Parole Board release test, and strengthen the powers to block the release of the most dangerous offenders so we can protect the British public from the risk of harm. Im honoured to take on the role of Justice Secretary, and proud to build on what has been achieved so far. My vow to victims is this: I will champion your cause. I will give you a stronger voice. And above all, I will rebuild your confidence in the justice system. FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) Europe's largest economy is sending recession signals. Germany's key future indicator, the IFO survey of business confidence, pointed down for the fourth month in a row as high inflation fed by astronomical natural gas prices undermines consumer pricing power and imposes heavy costs on businesses. The index compiled by the Munich-based Ifo institute dropped to 84.3 in September from 88.5 in August, to its lowest level since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago. High energy and commodity prices are weighing on demand and putting pressure on profit margins, said Carsten Brzeski, chief eurozone economist at ING bank. Companies can no longer pass through higher costs to consumers as easily as in the first months of the year. Company order books are shrinking, while businesses that use a lot of energy, such as bakeries, are facing costs that make them question whether they can stay in business. The news comes as more economists predict a recession for Europe as a whole. Germany was heavily dependent on cheap natural gas from Russia, which has cut back supplies to a small fraction of what they were before the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Gas is used to keep homes warm, run factories and generate electricity. European officials say the cutbacks are an attempt to pressure governments out of their strong support for Ukraine and for economic sanctions against Russia. Officials have lined up new supplies of more expensive liquefied gas that can come by ship from countries including the U.S. rather than by pipeline from Russia. But experts say Europe will still need to make a serious effort ahead of the winter heating season to conserve gas. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar over the weekend and signed some energy deals. Many investors define successful investing as beating the market average over the long term. But its virtually certain that sometimes you will buy stocks that fall short of the market average returns. Unfortunately, that's been the case for longer term Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated (NYSE:RGA) shareholders, since the share price is down 23% in the last three years, falling well short of the market return of around 30%. After losing 4.5% this past week, it's worth investigating the company's fundamentals to see what we can infer from past performance. Check out our latest analysis for Reinsurance Group of America To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement. Reinsurance Group of America saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 31% per year, over the last three years. In comparison the 8% compound annual share price decline isn't as bad as the EPS drop-off. So the market may not be too worried about the EPS figure, at the moment -- or it may have previously priced some of the drop in. You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image). It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Reinsurance Group of America's earnings, revenue and cash flow. What About Dividends? When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Reinsurance Group of America's TSR for the last 3 years was -17%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence! Story continues A Different Perspective We're pleased to report that Reinsurance Group of America shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 15% over one year. Of course, that includes the dividend. That certainly beats the loss of about 0.4% per year over the last half decade. This makes us a little wary, but the business might have turned around its fortunes. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Take risks, for example - Reinsurance Group of America has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges. 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. Join A Paid User Research Session Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here Amy Cooper, the infamous white woman who called the cops on a Black bird-watcher in 2020, sued her former employer for defamation and lost the case. As Blavity previously reported, Cooper became known after a video of her calling the police on an innocent Black man who was watching birds in New Yorks Central Park went viral during the pandemic. Christian Cooper, a lover of birds, was innocently enjoying a walk in the park when he came across the Central Park Karen and asked her to put her dog on a leash, a rule and regulation of the park. In response, she became angry and told him she would call the police and tell them he was harassing her. Im going to tell them theres an African American threatening my life, the 43-year-old woman said in the viral video shared by The New York Times. Due to the blatant racism exhibited in the video, her place of employment, Franklin Templeton, shared a statement on social media and fired Cooper. In response to an incident involving an employee on May 25th, Franklin Templeton issued the following statement. pic.twitter.com/8f2lMwK0r5 Franklin Templeton (@FTI_US) May 26, 2020 In May 2021, Cooper filed a lawsuit against her ex-employer and accused the company of defamation of character and wrongful termination. According to The Washington Post, she lost the case. A spokeswoman for Franklin Templeton shared with the Post that the company was happy with the federal judges decision to dismiss the case. We continue to believe the company responded appropriately, Franklin Templeton spokeswoman Lisa Gallegos told The Washington Post in an email. As previously reported by Blavity, all charges regarding Cooper falsely reporting an incident to police were dropped after she completed a restorative justice program in 2021. U.S. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) talks to reporters after a vote to hold longtime Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz Rep. Nancy Mace says there's "a lot of pressure" on Republicans to impeach President Biden. On NBC's Meet The Press, Mace said impeachment is being considered by some in the GOP. She told host Chuck Todd that if the party chooses to hold a vote, she believes it will be divisive. Rep. Nancy Mace says there's pressure on Republicans to vote to impeach President Biden if the party wins the midterms and gains control of the House. Mace was on NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday, speaking with host Chuck Todd who asked: "Do you expect an impeachment vote against President Biden if Republicans take over the House?" The South Carolina congresswoman answered, "there's a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote, to put that legislation forward. I think that is something that some folks are considering." To which Todd responded, simply: "Wow." On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said a GOP-majority Congress might try to impeach the president every week. Kinzinger was referring to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has made impeaching Biden part of her official platform. Last year, several Republicans filed impeachment articles criticizing Biden's withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, his immigration policies, and his administration's eviction moratorium. When asked by Todd how she would vote if impeachment was on the floor, Mace said she would look at the evidence and vote constitutionally. "I will not vote for impeachment of any president if I feel that due process has been stripped away for anyone," she told Todd. Mace said if the party chooses to hold this vote, she believes it will be divisive. "Which is why I pushed back on it personally when I hear folks saying they're going to file articles of impeachment in the House," she said. While Mace voted against impeaching former President Donald Trump, she was critical of his role on January 6, telling CNN that Trump's "entire legacy was wiped out" in the aftermath of the Capitol riots. Story continues Before January 6, Mace was a supporter of Trump's and even worked for his campaign in 2016. During the interview with NBC, Todd asked the congresswoman if she would back Trump's presidential bid in 2024. "I'm going to support whomever Republicans nominate in '24," she said. Representatives for Mace did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider (Bloomberg) -- A Texas Republican has crossed party lines to endorse a Democrat in a race to oversee the oil and natural gas industry in the nations largest energy producer. Sarah Stogner, a former Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commission, has endorsed Democrat Luke Warford over GOP candidate Wayne Christian in the general election. Stogner lost to Christian in a May runoff where she received roughly 35% of the ballot. This is one of the most significant endorsements I could imagine getting, Warford said in an interview. In a race where the margins could be in the thousands, the hundreds of thousands of votes that Sarah had already received could be really significant. Texans will be casting ballots for governor, attorney general and other statewide offices in November. Vying for one of the three seats overseeing the states top oil regulatory agency, the two men hold starkly different views. Warford has campaigned on using the agencys regulatory role to improve the states troubled power gird and increase protections for landowners. Christian is a vocal critic of renewable power. I think hes got a really good shot, Stogner said in an interview about Warford. Hes the better candidate. This shouldnt be a Republican/Democrat thing. This should be a Texas thing. As rivals in the Republican primary, Stogner and Christian differed sharply over how to regulate the industry. Stogner, an energy attorney, claims Christian and the Railroad Commission are not doing enough to protect landowners from oil companies. Stogners most notable client is West Texas rancher Ashley Watt, who is trying to get Chevron Corp. to clean up abandoned wells that are leaking noxious oil field wastewater. Stogner endorsed Warford days after he visited Wests Permian Basin ranch. Meanwhile, Christian has denounced what he calls woke ESG investing. When asked about climate change at a public event, he said turn the damn air conditioning up. Story continues For months, Sarah Stogner lied to voters about her party affiliation and political beliefs, Christian said in a statement. Now that Republicans have rejected her radical agenda, it is no surprise she would support her partys nominee. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Programs that match retirees and their skills with volunteer opportunities or projects that pay a modest stipend are on the rise. Some of these, like the Encore Physicians program and MAVEN Project, focus on health care where demand for those with medical acumen is tangible. While health care has added 412,000 jobs over the year, despite that growth, employment in health care is below its February 2020 level by 37,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2025, the U.S. is estimated to have a shortage of approximately 446,000 home health aides, 95,000 nursing assistants, 98,700 medical and lab technologists and technicians, and more than 29,000 nurse practitioners, according to a report conducted by Mercer. The problem the program addresses is the relative chronic shortage of physicians in community health centers, Dr. Mike Rizzo, who directs the Encore Physicians Program, told Yahoo Money. There are a lot of available retired physicians who if they knew of a way to work in a controlled, less hectic, less demanding environment would like to continue working, but it's not easy to find those things. They still have that spark and joy of caring for people. Were the matchmaker. Encore Physicians, which began as a pilot program in 2018, connects retired physicians with clinical roles in community health centers in Northern California that cater to patients with little or no health insurance. The health centers, with financial support from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Community Benefit Programs, pay Encore Physicians between $70 to 120 per hour, depending on the clinic and specialty. Physicians work from 4 to 16 hours a week for a year, providing direct patient care and mentoring less-experienced clinicians. To date, 15 retired doctors have been placed in five community health centers, and there are several new matches in the works. Encore Physician Dr. James McLean and Medical Assistant Rebecca Sandova (Photo Credit:S. Smith Patrick) Dr. James McLean, 72, a retired emergency physician, who lives in Oakland, Ca,, is now finishing his third year as an Encore Physician with La Clinica, Pittsburg, working two days a week. Story continues I retired because I was burned out,'' McLean told Yahoo Money. But I realized that I have a lot to offer. I have experience and expertise in procedures that many of the clinics don't have people with the training that I can bring specifically to an underserved community. The issue with me isn't the money. I have enough saved for retirement. The issue for me is giving back to the community that I serve. Dr. Dawnell Moody, chief medical officer at Axis Community Health, runs one of the centers that has tapped Encore Physicians. Were always looking for ways to expand services, Moody told Yahoo Money. So far, the program has connected us with primary care physicians, a podiatrist, an obgyn and a cardiologist. Most of them start working right after they retire and work generally between four and eight hours a week. Typically, they'll see about eight to 10 patients in a half day. Sharing a love for medicine and advice It didnt take Dr. Debra Cohen, 70, a retired pediatric endocrinologist, long to find her path. Cohen has spent almost seven years volunteering with MAVEN Project. Cohen is one of more than 160 retired and semi-retired physicians who volunteer with MAVEN Project, a national nonprofit that supports providers in delivering care to patients at health centers and community clinics nationwide. From her home in Los Gatos, California, Cohen responds to email questions from providers and doles out expert medical advice and recommendations treatment options. She can also connect through live video and phone consultations. "I love medicine and working out medical problems while connecting to other healthcare providers, Cohen told Yahoo Money. Launched in 2014 by San Francisco obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Laurie Green, MAVEN Project offers retired physicians a way to continue to use their medical expertise to make a difference and connect community health clinics with medical specialists who would be too expensive for them to have on staff. Originally the MAVEN acronym stood for Medical Alumni Volunteer Expert network, Dr. Jill Einstein, MAVENs senior director of physician engagement, told Yahoo Money. The origin of the word maven is Yiddish and means expert or one who understands. MAVEN Project offers retired physicians a way to continue to use their medical expertise to make a difference and connect community health clinics with medical specialists. Debbie Cohen is on the top row, far left in the white shirt and necklace. (Photo Credit: MAVEN Project) MAVEN Projects expert physician volunteers provide resources, peer support and medical consultations to more than 280 community clinics in 19 states and Puerto Rico. Theyve got a strong spirit of volunteerism; they're very eager to share their knowledge, and there's no minimum time commitment when volunteering, Einstein said. We have been growing rapidly. Last year, we doubled the number of sites. This year we plan to partner with at least another hundred clinics, possibly more. Funding for MAVEN Project comes through donations and community grants. By working with primary care providers at the clinics, rather than providing direct-to-patient care, MAVEN Project volunteers arent restricted by state licensure requirements. Our volunteers provide medical consults, medical education, and mentoring directly to the primary care providers through our telehealth platform which covers 60 different specialties, Einstein said. It's a HIPAA compliant platform. The work that we do is peer-to-peer, or provider-to- provider. Our volunteers don't interact directly with the patients. For example, if a family nurse practitioner, who launched her career a year ago, and is working in a rural clinic in Washington state, has a middle-aged patient with new onset diabetes, she may have a question about a side effect the patient is experiencing. She can go on to the telehealth platform and type in her case, Einstein said. And our physician volunteers will respond to her usually in less than eight hours. We also do video consulting and are piloting phone consults. Cohen spends roughly two hours a week volunteering for MAVEN Project. She also does projects as a volunteer for Life for a Child, which is a Sydney, Australia based nonprofit that supplies insulin and diabetes equipment in developing countries, and she volunteers for theInternational Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes. Overall, shes volunteering 10 to 15 hours a week. The biggest pay back to using her skills to volunteer? Ive always enjoyed medicine so much, and this is a way to use my experience to connect me to the healthcare providers that are on the ground, whether they're nurses, nurse practitioners, or doctors taking care of the patients. And I'm indirectly involved in patient care and teaching. That keeps me motivated to be up-to-date. Kerry is a Senior Columnist and Senior Reporter at Yahoo Money. Follow her on Twitter @kerryhannon Read the latest personal finance trends and news from Yahoo Money. A Rochester man who was convicted along with his brother for a home invasion robbery two years ago in West Elmira has been sentenced to serve more than two decades in state prison. Chemung County Judge Richard W. Rich Jr. on Friday sentenced Benny T. Warr, 62, to 25 years in prison, followed by five years of post-release supervision. Rich imposed the same sentence on Warr's brother, Bryan A. Warr, on Sept. 6. Both men were convicted in July of first-degree robbery and first-degree burglary, both felonies, along with three misdemeanor counts of petit larceny, following a jury trial in Chemung County Court. The charges stem from a Nov. 18, 2020, home invasion at 402 Hillbrook Road in the town of Elmira. HealthcarePatients could face service cuts at upstate NY hospitals as costs skyrocket For subscribersBills doomed by injuries and miscues despite Josh Allen's valiant effort against Dolphins State newsDental care is scarce for people with disabilities; this is how NY is trying to fix that Two men entered the home while wielding a pistol, and once inside, bound three home health care aides who were tending to patients in their 90s, according to police reports. Chief Assistant District Attorney Susan Rider-Ulacco and Assistant District Attorney Zachary Persichini presented evidence showing the duct tape and zip ties used in the crime came from a Home Depot in Irondequoit and were purchased earlier the same day by Benny Warr, accompanied by his brother. DNA evidence recovered on a knife left at the scene by the intruders matched the profile of Bryan Warrs DNA, and one of the victims also described one of the intruders as an older man who had difficulty breathing and bending one of his legs, attributes matching Bryan Warrs physical condition. Both Warrs have extensive criminal histories. Benny Warr has four prior felony convictions, including criminal possession of stolen property, and nine misdemeanor convictions. Bryan Warr has three previous felony convictions, including robbery and grand larceny, in addition to 50 misdemeanor convictions, primarily for thefts. Story continues Bryan Warr is in custody at the Elmira Correctional Facility. Follow Jeff Murray on Twitter @SGJeffMurray. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Rochester men get 25 years in prison for West Elmira home invasion Roger Federer bowed out from professional tennis at the Laver Cup (Getty Images for Laver Cup) Roger Federer has hinted that he intends to return to the Laver Cup next year in a different position after his retirement from professional tennis. The 20-time grand slam singles champion played his final competitive match alongside Rafael Nadal in London, losing to Team Worlds Frances Tiafoe and Jack Sock on Friday evening. Tiafoe and Socks win helped the John McEnroe-captained Team World to their first Laver Cup victory as Team Europe missed out on a fifth consecutive title at the event. The European selection, which also featured Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, had led 8-4 entering the final day of competition in London, but singles wins for Felix Auger-Aliassime and Tiafoe meant victory was secured with a match to spare. Federer praised McEnroes team for an amazing comeback, and suggested he hoped that Team Europe didnt blame him for the defeat. Congratulations to Team World, the 41-year-old said to Eurosport after bringing the curtain down on his playing career. [That was an] amazing comeback. I was very confident going into today but well done Johnny Mac [Team World captain McEnroe] and the rest of the team for incredible play today, you deserve it. My team has been fantastic, Ive enjoyed every minute. Its been great, its been a little bit emotional at times. But I recovered, the team has recovered; I hope I didnt make the team lose, but I had a wonderful time and I cant thank you enough for that. Federer said last week that he did not intend to be a ghost after retirement, though suggested he was not sure exactly what he intends to do with his post-playing career. The eight-time Wimbledon winner was ruled out of last years Laver Cup through injury but still attended the competition in Boston, and Federer intends to return to the tournament in 2023, when it will be held in Vancouver, Canada. Im looking forward to next year [in Vancouver], Ill be there too and supporting both teams from a different position, Federer explained. Thanks to Rod Laver, your presence means everything to us players so we can go cross-generations and inspire the next generation of young players coming through. And thanks to all the fans - you made my weekend incredible. Two people have died after the driver of a vehicle lost control and drove the vehicle into a building in Brighton Park late Sunday, Chicago police said. The car was traveling south in the 4300 block of South Archer Avenue shortly before 11 p.m. when the crash occurred, according to a witness who spoke with police. Advertisement Paramedics transported the 18-year-old man who was driving the car and a woman in the passenger seat to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, where they were both pronounced dead shortly after. The woman died at 11:32 p.m. Sunday and the man died at 12:56 a.m. Monday. The Major Accidents unit is investigating the cause of the accident, police said. No additional information was available from police Monday morning. Advertisement adperez@chicagotribune.com Deadline Terry Bradshaw, a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback and one of the co-hosts on Fox NFL Sunday, revealed Sunday on air that he has battled cancer twice in the last year. Bradshaw had an incident during the pregame show last week and addressed them on Sundays episode before the rest of the schedule kicked off. Last week on [] MOSCOW (Reuters) - After launching a digital rouble early next year, Russia plans to use the currency in mutual settlements with China as it seeks to reduce Washington's global financial hegemony, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Monday. Russia, like many countries, has been developing digital money over the last couple of years to modernise its financial system, speed up payments and head off the threat of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin gaining influence. The central bank is already conducting digital rouble tests with banks at a time when sanctions against Moscow over its actions in Ukraine have slashed Russia's access to large swathes of global financial market infrastructure. With that in mind, Russia is on the hunt for alternative means of carrying out transactions, said Anatoly Aksakov, head of the financial committee in Russia's lower house of parliament, in an interview with Russia's parliamentary newspaper. "The topic of digital financial assets, the digital rouble and cryptocurrencies is currently intensifying in society, as Western countries are imposing sanctions and creating problems for bank transfers, including in international settlements," Aksakov said. He added that the digital direction is key because financial flows can bypass systems controlled by unfriendly countries. The central bank and government have been at loggerheads all year over cryptocurrency regulation. Aksakov said he hoped legislation would emerge this year. He added the next step for the digital rouble would be to launch it for mutual settlements with China, which has already tested its digital yuan. "If we launch this, then other countries will begin to actively use it going forward, and America's control over the global financial system will effectively end," said Aksakov. As Western nations have shunned Russia, cooperation with Beijing has become increasingly important for Moscow. The two nations have increased trade with one another and Russian companies have started issuing debt in yuan. Some central bank experts have also suggested the new technologies mean countries would be able to deal more directly with each other, making them less dependent on Western-dominated payment channels such as the SWIFT system, to which many Russian banks have lost access due to sanctions. (Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Josie Kao) UKRAINSKA PRAVDA MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 12:25 Russia plans to carry out massive cyberattacks on critical infrastructure facilities in Ukraine, in particular the energy industry, as well as increase the number of DDoS attacks on institutions in Poland and the Baltic states, according to Ukrainian Intelligence. Source: press service of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine Quote: "First of all, the [cyber] attack will be aimed at energy industry enterprises. This will allow the enemy to try to increase the effect of missile strikes on electricity supply facilities, primarily in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine." Details: Ukrainian Intelligence reports that this way, the Russians will try to slow down the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian defenders. In particular, the experience of cyberattacks on Ukraines energy systems in 2015 and 2016 will be used when conducting operations. Russia also plans to increase the intensity of DDoS attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine's closest allies, primarily Poland and the Baltic states. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Maria Baklanova/Kommersant Photo/AFP via Getty A gunman wearing Nazi symbols and a balaclava shot 17 people dead, including 11 children, in a rampage at a school in central Russia on Monday, officials say. The attack at School No. 88 in Izhevsk, around 600 miles east of Moscow, also left a further 22 children and two adults wounded, according to the Associated Press. The shooter, who was reportedly armed with two weapons, killed himself after the massacre. Russias Investigative Committee named the shooter as Artem Kazantsev, 34, a former student at the school. The committee also released a short video showing the gunmans body lying on a classroom floor surrounded by overturned furniture. A red Swastika in a circle appears to have been drawn on the chest area of his black top. Russian War Protester Shoots Commander Trying to Draft Citizens The investigative committee, which is responsible for major crimes, added that the adults shot dead included teachers at the school and security guards. Authorities are now searching Kazantsevs residence. Speaking outside the school on Monday as medical workers rushed into the campus, regional governor Alexander Brechalov confirmed casualties and wounded among children. Early reports indicated many of the victims were as young as 7 years old. Disturbing clips shared by local media show armed officers storming up the schools stairwells as terrified students fled during the attack. Others show young children hiding in classrooms as shots ring out in the school. One boy in seventh grade broke his leg after jumping from a third-floor window to escape the gunman, Russian media reported. Two pistols found near the shooters body appearing in images published by local outlets had cords attached with the words Columbine, Dylan, and Erican apparent reference to the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado in which Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people. There have been at least 13 mass shootings in Russia over the last three years, including a school shooting in May 2021 that left nine people dead. The massacre in Kazan in western Russia, which also left a further 23 injured, was carried out by a former student. Story continues A separate shooting rocked Russia on Monday, as a gunman shot a commander attempting to draft residents in the Irkutsk region of Siberia. Over a dozen attacks on military enlistment offices across the country have been recorded since last Wednesday, when Vladimir Putin announced a mobilization of 300,000 new troops for his invasion of Ukraine, plunging the country into chaos. Throughout the war in Ukraine, which began in February, Putin and other Russian officials have justified the bloody war on the grounds of denazification. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. By Max Hunder and Tom Balmforth KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine's president and security chiefs met on Monday to plan ways to counteract Russia's use of "new types of weapons" after Moscow stepped up attacks in Odesa region using Iranian combat drones, the president's office and a regional official said. Russia carried out at least five attacks on targets in the region using unmanned Shahed-136 drones in the last few days, Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for Odesa's regional administration, told a news briefing. One of the attacks hit an undisclosed military target in the southern region in the early hours of Monday, he said. "The enemy is trying to save on missiles... these Shaheds are much cheaper, they can be used much more frequently and in pairs. We are seeing that the enemy can even launch several of these kamikaze drones for one attack," he said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced Russia's use of Iranian drones on Friday, and Kyiv withdrew the Iranian ambassador's accreditation and cut its diplomatic staff in Kyiv. Iran, which has denied supplying unmanned aerial vehicles, has said it will respond with "proportional action." On Monday, Zelenskiy held a meeting with army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, his military intelligence chief, the defence minister and various other top security and military staff, the president's office said separately. "During the meeting, the participants separately focused on the issue of the enemy's use of new types of weapons and outlined plans to counter such means," it said in a statement, without giving details of the plans. New weapon types, including the Himars rocket systems, Javelin anti-tank weapons and Turkish Bayraktar drones, have had a visible impact on the course of the seven-month war launched by Russia in February. Military authorities in southern Ukraine said on Saturday they had shot down several Shahed-136 drones over the sea near the ports of Odesa and Pivdennyi on Friday. Separately, the air force said a Mohajer-6, a larger Iranian drone, had been shot down for the first time in Ukraine. (Reporting by Tom Balmforth and Max Hunder, Editing by Timothy Heritage) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation that amends Russia's criminal code to impose a 10-year person sentence on any service member who voluntarily surrenders to Ukrainian forces. "This is classic Putins Playbook - he is a master of checkmates," Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer and the author of "Putins Playbook: Russias Secret Plan to Defeat America," told Fox News Digital. "Its an impossible decision that Russian men face today - either you die on the battlefield or you rot in prison." Putin's move comes after he announced a partial mobilization in Russia last week, introducing conscription to a conflict that has been ongoing for seven months and has rarely gone according to script for Moscow. Now, those drafted into military service will face stiff penalties if they choose to abandon the fight in Ukraine. PUTIN INITIATES CONSCRIPTION TO BOLSTER MILITARY INVASION AS UKRAINE MOUNTS COUNTEROFFENSIVE Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo by MIKHAIL METZEL/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images Russian troops who are first time offenders, are able to flee captivity and return to their unit will be exempt from the prison sentence. However, Koffler does not believe the move will solve the problems Russia has experienced on the battlefield, which have multiplied after a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in September. "Not only this move will not solve the issue of Russia's decreasing combat power in Ukraine now partial mobilization will not produce tangible results for a few months but it will have profound negative consequences for Russia and its military in the long-run," she said. Putin extended university and vocational college students a draft deferment to pursue their studies in addition to the criminal code amendment, though only students who are pursuing a secondary education for the first time will be eligible for the deferment. RUSSIAN TROOPS BOXED IN BY UKRAINIAN FORCES AND DNIEPER RIVER, BARGE CARRYING SUPPLIES TO RUSSIAN TROOPS SINKS The order exempting students from the partial mobilization is retroactive to September 21, the day Putin signed the mobilization. Story continues However, many young Russian men will still be subject to the country's military draft, a move Koffler said could have disastrous consequences as the country battles a "demographic crisis." Russia currently has a fertility rate of 1.5, Koffler pointed out, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 that allows a country to maintain population levels. Russian military and pro-Russian separatists keep watch as civilians are being evacuated along humanitarian corridors from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on March 24, 2022. Photo by Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images "Eliminating an entire segment of males, 18-55 year olds, child-producing ages, is strategically a disastrous move," she argued. "It will have negative ripple effects not just on Russias military but on the future of the Russian society. Its a tragedy for the Russian people." Edward Snowden could be drafted to fight in Russia's war in Ukraine after Putin granted the U.S. whistleblower full Russian citizenship, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Monday. "Our position has not changed: Mr. Snowden should return to the United States where he should face justice, as any other American citizen would," Price told reporters. "Perhaps the only thing that has changed, is that as a result of his Russian citizenship, apparently now he may well be conscripted to fight in Russia's war in Ukraine." Snowden, 39, is facing espionage charges that could put him behind bars for up to 30 years in the U.S. EDWARD SNOWDEN SAYS BARACK OBAMA MADE SURVEILLANCE STATE 'WORSE' The former National Security Agency contractor first exposed sweeping surveillance operations by U.S. intelligence agencies in 2013 then fled to Russia, where he was eventually granted asylum. The revelations were met with praise from civil liberties activists, while other US officials have accused him of damaging national security. Russian military and pro-Russian separatists keep watch near the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on March 24, 2022. Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Snowden said that he would apply for Russian citizenship in 2020 after being given permanent residency. His lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the state-owned new outlet RIA Novosti that Snowden won't be conscripted because he does not have any experience in the Russian military. Putin originally announced the partial mobilization to conscript about 300,000 Russian men last Wednesday to fight in Ukraine. The order has been met with protests in dozens of cities across Russia. According to available data, Boris Totikov was killed in a HIMARS MLRS strike on the headquarters of the Russian invaders in the town of Izyum in Kharkiv Oblast Totikov and another soldier, the head of the automobile service of guards military unit No. 74268, captain Oleg Lebedev, were reportedly buried in Russias city of Ryazan on Sept. 25. Read also: Ukrainian forces destroy four Russian command and control posts on the southern front According to Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov, the Russian army colonel was killed in a HIMARS MLRS strike on the headquarters of the Russian invaders in the town of Izyum in Kharkiv Oblast, just ahead of the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Balakliya. It was the headquarters of the 35th combined army that was responsible for commanding the troops in this area the breakthrough occurred in their area, the journalist said in a Telegram messenger post on Sept. 26. Read also: Ukraine advances on Lyman while discontent with mobilization rises in Russia, says ISW And now, as we can see, there are reasons to say that the Russian command suffered significant losses in this area. The chief of missile troops and artillery is one of the key elements in modern warfare. Now it is clear that the defeat of the Russians was largely connected with the loss of control and the accurate determination by Ukrainian intelligence of the location of Russian headquarters and their precise defeat. According to the latest data, Russian military losses have exceeded 57,000 people since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Against this background, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin early on Sept. 21 declared a partial mobilization in Russia and his readiness to use nuclear weapons in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. Later Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that 300,000 reservists would be called up during the partial mobilization. He estimated Russias mobilization resource at almost 25 million people. Read also: Putin plans to mobilize a lot more than 300,000 troops, analyst says After the announcement, Russians began to buy tickets abroad en masse to avoid participation in their countrys full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Story continues Read also: FSB sends armored vehicles to checkpoint where Russians are trying to flee to Georgia In turn, the Kremlins puppet in Chechnya, warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, said that he was not going to mobilize locals as the republic had already surpassed the target for raising troops for the Kremlins war in Ukraine. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Russia has rerouted its oil exports away from Europe towards Asia. Suriyapong Thongsawang/Getty Images Russian crude flows to Asian buyers hit their highest levels in five weeks, Bloomberg data shows. In the week leading up to September 23, the four-week average hit 1.79 million barrels per day, up from 1.74 million barrels per day in the week leading up to September 16. Europe's sanctions on Russian crude are set to begin in December. Russian crude shipments to Asian buyers hit a five-week high, according to Bloomberg data, with India and China taking in the majority of supplies. In the week leading up to September 23, the four-week moving average of shipments to Asia hit 1.79 million barrels per day, Bloomberg reports, up from 1.74 million barrels per day in the week leading up to September 16. The shipments include those marked without a final destination that typically go to China and India. Exports to northern Europe and the Mediterranean dipped in the same four-week period. The European Union's embargo on seaborne Russian crude is set to begin in December. The G7 has been pushing for a price cap to coincide with the EU's ban. But the EU is likely to delay the cap as the 27-country bloc struggles to reach an agreement on the matter, according to a report from Bloomberg. Cyprus and Hungary are still opposed to the price cap, sources told Bloomberg, and the EU needs unanimous agreement on sanctions. Meanwhile, Iran's oil exports are falling as of late, thanks in large part to increased competition from Russia for Asian buyers. Exports have fallen to 775,000 barrels a day from a peak of 1 million, sources told Bloomberg. China is where the competition is heating up, and Iran is aggressively re-adjusting barrel prices to stay competitive with Russia, according to the report. Read the original article on Business Insider UKRAINSKA PRAVDA MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 19:39 The Russian Ministry of Defence claimed it will not restrict the movement of citizens as a result of mobilisation. Source: message from the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation Quote: "In the context of partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation, no restrictions on the movement of citizens are expected." Details: The message does not indicate whether we are talking about movement between the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, or about travelling outside the Russian Federation. At the same time, Russian media report that at the borders, where many Russians have now accumulated, there are increasingly frequent cases where border guards refuse to allow men of military age to leave the country. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Become our patron, support our work! A Chicago police officer with police radio on his belt keeps watch near Oak Street Beach on Aug. 18, 2022. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune) The days of Chicago reporters and news photographers relying on a live, crackling police scanner to chase news and tell the public what officers are doing in real time are quickly coming to an end. The Chicago Police Department is moving all of its radios to digitally encrypted channels by the end of this year, limiting access to one of the few ways the public can best monitor police activity. Journalists have had a long tradition of listening to police radio traffic to know when breaking news is occurring and to get to the scene of an unfolding event. Advertisement Adam Scott Wandt, an assistant professor and vice chair for technology at the Department of Public Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the change equals an end to citizens around the country having full access to know what police are doing as they work. Advertisement Then theres a whole other class and thats the class of reporters in the media, and I am a firm believer in government transparency and accountability, Wandt said. And it certainly worries me, significantly worries me. If the police lock the media out of live radio broadcasts, it in my opinion, certainly reduces the level of accountability that police departments will face. The police zones that will become encrypted will still be available for the public to listen on a 30-minute delay on Broadcastify, which is an online live audio platform. The citys Office of Emergency Management and Communications does not have a contract with the service, officials there said, nor has it paid any money to stream on the website. It is free to the public. A Broadcastify spokesman said in an email that Chicago officials asked the company to send all media inquiries to the city and declined to comment other than confirming that it is providing the broadcast service. The company has been working with the city for about a year on the project, the spokesman said. The Broadcastify transmissions are direct audio feeds from OEMC. In addition to the delay, dispatchers will have the ability to pause the transmissions when personal identifiable information is being discussed, the office said. Response to rogue radio The city has said the move was made in response to harmful rogue radio calls that put officers in danger, a reference to outside users interjecting comments and chatter over police traffic, but some experts say taking away the long-used tool from reporters reduces transparency. Radios are a useful and common tool among law enforcement agencies to communicate with officers and coordinate responses through the central communications center. Chicagos radio communication has long been available for the public to listen to via personally purchased and programmed scanners or through online applications. A community of people who listen to the scanners has formed on social media, specifically Twitter, where listeners post about things they hear over the scanners, including shootings, traffic, protests and weather. The city began the process in 2017 to secure public safety radios and prepare to migrate from analog encrypted channels to digitally encrypted channels, according to the Office of Emergency Management and Communication. Advertisement Chicago police districts are split into several radio zones, and the first to become encrypted was Zone 9, which covers the Calumet and Morgan Park police districts, on May 12. Since then, the majority of the zones covering the South Side and Far South Side have been encrypted. Theres no secrecy or lack of transparency. Its just related to officer safety. We dont want any nefarious (radio traffic) to lead to officers being injured or hurt, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference over the summer when asked about the encryption. Because our job is not just difficult, its very dangerous. Brown pointed to this years increase in the number of officers being shot as an example of why police need an extra layer of protection. OEMC also cited several cases of unauthorized disruptive communication, such as on April 19, when fake police emergencies were called in using real-life audio recordings from past incidents. The project will be phased in per zone, and the transition to encryption is scheduled on a monthly basis, but there are no exact dates remaining for the zones that have not yet transitioned, officials said. Advertisement The 911 call center at the Office of Emergency Management and Communications in Chicago on March 30, 2016. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) Richard Guidice, executive director of OEMC, agreed that officer safety is a primary reason for the encryption, which is on schedule to be completed by the end of 2022. OEMC receives anywhere between 7,300 and more than 13,000 calls in a day, he said. The move to encryption will also provide protection against the personal identification of victims, suspects, witnesses and juveniles, which are often broadcast over the radio following a crime or incident, city officials said. Chicago Fire Department radios channels will remain unencrypted, as will other police channels that are used for coordination with outside agencies. Illicit use of police radio In addition to interfering with police communication, some people have used radio traffic to avoid police after a crime or to avoid DUI checkpoints, Wandt said. As technology increased, it became common for some to broadcast such information over the internet and smartphone apps. Advertisement States including New York have passed specific vehicle and traffic laws that prohibit the monitoring of police radio frequencies from a motor vehicle, Wandt said. Wandt said he believes there are many ways police departments could continue to provide access to the media, including setting up a special credentialed website where reporters could sign in and listen to live radio dispatches or even issue police radios that receive traffic but dont transmit. But its a double-edged sword, Wandt said. If you are a victim of a crime, would you want your name being broadcasted over the radio hundreds, if not thousands of people listening and recording it, streaming it? he said. And at the same time, if you were a police officer involved in a tactical operation, could it put your safety in danger to broadcast on an unencrypted channel? The answer is yes. Advertisement Some media experts said journalists use of police scanners can distort the crime narrative for the communities they cover. Kelly McBride, chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute, said reporters often listen to the scanner to chase dramatic stories and images. Thats not the same thing as covering the stories that most affect public safety, she said. But McBride said there still is a public safety need for the audio, and that fewer people monitoring the scanners does mean less accountability. Hopefully, if anything good comes out of this, it will be that news organizations in Chicago start talking to law enforcement about getting better data information, not just about incidents, but about broader trends, she said, because thats really how you can start to explain public safety risks to the public. A national trend Moving police communications to encrypted channels is not uncommon. Other major cities have already moved to fully encrypted digital radio channels, including Denver; San Francisco; San Jose, California; Louisville, Kentucky; and others. Advertisement Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said encryption has been a trend among law enforcement agencies in Colorado, and there have been several attempts at legislation around the encryption. Last year, there was a provision added to a law-enforcement accountability bill that was aimed at making sure news media had access to encrypted transmissions, Roberts said. That required law enforcement agencies that encrypt communications to have a policy that allows news media access. In Denver and Aurora, Colorado, police have encrypted their communications but have not been able to reach an agreement with the news organizations in the area. Because the news media does not have access to the radio in those areas, the news media learns about what happened well after the fact and relies on law enforcement agencies communications departments, Roberts said. And maybe their judgment of what is news is different than your judgment of what is news, Roberts said. Advertisement Photographer Justin Jackson holds a police scanner while monitoring radio transmissions in 2014. (Lenny Gilmore/RedEye) I dont know that theres been a lot of cases where journalists have misused their access to police radio transmissions, Roberts said. I think we are losing something by not having news media access to scanner traffic. Were losing the publics ability to know more about crime in their cities and to know about how law enforcement responds to crime in the cities. Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, said encryption especially affects the work of photojournalists, where reporters can write a story afterward, photographers cant re-create photographs. Delaying it by 30 minutes, I think as a lawyer, the saying Justice delayed is justice denied, Osterreicher said. Thirty minutes, an incident could be completely over. Almost every police vehicle has some type of computer where a lot of information that used to be communicated over the radio is now exchanged, so a lot of it is already not being broadcast, Osterreicher said. Osterreicher, who worked as a photojournalist for over 40 years, said he had at least five scanners in his car because he didnt want to miss anything. Advertisement In California, legislators attempted to enact a law requiring law enforcement agencies to find alternatives to full encryption of radio communications, but it failed to advance because of police opposition. I think theres many departments that would rather not have any oversight. ... And thats unfortunate, very unfortunate, Osterreicher said. It really goes back to transparency and accountability. If you dont know whats going on, thats not very transparent. And certainly, if you dont know whats going on, how are you going to even ask about accountability? ACLU raises questions Ed Yonka, a spokesman for the ACLU of Illinois, said the organization has a lot of concerns over transparency when it comes to encryption. (Listening to scanners) is an important vehicle for accessing and understanding what the police are doing, what they have to deal with and where issues exist across our neighborhoods, Yonka said. Advertisement A police radio on the vest of a Chicago police officer during an incident where a person was barricaded inside a home, Aug. 22, 2022, in the Englewood neighborhood. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune) When it comes to the Chicagos argument that encryption is keeping information away from those who may be committing crimes, that is at best speculative, Yonka said. This appears to be a step that is in search of a problem to address as opposed to something thats absolutely necessary, and of course, all of that comes at the cost of transparency and public accountability, Yonka said. Spot News, an online scanner reporter who asked to only be referred to by his Twitter accounts name to keep his anonymity, has a following of more than 100,000 users. He wakes up early in the morning, listens to at least eight scanners in his garage setup and doesnt stop tweeting what he hears until his eyes can no longer focus and he needs to sleep, he said. Even then, he brings a radio with him to bed. Advertisement But now he cant listen to the South Side police districts anymore, including his home district, and hes too far south to pick up North Side districts that have yet to be encrypted. To adapt to the encryption, he said that when he learns of a call hes interested in, he sets a timer for 33 minutes after it occurred. Then he checks Broadcastify for the scanner traffic. Since citizens of Chicago pay taxes that pay for the Police Departments radio communication, he said, they should have the right to know what the department is talking about. The mayor, the superintendent and the states attorney will tell you that crime is down, and if youre not able to hear it, well, I guess it is down, he said. Advertisement Donovan Price, a street pastor with Solutions and Resources/Street Pastor Chicago, has been working on the streets since 2016 as a victims advocate, giving families the knowledge of the process after a shooting and getting them the resources they need. He sets a goal of getting to the scene of a shooting 20 minutes after the call of shots fired was made. Im a first responder, Price said. I leave immediately, and the sooner I get there, the better position I have to help the people and to build a relationship with the people. Advertisement Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > Now Price has three scanners that he listens to regularly, but the encryption has been affecting his work. The timing of me getting there is very important because the emotions of the situation and the whole crime scene commotion, Im one of the people who calms it down, he said. Im one of the people who the police respect for helping them in that situation. And now Im not there on time. I dont have the information to help me stay safe and to help me serve the families. Advertisement pfry@chicagotribune.com UKRAINSKA PRAVDA MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 17:08 Russian propaganda received a new guide on explaining mobilisation and war with Ukraine. Source: Meduza [Russian news outlet based in Latvia], citing the guide sent to Kremlin-sponsored media outlets by Russian government Quote: "The document states that Russia won wars... only when the Russians believed that it was a people's war going on. Therefore, the compilers of the propaganda guide conclude that one main thesis should be conveyed to the Russians now: Russian people must unite in the face of the threat of NATO. According to the Kremlin, the Alliance intends to disintegrate and rob Russia". Details: The guide also suggests emphasising that the front line is over 1,000 km long, and therefore the entire "burden of war" should not be put on the contract soldiers and the "people's militia of Donbas". The authors of the guide pose explosions on Russian borderline territories and in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, as other reasons for the mass recruitment of people to war against Ukraine. They propose stressing that "Russia is not at war with Ukraine, but with NATO", and that "the West has forbidden Kyiv to negotiate with Russia." The Kremlin is placing special emphasis on the point that the draft will allegedly affect only "1% of the registered military personnel". The call-up is referred to as "minimal", and the guide authors emphasise that only "experienced men who have served in the army" will be mobilised. Meduza indicates that in addition to state channels, the Russian authorities use regional communities in social networks and bloggers to promote their propaganda guide. The statements to convince people that the mobilisation will be minimal and it will concern only people with military experience, are being spread. According to two sources of Medusa that are close to the Russian Presidents Office, all of this, according to the Kremlin's plan, should oppose the negative reaction of the Russians to the ongoing conscription. In addition, the Russian authorities want to "redirect the anger" of the conscripts and their relatives to the military enlistment offices. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Contributor#8523328 While many Russians have opted to flee the country to dodge Vladimir Putins desperate draft for the war in Ukraine, one man took his protest a little bit further and shot a recruitment commander. Local authorities announced Mondays attack, which unfolded in the city of Ust-Ilimsk in the Irkutsk region of Siberia. A video of the incident inside an enlistment office appears to show the gunman dressed in military fatigues firing on the official at point-blank range, causing other potential draftees to flee the room. The shooter identified himself in a video published on social media as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, Reuters reports. Writing on encrypted messaging app Telegram, Irkutsk regional governor Igor Kobzev said the draft officer was left fighting for his life and remained in a critical condition after the shooting. Kobzev added that the shooter had been detained and will absolutely be punished. I am ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united, the governor added. We must fight not against each other, but against real threats. A witness to the shooting said the gunman opened fire after the recruiting commander had delivered a clumsy pep talk for the men assembled in the office to go off to battle in Ukraine. Nobody is going anywhere, the shooter said before beginning the assault, the witness told the Baikal People outlet, according to The Guardian. The shooter was said to have been upset about his friend being conscripted. Separately, another man tried to burn himself alive at a bus station in Ryazan, about 115 miles southeast of Moscow. A witness to the self-immolation attempt told a local news channel that the man laughed and shouted that he did not want to be part of the special operation in Ukraine, referring to the legally-enforced euphemism that Putin is using to describe the war. Disturbing CCTV footage shows the man dousing himself in lighter fluid before erupting in flames, Meduza reports. The mans condition is not known, though he reportedly suffered 90 percent burns across his body. Story continues The shooting is just the latest attack on Russian enlistment offices since Putin announced the mobilization of around 300,000 new troops last Wednesday, which has plunged the country into chaos. At least 17 administrative offices have been torched in arson attacks since the call-up was announced, according to the independent Mediazona news site, with many fearing that the initially limited mobilization will eventually expand to encompass much greater numbers than those touted by the Russian president. Hundreds of Russians have also been arrested after public protests opposing the draft as thousands more have attempted to get out of their homeland before its too late. An alarming report over the weekend suggested that the Kremlin is planning to take the extreme measure of closing the border to men of fighting age on Wednesday in order to stop the drain of potential reserves for Putins illegal invasion of Ukraine. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. STORY: Still photographs showed moments of emotion as young men boarded a bus outside an army recruitment center and were waved off. President Vladimir Putin last week ordered Russia's first military mobilization since World War Two to enlist 300,000 additional troops. VALENTYNA ROMANENKO MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 14:32 Russian occupiers have launched a rocket attack on Pervomaiskyi in Kharkiv Oblast; civilian infrastructure was damaged. A minor girl has been killed. Source: Mykola Baksheiev, the City Mayor, on Facebook; Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote from Baksheiev: "Dear community members. Civil infrastructure of the community was damaged as a result of the rocket attack. We do not report the location of the strike! Do not post photos and videos of the strike. We are waiting for more accurate information about the consequences. Keep calm. If possible, go to a shelter or follow the two-wall rule [it means to stay safe behind two walls, which may save your life if a strike hits your current location]." Details: Later, the city Mayor specified that 2 private houses had been completely destroyed as a result of the rocket attack. Information about the injured people is being confirmed. Updated: According to Syniehubov, a 15-year-old girl died in Pervomaiskyi as a result of the rocket attack. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Some of the mobilized people sleep on the concrete floor, while others have to warm themselves by fires The videos started to appear on social networks on Sept. 25-26. As seen in the released footage, reservists are placed in old premises, where they have to sleep on spring mattress, or even on the bare concrete floor. At the same time, many Russians were even less lucky, since the military leadership left them to spend the night outside. They had to warm themselves by the fire so as not to freeze. Meanwhile, a wave of arson attacks on military enlistment offices has swept across Russia. To date, at least 20 such cases have been recorded in several Russian regions. Read also: Ukraine advances on Lyman while discontent with mobilization rises in Russia, says ISW In addition, a 25-year-old reservist reportedly shot a military commissar in Irkutsk Oblast to disrupt the mobilization. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin early on Sept. 21 declared a partial mobilization in Russia and his readiness to use nuclear weapons in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. Later Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that 300,000 reservists would be called up during the partial mobilization. He estimated Russias mobilization resource at almost 25 million people. Read also: Putin plans to mobilize a lot more than 300,000 troops, analyst says After the announcement, Russians began to buy tickets abroad en masse to avoid participation in their countrys full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In turn, the Kremlins puppet in Chechnya, warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, said that he was not going to mobilize locals as the republic had already surpassed the target. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Samsung has launched two credit cards in India, entering a crowded category that sees more than 50 companies fiercely compete for consumers' attention in the world's second largest internet market. The South Korean giant said it has partnered with the Mumbai-headquartered Axis Bank and global payments processor Visa to launch the cards, which it is calling the Samsung Axis Bank Credit Card. Consumers buying Samsung's products and services through either of the cards will get 10% cash back "round the year," the company executives said at an event in New Delhi. (There is a monthly cap of 2,500 Indian rupees [$31] on the Signature card, whereas the Infinite card extends that limit by four times. The cash back is capped yearly at 10,000 Indian rupees [$123] on the Signature card, and 20,000 Indian rupees [$246] on Infinite card.) Samsung, the second largest smartphone vendor in India, said it will also offer customers "exciting" financing options on the credit cards. The cards are especially aimed at serving consumers in smaller Indian cities and towns, the executives said. Even as the space Samsung is entering is crowded, the opportunity is undoubtably large. Indian banks have issued over a billion debit cards to customers in the country, but fewer than 25 million unique individuals in the nation have a credit card, according to industry estimates. Customers will earn rewards for spendings through their cards and get access to deals from local firms, including food delivery service Zomato, fashion e-commerce Myntra, online pharmacy Tata's 1mg, grocer Bigbasket and Urban Company. Monday's announcement underscores smartphone makers' growing attempt to broaden their services. Chinese giant Xiaomi, which commands the smartphone market in the country, launched a UPI-powered payments service in India in 2019 and started to lend to customers last year. (Samsung launched its payments service Samsung Pay, powered by UPI, in India in 2017.) Story continues Co-branded cards are generally "a win-win for the bank, the partner brand and the customers" as it allows power users of a brand to get higher benefits as they spend more with the brand. "The brand gets more loyalty from its users, while the bank obviously benefits by getting access to a different set of customer base with the customer acquisition itself coming from the brand or the brand's loyalist users," a Bengaluru-based fintech executive told TechCrunch, requesting anonymity commenting on other company's products. The annual fee on Signature card is $6.13 before taxes, whereas the Infinite card levies a charge 10 times that. The company said it will soon start accepting applications from customers for the cards. At Samsung, we believe in transforming the lives of our consumers through the power of innovation. The Samsung Axis Bank Credit Card, powered by Visa, is our next big India-specific innovation that will change the way our customers buy Samsung products and spend on services through a series of industry-leading features. Were excited to be able to put the control into our consumers hands," said Ken Kang, President and CEO, Samsung South-West Asia, in a statement. By Munsif Vengattil NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics is targeting repeat purchases from its 175 million customers in India through a new cashback credit card, a senior executive said, a move to boost sales in the critical market where it was once the top smartphone seller. With India's festive season underway, the South Korean electronics giant on Monday launched a new credit card with India's Axis Bank to offer 10% cashback all year round to customers buying Samsung products. Typically, such discount offers are available on e-commerce websites such as Amazon.com Inc and other brick-and-mortar stores only during the festive season or during sales. "We are talking about 175 million existing consumers, which is our current installed base for Samsung in India. This entire base is a potential," Raju Pullan, Samsung's senior vice-president for its India mobile business, told Reuters. Samsung, which says it is India's largest consumer electronics firm, sells everything from smartphones to washing machines in the country. But nearly 72% of its total India revenue of $9.3 billion in 2020-21 came from smartphones. Samsung's move to offer cashbacks to customers through its new card partnership comes after it lost smartphone market share over time to Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, who offer many budget smartphones in the world's second largest mobile market. In the second quarter of 2020, Samsung had a 26% share of India's smartphone market, which is currently at 19%, data from Counterpoint Research shows. "Samsung is going aggressive on the financing side of things. Financial support plays an important role in helping people make smartphone purchase decisions," Counterpoint analyst Tarun Pathak said. (Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Shinjini Ganguli) A man tramples the flag of the Russian Federation in Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast Read also: Residents of occupied Snihurivka rally against sham referendum Those notified of suspicion in collaboration activities (under Part 5 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and infringement of the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine (Part 2 of Article 110) included: "Head of the central election commission" of the pseudo-republic "DPR" Volodymyr Vysotsky; Head of the central election commission of the so-called LPR, Olena Kravchenko; "Head of the DPR Public Chamber" Oleksandr Kofman; "Adviser to the head of the LPR" Marina Filipova. According to the SBU, Kofman and Filipova were involved in the creation of so-called public chambers in the occupied Ukrainian territories, which imitate public initiatives. They sent appeals to the leaders of the so-called L/DPR about holding a fake referendum and immediatejoining with Russia. Read also: Latest intelligence intercept reveals dissatisfaction with Putins actions in Russia The investigation established that the suspects were involved in campaigning and propaganda activities that were supposed to form among the inhabitants of the occupied territories a favorable attitude towards Russia, its full-scale war against Ukraine and fake referendums. The direct conduct of illegal voting is provided by the so-called Central Elections Commissions of the L/DPR, the SBU added. Representatives of the electoral commissions were trained at special seminars organized by the Kremlin supervisors in Rostov-on-Don. In particular, the heads of the fake central election commissions of the L/DPR instructed their subordinates to organize door-to-door tours from Sept. 23-27 in order to force people on the occupied territory to participate in an imitation of an expression of will, and to ensure control over the holding of a pseudo-referendum by Russian enforcers from the 1st and 2nd corps of the invading Russian forces. Read also: Ukraine requests urgent UN Security Council meeting over sham referendums Story continues On Sept. 23, the SBU reported that, together with the Office of the Prosecutor General, they had identified the main organizers and participants in the preparation of fake referendums and identified more than 4,000 members of enemy groups, traitors and collaborators who are involved in staging the sham voting in Ukrainian territories. Russia announced that its so-called referendums would be held across occupied Ukrainian Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson oblasts on Sept. 23-27, in an attempt to legitimize its occupations of Ukrainian territories. Russia has control only over parts of these regions, while the provincial capital of Zaporizhzhya Oblast remains under Ukrainian control. Ukraine and the vast majority of Western countries have declared that the results of the sham referendums will not be recognized. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also stressed that holding a fake vote and an attempt to annex Ukrainian territories would not stop their liberation by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Crime scene tape breaks as Chicago police close the street at the scene of a shooting at the Chicago Police Department's Homan Square evidence facility on Sept. 26, 2022. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) A man climbed five flights up a fire escape of the Chicago Police Departments Homan Square facility at midday Monday and found himself in the middle of SWAT training for officers, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference Monday afternoon. Advertisement At least one officer shot and injured the man after he picked up at least two guns that were lying on a table as part of the training and pointed them at officers, Brown said. An officer was also injured with a sprained ankle during the encounter. The incident began around 11:30 a.m. when police saw the man on video, walking eastbound on Fillmore Street toward the Homan Square facility, located at 1011 S. Homan Ave., Brown said. Advertisement The man asked a guard where he could pick up property. A section of the facility is where the public goes to retrieve items from police. The guard directed him to the other side of the building, but instead of going toward that direction, he walked westbound on Fillmore toward Homan Avenue. Captured on video, police said, the man then found a fire escape stairwell, and he manipulates several items to reach the stairwell, pull it down and climb it, Brown said. He climbed the stairwell to the fifth floor, where a SWAT training was occurring. The exterior door to the training was propped open because there are no windows or ventilation on that floor, which is how the man made it from the stairwell onto the floor. Once inside, the man saw the open training area, where guns were on a table, Brown said. The guns did not have live rounds in them because they were being transitioned from live rounds to simulated munitions, such as pellets, for the training. The officers and supervisors saw the man grab at least two guns off the table, Brown said. The officers notified other officers who were fully armed and not part of the training. That notification has an immediate response from officers from other parts of the building, Brown said. The person, the offender, points those guns at officers, and is fired upon and struck by one of the officers. The man was taken to a hospital, where he is recovering from non-life-threatening injuries, Brown said. The man is from Waukegan and has got some arrests, Brown said, but police are not yet sure if any of the arrests led to convictions. Advertisement The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is in charge of the investigation, Brown said. Some media reports said Mayor Lori Lightfoots security detail might have been involved in the exercise. At a news conference on another topic Monday, the mayor said that was not accurate. Most of the officers who were in the training were district tactical officers, Brown said. None of the officers involved in the incident were in the mayors plainclothes detail, but about three uniformed officers who are part of Lightfoots protection, assigned to either City Hall or Lightfoots home, were there at the time of the shooting. Advertisement The Homan Square facility is home to many of CPDs specialized police units, including those that are covert, that investigate an array of gang and drug crimes. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > Almost two hours after the shooting, a few blocks down South Homan Avenue were closed off with police tape as officers redirected traffic around the facility. The surroundings seemed mostly undisturbed as police cars were stationed on surrounding streets. Bionca Johnson, who lives in the neighborhood, said she first heard of the shooting on the Citizen app, which said to shelter in place. She said she then decided to go notify the charter school around the corner where her daughter attends sixth grade, the LEARN Romano Butler Campus, which remained on a soft lockdown. They didnt even know the principal came out and she didnt even know what was going on and I was letting her know what actions took place, Johnson said. Advertisement pfry@chicagotribune.com adperez@chicagotribune.com sahmad@chicagotribune.com UNITED NATIONS (AP) P5+1. The Sec-Gen. Perm Reps. The SDGs. ECOSOC, UNDP, OCHA. Stockholm+50. Welcome to UNGA. The United Nations, like many large institutions, has its own language. For the dignitaries, bureaucrats, journalists and officials who walk these halls regularly, this alphanumeric soup has meaning and perhaps even facilitates communication. But during the handful of days every year when scores of world leaders descend on the U.N. campus in New York, so, too, do many people unfamiliar with these semantic shortcuts. One organizational chart of the U.N. system lists more than 70 acronyms, from DESA to WFP. The Group of 77 confusingly has 134 members a contradiction explained on its website as a choice meant to honor the historical significance of the original name. To visitors, it can sometimes seem that language is being used to obscure meaning rather than elucidate it. Those visitors must go uptown to go back down in order to access the U.N. tower on the East River during the U.N. General Assemblys high-level debate because of the security cordon. The rhetoric inside is often just as circuitous. And it's not just the acronyms for U.N. agencies or nicknames for bodies or meetings. Here, too, appear words rarely heard elsewhere multilateralism, hegemony, solidarity. Sometimes, they're strung together in ways that defy attempts at parsing. North Korea's representative, for instance, railed against the United States by accusing Washington of trying to maintain world hegemony by expanding the bilateral and multilateral military alliance system. It's easy to get frustrated, since the words are really all we have this week. Around the world, the United Nations does many significant things: delivering food, administering vaccines, registering refugees. But as leaders make their cases on the world stage, this week is about talk. Set against this morass, the moments of light, when they come, tend to shine brighter. Story continues The prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines spoke particularly eloquently and powerfully. Ukraine's president made an impassioned plea for punishing Russia for its invasion, while also vowing Kyiv would prevail. And Bhutan's foreign minister tugged at heartstrings, reading a letter from a 7-year-old who feared swelling glacier lakes would flood her Himalayan village and implored world leaders to combat climate change. In fact, Tandi Dorji said he rethought his speech when he received that note perhaps a sign that the right words still have power. At least, when it comes to UNGA. ___ For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly UKRAINSKA PRAVDA MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 14:52 Investigators of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) have found out that a recently captured Russian soldier shot a civilian car with a machine gun in the Bucha district (Kyiv region) in March, and buried the body of the dead Ukrainian in the forest. The murderer faces life imprisonment. Source: SSU press service and the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office Details: According to the investigation, in early March, a Russian soldier and his comrades-in-arms shot a VAZ car with a machine gun on a highway near the village of Zdvyzhivka. The car driver died on the spot. To hide their crime, the Russians buried the body of the murdered man in the forest. Quote: "In September, the suspect was detained by the Ukrainian military during a combat encounter on the Kherson front. The SSU employees established and proved the detainee's involvement in the crime during interrogation and other investigative actions, and [they] received information about the location [where] the deceased man [was buried]. Currently, the body has been exhumed and handed over to the forensic medical examination". More details: During the investigation, SSU employees received additional information about numerous crimes committed by members of this unit of the Russian Federation, such as shelling of residential buildings, robberies, and murders. The SSU reports that the detainee is a contractor of one of the units of the 331st Parachute Regiment of the 98th Airborne Division of the Russian Armed Forces. According to the investigation, in 2019 he took part in hostilities on the territory of Syria. The prisoner was notified that he was under suspicion under Part 2 of Art. 438 (violation of the laws and customs of war) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. He faces life imprisonment. Currently, other servicemen of the Russian Federation involved in this crime are being identified. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! UKRAINSKA PRAVDA MONDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2022, 10:05 The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has discovered a basement in the village of Lyptsi in Kharkiv Oblast, where representatives of the so-called "people's militia of the LPR" and the Russian military held pro-Ukrainian local residents, and then forcibly took them to Russia. Source: Press service of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU); press service of the Prosecutor General's Office Quote from the SSU: "Militants from this terrorist organisation together with the Russian military have been using it [the basement -ed.] to illegally imprison local residents who supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine and who refused to cooperate with the enemy." Details: The tortuture chamber was discovered on 23 September. The occupiers used brutal torture on the prisoners; after which they were forcibly taken to Russian territory. Investigations are ongoing to identify all of the torture victims, as well as war criminals involved in the abuse of civilians. The SSU reiterated that all the evidence gathered concerning war crimes committed by Russian servicemen will be handed over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Background: On 16 September, Ihor Klymenko, Head of the National Police, said that a total of ten torture chambers had been discovered in the liberated territory of Kharkiv Oblast. On 17 September, it became known that Russian army tortured people in the cellar of the so-called "peoples militia" in the town of Kozacha Lopan when it was under siege. On 23 September, law enforcement officers found 18 places in Kharkiv Oblast where the occupiers tortured Ukrainian citizens, and they have established the identities of over 1,000 Russian soldiers who committed crimes in the occupied territories. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona defended her support for the filibuster at an event held at an institution named for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday. The Arizona Democrat spoke at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, where the Republican Senate leader praised the freshman Democrat who has frequently opposed her own party. Ive only known Kyrsten for four years but she is, in my view, and I told her this, one of the most effective first-term Senator Ive seen in the Senate, he said to applause. She is today what we have too few of in the Democratic Party a genuine moderate and a dealmaker. Mr McConnell has previously featured Democrats such as Senator Amy Klobuchar and President Joe Biden when he was vice president. Ms Sinema also praised the Republican leader. Despite our apparent differences, Senator McConnell and I have forged a friendship, she said. One that is rooted in our commonalities, including our pragmatic approach to legislating, our respect for the Senate as an institution, a love for our home states and a dogged determination on behalf of our constituents. Ms Sinema was mocked online for trading compliments with Mr McConnell. I mean you could be out there helping our candidates @SenatorSinema But my sense is that you would actually prefer the Dems lose control of the Senate and House. https://t.co/Okwg1lyZUT Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) September 26, 2022 Sinema thinks McConnell is helping her cut an ad for the general when he is really helping her opponent cut one for the primary https://t.co/jTcmYvFwWf Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) September 26, 2022 Kyrsten Sinema is in Louisville today giving a lecture on bipartisanship with Mitch McConnell. She still hasnt held a town hall in Arizona since taking office 3 years ago. pic.twitter.com/aNeAyQKPdz Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) September 26, 2022 cannot for the life of me figure out what kyrsten sinema thinks shes doing b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) September 26, 2022 What's weird is not just Sinema's behavior, but the fact that *no one* is able to explain it. No one close to her is leaking or talking to the press. Or maybe no one is close to her? Maybe she literally tells no one why she's doing what she's doing? It's baffling top to bottom. David Roberts (@drvolts) September 26, 2022 Ms Sinema and her fellow conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia have frequently frustrated fellow Democrats for opposing changing the filibuster. Earlier this year, she gave a speech articulating her opposition to changing the Senate rules when Democrats hoped to make an exception to pass a new version of the Voting Rights Act. Story continues Ms Sinema defended her stance once again on Monday when asked by an attendee at the event in Louisville. When Republicans are in control, they pass a little bit of crazy legislation, and when Democrats are in control, they pass a little bit of crazy legislation, and the job of the Senate is to cool that passion, she said. She said that the Senate was designed to move slower and cool down passions so legislators could think about the policy before them. The best thing you can do for your child is to not give them everything they want, she said. And thats important to the United States Senate as well. We should give everything we want in the moment. Ms Sinema never actually referred to the filibuster by name preferring to use the 60-vote threshold but also said that she wanted to return it for areas where it was already eliminated. Not everyone likes that, she said. But there is evidence that Ms Sinemas style of politics is not popular in her home state. An AARP poll released last week showed that every voting demographic had an unfavourable opinion of the freshman senator despite her work passing everything from gun control to the bipartisan infrastructure bill. FIRST ON FOX: Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff , a Democrat, detailed his recent probe into the nearly 1,000 uncounted prison deaths under the Department of Justices (DOJ) watch. Ossoff, the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations , spoke with Fox News Digital in the Senate halls last week on his bipartisan investigation into the undercounted DOJ deaths "in prisons across the country." "What weve found are shocking gaps in federal oversight," Ossoff told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. "Such as, for example, in 2021 alone, the Department of Justice failed to count nearly 1,000 deaths in jails and prisons nationwide." DEMOCRATS AFRAID TO DISCUSS BORDER SECURITY, SAYS DEMOCRATIC SEN. JON OSSOFF Sen. Jon Ossoff, a former investigative journalist, led a bipartisan Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations probe into uncounted prison deaths under the DOJ's watch. Jessica McGowan/Getty Images Ossoff said that "deaths in prisons and jails, many of which are preventable, can only be prevented if we know who is dying, where they are dying, and why they are dying." "My colleagues and I swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States to protect and defend the rights of all Americans, including those who are incarcerated," Ossoff said. "And many of those who are dying are pre-trial detainees." "Theyre in custody, theyve not yet been tried or convicted of any crime," the Peach State senator continued. The Georgia senator told Fox News Digital that, over the course of the investigation into the nearly 1,000 prison deaths, "more than a third of them, they failed to document the circumstances of death." Ossoff said his committee hauled the DOJ into a bipartisan hearing last week "to explain their failure to count prisons and deaths in jails." "And we heard really emotional testimony from Americans who lost loved ones behind bars," Ossoff detailed. "Folks like Ms. [Belinda] Maley, whose son, Matthew Laughlin, died of congestive heart failure preventable while he was awaiting trial, having been convicted of no crime." "And we played the audio of the last phone call that they shared where the young man behind bars said he was going to die, said he was in pain," the Georgia senator continued. "But his mother couldnt help him, and he didnt get any help while he was inside." Story continues "We need to understand whos dying, why they are dying, where they are dying, so that we can reduce deaths in custody across the country," he added. Ossoffs investigation took place over 10 months and featured a hearing this July regarding an Atlanta federal prison that " lacked regard for human life ." The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations worked with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the probe, which found that at "least 341 missing and potentially reportable prison deaths were disclosed on states public websites but were not collected" by the DOJs statistics wing, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). "At least 649 missing arrest deaths were reported in a public database maintained by a nonprofit civil rights organization, but were not collected by BJA," the review revealed. Under the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA), states that receive certain federal funds must disclose the deaths that occur in their jails and prisons. The nearly 1,000 uncounted deaths in prisons and jails came from 2021 alone, but the probe found that the DOJ has failed to report prison deaths since 2019. The bipartisan probe also revealed that prison death data in recent years has been missing information. The investigation found that 70% of death records from people in custody were missing at least one DCRA-required data field and 32% were missing more than one. It also found that nearly half of the records did not detail the circumstances of death. Additionally, the report revealed the DOJ will not finish recording the data they are required to hand over to Congress until September 2024, eight years after its due date. Senate Republican leaders are urging their GOP colleagues to stay unified against a permitting reform bill sponsored by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) and to support instead a competing bill sponsored by his home-state colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). Senate GOP sources say Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) is doing most of the whipping but that Senate GOP leadership is united in trying to push colleagues to Capitos bill. Theres a concerted effort in the Republican conference to stay united in our support for Capitos legislation and to stay united in our opposition to Manchin, a Republican aide said. The one wrinkle in their plan is that Capito last week announced her support for Manchins bill, even though prominent GOP experts on permitting reform such as Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, say Manchins bill is too weak. But Senate Republicans opposed to Manchins bill say that Capitos support is primarily motivated by her home states interest in approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 304-mile natural gas pipeline that runs through West Virginia and Virginia. Manchins bill would greenlight its approval. Manchins legislation is part of deal he reached with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in exchange for his vote on Democrats climate, tax and health care bill. The proposal would speed up the process for approving both green and fossil fuel energy projects. Manchin will need at least 10 Republican votes and perhaps more than that because two members of the Senate Democratic conference, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), have signaled they will vote against his bill. The Senate is scheduled to vote at 5:30 pm Tuesday on a House shell bill that will serve as the legislative vehicle for passing a short-term government funding bill combined with Manchins permitting reform bill. Senate Republican sources say the Tuesday vote on the House shell bill will be the test vote for Manchins permitting reform. They expect it to fall short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. If it fails, Schumer will have to schedule a vote on a different continuing resolution to keep the government operating past Sept. 30, the funding deadline. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Twenty years after Le Joola ferry sank, the Senegalese town where half of the nearly 1,900 dead lived will on Monday hold commemorations for a "wound that never heals". When news spread that the vessel had capsized on the night of September 26, 2002, no one in the southern city could believe it. "It was unthinkable," said Nouha Cisse, who was head teacher at a secondary school in Ziguinchor that lost 150 pupils to the tragedy. A total of 1,863 people drowned or were lost -- surpassing the Titanic toll of more than 1,500 some 90 years earlier. Le Joola sailed into a storm off the coast of The Gambia on the way from Ziguinchor to the capital Dakar. The ferry played a major role in the town in the isolated Casamance enclave, providing a lifeline to Dakar and transporting agricultural produce as well as tourists. The Casamance, almost separated from the rest of Senegal by the tiny state of The Gambia, had since 1982 been wracked by a separatist rebellion. September 2002 saw a surge in attacks. On September 26, more than 1,928 people officially crowded on to the ferry, which had a capacity for 536 passengers. Victims' associations say more than 2,000 passengers from more than a dozen countries died, and only 65 survived. - 'Unbearable' news - With crowds gathering at the port the morning after, the prime minister announced Le Joola had capsized. "After that it was unbearable in Ziguinchor," recalled Ibrahima Gassama, a journalist who covered the disaster for Sud FM radio. "No one could console anyone. The gendarmes cordoned off the area because some people were threatening to throw themselves into the sea. "They had lost everything," Gassama said. "It really was a catastrophe," said 65-year-old Khadidiatou Diop, who lost her mother. "In this house one person died, in that house another death, across the road one dead. It was like that all over Ziguinchor." For Gassama, "It's a wound that never heals. "I don't think it ever can because the subsequent behaviour over the handling of the catastrophe was a second shipwreck." Story continues He noted the rescue effort that only happened the next day and the official "lies", denying the high death toll. - Questions remain - Two decades on, many questions remain unanswered. The causes of the incident have never been fully established, despite a Senegalese government inquiry and a French probe launched because of the deaths of 18 French citizens. Engine failure, a navigational error, bad weather, poor maintenance and overcrowding -- or a combination -- were likely to blame. Senegal closed the case in 2003 after concluding an investigation that blamed the captain, lost in the catastrophe. French courts also dismissed a years-long probe, which found evidence against seven Senegalese officials, concluding that Paris did not have jurisdiction. Senegalese and French victims' associations want the raising of the wreck of Le Joola, which sunk to a depth of some 20 metres (60 feet), and is thought to hold many bodies. They also want a memorial erected. One was promised for five years ago but the site is still nowhere near ready in Ziguinchor in time for Monday's anniversary. Senegalese victims' relatives have been compensated but President Macky Sall has not attended the annual anniversary remembrance since he took office. In the town on the banks of the Casamance river, as at every anniversary of the sinking, "everyone will gather to pray together", noted Diop. "But for those of us affected by this, it's the same every day. From 2002 till today, there has not been a day when I haven't thought about the boat," she said amt/lal/bp Dustin Lance Black, seen at the 2018 Writers Guild Awards, recently sustained a head injury. (Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press) Months after taking a break from social media, "Under the Banner of Heaven" TV creator Dustin Lance Black revealed that he's been facing a health issue. "A month ago I sustained a serious head injury that put me out of commission. Showing little improvement, my doctors ordered me to shut off my brain in hopes of it healing," he announced in an Instagram post Monday. The Oscar-winning screenwriter, who took home the original screenplay award at the 2009 Academy Awards for "Milk," shared photos of his vacation in Greece with husband Tom Daley. Black's Instagram posts show the director strolling along the shores of Greek beaches and watching the sunset and resting poolside with Daley. Black did not give additional details about how he sustained the injury but said that dealing with the head trauma "has been a challenging, frightening time for a creative type who depends on whats in his skull to work, care and love." He also knows that the healing process won't be easy. "And now I understand the road back will be long," he added on Instagram. "But this week my sweet, over the top husband took us to the Greek Islands to make me shut off. I can already feel this trip is a step in the right direction, and I finally feel safe sharing a bit again. Thank you for all of your love and patience. More to come. Promise." In the Instagram comments, Black received support from NPR host Ari Shapiro, "Great British Bake Off" alum Rahul Mandal and "Lingua Franca" filmmaker Isabel Sandoval. "Hope you feel better soon, Lance. Take care," wrote Sandoval, who directed an episode of Black's "Under the Banner of Heaven." Black, whose television work also includes "Big Love" and "When We Rise," most recently debuted the miniseries "Under the Banner of Heaven," starring Andrew Garfield as police officer Jeb Pyre. The show, for which Garfield received an Emmy nomination, prompted Black to revisit his upbringing under the Mormon church. While doing research for the show, an adaptation of Jon Krakauers bestseller of the same name, Black reached out to officials in Salt Lake City's Mormon Church and the investigators who worked the ritualistic murder of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter. Im sure the Mormon Church will still find fault here and there. That is their job. But I wanted to make that job very difficult for them, Black previously told The Times. I stand behind the show in terms of how it depicts Mormonism and not just Mormonism but, frankly, Christianity in America. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Sep. 25Shawnee State University welcomed over sixty international students from nearly thirty countries for the 2022-2023 academic year as part of the university's Center for International Programs & Study Abroad (CIPSA). At SSU, the international students are involved in various sports, academic programs, and student organizations on campus. The students' home countries include: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, the Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. "We are very excited to be near our pre-pandemic numbers in terms of international enrollment," said Ryan Warner, SSU's Director of CIPSA. "For the Fall 2022 semester, we have thirty new international enrollees and sixty total international students which is one of our largest intakes of new degree-seeking international students to date as an international office." SSU's international students excel in the classroom as well as in their day-to-day lives and careers. The CIPSA program includes student-athletes who are part of SSU Athletics' programs including the Men's and Women's Soccer, Men's Basketball, Men's and Women's Tennis, and Men's and Women's Swimming. Represented throughout over twenty academic areas ranging from undergraduate to graduate programs on campus, international students are also members and officers in several clubs and organizations within the student body. "There's been an increased focus on athletic recruitment from coaches and new CIPSA initiatives like our bi-lateral agreement with Hanze University in the Netherlands and UpGrad-India which will begin in the Fall of 2023," said Warner. "This is our most diverse group of international students who represent six of the seven continents of the world." To learn more about international programs at Shawnee State University, visit www.shawnee.edu/cipsa. By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) -Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, a spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood who championed the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and unsettled rulers in Egypt and the Gulf with his Islamist preaching, died on Monday. He was 96. Born in Egypt, Qaradawi spent much of his life in Qatar, where he became one of the most recognisable and influential Sunni Muslim clerics in the Arab world thanks to regular appearances on Qatar's Al Jazeera network. Broadcast into millions of homes, his sermons fuelled tensions that led Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies to impose a blockade on Qatar in 2017 and declare Qaradawi a terrorist. His death was announced on his official Twitter account. Qaradawi, who studied at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, was often described by supporters as a moderate who offered a counterweight to the radical ideologies espoused by al-Qaeda. He strongly condemned the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and supported democratic politics. But he also sanctioned violence in causes he favoured. In Iraq after a 2003 U.S.-led invasion, he backed attacks on coalition forces and he supported Palestinian suicide bombing against Israeli targets during an uprising that began in 2000. Several Western states banned him from entry. During the Arab Spring uprisings he called for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to be killed and declared jihad against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. Qaradawi joined the Muslim Brotherhood as a young man. Advocating Islam as a political programme, the Brotherhood has been seen as a threat by autocratic Arab leaders since it was founded in 1928 in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna, whom Qaradawi knew. He turned down the chance to lead the organisation, instead focusing on preaching and Islamic scholarship and building a following that extended well beyond the group. His prominence grew after the 2011 Arab revolts. Visiting Cairo after the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak, he told a packed Tahrir Square that fear had been lifted from Egyptians who had toppled a modern day pharaoh. Story continues The appearance captured the scale of change that seemed to be sweeping the region, with long-oppressed Islamists enjoying new freedoms and a Brotherhood member, Mohamed Mursi, being elected president in 2012. When the military, encouraged by mass protests, toppled Mursi a year later, Qaradawi condemned the new, army-led order as it unleashed a ferocious crackdown on the Brotherhood. He urged a boycott of the presidential election which made army commander Abdel Fattah al-Sisi president in 2014. "The duty of the nation is to resist the oppressors, restrain their hands and silence their tongues," Qaradawi said. DEATH SENTENCE "He's somebody who was committed to democracy and popular sovereignty from an Islamic perspective," said David Warren, a scholar of contemporary Islam and research fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. "But being a democrat doesn't mean that someone has to be a pacificist, so in the context of a civil war like Libya and Syria, he could hold those positions while similarly saying that Gaddafi is a tyrant who should be killed...," he said. Jailed numerous times in Egypt as a young man, Qaradawi was sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court in 2015, along with Mursi and some 90 others. Qaradawi said the rulings, which related to a mass jail break in 2011, were nonsense and violated Islamic law, noting that he was in Qatar at the time. He criticised Riyadh for backing Sisi, while his attacks on Sisi and help for the Brotherhood fuelled tensions between Qatar on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, another supporter of Egypt's new government, on the other. Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation in 2014. In 2014 when Riyadh and its allies withdrew ambassadors from Doha, Qaradawi stopped his Friday sermons, saying he wanted to ease some pressure on Qatar, his adopted home since the 1960s. But he still criticised Egypt's new ruler in statements. Qaradawi, who memorised the Koran by age 10, chaired the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). He opposed takfir, a concept used by Islamist militants to justify killing Muslims who disagreed with them by declaring them non-believers. Qaradawi also opposed the ultra-radical Islamic State group, saying he totally disagreed with Daesh "in ideology and means". When IS burnt alive a captured Jordanian pilot in 2015, the IUMS said the group did not represent Islam in any way. However, he rejected the U.S. role in fighting the group as self-interested. Critics noted how that position appeared to contrast with his tacit support for U.S. action in Syria in 2013 when Washington considered - but never carried out - strikes on the Syrian government over the use of chemical weapons. On that occasion, Qaradawi suggested foreign powers were God's instrument for vengeance. The war in Syria, where Sunni rebels battled the Alawite-led state backed by Shi'ite Iran, turned Qaradawi against the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, which he had once praised for fighting Israel. He condemned it as "the party of the devil". He staunchly supported the Palestinian struggle with Israel. On a 2013 visit to Gaza hosted by its ruling Hamas Islamist group, Qaradawi said: "We should seek to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine, inch by inch." (Writing by Tom Perry, Editing by William Maclean) A 3-year-old boy who was allegedly pushed from Navy Pier into Lake Michigan by his aunt on Sept. 19 died Sunday morning, according to the Cook County medical examiners office. Josiah Brown died about 10:15 a.m., the medical examiners office reported. Advertisement His aunt, 34-year-old Victoria Moreno, of Des Plaines, was charged Wednesday with attempted murder and aggravated battery of a child under the age of 13 causing permanent disability, according to Chicago police. She was denied bail. Police had no updates on the case. Advertisement Video surveillance allegedly shows in part that Moreno used both hands to push her nephew into the lake and did nothing when he went underwater, where he remained for half an hour. Josiah was pulled from the water in the 700 block of East Grand Avenue just before 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 19 and taken to Lurie Childrens Hospital in critical condition. Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz said in court Wednesday that the boy suffered significant life-threatening injuries, while Assistant States Attorney Lorraine Scaduto said he was not expected to survive, having suffered a swollen brain, bleeding in his lungs, multiple seizures and several episodes of cardiac arrest. He had been on a ventilator and cardiac support. Morenos attorney said she has mental issues for which she takes medicine. The attorney also said Moreno has no criminal background. The Japanese government is gearing up to hold a lavish taxpayer-funded state funeral for the country's longest-serving prime minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday despite facing massive protests across the country. More than 5,000 people, including US vice president Kamala Harris, will be in attendance for the state funeral held at a projected cost of up to $12m (11m). Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who missed the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II last week, will be in the Japanese capital for Abes service. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, along with three of his predecessors, will also be present in Tokyo to pay their respects. Since the announcement of the service, the Fumio Kishida government has faced flak from the opposition and public for spending large amounts of taxpayers money to host foreign dignitaries for the funeral. On Monday, nearly 10,000 protesters marched through the streets of Tokyo with demands to call off the occasion. Last week, a man in his 70s set himself on fire near the prime minister's office in the capital to oppose the service. State funerals are rare in Japan and are usually only reserved for members of the imperial family. The last politician to be accorded the honour was former prime minister Shigeru Yoshida in 1967. According to recent opinion polls, the majority of people in Japan were unhappy with the expenditure involved in the state funeral, while others opposed it due to Abes divisive politics. However, Tuesdays event is seen as prime minister Kishidas political gambit to strengthen his diplomatic ties with allies amid his drastically plummeting public support at home and rising security tensions with neighbours China and North Korea. Abe, the countrys longest-serving prime minister and former president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), was assassinated on 8 July while giving a campaign speech. People gather to listen to speeches as anti-war, anti-nuclear and protesters against the governments funding for the funeral of late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (AFP via Getty Images) Abes suspected shooter, Tetsuya Yamagami, started a conversation around links between the former prime minister and the Unification Church a religious group that began in South Korea. Story continues The Unification Church has faced allegations of unethically recruiting people and brainwashing them into making huge donations since the 1980s, which Mr Yamagami claimed made his family destitute. Why are people so opposed to the funeral? The opposition has largely been fuelled by revelations of alleged links Abe and his LDP had to the Unification Church, which became widely reported after he was gunned down. The suspected shooter alleged that the church had impoverished his family, according to police. Since then an investigation by the LDP has concluded that 179 of its 379 lawmakers had interacted with the church on some level. Who is going to attend Mr Abes funeral? Over 5,000 guests are expected to attend the funeral service. Among the foreign dignitaries who have been announced as attendees of the state funeral are US vice president Kamala Harris, former British prime minister Theresa May and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was scheduled to attend the funeral. However, as the extent of the damage wrought by storm Fiona became clear, he cancelled his trip to Japan. A man wrapped in a rain poncho with an anti-Abe placard takes part in a march with anti-war, anti-nuclear and other protesters against the governments funding for the funeral of Shinzo Abe (AFP via Getty Images) Indias Mr Modi and his Australian counterpart Mr Albanese will be among the leaders in the Quad security framework present at the funeral. The Quad involves Japan, the United States, Australia and India, launched at the initiative of Abe to counter China. From neighbouring countries, South Korean prime minister Han Duck-soo is scheduled to attend the funeral. Russian president Vladimir Putin will not show up because Japan has imposed sanctions on his country for invading Ukraine. Funeral diplomacy The Japanese prime minister is likely to hold talks with about 40 foreign dignitaries over the next few days at the Akasaka state guest house in Tokyo in a flurry of what he has dubbed funeral diplomacy. He has already met with the US vice president, Vietnamese president Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Philippine vice president Sara Duterte and about 10 other foreign dignitaries. Mr Kishida told Ms Harris that Abe poured his heart and soul into strengthening ties between their two countries and it was his duty to carry on Abes aspirations. On Tuesday, he is expected to hold talks with the Indian and Australian prime ministers. What has prime minister Fumio Kishida said about this funeral? Mr Kishida has apologised and pledged to win back public trust by asking LDP lawmakers to sever ties with the Unification Church. He has acknowledged that the funeral lacks overwhelming public support but has repeatedly sought to justify his decision. He has praised Abes domestic and diplomatic contributions as well as the legacy of his lengthy tenure as reasons why a state funeral is warranted. During his two stints in office, from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020, Mr Abes nationalist rhetoric and muscular defence policy riled many Japanese wary of any change to the countrys pacifist constitution, drawn up after the Second World War. What will the ceremony entail? The memorial service is expected to last for an hour and a half. After entering the hall, attendees will listen to a speech given by Hirokazu Matsuno, the deputy chair of the funeral committee. They will then rise for the national anthem before observing a moments silence. That will be followed by commemorative speeches, the sending off of Mr Abes remains and the laying of commemorative wreaths. When and where is the funeral being held? The funeral is slated to start at 2pm on Tuesday at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo. Officials at a North Carolina university are being criticized after an incident in which a Sikh student was detained for wearing a kirpan, a curved dagger carried by some Sikhs as part of their faith. The incident took place Thursday in a student union building at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. A 44-second video of the incident was posted Friday afternoon on Twitter, where it has since been viewed more than 3.5 million times. Kirpans are one of five symbolic articles central to the expression of faith for baptized Sikhs and are often blunt and sewn into the sheath. Its really unfortunate that were here in 2022 and still having these issues, said Kiran Kaur Gill, executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, known as SALDEF. Its a way of practicing and showing faith. A lot of times you cant even remove them from the sheath. I wasnt going to post this, but I dont think I will receive any support from @unccharlotte . I was told someone called 911 and reported me, and I got cuffed for resisting because I refused to let the officer take my kirpan out of the miyaan. @CLTNinerNews pic.twitter.com/Vk9b0Tspvm (@thatsamaan) September 23, 2022 About 500,000 Sikh Americans live in the U.S., according to the Sikh Coalition, a community advocacy agency based in New York City. The U.S. Sikh community has been a target of hate crimes, and in April 2021, four Sikhs were killed as part of a mass shooting that claimed eight lives at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. In the video, posted to Twitter, the unnamed student, wearing a turban, sits across from another student in a communal area of the universitys student center, with the sheathed kirpan slung around his shoulder. Story continues You cant have this, an officer says as he seemingly attempts to pull the kirpan out. OK, but you cant take it off me, the student replies, arms raised. You want me to take the whole thing off? When the officer does not respond, he repeats the question. Instead, the officer yanks the student up by one arm and says, Stand up for a second. The student complies, stepping over his backpack while saying, What are you doing to me, bro?" The officer pulls the students arms behind his back, cuffing him. OK, so right now youre just being detained, the officer tells him. In his Twitter post, the student said he didnt plan to post the video but didnt think he would receive any support from university officials. I was told someone called 911 and reported me, and I got cuffed for resisting because I refused to let the officer take my kirpan out, he wrote. Many lashed out on the social media platform, with some noting that John Bogdan, the university's associate vice chancellor for safety and security, was once a former commander at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay. Others posted a fact sheet about Sikhs compiled by the Sikh Coalition. Another wrote: "I must admit I was unaware of kirpan, the significance, or that it has legal exemptions. But then again, I am not a campus police officer on a multicultural campus. Seems like the people we pay to enforce laws, should be well educated in our laws." Sikh mourners in 2012, after a gunman killed six people at their temple in Oak Creek, Wis. The university issued a statement Friday from University Chancellor Sharon Gaber and Chief Diversity Officer Brandon Wolfe apologizing for the incident, explaining that university police dispatch had received a 911 report of someone with a knife in the building. Police officers responded to the scene and engaged the individual in question, the statement read. During this interaction, the individual was placed in handcuffs while officers took possession of the object. Police eventually determined that the knife was in fact a kirpan, one of five articles of faith central to Sikh expression. Together, those five items, which Sikhs refer to as the 5 Ks, show ones devotion to the faith. They include kesh, or unshorn hair, conveying spirituality, or a connectedness with God; kara, a steel bracelet, a reminder to do right in ones daily actions; kanga, a small comb signifying cleanliness; and kachera, an undergarment symbolizing discipline. Its about protecting the weak and oppressed, said Harsimran Kaur, senior counsel for the Sikh Coalition. Youre wearing it to commit yourself to that value. Its not just about physically defending someone. Its literal and metaphorical; you stand up and speak out about injustice when you see it. While misunderstandings regarding the kirpan still happen on college campuses from time to time, Kaur said they were more common in the decade after 9/11. The coalition usually attempts in such instances to provide background about the faith to campus, workplace or public officials, as well as about what the kirpan is and why its carried. In all the cases weve handled weve been able to favorably resolve them, because courts around the country recognize that kirpans are first and foremost articles of faith, and in this country we allow people to practice their faith, Kaur said. Theres been a lot of cultural competency in the past decade. Federal Protective Service policy accommodates wearing of kirpans into federal facilities, Kaur said, whether it be for employees or individuals entering a U.S. immigration office for a citizenship interview. So do many workplaces, though she noted that Sikhs do occasionally reach out to the coalition to intercede with new or potential employers to avoid misunderstanding. The EEOC has litigated several kirpan cases, she said, referring to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Its become pretty mainstream in terms of people understanding that Sikhs are obligated to wear several articles of faith, including the kirpan. For instance, a Sacramento-area nursing home operator in 2010 agreed to pay $30,000 and provide employee awareness training to settle a religious discrimination suit brought by the EEOC after a Sikh employee was forbidden to wear her kirpan even after providing an explanation of its religious meaning and significance. In their statement, the university officials said while state law and campus policy prohibit possession of knives or other edged instruments on campus, we will use this as a learning opportunity by engaging in constructive dialogue with Sikh students and employees. Together, we are confident we can find reasonable measures and educational opportunities that both protect the safety of our campus and the religious practices of our community members. In June 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Iknoor Singh, a Sikh Hofstra University student, could join the U.S. Armys Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program at his university without having to shave his beard, cut his hair or remove his turban. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and UNITED SIKHS. While the student could not be reached for comment, Gill, of SALDEF, said the group has been in touch with him and his family. The student did not want to be named. Hes quite distraught, understandably, because theres this difficult dichotomy of wanting to feel accepted and being in this diverse space and feeling like you cant practice your religion and be fully who you are, Gill said. That diversity "makes us a better, richer, more successful community," the university statement concluded. "We want every Niner to feel welcomed, supported and safe. We apologize that is not what this young man felt in our union yesterday. We are committed to ensuring it doesnt happen again." Gill said SALDEF occasionally conducts cultural training for law enforcement agencies or universities to attempt to avoid such incidents and hopes the university will implement similar measures. In terms of what hes hoping for, and what the community is hoping for, its that there will be policy accommodations to Sikh students who choose to wear their article of faith, Gill said. Hopefully it can be a moment where people can come together and educate themselves and ultimately make this better for other students. Kaur agreed. No one should be arrested for simply practicing their faith, she said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UNC Sikh student with kirpan detained at North Carolina campus Pedro Fiuza/NurPhoto via Getty Images Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted former National Security Agency Contractor Edward Snowden Russian citizenship by signing a decree, according to government documents. The development comes as Moscow works to conduct a partial mobilization of its population, and sparked speculation that Snowden, who previously worked for the U.S. intelligence community, could be enlisted to work for the Russian military. U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a press briefing on Monday that Snowden may well be conscripted to fight in Russia's war in Ukraine. Moscow announced it would be sending an additional 300,000 Russians to Ukraine to fight the war, which has lasted over seven months, in an attempt to replace men it has lost in the conflict. Russia has been facing mounting losses in Ukraine as Ukrainian forces have waged multiple successful counter-offensives in the south and northeast of the country, beating back Russian forces and forcing Putin to pull back his military. It was not immediately clear if Snowden could be drafted in Russias war in Ukraine. Snowden is 39, and above the age ceiling for conscription in Russia, which extends between those aged 18-27. Because he does not serve in the Russian army currently, he cant be drafted, his lawyer told Ria Novosti. But the army has recently eliminated an age limit of 40 years for Russians to enlist in the war. The mobilization of 300,000 people in recent days has centered on reservists and those with some military experience or specialized military skills. The list of what the military is looking for is classified, so it is not clear if they are interested in those with a computer consultant background. Putins Top Cheerleaders Panic Over Russian Army Mutiny Snowden, who previously worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, leaked information in 2013 that revealed details on sweeping surveillance programs of Americans phone records run by the U.S. intelligence community. The revelations about the programs raised numerous questions about civil liberties and privacy in the United States, and Snowden has been living in Russia since the leaks in an attempt to evade prosecution over leaking classified information. Story continues The NSA surveillance that Snowden exposed was illegal, the U.S. court of appeals for the ninth circuit ruled in 2020, a move which Snowden suggested was a vindication of his actions. I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSAs activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them, he said on Twitter. Snowden did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NSA declined to comment. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday accused the countrys media of damaging its alliance with the United States after a TV broadcaster released a video suggesting that he insulted U.S. Congress members following a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in New York last week. MBC caught Yoon on tape talking to his aides and top diplomats following a brief chat with Biden on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly meetings. While the audio was unclear, Yoon could be heard using what seemed as indecent language during comments the broadcaster captioned as: Wouldnt it be too darn embarrassing for Biden if those idiots at legislature dont approve? Yoons meeting with Biden came after they both delivered speeches in support of the Global Fund, an international campaign to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The Biden administration has pledged $6 billion in U.S. contributions to the initiative through 2025, but it's pending congressional approval. Yoons government has promised $100 million. After the MBC video roused the internet and triggered criticism from rival politicians decrying a diplomatic disaster, Yoons office belatedly denied the report hours later on Thursday, insisting that he wasnt talking about the U.S. Congress or Biden. Kim Eun-hye, Yoons spokesperson, said he was expressing concern that South Koreas opposition-controlled National Assembly could reject his plans for the $100 million contribution. She said the word MBC heard as Biden was actually nal-li-myeon, an expression that can be used to describe something being thrown away. She didnt specifically address Yoons apparent use of a word that could be translated as idiots. Talking to reporters in Seoul on Monday after wrapping up his trip in Canada, Yoon stuck with his offices version of the story. He said that the media could put South Koreas security in danger by damaging the alliance with reports that differ from facts. Story continues Yoon called for a need to find the truth behind the reports that described him as insulting U.S. lawmakers while leaders of his conservative People Power Party threatened to take action against MBC. MBCs actions have become difficult to just stand back and watch, said Joo Ho-young, the partys floor leader. If (Yoon) used a word about the United States as described in the initial MBC report, that would have required thorough fact checking considering the consequences to South Korea-U.S. relations. But MBC skipped this verification process and aired the report with arbitrary and very provocative captions. Other party lawmakers said they will demand MBC to broadcast an apology and for its current management to resign. They said they will also file complaints with the countrys Press Arbitration Commission and broadcasting regulator and possibly damage suits against MBC. MBC is one of the countrys largest terrestrial channels. While the company operates on advertising revenue, its largest shareholder is a public organization whose chairperson is appointed by the government. Lee Jong-bae, one of the People Power Partys members in the Seoul Metropolitan Council, filed a complaint against MBC to Seoul police, accusing the broadcaster of defamation and disrupting presidential duties. The party spokesperson, Park Jung-ha, raised suspicion that MBC was aligned with members of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which holds majority in South Koreas parliament, in a supposed attempt to rattle Yoons government. He questioned how the Democratic Party's floor leader, Park Hong-keun, was able to issue criticism about Yoons crude comments half an hour before MBC first released the video on its YouTube channel. In its statement, MBC described the accusations as an attack on media freedoms. It said the video was taken as part of pool coverage and was shared with other South Korean media covering Yoons trip, triggering a debate between reporters and even presidential staff on what Yoon was saying. The footage had already appeared on social media before MBC released the captioned video on its YouTube channel, the broadcaster said. MBC also said Yoons office had requested journalists to refrain from reporting Yoons comments, citing diplomatic burdens, and that the journalists refused. First their logic was that it wouldnt serve national interests to report (Yoons comments) that were made in private space, then they came out attacking, saying that the MBC report was untrue, MBC said. They are trying to sacrifice one media outlet to escape criticism about the so-called indecent remarks, and their vicious attacks amount to an attempt to control the media and suppress the media. Lee Soo-jin, spokesperson of the Democratic Party, called for the conservatives to stop threatening the media and for Yoon to apologize over his vulgar remarks. Yoon and his partys harsh response to the MBC report comes as he faces criticism that he returned with underwhelming results from his foreign trip, which included the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, the U.N. meetings and a visit to Canada for a summit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Much of the attention before the trip was about whether Yoon would meet Biden to discuss contentious bilateral issues, including South Korean frustrations over the recently passed U.S. Inflation Reduction Act that excludes South Korean electric vehicles and other models assembled outside of North America from consumer tax credits. The liberal opposition labeled Yoons diplomacy as a failure after his chat with Biden following their Global Fund speeches lasted less than a minute. Seouls Foreign Ministry said Yoon still sufficiently conveyed South Korean concerns over the new law to Biden. Yoon hasnt specifically addressed whether he described South Korean lawmakers as idiots. After his spokesperson told reporters that his comments were aimed at South Korean lawmakers, Yoon posted a Facebook message saying he hopes for active cooperation from the National Assembly over his contribution plans to the Global Fund. Starbucks said Monday that it wants to start contract negotiations next month at hundreds of U.S. stores that have voted to unionize. The Seattle coffee giant said it sent letters to 234 stores offering a three-week window in October to start negotiations. All of those stores located in 36 states and the District of Columbia have voted to unionize this year in elections that were certified by the National Labor Relations Board. We look forward to these negotiations and hopefully setting dates and securing locations for contract bargaining, the company said in a post on its website. But Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks stores, expressed skepticism about the companys request. Starbucks opposes the unionization of its 9,000 company-owned U.S. stores. Last month, the company asked the National Labor Relations Board to temporarily halt all elections because of evidence of misconduct. The unionization effort began late last year at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York. That store and two others __ one in New York and one in Arizona __ are the only ones currently negotiating contracts. Casey Moore, a labor organizer and union spokesperson, said other stores have reached out to Starbucks to begin negotiations since May but have received no reply. Starbucks said Workers United has directed the company to schedule all negotiations through the unions president. Moore said the unions focus right now is developing core proposals on both economic and non-economic issues to help guide bargaining at individual stores. A national bargaining committee made up of representatives from unionized stores has been meeting weekly to discuss those proposals, Moore said. ___ This story has been updated to correct the number of stores Starbucks wants to bargain with. Its 234, not 238. Sen. Scott Wiener At Folsom A gay, out California state senator attended Folsom Street Fair this weekend, and conservatives are melting down over a photo he took at the event. State Sen. Scott Wiener tweeted a photograph of himself shirtless with a group of men in various leather gear with the caption, "Happy Folsom Street Fair." Almost immediately, right-wing Twitter took notice and took exception to the elected official's participation. Mixed martial artist Jake Shields tweeted, "The same politician who kept your kid out of school for two years because covid is attending gay orgies during monkeypox. Feel free to Google Folsom street fair and see the wonderful delights hes enjoying." Wiener tells The Advocate that he had an excellent time at Folsom and that the attacks on him as a gay man, while not new, have gotten more extreme recently because society has given a particular element permission to spew its bigotry in public. "This has been going on for me for years," he says. "There are a number of pictures of me shirtless from as far back as 2016 that they'll recycle all the time. It's just straight-up homophobia." He says that although there are straight people who attend the Folsom Street Fair, "they're attacking a gay man for being a gay man who is participating in a heavily LGBTQ+ event." He adds that the discomfort and antipathy toward queer male sexuality also stem from homophobia. Wiener explains that there's a mindset of '"I'm okay with gay men existing, they just can't actually be gay men." It is opportunistic Republicans who are driving a narrative that is at the expense of the LGBTQ+ community, he says. "They're being empowered on social media by sociopath elected officials like Ron DeSantis and others who have normalized attacking and degrading LGBTQ+ people," Wiener says. "I will add that I've been called pedophile tens of thousands of times," he continues. "It's rare that a day goes by that somebody doesn't call me a pedophile on social media." Story continues Earlier this year, an anti-vaxxer threatened Wiener over a bill that would've let teens receive vaccinations without parental consent. The man was convicted of seven felonies two weeks ago. He was found guilty of threatening the senator's life, two counts of assault weapons possession, two counts of manufacturing unregistered firearms, and two counts of concealment of firearms in a vehicle. Related: Why Are Conservatives Tearing Their Hair Out Over This Gay Doctor? Wiener says that people need to remain vigilant to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the United States. "We've had a lot of progress the last few decades, but we need to be clear that there's still a massive undercurrent of homophobia and transphobia in this country." He says, "They want us to disappear. They hate us. They're trying to bring this country back to the 1950s. They're doing it around women and abortion, around race, and for queer people. And if we have to exist, they want us to be very quiet about it and not be in any way public or celebrate our community." And for those who are upset about a photo of him shirtless at a public event, he doesn't have much time. "I'm a gay man. I'm a single gay man," he says."I enjoy life, and sexuality is part of human existence. If they have a problem, that's their issue, not mine, and they need to get a life." By John McCrank NEW YORK (Reuters) -The British pound dropped to an all-time low against the dollar on Monday as investors worried Britain's new economic plan will hurt the country's finances, while the Bank of England said it was watching financial markets "very closely" following sharp moves in asset prices. The dollar, helped by sterling's decline and a fresh 20-year low for the euro, hit a two-decade high against a basket of six peer currencies. In Japan, authorities reiterated that they stood ready to respond to speculative currency moves, after they intervened last week to bolster the yen for the first time since 1998. Sterling fell as much as 4.9% during Asian trading to an all-time low of $1.0327, adding to Friday's 3.6% plunge following the unveiling of new Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng's historic tax cuts, funded by the biggest increase in borrowing since 1972. British government bond prices collapsed. "UK markets are blowing up again in the wake of the Truss administration's tone-deaf fiscal largesse that was delivered on Friday into a bond market that loathes any steps that fan inflation risk and higher debt issuance," said Derek Holt, head of capital markets economics at Scotiabank. The pound had largely rebounded from its overnight losses, as traders speculated the BoE might take emergency action to stem the currency's fall, but tumbled again after BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said the central bank was watching the markets, but did not signal any immediate action. "The communication might have disappointed some segment of the population that is looking potentially for some intervening action from the Bank of England," said Bipan Rai, North American head of FX strategy at CIBC Capital Markets. Sterling was last down 1.5% at $1.069. "The market's reactions show that investors have lost confidence in the government's approach, creating a level of volatility that puts the pound on par with some emerging market peers," said Fiona Cincotta, senior financial markets analyst at City Index. Story continues "There is a good chance that the BoE will now be forced to hike rates aggressively in the coming November meeting if an emergency intervention isn't made before," she said. The euro also touched a fresh 20-year low of $0.9528 and was last down 0.81%. At 3:10 p.m. Eastern time (1910 GMT), the dollar was up 0.804% at 114.05 against a basket of peer currencies, having earlier touched 114.58, it strongest since May 2002. "The focus is on sterling but the story on the dollar is far wider and that is the part that is not helping," said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. The dollar firmed 0.84% to 144.585 yen, heading back toward Thursday's 24-year peak of 145.90. It sank to around 140.31 that same day after Japan conducted yen-buying intervention for the first time in more than 20 years. Japan is estimated to have spent about $25 billion in that dollar-selling, yen-buying intervention, according to estimates by Tokyo money market brokerage firms. China's offshore yuan slid to a new low of 7.1728 per dollar, its weakest since May 2020. Onshore, the yuan also touched a 28-month trough of 7.1690. The fresh lows came even as the central bank said it will reinstate foreign exchange risk reserves for some forward contracts, a move that would make betting against the yuan more expensive and slow the pace of its recent depreciation. The risk-sensitive Australian dollar touched $0.6438, its lowest since May 2020, and was last down 1.02%. (Reporting by John McCrank in New York; Additional reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe in London; Editing by Chris Reese and Marguerita Choy) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico A ship carrying much-needed diesel fuel has been unable to dock in hard-hit southern Puerto Rico since Sunday while it awaits federal authorization because of the Jones Act, a century-old shipping law. The delay comes at a time when about 40% of power customers still do not have electricity more than a week after Hurricane Fiona battered the island. Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said on Twitter on Monday morning that he had asked the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, to personally intervene to allow the vessel loaded with diesel to dock "for the benefit of our people. The Jones Act, otherwise known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires that goods shipped between American ports be carried out exclusively by ships built primarily in the United States, and to have U.S. citizens as its owners and crews. That means that a foreign ship with goods for Puerto Rico would first have to disembark in the mainland U.S. and change crews. The Department of Homeland Security told NBC News in a statement Monday afternoon, The Department of Homeland Security will continue to examine individual requests for Jones Act waivers on a case-by-case basis and in consultation with the Maritime Administration, Departments of Defense, and Energy. DHS did not respond to specific questions about the ship and its waiver request. Joel Piza Batiz, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Ports Authority, said on social media earlier Monday that a ship with a foreign flag that had come from Texas was off the coast of the island and had requested a Jones Act waiver. The Puerto Rican government is ready to provide any statistics, information, data and clarification as part of the waiver process with Homeland Security, in accordance with federal law, he added. In an interview with El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Ricos largest newspaper, Piza Batiz said the ship with fuel was sent by British Petroleum. Story continues Piza Batiz said in another social media post that the ship arrived off the coast of the island after 4 p.m. on Sunday without a federal waiver to dock and had not been scheduled to arrive. Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson two years after World War I ended, the Jones Act was passed as a protective measure against foreign competition. Opponents of the act say it causes delays in shipping that wouldnt otherwise exist and increases the costs of goods to the island. Others in the U.S. have defended it, saying it helps protect U.S. jobs. On Thursday, eight members of Congress called for the federal government to grant a one-year waiver from the Jones Act for storm-ravaged Puerto Rico. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., wrote on social media that she is calling for the yearlong waiver to expedite supplies being shipped into the Islands ports in order to accelerate Puerto Ricos recovery from Hurricane Fiona. Road bisected by flood debris. (Miami Herald / TNS) The island is now facing an unprecedented uphill battle to rebuild its homes, businesses, and communities. Temporarily loosening these requirements for the express purpose of disaster recovery will allow Puerto Rico to have more access to the oil needed for its power plants, food, medicines, clothing and building supplies, the members of Congress wrote in the letter to DHS. Then-President Donald Trump temporarily waived the Jones Act in 2017 after Hurricane Maria caused catastrophic damage on the island and after the administration had come under increasing pressure from officials in Puerto Rico and the mainland. 'This shouldn't be happening' Since Hurricane Fiona hit, fuel and diesel have become essential to keeping portable generators going amid the ongoing loss of power in some sections of the island. People have been stuck in long lines for days waiting to get fuel. We need these services, said Carmen Rodriguez, 50, a community leader in the southern municipality of Ponce, where neighborhoods were flooded and homes damaged in the storm. As of Monday morning, only 16% of power customers in Ponce had their electricity restored, according to the Puerto Rican government. Rodriguez said diesel was essential to keeping grocery stores, hospitals and health health centers operating as some businesses have temporarily closed or cut hours because of the lack of fuel. This shouldnt be happening. They should allow it to come in, she said of the fuel-laden ship. As of Monday morning, electricity had been restored to 869,000 power customers, or about 59% of all customers, according to the Puerto Rican governments emergency portal. And about 84%, or more than 1,115,000 customers, had their water service restored as of Monday morning, according to the Water and Sewer Authority. Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com A cluster of strong thunderstorms have made their way across central and into southeastern Wisconsin Sunday evening, according to the National Weather Service. Winds were strong enough to uproot trees or break branches, blow in or break windows, and even damage some buildings. "They're packing a punch with the wind and then some small hail as well," said Jaclyn Anderson, meteorologist for the NWS in Sullivan. Significant tree damage can be seen along West Washington Boulevard in Milwaukee Sunday evening. A cluster of strong thunderstorms cut across central and southeastern Wisconsin Sunday evening. The weather service has received reports of over 60 mph winds, she said. There also have been quite a few reports of tree damage and small hail. Shortly before 6 p.m., the storms made their way through Sheboygan and Washington counties, and into Jefferson County. They began to hit Milwaukee and into its southern suburbs before 7 p.m. "I would anticipate a pretty good uptick in winds, upwards of 50 miles an hour maybe a little bit stronger in a few different pockets of this storm as it moves through this evening," she said. Storm debris covers West Washington Boulevard in Milwaukee on Sunday evening. A cluster of strong thunderstorms cut across central and southeastern Wisconsin. Thousands hit with power outages As of about 7:40 p.m., 24,226 Wisconsin We Energies' customers were out of service, according to the company's outage map. That number included 9,109 customers out of service in Milwaukee County; 4,880 in Waukesha County; 2,773 in Ozaukee County; 1,533 in Washington County; 1,514 in Dodge County; and 1,320 in Kenosha; among others. How to protect yourself Here's how Anderson recommended protecting yourself from the storms: Seek shelter inside. If you hear thunder, you're at risk of being struck by lightning, she noted. If you for sure have time, move inside any outdoor objects that could easily blow away or do damage. A broken tree rests almost upside down along West Washington Boulevard in Milwaukee after a storm came through Sunday night. Severe thunderstorm warning The NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Milwaukee, northern Walworth, Racine, Waukesha and southeastern Jefferson counties until 6:45 p.m. Shortly before 6:20 p.m., severe thunderstorms were located along a line, extending from near Whitefish Bay to near Waukesha to near Palmyra, moving southeast at 60 mph, according to the warning. Story continues People attending Harvest Fest at State Fair were told to seek safe shelter immediately. About 6:30 p.m., severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 11 miles east of St. Francis to near Franklin to near East Troy, moving southeast at 65 mph, according to a severe weather statement from the NWS. Then, around 6:50 p.m., severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near Wind Point to near Pell Lake, moving southeast at 40 mph. Finally, a severe thunderstorm warning ended at 7:15 p.m. for southeastern Walworth, Racine and Kenosha counties. Trained weather spotters reported trees down across Jefferson and Waukesha counties, the warning said. There have also been public reports of trees down in northeastern Walworth County. Contact Hannah Kirby at hannah.kirby@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahHopeKirby. Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal. DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Strong storms knock out power, damage trees across Milwaukee area A federal jury on Monday convicted a former Chicago graduate student of spying for the Chinese government by gathering information on scientists and engineers in the U.S. with valuable knowledge about aerospace technology, artificial intelligence, and even aircraft carriers. After a two-week trial, the jury convicted Ji Chaoqun, 31, of conspiracy to act as an agent of Chinas Ministry of State Security without notifying the U.S. attorney general, acting as a spy in the U.S., and lying on a government form about his contacts with foreign agencies. Advertisement The jury, which deliberated about six hours over two days, acquitted Ji of two other wire fraud counts alleging he lied to the U.S. Army when he applied to become a reservist in 2016. Ji, who has been in custody since his arrest four years ago, kept his hands folded on the defense table and appeared to have no reaction as he listened to the verdict on headphones through a Chinese interpreter. Advertisement The more serious spying count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and when hes done serving his time, Ji will face deportation. U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman set sentencing for Jan. 17. After the verdict, Jis lead attorney, Damon Cheronis, said in a statement they were pleased that the jury returned not guilty verdicts on both wire fraud counts. Ji Chaoqun in a photo from his Facebook page. (Ji Chaoqun / Facebook) It was a complicated case and luckily we live in a country where a jury gets to decide these issues, Cheronis wrote in an email to the Tribune. While we are obviously disappointed with the remaining counts, we respect the jury process and the hard work they put into deciding this case. Jis case was profiled in the Tribune in 2019 as a symbol of a growing area of worry for U.S. authorities: A sophisticated and far-flung mission by the Chinese government to have spies and foreign agents steal ideas and technology from firms and defense contractors across the country. The charges against Ji were part of a wider national security investigation that also led to the arrest and unprecedented extradition of his handler, Xu Yangjun, a senior intelligence officer in Chinas main spy agency. Xu, the first Chinese spy ever brought to the U.S. to face criminal prosecution, was convicted in federal court in Cincinnati last November of trying to steal trade secrets from military contractor GE Aviation. He is scheduled to be sentenced later this year. The charges against Ji alleged that he was targeted by agents with the MSS in China shortly before coming to Chicago in 2013 to study electrical engineering at IIT, a small private school just east of the Dan Ryan Expressway that had forged educational ties with Chinese universities and colleges. After traveling back to China during the winter break, Ji was wined and dined by MSS handlers and eventually given a top secret contract where he swore an oath of allegiance to the agencys cause, agreeing to devote the rest of my life to state security, according to prosecutors. Advertisement A photo snapped surreptitiously by Ji of the contract was later found on his cellphone, though it was unsigned. Ji also took photos of $6,000 in cash given to him by the MSS for living expenses in the U.S., prosecutors said. Five days later, Ji returned to Chicago and immediately reached out to a friend who was studying aeronautics and aviation at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas said in his closing argument to the jury last week. Ji sent the friend photos of the contract and cash and offered to share some of his operational expenses with him if he helped him track down leads for the MSS, Jonas said. Jonas told jurors that sending his friend the photos was maybe not the brightest thing for Ji to do, but it didnt make him any less of a spy. Theres no requirement that you find that he be James Bond, Jonas said. Ultimately, Ji was able to gather background reports on eight U.S. citizens, all born in Taiwan or China, with careers in science and technology industry, including several who specialized in the aerospace field. Seven worked for U.S. defense contractors, according to prosecutors. Advertisement Ji sent the reports which were publicly available for purchase back to his handlers in a zipped attachment that was falsely labeled as sets of midterm exam questions, according to Jonas. Ji graduated from IIT in 2015, and the following year, enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve through a program to recruit foreigners who have skills considered vital to the national interest. Prosecutors alleged Ji concealed during his Army background check that he had been in contact with the intelligence officers, but the jury found him not guilty on both of those counts. The jury convicted him, however, of giving false answers on a government background form that asked if hed ever had any contact with foreign intelligence agencies, including MSS. In his closing argument Friday, Cheronis noted that Ji was never accused of stealing any government secrets, just gathering background that anyone wanting to research a neighbor or potential date could pay for on the internet. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > He also portrayed Ji as an unwitting pawn in a much larger game of international espionage, one played with equal aplomb by the same U.S. government that was now pointing fingers. Advertisement Cheronis said the system is designed to exploit idealistic young college students like Ji, kids who have enough trouble figuring out what theyre going to do with their lives. He pointed to the testimony of prosecution expert James Olson, the former chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, who walked the jury through what Olson referred to as the Great Game of spying. Olson called it eight-dimensional chess and acknowledged that men like him were experts in exploiting the dark side of human nature. Cheronis said Olson talked about older, more experienced players preying on college kids like he was talking about a fish. (Ji) is actually a human being. But hes a trophy for guys like Olson, Cheronis said. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com By Khalid Abdelaziz and Nafisa Eltahir KHARTOUM (Reuters) - At downtown Khartoum's al-Souq al-Arabi, travel agencies helping young Sudanese seek a brighter economic future in Egypt are replacing once-packed hardware stores in a corner of the capital's main commercial hub. The exodus reflects growing despondence over prospects at home, where the economy has been in free fall and the U.N. says food shortages affect a third of the population. Power and water cuts are common. Anti-army protests have rocked the streets since a coup a year ago. Following the military takeover, which toppled a civilian-led government that had promised a new economic dawn, the number of those leaving has accelerated, travel agents and migrants say. Egypt, already home to a Sudanese community estimated at 4 million, offers few of the lucrative jobs that Sudanese migrants have traditionally sought in the Gulf, but it is an easier and often more familiar destination. And while some do travel onward on treacherous Mediterranean trips to Europe, Egypt has notable advantages. Young Sudanese can travel there cheaply and hunt for work, while families seek healthcare, education for their children and a stable life. "All us young people want to build a future, but you can't do that here," said Munzir Mohamed, a 21-year-old trying to book a bus trip to Egypt at one of the travel agencies. The owner of a Khartoum bus company said as many as 30 buses were taking around 1,500 passengers to Egypt from Sudan daily, which he said was up 50% from last year, despite sharp ticket price increases. Two travel agents estimated the number of young men seeking to make the journey had doubled in the last year. There are no publicly available figures to show recent migration trends from Sudan to Egypt. But an Egyptian diplomat said numbers travelling had been on the rise since 2019, when an uprising led to the overthrow of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir. Story continues "Movement of Sudanese people into Egypt has been increasing ... gradually and proportional to the deterioration of the situation in Sudan," he said. TAXES AND FEES In al-Souq al-Arabi, labourers, electricians, and others who would typically be at building sites idle away the time drinking tea and playing board games while they wait for work. "We used to hope for five minutes to take a seat. Now I'm sat here all day," said the owner of one hardware store still operating in the market. Much of the paltry income that shopkeepers and stall-holders can still make goes to higher taxes, dues, and license fees introduced by a government that lost billions in external economic support after the coup, they say. The finance minister, Jibril Ibrahim, said on Sunday the country would rely on its own internal resources for a second year to fund the budget, despite the government struggling to provide basic services. Taxes and fees have risen by 400% or more in some instances, business owners say. "It's impacted us hugely," said the hardware store owner. Traders shut down main markets in the cities of Sennar and Gedaref this month in protest at the charges. Further closures are due in the city of El Obeid this week. The government, with no new prime minister appointed since the coup, is juggling strikes by electricity and sewage workers as well as trainee doctors over low wages. The finance ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Official inflation has eased from a high of 423% last year to 117% in August, which businessmen and analysts say reflects economic stagnation. It is still one of the highest rates globally. The Sudanese pound depreciated by 950% over the past four years, while fuel, once subsidized, has become more expensive than in many wealthier countries. Business owners say most people can no longer afford much beyond basic goods, causing traders and factories to slow down or close up shop. That may push more people to leave. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), "anticipates that more people will consider migration as an option," a spokesman for the U.N. agency said in reference to Sudan. MENIAL JOBS Circumstances in Egypt are also difficult with inflation running at its highest in almost four years, and almost a quarter of youths unemployed, according to the International Labour Organisation. Sudanese youth often end up working menial jobs in factories, gold mines, or as domestic help, travel agents and migrants say. But they have a community to lean on, and can earn more than at home. "My whole family in Sudan worked and we still weren't making much, and it would all go towards food," said 23-year-old Malaz Abbakar, who moved to Egypt two years ago. Now, she says, she's able to send her family up to 120,000 Sudanese pounds ($208) per month working as a babysitter. Stores selling Sudanese foods have cropped up in Cairo, private schools advertise Egyptian branches on billboards in Khartoum, and many travel to Egypt for healthcare that's become expensive or unavailable back home. For some, like 23-year-old Adam from war-stricken Darfur, Egypt is a stopover before the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe. "It's dangerous but it's better to risk it and have a good life than to suffer in poverty and hopelessness," he said as he queued for a visa at the Egyptian consulate in Khartoum, along with dozens of other would-be migrants. ($1 = 578.00 Sudanese pounds) (Additional reporting by Eltayeb Siddig and Hadeer Mahmoud; writing by Nafisa Eltahir; editing by Aidan Lewis and Frank Jack Daniel) The man who allegedly fatally hit 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson with an SUV after calling him a Republican extremist is no longer in custody after posting a $50,000 bond and is not being subject to house arrest or a curfew, according to documents reviewed by Fox News. Forty-one-year-old Shannon Brandt was released from jail September 20 after posting the bond, the outlet reported. Brandt admitted to hitting Ellingson with his car at 2:35 a.m. in McHenry, N.D., after the two had a political argument. Ellingson allegedly went to call his mom after the argument, but Brandt thought he was calling for people to come get him. Brandt had initially fled the scene, but then reported the incident to the police himself, saying he hit Ellingson because he thought he was part of a Republican extremist group. Police said he was intoxicated at the time of the incident. Ellingson suffered serious injuries and later died at the hospital. Brandt was charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. There was no evidence that the incident involved politics or that Ellingson was part of a Republican extremist group, North Dakota Highway Patrol Captain Bryan Niewind said, according to Fox News. Although he is free to roam the streets, under the terms of the bail, Brandt is not allowed to consume alcohol, can not leave North Dakota, cant come in close contact with the Ellingson family, can not possess a firearm, and has to be part of a 24/7 sobriety program, court documents showed. The Biden administration has repeatedly called MAGA Republicans extremists, saying they are a threat to democracy. The way that he sees it, is the MAGA [Make American Great Again] Republicans are the most energized part of the Republican Party. This is an extreme threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our rights, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in an August press briefing. Jean-Pierre then said MAGA Republicans just dont respect the rule of law and are pursuing an agenda that takes away peoples rights. More from National Review QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) - Hundreds of women protested in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria on Monday over the death of an Iranian Kurdish woman in the custody of Iran's morality police, with some cutting their hair and burning headscarves in an echo of demonstrations in Iran. Mahsa Amini, 22, died earlier this month after being arrested in Tehran by police enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict restrictions on women's dress. Her death has touched off Iran's biggest unrest since 2019. Protesters held aloft pictures of Amini as they marched through a street in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli. "She was subjected to brutal treatment by the Iranian tyrants. We don't accept this insult to any woman in society," said Sawsan Hussein, 52, an employee of the Kurdish-led administration who was at the protest. Amini's father has said she had no health problems and that she suffered bruises to her legs in custody and holds the police responsible for her death. Iranian police have denied harming her, saying she fell ill as she waited with other detained women. Iran's foreign ministry on Monday accused the United States of using the protests to try to destabilise the Islamic Republic. Kurdish groups have controlled swathes of north and northeastern Syria since the early days of the Syrian civil war, establishing autonomy as President Bashar al-Assad - an ally of Iran - sought to put down rebellions elsewhere in Syria. "We support the protests and uprisings in Iran," said Arwa al-Saleh, a member of the Kongra Star women's rights organisation that called for the protest. "No to injustice, no to oppression ... yes to women's rights," she said. Women have played a prominent role in the demonstrations in Iran, waving and burning their veils, with some publicly cutting their hair in a direct challenge to clerical leaders. Iran's Kurdistan province is one of the region's swept by unrest. Story continues The Kurdish ethnic minority live mostly in a region straddling the borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Dozens of people protested over Amini's death on Sunday in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Suli. Last week, one of Iraq's main Kurdish leaders - Masoud Barzani - called her family to pay condolences. (Reporting by Orhan Qereman in Qamishli and Amina Ismail in Iraq; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alex Richardson) When Torrence Thomas heard news that six Black teenagers drowned in Louisiana's Red River as they struggled to save a friend who had slipped into deeper waters, he knew something needed to be done. The incident, now more than a decade old, shocked the state, Thomas said. It's also all too common, according to data. Black children drown at more than twice the rate of white children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Experts told USA TODAY that systemic barriers in swimming pool access continue today, and the racist history of recreational swimming still affects Black people, leaving them less likely to learn to swim. To combat this, Black swim instructors are fighting against historys harsh legacies, one swimmer at a time. Thomas and his twin brother, Thurman, set out to make free swimming lessons more accessible to underserved communities in the Baton Rouge area. They raised money by selling band merchandise they're musicians when they are not providing swimming lessons and built a nonprofit called Tankproof that spread to Seattle; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Dallas; Austin, Texas; Brooklyn, New York; and Nashville, Tennessee. Swimming is a life skill, Thurman said. It's a necessity. The gift of swimming should be afforded to every single person. 'WHITE SUPREMACY COLORS EVERYTHING, EVEN ART': Tattoo artists of color battle narrative that ideal skin for ink is white Children wade in a pool as part of a program with Tankproof, which offers free swimming lessons to underserved communities in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn and Nashville. 'An important part of the larger civil rights movement' The story of systemic racism in swimming dates back centuries, historians said. Enslaved Black Americans were exploited for their swimming abilities in industries that relied on slave labor, like pearl diving, said Victoria Prizzia, creator of POOL: A Social History of Segregation, a Philadelphia exhibition on racism in swimming. They were also brutally punished for swimming recreationally because it was seen as an avenue to freedom. Story continues An instructor teaches students how to swim as part of a program with Tankproof, which offers free swimming lessons to underserved communities in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn and Nashville. The first public pools in Northern states served as bathhouses where people of different races swam together, said Jeff Wiltse, a history professor at the University of Montana. Public pools where men and women could swim together recreationally began opening in the 1920s and 30s. They immediately became contested along racial lines, said Wiltse, author of Contested Waters. White people worried about Black men swimming alongside white women, drawing on racist stereotypes that Black men were sexually undisciplined, Wiltse said. Others were concerned about the potential for interracial relationships. Many clung to the racist belief that people of color would spread disease through the water, Wiltse added. Racial segregation quickly became the rule for public pools, sometimes enforced by law. Pools were also concentrated in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods, Wiltse said. Many required identification cards for Black people or demanded payment and proper bathing suits that were difficult for many households to afford. 'YOU'RE ACTUALLY NOT ALONE': Bolstered by legacy, Black distillers push for diversity in industry Violence and intimidation became preferred strategies for segregation, Wiltse said. In 1964, a manager of a pool in St. Augustine, Florida, dumped acid into a pool where Black and white people were swimming together. The attack sparked outrage and became a watershed moment in the civil rights movement, Wiltse said. Swimming pools became centers of protests for racial equity after World War II as demonstrators organized wade-ins at beaches and pools. Many Black Americans pushed for the creation of their own pools, including the famed Nile Swim Club, while others filed lawsuits spearheaded by local NAACP chapters. That's where the efforts to desegregate pools begin to constitute something of a movement, Wiltse said. And it should be considered an important part of the larger civil rights movement or the Black freedom struggle. Nile Swim Club in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, is a historic swim club that was created in 1959 after two Black residents were denied access to a white-owned swimming pool. Legacy of racism remains Rather than accept integration, white swimmers abandoned public pools and turned to private pools in their own homes or suburban communities, Wiltse said. Cities closed pools and neglected the funding and maintenance of facilities in Black neighborhoods. These private clubs and swimming pools enabled an entire generation of white Americans to become immersed in swimming and swimming culture, Wiltse said. An instructor teaches a student how to swim as part of a program with Tankproof, which offers free swimming lessons to underserved communities in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn and Nashville. This historical lack of access has another devastating impact. Nearly 64% of Black children cant swim, compared with 40% of white children, according to a 2017 USA Swimming Foundation study. Black children ages 10 to 14 drown in swimming pools at rates 7.6 times higher than white children, according to the CDC. Past racial discrimination casts a very long shadow, and we're still living with the consequences of that discrimination, Wiltse said. Thurman Thomas, from Tankproof, said Black people have been "robbed" of their connection to water. "We want to empower these kids to not be afraid, to reclaim that connection to water," he said. 'ZINES' HAVE ROOTS IN MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES: Zine-makers worry those origins are being forgotten. Learning to swim, healing generational trauma For Jeff Commings, a competitive swimmer and co-founder of Dolphins of the Desert Swimming Academy in Arizona, healing that generational trauma starts one student and one swimming lesson at a time. Commings, 48, said many of the Black parents hes worked with were never taught to swim and have a fear of water. These parents are less likely to have their own children learn to swim, he said, adding that many of his students come to the pool with a fear of swimming. Many of us have parents who were alive during the civil rights movement and directly faced this intimidation and shaming, Commings said. ...The trauma of that abuse continues on. An instructor teaches a student how to swim as part of a program with Tankproof, which offers free swimming lessons to underserved communities in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn and Nashville. He added: I want to make my students fall so in love with swimming that they pass on that love to their children when they become parents. Rhonda Harper, founder of the surfing performance camp Black Girls Surf, saw a similar fear in the face of a young child she recently taught. Each day for a week, the two of them stood together in knee-deep water before she was ready to venture deeper into the pool. Just some investment of resources and a little patience can go a long way, Harper said. And I want our children to have the resources many of us didnt have years ago. Growing up in Kansas City, Harper said her family was denied entry to their local pool because they didnt want Black people. Instead, she walked 3 miles to the next-closest pool. An instructor teaches a student how to swim as part of a program with Tankproof, which offers free swimming lessons to underserved communities in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn and Nashville. Dreams die because you have to deal with racism, Harper said. I want all our children to live their dreams, to connect with water. But for that to happen, theres more work to be done, swimming instructors and historians told USA TODAY. They urged more federal and local investment in public pools and accessible swimming lessons in underfunded communities. Others encouraged schools and universities to teach students to swim as a graduation requirement. 'Carry on that legacy' Perhaps the most well-known symbol of resistance against the history of racism and exclusion in recreational swimming is Nile Swim Club, just outside Philadelphia, in Yeadon. In 1957, two Black families applied to join a white-owned swim club in Yeadon. When they arrived at the pools office, they found their applications in the trash, said Anthony Patterson Sr., Nile Swim Club's board president. After two years of fundraising, those families opened the first Black-owned and operated private swim club in the country, according to the Nile Swim Club. It was a space for us and for everyone, Patterson said. K-12 STUDENTS ARE BECOMING ACTIVISTS: They're drawing on lessons from historic fight for ethnic studies Nile Swim Club in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, is a historic swim club that was created in 1959 after two Black residents were denied access to a white-owned swimming pool. Anthony Patterson, Sr., Nile Swim Club board president, said he grew up going to Nile Swim Club with his siblings almost every day. The youngest of 19 children, Patterson grew up going to Nile Swim Club with his siblings almost every day. They couldnt afford a membership, so the clubs owners allowed them to swim for free if they helped pick up trash and clean up the pool. Patterson taught his son to swim at Nile. Because my family had access to the Nile Swim Club, we all learned to swim, he said. So many communities don't have that, and the ones that do, may not have suitable facilities or adequate swimming lessons. As he greets club members at the front desk or watches children once scared of the water leap into an 11-foot-deep pool, Patterson said he thinks of the history of Nile and the people who fought so that he and his community could have a place to swim. It's an honor to carry on that legacy, he said. And we all work very hard to ensure this work continues for generations, and Nile Swim Club continues for generations." Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Swimming instructors want to help Black children reconnect with water An 18-year-old man charged for allegedly beating a Chinese American man into a coma in Chicagos Chinatown back in April has been denied bail. Termaine Patterson, who was arrested last week and subsequently charged with eight felonies, including first-degree attempted murder, is believed to be one of four assailants involved in the violent carjacking that occurred near 25th Place and South Princeton on the morning of April 7. Jin Yut Lew, 61, was robbed, brutally beaten with a blunt object and left for dead during the attack, his children said. He was found unconscious and spent the next month in a coma due to traumatic brain injury. Surveillance footage taken on the morning of the incident reportedly captured Lews car being trailed by a stolen vehicle. Three individuals can be seen running toward Lew, and after a few minutes, they flee with Lews vehicle. More from NextShark: F--- China and Other Hate Speech Left Near Multiple Seattle Churches Chicago police managed to track the suspects partly due to Lews stolen credit cards. On Thursday, they arrested both Patterson and a juvenile who possessed Lews stolen vehicle but was not involved in the attack. Aside from attempted murder, Patterson has been charged with one count of aggravated vehicular hijacking, one count of vehicular hijacking, one count of aggravated battery of a victim older than 60, two counts of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, one count of robbery and one count of using a stolen credit or debit card. He was denied bail on Saturday. More from NextShark: Electric chopsticks from Japan can enhance saltiness and umami flavor in food I think when things like this happen, it's very easy for people in the public to be discouraged about whether or not crimes are being solved. This is a case in point, the hard work of the Chicago Police Department, said 11th Ward Alderperson Nicole Lee, whose home was just a block away from the crime scene, according to ABC7 Chicago. Story continues Lews children, Richard and Alford, have organized a GoFundMe campaign to help with their fathers medical bills, physical therapy and home care. They described him as a respected chef who worked tirelessly to support their family. In the Chinese restaurant community, he is a well-respected head chef who, over 40 years, gave many new immigrants their first starts and trained them in his kitchen. Many of these colleagues went on to be restaurant leaders across Chicago, Richard and Alford wrote. More from NextShark: Man Beats Asian Woman With a Cane as She Gets Off NYC Subway Train In an update, Alford wrote that Lew has been making improvements and relearning how to walk and talk again. However, he still requires 24-hour supervision and care. Police are still looking for the three other suspects. They have not been identified as of this writing. More from NextShark: TikTok baffled at Michigan mans unintentional racist comment while defending Asian man from verbal harasser Featured Image via Lew Family A Boston police officer is being credited for his professionalism and calmness after a man walked up to his unmarked police car and opened fire several times, hitting the officers car, but missing the police officer who then called in the assault. Alberto Polanco, 20, of Roxbury, was arraigned Monday in Roxbury District Court on firearm and assault charges in connection with the alleged incident, which unfolded shortly after 6:00 p.m. Sunday night. Investigators say the plainclothes officer was conducting an investigation at 43 Waumbeck Street, not far from the Trotter School playground, when Polanco approached and shot at him. The officer was approached by a suspect who fired multiple rounds at the officer, striking the officers vehicle twice, said Superintendent Felipe Colon. The officer, who thankfully was not injured from the gunfire - physically - and who did not return gunfire toward the suspect, broadcasted a detailed description of the suspect, said Colon. Additional officers responded to the scene, then search and located the suspect, who was ultimately placed under arrest. This is another example of some of the bravery that our officers meet every single day in the challenges of doing police work. I am so happy that the officer wasnt hurt, said Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox during a news conference Sunday night. I just want to thank him for his bravery, for his calmness, and just overall terrific professionalism in the face of this kind of danger. Superintendent Colon described the incident as terrifying. The professionalism exhibited by this officer, to maintain his composure and broadcast a detailed description of the suspect, which led to the removal of a dangerous individual from the streets. During the arraignment, Polancos attorney claimed his client was also shot at and requested additional evidence on the incident. Polanco is due back in court for a dangerousness hearing on Thursday. Story continues An investigation remains ongoing. BPD confirms arrest made after spray of gunfire at Waumbeck & Humboldt Ave near Trotter Elementary School in Roxbury. Unclear if anyone was hurt but at least one vehicle apparently struck by bullet #Boston25 pic.twitter.com/ZESA8qz9cN Drew Karedes (@DrewKaredes) September 25, 2022 This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW EAGLE PASS, Texas (NewsNation) U.S Border Patrol agents along the El Paso, Texas, sector of the southern border are encountering an average of 1,500 migrants each day amid controversy about the busing of migrants into U.S. sanctuary cities. The deputy city manager told NewsNation that at least nine buses depart from El Paso heading to New York and some to Chicago every day. This comes as the Texas Department of Public Safety deals with people who are evading law enforcement, thwarting a human smuggling attempt at an airfield in McAllen where 19 undocumented individuals from Central America were on board the plane headed for Houston. The bust was made after a concerned citizen alerted authorities of three unknown vehicles dropping the group off at the airport. Border Patrol came in to assist with the migrants, and the Department of Homeland Security is investigating. NYC mayor compares migrant crisis to height of pandemic This comes as agents are seeing a record number of encounters this year, with more than 2 million at the southern border. Its part of a trend seen along the border, where agents encountered more than 200,000 immigrants crossing over from Mexico in August. Also, in the Rio Grande Valley as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts Operation Lonestar, Texas DPS and the Texas National Guard worked alongside Border Patrol to apprehend 14 migrants from Mexico who were hiding in the brush. Its not just about what is coming into the country but also about what is going out cartels are trafficking drugs and firearms into the U.S. Most recently, two busts involved firearms in Arizona at the Nogales port of entry, where vehicles being used to smuggle weapons were stopped on the U.S. side attempting to head into Mexico. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, one writer delves into the history of the Old Spanish Trail and outlines how best to visit the trail today. Getty Images Antonio Armijo had a vision. In 1829, at just 25 years old, Antonio Armijo set out to find a new path westward. He led a party of 60 men and 100 mules across the vast landscape between what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Los Angeles (at the time of his journey, this region was still part of northern Mexico), in the hopes of discovering prosperous land for himself and his community. What he found was much larger than the 61 people who set out on the expedition. Ultimately, he created a path for hundreds of others to follow: the Old Spanish Trail. Courtesy of NPS The Old Spanish Trail lets us reframe the way we think of American history, Guy McClellan, Ph.D. and historian for the National Trails office of the National Park Service, told Travel + Leisure. Its important to recognize the northern expansion of Spanish culture." He explained that while many consider only the United States' migration in the 1800s (from east to west), it is more accurate to also acknowledge the northern frontier expansion of Mexico and New Spain. Armijo's journey, which came in at just over 1,000 miles, began in Sante Fe, headed west to Abiquiu, New Mexico, and then onto Page, Arizona; Las Vegas; Barstow, California; and finally, Los Angeles. The path used by subsequent traders eventually forked into three trails: Armijo's path, then two additional, smaller trails that head farther north to destinations like Taos, New Mexico, but eventually reconnect with the original trail. These three pathways now make up the official 2,700-mile national historic trail. William Dummitt/Getty Images Armijo's trek was a significant one for Hispanic heritage (though it also presents challenges for researchers, as he kept a diary some call aggravatingly brief about the experience), as it finally realized the long-held dream to connect Santa Fe and L.A. for trading purposes. The route was not entirely unknown to Armijo or his contemporaries. In fact, it had been traveled for years prior by Indigenous people making their way to the California coast and other Hispanic explorers attempting their own journeys west. He had the knowledge of both his ancestors and others before him working in his favor. But his efforts enabled travelers to traverse back and forth along a more direct path between (present-day) New Mexico and California, creating commerce and community-building opportunities. Story continues They settled in California. It wasnt a one-and-done, Angelica Sanchez-Clark, Ph.D., and fellow historian with the National Trails, said. Some of the family members come back to New Mexico, and others make a concerted effort to settle communities in Southern California. [The trail] really connects these two really important places. As the State Historic Preservation Office of Nevada noted, Though the Old Spanish Trail was difficult and perilous, the benefits could not be ignored. Perils included those by Mother Nature: dangerous stretches of craggy mountains, raging rivers, and desert landscapes that could swing from sweltering to freezing all too quickly. McClellan added, one explorer wrote in their log that they encountered deep snows and solitary gloom and needed to get bailed out on more than one occasion by Indigenous peoples along the way. But the landscape wasnt the only treacherous part of the expedition. So too were the plentiful horse thieves who roamed the trail, transporting stolen stock taken from California's ranchos and missions, and those who used it to funnel Indigenous captives to New Mexico or California. The trail wasnt always a place of peace, Sanchez-Clark said. But for decades, it prevailed in its mission to transport goods and people between the two cities. However, after the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, Mexico ceded the region to the U.S. The trails once used by mules shifted and instead were replaced by wagonways. Thus, the Old Spanish Trail, made famous by Armijo some 30 years earlier, was abandoned and almost forgotten until 2002, when it was revived and officially designated by Congress as one of the country's 19 national historic trails. Though you cant hike the path taken by Armijo in its entirety (unless you want to walk along some of Americas busiest highways), you can visit key sections of the trail on day trips or by undertaking one epic road trip to see as many of its significant stops as you can. Getty Images The trail functions via a partnership between the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, and with the help of tireless volunteers from organizations like the Old Spanish Trail Association, who maintain the trail physically and preserve it historically. Even now, some 20 years after its congressional designation, Sanchez-Clark explained, its a work in progress, but one her team is diligently working on to grow partnerships along the route to encourage more visitors. For example, at the trail's starting point in New Mexico, travelers can visit the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, which displays thousands of artifacts from before, during, and after the trail's heyday. In California, travelers can actually walk the pathway of Armijo and his fellow trekkers in Amargosa Canyon, which is home to a vast network of hiking trails that follow the same path used by the explorers. Those looking to feel even more grounded in the experience can also make their way to Utah to further retrace the footsteps of these brave men and women by hiking the Old Spanish Trail Heritage Loop, where they may even come across old wagon ruts and other artifacts. And in Colorado, travelers can stop at Fort Uncompahgre Interpretive Center, a trading hub used by those traveling the trail that shows visitors an as authentic as possible recreation of the 1829 experience. As McClellan said, The Old Spanish trail provides an opportunity to interrogate some of the biases that we might have and further gives us a chance to explore our collective history and some of the most beautiful stretches of our nation, one mile at a time. A selection of banned and challenged books are seen on a table as members of City Lit Theater Company read excerpts from them during Banned Books Week 2022, at the Lincoln Belmont branch of the Chicago Public Library on Sept. 22, 2022. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune) A glass shelf displaying some of the most notable challenged books in the country adorns the entryway of the Chicago Public Librarys Lincoln Belmont branch. The books are surrounded by yellow tape and red signs that inevitably steer the attention of those who walk inside to the titles that have been banned, or attempted to be banned, in other libraries across the country. But instead of taking the books off the shelves, visitors at the library were invited in celebration of Banned Book Week 2022 to learn about each one of them and encourage discussions about the topics for which they were banned. City Lit Theater Company joined the efforts by presenting a theatrical display of iconic banned and challenged books, allowing people to make their own decision on whether to read them. Advertisement Last week, city and Chicago Public Library officials declared Chicago a sanctuary city for those stories, by establishing Book Sanctuaries across the citys 77 distinct community areas and 81 library branches. That entails a commitment to expand local access to banned or challenged books through library programming. City Lit Theater Company members Cat Hermes, left, and Brandon Boler reads excerpts from banned and challenged books during Banned Books Week 2022, at the Lincoln Belmont branch of the Chicago Public Library on Sept. 22, 2022. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune) As one of the most diverse cities in the country, Chicago is proud to continue welcoming people from all walks of life and providing spaces for them to share their experiences, said Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a news release. Advertisement Meanwhile, attempts to ban books across the country including in suburban Illinois are escalating at a rate never seen since the American Library Association began tracking data more than 20 years ago, according its most recent report. 2022 already has the highest number of reported complaints, documenting attempts to ban or restrict access to 1,651 different titles, compared with 1,597 books in the whole year of 2021, the report found. The targeted titles are stories that focus on LGBTQ, sexuality, race and racism, the association reported. The removal of these stories from the shelves of libraries and schools can be especially detrimental for young people who can identify with the stories or characters in the books, said Tracie Hall, the executive director of the American Library Association. Hall commended the move by the city of Chicago to create book sanctuaries, saying that it mirrors the citys intentionality about being a place of belonging for all, especially for people who along with their stories have been marginalized, silenced, or left out altogether, she said. Now, at a time when calls for the censure of books and attacks on writers and librarians is at an all-time high, surpassing even that of the McCarthy era, the Book Sanctuary stands as a reminder that ideas and stories even when we disagree on them should convene us rather than rend us apart. The efforts to ban the books dont have a specific face or come from a particular group, Hall said. In fact, she said, the attempts to challenge the titles come from both sides of the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans, whether it be in suburban Illinois or California. But the report found that extremist groups have played a key role in the escalation of the attempts to ban books in the country, Hall said. They are recruiting parents and telling them that as good parents they should vouch to ban these books, Hall said. The report also highlights the role that conservative politicians and politics has had in the recent efforts to ban books that uplift LGBTQ experiences. Those attempts to ban the books can be a written objection, a complaint form submitted to a library or a demand for removal of the title on social media or another platform. Advertisement Its all the books that have been mostly written by or are about the experiences of Black, Indigenous, people of color, as well as LGBTQ writers, Hall said. That may be happening as a desire to silence these communities, because increasingly were understanding in this country that were not going to be able to progress without reckoning with equity and inclusion. PEN America, a New York-based literary and free expression nonprofit advocacy group, identified 50 groups that are leading efforts to ban books at the national, state and local levels, according to its most recent report on the growing movement to censor books in school. They include conservative Facebook and other social media groups. Moms for Liberty, which has Illinois chapters in Lake, Cook and DuPage counties, is mentioned as one of the most active groups, with a total of 200 chapters. In Illinois, several school districts banned a number of books that uplift queer voices, according to the PEN report. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe was banned at Community High School in Lake Villa. That same title was banned at Harlem School in Machesney Park. At Rowva Community United school in Oneida, Illinois, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas was removed from shelves, according to the PEN report. A selection of banned and challenged books are seen on a table as members of City Lit Theater Company read excerpts from them during Banned Books Week 2022 at the Lincoln Belmont branch of the Chicago Public Library on Sept. 22, 2022. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune) In all, the report says that from July 2021 to June 2022, local officials banned 2,532 books by 1,261 authors, 290 illustrators and 18 translators. The bans occurred in 138 school districts in 32 states, the report found. The most frequently banned book was Gender Queer, which was banned in 41 districts, characterized as pornographic for its illustrations of sexual acts while telling a nonfiction story of the author navigating gender identity and relationships with family and friends. Advertisement In June, the Downers Grove high school board unanimously voted to keep the book in its libraries even after a group of parents and some members of the far-right Proud Boys group raised concerns over the controversial title, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Just last week in Barrington, the school board voted to keep Flame and This Book Is Gay, two books about gender and sexuality. In a 4-3 vote, the board ultimately accepted a recommendation by a school advisory committee of experts to keep the books after determining they didnt meet the standard for obscenity and pornography. Erin Chan Ding, a board member, said the removal of the books could potentially impact young people that could identify as LGBTQ students. And though the books may have strong imagery and words, it should be up to parents if their children read them. In August, Barrington school board members also voted to keep Gender Queer in the Barrington High School library. Were making these books available, but were not actively incorporating the books that were challenged into the curriculum, said Chan Ding, a mother to an eight and a fourth grader. Advertisement As a mother, she said, she understands that some parents question the books and want to prevent access to them. I have empathy for parents who disagree with our decision and I acknowledge and fully recognize that theres a full spectrum of opinions. ... It is a parents responsibility and role to do what is best for their own child but that doesnt mean restricting access to other people. Chan Ding said Chicagos recent announcement creating book sanctuaries is both encouraging and alarming. She worries that efforts to ban more titles will continue growing in suburbs. But she said she is glad that kids will have access to the books in their neighboring city. Chicago Public Library Commissioner Chris Brown said, Book bans threaten to silence the stories of people most often from and representative of marginalized communities and narrows the scope and diversity of the stories and perspectives we can share. Brandon Boler, center, and Brian Pastor, right, of City Lit Theater Company read excerpts from a selection of banned and challenged books during Banned Books Week 2022. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune) Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > The Book Sanctuary, he said, aims to empower people everywhere to further demonstrate their support for books and the people who love and protect them by mobilizing action in their own communities. Brown invited Chicagoans to join by taking a pledge to create safe spaces for stories by launching their own book sanctuary at a library, classroom, coffee shop, public park or even a bedroom bookshelf. Advertisement The commitments include collecting and protecting endangered books, making endangered books broadly accessible, hosting book talks and events to generate conversation, including story times focused on diverse characters and stories, and educating others on the history of book banning and burning. Brown said the Chicago Public Librarys facilities will be open to suburban readers: We have a role to make sure that our readers understand that they can always turn to us. Brown also invited other libraries and residents to use the guidelines that the library has made available. Learn more at TheBookSanctuary.org. Larodriguez@chicagotribune.com Vicky Leta/Insider Some have proposed age limits for elected officials amid concerns about America's gerontocracy. But members of Congress young and old alike balk at the idea, suggesting alternative fixes. Those include term limits, overhauling the seniority system, and fixing the campaign finance system. Read more from Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" series. As frustration mounts with the aging of America's top political leadership, a simple, seemingly straightforward solution to the problem has slowly gained currency: age limits. Particularly in the past several years, the idea of setting some sort of age cap on public service particularly when it comes to the presidency has been entertained by op-ed writers, interrogated by pollsters, and even floated by long-shot political candidates as both a populist and technocratic solution to our contemporary frustrations with gerontocracy. And if the US Constitution sets clear minimum age requirements not just for the presidency (35) but also for serving in the Senate (30) and the House (25), why wouldn't an upper age limit make sense as well? "It seems like the de facto threshold for running for president is not 35, but 80," said Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, who at age 34 can serve in Congress but can't yet serve in the nation's highest office. Fresh polling by Insider and Morning Consult indicates that three in four Americans favor an age limit for members of Congress. More than four in 10 viewed the ages of political leaders as a "major" problem. Mandatory retirement based on age is standard practice in other industries most notably for air-traffic controllers, airplane pilots, and within the military. Age-related declines in vision and hearing, the ability to endure stress, and the increased risk of medical emergencies rank among the reasons. But service ceilings aren't entirely alien to politics: Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia require state-level judges to retire when they reach a certain age, generally 70 to 75. Story continues Nevertheless, Congress' youngest and oldest lawmakers seem to agree: An age limit is not on the table. Yet. "I don't know how you do that. You would have to amend the Constitution?" asked Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who at 88 is among the Senate's most elderly lawmakers. "I think it depends on the person too, a lot of times. I've known some people sharp in their mid-90s." Torres, too, said he'd "be against it," using the 82-year-old speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, as an example of an older lawmaker who by all accounts remains healthy and firmly in control of her caucus. "She is one of the sharpest people I've ever met in my life," he said. "She has a command of the institution." That doesn't mean Torres doesn't see a problem. "I'm concerned that politics has become a gerontocracy," he said. "If I become a shadow of my former self, then it's time for me to go. There's something to be said for exiting gracefully." Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, the chamber's lone millennial, takes a selfie with a voter during a 2022 Juneteenth celebration. Brynn Anderson/AP The more immediate problem, according to lawmakers critical of the gerontocratic nature of American politics, is that the country's oldest politicians have not just the incentive to stick around but the power to remain entrenched. And it is those mechanisms the seniority system, a campaign-finance system that favors incumbents, gerrymandered congressional districts, and the ability to continue to seek office indefinitely that members of Congress are most eager to discuss. "More important than those constitutional limits," said Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, the youngest member of the Senate at age 35, "are the various structural impediments in our political system as it functions today that deter, and make it so difficult, and discourage young people from seeking office." What's in an age limit? The arguments in favor of limiting the country's oldest people from serving in public office involve a series of distinct concerns: that younger people need to be better represented in politics, that humans typically experience cognitive and physical decline with age, and that with both technological innovation and societal change, it's simply time for a new generation with more intimate knowledge of these issues to be given the chance to lead. And the advanced age of the country's top political leadership is striking, particularly when viewed through the lens of history. Joe Biden, at 79, is the oldest president in US history. Pelosi is the oldest House speaker, at 82. The person third in line to the presidency is the 82-year-old Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont, the president pro tempore of the Senate. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is 83, while House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is 82. The majority and minority leaders of the Senate Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell are 71 and 80. Washington's power class is also aging across the board; the current Congress is the oldest in the nation's history. At the start of the latest Congress, in January 2021, baby boomers controlled roughly 56% of the seats in both chambers despite representing approximately just 21% of the US population. And the median age of the Senate is about 64, while the median age in the House is about 58. "I'm turning 64," Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota noted in a tweet earlier this year. "Or as we like to call it in the Senate: middle-aged." Senator Tina Smith (@SenTinaSmith) March 4, 2022 As it stands, age is one of just three constitutionally enumerated requirements for serving in Congress or the White House the other two pertain to citizenship and state residency. Generally speaking, these requirements were based on a belief that one had to reach a certain age to have the maturity to fulfill the duties of the office. Arguing for a minimum age of 25 to serve in the House, George Mason one of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 said his "political opinions at the age of 21 were too crude and erroneous to merit an influence on public measures." Noting the "more advanced age" required of senators versus representatives, James Madison, it is believed, argued in the unsigned Federalist No. 62 that the "nature of senatorial trust" required a "greater extent of information and stability of character," and that age 30 represented a "period of life most likely to supply these advantages." "Those who drafted the Constitution had sound reasons to set the minimum standards for various federal offices, you know?" said Ossoff, who became eligible to run for president just this year. "I've not given thought to whether any reevaluation of those limits is called for." But the potential for inexperience in youth is different from the negative consequences of aging, and those consequences certainly aren't uniform. James Chappel, an associate professor at Duke University who researches the topic of aging, has warned that seeking to sweep aside older elected officials purely by virtue of their age is not just ageist, but misguided. "If it's true that what you're trying to test for is a kind of mental acuity, controlling for age is not a good way to do that," Chappel told Insider. "There are plenty of people who are younger than Joe Biden who are way dumber than him." "The 85-and-up population is really going to skyrocket in the 21st century," he added. "And just as that community is growing, we are going to ensure that they aren't represented in Congress?" Some lawmakers aren't willing to discuss age caps in Congress. Asked about age limits by Insider at the Capitol, the 34-year-old Republican Rep. Peter Meijer a man known for facing down tough political questions demurred. "That's probably more than just something I want to offer a little quip on, off the floor," he said. Beyond normative arguments about the wisdom of such a change, it's also exceedingly difficult, almost certainly requiring an amendment to the Constitution. First, either two-thirds of both the House and the Senate would have to approve it, or 34 states would have to call for a constitutional convention. Then, 38 state legislatures would have to approve the change. 'Tenure yields power yields tenure' While no lawmaker ventured to endorse age limits in interviews with Insider, many reflected on an underlying system that prioritizes tenure and seniority over other potential measures of political acumen, generating a political leadership that skews older. "Congress itself is a gerontocracy," Torres said. "It's an institution that prioritizes seniority to the exclusion of everything else." Under the so-called seniority system, members of Congress are able to gain power simply by remaining in office; their standing within such a hierarchy is dependent solely on the length of their tenure. Seniority is used to determine who gets first choice at offices and, more important, who gets to chair committees. Seniority itself isn't necessarily a negative attribute; over time, members may develop institutional knowledge and close working relationships that allow them to be more effective legislators. To that point: Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who just turned 89 years old and has served in the US Senate for 41 years, touted in a recent ad that he would have the "most seniority in the entire Senate" if reelected. "That's priceless for Iowa," the ad intones. "It's easier to fight the rising cost of living when you have clout." Combined Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa (left) and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California have spent over 87 years in Congress. The pair, who are both 89, are also the oldest senators in the chamber. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call But that system can also lead to certain perverse incentives, including remaining in office even amid obvious signs of mental decline. Earlier this year, a former staffer of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, remarked in an interview with The Cut that having the "diminished" senator representing California was "better than a junior" senator. "Every other state benefits from California not having seniority, because our appropriations are so much larger," Jeffrey Millman, another aide who served as her 2018 campaign manager, told the outlet. "Puppies have a nap. Now it's time for you to have one," fellow Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts reportedly told Feinstein with a chuckle in August. It's a system that Congress' best-known young lawmaker Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who's 32 has spoken about on her widely viewed Instagram account. "If you are on a committee and want to chair it, you basically have to wait until almost everyone before you resigns or leaves office," she wrote in a post on June 18. "That often takes decades." "So people wait. And wait. And wait," she continued. "Those who DID wait and are in leadership (or next in line for it) are incentivized to protect the automatic seniority system as much as possible because of their sunk time cost." Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York explained to her Instagram followers earlier this year how the deck is stacked against younger members. Screenshot/Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Speaking at the Capitol, Ocasio-Cortez told Insider it was "important for us to figure out perhaps a better way of determining who should lead a committee, beyond who's been here longest." And there's an asymmetry between the parties when it comes to the seniority system; Republicans, unlike Democrats, impose six-year term limits for chairmanships and ranking members. "We're considerably younger than the Democrats, by the way," Republican Rep. Don Bacon, 59, of Nebraska told Insider. He praised his party for enacting the limits, pointing out that it "creates a bit of a turnover." And he joined others in pushing back on age limits. "I think Chuck Grassley does a pretty darn good job," he said. "I think in the end the voters should be able to choose, and if they think someone is too old, then they can make that choice." The support for term-limiting leadership positions and committee chairs exists in both parties, with some Democrats trying in vain to limit Pelosi's tenure in 2018. Republicans, more recently, have expressed interest in instituting committee term limits beyond just their party. But aside from the power amassed within the halls of the US Capitol, the power of incumbency in one's home district can often ensure that upstart candidates have a hard time mounting a credible challenge to those longtime incumbents. "Tenure yields power yields tenure," said Ossoff, referring to the campaign-finance system, partisan gerrymandering, and the centralization of power within party apparatuses. "Some of the same dynamics that drive partisan polarization also make the political system less competitive," he added. "Those sorts of anticompetitive dynamics can make it more difficult for younger candidates to get a shot." 'The principle of democracy is taking turns' In the absence of an age cap, term limits offer another potential solution, though that too would require going through the arduous constitutional-amendment process. The history of the contemporary movement for term limits largely dates back to the early 1990s, when dozens of states enacted term limits not just for their own legislatures but for their federal representatives in Washington. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich made the idea a core pillar of his "Contract with America" in 1994, and a majority of House members even voted 227-204 for a constitutional amendment that would have imposed 12-year limits on members of Congress six two-year terms for House members, two six-year terms for senators though that fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority necessary to begin the process. That same year, the Supreme Court which has no age or service limits ruled that states couldn't impose requirements on their representatives that are more strict than those laid out in the Constitution, overturning federal term-limit laws passed by 23 states. Nonetheless, the idea continues to have significant currency on the right, including some daring conservatives who in fact hope to hold a constitutional convention for those very purposes. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, 42, (right) turns toward Sen. Tom Cotton, 45, of Arkansas during a July hearing on Capitol Hill. The two lawmakers are the youngest Republican senators. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, the Senate's second-youngest member, at 42, suggested that term limits could ameliorate concerns about aging public servants. "I think that would do it," he told Insider. "You know, once you've served two or three, especially three, terms in the Senate, that's a long time." While Republicans, generally antagonistic toward the federal government, have generally been quick to affirm their support for the idea, Democrats have not. But if frustration with gerontocracy continues to mount, there's some evidence that the idea could gain broader support within the party. "Put it this way: I'm a little more interested in term limits than age limits," Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland told Insider. He noted the existence of term limits on the presidency, while quipping that his openness to the idea might make him a "pariah" within the party. "There's a logic to term limits, because the principle of democracy is taking turns," Raskin, 59, said. And Torres squarely blamed the lack of term limits for the gerontocracy of which he spoke, though he stopped short of endorsing the idea. "If there were to be term limits, the legislature certainly should have more terms than the executive," he offered. But the pull of tenure is strong, even for those who have voted for term limits. Grassley, who voted in favor of term limits in 1991 and 1993, told Insider he still supported the idea even while running for reelection this November: "Yes, I would vote for it again." And McConnell, the longest-serving Republican leader in Senate history, also voted in favor of term limits both times. 'Everybody has to make their own decision' Perhaps the most important force driving anxieties about gerontocracy, particularly for the young, is a greater desire for political power. And Pelosi is said to have her own adage on how that power changes hands. "Nobody's going to give it to you," she says. "You've got to take it." Even Torres noted that alongside his desire for new "opportunities for a new generation of public servants," there were signs of younger generations beginning to dislodge incumbents. "We're living in a time where incumbency is no longer an insurance policy against primary challengers," he said. "In order to be a member of Congress, even in a safe district, you have to be on the top of your game." "It seems like the de facto threshold for running for president is not 35, but 80," Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York told Insider. John Minchillo/AP And being on top of one's game is a challenge that the oldest Americans, for better or for worse, are largely continuing to meet. Grassley, though often reliant on staff members for assistance, recently completed his annual 99-county tour of Iowa as he seeks his eighth term in the Senate. By contrast, Shelby nearly as old as Grassley, decided to retire this year, and will most likely be replaced by a woman less than half his age. "Senate gets older? Well, it's going to get younger when I leave," he quipped to Insider. "I've chaired four committees. I've had a good run," he said, explaining why he made what he called the "mature" decision to step down. "I said, I want to walk out of here while I know who I am." "So everybody has to make their own decision," he added. And while former President Jimmy Carter, who's nearly 98, once casually suggested an age limit because he couldn't undertake presidential duties even if he were "just 80 years old," others may reach a different conclusion. "It's fair to ask about anything that's reasonable, including age," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, who just turned 81 this month. But it's a politician's views on policy that are most important, Sanders said. "Because somebody is young, because somebody is old, or whatever they may be, it is not a reflection of their views on the issues," he said. In Feinstein's view, arguing against an age limit is ultimately a matter of fairness. "I've had a lot of life and I've seen a lot of people die very young, and so I think age is just something that you contend with," Feinstein told Insider. "No, I don't," she replied when asked whether an age limit might be prudent. "This has always been an open place, and it should stay that way." Read the original article on Business Insider BOGOTA (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched on Monday against economic and social reforms proposed by Colombian leftist President Gustavo Petro - which he says will fight inequality - just 50 days after he took office. Petro, 62, has promised to seek "total peace" through deals with rebel groups and crime gangs and asked lawmakers to approve a tax reform which would raise an initial $5.6 billion for social programs next year. The reform would raise taxes on those earning more than $2,259 per month, about 10 times the minimum wage, and eliminate exemptions. Petro has constructed a majority in congress through alliances with a range of parties. Right-wing party the Democratic Center, headed by former President Alvaro Uribe, has led much of the opposition to his proposals. Some 5,000 people, many waving signs with slogans like "no to the tax reform", marched in Bogota, according to the mayor's office. Some marchers compared Petro's governance so far to authoritarianism and said objections to his administration would mount. "Mr. Petro you are wrong in your way of governing," said information technology worker James Duque. Petro has also proposed changes to healthcare, a land reform which would sell properties to poor farmers at below-market rates and reforms to voting. "It's hurting my pension, it's hurting my healthcare, it's hurting private property, we need to respect families," said protester Francisco Arias in Bogota's central Plaza Bolivar. Peaceful marches also took place in Medellin, Cali, Armenia and Villavicencio. Petro said in a tweet he respected protesters' right to express themselves but that his government also had a right to combat misinformation. (Reporting by Herbert Villarraga; Writing by Luis Jaime Acosta and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Marguerita Choy) The U.S. Attorneys Office of Middle District of Georgia has announced the sentencing of three Georgia men for their role in attempting to distribute methamphetamine at the Macon State Prison. According to the release, on Sept. 2, 2019, Demarea Demond Carey, 28, was driving a car pulled over for going over the speed limit in Roberta, Georgia. Raquan Emahl Gray and Daquann Marquez Epps, both 26, were passengers in the car. Deputies said there was a strong odor of marijuana coming from the car. Carey admitted that he had smoked marijuana. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] During the vehicle search, deputies found multiple packages wrapped in different colored duct tape, with some being numbered. Some packages were softball shaped and also wrapped in electrical tape. The packages consisted of 494 grams of methamphetamine, 150 pills that tested positive as methamphetamine, 50 cell phones two large bags of cell phone chargers, three pounds of marijuana, 19 bags of tobacco, a huge bag of cigars and 19 lighters, officials said. The GPS on Careys phone was set to the Macon State Prison. The release states that Gray has an extensive criminal history including felony convictions for robbery, burglary, and theft by taking. TRENDING STORIES: Gray, of Conley, was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by three of supervised release. He was found guilty of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine on May 24. Epps, of Columbus, was sentenced to just over 6 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Carey, of Fairburn, was sentenced to serve a little over 6 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Carey previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Story continues [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Illegal drugs have no place in Georgia, including in our prison system. They are dangerous and threaten the safety of all populations. We will continue to work diligently along with our local and federal partners to investigate and dismantle drug trafficking organizations no matter where they are, said GBI Director Michael Register. There is no parole in the federal system. IN OTHER NEWS: A three-year-old boy has died days after his aunt allegedly shoved him off Chicagos Navy Pier into Lake Michigan. Josiah Brown was pronounced dead at a hospital on Sunday morning, six days after police said surveillance footage captured his 34-year-old aunt Victoria Moreno pushing him to the end of the pier and throwing him into the water on 19 September. Ms Moreno was subsequently arrested on charges of felony attempted first-degree murder and felony aggravated battery of a child. Those charges are likely to be updated in the wake of the boys death. Authorities said Ms Moreno made no attempt to rescue the boy when he went in the water but instead stood and watched as he vomited twice and sank while witnesses struggled to get to him. He was eventually found at the bottom of the lake by the Chicago Fire Department and was pulled from the water around the 700 block of East Grand Avenue. He was rushed to Luri Childrens Hospital in critical condition, having suffered from a swollen brain, depressed heart, seizures and bleeding in his lungs, prosecutors said in charging documents for Ms Moreno. The three-year-old had been in the care of his grandmother that day when his aunt snatched him from the home when the grandmother briefly went upstairs, according to authorities. Victoria Moreno is accused of throwing her nephew into Lake Michigan (Chicago Police Department) Ms Moreno initially told investigators that she was just a witness to the incident and didnt know the boy, but later claimed hed been acting up and fell into the lake when she let go of his shirt. She has been ordered not to have any contact with her family as she awaits her next court appearance on 30 September. According to Fox News, Ms Moreno has a history of insomnia, depression and anxiety, and is not allowed to drive because of medications she takes. The outlet said she had previously taken her nieces without permission, but no further details were provided. As with any incident involving children, these are difficult circumstances. We ask that you keep the family in your thoughts, said Area Three Deputy Chief Gabriella Shemash. Story continues The victims family is now being investigated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Service, said spokesman Bill McCaffrey. He said that the department had no previous contact with the family. In a statement, officials for Navy Pier said: Navy Pier is deeply saddened to learn about the injury of a child pulled from the water this afternoon. We are working very closely with the Chicago Police Department as they investigate the incident. Our hearts are with the child and his loved ones. The mayor of a small Georgia town has died after suffering a tragic accident at a motocross event. Perry Bell, 54, was elected mayor of White in a special election held earlier this year and he had only assumed office in June, just a few months before his untimely death on Saturday. The mayor, described by friends online as having a voracious passion for thrill-seeking activities like off-road motorcycle racing, base jumping, sky diving and race car driving, died while competing in the Lazy River Motocross at a track near Dalton, Georgia. According to The Daily Tribune News, Murray County Deputy Coroner Jonathan Sosebee confirmed that Bell died as a result of blunt force trauma to the chest after he was struck by another competitor in the Lazy River Motocross. Officials said that while Bell was performing a stunt on the track, located about 90 miles northwest of Atlanta, he collided with another motorcyclist. Perry Bell, a recently elected mayor in the Georgia town of White, died while competing at a motocross event over the weekend in Dalton, Georgia (WSBTV/video screengrab) It was an unavoidable accident, Mr Sosebee said. From what I understand, he was on a jump and then he crashed on top of a jump. There was another rider right behind him and he was unable to do anything he wasnt able to see him to avoid it. The injuries that Bell suffered were so severe that the man was unable to be airlifted to another hospital, and ultimately succumbed to his injuries while being treated at centre in Chatsworth, about a 20-minute drive away from the track. Interim mayor Gary Crisp told WSBTV in an interview after the incident that the town will likely hold another special election in the near future, and that he would take over mayoral duties in the meantime. He was just a caring person for the community and wanted to help the people that live here, said Mr Crisp in an interview with the local TV station. In a Facebook post, a friend of the former mayors commemorated a man who he characterised as both a legend and a true friend. RIP Perry Bell. I cant believe I just typed that. Unfortunately a post cant say enough to capture the essence of this man. A true friend and much more, wrote Roy Cicola online, noting that the 54-year-old leaves behind many loved ones including a brother and sisters. He accomplished so much in a short period of time, Mr Cicola added. I know if given the chance he wouldve made the town he fell in love with a better place to live for all the residents. (Bloomberg) -- Analysts have been speculating for weeks about how the market would react to a victory for Giorgia Meloni in Italys general election but when the moment came, traders were far more concerned about a budget meltdown in the UK. Most Read from Bloomberg Melonis party, Brothers of Italy, has its roots in the post-fascist movements of the late 20th century and Meloni herself has attacked the European Union, immigrants and LGBTQ rights on the campaign trail. When she spoke to her supporters gathered at a hotel in downtown Rome in the early hours of Monday however, she struck a sober tone, telling them that Italy needs to be governed with responsibility. In contrast, Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng triggered a crash in UK markets on Friday when he announced the biggest package of unfunded tax cuts in half a century and then said over the weekend that he has even more breaks to come. The pound dropped as much as 3.7% against the single currency during Asian trading hours and was 1% lower at 1.1088 euros at 09:13 a.m. in London. The yield on 10-year gilts jumped 29.4 basis points to 4.12% while that on similarly dated Italian debt rose 9 basis points to 4.43%. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. HIMARS will be delivered for training exercises in Latvia on September 26 Read also: More Latvian military aid heading to Ukraine, says Defense Minister Reznikov The HIMARS will be delivered using MC-130J Commando II aircraft of the U.S. Special Operations Forces in Europe. The training exercises are being held at the request of the Latvian National Armed Forces (NAF). The purpose of the exercises is to demonstrate the possibilities of cooperation between the Latvian NAF and the U.S. Armed Forces. The military will also be taught how to detect, identify and evaluate targets. Read also: Zelenskyy says Ukraine receives NASAMS air defense systems from US Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks, Commander of the National Armed Forces Lieutenant General Leonid Kalnins, and U.S. Ambassador to Latvia James Carville will oversee the delivery, deployment and simulated firing of the HIMARS at Spilve Airfield. Upon arrival in Liepaja, the HIMARS systems will be moved to the Skede military training ground in the Vergales parish of the South Kurzeme region to fire training missiles at a target in the Latvian economic zone of the Baltic Sea. The exercises using HIMARS are being held in Latvia for the first time since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine and threats from the Kremlin to use nuclear weapons. In July, Latvia announced its intention to introduce general military service in the country and drew up a plan for introducing innovations. Riga supports Kyiv in the fight against Russian invaders, providing military and financial assistance. The United States has already provided the HIMARS Multiple Launch Rocket Systems to the Ukrainian army. Ukraine has used it to strike at Russian ammunition depots in the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by invading Russian forces. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union should bar Russian diamond imports and blacklist diamond miner Alrosa and its head Sergei Ivanov, Transparency International told Reuters on Monday, as the 27-nation bloc prepares new sanctions over Russia's war in Ukraine. Galvanised by Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing a partial military mobilisation and issuing a thinly veiled nuclear threat to the West, EU countries were quick to say last week that they will respond with new sanctions. Two diplomatic sources, however, told Reuters on Monday the process would take time as the 27 EU countries need to agree unanimously in order to impose sanctions. The bloc's executive European Commission is expected to make a formal proposal on that in the coming days and it might get final approval from the 27 national EU leaders meeting in Prague on Oct.6-7. Highlighting how fragile EU unity is on Russia, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban - who had cultivated a close relationship with Putin - spoke against such sanctions on Monday. Those in the bloc who take a hawkish view of Russia, such as Poland and the Baltic states, have proposed introducing a cap on the oil price paid to Russia to match a G7 agreement, banning imports of Russian diamonds and imposing wider export restrictions covering technical equipment and other areas. More sanctions on individuals - including those involved in organising Moscow's ad hoc votes in occupied east Ukraine on joining Russia - are also expected. Transparency International said that, beyond the diamond embargo, Russia's state-controlled Alrosa - the world's largest producer of rough diamonds - and its CEO Sergei Ivanov should be added to the EU's blacklist, which includes 108 entities and 1,206 individuals. "This sectoral ban needs to be extended for the assets of Alrosa," said Transparency International's Roland Papp. "Targeting them would be a logical next step." Story continues "Ivanov himself is closely linked with the Kremlin, he is already sanctioned by the USA, so it would be time to include him on the EU sanctions list as well." The United States has sanctions in place on Alrosa, while Britain has blacklisted Ivanov. (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Hugh Lawson) Floridians have been warned to be ready for a potential hurricane this week, as Tropical Storm Ian continues to strengthen while charting a path towards the Sunshine State. The National Hurricane Center forecasts that by mid-week, Ian will have reached Florida as a major hurricane. The Florida governor said that he appreciates the quick action from President Joe Biden who granted the states request to issue a federal emergency declaration. We appreciate it, were thankful, he said at Sunday mornings press conference. Meanwhile, the authorities in Cuba have suspended classes in Pinar del Rio province and said they will begin evacuations today. Tropical Storm Ian is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane before reaching the western part of the island on its way to Florida. As Florida prepares for the incoming weather event, Canada is starting to assess the damage and begin recovery efforts after being hammered by post-tropical cyclone Fiona on Saturday. It has also mobilised its army for rescue and assessment of the damage. Key Points Biden declares state of emergency in Florida and postpones visit Cuban government upgrades hurricane watch to hurricane warning Ron DeSantis tells Floridians to prepare for hurricane Canada sends in troops to help with Storm Fiona devastation Death toll from Hurricane Fiona rises to 16 in Puerto Rico Florida governor to hold press conference 15:06 , Louise Boyle Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to hold a news conference on Monday at 11am, local time, ahead of potential hurricane impacts to the state. Hurricane Ian was upgraded to a Category 1 storm in the early hours of Monday as it bears down on the Cayman Islands and western Cuba. Forecasters are closely monitoring the powerful system which could make landfall in Florida by the middle of the week. The path of Tropical Storm Ian remains uncertain and could have impacts from the Keys to Northwest Florida. Floridians along the Gulf Coast should prepare now for the possibility of severe weather next week, Governor DeSantis tweeted on Sunday. Story continues Images emerge of devastation from Hurricane Fiona in Atlantic Canada 14:50 , Louise Boyle Photos continue to emerge of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Fiona in Atlantic Canada after the storm washed away buildings with powerful surges, stripped off roofs and left hundreds of thousands of people without power. Fiona made landfall in the early hours of Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone, battering Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Quebec with hurricane-strength winds, rains and waves after tearing through the Caribbean. Homes washed away by Hurricane Fiona in Rose Blanche-Harbour le Cou, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada this weekend (Pauline Billard/AFP via Getty Im) Forecasters track potential path of Hurricane Ian through this week 14:32 , Louise Boyle Look at this- the GFS model is showing Hurricane Ian siting off the west coast of Florida for days... Wed-Fri AM. Ugh. pic.twitter.com/NpTUCwsEbF Eric Burris (@EricBurrisWESH) September 26, 2022 Hurricane Ian taking aim at Cayman Islands and Cuba 14:11 , Louise Boyle Hurricane Ian is gathering power and taking aim at the Cayman Islands and western Cuba, forecasters said on Monday. Cuba is expecting extreme hurricane force winds, also life threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall, US National Hurricane Center senior specialist Daniel Brown told The Associated Press. Classes were suspended in Pinar del Rio province of Cuba and evacuations planned. Ian had been upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane on approach to Grand Cayman and the Cuban provinces of Isla de Juventud, Pinar del Rio and Artemisa. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ian should reach far-western Cuba late Monday or early Tuesday, hitting near the countrys most famed tobacco fields. Hurricane Ian is seen near the coast of Cuba in this satellite image (via REUTERS) Biden declares state of emergency in Florida as Tropical Storm Ian strengthens into hurricane 13:00 , Rachel Sharp President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Florida as Tropical Storm Ian is on track to strengthen into a major hurricane over the coming few days. The emergency declaration authorises the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance if or when Ian makes landfall on the Sunshine State. Mr Biden has also postponed a trip to southern Florida which was scheduled for Tuesday in anticipation of the extreme weather event. The president had been expected to give a speech about Medicare and Social Security in Fort Lauderdale before heading to Orlando to speak at a Democratic National Committee rally for Florida Democratic candidates. The Independents Rachel Sharp has the full story: Biden declares state of emergency in Florida as Tropical Storm Ian strengthens Hurricane Fiona: Search begins for 73-year-old woman feared to be washed out to sea 12:00 , Rachel Sharp Over in Canada, a search is now under way to find a missing 73-year-old woman who is feared to have been washed out to sea by Hurricane Fiona. The elderly woman was last seen inside her home in Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, on Saturday morning, as the storm pummelled the east coast of Canada, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Moments later, a huge wave struck her home, ripping away part of the basement, police said. The 73-year-old has not been seen or heard from since. The Indepedents Rachel Sharp has the full story: Woman, 73, feared to be washed out to sea by Hurricane Fiona Floridians begin stockpiling in preparation for hurricane 11:00 , Rachel Sharp Floridians have begun stockpiling essential items in preparation for the storm, amid fears that it could lead to mass power outages in hard-hit areas. At one Home Depot in Tampa, shoppers lined up for the store opening at 6am on Saturday, reported the Associated Press. By early afternoon, the store had sold 600 cases of water and completely ran out of generators. At a Costco store in Lake Mary, shoppers were also seen stocking up on water bottles, while others lined up to fill their vehicles with gas, reported FOX35. Brian McDonald told the outlet he had some supplies already at home but was getting extra water bottles and canned food just in case. It looks like its going to go the west of us, and were not going to get hit too bad, he said. We went through Hurricane Andrew, and Hurricane Andrew looked like it was going to the Carolinas and then took a 90-degree turn, so you never know. Georgia activates state operations center 10:00 , Rachel Sharp Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has activated the State Operations Center to respond to potential damage from Tropical Storm Ian. Mr Kemp said he made the move on Sunday as Ian could result in severe weather damage for large parts of the state. I urge my fellow Georgians to monitor this storm as it evolves and calmly take the necessary precautions to keep their families and neighbors safe, if the storm continues to intensify, he said in a statement. Throughout the week, I will work closely with GEMA/HS, the weather service, public safety organizations, and others to ensure we leave nothing to chance. Florida prepares to send 2m meals and 1m gallons of water to affected areas 09:00 , Rachel Sharp The Florida government is taking stock of two million meals and one million gallons of water which it will be able to distribute to affected areas when the time comes. Officials said at Sundays press conference that the impact of the storm will be far-reaching across the state and it is preparing now to have essential goods in place. Governor Ron DeSantis said that Tropical Storm Ian will be a hurricane within the next 24 hours and will likely be a major hurricane very soon. Mr DeSantis urged residents to ensure they have enough food, water, batteries, medicine and fuel as he warned that power outages are to be expected. Make preparations now, he said. Listen to local officials and just prepare that with hurricane of this magnitude those things are likely to happen. Floridians wait for sandbags to protect themselves from Ian 08:30 , Maroosha Muzaffar Floridians in certain areas that are in the path of Ian are bracing for the landfall with sandbags. 7News Miami reported that there was a long line of cars at Macfarlane Park in West Tampa as they waited for sandbags to protect themselves from the heavy rain. One of the residents was quoted as saying that this is a first. Im a little concerned, but I feel better now that weve got these [sandbags]. She said she had to wait for more than two hours to receive them. She added: Well, now I know where the flood zones are and what you need to do if something severe happens, just go do it. DeSantis says he appreciates Bidens quick action 08:00 , Rachel Sharp The Florida governor said that he appreciates the quick action from President Joe Biden who granted the states request to issue a federal emergency declaration on Saturday. We appreciate it, were thankful, he said at Sunday mornings press conference. Mr Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida on Saturday, authorising the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance if or when Ian makes landfall on the SunShine State. Mr DeSantis also extended the state of emergency from 24 counties to the entire state on Saturday. Officials said on Sunday that they had also received calls from every state in the southeast region, saying that they were ready and willing to help in our time of need. Authorities in Florida ready with meals and water for residents 07:45 , Maroosha Muzaffar As Florida braces for Ian, Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said on Sunday that the division had 360 trailers loaded with meals and water ready to distribute to residents. Tropical storm Ian is expected to pass near or west of the Cayman Islands early on Monday, forecasters have predicted. The National Hurricane Center said that the storm is expected to generate three to six inches of rain in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Mr Guthrie said: We could see a situation where we have a Category 4 storm surge, and potentially a Category 1 or 2 landfall. Both Mr Guthrie, and Governor Ron DeSantis warned those living on the coast of Floridas western peninsula to prepare for the landfall of a major hurricane. When will Ian reach Florida? 07:14 , Rachel Sharp Forecasts show that Tropical Storm Ian will strengthen into a hurricane by the end of Sunday as it charts a path across the Caribbean. Jamaica and Grand Cayman are expected to be impacted by heavy rain, possible flash flooding and storm surge within the next 24 hours. On Monday night, Ian could move over western Cuba, where several hurricane warnings are in place. The hurricane is then forecast to make landfall on the west coast or panhandle of Florida around the middle of the week. Cuba to begin evacuations today 06:45 , Maroosha Muzaffar The authorities in Cuba have suspended classes in Pinar del Rio province and said they will begin evacuations Monday, the Associated Press reports. Tropical Storm Ian is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane before reaching the western part of the island on its way to Florida. Local media reported that Cuban authorities are beginning evacuations from vulnerable areas starting Monday. On Sunday night, Ian was moving northwest at 13 mph, about 140 miles south of Grand Cayman in Cuba, according to the National Hurricane Center. Tourists evacuated as Ian hurtles toward Cuba 06:15 , Maroosha Muzaffar Tropical Storm Ian hurtled toward western Cuba on Sunday, prompting the government to evacuate tourists amid fears of potentially life-threatening storm surges as Ian becomes a hurricane on Monday, Reuters reported. Cuba evacuated tourists on Sunday from the Isla de la Juventud, off the islands southwestern coast, as well as workers from nearby Cayo Largo, one of the countrys top tourist destinations, according to local media. According to the National Hurricane Center, Ian had begun to strengthen over the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea late on Sunday, as it moved slowly northwestward towards Cuba, with sustained winds of 60 miles per hour. Nasa in two minds over the Artemis I rocket launch because of Ian 05:45 , Maroosha Muzaffar On Sunday, as the world watches tropical storm Ians path towards Florida, Nasa said that it hasnt decided whether to leave its Artemis I rocket on the launchpad. The decision shall be taken after discussions among senior officials that are scheduled to take on Monday, it said. Artemis I was scheduled to launch on 27 September. And because of the weather, Nasa postponed its launch. It was reported that engineers will decide if the rocket needs to roll back off the launch pad and if they do not roll it back, the next possible launch date will be 2 October. Residents in southeast Florida told to brace for heavy rains and gusty squalls 05:10 , Maroosha Muzaffar Jamie Rhone, acting director of the hurricane centre in Florida, warned residents in the southeast to brace for heavy rains and gusty squalls. You cant be too fixated on this cone and it moving around a little bit, he said. The track has now shifted just enough that youre out of the damaging wind potential, but I still need you to prepare for heavy rains and some of the gusty squalls. The hurricane centre predicts the system could begin to weaken before it makes landfall, possibly as a Category 1 along the Big Bend on Friday, but heavy rain and winds could be felt throughout the state next week, according to Miami Herald. NYC Mayor Adams visits Puerto Rico 05:00 , Rachel Sharp New York City Mayor Eric Adams visited Puerto Rico on Sunday morning to tour the damage wrought by Hurricane Fiona this week. Mr Adams first met with the Emergency Management Department, which is leading recovery efforts, before meeting Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi and San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero. The visit came as the mayor called on New Yorkers to donate to organisations focused on helping with the relief effort in Puerto Rico. While Florida is bracing for a potential hurricane in the coming days, the US territory was hammered by Hurricane Fiona at the beginning of the week. Six days on, half of the population are still without power. Im in Barrio Carrillo in Puerto Rico, supporting our recovery teams as they do their work. pic.twitter.com/k6wappe8hS Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) September 25, 2022 Florida governor warns residents of uncertain weather 04:50 , Maroosha Muzaffar On Sunday, Florida governor Ron DeSantis asked residents to monitor what could be shifting forecasts in the coming days. The path is uncertain, Gov DeSantis warned during a media conference in Tallahassee. Dont get too wedded to the cone. When he was asked about potential evacuation orders, he said no decisions had been made yet and will depend on the track of the storm. And ultimately, he said, it will be up to residents to follow through on orders from emergency managers in coastal counties. If theres an evacuation notice cops arent going to come and drag you out of your house, youre going to make those decisions, he said. But, when that is issued, thats a view that theres a hazard by remaining in that area. So, we just want everybody to know that and hopefully be able to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. Canada mobilises troops to help with the devastation caused by Fiona 04:32 , Maroosha Muzaffar Canada is sending its troops to assist in the recovery from the devastation that storm Fiona caused. The storm battered Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Quebec in Canada with hurricane-strength winds, heavy rains and huge waves. The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said in a briefing that Fiona was a very powerful and dangerous storm and had promised to deploy the army to help with the search and rescue efforts. He added: If there is anything the federal government can do to help, we will be there.Mr Trudeau also cancelled his visit to Japan where he was scheduled to attend Shinzo Abes funeral. Restrictions on pharmacies and trucking lifted in Florida 03:15 , Rachel Sharp Restrictions on pharmacies and trucking have been lifted in the state of Florida to help residents prepare adequately for Tropical Storm Ian. Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Sunday that he had ordered the states Department of Transportation to waive weight restrictions for commercial trucks so that they can get essential items to places ahead of the incoming storm. Floridians will also be able to get emergency prescription refills so that they have the medication they need if they need to shelter in place. In preparation for Tropical Storm #Ian, I directed @MyFDOT to waive weight restrictions for commercial trucks to ensure ample fuel and resources are coming into FL, he tweeted. Weve also waived state requirements to ensure pharmacies can prescribe 30-day emergency refills for medications. In preparation for Tropical Storm #Ian, I directed @MyFDOT to waive weight restrictions for commercial trucks to ensure ample fuel and resources are coming into FL. We've also waived state requirements to ensure pharmacies can prescribe 30-day emergency refills for medications. Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) September 25, 2022 ICYMI: Ron DeSantis extends state of emergency to all of Florida 02:00 , Rachel Sharp Florida Governor Ron DeSantis extended the state of emergency to the entire state on Saturday. Mr DeSantis had issued an emergency declaration for 24 counties on Friday but announced on Saturday that he was widening it and mobilising the states National Guard. The governor urged residents to prepare for Storm Ian, which is forecast to pummel the state with heavy rains and high winds by mid-week. We encourage all Floridians to make their preparations, he said in a statement. Biden declares state of emergency in Florida as Tropical Storm Ian strengthens into hurricane 01:00 , Rachel Sharp President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Florida as Tropical Storm Ian is on track to strengthen into a major hurricane over the coming few days. The emergency declaration authorises the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance if or when Ian makes landfall on the Sunshine State. Mr Biden has also postponed a trip to southern Florida which was scheduled for Tuesday in anticipation of the extreme weather event. The president had been expected to give a speech about Medicare and Social Security in Fort Lauderdale before heading to Orlando to speak at a Democratic National Committee rally for Florida Democratic candidates. The Independents Rachel Sharp has the full story: Biden declares state of emergency in Florida as Tropical Storm Ian strengthens Hurricane Fiona: Search begins for 73-year-old woman feared to be washed out to sea Monday 26 September 2022 00:00 , Rachel Sharp Over in Canada, a search is now under way to find a missing 73-year-old woman who is feared to have been washed out to sea by Hurricane Fiona. The elderly woman was last seen inside her home in Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, on Saturday morning, as the storm pummelled the east coast of Canada, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Moments later, a huge wave struck her home, ripping away part of the basement, police said. The 73-year-old has not been seen or heard from since. The Indepedents Rachel Sharp has the full story: Woman, 73, feared to be washed out to sea by Hurricane Fiona Nasa expected to make decision on rolling back Artemis I Sunday 25 September 2022 23:00 , Rachel Sharp Nasa is expected to make a final decision on Sunday about rolling back its Artemis l moon rocket into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, in to protect it from the potential incoming hurricane. On Sunday, the space agency tweeted that it was continuing to closely monitor weather reports and planned to meet this evening to evaluate whether to roll the rocket and spacecraft back or remain at the pad. If it remains at the pad there could be an opportunity for an Artemis launch attempt on 2 October. On Saturday, the space agencys team announced that after holding a planning meeting it had decided to postpone Tuesdays launch attempt for the moon rocket amid concerns about the upcoming extreme weather. NASA is foregoing a launch opportunity Tuesday, Sept. 27, and preparing for rollback, while continuing to watch the weather forecast associated with Tropical Storm Ian, the agency tweeted on Saturday morning. The announcement came just hours after officials declared on Friday that the rocket was ready for its hotly-anticipated first test flight marking the third attempt after two prior setbacks. Team members were monitoring the weather to determine if and when to roll the rocket back into the Vehicle Assembly Building. Nasa executive Jim Free tweeted on Saturday that a final decision would be made on Sunday. Officials would have to begin moving the rocket no later than early Monday morning to beat Ians charted path towards the US. Tropical Storm Ian to rapidly strengthen tonight Sunday 25 September 2022 22:00 , Rachel Sharp The National Hurricane Center has warned that Tropical Storm Ian will rapidly strengthen on Sunday night. In an update on Sunday afternoon, the agency said that significant wind and storm surge impacts are expected in western Cuba as the storm charts its path towards the country. Tropical Storm #Ian Advisory 10A: Ian Forecast to Begin Rapidly Strengthening Tonight. Significant Wind and Storm Surge Impacts Expected in Western Cuba, the agency tweeted. Tropical Storm #Ian Advisory 10A: Ian Forecast to Begin Rapidly Strengthening Tonight. Significant Wind and Storm Surge Impacts Expected in Western Cuba. https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 25, 2022 Floridians begin stockpiling in preparation Sunday 25 September 2022 21:15 , Rachel Sharp Floridians have begun stockpiling essential items in preparation for the storm, amid fears that it could lead to mass power outages in hard-hit areas. At one Home Depot in Tampa, shoppers lined up for the store opening at 6am on Saturday, reported the Associated Press. By early afternoon, the store had sold 600 cases of water and completely ran out of generators. At a Costco store in Lake Mary, shoppers were also seen stocking up on water bottles, while others lined up to fill their vehicles with gas, reported FOX35. Brian McDonald told the outlet he had some supplies already at home but was getting extra water bottles and canned food just in case. It looks like its going to go the west of us, and were not going to get hit too bad, he said. We went through Hurricane Andrew, and Hurricane Andrew looked like it was going to the Carolinas and then took a 90-degree turn, so you never know. Tropical Storm Ian forecast to become hurricane by end of Sunday Sunday 25 September 2022 20:30 , Rachel Sharp The National Hurricane Center is forecasting that Tropical Storm Ian will become a hurricane by the end of the day on Sunday as it charts a path across the Caribbean, continuing to gain strength along the way. As of Sunday morning, it had reached wind speeds of 50 mph (85 kph), the agency said. The storm is expected to move over the Cayman Islands and western Cuba before reaching the west coast of Florida and the Florida Panhandle as a major hurricane by the middle of the week. By then, it could be a Category 3 hurricane with wind speeds of up to 109 miles per hour (175 kilometres per hour). While forecasters say it is too early to determine the exact path and strength, parts of coastal Georgia now also lie within the hurricanes cone of uncertainty. Cuban government upgrades hurricane watch to hurricane warning Sunday 25 September 2022 19:45 , Rachel Sharp The government of Cuba has upgraded its hurricane watch to a hurricane warning for the Cuban provinces of Isla de Juventud, Pinar del Rio, and Artemisa, as Tropical Storm Ian heads for the country. Cuba has also upgraded its tropical storm watch to a tropical storm warning for the provinces of La Habana, Mayabeque, and Matanzas. The upgrade comes as the National Hurricane Center is now forecasting that Ian will strengthen into a hurricane by the end of Sunday. Now, a hurricane Warning is in effect for Grand Cayman and the Cuban provinces of Isla de Juventud, Pinar del Rio, and Artemisa. A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions are expected somewhere within the warning area. National Hurricane Center issues advisory Sunday 25 September 2022 19:00 , Rachel Sharp The National Hurricane Center has issued a new advisory for Tropical Storm Ian, warning about significant wind and storm surge impacts in western Cuba. Tropical Storm #Ian Advisory 10: Ian Forecast to Begin Rapidly Strengthening Later Today, the agency tweeted of its 11am ET advisory. Hurricane Warning Issued For Western Cuba Where Significant Wind And Storm Surge Impacts Are Expected. Tropical Storm #Ian Advisory 10: Ian Forecast to Begin Rapidly Strengthening Later Today. Hurricane Warning Issued For Western Cuba Where Significant Wind And Storm Surge Impacts Are Expected. https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 25, 2022 Florida prepares to send 2m meals and 1m gallons of water to affected areas Sunday 25 September 2022 18:30 , Rachel Sharp The Florida government is taking stock of two million meals and one million gallons of water which it will be able to distribute to affected areas when the time comes. Officials said at Sundays press conference that the impact of the storm will be far-reaching across the state and it is preparing now to have essential goods in place. Governor Ron DeSantis said that Tropical Storm Ian will be a hurricane within the next 24 hours and will likely be a major hurricane very soon. Mr DeSantis urged residents to ensure they have enough food, water, batteries, medicine and fuel as he warned that power outages are to be expected. Make preparations now, he said. Listen to local officials and just prepare that with hurricane of this magnitude those things are likely to happen. Officials urge Floridians not to overevacuate Sunday 25 September 2022 18:00 , Rachel Sharp Floridians have been urged not to overevacuate when Tropical Storm Ian barrels into the Sunshine State in the coming days. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday morning, officials told state residents to know your zone and know your home. If your home lies in an evacuation zone, then you should follow official guidelines and leave, they said. But if your home is not in an evacuation zone, then you need to know your home and whether it has the capability to withstand strong winds. If youre not in an evacuation zone and if your home is able to withstand winds then you may want to shelter in place, an official said. Residents taking shelter inside their homes should still prepare to lose power for several days on end and should make sure they have enough food and water stocked up. The guidance came after officials said that two million people over-evacuated during Hurricane Irma in 2017. DeSantis says he appreciates Bidens quick action Sunday 25 September 2022 17:30 , Rachel Sharp The Florida governor said that he appreciates the quick action from President Joe Biden who granted the states request to issue a federal emergency declaration on Saturday. We appreciate it, were thankful, he said at Sunday mornings press conference. Mr Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida on Saturday, authorising the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance if or when Ian makes landfall on the SunShine State. Mr DeSantis also extended the state of emergency from 24 counties to the entire state on Saturday. Officials said on Sunday that they had also received calls from every state in the southeast region, saying that they were ready and willing to help in our time of need. Ron DeSantis gives press conference about Tropical Storm Ian Sunday 25 September 2022 17:00 , Rachel Sharp Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a press conference on Sunday morning where he urged residents to prepare for Tropical Storm Ian. Mr DeSantis said that the impact of Ian, which is expected to become a hurricane as soon as today, will reach far across the Sunshine State and so Floridians within the entire forecasted cone should be prepared. Its important to point out to folks that the path of this is still uncertain. The impacts will be broad throughout the state of Florida, he said. The governor said that power outages and fuel disruptions are likely to unfold when the hurricane reaches the state mid-week. With a hurricane of this magnitude it is likely to happen, he said. He said that the state would provide an additional update about the path of the storm at 5pm local time on Sunday. Biden declares state of emergency in Florida and postpones visit Sunday 25 September 2022 16:15 , Rachel Sharp President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Florida as Tropical Storm Ian is on track to strengthen into a major hurricane over the coming few days. The president issued the emergency declaration on Saturday, authorising the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance if or when Ian makes landfall on the SunShine State. The announcement came after Mr Biden postponed a trip to southern Florida which was scheduled for Tuesday in anticipation of the extreme weather event. The president had been expected to give a speech about Medicare and Social Security in Fort Lauderdale before heading to Orlando to speak at a Democratic National Committee rally for Florida Democratic candidates. It would have marked his first visit to the Sunshine State in more than a year. Typhoon Noru Barrels into Philippines Sunday 25 September 2022 15:30 , Rachel Sharp While Canada assesses the damage from Storm Fiona and Florida braces for the incoming Storm Ian, the Philippines is also currently at the mercy of an extreme weather event. Typhoon Noru barrelled into the northeastern part of the country on Sunday, slamming into the coastal town of Burdeos on Polillo Island in Quezon. The powerful typhoon which has wind speeds of 195 kilometers (121 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 240 kph (149 mph) is expected to chart a path of destruction up through the main Luzon Island overnight towards the capital. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes within the typhoons path. Noru is forecast to reach the South China Sea on Monday before heading to Vietnam later in the week. PM Trudeau says government will match Red Cross donations Sunday 25 September 2022 14:45 , Rachel Sharp Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged that the Canadian government will match all Red Cross donations for communities hard-hit by post-tropical cyclone Fiona. The former hurricane made landfall in Nova Scotia early on Saturday morning before charting a destructive path up the east coast of the country. In a press conference on Saturday night local time, Mr Trudeau addressed the nation about the governments response and announced the pledge. I know Canadians across the country as always want to help, he said So were announcing that we will match any Red Cross donations Canadians and corporations make over the next 30 days. The prime minister held an incident response meeting with government officials that morning as he postponed his visit to Japan to deal with the crisis. Mr Trudeau said that he had also approved Nova Scotias request for federal assistance and was deploying the Canadian Armed Forces to assist in the assessment and cleanup operations. We stand ready to do more, he said, adding that the government is standing ready to support provinces with any necessary resources. Following reports of significant damage in the region, Mr Trudeau acknowledged that recovery is going to be a big effort but vowed to be there to support every step of the way. Were taking action to be there for people across Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec, as they deal with the impacts of Hurricane Fiona. I spoke today about the steps were taking to provide them with the support they need take a look: pic.twitter.com/pmCGlghokr Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 25, 2022 Tree dangles over main road Sunday 25 September 2022 14:00 , Zoe Tidman From someone in Halifax, Nova Scotia: You know its busy when this tree dangling on power lines over traffic on a main road isnt a priority #Halifax #Fiona pic.twitter.com/SCNo9AStgy Nathan Coleman (@NateTWN) September 25, 2022 ICYMI: Fiona makes landfall in Nova Scotia with historic, extreme event Sunday 25 September 2022 13:30 , Rachel Sharp Hurricane Fiona has made landfall in Nova Scotia with the historic, extreme event plunging more than 400,000 residents into darkness, fuelling fears of flash flooding across Canadas Atlantic Coast. Fiona, which transformed into a powerful post-tropical cyclone late on Friday, struck the Canadian coast early on Saturday, lashing the region with strong rains and winds of up to 92mph (148 km/h). Homes in its path were pummelled and power lines downed, leaving more than 415,000 residences in Nova Scotia around 80 per cent of people in the province without power on Saturday morning, according to the regions power outage centre. In the hard-hit province of Prince Edward Island, over 82,000 customers were affected, along with around 44,000 in New Brunswick. Hurricane or tropical storm warnings were in place across much of Canadas Atlantic coastline including Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and New Brunswick and parts of Quebec, amid fears that up to 10inches (25cm) of rainfall could result in flash flooding. The Independents Rachel Sharp has the full story: More than 400,000 without power as Hurricane Fiona hits Nova Scotia More pictures from Storm Fiona Sunday 25 September 2022 13:00 , Zoe Tidman Here are some more images of the chaos and devastation caused by Storm Fiona in Canada: Vehicles turn around as trees and downed power lines block a road in Nova Scotia (Getty Images) A tree fell on a truck as Storm Fiona swept through Nova Scotia (REUTERS) Storm Fiona has crushed cars in Canada (REUTERS) Nasa calls off Artemis l launch as Tropical Storm Ian escalates into powerful hurricane headed for Florida Sunday 25 September 2022 12:30 , Rachel Sharp Nasa has called off the launch of its Artemis l moon rocket as Tropical Storm Ian is set to intensify into a powerful hurricane. The space agencys team announced on Saturday morning that after holding a planning meeting they had decided to postpone Tuesdays launch attempt amid concerns about the upcoming extreme weather. NASA is foregoing a launch opportunity Tuesday, Sept. 27, and preparing for rollback, while continuing to watch the weather forecast associated with Tropical Storm Ian, the agency tweeted on Saturday morning. Tropical Storm Ian developed over the Central Caribbean Sea this week and is forecast to hit Florida as a Category 3 hurricane by the middle of next week. The Independents Rachel Sharp has the full story: Nasa calls off Artemis l launch as Tropical Storm Ian grows into powerful hurricane We are here to serve our country and our communities, army division says Sunday 25 September 2022 12:10 , Zoe Tidman A Canadian army division in the countrys Atlantic - which has been badly-hit by Storm Fiona - says it is ready to help out. We are here to serve our country and our communities, they tweeted: Following Hurricane Fiona, our #5DivSoldiers are preparing to respond to the provinces request for assistance. The #MightyMaroonMachine trains throughout the year to be able to quickly and effectively respond to those in need. We are here to serve our country and our communities pic.twitter.com/AXNH3olgoR 5thCanadianDivision (@5CdnDiv_5DivCA) September 25, 2022 Canadas most intense storm in history Sunday 25 September 2022 11:49 , Zoe Tidman A meteorologist says Storm Fiona was the most intense storm to ever hit Canada: Fiona is the most intense storm (rated by lowest pressure) to strike Canada on record. 932.6 hPa from the core during landfall on Hart Island, Nova Scotia. pic.twitter.com/YbmH7pjMm6 Scott Duncan (@ScottDuncanWX) September 25, 2022 Pictured: Storm Fiona batters Canada Sunday 25 September 2022 11:31 , Zoe Tidman Here are some more images of the devastation caused by Storm Fiona: Homes have been destroyed near the sea during the tropical storm (via REUTERS) (REUTERS) The Sex Ed Initiative members Ava Gonzalez, from left, Irene Sooah Park and Sarah Wheeler helped create the sex education curriculum, "Shattering the Taboo" that they say is more inclusive and comprehensive. The organization hopes the curriculum will be adopted by schools in Illinois. (Mark Black/for the Chicago Tribune) Northbrook resident Irene Sooah Park remembers educators and other adults treating sex education as something that should never be talked about outside the classroom. It was during middle school that she recalled a teacher standing in the back of the classroom when discussing the vagina and penis to avoid eye contact with students. And recently, during COVID, she said sex education was left out of her sophomore health class in favor of lessons about bones and muscles. I think sex ed can seem daunting at first, but it includes a lot more than just talking about the body, talking about the act of sex itself, Park, an Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy senior, said. It can include things like healthy relationships, personal hygiene, just knowing how to keep yourself safe. And I dont think a lot of people really have knowledge about sex education in that perspective. You can tell theres a lot of ignorance regarding topics as well. When I first came to the Illinois Math and Science Academy, I overheard this one guy asking: Whats menstruation? I was shocked. Advertisement After experiencing a number of similar interactions, Park founded the Sex Ed Initiative in winter 2021 a youth-led group centered on showing people sex education is not scary. It is a necessity, however if one wants to be informed about their body and how to keep oneself safe. SEI director Park and fellow SEI members IMSA senior and Canton, Ill., native Sarah Wheeler and Catherine Tang, a senior at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, spent the last several months researching, writing, and producing the handbook, Shattering the Taboo: A Guide to Sexual Health Education. The Sex Ed Initiative organization has created "Shattering the Taboo" a sex education curriculum guide that they say is more inclusive and comprehensive. (Mark Black/for the Chicago Tribune) The handbook, published and sold on Amazon as of July, is a comprehensive sex education guide for high schoolers by youth for youth. The SEI group collaborated with medical experts and community advocates throughout Illinois to provide a more inclusive, medically accurate and age appropriate resource that could be used in schools sex education curricula. Per Park, the book teaches foundational concepts of sexual health education, including topics such as anatomy, healthy relationships, sexually transmitted infections and more. Each section is accompanied by a worksheet and list of discussion questions. Advertisement We have a section dedicated to gender identity and we also included a section on intersex people, Tang said. SEI worked with the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a unified network of rape crisis centers, on the chapter on personal safety. Coalition Executive Director Carrie Ward said the organization spoke with SEI to talk about issues of sexual violence something the handbook authors thought was an important part to include. One of the things I think they did a really nice job of was focusing on issues pertaining to consent, focusing on issues about boundaries, and a really key element they included was how to get help if you need it, Ward said. Those are things that we tell communities all the time; you have the right to make decisions regarding your own body. You have the right to establish your own boundaries, and you have the right to ask for, seek and get help when you want it and it should be readily available to you. The students should be commended for the initiative they took in saying, we know theres a lot of work being done, but trying to figure out how to put things together in one place. Its great to see young people making and creating resources that are specially designed for other young people; I hope that others will find it really helpful as well. When researching the book, the young authors looked at examples of how other countries approach sex education and compared those to what national school systems curricula and received feedback from physicians such as Dr. Erin Castelloe, a San Diego-based family doctor whose passion project is delivering comprehensive sexuality education to parents and youth groups. SEI reached out to Castelloe to talk with her about Californias sex ed legislation and implementation compared to that of Illinois. Park considers a Castelloe, an Iowa native, a mentor. Whats neat about what the young people in the Sex Ed Initiative have done is they wrote the book that they want to see as a starting point, she said. This workbook that theyve created, on so many levels, is demonstrative of how sex ed will change, Is that a small group of people who want to see the change, Theyre saying, I want this to change. So Im gonna put this out there and say, Im gonna nurture that with every fiber of my being. It brings me to tears because honestly, theyre gonna change the world. Sounds trite, but they are and they are doing it now. The Sex Ed Initiative members Sarah Wheeler, from left, Irene Sooah Park and Ava Gonzalez discuss their efforts to change the sex education curriculum taught in Illinois schools on Sept. 14, 2022, in Aurora. The organization has published a curriculum guide, "Shattering the Taboo", that they hope will be adopted by schools. (Mark Black/for the Chicago Tribune) The handbook arrived after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Keeping Youth Safe and Healthy Act (SB 818) into law in August 2021, making Illinois the first state in the U.S. to formally pass legislation codifying the new national sex education standards developed by SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, a nonprofit that advances sex education. SIECUS national sex ed standards were first published in 2012, and updated in 2020. The U.S. Department of Education does not require public schools to teach sex education, and doesnt recommend specific curriculum. In Illinois, SB 818 does not override local decision-making granted to school districts, which are not mandated to teach sex education. The ACLU of Illinois said the law preserves the rights of parents to opt their children out while ensuring students are not excluded or stigmatized because of their gender identity. Parents can review curriculum before its taught in the classroom. A recent Illinois State Board of Education survey found that during the 2021-2022 school year, 218 Illinois districts offered comprehensive health and sex education and 480 school districts did not. IMSA President and CEO Evan Glazer said in a statement, the school collaborated with SEI students to include their ideas in the schools programming which provides age and developmentally appropriate and inclusive information on an array of topics that focus on teaching students about the importance of personal health and safety. Advertisement IMSA is not part of a local school district and therefore not governed by a Board of Education, but rather a board of trustees. Additionally, IMSA is under the guidance of the Illinois Board of Higher Education and not the Illinois State Board of Education like most Illinois high schools. IMSA offers every parent or guardian the right to opt-out their child from this programming. We are proud of Irene Sooah, Ava and Sarah, as well as all of our students, who are driven by fascination and a desire to be thoughtful inquirers, integrative thinkers, ethical leaders and problem solvers, Glazer said. IMSA is a place where students and colleagues are encouraged to invent and test new ideas, collaborate with each other to make improvements and then share their discoveries broadly to create a better future for Illinois and beyond. Tang hopes their book will help educators shift away from an abstinence-only mindset when it comes to curricula. Wheeler said SEI has been reaching out to parents on social media to get them on board with their sex ed reform efforts. SEI works with people in schools throughout the country. They already have five charters, four in northern Illinois. We worked with Lurie Childrens Hospital, the ACLU, the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, UIC School of Public Health and SIECUS to get their input on the research, Park said. We took into account SB 818 because its a really robust curriculum that we could go off of. We wrote stuff out with diagrams that are detailed enough so people can understand. Were selling them in hopes that schools can implement it as a guiding curriculum for their schools. We were hoping that this can be a starting point they can go off of and remove things and add things as they need. SEI asked Dawn Ravine, sexuality education program coordinator at Lurie Childrens Hospital of Chicago to review the handbook. Ravine said she is grateful for all the youth organizers in the state taking an interest around this topic. Chicagos had a really inclusive and wonderful sex ed policy for quite some time, she said. But you go into the smaller rural communities, suburban communities, and theres still a lot of variation on whats being provided. These national standards are used by a lot of organizations including Luries program to think in a more holistic way about the progression of topics and communication that young people need to grow into happy and healthy individuals. Advertisement Ravine applauds members of SEI, saying when students ask for sex ed information, not seeing themselves in a curriculum, change happens much more quickly. Student organizing is the move, Ravine said. There still will be a need in each and every community for student leaders like this wonderful Sex Ed Initiative group to continue to look at their own school districts to see what other advocacy they can do. Our young people tell us all the time: We are looking for really inclusive, thoughtful dialogue. Im hoping this group of young people are going to inspire young people across our state. Zoe Wang, left, Catherine Tang, right, both seniors at Glenbrook North High School and Irene Sooah Park, center, a senior at Illinois Math and Science Academy put up flyers at The Village Green in Northbrook on Sept. 18, 2022. (Michael R. Schmidt/for the Chicago Tribune) A digital version of the handbook is being developed, and conversations on creating handbooks for middle and elementary age ranges are taking place, Park said. Proceeds from the sale of the handbook will go toward reproductive justice endeavors (a $500 GoFundMe is helping with that.) After the Roe v. Wade situation, we did want to donate to abortion funds across the country, in addition to other sex ed projects going on so that we can fund other places that are in need of sex education, and the schools that need teachers or materials, Park said. Supriya Mehta, an epidemiologist and professor at University of Illinois at Chicagos School of Public Health and Rush Universitys Department of Internal Medicine, whose work and research is largely around sexual and reproductive health said she was impressed with SEIs handbook. The comprehensiveness, and the accessibility of it and the format of it, so Im not aware of other teenagers doing quite as much or what they did, she said. The commitment from young people and the fact that they took on a topic that could be perceived as controversial ... it takes a lot of commitment and guts from young people to do that, to put something together from start to finish. Advertisement Comprehensive, but succinct is how Mehta describes the SEI publication. Because it comes from the perspective of teenagers, theyre including topics that adults might not think to talk about, she said. For example, the concept of boundaries. Most sex education or most adults would talk about it specifically in the context of sexual activity, but they (SEI) really expand that outside that its a skill or a mindset to develop and apply in other areas. They did a really nice job with contextualizing sexual health and sexual education to the adolescent, teenage young adult experience. Tang said the message that the initiative emphasizes is sex education isnt something that only adults can partake in, youth can and should take part in the conversation and make change at their own schools. Park said their hope is that the handbook is used as a guide for schools curricula, a general outline for important topics. Park said shes spoken with some Chicago Public School students about it, however CPS administration hasnt heard about the handbook yet. She said SEI is also working with local organizations to use the handbook as a guide for bridging the gap between parents and children when discussing sex education. We are partnering with the American School Health Association (a multidisciplinary professional association that fosters and implements innovative approaches to improving school health and delivering quality health education) to support a group of student activists for sex ed at their own schools by offering training sessions every month, Park said. We are also working with college professors and other experts in the field of sex ed to cover the history of sex ed in the hopes that people can look at the development of sex ed to improve upon it for the future. It will be released in a podcast format through Spotify later this month and throughout October. Jeanie Alter, executive director of the American School Health Association, said SEI is seeking funding to activate students into becoming champions for comprehensive and inclusive sex education. This effort will better the well-being of students in Illinois and across the country by better educating students about reproductive health, puberty, consent, and healthy relationships, she said. The science of health education supports a comprehensive model of sex education that includes STI prevention, contraception, and inclusive information so that students can make informed decisions for their health. Advertisement Theres more to sex ed than sex, Wheeler said. I feel like thats what people focus on because its literally in the title. But theres so much important information about making informed decisions, forming and maintaining healthy relationships, what a red and a green flag looks like, that is crucial to making good decisions throughout adulthood that may not even be related to sex. SEIs handbook highlights that. Because we are the recipients of the education, I think we have a right to shape what we want to learn about and what we think is relevant to society now, Park said. When our parents learned sex education, sexting probably wasnt a thing, but it is now. I think just because youre the recipient of the education, doesnt mean you dont have a right to shape how it should be taught in schools. Thats a message that I want people to know. drockett@chicagotribune.com By Fayaz Bukhari SRINAGAR (Reuters) - Roadworks have halted thousands of trucks carrying millions of dollars worth of apples on Indian Kashmir's main highway, a major union leader said on Monday, triggering protests by growers as their produce begins to rot. Highway repairs were causing massive delays along the highway that connects the disputed Kashmir valley to the rest of India, meaning huge expected losses. "We have 8,000 trucks carrying apples worth 100 crore rupees (one billion rupees, or about $12.25 million) stranded on the highway for the last two weeks," Bashir Ahmad Basheer, the head of the Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers and Dealers Union, told Reuters. Employing more than three million people, fruit cultivation is an economic lifeline for the Himalayan region, which is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan. All 10 major wholesale fruit markets in the Kashmir valley were shut on Sunday and Monday as farmers protested against what they said was traffic mismanagement. "The apples in the truck have started rotting now," said Rajesh Kumar, a trucker from the northern Indian state of Punjab. "I don't know how many more days I will be here," he said, adding he had been stuck on the highway for six days. The Divisional Commissioner for Kashmir said this year had seen a bumper apple crop of more than 2.1 million metric tons due to heavy rain. "We have difficulties in the movement of traffic on the highway due to shooting stones (falling rocks) but it is beyond human control," Commissioner P.K. Pole told Reuters. Repair work on the Srinagar-Jammu highway would be finished this week, a local government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorised to speak to the media. ($1 = 81.645 rupees) (Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar; Editing by Nick Macfie) OTTAWA Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will travel to Atlantic Canada as soon as possible this week in the aftermath of Fiona, the devastating storm that has taken lives, destroyed homes and left hundreds of thousands without power. He said the military is on hand in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador to help clear and repair roads and restore electricity. The storm has passed, but thousands of homes are still experiencing power outages and the scale of the damage means that people are still facing a tough time, he told reporters Monday in Ottawa. Trudeau didnt say exactly when or where he would be traveling. He canceled a trip to Japan for the state funeral of former prime minister Shinzo Abe due to the storms impacts in eastern Canada. The prime minister also offered his condolences to the loved ones of two people who were killed during the storm, one in Port aux Basques, Nfld., and another in P.E.I. Canadians are thinking of you in these difficult times, he said. Military on the ground: Defense Minister Anita Anand said 100 Canadian Armed Forces personnel have been deployed to each of the three provinces hardest hit by the storm, to help with removing debris from roads, restoring power and repairing infrastructure. She also said the HMCS Margaret Brooke sailed from St. Johns, Nfld., this morning to conduct wellness checks in four remote communities along the provinces South Coast. 'Utter devastation': Newfoundland MP Gudie Hutchings, minister of rural economic development, tuned in to the press conference remotely from Port aux Basques, a town at the provinces southwestern tip that was among the areas hardest hit by the storm. Pictures do not portray the utter devastation in this area, she said. It is heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching. Hutchings said 76 homes in the community of about 4,000 people have been destroyed or structurally damaged. It will be a long time before this area gets back on its feet, she said. Trudeau offered a reminder that the federal government will match donations to the Canadian Red Cross over the next 30 days. Canadians are stepping up for each other, and helping their communities get through this tough time. Former President Donald Trump was more of a menace than anyone may have realized because he was clueless enough to believe he could declassify sensitive top secret documents with his mind and put the safety of the nation at risk, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday. CNNs Jake Tapper played a clip on State of The Union of Trump insisting earlier this week to Sean Hannity that he could declassify anything just by saying so even simply by merely thinking about it. Is that how it works? Tapper asked Schiff. Thats not how it works, Schiff responded. Those comments dont demonstrate much intelligence of any kind. If you could simply declassify by thinking about it, then, frankly, if thats his view, hes even more dangerous than we may have thought, he told Tapper. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Donald Trump saying he could declassify anything just by thinking about it: "No, that's not how it works. Those comments don't demonstrate much intelligence of any kind ... If that's his view, he's even more dangerous than we thought." pic.twitter.com/iUHTlIweXT The Recount (@therecount) September 25, 2022 Distributing or blurting out information about the identities of spies or the location and details of weapons systems could cost countless lives, experts have warned. Yet Trumps former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, told The Washington Post that the former president was disdainful of the secrets shield and had no comprehension of its importance. His sense was that the people who are in the intel business are incompetent, and he knew better, Kelly told the Post. He didnt believe in the classification system. People work hard to obtain important intelligence, said Schiff, who is serving on the House panel investigating last years Jan. 6 insurrection. Story continues People put their lives at risk to get that information. That information protects American lives. And for him to treat it so cavalierly shows both what a continuing danger the man is, but also how very little regard he has for anything but himself, the lawmaker added. In Trumps view, he could simply spout off on anything he read in a presidential daily brief or anything that he was briefed on by the CIA director to a visiting Russian delegation ... and simply say, Well, I thought about it and therefore, when the words came out of my mouth, they were declassified, Schiff scoffed. A process is required for declassifying documents. It cannot be done in secret because several federal departments and officials would need to be informed to handle the material differently. For one thing, the records would be then accessible to the Freedom of Information Act and other records requests by the press and public, former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has pointed out. So far, only QAnon disciple and former Trump administration Defense Department aide Kash Patel has backed up Trumps claim that he had a standing order to declassify everything that was taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. Court-appointed Special Master Raymond Dearie, who is reviewing records seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago, has challenged Trumps attorneys to prove that any of the documents marked classified had actually somehow been declassified by Trump. Schiff on Sunday also complained to Tapper that the Department of Justice was too slow to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... New excerpts from Maggie Habermans interviews with Donald Trump reveal the former presidents thoughts on spurious voter fraud lawsuits, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Mitch McConnell and what he was doing as a mob of his supporters breached the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021. The House select committee investigating the attack will reconvene for its first public hearing since July on 28 September. Congressman Jamie Raskin said the panel is aware of allegations that a White House switchboard patched a call from a rioter as the attack was underway, among thousands of details that the committee is investigating. US Rep Adam Schiff has also has rebuked Mr Trumps claim that he could declassify documents at the centre of a separate probe led by the US Department of Justice into his Mar-a-Lago estate simply by saying so, claims that dont demonstrate much intelligence of any kind, according to the congressman. Legal analysts have argued that the former president has put his lawyers in a precarious legal situation, after a federal judge demanded proof of Mr Trumps dubious claims. Key points Jan 6 committee aware that White House connected switchboard to Capitol rioter during attack Liz Cheney will leave Republican Party is Trump is 2024 nominee How Trump speaks about DeSantis in private, according to a new book Republicans considering impeachment vote against Joe Biden What has Trump said about the Mar-a-Lago investigation so far? Adam Schiff mocks Trumps intelligence over declassification comments 07:00 , Shweta Sharma Congressman Adam Schiff responded with derision on Sunday to Donald Trumps assertion that the president of the United States can declassify top-secret materials just by thinking about it, without going through a formal review process. Asked by host Jake Tapper to respond to comments the former president made to Foxs Sean Hannity last week, Mr Schiff quipped that Mr Trumps remarks dont demonstrate much intelligence of any kind. Story continues Adam Schiff mocks Trumps intelligence over declassification comments The January 6 committee returns for a public hearing this week. What you need to know 06:00 , Alex Woodward The House select committee investigating the events leading up to and surrounding the attack on the US Capitol, fuelled by Trumps election lies, will return for a public hearing on Wednesday. In a series of hearings this summer, lawmakers on the panel presented a public account of the extent of the efforts to overturn the 2020 election even as a massive crowd prepared for violence. The testimony of witnesses and records obtained by the panel illustrated the far-reaching Republican effort to subvert the lawful 2020 election results and stir up anger on the right against Democrats and members of their own party who refused to go along. In a piece earlier this month,The Independents John Bowden explains how far the commitee has come and the political environment it now finds itself in just weeks after its last hearing: Jan 6 committee planning more public hearings later this month Former GOP lawmaker says shocking text messages reveal roadmap to an attempted coup 05:37 , Shweta Sharma Former US representative Denver Riggleman said some 2000 text messages exchanged with Mark Meadows revealed what he called a roadmap to an attempted coup and that how QAnon conspiracy theories overshadowed the Trump administration. Mr Riggleman, who led a data analyst team for the Jan 6 committee, told CBS 60 Minutes that messages to and sent by then-White House Chief included messages traced to Trump allies like Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. It sounded like, honestly, the way that they talked, and the way that they referred to this, this epic struggle, almost sounded like me looking at foreign terrorist groups in my past, he said. The Meadows text messages show you an administration that was completely eaten up with a digital virus called QAnon conspiracy theories, he added. You can look at text messages as a roadmap, but its also a look into the psyche of the Republican party today. He said what shook me was the fact that if Clarence agreed with or was even aware of his wifes efforts, all three branches of government would be tied to the stop the steal movement. Adam Schiff says he will likely support criminal referrals in Jan 6 probe 05:03 , Shweta Sharma US representative Adam Schiff said he would likely support approving criminal referrals against those involved in the violence during the 6 January riots on the Capitol last year. But he added that any criminal referral for the former president should be a unanimous decision from the panel. We operate with a high degree of consensus and unanimity, Mr Schiff said on CNNs State of the Union. It will be, certainly, I think, my recommendation, my feeling, that we should make referrals. But we will get to a decision as a committee, and we will all abide by that decision, and I will join our committee members if they feel differently. What you need to know about the lawsuit against Trump 05:00 , Alex Woodward Donald Trump and his business empire, including his close associates and three adult children, could faces serious consequences following a sweeping lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James, filed last week. A bombshell 222-page civil suit alleges that Mr Trump inflated his net worth to deceive banks and the people of the great state of New York, Ms James told reporters on 21 September. She described the multiple statements of financial condition prepared by his former accounting firm for nearly all of Mr Trumps marquee properties as exaggerated, grossly inflated, objectively false, and therefore fraudulent, and illegal. The highlights: The lawsuit cites the financial histories of more than 20 properties and assetts allegedly involved in the scheme. It alleges that Trump and other falsified financial statements and property values and used those inflated statements to get loans, The suit seeks to recover $250m in lost state revenue and penalties Trump and Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka could be barred from holding any office with a business in the state and barred from any real estate transactions for up to five years Eric Garcia: AOC sparked the Trump lawsuit. Shes a better politician than you think' 04:00 , Alex Woodward Not only did her questioning of [Michael] Cohen lead to [New York Attorney General Letitia Jamess] lawsuit, but the specific allegations that Trump inflated his worth and lied about his wealth did a particular wound to the former president. Trump projects an image one beloved by his fans of a highly competent emperor of New York business. That image is now being dismantled, and hes starting to look like he could be a con artist, just in time for the midterms and the runup to the 2024 presidential election. AOC sparked the Trump lawsuit. Shes a better politician than you think Trump took nothing of great urgency from the White House. Then came the Mar-a-Lago raid 03:00 , Alex Woodward Months before federal law enforcement recovered boxes of classified documents from his Florida home, Trump told Maggie Haberman that he took nothing of urgency with him when he left the White House. The former president sat down with The New York Times journalist in the summer of 2021 for an interview for her upcoming book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. In an adapted excerpt from the book, published in The Atlantic on Sunday, Ms Haberman details the moment that Mr Trump denied removing documents from the White House when he left office. Trump claimed he took nothing of great urgency from White House, new book reveals Chris Christie: Trumps self-inflicted wounds will be a legal liability 02:00 , Alex Woodward Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said Trumps dismissals of the many allegations against him are pushing him closer to self-indictment. His comments to ABCs This Week on Sunday come as the former president falsely claimed to Fox News personality Sean Hannity that you can declassify just by saying its declassified, even by thinking about it and that declassification doesnt have to be a process as his lawyers and federal prosecutors kick off a legal battle over top secret documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago. These are all self-inflicted wounds, Mr Christie said. His lawyers arent fighting any of this in court. Theyre really not. Theyre not putting forward any of these arguments. Hes putting forward all these arguments on television. .@GovChristie on Trump document case: The more you absolutely antagonize with nonsense arguments on television that your lawyers won't make in courtyou're pushing yourself closer to a self-inflicted indictment. https://t.co/Y2AsBAB0BL pic.twitter.com/3wExt0dNcp This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 25, 2022 QAnon, the Big Lie and misogyny: What we learned from Trumps latest rally 01:00 , Alex Woodward Trump rallied in North Carolina on Friday night, days after he faced a bombshell lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James, and while hes mired in legal battles and investigations on multiple fronts. The Independents Eric Garcia has the highlights: QAnon, the Big Lie and misogyny: Inside Trumps Wilmington rally ICYMI: Man charged with assault for tapping Giuliani on the back signals potential $2m lawsuit for false arrest Monday 26 September 2022 00:30 , Alex Woodward A man charged with assault and jailed for more than 24 hours in June for touching Rudy Giulianis back in a Staten Island supermarket has signalled a potential lawsuit against New York City for $2m for his false arrest. Video captured Daniel Gill, then an employee of the store, touching Mr Giuliani on the back with his hand inside a ShopRite market while the former mayor was supporting his son Andrews unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination for governor. Whats up, scumbag? Mr Gill said, according to a notice of a claim that was filed on 22 September. Man charged with assault for tapping Giuliani signals $2m wrongful arrest lawsuit Trump fans raise their fingers in a QAnon salute at his latest rally. Security tried to stop them Monday 26 September 2022 00:00 , Alex Woodward The Independents Eric Garcia was on the ground in North Carolina as Trumps supporters raised their fingers in an apparent reference to QAnons where we go one, we go all slogan the second time this has happened at one of his campaign-style rallies. QAnon a far-right, wide-ranging conspiracy theory movement that embraces Mr Trumps baseless claims about election fraud, among other beliefs has centred Mr Trump as a heroic figure battling a deep state and Democratic officials and other figures who will face violent retribution with his election and return to power. Lisa Pyle, who wore a hat with the Q symbol, told The Independent that she appreciated his use of Q symbolism. I think its wonderful, she said, but added she likely would not vote in 2022. Would you vote in a broken election if you knew? If you knew the truth? Trump fans do QAnon symbol again at rally despite security trying to stop them Trump claims he wasnt watching Capitol attack on television, despite witness testimony Sunday 25 September 2022 23:30 , Alex Woodward Trump told New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman that he was having meetings and not watching television while a mob of his supporters breached the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021. But former White House officials have repeatedly testified to the House select committee investigating the attack that then-President Trump was in the dining room next to the Oval Office and watching it unfold on screen. Trump claims he wasnt watching Capitol attack on TV, despite witness testimony ICYMI: Mike Lindell under investigation over identity theft and damage to computer connected to voting machine Sunday 25 September 2022 23:01 , Alex Woodward MyPillow founder and prominent, prolific election fraud conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell is under federal investigation for a number of alleged crimes related to his efforts to upend the results of the 2020 presidential election. The Independents John Bowden reports: Mike Lindell under investigation over damaging voting machine computer Trump claimed he took nothing of great urgency from White House months before Mar-a-Lago raid Sunday 25 September 2022 22:30 , Alex Woodward Trump told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman he took nothing of great urgency with him when he left the White House, months before 11 boxes of classified documents were seized by federal law enforcement at Mar-a-Lago. In an adapted excerpt from her book book, published in The Atlantic on Sunday, Ms Haberman details the moment that Mr Trump denied removing documents from the White House when he left office: He demurred when I asked if he had taken any documents of note upon departing the White House nothing of great urgency, no, he said, she writes. Mr Trump then proceeded to contradict himself by mentioning letters sent by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un which he had taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, she writes. Trump claimed he took nothing of great urgency from White House, new book reveals Chris Christie: Trump pushing himself closer to self-indictment with incriminating TV statements Sunday 25 September 2022 22:00 , Alex Woodward Former New Jersey governor and one-time GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie said Trumps ongoing, very public dismissals of the mounting allegations against him are pushing him closer to self-indictment. The more you absolutely antagonize with nonsense arguments on television that your lawyers wont make in court because theyre afraid theyll be sanctioned if they do because they have no evidence youre pushing yourself closer to a self-inflicted indictment, he told ABCs This Week on Sunday. And I dont want to see that happen just because I dont think its good for our country, but hes pushing himself in that direction, he said. His comments come as the former president lost his legal battle to block the US Department of Justice from reviewing classified materials recovered at Mar-a-Lago last month. Trump falsely claimed to Fox News personality Sean Hannity this week that you can declassify just by saying its declassified, even by thinking about it and that declassification doesnt have to be a process. These are all self-inflicted wounds, Mr Christie said. His lawyers arent fighting any of this in court. Theyre really not. Theyre not putting forward any of these arguments. Hes putting forward all these arguments on television. .@GovChristie on Trump document case: The more you absolutely antagonize with nonsense arguments on television that your lawyers won't make in courtyou're pushing yourself closer to a self-inflicted indictment. https://t.co/Y2AsBAB0BL pic.twitter.com/3wExt0dNcp This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 25, 2022 Trump ran for president because nobody knows his rich friends, new book reveals Sunday 25 September 2022 21:30 , Alex Woodward Trump suggested that the reason he ran for president was because nobody knows his rich friends, according to an adapted excerpt from Maggie Habermans new book. The New York Times journalist sat down with Mr Trump three times for her upcoming book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, which chronicles his path from New York businessman to president. In one candid moment, detailed in an excerpt published in The Atlantic on Sunday, Mr Trump appeared to admit that it was his desire for fame that ultimately led him to enter the White House race. Trump ran for president because nobody knows his rich friends, new book reveals Former DOJ spokesperson: Trumps legal team is now forced to put up or shut up after ex-presidents claims Sunday 25 September 2022 21:00 , Alex Woodward Sarah Isgur, a former Trump-era Justice Department spokesperson, said the former president has put his lawyers in a precarious legal situation, after he argued that he declassified documents that he has pressed for a special master to review after federal law enforcement searched his Mar-a-Lago home. US District Judge Raymond J Dearie is demanding proof that the documents were declassified, while Trump publicly says that he can declassify documents just by saying so, or thinking so. His legal team also must provide his spurious claim that the FBI planted incriminating documents. All the things that Trump has said publicly, this judge is saying, Put up or shut up, Ms Isgur told ABCs This Week on Sunday. All the things that Trump has said publiclythis judge is saying, Put up or shut up. @whignewtons on the latest details of the investigation into former Pres. Trumps Mar-a-Lago documents. https://t.co/tpkbvOizpT pic.twitter.com/pgl0SDFeCB This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 25, 2022 Missing Secret Service texts not among thousands of documents turned over to Jan 6 committee Sunday 25 September 2022 20:30 , Alex Woodward US Rep Pete Aguilar says missing Secret Service text messages related to the attack on the Capitol are not among thousands of messages have been handed to the committee investigating the assault. Missing texts include messages from agents who were on the ground with Trump as well as texts from top officials that oversee the agency We appreciate that we have finally started to get the documents that we asked for a year ago, Mr Aguilar told CBS News Face the Nation on Sunday. These are still not the text messages that were discussed before, but these seem to be communications internally amongst staff members, he saidd. So, theres a lot of information that our investigative team has been going through. We will detail all of it on Wednesday, but its important that they are providing the information and that it continues to help in our investigative work to understand what exactly was happening on January 5 and January 6 as this rally was happening and as the president was directing the mob to go to the Capitol. Rep. Pete Aguilar tells @margbrennan the documents turned over to the Jan. 6 panel by U.S. Secret Service do not include the text messages surrounding the Capitol attack that the committee says are missing. "But, these seem to be communications internally among staff members." pic.twitter.com/bd58CbBCKw Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 25, 2022 Trump: Zuckerbergs net worth will plummet because social media platforms have become very boring and unimportant Sunday 25 September 2022 20:16 , Alex Woodward After investors pulled nearly $140m out of an investment deal to acquire his Truth Social platform, Trump claims on his app that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbergs net worth will continue to go down because Facebook, Twitter and all of them have become very boring and unimportant without the millions of like-minded people kicked off the social media networks. Digital World Acquisition, which had previously announced $1bn in funding committments, reported in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday that some investors were pulling $139m out of an acquisition deal. ICYMI: White House switchboard connected phone call to rioter during Capitol insurrection Sunday 25 September 2022 20:00 , Alex Woodward While a mob of Trump supporters stormed the hall of Congress, the White House switchboard reportedly connected a phone call to one of the rioters. I only know one end of that call, Denver Riggleman, a technical adviser who worked with the congressional, told 60 Minutes. I dont know the White House end, which I believe is more important. But the thing is the American people need to know that there are link connections that need to be explored more. Mr Riggleman, a former military intelligence officer and Republican congressman from Virginia, is the author of a forthcoming book which argues the January 6 committee needed to further investigate communication records like the alleged White House call. January 6 committee advisor says White House called rioter during Capitol attack The 60 Minutes interview will air tonight. Congressman Jamie Raskin, who sits on the committee, said the member are aware of the allegations. WATCH: Fmr. Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) said someone used the White House switchboard to call a rioter during the Jan. 6 insurrection.@RepRaskin (D-Md.) says the call is one of thousands of details the Jan. 6 committee is aware of. pic.twitter.com/zVtW2ygCqN Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 25, 2022 GOP congresswoman says Republicans are considering a vote to impeach Biden Sunday 25 September 2022 19:35 , Alex Woodward Republicans may vote to impeach Joe Biden if they take the House in November, a South Carolina congresswoman revealed on Sunday. Nancy Mace said as much during an interview with NBCs Meet the Press, evoking a wow from a surprised Chuck Todd. I believe heres a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote, she said. I think that is something that some folks are considering. The congresswoman did not, however, suggest that she would be supportive of such a measure. Ms Mace suggested the opposite, actually, telling Mr Todd that her focus under a GOP-controlled House would be waste, fraud, and abuse typical issues under Congresss oversight purview. John Bowden reports: GOP congresswoman says Republicans are considering a vote to impeach Biden Jan 6 committee deeply wants to hear from Trumps Secret Service detail Sunday 25 September 2022 19:00 , Alex Woodward US Rep Pete Aguilar said the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol deeply wants to hear from recently retired Secret Service officer Tony Ornato, who was on Trumps detail during the assault. His retirement came two months after bombshell testimony from former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified to the committee that Mr Ornato told her that the former president launged at a member of his detail while demanding that his car take him to the Capitol during the breach. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol member Rep. Aguilar says the panel remains deeply wanting to hear from former Secret Service officer Tony Ornato, who was on former President Trumps detail at the time of the attack. pic.twitter.com/95amhiNF1n Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 25, 2022 How Trump speaks about DeSantis in private, according to a new book Sunday 25 September 2022 18:35 , Alex Woodward Trump has reportedly described Floridas Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, expected among political analysts as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, as fat, phony, and whiny, according to New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman. The governor has not publicly announced any designs to run for president in 2024, and he has repeatedly said that he intends to run for and remain Floridas governor. But his rising national profile has reportedly irked Mr Trump as he sets his sights on returning to the White House. Fat, phony, whiny: How Trump describes DeSantis in private, according to new book ICYMI: Newt Gingrich tells reporter you have a learning disability in exchange over Jan 6 probe Sunday 25 September 2022 18:30 , Alex Woodward The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is seeking information from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who remains an influential figure among Republican politics and a close ally to former President Donald Trump. But when asked by a reporter at the Capitol on 22 September whether he has any thoughts about the committees work, Mr Gingrich said I think you have a learning disability. The committee told Mr Gingrich in a letter on 1 September that the panel obtained emails he reportedly exchanged with Mr Trumps advisers about television advertisements that amplified baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, a narrative that fuelled a mob of hissupporters to breach the halls of Congress. He also floated the bogus fake elector scheme to Mark Meadows the night of the attack, according to messages obtained by the committee. Newt Gingrich tells reporter you have a learning disability in exchange over Jan 6 The Jan 6 committee could be hearing from Mike Pence Sunday 25 September 2022 18:19 , Alex Woodward The January 6 committee will hold its first public hearing since July on Wednesday. US Rep Pete Aguilar told CBSs Face the Nation on Sunday that its important that the committee hear from former vice presdient Mike Pence, but we havent made a determination on where we go with the vice president specifically. Those continue to be evolving discussions, he said. The pressure that the vice president faced [to reject the certifiation of electora votes] ... that was a key focal point of the committees work. Ahead of Wednesday's Jan. 6 public hearing, Rep. Pete Aguilar tells @margbrennan it's important that the committee hear from fmr. VP Pence. "We haven't made a determination on where we go with the vice president specifically. Those continue to be evolving discussions," he adds. pic.twitter.com/XL08uuVjmB Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 25, 2022 Nancy Mace: There is a lot of pressure among Republicans to impeach Biden Sunday 25 September 2022 17:48 , Alex Woodward If Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections this fall, GOP US Rep Nancy Mace said there there is a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote to impeach President Biden. I think that is something that some folks are considering, she told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. The congresswoman did not vote to impeach Trump, claiming that due process was stripped away during House debate. WATCH: If Republicans take over the House, will they hold an impeachment vote against President Biden?@RepNancyMace (R-S.C.): Theres a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote I think that is something that some folks are considering. pic.twitter.com/otSskurwYb Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 25, 2022 Adam Schiff mocks Trumps intelligence over declassification comments Sunday 25 September 2022 17:30 , Alex Woodward US Rep Adam Schiff mocked Trumps assertion that the president can declassify top-secret materials just by thinking about it, without going through a formal review process. Asked by CNNs Jake Tapper to respond, Mr Schiff quipped that Mr Trumps remarks dont demonstrate much intelligence of any kind. He added that if they truly represented the former presidents beliefs, it made him more dangerous than Democrats and his other critics previously believed. Adam Schiff mocks Trumps intelligence over declassification comments Trump claims he wasnt watching Capitol attack on television, despite witness testimony Sunday 25 September 2022 17:00 , Alex Woodward Trump claims that he was not watching television while a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol, despite witness testimony and multiple accounts from people in his administration revealing that he was doing exactly that. Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for The New York Times, said she pressed the former president about his actions during the assault on a joint session of Congress as lawmakers convened to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. I didnt usually have the television on. Id have it on if there was something. I then later turned it on and I saw what was happening, he said, according to Ms Haberman, writing in The Atlantic in an article adapted from her book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. But former White House officials have repeatedly testified to the House select committee investigating the attack that then-President Trump was in the dining room next to the Oval Office and watching it unfold on screen. Trump claims he wasnt watching Capitol attack on TV, despite witness testimony The Old Crows a piece of s***' Sunday 25 September 2022 16:30 , Alex Woodward What does Donald Trump think about Mitch McConnell? According to Maggie Haberman, in an article adapted from a book based on her interviews with the former president, Mr Trump has a nickname for him: The Old Crows a piece of s***. Another recent book, chronicling the Senates two failed attempts to convict Trump after he was impeached in the House, reports that the GOP senate leader called him crazy wanted his party to ignore him. Weve all known that Trump is crazy, he had said. Im done with him. I will never speak to him again. GOP senator says Trump cant declassify documents by just saying or thinking about it Sunday 25 September 2022 16:07 , Alex Woodward US Sen John Barrasso told ABCs This Week on Sunday that a president cannot declassify documents by saying so, by thinking about it. Ive not heard that one before, he said. In terms of national security documents, we have to always use extreme caution. Earlier this week, Trump, defending possession of White House documents at Mar-a-Lago, told Sean Hannity that he can declassify sensitive materials by saying or thinking about it. Pressed by @GStephanopoulos on whether former Pres. Trump had the authority to declassify documents just by thinking about it, GOP Sen. John Barrasso acknowledges: I don't think a president can declassify documents by saying so, by thinking about it. https://t.co/MOQfVDlfNS pic.twitter.com/wIxJMYxwpr This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 25, 2022 Trumps claims that he can declassify documents by thinking of them dont demonstrate much intelligence of any kind' Sunday 25 September 2022 15:45 , Alex Woodward US Rep Adam Schiff said Trumps comment in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News in which he claimed that he can declassify documents by just saying or thinking about it is not how it works. Those comments dont demonstrate much intelligence of any kind, he told CNNs State of the Union on Sunday. If thats his view, hes even more dangerous than we have thought. "Those comments don't demonstrate much intelligence of any kind."@RepAdamSchiff responds to former President Donald Trump's claim that he could declassify documents just by thinking about it. @CNNSOTU #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/e06DsZ819T CNN (@CNN) September 25, 2022 Nancy Mace will support whomever Republicans nominate in 2024 election Sunday 25 September 2022 15:30 , Alex Woodward South Carolina US Rep Nancy Mace, who has criticised Trump and won a GOP primary against her Trump-backed opponent, did not say whether she would support him if he is the presidential nominee in 2024. She said she will support whomever Republicans nominate in 2024. WATCH: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) does not say she would support former President Trump in 2024, but she will support whomever Republicans nominate.@RepNancyMace: I am very much hopeful [we] see a deep bench of Republicans and Democrats. pic.twitter.com/YajRmKw6Oc Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 25, 2022 Jan 6 committee aware of new detail that White House connected switchboard to Capitol rioter during attack Sunday 25 September 2022 15:00 , Alex Woodward A former congressman alleges in a forthcoming CBS 60 Minutes interview the White House switchboard connected a phone call to a Capitol rioter while the attack was under way. US Rep Jamie Raskin told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday that the allegations are one of thousands of details that the committee is aware of. WATCH: Fmr. Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) said someone used the W.H. switchboard to call a rioter during the Jan. 6 insurrection.@RepRaskin (D-Md.) says the call is one of thousands of details the Jan. 6 committee is aware of. pic.twitter.com/YB0DPxKdEI Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 25, 2022 Our job is to put everything into a comprehensive portrait and narrative timeline of what took place, he said. To me, its interesting, but less interesting that [Trump] told the crowd in public that you got to fight like hell ... Were interseted in telling the big story, which this was an organised, premediated, deliberate hit against the vice president and the Congress to overthrow the 2020 election. More on that alleged phone call from the White House: January 6 committee advisor says White House called rioter during Capitol attack Republicans are going through contortions to defend Trump after Mar-a-Lago raid Sunday 25 September 2022 14:45 , Alex Woodward US Rep Liz Cheney said members of her party are going through contortions to defend the former president after taking sensitive and top secret documents from the White House to his home at Mar-a-Lago. The GOPs response is the latest example of how fundamentally destructive Donald Trump has been, she said at a Texas Tribune event on Saturday. .@Liz_Cheney says Republicans going through contortions to justify and defend the documents Trump had at Mar-a-Lago is the latest example of how fundamentally destructive Donald Trump has been. #TribFest22 pic.twitter.com/QhfCEyI8f6 Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) September 25, 2022 Cheney will do everything she can to prevent Trumps GOP nomination if he runs in 2024. Or she wont be a Republican Sunday 25 September 2022 14:32 , Alex Woodward US Rep Liz Cheney, who recently lost her seat in the House after losing Republican primary in Wyoming to a Trump-backed candidate, told a Texas Tribune event on Saturday that she will drop out of the party if the former president is the GOPs presidential nominee in 2024. Im going to make sure Donald Trump Im going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee, Ms Cheney said. And if he is the nominee, I wont be a Republican. She also said she will campaign for Democrats to ensure candidates like Kari Lake the GOP nominee for the Arizona governors race are not elected in 2022. I think its really important though, as voters are going to vote, that they recognize and understand what the Republican Conference consists of in the House of Representatives today, she added. .@Liz_Cheney says if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024, she will not be a Republican. #TribFest22 pic.twitter.com/3PXuOTBTDy Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) September 25, 2022 Cheney: Any interaction that Donald Trump has with the committee will be under oath and subject to penalties of perjury' Sunday 25 September 2022 14:23 , Alex Woodward Good morning from the US. The January 6 committee will resume public hearings on Wednesday, what could be the final public review of findings from House lawmakers investigating the events leading up to and surrounding the attack on the US Capitol fuelled by Trumps election lies. In conversation at a Texas Tribune event on Saturday, committee co-chair Liz Cheney was asked whether she wants Trump himself to testify. Her answer: Any interaction that Donald Trump has with the committee will be under oath and subject to penalties of perjury. Would you like Trump to testify?@Liz_Cheney: Let me say that any interaction that Donald Trump has with the committee will be under oath and subject to penalties of perjury. #TribFest22 pic.twitter.com/qQFuZut9Df Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) September 25, 2022 Breyer says leak of Supreme Court draft to overturn Roe v Wade was very damaging as leaker remains unknown Sunday 25 September 2022 13:00 , Alex Woodward Now-retired US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, among three justices who opposed the conservative majoritys decision to strike down the constitutional right to abortion, said a leaked draft of the opinion in the landmark case was a very damaging breach of the high courts protocol. Was I happy about it? Not for an instant, he told CNN of the 24 June decision in Dobbs v Jackson Womens Health Organization. Did I do everything I could to persuade people? Of course, of course. But there we are and now we go on. We try to work together. Breyer says leak of Supreme Court draft to overturn Roe v Wade was very damaging ICYMI: Security tells Trump fans to stop making QAnon salute at his latest rally Sunday 25 September 2022 12:00 , Alex Woodward Like at his rally in Youngstown, Ohio last week, supporters in North Carolina on Friday night began to raise up their index fingers which some have speculated might be a QAnon salute reflecting the slogan Where we go one we go all as a song that sounds a lot like a QAnon anthem played on the loudspeakers. Lisa Pyle, who wore a hat with the Q symbol, told The Independent that she appreciated his use of Q symbolism. I think its wonderful, she said, but added she likely would not vote in 2022. Would you vote in a broken election if you knew? If you knew the truth? Trump fans do QAnon symbol again at rally despite security trying to stop them ICYMI: QAnon supporters are thriving on Truth Social Sunday 25 September 2022 11:00 , Alex Woodward As The Independent previously reported following the platforms formal launch, hashtags related to the QAnon slogan where we go one we go all were easily found among hundreds of recent posts on Trumps Truth Social platform, and profiles dedicated to the great awakening the ascendance of a far-right renaissance with Trump at the helm, jailing or killing his political enemies and other QAnon-referencing accounts were easily searchable through the platforms account search function. In the months since its launch, at least 88 accounts embedded within the QAnon delusion with more than 10,000 followers are promoting Q-related slogans, graphics and messages widely across the platform. More than one third of those accounts were previously banned on Twitter. QAnon followers are thriving on Donald Trumps Truth Social ICYMI: Breyer refuses to condemn Ginni Thomass efforts to overturn election Sunday 25 September 2022 09:00 , Alex Woodward Former US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has refused to weigh in on the controversy surrounding Ginni Thomass involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The now-retired Breyer told CNN that the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas can make her own decisions about her political activity and whether it could impact the nations highest court as he insisted that he likes both her and his conservative counterpart. I dont go through that in that I strongly believe that women who are wives, including wives of Supreme Court justices, have to make the decisions about how to lead their lives, careers, what kind of career, etc., for themselves, he said. Ex-Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer refuses to condemn Ginni Thomas Trump opens rally with crude insults about raging maniac New York attorney general after she sues him Sunday 25 September 2022 08:00 , Alex Woodward Trump was not 10 minutes into his remarks at a North Carolina rally to boost Republican candidates in the state when he turned his attention to a candidate who will appear on a ballot 437 miles away in the state he once called home. Two days after New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump of engaging in a years-long scheme to inflate his net work, the former president derided her efforts as gross prosecutorial misconduct that is he claims is a Democratic-led plot to destroy him and his extremist political movement. Trump opens rally with crude rant about raging maniac New York attorney general Five takeaways from the lawsuit against Trump and what it means for 2024 Sunday 25 September 2022 07:00 , Alex Woodward A sweeping lawsuit against the Trump empire comes as the former president weighs another run for president in 2024 after he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. After the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last month, one poll showed that he bolted even further ahead of other potential Republican challengers in a primary. Similarly, the former presidents supporters have shown little sign of abandoning him, and its unlikely the latest lawsuit will push his followers away. Five major allegations from New Yorks $250m lawsuit against Trump These are the 20 properties in Donald Trumps alleged fraud scheme Sunday 25 September 2022 06:00 , Alex Woodward The New York Attorney Generals lawsuit against Trump and his business empire follows a three-year civil investigation into at least 23 of his properties and assets, from his Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida to his namesake tower in Manhattan and golf courses in Scotland. Ms Jamess office found that at least 11 of Mr Trumps annual financial statements included more than 200 false and misleading asset valuations. The number of grossly inflated asset values is staggering, affecting most if not all of the real estate holdings in any given year, according to the lawsuit. These are the 20 properties in Donald Trumps alleged fraud scheme Man charged with assault for tapping Giuliani on the back signals potential $2m lawsuit for false arrest Sunday 25 September 2022 05:00 , Alex Woodward A man charged with assault and jailed for more than 24 hours in June for touching Rudy Giulianis back in a Staten Island supermarket has signalled a potential lawsuit against New York City for $2m for his false arrest. Video captured Daniel Gill, then an employee of the store, touching Mr Giuliani on the back with his hand inside a ShopRite market while the former mayor and Donald Trump attorney was supporting his son Andrews unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination for governor. Whats up, scumbag? Mr Gill said, according to a notice of a claim that was filed on 22 September. I believe you let Mr Gill go, a lot more of these crazy pro-choice people are going to start attacking people, Mr Giuliani said on a Facebook Live video in June addressing the incident. Man charged with assault for tapping Giuliani signals $2m wrongful arrest lawsuit ICYMI: Trump shares Truth Social photo declaring himself second only to Jesus Sunday 25 September 2022 04:00 , Alex Woodward Using his own Truth Social platform (he remains banned from Twitter and Facebook), Trump re-truthed a post by another Truth Social user which read: Jesus is the Greatest. President @realDonaldTrump is the second greatest. Trump shares Truth Social photo declaring himself second only to Jesus Eric Garcia: These are the Senate seats most likely to flip in November Sunday 25 September 2022 03:00 , Alex Woodward The Independents Washington bureau chief Eric Garcia has his updated ranking of Senate seats most likely to flip in November elections. Plenty has changed in recent month. Troughout the summer, polling showed Democrats had a significant advantage after the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Republicans struggled throughout the summer to find a counter-narrative and have already begun triaging some Senate races. But voters typically begin to pay attention in the fall and the airwaves are about to be bombarded with ads. These are the Senate seats most likely to flip in November Ahmed Baba: Trump and his children are in a lot of trouble more than we ever expected' Sunday 25 September 2022 02:00 , Alex Woodward Trump and his family can cry witch hunt all they want, but anyone who watches a video of [Wednesdays] Letitia James press conference or reads this massive lawsuit with an objective eye will see that the evidence is overwhelming. Ahmed Baba Trump and his kids are in a lot of trouble more than we ever expected Trumps could face $250m penalty and ban from doing business in New York in fraud suit Sunday 25 September 2022 01:00 , Alex Woodward The former president, his business empire, associates and three adult children are facing serious consequences for an alleged fraud scheme outlined in a sweeping lawsuit from the New York Attorney General. Letitia James is also seeking to appoint an independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organizations finances, and wants to oust the Trumps from their positions in the organization. But the suit goes even further than that. She is asking that Mr Trump and his adult children be barred from serving as officers or directors in a New York company, effectively running them out of the state. Trumps could face $250m penalty and ban from doing business in NY in fraud lawsuit ICYMI: Rioter who pursued Eugene Goodman found guilty on all counts in Capitol riot case Sunday 25 September 2022 00:00 , Alex Woodward Doug Jensen, who stormed the US Capitol wearing a QAnon T-shirt and chased after the lauded US Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, was found guilty on Friday of all seven counts he was facing. Jan 6 rioter Doug Jensen who pursued Eugene Goodman found guilty on all counts QAnon, the Big Lie and misogyny: Inside Trumps Wilmington rally Saturday 24 September 2022 23:13 , Alex Woodward Days after he was hit with a bombshell lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump returned to his comfort zone: in front of an adoring crowd, where he can revel in his disdain for his political opponents and whoop up support against the multiple investigations closing in on him. His latest rally in North Carolina was also the former presidents chance to return a conquering hero, since most of the candidates he endorsed in the state won their primaries. The Independents Eric Garcia reports from Wilmington: QAnon, the Big Lie and misogyny: Inside Trumps Wilmington rally Judge dismisses Arizona GOP chairs lawsuit against Jan 6 committee, clearing way for access to her phone records Saturday 24 September 2022 22:28 , Alex Woodward A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward seeking to block a subpoena from the January 6 committee for access to her phone records. US District Judge Diane Humetewa said in her ruling issued late on Thursday that the committee has a legitimite reason to review calls made in the days between Election Day 2020 and the end of Trumps term in office, during which Ms Ward a prominent election denier in the state sought to organise alternate electors to reject Joe Bidens certification. That three-month period is plainly relevant to [the committees] investigation into the causes of the attack at the US Capitol, the judge rule. Newt Gingrich tells reporter you have a learning disability in exchange over Jan 6 probe Saturday 24 September 2022 22:00 , Alex Woodward The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is seeking information from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who remains an influential figure among Republican politics and a close ally to the former president. But when asked by a reporter at the Capitol on 22 September whether he has any thoughts about the committees work, Mr Gingrich said I think you have a learning disability. Watch the exchange and learn why the committee is demanding his cooperation: Newt Gingrich tells reporter you have a learning disability in exchange over Jan 6 Matt Gaetz unlikely to be charged in sex trafficking probe but investigations future unclear, report says Saturday 24 September 2022 21:30 , Alex Woodward Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who has been tied to a sex trafficking probe as part of a long-running Justice Department investigation, is reportedly unlikely to face charges because career prosecutors believe they will be unlikely to obtain a conviction. A report from The Washington Post says that senior officials have not yet decided whether to seek an indictment, but prosecutors are recommending that they not do so because of of credibility questions with the two central witnesses. The Post reported that people familiar with the matter say it is possible that additional evidence could change prosecutors understanding of the case but as of now it is unlikely that he will ever face an indictment. Matt Gaetz unlikely to be charged in sex trafficking probe, report says ICYMI: Trump lawyers fighting to keep January 6 testimony from grand jury Saturday 24 September 2022 21:00 , Alex Woodward Trumps legal team is reportedly engaged in a closed-door court fight to keep a federal grand jury from hearing testimony from his White House advisers as part of a probe into the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The former presidents lawyers have reportedly asserted executive and attorney-client privilege to block some witnesses, such as ex-White House aide and attorney Eric Herschmann, from complying with subpoenas to appear before the grand jury. A trio of Trump lawyers were at a Washington, DC courthouse on Thursday, reportedly to present arguments on the matter to a federal judge. Trump lawyers fighting to keep January 6 testimony from grand jury, report says Adam Schiff: DOJ made breathtaking request for Jan 6 committees files Saturday 24 September 2022 20:30 , Alex Woodward US Rep Adam Schiff, who sits on the House selecte committee investigating the Capitol attack, said that the US Department of Justice requested documents from the committee, what he called a breathtaking request. My first reaction was ... why dont you have your own damn files? he said on Saturday, according to NBC Newss Ali Vitali. Why havent you been conducting your own investigation? Schiff says DOJ at one point asked the J6 Committee to turn over all their files which was a breathtaking request. My first reaction waswhy dont you have your own damn files? Why havent you been conducting your own investigation? #TribFest22 Ali Vitali (@alivitali) September 24, 2022 Writer behind Trump rally song compared to QAnon theme rejects association with conspiracy theory movement Saturday 24 September 2022 20:00 , Alex Woodward Trump aides were quick to deny that a song that has played at Trump rallies is a QAnon theme after playing a royalty-free track called Mirrors by composer Will Van De Crommert. The song bears some resemblance to the song Wwg1wga, an abbreviation for the QAnon slogan Where we go one, we go all. Mr Van De Crommert is not pleased with the association and has sought to distance himself from the campaign and conspiracy theorist movement Writer behind song used in Trump rally and similar to QAnon theme hits out at its use Breyer refuses to condemn Ginni Thomass efforts to overturn election Saturday 24 September 2022 19:45 , Alex Woodward Former US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has refused to weigh in on the controversy surrounding Ginni Thomass involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The now-retired Breyer told CNN that the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas can make her own decisions about her political activity and whether it could impact the nations highest court as he insisted that he likes both her and his conservative counterpart. I dont go through that in that I strongly believe that women who are wives, including wives of Supreme Court justices, have to make the decisions about how to lead their lives, careers, what kind of career, etc., for themselves, he said. Ex-Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer refuses to condemn Ginni Thomas White House condemns catastrophic decision allowing Arizonas 1864 anti-abortion law to take effect Saturday 24 September 2022 19:30 , Alex Woodward The White House has warned of catastrophic, dangerous and unacceptable consequences to follow a judges decision upholding Arizonas 158-year-old anti-abortion law, initially drafted 48 years before Arizona was even a state. In a statement on 24 September, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre warned the judges decision will set Arizona women back more than a century. White House condemns Arizonas 150-year-old abortion ban allowed to take effect Trump-backed Ohio congressional candidate cant explain disputes over his military service records Saturday 24 September 2022 19:15 , Alex Woodward Ohio Republican congressional candidate JR Majewski wildly exaggerated his military and professional background, including record as a combat veteran in Afghanistan despite only serving six months loading planes far from any frontline battles. During a press conference addressing the report on Friday, the Trump-backed GOP candidate insisted his military records are classified. The military record I have been able to obtain, from my personal files, shows that all of my deployments are listed as classified, he said. He claimed that the Associated Press report debunking his claims was an attempt to defame him with a fake hit piece. The report says Mr Majrewskis post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the US government and occasional financial duress. Investors pulled millions out of Truth Social acquisition deal Saturday 24 September 2022 19:00 , Alex Woodward Investors are pulling out of a plan from Digital World Acquisition Corp to acquire Trumps social media platform Truth Social, according to the firms filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Digital World announce on Friday that it received termination notices from private investment in public equity investors ending nearly $139m in investments out of the $1bn commitment it had previously announced, according to Reuters. ICYMI: QAnon supporters are thriving on Truth Social Saturday 24 September 2022 18:30 , Alex Woodward Within the first few months of Trumps Truth Social, the former president himself has shared 30 different QAnon-affiliated accounts dozens of times to his more than 4 million followers. At least 88 accounts embedded within the sprawling QAnon delusion with more than 10,000 followers each are promoting Q-related slogans, graphics and messages widely across the platform. More than one third of those accounts were previously banned on Twitter. From our report in August: QAnon followers are thriving on Donald Trumps Truth Social QAnon, the Big Lie and misogyny: Inside Trumps Wilmington rally Saturday 24 September 2022 18:00 , Alex Woodward Trumps ongoing baseless narrative that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him continues to dominate his public appearances and social media posts stringing together lies about voter fraud. His latest rally was no exception, while also digging into his misogynistic disdain for women who have challenged him and openly courting QAnon conspiracy theorists who fuel his Truth Social platform. The Independents Eric Garcia has the big takeaways from on the ground in North Carolina: QAnon, the Big Lie and misogyny: Inside Trumps Wilmington rally Trump fans do QAnon symbol again at rally despite security trying to stop them Saturday 24 September 2022 17:30 , Alex Woodward Donald Trump has openly courted QAnon influencers and supporters, who are raising their fingers in the air in an apparent salute referencing the sprawling conspiracy theory that baselessly asserts the 2020 presidential election was rigged, among other claims. Lisa Pyle, who wore a hat with the Q symbol, told The Independent that she appreciated his use of QAnon symbolism. I think its wonderful, she said. She told The Independents chief Washington correspondent Eric Garcia that she likely would not vote in 2022: Would you vote in a broken election if you knew? If you knew the truth? Trump fans do QAnon symbol again at rally despite security trying to stop them January 6 committee adviser says White House called rioter during Capitol insurrection Saturday 24 September 2022 17:00 , Alex Woodward While a mob of Trump supporters stormed the hall of Congress, the White House switchboard reportedly connected a phone call to one of the rioters. I only know one end of that call, Denver Riggleman, a technical adviser who worked with the congressional, told 60 Minutes. I dont know the White House end, which I believe is more important. But the thing is the American people need to know that there are link connections that need to be explored more. Mr Riggleman, a former military intelligence officer and Republican congressman from Virginia, is the author of a forthcoming book which argues the January 6 committee needed to further investigate communication records like the alleged White House call. January 6 committee advisor says White House called rioter during Capitol attack January 6 rioter who pursued Eugene Goodman found guilty on all counts in Capitol riot case Saturday 24 September 2022 16:00 , Alex Woodward Doug Jensen, a January 6 rioter who stormed the US Capitol wearing a QAnon T-shirt while chasing after the lauded US Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, was found guilty on Friday of all seven counts he was facing. The Iowa man was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol building, according to the government. Federal prosecutors said he would not be stopped on January 6 until he got what he came for: to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Jan 6 rioter Doug Jensen who pursued Eugene Goodman found guilty on all counts Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty Former President Donald Trump has learned time and again that the best way to kill legal action is to first delay it. And while Trumps special master gambit initially showed promise in that regard, the tactic may have actually backfired and put him on a fast-track collision course with the federal government he once led. Two separate court decisions last week have empowered the FBI to move swiftly in its investigation against Trump for mishandling classified information. Who knows whats still at Mar-a-Lago? Who knows where the rest of it is? Its obvious that Trump cant be trustedand neither can his lawyers. But at least the bluff has been called on using the courts to delay this, said Carl W. Tobias, a University of Richmond law school professor. Trump Steps Up QAnon Outreach With Q Meme Video Trumps preemptive strike last montha lawsuit against the fedstried to block the FBI from reviewing the documents seized at his oceanfront Mar-a-Lago mansion. That legal fight has now been split in two. On one end, a court-appointed special master in Brooklyn is combing through some of the seized materials to figure out if any of them can be held back from the feds due to the former presidents executive privilege. On the other end, a Trump-friendly federal judge in South Florida has gone out of her way to stop the FBI from even touching the classified files, a decision that just reached a highly conservative appellate court. But neither one is going well for Trump. A very special master His insistence on slowing down the investigation by forcefully inserting an independent referee has blown up in his face. Raymond Dearie, the semi-retired Brooklyn federal judge specifically brought in to second-guess the Justice Department, has actually used his special master role to speed up the review. On Friday, Dearie set an Oct. 28 deadline to know what documents Trump actually wants to hold back from the DOJ on the head-scratching theory that a former president can cite executive privilege that somehow supersedes the current executive branch. Story continues In doing so, Dearie is moving significantly faster than the instructions he received to wrap things up by the end of November from the Trump appointee down south who played along with the intended delay tactic, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon. Dearie is even bringing in reinforcements. In an order Thursday, Dearie said hes tapping retired magistrate judge James Orenstein to help sort through the gargantuan mountain of 11,000 documentsand without hesitation ordered Trump to pay him $500 an hour to do it. Special Master Forces Trumps Hand in His First Mar-a-Lago Ruling Tobias called Dearies decision to recruit Orenstein a master stroke. That will expedite matters exponentially, and thats all good. The whole point of this litigation is to delay, Tobias said. [Dearie] has a reputation as a no-nonsense, very professional, very experienced jurist he has cut through the bullshit offered up by Trumps lawyers and gotten to the point, Tobias said. The sped-up timeline means the DOJ will know sooner which non-classified documents it can accessand use as evidence that Trump kept and altered government records that dont belong to him. For example, previous court filings disclosed that investigators recovered documents showing that certain pages of presidential records had been torn up, a violation of 18 U.S. Code 2071 that bars anyone from ever again holding a political office in the United States. Those same documents could also support the other federal charge theyre considering against the former president, 18 U.S. Code 1519, because the feds developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the [Mar-a-Lago] storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the governments investigation. That second criminal charge carries the threat of a 20-year prison sentence. Judge Cannon tried to throw a lifeline of delay, and it didnt work [Dearie] is the kind of judge whos been around a long time. Hes not going to tolerate wasted time. And hes not going to be played, said George Washington University law school professor Stephen A. Saltzburg, who has twice served as a special master himself. Special Master Has a Simple Test That May Be Disaster for Trump Dearie is wasting no time and already set up a follow-up court hearing on Oct. 6 to ensure the review is moving along. The compressed timeline puts Trump in the position where any legal gamesand obvious delay tacticshappen just as the dozens of Republicans hes endorsed enter their final weeks of political campaigning before the general election. Appeal to reason Meanwhile, the more menacing aspect of the FBIs investigation is now free to proceed at full speed. Special agents can now once again access the classified files they seized, the evidence at the very heart of the most serious criminal charge Trump faces: violating the Espionage Act by keeping Top Secret documents lying around at his busy club and putting the security of the nation at risk. That law, U.S. Code 2071, comes with the threat of prison time and could also bar him from ever running for president again. Last week, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals took a close look at Cannons decision to halt the FBI and sided with the DOJdespite the fact that two of the three judges on the panel were appointed by Trump himself. The court even called out Trump for publicly claiming it was fine for him to have classified records because hed already declassified themmaybe even in his head, as he mused to Fox News. The appellate panel noted that Trumps lawyers have yet to make that argument before Dearie (perhaps, as some have pointed out, because lying to a judge would cost them their license to practice law). [Trump] suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was president. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified. And before the special master, [Trump] resisted providing any evidence that he had declassified any of these documents, the panel wrote. Judge Cannons Latest Mar-a-Lago Ruling Just Got Benchslapped And they added this scathing line, toppling future arguments that Trump had any excuse. In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal. So even if we assumed that [Trump] did declassify some or all of the documents, that would not explain why he has a personal interest in them, they wrote. Saltzburg said Trumps legal team, still high from the victory in front of Cannon, completely miscalculated with the 11th Circuit. Legal scholars told The Daily Beast that last weeks court decisions had the effect of tightening the noose around Trumps neck. It looks a lot different than it did last week thanks to Judge Dearie and thanks to the two Trump appointees on the 11th Circuit who cut through the garbage. I think they have some measure of self-respect. And they understand whats going on here. Maybe they actually care about national defense and national security. What a concept, Tobias said. These decisions will make it go much faster, said Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has spent considerable time and effort seeking to hold Trump accountable for years. However, Bookbinder warned that the DOJ isnt likely to actually give the American public what so many people crave. I cannot imagine that, even if they were ready, that the Justice Department would bring charges in this case before the election, he said, citing the agencys vague, 60-day principle to not intentionally interfere in elections. Theres not a reason under the Justice Departments policyDonald Trumps not a candidate for anything in November 2022but construing the policy broadly, an indictment could affect the election. And I cant imagine they would go there. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey said on Monday that Malaysia and Indonesia had expressed keen interest in buying armed drones from Turkish defence firm Baykar, which has supplied the weapons to several countries after battlefield successes. "Many Asian countries, especially Malaysia and Indonesia, show great interest in our defence industry products. Agreements are being signed," Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a press conference in Tokyo. "We would most gladly meet Japan's need for drones," the minister added, on a visit there to attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. International demand for Turkish drones has soared after their impact on conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Libya. On Sept. 21 Reuters reported that Baykar delivered 20 armed drones to the United Arab Emirates this month. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Writing by Jonathan Spicer, Editing by William Maclean) One man has been arrested and four more people are wanted for attempted murder after two children and a 19-year-old were shot at outside of an apartment complex in Dyersburg, Tennessee, according to the Dyersburg Police Department. Dyersburg Police said the gunfire happened on Price Street around 9 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 23. Two teens, ages 14 and 16, and a 19-year-old man walked out of the apartments when several people began shooting at them, according to police. The three were able to flee in a car and then the two teenagers were taken to the hospital by another car, police said. The 19-year-old was not injured in the shooting. Police arrested Trouble Thomas, 20, for the shootings Sunday morning around 3 a.m. after they caught him on Harris Street. Thomas has been charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder. Another man, 24-year-old Camron Hopkins, was also wanted in connection to these shootings on a warrant of attempted murder. Hopkins turned himself in to police Tuesday morning, according to the Dyersburg Police Department. Dyersburg Police said that 22-year-old Damarius Neal and two 17-year-olds from Dyersburg are also wanted in connection to the shooting. They all have warrants for attempted first-degree murder out for their arrest, Dyersburg Police said. Those four should be considered armed and dangerous, according to police. If you know where any of them are, Dyersburg Police urge you to call CrimeStoppers at 731-285-TIPS or the Dyersburg Police Department Criminal Investigations Division at 731-288-7679 Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Trending stories: OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian police said on Monday two men had been arrested on Sunday on suspicion of involvement in a mass shooting that killed two people and wounded 21 in and around an Oslo gay bar in June. A Somali citizen in his 40s and a Norwegian one in his 30s, each with prior involvement in criminal activity, were arrested by police on Sunday, Oslo police said in a statement. Only one suspect, named by police as Zaniar Matapour, was arrested at the scene of the June 25 shooting, while an international arrest warrant has been issued for a fourth suspect. Police last week said its hypothesis that the shooting was an act of terrorism had been strengthened during its investigation. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Angus MacSwan) WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States will provide $457.5 million in new civilian security aid for Ukraine, a portion of which will be used to support the government's investigation of atrocities, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday. The aid is designed to help Ukrainian law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, Blinken said in a statement. "A portion of this new assistance will also continue U.S. support for the Ukrainian governments efforts to document, investigate, and prosecute atrocities perpetrated by Russias forces, drawing on our long-standing relationship with Ukrainian criminal justice agencies," the U.S. top diplomat said. The aid was announced days after a United Nations-mandated commission found that war crimes including rape, torture, executions and confinement of children were committed by Russia in areas it occupied in Ukraine. Erik Mose, who heads the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, said on Friday that "a large number" of war crimes had been committed by Russia and only two cases by Ukraine, involving the ill-treatment of Russian soldiers. Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russian soldiers of a litany of abuses since the Feb. 24 invasion, but Moscow has regularly dismissed the allegations as a smear campaign. The latest tranche of aid brings U.S. assistance for Ukrainian law enforcement and its partners to more than $645 million since mid-December, Blinken said. U.S.-supplied personal protective equipment, medical supplies, and armored vehicles has reduced casualties for Ukrainian civilians and their defenders. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama Editing by David Goodman) By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Monday it will work with countries when it sees early indications that civil aviation authorities are not meeting safety standards. The FAA previously would offer assistance only after the country had been downgraded. Now the agency will be able to work with a country to address developing safety risks before downgrading it. The FAA said if it notifies a country of a safety concern it will limit direct service and code sharing by foreign operators to current levels as it reviews whether to issue a downgrade. In May 2021, the FAA downgraded Mexico's aviation safety rating, an action barring Mexican carriers from adding new U.S. flights and limits the ability of airlines to carry out marketing agreements with one another. Over the objections of the Mexican government, the FAA downgraded Mexico - one of the most common international destinations for U.S. air travelers - from a level called Category 1, which signifies compliance with international standards, to Category 2, the lowest level. Mexican authorities had promised that regaining the rating would be a "quick and easy process," but that has not been the case. The FAA did not immediately comment Monday on the status of Mexico's safety rating. In June, Mexico said it hoped to return to Category 1 in the coming months, after seven meetings with FAA officials including a review in June. Earlier this month, Aeromexico CEO Andres Conesa said its expansion plans depend on the FAA revising its rating for Mexico that the airline noted prohibits Mexican airlines from opening new routes to the United States. "The damage done by that is significant," Conesa said. The FAA said Monday that 90% of countries rated achieved Category 1 and meet international air safety standards. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Andrea Ricci) The Little Traveler store in Geneva is celebrating 100 years in business this year. (Linda Girardi / The Beacon-News) The Little Traveler in downtown Geneva is celebrating 100 years in business, and remains a destination shopping place for people looking for gifts, wines, clothing or afternoon lunch or Sunday brunch. The Little Traveler provides a way for generations of families to bond, especially during these times when people are looking for a way to connect with one another, owner Mike Simon said. Advertisement The Little Traveler, at 404 S. Third St., is known for unique items for sale and its staff members, some of whom have worked for the Simon family for decades. Kate and Edmund Raftery purchased the Victorian home in Geneva over a century ago where the store is now located. Kate Raftery had a world traveler, Lucy Calhoun, who would send her unusual items while on her travels, according to the Little Travelers history. Advertisement The Wozniak family of Algonquin won first place in The Little Traveler's youth Jingle Contest as part of the 100th anniversary of the business in Geneva. The family includes Andrea and Brad Wozniak and their children, Elle, 9, and Krew, 7. (Linda Girardi / The Beacon-News) Kate Raftery would display her treasures on the grand piano in the living room and invite friends over for afternoon tea. The Geneva woman was then inspired to open a Geneva gift shop, according to the store history. She recorded her first sale on the ledger book of the shop on Sept. 22, 1922. The Little Traveler continues to have a role in the lives of generations who come to experience the 36-room Victorian home that offers an array of merchandise, including gourmet foods, wine, jewelry and finds in the Fair Trade and Christmas rooms. Guests come for lunch or sweets and Sunday brunch in the Atrium Cafe as well. We often have grandmothers, mothers, daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters come in to experience the shopping, Simon said. Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns recently marked the 100th anniversary of the store on The Little Travelers front porch with a proclamation and presented a key to the city to Simon and members of the Raftery family, descendants of the stores founder. The Little Traveler created a web store during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 until it could safely reopen, said Simon. Loyal shoppers were delighted with the stores curbside pickup in those days, he said. Mike Simons father, Sol Simon, purchased the store in 1971. Sol Simon had a dry goods store on West State Street in downtown Geneva. He also opened The Merra-Lee shops on South Third Street and then closed the dry goods store. Advertisement Simon received a call that The Little Traveler was for sale. His father was intrigued by the idea of buying the store, Mike Simon said. My dad grew up in Geneva and said he could never afford to go in The Little Traveler. My father was successful with The Merra-Lee shops and was happy with his life but he said there was something about The Little Traveler that intrigued him, Simon said. He said that he looked at the store as a beautiful race horse and if I could train it to run another race he would feel good. He took it as a personal mission to revive The Little Traveler, Simon said. The Little Traveler is offering special events during the year in honor of its 100th anniversary. In addition, Geneva businesses have offered special promotions in honor of The Little Travelers 100th birthday. The Wozniak family of Algonquin attended Saturdays ice cream social held on the front lawn of the store in honor of the 100th anniversary. They happened to win first place in the stores youth Jingle Contest. I thought it would be fun to write a jingle for the stores 100th anniversary. We come regularly as a family to The Little Traveler, Andrea Wozniak said. Advertisement Debbie and Steve Burrichter of Batavia have frequented The Little Traveler for the past 30 years. The Little Traveler has wonderful gifts for my wife, Steve Burrichter said. Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News. By Cassandra Garrison MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Farmers in the United States are urging their government to challenge a looming Mexican ban on genetically modified (GM) corn under a regional free trade agreement, warning of billions of dollars of economic damage to both countries. A late 2020 decree by Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would phase out GM corn and the herbicide glyphosate by 2024. Supporters of the ban say GM seeds can contaminate Mexico's age-old native varieties, and point to research showing adverse effects of glyphosate. Mexico prides itself as the birthplace of modern corn but it imports about 17 million tonnes of U.S. corn a year and is on track to import even more this year, experts said. Some in Mexico's government, including Agriculture Minister Victor Villalobos, have signaled that yellow corn imports for livestock feed will not be disrupted. U.S. farmers remain wary since no official document states that, according to a U.S. agriculture official familiar with recent meetings with Mexican officials. Also, Lopez Obrador this month said firmly: "We do not accept GMO corn." Corn for human consumption, including white corn used in food products like tortillas, accounts for between 18% and 20% of Mexico's total U.S. corn imports. There are still questions about whether such GM imports will be eliminated by 2024. Mexico's health regulator COFEPRIS has not authorized new strains of glyphosate-resistant GM corn seeds for import since 2018. The National Corn Growers Association, representing U.S. farmers, wants the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to launch a dispute settlement proceeding under the USMCA trade pact, which includes Canada and Mexico. Angus R. Kelly, the association's director of public policy, trade and biotechnology, said it objects to the "precedent-setting nature of the decrees" and to Mexico rejecting biotech crop traits "without any scientific basis." Story continues Washington could potentially raise a dispute under the agriculture chapter of the USMCA stipulating cooperation between members on an individual government's regulation of imports, according to Raul Urteaga, a former Mexican government official and founder of consulting group Global Agrotrade Advisors. A dispute settlement can apply under some USMCA chapters when a country considers one member government has nullified or impaired a benefit that was in place when the pact was signed. Mexico's agriculture ministry and the U.S. embassy in Mexico declined to comment. The USTR and the USDA did not respond to requests for comment. Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), representing biotech companies including Bayer, said it "supported the (U.S.) administration taking enforcement action on Mexicos treatment of agricultural biotechnology" if dialogue fails. Federico Zerboni, Argentina-based president of agriculture chamber MAIZALL which sent a delegation to Mexico in August, said denial of new GM seeds made it seem like Mexico's regulator favors a "very old and unfeasible production system to feed the world." COFEPRIS, in a statement to Reuters said its decisions were based on "scientific evidence and risk assessments." In 2020, Bayer agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle lawsuits by people who claimed they were harmed by its weedkiller. A March report by the U.S. consulting firm World Perspectives Inc projected that Mexico's ban could cost the country $4.4 billion over 10 years for corn imports, push the price of tortillas up 42% by the second year and cause major risks to food security. The United States could see a $16.5 billion drop in economic output over 10 years, the report found. It did not differentiate between white and yellow corn. (Reporting by Cassandra Garrison, additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio) ABOARD AIR FORCE TWO (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will discuss a partnership on Taiwan security issues, a senior U.S. administration official said on Monday aboard Air Force Two. The official also told reporters that Washington welcomes Japan's increased military strength and security role. Harris is set to attend former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's funeral on Tuesday after holding talks with Kishida on Monday. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Himani Sarkar) Britain on Monday warned it could fine TikTok 27 million ($29 million) over a potential failure to protect children's privacy on the Chinese-owned video app. The Information Commissioner's Office said the social media company "may have processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent". The ICO also found that the short-form video platform may have "failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood way". The watchdog has served the group with a notice of intent -- which is a legal document that precedes a possible fine -- over the possible breach of UK data protection law. "We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections," said Information Commissioner John Edwards. "Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement." In response, TikTok said it disagreed with the ICO's provisional views and stressed that no final conclusions had been reached. "While we respect the ICO's role in safeguarding privacy in the UK, we disagree with the preliminary views expressed and intend to formally respond to the ICO in due course," TikTok said in a statement. rfj/bcp/lth LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Liz Truss has thanked Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his "personal role" in securing the release of five British detainees held by Russia-backed forces in Ukraine last week, her office said on Monday. In a statement issued after Truss' first call with the Saudi crown prince since she took office, a spokesperson also said she "offered the UKs continued support and encouragement for progress in Saudi Arabias domestic reforms." (Reporting by Farouq Suleiman, Editing by William James) Britain and the U.S. are still best mates, says the U.K.s new Prime Minister Liz Truss. I do think our relationship is special, and its increasingly important at a time when were facing threats from Russia, increased assertiveness from China, she said in an interview aired Sunday on CNNs State of the Union. Truss had been asked about her previous comments describing U.S.-U.K. ties as special but not exclusive. After World War II, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill characterized the connection as a special relationship, a moniker that has stuck ever since. Im personally a huge fan of the United States of America. Its a country Ive traveled a lot in. Its a country we share so many values, core beliefs in, Truss said. Im determined that we make the special relationship even more special over the coming years. The prime minister met with President Biden on the sidelines of last weeks United Nations General Assembly in New York City. The duo discussed Russias invasion of Ukraine and challenges posed by China, among other issues, according to the White House. For too long after the Cold War, the free world didnt do enough to take on the challenges of autocratic regimes, Truss said. I really feel that we are stepping up as an alliance to take on what is absolutely an appalling war created by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. Truss succeeded former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a fellow member of the Conservative Party, earlier this month. With tensions heating up around Taiwan, the independent island territory China claims as its own, Truss said the U.K. and its allies need to reduce our strategic dependency on China. We are determined to work with our allies to make sure that Taiwan is able to defend itself, she said, adding that a repeat of Putin-style aggression elsewhere in the world must be avoided. ______ By Jonathan Landay ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (Reuters) -Moscow was poised on Wednesday to annex a swath of Ukraine, releasing what it called vote tallies showing support in four partially occupied provinces to join Russia, after what Kyiv and the West denounced as illegal sham referendums held at gunpoint. On Moscow's Red Square, a tribune with giant video screens has been set up, with billboards proclaiming "Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson - Russia!" President Vladimir Putin could proclaim the annexation in a speech within days, just over a week since he endorsed the referendums, ordered a military mobilisation at home and threatened to defend Russia with nuclear weapons if necessary. The Russian-installed administrations of the four Ukrainian provinces on Wednesday formally asked Putin to incorporate them into Russia, which Russian officials have suggested is a formality. "The results are clear. Welcome home, to Russia!," Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said on Telegram. Russian-backed authorities claim to have carried out the referendums over five days in parts of eastern and southern Ukraine that makes up around 15% of the country's territory. Residents who escaped to Ukrainian-held areas in recent days have told of people being forced to mark ballots in the street by roving officials at gunpoint. Footage filmed during the exercise showed Russian-installed officials taking ballot boxes from house to house with armed men in tow. "They can announce anything they want. Nobody voted in the referendum except a few people who switched sides. They went from house to house but nobody came out," said Lyubomir Boyko, 43, from Golo Pristan, a village in Russian-occupied Kherson province. Russia says voting was voluntary, in line with international law, and that turnout was high. The referendums and notion of annexations has been rejected globally, as was Russia's 2014 takeover of Crimea from Ukraine. Story continues Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought to rally international support against possible Russian annexations in a series of calls with foreign leaders, including those of Britain, Canada, Germany and Turkey. "Thank you all for your clear and unequivocal support. Thank you all for understanding our position," Zelenskiy said in a late-night video address. The United States said it would in coming days impose economic costs on Moscow for the referendums, adding to several tranches of sanctions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February that has destroyed cities and killed thousands. "We will continue to work with allies and partners to bring even more pressure on Russia and the individuals and entities that are helping support its attempted land grab," State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters. The European Union's executive also proposed more sanctions against Russia, but the bloc's 27 member countries will need to overcome their own differences to implement them. 'NEW STAGE' Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed leader in Donetsk province, said he was on his way to Moscow to complete the legal process of joining Russia. "Now we are moving to a new stage of military action," he said, amid speculation that Putin is set to change the status of what he has so far called a "special military operation" to a counter-terrorism operation. Russian officials have said any attack on annexed territory would be an attack on Russia itself. Putin altered his strategy following a stunning setback for Russian forces in the northeastern region of Kharkiv earlier in September, when Ukrainian troops recaptured dozens of towns and villages. He also announced the swift call-up of hundreds of thousands of Russian men to fight, and issued a new warning about the possible use of nuclear weapons. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would need to keep fighting until it had taken control of all of Donetsk. Around 40% is still under Ukrainian control and the scene of some of the war's heaviest fighting. The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said 11 Russian attacks had been repelled on Wednesday, most of them north of Donetsk. Russian forces had shelled dozens of towns along the length of the front line, it said in a Facebook post. Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports. GAS PIPELINE 'SABOTAGE' The Russian annexation plan gathered pace as leaking gas bubbled up in the Baltic Sea for a third day after suspected explosions tore through undersea pipelines built by Russia and European partners. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, once the main route for Russian gas to Germany, was already shut but cannot now be easily reopened. NATO and the European Union warned of the need to protect critical infrastructure from what they called "sabotage", though officials stopped short of assigning blame. Russia's FSB security service is investigating the damage sustained to the pipelines as "international terrorism", the Interfax news agency cited the general prosecutor's office as saying. The Nord Stream pipelines have been flashpoints in an expanding energy war between Moscow and capitals in Europe that has damaged major Western economies and sent gas prices soaring. The United States believes it is too soon to conclude there was sabotage, a senior U.S. military official told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. "The jury is still out," the official said. Meanwhile, the United States unveiled a $1.1 billion weapons package for Ukraine that includes 18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers, accompanying munitions, various types of counter drone systems and radar systems. The announcement brings the U.S. security aid to $16.2 billion. (Reporting by Reuters bureaux Writing by Andrew Osborn, Toby Chopra and Grant McCool; Editing by Peter Graff, Hugh Lawson and Bill Berkrot) (Bloomberg) -- The Kremlin granted citizenship to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who disclosed a top-secret spying program and has been living in Russia since fleeing the US nine years ago. Most Read from Bloomberg The US said that may mean Snowden could be conscripted. The only thing that has changed is that as a result of his Russian citizenship, apparently now, he may well be conscripted to fight, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Russians to flee or surrender to avoid the Kremlins mobilization effort, saying it would help sooner end what he called the criminal war. Seven months into the conflict, President Vladimir Putins order to add another 300,000 troops has triggered sporadic protests throughout the country, amid fears that the government will soon close the border for draft-aged men. (See RSAN on the Bloomberg Terminal for the Russian Sanctions Dashboard.) Key Developments Putin Raises Stakes on Ukraines Bid for More Powerful Weapons Ukraine Grain-Corridor Exports Top 4.5m Tons, Latest Data Show Putin Gives US Fugitive Edward Snowden Russian Citizenship Russian Exodus Grows Amid Fears Kremlin May Restrict Borders With partial mobilization underway, Russias military attacked the southern Odesa region with drones overnight, damaging military infrastructure, Ukraines southern operational command said on Facebook. Russian missiles also hit Zaporizhzhia, local authorities said. Ukraines General Staff said in its morning update that more than 40 settlements, from Kupyansk and Kramatorsk in the east to Mykolaiv and Odesa in the south, were shelled over the past day. Story continues (All Times CET) Russia Expels Japanese Diplomat in Vladivostok on Spying Charges (2:32 a.m.) Russia expelled a Japanese consul in Vladivostok, accusing the diplomat of paying for sensitive information. Tatsunori Motoki was given 48 hours to leave the country, the Foreign Ministry said, according to Tass. Earlier, the Federal Security Service said the envoy in the Far Eastern city had been caught collecting restricted information about Russias ties with an unspecified country in the region, as well as on the impact of sanctions on the local economy. Kyodo News cited a Japanese government official it did not identify as saying the diplomat at the consulate in Vladivostok was detained by Russian authorities for a few hours and then released. The Japanese embassy in Russia said it was unacceptable for Russia to detain a consul, adding the move violated international rules, Kyodo added. Ukraine and Russia Both Focusing on Donetsk, Zelenskiy Says (10:15 p.m.) The eastern region of Donetsk is Ukraines number one target, Zelenskiy said in his nightly address to the nation on Monday. The same goes for Russia, he said. An especially tense situation is seen in the Donetsk region, Zelenskiy said. We are doing our best to stem the enemys actions. Putin Raises Stakes on Ukraines Bid for More Powerful Weapons (8:46 p.m.) Ukraines military is on the offensive against Russian forces and asking for more powerful weapons to press its advantage, but so far there is no sign that allies will step up their commitments. Instead, Putin dramatically raised the stakes in a Sept. 21 speech, threatening nuclear war and launching sham votes aimed at expanding Russias borders into occupied Ukraine. While supporters have piled arms into Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February, they have shied away from sending the longest-range missile systems, combat aircraft and NATO standard tanks. Putin Gives Edward Snowden Russian Citizenship (6:30 p.m.) Russias president gave citizenship to the former US National Agency Contractor, according to a presidential decree. Snowden has been in Russia since 2013, when he was granted temporary asylum while facing American charges for disclosing top-secret US spying program. In 2020, Snowden said he applied for dual US-Russian citizenship. Kremlin Says No Decisions Made on Closing Borders (12:43 p.m.) Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no decisions have been made about possibly closing the borders to stem the outflow of Russians subject to mobilization. Im not aware of anything, he said when asked about reports that the authorities plan to restrict travel outside the country by those who might be called up. He also said no decisions had been made on imposing martial law in parts of the country. Thousands of Russians have flooded to the borders in the days since the Sep. 21 mobilization order, seeking to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine. Hungary Lays Down Russian Sanctions Red Line (12:31 p.m.) Hungarys Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country wont support any European Union sanctions that could interrupt nuclear energy supplies. Russias state-controlled nuclear giant Rosatom has contracted to build a new reactor in Hungary thats expected to begin generating by 2030. We never supported and will never support any sanctions that will endanger our nuclear investment, be it in a direct or indirect way, he said Monday at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Hungary would oppose sanctions against Russia that would impact the engineering, construction or information technologies that the reactor near the city of Paks will need, he said. The EU is already moving toward a recession after sanctions disrupted east-west energy supply chains, he said. The new reactor, whose construction is expected to start next year, is needed to protect our sovereignty, according to Szijjarto. Russias Drone Attacks May Harm Grain Deal, Ukrainian Official Says (11:58 a.m.) At least five suicide drones sent by Russian forces hit Odesa over the past days, including buildings in the area near the city sea port, Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the head of the Odesa regional military administration, said during a video briefing. Russia is trying to spare its missiles and use self-exploding Iran-made drones instead, according to Bratchuk. Ukrainian authorities are worried this may affect functioning of the grain corridor and hope that all sides, including Turkey, will make sure their security guarantees will remain in effect, Bratchuk said. Zelenskiy and his key security and defense officials discussed ways to counter Russias use of new types of weapons in the war during a meeting on Monday, his press service said. (A previous version corrected an item on air defenses to indicate a decision has been made but hardware not yet sent.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. (Reuters) - Two drones launched by Russian forces into the Odesa region in Ukraine hit military objects causing a fire and the detonation of ammunition, the South command of Ukraine's forces said on Monday. "As a result of a large-scale fire and the detonation of ammunition, the evacuation of the civilian population was organised," the command said in statement on the Telegram. "Preliminarily, there have been no casualties." (Reporting in Melbourne by Lidia Kelly; Editnig by Kim Coghill) Ukraine's latest suspected mass burial site is in a shell-damaged and abandoned industrial chicken farm, on a hill near the Russian border strewn with the debris of battle. It is not known how many bodies lie there -- troops and officials speak of 90 to 100 without saying how they know -- but the signs of recent violence lie in rubble all around. Parts of the turret of a destroyed tank have been tossed in the air and crashed through the shrapnel-shredded roof of a hangar-like shed, crushing empty poultry cages below. A cold wind blows through the dust from shattered cement bricks and the handful of Ukrainian troops on guard wince occasionally when one of their own tanks lobs a shell towards Russia. De-mining teams have not yet arrived at the site outside Kozacha Lopan, around two kilometres (just over a mile) from the border, and the potential mass grave has yet to be disturbed. "I was told by the soldiers who came to our village that they saw a burial place of soldiers, but they didn't specify the number," said Lyudmyla Vakulenko, head of the Kozacha Lopan local administration. "They said a specialised unit would look into it," she added. The forensic teams are expected later this week, once the area is deemed safe for work. On Monday, soldiers moved gingerly, avoiding unpaved areas, wary of mines and unexploded shells. - Unexploded shells - But reports of the potential mass burial will confirm the worst fears of Ukrainians, still shocked by the discovery of a makeshift forest cemetery further south in recaptured Izyum. There, Ukrainian investigation teams found what they said were 447 bodies buried during the Russian occupation of the area: 425 civilians, including five children, and 22 Ukrainian servicemen. The Kharkiv regional governor, Oleg Synegubov, said that most of the Izyum bodies showed signs of a violent death and that 30 of the victims appeared to have been tortured beforehand. On Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky told CBS News that Ukraine had found "two more mass graves, big graves with hundreds of people", but it was not clear if he was referring to Kozacha Lopan. Story continues It is not yet known whose bodies lie in the chicken plant. Soldiers guarding the complex told AFP they expected to find the corpses of both Russian and Ukrainian troops and local civilians. But Vakulenko says the officer who told her of the find said the military thinks it is a grave for soldiers, and that she has received another clue as to the soldiers' potential identity. On April 22, she says, a Ukrainian force from the 72nd Mechanised Brigade counterattacked Russian forces dug in near the chicken plant, but were beaten back with heavy casualties. The area was finally liberated by Ukrainian forces this month, and over the weekend Vakulenko -- who runs the civil administration in the border area north of the city of Kharkiv -- got a call. "Yes, there was a phone call on the community hotline from a woman named Olena. I don't know if she's a relative or a friend, just 'Olena'," Vakulenko told AFP. "She left her phone number said that some of her relatives or friends were killed on April 22 near the village of Kozacha Lopan. "She asked, 'Can I get some official information?' And we answered: 'So far, no. Until the exhumation is carried out. Until this unit does its work and tells us what happened'." - Under-floor bunker - Whoever is buried under the chicken plant, it seems clear who was there when the burials took place. The hangars and outhouses are full of the signs of Russian occupation. Deep trenches have been dug under the floors of some of the sheds, each the size of the tank that would have squatted there under the cover of the cavernous, metal-roofed poultry barns. A Russian tank crewman's leather helmet hung on a fence post, and a Russian-issue military jacket lay in the mud. Ukrainian forces said the unit based there was recruited from Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia under Russian occupation. In the farm's mechanical workshop, a bunker has been dug under the concrete floor, and the former residents have built a makeshift gym with a concrete barbell and a punching bag made of car tyres. A shell hole has ripped through one corner of the roof, allowing a shaft of sunlight into the gloom. dc/pmu/jmm By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Ukraine on Monday urged the European Union to support its plans to make the emergency paths for grain exports through the bloc permanent, with investment in at least five border terminals and a pipeline through which sunflower oil would flow. Ukraine's agriculture minister Mykola Solsky told EU counterparts and the European Commission his country needed financial support to reduce its reliance on Black Sea exports that Russia had blocked and could hinder again. Its grain and sunflower seed exports have risen from 200,000 tonnes in the month after Russia's Feb. 24 invasion to 4.5 million tonnes in August, helped by a July deal to unblock ports, but most still following overland corridors through Europe. "We think these corridors should become stable and permanent," Solsky told a news conference after a meeting in Brussels. He said Ukraine needed help to increase its fleet of trucks, adding a rise to 16,000 from 12,000 now could allow 10-20 million tonnes of cereals to cross land borders per year. Ukraine, one of the world's largest grain exporters, normally supplies around 45 million tonnes of grain to the global market per year. Five border terminals should be built, costing $25-30 million each. The cost of a sunflower oil pipeline would depend on its route. Solsky recognised shipping was cheaper, but for crops in western Ukraine the distance to Baltic ports was no further than to the Black Sea, where Ukraine would face an "unpredictable neighbour" even after the war. "To have an alternative route is a must, routes through friendly democratic countries in order to continue business," he said. Agriculture commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski said he would ask the EU executive to assess ways for the bloc to finance such initiatives. Plummeting exports for the 2022-2023 season have driven up global food prices and prompted fears of shortages in Africa and the Middle East. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop) In what may be the most divisive period in modern American History, even more divisive than the turbulent sixties due to today's lack of patriotism, consider what are the major catalysts causing so much of this calamity of conflict, and vote: What most instigates the division of America, on this day September 20, 2022? Racism within our society Sex realignment to the detriment of our society. Biden /Harris Wide Open Southern Border Policy for the Demographic Upheaval of OUR Constitutional Republic Rampant Crime in Democratic controlled cities, and the possible contagion elsewhere Covid Pandemic, and its mishandling at the political, and bureaucratic levels. The unresolved questions /allegation regarding the flawed 2020 General Election January 6th Riot or "Armed Insurrection", depending upon patriotic perspective Joe Biden as Divisive Leader; Ineffective and Corrupt Executive Failed Education Industry, from an overall perspective, regarding all levels of education. Propagandistic Media in complete conflict with the First Amendment's guarantee of Freedom of Speech, and the awesome responsibility of a Free Press.. "Orangeman Bad!" Bureaucracy rushing to a behemoth size, its unjustified expense, and far too often overreach. The Weaponized Deep State for political purposes A secular ambivalence to all that is real. Record number of overdose deaths from opioids and now Fentanyl Biden Administration's disastrous Foreign Policy Bidenflation /supply chain failure inevitably evolving into stagflation and recession. Sam Jensen, with her children, Jack, 3, and Scarlett, 5, view a memorial of flowers, stuffed animals and candles Saturday after placing their own bouquet at the site of a burned house at 5550 Ann Marie Lane in Oak Forest. Three people were found shot outside the property Friday morning, and a fourth person, who police say was the offender, was found inside the house after the fire was extinguished. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) As funeral arrangements were pending Monday for an Oak Forest woman and her two adult children who were shot outside their home Friday following a domestic incident, police said they had responded numerous times in recent years to the home for domestic calls. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page had been established by the father of the two children to help pay for burial expenses. Advertisement Police believe 44-year-old Carlos Gomez shot Emilio Rodriguez, 20, and Briana Rodriguez, 22, as well as their mother, 43-year-old Lupe Gomez, outside their home early Friday in the 5500 block of Ann Marie Lane. Carlos Gomez apparently set the familys home ablaze before shooting himself, Oak Forest police Chief Jason Reid said. Advertisement Carlos Gomez died of a gunshot wound to the head and his death was ruled a suicide, according to the Cook County medical examiners office. Police stand outside a house in the 5500 block of Ann Marie Lane in Oak Fores Friday after three people were shot outside the home and a fire destroyed the structure. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) Lupe Gomez had multiple gunshot wounds, and the two siblings died of gunshot wounds to the chest, according to the office. Briana Rodriguez graduated from Oak Forest High School, just a few blocks north of their home, in 2018, and her brother Emilio Rodriguez graduated in 2020, according to Bremen High School District 228. Police said they responded to a report of a domestic incident at 6:35 a.m. at the address and found two gunshot victims in the driveway and a third gunshot victim in the roadway south of the home. Reid said he couldnt say who was found in the driveway and who was found in the street. Police moved the shooting victims into squad cars before they were taken to hospitals, as officers set up a perimeter for a person barricaded in the home, later identified as Carlos Gomez. A body is removed Friday from the house in the 5500 block of Ann Marie Lane in Oak Forest. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) The chief confirmed the two adult children who died were brother and sister and that Lupe Gomez was their mother. Two other children lived in the home, and one was outside the house when police arrived and another was sent out of the home later, Reid said. Police had previously responded to the address between six and eight times since 2016 for domestic issues, Reid said. Advertisement In a 2016 call, Gomez was arrested on a charge of domestic battery, with his wife being the alleged victim, the chief said. He said he did not know the outcome of the charge. He said officers were most recently were called to the address for domestic matters this month. Police have reviewed video footage from surveillance cameras at neighboring homes that very clearly show the tragic event, Reid said. Lupe Gomez and her children had been shot while outside the familys home, he said. Reid said the matter is still an open investigation. We are trying to put together all of the things that led up to this, Reid said. We are trying to establish the why this occurred. We are still looking into several things. A memorial including flowers, candles and teddy bears has been set up outside of construction fencing erected along the perimeter of the heavily damaged home. Advertisement A memorial Friday outside a home in the 5500 block of Ann Marie Lane in Oak Forest. (Mike Nolan / Daily Southtown) A school bus driver, Cathy Walker, stopped by the memorial Monday to say a prayer and place a bouquet of flowers in the fence. Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday > She said the two girls who were unharmed were on her route for Arbor Park Elementary School District 145, although the older of the two was now attending Oak Forest High School. Emilio used to come to the bus stop to pick his sisters up, Walker said. They were the sweetest girls and always had smiles on their faces. Walker said she has been a bus driver for 21 years and you get to know the families. This shouldnt happen to anyone, she said. According to the medical examiners office, Lupe Gomez was pronounced dead at 7:35 a.m. Friday at Advocate South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest. Advertisement Her two adult children were pronounced dead shortly after 7:30 a.m. at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, while Carlos Gomez was pronounced dead at the scene at 3 p.m., according to the medical examiner. mnolan@tribpub.com Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska has said Russian President Vladimir Putins move to mobilize troops amid the ongoing conflict is a bad sign for the world. We cant say that we get used to this war, but we are getting used to the illogical actions of the Russian Federation, Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told ABC Newss Amy Robach in an interview aired Monday. When the whole world wants this war to be over, they continue to recruit soldiers for their army. Of course, we are concerned about this. We are worried. And this is a bad sign for the whole world. Putin recently issued a partial mobilization order to call up hundreds of thousands of Russians reservists, a move many Russians are protesting. Some Russians have fled the country to avoid summons, even as their leader seems intent on prolonging the conflict, now more than half a year on. Putins mobilization move and recent threats about the potential use of nuclear weapons indicate the Russian president is scrambling to react to Ukraines recently intensified counteroffensive that pressed Russian forces into retreat from some occupied areas. Zelenska in the interview also commented on a United Nations report released last week that found evidence Russia had committed war crimes during its assault on the country, including the rape and torture of Ukrainian children. On the one hand, its horrible news. But its the news that we knew about already. On the other hand, its great news that the whole world can finally see that this is a heinous crime. This war is against humanity and humankind, Zelenska said. The first lady thanked Americans for aiding Ukraines defense and called for continued support. Im sure that its not war between Ukraine and Russia. Its war for values of the world. A war for freedom, for human rights, for all that we love. All the people of the world, we love our children, we love our homes, we love our homelands. And thats exactly what Ukrainians are fighting for now, Zelenska said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The details of the kamikaze drone attack on Odesa Oblast became known Read also: Russian invaders again attack Odesa with kamikaze drones One drone was destroyed by air defense forces, the command said. Two others hit a military infrastructure facility, starting a large-scale fire and detonation of ammunition as a result. The firefighting and rescue operation at the scene of the attack continues. According information available at this time, there were no casualties. An evacuation of the civilian population in the area near the ammunition depot was launched. This is the second such attack in two days: On Sept. 25, the Russians attacked Odesa, hitting an administrative building in the city center three times with Iranian-supplied kamikaze drones. The Russians also attacked Odesa with kamikaze drones from the sea on Sept. 23, resulting in one civilian was killed. One enemy drone was shot down by air defense forces over the sea. Shahed drones in service with the Russians: What is known about Russias purchase of Iranian drones The media reported in late August, citing representatives of Western intelligence, that Russia had obtained hundreds of Iranian combat drones. According to CNN, Russia has officially purchased and transferred the Mohajer-6 and Shahed-series drones the Shahed-129 and Shahed-191. Read also: Military expert on Iranian Shahed-136 drones in service with Russia On Aug. 31, the White House officially confirmed the information about Russias purchase of Iranian drones. In early September, the United States imposed sanctions on an Iranian company it accused of coordinating military flights to transport Iranian drones to Russia and three other companies it said were involved in the production of Iranian drones. Tehran has vigorously denied it was providing Moscow with any kind of military assistance. Ukrainian forces first shot down an Iranian Shahed-136 loitering munition in the town of Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast, on Sept. 13. Shared-136 drones were later used to attack Odesa and Dnipro, with six of them getting shot down on Sept. 23. Story continues Read also: Irans provision of drones to Moscow supports the murder of Ukrainains, says Presidents Office Ukraine has recently withdrawn the accreditation of the Iranian ambassador and imposed a significant reduction on the staff of the Iranian embassy in Kyiv, over Iran supplying Russia with drones to use in the war in Ukraine. The first reports that Iran might supply Russia with kamikaze drones appeared over a month ago. Ukraine has since the beginning of Russias full-scale invasion over seven months ago been pleading with its allies to provide it with adequate numbers of modern air defense systems. However, only a small number of such systems have as yet been provided. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine The University of California (UC) system is channeling Aaliyah and telling rejected applicants, Dust yourself off and try again. UC higher-ups recently unveiled a new plan to help improve admission access: giving select high schoolers who were rejected a second chance. Specifically, the opportunity will be available beginning next year for rejected applicants who failed to take at least 15 college-prep courses (aka A-G courses), which are required for freshman admission, according to the UC website. The proposed pilot program, presented Wednesday at the Board of Regents meeting in San Diego, is aimed at about 3,700 of the 10,000 California first-year UC applicants who did not meet the systems first-year admission requirements about half of whom were low-income, underrepresented students of color or the first in their families to attend college, the Los Angeles Times reports. However, in order to qualify for UC admission, eligible second-time applicants will have to first complete the necessary coursework at a community college. While the idea sounds almost identical to the process of transferring to a UC from a community college, the main difference is that UC will make the conditional offer soon after admission decisions are released in the spring to incentivize students who are otherwise rejected from their campuses of choice, according to the Los Angeles Times. This will convince so many more students to stay in school if they know that transferring into UC is actually a tangible reality, Abeeha Hussain, a UCLA student who transferred from Palomar College, said, the Los Angeles Times reports. It will give so much more access to low-income students and others and also enrich the UC with more representation. This sentiment was also shared by Regent Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the head of the College Futures Foundation and the ex-chancellor of California Community Colleges. Being able to grab them, give them the opportunity to get into the UC and give them a road map for how to succeed would send a huge positive message to low-income communities and communities of color in California that UC is serious about finding talent in all places, Oakley said, according to the Los Angeles Times. Story continues Similar to the UC systems already-existing transfer admission guarantee (TAG), this proposed program would allow eligible students to earn an ensured spot at one of six UC campuses: Santa Barbara, Davis, Irvine, Merced, Riverside or Santa Cruz. While students can still apply to attend the other, more popular UCs (Los Angeles, Berkeley and San Diego), they cannot earn a guaranteed spot. What do you think about this second-chance initiative, and would you be here for other university systems following suit? A sound believed to be a car crash led investigating troopers to a burning barn and a Honda with an unresponsive teenage driver inside, New York state police say. Flames erupted after the 17-year-old crashed their minivan into the barn around 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 22 in the town of Wappinger, according to a state police news release. Troopers tried extinguishing the flames before pulling the driver out of the Honda Odyssey to safety, state police say. The teen was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries considered to be non-life-threatening, according to authorities. Ultimately, the driver was charged with driving while intoxicated, police say. The crash closed state route 9D for 12 hours and left the barn destroyed, according to the release. Several fire agencies, including the Hughsonville Fire Department, arrived at the scene and battled the fire before it came under control, police say. Authorities are continuing to investigate the incident, the release states. Wappinger is about 75 miles north of New York City. Passengers flee after crash, leave woman dying in street, California police say Wedding guests dive into water at marina to try to save man in sunken SUV, CT cops say Deputy drove drunk in cop car, fired gun at two people, South Carolina officials say 13-year-old running to meet friend is fatally struck by school vehicle, Florida cops say Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday announced the United States will commit $457.5 million to support Ukrainian law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, including funding to investigate Russian atrocities. The new allocation brings the total to more than $645 million since mid-December to support groups like Ukraines national police and border guard as Russias invasion enters its eighth month. The United States has also provided more than $15 billion in separate security assistance to support the Ukraines military resistance against Russian forces. Ukrainian law enforcement officers remain resilient, motivated and determined to carry out their wide-ranging law enforcement missions and support for innocent civilians in towns and cities facing continuous Russian shelling, Blinken said in a statement on Monday. Blinken said a portion of the new allocation will continue U.S. support for Ukrainian efforts to investigate and prosecute atrocities perpetrated by Russian forces. Ukrainian forces have liberated thousands of square miles previously occupied by Russia in recent weeks, also bringing forward evidence of mass graves and torture in cities like Izyum. Officials similarly found mass burial sites in Bucha, a town near the capital city, Kyiv, after Russia fled the region earlier this year. President Biden at the time called the Bucha killings a war crime and said Russian President Vladimir Putin should face trial. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a speech last week before the United Nations General Assembly called for a special tribunal to punish Russia. Concerns are also growing in the West after Putin in an address to the nation last week again threatened the use of nuclear weapons, claiming it is not a bluff as he also called up 300,000 reservists to bolster Russian forces after they faced steep losses from a Ukrainian counteroffensive. U.S. officials, including White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, vowed to respond decisively if Putin follows through on his threats and promised catastrophic consequences for Russia. An overnight drone strike hours later near Odesa, a key city located on Ukraines southern coast, hit a military installation and detonated ammunition, sparking a massive fire and explosion. The port city has seen a series of drone attacks in recent days. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) The Biden administration said Monday it is expanding and extending temporary legal status in the United States for several thousand people from Myanmar after a military coup last year in the Asian country. The decision extends Temporary Protected Status for 18 months for an estimated 970 people of Myanmar until May 25, 2024, and makes an additional 2,290 eligible to live and work until that date if they were in the United States on Sunday. People of Myanmar are continuing to suffer a complex and deteriorating humanitarian crisis due to a military coup, upheaval, and security forces brutal violence against civilians," said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Myanmar, also called Burma, has been ruled by the military for most of the past 70 years. The armys takeover interrupted a gradual transition toward democratic civilian government and a more modern, open economy and resulted in a slew of sanctions against the military, which controls many industries as well as army family members and cronies. About 150,000 immigrants from Myanmar lived in the U.S. in 2019, according to the Migration Policy Institute analysis of census data. The largest concentrations were in Marion County, Indiana, with 8,800; Los Angeles County, California, with 7,600; and Ramsey County, Minnesota, with 6,800. Congress created the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990 to provide a safe haven for people unable to return to their countries due to natural disasters or civil strife. About 350,000 people from more than a dozen countries benefit from the status, which can be extended in increments of up to 18 months. People of El Salvador are the largest beneficiaries. The Trump administration attempted to end the status for many countries but faced legal challenges. ___ Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. US lawmakers negotiated behind the scenes Monday to strike a temporary agreement that would avert a potentially damaging government shutdown, with federal funding due to expire at the end of the working week. A so-called "continuing resolution" -- essentially a stop-gap deal keeping the lights on until mid-December -- is likely to include more than $12 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine. There will also be cash for resettling Afghan refugees, boosting winter heating allowances for low-income families and providing disaster aid in flooded Jackson, Mississippi. One roadblock however is a piece of legislation Democrats have pledged to attach to the resolution known as the Energy Independence and Security Act 2022, which has opponents on both sides of the political aisle. The act would speed up the nation's permitting process for energy infrastructure -- both for fossil fuel projects and the clean energy initiatives championed by President Joe Biden. But Republicans aren't keen on handing Democrats another legislative victory with around 40 days to go until elections that will decide who controls Congress for the remainder of Biden's first term. Liberals are also opposed to the text, spearheaded by West Virginia Democrat and fossil fuel magnate Senator Joe Manchin, arguing that it will lead to more oil and natural gas drilling. Manchin called on both parties to "ignore the toxic 'all or nothing' legislative approach that has made it hard to discern what is truly essential for our nation" in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Sunday. Although prospects for a shutdown always raise pulses as the deadline approaches -- the fiscal year ends at midnight on Friday going into Saturday -- analysts see such an outcome so close to the election as highly unlikely. If the energy measure fails in a Senate vote Tuesday, analysts expect it simply to be dropped and for the main vote on government funding to go ahead without it. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has warned members that the chamber will stay in session through Saturday if necessary. Story continues Shutdowns threaten the finances of hundreds of thousands of government workers who risk being sent home without pay as parks, museums and other federal properties close. There have been no shutdowns so far under Biden, although his predecessor Donald Trump saw two, including a 35-day shutdown from late 2018 to early 2019 that was the longest in US history. ft/caw U.S. defense officials are looking to leverage Ukraines unexpected success in resisting Russia to dissuade China from a potential invasion of Taiwan. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters last week that Chinese leaders would be making an enormous mistake to invade Taiwan, pointing to the economic consequences Russia has incurred and warning the tab for such aggression can be very significant. He also noted Moscows miscalculation about the length of the war, the hard resolve of the Ukrainians to fight, and the willingness of the Western world to provide Kyiv with lethal aid and military expertise. The short war you imagine may not be the war you get, he said, adding that he believes the Taiwanese people would fight, and I believe that we would assist them in some form. As tension with Beijing remains high following Speaker Nancy Pelosis (D-Calif.) visit to Taiwan last month, U.S. officials have offered various public warnings to deter Chinese aggression, promising to arm and even send troops to defend Taiwan against an invasion. President Biden last week told 60 Minutes that U.S. troops would help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, the fourth times hes made the declaration since becoming president. Ukraines stunning gains this month, forcing a Russian retreat from occupied areas, has given the Biden administration a chance to tout the power of a US-backed military against an occupying army. I do not think that China wants to put themselves in a position that Russia finds itself in today, which is invading a democratic neighbor one that I think would generate an enormous amount of global sympathy, Pentagon policy undersecretary Colin Kahl earlier this month. I would hope that they would draw the lesson from Russias experience that, Hey, maybe we shouldnt do that,' Kahl said Sept. 7. The U.S. has long pressed back against Chinas intimidating tactics in the Indo-Pacific, particularly through drills and sending Navy warships through international waters claimed by China. The last such operation took place just last week, when the Pentagon sent a ship through the Taiwan Strait. Story continues But Beijings intensifying military intimidation of Taiwan, which sits fewer than 110 miles off the coast of China, has raised questions about a speed-up timeline for a Beijing-launched military conflict to bring the island under its control. Chinese president Xi Jinping has previously said his military could be capable of taking Taiwan by 2027, five years from now. Recent events in the Taiwan Strait, however, particularly a massive Chinese live fire military drill that took place in August, have some worrying an invasion could happen sooner rather than later. Those fears were renewed with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yis ominous message on Saturday at the U.N. General Assembly, a speech that repeatedly emphasized Chinas claim to Taiwan. Any scheme to interfere in Chinas internal affairs is bound to meet the strong opposition of all Chinese and any move to obstruct Chinas reunification is bound to be crushed by the wheels of history, Wang said. He also repeatedly expressed Chinese commitment to reunification with Taiwan following its split from the mainland in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War. Only when China is fully reunified can there be true peace across the Taiwan Strait, Wang said. Despite Bidens pledges to defend Taiwan, administration officials have insisted that U.S. policy toward Taiwan had not changed. The U.S. since 1979 has maintained a one China policy, which walks a fine line recognizing Beijing as the sole legal Chinese government while maintaining an unofficial relationship with Taiwan. The administration in February sent a group of former U.S. defense and national security officials to Taiwan, in a move meant as a signal to China that war with Taiwan also means a war with the United States, U.S. Institute of Peace experts Andrew Scobell and Lucy Stevenson-Yang wrote in March. That looming U.S. military presence may keep China from moving on Taiwan for the time being, a tactic the Pentagon seemed to bet on when it revealed last week that the Air Forces new B-21 Raider strategic bomber would be rolled out in early December. By virtue of the B-21 and the capability that it will provide to the United States military and to our allies and partners around the world, it certainly does send a message, in terms of our ability to provide global strike anywhere, anytime, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Thursday, when asked whether the announcement was a message to China. Since Bidens comments on 60 Minutes, the Pentagon says it has not seen any military shifts by China in the Taiwan Strait. Earlier this month Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director David Cohen said that the U.S. intelligence community does not believe that Xi has made up his mind a over whether or not to attack Taiwan. He added that its believed the Chinese leader would rather take control of the island using nonmilitary means. In the meantime, the CIA and other agencies are keeping an eye on what lessons China could learn from Russias attack on Ukraine, which U.S. officials believe has influenced when and how China would go about attacking Taiwan. We are watching very carefully how the Chinese are understanding the situation in Ukraine how the Russians have performed, how the Ukrainians have performed, and the implications of that for their own plans as they may be in Taiwan, Cohen said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Hampton Roads Chambers Power of Women program brings successful women in the business community to a platform to share lessons learned, failures and successes. The event on Sept. 23 brought first lady Suzanne Youngkin to the podium followed by a panel discussion with Lynn Clements, president of Clements Consulting; Marcia Conston, president of Tidewater Community College; and Angie Lombardi, vice president of marketing for The Franklin Johnston Group. About 150 attendees, mostly women, gathered at the Westin Virginia Beach Town Center to garner words of wisdom from the leading women. A grateful Youngkin introduced herself as the wife of the 74th governor of the commonwealth. One of the most exciting things that I get to do in this role is meet outstanding people just like you, she said. She thanked the audience for leading in their lives, companies and in the state. You really are the engine that makes this commonwealth what it is today, Youngkin said. Youngkin reflected back to the campaign days in 2021 as the Women for Glenn coalition grew to more than 27,000 women throughout Virginia. She recalled concerns she heard, including educational opportunities, cost of living, nutritious food for children, access to elder care and mental health stability for youth amid the pandemic. She was quiet on issues that the General Assembly may face, including stronger restrictions on abortion. Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been vocal that he would support a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except for in the cases of rape, incest or when the mothers life is at risk. She boasted that Boeing, Raytheon and Plenty Unlimited are all moving their headquarters to Virginia; Google and Amazon have both invested heavily in the state; and Lego will put its largest U.S. manufacturing facility with a zero carbon footprint outside of Richmond. One of the things Glenn and I are laser-focused on is keeping our young people in the commonwealth, she told attendees. So many of the companies youre involved in are going to be places where we want our community college, trade school and higher ed institutions to feed our young people Story continues Youngkin said the workforce needs to be reinvigorated and in many cases, retooled. She encouraged the women to sign up for her Sisterhood monthly newsletter, which spotlights women working in various sectors across the state. My job is to amplify what is happening in Virginia, she said. I need your help in this; I need your partnership. Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, sandra.pennecke@insidebiz.com The mention of Egypt immediately conjures up images of pyramids, sphinxes, mummies and the mask of Tutankhamun. But going abroad to visit popular museums in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic is not easy. Help, though, is at hand. Visitors to the Meet Egypt: The Exhibition of Rare Relics and Mummies held at the Meet You Museum in Chengdu, Sichuan province, running until Nov 13, may find that the 114 exhibits on display from the Egyptian Museum of Barcelona, Spain, convey a sense of the country's ancient mystery. Representing the spectacle of civilization in the Archaic Era of Egypt, or the Early Dynastic Period, more than 4,000 years ago, to Roman rule in the fourth century AD, the exhibits include a gilded mummy case (which covers the body inside the sarcophagus), five wooden mummy cases, five mummified animals, one animal mask, 10 ancient statues and four canopic jars (used to store organs). Also on display are six scarabs (amulets or seals), 11 pieces of jewelry, three weapons, three musical instruments, two murals as well as 63 items of pottery, bronze ware and carved stone. Story at a glance Virginia public school students across the state plan to walk out of their classrooms on Tuesday to protest new model policies that aim to roll back certain protections for transgender students. The Virginia Department of Education this month released proposed policies to prevent transgender students from using restrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity and require parents to consent to their child changing their name or pronouns at school. Student walkouts will begin Tuesday morning and continue through the late afternoon. Virginia students from more than 20 public school districts across the state plan to walk out of class on Tuesday to protest a slate of proposed policies introduced by Gov. Glenn Youngkins (R) administration that would roll back certain protections for transgender students. The Virginia Department of Education earlier this month unveiled a new set of model transgender policies for the year that require public school students to use facilities like restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their sex assigned at birth. Teachers under the new policies would need written permission from a students parents to address the student using a different name or different pronouns or allow the student to change their name on school forms. The proposed policies drew sharp backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates, who said the measures deliberately stigmatize and isolate vulnerable youth. Several Virginia school districts have said they are concerned about the policies and have promised to protect transgender students through enforcement of existing nondiscrimination policies. America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. Early last week, students from more than 100 Virginia schools announced their intent to walk out of their classrooms on Tuesday to protest the administrations model policies, demanding that the state Education Department revoke the draft policies and individual school districts reject them. Story continues As a closeted student, my friends and I are terrified that we wont be able to come home if these proposed guidelines go through, one student, whose name was not shared, said in a media release from the Pride Liberation Project, which organized the coordinated walkouts. We just want to be ourselves at school, without worrying about whether well be subject to abuse or harassment, they said. The Pride Liberation Project, a coalition of more than 500 LGBTQ+ student advocates, on Instagram last week said the adoption of Youngkins model policies would be the single biggest loss for Queer rights in Virginia in years. The original model policies were the cornerstone of almost every Queer protection that existed for LGBTQIA+ students, the group wrote, referring to policies adopted by former Gov. Ralph Northams (D) administration that allowed transgender students to use school facilities consistent with their gender identity and required teachers to accept a transgender students name and pronouns without consent from the students family. These proposed guidelines are essentially taking that cornerstone and using it to undermine our rights. Virginias education department this month said Northams model transgender policies disregarded the rights of parents and ignored certain legal and constitutional principles that impact how schools are able to educate their students. Student walkouts across Virginia will begin Tuesday morning and continue through the late afternoon, according to a schedule released to media. A public comment period on Youngkins model transgender policy began Sep. 26 and will run through Oct. 26. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. During former president Donald Trumps rally in Wilmington, North Carolina on Friday, he aired his normal grievances about how the 2020 presidential election was supposedly stolen even though North Carolina voted for him twice. He also spoke with voracious enthusiasm of cities in chaos amid crime waves and the US-Mexico border being overrun by an invasion of criminals. All of this was done ostensibly in the service of his preferred Senate candidate, Representative Ted Budd, whom he supported in the Republican Senate primary. But the former president carefully avoided talking about one subject throughout his rally: the Supreme Courts Dobbs v Jackson decision that overturned Roe v Wade. This is despite the fact that, aside from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, no Republican is more responsible for overturning the enshrined right to seek an abortion than the former president. Trumps nomination of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett gave the court its 6-3 conservative majority needed to overturn Roe. But Trump has presumably realized how unpopular the overturning is, hence his avoidance of the subject. He mentioned abortion in his rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania but talked about how states will make the decision by the way, the states will make the decision. And there was no such rhetoric in North Carolina, where the number of adults who support abortion being legal in all or most cases is about the same as in Pennsylvania (and the number of people who say it should be illegal in all or most cases is also about the same). Yet, in the afternoon during the warm-up acts, an ad played crediting Trump for the ruling on Dobbs. Therein lies one of the central challenges for Republicans: For decades, they promised their most ardent socially conservative voters that they wanted to overturn Roe but couldnt for various reasons. They knew that as much as doing so would excite the religious right, it would also alienate a good chunk of women voters and other swing voters they need to win eletions. Story continues This leads us to Budd and his Senate race. Polling suggests he either has a slight lead in the race against Democratic nominee Cheri Beasley or is just slightly behind her. But given the fact that North Carolinas Senate seat has been just out of reach for Democrats since 2008, many Democrats do not want to get their hopes up about the state. They have instead focused more on flipping Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to grow their majority. Budd is also one of the co-sponsors of the House version of Senator Lindsey Grahams bill that would ban abortion nationally after 15 weeks. He likes to say that the Democrats position on abortion is out of touch with North Carolinians. Indeed, Republicans ranging from Blake Masters to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to Lindsey Graham have tried taking that position recently but it hasnt taken the way they clearly hoped it would. A WGHP/Emerson College/The Hill poll from earlier this month showed that while voters are worried about the economy more than anything else, abortion is more likely to motivate them to vote. Meanwhile, in an Emerson College Polling/CBS17/The Hill survey last week, 58 per cent of North Carolinians polled said that the Supreme Court overturning Roe made them either somewhat more likely or much more likely to vote in the midterms. That may be why, both during his talk before Trumps speech and when the former president brought him onstage, Budd did not say a word about abortion or the legislation he co-sponsored. When you endorsed me, you said, Ted, its because you didnt back down, so I want to let you know that Im not going to back down either, friends, he told the crowd. But apparently, hes willing to back down from a bill he co-sponsored. NASA is conducting a crash test roughly 7 million miles from Earth. During the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) set for Monday, a spacecraft will collide with a 525-ft. wide asteroid called Dimorphos if all goes according to plan. The crash, scheduled for 7:14 p.m. EDT, is going to be monitored on cameras and telescopes. Watch the live feed of the test above. The test is in preparation for a potential need in the future to defend the planet against asteroids and comets on a collision course with Earth. "This really is about asteroid deflection, not disruption," Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist and mission team leader at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, told the AP. "This isn't going to blow up the asteroid. It isn't going to put it into lots of pieces." RELATED: 'Potentially Hazardous' Asteroid Twice the Size of Empire State Building to Fly by Earth It'll take days before scientists understand if the asteroid actually changed its course after the planetary defense test, which reportedly costs $325 million. For more on NASA, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day. Dimorphos, which orbits a parent asteroid called Didymos, is not a threat, NASA says. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows an illustration of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft approaching the Dimorphos and Didymos asteroids Photo by NASA/JOHNS HOPKINS APL/STEVE GRIBBEN HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock According to CBS News, there isn't an asteroid NASA knows to be larger than 459 feet across that has "significant chance" of hitting Earth in the next 100 years. RELATED: Scientists May Have Found Pieces of the Asteroid That Caused the Extinction of the Dinosaurs: Report Still, the collision itself is being looked at as monumental in the "history of humankind," per NASA planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson. "This demonstration is extremely important to our future here on the Earth and life on Earth," Johnson said, according to CBS News. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory is managing Dart, and the navigation of the spacecraft will reportedly be able to tell the smaller asteroid target from its larger sister asteroid before it makes impact. NASA says there's a less than 10% chance that Dart will miss its target, per the AP. "This is stuff of science-fiction books and really corny episodes of 'StarTrek' from when I was a kid, and now it's real," NASA program scientist Tom Statler told the AP. NASA is holding a 6 p.m. EDT briefing Monday, as well as a second at 8 p.m. after the impact. Ron DeSantis and Pete Buttigieg U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has taken Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to task over the anti-LGBTQ+ politician flying asylum seekers from Texas to Marthas Vineyard in Massachusetts. "Obviously, there are issues with the border and with migration, but these are the kinds of stunts you see from people who don't have a solution, Buttigieg said in an interview with journalist Evan Smith at the 2022 Texas Tribune Festival. His comments drew applause from the audience. Governor DeSantis was in Congress. Where was he when they were debating immigration reform? Buttigieg asks in the interview. What have any of these people done to be part of the solution? So, you know, I get that if youre after attention its one thing to call attention to a problem when you have a course of action its another thing to just call attention to a problem because the problem is actually more useful to you than the solution, and that helps you call attention to yourself. And thats whats going on, Buttigieg continued, And the problem is, its one thing if it was just people being obnoxious, but human beings are being impacted by that. You flee a communist regime in Venezuela, you come here, and then somebody tricks you somebody using Florida taxpayer money for some reason tricks you in going from Texas to Massachusetts. It is not just ineffectual, it is hurting people in order to get attention. The clip posted online has been viewed by more than 2.1 million on Twitter and has been liked by more than 105,000. One Twitter user responded to the clip, Slayer Pete. Others praised Buttigieg for his response to DeSantiss actions. About two weeks ago, asylum seekers, many of whom are believed to be from Venezuela, were sent to Marthas Vineyard from Texas due to arrangements made by DeSantis. Many said they did not understand where they were heading or why. DeSantis said that he wanted to make a statement about President Joe Bidens immigration policies. The move has been condemned by Biden administration officials and human rights advocates. 657 Boulevard in Westfield (Google Maps) The six-bedroom Dutch colonial looks like the quintessential American dream home. Nestled on a quiet street in a salubrious suburb, 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey boasts four bathrooms and more than 3,800 square feet on almost a half-acre of land. Its in a great school district less than 28 miles from Manhattan the perfect family home for both commuting and raising children. At least thats what the Broaddus family thought when they bought it nearly a decade ago. Instead, they claimed they received a series of terrifying letters warning that their new home and young children were under constant surveillance by a creepy stranger who knew intimate details of their lives. He called himself The Watcher. Insurance executive Derek Broaddus and his wife, Maria, were so scared by the letters that they never moved in. Multiple investigations undertaken by Broaddus hirees and authorities attempted to unmask the letter writer. The case sparked countless theories, both locally and internationally; everyone from neighbours to sex offenders to the Broaddus family themselves came under suspicion. It took the family years to sell the home at a massive loss. And to this day, there are still no clues about who The Watcher might be and what that threatening person truly wanted. Many in Westfield try to downplay the mystery or avoid discussing it altogether; others have altered their jogging routes to avoid passing a house that still gives them a weird feeling. The Dutch Colonial at 657 Boulevard in upscale Westfield, NJ was built in 1905 and bought by the Broaddus family in 2014; its pictured during the time it was occupied by the Bakes family, who had no issues while living there (Margaret Bakes Davis) It all began in 2014 when Derek and Maria Broaddus, who had three young children, decided to buy their dream home for $1.35million in her hometown. They moved in their furniture and carried out extensive renovations but before they could take up residence themselves, their idyllic family adventure took a strange and eerie turn. Just days after closing, Mr Broaddus says he discovered a white envelope, addressed to The New Owner, in the family mailbox. How did you end up here? the letter read. Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within? Story continues It added that the home had been the subject of my family for decades now and as it approaches its 110th birthday, I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time. Do you know the history of the house? Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard? Why are you here? I will find out. In a total of three letters, the Broadduses say the writer mentioned specifics that presumably could have only been witnessed and heard in close proximity to the home. I see already that you have flooded 657 Boulevard with contractors so that you can destroy the house as it was supposed to be, the person wrote. Tsk, tsk, tsk bad move. You dont want to make 657 Boulevard unhappy. The writer added: You have children. I have seen them. So far I think there are three that I have counted, then the threatening: Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested? Better for me. Was your old house too small for the growing family? Or was it greed to bring me your children? Once I know their names I will call to them and draw them too [sic] me. The writer eventually did refer to the children by birth order and by their nicknames, even one child in particular, reported New York Magazines The Cut. Mr Broaddus told the publication that he was a depressed wreck as he and his wife attempted to figure out what to do; she said their main goal was to avoid putting the children in harms way. That was certainly a difficult decision, given the malevolent tone of the correspondence. It has been years and years since the young blood ruled the hallways of the house, The Watcher wrote. Have you found all of the secrets it holds yet? Will the young blood play in the basement? Or are they too afraid to go down there alone. I would [be] very afraid if I were them. It is far away from the rest of the house. If you were upstairs you would never hear them scream. Will they sleep in the attic? Or will you all sleep on the second floor? Who has the bedrooms facing the street? Ill know as soon as you move in. It will help me to know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better. All of the windows and doors in 657 Boulevard allow me to watch you and track you as you move through the house. Who am I? I am the Watcher and have been in control of 657 Boulevard for the better part of two decades now. The Woods family turned it over to you. It was their time to move on and kindly sold it when I asked them to. I pass by many times a day. 657 Boulevard is my job, my life, my obsession. And now you are too Broaddus family. Welcome to the product of your greed! Greed is what brought the past three families to 657 Boulevard and now it has brought you to me. The stately home, which has six bedrooms, is nestled on a quite street about 28 miles from Manhattan; its high-ceilinged dining room is pictured in this Christmas photo taken by a previous owner (Margaret Bakes Davis) The Broaddus family asked the previous owners whether theyd been plagued by such letters; the Woodses said theyd received only one in 23 years of occupying the home - and that had come in the mail just before they moved out. The occupants who preceded the Woods family also said thered been no issues during their 28 years at the address. Margaret Bakes Davis, who grew up in the house, tells The Independent the whole brouhaha was a little odd, I think, especially because it was such a wonderful time for me, for our family ... There were no issues. It was like Mayberry R.F.D. It was a beautiful place to grow up. I had a wonderful childhood. There was nothing when we lived there. Absolutely nothing. All of that had changed years later, however, during the Broadduses ownership. The parents-of-three contacted police, and suspicion initially centred on neighbour Michael Langford, whose eccentric family had a unique vantage point that would explain one detail in the letters. The Langfords vehemently denied involvement and were ultimately cleared; Michael died in 2020 and his family remain livid to this day. It f*****g never ends, an irate sibling tells The Independent. Im his brother; I own the g*****n house. We got accused of doing something that we didnt do. Did we ever get a f*****g apology from the police? No, he says, complaining not only about the familys treatment but also the lawyer fees. The Westfield police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. Neither did the mayor, the Broaddus lawyer or most local businesses. In 2014, however, even when the Langford home came under suspicion, the Broaddus family kept up with the probe. They employed a private investigator, who staked out the neighborhood and ran background checks on the Langfords but didnt find anything noteworthy, The Cut reported, in addition to enlisting the services of two former FBI agents. One recognized several old-fashioned tics in the letters that pointed to an older writer, the magazine wrote. The envelope was addressed to M/M Broaddus, the salutations included the days weather Warm and humid, Sunny and cool for a summer day and the sentences had double spaces between them. The letters had a certain literary panache, which suggested a voracious reader, and a surprising lack of profanity ... [the investigator] didnt think The Watcher was likely to act on the threats, but the letters had enough typos and errors to imply a certain erraticism. The Broaddus family also hired a forensic linguist who didnt find any noteworthy overlap when he scoured local online forums for similarities to The Watchers writing, although he did think the author might watch Game of Thrones. (Jon Snow is one of the Watchers on the Wall.) The Broadduses, still unwilling to move into the house, rented it out - and say another letter arrived at the address in 2017, listing various tragedies that could befall them such as a car accident, fire or sudden death of a pet or loved one. The familys fear and seemingly dogged investigation, however, would soon turn into a legal battle, too. The Broadduses filed suit against the Woods family and two companies involved in the sale, alleging information about The Watcher had intentionally been withheld; the Woodses filed a counter claim, alleging the new owners were trying to smear their reputation by working with the media. All claims had been thrown out of court by 2019. As word spread through New Jersey and further afield over the years about the story, however, theories also spread like wildfire. Forget just neighbours; some theorised a jealous buyer whod lost out while bidding on the stately house could be sending the letters. Or a realtor. Or a prankster. Or, perhaps most creepily but least plausibly, someone whod been living behind the walls or in a space within the home for years. Attention centered on the Broadduses, as well. Many suspected the letters could have constituted some type of inside job; locals theorised buyers remorse could have prompted a wild plan to recoup expenses. The Watcher home had eerie similarities to the infamy of another Dutch colonial just 60 miles east - the Amityville Horror House on Long Island, which also sparked international interest for its creepy story (Getty Images) The hoax theories called to mind perhaps one of the most interesting haunted cases in modern history - creepily enough, in another Dutch Colonial just 60 miles east, centred on a crime that happened exactly 40 years earlier. The Amityville Horror House rose to international attention when Ronald DeFeo Jr killed his entire family on Long Island; subsequent occupants alleged paranomal activity and hauntings that spurred countless documentaries and films - along with rumours it had all been made up for profit and movie rights. The Broaddus family has faced similar scrutiny, particularly in Westfield with an upcoming Netflix show fittingly dubbed The Watcher, which is set to premiere on 13 October with a cast including Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale and Jennifer Coolidge. Mr Broaddus has fastidiously denied any accusations and hit back on social media about any theories involving his family. He did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent. The Broadduses eventually sold 657 Boulevard in 2019; the transaction made national headlines - and they made about $400,000 loss. The buyers wished to remain anonymous but, according to local reports, are also a young family. Derek Broaddus continued to comment on the case as recently as last February, when he tweeted: Mental illness is real, and so is the person who was so angry that we bought 657 they thought its be a good idea to threaten a 5 yo baby. They live in that hood close enough to see/hear. Solvable crime. Others, however, are not so sure. The spectre of The Watcher, whoever it may be, remains a silent presence in New Jersey and the minds of internet sleuths both in the neighbourhood and across the world. I was at an event just last weekend with a bunch of friends, none of whom were from Westfield, but one of them, from across the room, said, Was that your house? Its still out there, Ms Davis tells The Independent. Its still a thing. Whenever I say Im from Westfield, they say, Have you ever heard of The Watcher house? She answers: Yes. I lived there for 28 years. She doesnt share any theories about the home, but she does have only fond memories of 657 Boulevard - and when Derek and Maria Broaddus put it back on the market, she says her family almost bought the house back. None of us were worried about it, she tells The Independent. Shes also looking forward to seeing the upcoming Naomi Watts project - featuring a home she knows intimately well, a house still close to her heart. Im wondering how Netflix is approaching it, she says. How are they characterising the whole thing? Im interested to see how they portray it. This story was originally published in February 2022 and was updated on 26 September to include new details about the Netflix series The Watcher. Enlightenment School in Waterbury was evacuated due to an anonymous bomb threat Monday morning, according to the Waterbury Police Department. The school, an alternative learning program for at-risk middle and high school-aged students located on Griggs Street in Waterbury, was safely evacuated after 10:30 a.m. Monday. Enlightenment students returned to class but were dismissed early, according to Waterbury Public Schools. There have also been threats at Kennedy High School, Waterbury Arts Magnet School and Crosby High School in Waterbury over the past week. Kennedy High School was safely evacuated for an anonymous bomb threat last Tuesday, according to police. Waterbury Arts Magnet School was put into a shelter-in-place order after receiving a threatening message on Thursday. A 17-year-old suspect was arrested and charged with first-degree threatening and second-degree breach of the peace in connection to the threat. Last Friday, an increased police presence was requested at Crosby High School after police received a report of a social media threat against the school on Thursday afternoon. At least 11 schools and school districts in Connecticut have received threats or have added additional security measures in response to threats in September. Eight threats have been made in the last week, including ones at E.O. Smith High School in Storrs, Windham High School, Manchester High School and Danbury High School. There has been a rash of these types of threats throughout the country. The FBI has deemed the practice swatting, or making a false threat to draw a large police response to an area. Waterbury Public Schools did not offer further comment. The threat is under investigation, police said. The earthquake in Italy has sent tremors that could be felt in the White House. The victory of Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni rattled Europe, furthering fears about a new right-wing shift on the continent as it battles economic hardship and nervously watches a raging war on its Eastern flank. It also was met with deep, if private, worry within President Joe Bidens administration. The White House put a brave public face on it, noting that Melonis win was the will of the Italian people while expressing confidence that Italy would remain a steadfast partner with the West. Its a NATO ally, as you know, a G7 partner and member of the EU, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in her Monday briefing, so we will work with the new Italian government on the full range of shared global challenges, including supporting Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russias aggression. But Jean-Pierre never mentioned Melonis name. And the Italian leaders victory, the first for the nations far-right since World War II, underscored for the White House what it perceives as a concerning trend for the continent, which has also seen right-wing wins in Sweden and Hungary and inroads made in nations such as France. And it served to potentially further destabilize the G-7, which stood strong this summer at its summit in Germany to support Ukraine against Russia. Since that moment in June, Frances Emmanuel Macron has seen his power take a hit, the United Kingdoms Boris Johnson was ousted by Liz Truss another conservative even more deeply skeptical of Europe and now Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is on his way out to be replaced by Meloni. To this point, the Western unity has held. But the stunning win in Italy comes as the alliances resolve will be tested by what looms as a cold, dark winter for Europe with the continent cut off from Russias energy supplies, its resolve tested by rising prices and plunging temperatures. Story continues Biden aides worried that Meloni may begin to question Italys commitment, arguing that the nations resources should be used at home, particularly if Europe plunges into a recession this winter. If a major G-7 player begins leaning on Kyiv to find a negotiated settlement to the war as opposed to funding its resistance there is a possibility that other nations could follow suit and the continents resolve could weaken. At least for now, White House aides hope that Rome will stand firm with Kyiv and publicly dismissed thoughts that the alliance could collapse. But at minimum, the Americans acknowledged that Italy may no longer offer the unabashed support given by Draghi. Under Draghi, Italy played an important role in a Europe devoid of many strong leaders, helping shape the continents response to Covid recovery, economic issues and Russias assault on Ukraine. But Italy has now turned away from the European mainstream and could ally itself with the nationalist leaders in Hungary and Poland. Meloni has promised that she has moderated her views and has said she supports NATO and Ukraine. She also has expressed little fondness for Russias Vladimir Putin, unlike others in her coalition, including former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Currently, about a third of the seats in the new parliament belong to parties that have not fully condemned Moscows war effort. The change in Rome comes against the backdrop of an ongoing sham referendum for Ukrainian territories seized by Moscow to vote to become part of Russia. The vote, which ends this week, worries Western allies who believe that Putin could then use any fighting in those territories which he would claim was an assault on Russian lands as a pretext to widen the war. Putin has also once again threatened to use nuclear weapons if attacked and authorized mobilizing up to 300,000 reservists to the war effort. But that callup has led to scenes of chaos across the country as thousands of military-age men have tried to flee Russia to avoid the draft, further underscoring how Moscows invasion has faltered. Since the war began in February, Biden has consistently pledged unending solidarity with Ukraine and urged other nations friend or foe to stand against Moscow. He addressed the United Nations General Assembly last week and blamed just one man, the Russian president, for the war that has rattled the world. Conspiracy theorist and conservative radio host Alex Jones is in the midst of his second defamation trial weeks after a judge ordered he pay nearly $50m for damages caused by his insistence that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. In the first trial in Texas, Jones was found liable for causing emotional and psychological harm to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. Following the attack, he made numerous claims suggesting the shooting was a hoax intended to help justify a government-led confiscation of Americans' guns. Dont ever think the globalists who hijacked this country wouldnt stage something like this, he said on his show the day of the shooting. They kill little kids all day, every day. A judge ordered him to pay $49.3m to the parents of six-year-old Jesse Lewis, who was one of the 26 students killed in the 2012 shooting. Jones' lawyer said he plans to appeal the ruling. In the meantime, Jones is now back in court, this time in Connecticut. The current case is a consolidation of three lawsuits brought by 15 plaintiffs. The relatives of eight victims and a former FBI agent who worked the shooting are bringing their case for damages against Jones. Because the cases is a consolidation of three lawsuits it is possible that the damages Jones is forced to pay may significantly exceed the $49.3m he was previously ordered to pay. Emotional Damages According to the plaintiffs, Jones' conspiracy theories resulting in their harassment by his fans for years following the Sandy Hook shooting. That harassment includes death threats, social media harassment, and even strangers recording them and their surviving children. The harassment was so bad that some of the families left Newtown, the city where Sandy Hook Elementary School is located, to escape Jones' followers. One family reportedly had to move 10 times over the years to avoid harassment. Jones has been found in violation of the Unfair Trade Practices Act by using his platform to cause intentional emotional distress and defamation aimed at the plaintiffs, a judge ruled. Story continues Jones Response The conspiracy theorist has claimed that his company, Free Speech Systems, has gone bankrupt and cannot afford to pay the damages that have already been levied against it, nevermind any further damages that will be awarded in this case. The attorneys representing the plaintiffs are sceptical of that claim, and it is likely the case will delve into the inner workings of Jones' company and his true financials. An expert witness in the previous trial suggested Jones is likely worth as much as $270m. However, Jones allegedly moved money out of his businesses and declared bankruptcy when the families filed defamation suits against him. Expert witness Bernard Pettingill Jr, a forensic economist who testified during the previous trial, said nearly $70m was moved from Free Speech Systems to Jones' own bank accounts. Millions were also shifted to other companies controlled by Jones and his parents, he claimed. Jones show at its height in 2018 was reportedly bringing in more than $800,000 per day, thanks in large part to advertising deals he had with doomsday preparation companies selling buckets of food and water purification tablets. Despite this, Jones has tried to paint himself and his businesses as struggling to his viewers. We are so broke Im worried about our bankruptcy to emergency stabilize Infowars, and we have a plan. But to do that we need support, he told his viewers the day before damages were announced in the Texas trial. He told the judge in the Texas trial that any award over $2m would "sink us." Jones has since admitted that the shootings were real, but has refused to accept responsibility for the harassment campaigns resulting from his false claims. He insists his conspiracy theories were protected free speech, and even accused the judge of conspiring to put him out of business. Trial Expectations and Significance The Connecticut trial, now in its third week, has thus far played out similarly to the Texas trial, including testimony from Jones himself. As previously noted, Jones' financials are also likely to play a major role in determining whether or not his claims of near-financial collapse are legitimate, and whether or not they matter. The trial is expected to last about four weeks. Ultimately, Jones' trials may set precedent for individuals harmed by misinformation and conspiracy theories to hold the individuals spreading lies accountable. [These cases] are the first really big, high-profile test of how we can hold people accountable for conspiracy theories in this misinformation moment that were in, Amanda Crawford, assistant professor at the University of Connecticut whos writing a book on the connections between mass shootings and misinformation, told Grid. The misinformation that followed Sandy Hook was the beginning of a new era of conspiracy theories. The year of the shooting was the first year that over half of American adults were on social media. Madison, Wis. On Monday, the University of Wisconsin released its official injury report ahead of its week five matchup vs. the Illinois Fighting Illini. The unranked Wisconsin Badgers (2-2) already have seven players ruled out due to injury against Illinois (3-1) and four others listed as out for the season. Wisconsins secondary has already gone without its No. 1 cornerback Alexander Smith for the seasons first four games. Now, it appears he will miss a fifth consecutive game, raising questions about his injurys severity and long-term health. Last week, UW played without its starting tackles, Jack Nelson and Riely Mahlman, with Logan Brown and Trey Wedig filling in, respectively. Their status for this week is ultimately unknown, but there is optimism that Nelson will start at left tackle on Saturday. UW will need several key players back in the lineup for Bret Bielemas return to Camp Randall Stadium this weekend. Here is a look at Wisconsin footballs injury report for Week 5: Players listed as OUT against Illinois: Sep 24, 2022; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Wisconsin Badgers tight end Clay Cundiff (85) is carted off the field with a lower leg injury after a hit by Ohio State Buckeyes safety Tanner McCalister (15) during the first half of the NCAA Division I football game at Ohio Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Adam Cairns-The Columbus Dispatch Ncaa Football Wisconsin Badgers At Ohio State Buckeyes K Vito Calvaruso TE Clay Cundiff TE Cam Large CB Alexander Smith OLB Aaron Witt S Hunter Wohler QB Chase Wolf. Players listed as OUT for the season: Sep 22, 2018; Iowa City, IA, USA; Wisconsin Badgers cornerback Travian Blaylock (26) celebrates with teammates during the third quarter against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Kinnick Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports S Travian Blaylock DE Mike Jarvis ILB Luna Larson DE Isaac Townsend Contact/Follow us @TheBadgersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin news, notes, opinion, and analysis. You can also follow Dillon Graff on Twitter @DillonGraff. Story originally appeared on Badgers Wire MADISON, Wis. (AP) Wisconsins Republican Assembly leader is suing to block a subpoena that orders him to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection about a conversation he had with Donald Trump about overturning the 2020 election. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos filed the lawsuit on Sunday in federal court in Wisconsin arguing that the subpoena falls outside the scope of the committees investigation into last year's Capitol attack and infringes on his legislative immunity from civil process. Vos, who had a falling out with Trump this summer, also alleged that the short notice of the subpoena placed an undue burden on him. Rep. Bennie Thompson, committee chair, issued the subpoena Friday ordering Vos to appear on Monday morning either in person or via videoconference. He did not testify. The deposition was postponed. In his lawsuit, Vos said the only explanation for the extreme deadline" was to conduct the interview before the committee's next televised hearing on Wednesday so that clips can be edited out to be used in a multimedia show." Others who have been subpoenaed by the committee have also sued to avoid giving testimony. Vos, in a statement Monday, said he was surprised to be subpoenaed because he has no information about the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attacks. Given how close we are to the midterms, this subpoena seems to be more about partisan politics than actual fact-finding, he said. A letter from Thompson that accompanied the subpoena said lawmakers want to talk with Vos about a July call with Trump in which the former president asked Vos about steps he was taking to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The call was in response to a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that absentee ballot drop boxes, which were used in the 2020 election and others before it, would be illegal going forward. After Vos took no action to overturn the election, Trump endorsed his primary challenger. Story continues Vos narrowly won his primary, and three days later fired Michael Gableman, the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice he had hired, under pressure from Trump, to investigate the 2020 election. Vos called Gableman, who also endorsed his primary opponent, an embarrassment." Gablemans inquiry turned up no evidence of widespread fraud, but the investigator joined Trump in calling for lawmakers to consider decertifying the 2020 election. The new lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama. ___ Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. ___ More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump Follow the APs coverage of Jan. 6 at: https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege The Chinese Immersion Day was held in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Sunday, with the local libraries receiving donations of popular Chinese books. The Chinese Consulate General in Christchurch gave popular children's books in Chinese and those about modern China to the central city library, as part of the nationwide celebration of the New Zealand Chinese Language Week which started on Sunday. "Last time when I visited the library, I was told that Chinese books are very popular and new books are often checked out as soon as they hit the shelves," Consul General He Ying told the donation ceremony. The donated books this year include children's favorite idiom stories, traditional culture and drawing books, as well as books on modern China, according to He, who said the books are expected to help fellow Chinese understand the latest development of China and help Kiwis learn and understand more about the East Asian country. Carolyn Robertson, libraries and information manager for Christchurch City Council, said the donated books were wonderful gifts for the community to enjoy, adding that the city libraries need diverse language books as part of a wide range of books offered. On the Chinese Immersion Day, an extravaganza of traditional Chinese music and Lion Dance was staged, followed by various Chinese language and culture activities, such as calligraphy, paper cutting, Chinese knots making, Chinese painting, tea art, fun language workshops and games. Consul General He said the Chinese language, which is extensive and profound, has a far-reaching influence. New Zealand has more than 260,000 people with a Chinese origin, who make the Chinese language an important part of New Zealand multicultural society. Saarah Sareshwala, an Indian woman, was allegedly assaulted by a white man on Southwest Airlines. According to Sareshwalas husband, Faraaz a Google engineer who recounted the story on Twitter the flight was on its way to Phoenix from Orlando. According to Faraaz, his wife had attended a conference in Orlando. But, because she was exhausted from the conference, Saarah decided to rest her head on the tray table when suddenly, the man sitting in front of her violently pushed his seat back. Faraaz explained, after coming to, she initially thought it was an accident; someone falling down in their own seat after returning from the bathroom or something. Saarah soon discovered that the mans actions were quite deliberate. And, allegedly, the fellow Southwest Airlines passenger whose identity has not been revealed, as of this writing didnt stop there. Saarah went to the bathroom to check her injuries, and when she returned, the two people sitting next to her asked one of the flight attendants for some ice. These passengers a mother and daughter, one of whom revealed herself on Twitter after Faraazs Twitter thread went viral tried to confront the man and he lashed out at them, mocking them and cursing them out as he did so. Lets take a look at what else we know about this alleged assault during a Southwest Airlines flight. The Man Got Increasingly Violent Faraaz wrote, the man made the blah blah motion with his hands and facetiously said fu*k off, fu*k off! He told the daughter to stay in [her] fucking lane, bitch. He then said about my wife that the fu*king bitch got what was coming for her.' The situation continued to escalate. While the flight attendants were serving drinks, the man said to his wife that he would shove his seat back again so Saarah would spill her drink. Southwest offered Saarah the chance to change seats. But, Faraaz noted with frustration, the man wasnt reprimanded by the carrier. Saarah decided to stay where she was because she felt safer with the mother and daughter duo. Story continues Only when the mother brought up to another flight attendant that this was actually physical assault, they offered to call the police, Faraaz wrote. So as not to rouse the attention of the man, Sarah and her seatmates began to communicate via notes on a napkin. All the while, the man continued to hurl racial and misogynistic statements at Saarah. He also, kept pushing his seat back in an attempt to hurt Saarah. Other Southwest Airlines Passengers Began Passing Notes For Saraah's Safety Only when the mother brought up (to another flight attendant) that this was actually physical assault, they offered to call the police. Saarah and her seatmates began to communicate via notes on a napkin. pic.twitter.com/JsmzpJ4p6v Faraaz Sareshwala (@fsareshwala) September 25, 2022 Here's one of the pages that Gabi [last name redacted], one of Saarah's seatmates, wrote down: pic.twitter.com/oBfsCkQlOZ Faraaz Sareshwala (@fsareshwala) September 25, 2022 Faraaz posted one of the notes written by the mother. It said, rather than having a civil discussion after Saarah bumped the mans chair while resting her head, he slammed the chair back, hitting her head and never settled in his seat and starting swearing and using racial and misogynistic slurs to Saarah. But The Man Changed His Tune When He Realized The Police Had Been Called Faaraz said, as passengers started deplaning, the man suddenly became very chatty with others around him, complimenting potential witnesses. Police escorted Saarah to a safe area to get her story and barred the aggressor and his wife from leaving. The Phoenix police took everyones stories (the man, his wife, Saarahs, the mother and daughter sitting next to Saarah, etc). They said that because the incident occurred above the gulf of Mexico, it was out of their jurisdiction and the FBI would have to get involved instead. At no point did Saarah exchange words with the man before, during or after the incident. Even if she did bump his seat by accident, her husband wrote, it didnt warrant using racial slurs, misogynistic comments, or a violent, repeated, physical assault. People chimed in with their own opinions. Some suggested Saarah should sue the airline, while others noted that Southwest Airlines was a MAGA safe haven. One user noted the airline had yet to discipline a Southwest pilot for chanting, lets go Brandon, on another flight. They noted that the airline probably wouldnt do anything in Saarahs case either. As of this writing, the mans identity is unknown. The Memphis Police Department is searching for a woman after she allegedly struck and threatened to shoot employees at Dodges Chicken. Police said it happened at the restaurant on 3923 Elvis Presley Boulevard around 9:37 p.m. on Sept. 25. MPD said the woman struck the victim after an argument. According to police, she pushed the cash register onto the floor, damaging it, and threatened to shoot another employee before she left. This is an ongoing investigation. Police said an arrest has not been made. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 901-528-2274 (CASH) Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Trending stories: A Nasa image showing Home Reef eruption in the southwest Pacific Ocean (Nasa Earth Observatory) The central Tonga islands recently welcomed its newest member a baby landmass rising out of the waters of the southwest Pacific Ocean. The new island appeared about eleven hours after the Home Reef volcano, submerged among the Haapai group of islands in the centre of the Tonga archipelago, started spewing lava and ejecting plumes of steam and ash, discolouring the surrounding water. Located southwest of Late Island, the newborn grew quickly in size as the volcano oozed lava for days. While researchers with Tonga Geological Services estimated the area of the young island to be around 4,000 square metres on 14 September, by 20 September, it had grown by six times to cover a 24,000 sqm area. Unfortunately, however, the Nasa Earth Observatory says that the lifespan of the island may not be very long. Islands created by submarine volcanoes are often short-lived, though they occasionally persist for years, it said. Home Reef, which sits within the Tonga-Kermadec subduction zone, an area where three tectonic plates are colliding at the fastest converging boundary in the world, has had four recorded periods of eruptions in the past 170 years, said the North American space agency. While small islands were temporarily formed after eruptions in 1852 and 1857, eruptions in 1984 and 2006 produced ephemeral islands with cliffs that were about 50 to 70m high, it added. An island created by a 12-day eruption from nearby Lateiki Volcano in 2020 washed away after two months, while an earlier island created in 1995 by the same volcano remained for 25 years. The Home Reef volcano which erupted on 10 September, has effusive lava flowing into its 16th day. Though the volcano activity poses a low risk to the local Vavau and Haapai communities, Tonga Geological Services has advised all mariners to sail beyond 4km from Home Reef. New York's weekly tally of COVID-19 cases ticked up about 8% last week, as many counties outside New York City faced higher coronavirus risk levels and spikes in other viral infections among children nationally prompted public health alerts. New York reported 34,988 COVID-19 cases in the week ending Sunday, up from 32,513 cases the prior week. New York ranked fourth 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. Nationally, COVID-19 cases held flat at nearly 401,500 reported last week. Across the country, 17 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before. Shyrel Ritter, a certified nursing assistant at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, receives her COVID-19 booster shot at her workplace in New York on Sept. 27. In New York, some counties across the Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, Southern Tier and Hudson Valley faced double-digit increases in COVID-19 cases last week, as people spent more time gathered indoors where viruses spread more easily. For example, Orange and Monroe counties faced weekly case spikes of 31% and 24%, respectively. Meanwhile, federal health officials recently warned the wave of viral infections in general among children is expected to be worse this year than the last two years, following relaxation of mask mandates and other preventive measures against COVID-19. But New York's decision to stop requiring schools to report COVID-19 cases this year has removed a key tool in tracking that virus' spread among children and teachers. State officials have said they would consider changing COVID-19 reporting requirements if conditions worsened. Large swaths of New York currently sit in the "medium risk" category under federal coronavirus guidelines after spending much of the summer at a "low risk" level. The risk assessment is based on COVID-19 infection rates and strain on local health systems. Only five counties Oswego, Fulton, Montgomery, Putnam and Suffolk fell into the high-risk category. State and federal health officials urged people to wear masks indoors in public spaces in high-risk counties, regardless of vaccination status, to help curb the virus' spread. Story continues In New York, 144 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday, down from 191 deaths the prior week. But the weekly tally of COVID-19 hospitalizations leaped to about 3,870 patients, up about 15% from the prior week. How COVID is spreading in New York In the latest week, Westchester County saw its COVID-19 cases hold flat, reporting 1,491 cases and five deaths. Rockland County's cases fell slightly, reporting 571 cases and three deaths. Putnam County's cases fell 10%, reporting 176 cases and zero deaths. Orange County's cases spiked 31%, reporting 1,011 cases and two deaths. Dutchess County's cases leaped 11%, reporting 502 cases and one death. Upstate, Monroe County's cases jumped 24%, reporting 844 cases and five deaths. Broome County's cases increased 14%, reporting 326 cases and four deaths. Oneida County's cases ticked up 8%, reporting 424 cases and zero deaths. COVID: NY schools stop reporting COVID cases on state website. What that means for students, parents Within New York, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in: Fulton County with 307 cases per 100,000 per week. Montgomery County with 272. Columbia County with 267. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week. Weekly case counts rose in 48 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Bronx, Nassau and Orange counties. >> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases Across New York, cases fell in 13 counties, with the best declines in Kings County, Chautauqua County, and in Franklin County.a A total of 6,094,999 people in New York have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 71,646 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,070,980 people have tested positive and 1,056,416 people have died. >> Track coronavirus cases across the United States New York's COVID-19 hospital admissions rising USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Sept. 25. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state: Last week: 3,871 The week before that: 3,362 Four weeks ago: 3,562 Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation: Last week: 55,707 The week before that: 55,506 Four weeks ago: 64,244 Hospitals in 13 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 20 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 25 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. Lindy Washburn of USA TODAY Network contributed to this report. 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 New York State Team: NY COVID cases up 8%, some counties outside NYC face worse outbreaks SYDNEY (Reuters) - Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led a state memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II on Monday, saying the Pacific nation has had "a deep connection" with her as New Zealand paid tribute to the late monarch. Hundreds watched the state memorial service outdoors on the screens set on the Parliament grounds in Wellington, the national capital, as the closed-door ceremony began with a minute of silence at the Cathedral of Saint Paul. "Today, we have gathered to acknowledge the deep connection New Zealand has had to her late majesty the Queen for more than 70 years, a connection grounded on her first visit in 1953," Ardern said, as she read excerpts from a souvenir book about the Queen's trip from December 1953 to January 1954, the first of her ten journeys to the country. "As the great white ship moved slowly through the channel, crowds ran along marine parade keeping abreast of her, everyone cheering, many weeping, reluctant to give up their waving until the answering white-gloved hand could be seen no longer," she read from the book about the late queen's departure in 1954. Memorial services will also be held across the country including in Auckland, the largest city, with its prominent landmarks to be lit up in purple honouring the queen. New Zealand is one of 15 countries with the British monarch as the head of state, though the role is largely ceremonial. The change in the British monarch has rekindled talks of republicanism. But Ardern, earlier this month, said there were no plans for the country to become a republic in the short-term, although she expects the country will eventually become one in her lifetime. (Reporting by Lewis Jackson and Renju Jose; Editing by Christian Schmolinger) (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the military situation in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region on Monday as difficult and said it was the country's "No. 1 goal" because it was also Russia's No. 1 goal. "The situation in the Donetsk region is particularly severe," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "We are doing everything to contain enemy activity. This is our No. 1 goal right now because Donbas is still the No. 1 goal for the occupiers." Since Russian forces moved into Ukraine in late February they have occupied nearly all of the Luhansk region and are slowly advancing through the Donetsk region -- the two provinces making up Donbas. (Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Mark Porter) CORRECTION: Ukraine has not yet received the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS). A previous version of this story contained incorrect information on the delivery of the system due to errors in the CBS transcript of its interview with Zelensky. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is thanking the United States for the advanced air defense systems it has sent to his country to aid in its war with Russia, but he also is pressing for more, according to an interview aired Sunday. Zelensky on CBSs Face the Nation thanked Washington for the shipments of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and other multiple launch rocket systems that give us an ability to conduct our offensive. He added that his troops absolutely need the United States to show leadership and give Ukraine the air defense systems it continues to ask for. Kyiv is still waiting on National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), a weapon Kyiv has long requested and was recently promised by Washington. The Biden administration approved the shipment of six NASAMSs late last month as part of a nearly $3 billion lethal aid package to bolster Kyiv as it battles the Kremlin invasion. Believe me, its not even nearly enough to cover the civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, universities, homes of Ukrainians, Zelensky said, according to a full transcript of the interview. NASAMS, a medium-range air defense system, is a Norwegian and U.S.-designed weapon meant to identify and take out aircraft, cruise missiles and drones. The systems, which are used to protect the airspace around the White House, are typically used to protect major assets or civilian populations. These are proven systems that will make a real difference in the battlefield, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said Aug. 31 in announcing the NASAMS shipments. The NASAMS delivery which the Pentagon has said is still about two months away is expected to help Ukraine maintain major gains in a counteroffensive begun earlier this month. Kyiv has managed to take back huge swaths of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region and in the south. Story continues But Zelensky called for even more weapons, including tanks, artillery and more air defense systems, as well as financial assistance to keep the pace of his military going with winter fast approaching. Updated at 11:55 a.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Mykhailo Podolyak According to Podolyak, a Russian-style mobilization features the following: kilometer-long queues to exit Russia; people dragged from their homes; protests in national republics; a shooting in a military registration and enlistment office; thousands of complaints about illegal conscription, lack of equipment/training. It's only the fifth day, he tweeted. Thousands of coffins havent even begun to return yet. One of the incidents Podolyak referred to occurred on Sept. 26 in UstIlimsk, Irkutsk Region, when 25-year-old local resident, Ruslan Zinin, shot a military commissar during a meeting at a military registration and enlistment office. Read also: Putin plans to mobilize a lot more than 300,000 troops, analyst says Russian dictator Vladimir Putin early on Sept. 21 declared a partial mobilization in Russia and said he was ready to use nuclear weapons in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in a later address, announced that 300,000 reservists would be called up during the partial mobilization. Kremlin puppet authorities in the Donbas announced on Sept. 20 that they would hold referendums on joining Russia. The occupation administrations stated that a sham plebiscite will be held Sept. 23-27. Russian occupation authorities in Kherson and Zaporizhzhya oblasts also announced plans to hold referendums on uniting with Russia on the same dates. The statements were made shortly after a rapid counteroffensive by the defenders of Ukraine: On Sept. 14, the Ministry of Defense reported that since Sept. 6 (in the space of one week), the Armed Forces of Ukraine had liberated 388 settlements and about 8,500 square kilometers in Kharkiv Oblast alone. Read also: Ukraine advances on Lyman while discontent with mobilization rises in Russia, says ISW Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andrii Yermak said Russia's blackmail regarding the holding of sham referendums in the temporarily occupied territories was the product of the fear of defeat. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kulebam stressed that these shamvotes will not change anything, and Ukraine will continue to liberate its territories. On Sept. 20, the Russian State Duma, the Kremlins rubber-stamp parliament, rushed through votes introducing the concepts of "mobilization", "martial law", and "armed conflict" into RussiasCriminal Code. Now in Russia, desertion, absence from service and voluntary surrender will be punished more severely. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Under the theme "new era of literature, new epic of the people", the seventh Beijing October Literature Festival kicked off in Beijing on Thursday. With literature as the core, the festival this year pays a lot of attention to online literature, and explores the combination of literature with games, music and performing arts. It involves nearly 100 online and offline activities. According to Kang Wei, chairman of the Beijing Publishing Group, he hopes it will become a literary feast which is based in Beijing but influences the whole nation and even the world. Some writers' works were awarded during the opening ceremony. Three writers were selected to receive support, as part of a supporting program for young writers contributed by famous writer Wang Meng. "The program offers a strong impetus to young writers to give full play to their creativity, continuously open up new horizons and climb to new heights," said Li Jingze, vice-president of China Writers Association. David Lipscomb got into rocks after he struck gold fools gold at a construction site in Charlottesville. Lipscomb explained he did concrete work and carpentry before opening the Virginia Rock Shop at the Rockfish Valley Community Center, at 190 Rockfish School Lane in Afton. In 1992 he was putting in a culvert for a new housing development and discovered a vein of quartz with pyrite in it. Hed been collecting from job sites for years and found out about a book called Minerals of Virginia. He held up his worn copy in the shop during an interview Sept. 16. Lipscombs inventory shone that morning with light from the oversized windows of the former Rockfish Valley Elementary School. From a room in the converted community center, Lipscomb sells rocks, gems and minerals in every shape and hue. Some have naturally rough, geometric surfaces, while others are polished smooth and hewn into jewelry and wearable objects. A year after finding the pyrite, Lipscomb discovered that there were gem and mineral clubs in Virginia, and he joined two. In the 90s he served as president and edited the newsletters for the Lynchburg and Waynesboro clubs. He said much of his inventory comes from other collections hes purchased, including those of shops that have closed in Richmond, Georgia, North and South Carolina. He showed off what he thinks is a piece of a tortoise shell that came from a late professor who taught in Botswana for 19 years He had some interesting items that Id never seen before, Lipscomb said. Lipscombs had the shop for 14 years and said its served him well: beautiful views and only 10 minutes from home. Despite it being somewhat hidden inside the school building, lots of people come in, they find me online Ive got a website and Ive had people from all over the world come in. His website, varockshop.com, has a catalog of 60 different rocks and minerals from actinolite to unakite with handmade jewelry, rough and polished stones available for purchase. On any given day, Lipscomb himself might be hidden behind displays in the shop, at work on inventory. He cuts, polishes and wire-wraps gems and minerals to make pendants, earrings and bracelets. And I do jewelry repairs and custom work. If you find a stone, I can take it and make it into a piece of jewelry or a bolo or a belt buckle or a ring, he said. His display of Virginia mineral jewelry is large and colorful. There are pendants and earrings made of dolostone, or Hokie stone, featured in Virginia Techs campus buildings. Theres also a large selection of Nelsonite officially the Virginia state rock as of 2016, and named after the county. The black-and-white speckled rock is a titanium ore, historically mined in the Roseland and Piney River areas to extract titanium oxide used in white paint and ceramic products, according to Lipscomb. His favorite mineral is epidote, which forms dark green, linear crystals. He showed off large samples of it embedded in a fibrous material, collected from Cedar Mountain Stone Quarry near Culpepper. The quarry was a unique find, Lipscomb said, and the epidote he collected there has an unusual crystal habit, forming little bow ties that were only exposed when he power-washed the samples. There are all kinds of unusual finds in Lipscombs shop: chess sets made with dark and light stone, a soapstone bowl likely hewn by Native Americans, samples of granite dotted with bright blue azurite spheres. He thinks the oldest object on his shelves might be the mastodon tooth, or the megalodon tooth, or the fossilized whalebone. Lipscomb said he sells a lot of Nelsonite and a lot of blue quartz from the county. But with such a variety in the store, people find everything interesting. A New York Times columnist and CBS political analyst spoke recently at Randolph College on Why the Founding Fathers Still Matter. What I hope people take from it is to take seriously the idea that our political systems, our government, our structures arent static, Jamelle Bouie, who gave the schools 2022 Philip Thayer Memorial Lecture last week, said in an interview. They arent something that are set in stone that we cant actually change and if we think there are problems then we should. The annual Philip Thayer Memorial Lecture brings scholars to the college each year. The event is made possible by the Philip Thayer Memorial Lecture Fund. The subtitle for Bouies lecture was The Audacity of Our Founding Fathers. He described audacity in two ways how dare you and the overall boldness to do something. From my perspective, both meanings apply to the founding fathers, Bouie said in his lecture. There are a lot of ways in which I look at their behaviors and their ideas ... and I say in essence, How dare you? Bouie began explaining that definition of audacity by giving an example of President Joe Biden and a speech he gave in Pennsylvania in September, where the president said there is a threat to American democracy from extremist supporters of former President Donald Trump. Bouie said he agreed with the idea there is a crisis facing American democracy but said Biden wasnt right about the sources of the problem. Biden wants to say that the right to American democracy comes from a movement that doesnt really understand the Constitution, Bouie said in his lecture. What I want to say is that the threat to American democracy comes from a movement that very much understands the Constitution, maybe even understands it too well. In his lecture, Bouie said the founders of the Constitution designed a system to try to account for theoretical concerns and historical concerns. He emphasized the Constitution and American democracy are related to each other. I think we are facing a moment in the present where our intuitions about what democracy and what democracy entails, is running kind of directly into what the Constitution allows and what the Constitution is which is a document designed to limit those democratic end goals and to limit those democratic aspirations, Bouie said. To explain his second definition of audacity, admiring what the founding fathers actually accomplished, Bouie used an example in history the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. He said rewriting a Constitution for the states at the time was audacious, as there were a number of people against it. I have my problems with the founding fathers, Bouie said. But Id be lying if I said I did not admire what they did, simply on the basis of being willing to do it. Hannah Lambach, a junior at Randolph College, said Bouie presented a really good argument. One thing that stood out to Lambach was Bouies discussion on the electoral college and the overall voting system. Bouie raised the conversation of what if there werent an electoral college. This isnt explicitly what he said, but kind of what Ive been thinking is the system of incentives that he talks about, Lambach said. If we were to focus on those what he calls minority voters, I think it would lead to more informed voters overall. And I think that would be a benefit for everyone. Sophomore Jordyn Shumpert said she really enjoyed the part of Bouies lecture when he discussed the Constitution and the untouchable nature of it. Shumpert explained the lecture and argument were well defined and logical. I think it reflected a lot of my own thoughts on the way that we look at the founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution, Shumpert said. Almost 21 years after he emigrated from Ethiopia to the United States, Solomon Desalegn returned to his neighborhood in the eastern African country. He saw new buildings and roads in the capital city of Addis Ababa, where he was born and raised, and thought, Wow, this is a great improvement. Then, he visited his old high school, which had a new shell on the outside, but few changes had been made on the inside since hed been a student there. Teachers were still instructing the old-fashioned way, standing in front of the board, writing, he recalled. There were no computers in the classroom and certainly no labs where students could learn keyboarding. In colleges he visited, professors taught computer theory and demonstrated the skills on a computer, but the students didnt get the chance to try it out themselves. Meanwhile, his oldest son had been using computer apps like Google Earth since he was 6. His parents would tell him a relatives location and the boy would pinpoint their home on the map. Desalegn realized the only difference between his three sons and other children in the Horn of Africa was the address of their birth. It was a life-changing moment for the Stafford County man, now 50. You go to those elementary schools and you see all those kids have no clue whatsoever whats out there. Its heartbreaking and its difficult to express in words the emotions you feel, he said, tears forming in his eyes. Desalegn came back to the U.S., determined to make a difference. Between his full-time work for the Marine Corps, where hes an electrical engineer who tests and evaluates systems, his quest to earn his doctorate degree and his family obligations to his wife and three teens, Desalegn formed the nonprofit, Educate Africa. Last month, the group shipped 55 laptops to Wollo University, one of the institutions looted during the recent war between the government and rebel forces. Both Educate Africa and university officials had to complete mounds of paperwork to get the government to waive the typical customs fees and allow the donation. A relative, Yonhatan Goitom, helped the nonprofit register as a charitable organization in Ethiopia after it got the proper paperwork in the U.S. Fredericksburg Personal Computer Users Group also assisted by providing a $5,000 grant to help purchase the computers, replace missing or damaged hard drives or memory and ship them to East Africa. Desalegn paid the other $2,000 out of his own pocket. FPCUG board member Frank Fota helped download new operating systems, when needed, and has served as Educate Africas only volunteer, other than Desalegn, for about eight months. The two know from their work experience that federal and local governments, as well as school systems and universities, tend to replace their computers every three years and there arent many places that recycle electronics. Equipment often is auctioned and sold in bulk, and Desalegn and Fota have acquired dozens of computers that way. But were not awash with cash donations, so were just trying to get the word out, Fota said. He and Desalegn are eager to partner with other nonprofits, businesses or individuals who have the time, talent and resources to take equipment possibly headed for the landfill, and make it part of a necessary life-changing educational experience in Ethiopia and eventually other African countries, according to the website educateafricaweb.org. If theres anyone who could be the poster child for the difference education can make, its Desalegn. Being driven comes with the lifestyle of growing up in a third-world country, he said. Everybody understood the value of education and they worked hard for it. His father, who worked for a government logistics company, made it clear that Desalegns sole purpose in life, while under his roof, was to focus on his studies. While others brought their sons into family businesses, Desalegn was motivated to pursue his education. He finished high school and had a couple years of college in Ethiopia where he also was trained as an aircraft technician and worked for two years. He was 23 when his immigration papers were approved and he used his training to apply for a Federal Aviation Administration license to work on commercial aircraft. Desalegn serviced airplanes in Pennsylvania for two years, then did the same in Arizona and Minnesota until Delta Airlines transferred him to Washington. Meanwhile, he resumed his studies in the United States. While holding down various jobs, he earned his engineering degree from George Mason University, his masters in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University and is working on his doctorate from Liberty University. Im telling you this to give you a picture of the drive and the value of education that we were told when we were kids, he said. It still impacts in some form or fashion. Desalegn has about 50 desktop computers ready to be shipped overseas and he knows exactly where theyll go. He was in Ethiopia last month when the first shipment arrived and he talked to officials at his old high school, which has become Tegbareid Polytechnic College. There are about 1,600 students there in eight different departments, and Desalegn and the dean agreed the nonprofit would provide at least 50 computers to each section. There are so many colleges, so many high schools, so many middle schools that would die to get these computers, Desalegn said. I have made a promise to him that he will get his computers, but I did not promise on the time. More information about Educate Africas mission is available at its website, educateafricaweb.org. TOKYO, Sep 26 ( NHK ) - New footage of the Beatles has been made public in Japan. The footage captured scenes of intense police security when the Fab Four visited Japan to perform in more than 55 years ago. Some contained never-before-seen footage. The video was released in July to a nonprofit organization, which made an information disclosure request to the Metropolitan Police Department in 2015. The faces of people other than the Beatles are blurred to protect their privacy. The black-and-white, silent footage is about 35 minutes long. It shows large-scale security measures implemented during the visit from June 29 to July 3, 1966. The footage shows checkpoints set up around Nippon Budokan, the concert venue, and a hotel where the members stayed. It also shows police boats patrolling the moats around the arena. The video also includes scenes from the final performance on the night of July 2, which have never been made public until now. It shows the members waving as they left the stage. ...continue reading A Japanese art and manga website that was cloned by Chinese pirates has hit back by encoding forbidden keywords and hashtags banned by Chinese censors into its code, prompting the authorities to shut the pirated version down. Pixiv, which describes itself as "an online community for artists," is headquartered in Tokyo, and offers a showcase for artists' works, as well as a rating system with feedback and user comments. It has been phenomenally successful, garnering more than 3.7 billion page views a month. Then, the entire site was cloned by Chinese pirates, who copied the site's content almost verbatim, translating tags and titles into simplified Chinese, and offering the pirated site vpixiv to users in mainland China. Pixiv fought back, however, with some of the site's users adding "sensitive" keywords to their artworks, including "Tiananmen massacre," which alerted the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s massive, government-backed censorship system. Other sensitive and forbidden keywords included "Free Hong Kong," "Independence for Taiwan," and "June 4, Tiananmen Square," all of which are heavily censored terms behind China's Great Firewall. ...continue reading TOKYO, Sep 26 ( NHK ) - Tokyo police have tightened security as many foreign dignitaries are arriving in Japan to attend the state funeral of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo on Tuesday. Roughly 20,000 police officers will be deployed to ramp up security for the funeral at Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo. About 4,300 people are expected to attend the ceremony. Some 700 of them will be government officials and other dignitaries from overseas and ambassadors based in Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio is scheduled to hold separate meetings with more than 30 foreign dignitaries from Monday through Wednesday. ...continue reading A 45-year-old Lincoln man riding a motorcycle has died following a crash on West O Street on Saturday. The crash was reported around 2:30 p.m. Police said the motorcyclist was westbound when the driver of a Hyundai sedan pulled out in front of it near Southwest 20th Street. The names of the drivers were not immediately available, and no citations have been issued. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. You are here: Business The China Development Bank has provided another 150 billion yuan (about 21.45 billion U.S. dollars) to support major infrastructure projects, according to the bank. The funds are part of the additional 300 billion yuan of infrastructure investment announced by the government in late August, and have financed 421 infrastructure projects, the bank said. As of Sept. 20, the bank has channeled a total of 360 billion yuan of such investment funds into over 800 infrastructure projects. At a State Council executive meeting last month, China pledged to increase the 300-billion-yuan policy-backed and development-oriented financial instruments for specific projects by another 300-plus billion yuan. The bank said it will continue to ensure that solid work is carried out on fund operations and post-investment management, and it will push for concrete progress in the projects. The Palestinian issue and the status of Al-Quds city remain at the center of Moroccans concerns, and hold and will continue to hold an important place in the political, diplomatic and humanitarian action of the Kingdom under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee. The remarks were made by Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita during the Annual Coordination Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), held on the sidelines of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The position of Morocco was and will remain clear and constant vis-a-vis the Palestinian issue which enjoys a special interest among all Moroccans, the minister said, recalling that this position was behind the call of the late king Hassan II to the leaders of Islamic countries, in 1969, to hold the historic first Islamic Summit in Rabat, which led to the creation of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Like all brotherly Islamic countries, the Kingdom has emphasized that the Palestinian cause remains at the heart of the organizations concerns, Bourita said. Comprehensive peace in the region cannot be achieved unless the Palestinian people benefit from its legitimate rights, including the establishment of an independent state, with Al-Quds as its capital, within the framework of the two-state solution and under the relevant international resolutions, the FM stated. In this context, Bourita insisted that Morocco will continue its efforts, using its capabilities and its distinguished relations with all the parties and all the international powers endeavoring to ensure the right conditions for the resumption of negotiations, which are the only way to end the conflict and ensure peace and stability in the Middle East. The FM also recalled that the Bayt Mal Al Quds agency has carried out, under the personal supervision of King Mohammed VI, many projects in the areas of housing, education and social action to help improve the living conditions of the Holy Citys inhabitants, support their resistance and preserve the civilizational and spiritual aspects of Al-Quds, given its place as a crossroads of the three monotheistic religions, common heritage of humanity and land of cohabitation. Bourita stressed that the Organization is called upon to meet the challenges posed by an international situation marked by several upheavals, which affect the lives of all peoples of the Islamic Ummah. In this connection, he said the political issues facing the organization should not overshadow the social and developmental issues that are the basis for consolidating cooperation and promoting trade among member countries to raise them to the expected level, meet the challenges posed and overcome the economic crises. The Minister welcomed, in this regard, the accession of the Organizations countries to the Trade Preferential System among the OIC Member States as well as the action taken by the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC). This system is likely to strengthen the capacities of the member countries to establish fruitful partnerships and consolidate joint Islamic action. Regarding the reform of the Joint Islamic Action System, Bourita emphasized the imperative of pursuing this momentum within the framework of a partnership vision based on the convergence of views among the member countries, to promote Islamic action and develop its methods and mechanisms. Aicha Chenna, the iconic womens rights advocate who was part of the first generation of Moroccan women who raised the banner of the struggle for equality and the promotion of womens rights in Morocco passed away on Saturday at the age of 81 and was laid to rest on Sunday. Aicha Chenna was born on August 14, 1941 in Casablanca. She left to live in Marrakech before returning to Casablanca in 1953. Fatherless, she studied nursing and then worked as a health and social education moderator in the Ministry of Health. Very early, she had to deal with vulnerable women and issues that were considered as social and religious taboos. She is leaving behind a valuable legacy in matters of womens rights as she was one of the most prominent defenders of these rights and as she tirelessly struggled and took initiatives that sought to empower women, especially single mothers. It was an uphill task. Single mothers are ostracized in Moroccan society and so are their children born out of wedlock. Yet, Aicha Chenna managed to endure all difficulties, and out of sheer determination, she confronted all criticism. In 1985, she founded the Association Solidarite feminine (ASF) for the defense of womens rights and abandoned children. It was the first association in Morocco to offer training and literacy courses to give financial and professional independence to single mothers and victims of rape, often rejected by their families and by society. She made of the advocacy for single mothers a life battle to grant these women the rights they did not have, as she fought for the status of illegitimate and abandoned children and of incest victims. Aicha Chennas activism, recognized at the national and international level, has been supported by King Mohammed VI. She once said: The King has shown me his blessing and has given me the key to the success of my mission. His encouragement, his high concern and his magnanimous gestures strengthen my conviction and give me every day the strength and courage to continue. She was awarded for her remarkable work of activism back in 2009, when she won the $1 million Opus Prize, which she said would be used to ensure that her foundation carries on its work even after her death. Today, Morocco has lost a symbol of the feminist human rights struggleAicha Chenna was the mother of all, and her achievements in the human rights field will remain a source of pride for all Moroccans, commented university professor and researcher in sociology, Somaya Noaman guessous. Aicha Chenna, or the Mother-Courage, who made great sacrifices at the expense of her time and personal life for the sake of single mothers, in order to preserve their dignity, render justice for children born out of wedlock, and to reverberate the voice of vulnerable groups, especially women, will always be remembered as an icon of feminism and activism in Morocco and beyond. A delegation of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) on Sunday visited the Tanger Med port complex. The delegation, led by PAP President Charumbira Fortune Zephania, includes several senior members of the Pan-African Parliament. The visit was an opportunity to get informed about the main projects launched in Morocco, in particular the Tanger Med port complex, and also to highlight the importance of port infrastructures in international trade. During this visit, the parliamentary delegation heard explanations on the facilities and organization of the port and its role as a key global logistical gateway and an example of integration into global trade. Tanger Med, which plays an essential role as a transshipment hub, has been ranked as the first port in Africa for five years and as the first port in the Mediterranean for 2 years. Thanks to its modern infrastructure and sophisticated technology, the Tanger-Med port has become one of the pioneering maritime platforms in the world, the head of the delegation, Fortune Zephania commented, calling on Morocco to share its unprecedented experience in this area with other African countries. Through the Tanger-Med port, Morocco has proven that Africa can take the lead and develop by itself, he noted. The PAP delegation is on an official visit to Morocco from September 24 to 27 at the invitation of the Moroccan Parliament. Head of Government Aziz Akhannouch touched down in Tokyo this Monday to represent King Mohammed VI at the state funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. More than 700 foreign guests are expected to attend the memorial service honoring Japans former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which will take place on Tuesday in the Japanese capital. One of Japans most influential politicians, Shinzo Abe was assassinated on July 8 while he was delivering an electoral campaign speech in western Japan. Following this assassination, King Mohammed VI had extended his condolences to the Emperor of Japan, Naruhito. The King had said in a message that he was deeply sorrowed by the despicable assassination of the late Shinzo Abe, and conveyed his heartfelt condolences and sincere feelings of compassion to the family and loved ones of the former PM. The King described Abe as an accomplished leader, who devoted his life to the service of the supreme interests of his compatriots and to their aspirations. Etienne Soropogui, a high profile political leader in Guinea Conakry, was arrested Saturday after slamming the ruling junta on a local popular radio station. The leader of Nos Valeurs Communes [Our Common Values] (NVC), according to his lawyer Salifou Beavogui, was collared by around 50 officers of the gendarmerie after he spoke on a show on Radio fim FM. As soon as he left the radio, about fifty gendarmes, according to the information he gave me, intercepted him and took him to the Central Directorate of Judicial Investigations of the National Gendarmerie where he was detained, without any offence being reported for the moment, Beavogui told French media RFI. The lawyer slammed the arrest that he branded arbitrary and unjust and not based on any law. He has not yet been interrogated and he has not been notified of anything, absolutely nothing. He is on hold. Is it a custody that has already begun? He has not been notified of anything according to the law. He is here and unfortunately, he [spent] his first night at the gendarmerie illegally, he added. The junta led by Mamady Doumbouya took power September last year after removing democratically elected then leader Alpha Omar. The junta is at odds with regional body ECOWAS which has demanded a roadmap for the return to a constitutional order. The regional organization last week announced a set of gradual sanctions on the military group leading the West African country. Those who incite this group of soldiers to become radicalized, to enter into a configuration of arm wrestling with both national actors and the international community, are not doing the junta any good. I believe that they are being called upon to do reality check, and that it will be better for them and better for our country, the political figures said in the show also relayed on Youtube. Burkina Faso and Russia Sunday expressed their eagerness to bolster cooperation between the two countries for mutual benefits as Moscow continues to deepen its footprint in Africa. Lieutenant-colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, leader of the West African country met with Russias top diplomat Serguei Lavrov in New York on the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly. Both countries according to the office of the Burkina Faso leader want to strengthen ties and address current challenges. Currently, there was a desire to further strengthen this cooperation and bring it to a level that will be mutually beneficial to both countries, said Olivia Rouamba, Burkina Fasos Minister of Foreign Affairs. The meeting comes amid increasing insecurity in Burkina Faso which is grappling with terror activities by armed groups and jihadists. Last month, the Prime Minister of the Burkinabe transition, Albert Ouedraogo, had declared that Burkina Faso reserved the right to diversify its partnerships, even if it meant offending its historical partners, stressing that there are questions to be asked about the partnership with France, Anadolu agency had reported. Ouedraogo expressed his countrys willingness to diversify international partners on the fight against terrorism. Auburn Police have arrested an Indiana woman on multiple felony warrants. Felicia Denise Jones, 40, of Indianapolis, was arrested by Auburn Police on Saturday on charges of two counts of unlawfully breaking and entering into a motor vehicle, two counts of fraudulent use of a credit/debit card, first-degree theft of property, second-degree theft of property and third-degree theft of property. The arrest was made after police responded to reports of an auto theft in the 500 block of West Magnolia Avenue, according to a press release from the Auburn Police Department. A victim reported that an unknown suspect stole a vehicle and the property contents inside the vehicle, the release stated. Auburn Police developed Jones as a suspect and when they found her, the stolen vehicle was also recovered in the vicinity. The police also recovered stolen property linking Jones to auto burglaries and thefts that occurred in the 500 block of West Magnolia Avenue and the 400 block of Heisman Drive, police said. After further investigation, Jones was arrested and charged with the offenses associated with the thefts and auto burglaries, the release said. Jones was transported to the Lee County Jail and held on an $18,500 bond. Two 19-year-old victims were transported to East Alabama Medical Center on Saturday with non-life threatening gunshot wounds, according to a release from the Opelika Police Department. At about 11:43 a.m., Opelika police responded to calls regarding gunshots and possible victims in the area of 16th Place and Pepperell Parkway, according to the release, and they found the teens at EAMC. This incident remains under investigation by the Opelika Police Department. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Detective Division at 334-705-5220 or the Secret Witness Hotline at 334-745-8665. Anonymous tips can also be submitted through our Opelika Police Mobile App. Opelika City Schools have notified parents with children who attend Southview Primary School that the pick-up line route is changing to alleviate congestion and make the travel pattern safer. Beginning Oct. 3, cars will not be allowed to line up on Marvyn Parkway past the turn lane into Southview or block the intersection at Gateway Drive. In the new route, cars will be directed to line up along Hall Avenue for pick-up. Drivers are reminded to stay on the right side of the road and not to block driveways. Dismissal for the school is at 2:45 p.m. This change was a joint decision between the City of Opelika, the Opelika Police Department and Opelika City Schools. We have all been trying to find a solution for quite a while, said Becky Brown, the school districts director of public relations. Brown said the carpool line has been a consistent problem in the afternoon for Southview families for more than 15 years. It has a short turn lane into the school, so it has been a problem because cars stack up on the shoulder of the highway, and thats very dangerous, she said. Marvyn Parkway is a two-lane highway that gets congested each afternoon, and the volume of traffic has increased because of the addition of Gateway Drive. The city has even made requests to the Alabama Department of Transportation to widen this road leading to the school. However, there are no immediate plans to do so. If ALDOT makes the road wider, Brown said, OCS would be happy to adjust the traffic pattern again. The OPD will have an officer at the intersection of Hall Avenue and Highway 51 and an officer at the Southview entrance/exit on Highway 51 to direct traffic during dismissal, the OCS release said. We appreciate the cooperation of the residents on Hall Avenue, Brown said. We realize its an inconvenience, but its truly going to help with the traffic. Following student pick-up, cars will still be allowed to exit on Marvyn Parkway or Gateway Drive. Parents of Southview Primary School students or residents of Hall Avenue who have questions are encouraged to send an email to questions@opelikaschools.org. Citizens with immediate safety concerns are asked to call the Opelika Police Department on the non-emergency dispatch number at 334-705-5260. A detailed map of the traffic pattern and additional information can be found on the Southview Primarys website. With a large number of Chinese companies rushing to fill their offices with the right people overseas, LinkedIn, a California-based professional networking platform provider, will upgrade the operation of its business-to-business, or B2B, in China to assist more domestic companies to increase their global presence, said an executive. Many opportunities have been created by the stable growth of China's outbound direct investment (ODI) and its companies' desire to further compete with other foreign players in the global arena, as well as many countries' surging demand in their pursuit of sustainable urbanization and industrialization. In addition to supporting more Chinese companies to either establish or develop businesses in overseas markets this year, LinkedIn has enhanced cooperation with external partners to build an ecosystem of services to empower the export business of Chinese enterprises and to carry out their "going global "moves, said Nancy Wang, head of talent solutions at LinkedIn China. China's ODI rose by 9.2 percent on a yearly basis to $145.19 billion in 2021, while the country saw 560 newly signed foreign contracted projects with a value of more than $100 million, 46 more from the previous year, statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show. In the meantime, Chinese companies' investment in software services notably surged in other parts of the world. Their investment in fields like technical services, manufacturing, transportation and residential services was also on the rise, indicating a diversified ODI portfolio. "We found that IT and emerging industries, especially in the fields of cross-border e-commerce, mobile games and biotechnology, are willing to accelerate their 'going global' speed," she said. Chinese enterprises, boosted by many countries' supportive policies, have already started operating many branches and manufacturing sites across the world, in particular those from the new energy and photovoltaic industries. It is no secret that digitalization has become one of the main arteries powering the pulse of the global economy and also a strong driver of China's economic transformation, Wang said. Businesses now aim to serve not only domestic consumers but also overseas markets. Sectors such as consumer electronics, electric vehicles, smart manufacturing and wearable devices will be major forces to shore up China's ODI growth in the coming years, she added. For instance, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd, a major electric vehicle battery maker, sealed a deal with the city of Debrecen in Hungary in early September to build its second European plant. Echoing this positive sentiment, Wang noted that demand for "green jobs" will continue to move from oil and gas sectors to auto, agriculture, logistics and financial businesses in China, after the country put forth its goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. There has been a significant uptick in demand for job postings requiring "green skills" such as pollution prevention, environmental policy analysis and ecosystem management, with sustainable fashion being the fastest-growing sector globally, according to LinkedIn's Global Green Skills Report 2022, released earlier this year. The study found that jobs requiring "green skills" accounted for nearly half of all hires in China in 2021. The transition will not only facilitate Chinese companies to build a better brand image when they grow in overseas markets, but also help them recruit and retain outstanding talent to enhance their competitiveness, Wang added. To solve the demand and supply gap in green employment, detailed regulations, human resources specialists and standardized training are certainly needed, said Ding Rijia, a professor specializing in the green economy at China University of Mining and Technology in Beijing. "Green growth and digitalization are changing commerce in many ways. We are seeing some businesses disappear or evolve. But at the same time, the creation of new brands and types of operational models is replacing some traditional roles," said Zhang Yongjun, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Center for International Economic Exchanges. Entering the China market in 2014, LinkedIn is supported by over 19,000 employees and had 850 million registered members in over 200 countries and regions as of the end of August. After months of conflict in Ukraine, and an increasing movement away from Russian energy by several world powers, some countries have made it clear that they are not willing to cut ties with Putin when it comes to energy. With Europe and North America turning away from Russian oil and gas, it has made Russian energy prices highly competitive at a time when the world is battling with rising consumer and energy costs. This has led China, India and several other powers to develop their trade relations with Russia even further, in a bid to acquire cheap energy. China has been buying higher quantities of low-cost energy supplies from Russia in recent months, as it benefits from the falling prices that have occurred due to Western sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan this month demonstrated the two leaders commitment to their deepening trade links. Its a win-win situation, with China having access to cheap energy when it needs it most and Russia finding alternative markets to Europe. The two countries have even begun to use their own currencies the yuan and the rouble decreasing their reliance on the U.S. dollar. China is thought to have imported 17 percent more Russian energy between April and July this year than in the same period the previous year. Its LNG imports from Russia have increased by 50 percent, coal by 6 percent and electricity via a cross-broader transmission line by 39 percent. In total China has spent $43.68 billion on Russian energy imports in 2022. But the decision to deepen ties with Russia is not simply to spite the West. Russia is significantly undercutting the competition with its energy prices. China is believed to have saved around $3 billion by purchasing Russian crude, paying around $708 per tonne rather than sourcing alternative imports that cost about $816 per tonne. And its not the only country to have taken notice of Russias low energy prices, particularly as much of the world is battling against energy scarcity and rising oil and gas prices. Related: An Oil Supply Shock May Be Imminent In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has showed interest in fostering the countrys trade relations with Russia to acquire low-cost energy supplies. In a statement at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, he suggested the two powers had a special partnership, demonstrating interest in boosting cooperation. India has already increased its oil imports from Russia in recent months, despite calling for diplomacy and dialogue over the war in Ukraine. And it has done little to respond Western pressure over these imports. Indias Petroleum Minister Shri Hardeep Singh Puri stated his allegiance to India, and to ensuring energy security. Puri explained, No, theres no conflict. I have a moral duty to my consumer. Do I as a democratically elected government want a situation where the petrol pump runs dry? Modi has continually called for greater assistance from the West to improve Indias energy security and help the country transition to a future in renewables. He told the world at the COP26 Climate Summit last year that India had significant potential in renewables, including wind and solar power and green hydrogen, but it would need greater foreign support and investment to unleash its capabilities. While foreign investment in Indias energy sector is on the rise, and the government has begun to establish meaningful green energy policies, due to its growing population and fears of oil and gas scarcity Indias energy is far from secure. In the Middle East, both Saudi Arabia and Iran have strengthened their ties with Russia in the wake of the Ukraine conflict. Saudi Arabia more than doubled the amount of Russian fuel oil it imported in the second quarter of 2022, allowing it to export higher levels of its own crude output. Discounted Russian fuel has become increasingly attractive to foreign buyers who do not support the sanctions on Russian energy. Meanwhile, fellow sanctioned Iran is looking to strengthen ties with Russia while maintaining its volatile relationship with the West. Iran and Russia have often treated each other as partners of convenience, a relationship that has continued since the war. Iran was the first non-former Soviet state Putin visited after the invasion, signalling his intention to foster a partnership with Tehran. And there is significant potential for Russia upon Irans re-entry to the international oil market, should a JCPOA be agreed upon with the U.S., as Iran could import Russian oil and gas to meet national needs allowing it to export Iranian crude or re-export Russian oil to non-European consumers. While Europe and North America continue to turn their backs on Russian energy, China, India and several other countries are using the opportunity to increase low-cost oil and gas imports to improve their energy security. Despite mounting pressure from the West to condemn Russias actions by rejecting Russian energy, the appeal of cheap energy supplies is proving too much for many world powers to turn down. By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Russian oil flows are increasingly moving in an eastern direction, while fuels produced in the East will move in a western direction, Vitols chief executive Russell Hardy said at an industry event. "It's going to go further and longer distances and find different markets, and in doing that it's going to have to trade at a discount," Hardy said of Russian oil, as quoted by Reuters. "You're beginning to see that with fuel coming east that would otherwise have stayed in Europe, and fuel in the East going to the West to cover the shortfall," the Vitol chief executive also said. Meanwhile, the flow of U.S. oil to Europe will also increase as a European Union embargo on Russian crude comes into effect in early December. According to Hardy, U.S. oil exports to the EU will average more than 1 million barrels daily. U.S. producers, however, have warned that importers shouldnt rely on major increases in supply because production is growing at a modest pace. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Russian seaborne oil exports had contracted sharply since the start of September. The decline stands at 900,000 bpd for the period, to a total of 2.54 million bpd during the second week of September. This compares with 3.42 million bpd for the first week of the month, the report said. Since the start of sanction action by the West, Russia has focused its exports on the East, with China and India taking in most of its crude. According to some analysts, the two countries will not be able to offset lost exports to Europe after the embargo kicks in. At the same time, Bloomberg reported earlier this month that shipowners were in a rush to buy ice-class tankers, preparing to ship Russian oil during the winter. Total sales of these reached 42 between May and August this year, up from 12 a year earlier. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: At the Chinese Communist Partys 20th National Congress in October, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been widely expected to be granted a third term as party leader in what would be an unprecedented event considering that CCP leaders generally only serve two terms. That fact alone has raised tensions for the particular National Congressan event that only happens every five years. If granted a third term, a right that has already been made possible due to a constitutional amendment, Xi would serve as CCP leader for another five years. Any doubt that Xi would be granted a third team as CCP leader seemed to have been put to rest by changes to both the state constitution of the People's Republic of China and the constitution of the Communist Party of China. Instead, the tension was set to be around who would be promoted within the party and who would be sent into retirement within the CCPs Central Committee and the Politburo. Then, on Saturday, completely unfounded rumors that appear to have been started and promulgated on social media and picked up by Indian media outlets almost exclusively suggested a coup was afoot and that Xi had been placed under house arrest, with the 20th Party Congress only a couple of weeks away. Indeed, Xi faces a lot of challenges, from controversial and merciless COVID lockdowns to an economic slowdown that seems to be gaining momentum. However, there are no indications that a coup is in the offing, or that Xi is under house arrest. The rumors remain just thatrumors with zero verification or validation, and nothing more than a social media fantasy world and a disinformation campaign that ground to a halt shortly after it was launched. Right after Xi returned from Uzbekistan where he attended the Shanghai Cooperation Summit (SCO), reports emerged that China had sentenced to death (with suspended sentences) two former ministers and sent another four officials to prison for life. This was followed by rumors of a coup that centered on General Li Qiaoming as a potential organizer. Wild rumors related the sentencing of these ex-officials to a coup plot, despite the fact that this was part of an anti-corruption push by Beijing. Related: Belgium To Shut Nuclear Reactor On Friday Amid Energy Crunch All of this leads back to the real battle going on ahead of the 20th Party Congresswho will get the top spots in the CCP Committee and Politburo. After the initial rumors circulated, further baseless rumors speculated that certain senior military figures were displeased that Xi was openly favoring Qiaoming over other more senior officials. More specifically, the rumors appeared to express fear and dissatisfaction over what some might view as Xis attempt to give the CCP more power over the military, in the form of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). Unfounded as the rumors are, there is no denying that this is a critical point in Xis solidification of power in the CCP, and tensions are and will remain high in the run-up. Much is at stake. The CCP has to take full responsibility for the slowing economy, and Xis picks will determine the new strategy going forward. Unemployment is growing, and in tandem, consumer spending power is declining. For 2022, Chinese economic growth is expected to come in at just over 3%, while official projections had earlier set it at 5.5%. Thats down from 8% 10 years ago, and the CCP bears this responsibility. As this unfolds, Xi is on a collision course with Western powers whose investors he will also likely be trying to convince to keep their feet solidly grounded in Chinas manufacturing mecca. And while the rest of the worlds economies have largely brought COVID under control and learned to live with new cases without shutting everything down, Beijings zero-COVID policies are highly controversial. This Sunday, a prominent commentator, Hu Xijin, openly criticized Beijing, calling for more comprehensive and transparent research. "The people must trust the state, but the state must also trust the understanding of the people," Hu said, as reported by Reuters. None of this will break China or cripple Xi. Instead, the weaknesses of the worlds economic powerhouse are simply flashing a bit brighter right now, and may continue to do so into mid-next year. Even as many officials, intellectuals and business leaders worry that President Xi Jinping is consolidating too much power around himself, the masses of the people support his continuing leadership, writes David Mahon, Executive Chairman of Beijing-based Mahon China Investment Management Limited. Xi may not bring economic relief immediately after the upcoming National Party Congress, but he knows he will have to offer a path to normalcy soon afterwards. Xi will heed the economic and social pragmatists around him, for he too is a pragmatist. China will stumble into next year, but it will not fall. As oil markets take their cue in large part from Chinese economic data, which speaks volumes about future demand, this is something to bear in mind. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com British Prime Minister Liz Truss wrote the threats off as bogus, while the U.S. warned of catastrophic consequences if Putin crosses the line. Ukraine's president said late on September 25 that there was fierce fighting taking place on the front lines of its 7-month-old defense against Russia's invasion but that Kyiv was seeing "positive results." President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's battlefield assessment came after he warned in a broadcast interview earlier in the day against dismissing Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats as Moscow's forces lose ground. Meanwhile, new British Prime Prime Minister Liz Truss downplayed Putin's recent statements as "saber-rattling" and "bogus threats," and U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington had outlined to Moscow the "catastrophic consequences" it would face if it used nuclear weapons against Ukraine. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy claimed gains against Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk, northeastern Kharkiv, and the southern Mykolayiv and Zaporizhzhya regions. "We have positive results in several directions." he said. Russia and its separatist allies in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya regions of Ukraine have been holding votes on possible independence and union with Russia that they call referendums but Kyiv and many in the international community have said are a sham. The votes are scheduled to conclude on September 27. They were announced amid Ukrainian counteroffensives in northeastern and eastern Ukraine that Kyiv has said have wrested back thousands of square kilometers this month. Putin and other Russian officials have suggested the votes will result in an irreversible transformation of those areas to make them part of Russia. And Putin suggested this week that Moscow could use all means at its disposal to defend them. After his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was asked if Moscow would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend the annexed regions. He said territory "further enshrined" in Russia's constitution "is under the full protection of the state." Related: Putin Forces All Energy Workers To Register For Military Draft Zelenskiy, who has vowed Ukraine will reclaim all of its lost territory, said in an interview with a U.S. broadcaster on September 25 that "maybe yesterday it was a bluff. Now, it could be a reality." He added of Putin: "He wants to scare the whole world. These are the first steps of his nuclear blackmail. I don't think he's bluffing." Truss told CNN in a September 25 interview: "We should not be listening to [Putin's] saber-rattling and his bogus threats." "Instead, what we need to do is continue to put sanctions on Russia and continue to support the Ukrainians because if Putin is allowed to succeed, this wouldn't just send a terrible message in Europe and, of course, huge threats to the Ukrainian population themselves, but it also would send a message to other authoritarian regimes around the world that it's somehow acceptable to...invade a sovereign nation." U.S. officials were less dismissive of the Kremlin threat. "If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia; the United States will respond decisively," Sullivan said on U.S. television. By RFE/RL More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Nigeria's national electricity grid woes show no signs of abating with the grid collapsing again on Monday, leaving many parts of the country without power. Nigerias national power grid has collapsed at least four times this year, with the authorities blaming technical problems for the breakdowns. A month ago, workers from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) went on strike, temporarily shutting the grid. Nigeria has an installed capacity of 12,500 megawatts but only manages to produce about a quarter of that thus forcing many Nigerians and businesses to rely on diesel-powered generators. Back in July, the grid suffered another meltdown, with national output crashing from 3,921.8 megawatts to a mere 50MW. As is the case in many African countries, Nigerias decrepit energy supply has been a key obstacle for economic growth in Africa's most populous country. Nigerias power and energy sectors are currently in very bad shape, with the country facing a record reduction in oil production. Indeed, as per OPEC reports, Nigeria has dropped from being Africa's largest oil producer to fourth place, behind Angola, Algeria and Libya with theft and sabotage at production sites hampering output. Last month, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCGROUP) CEO Melee Kyari revealed that Nigeria is losing nearly all the oil output at oil hub Bonny, the town after which its premium oil grade Bonny Light is named. Bonny Light is a light-sweet crude oil grade produced in Nigeria, and an important benchmark crude for all West African crude production. Bonny Light has particularly good gasoline yields, which has made it a popular crude for U.S. refiners, particularly on the U.S. East Coast. Relying largely on estimates, the NNPCL and the ministry of petroleum have variously put the total quantity of barrels stolen at between 200,000 to 400,000 per day. Those are enormous figures considering that Nigeria only managed to produce 1.083 million b/d in the month of July, way below its OPEC quota of 1.8 million b/d. With a barrel of Bonny Light currently changing hands at $87.60, Nigeria is losing billions of dollars every year to oil theft. Back in June, NNPC revealed that it had lost $1B from oil theft in the first quarter of 2022 alone, with Shell Plc. (NYSE: SHEL) subsidiaries in the country claiming that illegal seizures now pose an existential threat to the entire market. By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Chinese President Xi Jinping has written a foreword, titled "Forging Ahead on the Journey to National Rejuvenation," for works of literature collected in the Revitalization Library, which will soon be published. In the foreword, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, emphasized the necessity to draw on the lessons of history, reflect on the past, look to the future, and press forward on the journey to national rejuvenation. The compilation of the Revitalization Library is a major cultural project approved by the CPC Central Committee, noted Xi. Its publication is significant for the Chinese people to firm up confidence in history, grasp the trend of the times, follow the Chinese way, and promote the great national rejuvenation through the Chinese path to modernization. The Chinese nation, as a great nation in the world, has made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization, Xi said. After the advent of modern times, it suffered greater ravages than ever before. Since the CPC was founded, the Party has united and led the people to fight tough struggles and find the correct path to realize the great national rejuvenation, he added. Prospects for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation have been brighter than ever before, Xi said. Under the strong leadership of the CPC, Xi said, the Chinese people are able to secure the future of China's development and progress firmly in their own hands. The Revitalization Library is compiled and published to tell and record the exploration of the forefathers and inspire future generations via the collection of vital ideological works since modern times, Xi said. Noting that momentous changes not seen in a century are gripping the world at an accelerating pace, and China has come to a pivotal moment for realizing the great national rejuvenation, Xi stressed the need to draw on the lessons of history, reflect on the past and look to the future. Xi stressed the need to have a clear grasp of why we were successful in the past and how we can continue to succeed in the future. He underscored the importance of standing firm in ideals and convictions and pooling great strength to contribute the wisdom and strength of our generation to the realization of the Chinese Dream of great national rejuvenation. The Revitalization Library focuses on the theme of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It features a collection of significant literature related to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation since the Opium War in 1840. It gives a panoramic view of the historical course of perseverant exploration of the outstanding sons and daughters of the Chinese nation represented by Chinese Communists in making the country prosperous and strong, achieving national revitalization, and bringing happiness to the people. Boasting five volumes in total, the Revitalization Library will see the publication of its first three volumes in the coming days. The United Arab Emirates agreed to an LNG supply deal with Germanys RWE during Chancellor Olaf Scholzs visit to the Gulf. The deal only covers one tanker of LNG, or 137,000 cubic meters, to be delivered later this year for trials at a floating LNG import terminal that is currently being constructed in Germany. According to the Financial Times, which cited unnamed sources, there are plans for five more LNG shipments to be sent by Emirati ADNOC to RWE in 2023. We need to make sure that the production of LNG in the world is advanced to the point where the high demand that exists can be met without having to resort to the production capacity that exists in Russia, Scholz said. This would take a lot of effort on a global scale and that effort would take a lot of time, which Germany does not really have. And while the deal between ADNOC and RWE was hailed as a milestone, the actual amount to be delivered is minuscule compared with Germanys gas needs. Up until this year, Russia supplied more than half of the gas Germany consumed on an annual basis. Chancellor Scholz also traveled to Qatar, which has a provisional agreement to supply German companies with gas but it has not progressed beyond the provisional stage because Qatar wants a long-term commitment and Germany was, at least earlier this year, reluctant to make one in light of its renewable energy ambitions. The German chancellor left Qatar without the announcement of a final deal, suggesting differences of opinion on the terms of a deal remained. Besides liquefied natural gas, UAEs ADNOC also sealed a deal to supply diesel to Germany and the first shipment has already arrived, the FT noted. The deal is for the supply of 250,000 tons of diesel per month over 2023. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan exported over 37 million barrels of crude oil over the three months to June this year, making $3.8 billion from the sales, local media reported. Kurdistan has been exporting its oil independently of the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, but the latter appears to have grown unhappy with this state of affairs. Earlier this month, an official from the Iraqi oil ministry said that the government had advised international oil buyers not to do business with the Kurdish government. The announcement followed an Iraqi Supreme Court ruling against a Kurdish law on oil and gas which was passed back in 2007. The government in Baghdad never recognized the law, which makes Kurdish exports of oil illegal from its perspective. According to Baghdad, Erbil is obliged to comply with the Supreme Courts decision. Iraq is OPECs second-largest producer of oil but political instability has plagued the country for years, interfering with its production growth plans. Tensions between Baghdad and Erbil have contributed to the instability. A recent escalation of social unrest that led to violent clashes with protesters was the latest red flag, which prompted one analystRBCs Helima Croftto suggest Iraq could lose up to a million barrels daily in production if the escalation went further. That was in late August when a prominent Iraqi Shia cleric said he would quit politics. Since then, things have quieted down but there are still ongoing protests in different parts of the country. Meanwhile, the U.S. has urged Baghdad and Erbil to get together and discuss their oil and gas issues. The solution must come from the Iraqi fronts. It is not possible for the United States or any outside force to impose its opinions or impose a solution on the Iraqi people, a State Department spokesman told Rudaw on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that took place last week. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: By signing up to our newsletter, you agree for your email address to be shared with our third party mail providers. The narrow waterway between Denmark and Sweden a key chokepoint for oil supply from Russias western ports will see the risk of oil spills increase when the EU sanctions against Russian oil exports by sea enter into force at the end of this year. The UN agency International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Danish maritime authorities strongly recommend the use of a specialized pilot on ships passing through the Danish straits with its many islands. Although not obligatory, the recommendation is widely followed by the industry, with pilots being used on 95% of all 196 oil tankers that crossed the Great Belt, the main channel in the straits, last month, per data from the Danish Maritime Authority cited by the Financial Times. However, the EU sanctions against Russian oil exports by sea would in theory ban the provision of EU maritime transportation services to vessels carrying Russian oil, including specialized pilots from Denmark to help navigate the Danish straits. This, if not addressed, could raise the risk of dangerous and environmentally-disastrous oil spills from ships that would not use a specialized pilot or try to go dark and circumvent the sanctions. Failure to comply with the rules and recommendations of the IMO will not only pose an environmental risk to Danish territorial waters. It will also pose a risk to the safety of navigation and the crew members on board the ships, the Danish Maritime Authority told FT. The authority and the IMO highly recommend the usage of pilots on ships traveling through the Danish straits, but still, the Danish Maritime Authority told Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas earlier this month: In conclusion, Denmark cannot prevent oil tankers from passing from the Baltic Sea to the high seas. Analysts believe that there could be a compromise or some sort of solution to this situation because its estimated that around 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude passes through the Danish straits from Russias Baltic Sea ports en route to the Atlantic. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The UK government on Monday launched a review of the steps the country has laid out to take in reaching its legally-binding 2050 net-zero emissions target while increasing energy security and affordability at the same time. The independent review, to be chaired by former energy minister Chris Skidmore, aims to ensure that the delivery of the legally-binding climate goal - which, the government stressed, remains in place - is pro-growth and pro-business, the new government headed by Liz Truss said today. Considering the soaring energy prices burdening UK households and businesses, the government now looks to review the approach to net-zero emissions to better understand the impact of the different ways to deliver its net zero pathway on the UK public and economy and maximise economic opportunities of the transition. The three-month review should be ready by the end of 2022. The government remains committed to reaching our net zero emissions targets, but with Russia weaponising energy across Europe we must make sure we do so in a way that increases energy security and does not place undue burdens on businesses or consumers, Secretary of State for Business and Energy, Jacob Rees Mogg, said in a statement. The new government in the UK has recently taken steps to maximize the potential for domestic oil and gas production to lessen import dependence. Last week, the government formally lifted the moratorium on shale gas extraction in England in a bid to increase domestic energy production as pledged by Prime Minister Truss earlier this month. The UK government also confirmed its support for a new oil and gas licensing round in the North Sea, expected to lead to more than 100 new licenses. To get there we will need to explore all avenues available to us through solar, wind, oil and gas production - so its right that weve lifted the pause to realise any potential sources of domestic gas, Business and Energy Secretary Rees-Mogg said last week, referring to the lifting of the pause on shale gas extraction in England. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Via AG Metal Miner Aluminum supply continues to shrink thanks to smelter shutdowns caused by ongoing energy shortages. Aluminum prices enjoyed a brief rebound following the Feds latest rate hike of three-quarters of a point. However, in the short term, aluminum prices remain in a downward trend. Earlier this week, MetalMiner noted how smelter shutdowns in China and Europe were impacting the aluminum market. Indeed, demand continues to drop in places like China, where construction has yet to hit full force after years of COVID-19 shutdowns. However, the question remains: will prices go bullish or bearish in the long run? Aluminum Prices and Market Trends Aluminum prices recently began to break down, breaching short-term range support levels. When this occurred, it indicated the potential for a long-term reversal. However, aluminum fundamental data continues to impose various risk factors on any bullish price action. Still, the growing likelihood of widespread supply shortages counters this. Related: Tesla Gigafactory Catches Fire In Germany Whats more, investors and traders continue to monitor aluminum prices under a microscope, especially with 2023 fast approaching. Its possible these patterns could indicate a long-term downtrend. US Business: Aluminum Can Shortage Aluminum cans increased in popularity in recent years, bringing aluminum prices up. Indeed, many breweries and companies prefer aluminum to glass because it is easier to package and less expensive. This, paired with global manufacturing shutdowns, is contributing to a perfect storm of sorts. While the use of aluminum remains crucial for these industries, the supply is simply not there. In fact, the problem is so bad that lead times for aluminum can supplies have been upwards of 5-6 months. Ongoing post-pandemic supply-chain shortages are also a major crux. However, its likely that manufacturing shutdowns will = continue to impact aluminum can supplies and, by extension, aluminum prices. By The MetalMiner Team More Top Reads From Oilprice.com After a 26-year-old woman was fatally shot in the forehead, someone moved her body several feet and attempted to make her death appear to be a suicide, an Omaha police detective said in court Monday. Davon Brown, 20, appeared in court in connection with the Aug. 12 fatal shooting of ShaLonna Houston in an apartment in the Florence Tower, 5100 Florence Blvd. Brown has been charged with second-degree murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony. Omaha Police Detective Michael Young said police officers found Houston dead in a bedroom of the apartment. A neighbor told them that he had heard two or three people arguing, although he couldnt make out what was said or whether it was hostile. Young said it appeared Houston had been moved several feet from where she was shot in the living room. A rifle was placed on the bed next to a fanny pack containing ammunition. Live rounds were scattered on the floor. Young said investigators think the gun was placed there in an attempt to make the scene look like a suicide. The man who lives in the apartment told officers that Houston and Brown had stayed the night. When he woke up, he found the couple play fighting and arguing. Brown was holding a rifle. The witness said he keeps the rifle in a closet and stores ammunition in a fanny pack on a bedside table. The man said he and Houston told Brown to stop messing around with the gun. While it was unclear whether the guns safety was on or off, the man told Brown that it wasnt safe to mess with the weapon. Brown pointed the gun at Houston several times, the man said, adding that as she attempted to grab the gun, Brown fired, striking Houston in the center of her forehead. The witness told officers that he couldnt be sure whether the shooting was done by accident or on purpose, Young said. The witness went across the hall to his fathers apartment to tell him what happened. Brown then came over and asked the witness to help get rid of Houstons body. That man declined to help. Surveillance video shows Brown going back into the apartment a couple more times, Young said. He then ran from the building, stopping once at Houstons car before running from the property. Brown was apprehended by police days later and told them that the shooting was accidental. After hearing testimony, Douglas County Judge Grant Forsberg decided the case against Brown could proceed to district court. Tamiko Jones, Houstons mother, spoke to Browns family ahead of the hearing. She told them that she wasnt upset. Jones and other family members filled the courtroom. Most of them sported pink shirts in honor of Houston. After the hearing, Jones said her daughter was a bright light who always managed to find a way to pick others up in times of need. Jones noted that Browns family had lost a child, too. I dont hate him, she said. As parents, we do our best. Once they become adults, the decisions are theirs. COVID-19 levels in both Nebraska and the United States continue to fall to their lowest levels in months, enough to prompt President Joe Biden to suggest the pandemic is over. But health officials say the current trends should not cause people to let down their guard on vaccinations. In fact, they say getting the latest vaccination booster between now and Halloween could be the best way for people to protect themselves and their families over the upcoming holidays. We want people to get together with Grandma and do it safely, said Dr. Bob Rauner, president of Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln. Sufficient vaccination is our biggest challenge right now. Nebraska posted 1,424 new COVID cases last week, down from 1,772 the previous week, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New cases are down by more than half over the past three weeks, falling to their lowest level since the first week of May. Hospitalizations also are falling, with last weeks daily average of 172 down from 183 the previous week. The state added 17 deaths last week, putting the total number of confirmed or probable deaths for the pandemic at 4,507. Nationally, COVID still is claiming 400 lives a day. Its still difficult to say where the unpredictable pandemic will go next as cases surged during the winter months in both 2020 and 2021. Some experts are projecting it will happen again. We are not (yet) in a stable pattern, Rauner said. I dont think you can act as if COVID doesnt exist. Rauner said Bidens statement last week about the pandemic being over has caused a lot of confusion and raised questions about what, if anything, people should be doing to protect their health. Rauner said the advice he has been giving people is simple and twofold. First, he said, stay current on your vaccination boosters. Vaccines have proven highly effective at reducing the risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19, often turning the infection into little more than a mild cold. More than three-quarters of the deaths being seen would have been prevented with vaccinations, Rauner said. Second, Rauner said, if you are feeling sick, wear a mask. Whether it turns out that you have COVID or just a common cold bug, either way you will be protecting the health of others around you. By taking those two steps, Rauner thinks most people can get back to normal lives. Unfortunately, vaccination levels both in Nebraska and nationally remain relatively low. Lancaster and Douglas Counties are the only counties in Nebraska where more than 50% of the 65-and-over population the most vulnerable to COVID has received the recommended two booster shots. With the new updated bivalent shot, which targets both the dominant omicron variants as well as the original COVID-19 strain, theres another chance for people to get current on shots. The FDA authorization states that individuals are eligible for a bivalent booster if it has been at least two months since they completed primary vaccination or received the most recent booster. Rauner said he likes the recent advice of Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, who suggested that people get the latest shot no later than Halloween. That would give them several weeks for immunity to build up and assure that they have maximum protection in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Get your bivalent booster by late October and wear a mask when youre sick and we shouldnt have to worry much this holiday, Rauner said. It would be nice if our hospitals werent swamped this winter for a change. Ralston Public Schools Superintendent Mark Adler notified the school board Monday that he intends to step down and retire from public education after the current school year. This district is special, filled with incredible people I will never forget! he wrote in the letter to the board, students, staff and the community. The students and staff exemplify grit, determination, pride, leadership, service and achievement. His resignation would be effective June 30. In the letter, Adler said it has been an honor and privilege to serve as a public school teacher and administrator in Nebraska for 32 years. He began working with the district in 2008 as assistant superintendent of business. He was appointed superintendent in 2012. Adler wrote that he and his wife, Joni, could not have asked for a better place to raise our children. Their three children, he wrote, attended the Ralston Public Schools. Tragedy struck the family in 2016 when their son, Reid, took his own life at 15. Because Adler was superintendent, the familys tragedy became a public one. The couple responded by speaking publicly about suicide awareness and emphasizing the importance of kindness. In his letter, Adler noted the support his family received from the school community. While living in Ralston, we experienced an unthinkable tragedy and enjoyed incredible success, he wrote. No matter where we were on our journey, members of the Ralston Public Schools community wrapped us up in their arms and carried us through. Our family will be forever grateful. He wrote that during his time in Ralston, he worked tirelessly to cultivate a positive, collaborative culture with students, staff and the community. As educators, we are in the business of hope, he wrote. I see myself as a CEO of Hope and Opportunity, and I will have done my job if every student and staff member has hope for a better tomorrow. Flash Ali Salehi, chief prosecutor of Tehran, said on Sunday his office has filed criminal charges against 14 individuals for involvement in the assassination of the country's high-ranking nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The prosecutor said the individuals have been accused of "corruption on earth," intelligence and espionage cooperation with Israel, collusion with the aim of compromising Iran's security, and acting against national security, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "Corruption on earth" is a term Iranian authorities use to refer to a broad range of offenses, including those related to Islamic values. Fakhrizadeh, who was the head of the Iranian Defense Ministry's Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, died from severe injuries in a hospital on Nov. 27, 2020 following an armed attack on his car in Absard district, 60 km northeast of Iran's capital Tehran. Iran has accused Israel of being behind the assassination. Hurricane Ian is nearing Cuba on a track to strike Florida as a Category 4 as early as Wednesday. One emergency management director says this is not a drill. Tampa and St. Petersburg are among the most likely targets for their first direct hit by a major hurricane in a century. Playing it safe, NASA planned to begin slowly rolling its moon rocket from the launch pad to its Kennedy Space Center hangar, adding weeks of delay to the test flight. Officials say one person was shot and a Chicago police officer was wounded during an incident inside a police facility on the citys West Side. Shots were fired shortly before noon Monday at the building in Homan Square, police spokesman Tom Ahern told WGN-TV. A Kentucky man who killed three fellow students and wounded five others when he was 14 years old will spend the rest of his life in prison without another opportunity to seek parole. The Kentucky Parole Board voted 7-0 on Monday to deny parole to 39-year-old Michael Carneal, and ordered him to serve out his full life sentence. Authorities say a gunman has killed 15 people and wounded 24 others in a school in central Russia. According to officials, 11 children were among those killed in the Monday morning shooting in School No. 88 in Izhevsk, a city 600 miles east of Moscow in the Udmurtia region. The governor of the region said the gunman killed himself after the attack. President Joe Biden says the Atlanta Braves will be forever known as the upset kings of October for their improbable 2021 World Series win. He called their drive an unstoppable, joyful run. Biden welcomed the champs for a packed East Room ceremony on Monday. Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson tells The Associated Press that he is retiring from full-time racing and will turn his focus toward spending time with family. Oath Keepers militia group founder Stewart Rhodes was once a promising Yale Law School graduate. Rhodes was born in California and spent time in Nevada and once secured an Arizona Supreme Court clerkship. But Rhodes' deep distrust of government and thirst for greatness led him down a different path. Rhodes built one of the countrys largest anti-government militia groups with members who'd eventually storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The 57-year-old Rhodes and four others tied to the group head to trial this week on charges of seditious conspiracy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency. He has been living in Russia since 2013 to escape prosecution in the U.S. after leaking classified documents detailing government surveillance programs. Biden plans to announce a new initiative that would eventually allow consumers to see a more complete price on airline tickets before they buy them. That would include baggage and change fees. The White House says the proposed rule from the Department of Transportation will prevent airlines from hiding the true cost of airline tickets, which would help consumers save money up front and encourage more competition among airlines to offer better fares. New York Citys mayor says he plans to erect hangar-sized tents as temporary shelter for thousands of international migrants who have been bused into the Big Apple as part of a campaign by Republican governors to disrupt federal border policies. In this week's religion roundup: Tens of thousands gathered to pray at Jerusalem's Western Wall, monks offered Buddhist prayers for Queeen Elizabeth II and the Unification Church promised reforms. National News ICYMI: Today's top US news Here's a look at the latest news and most interesting developments today. GENEVA (AP) The United States and several Western allies presented a proposal Monday for the U.N.'s main human rights body to hold a special debate over reported rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China's western Xinjiang region. The U.S. and Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden were behind a draft proposal at the Human Rights Council that would call for a debate on Xinjiang at the council's next session in early 2023, diplomats said. It amounts to the latest geopolitical salvo between the West and Beijing amid recent tensions over issues like the future of Taiwan. If approved, the draft "decision a sort of simplified resolution would mark the first time that human rights concerns in China have been formally put on the councils agenda. Diplomats in Geneva, where the 47-nation council is based, have been on the lookout for whether Western countries can muster enough political capital to push through any action on Xinjiang before the council's current session ends on Oct. 7. The draft would only convene a debate in the council which debates issues all the time and stops short of calling for stronger tools to monitor rights abuses, such as convening independent experts to scrutinize countries' activities. This modest but essential step will bring much-needed scrutiny to Chinese authorities sweeping rights violations targeting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, which the high commissioner recently found may rise to the level of crimes against humanity, said John Fisher, the deputy director for global advocacy at Human Rights Watch. While less intrusive than it might have been, the proposal is likely to rankle China, which has pushed back on attempts to hold it to account over the Xinjiang rights issue. It would also set a formal date for the council to consider Xinjiang. Some Western countries have sought to build pressure or at least maintain it on China after the office of former U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet issued a long-delayed report last month that suggested crimes against humanity" and other wrongs took place against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities as part of China's campaign against violent extremism in Xinjiang in recent years. The draft proposal sets the stage for back-channel haggling and a diplomatic showdown. China has ripped into Bachelets report, vowed not to work with the U.N. rights office, and staged an intense public relations push to defend its policies in Xinjiang. We firmly oppose any attempt to use Xinjiang-related issues for political manipulation, including this draft decision, said Liu Yuyin, a spokesman for Chinas diplomatic mission in Geneva. The council currently counts both China and the United States as members. The draft comes two days before the expiry of the deadline for such documents to be presented, so that diplomats can discuss, fine-tune and possibly vote on them before the sessions end. Some Western diplomats have expressed concern that putting forward a tough resolution could alienate or pressure some countries who have strong political and economic ties to China. They have also worried that presenting a resolution could backfire by giving Beijing a chance to show just how much support it can muster internationally. Human rights groups have accused China of sweeping 1 million or more people from minority groups into detention camps where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted and forced to abandon their language and religion. China has defended the camps which it says have been largely closed as vocational and training centers aimed at giving economic opportunities and skills for marginal populations. A 19-year-old Lexington man has been arrested on suspicion of motor vehicle homicide and willful reckless driving in connection with the death of a pedestrian. Salvador A. Canales is accused of striking Abdelaziz Suliman, 59, of Lexington, with his pickup truck just before 5 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of Adams and Oak Streets. Suliman, who had been walking to work, was pronounced dead at the scene, Lexington Police Chief Tracy Wolf said Monday. As drivers and passengers traveled along the gravel roads surrounding the Husker Harvest Days site west of Grand Island, they may have noticed a lack of dust being kicked up by their vehicles. The reason: an application of a soy-based product called DustLock. Formulated by Environmental Dust Control of the Midwest, which has offices in Minnesota and South Dakota, DustLock is marketed as not only a dust control on roads but also as a road stabilizer that eliminates the erosion of mud and gravel. The company said on its website that the product also works on recycled asphalt roads. The Nebraska Soybean Board paid for the products application but declined to disclose the cost. The product was dispensed by a truck along three miles of gravel surrounding the Harvest Days site on Aug. 17. When Husker Harvest Days were held nearly a month later, from Sept. 13 through Sept. 15, officials were effusive in their praise for how well the product held up. It worked great, said Matt Jungmann, national events manager at Farm Progress Companies, which manages Husker Harvest Days. Even after all the pounding it took during the show, its still there. It looks exactly the same as before the show. From the Soybean Boards perspective, the DustLock demonstration fits into the organizations mission to promote environmentally sustainable soy-based products. Scott Ritzman, executive director of the Nebraska Soybean Board, and Jungmann noted that one application of DustLock eliminated the need to constantly have trucks dispense water to tamp down the dust. Ritzman said that people didnt have to walk through the dust and that vehicles and products remained clean. Officials also touted the products road integrity benefits. Because the liquid material binds itself into the road and prevents road dust from kicking up, they said washouts and potholes are less frequent. Dan Feige, a representative for Environmental Dust Control of the Midwest, said that helps townships and county highway departments save on road maintenance costs. We feel like we have a much more cost-effective product in the long term thinking of the road, he said. While DustLock drew great interest from Husker Harvest Days attendees and there have been many inquiries, it has not yet gotten traction in the Nebraska market. In a voicemail, a Nebraska Department of Transportation spokeswoman called DustLock an interesting product but said we probably wont use it since the department doesnt manage many gravel roads and has other mitigating measures. Ritzman imagines that interest in procuring the product will tick up given the positive feedback at Husker Harvest Days. He said the Nebraska Soybean Board might do more demonstrations and possibly provide financial assistance to potential buyers. The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission is better able to monitor the health, movements and distribution of bighorn sheep in the Wildcat Hills thanks to a project completed this month. With the help of a helicopter capture crew, Game and Parks placed tracking collars on 27 sheep over two days last week. These are GPS-linked radio collars. It shows on a computer where they are moving, what direction they are going, said Todd Nordeen, big game disease and research program manager. It helps us find them so we can monitor their health and see how they are doing physically as well. Similar to past efforts, the helicopter crew used a net gun to ensnare individual sheep, place them in a sling bag and ferry them back to mobile processing sites. At those locations, a crew of Game and Parks employees, partners and volunteers placed collars and numbered identification tags on the animals, collected tissue samples and returned them to the wild in a matter of minutes. While the effort may have resembled sheep capture efforts of the past, it had one key difference the temperature. The weather during this effort was in large contrast to past captures in winter months in Nebraska. The danger of sheep overheating has traditionally led wildlife researchers to capture when it is cold. Nordeen said the decision to try September was influenced by other western states that have had recent success capturing sheep in the summer. A considerable benefit, he said, is that the sheep have not yet grown their heavy winter coats that hinder cooling efforts. It was also easier on the people involved because it isnt so cold, Nordeen said. There are limitations, he said. If its really hot, you are limited to doing it in the morning. In the wintertime, you can do it all day long. Its easier this time of the year on the samples, not having to worry about them freezing. Its something we found we can do effectively at different times of year besides just in the wintertime, which weve done in the past. Nordeen said no animals were lost, at least initially. Another change is the technology of the tracking collars. The duration of use for previous collars has been limited to battery life and required recapture to be replaced, but ones installed this month are solar-powered. Barring malfunction, they are expected to last the life of the animal without needing to be replaced, and can even be removed remotely. That, Nordeen said, means the animals may not need to be captured again. The processing site was staged one morning at Williams Gap Wildlife Management Area and the next at Cedar Canyon WMA. Each was extensively burned by wildfires this summer, which has affected the sheep. Its had an impact on them, at least initially, kicking them out of certain areas for a short time, Nordeen said. But, they seem to kind of circle back around and eventually come back into those burned areas. They kind of like that area, and theyre sticking to it. The bighorn sheep, reintroduced to the Pine Ridge in the 1980s and later the Wildcat Hills, have long suffered disease losses stemming from mycoplasma bacteria, just as they have in other states. The bacteria causes severe illnesses and die-offs among herds. Collaring efforts allow monitoring of the animals that provides vital data that can be used to find solutions to the issue. Its been challenge for us and all across the country, Nordeen said. Its been a long haul, but were still trying to turn things around. Your request can not be processed. Sorry, but the operation you just performed is not allowed. Make note of the support ID and call the application support or helpdesk to report this issue. Illinoisans who meet income guidelines may be eligible for up to $300 in the form of a property tax rebate, but those who did not have to file an income tax return in 2021 will need to apply for the check. Homeowners who paid Illinois property taxes in 2021 and make under $250,000 as an individual or $500,000 in a joint-filing household are eligible for the property tax rebate. "Many Illinois residents who filed 2021 state income taxes and claimed a property tax credit will automatically receive a property tax rebate under Governor (J.B.) Pritzker's Illinois Family Relief Plan," state Department on Aging Director Paula Basta said. "Older adults and retirees may not realize they can get the rebate as well, but only if they submit the right paperwork to the State of Illinois." How to apply To file for the rebate, you need to submit a form by mail or apply online by Oct. 17. You will need the following information to complete the paperwork: Your social security number (plus your spouse's, if applicable) Filing and residency status from your federal Form 1040 Total amount of Illinois property tax paid in 2021 for your principal residence and any extension lots adjoining to your primary residence County name and property number Enter any portion of your tax bill that is deductible as a business expense on U.S. income tax forms, even if you did not take the federal deduction Signature If you would like to designate another person to discuss the rebate form with the Illinois Department of Revenue, you can put their name and phone number on the paperwork. You can also revoke the authorization at any time through calling or writing to the department. Application assistance is available from the agency by calling 217-782-3336 or 1-800-732-8866. A telecommunications device for the deaf is also available at 1-800-544-5304. What about income tax rebates in Illinois? The "Illinois Family Relief Plan" also provides for income tax rebates for those who made under $200,000 individually or $400,000 as a joint-filer. The rebate is $50 for an eligible individual and $100 for joint-filers, plus $100 per dependent claimed on 2021 taxes (up to three dependents). "Income and property tax rebates will be automatically issued to all of the estimated 6.2 million taxpayers who qualify under the Family Relief Plan based on information included in their submitted 2021 tax returns," a June 30 Illinois government statement said. Illinois Comptroller Susanna Mendoza expected to start issuing automatic refunds the week of Sept. 12, the statement continued, and distribution will take about eight weeks. The Asokore Mampong District Court, on September 23, 2022, remanded into Police custody three students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUTS) who are standing trial for their involvement in the recent mayhem on campus. The three, Emmanuel Appiah Amoah, Eugene Noamesi and Kwabena Kwarteng Amaniampong were arrested on bench warrants following a Police investigation into the campus violence in August 2022. They will reappear before the court on October 10, 2022. We would like to assure the public that all the perpetrators of the disturbances will be brought to justice. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The construction of Phase two of the Tamale Airport Development Project has been completed at a cost of US$70 million and awaiting commissioning by the end of this year. The 5,000-square metre airport, with an annual passenger throughput of 400,000 capacity, is expected to boost the local economy, tourism and investment drive to the Northern Region. The expansion works include the construction of a modern terminal, VIP Lounge, two boarding gates, four self-service check-in kiosks and eight check-in desks. Other ancillary facilities were airline offices, commercial retail area, a multi-purpose terminal for Hajj travel facilitation, 350-capacity car park and a five-kilometre road network. Alhaji Shani Alhassan Saibu, the Northern Regional Minister, announced this in Accra on Sunday when he took his turn at the Minister's press briefing. The Minister updated the public on major physical infrastructure and social services undertaken by the Government over the past five years, especially on health, transport, agriculture, One-District, One-Factory and projects being implemented under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) by the Northern Development Authority. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on August 15, 2019 cut the sod for the construction of phase two of the Tamale Airport Development Project and scheduled to be completed within 26 months. "It is on record that the Tamale Airport can boast of the best Tarmac in the country. It could be a major hub for air cargo for exporting agricultural produce in the West African Sub-region," Alhaji Saibu emphasized. The interchange would boost the local economy, create employment and add to the aesthetic beauty of the city, the Minister stated. Six flagship programmes under the "One-district, One-factory" were in operation in the Region, employing more than 1,000 permanent and 3,000 casual workers respectively, he said. Alhaji Saibu stated that a total of 353.79 kilometres of road projects were ongoing in the Region, with 60 percent of them at various stages of completion. Also, the Ghana Highway Authority had undertaken various road maintenance works such as regravelling, rehabilitation, resealing and sectoral rehabilitation works on roads across the Region including Salaga-Bimbilla road, Tamale-Daboya road and Kpatinga-Gaa road as well as rehabilitation of the Barwah Barracks, the Minister said. Under the $2-billion-dollar Ghana-Sinohydro Master Project Support Management, the Minister said the first-ever Interchange in the northern sector of the country was constructed-Tamale Interchange- which was opened to traffic on March 29, 2022 by President Akufo-Addo, thereby opening up the local economy and creating many employment avenues for the teeming youth. On health, he said, a total of 118 projects were ongoing including CHPS compounds, health centres, clinics, maternity wards, accommodation for health workers and administration blocks, with 82 of them completed, representing 72 per cent. The Minister said although there had been tremendous progress in infrastructure facilities in the Region a lot more needed to be done to enhance the living standards of the people and eradicate poverty from the Region. 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. Featured Video Regulators and operators of electricity in West Africa will meet in Accra to review some developments in the regional market. The three-day meeting will start on Monday, September 26 and end on Wednesday, September 28, 2022, a statement issued by the Department of Communication, ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA) said. With the imminent launch of the second phase of the regional electricity market, ERERA is expected to put in place the enabling regulatory framework which will help in fast-tracking the development of the regional electricity market. The experts would, among others, consider the Detailed Rules and Procedures for Market Surveillance as a guide to provide transparent procedures and processes to monitor the regional electricity market. The Market Surveillance Rules would specify the roles to be played by national regulatory authorities, Transmission Service Operators and System and Market Operators. This is to ease effective monitoring of the market and prevent abuse and distortions and sanction defaulters, the statement noted. The draft Market Surveillance Rules include draft Guidelines for Market Surveillance of ECOWAS Regional Electricity Market, analysis of Existing Bi-lateral Contracts for Conformity with Model Bi-lateral Agreement. The draft also has the ECOWAS Market Documents, as well as the Report on Definition and Revision of the Detailed Rules and Procedures for Market Surveillance. It said the meeting would also review the Gap Analysis Report of a recent study, which was related to the Functional Model on System Reliability and Electricity Market for the ECOWAS Electricity Market. Again, the regional experts would review the draft rules for the Harmonisation of Licensing Criteria for the Regional Electricity Market, the statement noted. The harmonized framework for granting of licenses and authorizations for participation in the power market includes guidelines for grant of export and import licenses for cross-border power trading in ECOWAS countries and a model export and import licenses for adoption by Member States. According to ERERAs documents, a harmonized licensing framework would provide the regulatory tools that will help regulators keep an oversight of the market and help ensure that licensing does not restrict entry by players into the regional electricity market. The participants at the meeting would be updated on the ECOWAS Directive on the Organization of the Regional Electricity Market, with emphasis on the drafting of national roadmaps. 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. Featured Video Flash Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivers a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos, Switzerland, May 24, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua] Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday morning. Sanchez confirmed the news in a Twitter post, saying "this morning, I have tested positive for COVID-19," adding although he would not be able to assist a planned Socialist Party event close to Barcelona, he would "continue working, taking maximum precautions." The news came just 24 hours before Spain begins its campaign to give a fourth dose of vaccine to people aged over 60, health workers and people living in residential care homes. This second "booster dose" will use vaccines modified to offer protection against the latest strains of COVID-19, after the health ministry reported a slight rise in the 14-day incidence of the virus in the over-60's in over two months. The incidence rose from 129 cases per 100,000 inhabitants to 136 cases per 100,000 in the data provided by the ministry on Friday, although the number of intensive care beds occupied by COVID-19 patients has dropped to just 129, around 1.5 percent of the intensive care beds in Spain. A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Dela Coffie has asked Elvis Afriyie Ankrah to focus on his message to get the backing of the party to lead it as General Secretary. According to him, its of no use talking about the late former Presidents strained relationship with a political party he founded with his sweat because the party and its current leadership pushed him out. He was reacting to a recent interview by Elvis Afriyie Ankrah where he spoke about the late former President of Ghana and founder of the NDC. Read His Statement Below Okay, while I have great sympathy with Afriyie-Ankrahs totally understandable commentary, I feel the need to call for caution and a smarter, more sophisticated approach to matters relating to chairman Rawlings. Elvis and his likes should take a trip back and have a look through the Adabraka headquarters window. The view at least as described by the lily-livered elements in the NDC leadership hasnt changed, or? We were told Rawlings had outlived his relevance in the NDC, or? So, why would anyone even be bothered he cozied up to Akufo-Addo when indeed his own folks had no difficulty in attempting to ostracise him? I think Afriyie-Ankrah needs to zone in on the weightier matters relating to the contest and provide a convincing narrative for all, that inspires even the non-believers and makes them want to be led by him in the event he wins the race. Good morning, good people. Source: Peacefmonline.com/GHANA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources (MSWR), Cecilia Abena Dapaah, has called on stakeholders in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to explore sustainable funding sources. She said that would help build robust infrastructure to facilitate the delivery of better services in that sector. At a two-day WASH sector performance review meeting (PRM) that closed last Friday, Ms Dapaah said the government alone could not shoulder the responsibility of delivering the WASH sector infrastructure at the current pace of the countrys population growth. She said although the MSWR, with the support of development partners, had undertaken some WASH interventions since 2017 to bring sustainable WASH services to the doorstep of the people, those initiatives were not enough to achieve the overall target. "It is, therefore, imperative for key actors in the WASH space to develop innovative ways of attracting funding for the sector," she said. Collaboration is key Ms Dapaah said a careful analysis of the challenges was required to inform policy direction and help with the development and formulation of new interventions to ensure the attainment of water and sanitation for all by the end of 2030. She called on all sector agencies to set performance targets and agree with the MSWR and the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) on those goals for proper reporting. "As co-Chair of the Eminent Group of Advocates for the SDGs, it is the desire of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that Ghana takes bold strides towards the attainment of the SDG on water and sanitation create and keep a clean environment throughout the country and provide water for all, the minister said. She added that it was important for stakeholders in the WASH sector to continue to work together "in the spirit of transparency, cohesion, synergy and accountability". "We need to strive together and continue to strengthen the partnerships and collaborations to attain the goals that we have collectively set for ourselves to make Ghana a better place," Ms Dapaah said. The PRM objectives The PRM provided a platform for all stakeholders in the water and the sanitation sub-sectors, including the political leadership, sector institutions, decentralised structures, water sector professionals, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and development partners, to discuss and review the performance of the ministry and the sector agencies for the period 2018 to 2021. It gave the participants the opportunity to take stock of the status of the achievements of the sector, vis-a-vis national and international targets for the period 2018 to 2021. Again, through the PRM, the participants reviewed key achievements and challenges in the sector, as well as proposed strategies and actions which would accelerate the achievement of water and sanitation targets. The meeting was also a platform to build consensus on measures and mitigation plans for challenges within the sector. Aside from those, it helped the development partners to appreciate the focus areas and the direction of the ministry within the medium term (2022 to 2025) to enable them to develop their respective interventions to suit the agenda. WASH sector performance The 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) report released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) revealed that the population with access to basic drinking water services increased from 78 per cent in 2017 to 87.7 per cent as of the end of 2021. The PHC statistics also showed that during the same period, the population with access to basic sanitation facilities increased from 15 per cent in 2017 to 25.3 per cent in 2021. Ms Dapaah said the improvement in the WASH sector was largely attributable to the governments inputs and the support received from the development partners. However, she said, the implementation of most of the interventions had been hit with some setbacks and that had hindered the attainment of the planned targets and objectives. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The government has been urged to review its strategy towards fighting illegal mining to make it regional and district-led. An environmentalist, Nana Dwomoh Sarpong, who made the call, said the current top-bottom approach where an anti galamsey task force formed at the national level took charge of operations was not helping matters. Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra last Friday, he said: We have had Operation Vanguard, Operation Halt and Operation Halt II, all constituted at the top in Accra but the problem persists, which tells us that something is wrong in our strategy. Owning exercise Explaining further, Nana Sarpong who is the President of Friends of Rivers and Water Bodies, said making the anti-galamsey strategy regional/district-led would make the regional and district security councils which knew the terrain well to own the exercise in order to prosecute it effectively. The regions and districts are there already, they know all the areas and the people who engage in the illegal activities, so why do we send people from Accra to take charge of the operations? he queried. Nana Sarpong said the national task force would only have to come in to monitor how the regions and districts were performing. It is good that some of the regions and districts have already taken up the task, and have formed their own task forces, but they will need the full support in the form of resources from central government to undertake their activities, he stated. State of rivers The environmentalist expressed concern about the state of some rivers affected by galamsey, and further said we have to take this fight seriously to prevent a major national disaster. As I speak to you now major rivers like Pra, Ankobra, Offin and Birim have been heavily polluted by illegal mining, and this calls for a major action to restore normalcy, he said. The environmentalist said the way the galamsey fight was being handled showed that a lot more efforts needed to be put in to achieve the desired results. Cartels He said it was time to expose the big names who were behind the illegal activities rather than putting all emphasis on the small fishes. For me, these are cartels who must be exposed , whether they are politicians or whatever, he said. Excavators Nana Sarpong said along the roads in the mining areas, excavators littered the roads, while no one questioned what they were meant for. He suggested that excavators that were impounded for galamsey activities should be demobilised and the parts sold, and the money used for the development of the districts where they were impounded. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A group within the Ashanti Regional wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has reportedly initiated a project, dubbed The Ashanti Project'. The project is intended to ensure that all persons who aspire for positions at the regional level in the impending regional elections are Asante indigenes. The project is believed to be spearheaded by some bigwigs of the party who are unhappy with the composition of the current leadership. The regional executives of the party have kicked against it as they believe it is myopic and tribalistic. Nana Kwasi Andrews, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the party distanced the party from it, disclosing that the project was against the principles of the NDC. Reports further indicate that Madam Betty Mould Iddrisu and Dr. Agyemang Mensah are opposed to the group as they believe it is targeted at certain individuals and reeks of tribal bigotry. Recently, the Council of Elders appointed a 7-member Fact Finding Committee headed by Dr. Samuel Sarpong, a former Ashanti Regional Minister, to investigate allegations against regional executives. Mr. Enoch Amoako-Nsiah, a former Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator has alleged that some NDC Regional Executives compromised their positions to the detriment of their own partys interest. The committee after the investigations made some recommendations but it was rejected by the Regional chairman of the party, Augustine Nana Kwasi Andrews who described it as 'bogus'. 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. Featured Video The Deputy National Organizer of the largest opposition National Democratic (NDC), Chief Hamilton Biney Nixon, has held an end of term review and assessment of his office in the Ashanti region capital of Kumsai. Officers present were the Ashanti, Ahafo, Bono, Bono East and Western North regional Organizers and their deputies. During the meeting, he mentioned that he expected honest feedback from his colleagues because it would make him improve as a leader. The regional organizers commended Chief Biney for the exercise saying that it was one of the many positives to take from his tenure. "I held an end of term review and assessment of office as a deputy National Organizer in Ashanti region with the regional organizers of the middle belt. Officers present were the Ashanti, Ahafo, Bono, Bono East and Western North regional organizers and their deputies. We reviewed performance in the last four years and also looked at the way forward for our department and how we can make it better to help mobilise Ghanaians and support for victory come 2024. Ey3 Zu! Ey3 Za!" he posted on his facebook page on Monday. Chief Hamilton Biney was elected as the deputy National Organizer in 2018 and has been duly and diligently working since then. 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. Featured Video President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been asked to reevaluate his popularity after he was booed at the recently held 2022 Global Citizen Festival at the Black Star Square in Accra. The President got booed as he mounted the stage to speak at the event which was held on Saturday at the Black Star Square. The crowd in a video that has gone viral can be heard chanting away, away . . . immediately he started speaking. This reaction has been condemned by many but others believe it is a 'true reflection' of what Ghanaians are feeling. Political Scientist, Dr. Amoako Baah speaking to the issue on Starr FM, asked the President to "use this to advise himself as to how angry Ghanaians are. For such an occasion to be turned into such a fiasco is very bad. If he has been listening to his handlers to tell him what he wants to hear, now, he should put his ears down and get others to tell him what is going on. He has to know his own popularity among his people. People are hungry, you go to this occasion in a convoy, why should you do that? The country is in hardship and yet you dont behave in any way to let people know that you feel for them and that youre in it with them. You continue doing business as usual. According to him, "It is just a sad occasion, this should never happen. It also goes to speak to the handlers of the President, how is this possible that this old man could be left on the stage all that time by himself? Hes talking they dont mind him, they just booing him and nobody mounted the stage to interrupt the whole thing and give the President the chance to come back again and address them very quickly and get off the stage. Nothing happened, he stood there and he was talking but they didnt mind him. He eventually raised his hands and walked off. Very sad, it also shows that the President is not able to gauge his own popularity." 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. Featured Video Rockson Dafeamekpor, the Interim President of the newly formed Law Society of Ghana (LSG) has reacted to a media report suggesting that the Speaker of Parliament, Alban S.K. Bagbin has withdrawn his membership from the Ghana Bar Association (GBA). In a press statement made available to Graphic Onlines Parliamentary correspondent, Nana Konadu Agyeman, Mr Dafeamekpor who is also the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for South Dayi in the Volta Region denied the media report that the Speaker told the LSG that he has withdrawn his membership from the GBA. Rather, he said when the LSG called on the Speaker at his office last week, he expressed in strong words his revulsion about the state of the GBA and wishes to see a change for a better Bar Association committed to the aims, objectives and ethics as captured and practiced globally. It must be placed on record that nowhere in the Speakers welcoming remarks during our [LSG] visit, did he ever state that he has resigned from the GBA, he said. Mr Dafeamekpor was reacting to the media report which suggested that Mr Bagbin has withdrawn his membership from the GBA. When aides of the Speaker were reached by Graphic Online over the weekend, they also denied the Speaker said anything of that sort. GBA Presidents reaction Meanwhile, the President of the GBA, Yaw Acheampong Boafo has told Graphic Onlines Kwame Asare Boadu that the association was unaware if Mr Bagbin has revoked his membership. Mr Boafo said the GBA has not received any notification from the Speaker of Parliament about the revocation of his membership of the association. No, he has not told us anything. We only heard it was when the Law Society of Ghana (LSG) went to him that he said what has been reported in sections of the media, but he has never notified us, Mr Boafo told Graphic Online. The media report at the weekend had suggested that Mr Bagbin had said the conduct of the association had been problematic especially with its position on matters of national interest. The LSG delegation, led by its Acting President Rockson Dafeamekpor, was at the Speakers office to congratulate him on his new position as the President of the Commonwealth Leaders Association. The LSG is an association for lawyers and law students who seek to shape national discourse and fight against injustice in all forms. Nothing wrong In his reaction to the report, Mr Boafo indicated that there was nothing wrong for a member to resign from the GBA because there was freedom of association in the country. If you want to resign that is your own decision, but let me say that he has not sent a formal notice of revocation of his membership. We still consider him as a member, the GBA President stated. Problematic He also had a problem with the headline of the story. The headline of the story as against the body of the story is problematic because the news item has no link to the story, he said. Explaining, Mr Boafo made reference to the story, which said the Speaker stopped paying his dues when he saw that lawyers who went to the public tribunal were being victimized. The point is that, you can be a member of an association but not in good standing that is if you dont pay your dues. But to say that you have revoked your membership, well, I cant get it. He added: The news item said he had stopped paying his dues which is totally different from not being a member. For now, the GBA President said, he could not verify whether Mr Bagbin had stopped paying his dues. I cannot say for now if he pays his dues unless the [GBA] secretariat finds out, he added. Profile Born on September 24, 1957, at Sombo in the Upper West Region, Mr Bagbin studied at the Ghana School of Law where he passed out in 1982. He had a stint with Akyem Chambers, a firm of legal practitioners, consultants and notaries public, as a partner. between 1989 to 1992. He served as external solicitor of the Credit Unions Association of Ghana (CUA), Nii Ngleshie family of James Town, and a number of private business firms in Accra. The Speaker had also been a partner of the Law Trust Company, a firm of legal practitioners, consultants and notaries public. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The jeers, cheers, thrills, excitement, and of course, electric performances thundered the Black Star Square at the Global Citizen Festival yesterday. And once again, Ghana proved its mettle by giving patrons and the world a memorable and colourful experience that will stick in people's minds for a very long time at the Global Citizen Festival. It was the country's first-ever Global Citizen Festival which also marked the 65th anniversary of independence. As such, the festival was geared toward bringing together artistes and world leaders to achieve an ambitious policy agenda focused on empowering girls and women, defending the planet, and creating change. Even though it was the first time Ghana was hosting the event, every aspectfrom venue setup to performer staging to securitywas on point. No doubt Ghana is in the spotlight and enjoying all the praises for successfully pulling off such a huge show. The annual Global Citizen festival's leg held at Ghana's iconic Black Star Square ran from a hot day to a starry night and it wasn't your typical event. Thousands flocked to the venue to dance, cheer, and sing along to songs performed by some of their favorite celebrities including Stonebwoy, Sarkodie, Usher, Stormzy, SZA, Tems, Gyakie, Tiwa Savage, and Stormzy. Spectacular Disc Jockey Uncle Waffles joined the roster of international performers who took the stage at Accra's Black Star Square alongside Ghana's Joselyn Dumas, Michaela Coel, Nomzamo Mbatha, and Sabrina Dhowre Elba. Award-winning actor, playwright, and activist Danai Gurira were hosts of the show. The performers' unique entrances and the audiences' response during all made for some spectacular sights. Usher, Tiwa Savage, Ghana's Gyakie, and other global stars lit up the stage with tremendous performances, while Stonebwoy's stunning entrance on a horse and Stormzy's riveting performance with Yaw Togg and Kwesi Arthur added extra flair to the event. In an interview with Graphic Showbiz, visibly excited attendees who could not contain their joyful moods appealed for an encore of the yearly festival in Ghana. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video atar Airways has been named the worlds best airline at the Skytrax World Airline Awards 2022, while Singapore Airlines is in second spot. (PHOTO: REUTERS/Caroline Chia) By Alex Millson (Bloomberg) As the world finishes unpicking its Covid-19 travel restrictions, business trips and tourism are firmly back on the agenda in most places, anyway. The question is, who to fly with? Qatar Airways has been named the worlds best airline at the Skytrax World Airline Awards 2022, while Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Emirates landed in the second and third spots respectively. In a strong showing for Asia-Pacific carriers, Japans All Nippon Airways Co. and Australias Qantas Airways Ltd. rounded out the top five, while Hong Kongs largely grounded Cathay Pacific tumbled to 16th place from sixth place last year. The awards also broke down the best airline for each cabin class. Best first-class cabin went to Singapore Airlines, while Qatar picked up best business class. Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. won for premium economy and Emirates for best economy cabin. In other categories, Singapore Airlines budget carrier Scoot took top place for best long-haul low-cost airline; Singapore Airlines also scooped best cabin staff; and ANA were number one for cabin cleanliness. Qatar Airways was the largest airline to have flown consistently throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, with their network never falling below 30 destinations, Skytrax chief executive officer Edward Plaisted said in a press release. That determination has clearly been well recognized by customers. The World Airline Awards were determined by an online customer survey that ran from September 2021 to August 2022 in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese. More than 350 airlines featured in the final results. Here are the top 20 airlines for 2022: Qatar Airways Singapore Airlines Emirates All Nippon Airways (ANA) Qantas Airways Japan Airlines Turk Hava Yollari (Turkish Airlines) Air France Korean Air Swiss International Air Lines British Airways Etihad Airways China Southern Hainan Airlines Lufthansa Cathay Pacific KLM EVA Air Virgin Atlantic Vistara 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Vhong Navarro, after failing to post bail for a non-bailable offense of rape, was detained at the NBI. (Photo credit: National Bureau of Investigation) The Court of Appeals (CA) denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the camp of actor and Its Showtime host Vhong Navarro in its order to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file acts of lasciviousness and rape by sexual intercourse charges against him. In a resolution dated September 20 but was only made public on Sunday (September 25), the 14th division of the CA said that the issues raised by Navarro are matters best left to the determination of the trial court after a full-blown trial on the merits. Navarro pointed out in his motion for reconsideration that there are several issues in terms of the credibility of the complainant, the veracity of their claims, and the strength of their evidence. It is not a trial of the case on the merits and has no purpose except that of determining whether a crime has been committed and whether there is probable cause to believe that the accused is guilty thereof, the CA said. The CA 14th Division has also denied Navarros plea for the issuance of a status quo ante order, saying that judicial review is permitted where it is established that the public prosecutor committed grave abuse of discretion. Meanwhile, the lawyer for Deniece Cornejo lauded the CA decision, saying that it could be considered a victory for their camp. It is once again a signal victory for our crusade for truth and justice to prevail. As we have always said, let the court decide in a full-blown trial, Atty. Ferdinand Topacio said, in a report by the Manila Bulletin. Navarro surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on September 19 after Branch 116 of the Metropolitan Trial Court of Taguig City issued a warrant of arrest for the acts of lasciviousness charge, and he was able to post bail at P36,000. However, hours after, another arrest warrant was issued by Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 69 Presiding Judge Loralie Cruz Datahan for the rape by sexual intercourse charge, which, under Article 266-A (1) of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by The Anti Rape Law of 1997, was a non-bailable offense. Story continues Marvin Joseph Ang is a news and creative writer who follows developments on politics, democracy, and popular culture. He advocates for a free press and national democracy. Follow him on Twitter at @marvs30ang for latest news and updates. The views expressed are his own. Watch more videos on Yahoo: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A new Yale School of the Environment-led analysis identifying gaps in maps that help forecast range contractions for African species found that all species studied have a portion of their range at risk and small carnivores warrant more concern. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and led by YSE Knobloch Family Associate Professor of Wildlife and Land Conservation Nyeema C. Harris, assessed 91 African carnivores to identify gaps in capacity necessary for their conservation. Harris's team found that contrary to current perceptions, many species that are currently classified as "least concern" on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature "Red List of Threatened Species" had high percentages of their range at risk of contraction. For example, the common slender mongoose (Herpestes sanguineus) and serval (Leptailurus serval) both have 16% of their ranges at risk of contraction while it was 70% for the Egyptian weasel (Mustela subpalmata). Harris says the most important finding of the study, which analyzed additional data not previously assessed, is that all species studied have some portion of their range at risk of contraction due to burgeoning threats, with an average of 15% of African carnivore ranges at-risk. "There's a growing interest in relying on geospatial data to make conservation decisions but the range maps are flawed," says Harris. "Traditional gap analyses do not consider both threats and assets across the range that influence population persistence. We are introducing a novel approach by assessing these different variables." Most surprising, she says, is the amount of contractions and variations in ranges of species the team's model was able to determine. The study reported that some large carnivores that are classified as endangered by the IUCN Red list, including the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) and the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), had 33% and 3% of range at risk of contraction, respectively. "We were able to get new insights about species that are largely unknown or understudied, and we identified that there are some conservation concerns because they have very small ranges comprised of more threats than assets," says Harris. "The model is giving us a broader understanding and a different approach to anticipating biodiversity losses, especially for species with limited information classified as 'data deficient' by the IUCN Redlist, such as the Ethiopian Genet (Genetta abyssinica, a catlike mammal) and Pousargues's mongoose (Dologale dybowskii), also known as African tropical savannah mongoose." Africa contains a third of the world's carnivore species that persist in a landscape fraught with anthropogenic and environmental pressures, as well as rich biocultural diversity. The study examines possible assets to conservation, such as distribution of Indigenous lands and cultural diversity, and threats to carnivores, such as drought risks and exposure to urbanization or agriculture. It highlights some anthropic factors that are helping conservation efforts. For example, customary laws and traditional ceremonies of the Nharira community in central Zimbabwe include biodiversity protection. "The blanket inclusion of human density as inherently and exclusively an environmental stressor is not accurate," the authors note. "By seeking, incorporating, and respecting traditional ecological knowledge of people in places, conservation can progress to a more inclusive practice and promote species ranges under varying global change scenarios." Harris says more work needs to be done to fill out the full extent of variables distributed across species rangesan idea she calls textured range maps. She notes that such efforts can complement existing frameworks such as the IUCN Red List. She says their model will be used for a global carnivore assessment, and she hopes other researchers will apply similar approaches to study different groups of conservation interests, such as primate and amphibians around the world. "It will allow us to set a very explicit agenda around conservation strategy," she says. The study was co-authored by YSE doctoral student Siria Gamez; Asia Murphy, postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz; Aalayna R. Green, doctoral student in natural resources at Cornell University; Daniel M. Mwamidi, doctoral student at the Institution of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona; and Gabriela C. Nunez-Mir, assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago. "I'm very proud of the collaborators and the partners involved in this work who bring different expertise and experiences," says Harris, noting the team of all Black and Latina scientists. "We are helping to change the narrative of who gets to ask the questions and advance conservation science." Explore further Assessment framework for conservation and management of legume plants in coastal East Africa Holocene stratigraphy, radiocarbon dates and footprint record at Wicks Path B. This is the only site without human footprints. Credit: Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01856-2 A team of archaeologists and geographers from The University of Manchester have discovered that hundreds of ancient animal and human footprints found on a beach in Merseyside record a major decline in large animal diversity in Ancient Britain. Their new research, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, includes a new program of radiocarbon dating which shows that the most species-rich footprint beds at Formby Point are much older than previously thought. The beds record a key period in the natural history of Britain from Mesolithic to Medieval times (9000 to 1000 years ago). The footprint beds show that, as global sea levels rose rapidly after the last ice age around 9000 to 6000 years ago, humans formed part of rich intertidal ecosystems alongside aurochs, red deer, roe deer, wild boar, and beaver, as well as the predators wolf and lynx. On the other side of Britain, Doggerland was reclaimed by the North Sea in this period. In the agriculture-based societies that followed, human footprints dominate the Neolithic period and later footprint beds, alongside a striking fall in large mammal species richness. The researchers show that the area close to the modern shoreline was a hub of human and animal activity in the first few thousand years after the last glacial period. The vast coastal landscapes of the European Mesolithic were rich ecosystems teeming with large animals. This was a biodiversity hotspot with large grazers and predatorsa northwest European Serengeti. The observed decline in large mammals in the footprint record could be the result of several drivers including habitat shrinkage following sea level rise and the development of agricultural economies, as well as hunting pressures from a growing human population. This new record poses important questions of the conventional archaeological and fossil records. "The Formby footprint beds form one of the world's largest known concentrations of prehistoric vertebrate tracks. Well-dated fossil records for this period are absent in the landscapes around the Irish Sea basin. This is the first time that such a faunal history and ecosystem has been reconstructed solely from footprint evidence," says Dr. Alison Burns, who spent six years undertaking the field research "Assessing the threats to habitat and biodiversity posed by rising sea levels is a key research priority for our timeswe need to better understand these processes in both the past and the present," said Professor Jamie Woodward, who is an author of this study. "This research shows how sea level rise can transform coastal landscapes and degrade important ecosystems." Explore further Large-scale study of Brazilian wetlands shows biodiversity loss undermines ecosystem functioning More information: Alison Burns et al, Footprint beds record Holocene decline in large mammal diversity on the Irish Sea coast of Britain, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022). Alison Burns et al, Footprint beds record Holocene decline in large mammal diversity on the Irish Sea coast of Britain,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01856-2 There are many competing theories as to why the Neanderthals disappeared. Horizon-backed research is using new techniques to learn more about the closest ancestor to modern humans. Credit: Gorodenkoff, Shutterstock Char from ancient fires and stalagmites in caves hold clues to the mysterious disappearance of Neanderthals from Europe. For more than 350 000 years, Neanderthals inhabited Europe and Asia until, in a sudden change by evolutionary standards, they disappeared around 40 000 years ago. This was at around the same time the anatomically modern human Homo sapiens emerged from Africa. With their distinctive sloped forehead, large pelvis and wide noses, Neanderthals leave in their wake one of the great mysteries of human evolution. They lived during the middle to late Pleistocene Epoch, about 400 000 to 40 000 years ago. Neanderthals lived in Eurasia with traces discovered as far north as present-day Belgium and south to the Mediterranean and southwest Asia. They were not the only hominid (human-like) species in existence on the planet at the time. Other archaic human groups such as Homo floresiensis and Denisovans, also walked the earth. Human species 'At the time of the Neanderthals, there were several human species and suddenly 40 000 years ago, all disappeared but one,' said Prof Stefano Benazzi of the University of Bologna, Italy. He is a physical anthropologist leading the Horizon-funded SUCCESS project to research the earliest migration of Homo sapiens in Italy. 'It's important to understand what happened,' he said. We already know more about Neanderthals than any other extinct humans, thanks to thousands of excavated artefacts and fossils, as well as several nearly-complete skeletons. There are a number of competing theories as to why the Neanderthals disappeared, such as climate change, the aggression of Homo sapiens, possible competition for resources, or even that Neanderthals disappeared because they interbred with Homo sapiens. Some human populations alive in Europe and Asia today have as much as 3% Neanderthal DNA. Benazzi investigated what happened to Neanderthals in Italy around the time that Homo sapiens arrived out of Africa. 'In Italy, we have a lot of (dated) archaeological sites, and we have a good overview of the different (technological) cultures falling in the time period of interest,' he said. Neanderthal extinction A number of scholars argue that climate change may have pushed Neanderthals towards extinction. While that may have been true in other places, it was not the case in Italy, Benazzi explained. The SUCCESS project analysed the pollen from paleolake (ancient lake) cores using minerals collected from ancient stalactites. These calcium icicles which hang inside caves are effectively climate time machines, and researchers can decode what the climate was like when they formed. Through this approach, the SUCCESS project reconstructed the paleoclimate (prehistoric climate) between 40-60 000 years ago. In contrast to ice-core analysis from Greenland, there were no data indicating catastrophic climate change in Italy, making it unlikely to have killed off the Neanderthals. They closely examined a period of around 3 000 years when populations of Neanderthals and humans may have co-existed by excavating seven sites they once inhabited. They investigated the cultural and tool-making differences between the last Neanderthals and the first Homo sapiens in Italy. Homo sapiens in Italy used specific types of technology including artefacts such as shell ornaments and projectiles like arrowheads. In fact, SUCCESS unearthed the earliest evidence for mechanically delivered projectile weapons in Europe. Weapons mismatch Neanderthals would have found themselves at a severe disadvantage to their Homo sapiens relatives in terms of weapons technology. However, that meeting in Italy may never have happened. Recently discovered remains in southern Europe show that at least one Neanderthal had been alive 44 000 years ago while the oldest Homo sapiens remains have been dated to 43 000 years ago. It is possible that they overlapped, but none of the current evidence shows that, Benazzi said. Each region is different. 'The result we get here (in Italy) doesn't mean that we're going to get the same results elsewhere,' he said. In the PALEOCHAR project, Carolina Mallol, a geoarchaeologist at the University of La Laguna in Spain and currently a visiting professor at UC Davis in the United States, is raking through the ashes of time, seeking traces of Neanderthals' lives and hints of their demise. Fire sediments The goal is to study microscopic and molecular charred matter from ancient fire sediments to see what organic material they left behind. 'The handicap of the archaeologist is that the human world is organic, and we can't get at it,' said Mallol, who studies Neanderthal sites such as El Salt and Abric del Pastor in Spain. When organic matter, such as meat or plants, is thrown in a fire, the heat dehydrates it, ultimately destroying its DNA and proteins. But fatty molecules called lipids can survive if the fire does not get hotter than about 350C, as Mallol and colleagues show in their investigations. 'PALEOCHAR was designed to explore how far we can take the analytical techniques to squeeze molecular information from the organic black layers (in the fire),' she said. Paleolipidomics (the study of ancient fats) has been used to study lipids in Roman amphorae, Egyptian mummies and even prehistoric leaves. Biomarkers library When it comes to ancient human sediments, 'we are the first ones to apply (these techniques) systematically,' she said. They also expanding the known lipid biomarkers, which are like molecular "barcodes" specific to species, families or even metabolic pathways. 'With biomarkers, you can distinguish herbivores from carnivores, conifers from angiosperms,' she said. Mallol and colleagues set up the world's first AMBILAB, which stands for the Archaeological Micromorphology and Biomarkers Research Lab, based in Tenerife, Spain, which trains researchers in the techniques of soil micromorphology and lipid biomarker analysis. The questions about Neanderthals, such as why they went extinct, are very ambitious, said Mallol. 'Those questions require that you first determine who they were and how they lived with a lot of information and we don't have that information yet,' she said. With each new piece of information, archaeologists and scientists burrow deeper into the mystery of why our closest relatives suddenly disappeared while Homo sapiens managed to survive. More information: SUCCESS PALEOCHAR Research in this article was funded via the EU's European Research Council and this article was originally published in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation Magazine. An impactormost likely an asteroidhurtled toward Earth about two billion years ago, crashing into the planet near present-day Johannesburg, South Africa. The impactor formed Vredefort crater, what is today the biggest crater on our planet. Using updated simulation data, University of Rochester researchers discovered the impactor that formed Vredefort crater was much larger than previously believed. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin / University of Rochester illustration by Julia Joshpe About 2 billion years ago, an impactor hurtled toward Earth, crashing into the planet in an area near present-day Johannesburg, South Africa. The impactormost likely an asteroidformed what is today the biggest crater on our planet. Scientists have widely accepted, based on previous research, that the impact structure, known as the Vredefort crater, was formed by an object about 15 kilometers (approximately 9.3 miles) in diameter that was traveling at a velocity of 15 kilometers per second. But according to new research from the University of Rochester, the impactor may have been much biggerand would have had devastating consequences across the planet. This research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, provides a more accurate understanding of the large impact and will allow researchers to better simulate impact events on Earth and other planets, both in the past and the future. "Understanding the largest impact structure that we have on Earth is critical," says Natalie Allen, now a Ph.D. student at John Hopkins University. Allen is the first author of the paper, based on research she conducted as an undergraduate at Rochester with Miki Nakajima, an assistant professor of Earth and environmental sciences. "Having access to the information provided by a structure like the Vredefort crater is a great opportunity to test our model and our understanding of the geologic evidence so we can better understand impacts on Earth and beyond." Updated simulations suggest 'devastating' consequences Over the course of 2 billion years, the Vredefort crater has eroded. This makes it difficult for scientists to directly estimate the size of the crater at the time of the original impact, and therefore the size and velocity of the impactor that formed the crater. An object that is 15 kilometers in size and traveling at a velocity of 15 kilometers per second would produce a crater about 172 kilometers in diameter. However, this is much smaller than current estimates for the Vredefort crater. These current estimates are based on new geological evidence and measurements estimating that the structure's original diameter would have been between 250 and 280 kilometers (approximately 155 and 174 miles) during the time of the impact. Allen, Nakajima, and their colleagues conducted simulations to match the updated size of the crater. Their results showed that an impactor would have to be much largerabout 20 to 25 kilometersand traveling at a velocity of 15 to 20 kilometers per second to explain a crater 250 kilometers in size. This means the impactor that formed the Vredefort crater would have been larger than the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, forming the Chicxulub crater. That impact had damaging effects globally, including greenhouse heating, widespread forest fires, acid rain, and destruction of the ozone layer, in addition to causing the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. If the Vredefort crater was even larger and the impact more energetic than that which formed the Chicxulub crater, the Vredefort impact may have caused even more catastrophic global consequences. "Unlike the Chicxulub impact, the Vredefort impact did not leave a record of mass extinction or forest fires, given that there were only single-cell lifeforms and no trees existed 2 billion years ago," Nakajima says. "However, the impact would have affected the global climate potentially more extensively than the Chicxulub impact did." Dust and aerosols from the Vredefort impact would have spread across the planet and blocked sunlight, cooling the Earth's surface, she says. "This could have had a devastating effect on photosynthetic organisms. After the dust and aerosols settledwhich could have taken anywhere from hours to a decadegreenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that were emitted from the impact would have raised the global temperature potentially by several degrees for a long period of time." A multi-faceted model of Vredefort crater The simulations also allowed the researchers to study the material ejected by the impact and the distance the material traveled from the crater. They can use this information to determine the geographic locations of land masses billions of years ago. For instance, previous research determined material from the impactor was ejected to present-day Karelia, Russia. Using their model, Allen, Nakajima, and their colleagues found that 2 billion years ago, the distance of the land mass containing Karelia would have been only 2,000 to 2,500 kilometers from the crater in South Africamuch closer than the two areas are today. "It is incredibly difficult to constrain the location of landmasses long ago," Allen says. "The current best simulations have mapped back about a billion years, and uncertainties grow larger the further back you go. Clarifying evidence such as this ejecta layer mapping may allow researchers to test their models and help complete the view into the past." Undergraduate research leads to publication The idea for this paper arose as part of a final for the course Planetary Interiors (now named Physics of Planetary Interiors), taught by Nakajima, which Allen took as a junior. Allen says the experience of having undergraduate work result in a peer-reviewed journal article was very rewarding and helped her when applying for graduate school. "When Professor Nakajima approached me and asked if I wanted to work together to turn it into a publishable work, it was really gratifying and validating," Allen says. "I had formulated my own research idea, and it was seen as compelling enough to another scientist that they thought it was worth publishing." She adds, "This project was way outside of my usual research comfort zone, but I thought it would be a great learning experience and would force me to apply my skills in a new way. It gave me a lot of confidence in my research abilities as I prepared to go to graduate school." Explore further More than one asteroid could have spelled doom for the dinosaurs As the snow melts, it can carry poo down to watercourses or lakes like Blue Lake in the popular Main Range section of the Snowy Mountains. Credit: Shutterstock Spring has arrived in Australia's Snowy Mountains. The snow is starting to melt. Wildflowers are emerging in a variety of colors: blues, yellows, whites hang on. Those aren't white flowers. They're scrunched up bits of toilet paper left behind by skiers, boarders and snow-shoers. When you think of backcountry snow adventures, you think of pristine wilderness. But unfortunately, there's a problem: what to do with your poo. Many backcountry adventurers just squat, drop and don't stop. The result, as we saw ourselves on an overnight ski trip, is a surprisingly large amount of poo and toilet paper. It's become a bigger problem in recent years, as backcountry trips have boomed in places like the Main Range section of the Snowy Mountains. Our new research explores this issue to find out how to better protect these wild areas. We surveyed backcountry visitors to Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales and found a minority of visitors were carrying out their waste from overnight trips, as recommended. To combat the alpine poo scourge, we recommend building more toilets in strategic locations, making their location readily known, and giving out poo transport bags at entry points and gear shops. If you're skeptical, take heartit wasn't so long ago many people believed dog owners would never agree to scoop up their pet's poo and bin it. But for the most part, they did. So what are you meant to do with snow poo? You might wonder why this matters. After all, aren't our snow-covered mountains full of possums, wombats and wallabies, all of which poo? And can't you bury your poo, like you can in other parts of Australia? The problem here is the snow. Human poo deposited in winter won't decompose until spring. In popular areas, poo and toilet paper can pile up, which is an unpleasant visual for other visitors. And as the snow melts, it can carry poo into creeks, depositing cold-resistant viruses, bacteria like E. coli, and parasites such as giardia. If another skier eats contaminated snow or drinks the stream water, they can be infected. That's why backcountry visitors to Kosciuszko National Park are urged to carry out their poo in biodegradable bags or a home made poo tube (basically a sealable plastic pipe). This, our survey of 258 visitors found, is not hugely popular. Only a third of highly experienced skiers on multi-day trips carry their poo out, while only a fifth of less experienced visitors did the same. The options our multi-day skiers preferred were using a toilet at a hut, if available, or burying poo in the snow. This is not idealif you can't carry it out, it's preferable to bury it in exposed soil (ideally, at least 50 meters away from any water courses). Some visitors reported covering their waste with rocks. Day visitors largely used toilets at the entry and exit points or at a resort, though around 10% reported burying their poo in the snow or using toilets at huts. This means overall compliance with the carry-it-out policy is low. But as one longtime backcountry visitor points out, it's not actually hardor disgustingto carry it out: "It was easy. It was the most satisfying experience I have had, knowing that I had left no trace for the entire journey; the view, the ground, the creeks, the plants had been left unspoilt. No-one would have ever known I had been there. Carrying and taking it out went without mishap and finally disposing of my waste was not a problem." What can be done? People prefer toilets as a tried and true method of removing poo. Installing new toilets is the most effective way to prevent open defecation. The problem is where to put them. Installing toilets in remote areas is a delicate matter, as many visitors may see them as taking away from the natural experience which is the major drawcard for backcountry visitors. It's also expensive to maintain toilets in the snow, as they require helicopters or trucks to pump out the waste. Other options include digging pit latrines, disposing of it into crevasses, burying in soil, snow or rocks, leaving it on the ground, burning it, or carrying it out in poo tubes or biodegradable bags. You can see why park authorities prefer carrying it out. So how can we make it more inviting for visitors to pack their poo? Clearly, the present messaging isn't fully effective. It's time for a new approach, especially given the numbers of people heading to the backcountry is growing. We recommend a two-pronged approach: better communication and targeted infrastructure at entry points. Friends, websites and outdoor recreation clubs are important sources of information about how to undertake a backcountry trip. To harness these sources, parks authorities could work with the wider backcountry community on the issue, with simple, targeted messages. By itself, messaging won't be enough. That's why we need more and improved toiletsand binsat key locations, to make it as easy as possible for visitors to do the right thing with their poo. Authorities should also make these locations clearly known on visitor maps and online, as well as making biodegradable bags or poo tubes available at entry points, information centers and gear shops. If we get this right, backcountry skiers will once again be able to enjoy the wildflowers. Let's aim for spring has sprungnot spring has dung. Explore further Popular Alaska peak weighs new rules for climbers' poop This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. A man uses a makeshift raft to cross s stream of flood waters near his damaged house in Jaffarabad, Pakistan. Pakistan's catastrophic floods have led to renewed calls for rich polluting nations, which grew their economies through heavy use of fossil fuels, to compensate developing countries for the devastating impacts caused by the climate crisis. The currently favored term for this concept is "loss and damage" payments, but some campaigners want to go further and frame the issue as "climate reparations," just as racial justice activists call for compensation for the descendants of enslaved people. Beyond the tougher vocabulary, green groups also call for debt cancellation for cash-strapped nations that spend huge portions of their budgets servicing external loans, rather than devoting the funds to increasing resilience to a rapidly changing planet. "There's a historical precedent of not just the industrial revolution that led to increased emissions and carbon pollution, but also the history of colonialism and the history of extraction of resources, wealth and labor," Belgium-based climate activist Meera Ghani told AFP. "The climate crisis is a manifestation of interlocking systems of oppression, and it's a form of colonialism," said Ghani, a former climate negotiator for Pakistan. Such ideas stretch back decades and were first pushed by small island nations susceptible to rising sea levels but momentum is once more building on the back of this summer's catastrophic inundations in Pakistan, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains. Nearly 1,600 were killed, several million displaced, and the cash-strapped government estimates losses in the region of $30 billion. Beyond mitigation and adaptation Campaigners point to the fact that the most climate-vulnerable countries in the Global South are least responsiblePakistan, for instance, produces less than one percent of global greenhouse emissions, as opposed to the G20 countries which account for 80 percent. The international climate response currently involves a two-pronged approach: "mitigation"which means reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gasesand "adaptation," which means steps to alter systems and improve infrastructure for changes that are already locked in. Calls for "loss and damage" payments go further than adaptation financing, and seek compensation for multiplying severe weather impacts that countries cannot withstand. At present, however, even the more modest goal of adaptation financing is languishing. Advanced economies agreed to channel $100 billion to less developed countries by the year 2020a promise that was brokeneven as much of the funding that was mobilized came in the form of loans. "If our starting point is that the global North is largely responsible for the state of our planet today," said Maira Hayat, an assistant professor of environment and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "Then why should countries that have contributed little by way of GHG emissions be asking them for aidloans are the predominant form - with onerous repayment conditions?" "If the language is upsetting for some, the next step should be to probe why that might be - do they dispute the history? Or the present-day implications of accepting certain historical pasts?" Point scoring? Not all in the climate arena are convinced. "Beyond a certain rhetorical point-scoring that's not going to go anywhere," said Daanish Mustafa, professor in critical geography at King's College London. While he also blames the Global North for the world's current predicament, he says he is wary of pushing a narrative that may excuse the actions of the Pakistani leadership and policy choices they have taken that exacerbate this and other disasters. The World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists found that climate change likely contributed to the floods. But the devastating impacts were also driven "by the proximity of human settlements, infrastructure (homes, buildings, bridges) and agricultural land to flood plains," among other locally driven factors, they said. Pakistan's own emissions, while low at the global scale, are fast risingwith the benefits flowing to a tiny elite, said Mustafa, and the country should pursue an alternative, low-carbon development path rather than "aping the West" and damaging itself in the process. The case for "loss and damage" payments received a recent boost with UN chief Antonio Guterres calling for "meaningful action" on it at the next global climate summit, COP27 in Egypt in November. But the issue is sensitive for rich countriesespecially the United States, the largest emitter of GHGs historicallywhich fear it could pave the way for legal action and kept language regarding "liability and compensation" out of the landmark Paris agreement. Explore further African countries to stand by 1.5C target at climate talkstalks 2022 AFP People pull small boats out of Havana Bay on September 26, 2022, as Cuba is expected to bear the brunt of Hurricane Ian. Cuba on Monday declared a cyclone alert in its six most western provinces as fast-approaching Hurricane Ian strengthened rapidly, with Florida also ramping up preparations ahead of a possible hit. Authorities in Havana said they were ready to evacuate those from the most affected areas while supplying fresh drinking water and medical services. "Given the continuing deterioration of the weather conditions... it was decided to establish from 0800 (1200 GMT) the Cyclone Alert Phase," said the Civil Defense Staff on state media. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned Ian was expected to pass near the Cayman Islands and then over western Cuba late Monday and early Tuesday. "Rapid strengthening is expected during the next day or so, and Ian is forecast to become a major hurricane," it added, with current maximum sustained winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour. Cuba's Insmet meteorology institute said Ian was advancing at a speed of 22 kilometers per hour. The six provinces put on alert are Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, Cienfuegos and Isla de la Juventud. 'Huge storm surge' expected In Florida, Tampa city was under a hurricane watch , and state Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in all 67 counties as officials scrambled to prepare for the storm's forecast landing on late Wednesday or Thursday. People in the US state of Florida were preparing for the storm's imminent arrival. Ian "will bring heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge, along with isolated tornado activity along Florida's Gulf Coast," DeSantis said in a press conference in Tallahassee on Monday. He warned people to prepare for power cuts. "Even if the eye of the storm doesn't hit your region, you're going to have really significant winds, it's going to knock over trees, it's going to cause interruptions," DeSantis said, warning of likely flooding. The governor urged residents to stock up on food, water, medicine and fuel, and he activated 7,000 National Guard members to help with the effort. Authorities in several Florida municipalities, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, started distributing free sandbags to residents to help protect their homes from the risk of flooding. President Joe Biden approved emergency aid to 24 counties in Florida through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). NASA said it was rolling back its Artemis 1 rocket due to blast off to the Moon into its storage hangar at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida due to the hurricane. Damage caused by Hurricane Fiona in Newfoundland and Labrador province, Canada. Fiona's wake The Caribbean and parts of eastern Canada are still counting the cost of powerful storm Fiona, which tore through last week, claiming several lives. When it arrived in eastern Canada, the storm packed intense winds of 80 miles per hour, bringing torrential rain and waves of up to 40 feet (12 meters). Canadian authorities have confirmed two deaths caused when Fiona barreled into Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as a post-tropical cyclone early Saturday. Prince Edward Island authorities confirmed the death of one person while officials in Newfoundland said they found the body of a 73-year-old woman believed to have been swept from her home. She was apparently sheltering in her basement when waves broke through. "The devastation is immense," Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston told reporters. "The magnitude of the storm is incredible." Storm surges swept at least 20 homes into the sea in the town of Channel-Port aux Basques, on the southwestern tip of Newfoundland. Around 200 residents had been evacuated before the storm hit. "Some people have lost everything, and I mean everything," Button told CBC News. Explore further Ian strengthens to Category 1 hurricane as it nears Cuba: NHC 2022 AFP Pictures of gravitational lenses from the AGEL survey. The pictures are centred on the foreground galaxy and include the object name. Each panel includes the confirmed distance to the foreground galaxy (zdef) and distant background galaxy (zsrc). Credit: Kim-Vy H. Tran et al, The Astronomical Journal (2022). DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ac7da2 Earlier this year a machine learning algorithm identified up to 5,000 potential gravitational lenses that could transform our ability to chart the evolution of galaxies since the Big Bang. Now astronomer Kim-Vy Tran from ASTRO 3D and UNSW Sydney and colleagues have assessed 77 of the lenses using the Keck Observatory in Hawai'i and the Very Large Telescope in Chile. She and her international team confirmed that 68 out of the 77 are strong gravitational lenses spanning vast cosmic distances. This success rate of 88% suggests that the algorithm is reliable and that we could have thousands of new gravitational lenses. To date, gravitational lenses have been hard to find and only about a hundred are routinely used. Kim-Vy Tran's paper published today in The Astronomical Journal presents spectroscopic confirmation of strong gravitational lenses previously identified using Convolutional Neural Networks, developed by data scientist Dr. Colin Jacobs at ASTRO 3D and Swinburne University. The work is part of the ASTRO 3D Galaxy Evolution with Lenses (AGEL) survey. "Our spectroscopy allowed us to map a 3D picture of the gravitational lenses to show they are genuine and not merely chance superposition," says corresponding author Dr. Tran from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3-Dimensions (ASTRO3D) and the University of NSW (UNSW). "Our goal with AGEL is to spectroscopically confirm around 100 strong gravitational lenses that can be observed from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres throughout the year," she says. The paper is the result of a collaboration spanning the globe with researchers from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Chile. The work was made possible by the development of the algorithm to look for certain digital signatures. "With that we could identify many thousands of lenses compared to just a few handfuls," says Dr. Tran. Gravitational lensing was first identified as a phenomenon by Einstein who predicted that light bends around massive objects in space in the same way that light bends going through a lens. In doing so, it greatly magnifies images of galaxies that we would not otherwise be able to see. While it has been used by astronomers to observe far away galaxies for a long time, finding these cosmic magnifying glasses in the first place has been hit and miss. "These lenses are very small so if you have fuzzy images, you're not going to really be able to detect them," says Dr. Tran. While these lenses let us see objects that are millions of light years away more clearly, it should also let us "see" invisible dark matter that makes up most of the Universe. "We know that most of the mass is dark," says Dr. Tran. "We know that mass is bending light and so if we can measure how much light is bent, we can then infer how much mass must be there." Having many more gravitational lenses at various distances will also give us a more complete image of the timeline going back almost to the Big Bang. "The more magnifying glasses you have, the better chance you can try to survey these more distant objects. Hopefully, we can better measure the demographics of very young galaxies," says Dr. Tran. "Then somewhere between those really early first galaxies and us there's a whole lot of evolution that's happening, with tiny star forming regions that convert pristine gas into the first stars to the sun, the Milky Way." "And so with these lenses at different distances, we can look at different points in the cosmic timeline to track essentially how things change over time, between the very first galaxies and now." Dr. Tran's team spanned the globe, with each group providing different expertise. "Being able to collaborate with people, at different universities, has been so crucial, both for setting the project up in the first place, and now continuing with all of the follow-up observations," she says. Professor Stuart Wyithe of the University of Melbourne and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (Astro 3D) says each gravitational lens is unique and tells us something new. "Apart from being beautiful objects, gravitational lenses provide a window to studying how mass is distributed in very distant galaxies that are not observable via other techniques. By introducing ways to use these new large data sets of the sky to search for many new gravitational lenses, the team opens up the opportunity to see how galaxies get their mass," he says. Professor Karl Glazebrook of Swinburne University, and Dr. Tran's Co-Science Lead on the paper, paid tribute to the work that had gone before. "This algorithm was pioneered by Dr. Colin Jacobs at Swinburne. He sifted through tens of millions of galaxy images to prune the sample down to 5,000. Never did we dream that the success rate would be so high," he says. "Now we are getting images of these lenses with the Hubble Space Telescope, they range from jaw-droppingly beautiful to extremely strange images that will take us considerable effort to figure out." Associate Professor Tucker Jones of UC Davis, another co-science lead on the paper, described the new sample as "a giant step forward in learning how galaxies form over the history of the Universe." "Normally these early galaxies look like small fuzzy blobs, but the lensing magnification allows us to see their structure with much better resolution. They are ideal targets for our most powerful telescopes to give us the best possible view of the early universe," he says. "Thanks to the lensing effect we can learn what these primitive galaxies look like, what they are made of, and how they interact with their surroundings." Explore further AI finds more than 1,200 gravitational lensing candidates More information: Kim-Vy H. Tran et al, The AGEL Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of Strong Gravitational Lenses in the DES and DECaLS Fields Selected Using Convolutional Neural Networks, The Astronomical Journal (2022). Journal information: Astronomical Journal Kim-Vy H. Tran et al, The AGEL Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of Strong Gravitational Lenses in the DES and DECaLS Fields Selected Using Convolutional Neural Networks,(2022). DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ac7da2 Provided by ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3D (ASTRO 3D) (a) Measured spin-resolved Fermi arcs in 2 MLs Fe/W(110) on the left and on the right side of the momentum map. Colours indicate the in-plane spin component along the x direction, which is orthogonal to the sample magnetization (b) Arrows denote the complete theoretical spin texture in momentum space, revealing a prominent non-collinearity for the Fermi arcs (red) as compared to the interior states (grey). (c) Distribution of the theoretical momentum-space Berry curvature of all occupied bands in 2 MLs Fe/W(110), around one of the pairs of Fermi arcs. Credit: Ying-Jiun Chen et al, Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32948-z (CC-BY) Julich researchers have been able to demonstrate an exotic electronic state, so-called Fermi Arcs, for the first time in a 2D material. The surprising appearance of Fermi arcs in such a material provides a link between novel quantum materials and their respective potential applications in a new generation of spintronics and quantum computing. The results have recently been published in Nature Communications. The newly detected Fermi arcs represent specialarc-likedeviations from the so-called Fermi surface. The Fermi surface is used in condensed matter physics to describe the momentum distribution of electrons in a metal. Normally, these Fermi surfaces represent closed surfaces. Exceptions such as the Fermi arcs are very rare and often are associated with exotic properties like superconductivity, negative magnetoresistance and anomalous quantum transport effects. Today's technology challenge is to develop the "on-demand" control of physical properties in materials. However, such experimental tests have been largely limited to bulk materials and are key grand challenges in condensed matter science. With its groundbreaking paradigm, the findings present a promising new frontier for quantum control of topological states in low-dimensional systems by external meansthe external magnetic field that offers unprecedented capabilities on 2D materials for artificial intelligence as well as future information processing. The analyzed material is a so-called topological 2D material. Topological materials have special properties that arise due to interactions of the electrons with the crystal structure and are protected against interfering influences. 2D materials, on the other hand, are materials that consist of only one layer of atoms or molecules and are being intensively researched because of their unusual properties. A well-known example is graphene, which consists of single-layer carbon. Graphene exhibits exotic physical properties compared with its bulk counterpart. The material mentioned in the paper is a 2D iron atomic layer. When compared with graphene, these 2D hybrid magnets are a class of materials that reveal additional emergent phenomena in the single layer limit. For instance, it can lead to potential applications of the chiral anomaly in devices and open a new area of research in the field of the strongly-correlated topological materials. For the work, the researchers conducted experiments at the Elettra Synchrotron in Trieste, Italy. There, an international consortium led by Forschungszentrum Julich operates the spin-resolving Momentum Microscope at the NanoESCA beamline. Explore further Scientists design and synthesize a new layered air-stable topological crystalline insulator candidate More information: Ying-Jiun Chen et al, Spanning Fermi arcs in a two-dimensional magnet, Nature Communications (2022). Journal information: Nature Communications Ying-Jiun Chen et al, Spanning Fermi arcs in a two-dimensional magnet,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32948-z Graphical abstract. Credit: Science of The Total Environment (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157308 As important components of atmospheric aerosols, heavy metals are of great concern because of their bioaccumulation potential and toxicity via inhalation and deposition. Recently, researchers from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) investigated the elemental composition and sources of total suspended particles (TSP) in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, and determined the concentrations of total and acid-soluble elements. Results were published in Science of The Total Environment. The researchers found that the mean elemental concentrations at Yaze, a remote site in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, were relatively low compared with those in other areas of the Tibetan Plateau, indicating that the elemental composition of TSP samples at Yaze may represent the background level of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. The enrichment factor values of some heavy metal elements at Yaze were slightly higher than those at Nam Co station (inland Tibetan Plateau) but much lower than those at Mt. Yulong, at Mt. Gongga (southeastern Tibetan Plateau) and megacity of Soute, which suggests weak influences at Yaze from anthropogenic activities. The study also indicated that South and Southeast Asia were the main source regions for typical heavy metals. Besides, seasonal variations in the studied elements were characterized by low and high concentrations during the monsoon and non-monsoon periods, respectively. Concentrations of acid-soluble elements are usually used to study the sources of heavy metals in ice cores from the Tibetan Plateau. Therefore, the researchers determined the concentrations of total and acid-soluble elements simultaneously. This study demonstrates the transport of heavy metals from external sources to remote sites in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. It can also help to interpret the historical profiles of heavy metals in the ice cores of the Tibetan Plateau. Explore further Microplastics threaten typical remote cryospheric regions More information: Yinbo Xu et al, Composition and sources of heavy metals in aerosol at a remote site of Southeast Tibetan Plateau, China, Science of The Total Environment (2022). Journal information: Science of the Total Environment Yinbo Xu et al, Composition and sources of heavy metals in aerosol at a remote site of Southeast Tibetan Plateau, China,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157308 Thousands evacuated as super typhoon Noru approaches central localities Many central coastal provinces are preparing to evacuate hundreds of thousands of residents as super typhoon Noru is entering the East Sea and heading toward the region. Authorities in Quang Ngai Province evacuate over 84,000 residents from vulnerable areas Noru, which developed from a low tropical depression off the coast of the Philippines on September 22, was upgraded to super typhoon status early on September 25 after suddenly gaining strength. Noru battered the northern Philippines on September 25 and has entered the East Sea. After sweeping across Luzon Island, the storm slightly weakened with winds gusting 166kph near its eye. It is forecasted to maintain this level before striking the central coast of Vietnam at midnight on September 27 or early on the morning of September 28. The National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control held an urgent meeting on the afternoon of September 25 to prepare for the super typhoon. According to the committee, Danang, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh will likely be hardest hit by the typhoon. Meanwhile, the committee also issued a disaster risk warning for Quang Tri, Thua Thien-Hue, Phu Yen, and Kon Tum provinces. Authorities of provinces from Quang Binh to Binh Thuan have drawn up evacuation plans for 868,230 residents living in vulnerable areas. Provinces from Thua Thien Hue to Quang Ngai which are expected to bear the brunt of the super typhoon have also issued plans to evacuate a total of 368,878 local residents. Schools in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai will be closed from September 27. Public service and local people are racing against time to reinforce fishing cages, public works, workshops, warehouses and coastal construction projects before Noru makes landfall. Credit: CC0 Public Domain When it comes to sexual competition, males have the star role. Clashing bodies, locking horns, biting and kicking are all considered fair play. Since these behaviors are so salient and robust, most studies focus on male behavior, leaving females aside. Scientists at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Portugal had a sense females might not be as pacifist as they seem. "It is well known that female fruit flies display aggression over food and territory. So we asked, 'What about mating? Is it possible that they also compete for mating partners, but in a subtler manner that has escaped our attention so far?'", said Maria Luisa Vasconcelos, the study's senior author. The results of the study, published today (September 26) in the journal Current Biology confirm their hunch: "We discovered a new type of female behavior in fruit flies: aggressive sexual competition." Two virgins, one male This new behavior was uncovered when the team placed two virgin females and one male in the same chamber. In the beginning, the male alternated courting both females. At that stage, there were no problems. However, as soon as he began copulating with one of them, the other attacked the pair. She headbutted and pushed them, mainly focusing on the female's rear end, where the action was taking place. "This is curious because when the situation is reversedwhen two males are in the same chamber with one femaleboth vigorously court the female simultaneously. But once mating is in progress, the 'losing' male doesn't attack. Instead, it courts the female even though she is otherwise engaged," Vasconcelos explained. This initial result was exciting, but it was only the beginning. "We wanted to understand what were the exact circumstances that gave rise to this behavior. For example, was it important that the females were virgins? Also, were there any external signals involved, like particular odors?" recounted Miguel Gaspar, a doctoral student in the lab, who is the study's first author. A disappointed virgin is an aggressive virgin The team tested a set of experimental conditions, trying to pin down on the exact recipe. Interestingly, one of their main findings was that to become aggressive, the females had to be courted first. "If a female virgin entered the chamber while the pair was already mating, she would not attack," said Gaspar. As the researchers suspected, the mating status of the female was an essential component as well. Females that had recently mated would not become aggressive even if the male initially courted them but then decided to opt out. "Mating triggers a series of physiological changes in females, which are known to have a dramatic effect on their behavior as well," Gaspar explained. "And indeed, we found that while virgins quickly became aggressive, mated females were indifferent to the copulating pair." Sniffing for a fight The team also discovered that smell was a determinant factor: Aggression only happened in the presence of a food odor. "This was very interesting," said Vasconcelos. "We know that mated females become aggressive towards each other in the presence of food. Probably because they need nourishment to support the pregnancy. However, here the females were virgins. A possible explanation might be that mating in an environment with food is perceived as conducive to a successful pregnancy." In addition, the team also found that a specific type of odor receptors were crucial for generating the behavior. When the team blocked these receptors, which sense the presence of other flies, the level of aggression was significantly reduced. "These receptors are known modulators of receptivity in females, so it makes sense that they would be important here," added Gaspar. "Remarkably, the olfactory factors we tested played a more significant role than visual signals; blind flies were still aggressive as long as these receptors were active and there was a scent of food in the chamber." The bottom line The team revealed a context in which females compete for sexual mates. "We report here how female aggression towards mating pairs can be elicited," Vasconcelos said. "These findings add to the growing body of evidence that fruit fly females display rich, complex behaviors that are sensitive to social, environmental, and internal states. Now, we can use the extensive genetic and molecular tools available in fly research to investigate the neural underpinnings of this newly-discovered behavior," she concluded. Explore further Young male fruit flies make females fight each other more More information: Miguel Gaspar et al, Mating pair drives aggressive behavior in female Drosophila, Current Biology (2022). Journal information: Current Biology Miguel Gaspar et al, Mating pair drives aggressive behavior in female Drosophila,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.09.009 Provided by Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown Neutron elastic and inelastic cross sections in paraffin. Credit: The European Physical Journal H (2022). DOI: 10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00042-z One way to better understand an atom is to shoot a particle at it and infer the atom's properties based on how the particle bounces off it. In the mid-1930s, the physicist Enrico Fermi showed that one measurable numberthe scattering lengthilluminated everything that could be known about an electron scattering off an atom, or a neutron scattering off a nucleus. In a new paper in EPJ Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, Chris Gould from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, U.S., explains how Fermi's simple sketch of a radial wave function laid the groundwork for a better understanding of low energy scattering phenomena, and led in turn to the concept of the pseudopotential, widely used in many areas of physics, including ultracold atom research and studies of qubits in realizations of quantum computers. In Fermi's atomic physics paper, published in 1934, his sketch of a radial wave functionthe value of a wave function at some distance from a scattererwas the clue that led him to understand a puzzling result in atomic spectroscopy. In his neutron physics paper, published in 1936, Fermi went in a different direction, employing the scattering length concept to introduce a new ideathe pseudopotential, a potential well with a radius of zeroto correctly predict how a neutron scatters in paraffin. Gould concludes that Fermi's extraordinary intuition enabled the physicist to apply concepts to seemingly unrelated areas, and to develop ideas that impact the world of quantum physics to this day. Explore further Exotic electronic effect found in 2D topological material More information: Christopher R. Gould et al, Fermi's favorite figure: the history of the pseudopotential concept in atomic physics and neutron physics, The European Physical Journal H (2022). Christopher R. Gould et al, Fermi's favorite figure: the history of the pseudopotential concept in atomic physics and neutron physics,(2022). DOI: 10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00042-z Professor Babak Taheri. Credit: Nottingham Trent University Food delivery services should give customers a voice, respond quickly to complaints and proactively apologize when things go wrong, according to a new study which explores what companies can do to rebuild trust after failures. Researchers at Nottingham Business School, part of Nottingham Trent University, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, University of Wolverhampton and The University of Central Florida surveyed 925 people on their experiences with Iran's largest online food ordering platforma service similar to those such as Uber Eats and Deliveroowhich receives more than two million online visits each month. The survey was followed up by 45 in-depth interviews to better understand how people experience and recover from services failures during food ordering and delivery. The survey revealed that an apology, an offer of compensation, and giving customers a voice to air their grievance all helped to rebuild trust through forgiveness. However, responses also suggested that customers who were more familiar with company failures were more likely to respond negatively to apologies and offers of compensation, feeling their voice wouldn't be heard. Here, when an incident has become public knowledge and awareness amongst consumers is high, firms should quickly and proactively accept responsibility and provide automatic compensation as these may be inevitable; positioning their response in a manner likely to provide the best chance of recovery and retention. Anger and frustration were found to be key themes in the interviews. However, these emotions were not related to the service failure itself, but instead to factors such as the response provided by the company, a perceived ineffectiveness in handling complaints, and not giving customers a chance to be heard. Participants were also frustrated by generic complaint-handling processes, instead desiring a personal response from the company. This exacerbated negative emotions and increased the likelihood of the customer not using the service again. Babak Taheri, Professor of Marketing at Nottingham Business School's Marketing and Consumer Studies Research Center, said, "A positive reputation and customer retention is vital for food delivery services which need to attract food vendors to partner with them. "While we focused on one company for this study, all food delivery services can learn from the comments we received. The importance of having a service recovery strategy cannot be underestimated when it comes to rebuilding trust among customers, particularly those who order frequently and have already experienced a company's response to failure. "We see that customers are often not discouraged from using a service due to the failure itself, but the way it is handled. Food service delivery companies should take note of the need for a quick, clear, and personalized complaints process which is open to feedback and ensures repeat custom. "We also found that awareness had an impact, so if food service failures receive media coverage or are discussed on social media, consumers are more likely to voice their concerns and seek compensation. When an incident has become public knowledge and awareness amongst consumers is high, firms should quickly and proactively accept responsibility and provide automatic compensation; positioning their response in a manner likely to provide the best chance of recovery and retention. "They must provide these more proactive problem-solving methods in order to restore relationships with consumers through openness and honesty before their customers become increasingly aware, knowledgeable, and initiate their own service recovery efforts." The paper "Investigating the Effects of Service Recovery Strategies on Consumer Forgiveness and Post-Trust in the Food Delivery Sector" has been published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management. More information: Martin Gannon et al, Investigating the effects of service recovery strategies on consumer forgiveness and post-trust in the food delivery sector, International Journal of Hospitality Management (2022). Martin Gannon et al, Investigating the effects of service recovery strategies on consumer forgiveness and post-trust in the food delivery sector,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2022.103341 Painted cylinder vase depicting a foaming drink in a vase and tamales in a plate. Credit: Justin Kerr, mayavase.com, Kerr number: 6418 It was the money that grew on trees. Said to be a gift from the gods, cacao for the ancient Maya was considered sacred, used not only as currency, but in special ceremonies and religious rituals. It's the progenitor plant of chocolate, and notions of luxury are embedded in its lore. The prevailing belief: Cacao was more available to, even controlled by, the society's very upper echelons, royalty. Past efforts to identify cacao in ceramics focused on highly decorative vessels associated with elite ceremonial contextsthink ornate drinking vasesleading to assumptions about how cacao was distributed and who could access it. What about the farmers who grew cacao and the communities of people who lived amongst these orchards? What of the general populace? A new study by UC Santa Barbara researchers Anabel Ford and Mattanjah de Vries asks these questionsand answers themby examining cacao residues from ancient ceramics. Their results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate that cacao was, in fact, accessible to the general populace and was used in celebrations at all levels of society. "It had long been assumed that cacao for the Maya was an elite exclusive," said Ford, an anthropologist and director of the MesoAmerican Research Center at UC Santa Barbara, who for 40 years has been conducting research on the ancient Maya city of El Pilar. "We now know this is not the case. The imbibing of cacao was a luxury accessible to all. The importance is that it was a requirement of the rituals associated with it." To test the exclusivity of cacao use, the work examines 54 archaeological ceramic sherds. Originating from El Pilarlocated between Belize and Guatemalathe sherds can be traced to Late Classic period civic and residential contexts, representing a cross section of ancient Maya inhabitants. The study includes a chemical analysis of these sherdsspecifically of the biomarkers for cacao: caffeine, theobromine and theophylline. Mesoamerica and the Maya Lowlands with El Pilar at the ecotone between the interior and the Belize River, with other major civic centers Indicated. Credit: MesoAmerican Research Center. "The discovery of chemical signatures of cacao made the investigation possible, but the main active ingredient, theobromine, it turns out is not sufficiently discrete to be certain of the cacao attribution," said Ford. "Mattanjah (de Vries) and his students, in their chemical research, encountered the possibility of detecting theophylline, a specific component of cacao that could not be confused with anything else. His work was not archaeological, but he saw the potential for an interdisciplinary project." A distinguished professor and department chair of chemistry and biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, de Vries has long been studying how DNA basesthe building blocks of lifeand similar molecules respond to UV light and, he said, whether UV light "could have played a role on an early Earth, in the way nature selected those building blocks from a primordial soup of many such compounds. "At some point I realized that some of the compounds we had been studying in this origin of life chemistry project occur in cacao, and thus can serve as biomarkers for cacao," de Vries said. "Since we had already investigated the spectroscopy of these compounds in great detail, this presented an opportunity to apply that expertise to detection of these biomarkers for archaeology. "We can find a needle in a haystack, provided we know what the needle looks like; in this case the target molecule was a certain biomarker for cacao," he added. "That ability is what made this analysis possible." In their selection of ceramics to test, Ford and de Vries prioritized the vases from which cacao was likely drunk. They also tested bowls, jars and plates. All vessel types had evidence of cacao. "This was a surprise at first," Ford said, "but giving thought to the presence and understanding of their uses, bowls would be good for mixing, jars would be right for warming the drink (a traditional cacao preparation) and plates appropriate for serving food with sauces that can contain cacao (such as mole poblano). "Now that we know that the presence of cacao is in all vessel types, we need to understand the greater distribution and use of these important household forms," Ford added. "What is critical in our work is that the data I collected in the El PilarBelize River area emphasizes the ordinary households and not just the elite center. Our research thus breaks ground on the identification and the distribution." Explore further Researchers discover locations of ancient Maya sacred groves of cacao trees More information: Anabel Ford et al, New light on the use of Theobroma cacao by Late Classic Maya, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Anabel Ford et al, New light on the use of Theobroma cacao by Late Classic Maya,(2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2121821119 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Tropical Storm Ian was forecast to rapidly gain strength Sunday while racing across the Caribbean toward Cuba and threatening a big hit to Florida's west coast later in the week. Ian was 540 miles southeast of Cuba early Sunday, cruising northwest at 12 miles an hour with 50 mph winds. The storm was forecast to reach hurricane status late Sunday, then roll across western Cuba Monday night and early Tuesday. As Ian approaches Florida, Accuweather said the storm could reach Category 4 status, which means sustained winds between 130 mph and 156 mph. "In just a few days, Ian is likely to be a dangerous, major hurricane," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Adam Douty said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged residents to load up on food, water, medicine, batteries and fuel. He said it was too soon to determine when or even if Ian will make landfall, but that evacuations may be ordered in coming days. "Expect heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge and even isolated tornadoes. Make preparations now," he said Sunday. "Anticipate power outages. That is something that is likely to happen with a hurricane of this magnitude." The National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm watch for the lower Florida Keys Sunday. "Significant" wind and storm surge damage was expected across a wide swath of the Atlantic Basin, and the Cuban government upgraded the hurricane watch to warning. Such storms can cause "catastrophic" damage, with power outages that can last weeks or possibly months, according to the National Weather Service description. Areas can be uninhabitable for weeks or months, the weather service says. "Even if you're not necessarily right in the eye of the path of the storm, there's going to be pretty broad impacts throughout the state," DeSantis said. Storm could drive heavy rains all week Heavy rainfall may affect north Florida, the Florida panhandle and the southeast United States through Saturday, the weather service update said. Flooding and rising area streams and rivers across the region "can't be ruled out" later this week, especially in central Florida due to already saturated conditions, the updated warned. East coast of Florida not in the clear Though the track had shifted westward, parts of the state's east coast remained solidly within the edges of Ian's forecast cone Sunday. Melbourne resident Pat Alderman wasn't taking any changes, buying ten 50-pound bags of sand, along with 50 empty sandbags, at Lowe's in West Melbourne to fortify her back patio door against floodwaters. She has a backyard pond, and her soils are saturated with recent rainfall. Alderman, shopping at Lowe's on Sunday, said she had a generator and roll-down shuttersno need to board her windows. "This is from decades of living in Florida," she said. 'If you've lived here for a while, you need to have all these things. Transplants don't understand." In Tampa, stocking up on water and sandbags John Cangialosi, a senior hurricane specialist at hurricane center, said Floridians should begin preparations, including gathering supplies for potential power outages, he said. "For those in Florida, it's still time to prepare," he said. "I'm not telling you to put up your shutters yet or do anything like that, but it's still time to get your supplies." Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said city sandbag sites were open. She urged residents to shop for several days of necessities now and to check family disaster kits and plans. "Are you #TampaReady?" she tweeted. "It's never too early to prepare." Residents agreed. Shoppers at a Walmart Supercenter Tampa were stocking up on suppliesand wiped out almost 1,000 cases of bottled water in a few hours Sunday, the Tampa Bay Times reported. NASA postpones launch, considers stashing rocket NASA said Sunday that it was monitoring Tropical Storm Ian, but had not determined whether it would roll back the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the protection of the assembly building. The agency said it would "prioritize the agency's people and hardware." NASA managers, who canceled a launch set for Tuesday due to the storm, planned to meet Sunday night to evaluate whether to keep the vehicle at the launch pad to preserve an opportunity for a launch attempt on Oct. 2. The latest information provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Space Force, and the National Hurricane Center indicated a "slower moving and potentially more westerly track of the storm than yesterday's predictions showed, providing more time for the agency's decision making process," NASA said in a statement. Bethune-Cookman University orders evacuation Bethune-Cookman University canceled classes Monday and said they would reconvene remotely on Tuesday. "As a precaution, and in the interest of safety for members of our campus community, the university has issued a mandatory campus evacuation," the school said in a statement on its website. The school, a private, historically black university in Daytona Beach, has about 2,750 undergraduate students. The school told its students that their smartphones are "computers" and that they should continue to use their cellphones to keep up with their studies in the event they do not have access to a tablet, laptop or desktop technology. Florida's west coast could take rare hurricane hit AccuWeather meteorologists are warning that the storm could slam the west coast of Floridaan often-missed target. The U.S. database shows that about 160 hurricanes, excluding tropical storms, have affected Florida. Only 17 have made landfall on the west coast north of the Florida Keys. Most storms typically travel northeast or northwest, not up the coast, AccuWeather senior weather editor Jesse Ferrell said. There is no record of a hurricane ever having tracked entirely up the west coast of Florida since records began in 1944. But Ian appears likely to take a "very unusual track," he said. Florida has had recent storms that were hurricanes, but were downgraded to tropical storms before landfall, Ferrell said. Elsa in 2021 made landfall west of Tampa, and Eta in 2020 made landfall north of Tampa in Cedar Key. Neither had the firepower close to a Category 3 storm, however. DeSantis declares statewide state of emergency Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a pre-landfall state of emergency for all 67 counties late Saturday. The declaration came a day after DeSantis' 24-county declaration.Florida National Guard members will be activated and on standby. "Floridians should remain vigilant and ensure their households are prepared for a potential impact," DeSantis said. Ian will then either move inland somewhere over the southeast U.S., or could track near or along parts of the Eastern Seaboard late this week, The Weather Channel said, adding that it's too soon to tell where Ian will end up, but there could be wind, flooding rain and other impacts extending into other parts of the East late next week. Biden authorizes FEMA to help President Joe Biden also declared an emergency for the state, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance to protect lives and property. Biden postponed a scheduled Sept. 27 trip to Florida due to the storm. Caymans, Cuba to see Ian's fury first But Ian will do damage even before reaching Cuba. Hurricane conditions are expected to reach Grand Cayman by early Monday, with tropical storm conditions expected by Sunday night, the weather service said. Significant wind and storm surges in western Cuba are expected as the storm strengthens Sunday night, according to the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane conditions are possible within the hurricane watch area in Cuba by Monday night or early Tuesday, with tropical storm conditions possible by late Monday. Tropical storm conditions are possible within the tropical storm watch area in Cuba Monday night and Tuesday. Explore further Ian strengthens to Category 1 hurricane as it nears Cuba: NHC (c)2022 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Chew Bahir coring site, extracting a liner full of recovered sediment material from the 280-m-long core: the day shift trying to pull the liner out with combined forces. Credit: Frank Schaebitz Three distinct phases of climate variability in eastern Africa coincided with shifts in hominin evolution and dispersal over the last 620,000 years, an analysis of environmental proxies from a lake sediment record has revealed. The project explores the youngest chapter in human evolution by analyzing lacustrine sediments in close vicinity to paleo-anthropological key sites in eastern Africa using scientific deep drilling. The research endeavor included more than 22 researchers from 19 institutions in 6 countries, and was led by Dr. Verena Foerster at the University of Cologne's Institute of Geography Education. The article "Pleistocene climate variability in eastern Africa influenced hominin evolution" has now appeared in Nature Geoscience. Despite more than half a century of hominin fossil discoveries in eastern Africa, the regional environmental context of the evolution and dispersal of modern humans and their ancestors is not well established. Particularly for the Pleistocene (or Ice Age) between 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, there are no continuous high-resolution paleo-environmental records available for the African continent. The research team extracted two continuous 280-meter sediment cores from the Chew Bahir Basin in southern Ethiopia, an area where early humans lived and developed during the Pleistocene. Chew Bahir is very remotely situated in a deep tectonic basement in close vicinity to the Turkana area and the Omo-Kibish, key paleo-anthropological and archaeological sites. The cores yielded the most complete record for such a long period ever extracted in the area, revealing how different climates influenced the biological and cultural transformation of humans inhabiting the region. Scientific deep drilling operations in Chew Bahir, southern Ethiopia, during night shift and with remote thunder storms. Credit: Annett Junginger An interdisciplinary team including geoscientists, sedimentologists, micro-paleontologists, geologists, geographers, geochemists, archaeologists, chronologists, and climate modelers worked towards recovering the two continuous sediment cores, from which so-called proxies (like microfossils or elemental variations) were used to glean data to reconstruct the region's climate history. Archaeologists, evolutionary biologists, and evolutionary anthropologists then identified phases of climatic stress as well as more favorable conditions and interpreted how these factors changed human habitats, influencing human biological and cultural evolution as well as their dispersal. Specifically, the scientists found that various anatomically diverse hominin groups inhabited the area during a phase of long-lasting and relatively stable humid conditions from approximately 620,000 to 275,000 years BP (Before Present). However, a series of shorter abrupt and extreme arid pulses interrupted this long generally stable and wet phase. Most likely, this resulted in a fragmentation of habitats, shifts in population dynamics and even the extinctions of local populations. As a result, small, reproductively and culturally isolated populations then had to adapt to dramatically transformed local environments, likely stimulating the appearance of the many geographically and anatomically distinct hominin groups and the separation of our modern human ancestors from archaic groups. A phase with significant climate swings resulting in regularly transformed habitats in the area from approximately 275,000 to 60,000 years BP repeatedly resulted in environmental shifts from lush vegetation with deep fresh water lakes to highly arid landscapes with the extensive lakes reduced to small saline puddles. In this phase, the population groups gradually transitioned from Acheulean technologies (oval hand axes made of stone and primarily associated with Homo ergaster/erectus) to more sophisticated Middle Stone Age technologies. The Chew Bahir science camp: 'Chew Bahir city', 3 km from the drill site. Credit: Verena Foerster This crucial phase also encompasses the emergence of Homo sapiens in eastern Africa as well as key human social, technological, and cultural innovations that could have buffered early Homo sapiens from the impacts of severe environmental changes. "These innovations, such as more varied toolkits and long-distance transport, would have equipped modern humans with an unprecedented adaptability to the repeated expansions and contractions of habitats," said Dr. Foerster, the paper's lead author. The phase from approximately 60,000 to 10,000 years BP saw the most extreme environmental fluctuations, but also the most arid phase of the entire record, which could have acted as a motor for continuous indigenous cultural change. The scientists believe that the brief alignment of humid pulses in eastern Africa with wet phases in north-eastern Africa and the Mediterranean was key to opening favorable migration routes out of Africa on a roughly north-south axis along the East African Rift System (EARS) and into the Levant, facilitating the global dispersal of Homo sapiens. "In view of current threats to the human habitat from climate change and the overuse of natural resources through human activity, understanding how the relationship between climate and human evolution has become more relevant than ever," Foerster concluded. This research is part of the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP). In order to evaluate the impact that different timescales and magnitudes of climatic shifts have had on the living conditions of early humans, the project has cored five lake archives of climate change during the last 3.5 million years. All five sites in Kenya and Ethiopia are located in close vicinity to paleoanthropological key sites covering various steps in human evolution, with the site in southern Ethiopia exploring the youngest chapter. Explore further Climate conditions during the migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa reconstructed More information: Verena Foerster, Pleistocene climate variability in eastern Africa influenced hominin evolution, Nature Geoscience (2022). www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01032-y Journal information: Nature Geoscience Verena Foerster, Pleistocene climate variability in eastern Africa influenced hominin evolution,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-022-01032-y Rangers in Kruger Park, South Africa. Credit: WildSnap/Shutterstock Thousands of animals and plants are bought and sold each year globally as food, medicine, clothing and furnitureeven in the form of musical instruments. Wildlife, it seems, is big business. The illegal wildlife trade, which has an estimated value of at least US$7 billion (5.9 billion) and potentially as much as US$23 billion, is driving some of the most well known species on Earthespecially rhinos, elephants, tigers, lions and, more recently, pangolinstowards extinction. Since 2008, law enforcement has played a considerably bigger role in tackling the illegal wildlife trade, thanks to the support of governments, private donors, conservation charities and businesses. The result is that counter-insurgency techniques, such as developing informant networks and contracting private security firms to train rangers in anti-poaching operations with military-grade weapons, have proliferated. Meanwhile, many conservationists are turning to drones and other technologies to monitor species and enforce protective measures. This in turn creates new business for tech companies keen to build a green reputation. Countries must find a way to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. But, as a researcher of the international politics of conservation, I believe that techniques and technologies more regularly deployed by law enforcement and security firms are not the answer. The funding problem Between 2002 and 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave US$301 million to 4,142 conservation projects across 106 countries. Over the course of those 16 years, an increasing portion was allocated to tackling the illegal wildlife trade, as part of a shift from strict species protection and projects to improve livelihoods. In 2014, the U.S. Congress allocated US$45 million in its foreign assistance biodiversity budget to tackle wildlife trafficking, increasing to US$55 million in 2015, US$80 million in 2016 and almost US$91 million in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Similarly, the U.K. government's illegal wildlife trade challenge fund allocated over 23 million to 75 projects between 2013 and 2019. The fund had three themes: developing sustainable livelihoods that could replace poaching (six funded projects), strengthening law enforcement and the role of the criminal justice system (62 funded projects) and reducing demand for wildlife products (seven funded projects). The role of philanthropists in conservation funding is growing. Examples include Howard Graham Buffet's US$23 million donation in 2014 to help Kruger National park in South Africa tackle rhino poaching. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos established his US$10 billion Earth fund in 2021 to disburse grants to conservation initiatives, among other environmental causes. This money can help conservationists respond quickly to emergency situations. Philanthropists tend to come from a business culture in which it's normal to set goals and expect rapid, clear and trackable results in return for donations, which can be beneficial for planning effective action. But some conservationists I interviewed while researching my book, Security and Conservation, said that it can result in unwelcome pressure on the people doing conservation work, such as rangers. They talked of expectations to increase the number of seizures of trafficked goods, obtain more arrests and generally pursue more aggressive anti-poaching efforts to secure quick results. Technology and security Conservation groups and tech companies have presented a range of technologies as cost-effective ways of cracking down on wildlife trafficking. These often involve forms of surveillance borrowed from the security sector, from drones and satellite monitoring of wildlife to artificial intelligence increasing the capacity of camera traps to identify potential poachers. Apps for the general public to report suspected illegal activity have even been developed. Google's global impact awards had a fund of US$23 million to help "non-profit tech innovators" (as Google called them) develop technological solutions for a range of global challenges, including conservation. In 2012, it granted more than US$5 million to the wildlife crime technology project, which has pioneered aerial detection of poaching in Kenya and DNA sequencing to determine the origin of illegal wildlife products. These techniques are not necessarily problematic. But the lure of technology can overshadow the vital work of addressing the underlying drivers of poaching and trafficking, such as poverty and inequality. Though the trade is by definition illegal, addressing it as a purely criminal matter ignores the fact that people are drawn into poaching for a range of reasons. The colonial-era dispossession of people from places now designated as national parks has left an enduring legacy. A lack of economic alternatives in such places make poaching one of the few viable sources of income. Global inequality is also a significant factor. Wildlife is often (but not exclusively) taken from poorer areas to serve demand in wealthier communities, with rosewood trafficked from Madagascar to China and illegal caviar sourced from the Caspian sea serving luxury markets in London and Paris, among others. Financial support from governments and philanthropic foundations has been an important factor in conservation, especially in the last 20 years. But faith in finding technological solutions to a problem that's treated as a security issue makes it harder to develop and support the alternatives that could be more effective, including sustainable livelihoods for would-be poachers and reducing demand in wealthier countries. Explore further Using 3D X-ray technology for the detection of illegal wildlife trafficking This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. A man sits at his workstation within the Mission Operations Center for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spaceship, which is fast approaching its target. NASA will on Monday attempt a feat humanity has never before accomplished: deliberately smacking a spacecraft into an asteroid to slightly deflect its orbit, in a key test of our ability to stop cosmic objects from devastating life on Earth. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spaceship launched from California last November and is fast approaching its target, which it will strike at roughly 14,000 miles (22,500 kilometers) per hour. "It's the final cosmic collision countdown," tweeted mission control at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. To be sure, neither the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, nor the big brother it orbits, called Didymos, pose any threat as the pair loop the Sun, passing about seven million miles from Earth at nearest approach. But NASA has deemed the experiment important to carry out before an actual need is discovered. Graphic on NASA's DART mission to crash a small spacecraft into a mini-asteroid to change its trajectory as a test for any potentially dangerous asteroids in the future. If all goes to plan, impact between the car-sized spacecraft, and the 530-foot (160 meters, or two Statues of Liberty) asteroid should take place at 7:14 pm Eastern Time (2314 GMT), viewable on a NASA livestream. By striking Dimorphos head on, NASA hopes to push it into a smaller orbit, shaving ten minutes off the time it takes to encircle Didymos, which is currently 11 hours and 55 minutesa change that will be detected by ground telescopes in the days or weeks to come. The proof-of-concept experiment will make a reality of what has before only been attempted in science fictionnotably in films such as "Armageddon" and "Don't Look Up." Technically challenging As the craft propels itself through space, flying autonomously for the mission's final phase, its camera system will start to beam down the very first pictures of Dimorphos. Minutes later, a toaster-sized satellite called LICIACube, which already separated from DART a few weeks ago, will make a close pass of the site to capture images of the collision and the ejectathe pulverized rock thrown off by impact. LICIACube's pictures will be sent back in the next weeks and months. Also watching the event: an array of telescopes, both on Earth and in spaceincluding the recently operational James Webbwhich might be able to see a brightening cloud of dust. Finally, a full picture of what the system looks like will be revealed when a European Space Agency mission four years down the line called Hera arrives to survey Dimorphos' surface and measure its mass, which scientists can currently only guess at. If DART succeeds, then it's a first step towards a world capable of defending itself from a future existential threat, said planetary scientist Nancy Chabot. Being prepared Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in our solar system are considered potentially hazardous to our planet, and none are expected in the next hundred years or so. But "I guarantee to you that if you wait long enough, there will be an object," said NASA's Thomas Zurbuchen. We know that from the geological recordfor example, the six-mile wide Chicxulub asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the world into a long winter that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of all species. An asteroid the size of Dimorphos, by contrast, would only cause a regional impact, such as devastating a city, albeit with greater force than any nuclear bomb in history. How much momentum DART imparts on Dimorphos will depend on whether the asteroid is solid rock, or more like a "rubbish pile" of boulders bound by mutual gravitya situation that's not yet known. The shape of the asteroid is also not known, but NASA engineers are confident DART's SmartNav guidance system will hit its target. If it misses, NASA will have another shot in two years' time, with the spaceship containing just enough fuel for another pass. But if it succeeds, the mission will mark the first step towards a world capable of defending itself from a future existential threat. Explore further NASA gears up to deflect asteroid, in key test of planetary defense 2022 AFP Khirbat al-Minya: The excavation site (brown) with its sunshade canopies located on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galileehere viewed from the elevation of Tel Kinneret. Credit: Hans-Peter Kuhnen With the help of geomagnetic surface surveys and subsequent hands-on digging, an excavation team from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has revealed new insights into the area in which the caliph's palace of Khirbat al-Minya was built on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. According to these findings, there had already been a settlement occupied by Christian or Jewish inhabitants in the immediate vicinity long before the palace was built. "This time we have really hit the jackpot with our excavations," said site director and archaeologist Professor Hans-Peter Kuhnen, with regard to the outcome of the most recent undertakings in the area around the early Islamic caliph's palace Khirbat al-Minya in Israel. The team of archaeologists from Mainz made this major discovery using geomagnetic methods and by digging test pits on the basis of the findings. They discovered that in the early 8th century the caliph had commissioned the building of his palace, with its incorporated mosque and a 15-meter-high gateway tower, notas hitherto suspectedon greenfield land on the unoccupied shore of the Sea of Galilee, but adjacent to and respectfully co-existing with a prior settlement. The research project was initially conceived as a means of training students in archeological field work. The team was accommodated in the Tabgha Pilgerhaus guesthouse run by the German Association of the Holy Land (DVHL), which has owned the site of the excavations on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee since 1895. JGU students recording the outlines of the mosaicwith a tall waterside plant with blossoms and small green leaves on three stems in the exposed portion and the stern and rudder of a boat on the lower left. Credit: Hans-Peter Kuhnen During their dig, the Mainz archaeological team found stone structures made of basalt dating to various periods, with plastered walls, colorful mosaic floors, and a water cistern. The plants portrayed in one of the mosaics are particularly remarkable as they have the long, curved stems typical of those also depicted in so-called Nile-scene mosaics created in the 5th to 6th centuries. The mosaic's images of the flora and fauna native to the Nile valley symbolized the life-giving power of the mighty river with its annual floods guaranteeing Egypt's agricultural fertility. That explains why both late-antique churches, such as that in the nearby Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha, and luxurious dwellings in cities of late antiquity were decorated with Nile-scene mosaics. Lakeside settlement was there long before the caliph's palace was planned The recently discovered mosaic, together with related ceramic finds dating to the 5th to 7th centuries, show that the settlement on the shores of the lake was already thriving centuries before the work on the caliph's palace had commenced. Its original inhabitants were either Christians or Jews, and they were subsequently joined by a small Islamic community for whom the caliph had a side entrance constructed in the early 8th century so that they could access his palace mosque. The unearthed ceramics have revealed that the site remained occupied under the control of the Umayyad and then Abbasid caliphates from the 7th to the 11th century. New construction projects were initiated in this period, during which parts of the mosaics fell victim to pickaxes wielded by religiously inspired iconoclasts, sections of old walls were demolished, and the stones were transported away for reuse elsewhere. The remains finally became the location of a graveyard in which the dead were buried, in accordance with Muslim custom, lying on their side with their faces directed towards Mecca. Close-up of the mosaic showing a flowering plant: In the foreground are traces of the marks made by a pickaxe when the mosaic was deliberately destroyed. Credit: Hans-Peter Kuhnen Nearby, the Mainz team also exposed a stone built furnace used to process sugar cane. Although sugar cane represented one of the top agricultural exports of the Holy Land from the period of the early Middle Ages and brought in considerable wealth for the landowners, vast volumes of water were needed to cultivate it while large amounts of wood were required to operate boiling furnaces. The result was extensive soil erosion and an environmental disaster that the area around the lake had not fully recovered from even by the 20th century. The immense scale of sugarcane cultivation in the Middle Ages was demonstrated by both the findings of the excavations at the Caliph's Palacethose from 1936 to 1939 and those in 2016and by the 2019 Mainz geomagnetic surveys, which all revealed evidence of dozens of such furnaces in operation between the 12th and 13th-14th centuries. "Our most recent excavations show that Caliph Walid had his palace built on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in an already carefully structured landscape that had long been inhabited. It was here that considerable money was subsequently made through the cultivation of sugar cane, sadly causing lasting damage to the ecosystem," said Kuhnen. "Our research has brought this settlement adjacent to the caliph's palace to light again, putting it in its rightful context among the history of human settlement of the Holy Land. Over the centuries, it experienced alternating periods of innovation and decline, but there was no real disruption to its existence during its lifetime." Drawings to record the appearance of the firing chamber of a medieval sugar-cane boiling . Credit: vat Hans-Peter Kuhnen Geomagnetic surface surveys showed where to dig The Mainz-based team was able to locate this historic hotspot so accurately with its test pits due to the results of geomagnetic surface surveys conducted on-site in a pilot project in 2019. The technology employs magnetic sensors to detect and map tiny variations in the Earth's magnetic field caused by soil disturbances, for example, those caused by construction work. This allows archaeologists to predict with a fair degree of confidence the course of walls and flooring and to identify the site of hearths and ovens hidden under the soil, without requiring the use of a spade. However, to actually verify whether magnetometry results indeed indicate the presence of something interesting and in order to date the potential structures, archaeologists need to dig targeted test pitsas did the team from JGU's Department of Ancient Studies at Khirbat al-Minya. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kuhnen and his team had to wait three long years before they were able to get back to the site to see what was waiting for them. However, toiling away under the scorching August sun, they were richly rewarded for their efforts. "It was our prior geomagnetic scans that provided us with unusually accurate indications of what we were likely to find below the surface. The outcome of our excavations has been exactly what we hoped for. Combining these two methods of investigation requires less exertion, helps preserve the archaeological heritage, and is thus the future of our discipline," concluded Professor Hans-Peter Kuhnen in the light of the current excavations on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, which will continue next year. Explore further Elevator project in Old Jerusalem leads to surprising finds Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Nigeria's oil output was at the lowest since 1990 as its crude oil production fell below 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in August 2022. And data from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in early September showed that Angola and Libya have overtaken Nigeria as Africa's highest crude oil producers. The Conversation Africa's Wale Fatade asked Omowumi Iledare, professor emeritus in petroleum economics and policy research to explain what's happening. What are the drivers of the decline in oil production? Production has been declining since 2012. It's a combination of a lot of factors. I think insecurity of assets is top on the listand insecurity of life. Secondly, the maturity of the fields. Thirdly, moving away from onshore to deep water. There is also a declining capacity to produce from a technical production point of view and from a market production point of view because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Technical production is what is actually coming out of the wells and fields. This is obviously affected by the number of wells that are put into production and the less producing wells in a field at its peak, less the aggregate field output. Market production is what the country is able to put into the international market and the domestic market. Both of them are related, but the market fundamentals of supply and demand affect both of them differently depending on the inventory level. Inventory levels are what's kept in the tank farms where crude oil is stored while waiting for exports and pipeline movement to the refineries. What are the constraints on what's coming out of the wells? Increasing technical production requires drilling more wells, finding more reserves and installing more infrastructure. When you have infrastructure decay, and field productivity decline, the technical production will decline. Since 2003 Nigeria has not put any bidding processes in place to meet exploration and development of fields. And it takes a lot of years before you can tie them up for production. There have also not been any new leases. The last one was 2007 apart from the bidding for marginal fields in 2003. As a result we see the maturity of the basins. Playing and production capacity has remained static at about 2.5 million barrels per day. In the Niger Delta, an investment of about $19 billion is needed to keep the level of production capacity stable, based on my own estimates. We've not done beyond 2.5 million barrels per day production capacity since 2002. Nigeria is fortunate that the deep water wells have been able to cover the decline in production from shallow water and the diminishing onshore production. This brought production in Nigeria up to 1.8 million barrels in 2016. But now we have theft and vandalism that's affecting the market productionwhat Nigeria is able to export, what it's able to transfer to the refineries. How does insecurity affect crude oil production? There's asset insecurity. Almost 20% of the capacity of Nigeria is being stolen, about 400 to 500,000 barrels per day. But this isn't happening through pipelines. So there must be some type of conniving, because it is just unbelievable that you can move that much crude oil under the watchful eyes of the security agentseither the navy or the army, or whatever. Because there's no way someone can be stealing 500,000 barrels per day by tapping the pipes in the entire Niger Delta. So that's what I mean by asset insecurity. What would it take for Nigeria to reduce its heavy reliance on oil? The engine that will accelerate diversification of Nigeria's economy is oil revenue, and perhaps gas revenue in the future. This is what you can use to diversify the economy, if properly used. Unfortunately, that has not been so. Spending approximately a trillion Naira per year over the last 1020 year, to subsidize petroleum product consumption, is not the best way to spend oil money. The diversification of the Nigerian economy requires the federal government letting go of its hold on some sectors in the economy. They have their hands in so many things. One is power. It is not the responsibility of the federal government to generate power for the nation. It is the responsibility of the federal government to just develop policies that will allow investors to invest in the power sector value chain. The responsibility of the central government is to create an enabling environment. They are not doing that well because of provincialism. Second, the diversification of the economy requires the removal of energy subsidies at the consumption end of the energy value chain with zero value addition. The government is spending so much money on the petrol subsidy it is unable to do what really matters. This includes spending money on infrastructure so that goods and services can be moved from the source to the market. The physical infrastructure that is supposed to be the responsibility of the government is bad because it is not doing what it's supposed to do with its oil money. The government too should not cloud out domestic investors. The government is borrowing too much money. It should think more about manpower development. It's the government's responsibility to make skill workers available for the industry. But Nigeria's universities have been closed for seven months. So the economy has not been diversified at all. Oil is contributing a lot to government revenues but not to the economy as a whole. Nearly 80% of exports is accounted for by oil. That's why the economy is not growing. Nigeria's economy grew by 3.54% in real terms in the second quarter of 2022. If you have infrastructure deficiency, skilled manpower deficiency, and road infrastructure deficiency, you won't get economic growth. The government must begin to think in terms of decentralizing so many things that they take on. What could the government do to reverse the trend? You need to make more leases available quickly so that people can begin to get the rights to produce and export. The biggest challenge right now is attacks on pipelines and criminality. The government must have the courage to prosecute those stealing crude oil and those vandalizing the pipelines. If it continues to reward criminality, crime will continue to expand and the oil and gas industry may collapse. In the process, it must also remove the cloud of uncertainty in oil and gas in Nigeria where energy transition is putting a dampener on investment. Also, the government should put more effort into the use of natural gas for domestic expansion. I don't subscribe to this emphasis on exports of natural gas from Nigeria. I'm a believer that using gas for domestic economic growth is the way to go. That's why the Petroleum Industry Act is so good. It is very supportive of domestic gas development for local economy. I want to emphasize also the need for Nigeria to have a transformation leadership mindset. Transformation leadership is not transactional. Such leadership mindset encourages the heart, inspires shared vision, and motivates others in the management team to act. It is a leadership style that is authoritative but not authoritarian in modeling the way to go. It is not averse to challenging traditional management processes that are not optimal. Explore further Study explores how Nigeria can achieve its fish production target This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The battle over Ukraine extends across the world: Information warfare is quickly evolving as key nations seek to influence public opinion and gain political support. As during the Cold War, Russia and the United States are the two main combatants. Some efforts are clandestine, but plenty of material is broadcast to the public as each country attempts to, in the words of political linguists, "constrain the power and influence of the other and win 'hearts and minds' around the world." Key government-sponsored media outlets in the current battle are Russia Today, often known as RT, and two U.S. government-backed operations, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. But it can be hard for many people to tell the difference between these outlets and independent news. As a propaganda scholar, I believe citizens of all nations deserve to know how their media have been filtered and when governments are seeking to influence their views. My colleague Weston Sager and I developed a test for determining whether a particular media outlet is, or is not, a government mouthpiece. We examine key factors such as government control, funding, attribution and its resemblance to news. At their best, these types of outlets provide official government informationat worst, blatant propaganda. Here's how the main players in the U.S. and Russia measure up. Russia Today: Propaganda with some facts sprinkled in RT is a multilanguage international media broadcaster that claims to be an "autonomous, non-profit organization." But in reality, it has officially declared to the U.S. State Department that it is an arm of the Russian government. In lockstep with the Kremlin, RT has supported the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, the 2014 Russian invasion of the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine and the 2022 Russian invasion of mainland Ukraine. The outlet has a history of publishing sensationalized and biased articles promoting Russian policies and accentuating the perceived failings of the United States and its allies. For example, in 2015, RT devoted extensive coverage to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not only did this storyline allow RT to selectively showcase people protesting in the United States, it helped further Russia's narrative that its economic system is superior to U.S. capitalism. More recently, RT has, without credible evidence, accused the United States of developing bioweapons in Ukraine and testing them on people there. But this doesn't mean that RT is "able to dispense with facts all together," as propaganda often leverages truthful bits of information, nor that it is strictly anti-American. In 2010, for instance, RT published an interview containing accusations that the Republicans were exploiting racial fears ahead of midterm elections. Then RT publicly defended the Obama administration against Fox News host Glenn Beck's accusations that Obama was turning the United States into a socialist country. Propaganda works by supporting themes that are in popular discourse at the time. It does not necessarily follow a linear path and may be counterintuitive at times. In the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, RT was blocked in many nations around the world to limit the spread of Russian propaganda. Nevertheless, RT continues to publish its content, especially in less developed countries where the Russian government is working to increase its international reputation and influence. Major U.S. outlets present mostly factsthat support American values Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are the U.S. government's primary international media outlets, though there are other channels as well. In 1942, during World War II, the U.S. government established VOA to broadcast pro-Allied messages and to combat Nazi propaganda abroad. In the 1950s, the CIA founded RFE/RL to counter Soviet propaganda in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Both outlets are now overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a part of the executive branch of the federal government. The agency receives over US$800 million in annual funding from Congress. Similar to RT, VOA and RFE/RL claim that they are independent media outlets. In support of that claim, they often point to a vaguely defined "firewall" that is supposed to shield their editorial integrity from U.S. government influence. But the firewall is often strained under the weight of political pressure. In 2020, President Donald Trump's newly appointed CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media rescinded the firewall regulation, which compromised VOA's independence in advance of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In 2021, the firewall was legislatively strengthened, but questions remain about its effectiveness at preventing government influence. Governmental influence over the editorial direction of U.S. state media can also come through legislation. In 2021, Congress introduced a bill that would instruct the agency to "facilitate the unhindered dissemination of information to Islamic majority countries on issues regarding the human rights and religious freedom of Uyghurs." Additional editorial pressure comes from federal law. VOA material must be "consistent" with U.S. foreign policy objectives, "represent America," "present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively" and include editorials that reflect the views of the U.S. government. Under the same law, RFE/RL is required to support the U.S. government abroad. Additionally, federal law also more pointedly provides a new pathway for folding this into a larger outlet that would be expressly required to "counter state-sponsored propaganda which undermines the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States and its allies." VOA and RFE/RL have a history of providing slanted and incomplete portrayals of major events and issues. Scholarship has highlighted how, during the Cold War, RFE spread "rumors as fact" and displayed a "consistent pattern of downplaying or ignoring evidence that contradicted RFE's vision of Eastern Europe as a totalitarian dystopia" early in the Cold War. U.S. government editorial pressure has also come indirectly through funding cuts, which VOA experienced after senators balked at spending tax money to produce "unpleasant news" surrounding Watergate. The Reagan administration was known to object to critical VOA coverage and also steered its "editorial voice" to align with the administration's political agenda. Today, VOA often publishes stories about the United States that promote American values, such as recent articles titled "Refugees Shape America" and "US International Festival Celebrates Traditional Food, Dance." On the other hand, RFE/RL is more focused on countering propaganda. It includes coverage that is often critical of U.S. adversaries, such as ""'We Have To Pay For Our Indifference': A Russian Deserter Speaks Out After Ukraine War Memoir Hits A Nerve" and "Putin Hints At 'Changing Routes' For Ukrainian Grain Exports, Warns Of Food 'Catastrophe'." Even though VOA and RFE/RL sometimes publish pieces that show unflattering aspects of the United States, such as "The Global Legacy of January 6," this is by design, as the outlets would lose credibility if they ignored important topics covered in independent media. Concealed influence Because VOA and RFE/RL rely on facts, the U.S. State Department has argued that U.S. government media are less threatening than Russian "disinformation." But the U.S. approach is still risky: VOA and RFE/RL content more closely resembles independent news, so it is more difficult for readers to identify it as government-run media. This is especially problematic in cases in which the outlets are targeting U.S. citizens, who may not be able to tell that they're interacting with their own government. Despite what VOA and RFE/RL claim, they are not independent. Both are funded by the U.S. government and are used to deliver U.S. policy abroad. Even though VOA and RFE/RL may look like news, they aren't; like RT, their underlying purpose is to bolster their government's influence around the world. Explore further Fighting propaganda with censorship: A study of the Ukrainian ban on Russian social media This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A trial scheme which sees primary school children reading in small groups has shown that the program can help pupils to make an additional two months' progress during the course of an academic year. The ABRACADABRA (ABRA) and Reading and Understanding in Key Stage 1 (RUKS) program involved more than 4,000 Year 1 pupils (age 56) from 157 schools across the West Midlands, East Midlands, Newcastle, Teesside and Manchester. Schools took part in a 20-week trial in which two versions of the ABRA-based RUKS program were tested: an ICT-based model and a paper-based model, while some participating schools were assigned to a control group and carried on their usual approach to teaching literacy. The content for both forms of the program came from the ABRACADABRA software developed by a team at Concordia and McGill University in Canada. The resources for the paper-based version were adapted by a team from Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and Coventry University, who also developed the 20-week RUKS program for both versions using the ABRA content. Using a train-the-trainer model, the team trained teachers and teaching assistants to deliver four reading-based sessions per week to small groups of four to five pupils, and then monitored the delivery. These fifteen-minute sessions consisted of decoding (including phonics), fluency and comprehension activities drawn from age-appropriate texts. An independent evaluation by the York Trials Unit, University of York, and Durham Universityreleased in an EEF reportfound that children who received either version of the program made some additional progress on measures of decoding and phonics compared with pupils in the control group. However, of the two models of delivery, the paper-based approach proved to be the most effectivechildren who received this version made up to two months' additional progress in reading. The program was well-received by delivery schools, with staff reporting that they felt well supported to implement the program. Both versions of the ABRA-based RUKS program first showed promise when tested in a smaller scale trial completed in January 2015, involving 1884 pupils from 60 English schools. Janet Vousden, principal investigator on the project and senior lecturer in Psychology at NTU's School of Social Sciences, said, "It is very encouraging to see the results of this trial. They suggest that the program can be scaled up as a train-the-trainer model with similar positive outcomes for children." Professor Becky Francis, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said, "We have so much to gain from education research and rigorously examining the impact of teaching and learning programs. "These findings are a prime exampleoffering practitioners a tried and tested option to consider when looking to develop their approach to reading provision for Key Stage 1 pupils. "However, it is of the utmost importance that educators have the means to implement evidence-informed programs and maximize the impact of their practice. "As school energy and food costs increase, it is vital that they are not forced to direct resources away from the things which the evidence shows are likely to make the biggest difference." Explore further Report finds children starting school have fallen behind due to COVID-19 disruption European shag. Credit: Tom Rabe U.K. scientists are rolling out an array of technology to understand if a charismatic seabird species will thrive or suffer under future climate change and extreme weather events. The research, led by scientists from Bangor University, focuses on a national important colony of European shag (Gulosus aristotelis) on Puffin Island, near Anglesey. Numbers of European shags have been declining in recent years, putting them onto the red list of birds under the highest threat of extinction in the U.K. GPS trackers, accelerometers, miniature bird-borne cameras and time-lapse photography are some of the technologies being used by the team, which includes researchers from Lancaster University and the Universities of Liverpool and Cumbria. The footage from the miniaturized cameras captures the birds diving for fish, providing data to help researchers understand how weather conditions may affect the foraging behavior and success of a diving seabird species. The research is the first time this technology has been used on seabirds on Puffin Island. Credit: Bangor University The accelerometersa kind of speedometerrecord how fast the bird is moving and how it twists and turns in the sea in pursuit of prey. Ph.D. student Claire Carrington, from Bangor University's School of Ocean Sciences presented the research on Aug. 23 at the International Seabird Group Conference in Cork. She said, "We piloted the technologies on European shags on Puffin Island this year and they worked really well, so we're aiming to fit them to more birds next year. We've chosen to work with the European shags, as they are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather and remain in coastal areas year-round. The data we're collecting will give us insights for both shags and similar diving birds such as the Great cormorant." They hope that the data will help them to understand how the European shag and Great cormorant, will respond to different weather conditions and predict whether they will be resilient enough to cope with the more extreme weather brought on by climate change. Time-lapse cameras which take photos every 30 minutes are also installed all year round at key roosting sites around the North Wales coast, where the shags and cormorants dry their feathers off after fishing. Neither bird has totally waterproof plumage. This helps them to dive, by reducing their buoyancy, but means that they have to dry their wings after diving. The researchers are collaborating with computer scientists from Bangor University to develop bespoke software to automate the counting of seabirds, in thousands of images. European shags and cormorants Lead researcher from Bangor University, Dr. James Waggitt said, "Cormorants and shags are very recognizable, and many people will have seen them around the coast, drying their wings out on the rocks. But although they are a common sight, their populations are still at risk in the U.K., which is why it's so important to better understand the threats they face and how they are responding." During the breeding season, other time-lapse cameras, taking pictures every ten minutes, have also been installed at nests on Puffin Island to see how regularly the birds are returning to feed their chicks. The team plan to gather additional data using these technologies over the next two years. The results will then be combined with archive data on both the Great cormorant and European shag populations going back to 1985, and compared with modeled weather conditions to understand the potential future impacts of a changing climate on coastal seabird populations. Explore further Diving birds follow each other when fishing Visual effects of the images before and after Syn-AC. Credit: Xu Lingling Atmospheric conditions vary significantly at both temporal and spatial scales. The purpose of atmospheric correction based on radiative transfer model is to eliminate the atmospheric radiative effect on remote sensing images, but it is always limited by the difficulty of obtaining atmospheric parameters that match image at temporal and spatial scales. To retrieve the surface reflectance, scientists from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed a method to eliminate the influence of atmosphere and the adjacency effects, thus to obtain the true reflectance of ground objects. Relevant results were published in Remote Sensing. "What we suggested in this experiment is called synchronization atmospheric correction (Syn-AC) method," said Xu Lingling, first author of the study, "and we used it to retrieve synchronous atmospheric parameters from SMAC." They tried it on multi-spectral remote sensing images of Gao Fen Duo Mo (GFDM), the first civilian high-resolution remote sensing satellite equipped with the Synchronization Monitoring Atmospheric Corrector (SMAC), and successfully performed the synchronous atmosphere correction. Aside from that, they conducted synchronous field-measured experiments to test the performance of Syn-AC. Six images from three radiometric calibration sites (Dunhuang, Songshan and Baotou) under different atmospheric conditions were selected to conduct atmospheric correction experiments. And visual effects before and after atmospheric correction were compared. omparison between the retrieved reflectance after Syn-AC and the field-measure values of the white and black targets in the Songshan site. Credit: Xu Lingling They also compared the average reflectance of the selected targets in the surface reflectance image of Syn-AC with the field-measured reflectance values. The results indicated that the visual effects of corrected image were improved with the blurring effect removed, and the real features of ground objects were effectively recovered. Atmospheric correction based on synchronous atmospheric parameters could promote the quantitative application of GFDM satellite data. Explore further Optimized directional polarization camera helps terrestrial ecosystem carbon monitoring More information: Lingling Xu et al, Synchronous Atmospheric Correction of High Spatial Resolution Images from Gao Fen Duo Mo Satellite, Remote Sensing (2022). Lingling Xu et al, Synchronous Atmospheric Correction of High Spatial Resolution Images from Gao Fen Duo Mo Satellite,(2022). DOI: 10.3390/rs14174427 Credit: CC0 Public Domain The American Wild Horse Campaign released a report Friday documenting that 1,020 federally-protected wild horses and burros have been sold at slaughter auctions in the last 22 months. The campaign, dedicated to preserving the American wild horses and burros in free-roaming herds, cited records it accumulated through an investigation into the Bureau of Land Management's Adoption Incentive Program that started in 2019 and pays people $1,000 in taxpayer funds to adopt a wild, untamed horse or burro. Wild horses are considered "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West" and are protected by the federal government, which also maintains the animals' populations and makes sure the animals are healthy. The wild horses and burros are found in 10 different western states, but Nevada has the highest population. The American Wild Horse Campaign also implements the world's largest wild horse fertility control programs in partnership with Nevada. If there are too many horses, they get placed into private care. The Bureau of Land Management has placed more than 240,000 wild horses and burros into private care since 1971, according to its website. Since the Bureau of Land Management's Adoption Incentive Program took effect three years ago, 1,020 wild horses and burros were sold in kill pens, which are livestock auctions that sell horses to slaughter plants in Canada and Mexico, the report says. The plants slaughter horses for human consumption for foreign markets, according to the report. "While some of the horses and burros were rescuedsometimes hours before shipping to slaughtermany others were not," the campaign said in a statement Friday. The campaign alleges there is evidence that people are using the program to pocket the cash and then dump the horses at kill pens. Some groups have earned as much as $80,000 by adopting the maximum number of animals per personwhich is fourand then selling them at the auctions, the campaign alleges. Many wild horses with BLM brandings were found at the kill pens, the report said. The report identified 24 groups of people who have adopted horses and burros using the same address and then flipped them all to kill pens. Many of those slaughter spots were in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, the report found. "Congress prohibits wild horse and burro slaughter, but the BLM's Adoption Incentive Program is unquestionably sending these animals into the slaughter pipeline," said Amelia Perrin, investigations manager for the American Wild Horse Campaign in the statement. "We urge the BLM to treat this animal welfare crisis with the urgency it warrants by eliminating the cash incentives that are driving the problem." The Bureau of Land Management did not return a request for comment. Instead of cash incentives, the American Wild Horse Campaign would rather see veterinary vouchers that would help wild horses get placed into good homes while protecting them from slaughter. The campaign also wants to see the Bureau of Land Management encourage the creation of a community of successful adopters who can share tips, techniques and training methods. The campaign also produced findings about the adoption program last year, which prompted a New York Times investigative report on the program in May 2021, but the campaign's recent 2022 report found that the problem "is far greater than previously reported," the statement says. When the first report was published in 2021, Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., urged that the Bureau of Land Management investigate, and the Bureau of Land Management implemented some changes, such as making more post-adoption visits to people's houses and increasing scrutiny of potential adopters. The American Wild Horse Campaign argues that is not enough. "As this report will demonstrate, the (Adoption Incentive Program) reforms implemented by the BLM have not stemmed the flow of BLM wild horses and burros into kill pens," the report says. Titus, a member of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, has also introduced the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act of 2022, which would eliminate the use of helicopters in the Bureau of Land Management's wild horse gathers. It would also employ more cowboys and require the Government Accountability Office to explore specific, humane alternatives to protect the horses, according to Titus. "Even when horses are fortunate enough to get through a roundup unscathed, they face additional health and safety risks from the Adoption Incentive Program and hazardous conditions in off-range corrals. The Adoption Incentive Program is expected to provide humane and safe shelter for wild horses and decrease the likelihood of their being slaughtered," Titus said in a statement. Explore further Wild horses quarantined in Fremont County facility after unknown disease kills 57 2022 Las Vegas Review-Journal. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Donna Kalil loves snakes. She's been fascinated by them since she was a kid living in the mountains of Venezuela's capital in the 1960s, where her father was stationed as an Air Force pilot. "We'd play 'I-spy,' and we'd use the snakes, birds and other animals that lived in the jungle," she said. "I developed a really sharp eye." Now she kills them. Not all snakes. Just Burmese pythons. They've become a scourge in the Everglades of South Florida since one was first spotted in the 1970sferocious, fecund and indiscriminate in their feeding behavior. Studies indicate pythons have annihilated the Everglades' mammal population, with some speciessuch as marsh rabbits and foxesentirely gone. They also go after amphibians, reptiles and wading birds, including some beloved and endangered species, such as the wood stork. They'll even attack and eat the region's top predatorsalligators and crocodileswhen they can stomach them. In 2005, the National Park Service released a series of photos showing a gator that had busted out of the stomach of a dead 13-foot python. The images went viral, and inspired many of the hunters now making a career of culling pythons. Kalil, 60, is one. Seeing a python eat the region's apex predator was too much, she said, prompting her to transition from real estate agent to professional serpent killer. "They were eating everything. They were destroying this beautiful, wonderful place," she said, referring to the Everglades, the nation's only subtropical wilderness and one of its most degraded ecosystems. Over many decades, farmers, engineers and developers ditched and drained much of the 4,000 square miles of the Everglades, with conservation only taking hold after it became a national park in 1947. As suburbs mushroomed nearby, humans introduced an array of exotic speciesincluding Argentine tegus, giant African land snails and green iguanasinto the park's marshes, hardwood hammocks and other habitats. Now these invasive species threaten to overwhelm efforts to restore the Everglades, with none more voracious than Burmese pythons. No one knows how many of these giant snakes now infest South Florida, but estimates range between 100,000 and more than a million, said Kevin Donmoyer, an invasive-species biologist at Everglades National Park. Paid contractors and others have killed roughly 9,000 snakes since 2017, when the hunting program started. The snakes breed prolifically, laying anywhere from a half-dozen to 100 eggs per nest. And with few natural predators, their numbers show no sign of diminishing. That's why, each year, the South Florida Water Management District, the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sponsor a multi-day python hunting contest, the Florida Python Challengeopen to the publicto see who can bag the largest number of the non-venomous snakes. While most Florida python hunters are men, Kalil and one of her protegees, Amy Siewe, have proven to be highly effective eradicators. They hunt not to collect trophies, they say, but to help save the native creatures that live in and around the Everglades. After assisting Kalil on a few hunts, Siewe left a lucrative real estate business in Indianapolis in 2019 to pursue snakes full time, and now calls herself the Python Huntress. "I knew I had to drop everything and do this," she said. As their name implies, Burmese pythons originated in Southeast Asia, where they evolved over the eons to become excellent swimmers and climbers. In their native range they are considered endangered, kept in check by tigers and king cobras, but now threatened by habitat loss. Those pressures don't apply in the Everglades. While their eggs are vulnerable to raccoons and other scavengers, adult Burmese pythons don't have to worry about becoming prey. And because the Everglades offers such a rich variety of food for the big snakesthe birds and mammals didn't evolve in an environment with large constrictorsthey have a seemingly limitless supply of easy, unsuspecting victims. With distinctive brown and black patterning, Burmese pythons have long been coveted both as pets and producers of skins for high-end leather goods. They are commercially farmed in Southeast Asia, and a quick search for python goods at Neiman Marcus showed a $4,200 Bottega Veneta python leather handbag, and a $2,750 Saint Laurent purple-dyed python leather shoulder bag. Most experts believe the exotic-pet trade contributed to the Everglades invasion, as pet ownerssome not fully prepared to feed and care for a giant pythondiscarded them into the wild. Kalil once saw a ball pythona different speciesget dumped at the entrance to the park. She took it home, named it Benny, and now swims with the 5 1/2-foot python in the lake behind her home. Genetic analyses indicate the pythons that live in the glades are all closely related. Their DNA primarily aligns with that of Burmese pythons, although there's also a hint of Indian python, suggesting the two species hybridized at some point in the past. In South Florida, there's a well-worn story that Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was a major contributor to the python explosion when the storm blew down a reptile-breeding facility near Homestead, a town south of Miami that sits on the edge of Everglades National Park. "Not true," said Walter Meshaka Jr., former supervisory curator of South Florida's four national parks. "I'm sure it may have added to it. But it certainly wasn't the only cause. Things have been released, things escape, and there's been a steady drip of animals for decades." Meshaka, who now works as senior curator of zoology and botany at the State Museum of Pennsylvania, was the first to document an established population of Burmese pythons in the Everglades in 2000, after sporadic sightings in the 1980s and 1990s. Soon after he left the park system that year, "Burmese pythons just turned up absolutely everywhere. It was as if that last drop of water tipped the vessel over." Since that time, the pythons have expanded their range, moving as far north as Lake Okeechobee and south to the Florida Keysalthough it's unclear if they've established a breeding population on the islands. Modeling the snake's potential range, researchers say Burmese pythons eventually could establish populations throughout the Southeast and perhaps spread as far north as Virginia and as far west as California. Whether hunters can significantly reduce the python population remains unclear. So far the only force that has seemingly made a dent in their Florida population is cold temperatures. In 2010, a cold snap in South Florida killed thousands of Burmese pythons. But the region hasn't seen a sustained cold spell like that since, and experts say climate change is likely to help the predator's expansion. "It's sort of a tragic-comedic story," said Meshaka, citing the synchronous establishment of the python population and climate change. Cold spells like the one in 2010 "are getting rare. It just doesn't get that cold that often anymore." Python hunters work the night shiftclocking in at sundown and hunting till dawn to track their quarry, which lays low during the sweltering heat of summer days. As a result, Kalil is often not in bed until 5 or 6 in the morning this time of year. That doesn't leave much time to spend with her husbanda Miami commercial litigation lawyeror their two adult kids, an attorney and a systems engineer. When the Los Angeles Times met up with her in August, she'd been toiling for 19 days straightwork habits that have made her a python-hunting rock star since the water district hired her as a contractor in 2017. As of Sept. 8, she'd caught 694 snakes. Sporting a long, blond braid and python-skin-brimmed hat, Kalil was one of the first hunters the water district hired, and she claims to have mentored or brought on 27 others. During a recent hunt, Kalil handed out chocolate chip cookiesmade with python eggsto her crew. There were no requests for seconds. The water district and wildlife commission now pays 100 of these contractors. It is not a road to wealth. Contractors are paid $13 an hour for hunting in most areas; up to $18 per hour where the snakes are rare. They're also provided cash bonuses for every snake they catch. The bigger the snake, the larger the bounty: $50 for the first four feet and $25 for every additional foot. Kalil collected $350 for the 16-footer she caught last year. She also won $2,500 for having caught 19 snakesthe highest capture number for a professional hunterduring the 2021 python challenge. That luck didn't carry through this year; she only caught six. Because hunting is prohibited in Everglades National Park, contractors must prowl for pythons outside the park, navigating a sinuous network of roads and canals. They are given gate-lock keys so they can drive on levees closed to the general public, and are aided in the hunt by trained assistantsmany of whom come down to Florida from all over. (The park service occasionally hires contractors to get rid of pythons, but does not have a standing program.) "P-p-p-python!!!" yelled Dave Hackathorn, 53, the owner of a tree-trimming and removal business in Waverly, West Virginia, on a recent August night. He and Kalil can't remember how they were first introduced, but theirs has proven to be a long-lasting partnership. Standing atop Kalil's 1998 Ford Expedition, Hackathornwho calls himself "Hillbilly Dave"spotted an 8.5-foot snake slithering in the grass alongside Levee 28, a roughly 17-mile dirt embankment that cuts through the Everglades north of the Tamiami Trail and along the western edge of the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area. Kalil, who had been driving at about 20 mph, screeched to a stop, and Hackathorn and two other observers standing atop the retrofitted SUV rocketed back and forthprevented from falling off by welded-on guardrails adorned with high-wattage floodlights. After regaining their balance, the three observers swiftly descended a ladder in the stern and jogged over to a lackadaisical python slowly slithering up the edge of the levee. Kalil got to the snake before the roof-riders and moved quickly behind it. She deftly distracted the snake by waving one hand around frantically in front of its face. Slowly and steadily, she reached her other hand behind its head. With a deft swoop, she grabbed it around the neck and held it out, away from her body. Initially stunned, the python quickly regrouped and began coiling and constricting its long body around Kalil's right arm, occasionally letting out an angry hiss. Hackathorn and Jayna Corns, another professional hunterand one of Kalil's former menteesunwrapped the serpent from Kalil's arm. Stretching it out among the three of them, they posed for a series of smiling selfies. Kalil then handed it off to Hackathorn who took sole possession and dropped it in a bagpulling his hand back rapidly as he let go, lest the snake strike and lodge a tooth in his hand. He'd been bit the night before in just this scenario; fortunately without shrapnel left behind. There are no known reports of a wild python killing anyone in Florida, but there have been close calls. Kalil remembers catching a smallish 5-foot python in knee-deep water. As she grabbed the snake and held it with both hands, the cellphone in her pocket rang. She let go of the serpent with one hand, using it to retrieve her beckoning phone. The snake took advantage; it slithered its tail backward up her shoulder and around her neck. And then squeezed. Kalil, who is a free diver, said she initially wasn't too worried; she's an expert at holding her breath for long periods of time. But she quickly realized the snake was constricting the blood supply to her brainnot her breath. She started feeling faint and realized she was in a bad situation. Fortunately, Kalil had assistants with her and they managed to untether the reptile from her neck. She never dropped her phone. Some states draw tourists by hosting waterfowl festivals. Florida does the same with a python bounty. Held each year, the Florida Python Challenge attracts hundreds of contestants, some lured by the marketing pitch on the contest's website"Chance to Win Ultimate $10,000 Grand Prize!" The contest is divided into professional and amateur categories, with all participants having to pay $25 and watch a short video on how to kill a snake humanely. The first step is to use blunt force trauma between the eyes to stun the animal. Then the contestants must pith all brain tissue from the skullto insure the python is completely dead. Contestants are required to turn in their quarry at set checkpoints, where contest officials collect the snakes and make sure they were killed properly. At one such drop-off, Ronnie Rodriguez rolled up in his truck, carrying a python he'd caught the night before. But the animal hadn't been left on ice overnight and was starting to smell, piquing Mike Kirkland, the water district's python program manager. "I'll take it, but it might get disqualified," said Kirkland, after noticing that Rodriguez hadn't dispatched the snake as required. All too often, a night of hunting ends with no pythons in the bag. After two unsuccessful nights of patrolling levee roads, Kalil and her crew expanded their search to the open water, in Hackathorn's airboat. Kalil looked for islands with palmettos. When spotted, the crew would glide up to the island's edge, disembark and hack their way through thick shrubs, bushes and treesshining flashlights onto the root-laden ground. Mosquitoes swarmed while mouse-sized dragonflies bombarded the hunters with thwacking, thumping thuds. Kalil and assistants returned to the boat draped in spiderwebs, but carrying no pythons. Siewe, the self-proclaimed Python Huntress, is similarly drawn to the forbidding swamp-scapes of South Florida. In her case, she hunts in the hopes of supplementing her income with skins of the snakes she bags. In her condominium just east of Naples, a wheeled garment rack at the end of her bed is loaded with a rainbow of at least 50 dyed and tanned python skins. She sells the skins to high-end watch band, belt and bracelet makers. She's worked for three years to perfect her skinning process, and now works with a tanner who treats the skins to her liking. "They're pretty fragile," she said of the skins. "They're really only good for small, more ornamental items." On a recent afternoon, she invited a Times team to watch her skin two pythons on her back deck. Practiced and efficient, she fileted and skinned the snakes in a matter of minutes. Blond, tan, lithe and a former homecoming queen from the Dayton, Ohio, area, Siewe has caught more than 400 pythons (she can't remember the exact count), including a 17-footer that weighed 110 pounds. Before moving to Florida, she claimed some internet fame after her fiance posted a video of her catching dozens of water snakesby handfrom Lake Erie. Like Kalil, Siewe loves these snakes and she doesn't relish killing them. She's made it a profession to help protect native wildlife. It's why she won't let the skins go to waste, she said. Keeping them honors the lives of these apex predators. "They didn't ask to be here," she said. "It's not their fault." 2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain In South Africa, immigrants are often scapegoated as the root of socio-economic problems. In the post-apartheid landscape, Black African immigrants, mainly, from other African countries have been negatively stereotyped as "illegal" and "job stealers" who are "criminal" as well as "diseased." This attitudinal orientation of hostility against non-nationals in a given population is xenophobia. Since 1994, more than 900 violent xenophobic incidents have been recorded in South Africa, resulting in at least 630 deaths, displacement of 123,700 people, and looting of about 4,850 shops. The eruption of xenophobic violence undermines social stability and cohesion, tolerance, the constitution of South Africa, and the social fabric on which the country's democracy is founded. Misstatements by public officials and politicians have time and again fanned the flames of xenophobia and violence associated with it. United Nations experts recently warned that "the country is on the precipice of explosive violence." Almost three decades after the county's first democratic election, South Africa faces what commentators have dubbed the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality. More than half of the country's population lives in poverty, with close to 12 million people hungry and 2.5 million experiencing hunger daily. The country has a Gini coefficient of 0.65, making it one of the most unequal countries in the world. A meager 10% of the population owns more than 80% of the wealth. South Africa is still "a country of two nations," as former president Thabo Mbeki once described it. Youth unemployment is a huge problem. Of the more than 10 million people aged 1524 years, only 2.5 million are active in the labor force, either working or searching for work. Over 75% of this group is out of the labor force. The significance of negative stereotyping and scapegoating in relation to the "triple challenge" is that immigrants are portrayed as the cause and a threat to national sovereignty. Inflammatory remarks about migrants by public officials and politicians harden mythologies. In a recent research paper we set out to debunk negative immigrant myths. We provided evidence demonstrating the influence of myths on the citizenry's perceptions, as well as contradictions. The research drew from authoritative and credible sources of data and information. Beyond debunking the myths, this research sets a baseline of what facts exist regarding immigrants in South Africa. Myth 1: South Africa is swamped with immigrants It is widely believed that the country is flooded with immigrants. The 2021 South African Social Attitudes Survey indicates that almost half the sample believed the country had between 1740 million immigrants. This belief is incorrect. Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) estimates the number to be about 3.95 million, accounting for 6.5% of the country's population. This is not unique to South Africa. This figure includes regular and irregular immigrants Myth 2: Immigrants steal jobs and employment opportunities from locals While there is anecdotal evidence that migrants are "job stealers," in general, migrants do not appear to take employment opportunities from locals. In South Africa, "one {regular} immigrant worker generates approximately two jobs for locals." Migrants are also more likely to be self-employed and employ South Africans. Myth 3: Immigrants contribute to, or are responsible for, high levels of crime Our report cites 2008 South African Social Attitudes Survey data which showed that 62% of the sample believed that immigrants were responsible for crime in the country. By 2016 it had gone up to 66%. Paradoxically, when asked who commits crime in their communities, most people say it is locals. For example, between 2011 and 2017, the national Victims of Crime surveys showed that 5.7%6.7% of households stated that crime in their areas was caused by "people from outside South Africa." Statistically, there is no relationship between international migration in South Africa and crime. There is no evidence that most foreign-born nationals commit crime, or that they are responsible for most crime in the country. Myth 4: Most immigrants are in the country illegally Often, immigrants enter South Africa with a regular status but fall into irregular status due to poor immigration policy management. The Department of Home Affairs is struggling with a visa backlog partly due to departmental dysfunction and corruption. In addition to the department's backlogs, the cost of applying for visas is exorbitant. Myth 5: Migrants are flooding public health care services The Limpopo health MEC, Dr. Phophi Ramathuba, recently came under the spotlight for berating an immigrant woman. The moment was caught on video which then went viral. Her remarks seemed to reinforce the myth that immigrants are overburdening the country's public healthcare system. At about 6.5% of the population, it is statistically impossible for immigrants to be responsible for the national healthcare system's failings. Futility in scapegoating Scapegoating immigrants will not result in significantly improved healthcare service provision, reduced crime or less unemployment. Explore further Study finds immigrants initially trust police more than locals, but that trust wanes over time This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Drought intensity detected during droughts in the Joseon dynasty and modern period (a) Histogram for the severity and frequency of droughts during drought impacts and damages (crop damage, famine, starvation, rainmaking rituals, etc.) recorded in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (b) Histogram for the severity and frequency of droughts when there is a surge of internet search on droughts in modern era. Credit: POSTECH Many farmers battled extreme drought and heatwave conditions this year. The social and economic impacts of drought are nothing new. In fact, as Korea's Joseon dynasty (13921910) was agrarian and highly reliant on the rice crops, the country was particularly sensitive to both droughts and torrential rains, making great efforts to minimize the damage. Professor Jonghun Kam (Environmental Science and Engineering) at POSTECH and Chang-Kyun Park, researcher at the Institute of Environment and Energy Technology, have developed a self-calibrating effective drought index (scEDI) through joint research. This new index enabled them to explore 250 years of drought data, starting from the late Joseon dynasty to date, comparing and analyzing precipitation records. The EDI, a typical tool to determine the severity of droughts, is designed to monitor and characterize drought conditions on a daily scale. The index uses the last 30 years of daily precipitation records. In other words, the reference period determines EDI values, making it difficult to compare values over a long record period. Professor Kam's research team is the first to propose a self-calibrating EDI and use it to analyze the daily precipitation observed in Seoul from year 1777 through 2020. The scEDI that automatically calibrates the index behavior over time can maintain consistency in comparison by evaluating droughts of the same intensity and frequency. Notably, this research employed the historical records of the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (Joseon Wangjo Sillok) and daily precipitation data measured with Joseon's rain gauge (chukwookee). The study demonstrated the value of unprecedentedly meticulous records left by the Koreans from that period. The comparison between the records from Joseon era and the online search results of today implies that our predecessors were more sensitive to drought. Most drought damage records and spikes of public interest in droughts coincide with when droughts are moderate (-1.4 of scEDI) and severe (-2.0), respectively. The findings infer that socioeconomic drought impacts hinge on the socioeconomic structure. As a valuable tool to quantitatively assess drought impacts, the scEDI has the potential to identify droughts with social consequences in advance. Professor Kam explained, "The scEDI proposed in this study features automatic calibration corresponding to the climate of the reference period, enabling temporal detection and comparison of droughts (in terms of severity, duration, and intensity). This suggests a new research methodology for social droughts, which have been difficult to study in comparison with other drought-related categories: meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological." He added, "Understanding both the social impacts of droughts and how they have been addressed will provide the Korean public with action plans to be prepared for future droughts in advance." The study was published in the Journal of Hydrology. Explore further Researchers develop a new way to predict droughts More information: Chang-Kyun Park et al, A self-calibrating effective drought index (scEDI): Evaluation against social drought impact records over the Korean Peninsula (17772020), Journal of Hydrology (2022). Chang-Kyun Park et al, A self-calibrating effective drought index (scEDI): Evaluation against social drought impact records over the Korean Peninsula (17772020),(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.128357 Provided by Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH) Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain It is not the older generation but young men who have the most difficulty in accepting advances in women's rights. This has been shown by a large study from the University of Gothenburg on gender equality and sexism in Europe. In recent decades, Western democracies have become increasingly gender-equal. Girls and women tend to avail themselves of educational opportunities even more than men do, and more and more women are getting jobs in leading positions. But while gender equality is improving, research shows that modern sexism is working against women's rights. One example of modern sexism is when people consider society as gender-equal and therefore oppose further efforts to promote women's rights. Their reasoning is based on the so-called zero-sum game notion, where progress for one group is seen as being at the expense of another. Previous research shows that a perceived sense of injustice and competition between men and women affects political attitudes and voting behavior. "Some people believe that increased gender equality only benefits women and do not see the benefits for society as a whole. Some research suggests that this feeling of injustice can even motivate citizens to vote for right-wing radical parties who are against feminism and sexual freedom," says Gefjon Off, doctoral student in political science. Together with Amy Alexander and Nicholas Charron, both political scientists at the University of Gothenburg, she has studied what lies behind the relatively high incidence of modern sexism among young men in Europe. The study is based on a survey with 32,469 respondents in 27 EU countries. The respondents were asked to state to what extent they agree with the statement that "promoting women's and girls' rights has gone too far because it threatens men's and boys' opportunities." "The results show that young men aged 18 to 29 most often agree with this statement in our survey. The older the men are, the less they agree with this statement. Some women agree with the statement, but to a far lesser extent than men of all ages. The results contradict previous research claiming that the older generation are the ones who are the most conservative and opposed to advances in women's rights," says Gefjon Off. The researchers identified a couple of factors that explain why modern sexism is highest among young men aged between 18 and 29 years. The proportion is highest in regions where unemployment has risen the most in recent years, and where citizens have a widespread distrust of social institutions for example, due to widespread corruption. Covariates of opposition to advances in women's rights. Coefficients are from negative binomial estimation and express the expected change in the dependent variable from a one-unit increase in the covariate, with 95% CIs. The reference categories are: aged 1829, less than secondary education, low income, and <10,000 inhabitants. Country fixed effects included (not shown), and standard errors clustered by region. Models include post-stratification and design weights. The number of observations for Models 1 and 2 is 31,602 and 29,299 respectively. Credit: Frontiers in Political Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2022.909811 Slovakia is the EU country in the study where the highest proportion of young men are opposed to advances in women's rights. In some regions there, unemployment has risen by as much as 1.1% in the last two years. "More than other EU citizens, Slovaks think that their own country's public institutions are not impartial, that is, that their social institutions favor certain groups of people," says Nicholas Charron, Professor in political science. The study also shows the inverse situation. In regions such as Northern Italy where unemployment has fallen and where social institutions are perceived as reasonably impartial, young men are less resistant to advances in women's rights. Unemployment also plays a role in Sweden. The study shows that the largest proportion of young men who agree with the survey statement that advances in women's rights threaten men's and boys' opportunities live in regions where unemployment has risen in the last two years. "The gap between young women's and young men's views on advancing women's rights is great in Sweden, among the top 10 in the EU according to our measurements," says Nicholas Charron. The fact that young men stand out in this context may be due to their position on the labor market: At a young age they may not yet have a stable job, or they may not have progressed as far in their careers as older men. "Possibly, young men who believe that women are outcompeting them in the labor market experience advances in women's rights as unjust and a threat. We need to get better at communicating the benefits of gender equality. Fathers get to spend more time with their children and the burden of being the family's breadwinner is lightened when mothers in families also advance in their careers," says Gefjon Off. The study is published in Frontiers in Political Science. Explore further Who is a real man? Most Australians believe outdated ideals of masculinity are holding men back More information: Gefjon Off et al, Who perceives women's rights as threatening to men and boys? Explaining modern sexism among young men in Europe, Frontiers in Political Science (2022). Gefjon Off et al, Who perceives women's rights as threatening to men and boys? Explaining modern sexism among young men in Europe,(2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2022.909811 BOLTON State police on Monday released the name of a man who died in a two-vehicle crash Friday on East Schroon River Road in Bolton. Patrick J. Murray, 26, of South Glens Falls, was pronounced dead at the scene, state police said in a news release. At about 4:18 p.m. Friday, a trooper responded to East Schroon River Road in Bolton after reports of a two-car head-on crash with injuries. The other vehicles driver was transported to Albany Medical Center by helicopter with serious injuries and has since been released, police said. Police did not release that person's name. State police were assisted at the scene by the Bolton Police Department, Warren County Sheriffs Office, Lifenet of New York, Bolton EMS, Bolton Fire, Warrensburg EMS, Warrensburg Fire and Lake George EMS. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but speed is believed to be a factor, police said. Anyone with information is asked to contact state police Queensbury BCI at 518-583-7000. Former New Jersey Gov. James Florio, a Democrat who was the states top elected official in the 1990s, died on Sunday night, said his lawyer, Douglas Steinhardt. Florio, who also represented New Jerseys First Congressional District that includes Camden and Gloucester counties, was 85. Our partnership was a constant reminder to me that people can disagree on fundamental tenets of govt & politics, but still be civil & still be friends, Steinhardt tweeted Monday morning. I will miss him. A cause of death was not announced on Monday. On Monday, Gov. Phil Murphy saluted Florio as a public servant who cared for New Jerseys future more than his own political gains. In a statement, Murphy also noted some of Florios accomplishments, including environmental cleanups he championed in Congress and helping preserve New Jerseys assault-weapons ban. Tammy and I send our heartfelt thoughts to Lucinda, Jims children, and all who loved him, Murphy said in a prepared statement. Our state has lost a good man, and later this morning I will sign an executive order directing our flags to fly at half-staff in his honor. Florio became governor in 1990. A Democrat, he made three unsuccessful runs for the governor before finally succeeding in 1989, when he defeated Republican Jim Courter and became the first Italian-American to serve as the states chief executive. Florio drew sharp criticism in 1990 when he pushed a $2.8 billion tax increase through the state Legislature. Facing voter displeasure from tax hikes, Florio lost his reelection bid in 1993 to his Republican challenger, former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman. Jim Florio was an American patriot who put principles first. He stood by his convictions no matter what the cost, and I am glad we got to know one another better after he left office, Whitman wrote on Twitter. I will always respect the service and dedication he showed to the people of New Jersey. Before becoming governor, Florio served four years in the state Assembly and 15 years in the House of Representatives. In 2000, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, losing to investment banker Jon Corzine, who would also later become New Jerseys governor. After leaving political office, Florio continued to be an active voice on multiple fundamental issues. In February 2015, Florio and three other former New Jersey governors urged the state senate to delay a vote on Gov. Chris Christies nominee for a southern New Jersey panel that oversees a million-acre pine reserve. The ex-governors claimed the nomination would undermine the independence of the commission, but the senate eventually approved the nominee for the job. Locally, Florio attended local events on offshore wind efforts off the Jersey Shore, speaking in favor of the Ocean Wind, a wind farm planned by Danish energy company rsted. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Florio attended Trenton State College (now known as The College of New Jersey) and earned a degree from Rutgers School of Law in 1967. He also served as a Naval officer in the 1950s and continued as a reservist until 1975, eventually achieving the rank of lieutenant commander. Gov. Florio was a good man who will be remembered for his staunch commitment to the people of New Jersey, Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald said in a statement Monday morning. He leaves behind a distinguished legacy of fighting to improve the lives of New Jersey residents. Whether championing environment and education issues or keeping our streets safe with common-sense gun safety laws, Gov. Florios dedication to public service made New Jersey a better place to live. The Associated Press contributed to this report. WILDWOOD Two people were killed in a Saturday collision here in an incident connected to the H2oi car rally on a day that included other crashes in the community. Police were called to a multiple-car accident at Burk and Atlantic avenues at 9:36 p.m. Saturday, with injuries to pedestrians. The driver accused of being at fault attempted to flee the scene but was quickly apprehended, according to police. Gerald J. White, 37, of Pittsburgh, faces two counts of death by automobile, two counts of assault by auto, along with charges of leaving the scene of an accident, eluding and violation of laws to protect public safety, officials announced. On Sunday, he remained in Cape May County jail pending court proceedings, according to a statement released by Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sutherland and Wildwood Police Chief Robert Regalbuto. Officials connected the crash with the car rally, which local officials say took place without any municipal approvals and despite concerns expressed by police and the Wildwood government. Officials struggled to contain the pop-up car rally, with chaotic scenes unfolding throughout the area with people lining the sidewalks cheering impromptu drag races. Sutherland said the impact of the event disrupted other communities and laid blame on the organizers. Unsanctioned car rally heading to Wildwood WILDWOOD A pop-up car rally is set to take place in the city starting Friday, although som "Make no mistake that the tragic and dangerous events over the last several days in Wildwood, Rio Grande, Seaville and surrounding communities are a direct result of the organizers of a pop-up car rally self-identified as H2Oi or H2O22. Directing hundreds if not thousands of people driving high performance vehicles to an area without any planning, staging or permitting created the chaos that led to these deaths and injuries," Sutherland said. "Anyone thinking of engaging in organizing any type of similar pop-up event is forewarned that there will be a swift and appropriate law enforcement and legal response." Wildwood police and the county's fatal crash unit investigated and said White was driving a 2003 Infinity when he struck a 2014 Honda Civic and then struck two pedestrians. One of the pedestrians, Lindsay Weakland, 18, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger of the Honda, Timothy Ogden, 34, of Clayton, Gloucester County, was transported to Atlantic City Medical Center but later died of his injuries, officials said. The investigation continues, Sutherland said, and more charges may be pending. Officials in the shore resort had warned about the H2oi car event, describing it as an unsanctioned car rally separate from the Fall Classic Car Show taking place this weekend. Participants in the rally say it is a chance for enthusiasts to check out cool cars and spend time together. But the event has run into serious problems in other communities, particularly in Ocean City, Maryland, where it was held in previous years. The Wildwoods were already set for a busy weekend, with the Irish Fall Festival in North Wildwood and the Fall Classic Car Show planned in Wildwood. That event is not connected with the H2oi rally. Rally participants shared videos of multiple instances of Wildwood police impounding and towing cars with modifications that are not legal in New Jersey. Local police looked to other jurisdictions to help respond to the huge crowds and the reckless driving. Sutherland praised the work of his officers, as well as police in Wildwood, Middle Township and Atlantic City and State Police in their response to the weekend. He also thanked the fire companies and emergency medical responders for their efforts. He compared the reckless vehicle operation to firing a gun in a crowd, risking injuries to innocent bystanders and children. "I would first like to share my sincere condolences with the families of the two victims who were needlessly killed and those that have been injured. Their lives will be forever changed," Sutherland said in a prepared statement Sunday. There were other serious accidents, including one on Saturday night involving a low-speed vehicle in which the driver was injured. That took place on Rio Grande Avenue. Multiple videos of that crash were posted late Saturday on several platforms. On social media, one video shows a car losing control after taking off at a high rate of speed at a traffic light. Another video taken from a different angle shows a vehicle losing control after speeding off a light and clipping another car, then spinning into another lane. A large crowd lines the street. Some seem upset by the crash, while others almost appear to be cheering. Wildwood police took the unusual step of detouring roads and warning drivers to avoid Pacific, Atlantic and Ocean avenues Saturday. These roads have significant traffic backups and other issues related to the unsanctioned H2oi event. Several roads have been detoured, an announcement read Saturday afternoon. At 9:30 p.m., police announced the George Redding Bridge, the primary route into town, had been closed, also citing the event. Police throughout the island had their hands full and looked to the Cape May County Sheriffs Department and other jurisdictions for support. North Wildwood police said all days off for officers were canceled as reports came in about pop-up meets in the parking lot of the Acme. The North Wildwood Police has a zero tolerance policy in place in reference to disorderly conduct and reckless driving for this weekend, reads the Saturday statement. We hope everyone has a good time at the Fall Classic Car Show in Wildwood and the Irish Fall Festival here but we will not tolerate the nonsense. Other posted videos show hundreds of people in the street, defying a police siren and an officers orders to clear the way for his vehicle. Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron said Sunday morning he could not offer much detail yet but said there was a great deal of misinformation circulating on social media. Several event participants condemned reckless behavior Saturday night. What happened tonight is sickening. You all should be ashamed, one poster said, chastising those who encouraged drivers to undertake risky maneuvers. People lost loved ones tonight for Instagram likes. The event was organized through social media. An administrator of one of the pages initially responded to a request for an interview before the start of the rally but did not respond to specific questions about how the event was organized and how Wildwood was chosen. After the accident, the user profile was no longer visible. On the page, one commenter said the organizers know the kind of trouble that follows the event and should not have come to the community. Another said Wildwood "is all for cool cars" if people aren't doing anything stupid. On Sunday afternoon, Byron said things were very calm in the community after the difficult night. CHICAGO - When Illinois state Sen. Napoleon Harris (15th District) was a boy, he would play near the Little Calumet River, a few blocks from his house on 133rd Street, throwing rocks in the river and running around noticing broken boats. He had no idea he was on a site that was once a safe haven for enslaved people who were escaping north between the 1830s and the Civil War, he said during a marker dedication ceremony of the former Underground Railroad site at Chicagos Finest Marina, 577 E. 134th Place. Its bittersweet because I saw what this place used to be, Harris said. And now to see it today, it brings joy to my heart to see what Mr. Gaines has done with the property. And to see the historic value that as a kid I didnt know existed. Ronald Gaines, a retired sergeant of the Chicago Police Department, owns Chicagos Finest Marina. Formerly the Ton Farm, the site was a place where freedom seekers sought refuge. The Ton family was one of several Dutch families that settled in the area between 1847 and 1849. People escaping the South used what was known as the Riverdale Crossing, now the Indiana Avenue Bridge just west of the marina, then sought refuge and rest with Dutch settlers helping them before they continued north to Chicago or Detroit and eventually Canada. About four years ago, Larry McLellan, professor emeritus of Governors State University, called Gaines to tell him about the history of the property, Gaines told a crowd of about 100 people on Saturday afternoon. McLellan was involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and studied at the University of Ghana in West Africa. He made it his lifes work to study and teach African American history, wanting to explore how Black and white people come to understand each other and each others history, he said. Black history matters, McLellan said. Because it enriches all of our history. Since making that phone call to Gaines, McLellan has worked with local leaders and community residents to highlight the history of the marina on Chicagos Far South Side, forming the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project. In 2019, the Jan and Agje Ton Farm became part of the National Park Service Network to Freedom program, which recognizes Underground Railroad locations across the nation. On Saturday, an Illinois State Historical Society marker was unveiled. At Saturdays ceremony, members of the project were joined by local and state government representatives, descendants of the Ton family, nearby residents and other supporters. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said the Underground Railroad symbolizes not just the historic acts of bravery, but also a collective strength of what can be accomplished when people work together to face challenges. We stand here, proud, humbled, and hopeful that we are our ancestors wildest dreams, Stratton said. You see, we look back into the past to help inform our future. Stratton visited the site two years ago as she was learning about Black history. Her journey, she said, took her to parts of the Underground Railroad in Illinois, deepening her understanding of the discomfort and pain people faced on their path to freedom. The work of liberating others is never easy, but its always worth it, Stratton said. Here at Ton Farm, I was reminded that wherever slavery and bondage existed, so did courageous efforts to escape, often assisted by regular people, like all of us here today. The new historic marker, she said, will give people the opportunity to sit with and understand the struggle of the past but also understand the hope the site represents. U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, whose district includes the site, said the Underground Railroad provides important lessons for current and future generations. She said she hopes people who learn about and visit the site will be encouraged and inspired. Besides the educational and cultural value, these sites serve as a reminder of our nations hateful history, and of why we can never go back to those ways, Kelly said. These sites serve as an inspiration to always do what is right no matter the risk. After the unveiling, people ate a light meal and visited the marina; children ran around as adults talked. A woman led a group in yoga, and others walked around a room where an art exhibit titled Witness by artists Mama Edie Armstrong and Nathan Miller was on display. Portraits of Black youths were spread around the room; on the back of each portrait was an I am from poem written by the youth in the portrait. The youths were participants of the summers Witness program at the Altgeld Library. These works are a continuation of their ancestors stories of Black liberation, a description of the art exhibit said. Kelly Flowers, assistant principal at W.E.B. Du Bois Elementary School, took her 4-year-old granddaughter to the event. She said she was excited to learn about the history of the site within walking distance of the school. Flowers said she plans to share what she learned with social studies teachers so they can incorporate it in their curriculum. She also plans to share what she learned with her network of educators in other South Side schools. To just know you live in a historical area, how profound is that? Flowers said. For them to be proud of where they are actually get the information about where they are and who they are, where they come from. And that its touchable, its reachable. So for me, this was huge. Nearby residents who visited the ceremony, and some who stopped by for what they thought was Marina Days, where the marina is open to the public and offers food and family activities, said they were surprised to learn of its history. All these years I never knew, said Danasha Thomas, who went to the marina with her daughter and stepchildren after the ceremony. Thomas said it was important for people to know about their history and was excited to learn about the new marker out front of the marina entrance. Gaines, the marina owner, plans to continue working with McLellan and members of the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project to open the marina to the public and offer tours and other ways to continue educating people on its historical significance. If we dont learn about our past, it takes away from our future, Gaines said. And I think even though slavery was something we never focus on being up north, that its kind of rewarding to know that we up here had an active part in the survival of freedom seekers. McLellan said it was deeply satisfying to see so many people attend the dedication and confirm what hes always known that Black history is important. A lot of people have told him, I didnt know that happened here, he said, adding that hes glad hes been able to share that history with people. History isnt some distant thing, McLellan said. History is right here in our backyards. I mean, good Lord, were standing right where people who were running for their lives, they stood in this right, same spot. DES MOINES Deidre DeJear says the latest campaign ad from Gov. Kim Reynolds which shows a Black official who is not DeJear calling to defund the police shows the Republican incumbent is not focused on issues relevant to Iowa. She doesnt even talk about elected officials in the state of Iowa. Thats unfortunate. You see images throughout her ad that arent even representing Iowa, DeJear, the Democrat and small businesswoman from Des Moines who is running against Reynolds in this falls election, said Monday. None of what she said was founded in this state, and its unfortunate. Honestly, I think its shortsighted and lazy. But its also unfortunate, DeJear said. What she showed Iowans was a figment of her imagination, not what Iowans need for them. In Reynolds latest campaign ad, she talks about what she believes are problems facing other areas of the country before pivoting to say to viewers, Arent you glad you live in Iowa? A Reynolds campaign spokesman said the ad highlighted issues facing other states, in comparison with Iowa. In the ad, Reynolds cites attacks on police, open borders, paying people not to work. The campaign ad contrasts the failed policies supported by liberal Democrats across the country with the common-sense leadership of Gov. Reynolds, Reynolds campaign spokesman Pat Garrett said. The ad opens with Reynolds watching a news clip of Missouri Democratic U.S. Rep. Cori Bush calling to defund the police. Bush, like DeJear, is a Black woman. DeJear has on multiple occasions said she does not support any policy that would be considered defunding law enforcement agencies. DeJear said she had discussed many issues with law enforcement officials during her campaign, including addressing racial disparities in the criminal justice system and recidivism in the state corrections department. I talk a great deal with law enforcement, and theyve been a part of my campaign since the beginning, DeJear said. They have to be partners in this work with us, which means that they need the resources to be able to do their job better. But law enforcement is telling me right now, Were not having conversations about defunding. Were having conversations about needing more resources. Libertarian Party candidate Rick Stewart also is on the ballot in Iowas campaign for governor. The election is Nov. 8, and early voting starts Oct. 19. A Davenport woman is in the Scott County Jail, charged with contributing to the fentanyl death of her 22-month-old son. Malea Alexis Wilson, 25, faces felony charges of child endangerment resulting in death, and child endangerment resulting in bodily injury in her son's October 2021 death. She also faces a misdemeanor charge of child endangerment. Her bond was set Saturday at $50,000, and she has a preliminary hearing Oct. 4. Davenport police were searching for Wilson for a week after the arrest of her live-in companion, Tyler Akright. He was the father of their toddler, who died last year as a result of consuming illicit drugs. Akright faces the same three charges. Daveport police were called to the couple's home in the 1300 block of West 13th Street in Davenport on Aug. 7, 2021, when their other young son was found wandering the neighborhood in the middle of the night. Though police found a large collection of drugs in the house, including cocaine, it appears both toddlers remained in their parents' care and custody. During that police call to the couple's home, an arrest affidavit states that Akright admitted the drugs found in the home, along with a firearm and considerable cash, belonged to him. Information from a cell phone also disclosed the couple was selling drugs from the house and using drugs in the house. Despite the risk police said was present in the home, the boys remained there or were quickly returned to the couple. On Oct. 11, 2021 just two months after finding one boy roaming outdoors and a multitude of drugs indoors Davenport police were called to the same house that Wilson and Akright shared. This time, they found 22-month-old Antonio Akright was not breathing. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The police affidavit linked Antonio's death to drugs in the home. "The defendant and co-defendant did knowingly use and sell controlled substances at/from their residence, which would create substantial risk to the well-being and physical safety of the victim, who was their 22-month-old son," according to the police complaint filed after Antonio's death. "As a result of this risk, the victim was pronounced deceased, which the cause of death was later discovered as an acute drug (fentanyl) intoxication." Scott County Attorney Mike Walton said an investigation into the cause of Antonio's death started immediately in October 2021, leading to the arrest of both parents. Drug tests conducted on Antonio after his death and tests conducted on his older brother showed both tested positive for cocaine, methamphetamine and THC. Walton declined to comment Monday on the status of Antonio's older brother. It is unclear at this time whether the Iowa Department of Human Services was investigating Wilson and Akright and their children's safety. The older boy now is about 4 years old. Akright was on probation related to the August drug arrest at the time of Antonio's death. Just 33 months old at the time, the couple's older son was spotted walking in an alley alone at 2:22 a.m. on a Saturday in August 2021. According to the Davenport police, the back door of Akright's home was open. Officers tried to make contact with Akright and Wilson in the home, but no one responded. Officers then did a safety clear for any residents inside the house. As officers checked the living room area they noticed a large amount of cash, a pistol and drugs in plain view. Officers made contact with Akright on the second floor of the home and asked for permission to search the residence. Akright gave officers written consent, and they seized nearly 2 pounds of marijuana in nine packages; 1 pound of marijuana wax packaged in several jars; 74.7 grams of psilocybin, or mushrooms; 2.4 grams of cocaine; packaging materials with drug residue; four cell phones; $2,110 in cash; and two digital scales with drug residue. Investigators said Akright later admitted the drugs and cash were his and he sold drugs to various friends. He pleaded guilty Dec. 20, 2021, to a charge of possession with the intent to deliver psilocybin. He was sentenced to two years on supervised probation. According to Scott County District Court and Iowa Department of Corrections electronic records, Akright is on probation until March 4, 2024. The charge of child endangerment resulting in death is a Class B felony punishable by 25 years in prison, while child endangerment resulting in bodily injury is a Class D felony punishable by five years in prison. The child endangerment charge is an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by two years in prison. One phone call forever changed the lives of three North Scott boys and their families. Though the individual calls were different, they each shared a chilling similarity: A cancer diagnosis. I kept hoping that they were maybe wrong, Lisa Strohben, Vaughn Kruegers mom, said. As September marks Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the families reflect on their journeys: Vaughn Krueger, 11 Blastocyst Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasm (BPDCN) Vaughn was diagnosed last December after suddenly getting frequent headaches and constant stomach pain. He was doing completely fine, Strohben said. One weekend, he had a friend over and had been playing like crazy everything seemed normal. Vaughn indicated that something might be wrong immediately after his friend left the same day, complaining that his head and stomach hurt. Upon passing a physical exam and viral tests with flying colors, doctors tested Vaughns blood after he started developing rash-like skin markings often related to low platelet counts. About 30 minutes after I got to work that day, my husband called and said, I just got a phone call; they said Vaughn has cancer, and that they wanted us in Iowa City ASAP, Strohben said. She immediately started thinking about how to break the news to Vaughn but also how shed explain things to her older son, Lowen, a junior at North Scott High School. I hurriedly packed everything, pulled him aside and told him [Lowen], Strohben said. That was hard because I didnt even know how bad it was or what to say; and since we had to go, I felt like I was just leaving him. Arriving at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital hours after Vaughns diagnosis, Strohben got the first glimpse at what she describes as a whirlwind of a journey. Everyone was super nice, but your head is spinning because theyre coming in and telling you a bunch of information, asking questions, hooking him up to machines its very intense, she said. Additional tests and second opinions confirmed his diagnosis a cancer most commonly found in elderly men. It's so rare in children, Strohben said, that Vaughns pediatric oncologist hadnt worked with it before firsthand. They gathered a lot of information for us because most of the statistics, outcomes and treatment youd find looking BPDCN up arent relevant to Vaughn because hes 11, she said. That was both scary and confusing. The confusion resumed after a stomach ultrasound revealed a mass behind his bladder. Fortunately, surgeons discovered that the mass was a section of Vaughns appendix that died leading them to the root cause of his ceaseless stomach pain. After that surgery, he started feeling much better. Still miserable, but not like the months before they took his appendix out, Strohben said. So Im thankful for that stupid appendix. Without that pain, I think his cancer would have spread further and we wouldnt have known. Vaughn is on a two-and-a-half-year chemotherapy treatment plan, scheduled to end on April 24, 2024. Though he has a ways to go, Strohben said theyre excited to conquer each phase moving forward. Its really exciting to have it on the calendar, she said. He starts his maintenance phase on Nov. 4, so instead of weekly visits to the hospital, itll be monthly. Vaughn will remain in this phase until the end of his treatment. Patients receive chemo in pill form during maintenance much easier on the body than the preceding blood infusions. Strohben compared the maintenance phase to sweeping a floor: It might look clean right away, but theres always that little line of film, so those particles are still out there, she said. Tests might not pick up those few remaining cancer cells, but they can multiply so quickly. Thats why this phase is so long, especially with blood cancers. They need to vacuum everything out. Vaughn saw a tutor twice a week to finish out last school year. This year, he goes to school on a modified schedule depending on how he feels. Our goal is 8:30 to 1:30. The principal and his school have been great, Strohben said. He was really anxious his first day back and got tired out really fast. The following week, he did really well and stayed until 2. Vaughns friends made the transition to school easier. When life became normal again after COVID, he was diagnosed. He didnt talk to any friends for months he was in pain and overwhelmed, Strohben said. But his friends have been super sweet and are really good about including him or dealing with his limitations. Still, a degree of loneliness lingers while treatment continues. Strohben sold her hairdressing business to take care of Vaughn full-time. I used to talk to a bunch of clients every day. You have a million people checking in and sending messages, but some days are still so lonely, she said. And Im not the one who's sick, so its hard enough seeing your 11-year-old dealing with that. You go between feeling lonely and wanting to be left alone. Strohben said learning from other cancer families helped her throughout this process. I feel like Ive learned so much from those conversations, she said. Everything happens so fast, and you have no idea what to expect. When you can ask others questions and those things start to sound familiar, its bit less scary. Hoping to do the same for others, Strohben started a Facebook page called Vaughns Journey, hoping to illustrate the roller coaster cancer patients go through. He could be playing in the yard with friends one day, then puking and miserable the next, she said. Ive had friends with parents or spouses whove dealt with the same, but I think you never truly know how invasive it is until you or someone close to you goes through it. Strohben encourages other parents like her to share their stories. Because you never know who it could help, she said. Id also say when people offer to help, take it. Hudson Ferris, 10 Neuroblastoma Hudson Ferris was diagnosed in July 2021 at the age of 9. Because the cancer spread from his adrenal gland throughout his body, he completed five rounds of chemo at Stead, two rounds of high-dose chemo and stem cell treatment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and 12 rounds of radiation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Its been a long journey, but he starts his final round this October, Traci Ferris, Hudsons mom, said. The doctors, nurses and families weve met throughout this process have been the most incredible people weve ever come across. While navigating treatment, she said her family had to learn as they go. When youre back-and-forth from home and the hospital, you dont really have time to think, you just have to go with it, Traci said. All of the things weve learned I never would have wanted to learn about. Though its a learning curve for all families, they made the adjustment. We got a binder full of how to take care of our child. Neither of us are in the medical field, so we didnt know what it entailed. Our nurse trained and quizzed us to make sure we knew what to do before he went home, Traci said. We administered countless medications and shots. But with both Ferris parents working full-time, it was no easy feat. I dont think anything can prepare you until youre in the situation yourself, Hudsons dad, Derrick, said. We really relied on each other because were the ones here when hes up puking all night or gets a fever and we have to pivot and rush to Iowa City. You have to just think on the fly and figure it out. We had to sit in a hospital room for 31 days and basically not leave. You really have to trust these nurses and doctors to keep your child alive, Traci said. Balancing treatment with work and making sure Jack [Hudsons brother, a North Scott sophomore] was OK back home was hard. On top of that, watching your child go through what hes gone through I wished it was me and not him. Derrick said its key to tackle treatment one step at a time. Youll have to do it for 14 to 18 months, so you almost have to break it up into parts. You only focus on each phase at a time. Because if you look at the whole picture, I think youd just get overwhelmed. He said he almost wished he videotaped Hudsons treatment to show others how tough it is on the bodyparticularly a childs. I dont think you can remotely describe it. The vomiting, the sores in his mouth and digestive system the cancer just attacks his insides, he said. Theyre often getting the same doses as adults, which is so hard on him because of the size difference. Its just terrible to watch. Because of the intensity and frequency of treatment, Hudson missed his entire fourth-grade year at Alan Shepard Elementary. Traci said they had several Zoom meetings with the school to try to keep Hudson engaged, but they also started getting creative. They made him a robot and attached an iPad to it so he could drive around the school remotely but feel like he was there in person, Ferris said. Kudos to the teachers and principal; theyd never had a student with cancer before, and they really did think outside the box. Hudson, now in fifth grade, is back at school for full days this year. Alan Shepard staff organized a T-shirt campaign to raise funds for Hudsons medical bills. A crazy amount was sold, and we love seeing people still wearing them throughout town. It means people are still showing support, Ferris said. Derrick grew up in DeWitt. He said that the community had shown its share of support, too. First Central Bank did a barbecue fundraiser, Hudson got a tour of Lewis Machine and Tool the list of people is tremendous, he said. Some just came by and dropped stuff off at the door, people we dont even know. Traci said situations like Hudsons though unfortunate tend to bring out the best in others. Despite Hudson's back sporting a head of hair, his parents feel a common misconception about cancer surrounds one of its key indicators: hair loss. If you looked at him, youd think everything is OK, but he still has a lot of strength to get back; hes still not done fighting cancer, Traci said. Hes been back in school for a year now, and hes tired after one day. Its probably going to be a couple years down the road before hes caught up on the physical strength he lost, or back to normal life, Derrick added. Hudson will have his end-of-treatment scans in November. You want him to be a regular 10-year-old, and he just can't. We'll get there someday, but we're not quite there yet, Traci said. But we can see the light at the end of the tunnel at this point. As they near the end of treatment, the Ferris look forward to rebounding as a family crossing things off their to-do list and going on long-awaited vacations. This has changed our perspective on life; we dont worry about the things that dont really matter. Were really looking at spending time together and just enjoying life, Derrick said. We got to a moment where that was close to slipping away. Hudson McKearney, 5 B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Hudson McKearney was diagnosed with the most common kind of childhood cancer in February 2019 when he was only 23 months old. His mother, Jessica, had taken him in for testing following several incidents of unusual bruising and low-grade fevers. Hudson completed chemotherapy in May of 2022. Having regained his strength, hes back up and running as most 5-year-olds do. Having been through the gauntlet herself, Jessica launched the Hudson Strong Foundation to raise money and awareness for other childhood cancer families. He did over three years of treatment, she said. We received so much support, donations and care packages during those years we wanted to give back and help others in the ways that we were helped. The Hudson Strong Foundation sends care packages to families in Iowa impacted by childhood cancer. Theres an application form we have that families fill out to list their top three needs. One of our biggest goals is to include siblings because I think theyre often forgotten in these situations. Whether it be gift cards, games we want all family members included, McKearney said. Hudsons sister Violet was only 3 months old when he was diagnosed. Shes also had to grow up in this cancer world, which is completely atypical, McKearney said. Ill watch her play with dolls, and shell pretend to give them lumbar punctures. Shes telling me at 3 years old that she wants to be a scientist or oncologist thats the life of a cancer sibling. Despite the horrid circumstances, McKearney said cancer made both of her children wise beyond their years. They are so empathetic, she said. There were times Hudson was in so much pain that he didnt want us to bathe him so Violet would get in the bathtub with him and scrub his back, only two at the time. Im blessed that theyre growing up as such kind humans, but its kind of a curse how we got there. She also started a Facebook support group called Families on the 11th Floor, referencing the oncology floor of Stead Family Childrens Hospital. Especially when COVID hit, there was a huge feeling of isolation as a cancer family, so many of us felt so alone, McKearney said. So that gave us an outlet to vent or find support in different ways from people going through similar situations. The group currently has over 100 members, including Strohben and the Ferris family. Now that were through the trenches of treatment, were seeing so many friends, community members, local businesses and even strangers step up and promote or donate to the foundation, McKearney said. McKearney said only 4% of cancer funding went to childhood cancer another key motivator of her familys advocacy. The trauma we had to watch our child go through is horrific, there was a point where he couldnt walk or talk, she said. Some of these chemotherapies are decades old, and its just a reminder of how consistently underfunded childhood cancer is. We need more awareness so that one day there are hopefully better options for these kids they deserve it. Forty-seven children in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer every day. One in five of those children wont survive. I had no idea of these statistics until I became a cancer mom, McKearney said. Then you kind of morph into this huge advocate and want to do everything in your power to bring more awareness to the issue. Aside from extending help or resources to families themselves, McKearney said there are other ways to support cancer families. Were huge advocates of blood donation. I dont think people realize that most blood donations go to cancer patients so they can survive their chemotherapy treatment, she said. Someone needs blood every two seconds, and it was critical to Hudsons survival. Those interested in donating or learning more can visit hudsonstrongfoundation.org Moline could be one step closer to opening a pot shop on Avenue of the Cities. A second reading approving a special use permit for a cannabis dispensary at 2727 Avenue of the Cities is on the council agenda for Tuesday, Sept. 27. Property owner Dan Dolan of Dolan Homes and Deeprootz in the northwest suburbs of Chicago obtained the state permit in August. The permit allows the property to be utilized for an activity that is normally not permitted within the zoning district. Deeprootz would run the dispensary. A third reading approving the special use permit is still needed before redevelopment could begin. A resolution establishing the number of dispensaries in the city is also on the agenda. The resolution would establish the dispensary on Avenue of the Cities and signify that the city allows cannabis businesses within the corporate limits of the city. Ryan Hvitlk, the city's economic development director, told the Dispatch-Argus/Quad-City Times in early September the city has four overlay districts that allows for these businesses and ensures they are not getting an over-proliferation of dispensaries. The four districts are Avenue of the Cities; the John Deere Road corridor; the uptown area around the 16th Street corridor; and one near the airport. Vote, vote, vote. That was the message Saturday at the Davenport Metrocom 4019 Branch NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet with a theme of "This is Power." The evening's banquet and fundraiser, which goes toward funding the NAACP's operational expenses, was the first since before the COVID-19 pandemic began two years ago. "We often take our power to the streets, but our vote our vote is our voice," said Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa Nebraska NAACP. "I'm not telling you who to vote for. The NAACP is a nonpartisan organization. But I will tell you that your vote matters not only for president in the every-four-year election but it matters in the every-two-year election. It matters. It matters at every level of government." A nonpartisan coalition of groups in the Quad-Cities is already mobilizing to register voters from underrepresented groups to cast ballots in the Nov. 8 election. Called Power in Our Numbers Coalition in the Quad-Cities, it includes League of Latin American Citizens and the Davenport and Rock Island chapters of the NAACP, among others. The keynote speaker for the night, Dedric Doolin, challenged those in attendance to sign up for NAACP memberships if they hadn't already. He pointed to elected and appointed officials in attendance, like Mayor Mike Matson, police chiefs Jeff Bladel and Keith Kimball, and several Democrats running for office, to encourage collaboration. Echoing the theme of the evening, he urged everyone in the room to make sure friends and family vote in the upcoming election. "We each and every one of us have power," Doolin said. "People before me said it nice, but If you don't show up the polls, you ain't got power." Doolin is a national elected board member of the national NAACP, president of the Cedar Rapids branch and secretary for the Iowa Nebraska State Conference. Andrews and Doolin kept their speeches mostly to encourage voting and in Doolin's case, to come together. Doolin also said there's power in education of Black history. He reminded the room 80 years before Brown v. Board of Education that Muscatine's Alexander Clark sued and won a case that decided his daughter, Susan, couldn't be excluded from the local school because of her race. More recently, a junior high in Muscatine was renamed in Susan's honor. However, both Andrews and Doolin mentioned Scott County's disproportionate rate of Black youth in the juvenile justice system and the Board of Supervisor plans to build a larger detention center. Andrews also mentioned that the state NAACP was "inundated" with calls from Iowa residents about a recent campaign ad from Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds as she seeks reelection against Deidre DeJear. "People are concerned there are racial overtones," Andrews said in an interview after the event. Andrews emphasized that the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP doesn't side with a political party and doesn't endorse candidates. The ad shows a Black congresswoman, Cori Bush, on the news telling the cameras that "defunding the police has to happen" The ad then shows Reynolds in a coffee shop telling the cameras: "watching the news, you wonder has the rest of the country lost its mind? Attacks on police, open borders, paying people not to work aren't you glad you live in Iowa?" A sign flashes on the screen that says "from work to welfare" when Reynolds says "paying people not to work." That sign in particular raised concerns among callers to her office that the ad associated a Black woman with welfare, a pervasive stereotype. "We are watching it to make sure lines aren't crossed," she said. "We are receiving calls from people that are concerned that the ad has racial overtones. We're not endorsing her opponent, we are strictly concerned with possible racial commentary people have called us about." DeJear, Reynolds' opponent, has not endorsed defunding the police. She told Axios in January that she believed police "needed more than a pat on the back and a one-time $1,000 bonus." In an event in Clinton County, DeJear reaffirmed her position that she supports law enforcement in an interview during the event. She called the ad "unfounded." "You hear me talking about public safety as it relates to education, our economy and our health care," DeJear said. "Now, we're not going to continue to have this conversation over the next 45 days, this figment of an imaginative position that I've never had." Republicans have pointed to Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement endorsing DeJear, a group that has said has said it supports defunding police departments. The campaign ad contrasts the failed policies supported by liberal Democrats across the country with the common sense leadership of Gov. Reynolds, said Pat Garrett, the Reynolds' campaign spokesperson when asked about the concerns raised about the ad's message. Longtime Davenport civil rights leader Vera Kelly receives award Longtime Davenport civil rights leader Vera Kelly received the President's award Saturday night. The audience of more than 100 people gave an immediate standing ovation to Kelly as she accepted the award. Kelly has previously served as president of Davenport's NAACP branch. Seven statewide Democrats, the party's southeast Iowa congressional candidate and several local office candidates stumped Sunday in Clinton County for a soap-box style event. All, for the most part, stuck to their stump speeches. Mike Franken, who's running to unseat longtime Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, assured the Democrats in attendance that his campaign would "work really, really hard to win this election" and planned to attend six events a day after he debated Grassley, slated for Oct. 6. He didn't mention, and neither did any other candidates, allegations that Franken kissed a former campaign staffer on the mouth earlier this year, which Franken denies happened. Clinton County Democrats greeted Franken with a standing ovation, and several Democrats there said in interviews with a reporter they didn't see the allegations as playing a major role in their enthusiasm for Franken. "No, not at all," Heather Bjorgan said when asked if the allegations dampened her support for Franken. Bjorgan's top priority is boosting public school funding in Iowa, a job for state legislators and the governor. She works as a dean at Black Hawk College. She said she believed the courts needed to hear out the allegations before it could have greater bearing on the race. "That person deserves to have their day in court. And they should pursue that wherever is appropriate," Bjorgan said "... But I think there's enough momentum behind Franklin to not have that be something that negatively impacts him." Clinton County Democrats Chair and former congressional candidate Rita Hart, who hosted the event, said she didn't consider changing the event or its format after the news broke last week. "There were a lot of accusations made, and the rest of us, I think, just have to wait and and see what happens going forward and hope that everyone is doing everything we can to make sure that this is a safe place for all of us," Hart said. Eleven candidates rallied Clinton County Democrats at a soapbox-style event Sunday at the Clinton County Fairgrounds in DeWitt. Democratic candidate for governor Deidre DeJear and her lieutenant candidate, Eric Van Lancker; candidate for Iowa's 1st Congressional District Christina Bohannan; Franken; Secretary of State candidate Joel Miller; Attorney General Tom Miller; Secretary of Agriculture John Norwood; State Auditor Rob Sand; state legislative candidates Jed Ganzer, Jenny Hansen and Kay Pence all spoke. "Clinton County is such an important swing county for us," Miller, a Democrat in a fierce reelection campaign, said of statewide elections as a whole. Registered Republicans lead Democrats 9,253 to 8,497 in the county, with no-party voters leading both parties at 9,907 registered voters. State legislative candidates and DeJear and Van Lancker, the Clinton County auditor, pointed to further investments they want to make in K-12 education. Candidate Pence in particular noted that the Natural Resources Fund for water quality, state parks and recreation, remains unfunded years after voters approved such a fund. On this weeks edition of the On Iowa Politics podcast: allegations of unwanted advances by Mike Franken are unearthed, the White House gets a little passive-aggressive with Gov. Kim Reynolds over pandemic relief funding and Mike Pompeos latest Iowa trip. On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast that aims to re-create the kinds of conversations that happen when you get political reporters from across Iowa together after the day's deadlines have been met. This weeks show is hosted by The Gazettes Des Moines Bureau Chief Erin Murphy and features Gazette deputy bureau chief Tom Barton, Lee Des Moines Bureau Chief Caleb McCullough, Sarah Watson of the Quad City Times, Jared McNett of the Sioux City Journal, and Gazette Opinion Editor Todd Dorman. The show was produced by Stephen M. Colbert, and the music heard on the podcast is courtesy of Iowa bands Porch Builder and Copperhead. One man was seriously injured in a three-vehicle collision Saturday afternoon on Interstate 80 in Henry County. The crash forced the closure of eastbound I-80 for several hours near milepost 8. According to the Illinois State Police, 36-year-old Sanjiv Kumar of Fresno, Calif., was flown to a regional hospital with serious injuries. State Police say a 2012 red Freightliner truck and semitrailer driven by Jose Guzman, 66, of Naples, Fla., struck the rear of a 2003 blue Volvo truck and semitrailer combination driven by Kumar at approximately 1 p.m. as both vehicles were eastbound in the right lane. Kumar's truck became engulfed in flames. Debris from the crash then struck a third vehicle, a 2017 grey Dodge Caravan driven by 41-year-old Jamie Stubblefield of Le Claire, as it passed the Freightliner in the left lane. Stubblefield and two passengers in her vehicle, a 12-year-old female and a 5-year-old female escaped injury in the collision, as did Guzman. The report said eastbound Interstate 80 was closed for an extended period for cleanup, but all lanes were reopened at 9:57 p.m. The Illinois State Police was investigation the collision, and that investigation continues. Rep. Liz Cheney says she thinks Glenn Youngkin is doing a good job as governor of Virginia, but faults his plan to campaign next month with election denier Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for governor of Arizona. We cannot see an accommodation like that, Cheney said Saturday at the Texas Tribunes TribFest in Austin. Cheney, a Republican and a member of the House January 6 committee, lost her congressional seat in an August Wyoming primary. She now says she will fight to keep Republicans who deny the 2020 election results from winning governorships even if it means campaigning for their opponents. This is a much bigger issue for us than the 22 cycle and the 24 cycle, Cheney said. Its about whether were going to demand of our elected officials that they fulfill their oaths of office and whether were going to recognize that partisanship has to have a limit. Cheney cited Youngkin as an example. I think, for example, that Governor Youngkin in Virginia is doing a good job. I think hes demonstrated that hes somebody that has not bought into the toxin of Donald Trump. But Cheney faulted Youngkins decision to campaign with Lake, who has said Joe Biden lost a corrupt, stolen election and should not be in the White House. She said Saturday that Lake is dangerous. And thats the kind of thing we cannot see in our party, Cheney said of Youngkin campaigning for Lake. We cannot see an accommodation like that. And I think its very important that we be clear about that. Asked if she plans to campaign for Democrat Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state and the Democratic candidate in Arizona, Cheney said: I am going to do everything I can to make sure Kari Lake is not elected. Asked for comment, Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for Youngkin, referred to his comments at TribFest the day before. Youngkin said he wants to make the case that Republican governors have successfully led states through the pandemic, in such areas as job recovery and mitigating learning loss. What I firmly believe is that all states deserve a Republican governor, Youngkin said. I am comfortable supporting Republican candidates and we dont agree on everything, he added. I have said that I firmly believe that Joe Biden was elected president. I have to say in all candor I wish he wasnt, because I dont think hes done a good job for America. On Tuesday, Youngkin campaigns in Alpharetta, Ga., north of Atlanta, with Gov. Brian Kemp, who did not support Trumps effort to overturn Georgias 2020 election results. Kemp defeated a Trump-backed rival in a May primary. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who also spoke at TribFest, said all of the GOPs other potential presidential hopefuls are waiting on Trump to decide about a 2024 bid. Everybodys waiting to see what Trump decides and the reality is hes going to do what he wants to do, Cruz said. There are some Republicans who are beating their chest and running around saying, Im running no matter what. It doesnt matter what Trump does. Thats utter garbage, Cruz said. Theyre all lying. It does matter. Youre not tethered to reality if you think it doesnt make a difference whether he chooses to run or not. Cruz added: Ill tell you this: If he doesnt run, everybody runs. He predicted that a contest without Trump could draw 20 GOP candidates or more. Prince William County Supervisor Yesli Vega has declined to participate in a debate with Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, that would have been held in Fredericksburg in the heart of the newly drawn 7th Congressional District. Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor and director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington, confirmed Monday that the Republican challenger had declined an invitation to participate in a debate organized by the universitys student government organization, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, Virginia Public Media, the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters. We had several conversations and we were hoping it would happen, but in the end the answer was no, said Farnsworth, who would have moderated the debate. In a series of statements on Twitter on Friday, Spanberger expressed regret that the debate would not happen and blamed Vega. As a Representative, I believe in accountability and accessibility, and I had been looking forward to debate the issues that matter to Virginians, the two-term congresswoman wrote. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my opponent, who just declined a debate. Voters deserve to know where their candidates stand on issues, and clearly my opponent is hiding from Virginians because she cant defend her extreme positions, Spanberger added. Vega quickly responded on Twitter that she would debate Spanberger next month at the Prince William Committee of 100, but then implied that congresswoman wouldnt appear at the forum because its televised, not just a college campus of your base. And while were at it ... how about a debate in Spanish, too? added Vega, whose family immigrated from El Salvador. (Spanberger speaks Spanish, her campaign said.) The Prince William civic committee said it has been communicating with Spanbergers campaign about the forum, currently planned for Oct. 21. The candidates will appear together and answer questions from a moderator, but not from each other. The type of format and other details are still being negotiated ... but I do not see an impasse, said Ray Mizener, president of the committee. Both sides seem to want the event, we are just ironing out the guidelines. Prince William has the largest number of votes in the new district, created under a political map that the Virginia Supreme Court approved on Dec. 28. The new map shifts the 7th District from its base in the Richmond suburbs to the Fredericksburg area, eastern Prince William and portions of seven mostly rural localities. The Committee of 100 is a nonpartisan civic organization that Mizener said includes members from the county committees for both political parties, as well as current and past elected officials. Through this, we maintain our neutrality and Switzerland like reputation which is quite helpful in networking for campaign manager contacts, he said in an email on Sunday. The committee has scheduled a forum on Oct. 5 in Manassas Park for the 10th District congressional race between Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-10th, and Republican challenger Hung Cao. Farnsworth will serve as moderator at the forum. My position is candidates for public office should give the public every opportunity to evaluate them, he said. Del. Marie March, R-Floyd, filed a criminal complaint Saturday against another Republican delegate who is expected to be her primary opponent next year, saying the other delegate shoved her at a GOP event in Wytheville. The misdemeanor assault and battery charge against Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick, means that he and March will face one another in a courtroom before they compete for the partys nomination to represent a redrawn legislative district. Williams' arraignment is scheduled for Nov. 21 in Wythe County General District Court, and another hearing in the case is set for Dec. 15. Both delegates were upset Sunday as they described the incident. Another explosive, unhinged reaction, Williams said of his fellow legislators response. Hes a bully, March said. Unsurprisingly, the two General Assembly members had very different descriptions of what occurred the night before at the Ninth Congressional District Republican Celebration. Both said that the gala held at the Wytheville Meeting Center with dinner, live music and speeches from Ninth District U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith and others was winding down when their paths came together. March said she was standing near an exit with some staff members, talking to people as they left. Williams said that he and his team watched for about 20 minutes, waiting for March to leave. But Williams said that eventually, he and his wife, who he said is six months pregnant and had had enough of the noise, decided it was time to go home. The two delegates collided. Williams said that as he made his way through the people at the exit, he accidentally bumped into Marchs shoulder and elbow. Williams said that he apologized and kept going. I did not intentionally do anything to Ms. March, Williams said. March said that Williams kind of came barreling out of the room and that one of my witnesses saw Williams change course to slam into me. The fact that were in an election, it obviously was intentional, March said. March said Sunday that though the impact had been forceful, she was fine. March said that earlier in the evening, before the physical contact, Williams picked a verbal fight with one of her staff members and grabbed one of her interns by the arm. I definitely think hes unfit for office since he cant control his emotions, March said. Williams said that after the contact, March just lost her mind. She was racing around the room trying to convince everybody that Id bumped into her. But, Williams continued, the only person who thinks this is a crime is Marie March. However, Carroll County Supervisor Jody Early said Sunday that he was at the GOP dinner and saw what he thought was Williams purposefully shoving or elbowing March. Early said that he had his own unpleasant encounter with Williams just before Marchs that he was near the exit talking with the partys state chairman when Williams approached, pointed at Early and told the chairman to watch out, that Early was trying to screw me over, apparently a reference to the upcoming nomination contest. Williams walked away, then came past with his wife a few moments later, Early said. At that point most everybody had left, it wasnt that crowded. If they wanted to leave they could have said excuse us, Early said. ... It appeared to me that he intentionally veered over toward Del. March. The conflict between the two first-term delegates began when Virginias every-decade re-drawing of legislative lines erased their existing seats and left March and Williams both in the new 47th District, which includes Floyd, Patrick and Carroll counties, western Henry County and Galax. It is seen as a district likely to favor Republicans in the November 2023 election. The date and other details of the GOP nominating contest for the new district have not been set but Williams and March began positioning themselves months ago. Williams called Marchs actions Saturday a complete political hit job. Williams said that he was wary of March before Saturday and that he and an aide had once declined to ride an elevator alone with March and one of her aides because he was worried that she would claim something inappropriate was said or done. You cant be alone with her, you cant be on the phone with her, you cant trust her, Williams said. March said that it was Williams whose behavior was inappropriate. Hes a spoiled rich kid and hes never been told no and he runs around bullying people, March said. The scathing comments and criminal warrant were a stark contrast to what Williams said was the message that Griffith and other speakers tried to deliver earlier Saturday, before the delegates confrontation: a call for party unity. In late July, Randy DeHart sent a copy of the Friends of Roberson Mill newsletter to The Roanoke Times New River Valley team. We received this communique, he wrote via email, thanks to our previous publication of a story about the mill and the efforts underway to save it: Timmys Dream: Restoring Roberson Mill (February 2020). Randy noted that he is the oldest grandchild of Homer Roberson, who purchased the old mill, not far from the town of Floyd, in 1931, and turned it into a valuable producer of milled grains in the area, well-known for its buckwheat flour. One of Homers children, son Harry, secured possession of the mill after the patriarchs death, and Harrys son Timmy nurtured the dream of fixing up the old place, until he died in 2019. Timmys sister Regina (Randys cousin) has been the key driver of the project both before and since then. Although the COVID-19 pandemic had an inevitable impact on its progress, Randys newsletter describes many new developments for the mill. Following are a few excerpts, to give readers a glimpse of whats been going on with the restoration effort. Excerpts from the July Friends of Roberson Mill newsletter: It has been almost two years since we last mailed out an update and, despite the negative effects of COVID, a lot of positive things have taken place at the mill. From out of nowhere a man by the name of Jeff Rainey was in touch with Regina and volunteered his help and expertise. Jeff not only had a deep interest in the history of milling but was instrumental in the renovation of the Colvin Run Mill in Fairfax County After removing and cleaning the millstones and other much needed maintenance, Jeff has recently been busy fabricating and installing period handrailing on the existing interior stairs. The Roberson Mill continued to function financially under the protective wing of Floyd County Cares and the much-appreciated volunteer efforts of Jessica Thomas. But as we looked ahead to moving forward with renewed enthusiasm, we recognized that it was time for Roberson Mill to stand on its own two feet with a new level of sophistication and credibility. With the help of an experienced and very helpful Roanoke Law firm, Friends of Roberson Mill is now registered as a nonprofit corporation with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. There is a five-person board of directors ready to go to work with a complete and fully functioning set of bylaws. Regina is presently working with Dale Profitt, a longtime Floyd attorney, to transfer ownership of the mill to this new nonprofit entity. Mike Pulice, architectural historian with the Western Region Preservation Office of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, is moving to finalize the effort necessary to acquire that coveted bronze plaque certifying that Roberson Mill has been included on the National Register of Historic Places. Regina was contacted by a representative of Friends of the Blue Ridge, a volunteer and membership organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the Blue Ridge Region. After a meeting at the mill with four of their representatives, they not only pledged an immediate financial contribution but offered their expertise in grant writing when we are prepared to begin that effort. We are excited to report that just this month [July], workmen were able to complete the replacement of the old roof with the much needed and anticipated new metal roof. God willing, we expect that the mill can now stand for another 100 years and have no more roof leaks for a long time to come. We will soon be heading to Franklin, North Carolina, to the waterwheel factory to solicit their help in the design and construction of a new old water wheel. Since the beginning of the restoration, we have benefitted greatly from the experience and expertise of Ricky Cox, coauthor of The Water-Powered Mills of Floyd County, Virginia. Rickys input relative to the material to be used in the construction of a new water wheel while striving to achieve historic authenticity has been invaluable. Emphasis will be on life expectancy and maintenance expense when determining the material to be used in the construction of the new wheel. Randys newsletter notes that fundraising continues to be an important emphasis for the Friends group. They currently have a pledge for a dollar-for-dollar donation match, up to $15,000, which would create a $30,000 pool of funds to cover existing and future expenses. This campaign will continue until the goal is met. We want to make you proud so that one day we can all look back at this effort and say, I contributed to that. I helped to make that happen, Randy writes in the newsletter. You can follow news about Roberson Mill and the fund drive on Facebook or on the website, https://www.robersonmill.com. Also, mark your calendars: Friends of Roberson Mill is planning to have a booth at the Floyd County Arts & Crafts Festival, which will be back at Floyd County High School Oct. 1 and 2. (See related news item.) Our thanks to Randy for sharing photos and information about this historic project with us! - The Roanoke Times BLACKSBURG Various agencies in Montgomery County are seeking input from the public on a road project with a goal to alleviate the traffic impact on a portion of the area, particularly along Prices Fork Road. Officials from entities that included the New River Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization and Virginia Tech gathered at the university Corporate Research Center Training Center this past week to present information and gather input on a segment of the long discussed connector between the U.S. 460 bypass and Prices Fork Road. The part officials are primarily seeking input on is the eastern terminus of the connector between the bypass and Merrimac Road. Available for viewing were poster boards that provided details on various aspects of the connector, including three alignment options for the eastern terminus section between the bypass and Merrimac. The NRV-MPO had also provided the same information through its website. The connector would run in a general east-west direction from the bypass Southgate Drive interchange to Prices Fork Road, based on the drawings shown. Cost estimates, depending on which of the three eastern terminus options is chosen, could range from $188 million to $226 million. The connector has been pursued mainly to try to ease the mounting pressure along Prices Fork Road, which has seen some notable growth around it over the years, said Dan Brugh, the NRV-MPOs executive director. You can only work on part of that [Prices Fork], Brugh said during an interview at the event Wednesday night. And traffic is getting pretty high there and, in the future, it could be a pretty big problem. They need options. Efforts to ease some of the traffic on Prices Fork are as much about addressing challenges coming from other parts of the New River Valley as it is about the ones within Blacksburg and Montgomery County, Brugh said. Prices Fork, one of the main thoroughfares to the Tech campus, has been a frequently used route for commuters traveling from the Pulaski County and Radford areas to Blacksburg, Brugh said. There has been a great deal of residential growth in parts of Pulaski County and its Fairlawn area just north of Radford, which has led to some significant volume on Prices Fork, he said. Its not just within the immediate area, Brugh said. While the connector still doesnt have a concrete timeline and definitive funding streams, the project has been talked about for well over a decade. A connector corridor study was completed in 2008 and it included a recommended highway alignment that extended from the U.S. 460 bypass to Prices Fork. The study also evaluated several options for the connectors eastern terminus between the bypass and Merrimac. The NRV-MPO is continuing to invite public input on the project as part of an update that builds on the 2008 study to refine the recommended alignment between the bypass and Prices Fork. A preferred option for the connectors eastern terminus will be identified through the study update, which began in November last year and is slated to be done later this year. Residents attended the event this past week to look at the map drawings and ask questions about the connector. Sharon Caffrey, who was looking at a poster board showing the three eastern terminus alignment options, pointed to the bottom of the map graphic to show the general area where she owns a house. She said she doesnt anticipate bearing the worst of the noise from the connectors traffic due to the help of a forested area between her house and where the roadway would go. But there are a lot of people along here where that wont be the case. Im sure that will not be wonderful for them, Caffrey said. Caffrey said she hopes to see some kind of comparative analysis that would look at another area where a major roadway is within proximity of neighborhoods. She said that kind of work would give people who live in the Merrimac Road area an idea of what the project might be like for them. The mitigation of potential noise pollution is something Caffrey said she hopes is addressed. Whats nice about that area is its in the country, but youre close to town, she said. And I can see where people who have lived here, whose families have lived there for generations, that this could be very disruptive to what they consider their village of Merrimac. The NRV-MPO is accepting feedback at www.nrvmpo.com/460-feedback-form until Sept. 30. About 200 comments already had been submitted before Wednesdays event, Brugh said. We had not planned to revisit the epic battle over the fate of Mountain Valley Pipeline quite so soon. Two weeks ago (Sept. 12, Property owners feel like political sacrifices) we noted that the MVP natural gas pipeline project has a serious public relations problem, further inflamed by the dramatic intervention of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the U.S. Senate and arguably the most powerful senator given that bodys 50-50 partisan split. In this era of deep political divides, Democrats cant deploy Vice President Kamala Harris tie vote if Manchin bucks the party consensus, which set up his ploy to grant his team a climate change legislation win if they agreed to back his efforts to fast-track MVP to completion. Compelling arguments exist for increasing natural gas supply, and proponents of MVP tout the project as necessary for enabling regional economic development and reducing energy costs for consumers. (For an example, consider the commentary Finish the Mountain Valley Pipeline by Roanoke Gas President and CEO Paul Nester that was published in Sundays editorial page.) Blaming the projects opponents for the years of delays since construction began somewhat sidesteps the fact that judges from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals keep finding merits in the opponents arguments. Manchins announced intention to move jurisdiction over MVP to a supposedly friendlier federal court broadcasts a message that, because hearts and minds have not been swayed, and because legal standards have not been met (at least as the 4th Circuit saw it), the senator has chosen to treat MVP like that bad-tasting medicine pill that a reluctant pet wont swallow, and do what it takes to ram that pill down. Wednesday, Manchin released his proposed legislation, and because of that the unswayed can now officially add Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Richmond Democrat, and Southwest Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, a Salem Republican, to their membership roster. Mind you, neither Kaine nor Griffith is rejecting MVP per se; theyre objecting to the way Manchins proposal singles out the pipeline for an extraordinary level of special treatment. You cant just come in and run roughshod because you want this particular pipeline, Griffith told the Roanoke Times. In a video statement, Kaine succinctly broke down the solid Manchins bill attempts for MVP. To be unhappy with a court and say, You know what, heres what I want. I want Congress to pass a special bill to require that I get permits for my project, to insulate those permits from the normal administrative review, to insulate many of the permits from any kind of judicial review, [and] also guarantee that if theres ever any other lawsuits about this project, the 4th Circuit that is the circuit court where the project is being constructed has no ability to consider the case that is unprecedented. Kaine made his position clear. Its just a bridge too far and Im going to oppose it. He expressed hope that the offending section about MVP will be struck from the bill, saying he found merit in the more general permitting process reforms contained in earlier sections. The fate of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 is far from certain, with opposition coming from both sides of the aisle. On the other hand, the Biden Administration has issued a full-throated endorsement. Today, far too many energy projects face delays keeping us from generating and shipping critical, cost-saving clean energy to families and businesses across America. This is an important step forward to further unlock the potential of these projects and the good-paying jobs they support, reads a statement on the White House website. With results very much pending, MVP supporters might consider that Manchins methods are cause for dismay, not cheers. UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Independent High-Level Panel on Security and Development in the Sahel was launched Saturday in New York during a high-level event on the war-torn region on the margins of the UN General Assembly's annual debate. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and African leaders launched the panel to assess the situation in the Sahel and make recommendations on ways to foster international engagement and map out responses to the region's complex challenges. In their statements published Saturday, they highlighted the underlying challenges in the Sahel, including surging violent extremism, growing fragility of regional economies due to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as complex political transitions. They called for coordinated global, regional and local efforts in the Sahel and the broader region to address the current security, governance and development challenges, and adopt people-centered security approaches based on inclusive political strategies. They also called on the international community to scale up responses commensurate to the needs in the region, including by providing much-needed technical, financial, material and logistical support. The Sahel extends across Africa from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Indian Ocean in the east, and runs through parts of Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said that the Sahel faces "the worst humanitarian needs in years requiring an urgent scale-up of emergency response," while Guterres recently warned that rising insecurity, including the proliferation of terrorists and other non-state armed groups, coupled with political instability, is creating a crisis in the Sahel that poses a "global threat." "If nothing is done, the effects of terrorism, violent extremism and organized crime will be felt far beyond the region and the African continent," said Guterres. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. " " Absurdly powerful storms like Irma, pictured here slamming into Fort Myers, Florida, on Sept. 10, 2018, have led some to wonder if the Saffir-Simpson scale is still an adequate measure of the destructive potential of hurricanes. Spencer Platt/Getty Images When Hurricane Irma roared across the Atlantic in September 2017, it became the most powerful hurricane to form outside the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Irma was a monster Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 185 miles (298 kilometers) per hour. Irma cut a deadly path, devastating a small string of Caribbean islands and a chunk of the Southeastern United States. As Irma pounded the region with ferocious wind, high surf and flooding rain, some scientists renewed their calls to change the Saffir-Simpson scale to account for the emergence of these so-called "super hurricanes." Scientists use the Saffir-Simpson scale as a yardstick to measure the destructive potential of hurricanes. The scale begins with Category 1, the least powerful and dangerous, and ends at Category 5 the most catastrophic. Nearly a year after Irma made landfall, the idea of changing the scale continues to rage. In February 2018, climate scientists met in New Zealand to discuss, among other things, adding a new classification to Saffir-Simpson: Category 6. (In Australia and the Indian Ocean, hurricanes are referred to as cyclones.) Advertisement "Since the scale is now used as much in a scientific context as it is a damage assessment context, it makes sense to introduce a category six to describe the unprecedented strength 200 mile per hour storms we've seen over the past few years both globally [Cyclone Patricia] and here in the southern hemisphere [Cyclone Winston]," climatologist Michael Mann, director of Penn State University's Earth System Science Center, told the meeting as reported in The Guardian. It was a sentiment echoed by James Shaw, New Zealand's climate change minister, who said Cyclone Winston, which in 2016 was the strongest cyclone on record in the Southern Hemisphere, could have easily been a Category 6. Here's Shaw, again as quoted in The Guardian: "The only reason it wasn't a category-six cyclone is because we don't have a category six, but we might need one in the future." When Herbert S. Saffir and Robert H. Simpson developed the scale more than 40 years ago, people were not concerned about global warming and its role in fueling stronger hurricanes. Over time, however, climate change worsened, causing the temperatures of the oceans to rise. Hurricanes get their energy from warm water, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research says hurricanes will get wetter, have higher wind speeds and move more slowly as the planet's temperature continues to increase. In the past three years, scientists witnessed the strongest wind speeds ever measured in a tropical cyclone when Patricia roared over the Pacific with wind speeds at 215 mph (346 kph) in 2015. The next year, Winston stomped across the Southern Hemisphere thrashing Fiji (185 mph/300 kph), and, of course, Irma thundered across the Atlantic in 2017 (185 mph/300 kph). "We are seeing a qualitatively different type of hurricane now posing a threat to us and our infrastructure," Mann told NPR in June. Scientists, like Mann, are confident that as the oceans warm, we will see more storms with 200-plus mph (322-plus kph) sustained winds. Chris Davis, senior scientist and lab director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, begs to differ. He says a new category is not needed, because "it misses the point." What is needed, perhaps, Davis says in an interview, is for the scientific community to rethink the Saffir-Simpson scale and reconfigure it to make it more holistic. While the scale factors in a hurricane's wind speed to communicate the level of risk to the public, it doesn't tell people anything about the scale of the destruction they could potentially face. A new classification system should be able to better communicate the destruction hurricanes pose. For one thing, Davis says, it's not the wind that causes the most damage during a hurricane, but water, in the form of flooding and storm surge. "We have to think carefully about some of the other hazards and communicate them to the people, so they can understand," Davis says. Here's a recap of the Saffir-Simpson scale: Category 1 storms have sustained winds of 74-95 miles (119-153 kilometers) per hour. These are dangerous winds that could damage roofs, snap tree branches and uproot some trees. Power outages can occur. Category 2 storms have sustained winds of 96-110 miles (154-177 kilometers). Such winds can cause extensive damage, including power loss, downed streets and major roof and siding damage to well-constructed frame houses. Category 3 storms have sustained winds of 111-129 miles (178-208 kilometers) per hour. Damage to homes can be major. Category 4 storms have sustained winds of 130-156 miles (209-251 kilometers) per hour. Property damage can be extensive. Most trees will snap or be uprooted. Power could be out for months, and most of the area devastated by the storm will be "uninhabitable for weeks or months." Category 5 storms have sustained winds of 157 mph (252 kilometers) or higher. Category 5s are the most catastrophic hurricanes, with total roof failures, collapsing walls and the isolation of neighborhoods due to downed trees and power lines. Frankly, Davis says, there's nothing more people can do during a potential Category 6 hurricane than they can do for a Category 5, which is already designated as catastrophic. People would not take any additional action to protect themselves. "Even though there is some indication that the storms are getting more intense, I don't know if it necessitates a higher scale," Davis says, adding a new classification system needs to be clear on what it means, and "how does it help" people. Such a system would help people decide what to do and evaluate the hazard they faced. Now That's Interesting A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the upper top of the world's oceans warmed by about 7 percent from 1971 to 2010. It was a busy week for the study of human impacts on the planet as a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University found evidence of human activity 3,000 years ago that destroyed local vegetation and irreparably damaged the Timna Valley environment. Analysis of ancient charcoal pits revealed deterioration of firewood quality due to overuse. Also, a small international team of archaeologists found that many ancient Maya cities were dangerously contaminated with mercury due to overuse of products that contained the toxic metal. And a team of researchers at Nanyang Technological University, working with a group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and another colleague from ETH Zurich, found that parts of many coastal cities are sinking faster than the sea is rising due to land subsidence. In technology news, a team at Stanford University found that charging electric vehicles at home at night is not the way to go. The stress on the electric grid, they found, could increase peak demand by 25%. Also, a team with members from institutions across the U.S. developed a cobalt-free cathode for lithium-ion batteriesan option that could mitigate price volatility and geopolitical complications. And a combined team from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, developed a lithium-ion battery material that breaks the barrier on fast charging, potentially opening a pathway to improved charging for electric vehicles. Also, a team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a new way to generate electricity using ocean waves by harnessing static electricity. In other news, a trio of researchers at the University of Houston discovered a muscle that can promote glucose and fat burning to fuel metabolism for hours while sitting. Stimulation of the soleus muscle in the calf, they found, could elevate muscle metabolism. Also, a team at NASA has been developing a means for deflecting an asteroid, which is a key test of planetary defense. And finally, a team with members from the University of Colorado, the University of Arizona and Alma College found that resistance-breathing training using a device called POWERbreathe can lower blood pressure. In some cases, it works as well as medications or exercise. 2022 Science X Network Citation: Best of Last WeekCoastal cities sinking, when to charge electric cars, prepping for deflecting asteroids (2022, September 26) retrieved 3 October 2022 from https://sciencex.com/news/2022-09-weekcoastal-cities-electric-cars-prepping.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. Credit: University of Colorado at Boulder As countries try to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and slow climate change, scientists see biofuels as a partial answer. Made from plants or biowaste, these energy-dense chemicals offer a sustainable solution to petrochemicals, which remain important in transportation and the plastics industry, among others. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder are helping produce oleochemicals from oilseed crops to help meet escalating demand for renewable fuels, industrial chemicals and other byproducts. The Fox Group, led by Jerome Fox, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at CU Boulder, was awarded $1.1 million of a five-year, $12.8 million U.S. Department of Energy grant, which involves seven universities and institutions and paves the way for broader use of non-food oilseed crops in the chemical industry. The team, led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will produce genetically enhanced oilseeds, establish the "rules" of oilseeds' metabolic circuitry and develop synthetic biology tools for crop improvement that could ultimately help scientists across the country. "We are incredibly fortunate to work with Ed Cahoon (the lead principal investigator)," Fox said. "He assembled an extraordinary team of plant biochemists and adventurous biologists; we could imagine none better. We are excited to build new relationships across traditional scientific boundaries as we attempt to engineer a challenging host system." To conduct the research, the team will use modeling tools developed by The Fox Group. The group will take those tools, originally developed to investigate fatty acid synthesis in E. coli, and apply them to camelina and pennycress, members of the mustard family that have the potential to generate the fatty acids necessary for producing biofuels. Plants convert carbon dioxide into fatty acids in cell parts called plastids; in oilseeds, plastids function as a "biofactory" that controls the amount and types of fatty acids produced. The fatty acids are the building blocks of plant triacylglycerols (TAGs), an important raw material for renewable fuels and chemicals. Fox says that synthetic biologythe use of engineering principles to control, modify, or build biological systemshas enormous potential, but the field has tended to focus on two model organisms: E. coli and baker's yeast. The grant leverages recent advances in synthetic biology and data science to engineer plants with genomes that are 10100 times the size of those of E. coli or yeast. Fox's lab began its biofuels work with the fatty acid pathway of E. coli. Work carried out by Katie Mains, ChBE Ph.D. student, Jackson Peoples, ChemBioEngr'22 and Sophia Ruppe, ChemBioEng'20 (Ph.D.) showed that detailed mathematical models can supply a predictive understanding of fatty acid production in this microbe, Fox said. "We used our early models as 'idea machines,'" he added. "Katie's (Main's) work, which showed how simultaneous changes in protein concentrations can help fine-tune chemical production, was instrumental in building a theoretical foundation for this grant. We are excited to build on her work in a new organism." The project's focus is on the inner workings of the plastidon how multiple enzymes work in concert to dictate fatty acid productionan approach the team says has been overlooked to date. The Fox Group will develop detailed mathematical models for fatty acid biosynthesis and TAG production in plants; these models will be supportedand validatedwith measurements of broad sets of metabolic intermediates collected at different time points and in different biological contexts. The models will help predict TAG assembly in different plant systems and guide the design of new non-food oilseed crops. Pennycress and camelina oilseeds aren't ideal precursors for bioproductsyet. Their oil content is suboptimalroughly 30% of their seed weight is oil, falling short of the 40% or more targetand they contain a less-than-ideal mixture of fatty acids. The overall project's aim is to change both characteristics, trying to make more oil per seed as well as a more defined chemical structure to make biomaterials with more uniform and consistent properties. The project focuses on pennycress and camelina because these plants do not compete with food cropsan important consideration when the global population is expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050. In addition, the oilseeds are resilient, able to grow as winter cover crops or on marginal or underused land. "The challenges are non-trivial, but the opportunity for learningand new technology developmentis immense," Fox said. Why biofuel research is important Even if cars are electrified, demand for liquid fuels for jets, tractor-trailers and heavy equipment will continue. Renewable sources can also be used for chemical applications, such as making bioplastics and lubricants. New oilseed crops represent an opportunity for farmers to diversify their operations and expand into new markets. Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder LSU is one of 22 universities and colleges in the U.S. designated by the National Security Agency as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations. Credit: LSu The National Security Agency, or NSA, the nation's preeminent cybersecurity agency, has designated LSU as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations, or CAE-CO. LSU joins only 21 other universities and colleges in the U.S. with the designation, which is reserved for institutions capable of educating high-performing students and advancing operational technologies and techniques critical to intelligence, military and law enforcement organizations. LSU is the only university in Louisiana to hold the CAE-CO designation. Peers include Carnegie Mellon, New York University, the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy. The designation will have at least two immediate impacts on LSU students and faculty, according to Professor Golden G. Richard III, director of the LSU Applied Cybersecurity Lab and faculty lead for CAE-CO at LSU. "For students, this will magnetize LSU as a great choice to study very technical and applied cybersecurity, which now leads to jobs with starting salaries in the six figures," Richard said. "CAE-CO designation drastically increases the exposure of our program, both nationally and internationally. Importantly, it also gives LSU access to grants that are only available to CAE schools. This means significant pots of money for students, projects and equipment." A key requirement for CAE-CO designation is a course in reverse engineering, necessary for deep understanding of how malware operates and how cyberattacks occur. "Getting the CAE-CO designation means the agency that does the most important cybersecurity work in the world has taken a deep-dive into your curriculum and basically given you a thumbs-up," Richard said. The CAE-CO designation will immediately position LSU computer science students to secure internships at agencies like the NSA, CIA, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as make them among the most coveted cyber graduates. "Last year, LSU received an invitation from the National Security Agency to apply for the prestigious Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations designation. As the only university to receive an invitation, this recognition affirmed our position as a state and national leader in cyber and defense," said William F. Tate IV, LSU President. "After establishing our Scholarship First Agenda, we committed to attaining elite status and impactful outcomes in each of the five areas. With a cluster hire of cyber experts joining a strong LSU faculty and now receiving the Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations designation, we march forward on a pathway of promise that leads to world class standing." The news follows LSU's announcement earlier this year of bold investments and commitment to leadership in cybersecurity and military studies with support from Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, Louisiana State Police, Louisiana National Guard, the United States Secret Service and Radiance Technologies. With an existing national workforce gap of more than 500,000 unfilled positions, cybersecurity is expected to offer some of the fastest-growing and most lucrative careers over the next decade. In Louisiana, which is an important distribution point and source of energy, food and fiber for the nation, top cybersecurity talent and technologies are urgently needed to protect people and assets, including critical infrastructure. "LSU's computer science with a concentration in cybersecurity program is the first newly designated CAE-CO program in over two years," said Jason A. Smith, CAE-CO program manager at the NSA. "The designation recognizes that an institution provides an in-depth focus on technologies and techniques related to specialized cyber operations, such as exploitation, reverse engineering, analysis and responsequality academic programs that help produce the nation's cyber workforce." In 2021, LSU was the only university in the nation selected by the NSA to apply for CAE-CO designation, while also helping the agency evaluate its new online application process. "Some of our previous work with exceptional LSU professors and their institutional knowledge of the CAE-CO program made them a prime candidate to pilot our new designation process," Smith said. "Now, LSU students will have additional opportunities for scholarships and grants through the Department of Defense Cyber Scholarship Program and CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service." The NSA awards three designations as part of its National Centers of Academic Excellence program. The CAE-CO is the most technical, and reserved for institutions like LSU that have demonstrated a deeply interdisciplinary approach to cyber operations in computer science, computer engineering or electricial engineering with extensive opportunities for hands-on applications via labs and exercises. The CAE-CD or Cyber Defense designation, currently held by 355 schools, is awarded to regionally accredited academic institutions that offer cybersecurity degrees or certificates at the associate, bachelor's or graduate level. Cyber Research, or CAE-R, designation, held by 79 institutions, is awarded to Department of Defense schools and Ph.D.-producing military academies and universities with at least moderate research activity, according to the Carnegie Foundation classification system. As a CAE-CO-designated university, LSU will work with the NSA and similarly designated schools to define and redefine the meaning of state-of-the-art cybersecurity education and research in a rapidly evolving discipline. Recent investments in labs for digital forensics and protection of industrial control systems, through an expansion of the FIREStarter initiative, are part of LSU's ongoing effort to develop homegrown cybersecurity talent to defend the state and nation and vital industries. LSU students majoring in computer science with a concentration in cybersecurity already secured two among a total of 24 paid positions in the agency's CAE-CO internship program this past summer. Sarah Buckley from Mandeville, Louisiana was one of them. "I felt so lucky to be working with the NSA this summer and am really excited that LSU is receiving this designation now," Buckley said. "It will increase our focus on applied solutions to help defend Louisiana and the nation, supercharge LSU's cybersecurity program and rocket us forward as students." Learn more about the LSU cybersecurity program; watch LSU Professor Golden G. Richard III talk about cybersecurity at LSU in a recent episode of On Par with the President and meet LSU cybersecurity student Sarah Buckley. Federal partners of the NSA National Centers of Academic Excellence program include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense Office of the Chief Information Officer and U.S. Cyber Command. Additional Links: LSU Attracts Two of the Nation's Top Cybersecurity Professors: https://www.lsu.edu/mediacenter/news/2022/09/top-cybersecurity-professors.php LSU Announces Strategy and Commitment to Become Leader in Cybersecurity, Military Studies: https://www.lsu.edu/mediacenter/news/2022/03/16defenseinitiatives.php Provided by Louisiana State University KINGSTREE, S.C. A former Francis Marion University biology professor and current instructor at Williamsburg Technical College died Wednesday in a single-vehicle crash on U.S. 52 north of Kingstree. The Kingstree News identified the driver as Dr. Erin Eaton, 44, of Florence, based on a statement by Williamsburg County Coroner Ivori Henryland. According to the S.C. Highway Patrol, shortly after 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, a 2006 Toyota Avalon was traveling north of Kingstree on U.S. 52 when it went into a ditch and then hit a tree. The wreck remains under investigation. Both FMU President Fred Carter and biology department Chair Vernon Bauer said they will remember Eaton as a friend and colleague. The university community mourns Erins passing, Carter said through a statement released by the university. We have about a dozen faculty who grew up here in the Pee Dee and ultimately returned to teach at Francis Marion. Erin was one of those. She loved this region and its people dearly. She acquired her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of South Carolina and Vanderbilt and then joined our biology faculty in 2006. Erin was a good colleague and a fine professor. She was a gifted teacher and researcher, and she worked hard engaging her students in both endeavors. She was well respected both for her intellect and her enthusiasm. Bauer, through the same announcement, said he and others at FMU were devastated to learn of Eatons death. During the 16 years she spent as a member of FMUs biology department, she clearly enjoyed teaching and invested her time and energy into her students, Bauer said. She was excited to embark on a new challenge at Williamsburg Technical College this fall. There is no doubt that weve lost someone with a giving heart and brilliant mind. We grieve with Erins family during this difficult time. Eaton received her bachelor of science degree in biology in 1996 at the University of South Carolina. She earned her Ph.D. in molecular physiology and biophysics in 2003 at Vanderbilt University. She served as a post-doctoral fellow from 2003 to 2005 in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at the Medical University of South Carolina. She was an adjunct instructor of anatomy and physiology in 2005-2006 at Trident Technical College. Another look at Oregon's drug decriminalization efforts now a few years in | Main | Taking account of extreme sentences under "habitual offender" laws in Mississippi and Louisiana September 26, 2022 Kentucky parole board orders school shooter to serve out the remainder of his life sentence In this post last month, titled "Grappling with parole possibilities a quarter-century after horrific school shooting by young teen," I flagged an article discussing the first modern teen school shooter who was due to receive parole consideration 25 years after his crime. This new lengthy CNN piece reports on the results of the process, and here are excerpts: The Kentucky Parole Board on Monday denied parole to Michael Carneal, a man serving a life sentence for killing three students in a school shooting in 1997 when he was 14 years old. The ruling by the full parole board to have Carneal serve out his sentence comes after a two-person panel failed to reach a unanimous decision about Carneals release last week. Due to the seriousness of your crime your crime involved a weapon, you had lives taken, and the seriousness, again it is the decision of the parole board today to allow you to serve out the remainder of your sentence, Parole Board Chairperson Ladeidra Jones said Monday. Carneal, who attended the hearing via video conference, responded, Yes maam, and stepped out of frame. Carneal has served nearly 25 years in prison for opening fire at Heath High School in Paducah on December 1, 1997, killing the three students and wounding five others just after the students prayer circle in the lobby said Amen. Carneal pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, and a count of first-degree burglary. While he was sentenced to life in prison, Kentucky law requires that minors be considered for parole after 25 years. Many survivors and families of the victims were opposed to Carneals requested release. But now 39, Carneal pleaded his case to members of the parole board in a hearing last week, saying that if he were released, he planned to live with his parents, continue undergoing mental health treatment and eventually get a job. Carneals public defender, Alana Meyer, asked the board to remember Carneal was a teenager when he opened fire, was suffering from undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and was struggling with bullying and the transition from middle to high school. In the quarter century since, Carneal has committed himself to his mental health treatment, to participating in available educational and vocational programs, and to being a helpful and positive person within the prison, Meyer wrote.... Carneal told the panel he has received multiple mental health diagnoses and has long heard voices in his head including on the day of the shooting. He said that before opening fire he heard a voice telling him to pick up the gun out of the backpack and hold it in front of me and shoot. Theres no justification or excuse for what I did, Carneal said. Im offering an explanation. I realize theres no excuse for what I did. Carneal said he still hears voices in his head, but now knows when to ignore them. A colleague has informed me that there is litigation in lower courts contesting the legality of the Kentucky parole board converting a life with parole sentence into a life without parole sentence via this kind of "serve out" order. September 26, 2022 at 03:48 PM | Permalink Comments The Kentucky state litigation concerning the legality and Constitutionality of these kinds of "SERVE OUT" orders by the Parole Board for inmates with paroleable life sentences (which leads to parole consideration after serving 25 years) can be found at "Lance Conn, et al. v. Kentucky Parole Board", Appeal No. 2020-CA-1495-MR (Ky. App. April 22, 2022)(affirming the Circuit Court's denial of the appellants Motion for Summary Judgment), application for discretionary review to the Kentucky Supreme Court pending, No. 2022-SC-0198-DR (fully briefed and submitted, July 25, 2022). The relevant statute concerning the issuance of SERVE OUT Orders being reviewed is KRS 439.340(14). Posted by: Jim Gormley | Sep 26, 2022 6:53:07 PM The SERVE OUT Order (no further consideration for parole will ever be made) for this defendant is peculiarly interesting in light of the Supreme Court's "Miller" case, holding that no person who was a juvenile when he committed his crimes, can be sentenced to a life without the possibility of parole sentence. Does the Kentucky Parole Board's one-time consideration for parole after the defendant has served 25 years (denied), and then serve out the life sentence without any further consideration of parole satisfy the requirements of Miller? Posted by: Jim Gormley | Sep 26, 2022 6:59:47 PM Well I can certainly see why "struggling" with the transition from middle school to high schools would cause you to murder three people who were just sitting there. Do these people even hear themselves? Posted by: Bill Otis | Sep 27, 2022 8:12:12 PM Post a comment Rounding up some notable justice coverage and commentary from Law360's Access to Justice | Main | Another look at Oregon's drug decriminalization efforts now a few years in September 26, 2022 Spotlighting the ugly problems with incarceration deaths (and with data collection by the Justice Department) Last week brought this notable bipartisan Senate report with a title that largely highlights its main points: "Uncounted Deaths in Americas Prisons & Jails: How the Department Of Justice Failed to Implement the Death In Custody Reporting Act." Here is the report's "Executive Summary": Approximately 1.5 million people are incarcerated in state and local correctional facilities throughout the United States. Thousands die every year. The Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (DCRA 2013 or the reauthorization) reauthorizing a law that first passed in 2000 requires states that accept certain federal funding to report to the Department of Justice (DOJ or the Department) about who is dying in prisons and jails. Over the course of a ten-month bipartisan investigation into DOJs implementation of the law, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI or the Subcommittee) found that DOJ is failing to effectively implement DCRA 2013. DOJs failed implementation of DCRA 2013 undermined the effective, comprehensive, and accurate collection of custodial death data. This failure in turn undermined transparency and Congressional oversight of deaths in custody. The Subcommittee has found that DOJ will be at least eight years past-due in providing Congress with the DCRA 2013-required 2016 report on how custodial deaths can be reduced. The Subcommittee also highlights the following key facts: in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 alone, DOJ failed to identify at least 990 prison and arrest related deaths; and 70% of the data DOJ collected was incomplete. DOJ failed to implement effective data collection methodology, despite internal warnings from the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). DOJs failures were preventable. Here was just some of the media coverage from the release of this report and the associated hearing: From The Marshall Project, "A Moral Disgrace: How The U.S. Stopped Counting Deaths Behind Bars; The Department of Justice is failing miserably at collecting data on deaths. Experts say that makes it hard to identify the worst prisons and jails." From NBC News, "Hundreds of prison and jail deaths go uncounted by the federal government, report finds; A Senate subcommittee hearing is focusing on how lawmakers say the Justice Department has "failed to implement" the Death in Custody Reporting Act. From The Washington Post, "DOJ slammed by senators over poor reporting on deaths in custody" September 26, 2022 at 08:56 AM | Permalink Comments During the first year of the CV-19 pandemic, some states were dramatically fudging their "Death in Custody" numbers by during the last days of the inmates' lives, granting "medical parole" to inmates who had been taken from prison to die of CV-19 in hospitals on the street. Thus, they would technically not be "in custody" on the day of death, so their deaths would not be counted or reported thru the states' prison systems. As I recall, the Boston "Globe" newspaper ran articles about how that practice was done dozens of times in Massachusetts in 2020-2021. Really, the bureaucrats who did this should be criminally prosecuted. I also recall that in 2020, more than half of the cases of CV-19 in Ohio were inside the state's jails and prisons -- such a horror story. Posted by: Jim Gormley | Sep 26, 2022 10:18:15 AM Post a comment nobu singapore omakase Nobu Matsuhisa is coming to Singapore next week to cook an omakase dinner for the first time since opening his restaurant here. The celebrity chef and restauranteur will be presenting an eight-course menu featuring his signatures and exclusive dishes for two nights only on 28 and 29 September 2022. This is Matsuhisas maiden visit since launching the Nobu brand here in June 2022, which began in 1994 in New York and now stretches to London, Paris, Milan, Dubai, Sydney, and Hong Kong. Chef Nobu Matsuhisa (Image credit: Evan Sung) Nobu is famous for combining Japanese techniques with Peruvian ingredients, which he calls Nobu style. During the omakase, he will present his philosophy in dishes like Grilled Squid with Fresh Kohlrabi Salad, Japanese Miyazaki Wagyu A5 with Teriyaki Balsamic Sauce, as well as an assortment of hot and cold items, salad, noodles, and dessert. He will also prepare the sushi course using his renowned six-step process. For those unable to make it to Nobus dinner, the restaurant has recently introduced their Teppanyaki Omakase and Chefs Table Omakase menus. The Teppanyaki Omakase offers eight courses ranging from seasonal seafood to a meat course prepared in front of diners, while Nobu Singapore executive chef Hideki Maeda takes charge of the 11 courses in the Chefs Table Omakase. Both menus are served in a private space. Teppanyaki Omakase Menu (Image credit: Nobu Singapore) The Chef Nobu In Town Omakase dinner is priced at $395++ per person, and is limited to 40 diners each night. The Teppanyaki Omakase is S$365++ and the Chefs Table Omakase is S$475++. Both are served daily. Chef Nobu In Town Omakase dinner 28 29 September 2022 S$395++ per person Nobu is located at 190 Orchard Blvd, Level 3, Singapore 248646. Book here. The post Chef Nobu is serving an omakase dinner in Singapore for two nights only appeared first on Lifestyle Asia Singapore. TEHRAN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian nuclear chief said Monday that the verification of Iran's nuclear activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should be "impartial and independent," official IRNA news agency reported. Making the remarks at a meeting of the annual IAEA General Conference in the Austrian capital of Vienna, Mohammad Eslami said Iran's nuclear program is aimed at civilian use in the field of electricity generation, health, agriculture, environment, and industry. Speaking of the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he said that based on the deal, "Iran accepts restrictions on enrichment activities, reducing the speed and capacity of nuclear activities, and a strict verification system for a specified period." "In return, the other party should remove the oppressive illegal sanctions and obstacles ... and end false claims against Iran's peaceful activities and programs," Eslami was quoted as saying. Eslami said Iran reduced parts of its commitments as a compensatory measure taken in response to the violation of the obligations of other parties to the deal. He blamed the United States for its withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 and slapping sanctions against Iran, emphasizing that if the other parties to the agreement re-embrace their obligations by removing obstacles and sanctions, "the continuation of Iran's executive actions (concerning the JCPOA) will be determined by obtaining legal permission from the Iranian parliament." The Iranian atomic chief denied any alleged "undeclared nuclear activity or material in Iran" and noted that all accusations are based on "fabricated and false information" from Israel. The Islamic Republic expects "the agency to conduct its reporting, monitoring and verification in a more professional, impartial and independent manner," he said, urging the UN nuclear watchdog to drop "old accusations that were raised over the years and closed in 2015." Iran has called the IAEA allegations about "undeclared" trace of uranium in three Iranian sites "political" and has urged the closure of the case as a prerequisite for the conclusion of international talks aimed at the revival of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. From pools facing spectacular nature to some steeped in jaw-dropping luxury, youll need to make a trip to at least one of these swimming pools on this list. Crown Towers Pool, Perth, Australia (Photo: Agoda.com) One of the newest hotels and the largest swimming pool in Perth, Crown Towers resort-style pool features ample sunbeds, space and best of all, heated pools! Bondi Beach is just a 20-minute drive away from Sydney city center (Photo: Gettyimages) The landmark Bondi Icebergs Baths in Australia has a 50-metre lap pool and the Pacific Ocean crashing into it, which really, are reasons enough to check it out. Porto Moniz coastal town, Madeira, during summer (Photo: Gettyimages) Heres where you can take a dip in natural volcanic rock pools formed aeons ago when lava meets the Atlantic Ocean while watching it crash against and shape this little piece of heaven. Katikies Hotel, Oia, Greece (Photo: Agoda) While there are plenty of hotels and pools overlooking the Aegean Sea in Greece, this is one of the more affordable options which provides an unobstructed view of the sea. Watch the sunset from one of the most iconic swimming pools in the world at Marina Bay Sands (Photo: Gettyimages) One of Singapore's most visually recognisable icons, the worlds largest rooftop infinity pool is situated on level 57 of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and boasts a panoramic view of the citys skyline. Caruso, A Belmond Hotel, Amalfi Coast, Italy (Photo: Agoda) Is it a mirror or a pool? Get away from reality and enter this oasis of pure Italian indulgence in this luxury spa hotel situated off the Amalfi Coast. The Oberoi Udaivilas, Udaipur, India (Photo: Agoda) This luxury hotel and resort boasts stunning architecture, intricate details within its rooms and general decor, and even rooms with semi-private pools overlooking Lake Pichola. Gold Energy Pool, Lhasa, Tibet (Photo: Tripadvisor) Located within The St. Regis Lhasa Resort, this indoor pool is maintained at 28-30C, with higher humidity and air pressure than outside, so guests can relax and acclimatise in luxurious comfort. Just chilling in a heated pool by the alps. (Photo: The Cambrian Hotel) Not a keen fan of snow sports? No problem, youll feel just as close to nature when you soak in this jaw-dropping infinity pool looking over the Alps. Which one of these would you travel for? When Janet Brown Lowe was executive director of the German American Heritage Center during 2011-16, she made it her mission to sort through the vast amount of German-related books, pamphlets, newsletters and various papers that had been donated to the museum since its opening in 2000. Into one pile, she put references to things, events and people that she thought would make interesting exhibits or programs. Included was information on blaudruck, which, after research, she learned is a centuries-old textile art of creating by hand blue fabric with white designs. The art nearly died out during the Industrial Revolution when machines became capable of printing on fabric. But Brown Lowe located a shop in Jever, in northern Germany, whose owner still practices the nearly lost art and who agreed to make four pieces for an exhibit. The Jever shop is one of about a dozen that remain in Germany, and there also is a smattering in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. In 2018, the art was recognized by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To qualify, a practice must be recognized by communities as part of their cultural heritage, be transmitted from generation to generation and provide a sense of identity and continuity. An exhibit on blaudruck, assembled by center staff and Brown Lowe, has opened in the small room off the centers third floor elevator. To my knowledge (admittedly limited), I believe this is the first time that an art form with this designation has been exhibited in the Quad-Cities, Brown Lowe, of Bettendorf, said. Blaudruck, or blue print, is made using a technique called resist dyeing, similar to using a wax marker to draw a design on an Easter egg, then dyeing it. The waxed area stays white while the rest of the egg takes on the color of the dye. But instead of using a wax marker on fabric, blaudruck artisans apply a special-recipe paste on wood blocks that have been carved with elaborate designs, then hand-press the blocks onto lengths of fabric. Wherever the paste touches the fabric will remain white when the cloth is lowered into vats of liquid indigo dye, made from a plant. In addition to placards that explain blaudruck, artifacts in the exhibit include an apron, shawl, handkerchief, table cloth and three dolls with blaudruck clothing on loan from the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids. Wood printing blocks from Iowas Amana Colonies also are on display. The blocks were used to make blaudruck by hand early on, and then as mechanization increased, the colonies cotton mill produced blue-and-white cloth made by machine. Two fabric sample cards used by salesmen show the various designs that were available. At one time, the mill made 4,500 yards a day that were sold coast-to-coast, Brown Lowe said. The mill closed when it could no longer import indigo from Germany during World War I, and it is now the Amana Furniture Shop, she said. The appearance of blaudrack varies among artisans because there are so many variables, from the recipe for making the dye to how long and often the cloth is immersed in the dye. To learn the art, a person has to master all these aspects as well as learn how to make the paste, how much pressure to apply when stamping the fabric, and how to stretch the fabric after it is removed from the vat. Blaudruck shops are generally family-owned and operated, producing on a small scale. It is common for workshops to close when the primary artists dies. The exhibit at the German center will continue through May, with related programming including classes to make psanky eggs and holiday-themed tea towels as well as a childrens workshop in watercolors. Before becoming executive director of the German center, Brown Lowe taught German for 33 years at Bettendorf High School. MIAMI (AP) Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank have voted to fire its president, Mauricio Claver-Carone, after an ethics probe found he likely carried on an intimate relationship with a subordinate. The governors from the IADB's 48 members had until Tuesday to vote electronically on whether to sack Claver-Carone following a unanimous recommendation last week by the bank's board to fire of the first American to lead the bank in its 63-year history. But enough ballots had been cast by Monday afternoon to meet the necessary quorum. The IDB in a statement said that in accordance with the bank's charter Executive Vice President Reina Mejia would take over as acting president until a new leader is chosen. An investigation conducted at the boards request determined that Claver-Carone violated ethics rules by giving a 40% salary increase to his chief of staff, with whom it said he likely had a romantic relationship from at least 2019, when both worked at the White House, according to a copy of the report obtained by the AP. Claver-Carone has denied ever having a relationship with his top aide and said that the investigation, conducted by New York law firm Davis Polk, was seriously flawed. In an interview Monday, Claver-Carone said he is considering legal action against the international financial institution for allegedly defaming his good name and violating provisions in his employment contract. He also lashed out at the Biden administration for not standing up for the due process rights of one of its citizens. The Bank has failed to meet the mark as a rules-based institution, he wrote in a parting letter to the governors, complaining that he was never formally notified of the anonymous complaint that triggered the probe or allowed to correct inaccuracies in the investigators' confidential report. The future of the Bank is at stake. Moving forward it will be essential to ensure that the ad hoc and arbitrary disregard for rules and procedures are never repeated." The banks executive board lost confidence in Claver-Carone's leadership as a result of evidence including a contract he and his aide purportedly drew up on the back of a place mat in the summer of 2019 while they dined at a steakhouse in Medellin, Colombia. Both were there attending the annual meeting of the Organization of American States. In it, they allegedly outline a timeline for divorcing their spouses and getting married. There is also a breach clause stating that any failure to fulfill the terms would bring sadness and heartbreak that could only be mitigated by candlewax and a naughty box from an oceanfront hotel in Claver-Carones native Miami. While investigators found no evidence that Claver-Carone broke the bank's travel policies to cover up the purported romance, it faulted him for not fully cooperating with their probe by refusing to hand over his work phone and providing access to communications from his personal phone and email. It also said he likely violated the bank's conflict of interest policy, which bars managers from employment decisions on behalf of individuals with whom they have an intimate relationship, when he unilaterally awarded his aide a 40% salary increase. The findings recall accusations of ethical lapses against another Republican atop a multilateral institution, former Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned as head of the World Bank in 2007 for arranging a generous pay raise for his girlfriend. The Inter-American Development Bank is the biggest multilateral lender to Latin America, disbursing last year a record $23 billion to alleviate poverty made worse by the coronavirus pandemic in the region. The U.S. is the largest shareholder, with 30% of voting rotes. Claver-Carone was elected president in the final months of the Trump administration despite grumblings from Democrats and some others in the region. While at the bank, he worked to curtail the influence of China, which joined the bank in 2009, and to boost engagement with Taiwan, which Beijing considers breakaway province. According to bank rules, Executive Vice President Reina Mejia, a Honduran national who spent most of her career at Citibank in Central America, will take over from Claver-Carone until a new president is elected. Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman The Japanese leader who normalized relations with China 50 years ago feared for his life when he flew to Beijing for the high-stakes negotiations at the peak of the Cold War. That's according to his daughter, a former Japanese foreign minister who spoke to The Associated Press ahead of the 50th anniversary Thursday of the communique Kakuei Tanaka signed with China's Zhou Enlai. Tanaka was confident and ambitious, his daughter says, but his mission to normalize relations with China was a huge gamble. He told her before leaving that he would resign if his mission failed. The visit in 1972 followed President Richard Nixon's visit to China months earlier that transformed the then-isolated nation's position in the world. Nebraska officials announced Friday that they have chosen three health plans to manage the bulk of the states $1.8 billion Medicaid program. The three are Molina Healthcare of Nebraska, Nebraska Total Care and UnitedHealth Care of the Midlands. Two, Nebraska Total Care and UnitedHealth Care, have current contracts with the state. Molina HealthCare is new to Nebraska but provides Medicaid, Medicare and Affordable Care Act marketplace plans in several other states. Were excited to work with these three health plans to ensure Medicaid members in Nebraska continue to receive the health care that they need, said Dannette R. Smith, CEO of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. HHS plans to contract with the three companies to manage physical and behavioral health care, pharmacy services and dental benefits for almost all Medicaid patients in a program called Heritage Health. Together, they will oversee the care of some 347,000 Nebraskans. The winning bidders were selected from among five contenders. Not chosen were Community Care Plan of Nebraska, doing business as Healthy Blue, which currently contracts with the state, and Medica Community Health Plan, which currently offers health coverage to Nebraskans through the ACA marketplace. It remains to be seen whether either of the losing bidders will appeal the state's decision, as occurred when the current contracts were awarded. State lawmakers have criticized Nebraska's procurement process after at least three cases in which the process led to the selection of a low-cost bidder that ended up failing to do the job. State Medicaid Director Kevin Bagley said he was "extremely pleased" with all five bids. He said they were scored based on quality, appropriateness and thoroughness, and officials did an optional interview with each bidder to find out more about their plans and priorities. Bagley said key issues during the interviews included incorporating dental services within the health plans, actively using voluntary care and case management to improve members lives, standardizing certain requirements for providers, providing innovations to add value to members health care experiences and improving access to providers across Nebraska. The new contracts are slated to start Jan. 1, 2024, six months later than previously planned. Bagley said officials will be working with the three plans during that time to provide for an orderly transition from the current contracts. In addition, he said, Medicaid officials will be meeting with people across Nebraska, both in person and online, to talk about the changes, answer questions and adjust plans as needed. A listening tour will be held in mid-to-late October, with more details to come. The current Heritage Health contracts date to 2017, when the state signed with three private companies to administer what was then $1.2 billion worth of Medicaid services. Since then, two of the original three companies merged, which led to the state signing a contract with Healthy Blue. Heritage Health does not cover nursing home care and other long-term support and services for the elderly and people with disabilities. Over the past two decades, Kate Atkinson has written two kinds of novels: a very popular series of literary mysteries featuring a private detective named Jackson Brodie, and complex, often mournful historical novels about the war-scarred lives of 20th-century Britons. Which category does her latest, Shrines of Gaiety, fall into? The welcome answer is a bit of both. The novel is a wondrously intricate piece of narrative clockwork set in London eight years after World War I and centered around Nellie Coker, a notorious nightclub owner based on a real-life figure who also inspired a character in Evelyn Waughs Brideshead Revisited. But it also features a surprisingly large number of corpses, and follows Detective Chief Inspector John Frobisher as he sets out to solve an alarming uptick in young women fished out of the Thames at a spot called Dead Mans Hole. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nellie Coker operates a nightlife empire of five clubs, each with a particular theme and caliber of clientele, but most employing hostesses who can be hired to dance with patrons. (Just how much further they decide to take such arrangements seems to be no particular concern of Nellies, but when one of Atkinsons characters takes a job at a club called the Amethyst, she makes enough money to steer clear of prostitution.) The novel opens in 1926 with a crowd gathered to greet the release of Ma Coker from Holloway prison, where she has finished serving a six-month sentence for violating liquor license laws. Some of those assembled hold up signs with scolding Bible verses about the wages of sin, but the better-dressed among them have come to cheer for a tabloid darling and den mother to the eras giddy decadence. Advertisement Advertisement London in the 1920s, and especially the shenanigans of the Bright Young Thingsa group of socialites famous for their extravagant costume parties and excessive drinkinghas provided fodder for dozens of novelists, including Waugh, Nancy Mitford, and Anthony Powell, all of whom were counted among the Bright Young Things themselves. In Shrines of Gaiety, everyone in town is talking about a bestselling book, later adapted for the stage, portraying this milieu: The Green Hat by Michael Arlen, a real novel now long forgotten. Theres also a character evidently based on Waugh, who despite fawning over the Bright Young Things in person, is at work on a book about how their brightness has become tarnished. This plan chagrins Nellies feckless son Ramsay, who fancies himself the writer best positioned to depict the intersection of the aristocracy and the underworld where his mothers businesses flourish. That is, if he can manage to actually write. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Atkinson herself doesnt have much use for the Bright Young Things. Ramsay plans to pen a razor-sharp dissection of the various strata of society in the wake of the destruction of the war, but the only strata that really interest his creator are the lower ones. The Jazz Age London of Shrines of Gaiety is nearly as merciless as Dickens Victorian metropolis and even more rife with crime and intrigue. Those without money cant afford to let the delirium go to their heads. When it comes to fun, Nellie observes, she didnt want any for herself but she was more than happy to provide it for others, for a sum. Not all of the novels characters are quite so dourly pragmatic, but apart from Inspector Frobisher, they make their livings off of other peoples good times. Advertisement Advertisement Shrines of Gaiety takes a while to gel into the brisk, sardonic, absorbing sort of novel that Atkinson fans have come to expect, in part because Nellie really isnt the main character. Opponents may marshal against her, ranging from an allegedly Maltese gangster to bent coppers to the incorruptible Frobisher, but Nellie herself remains essentially unchanging. She serves as the hub for a collection of fascinating spokes as the novel revolves among 15 different points of view, each chapter told from the perspective of a person connected to Nellie by blood or treasure. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The most engaging of these is Gwendolen Kelling, a former librarian who comes London in search of two runaway teenage girls. She and Frobisher make a deal: Hell help her find them, if she helps him infiltrate Nellies clubs. Competent, cool-headed, and witty, Gwendolen only ever escaped her controlling invalid mother by working as a battlefield nurse during the war. Now freshly liberated by her mothers death, she finds that going undercover at a glamorous, disreputable nightclub appeals to her newly activated sense of adventure. Nellie may not have much use for fun, but Gwendolyns sense of it is infectious. The novels other candidate for main character is one of the runaway girls, Freda, who has longed for a career on the stage since she toured the provinces with a troupe of knitwear models as a child. Fredas cherished memories of the esprit de corps of this tiny band of washed-up theatricals make for some of the novels funniest and tenderest scenes. Freda and her dim-witted bestie Florence seem like lambs headed for the slaughter when they arrive in the city, but as is often the case with Atkinsons characters, Freda has a working-persons diligence and determination undergirding her starry-eyed ambitions. She will not easily be chewed up or spit out. Advertisement Advertisement The novels shift in point of view from character to character gives the reader an aerial perspective on the novels interlocking storylines. Its irresistibly pleasurable to deduce the significance of certain cryptic objectsa single silver shoe, a bluebird broach, a metal box big enough to hold a human headand to witness passing encounters between characters who dont yet realize how important theyll become to each other. Coincidence probably plays more of a role in the proceedings that is strictly credible, but cities do work that way, tossing the same people together again and again in the churn of money-making and revelry (which in Atkinsons London are the same thing). With each of the multiple turns of the wheel, the overall patternincluding that string of murders bedeviling Frobishercomes into keener and more satisfying focus. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Behind it all is the Great War. Any account of London in the 1920s is a story of the aftermath of trauma. Gwendolen lost two brothers to the front. Frobishers wife has been driven mad by the death in a bombing raid of her child by an earlier marriage. Even sickly Ramsay, who was too young to enlist, doesnt feel real compared to his battle-tested older brother, Niven. Niven had Passchendaele at his back to give credence to his simmering outrage, Ramsay broods, whereas Ramsay had only a Swiss sanitorium and a burning desire to be acknowledged on a wider stage. Or any stage at all. Advertisement Advertisement The war is the defining experience for 1920s Londoners but, for some of them at least, it was also business as usual. Old war wound, the Maltese gangster tells Niven when the younger man notices a scar on his hand. Niven points out that the gangster wasnt in the war, and he replies, Theres more than one type of war, Mr. Coker. This, for Atkinson, marks the difference between characters like Freda or Gwendolen and someone like Frobishers wife. Those who cant accept that life is war, that struggle and loss are inevitable, either become utter nincompoops in their frenetic attempts at denial, like the Bright Young Things, or shadows of themselves, not really alive at all. This may sound like a grim message to embed in such a diverting novel, but the effect is instead heartening: Anything is survivable. Advertisement The result is not quite as resonant as 2013s Life After Life, Atkinsons masterpiece, a novel that rifles through the many alternate paths of a 20th-century womans fate like Nellie shuffling her fortune-telling Lenormand cards. But it also feels more momentous than the Jackson Brodie books, with their hero who drifts from mystery to mystery, unable to get a proper handle on his own destiny. Shrines of Gaiety does feature one brutally random act of chance reminiscent of the pivotal events that redirect the branching storylines of Life After Life. At heart, though, its a big, rewarding puzzle that casts a jaundiced eye at one of Londons historic heydays while slipping the reader a flask full of Jazz-Age thrills under the table. Slate receives a commission when you purchase items using the links on this page. Thank you for your support. 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. When millions of office employees started working from home in 2020, the plan for most was eventually to return to work, not stay remote forever. But two and a half years later, many workers really dont want to go back to the office, and companies are struggling to figure out how to convince them to return, offering enticements like free food, prizes, and even alcoholic beverages to draw workers back. Advertisement Some companies are getting more creative than that, as this person who wrote to me recounts: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I have seen a lot of lures, and none of them are working. Free Coffee Day! Free Continental Breakfast Day! Free Pretzel Day! Then they upped their game to Free Red Bull and come see some adoptable puppies! They literally had puppies in the office. They almost got me with that one. If it had been Free Wine and Kittens, I would have burned rubber to get there. I have to go in one day a week but I dont want to do more than that. It is a really nice building, with plenty of meeting space, cafeteria with good food, coffee shop, gym, etc. As nice as that is, I still prefer yoga pants and my cat as my only co-worker. I get my own bathroom, full kitchen, and no commute. They really cant beat that. Advertisement Advertisement Some of the incentives employers are offering the reluctant to return are rooted in a lack of understanding of what workers might actually find compelling, as this persons office demonstrates: The snacks have always been a staple, but the latest has been a cornhole tournament that has dragged on for months (presumably because nobody wants to come in for their matches). Work-hour events with alcohol seem to bring in the most people, but its still a small portion. I feel like single offices (we have an open plan), child/pet/elder care stipends, or honestly a factual, mathematical explanation of why on-site work is beneficial would go further toward getting people in. Advertisement Of course, employers have the power to simply order employees back on-site. But many are taking a softer touch out of fear of losing significant portions of their staff, or particularly key employees, if they implement a strict mandate. As a result, some teams are just refusing to return. Heres a sampling of what Ive heard from workers who have flat-out ignored their companies attempts to get them back on-site: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The C-suite at my company has been trying to bring everyone back to the office three days a week for about a year now, and my department (IT) has just collectively gone, Nah. Literally we just didnt do it. Some people did at first, but when they saw no one else was showing up, they mostly stopped too. My office is bringing everyone back for no reason and it is not working. We are required to be in the office three days a week but no one is doing it except for a handful of people who like working in the office. Our boss keeps trying to bribe us with cookies and cold brew but thats not nearly enough incentive. And there seems to be no stickno punishment for people who flout the rules and dont come in, so why would they? Its all very weird. I am currently job hunting for something fully remote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement My company actually did try pushing the issue, but honestly it just backfired. HR sent out angry emails about how we needed to be in the office, a few people went in, those people saw that the office was still empty so they stopped coming in, repeat a few times, and now we all know that blatantly ignoring the higher-ups wont necessarily get us fired lol. They wouldve been better off just letting it go sooner. My company had mandated three days a week back in the office but I moved an eight-hour drive away, so I just said I couldnt. This is a combination of me being at a point in my career where I have the confidence and capital to say no and knowing that there is other work out there for someone with my experience level. I could easily find a job, even if the job market was slow. The pandemic has just made it so most of the jobs I see posted in my field are remote, which gives me even more confidence. Advertisement Advertisement With huge swaths of the population determined not to go back to the office, I asked workers what would lure them back, if anything. Heres some of what I heard: Advertisement What would get me back is real flexibility. Im happy to work a hybrid schedule, but I have no interest in working a job where the number of days I come to the office per week or per month are kept track of. If I have a month where it makes sense for me to spend most of my time in the office, thats fine. If I have a month where its just not necessary and I dont feel like putting on real pants, I would hope that my employer could be as flexible with me as Im willing to be with them. If I am doing my job to the expected standard, I hope that my employer can work with me in truly being flexible and not just worry about Butts in Seats. Advertisement To me, the biggest thing is being able to clearly explain why its necessary. Dont give some vague explanation like its time or we think its better but have a specific reason why you think its better to convince your employees that its beneficial. And that reason needs to be one that will hold up once people get there. Nothing is going to kill peoples enthusiasm about return to the office quicker than showing up and realizing that its exactly the same as working from homealso known as you made me commute 45 minutes for this? Why?? Advertisement Advertisement Im medically vulnerable so if my company wanted to get me back in the office theyd have to implement policies and safety measures that would keep me safe. Weve never had a vaccine mandate, they got rid of the masking policy as soon as legally possibly (and it was never actually enforced anyway), and have done nothing to implement improve air purification systems or other safety measures even though I work in the medical field and they know better. Showing how little they care about people like me gives me zero incentive to care about them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The ONLY thing that could get me to go back to an office five days a week would be a dream job and a dump truck full of money (i.e., an obscenely high salary) and living very close to the office. I dont care about food or swag or any of the other perks some companies are offering. I care about not wasting my time commuting, not wasting money on gas, being able to spend that extra time doing things like exercising or hanging out with my family, and being able to do minor household tasks during the day (like unloading the dishwasher or starting a load of laundry) while I microwave my lunch. Plus, I am more productive when I work from home so thats a benefit to my employer. Unless the job market in my field drastically changes and I have no choice but to take a job in an office, I am NEVER going back to working a job where I am in an office five days a week. Advertisement Advertisement Child care, too, continues to be very much an obstacle. Child care spots are still hard to come by in many areas, and parents are still dealing with schools sending kids home without notice because of a classroom outbreak. No surprise, then, that child care came up frequently when I asked what would get people back to their offices: Free or subsidized on-site child care is the only thing that would bring me back to an office. Eliminate my $4,000/month child care costs and in a setting where I dont have to shorten my workday to drop off/pick up my offspring? Ill work weekends too, and thank my employer for the privilege. Seriously. My company offers free, on-site child care for anybody coming into the office. Off-site child care (for two kids under 3) is $3,200/month. Im in the office every day. As is every parent of any kid aged 5 and under. Advertisement Advertisement The pandemic, it seems clear, has dramatically changed many peoples understanding of what work is, and what it does and doesnt need to be. The past two and a half years have shown many peoplealthough certainly not everyonethat they dont need to be in an office to get their work done. They dont need to sit in traffic for an hour or two a day to commute, or pay for the gas needed to do that. And if their employers cant counter with good reasons why those things are in fact necessary to get their work done, some workers just arent going back. Advertisement Advertisement Part of this is a messaging issue. Employers with legitimate reasons to want people back havent figured out how to communicate those reasons in a convincing way. Some teams are more productive in-person, and some remote workers underestimate the impact that staying remote has had on their teams workflow, or how others might be picking up some of their responsibilities that are more easily done on-site. But when thats the case, employers need to spell that out. Otherwise, if employers dont find ways to significantly increase the rewards for returning, efforts to cajole workers into giving up their newfound freedom and flexibility are likely to keep failing. Italians woke up Monday morning to the prospect of a post-fascist government, nearly eight decades after Benito Mussolini fell from power in Rome. Many are already analyzing the worrying consequences for Italy and Europebut here in the United States, the most relevant lesson comes not only from the disturbing victory of the fascist-linked Fratelli dItalia (Brothers of Italy), but also from the fate of the former strongman of the Italian right, Silvio Berlusconi. Sunday night, the man who reshaped modern Italian politics, in many ways setting an example for Donald Trump to follow, suffered a humiliating fifth-place finish, supplanted by his more radical proteges. That result may preview the future of a postDonald Trump Republican Party. Advertisement Berlusconior Il Cavaliere, as he is fondly, and sometimes mockingly, known in Italyrose to power in the 1990s, in the wake of the implosion of the Christian Democrats. That centrist party had ruled Italy almost without interruption for five decades, finishing first in 12 straight elections until their self-inflicted demise in 1994. Berlusconi, a self-made media mogul, stepped into the void, becoming a hero to millions of Italians despite countless criminal investigations and a pattern of gaffe-prone, womanizing misconduct (including his infamous bunga bunga orgies while in office). The comparisons to Donald Trump write themselves. But such comparisons may give Berlusconi too little credit. Unlike Trump, Berlusconi rose from relatively modest middle-class roots to great financial heights, amassing in real life the multibillion-dollar fortune that Trump has often claimed to have. And as profiles in leadership go, Trumps minute attention span and lack of interest in actually governing make Berlusconis own stunt-laden premierships seem almost sober by contrast. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite these dubious advantages, Berlusconi is still a useful proxy for Trump, and as of Sunday night, it couldnt be clearer that he has long worn out his welcome. The elections big winner, Giorgia Meloni, presents herself as a more focused alternative following decades of the aging Cavalieres political contortions. The 45-year-old Meloni has repackaged Fratelli dItalia, or FdI, from its origins as a successor to Mussolinis National Fascist Party into a seemingly more traditional, and therefore more palatable, right-wing movement. She has retained the fascist watchwords Dio, patria, famiglia (God, fatherland, family) while condemning the movements antidemocratic and antisemitic past. She sought to reassure moderate voters by presenting herself as a problem-solving realist, not a right-wing fanatic. Advertisement Her approach has been strikingly effective. Early results show that FdI grew from only 4 percent of the vote in 2018 to a commanding first-place finish Sunday with 26 percent, eclipsing the other right-wing parties as well as the center-left and populist parties that have governed Italy for most of the past decade. Berlusconis Forza Italia suffered particularly badly, losing over 2 million voters (nearly 50 percent) since 2018. This means that with the right wing poised to return to power 11 years after he left the prime ministers office, Berlusconi has become a junior partner in the coalition he once led. Advertisement Thanks to Italys multiparty system, this shift in FdIs favor is happening out in the open, making it easier to observe than similar moves within the Republican Party here in the U.S. But whats happening might feel familiar: Established Italian right-wingersBerlusconi and his sometimes ally and oftentimes rival Matteo Salvini, leader of the virulently anti-immigrant Lega (League)have been forced to sharpen their rhetoric to halt defections to the far right. In fact, this entire election campaign was sparked by Berlusconis and Salvinis fears that they were losing ground to Meloni after she cynically but cannily refused to join a national unity government last year. That move tightened Melonis grip on the right wing and allowed her to repackage her extreme ideas as critiques of the establishment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The same realignment is on the horizon in the United States. While Donald Trump remains a central figure in todays Republican Party, he is already resorting to a more extreme coupling with QAnon to retain his grasp on the movement he jump-started. Trumps mounting legal peril (a situation Berlusconi has also confronted, with a lengthy record of convictions, suspended sentences, and court-ordered community service), advancing age, and eager coterie of would-be successors makes the transition to a post-Trump GOP only a matter of time, regardless of a potential 2024 comeback. As Meloni did to Berlusconi and Salvini, extremist candidates here are already seizing the MAGA mantle for themselves, including Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, who announced, MAGA does not belong to President Trump. It was President Trump who shifted and aligned with our values. Savvy MAGA candidates may take the next step in Melonis playbook by abandoning the boorish excesses of their progenitor and rebranding their extremism as faux-mainstream solutions. The fate of Silvio Berlusconia slow, ignominious fade from political relevancemay be any publicity-hungry moguls worst fear. But just as Berlusconis rise to power three decades ago presaged Trumps ascendance within the GOP, his decline and the post-fascist rise to power in Italy today is a grave warning: Trumps fall may unleash an even greater threat to American democracy than his ascent. When you think of military planes, you probably dont think of the humble crop-duster. But this familiar technology has become a key part of the aerial arsenal of countries around the world. Take the United Arab Emirates. By 2017, it had purchased several dozen of the Iomax Archangel, a plane whose design is based on crop-dusting planes manufactured by Thrush, a Georgia manufacturer of agricultural aircraft mostly for the U.S. market. The UAE has used them in military actions across the Middle East and North Africa. In Yemen, the planes were used against Houthi rebels as part of the UAEs intervention into that conflict. They were deployed over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt against ISIS affiliates. An analysis of satellite imagery also showed Archangels in the arsenal of a Russian- and UAE-backed general during Libyas civil war in 2017. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The UAE (whose military did not respond to a request for comment on these uses) is not alone. In the past decade, militarized crop-dusters have been an important technological and practical investment for air forces across the world, ranging from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East to East Asia. Other countries have expressed interest in militarized crop-dusters to expand their counterinsurgency efforts. In 2014, Iomax offered the Archangel to the Philippines as a replacement for its aging counterinsurgency force. As of 2018, Egypt was negotiating with Iomax to get planes of its own, following the UAEs deployment and subsequent donation of Archangelsthough the most recent reporting does not indicate whether these efforts were successful. Facing a resurgent threat from Somalia-based jihadi group Al-Shabaab, the Kenyan military attempted in 2017 to purchase 14 L3 Longswords, a modification of crop-dusting planes made by Texas-based Air Tractor, in a deal brokered through the U.S. government. But this deal would end up in controversy, as Rep. Ted Budd (whose district in North Carolina is home to Iomax headquarters) and several other representatives complained about the cost of the Air Tractor planes. None have been sent as of May 2021, when the most recent information was publicly available. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some countries are even employing crop-dusting planes on a budget: During the war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, the Azerbaijani military outfitted Soviet-era crop-dusting planes first introduced in the 1940s with automatic guidance systems and flew them over Armenian lines to bait forces into revealing their positions by firing at the unmanned planes. In the late 1990s, crop-dusting planes were allegedly of great interest to al-Qaeda leaders like Zacarias Moussaoui, Mohamed Atta, and Osama Bin Laden. In particular, the three explored the possibility of carrying out airborne terrorist attacks using gasoline explosives loaded onto light agricultural aircraft. Advertisement Advertisement In an era of increasingly available drones and advanced attack aircraft, the choice to invest in updated agricultural technology may seem an unusual one. But crop-dusters offer some tactical advantages relative to other craft, and their use reflects a general and important decentralization in todays wars. In 2018, the United Nations described a new era of conflict and violence focused primarily on nonstate actors like terrorists, criminals, and rebels. Conflicts have become more and more decentralized and more internal, and with that, technology designed for conflict between states is less of a premium for militaries whose primary enemies are lightly armed insurgents without air power or comparably advanced technology. Crop-dusting planes, thus, have proven effective tools in irregular conflicts, able to withstand the stresses of rough rural terrain and simple enough to be a dynamic and economical weapon. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Crop-dusting is among the earliest practical applications of human flight, with the first known efforts dating to more than a century ago. But the use of crop-dusting tech for military purposes is more recent. The infamous use of Agent Orange and other herbicides during the Vietnam War was carried out by modified C-123 transport planes. During the 1980s and through the decades-long drug war, the United States and Colombia routinely sprayed coca crops with herbicides in military efforts against drug cartels. Both of these early military applications were similar to the original intention of crop-dusting: to spray deadly chemicals on plant life from above. According to writer and defense expert Joseph Trevithick, the idea of a crop-duster converted into an attack aircraftone like the Iomax Archangelcame out of these earlier uses. Advertisement Advertisement Trevithick says crop-dusting planes proved to be efficient and simple, given their original purpose as agricultural implements. Those aircraft are also designed at their core to operate at very low levels and be relatively easy to fly, Trevithick said via email. The outfitting and deployment of military crop-dusters reflected a broader need for a low-flying, effective, cheap plane to combat insurgencies. Advertisement Advertisement To that end, the United States military has also become interested in militarized crop-dusting planes. U.S. Special Operations Command, the central organization that coordinates clandestine military efforts like counterterrorism across all branches of the U.S. military, inked a deal in August of this year to purchase up to 75 Sky Wardensa highly specialized light attack and counterinsurgency aircraft based upon the Air Tractor AT-802 crop-dusting planes. The deal was made with defense tech contractor L3Harris and Air Tractor, with the former militarizing the latters initial designs for a purely agricultural plane. The contract calls for an initial expenditure of $170 million on research and development, with a limit of $3 billion. Advertisement The Sky Warden planes were selected as part of a program known as Armed Overwatch, USSOCOMs effort at modernizing its special operations air capabilities. In a statement following the deal, USSOCOM Commander Gen. Richard Clarke described the Sky Wardens as rugged, and ideal for [operating] in permissive environments and austere conditions around the world to safeguard our Special Operations Forces on the ground. Defense publications have noted that under this aegis, the purpose of these planes will likely be to combat violent terrorist organizations as part of U.S. special operations. For example, Defense News reported that the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, Lt. General Jim Slife, wants to deploy the AT-802 in Africa, where insurgent groups have little to no control over airspace and are especially vulnerable to aerial strikes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And according to a Department of Defense article on recent military contracts, the AT-802s were specifically selected to [fulfill] close air support, precision strike, and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, requirements in austere and permissive environments for use in irregular warfare operations. According to the official press release from L3Harris, a major highlight of its recent deal with the U.S. military is boosting USSOCOMs capacity to conduct irregular warfare. Advertisement Advertisement Crop-dusters are also particularly resilient aircraft. According to David Jordan, a senior lecturer in defense studies at Kings College London, since crop-dusters are designed for the agricultural market, they can withstand a lot of wear and tear and are easy to repair without a lot of technical know-how. They are also easy to fly, being designed for pilots without a lot of technical training. Pilots whove just earned their wings on a light training aircraft arent going to be too phased by the transition which flies at the same sort of speeds and has the same sort of handling characteristics as the aircraft theyve trained upon, Jordan wrote in an email. Advertisement Being military planes, weaponized crop-dusters are subject to a galaxy of international regulations regarding their export or import, including the possibility of complete embargoes on countries wracked with civil violence. And there is reason to be concerned about the human rights dimension behind the trend of agricultural aircraft being retrofitted for violent conflict. Some of the most documented risks of military crop-dusting planes are as part of international arms trading schemes. Since crop-dusters are originally light, civilian-operated planes, arms dealers can plausibly deny or cover-up their potentially illegal export as military equipment. For example, the Intercept reported in 2016 that Erik Prince of Blackwater infamy allegedly attempted to sell American-made crop-dusting planes internationally as part of a business plan to develop a private air force, evidently intending to market the planes to African militaries facing protracted insurgencies. Advertisement Per the Intercept, Prince procured two crop-dusters from Georgia-based Thrush Aircraft and transported them to a hangar owned by Austrian aviation company Airborne Technologies, where they would be outfitted with surveillance equipment and armor. But Austrias strict regulations on arms exports prevented their outfitting with weaponry, and the planes eventually wound up registered in less-strict Bulgaria. According to reporting by Balkan Insight, in 2017, such modified crop-dusters were shown at a Paris airshow as prototypes to impress potential buyers, and one was serviced at a hangar in Serbia. Advertisement A subsequent U.N. investigation found that one of Princes modified planes was due for Libya, which has been subject to an international arms embargo since the outbreak of its brutal 2011 civil war. Known as Project Opus, Prince and his associates attempted to sell the modified crop-dusters to Khalid Haftar, a Libyan warlord and one of the key players in the countrys civil conflict and power vacuum since the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi. The plane was thankfully intercepted in Jordan, where authorities demanded its military assets be removed. The plane later made its way to Cyprus, Balkan Insight reports, which is its last known location as of 2021 and where it may be undergoing mechanical servicing. Though largely foiled, Princes plans are a reminder of how crop-dusting planes are especially risky pieces of military technology when it comes to international law and human rights issues in conflict. Many of the militaries interested in their use are alleged to have committed significant human rights violations in the course of irregular warfare campaigns, and the addition of a highly specialized attack plane to their arsenals may pose grave risks to those caught in the crossfire. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Hello, and thank you for choosing CamposolToday.com to publicise your organisations info or event. Camposol Today is a website set up by Murcia Today specifically for residents of the urbanisation in Southwest Murcia, providing news and information on whats happening in the local area, which is the largest English-speaking expat area in the Region of Murcia. When submitting text to be included on Camposol Today, please abide by the following guidelines so we can upload your article as swiftly as possible: Send an email to editor@camposoltoday.com or contact@murciatoday.com Attach the information in a Word Document or Google Doc Include all relevant points, including: Who is the organisation running the event? Where is it happening? When? How much does it cost? Is it necessary to book beforehand, or can people just show up on the day? but try not to exceed 300 words Also attach a photo to illustrate your article, no more than 100kb CARACAS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The border between Venezuela and Colombia was formally reopened Monday, after a symbolic act led by Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Venezuelan ministers at the Simon Bolivar Bridge linking the two countries. Petro said he hoped the reopening would benefit the residents on each side, who for years had to risk passing through unauthorized crossings. After the ceremony, trucks with merchandise began to cross the border, with aluminum material from Venezuela and a shipment of medicines from Colombia. Earlier, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro commented on his Twitter account that "firm steps were taken to advance in the total and absolute opening of the border between brotherly peoples: Colombia and Venezuela. It is a historic and transcendental day!" Since Petro took office in Colombia this year, Caracas and Bogota have progressively advanced in normalizing ties severed in 2019. The policy mimics the approach adopted by Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Slovakia will not issue humanitarian visas to citizens of Russia fleeing military mobilisation by the Putin regime. A similar approach has been adopted by the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Related article Related article Slovakia plans no ban on all Russians from entering the country Read more "Humanitarian visas are not defined precisely. Visas can be granted in the humanitarian interest, and currently Slovakia assesses each case separately. In this case the Foreign Affairs Ministry is not the only body that makes the decision," said ministry spokesperson Juraj Tomaga. Currently, Slovakia is approving tourist visas only for Russians visiting relatives who live in Slovakia or in order to study at Slovak universities. Russian athletes can also obtain visas to attend competitions. In March, Slovakia abolished its visa-free regime for people who hold Russian diplomatic passports. Related article Related article Slovak passport still among the ten strongest Read more Estonia has already stopped issuing visas to all Russians and does not allow Russians holding Schengen visas that it previously issued to enter Estonia. However, Russians can still enter Estonia on Schengen visas issued by another Schengen country. Poland is seeking to adopt the Estonian approach. However, EU member states do not appear to be united on this front. Germany, for instance, opposes an EU-wide ban on visas for Russians. Government says dont panic, but people in Slovakia have no idea how much they will pay for electricity and gas this winter. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. Government finally takes - although not yet concrete - steps in recognition of the energy crisis. Planned Matovic ouster is the next act in the farce that is Slovak politics. Russian Embassy floats a hoax, general prosecutor responds. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Scroll down to download the PDF version of The Slovak Spectators September print issue. Kurit a svietit The governments lack of a parliamentary majority, and its resulting failure even to raise a parliamentary quorum earlier this month, is pushing the administration of Eduard Heger into a position described in Slovak as kurit a svietit, or merely providing heat and light. The phrase describes a government so weakened that it has no capacity to make any significant improvements or changes, but must instead resort to just keeping the lights on. But with winter approaching, and some municipalities even turning down or switching off street lighting despite the coming municipal elections, kurit a svietit has become the main concern for governments around Europe, including Slovakia. https://sputniknews.com/20220925/center-right-coalition-leads-in-italian-parliamentary-elections---exit-poll-1101216673.html Italian Center-Right Coalition May Get 65% of Seats in Parliament - Exit Poll Italian Center-Right Coalition May Get 65% of Seats in Parliament - Exit Poll ROME (Sputnik) - A coalition of center-right forces could win up to 65% of seats in both houses of the Italian parliament, according to the first exit poll... 25.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-25T22:31+0000 2022-09-25T22:31+0000 2022-09-25T23:29+0000 world italy parliamentary elections /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/19/1101216530_0:1:1131:637_1920x0_80_0_0_eded3400ef2e76fcfb80e74622083bb5.png According to the poll, the center-right bloc, which unites the Brothers of Italy party, the League party, the Forza Italia party, and the Moderate Party, can get 227-257 seats out of 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies - the lower house of the Italian parliament - and 111-131 seats in the 200-seat Senate which is the upper house of the parliament.According to Consorzio Opinio Italia, the center-right coalition should gain 41-45% of the votes in the elections.The turnout in the snap parliamentary elections in Italy was 63.8%, which is about 9% less than in March 2018, Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese said on Monday.The first forecasts, based on the results of counting the first ballots, confirm the leadership of the center-right coalition in the elections. According to the analysis of the research center Consorzio Opinio Italia, conducted for Italian broadcaster Rai, the Brothers of Italy party is gaining 24.7% of the vote in the elections to the Senate. Its allies, the League party and the Forza Italia party receive 8.7% and 8% respectively. Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International italy, parliamentary elections https://sputniknews.com/20220925/harris-to-visit-japan-s-korea-for-abe-state-funeral-talks-with-world-leaders-1101216292.html Harris to Visit Japan, S. Korea for Abe State Funeral, Talks With World Leaders Harris to Visit Japan, S. Korea for Abe State Funeral, Talks With World Leaders WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Japan and South Korea next week to attend the state funeral for former Japanese Prime... 25.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-25T21:57+0000 2022-09-25T21:57+0000 2022-09-25T21:57+0000 americas kamala harris us japan shinzo abe south korea australia & oceania /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/04/15/1094947925_0:0:2988:1682_1920x0_80_0_0_5058d8afdc270462afaea45062dcd4c7.jpg Abe was killed by a gunman in July while delivering a campaign speech in the Japanese city of Nara. The state funeral will be the second held by Japan for a former prime minister since World War II. Over 6,000 Japanese and foreign officials are expected to attend the event.On Monday, Harris will arrive in Tokyo and meet with current Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the senior official said. The leaders are expected to discuss the US-Japan alliance, space cooperation and regional issues such as tensions in the Taiwan Strait, according to the official.On Tuesday, Harris will attend Abes state funeral and meet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, with whom she will discuss Indo-Pacific developments, including work by the "Quad" alliance and climate change, the official said.Harris will also meet with South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo while he is in Tokyo for the state funeral, during which time she will discuss the US-South Korea security alliance, the official added.On Wednesday, Harris will convene a group of Japanese business executives in the semiconductor industry to discuss investment in manufacturing, supply chain resilience and research and development, according to the official.Later on Wednesday, Harris will go to a US naval base in Japan to receive a briefing and tour of a destroyer ship, as well as meet with soldiers and deliver remarks on enduring US commitments to the Indo-Pacific region, the official also said.On Thursday, Harris will travel to South Korea for a bilateral meeting with President Yoon Suk-yeol, the official said. Harris will discuss the strength of the US-South Korea alliance, threats posed by North Korea, stability across the Taiwan Strait and technology partnership, according to the official.Harris will also hold a roundtable discussion with "groundbreaking Korean women" to discuss gender issues in South Korea and around the world, the official added.While there are no deliverables expected to be announced by the United States during the trip, engagement can be a deliverable onto itself, the official said.The trip will occur amid the possibility of further North Korean nuclear or missile tests, as well as increased tensions between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan relations. https://sputniknews.com/20220917/texas-governor-trolls-kamala-harris-drops-off-another-busload-of-migrants-at-her-dc-mansion--video-1100908482.html https://sputniknews.com/20220925/north-korea-fires-ballistic-missile-into-sea-of-japan---reports-1101192471.html americas south korea australia & oceania Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International kamala harris, us, japan, shinzo abe, south korea, australia & oceania https://sputniknews.com/20220925/police-cuff-woman-in-back-of-patrol-car-minutes-before-it-is-struck-by-a-train-1101216777.html Police Cuff Woman in Back of Patrol Car, Minutes Before it is Struck by a Train Police Cuff Woman in Back of Patrol Car, Minutes Before it is Struck by a Train Authorities in Colorado have released an edited eight-minute video showing police leave a suspect in the back of a patrol cruiser as it is struck by an... 25.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-25T23:21+0000 2022-09-25T23:21+0000 2022-09-25T23:21+0000 americas us colorado train collision police /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/08/04/1083525467_0:47:3073:1775_1920x0_80_0_0_1bed1578f1c2b0a3f78326566ae7c6fe.jpg The video was released on Friday by the Platteville and Fort Lupton police departments. It shows one police officer arriving on the scene where another officer had pulled over Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20. At that time the patrol vehicle was already parked directly on the train tracks, a few yards behind Rios-Gonzalezs vehicle. The rail crossing signs are visible.After making her exit her vehicle, police handcuff Rios-Gonzalez and place her in the back of the police vehicle. They then start searching the car when the trains horn can be heard in the background. It takes at least 15 seconds after the first horn can be heard for the officer to realize a train is oncoming. One officer can be heard yelling move your car before another says stay back.The freight train then barrels into the car, with Rios-Gonzalez still inside. It appears that the cops may have forgotten that Rios-Gonzalez was in the vehicle, initially telling radio dispatchers a patrol car has been hit by a train, before adding Get us medical, emergent. The suspect was in the vehicle that was hit by the train.According to Rios-Gonzalezs lawyer, Paul Wilkinson, she suffered a broken arm that needed surgery, nine broken ribs, a fractured sternum, a back injury, and a head injury. She remains hospitalized but is expected to survive.While Rios-Gonzalez was unconscious when she reached the hospital, Wilkinson says that she remembers the crash.He added that the officers are to blame for her injuries. You just never park on a train track. You have to park somewhere else.The police released the video to the Denver Post, which obtained it through an open records request.Police were responding to a report of a road rage incident involving a gun when they stopped Rios-Gonzalez. Before and after the crash, police can be seen searching her vehicle where they found a gun holster, but it is unclear if a gun was recovered. Rios-Gonzalez has not been charged with a crime. A Union Pacific spokesperson told the Denver Post that the trains crew was not injured in the crash.According to the Denver Post, one police officer has been placed on paid administrative leave after the incident. The Platteville police chief, Carl Dwyer, declined to reveal any of the officers names or answer other questions involving the crash.The Fort Lupton police are continuing the investigation of the alleged road rage incident, while the Colorado state patrol is examining the crash, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigations is looking into the injuries Rios-Gonzalez sustained while in police custody. https://sputniknews.com/20220923/elijah-mcclains-autopsy-amended-to-say-cause-of-death-was-police-administered-ketamine-overdose-1101157257.html americas colorado Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Ian DeMartino Ian DeMartino News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ian DeMartino us, colorado, train collision, police https://sputniknews.com/20220925/russia-and-nigeria-could-cooperate-in-stabilizing-global-energy-supply-says-nigerian-minister-1101215859.html Russia and Nigeria Could Cooperate in Stabilizing Global Energy Supply, Says Nigerian Minister Russia and Nigeria Could Cooperate in Stabilizing Global Energy Supply, Says Nigerian Minister As Russias top diplomat Sergey Lavrov held several meetings with representatives of the African nations at the 77th UN General Assembly, some African... 25.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-25T21:16+0000 2022-09-25T21:16+0000 2022-09-25T21:16+0000 russia un security council (unsc) sergei lavrov russia nigeria energy /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/19/1101215985_5:0:2213:1242_1920x0_80_0_0_84f4f6b4ae8ba70ce0283c1071215de8.png Nigeria organized two sideline events on Friday during the UN High Level Week in New York, addressing the countys commitment to reaching the UNs sustainable development goals and the countrys participation in the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network a community focusing on measuring multidimensional poverty. The meetings were attended by several Nigerian top government officials.When asked by Sputnik about cooperation with Russia, Nigerias Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva expressed optimism:In May this year, Sylva said that Russia was interested in financing an African gas mega-pipeline from Nigeria to Morocco a 5,600-kilometer-long link, which could run along the West coast of Africa and would have the potential of delivering gas to Spain.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who spent five days in New York taking part in the UN General Assembly and holding talks with foreign counterparts, did not have an official meeting with Nigerian diplomats in his schedule. Nevertheless, he seemed to have paid a lot of attention to African affairs in general, speaking with Ethiopian, Eritrean and South African colleagues, as well as with officials from Guinea-Bissau. According to Lavrov, the talks were productive:Russias top diplomat toured Africa this summer, paying visits to Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo, with Moscow paying more and more attention to cooperation with nations on the continent. Its expected that bilateral and multilateral ties will be addressed at the 2nd Russia-Africa economic forum scheduled for the middle of 2023. https://sputniknews.com/20220924/unga-77-lavrov-exposes-the-wests-role-in-inciting-ukrainian-conflict-defends-moscows-actions-1101191646.html russia nigeria Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Denis Bolotsky https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/06/0b/1083128270_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_8cd81dafcbaac1c176c25141f8af1d2a.jpg Denis Bolotsky https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/06/0b/1083128270_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_8cd81dafcbaac1c176c25141f8af1d2a.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Denis Bolotsky https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/06/0b/1083128270_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_8cd81dafcbaac1c176c25141f8af1d2a.jpg un security council (unsc), sergei lavrov, russia, nigeria, energy https://sputniknews.com/20220925/us-threatens-russia-with-catastrophic-consequences-for-using-nukes-in-ukraine-1101214387.html US Threatens Russia With Catastrophic Consequences for Using Nukes in Ukraine US Threatens Russia With Catastrophic Consequences for Using Nukes in Ukraine MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The White House has warned Russia that there will be catastrophic consequences if Moscow uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, US national... 25.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-25T20:14+0000 2022-09-25T20:14+0000 2022-09-25T20:14+0000 americas us russia us-russia relations nuclear weapons /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107660/98/1076609864_0:224:1140:865_1920x0_80_0_0_2e6fce757dcd030cd69ed73ee0a68abe.jpg Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Moscow would accept any outcome of referendums in Donbas and Russia-held territories and would spare no means to defend its territorial integrity.Sullivan told ABC News on Sunday that the White House had taken Putin's warning seriously.The White House official claimed Russia understood well what it would face "if they went down that dark road." He added that the US was planning for every contingency and would respond decisively to Russia.Russian lawmakers reacted with surprise to Washington's warning. Deputy security committee chair Anatoly Vyborny told Sputnik that the Americans were "escalating things to save their face."Oleg Morozov, a member of the ruling United Russia party in the lower-house State Duma, told Sputnik that the US wanted to ratchet up tensions to justify additional supplies of lethal aid for Ukraine."It is not about us actually using nuclear weapons. They understand that there is no need to do it. But they want to convince the world that the nuclear threat is coming from Russia," he explained. https://sputniknews.com/20220925/new-eu-sanctions-unlikely-to-target-russias-nuclear-industry-report-suggests-1101212866.html americas russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International us, russia, us-russia relations, nuclear weapons https://sputniknews.com/20220926/albanian-people-trafficking-boss-makes-1-million-weekly-as-migrants-risk-lives-report-1101241309.html Albanian People-Trafficking Boss Makes 1 Million Weekly as Migrants Risk Lives: Report Albanian People-Trafficking Boss Makes 1 Million Weekly as Migrants Risk Lives: Report Migrants from Albania accounted for 60 percent of those illegally trafficked to the UK this summer, despite the small Mediterranean nation enjoying peace with... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T17:18+0000 2022-09-26T17:18+0000 2022-09-26T17:18+0000 france albania people trafficking uk britain great britain world /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/07/15/1097662415_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_51fa63e921e2d2c1e8acaf7df980ffbb.jpg An Albanian people-trafficker operating in northern France is reportedly raking in 1 million a week by sending migrants to the UK on dangerously-overloaded dinghies.The criminal, known as the Golden Lion, charges illegal immigrants 4,500 ($4,800) each to make the perilous crossing, telling them that UK authorities will rescue them from sea, give them food and blankets and put them up in hotels.Undercover investigative journalists from the Daily Mail filmed the man, who has since been arrested by French police only to be released the next day, in the port city of Dunkirk.The trafficking boss, originally from the town of Vlore, assured the reporters posing as migrants that there was "no chance" of them drowning like the 27 who perished in November 2021."Lets say someone drowns in the sea, then you dont just have a problem with the state," the Golden Lion told them. "The main problem is with the family of that person. No one will forgive you for that."He stressed that the British coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution would rescue any boats that get into trouble and carry their passengers the rest of the way, after which they can expect a warm welcome.Two MPs from the south-east of England and the anti-trafficking group Migration Watch UK welcomed the expose, calling for government action to stop the illegal trade in human lives."It shows beyond question how criminals are exploiting the Channel migrant crisis to feed their illegal operations in the UK," said Conservative MP for Dover Natalie Elphicke. "This yet again underlines the urgent need to work with France to stop the small boats leaving French shores, to crack down on ruthless criminals and stop the disgusting exploitation that goes on."Fellow Tory and Ipswich MP Tom Hunt said that the migrant-smuggling trade had to be "crushed"."Its very worrying, but we know its taking place and there is an industry behind it," Hunt said. "We need to make the route unviable and destroy their business model. They are making a lot of money, so we need to create a deterrent."Migration Watch Chairman Alp Mehmet congratulated the investigative team for exposing the "monstrous scum behind the evil racket.""It shows too why the French in their interests and ours must work more closely with us to solve this mega-crisis," Mehmet added.Albanians now make up the lion's share of illegal immigrants trying to reach British shores 60 per cent of arrivals this summer.The small Mediterranean European nation is at peace with no major unrest or political repression. It has been seeking membership of the European Union since 2009 and has been on the EU's candidate list since 2014. https://sputniknews.com/20220923/death-toll-from-migrant-shipwreck-off-syrian-coast-rises-to-77-1101150006.html albania britain great britain Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 James Tweedie https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png James Tweedie https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 James Tweedie https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png france, albania, people trafficking, uk, britain, great britain https://sputniknews.com/20220926/ex-acting-dhs-chief-dubs-us-border-anything-but-secure-as-he-slams-biden-for-not-enforcing-the-law-1101238907.html Ex-Acting DHS Chief Dubs US Border Anything But Secure as He Slams Biden for Not Enforcing the Law Ex-Acting DHS Chief Dubs US Border Anything But Secure as He Slams Biden for Not Enforcing the Law The US remains in the grip of a migration crisis, with the latest Customs and Border Protection data showing that so far in fiscal year 2022, there have been... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T13:56+0000 2022-09-26T13:56+0000 2022-09-26T13:56+0000 americas us texas joe biden department of homeland security (dhs) migrants /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/1a/1101231844_0:299:3070:2026_1920x0_80_0_0_a20fe8f1cdb06b29a4e4a0be3133bb8e.jpg Former US Acting-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Chad Wolf has described the countrys border as anything but secure, arguing that there is no operational control over it.The ex-acting DHS secretary pointed out that when you have that much unlawful and uncontrolled migration coming across that border, you have no control over it. You dont know whos entering and whos not.He suggested that the numbers continue to get worse with the Biden administration because they simply are not doing one fundamental thing and that is enforcing the law and bringing deterrence into that system. According to Wolf, if individuals are not afraid of getting caught because they are getting released into the country and never removed, guess what, you will continue to see the numbers that we do every day.When asked about Republican governors, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, being berated by Democrats who claimed that the governors illegally move migrants out of their states to liberal cities, Wolf underscored that the real matter is what to do with overflowing shelters.The former acting DHS secretary quoted Abbott as saying that hundreds, maybe even thousands of migrants are not safe by just sleeping on city streets and wandering the streets, so instead were going to bus them to New York and Chicago and DC and elsewhere because the federal government has simply washed their hands of the matter.Wolf accused the Biden administration of removing less and less individuals, adding that he thinks they are at an all-time low in the amount of individuals they are targeting and arresting, because at the end of the day, the Biden administration dont [sic] like to enforce border security, and they dont like to enforce immigration law."The issue now is that you have hundreds of thousands of folks coming from about 140 different countries because they know what the rest of Americans know is that the border is wide open and there is very little control over it today, he concluded.US Border Apprehensions on Record High The remarks came a few days after the Washington Examiner cited unnamed sources as saying that President Joe Bidens stance on immigration and the policy decisions taken by him on the issue have had catastrophic consequences, with unprecedented numbers of migrants dying while attempting to cross the US-Mexico border illegally.One source told the news outlet that more than 800 bodies may be recovered at the southern border by the end of September, while the US federal agency Customs and Border Protection in turn announced last week that southern border apprehensions have already exceeded 2 million this fiscal year, surpassing the figures of 2021, which saw 1.66 million apprehensions.The crisis on the US southern border began almost immediately after Biden took office in January 2021 and revoked Trump-era immigration policies, including the 45th presidents signature border wall and the Remain in Mexico program. Other measures, including promises to restore and expand the US asylum system, and to potentially provide a path to citizenship for more than 11 million illegal immigrants already residing in the US, led to a further surge in entry attempts.The Republicans have repeatedly lambasted Biden for his administrations open border policies, pledging to roll out a plan to enhance border security and reduce illegal immigration if they win the November midterms. https://sputniknews.com/20220915/biden-reportedly-urging-mexico-to-accept-more-us-returns-of-migrants-from-cuba-nicaragua-venezuela-1100802446.html https://sputniknews.com/20220616/us-southern-border-sees-record-high-number-of-illegal-migrants-in-may-1096356988.html americas texas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg us, texas, joe biden, department of homeland security (dhs), migrants https://sputniknews.com/20220926/kremlin-not-commenting-on-us-threats-of-consequential-response-to-use-of-nuclear-weapons-1101232788.html Kremlin Not Commenting on US Threats of "Consequential Response" to Use of Nuclear Weapons Kremlin Not Commenting on US Threats of "Consequential Response" to Use of Nuclear Weapons MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday refrained from commenting on US statements that there would be a "consequential response" to the... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T11:38+0000 2022-09-26T11:38+0000 2022-09-26T11:38+0000 russia russia nuclear weapons dmitry peskov /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0a/1093752040_0:15:2133:1215_1920x0_80_0_0_c7de0437333398a911ae17002e0dcf02.jpg On September 17, US President Joe Biden said that Washington's response to the allegedly possible use of nuclear weapons by Moscow would be "consequential."Last Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also told the CBS News broadcaster that Washington had developed a plan of actions in the event that Russia uses nuclear weapons. The US official threatened Moscow with "catastrophic" effects, but did not go into details. russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russia, nuclear weapons, dmitry peskov ANKARA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Turkish National Intelligence Organization killed a senior member of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, the semi-official Anadolu Agency reported on Monday. Mehmet Akyol, codenamed "Dogan Amanos", was in charge of YPG operations in Ain Issa town in the Tal Abyad district of nothern Syria's Raqqa city, the agency reported, quoting anonymous Turkish security forces. The Turkish intelligence was following his activities against Turkish security forces in Turkiye's southern Hatay and eastern Van provinces when he joined the ranks of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the news agency reported. Ankara sees the YPG as the Syrian branch of the PKK. Akyol had engaged in clashes with the Turkish security forces in Van and Hatay's rural areas, the news agency reported. He later joined the PKK fighters in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq, where the group has its headquarters. He had been operating in Ain Issa recently, it said. The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the EU, has been rebelling against the Turkish government for more than three decades. https://sputniknews.com/20220926/labour-deputy-leader-vows-to-copy-ukrainian-anti-corruption-blueprint-1101225367.html Labour Deputy Leader Vows to Copy Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Blueprint Labour Deputy Leader Vows to Copy Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Blueprint Since becoming an independent state following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has gained a reputation for corruption. Western NGO... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T12:33+0000 2022-09-26T12:33+0000 2022-09-26T12:33+0000 british labour party angela rayner britain great britain uk burisma hunter biden ukraine corruption /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/1a/1101225457_0:163:3131:1924_1920x0_80_0_0_033d72e9192c36f9f2e5cfa3e4f9cf91.jpg The deputy leader of the British opposition has said that the UK should take a leaf out of Ukraine's book when it comes to fighting graft.Angela Rayner told the Labour Conference in Liverpool that, in order to win the next election, the party would set up a "public dashboard of government contracts" to ensure "transparency about taxpayers' money and how it's spent."Labour has made repeated claims of cronyism by the Conservative government when awarding emergency contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic.However, since becoming an independent state following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has gained a reputation as one of the most corrupt countries.A pro-Ukrainian documentary broadcast by CBS News in August revealed that only a third of the arms supplied by western countries for Kiev's conflict with Russia actually reached the front lines. The program was hurriedly pulled from the CBS website under pressure from the Ukrainian government.Transparency International, a Berlin-based offshoot of the World Bank which is headquartered in Washington DC, ranks Kiev 122nd out of 180 in its anti-graft rankings. The group claims that 23 percent of Ukrainians using public services paid a bribe to an official in the past year.Even the US State Department, the prime backer of the 2014 anti-Russian 'Euromaidan' coup, has called out corruption in Kiev since the start of the conflict. Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in July that official graft threatened "long-term success as a sovereign, independent, democratic and prosperous country."The relationship between Ukraine and US President Joe Biden's family is also well-documented. Biden's wayward son Hunter was paid as an executive of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings from 2014 to 2019.When Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin launched a probe into suspected money-laundering and corruption by Burisma's owner Mykola Zlochevsky, then-US Vice president Biden pressured Kiev to dismiss Shokin also for alleged corruption. https://sputniknews.com/20220323/joe-rogan-blasts-us-media-u-turn-on-ukraine-coverage-for-dodging-corruption-far-right-group-issues-1094102384.html britain great britain ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 James Tweedie https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png James Tweedie https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 James Tweedie https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png british labour party, angela rayner, britain, great britain, uk, burisma, hunter biden, ukraine, corruption https://sputniknews.com/20220926/lebanon-expects-israels-final-decision-on-maritime-border-by-end-of-month---source-1101249115.html Lebanon Expects Israel's Final Decision on Maritime Border by End of Month - Source Lebanon Expects Israel's Final Decision on Maritime Border by End of Month - Source BEIRUT (Sputnik) - Lebanon has submitted its latest proposals to a US State Department mediator in negotiations between Israel and Lebanon and expects a final... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T20:02+0000 2022-09-26T20:02+0000 2022-09-26T20:02+0000 world lebanon israel un security council us state department /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/09/11/1089162453_0:67:721:472_1920x0_80_0_0_1da039e3728ab9c97ecd21b130f3d286.jpg After numerous meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Lebanon has submitted a proposal to US State Department Adviser Amos Hochstein, a mediator between Israel and Lebanon, in negotiations over the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel, Lebanese sources informed Sputnik. On June 8, Israel called on Lebanon to speed up negotiations on maritime border demarcation and stressed that the Karish gas field is its strategic asset located on the Israeli territory, adding that it had no intention to extract gas in the disputed territory.Israel and Lebanon have been trying to resolve an overlap between the two rival nations' territorial waters situated over large oil and gas deposits beneath the Mediterranean seabed since 1996. The US-mediated negotiations began in 2020. Lebanon initially laid claims to 860 square kilometers (332 square miles) of waters but then modified the bid to include an extra 1,430 square kilometers encompassing part of the Karish gas field, claimed in its entirety by Israel. Israel refused to discuss those new terms. The maritime border between the two neighbors, which have been formally at war since 1948, has not yet been established. https://sputniknews.com/20220913/israel-intends-to-advance-negotiations-on-maritime-border-with-lebanon-1100717659.html lebanon Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International lebanon, israel, un security council, us state department NATO Secretary General Calls on EU to Sign New Joint Declaration Amid Conflict in Ukraine MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The time has come to sign a new EU-NATO declaration, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday after holding talks on the Ukrainian crisis with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels. "NATO-EU cooperation contributes to security and stability so we believe the time has come to agree a new Joint Declaration to take our partnership forward," Stoltenberg said on Twitter. The EU and NATO were supposed to sign a cooperation declaration in late 2021 but the work on the document still continues. Its contents have not been disclosed. On July 12, the EU expressed its readiness to forge ahead in negotiations with NATO on the joint declaration after the approval of the European defense strategy, the Strategic Compass, and the adoption of a new strategic concept at the Madrid summit. The new European strategy provides for the formation of a strong EU Rapid Deployment Capacity of up to 5,000 troops for different types of crises, which will be able to operate independently from NATO. At the same time, EU representatives emphasize that NATO remains the main organization for ensuring the security in Europe. Secretary General of the EU External Action Service Stefano Sannino said that the EU-NATO declaration should reflect the "geopolitical context," new areas of cooperation, including on hybrid threats, space, disruptive technologies, the impact of environment and climate change on security, the fight against disinformation and interference in internal affairs, as well as cooperation in the areas of defense planning. https://sputniknews.com/20220926/protest-in-indias-kerala-after-school-denies-entry-to-student-wearing-hijab-1101231645.html Protest in India's Kerala After School Denies Entry to Student Wearing Hijab Protest in India's Kerala After School Denies Entry to Student Wearing Hijab Last week, a Muslim student at Providence Girls Higher Secondary School in Kozhikode district of Kerala had to leave school after being denied entry in her... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T12:26+0000 2022-09-26T12:26+0000 2022-09-26T12:35+0000 india kerala hijab hijab students students /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/06/07/1096092236_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_2b570b543de4c86a1b3890ae6beaa987.jpg Muslim organizations held a protest outside Providence Girls Higher Secondary School in the Kozhikode district of Kerala on Monday after the school refused entry to a Muslim girl wearing a headscarf.The Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) and the Muslim Students Federation (MSF), among others, demanded that the state education department should take away the school's affiliation because they'd taken an 'anti-constitutional' step.On September 18, the school authorities informed the girl's parents that she would have to follow the school's uniform code and that shawls and scarves were not allowed at the school premises.The controversy came when the Supreme Court was hearing petitions filed by six Muslim girls seeking to attend classes in hijabs. The high court last week reserved its order on the matter.In March, the Karnataka High Court upheld a ban on wearing hijabs in state-run educational institutions. kerala Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg kerala, hijab, hijab, students, students https://sputniknews.com/20220926/south-african-observer-to-zaporozhye-referendum-likens-kiev-regime-to-apartheid-1101234733.html South African Observer to Zaporozhye Referendum Likens Kiev Regime to Apartheid South African Observer to Zaporozhye Referendum Likens Kiev Regime to Apartheid MELITOPOL (Sputnik) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pursues policies that are similar to those that underpinned apartheid, a system of racial... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T12:29+0000 2022-09-26T12:29+0000 2022-09-26T12:29+0000 donbass, kherson & zaporozhye referendums to join russia russia apartheid ukraine donbass /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102541/48/1025414814_0:230:4289:2643_1920x0_80_0_0_3c49193a6b3d0c59db6aac98ea63e20e.jpg Skosana came to Russian-controlled part of the Ukrainian region of Zaporozhye to monitor the referendum on joining Russia.The observer also noted the parallels between the oppressive apartheid government in South Africa and Zelenskys regime.The people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have an unimpeachable right for self-determination, Skosana stressed, adding that "human rights are not for Americans only."The republics of Lugansk and Donetsk as well as the Russian-controlled parts of the Ukrainian regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson are voting in referendums on joining Russia. The polling began on Friday and will last through Tuesday. Turnout in Kherson stood at 48.91% on Sunday, while in Zaporozhye 51.55% had voted. russia donbass Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russia, apartheid, ukraine, donbass https://sputniknews.com/20220926/turkey-protests-greece-deploying-us-weapons-on-neutral-islands---reports-1101250317.html Turkey Protests Greece Deploying US Weapons on Neutral Islands - Reports Turkey Protests Greece Deploying US Weapons on Neutral Islands - Reports MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Turkey filed protests with Greece and the United States on Monday after accusing Athens of bringing US military hardware to two neutral... 26.09.2022, Sputnik International 2022-09-26T20:58+0000 2022-09-26T20:58+0000 2022-09-26T20:58+0000 world turkey us greece /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0c/0b/1091443666_0:178:2049:1330_1920x0_80_0_0_7016196571332911c2c1d2099cd463cc.jpg The state news agency Anadolu cited Turkish security sources as saying that drones had recorded Greek landing ships bringing US-donated armored vehicles to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Samos over the weekend. The islands have non-military status.The Turkish Foreign Ministry reportedly summoned the Greek ambassador and lodged a complaint with the US asking Washington to prevent the use of American weapons on the islands.Turkey and Greece have been trading accusations of provocative actions in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean seas where they have conflicting military and energy interests. greece Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International turkey, us, greece The Virginia State Police Tactical Team executed a search warrant early Monday in the 300 block of Luray Avenue in the Town of Luray, according to a release. At approximately 5 a.m. on Sept. 26, State Police, Town of Luray Police Department, and Page County Sheriff's Office responded to the home for an emergency call concerning a barricaded subject. A male and a female suspect were taken into custody without incident. There was never any immediate threat to the public, according to a release from VSP spokesman Sgt. Brent Coffey. The location of the tactical team operation was block away from both Luray Elementary and Middle schools. TOKYO (AP) Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held a series of meetings with foreign dignitaries Monday in what he's called funeral diplomacy" the day before he hosts a controversial state-sponsored ceremony for former leader Shinzo Abe. Kishida has been criticized for pushing for Tuesday's formal state funeral for Abe, who was assassinated in July, amid questions over their governing party's close ties with the Unification Church, accused of brainwashing its adherents, and doubts over the legitimacy of a state event with links to pre-World War II imperial Japan. Kishida says the honor is fitting for the longest-serving leader in Japans modern political history. He has also said it will allow him to meet personally with visiting foreign leaders and forge stronger ties at a time where Japan faces a host of urgent issues in northeast Asia and the world, from Chinese and North Korean military threats to worries over regional economic and security matters. In a rush of planned meetings, Kishida was to hold talks with about 40 foreign dignitaries over the next few days at the Akasaka state guest house in Tokyo. Kishida met on Monday with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte and about 10 other foreign dignitaries. Kishida told Harris that Abe poured his heart and soul into strengthening ties between their two countries. I feel it is my duty to carry on his aspirations, Kishida said. Harris said that the alliance between Japan and the United States is a cornerstone of what we believe is integral to peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region." On Tuesday, he is to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. China, a sometimes harsh critic of what it saw as the conservative Abe's moves to expand Japan's military and whitewash history, will send former Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang, whose title is sufficiently politically neutral as to raise few eyebrows. He is also the head of the China Zhiong Party, one of eight figurehead bodies tasked with advising the ruling Communist Party and giving China the veneer of a multiparty system. Wan is also a ranking member of the legislatures toothless advisory body, with a specialty in the auto industry. Wan is not known to have had any connections to Japan, Japan's parliament or the Abe family. Other leaders from Group of Seven countries and many others who attended Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in London last week won't be at Abe's funeral. South Korea is sending Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who is to meet with Kishida on Wednesday. Political watchers say holding a state funeral for Abe is an attempt by Kishida to stabilize his grip on power by placating governing Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers belonging to Abes conservative political faction. Security around the Budokan martial arts arena, where the memorial will be held Tuesday, has been raised to high levels, with uniformed police officers patrolling the neighborhood with police dogs and stopping cars for inspections. They also poked inside manholes, and a group of police officers dived into a nearby moat for safety checks. Travel on roads around the Budokan and the Akasaka guest house will be restricted through Wednesday, including about 10 hours on Tuesday, according to Tokyo police. Police security has come under scrutiny after the police force was accused of not providing adequate protection for Abe when he was killed. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters Monday that police have stepped up information gathering, analysis and protection measures ahead of the funeral. We will do our utmost for security and take all necessary steps so we can respond to any situation, Matsuno said. Almost 21 years after he emigrated from Ethiopia to the United States, Solomon Desalegn of Stafford County returned to his neighborhood in the eastern African country. He saw new buildings and roads in the capital city of Addis Ababa, where he was born and raised, and thought, Wow, this is a great improvement. Then, he visited his old high school, which had a new shell on the outside, but few changes had been made on the inside since hed been a student there. Teachers were still instructing the old-fashioned way, standing in front of the board, writing, he recalled. There were no computers in the classroom and certainly no labs where students could learn keyboarding. In colleges he visited, professors taught computer theory and demonstrated the skills on a computer, but the students didnt get the chance to try it out themselves. Meanwhile, his oldest son had been using computer apps like Google Earth since he was 6. His parents would tell him a relatives location and the boy would pinpoint their home on the map. Desalegn realized the only difference between his three sons and other children in the Horn of Africa was the address of their birth. It was a life-changing moment for the Stafford man, now 50. You go to those elementary schools and you see all those kids have no clue whatsoever whats out there. Its heartbreaking and its difficult to express in words the emotions you feel, he said, tears forming in his eyes. Desalegn came back to the U.S., determined to make a difference. Between his full-time work for the Marine Corps, where hes an electrical engineer who tests and evaluates systems, his quest to earn his doctorate degree and his family obligations to his wife and three teens, Desalegn formed the nonprofit, Educate Africa. Last month, the group shipped 55 laptops to Wollo University, one of the institutions looted during the recent war between the government and rebel forces. Both Educate Africa and university officials had to complete mounds of paperwork to get the government to waive the typical customs fees and allow the donation. A relative, Yonhatan Goitom, helped the nonprofit register as a charitable organization in Ethiopia after it got the proper paperwork in the U.S. Fredericksburg Personal Computer Users Group also assisted by providing a $5,000 grant to help purchase the computers, replace missing or damaged hard drives or memory and ship them to East Africa. Desalegn paid the other $2,000 out of his own pocket. FPCUG board member Frank Fota helped download new operating systems, when needed, and has served as Educate Africas only volunteer, other than Desalegn, for about eight months. The two know from their work experience that federal and local governments, as well as school systems and universities, tend to replace their computers every three years and there arent many places that recycle electronics. Equipment often is auctioned and sold in bulk, and Desalegn and Fota have acquired dozens of computers that way. But were not awash with cash donations, so were just trying to get the word out, Fota said. He and Desalegn are eager to partner with other nonprofits, businesses or individuals who have the time, talent and resources to take equipment possibly headed for the landfill, and make it part of a necessary life-changing educational experience in Ethiopia and eventually other African countries, according to the website educateafricaweb.org. If theres anyone who could be the poster child for the difference education can make, its Desalegn. Being driven comes with the lifestyle of growing up in a third-world country, he said. Everybody understood the value of education and they worked hard for it. His father, who worked for a government logistics company, made it clear that Desalegns sole purpose in life, while under his roof, was to focus on his studies. While others brought their sons into family businesses, Desalegn was motivated to pursue his education. He finished high school and had a couple years of college in Ethiopia where he also was trained as an aircraft technician and worked for two years. He was 23 when his immigration papers were approved and he used his training to apply for a Federal Aviation Administration license to work on commercial aircraft. Desalegn serviced airplanes in Pennsylvania for two years, then did the same in Arizona and Minnesota until Delta Airlines transferred him to Washington. Meanwhile, he resumed his studies in the United States. While holding down various jobs, he earned his engineering degree from George Mason University, his masters in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University and is working on his doctorate from Liberty University. Im telling you this to give you a picture of the drive and the value of education that we were told when we were kids, he said. It still impacts in some form or fashion. Desalegn has about 50 desktop computers ready to be shipped overseas and he knows exactly where theyll go. He was in Ethiopia last month when the first shipment arrived and he talked to officials at his old high school, which has become Tegbareid Polytechnic College. There are about 1,600 students there in eight different departments, and Desalegn and the dean agreed the nonprofit would provide at least 50 computers to each section. There are so many colleges, so many high schools, so many middle schools that would die to get these computers, Desalegn said. I have made a promise to him that he will get his computers, but I did not promise on the time. More information about Educate Africas mission is available at its website, educateafricaweb.org. OMAHA Two people were killed and four others were injured in a three-vehicle crash in Bellevue on Friday evening. According to the Bellevue Police Department, officers were dispatched to the intersection of Cornhusker and Fort Crook roads shortly before 8:15 p.m. for reports of a crash. The preliminary investigation indicates that a Honda Odyssey was southbound on Fort Crook Road when it ran a red light and struck two cars, a GMC Envoy and a Kia Sorento, both traveling eastbound on Cornhusker Road. Victor Munoz Garcia, a 30-year-old passenger in the Odyssey, and 23-year-old Kirsten Fritz, the driver of the GMC, were both killed in the crash, according to the police department. Garcia was pronounced dead at the scene. Fritz died at Nebraska Medical Center. All three occupants of the Kia Sorento, Sally Harrington, 38, Ladell Harrington, 46, and an unnamed 16-year-old girl were injured and taken to Nebraska Medical Center. The driver of the Odyssey, 33-year-old Maria Diaz Castelan, was also injured and taken to the hospital. The Sarpy County crash team responded to process the scene. No citations or charges have been issued. ZARANJ, Afghanistan, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police have thwarted attempts to traffic more than 100 kg illicit drugs including heroin in western Afghanistan's Herat and neighboring Nimroz provinces, making four arrests in the past couple of days, officials said Monday. In the crackdown on illicit drugs, counter-narcotics police have arrested three persons in Guzara district of Herat province and seized more than 80 kg contraband goods including 20 kg heroin from their possessions, provincial police spokesman Mahmoud Shah Rasouli told reporters. The police would spare no efforts to curb poppy cultivation and drug smuggling in Herat province, the official emphasized. The police arrested a man who held 25 kg morphine in the neighboring Nimroz province, a border security official, Abdul Salam Hajji Omar has confirmed. Afghanistan's Taliban-run caretaker government has vowed to check poppy cultivation, processing to drugs and trafficking until war-torn Afghanistan gets rid of the drug menace. Whats So Great About North Carolina History is the title to a special free program being held at the Iredell County Public Library, 201 N. Tradd St., Statesville, on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. Hosting the lecture will be historian and author Michael C. Hardy, who is basing his program on the research he conducted for his latest book, A History Lovers Guide to North Carolina, which looks at some of the lesser known places and people in N.C. Michael is a graduate of the University of Alabama and makes his home in the mountains of western N.C. He has studied Civil War history for more than 30 years as a historian, researcher, interpreter, and reenactor. Among his 26 published books are, Kirks Civil War Raids along the Blue Ridge, North Carolina in the Civil War, A Short History of Old Watauga County and Images of America: Grandfather Mountain. His history articles have appeared in the Civil War Times, Americas Civil War, Carolina Mountain Life, The Tar Heel Junior Historian and the Confederate Veteran. The focus and subject of most of Mr. Hardys research and books has been on the Civil War. Recently the Iredell County Public Library Local History Department received the donation of a rare Civil War artifact from long-time Statesville resident, Charles Charley B. Hartley. Mr. Hartley donated an original Spencer repeating rifle now on display in the Local History Room. The Spencer lever-action rifle was passed down to Charley from his great-grandfather Franklin L. Johnson, a Confederate Army Civil War veteran. Pvt. Johnson resided in Randolph County, N.C., where he enlisted on March 23, 1863 for the war. Johnson served in Co. A, 10th Battalion, Heavy Artillery, CSA, organized April 23, 1862 from Davidson County, N.C. The company was mustered in at Wilmington on May 19, 1862, as Captain William B. Lewis Company of N.C. State Troops. Company A was first referred to as Lewis Battery and later as Harris Battery after Lewis was replaced by 1st Lt. Hammet J. Harris who was promoted in 1863. The North Carolina 10th Artillery Battalion (also called 2nd Battalion Heavy Artillery) served on the coast of N.C. at Fort Caswell and Wilmington, and was active in the defense of Savannah against Shermans March to the Sea in November and December 1864. The 10th later saw action in the North Carolina Campaign as infantry fighting in the Battle of Averasboro, on March 16, 1865, and the Battle of Bentonville, on March 19, 1865. The 10th surrendered with the Army of Tennessee under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston on April 26, 1865, in Durham, N.C. Pvt. Franklin Linton Johnson was born Dec. 29, 1839, in Randolph County, N.C., to Clemmons Clement Johnson, (11/28/1801 -1/24/1857) and Dianna Swaim (1818 -ca.1857). Clement was the son of Capt. John Johnson, who was born in Lancaster County, Chester, Pa., on May 12, 1745, and died in Randolph County, N.C., on May 14, 1802. Capt. Johnson served in the N.C. Militia during the Revolutionary War and was married to Rosannah Rosie Lytle, also born in Lancaster County, Pa., and who died in Randolph County, N.C., on Aug. 9, 1853. Pvt. F.L. Johnson and his wife Martha Matilda Rush (2/1/1833 1/22/1917) passed the Spencer repeating rifle down to his son, William Alton Johnson (5/16/1874 6/27/1940) and his wife, Flora E. Spencer (5/11/18801/16/1908). The rifle was then passed down to William and Floras daughter Eleanor May Johnson who married Francis Garrett Jack Hartley (5/23/1900 6/7/1959) and from there to Charles Bryce Hartley. It should be noted that the Spencer repeating rifle passed down through Mr. Harleys family and now on display at the library is actually a Union issued rifle and not a Confederate one. The Spencer repeating rifle was invented by Christopher M. Spencer from Connecticut who had worked in the Samuel Colt firearm factory in Hartford. Spencer patented his new breech-loading repeating rifle in 1860 and in 1861 he sold 700 rifles to the Union Navy. Spencer knew his repeating rifle was superior to the Springfields the Union Army was using, but standing in his way was the head of the Federal Chief of Ordnance, Gen. James W. Ripley. Ripley was what we would call today old school. He was born in 1794 and trusted the muzzleloaders he grew up with. Ripley described the new breechloading rifles as newfangled gimcracks. Finally, in 1863 Spencer decides to go over Ripleys head. On Aug. 17, 1863, Spencer took his rifle in a cloth case to the White House and asked to speak to President Lincoln. Amazingly, he was allowed to go in to see the president, whom he found alone in his office. After examining the rifle and hearing Spencers description of how it worked Lincoln asked him to take the rifle apart and show him the inwardness of the thing. Using a screw driver Spencer quickly took the rifle apart and put it back together impressing the president with the simplicity of its design. Lincoln had been shown a Henry rifle in 1861 which he felt was too complicated and would thus be prone to breakdowns. Lincoln invited Spencer to return the following day for a live demonstration. On Aug. 18, 1863, Spencer accompanied the president, the presidents son Robert, and his secretary John Hay on grounds outside the White House for a demonstration. The area they went to is believed to be near the site of the Washington Monument today. A wooden plank three feet long and six inches wide was put up as a target forty yards away. Lincoln fired seven shots hitting the target each time convincing him of the superiority of the Spencer over a muzzleloader. A single-shot, muzzleloader required the shooter to load and pack both powder and ball down the barrel with a rod before each shot. A muzzleloader could be fired two or three times in a minute while the Spencer using bullets housed in a 7-round magazine in the stock and loaded from the breech could fire 15 to 20 rounds a minute. Lincoln sent word to the Ordnance Department to order the Spencers and experiment with their usage. Gen. Ripley refused saying, What does Lincoln know about a gun? Purchase and usage of the Spencer rifle was delayed until Lincoln got word and removed Ripley from his post on Sept. 15, 1863. So how did a Union issue Spencer repeating rifle end up in the hands of a Confederate Infantry private? Confederate infantrymen recognized the advantage of a repeating rifle over a muzzleloader and sized them and their ammo whenever possible from dead or wounded Union soldiers. We dont know how Pvt. Johnson obtained the rifle. He might have gotten it on the battlefield or he might have simply purchased it after the war. Joel Reese is the local history librarian at the Iredell County Public Library, PACKWOOD The Goat Rocks Fire northeast of Packwood continues to grow and is still 0% contained after having consumed 3,675 acres of forest as of Monday morning. On Monday from noon to 7 p.m., a red flag warning was put in place in the vicinity of the fire, which is a weather advisory signaling dry, windy conditions that increase the potential for fire growth. Gusty winds from the east were expected to bring dry air into the area, with relative humidity falling into the upper teens and low 20% range. The weather was expected to stay dry Tuesday before a shift to more typical on-shore flow brings in cooler, more humid air and possibly light showers later this week, according to a news release from the Forest Service. The warm weather early this week will likely increase the amount of smoke produced by the fire. Areas northeast of Butter Creek and north of U.S. Highway 12, including Lower Timberline and Goat Rocks, are still at an evacuation level one, meaning residents should be ready to leave if asked. Upper Timberline remains at an evacuation level two, which has been described by Lewis County Division of Emergency Management officials as having the car packed and ready to go. Despite warm, dry weather on Sunday, the fire had not reportedly crossed containment lines toward nearby neighborhoods and as of Monday morning, no serious injuries had been reported from firefighters working on the fire. As of Sunday, crews had completed 92% of the indirect control lines between residential areas and the fire. Air support continues to drop water on the fire from above as well. Some fire spread is expected as burning trees and logs fall or roll down the slopes and fire makes short runs up slopes. Some torching of individual trees or small groups of trees is likely, but fire is mostly consuming ground fuels, stated the release. The fire is not expected to make large runs or gain much acreage despite the adverse weather conditions. Do you download apps frequently on your android smartphone from Google Play Store? Then watch out for these signs before you download any app. If you're an android phone user, you might have downloaded hundreds, if not thousands of apps till date. Google Play Store offers millions of apps for any and all imaginable tasks. Want new widgets on your phone, you've got an app for that. Don't like the look of your home screen, you can customize with downloadable launchers. You can even find similar, if not better replacements for stock apps such as file manager, music player and more. However, unlike Apple, Google does not screen apps for malware and hackers on Play Store much, meaning some harmful apps often slip under the radar. These apps, when downloaded on your smartphone, can not only steal your data, but could also potentially put your financial information at risk, leave your phone exposed to hacks and even brick your phone, leaving you a worthless and over-expensive paperweight. Thankfully, there are a few signs you can watch out for before downloading any app. According to the Sun UK, there are four huge red-flags to watch out for while downloading any app from the Google Play Store, says Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity expert at NordVPN. See the app permissions With the new Android updates, whenever you download any app, it asks you for various permissions depending on its purpose. For example, a photo editing app might request access to your storage space, camera, microphone and photo gallery. However, you should always keep an eye out for any app asking for unusual permissions such as access to your personal information, contacts and more. Check the reviews Always check the app reviews before downloading it. People post app reviews based on their user experience. Warmenhoven explains, It sounds obvious but users police the apps they use all the time and aren't shy about warning others when they find problems. See the number of downloads Any app that is potentially harmful might have only a handful of downloads. So, only download apps which have already been downloaded a respectable number of times. Warmenhover said, There have been cases where the download figures have been manipulated by fraudsters so you should definitely smell a rat if an app is claiming millions of downloads yet has only been released for a few days. Read the app description Google Play Store provides an app description along with information about the app creator. You can click on the developer's name to see a list of other apps they have developed. Therefore, only install apps from trustworthy sources. Most US car trips are 30 miles or lessbut American drivers wont settle for an electric vehicle with less than 300 miles of range. For US electric car shoppers, the magic number on range seems to be about 300 miles: In a survey commissioned by Bloomberg, nearly two-thirds of 5,500 respondents said that 300-plus miles of range was adequate to their needs, while less than 10% would settle for 200 or less. A 2021 Cox Automotive survey found similar results: an average desired range of 341 miles among people considering EVs. Yet there is a glaring disconnect between what American drivers want and what they actually need: Some 95% of US car trips are 30 miles or less. We're in this education phase of electrification, says Stephanie Valdez-Streaty, director of EV research and development at Cox Automotive Mobility. We're getting consumers to understand: How often do I drive? Where am I going to be able to charge? What do I need for my lifestyle? As consumers start to get more educated, they may realize they don't need a vehicle that has a 400-mile range. For now, automakers are responding in kind to Americans' outsized range expectations, introducing more EVs with bigger, longer-lasting batteries and eliminating smaller models. Of the more than 80 EV models and their various trims currently available in the US, all but three the BMW Mini Cooper SE, the base model of the Nissan Leaf, and a smaller battery version of the Porsche Taycan come with at least 200 miles of range. Nearly 40% come with at least 300 miles. Buying too much car is an American tradition that predates the emergence of electric vehicles. The US is, after all, the country that decided the Hummer would make a good car for trips to the mall. But while overbuying on a combustion-engine vehicle usually means getting more seats, cargo space or horsepower than is routinely necessary, with an electric car it means getting too much battery. Buying an EV is essentially buying a battery on wheels the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars are their single most expensive and heaviest component. This makes bloated batteries doubly wasteful: Buyers spend thousands of dollars on range that they will rarely take advantage of, and vehicles spend kilowatts carrying around the excess weight. More battery also means more greenhouse gas emissions undermining the impetus for switching to EVs in the first place as well as added danger for other road users. For a good guidepost on what it takes to build the EVs Americans say they want, it helps to do some back-of-the-envelope math. Across the 80-plus models in Bloomberg's EV Ratings all of the models currently for sale in the US the median efficiency is 3.3 miles of range per kilowatt hour (kWH) of battery. That means 300 miles of range requires about 91 kWh. According to BloombergNEF's most recent price survey, battery packs cost automakers an average of $118 per kWh. So one 91 kWh battery is likely to cost nearly $11,000 to make. And at an average energy density of about 174 Watt-hours per kilogram, according to BloombergNEF, that $11,000 battery typically weighs in at more than 1,100 pounds. Whether that weight and expense is worth it for what mostly amounts to commutes and grocery-store trips is an open question for drivers and automakers. For every kilowatt hour of battery, we add cost for the consumer, and we add CO, says Fredrika Klaren, head of sustainability at Sweden-based EV maker Polestar, which sells a performance sedan with 270 miles of range and a 78 kWh battery. The American market's glut of big EVs stands in contrast to the growing array of small electric cars being sold across Europe, Asia and elsewhere. But in the US, where EV adoption is currently hovering around 5%, the overbuilt electric car may be a necessary evil one that gets that Hummer-driving mall-goer to first consider switching to an electric Hummer, and then maybe eventually a modest EV sedan. We have to get more people on board, really trusting EVs and feeling confident enough to buy them, says Klaren. They need to feel like they have good range to be able to make that leap from ICE vehicles. As more drivers gain experience with EVs and become more comfortable with charging routines, says Valdez-Streaty, range anxiety will probably give way to range confidence and second-time EV buyers may be more inclined to downsize. By then the offerings are likely to be more diverse, with more low-cost and lower range models in the mix. If we want mass adoption, she says, we need a price point for everyone and something that meets their lifestyle. It's also possible that, in the long run, American EV drivers will be able to have the range they want without hulking, expensive batteries. Well-funded startups and big automakers are working to develop alternative battery chemistries that deliver abundant range without the bulk. If these options follow the trend of lithium-ion battery packs, prices will eventually come down to a level that makes them available to the broader market. For now, though, the long-range, low-cost, lightweight electric car remains a fantasy. Space agency NASA has issued another warning about an asteroid which is hurtling towards Earth today. Does it pose a threat to the planet? September has been a month full of asteroid flybys with nearly 30 asteroids passing by Earth and that too in uncomfortably close proximity. Astonishingly, four asteroids passed by Earth closely yesterday alone, making it one of the most frequent asteroid flyby periods we have had this month. NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office keeps an eye on these space rocks for any potential danger to Earth. Now, NASA has warned that another asteroid is heading our way. Asteroid 2022 SY4 hurtling towards Earth today, Sept 26 Most of the asteroids are observed with the help of the top technologically empowered gadgets. In this instance, NEOWISE Project repurposed NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer to work as a survey telescope and scan the sky for Near-Earth Objects. NASA then uses its ground-based radar to gather precise data about the asteroid's path and its characteristics. Using these instruments, NASA has issued a warning about an asteroid named Asteroid 2022 SY4 which is hurtling towards the planet. The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth today, September 26, at a distance of just 920,000 kilometers. The asteroid is already on its way towards us, travelling at a staggering speed of 42,228 kilometers per hour, according to NASAs According to the-sky.org, Asteroid 2022 SY4 was discovered very recently on September 20 and belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids orbiting in the main asteroid belt near Jupiter. The asteroid takes almost 755 days to complete one orbit around the Sun during which its maximum distance from the Sun is 362 million kilometers and nearest distance is 124 million kilometers. Tech behind asteroid tracking NASA keeps a watch on these asteroids by studying data collected by various telescopes and observatories such as the Pan-STARRS, the Catalina Sky Survey and the NEOWISE telescope. NASA also has a NEO Surveyor mission planned for launch in 2026 to gain even greater in-depth data using a new orbiter. NASA also has a new impact monitoring system in place which uses an algorithm called Sentry-II to calculate the impact risk of Near-Earth Objects. NASA can track the orbital path of the asteroid using this infrared data and can even predict its orbit years into the future. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has deployed his satellite-based 'Starlink' service in Iran amid widespread protests in the country. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has deployed his satellite-based 'Starlink' service in Iran amid widespread protests in the country following which authorities had restricted internet access. This Iranian government had cut off internet access for many of its citizens on Wednesday amid widespread protests over the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody, according to reports. On Friday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk had indicated that he will make Starlink available in Iran. US State Secretary Antony Blinken earlier announced on Twitter aboout advancing internet freedom and the free flow of information for the Iranian people by issuing a General License to provide them greater access to digital communications to counter, what he claimed, was the Iranian government's censorship. Replying to Blinken's tweet, Musk wrote, "Activating Starlink ...." Protestors have been demanding basic rights of freedom and holding demonstrations against the mandatory dress codes including the compulsory wearing of the Hijab. The protests in Iran erupted last weekend after Mahsa Amini died following her detainment by Iran's morality police. She died a few days after falling into a coma while being detained on an accusation of violating a law related to hijabs. It is worth noting that earlier this week, lawmakers from New York and New Jersey had urged US Treasury Department to grant approval if SpaceX sought licensing permission to make internet service available in Iran. Lawmakers, led by Claudia Tenney of New York and Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, reportedly made the appeal to the Treasury Department, Fox News had reported. The letter came after Musk tweeted Monday that SpaceX would seek exemptions from sanctions on the country. SpaceX has deployed Starlink in emergency situations in past, such as in Ukraine after Russia invaded and in the South Pacific islands of Tonga after a volcanic eruption. NASA's DART spacecraft is all set to collide with its target asteroid Dimorphos today. September 26. Know when and where you can watch the NASA DART mission live today. You might wonder what would happen if any of the asteroids which frequently fly past Earth at close distance, actually hit the planet some day. Well, NASA has already made preparations for that. NASA is readying itself to potentially defend the planet against a very similar threat that is posed by rogue asteroids. A NASA mission has been in the works for a long time to deflect an asteroid off its collision course with Earth by smashing a spacecraft into it. The mission is named Double Asteroid Detection Test or DART, which is all set to take place today and you can watch the NASA DART mission live. The DART mission had sent the main spacecraft to space in November, 2021. It includes a satellite made by the Italian Space Agency. Another spacecraft is set to launch by 2026, to measure the impact. Speaking about the DART Mission, NASA said, DART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid's motion in space through kinetic impact. This test will help scientists gain greater knowledge as to what happens when a craft is crashed against a space rock. This knowledge will be used if an actual asteroid threatens to crash against the Earth. After the collision, the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft will fly to the asteroid to survey the aftermath of impact and gather information such as the size of impact crater, the mass of the asteroid and its make-up and internal structure. Watch NASA DART mission live today DART Mission's first planetary defense test is set to take place today, September 26 at 7:14 p.m. EDT or 4:44 a.m. IST when the spacecraft will impact the target asteroid. The live coverage of the event will begin at 6:00 p.m. EDT or 3:30 a.m. IST. You can watch the DART mission live on NASA's website or its Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages. Alternatively, you can watch the livestream of the event below. Tune in on time! Tune in on time! You can watch NASA's DART spacecraft crashing into an asteroid live online on NASA's YouTube Channel, Facebook and more. Check details here. The day is finally here, when NASA will be testing its technology in a unique way. It will find out if it can protect and defend Earth against asteroids or comets that head towards it at high speed. NASA under its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission will be crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid called Dimorphos to test the defence mechanism today, September 26. DART will become the first ever space mission to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor. Also, the entire event will be broadcast live by NASA and people all over the world can watch it live online. "Just 1 more day! DART will become the first-ever space mission to demonstrate #asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor. Are you ready to watch history in the making? Watch @NASA's #DARTMission LIVE tomorrow at 6pm ET. http://nasa.gov/live," NASA Asteroid Watch tweeted. It can be known that the DART spacecraft will deliberately collide into the asteroid Dimorphos to change its speed and path. NASA has tweeted earlier, "on September 26, DART will intentionally crash into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos. While the asteroid poses no threat to Earth, this is the world's first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense." Want to watch the historic event live online? Here is when and where. NASA's DART Mission: When and where to watch live online On Monday, September 26 at 6 p.m. ET (3:30 a.m., IST), NASA will broadcast the live coverage of DART's impact with the asteroid Dimorphos on NASA TV and over its social media handles including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The spacecraft will impact its target asteroid at 7:14 p.m. ET (4:44 a.m. IST), while at 8:00 p.m. ET (5:30 a.m. IST), the research organisation will host a post-impact press briefing. Check the direct links below to watch the NASA's DART Mission live online: NASA website NASA Facebook Account NASA Twitter Account NASA YouTube Account. DHAKA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from Sunday's boat sinking in northern Bangladesh rose to 32 on Monday, with some 30 to 40 people still missing, a senior police official said. SM Sirajul Huda, superintendent of Panchagarh District Police, told Xinhua that seven more bodies were retrieved from the Karatoya river in Bangladesh's northern Panchagarh district, 468 km away from the capital Dhaka. According to the official, the jam-packed boat, carrying some 100 passengers, sank on Sunday afternoon. "Another seven bodies were recovered on Monday morning, which brings the total death toll to 32 from 25 on Sunday," the official told Xinhua over phone Monday afternoon. "A search operation is still underway for 30 to 40 people still missing," he said, adding that the boat had been dragged to the bank. The police official said rescuers had been working against a strong current and choppy river waters. "The boat sank due to overloading," he told Xinhua on Sunday. Ferry and boat disasters are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers. Ferry is still a key means of transport in the South Asian country and most of them are often overcrowded. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain We know that apps collect all sorts of data about us, and that makes us feel uncomfortable. In a new study researchers from the University of Copenhagen have measured how uncomfortable and "creeped out" using apps can make us feel. Industry and policy initiatives are called for. You would think that feeling chronically uneasy about products would spur a movement away from them. However, this is not the case for apps use. Even though surveys show users feel emotional stress due to the fact that apps collect personal data, we just continue our use. "It seems that people accept this uneasy feeling almost as a part of the user experience. Somehow, we have been trained to live with being uncomfortable. But you may ask how it can be defensible to treat people and their emotional states so terribly," says Irina Shklovski, Professor at the Department of Computer Science (DIKU), University of Copenhagen. She is author of a scientific article on the subject, selected as Best Paper at the SIGCHI conference 2022, an international conference on Human Factors in Computing Science. The true novelty of the underlying study is that Irina Shklovski and American colleagues have created a tool for measuring the degree of discomfort felt by tech users. "I think most of us have tried feeling uneasy when downloading apps, but most often you can't really put your finger on what the problem might be. So, we decided to create a way of measuring the degree of discomfort," Irina Shklovski says. Accept license agreement? Sure! The researchers broke down the problem into three issues. To be creepy, an app needs to a) violate the boundaries of the user; b) do so unexpectedly; and c) possess ambiguity of threat. High scores in all three categories would amount to one very creepy app. "Notably, we are talking about emotional response here. Even in a situation where objectively everything is fine, for instance if a technical solution guarding against misuse of personal data is in place, the user may still feel discomfort," Irina Shklovski says. Now having a score for creepiness, the researchers can examine how various modifications may change the experience of users. In the study, 751 participants were divided into cohorts which would rate their experience under different regimes. All regimes would feature a fictitious app, "Remember Music". Just like several real-world apps, Remember Music will be able to recognize a tune or song which you might hear randomly, for example as you walk down the street: oh, I know this song, but which is it? The app will tell you. "Just like in the real world, the participants would have to agree to a license agreement, and again just like in the real world they would click accept without thinking twice," says Irina Shklovski. User control doesn't help In one regime, the app would collect your location. In another regime, it would soon start to make suggestions on more music from the identified artists. In yet another regime, the app would post on Facebook what you are listening to. Further, some participants were granted control of what the app was doing: they could approve or deny having their music habits displayed at Facebook. "We had expected the group with control to feel more comfortable, but surprisingly they didn't," Irina Shklovski comments, noting that this is a major discovery: "Lawyers and organizations working to improve data privacy are often focused on improving user control. While this may be desirable for other reasons, sadly our research show that the emotional stress to users will not be relieved." A blow to an often-heard dogma As part of the experiment, participants would rate themselves on digital literacy. "We normally assume people who have a high degree of digital literacy to be more critical towards the apps, but again surprisingly, the opposite is true. The more you see yourself as digitally literate, the higher the likeliness of you continuing using an app which is invasive," says Irina Shklovski. And again, this discovery delivers a blow to an often-heard dogma: "Industry and public bodies will argue that this is a question of personal data hygiene. In other words, that as users become more digitally aware they will favor less intrusive apps over the more intrusive. Based on the data from our study, we can say that trying to shift responsibility to the user in this way will not work. That horse has bolted. If we want things to get better, we need developers and policy makers to change the scene," Irina Shklovski concludes. The research was published in CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Explore further Immersive ethics tool helps developers avoid Internet of Things dystopia More information: John S. Seberger et al, Still Creepy After All These Years:The Normalization of Affective Discomfort in App Use, CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2022). John S. Seberger et al, Still Creepy After All These Years:The Normalization of Affective Discomfort in App Use,(2022). DOI: 10.1145/3491102.3502112 TikToks popularity continues to rise, while other social media networks have seen a decline. Credit: Shutterstock In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram is faltering in its bid to keep up with TikTok, the wildly popular Chinese-owned video-sharing app. But it is not just Instagram fretting over TikTok's meteoric risea Google exec raised similar concerns about how TikTok was drawing younger users away from Google's core services such as Search and Maps. TiKTok's rise is confirmed by data from our new nation-wide, census-balanced online survey, The State of Social Media in Canada 2022, which surveyed 1,500 Canadian adults over the age of 18 between May 12 and 31, 2022. The rise of TikTok Our report findings show that Canadians' use of social media has declined from its early pandemic peak; however, Canada continues to be one of the most connected countries in the world94% of online adults use at least one social media platform. We found that TikTok had the largest gain (an increase of 11%) in the number of Canadian adults who reported having an account on the platform in 2022, compared to data we collected in 2020. While the number of Canadians on TikTok is still relatively small (26%), those who do use the platform visit it regularly (65% daily). Like in the United States, TikTok adoption in Canada largely skews towards younger age groups, as 76% of those aged 1824 reported having an account on the platform, while the fastest growing demographic on the platform are those who are between 25 and 34 years old (54%). These findings suggest that TikTok's appeal has grown since 2020, when we last conducted this survey, and that TikTok is no longer just an app for short videos. Other studies have shown that young people are now using TikTok as one of the primary ways to get news and that some have even replaced Google Search with TikTok. Our findings from earlier in the summer support this: 51% of Canadian TikTok users reported using the app to follow news on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After the pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in some changes in where and how often Canadians are spending their time on social media. After living through two years of COVID-19 restrictions, more Canadians are re-evaluating the role of social media in their lives. In particular, Canadians are spending less time on social media now that most pandemic restrictions have been lifted. In Canada, Facebook has the highest percentage of daily users at 70%, but this dropped from a previous high of 77% daily users in 2020. TikTok is the only platform showing a slight 2% increase in the percentage of daily users. In contrast, Reddit has the largest drop14%of daily users. Fewer Canadians reported having an account on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Platforms such as Facebook, messaging apps and YouTube still dominate in terms of the number of users, but newer platformslike TikTokand more niche platformslike the livestreaming service Twitchare gaining ground. The percentage of Canadians who reported using LinkedIn has dropped by 7% since 2020. The rate of new users joining Facebook and Pinterest has also declined, each dropping by 3% and 4% since 2020 respectively. An unfolding story There's little doubt that TikTok has been a disrupting force on the social media landscape. It has forced social media stalwarts like Facebook and Google to make radical changes to their platform in order to keep up. But for TikTok to continue to grow, it will need to convince skeptics that it is not part of the Chinese state apparatus; however, in the current geopolitical climate, that could be a very tall order. Explore further Facebook use plunges among US teens: survey This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Navasota High School students on the engineering path will have the opportunity to do something not many can say: build a full-scale FAA-certified airplane. Through a new partnership with Tango Flight, a nonprofit educational company, the students will learn how to use new machines and tools to put together kits that in two years will come together to create a two-seater plane. This years group of juniors and seniors are the first to take part in the program in Navasota. They are still in the process of learning how everything works and how the kits come together. By the end of next year, they will have a completed Tango Flight plane. The kids are really excited about it; Im really excited about it, Navasota engineering teacher Michael Kubacak said. Theyre going to get a lot of skills out of it: communication, leadership, lots of working with different types of tools. Theyre going to be able to learn a lot of different information about airplanes and flight and aviation. Kubacak, who began as an aerospace engineer major at Texas A&M before switching to education, said it takes about 800 work hours to build the plane. He said the plane Tango Flight uses is one of the simplest aircraft to make and is why it is part of the high school program. Each years class of seniors will either have the experience of completing the plane they started as juniors or helping the juniors start building a new plane. At the end of each two-year cycle, Kubacak said the companys president will visit to take the plane on its inaugural flight at Navasota Municipal Airport and then will take up any students and teachers who want to have the experience. Kubacak said Tango Flight owns the project throughout the length of the two years and then auctions off the completed plane. Navasota is one of six schools in Texas and 22 in the country where Tango Flight has partnerships since the nonprofit was founded in 2016. Navasota is the only school in the Brazos Valley with programs in place, according to the companys website. Kubacak said the district paid a $90,000 down payment as an initial program fee, and then they pay $10,000 at the start of each two-year build that pays for the parts and any replacement or shipping fees. The program also uses mentors, Kubacak said, and there are six local mentors who volunteer to visit with him and the students. It is not required for mentors to have flight experience, he said, but most of the six working with the district do. Its great to have that experience walk alongside this program because I dont really have much flight experience, he said. Prior to beginning the Tango Flight program as juniors, students must have completed the intro to engineering design and engineering science courses. Kubacak, who is in his second year at Navasota, said students also will have the opportunity to earn an aviation maintenance industry-based certification at the end of each year. The certifications are in the process of being approved through the Texas Education Agency, he said. A lot of what I hope they take away is communication skills and leadership skills, he said, noting those are two skills professionals in the industry are wanting to see more in their new hires. They have communicated that with both the Tango Flight people, and Ive seen articles based off of it and stuff like that, that a lot of what theyre seeing nowadays in people that come out of college is that they dont really have communication skills that they need to thrive in the field. So thats what Im hoping that they build the most on. Gordon Young, a senior at Navasota, said he expects the program to be beneficial to anyone interested in engineering, but especially those interested in aerospace engineering or flying. In the early stages of the program, which was brought to Navasota by Superintendent Stu Musick, the students are in the process of cataloging, doing inventory and organizing the pieces as they are delivered. Justice Welch, a junior at Navasota, said he enjoys the more tedious work and his favorite thing about engineering is taking things apart and seeing how they work. He is excited to actually build the plane, saying not many people get that experience and its that experience that gives people a better understanding of what they want to do in their future or with their careers. While a plane is not a small object to build, junior Mayra Castillo said it is smaller than some projects, which is helpful to allow students to understand how to follow directions, understand the process and work together as a team. Castillo said it is an opportunity not all students have in school, and she thinks it will help them begin to think outside the box and allow them to learn how to design and build new projects. Young said he thinks the opportunity is big for Navasota. Until recent years, Navasota hasnt really had very many opportunities, like extracurriculars, outside of sports, he said. I feel like this could be the beginning of something big for engineering or other expansions for other classes. This could be like a catalyst, I guess you could say, for an opportunity. Navasota High School Principal Kristi Ramsey said the partnership with Tango Flight is one of many they are working to put into place for students to gain real-world experience that will equip them to enter the workforce if they choose or give them a better foundation to pursue further education. Our school vision is to have big-town opportunities and small-town values, she said, so everything that I do as a principal is trying to open up as many opportunities as possible for our students. With our recent bond construction, we have really been able to open the door to those opportunities. Ramsey said school and district administrators are working to build partnerships in more areas, noting one they have established with Ford Motor Company for students in the automotive program. Ramsey, Kubacak and some students all said they are looking forward to building the plane. One of the things that Im probably going to enjoy the most is just seeing the plane come together and seeing those students learn as theyre going along, Kubacak said. What I really enjoy its one of the things I enjoy most about teaching is wherever they come to a moment of realization or a moment of like, Oh, I finally understand this. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Ukrainian law enforcement authorities on Friday disclosed that it had "neutralized" a hacking group operating from the city of Lviv that it said acted on behalf of Russian interests. The group specialized in the sales of 30 million accounts belonging to citizens from Ukraine and the European Union on the dark web and netted a profit of $372,000 (14 million UAH) through electronic payment systems like YooMoney, Qiwi, and WebMoney that are outlawed in the country. "Their 'wholesale clients' were pro-kremlin propagandists," the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said in a press release. "It was them who used the received identification data of Ukrainian and foreign citizens to spread fake 'news' from the front and sow panic." The goal behind the campaign was "large-scale destabilization in multiple countries," it stated, adding the hacked accounts were used to propagate false information about the socio-political situation in Ukraine and the E.U. Searches carried out at the suspects' homes revealed magnetic disks containing personal data as well as computer equipment, mobile phones, SIM cards, and flash drives that exhibited evidence of illicit activities. The agency did not reveal how many individuals were arrested and which online services were targeted by the cybercriminals. The development comes weeks after the agency moved to shut down two bot farms comprising nearly 7,000 accounts that were orchestrated to spread information designed to destabilize the social and political situation in Ukraine. "Their main activity was creation and promotion of accounts in social networks and messengers," it noted. "The group used the bots to spread panic in the region, for example, by disseminating disinformation and fake news from the front." People's Daily urges delegates to 20th CPC National Congress to perform duties faithfully Xinhua) 08:37, September 26, 2022 BEIJING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- An editorial to be published by the People's Daily, a flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has congratulated the delegates to the upcoming 20th CPC National Congress on their election, and urged them to perform their duties faithfully. A total of 2,296 delegates to the 20th CPC National Congress were elected. They are carrying the expectations of the more than 96 million members and over 4.9 million primary-level organizations of the Party, as well as of the people of all ethnic groups, reads the editorial. The 20th CPC National Congress is a meeting of great significance taking place at a critical moment as the Party and the people of all ethnic groups embark on a new journey to build a modern socialist country in all respects, and advance toward the Second Centenary Goal, notes the article. The congress will lay out sound plans on the targets, tasks and major policies for the cause of the Party and the country in the next five years and beyond. It is crucial to building on past successes to advance the cause of the Party and the country, to the future of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, according to the editorial. It is an event of great significance to uniting and galvanizing people of all ethnic groups in their endeavor to achieve new victory for socialism with Chinese characteristics, the article adds. The elected delegates are highly-qualified ideologically and politically, have good work styles and high moral standards, are competent in discussing state affairs, and have made remarkable achievements in their work, the editorial reads, adding that they embody advanced nature of CPC members, and are broadly representative, meeting the requirements set by the CPC Central Committee and enjoying the support of Party members. All these, according to the article, have made important ideological and organizational preparations and laid a solid foundation for the successful convening of the congress. The 20th CPC National Congress will take stock of the Party's work over the past five years, as well as major achievements and valuable experience of the Party's Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core in uniting and leading the whole Party and Chinese people of all ethnic groups to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, notes the editorial. The congress will also formulate action plans and major policies and elect new central leadership. During the congress, delegates will hear and deliberate a report by the 19th CPC Central Committee and deliberate a report by the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The delegates will convey the opinions and demands of Party members and the general public, discuss and decide on the Party's major issues, and elect a new CPC Central Committee and a new CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. All delegates, according to the article, should earnestly participate in each item on the agenda with a strong sense of political responsibility and historical mission, as well as full enthusiasm and high morale. It is firmly believed that under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core and through the concerted efforts of all the delegates, the 20th CPC National Congress will be a congress of unity, victory and endeavor, reads the editorial. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) ULAN BATOR, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The China-Mongolia Friendship Week, aimed at increasing mutual understanding between the two peoples and expanding people-to-people exchanges and cultural cooperation between the two countries, started here on Monday. Nyamdorj Ankhbayar, state secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, said at the opening ceremony that the friendly relations and cooperation between Mongolia and China is continuously expanding in all fields, the friendship between the two peoples is strengthening, and the comprehensive strategic partnership is developing successfully. Chinese Ambassador to Mongolia Chai Wenrui said he hopes that a series of activities of the Mongolia-China Friendship Week will further strengthen the mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples, and lay a solid public opinion foundation for the long-term and stable development of China-Mongolia relations. Various activities, including photo exhibitions on China's Tianjin city, Yunnan Province and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the launch ceremony of the Mongolian edition of "Dictionary of Chinese Cultural Knowledge" and an essay competition for Mongolian journalists and researchers titled "China's Development through My Eyes" will be held during the week. In addition, documentaries on China's poverty alleviation achievements and its fight against desertification will be broadcasted on several Mongolian TV channels this week. CENTRAL CITY A two-month trip to Kenya turned out to be a life-changing experience for a Central City teacher, which will also give her students a broader perspective of the world. Chelle Gillan was one of only two high school teachers enrolled in the Koobi Fora Field School. The paleoanthropology programs main partners are George Washington University and the National Museums of Kenya. Also involved are the American Museum of Natural History, the University of Nebraska, Duke, Penn State and Yale. The participants in the Koobi Fora Field School were anthropology researchers from all over the world. Gillan and a teacher from Lincoln Southwest, Charley Bittle, were the only teachers. They took part under a program called Research Experience for Teachers. All of the other participants were in the archaeology field, or entering the field. Many had their doctorates or were pursuing their PhD. Gillan left for Kenya on June 9 and returned Aug. 4. The trip gave her a deeper understanding of subjects that she has taught for years. It was the hardest thing Ive ever done, and one of the best things Ive ever done, said Gillan, who is in her 18th year at Central City. It just changed the way that I look at the world, she said. The researchers spent a lot of time studying a tribe called the Daasanach. The Daasanach people have water and food insecurity. But thats not to say theyre not a successful population, Gillan said. Theyve been living this way for 4,000 years, she said. Theyre one of the few tribes left that lives this lifestyle. The Daasanach are a mobile society. They graze their animals in circular enclosures called bomas. The researchers tried to determine how living in an arid environment affects the health of the Daasanach people, both currently and over time. They also studied how their agricultural practices affect the land. It was previously felt that the Daasanach people are hurting the land in the circular enclosures where the animals graze. But what researchers are finding is theyre actually increasing the plant material in these bomas because of all the fertilizer that comes from their grazing animals, and they also kind of aerate the soil, Gillan said. She and Bittle developed lesson plans, which they will use for their own students. They will also make those plans available to other teachers. Gillan and Bittle developed an activity called Walking in the Shoes of Another Culture. They present students with a scenario in which a Daasanach family is trying to survive the dry season, which lasts 90 days. Students learn about typical Daasanach activities, such as walking with the herds, walking to get water, walking to gather firewood and milking the goats. Students have to determine how many calories the Daasanach people would expend doing those chores. They have to make a meal plan, making sure the natives get enough calories, carbohydrates, fats and proteins. In the assignment, the Daasanach group has a herd of 110 goats. That number allows the Daasanach room to butcher a few goats, but they have to end the activity with 100 goats. Throughout the project, none of the family members can lose more than 10% of their body weight. Each family is assigned a small amount of food to begin with. During the exercise, students might decide to sell a goat and use the money to buy sorghum. Because thats one of the main grains that they have, Gillan said. Another option is to butcher a goat for meat. But if I butcher the goat, then I can only have that for a little while because theres no refrigeration, she said. However, I do think they dry some of the meat. The Daasanach store their milk in a gourd called a calabash. They let the milk ferment until it becomes yogurt. They also keep blood in the gourd, and drink it. The blood is obtained by poking the neck of a cow. The animal isnt harmed in the process. The Daasanach drink milk tea in the morning, and might have porridge at night. They sometimes have meat but they dont butcher their goats or their livestock very often, Gillan said. They eat fish, bread and and cabbage. In her time in Kenya, Gillan learned shes stronger than she realized. Because there were some tough times. To take part in the field school, you have to be OK with being uncomfortable for long periods of time. It was hot, dusty, windy and, when we were traveling, bumpy. The participants slept in tents. When they swam in Lake Turkana, they had to worry about alligators. They also had to do their laundry in the lake. Traveling in a 16-passenger open-air vehicle, they had to learn how to dodge branches from the acacia trees that line the roads. That was just another skill we acquired, she said. During her time in Kenya, Gillan got sick. When you have a 102 fever, the temperature is 100 degrees outside and you have just a pit toilet for a bathroom, its challenging, she said. But the people of Kenya were were just so welcoming, Gillan said. They were gracious, friendly and curious. People from other lands might think the Daasanach people need this or that, she said. But what Gillan took away from the experience is that yes, life is difficult there. But they have happy lives. They have families that they love and a lot of the same things as us. When a member of the research team asked the Daasanach people what makes them happy, a man said, When my wife is happy. A woman responded, When my kids are happy. So their priorities are much the same as ours. Learning the similarities between all of humanity was really powerful, Gillan said. She doesnt want to portray the Daasanach as victims. But they have a hard life. And it just made me realize how lucky I am to have what I have. Gillan is careful to point out to students that when theyre doing the assignments, theyre going to encounter cultures that are different from their own, and they should not impose their own ideals onto the other culture. The Daasanach culture is unique, historic and functioning well, and just because their culture doesnt align with your own culture, it doesnt mean either groups cultural norms are lesser or greater than the other. People have tried to help the Daasanach people by digging wells. And thats great. However, it changes a piece of their culture, she said. Because for the women, the time they spend walking to their water source is a time for bonding, sharing and relieving stress. So when you try to solve problems, you sometimes create other problems, she said. Gillan, 55, bonded with many people during the experience. One of the best things about the experience was the friends I made from all over the world, she said. I made good friends from Kenya and from Ethiopia and Uganda and lots of places in the United States. Those are relationships that Im going to cherish for the rest of my life. YORK One person was killed and another was very seriously injured in a head-on crash on Highway 34, west of Utica, on Friday, Sept. 23. York County Sheriff Paul Vrbka explained that the accident happened around 6:20 a.m. Sheriff Vrbka said Scott Sorenson, 42, of Seward, was westbound on Highway 34, two miles west of Utica, just past the York/Seward County line. Vrbka said a juvenile (who the department is not identifying due to her age) was eastbound on Highway 34. The juveniles vehicle crossed into the eastbound lane and the two vehicles collided, head-on, Sheriff Vrbka said. We havent determined the cause of the accident as of yet, it remains under investigation. There were no weather issues at that time, no rain or fog, so that wasnt a factor. After the impact, the Sorenson vehicle went into the north ditch. Sheriff Vrbka said Sorenson was ejected. The juveniles vehicle continued eastbound and came to rest partially on the shoulder and partially in the eastbound lane, Sheriff Vrbka said. The juvenile was not ejected, she was still inside when responders arrived. Responding to the scene, Vrbka said, were his department; fire/rescue squads from Utica, York and Waco; the Seward County Sheriffs Department; and troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol. Sheriff Vrbka said Sorenson was transported to York General Hospital where he was pronounced deceased. The juvenile was transported to the Seward hospital and then taken by helicopter to Bryan West. Sheriff Vrbka said it is his understanding she was later flown to Omaha UNMC where she remains in critical condition. President Joe Biden has decided to ban Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The United States generally imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia's crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Gas prices have been rising for weeks due to the conflict and in anticipation of potential sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. Should the US ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine war? You voted: A preliminary investigation revealed that a 33-year-old male from Wycliffe, KY, had gone to a residence in the 400 block of West 20th Street. The victim had gone to the residence to purchase an item that was for sale. For reasons unknown, an altercation ensued and the victim decided not to purchase the item. As the victim was leaving and inside a 2002 Chevrolet SUV, he was shot by the suspect, a 59-year-old female. Officers attempted to make contact with the suspect but she would not answer the door. Metropolis officers, with the assistance of the Massac County sheriffs deputies, secured the perimeter until the Illinois State Police District 22, Illinois State Police SWAT, and a negotiator arrived on the scene. Entry was made into the residence around 8 a.m. on Sunday morning. The suspect was located and appeared to have overdosed on pills. She was taken to the hospital for treatment. Massac County States Attorney Josh Stratmeyer was contacted. He secured warrants and charges are pending. Helen Bass Williams had many roles in her lifetime. 50 years ago, Williams became the first African American professor at Purdue University. She played a leading role in establishing the Learning Center, now called the Academic Success Center, on the West Lafayette campus. On Aug. 5, Purdues Board of Trustees approved changing the name of that facility to the Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center. Williams worked at Purdue from 1968 to 1978. She was an assistant professor in French and served as an academic counselor for minority students in the School of Humanities, Social Science and Education. While there, she helped create the Africana studies program (now the African American studies program) and the Black Cultural Center. Williams was born on March 29, 1916, in Dewmaine, the only daughter of Lillian (Spears) and Homer Kelley. She had connections to community activism and politics through her family. Her father was an elected official in the United Mine Workers of America, and her mother was active in her community and in politics. Her great-grandfather was a sub-conductor on the Underground Railroad in Illinois. Williams was educated as both a teacher and healthcare worker. She earned a teaching certificate from Southern Illinois Normal University in Carbondale in 1937 and a Bachelor of Arts from Southern Illinois University, majoring in French and elementary education in 1942. Williams earned two masters degrees, one in public health from North Carolina College at Durham in 1950 and the other in French from SIU in 1964. While living in Southern Illinois, Williams served as the principal of Dewmaine Elementary School from 1937 to 1940 and taught at Mount Carbon Grade School from 1940 to 1941. Williams moved to Columbia, South Carolina, in 1950, where she worked at the South Carolina Tuberculosis Association before joining the faculty at Benedict College, a historically Black college, in 1956. While at Benedict College, Williams became involved with the Highlander Folk School, a social justice education center. At Highlander, she worked as a recruiter and served as a board member alongside legendary civil rights activists such as Septima Clark, Rosa Parks and Esau Jenkins. In 1964, Williams moved to Jackson, Mississippi where she worked as a teacher and health director while continuing her activism as a civil rights leader. Williams taught at Tougaloo College, a historically black, coeducational four-year liberal arts institution that was at the forefront of the civil rights movement from 1964-1967. While at Tougaloo, Williams contributed to early mobilizations efforts for Head Start Programs in Mississippi by writing grants and educating teachers. She also served as the health director for the Child Development Group of Mississippi, one of the first Head Start programs in the state. Dr. Mary O'Hara of Carbondale spoke at the dedication of the Helen Bass Williams Academic Success Center. O'Hara was a close friend of Williams. They met in 1984 at the Southern Counties Action Movement's (SCAM) annual meeting and developed a strong personal relationship. They remained close friends until Williams' death in 1991. O'Hara wrote her PhD dissertation, titled "Let it fly: The legacy of Helen Bass Williams," on Williams' life experiences and her contributions to the civil rights movement in the United States. CHICAGO - The Archdiocese of Chicago has asked three retired priests to stay out of ministry while it investigates allegations of sexual abuse of minors from nearly 50 years ago, according to a news release from the archdiocese. The allegations against the Revs. John J. Rudnik, 87, James E. Flynn, 80, and John W. Clemens, 75, are being investigated by the Archdioceses Independent Review Board, the news release said. Each of the retired priests has one allegation against him from nearly 50 years ago. All of the priests are cooperating with the investigation. We take every allegation seriously and follow the policies and procedures we have had in place for decades, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, said. Only by conducting an impartial and thorough investigation can we fulfill our promise to protect the young people in our care and, if the results warrant, restore the good name of one so accused. The people who brought forth the allegations were offered Archdiocese Victim Assistance Ministry services, according to the release. Authorities and parishes where the priests served were also notified. The results of the investigation will be released once the process is complete, the archdiocese said. More than 20 people were arrested and more than 300 dogs were rescued as authorities raided dogfighting kennels in South Carolina, federal prosecutors said Monday. The sting started when state and federal agents interrupted a dog fight in Richland County on Saturday, U.S. Attorney Adair Boroughs said in a statement. That led agents to serve 23 warrants on Sunday that were known to be places were dogs fight or are trained to fight in Clarendon, Lee, Orangeburg, Richland, Sumter and York counties, investigators said. Twenty people face state charges of animal cruelty and dogfighting, authorities said. Investigators also seized about 30 guns and $40,000 in cash, prosecutors said. Officials said 305 dogs were rescued, with about 275 of them believed to be part of the dogfighting ring. The Humane Society of the United States and Bark Nation is helping take care of the dogs. Some of the dogs had severe scars, open wounds and cuts, the Humane Society said. Some of the dogs were unusually thin, chained to trees with no way of getting food or water, the agency said. The arrests over the weekend are the first steps in a broader investigation that could include federal charges, Boroughs said. To force dogs to fight, often to the death, for the enjoyment of others is not only a federal crime, it is also cruel, sadistic, and can create a haven for other illicit activities involving drugs and firearms, Boroughs said. Voorhees University is working to improve rural communities with the continued development of its Becoming Beloved Community Initiative. We started this initiative really about a year ago now. We purchased the old elementary school in Denmark. So that is eventually where it will be housed, initiative Executive Director Dwayne Smiling told Bamberg County Council earlier this month. We have done some good work at the elementary school. We hired a company to first just sort of clean the building out, as you can imagine how it looked after all those years, he said. Smiling said the university is now working with architects to come up with a building design. It will receive input from the community and university administration. The initiative has three components: A Womens Empowerment Center Institute, a Social and Environmental Justice Institute and a Rural Community Development Institute. Smiling said the Womens Empowerment Center has not been started yet. Some of it is based on funding, but that institute will be a part of it because we realize that when you talk about issues dealing with women's issues, it deserves a separate category, not lumped into one. So that's what we have decided to do. ... We're very excited about that going forward, he said. Smiling said the university is in the process of hiring an executive director for its Social and Environmental Justice Institute. Both on the social part and the environmental part, we believe that with what's going on in our community and in our society, that there's a need in our rural community to really focus in on it. So you'll hear more about it and we're really excited about that, he said. Smiling continued, With all of these institutes our footprint, of course, is Bamberg, but it is also Allendale, it is also Barnwell because we believe it kind of spreads that far if we could have the impact from that standpoint." We are constantly trying to find funding for all of this. The funding cycle never stops. If you get one grant, you need to get another one. But we do have the support, certainly, of the president and the administration, and certainly we want to make sure that we continue to have great relationships with county council, with the City of Denmark, those kinds of things, he said. Smiling noted the university welcomes a visit and input from Bamberg County Council. Cathy Scarborough, founding director of the universitys Rural Community Development Institute, said a community needs assessment is being planned. I think it's incorrect when you're coming into a community to say, 'You need this, you want this.' You have to take a step back, see what's out here, ask the community, What are your needs? What are your wants? she said. Scarborough continued, We're taking a multifaceted approach. So community development and what they want (and) education. We've got a $25 million grant from the Department of Education for GEAR UP. So we've instituted our first summer program this year. The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) initiative, a federal grant program, is focused on increasing the college and career readiness of low-income students in communities nationwide. We have about 900 students from eight districts in the Bamberg County area, and we're trying to expand that. At the end of the month, we will participate in the GEAR UP national week, and we'll have students come to campus so they can get a sense of what college life is like, Scarborough said. Scarborough said university officials plan to meet with local officials to receive input on building design and services. We are going to incorporate the community's voice in all aspects of what we're doing. What are some of the projects we're talking about providing once we get our building created and done? Providing space for families and the community for people to come in after 5 on weekends to use our broadband services. So it's a process, she said. CANBERRA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong will visit Australia while a "green economy agreement" is expected to be signed to streamline climate-friendly finance and technology development. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on Monday that Lee will visit Australia on Oct. 16-18 for annual leaders' talks. It will be the first face-to-face meeting between Lee and Australian PM Anthony Albanese since the latter won power in May's general election. The green agreement, which has not yet been finalized, will aim to facilitate renewable energy - including hydrogen - deals between businesses from Australia and Singapore. According to the ABC, Lee is also expected to visit the Australian War Memorial and meet with Premier of New South Wales Dominic Perrottet. Richard McGregor, an Asia expert at think tank the Lowy Institute, said that Lee was likely to take a more favorable view of the policies of Albanese than his predecessor Scott Morrison. "With the flux in policy in Canberra, I think Lee will find a ready audience with the new government," McGregor told The Australian. The University of Luxembourg has announced a new study programme with a focus on high-performance computing, which is set to launch in 2023. The new programme is made possible thanks to a joint convention with the Ministry of the Economy. The Ministry will contribute to the course by financing its three first years with 1.8 million. As of 2023, students will thus be able to learn more about a variety of topics, including supercomputers, analysis of large data sets, and artificial intelligence. Minister for Higher Education and Research Claude Meisch commented: "The main goal is to have people graduate with the necessary competences to start working in both small and large businesses. Potential can be found anywhere, after all." Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot also praised the advantages of the programme and its focus on key technologies: "This can help fight climate change, which we rather have to call a climate crisis today, or advance energy efficiency and personalised medicine." People with a Bachelor degree in computer science or mathematics can apply for the master programme, explained Pascal Bouvry, who is in charge of managing applications: "We will launch a Europe-wide call for applications, after which a committee will decide on a first round of candidates. ... 50 students will be allowed in the first year, followed by 100 in the second one." Since a number of European partners also contributed to the programme, the European Commission helps finance it with 7 million. Our colleagues from RTL 5minutes recently spoke to a LuxairCargo employee who provided insight into what can at times be described as "questionable" or even dangerous work practices. Ever since a Luxair employee came forward and outlined a deterioration of work conditions at the airline, more and more people have gained the courage to discuss daily operations and the challenge of keeping up with the uptick in demand recorded since the easing of pandemic restrictions. And it seems as though staff members have reached their limits. For several months now, sick certificates have been piling up and absences have made work increasingly difficult. While issues experienced by cabin personnel have already been thoroughly discussed in the media, those working behind the scenes at Findel airport also have a few stories to tell. Our colleagues from RTL 5minutes thus spoke to Jonathan (not the employee's real name) about work at LuxairCargo. "You know, it happens that we work 56 hours per week", conveyed Jonathan. Where and when he works largely depends on the needs of the airline, which always contacts him shortly before a shift. "I can no longer stand the ringing telephone", he added. Ever since demand for air travel has gone up again, some employees had to be transferred from the cargo section to the passenger terminal P1. This can lead to dangerous situations as untrained workers may end up being sent out on the tarmac to guide planes, explained Jonathan. Lack of training According to Jonathan, new employees are put under constant pressure that leads to many resignations: "I must have seen about a hundred people arrive and leave since the beginning of the pandemic. For Jonathan it is clear that while Luxair is one of the companies hiring most people in Luxembourg, it is simultaneously the one dismissing most individuals. He believes that it has become a veritable culture to pressure employees for the good of the company. "We have big responsibilities. We often work with 'dangerous packages' that cannot be mixed up. We have to attach and secure them in precise manner to avoid the plane being put out of balance", explained Jonathan. Reports further allege that some employees were promoted unexpectedly to fill certain roles, only to be demoted again once the position no longer required additional staff members. Two-class airline Despite increasing turnover by 20% in 2021, LuxairCargo did not pay out any bonuses to its 1,250 employees, who further had their wages frozen as a result of the last aviation tripartite meeting. According to Jonathan, Luxair also treats employees differently depending on their tasks. For instance, he described the Munsbach offices of administrative staff as "beautiful" while those in charge of cargo have been forced to change and dine in the same room for some time. Workers lament that lunch breaks are often cut short and end up being ten to twelve minutes rather than 30 due to the general staff shortages. "It is really unfortunate because there are many people who want to do a good job and they do just that. We take our responsibilities seriously and I know that to be true for the majority of my colleagues", argues Jonathan. Tripartite meeting on aviation Luxair and its cargo subsidiary will be at the heart of tripartite negotiations this week. Government, unions, and airline management are scheduled to sit down on Monday. Among the topics of discussion are financial perspectives, partial unemployment, the freezing of wages, as well as the social conflicts that have been haunting Luxair over the past months. On Monday morning, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Jean Asselborn gave a press conference to update the country about the war in Ukraine and Russia's decision to launch mass conscription. At the moment, more than 300 refugees arrive in Luxembourg every month, up from 200 recorded during the summer months. To cater to this elevated demand, a large heated tent able to house 500 to 600 first arrivals has been set up outside of the Audit Court in Kirchberg. The tent itself is divided into several sub tents, which usually house up to twelve people. Minister Asselborn then drew attention to the widespread problem of underaged refugees travelling alone. "I am talking about children as young as eight", underlined the politician from the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP). 117 children are currently living in one of the homes by the National Office of Admission (ONA). Minister Asselborn elaborated that minors are often sent ahead so that they can get the refugee status and make it easier for families to be reunited and stay together. He argued that it is impossible not to side with kids in this situation. The LSAP politician also expressed disappointment over the EU's failed migration policies and the fact that countries did not manage to create a path for legal migration. Nevertheless, Luxembourg continues adjusting the number of beds available to refugees on a regular basis. The number of spots has increased from 4,000 to 6,400 since 2020. The diplomat also addressed Russia's recent decision to mobilise parts of the population in an attempt to strengthen its armed forces fighting in Ukraine. "The mobilisation might turn the tide", he said and drew attention to the fact that conscription makes it evident that everybody is affected by the war. Minster Asselborn explained that Russian authorities did not set a limit for the amount of people to be mobilised. Men up to the age of 60 are currently being contacted. A refusal to fight can be punished by up to 15 years of incarceration. A significant number of Russians have since tried leaving the country. By now, a plane ticket from Russia to Turkey costs up to 18,000. The question of how to deal with Russians fleeing from conscription now needs to be addressed. European ambassadors are currently discussing the issue in Brussels, conveyed Minister Asselborn. Eastern countries like Poland and the Czech Republic share the view that Russian men should remain in their home country and fight against President Putin and his regime. Most western states, including the Grand Duchy, believe that doors cannot be fully shut to Russian refugees. Minister Asselborn concluded the press briefing by saying that EU officials are currently discussing an eighth package of sanctions in Brussels. These measures are mainly designed to hurt those organising the sham referenda in eastern Ukraine. On Monday morning, teachers' union SNE invited the press for its annual briefing following the start of the new academic year, with officials expressing satisfaction over the fact that pandemic restrictions are a thing of the past. Patrick Remakel, president of the SNE, praised the fact that daycares will ensure the implementation of the free homework tutelage, which has been newly introduced this year. To facilitate communication between teachers, educators, parents, and children, an electronic version of the homework diary, called 'e-diary', has also been introduced. SNE representatives argued that the use of the e-diary should not be mandated, however. When it comes to the pilot project allowing children to learn reading and writing in French rather than German, SNE demands that pupils are clearly separated in different classes instead of learning in parallel manner. Officials at the briefing also argued that the teaching job should be made more attractive and that the path to becoming a teacher should require a master degree. The result in Italy is seen by many as a disaster for the united Europe our forebears laid the foundations for. After showing disapproval, will our politicians find the bravery required to give us an alternative? Today the enemies of Europe seem to be some of its very citizens who, with a sense of entitlement and sporting rosy lenses, looked to the past and fantasised of past-greatness. Golden eras that were never there in the first place, at least not for everyone. But we all believe what we want to believe. [Giorgia Meloni] has pointed the finger to...the architects of Italys misfortunes: immigrants and the EU, the outsiders. The trauma and the pain of the war is fading as the generation that lived through it and the reconstruction that followed passes away. The sacrifices of those that came before us become distant, second-hand tales. We, unhindered by the reality of war, look at black and white pictures of the good old days. By capturing that sentiment, the captains of Brexit brought the United Kingdom out of the EU, promising their citizens to take back control. The fantasies evoked during that campaign have since been unveiled. Perhaps we have yet to apply the same self-criticism to ourselves on the continent, to look under the veil, and see how we have let fascism and the far-right find footing again. The last decade has in fact seen the rise of the far right across Europe. From France, to Sweden to Belgium and Spain and most significantly in Poland and Hungary. Meanwhile, the EUs leadership has, at times arrogantly, ignored and misunderstood crucial issues. Some of the errors in judgement and a seemingly total unwillingness to admit mistakes has sowed distrust towards the Union from even the most-progressive of citizens. And now Italy has chosen a post-fascist to lead the country. The next Prime Minister of Italy is a Mussolini-praising post-fascist far-right leader. She has pointed the finger to who she says are the architects of Italys misfortunes: immigrants and the EU, the outsiders. She has praised who she says are the misunderstood and undervalued: her Brothers of Italy, the victims. Shes separated us vs. them. Shes promised national restoration, against those who 'stand against her nation', who are coming after traditional family values. Shes told her followers, they need her. All in fascist fashion. What will other European leaders, who are not inclined to congratulate this moment, do to ensure they fight against the rise and spread of fascism and the far-right? Philosopher Santiago Zabala thinks Europe should confront the growing far right movement with left wing populism. Im inclined to believe that it must also be the centres and the right's responsibility to distance itself from the far-right, that stretches further and further right. Parties and politicians across Europe should look inside their rooms, take responsibility, and bravely position themselves away from the easily-sold lies of the far-right that promise a return to a better past and the comfortable vote-grabbing headlines they have sought to capture their fellow citizens imagination. Where the far-right emerged offering the illusion of an alternative to governments that they said ignored the needs of the people, the parties in the rest of the spectrum must communicate the truth, Europes declining role in the world, and how the European Union attempts to mitigate the loss of national-strength amongst the small nations of Europe, by propping up our position in the world. To offer hope, by communicating it as effectively as those in the far-right. And with respect to our fellow citizens, who are often only treated to mindless slogans. To offer an alternative to the alternative. Fascism is back. But the world moves forward, as every society has done before us, with everything that moving forward means and brings. And yes, our cities will only become more diverse, like they always have. Is Europe willing to do better? A big part of the responsibility lies with us, and the discourse we engage in every day. A huge part of the responsibility lies with those who choose to put themselves forward to lead us. Christos Floros covers News and Politics for RTL Today @christosfloros GILLETTE (WNE) A second Gillette man has been sentenced to prison after being caught with more than 7,000 fentanyl pills and 10 pounds of meth in January. Joshua Taylor, 26, was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for possession with intent to deliver meth. Taylor, Brett Scheeler and Karl Dennis Vonngettrost Jr. were indicted by a grand jury Jan. 8 for possession with intent to deliver meth. Taylor and Scheeler were each indicted on a second count for intent to deliver. In 2021, law enforcement received information that Taylor was selling and distributing meth and fentanyl in Gillette. In January 2022, he talked to someone in the Campbell County Jail about going to Arizona. Law enforcement believed Taylor was traveling to Arizona to pick up a shipment of meth and fentanyl, and using Taylors cell phone data, they determined he subsequently drove to Phoenix and returned to Gillette. On Jan. 8, agents conducted surveillance on the route they believed Taylor would use to get back to Gillette. At about 11:45 a.m., they saw a 2011 Chevy Suburban heading north on Highway 50, about 19 miles south of Gillette. Scheeler was driving, and agents believed Taylor was in the car. Deputies attempted to stop the men, but a high-speed chase ensued until Scheeler turned onto private property. Taylor jumped out and ran across the prairie, according to court documents. Troopers and deputies witnessed Taylor throwing items from a backpack. These items turned out to be 6.38 pounds of suspected meth and 272 grams of suspected fentanyl in pill form. Deputies found a black handgun and a syringe on the passenger floorboard right behind the drivers seat of the car. Scheeler was arrested, and a search of the Suburban found an additional 4.05 pounds of meth and 569 grams, or 1.25 pounds, of fentanyl, in a black duffel bag. KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A mass grave with 12 bodies has been found in Spin Boldak district of Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, a provincial administration spokesman told local reporters on Monday. "The 12 bodies, allegedly victims of systematic execution of former government were exhumed in Nawi region of Spin Boldak district very recently," Hajji Zahid said. According to the spokesman, the execution "might had taken place seven years ago." During the 20 years of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, which ended in August last year, thousands of Afghan people had been killed or gone missing. DOUGLAS John Kolegos mental walk down memory lane recalls a time when attending grade school required the use of outhouses and a hand well pump to access fresh water. The Shawnee schoolhouse throughout the 1950s and 1960s was such a place. It was where everyone knew everyone else, and, for the class of 1964, it was a different era. For the Friends of the Old Shawnee School groups chairman, that walk down memory lane filled him with warm feelings of nostalgia. During that time 60 and more years ago, the small Shawnee community was also home to a general store, bank, hotel, post office and nearly 500 residents. Today, the schoolhouse that once held buoyant energy, educating generations of people, instilling citizenship and education in a lot of rural country kids, as Kolego describes it, sits unoccupied, with hollow rooms and a hushed essence. Now, the schoolhouse is in the works of becoming a historical site. The Friends of the Old Shawnee School group invited the public to attend a community gathering and Shawnee School reunion Saturday. The event featured a free barbecue and live music. Our goal is to save the building and make it a community resource as part of a historical marker to celebrate rural education, Kolego said. Its something we need to save. Its part of Wyomings history and the homesteading history of Wyoming. According to Kolego, in the first half of the 20th century, there were a considerable number of people living in the Shawnee area, with homesteads located every 640 acres. Overly optimistic is how he describes the early-day settlers. Shawnee was a junction where the railroad from the coal mine out north joined with the main rail line. It was a going concern until after World War I, he detailed. Presently, the community east of Douglas has a population of one and is defined as an unincorporated community. Still, Friends of the Old Shawnee School is continuing its efforts to restore the schoolhouse in hopes of offering surrounding communities a place to take in the treasured memories and histories of the area. We are going to put desks back in and restore the interior so it looks like it did when it was a functioning school, Kolego said. Despite the groups lack of governmental funding to aid in this project, contributions from surrounding communities and the efforts of group members have helped tremendously. Thus far, the group has raised $35,000, which was spent on a new roof and windows for the aged school. Friends board members Doug and Denise Stark also recently painted the building. But there is still a long way to go to bring the schoolhouse back to her original luster. We are just looking to have some community ownership in it so that we can continue with this restoration, Kolego said. Ive been all over the world and I think that Shawnee is a wonderful place. I think it is a great resource to have, Kolego said. Its something we want to save. CHEYENNE Service dog handlers in Cheyenne say they feel unsafe in some local stores because of an apparent unwillingness to regulate the behavior of pet dogs. These handlers, who use service dogs specifically trained to perform tasks related to disabilities, said in interviews with the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that this alleged hesitance to remove a disruptive or threatening dog can be very detrimental to the well-being of both the service dog and its handler. Cassandara Eden is legally blind and uses her 4-year-old yellow lab, Quasar, to navigate the world. But since her move here from Washington state less than two months ago, shes experienced upwards of 20 instances where a dog that appears to be a pet has been aggressive toward her and Quasar inside a store. The store owners seem to think that they dont have any protections under the law, which is not true, Eden said. And when I presented the problem to them, they said, Im sorry, theres nothing we can do. Eden and others said some store owners or employees may refuse to enforce a no pet dogs policy simply because they like dogs, or may fail to remove a misbehaving dog because they fear a lawsuit. Because of the repeated issues and feeling unsafe, Eden said she now has to make some very harsh decisions about where to physically go shopping with Quasar. Often, shell send her children to the store or do curbside pickup. I should just feel free to go do my shopping without worrying about stuff like that, Eden said. In some cases, repeated run-ins with aggressive dogs or abuse from people may cause a dog to have to be washed, or removed from service. Cheyenne resident Mistee Cherry said this was the case for her most recent service dog, a 150-pound Newfoundland named Winnifred that helped her stay safe in public when dealing with the effects of severe panic disorder. Cherry currently doesnt have a service dog, which means her ability to go out into the world and perform tasks for herself is sometimes limited. It can cost thousands of dollars to train a service dog. Dogs that are adopted and already trained from organizations can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Natasha Chilton, a Cheyenne resident and service dog handler, has had experiences similar to those of Eden and Cherry. Chilton also trains service dogs for others. Ive had incidents where theyve just, like, lunged and barked at my (former) dog, or Ive had them just full-on break out of their leash or their collar and just come over and just full-on attack him, and I have to break up a fight, Chilton said. Ive lost count of how many times (my former dog) has been attacked. Chilton said shes been working with her new dog, mobility and medical alert dog Bashir, for only about a year. A 19-month-old Rough Collie, Bashir has not yet been attacked. Chilton said she doesnt take him out as much as her previous dog, though, because shes afraid of it happening. K9s 4 Mobility CEO Michelle Woerner said her organization hears about experiences like Edens constantly. The complaints are typically about large chain stores, rather than local businesses, she said. K9s 4 Mobility is a Cheyenne nonprofit that trains and places service dogs with people who have visual, physical, mental or behavioral disabilities. The organization also offers a program for people who want to train their own service dog with the supervision of a certified trainer, which is often a more affordable option. While not the only store the women cited, both local Walmart stores came up as problem locations in interviews with Eden, Cherry and Chilton. Responding to a request for comment, a Walmart spokesperson said in a statement: Walmart welcomes service animals in our stores. We recognize the important role they play in many of our customers lives, and we want all of our customers to have safe and enjoyable shopping experiences. Walmart did not answer specific questions about whether employees are trained in laws pertaining to service dogs and how to identify legitimate service dogs, or what that training looks like. The Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law in July 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, was an attempt to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities in the U.S. The law lays out clear guidelines related to service animals, which can be found in an extensive question-and-answer format at ada.gov/ regs2010/service_animal_ qa.html. The ADA currently defines a service animal as a dog that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability. (A separate provision allows miniature horses to be considered service animals, if individually trained to assist a person with a disability.) It requires that the task(s) performed by the dog must be directly related to the persons disability. The law permits service animals generally to go wherever their owner goes and makes it so entities with no pets policies must allow in service dogs. Store owners or employees legally may ask only two questions of a service dog handler. The first is: Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability? And the second is: What work or task has the dog been trained to perform? Eden, Cherry and Chilton said asking these two questions are the first step in protecting legitimate service dogs and their handlers in stores. They added that service dogs can be readily identified by their quiet, focused behavior, and they will be totally under control and focused on their handler. Of course, someone with a dog that has not been trained as a service dog may refer to them as such or be ready to say what task the dog performs for them. Unless the dog misbehaves, theres really not a lot of room for them to excuse the dog. Where the problem comes in is where the stores are not excusing dogs that are misbehaving, Woerner said. So, the dogs that are lunging, barking, running around pulling their person all over the place, jumping on meat counters, stealing food or riding in carts no service dogs should be in a cart. Those are the people that the stores should be excusing and saying, You know, your dogs misbehaving. Under the ADA, service animals that are out of control or misbehaving can be asked to leave a location. Woerner said service dog handlers are taught to remove their dogs from a place if they become too distracted to work effectively. The ability of service dogs to accompany handlers in areas that are usually pet unfriendly is a right that can always be taken away. I mean, the laws can be changed, and we certainly dont want that to happen, Woerner said. But its like any other law people are going to take advantage of it. In 2017, the Wyoming Legislature passed a law that made intentionally misrepresenting an animal as a service animal for the purpose of obtaining any of the rights or privileges set out by state law a misdemeanor, and the perpetrator may be fined $750. Woerner said that after the law was passed, however, groups like hers received feedback from law enforcement that the law wasnt enforceable. Capt. David Janes with the Cheyenne Police Department made this point in a Friday interview with the WTE. It is a challenge for us, because if someone claims its a service dog, ADA rules are pretty specific: They dont have to prove that its a service dog, he said. All they have to say is, Its a service dog, and were also not allowed to ask what their disability is, or those sorts of things. So it makes it very difficult to actually enforce anything as far as whether it is a service dog or not. Store owners or employees cannot request any documentation for the dog, require that the dog demonstrate its task, or inquire about the nature of the persons disability under the federal law. The ADA doesnt require service animals to wear a vest, ID tag, or specific harness. A mandatory registry for service animals is also prohibited under the ADA, though governmental entities or other organizations may offer voluntary registries. Janes said he was not aware of any recent incidents regarding aggressive pet dogs in stores having been reported to CPD. Capt. Kevin James, undersheriff for the Laramie County Sheriffs Office, said he was also not aware of his agency receiving calls of this nature. But based on a dog owners behavior, recourse may be available in some instances, Woerner said. If a dog is misbehaving and the store says, We need you to take this dog out because its not behaving, and that person causes a fuss, they can call law enforcement, and law enforcement will get them for disturbing the peace, basically, said Woerner, who is the vice chairperson of the Cheyenne Mayors Council for People with Disabilities. Eden, a braille transcriber instructor, said that her first recourse is always education. She said a smartphone app from National Federation of the Blind can help service dog handlers find out what laws and protections they have in each state. She also recommended the organization Guide Dog Users Inc. as a source of support for handlers. The former resident of Washington state was caught off guard by the number of issues shes had since moving to Cheyenne, as pet dogs largely werent allowed in stores there, outside of pet stores. Woerner, who used to train service dogs in Kansas, said she thinks this type of problem may be more prevalent in Wyoming and Colorado because of the small number of service dog training organizations. K9s 4 Mobility is the only service dog training organization in Wyoming accredited by Assistance Dogs International, and there are only two such organizations in Colorado, Woerner said. Woerner and the service dog handlers say teaching people how to identify a service dog, and that theyre able to remove misbehaving dogs from a store, is the most important way to improve things. Edens next step will likely be reaching out to Walmart leadership and asking them to review their pet policies and allow their workers a little bit more proactivity when it comes to following federal and state law. She said she may eventually pursue legal action against stores that refuse to remove aggressive dogs, if it becomes necessary not only to protect Quasar, but her human loved ones, as well. If the grandkids run in front of the two dogs, trying to protect my dog, my grandkids are gonna get hurt, Eden said. 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. HONOURED: Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, third from right, poses with national awardees, from left, Prof Christine Carrington (Chaconia Gold in the sphere Leadership in Molecular Genetics and Virology), Dr Roshan Parasram (the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the sphere of Public Health), Dr Michelle Trotman (Chaconia Gold in the sphere of Leadership in Public Health Service), Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards (Chaconia Gold in the sphere of Leadership in the Public Health Service) and Dr Avery Hinds (Chaconia Gold in the sphere of Leadership in the Public Health Service) at the National Awards 2022 on Saturday at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA). They were recognised for their work during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: ISHMAEL SALANDY A teenager was one of two people arrested for a shotgun and seven rounds of ammunition in Pe Some Friday nights you cant find a single entertaining idea to motivate you off the couch. Friday, Sept. 30, is not that kind of night. Its a Friday night that could involve a coin-toss, or perhaps a round or 10 of rock, paper, scissors. When you have five worth-the-price-of-admission concerts playing on the same night, you find yourself with a decision to make. Here are your choices: Rocker Jack White extended his Supply Chain Issues summer tour into the fall, including a Tucson date at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. P.S. if youre bringing a cell phone, prepare to seal it in a Yondr Pouch, the lockable pouch that venue staff will provide. The concert is a phone-free experience, which means no texting, social media or photography will be allowed. Whites Supply Chain Issues tour celebrates the recent release of his fourth and fifth studio albums, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive. Torontos Ichi-Bons open the show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $43-$93 through ticketmaster.com. Banda MS is shorthand for the award-winning regional Mexican band Banda Sinaloense MS de Sergio Lizarraga, but there is nothing shorthand about the bands size they have 16 members including founders, the Lizarraga brothers Sergio on tuba and Alberto playing clarinet alongside two vocalists and a whole lot of instruments. Theres also nothing short about their performances; expect three hours of excitement when the band hits the stage at the AVA at Casino del Sol, 5655 W. Valencia Road, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $45-$150 through casinodelsol.com. What do you get when you put together a group of classically-trained cellists who are metalheads at heart? The Finnish symphonic metal band Apocalyptica cellists Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lotjonen and Perttu Kivilaakso, with percussion by jazz drummer Mikko Siren. This is a band that fuses everything we love about driving, frenetic, screeching heavy metal and the symphonic rock. The ensemble brings its Cell-O Tour to Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St., with openers Leprous and Wheel. The show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $35-$45 through rialtotheatre.com. Comedian Lewis Black has a few things he wants to get off his chest. And by a few we mean an evenings worth when the comic known for his rants and rages hits the stage at Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress St., with his Off the Rails tour. Expect a lot of screaming and finger-pointing as Black points out some of our shared annoyances, political and social, that many of us tend to keep to ourselves. The show starts at at 8 p.m. and tickets are $35 to $125 through foxtucson.com. Dave Foreman put words like biodiversity and extinction on the map. The former Tucsonan launched two groundbreaking environmental movements: the radicalism, civil disobedience and monkeywrenching of Earth First in the 1980s, and the rewilding movement to protect massive blocks of nature for wildlife in the decades since then. Both movements proved influential, serving as a springboard for tree-sitting protests and land planning efforts that persist today, not least the Tucson areas Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. Foreman, who died Monday, Sept. 19, at age 75, was among the first if not the first environmental leader to conclude species and landscapes were disappearing and more sweeping actions than previously contemplated were needed to reverse those trends. For outdoors people who saw animals and plants disappearing before their eyes and were frustrated by the environmental movements increasing reliance on lawyers rather than visionaries, Earth Firsts message was a resounding one. By 1990, the anarchist group had attracted thousands of followers, from hippied-out misfits to college professors, wrote Susan Zakin, a former Tucson writer and author of a history of that movement, in an essay posted the day after his death on her web magazine, Journal of the Plague Years. Dave Foreman changed the way we thought about our country and about nature. Its not turning back the frontier and restoring Eden, but its still the best we have, Zakin wrote. Foreman died in his Albuquerque home after a several-months battle with a lung illness. He had remained involved in conservation issues until the end, advising groups such as the Rewildng Institute, which he founded as a think tank to develop longterm land conservation plans, said John Davis, the institutes director and an associate of Foremans for 37 years. Foremans conservationist career spanned half a century. But as a visionary, a redneck wilderness advocate and hell raiser, Foreman was regularly a target of sharp criticism. In the 1980s, he faced repeated charges of eco-terrorism including from some mainstream environmentalists for his advocacy of environmental direct action, going beyond civil disobedience and tree-sitting protests to tree-spiking, cutting down billboards and pouring sand into gas tanks of bulldozers, among other activities. In the late 1980s, while living in Tucson, he faced federal felony charges and a high-profile prosecution that he led a plot to destroy power lines and damage nuclear power plants charges leading to a plea deal that ultimately left only a misdemeanor conviction on his record. In the 1990s and beyond, he faced accusations of racism due to his unstinting advocacy of immigration limits in the name of population control charges he and his allies strongly denied. Back in Foremans Earth First days, Outside magazine called him arguably the most dangerous environmentalist in America. Longtime Tucson activist and former Earth Firster Kieran Suckling said last week that after spending a few years in other causes, It was when I encountered Dave Foreman and Earth First that I really found a vision that made my heart sing. Suckling and other founders of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity all met as Earth Firsters. He was a great speaker, he was charismatic, he was bombastic, he was funny and he was deadly serious about the essential importance of wilderness and wildlife to the planet, and to human society, and calling people to defend them as the highest calling in life, said Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity. The center came out of that vision, because we came from there. This was our origin story. This is where we learned our values, where we learned to commit, to be uncompromising, he said, although the center uses different tactics, such as litigation and lobbying. Confessions of an Eco-Warrior Born in Albuquerque, Foreman was a fourth-generation New Mexican whose family had come west in Conestoga wagons, Zakin wrote. First exposed to the wild as a Boy Scout, Foreman earned a bachelors degree from the University of New Mexico as a history major. In college in 1964, he supported arch-conservative Barry Goldwater for president and formed a UNM chapter of the conservative Young Americans Freedom. He joined the Marines after graduating during the Vietnam War, but was dishonorably discharged after a couple of months for going AWOL. Dave did not like to take orders, his associate Davis said. He stayed a registered Republican until 1980, when the election of anti-environmentalist Ronald Reagan as president convinced him Republicans were no longer interested in conservation, and he switched to the Democrats, Davis said. Starting in 1973, he worked for the Wilderness Society, as a Southwest representative and later a Washington, D.C. lobbyist, working in an office three blocks from the White House. That job triggered his alienation from the mainstream environmental movements ethos of moderation and compromise. His turning point was RARE II, a U.S. Forest Service exercise to determine which forest lands deserved wilderness protection. The service decided in 1979 to recommend protecting only 15 million of 80 million still-undeveloped forest lands. As I loosened my tie, propped my cowboy boots up on my desk and popped the top on another Strohs, I thought about RARE II and why it had gone so wrong, Foreman wrote in his his 1991 book, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. Then-President Jimmy Carter was supposedly a great friend of wilderness and a former top Wilderness Society official was an assistant Agriculture secretary overseeing the Forest Service, he noted. But we had lost to the timber, mining and cattle interests on every point. Moreover, damn it, we the conservationists had been moderate. The anti-environmental side had been extreme, radical, emotional, their arguments full of holes. We had provided more and better serious public comment. That and internal dissatisfactions with environmental groups led Foreman and four activist friends to pour out their frustrations on a trip to northern Sonoras Pinacate Desert, later a national park. Then they drove to Foremans home in Glenwood, New Mexico, and, over a campfire, birthed the idea of forming Earth First. Linda Lewis of Tucson, then conservation chair for the Sierra Clubs Grand Canyon chapter, accompanied them, and recalled Foremans gentleness and rage as he laid out his vision. We all revered Ed Abbey, said Lewis, now Linda McNulty and board chair for the Tucson Audubon Society, speaking of the essayist-polemicist who authored The Monkey Wrench Gang about a group of eco-raiders plotting to blow up Glen Canyon Dam. He had this romantic, fierce love of the West, and we revered that. Earth First was going to be the Ed Abbey Monkey Wrench Gang in real life. Dave called himself a radical but I cant think of a word that really describes the compassion, the consideration, the feeling he had for the earth. It tore him apart when a bulldozer ripped through untouched wilderness, or a chainsaw tore down virgin forest. He felt the fight was worth having and he wasnt afraid to have it. The group called itself Earth First to sum up organizers view that in any decision, consideration for the health of the earth must come first, Foreman wrote. No compromise Earth Firsts first public activity came in 1981, when activists used three 100-by-20-foot rolls of black plastic, 1,000 feet of duct tape, and 1,000 feet of nylon rope to create a simulated crack that they poured over the face of Glen Canyon Dam, a project they viewed as an unforgivable offense against the wild for having drowned pristine wildlife habitat to create a reservoir. That drew them a lot of publicity, and the number of adherents grew quickly. One was Paul Hirt while he was a University of Arizona student from 1981 to 1992. He found refreshing Earth Firsts motto of no compromise in defense of Mother Earth, recalled Hirt, now an Arizona State University professor emeritus of history. If you are fighting environmental battles on a daily basis, you are usually losing. About all you can do is try to get some minor mitigations or compromises. It is demoralizing; youre just slowing the destruction, Hirt said. When an environmental organization comes along and says we are going to stop talking about compromise, about half a loaf, we are going to say in a moral sense, a scientific sense, what do we need to do to save nature, it was freeing, it was energizing. Through the 80s, Earth Firsts popularity mushroomed. It promoted a philosophy called deep ecology, also known as ecocentrism, said a 2018 book of that title. Ecocentric thought assumed that trees, bears, fish and grasshoppers should receive as much consideration as humans in decisions large and small about the shape of modern society, wrote author Keith Woodhouse, a Northwestern University history professor. High-profile prosecution By blockading roads, sitting in old-growth trees, filing appeals of timber sales and other steps, they stopped some timber sales in the Pacific Northwest, a gas-drilling project in Wyoming, and, temporarily, an oil drilling project in New Mexico. In one day in 1988, they held rallies, road blockades and other forms of protests at close to 100 sites across the country. Woodhouses book argued that between Earth First and more conventional environmental protests, the Forest Service slowly reined in its emphasis on industrial production or timber-cutting. The group won hundreds if not thousands of individual victories through various tactics, but the most important thing is that Earth First did what it was designed to do: shake up the environmental movement and give it some backbone, said Todd Schulke, a Center for Biological Diversity co-founder who was previously an Earth Firster. A key victory was when Earth First and others efforts saved thousands of Northern California redwoods that would have been logged, Schulke said. Tree spiking, however, proved controversial enough that eventually, Foreman himself wrote that it was time to at least reconsider it. One injury to a logger was documented from tree spiking a 1987 Northern California incident in which a loggers blade struck an 11-inch nail that had been driven into a log, causing a huge section of blade to fly off its track and hit 23-year-old George Alexander in the face. The blade tore his left cheek, cut through his jawbone, knocked out teeth and nearly severed his jugular vein, the Los Angeles Times reported. But the incident was never linked to Earth First, which took pains to always notify logging companies when it had spiked a tree, to discourage efforts to cut it, the group said. The group eventually fractured on two fronts, however. First, in 1989, the FBI arrested Foreman and four Earth First colleagues, accusing them of attempting to use a cutting torch to destroy a power line tower feeding energy for a pump station for the Central Arizona Project. They were also prosecuted for earlier damage to power poles supporting power lines that fed two uranium mines and for cutting ski-lift poles at a ski resort near Flagstaff on land the Navajo and Hopi tribes consider sacred. Foreman and others were charged with various crimes. Prosecutors alleged the action against the CAP pump station was a prelude to future efforts to topple power lines to the Palo Verde nuclear plant near Phoenix and the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in central California, along with the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility near Denver. It turned out as well that one of the alleged plotters was an undercover federal agent who had infiltrated the group for more than a year, Woodhouse wrote. Most of those arrested other than Foreman had formed a separate but related group from Earth First. While the others charged received prison sentences of one month to six years, Foreman was able to plead guilty to a misdemeanor after serving five years of probation and wasnt imprisoned. Woodhouse said his detailed research into the group turned up no evidence that Foreman was actually involved in any plot to destroy power lines or nuclear plants. Nevertheless, the FBI sting helped prompt Foreman to leave Earth First by 1991, Davis said. The other factor driving Foreman from Earth First was a growing internal split between him and others who stuck to the groups founding principle of deep ecology and those who favored infusing the groups mission with more social justice activities including feminism and crusades for economic justice for nonwhites and the poor in general. Foremans view was those things are laudable goals, but theyre not what were focused on. While those issues need support, those are distinct issues needing their own groups, Davis said. The big wild Foreman co-founded the Wildlands Network in 1991, which aims to establish a network of protected wilderness areas across North America. He served on the Sierra Club board of directors for a time in the 1990s, but left after a dispute over immigration issues. In the early 2000s, he co-founded the Rewilding Institute. Its website says it seeks to promote the integration of traditional wildlife and wildlands conservation with conservation biology to advance landscape-scale conservation. It was a whole new powerful movement like Earth First, this idea its essential we protect big wildland spaces and that we need to go into every bioregion in the country and map out a connective network of the big wild, Suckling said. What Dave created was not an organization. Dave was creating ideas and movements. Foremans biggest conservation legacy was helping other conservationists realize its not enough to save small, isolated parcels of wildland, Davis said. We need to connect big wild areas, thinking big in terms of large cores, wildlife corridors, top predators, Davis said. Some specific areas in the Southwest and in the Northern Rockies have been protected due to Foremans recent efforts.The broader vision of a continuous corridor will be the work of decades and even centuries, Davis said. Divided by immigration views Foremans stance opposing immigration drew harsh criticism even from some environmental allies. Although he spoke out on this issue for many years, his views crystallized in the book Man Swarm, published in 2012, that called for immigration limits to curb U.S. population growth that he wrote could double the number of this countrys inhabitants in a century. Overpopulation is the main driver of the extinction of many kinds of wildlife, the wrecking and taming of wildlands and wild waters, and the creation of pollution, including carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, he wrote. Foreman advocated limiting immigration to the number of U.S. residents who leave the country each year, a policy that the Sierra Club had adopted in 1989 but rescinded in the 1990s after drawing huge protests. Foreman's view was that immigrants from less developed countries would improve their living standards to at least approach those of existing U.S. residents, thereby ratcheting up this country's pressure on land, water, wildlife and the climate. Foreman wrote, Were being an overflow pond for reckless overbreeding in Central America and Mexico (and for the Philippines and Africa and . . .). So long as we offer that overflow pond, there is less need to lower birth rates in those countries. He noted the World Bank reported Guatemalas fertility rate for women in 2012 was 3.8 children, far above U.S. levels. "If we quit being the relief valve for the baby swarm in Guatemala, births would have to come down," Foreman wrote. Suckling, Davis and Myles Traphagen of the Wildlands Project all disagreed strongly with Foremans immigration stance, but said they never thought he was racist. But he refused to deal with the racist implications of his plans for stopping immigration, Suckling said. Of Foremans Guatemala statements, Davis said, Dave should have realized that those words would have been construed as racist, and he should have tempered his language there. Those words come across as callous, but he would have been at least as callous in talking about white people who have big families. Overall, Foremans major emphasis was on the problem of overpopulation, not immigration, and he was far more critical of the environmental impacts of affluent U.S. residents than of Latin Americans, Davis said. Foreman also believed the U.S. needed to deal with economic and political pressures in Latin countries that were driving immigration. He also was outspokenly opposed to building a border wall, and once chided Traphagen and other younger environmentalists for not being willing to lay their bodies down to stop its construction, Traphagen said. Thats racism But Sergio Avila, a Sierra Club activist, particularly took issue with Sucklings view, saying, Its very likely that Kieran doesnt feel racism the way Indigenous people at the border feel racism. Its very likely that these people live in a bubble that doesnt allow them to see it. Its in the writings, he said of Foreman. Thats racism. Its not an opinion. Its a fact. Depriving Latino people south of the border from coming here and improving themselves is racist, Avila said. What if people coming here, bringing a different perspective on how to address climate, water management, production of food improve things, he asked. Avila himself came here in 2003 as a legal immigrant from Mexico to contribute, and I have contributed to these organizations binationally for 20 years. Besides the Sierra Club, Avila also has worked for Sky Island Alliance and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum as a biologist. Avila also took issue with some of Foremans other environmental stances. While the Rewilding Institute say it wont remove people to restore damaged landscapes, Avila contends such activities often ignore the social and cultural histories of people, particularly Indigenous people, who had lived there before. Looking at both sides, author Keith Woodhouse first praised Earth Firsts early emphasis on imperiled species and landscape protection, and noted the questions the group wrestled with about direct action and the limits of conventional environmental politics are the same questions the climate movement confronts today. Also, many ideas Foreman and his allies pushed for that were considered fringe, such as curtailing logging and dam removal, are now in place or being actively discussed today, he said. As for tree spiking, I think it hurt Earth First. It was one of the things that led to the schism in Earth First. It was not a productive strategy, Woodhouse said. He also thought it a mistake for Foreman to sideline social issues and act as if they were completely separate from environmental issues when they werent, he said. I consider Earth First to be an important part in the history of conservation in the U.S. and an important influence, warts and all, on modern environmentalism, he said. Candidates for the two open seats on the Tucson Unified School District governing board will participate in a virtual forum to discuss their ideas for the district. The Coalition for Accountability, Respect and Excellence for TUSD (C.A.R.E. 4 TUSD) will hold the forum via Zoom on Wednesday, Sept. 28, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The public can register at bit.ly/3BMv5z9. The six candidates seeking the two seats are Brieanna Chillious, Jennifer Eckstrom, Luis A. Gonzales, Val Romero, William R. Soland and Rebecca Zapien. All candidates were invited to participate in the forum. Participating candidates first met with the C.A.R.E. executive team individually and submitted answers to pre-forum questions, all of which can be found at care4tusd.org. C.A.R.E. 4 TUSD is a group of parents, teachers, staff and community members. Last week, all six candidates participated in a candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson and the YMCA of Southern Arizona. To view a recording of that forum, visit the League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson Facebook page. HONOLULU, the United States, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Consul General in Los Angeles Zhang Ping has called for concerted efforts to develop strong people-to-people bonds between China and the United States, stressing that Hawaii can play an important role in this regard. Zhang made the remarks on Sunday at a ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, which was organized by local Chinese communities. He said the Aloha state has a unique position in terms of geographical location and cultural exchanges between the two countries and has close ties with China in many areas. "As a meeting point of Eastern and Western cultures and a bond of friendship between Chinese and American people, it should play the role of a bridge connecting the two countries and two peoples," Zhang said. According to him, China is Hawaii's fourth largest import market, fourth largest services export market and 10th largest goods export market. The Chinese community in Hawaii, as an important part of the social fabric in Hawaii for generations, can play a more active role in promoting exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States in the future, Zhang said. "Hawaii residents have celebrated the cultural connection we have with China and the economic connection with China," said Hawaii Lieutenant Governor Josh Green, who also attended the ceremony. "We've had an extremely positive relationship," Green said. "We've always enjoyed it and treasured our relationship with the Chinese people in the business community." Planned Parenthood Arizona is asking a Pima County judge to delay enactment of her ruling that most abortions in Arizona are illegal. In legal papers filed Monday, the organization told Judge Kellie Johnson her decision Friday raises serious questions about the interaction between the territorial-era law banning abortions except to save the life of the mother, and the measure approved earlier this year allowing abortions through the 15th week of pregnancy. These need to be examined by an appellate court, said Planned Parenthood attorney Andrew Gaona. Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich will fight the move. His press aide Katie Conner said the whole purpose of the Friday ruling was to provide clarity, and she said Johnson provided that by declaring the territorial-era law to be in effect. If Arizonans disagree with the law, they should contact their legislators or the governor, Conner said. But Gaona said allowing the old law to suddenly be enforced again, 49 years after it was found unconstitutional, will harm not only Planned Parenthood but also its patients and the general public. ... There will be no harm to the state if harm to its citizens is avoided while the case proceeds on appeal, he told Johnson. That argument is legally crucial. In Arizona, judges must weigh certain factors when deciding whether to delay implementation of their own rulings. Those specifically include whether there will be irreparable harm if the stay is not granted, and whether the harm to the party making the request if the stay is not granted outweighs the harm to anyone opposed. Hanging in the balance is the Arizona law tracing its roots back to 1864 that makes abortion a crime except to save the life of the mother. The law sets punishment at between two and five years in state prison. Its enforcement was stopped in 1973 by the state Court of Appeals after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the historic ruling in Roe v. Wade finding a constitutional right of women to terminate a pregnancy. All that changed in June when the high court reversed Roe, a move that left it to each state to decide its own laws. Brnovich then went to court to have the 1973 injunction against the 1864 ban dissolved. Planned Parenthood objected, pointing out that lawmakers enacted various rules for legal abortions in the 49-year interim. Those include the 15-week ban, approved earlier this year by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which took effect Saturday, according to GOP Gov. Doug Ducey. Johnson sided with the attorney general, specifically pointing out the pre-Roe law was never repealed and that SB 1164, the 15-week ban, specifically said it was not overriding that law. Gaona, in asking the judge to stay her ruling, said it isnt that simple. Indeed, both parties submitted multiple rounds of briefing on the complex issues presented by AG Brnovich, he said. And that makes sense, given the complicated procedural posture, the intricate issues of statutory interpretation, and the extraordinary unique historical and social circumstances surrounding the AGs request. Then theres the question of harm. The health and safety of Arizonans will be compromised if (the pre-Roe law) remains enforceable against physicians who perform abortions while Planned Parenthood Arizona appeals this courts decision, Gaona said. He also pointed out it is not just Planned Parenthood raising questions about conflicting laws. Ducey issued a statement saying that, as far as he was concerned, the 15-week ban he signed earlier this year is now in effect. In fact, he told Capitol Media Services earlier this year he believes the newer law supersedes what already was on the books. Gaona also pointed out that while both laws allow abortions to save the life of the mother, there are some key differences, including a 24-hour waiting period under certain circumstances. Confusion on the scope of these exceptions seemingly at odds with one another could lead to doctors hesitating to treat patients in dire medical situations, he told Johnson. The absence of a stay will deprive many pregnant Arizonans of health care the require for an indeterminate period of time, while this case makes its way through the appellate process. Gaona is seeking quick action. He wants the judge to order Brnovich to respond to his request by the end of the day Tuesday and allow him to reply to any arguments the following day. CHICAGO (AP) A 3-year-old boy who was allegedly pushed into Lake Michigan in Chicago by his aunt last week has died, officials said. Josiah Brown, who had been in grave condition and was not expected to survive since he was pulled from the lake last Monday, was pronounced dead shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. The boy's aunt was charged last week with attempted murder. In a statement, the Cook County State's Attorney's office said that prosecutors anticipate that additional charges may be filed" but that the office would wait until the medical examiner's office and the police department complete their investigations. The 34-year-old Moreno, a resident of nearby Des Plaines, who was also charged with aggravated battery of a child under the age of 13 causing permanent disability, remains in Cook County Jail after a judge last week ordered that she be held without bond. During last week's bond hearing, prosecutors said that Moreno was at Navy Pier in Chicago when she allegedly pushed the boy into the lake, and then stood by as he sank. Divers found him at the lake bottom about a half hour later. Nye County, a rural enclave in Nevada, has positioned itself as the epicenter of a Donald Trump-fueled conspiracy about the security of electronic vote tabulators. The Nye County Commission voted in March to make the county one of the first to act on the false narratives that machines that count votes are rigged. County Clerk Mark Kampf, who has falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 election, has said that volunteer voters there will hand count the roughly 30,000 ballots expected in the November election. Across the country, Republicans aligned with Trump have directed ire at electronic voting machines, with Republicans in at least six states introducing legislation this year to ban the use of ballot tabulators (Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, New Hampshire, Washington and West Virginia). Over 90% of U.S. election jurisdictions currently use electronic tabulators, with only the smallest counties opting to count votes by hand. Many of the conspiracies around voting machines after the 2020 election centered on technology from Dominion Voting Systems. Lawyers for Trump claimed with no basis that Dominion employees worked with outside groups, liberal donor George Soros, and Venezuela to steal the presidential contest from Trump. Dominion has filed several defamation lawsuits against those who peddled the conspiracies. Voting experts say that using hand counting as the default method to count ballots, which requires that all voters cast paper ballots, is incredibly expensive, burdensome, and time-consuming. This is totally unnecessary, said Jonathan Diaz, senior legal counsel with the Campaign Legal Center. There is no evidence or reason to suggest that ballot tabulators dont work. In fact, research shows that vote tabulators are more accurate than hand counts, which allow for a vast amount of human error, especially when the people counting ballots are overworked and tired around an election. Tabulators are typically certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and jurisdictions almost always test them before an election to ensure their functionality and accuracy. Jurisdictions often hand count smaller groups of ballots after a tabulator is used to verify the accuracy of results. Tabulators also allow for accessibility features to assist voters with disabilities who cannot hand mark a paper ballot. The Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank that uses ideas from both parties, recommends pairing machine tabulators with an audit of paper ballots. This balance minimizes the potential for human error during vote counting while maintaining a strong system of manual error-checking to unearth discrepancies that may arise during tabulation, they write in an explainer. Diaz said he suspects that those pushing for hand counting arent actually concerned with the security of tabulators. I dont think that the push for hand counting paper ballots is really motivated by concerns about accuracy or technology, he said. I think its actually just an attempt to slow down the process and inject more confusion and make things more difficult for election workers. Nye County To hand count all of its ballots, Nye County plans to have teams of three people look at batches of 50 ballots. Kampf said he has already enlisted 57 volunteers to help with the process, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Kampf did not respond to a request for an interview. While Nye County will hand count its ballots this year, itll also tabulate its votes with electronic machines. Officials have said the goal is to eliminate the use of machines for future elections, but using both methods this year allows the county to avoid new state regulations for counties that only conduct hand counts. In late August, Nevadas secretary of states office announced temporary regulations to take effect Oct. 1 for the general election, including a requirement for bipartisan counters. Nevada law doesnt outlaw hand counting and the office wanted to be prepared if more counties decide to switch. Voting experts said hand counting shouldnt be permitted, and therefore does not need to be regulated. In testimony submitted to Mark Wlaschin, deputy secretary for elections, the Campaign Legal Center explained why hand counting ballots would help neither accuracy nor speed. A hand counting requirement would not only delay the reporting of results, but would also be severely disruptive to county officials ability to fulfill their critical responsibility to conduct the election securely and accurately, attorney Julie Hochsztein wrote. The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada filed a lawsuit against the state after the regulations were announced, alleging that they deprive Nevadans of their rights to a uniform, statewide standard for counting votes. The group declined to comment on the pending litigation. The temporary regulation threatens to unleash electoral chaos, the complaint says, noting that votes cast in different counties, different precincts, or different contests may be counted very differently. Current Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske is term-limited. Jim Marchant, an election denier who is the Republican nominee to replace her, has been one of the most vocal forces behind the states push to institute hand counting. He has said that if elected, he would ditch electronic vote machines. Democrat Cisco Aguilar, who is facing Marchant in November, told States Newsroom that he worries about the future of elections in Nevada if Marchant wins. What hes doing is irresponsible and dangerous, Aguilar said. Hes not a serious leader but the threat he represents is extremely serious. Esmeralda County in Nevada has also switched to hand counting, but the county is the least populous in the state with just 1,030 residents in 2020, according to U.S. Census data. Still, it took the county more than seven hours in the June primary to count 317 ballots. At that rate, it would have taken Clark County, Nevadas most populous county, 6,375 hours, or more than 265 days, to hand count the 288,683 ballots cast in its June primary. Larger counties could no doubt devote more staff, volunteers, and resources to counting, but the process would undoubtedly require the county to miss the vote certification deadline. The longer the public has to wait for election results, the more time candidates have to sow distrust in the results and for false theories and information to spread. Outside Nevada In Arizona, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, both of whom have said that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, filed a lawsuit with unfounded allegations about the security of electronic vote tabulators and seeking the hand counting of ballots. They claimed that the lawsuit wasnt aimed at invalidating the 2020 election results Cyber Ninjas, which conducted an audit of the vote in Maricopa County, conducted a hand count and found that Joe Biden actually won by more votes than the official margin but instead about future elections. In response to the lawsuit, election administrators testified that hand counting would be extremely expensive and require immense manpower. They also said that electronic voting machines arent connected to the internet, and cant be hacked. A judge dismissed the suit in August, and Lake and Finchem have appealed that ruling. If Lake and Finchem win in November, theyll be in a position to change how the state counts its ballots. Arizona law does not require the use of electronic vote counting machines. The secretary of state also has the power to decertify machines, so Finchem could do that and refuse to certify new ones. In New Hampshire, groups opposed to electronic tabulators figured out a way to force election officials in large counties to hand count some ballots in last weeks primary, despite the widespread use of AccuVote optical scan machines in the state which are not connected to the internet and cannot be hacked. Conservative-leaning groups shared posts online urging voters to write in candidate names, even if the candidate was already printed on the ballot. Ballots with write-in candidates are separated for hand counting. Secretary of State David Scanlan said the effort slowed down the release of results by hours in some counties. It really stresses the system when you have poll workers who have been at it for 12 to 16 hours now having to count all these ballots at the end of the night, Scanlan told a local reporter with the Keene Sentinel. It probably increases the chances for errors. The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer: Roe v. Wade is officially overturned in Arizona, taking us back to archaic laws over a womans body that should have no place in the 21st century. This not only makes it more difficult for accessibility to abortion and birth control, but truly impacts Arizonans. It is clear that the Arizona Republican Party is taking the stance that women will not have freedom of choice, and this year our rights and freedom will be on the ballot. We must fight against extremism and the views of those who have officially taken Arizona back to 1901. One month ago I sat across from Vice President Kamala Harris at a roundtable discussing the issues Arizonans are facing with reproductive health care and how archaic laws are hurting us like never before. As a public health professional and a lawmaker, I take this very seriously. This year has even further shown us that Republicans will stop at nothing to take freedoms away from women and people who can become pregnant all across the country. The overturning of Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court has led to a systematic assault on the rights of Arizonans. States led by Republican governors, attorneys general and legislators are organizing attacks on our reproductive freedom, and we must boldly and directly stand in opposition to these damaging attacks. Americans deserve and expect to have these constitutional freedoms, but Republicans across Arizona and the nation are doing everything they can to rip them away. Now is not the time to rip these rights away, now is the time to expand upon them. We must do everything within our power to protect these essential freedoms because when we dont, peoples lives are put in danger. When access to abortion is restricted, our health care system is significantly damaged. Facts are facts, and studies show that states with a lack of access to abortion have higher mortality rates in mothers and children this is true for women across the board, especially for women of color. These barriers to abortion access lead to delays in critical prenatal care and contribute to the practice of unsafe abortions which kill tens of thousands of women a year. These statistics show that exemptions like protecting the health of the mother arent enough, we have to take the extra step by providing full access to abortion. But Republicans in Arizona refuse to commit to protecting the freedoms of women. In fact, Attorney General Mark Brnovich has even taken his position even farther to the right, by spreading the belief that we shouldnt allow access to abortion even in the case of rape or incest. These archaic views are harming the lives of Arizonans, and damaging our institutions of government over an issue that a strong majority of Americans support. The decision from the Supreme Court as well as legislative action taken by Republican officials in Arizona is a clear attack on privacy and the rights of those who can become pregnant. Having no exceptions is dangerous and forces pregnant people to stay in unhealthy or violent situations. As a result, many will stay in poverty, end their careers prematurely, or suffer medical consequences that could have been prevented if they had been able to terminate their pregnancy. The average cost to receive an abortion in Arizona ranges from $500 to $2,500. Those who are low-income face more difficulties paying for all of the expenses involved in receiving vital reproductive care. Once again, the most vulnerable in Arizona are the most at risk. The Supreme Courts extremely dangerous actions have stripped away a vital constitutional right and have opened the door for Republicans across the country to tear down Americans access to abortion care. We simply can not allow the Arizona GOP to further restrict our rights. Generations of Americans before us have fought tirelessly to ensure the rights we are privileged to have today, but the Republican Party is actively advocating to rip those rights away from so many peopleand we must fight with everything we can against these assaults on our rights. We are in the fight of our lives to make sure that every person in Arizona has the power to control their own bodies, lives, and futures. And, I for one, wont stop fighting until every Arizonan has the opportunity to make the choices they deserve. Feedback wanted: On Tuesday, Tulsa Public Schools Parent Resource Center will host the districts annual meeting about its federal programs, such as Title I, Title III language services, Title VI Indian Education and Title IX. The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and interpretation services will be available. College Board kudos: Fifteen Booker T. Washington students received academic accolades from the College Board. National African American Recognition Award recipients include Maxwell Freeman, Samuel Freeman, Payton Guillory, Elodie Musungayi and Chase Vaughn. National Hispanic Recognition Award recipients include Amani Ayala, Hector Garcia, Victor Rodriguez, Marcello Santana-Aubert, Emma Stansell, Xavier Tiemann and Oscar Uy. Erica Ray-Franks and Maya Vasquez received both the National African American Recognition Award and the National Hispanic Recognition Award. Samantha Aingell received the National Indigenous Recognition Award. To be eligible for consideration, sophomores and juniors must have a GPA of 3.5 or higher and have either excelled on the PSAT/NMSQT or earned a score of 3 or higher on at least two Advanced Placement exams. FAFSA Fun: TPS will host a FAFSA information night at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Wilson Teaching and Learning Center and a virtual session Thursday via Zoom. Pre-registration for the latter is required and available online at tinyurl.com/TPSFAFSA. Additionally, the American Indian College Fund is hosting a FAFSA overview session via Zoom at noon Thursday. Preregistration is required via collegefund.org/nativepathways Save the date: Union Public Schools announced Thursday that its high school commencement ceremony will be May 20, 2023, at Union-Tuttle Stadium. In the event of inclement weather, the district will host two indoor ceremonies at the Union Multipurpose Activity Center. Help wanted: Skiatook Public Schools is hiring bus drivers for both morning and afternoon routes with pay starting at $24 per route. For more information or to apply, call 918-396-1792. Administrative accolades: Citing their efforts to create inclusive education environments for future generations, TPS Superintendent Deborah Gist and Union Superintendent Kirt Hartzler will be recognized by the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice on Nov. 10 at the Tulsa Annual Awards. OCCJ presents the Tulsa Annual Awards to local individuals and organizations who have contributed to the improvement of human relations among diverse groups within the state. COVID-19 by the numbers: Five area school districts and one charter school published updated COVID-19 case counts by the close of business Friday. As of Friday, Bartlesville Public Schools reported one case among employees and five among students. Berryhill reported one case districtwide. Berryhill Public Schools does not differentiate between students and staff in its reporting. Collinsville Public Schools reported zero cases among staff and students. Glenpool Public Schools reported one case among its employees and none among its students. Skiatook Public Schools reported one case among students and none among its employees. Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences reported zero cases among its employees and five among its students. Tulsa Public Schools did not publish an update by the close of business Friday. Bixby, Broken Arrow, Catoosa, Jenks, Owasso, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Sperry and Union are not publishing updated case counts at this time. School board calendar: The boards of education for Tulsa Public Schools, Tulsa Tech and Woodland Public Schools are scheduled to meet on Monday. TPS board of education also has a special meeting scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton, Tulsa World Featured video: Hundreds of Oklahoma utility workers are headed to the Gulf Coast to aid in the recovery and restore power after Hurricane Ian. On Monday, 26 local Public Service Company of Oklahoma employees and contractors left Tulsa for Orlando, Florida, where they will be staged until Hurricane Ian is expected later this week. PSO employees from McAlester and Lawton will join the Tulsa team for a total of 150 PSO workers and contractors assisting Tampa Electric and Duke Energy with utilities in hurricane recovery efforts. This is the most important thing to us, PSO spokesman Wayne Greene said. When PSO needs assistance, we call on our fellow utilities in America, and were obliged to go to them when they ask for our aid. Thats how the electrical grid stays resilient in America, through the utilities helping each other in these sorts of situations. OG&E also was requested by Tampa Electric and sent 95 linemen and support staff to Tampa, where they will be staged on Tuesday in preparation for expected power outages. OG&E and PSO are members of the Midwest Mutual Assistance and Southeastern Electrical Exchange, which dispatch mutual assistance teams from unaffected areas to areas with widespread outages from natural or other disasters. OG&E crews are usually deployed in such instances for up to 14 days, but the company will send additional support if needed. PSO crews will be deployed for an undetermined amount of time until they are released. We never know. It depends on the severity of the storm and when the second wave of people come through, Greene said. The PSO employees are very much in the first wave of the mutual assistance groups going in, so theyll be there until theyre released. As of Monday, Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida, appeared to be targeted for their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921. After a pass over western Cuba, Hurricane Ian is expected to slow down over the Gulf of Mexico and grow wider and stronger, which will have the potential to produce significant wind and storm surge impacts, according to the National Hurricane Center. Forecasters have said Ian is on a track to hit Floridas west coast as early as Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane with top winds of 140 mph. A storm surge of up to 10 feet and 10 inches of rain were predicted across the Tampa Bay area. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a statewide emergency and warned that Ian could lash large areas of the state, knocking out power and interrupting fuel supplies as it swirls northward off the states Gulf Coast. President Joe Biden also declared an emergency, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief and provide assistance to protect lives and property. The Associated Press contributed to this story. The Tulsa County Election Board has one employee who handles open records requests. Until recently, it had been just one small part of her job. Thats because the information requested was typically simple in nature: an ethics report filing one day, a candidate filing the next. Ho-hum stuff. Thats changed, according to Election Board Secretary Gwen Freeman. After the 2020 presidential election, her office began receiving one or two large requests a month. The requests were so big and so complex that the Election Board began forwarding them to the Tulsa County District Attorneys Office to review. Sometimes, Election Board officials werent even sure what theyd been asked to provide. Now its gotten worse, and Election Board officials think they know why: the Moment of Truth Summit held in Springfield, Missouri, on Aug. 21-22. A production of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an election denier and Donald Trump ally, the two-day conference was peppered with conspiracy theories involving algorithms, voting machine manipulation and misplaced election ballots. I said, Mr. President, I said, this is evidence. It was with machines, it was with machines, Lindell said he told Trump before he left office in January 2021. Lindell ended the summit with a call to action, urging his audience to get his app: It says, save your county, get your cast vote records now for the 2020 presidential election. The next day, the county Election Board began receiving identical requests for cast vote and other election-related records. As of Thursday, it had received more than 60. Voting machines across the country differ from state to state, but a cast vote record is described generally as an electronic depiction, or representation, of how voters voted. It can be provided in several formats, including a spreadsheet. Freeman acknowledged that shed never heard of a cast vote record or many of the other documents sought in the large open records requests. But the spike in requests was hard to miss. We are keenly aware of the increase in open records requests not only in Tulsa County, but in the entire state of Oklahoma and around the country, Freeman said. I do think its important for taxpayers to know that a great deal of manpower is being diverted to this effort. Equally important to know is that despite the increase in workload, our office remains steadfast to our duty to conduct and certify elections. Nothing will deter us from that end. Beyond that, however, Freeman is reluctant to say too much about the spike in requests. She declined to comment when asked what she thinks is motivating people to request the records. The Oklahoma State Election Board also declined to comment on the flood of open records requests but did say it is not making public cast vote records due to concerns over election security. The decision to keep the records confidential was made after the state Election Board consulted with the states chief information officer and chief information security officer. Some election officials across the country have had more to say on the subject. The onslaught of requests, they contend, is intended to chip away at the publics trust in the election system by sowing disarray in the offices of those charged with counting the votes. The Washington Post recently reported that election officials in nearly two dozen states are dealing with the problem, and that in some instances it has affected their preparations for the November elections. Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith described the requests as abusive. Election boards like ours are working overtime to do their jobs and respond to these requests that are, by design, an effort to create distraction and harm the voting process that most of us hold sacred, Keith said. Taxpayers should be crying foul for wasted dollars spent fulfilling these political stunts. Its important that we address this issue as a nation, recognizing this for what it is, (and) creating limits on what are obviously nuisance requests for information. Lindell and those who share his conspiracy theories about the 2020 election arent the only ones creating headaches for the county Election Board. In March, Voter Reference Foundation asked county election officials for all precinct registries, in-person absentee affidavits, and mail-in or any other type of absentee ballot affidavits for the 2020 election. Thats a massive ask: Nearly 62,000 Tulsa County residents voted absentee in 2020. In its response to the request, the Election Board indicated its commitment to adhering to the Oklahoma Open Records Act requirement that the public have prompt, reasonable access to records. The response also states that the cost to photocopy the records would be an estimated $15,000. The Election Board has yet to hear back from the nonprofit, which is creating a national online database it claims will allow the public to compare voting records to voter registration rolls to flag for potential discrepancies. Earlier this month, a woman told county Election Board officials that she wanted to view essentially every record related to the 2020 presidential election, including ballots. State election law prohibits ballot transfer boxes from being opened after an election except under certain limited circumstances. The county Election Board has only 21 full-time employees. To fulfill that request, one of those employees would have to be pulled away from his or her regular duties to be present for the review, election officials said. Nonetheless, the Election Board has provided the woman with dates and times the records could be made available for viewing. She has yet to respond. Filling open records requests is standard for our election board and an important information-sharing part of our system, Freeman said. So anytime we are asked to respond to one, we do so in accordance with the law as quickly as possible. Oklahoma elected officials and candidates who continue to spout the false narrative that the 2020 presidential election was stolen or addled by widespread irregularities arent making life any easier on election boards. Newly elected District 3 Tulsa County Commissioner Kelly Dunkerley declined during his campaign to say whether he believed the election was stolen, yet he continued to make election integrity an issue. In one of his final campaign mailers sent out before the August Republican runoff, Dunkerley listed the key distinctions between himself and his opponent, Bob Jack. Under the category titled Trump, he turned Jacks own words regarding the 2020 election against him: Believes Biden was duly elected and that its over; Lets move on, folks. Citing public statements he had made, Dunkerley summarized his views as follows: Believes voter integrity should be a top priority. Proudly endorsed by Oklahomans for Trump. Dunkerley coasted to victory with more than 60% of the vote. Video: Its time to move on from 2020 election, says Trump die-hard Roger Stone Tulsa County commissioners voted Monday to extend the countys burn ban for another week. Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Kralicek said the county has seen no appreciable rain for 23 days, exacerbating the existing drought and making it essential that the burn ban be extended for a third consecutive week. For the last 90 days, were almost 4 inches of rainfall below our average, so we are in some pretty sizable drought conditions throughout the county, Kralicek said. With no rain forecast for the upcoming week, unfortunately, we saw that we needed to extend the burn ban by a week. Kralicek said this is one of the driest seasons in Oklahoma history and that the countys three-week burn ban is the longest of the year. This is definitely in the top third of the driest seasons (for this area) weve had since Oklahoma reached statehood, he said. Outdoor burning including controlled burns, bonfires, fire pits and chimineas is prohibited under the ban, but grilling and welding over a nonflammable surface are permitted. Individuals or organizations interested in applying for an exception to the burn ban should contact their local fire district, Kralicek said. Of utmost importance, he emphasized, is that county residents do everything they can to prevent accidentally starting a fire. Just be very cautious of anything that causes a spark, because at this point, all its going to take will be one spark and you can ruin a lot of peoples day, Kralicek said. Enforcement of the resolution can be carried out by any law enforcement officer in Oklahoma, and violators can receive up to a $500 fine, a prison sentence not to exceed a year, or both. Fines may be higher in municipalities. According to the Oklahoma Mesonet, Augusts heat was well above normal and contributed to Oklahomas hottest summer on record since 2011. The existing ban is in place through next Monday, and county commissioners will reconsider it again next week. Several other area counties, including Rogers, Creek, Okmulgee and Muskogee counties, also are under burn bans, according to Oklahoma Forestry Services. Alliance for the Unreached Appoints New Executive Director/CEO NEWS PROVIDED BY Alliance for the Unreached Sept. 26, 2022 WHEATON, Ill., Sept. 26, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- The board of directors for Alliance for the Unreached, (an association of more than 60 international ministries focused on fulfilling the Great Commission) has named Steve Johnson as its first full time Executive Director/CEO. Johnson filled the position effective September 1, 2022, to take the reins from Dr. Marv Newell as he steps into retirement and other ministry endeavors. "It's been an honor to lead this ministry and to see how God has expanded the Alliance from just a few members in 2014 to now more than 60 organizations working together to reach those who have never heard the gospel," said Newell. "The past several weeks have been a whirlwind as God has moved in a big way to bring us our first full-time Executive Director," said Jon Fugler, founding member and current chair of the Alliance board. "Marv has served the Alliance with great commitment and success. It has thrived under his leadership. Now we're thrilled to welcome Steve Johnson to lead the Alliance into the future." Johnson, who was a founding member of the Alliance and served as its first volunteer president in 2014 - 2015, returns to the ministry having served most recently as the Vice President of Content Development for Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. "I can't think of anything more important that I could be doing right now. Jesus told us to be His ambassadors to the farthest reaches of the earth so that everyone might have a chance to hear the gospel. I'm humbled that He is allowing me to return to the Alliance. I know together we can take the gospel where it has never been before," said Johnson. The Alliance for the Unreached was founded in 2014 in an effort to increase awareness and engagement on behalf of the more than 2 billion people (nearly a third of the world's population) who have never heard the gospel message nor have access to Scripture in their languages. Since its inception, the Alliance has grown from seven founding members to more than 60 members, all working toward the goal of reaching those who have yet to hear about Jesus. The Alliance is the developer and sponsor of the International Day for the Unreached, an annual event in which churches and missions-minded Christians work to raise awareness of the cause of the unreached. Most recently, the Alliance launched a major advocacy campaign called A Third of Us, representing the nearly one-third of the world's population that has limited access to the gospel. More information available at https://athirdofus.com/ For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Sarah Roche at ateam@athirdofus.com. Visit Mission Network News to hear a more detailed interview: https://www.mnnonline.org/news/alliance-for-the-unreached-helps-u-s-churches-recapture-global-vision/ SOURCE Alliance for the Unreached CONTACT: Sarah Roche, ateam@athirdofus.com Tropical Storm Ian hurtled toward western Cuba on Sunday, prompting the government to evacuate tourists amid expectations of life-threatening storm surges as it turns into a hurricane on Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center. Ian had begun to strengthen over the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea late on Sunday, as it moved slowly northwestward towards Cuba, with sustained winds of 60 miles per hour (96 km per hour), the NHC said. Cuba evacuated tourists on Sunday from the Isla de la Juventud, off the island's southwestern coast, as well as workers from nearby Cayo Largo, one of the country's top tourist destinations, according to official media reports. Ports throughout the western half of Cuba were closed as early as Friday evening, and fishermen called back to harbor ahead of the pending storm, which is expected to bring heavy rainfall. Cuban officials were monitoring the track of the storm, which had tended slightly eastward than earlier predictions suggested, putting the capital Havana closer to the crosshairs. The National Hurricane Center said Ian was expected to develop into a major hurricane in the eastern Gulf of Mexico by midweek but noted that "uncertainty in the track and intensity forecasts remain higher than usual." As of early evening Sunday, Tropical Storm Ian was 430 miles (695 km) from Cabo San Antonio, Cuba's westernmost tip. The center said hurricane warnings had been issued for the Cuban provinces of Isla de Juventud, Pinar del Rio and Artemisa. "Life-threatening storm surge and hurricane-force winds are expected in portions of western Cuba beginning late Monday," the NHC said. Storm Ian is also forecast to produce heavy rainfall, flash flooding and possible mudslides in areas of higher terrain, especially over Jamaica and Cuba. By mid-week the storm could cause flooding across the Florida Keys and Florida peninsula, NHC added. Florida officials warned people across the state to be ready for the storm with supplies of food, water, fuel, batteries and medicine. Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency in all 67 of the states counties. "The path of this is still uncertain," he said at a news conference. "The impacts will be broad throughout the state of Florida." It is not too hard to see a person injecting narcotics into his arm at a park in downtown Ho Chi Minh City as several corners of this park have become the usual hangout spots of drug users. Following the reports of some readers, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters arrived at 23/9 Park in District 1 and noticed that many drug addicts were using narcotics in public as if there were nobody around. On Friday afternoon, a man in a plaid shirt exited an alley on Pham Ngu Lao Street carrying a small bag of narcotics. A man injects narcotics into his bloodstream at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre He bought a needle and syringe at a nearby pharmacy before heading to 23/9 Park near the Pham Ngu Lao-Ton That Tung Intersection. The man sat at a corner and began preparing for the injections. He mixed the stimulant with a small amount of water before injecting the drugs into the bloodstream through a vein on his arm. A man helps his friend inject the drugs at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre One bag is enough for two injections, but you have to wait for at least 15 minutes between the shots to avoid overdose, the man said. A few steps away, two other men were sharing a bag of drugs. These drug addicts did not seem to care about other people in the park. A man injects narcotics into his bloodstream at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre A few minutes later, a man in the uniform of a sanitation worker arrived and sat in a nearby corner as he took his shot. A lottery ticket seller also followed suit, having prepared his drugs, needle, and syringe. I have gone to rehab five or six times but still missed the feeling of being high on drugs, he said. A man in the uniform of a sanitation worker prepares for his drug injection at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Afterwards, the drug addicts left multiple syringes at the foot of a nearby tree and under the grass. After seeing the proof from Tuoi Tre, the Peoples Committee in District 1 directed the local police unit to patrol 23/9 Park and deal with the drug users in accordance with regulations. Within Monday morning, officers detected 17 drug users at the park and escorted them to the police station. A lottery ticket seller injects narcotics into his bloodstream at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Two tourists walk past a man as he injects narcotics into his bloodstream at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Syringes are left behind by drug addicts at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Syringes are left behind by drug addicts at 23/9 Park in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 23, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Police escort drug addicts from 23/9 Park to their station in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 26, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Police escort drug addicts from 23/9 Park to their station in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, September 26, 2022. Photo: Minh Hoa / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Read what is in the news today: Politics -- Vietnamese State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and a high-ranking delegation of the Vietnamese Party and State arrived at Haneda International Airport, Tokyo on Sunday afternoon, for the State funeral of former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. Society -- Typhoon Noru entered the East Vietnam Sea and became the countrys storm No. 4 in 2022 on Monday morning after sweeping through Luzon Island of the Philippines, packing winds of 118-149 km per hour. -- Central Vietnamese provinces and cities stretching along the Vietnamese coast from Thua Thien-Hue to Quang Ngai have prepared to evacuate 368,000 people at risk of being affected by floods and storms ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Noru. -- A fire burned down four temporary houses on Linh Nam Street in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi on Sunday night. No one was injured in the incident. Lifestyle -- A paragliding festival kicked off at Mu Cang Chai Districts Khau Pha mountain pass of the northwestern province of Yen Bai on Sunday, drawing the participation of 100 domestic and foreign pilots. -- A series of activities were held at Nguyen Van Binh Book Street in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday to mark the 25th year since the first Harry Potter book, a best-selling series by British author J.K. Rowling, was released in Vietnam. -- A 45-year-old Vietnamese tourist backpacked alone for nearly 40 days through 30 states of the U.S. by motorbike, finishing a journey of more than 20,000km. World news -- At least 25 people were killed and dozens were missing after a boat packed with Hindu devotees sank on Sunday in Bangladesh in the worst waterways disaster to hit the country in more than a year, Reuters cited a local official. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! No one was injured after a fire burned down four temporary houses in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi on Sunday night. The fire broke out at around 8:00 pm at a coffee shop and spread to three houses near the gate of Vinh Tuy Industrial Park on Linh Nam Street in Hoang Mai, according to witnesses. Firefighters work at the site of a house fire in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi, September 25, 2022. Photo: Anh Kien / Tuoi Tre The firefighting unit of the district sent five fire trucks to the scene and managed to extinguish the blaze about an hour later. The fire did not cause casualties. Firefighters work at the site of a house fire in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi, September 25, 2022. Photo: Anh Kien / Tuoi Tre The district police initially determined the cause was sparks created by the owner of the coffee shop while repairing an iron door. Officers are still investigating the case. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A series of activities were held at Nguyen Van Binh Book Street in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday to mark the 25th year since the first Harry Potter book, a best-selling series by British author J.K. Rowling, was released in Vietnam. The Tre (Youth) Publishing House, which owns the copyrights for the novel series in Vietnam, hosted numerous events including interactive games, trivia and drawing contests. Making its debut 25 years ago, the novel quickly became a firm favorite among young Vietnamese readers. Young people pose for a photo with accessories from Harry Potter books, a best-selling series by British author J.K. Rowling, at Nguyen Van Binh Book Street in Ho Chi Minh City, September 25, 2022. Photo: T.T.D. / Tuoi Tre Young fans attend a quiz during a series of activities held at Nguyen Van Binh Book Street in Ho Chi Minh City to mark the 25th year since the first Harry Potter book, a best-selling series by British author J.K. Rowling, was released in Vietnam, September 25, 2022. Photo: T.T.D. / Tuoi Tre Many Harry Potter lovers expressed their joy during the celebration on Sunday. To me, Harry Potter is not just a novel, its another world that anyone can be immersed in, said Le Hoang Phuong Vy, a girl from District 7 who claimed to have read the series since she was still in elementary school. During the celebration, the Tre Publishing House also introduced the illustrated Vietnamese edition of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - the fifth novel in the world-famous series. The illustrated Vietnamese edition of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth novel in the world-famous series, is introduced at Nguyen Van Binh Book Street in Ho Chi Minh City, September 25, 2022. Photo: T.T.D. / Tuoi Tre Young fans cosplaying as characters in Harry Potter books, a best-selling series by British author J.K. Rowling, pose for a photo at Nguyen Van Binh Book Street in Ho Chi Minh City, September 25, 2022. Photo: T.T.D. / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The AACTA Awards are relaunching a suite of awards celebrating the digital / online space to recognise Australias best and most influential digital creators. The 2022 AACTA Awards will also see the return of the Favourite Digital Creator, to be determined by the public as part of the Audience Choice Awards. The three AACTA Digital Awards are: Favourite Digital Creator As part of the AACTA Audience Choice Awards, with more details to be announced soon, the AACTA Favourite Digital Creator Award is the highest accolade for an Australian digital creator or personality. AACTA Award for Best Short Video This category recognises the impact, immediacy and creativity of content under 90 seconds that is widely shared, discussed and enjoyed by Australians from all walks of life. AACTA Award for Best Digital Channel or Series This category encompasses the amazing breadth of channels and webseries (featuring content over 90 seconds in length) that is updated regularly and across a myriad of styles including drama, video podcasts, comedy, beauty, education, gaming, sports and wellness, kids and family, commentary, review, how-to, reactions, challenges and music. All content submitted for consideration in the Digital Awards must have premiered online for public consumption between August 13, 2021 and October 6, 2022. Entries Close: Thursday 6th October, 11:59pm AEDT aacta.org/aacta-awards/digital-awards Foreign Correspondent this week is in Zimbabwe to document successes in protecting rhinos. Its one of the most successful rhino conservation projects in Africa. In south eastern Zimbabwe, a private wildlife sanctuary is working hard to bring endangered rhinos back from the brink. In the 90s and 2000s, the mighty black rhino was poached to near extinction in Zimbabwe and completely wiped out in Gonarezhou National Park, the countrys second largest wildlife reserve. Its horn, worth its weight in gold, makes it a target for organised poaching gangs. Set up in 1994, the privately funded Malilangwe Trust began with 28 white and 28 black rhinos imported from South Africa. Today the Black Rhino herd is 175 strong and the White Rhino herd numbers 259. Reporter Michael Davie, an Australian born in Zimbabwe, returns home to witness this extraordinary wildlife success story. He spends time with the sanctuarys highly trained anti-poaching team, the Malilangwe Scouts, the tip of the spear against the ever-present poaching threat. Individually you cant win against poaching and we need every one of us to fight against poachers, says Patrick, a Sergeant in the Scouts. You have to be a team, a strong one. Davie captures all the incredible action of the hectic rhino ops where specialists dart the animals from helicopters then move in on 4WDs as they dash across the park. Led by ecologist Sarah Clegg, the rhino ops team collect vital data on the herd. Theyve got this reputation of being bad-tempered and dangerous and they are, but I think its mostly that theyre just such emotional creatures, says Sarah, whos studied the animal for more than two decades. Theyre just insecure, you know? And so they need more love. Malilangwe increased its rhino population to such an extent that last year, it relocated some of its Black Rhino herd to nearby Gonarezhou National Park a former killing ground for rhinos. Its what we all aim for in our careers as conservationists, says Sarah. Its a wild park, so being able to put the rhino back into that park is like waking it up again. This visually stunning story has a powerful message of hope. Everyone needs to know the rhino is special, says Patrick. Thursday September 29th at 8pm on ABC . Location homes used as Neighbours famous Ramsay Street could be added to the Victorian Heritage Register following an assessment prepared for Whitehorse Council. The Pin Oak Court Vermont South were deemed to be of historic, aesthetic and social significance at state level and arguably at an international level. Counci will consider the recommendations at a meeting tonight for authorisation from the Planning Minister to prepare a planning scheme amendment for a permanent Heritage Overlay to properties at 1 6 Pin Oak Court. Report authors GJM Heritage also advised that Pin Oak Court in combination with the nearby former ATV-O Television Studios at 104-168 Hawthorn Rd, Forest Hill may be of significance for its association with the filming and production of Neighbours. The former ATV-O building (aka Wentworth Detention Centre) won an architectural award in 1965 and was given a heritage overlay by Whitehorse Council in 2016. Executive Producer Jason Herbison recently told TV Tonight Fremantle will continue to lease the site in the short term, used for upcoming 10 / UK drama, Riptide. We have it to the end of the year and well be utilising it for some other things between now and the end of the year. But I dont know whats going to happen to the site beyond that. The studio backlot backlot is also home to the Lassiters complex (originally built for 1981s Holiday Island), the 2013 construction of full-size backyards of Ramsay Street houses plus the Power Road streetscape facade of Grease Monkeys and Fitzgerald Motors (previously Carpenters Mechanics). Should Ramsay Street homes be given a heritage overlay for cultural significance? Yes No Undecided View Results Loading ... Loading ... Source: Herald Sun The Victorian Government has announced a State Funeral Service for the late Uncle Jack Charles. It will be held at Hamer Hall at 2pm on Tuesday 18 October 2022. Uncle Jack passed away earlier this month, with a long list of screen credits including Cleverman, Who Do You Think You Are?, Yokayi Footy, Preppers, Back to the Outback, Black Comedy, Rosehaven, Grace Beside Me, Fancy Boy, Rake, Wolf Creek, The Gods of Wheat Street, Problems, Woodley, We Can Be Heroes, Women of the Sun, Rush, Ben Hall and the films Blackfellas, Mystery Road, Pan, and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. In a statement Premier Dan Andrews said, Uncle Jack Charles was a proud Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Woiwurrung and Taungurung man he had a talent like no other and paved the way for Aboriginal actors to follow in his footsteps. As an actor, musician, potter, performer and activist, Uncle Jack took on many roles. As a mentor and guiding light for young Aboriginal men, he touched the lives of many. He was named the 2016 Victorian Senior Australian of the Year for his enduring impact on Australian theatre and his contributions as a role model for his community. Earlier this year, he made history as the first Aboriginal elder to testify at Victorias truth-telling Yoorrook Justice Commission. And in doing so, he permanently etched it into our states history. His life was once marred by great injustice, but he did not let that dim his bright and generous spirit. As an infant, he was forcibly removed from his mother by state authorities. Uncle Jacks harrowing experience as a member of the Stolen Generations had a devastating impact on his sense of self, as he grappled with a cycle of addiction, homelessness and imprisonment for much of his early life. His separation from his family led him down a lifelong journey of discovery of his family history, culture, and his Aboriginal identity. A larger-than-life personality, his warmth and humour saw him through, as he drew others into his remarkable life. There is no actor, no activist, no survivor and no Victorian quite like Uncle Jack Charles. He leaves behind a legacy one of profound honesty, survival and reconciliation and one that every single Victorian can be proud of. In recognition of his vital work within our justice system, his service will be streamed into prisons, remand centres and youth justice centres across the state. There is no word as yet on a broadcast by NITV, SBS or ABC. Tix info: vic.gov.au/unclejack-charles. The family of Jack Charles gave permission for his name and image to be used. (Bloomberg) -- A proposed pipeline of coal mine projects in Australia, the worlds second-biggest exporter of the fuel, are threatening to lock in decades of new carbon emissions and challenge the countrys promises of bolder climate action. Most Read from Bloomberg The federal government is considering 29 applications for new mines and expansions which, if developed to their full capacity, would produce more than 250 million tons a year and contribute as much as 17 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study by Move Beyond Coal, a Sydney-based climate advocacy group. That total is equivalent to more than half of global emissions in 2021. The future of the countrys $63 billion coal export industry is a dilemma for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who took office in May with a promise to improve a weak record on climate action. Though his government has tightened emissions reduction targets, Albanese has also signaled support for new gas and coal developments amid a global energy crisis thats seen buyers scramble for the countrys exports and swelled profits for fossil-fuel producers. Global electricity generation from coal jumped about 8.5% last year to more than 9,600 terawatt-hours, the first increase since 2018, according to data compiled by BloombergNEF. Climate groups have raised concerns over the potential impact on efforts to curb emissions as nations revert to using the dirtiest fossil fuel. Albaneses government is talking the talk that Australia is back on climate, but its got all these coal mines that are under review, said Fahimah Badrulhisham, a spokesperson for Move Beyond Coal, the campaign group that produced the data. We cannot allow new mines to be dug in 2022. Story continues Ministers currently have no legal obligation to consider climate impacts when authorizing development of new mines, and campaigners in March lost an attempt to block a Whitehaven Coal Ltd. proposal over its projected emissions. Members of Australias Green Party and pro-climate independent lawmakers have called for existing environmental laws to be tightened. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is reviewing current laws, her office said. Coal mine applications are being assessed on a case-by-case basis, she said in July. Mining tycoon Clive Palmer was refused approvals in August for a the Central Queensland Coal project over the potential impact on the Great Barrier Reef. Read more: Australia Knocks Back Major Coal Project Near Great Barrier Reef Mining giants including BHP Group, Glencore Plc, and Peabody Energy Corp. are among producers with projects in Australia being considered by the government. BHP and Mitsubishi Corp.s proposed Blackwater South metallurgical coal mine in Queensland is seeking approvals to cover a 90 year lifespan. That would equate to 1.98 billion tons of emissions, according to Move Beyond Coals estimates. BHP declined to comment on the emissions forecast. Chief Executive Officer Mike Henry previously suggested the mine would be unlikely to operate for the duration set out in approval documents. Glencores Valeria thermal and metallurgical coal mine in central Queensland has a proposed lifetime of 35 years and would emit 1.39 billion tons of carbon dioxide, Move Beyond Coal said. The release of 17 billion tons of carbon dioxide from all the proposed mines would account for 4% of the worlds remaining carbon budget of 420 million tons -- the point at which planetary warming of 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) becomes the most likely scenario, according to the Global Carbon Project. A total of 31 coal mine projects were at the committed stage, where a final investment decision has been taken, or undergoing feasibility studies, Australias resources ministry said in a report in December. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. NEWS PROVIDED BY The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights Sept. 26, 2022 NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- The SWAT team arrest of a pro-life activist from Pennsylvania, coupled with the FBI's passive response to violence committed by abortion-rights activists, explains Bill Donohue's request for an investigation. September 26, 2022 Hon. Chuck Grassley 135 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Grassley: In your role as the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am asking you to convene an investigation, and/or a hearing, on the FBI's behavior regarding pro-life and abortion-rights activists. There seems to be much interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by pro-life activists, yet little interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by abortion-rights activists. Bias of this kind is politically motivated and must stop. To be specific, on September 23, Mark Houck, a pro-life activist from Kintnersville, Pennsylvania was arrested by some two dozen SWAT team agents--they came to his house with guns drawn--on grounds that he assaulted an abortion-rights patient escort at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Philadelphia on October 13, 2021. He is being charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). Houck says he shoved a man who had been harassing his 12-year-old son in front of the clinic during one of his sidewalk counseling sessions. The charges were reportedly dismissed by the District Court in Philadelphia. I am not in a position to judge the veracity of the account offered by the FBI or Houck. But it surely seems that the FBI overreacted in its handling of this matter. Houck had seven children at home as the SWAT team pounded on his door, showing up fully armored, yelling at him to open it. This kind of overreaction for a minor infraction of the law is deeply troubling, and it becomes even more troubling when paired with the underreaction by the Department of Justice when the pro-life side is targeted. On June 17, 2022, I wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to "immediately deploy the full resources of the Department of Justice to apprehend and prosecute domestic terrorists who have recently attacked Catholic individuals, vandalized Catholic churches and torched Catholic-operated crisis pregnancy centers." I provided Attorney General Garland with specifics. "We have witnessed a rash of vandalism against Catholic churches, firebombings of crisis pregnancy centers (many of which are run by Catholics), Masses being interrupted, illegal protests outside the homes of Catholic Supreme Court Justices, and an attempted murder of one of the Catholic Justices." I explicitly cited the work of Jane's Revenge. On June 29, we published a list of 16 instances of violence committed by abortion-rights protesters. We now have a list of dozens of Catholic entities, mostly churches, that have been vandalized or otherwise desecrated. (See the attachments.) Not only did I not receive a response from the attorney general, there have been no news stories on SWAT teams crashing the homes of abortion-rights terrorists. Yet there have been many instances of violence that make "shoving" someone look like child's play. I implore you to get to the bottom of this duplicity. Sincerely, William A. Donohue, Ph.D. President cc: Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees The former deputy chief whip at the centre of the controversy that led to Boris Johnsons demise will not be investigated by Parliaments watchdog over allegations of drunken groping at a private members club, it is understood. Chris Pincher dramatically quit his Government role on June 30 after allegedly assaulting two fellow guests at the exclusive Carlton Club in London the evening before. Mr Pincher was the Tory MP for Tamworth in Staffordshire but now sits as an independent in the Commons after Mr Johnson bowed to pressure to remove the Conservative whip after a formal complaint was made to the parliamentary watchdog that examines allegations of bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct. But the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) has dropped the complaint because the alleged incident did not occur on the Parliamentary estate, The Sunday Times and The Observer reported. The watchdogs policies appear to confirm that the claims about Mr Pincher would not fall within its scope. The ICGS applies to acts of bullying or harassment or sexual misconduct by and against any member of the parliamentary community on the parliamentary estate or elsewhere in connection with their parliamentary activities, according to its website. A House of Commons spokesperson said they cannot confirm or deny any current investigations as the ICGS operates on the basis of confidentiality for the benefit of all parties. Chris Pincher was removed as Conservative deputy chief whip after allegedly groping two men (PA Wire) Therefore, we cannot provide any information on complaints or investigation, including whether or not a complaint has been received or whether an investigation is ongoing. The Guardian reported that at least one of the victims is understood to have appealed against the decision not to investigate Mr Pincher. The incident took on greater significance when Downing Street initially said Mr Johnson had no knowledge of previous allegations against Mr Pincher. We cannot confirm or deny any current investigations Commons spokesperson Story continues But Lord McDonald, former permanent secretary in the Foreign Office, went public to say that Mr Johnson was briefed in person about a 2019 complaint against Mr Pincher in the Foreign Office. The then-prime minister later acknowledged he had been informed of inappropriate behaviour dating back three years. Mr Johnsons handling of the scandal unleashed a wave of pent-up frustration with his leadership, already damaged by lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street and by-election defeats. It led to Mr Johnson haemorrhaging support across the Tory ranks and ultimately announcing he would step down. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA The UK government has been accused of funding environmental racism by giving 2m a day in subsidies to an energy company that has paid out millions over claims it breached pollution limits in the US south. An investigation by Unearthed, Greenpeaces investigative unit, found Drax Biomass paid millions of dollars to US regulators over claims it exceeded limits on chemicals emissions at wood chip plants close to black and low-income communities. Among the charges faced by Drax was that it exceeded limits on emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a class of air pollutants linked to cancer, breathing difficulties and other health effects. My message to the UK government is that you are subsidising environmental racism, Katherine Egland, a director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told Unearthed. And I would send an invitation to the UK government to come to the US and go to some of these communities where these plants are operating. It is not a safe environment. It is very harmful to these communities. Drax describes itself as the UKs largest source of renewable energy. It operates three hydroelectric sites in Scotland, but its main operation is a wood-fired power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, which is one of the largest in Europe. To fuel its operations, and to tap into an increasing global market for biomass fuel, Drax operates an extensive North American supply chain, with 13 sites in the US and Canada producing 1.5m tonnes of compressed wood pellets a year. Late last month, according to documents discovered by Unearthed, Drax agreed to two settlements of $1.6m each with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) to settle claims against two of its wood pellet plants in the state. The settlements related to claims dating back to 2019 in the small and mainly black Louisiana town of Bastrop, and a second plant in Urania. Drax was accused of exceeding emissions limits for VOCs, methanol, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. Story continues Drax denies it committed any violations at its Louisiana plants, after agreeing to the settlements without accepting liability. It is not the first time that Drax has faced similar accusations. Last year it emerged that Drax had been fined $2.5m for air pollution violations in the neighbouring state of Mississippi. The sanction was issued in 2020 after the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) found that Draxs Amite BioEnergy pellet plant, situated beside the community of Gloster, had exceeded VOC emission limits since 2016. MDEQ found Amite had been emitting an average of 795.58 tonnes of VOCs a year more than three times its permitted limit of 249 tonnes a year and nearly five times the estimate of the plants emissions that Drax had initially given officials. Unearthed spoke to residents of Gloster, which is also majority black and with high rates of poverty, who said their health had suffered since Drax arrived in the town in 2014. Myrtis Woodward said she was using medical oxygen, a nebuliser, an inhaler and a nasal spray to treat asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic bronchitis. We started getting sick after they put that plant down there and we didnt know where it was coming from, Woodward said. Sometimes I experience nose bleeding, and when I gargle I spit blood out. A Drax spokesperson said: The safety of our people and residents of the communities in which we operate remains our top priority and we take our environmental responsibilities extremely seriously. We have worked with the LDEQ and invested in our pellet plants to ensure they comply with their environmental permits. Through our operations in Louisiana and Mississippi, Drax supports more than 1,200 jobs and contributes $175m to the regions economy. We continue to monitor and report our emissions to the state environment agency. With its wood-fired power station estimated to provide 6% of the UKs total electricity supply, Drax continues to receive strong support from the government, in spite of growing scepticism among scientists that woody biomass can be classified a source of green energy. In 2021 Drax received 893m about 2.4m a day in UK government green energy subsidies, according to analysis by Ember, a climate thinktank. Draxs payouts over pollution claims have brought its UK taxpayer subsidies under increasing scrutiny. Its subsidising environmental racism, plain and simple. There are no two ways about it, said Egland, who chairs the NAACPs environmental and climate justice committee. I want the UK to know there are human rights atrocities associated with the wood pellet trade in the US. And the UK is complicit. A Government spokesperson said: The UK government recognises that it is vital to ensure any negative impacts on the environment, including on air quality, from the use of biomass are fully understood and mitigated. We only support biomass which complies with our strict sustainability criteria, and with carbon capture and storage, it can permanently remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The UK economy will grow less than previously predicted this year and flatline entirely in 2023, according to a new report. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) said it has downgraded its current annual projection for the UK economy due to declining real incomes and disruptions in energy markets. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is set to grow by 3.4% in 2022 as a whole, the body said in its interim outlook report. In June, the body said the economy was likely to grow by 3.6%. It comes days after the Bank of England said the UK economy could already be in recession, forecasting that there was likely to be a 0.1% decline in GDP over the current financial quarter. The OECD also forecast that GDP will stay completely flat in 2023 in the UK. Germany and Russia are the only two countries in the G20 set for a weaker economic performance next year, with projections of 0.7% and 4.5% declines in GDP respectively, according to the report. The G20 as a whole is expected to see 2.2% economic growth for the year, a 0.6 percentage point decline compared with the previous forecasts. OECD secretary-general Mathias Cormann said that governments should only provide shorter-term support to people during the crisis, or risk making it worse. Governments have already provided significant fiscal support during the pandemic, and we do not know how long this energy crisis will last, he said. G20 inflation has continued to rise from 3.8% in 2021 to 8.2% in 2022. It is expected to fall back in 2023 but it will remain high (6.6%) and well above central bank targets across G20 economies. #EconomicOutlook #OECD Read more here https://t.co/K6srSGX7tI pic.twitter.com/BeLCKVpCm9 OECD Economics (@OECDeconomy) September 26, 2022 It is important that near-term fiscal support remains targeted and temporary and that governments do not provide further persistent fiscal stimulus which could exacerbate inflationary pressures and risk long-term fiscal sustainability. Story continues He also said that vulnerability to high gas prices comes from the delay in implementing the green transition. Near-term energy security and affordability, supply diversification, energy efficiency and demand-side measures are urgent priorities in the short-term which should be accompanied by stronger policy measures to enhance investment in clean technologies, Mr Cormann said. Investments in clean energy are particularly needed to improve energy security and affordability and to help achieve energy transition goals and to ease pressure on the availability of gas used as a transition fuel. We expect an extended slowdown with GDP growth stalling in many economies. Curbing inflation, addressing the energy crisis and keeping food affordable are key challenges we need to address.https://t.co/9qvPBWQSPA # EconomicOutlook@OECD @santospereira_a Mathias Cormann (@MathiasCormann) September 26, 2022 The world will need around 1.3 trillion dollars (1.2 trillion) of extra investment in the transition every year by the end of this decade. OECD economist Alvaro Santos Pereira said that Europe would need to reduce its use of gas this winter or face potential shortages. The European economies will not run into a problem if you have more supply and also reduce demand, he said. Reducing demand by between 10% and 15% will be crucial to avoid gas disruptions in the winter. The organisations analysis showed that if gas prices were to rise by another 50% it would shave another 1.3% off GDP across European OECD members and add 1.4% to inflation. A Qatar Airways A350-900 aircraft taking off. The airline got top honors at the annual Skytrax awards. Qatar Airways Airline-ranking company Skytrax has revealed its Top 20 best carriers in the world for 2022. For the seventh time, Qatar Airways has taken the top spot, beating out Singapore Airlines and Emirates. No US carrier made the Top 20 list, though Delta Air Lines earned the top ranking for North American brands. In one of the most-watched lists of the world's best airlines, not a single US carrier made the Top 20. Instead, airline-ranking company Skytrax again named Doha-based Qatar Airways at the top of its World Airline Awards for 2022, where it's been perched since 2019. The Top 20 list was collected from customer surveys, which are "independent and impartial," UK-based Skytrax said in a release. Travelers were asked about areas like customer service, comfort, and cleanliness, with over 350 airlines being named in the survey results. As for top award winner Qatar Airways, airline CEO Akbar Al Baker said the title has always been a goal of the company. But "to win it for the seventh time and pick up three additional awards is a testament to all the hard work of our incredible employees," he said, noting the airline's top ranking has occurred seven times since the awards first began in 1999. Qatar also won titles for having the world's best business class, the best business class seat, and the best business class lounge dining, according to the Skytrax survey. Singapore Airlines and Emirates came in second and third, respectively, behind Qatar. Singapore also won the title for the world's best cabin staff. No US carrier made the Top 20 list, though Delta Air Lines was the most successful of US airlines, coming in number 24 and earning the award for best airline in North America. Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines earned two titles, including the best low-cost airline in both North America and the US. And, United Airlines won the title for the best business class lounge in North America. Here's a closer look at the world's Top 20 best carriers for 2022, according to Skytrax's survey of travelers. Story continues 20. Vistara NOAH SEELAM / AFP) (Photo by NOAH SEELAM/AFP via Getty Images India-based Vistara is a full-service carrier flying domestic and international routes around Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. 19. Virgin Atlantic A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787 lands at London Heathrow Airport on 28th October 2020. Robert Smith/Getty Images Virgin Atlantic is a London-based carrier flying long-haul routes to North America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. 18. EVA Air Huy Thoai/Shutterstock EVA Air is a Taiwanese carrier. The company flies routes to Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe, Canada, and the US. 17. KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 777-300. Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/Getty Images Dutch flag carrier KLM is the oldest airline in service still sporting its original name. The airline mostly operates international flights to Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. 16. Cathay Pacific Cathay Pacific A350-1000 aircraft. Phuong D. Nguyen/Shutterstock Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific serves destinations in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North America. 15. Lufthansa Lufthansa's Airbus A380. Lufthansa. Lufthansa is Germany's national airline and is one of the largest in Europe. The airline serves domestic and international routes in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, North America, Latin America, and Africa. The carrier recently announced the return of its beloved Airbus A380. 14. Hainan Airlines Hainan Airlines TonyV3112/Shutterstock Chinese carrier Hainan Airlines is based in Haikou and is one of the largest carriers in that country. It serves Asia, Europe, and North America 13. China Southern Airlines Angel DiBilio/Shutterstock.com China Southern Airlines is the country's largest carrier in terms of passenger volume and serves cities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Australia. 12. Etihad Airways Etihad's first A350 flight to JFK. Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is a national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, with an extensive network of routes throughout the Middle East, as well as to Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, and North America. The airline recently unveiled its brand new Airbus A350 named Sustainability 50. 11. British Airways British Airways planes at Heathrow airport. Jonathan Brady/Getty Images Just shy of the Top 10 is British Airways, which operates domestic flights in the UK and international routes to Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. 10. Swiss International Air Lines SWISS A220-100. Conny Pokorny/Shutterstock Swiss International Air Lines, also known as SWISS, is the national carrier of Switzerland and also part of the Lufthansa Group. The carrier flies to Asia, North America, and Africa 9. Korean Air Philip Pilosian/Shutterstock.com Seoul-based Korean Air is the country's flag carrier, and its cargo arm Korean Air Cargo is one of the largest in the world. The airline recently relaunched flights of its Airbus A380 between Seoul and New York. 8. Air France Bodo Marks/dpa (Photo by Bodo Marks/picture alliance via Getty Images France's national airline, Air France, operates a network from its Paris base to destinations in Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. 7. Turkish Airlines Turkish Airlines plane is seen at the Barajas Airport in Madrid on July 1, 2022. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Image Turkish Airlines is based in Istanbul and flies routes throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. 6. Japan Airlines Japan Airlines. Markus Mainka/Shutterstock Tokyo-based Japan Airlines, also known as JAL, is one of the few carriers to invest in Boom Supersonic's Overture aircraft and plans to further expand its overseas network. 5. Qantas Airways Qantas Boeing 787-9. Toshi K/Shutterstock Rounding out the Top 5 best airlines is Australian flag carrier Qantas, which flies to New Zealand, Europe, the Americas, Asia, and South Africa. The airline is known for a noted safety record and ambitious Project Sunrise flight that will carry passengers upward of 20 hours between Sydney and London and New York. 4. All Nippon Airways All Nippon Airways Hit1912/Shutterstock Japan's All Nippon Airways, known as ANA, is one of the nation's largest carriers and flies an extensive domestic and international network. 3. Emirates An Emirates Airbus A380. Arnold Aaron/Shutterstock.com As the world's largest Airbus A380 operator, Dubai-based Emirates is a national carrier of the UAE and flies an extensive network to dozens of cities in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, the South Pacific, North America, and South America. 2. Singapore Airlines Singapore Airlines A350-900. KITTIKUN YOKSAP/Shutterstock National carrier Singapore Airlines currently holds the title for the world's longest flight, journeying 19 hours between New York-JFK and Singapore. 1. Qatar Airways A Qatar Airways A350-900 aircraft taking off. The airline got top honors at the annual Skytrax awards. Qatar Airways Doha-based Qatar Airways is the world's best airline, according to survey data collected by Skytrax. The airline has held the title in each consecutive survey since 2019. This year's win is its seventh. Sporting luxurious products like the Q-Suite, Qatar continues to impress customers with its friendly cabin crew and reliable service. Read the original article on Business Insider (NASA/JPL-Caltech) Venus is a better target for a crewed mission to another planet than Mars, experts have suggested. While Mars might have the most attention, it is not the closest planet and passing by it could provide vital scientific information, in addition to reducing the travel time to Mars. Venus gets a bad rap because its got such a difficult surface environment, Dr Noam Izenberg of the Johns Hopkins University applied physics laboratory told The Guardian. The current Nasa paradigm is moon-to-Mars. Were trying to make the case for Venus as an additional target on that pathway. While Venus is close to the Sun than Mars and therefore in the wrong direction for a journey to the Red Planet travelling around it could create a slingshot effect known as a gravity assist that could cut travel time significantly. Youd be learning about how people work in deep space, without committing yourself to a full Mars mission, he said. And its not just going out into the middle of nowhere it would have a bit of cachet as youd be visiting another planet for the first time. Unfortunately, astronauts cannot walk on Venus surface the planet itself is hot enough that it cannot sustain any form of life at a scorching 475 degrees Celsius. However, there is a possibility that Venus could be home to alien life. The presence of ammonia - a common left-over waste from aquatic organisms has led to suggestions that there could be extraterrestrial microbes in the planets clouds. A hypothetical mission to the planet could therefore deploy rovers, drones, and balloons to investigate further. There is every reason to believe that Venus will be an endless wonderland of beguiling and mysterious vistas and formations, a report, authored by Dr Izenberg and Nasa chief economist, Alexander Macdonald, says. However, other scientists have been skeptical of this claim. If there were extraterrestrial life on a planet, it would probably leave behind evidence in its atmosphere, as it eats and lives but no such evidence was found on Venus, Cambridges Department of Earth Sciences suggests. Story continues Its really not a nice place to go. Its a hellish environment and the thermal challenges for a human mission would be quite considerable, Professor Andrew Coates, a space scientist at Univesity College London, told The Guardian. A probe, launched by Rocket Lab, will be sent in 2023 to investigate the Venus atmosphere. The overarching science goals are the search for evidence of life or habitability in the Venusian clouds. There are two specific science objectives: to search for the presence of organic molecules within cloud-layer particles and to determine the shape and indices of refraction (a proxy for composition) of the ... cloud particles Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers, who are being sponsored by Rocket Lab, write in their study. A former Central African Republic rebel commander has pleaded not guilty to the International Criminal Court at the start of his trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, an alleged member of the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel group, is accused of torturing opposition supporters as the Central African Republic spiralled into violence in 2013. The former French colony was plunged into a bloody sectarian conflict after the Seleka ousted president Francois Bozize. Said told judges at the ICC on Monday, "I have listened to everything and I plead not guilty." The 52-year-old militia leader faces seven charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. "I plead not guilty to all charges and all situations," Said added. Prosecutors believe Said was a senior Seleka commander in charge of a police compound where alleged Bozize supporters were beaten and severely tortured after they were arrested, mainly at night. Bloodbath The coup against Bozize unleashed a bloodbath between the Seleka and "anti-Balaka" forces, who were mainly Christian or animist who supported the ousted president. ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan told court judges "Mr Said has entered not guilty pleas. That is his right. "But the beauty of the law is that there is no place to hide ... The charges that are faced, are really quite awful." Sometimes referred to as "colonel", Said reportedly oversaw day-to-day operations at the compound which belonged to a police unit called the "Central Office for the Repression of Banditry" or OCRB. "His voice determined the fates of so many individuals," the prosecutor added on Monday. He didn't protect them, but rather, he actively participated in their capture, hunting them down and subjecting them to the most dire conditions that he could conjure up." Story continues 'Grotesque abuse' Said allegedly instructed subordinates to mistreat detainees, subjecting them to the so-called "arbatachar" torture method to extract confessions. The prosecutor showed pictures in court of victims' bodies tortured this way a technique involving tying a person's elbows to their feet behind their backs, causing excruciating pain. Many victims experienced partial or temporary paralysis and numbness. Prisoners were kept in cramped conditions and even thrown in a small underground cell, only accessible through a hole in the floor of Said's office at the OCRB headquarters in the capital, Bangui. "These are cells in which men were detained and subjected to what the prosecution says was grotesque abuse," Khan told the court. Anti-Balaka rebels also on trial at ICC The Central African authorities handed Said to the Hague-based court in January last year in response to an international arrest warrant issued in 2019. The ICC the world's only independent war crimes court set up in 2002 partially confirmed charges against Said late last year, including counts of torture, persecution and cruel treatment of detainees committed at the OCRB compound. Two former anti-Balaka leaders, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and Alfred Yekatom, are also on trial at the ICC. Thousands have lost their lives in the ongoing conflict despite intervention by France and the United Nations. The country of some five million people which the UN says is the world's second least developed remains gripped by violence and human rights violations. Photograph: David Gray/REUTERS Australias largest publicly owned windfarm could be built in Queensland, with the state government planning to spend $776m in the states west. The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said the funding would help Queensland become a global renewable-energy superpower and comes just days before the release of a 10-year energy plan for the state. The government wants approvals completed by 2024 to allow the state-owned Stanwell Corporation to build the 150-turbine windfarm near Tarong, which would be able to generate 500MW of electricity. Climate campaigners said building large renewables projects was positive news but the state needed a plan to phase out its coal-heavy energy fleet. Queensland is the biggest state emitter in Australia, but its 2030 emissions reduction target of 30% is also the weakest of any state. Its investments like this that will ensure we deliver on our net zero ambitions and our promise to Queenslanders to become a global renewable-energy superpower, Palaszczuk said. The new Tarong West windfarm is slated for a site at Ironpot, 30km south west of Kingaroy, and would generate enough electricity to power 230,000 homes and create 200 construction jobs. Leading renewables builder and operator RES will work with state-owned Stanwell corporation to build Tarong West, which could be operational by 2026 and employ about 15 people. Palaszczuk made the announcement on Monday against the backdrop of the privately owned Coopers Gap windfarm under construction near Kingaroy. This is a field of dreams, Palaszczuk said. She promised one of the biggest announcements our government has ever made when she details the energy plan later this week. The government wants 50% of electricity to come from renewables by 2030. Palaszczuk said renewables currently account for 21%. Queenslands energy minister, Mick de Brenni, said the states energy transition and public ownership of renewables was the greatest opportunity our state has seen for generations. Story continues Related: Supply chain delays and steel costs are part of perfect storm stalling renewable energy growth Public ownership meant having greater control over the energy system as it transitions away from fossil fuels, he said. If governments step up we can secure our state and our nations energy independence. The best way is to build more cheap clean renewable energy, de Brenni said. Jason Lyddieth, a Brisbane-based clean energy and climate campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation, welcomed the windfarm announcement, but said the government needed a plan to retire its fossil-fuel generators. Queensland is Australias highest emitting state and one of the biggest jurisdictions for per-capita emissions anywhere. Only Alberta in Canada and Qatar are worse, Lyddieth said. The state is also going hell for leather with new mines and gas fields. The government needs to get serious and have a plan to get off fossil fuels. Having a 2030 target of just 30% when the federal government has a 43% target is completely untenable. On Monday the Queensland Greens released a proposed schedule to close the states eight coal-fired power plants by 2030. Greens MP Michael Berkman said the states energy plan needed to bring forward closure dates for coal power and set out a jobs and income guarantee for transitioning coal workers. Here are the key takeaways from Italy's snap general election that pitted the parties of Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi against a left-wing bloc dominated by the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement. 1. Giorgia Meloni is set to be Italy's first female prime minister As head of the biggest party (Brothers of Italy) in the winning right-wing coalition, Giorgia Meloni is poised to become Italy's first woman PM. In a highly patriarchal country whose leading political figures have overwhelmingly been male, Meloni's victory represents a major break from the past. In an interview before the election with Euronews, she stated that "it would be an honour for me to be the first to break this taboo in my country". She may have received a form of backing from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said that women being elected to office represented a "step forward". But not everyone is convinced Meloni will be good for women's rights. Centre-left MP Lia Quartapelle, for instance, described her as a "token" figure for a macho right and noted how the Brothers of Italy manifesto makes sparing references to women and gender. 2. Italy will have its most right-wing government since WWII If exit polls are accurate, Italy's future government will consist of a coalition of the Meloni-led Brothers of Italy -- a descendant of the Italian Social Movement, a neo-fascist party -- as well as Matteo Salvini's Northern League, which has an anti-immigrant and populist platform, and Silvio Berlusconi's more moderate Go Italy (Forza Italia), whose politics align more with liberal conservatism. For most of the post-war period, Italy was dominated by the now-defunct Christian Democracy, a big-tent, conservative and pro-American party that combined more right-wing and leftist factions. Following the "Bribesville" scandal of the early 1990s, Italy's party landscape changed radically, and Berlusconi emerged as a towering political figure who presided over multiple right-wing governments. Story continues While it's not the first time the far-right has been in government in post-WWII Italy -- Meloni herself was youth minister from 2008 to 2011 -- it's the first time the far-right will be at the helm, while the centre-right (in this case, Berlusconi and his party) will take the backseat. A short-lived populist government had also been formed in 2018 with the Northern League, but it also joined forces with the Five Star Movement, that mixed right and left-wing policies. A Meloni-led cabinet would also be one of Italy's most EU-critical, although eurosceptic sentiments had already been fostered by previous right-wing coalition governments. 3. Voter turnout has been at historically low levels Italy has always enjoyed high levels of political participation and had a higher voter turnout than many of its European neighbours. In 1979, over 90% of the electorate came out to vote, and figures remained in the high 80s throughout the 1990s. Yet in this election, only 64% of the eligible voting population cast their ballot. The 2018 general election had also seen 73%, and voter turnout has been declining for over a decade. Why is this the case? Voter disaffection and fatigue are on the rise, as well as the volatile and ever-changing party landscape, and the fact that this election campaign kicked off in August - violating the sacred vacanze estive (summer holidays). 4. A poor showing for the centre-left In the months leading up to the election, the centre-left's biggest force -- the Enrico Letta-led Democratic Party -- had been polling comfortably above 20% and was even head-to-head with Brothers of Italy in the race to be the country's biggest party. But exit polls suggest that it obtained 19%, thus potentially not even reaching the 20% threshold. The centre-left coalition is far behind the right-wing bloc, and its prospects were hampered when an attempted coalition with the centrist party, Action, fell through after five days. The populist Five Star Movement, led by former PM Giuseppe Conte, is estimated to have received 13.5-17.5% of votes, which may be slightly more than what the opinion polls had suggested, but which is a significantly smaller figure than what it had achieved in 2018 (32.7%). The party itself was also affected by internal splits, after former leader Luigi di Maio jumped ship and joined forces with the centre-left coalition, forming his own party, Civic Commitment. Silvio Berlusconi, leader of centre-right, populist Forza Italia is flanked by his partner Marta Fascina at a polling station in Milan, Italy, - Credit: AP 5. Is this Berlusconi's comeback? Longtime former PM Silvio Berlusconi may no longer be an important stand-alone figure in the election - after all, his party is a mere shell of what was once as Italy's biggest political force and has seen some of its most devoted members - like former minister Mara Carfagna - defect. But Berlusconi's support to the right-wing coalition is indispensable to ensure it has a majority of seats, and as such, the controversial ex-premier could still exert significant influence. Shortly before the elections were held, the former PM had recently gotten into hot water over public comments made about Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he has enjoyed a longstanding friendship. Berlusconi claimed Putin had been "pushed" into invading Ukraine, and that it wanted to replace Zelenskyy's government with "decent" people. Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian church, has said Russian soldiers' sins will be 'cleansed' if they die fighting in Ukraine. (Getty) The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has told Russian soldiers that death in Ukraine will absolve them of all sins. Patriarch Kirill, who in February justified Putin's decision to invade Ukraine on spiritual and ideological grounds, made the remarks after Moscow said up to 300,000 reservists would be called up to fight. The decision has sparked pockets of protests across Russia, with one monitoring group reporting more than 700 people being detained in 32 different cities. Russia's top priest said: "Willingness to make sacrifices is the greatest expression of the best of human qualities. "We know that today many die in the fields of internecine warfare. The Church prays that this battle will end as soon as possible, that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war." He then went on to reassure those called up to fight that should they die, their death would be a "sacrifice" and would "cleanse" their sins. He said: "At the same time, the Church realises that if someone, guided by a sense of duty, by the need to be loyal to the oath, remains true to his calling and goes to fulfil what their duty calls, and if that person dies while fulfilling this duty, he is undoubtedly accomplishes an act that equals a sacrifice. "He sacrifices himself for the others. Up to 300,000 men are being called up to join Russia's army fighting in Ukraine in the biggest mobilisation since World War II. (Getty) "That is why we believe that this sacrifice cleanses all the sins that a person has committed." Patriarch Kirill also said in his sermon on Sunday that he prayed for the fighting to end. Last week Russia began its first military mobilisation since World War Two to enlist citizens to fight in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin announced plans to mobilise 300,000 reserves to fight in the war in Ukraine, prioritising those with combat experience. He signed a new decree on Saturday that soldiers who surrender, desert, or refuse to fight can face up to 10 years in prison. Watch: Putin mobilises 300,000 more troops for Ukraine Last week, after the mobilisation announcement, Kirrill said in a sermon that a person of "true faith" is not subject to the fear of death. Story continues He said that a person becomes "invincible" when there is a "strong dimension associated with eternity" in him, and he ceases to be afraid of death. "Faith makes a person very strong, because it transfers his consciousness from everyday life, from material worries, to caring for the soul, for eternity," he said. "Namely, the fear of death drives a warrior from the battlefield, pushes the weak to betrayal and even to rebel against their brothers. But true faith destroys the fear of death." Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that soldiers who surrender, desert, or refuse to fight can face up to ten years in prison. (Getty) On Monday a report by independent Russian media outlet Meduza, which is based in Latvia, suggested that men of military age could be banned from leaving the country, as thousands try to flee Putin's call-up. The initial call to action led thousands to try and escape the country, with tickets to neighbouring countries Turkey and Azerbaijan - neither of which require visas for Russians - selling out within hours and thousands traveling to Finland by land. The ban is expected to be introduced on Wednesday, after voting in the referendums in Russian-seized areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine has ended. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the Mirror: We know what Vladimir Putin is doing. He is planning to fabricate the outcome of those referenda, he is planning to use that to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory, and he is planning to use it as a further pretext to escalate his aggression. The more than 1,200 miles of shores in the southern U.S. that line the Gulf of Mexico are no stranger to strong storms -- but that doesn't make potential damage from an approaching cyclone any less likely. As Hurricane Ian marches closer to the U.S., its aim toward the Gulf Coast is especially concerning considering how vulnerable the region is to storm surge, experts told ABC News. The underwater geology of the Gulf of Mexico is what makes the Gulf Coast particularly unguarded against the massive influx of seawater. The shallow waters in the Gulf, combined with the symmetry of its shallow ocean floor, are what allow the storm surge to be pushed even higher onto land, Ryan Truchelut, chief meteorologist at Weather Tiger, a consulting and risk management firm, told ABC News. PHOTO: In this Sept. 16, 2020, file photo, John Terrezza looks out at a flooded street in front of his home as Hurricane Sally passes through the area, in Pensacola, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images, FILE) The continental shelf of the Florida Gulf Coast extends quite far offshore -- up to 200 miles in some spots, Truchelut said. "The waters of the Gulf of Mexico just simply aren't that deep, over a lot of the Florida coastal waters just offshore," he said. "If there's wind pushing water toward that direction, it's shallow, it has nowhere to go. So it kind of amplifies and goes further inland." MORE: Hurricane Ian's latest path: Expected to be Category 3 by Monday night Meteorologists are most concerned about the west coast of Florida, starting in the Florida Keys and north to Tampa Bay, Michael Brennan, acting deputy director for the National Hurricane Center, told ABC News. The Tampa Bay area is "extremely sensitive" to storm surge, Brennan said, adding that the region could experience 5 to 8 feet of inundation -- meaning above ground-level flooding. The Fort Meyers and Charlotte Harbor areas could see 4 to 7 feet and regions farther south could see 3 to 5 feet of inundation, Brennan said. PHOTO: Hurricane Ian storm surge graphic (ABC News) Another reason why the Gulf of Mexico is especially vulnerable to hurricanes and storm surge is because of its unique U-shaped coastline, which essentially traps a storm system into a populated region, no matter which way it turns, Truchelut said. Story continues "When a hurricane gets into the Gulf of Mexico, it's hard for it not to hit somebody," he said. MORE: 30th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew: How modern-day storms carry same surprise factor as 'The Big One' 3 decades ago The same geography conundrum also applies on a smaller scale to Tampa Bay, which is almost shaped like a cul-de-sac and doesn't have anywhere for the water that's getting pushed around to go, Truchelut said. "Right now, the way this storm is coming in, you'd have this sort of push of surge right into Tampa Bay and in regions along the Gulf, western Gulf Coast," Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia and former president of the American Meteorological Society, told ABC News. PHOTO: In this Sept. 2, 2016, file photo, law enforcement officers use an airboat to survey damage around homes from high winds and storm surge associated with Hurricane Hermine which made landfall overnight in St. Marks, Fla. (Brian Blanco/Getty Images, FILE) Although the models are still uncertain, Ian will almost certainly strike somewhere along the eastern Gulf Coast as a major hurricane, Shepherd said. Oftentimes, if a hurricane trapped within the Gulf of Mexico changes directions, it exacerbates the threat even more, Truchelut said. The change in direction typically slows down the storm system, allowing more time for waves to get bigger and head toward the shallow continental shelf, he added. Ian will likely stall over the Tampa Bay region, Shepherd said. PHOTO: In this Sept. 2, 2016, file photo, Barbara Carroll surveys damage in and around her home from storm surge associated with Hurricane Hermine which made landfall overnight in the area in St. Marks, Fla. (Brian Blanco/Getty Images) Ian does not even need to directly impact the Tampa Bay region to do considerable damage, the experts said. Even without a direct hit, the slow movement at Ian's intensity will bring intense storm surge, flooding rain and prolonged hurricane-force winds. MORE: Hurricane Ian brings fears of dangerous storm surge to Florida: How storm surge works In November 2020, Tropical Storm Eta, which had downgraded to a weak tropical storm after making landfall in Central America as a Category 4 hurricane, caused widespread flooding in Tampa. The storm made direct impact about 90 miles north of Tampa, but the 70 mph winds and soaking rain still caused bay waters to top seawalls in the area. "It'd be 1,000 times worse had it been an actual major hurricane that was well organized," Truchelut said. PHOTO: In this July 6, 2021, file photo, determined visitors head for Sloppy Joe's Bar while crossing a flooded Duval Street as heavy winds and rain pass over Key West, Fla., as Tropical Storm Elsa began lashing the Florida Keys. (Rob O'Neal/The Key West Citizen via AP, FILE) Because of the way Ian is moving, as well as its intensity and the fact that it may stall, it places the Tampa Bay region on what meteorologists call "the dirty side of the hurricane" -- the right front quadrant of the storm, just to the right of the eye, that typically has the worst of the winds and storm surge due to the motion and circulation of the system, Shepherd said. A large concern is that many of the areas that flooded in the Tampa Bay region more than 100 years ago will do so again and at a greater scale -- and this time, populated by hundreds of thousands more people from the influx of development that has occurred since, Truchelut said. Much of the coastal infrastructure, including condos and homes along the coast, did not exist the last time a major hurricane directly impacted the region, Shepherd said. MORE: North Atlantic hurricane season could soon shift earlier in the year, scientists say Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science, has calculated the 100-year flood height in the Tampa Bay area at 6.5 feet. There are more than 125,000 homes in the region currently situated below that flood level. PHOTO: In this Sept. 16, 2020, file photo, a city worker drives through the flooded street during Hurricane Sally in downtown Pensacola, Fla. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images, FILE) The experts cautioned residents in Florida to heed evacuation warnings and not to be deterred by the category of the storm or "hurricane amnesia," since it has been a century since the region experienced a major storm. "We as a society have to get accustomed to or used to planning for the worst, and maybe it doesn't happen," Shepherd said. "As good as our weather predictive capability is, if not, it still has some uncertainty with it." ABC News' Max Golembo contributed to this report. Hurricane Ian: Why the Gulf Coast -- especially in Florida -- is so vulnerable to hurricanes, storm surge originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Activists to Hold Protest in Front of the Home of Washington, D.C.'s Mayor Calling for an End to Abortion Violence in Our Nation's Capital NEWS PROVIDED BY Christian Defense Coalition Sept. 25, 2022 WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- Activists to hold a protest in front of the home of Washington, D.C.'s Mayor calling for an end to abortion violence in our nation's capital. Leaders will be showing on a large LED screen, graphic videos and images of 5 late-term aborted children who were killed in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. The pro-life and anti-violence advocates will also be demanding Mayor Muriel Bowser order autopsies to be conducted on the 5 late-term aborted children who still remain in the Washington, D.C. morgue. The coalition said they would pay for the full expenses incurred by the DC Medical Examiner's office for any autopsies performed. The protest will take place on Monday, September 26 at 7:00 PM. Mayor Bowser's address is 7927 Orchid St. NW Washington, D.C. 20012. The Christian Defense Coalition has secured a permit from the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to hold this peaceful protest. Mark Harrington, President of Created Equal, states; "In third world countries, they throw abandoned babies in mass graves and landfills. In America, we are much more sophisticated but just as barbaric. We kill babies by 'doctors' in 'surgical centers,' and keep them locked in freezers for months. "Mayor Bowser needs to take immediate action and complete a thorough autopsy and investigate these potential violations of federal law. This violence against innocent children has no place in our nation. These children deserve justice." Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, comments; "As a human rights and anti-violence advocate for over 45 years, America must reject violence within our society. We must especially stand against violence when it is directed toward innocent children and marginalized communities. Today in Washington, D.C., abortion is allowed for the full 9 months of pregnancy. "This would include viable preborn children. "We are coming to Mayor Bowser's house to show her, visually and graphically, what abortion violence really looks like, especially against 8-month-old babies in their mother's womb. We are calling upon the Mayor to end this senseless violence against innocent human life, and start implementing programs in our nation's capital to help reduce human suffering and injustice apart from the violence of abortion. "We will also be demanding that Mayor Bowser direct the D.C. Medical Examiner to conduct autopsies on 5 late-term abortion children who still remain in the city morgue. It appears federal law may have been broken in performing these abortions." Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, comments; For more information or interviews call Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741 SOURCE Christian Defense Coalition CONTACT: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741 Share Tweet The Japanese government is preparing to hold a lavish state funeral for Shinzo Abe on Tuesday amid protests against the taxpayer-funded ceremony for the countrys longest-serving, but discordant, leader. The government announced on Friday that it will hold the state funeral at a projected cost of up to $12m (11m) to the public because of hefty security and reception fees to host foreign dignitaries. Mr Abe was the countrys longest-serving prime minister and was the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. He was assassinated on 8 July while giving a campaign speech. The event for Mr Abe has been criticised by the public in recent months because of the cost incurred for the elaborate arrangements to be made. A man was rushed to hospital after he set himself ablaze near the prime ministers office to oppose Mr Abes funeral, according to public broadcaster NHK news. Here is everything you need to know about Mr Abes funeral and the controversy around it. People gather to listen to speeches as anti-war, anti-nuclear and protesters against the governments funding for the funeral of late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (AFP via Getty Images) Why are people so opposed to the funeral? The opposition has largely been fuelled by revelations of links Mr Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had to the Unification Church, which became widely known after he was gunned down. The suspect in the shooting accused Mr Abe of promoting the group, which critics call a cult because of its mass weddings and aggressive fundraising tactics. The suspect said the church had impoverished his family, according to police. Since then an investigation by the LDP has concluded that 179 of its 379 lawmakers had interacted with the church. The rising cost of the funeral, which the government estimates at 1.65bn yen (10.6m), has added fuel to the fire at a time of economic hardship for many. When was Japans last state-funded funeral held? Japans last fully state-funded funeral for a prime minister was for Shigeru Yoshida in 1967. Subsequent ones have been paid for by both the state and the LDP. The state funeral is not an established practice in Japan and is usually done only for members of the imperial family. Story continues Who is going to attend Mr Abes funeral? Around 6,000 guests are expected to attend the funeral service. Among the foreign dignitaries who have been announced as attendees of the state funeral are US vice president Kamala Harris, former British prime minister Theresa May and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was scheduled to attend the funeral. However, as the extent of the damage by storm Fiona became clear, he cancelled his trip to Japan. A man wrapped in a rain poncho with an anti-Abe placard takes part in a march with anti-war, anti-nuclear and other protesters against the governments funding for the funeral of Shinzo Abe (AFP via Getty Images) Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese will also be present. They are among the leaders in the Quad security framework that involves Japan, the United States, Australia and India, launched at the initiative of Mr Abe to counter China. From neighbouring countries, South Korean prime minister Han Duck-soo is scheduled to attend the funeral. The Chinese government has yet to make a related announcement. Russian president Vladimir Putin will not show up because Japan has imposed sanctions on his country for invading Ukraine. What will the ceremony entail? The memorial service is expected to last for an hour and a half. After entering the hall, attendees will listen to a speech given by Hirokazu Matsuno, the deputy chair of the funeral committee. They will then rise for the national anthem before observing a moments silence. That will be followed by commemorative speeches, the sending off of Mr Abes remains and the laying of commemorative wreaths. When and where is the funeral being held? The funeral is slated to start at 2pm on Tuesday at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo. What has prime minister Fumio Kishida said about this funeral? Kishida has apologised and pledged to win back public trust by asking LDP lawmakers to sever ties with the Unification Church. He has acknowledged that the funeral lacks overwhelming public support but has repeatedly sought to justify his decision. He has praised Mr Abes domestic and diplomatic contributions as well as the legacy of his lengthy tenure as reasons why a state funeral is warranted. During his two stints in office, from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020, Mr Abes nationalist rhetoric and muscular defence policy riled many Japanese wary of any change to the countrys pacifist constitution, drawn up after the Second World War. Stamp duty is a tax paid by home buyers (Daniel Lynch) Chancellor Kwasi Kwartengs mini-budget announcement on Friday included the much-awaited stamp duty cut. The cut, which could save some buyers more than 10,000, is the biggest tax reduction the UK has seen since 1972. Kwarteng stated the move would support growth, increase confidence and help families aspiring to own their own home. Our guide is here to help navigate you through the new stamp duty, how much youll need to pay, and how to access a stamp-duty calculator. How much is stamp duty? Stamp duty is a tax thats charged when you buy a property in the UK, but youll only need to pay it if the price of that property reaches a certain threshold. Those buying a residential property or a piece of land in England and Northern Ireland pay the stamp duty land tax (SDLT) levy. In Scotland, its referred to as Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT ) and Land Transaction Tax (LTT) for Wales. Under the new system, no stamp duty is paid on the first 250,000 of a property purchase. Stamp duty is levied at five per cent between 250,001 and 925,000, at 10 per cent between 925,001 and 1,500,000, and at 12 per cent for anything above 1.5m. First-time buyers do not pay stamp duty below the 425,000 threshold and then at five per cent from 425,001 to 625,000. If purchasing a new residential property means you'll be the owner of more than one, you'll often have to pay an additional three per cent on top of SDLT charges. The tax is imposed on all real estate, freehold, and leasehold, whether purchased outright or through a mortgage. First-time buyers in London and the south-east could potentially save as much as 11,250, according to the Government. How to access the tax calculator You can work out how much tax you will have to pay via the SDLT calculator on the Government website once it has been updated to show the new thresholds. As of today, 26 September, the Government website advises checking this guidance to work out stamp duty payable. Story continues There are a few things you need to know before you use the calculator such as, if the property is a first-time buy or a replacement, freehold or leasehold, is the transaction for a residential or non-residential, the date of the transaction, whether the buyers are UK or non-UK residents, if you are buying as an individual or a couple or a company or trust, and will the purchase be the only property you own. Once all your data is entered, the calculator will provide a figure for the total SDLT due. In England and Northern Ireland, you only get 14 days to pay your tax. Crossings from Russia at the Vaalimaa border station in Finland HELSINKI (Reuters) - Almost 17,000 Russians crossed the border into Finland during the weekend, an 80% rise from a week earlier, Finnish authorities said on Monday, as the influx of people continued in the wake of Russia's announcement of military mobilisation. The border traffic had somewhat calmed early on Monday but remained busier than in the previous weeks, Captain Taneli Repo at Finland's southeastern border authority told Reuters. "The queues continue to be a bit longer than they've usually been since the pandemic," he said. Wednesday's announcement of Russia's first public mobilisation since World War Two, to shore up its faltering Ukraine war, has triggered a rush for the border, the arrest of protesters and unease in the wider population. Young Russian men who spoke to Reuters after crossing into Finland via the Vaalimaa border station last week, some three hours by car from Russia's second-largest city St Petersburg, said they left out of fear of being drafted for the war. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine "a special military operation". The Finnish government, wary of becoming a major transit nation, on Friday said it will stop all Russians from entering on tourist visas within the coming days, although exceptions may still apply on humanitarian grounds. (Reporting by Essi Lehto, writing by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche) TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) A ship carrying thousands of tons of corn and vegetable oil from war-ravaged Ukraine docked in northern Lebanon on Monday, the first such vessel since Russias invasion of its neighbor started seven months ago. AK Ambition, registered in Panama and loaded with 7,000 tons of corn and 20 tons of vegetable oil, arrived in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanons second-largest, with Ukraine Embassy officials waiting at the port. Last month, Razoni, carrying grain from Ukraine, was turned back and eventually docked in Syria, Russia's ally, after the Lebanese importer refused to accept the shipment, allegedly because of a delay. Razoni was the first ship to leave from Ukraine heading to Lebanon after a wartime deal signed between the United Nations and several countries for the save passage of movement of the ships carrying vital cargo. Ukraines ambassador to Lebanon, Ihor Ostash, said AK Ambition's arrival was part of a deal signed between Ukrainian and Lebanese companies to bring weekly shipments to Lebanon. It comes at a time when the small Mediterranean nation is in desperate need amid an unprecedented economic meltdown. Ukraine is one of the worlds major global grain suppliers but the war has blocked most exports. This led world food prices to soar in a crisis, including in Lebanon. The Lebanese are heavily reliant on Ukraine grain products, which accounted for 60% of Lebanon's supply. In early August, a Syrian ship that Ukraine said was carrying stolen Ukrainian grain left Tripoli after officials in Lebanon allowed it to sail following an investigation. The Syrian-flagged Laodicea had been anchored in Tripoli for days, with 10,000 tons of wheat flour and barley. Moscow denied Ukraine's claim of stolen grain. Lebanons economic crisis has led to soaring inflation and shortages of food items, such as wheat. Long bread lines recently plagued the country, where around two thirds of the population of 6 million, including 1 million Syrian refugees, now lives in poverty. KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he doesn't think Vladimir Putin is bluffing when he says Moscow would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia. The Russian president said in a televised address last week that Moscow would use "all available means" to protect Russia and its people if its territorial integrity were threatened. "Look, maybe yesterday it was bluff. Now, it could be a reality," Zelenskiy, who had previously played down such warnings as nuclear blackmail, told CBS News on Sunday. "I don't think he's bluffing," Zelenskiy added. Watch: NATO chief calls Putin's nuclear threat a 'dangerous' escalation The Ukrainian president said Russian strikes on or near two Ukrainian nuclear plants could be considered "contemporary use of nuclear weapons or nuclear blackmail." Kyiv accuses Moscow of repeatedly shelling the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during the war in Ukraine, and more recently conducting a missile strike near the Pivdennoukrainska nuclear plant. Moscow denies shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant, accusing Kyiv of being responsible. It did not comment on the Pivdennoukrainska strike. (Reporting by Max Hunder, Editing by Timothy Heritage) Photograph: Adel Hana/AP Israel has declared the case closed. The US state department has done its best to duck difficult questions. But leading members of the US Congress are refusing to drop demands for a proper accounting of the death of the Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, four months ago. The longest-serving member of the US Senate, Patrick Leahy, recently upped the ante by warning that Israels failure to fully explain the Al-Jazeera reporters killing could jeopardize Americas huge military aid to the Jewish state under a law he sponsored 25 years ago cutting weapons supplies to countries that abuse human rights. Related: Shireen Abu Aklehs family submits complaint to ICC Nearly half of the Democratic members of the Senate have signed a letter calling into question Israels claim that Abu Akleh was accidentally shot by a soldier. The letter suggests she may have been targeted because she was a journalist. The Biden administration is also facing a flurry of legislative amendments and letters from members of Congress demanding that the state department reveal what it knows about Abu Aklehs death and that the FBI launch an independent investigation. Few think there is much prospect of the US actually cutting its $3.8bn a year in military aid to Israel in the near future, but it is politically significant that so many senior Democrats have signed on to publicly challenge Israel, which has frequently been able to count on solid bipartisan support in America. Although criticism has focused on Abu Aklehs death, the demands for accountability come as Israeli killings of Palestinians have escalated while Jewish settlers in the West Bank appear to have been given free rein at times to attack Palestinians and take over their land. Dylan Williams, senior vice-president of policy and strategy at the Washington-based campaign group J Street, which describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace, said the demands for justice for Abu Akleh reflect broader concerns. Story continues Israeli police confront mourners as they carry the casket of Shireen Abu Akleh during her funeral in East Jerusalem in May. Photograph: Maya Levin/AP Members of Congress seem increasingly frustrated that these types of disturbing actions from Israeli forces continue to take place, without facing meaningful pushback or accountability from our government, he said. Theres growing momentum to make clear that Israel must be held to the same important standards as all close US allies, and that our steadfast support for Israels security does not and should not preclude our government from also standing up in defense of human rights and international law in the occupied Palestinian territory. The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), which funds political campaigns against politicians critical of Israel, has lobbied against a US investigation of Abu Aklehs death. But Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Democracy for the Arab World Now an advocacy group founded by the murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi to pressure the US government to end support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East said that changing American public sentiment about Israel and the Palestinians has made it easier for some politicians to speak out. There is an increasing view among the American public that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, that Palestinians are unjustly victimised by Israel. This has given legislators more space, particularly secure legislators like Patrick Leahy, to say what they actually think, she said. In addition, they have more space on this particular case because Shireen Abu Akleh was a US citizen. Israel initially claimed that Abu Akleh was shot by a Palestinian during a military raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in May. Earlier this month, it finally admitted that it was highly probable that an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldier killed the journalist but claimed the shooting occurred during a gun battle with Palestinian fighters. That account was widely dismissed because investigations by human rights groups, the press and the United Nations showed that there was no fighting in Abu Aklehs vicinity. Last week, Leahy told the Senate that the Biden administration had failed to act on calls from members of Congress for the FBI to investigate Abu Aklehs death as is customary and appropriate after a tragedy like this involving a prominent American killed overseas under questionable circumstances. Unfortunately, there has been no independent, credible investigation, he said. Leahy challenged the value of Israels report on Abu Aklehs death, noting there was a history of investigations of shootings by IDF soldiers that rarely result in accountability. Senator Patrick Leahy noted that there was a history of investigations of shootings by IDF soldiers that rarely result in accountability. Photograph: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/EPA The senator also questioned the state departments role after the US security coordinator (USSC) in Jerusalem, Lt Gen Mark Schwartz, concluded that there was no evidence to indicate [Abu Aklehs] killing was intentional. Leahy said: The USSC, echoing the conclusion of the IDF, apparently did not interview any of the IDF soldiers or any other witnesses. To say that fatally shooting an unarmed person, and in this case one with press written in bold letters on her clothing, was not intentional, without providing any evidence to support that conclusion, calls into question the state departments commitment to an independent, credible investigation and to follow the facts. Leahy has introduced an amendment, along with other senators, calling for the Biden administration to examine whether Israel has fallen afoul of the 1997 Leahy Law barring military assistance to countries whose armies abuse human rights. Whether [Abu Aklehs] killing was intentional, reckless or a tragic mistake, there must be accountability. And if it was intentional, and if no one is held accountable, then the Leahy Law must be applied, Leahy said. Senator Chris Murphy, chair of the Senate foreign relations subcommittee responsible for the region, told MSNBC that he had not previously supported calls to set conditions for US military aid to Israel but that he was concerned about its conduct in the West Bank. Some of [Israels] recent decisions are making conflict between Israel and the Palestinians more likely, not less likely, he said. I havent gotten there yet, arguing for conditions on that aid, but I think all of us are watching the behavior of the Israeli government very carefully. Senator Chris Van Hollen: I will continue pressing for full accountability and transparency around the death of Shireen. Anything less is unacceptable. Photograph: Reuters Leahy is backed by other senators including Chris Van Hollen, who pushed an amendment passed by the Senate foreign relations committee earlier this month requiring the state department to hand over a full copy of the USSCs controversial report on Aklehs death after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, failed to respond to an earlier request and a series of questions. I will continue pressing for full accountability and transparency around the death of Shireen. Anything less is unacceptable, Van Hollen told the committee. Van Hollen was also instrumental in a letter in June signed by nearly half of all Democratic members of the Senate demanding an independent, thorough, and transparent investigation into her killing. The letter said disturbing comments by an Israeli official suggested she might have been targeted because she was a journalist. On the day Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed, an Israeli military spokesperson, Ran Kochav, stated that Ms Abu Akleh and her film crew were armed with cameras, if youll permit me to say so, the letter said. We know you agree that journalists must be able to perform their jobs without fear of attack. Pakistan's catastrophic floods have led to renewed calls for rich polluting nations, which grew their economies through heavy use of fossil fuels, to compensate developing countries for the devastating impacts caused by the climate crisis. The currently favored term for this concept is "loss and damage" payments, but some campaigners want to go further and frame the issue as "climate reparations," just as racial justice activists call for compensation for the descendants of enslaved people. Beyond the tougher vocabulary, green groups also call for debt cancellation for cash-strapped nations that spend huge portions of their budgets servicing external loans, rather than devoting the funds to increasing resilience to a rapidly changing planet. "There's a historical precedent of not just the industrial revolution that led to increased emissions and carbon pollution, but also the history of colonialism and the history of extraction of resources, wealth and labor," Belgium-based climate activist Meera Ghani told AFP. "The climate crisis is a manifestation of interlocking systems of oppression, and it's a form of colonialism," said Ghani, a former climate negotiator for Pakistan. Such ideas stretch back decades and were first pushed by small island nations susceptible to rising sea levels -- but momentum is once more building on the back of this summer's catastrophic inundations in Pakistan, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains. Nearly 1,600 were killed, several million displaced, and the cash-strapped government estimates losses in the region of $30 billion. - Beyond mitigation and adaptation - Campaigners point to the fact that the most climate-vulnerable countries in the Global South are least responsible -- Pakistan, for instance, produces less than one percent of global greenhouse emissions, as opposed to the G20 countries which account for 80 percent. The international climate response currently involves a two-pronged approach: "mitigation" -- which means reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases -- and "adaptation," which means steps to alter systems and improve infrastructure for changes that are already locked in. Story continues Calls for "loss and damage" payments go further than adaptation financing, and seek compensation for multiplying severe weather impacts that countries cannot withstand. At present, however, even the more modest goal of adaptation financing is languishing. Advanced economies agreed to channel $100 billion to less developed countries by the year 2020 -- a promise that was broken -- even as much of the funding that was mobilized came in the form of loans. "Our starting point is that the global North is largely responsible for the state of our planet today," said Maira Hayat, an assistant professor of environment and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "Why should countries that have contributed little by way of GHG emissions be asking them for aid - loans are the predominant form - with onerous repayment conditions?" "If the language is upsetting for some, the next step should be to probe why that might be - do they dispute the history? Or the present-day implications of accepting certain historical pasts?" - Point scoring? - Not all in the climate arena are convinced. "Beyond a certain rhetorical point-scoring that's not going to go anywhere," said Daanish Mustafa, professor in critical geography at King's College London. While he mostly blames the Global North for the world's current predicament, he says he is wary of pushing a narrative that may excuse the actions of the Pakistani leadership and policy choices they have taken that exacerbate this and other disasters. The World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists found that climate change likely contributed to the floods. But the devastating impacts were also driven "by the proximity of human settlements, infrastructure (homes, buildings, bridges) and agricultural land to flood plains," among other locally driven factors, they said. Pakistan's own emissions, while low at the global scale, are fast rising -- with the benefits flowing to a tiny elite, said Mustafa, and the country should pursue an alternative, low-carbon development path rather than "aping the West" and damaging itself in the process. The case for "loss and damage" payments received a recent boost with UN chief Antonio Guterres calling for "meaningful action" on it at the next global climate summit, COP27 in Egypt in November. But the issue is sensitive for rich countries -- especially the United States, the largest emitter of GHGs historically -- which fear it could pave the way for legal action and kept language regarding "liability and compensation" out of the landmark Paris agreement. ia/sct/mdl Spain is the latest country planning to roll out a digital nomad visa scheme, giving Britons and other non-EU citizens the opportunity to work remotely in the sun and benefit from lower tax rates. The new visas will be available to people working remotely for companies outside of Spain and who earn a maximum of 20 per cent of their income from Spanish firms. The scheme is only open to applicants from outside the European Economic Area who can demonstrate that they have been working remotely for at least a year. British citizens fall under this category as the UK is no longer an EU or EEA country following Brexit. Applicants must have a contract of employment or, if freelance, be able to prove they have been regularly employed by a non-Spanish firm. As the law is still being drafted, some specifics are yet to be confirmed. However, it is thought that the visa will initially be valid for one year, and subsequently renewable for up to five years. Close relatives, including spouses or children, will also be able to join as part of the scheme. It is also thought that Spain will set a minimum monthly income of 2,000. Applicants will also enjoy tax breaks: rather than paying the standard 24 per cent base rate tax, they will only pay 15 per cent for the first four years. Spain is one of at least eight other European countries that have rolled out versions of the digital-nomad scheme. Spains Economic Affairs Minister Nadia Calvino said that the digital-nomad visa will attract and retain international and national talents by helping remote workers and digital nomads set up in Spain. What is a digital-nomad visa? A digital-nomad visa is an authorisation to work remotely in a foreign country for an extended period of time. It allows for longer stays than a tourist visa, and sometimes offers incentives, such as tax breaks. A digital-nomad visa allows its holder to work during their stay in a country provided they do not enter the local job market. The idea is that they do not compete for jobs with residents, but rather work independently for local employers. The only exception is Estonia, which allows limited local work as long as the persons main purpose continues to be remote working. Story continues Which countries have digital-nomad visa schemes? Estonia was the first country to implement a visa specifically for digital nomads, and many have followed suit. There are currently 42 countries offering the scheme, including Croatia, Portugal, Cyprus, Italy, Thailand, Greece, Germany, Indonesia, Barbados, Dubai, Saint Lucia, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Malta. Within the EU, people with EU passports or arriving from Schengen countries can already work remotely in the country for less than six months of the year without needing to register. What are the requirements for obtaining a digital-nomad visa? Each country has its own set of eligibility conditions for digital nomads. Most digital-nomad visas are open to any foreign nationals who are working for a company based overseas. Some also allow the self-employed, freelancers, or students to apply. The main criterion is proof of income, with every country setting varying standards. In Greece, applicants must prove they have a monthly income of 3,500. In Croatia, the minimum is 2,300, in Estonia it is 3,500, in Iceland a whopping 7,100, and in Portugal only 700. Some countries also require that you have savings 5,500 in the case of the Czech Republic as well as income. Others may also insist an applicant has private health insurance. Are there tax incentives offered? Digital-nomad visas are one way for countries to recover lost tourism money due to the pandemic. For this reason, some countries have introduced incentives to attract remote workers to their schemes. In Croatia, for example, digital nomads benefit from a total exemption from taxes in the country. To be eligible, you just need to obtain a one-year digital-nomad residence permit. In Italy, self-employed workers who become Italian tax residents and commit to staying for at least two years benefit from a 70 per cent tax exemption on all income generated in the country. Greece has a similar offering, and in Spain, digital nomads will be taxed at 15 per cent for the first four years, compared to the standard 24 per cent base rate. For the third year in a row, the University of North Georgia (UNG) and the Consulate General of Mexico in Atlanta have teamed up to offer scholarships to UNG students of Mexican/Latinx descent. A new element of this year's $6,000 grant from the Mexican Consulate, which is matched by $8,000 from UNG, is its focus on future educators. Dr. Christian Bello Escobar, director of academic and clinical engagement in the College of Education, is the principal investigator for the grant. The grant is funded through the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME) via the IME-BECAS Program; "becas" is the Spanish word for scholarships. This year, the UNG scholarship program is a collaboration between the College of Education, Enrollment Management, the Latinx faculty and staff committee, and the Multicultural Student Affairs office. Seven recipients will receive $1,000 for each semester of the 2022-23 academic year. "There's a huge need to increase Latinx teachers in the area," Bello Escobar said. "We are grateful to have these funds to help support the educational needs of our region while supporting the ever-increasing Latinx UNG student population." Dr. Sheri Hardee, dean of the College of Education, considers the grant a valuable tool to assist students. This is not the first time the Jewish community has lived through collective crisis. The question Ive been asking is: what spiritual tools did our forebears use to get through hard times? What did Judaisms toolbox offer them, and what can it offer us? As my friend Rabbi Mike Moskowitz sometimes says, the world is super broken. I know that many of us are struggling. Some are languishing , living with a sense of stagnation and emptiness. (per Adam Grant in the New York Times.) And for some of us, languishing can slip into hopelessness. And then theres the climate crisis. Floods like the one in Kentucky or in Pakistan , or in Chad . Wildfires (when I wrote this, there were 624 wildfires burning in eighteen states , plus many more around the world.) Extreme heat melting airport runways The poem reminded me of so many of our conversations over the last year. We are not broken. We are simply in touch with the material conditions of our lives. I talk to a screen who assures me everything is fine. I am not broken. I am not depressed. I am simply in touch with the material conditions of my life. It is the end of the world, and its fine... Last month, the Academy of American Poets shared a Poem of the Day by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza called The Sunset and the Purple-Flowered Tree . Heres how it begins: When Rome destroyed the second Temple, R. Yochanan ben Zakkai asked two of his disciples to smuggle him out of Jerusalem in a coffin. He went to the Roman general Vespasian and asked for permission to build a school in Yavneh. The learning there preserved oral teachings about how we did Jewish in Temple times. Those became the Mishna, the kernel at the heart of Talmud. In the ashes of the Temple, the sprouts of rabbinic Judaism took root. Our response to complete destruction was to remember and to learn and in the learning, to begin to design Judaism anew. Thats the first spiritual technology I think of when I think of how Jews have lived through crisis times before. What they did -- remembering what was lost and rethinking what came next -- can help us too. It can lift us out of ourselves, and it can inspire us to build. And maybe those who came before faced something like this, and we can learn from their response. Or maybe their response feels off-key to us, and we can learn from that, too. Either way, notice their balance between remembering what was, and imagining what might yet be. We dont want a Judaism that drives only with the rearview mirror and we also dont want a Judaism that ignores the wisdom of our ancestors. Holding what was and what will be in balance: that's Tiferet, this years theme for the Days of Awe. (More on that in a moment.) For spiritual nourishment, my go-to place is the Hasidic masters the rabbis from the 1700s and 1800s who sought spirituality in everything. For others, it might be mussar, texts of ethical self-improvement. Maybe the learning that nourishes us is secular. Im trying to learn from my foremothers who marched and agitated for a womans right to choose while also learning from Black voices, trans voices, and people of color about how the framework of reproductive justice is more inclusive. I learn about our nations history and its present every day from historian Heather Cox Richardsons Letters From an American, which help me contextualize current events. And I'm learning about how to face the climate crisis...from scientists who teach that our inner lives have an impact on how we approach our outer lives. [T]here are bats Who catch fish And slime molds that sing And ancient Greenland sharks Who dont even reach sexual maturity Until they are 150 years old. This is what I want to say To those who believe The Earth is already doomed: Just look at the capacity Of this Gloriously complex planet. That poem appears at the beginning of Dr. Elin Kelseys Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis, and its a bridge to another spiritual technology I think is core: hope. Historically Jews have hoped ardently for redemption, the coming of the messiah or (in Reform language) the messianic age. Those ideas may feel foreign to us, but the need for hope persists. So how do we cultivate hope in the face of climate crisis and all the rest? To hope is not to wait around until you are feeling optimistic, Kelsey writes,but to join with others in defiant response to what we are doing to the planet. It is an action that you do rather than a feeling that you have. As Seamus Heaney wrote, Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. There is good worth working for. Even amidst everything or especially amidst everything. Working toward something better can lift us up. Sometimes we call that tikkun olam repairing the broken world. We find hope through action, and we take action to help others. None of us can balm all of the worlds hurts but theres always something we can do for someone somewhere. In order to move beyond despair, we need balance, perspective in a word, Tiferet. As we said in last nights dvar, Tiferet is the sacred and: the balance of love and power, head and heart, recognizing that the world is a dumpster fire and that today the world begins anew. Its the and of real balance that powers us to change, and to heal the world. For many of us, focusing locally is a good use of energy. Maybe rewild some of your lawn as weve done here, creating more habitat for pollinators and restoring local ecosystems. Or give money or time to Jewish Family Service helping new immigrant families make their homes in the Berkshires. And if you want to look at a bigger picture, remember that the worlds injustices tend to most impact those who were already most vulnerable, and look for organizations on the ground already doing the work. The Red Cross is helping flood victims in Kentucky. Fair Fight is working to stop voter suppression. The National Council of Jewish Women is helping people access reproductive healthcare. There are so many ways to contribute to the work of repair. Civic engagement can be an act of repair. Voting. Activism. Tzedakah e.g. giving motivated by justice. Youll know best what you feel able to do. Listen inside for what tugs at your heart. I dont want to minimize. Climate grief is real. The erosion of rights is real, and so are antisemitism, gun violence and more. In the words of the Espinoza poem, these are the material conditions of life. We are all exposed to horrifying events happening around the world daily like the laundry list with which this sermon began. We need to lift each other out of the miasma of grief and languishing. Thats another of Judaisms tools for tough times: lifting each other up. Talmud teaches (Brachot 5b) that a prisoner cant release themself from jail, and a sick person cant lift their own spirits on their sickbed. When I was hospitalized over the summer, I learned again how right Talmud is about that! But its not just about that. There are so many ways to live this teaching. Giving words of hope to uplift someone who's feeling hopeless. Helping someone out of an abusive relationship or out of poverty. Helping someone with addiction or depression or an eating disorder. Bearing witness and speaking truth. The work of allyship using our privilege to stand up for others, working against systemic oppressions like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia. Lifting each other up requires Tiferet, balance. (This is a literal truth, and also a spiritual one.) It also gives us balance, because it means we're not in this alone. Acceptance of what is, writes Dr. Kelsey, is not the same as fatalism about what comes next. Authentic spiritual life asks us to face reality we dont get to ignore whats broken. But we dont stop there. Opening our eyes to what is is the first step toward what will be. Thats another form of balance: holding what is beside what will be. At the burning bush God says, I will be what I will be or I am becoming what I am becoming. Jews find God in change. (If the G-word doesnt work for you, try meaning -- more about that in a moment.) Judaism is not new to change. Our world has collapsed before. And not just ours! When Europeans came to these shores, our arrival shattered the conceptual and practical world inhabited by Native Americans and First Nations people. Author Rebecca Roanhorse, of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo descent, told the Times, Weve already survived an apocalypse. Despite anti-Indian laws and boarding schools designed to strip them of their heritage, Native Americans and First Nations peoples are still here. And the same is true of the Jewish people. (And of course it is possible to be both Native and Jewish, an inheritor of both of these wisdom traditions.) Theres a lot of apocalyptic talk out there, but I choose to believe that humanity and Judaism will both survive. This isnt the end. So what will future generations need us to have done? And what will Judaism need to become? Our tradition invites us to find meaning in change, and on the other side of change, too. Our tradition invites us to find meaning in... pretty much everything. We find meaning, story, and ethical teaching in every part of Torah even in repeated words or the crowns atop the letters! The meaning we find may change as we do, but the fact of finding meaning is constant. Thats another one of our spiritual technologies: finding meaning, or making meaning, no matter what. As Jews we wrest meaning from our deep library of texts and traditions, and we also search for meaning in the lived Torah of human experience. Searching for meaning, Victor Frankl wrote, is what sustained him during the Holocaust. And not only him: in the concentration camps, those who searched for meaning had a greater chance of survival. In his words: Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost . What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We find meaning by asking what life expects from us. What will the future need us to have done? What does Judaism need to become? What can we repair? What can we learn? What actions will help us hope? Illustration by Steve Silbert. Rabbi Simcha Bunim carried two slips of paper in his pockets. One read, For my sake was the world created, and the other, I am dust and ashes. When he felt low, hed look at the teaching from Talmud that says the whole world was made just for us. And when he felt high and mighty, hed look at Torahs reminder that everything will die. Our task is holding those two truths in balance holding the whole within which both of these truths reside. (And to help you in so doing, the card on your chair is for you to take home and carry with you -- courtesy of Steve Silbert and Bayit.) That story is one of my touchstones and to me it exemplifies Tiferet. Tiferet is the whole within which Simcha Bunims two truths coexist. Tiferet is balance that lifts us up: not ignoring whats hard, and also not getting stuck in it. Tiferet invites us to recognize the brokenness and work toward wholeness. Tiferet invites us to see both the world and ourselves with clear eyes: the mistakes weve made, and the transformations we could achieve. That we are dust, and that creation was made for us. In the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zl, [t]o be a Jew is to be an agent of hope in a world serially threatened by despair. If you are languishing or feeling despair climate despair, political despair, personal despair you are not alone. Come and find me, and Ill help you connect with sources of help. Suffering does not earn us spiritual merit points. As our Buddhist friends say: pain is inevitable, but suffering is not. Come and find me, and Ill sit on the ground with you in mourning, because Im there too sometimes. And then together well balance anxiety with agency, and help each other rise. Because to be a Jew is to be an agent of hope, and we reach hope through actions of repair. In the Passover story, God hears our cry and lifts us out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. We may struggle with that story these days. If God can lift us out, why is our world like this? But Jewish tradition offers us not only that transcendent God, but also divine immanence. Divinity that goes into exile with us, weeps with us, feels with us. God is in our arms and fingers and voices, in every action we take that brings hope. If you want a Jewish app for thriving during crisis times what you've just heard are the ones I've got. And werent these always our job? Its on us to lift each other up, to make meaning, to retell and rebuild and repair. It's on us to recalibrate and rebalance -- to recognize the brokenness and work toward wholeness. Its on us to remember that there is good worth working for. Especially in times like these. May opening our eyes to what is be the first step toward what will be. And may 5783 be a new year of tiferet: balancing I am dust and ashes with the world was created for me; balancing justice with mercy, clear eyes with full hearts, and grief with hope. This is the sermon that I gave at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires on the first morning of Rosh Hashanah. Offered here with extra gratitude to Steve Silbert for the phone illustration, and to all of my advance readers. Cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog. Bo Xuan Hiep HCM CITY Embedded finance is the next big thing in the financial services industry as it has integrated seamlessly into the local fintech landscape in recent years, experts said at a meeting last Friday in HCM City. Speaking at the Embedded Finance Summit, Jinchang Lai, principal operations officer of the Financial Institutions Group in Asia & Pacific, International Finance Corporation (World Bank), said the future of the financial services industry would be embedded finance. Embedded finance had gradually become prevalent in Viet Nam, he said, adding it is the new normal for modern business, regardless of the industry. Embedded finance occurs when a non-financial website or app, such as a ride-hailing company or retailer, integrates a financial service, allowing customers to access financial services anytime, anywhere. An example is an online store offering short-term loans in the form of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), or digital wallets on phones which enable instant contactless payments. But this is just the beginning, he noted. Experts said embedded finance has already started to simplify financial processes in both consumer and business commerce by reducing barriers to entry for various products and services. Embedded payments in particular will facilitate consumer and business purchases by enabling instant payments at the touch of a button. Common examples of embedded finance include embedded lending and embedded insurance, among others. Nguyen Viet Chau, chief innovation officer at MBBank, said as more companies and ecosystems embed financial services in their offerings, banks should take the opportunity to decide on the role they will play in this model. "For example, when payment technology is integrated within the infrastructure of an app or e-commerce site, buyers dont have to enter their credit card details for every transaction. "By partnering with the Grab ride-hailing app, a bank can utilise embedded payments, so customers dont need to pull out their credit card or scramble around for cash, instead paying automatically via the app upon completion of their journey," he said. In Viet Nam, local firms are making the most of the countrys adoption of technology and open attitude to innovation, leading to its high rate of technological cut-through. Recent data shows Viet Nam is one of the countries with the lowest credit card penetration in Southeast Asia, along with Indonesia and the Philippines, with only 4.1 per cent of the population owning a credit card. In addition, the credit gap and lack of knowledge about digital payments is a challenge in Viet Nam, resulting in the majority of transactions being carried out in cash. Experts said this had created a huge gap in the market that banks were simply unable to fill, creating room for development of embedded finance. Game changer Experts said embedded finance could be a game changer for non-financial companies. With embedded finances, customers would no longer need to stop by the bank to access their money. In some cases, embedded finance could eliminate the traditional bank. Businesses could also send money to family members abroad, pay vendors overseas, and purchase insurance and other services needed to run a business all without using a card. According to Makoto Tominaga, CEO of Credify, embedded finance occurs in the context of the big-data boom of which we are in the early stage. It is vital to take advantage of the data boom in the current financial context. "Data is like crude oil. Its valuable, but if unrefined, it cannot be used, so data must be broken down and analysed for it to have value," he said. According to the Viet Nam Embedded Finance Markets Report 2022, Viet Nams embedded finance industry is expected to grow by 66.3 per cent on an annual basis to reach $336.4 million this year. Viet Nam has set a goal to transform itself into a digital country by 2030, with its digital transformation expected to fuel the embedded finance market in the coming years. According to Oracles estimates, the value of the embedded finance market is expected to exceed $7 trillion over the next decade, making it worth double the combined value of the worlds top 30 banks today. Organised by Credify and sponsored by Viet Nam Digital Communications Association, the annual summit attracted more than 300 experts in the financial, banking, insurance, e-commerce, retail, and healthcare industries. VNS HA NOI Vietnamese pomelo has large potential for expanding exports to demanding markets including the US, the EU and Japan, according to the Viet Nam Trade Promotion Agency. Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, Deputy Director of the Export Promotion Centre, said that Vietnamese pomelo was considered to have superior quality to other countries thanks to its moderate sweetness and suitability to consumers of many regions and markets together with a low pest risk. As pomelo has thick skin, it is easy to preserve for a long time after harvest, which makes it possible to transport by sea, according to the official. Besides, agricultural products and pomelo in particular are subject to preferential tariffs under free trade agreements to which Viet Nam is a member. The export potential to many markets of Vietnamese pomelo is still large. Thuy pointed out that currently, Vietnamese pomelo was mainly exported in the form of fresh fruit with low added value. Pomelo could be processed into many different products such as fruit juice, essential oil and jam while the essence in pomelo peel could be used to produce many types of pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs. Thuy said the US allowed the official import of green-skinned pomelo from Viet Nam, making pomelo the seventh fresh fruit of Viet Nam to be allowed to enter this market, after mango, longan, lychee, dragon fruit, rambutan and star apple. Other goods such as coconut and durian were already exported to the US but in frozen form. After pomelo, the US is considering procedures to allow the import of Vietnamese coconuts into the US. Thuy cited statistics from the US Department of Agriculture that the US had huge demand for fruits, estimated at around 12 million tonnes per year while the US domestic production of fresh fruit met only about 70 per cent of the demand. This was a big opportunity for Vietnamese fruits, including pomelo, Thuy said. According to Nguyen Manh Quyen, Head of the Viet Nam Trade Offices branch in Houston, Texas, Viet Nams export of fresh pomelo to the US remained modest. Statistics showed that the US imported pomelo worth around US$17 billion in 2020 and $20 billion in 2021. In the first seven months of this year, the US pomelo import reached $14 billion, of which Viet Nam accounted for around $1 billion. Quyen said that the key issue is to properly evaluate the market potential, urging enterprises to pay attention to strictly comply with the guidance of the US Department of Agriculture and the US Food and Drug Administration when exporting fruit to the US. Vietnamese pomelo also had the opportunity to expand in Indonesia and Hong Kong. Vu Thi Thuy, from the trade office in Hong Kong, said that Hong Kong had high demand for fresh pomelo, spending $36.4 million to import pomelo last year, an year-on-year increase of 28.2 per cent. Viet Nam ranked second in exporting pomelo to Hong Kong with an export revenue of $2.5 million, after Thailand with $7.8 million in 2021. However, in the first seven months of this year, Viet Nams export of pomelo to Hong Kong increased 133 per cent against the same period last year to reach $2.53 million, making Viet Nam the largest pomelo exporters to Hong Kong as Thailands export was at $2.5 million. VNS HA NOI Cambodia Cultural Week in Viet Nam will take place from today (September 27) to October 2, featuring a variety of appealing art activities in HCM City and Tra Vinh Province. It was co-organised by Viet Nam's Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Arts to celebrate the 55th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries and the Viet Nam-Cambodia Friendship Year 2022. An art programme performed by the Cambodia National Art Troupe will begin the official opening of the cultural week, which will take place on September 28 at the HCM City Theatre. On the same day, HCM City will host the "Cambodia-Kingdom of Culture" exhibition, showcasing photographs of Cambodia's natural beauty, cultural artefacts, and friendly people. As part of Cambodia Culture Week in Viet Nam, the Cambodian National Art Troupe will perform in Tra Vinh Province on the evening of September 30. The week will also feature a signing ceremony for the cultural and artistic cooperation plan between the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Viet Nam and the Ministry of Culture and Arts of Cambodia for 2023-2027. Vietnamese visitors may learn more about Cambodia and its people through events held during Cambodia Culture Week while also helping to promote friendship and collaboration between the two countries. Earlier, the capital city of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap hosted Vietnamese Culture Week in Cambodia, featuring a programme encouraging people to visit and work in Cambodia and numerous art activities promoting Vietnamese culture. VNS MEXICO CITY A delegation from the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) joined 200 delegates from political parties of 30 countries at an international conference themed "Political parties and a new society" in Mexico City from September 22-24. Addressing the event, Tran uc Thang, member of the CPV Central Committee and deputy head of its Inspection Commission said that the conference was a chance for participants to update each other on the situation of political parties and countries, discuss issues of shared concern, and seek ways to coordinate actions for peace, national independence, democracy, cooperation, development and social progress in Latin America and around the world. He affirmed that Viet Nam hoped to expand relations with ruling parties and political parties throughout the world, adding that the CPV always attached great importance to fostering ties with traditional friends in Latin America and was ready to share experience with other parties for common development. Thang briefed participants on the socio-economic situation of Viet Nam as well as the implementation of the Resolution adopted at the 13th National Party Congress. He thanked Secretary General Alberto Anaya of the Labour Party (PT) of Mexico, left-wing and progressive parties in the Latin American and Caribbean regions as well as friendly parties in the world for supporting and accompanying the CPV during the past struggles for national independence and the current national construction and defence and socialism building process. For his part, the PT leader expressed his special sentiments towards Viet Nam, and showed delight at the growing ties between the two Parties and countries, especially in health care, education and culture. He affirmed his wish to further promote the friendship and mutual support between the two countries at international and regional forums. Within the conference's framework, the CPV delegation held talks with PT Secretary General Alberto Anaya and had meetings with their counterparts from major political parties in Mexico as well as political parties and organisations from many countries such as Cuba, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. The delegation also visited the Vietnamese Embassy in Mexico and offered flowers at the statue of President Ho Chi Minh in Mexico City. VNS On September 17, more than 100 tonnes of fresh durians from five local producers were exported to China via the official channel, marking the debut of many more shipments to this billion-population market in the forthcoming time. After durians, passion fruits also have ample space for export to China as these two items were approved by China to enter the country by a protocol signed by the two countries in July. Over a hundred tonnes of Vietnamese durians for the first time entered the Chinese market Nguyen Vu Thang, COO at Van Xuan Phat Import Export Co., Ltd. which exported three containers of durians to China, said that it took three years for the firm to prepare for the shipment, with preparations covering material growing areas and packaging standards following stringent requirements from the partner. After these first three containers, each month, Van Xuan Phat will export 1,000 tonnes of durians to China following contracts placed by the partner. Rice also eyes rosy prospects for accelerated exports fetching high prices, rooted in Vietnamese rices enhanced status in recent years, and partly from Indias recent policy halting broken rice export. The rice sector aims to surpass the target of exporting 6.3 million tonnes worth $3.3 billion in value as set earlier this year. Thanks to the market's positive movement, Vietnam raked in $2.3 million from rice export in the first eight months of this year, up 8.1 per cent on-year. The price of export rice rose constantly, inching up $20-30 per tonne compared to early September. Tariff imposition and temporary halting of export of broken rice from India are shaking the worldwide rice export market and prompting rice importers to turn to Vietnam. Pham Thai Binh, CEO at Trung An High-tech Agriculture JSC, unveiled that many Chinese traders asked to buy broken rice from the company. Although we are specialising in exporting fragrant rice, this is quite an inspiring signal to our exporters, Binh said. The rice sector aims to surpass the target of exporting 6.3 million tonnes worth $3.3 billion in export value as set early this year. In the past eight months, the agricultural sector counted more than $36.3 billion in export value, in which agri-forestry and seafood generated $20.66 billion, showing a 15.4 per cent jump on-year. Exports to China, however, fell below expectations. For instance, for the vegetable and fruit sector, Chinas zero-COVID policy caused a nearly 14 per cent reduction in the export value in the first eight months of this year, to just $2.17 billion. Chinas stringent measures for pandemic control have resulted in modest growth of Vietnams commodity exports to this market compared to other major markets like the US, EU, South Korea, and ASEAN, which all fetched double-digit growth during this eight-month period. The latest figures from the General Department of Customs showed that Vietnams export value of commodities to China surpassed $35.6 billion in the first eight months, up 6.7 per cent on-year. Strong rebound in seafood exports to Russia Once falling to a standstill due to the impacts of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Vietnams seafood exports to Russia are now showing inspiring results after the last few months. Bui Phi Hung, CEO of Nova Education shares the significant meaning of this programme to students The project will reserve free English and informatics lessons for 1,000 students at Tien Thanh 1 and Tien Thanh 2 primary schools (Tien Thanh commune, Binh Thuan province) and Long Khanh A3 Primary School (Hong Ngu commune, Dong Thap province). In addition, at the beginning of the new school year, NovaGroup presented 1,000 gifts to students, including rice cakes of the Te Te brand, sausages and canned food manufactured by Nova Consumer Corporation. Through this project, both companies aim to build a quality and integrated learning environment that brings opportunities for students in underprivileged areas, contributing to the economic, cultural, and social development of the locality. This project is funded with about 400,000 (VND10 billion) equally provided by the two sides, and is being disbursed this and next school year. The schools selected have limited capacity in English and informatics teaching, and students have not had the opportunity to interact with international programs. In addition to helping the school improve facilities, teaching and learning equipment, the project helps enhance the quality of English and informatics teaching staff. Classes will officially start on October 3. Students are excited to experience a modern computer lab provided by this project Nova Education will play the role of the training unit, while Nova College will directly implement the teaching. With experience in building an educational environment and training the young Vietnamese generation in qualifications, skills, and the ability to compete globally, Nova Education is responsible for appraising the teaching and content of English and informatics training, as well as supervising the installation of facilities and equipment. Nova College supervises the construction, and installation of facilities and equipment to meet the highest quality standards. The project will provide students with English learning programs in Cambridge YLE standards and informatics in international IC3 Spark test standards. In addition to Vietnamese teachers, classes will have foreign teachers to enhance the quality of interaction and communication. The English classroom is also equipped with a projector, and the lively lectures create excitement for students The project is expected to change teaching and learning methods in areas with difficulties and a lack of educational facilities in the context of the industrial revolution 4.0. The free and quality English and informatics courses will give students the opportunity to improve their knowledge, skills and confidence and aid them on their integration journey. It is also an opportunity for local teachers to improve their teaching capacity and approach international teaching methods. Teaching English and Informatics for Free for Primary School Students is a testament to NovaGroup's commitment to supporting education. It is also one of the group's four core focuses to improve quality and create a sustainable educational environment, and encourage the younger generation to study more effectively, contributing to the improvement of teaching and learning in schools. The cooperation of DEG Impulse and NovaGroup affirms their commitment to join hands in social responsibility in various localities to improve the quality of life in Vietnam. In addition, the project will also contribute to strengthening the partnership between NovaGroup and DEG Impulse as well as promoting long-term cooperation. It is expected that the Teaching English and Informatics for Free for Primary School Students project will continue and be spread to many areas in the future. For many years, NovaGroup has awarded thousands of scholarships worth tens of billions of dong to encourage excellent students who have overcome difficulties for the National University of Ho Chi Minh City's Development Fund (2019-2022), the Fund for Vietnamese Children and the Learning Promotion Fund in the provinces. Many startup programmes, supporting scientific research, applications, and technology transfer projects to serve the community have been implemented in a number of localities nationwide. Many schools have also been built and are well equipped. The Phan Thi Nhe Health and Education Development Fund and more than 1,000 scholarships for the programme "Teacher Nhe Scholarship" have left a lasting positive impression over the past 18 years and brought a far-reaching impact on individuals and local communities. Many startup programs, scientific research aids and much technology transference to serve the community have also been implemented in many localities. In the near future, NovaGroup will build and operate the Vietnam Future School system, a free inter-level school system exclusively reserved for students in difficult circumstances. The first school will be built in Phan Thiet city of Binh Thuan province - where the NovaWorld Phan Thiet project is under construction on over 1,000 hectares. Further schools will then be implemented in Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Dong Nai and other provinces. For 60 years, DEG has been financing and advising private enterprises operating in developing and emerging-market countries. With a portfolio of around 9.2 billion, DEG is one of the worlds largest private-sector development financiers. As an impact and climate investor, it accompanies companies that are addressing transformation and aiming to seize their opportunities. Its customers not only receive financing and advisory solutions tailored to their needs: they can build on DEG's market knowledge, impact and climate expertise and international network. In this way, DEG contributes together to creating more skilled jobs and local income and to improving value creation on the ground in line with the Sustainable Developmetn Goals (SDGs). NovaGroups strategy of synergies creating added sustainable value With nearly three decades of experience behind it, NovaGroup is looking for partners to generate new synergies and empower the business community to reach out to the global market. KOCHAM and NovaGroup sign comprehensive cooperation The Korea Association of Commerce and Industry in Ho Chi Minh City (KOCHAM) and NovaGroup on December 27 officially signed a cooperation agreement in many fields. Nova Medi provides advanced medical services to the community NovaGroup and the German Medical Association MediVerbund AG held the groundbreaking ceremony for the Nova Medi Healthcare Centre on February 27 at NovaWorld Phan Thiet in Binh Thuan province. NovaGroup awarded Best Workplace in Asia 2022 by HR Asia Magazine On August 11, NovaGroup was honoured to receive the Best Companies to Work for in Asia 2022 award voted by HR Asia. Previously, Novaland also won this award for three consecutive years (2019-2021). Whether in the Western world or the East, newspapers large and small are being forced to up their games considerably in order to survive. In many regions, the press industry is facing slumping ad sales, the loss of classified advertising, and sharp drops in circulation. The United States saw the loss of an average of two newspapers per week between the end of 2019 and May of this year, according to the Medill School of Journalism. The statistic means that an estimated 70 million people now live in areas deemed news deserts or areas that are at high risk of becoming so. Over in the United Kingdom, newspaper publishers are being shunned by investors because they do not offer decent returns. Britains major newspapers have seen circulations decline sharply in the last couple of decades, although they have countered this to some extent with online products. We have found a clear pattern of declining sustainability in the sector since 2010, which is consistent with reduced income and costs, as well as a reduction of investment and related capital employed in the sector, said a May report from Economic Insight. Evolution vital for VIR to stay relevant The pandemic has helped play a part in causing an acceleration in print decline, the report said, with an 18 per cent drop in total average print circulation per issue for national daily titles between March 2020 and March last year. Meanwhile, with social media sites overtaking TV as a source of news for young people, news organisations have become increasingly reliant on social media platforms for generating traffic. A report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism described how a second wave of disruption had hit newsgroups, with publishers such as The Economist having to employ large social media teams to optimise their posts and maximise traffic. In Southeast Asia, 80 per cent of those surveyed for a Statista report in February chose social media as their preferred place for news consumption. In comparison, only 12 per cent of those who took part stated that they read physical newspapers. Newspapers like VIR understand that adapting to these trends can make the difference between surviving and thriving, and so those in charge have placed focus on diversifying content and making sure it embraces social media platforms and other mediums in order to get ahead. Its latest transformation comes in the form of organising and hosting more regular talk shows live online, covering topics from 5G and blockchain to the oil and gas market. Thus far, the shows are playing a key role in complementing the coverage found both in the print newspaper and online, as top experts, entrepreneurs, and association leaders offer their input into the issues of the day. VIR is also embracing the online journey by negotiating deals with various major news agencies that will ensure its content can reach further and wider than ever before. Soon enough, it will be much easier to track down both the newspapers website and print offerings across more online platforms. More experiments are likely, as even the biggest names have been forced to implement brand new models or utilise new services. The New York Times, the UK Times, and many others have attempted to launch paid online subscription models which evolve over time, or are scrapped for new models which may include allowing a number of free articles per month before requiring a subscription. Within the global industry, there is little consensus on the best strategy for survival. Some pin their hopes on new technologies such as e-papers or radical revisions of the newspaper; others have advocated a system that includes both subscriptions as well as micro-payments for individual stories. Yet it is still a minority who pay for online news, which stands at 19 per cent in the US according to the aforementioned Reuters Institute report. Some large brands continue to see growth such as The New York Times, which surpassed eight million digital subscriptions by the end of 2021. But this was helped by non-news products such as cooking content and games like the wildly popular Wordle game. Newspapers like VIR are, of course, not on that level, but lessons can be learned no matter what the size of the organisation is, and the newspapers leaders are determined to keep their minds open and embrace the inevitable change, for the good of the product and the people who want to interact with it. VIR added to PressReaders catalog In an effort to go green while reaching business readers around the world, VIR is excited to join PressReaders growing global newspaper and magazine platform. Bernard Wang Toon Kim-Partner, Audit Services KPMG in Vietnam Family business groups and the informal nature of business relationships typical in the Asian and Vietnam business landscape facilitate related-party transactions (RPT). Not all RPT are abusive. Some of these transactions help to achieve a better economy of scale and are recurring and unavoidable. Abusive RPT can be in the form of tunnelling or propping up. Tunnelling is the expropriation of assets, whereby dominant shareholders extract values from the controlled corporations through transactions with favourable terms for themselves or nominees controlled by them. When business owners want to avoid delisting or achieving certain financial results for specific reasons, their results may be propped up by abnormal RPT. Propped-up firms tend to have worse operating performance in the fiscal year preceding the announcement of the RPT. Abusive RPT may include overpriced and overpayment for an asset or assets disposed at a lower price. They may also involve sales transactions to related parties who do not have the ability to consume, process, sell or utilise the asset. Other examples are significant cash advanced under the appearance of project implementation and capital tunnelled out for the dominant shareholders, directors, nominees, or their controlling companies to use. Independent director roles in approving RPT is essential. However, a potential doubt may arise over their independence from a controlling shareholder as the controlling shareholder often nominates and elects these directors. These independent directors may receive significant fees. Thus, they may have an element of loyalty to the controlling shareholder. While the board is charged with making decisions in the interests of all shareholders, it is common for listed companies in Vietnam to circulate draft resolutions requesting shareholders to authorise chairman, CEO, or general director to decide on specific terms and conditions of the RPT and agreements and to sign and implement those agreements on the context of achieving greater synergies. These include the transaction of sales and purchase of goods or transactions of borrowings, loans and sale and purchase of bonds. While efficient for business decision-making, such practices could also open up potential abusive transactions as the chairman, CEO, or general director has been given the blank cheque to decide on the terms. In addition, these circulars to shareholders may be too general and lack sufficient information for non-related parties shareholders to make an informed evaluation before they approve the resolution. Here is the example from Singapore. Singapore-listed companies may only seek a general mandate from shareholders for recurrent transactions of a revenue or trading nature or those necessary for its day-to-day operations, such as the purchase and sale of supplies and materials, but not in respect of the purchase or sale of assets, undertakings or businesses. A general mandate is subject to annual renewal. When requesting approval for a general mandate for RPT, Singapore-listed companies (or issuers) must make reference to: (i) the class of interested persons with which the entity at risk will be transacting; (ii) the nature of the transactions contemplated under the mandate; (iii) the rationale for, and benefit to, the entity at risk; (iv) the methods or procedures for determining transaction prices; (v) the independent financial adviser's opinion on whether the methods or procedures in (iv) are sufficient to ensure that the transactions will be carried out on normal commercial terms and will not be prejudicial to the interests of the issuer and its minority shareholders; (vi) an opinion from the audit committee if it takes a different view to the independent financial adviser; (vii) a statement from the issuer that it will obtain a fresh mandate from shareholders if the methods or procedures in (iv) become inappropriate; (viii) and a statement that the interested person will abstain, and has undertaken to ensure that its associates will abstain, from voting on the resolution approving the transaction. There are key recommendations that can be offered. Firstly, companies may only seek a general mandate from shareholders for recurring transactions of revenue or trading or those necessary for their day-to-day operations. Non-recurrent transactions should be approved separately after proper evaluation. Secondly, where a motion is forwarded to the shareholders for approval of the RPT during an annual shareholders general meeting, a voting system (including storage of evidence for future inspections) should be established so that only shareholders not involved in the transaction can vote. There should also be communication to the shareholders not involved in the transactions regarding how those RPT have been evaluated. Objective judgement in the decision-making process of the board should be ensured. This would include giving sufficient information to the board for evaluation, and giving non-controlling shareholders sufficient influence over the nomination and election of directors. It also includes the enhancement of the role of independent directors as central actors in the process, (approval of procedures, the conduct of negotiations, approval of the transaction, and the possibility of obtaining advice from independent experts at all stages) with the award of decision-making power to the board of directors. Enhancing the corporate governance of the company is necessary. This includes improving the process of capturing, evaluating, checking, reporting, and disclosing RPT. Other enhancements may involve the communication between those in charge of governance and external auditors. The external auditor provides an assurance to the board and shareholders as to whether material information concerning RPT is fairly disclosed in the financial statements and alerts them to any significant concerns concerning internal control. Finally, there should be an increase in inspections by enforcing agencies. Abusive RPT have increasingly become a challenge to the integrity of Vietnam and many other capital markets. The costs of abusive transactions are high (including the potential loss of government revenue), whether in the form of one-off material expropriations of wealth, the slow expropriation of wealth via continuous operational transactions, or the propping up of results and share price. In the current environment, effective monitoring and curbing of abusive RPT need to be high on the agenda of policymakers, enforcing agencies, boards of directors, and other relevant stakeholders. Proper rules, policies, governance, inspection, and audits are required to avoid such a situation. Haydn Jones, director and senior specialist of Blockchain Market at PwC UK, shared with VIRs Luu Huong how this trend could broaden access to financial services and some suggestions to build more transparent cross-border transactions, as discussed at the PwC workshop Cryptocurrency and its Impact to Businesses hosted in Hanoi last week. Haydn Jones, director and senior specialist of Blockchain Market at PwC UK Could you provide some highlights from the PwC Global CBDC (central bank digital currency) Index 2022? The headline message is that adoption is a political decision. A 2021 survey from the Bank for International Settlements of central banks found that 86 per cent are actively researching the potential for CBDCs, 60 per cent were experimenting with the tech, and 14 per cent were deploying pilot projects. So, if you look at the different jurisdictions, they all have a specific driver, whether its financial inclusion, a drive towards digitisation, reasons to combating financial crime, or creating a currency to represent your state. Furthermore, we believe that the success of some CBDC would promote other central banks to follow, particularly in countries where financial inclusion is one of the key desired outcomes. What are the potential emerging trends and derivatives of cryptocurrency and virtual assets in the coming time? There are 21,000 cryptocurrencies as of September this year. So, that amount has pretty much doubled from its very early beginning. Each of those cryptocurrencies has its own specific use case. And most of them are based on a blockchain. We need to see better levels of adoption and understanding from an enterprise level before we can really see a higher level of adoption across industry more generally. I think its more about using blockchain technology to actually support industry with problems such as sustainability and provenance, with the commercial aspect being complemented by the central banks across the globe, digital currencies, and then also stablecoins. It might be too early to attach products to cryptocurrencies. I think we need to see more adoption of CBDCs. There are both positive and negative effects associated with the use of cryptocurrency and crypto assets. In what ways do you think it will affect economies and businesses? Lets think about the cost and benefit. For example, if I have a contract with a business and deliver goods upon their request, but dont get paid immediately until the next 30 days or 50 days, that is a funding cost that I have to cover. With this disruptive technology, we can create smart contracts. That means when I deliver goods or services, I can get paid immediately. Vietnams GDP is around more than $362 billion in 2021. Of that, if we assume roughly between 5 and 10 per cent was spent on payment fees, and other transaction costs between different parties, that is a huge opportunity to save money in an economy. However, if we can automate those payments, that is a percentage of Vietnams GDP is the money we can save for the country. The efficiency of this technology boasts a vast potential for our economy if we use it properly. What do you consider to be the most difficult challenges that this industry is now facing? From our assessment, the most challenging obstacle is the insufficient understanding of crypto assets in our society. Many people still dont fully understand how this crypto technology works. Other challenges are the awareness of its implications to the businesses such as combating the money laundering and terrorist financing thats all about understanding and awareness. We need to have a full understanding of how the threats can be combated, then we can prevent it. Regulators have an important role in terms of creating the guardrails, and the safety perimeter to protect us from terrorist financing and money laundering, as well as other financial crimes. Because it is an extremely powerful technology, but only if it is properly understood and regulated. Cryptocurrency legislation is always shifting, and it may be challenging to keep up with the latest legal framework developments throughout the different countries. Could you share your experience with crypto regulations in the United Kingdom? In the UK, if youre an issuer, a custodian, a wallet provider, an exchange, or a crypto ATM operator, you need a licence from the Financial Conduct Authority. You must go through a very rigorous application process where you have to describe your business plan, marketing plan, the internal control, governance framework, and budget. Furthermore, not only you must describe your ultimate beneficial owners and a number of other factors, but you also have to demonstrate to the regulator that youve got solid a robust internal control framework for anti-money laundering. Then you could undertake an effective client onboarding process. You can rate the risk profile of your clients on all of those factors, and the regulator takes this into account to decide whether they want to grant you a licence or not. What is your suggestion for more transparent and secured cross-border cryptocurrency transactions across the globe, which will combat global criminal activities? The Financial Action Task Force has recommended that the travel rule, which is to guard against money laundering and other illegal actions, is to be implemented for virtual asset service providers, including exchanges, banks, wallet providers, and other financial institutions to share certain information about the recipient and the beneficiary for cryptocurrency transactions over $1,000 globally. When we have a crypto entity that has the travel rule applied, we can see the name of the sender, the receiver, as well as the value of the transaction. It is a very strong starting measure that we can put in place to help combat financial crimes. The travel rule marks a major change when it comes to virtual assets and may fundamentally alter how virtual asset service providers operate in the future. Nowadays, there are many central banks across the globe that have studied and already launched the cryptocurrencies. Whats your view on the legal framework? CBDCs have been widely discussed in the media for a number of years, with some countries having already launched them, and others announcing their intention to do so. The legal framework will be very much the same, to some extent, requiring discussion and evaluation. Interestingly, the UKs Law Commission has just published a consultation which is more than 500 pages long, focusing on reforming the law to ensure that the law is capable of accommodating digital assets in a way which allows the possibilities of this type of technology to flourish Particularly, this consultation paper proposes the digital assets should be recognised as a new form of personal property. Because the digital assets are not tangible, some digital assets have many different features to traditional physical assets and to other intangible things that can attract property rights. Due to its unique qualities and features, many digital assets do not fit easily into traditionally recognised personal property law categories. There is an expectation that the law would have to change to support digital currencies issued by a central bank, but also more broadly, in relation to digital assets. This new approach will be the baseline for the future legal treatments of digital assets, and when paired with the inherent flexibility of British law, it strengthens the appeal of the UK as a destination for digital asset firms. How long have you been working at PwC, and what brought you to work in this digital asset industry? Overall, I have over 20 years of commercial, operational, and transformation experience working for retail and investment banks, a central bank, a regulator, a global management consultancy firm, and a Japanese technology company. Ive been working with PwC probably for about five years in different relationships. I used to be an engineer and a lawyer. I always like fixing things and solving complex problems. And Ive always been fascinated by the innovative technology which can solve emerging problems and raise the living standards of millions of people. And for me, I think thats hugely powerful and meaningful. Funds keep an eye on blockchain projects for investment opportunities The investment capital flow is eyeing blockchain projects, offering significant opportunities for Vietnam where this technology was booming to have unicorns in the global blockchain market. Has blockchain found a use beyond crypto trading? The bitcoin boom spawned new billionaires and videos of beach parties and Lamborghinis. The crypto crash brought devastation for small investors and bankruptcy for many companies. Marking its 25th anniversary this year, the CSR project resumed after three years of delay due to the pandemic. It was particularly meaningful since this year also marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Vietnam. A 25th-anniversary event on September 25 was attended by Rong-min Baek, president of Smile for Children and professor at Seoul National University Hospital's Department of Plastic Surgery; Korean and Vietnamese medical personnel; SK employees; and members of SK Sunny, SKs volunteer organisation for college students. Operation Smile Vietnam supports children with facial deformities through surgical treatments. Over five days from September 19 to 23, surgeries were successfully performed on about 70 Vietnamese children suffering from facial deformities such as cleft lips and palates. Since 1996, SK has supported all the expenses for free surgeries in Vietnam with Smile for Children. For the past 25 years, surgeries have been performed for 4,200 Vietnamese children with facial deformities, with SK covering the costs of KRW3.7 billion ($2.58 million) in total. Korean medical personnel worked with the local medical professionals, teaching them surgical techniques. All the surgery equipment used by the surgeons is also donated to the local hospital, helping them perform such surgeries by themselves in the future. The CSR activity began in 1996 and has since provided free reconstructive facial surgery for 4,200 children. Recognising the contribution, the Vietnamese government awarded SK and president Rong-min Baek with the noblest order of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the highest order for foreign nationals, in 2009 and 2016, respectively. I am happy that SKs CSR programme, which began in 1996, has resumed after three years after overcoming the pandemic crisis, said Seong-nyeoh Lee, vice president at SK Ecoplant. Its meaningful that we have been able to give these children new lives and help them make a happy home as well as transfer advanced medical techniques over the last 25 years. President of Smile for Children Baek said, We couldnt provide the free surgeries for the past years due to the pandemic. Im excited that we have resumed the practice and met with Vietnamese children again this year. Im so grateful for all the support and help from Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, medical personnel of 108 Military Central Hospital and SK, he added. SK Group contributing to Vietnam's development policies Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung and Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien attended and delivered speeches at the SK Group online meeting on Vietnam's development policies hosted by Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group. SK Group to spend $340 million to increase stake in Masan's retail arm SK Group will spend $340 million acquiring shares of The CrownX (TCX) under Masan Group to double down on the latter's Point of Life (POL) strategy. The Korean Business Association in the central and south of Vietnam is proposing the government to accelerate the expansion of the Korean International School in Ho Chi Minh City. According to the association, education facilities for children are one of the priorities of South Korean investors, experts, and employees, who are living and working in the city. Recently, the number of South Korean enterprises investing in Ho Chi Minh City has been increasing, also leading to a rise in education demand. Approximately 300 South Korean pupils are waiting for school enrolment. The existing facilities of the Korean International School cannot meet the demand in the city. The tuitions in other international schools are too high and South Korean pupils cannot study in local schools due to the language barrier," the association stated. Approximately 300 Korean pupils are waiting for school enrolment. The figure is forecast to increase in the upcoming time because Vietnam is among the top investment destinations for foreign groups moving away from China. South Korea has remained in the top three largest foreign investors in Vietnam for many years. In the first eight months of 2022, South Korean investors registered $3.5 billion into the nation, accounting for 21 per cent of the total inflows into the country. Ho Chi Minh City proposes to open casinos Ho Chi Minh City proposes to open casinos in hotels with at least 5-star standards to encourage the development of the evening and night economy. Automechanika Ho Chi Minh City comes back after two years Automechanika Ho Chi Minh City comes back in June, inviting car enthusiasts and industry insiders to one of the most important events in the industry. International School Ho Chi Minh City featured as Leading School in Queen's album International School Ho Chi Minh City (ISHCMC) has been acknowledged and featured as one of the leading international schools globally in Queen Elizabeth IIs official Platinum Jubilee Pageant Commemorative Album, which was launched on June 5. Thousands join My Soul Seoul in Ho Chi Minh City The tourism promotion event My Soul Seoul in Ho Chi Minh City, hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Tourism Organization, attracted about 1,000 people to the GEM Center. With a strong track record in Vietnam over many years, Zamil Steel has very high hopes in the country for the next few years, hoping to grab a wealth of opportunities. In the next five years, the market will see significant changes when Vietnam engages further in globalisation and regional integration. As a result, the demand for high-quality steel structures will increase, which will be an opportunity for Zamil Steel Buildings Vietnam to grow its market share, said Krishnakanth Kodukula, general director of Zamil Steel Buildings Vietnam Co., Ltd., on its 25th anniversary. Zamil Steel Vietnam's factory in Noi Bai Industrial Zone, Hanoi All these changes will strengthen Zamil Steels position in the market and be the foundation for Zamil Steels sustainable growth over the next decade in Vietnam and the Asia Pacific, he said. "The demand for high-quality steel structures will increase, which will be an opportunity for Zamil Steel to grow its market share," said Krishnakanth Kodukula, general director of Zamil Steel Buildings Vietnam. Recalling the early days of establishment, Nawaf Al Zamil, president of Zamil Steel Holding Company said, In 1997, we were the first and only Saudi Arabian enterprise to invest in Vietnam and also the pioneer to bring the concept of 'pre-engineered steel buildings' to Vietnam." "When exporting the first orders to Vietnam in 1993, we realised that Vietnam and the Asia-Pacific region were vibrant markets with huge development potential. With the ambition to bring a new type of product in line with safety and technical standards while still satisfying local architectural requirements, the management of Zamil Steel Holding Company decided to establish two representative offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in the early 1990s. After four years of exploring the market, we officially established Zamil Steel Buildings Vietnam Co., Ltd. and its first factory in Hanoi in 1997, he continued. Many of Zamil Steel Vietnams projects have become essential parts of the socio-economic development of Vietnam and regional countries such as Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. Highlighted projects included the pit building of the Formula 1 Circuit in Hanoi, the mega-scale VinFast factories in Vietnam, Phnom Penh and Siam Reap International Airports in Cambodia, the Petronas petrochemical refinery complex in Malaysia, and the Bangladesh governments cyclone shelter project on Bashan Char Island. For 25 years, Zamil Steel Vietnam has provided outstanding pre-engineered steel buildings, structures and other steel products and solutions to customers Zamil Group was founded by members of the Al Zamil family in Saudi Arabia in the 1920s, with its business line mainly in commerce and heavy industry. Through many wholly-owned companies and joint ventures, Zamil Group operates in a wide range of sectors, such as building materials, manufacturing, offshore, petrochemicals, trade, services, real estate, and investment, with thousands of employees worldwide. TRIPOLI On Monday, Oct. 3, Bremer County 4-H will host "Nacho Average 4-H Night" from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Bremer County ISU Extension and Outreach Office. A presentation will be given by the county youth coordinator to start off, followed by activities, food, meet and greets and giveaways. For questions or more information, call Nicole at the Bremer County ISU Extension and Outreach Office at (319) 882-4275 or email at xbremer@iastate.edu. LAMONT Authorities are asking for the publics help in locating a missing rural Lamont teenager. Tosha Ann Kraus, 16, was last seen at her home Sept. 13, according to the Buchanan County Sheriffs Office. Authorities believe she was voluntarily picked up by someone she knows. Deputies were notified of the disappearance Sept. 14 and after exhausting leads, they put out a public notification on Monday. Tosha is described as a white female, 5 feet tall and weighing 110 pounds with blue eyes and blonde hair. She has facial piercings to her nose and upper lip but does not always wear the piercings. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call the Buchanan County Sheriffs Office at (319) 334-2567 or their local law enforcement agency. If Tosha is seen, residents shouldnt take action themselves but instead call law enforcement with information such as location of sighting, vehicle license plate, clothing description and so forth. Photos: Missing children in Iowa(tncms-asset)4395427a-623a-11ea-9c13-00163ec2aa77[1](/tncms-asset) LA PORTE CITY Future Farmers of America students at Union High School were given a crash course Friday about how despite the abundance to which they are accustomed, many in the world live in want. The previous evening, Wes Meier, a Union alum and the co-founder and CEO for EOS International, visited the FFA Historical and Ag Museum to talk about the work his organization does to help provide clean water to rural Central America. On Friday, he returned to his alma mater. Meanwhile, students in separate groups broke up to engage in meal preps for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank and take part in a hunger banquet. A lot of them were just thrown into this. As I was walking around, a lot them are just standing around, like, Wait, what am I supposed to be doing? said Casey Tecklenburg, one of the teachers overseeing things as students packaged macaroni for the food bank. Watching their brains turn on and start problem solving, and theyre not worried so much about who theyre with so much as doing the job correctly, and thats really important, that real-world experience, I think, on the job. Meanwhile, students in the upper gymnasium took part in the hunger banquet. Organized by Union junior Olivia Hanson, the event divided students into upper, middle and lower income groups. The groups they were assigned to dictated whether they sat on the floor or at a table. It also determined whether they would get lasagna, a brownie and lemonade, or rice and water. So far, I think its been fabulous, said ag instructor Adam Sacquitne. I think the students are really kind of getting a little eye-opening experience. Hanson had been planning the event since the beginning of the school year and said she was glad to see it come together and for her classmates to learn from the experience. I think theyre really feeling reality hitting for them and then learning from that, she said. And really just learning to be grateful for what we have, especially here in the United States. DEWITT Seven statewide Democrats, the party's southeast Iowa congressional candidate and several local office candidates stumped Sunday in Clinton County for a soap-box style event. All, for the most part, stuck to their stump speeches. Mike Franken, who's running to unseat longtime Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, assured the Democrats in attendance that his campaign would "work really, really hard to win this election" and planned to attend six events a day after he debated Grassley, slated for Oct. 6. He didn't mention, and neither did any other candidates, allegations that Franken kissed a former campaign staffer on the mouth earlier this year, which Franken denies happened. Clinton County Democrats greeted Franken with a standing ovation, and several Democrats there said in interviews with a reporter they didn't see the allegations as playing a major role in their enthusiasm for Franken. "No, not at all," Heather Bjorgan said when asked if the allegations dampened her support for Franken. Bjorgan's top priority is boosting public school funding in Iowa, a job for state legislators and the governor. She works as a dean at Black Hawk College. She said she believed the courts needed to hear out the allegations before it could have greater bearing on the race. "That person deserves to have their day in court. And they should pursue that wherever is appropriate," Bjorgan said. "But I think there's enough momentum behind Franken to not have that be something that negatively impacts him." Clinton County Democrats chairwoman and former congressional candidate Rita Hart, who hosted the event, said she didn't consider changing the event or its format after the news broke last week. "There were a lot of accusations made, and the rest of us, I think, just have to wait and and see what happens going forward and hope that everyone is doing everything we can to make sure that this is a safe place for all of us," Hart said. Eleven candidates rallied Clinton County Democrats at a soapbox-style event Sunday at the Clinton County Fairgrounds. Democratic candidate for governor Deidre DeJear and her lieutenant candidate, Eric Van Lancker; candidate for Iowa's 1st Congressional District Christina Bohannan; Franken; Secretary of State candidate Joel Miller; Attorney General Tom Miller; Secretary of Agriculture John Norwood; State Auditor Rob Sand; state legislative candidates Jed Ganzer, Jenny Hansen and Kay Pence all spoke. "Clinton County is such an important swing county for us," Tom Miller, a Democrat in a fierce reelection campaign, said of statewide elections as a whole. Registered Republicans lead Democrats 9,253 to 8,497 in the county, with no-party voters leading both parties at 9,907 registered voters. State legislative candidates and DeJear and Van Lancker, the Clinton County auditor, pointed to further investments they want to make in K-12 education. Candidate Pence in particular noted that the Natural Resources Fund for water quality, state parks and recreation, remains unfunded years after voters approved such a fund. SIOUX CITY When Alex Johnson tells you his dog Frank is one of a kind, hes not far from wrong. There arent many dogs like Frank, whos a Barbado da Terceira, a rare breed of which there are an estimated 200-300 in the world. Hes one of just 34 living in the United States. I had no understanding he was this rare, Johnson said, nodding toward the energetic bundle of hair lying nearby. I just saw a dog that was handsome, and I was at a point where I wanted a dog. Barbado da Terceiras are a fluffy, medium-sized dog bred to herd and guard livestock on the Azores, a small Atlantic Ocean island group thats part of Portugal. Johnson had never heard of the breed before he decided he wanted a dog and googled hypoallergenic breeds that wouldnt trigger his allergies. Scrolling through the search results, a long-haired breed with loving eyes caught his attention. I like a hairy dog, I guess, Johnson said. Researching the breed, he learned BDTs an easier way to refer to the breeds name dont shed and are well-mannered. Hed found his dog, but actually getting one wouldnt be as easy. Johnson contacted the president of the breed club in the United States in September and learned that because there are so few of the dogs in this country, theres a two-year waiting list for a puppy. However, one could be obtained sooner from breeders in Portugal. Im a really persistent person, Johnson said. When I see and know what I want, I go with that. He was put in touch with a breeder in Portugal and in March was notified that a dog was available. One problem: Johnsons passport had expired, so he couldnt fly to Portugal. Instead, his co-worker Sean Bigbear made the trip. Franks journey to America ended at Chicagos OHare International Airport after spending an hour and a half in customs. Already too big to fly in the passenger area of the plane, Frank spent the flight in a kennel in the cargo hold. He smelled terrible. It was rotten. He had no idea what was going on, Johnson said of meeting Frank in the airports international terminal. But Franks happy, curious personality quickly outweighed his scraggly appearance and he snooped around to explore his surroundings. After the car ride home to Sioux City was over, Frank settled in and has become a friendly face in his neighborhood, excitedly greeting every person and animal he sees. Frank thinks everybodys his friend, Johnson said. Most people assume hes a doodle, one of many breeds crossed with poodles. When Johnson tells them hes a Barbado de Terceira, I get pretty befuddled looks. Owner of Proper Painting, Johnson takes Frank to work with him, the dog hanging a front leg out the passenger window of Johnsons pickup truck as they drive to and from jobs. A skateboarder, Johnson takes Frank with him to local skate parks, where Frank, due to his breeds livestock herding background, likes to chase people around, trying to round them up to be closer to Johnson. Frank is always trying to assert himself, Johnson said of the breeds sometimes stubborn, assertive behavior. But there are no worries about intruders sneaking into his home. Frank sleeps in front of the door, his natural guardian instincts kicking in. The 8-month-old has grown to 63 pounds, and if his large paws are any indication, hell surpass the 70-pound upper end of the breeds weight range. Frank may be rare, but he displays common dog behavior, playing with an empty caulking tube and a plastic sack at a work site and drawing laughter and loving looks from Johnson, whos found everything he was looking for when he began his search for a dog. Hes exceeded expectations in all realms, Johnson said. A common sentiment among dog owners, no matter how rare their dogs breed. Africa has the sovereign right to choose partners Oleg B. Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large, Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. As announced a few days ago, on September 13, the second summit of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, whose secretariat I have the honor to lead, is scheduled for the summer of next year 2023. In order to prepare it, an Organizing Committee was created, headed by Yu.V. Ushakov, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation. When preparing the forum, carefully analyzing information from other international actors, we had to state that there are forces in the world that oppose the development of equal and mutually beneficial cooperation between African countries and Russia, and, noteworthy, these are not Africans themselves. Particular attention was drawn to the address of the EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, J. Borrell, published on the EU website, as well as a number of his statements during his recent trips to Mozambique, Kenya and Somalia, in which he did not fail to blame Russia for all world troubles, calling on African partners to build closer cooperation with Europe. According to a European diplomat, the Russian special military operation is an example of brutal imperialism of the 19th century, which Africa experienced first hand. And now, says J. Borrell, Europe, after recognizing its responsibility for what happened at that time in Africa, has the full moral right, hand in hand with the Africans who have been oppressed for decades, to fight against Russia and build an international order based on rules. <> Today, using the example of Russia, we are witnessing how the West is trying to deprive sovereign states of their independence through the use of a system of collective punishment, violation of basic political and economic rights, and harsh illegitimate unilateral restrictions. <> Unfortunately, such a policy of double standards today can be applied to any country that does not fit into the Western system of values. African nations have experienced for decades the consequences of illegal economic restrictions imposed for the purpose of political blackmail and, in some cases, the change of political power. The West consistently imposed sanctions against Burundi, DRC, Zimbabwe, Libya, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, and South Sudan. And this is only part of the list. To say the least, the US bill On counteracting the malicious activities of Russia in Africa, which provides for the collective punishment of Africans for any cooperation with us, is also puzzling, to say the least. Such a restriction of basic political and economic freedoms indicates unfair competition and a crude imposition of the Western agenda on other countries. <> We stand for the sovereignty and independent development of the African continent, one of the regional centers of power in the new world order, which, like Russia, has its own political and economic agenda. Moreover, Russia is ready to become a provider of African sovereignty, and the upcoming Russia-Africa summit will be convincing proof of this. (article published September 26 in Kenyan Daily) WtR Russian Defence Ministry report on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine (September 26, 2022) The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation. Massive fire attack launched at the bases of 14th Mechanised and 95th Airborne Assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) near Senkovo and Chervony Oskol (Kharkov region) have resulted in causing casualties of over 120 enemy servicemen and 15 units of military equipment. High-precision attacks launched by Russian Aerospace Forces at the provisional bases of the Foreign Legion and units from nationalist groups near Svyatogorsk (Donetsk Peoples Republic) have resulted in the elimination of up to 100 militants. Missile attack launched at a forward command post of 10th Mountain Assault Brigade of the AFU near Chasov Yar (Donetsk Peoples Republic) during the brigade commanders conference has resulted in the elimination of up to 25 Ukrainian servicemen and wounding of over 40. 8 units of special military equipment have been neutralised. High-precision attack at a provisional base of 406th Artillery Brigade of the AFU near Ochakov (Nikolayev region) has resulted in the elimination of up to 50 militants, 10 units of military equipment and over 2,000 artillery projectiles. Operational-tactical and army aviation, missile troops and artillery have neutralised 5 AFU command posts near Kupyansk (Kharkov region), Shchurovo, Kirovo (Donetsk Peoples Republic), Kamyshevakha (Zaporozhye region) and Vysokopolye (Kherson region), as well as of 56 artillery units, 163 manpower and military equipment concentration areas. 3 AFU missile, artillery armament and munitions depots near Zaporozhye, Nikolayev and Kramatorsk (Donetsk Peoples Republic) have been destroyed. Fighter aviation of Russian Aerospace Forces has shot down 1 Su-24 airplane of Ukrainian Air Force near Selidovo (Donetsk Peoples Republic). Russian air defence facilities have shot down 13 unmanned aerial vehicles near Bobrovy Kut, Zalyony Gai, Ukrainka, Sadok, Novaya Kakhovka, Maksima Gorkogo (Kherson region), Molochansk (Zaporozhye region), Selidovo and Kirillovka (Donetsk Peoples Republic). 19 projectiles launched by HIMARS and Olkha multiple rocket-launching systems have been destroyed in air near Antonovka bridge (Kherson region), as well as near Svatovo (Lugansk Peoples Republic) and Novaya Kakhovka (Kherson region). In total, 302 airplanes and 155 helicopters, 2,087 unmanned aerial vehicles, 377 air defence missile systems, 5,114 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 845 combat vehicles equipped with MRLS, 3,417 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 5,904 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation. Kiev regime continues its provocations near Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. AFU artillery had been shelling at Volna suburban settlement located near the nuclear power plant. A total of 25 projectiles have been launched from Kiev-controlled areas of Nikopol and Marganets (Dnepropetrovsk region). Enemy firepower has been neutralised by Russian artillerys counter-attack. The radiation environment at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant remains normal. #MoD #Russia #Ukraine @mod_russia_en WtR Chinese FM attends general debate of 77th session of UNGA, delivers speech Xinhua) 08:51, September 26, 2022 Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech at the general debate of the 77th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) The Communist Party of China will convene its 20th National Congress in Beijing next month, Wang said, adding that this Congress will, in response to the expectation of all the Chinese people, set well-conceived goals and tasks for China's development in the next five years and beyond, and that it will draw an overarching plan for China's future development. UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday called on the international community to make every effort for peace and development, and shoulder the responsibility for solidarity and progress. While delivering a speech at the general debate of the 77th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Wang said the world is at a time fraught with challenges. The world has entered a new phase of turbulence and transformation, and changes unseen in a century are accelerating, Wang said, adding that this era, however, is also full of hope. Peace and development remain the underlying trend of the times, and around the world, the people's call for progress and cooperation is getting louder than ever before, Wang said. China's answer, Wang said, is firm and clear on how to respond to the call of the times and ride on the trend of history to build a community with a shared future for mankind advocated by Chinese President Xi Jinping. First, countries must uphold peace and oppose war and turbulence, Wang said, calling on all countries to remain committed to addressing differences through peaceful means and resolving disputes through dialogue and consultation. Second, countries must pursue development and eliminate poverty, Wang said. Noting the world should place development at the center of the international agenda and build international consensus on promoting development, Wang said that the world should see that everyone in every country benefits more from the fruits of development in a more equitable way. Third, countries must remain open and oppose exclusion, Wang said, adding that countries should stay true to openness and inclusiveness, uphold the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core and endeavor to build an open world economy. Fourth, countries must stay engaged in cooperation and oppose confrontation, Wang said. Urging countries to engage in dialogue, consultation and win-win cooperation, and reject conflict, coercion and zero-sum game, Wang stressed that countries should jointly oppose group politics and bloc confrontation. Fifth, countries must strengthen solidarity and oppose division, Wang said, calling on the international community to stand against drawing lines on ideological grounds, and work together to expand common ground and convergence of interests to promote world peace and development. Sixth, countries must uphold equity and oppose bullying, Wang said, adding that countries should promote and practice true multilateralism, promote equality of all countries in terms of rights, rules and opportunities, and build a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, equity and justice, and win-win cooperation. China, he said, is a builder of world peace. In the face of various challenges nowadays, Xi has put forward the Global Security Initiative, contributing China's vision to reducing the peace deficit facing humanity and providing China's input to meeting global security challenges, Wang added. China is a contributor to global development, Wang said, adding that China has endeavored to build a system of high-standard opening-up and safeguard the security and stability of global industrial and supply chains. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech at the general debate of the 77th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Li Rui) Noting that China is a major trading partner of over 130 countries and regions, Wang pointed out that China contributes about 30 percent of annual global growth and is the biggest engine driving the global economy. China is also an active participant in global governance and South-South cooperation, Wang said, noting that China has set up the China-UN Peace and Development Trust Fund and the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund. It has provided development aid to more than 160 countries in need, and extended more debt-service payments owed by developing countries than any other G20 member state. China, Wang added, is a defender of the international order as the country always firmly safeguard the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and United Nations' central role in the international system, as well as the international order based on international law. China has been involved in multilateral affairs in all fields and is a member of almost all universal inter-governmental organizations and a party to over 600 international conventions, Wang said, adding that China has concluded more than 27,000 bilateral treaties and fulfilled in good faith its international obligations. China will continue to speak up for other developing countries, help them overcome difficulties and fully support efforts in raising the representation and say of developing countries in international affairs, Wang added. China is a provider of public goods, Wang added. In the face of COVID-19, China has made all-out efforts to advance and engage in global cooperation against the pandemic, and has done its best to provide anti-pandemic supplies and shared its practices on combating the virus, he said. China is among the first to promise making COVID-19 vaccines a global public good and to support waiving intellectual property rights on the vaccines, Wang noted, adding that China has provided over 2.2 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries and international organizations. In response to tough challenges confronting global development, President Xi proposed to advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, an initiative that has been widely endorsed by the international community, Wang said, adding that China has signed cooperation documents with 149 countries and 32 international organizations, and has also set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund. China also serves as a mediator of hotspot issues, Wang said. As a responsible major country, China strives to explore and practice a way with Chinese characteristic to resolve hotspot issues. While adhering to the principle of non-interference in others' domestic affairs and respecting the will and needs of the countries concerned, China has endeavored to help settle hotspot issues in a constructive way, he said. On the Taiwan question, Wang stressed that since ancient times, Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China's territory. China's sovereignty and territorial integrity has never been severed, and the fact that the mainland and Taiwan belong to one and same China has never changed, he said. All of the Chinese have never ceased their efforts to realize China's reunification, he added. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech at the general debate of the 77th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) The one-China principle, Wang said, has become a basic norm in international relations and a general consensus of the international community. Fifty-one years ago, right in this august hall, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 with an overwhelming majority, which decided to restore the lawful seat of the People's Republic of China in the UN and to expel the "representatives" of the Taiwan authorities from the place which they had unlawfully occupied, Wang recalled. Once and for all, Resolution 2758 resolved politically, legally and procedurally the issue of the representation of the whole of China, including Taiwan, in the UN and international institutions, and it completely blocked any attempt by anyone or any country to create "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan," Wang said. China will continue to endeavor to achieve peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and greatest efforts, he said, adding that to realize this goal, China must combat "Taiwan independence" separatist activities with the firmest resolve and take the most forceful steps to repulse interference by external groups. Any scheme to interfere in China's internal affairs is bound to meet the strong opposition of all the Chinese, and any move to obstruct China's cause of reunification is bound to be crushed by the wheels of history, he added. Meanwhile, Wang said China is fully implementing a new development philosophy featuring innovative, coordinated, green and open development for all, and that it is pursuing high-quality development and fostering a new development paradigm. China will enjoy sustained and sound development, usher in even brighter prospects, and make more splendid miracles come true, he said. As China has one-fifth of the global population, its march toward modernization has important and far-reaching significance for the world, Wang said. The path that China pursues is one of peace and development, not one of plunder and colonialism; it is a path of win-win cooperation, not one of zero-sum game; and it is one of harmony between man and nature, not one of destructive exploitation of resources, Wang said. He added China will continue to contribute its input to meeting the challenges facing human development, and make its contribution to creating a new form of human advancement. The Communist Party of China will convene its 20th National Congress in Beijing next month, Wang said, adding that this Congress will, in response to the expectation of all the Chinese people, set well-conceived goals and tasks for China's development in the next five years and beyond, and that it will draw an overarching plan for China's future development. Having reached a new historical starting point, China will follow the Chinese path to modernization to achieve the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, Wang said. China, Wang said, will work with other countries to make every effort for peace and development, shoulder the responsibility for solidarity and progress, build a community with a shared future for mankind, and embrace an even better world. Wang, on the occasion, also announced that China has decided to launch its domestic procedure to ratify the United Nations' Firearms Protocol, a step that will contribute to strengthening global cooperation on gun control and closing the security deficit. On the same day, Wang also met respectively with the president of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly and the foreign ministers of the Maldives, Egypt, Algeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Costa Rica. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Weve known for some time that whats good for your heart is good for your brain. This is especially true when it comes to exercise: Studies show that regular physical activity can help lower the risk of dementia. But whats been less clear is why. Now new research offers some clues. A study published in January in the journal Alzheimers & Dementia found that older adults who remain active have higher levels of brain proteins that enhance connections between neurons. This in turn improves their memory and boosts cognition. This protective impact was found in everyone, even in people showing signs of dementia. One reason may be that physical activity promotes healthy synapses, the small pockets of space between neurons that allow them to communicate. They are really where the magic happens when it comes to cognition, explains study coauthor Kaitlin Casaletto, an assistant professor of neuropsychology at the University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. The good news, she stresses, is that the brains of participants, who on average were in their 70s, were able to reap the benefits of exercise even into the oldest ages. It seems it is never too late to start, Casaletto says. You dont have to be a gym rat either. While the study did find that greater physical activity was associated with more synaptic protein levels in brain tissue, this suggests that every movement counts when it comes to brain health, she adds. There may be other reasons why physical activity has a protective effect. Regular exercise may also reduce age-related inflammation that can also impact the brain, notes Gary Small, M.D., chair of psychiatry at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. We know that inflammation is implicated in other chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease, so it makes sense that it may play a role in cognitive decline as well, says Small, who adds that patients ask him all the time whether its better for their brain to do a crossword puzzle or jog around the block. The evidence for exercise is more compelling, he says. Brain-boosting exercises What type of exercise is best? That remains an unanswered question, Casaletto says. Right now, research supports any type of movement, from walking and dance to tai chi and yoga, she explains. But its possible that not everyone benefits the same. Richard Horton, an insurance broker in Pasadena, California, walked around for at least a decade of his middle-aged years with blood pressure hovering around 178/95 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg, the unit of measurement for blood pressure), dangerously close to a hypertensive crisis and a sure candidate for stroke. For comparison, whats considered a normal level for most adults is less than 120/80 mm Hg. Diagnosed with high blood pressure during a routine physical exam in the late 1990s, he wasnt worried. Per his doctors orders, he returned for weekly follow-up visits to monitor changes. The numbers didnt improve. But Horton, who is Black, didnt receive treatment. At that point, he recalls, the doctor said that in the medical field, we find that African Americans have a higher blood pressure rate than whites and others. Because of that fact, were not going to push medication, but well keep an eye on your pressure. If it gets much higher, then well prescribe medication. (Research shows Black patients often arent offered the full range of appropriate treatments when it comes to blood pressure management.) In August 2011, while preparing to close a big sale, Horton climbed out of bed and walked into the bedroom wall. He was having a stroke. During a hospital stay that lasted over two months, Horton, who was then 55, had a second stroke. He couldnt walk, talk or use his left arm. A growing gap Nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. have stroke each year this happens when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked or bursts and Black adults bear a disproportionate burden of those cases. In fact, the risk of stroke among Black Americans is nearly twice as high as it is for whites, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows; some studies suggest it's even higher. Black Americans are also much more likely to die from stroke, and those who do survive are more likely to be disabled than stroke survivors in other racial groups. The reasons behind these troubling trends are both simple and complex, says cardiologist Donald Lloyd-Jones, M.D., chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and past president of the American Heart Association (AHA). There are several risk factors for stroke high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes, to name a few that are common in the Black community. In fact, over half of Black adults have high blood pressure, according to the AHA, which can damage the blood vessels and pave the way for a blockage. Genetics may play a role in this particular risk factor. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health found in a 2019 study that variants in a gene may be associated with high blood pressure among Black adults. It is fair to say that people who have a larger ancestry of African genes in their genetic makeup are more prone to higher blood pressure levels, particularly when you put them in an environment like ours where theres too much sodium in the food supply, Lloyd-Jones says. Thats a bad combination, no question. And thats part of what drives the higher blood pressures in the Black community in this country. loading......... Malibu, CA, Sep 21, 2022 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Join Ellis Martin for a conversation with Jordan Trimble, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Skyharbour Resources Ltd ( CVE:SYH ) ( SYHBF:OTCMKTS ) ( SC1P:FRA ) a preeminent uranium and thorium exploration Company with projects located in the prolific Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan, Canada. In this segment Mr. Trimble reviews the macroeconomics of the current uranium market and the company's latest partner project news. Skyharbour Resources is pleased to announce the commencement of a phase two diamond drilling program at its Mann Lake project located 25 km southwest of the McArthur River Mine and 15 km to the northeast along strike of Cameco's Millennium uranium deposit. Highlights: Phase two drilling is designed to follow-up on exciting targets generated from phase one drilling and recently completed geophysical surveys at Mann Lake. Approximately 4,000 metres of core drilling is planned for phase two covering the southern portion of the project. The first hole of phase two will follow-up on uranium mineralization in hole MN22-002 (see Company's news release dated September 7, 2022). Drilling will also test conductive zones and structures identified in this summer's Mobile MT survey along the unconformity contact that corresponds to prevalent gravity lows located near the southeastern portion of the project (see Company's news release dated September 13, 2022). *To view tables and figures, please visit: https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/683378TY To listen to the Interview, please visit: https://www.abnnewswire.net/press/en/114017/syh About Skyharbour Resources Ltd. Skyharbour Resources (CVE:SYH) (OTCMKTS:SYHBF) holds an extensive portfolio of uranium and thorium exploration projects in Canada's Athabasca Basin and is well positioned to benefit from improving uranium market fundamentals with six drill-ready projects. In July 2016, Skyharbour acquired an option from Denison Mines, a large strategic shareholder of the Company, to acquire 100% of the Moore Uranium Project which is located approximately 15 kilometres east of Denison's Wheeler River project and 39 kilometres south of Cameco's McArthur River uranium mine. Moore is an advanced stage uranium exploration project with high grade uranium mineralization at the Maverick Zone. Drill results have returned up to 6.0% U3O8 over 5.9 metres, including 20.8% U3O8 over 1.5 metres at a vertical depth of 265 metres. Skyharbour has signed option agreements with Orano Canada Inc. and Azincourt Energy whereby Orano and Azincourt can earn in up to 70% of specific segments of the Preston Project through a combined $9,800,000 in total exploration expenditures, as well as $1,700,000 in total cash payments and Azincourt shares. Preston is a large, geologically prospective property proximal to Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit as well as NexGen Energy's Arrow deposit. The Company also owns a 100% interest in the Falcon Point Uranium Project which hosts a high-grade surface showing with up to 68% U3O8 in grab samples from a massive pitchblende vein, the source of which has yet to be discovered. The Company's 100% owned Mann Lake Uranium project on the east side of the Basin is strategically located adjacent to the Mann Lake Joint Venture operated by Cameco, where high-grade uranium mineralization has been identified. Skyharbour's goal is to maximize shareholder value through new mineral discoveries, committed long-term partnerships, and the advancement of exploration projects in geopolitically favourable jurisdictions. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal An apartment parking lot in Southeast Albuquerque was blocked off by crime scene tape on Sunday afternoon, and on the other side of the barrier, homicide detectives investigated blood stains. Its a scene that has played out over and over in Albuquerque this year. Albuquerque police on Sunday were called to the area of Kathryn and Madeira SE on a reported stabbing, Rebecca Atkins, a police spokeswoman, said in an email. A deceased person was found and the Homicide Unit launched an investigation, she said. It was the 100th homicide investigation launched by the Albuquerque Police Department this year, according to APD officials. And it continued the citys march toward another record number of homicides in a year, police said on Sunday. I dont think its anything any of us wanted to be talking about, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said during a media briefing on Sunday. But I think its important that we admit where were at. Weve had a lot of violence this past year. Sundays homicide appeared to be similar to the circumstance of many previous cases, Medina said. There was some sort of personal dispute between two people that led to a violent interaction. He said police have a person of interest in custody, but no other details about the victim or suspect were released on Sunday. Albuquerque police have seen a spike in violence in recent years. There was a high mark of 119 homicides in 2021. Medina said he doesnt expect the slayings to slow down. I think we should be prepared, he said. Last year we had a record-setting year, and I dont see this slowing down. Hours after Sundays briefing, at about 6:20 p.m., Atkins said officers were on scene at Bataan and Coors SW after reports of a shooting. One individual was located with wounds and was taken to the hospital listed in critical condition, Atkins wrote in an email. This has been made a Serious Crimes Callout. Medina on Sunday advocated for more resources for the states criminal justice system. He asked for better pay for prosecutors, conflict resolution courses for children and more options for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Every homicide is a tragedy that demands accountability, Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement Sunday. We are facing an epidemic of gun violence in America that has left Albuquerque families with wounds deeper than we can imagine, he said. Today, APD is apprehending more of these perpetrators than ever before. We must, at every level, work to fix our broken criminal justice system to break these cycles of violence and to keep offenders off our streets. The police department is on pace to arrest a record-number of people this year on homicide charges, Medina said. But that doesnt make the families of the dead whole again, he added. Theres 100 families out there in 2022 that are grieving. And we need to make some changes, he said. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal A Rio Rancho woman accused of pulling a gun on another driver for sporting a vaccinated bumper sticker on his car alleges in a lawsuit that police used false information to charge her with a crime later dismissed by prosecutors. Christina Blair also alleges that heavily armed Albuquerque Police Department officers entered her home and arrested her in February without first obtaining a warrant, according to the lawsuit filed in 2nd Judicial District Court. Blair, 33, was arrested in front of her husband and young stepdaughter, who was traumatized by the incident, the lawsuit said. Blair was forced to go through a criminal process until the prosecutor dismissed all charges against her, according to the suit filed Aug. 31 against the city of Albuquerque and two APD officers. Blair was indicted March 7 in 2nd Judicial District Court for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Four days later, prosecutors dismissed the charge, noting that New Mexico law does not make it a crime for an individual to be visibly armed during a verbal argument without an accompanying threat of force, court records show. Christopher Dodd, Blairs attorney, said prosecutors dropped the charges soon after they viewed a video recording of the incident. Christina (Blair) was put through really a pretty horrific few weeks, and it was all because APD did not follow the constitution and did not follow the laws of New Mexico, Dodd said Friday in a phone interview. An APD spokesperson did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment. The Feb. 27 confrontation between Blair and another driver began with a dispute over a bumper sticker. Police responded about 5 p.m. to a Walgreens at Montgomery and Wyoming NE after a man reported being threatened by a woman with a gun. The man told police he was driving in the area when a woman began to honk and yell obscenities regarding a bumper sticker on his car that said vaccinated, according to a criminal complaint. The woman later identified as Blair followed him and threw a water bottle at his vehicle when they stopped at a red light, the complaint said. He said he became frightened and accidentally reversed into Blairs vehicle. The man told police he pulled into the Walgreens parking lot to exchange insurance information when Blair produced a handgun and racked the slide to chamber a round, police wrote in the complaint. The lawsuit disputes the male drivers narrative, alleging he put his vehicle into reverse and proceeded to slam his Honda into the front of Ms. Blairs vehicle. The suit acknowledges that Blair retrieved a pistol from her vehicle but disputes that she used it to threaten the male driver. Fearing for her safety from a much larger male, Ms. Blair went to her vehicle and briefly retrieved a small pistol, the suit said. The gun stayed at or below her waistline the entire time. A cellphone video recorded by the male driver shows that Blair never pointed the pistol at the man, nor did she actuate the slide or make any threatening motions with the gun, the suit contends. That evening, officers armed with at least three assault-style rifles and two pistols entered Blairs home and arrested her without first obtaining a search warrant, the suit said. The incident was widely reported in the media and resulted in Blair losing her job, the suit alleges. It seeks unspecified damages. SANTA FE A new evaluation of state-operated hospitals for veterans, the mentally ill and the elderly describes inadequate oversight that threatens the ability to provide quality care, including harmful conditions at a care facility for military veterans in Truth or Consequences. Presented Thursday to legislators, the evaluation from the Legislatures accountability and budget office describes improvements in management of finances, marketing and tracking of clinical outcomes for patients. But the quality of patient care and oversight at the New Mexico State Veterans Home in Truth or Consequences in particular continues to be a point of concern. Problems there were highlighted recently by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which found substandard care and examples of patients who were harmed. That review found the State Veterans Home failed to properly intervene to care for a patient who had fallen eight times and died after being found unresponsive after a fall. A diabetic patient was sent home with insulin but no glucose meter, and another patient was intubated despite a do-not-resuscitate order. The home failed to ensure compliance with infection-control protocols and training, such as the use of face masks by staff and proper procedures for antibiotics placing residents in jeopardy. The facility risks losing funding agreements with Medicaid and Medicare programs if deficiencies are still unresolved in December. A medical director at the facility lost privileges as a result of the June federal inspection and resigned. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said state officials are confident that the facility will be back in compliance within the time allotted through reinspection. In a statement Thursday, the governor recounted an impromptu visit to the veterans home earlier in the week to personally check in on progress and meet with residents and staff. I reassured them all that I will continue to hold accountable those in charge of our veterans care until every metric is met and every deficiency is corrected, Lujan Grisham said in the statement. I also made several commitments to them based on their feedback, including increasing transportation options, improving their access to medical specialists and more flexibility for meal options and times. The governor indicated that employment was recently terminated for five individuals at the veterans home, while two nurses were reported for discipline and eight other staff were reprimanded or counseled. An expert team assessed the facility, and staff are now being trained in critical areas. New Mexico has assigned at least $60 million to the Department of Health to build new veterans home buildings at Truth or Consequences that are scheduled for completion next year. Out of a dozen recommendations from last years evaluation, four have been met and solutions to eight more are underway. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal An officer who shot at an unarmed auto theft suspect but missed in a motel parking lot in April has been fired after an internal affairs investigation determined his use of force was not reasonable, necessary, proportional, minimal or within department policy. The investigation found the officer fired without having a clear view of what was unfolding. Meanwhile, a second officer who shot and injured the suspect was cleared of wrongdoing because he could see the suspect and thought he was holding a gun in a shooting stance. Jerry Arnold was terminated on Sept. 12. He had been with the Albuquerque Police Department since 2003 and was a detective in the auto theft unit at the time of the shooting. Arnolds attorney said the policy he was found to have violated stated that an officer shall not use deadly force against an individual unless the officer has probable cause to believe an individual poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or anyone else. Despite the termination, an APD spokeswoman said the department is looking at options to keep Arnold on the payroll. After evaluating Mr. Arnolds history with the department, we are working to transition him into a civilian position, spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said. Chief (Harold) Medina feels Mr. Arnold still has value to the organization as he was in good standing prior to this incident. Shannon Candelario, a 46-year-old from Algodones, was struck twice in the abdomen and treated at the hospital before being booked into jail on a bench warrant several weeks later. He was not charged with anything relating to the events leading up to the shooting. Candelario could not be reached on Thursday and neither his family nor his attorney responded to messages from the Journal. Where the issues lie Officials have said that officers spotted Candelario in a stolen red Chevy Volt and tracked him to a Motel 6 on Central near Tramway. Thats where they saw him leave the lobby and walk toward the car. Lapel camera footage shows several officers following Candelario. Arnold, his gun drawn, yelled out I cant see whats in his hands. I think its a knife. When Candelario reached the drivers side door he pulled something out of his pocket and quickly extended his arm. Detective Damian Lujan who later told investigators he thought Candelario had a gun fired. Candelario was actually holding a black key fob. Arnold fired too, hitting nearby vehicles. He told investigators that when he heard Lujans gunshots he believed Candelario was the one firing, according to the investigation by the Internal Affairs Force Division, which was released to the Journal in response to a request under the Inspection of Public Records Act. This assumption is a large leap, especially when there was no evidence to support his assumption, a supervisor wrote after reviewing the investigators findings. Ofc. Arnold failed to provide any evidence indicating he had probable cause to believe Mr. Candelario posed a deadly threat. OBRD evidence shows that Det. Arnold clearly was not sure of his target. Mr. Candelario was completely out of view when Det. Arnold discharged his firearm. In fact, Det. Arnold was not even sure of where Det. Lujan was positioned, which is another concern all by itself. The supervisor found Lujan to be within policy since he discharged his duty handgun twice in order to stop the threat he perceived to be unfolding. John DAmato, an attorney for the police union, said hes appealing Arnolds termination. I dont think the city adequately gave due weight to Jerrys perception of a deadly threat, he said. He said Arnold worked for New Mexico State Police before being hired by APD. He had not been involved in any other shootings while at APD. He really has a good attitude about this. He knows where the issues lie. He knows what the fights about a pretty positive individual , DAmato said. Its just bizarre, but I dont think youll find one person on this department up to and including the chief everybody thinks hes a great guy. Caught off guard Shortly after the internal investigation began Arnold and Lujan filed petitions with the citys Labor Management Relations Board alleging that a civilian investigator reviewing their actions was biased and the case should be transferred to a neutral third party instead. That request was ultimately denied. The basis of their complaint was that they were notified that it is alleged that you used deadly force against an individual without probable cause to believe an individual poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to you or anyone else. Their attorney, Fred Mowrer, argued that the language was offensive and the men were caught off guard. Arnold was found to have violated that policy. The investigator also raised concerns that the officers on scene didnt activate their lapel cameras during the investigation or during their surveillance of Candelarios actions and she had concerns about who supervised the incident. Those issues were referred for another internal affairs investigation. That investigation was not immediately available and Atkins, the APD spokeswoman, could not answer questions about it. The case is also being investigated by the Multi-Agency Task Force, which conducts the criminal investigation into shootings by officers. That investigation is ongoing. CORRALES Nancy Baumgardner shows a visitor through one of the two buildings at 4627 Corrales Road, the one closest to the road, the building with the Secondhand Treasures Thrift Shop signs on the porch. It looks like mostly bare, white walls and brick floors to the visitor, but Baumgardner sees it differently. In a rear room, which will actually be the main entrance, she sees walls painted in a vibrant hue, lots of plants and maybe a fountain. In here, she says, as she walks into the next room, will be housewares dishes, pots and pans and utensils. And over in this room sheets, towels, curtains, tablecloths, throw pillows, linens. Our best sellers are womens clothes and then jewelry and linens. And this room will be lined with bookshelves (and books) and will have furniture in it and tchotchkes knickknacks. Artwork will be everywhere. Baumgardner pauses, her eyes coming back to the present. Its less square footage than we had before, she said. But its got to be good. Its got to work. Im hopeful. Dogs to care for Baumgardner is the manager of Secondhand Treasures, a thrift shop, and president of Southwest Animal Rescue Fund Inc., a nonprofit that aids animals, primarily dogs, in need. Southwest Animal Rescue operates the thrift shop. Items sold there are donated by the public, and proceeds fund the animal rescues mission. Previously, the thrift shop had worked for more than 11 years out of the Bunkhouse building farther south on Corrales Road. But when the owners of that property put it up for sale, Secondhand Treasures was compelled to vacate by the end of July. Baumgardner, her friends and associates had searched vigorously for another location in Corrales to no avail. The thrift shop had been in limbo until the buildings at 4627 Corrales Road became available for rent. They had previously been occupied by Strat Academy, a business that gave guitar lessons, repaired guitars and also offered lessons in constructing and customizing guitars. Baumgardner said she had given up on finding a new space as fast as this, but shes glad it happened. There are dogs to be taken care of, she said. Although the new location has two buildings, it has less space for inventory than the Bunkhouse building. The latter was 3,500 square feet, the two buildings at the new location offer about 2,000 square feet combined. We have less space and we pay more rent, Baumgardner said. But the advantages are that we have a landlord who cares about the buildings and maintains them, and the buildings have high visibility. The new place also has restrooms, which the previous location did not. Baumgardner said plans are for Secondhand Treasures to move into their new quarters and to begin accepting donations in October. The thrift store will not open for sales until November, but when it does open it will have expanded hours. In past years, Secondhand Treasures was open 12 hours a week. The stores new hours will be 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, 30 hours a week. Work in progress When we were closed, we were supposed to be saving money, Baumgardner said. But we got this mother dog and nine pups from a reservation. We spent $3,000 spaying, neutering, vaccinating and deworming. There was a time when Southwest Animal Rescue got dogs out of high-kill shelters in the state, cared for them until they were physically and mentally ready to be adopted and then found homes for them. Now, the organization concentrates on funding other New Mexico rescue and assistance operations such as NMDOGS, the OSCAR Foundation, Argos, Spay-Neuter Coalition of New Mexico and Animal Humane of New Mexico. Animal Humane was such a huge help when we had to move, Baumgardner said. They sent out trucks with lifts and movers with muscles, and they gave us warehouse space for our fixtures counters, cabinets and shelving. She said that since Secondhand Treasures does not have the room it once did, it will share inventory donated to the store with Animal Humane. I just hope people will be patient with us because we dont have as much space, Baumgardner said. We are a work in progress. But she said the thrift shop intends to retain its reputation for eclectic, high-quality merchandise sold at good prices. In here we are going to have mens and womens clothing and jewelry, she said as she unlocked the door to the second building. Our sales counter and register will be in here. Back outside, she waved her hand at a grassy area that had a small plot with chile growing in it. We are going to have flea market stalls here, so we can sell things outside, she said, gazing once more into the near future. It will be different, but it will be nice. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal Editors Note: The Journal this week is publishing profiles on New Mexicos candidates for governor, focused on a single day on the campaign trail. ESPANOLA It was 10 a.m. and Michelle Lujan Grisham had already finished her fourth cup of coffee. But the high-energy and highly caffeinated governor was on the lookout for a refill, before heading to her next scheduled event on a busy day crisscrossing northern New Mexico. So Lujan Grisham and her State Police security detail stopped at a Starbucks in Espanola, where she got her coffee fix, elbow-bumped a few employees and posed for photos with customers and the stores manager. Its been a tumultuous year for the Democratic governor, who married her longtime fiance Manny Cordova in May in a ceremony officiated by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and lost her mother, Sonja Lujan, who died in April of natural causes. But Lujan Grisham is forging ahead as she seeks a second four-year term in office, fueled by coffee and a sense theres still ample work to do in order to break generational poverty cycles in New Mexico. I have a lot of energy and Im motivated by having too much on my plate, Lujan Grisham told the Journal during an interview before a Taos campaign rally. If you can lift New Mexicans out of poverty, all of these social challenges we have will start to diminish, the governor also said. But not unless we turn the corner there. Over the course of the day, Lujan Grisham would promise state funding to help fix an acequia damaged by fires and flooding this summer and pledge more buses for a local school in response to a request from a restaurant worker. She would also tout the need for more funding for water projects around New Mexico and the possibility of more tax relief amid an unprecedented state revenue windfall. But not all questions on the campaign trail are easily answered. At one point during a town hall-style meeting with northern New Mexico land grant heirs and parciantes, or members who own water rights in an acequia, Lujan Grisham was asked to speak in Spanish to attendees. In response, she said she understands the language but acknowledged her speaking ability is minimal, saying her late father came from a generation whose members were not encouraged to speak Spanish in public. It is an area in our schools that I think needs a lot more attention, Lujan Grisham said, referring to bilingual programs. Bilingual or not, Robert Antonio Romero of La Mesilla, a small community near Espanola, said he was impressed by Lujan Grishams knowledge and authenticity. Ive never heard a governor that knew so much about these issues, he told the Journal after the event. Lujan Grisham is bidding to become the fourth consecutive New Mexico governor to win reelection following in the steps of former Govs. Gary Johnson, Bill Richardson and Susana Martinez. Shes maintained a narrow lead over Republican Mark Ronchetti and a wide lead over Libertarian Karen Bedonie in recent polls and has also outraised her rivals. As of this month, the governor had raised slightly more than $10 million for her reelection campaign or more than the $9.7 million raised when first running in 2018. Lujan Grisham is not taking victory for granted, however, though she says shes confident about the elections outcome. During the day the Journal spent following Lujan Grisham on the campaign trail, she wore a hefty knee brace and high heels. The governor said she plans to have surgery in January to fix a torn anterior cruciate ligament, meniscus damage and other issues stemming from an old knee injury she recently exacerbated. She said shes too busy campaigning to have the procedure before then. COVID controversy Over her first three-plus years as governor, Lujan Grisham has emerged as a polarizing political figure, particularly when it comes to her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The governor has received both praise and criticism for her approach, which included using her executive powers to shutter businesses deemed nonessential during parts of the pandemic, scolding Espanola residents for not adhering to face mask mandates and closing schools to in-person learning for nearly one year. But Lujan Grisham has defended her actions, which also include issuing more than 30 public health orders and clashing with the Democratic-led Legislature over spending authority for federal pandemic relief funds, saying they were necessary to minimize spread of the virus in a state with a limited number of hospital beds and high rates of underlying health conditions. Since the pandemic began, New Mexico ranks around the middle of states in terms of COVID-19 cases per capita, but has one of the nations highest death rates due to the virus, according to data tracking by the New York Times. Even now, Lujan Grisham says different parts of the state have different expectations when it comes to COVID-19 restrictions, saying some New Mexicans want her to enact more restrictions and others want less. However, the governor says she believes many state residents have come up with their own ways of navigating the pandemic and are largely moving on. I feel like people have finally diminished being angry at me, she told the Journal. I feel like that anger has diminished thats been good to feel that when Im out and about. But strong feelings still exist, including among those who think the governor flouted her own advice to New Mexicans by making jewelry purchases and more. During a visit to Taos Pueblo, however, the governor was thanked by tribal leaders for her actions during the pandemic. I think COVID is here to stay, but weve just got to learn to live with it, said Taos Pueblo Governor Clyde Romero during a meeting in which Lujan Grisham received the pueblos endorsement. The 62-year-old Lujan Grisham herself recently contracted COVID-19 for the first time, but says her symptoms were mild. Looking ahead This years election could be a referendum of sorts on Lujan Grishams first term as governor, but she is optimistic about her chances and already looking ahead. On the campaign trail, she talks frequently about the legislative session that begins in January. Im not doing my job currently and Im doing a disservice to people politically if Im not thinking about the next 60-day session, Lujan Grisham said. In stump speeches, Lujan Grisham touts her administrations efforts to expand free tuition for college students and expanded income eligibility for child care assistance. She also says New Mexicos economy was on track to be the strongest in state history before the COVID-19 pandemic and claims the states recent job growth has caught the attention of Arizona, Colorado and other neighboring states. But while New Mexicos unemployment rate dropped by 2.4 percentage points over the last year from 6.8% in August 2021 to 4.4% this August to make it the state with the fourth-biggest recovery, New Mexico still has one of the highest unemployment rates. It also has the countrys highest percentage of residents enrolled on Medicaid and is 50th for overall child well-being, according to the Kids Count Data Book. Were still not where we can be, and thats a tough reality, Lujan Grisham told the Journal. If reelected, she said she would push next year to recruit more doctors and nurses to New Mexico, build new health care facilities and reduce the tuition burden for aspiring teachers. In addition, Lujan Grisham said gun safety measures would be a priority, even after lawmakers passed measures in recent years to expand background check requirements for firearm purchases and allow guns to be removed from individuals deemed to pose a threat to themselves or others. I think people expect some school safety measures, she said. Theyre going to get them. We can do better than were currently doing. Ultimate insider On the campaign trail this month, Lujan Grisham made quick stops to visit a Taos art studio and a local brewery. She said shes always on the lookout for more Hopi kachina dolls and can never have enough milagros, but was dissuaded from making any purchases by a campaign staffer who tells Lujan Grisham she has plenty of such objects already. At the brewery, the governor asks Taos Mesa Brewing co-founder Jayson Wylie about his thoughts on modernizing New Mexicos drunken driving laws over a flight of small beers. The governor says she never drank alcohol until her mid-30s because she didnt like the taste, but was cajoled into drinking at social events by her first husband, who died of a brain aneurysm in 2004. She also says she has never smoked marijuana despite signing into law a 2021 bill that legalized recreational cannabis sales. A former Cabinet secretary under three New Mexico governors, Lujan Grisham is the ultimate state government insider and she doesnt shy away from it. I think too many folks who run for these offices have no idea how complicated they are, she said, citing working with local and tribal leaders statewide. But her administration has struggled to turn around some chronically troubled agencies, such as the Children, Youth and Families Department, and there have been high levels of turnover in some Cabinet-level positions. In addition, Lujan Grisham faced criticism after her campaign paid $150,000 over multiple payments as part of a settlement reached with an ex-staffer. The former staffer, James Hallinan, accused Lujan Grisham of sexual mistreatment during a 2018 meeting. Lujan Grisham has strenuously denied the allegations made by Hallinan, who worked as a spokesman for the governor during her 2018 general election campaign. Her campaign has said the settlement was reached in order to avoid a drawn-out legal dispute and to prevent a distraction at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges, Lujan Grisham says she still has a hunger for the job and a thirst for new information. After getting an update on an elite Taos Pueblo firefighting crew being sent to fight a fire in Montana, the governor took a few minutes to reflect before hurrying off to her next scheduled event. Thats my favorite thing about being governor I learn something new every day, she said. PHOENIX Long before he assembled one of the largest far-right anti-government militia groups in U.S. history, before his Oath Keepers stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes was a promising Yale Law School graduate. He secured a clerkship on the Arizona Supreme Court, in part thanks to his unusual life story: a stint as an Army paratrooper cut short by a training accident, followed by marriage, college and an Ivy League law degree. The clerkship was one more rung up from a hardscrabble beginning. But rather than fitting in, Rhodes came across as angry and aggrieved. He railed to colleagues about how the Patriot Act, which gave the government greater surveillance powers after the Sept. 11 attacks, would erase civil liberties. He referred to Vice President Dick Cheney as a fascist for supporting the Bush administrations use of enemy combatant status to indefinitely detain prisoners. He saw this titanic struggle between people like him who wanted individual liberty and the government that would try to take away that liberty, said Matt Parry, who worked with Rhodes as a clerk for Arizona Supreme Court Justice Mike Ryan. Rhodes alienated his moderate Republican boss and eventually left the steppingstone job. Since then he has ordered his life around a thirst for greatness and deep distrust of government. He turned to forming a group rooted in anti-government sentiment, and his message resonated. He gained followers as he went down an increasingly extremist path that would lead to armed standoffs, including with federal authorities at Nevadas Bundy Ranch. It culminated last year, prosecutors say, with Rhodes engineering a plot to violently stop Democrat Joe Biden from becoming president. Rhodes, 57, will be back in court Tuesday, but not as a lawyer. He and four others tied to the Oath Keepers are being tried on charges of seditious conspiracy, the most serious criminal allegation leveled by the Justice Department in its far-reaching prosecution of rioters who attacked the Capitol. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison upon conviction. Rhodes, Jessica Watkins, Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson and Kelly Meggs are the first Jan. 6 defendants to stand trial under a rarely used, Civil War-era law against attempting to overthrow the government or, in this case, block the transfer of presidential power. The trial will put a spotlight on the secretive group Rhodes founded in 2009 that has grown to include thousands of claimed members and loosely organized chapters across the country, according to Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim deputy director of research with the Southern Poverty Law Centers Intelligence Project. For Rhodes, it will be a position at odds with the role of greatness that he has long envisioned for himself, said his estranged wife, Tasha Adams. He was going to achieve something amazing, Adams said. He didnt know what it was, but he was going to achieve something incredible and earth shattering. Rhodes was born in Fresno, California. He shuttled between there and Nevada, sometimes living with his mother and other times with grandparents who were migrant farm workers, part of a multicultural extended family that included Mexican and Filipino relatives. His mother was a minister who had her own radio show in Las Vegas and went by the name Dusty Buckle, Adams said. Rhodes joined the Army fresh out of high school and served nearly three years before he was honorably discharged in January 1986 after breaking his back in a parachuting accident. He recovered and was working as a valet in Las Vegas when he met Adams in 1991. He was 25, she was 18. He had a sense of adventure that was attractive to a young woman brought up in a middle-class, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints family. A few months after the couple started dating, Rhodes accidentally dropped a gun and shot out his eye. He now wears an eye patch. Adams family had set aside money for her to go to college, but after their wedding Rhodes decided he should be the first to attend school. He told her she would need to quit her job teaching ballroom and country dancing and instead support them both by working full time as a stripper so he could focus on doing an excellent job in school, according to Adams. They married, but she found stripping degrading and it clashed with her conservative Mormon upbringing, she said. Every night the drive was just so bad. I would just throw up every single night before I went in, it was just so awful, Adams said. Rhodes would pressure her to go further, increase her exposure or contact with men to make more money, she said. It was never enough I felt like I had given up my soul. She quit when she got pregnant with their first child, and the couple moved back in with her family. They worried about her but didnt want to push too far for fear of losing her altogether. By then, Rhodes was the center of her orbit. Rhodes lawyer declined to make him available for an interview and Rhodes declined to answer a list of questions sent by The Associated Press. After finishing college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Rhodes went to work in Washington as a staffer for Ron Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican congressman, and later attended Yale, with stints in between as an artist and sculptor. Paul did not respond to a request for comment. Rhodes college transcripts earned him entry to several top schools, Adams said. While at Yale, Adams took care of their growing family in a small apartment while he distinguished himself with an award for a paper arguing that the George W. Bush administrations use of enemy combatant status to hold people suspected of supporting terrorism indefinitely without charge was unconstitutional. After the Arizona clerkship, the family bounced to Montana and back to Nevada, where he worked on Pauls presidential campaign in 2008. Thats when Rhodes also began to formulate his idea of starting the Oath Keepers. He put a short video and blog post on Blogspot and it went viral overnight, Adams said. Rhodes was interviewed by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, but also more mainstream media figures such as Chris Matthews and Bill OReilly. He formally launched the Oath Keepers in Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 2009, where the first shot in the American Revolution was fired. We know that if a day should come in this country when a full-blown dictatorship would come or tyranny, from the left or from the right, we know that it can only happen if those men, our brothers in arms, go along and comply with unconstitutional, unlawful orders, Rhodes said in his Lexington speech, which didnt garner any news coverage. The groups stated goal was to get past and present members of the military, first responders and police officers to honor the promise they made to defend the Constitution against enemies. The Oath Keepers issued a list of orders that its members wouldnt obey, such as disarming citizens, carrying out warrantless searches and detaining Americans as enemy combatants in violation of their right to jury trials. Rhodes was a compelling speaker and especially in the early years framed the group as just a pro-Constitution group made up of patriots, said Sam Jackson, author of the book Oath Keepers about the group. With that benign-sounding framing and his political connections, Rhodes harnessed the growing power of social media to fuel the Oath Keepers growth during the presidency of Barack Obama. Membership rolls leaked last year included some 38,000 names, though many people on the list have said they are no longer members or were never active participants. One expert last year estimated membership to be a few thousand. The internal dialogue was much darker and more violent about what members perceived as imminent threats, especially to the Second Amendment, and the idea that members should be prepared to fight back and recruit their neighbors to fight back, too. Time and time again, Oath Keepers lays the groundwork for individuals to decide for themselves, violent or otherwise criminal activity is warranted, said Jackson, an assistant professor at the University at Albany. A membership fee was a requirement to access the website, where people could join discussion forums, read Rhodes writing and hear pitches to join militaristic trainings. Members willing to go armed to a standoff numbered in the low dozens, though, said Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the group. Showdowns with the government began in 2011 in the small western Arizona desert town of Quartzsite, where local government was in turmoil as officials feuded among themselves, the police chief was accused of misconduct and several police employees had been suspended. A couple years later, Rhodes started calling on members to form community preparedness teams, which included military-style training. The Oath Keepers also showed up at a watershed event in anti-government circles: the standoff with federal agents at Nevadas Bundy Ranch in 2014. Later that year, members stationed themselves along rooftops in Ferguson, Missouri, armed with AR-15-style weapons, to protect businesses from rioting after a grand jury declined to charge a police officer in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The following year Oath Keepers guarded a southern Oregon gold mine whose mining claim owners were in a dispute with the government. Still, Rhodes was never arrested. As the Oath Keepers escalated their public profile and confrontations with the government, Rhodes was leaving behind some of those he once championed. Jennifer Esposito hired him as her lawyer after the groups early outing in Quartzsite, but he missed a hearing in her case because he was at the Bundy Ranch standoff. A judge kicked Rhodes off the case, and no lawyer would represent her. She has no hard feelings, but Michael Roth, also represented by Rhodes in Quartzsite lawsuits, is less forgiving. He compared Rhodess handling of his case to a doctor walking out of an operating room in the middle of surgery. He clearly just used us for publicity to gain membership in the Oath Keepers, Roth said. The neglect culminated in a disbarment case eventually brought against Rhodes. He ignored the allegations, missed a hearing and wasnt even represented by a lawyer. The commission examining the case in 2015 found his conduct as an attorney wouldnt normally get someone disbarred, but his refusal to cooperate did. Meanwhile, on the national stage, Donald Trumps political star was taking off. His grievances about things such as the deep state aligned with the Oath Keepers anti-governmental stance. While Rhodes didnt agree with Trump on everything, the groups rhetoric began to shift. With the election of Trump, now the Oath Keepers have an ally in the White House, Jackson said. For much of the the Oath Keepers history, the federal government was the enemy, but gradually the enemy became left-leaning people in the United States and antifa, or anti-fascist groups, became the primary menace, he said. Rhodes wanted Oath Keepers to go to Cleveland to provide security for Trump then set to be the GOP presidential nominee at the 2016 Republican National Convention, even though no one had asked the group for protection, said Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who served on the Oath Keepers board for about six years. I said, Why are we going so we can say we protected Trump? We are not going to get anywhere near Trump,' Mack said. I said, This was crazy. All the other board members voted with me, and Stewart was mad. That was a breaking point last straw for Mack. He wasnt the only board member to walk away as they saw the direction of the group close up, Van Tatenhove said. Once they saw where he was going, they were a lot less comfortable, he said. But Rhodes always managed to weather the disagreements and hold onto power. He was always going to be the start and finish of the Oath Keepers. A voracious reader and charismatic speaker, Rhodes drew people in and had a talent for molding his message to his audience and holding onto power. He warmed to the alt-right movement as its profile rose. Van Tatenhove knew he had to leave when in 2017 he overheard a group of Oath Keepers, in a discussion in a grocery store, denying that the Holocaust happened. In 2018, Rhodes went too far for Jim Arroyo, a former Army Ranger who serves as president of an Oath Keepers chapter in Yavapai County, Arizona. He rejected a push to send group members to the U.S.-Mexico border for an armed operation to support the U.S. Border Patrol. Arroyo said that hadnt been approved by any authority and argued that pointing a gun in the wrong direction along the border could stir an international problem. He refused to go. Thats when he pretty much didnt want anything to do with us, said Arroyo, who eventually broke away from the national Oath Keepers and hasnt had contact with Rhodes in over four years. When Biden won the 2020 election, prosecutors say, Rhodes started preparing for battle. Rhodes and the Oath Keepers spent weeks plotting to block the transfer of power, amassing weapons and setting up quick reaction force teams with weapons to be on standby outside the nations capital, prosecutors say. On Jan. 6, 2021, authorities say, two teams of Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol alongside hundreds of other angry Trump supporters. Rhodes is not accused of going inside, but he was seen gathered outside the Capitol after the riot with several members who did, prosecutors have said. Defense lawyers have accused prosecutors of twisting their clients words. They have argued that the militia group went to Washington only to provide security at events before the riot for right-wing figures such as Trump confidant Roger Stone and that there was never a plan to attack the Capitol. The case has dealt a major blow to the Oath Keepers, in part because many people associated with it want to be considered respectable in their communities, said Carroll Rivas of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Of the approximately 30 Capitol riot defendants affiliated with the Oath Keepers, nine have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the attack, including three who have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. But that doesnt mean the ideas that Rhodes promoted have faded away. He came up with a blueprint that is going to be used in the future by people we dont even know about, Van Tatenhove said. I think its very important for us to pay attention. ___ Whitehurst reported from Washington. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the Capitol riot at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege. UNITED NATIONS This years U.N. General Assembly meeting of world leaders came on the heels of another event that reverberated internationally the death of Britains Queen Elizabeth II, followed by both an outpouring of tributes and sometimes bitter reflection on the colonialist empire that came to an end during her seven decades on the throne. There were also some questions about whether the loss of the long-reigning monarch might affect the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 nations that, in many cases, have historic and linguistic ties to Britain. Fourteen of them are Commonwealth realms former colonies where the British monarch, now King Charles III, remains the head of state. Some already were revisiting that relationship before the queens death. Barbados snipped its link to the monarchy and became fully independent last year, to felicitations from Elizabeth and Charles. The prime ministers of Jamaica and of Antigua and Barbuda said earlier this year that they intend to do likewise, and Antigua and Barbudas Gaston Browne followed up after the queens death by telling Britains ITV News that he planned to call a referendum within three years. Others have no such plans, at least for the moment. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had laid some groundwork for a potential Australian republic earlier in the year but said after Elizabeths death that it was time to honor the queen, not change up the government. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who supports becoming a republic, said she didnt plan to take up the matter soon, noting there are many other issues on the countrys plate. So there are on the General Assemblys agenda, too, and the future of the Commonwealth didnt factor in the major speeches each country gets to make. But some did take time to remember the queen and invoked her words and example to suggest future action or lessons for leaders. A look at some of the remarks: A HOMELAND TRIBUTE British Prime Minister Liz Truss, whom Elizabeth formally appointed two days before her death, said Elizabeth symbolized the post-war values underlying the U.N. and recalled a speech that the queen gave at the General Assembly in 1957. She warned that it was vital not only to have strong ideals but also to have the political will to deliver on them. Now we must show that will. We must fight to defend those ideals. And we must deliver on them for all our people, Truss said. A CALL TO ACTION Mauritius is a former British colony off the southeast coast of Africa, and the two countries remain at odds over the Chagos Islands, which the U.K. continues to control. Former residents have waged a years-long legal fight for the right to return to the archipelago after Britain expelled them in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for a military base. Mauritius prime minister, Pravind Jugnauth, urged Truss new government to resolve the matter by placing itself on the right side of history, pointing to Elizabeths values and principles. What more fitting tribute to the memory of this great monarch who dedicated her life to service, to uphold values of democracy, human rights and international law, sovereignty and territorial integrity than to bring this history to an end and to do so in a manner that respects sovereignty, matters of security, environment and the fundamental rights of human beings? he asked. MEMORIES OF MAMA KWIN Papua New Guinea is one of the far-flung realms where the U.K. monarch is still head of state, and Prime Minister James Marape closed his General Assembly remarks with an homage to the sovereign whom he said islanders affectionately dubbed Mama Kwin. Our beloved queen personified grace, dignity, honesty, humility, tolerance of others, forgiveness and all other Christian virtues and lived 70 years of consistent, unfailing life of public service some lessons we leaders of the world must learn to practice, he said. The prime minister of another realm, Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands, called her an inspiration, a figure of stability, dignity, and grace. Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Frank Bainimarama recalled Elizabeth stepping aside from greeting other guests to welcome him at a reception a few years ago and welcome his country back to the Commonwealth. Fiji was suspended in 2006 after Bainimarama seized power in a coup, then reinstated after elections in 2014, when he won his first term as premier. The queens welcome was a simple gesture but a special affirmation of all that we had worked to achieve for Fijis new and true democracy, said Bainimarama, whose countrys head of state is a president, not the monarch. A SHOUT-OUT FOR CHARLES The colonial history of Gabon and Togo rests with France, not Britain, and the two African nations are members of French-speaking countries own own affinity group, LOrganisation Internationale de la Francophonie. But the countries also joined the Commonwealth this past June. At the first General Assembly since then, Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba hailed Elizabeths respect, friendship, and wise counsel to many independent nations around the world, small or large and added kind words for the new king. Bongo saluted Charles concern about the environment, climate change and biodiversity. BEYOND THE COMMONWEALTH Some other Commonwealth members, from Dominica to Malawi, took time to express condolences and pay tribute to the queen. So did a few countries that arent part of the group, including the Central African Republic, Madagascar and the Dominican Republic. Perhaps the most fulsome homage came from Hungarian President Katalin Novak, who repeatedly quoted a 2010 speech in which Elizabeth told the General Assembly about leadership, the work of the U.N. and what she saw as the challenge facing the world body: to continue showing clear and convening leadership without losing sight of its work to foster security, prosperity and dignity for people around the world. Novak exhorted to assembly to regain our ability to distinguish between the essential and the irrelevant, the important and the unimportant, reality and fiction. We bade farewell to an exceptional monarch whose life was steeped in service to peace, she said. We owe it to the people and to her memory to make our decisions in the same spirit. ___ This version has been updated to correct the spelling of the New Zealand prime ministers first name. ___ For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal Police have arrested a man in connection with a fatal stabbing Sunday afternoon in Southeast Albuquerque. Zekiel Ibarra, 32, told Albuquerque police officers he stabbed an old man in the leg multiple times after he saw the man with what he thought was Ibarras stolen bicycle, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Ibarra is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center and is charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence, according to court records. The victim is described as being 70 years old. It is unclear whether his next of kin has been notified. Officers were dispatched to 1000 Madeira SE just before 1 p.m. Sunday following reports of an altercation between two males, according to the complaint. When they arrived at the scene, they discovered a man with shallow breathing and an apparent leg injury. They began chest compressions, but upon Albuquerque Fire Rescues arrival, the man was pronounced dead, the complaint states. A witness who approached a responding officer said he saw a man lying in a pool of blood and another man yelling at him. (The witness) stated the male told him that (the victim) had tried to steal his bicycle and to let him die, the complaint states. Another witness told officers a similar story and stated that when she approached the scene, Ibarra told her to mind her own business. As an officer was securing the scenes perimeter, the complaint says, a male who identified himself as Zekiel Ibarra approached her and advised her he wanted to let her know that he did it.' When the officer asked what he did, he told her he stabbed the male victim. In an interview at the main police station, Ibarra told officers the victim became combative with him after Ibarra accused him of stealing his bicycle. The victim, Ibarra said, continued to say the bicycle had belonged to him. Zekiel stated that at this point, he was very angry due to his bicycle being stolen, therefore, he stabbed him once or twice on his leg, the complaint states. Zekiel stated that after he stabbed the victim, he shut up and he stopped being combative. Ibarra is being held without bond. It is unclear whether he has an attorney. Upon notifying Zekiel that the victim had died, he stated he never wanted to kill him, that when he stabbed him he wanted him to know not to steal from people, the complaint states. 3 Are we even trying to solve the child care ... ABQnews Seeker Dabur India Ltd today announced the signing of Bollywood Diva Deepika Padukone as the new Brand Ambassador of Worlds No. 1 hair oil brand Dabur Amla. A new campaign Photocopy Nahi, Chuno Asli Amla, Dabur Amla featuring Deepika Padukone, is also being launched. In the campaign, Deepika Padukone talks about using Asli Amla Dabur Amla which makes hair upto 2X stronger as compared to ordinary amla hair oil. She also urges people not to use any duplicate amla when it comes to taking care of hair. Dabur India Limited Vice President (Marketing) Mr. Abhishek Jugran said: We are delighted to welcome Deepika Padukone to the Dabur Amla family. We are confident that this association will further strengthen the brand and help us build a better connect with our consumers. Dabur Amla hair Oil has always been associated with strong, long and beautiful hair and has empowered millions of women across the world to feel more confident and beautiful. It has always been a trusted brand with 80+ years of legacy. Deepikas vibrant persona, pan-India appeal, confident attitude coupled with how she is beautiful, sensitive and self-made, make her a great fit for our brand. Speaking about her association with Dabur Amla Hair Oil, Ms. Deepika Padukone Said: I am delighted to be joining the iconic Dabur Amla Hair Oil family that I personally believe has empowered women for generations. My hair goes through a lot on a daily basis and nourishing it with Dabur Amla Hair Oil is a part of my weekly ritual. "Hair oil is an integral part of traditional Indian lifestyle, and generations of women have relied on the natural benefits of oil to keep their hair strong and healthy. The brand Dabur Amla has been synonymous to hair oiling and has proved itself generations after generations to be the best choice when it comes to making your hair strong & beautiful, Mr. Jugran added. The TVC which is conceptualized by Ogilvy India-North will be live across all TV Channels, Social Media and Other Digital Platforms. Mr. Prakash Nair, President & Head of Office - Ogilvy India (North), said, Dabur Amla Hair Oil is an iconic brand and leading Bollywood queens have associated themselves with the brand. Deepika Padukone as the new brand ambassador, known for her style is a perfect partner to continue building the brand's beauty credentials. This campaign takes on the many me-toos in the market by using the analogy of photocopy. It highlights the fact that Dabur Amla Hair Oil is the Original Amla hair oil and that one should not make compromises if one wants to keep their hair strong and healthy. Ms. Ritu Sharda, Chief Creative Officer - Ogilvy India (North), said, Dabur Amla is synonymous with beautiful hair and has always had the leading ladies of Indian cinema as the face of the brand. This year we are thrilled to have Deepika Padukone as the brand ambassador of Dabur Amla Hair Oil. She epitomises beauty and grace and we are sure she will do wonders for this iconic brand. This campaign highlights how Dabur Amla Hair Oil is and will always be the OG of great hair. Instashield launched its social media campaign KhudKiPehchan that advocates for women having identities of their own that are not perceived through prism of the surnames they are given at birth or after marriage. Coming ahead of the revered festival of Navratri, the campaign urges a viewer to respect the feminine energy and view women as people in their own right. Featuring veteran screen icon Himani Shivpuri and model and actress Ismeet Kohli as a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law duo, the three-minute-long ad film opens with Shivpuri engaged in the routine task of writing guest names on invites for her granddaughters birthday party. As the film progresses, playful banter between these two family members gives way to a thought-provoking disclosure about women's individuality and self-hood. The films powerful social messaging and subtle commentary on social divisions and patriarchal norms comes through as Kohli, who plays a compelling part as a conscious daughter-in-law, asks Shivpuri why she had to elope for her own wedding, and wonders if things would be different had the powerplay of surnames would not be in the picture. She even wonders why her mother-in-law was often referred to as Mrs Verma, instead of just her first name and first identity, Asha. Furthering the poignancy of the film, Kohli then goes on to reveal that she had chosen to give up the surnames of not her own daughter, but of her own too. At the end of the ad film, a moved Shivpuri adds Seema to her invite, which hitherto said just Mrs Singh. Commenting on the launch of the Daughters Day special ad film, Hitesh M. Patel, Promoter & Director of Instashield said, This ad film is conceptualized as a conversation starter for women having their own identity. It ends with the line Apni Betiyon ko dein tohfa, unki khud ki pehchan ka (Gift your daughters their own identities), which resonates with the equitable view of society we have at Instashield. Sharing his thoughts on the launch of the ad film, C.S. Jadhav, CEO, Instashield said, We wish everyone a Happy Daughters Day. For Instashield, its important to engage our audiences meaningfully with progressive messaging, just as it is important for us to help consumers combat any virus challenges via Instashields cutting-edge medical device technology. #KhudKiPehchan was released across all social media channels. Ralco Tyres and Sonu Sood call for #NoPressureDelivery to reduce the pressure faced by delivery guys. Conceptualised by BBDO India, the initiative urges users to make #NoPressureDelivery a part of every delivery instruction. With this new initiative titled #NoPressureDelivery Ralco Tyres, Indias leading automotive tyre hopes to create awareness and ease the pressure faced by delivery executives of quick commerce who are tasked to complete their orders within mere minutes. The initiative urges delivery app users to make a simple change. By writing 'No Pressure Delivery' in the delivery instructions, the delivery person knows that there is no rush for the delivery. In this way, the delivery apps would know that the users are willing to wait a little longer to make sure the delivery executive rides safely, without any time pressure. Launched through a short video featuring Actor and Philanthropist Sonu Sood, the brand empathizes with delivery executives who spend most of their working hours on roads braving uneven roads, rains, and traffic to deliver the orders. The brand highlights that pressure should be applied to tyres and not people. The initiative is a follow-up to the year-long campaign that highlights Ralco Tyres ability to handle extreme pressures of the roads. Reacting to the campaign, Manjul Pahwa, Director, Ralson India, said, At Ralco, we make tyres that can handle any and all pressure, so we understand the pressure that delivery executives go through each day. No Pressure Delivery is an initiative that we hope will help ease the pressure on the delivery riders and spark a much needed conversation. Delivery riders face immense pressure to deliver your order in few minutes. Help reduce the pressure on them by writing #NoPressureDelivery as your delivery instruction. Because at #RalcoTyres, we believe that pressure should be applied on tyres, not people. pic.twitter.com/WSHonENxMi Ralco Tyres (@ralsonindia) September 12, 2022 Yogeshwar Sharma, V.P.Marketing Communications, Ralson India, added, In an era dominated by social media, Ralco Tyres has chosen to bring to the fore social and human angles of certain deserving subjects of commerce and trade. Risk to the life of delivery boys in meeting tight timelines is one subject which Ralco has recently raked up for social conversations through philanthropist Sonu Sood. We hope this drive leads to a social change and the concept of No Pressure Deliver catches up to bring respite to the growing community of delivery boys. Speaking of how the idea came to light, Hemant Shringy, Chief Creative Officer, BBDO India (Mumbai), said, "When we joined hands with Ralco more than four years ago, together we crafted the brand's ideology of 'Tread New Paths'. And with each piece of work we've done since, we attempted to make a difference. With #NoPressureDelivery the brand takes a thought leadership stance. While it's amazing that there are constant innovations and new offerings in the world, it's important to pause and think, do we really need this? Is this sustainable? No Pressure Delivery is a humane plea in the tech-enabled world." Priyanka Rishi, GM & EVP, BBDO India (Mumbai) added: We believe brands can impact societal narratives. Hence we keep a sharp look-out for evolving behaviours that might need to be questioned, re-shaped or reframed. In todays context, #NoPressureDelivery is one such important conversation. Grateful for brave client partners at Ralco Tyres who hold the same belief and want to drive positive change Sakshar Media, the Delhi-based Public Relations Agency, bagged the PR mandate for ModishOmbre (a parent company of ModAir), dealing in high end luxury products/items under one roof. The agency bagged the account in a multi-agency pitch and will be responsible for increasing the brand awareness and media visibility for ModishOmbre as a part of its partnership. Headquartered in Delhi with principal offices PAN India, Sakshar Media handles an impressive portfolio of brands across industries such as health, education, hospitality, technology and more. On the back of its contributions to the Indian PR fraternity, the company has won several awards and accolades including those from PR 40 under 40 Awards, IBR Award etc. The agency has also established a strong foothold in the Indian market with key brand mandates such as Alniche Lifesciences, The Biryani House, India Book of Records, Trycon Technologies, EuroSafety Group among others. Commenting on the tie-up Atul Jain, Chairman - ModishOmbre said, "While ModishOmbre is a leading platform dealing in high end luxury products/items under one roof, our aim is to further establish the ModishOmbre brand in India. We believe Sakshar Media's diverse experience in PR and deep understanding of the consumer industry makes them a perfect partner to drive our communications with. We're excited to onboard them as a core partner and work closely with them to build our brand." Commenting on the win Puneet Kumar Kanojia, Founder Director - Sakshar Media said, "We are incredibly excited for the opportunity to collaboratively work with a credible, trusted and leading platform dealing in high end luxury products/items under one roof. We aim to execute creative, impactful, disruptive and seamlessly driven PR campaigns that would bring maximum ROI for the brand in India. We hope to redefine the landscape for the brand with our initiatives and help ModishOmbre accomplish their desired outputs. With New Zealand borders reopened since August, Tourism New Zealand extends an invitation to curious travellers to visit and quench their curious minds. The new campaign titled If You Seek is a call to all visitors who wish to seek more through extraordinary travel experiences. The campaign captivates viewers via alluring perspectives of the destinations people and places. The campaign is set to launch in India through key trade partners like Thomas Cook, MakeMyTrip & Kulin Kumar Holidays. The campaign objective is to convert pent-up demand for New Zealand through these partnerships to boost recovery. New Zealand rewards those curious enough to look a little deeper and go a little further to discover more authentic, meaningful connections while travelling. The true magic of Aotearoa (New Zealand) is reserved for the manuhiri [visitors] who immerse, embrace, and respect its unique culture, people and natural environment. Building on the countrys rich Maori values of manaakitanga (a deep expression of hospitality and reciprocal understanding/connection) and kaitiakitanga (guardianship and care for the environment). If You Seek is an amalgamation of sensory and spiritual senses that showcases New Zealands unique people and places. With IF YOU SEEK we want to tap into the curiosity of manuhiri [visitors] who love adventure, nature, and true connections with people. Through this campaign, Aotearoa New Zealand welcomes Indian manuhiri [visitors] with open arms and urges to seek the unseen, explore the unexplored and re-imagine travel experience, explained Gregg Wafelbakker, General Manager, Asia, Tourism New Zealand New Zealand has been one of the fastest growing long-haul premium destinations for us. Having mastered New Zealands tourism offerings for over a period of two decades, it gives us immense pride and confidence in partnering with Tourism New Zealand. IF YOU SEEK is a unique campaign targeting high-quality visitors to New Zealand and will create curiosity among end travellers to explore the destination deeper. It simplifies the magic of New Zealand to step out of ones comfort zone & seek more., said Pratik Shah, COO - Kulin Kumar Holidays. Vipul Prakash, COO of MakeMyTrip added "We are pleased to collaborate with Tourism New Zealand to help recreate the diverse and immersive experiences that the country offers. Indian leisure travellers have been longing to tick-off their dream international destinations, and many are gearing up to make it happen in the coming months. As the spring season settles in, we are hoping that bookings will picking up traction to New Zealand for its many adventures, natural reserves, idyllic beaches and more." Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head, Holidays, MICE, Visa - Thomas Cook (India) Limited stated, The pandemic has resulted in strong pent-up demand and a newfound appreciation for the outdoors and nature. We are hence delighted to partner with Tourism New Zealand to showcase the wealth of exciting locales and unique experiences that the destination offers. Through the campaign, our intent is to create magical allure, enticing our range of Indian consumer segments (across families, millennials/young professionals and couples/honeymooners) to explore the amazing diversity and extraordinary travel experiences across both North and South Island. As part of the IF YOU SEEK campaign, Tourism New Zealand has curated special itineraries for travellers who seek a connection with nature, who yearn for peace and relaxation or even personal growth through challenging and soul-searching adventures. From bungy jumping in Queenstown to relaxing in the hot pools of He Puna Taimoana, from entering the grandiose Hobbiton to encountering dolphins at Kaikoura Dolphins, go on a blissful and eye-opening virtual treat through the short snippets. upGrad, Asia's largest higher edtech company has made another senior appointment to its leadership team - with the hiring of Srikanth Iyengar who joins as the CEO - Workforce Development, effective September 2022. Srikanth has over 2 decades of work experience spanning North America and Europe. In his previous profiles, he led large multinational businesses across diverse industries like tech services and learning/talent upskilling, consistently driving revenue growth and profitability across a portfolio of 2000 global clients across North America, Europe, and APAC regions. In addition, he is a passionate advocate of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and has championed various initiatives around technology-led business transformation, IT solutions, FMCG, and Skills and Training Development for driving strong brand recognition and financial growth, at large. In his current role, Srikanth will build and scale a B2B proposition that upskills experienced technology professionals. With this offering, upGrad is well placed to address a significant and growing technology skills gap in the global marketplace, by delivering a world-class proposition. It will also be responsible for leveraging the company's unparalleled width of technology curriculums, significantly large alumni community, and proven expertise in delivering tangible learning outcomes. Srikanth's efforts will be instrumental in setting up a robust Diversity and Inclusion (DnI) framework to allow businesses to build a future-ready and productive workforce. Welcoming Srikanth in his new role, Mayank Kumar, Co-founder & MD, upGrad said, We continue to strengthen our focus on the global enterprise segment in pursuit of predictable, profitable, and sustainable growth. With Srikanth joining our leadership team, we look at leveraging his sharp business acumen and multi-cultural intellect to further sharpen our client focus, strengthen our operational excellence and global presence, and also enhance sales leadership for continued growth. The results of the Conference Board 2022 global CEO survey show that a shortage of skills, especially technology skills, is one of the biggest short and medium-term challenges facing global corporations today. We are confident that upGrads Workforce Development proposition will help our clients address this problem in a scalable and holistic manner. The workforce development approach is critical for businesses to follow as it would not just upskill but also build employees' resilience to empower organisations and corporates with the tools needed to adapt to the future job markets. Over the last few months, I have developed much respect for upGrad founders and the leadership team as a result of their strategic clarity and relentless, disciplined approach to growth and market leadership. I am really excited to be joining such a high-performing team and to help build a truly special organisation going forward, concluded Srikanth Iyengar, CEO - Workforce Development. With a strong focus on the US, Europe, and select western markets, Srikanth will continue to work from London, United Kingdom. upGrad is an integrated LifeLongLearning tech company that offers online higher education programs to everyone within the age bracket of 18-55 years and boasts a program completion record of 85% through its high engagement curriculum, also backed by a further 80%+ career outcomes-guaranteed performance. In a most recent development, the global edtech player has closed its 6th key acquisition of CY2022 to further strengthen its enterprise (B2B) business portfolio in India and beyond. by John Stone The term "smart power" was new to me when I encountered it recently in a British Medical Journal blog as part of the new-speak vocabulary of J Stephen Morrison 'senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its Global Health Policy Center". Morrison's article is interesting both because it discloses explicitly how 9/11 was made an opportunity to draw health into the global security agenda of the United States while failing to understand how such a move might result in the shattering of "consensus" and the post war "Western post-war liberal order": "smart power" even if it is smart is not "liberal" and will not lead to consensus. But it also spells out that the global vaccine program has become a covert instrument of US power. If Morrison by any chance laments the passing of the centre-left government in Italy, then perhaps the White House putting Italy and its health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, in charge of global vaccine strategy was an error. Morrison thinks it is a paradox but it is scarcely so if a government is seen to pursue coercive health measures over its citizens at the behest of a foreign power - even those who favor vaccination could be concerned at the state's new found powers over their bodies (which might also be indefinitely extended). If that was not so smart a political move perhaps the technology is not so smart either - as I remarked to Steven Salzberg a few years ago: "The unwelcome news is that the cruise missiles and drone helicopters of the war on disease often hit the wrong target, and the more cruise missiles and drone helicopters you unleash the greater the risk". Frankly, no one knows what they are going to be injected with next. Smart bombs become too easily the agents of international chaos and mistrust: just so the smart bombs of the war on disease, both for what they can do to your body and what they can do the political landscape, including destabilizing friendly governments. Smart power is also duplicitous: Italy is just the surrogate of the US. Why could the citizens of the world not have it directly from the mouth of Obama saying in effect your bodies are not your own and we inject into them what we like? To make measles a key issue in global security is an unforgivable distortion of policy. It really is not clear why we are at more risk from disease now (apart from by the sinister development of viral technology) than at any time since the end of the Second World War, we are simply being gripped by a new manipulative rhetoric. Nor could we be further from the consensus that gave rise to the Nuremberg Code 70 years ago. Everything we have learnt has been stood on its head. * * * Below is a letter I recently wrote to British Medical Journal (unfortunately not so far published): "Smart power": reasons for disaffection in Italy, and the destruction of the post-war liberal order and consensus Owen Dyer presents a rather incomplete background to recent political events in Italy [1]. The is is not to say that I have any insight into what Giulia Grillo - the Italian Health Minister - intends, but there are some gaps in the narrative regarding the defeat earlier this year of the governing centre-left coalition, in which Grillo's predecessor - Beatrice Lorenzin - was a key player over several years. This is to say that there are reasons for discontent which apart from anything else fall well short of outright rejection of vaccination. In the first place we seldom if ever hear mention in mainstream reports of the appointment of Lorenzin, and Italy, to head global vaccine strategy by the Obama administration in September 2014. An Italian government press release states [2]: "Washington, 29 September 2014 - Italy will lead vaccination strategies and campaigns in the world over the next five years. This was decided by the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) held last Friday at the White House. Our country, represented by the Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin, accompanied by the President of the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) prof. Sergio Pecorelli, has been commissioned by the Summit of 40 Countries, at which also spoke US President Barack Obama...." Equally, demonstrators against mandated vaccinations in Summer 2017 will likely have been aware of the statement by GSK's Italian administrator - Daniele Finocchiaro in 2015 [3]: "Recently I accompanied our global CEO, Andrew Witty, to Matteo Renzi. The premier told us clearly that he considers - and rightly so - the pharmaceutical sector as strategic for Italy. Further, he said that the pharmaceutical is precisely the future of our country ... I then met also Minister Lorenzin and other members of the government who reiterated the sensitivity of the government to those who invest, create jobs and opportunities for young people. So we started on the right foot. To find such sensitivity in Roman palaces is not to be discounted. As for us, Andrew Witty asked few things: certain rules and stability in the face of very strong investments in advanced research and production equipment. We understood each other." Citizens may also have been sceptical of Lorenzin's claim that 270 children had died in a recent outbreak of measles in London [3,4], and they may have wondered why ten vaccines had to be mandated to protect against one disease. It is interesting in this light to view the complaint of J Stephen Morrison (senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its Global Health Policy Center) in BMJ Opinion that post-war consensus has broken down [5]: "Global health is a product of the Western postwar liberal international orderan order that is today besieged, says Stephen Morrison" "In the past two decades, we have witnessed an expansion of investments into global health that have been rooted in humanitarianism, the rule of law, and democracy. Underlying this action have been the principles of multilateralism, alliances, and partnerships. It has been consistently argued that investments outside home borders will not only save and improve lives but also promote economic growth and the stability of communities. "In surprising and unforeseen ways, global health also benefited enormously from the post 9/11 counter terror doctrine that came to dominate the security strategies of the major Western powers. That doctrine aggressively advanced the argument that uncontrolled infectious diseases pose major transnational threats. It put a spotlight on smaller countries beset by weaker governance and fragile infrastructure, where grave health challenges can fuel armed, internal violence. Counter terror gave rise to the belief that focused investmentssmart powerwould achieve concrete results in improving lives while also winning hearts and minds in a global struggle." But there is a paradox here that "smart power" is necessarily what everyone wants, or that the consensus is any longer "liberal". The Italian people were in effect being told that they must cede rights over their bodies and those of their children to the state because of the demands of global security strategy (starting apparently in the White House). Even if they accepted ten vaccines where would this end in principle? Could it be that the global strategists are themselves smashing the consensus, by arrogating extraordinary rights over ordinary people? Morrison assumes this is a benefit of 9/11, but if so it was not one that the citizens of the world were consulted about, it was something which happened within US and global hierarchies and we were all just supposed to do as we were told. [1] Owen Dyer, 'Italys health minister fires countrys top health board', BMJ 2018; 363 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5158 (Published 05 December 2018) [2] John Stone, 'Re: MEPs devise strategy to tackle vaccine hesitancy among public -Echoes of WMD', 26 March 2018, https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr [3] John Stone, 'Re: Too many vaccine mandates subvert measles vaccine update', 24 August 2018, https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3596/rr-6 [4] John Stone, 'Re: Compulsory vaccination and growing measles threat - Prof Melegaro's response', 21 October 2017, https://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3429/rr-7 [5] J Stephen Morrison, 'Global health disruptors: Decay of the postwar multilateral Western order', BMJ Opinion 29 November 2018, https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/11/29/stephen-morrison-decay-of-the-postwar-multilateral-western-order/ John Stone is UK and European editor of Age of Autism The term "smart power" was new to me when I encountered it recently in a British Medical Journal blog as part of the new-speak vocabulary of J Stephen Morrison 'senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its Global Health Policy Center". Morrison's article is interesting both because it discloses explicitly how 9/11 was made an opportunity to draw health into the global security agenda of the United States while failing to understand how such a move might result in the shattering of "consensus" and the post war "Western post-war liberal order": "smart power" even if it is smart is not "liberal" and will not lead to consensus. But it also spells out that the global vaccine program has become a covert instrument of US power. If Morrison by any chance laments the passing of the centre-left government in Italy, then perhaps the White House putting Italy and its health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, in charge of global vaccine strategy was an error Morrison thinks it is a paradox but it is scarcely so if a government is seen to pursue coercive health measures over its citizens at the behest of a foreign power - even those who favor vaccination could be concerned at the state's new found powers over their bodies (which might also be indefinitely extended). If that was not so smart a political move perhaps the technology is not so smart either - as I remarked to Steven Salzberg a few years ago: "The unwelcome news is that the cruise missiles and drone helicopters of the war on disease often hit the wrong target, and the more cruise missiles and drone helicopters you unleash the greater the risk". Frankly, no one knows what they are going to be injected with next. Smart bombs become too easily the agents of international chaos and mistrust: just so the smart bombs of the war on disease, both for what they can do to your body and what they can do the political landscape, including destabilizing friendly governments. Smart power is also duplicitous: Italy is just the surrogate of the US. Why could the citizens of the world not have it directly from the mouth of Obama saying in effect your bodies are not your own and we inject into them what we like? To make measles a key issue in global security is an unforgivable distortion of policy. It really is not clear why we are at more risk from disease now (apart from by the sinister development of viral technology) than at any time since the end of the Second World War, we are simply being gripped by a new manipulative rhetoric. Nor could we be further from the consensus that gave rise to the Nuremberg Code 70 years ago. Everything we have learnt has been stood on its head. * * * Below is a letter I recently wrote to British Medical Journal (unfortunately not so far published): "Smart power": reasons for disaffection in Italy, and the destruction of the post-war liberal order and consensus Owen Dyer presents a rather incomplete background to recent political events in Italy [1]. The is is not to say that I have any insight into what Giulia Grillo - the Italian Health Minister - intends, but there are some gaps in the narrative regarding the defeat earlier this year of the governing centre-left coalition, in which Grillo's predecessor - Beatrice Lorenzin - was a key player over several years. This is to say that there are reasons for discontent which apart from anything else fall well short of outright rejection of vaccination. In the first place we seldom if ever hear mention in mainstream reports of the appointment of Lorenzin, and Italy, to head global vaccine strategy by the Obama administration in September 2014. An Italian government press release states [2]: "Washington, 29 September 2014 - Italy will lead vaccination strategies and campaigns in the world over the next five years. This was decided by the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) held last Friday at the White House. Our country, represented by the Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin, accompanied by the President of the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) prof. Sergio Pecorelli, has been commissioned by the Summit of 40 Countries, at which also spoke US President Barack Obama...." Equally, demonstrators against mandated vaccinations in Summer 2017 will likely have been aware of the statement by GSK's Italian administrator - Daniele Finocchiaro in 2015 [3]: "Recently I accompanied our global CEO, Andrew Witty, to Matteo Renzi. The premier told us clearly that he considers - and rightly so - the pharmaceutical sector as strategic for Italy. Further, he said that the pharmaceutical is precisely the future of our country ... I then met also Minister Lorenzin and other members of the government who reiterated the sensitivity of the government to those who invest, create jobs and opportunities for young people. So we started on the right foot. To find such sensitivity in Roman palaces is not to be discounted. As for us, Andrew Witty asked few things: certain rules and stability in the face of very strong investments in advanced research and production equipment. We understood each other." Citizens may also have been sceptical of Lorenzin's claim that 270 children had died in a recent outbreak of measles in London [3,4], and they may have wondered why ten vaccines had to be mandated to protect against one disease. It is interesting in this light to view the complaint of J Stephen Morrison (senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its Global Health Policy Center) in BMJ Opinion that post-war consensus has broken down [5]: "Global health is a product of the Western postwar liberal international orderan order that is today besieged, says Stephen Morrison" "In the past two decades, we have witnessed an expansion of investments into global health that have been rooted in humanitarianism, the rule of law, and democracy. Underlying this action have been the principles of multilateralism, alliances, and partnerships. It has been consistently argued that investments outside home borders will not only save and improve lives but also promote economic growth and the stability of communities. "In surprising and unforeseen ways, global health also benefited enormously from the post 9/11 counter terror doctrine that came to dominate the security strategies of the major Western powers. That doctrine aggressively advanced the argument that uncontrolled infectious diseases pose major transnational threats. It put a spotlight on smaller countries beset by weaker governance and fragile infrastructure, where grave health challenges can fuel armed, internal violence. Counter terror gave rise to the belief that focused investmentssmart powerwould achieve concrete results in improving lives while also winning hearts and minds in a global struggle." But there is a paradox here that "smart power" is necessarily what everyone wants, or that the consensus is any longer "liberal". The Italian people were in effect being told that they must cede rights over their bodies and those of their children to the state because of the demands of global security strategy (starting apparently in the White House). Even if they accepted ten vaccines where would this end in principle? Could it be that the global strategists are themselves smashing the consensus, by arrogating extraordinary rights over ordinary people? Morrison assumes this is a benefit of 9/11, but if so it was not one that the citizens of the world were consulted about, it was something which happened within US and global hierarchies and we were all just supposed to do as we were told. [1] Owen Dyer, 'Italys health minister fires countrys top health board', BMJ 2018; 363 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5158 (Published 05 December 2018) [2] John Stone, 'Re: MEPs devise strategy to tackle vaccine hesitancy among public -Echoes of WMD', 26 March 2018, https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr [3] John Stone, 'Re: Too many vaccine mandates subvert measles vaccine update', 24 August 2018, https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3596/rr-6 [4] John Stone, 'Re: Compulsory vaccination and growing measles threat - Prof Melegaro's response', 21 October 2017, https://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3429/rr-7 [5] J Stephen Morrison, 'Global health disruptors: Decay of the postwar multilateral Western order', BMJ Opinion 29 November 2018, https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/11/29/stephen-morrison-decay-of-the-postwar-multilateral-western-order/ John Stone is UK and European editor of Age of Autism Click through the covers to read more & choose your format . Your purchase helps support our mission. Thank you. On reading about the Saturday arrest of pro-life activist Mark Houck, I thought the author at this alternative site had to be exaggerating. It struck me as beyond belief that two dozen or so armed FBI agents would swarm the house of a Catholic father of seven, rifles drawn, and arrest him in front of his weeping children for anything short of murder. I have had to recalibrate my belief system. The crime fell quite a bit short of murder. On October 13, 2021, Houck brought his 12-year-old son with him for his weekly sidewalk counseling outside of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Philadelphia. A volunteer escort at the abortion clinic reportedly called Houcks son a fag among other insults and threatened him. Houck pushed the man away from his son, and the man fell. Houck, the founder of an organization that promotes Christian virtue among men, was not charged with a crime. However petty the incident, U.S. Attorneys Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, had Houck seized at gunpoint nearly a year later and bragged about the arrest. Said PR hack Jennifer Crandall in a press release, Houck assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort. Before proceeding, this sentence needs parsing. The most problematic word is because. Houck has had hundreds of opportunities to assault escorts if their offense in his eyes was to be an escort. Although the press release claims two incidents on that same day with the man, Houck had no prior or subsequent altercations. Then there is the Orwellian phrase reproductive health care clinic escort. Ms. Crandall is somehow fusing the reproductive rights euphemism favored by abortion activists with the function of the escort, whose mission, of course, is to assure that no reproduction takes place on his watch. Assault is always a serious offense, and under the FACE Act, if the victim is targeted because of their association with a reproductive healthcare clinic, it is a federal crime, huffed U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero. Her piety was echoed by still another Jacqueline, Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Philadelphia Division. Put simply, violence is never the answer, said agent Maguire. Violating the FACE Act by committing a physical assault is a serious crime for which the FBI will work to hold offenders accountable. The DoJ has not only bastardized the language, but it has also weaponized the law to advance the interests of the Democratic Party. That this arrest took place in the politically contested state of Pennsylvania is not likely a coincidence. GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano saw the raid for what it was. This show of force was carried out by the Biden regime against ordinary Americans is an abuse of power that stands against the fundamental principles on which our country was founded, said Mastriano. As Governor, I will not allow the police state of Biden to enforce his persecution against his political enemies on sacred Pennsylvania soil. For the record, FACE is short for Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances. As has become much too obvious, only one side of the abortion debate has been awarded federal protection. Since the leak of the Dobbs decision on May 3, attacks against pro-life entities and the Catholic church, already a problem, have only escalated. The Catholic News Agency reports 97 such attacks in the months following the leak, 53 of them against pregnancy centers. These include vulgar pro-abortion graffiti, the beheading of statues, the desecration of altars, threats, theft, and even arson. Several have involved the disruption of church services and nasty confrontations with the police. At least two of these incidents took place in the jurisdiction of the two Jacquelines. In May 2022, for instance, the glass front doors of Notre Dame de Lourdes church in Swarthmore were spray-painted with the unsubtle message: You do not have the right to decide what people can do, #ProChoice. In June, vandals defaced St. Patricks Catholic Church in Philadelphia with pro-abortion graffiti. As far as anyone knows, the DoJ has ignored all these incidents despite the implicit civil rights violations involved. For its apparatchiks, extremists like Houck are the enemy. If convicted, they tell us, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000. The Twitter responses to Houcks arrest suggest a widespread indifference on the Left to the rule of law and common decency. Here is a representative tweet from a woman named Mary, one of the few without any obscenities: Youre REALLY leaning into the Catholic part of this story, when the truth is that a professional manly man who spends his days harassing vulnerable women physically assaulted a real man TWICE. Mark Houck makes his living as the leader of a toxic masculinity cult; arrest him. Has the FBI gone too far? For the Left, if the enemy is the right, it cannot go far enough. To learn more, see www.cashill.com Its clear the FBI has no interest in students threatening to shoot up schools (Nikolas Cruz), team doctors who assault underage gymnasts (Larry Nassar), or crackheads illegally possessing guns (Hunter Biden). No, if youre a criminal, a pervert, or a Democrat -- or some combination of the three -- the Feebs wont be busting your door down at three in the morning and dragging you out into the street in your tighty whities. The folks the Bureaus been busting lately with great fanfare, and occasionally a CNN news crew in tow, are a different sort altogether: folks who vote Republican; Trump supporters; parents concerned about the crap taught in public schools; and Catholic abortion activists. Thats who the rogue FBI wants to embarrass, take down, and ruin. So Ive compiled a list of things you can do to limit the damage when the FBI eventually comes for you. Protecting Your Front and Back Yards When the Feebs go after enemies of the Deep State, they like to surround the house. It looks impressive on TV. So, youll need two dogs on long chains, one in the front yard and one in the back. German shepherds are a good choice for deterrence, Shih Tsus are best if merely making a loud ruckus is what youre after. It goes without saying that bent cops are inherently cowards who want no part of big nasty dogs or even an ankle-biter. The FBI raiders parked in front of your home will either have to wait for animal control to show up -- giving you time to shower and put on a nice outfit for the perp-walk -- or the gutless Feebs will shoot your dogs, at the very least alerting you as to whats happening. Door Signs Theres two ways you can go with door signs. If youre resigned to getting busted, put up a sign saying: The doors open, please dont bust it down! Perhaps youll be lucky and the lead Feeb will simply use the doorknob. Obfuscation is another way to go. You could try: We love Joe Biden, hes NOT a useless vegetable! The Feebs, at least the ones running the show, take their marching orders from ol Crusty Joe, and perhaps theyll forgo having you kneel down on your front lawn while they cuff you. Be a Good Host Like any other flatfoot, a Feeb loves a good cup of joe and a French cruller. Before going to bed at night, make sure youre adequately supplied with Dunkin Donuts products -- there wont be time to go when you start hearing the sirens and the whirring blades of the FBI helicopters. As the Bureau storm troopers break down your front door, totally ignoring your Doors Open sign, offer each one of them a hot coffee and a tasty treat. Faced with such kindness, perhaps theyll eschew the new FBI custom of rifling through the lady of the houses underwear drawer. Flattery Always Helps Although the FBI agents busting you are amoral, partisan creeps on a par with the Gestapo, theyre still human. Tell them how good they look in their FBI-emblazoned windbreakers. Ask them, without smirking, about all those terrorist plots theyve foiled that nobody knows about. Have a framed photo of a smiling James Comey in the downstairs bathroom. Tell them you think Lisa Page is pretty freakin hot, anything to keep them from slapping you and your loved ones around. Sedatives for the Kids Sadly, your kids will be traumatized for life after watching their unshaven, beer-bellied dad hanging out of his boxers on Channel 5 News. So always have a bottle of Zanax or Valium handy for when the Feds unexpectedly visit. And make sure your kids know the right dose to take, in case you and your spouse have already been hog-tied on the living room floor. A list of psychologists should also be posted in plain sight, ideally professionals within walking distance, since youre likely to be spending significant time in the slammer. The sooner your children start therapy after the trauma of watching FBI goons attack their home and family, the better. Change Your Race In the eyes of the FBI, BLM miscreants burning down cities, spitting on cops, and attacking innocents are just fine. Its those pesky white supremacists the Feebs are after. If youre unfortunate enough to be of Caucasian lineage, you fit that threat assessment perfectly. So, when the federal SWAT team comes crashing into your front hall, give them the black power salute, chant Black Lives Matter, and tell them youre somewhere between 1/64th and 1/1024th African-American and that youve got Benjamin Crump on speed dial. Have a framed photo of Lloyd Austin hanging in the living room to add authority to your claim. Cant hurt, might work. Vote this November Despite all the preparations Ive suggested, when the rogue FBI comes a knocking at your door, youre screwed. With the help of Deep State judges and the fake-news media, the FBI will happily ruin you, your family, your finances, and your reputation (see Flynn, General Michael). And all for having the wrong political views. The only truly effective way to avoid getting an FBI jackboot placed firmly upon your neck is to vote every Deep State Democrat and RINO out of office this November. Thats the start of reining in the now thoroughly disgraced agency. And the end of the FBI, as it currently exists, will come when you vote Donald Trump into office in November, 2024. The Donald is famous for settling scores, and I for one cant wait to see this one settled. Id love to write more on this topic but theres suddenly a lot of flashing lights and loud sirens out front... Image: National Archives Show me the man, Ill show you the crime. Lavrentiy Beria, Stalins Secret Police Chief One favorite technique of mass-murdering communist dictators is using their countrys justice system to destroy their political opponents. This technique is needed when one knows that even when the vote is rigged one might not be able to beat that opponent at the ballot box. One cannot let the peasants get the dangerous idea that the opponent is popular with the people. Berias rationale could arguably be that that since everyone, no matter how upstanding, has done something illegal at some point in their life, one can eliminate anybody one wants while claiming the mantle of the selfless justice warrior by investigating relentlessly until one discovers that one crime. That is just one interpretation, another is that words and acts can be twisted to fit the desired mold. Either way, the rationale requires that one abandon the most basic principles of a fair justice system, the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. For, if ones opponent is Mr. T, this technique requires that one presumes that T is guilty, because one assumes that everyone is guilty, and harasses him with endless investigations until one turns up the crime that must be there somewhere. Perhaps one accuses T of colluding with some enemy state R to steal an election and launches a public defamatory investigation of him. Even if one does not find the collusion and it turns out that it was his opponent, Mrs. C, who had colluded with R to cheat in the election, one has, at least, dirtied him up and generated a lot of hate against him in the public. If that fails, perhaps one accuses him of trying to get some quid pro quo from country U in order to win an election, specifically to investigate some known drug user H who is clearly involved in foreign deals dangerous to the country. When that doesnt work perhaps one accuses T of knowing that enemy country R put bounties on the head of his military but did nothing about it. If he was a businessman perhaps one accuses him of business or tax crimes. When even this, which one had assumed was a sure thing because all top businessmen push the envelope, fails to find any crimes, one might even resort to word-games to fabricate crimes. This calumny is all much easier if one is blessed with an mentally-and-morally-vacant news media that is willing bulge their eyes and hyperventilate on cue as they read the script of each new hoax as it is rolled out. In 2018, while running for New York Attorney General, Letitia James stated, while giggling (very professional): "[W]ere definitely going to sue [Trump]. Were going to be a real pain in the ass. Hes going to know my name personally." Unfortunately, being a pain in the ass or getting Trump to know [her] name personally is not the job of the AG. In September 2018, also before the election, Letitia, who has apparently forgotten that it is not the job of the AG to prosecute ones political opponents, stated, I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president [Trump who is] ripping families apart, threatening womens most basic rights when our fundamental rights are at stake. From the Muslim ban, to efforts to deport immigrants, to denying transgender students the ability to choose whatever bathroom they want, rolling back regulations to protect our planet, colluding with foreign powers, putting profits over people, dividing us in ways we havent seen in generations." However, James does not cite any violations of legal statutes here but only recites a list of Democrat party political bumper stickers, which also is not the job of an AG. Further, many of Jamess bumper stickers are false or misleading. First, the Supreme Court found Trumps alleged Muslim ban neutral towards religion. Second, it is the president's job to see that illegal immigrants are deported, not Letitias job to criminalize his doing his job. Further, James did not, apparently, get the Democrat party memo that being an election denier (calling the elected president illegitimate) is forbidden insurrectionist behavior now, although, of course, given that D behind her name, a lawless exception will be made for her. In July 2018, she repeated her insurrectionist election denial: "As the next [AG], I see the law as a sword and a shield to protect the vulnerable, because no one is above the law, including this illegitimate president. I look forward to suing him." In fact, Trump is the one who needs protecting from James sword (unfortunate violent language from the pretend non-violence party) because, not yet being AG, Letitia doesnt have any evidence against Trump but must rely on what she sees on the Don Lemon Comedy Hour. James seems unaware that people like Stalin, not civilized people, target the man before they have the evidence. In each of these statements, James violates the rules of professional conduct for New York District Attorneys. First, she forgot that she is supposed to try the case in court, not in the media. Second, Rule 3.6[a] states: Any statement announcing that a particular person has been charged with a crime must be accompanied by a statement that the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Quite surprisingly, on all the aforementioned occasions, James forgot to state that Trump is presumed innocent but has instead presumed that he is guilty, e.g., of colluding with a foreign government, a hoax fabricated by her friend Hillary Clinton. James is running again for AG and, behind in the polls because of her dreadful performance, and having failed to prosecute Trump for any crimes as she had promised, she just announced, alluding to the title of Trumps book, The Art of the Deal, that she will sue Trump for deceiving banks and the people of New York. Claiming you have money you dont have does not amount to the art of the deal. Its the art of the steal. Nice jingle Letitia! James is, however, wrong again. She did not cite any criminal statute when she implied, employing poetic language, that stating one has money one doesnt have is stealing because there is none. Misrepresenting ones wealth is not a crime, ergo the civil rather than criminal action. The irony in James latest farce is that she is doing precisely what she accuses Trump of. In 2018 she promised to prosecute Trump for crimes but did not deliver. Now she implies, using metaphorical language, that he committed a crime but only brings a civil action. James has consistently implied she has a wealth of evidence for criminal prosecutions she never had and wasted taxpayer money on her self-serving political vendetta. The real moral of the endless series of failed attempts to find crimes in Trumps history is that try as they might, it all dissipates when one looks closely. Trumps enemies have, inadvertently, shown that Beria was wrong. Trump is pretty clean. The only investigation they havent done on Trump is a proctology exam and that may be coming next. One gets the impression Letitia wants to administer it herself but there is a plethora of perspiring hyperventilating Democrats who will be fighting to get the first crack. Image: Matthew Cohen, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY 2.0 When America was formed, the foundation was God; the Founding documents were drawn from a Judeo-Christian ethic. Today, God has been shown the door, along with right and wrong. Today, everything is right and nothing is wrong. The distinction between good and evil is passe. When Time magazine's 1966 cover asked, "Is God Dead?," many cheerfully shouted "YES!," but they had no idea what they were cheering. God is not dead. He is very much alive and doing what He does He acts. He has kept America alive as a free nation for now. God is not only not dead; He is not inactive, either. But He is cheesed off. We kicked him out of schools, out of the public square, out of businesses, and even out of churches in some cases. There will be judgment. Did you know there is an atheist chaplain at Harvard? He said this: There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life," Epstein told The New York Times. "We don't look to a god for answers. We are each other's answers." Meaning we are all gods with the answers. If you are an atheist psychologist or ethicist, perhaps that is true. You don't look to God. But anyone, especially one who calls himself a "chaplain," who says the answers come solely from "each other," is sadly mistaken. Human beings, with few Solomonic exceptions, are not known for being cosmically wise or having the best answers. In the past ten years, those calling themselves Christians have declined, but it can be safely assumed that God is threshing His floors, separating the wheat from the chaff, the good from the bad, the redeemed from the unredeemed. Both the Old and New Testaments refer to the threshing floor as a symbol of judgment. When people turn away from God, as America is doing, they will be like chaff on a threshing floor. America is experiencing a threshing-floor sorting. GotQuestions.Org, far and away one of the best Christian information websites, talks about God separating believers from nonbelievers. John the Baptist uses the imagery of the threshing floor to describe the coming Messiah who would separate the true believers from the false. ... The wicked are often described as chaff that the wind drives away (Psalm 1:4; Isaiah 17:13). Similar imagery of the good grain being separated from the worthless weeds appears in the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:3643). Using a different analogy, God is separating the sheep (believers) from the goats (unbelievers). All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.' (Matthew 25) Notice "since the creation of the world." All of these God/atheist movements on the planet were put in place long before America was founded. America's wheels are being turned by the Driver. The Bible warns people that the gates of hell are wide and so most will enter there, but that the gate to heaven is very narrow and few will enter. This, too, refers to a plan having been put in place long before America: Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 25) One reason so many people lose their faith is because it is far easier to lose it than to keep it, which is why the gate is narrow. It was always the plan for most to miss the mark and for few to find it. When God founded America, He provided a wide gate and a narrow gate. But with free will, He also provided that Americans have a choice. Increasingly and unfortunately, Americans are choosing the wide gate. But this is exactly as it was foreordained: not everyone will get to heaven. In fact, not many will get there at all. So when we mourn the fact that in America, people of God are dwindling in number, we need to remind ourselves that it is precisely God's plan that this be so. Image: Wayne Hsieh. Everyone has heard now about Kayla Lemieux, the shop teacher at a high school outside of Toronto, Canada. Hes the man who showed up this year in mini-skirts and wearing fake boobs that look like two overblown balloons. His appearance is so extreme that even those people who support transgender madness are uncomfortable. Now, though, theres a rumor that this is an elaborate troll from a man intent upon highlighting the corruption and lunacy of his schools transgender madness. Lemieux made national headlines when videos began to circulate showing his bizarre appearance: That was disturbing. What was even more disturbing was the schools support for Lemieuxs hypersexualized appearance. The school first explained to parents that it has a commitment to maintaining a safe, caring, inclusive, equitable and welcoming environment for students and staff. However, the school insisted that it also had an obligation to provide equitable treatment without discrimination based upon gender identity and gender expression. Moreover, it added, the Ontario Human Rights code also protects gender identity and gender expression. Parents were not amused and protested vigorously. Now, theres totally unreliable but very intriguing evidence that, when Lemieuxs gender expression was that of an ordinary man, and he emphasized traditional values, the school subjected him to endless harassment. Further, the evidence claims, Lemieuxs bizarre, hypersexualized appearance is intended to make the point that tolerance only flows in one directiontoward the weird and perverse. This different outlook does not come from a reliable source. Instead, its from an anonymous person on an online forum. That unknown person writes: This dude is gaming the system. An anon here yesterday was in this dudes class. This teacher was almost fired for toxic masculinity last year, as well as not embracing woke culture. Hed drop redpills to his class, such as how silly gender neutral bathrooms are. The school board hates him. Hes now upping the ante to exploit the very clown world the school and society itself created. His long game is most likely to get fired, and then sue for discrimination. There is no other explanation.. No better way to troll clown world than to become an over-the-top caricature of a woman. Again: Nothing currently exists verifying the above post. However, if its true, we are witnessing an extraordinary act of trolling. On the one hand, I strongly disapprove of the way the teacher is imposing this hypersexualized silhouette on his students. On the other hand, Lemieuxs fake boobs are no worse than the transgender porn the leftists are placing in school libraries, and the relentless way schools across the North American continent are proselytizing increasingly bizarre LGBTQ+++ positions beginning as early as kindergarten. (Just check out Libs of TikTok to see what I mean.) In other words, its a dead certainty that every one of the kids in that high school has already been exposed to much worse. And if Lemieux has successfully revealed that his school consistently engages in gender discrimination against normal people, hes performed a significant service. Of course, if Lemieux really is someone committed to this type of sexual performance, the fact that hes using high school kids to sexually excite himself is disgusting, while the schools response continues to be offensive and abnormal. We live in very strange times. Image: Kayla Lemiuex. Twitter screen grab. This essay has been updated since publication to correct a geographic error. Sunday, Italy voted. Monday, George Soros's "global order" is history. He, along with his puppets in the European Parliament in the business of ruling nations not theirs, lost the election. Giorgia Meloni. (Photo credit: Vox Espana, public domain). The European Union originally socialist Adolf Hitler's idea will experience a reversal of the fascistic tyranny it brought on Europe. Free nations will recover their freedoms and sovereignty by saving their democracies. Hitler's vision for a united Europe (aka, European Integration) under Nazism has come full circle. Today's European Union has been executing Hitler's plans for an economic, military, and cultural European federal super-state that governs Europe with an iron fist, and not a gloved hand. An EU determined to govern behavior, financial assets, media, the movement of peoples, and even what people think[.] Not the free parliamentary-governed Visegrad Four nations (with Italy potentially its latest member), but the tyrannical, autocratic, despotic E.U.'s unelected bureaucrats, who rigged and interfered with the elections of nations. Not the V4, but the E.U.-Soros Cabal that imposed woke and Green New Deal agendas that will leave Europeans to freeze and possibly starve this winter. The E.U. organization, E.P. (European Parliament), E.C. (European Commission), and its courts have been taken over by the most radical Greens and socialists, paralleling the U.S.'s social democrats' election-rigging, epic incompetence, and failures. EU Commission Prez Ursula von der Leyen Threatens to Use 'Tools' Against Italy If Populist Right Wins Election Von der Leyen spoke on Thursday on a trip to the United States just days ahead of Italy's national election, saying: "My approach is that whatever democratic government is willing to work with us, we're working together," but added: "If things go in a difficult direction, I've spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools. FEDERALIST: "[A] perfect illustration of what the EU has become: an oppressive system run by unaccountable bureaucrats who overturn democratically elected governments[.]" REUTERS: "Matteo Salvini, the head of the League and a part of (president) Meloni's conservative alliance, denounced (von der Leyen's) comments as 'shameful arrogance'. 'What is this, a threat?' he wrote on Twitter. 'Respect the free, democratic and sovereign vote of the Italian people!'" Von der Leyen apparently was referring to last Sunday's recommendation by the European Commission to suspend some 7.5 billion euros in funding for Hungary over corruption, the first such case in the 27-nation bloc under a new sanction meant to better protect the rule of law. What corruption? The only corruption visible, even to the blind, is the E.U.'s and George Soros's! "Rule of law" happens to be a fluid reinterpretation of inventions to which Hungary never agreed, as interpreted by the E.U. Soros-corrupted courts. It is best understood through Lewis Carroll's synopsis of nuclear physics: 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. There's not a single shred of evidence to support the E.U.'s charges. There's evidence of a panicked and impotent E.U. losing its power after its epic Brexit failure, to profit from its self-inflicted energy shortages, and to coerce people who want no part of the E.U.'s failed social liberal democracy, gender fluidity, pronouns that contradict biology, high crime, social unrest, and jihadis taking over their nations. There's evidence of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban's effective leadership of his innovative high-GDP-growth nation. There's evidence that the only agenda a Hungarian leader must promote is Hungary First, and for an American leader, America First. There's evidence of the V4 nations' successes that will, in less than seven years, become a net contributor and producer to, and consumer in, the Schengen Region. The Poles pushed back, too...with the deputy justice minister accusing Germany of running the EU. "The President of the European Commission suggests that if the Italians elect a government that Brussels does not like, they may have funds blocked," Polish Deputy Justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta said on Twitter. Further proof that the "rule of law" is pure blackmail to impose EU, or rather German, dictates. Such is "democracy"," he added[.] The Romanian deputy Dacian Ciolos, "one of the promoters of the attacks against Hungary for its recently approved anti-pedophilia law, announced that the European Commission 'suspends the approval of Orban's recovery plan,' using corruption as an excuse. The reality is that Ciolos was one of the politicians who supported the declaration of 16 countries against Hungary's anti-pedophilia law at the end of June, accusing Viktor Orban of not respecting individual rights and freedoms." The E.U.'s policy to which none of the Visegrad 4 signed on is categorically rejected by the Hungarian voters. It forced deviancy by lecturing children about bondage, masturbation, and group and anal "sex." It imports migrants who have nothing in common with European culture and, yes, offer no value to Europe. Hungary defends rights recognized by international treaties it has signed! Not fabricated "Rule of Law," to which it has not agreed laws made up on the fly by unelected bureaucrats who need to control nations that are not theirs. The re-education of entire societies into deviancy is not what Hungary is about. It is a peaceful, literally almost crime-free, conservative Christian nation, not an Islamist theocracy overrun by deviancy activists, Islamic violence and intolerance, and Soros's NGOs. "As far as I am concerned ... there is nothing left for them in the EU," Dutch PM Rutte said. "The goal is to force Hungary to its knees regarding this issue. They have to understand that they are either part of the European Union and the community of shared values we are," Rutte added, Euronews reports. There are no "shared European values" promoting homosexuality and transgenderism to non-consensual, presexually activity children. There are shared European values complicit in mass murder, and Europeans engaging each other in unending wars while dragging the U.S. and U.K. into them. Counting Stars continues: The Romanian MEP's accusation is full of cynicism, because it is precisely the Hungarian government that is protecting freedoms, specifically the preferential right of parents to choose the type of education that will be given to their children, a right embodied in the Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the right of parents to educate their children according to their religious convictions, protected by Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. With Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi (whose party was overthrown in 2011 by the Soros-E.U.-Obama-Clinton-Kerry cabal determined to fundamentally change Europe) winning back control of the Italian nation, the Meloni coalition will end the E.U.'s influence. Then the now more powerful V4 with Italy can return tradition and beauty to a woke, fiscally irresponsible and going broke, socialist, deviant, weak and energy-deficient, under-attack Europe. It can rid the fascistic super-state of the corrosive woke and P.C. ideology, fake news media narratives, and crime and deviancy, that have overtaken the continent's political and physical landscape. At least for the time being. When Italy wins, Hungary and Poland win. When Hungary and Poland win, all of Europe wins. When Jeffrey Epstein was finally arrested after a long history of sex-trafficking of underage girls, he was met by a small contingent of FBI agents (and cops) at Teterboro airport in 2019 and taken away. When Mark Houck, a Catholic lay minister, got into a confrontation with a self-described "escort" at an abortion facility and pushed the man away after he spewed foul language at his 12-year-old son and violated the kid's personal space, well, he got the SWAT team. According to Catholic News Agency: "A SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door," Houck's wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, told CNA on Friday, just hours after her husband's arrest. "They said they were going to break in if he didn't open it. And then they had about five guns pointed at my husband, myself, and basically at my kids," she added. "They were pointing their weapons," Middleton said. "They came in as if they were expecting some kind of confrontation." Houck was one of those guys who prays the rosary at abortion facility, and apparently, he didn't seek the confrontation with the rabid man. Pennsylvania declined to prosecute the case under the 1994 FACE Act, which in any case probably could have seen charges just as easily leveled at the "escort" for harassing a peaceful protester, but over in Washington, the feds under Joe Biden had their instructions. They revived the dead case and sent in the SWAT team and its 15 squad cars. Given the elaborate show, that had to have come from the top. What counts for this unjust and disproportionate use of force on Houck? Obviously, this was part and parcel of Joe Biden's crazed war on conservatives, laid out in his grotesque "Mussolini meltdown" speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia just weeks ago. The Houck arrest has rightly drawn outrage from conservatives, Catholics, and civil liberties advocates, given its overkill, its junk foundation, its history of being thrown out of court, and its draconian consequences for Houck. It's part of a broad war on conservatives from the left, which includes everything from censorship to declaring parents "terrorists" at school board meetings to the draconian and ruinous punishments meted out to Jan. 6 protesters to the outrageous raid on President Trump's home. But it also seems to be a particular war on Catholics, the kind who embrace actual Church teachings. This is kind of an odd thing in a president who repeatedly touts himself as "a devout Catholic," telling 60 Minutes all about those rosary beads in his pocket and, more to the point, who uses his "faith" to draw votes. Catholics seem to be getting caught in these new Biden dragnets intended to, as the Chinese say, "kill the chicken to scare the monkey" quite a bit these days, and that's pretty ironic. It goes part and parcel with Biden's refusal to say one word about pro-abortion attacks on Catholic (and other Christian) churches, disruptions of Catholic masses by crazed left-wing activists, attacks on women's crisis pregnancy centers, which are often manned by Catholics, and Biden's lawsuits against Catholic nuns (whom he professes to "admire") such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, who reject abortion and will not bankroll it in health care. Biden's war on Catholics also affects Catholics in his broader refusal to permit conscience clauses for medical professionals who cannot morally perform abortions as Catholics, and in Biden's insistence on expanding funding for abortion, and abortion "access" as well as refusing to fund the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited the promotion and financing of abortion abroad. According to the House GOP, Biden also promoted abortion with A 40% increase in funding for Title X, which gives $400 million taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood and other entities that perform abortions. A 72% increase in funding for the United Nations Population Fund, which partners with China and North Korea, amongst other countries that continually violate human rights. ...which is abhorrent to those Catholics who follow Church teachings. But oh, rest assured, Joe Biden can do that, and be "Mr. Devout Catholic," with no sanction from his bishop. He can even use his visit with the pope for political purposes, as a means to "proving" to voters he remains Mr. Devout Catholic who's pals with the pope, and then go right on persecuting Catholics who hold Catholic religious beliefs on the side. Biden's promotion of abortion coupled with persecutions of Catholics who oppose it makes him indistinguishable from the most intolerant secular humanist, someone like Bolshevik leader, persecutor, and abortion-promoter Alexandra Kollontai. Now that he's gotten away with promoting abortion with no criticism from the Catholic leadership, he's moved on to persecutions of Christians, particularly Catholics, almost in the same vein as Roman emperors such as Diocletian and Nero, except that those emperors, who did things the Roman way and threw Christians to lions, never pretended to have understood anything about Christianity. Joe Biden, by contrast, wears his Catholicism like a skin suit. What a nightmarish series of developments. The whole spectacle of nominally Catholic leaders promoting and acquiescing to the persecution of Catholics for their beliefs, by the state and by its allied freelance goons, leaves one wondering: with "Catholics" like Joe Biden around to "represent Catholics," what Catholic needs enemies? And more to the point, when is the Catholic leadership going to wise up and recognize Joe for the increasingly emboldened and ever nastier persecutor he actually is? When are they going to recognize the skin suit? Image: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Did you know that Apple is "playing with fire"? That's the opinion of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), just one of several senators who have condemned the U.S. company for putting Chinese chips in the iPhone 14. These politicians are rightly concerned that a government-linked company in China might sell Apple's tech and consumers' information to the Chinese government. Rubio and the rest aren't alone in their concern that China is worming its way into U.S. technology. iPhones are bad enough; but Politico recently reported that "the Pentagon has temporarily halted delivery of F-35 fighter jets to the military branches and international customers" because it was informed that "a metal component used in the jet's engine had come from China." The Defense Contract Management Agency found that an alloy used in magnets contained in the F-35 turbomachine pumps, part of the engine, was manufactured in China. This violates a law that prohibits metal and alloy imports from China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia from being used in Pentagon acquisition programs. What this means is that major corporations, including those tasked with arming the U.S. military, are brazenly putting national security at risk. Thankfully, Rubio and the Pentagon seem to be taking the issue seriously. The senator said that Apple "will be subject to scrutiny like it has never seen from the federal government" if it continues to "allow Chinese companies beholden to the Communist party into our telecommunications networks and millions of Americans' iPhones." And the Pentagon rightly put the F-35 deliveries on halt while the security risk is investigated. Pressuring companies to be careful when engaging with China can't come soon enough. The country is a wholesale violator of human rights, intellectual property protections, and accepted norms. The saber-rattling toward Taiwan and the threats against House speaker Nancy Pelosi show that the national security interests of China are in opposition to our values because China doesn't value individual freedom. The Chinese government would like nothing more than to sell phones and military hardware loaded with embedded spying technology. It may have made sense for companies to take advantage of a cheap Chinese workforce at one time. However, enough is enough and companies are beginning to recognize that cost savings come with serious strings attached, which may be why the New York Times reported earlier this month that tech companies are shifting the manufacture of phones from China to India and Vietnam. According to the Times, "the shift is a response to growing concerns about the geopolitical tensions and pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions that have involved China in the last few years." Simply put, China is an adversary and should be treated as such by U.S. officials, the public, and businesses. The heat Congress is putting on Apple should be a warning to other companies for using Chinese-made chips, and the Pentagon should use the F-35 as a warning to not use Chinese parts. It's too little, too late but perhaps it will inspire the rest of the West to wake up to the wholesale risk entailed by empowering the increasingly hostile Chinese government. Gregory D. Rohrbough, J.D. is a former small business lobbyist. Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License. (ANSA) - ROME, SEP 26 - Likely next prime minister Giorgia Meloni will be "the most far-right premier since Mussolini", CNN said after the rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader won Sunday's general election. Spain's El Pais daily said "the far right wins the elections in Italy for the first time, and the coalition of conservatives, post-Fascists and populists, led by Giorgia Meloni, got 44% in both the House and Senate". The Guardian said FdI "has neo-Fascist origins". Russia's Rossiya-24 said the elections could lead to a "political restructuring of Europe," quoting Portuguese far right leader Andre Ventura. France's Le Monde said it was a "historic" victory for Meloni. Finland's Helsingin Sanomat said Meloni was "an heir to Fascism". Sweden's Svenska Dagbladet said it would be hard for the centre-right coalition to last more than two years due to internal tensions. Meloni rejects the 'post-Fascist' label and says FdI has more in common with Britain's Conservatives and the US Republicans. The FdI's logo features the Tricolour Flame first used by the postwar neo-Fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) party, formed by members of Mussolini's movement. Meloni says the Italian right has "handed Fascism over to history" and has condemned its suspension of democracy and the "ignominious" racial laws. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, SEP 23 - League leader Matteo Salvini said Friday his rightwing party will file a censure motion against European Commission President Ursual von der Leyen for vowing to treat Italy like Hungary and Poland if the League and ally Brothers of Italy (FdI) as expected win Sunday's Italian elections and introduce nationalist policies and threaten civil rights - though an EC spokesman said his boss had not meddled in Italian elections and only referred to procedures against the other two countries. The EC on several occasions has censured Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban and Poland's ruling Law and Justice party for rule-of-law and rights issues, levying sanctions against them unless they came fully back into line with the EU's democratic values. The League and Fdi last week abstained in a European Parliament vote saying that Hungary under Orban was no longer a fully functioning democracy, but an autocracy. Orban is a key ally of the two Italian parties while Law and Justice sits in the EP conservative caucus chaired by FdI leader Giorgia Meloni, along with Spain's far right Vox party. Meloni, who is poised to become Italy's first woman premier and the most rightwing since the Second World War, has often praised the policies of Orban and her Polish allies. Von der Leyen said Thursday that if the general election ushers in an autocratic, nationalist and Euroskeptic shift then "we have the instruments, as in the cases of Poland and Hungary." However, she added that "we are ready to work with any democratic government that is disposed to work with us". Salvini branded her statement as squalid and arrogant meddling in Italian domestic politics. Announcing the censure motion against von der Leyen Friday, Salvini said "it is a squalid threat, an invasion of the field that was not requested." He said "the lady represents all Europeans, her salary is paid by all of us, and it was a disgusting and arrogant threat. "The League's EP group will file a motion of censure". Salvini added: "On Sunday Italians are voting, not Brussels bureaucrats, and if I were the president of the EU Commission I would be (more) worried about energy bills". EC spokesman Eric Mamer on Friday denied Salvini's charge of interfering in the Italian elections saying "I think it is absolutely clear that President von der Leyen did not intervene in the Italian elections and referred to ongoing procedures in other countries". Meloni has assured Italy's international partners that under hew lead Italy will cleave to EU and NATO positions and will continue to back Ukraine in its defence against the Russian invasion. But she has also voiced Euroskeptic views as well as railing against immigrants and alleged gay and woke lobbies, and promising to give women an alternative to abortion. The 45-year-old plain-speaking working class Roman unmarried mother has stressed her identity as a Christian mother and is campaigning under the slogan God, family and fatherland. She has also endorsed the 'great replacement' theory positing the substitution of white nationals by Muslim immigrants. Though her party has post-Fascist roots she has stressed that it shares values and policies with Britain's Tories and US Republicans. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, SEP 26 - Italy's new rightwing government should implement pragmatic policies, Foreign Ministery Spokesman Wang Wenbin said Monday after a centre-right coalition led by Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader Giorgia Meloni won Sunday's general election. China and Italy, he said, "are strategic global partners and the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations is in both sides' interest: we hope that the new Italian government will continue to adhere to a positive and pragmatic policy towards China, supporting the spirit of mutual respect and trust". Meloni, told Taiwanese news agency CNA Friday that she would pull out of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) if she leads the next centre-right government. Meloni, 45, who is posed to be Italy's first woman prime minister and the most rightwing head of government since WWII, said signing up to the 'New Silk Road' had been a "big mistake". She said that if she had to sign the extension of the relevant memorandum until 2024 "tomorrow morning, it would be hard for me to see to the political conditions to do so". Meloni said that with a centre right government in Italy, "it is certain that Taiwan will be a fundamental question for Italy". She described as "unacceptable" China's threats against the island, which it says is part of its territory. The likely future PM said she had "closely followed, with unease," the most recent developments in the China-Taiwan tensions. Meloni cited many events after the signing of the BRI protocol in 2009 including alleged Chinese repression of Hong Kong activists, the discrimination of the Uyghurs and other minorities, Beijing's allegedly ambiguous stance on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its repeated shows of force against Taiwan, in support of her position against renewing the BRI project. The 'Belt and Road' Initiative is a massive infrastructure project that seeks to create a sort of new Silk Road connecting China with Europe and Africa. The US voiced concern after Italy became the first G7 member to sign up to the ambitious trade and infrastructure investment plan, citing fears of key trade secrets and technologies slipping into Beijing's hands. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, SEP 26 - Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen on Monday hailed rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) Giorgia Meloni's "historic" victory in Sunday's Italian general election at the head of a centre-right coalition featuring League leader Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia (FI) chief Silvio Berlusconi. "The Italian people has decided to take back its destiny, electing a patriotic and nationalist government," said the French politician. "Well done Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, for having resisted the threats of an anti-democratic and arrogant European Union, obtaining this great victory". Le Pen added: "At a time when the whole of Europe is waking up, after Poland, Hungary, Sweden and now Italy, I urge you to join the National rally". (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, SEP 26 - Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen on Monday hailed rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) Giorgia Meloni's "historic" victory in Sunday's Italian general election at the head of a centre-right coalition featuring League leader Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia (FI) chief Silvio Berlusconi. "The Italian people has decided to take back its destiny, electing a patriotic and nationalist government," said the French politician. "Well done Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, for having resisted the threats of an anti-democratic and arrogant European Union, obtaining this great victory". Le Pen added: "At a time when the whole of Europe is waking up, after Poland, Hungary, Sweden and now Italy, I urge you to join the National rally". Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki earlier also used Twitter to congratulate Meloni, with her right-wing party looking set to be the driving force of a big win for the centre right in Sunday's general election. Morawiecki's Law and Justice party and FdI are both in the ECR group in the European Parliament. Jordan Bardella, a MEP and lead member of Marine Le Pen's National Rally group, was also among the first to toast Meloni's expected triumph. "The Italian people have given a lesson of humility to the European Union which, via the voice of Ms Von Der Leyen, sought to impose their vote on them," Bardella said via Twitter. "No threat of any type can stop democracy: the European people are raising their heads and taking their destinies in their hands". France will be watchful on the respect shown by Italy's "post-Fascist" likely premier Meloni for human and abortion rights after her victory in Sunday's general election, French Premier Elisabeth Borne said according to France Presse. "We will obviously be watchful, and with the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to make sure that these values on human rights, on mutual respect, and in particular on the respect for abortion rights, will be respected by all," she told BFM TV. Von der Leyen irked the Italian right ahead of the election by saying the EC had the "tools" to ensure respect for human rights if Italy adopted policies promoting nationalist stances and crimping human rights like those in Hungary and Poland. Meloni has railed against gay lobbies, woke ideology and the alleged replacement of white Christians in Europe, said she will set up a naval blockade against migrants, and that she will give women wanting an abortion an alternative. (ANSA). Slovenia: PM Golob, no concerns after Italian elections Statements of Orban, Morawiecki, Fiala (ANSA) - BELGRADE, SEP 26 - "I'm convinced that simply changing the direction of a government within the EU can in no way be something we should be seriously concerned about, because the EU is based on the same values, that is the values of a post-war order in which there is no room for fascism,", Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said, referring to the results of the elections in Italy, the Slovenian news agency STA reported. Italians have "chosen the best government for themselves" and Golob whished them the best of luck, STA noted. Orban sends letters to Meloni, Salvini, Berlusconi The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban "has sent letters to Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini and Berluscon congratulating them on the election results, the Political Director of PM Viktor Orban Balasz Orban said on Twitter today. "I look forward to our future cooperation to preserve peace in our countries and in Europe, to restart the European economy and to ease the energy crisis," Orban wrote in the letters. 'Looking forwards to cooperate with Meloni': Czech PM "Congratulations to Giorgia Meloni on her victory in Italian elections," the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Petr Fiala said on Twitter today. "I look forward to future cooperation on European politics and in in the ECR group," Fiala added. Polish PM hails far-right's 'great victory' in Italy vote Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday hailed the Italian far-right's "great victory" after Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party came top in a general election. "Great victory! Congratulations!" Morawiecki said on Facebook, using emojis to say that the two countries would be strong together. Poland's governing Law and Justice (PiS) party and the Brothers of Italy are both part of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists Group. "I'm glad that a party from the ECR group is assuming responsibility for yet another European nation," tweeted PiS member and former premier Beata Szydlo. Algeria expects 17 bn in trade surplus Exports excluding hydrocarbons reached 5 bn in 2021 (ANSAmed) - ALGIERS, SEPT 26 - Algeria's trade surplus is expected to top 17 billion dollars by the end of the year, said Prime Minister Aymene Ben Abderrahmene, at the end of a conference held Monday in Algiers, according to official news agency Aps. "The trade balance recorded a surplus of 14 billion dollars at the end of August and we expect a surplus of over 17 billion dollars at the end of 2022", added Ben Abderrahmene. The Algerian premier explained that "the foreign trade policy currently adopted aims to control and rationalize exports, not to stop them, as some ill-intentioned people are trying to hint". Ben Abderrahmene stressed that the value of exports, excluding hydrocarbons, totaled 4.4 billion dollars at the end of August. Last year, Algeria reached 5 billion dollars in exports, with the exception of hydrocarbon exports - an unprecedented figure in the history of the North African country. A few months ago, public hydrocarbon company Sonatrach announced it would reach 50 billion dollars in revenues by the end of this year, thanks to an increase in oil and gas prices. Algeria, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), produces over one million barrels of crude oil a day and 90% of its economy relies on hydrocarbons.(ANSAmed). (ANSA). Lebanon: clashes between police, demonstrators in Beirut Protests for approval of budget law in parliament (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, SEPT 26 - Tension has returned to rise on Monday morning in downtown Beirut during clashes between security forces and demonstrators gathered to protest against the elite in power, whose representatives in Parliament met today to vote the much expected budget law, in a country which has been facing economic default for three years and which is waiting for aid from the International Monetary Fund. According to local media, anti-riot police protecting access to Place de L'Etoile, where the Lebanese Parliament is located, fired tear gas to disperse the crowd of a few hundreds of demonstrators. Between the fall of 2019 and today, protests have been staged regularly, in some cases violent ones, against the ruling class accused of being responsible for the country's financial crisis, the worst in its history.(ANSAmed). Malta: irregular migration crackdown, 165 arrests in a month Raids are strategy against illegal migrants, interior minister (ANSAmed) - VALLETTA, SEPT 26 - Police in Malta, supported by officers of the Detention Service, carried out on Monday morning the fifth raid against undocumented migrants organized in just over a month in the areas with the highest number of foreigners of the country. On Monday, 25 people from India, Bangladesh, Syria and Colombia were arrested in the areas of Paola and Fgura, in addition to operations carried out in Marsa (27 arrests at the beginning of August, an additional 49 last week), Gozo (24 apprehended on August 21) and Hamrun (40 arrested on September 16) for a total of 165 arrests. Interior Minister Byron Camilleri has announced that further inspections have been scheduled on Malta and Gozo. "In this way - he declared - authorities are continuing to fight illegal immigration as part of a strategy made of prevention, returns and reallocations". Camilleri added that the people arrested will be sent back to their home country.(ANSAmed). BEIRUT - The death toll from a migrant shipwreck off the coast of Syria has risen to more than 100 victims, many of them women and children, Syrian news agency Sana reports. The boat had departed from Lebanon. The news agency quoted as source the director of the port of Banias, Nawfaq Ibrahim. The new toll following the shipwreck, which occurred on Thursday night and is believed to be the deadliest of the last decades between Syria and Lebanon, was updated after an additional six lifeless bodies were found at sea over the past 24 hours. The boat departed from northern Lebanon for Italy with at least 150 people on board, mainly families with women, children and teens. The victims, the majority women and children, were Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian. According to the Syrian Red Crescent, search operations are continuing because 17 people are still missing. TUNIS - Over 100 people staged a peaceful demonstration on Sunday night in Douar Hicher, an industrial suburb of Tunis, in the governorate of Manouba, to protest against poor living conditions and price hikes over the past few months, the official Tap news agency reports. According to Tap, protesters marched along the main road of the district, burning tires, asking for the "lowering of prices, development, jobs and the improvement of living conditions for low-income residents". According to local sources, many of the slogans at the protest were against the government and authorities. A similar demonstration was also staged in Douar Hicher at the beginning of September. Another demonstration was held last night in Mornag, a town south of Tunis, where incidents were reported between law enforcement and a group of youths, the official news agency Tap reports. The agency's correspondent said police officers used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, who had blocked the main road setting tires on fire. According to the same source, demonstrators chanted slogans, demanding a number of social rights. Incidents occurred in the context of tensions following reports on the suicide, last Saturday in Mornag, of a young street vendor who hanged himself after his stall was seized. Italian elections: fear, celebrations for FdI win-Arab media Eye on anti-Muslim positions but 'Italy to have first female PM' (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, SEPT 26 - Concern over potential Islamophobia but also celebration for "Italy's first female prime minister": Arabic-language media outlets on Monday morning were divided between those highlighting uncertainty following "Giorgia Meloni's victory" in Italian elections, associated by some to the image of Benito Mussolini, and those highlighting the fact that for the first time Italy is posed to be led by a female head of government. One of the articles opening the website of Al Jazeera, the pan Arab broadcaster funded by Qatar and close to the Muslim Brotherhood, was dedicated to the first results of the vote: "On Europe, Islam, fascismwhat does the leader of Italy's far-right Giorgia Meloni say?". The article's photo portrayed the Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader who won the election on Sunday. Lebanese newspaper an Nahar, which has liberal positions, celebrated the fact that Giorgia Meloni could be "the first woman to become premier in Italy". It quoted a sentence attributed to Meloni: "We will not betray your confidence". The website of Al Arabiya, the other main pan Arab broadcaster which is financed by Saudi Arabia, published a headline evoking the metaphor of an 'earthquake', used by other Arab media: "Earthquake in Italy! What does the victory of Mussolini's admirer mean?". Another media outlet funded by the Saudis, pan Arab newspaper ash Sharq al Awsat, chose not to publish photos of Meloni but rather of Silvio Berlusconi, revisiting the 'earthquake' theme: "How is Europe preparing to deal with Italy's political earthquake?". The online edition of pro-Iranian television al Mayadin, which broadcasts from Beirut, published the headline: "The right wins legislative elections in Italy and the Democratic Party admits defeat".(ANSAmed). Design plans for a zero emission 100% electric flying ferry have been unveiled. The EF-24 Passenger vessel uses cutting-edge hydrofoil technology to lift the craft out of the water, enabling it to sail above the waves. Maritime design company Artemis Technologies has described it as a game changer for the global high-speed ferry market. Raising the hull above the water dramatically cuts drag, delivering estimated fuel cost savings of up to 85% compared to conventional diesel-powered ferries. Artemiss eco-friendly eFoiler technology generates zero emissions when the ferry is sailing while also producing minimal wake and noise. Aside from the environmental and economic benefits, the company says hydrofoiling also ensures a smooth ride regardless of water conditions, thus reducing instances of sea sickness. Artemis Technologies hydrofoiling workboat Pioneer out on Belfast Lough (Brian Lawless/PA) Artemis Technologies, which is based in Belfast, is a spin-off from the Artemis Racing team that competed in the Americas Cup. Its founder and CEO Dr Iain Percy is a two-time Team GB Olympic sailing champion and four-time Americas Cup veteran. The ferry will come into service in 2024, running a pilot service between Belfast and the nearby city of Bangor. The 24-metre vessels will be able to carry 150 passengers. The first ferry built will be called Zero. Artemis Technologies CEO and double Olympic gold medallist Dr Iain Percy (Brian Lawless/PA) It will have a top speed of 38 knots and a battery range of 115 nautical miles at a 25-knots cruise speed. The ferry, which was formally launched to the global market on Monday, is among several zero-emission vessels being developed by Artemis Technologies as part of a 60 million project to design and manufacture commercially-viable green transport solutions for the maritime industry. Earlier this year, it launched what it hailed as a world first commercially-viable hydrofoil workboat. The Pioneer can now be seen cruising above the waves on Belfast Lough outside Artemiss manufacturing plant in the citys docklands. Like Americas Cup racing yachts, the technology involves attaching hydrofoil wings to the hull with vertical struts. Much like a plane taking off on a runway, the underwater wings drive the vessel up and out of the water as it picks up speed. Dr Percy believes Artemis can be a world leader in delivering transport alternatives for congested cities. The first ferry is due to start operating between Belfast and Bangor in 2024 (Artemis Technologies/PA) The zero-emission ferry that will be seen departing Belfast in 2024, aptly named Zero, will be the first we build at our manufacturing hub in the city, but it is only the start, he said. Many water-based cities around the world are grappling with the challenge of growing populations, congestion and pollution. The EF-24 Passenger can provide an immediate green transport solution that competes economically with road and rail in places like San Francisco, New York, Venice, Istanbul, Dubai and Singapore anywhere around the globe that is seeking sustainable transport alternatives that balance the requirement for people to continue to move around with the need to reduce carbon emissions. Especially where new infrastructure is required like a new road or rail line, this ferry will not only be the cheapest, but also the fastest and least disruptive way to decarbonise transport networks in water-based cities. Artemis has partnered with Condor Ferries to operate the Belfast-Bangor pilot scheme. The ferries will be fully accessible, with facilities on board including bike racks, cabin bag and overhead storage, baby-changing facilities and charging points. Hydrofoils lift the Artemis workboat above the water (Brian Lawless/PA) The vessels will also feature a new high-speed collision avoidance system developed in conjunction with tech experts from Queens University Belfast. Artemis leads the Belfast Maritime Consortium, which includes manufacturers, universities and local councils in Northern Ireland. In 2020, the consortium secured 33 million of UK Government research and innovation funding, through the Strength in Places Fund, to support its work developing zero-emissions ferries. Artemis is creating 125 jobs initially but has plans to sustain 1,000 new roles in the coming decade. In August, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss toured the companys manufacturing facility and watched the Pioneer workboat on Belfast Lough, on a visit to the city during the Conservative Partys leadership contest. Liz Truss visited Artemis Technologies during her campaign to be Conservative Party leader (Clodagh Kilcoyne/PA) Commenting on the design plan for the electric ferry, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said: My congratulations to Artemis Technologies and Belfast Maritime Consortium on unveiling the plans for this exciting zero emissions vessel. I recently visited Artemis headquarters. I am delighted that they are seizing the many opportunities that the development of green transport presents, and which the UK Government is committed to supporting through our Net Zero Strategy. The development of such world-leading technology will ensure that Belfast remains at the forefront of maritime innovation while providing a boost to the local green economy. John Napton, CEO of Condor Ferries, said: As a leading operator of passenger ferries, we continuously seek to explore technology that will allow us to sail more sustainably and we know our customers are of the same mindset. Green vessels like the EF-24 Passenger ferry perfectly provide that clean alternative to traditional diesel ferries. We are thrilled to partner with Artemis Technologies and the Belfast Maritime Consortium to develop these vessels from concept to reality over the coming months, and look forward to being the first operator to set sail in 2024 with the worlds most advanced zero-emission foiling fast ferry. A new method of preserving donated kidneys could reduce the number of organs being discarded, experts have suggested. Kidney Research UK revealed that around 100 kidneys could potentially be saved for transplant each year after being retrieved from donors. Based on three years of data from NHS Blood and Transplant, the charity determined how many kidneys were considered clinically unsuitable for use. But a new technique to better preserve the kidneys before surgery could keep them suitable for longer and increase the number of organs available for transplant. The researchers believe their methods could be adopted within the next three years, directly addressing some of the logistical and operational issues across many NHS transplant settings. Sandra Currie, chief executive of Kidney Research UK, said: Patients wait on average over a year-and-a-half for a kidney transplant, some wait much longer and when they do receive the call, they can face a very difficult and tense time involving an urgent journey to the hospital to avoid the risk of missing out on a life-changing organ. Unfortunately, we know of many patients who have been called to hospital multiple times, only to be told the donor kidney cannot be used after all. One important reason for this is the very short time available currently to keep the kidney in good condition ahead of the surgery to transplant it. The research that we are funding aims to extend this critical window of opportunity from retrieval to transplant. Dr John Stone and Professor James Fildes from Pebble Biotechnology Laboratories in Alderley Park, Macclesfield, have made progress in keeping retrieved kidneys viable for longer. The research uses a method, called normothermic perfusion, in which oxygenated blood is pumped through a kidney to simulate the flow of blood within an organ. Cold storage of the kidney is currently the standard method, but the longer the organ is on ice, the greater the chances of damaging it. Perfusion could offer a solution to storage that does not impact the viability of the organ. Current guidelines advise that perfusion should only be used to test the function of the kidney, ideally for less than three hours before the procedure causes injury to the organ. But in an experimental setting, researchers have developed a new protocol with pig kidneys, with no evidence of injury at 24 hours. They are now trying to extend perfusion into days. Dr Stone said: So far, we have been able to keep a kidney on the perfusion circuit for 24 hours without causing damage. With current guidelines advising just three to six hours of perfusion, our methods could allow more time so more patients receive their life-saving transplant and fewer precious organs go to waste. Inspiration for the project came from Dr Stones 11-year-old nephew, Luke, who received a kidney transplant from his father in May this year. The average transplant lasts for up to 20 years, so Luke will probably need at least one more in his lifetime, meaning the work could be crucial to giving him a better outcome in the years ahead. Dr Stone, senior scientist at Pebble Biotechnology Laboratories, said: The clock is ticking as soon as you remove a kidney from a donor, you have a short amount of time before the organ is no longer viable. Transplant centres are under immense pressure to ensure the organ is not wasted but face operational challenges such as a lack of resources and sharing operating theatres with other departments, meaning that despite their best efforts, surgeons simply run out of time. The Post Office is preparing for a last moment rush in customers depositing paper 20 and 50 banknotes in its branches this week, before they can no longer be used in shops or to pay businesses. September 30 is the last day that the Bank of Englands paper 20 and 50 banknotes will have legal tender status. To date, 1.2 billion worth of paper 20 and 50 banknotes have been deposited at Post Offices 11,500 branches. The total has been made up of 372 million-worth of paper 20 banknotes and 820 million-worth of 50 banknotes. So far this month, over 100 million-worth of the notes have been deposited at Post Office branches. There's 1 week left to use your paper 20 and 50 banknotes. All polymer notes carrying a portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II can continue to be used as normal after 30 September. https://t.co/0wA5voBkiJ pic.twitter.com/4srSheSdUa Bank of England (@bankofengland) September 23, 2022 After September 30, only polymer Bank of England banknotes will have legal tender status. The new polymer 20 notes feature artist JMW Turner, and the new polymer 50 notes feature Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing. Postmasters have their branches set up to handle large volumes of cash, with over 3 billion in cash deposited and withdrawn at Post Offices every month. Martin Kearsley, Post Office banking director, said: Were fully aware that people lead busy lives and some may put off depositing their paper 20 and 50 banknotes until the last moment. Postmasters and their staff are on hand to provide that human reassurance that your old notes have been deposited into your bank account and will provide a receipt too. Most Post Offices are open long hours including on Friday. Once the September 30 deadline passes and the Bank of England has withdrawn the legal tender status of paper 20 and 50 banknotes, people will still be able to deposit paper notes at their Post Office and many UK banks will also accept withdrawn notes as deposits from customers. Bosses at Aldi have pledged to prioritise lower prices over short-term profits as they warned that the cost-of-living crisis is worsening for millions of households. It came as the supermarket chain saw profits slump significantly last year after the firm witnessed rising costs and invested in pricing. The UK operation of the German discounter revealed that pre-tax profits tumbled by 86.5% to 35.7 million in 2021, compared with the previous year. Giles Hurley, chief executive of Aldi UK and Ireland, said: Preserving our price discount and rewarding our people will always be more important to us than short-term profit. Being privately owned means we can keep our promises even when times are tough. Chief executive of Aldi UK and Ireland Giles Hurley (Aldi/PA) The supermarket also promised it will have the lowest grocery prices in the UK as it seeks to support customers facing surging energy and fuel costs. Aldi has seen a continued growth in customer numbers over the past year as shoppers have sought to keep their grocery bills low. Earlier this month, Aldi overtook Morrisons as the UKs fourth largest supermarket as a result, according to experts at Kantar. The retailer saw sales increase by 18.7% over the 12 weeks to September 4, compared with the same period last year. It also said it has added 1.5 million extra customers compared with last year as people seek out its discount proposition. Mr Hurley said: The cost-of-living crisis is worsening and its being felt by millions of households across the UK. Its in times like these when our customers rely on us the most, which is why were focusing on continuing to deliver our longstanding price promise by offering the lowest possible prices in Britain, every single day. Aldi also confirmed that it will open 16 new stores over the next 12 weeks as part of its ongoing 1.3 billion expansion plan. The Standards Committee chairman said he has no faith in Liz Truss being a more honest Prime Minister than her predecessor, as he warned Boris Johnson has caused long-term damage to Britains reputation. Labour MP Chris Bryant branded the former leader a disgrace, but said he does not think Ms Truss will be any better on the lying front, citing his scepticism over whether she raised issues of human rights in talks with Gulf State leaders. Mr Bryant warned against a system whereby the winner takes it all, with the Prime Minister currently free to decide whether their ethics chief if they appoint one should launch investigations into potential breaches of the ministerial code. It is still not clear whether Ms Truss will replace Lord Geidt, the previous adviser on ministers interests, after he quit the role in June. Downing Street said earlier this month the Prime Minister was still considering whether to appoint a direct successor. Speaking at a Labour fringe event on standards in public life hosted by the Institute for Government, Mr Bryant said Mr Johnson did a lot of long-term damage to Britains reputation and to the reputation of politics in general. Standards Committee chairman Chris Bryant (Rick Findler/PA) And that matters to me because if people dont believe in the political system and in democracy, then I have no means of doing the things that I want to do in terms of changing the world to make it a better place in the way that I understand, he said. Thangam Debbonaire, Labours shadow leader of the House of Commons, also said Mr Johnson had been casual with the truth. But Mr Bryant said: I think Liz Truss is not going to be any better than Boris Johnson on the lying front. She sat in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee and said: I personally raised human rights issues when I was in the Gulf. The Foreign Affairs Committee last week published the reply from the Foreign Office, which was meant to be clearing up what shed said, and theres not a single instance that shes done so either personally or impersonally. Mr Bryant argued that the Government is currently granted far too much power, adding: Its a bit winner takes it all. Former prime minister Boris Johnson (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Once you get to the Prime Minister, basically, as long as you can maintain your majority in the House of Commons, you can do pretty much anything, he said. Ms Debbonaire also accused Mr Johnson of inflicting lasting damage during his tenure. Ive found it incredibly frustrating that for the last two years weve had a tone set from the top that says: Actually, the rules dont matter,' she said. Questions were repeatedly asked about the former prime ministers integrity during his time in the top job. While he survived scandals over former chief aide Dominic Cummings infamous Barnard Castle trip during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the subsequent parties in Whitehall as Britons were locked down, and the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat which prompted the resignation of his ethics adviser, it was misconduct allegations against former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher that proved the final straw for Mr Johnson in July. A Conservative source questioned whether Mr Bryant should be accusing others of dishonesty after the High Court heard he accepted he had made disproved allegations against businessman Christopher Chandler. In July, Adrienne Page KC, for Mr Chandler, said Mr Bryant had paid 1,000 to the UNs crisis relief fund for Ukraine in lieu of damages. Mr Johnson has been approached for comment. A month-old Asian elephant has been named the Thai word for Queen in honour of the late monarch, who once fed a banana to the calfs mother. The Queen, patron of ZSL Whipsnade Zoo since her coronation in 1953, shook the trunk of Donna when she opened the Bedfordshire zoos centre for elephant care in 2017 and a picture of the meeting even featured on her official Christmas card later that year. Donnas not-so-tiny infant weighing in at 152 kilograms has now been named Nang Phaya, an animal-related Thai word meaning queen or strong, female monarch, following the Queens death on September 8. When we saw photos of the adorable elephant calf, we fell in love instantly, ZSLs elephant project officer Saravanee Namsupak said. We were so delighted to be asked to name her. The Queen with the calfs mother, Donna, when she opened ZSL Whipsnade Zoos centre for elephant care in 2017 (Chris Radburn/PA) We wanted a name that represented who she is as a future matriarch of the Whipsnade herd, but also her part in the wider story of endangered Asian elephants, like those we work to protect in Thailand. Naming her Nang Phaya, which is a Thai word for queen or matriarch, seemed like the perfect way to pay tribute to HM The Queen for her work as ZSLs patron and honour Donnas famous encounter with her, while symbolically connecting the calf to the herds of Asian elephants in Thailand that are under threat from increasing habitat disturbance and loss which escalates human-elephant conflict and the wellbeing of both elephants and communities. Nang Phaya with her mother, Donna (Joe Giddens/PA) Nang Phayas birth into the Whipsnade herd at the zoo on August 22 made the young calf a really important addition to the endangered species breeding programme for Asian elephants. As the boisterous, youngest female in a matriarchal family line, her new name is perfect, elephant team leader at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo Stefan Groeneveld said. Nang Phaya has been described as an energetic and playful young elephant (Joe Giddens/PA) Definitely a leader-in-the-making, Nang Phaya is energetic and playful, climbing on anything and everything and racing around the elephant habitat while her mum Donna, grandma Kaylee and the rest of the herd try to keep up. Although not on solid food yet, she has been experimenting with using her trunk to pick up twigs and is gradually getting the knack of using it. While signs of a recession and Fed rate hikes remain top stories for investors, this week's political headlines are also worth paying attention to as Congress faces a government funding deadline, unrest grows in Iran, and Vice President Kamala Harris lands in Japan. Here are three key stories to watch this week at the intersection of business and politics: Government funding Lawmakers must reach an agreement by Friday in order to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. A procedural vote in the Senate on Tuesday will test support for the funding bill. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has been pushing to include permitting reforms for energy projects as part of the negotiations, which he argues would loosen red tape to help the economy. Manchin is hoping to win some Republican support, but it's unclear whether he will as many Democrats are advocating to separate the permitting reforms from the continuing resolution. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks during a news conference Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib) Part of the continuing resolution will also likely include an additional $13 billion to aid Ukraine against Russia's invasion, as the New York Times reported earlier this month. But a deal reached this week is not likely to last long. Any vote ahead of Oct. 1 will likely just punt the government funding fight until after the midterm elections and ahead of the New Year. Lawmakers in both parties are hoping to avoid any political drama and get back to the campaign trail. Iran sanctions The U.S. Treasury Department relaxed some of its internet sanctions against Iran on Friday to counter some measures taken by Tehran to stifle ongoing protests in the country stemming from the death of a 22-year-old woman in the custody of Iran's morality police. As courageous Iranians take to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, the United States is redoubling its support for the free flow of information to the Iranian people," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement last week. "With these changes, we are helping the Iranian people be better equipped to counter the governments efforts to surveil and censor them." A woman shouts slogans next to an Iranian flag during a protest against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini, outside Iran's general consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) The move comes as the Biden administration has been exploring a new Iran nuclear disarmament deal after the Trump administration withdrew from the previous agreement. President Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS that the administration will continue the negotiations while speaking out against the repression of women. The Treasury's decision to ease sanctions shows how tech diplomacy has evolved in the geopolitical sphere over the last several years. As the unrest plays out in Iran, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plays a key role in deploying and lifting sanctions. Vice President Kamala Harris travels to Asia Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Japan to attend the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Reuters reported Friday that Harris will discuss Taiwan's security during her meetings with South Korea and Japanese officials. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the Yokota Air Base on 26 September 2022, in Fussa, Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images) The discussion over Taiwan has escalated recently after President Biden told CBS News's 60 Minutes that U.S. forces would defend Taiwan "if, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack." It was the most precise statement the president has made as it relates to potential U.S. military action in Taiwan. Meanwhile, China has continued to conduct military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, generating uncertainty over how it intends to handle the island. Kevin Cirilli is a visiting media at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue. Follow him on LinkedIn here. Click here for politics news related to business and money Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Download the Yahoo Finance app for Apple or Android Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube A new study analyzing the data of over 20 million LinkedIn users over the timespan of five years reveals that our acquaintances may be more helpful in finding a new job than close friends. Researchers behind the study say the findings will improve job mobility on the platform, but since users were unaware of their data being studied, some may find the lack of transparency concerning. Published this month in Science, the study was conducted by researchers from LinkedIn, Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 2015 and 2019. Researchers ran "multiple large-scale randomized experiments" on the platform's "People You May Know" algorithm, which suggests new connections to users. In a practice known as A/B testing, the experiments included giving certain users an algorithm that offered different (like close or not-so-close) contact recommendations and then analyzing the new jobs that came out of those two billion new connections. More: Snapchat, big tech layoffs making you anxious about your job? Don't panic. What to know. The strength of weak ties Researchers were testing a social-scientific theory known as the "strength of weak ties," which Sinan Aral, an award-winning management and data science professor at MIT and lead author of the study, said "is one of the most influential social science theories of the last century." In that theory from Stanford professor Mark Granovetter, there are weak ties, like friends of friends, and strong ties, like immediate colleagues. His research posits it's those weak ties that can lead you to better job opportunities not found in your strong ties network. Strong ties can be "confining" to "small, well-defined groups," like how you probably know the close friends of your close friends. The LinkedIn study "surprisingly" confirmed this theory, Aral said. "Acquaintances are more valuable sources of job opportunities," Aral said. "We also found that it's not the weakest ties but moderately weak ties, which are the best." The strength of these weak ties varied across industries.. "The findings help us understand how platform algorithms affect employment opportunities and outcomes and help LinkedIn design their platform to more effectively help its members find jobs and achieve social and economic mobility," Aral said. A question of ethics Privacy advocates told the New York Times Sunday that some of the 20 million LinkedIn users may not be happy that their data was used without consent. That resistance is part of a longstanding pattern of people's data being tracked and used by tech companies without their knowledge. TECH PRIVACY: 5 ways youre being tracked and how to stop it LinkedIn told the paper it "acted consistently" with its user agreement, privacy policy and member settings. LinkedIn did not respond to an email sent by USA TODAY on Sunday. The paper reports that LinkedIn's privacy policy does state the company reserves the right to use its users' personal data. That access can be used "to conduct research and development for our Services in order to provide you and others with a better, more intuitive and personalized experience, drive membership growth and engagement on our Services, and help connect professionals to each other and to economic opportunity." It can also be deployed to research trends. The company also said it used "noninvasive" techniques for the study's research. Aral told USA TODAY that researchers "received no private or personally identifying data during the study and only made aggregate data available for replication purposes to ensure further privacy safeguards." "The study was vetted and approved by the MIT Committee on the Use of Human Subjects in research and these types of algorithm experiments, in addition to helping platforms improve, are also standard across the industry," Aral said. LinkedIn is far from the first tech company to analyze its members' data without their knowledge. In 2014, Facebook and researchers from the University of California and Cornell University upset people when it released results of a study that had silently manipulated people's News Feeds for a week in 2012. The company said it wanted to see how positive content versus negative content affected people's emotions and Facebook usage. But privacy advocates immediately pushed back on the study's methods. One professor called the study "psychological manipulation." Eventually, even the Facebook scientists who worked on the study apologized for "any anxiety it caused." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LinkedIn ran undisclosed experiments on 20 million users to study success CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misidentified the new prime minister of Japan. Vice President Harris touted the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance on Monday during a visit with the countrys prime minister in Tokyo. Harris met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Akasaka Palace while leading a U.S. delegation to the country for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abes state funeral, a visit that also comes amid regional security concerns from China and North Korea. As you have said, the alliance between Japan and the U.S. is a cornerstone of what we believe is integral to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, Harris said at the start of the meeting. We also believe it is in the best interest of the American people, she added. Harris is scheduled to attend a dinner with the prime minister at the Akasaka Palace later on Monday before attending the funeral on Tuesday. She will also hold bilateral meetings with the prime ministers of Australia and South Korea. Abe, the countrys longest-serving prime minister, was assassinated in July while giving a campaign speech. His leadership strengthened the relationship between Japan and the United States, Harris said of Abe at the start of her meeting with Kishida. Kishida thanked Harris for traveling to Japan for Abes funeral, stressing a desire for a free and open Indo-Pacific through continuing to strengthen ties with the United States. I feel it is my duty to carry on [Abes] aspirations and expand on his diplomatic legacy and thereby strengthening and further advancing the bilateral relations, Kishida said, based on an interpreters translation. The duos meeting comes amid growing concerns about Chinese activity in the Taiwan Strait and fears over a potential invasion of Taiwan. President Biden said the U.S. military would defend Taiwan in the event of an unprecedented attack during a 60 Minutes interview aired last week, but White House officials quickly clarified that the U.S. policy toward the self-governing, democratic island has not changed. Harris and Kishida also condemned North Koreas recent ballistic missile launch, the latest in a provocative streak of weapons testing by the country, according to a White House readout of the meeting. The missile launch also came as the USS Ronald Reagan arrived in South Korea for joint military exercises in response to the North Korean threat. Harris is slated to visit the USS Howard, a naval destroyer, on Wednesday as part of the trip, where she will meet with sailors and deliver remarks about security in the region. Updated at 10:36 a.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Hundreds of people gather Sunday in front of the Sherman Oaks Galleria in memory of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in police custody. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Hundreds of protesters gathered Sunday at the Sherman Oaks Galleria in remembrance of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, whose death while in the custody of Irans morality police has sparked a global outcry over the state of womens rights in that nation. The crowd at the intersection of Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards braved 95-degree heat, waving Iranian flags and homemade signs denouncing the Iranian government. In both English and Farsi, they chanted "Freedom for Iran" and Say her name." The crowd included Iranian American Helen Zad, who fought back tears as she recalled memories of "persecution and cruelty" by the Iranian government. The 41-year-old healthcare entrepreneur and podcaster said Amini's story resonated with her. She had her own encounter with the morality police in 2018, when she was visiting family in Tehran. Zad was wearing a yellow head scarf when officers detained her, she said. "They said yellow did not show enough respect," Zad said, adding that they tried to grab her and place her in a van. Zad, who emigrated from Iran when she was 17, showed officials her U.S. passport and informed them of her citizenship, she said, and they let her go soon after. It was the last time she visited Iran. The Iranian government always talks about respect, but they dont respect women. They want to treat them like animals, she said. Medhi Keshavarz, 76, carried a black bullhorn that he used to chant "Freedom for Iran." Keshavarz was born in Gorgan, near the Caspian Sea, and emigrated to the United States in 1976. We need a democratic revolution that gives the Iranian people a chance to choose their government, he said. This should be a government not chosen by the West or by mullahs, but by the citizens. Keshavarz, who had also protested Friday in Irvine, said he felt solidarity with those in attendance. "This march is for the women of Iran. And if you look in Tehran, here or Irvine, its women protesters leading and saying theyre tired of being treated like half a person, he said. As a man, Im here to give my support to these brave women." A similar protest took place Sunday in San Francisco, with crowds marching across the Golden State Bridge. Many of the women demonstrators chanted We would like freedom, as passing cars honked in support. The protests are part of a series of worldwide demonstrations sparked by Amini's death this month. Some protests and Iranian flags from the Mahsa Amini demonstration in front of and across the street from the Sherman Oaks Galleria. #IranProtests2022pic.twitter.com/hHHZHfXYJP Andrew J. Campa (@campadrenews) September 25, 2022 Amini was arrested Sept. 13 in Tehran by the morality police, who are tasked with enforcing the laws on Islamic dress code in public. She was accused of not properly wearing her hijab a head covering that has been mandatory in Iran since the 1979 revolution. She died three days later. In an interview with BBC Persian , Aminis father said witnesses alleged that she was beaten while in police custody. He accused the government of lying and trying to cover up her death. Police have denied that Amini was mistreated and say she died of a heart attack; her family has said she was healthy and did not have a heart condition, news outlets have reported. News of her death sparked protests in numerous Iranian cities. Videos on social media have shown women burning their head scarves and cutting their hair in defiance of the strict dress codes. Other videos have shown crowds on the street chanting "Death to the dictator" and "Freedom, freedom, freedom." Protesters called for women's rights in Iran. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Independent experts with the United Nations Human Rights Council said the protests have been met with excessive use of force by Iranian security teams, including the firing of birdshot and other metal pellets. Dozens of people have been injured and arrested, the U.N. body said, and at least eight have been killed, including a woman and a 16-year-old. The Iranian government said 17 people, including two security officers, had been killed since the unrest began, according to news reports. At least two female journalists involved in publishing the story of Amini's death have been arrested by the Iranian police, according to PressGazette, a London-based outlet. The U.S. Department of the Treasury said the Iranian government has cut off Internet access to its 80 million citizens. Social media and messaging platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp are largely blocked. The U.S. government last week imposed sanctions on Iran's morality police and seven senior security officials. Los Angeles is home to the most people of Iranian descent outside Iran. As of 2019, there were 87,000 people of Iranian ancestry in the city, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many live in what's known as Tehrangeles , an enclave in Westwood that formed in the 1960s and boomed after the 1979 revolution. Many in the community have been taking to the streets of L.A. in solidarity with protests around the world against Aminis death. Standing next to Zad on Sunday was her sister Nogol, 38, who said a new form of government is needed in Iran. "They cant just say, Now you can take off your scarves and hijabs, and its OK,'" she said. "The only change is with them gone." She said Iranians back home and in the U.S. would not be silenced. She called on feminists around the world, including Vice President Kamala Harris, to speak up. What happened to Mahsa happens every single day in Iran," Nogol Zad said. Enough is enough. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno speaks at a regular news conference in Tokyo Monday, Sept. 262, 2022. Japan expressed grave concern about Russia's possible use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine as the top government spokesman on Monday announced an additional ban on exports of chemical weapons-related goods to Russia. (Kyodo News via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) TOKYO (AP) Japan expressed grave concern about Russias possible use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine as the top government spokesman on Monday announced an additional ban on exports of chemical weapons-related goods to Russia. As the worlds only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, we strongly demand that the threat or use of nuclear weapons by Russia should never happen, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a regular news conference. Matsuno was responding to a question about U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivans comments Sunday on CBS news that the United States will act decisively in case of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine. Asked if Japan approves of the possible use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Russia, Matsuno refused to comment on the grounds that it was a hypothetical question. Japan's government on Monday banned the export of materials that may be used for chemical weapons to 21 Russian organizations, including science laboratories. The measure was approved by the Cabinet following a decision by Group of Seven foreign ministers last week. In a video, a man is seen in the water with his hands raised. (Courtesy of the Outlaw Ocean Project) Crimes like this dont often happen on land. A 10-minute slow-motion slaughter captured by a cellphone camera shows a group of unarmed men at sea in an undisclosed location, possibly 15 of them, being killed one by one by a semiautomatic weapon, after which the culprits pose for celebratory selfies. This case shows the challenge of prosecuting crimes on the high seas. There were at least four ships on the scene, but no law required any of the dozens of witnesses to report the killings and no one did. Law enforcement in the open ocean is limited, and jurisdiction is complicated. Authorities learned of the killings only when the video turned up on a cellphone left in a taxi in Fiji in 2014. Listen and subscribe to "The Outlaw Ocean" podcast by clicking here. Its still unclear who the victims were or why they were shot. An unknown number of similar killings take place each year deckhands on the ship from which the video was shot later said they had witnessed a similar slaughter a week before. After receiving the video from a source at Interpol in an email with the subject line Brace yourself, the Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., started an investigation that resulted in the 2021 conviction of Wang Feng Yu, the captain of the Taiwanese-flagged Ping Shin 101, who was taken into custody by the Taiwanese coast guard in 2020. The details of this tireless investigation are chronicled in this first dramatic episode of the new podcast series The Outlaw Ocean from CBC Podcasts and the L.A. Times. Listen to it here: Trygg Mat Tracking, a Norwegian research firm that focuses on maritime crime, identified the Ping Shin 101 by comparing video footage with images in a maritime database. Former deckhands were identified through Facebook posts and on other social media platforms in which they had discussed their time onboard. Interviews with these former deckhands, some of whom said they had witnessed the killings captured in the video, revealed the name of the captain and details of the incident. Taiwanese officials, presented with the names of the men and ships in 2015 and 2016, said the victims appeared to be part of a failed pirate attack. But maritime security analysts cautioned that the claim of piracy had been used to justify attacks undertaken to counter a range of offenses, real or otherwise. The victims, they said, might have been crew members who had mutinied, thieves caught stealing or simply rival fishermen. Men in the video celebrating on the deck of a boat take selfies after the murders. (Courtesy of the Outlaw Ocean Project) Such killings will continue to go unchecked without better tracking of offshore violence, more transparency from flag registries and fishing companies, and more effort by governments to prosecute the perpetrators. And that matters because what occurs at sea affects everyone. By some estimates, upwards of 90% of international trade is moved by sea, and seafood is a major source of protein for much of the world. The Ping Shin 101 sank on July 7, 2014, less than two years after the shootings captured on the video. Wang, still the captain at the time, broadcast a distress signal citing a mechanical failure. The men who were murdered were apparently shot from the deck of the Taiwanese fishing vessel Ping Shin 101. (Courtesy of the Outlaw Ocean Project) Taiwanese authorities issued an arrest warrant for Wang in December 2018. In August 2020, prosecutors got their break. A tuna long-liner called the Indian Star, owned by a Taiwanese company and flagged to Seychelles, arrived in Kaohsiung, a city on Taiwans southwestern coast. The fishing ship had a history of violations, including using forged licenses and fishing in forbidden areas. More important to authorities, though, was the man who captained the vessel. Wang Feng Yu stepped ashore and, eight years after allegedly shouting the orders to kill in that grainy video, was finally arrested. The captain was shortly convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison for the killing, bringing a dramatic end to the seven-year investigation. Ian Urbina is the director of the Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on environmental and human rights concerns at sea globally. KYIV, Ukraine The young man who walked into the recruitment center in Ust-Ilimsk, Siberia, early on Monday morning had told his mother he was going to enlist. But he had other plans. When he arrived, he calmly entered the building and walked up to the podium, where military commissar Alexander Eliseev, the head of the local draft committee, was working. The young man took out a concealed firearm and opened fire. According to Igor Kobzev, the governor of Irkutsk Oblast, Eliseev remains in critical condition in a hospital. When arrested, 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin told Russian media he was motivated by the drafting of his best friend into the army. Police officers detain a man protesting the partial military mobilization recently announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images) Russia is continuing to experience a wave of protests and civil unrest as its people come to terms with the implication of President Vladimir Putins partial mobilization, which he announced last week. Though it was initially said to be a call-up of 300,000 reservists, the Latvia-based independent Russian news outlet Meduza has reported that the real figure could be as high as 1.2 million. The same outlet also reported that since Putins order came down, the Federal Security Service (FSB), which controls Russias border service, recorded 261,000 men exiting the country. The most significant street protests so far have come in the region of Dagestan, where protesters filled the streets. Video posted to social media shows people blocking roads, fighting with Russian police and chanting antiwar and anti-mobilization slogans. There is also growing evidence of protesters becoming more organized and more determined to resist Russian police who attempt to arrest fellow demonstrators. The protests in Dagestan have partly been driven by the belief that the war and these latest mobilization orders are disproportionately targeting Russias poorer areas and ethnic-minority-dominated republics. The republic of Dagestan, a state in southern Russia that borders Armenia and Georgia, is one of several heavily Muslim-majority enclaves with a complicated history of insurgency, separatism and terrorism. Moscow fought two brutal wars against the breakaway republic of Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s; now the warlord president of that republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, is a staunch Putin ally who has deployed his own militants into Ukraine. Police officers block a street in St. Petersburg on Sept. 24, following calls to protest against the partial mobilization announced by Putin. (-/AFP via Getty Images) Research published in August by the BBC and the Russian media outlet Mediazona found that of 3,798 casualties they could identify via local media reports and the statements of families and local authorities, Dagestan and Buryatia a state that borders Mongolia and contains a sizable indigenous Mongolic population had suffered the largest number of confirmed fatalities: 270 and 245, respectively. By contrast, Moscow, home to 9% of Russias total population, lost only 14 people. In Buryatia, the campaign is called Bartholomews Night, after the 16th century Catholic massacre of Protestants in France, said Paul Goble, a former State Department and CIA official who specializes in Russias ethnic and religious minorities. Thats not something you hear very often in the Russian far east, is it? Dagestan is at the point where people are now talking of a Maidan in the regional capital, Makhachkala. Maidan refers to Ukraines revolutionary protest movement in 2014. The Kremlins bloody entanglement with the north Caucasus even has a historical antecedent in Ukraines post-Soviet development. When Ukrainians of all backgrounds voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union in a 1991 referendum, Russian President Boris Yeltsin prevailed in vain upon his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kravchuk, to bring Kyiv into a new union with Moscow. One of Yeltsins motives, as repeatedly relayed to then-President George H.W. Bush, was that without Ukraine, Russia would be outnumbered and outvoted by the Muslim republics, according to Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy. Police officers detain people during a protest in Moscow on Sept. 24 against the invasion of Ukraine and partial mobilization. (Getty Images) Nevertheless, Goble thinks a better indicator of where mobilization is hitting hardest is economic rather than ethnic or religious. Moscow is targeting places that are poorer because those people are more likely to see military service in a positive way, with the exception of those whove already seen people come home dead," he said. "And a lot of Buryats have done just that already. Moscow and St. Petersburg have had demonstrations on a smaller scale. Russian riot police have been deployed there to disperse crowds and can be seen beating and aggressively dragging off protesters or simply anyone standing in their midst. Videos published on social media captured incredibly confused scenes in which Russian police detained pro-Putin counterdemonstrators, even a woman bystander simply waiting at a bus stop. According to independent monitors in Russia, over 1,300 men and women had been detained following protests in these Russian cities early last week, with many Russian men of military age apparently being given their draft papers after their arrests. Sergei (not his real name) fled St. Petersburg within 24 hours of the mobilization order last week. He told Yahoo News that his best friend is a first-order candidate for call-up because he served in the military for a year seven years ago. Hes a businessman and supports his entire family, including his parents and sister, Sergei said. And hes really frustrated because he did everything right, paid his debt to the Motherland, and meanwhile people are claiming medical excuses many of them fake to get out of being sent to Ukraine. Russians are also turning to more extreme forms of resistance as peaceful protests have been predictably ignored or repressed. In Ryazan, a city southeast of Moscow, a man set himself on fire at a bus station while shouting slogans against the war and his impending participation in it. A protest in Moscow, Sept. 21. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images) Recruitment offices have been set on fire or attacked. Video released by the Russian media outlet Mash shows a station wagon ramming the entrance of an office in the Volgograd district before the driver tossed several Molotov cocktails through the doors and windows of the building, seriously damaging the office. Arson is also said to count as more than a symbolic gesture: Some observers have pointed out that the Russian army still largely relies on paper records, which would likely be destroyed in any fire. The Volgograd attack was far from an isolated event, according to Meduza, which claims that 11 military enlistment offices and six administrative buildings have been set ablaze in Russia since the start of the mobilization. The furor occurs against a backdrop of increasing discontent against the hastily implemented mobilization policy, whose critics include hawks and regime loyalists. Margarita Simonyan, head of the Russian state media outlet RT, complained that mobilization orders were infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite ... as if theyd been sent by Kyiv, while also grumbling that mobilization papers were being handed out to those too old or sick for military service. Vladimir Solovyov, host of Russian state televisions flagship talk show and another prominent Kremlin mouthpiece, called for those responsible for the botched rollout of the policy to be shot. Ukrainian soldiers at a collection point for destroyed Russian military vehicles after it was taken over from Russian forces in Kharkiv region, Sept. 25. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images) Anger at mobilization has been stoked by recently conscripted Russian men who have published on social media footage of the dire conditions and decrepit equipment theyve been issued. One widely shared video shows new recruits inspecting issued AKM assault rifles, which are covered in rust both externally and internally, appearing to be barely functional. Training barracks are shown to be in a substandard state, with conscripts made to sleep on filthy mattresses with no bedding. Other Russians have been complaining that their conscripted relatives have been sent immediately to the front, with little or none of the promised training. In the city of Lipetsk, the wife of a recently mobilized man told Russian media that her husband and 1,000 other men had been given just one day of training before being sent to join the 237th Tank Regiment, currently fighting in Ukraine. There comes a point, as Gorbachev found out, said Goble, when using repression is like throwing water at a grease fire the fire spreads. Additional reporting by Holger Roonemaa. It remains to be seen whether Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) will baldly go where no lawmaker has gone before and shave his head as part of a fundraising effort, following a nudge by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). In a Sunday post on Twitter, Booker threw out the possibility of Schatz and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) saying sayonara to their tresses in exchange for donations to Democrat Cheri Beasleys Senate campaign in North Carolina. Wait!? Is it true? If we get 500 people to contribute to @CheriBeasleyNC then Sens. Shatz [sic] and Murphy will shave their heads today!? Booker asked. This could be freaking awesome, Booker wrote to his nearly 5 million followers. I want more people on the Senate Bald caucus. Murphy appeared to cut down the idea of taking some shears to his locks which were once described by Full Frontals Samantha Bee as immaculate. While responding to Booker that its likely not true that hed give his hair the chop, Murphy vowed to record personalized videos thanking Beasleys 400th and 500th donors. Schatz initially seemed onboard with the baldheaded fundraising stunt, replying Sure! to Booker with a bald man emoji. But things quickly got hairy, with Schatz appearing to brush off his earlier approval of debuting a potentially smooth new look. I just realized Cory Booker misspelled my name, Schatz tweeted on Sunday night. Wow. THIS IS THE LOOPHOLE I NEED, Schatz wrote. His office didnt return ITKs request for comment on the whole mane affair. Its not the first time that Washington has utilized follicular fundraising. Back in 2012, before he became White House press secretary under former President Trump, then-Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer and then-Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse created some bipartisan buzz by shaving their heads together to raise money for a childhood cancer charity. That same year, former President Obamas senior campaign strategist, David Axelrod, vowed to shave his signature mustache to raise money for epilepsy research. At a benefit marking Axelrods mustache-free look, then-Vice President Biden joked to ITK that he might join the hair-free bandwagon. I tell you what, man, Id shave my head just for the fun of it the way Im going, Biden said with a laugh at the time. A poll released last week showed Beasley leading her Republican opponent, Ted Budd, by 1 percentage point. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Thousands march against Colombian President Petro's tax reform Demonstrators protest against the government of Gustavo Petro and his tax reform proposal in Bogota BOGOTA (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched on Monday against economic and social reforms proposed by Colombian leftist President Gustavo Petro - which he says will fight inequality - just 50 days after he took office. Petro, 62, has promised to seek "total peace" through deals with rebel groups and crime gangs and asked lawmakers to approve a tax reform which would raise an initial $5.6 billion for social programs next year. The reform would raise taxes on those earning more than $2,259 per month, about 10 times the minimum wage, and eliminate exemptions. Petro has constructed a majority in congress through alliances with a range of parties. Right-wing party the Democratic Center, headed by former President Alvaro Uribe, has led much of the opposition to his proposals. Some 5,000 people, many waving signs with slogans like "no to the tax reform", marched in Bogota, according to the mayor's office. Some marchers compared Petro's governance so far to authoritarianism and said objections to his administration would mount. "Mr. Petro you are wrong in your way of governing," said information technology worker James Duque. Petro has also proposed changes to healthcare, a land reform which would sell properties to poor farmers at below-market rates and reforms to voting. "It's hurting my pension, it's hurting my healthcare, it's hurting private property, we need to respect families," said protester Francisco Arias in Bogota's central Plaza Bolivar. Peaceful marches also took place in Medellin, Cali, Armenia and Villavicencio. Petro said in a tweet he respected protesters' right to express themselves but that his government also had a right to combat misinformation. (Reporting by Herbert Villarraga; Writing by Luis Jaime Acosta and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Marguerita Choy) Former President Donald Trump has reportedly admitted grabbing his letters with Kim Jong-un and other tremendous stuff when he left the White House on Jan. 20, 2021. Journalist Maggie Haberman revealed that the twice-impeached president took letters from the North Korean dictator when he jetted to Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Fla., resort, on the day President Biden was inaugurated. Most of it is in the archives, but the Kim Jong-un letters we have incredible things, he told Haberman, according to an article she penned in The Atlantic promoting her forthcoming book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Then U.S. President Donald Trump (left) meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the North Korean side of the border at the village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, on June 30, 2019. Then U.S. President Donald Trump (left) meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the North Korean side of the border at the village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, on June 30, 2019. (Susan Walsh/) The interview with Trump was conducted before the FBI search of Trumps Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, which turned up some 10,000 government documents and more than 100 classified documents. Trumps troubles worsen: 6 legal landmines facing the ex-president Despite improperly making off with the cache of documents, Trump insisted to Haberman that he didnt really remove anything important. Nothing of great urgency, no, he told the scribe, who usually writes for The New York Times. Maggie Haberman speaks onstage at The New York Times DealBook DC policy forum on June 9, 2022, in Washington, DC. Maggie Haberman speaks onstage at The New York Times DealBook DC policy forum on June 9, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Leigh Vogel/) Federal prosecutors are investigating possible violations of the Espionage Act, mishandling classified documents and obstruction of justice in the Mar-a-Lago document search. Although Trump scored a temporary victory by having a special master appointed to review the seized documents, Raymond Dearie, a veteran federal judge, said Trumps team was trying to have its cake and eat it too, and that he was inclined to regard the records the way the government does: Classified. Dearie followed up with his own order, giving the Justice Department until Monday, Sept. 26, to submit an affidavit asserting that the FBIs detailed inventory of items taken in the search is accurate. Trumps team will have until Friday to identify errors or mistakes in the inventory. After Donald Trump suggested last week that as president you can declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it, Republican Wyoming Senator John Barrasso disagreed but only after George Stephanopoulos pressed him on the issue twice on ABCs This Week. During an interview on Sunday, Barrasso was asked by Stephanopoulos about Trump's handling of classified material, which is under federal investigation as Trump denies wrongdoing. Trump claimed to Fox News' Sean Hannity last week that while "different people see different things," his view of this authority was absolute: "If youre the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it's declassified. Even by thinking about it." Stephanopoulos asked if Barrasso agreed. The senator said that he had not heard about such an assertion and pivoted to criticizing the Department of Justice's court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago. Barrasso said that he had "never seen anything like that before," referring to the FBI "raid" Trump's home, and that it had "become political." Stephanopoulos pushed back: "You know that a president can't declassify documents by thinking about it. Why can't you say so?" MORE: Despite Trump's claims, experts say there's no 'magic wand' for a president to declassify documents The senator, who also said that he isn't versed in the rules of presidential declassification and wants to get a briefing from the DOJ on the investigation, then agreed with Stephanopoulos. He said, "I don't think a president can declassify documents by saying so, by thinking about it." That view lines up with what outside experts have told ABC News: The president must document his declassification process somewhere, whatever his process was. Barrasso spent much of his "This Week" appearance pushing back on President Joe Biden's foreign policy, including addressing the potential revival of the 2015 nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran. Stephanopoulos opened up the interview by having Barrasso respond to Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser. Sullivan was also interviewed on "This Week" on Sunday and said nuclear negotiations so Iran never has a weapon "they can threaten the world with" could be effective at the same time the White House was putting public pressure on the country over its treatment of women and protesters. PHOTO: Sen. John Barrasso speaks to media during the weekly Senate Republican Leadership press conference, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2022. (Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via AP) "Did you find his argument convincing for staying in the Iran nuclear talks?" Stephanopoulos asked Barrasso. "No deal with Iran, George, is a good deal They continue to claim 'death to America.' We cannot allow them to have a nuclear weapon," Barrasso said. Stephanopoulos also sought clarity from Barrasso on the GOP and Ukraine. Citing criticism of American's continued aid to Ukraine by some Republicans, like Ohio Senate nominee J.D. Vance, Stephanopoulos asked Barrasso if Democrats were right to warn that the GOP may restrict future support if they retake Congress. "No. There continues to be bipartisan support in the House and in the Senate for weapons to Ukraine," Barrasso said. He said he wanted the White House to be quicker in providing weapons to Ukraine and said "we ought to be producing more American energy to help our European allies" and American consumers who are dealing with the fallout of the conflict with Russia, a major energy provider. MORE: McCarthy rolls out House GOP 'Commitment to America' ahead of midterms Stephanopoulos asked Barrasso, just as he asked Sullivan: "Do you believe that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's hold on power is secure?" "I'm not sure," Barrasso, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said. "He is in a deep hole right now and he's dug this hole. And I thought his statement to the country there really was desperate. It didn't show really confidence or strength." "The Foreign Relations Committee is going to have a hearing this Wednesday on what additional things we can do in terms of sanctions [on Russia]," Barrasso said. "And also we have a secure briefing on Thursday in the Senate to take a look right at what's happening on the ground in Ukraine." Trump can't 'declassify documents by saying so,' GOP Sen. Barrasso acknowledges when pressed originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Brothers of Italy most voted party in Italy's general elections: exit polls Xinhua) 08:57, September 26, 2022 Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy party, speaks at the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome, Italy, on Aug. 28, 2019. (Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua) If confirmed, Meloni would most likely become the first woman to serve as the country's prime minister in the most right-wing government Italy has had in recent decades. ROME, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Right-wing Brothers of Italy was the most voted party in the Italian elections held to renew the parliament on Sunday, exit polls showed. The nationalist party led by Giorgia Meloni won 22 percent to 26 percent of the vote, according to an exit poll unveiled by Consorzio Opinio Italia pollster and state TV RAI News 24 soon after polling stations were closed. A citizen prepares to cast the ballot at a polling station in Rome, Italy, Sept. 25, 2022. (Xinhua/Jin Mamengni) If confirmed, Meloni would most likely become the first woman to serve as the country's prime minister in the most right-wing government Italy has had in recent decades. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) Russias rush to mobilize hundreds of thousands of recruits to staunch stinging losses in Ukraine is a tacit acknowledgement that its army is not able to fight, Ukraines president said Sunday, as splits sharpened in Europe over whether to welcome or turn away Russians fleeing the callup. Russian recruits take a bus near a military recruitment center in Krasnodar, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a partial mobilization of reservists to beef up his forces in Ukraine. Russian recruits take a bus near a military recruitment center in Krasnodar, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a partial mobilization of reservists to beef up his forces in Ukraine. Speaking to U.S. broadcaster CBS, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said hes bracing for more Russian strikes on Ukraines electrical infrastructure, as the Kremlin seeks to ramp up the pressure on Ukraine and its Western backers as the weather gets colder. Zelenskyy warned that this winter will be very difficult. They will shoot missiles, and they will target our electric grid. This is a challenge, but we are not afraid of that. he said on Face the Nation. He portrayed the Russian mobilization its first such callup since World War II as a signal of weakness, not strength, saying: They admitted that their army is not able to fight with Ukraine anymore. Although the European Union is now largely off limits to most Russians, with direct flights stopped and its land borders increasingly closed to them, an exodus of Russian men fleeing military service is creating divisions among European officials over whether they should be granted safe haven. Russian recruits stand near a military recruitment center in Krasnodar, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a partial mobilization of reservists to beef up his forces in Ukraine. Russian recruits stand near a military recruitment center in Krasnodar, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered a partial mobilization of reservists to beef up his forces in Ukraine. The partial mobilization is also triggering protests in Russia, with new anti-war demonstrations on Sunday. In Dagestan, one of Russias poorer regions in the North Caucasus, police fired warning shots to try to disperse more than 100 people who blocked a highway while protesting Russian President Vladimir Putins military callup, Russian media reported. Dozens of women chanted No to war! in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala on Sunday. Videos of the protests showed women in head scarves chasing police away from the rally and standing in front of police cars carrying detained protesters, demanding their release. Women also protested in the Siberian city of Yakutsk, chanting No to genocide! and marching in a circle around police, who later dragged some away or forced them into police vans, according to videos shared by Russian media. At least 2,000 people have been arrested in recent days for similar demonstrations around Russia. Many of those taken away have immediately received a call-up summons. Unconfirmed Russian media reports that the Kremlin might soon close Russian borders to men of fighting age are fueling panic and prompting more to flee. Portraits of Leonid Pasechnik, leader of self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin are displayed next to a mobile ballot box at a polling station in a maternity hospital during a referendum in Luhansk, Luhansk People's Republic, controlled by Russia-backed separatists, eastern Ukraine Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. Voting began Friday in four Moscow-held regions of Ukraine on referendums to become part of Russia. Portraits of Leonid Pasechnik, leader of self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin are displayed next to a mobile ballot box at a polling station in a maternity hospital during a referendum in Luhansk, Luhansk People's Republic, controlled by Russia-backed separatists, eastern Ukraine Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. Voting began Friday in four Moscow-held regions of Ukraine on referendums to become part of Russia. German officials have voiced a desire to help Russian men deserting military service and have called for a European-wide solution. Germany has held out the possibility of granting asylum to deserters and those refusing the draft. In France, senators are arguing that Europe has a duty to help and warned that not granting refuge to fleeing Russians could play into Putins hands, feeding his narrative of Western hostility to Russia. Closing our frontiers would fit neither with our values nor our interests, a group of more than 40 French senators said. Turning away fleeing Russians would be a mistake by Europe in the war of communication and influence that is playing out. Yet other EU countries are adamant that asylum shouldnt be offered to Russian men fleeing now when the war has moved into its eighth month. They include Lithuania, which borders Kaliningrad, a Russian Baltic Sea exclave. Its foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, tweeted: Russians should stay and fight. Against Putin. His counterpart in Latvia, also an EU member bordering Russia, said the exodus poses considerable security risks for the 27-nation bloc and that those fleeing now cant be considered conscientious objectors since they did not act when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Many were fine with killing Ukrainians, they did not protest then, the Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, tweeted. He added that they still have plenty of countries outside EU to go. Finland also said it intends to significantly restrict entry to Russians entering the EU through its border with Russia. A Finnish opposition leader, Petteri Orpo, said fleeing Russian military reservists were an obvious security risk and we must put our national security first. Russia is pressing on with its callup of hundreds of thousands of men, seeking to reverse recent losses. Without control of the skies over Ukraine, Russia is also making increasing use of suicide drones from Iran, with more strikes reported Sunday in the Black Sea port city of Odesa. A Ukrainian serviceman helps a comrade during an evacuation of injured soldiers participating in the counteroffensive, in a region near the retaken village of Shchurove, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. A Ukrainian serviceman helps a comrade during an evacuation of injured soldiers participating in the counteroffensive, in a region near the retaken village of Shchurove, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. (Leo Correa/) For Ukrainian and Russian military planners, the clock is ticking, with the approach of winter expected to make fighting much more complicated. Already, rainy weather is bringing muddy conditions that are starting to limit the mobility of tanks and other heavy weapons, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Sunday. But the think-tank said Ukrainian forces are still gaining ground in their counteroffensive, launched in late August, that has rolled back the Russian occupation across large areas of the northeast and which also prompted Putins new drive for reinforcements. The Kremlin said its initial aim is to add about 300,000 troops to its invasion force, which is struggling with equipment losses, mounting casualties and weakening morale. The mobilization marks a sharp shift from Putins previous efforts to portray the war as a limited military operation that wouldnt interfere with most Russians lives. The mobilization is running hand-in-hand with Kremlin-orchestrated votes in four occupied regions of Ukraine that could pave the way for their imminent annexation by Russia. Ukraine and its Western allies say the referendums in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south and the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions have no legal validity, not least because many tens of thousands of their people have fled. They also call them a sham. Some footage has shown armed Russian troops going door-to-door to pressure Ukrainians into voting. The voting ends Tuesday, and theres little doubt it will be declared a success by the Russian occupiers. The main questions then will be how soon Putins regime will annex the four regions and how that will complicate the war. Liz Truss has sent her congratulations to the far-right leader set to become Italys first female premier. In a message to Giorgia Meloni, whose party the Brothers of Italy is expected to deliver the countrys first far-right-led government since the Second World War, the Prime Minister described the UK and Italy as close allies. Congratulations to @GiorgiaMeloni on her party's success in the Italian elections. From supporting Ukraine to addressing global economic challenges, the UK and Italy are close allies. Liz Truss (@trussliz) September 26, 2022 Ms Truss tweeted: Congratulations to @GiorgiaMeloni on her partys success in the Italian elections. From supporting Ukraine to addressing global economic challenges, the UK and Italy are close allies. Italys left wing has warned of dark days ahead as near-final results show Ms Melonis party has won the most votes in the countrys national elections. But right-wing political figures from across Europe, including Frances Marine Le Pen and Spains Santiago Abascal, have sung her praises. In a victory speech earlier on Monday, Ms Meloni said: If we are called to govern this nation, we will do it for everyone, we will do it for all Italians and we will do it with the aim of uniting the people. Italy chose us. We will not betray it as we never have. Liz Truss has been urged to attend a meeting of European leaders by Brussels representative in the UK. European Union ambassador Joao Vale de Almeida suggested the Prime Minister should attend the European Political Community (EPC) meeting in Prague in October. He also said Ms Truss new administration offered an opportunity to resolve difficulties between Brussels and Westminster as he warned levels of mutual trust had dropped too low in recent years. EU ambassador to the UK Joao Vale de Almeida as he presented his credentials to the Queen when he took office (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The European Political Community is Emmanuel Macrons scheme to bring together EU nations and countries outside the bloc, potentially including the UK. No 10 is thought to be considering whether Ms Truss or another minister will attend the gathering. At a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, the ambassador said levels of mutual trust between the UK and EU were too low to be able to produce good results . Calling for more regular summits, he said: Where is the dialogue between our leaders? Its not happening and when it happens its not necessarily on a good basis. Mr Vale de Almeida said he would fully support the presence of Ms Truss at the EPC meeting: This will be, if it happens, a very good signal in a direction of starting a new cycle, having a mature relationship on issues of fundamental common interest. The EU views the Governments attempts to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol as illegal and Mr Vale de Almeida said the UK and Brussels needed to remove the stumbling blocks that prevented progress in the relationship. He said it had been difficult to come to a sound platform of understanding. The message to Ms Truss was to seize the opportunity that the beginning of a new cycle should provide to reassess where we are and to fundamentally opt for a constructive path forward in trying to find solutions for the problems that have been identified in the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy (Aaron Chown/PA) At the event, hosted by the Centre for European Reform, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said of course Ms Truss should attend the EPC meeting in Prague because these are our allies, our partners. He said the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which will override parts of the deal signed with the EU on post-Brexit arrangements, was a kamikaze approach to diplomacy and warned that if it passed it would risk a trade war with our closest allies. Mr Lammy also defended Labours approach to Brexit policy: I think its completely legitimate for us in the Opposition to set out our ambition to solve problems that are emerging but to rule out joining the single market and customs union at this stage YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The youth organizations of Armenian community in Argentina, with the support of the Armenian Institutions of the Republic of Argentina (IARA), held a march on September 25 to the Embassy of Azerbaijan, condemning the September 13 attack of Azerbaijan on Armenia, Diaro Armenia reports. The protesters reminded that September 27 marks the 2nd anniversary of the war unleashed by Azerbaijan with Turkeys support against Artsakh. 13 days ago Azerbaijan launched a new aggression, this case against Armenia and its people, they said. The Argentine-Armenians said that the Azerbaijani armed forces launched organized attacks on different settlements, border regions of Armenia. They stated that this aggression was directed against the sovereign territory of Armenia, which resulted in casualties. The adversary has targeted also the civilian infrastructure, they added. The Argentine-Armenian youth noted that the reasons for the attack are the same as in 1915 when the Armenian Genocide began to fulfill the pan-Turkish plan. This is an attempt of a new genocide, and the evidences are clear. We must strongly condemn the Azerbaijani and Turkish military actions which threaten the peace and security of the region. Let entire Argentine know that Azerbaijan and Turkey are two genocidal states, they said in their address to the local authorities. They also addressed the new Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Argentina, emphasizing that its impossible to impose a policy of denial in Argentine, and that they will not stay silent. YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. 6 people were killed, 20 others were injured after a gunman opened fire at a school in Russias city of Izhevsk, authorities said. Governor of Udmurtia Alexander Brechalov said in a video statement that the still unidentified gunman shot himself, The Washington Post reported. The Governor also said that there are children among the victims. YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Russias Federal Agency for Air Transport (Rosaviatsiya) has extended restrictions on flights to 11 airports in the southern and central part of the country until October 2, the agencys press service said, reports TASS. Temporary flight restrictions to 11 airports in southern and central Russia have been extended until October 2, 2022, the statement said. Flights to airports in Anapa, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol and Elista are temporarily restricted. Russia has closed part of its airspace in the south and central part of the country to civilian aircraft on February 24, 2022, amid the special military operation in Ukraine. YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The Public Defenders Office released details from the criminal case regarding the two Kurdish persons Atilla Cicek and Huseyin Yldrm. Public Defenders Office Deputy Director Tamara Baghdasaryan told ARMENPRESS that Atilla Cicek and Huseyin Yldrm were arrested in August 2021 on suspicion of illegally crossing the border from Iran, illegal possession of weapons and ammunition and smuggling weapons and ammunition into Armenia. Atilla Cicek and Huseyin Yldrm were sentenced to 7 years imprisonment by a court of first instance, which was overturned by a court of appeals based on a complaint filed by the public defenders office. The court of appeals had taken into account the fact that although the defendants crossed the border armed, they did not resist [arrest], Baghdasaryan said. On February 23, 2022 the court decided to suspend the sentence and set probation for a three-year term. Thus, they were set free from the courtroom. They were on probation, they were supposed to check in with a respective service periodically and confirm their presence, Baghdasaryan said. Afterwards, the prosecution filed an appellate complaint, which, however, was turned down and the court verdict entered force. After the court verdict took effect they were no longer considered beneficiaries of the public defenders office. We havent had any information about their fate since then, Baghdasaryan said. Speaking about the media reports alleging that Armenia extradited Atilla Cicek and Huseyin Yldrm to Turkey, Baghdasaryan said that the extradition process implies certain processes, a court hearing, documents had to be submitted from the other country, and a court has to decide to approve or reject the motion. In any case, the public defenders office hasnt received any application over this matter. On September 25, media reports emerged claiming that Armenia handed over two HPG (PKK wing) guerrilla fighters to Turkey. However, both the Armenian intelligence service and the justice ministry denied the reports, stating that they have not handed over the two mentioned individuals to Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkish media claims that the Turkish intelligence agency conducted a special operation to arrest the two Kurds, and that they are already in Turkey facing charges of terrorism. YEREVAN, 26 SEPTEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 26 September, USD exchange rate down by 3.21 drams to 413.06 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 7.72 drams to 398.31 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.11 drams to 7.14 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 16.18 drams to 443.13 drams. The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals. Gold price down by 548.37 drams to 21826.65 drams. Silver price down by 9.79 drams to 252.32 drams. Platinum price stood at 16414.1 drams. YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The United Kingdom commented on the latest Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia, stating that the armed forces should be withdrawn to the positions they held prior to this outbreak of hostilities. The UK Government has been clear, including in our intervention at the OSCE in Vienna, that armed forces should be withdrawn to the positions they held prior to this outbreak of hostilities. Diplomacy is the only way to resolve conflict, the British Embassy to Armenia said in response to a query from First Channel News regarding the recent Azeri attack We have always condemned the targeting of civilian areas in all conflicts. Our thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives or were injured as a result of the recent violence. The UK Government welcomes the return of prisoners of war and the remains of the deceased. We strongly encourage the parties to undertake discussions to secure the return of all remaining prisoners of war and the remains of the deceased. Reports of torture are extremely concerning and require thorough investigation by the appropriate authorities, the statement reads. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview broadcast on Sunday, September 25, that Ukraine had received sophisticated air defense systems from the United States, Reuters reports. It was the first acknowledgment that Ukraine had received the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), long sought by Kyiv and whose shipment was approved by Washington late last month. Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link NASAMS displayed at MSPO 2015 defense exhibition in Poland (Picture source: Army Recognition) The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on August 26, 2022, announced a $182,295,333 firm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) for Ukraine. During a press conference of the DoD on September 16, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder announced that two NASAMS were expected to be delivered to Ukraine in the next two months. The operation has been completed much ahead on schedule, it appears. The NASAMS (Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System) is designed and manufactured by the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace teamed up with Raytheon from the United States for the missile. Since the introduction in Norway in 2015, another four countries in NATO and the EU have acquired NASAMS. It can identify, engage and destroy threats, including enemy aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles A standard NASAMS unit has a modular design including a command post called FDC Fire Distribution Center, an active 3D radar AN/MPQ64F1 Sentinel, a passive electro-optic and infra-red sensor, and a number of missile canister launchers with AMRAAM missiles. Usually, four NASAMS units are connected in a battalion network. The missile of the NASAMS can engage 72 targets simultaneously in active and passive modes. The primary missile of the system is AIM-120 AMRAAM. The missile is able to hit targets at a range of up to 40 km and at an altitude of up to 14 km. The NASAMS can also fire the AIM-9X Sidewinder Block II short-range missile. It can be deployed to perform air-to-air engagements, surface-attack, and surface-launch missions without the need for modifications. NASAMS displayed at MSPO 2013 defense exhibition in Poland (Picture source: Army Recognition) Most of the recent inductions show that the BJP, which boasts of being the worlds largest party, simply loves deadwood After such a long wait, it finally happened! Punjabs former chief minister, 80-year-old Capt. Amarinder Singh, joined the BJP at last, something that was expected for around a year ever since Rahul Gandhi began the move to replace him as chief minister. But what does the ageing former Maharaja of Patiala bring to the BJPs table? Besides the ex-CM tag, nothing much more. Amarinder Singh minus the Congress means very little, despite the fact that the Grand Old Party is itself down in the dumps in Punjab as well as several other key states like Uttar Pradesh. The record of Amarinders Punjab Lok Congress is even more pathetic. His party, which has now merged into the BJP, had contested this years Assembly polls in alliance with the BJP, and both performed poorly. The PLC couldnt open its account, and lost the deposit in 27 out of 28 seats. While admitting Amarinder, the BJP tried to take the ex-maharaja off his high horse by deputing just two Union ministers to welcome him. Not only was the PM not there, neither was home minister Amit Shah or BJP president J.P. Nadda. A while ago, former Punjab PCC chief Sunil Jakhar had also joined the BJP. Mr Jakhar, 68, was upset over Charanjit Singh Channi being made CM. But Mr Jhakar too is also a has been. And while Jyotriaditya Scindia may have helped the BJP to bring down the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh three years ago, it had also affected the partys cohesion in parts of the state. Most of the recent inductions show that the BJP, which boasts of being the worlds largest party, simply loves deadwood. In a hurry to widen its footprint further, the party is allowing inductions left, right and centre, unmindful of the fact that it has already become like an overcrowded suburban train in Mumbai in which the original occupants are feeling suffocated and the pickpockets could have a field day. The entire episode of the parting of ways of Ghulam Nabi Azad from the Congress is also no great shakes. Though Mr Azad hasnt joined the BJP, he has entered a pro-BJP political space in a move that looks scripted by the powers-that-be. The tragedy with the 73-year-old Mr Azad is that despite the backing of the top Congress leadership in half a century, he could not evolve into being a mass leader. In Goa, the BJP has inducted another batch of Congress MLAs, including former CM Digambar Kamat, all of whom had taken an oath not to leave their former party under any circumstances. Its an open secret in Goas mercurial politics, leaders with skeletons in their cupboards have wildly fluctuating loyalties. But the question is: why these latest inductions in Goa when the ruling BJP has more than the requisite numbers? The only reason, it seems, is to show the world how the Congress is dwindling despite Rahul Gandhis Bharat Jodo Yatra. The talk in political circles is that the desertions from the Congress were planned four months back, but effected only recently in a bid to damage the Congress during the yatra. With much fanfare, former Union minister R.P.N. Singh was inducted in the BJP in the run-up to the UP polls earlier this year, to projecting that the Congress leader from the Kurmi community was a big catch. But Mr Singh, once a close associate of Rahul Gandhi, found to his dismay that he wasnt even sent to the Rajya Sabha. It seems now that everyone has forgotten about him. Soon after the last Lok Sabha polls, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Sinh, an Amethi royal and a close associate of the Gandhis, had resigned from the party and joined the BJP. Mr Sinh, 70, has been virtually unheard of since. He was made a candidate for the Assembly polls in UP earlier this year from Amethi, where he lost to the Samajwadi Party. Almost similar is the story of former Congress media secretary Tom Vadakkan, who caused embarrassment to the party before the last Lok Sabha polls by joining the BJP. Mr Vadakkan was denied a Lok Sabha ticket by the BJP, which projected him as being such a big leader that Rahul Gandhi had to funnily clarify that it wasnt really so. It must be acknowledged though that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah were spot-on about Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is now Assam CM, and has emerged as the BJPs face in the Northeast and one of Rahul Gandhis bitterest critics in the ruling party. Mr Sarma quit the Congress before the 2014 elections after a fall out with his mentor Tarun Gogoi, then Assam CM. There are now three BJP-ruled Northeast states where the CM is a former Congressman: Mr Sarma in Assam, Pema Khandu in Arunachal and N. Biren Singh in Manipur. Suvendu Adhikari, the loyalist-turned-foe of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, has also shown hes no pushover despite being a new entrant to the BJP. This is not to say that Prime Minister Modi is not aware of the problem of deadwood. He had removed as many as 12 ministers from his Cabinet last year in what was believed to be the biggest shakeup of its kind in Independent India. But its equally true that trash is growing by the day in the BJP these days. Syed Ata Hasnain, a retired lieutenant-general, is a former commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps. He is also associated with the Vivekananda International Foundation and the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which was due to meet in early September 2022, didnt appear to offer any hope regarding Ukraine war There is no doubt that the war was extending and this was against all the expectations of Nato and the European Union nations. (AP) By the end of August 2022 six months had elapsed without any decisive signals of victory or defeat on the battlefield in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. There was nothing unusual about this. Wars fought with original resources many times come to a standstill especially if the forces are broadly matching and there are no outstanding manoeuvres which place one side at an operational or strategic advantage against the other. There is no doubt that the war was extending and this was against all the expectations of Nato and the European Union nations which were living in fear of the approaching winter without adequate alternatives worked out towards crucial energy management for the challenging period. Russia was already cutting back its energy supplies to Europe and the anticipated collapse of its economy had not taken place despite severe Western sanctions. The economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was, however, being worsened by the energy crisis which was fast converting to a worldwide economic crisis, leading to collapse of frail economies like Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which was due to meet in early September 2022, didnt appear to offer any hope regarding the war in Ukraine, despite the presence of Russia and China. It was a situation demanding a fresh initiative to spur things on from the level of inactivity to which they had sunk. The question was: who would take this initiative? Eastern Ukraine in the Donbass area was under Russian siege. With the demographics against them, President Volodymyr Zelenskyys forces couldnt hope to make much headway. The Black Sea coastline had also been largely wrested from Ukraine and the latters operations through that direction would obviously be tedious, costly in time and resources. Fearful of a long war which could well see the end of Natos unity and its current energetic commitment, it appears the alliance led by the United States focused on gathering and assessing intelligence in the north and triggered a series of Ukrainian offensive operations that have been termed counter-offensives. The announcement in the Western media and the information coming from important European capitals at the end of August 2022 that Ukraines armed forces had resorted to successful counter-offensives was hyped and built with focus on the Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson areas, all high-profile landmarks. None of this has been closely examined by military experts in India and the Western information has simply been lapped up and projected as impending victories and collapse of the Russian front; reportedly 2,000 sq miles of territory has been captured/recaptured. Surprisingly, there are very few other analysts who look at the military operational angle of the war. The aim of the West is to project an impending collapse of Russias military capability and thus sap its will to fight, while instigating revolts against President Vladimir Putins government. On the energy side, efforts are afoot to place obstacles in the way for the movement of Russian energy resources to willing buyers through pressure on insurance and shipping companies. This combined strategy is what Nato hopes will succeed. It has of course received a sudden surprise in the form of the perceived cooling by both India and China towards Russia and the advice given by both nations on the need for an immediate end to the war for the sake of the international economic and energy situation. Its the operational hype which is the main weapon to try and bring Mr Putin to the table and end the war, now that economics doesnt seem to be working. In actual effect, none of the operations now on are serious enough to be decisive. It's incorrect to call them counter-offensives, which by themselves would be much larger in content and scope. The operations we are seeing are more in the nature of ripostes which are short offensive punches across fronts to hit the logistics and firm bases of the adversary, from where the Russian offensives were launched. Yes, territory has been captured but not critical ones, and the Russians arent really wilting; there seems to be no pursuit and the Ukrainians are obviously not going overboard while they continue to maintain balance. Mr Putin has his own ways of information and psychological pushback; he is no babe in the woods and his recent responses to the soft Sino-Indian pressure to stop the war may actually be deceptive. The critical thing for the moment is that Mr Putin has decided to carry on the fight. He has reportedly ordered the mobilisation of 300,000 reservists. The quality of these soldiers is going to be highly questionable especially since the Ukrainians are returning with better orientation, training and confidence. Yet, the Western propaganda claiming 80,000 to 90,000 Russian troops having died in action bears little credibility. The response within Russia would have been far more negative had such casualties occurred in a population which is reducing year on year. However, Mr Putins actions also display desperation. The quality of operational capability of his forces has been highly questionable, right from day one. Except for the delivery of huge quantities of explosives through various artilleries, the power of closing in and making decisive manoeuvres to capture and hold territory has nowhere been on display. Thus, with additional poorly trained troops, Mr Putin is only getting deeper into the trap and that is dangerous in the current situation. The Russians have deliberately conducted operations around nuclear power plants to give hints of their willingness to take this war into the realm of limited nuclear domain. Natos nuclear doctrine will be under test. Equally, Mr Putin will be under pressure both externally and internally. There are yet no firm indicators on the buildup of organised negative sentiment against Mr Putin; small protests against airlines denying seats to males are no real parameters to judge with. The SCO summit has played a more than expected role, and especially the Chinese and Indian movement towards getting the Russians to be more pragmatic. Yet, no one should read too deeply into this. India has probably moved the maximum that it can strategically on the subject. There was some follow-up with external affairs minister S. Jaishankars presence at the UN. As a last word, Mr Putins current actions signalling greater confrontation need not be read too deeply. Often, serious intent at confrontation leads to compromise within. A strong exterior may be just a facade for more that might be brewing; hopefully, that brew is towards adjustment and peace. It could well be towards more serious confrontation as well though, without any concern for outcomes. Everything is set for the big event. Despite rumours of a possible coup, the turnover at the top is expected to be smooth with Xi Jinping still at the helm. Nationalist hawk calls for more transparency over COVID-19 pandemic, sparking unusual online debate. Beijing (AsiaNews) Chinese state media today published the list of 2,296 delegates who will attend the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China, set to start on 16 October. Delegates will elect the new partys Central Committee as well as the partys two decision-making bodies, the Politburo and its Standing Committee. Since Xi Jinping unsurprisingly made the cut to be in the final list, it puts to rest online rumours of a possible coup d'etat, with the Chinese president under arrest. The only two prominent figures excluded from the congress are Zhang Xiaoming, a former executive deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Bureau, and Ying Yong, a former Deputy procurator-general of the Supreme Peoples Procuratorate. Discussions among party factions over the distribution of power was likely more intense than expected, but Xi should be able to get a new mandate, thus breaking with the tradition of the past 30 years whereby leaders were limited to two five-year terms as head of state, party boss, and commander of the Armed Forces. For some observers, the announcement of the opening date of the Congress and the names of delegates suggest that a consensus has been reached and that everything should go without a hitch. Meanwhile, preparations in Beijing are underway, with security and COVID-19 measures stepped up. Against this apparent calm, a statement by Hu Xijin on the pandemic emergency in China has raised eyebrows. Yesterday, a former editor of the state-owned Global Times newspaper, known to be a nationalist hawk, said on Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) that experts need to speak out on COVID-19 as well as conduct comprehensive studies and share them with the public Hu's message got more than 34,000 likes, sparking an online conversation that the authorities did not censor, something unusual since discussions about COVID-19 are usually shut down. The fighters, from Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, call themselves 'volunteers from the Islamic lands'. They say they want to collaborate with the ayatollahs to suppress internal dissent triggered by the killing of the young woman at the hands of the morality police. President Raisi announces an iron fist. At least 80 killed, hundreds arrested. Tehran (AsiaNews) - After sending militiamen to various war zones in the Middle East for years, Iran is now "recruiting" foreign radical groups and mercenaries from Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to suppress the growing wave of popular outrage and protest over the killing of Mahsa Amini. The fighters use the nom de guerre of 'volunteers from Islamic lands' and, in a message posted on social media, say they want to join the ayatollahs' regime in Tehran to help suppress the dissent triggered by the death of the young woman at the hands of the morality police. The girl, of Kurdish origin and in the capital for a family holiday, had been stopped by a patrol car at the exit of the metro because she was not properly wearing the hijab, the obligatory veil. While the street protests continue, repressed by force at the cost of a - still provisional - toll of over 80 victims, the militia group claims to have "formed spontaneously" and that its members are "willing to sacrifice their lives for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei". Its members are followers of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force killed by a US drone strike in January 2020. Opposition groups inside the Islamic Republic call them radical Shia militias, which take orders directly from the Guardians of the Revolution (Pasdaran). Street protests continued throughout the weekend, now extending to almost the entire country, with citizens condemning both the death of Mahsa Amini and the violent response of the authorities. Demonstrations also took place in many foreign cities and capitals, from Istanbul to Glasgow, from London to Rome with slogans and chants including 'hijab murderer' and 'no to the Islamic Republic of Iran'. On these occasions it is not uncommon to see women purposely cutting their hair in solidarity with Iranian women. In a video message from Zurich, where he is president of the jury of the local International Film Festival, Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi called on artists around the world to show their solidarity with the Iranian people 'in these difficult times'. "This society, especially these women, has travelled a harsh and painful path to this point, and now they have clearly reached a landmark," he added. Ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi has intervened in the protests in recent hours, promising a "decisive" response to put an end to the discontent after cutting communications and internet services in much of the country, especially in the Kurdish area. The Iranian leader brands the street demonstrations over the death of the young woman as "riots", against which "decisive" measures must be taken to guarantee the "security and tranquillity of the country". In one week, hundreds of people were arrested, but there are no official figures on the numbers; the police chief of the north-western province of Guilan said that in his region alone, 739 people were detained, of whom at least 60 were women. In recent days, there has also been the death of another young symbol of protest in Iran, Hadith Najafi, who became famous for a viral film in which, without a veil, she ties up her thick blond hair before taking part in a demonstration for the killing of Mahsa Amini. According to Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad, who quotes her sister, the girl, only 20 years old, was allegedly shot 'by six bullets in the city of Karaj' for taking to the streets to demonstrate. 'Hadis,' Alinejad adds, 'was a kind-hearted girl who loved to dance' and her only 'crime' was to aspire for 'freedom' for all Iranians. The International Union of Muslim Scholars, which the 96-year-old chaired, announced his death. Born in Egypt, he was involved in anti-colonial activities from a young age. He is famous for delivering a major sermon during Friday prayers in Cairos Tahrir Square after Mubaraks ouster. Doha (AsiaNews) The Muslim Brotherhood has lost one of its most influential spiritual, political and religious figures. Egyptian-born Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the fiercest critics of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and his regime, has died at the age of 96. The International Union of Muslim Scholars, which Qaradawi chaired, made the announcement, highlighting his important, albeit controversial place, in the Islamic world. Upon the start of the Arab Spring in Egypt and the Arab world in 2011, Qaradawi was one of the few Muslim clerics to openly support it. Born on 9 September 1926 in Saft Turab, a village in Gharbia governorate (Nile Delta), he studied at al-Azhar University in Cairo, the most prestigious Islamic university in the world, earning a doctorate in 1973. In his early years, when Egypt was a British protectorate, Qaradawi became an anti-colonial activist and was repeatedly arrested by the authorities. He later supported the Muslim Brotherhood, the most important Islamic and social group in the country, founded in 1928. For this, he was arrested and jailed several times, under both King Farouk in the 1940s and President Gamal Abdul Nasser in the 1950s. In 1961 Qaradawi moved to Doha, after he was appointed dean of the Faculty of Sharia at the newly created Qatar University, becoming a naturalised Qatari citizen seven years later. A regular guest on al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based international broadcaster, he appeared on various Islamic shows gaining for himself appreciation and support from millions of Muslims around the world. He returned to Egypt for some time in 2011, following the popular uprising that led to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. On 28 February 2011, a few days after the latters resignation, he led Friday prayers in front of thousands of people in the famous Tahrir Square, in downtown Cairo, which had become the symbol of the protest. His first appearance after decades of exile, in front of Christians and Muslims, had great symbolic value and represented one of the high points of the post-revolution phase. After the fall of President Mohammad Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood overthrown in a military-led coup, he became again an enemy of the nation and was sentenced to death in absentia in 2015 for links to a mass escape from prison four years earlier. Despite his influence over the Muslim Brotherhood and apparent support for the group, Qaradawi repeatedly denied being a member and refused several of the group's requests to hold high-level positions. His support for the Arab Spring and opposition to al-Sisi are seen as one of the reasons for the diplomatic crisis that broke out between Qatar and several Arab and Gulf countries, resulting in the political, economic, and diplomatic boycott against Qatar by several countries in 2017. The organisation he chaired, the International Union of Muslim Scholars, was included for years in a list of "terrorist organisations" by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Only after long mediation was it removed from the list last year. Email Newsletters Get the best of The Aspen Daily News in your inbox. Our newsletters are free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. A month later, the French automaker brought its latest hypercar back to the Old Continent for its European debut, which took place in the park adjacent to the stunning Chateau de Chantilly. Located north of the capital city, Paris, the chateau's Musee Conde is home to a fine collection of French paintings.Entered in Sundays Chantilly Concours dElegance, the W16 Mistral didnt win anything, which is a bit curious. The Aston Martin DBR22 won Best of Show, whereas the Hispano-Suiza H6C Dubonnet Xenia and Talbot Lago T26 GS Barchetta Motto fetched the pre-war and post-war awards.A barchetta-styled roadster powered by a 705-horsepower V12, the DBR22 is definitely special. But on the other hand, it pales in comparison to Bugattis 1,578-horsepower special edition. The final application of the 8.0-liter W16 that made Bugatti the worlds premier hypercar brand, the W16 Mistral develops 1,180 pound-foot (1,600 Nm) on full song. This tune is shared with the Chiron-based Centodieci and the Chiron Sport Sport+.Loosely inspired by the Type 57 Roadster Grand Raid Usine , this fellow is expected to start deliveries in 2024. Even though the legacy of the road-going W16 ends with the W16 Mistral, we continue the legacy of the roadster, first established by Ettore Bugatti more than a century ago, declared Mate Rimac, the chief executive officer of Bugatti Rimac.Finished in Ettores favorite colors, the W16 Mistral shown at Chateau de Chantilly isnt a production-spec vehicle. Pressing the lower part of the B right behind the B pillar opens the drivers door. Speaking to Alex from Supercar Blondie , deputy design director Frank Heyl explained that production-spec vehicles will feature conventional door handles. The driver-side B, if you were wondering, will be repurposed into a fuel door. However, one recent case brought to light by the Haines family in Flagler County proves that always doing your homework before buying a new car is mandatory no matter the seller.Brandon Haines found the 2019 Ford F-350 he was looking for at Bill Bryan Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Fruitland Park back in May, and given everything looked just right, he decided to go for it.A month later, when he took the truck to another dealership for an oil change, the staff told him something that came as a shock: the Ford F-350 he just bought was reported stolen. After checking out the VIN code, the serial code didnt even match a 2019 F-350, so after further inspection, they discovered that the purchased vehicle was actually the model year 2017.It was two years older than the dealership told the buyer it was, as it turns out, some features typically available on an MY 2019 were missing.The truck was stolen from a dealership in Colorado, and the VIN tag on the door came right off this is a sign that the thief tried to fake the numbers and make it harder for law enforcement to track it down.Needless to say, the police impounded the Ford, with the customer then reaching out to the dealership and the bank to ask for the money back and to cancel the loan. The Haines claimed they ended up hitting several roadblocks during the talks with the dealership, so they eventually decided to move the dispute to court.As per the local media , the man eventually filed a lawsuit against both the dealer and the bank, claiming it was all just a breach of contract. While it took many months for a response to be offered, the dealership reportedly reached out to the customer earlier this month to inform him that a settlement was on the table and waiting for the green light from the insurance company. USS Boone is an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate that proudly served between 1982 and 2012 before being decommissioned. After months of preparations, it would end up at the bottom of the ocean after being used as the bullseye for what is considered a rare live test of complex weapons, an exercise called Atlantic Thunder.Its rare because a realistic target is used far out at sea so that naval power can test their accuracy in hitting targets from a long range and gain real-world experience. This years exercise was the first in 18 years for UKs Royal Navy , which practiced together with the U.S. Navy and Air Force.The decommissioned warship became the target of an extremely powerful attack. Two Harpoon missiles came at it, launched from HMS Westminster, a type 23 frigate. The Martlet air-to-surface missiles were dropped from the frigates helicopter, a Wildcat. This was an important premiere because, until now, this type of missile had only been launched against targets that were specifically built for that. Now, they were used against a real target at sea.Another premiere had to do Typhoon fighter jets. For the first time, a Wildcat helicopters crew guided a Typhoon fighter to drop precision-guided munitions against the target. And, again, it was the first time that the target was a real warship at sea.On the other hand, the U.S. blasted its own former warship. Missiles came from the USS Arleigh Burke destroyer, a Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, and F-15E Eagles.As you can imagine, this was a highly-complex operation , integrating multiple weapons, communications, and sensors between two allies. As the exercise was concluded, the USS Boone sank forever, fulfilling its duty to the very end. Its true, the Breakout craze in the custom industry seems to have faded a bit, perhaps on account of the model getting a bit old amid the relatively large number of new two-wheelers the American bike maker has been introducing over the past few years. But custom Breakouts we havent seen before keep popping up, and we kind of feel obliged to bring to your attention.The bike was put together inside the facilities of a French specialist called Melk , with the starting idea being to make the Breakout as elegant as possible while keeping the original sissy bar and rear fender.Riding on multi-spoke wheels of undisclosed size, the Breakout stands proud, tall or low, depending on mood, thanks to an adjustable lowering kit. It shows a purer profile, as the shop claims, both at the front, thanks to the smoothing of the tank, and further back, with the inclusion of a short KessTech exhaust system. It also looks more intent on account of the LED lights used front and back, including for the turn signals.Because Melk is first and foremost a paint specialist, the Vivid Black color the American bike maker shipped the bike in was kept, but not left alone. It was instead treated to a gloss varnish which in the right light makes the machine shine in particularly beautiful tones.The motorcycle is one of Melks older builds (number seven in its portfolio), but can still be made upon customer request. What we do not know is how much the French garage charges for such a conversion. Now, it might share a different moniker, but make no mistake, the Trackhawk is closely related to Dodges Hellcat vehicles. It features the same supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 as the Challenger and Charger SRT Hellcat, good for 707 hp (717 ps) and 645 lb-ft (875 Nm) of torque.With the help of an eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox, all-wheel drive and a Launch Control system, the Trackhawk can rocket from zero to 60 mph (97 kph) in just 3.5 seconds. It also handles better than your run-of-the-mill Grand Cherokee, it stops harder thanks to its Brembo brakes (6-piston front / 4-piston rear), and naturally, it looks better than any of its close siblings.On paper, the Audi RS Q8 should be at a disadvantage, compared to a Trackhawk. The Audi is powered by a 4.0-liter twin turbocharged V8 engine, good for 591 hp (600 ps) and 590 lb-ft (890 Nm) of torque. The engine is mated to the carmakers quattro all-wheel drive system, with an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission of its own.Point the RS Q8 at the horizon and youll hit 60 mph in 3.7 seconds meaning its slightly slower than the Trackhawk.The thing is, what we have here in this video isnt just any RS Q8, but rather ABT Sportlines heavily modified Signature Edition variant , which has been tuned to produce 790 hp (800 hp) and 737 lb-ft (1,000 Nm) of torque. According to the tuner, this thing will hit 62 mph (100 kph) in 3.2 seconds, which means 0-60 should be even quicker (maybe 3.1 or even 3 seconds flat).It then stands to reason that the ABT RS Q8 Signature Edition would out-pace the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk in a straight line, but thats not what happens here. Instead, the Jeep pulls off the upset in convincing fashion. We could argue that maybe the Trackhawk wasnt completely stock either, but wed just be speculating. Workers at the Michigan Assembly Plant discovered two engines with a loose fuel line assembly connection to the fuel pump, causing a fuel leak after assembly. The fuel leaks were identified at the initial startup in pre-rolls. The bad news? As per the attached report, these two engines were improperly repaired during a quality inspection at Cleveland Engine Plant.Even though both Michigan Assembly Plant and Chicago Assembly Plant both issued stop-ship orders to contain suspect vehicles, some had already found their way into dealer inventory. The Ford Motor Company isnt aware of any accidents or injuries related to this problem, but FoMoCo couldnt weasel its way out of recalling the SUVs and workhorses that got through.The second-largest automaker in the U.S. mentions that the remedy component features the same part number as the suspect component, yet the remedy component will be properly secured to the engine. Owners will be notified by Ford between October 3rd and October 7th via first-class mail.The federal watchdog was informed that dealers will inspect the fuel line assembly and if needed replace it at no charge to the customer. Given that repairing is not an option, Ford may want to revise quality control processes at the Cleveland Engine Plant to nip these problems in the bud.Manufactured between July 22nd and August 25th, the suspect Explorer population consists of 51 examples produced for the 2022 model year with the four-cylinder turbo that Ford has redesigned for the seventh generation of the long-running Mustang. Suspect Rangers number 18 examples that were assembled between August 23rd and August 26th with the 2.3L mill. The list of famous people that had a Corniche in their garages is quite long and includes names like Elton John, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Aristotle Onassis, and Helen Brach.Granted, the latter wasn't as famous as Elton John or Frank Sinatra , but I've included her name here for two reasons. First, she owned this really cool 1971 Corniche finished in a special-order magenta color. Called Brach Candy Purple, this hue is unique. Second, Helen Brach created quite a stir when she disappeared without a trace in 1977. And she was never found.Known as the "Candy heiress," Helen Brach married Frank Brach, son of Emil J. Brach and heir to the E. J. Brach & Sons Candy Company. When her husband died in 1970, she inherited a multi-million-dollar fortune and got involved in the horse trade.Brach mysteriously disappeared in 1977, and even though an investigation concluded that she was murdered, her body was never found. She was declared legally dead in 1984, and her case was linked to the "Show jumping horse killings scandal" that emerged in the early 1970s.Investigators believe that she came across an insurance fraud scheme run by the Chicago Mob, which led to her kidnapping and murder. More than a decade later, horse stable owner Richard Bailey was charged, but not convicted, with conspiring to murder Brach. He was eventually sentenced to 30 years in prison for defrauding her.At the time of her disappearance, this gorgeous 1971 Corniche was parked in front of her mansion in Glenview, Illinois. Come 2022, and the Rolls-Royce looks like it's brand-new and it's looking for a new owner via Mecum Auctions.A low-mileage convertible with only 16,000 miles (25,750 km) on the odo, this Corniche was custom-ordered in an attention-grabbing magenta color that Rolls-Royce dubbed Brach Candy Purple. It was paired with a white top and a matching interior with Magenta piping and carpeting.While the car is said to come with documentation, there's no word if the Corniche was restored or simply kept in pristine condition in a heated garage for five decades. Given that it looks like it just left the Rolls-Royce factory, I'd say this classic was refreshed at some point.A first-year model, this Rolls hides a 6.75-liter V8 engine under the hood. Rated at 200 horsepower when new, the mill mates to a three-speed automatic gearbox. And based on the way it looks, it should run like new.If you're into flashy classics, colorful candy, or a piece of fascinating Chicago true-crime history, this Corniche will cross the auction block at Mecum's Chicago 2022 event on October 13-15. There's no pricing estimate for the auction, but first-year Cornice models are known to go for more than $60,000 in this condition. Perhaps this mild celebrity example will fetch a six-figure sum? EV Rasmussen led the voltage cap lawsuit against Tesla. According to the Model S owner, he and several others in the lawsuit were finally paid early this month. He also celebrated that Tesla reversed the battery voltage cap and restored the range his car used to have, even if supercharging speed is still significantly slower than originally. Anyway, he couldn't stop laughing after Elon Musk tweeted that Teslas policy was never to fight true claims, even if we would win. After all, they had been fighting the case for over two years!What we did not know is that the tool to improve onboard diagnostic made the company detect and replace dozens of faulty battery packs from the customers that filed the lawsuit, as Rasmussen told us. While that looks positive, it is here that the story gets weird and starts to look like a trap.A new issue appears that many cars that are now out of warranty are getting battery failure warnings and then capped at 50% capacity. They are then being quoted anywhere from $15,000 to $22,000 for a replacement pack. But, as with my case, Tesla will not provide any details of the battery state. They just say it is bad and needs to be replaced, Rasmussen told autoevolution on September 18. He also said the warranty would then expire in ten days, which means it will finish on September 28 also known as next Wednesday.It is necessary to have the whole context of this story to understand all its implications. It all started after some Model S units caught fire in 2019, particularly a famous one in Shanghai in April, which was filmed and went viral. Tesla released the over-the-air updates 2019.16.1 and 2019.16.2 shortly after that. They capped the cell voltage in the Model S and X. Instead of charging to their full capacity of 4.2V, each cell in these battery packs would only charge up to a lower limit (3.9V or 4V, for example). That reduced range and supercharging speed.Tesla gave no explanation about the updates and was sued in August 2019. The involvedowners accused Tesla of concealing fire risks with the battery pack. In July 2021, Tesla decided never to fight true claims and proposed to settle the dispute by paying $625 to each of the 1,743 Model S owners in the U.S. affected by the OTA updates There is a detail that makes all the difference in this situation: in 2019, all the Model S units still had their battery packs covered by the eight-year warranty. The EV was officially presented on June 22, 2012. In other words, these warranties started to expire on June 12, 2020.The owners affected by the voltage cap received another update with a better onboard diagnostic. As Rasmussen explained, dozens of battery packs were replaced. Others got restricted to 50% of their capacities while they waited to be substituted for the prices the Model S owner described above. For these owners, the voltage cap gave place to an even higher restriction. On top of that, many are no longer covered by the warranty.To get the whole picture, we still need to confirm if those Tesla customers getting invoices instead of battery pack replacements are only those that already lost warranty coverage, as Rasmussen told us. As Tesla did not explain what was wrong with these components, it is possible that even those still covered may be getting the 50% capacity restriction and the hefty estimates for the replacements. There is a chance that these battery pack failures are connected to the moisture-ingress that affected Zelayas 2013 Model S , but we also need to confirm that.Tony Tam, from EVFixMe, told autoevolution that he has recently seen many cars getting charge restricted.However, I'm not sure if they correlate to the ones involved with the lawsuit. I do know someone whose car was part of the lawsuit. The battery (pack) has failed, and they have received a new one from Tesla. According to Tam, what happens is (that) shortly after applying the update, the car will be restricted in range in a day to a few days.Rasmussen fears the same will happen to his car, but he has a backup plan. Like Hansjorg von Gemmingen , the owner of the 1-million-mile Tesla Model S, the soon-to-be former Tesla customer ordered a Lucid Air Pure in July 2021, locked in at the old price. He should receive it early next year.Rather than spend more than $20,000 for a replacement battery with a 250-miles range on an 8-year-old car with likely other failures coming up (suspension, pumps, charger modules, etc.), I will spend about $80,000 for a new car with a 400-mile range.The Model S owner is so done with Tesla: according to Rasmussen, their service has gone to sh** over the last few years. Yes, he used the S-word to define what to expect from Tesla Service Centers these days. We can only imagine how he classifies Teslas legal strategies with its customers after what he allowed us to figure out. We suspect this may be just the beginning. As of the time of press, Offset has been involved in at least three major accidents in a Dodge, with the most recent, in November 2020, also being the source of new legal trouble for him. Another vehicle was involved, and Offset is now suing that other driver on the claim that she was the one responsible for it.The accident occurred on the freeway in Encino, California, with Offset at the wheel of a 2018 Dodge Charger and Silvestre Cruz Gutierrez driving a 2019 Honda Civic. In the summer of 2022, Gutierrezs insurance company, Mercury Insurance Company, sued Offset, accusing him of auto-negligence and seeking $26,000+ in damages.According to that first suit, he was driving recklessly and crashed into the Honda, which caused serious and permanent injuries to the passenger riding with Gutierrez. The suit also alleged that Offsets Dodge was not insured.Offset has now responded to the lawsuit, Radar Online reports. In documents filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, the rapper is accusing Gutierrez of negligence and recklessness, saying she switched lanes without using the blinker and, more importantly, without taking into account that he was traveling in that lane at a constant speed. He is saying that she swerved into him.The Honda hit Offsets Charger on the left side, and he swerved into the concrete divider on the right-hand side. Gutierrezs unsafe lane change was the sole cause of the collision with the Dodge, the documents say. The Charger was totaled in the accident, and Offset is now seeking $150,000 in damages, which would cover property damage, the cost of storing the wrecked car, and unspecified damages.In June this year, Offset took delivery of his red Dodge Challenger Demon that had been restored by RR Auto Group Los Angeles after it ended up with the front end smashed. Before that was this 2020 crash, and, back in 2018, he crashed his Dodge Challenger Hellcat SRT and had to be rescued by a passer-by from the wreck. Three times may be a charm, but in this case, it definitely looks more like a curse. Michelle Mone is a savvy entrepreneur from Scotland, UK, who made her fortune after starting Ultimo, a lingerie brand, which she later sold for millions of dollars. After that, she launched the tanning brand Utan And Tone and an interior design company, Michelle Mone Interiors. In 2010, she was appointed OBE for "services to the lingerie industry" and a Conservative peer in 2015. She is married to billionaire businessman Doug Barrowman.Among their belongings was a Fitzroy Yachts vessel called Lady M, which is a 127'7 ft (38.9) sail yacht, built in 2006. The boat usually made appearances often on the baroness Instagram account and it looks like they spent quite a lot of time on it. However, this one shouldnt be confused with Palmer Johnson's Lady M motor yacht , which is a 214'11 ft (65.5 m) vessel.Originally, the yacht was designed by Dubois Naval Architects, with RWD working on the interior design. It was delivered originally as ZULU. In 2022, it underwent a major refit, not just for the interior, which now boasts lots of cream shades, but its exterior and sailing systems as well.It has enough space to accommodate up to 10 guests in four cabins, with room for six crew members to cater to their every need.Power comes from a Caterpillar design engine, taking it to a top speed of 14 knots (16 mph / 26 kph) and a cruising speed of 12.5 knots (14 mph / 23 kph), with a maximum cruising range of 4,700 Nm (5,409 mph / 8,704 kph).The vessel is now up for sale at Cecil Wright , with a price tag of 11,450,000 (approximately $11,089,325 at todays exchange rate). SUV In the United States, it can only rely on the Outlanderas the iconic Eclipse series has also morphed into a crossover and it is not exceedingly popular. Over across the Atlantic Ocean, the Europeans are wondering why on Earth would anyone buy a Renault Captur with the ASX badge. And everyone around the world is craving for a Lancer Evolution revival that might never happen.Luckily, there is (possibly) one last chance of redemption as a bunch of new Mitsubishi pickup truck prototypes was spied while undergoing research and development prototype trials in the United States . Naturally, that made everyone wonder about what the L200 and Triton heck is going on, as the compact pickup truck is not available in North America, irrespective of the used nameplate.Of course, the most recent batch of spy photographers (although they do not look to be the same) also gave virtual automotive artists some innovative ideas about the potential, unofficial look of the sixth-generation pickup truck that is still popular in certain regions of the world. So, here is Nikita Chuicko, the virtual artist better known as kelsonik on social media, who probably thinks now is the right CGI time to give Mitsubishi one last CGI chance of redemption Looking ready to informally try and save Mitsubishi from oblivion, the upcoming L200/Triton iteration has a brawny yet quirky styling. Some might say it feels like it was designed by a child. But others perhaps will understand that Mitsubishi maybe has just one final shot at survival and they need to stand out in a crowd, even if only for the quirkiest design reasons, at first. So, does it get a CGI hall pass, or not? EV SUV Interestingly, this also applies to the crazy automotive world of virtual artists. And there is no need to take our word for granted. Instead, let us further showcase the curious case of Ildar, the pixel master better known as ildar_project on social media, who usually dabbles with tuned models but now mainly thinks of exclusives for socialites. A certain influencer , to be more precise. So, we have no idea if the CGI expert has a crush on Alexandra Mary Alex Hirschi, who is better known around the world thanks to her Supercar Blondie channel on YouTube, or he just wants to piggyback on her fame. Either way, there is now an entire series of personalized specifications of upcoming popular models, all done specifically for her.So, it all started with a bespoke digital project called Lamborghini Tormenta, immediately followed by the perfect Ferrari Purosangue , as well as an elegant and sustainable Rolls-Royce Spectre full. Now, the virtual artist is getting even quirkier because he also imagined the long-awaited, ultra-rumored Apple car with a dedication to the renowned automotive influencer.Unlike with the Ferrari Purosangue V12-powered crossoveror the Rolls-Royce Spectre full EV grand tourer, there are very few details that can be used to describe the elusive Apple car . Although, if this drags on for more time than it already did, it will probably be known as the Tesla Cybertruck of the tech world as a reference to its tardiness. But, anyway, back to this hypothetical idea does it get our CGI hall pass, or not (because it is all starting to become a creepy affair)? HP Lamborghinis naturally aspirated V12 is done. As we anticipated back in May , the time has come for the beloved carmaker to stop producing one of its most sought-after two-door high-performance vehicles that run solely on gas the Aventador is now part of the brands rich history.According to the press release available down below, the last Lamborghini Aventador ever made is a custom order LP 780-4 Ultimae Roadster finished in a special blue color. The supercar is headed to Switzerland.The Ultimae was Lamborghinis way of letting everyone know that Aventadors time was closer to the end. Now, the 6.5-liter unit that churns out 769(780 PS) and 531 lb-ft (720 Nm) of torque without making use of forced induction coming from a turbocharger or electrification is out of production.The Ultimae coupes and roadsters were made available in limited numbers only 600 were made in total.The Aventador was a major success for Lamborghini. The 10,000th unit was delivered in September 2020. Apart from the Ultimae, the automaker also unveiled some special series like the Jota, the Anniversario, the LP 700-4 Pirelli Edition, the Miura Homage, the SVJ, and the SVJ Xago.There were also other vehicles that used the Aventador chassis but were manufactured as few-offs or one-offs. This list includes the Veneno, the Centenario, the SC18 Alston, the SCV12, the Sian FKP 37, and the hybrid Countach LPI 800-4.Nows the time to get ready for the next chapter the hybrid V12 and the electrification era that will slowly lead to the death or to the unrecognizable change of the internal combustion engine. Designed by Victory Designs head honcho Brunello Acampora and his team of international designers, naval architects, and engineers, the new Bolide 170 will be offered in both multi-motor diesel version, which promises to reach speeds of up to 50 knots (57.5 miles), and in a special hybrid version, equipped with four gas turbines and electric motors. This variant will be capable of reaching 70 knots top speed (80.5 mph).The diesel version is said to come with a light alloy hull and a carbon fiber superstructure. Its propulsion apparatus will comprise six 2,200 hp MAN engines, two electric motors, and a T-Drive by Flexitab & TS propulsion system with six surface propellers. No generators will be installed on this model.Meanwhile, the hybrid version equipped with four gas turbines will have a composite hull and a hybrid electric apparatus.The yacht will be the flagship of the new range, and the idea behind its design was to create a yacht capable of delivering the same feel and performance as a supercar. As such, Bolide 170 promises easy handling and agility even when it reaches those top speeds.The Napoli-based studio already has another Bolide model under in-house construction, named Bolide 80 and built in collaboration with Persico Marine, under the supervision of engineer Eugenio Voltolina.This other model is being built out of GRP and will be powered by MAN diesel engines that will reach 55 knots (63.2 mph) cruising speed and 75 knots (86.3 mph) top speed.Going back to the Bolide 170 flagship, the future high-performance vessel will accommodate up to 10 guests, featuring an owners apartment and four staterooms.It will feature generous interior and exterior spaces, designed with elegance and class in mind to offer guests a premium experience These boats are designed for true collectors and for those who love the thrill which cannot be waived of speed while experiencing it with up-to-date means, in total safety and reducing environmental impact, Brunello Acampora explained These are true collectors jewels, not serially but custom-built; each unit is unique and exclusive, he added. MPV Many passenger car segments are dying or at least trying to rekindle the glory of former, brighter days. This could be said about minivans, station wagons, and more especially in the United States. But how about luxurious MPVs, dont they deserve a second chance, even if only virtually?If a mass-market carmaker like Hyundai can do something cool with the Staria people carrier, for example, we can all be sure that luxury brands should be even more prolific, right? Well, who knows, but at least we have a digital example that does not look half bad And it comes from Sugar Chow, the virtual artist better known as sugardesign_1 on social media, who again interrupts his Touring the world! periplus because of anidea. So, after he recently played with the S650 Mustang or a Honda Civic Type R Tourer and then morphed the Japanese Hot Hatch into a cool-looking three-door Coupe , now it is time for an MPV revival with a sustainable twist.Remember the Mercedes-Benz R-Class full-size luxury minivan that looked more like a station wagon than MPV? Well, the series which was produced in the United States only lasted between 2005 and 2014 around the world, and even in China, it bit the dust back in 2017. A sure sign that it might still gather a little cult following, though, comes from the pixel masters imagined revival.Alas, it needs some new blood to get the digital heart pumping, so the CGI expert also thought that it would be perfect for a Mercedes-EQ reinterpretation. Thus, meet the Mercedes-Benz EQR , a zero emissions MPV that takes the retro R-Class and makes it a modern EQ with help from idealized station wagon looks. So, does it get our CGI hall pass, or not? Ocean Builders is yet to address the incident on any of its official channels A spokesperson tells Blick that no one was injured and that the incident is under investigation. Titanic II is gonna be a banger. #seapod pic.twitter.com/nzg7zLKlzj cheap pontoon (@CheapPontoon) September 24, 2022 Ocean Builders is a Panama-based developer thats been in the news since 2019 when it introduced the concept for the so-called worlds first eco-restorative floating house called the SeaPod. The SeaPod is billed as the house of tomorrow because its both eco-friendly and affordable (or will be affordable farther down the line) while also being very stylish, customizable, and offering all the advantages of a floating house and then some.We covered the SeaPod extensively in a separate story, so to sum up: its a pod that uses more than 1,688 cubic feet of air-filled steel tubes to float 7.5 feet (2.2 meters) above the waves. It offers 833 square feet (73 square meters) of living space divided across three and a half levels, and the submerged part is designed to become an ecosystem for marine life. The interior is customizable, with developers aiming for complete self-sufficiency for the unit at some point in time.On Thursday, at the Linton Bay Marina in Panama, Ocean Builders unveiled the first full-size prototype of the SeaPod , together with another structure that showed the layout of one of the floors, presumably in order to offer viewers a better appreciation of the available space. It seems that the two were connected underwater.According to German publication Blick , at the end of the star-studded event, which included an appearance by President Laurentino Cortizo, the entire structure toppled and became partly submerged. Videos on social media show that there were people inside the SeaPod when it started to topple.Local media covered the unveiling of the prototype but strangely made no mention of the incident that saw it lean at an angle. This could be an intentional slip for whatever purpose or due to the fact that the incident happened after the public launch. The one thing certain is that it happened: Blick has video of the structure as it topples to the side and footage that shows the main structure partially in the water, while people in an inflatable are struggling to keep it afloat. The publication claims that the entire structure went underwater afterward, despite these efforts, but Ocean Builders is disputing it.In a statement to autoevolution, a spokesperson says of the incident that, "like all innovation and new technology, there is a likelihood of trial and error and that provides an opportunity to learn, improve, and continue to innovate on ocean technology." As for what caused it, it was a bilge pump malfunction that affected the balance of a lower steel spar in the prototype, causing flooding. That said, there was no crash and no damage to the prototype, and most importantly, there were no injuries. Contrary to earlier reports, the prototype did not sink.The story has been updated to include a statement from Ocean Builders on the cause of the incident, and to remove all mentions of the prototype sinking, which were inaccurate. This spring we presented a new website for Ochi Design. Ochi is a presentation design agency from Lviv, Ukraine working with international businesses. The main feature of the site is the eyes that you can move with your cursor. Why did we choose eyes? Because Ochi means eyes in Ukrainian. The company creates presentations to clients, presentations are watched by thousands of people, the visual style is perceived by the eyes. Therefore, it was one of the main ideas in the design. The first screen of the site Main and secondary design idea As we wrote before, the main idea of this website is using a clients brand name Ochi. We play with the eyes from the beginning of the site, all the way to its footer and make the users do the same. Presentations are made up of slides. This is the second feature for design ideas. Therefore, many elements on the site have rounded forms, and are made in the form of cards that interact with each other, turn over, overlap, increase, and so on. Transferring presentation slides to the site as one of the ideas The preloader is also made in the style of cards with information, and the user is immersed in one of them and then gets to the main page. Preloader The clients team are open to any bold suggestions that will make their site stand out from the competitors. On the same page as the client The client already had their own color style, illustrations and logotype. We have just changed the fonts to more modern ones so that we can make and use good typography on the website. Since the client is a modern, young company, the colors are also very bright and stylish. The clients team are open to any bold suggestions that will make their site stand out from the competitors. The topic of this project we fell in love with from the first email from the client. Thus, the creation of the site did not take us much time. We created the website quickly, the client completely trusted us in terms of visual style, we worked out the ideas well and finished the site with almost no edits. CTA part The content: from the site to the Instagram account Since we were on the same page with our client, we showed them examples of how cases can be designed, how minimalistic photos and graphics should be, and made several cover options for projects. It so happened that now the client is actively using many of the techniques from the website in their branding on Instagram. So this case is a bright example that a wow site could not only be achieved in the case of close cooperation and trust on the part of the client - but the design, development team must also take into account the wishes of the client and the quality of the brief stage. Team slider Technologies Since we have our own developer in the team, and we have been working together for a long time, there were no particular difficulties in implementing all our ideas. There are no secret technologies in front-end or back-end development: Wordpress, WebGL, GSAP Animation, Three.js. and Locomotive Scroll. Contact form And one more thing We are most proud of the following blocks on this site: Hover on projects, CTA with eyes on a green background, block with a team on About, contact form, preloader, block with clients in the form of a table. And what is your memorable part on Ochi website? Dont hesitate to share your preferences with us :) Services Company Info Obys is an Ukraine-based design agency that creates unique graphic and web experiences all around the world. More about us is here and here. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Lois Henry is the CEO and editor of SJV Water, a nonprofit, independent online news publication dedicated to covering water issues in the San Joaquin Valley. She can be reached at lois.henry@sjvwater.org. The website is sjvwater.org. Two hundred eleven startup businesses made investment pitches. Only 18 were invited to make formal presentations. Of those, just six made the Five members of a family were killed when a girder from the construction of an elevated transit corridor fell and crushed their car along the Dhaka-Mymensingh national highway, Aug. 15, 2022. Updated at 8:09 a.m. ET on 2022-09-27 Bangladeshs government has allowed a Chinese contractor to resume construction of an elevated rapid bus route after suspending the project in the wake of a girder falling and killing five people in a car last month, officials said. Authorities have also granted the Gezhouba Group Company, a road-building firm from mainland China, a one-year extension on the project after it gave the government assurances about implementing safety measures to prevent other accidents from happening, officials told BenarNews. Chinas Gezhouba Group Company has been permitted to resume the construction work as they have adopted safety measures at the project site. We want them to finish the work as soon as possible, A.B.M Amin Ullah Nuri, the secretary of the Road Transport and Highways Division, told BenarNews. The project is already behind schedule; how long will we make people suffer for the project? said the official, who also chairs the state agency implementing the Dhaka Bus Rapid Transit line (DBRT). The deadly accident on Aug. 15 was the latest mishap to occur during construction of the 20.2-km (12.5-mile) overhead rapid transit bus corridor. Five members of a family, including two children, were killed when the falling girder crushed their car as they were driving underneath the construction site of the elevated transit line. A newlywed couple, who were also in the car, were seriously injured. A government investigation into the incident found that the China Gezhouba Group Co., a subsidiary of the China Gezhouba Group Corp. (CGGC), was responsible for the accident by not ensuring peoples safety in or near the project site. The project, valued at 42.6 billion taka (U.S. $450 million), is being financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Nuri said. Once completed, the transit line will connect the neighboring Gazipur district with Dhakas Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, in a project that aims to ease traffic congestion on a busy highway connecting the two points. We have to work with the ADB to take action against the contracting company. We are working with them in this regard, Nuri said without elaborating. In 2016, the Gezhouba Group was awarded the contract for the project. Its original end-date was June 2020, but the project got delayed multiple times amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the company was then given a new deadline for finishing the project by June 2021. Thus far, nearly 80 percent of the project has been finished. We want the physical construction of the project to finish by March next year. So, we have proposed the planning commission to extend the deadline for the company to December 2023, Shafiqul Islam, the managing director of the DBRT company, told BenarNews. When asked whether the government was considering cancelling the contract and finding a new builder for the transit line, he replied: This is very difficult to change the contractor of an ongoing project. We will not change the contractor CGGC. There are provisions for punishment in the contract, but applying the provisions is realistic, Islam added. The Chinese embassy in Dhaka did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for comment. Lawsuit Ten people, all Bangladeshi nationals connected with the Chinese company, have been arrested in connection with the Aug. 15 accident but have been freed on bail. Meanwhile, a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought against the company over the latest incident told BenarNews that senior officials of CGGC went to his home in Dhaka recently. They offered us Tk two million for each family as compensation so that we could withdraw the case. But we have not accepted their proposal, said Md. Afran Mondal Babu, who is suing the company for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The police had not arrested any official of the Chinese company. Some local staff of the project were arrested and all of them have been [released] on bail, said Babu. We have asked for Tk 30 million (U.S. $287,240) for the settlement. And they rejected our offer, he said. CORRECTION: An earlier version incorrectly reported that a newlywed couple was among the fatalities in the Aug. 15 accident. President Joe Bidens summit with Pacific island leaders this week is meant to show a deeper U.S. commitment to a region that is increasingly turning to China to meet its development needs, officials and analysts say. The Sept. 28-29 meetings will be the first-ever Washington summit for leaders of Pacific island nations. But it will need solid outcomes to overcome skepticism that U.S. attention to Pacific island nations is reactive rather than enduring, observers say. Weve seen quite a few attempts from the U.S. recently to speak the language of the Pacific, to demonstrate their commitment to the Pacific. But so far that has been lacking in any significant substance, Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at Australias Lowy Institute and a former diplomat in the region, told BenarNews. Over two decades, China has become an important source of infrastructure, loans and aid for Pacific island nations as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and gain regional allies in international organizations such as the United Nations. Remote, prone to natural disasters and lagging in economic development, the Pacific island countries have welcomed Chinas assistance as easier to obtain and meeting the needs of their people. Some analysts say Beijing also hopes to establish a military presence in the Pacific in a challenge to U.S. dominance. Earlier this year it signed a pact with the Solomon Islands that would allow it to send security forces to protect Chinese interests in those islands. American involvement in the region diminished after the breakup of the Soviet Union, with a reduction in embassies and U.S. development assistance through its Peace Corps agency. Pacific leaders say their top concern is the climate and they dont want to be forced to take sides in the U.S.-China rivalry. Rising sea levels and more extreme weather linked to higher average global temperatures threatens many low-lying Pacific nations. Tuvalu, made up of nine coral islands and home to some 12,000 people, fears it will be submerged this century. For us the most important security issue is climate change. It is not China, it is not the U.S., it is about climate change, said Siaosi Sovaleni, the prime minister of Tonga. We are facing, on an annual basis, extreme weather events. It used to be once every five years, he told a conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the lead up to the summit. David Panuelo, president of the Federated States of Micronesia, said he hoped the summit would result in greater Peace Corps involvement in the region - as already promised by the U.S. - a larger contribution to protection of vast Pacific fisheries and more climate finance. In order to be considered a success, the U.S.-Pacific Summit must see the return of the U.S. Peace Corps to the FSM and other Pacific Islands, he said in an email to BenarNews. The summit must result in additional commitments from the U.S. on helping the Pacific prevent, mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo (center) is pictured at a welcoming ceremony for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Suva, Fiji, July 12, 2022. [William West/AFP] U.S. officials are aware they are on the backfoot. Kurt Campbell, the White Houses Indo-Pacific coordinator, acknowledged that rivalry with China is behind renewed U.S. attention to the Pacific island countries. However, U.S. leaders also recognize the region had been neglected, he said during the same conference at Carnegie. In the past we have perhaps paid lesser attention to these critical places than we should have. I think being honest about that is important, he said. This is a region that has been disappointed before. Sometimes expectations get raised, theyre unfulfilled. We understand the bar is high and I think what were going to try to do is fulfill those expectations, Campbell said. According to Sora, of the Lowy Institute, there are numerous ways for the United States to show a long-term commitment to the Pacific including with new initiatives and scaling up some of its existing but small-scale involvement. Theres definitely room for the U.S. to demonstrate in some meaningful way that its committed to the region and that its committed to the region for the long term, Sora said by phone. A huge vulnerability for the U.S. right now is the regional perception that U.S. interest in the Pacific is only as a reaction to Chinas increasing influence and presence. A man guides his pet German shepherd through a flooded street in the town of San Miguel in Bulacan province, north of the Philippine capital, Manila, Sept. 26, 2022, a day after Super Typhoon Noru made landfall. Super Typhoon Noru, the most powerful storm to strike the Philippine this year, left at least five people dead all rescuers caused massive flooding, and forced the evacuation of thousands, after it made landfall over Quezon province on Sunday evening. Residents in Manila and surrounding areas had prepared for the worst, but apart from non-stop rains, its effect was noticeably weaker compared with previous typhoons that have hit the Southeast Asian nation, which gets an average of 20 weather disturbances a year. Daniel Fernando, governor of Bulacan province, confirmed Monday that five members of the local emergency agency died after their boat capsized amid a flash-flood. It is saddening. They are our heroes who really risk their lives for our fellow men in times of calamities. But this happened. It was unexpected accident, Fernando told Manila radio station DZMM. According to witnesses, the rescuers were crossing a small waterway on a small boat strong currents fed by runoff water from nearby mountains tipped it over, he said. They were taken away by the water and drowned, he said. The super typhoon damaged electricity lines, houses and shanties, many along coastal villages, caused widespread flooding in low lying areas, and affected more than 800,000 people. Metro Manila, with some 12 million people that was in the path of the cyclone, was largely spared. Noru, the 11th storm this year, whipped up winds of 195 kilometers an hour and gusts of up to 240 kilometers (121.1 miles) per hour, according to the state meteorological agency PAGASA. But the typhoon slightly weakened when it hit the Sierra Madre, a 540-kilometer long mountain range that stretches through several provinces on the countrys main Luzon island and acts as a natural barrier to weather disturbances, officials said. A woman struggles in a flooded section of San Miguel town in Bulacan province, north of the Philippine capital, Manila, Sept. 26, 2022. [Czar Dancel/BenarNews] Still, many parts of the agricultural Bulacan province were still flooded, with some under neck-deep waters, as of Monday afternoon, he said. Roderick Tiongson, the mayor of Bulacans San Miguel town, said some 49 villages were under water, but added that about a thousand people were evacuated to safer ground before the storm made landfall. He appealed for additional help from the public, and said they needed blankets, water and food. Tiongson blamed quarrying activities in Bulacans mountain areas for the flooding. Let us preserve and take care of our mountain ranges because if it were not for the Sierra Madre, Karding would have hit with full force on San Miguel, he said, using the Filipino name for Super Typhoon Noru. In Manila, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who presided over an emergency meeting with disaster officials, conducted an aerial inspection of areas hit hard by the typhoon. Presently, were organizing an airlift for [relief] supplies. Right now, those are the first areas we are focusing on. After we attend to basics, food, water, shelter, clothes, all of these things, and then the [Department of Social Welfare and Development] is also prepared to provide for those who are going to need living assistance, Marcos said. So the whole range of assistance is prepared and ready to go. But right now we will put first their immediate needs, he added. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. inspects the extent of flooding over the province of Bulacan, north of Manila, Sept. 26, 2022. [Handout photo/Office of the President] Richard Gordon, and ex-senator and chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, said emergency relief assistance was being prioritized, focused on food and water. Our water tankers for drinking water and pay loaders to quickly clear off debris, mud and fallen trees and [to] make roads accessible to reach communities are also in place, Gordon said. Alberto Bocanegra, head of the Philippine Country Office of the International Federation of Red Cross, said the agency was working closely with Philippine officials and helping with relief and providing support. These weather-related events are intensifying and becoming more frequent. The super storm that hit southeastern Philippines was a mere ten months ago, and the people affected are barely picking up the pieces. We must be effective and quick to adapt no matter how bad the situation will be, Bocanegra said. The Philippines endures about 20 tropical storms and typhoons annually, some of which are devastating. In November 2013, more than 6,500 people died or were missing after Super Typhoon Haiyan battered the central Philippines, causing massive storm surges that inundated coastal communities. Luis Liwanag and Basilio Sepe in Manila contributed to this report. If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom. 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. News Reporter Matt Martinez is a news reporter at The Berkshire Eagle. He worked at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, graduated Marquette University. He is a former Report for America corps member. FALL FOLIAGE HIKES 2022 Top 10 walks to see fall foliage in the Berkshires Take a walk in Berkshire County at one of these 10 spots to appreciate the leaves changing colors this fall foliage season According to a report from moveBuddha, from 2020-2021, Idaho led the nation in growth and remained a top state for move-ins. Renowned for its natural beauty, Idaho is home to many national parks, forests, preserves, and trails. Its wildlife and geologic features are true treasures of The Gem State. The pandemic propelled Idaho to top the charts in 2020-2021 as people searched for ways to exit big cities and rediscovered the need for places to connect with nature. The report from moveBuddha digs into data on all things Idaho where exactly people are coming from, what cities are the most popular to move to, and insights from real locals on why they love living in Idaho. For the last five years, Idaho has led the nation in new residents moving in. An explosion of new residents came after April 2020, with an estimated population increase of 3.4% as of July 2021 in Idahos total population. What lures people to Idaho? So why pack up and head to The Gem State? Newcomers cited work and political climate as two main reasons for moving to Idaho in a statewide survey. But those arent the only reasons. Bountiful Employment Opportunities: 31 Idaho businesses made Inc. Magazines 2022 list of 5,000 fastest growing businesses. Local Lease End saw an explosion of +3000% in revenue (providing solutions for those at the end of their vehicle lease) and Tractor Beverage saw 2,520% (supplying organic, sustainable drinks for restaurants, now available at Chipotle). Expansions for major projects were announced throughout 2021 including Scentsy and Amazon. Boise alone saw at least 27 new businesses in 2022. Political Climate: Political climate was one of the top reasons newbies gave for choosing The Gem State. As one of the most Republican states, the electorate hasnt supported a Democratic President since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Significant moves come from blue states like California, Washington, and Oregon. Nature and Wide Open Spaces: Back in the days of social distancing, people were fleeing big cities, seeking outdoor adventures, working remotely, and looking for affordable lifestyles. Many mountain west communities see this inpouring of residents coming from not only dense cities but more expensive markets where incoming buyers have more purchasing power to invest in more spacious properties. Approachable Housing Market (for some): In 2021, Idaho saw the fastest rise in home prices in any state across the nation in 2021 a 29% jump. Even still, the housing situation may still provide more affordable homes to those exiting costly markets (mentioned above). Typical home prices in Idaho have risen to $467,883, about $100K more than the national average. With many new residents coming from states like California, Washington, and Oregon, home prices in Idaho are still well below the average home costs in those other states. (Average home costs come from Zillow Home Value Index, August 2022) California: $775,876, Washington: $616,259, Oregon: $518,377, Idaho: $467,883, National Average: $356,026 The demand for homes in Idaho is high and the market has been extremely competitive. Current inventory and new housing developments are struggling to keep up with the demand. Where are New Residents Coming From? Even though Idaho has dropped down the list for move-ins since 2020, it remains in the top 20 of the nation. moveBuddha data shows California dominates the influx of new residents, with nearly 34% of Idahos new moves in hailing from the Golden State. Next in line is Washington, which accounts for just over 10%. Three states are responsible for around 6% of new residents, Arizona (6.0%), Texas (5.8%), and Oregon (5.4%). Big takeaways 1 in 3 moves in are coming from California in 2022, according to moveBuddhas data. #1 Coeur dAlene is the city in Idaho seeing the most inflow in 2022, to date. Data shows there are over 223 moves in for every 100 moves out. Other popular cities to move to include #2 Eagle (176 to 100), #3 Twin Falls (136 to 100), #4 Lewiston (132 to 100) and #5 Boise (124 to 100). One solitary city has seen massive exits in 2022: Rexburg, ID. Inflow into Idaho slowing down: moveBuddha data shows that in 2020, Idaho saw 320 moves into the state for every 100 moves out. That inflow has since slowed considerably in 2021 and 2022, this year the state is seeing about 123 moves in for every 100 out a 61.6% decrease in inflow, the largest drop in the nation. Are people still moving to Idaho in 2022? It looks like the secrets out on Idaho. From 2020-2021, Idaho led the nation in growth and remained a top state for move-ins. Its no wonder people are moving to The Gem State; Idaho clearly has a lot to offer. Affordable housing, incredible nature, safe cities and towns, and good schools make it a great place to live. Renowned for its natural beauty, Idaho is home to many national parks, forests, preserves, and trails. Its wildlife and geologic features are true treasures of The Gem State. The pandemic propelled Idaho to top the charts in 2020-2021 as people searched for ways to exit big cities and rediscovered the need for places to connect with nature. This report digs deep into moveBuddhas data on all things Idaho where exactly people are coming from, what cities are the most popular to move to, and insights from real locals on why they love living in Idaho. Inflow into Idaho For the last five years, Idaho has led the nation in new residents moving in. An explosion of new residents came after April 2020, with an increase of 3.4% come July 2021 in Idahos total population. The demand for homes in Idaho is high and the market has been extremely competitive. Current inventory and new housing developments are struggling to keep up with the demand. Where are New Residents Coming From? Even though Idaho has dropped down the list for move-ins since 2020, it remains in the top 20 of the nation. moveBuddha data shows California dominates the influx of new residents, with nearly 34% of Idahos new moves in hailing from the Golden State. Next in line is Washington, which accounts for just over 10%. Three states are responsible for around 6% of new residents, Arizona (6.0%), Texas (5.8%), and Oregon (5.4%). Rank - Moving to Idaho - % of Moves 1) California - 33.9% 2) Washington - 10.1% 3) Arizona - 6.0% 4) Texas - 5.8% 5) Oregon - 5.4% A Moving Trends Report from moveBuddha says there is a waning interest in moving to Idaho. In 2020 Idaho was the #3 state for highest inflow. Now in 2022, the state has fallen to the #20 spot for inflow. In 2022, Idaho continues to see more moves in than out. However, the rate has slowed dramatically since the surge in 2020. In 2022, PG Bison mark 30 years of supporting South Africa's rising young talents through the PG Bison 1.618 Education Initiative www.1sixoneeight.co.za . Here are the 2022 top 10 finalists. We congratulate them all, as well as their lecturers and educational institutions and we look forward to welcoming them on 29 September for the awards ceremony, where we'll celebrate in person. The PG Bison 1.618 Education Initiative is an annual design competition aimed at third-year architecture and interior design students around South Africa, aiming to nurture and recognise young talent, introduce students to real-world briefs and products, and encourage creative thinking. Winning the 1.618 Education Initiative requires creativity, clarity of thinking and an ability to meet a real-world brief. This is a special year for us, as we celebrate 30 years of the PG Bison 1.618 Education Initiative, says Justin Berry, executive: Marketing and Strategic Development at PG Bison. We would like to extend our congratulations to all the finalists, their lecturers and the education institutions, many of which have been supporting this competition since the very beginning. As is the case every year, it was a tough decision for the panel of expert industry judges to whittle down submissions from around the country across both the architecture and interior design disciplines. Judging took part in two rounds an initial online shortlisting, and then an in-person second round where the judges came together in Johannesburg for a full day of debating the final selection of the top 10. We look forward to meeting all our finalists in person and to celebrate with them at our awards ceremony on Thursday, 29 September, says Justin Berry. For more information and updates on the PG Bison 1.618 Education Initiative, please visit the website: www.1sixoneeight.co.za and follow the Facebook and Instagram accounts. Swedish multinational retailer H&M will open the doors to its first H&M Home store in South Africa on 24 November. Source: Supplied The 488m2 store will be located on Level 6 in Sandton City. Until now, H&M Home has existed only as a department or shop-in-shop within existing H&M clothing stores in SA. In a statement, H&M said the new contemporary store aims to showcase the latest trends and newest products to create an inspiring interior and lifestyle destination, and a vibrant shopping experience for customers. Caroline Nelson, country manager, H&M South Africa, commented: H&M Home has always been about presenting modern design and quality at the best price in an inspiring and sustainable way, and were so excited to be opening the doors to our brand-new store in Sandton City. Our unique and considered store concept will offer a dynamic shopping experience with a high level of customer service, the latest trends and exciting collaborations. According to the brand, the Sandton City store will offer fashion-forward decor and accessories for every room and style. "The assortment ranges from high-quality bed linen and timeless dinnerware to diversified textiles, with contemporary style and attention to detail at its core. By merging modern design and quality with sustainability and affordable prices, H&M Home enables interior lovers across the world to create a personal and modern space a place to feel at home," H&M said. World News Day will be celebrated across newsrooms on six continents. Source: Supplied. These include the Financial Times (worldwide), The Globe and Mail (Canada), and The Straits Times (Singapore) in the Northern Hemisphere, to La Nacion(Argentina), News24 (South Africa), and Stuff (New Zealand) in the South. The campaign will see global newsrooms carry print and digital adverts and use their social media channels, newsletters and other platforms to highlight the critical message that journalism matters and is worth supporting, promoting and defending. World News Day is the focus of a 90-minute live-streamed in-person event from The World News Media Congress in Zaragoza, Spain, at 15:00 CET on September 28. Vivian Schiller, Executive Director of Aspen Digital, The Aspen Institute, will chair proceedings which will feature the following speakers: David Walmsley, editor-in-chief, The Globe and Mail. Warren Fernandez, editor-in-chief, The Straits Times. Alessandra Galloni, editor-in-chief, Reuters. Kathy English, chair, The Canadian Journalism Foundation. Shirish Kulkarni, journalist, community organiser, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Phoebe Connelly, director of Next Generation Audiences, The Washington Post. The public can view the session on the verified World News Day YouTube channel. The World News Day campaign is organised by The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) and WAN-IFRAs World Editors Forum. It is sponsored by Google News Initiative. Warren Fernandez, editor-in-chief of the Straits Times, Singapore, and president of the World Editors Forum, said: On World News Day we will showcase some of the best journalism that our industry has to offer it is not just about one day it's about the work that professional newsrooms do all year round. World News Day is about drawing inspiration and renewing our commitment to purposeful journalism. Kathy English, chair of The Canadian Journalism Foundation, said: "As we mark World News Day, the challenge to all newsrooms going forward is to do more to show journalism's value to young and underserved audiences. To build and gain trust with the public, we must first reach them by representing their voices and experiences." Through the art of botanicals experience, Bombay Sapphire highlighted its elevated flavour profile and versatility. On 18 and 19 September, Bombay Sapphire hosted a multi-disciplinary experience at the Nirox Sculpture Park, in Muldersdrift, Johannesburg. Invitees witnessed the creativity of making every bottle of Bombay Sapphire and how it lends itself to being a blank canvas for refreshing gin cocktails. Sio's Performance at Wasomi x Bombay Experience Hosted by the award-winning media entrepreneur and accomplished actress Nambitha Ben-Mazwi, the exclusive event was centred around creativity. Creative entrepreneurs such as TV host and creative producer Olwethu Leshabane; Sport and Lifestyle TV host and executive producer Minnie Dlamini; and contemporary visual artist Trevor Stuurman were inspired by the engaging art, dazzling design, and moving musical performances. These creative outlets were used as vehicles to tell the intriguing story of how the combination to the 10 hand-picked botanicals sourced from all over the world make Bombay Sapphire. An immersive and educational Wasomi experience Wasomi a phenomenal collective of emerging female creatives made up of fashion and interior designer Shelley Mokoena; multidisciplinary artist Tebogo Bafedi Ribane; and visual artist Tzung-Hui Lauren Lee collaborated on a space that focused on highlighting female creators. The Wasomi line-up was bolstered by sculptor and entrepreneur Fathema Bemath, visual artist Mmabatho Mokalapa, and architect and entrepreneur Nindya Bucktowar who boldly expressed their creativity. The audience were enthralled by the creative experiences involving texture, fabric, and design in an unfamiliar way. At the same time, they were lulled by the majestic movements and audio of the musical storyteller, Sio. Sio is renowned for her genre-fluid sound incorporating jazz, house, electro and dance. In collaboration with Bombay Sapphire, the Wasomi experience offered women of different art disciplines the opportunity for integration and communication. This promoted growth through connection, woman empowerment, and the inspiration of what is achievable through the support of other like-minded individuals. A world of taste Bombay Sapphire is made from 10 botanicals sourced from a handful of artisanal producers in designated regions around the world, leading to an elevated flavour palette not only for flavourful cocktails, but for delectable culinary experiences as well. Wasomi founders Tebogo Ribane and Shelly Mokoena Avukile Mabombo, marketing manager MEA at Barcardi Chef Leon van Deventer from one of Johannesburgs most celebrated fine-dining restaurants Gemelli used a number of botanicals to dial up the flavours. The starter (seared tuna infused with lemon and juniper) was a hit, while the main course (confit duck leg infused with coriander and cassia bark) proved to be popular too. The dessert (touch of colour inspired by almond and liquorice) completed the gastronomical experience. All three courses were paired with Bombay Sapphire cocktails, including French Iris, Cubeb Side Fizz and Cassia Mule curated by Bombay Sapphires sustainability ambassador Leighton Rathbone. The experience ended with an interactive mixology class hosted by Rathbone. Participants were taken on a journey through botanicals, as they interacted with the finest ingredients available to come up with their own Bombay Sapphire cocktails. They used zesty lemon peel and crunchy almonds from Spain, German angelica, delicate coriander from Morocco, orris and juniper from Italy to spark their creativity. To ensure each curated cocktail had a bright and fresh taste, vibrant liquorice from China, cassia bark from Vietnam, hand-dried cubeb berries from Indonesia, and grains of paradise from Ghana were used, resulting in perfectly balanced and versatile gin cocktails. Bombay Sapphire has a heritage of creativity, and this is evident in every aspect of our premium gin. From the way our Master of Botanicals creatively coaxes flavour out of the botanicals he sources around the world, to the way the gin is distilled, it is only natural that we collaborate with bold and versatile creatives. We are constantly stirring creativity with those we partner with, to ensure they are breaking what they thought were their limits, says Francois Portier, Bacardi sub-Saharan Africa managing director. Maphe Dlamini and Minnie Dlamini Art of Botanicals lunch at Nirox Sculpture Park As a responsible corporate citizen concerned with how we conduct our business, all 10 botanicals that make Bombay Sapphire will be certified sustainable this year by Ecocert S.A., the worlds leading specialist in the certification of sustainable practices. This recognises the commitment of our Master of Botanicals, who only works with suppliers who act responsibly and ensure a sustainable future for farmers, their communities, and the environment, concludes Portier. As the worlds leading premium gin, Bombay Sapphire is also the perfect accompaniment for delectable cuisine and other culinary delights, all of which were savoured at the event. A live interactive installation bar with edible flowers and the 10 Bombay Sapphire botanicals was one of the many sense-enhancing experiences at the event. Find your flavour the perfect serve is open to the public The full Bombay Sapphire immersive art of botanicals sensory experience will be open for the public at the Saint restaurant in Sandton on Sunday, 25 September. It will start at 3pm and end late, being hosted by Minnie Dlamini. DJ duo Lemon and Herb will perform their deep house set from 11pm onwards. This Heritage Month, Jockey teamed up with local fashion designers to create a bespoke range inspired by the essence of South Africa. Kathrin Kidger and Siphelele Ntombela. Source: Supplied Founded in the United States in 1876, today Jockey is a household name, with manufacturing operations located in Durban as well as abroad. To honour Heritage Month in South Africa and the brand's proud local prevenance, Jockey challenged two South African designers, Kathrin Kidger and Siphelele Ntombela, to create a locally-inspired print that will translate the spirit of South Africa into a limited-edition range of wearable garments. Kathrin Kidger Designs is a proudly South African ladieswear brand based in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Designed for the modern woman, the traditionally loud prints and bold colours speak to a culturally diverse range of stylish women who care as much about fine quality material and effortless glamour, as they do about a unique sense of style. Kidger's colourful take on the #JockeyLovesLocal challenge will set the tone for a range of garments for women and men who are ready to live life to the fullest: loudly, unapologetic, and in vibrant style. Siphelele Ntombela is the founder, director and creative guru behind African Renaissance Designs; a locally loved cultural brand inspired by Southern African tribes. From an early age, he knew that he was born to create and went on to study Textile Design before making a name for himself with his fresh prints, rich textures and inspired collections, which have won him numerous awards and showcases at galleries, exhibitions and fashion shows across the country. The blueprint for his #JockeyLovesLocal creation is rooted in an intimate relationship between shapes and colours. Detailed outlines and artistic silhouettes are paired with a feminine colour palette to create a patchwork of cultural richness that compliments every style and shape. Public vote Jockey fans were invited to vote over September for their favourite local design creation on social media, with the winning design being announced on 29 September following Heritage weekend. As an incentive to get involved, fans who placed their vote stood a chance to win 1 of 50 exclusive limited-edition prints of the winning #JockeyLovesLocal garments. As these two talented local designers have demonstrated, we too at Jockey are inspired by the beauty of South Africa, says Bruce McMurray, general manager of Jockey South Africa. Its colours, its people, its landscapes and its multi-cultural essence. We are proud to be a local business that supports our community and provides South Africans with comfortable, quality garments that reflect the vibrancy of our country. Our two selected designers have done a sensational job at capturing the spirit of our heritage, and we cannot wait to see which designs are selected for a limited-edition range. As our unemployment rate hovers at over one-third of the eligible population, Worldwide Staffing Solutions is looking beyond our borders to increase employment opportunities for South Africans with the opening of an office in Scotland. L-R: Quintus Sliep, managing director at Worldwide Staffing Solutions with Alex Cullen, director of the Scotland office "Countries now need to do everything they can to stop this jobs crisis from deepening into an irreversible socio-economic disaster. This means rebuilding labour markets to be more flexible and resilient," explains Quintus Sliep, managing director at Worldwide Staffing. "It is with this urgent need in mind that we decided to expand our South African Temporary Employment Service offering into the UK market." While South Africa faces a lack of job opportunities, the UK is faced with the converse and is predicted to be 2.6 million workers short by 2030. "Workforce International Scotland was established with the intention to alleviate the devastating effects of unemployment in South Africa, while addressing a critical labour shortage in the UK by means of temporary employment placements through our company, which is fully registered in the UK," Sliep continues. Here we chat to Sliep further about the company's expansion and what it means for South African job seekers. What made Scotland an attractive destination for the expansion of Worldwide Staffing Solutions? The UK, and more specifically Scotland, has a serious shortage of skilled employees in the majority of sectors. We were lucky enough to partner with a Scottish businessman and now a director of the business (Alex Cullen), through other successful contracts we executed abroad. The combination of a need and our ability to fulfil that need made perfect commercial sense. What are the benefits for South Africans in the organisation having an office there? By having an office in Scotland, we can give the employees/candidates that are considering working in Scotland an opportunity to make informed decisions about their future as our focus is to be the perfect intermediary between the candidate and the employer offering the opportunity. Many individuals leave for a foreign country and dream of a successful career, only to be faced with a different reality than they were led to believe. Our focus in Scotland is to be solution-driven, to both the employee and the client. Having an office in Scotland allows us to provide the solution. We will be offering South Africans struggling to find permanent employment at home the opportunity to earn a living abroad, on a flexible but fixed-term basis. In addition to being able to provide for their families back home, South Africans will also benefit from on-the-job training, which means that they will return home at the end of their contract, bringing with them new skills and workplace knowledge from Europe that can be positively applied for the growth of the South African economy. What services do you offer South Africans seeking employment in the area? Employees wanting to work in the UK are faced with a few challenges. The biggest of these challenges is securing employment. With our client base and our footprint in Scotland, we are in a favourable position to assist employees in securing employment. Because we have employees based in SA and recruiting from SA, the employee has increased potential to secure the position. The second challenge is the application for worker visas in the UK. We assist the successful individual to apply for and obtain worker visas. We furthermore assist with flights and accommodation, depending on client needs and requirements. What are some of the opportunities available for South African job seekers through your service? We have opportunities in the following sectors: Meat industry Agriculture Technical Transport Logistics and warehousing Can you share some advice with South Africans looking abroad for work? No urgency to halt ongoing construction before interdict appeal, court rules. Construction of the controversial multi-billion rand development at the River Club in Observatory continues despite legal challenges. This is how it looked on Friday 23 September 2022. Photos: Ashraf Hendricks / GroundUp Construction of the controversial multi-billion rand development at the River Club in Observatory continues despite legal challenges to the development. Last week, an urgent application for an interdict was brought by the Observatory Civic Association (OCA) against the developers, Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT) for resuming work despite a court order to halt construction, pending the hearing of a contempt of court application. After hearing the application on Friday 2 September, Judge Mokgoatji Josiah Dolamo determined that the OCAs application was not urgent, and ruled in favour of the LLPT directors, who were cited as respondents in their personal capacity. This was the second time the OCA had brought an urgent application to halt work on the site. The first application, brought by the OCA and the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council (GKKITC), pending a review of the development authorisations granted by provincial and municipal authorities, was heard by Deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath in January. Goliath handed down her judgment on 18 March, which ordered LLPT to halt construction. Judge Goliath said if work were allowed to continue, there was a danger of LLPT building themselves into an impregnable position, as the development, which is to also house the new Africa headquarters for Amazon Web Services, could be essentially completed by the time a review of the development authorisations would be heard. She stated there had been insufficient meaningful consultation by the developers with indigenous Khoi and San nations who viewed the site at the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers as sacred. Heritage assessments have determined the site to be of significance as it is where Dutch settlers first displaced the Khoi from their traditional grazing lands. Judge Goliath rejected the LLPTs leave to appeal her order, but the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) subsequently granted them leave to appeal. The LLPT resumed work on the site at the end of June. Construction continues at the River Club. Image source: GroundUp LLPTs lawyers argue the appeal, which is set to be heard by a full bench of the Western Cape High Court on 11 and 12 October, nullifies the High Court order. Lawyers for the OCA, however, contend Goliaths order was interlocutory, meaning it remains in place until or unless the court rules otherwise. This dispute about the interpretation of Judge Goliaths order led to the OCA filing a contempt of court application, which was supposed to be heard on 22 August. However, the contempt of court hearing was delayed and has still not been heard. Judge Dolamo, in his ruling denying the OCAs latest application for an urgent interdict due to the delay in the contempt of court proceedings, stated it was not clear why the contempt of court application was not heard on that date. However, attorney Tim Dunn, on behalf of people claiming to be the legitimate representatives of the GKKITC, applied to intervene in proceedings on 22 August, the day of the hearing. Dunns clients claimed GKKITC Supreme High Commissioner Tauriq Jenkins, who had led the organisation in litigating against the development, had no authority to do so. An earlier attempt by Dunn to depose Jenkins on an urgent basis in July had been struck off the urgent roll by Judge Chantal Fortuin. Dunns clients seek a rescission of Goliaths judgment, claiming it was fraudulently obtained as Jenkins had no authority to litigate on behalf of the GKKITC. The rescission application is now set to be heard with the appeal before a full bench on 11 and 12 October. In a joint statement, Jenkins and OCA chair Leslie London state it was Dunns failure to then file papers by 19 August in this regard that led to the contempt of court matter not being heard on 22 August. Jenkins and London state they are disappointed he [Judge Dolamo] did not recognise this. With the contempt of court hearing being pushed back and construction continuing apace, the OCA, now acting alone due to the allegations against Jenkins, instructed attorneys Cullinan & Associates to apply for an urgent interdict to halt further work on the River Club site. Judge Dolamo, however, ruled the application was not urgent, stating any urgency in the matter was self-created by the applicant, being the OCA. As a result, he did not rule on whether Goliaths order was final or interlocutory, leaving that for the contempt of court hearings. He also allowed the GKKITC, as represented by Dunn, to withdraw from the review of the development authorisations and be cited as respondent in the matter, rather than as applicant. In a statement, the OCA said it was unclear what Judge Dolamos findings regarding the individuals who claim to represent the GKKITC means, as they did not apply for any relief related to appeal against Judge Goliaths original order. The OCA stated the contempt of court hearings were yet to take place, and the court could still find that resuming work on site had been illegal. In a statement posted on Facebook, LLPT welcomed Judge Dolamos ruling, and stated the work on site continues lawfully pending the outcome of the appeal against Judge Goliaths order to be heard on 11 and 12 October. This article was originally published on GroundUp. In September, thereported that Instagram is faltering in its bid to keep up with TikTok , the wildly popular Chinese-owned video-sharing app. But it is not just Instagram fretting over TikToks meteoric rise a Google exec raised similar concerns about how TikTok was drawing younger users away from Googles core services such as Search and Maps. TiKToks rise is confirmed by data from our new nation-wide, census-balanced online survey, The State of Social Media in Canada 2022, which surveyed 1,500 Canadian adults over the age of 18 between 12 and 31 May, 2022. The rise of TikTok Our report findings show that Canadians use of social media has declined from its early pandemic peak; however, Canada continues to be one of the most connected countries in the world 94% of online adults use at least one social media platform. We found that TikTok had the largest gain (an increase of 11%) in the number of Canadian adults who reported having an account on the platform in 2022, compared to data we collected in 2020. While the number of Canadians on TikTok is still relatively small (26%), those who do use the platform visit it regularly (65% daily). Like in the United States, TikTok adoption in Canada largely skews towards younger age groups, as 76% of those aged 1824 reported having an account on the platform, while the fastest growing demographic on the platform are those who are between 25 and 34 years old (54%). These findings suggest that TikToks appeal has grown since 2020, when we last conducted this survey, and that TikTok is no longer just an app for short videos. Other studies have shown that young people are now using TikTok as one of the primary ways to get news and that some have even replaced Google Search with TikTok. Our findings from earlier in the summer support this: 51% of Canadian TikTok users reported using the app to follow news on Russias invasion of Ukraine. After the pandemic The Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in some changes in where and how often Canadians are spending their time on social media. After living through two years of Covid-19 restrictions, more Canadians are re-evaluating the role of social media in their lives. In particular, Canadians are spending less time on social media now that most pandemic restrictions have been lifted. In Canada, Facebook has the highest percentage of daily users at 70%, but this dropped from a previous high of 77% daily users in 2020. TikTok is the only platform showing a slight two percent increase in the percentage of daily users. In contrast, Reddit has the largest drop 14% of daily users. Fewer Canadians reported having an account on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Platforms such as Facebook, messaging apps and YouTube still dominate in terms of the number of users, but newer platforms like TikTok and more niche platforms like the livestreaming service Twitch are gaining ground. The percentage of Canadians who reported using LinkedIn has dropped by seven percent since 2020. The rate of new users joining Facebook and Pinterest has also declined, each dropping by three percent and four percent since 2020 respectively. An unfolding story Theres little doubt that TikTok has been a disrupting force on the social media landscape. It has forced social media stalwarts like Facebook and Google to make radical changes to their platform in order to keep up. But for TikTok to continue to grow, it will need to convince skeptics that it is not part of the Chinese state apparatus; however, in the current geopolitical climate, that could be a very tall order. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. South African domestic airline, Lift has introduced a new flight route between Johannesburg and Durban - its first step to connecting the popular 'Golden Triangle' between Johannesburg - Durban - Cape Town. Image: Supplied Bookings for the Johannesburg - Durban route are now open and the first flights will start operating on 26 October 2022 with three return flights per day. Booking dates for the Cape Town - Durban route will be confirmed in the coming weeks, with flights expected to operate from November. In addition to the new route, Lift will be increasing its flight frequency between Johannesburg and Cape Town with up to 14 flights per day. We couldnt be more excited to add Durban to our list of destinations, its one of the most common requests we receive on social media and has been on our radar for a while," said Lift CEO and co-founder, Jonathan Ayache. "Were also adding four aircraft to our fleet which has been done using flexible capacity and can easily be increased or decreased based on demand. This growth in our fleet and new routes will create more than 100 new jobs before the end of the year. It's been a challenging two years but looking ahead we expect the market to recover to pre-pandemic levels in late 2023 and for a second year in a row we will be doubling our seat capacity, added Ayache. Perks that Lift's Durban travelers can look forward to include complimentary snacks, coffee from Vida e Cafe, flexible flight changes with unlimited penalty-free changes, no cancellation fees, and quick and easy refunds into your Lift wallet. Lift also offers selected dog-friendly flights. Business class travelers can explore the Lift Premium offering. The new flights to Durban have been welcomed by key stakeholders from KwaZulu-Natal as a crucial competitive addition to the route. The Mayor of Durban, CLLR Mxolisi Kaunda said, This is great news for Durban. Lifts launch and an additional domestic airline in traveling to Durban is critical for tourism and will support those wanting to visit over the coming festive season. We warmly welcome Lift as it will unlock domestic tourism. Binance has announced that it has formally launched a global advisory board (Gab) comprising distinguished experts in public policy, government, finance, economics, and corporate governance. The global advisory board, chaired by former US senator and ambassador to China, Max Baucus, recently convened in Paris, France. The board's purpose is to advise Binance on some of the most complex regulatory, political, and social issues the entire crypto industry faces as it grows and evolves at a fast pace. "For the past five years, Binance has been at the forefront of pioneering the exciting new world of crypto, blockchain, and Web3," said Binance founder and chief executive officer, Changpeng Zhao. "In that time, we've tackled complex issues no one even knew existed. "We've maintained our focus throughout on delivering compliance solutions that protect the interests of crypto users, while keeping a brisk pace of socially-beneficial innovation. The global advisory board represents the next big step forward in our journey to share the benefits of modern finance and the blockchain with the entire world. The blockchain and crypto industry can act as a true catalyst for growth and economic opportunities. For the cities that are willing to partner with companies like Binance in order to create progressive regulations and an effective Web3 environment, I expect it to enable a number of investments into the space. I look forward to working with a number of experts as part of Binances global advisory board in order to collaborate, said South Africas Leslie Maasdorp. Prior to joining Binances global advisory board, Leslie has served as the vice president and chief financial officer of the New Development Bank, former managing director and president for Southern Africa at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, former vice chairman of Barclays capital and former international adviser to Goldman Sachs. Binance is harnessing the Gab's unrivaled collective experience and expertise to benefit the sustainable development of the industry as a whole, by weighing in on the toughest and most sensitive regulatory and compliance issues facing crypto, blockchain, and Web3. We always put our users first, and that's served as a very effective North Star for us over the past five years of unprecedented, exciting growth," Zhao said. "With the Gab, we're supercharging our ability to manage regulatory complexity by tapping into the highest level of expertise available anywhere in the world. This collaboration between Binance and the leading experts of the Gab is a testament to our focus on compliance, transparency and ensuring a collaborative relationship with the worlds regulators as they develop sensible regulations worldwide. Representatives on the roster The Gab's roster includes Max Bacus of the USA, former US ambassador to the Peoples Republic of China; Ibukun Awosika of Nigeria; Korea's HyungRin Bang advisor of the Korea Presidential Committee; France's Bruno Bezard managing partner of Cathay Capital and former vice minister of finance; SA's Leslie Maasdorp vice president and chief financial officer of the New Development Bank. It also includes Brazil's Henrique de Campos Meirelles, former minister of the economy and former president of the Central Bank of Brazil; Mexico's Adalberto Palma, honorary board member of The Aspen Institute Mexico and former senior advisor at the chief of staff office to the President of Mexico; USA's David Plouffe, former campaign manager and senior advisor to President Obama in the White House; Germany's Christin Schafer, founder and managing director of acs plus; former global head of quantitative solutions, Deutsche Bank and member of the Data Ethics Commission at the German Federal Government. Lastly UK's Lord Vaizey, member of the House of Lords is on the Gab's roster and Europe's David Wright, Eurofi chair and former secretary general, International Organization of Securities Commissions (Iosco). Capitec has launched Capitec Connect, a prepaid solution for voice, data and SMS. Capitec Connect is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service on the Cell C network. An MVNO provides cellular services to its clients without owning the network infrastructure. Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie | image supplied At R4.50 per 100mb or R45 per Gigabyte, Capitec Connect data is on average 50% below the normal market price, and the rates remain flat whether clients buy small or large quantities. The data also never expires provided the Sim is used at least once in six months. Gerrie Fourie, chief executive officer of Capitec, says, South Africans have been complaining about the cost of data. Its expensive and complicated. Bundle pricing, off-peak and peak rates, and the fact that your data expired are all things that make no sense. The prepaid solution, a partnership with Cell C, seeks to bring digital inclusivity. Our vision is to bring connectivity to all. We want to help create opportunity for everyone to be able to connect with access to affordable data and digital banking anywhere, anytime, says Fourie. Capitec Connect is here! Low prepaid prices, at flat rates with no expiry! R45/GB, 90c/minute & 25c/SMS... Get your SIM in branch now. https://t.co/Y7624aao3s#DataHasFallen #CapitecConnect pic.twitter.com/RhFPJCKkqL Capitec (@CapitecBankSA) September 26, 2022 It is through partnerships such as the one between Capitec and Cell C that we can make a major difference in bridging the digital divide that still exists in our country and were very pleased to be part of the solution that enables South Africans to access a digital lifestyle that can truly change their world, says Cell C chief executive officer, Douglas Craigie Stevenson. Two of South Africas most common hashtags have long been #DataMustFall and #DataAsseblief, demonstrating the nations cry for the lowering of exorbitant data costs. Regulations proposed in 2017 by Icasa and the National Consumer Commissioner advocated for data to remain valid for at least three years. These proposed regulations were later removed from the charter and replaced with more lenient provisions. Sim cards are available to clients at all Capitec branches and clients can get up to five Sim cards linked to their profile, which makes it easy to give access to data and airtime to family members. Once the Sim is activated, data, minutes, SMS' and airtime can be topped up on the Capitec banking app, using *120*3279# or internet banking. Calls are charged at the flat rate of 90c per minute, while SMS' cost 25c. Airtime never expires, provided the Sim is used once every six months. Forge Academy & Labs is in search of 15 youths for its newly launched 5G certification and cloud practitioner programme in partnership with MICT Seta. Forge Academy & Labs recently partnered with MICT Seta and signed a two-year Memorandum of Understanding that will offer students the following: Accredited 5G and cloud computing skills training Ecosystem building Workforce development programmes Public policy The short skills programme, designed by Forge in collaboration with Nokia Bell Labs and AWS, begins on 15 October 2022 and will be carried out over an intensive four-month period. Once completed, students will have a new skill set and a globally recognised certification to assist them in securing employment in the global ICT sector. This is another opportunity Forge Academy & Labs is offering youth in South Africa to get ahead in the ICT sector. We empower and equip youths - our workforce and leaders of the future - to inspire hope by creating opportunities that didnt exist before. Youth unemployment is a mountain we are scaling one project at a time, says Craig Clutty, COO of Forge Academy & Labs. The 5G and cloud computing programme will be hosted in person at Forge Academy & Labs at The Gantry in Fourways, Gauteng. Students will receive a stipend to assist with transport needs. We are mandated to drive and grow 4IR skills in South Africa to capitalise on the opportunities the IT sector offers. Strategic partnerships are essential and we are excited to partner with Forge Academy to equip our youths for this exciting revolution, says Gugu Sema, senior manager 4IR, MICT Seta. For students wanting to apply: Students can begin the enrolment process here. Entrepreneurial and IT assessments will be done, followed by a final round of interviews before final placements are made. Students who would like to enrol must meet the following minimum criteria: If your public persona is that of a no-holds-barred investigative journalist and you've been busting dodgy people for the best part of 40 years, you need to think very carefully about how, and where, you lend yourself to a commercial enterprise which is built on your personality. I imagine Carte Blanche anchor Derek Watts did quite a bit of soul-searching before he agreed to be the main focus of the latest Castle lite ad. We see him strolling around various places and, at every turn, people are ducking and diving (like the fake blind beggar) because they dont want to end up being featured on Carte Blanche. Watts wonders, in the soundtrack, if everyone is scared of him and that perhaps he can be too serious at times. Then he finds a pub and the bar person asks him: What do you want? Even as he is contemplating the meaning of life-type question, she puts an ice-cold Castle Lite in front of him. And he is transformed, as somebody puts on the dance music. He gets up to strut his stuff and for an old-ish White boy, hes not too bad at it either. Soon, everyone in the pub is on their feet and getting down along with Derek. The message is that we all need to lighten up in more ways than one. And Castle Lite is an option, in that case. The ad quickly went viral on social media the Holy Grail for marketers because it is, as they say in the military, a force multiplier for your brand message. I didnt see one negative comment about Watts or that he might be tossing away his hard-earned reputation for the sake of a booze ad. I didnt see it that way and think that the obvious energy and joy in the ad shows that, genuinely, people were having fun on that set. Watts told The Citizen that when he was approached, he was a bit concerned that the producers decided on him because, he admits, I can be quite a boring person. Executive producer of Carte Blanche, John Webb, said he liked the tone of the pitch and the opportunity to prove that the show is not overly negative as some believe. Watts also told The Citizen that director Anton Visser, who shot the commercial for advertising agency Ogilvy Cape Town, had produced magic. I agree. Watts is amazingly relaxed and hints at some acting talent buried deep beneath the craggy reporter outside. Orchids to Watts, first and then to Visser for bringing it all together in such an entertaining way and finally to Ogilvy Cape Town for the concept. Trading on the personality of a well-known journalist like Watts to make a light-hearted commercial is, in my view, no breach of journalistic ethics, because quite clearly it is an advertisement and everyone seeing it would regard it as such. In newspapers, where I have worked all my life, there are strict guidelines about advertising and advertorial, where they must be clearly marked so that the reader is not misled. Many advertisers kick and scream about this because they want their marketing plugs to be in the exact style of normal reporting (which is not normally allowed), hoping to fool the punters into thinking that what theyre reading is genuine editorial content. It appears there is no such restraint at radio station 702, judging from last weeks shameless advertising (it went even further than being mere advertorial) on Clement Manyathelas morning show. Nowhere during an insert on what was billed as a feature on united collaboration where listeners told this was an advertorial for BCX, the Telkom business unit. So, an exec from BCX was allowed to explain what was meant by united collaboration apparently sophisticated integration of voice and data to make your business run smoothly (but no huge difference from how we work, using web-based and free tools like WhatsApp and Zoom). But she went further in straight-out plugging the BCX offering by arguing people should avoid newer start-up companies in the space because BCX has more than 15 years of experience. Many a Telkom customer would probably note that they appeared to have learned little in that time, particularly when it comes to customer service Perhaps 702s listeners would not have noticed, in which case this was clever, albeit still sleight-of-hand marketing. But I did and its wrong. Its also the start of a slippery slope. So Onions to 702 and BCX. In a world of constantly proliferating fake news, we need to keep advertising and editorial rigidly separated as is done with political advertising. Got anything you'd like to say or got any great work I may not know about? Drop me a line at brendanjseery@gmail.com Brand Communicator, Nigeria's brand and marketing publication has announced Friday, 7 October and Saturday, 8 October 2022 as dates for its sixth annual Women In Marketing and Communications Conference/Awards (WIMCA). The conference will take place at the Landmark Event Centre in Lagos. View of paddy fields at rice planting demonstration zone in north China Xinhua) 09:13, September 26, 2022 Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Zhu Xudong) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Zhu Xudong) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Zhu Xudong) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Zhu Xudong) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 24, 2022 shows paddy fields at a rice planting demonstration zone in Dawang Town of Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Anxin County of Xiong'an New Area has a long history of rice cultivation. Located near Baiyangdian Lake, the largest wetland ecosystem in northern China, Anxin County has exceptional irrigation advantage in rice planting. In recent years, Anxin County has adopted rice-fish and rice-crab co-culture modes to build a modern eco-agriculture demonstration zone. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao) (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) Qantas has picked its chief customer officer, Stephanie Tully, to replace Gareth Evans as chief executive of its budget arm, Jetstar. Tully, who will take the helm in November, joined the group in 2004 and has been a group chief customer officer at Qantas since 2019. She began her aviation career at Ansett in 1997, where she worked in roles across commercial, marketing and customer experience divisions before joining Qantas in 2004. Stephanie Tully will take the helm of Qantass budget airline carrier Jetstar by the end of this year. Credit:Rhett Wyman Markus Svensson will be promoted to the chief customer officer role and join the group executive committee reporting to Qantas group executive Alan Joyce. Svensson was the executive manager of network, revenue management and alliances and oversaw the groups commercial strategy for the carriers international and domestic divisions. Before joining the airline in 2011, Svensson held senior roles at Bain and Co and telecommunications across Australia, Sweden and South Korea. Evans, who was considered to be Joyces most obvious successor as the groups chief executive, announced his resignation in June after 23 years with the company. In the years that followed, McLeod worked feverishly; there was never an unproductive hour. He didnt stop for lunch, getting through the day on an apple combined with a constant flow of instant coffee. He said he didnt have time for lunch and that food drained the blood from the brain to the stomach, and would therefore make the afternoon less productive. He would likewise work long into the evening in his home office, writing, dictating and marking. Loading McLeods international legacy in neurology is immense. In the late 1960s and early 70s he established, with John Walsh, the first department of clinical neurophysiology in Australia at RPAH. They developed new techniques that allowed the definitive diagnosis of common neuropathies, and neurologists and other physicians visited from around Australia and New Zealand to learn them. McLeod examined many patients with inherited neuropathies and constructed and collected careful family histories. Using this data, Garth Nicholson, one of McLeods proteges, achieved a world first in defining the gene abnormality responsible for the commonest genetic neuropathy. McLeod was among the first researchers internationally to define a group of severely disabling neuropathies, which were shown to have an autoimmune basis (chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy CIDP). With professors John Prineas, Pam McCombe and John Pollard, he studied their pathology and detailed clinical, neurophysiological and immunogenic features. He encouraged research into new immune therapies and his team collaborated with the departments of haematology and immunology at RPAH, introducing plasmapheresis and intravenous immunoglobulin for the first time in Australia, which helped many patients who would otherwise have been confined to wheelchairs. When McLeod was appointed head of the neurology department at RPAH, he established specialised units in stroke, neuropsychology, hearing and balance, molecular neurology, comprehensive epilepsy service, neuromuscular and others. This was a bold plan, and he achieved it with distinction. Several of these units are renowned internationally. Loading McLeod began to focus his interest on the commonest neurological autoimmune disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), making major contributions to its epidemiology and treatment. With Professor Basten, he performed the first clinical trials of immunotherapy for MS in Australia, firstly with transfer factor and then with beta interferon. Subsequent international controlled trials of immunotherapies, building on this work, have changed the course of multiple sclerosis for many people. In 1993, with the MS Society of NSW, McLeod established a weekly clinic for the assessment and management of patients with suspected MS, providing physiotherapy and other ancillary services, and open to all patients throughout NSW at no cost. This clinic continues and is attended by many people from country centres where specialist medical services are more difficult to obtain. In addition to his demanding work at the coalface of research, McLeod laboured to develop the necessary infrastructure to support the research and the patients affected by MS. He was actively involved with the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Australia over 20 years, as member of the research advisory board, including as chairman and vice-chairman. He was a member of the international advisory board of the International Federation of MS societies. With colleagues at the university, he established the Nerve Research Foundation to support research into MS and other neurological diseases. In 1981 McLeod was elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and was a member of council, vice-president and treasurer. He was also elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1987. In 1986, he was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for services to medicine, particularly in the field of neurology, and in 2001 was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to Australian society and science in clinical neuroscience. In 1990, McLeod was appointed chairman of the Institute of Neuroscience at RPAH, and in 1995, director of neuroscience for the Central Sydney Area Health Service. He later became the president of the Australian Association of Neurologists. These many appointments reflect only a fraction of Jim McLeods life of service. Loading McLeod was an outstanding mentor and inspiration for a generation of students, neurologists and scientists. He had a kind and generous manner and was referred to as Gentlemen Jim, by colleagues, patients and students alike. As a supervisor, his approach was one of rigour matched with tolerance. He provided a strongly supportive environment in which young researchers could learn and flourish. We can all learn elements of leadership, but some, like McLeod, were born to lead. He had such a sharp mind he could define the essential issues in complex problems and situations, and was not afraid to take the action he believed would make a difference. He would never ask any of his team to take on responsibilities he was not prepared to shoulder himself. McLeod was a man of integrity in his life and his work. He never spoke of his many achievements; they did not motivate him but came in abundance, more a by-product of his excellence in academia, his incisive mind, commitment and integrity, and in short, his strength of character. He spent countless hours assisting his colleagues for promotion and other honours. With all his great achievements, in his own words, it was his marriage to Robyn, and their family, that he regarded as his greatest achievement of all. Jim McLeod is survived by Robyn, children Anne, Robert, Philip and Rebecca, and 11 grandchildren. The McLeod Family and Professor John D Pollard AO / Professor Emeritus Neuroinflammation Group Residents in Sydneys south are campaigning against the proposed conversion of a state heritage-listed former fisheries research centre into a training school for marine rescue volunteers on the Cronulla peninsula. The $12 million proposal is being driven by Marine Rescue NSW, which wants to demolish parts of the state heritage-listed Cronulla Fisheries Research Centre precinct at Hungry Point Reserve to build a four-storey training school with accommodation, conference and dining areas, and a simulation pool beside Port Hacking. Southerland Shire Historical Society president Pauline Curby and Cronulla resident Bruce Howell, a Wiradjuri man, with one of the waterfront buildings proposed for demolition. Credit:Cole Bennetts Marine Rescue NSW says the facility will improve training for its 3000 volunteers who help provide emergency marine search, rescue and communication services to help prevent injury and death on the states waterways. Opponents say the proposed development would ruin heritage, compromise Aboriginal sites, and jeopardise a long-promised extension of The Esplanade walking track between Salmon Haul Reserve and Darook Park. A brand new Anglican secondary school has abruptly announced that it will close its doors next year, leaving shocked parents and students searching for answers from the schools governing council just months after it opened. St Peters Anglican Grammar in Campbelltown - previously a K-6 school - started taking year 7 students this year and as recently as July publicly maintained there was high parent demand. The school said it was progressively adding year levels to include year 12 by 2027 and had even changed its name from St Peters Anglican Primary School. St Peters Anglican Grammar announced it would close its high school just months after opening. Credit:Kate Geraghty But the Campbelltown Anglican Schools Council, which administers the school and Broughton Anglican College, informed parents on July 22 via email that the high school at St Peters would close at the end of 2023 after deciding it was not viable. This will come as a shock and deep disappointment to many in the St Peters community, but is a step that is necessary for the continued viability of the council, including St Peters [primary school], Broughton and [specialist school] St Peters Heart, chair Peter White said. A Queensland mother accused of praying over her dying daughter as part of a cult-like group, instead of seeking medical help, has declined offers for legal counsel in the lead-up to her court appearance. Elizabeth Rose Struhs, 8, was found dead at her home at the Toowoomba suburb of Rangeville, about 100 kilometres west of Brisbane, in January. Elizabeth Struhs, 8, was allegedly denied medical care. Credit:Nine A total of 14 people, part of a religious group made up of three families known as the Saints, have been arrested and charged in relation to Elizabeths death. The group allegedly prayed over Elizabeth as she was dying instead of seeking medical help, believing she would instead be healed by God. A news story about Redlands Mayor Karen Williams role as the executor of a residents estate will air on Monday night, Nine News Queensland has vowed, as the controversial mayor threatened legal action against the network. The mayor responded in a statement, released on Monday morning, that she had no knowledge of the contents of Angela Petersens will, or decision to list her as an executor, before she died. Redland City Council mayor Karen Williams. Credit:Toby Crockford In response to Williams legal threat, a Nine News spokeswoman said: We strongly stand by our story and Nine News Queensland viewers will be able to see it tonight at 6pm. However, Williams said she was being targeted by journalists. A group of eight Torres Strait Islander people have made international legal history after the UN Human Rights Committee found that the Australian government has violated its human rights obligations to them through climate change inaction. The landmark decision was delivered by the committee late last week and agreed with a complaint first filed by the group in 2019. The complaint was the first legal action brought by climate-vulnerable inhabitants of low-lying islands against a nation-state. Saibai Islands $24 million sea wall was breached less than six months after its completion. During storm surges, the sea sluices under homes. Credit:Justin McManus Yessie Mosby, a Kulkalgal man and traditional owner on the island of Masig, said he was delighted that Torres Strait Islander voices and concerns were being heard around the world through the case. Climate change affects our way of life every day. This win gives us hope that we can protect our island homes, culture and traditions for our kids and future generations to come, Mosby said. A woman who is in hospital in a critical condition after being struck by a rollercoaster at the Melbourne Royal Show on Sunday has been identified as Shylah Rodden. Roddens mother confirmed her identity to The Age on Monday, saying her daughter remained in hospital. Shylah Rodden was the victim of a rollercoaster incident at the Melbourne Royal Show on Sunday. The 26-year-old was struck at the show when she reportedly went to retrieve a mobile phone on the tracks of the Rebel Coaster at about 5.45pm on Sunday, according to Victoria Police. Rodden remains in a critical condition at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, a hospital spokesperson said at 5.30pm on Monday. Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has foreshadowed the government will overhaul outdated laws governing how to hold referendums before the national vote on whether to enshrine a Voice to parliament in the Constitution. As the first nationwide advertising campaign promoting a Yes vote launched on Monday, Burney outlined the challenge of amending the Constitution for the first time in 45 years but said she believed Australians were ready to embrace this once in a generation opportunity. Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney has flagged the government will modernise referendum laws before the national vote on the Voice to parliament. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Speaking at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in Adelaide, she said the Voice referendum would be the first held in the modern digital age and the government was looking carefully at how to modernise the Referendum Machinery Act 1984. Under the act, voters are to be sent a pamphlet in the post outlining the proposed change to the Constitution, comprising 2000 words each on the Yes and No case, authorised by the parliament. Greens senator Lidia Thorpes former chief of staff says he was scared and appalled by her outburst in a meeting with two Indigenous community leaders at Parliament House last year, describing her behaviour among the most unprofessional conduct he has ever witnessed. The claims by Thorpes ex-top adviser reinforce the account of the meeting by Aboriginal elder Aunty Geraldine Atkinson, aged in her 70s, who has previously alleged the tirade of abuse levelled at her by the senator distressed her so much that she sought medical attention from the parliamentary nurse. Lidia Thorpe has always defended her meeting with the Victorian elders as a robust discussion. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen David Mejia-Canales, who resigned from Thorpes office in June, accompanied the senator to the meeting with Atkinson and Marcus Stewart, the co-chairs of the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria, and their policy adviser, Nicole Schlesinger, to discuss the states treaty process in a committee room in Parliament House, Canberra, on June 22, 2021. His account of what happened and his efforts to inform the Greens leadership of Thorpes appalling conduct are detailed in an apology email sent from his Parliament House address to Atkinson and Stewart in June, one year after the meeting, as one of his final acts before leaving the senators office. Fresh laws to constrain the rampant use of facial recognition technology in Australia are a step closer to reality as the Optus data breach sparks new debate about how much personal information Australians are handing over online. Facial recognition technology, which relies on video surveillance to match images of peoples faces with data collected via cameras, is being increasingly deployed by local retailers, police and even schools. Facial recognition systems are becoming more common and Australia does not have a dedicated federal act to control it. Credit:Getty Images Australia has no specific federal law to regulate facial recognition but University of Technology Sydney researchers, including former human rights commissioner Professor Edward Santow, have created a proposed model law. As we see facial recognition being used more and more, we need to crack down on the unnecessary collection of that information, then storage, then use and misuse, Santow said. There is no more sensitive information. Singapore/Jakarta: The lawyer for an Australian surfing and diving instructor caught bringing drugs into Bali says police are slowly moving away from the suspicion that he was a dealer. Jeff Welton, 51, was apprehended with eight grams of heroin and 0.34 grams of methamphetamine when he arrived at Denpasar airport from Vietnam earlier this month and has since been held in custody by the Indonesian National Narcotics Agency (BNN). Australian Jeff Welton has been arrested in Bali for allegedly attempting to smuggle heroin and methamphetamine to the island. Credit:Nine Under Indonesian law, the trafficking of more than five grams of illicit drugs in non-plant form can carry the death penalty or up to life in prison. Weltons lawyer Edward Pangkahila said on past experience the quantity of drugs he was found with was unlikely to result in the top tier of punishment. Officials told Russias RBC news site that the action came just in case the reservists want to break through the (border) checkpoint and leave the country without completing any border formalities, promising not to restrict any exits. Concerns are growing that Russia may seek to escalate the conflict including potentially using nuclear weapons once it completes what Ukraine and the West see as illegal referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine. The voting, in which residents are asked whether they want their regions to become part of Russia, began last week and ends Tuesday, under conditions that are anything but free or fair. Tens of thousands of residents had already fled the regions amid months of fighting, and images shared by those who remained showed armed Russian troops going door-to-door to pressure Ukrainians into voting. Every night and day there is inevitable shelling in the Donbas, under the roar of which people are forced to vote for Russian peace, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said on Monday. Russia is widely expected to declare the results in its favour, a step that could see Moscow annex the four regions and then defend them as its own territory. Loading Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday no date has been set for recognising the regions as part of Russia but it could be just days away. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said Russia would pay a high, if unspecified, price if it made good on veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively, he told NBC. Elsewhere, the British government on Monday slapped sanctions on 92 businesses and individuals it says are involved with organising the referendums in occupied Ukraine. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called the votes on joining Russia sham referendums held at the barrel of a gun. Russian recruits gather outside a military recruitment centre of Bataysk, Rostov-on-Don region, in the south of Russia. Credit:AP He said they follow a clear pattern of violence, intimidation, torture and forced deportations. Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, meanwhile, held an unannounced meeting on Monday in the southern Russian city of Sochi and claimed they were ready to cooperate with the West if they treat us with respect, Putin said. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that Putin had told Turkeys president last week that Moscow was ready to resume negotiations with Ukraine but had new conditions for a cease-fire. The Kremlin last week announced a partial mobilisation its first since World War II to add at least 300,000 troops to its forces in Ukraine. The move, a sharp shift from Putins previous efforts to portray the war as a limited military operation, proved unpopular at home. Thousands of Russian men of fighting age have flocked to airports and Russias land border crossings to avoid being called up. Protests erupted across the country, and Russian media reported an increasing number of arson attacks on military enlistment offices, including one that hit the southern city of Uryupinsk on Monday. Meanwhile, the first batches of new Russian troops mobilised by Moscow have begun to arrive at military bases, the British Defence Ministry said on Monday, adding that tens of thousands had been called up so far. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday on Facebook that the Ukrainian military is pushing efforts to take back the entire territory of Ukraine, and has drawn up plans to counter new types of weapons used by Russia. He did not elaborate. An overnight drone strike near the Ukrainian port of Odesa sparked a massive fire and explosion, the military said Monday. It was the latest drone attack on the key southern city in recent days, and hit a military installation, setting off ammunition. Firefighters struggled to contain the blaze. New Russian shelling struck near the Zaporozhzhia nuclear power plant, according to Zelenskys office. Cities near the plant were fired on nine times by rocket launchers and heavy artillery. Russia also kept pummelling Ukraines eastern Kharkiv region, which Kyiv says has seen ramped-up shelling and missile strikes since the Ukrainian counteroffensive made sweeping gains there this month. At least seven civilians, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed Monday in a rocket attack on the city of Pervomayskiy, the governor and emergency services reported. In Ukraines industrial eastern Donbas region, a Russian strike on Monday evening rocked the city of Kramatorsk, the headquarters of Ukrainian troops there, damaging a residential building. In the town of Izium in eastern Ukraine, which Russian forces fled this month after a Ukrainian counteroffensive, Margaryta Tkachenko is still reeling from the battle that destroyed her home and left her family close to starvation with no gas, electricity, running water or internet. I cant predict what will happen next. Winter is the most frightening. We have no wood. How will we heat? she asked. Berlin: Danish authorities on Monday asked ships to steer clear of a five nautical mile radius off the island of Bornholm after a gas leak overnight from the defunct Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline drained into the Baltic Sea. The German government said it was in contact with the Danish authorities and working with local law enforcement to find out what caused pressure in the pipeline to plummet suddenly. Denmarks energy ministry declined to comment. A painting on a container in Lubmin, Germany, shows the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Credit:AP On Monday evening, the operator of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which ran at reduced capacity since mid-June before stopping supplies altogether in August, also disclosed a pressure drop on both lines of the gas pipeline. The reasons are being investigated, Nord Stream AG said on its website, without disclosing further information. The Iranian regimes brutal killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was reportedly brutally beaten after she was detained for showing too much hair has triggered nationwide protests, led by the nations granddaughters against the grandfathers who have ruled their country for over four decades. Its premature to assess whether these protests will meaningfully change Irans politics, or whether they are simply another crack in the edifice of a rotting regime whose lone source of diversity is whether the beards and turbans of its ruling men are black or white. Yet one conclusion can already be drawn: Aminis killing, and Iranian societys response to it, should permanently alter how the outside world interacts with Iranian officials. And that shift in awareness should also include a fundamental reassessment of its own Iran policy by the Biden administration. Protests in Tehran last week. Credit:AP Aminis case was not isolated. According to human rights groups, every year millions of women are stopped and harassed in Iran for improper hijab, and numerous Iranian women are serving double-digit prison sentences for refusing to veil. This system of institutionalised violence has little to do with presumed Iranian religious traditions; authentic cultural norms dont need to be imposed by the threats of a police state. Compulsory hijab is one of the three remaining ideological pillars of Irans theocracy, along with Death to America and Death to Israel. That helps to explain why the regime is so loath to take a soft line on the issue of dress codes. Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, clearly believes that compromising on the regimes ideological pillars including hijab will only hasten its collapse. If we want to prevent our society from being plunged into corruption and turmoil, Khamenei has said, we should keep women in hijab. It is a product of the same mentality that blames female sexual assault victims for dressing immodestly. Such antiquated views deserve no deference, whether espoused from Texas, Tokyo or Tehran. Unlock 30+ premium stories daily hand-picked by our editors, across devices on browser and app. Full access to our intuitive epaper - clip, save, share articles from any device; newspaper archives from 2006. Curated newsletters on markets, personal finance, policy & politics, start-ups, technology, and more. Pick your 5 favourite companies, get a daily email with all news updates on them. 26 years of website archives. Newly-launched on Monday said it will commence its flight services to the northeast with the addition of Agartala (Tripura) and Guwahati (Assam) from October 21. As part of this expansion, the airline will connect the two north-eastern destinations, which will be its seventh and eighth, respectively, with Bengaluru, said in a statement. These new flights will provide seamless one-stop connectivity between and Agartala with no change of aircraft required at Guwahati, it said. The airline launched its services on the domestic routes from August 7 this year. Akasa said it has been progressively expanding its operations and will be flying a total of 11 non-stop routes along eight cities - Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Guwahati, and Agartala from October 21. To further enhance connectivity on existing sectors, the airline has also announced additional daily flights on the Bengaluru-Chennai route also commencing from October 21. Guwahati, the gateway to Assam, and Agartala are among the fastest growing cities in the region and the enhanced air connectivity will provide a boost to the immense potential of the region's aviation, industrial, and tourism prospects, said Praveen Iyer, Co-founder, and Chief Commercial Officer, . Apart from flights between and Agartala, the airline has further augmented its network between and Chennai by adding a 5th frequency between this route, he added. Akasa also said it is expecting its network to grow to 300 weekly flights by the end of its summer schedule (October-end). (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.) Acknowledging that refunds have been an issue for many airlines during the global pandemic and subsequent recovery, on Monday shared details of the steps it has taken to improve its capability and performance in this area. Like all airlines, was severely impacted by Covid-19 and, regrettably, many customers' travel plans were affected. As one of the many steps undertaken to better meet customer expectations and speedily address legacy issues post-privatisation, placed high priority on clearing the backlog of refunds, said the airline spokesperson. More than 2.5 lakh cases totalling in excess of Rs 150 crore were processed in just the first few months after privatisation. Significant effort has since been placed on improving processes and systems, and employing technology, to turn around new refunds cases at a greater pace. As of today, an eligible refund request lodged on the Air India website will typically be processed by the airline within 2-3 days. Subsequent processing by banks and/or credit card companies, which is beyond the airline's control, can add another two weeks before customers see the refund (less any fees deducted in accordance with the tickets' conditions of sale) in their accounts. In the case of bookings made via travel agents, the refund is made to the travel agent who is then responsible for disbursing to the traveller. Commenting on the development, Air India's Chief Customer Experience & Ground Services Officer, Rajesh Dogra said, "The processing of a record number of pending refund cases is a testimony to the different teams coming together and addressing a key legacy issue in a comprehensive and effective manner. As part of our transformation, we are committed to bring a standardised structure across our functions which is critical for us to emerge as one of the world class airline brands globally." Dogra added, "We encourage anyone who believes they have a refund outstanding from Air India to provide details via the Old Pending Refund Link on the home page of our website. This link has been specially created to address if there is any residual old pending refund case." --IANS kvm/dpb (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Power-generating (gencos) have picked up 5.8 per cent of the order value for the import tender placed by India Ltd (CIL) over the past two months. Google's head of public policy for India has resigned just five months after taking the job, two sources told Reuters, at a potentially critical time for the U.S. tech giant as it awaits the outcome of at least two antitrust cases in the country. The reasons for Archana Gulati's resignation were not immediately clear. Gulati, who previously worked at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's federal think-tank, declined to comment. A spokesperson for Alphabet Inc's also declined to comment. is facing a series of antitrust cases in India and stricter tech-sector regulations. India's competition watchdog is looking into Google's business conduct in the smart TVs market, its Android operating system, as well as its in-app payments system. The watchdog is close to announcing its decision in at least two antitrust cases against Google, people familiar with the process said. At Google, Gulati led a team of public policy executives who look at various regulatory implications for the company in India, one of its key growth markets. She was a long-time Indian government employee, having worked until March 2021 as a joint secretary for digital communications at Modi's federal think tank, Niti Aayog, a body that is critical to government's policy making across sectors. Before that, between 2014 and 2016, she worked as a senior official at the Competition Commission of India, in its Mergers & Acquisitions division, according to her LinkedIn profile. A number of Indian government officials have been hired by Big Tech as they face tighter data and privacy regulation, as well as competition law scrutiny, under Modi's federal government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Electric will set up a greenfield manufacturing unit in Salarpur industrial area in . The Rs 1,200-crore facility will be spread over 170 acres and have an annual capacity of manufacturing two million units, as reported by Economic Times (ET). Electric is the largest electric two-wheeler maker in India. The plant has been strategically planned within 100 km of Delhi Airport and close to automotive clusters in the National Capital Region (NCR), the company's MD Naveen Munjal told ET. The report added that the company has already taken necessary permissions from the government and the unit is likely to start manufacturing in 2023. By 2025, it aims to reach a production capacity of five million units per annum. "The demand is robust; we have a substantial waiting list and we are resolving the supply chain challenges...We want to be ready with capacity, as the adoption of EVs gains momentum. The market, I believe, is going to move much faster than anyone could imagine. The awareness is growing, the cost of operation is lower," Munjal was quoted as saying in the report. Along with the new unit in Rajasthan, which will be equipped with modern equipment, the company has also installed a new manufacturing line in Ludhiana, Punjab. It will increase the production capacity by 250,000 units per annum. Also, the company has formed an alliance with Mahindra & Mahindra to produce electric vehicles EV) at the Pithampur plant. It will also provide additional 250,000 units, the ET report added. The charging stations will be installed in a few cities during the initial phase and later, extended to other markets. (BSP), an arm of state-run (SAIL), has been reeling from a severe crisis that has reportedly affected the output in the company. The stock of imported in the BSP has been depleting fast since a fortnight. A stranded ferry from the port is cited to be the reason for plunging it into a deep crisis. A top official said a huge quantity of shipped from Australia is lying in the port while the railways is yet to provide the required rakes to transport the raw material to BSP. The railways is reportedly not giving priority to SAILs unit that has further complicated the problem, the official added. Railway officials could not be contacted but the spokesperson said BSP is trying to resolve the issue at the earliest. The officials have held a high-level meeting with railway officials and are constantly monitoring the loading and dispatch from the port, the BSP spokesperson said. Loading work has been increased in the port and efforts are on to ferry maximum number of rakes to the plant from the busiest Raipur- rail section, he added. The rail section, besides bringing the raw material from the port, also transports coal extracted in Chhattisgarh to the ships for export. A major portion of the section is single line that makes it the busiest rail route where maximum traffic is freight. The BSP spokesperson said there had been some improvement in the stock, and hopefully, the company would overcome the crisis in the next few days. Imported coking coke plays an important role in the production of steel in the facility. The unit requires huge quantities of indigenous and foreign coal to prepare coke in the ovens every day. It uses 80 per cent foreign and only 20 per cent indigenous coal. Coking is produced from coal in a coke oven and sent to furnaces, and mills. officials said that supply of coke and to the furnaces had been disrupted. Subsequently, production has been affected in four of the six mills of the BSP. The rail mill, wire rod mill, merchant mill, and bar and rod mill have been affected. Only the universal rail mill and plate mill are running partially. Nabha Power, a subsidiary of L&T Power Development, has received shareholders' approval to convert part of its of Rs 5,341 crore into equity in case of a default in future, according to filings with the government authorities. L&T was earlier planning to sell the Punjab-based unit but as there is a delay in finding a buyer, the company has asked the shareholders for permission to convert part of the without giving any timeline to do the same. made a profit of Rs 302 crore for the fiscal year ended March this year on revenues of Rs 4,129 crore. Bankers said there was no question of defaulting on its loan as the company is backed by L&T and the enabling resolution was cleared by shareholders in case of any future default. In an extraordinary general meeting held recently, shareholders also cleared the proposal to increase borrowings of up to Rs 14,400 crore and creation of security on assets of the company. L&Ts Nabha exposure is about Rs 2,400 crore and it will be released once the sale is complete. When contacted, L&T did not comment on conversion or its sale. Soon after its June quarter results, L&T management said the divestment of Hyderabad Metro and Nabha Power has been put on fast track. We are looking at fast-forwarding the process of divestment of IDPL and Nabha power. Its the top objective of the management. We do expect an early closure but in terms of timelines it would be a little speculative, P Ramakrishnan, vice-president of L&T, had told analysts. Nabha Power, which runs a 1,400-Mw supercritical thermal power plant at Rajpura in Punjab, was the first development project and the first power plant to be owned and operated by L&T. Nabha Power had signed a long-term power purchase agreement of 25 years from February 2014 with Punjab State Power Corporation for off-take of the electricity generated from the plant. Bankers said if the company maintains a minimum plant availability factor of 85 per cent it is allowed to make full recovery of fixed costs. The energy charge consists of fuel charges, which are fully pass-through to PSPCL. Further, according to the PPA, the PSPCL is responsible for the power evacuation, thus ensuring long-term revenue visibility. But L&T decided to exit the project to free its capital and invest in new technology areas and new projects. Apart from Nabha Power, the company is also selling the Hyderabad Metro project. Bankers said the sale of the both projects is imminent with L&T finalising the transactions with potential buyers. Seven tourists died and 10 suffered injuries as a tempo traveller fell into a gorge in Himachal Pradesh's Kullu district on Sunday evening, a local MLA said. The BJP MLA from Banjar, Surender Shourie, streamed a video on Facebook Live via his social media account on Monday at around 12.45 am, informing people about the accident that occurred near Ghiyaghi in Banjar subdivision. The injured were first taken to Banjar hospital from where they have been referred to Kullu hospital after being given first aid, he added. The Banjar MLA said the victims were residents of various states including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. They are being identified, he added. Shourie thanked the district administration and the locals for carrying out rescue operation despite darkness. (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.) Police has arrested nine persons in connection with the seizure of banned from a resort at Pulpally in Wayanad district. Acting on a tip-off, police late on Sunday busted a rave party and took into custody all those who were participating. Sources said narcotic including hashish oil were seized from the accused, all belonging to Vadakara in Kozhikode district. They have been charged under various sections of the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. The Wayanad police had earlier also busted held in remote location resorts in the hilly district. In an incident in January, a notorious criminal was also arrested during a raid in a resort in Padinjarethara near Kalpetta. (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.) Police have detained social activist Sandeep Pandey and three others ahead of a foot march planned on Monday to express solidarity with Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped and seven of her family members murdered during the 2002 riots, police said. Ramon Magsaysay award recipient Pandey and other activists were scheduled to participate in the foot march, titled 'Apologising to Bilkis Bano', planned to be taken out from her native village Randhikpur in neighbouring Dahod district on Monday under the banner of 'Hindu-Muslim Ekta Samiti'. The march was to conclude in Ahmedabad on October 4. "Sandeep Pandey and three others were detained from Godhra (in Panchmahal district) at around 10.30 pm on Sunday. They are still in detention," a B-division police station officer said. The Hindu-Muslim Ekta Samiti in a statement condemned the police action. It said the foot march was organised to apologise to Bilkis Bano, after the government on August 15 this year released 11 convicts in her case under its remission policy. The convicts were serving life sentence in the Godhra sub-jail on charges of gang-rape of Bilkis Bano and murder of seven members of her family in a post-Godhra riot case. "We only wish to apologise to Bilkis for whatever has happened to her and wish such heinous acts do not happen in an otherwise peaceful state of Gujarat," the organisation said in the statement. On March 3, 2002, Bilkis Bano's family was attacked by a mob at Randhikpur village in Limkheda taluka of Dahod. Bilkis, who was five months pregnant at the time, was gang-raped and seven members of her family were killed. A special CBI court in Mumbai had on January 21, 2008 sentenced to life imprisonment 11 accused in the case for murder and gang-rape. Their conviction was later upheld by the Bombay High Court. These convicts served more than 15 years in prison, after which one of them approached the Supreme Court with a plea for his premature release. The government later issued an order to release all the 11 convicts, as per its remission policy, following which they walked out of the jail on August 15. (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 government on Monday launched the indigenously-developed AVGAS 100 LL, a special meant for piston engine aircrafts and unmanned ariel vehicles. It has been developed by . Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri, while launching the fuel at Hindon air base, said: "We are undergoing a remarkable transformation which is almost revolutionary. We are reducing dependence on imported fuels by promoting biofuel blending, green hydrogen and introduction of electric vehicles." Currently, India is importing this product from European countries. Puri said that the launch of indigenous AV GAS 100 LL is important to serve the needs of a thriving aviation industry with increase in footfall at airports, rise in number of aircraft and Flying Training Organisations (FTOs) in trainee aircraft for pilot training in future. As the demand for air transport in India is expected to increase manifold in the future, there is going to be a huge demand for trained pilots also. And for this, the number of FTOs is also expected to increase significantly, he added. Chairman Shrikant Vaidya said: "Indian Oil is proud to introduce this specialised fuel by leveraging our refining strength and in-house expertise. In fact the indigenous fuel is superior compared to the imported grades. AV Gas market is expected to grow from the current $1.92 billion to $2.71 billion by 2029. We plan to set up a new facility soon to target export opportunities, besides catering to the domestic demand. I am confident that the superior quality we offer, combined with competitive pricing, will give us a significant edge in the global market and open a new chapter in India's journey of self-reliance." The domestic production of AVGAS 100 LL, produced by Indian Oil at its Gujarat refinery. will make flying training more affordable in India, an official statement said. --IANS ans/vd (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 Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the statutory authority under the government of India, has asked users to voluntarily update their biometric information every 10 years. At present, children between the age of 5 and 15 years are required to update their biometrics for cards. Residents whose biometrics are below the decided threshold level may be notified by to update their biometrics. The UIDAI's call to get the updated is to make sure that the official database remains up-to-date. According to the official statement, " will encourage people to update their biometric and demographic data once in 10 years. Over time, it will push people to update their Aadhaar. Once a person is over a certain age, say 70 years, then it will not be required". ALSO READ: What is Baal Aadhaar card? Check benefits, eligibility, and other details What is Aadhaar? Aadhaar number is a 12-digit unique number issued by the to the residents of India after the verification process. Any individual, irrespective of age and gender, who is a resident of India, may voluntarily enrol to obtain an Aadhaar number. The person willing to enroll must provide minimal demographic and biometric information during the enrolment process which is totally free of cost. An individual needs to enrol for Aadhaar only once and after de-duplication only one Aadhaar shall be generated, as the uniqueness is achieved through the process of demographic and biometric de-duplication. What is biometric information in Aadhaar? There is a need to update your Aadhaar card when the biometric information/data, registered with the UIDAI, witnessed some changes over the years. In fact, biometric information can change only in rare cases, for example; authentication failures at the time of enrolment, a person meets with an accident, suffered injuries, undergoes a surgery/eye transplant, is infected with a disease, etc. Usually, the biometric information in the Aadhaar cards of children requires an update as their fingerprints and facial features gradually develop with age. Where and how to update Aadhaar details? There are two different ways to update your details in the Aadhaar card Offline: By Visiting the permanent enrolment centre along with valid address and identity proof documents. Search the nearest enrolment centre by clicking on 'Locate Enrolment Center' on uidai.gov.in. Online: Using 'Self Service Update Portal' (SSUP). Click Update Aadhaar Details (Online) on uidai.gov.in. Steps to update Aadhaar biometrics Visit the UIDAI official portal -- www.uidai.gov.in Click on 'Update Your Aadhaar' tab under 'My Aadhaar' dropdown on the homepage You will see three options: Search Box, Postal Code, and State. Select the required option. Enter the necessary details, and the UIDAI website will display a list of the nearest Aadhaar enrollment centres On the mAadhaar mobile app Open mAadhaar app and select Enrollment Centre Select Advanced Search or Search by Text If you choose the Advanced Search option, then you can locate an enrollment centre by entering your state, district, or pin code. If opted for Search by Text, you are required to enter the enrollment centres name ALSO READ: How to check your bank balance using Aadhaar card: A step-by-step guide Update Aadhaar biometrics Visit the Aadhaar enrollment centre and ask for a form to update biometrics in Aadhaar Authentication is required after filling and submitting the Aadhaar biometric form. You need to submit iris scans and fingerprints, whichever has undergone changes After the authentication process, the changed biometrics will be recorded Your biometrics will get updated and locked in the database of UIDAI What is demographic information? Name, age, gender, address, date of birth, email address, mobile number, relationship status and information sharing consent What is biometric information? Iris scans, fingerprints and photograph Bal Aadhaar Children in the age group of 0-5 years are issued Bal Aadhaar. Collection of biometrics (fingerprints and iris) is a key feature in issuing Aadhaar as the same is required to establish uniqueness based on de-duplication of these biometrics. However, for Aadhaar enrolment of children in the age group of 0-5 years, these biometrics are not collected. Aadhaar enrolment of children in the age group of 0-5 years are carried out based on a facial image of the child, and of the parent/guardian (having a valid Aadhaar). To differentiate the Bal Aadhaar from normal Aadhaar, it is issued in blue colour, with a remark that this is valid till the child attains the age of 5 years. On attaining the age of 5, the child is required to furnish his or her biometrics at an Aadhaar Seva Kendra to complete a process called mandatory biometric update (MBU). The MBU process goes through a de-duplication process. After completion of this process, the child is issued a normal Aadhaar without any change in the Aadhaar number. Highlighted the transformation taking place in and the unprecedented progress recorded across all sectors, Lieutenant Governor on Sunday said that the Union Territory has the potential to emerge as a powerhouse of prosperity. JK LG was addressing the IIT BHU Global Alumni Meet at Santa Clara in California. Speaking on the occasion, the Lt Governor lauded the efforts of the young IITians for their accomplishment and advancements in emerging technologies and for strengthening the dynamic technology ecosystem for societal transformation. The Lt Governor also conveyed the motto of shared effort and progress for all and urged the innovators and entrepreneurs, to contribute to India's growing knowledge economy. "Development is powered by technology and innovation. India has created vibrant and fastest-growing innovation ecosystems in the world and has helped create several thousands of startups and over 100 unicorns attracting huge investment. I urge entrepreneurs to invest in India, the cradle of civilization and the most attractive investment destination of the world," Sinha said. He also discussed the progressive industrial policy of made under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and highlighted the immense potential and opportunities in different sectors to start industrial and business ventures that will also create job opportunities for the youths. "Jammu Kashmir has the potential to emerge as a powerhouse of prosperity. It should be our shared goal to tap immense resources and talents to ensure a better life for all our citizens," he said. Paying tributes to Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, the Governor said that the achievements of IIT BHU Alumni both in India and overseas are testimony to values imparted in IIT BHU and the strong foundation for modern education laid by Mahamana. "I am confident these deep and abiding ties with alma mater will continue to grow," he added. While discussing developments in the digital economy, and innovative tech startups with innovators, entrepreneurs, the Lt Governor observed that PM Modi on August 15, 2021, had clearly established the importance of startups and young innovators by terming the coming decade as India's Techade and that the Indian Techade will be built by young Indian innovators. "India is now the new land of opportunity, achievement, knowledge, and human capital. We are emerging stronger from the pandemic and we are now the world's fifth largest economy, which is one of the biggest stories of the decade. I urge you to make in India and contribute in strengthening the research and innovation ecosystem," said the Lt Governor. The Lt Governor said the world has recognized the transformation in the Indian economy and the potential of the Indian market in terms of achieving global scale in quality and output. He said various core sectors with best incentives, connectivity, energy and transport linkages are offering a conducive investment and growth climate and India is on the path to become the innovation capital of the world. The Lt Governor also recalled the significant contribution of Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in the country's first industrial policy. "Mahamana had recommended mechanization in agriculture, abolition of tax on agricultural production, promotion of railways and commerce in the industrial policy, setting up of shipbuilding, manufacturing units and initiated the opening of commerce and industries departments in all the states to promote the industrial development," he said. The Lt Governor further highlighted the transformation taking place in Jammu Kashmir and the unprecedented progress recorded across all sectors. "In the last two years, we have built a business-friendly climate for investors and has emerged as one of the favourite destinations to set up industries and other business ventures. The aspirations of the youth of Jammu and Kashmir have been synchronized with the aspirations of the country today and the golden period of industrial development of Jammu and Kashmir has been ushered in through the new industrial development policy of the Prime Minister," observed the Lt Governor. Members of IIT BHU Global Alumni Association, entrepreneurs and innovators were present on the occasion. (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 granted interim bail to actor Jacqueline Fernandez in a Rs 200 crore case against alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekar. Special Judge Shailendra Malik granted Fernandez the relief on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and posted the matter for further hearing on October 22. On August 31, predecessor judge Praveen Singh had taken cognizance of a supplementary charge sheet filed by the and asked Fernandez to appear before the court. Fernandez, who was summoned by the ED several times in connection with the investigation, has been named as an accused for the first time in the supplementary charge sheet. ED's earlier charge sheet and a supplementary charge sheet did not mention her as an accused. The documents, however, had mentioned the details of the statements recorded by Fernandez and fellow actor Nora Fatehi. According to ED, Fernandez and Fatehi, who were examined, had received luxury cars and other expensive gifts from Chandrashekar. The ED said Fernandez's statements were recorded on August 30 and October 20, 2021 where she admitted to having received gifts from Chandrashekar. Statements of Fatehi were recorded on September 13 and October 14, 2021 and she also acknowledged having received gifts from the alleged conman and his actor wife Leena Paulose. (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 in plunged into a crisis Sunday as several MLAs loyal to submitted resignation letters over a possible move to appoint Sachin Pilot as the next CM, their rebellion erupting just ahead of a Legislature Party meeting. The loyalists headed to Speaker C P Joshi's home after a long meeting in the evening at minister Shanti Dhariwal's residence, saying they were resigning as MLAs. Former leader announced his new party on Monday, and named it 'Democratic Azad Party'. While unveiling the flag his party, Azad said, "Mustard colour indicates creativity & unity in diversity, white indicates peace and blue indicates freedom, open space, imagination and limits from the depths of the ocean to the heights of the sky."India records 4,129 new Covid cases on Monday, taking the nation's tally from the pandemic to 44,572,243. With 20 new deaths in the last 24 hours, India's toll of Covid-19 has reached 528,530. The nation's tally of cured Covid cases has reached 44,000,298 as 4,688 people recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours. The under-construction international airport will become operational in 2024, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister said here on Sunday. He was addressing the Maratha Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA). Fadnavis also said that the "industrial culture" of Maharashtra will be back on track soon. "Every stakeholder has to unite and work hard to make Maharashtra number one again," he added. Fadnavis highlighted important projects like Pune Metro, EV transportation etc and said the ring road will prove to be the growth engine for the Pune region. He said the government has acknowledged the urgent need for the Purandar airport in the Pune district and that the government is taking efforts for the same. He also said the government is planning a logistics hub at Purandar along with the airport. There is a need to connect the and Purandar airports. "Maharashtra's economy should reach USD one trillion if India has to achieve the USD 5 trillion target," the Deputy CM said. He stressed the importance of the Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA) and Mumbai Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) for infrastructure and said Maharashtra is the startup capital of India. "15,000 out of 18,000 startups are from Maharashtra besides 25 out of 100 unicorns. We want to ease connectivity and approach to all MIDCs. We should bring more investment in the fintech sector," he added. (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.) Chief Minister on Monday said that night safari at wildlife sanctuaries was in fashion globally as he sought to dismiss the controversy over his jeep ride along with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev at the Park (KNP) after dusk. Speaking to reporters at the end of the three-day 'Chintan Shivir', Sarma claimed that no law in the country, including those for the protection of wildlife, prohibit entry into forest areas after sunset. "Going to wildlife sanctuaries at night is in fashion across the world. Places like Singapore have been doing it," he said. The controversy over the jeep safari with the Sadhguru is, in fact, creating a negative impression about the state and its people as it shows inviting an esteemed guest and then creating a fuss over it, he said. With Sarma by his side, Sadhguru drove the vehicle on Saturday evening to tour a part of the park along with other dignitaries. Sadhguru was here for the inauguration of the 'Chintan Shivir'. Sarma and Sadhguru were criticised for going into the forest in the dark with headlights blazing, while a police complaint has also been filed by locals, alleging violation of wildlife protection laws. "What will happen if an FIR has been given against me? I have not broken any law," Sarma said. "Let them show which provision of the wildlife protection laws I have violated, and which law says that one cannot enter at night," he added. Sarma also said that if the chief minister is not allowed to enter the park, how will he know what is happening inside it. Sadhguru came here as a guest and not as a common tourist, and the KNP director was himself in the backseat of the vehicle driven by him, the chief minister said. "He went wherever the KNP director took him. Now, how can the director say that rules were broken... It is the responsibility of the Forest Department to explain the rules," the chief minister maintained. Sarma said that Kaziranga will witness more tourist footfall because of the visits by Sadhguru and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who came here on the second day of the 'Chintan Shivir' on Sunday. (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 sources in the Investigation Agency (NIA) said that had allegedly received huge fund through Hawala from its and Gulf countries-based members. The sources said that NRIs' accounts were being used by the members to send fund from . After receiving the fund, the member would transfer it to other account from where they would withdraw it. Their supporters and members were working in UAE, Qatar, Turkey and in Oman from where they had been financially supporting the PFI, and this money was allegedly concealed by the from the eyes of agencies. To fool the Indian agencies, the PFI has created a number of dummy organisations. Three of these were founded in abroad. The sources said that a number of PFI workers travelled to in last two years. The purpose was allegedly to collect funds for the organisation. Huge cash was allegedly sent to India by PFI members through Hawala route. From Oman, PFI workers sent around Rs 44 lakh to India via Hawala routes. The agencies said that in they raised money after radicalising their members and businessmen. They used to show particular videos to show how Muslims were unsafe in India. In Abu Dhabi, one Saifu, an alleged member of PFI, handles real estate business. In Saudi Arbia, the PFI members connect to Indian Muslims on the pretext of helping them, whereas their actual purpose is to radicalise them. --IANS atk/uk (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister left for Tokyo on Monday evening to attend the state funeral of Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who reshaped Japan's foreign policy including setting out a bold vision for a quantum leap in its ties with India. Representatives from over 100 countries, including more than 20 heads of states and governments, are expected to attend Abe's funeral on Tuesday at the Budokan, an indoor sporting facility. Modi will also hold a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Abe was shot dead while making a campaign speech three months ago in the southern Japanese city of Nara. India had announced a one-day mourning on July 9 as a mark of respect for Abe. "I am travelling to Tokyo tonight to participate in the State Funeral of former PM Shinzo Abe, a dear friend and a great champion of India- friendship," Modi tweeted hours before departing for Tokyo. "I will be conveying heartfelt condolences to Prime Minister Kishida and Mrs. Abe on behalf of all Indians. We will continue working to further strengthen India- relations as envisioned by Abe San. @kishida230," he said. At a media briefing, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said Modi will attend the state funeral ceremony at Budokan, followed by a greeting occasion at Akasaka Palace, besides meeting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Abe's wife Akie. "The visit will be an opportunity for PM Modi to honour the memory of former PM Abe, who he considered a dear friend and great champion of India- ties," he said. In an historic address to the Indian Parliament in August 2007, Abe elaborated on his ambitious roadmap for India-Japan strategic ties to collectively deal with geopolitical challenges and for overall prosperity of Asia. In the "Confluence of Two Seas" speech, he told Indian lawmakers that the India-Japan relationship is blessed with the largest potential for development of bilateral relationship anywhere in the world. Kwatra said Modi and Abe developed a personal bond through their meetings and interactions spanning over a decade, beginning with Modi's visit to Japan in 2007 as the chief minister of Gujarat. "PM Abe made significant contributions to deepening India-Japan relations, turning a largely economic relationship into a broad, comprehensive, and strategic partnership, making it pivotal for the two countries' and the region's security," Kwatra said. "His famous 'Confluence of Two Seas' speech in the Indian Parliament in 2007 laid the ground for the emergence of the Indo-Pacific region as a contemporary political, strategic, and economic reality," he said. The foreign secretary said Abe's contribution to India-Japan relations was recognised when India conferred on him the prestigious Padma Vibhushan award in 2021. Kwatra said the duration of Modi's visit from the time of his departure from Delhi will be around 12 to 16 hours. Kishida visited India for the annual summit in March, while Modi visited Japan for the Quad Leaders' Summit in May. "These meetings underscored the two leaders' commitment towards deepening India-Japan ties, particularly in the context of shaping a post-pandemic regional and global order," Kwatra said. "Today, Japan is one of the most trusted and valued strategic partners of India. The two sides are committed to strengthening bilateral partnership on key areas of trade and investment, defence and security, climate change, health security, infrastructure, digital, industrial development, energy, critical and emerging technologies, and human resources, among others," he said. Kwatra said there is deep convergence between India and Japan on the Indo-Pacific region. "The bilateral meeting between PM Modi and PM Kishida during the upcoming visit will be an opportunity for the two leaders to reaffirm their commitment to further strengthening of the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership," he 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.) Prime Minister sent greetings to former Prime Minister of India Dr on his 90th birthday and wished for his long and healthy life on Monday. "Birthday greetings to former PM Dr Ji. Praying for his long and healthy life," tweeted PM Modi. Congress leader also wished Dr Singh on his birthday. "Wishing one of India's finest statesmen, Dr ji a very happy birthday. His humility, dedication and contribution to India's development, have few parallels. He is an inspiration to me, and to crores of other Indians. I pray for his good health and happiness," tweeted the Wayanad MP. Singh was born on September 26, 1932, in Punjab's village of Gah before the partition. He studied at Punjab University, Cambridge, and Oxford. Dr Singh, who was the Prime Minister for two consecutive terms (from 2004-2014) has turned 90 today. He is a renowned economist, credited for introducing sweeping reforms in the 1990s. (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.) President Droupadi Murmu will be on a two-day visit to from Monday to attend a host of programmes. This will be her first visit to any state as the . According to a statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan, on September 26, the President will inaugurate the Mysuru Dasara Festival at Chamundi Hills, Mysuru. On the same day, she will attend the felicitation function 'Poura Sanmana' organized by the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation at Hubali. She will also inaugurate the new campus of the Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad at Dharwad. The president will inaugurate an Integrated Cryogenic Engines Manufacturing Facility of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bengaluru on Tuesday. During her visit to the state, President Murmu will also lay the foundation stone for the Zonal Institute of Virology (South Zone) virtually. She will further grace the inaugural function of St. Joseph's University on the same day and later attend a civic reception hosted by the Government of in her honour in Bengaluru. President Murmu will then return to the capital on Wednesday, September 28. (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 traffic police on Monday said vehicular movement may be affected in several areas across the capital in the evening hours for the next 10 days in the wake of the Navratra and Ramlila celebrations. According to an advisory issued by the traffic police, Ramlila will be celebrated across from Monday to October 5 between 6 pm and 11 pm. There are 46 main venues where Ramlilas will be organized, which include Red Fort, JLN Marg, Dakshinpuri, Sarojini Nagar, RK Puram Sector 5, Dwarka, Punjabi Bagh, Hari Nagar, Sultanpuri, Pitampura, Model Town, and Gandhi Nagar, the advisory said. In addition to the main venues, Ramlilas may also be organized by local residents, RWAs, etc. in various colonies, market areas and open grounds. Some Ramlila committees may also take out processions in their localities, it said. Traffic movement may be affected in such areas due to the huge public gathering, it stated. There may be restrictions on movement of general traffic on Netaji Subhash Marg, Nishad Raj Marg (New Daryaganj Road), Jawahar Lal Nehru (JLN) Marg and Turkman Gate depending on the crowd situation after 5 pm from Monday to October 5 as major Ramlilas will be staged at Ramlila Ground and Red Fort and important dignitaries are expected to be present there, the advisory stated. Similarly, Navratras will be celebrated from Monday to October 5 and the six main temples, which attract a large number of devotees, are Jhandewalan Mandir, Durga Mandir in Kailash Colony , Pahari Wala Mandir/Mahavir Mandir in Greater Kailash-1, Adhya Katyayani Shaktipeeth Mandir in Chhattarpur, Kalkaji Mandir on Outer Ring Road from Nehru Place to Modi Mill and Kali Badi Mandir on Mandir Marg, the advisory stated. The traffic police advised people to plan their travel on the mentioned roads/ stretches. The commuters going to IGI Airport, New railway station, Old Delhi railway station, Nizamuddin railway station and ISBT should leave before their scheduled time to accommodate possible delays. The police advised commuters to avail public transport to help decongestion of roads, park their vehicles only at designated parking lots, and avoid roadside parking. According to the advisory, the public was asked to inform the police if they notice any unidentified object or suspicious person. (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 Cabinet on Monday gave its nod to promulgate an ordinance to regulate . The Cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister here, took the decision after final touches were given to the draft ordinance. It would be promulgated once the Governor R N Ravi gives his assent, the government said. In June this year, the Chief Minister announced a new law to curb online gambling, and the State government constituted a panel under retired judge of the Madras High Court Justice K Chandru to recommend on the promulgation of an ordinance to regulate in the State. Accordingly, the recommendation was submitted to the Chief Minister on June 27, 2022, and it was placed before the Cabinet the same day for consideration. The Cabinet took up the draft ordinance for discussion today after obtaining the requisite information from the School Education Department on the impact of online gaming on students, said an official release. "The School Education Department provided the feedback after conducting a survey from the general public via e-mail and holding a consultation with stakeholders. Based on the opinion from the Law Department, the draft ordinance was prepared on August 29,2022," the release 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.) The Police continued its crackdown against the Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) cadres on Monday over the alleged Molotov cocktail attacks. This comes a day after Director General of Police (DGP) C.Sylendrakumar directed the district police chiefs and commissioners to take stringent action against those disrupting peace. The police have commenced the crackdown after incidents of motorbike-borne suspects throwing petrol and kerosene-laden burning bottles at the residences/ shops, offices of the RSS, BJP workers and their local leaders after the NIA arrest of the leaders and cadres on September 22. The police on Sunday arrested several persons, including Syed Ali (42) who is the SDPI, Salem district president in connection with the attack on the residence of RSS Salem town functionary, V.K. Rajan's residence with petrol bomb. The police took action following CCTV visuals of the accused hurling burning kerosene-filled bottle at the residence of Rajan at 1.40 a.m. on Sunday. K. Khadeer Hussain, ward president of SDPI in Salem was the other arrested in the case. Both were presented before the magistrate and remanded to judicial custody. In Erode also police arrested four SDPI functionaries in a Molotov cocktail attack on the furniture shop of an RSS worker, V. Dakshinamoorthy. The arrested are Sadam Hussain, Khalil Rahman, A. Jaffar, and A. Ashik. The DGP has also warned of serious consequences against the perpetrators of violence and that stringent action would be taken against them, including invoking the Security Act (NSA). The Police were conducting raids at several residences of people affiliated with the and SDPI after the DGP's directive to the SPs and Commissioners. The Molotov cocktail attacks which commenced from Coimbatore have now spread to Erode, Salem, Ramanathapuram, Dindigul, Kanniyakumari and some parts of Chennai, including Tambaram. The police have been instructed to take stringent action against those involved in the violence. The state intelligence was also providing proper inputs on the perpetrators of violence and District Superintendents and Commissioners of police have been given instructions to arrest local leaders as well as district-wise leaders of both the organisations if found that they were part of conspiracies in these Molotov cocktail attacks. Meanwhile, BJP state president K. Annamalai said that the Police's hands were tied for the past 15 months and that it was at its peak. He said that the party will not be cowed down by the cowardly acts of Molotov cocktail attacks. The BJP state president also said that the party has constituted four fact-finding teams to report on the damage caused to the residences/ shops and offices of party workers and that a report would be submitted to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah after getting the feedback from the committees. --IANS aal/dpb (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two persons were arrested for their involvement in hurling petrol bombs into the house of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member in the Madurai district of on September 24, said police on Sunday. The accused have been identified as Usain and Samsuddin. Two persons are still absconding and would be arrested soon. "Two persons were arrested for their involvements in hurling petrol bombs at the house of functionary Krishnan on Sept 24. A total of four persons were involved in the incident. Two are absconding and would be arrested soon. functionaries MS Krishnan house is still under inquiry," said T Senthil Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Madurai. He further said the police also registered against the petrol station owner for selling of 'loose' petrol in bottles, which was used for filling up petrol bombs. He also requested the petrol bulk owners to avoid giving loose petrol. "We have taken the list of vulnerable Hindu outfit persons and have been given protection," he said. As many as three petrol bombs were hurled into the house of a member in the Madurai district of . The incident was captured in the CCTV footage which as per the timestamp took place around 7:38 pm on Saturday at Mel Anuppanadi housing board area in Madurai at the residence of MS Krishnan. The CCTV footage shows bike-borne men were seen approaching the house and hurling petrol bombs before the duo sped away. In this regard, RSS member Krishnan and BJP Madurai district president Suseendran had filed a petition to the Keerathurai police. "I have been working in an RSS organization for the last 45 years. Around 7 pm we did puja at my house with about 65 people. Then I heard a noise outside and when I came out, my car was on fire. Last year in 2014 police gave protection to me due to danger to my life but the police protection was withdrawn in 2021. More than 20 RSS workers like me have been attacked in alone. We have lodged a complaint with the police regarding the petrol bomb hurled at my house. They assured to arrest the accused by tonight," said Krishnan. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu BJP has written to Home Minister Amit shah highlighting the increasing attacks against BJP and RSS functionaries in recent times. The letter to Amit shah mentioned 19 attacks against those belonging to Hindu outfits (the incident include the damaging of houses, vehicles, hurling of petrol bombs etc.). Earlier, a petrol bomb was hurled at the house of an near Tambaram near Chennai in the early hours of Saturday, said the police. (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 water level in the Yamuna here neared the warning mark of 204.5 metres on Sunday following heavy rain in the upper catchment areas and is expected to breach it on September 26, officials said. The Delhi flood control room said the water level reached 204.4 metres at 9 pm. It is likely to rise to 204.7 metres between 10 am and 12 noon on Monday. A flood alert is sounded in Delhi when the discharge rate from the Hathnikund barrage in Haryana's Yamuna Nagar crosses the 1 lakh-cusecs mark. People living near the floodplains and in flood-prone areas are evacuated then. The Delhi flood control room reported a discharge rate of around 45,352 cusecs at 8 pm. One cusec is equivalent to 28.32 litres per second. Normally, the flow rate at the Hathnikund barrage is 352 cusecs, but the discharge increases after heavy rainfall in the catchment areas. The water discharged from the barrage normally takes two to three days to reach the national capital. Incessant rains have battered parts of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and north Uttar Pradesh over the last few days. The catchment of the system covers parts of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. The low-lying areas near the river in Delhi are considered vulnerable to flooding. They are home to around 37,000 people. The Yamuna had breached the danger mark of 205.33 metres on August 12, following which around 7,000 people were evacuated from the low-lying areas near the river banks. (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.) As is likely to resign as Rajasthan Chief Minister to file nomination to contest Congress president polls, he said on Sunday that he would continue to work for the youth and a peaceful atmosphere in the country. "I've previously specified...If things were under my control, I would be on various posts, but even without any post I will continue to work for a peaceful atmosphere and youth, " said Gehlot when asked whether he would retain the CM post. Gehlot said, "As far as post of Congress president is concerned, I've been in for 50 yrs and held various posts for 40 yrs. What more can a person expect, now the new generation should get a chance so that we together can provide leadership in the country." Congress legislative party meeting will be held at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence in Jaipur on Sunday in which a resolution will be passed relating to the change of leadership in Rajasthan. The resolution will be passed that decision on change of face in Rajasthan will be taken by the Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi, sources said. All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge of Rajasthan Ajay Maken, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge will be present in the meeting on Sunday. Earlier on Saturday, Ajay Maken had a meeting with Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi. AICC general secretary (organization) KC Venugopal said the Congress president had appointed Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken as observers for the Rajasthan CLP meeting in Jaipur. "Congress President has appointed Mallikarjun Kharge as Observer along with Ajay Maken, Gen. Secretary AICC, Incharge of Rajasthan, to attend the meeting of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly slated to be held on 25th September at 7 pm," Venugopal said in a tweet. Filing of nominations for the post of Congress president began on Saturday with a contest between and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor on the cards. The nominations will be filed till September 30 and results declaring the new Congress chief will be announced on October 19. This will be the first time in 25 years that Congress will see a non-Gandhi chief after Sonia Gandhi replaced Sitaraman Kesri as party chief in 1998. The last time the party had a non-Gandhi chief was in 1997 when Sitaram Kesri defeated Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot. Chairman of Central Election Authority Madhusudan Mistri will be available in Congress headquarters in the capital to take the nomination papers as returning officer of the election. Gehlot had earlier made it clear that there will be no candidate from the Gandhi family this time. Speaking to ANI Gehlot said, "I have requested him (Congress MP Rahul Gandhi) multiple times to accept everyone's proposal of becoming the Congress President. He clarified that no one from the Gandhi family should become the next chief." Till now, Gehlot has made it clear publically that he will contest the elections, while another name that is most likely to give him a contest is Shashi Tharoor who is also in the fray and had met Madhusudan Mistri. Sources close to former union minister Manish Tewari had also said that he is also considering the possibility of contesting the polls. The crux of the story that emerges is that the Congress party is all set to witness a tripartite or more contest Earlier, Madhusudan Mistri said that more than 9,000 delegates will be voting in the polls. Anybody can contest and 10 delegates will be needed to support his or her candidature. The last date for filing a nomination is September 30. (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 central government is looking at ways to plug the loopholes in regulations that are allowing developers to avoid paying duties of nearly 40 per cent on cells and modules, and are only shelling out 5 per cent, reported Livemint on Monday. In a bid to reduce imports from China and boost domestic manufacturing, the Centre imposed basic customs duty (BCD) of 40 per cent on solar modules and 25 per cent on cells from April 1. However, several solar developers are tapping 'project import scheme' to save high duties on cells and modules, the report added. Domestic manufacturers can import machinery, instruments and apparatus at a concessional duty of 5 per cent to set up a new unit, and expand an existing one under the project import scheme. The scheme covers power, industrial plants, irrigation, mining sectors, and projects for exploration for oil or other minerals. The Ministry of New and has alerted the finance ministry about the loophole being exploited by the developers. Raj Kumar Singh, the union minister of New and Renewable Energy, said that his ministry has asked the finance ministry to gather data on which firms have so far imported modules and cells under this scheme. In an interview, Singh said, Suppose you are going to set up a solar park, then you bring everything across and just assemble it here that means solar modules, inverters then you just have to pay 5 per cent. We will take this entire data, and after that, we will close that door," quoted Livemint. developers, who have imported modules and cells at 5 per cent duty, would not be allowed to charge higher tariffs from the consumers under the pretext of paying higher BCD, the Union Minister said, quoted Livemint. You cant claim double benefit in the sense that you havent paid duty, you evaded it, and then you claim either grandfathering or pass-through. You cant do that," Singh said, quoted the business daily. In a first of its kind in India, the 23 have come together for a mega (R&D) fair to be held from October 14-15, 2022 at the Delhi. The fair, called IInvenTive, will showcase 75 projects to mark the 75th year of Indias Independence in accordance with Azaadi ka Amrit Mahotsav. The event will be attended by Union Minister for and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan. These 75 projects have been shortlisted based on their future potential and Technology readiness level (TRL), a measure which can ascertain the commerciality of the projects. Some of the projects like Bahubhaashak, have been in development for over 10 years and will enable a real time online translation from one language to another without any grammatical error. Other researches include a 6G project, whose first prototype will be available only after 2030. The event will cover ten broad themes focussed on Defence and aerospace, Healthcare (including devices and digital health), Environment and Sustainability (including air, water, rivers), Clean Energy & Renewables (including Hydrogen and EV), Manufacturing (including smart, advanced and industry 4.0) , AI/ML/Blockchain technologies (including quantum computing),Smart Cities & Infrastructure (including smart mobility),Communication Technologies (including and 5G) ,Robotics, Sensors & Actuators and finally, Semiconductors, Flexible electronics & Nanotechnology. Dr. Pawan Goenka, Chairman, Board of Governors (BOG), IIT Madras said that the economic growth has to be led by the latest technology and hence this event would help develop more affordable technologies for the benefit of all. He stressed on the importance of investments in R&D across the nation which was unfortunately lacking in the country. He said that Indias GDP on R&D is around 1 percent whereas South Koreas contribution was around 4 percent. Out of the one percent, industries spend 20 percent on R&D whereas South Korea spends around 60-70 percent. Hence, there was an urgent need to address the issue. Dr. BVR Mohan Reddy, Chairman, BoG IIT Hyderabad and IIT Roorkee said that In a path to self-sufficiency as enunciated by the Atmanirbhar Bharat, requirement demands research which translates into innovation which then can be commercialised. He also mentioned that the disturbance in the geopolitics like Brexit and Ukraine crisis has forced countries to look internally to become self-sufficient. This further demanded more focus on R&D programmes to foster economic growth. Apart from the 75 projects, the event will also have six showcase projects. IIT Kanpur will lead a presentation on the ongoing R&D in drone technology and how diverse its utilities have become; IIT Bombay will lead a presentation on the Bahubhaashak project, which enables speech-to-speech translation, NPTEL, SWAYAM, MOOCs videos in vernacular languages, in-line with the vision of National Policy 2020; IIT Madras will lead a presentation on 5G Core and allied technologies; IIT Delhi will lead a presentation on the R&D in the broader areas of climate change, agriculture, rural technologies, sanitation etc; IIT Kharagpur will lead a presentation on affordable healthcare devices and technologies; and IIT Hyderabad will lead a presentation on the technological innovations in the electric vehicle (EV) sector. Despite the turmoil in the equity markets, domestic investors are staring at less than 2 per cent losses so far this year. The situation, however, is very different for a foreign investor, who has invested in the Indian markets during the start of the year. Indias state-run will soon open open a special rupee account with Russias Gazprombank to facilitate growing trade between the two countries, a top official said. The bank has received the necessary approval from the regulator-- the Reserve Bank of India -- to open a special rupee vostro account, Soma Sankara Prasad, managing director and chief executive officer at UCO Bank, told Bloomberg News in a phone interview. has in the past functioned as the payment bank for oil imports from sanction-hit Iran. On the other hand, Gazprombank has so far been spared the harsher sanctions Russia has faced for its invasion of Ukraine. will put in place operational modalities before opening the account with the Russian counterpart, Prasad said, adding that there is no clear time line on when transactions can begin. Trade between India and Russia has thrived in the past few months, despite the threat of sanctions due to the war in Ukraine. Total imports of items such as sunflower oil, fertilizers, silver, printed books, coriander seeds, and furniture items jumped more than 61% during the April to July period to $2.1 billion, from $1.3 billion a year earlier, the Mint newspaper reported, citing data from the Commerce Ministry. Crude, however, continued to dominate bilateral trade, and has climbed over five fold to $13.3 billion from $2.6 billion a year earlier. In July, the RBI had allowed Indian to open special rupee vostro accounts with lenders of other countries to settle overseas trades in the Indian currency. A vostro account is established to enable a foreign lender to act as an agent or provide services as an intermediary for a bank back home to execute wire transfers, withdrawals and deposits for customers. The Kolkata-based bank has received about 14-15 applications from of different countries for opening special vostro accounts under the RBI circular. This facility will be in line with RBI regulation and only for non-sanctioned banks, Prasad said. Earlier this month, State Bank of India, the countrys largest lender said it is opening special rupee accounts to handle Russia-related trade settlements in the local currency but is not the main bank for such business. A gunman with a swastika on his teeshirt killed 17 people, including 11 children, and wounded 24 at a school in on Monday before committing suicide, investigators said. The attacker, a man in his early thirties who was named by authorities as Artem Kazantsev, killed two security guards and then opened fire on students and teachers at School Number 88 in Izhevsk, where he had once been a pupil. Currently investigators... are conducting a search of his residence and studying the personality of the attacker, his views and surrounding milieu, the committee said in a statement. Checks are being made into his adherence to neo-fascist views and Nazi ideology. Investigators released a video showing the man's body lying in a classroom with overturned furniture and papers strewn on the bloodstained floor. He was dressed all in black, with a red swastika in a circle drawn on his teeshirt. The Investigative Committee said that of the 24 people wounded, all but two were children. Regional governor Alexander Brechalov said surgeons had carried out a number of operations. He said the attacker had been registered with a psycho-neurological treatment facility. Investigators said the man was armed with two pistols and a large supply of ammunition. spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President deeply mourns the deaths. He described the incident as a terrorist act by a person who apparently belongs to a neo-fascist organisation or group. He said doctors, psychologists and neurosurgeons had been sent on Putin's orders to the location of the in Izhevsk, about 970 km (600 miles) east of Moscow. has seen several school shootings in recent years. In May 2021, a teenage gunman killed seven children and two adults in the city of Kazan. In September last year, a student armed with a hunting rifle shot dead at least six people at a university in the Urals city of Perm. In April 2022, an armed man killed two children and a teacher at a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk region before committing suicide. In 2018, an 18-year-old student killed 20 people, mostly fellow pupils, in a mass at a college in Russian-occupied Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. A 106-strong delegation of companies from will visit this week. The companies are visiting to explore opportunities for supply partnerships with companies like Ola Electricity Mobility, Tata chemicals, and Aditya Birla Group, according to a report by Mint. The Australian companies will also seek opportunities in critical minerals, digital health, infrastructure and agri-food sectors. The delegation is visiting as a part of the Australia- Business Exchange (AIBX) programme. The delegation of companies will be led by the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade). Earlier in April, an Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (ECTA) was signed between the two countries. A comprehensive deal is expected to be signed by end of this year. However, the agreement is likely to be implemented only after the Australian Parliament ratifies it in January, said Denise Eaton, trade and investment commissioner, in an interview. Eaton attributed this delay to elections and forming of a new government in . Describing it as an "enhanced opportunity" for trade diversification for Australian exporters, Eaton said that the ECTA, to be signed in April will help Australia to access the Indian market. The delegation is scheduled to visit Olas new battery Innovation Centre in Bengaluru and its future factory in Tamil Nadu. Australian companies will explore commercial and economic collaboration in the critical minerals sector, including lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel, and titanium, she said. Under ECTA, India has either eliminated or greatly reduced tariffs on minerals, creating opportunities for both Australian and Indian companies. This is in tandem with Indias objective of becoming a carbon-neutral county by 2030. Currently, India is Australias Eighth largest trading partner, and then in the energy and resources market, India is its fifth largest exporting market. According to an Austrade report titled Unlocking Australia-India critical minerals partnership potential", minerals like lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel, titanium, and vanadium, besides light and heavy rare earth are of critical importance to both countries. They are in monitors, in our headphones, in electric vehicles and alloys that go in defence equipment and aerospace sectors. They also go in solar panels and wind turbines," said Eaton. The bilateral free-trade agreement signed on April 2, provided India duty-free access on 95 per cent tariff lines that it exports to Canberra, including textiles, leather, furniture, jewellery, machinery and select medical devices. India too has offered immediate tariff elimination on 40 per cent of tariff lines, comprising 85 per cent of Australias export in value terms, while another 30.3 per cent will see a reduction in tariffs over a given period of time. Bruised from a tumultuous year, stock investors are looking to capitalize on any potential policy shifts at the twice-a-decade Communist Party congress next month. A key strategy is to bet on more stimulus for the property market as authorities seek to rescue the ailing industry. Bloomberg Intelligence expects some steps to complete stalled housing projects following the Oct. 16 leadership gathering, which can in turn support the banking sector by reducing loan risks and boosting mortgage demand. With expectations low for an imminent shift away from the Covid-Zero policy, some investors are limiting their exposure to reopening shares. Societe Generale SA favors industrials and infrastructure stocks over consumer shares ahead of the event. There is going to be more support for the property sector because if the property market does not stabilize, the will not stabilize and growth protection is the number one policy priority, said Chi Lo, senior market strategist for Asia Pacific at BNP Paribas Asset Management. stock gauges last week added to what have already been some of the worlds worst losses this year, as the Federal Reserve dealt global markets a hawkish blow. Having grappled with Covid lockdowns, a property market downturn and Beijings conflict with Washington over trade and political issues for months, investors are hoping for the market to recover once the leadership reshuffle is complete and policy priorities are settled. Property Bets Chinas vast real estate sector is going through an unprecedented crisis as Beijings deleveraging campaign since late 2020 has ensnared even the nations largest developers. A stock gauge of developers has lost more than 30% this year, despite dozens of measures to revive demand including loosening home-purchase restrictions. Consumer sectors related to the real-estate market may see positive impact, according to Li Jin, vice managing director at Ruiyi Investment. Furniture and decoration materials have led declines in retail sales this year, slumping at least 8% in August from a year earlier. Sector-wise, past experience shows financials, food and beverage, communication, and defense sectors have beaten markets in the month ahead of the event, Li Xing, an analyst at Yuekai Securities Co., wrote in a Sept. 18 note. Covid Zero Overall, any boost to the broader market from the Party congress is expected to be modest, several analysts have said, amid slim odds of an early loosening of Covid restrictions. The MSCI Index has typically generated about 2% returns in the month before the congress in the past, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists, who are unsure the gains can be repeated this time around. The gauge has lost about 20% this quarter, versus a loss of less than 5% for an index of global stocks. To factor in a possible extension of the Covid Zero strategy, Goldman Sachs and Nomura Holdings Inc. slashed their 2023 growth forecasts for China to below 5% last week. If no positive news come out on that front, the market could be disappointed, said Jian Shi Cortesi, investment director at GAM Investment Management. We control the exposure to re-opening names to hedge that risk. Meanwhile, China amping up its rhetoric against Taiwan is another risk that can heighten market volatility. Beijing has said it has the patience to someday bring Taiwan under its control, while US President Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed to defend the island in the case of an invasion, an event which could force American firms to reduce their presence in China. While Wall Street firms view the odds of armed conflict in North Asia as low, they see tit-for-tat sanctions between the US and China that disrupt the flow of finance and trade as ever more likely. Notwithstanding all the uncertainties, some market watchers remain sanguine that the leadership gathering could offer some impetus for stocks. While there is no certainty that the zero-Covid policy will be relaxed post the CCP Congress, we do expect to see a more forceful policy response to the housing crisis, SocGen strategists including Frank Benzimra wrote in Friday note. It is therefore not time to capitulate. Binance, the worlds biggest exchange, is seeking a license to operate in Japan, four years after retreating from the country as it didnt have a permit, according to people familiar with the matter. The nations easing approach to crypto and substantial potential for user growth are the key reasons for Binances renewed interest in the worlds third-largest economy, one of the people said. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas agenda for reinvigorating the economy under the rubric of New Capitalism includes support the growth of so-called Web3 firms. The term Web3 refers to a vision of a decentralized internet built around blockchains, cryptos underlying technology. Also Read: How Binance became a hub for hackers, fraudsters and drug traffickers It would be inappropriate to comment on any conversations with regulators, a Binance spokesperson said in response to request for comments. Binance is committed to working with regulators and policymakers to shape policies that protect consumers, encourage innovation, and move our industry forward, the spokesperson added. An official at the Financial Services Agency declined to comment. Last month, Japans financial regulator proposed relaxing corporate tax rules for crypto assets. Lobbying groups have been calling for changes, saying high corporate taxes cause some firms to relocate to Singapore and elsewhere. Binance isnt the only foreign firm looking to push into Japans market. Temasek-backed Amber Group this year acquired DeCurret Inc., a crypto exchange that has operated in the country since 2018. Changpeng Zhao, founder and chief executive officer of Binance Holdings Ltd., during a panel session on day two of the Viva Technology Conference in Paris, France, on Thursday, June 16, 2022. (Photo: Bloomberg) Japans steps are somewhat of a contrast to the tougher regulatory oversight emerging in a range of countries after a $2 trillion wipeout in digital assets from last years peak led to blowups at crypto hedge funds and lenders. Binances billionaire co-founder Changpeng CZ Zhao in 2018 ditched a plan to build a base in Japan, following inquiries from the securities regulator that led to an official notice to stop operating in the country without a license. It got a similar warning three years later for not complying with registration rules. In Asia, Binance is present in countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India through partnerships. Binance has been the target of regulatory probes in a variety of jurisdictions, including the US. In response, the firm has said it works with authorities and will continue to meet requirements set by officials. Bangladeshi authorities were racing against time on Monday to find any survivors of the boat accident involving Hindu devotees, even as the death toll in the incident rose to at least 39, mostly children and women. The devotees were heading towards the Bodeshwari Temple on the occasion of Mahalaya, the auspicious start of the festival, when the over-crowded boat capsized in the Korotoa River in the country's northwestern Panchagarh district. "Our rescuers retrieved nine more bodies (overnight)... search is continuing," a fire service official told reporters at the scene. Some bodies were found in a river in Dinajpur. The bodies had reportedly washed away due to strong current, another official said. Panchagarh Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Dipankar Roy said that a total of 39 bodies have been recovered so far. Among them, 11 are children, 21 are women and 7 are men, the Bdnews24.com reported. Media reports quoting relatives said 58 passengers were missing while officials earlier said the boat was believed to be carrying as many as 80 passengers. "The preliminary investigation shows that the boat was overcrowded," Roy, head of the probe body, was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune newspaper. However, he also noted that there may be other reasons behind why the boat sank, but that will be revealed after the committee finishes its investigation, the paper said. "The boatman had asked some people to disembark to ease the weight-load. But no one listened," said Solaiman Ali, the administrative chief of the sub-district. Eyewitnesses claim that there were more than 150 passengers on the boat. Some people swim back to the river bank but many remain missing. Roy said fire service in Panchagargh is leading the search efforts. The is the biggest Hindu festival in and in eastern India. Deltaic is crisscrossed by several hundred rivers while hundreds of people die each year in boat and ferry accidents in Bangladesh, largely due to overcrowding. Earlier in May, 26 people died after an overcrowded speedboat collided with a sand-laden bulk carrier and sank on the Padma River. (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.) nations are struggling to reach an accord on imposing a price cap on Russian oil and will likely push back a deal on the issue until after a broader sanctions package has been agreed. Cyprus and Hungary are among the countries that have expressed opposition to the oil cap proposal, according to people familiar with the ongoing talks. Sanctions in the EU require unanimity, giving each nation an effective veto. The European Commission, the blocs executive arm, met with member states over the weekend to try to find a compromise on the package of restrictive measures, according to the people. Countries may push to have a preliminary deal ahead of an informal gathering of EU leaders in Prague on Oct. 6. The EU is scrambling to put tougher sanctions in place after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of troops last week and started holding UN-condemned referendums on annexation in areas of Ukraine it is still occupying. There have also been recent reports that Ukrainian forces had uncovered a mass grave in the city of Izyum, which had been controlled by . Other measures being discussed include import controls on diamonds and banning certain steel products. Electronics Ban Separately, the 27 member states were also closer to backing a proposal to restrict the export to of electronic components used in weapons, said the people. Member states contend that further limiting access to the electronic components used in weapons against Ukraine is one of the most efficient tools to hit Russias military, particularly as Moscow needs more arms for the up to 300,000 additional soldiers its seeking to mobilize. The EU push to impose a price cap on Russian oil would align the bloc with a US effort to keep the cost of crude from soaring and to eat into Moscows revenue from energy sales. The Group of Seven reached a political agreement on a cap earlier this month and the commission said it would work to implement the proposal. Many details still need to be ironed out, including at what price the allies would set the cap, the people said. Any measures would need to take effect before Dec. 5, when previously adopted EU measures take force that ban the import of seaborne oil as well as the services needed to ship it. European Solidarity In June, the blocs 27 nations spent weeks haggling over the terms of the current oil measures, which include an embargo on Russian seaborne oil and petroleum products, an exemption on pipeline deliveries and a ban on providing services, such as insurance, to Russian oil shipments anywhere in the world. The US has been pushing to loosen those prohibitions over fears that they could lead to a spike in global . It remains unclear how effective a price-cap regime would be, particularly since some of Russias biggest buyers, including China and India, havent agreed to join. US officials have argued that the price cap could work even if many buyers dont officially join the coalition, since they could still use the system for leverage in contract negotiations with Moscow to negotiate lower prices. Adoption of the cap would also require member states to put national interests aside in favor of European solidarity. EU countries that won exemptions for oil received through their pipelines want to ensure that those remain intact, while nations that import via sea could seek to link the price cap to the currently envisioned full embargo on seaborne deliveries in order to level the playing field, one of the people said. Shipping nations, such as Greece, Cyprus and Malta, could also try to protect their respective industries from the measures, the person added. A rare state funeral for Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who was assassinated in July, has split . The hawkish Abe was one of the nation's most divisive postwar leaders, but it is the ruling party's cozy ties with the ultra-conservative Unification Church that has fired up much of the opposition to the funeral. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is battling a near-continuous political fallout from his handling of both the links to the church among his party's lawmakers and the state funeral he says Abe deserves. A look at some of the reasons why the state funeral on Tuesday is causing so much anger: ___ WHO GETS A STATE FUNERAL IN The tradition has roots in a ceremony performed by the emperor to honour those who made exceptional contributions to the country. The emperor before World War II was revered as a god, and public mourning for those honored with state funerals was compulsory. Most state funerals were for members of the imperial family, but political and military leaders were also honored, including Isoroku Yamamoto, who commanded Japan's Pearl Harbour attack and died in 1943. The state funeral law was scrapped after the war. Japan's only other state funeral for a political leader since then was held in 1967 for Shigeru Yoshida, who signed the San Francisco Treaty ending the US occupation of and restoring ties with the Allies. Because of criticism that the Yoshida funeral was held without any legal basis, subsequent governments scaled down such events. A state funeral contradicts the spirit of democracy, said Junichi Miyama, a historian at Chuo University. ___ WHY IS ABE GETTING A STATE FUNERAL? Kishida says Abe deserves a state funeral because he was the longest-serving leader in Japan's modern political history and for his diplomatic, security and economic policies that elevated Japan's profile. Kishida, noting Abe's assassination during an election campaign, says Japan must show its determination never to bow to violence against democracy. Political watchers say holding a state funeral for Abe is Kishida's attempt to please ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers belonging to Abe's conservative political faction so as to buttress his own grip on power. Koichi Nakano, politics professor at Sophia University, says the funeral is an attempt to whitewash Abe's legacy and to cover up scandals linked to the Unification Church. The church is accused of inappropriate recruitment and business tactics but denies the charges. ___ WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL? Opponents say it's undemocratic, citing a lack of a clear legal basis and the unilateral decision by the Kishida Cabinet to hold the funeral. Abe's opponents recall his attempts to whitewash Japan's wartime atrocities, his push for more military spending, his reactionary view of gender roles and a leadership seen as autocratic and supportive of cronyism. Protests of the funeral have increased as more details emerged about Abe's and LDP lawmakers' connection to the Unification Church. The South Korea-based church has built close ties with LDP lawmakers over shared interests in conservative causes. Abe's assassin reportedly was enraged about ties between Abe, his party and the church, which he said his mother had given all the family's money to. Abe, whose grandfather and former leader Nobusuke Kishi helped the church to take root in Japan, is now seen as a key figure in the scandal. Opponents say holding a state funeral for Abe is equivalent to an endorsement of party ties to the Unification Church. A group of lawyers filed a lawsuit trying to stop the funeral, but it was reportedly dismissed Monday. And an elderly man had set himself on fire near the prime minister's office in an apparent protest of the funeral. ___ WHAT'S THE COST? About 1.7 billion yen ($11.8 million) is needed for the venue, security, transportation and accommodation for the guests, the government said. Opponents say tax money should be spent on more meaningful causes, such as to address widening economic disparities caused by Abe's policies. ___ WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR KISHIDA? Kishida, who took office a year ago, had enjoyed stable public support, with his July election victory seemingly securing him a way to rule for up to three years. But his support ratings have since plunged over his handling of the state funeral and his governing party's links to the South Korean church. An LDP survey found nearly half of its lawmakers had ties to the church. Kishida has pledged to all ties, but many Japanese want a further explanation of how the church may have influenced party policies. ___ WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE FUNERAL? Guests will gather hours ahead of the funeral at the Budokan martial arts arena in downtown Tokyo for security checks, which have been tightened after Abe's assassination. No food or drinks are allowed inside, and use of personal computers or cameras are limited to media. About 1,000 Japanese troops will line the streets around the venue. The ceremony will start with a 19-volley salute, as in Yoshida's funeral. Government, parliamentary and judicial representatives, including Kishida, will make condolence speeches, followed by Abe's widow, Akie Abe. Outside the arena, a table for flowers will be set up for the public. The government says the funeral is not meant to force anyone to honor Abe. But most of the nation's 47 prefectural governments will fly the flag at half-mast and observe a moment of silence, which could put pressure on public schools. Residents and offices near the venue will be affected by traffic controls and security checkpoints, and classes will be canceled at some neighborhood schools. Opponents will hold rallies around the country. ___ WHO WILL ATTEND? US Vice President Kamala Harris as well as the leaders from Australia, India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore will be there. Kishida says the event will provide an opportunity for him to engage in funeral diplomacy. The government said last week 4,300 attendants, including foreign dignitaries, Japanese lawmakers, municipal leaders and representatives from business, cultural and other areas, are attending - fewer than the 6,000 invited. Many opposition members, including the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party, are boycotting the funeral. A former minister in the governing party will also stay away. (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.) Pakistan's ousted premier on Monday demanded the resignation of Prime Minister after a slew of audio clips related to informal conversations between the premier and Cabinet officials surfaced. Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau has been ordered to investigate the security breach resulting from it. "PM should resign after the audio leaks involving him, some Cabinet members and government officials have surfaced," Khan, Tehreek-e-Insaf party chairman, said. "In the audio leaks, Shehbaz is talking about bringing machinery from India for his niece Maryam Nawaz's son-in-law (Raheel Munir). If Shehbaz has any shame left in him, he should resign forthwith otherwise we will make him go home, Khan said while addressing the Government College University (GCU) here. Khan further said another audio related to Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of former premier Nawaz Sharif, will soon be leaked in which she could be heard telling her father (Nawaz Sharif) that Imran is going to be disqualified by the Election Commission in the Toshakhana case for not disclosing the information regarding the gifts received from the state depository in his assets declaration. The leaked conversations have put a question mark on the flaws in the cyber security of the highest office (Prime Minister's Office) of . In the over two-minute-long audio clip, Prime Minister Shehbaz can be heard saying that Maryam Nawaz had asked him to facilitate her son-in-law Raheel with the import of machinery for a power plant from India. Maryam's daughter Mehrunnisa married industrialist Chaudhry Munir's son Raheel in December 2015. Tehreek-e-Insaf party's senior leader Fawad Chaudhry said in a tweet: In a major cyber-attack on the PM Office 100 hours of conversations of PM and cabinet members have been leaked to an hacker website. "The hacker has asked for USD 345,000 for a detailed record, that is about 8 GB. The conversations include political, economic and security related issues," he 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.) Ali Salehi, Chief Prosecutor of Tehran, said his office has filed criminal charges against 14 individuals for involvement in the assassination of the country's high-ranking nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The prosecutor on Sunday added that the individuals have been accused of "corruption on earth," intelligence and espionage cooperation with Israel, collusion with the aim of compromising Iran's security, and acting against national security, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "Corruption on earth" is a term Iranian authorities use to refer to a broad range of offences, including those related to Islamic values, Xinhua news agency reported. Fakhrizadeh, who was the Head of the Iranian Defence Ministry's Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research, died from severe injuries in a hospital on November 27, 2020, following an armed attack on his car in Absard district, 60-km northeast of Iran's capital Tehran. has accused Israel of being behind the assassination. --IANS int/khz/ (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.) expressed grave concern about Russia's possible use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine as the top government spokesman on Monday announced an additional ban on exports of chemical weapons-related goods to . As the world's only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, we strongly demand that the threat or use of nuclear weapons by should never happen, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a regular news conference. Matsuno was responding to a question about US national security adviser Jake Sullivan's comments Sunday on CBS news that the United States will act decisively in case of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine. Asked if approves of the possible use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Russia, Matsuno refused to comment on the grounds that it was a hypothetical question. Japan's government on Monday banned the export of materials that may be used for to 21 Russian organisations, including science laboratories. The measure was approved by the Cabinet following a decision by Group of Seven foreign ministers last week. (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.) Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, will come the closest it has to in 59 years on Monday. The gaseous giant will be visible as it coincides with another event called 'opposition'. The phenomenon happens every 13 months, as appears brighter than any other time of the year. But, the planet has been coming closer to since 1963. Due to and Jupiter's differing orbits around the Sun, they do not pass each other at the same distance each time. When it is closest to Earth on Monday, will be about 367 million miles from Earth, according to . is approximately 600 million miles away from Earth at its farthest point. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), opposition occurs when any astronomical object rises in the east as the Sun and sets in the west, placing the object and the Sun on opposite sides of Earth. Jupiter's closest approach to Earth rarely coincides with opposition, meaning tonight's view will be extraordinary. Adam Kobelski, a research astrophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said the banding and three or four Galilean satellites (moons) should be visible with good binoculars. In an official statement by the American Space Agency, Kobelski stated that it is important to remember that Galileo observed these moons with 17th-century optics. One of the key needs for viewing this will be a stable mount for whatever system one may use. He also recommended using a larger telescope to see Jupiter's Great Red Spot and bands in more detail. A 4-inch-or-larger telescope and some filters in the green to the blue range would enhance the visibility of these features. Kobleski also added that the views should be great for a few days before and after Monday. Besides Moon, it should be one of the (if not the) brightest objects in the night . NASA, on Saturday, took to Twitter to inform the stargazers about this upcoming event. The space agency wrote, "Stargazers: Jupiter will make its closest approach to Earth in 59 years! Weather-permitting, expect excellent views on Sept. 26. A good pair of binoculars should be enough to catch some details; you'll need a large telescope to see the Great Red Spot." CHENNAI: Calling upon the people to grow a plant even if they got a single inch of land, Chief Minister M K Stalin stressed on the need for protecting nature and increasing the green cover in the State as the lives of people in the traditional Tamil society, as elucidated in ancient literature, had been intertwined with nature. Quoting a Red Indian proverb warning that one would realize that money can not be eaten only after the last tree is cut, the last river turns into poison and the last fish is caught, Stalin hoped that such a situation never came to the State while inaugurating the Green Tamil Nadu Mission at Vandalur on Saturday. Launched by the State Department of Environment, Climate Change and Forests, the ambitious mission aims at increasing the States green cover by 33 per cent through the planting of 2.80 crore saplings of native species in urban areas, farm lands, educational institutions, temple land, factories, land owned by factories, banks of water bodies and public land. Stressing on the need of public participation in the mission, which had received financial support from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) that had pledged to give Rs 920.28 crore for forest development and NABARD that had agreed to provide Rs 481.14 crore for developing forest lands, the Chief Minister said that saving Nature was the need of the hour. When Nature was threatened by development we had to rush in and save it from destruction since forests and trees play a key role in achieving sustainable livelihood, sustainable agriculture and food security, he said. Giving an example of trees and nature protecting people from natural disasters, Stalin said when Cyclone Gaja struck the eastern coast in 2018, causing widespread destruction, people living in places like Pichavaram and Pudhupettai were shielded by the mangrove forests. He spoke about Climate Change wreaking havoc in our present day life with temperatures increasing, hot air blowing in some places, rains becoming unpredictable and pouring without warning and cautioned the people to be careful in protecting Nature. Conserving natural water bodies, desilting lakes and protecting the soil, water and air from pollution were some of the key things to be done, he said, adding that the use of plastic bags should be done away with completely and referred to the yellow bag, again initiative by the government. At the launch of the mission in Chennai, in which school children planted saplings along with the Chief Minister, donations from various corporate companies and even smaller organisations like the Women Auto Drivers Association were also presented through cheques totalling Rs 46,15,000. Besides, the mission was launched simultaneously at all districts by State Ministers, local body representatives and district collectors, thus kickstarting the green movement all over the State as the idea was to help people in forest areas - villagers, tribes and farmers - improve their livelihood by planting economically viable trees like sandalwood, red sanders and rosewood. An exclusive website www.greentnmission.com was also launched to not just monitor the planting of saplings all over the State but also follow up on their survival rate. The said on Monday that no decisions had been taken on closing Russia's borders, amid an exodus of military-age men since President Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilisation last Wednesday. Asked about the possibility of border closures in a call with reporters, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "I don't know anything about this. At the moment, no decisions have been taken on this." Peskov also acknowledged that some call-ups had been issued in error, saying mistakes were being corrected by regional governors and the ministry of defence. Peskov said: "There have been cases when the decree is violated ... These cases of non-compliance with the required criteria are being eliminated." Russian media have reported a string of cases of elderly or medically exempt men being called up for service in Ukraine. Regional governors in Dagestan and Buryatia, two regions that have seen aggressive mobilisations, have said that mistakes were made in the initial rollout. The comments come amid rising fears of a border closure, with Russia's frontiers seeing an unprecedented outflow of military-aged men since the partial mobilisation was declared last week. On Monday, a senior lawmaker said that Russian borders should be closed to draft-eligible men amid the exodus. "Everyone who is of conscription age should be banned from travelling abroad in the current situation," Sergei Tsekov, a member of Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, told RIA news agency. Russian media based abroad, including news sites Meduza and Novaya Gazeta Europe, have reported that the is planning to close the country's borders for draft-aged men. Such reports have not appeared on the main media within Russia, where all independent outlets have been shut and reporting that differs from official accounts is banned. On Sunday, Novaya Gazeta reported that 261,000 men had left the country since partial mobilisation was declared, citing an unnamed source in Russia's presidential administration. Human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov said that border guards at Russia's only operational crossing point with Georgia had since Sunday stopped some people from exiting, citing the law on mobilisation. The local interior ministry on Sunday said there was a queue of 2,300 cars at the Verkhny Lars crossing. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports of men being turned back at the border. (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 Sri Lankan government on Monday defended its decision to declare several key locations in Colombo as high-security zones, saying the move is aimed at ensuring stability and not curbing freedom of expression, amid mounting criticism from rights groups. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday declared several locations, including Parliament, the Supreme Court complex and the President's Secretariat among others, as high-security zones (HSZs), banning any kind of protest or agitation in their vicinity. HSZs are nothing new. We saw how the Presidential Secretariat came to be surrounded by groups recently. They blocked officials from functioning. If the main place where key decisions are made is blocked, we have to take decisions to prevent it, said Kamal Gunaratne, the secretary to the ministry of defence. Sri Lanka's Presidential Secretariat was stormed in July by a sea of anti-government protesters who had been demanding former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation for the country's economic mismanagement. The Secretariate resumed operations 100 days after the building's entry gate was blocked by security officials. In an extraordinary gazette notification issued on Friday, the President's Secretariat said areas around Parliament, Supreme Court Complex, High Court Complex in Colombo, Magistrate Court Complex in Colombo and Attorney General's Department, Presidential Secretariat, President's House, Navy Headquarters and Police Headquarters have been declared as HSZs. The Ministry of Defence and Army headquarters, the Air Force headquarters, the Prime Minister's Office, the Temple Trees prime minister's residence and the Official Residences of the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and the Commanders of the Tri Forces are also HSZs, it said. According to the notification, protests and public gatherings in the areas declared as HSZ are banned while vehicle parking won't be allowed in the vicinity of any of the designated locations. Human rights groups have condemned the move as part of the government's repression to crack down on peaceful protests against it. Gunaratne denied that the government intended to impede freedom of expression through the order. Anyone can protest, hold rallies, but must take prior approval from the police. The police would allow those so as to create minimum disturbance to public life, the senior official said, adding that the move was aimed at ensuring stability in the country. Gunaratne said a picture of instability indicated by street protests did not help the country in seeking cooperation. On Saturday, a day after the declaration of HSZs, the police broke up a street protest by the Socialist Youth Movement. Some 84 activists were arrested and later granted bail. Reacting to the government's move, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) said that it will be carefully studying the provisions of the order issued by the president and will take appropriate legal action to ensure that the fundamental rights of the people are secured. Calling the provision of the order "draconian," BASL said that such orders violate the freedom of expression, the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of movement. (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.) An explosion took place in the compound of a police dormitory in Indonesia's Central Java province, injuring one policeman, Central Java Police Spokesperson Iqbal Alqudusy said. A package blew off when it was being received by the policeman at a house in the police dormitory compound located in the province's Sukoharjo district at about 6 p.m, the spokesperson added on Sunday. The policeman suffered injuries and was rushed to a nearby hospital, the spokesperson told the Metro TV. The explosion was heard up to about 100 metres away, and damaged windows of houses and buildings nearby, according to the Spokesperson as quoted by Xinhua news agency report. --IANS int/khz/ (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.) Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Sunday said that Prime Minister has taken notice of audio leaks involving the prime minister and Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and an inquiry has been initiated. Sanaullah said that the inquiry of leaked audio would involve high-level officials from all agencies. He further said that the inquiry will determine whether the PM's House's security was breached or not, reported ARY News. This statement came after the opposition leaders of Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) questioned the security of the Prime Minister's Office saying that the audio leaks show the state of the country's cybersecurity and prove that the ruling coalition came into power to make money, reported Dawn. In the clips which were shared by several PTI leaders, the conversations between Pakistan Muslim League-N Vice President Maryam, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Law Minister Azam Tarar, Sanaullah and former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq and Prime Minister were heard. The first clip purportedly features a conversation between PML-N Vice President Maryam and PM Shehbaz about the country's finance minister Miftah Ismail, who has reportedly faced criticism from within the party for taking tough economic measures, reported Dawn. The PML-N vice president has publicly stated that she does not agree with the decision to hike petrol and electricity prices, saying she did not own such decisions, whether her party was in government or not. However, the minister said that there is nothing to be embarrassed about after the audio leaks, reported ARY News. In the clip, one can be heard advising Sharif to not import a plant from India as the step will harm the reputation of the government. "The problem is that that matter will first go to AC and then to the cabinet and importing machinery from India on the instructions of the Prime Minister won't be easy as it can become an issue," the official could be heard replying to a PM. A day earlier, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry shared a two-minute-long clip on his Twitter handle, claiming that it shows the PM is putting his family's business interests before the state's. In an over a two-minute audio recording, a voice -- said to be that of -- can be heard saying that Maryam Nawaz Sharif had asked him to facilitate her son-in-law Raheel for the import of machinery for a power plant from India, reported Dawn. "If we do so, we will get a lot of flak when this matter goes to the ECC and cabinet," the official can be heard saying in the audio clip, as per Dawn. At this, Prime Minister's alleged voice can be heard saying: "The son-in-law is very dear to Maryam Nawaz. Tell her very logically about this and then I will talk to her." The same voice also agrees with the perception that this would be bad for optics and may cause political trouble, according to the Dawn. Notably, Maryam Nawaz's daughter Mehrunnisa married industrialist Chaudhry Munir's son Raheel in December 2015. (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.) After the action taken by the various central investigating agencies against the extremist organisation -- Popular Front of India (PFI), the demand for banning the latter has started growing louder with each passing day. The Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an affiliate of the right wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has demanded an immediate ban on the from the Central government after holding a meeting with other nationalist organisations. The Muslim wing has asked the Union government: "If the has become so dangerous, then why is it not being banned at the earliest? Why are the organisation's bank accounts not being frozen yet? Why are its properties not being attached? Why strict action is not being taken against the leaders, office-bearers and representatives of the on the basis of their involvement in violence-related incidents?" However, a few days ago the Union government told the Supreme Court that PFI is being banned in several states and it is going to impose a ban on the extremist organisation. After a meeting with other nationalist organisations, Mohammad Afzal and Shahid Akhtar, the National Convenor of Muslim Rashtriya Manch, described PFI as a more dangerous terrorist organisation than SIMI and said that the evidences recovered during the raids conducted by the central investigating agencies are enough proof to ban this organisation. Hence, the government should immediately ban the PFI by taking strictest action against it. The Rashtriya Muslim Manch Media In-charge Shahid Saeed said that all the evidences found against the PFI clearly shows that it is a terrorist organisation which receives funding from foreign countries and slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad' are raised in the rallies conducted by it. --IANS stp/khz/ (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.) has manufactured more than 1 million Starlink terminals in the past few months since pre-orders for the satellite internet system were made available, has announced. On the microblogging site Twitter, the Tesla CEO posted: "Starlink now has over 1M user terminals manufactured". In April, SpaceX, in partnership with the US Agency for Development (USAID), had delivered 5,000 starlink terminals to war-torn Ukraine recently. The satellite internet connectivity of Ukraine was taken offline permanently by a cyberattack on the day of the Russian invasion on February 24. The terminals also allow public officials and critical citizen service providers to continue to communicate within Ukraine and with the rest of the world. According to an earlier USAID release, has delivered 3,667 satellites at the cost of "roughly $10 million," with USAID purchasing the remaining 1,333 terminals. Meanwhile, Musk recently said Starlink, the satellite Internet division of his rocket company, is now active on all the continents, including Antarctica. McMurdo Station in Antarctica has nearly 1,000 people living and working there during the summer and they already have satellite internet, which is not reliable in rough conditions. --IANS vc/na (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.) said CEO Alan Jope would retire at the end of 2023, announcing the move less than a year after a bungled attempt to buy GSK's consumer healthcare business, and two months after activist investor Nelson Peltz joined the board. The British consumer products maker said on Monday its board would start a formal search for a successor to Jope, who took up his role at the start of 2019, considering both internal and external candidates. Unilever's search begins at a time of soaring food and energy prices which are hitting household budgets and hurting consumer confidence. The company will be looking for a new CEO at the same time as rival Reckitt, the maker of Dettol products and Finish dish soap. has had a rocky start to the year after mounting three bids for the consumer health arm of GlaxoSmithKline , - one for as much as 50 billion pounds ($53.14 billion). The move was met with disapproval from shareholders, some of whom also criticised for prioritising sustainability over core growth. "This may signal more welcome future change at Unilever," Tineke Frikee, fund manager at Unilever investor Waverton Asset Management, said. "The unappealing plan to buy consumer healthcare from GlaxoSmithKline has tainted Mr Jope's track record somewhat so a fresh start from a new CEO could convince investors Unilever's momentum is trending upwards again." The company in January also announced plans to cut about 1,500 management jobs and reshape its business to focus on five main product areas, days after it was revealed that Peltz, via his Trian Partners vehicle, had built a stake in Unilever. Trian told Reuters in a statement that it was sorry to learn of Jope's decision to retire. "As a board member, Trian's CEO Nelson Peltz looks forward to continuing to work closely with Alan until his departure and to being part of the process of choosing a new leader for the company," it added. A Unilever spokesperson said the company is "fully committed to the organisational changes" and that Jope is "completely committed to delivering against that strategy." Unilever's shares, which were up 1.6% early on Monday, have underperformed European consumer staples and discretionary indices, as well as most rivals since Jope became CEO. "Our immediate concern is that this leaves 15 months until his retirement with a CEO who might be seen to have lost credibility with employees and other stakeholders," RBC analyst James Edwardes Jones said. "This at a time when Unilever will be implementing and bedding down a fundamental reorganisation, not to mention dealing with a challenging macro-economic environment." A source familiar with the matter said Unilever's "unusual" decision to tell the market more than a year before Jope leaves stems from concerns that the news would have leaked before being officially announced. "While his has undoubtedly been a great career, investors are likely to see this as a positive change, as the company has struggled in recent years to convince investors that it has the right brands and strategy to be a mid-single digit growth company," Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne said. Jope has worked at Unilever for more than 35 years, holding various senior leadership positions, including being head of the personal care division from 2014. "I think Jope's tenure as CEO was a bit of a mixed bag ... it has been a very impressive career nonetheless, joining as a trainee in the 80's and ending up as CEO of one of the UK's largest listed companies," Jack Martin, fund manager at Unilever shareholder Oberon Investments, said. ($1 = 0.9410 pounds) (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 financial firms, still smarting from multi-billion dollar losses in Russia, are now reassessing the risks of doing business in Greater after an escalation of tensions over . Lenders including Societe Generale SA, Chase & Co. and AG have asked their staff to review contingency plans in the past few months to manage exposures, according to people familiar with the matter. Global insurers, meanwhile, are backing away from writing new policies to cover firms investing in and Taiwan, and costs for political risk coverage have soared more than 60% since Russias invasion of Ukraine. Political risk around potential US sanctions and the likelihood that would respond by restricting capital flow has kept risk managers busy, said Mark Williams, a professor at Boston University. A sanctions war would significantly increase the cost of doing business and push US banks to rethink their China strategy. Heated rhetoric between Beijing and Washington over has unsettled firms, coming just months after Russias war unexpectedly forced the worlds largest lenders to exit businesses and stop serving ultra-wealthy clients. US lawmakers last week ramped up pressure on banks to answer questions on whether they would withdraw from China if it invaded . While financial services executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they view the risk of armed conflict in North Asia as low, they see tit-for-tat sanctions between the US and China that disrupt the flow of finance and trade as ever more likely. Any withdrawal would represent a dramatic about-face for firms, which have poured billions into China after it opened its finance sector in recent years. Lenders ranging from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Morgan Stanley have taken control of joint ventures and sought more banking licenses, while adding staff until some recent cuts sparked by a drop deals. The combined disclosed exposure of the biggest banks in banks in China was about $57 billion at the end of 2021. Those ambitions are now threatened by rising US-China tensions. Last week, Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser faced a grilling by lawmakers on whether the lender would pull back from China in the event of a Taiwan invasion. She answered in line with other banks-- she would seek US government guidance before making a move. Its a hypothetical question, but its highly likely that we would have a materially reduced presence if any at all in the country, Fraser said. Any pullback in China would only hurt these firms, Chinas Global Times paper reported last week. American politicians want to pile on pressure to coerce top US financial organizations to alienate the Chinese market, the Communist Party paper said. There is no denying Chinas financial may lose some capital, but the US banks may also face the worsening economic woes as a result of the poisonous decision from Washington. Over the past few months, firms have been stress-testing to see if they can handle the risk of a sudden market plunge -- examining their exposure across the currency, bond and stock trading desks, people familiar said. While banks often draw up contingency plans without putting them into action, the escalating tensions are adding some urgency. Frances SocGen has been assessing headcount in Greater China -- including Hong Kong -- driven by nervousness among executives in Paris, one person said. UBS has asked its Taiwan-based trading desk to assess its contingency plan and see how they can lower exposure to the island, according to a person familiar. One way would be to reduce foreign exchange trading services for Taiwanese clients, the person added. Officials at SocGen, and UBS declined to comment. Trading Losses Top of mind is ensuring staff safety, identifying clients who may be sanctioned, and looking at plans to mitigate counterparty risk and potential trading losses, according to two of the bank executives who asked not to be identified discussing a sensitive issue. One banker said staff at their firm had considered the option of liquidating positions on Chinas Financial Futures Exchange to cut onshore counterparty risk, replicating those contracts on other exchanges such as in Singapore. Meanwhile, insurers have raised prices by 67% on average for political risk coverage linked to China, according to Willis Towers Watson Plc. Businesses that can get insurance face a steep reallocation of pricing, which has been very acute for China, according to Laura Burns, senior vice president for political risk at London-based Willis Towers Watson. Insurers are underwriting new policies, but cautiously and selectively in China and have reduced their capacity for Taiwan exposure, said Nick Robson, head of credit specialties at broker Marsh & McLennan Cos. Political risk insurance pays out if a client loses money due to political events such as civil unrest, terrorism or war. HSBC Challenge At HSBC Holdings Plc, the global lender most heavily exposed to China and Hong Kong, calls by its biggest shareholder to carve out the Asian business have been driven partly by concern its susceptible to a decoupling between the US and China. Ping An Insurance Group Co. would back a breakup of HSBCs Asia business or just the Asia retail operations, a person familiar has said. The lender, which was founded in Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1865, has been increasingly looking to invest in other such as India to cushion any financial impact from volatility in some parts of North Asia, a person familiar has said. CEO Noel Quinn has resisted calls for a breakup. The bank declined to comment. Planning for the spectrum of scenarios is no easy task, especially with executives wary of alienating Chinese officials on an issue of extreme sensitivity. One senior private banker in Hong Kong, who works with wealthy Chinese clients at a European bank, says the topic is so taboo that bankers are reluctant to hold formal discussions or put plans in writing for fear of it getting back to Beijing. Some of the banks who are the most exposed are the most fearful to plan long term, for fear of backlash from China, said Isaac Stone Fish, founder of Strategy Risks, which specializes in corporate relationships with China. Banks having a lot of these conversations are doing it outside of China and Hong Kong. Russia Lessons In some cases, executives worry about a situation -- much like in Russia -- where Beijing blocks foreign banks from moving assets or capital abroad as a payback for any US sanctions. Russian authorities plan to review individual requests on the sale of foreign bank units in the country without instigating a blanket ban on such deals, two officials familiar with discussions on the matter have said earlier. The government will consider every application and decide to grant permission if its deemed beneficial for the nation, the officials said. The Interfax news service had earlier cited Deputy Finance Minister Aleksey Moiseev as saying that a government subcommittee on foreign investments would reject all sales requests from foreign banks to sell their units until the situation has improved. European banks including Societe Generale and UniCredit SpA have flagged combined hits of almost $10 billion from Russia, mostly from writing down the value of their operations and setting aside money as a shield against the expected economic ramifications. Russia has proven to be a template of what you dont want to happen, said Dale Buckner, CEO of security services firm Global Guardian, whose clients include banks and private equity firms. People are asking the what if questions: if there was a blockade, if there was shut down of the cyber system, if there were naval strikes or an actual war. What would happen? The first part of the calculus would be to review hard assets and intellectual property in the region, understand where a firms money is parked and who has control if China decided to take over the banking system and deny access, he said. Its almost impossible to plan for these things, said Tom Kirchmaier, professor at the Centre of Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. While there has been some planning for these scenarios since the financial crisis, there no doubt will be some big surprises when theory hits practice. A team of American researchers has now identified a new variant in Russian bats, capable of infecting people. Scientists have now voiced concern that the virus called Khosta-2 may be completely resistant to all current vaccinations available on the market. According to research published in the journal PLoS Pathogens, the virus is classified as a sarbecovirus, a member of the family. It attaches to the same protein, ACE2, that coronavirus uses to penetrate cells. A team of scientists led by Michael Letko, discovered a group of coronaviruses similar to SARS-COV-2, which were initially discovered in bats in in 2020. According to scientists, while Khosta-1, another virus found in Russian bats, cannot readily enter cells, Khosta-2 could. When scientists combined serum from people vaccinated against Covid-19 with Khosta-2, the antibodies in the serum were unable to neutralise the virus. The same thing happened when the team combined the Khosta-2 with the serum from people who had recently recovered from Omicron infection. Michael Letko, the lead scientist, told TIME that they don't want to scare anybody and said that this is a vaccine-restraint virus. He further added that it is concerning that circulate in nature with such properties that they can bind to receptors. According to the researchers from State University, the study's findings demonstrate that sarbecoviruses in wildlife outside of Asia threaten global health. However, this virus does not have the genes that can cause severe disease in people like the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 but can eventually change if it gets mixed with genes of SARS-CoV-2. "We need to develop more protective vaccines to prevent outbreaks of zoonotic coronaviruses," said Dr Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist, sharing the report on Twitter. Companies are taking longer to go public after getting regulatory approval, since the Russia-Ukraine border became militarily active, impacting the global financial world. Initial share sales happened in as few as 40 days when the were booming before the Ukraine crisis but this average duration has now increased to 96 days amid market volatility, shows an analysis of data from primedatabase.com. Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court dismissed the recall petition filed by the Telangana state government seeking a recall on the courts orders over a piece of land measuring 84 acres and 30 guntas in Survey No. 46 of Raidurg village under Serilingampally mandal in Ranga Reddy district. A division bench comprising Justice Gandikota Sridevi and Justice M.G. Priyadarshini declined to recall the courts April 2022 orders stating that the said land belongs to private parties. On April 27, 2022, after hearing review petitions submitted by private parties, including Burgula Shivaramakrishna, Lingaiah and others, who each claimed a portion of the land, the division bench rendered a decision in their favour and rejected the state governments claim over the disputed land. The state government challenged the orders by filing a recall petition claiming that the land in the disputed area belongs to it. In its recall petition, the state claimed that the division bench hearing the review petitions erred by accepting phoney papers submitted by private parties as authentic copies and making rulings in their favour. Senior Supreme Court attorney C.S. Vaidyanathan argued on behalf of the state government that the state had not been given the opportunity to present a case on the merits in the review. He contended that his arguments on behalf of the Telangana state government were not taken into account by the bench in its ruling on the recall petition. Further, Vaidyanathan argued that several cases had been filed by the real estate mafia in an effort to grab the said land in Survey No. 46. Vaidyanathan also submitted that the Supreme Court had dismissed the petition of Lingamaiah over the title of land and later his review petition was also dismissed by the apex court. The senior counsel also brought to the notice of the court the documents relied upon by the division bench in the review petition was fraudulently submitted by Shivaramakrishna. Counsel submitted that Shivaramakrishna had filed a fake and fabricated sale deed dated 15 Aban 1259 Hijri (October 9, 1843) and its translated copy, which he said was issued by the office of the director, State Archives Institute. The state government argued that Telangana State Archive & Research Institute did not possess the records of Sethwar and Sale Deeds of Private Estates. Hence the question of issuing the sale deed dated 15 Aban 1259 Hijri (October 9, 1843) and the Sethwar of Raidurg Paigah Village Sy.No. 46 does not arise. Chief Minister on Monday met with the observer for the state amid the ongoing political crisis. After the meeting, Kharge said that there should be discipline in the party and the party has to be kept united. "We have informed the president about what happened yesterday. Everybody has to abide by whatever decision is taken eventually. We have to keep the party united. There should be discipline in the party," he said. The remarks regarding the discipline come in line with the statement of Ajay Maken, another observer for the state, who termed the "parallel" meeting called by state Minister Shanti Dhariwal at his residence on Sunday an "undisciplined move". "It is an act of indiscipline. When an official meeting has been called, and if a parallel unofficial meeting is conducted, it is an act of indiscipline. We will see what action to be taken," Maken said earlier today. The two observers will return to the capital today after the Gehlot camp MLAs refused to meet them. Maken told reporters that three members from the Gehlot camp - Shanti Dhariwal, C.P. Joshi and Pratap Khachriyawas- had met us and put forward three proposals, which they did not accept as it raised conflict of interest. "Their first proposal was to announce the implementation of the resolution of handing over the final responsibility of appointing the chief minister to the high command and to pass it after October 19. "We told them that this raises conflict of interest, as if Gehlot is elected as the president then this proposal will empower him further after October 19 and there can be no bigger conflict of interest than this so we did not do this," Maken said. Further, Maken said that their second condition was that they wanted to come in groups and when we said that we wanted to talk to each of them individually as it has been a practice of the Congress to take feedback from each leader. However they did not accept this." "Their third condition was that the chie minster should be picked from the 102 MLAs who were loyal to CM Gehlot and and not from the Pilot group," Maken said. Maken said that "the three Gehlot camp supporters insisted on us meeting their three conditions and we told them that their exact sentiments will be conveyed to Congress chief, who will take the decision after talking to CM and everyone else." "We waited for more MLAs to come but they didn't come, Now and I are going to Delhi to submit our report to the Congress president," said Maken. Nobody has any idea about the number and the identities of the MLAs who have resigned or not, Maken said. A legislative party meeting was scheduled on Sunday evening at the residence of Chief Minister in the presence of the observers, which was attended by and his camp MLAs, however, the Gehlot loyalists had held a meeting with Cabinet Minister Shanti Dhariwal at his residence, following which over 90 MLAs had submitted their resignations to Speaker CP Joshi. Pilot, is being seen as the successor of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who is all set to contest the Congress president election scheduled on October 17. The deputy chief minister late last night conducted a second round of meeting with the AICC observers. The Gehlot loyalists want someone from their own camp to be chosen as the next Chief Minister, instead of Pilot, who, according to them, had revolted against his own party back in 2020. (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 political drama erupted over a leadership change in Rajasthan after more than 80 MLAs resigned from the state assembly on Sunday (25 September) evening. The media reported that Congress leaders loyal to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot resigned from the state assembly ahead of the legislature party meeting scheduled for Sunday. These MLAs are opposing the appointment of Sachin Pilot as the new chief minister of Rajasthan. Gehlot and Pilot were at loggerheads for the chief minister's post soon after the Congress won the Assembly elections in December 2018. The high command then chose Gehlot as the chief minister for the third time while Pilot was made his deputy. In July 2020, Pilot along with 18 party MLAs rebelled against Gehlot's leadership. Meanwhile, Ashok Gehlot and Shashi Tharoor have emerged as frontrunners in the race of presidential polls for the Congress party, due in October 2022. If elected, Gehlot will have to leave the CM chair under 'one man, one post' rule of the party. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The board of the bakery foods major has appointed Varun Berry as executive vice-chairman and managing director with immediate effect. In addition, Britannia Industries has announced the appointment of Rajneet Kohli as executive director and chief executive officer from 26 September 2022. Rajneet Kohli will report to Varun Berry. Varun Berry, executive vice-chairman and managing director said, "I am delighted to welcome Rajneet to Britannia. His experience of building high performance businesses and profitable brands is strongly aligned to our vision of becoming a Responsible Global Total Foods Company. Rajneet's proven track record of scaling up businesses and building highly engaged teams makes him a perfect fit for the Organization. I look forward to partnering with Rajneet to lead us to the next phase of growth." Commenting on his appointment, Rajneet Kohli added, "As one of India's leading food companies with over a 100-year legacy, Britannia has an exceptional track record of innovation and serving consumers with exemplary standards. I feel privileged and am truly excited for what lies ahead of us at Britannia." Britannia Industries is India's largest bakery foods company and produces India's favorite brands like Good Day, Tiger, NutriChoice, Milk Bikis, Marie Gold, Little Hearts, and others and is consumed in over half of Indian households. The company is present in more than 80 countries across North America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, and GCC. The company's consolidated net profit declined 13.4% to Rs 337.44 crore on 9% increase in net sales to Rs 3,653.80 crore in Q1 FY23 over Q1 FY22. Shares of Britannia Industries were up 0.66% at Rs 3816.95 on the BSE. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Infibeam Avenues restructured and consolidated its international business to aggressively tap and expand its global digital payment gateway infrastructure market. The fintech company's board of directors has approved the consolidation of international business. The company's three fully owned international subsidiaries Infibeam Avenues Australia (Australian market), AI Fintech Inc. (USA market) and Infibeam Avenues Saudi Arabia for Information Systems Technology. Co (Saudi Arabia market) will become a stepdown subsidiary of the company after being transferred to Infibeam Avenues UAEbased whollyowned subsidiary, Vavian International, which is the second largest payment aggregator in UAE, said the company. The company plans to increase its global play in the digital payments space through its flagship brand CCAvenue, a major digital payment gateway infrastructure provider in India. Currently, the international business contributes 6% to Infibeam Avenues' total revenue as per the FY 2122 annual report. Vishal Mehta, managing director at Infibeam Avenues said, CCAvenue is the second largest payment aggregator in UAE and rapidly expanding in the MENA region processing payments at an annual runrate of AED 12 billion. To keep pace with the emerging potentials & requirements of the international market for digital payments infrastructure, the consolidation of international business out of UAE will be a crucial step in our pursuit to become a global fintech & payment infrastructure company. Vishwas Patel, executive director of Infibeam Avenues said, "We want to increase the diversification of our business through expanding & strengthening in various geographies. And with emerging opportunities in other geographies, a consolidated approach towards international business will boost our international business income contribution to our total revenue in coming years. Infibeam Avenues is a leading digital payments and e-commerce technology platforms company in India and provides a comprehensive suite of web services spanning digital payment solutions, data centre infrastructure and software platforms. The company's consolidated net profit climbed 68.8% to Rs 23.74 crore on 93.3% surge in net sales to Rs 418.31 crore in Q1 FY23 over Q1 FY22. Shares of Infibeam Avenues fell 1.71% to currently trade at Rs 14.40 on the BSE. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) C.E. Info systems (MapMyIndia) announced that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Uttar Pradesh Police, Government of Uttar Pradesh to ease the traffic and improve safety in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The company said that the technology from MapmyIndia Mappls will be integrated with the government systems and processes on one side, and provided to consumers, commuters and citizens for free through the swadeshi Mappls maps & navigation app on the other side. ADG Police, Traffic & Road Safety, Shrimati Anupam Kulshreshtha, said This is a historical partnership for better traffic delivery for citizens of Uttar Pradesh and we are proud to be perhaps the first state in the country to do this MoU with MapmyIndia. We have a lot of hard work to do now to take this initiative forward jointly. This will make traffic flow more smooth, regulated and flowing. Road safety too will be addressed. MapmyIndia's Mappls app, a free 100% swadeshi app, that comes integrated with highly detailed and accurate digital maps and real-time navigation information, as well as now official planned road closures, advisories & real-time alertsfrom UP Traffic Police. Commuters can also give feedback and real-time alerts which the UP Police and MapmyIndia Mappls will validate and publish, so that there is additional consumer crowd-sourcing of information, which is professional moderated, so that there is even more collaboration for better traffic management, road safety and emergency services delivery. Rohan Verma, CEO & Executive Director, MapmyIndia said, I thank the senior leadership of UP Police for this wonderful initiative to benefit the 23+ crore population of Uttar Pradesh, and reposing their confidence in MapmyIndia. We are happy to be able to help commuters in UP travel hassle-free and safely, by giving them real-time traffic and safety alerts, in conjunction with UP Police. Ensuring better traffic and road safety is a collective responsibility of the government, industry and citizens. We hope all commuters will use the Mappls app, and benefit from its features which enable better and safer navigation. He further added, Additionally, the Mappls app allows users to post feedback and alerts traffic,safety and other community issues on the map, to help other users and also inform the government of hyper-local issues, so that those issues at those locations can validated, communicated to relevant stakeholders, and be resolved. We hope citizens use the app, so that collectively the state of Uttar Pradesh, and our wonderful country India, continuously becomes better. The company said that the Mappls App by MapmyIndia will be available free to the citizens. The app will assimilate all traffic advisories, notifications, safety alerts for public use, enable public to share/provide feedback on any traffic/safety related issues, facilitate seamless and smooth operability to designated officers of UP Police, who will closely update these notifications on the Mappls app on a day-to-today and continuous basis, so that commuters benefit. C.E. Info Systems (MapMyIndia) is engaged in provides digital map data, GPS navigation and location-based services, software and customizing its products to customers (combined) through royalty, annuity, subscription. The company's consolidated net profit rose 17.5% to Rs 24.19 crore on a 50% increase in net sales to Rs 65.01 crore in Q1 FY22 over Q1 FY21. Shares of C.E. Info Systems declined 2.29% to Rs 1310.60 on the BSE. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On behalf of Govt. of Uganda for supply of powered water pumping systems Shakti Pumps (India) has received advance worth USD 6 million from Export]Import Bank of India (EXIM bank) on behalf of the Government of Uganda represented by the Ministry of Water and Environment for supplying solar]powered water pumping system. The company will begin the project execution from October 2022. The company was awarded a contract in the month of March 2021 from the Government of Uganda for supply of solar powered water pumping systems at a contract price of USD 35.30 million exclusive of VAT. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Zomato tumbled 4.61% to Rs 57.95, extending losses for the three consecutive trading sessions. Shares of the food delivery company lost 8.67% in three trading sessions from its recent closing high of Rs 63.45 on 21 September 2022. On the BSE, 31.25 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 71.76 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock hit a high of Rs 60.55 and a low of Rs 57.45 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 169.1 on 16 November 2021. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 40.55 on 27 July 2022. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month, declined 6.38% compared with 2.89% fall in the Sensex. The scrip had underperformed the market in past three months, dropped 12% as against Sensex's 7.47% rise. The counter had also underperformed the market in past one year, slumped 59.66% as against 4.9% decline in the Sensex. On the technical front, the stock's daily RSI (relative strength index) stood at 42.159. The RSI oscillates between zero and 100. Traditionally, the RSI is considered overbought when above 70 and oversold when below 30. On the daily chart, the stock was trading below its 50-day, 100-day and 200-day simple moving average (SMA) placed at 58.17, 60.20 and 80.16, respectively. These levels will act as crucial resistance zones in near term. Zomato connects customers, restaurant partners and delivery partners. Customers use Zomato to search and discover restaurants, read and write customer generated reviews and view and upload photos, order food delivery, book a table and make payments while dining-out at restaurants. On the other hand, it provides restaurant partners with industry-specific marketing tools which enable them to engage and acquire customers to grow their business while also providing a reliable and efficient last mile delivery service. The company also operates a one-stop procurement solution, Hyperpure, which supplies high quality ingredients and kitchen products to restaurant partners. The online food delivery platform reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 186 crore in Q1 FY23 as against net loss of Rs 360.70 crore in Q1 FY22. Revenue from operations stood at Rs 1,413.9 crore in Q1 FY23 up 67.44% from Rs 844.4 crore reported in Q1 FY22. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It appears that Italy, one of the European Unions largest economies, will turn decisively to the right in its politics. While the exact final results are yet to be determined, all indications are that a right-wing alliance will win the general elections in with more than 40 per cent of the votes cast. The coalition will likely be led by a new right-populist party known as the Brothers of Italy, led by the controversial Giorgia Meloni, who has in the past expressed admiration for the countrys past Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini. Ms Melonis party, which received less than 5 per cent of the vote in the last general elections, has surged to dominate the Italian right with an expected quarter of the total vote. It has largely replaced its coalition partner, the former Northern League, led by Matteo Salvini, which was tarnished by association with past unpopular governments. The League will receive far less than 10 per cent of the votes; a similar amount will go to the Forza Italia party of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Thus the future government in will clearly reflect Ms Melonis positions and priorities. On the same day that (RSS) Chief visited the office and a madrasa run by a self-styled 'leader' of Muslim clerics, five prominent Muslims, made public that they too had held a meeting with him a month earlier. Was serious about doing a makeover of RSS's anti-minority image? Or should one look beyond the media distraction at another event that occurred nearly simultaneously on September 22? Within hours of Bhagwat's visit, coordinated raids on the allegedly radical Islamist outfit, the Popular Front of India (PFI), were carried out by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Did the RSS Chief's actions have anything to do with a realisation that unreformed Hindutva could radicalise Muslim youth to a point where they could constitute a real threat to its proponents? Union Home Minister will be visiting from September 30 to October 2, said national general secretary Tarun Chugh on Sunday. This will be Shah's second visit to the Union Territory since the abrogation of Article 370. Last year in October the Home Minister visited Kashmir in the wake of rising attacks on minority community members by the terrorists in the Valley. During his visit, Shah will meet the intellectuals and prominent personalities and will address two public meetings on October 1 in Rajouri and will also address another rally in Baramullah on October 2. " will visit different areas in this visit and this is a special occasion just like a festival as he was the key person to finish the controversial Articles 370 and 35(a) and broke the shackles of residents to free them from long bondage. SCs, women, Gujjars-Bakkarwals and other communities were empowered after being neglected for 70 years," said Chugh. He further said that Rajouri and Baramullah areas have been neglected for all these years, hence has decided to visit these areas and address the rallies there. " has tried to politically empower all who were denied due space for 70 years," said Chugh. The leader further said that the Central government led by PM Narendra Modi has ensured the development of constantly despite COVID-19 and other difficulties. "Modi government is committed for "Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas" and not only the Vikas of Abdullah and Muftis, Modi government has ensured the development of Jammu and Kashmir constantly despite Covid and other difficulties. Today, Jammu and Kashmir airports are flooded with private airlines. Tourist places like Pahalgam, and religious yatras like Vaishno Mata, and Amarnath are flooded with visitors. Now 'Pani and Jawani' of Jammu and Kashmir are being utilized for the development of the region," he said. Chugh said that earlier governments have routed Jammu and Kashmir youth towards terrorism and handed over stones to them, whereas the Modi government has given them the power to use those stones for the construction of their careers. Meanwhile, BJP leader Ravinder Raina, in his address said that people from Rajouri, Poonch, Mendhar, Surakote, Matargote, Rajouri, Thanamandi, Darhal, Budhal, Nowshera, Sunderbani, Kalakote, Dhangri, Doongi and other border areas will be able to listen to Amit Shah at Bus Stand Ground in Rajouri. "In Baramullah of Kashmir, people from Baramullah District, Kupwara District and Bandipora District including areas of Gurez, Bandipora, Karnah, Kandhal, Kithwal, Trigam, Uri, Rafiabad, Handwara, Langate will participate in mega rallies of Amit Shah," he said. "The residents of border areas were raising demand for the rallies of Amit Shah and he affirmatively responded to our request for both the rallies," Raina added. Last year, the Home Minister was on a three-day visit to the union territory for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. His visit had come amid several incidents of killings of civilians by the terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir which have sparked fear in the valley. (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.) KALABURAGI: Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has reiterated his wish for Rahul Gandhi to lead the party. Addressing reporters here, Kharge defined Rahul as a young and energetic leader with ideological commitment. I personally support Raghul Gandhi becoming the president of AICC. I met Sonia Gandhi recently and told her that Rahul should lead the party. But she told me that nobody from the family would contest the election, Kharge said. He said that Bharat Jodo Yatra has been receiving an overwhelming response from the people. Kharge expressed his unhappiness against the Central and State government for neglecting the Kalyana Karnataka region. Various development projects including the expansion of Kalaburagi airport are still pending. I had written three letters regarding this and the government has not taken any steps, he said. Though Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai declared Rs 5,000 crore for Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board (KKRDB) in the next budget, Kharge expressed his unhappiness as more than half the funds earmarked for the board in the last budget has not been released yet. He added that even the review meetings to keep a tab on these works are not being held. Kharge blamed the RSS and BJP for diverting the attention of the people from developmental topics to communal issues. Defining the Central government as an autocrat, Kharge criticised it for misusing the central agencies and also for handing over PSUs to the private sector. He said that while the private entrepreneurs would benefit, the poor would suffer the brunt. leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday attacked the BJP and the RSS over rising fuel and cooking gas prices in the country, as the party's Bharat Jodo Yatra' completed its journey through this district and concluded at Cheruthuruthy here in . Gandhi addressed a crowd of party workers after covering around 11.5 kms. He said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were attacking the idea of . "What is the idea of The people. While I am walking on these streets, people are flowing like a river on both sides. There is no Hindu, Muslim or Sikh person. They are all the same. Not a single person is disrespecting another. If a Hindu woman falls down, a Muslim or Christian brother helps her up. If a Muslim child falls down, a Hindu or Christian picks him up. This is the idea of Kerala," he said. The former chief said the idea of Kerala was taught by social reformer Sree Narayana Guru. "However, the RSS comes here, talks about Guruji, but later they insult and attack his ideas. In this land, everyone is treated equally. This was an idea taught by great leaders like Narayana Guru. And the RSS attacks Kerala because they work for a few people who want to own India," he said. Continuing his attack on the saffron brigade, Gandhi noted that there is no point in saluting the Indian flag if one is disrespecting the country's brothers and women. "There is no point in saluting the Indian flag and then attacking my brother... What is the point of saluting the Indian flag and then insulting a woman? Look at what happened in Uttarakhand... a girl in Uttar Pradesh was raped and killed by a BJP leader. Have they taken any action? We went to visit the family, but they did not let us. What is the point of saluting the Indian flag if you have no respect for the Indian people?" he asked. Earlier in the day, the Gandhi family scion met ex-service men and discussed the issues faced by them. They expressed their concerns over the new Agnipath scheme introduced by the Centre. The resumed its Yatra from Wadakkanchery Sunday evening. Hundreds of party workers raised banners and placards, citing high gas prices. The morning session of the 150-day-long Yatra covered a distance of around 11 kilometres before concluding at Wadakkanchery. Senior Congress leaders, including K Muraleedharan, K C Venugopal, Ramesh Chennithala, Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan and MPs from the district, among others, joined Gandhi in the Yatra. The Congress workers were carrying placards in the shape of LPG cylinders, highlighting the steep cooking gas prices in the country. After concluding the morning session of the foot march at Wadakkanchery, Gandhi took a chopper to Nilambur and paid his respects at the residence of late Congress leader Aryadan Mohammed. Senior Congress leader and former state minister Mohammed died at a private hospital in Kozhikode on Sunday. He was 87. Gandhi said Mohammed was a pillar of the Congress and his demise was a great loss for the party. "He was a pillar for the Congress, a grassroots party worker and an excellent politician and even a better human being. It is a huge loss and a tragedy for us. For me, he was a guide and an elder brother. It is a personal loss," Gandhi told the media. On Saturday, Gandhi had launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the rise in fuel and cooking gas prices in the country, and charged that the BJP and the RSS were spreading hate and violence to distract the people from such main issues. "A gas cylinder used to cost Rs 400 when the UPA government was in power. The prime minister went on complaining about the same. But today, he does not say a word about the Rs 1,000 price of gas cylinders," the Congress leader had said while addressing a massive crowd at Thrissur. The Congress on Sunday asked the people to join it in its "historic movement as we march on to rebuild an India" that is strong and self-reliant among the leaders of the world. Women and children could be seen breaking the security cordon to meet Gandhi. The Congress leader was seen talking to them, clicking pictures and waving at the people who were waiting for him on both sides of the road. The Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra will cover 3,570 km in 150 days. It started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7 and will conclude in Jammu and Kashmir. The Yatra, which entered Kerala on the evening of September 10, will go through the state covering 450 km, touching seven districts in 19 days before entering Karnataka on October 1. (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.) Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has vowed to bring back the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in the Assembly polls scheduled next year. Speaking after distributing various facilities to beneficiaries of the Chamaraja Assembly constituency here on Sunday, Bommai said, "We will turn your criticism into stairs and work 24 hours a day to bring back pro-people government to power". The Chief Minister called for the last-man delivery of the welfare schemes and said that the schemes "must make people to lead independent and self-reliant lives". "The programs must not remain mere slogans but must be implemented. In the name of various Bhagyas, they pushed the state to penury. Those who gave the Bhagyas were rejected by the electorate. Someone can cheat some people for some time but they cannot cheat all people all the time. With a bundle of lies and a false campaign, they cannot win people's hearts," he said. Taking a veiled jibe at the Opposition, Bommai said that the "power-hungry" politicians want to "grab power". "The power-hungry politicians would always want to grab power but those who wish to win the place in people's hearts don't grab power. Many people, once they are out of power, would act like fish out of water. Anybody can become anything with the support of people but they would not have the blessings of people by going in other routes," he said. "The chief minister said there are two kinds of characters, Arjuna and Karna. The warrior Arjuna would need to be praised to aim and shoot but Karna would need to be criticised to hit the bull's eye. 'I am like Karna, how much ever you criticise, I will get more strength. I will develop the state and help the party to come back to power. We will make you stand in the place where you standing to paste the poster," he said. Bommai's remarks followed in the wake of Congress' aggressive PayCM campaign targeted against him. Under the campaign, Congress had started putting up posters on public walls in various parts of accusing the Bommai government of indulging in corruption. is headed into elections for its Legislative Assembly early next year. (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.) Veteran Congress leader has slammed senior leaders of the party in Rajasthan and asked them to shun personal ambition. Without taking names, she said the happenings were disappointing. "The events unfolding in #Rajasthan are deeply disappointing, unfortunate & unnecessary. Senior leaders in the state must be prepared to sacrifice personal ambition & take their cue from @RahulGandhi who has shown what the Congress needs the most right now is selfless service," tweeted Alva on Monday. The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting called on Sunday at Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence was cancelled as more than 90 MLAs loyal to the Gehlot threatened to resign, while demanding the new CM face be picked from their group. "The MLAs want either Gehlot or his pick to be Chief Minister instead of Sachin Pilot," Rajasthan minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas told the media. Gehlot reportedly received a call from Rajya Sabha MP K.C. Venugopal, who asked him to "handle the situation" but the Chief Minister told the Congress' central leadership that it was "not in his hands". Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Pilot, meanwhile, is believed to be the central leaders' choice for the chief ministerial position. A delegation from the Gehlot camp went to meet senior Congress leader Ajay Maken, who is in Jaipur as an observer for the CLP meeting. These include state Urban Development and Housing Minister Shanti Dhariwal, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Mahesh Joshi. Maken, speaking to the media, said: "We are not going to Delhi as of now. We have been asked to take feedback from each and every single MLA." Meanwhile, sources said that the Congress high command has called both Gehlot and Pilot to Delhi. --IANS miz/dpb (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid the fast-paced political developments in Rajasthan, Food Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas on Sunday said democracy runs on numbers and whoever has the support of MLAs will be the state's next chief minister. He also said that Congress MLAs reaching the assembly speaker's house should not be seen as a rebellion by the party high command. High drama unfolded in as a group of Congress MLAs loyal to Chief Minister reached Speaker C P Joshi's residence earlier on Sunday to submit their resignation ahead of a legislature party meeting which was called to decide on his successor. The development suggested a worsening power struggle between the chief minister and Sachin Pilot, who was tipped to be Gehlot's replacement after he declared his candidature for the Congress president's post. The group of MLAs earlier held a meeting at Minister Shanti Dhariwal's residence, which was seen as an attempt to thwart the possibility of Pilot being made the next chief minister. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Khachariyawas said the Congress leadership should not see the decision of party MLAs to go to the assembly speaker's house as a rebellion. "This should not be seen as a rebellion against the high command. We can give our life for the high command. This is about our Congress family," he said. On Gehlot's successor, Khachariyawas said, "As of now Gehlot is the chief minister. In a democracy, an election is decided by counting votes. Democracy runs on numbers, whoever has the support of MLAs of will be the leader." Khachariyawas also accused the BJP of trying to destabilise the Congress-led government. "(During the meeting at Dhariwal's residence) the MLAs said that the BJP's conspiracy will not be successful. The people of the BJP have been trying to destabilise the government for the last four years. The BJP wants to topple the government," he charged. Gehlot and Pilot were at loggerheads for the chief minister's post soon after the Congress won the Assembly elections in December 2018. The high command then chose Gehlot as the chief minister for the third time while Pilot was made his deputy. In July 2020, Pilot along with 18 party MLAs rebelled against Gehlot's leadership. Earlier in the day, Gehlot said a one-line resolution stating all Congress legislators have full faith in the party president's decision on his successor is likely to be passed during the legislature party meeting. The meeting, however, did not take place. (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.) Upset over an open rebellion in Rajasthan, President on Monday sought a written report on it from party observers and as the chances of Ashok Gehlot becoming the party chief receded and other names cropped up for the post. Kharge and Maken, who were sent as observers to Jaipur for a Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, briefed Gandhi in the evening after their return to Delhi and termed the parallel meet held by Gehlot loyalists as "indiscipline". They are expected to recommend disciplinary action against those behind the move, including minister Shanti Dhariwal and chief whip Mahesh Joshi. Gehlot loyalists had submitted resignation letters to Assembly Speaker C P Joshi on Sunday evening, in an apparent bid to put pressure on the central leadership to pick someone from the Gehlot camp as CM if the veteran leader is elected the party president. The loyalist MLAs indicated that they were against the appointment of Sachin Pilot, who led a rebellion against Gehlot in 2020, for the post. Both Gehlot and Pilot spent the day at their Jaipur homes. Pilot met his supporters, but they refrained from publicly commenting on Sunday's developments. Gehlot performed a Navratri puja. is reportedly "upset" over the developments as Gehlot was being considered as her successor for the top post. Sources said Gehlot told the two observers that he is not behind the Jaipur development and the MLAs involved in it were not listening to him. But the drama put a question mark on whether Gehlot would still run for the party president's post or someone else would replace him as a candidate supported by the current leadership. Names of senior party leaders Kharge, Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh, Sushilkumar Shinde, Mukul Wasnik and Kumari Selja are now also doing the rounds for the post. Congress leader Kamal Nath, who met Monday, ruled himself out as a candidate. He has reportedly stepped in as a troubleshooter for his party. Kharge and Maken are likely to submit their report to Gandhi about the crisis in the party's state unit by Wednesday. After a nearly one and half hour-long meeting with Gandhi, Maken told reporters that it was "unfortunate" that the CLP meet could not be held. AICC General Secretary-Organisation K C Venugopal was also present during the meeting with Gandhi. "Kharge ji and I have apprised the Congress president of the CLP meeting in . The Congress president has sought a written report on the entire chronology, which we will submit by late night or tomorrow," Maken said. "When a CLP meeting is held, holding a parallel meeting of MLAs is prima facie indiscipline," he said. Accusing the MLAs in the Gehlot camp of "indiscipline", Maken said their demand setting conditions for a resolution authorising the party president to pick the next chief minister was a "conflict of interest". "In the 75 years of Congress history, there has never been a conditional resolution. The resolution is one line only. Everything is told to the Congress president and then a decision is taken," he told reporters in Jaipur. "The resolution should not have any conflict of interest, he said, elaborating that anyone contesting the election could become party president and then decide on the resolution. He said there was a clear direction to them from Sonia Gandhi that "we speak to every MLA and submit a report, and then the Congress president would have taken a call after speaking to everyone". He said representatives of some MLAs came to them in Jaipur to put forward three conditions. One of them was that the decision on the resolution would be taken after the organisational polls, and this should be part of the resolution. In an indirect reference to Gehlot, he asked how is it possible that a person authorising the Congress president to take a call on the next CM, himself takes a decision on it after winning the party election. If this is not conflict of interest, then what is," he said. Maken said the MLAs loyal to Gehlot wanted to meet them in groups, and were told by him and Kharge that there was no precedent for this. One-on-one meetings are held during CLP meets so that MLAs can express themselves freely, he said. Adding to the turmoil, Congress chief whip in Rajasthan Assembly Mahesh Joshi said the party MLAs have no objection to whoever is made the chief minister, but the final decision of the high command should be agreeable to them. "The doubts of the MLAs should be cleared by the high command and then whatever decision is taken will be accepted. We do not have any objection if anyone is made the chief minister but the final decision should have consensus," Joshi said. Congress sources said 82 MLAs loyal to Gehlot are likely to hold another meeting to decide their next course of action. They say they want someone who stood with the Congress government during the political crisis in Rajasthan in 2020 to be the next CM. In July 2020, Pilot and 18 other party MLAs had rebelled against Gehlot's leadership. The Congress has 108 MLAs in the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly. (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 Delhi court on Monday granted interim bail to actor Jacqueline Fernandez in a Rs 200 crore involving alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekar. The court also sought a response from (ED) on the regular bail plea of the actor who claimed to herself a victim of circumstances. Special Judge Shailender Malik granted Fernandez interim relief on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and posted the matter for further hearing on October 22. In her regular bail plea, Fernandez, a citizen of Sri Lanka, said that she was a tax-paying resident of India since 2009 and her professional reputation and future work commitments were intrinsically linked to the country. The actor said that she had consistently appeared before the investigating agency as and when summoned and her statements under the relevant section of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) were recorded five times. In terms of the permission granted to her by the court, she travelled abroad and remained compliant with all terms and conditions, the plea said. As the agency took a conscious decision not to arrest her, she ought not to be remanded to custody at the instance of the court, the plea said. The plea further said that she was acquainted with Sukesh Chandrashekhar for the first time in January 2021, and was herself a victim of circumstances. The material on record would establish that the applicant was similarly targeted by the said Sukesh Chandrashekhar and she did not play any role in assisting the said accused to launder his alleged ill-gotten wealth, the plea said. In fact, she was another victim of the criminal acts committed by the main accused Sukesh Chandrashekhar, and his associates, who consistently lied about his real identity and exercised undue influence over her personal and professional life either by showering her (and her family) with expensive gifts or claiming that he had done so, without ever mentioning their source, the plea said. However, she did not demand any gifts, nor had knowledge that these were proceeds of crime, on account of the deceitful and duplicitous conduct of the main accused, the plea added. The plea further said that she was misled into accepting the alleged gifts and attachment proceedings regarding these had already commenced. Pursuant to the proceedings, the agency had attached her Fixed Deposits of over Rs 7.12 crore, the plea said. A prosecution complaint for money laundering offences cannot be a natural consequence following attachment proceedings, the plea said. While she has answered all questions put to her and provided documents and material to the agency, it appeared that some of this information was not placed on record along with the present supplementary complaint by the agency, the plea added. For the grant of regular bail, her case was on a different footing as compared to the rest of the accused, and the investigation against Fernandez was complete, the plea said. Earlier, on August 31, the court had taken cognizance of a supplementary charge sheet filed by the and asked Fernandez to appear before the court. Fernandez, who was summoned by ED several times in connection with the investigation, was named as an accused for the first time in the supplementary charge sheet. ED's earlier charge sheet and supplementary charge sheet did not mention her as an accused. The documents, however, had mentioned the details of the statements recorded by Fernandez and fellow actor Nora Fatehi. According to ED, Fernandez and Fatehi, who were examined, had received luxury cars and other expensive gifts from Chandrashekar. ED stated Fernandez's statements were recorded on August 30 and October 20, 2021, where she admitted to having received gifts from Chandrashekar. Statements of Fatehi were recorded on September 13 and October 14, 2021, and she also acknowledged having received gifts from the alleged conman and his actor wife Leena Paulose. (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.) More reports have now surfaced that Apple may replace the current "Pro Max" branding next year with the top-end iPhone 15 series, calling it "Ultra". The "Pro Max" branding appeared for the first time with the iPhone 11 series in 2019. According to Apple tracker Mark Gurman, who expects iPhone 15 to come with some "bigger changes," including USB-C (instead of Apple's proprietary Lightning port), the tech giant could introduce a new branding for high-end models. The company has already launched a rugged Watch Ultra and now has 'M1 Ultra' processor. According to supply chain analyst Ross Young, the 'Dynamic Island' feature could arrive on all iPhone 15 models. The company has reportedly started testing the new USB-C feature owing to the European Union's new law that requires all new phones to have USB-C ports by 2024. Analysts Ming-Chi Kuo has also suggested that "Ultra" will exclusively have a periscope lens (6x or 5x). Also, the Ultra will come with an improved battery life that lasts three-four hours longer. With all these exclusive upgrades, the iPhone 15 Ultra is expected to go up in price compared to the 14 Pro Max, possibly starting at $1,200 (up from $1,100). --IANS na/ (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.) Bangalore (Karnataka) [India], September 26 (ANI/NewsVoir): CustomFit.ai is a robust, no-code website personalization platform created for marketing teams to display the best pitch for each visitor in order to maximize sales via increased conversions and engagement on websites with tailored, goal-oriented, and ever-changing content. CustomFit.ai's ability to identify visitors and map their traits from various sources, as well as understand visitor behavior from their journeys and actions, removes the guesswork and provides valuable insights to marketers, allowing them to plan and design their marketing campaigns and website optimization strategies effectively and effortlessly. The powerful visual editor in CustomFit.ai gives marketers the freedom to customize any aspect of the site as they see fit. The platform does not care what kind of frontend or backend technology is powering the website. Therefore, it can be easily integrated with ANY platform (WordPress, Webflow, Bubble, Wix, in-house/custom-built websites, etc.) in a matter of minutes. Now the business and marketing departments will be able to make changes, run trials, and optimize websites without involving the IT department. Teams who have used CustomFit.ai have found that they gain not just from an increase in lead conversion, but also from the value-addition that comes from upselling and cross-selling tactics. Why did CustomFit.ai decide to recognise and honour India's greatest marketing agencies? We at CustomFit.ai always had this concept that we should work toward developing a holistic community for Marketers, and we had done a lot of events in the past as well for this purpose, but they were on a modest scale. One of our goals going forward is to expand the size of those activities. This time, we made the conscious decision to take things to the next level, and the outcome of that decision is the #Top20IndianDigitalMarketingAgenciesAwards. In spite of the significant contributions they provide to the marketing profession, agencies are among the least respected players. As a result, we committed ourselves to the endeavor of identifying the top 20 agencies in India, despite the fact that it is a rather challenging feat. What is the procedure for selecting the winners? A series of rigorous procedures were taken. These are the steps we took. One of the first things we solicited nominations from all Indian agencies. In polling, anyone may come and vote for their favourite agency, and we held a poll for 10 days as a result. Second, we spoke with all of the shortlisted agencies' clients to get their input on the nominated agencies. Third, we evaluated the social evidence of each of these agencies by checking at their online customer reviews or product reviews. In the fourth step, we examined all of these agencies' social participation by examining their social media postings and interaction on these posts. We completed all of the preceding processes, and weightage was assigned to each of the previously obtained parameters. Winners were chosen based on the scores obtained with these parameters along with the jury feedback for each. Believe us, this is a difficult effort. What is the response from agencies? Agency cooperation and healthy rivalry have existed from the get-go. While still in the first stages of polling, we have had extensive interactions with all of the agencies involved. Most of the agencies submitted very insightful comments during the evaluation process. All of the awardees were visibly moved by the outpouring of support they received at the awards ceremony's conclusion. Words from Co-founder & CEO of CustomFit.ai - Ashwin Kumar "CustomFit.ai is a platform developed for marketers, and we have been in daily contact with the marketing community since our inception. We have observed that marketing agencies acquire new technologies quickly and make every effort to pass these technologies and their benefits on to their clients. Regardless of the hurdles, agencies strive extremely hard to accomplish the goals established by their customers. CustomFit.ai's award is social acknowledgment for their outstanding work and devotion to assisting their clients' businesses in growing. I am confident that this award will help organizations distinguish between excellent and outstanding. Congratulations to everyone who won!" - Ashwin Kumar Top 20 winners (not in any order) - Social Beat - RepIndia - SRV Media - PivotRoots - Pink Lemonade communication - BC Web Wise - Kenscio Digital Marketing - Pulp Strategy Communication - Eggfirst Advertising and Design - Adyogi - Technians - Saletancy Consulting - Blusteak Media - Growth Hackers Digital - Big Bang Social - Spinta Digital - Diquery Digital - Brandshark - The Go-To Guy! - XOR Labs Hall of Fame Winners (https://www.customfit.ai/top20-marketing-agencies-of-india-award-winners) CustomFit Contact details Website: (https://www.customfit.ai) LinkedIn: (www.linkedin.com/company/customfitai) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/CustomFitAi) Email: (mailto:reach@customfit.ai.) This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) DISCLAIMER (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The domestic aviation sector is set for a smooth ride after the pandemic turbulence. The competition is hotting up, while the prices of tickets are cooling down. Air India, under its new parent Tatas, is readying an expansion plan. The carrier has leased 25 Airbus narrow-body aircraft and five Boeing wide-body planes and is looking to introduce premium economy class in all the newly-leased planes. Premium economy is unique. It has more luxury than the economy segment, but it is also a compromised version of business class. The tickets can cost up to 50% more than economy on some high-demand domestic routes. The premium economy product offers larger seats, better meals and includes priority boarding and baggage handling, while Business class is a step above the premium economy with extended recline comfort, personal storage space and much larger seats. The economy segment is a leg below the premium economy, with 28 to 30 inch seat pitch and lesser recline adjustability. Experts say the premium segment is the most optimum product in India. If we look at the economics of the premium economy in terms of per sq mt of area it takes, the returns are almost 33% higher than an economy, said an analyst. Currently, Vistara, a joint venture between Tata and Singapore Airlines, is the only airline in India that offers premium economy class. Globally, major carriers like JetBlue, British Airways, Virgin, Cathay Pacific, have some capacity in the premium segment. Some experts say Vistara's premium economy segment is doing much better than expected. Recently Vistara CEO said the premium economy got a lot of attention in the pandemic as people were cautious about social distancing and seeking comfort. He added that subscription to the premium segment went up 5 to 10 per cent. Now, with Air India joining Vistara to venture into this category, has Indias biggest airline and budget carrier IndiGo missed out on the opportunity? Rohit Tomar, Managing Partner, Caladrius Aero Consulting LLP says IndiGo still has the best opportunity to look at premium economy segment. IndiGo's target segment is different. If the focus is on next leg of growth, then such products could be considered. IndiGos strategy of low-cost air travel is completely different from, say, Vistara, which prides itself on providing a memorable flying experience. Vistara has defined its strategy as a function of class, and caters mainly to corporate and leisure travellers, who see business class as a touch expensive, but are averse to economy travel either. On the other hand, IndiGo earned the market leader tag by focusing on affordability and lower-income groups. It has been one of the few airlines that has been able to consistently generate profits over the years. With a fleet of 281 aircraft including 35 A320 CEOs, 146 A320 NEOs, and a market share of nearly 59 per cent, industry experts are on the same page that IndiGo is already sitting on a world class product, which is embedded deeply in the Indian market. Mark D Martin, Founder and CEO of aviation consultancy Martin Consulting, said it doesn't make sense for IndiGo to go for premium economy or other higher classes. Having said that, whether the airline would get into a higher segment product will depend on what kind of market opportunity IndiGo sees for itself from these products. Experts see a negligible opportunity cost for IndiGo as it never went for the premium economy segment. Speaking to Business Standard, Satyendra Pandey, Managing Partner, aviation advisory firm AT-TV don't think IndiGo has missed an opportunity. Premium economy doesn't work in all markets. 3) Even IndiGo's international focus is on short to medium haul flights. Moreover, the premium economy category also depends on the travel time. For most of the short haul travel routes that IndiGo operates, the premium economy segment could be futile. Premium economy is an opportunity for IndiGo worth exploring in the future, especially when extra long range Airbus A321 XLR joins its fleet from mid-2024. But it has certainly not fallen behind the curve as it has established a product that caters to a large segment of Indian flyers. While justifying his arrest and prolonged detention, the UP government had told Supreme Court that Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan had deep links with terror funding organisations like Popular Front of India and its student wing, Campus Front of India. The claim was denied by Kappan and his counsel. Popular Front of India, or as it is known in common parlance, is an outfit which has been in the eye of storm since its formation. What is Created in 2007, describes itself as the organisation that fights for the rights of minorities, Dalits, and marginalised communities. The decision to form the organisation was made on November 22, 2006, in Kozhikode, Kerala. And it is headquartered in New Delhi. PFI was founded after merging three Islamic organisations in southern India, the National Democratic Front, the Karnataka Forum for Dignity, and the Manitha Neethi Pasarai. The organisation does not contest elections but carries on social and religious work among Muslims. Another outfit, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) emerged from PFI in 2009. It raises political issues for Muslims, Dalits, and other marginalised communities. PFI provides ground workers to SDPI. So why is PFI controversial? PFI has been repeatedly accused of riots, murders, and having links with terrorist organisations in the state. In 2012, then chief minister of Kerala Oommen Chandy told the High Court that PFI is nothing but a resurrection of the banned outfit SIMI. The Chandy government also filed an affidavit saying that PFI workers were involved in 27 murder cases. Most of those killed were from and CPM. PFI vs RSS: A rivalry through the years But PFI workers are not the only ones accused of murders. The age-old rivalry between and CPM has seen hundreds from both the sides losing their lives to violent attacks. PFI is the new entrant to this club. In April 2022, A Subair, PFI president of Elappully, was killed outside a mosque. The police said that the killers vehicle was registered under the name of S Sanjith, a slain worker. Sanjith was allegedly killed in November 2021, allegedly by the workers of PFI and SDPI. In April 2022, SK Sreenivasan, another RSS worker, was hacked to death in Palakkad. Abubakar Siddique, PFI secretary for Palakkad, was arrested in September on the charge of Sreenivasans murder. Abubakr was also arrested in 2020 for inciting violence during the anti-CAA protests. New Delhi: The Congress faced a full-blown rebellion in Rajasthan with legislators loyal to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot gathering at the residence of Speaker C.P. Joshi and threatening to resign to protest the leadership change as per latest reports at 11.30 pm on Sunday, instead of heading to the Congress Legislature Party meeting where a new Chief Minister was to be elected. Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said, "All the MLAs are angry and are resigning. We are going to the Speaker for that. CM Gehlot should pay heed to the suggestions of MLAs. We have 92 MLAs with us. We are Congress loyalists, we have always supported the party even in the rebellion of 2020. Our leaders still are Sonia Ji and Rahul Ji. The development suggested a worsening power struggle between the Chief Minister and Sachin Pilot and a growing defiance of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and senior leader Rahul Gandhi. The change in Rajasthan was seen to be taking taking place under the specific instructions of the Gandhis, which the MLAs are protesting. Gehlot wanted a double role, to be the Chief Minister and also Congress chief if the need arose. This was turned down by Rahul Gandhi who was firm on the one man one post rule. Besides, the high command appeared to be backing Pilot as Gehlot's replacement. Pilot had met Rahul Gandhi during his padayatra earlier this week. The Congress had scheduled a legislature party meeting at the residence of Chief Minister Gehlot on Sunday evening, with senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Rajasthan incharge Ajay Maken as observers. The meeting was for smooth transition of power from Gehlot to a leader to be decided by the high command. However, only Pilot and a few MLAs turned up, apart from Gehlot, Kharge and Maken. Insiders claim that the observers and general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal spoke with Gehlot when the MLAs reached the Speakers house. Gehlot told him that nothing was in his hands as the MLAs were very upset. Mrs Sonia Gandhi had reportedly instructed Maken to speak to all MLAs and get a resolution done. The Gehlot group MLAs earlier met at the residence of minister Shanti Dhariwal. It was decided that the Chief Minister should be from among the 102 MLAs who supported the government during the rebellion by Pilot and his 18 loyalists in 2020. Also the resignation letters were collected there. Independent MLA Sanyam Lodha, who also attended the meet said, "If the decision is not taken according to the wishes of the MLAs, how will the government run? The government will fall". In the 200-seat State assembly, The Congress has 107 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 70. If the Speaker decides to accept the resignations then the strength of the House will reduce and the majority mark will be reduced. As this paper goes to print a series of meetings are taking place in Jaipur. Some MLAs of the Gehlot camp are in a huddle, the Pilot camp is also in a huddle and the observers are trying to speak to individual MLAs. recently axed 300 employees after it found that they were also working for its rivals. The decision was announced by the firms executive chairman, Rishad Premji, a vocal critic of moonlighting. As remote working became the norm due to the Covid-19 pandemic, employees found it easier to take up more than one job at a time without the knowledge of their companies -- a practice known as moonlighting. Of late, it has become a concern for the . The co-founder and former CEO of Infosys, Kris Gopalakrishnan, also joined the debate recently, saying that working for more than one company at the same time would come in the way of building trust. His remarks were aimed particularly at the new generation of techies. Earlier in September, Infosys sent an email to employees titled No Double Lives. The country's second-largest IT services firm said that dual employment was not permitted in line with the employee handbook and code of conduct. However, the email from Infosys also made a distinction that may prove to be important in settling the moonlighting debate in the future. It said that the companys consent was paramount with regard to moonlighting. The letter added that consent may be given, subject to terms and conditions, and may also be withdrawn at any time. Effectively, this leaves the possibility open that at least some employees could hold two jobs simultaneously without it being considered moonlighting. In fact, companies are reportedly turning to experts and digital tools, which forensic accountants say can easily track moonlighters. Arpinder Singh, global markets and India leader, forensic and integrity services, EY, told Business Standard that EY was working with several firms to gauge the extent of moonlighting among their staff. Even as they tackle this problem, there's evidence that the plans for the Great Return, or resuming work from the office, are not progressing smoothly for all IT firms. While IT companies have been at the forefront when it comes to hybrid and flexible work, they have now taken the lead in rolling back remote work plans. IT firms have had to keep up with the changing dynamics of the job market, where, till recently, workers had been quitting their jobs, seeking either higher pay, better benefits or more control over their lives. While Indian IT firms say that a hybrid workforce is the new normal, client needs have made a return to the office and work sites necessary. Also, a return to the office first is necessary for their hybrid policies to kick in. At Tata Consultancy Services, 20 per cent of its employees are back to office. TCS has said that it will continue to drive the return-to-office model because having a permanent hybrid work environment will first involve getting back to a normal working environment. That is why TCS recently asked around 80 per cent of its staff to return to the office. Perhaps the industrys frustration with stubborn employees was best reflected when RPG group chairman Harsh Goenka recently warned IT workers of a mediocre career trajectory if they dug in their heels and worked from home. These challenges couldnt have come at a worse time. The performance of top-tier IT firms in the first quarter of the current financial year shows that they are still far away from getting a grip on managing attrition. In fact, talent retention challenges have eroded both their margins and any gains they may have made thanks to the depreciating rupee. Despite higher pay and other retention policies, attrition continued to zoom. Attrition at Infosys rose to 28.4 per cent. TCS saw a much higher rise in attrition at 19.7 per cent. Attrition at HCL Technologies for the quarter was up at 23.8 per cent. In fact, was the only company that reported a drop in attrition at 23.3 per cent. The IT industry will be worried that the current talent crisis may delay its efforts to move up the value chain by delinking headcount and revenue streams. Recently, freshers who had received job offers from top IT companies took to social media to say that they had not received an offer letter or any communication about the onboarding process even three to five months after the offer was made. The companies concerned have said that all the offers made will be honoured. However, this may point to some lacunae in their process, which could damage the trust of future employees. Loyalty, after all, is a two-way street. IT industry leaders have spoken a lot about how employees must build trust, perhaps equal emphasis is now needed on IT firms responding in kind. Heaters from Cixi city in China's Zhejiang win more orders from Europe amid natural gas shortage People's Daily Online) 10:36, September 26, 2022 Heating appliances from Cixi city in east China's Zhejiang Province are in high demand in Europe, with some producers receiving more orders from the continent, as many European countries struggle to deal with a natural gas shortage caused by factors including the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the energy crisis. Photo shows heating appliances produced in Cixi city. (Photo/CCTV News) Home to over 100 heating appliance producers, Cixi, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Ningbo city, is a major heating appliance production base in China. Its exports of heating appliances account for 30 percent of the country's total. In previous years, the peak production season for heating appliances in the city ended in about mid-September. According to an executive of a heating appliance producer in Guanhaiwei township in the city, the company signed a deal worth $1 million with a client from Germany at the beginning of this year and has now delivered all heaters under the deal. In August, the company received another order worth $330,000 from the client. Workers are busy making heating appliances in a company in Cixi city. (Photo/CCTV News) Last year, the company exported 1.5 million heating devices worth about $17.8 million. From January to August this year, it exported 2 million units worth about $22.8 million. Cen Na, an official with Cixi Customs, said the city's exports of heating appliances jumped 26.3 percent year on year to 3.35 billion yuan (about $471.9 million) in the first eight months of this year, and its exports of heaters to the European Union (EU) reached 1.53 billion yuan, up 55.2 percent from the same period last year. Compared with previous years, the sales period of heating appliances to the EU is expected to be extended by about one month, Cen added. Workers are busy making heating appliances in a company in Cixi city. (Photo/CCTV News) Cen Na, an official with Cixi Customs, introduces the situation about exports of heating appliances. (Photo/CCTV News) (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) Indian National Lok Dal chief OP Chautala, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Bihar CM and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar, Bihar Dy CM and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal and others being garlanded during a rally organised on the occasion of 109th birth anniversary of former deputy PM Devi Lal, in Fatehabad (PTI Photo/Atul Yadav) Fatehabad (Haryana): NCP supremo Sharad Pawar led prominent Opposition leaders in calling for an alliance that includes the Congress to vote out the BJP from power in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The time has come for everyone to work towards ensuring change of government in 2024, he said. Pawar was speaking at one of the biggest events in recent times featuring Opposition leaders including Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar (JDU) and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Om Prakash Chautala (INLD) and Sukhbir Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal as well as Sitaram Yechury (CPM) and Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena). There is no question of a Third Front, Nitish Kumar, who is being pitchforked as a prime ministerial aspirant, declared. There should be one main front to trounce the BJP, he said at a mega rally organised by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) to mark former deputy prime minister Devi Lal's birth anniversary. No one from the Congress was present. Missing at the event were Chief Ministers Mamata Banerjee, K. Chandrashekar Rao, Arvind Kejriwal and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. If all non-BJP parties unite, which must include our friends from Congress, then we can get rid of those working to destroy the country, Nitish Kumar. He added that he had spoken at length with Pawar and requested the Congress to join them. Stressing on opposition unity, Pawar urged all farmers to get together as the Centre had betrayed farmers that has led to suicide. We need to remove those who create such circumstances. In 2024 when we shall get an opportunity, we all shall get together change this regime. Attacking the BJP, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said, If we need to save our nation, we need to remove the BJP from power. This is not mann ki baat. This is dil ki baat. The leaders attacked the BJP, accusing it of trying to create Hindu-Muslim disturbances to benefit politically and making false claims and promises. Tejashwi Yadav said that there was no NDA now, it was only the BJP. All its allies have left the alliance, he noted. He said the BJP does not want real issues like the price rise and unemployment to be discussed, and instead keeps harping on subjects like Musalmaan, Pakistan mandir and masjid. There is no real Hindu-Muslim conflict in society, Nitish Kumar said, adding some mischief-makers are present everywhere. INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala, the grandson of Devi Lal, also hit out at the Centre over its faulty policies regarding farmers. JD(U) leader K.C. Tyagi said that the rally marked the beginning of the coming together of non-BJP parties in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. The real NDA is sitting here, it was founded by Shiv Sena, Akali Dal and JD(U). We stood by the BJP when it was a relatively smaller party. But now it is time to form an alliance for farmers and labourers, said Sukbir Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal. Last Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the words Urban Naxals to describe those he said were stalling the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. This continues a common theme where he has attacked what is called civil society, which he sees as an enemy. On February 21, 2016, he had said at a rally in Bhubaneshwar that he was a victim of a conspiracy by NGOs. This conspiracy, he claimed, was aimed at finishing him and removing his government. As evidence for this, he said: You would have seen that morning to night, I am being attacked. Some people keep at it. Civil society, he said, was also upset because I told a few NGOs to give us an account of the foreign funds that they spend here. They ganged up and said beat Modi, beat Modi, hes asking us for an account of our expenditure. The PM added: They conspire from morning to night on how do we finish Modi, how do we remove his government, how do we embarrass Modi?. But my friends, you have voted me to rid the country of these diseases. It appears that Prime Minister Modi has to a large extent succeeded in achieving this goal. In December 2019, Parliament was told that since Mr Modi had taken office, 14,500 NGOs had been barred from accessing foreign funding. Funding collapsed by 90 per cent from $2.2 billion in 2018 to $295 million in 2019. It is not known how many Indians were affected because of this, not only the employees of the NGOs but those people who they were working with and for. Mr Modis attack on the NGOs manifested in different forms of coercive action and through use of criminal law. Most notably, through changes in the FCRA law. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act appeared in 1976 as a piece of legislation aimed at preventing external interference in Indias electoral process and democracy. It prohibited the receiving of foreign money to political parties and their candidates, journalists and newspaper publishers, judges, bureaucrats and members of Parliament. In time, economic liberalisation meant that many of these categories of people were allowed to get foreign money and the Indian government, in fact, actively promoted the bringing in of such money. For instance, the media, both print and television as well as online, could receive foreign investment. Even political parties managed to get themselves off the hook on FCRA. On March 28, 2014, the Delhi High Court had held that the BJP and the Congress were guilty of FCRA violations. The parties escaped through a change in the Union Budget of 2016, when the definition of foreign source was changed, legitimising donations received by political parties. With the electoral bonds scheme, the BJP and other parties were free to accept unlimited and even anonymous contributions from foreign sources. What remained regulated in the law were the non-government organisations, or NGOs. These were relentlessly squeezed and defunded through FCRA amendments under Prime Minister Modi. The changes were in the main four first, that the 23,000 NGOs which had an FCRA licence to receive foreign money could receive the funds only in the Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India in New Delhi. The second change was that the NGO could spend only 20 per cent of the money it received on administrative expenses. Salaries, travel expenses, rent and all such things that constitute the bulk of what most NGOs spend their outlay on could only receive 20 per cent of the total. Third, that the law now prevented an NGO from redistribution of the funds it had received to other NGOs even if they were FCRA-compliant. This would hit the sector as NGOs do not compete with one another as the rest of the private sector does, and operate as networks. This change would damage their alliances and capacity to work with one another. Fourth, the law required that NGOs registering or renewing their FCRA licence would have to mandatorily give the Aadhaar numbers of all office-bearers, directors or other key functionaries. It also gave the government the authority at its discretion to suspend the FCRA for as long as it wanted. This is, needless to say, not how the rest of the private sector is treated. The corporate sector is not ordered to spend its money in a particular way or regulated in this seemingly arbitrary fashion. Such action is reserved for NGOs. This kind of antagonism towards civil society was not new. As the chief minister of Gujarat, Mr Modi had said in a 2014 speech: Another conspiracy a vicious cycle is set up. Funds are obtained from abroad; an NGO is set up; a few articles are commissioned; a PR firm is recruited and, slowly, with the help of the media, an image is created. And then awards are procured from foreign countries to enhance this image. Such a vicious cycle, a network of finance-activity-award is set up and, once they have secured an award, no one in Hindustan dares raise a finger, no matter how many the failings of the awardee. As Prime Minister, he has had the agency and the freedom to go along with his desire to severely damage, if not entirely finish off, Indias civil society. And in substantial measure, through innovative ways, he has managed to achieve this. Bengaluru: President Droupadi Murmu will inaugurate state-of-the-art Integrated Cryogenic Engine Manufacturing Facility (ICMF) of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bengaluru on Tuesday. The facility, catering to the entire Rocket Engine Manufacturing under one roof for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), will boost self-reliance in manufacturing of high-thrust rocket engines. It is set up over an area of 4500 sq mts housing over 70 hi-tech equipment and testing facilities for manufacturing Cryogenic (CE20) and Semi-cryogenic (SE2000) Engines of Indian Space Launch Vehicles. In 2013 an MoU was signed with ISRO for establishing the facility for manufacturing of Cryogenic Engine modules at Aerospace Division of HAL. The MoU for the Cryogenic Engine facility was subsequently amended in 2016 for building of ICMF at Rs. 208 crores. While the commissioning of all the critical equipment for the manufacturing and assembly requirement is completed, the pre-production activities which involve preparation of the process plans, drawings, quality plan etc. have also commenced. HAL will start realising the modules by March 2023. HAL (Aerospace Division) manufactures liquid propellant tanks and launch vehicle structures of PSLV, GSLV MK-II, GSLV Mk-III and also stage integration for GSLV Mk-II. The Aerospace Division entering into manufacture of Cryogenic Engines is a major step in technology up-gradation cum modernization. Cryogenic Engines are the most widely used engines world over in the launch vehicles. Due to the complex nature of the cryogenic engine, till date only few countries USA, France, Japan, China & Russia have mastered the cryogenic technology. On January 5, 2014 India successfully flew GSLV-D5 with a cryogenic engine (made by ISRO through private industries) and became the sixth country in developing cryogenic engines. Space exploration in the future is mostly dependent upon cryogenic technology. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Antony Blinken on 60 Minutes (CBS) Screen Capture 'Any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects,' says secretary of state WASHINGTON (AA) - The US has sent private warnings to Russia to "stop the loose talk" regarding nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday. In an interview with 60 Minutes, an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network, the top US diplomat confirmed reports that Washington privately warned Moscow against using nuclear weapons. "We have been very clear with the Russians publicly and as well as privately to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons," Blinken said in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly. "It's very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. And we've made that very clear," he said. "Any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects for, of course, the country using them, but for many others as well," Blinken added. CNN reported on Friday that the State Department was involved in conveying the warnings, and the US may have also relied on sensitive intelligence channels to communicate to the Russians. The report comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stark warning that he is prepared to use nuclear weapons as he and his proxies prepared to hold polls in separatist-controlled areas of Ukraine. "When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff," Putin said. The polls, denounced as a "sham" by the US and its allies, began on Friday and are slated to run through Tuesday. Separatist-controlled Luhansk, as well as Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which are partly under Russian control, announced plans for the referendums earlier in the week. By Servet Gunerigok/AA Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno speaks at a regular news conference in Tokyo Monday, Sept. 262, 2022. The top government spokesman announced an additional ban on exports of chemical weapons-related goods to Russia. (Kyodo News via AP) Tokyo: Japan expressed grave concern about Russia's possible use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine as the top government spokesman on Monday announced an additional ban on exports of chemical weapons-related goods to Russia. As the world's only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, we strongly demand that the threat or use of nuclear weapons by Russia should never happen, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a regular news conference. Matsuno was responding to a question about US national security adviser Jake Sullivan's comments Sunday on CBS news that the United States will act decisively in case of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine. Asked if Japan approves of the possible use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Russia, Matsuno refused to comment on the grounds that it was a hypothetical question. Japan's government on Monday banned the export of materials that may be used for chemical weapons to 21 Russian organisations, including science laboratories. The measure was approved by the Cabinet following a decision by Group of Seven foreign ministers last week. Set on the Mediterranean island of Crete, the film proposes an untold story from the childhood of Icarus, who works as an apprentice to his father Daedalus in the mans sculpture workshop at Knossos. While out exploring one day, Icarus discovers a mysterious boy his own age with the head of a bull who lives hidden in the Royal Palace of King Minos. The boys quickly become friends before Minos locks the monster in his labyrinth. When the great warrior prince Theseus arrives to slay the Minotaur, Icarus puts everything on the line to save his friend. In a statement, Luxembourgs National Oscar Selection Commission said they picked the animated feature: Because of its artistic and aesthetic qualities as well as for its narration which, freely inspired by Greek mythology, tells the story of the fiery youth who flies too close to the sun from Icarus point of view. Through his eyes, viewers discover the injustices and cruelty of men with the protagonist; this narrative choice allowed director Carlo Vogele to develop a personal reading of the myth. Cartoon Brew debuted the concept trailer for the Icarus way back in 2017, when the film was still in development. At the time, Vogele explained how the film would add new twists to Greek mythology. The idea is to imagine the youth of the young Icarus, a part that goes unmentioned in the myth as we know it, he said. Illumination is teaming with veteran artist and former Netflix head of adult animation Mike Moon to launch Moonlight, a new adult animation label of its own. Details of the appointment: Moonlight is being set up under the Illumination umbrella and will focus on animation for adults as the company expands beyond its traditional family-friendly fare. All films produced by Moonlight will be included in Illuminations existing exclusive distribution agreement with Universal. At the ongoing United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session India has been winning praise from several developing and developed nations both for its economic and foreign policy. Some of the most powerful voices, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and French President Emmanuel Macron have referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's India in a positive light, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also acknowledged the key role India can play in the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Countries like France, Jamaica and Portugal also heaped praise on India. While referring to PM Modi's earlier remarks to Russian President Vladimir Putin, France's Macron was the first one to praise India, saying Narendra Modi, was right about the time being not right for war. "It is not for revenge against the West or for opposing the West against the east. It is the time for a collective time for our sovereign equal states. To cope together with challenges, we face," Macron said while referring to the conversation between PM Modi and Putin during the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Samarkand. UN chief Guterres, in his message to a special '[email protected]' event on showcasing the 'India-UN Partnership in Action', underlined that as home to the largest youth generation in history, India will be decisive in the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "Looking ahead, India, home to the largest youth generation in history will be decisive in the success of the Sustainable Development Goals, and reiterating Prime Minister Modi - as you reform, the world transforms," Guterres said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov "explicitly' backed India for a permanent seat, straight 60 minutes after he met up with his Indian counterpart. Addressing the UNGA session, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said that the country sees India as a "key international actor" and a "worthy candidate for permanent membership within the Council." Another high-level delegate to praise India was Jamaica Foreign Minister Kamina J Smith, who expressed gratitude towards India for its assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith said that Kingston is grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government, and its people for the vaccines during the pandemic. Addressing a high-level UN General Assembly session here, the Foreign Minister said that India is a reliable partner. "From the very onset, India was a reliable partner whose assistance was critical to our pandemic response. India embraced a holistic and outward-looking vaccine diplomacy strategy. Jamaica was able to secure its first life-saving vaccines from India," she said in New York. Guyana Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd also hailed India in UNGA. "Small countries like Guyana would have benefitted immensely from India's growth trajectory as it has always been an economy that focuses on human development, putting humans ahead of any other form of development," he said. On Thursday, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa called for UNSC reform that should include representation of India, Brazil and Africa continent at the UN Security Council. Addressing the General Assembly, Costa advocated for a Security Council that incorporates a comprehensive view of security and gives fair representation to small countries. Speaking on the long-pending issues of UN reforms, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that there has been a "shift" on the issue of UN reforms among the international community that was seen this week. "In respect of UN reform, every General Assembly (session) you revisit that issue, but this time something has shifted. You can see that, you can sense that," Jaishankar told reporters on Saturday as he wrapped up the New York leg of his visit to the US with his address to the UNGA high-level session. Jaishankar said it is not that only he has sensed a shift on the issue of UN reforms. "I think everybody sensed a shift and it's something which others actually brought up with me". (ANI) Also Read: Jaishankar slams US F-16 package for Pakistan, mocks 'counter-terrorism' narrative Canada in context (Part Five) By Mark Wegierski web posted September 26, 2022 Political, constitutional, juridical, and socio-cultural aspects of the origins and development of the Canadian State In 1998, in an attempt to bring Reform and the federal Progressive Conservatives together, and broaden the appeal of the Reform Party in Ontario, Preston Manning, the leader the Reform Party, began the United Alternative initiative. This culminated in the creation of the Canadian Alliance (formally known as the Canadian Reform-Conservative Alliance). Although many individual Progressive Conservatives joined the Canadian Alliance, the federal Progressive Conservative Party refused to get on board. The three main candidates for the leadership of the new Canadian Alliance party in 2000 were Stockwell Day (a former Treasurer of Alberta), Tom Long (a young, influential adviser to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario), and Preston Manning himself. By mobilizing social conservatives on his behalf, Stockwell Day was able to win the leadership of the Canadian Alliance. However, in the onrushing federal election campaign, the Liberals capitalized on many Canadians suspicions of social conservatism, endeavouring to paint Stockwell Day as a Christian fundamentalist extremist. Some time after the election campaign was over, a senior Liberal pollster, Michael Marzolini, revealed that Stockwell Day had reached as high as 34 per cent in some of the opinion polls the Liberal Party was conducting privately inducing a sense of panic in the Liberal leadership. Indeed, during the campaign, one could observe a point where there erupted a flurry of intense negative campaigning by the Liberals, for example, accusing the Canadian Alliance of being a haven for Holocaust-deniers, racists, and bigots. There was also great ridicule for Days supposed belief in the divine creation of the Earth six thousand years ago. The Canadian federal election held on November 27, 2000, largely confirmed the Liberal Partys longstanding dominance of Canadian politics. With a total of 301 seats in the federal Parliament, the Liberals (led by Jean Chretien) won a large majority of 172 seats (with 41% of the nationwide popular vote) with 100 seats from Ontario (out of a total of 103 seats available), 36 seats from Quebec, 19 seats from the Maritimes, and 17 from Western Canada. The Canadian Alliance (led by Stockwell Day) won 64 of the 91 seats available in Western Canada, and also 2 seats in Ontario (with 25% of the popular vote). The Bloc Quebecois (led by Gilles Duceppe) won 38 of 75 seats available in Quebec (with 11% of the popular vote). The New Democratic Party (led by Alexa McDonough) won 13 seats, 4 of them from the Maritimes, 8 from Western Canada, and 1 in Ontario (with 9% of the popular vote). The federal Progressive Conservatives (led by Joe Clark) won 12 seats, 9 of them from the Maritimes (with 12% of the popular vote). Stockwell Day was ousted from the leadership of the Canadian Alliance as a result of a caucus revolt that at one point attracted as many as thirteen Canadian Alliance MPs. In the ensuing contest for the leadership of the party, Stephen Harper defeated Day decisively. Joe Clark finally left the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party, resulting in a leadership contest in May 2003, won by Peter MacKay. On October 16, 2003, a merger between the Canadian Alliance (led by Stephen Harper), and the federal Progressive Conservatives (led by Peter MacKay) was announced, proposing to form the Conservative Party of Canada, pending the vote of their respective memberships by December 12, 2003. The merger of the two parties offered the possibility of a significant challenge to the perennially ruling Liberal Party. In mid-November 2003, the enormously popular Paul Martin, Jr. (the former federal Liberal Finance Minister, credited with much of the deficit-fighting success of the Liberals) was acclaimed to the leadership of the federal Liberal Party and the Prime Ministership while Jean Chretien resigned ahead of his predicted retirement date of February 2004. It was expected in November 2003, that in the upcoming federal election, Paul Martin -- being a Quebec native-son as well as often considered a so-called right-wing Liberal was well poised to make gains at the expense of both the Bloc Quebecois and the Alliance strongholds in the West while probably continuing to hold nearly all of Ontario. It was considered at that time in the media that Martin could win one of the largest majorities in Canadian history. At the same time, Jack Layton, the leader of the federal NDP (selected in January 2003), had the possibility of posing a formidable challenge from the Left. Although the NDP at that time held only fourteen seats in the federal Parliament, it had exercised a huge intellectual influence on Canada, especially on the Liberal Party. Even a comparatively small increase in NDP seats and popular vote totals could have important repercussions. Paul Martin, Jr. never seemed to reach the potential that was said to be inherent in his Prime Ministership. In the June 2004 federal election, the Liberals were reduced to a minority government. After the Adscam scandal gained wide coverage, the Liberals were essentially clinging to power. They almost lost the non-confidence vote in mid-2005, and were able to survive as a government only through extraordinary measures (such as the defection of Belinda Stronach from the Conservative Party to the Liberals). Finally in November 2005, the Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois, and NDP combined to bring down the Liberal government, necessitating the calling of an election for January 2006. To be continued. Partially based on an English-language text that appeared in Polish translation under the title Kanada eksperyment wielokulturowosci. (Canada: an experiment in multiculturalism) trans. Olaf Swolkien. Miedzynarodowy Przeglad Polityczny (International Political Review) (Warsaw, Poland: Fundacja Srodkowoeuropejska The Foundation for Central European) no 5 (no 10) (December 2004-January 2005), pp. 221-231. Mark Wegierski is a Toronto-based, Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home Secretary of State Tre Hargett wants voters to know about the four proposed Constitutional amendments on the Nov. 8 State and Federal General Election ballot and the process for amendments to pass in Tennessee. "Our Tennessee Constitution is the foundation of our state government and this November, there will be four proposed Constitutional amendments on the ballot," said Secretary Hargett. "It's important for voters to not only know what these proposed amendments are but also understand how amendments become part of our Constitution so they can make informed voting decisions." In Tennessee, proposed Constitutional amendments are presented as yes or no questions on the ballot. A yes vote is a vote to amend the Constitution and adopt the proposed language in the amendment. A no vote is a vote not to amend the Constitution and keep the current language in the Constitution unchanged. Two things must happen for an amendment to pass and become part of the Constitution. The first is the amendment must get more yes votes than no votes. The second is that the number of yes votes must be a majority of the total votes in the gubernatorial election. Tennessee's longstanding process to determine the results for proposed Constitutional amendments was confirmed by a court decision following the 2014 general election. To determine the number of votes needed to adopt a proposed Constitutional amendment, votes for all candidates for governor are added together and then divided by two. If there are more yes votes than no votes on the proposed amendment and the number of yes votes exceeds 50% +1 of the total votes for governor, the amendment passes and becomes part of the Constitution. The Constitutional amendment fails if the number of yes votes does not meet or exceed the threshold or if there are more no votes than yes votes. Although the number of votes cast for governor is used to determine the threshold for a proposed Constitutional amendment to pass, it is not necessary to vote in the governor's race to vote on the Constitutional amendments. Likewise, it is not necessary to vote on any of the amendments to vote in the governor's race. On the ballot, voters will see the candidates for governor, followed directly by the four proposed amendments. After the proposed Constitutional amendments, voters will have the opportunity to vote for candidates for the United States House of Representatives and the county's remaining offices on the general election ballot. The four proposed amendments were approved to appear on the Nov. 8 ballot by the 111th and 112th General Assemblies. The four proposed amendments to the Tennessee Constitution on the Nov. 8 ballot: - An amendment to Article XI, of the Constitution of Tennessee, relative to the right to work - An amendment to Article II and Article III of the Constitution of Tennessee, relative to the exercise of the powers and duties of the Governor during disability. - An amendment to Article I, Section 33 of the Constitution of Tennessee, to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude. - An amendment to Article IX, of the Constitution of Tennessee, relative to disqualifications. To see the exact language for the proposed Constitutional amendments that will appear on the ballot, including a summary of each amendment written by the Tennessee Attorney General's office, visit sos.tn.gov/amendments. The Secretary of States office and local county election commissions are Tennessees trusted sources for accurate election information. For the latest information about the Nov. 8 State and Federal General Election, follow the Secretary of State's social media channels Twitter: @SecTreHargett, Facebook: Tennessee Secretary of State and Instagram: @tnsecofstate. For more information about the proposed Constitutional amendments, visit sos.tn.gov/amendments or call the Division of Elections at 877 850-4959. Andrew Wood was hired as the Fire Training Instructor for the City of Red Bank Fire Department. In his position, Mr. Wood is responsible for making sure Red Banks firefighters are skilled in the proper utilization of firefighting methods and techniques. His goal is to keep the department operating at peak capacity and able to provide the highest level of service to the community.A native of Alabama, Mr. Wood lived in Wetumpka after spending six and a half years in the Army. He was a firefighter for 11 years with the Eclectic Fire Department and the Jacksonville Fire Department in Alabama before moving to Northshore two and a half years ago.Officials said, "Mr.Wood was a teen when he discovered his love for fire service. The son of a soldier, his father always impressed upon him the importance of serving your neighbors and community. He began looking for a way to serve his community after he graduated high school. Although Mr. Wood did not have any knowledge about the fire service, he knew a little about technical rescue (rope, vehicle extrication, confined spaces, trench collapse, cave, etc.), and wanted to learn more. The only clear path for Mr. Wood to get into technical rescue was through the fire service and the Alabama Fire College. He still has a passion for technical rescue, but found his true calling in the fire service."Early in Mr. Woods career, a mentor, Assistant Chief Chris Roberts, with Jacksonville Fire Department, impressed the importance of professional development and training in the fire service profession. Mr. Wood always considered himself a lifelong student and this was the motivation he needed to begin moving forward. He obtained his Fire Instructor I and Fire Instructor II credentials through the Alabama Fire College and pursued a degree in fire administration."Mr. Wood began to take other instructor-level courses and to teach state-certification courses in Alabama and then Tennessee. To further his education and professional development, he obtained certifications in Firefighter I, Firefighter II, Fire Instructor I, Fire Instructor II, Public Fire and Life Safety Educator I, Public Fire and Life Safety Educator II, Fire Officer I, Fire Officer II, Fire Inspector I, Fire Inspector II, Fire Investigator, Live Fire Instructor, Incident Safety Officer, Plans Reviewer, Apparatus Operator: Aerial, Apparatus Operator: Pumper, Hazardous Materials Awareness and Operations, Rescue Technician: Rope I, Rescue Technician: Rope II, Rapid Intervention Teams."Describing his work as a fire instructor, Mr. Wood commented that no two days are alike. In the training realm, he is driven by the needs of the department, which are dynamic. Some days consist of meetings with the departments senior leadership staff or near peers in the region planning training events, whereas other days Mr. Wood may be in the classroom or on the drill field teaching for the majority of the day.Having a well-qualified training instructor such as Andrew, will provide needed structural uniformed training for our department to better serve the citizens of Red Bank, said Brent Sylar, Red Bank fire chief. We, the fire department, would like to thank the city commission for recognizing and approving this much needed position.Mr. Wood stated that he has loved the area and all of the amenities and activities this region has to offer. He enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking, camping and travelling any chance he gets. Mr. Wood also enjoys photography and reading a good book.Mr. Wood said, Moving to the Chattanooga region, I have found no shortage of beautiful places to string up a hammock and read a book. St. Timothy Lutheran Church, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, on Oct. 25 will celebrate five years as a Reconciling in Christ community, a community which openly embraces and welcomes all people, regardless of faith history, legal status, economic status, addiction recovery, personal history, marital status, education, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical or mental abilities.Bridget, a long-time member of the St.Timothy congregation, said, My partner, who passed away in 2012 after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer, was taught that homosexuality was a sin, and never felt safe sharing the love we had for one another with her family in faith. I am so thankful that my pastor at the time told me about Reconciling in Christ and sent me to a Building an Inclusive Church workshop to start the process for St. Timothy of becoming an RIC congregation. Bridget emphasizes We want, no, we need, churches to stand up and say, 'All are truly welcomed and loved regardless of gender identity, regardless of politics, regardless of race, regardless of who loves you and who you love.'During 2022, the congregation has put together a series of activities to celebrate. The St. Timothy Reads book discussion group has completed a study on the book Transforming The Bible & the Lives of Transgendered Christians by Austen Hartke. The book weaves biblical examples of gender nonconformity and transformation with the stories and voices of contemporary trans-Christians. The book group is currently discussing Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US by the Reverend Lenny Duncan, a pastor in the ELCA. Rev. Duncan urges congregations to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus and offers a blueprint for churches to take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Other activities planned include an LGBTQ+ movie night on Oct. 16 at 5:30 pm, showing the movie The Bird Cage.As we approach this five-year anniversary, we have updated our welcoming statement to use more inclusive language; this update reflects not only our affirmation of people from the LGBTQIA+ community, but also provides clarity on our goals to support gender expression and racial justice, said the Reverend Jennifer Michael, pastor at St. Timothy.The celebration will culminate during the weekend of Oct. 22-23; the Reverend Kevin L. Strickland, Bishop of the ELCA Southeastern Synod, will preside at both weekend worship services Saturday night at 5:30 p.m. and Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m., with a reception following the Sunday morning service. Everyone in the community is invited to attend. Bishop Strickland says Being Reconciled in Christ by designation is far more than something a church puts on its sign; it is a symbolic and active action showing the public that when we say All are Welcome we mean all all because that is when the Kingdom of God is most fully seen and experienced. I am proud of St. Timothy and the witness that they have and continue to provide to offering inclusion to all persons. Who is monitoring for grooming at PRIDE week? It's clearly not the parents who took their own children to a "kid-friendly drag show" at Wanderlinger Brewing Company this weekend. It's obviously not the participants who grabbed a child's hand and gestured to rub the actor/actress's groin. (forgive me for not knowing the correct pronouns or whatever in this case) It's apparently not the business's business to follow not just laws but moral obligations to stop this appalling behavior. And I highly doubt our new "WOKE" police chief will investigate this under Tennessee Code Title 39/2557 which states "it is unlawful to direct, present, or produce any obscene theatrical production, peep show or live performance, and that every person who participates in that part of the production which renders the production or performance obscene is guilty of the offense". So who is going to protect these innocent children? This opinion is not an attack on the overall event or those who are in and beside the LGBTQ community. However, if these people do want outside respect and acceptance, some accountability needs to be kept on their own instead of policed by outsiders. The video of this event is across social media and needs to be addressed by law enforcement.This opinion is not an attack on the overall event or those who are in and beside the LGBTQ community. However, if these people do want outside respect and acceptance, some accountability needs to be kept on their own instead of policed by outsiders. Michael Hailey * * * A video circulating online shows child sexual abuse taking place at a local establishment in Chattanooga. Seems every adult present in the video had no problem with what they were witnessing by allowing what looked like toddlers to participate in the madness. If they did not approve, I do hope they made a report of the abuse to local authorities. According to TN Code 37-1-605(a)(9) Neighbor, relative, friend or any other person; who knows or has reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been sexually abused SHALL report such knowledge or suspicion to the department in the manner described in subsection (b). The code is clear if you have reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been abused you "SHALL" report the abuse. Shall means you must. Any reasonable person watching what took place I believe would come to the same conclusion I did. Since I came to the conclusion child sexual abuse had taken place, I made phone calls to the Chattanooga Police Department and to the District Attorney's office. If you were at Wanderlinger Brewing Co. on youth pride day and witnessed the drag show performance with children in the establishment and their participation in the show, you were obligated by TN statute to report it to the authorities. Handing off a child to one of the monsters and allowing a child to rub the private area is clear child sexual abuse according to TN Code 37-1-602(3)(C)(iv) the intentional touching of the genitals or intimate parts, including the breast, genital area, groin, inner thighs, and buttocks, or the clothing covering them, of either the child or the perpetrator... I do hope the Chattanooga Police Department and the District Attorney plan on investigating the event that took place and hold every adult that did not report the abuse and every adult that allowed their child to be subjected to this sexual abuse prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Thomas Lynn * * * In the Gospels, we see God's tender heart for children (Matthew 18:1-5). His willingness to devote time to them, His recognition of their societal status (Matthew 25:31-46), and His zeal for protecting their innocence demonstrates His high regard (Matthew 18:6-7 ). Shall we discuss abortion too? Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and is desperately wicked: who can know it? Michael Burns * * * Lynn, Hailey, Burns: There was no "grooming" nor "sexually exploitation of children" at that drag queen show from the video I watched. Where were your boys' concern while the young Stoughton, Ma. woman, Sandra Birchmore, a real case of grooming and sexual exploitation, was being taking advantage of by heterosexual males beginning around the age of 13 or 15 on up to the time at 23 years old and pregnant, she committed suicide? Why weren't you guys beating your drums and sounding the alarm on behalf of the Sandra Birchmores of the world? Brenda Washington * * * To Brenda Washington and the Chattanooga community, First to Brenda Washington - what happened to the young lady in Massachusetts is appalling. I don't believe any of the people who wrote their concerns about the "kid friendly" drag show would agree with what happened to this young lady. It is a tragedy that evidently was allowed to occur because no one spoke out. The previous writers are speaking out. We have to speak out about any kind of abuse of children. Woe to the people of Chattanooga who are okay with this and to those who remain silent. Do we think this is where it will stop? A "harmless, kid friendly drag show? This has not been my experience. Once this is normalized, another step further into debauchery will be taken. Chattanooga is better than this and I pray our new district attorney will do her job and look into this sexual abuse of children. Our silence would be affirmation of this type of activity. Jody McCoy Magnolia Trust Company has promoted Rebecca McNabb, JD, LLM, to vice president and trust officer. Since Ms. McNabb joined the company in 2021 as a trust advisor, her focus has been on providing personalized trust and estate solutions for Magnolia clients. Rebecca has been a tremendous asset to both our clients and the company, said Magnolia President and CEO Todd McMullen. This is a well-deserved promotion that positions us to support our continued growth and provide best-in-class fiduciary and trust services to our clients. In her new role, Ms. McNabb will continue to work with families to create trust strategies that address unique family assets and long-term plans. She will play an essential role in delivering individualized, objective estate and trust administration services to Magnolia clients. Ms. McNabb received her law degree at the University of Tennessee College of Law and her bachelors in political science, legal studies at UTC. She earned a masters degree in taxation from the University of Alabama in July 2021, with a focus on estate planning concerns. Prior to joining Magnolia, Ms. McNabb served as a law clerk at Elder Law of East Tennessee, where she drafted estate planning documents and conducted case research. 5 Documentaries Like Sins of Our Mother to Add to Your True-Crime Watchlist Lori Vallow was a devout Mormon. But the mother of three found herself in an extreme fringe group brainwashed by a cult leader who was also her fifth husband. Chad Daybell convinced Vallow that spirits had possessed her children, resulting in their gruesome murders. The new Netflix true-crime documentary Sins of Our Mother tells the familys sad tale. This three-part series delves deeper into the part Daybell played in Vallows downfall and her childrens disappearance. When you finish the riveting series, add these five documentaries like Sins of Our Mother to your true-crime watchlist. The Crimes That Changed Us: Andrea Yates (2020) Andrea Yates with her sons and husband in an undated family photo | Yates Family/Getty Images Andrea Yates was a typical housewife in Houston, Texas. But her life drastically changed in June 2001 when she drowned her five children in a bathtub before calmly calling the police and her husband. The then-37-year-old, who was diagnosed with severe postpartum psychosis and depression, became fascinated with an extreme religious idea that led her to believe Satan was telling her to kill her children. The Crimes That Changed Us: Andrea Yates details Yates life before and after the murders. The episode premiered in the U.S. on Nov. 11, 2020. You can watch this true-crime documentary like Sins of Our Mother on ID and Amazon Prime Video. American Murder: The Family Next Door (2020) American Murder: The Family Next Door details the tragic story of the Watts family murders in Colorado in 2018. The documentary dives into the several theories fronted by the public about what could have motivated Chris Watts to murder his wife Shanann and their two young daughters. This true-crime documentary doesnt reveal who the killer is early on but drops the bombshell midway. The public heavily scrutinized the case, with some observers believing Shananns love for her phone and recording their children was an obsession. Chris also tried painting his wife in an abusive light, but his claims turned out to have been false. By the end of American Murder: The Family Next Door, the viewer sees a clear picture of the events leading to the crime but no solid motive. Stream the documentary on Netflix. Casey Anthony: An American Murder Mystery (2017) Casey Anthonys case angered the public. She was apprehended in 2008 following the disappearance of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee. Volunteers followed up on several leads for half a year in a nationwide search for the toddler. However, the girls remains turned up in a laundry bag in a wooded area near Anthonys family home. After a highly publicized trial, Anthony was acquitted of manslaughter and murder charges despite many people believing she killed her daughter. Casey Anthony: A Murder Mystery talks to family members, who give their firsthand accounts of the tragic details surrounding Caylees disappearance and death. The chilling true-crime documentary is available on Roku and Peacock. Broken Harts (2021) Broken Harts is an 88-minute film delving into the tragic lives and deaths of the Hart family. The documentary narrates the stark difference between the Harts idyllic online lives and the heartbreaking reality. Broken Harts recounts how Jennifer Hart and her wife Sarah Hart not only abused their Black adopted children but also killed them when Jennifer drove the entire family off a cliff. Stream this heartbreaking true-crime film on discovery+. Escape From a House of Horror (2021) Escape From a House of Horror details the story of the Turpin children. Their parents chained them inside their house, denied them basic needs such as food and hygiene, and cut off outside contact. This true-crime special narrates how a teenage Jordan Turpin one of the 13 imprisoned children aged 2 to 29 escaped and rescued her siblings. Escape From a House of Horror is available on Hulu. How to get help: In the U.S., call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788. RELATED: 3 Fascinating Cases That Never Seen Again Season 2 Is Covering On healthcare and the proper role of government therein By Jonah Chan web posted September 26, 2022 Every doctor in the country must be licensed by the state government. Every drug available for purchase requires an FDA certification. Every time my grandparents visit the doctor or order medical equipment, they rely on government programs such as Medicare and Medi-Cal. The amount to which the government should be involved in healthcare, if at all, is a hotly debated topic these days. British economist and Princeton professor Agnus Deaton expresses his opinion on this issue in his book Deaths of Despair: A Tale of Two Americas. He writes, A single-payer healthcare system that covers everyone from birth and enforces price controls would remove a [spreading] cancer on American wealth and health [. . .] In my opinion, however, a single-payer, government-operated healthcare system would be harmful to our country because it would restrict the free market from functioning as it normally would, and it would drive up consumer prices. First of all, price controls are detrimental to society. It prevents the market from naturally shifting to equilibrium when supply and demand change. For example, if the supply of a good or service decreases, perhaps medication in this case, prices would most likely increase, because there would be the same amount of demand for the medication, but there would be less medication available. When prices rise, people might decide that they do not need that much of the product after all, or that they could make do with an alternative. However, if the government did not allow prices to increase, people would continue trying to buy the same amount of medication, potentially leading to shortages and backorders. Nobody would be better off in this situation consumers would lack their medication, and producers might not be able to make enough money to continue producing at the same quality. The government might have good intentions to keep companies from charging us high prices, but, in reality, price controls simply obstruct the natural operation of the free market and harm us as consumers. Also, a single-payer healthcare system would suppress our freedom to choose and drive prices up. In a nation founded on the principles of freedom and individualism, we should have the power to make choices about our own health. Furthermore, even if we were allowed to choose between medical providers within a single-payer system, there would be far fewer options. It would be much harder for companies to enter the government-controlled market because of the strict rules and cumbersome registration processes involving mountains upon mountains of paperwork, not to mention all the associated fees and expenses. To compensate for their outlays, those entities would charge more, ultimately resulting in higher taxes on the average American. Finally, a third party spending your money for you would never allocate it as carefully or frugally as yourself, and the government has never been known for its thriftiness. Thus, the larger the role the government plays in the healthcare system, the higher our related expenses will become. However, some may argue that the government should have more say in the healthcare sector. They believe that this would allow lower income and other disadvantaged groups to receive the necessary care they would not otherwise be able to pay for. At first glance, this may seem like a compelling reason. However, this would simply add to the already growing list of incentives for people who really belong in the workforce to remain unemployed and depend on the government for their everyday needs. If the government will provide so much for them, why would they want to try to gain wealth and thus lose all their benefits? Furthermore, our own countrys economy would be harmed. The less labor that is employed, the less efficiently we will be producing and the further from our production possibilities curve we will be operating at. Last but not least, it is we taxpayers who ultimately must foot the bill. Recently, my grandmother received a new $2,735 CPAP system provided through Medicare and Medi-Cal, which she would not have been able to purchase on her own. Yet, we essentially already paid for the CPAP system through our federal and state taxes. Proponents of the single-payer system also argue that administrative costs could be lowered in a centralized environment. This reason, too, is invalid. Extrapolating from the extremely wasteful track record of the government, administrative costs would likely rise instead of going down. For example, the Social Security Administration, by its own estimation, wastes roughly $3 billion taxpayer dollars annually in improper payments alone, without factoring in the cost of the labor it then hires to track down those payments. Thus, neither the claim that it would provide care for a larger number of needy people nor the projection that it would reduce expenditures is valid. In conclusion, additional government control over the healthcare system would only add to the existing adverse effects on our country. Besides artificially restricting the market from responding to changes in supply and demand, it would also cost us more as consumers. The better option is to allow the healthcare market to be as free from federal and local regulations as possible. This would promote healthy competition leading to innovation, lower prices, and a higher quality of care overall. This is Jonah Chans first contribution to Enter Stage Right. (c) Jonah Chan Home After Jeffrey Dahmers Arrest, German Police Reopened Unsolved Murder Cases That Happened During His Time In the Army Netflixs DAHMER Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story hit the streaming giant in late September, but throughout the 10 true crime episodes, there was only a glimpse into his time spent in the Army. The notorious serial killer served over two years in the Army before they discharged him for excessive drinking. After the Milwaukee police finally arrested Dahmer, the police force in Germany reopened at least five unsolved murder and disappearance cases that happened during Dahmers time serving there. Heres everything we know about Jeffrey Dahmers time serving in the Army and the reopened cases in Germany. Why did Jeffrey Dahmer get kicked out of the Army? Dahmer Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: Mark Weiler as Officer, Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer | Netflix Jeffrey Dahmer served in the United States Army for over two years, from January 1979 to March 1981. He trained as a medic at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. Then he was deployed to Baumholder, West Germany, where he served as a combat medic in the 2nd Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment in the 8th Infantry Division. His superiors honorably discharged Dahmer from the Army in March 1981 because of excessive alcohol abuse. In DAHMER Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, viewers discover that Jeffrey Dahmers father, Lionel Dahmer, forced him to enlist in the Army in 1979. Then the series jumps to one year later. Viewers discover that Jeffrey became a medic but stole medication from the infirmary Halcion. He used sleeping medication to drug his victims, similarly to those he assaulted and murdered at his Oxford apartment in Milwaukee. German police reopened unsolved murder cases after Jeffrey Dahmers arrest in 1991 RELATED: Jeffrey Dahmers Brother, David, Is Still Alive But Changed His Name Four days after Jeffrey Dahmers arrest in July 1991, German police reopened several files of unsolved murders and disappearances that could be linked to his time serving in the Army. They wanted to re-examine five unsolved murder cases while Dahmer was stationed in Germany. (via AP News). Four of the five murder victims were women. So, the cases did not fit Dahmers pattern of assaulting and killing men and young boys. We have no concrete information, for the time being, Willi Fundermann, the federal police spokesperson, told AP News at the time. But we are investigating. The German Police also investigated Dahmers possible involvement in a 10-year-old boys murder. However, the only connection they made was the time frame. The authorities never charged Dahmer with any murders in Germany. Two soldiers reported that Jeffrey Dahmer raped them while stationed in Germany Preston Davis and Billy Joe Capshaw both came forward since Jeffrey Dahmers arrest to share their stories from serving in the Army with the serial killer. As shown in DAHMER Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Davis believes that Dahmer drugged him first and then raped him inside an armored vehicle while in Germany. Capshaw shared a room with Dahmer at the age of 17. He told the Independent that the convicted murderer tortured and raped him for over 17 months. However, Dahmer denied sexually assaulting anyone while serving in the Army in Germany. Law enforcement never convicted Dahmer for any crimes he allegedly committed while serving in the Army in Germany. All 10 episodes of DAHMER Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story are currently streaming on Netflix. RELATED: How Did Jeffrey Dahmers Grandmother Die and Where Did She Live in Real Life? If season 17 of Sister Wives has proven anything, its proven that Christine Brown is done playing nice. The mother of six spent the first 10 or more seasons of the series actively promoting polygamy and suppressing any feelings of resentment and loneliness. Shes over that now. In a clip for the fourth episode of season 17, And Then There Were Three, Christine loses her cool over Kody Browns declaration that he needs 50/50 custody of Truely Brown. Truely is the only minor child that Christine and Kody currently share. Their other five children are all over 18. Kody Brown announced he wanted 50/50 custody of Truely Brown in the upcoming Sister Wives episode So far, TLCs cameras have done a great job at capturing the ins and outs of the end of a marriage. In an upcoming episode of Sister Wives, Christine and Kody finally get around to discussing custody of Truely Brown. In a clip involving Kody, Christine, and the other sister wives, Kody asserts that his ex-wife couldnt just take his youngest daughter away from him. Kody insists he will need 50/50 custody. The cast of Sister Wives | Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images The order was an unexpected one. Since moving to Flagstaff, Kody has spent limited time with the children he shares with three of his four wives. Instead, he appears to be spending the bulk of his time with his fourth wife, Robyn Brown, and the five children they have. Truely, born just weeks before Kody and Robyn spiritually wed, appears to have spent the least time with her father out of the 13 children born to the Browns before Robyn joined the family. Kodys suggestion that a 50/50 custody split would be necessary could be a power move. It might have been his attempt to keep Christine from moving to her preferred city. In a previous sit-down, Christine revealed her plans to move to Utah. Kody tried to veto the idea, claiming the 500-mile distance was too great. If Kody had pursued an even custody split, he could have crushed Christines dream of returning to Salt Lake City. At the very least, he could have postponed the move for several years. Christine Brown cant hide her disdain for Kody Brown any longer Christine is no longer interested in painting a pretty picture of her troubled marriage or hiding her feelings about her ex-husband. In a preview for the upcoming episode of Sister Wives, Christine seethes about Kodys sudden interest in having custody of Truely. Christine Brown, Sister Wives | TLC In the incredibly raw clip, Christine says, Hell, he could have had 50/50 time with us the whole time we lived here! Her anger is palpable. Sister Wives fans note that her fury is a marked departure from her often sunny and bubbly disposition. Christines feelings are understandable. She spent much of season 16 of Sister Wives subtly revealing just how little time Kody spent with her and her children. Now, with the marriage officially over, shes telling it like it is. Christine recently noted that Kody spent just three full days with her and the children they share since moving to Flagstaff, Arizona, in 2018. Considering that revelation, his sudden interest in 50/50 custody of his 12-year-old daughter feels disingenuous, at best. The fourth episode of season 17, And Then There Were Three, airs on October 2 at 10:00 pm on TLC. The episode is available at midnight on October 2 to discovery+ subscribers. Previous episodes are available for streaming on the platform, too. RELATED: Cooking With Just Christine Season Opener Highlights the Difference in Christines Mood Since Moving Away From Kody Brown Fame can tear people apart, as George Harrison and his sister Louise learned in the 1990s. The siblings had been close, but they had a falling out that put them out of contact for years. The argument was caused by an Illinois bed-and-breakfast Harrisons sister used her family name to promote. Harrison was reportedly so upset by the name of the bed-and-breakfast that he and his sister stopped speaking. George Harrison | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images George Harrisons sister manages a Beatles cover band Shortly after Harrison died, Louise decided to put together a Beatles tribute band to honor her brothers work. See @liverpoollegend Sat. 7pm at UCA w/ @ConwaySymphony! Thanks to Ringo & George Harrison's sister for joining us! pic.twitter.com/y0Jayiz54a Mallory Brooks (@MalloryHBrooks) January 29, 2016 Ive been around the Beatles and Beatles performances for many years, Louise told The Dallas Morning News in 2014. There are hundreds of Beatles tribute bands out there, but I thought we could put something more authentic together. The one thing that was important to me is I wanted the guys in the band to be the kind of guys George would want to hang around. I think Ive succeeded, and its been quite fun. The siblings had a falling out over a bed-and-breakfast Years earlier, Louise made another nod toward her brothers music career with a bed-and-breakfast in her Illinois home. Louise did not own the establishment, but she used her name and connection to Harrison to promote it. This was the same home that Harrison stayed in when he visited Louise in 1963, the first time he ever went to America. Her small, southern Illinois town was one of the last places where Harrison experienced normalcy before The Beatles exploded in popularity in the United States. Despite his fond memories of the trip, he didnt appreciate the fact that the bed-and-breakfast was called A Hard Days Night. He felt that this took advantage of his fame, and he cut off contact with Louise for years. George Harrison and his sister reconciled before his death Luckily, the Harrison siblings reunited before his death in 2001. When Louise heard that her brother was in the hospital receiving treatment for his cancer, she drove to New York to see him. I was in Toronto two weeks before he died when I finally heard that he was ill. I drove through New York, so I could try and get a chance to see him, she told the Daily Mail in 2016. As luck would have it, I was able to get in touch with his doctor who gave me the information to go to see him and I was able to see him for a couple hours. She had a front row seat to #TheBritishInvasion. George Harrison's sister Louise shares memories. Coming up on #AC360 pic.twitter.com/1IzDNh8v0T Anderson Cooper 360 (@AC360) January 31, 2014 She explained that they reminisced about their childhood and laughed about old times. We talked about the fun things that made us laugh when we were kids, she said. All the family jokes we laughed over for years. It was a very emotional moment. He was still George. He must have been in pain, but he didnt show it. We reminisced about our childhood, and his sense of humor was the same as ever. RELATED: George Harrisons Sister Said She Wouldnt Want to Be Rich After His Experience With Money Netflixs series, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, follows the story of the infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer killed 17 men, many of whom died in his apartment. But he also killed while living in his childhood home in Akron, Ohio. Heres what to know about Jeffrey Dahmers home he grew up in and why it was once rented for $8,000 per week. Where is Jeffrey Dahmers house in Ohio? Jeffrey Dahmer | Marny Malin/Sygma via Getty Images Jeffrey Dahmers home he grew up in is located in Akron, Ohio. According to All Thats Interesting, he and his family moved to the Beth Township suburb of Akron in 1968, which only had a population of around 4,500 residents. Dahmer murdered his first person in Akron, and he scattered the victims bones around the familys backyard. It was also in this childhood home where Dahmers parents seemingly didnt spend much time with him. His father, Lionel Dahmer, was busy with his studies, and his mother, Joyce Dahmer, was a hypochondriac and thus didnt want to be around her son, as she feared she would infect him. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2,170-square-foot house in Akron was built in 1952 on 1.55 acres of land. Its been fully renovated since the Dahmers lived there. The house now contains a greenhouse, a spiral staircase, and an outdoor balcony. In 2005, musician Chris Butler bought the home for $244,500, and he later rented it out for $8,000 a week in 2016 when the Republican National Convention took place in the area. Butler later tried to sell the home and listed it for $329,000, but it seems it didnt sell. The home had an estimated property value of $260,500 in 2019. Can you visit Jeffrey Dahmers house? 'I was looking for a place where I could make noise and not piss anybody off,' says musician Chris Butler, who purchased the house where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed his first victim. https://t.co/zQyASOSoCg Observer (@observer) September 23, 2022 So, can those keeping up with the Netflix series visit Jeffrey Dahmers childhood home in Ohio? According to Roadtrippers, the property isnt open to the public. The website shows a quote from the owner regarding the property. Its a private residence, youre welcome to take pictures from the road same with news crews, it reads. We have to let them shoot from the road, I cant stop that. I try to manage the interest, shall we say. I still get calls from ghost-hunt-type shows, and early on I did one or two of those, because it was funny but Im real cautious about anything that could be considered exploitation. Another comment from 2019 echoes this. This is private property and the home owners will prosecute the road next to the house is not a public road, it reads. The house has video monitoring the police department is at the end of the street fast response. Heres what happened to the apartment building where he committed most of his murders The 49-unit apartment complex where Jeffrey Dahmer committed his crimes has been demolished. The company who had owned the building pledged to plant grass and flowers after demolition but did not fulfill their promise. READ: https://t.co/k2245zwdCt pic.twitter.com/yS8cQGKtsC PhilSTAR L!fe (@philstarlife) September 26, 2022 Jeffrey Dahmers childhood home is interesting to fans of the Netflix series, but so is his apartment building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where most of his murders occurred. According to PopBuzz, he lived in the Oxford Apartments at 924 North 25th Street. The publication reports many residents of the apartment complex moved out after Dahmers arrest. As of 2022, the building no longer exists. One of the victims families wished for the apartment building to be demolished. Today, the area stands as an empty lot with no current plans for a memorial. For more on the entertainment world and exclusive interviews, subscribe to Showbiz Cheat Sheets YouTube channel. RELATED: Jeffrey Dahmers Family Is Still Alive: Details About His Father Lionel and Brother David Netflixs series, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, examines Jeffrey Dahmers many murders. The show opens with Dahmers last attempted murder in his apartment, which ultimately resulted in his arrest. But before he lived in his apartment, he killed someone in his childhood home. So, where was Jeffrey Dahmers home he grew up in, and who owns it now? Heres what to know about the person who bought the house and how they looked for bones in the yard. Jeffrey Dahmer killed someone in his childhood home Jeffrey Dahmer | Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via Getty Images Those whove researched Jeffrey Dahmer are quite familiar with his apartment, but the serial killer also killed someone in the home he grew up in. So, where is Jeffrey Dahmers childhood home? According to Distractify, Dahmer grew up in Akron, Ohio. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but his family moved to Akron in 1968, when Jeffrey was about 8 years old. Jeffrey killed a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks in the house in 1978 as a high school grad. I always knew that it was wrong. The first killing was not planned, Jeffrey Dahmer told Inside Edition, according to Distractify. I was coming back from the shopping mall back in 78. Id had fantasies about picking up a hitchhiker and taking him back to the house and having complete dominance and control over him. Who owns Jeffrey Dahmers childhood home? Heres what the owner said about looking for bones 'I was looking for a place where I could make noise and not piss anybody off,' says musician Chris Butler, who purchased the house where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed his first victim. https://t.co/zQyASOSoCg Observer (@observer) September 23, 2022 Jeffrey Dahmers family no longer live in his childhood home. So, who owns it now? Observer spoke to Chris Butler, the owner of the Dahmer home, in 2018. Butler is a musician and formed The Waitresses in 1978. He purchased the Dahmer house in 2005 without having any idea of its backstory ahead of time. The agent was well, I dont want to say he was shrewd, but he didnt tell me right away, lets put it that way, Butler explained. They let me fall in love with the house first, and then came the phone call. It took my breath away for about 24 hours, and then I thought, wow, Ive got to do this. Despite the history, Butler noted the house had a great vibe, and he doesnt believe in ghosts. With that said, he poked around for human remains when he bought the place. I looked for bones in the yard until I read about how thorough the detectives had been, he explained. They basically put every piece of dirt through a sieve. The crawl space is definitely creepy, though. Apparently, it lit up like Christmas when they sprayed that luminol stuff on the walls. Is the house for sale? Jeffrey Dahmer's childhood home for sale in Ohio: http://t.co/zQk5FYErtr pic.twitter.com/coaeFCs1Bp ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) April 6, 2014 So, is Jeffrey Dahmers childhood home currently up for grabs? According to Telegram & Gazette, the house was up for sale in 2014 and was first listed in 2012 before getting pulled from the market. Its unclear if the house remains up for sale in 2022. Chris Butler told Observer he has no regrets about purchasing the property despite the expense. No regrets about the Dahmer business, and I love this place, he noted. Ive moved so much in my life, I cant envision moving again. Im 68, Im just tired of packing s*** up. A wonderful thing about the house is that everything I collected and previously had to keep in storage just shoehorned in beautifully. I guess the train stops here. For more on the entertainment world and exclusive interviews, subscribe to Showbiz Cheat Sheets YouTube channel. RELATED: Jeffrey Dahmers Father and Stepmother Are Proud of the Name Dahmer You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Higher education in Poland By Mark Wegierski web posted September 26, 2022 Mark Wegierski looks at post-secondary education in Poland, based partially on some personal experiences from twenty years ago. The number of students attending public and private universities and colleges in Poland has been reaching ever-higher levels with every year. There has been an incredible boom in private colleges since the 1990s. Also, there have been numerous State Higher Schools of Vocational Learning established. However, the ever-higher tuition costs for some studies (as well as the high costs of living in the major university towns), and high levels of poverty in Poland, may mean that above-average but not stellar students, from less affluent families, may not get the chance to attend university. There is also a major trend to political correctness and probably too much emphasis on E.U. guidelines in some institutions of higher learning, resulting in less and less Polish patriotic spirit. A parallel trend is the excessive stress on career-related business and technical studies, rather than on what could be seen as a better-rounded education in liberal arts such as philosophy, history, and literature (at least for part of ones pre-professional studies). I recall that on Friday, September 27, 2002, I had travelled with my female relative from Ciechocinek, the spa and resort town at which I was staying during the late summer and early autumn of 2002, southwestward to Lodz, the second-largest city in Poland. She drove a compact yet elegant Peugeot 206. Ciechocinek lies about two hundred kilometers northwest of Warsaw. She was going to pick up the formal graduation papers associated with the Masters degree she had just completed, at the Wojskowa Akademia Medyczna (Military Medical Academy) in Lodz. There was some urgency to the matter, as the WAM was merging with another institution to become the Uniwersytet Medyczny (Medical University) in Lodz. The WAM had been open to civilian students for a number of years, and my relative had completed a Masters in Public Health on a part-time basis. As we sat in the car in front of the guard-house entrance to the university, I recalled her complaints, in earlier telephone conversations, about the long trips to classes she had to take from the environs of Ciechocinek, where she lives, to Lodz, often in inclement weather. The WAM campus consisted of several large buildings constructed in what I thought to be a 1920s, Neoclassical style. I still remember the pleasant sunshine and warm weather at the time of our trip there, on that day in September. Among her other studies, my relative has completed a Licentiate (the Polish equivalent of a B.A.) in Cosmetology, at the Rydygier Medical Academy in Bydgoszcz, Poland. There was some controversy when that Medical Academy proposed to merge with the Nicolaus Copernicus Univeristy (Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika UMK) in Torun since the city administration of Bydgoszcz had hoped that the Rydygier Medical Academy could have become part of a major new university in Bydgoszcz itself. Indeed, the Rydygier Medical Academy became the Medical College of Nicolaus Copernicus University. Nevertheless, a few years later, there was a major university established in Bydgoszcz Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego (UKW) (University of King Casimir the Great). Having reached Lodz, we then continued southward to Czestochowa, where most of my relatives immediate family including her mother, sister, and brother live, in a fairly big house with a large yard, on the citys outskirts. Driving around Czestochowa, we noticed the large, elegant building of the Akademia Polonijna (Polonia University), a major new private college, which is very well-regarded as seen, for example, in its high place in the annual college rankings put out jointly by the large-circulation newspaper, Rzeczpospolita (The Republic) and Perspektywy (Perspectives), a major magazine for students. The Akademia Polonijna has set, as one of its missions, extensive cultural and scholarly interaction with persons of Polish descent living abroad, as well as documentation of the various cultural and patriotic achievements of the various Polonia communities. (Polonia is the term often used in the Polish language to describe Polish communities outside of Poland.) The combination of the activities of the Akademia Polonijna may, indeed, be seen as felicitous. Since we had arrived unannounced at her familys house, we decided to go for supper to Zornica, an elegant restaurant (and inn) on the southern outskirts of Czestochowa, built in the style of the Goral (Polish Mountaineer) architecture. Although, at six P.M., the place was rather empty, my dish was nevertheless tasty, consisting of pork medallions baked with mountaineer cheese and mushrooms, along with spicy roast potatoes, on a bed of sauerkraut. We went back to the house for tea and cake, and then started the long trip back to Ciechocinek at about 8 P.M. In a feat of driving I thought incredible, we got back to Ciechocinek somewhere after midnight. Many young people (as well as some persons in middle age) in Poland today, face the problem that, although they may in fact have very good training in a technical or business field, jobs for them simply dont exist. The unemployed graduate of Management and Marketing studies in Poland is a virtual cliche. The nationwide average of unemployment was for many years around twenty percent, and was actually somewhat higher for young people, and in certain regions, such as the southeast. And, in fact, two to three million Poles (especially younger people), have actually left since 2004, emigrating mostly to Great Britain, Ireland, and other E.U. countries. Those Polish politicians who can somehow improve the employment situation in Poland, in a way that will be sustainable over the long run, can expect to receive major support from the people of Poland. (An earlier version of this article has appeared in Polonez: Canadian-Polish News (1-15 January 2007), p. A1.) Mark Wegierski is a Toronto-based writer and historical researcher. He was born in Toronto of Polish immigrant parents. Home Our view of God grows because of our interactions and relationships with those who came from different countries. National Migration Week, an event has been celebrated by the Catholic Church for nearly half a century, was September 19-25. The week always culminates in a celebration with the Vatican on the last Sunday of the month, called The World Day of Migrants and Refugees. The theme this year is Building the Future with Migrants and Refugees, which I believe is a timely and appropriate theme due to the recent events in our country. On August 31, 2022, approximately 100 asylum seekers and migrants arrived in Chicago. Since that date, hundreds more have come into our city. Initially, these asylum seekers and migrants entered the U.S. via our southern border and were bussed from Texas. The people arriving on these buses have already been actively fleeing persecution from their home countries for days or weeks, and were forced to leave so that they and their families could be safe. They crossed the U.S. border seeking safety in the form of asylum. Asylum seekers are not in violation of any federal laws, despite some popular thought. According to The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Asylum is a form of protection which allows an individual to remain in the United States instead of being removed to a country of feared persecution. Actually, it is federal law that anyone who is on U.S. soil can apply for asylum, whether it is through an official point of entry or crossing over a border. It was created as a means for persecuted people to escape violence and death and find protection in our country. Once they are on our land, they can apply for asylum and safely await their case. Like all immigrants to the United States, asylum seekers and migrants must undergo a long and lengthy application and interview process, and it can take years to see a judge who will decide their case. While they are waiting, asylum seekers and their families need all the necessities that we do: a place to stay, food, and money. There is little support that the U.S. government gives to asylum seekers, and they cannot work until they receive a work authorization, which can take up to 6 months to a year to be approved. As a result, many of these families find themselves on the streets or in unhealthy and dangerous situations. This is where the church and local communities can step in to help by not only meeting their felt needs, but also through taking part in advocacy and educating people on the value that asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees add to our society. Showing compassion and hospitality to these image-bearers blesses and nourishes our own souls. As a Christian living in the U.S., I am compelled to care for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants arriving in our country because of Gods Great Commandment to us as believers. God commands us in Leviticus to not mistreat the foreigner in our land, but rather treat them as native-born and love them as we love ourselves. Along with the commandment to love asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, we must also recognize how showing compassion and hospitality to these image-bearers blesses and nourishes our own souls. In other words, their presence in our lives benefits us as Christians by expanding our capacity to give and receive love. Pope Francis cited Isaiah 60:5 in his message for The World Day of Migrants and Refugees, in which which it is prophesied, Then you shall see and be radiant, your heart shall thrill and rejoice; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. The wealth of the nations is represented by the richness immigrants, asylum seekers, and migrants bring to our communities. We need only to look at our storied history to see what great contributions immigrants and refugees have made to building our cities and infrastructure. Think about the diversity we experience in food, innovation, cultural practices, and friendships. Our view of God grows because of our interactions and relationships with those who came from different countries. Building the future cannot happen without asylum seekers, migrants, and immigrants because our past was built by them. Our country, cities, societies, and communities would not exist without the contributions of foreigners. Lets remember this truth, and the great beauty which comes from seeking unity with all people, while recognizing that our differences enrich our lives and bring us closer to the heart of God. Our differences enrich our lives and bring us closer to the heart of God. Pope Francis ended his message with the following beautiful prayer. May it be our posture and prayer not only for National Migration Week and The World Day for Migrants and Refugees but also for any time we have an opportunity to engage with these groups of people. May we be a welcoming light, ushering them in from the margins to build the futureas one body for Christ. Prayer: Lord, make us bearers of hope, so that where there is darkness, your light may shine, and where there is discouragement, confidence in the future may be reborn. Lord, make us instruments of your justice, so that where there is exclusion, fraternity may flourish, and where there is greed, a spirit of sharing may grow. Lord, make us builders of your Kingdom, together with migrants and refugees and with all who dwell on the peripheries. Lord, let us learn how beautiful it is to live together as brothers and sisters. Amen. Further resources for engagement: The Better Samaritan blog is produced by the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College, a research institute which specializes in resilience and spiritual fortitude. To learn more and apply for a M.A. in Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership, visit our website Lora Kim Kwan is committed to walking with marginalized and vulnerable people towards wholeness. Lora is an alumna of the Wheaton Humanitarian and Disaster Leadership MA program and currently works for World Relief. Through her professional work and pastoral care counseling ministry, she has the privilege of being witness to the restorative power of the Holy Spirit and the unfathomable love that God has for all of His children. She seeks to embody Christ to all those that she meets and create communities of welcome for all marginalized people. Lora hopes to be a peacemaker and bridge for racial reconciliation, as well as a champion for cultural connection. The Department of Homeland Security has announced the appointment of a new, 25-member faith-based advisory council to assist Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in finding ways to protect houses of worship. The council consists of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh clergy plus some law enforcement and nonprofit faith group leaders. The safety of religious congregations has been a growing concern for a decadesince the shooting at the Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Sikh temple in 2012. It was followed by the massacre at Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina, a mostly Black congregation, in 2015; the killing of nearly two dozen worshipers at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; the killing of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. And those are only the most notable mass killings. Other acts of violence, include the 2017 and 2019 firebombings of mosques in Victoria, Texas and Escondido, California. The council is expected to help the department evaluate the effectiveness of existing security-related programs and improve coordination and sharing of threat and security-related information. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, has a Nonprofit Security Grant Program that provides federal funds for nonprofits and houses of worship to beef up security on their premises. Funding for the program was increased to $250 million in 2022, up from $180 million in 2021. But not all houses of worship that apply get the grant. This year, just over half of the 3,470 applications received were approved, the Jewish Insider reported. Several religious groups are advocating for $360 million in funding in 2023. The advisory councils mission will be broader than advocating for more money through the grant program, said Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, who was appointed to the council. I dont think were going to pay our way out of the crisis of white supremacy and violent antisemitism and too many guns in too many hands, he said. This is not just about more security cameras. We have to get to the root of these questions. Sunday night marks the start of the Jewish High Holy Days, beginning with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. The holidays draw the highest attendance at synagogues across the country. While services in the last two years saw lower attendance because of the coronavirus pandemic, Jewish leaders are expecting a return to record attendance this year. With that comes a degree of anxiety about security. Theres a sense of both joy and return and renewal and fear, Pesner said. Earlier this year a gunman entered a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue and took several congregants hostage as he demanded the release of a person in prison. The congregants and their rabbi managed to escape and the gunman was killed by an FBI hostage rescue team. Mosques and predominantly African American churches face their own threats. This is not the first council to address the issues. Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said he served under a previous Homeland Security advisory council during the Trump administration. He was also appointed to the new council. Part of the experience is understanding what other communities are going through, said Al-Mayarati. For example, not everyone will be served well by a large law enforcement presence, Pesner said. Theres a real danger of overpolicing and of policing in such a way that does harm to communities of color that have historically been on the wrong end of overpolicing, Pesner said. We have to be thoughtful and sensitive to all those who are suffering from violence and make sure policing and security are appropriate to the threat. The advisory councils first meeting will take place online Oct. 6. Anglicans, Episcopal Church reach settlement on yearslong $500 million property dispute An Anglican diocese that broke away from The Episcopal Church over theological differences has reached a settlement with its counterpart over various litigation surrounding their departure, marking the end of nearly a decade of legal battles. Bishops of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina and the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina announced the settlement on Monday, with the promise of further details for later this week. According to an emailed press release from the Anglican diocese, the settlement was the byproduct of mediation between the two dioceses for the past four months, and it has the backing of the national Episcopal denomination. This settlement agreement allows us to invest our diocesan energy, time, focus and resources in gospel ministry rather than litigation, said Anglican Bishop Chip Edgar in a statement shared with The Christian Post. While the losses we have experienced, including those of St. Christopher and several of our parish buildings are painful, I am grateful that the work we have done has brought an end to litigation between our dioceses. Episcopal Bishop Ruth Bishop Woodliff-Stanley also released a statement, saying that to follow Jesus means a willingness an eagerness, even to engage those who have been our opponents with the goal of repairing the breach between us. I have been grateful for the gracious spirit of Bishop Edgar in doing just this work with us. I am grateful for his leadership and his generosity, Woodliff-Stanley stated. While each diocese has had to leave things on the table to get to this moment, and while we experience pain over losses of some of the historic churches our members hold dear, even still, we have seen the Spirit at work in drawing us toward Gods redemptive way of love at every juncture. In November 2012, the South Carolina Diocese voted to leave The Episcopal Church due to the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in the denomination and the reported mistreatment of then-Bishop Mark Lawrence. Litigation over who rightfully owns the estimated $500 million in church properties, as well as claims over diocesan trademarks, began in January 2013. In 2017, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that at least 29 of the 36 church properties belonged to the national denomination rather than the breakaway Anglican diocese. However, in 2020, South Carolina Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson issued an order stating that each parish owned its properties since they were not held in trust by The Episcopal Church. Dickson, who had been assigned to enforce the state Supreme Court ruling, had applied "neutral principles" to the case, arguing that property records determine their ownership. In April, the state Supreme Court revisited the matter and initially ruled that 14 properties had to be returned to The Episcopal Church, while 15 parishes could remain with the Anglican diocese. However, in August, the court reduced the number of church properties that the diocese had to return to The Episcopal Church from 14 to eight, concluding that six parishes had successfully amended their bylaws not to have had their properties held in trust with the national denomination. Canadian nurse facing disciplinary hearings for supporting JK Rowling, believing there are only 2 sexes A Canadian nurse is facing a disciplinary hearing from a national medical board that could result in her losing her job after she publicly supported author J.K. Rowling's views about the harm gender identity ideology inflicts on women and children. Amy Hamm, a single mom and a nurse in Vancouver, is the founder of the Canadian Womens Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar), a non-partisan organization that advocates for women and acknowledges the biological reality that there are only two genders: men and women. In a piece published in Quillette, Hamm said she has written and spoken out about what she sees as the harmful impact of gender-identity ideology since 2016. She has openly expressed her opposition to the housing of biological men in womens prisons and the push by some institutions to refer to women as pregnant people in multiple articles published by The Post Millenial. Hamm also expressed support for Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who has voiced similar concerns about the impact of gender identity ideology on women, via a billboard in 2020. Rowling also raised concerns about the exponential increase in the number of young girls claiming to identify as trans. Similarly, Rowling fears that referring to women and girls as menstruators or people with vulvas reduces them to some sort of costume men wear. Hamm faces several hearings before the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM), which has been investigating her since November 2020. The first hearing was in June, with the second set of three-day hearings held last Wednesday through Friday. The remaining hearings are scheduled for Oct. 24-27. A spokesperson for the BCCNM told The Christian Post that the organization was unable to provide any more information than what was already stated in the public notice about the hearing. As The Post Millennial reported Wednesday, legal counsel for BCCNM, Michael Seaborn, who specified his pronouns are he/him, outlined that the hearings purpose is to determine whether Hamm made derogatory statements about trans-identifying people. The nurses attorney, Lisa Bildy, who previously worked for the legal advocacy group Canadas Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, argued that this is not a normal disciplinary hearing. She noted that in 10 years, Hamm has never once had a patient complain about her. We are here because she stands accused by her regulatory body of making what it says are discriminatory and derogatory comments about transgender people on social media, Bildy said. Seaborn said that Hamms competency is not a matter of concern, and the case is about her off-duty conduct. The college claims that it's not seeking to restrict Hamms right to free speech but argues that making such statements while identifying as a nurse poses a problem. It is important to emphasize that the college is not seeking to have Ms. Hamm fall silent on the issue of transgender people or any other issue. What the college is asserting is that there are legally proscribed limits on speech for a regulated professional, he said. As Hamm noted in her piece published in Quillette back in April, the J.K. Rowling billboard prompted two BCCNM members to complain to the organization and accuse her of being transphobic and incapable of provid[ing] safe, non-judgemental care to transgender and gender diverse patients. Six months later, BCCNM sent Hamm over 300 pages of investigation materials, raising concerns that the nurse shared Rowling's transphobic views. The materials BCCNM sent contained her articles and social media posts, along with several questions they expected her to answer. The college did not respond to Hamms lawyer who asked BCCNMs in-house attorney, Aisha Ohene-Asante, whether the characterization of J.K. Rowlings alleged views as transphobic are the words of the complainant, and not yours as a representative of the college. Men are not women. Humans are a dimorphic species. Women and men are biologically different from one another, Hamm asserted in a statement provided to BCCNM by her attorney. Women and girls have sex-based rights as a result of those differences, she continued. Those rights are under threat. This is the truth. It has always been the truth. Speaking the truth should not be a punishable offense. In 2017, Canadas Senate passed Bill C-16 by a vote of 67-11, adding protection of gender identity and expression to the Canadian Human Rights Code. Critics of the bill noted that it enables authorities to fine or imprison people whose beliefs run contrary to the law. Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould issued a statement praising the bill after its passage, saying that the bill grants trans and gender diverse persons their equal status in Canadian society. He also claimed the bill safeguards people from discrimination and hate crimes. Conservative Senator Don Plett, who voted against the bill, said in a statement before the Senate committee a month before the bill passed that "ideologues" are "using unsuspecting and sometimes complicit members of the so-called transgender community to push their ideological vanguard forward." At the time, world-famous psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, an invitee to the Senate committee, had told the committee that the bill was an unprecedented threat to freedom of expression. "We will seriously regret this," he tweeted after the bill was passed. At the time, Peterson was a professor at the University of Toronto. Cubans vote to legalize same-sex marriage, adoption in family code Cubans on Sunday voted to approve a new "family code" that, among other things, legalizes same-sex marriage and adoption. The 100-page code is one of the most progressive in Latin America. Millions of Cubans voted in the referendum on the government-backed proposal that allows same-sex couples to marry and adopt on the communist-run island amid a deepening economic crisis. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel spoke to journalists after casting his vote, saying that the code abolishes prejudices and taboos that have been ingrained in Cuban society. "My expectation is that most of the population will vote 'yes,'" Diaz-Canel was quoted as saying by Reuters. "But regardless of whether 'yes' or 'no' wins ... the popular debate that has been generated has contributed to our society." Cubans aged 16 or above were eligible to vote, and the bill required more than 50% of the votes to pass. State media on Monday morning announced what were said to be near-complete figures, suggesting that up to two-thirds voted in favor of the new code. The code underwent over two dozen drafts as nearly 80,000 town hall-style meetings were held and over 300,000 public comments were received, AFP reported. Cuba has been a one-party state under the Communist Party of Cuba since the late dictator Fidel Castro overthrew the United States-supported dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. In 2008, Castro's brother, Raul Castro, was elected president, followed by Miguel Diaz-Canel in 2019. Fidel Castro was known for rounding up both religious people and LGBT people, putting them in labor camps following his 1959 revolution. However, his niece, Mariela Castro, has been one of the leading figures behind the Cuban LGBT rights movement. She is the director of the National Center for Sex Education, which has backed same-sex marriage. Weeks before the referendum, the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops announced its opposition to several points in the new code, including surrogate pregnancies and adoption by same-sex couples. In the week leading up to the vote, the Cuban government reportedly used state-run media to promote stories and photos urging Cubans to approve the new rules. Cuban Evangelicals have long voiced their opposition to same-sex marriage. In 2018, when a Constitutional amendment was proposed to make matrimony gender neutral in Article 68, Cuba's evangelicals warned against it. "If this is approved, our nation is going to total destruction," Alida Leon Baez, president of the Cuban Evangelical League Church, said at the time. "We do not in any way approve Article 68 ... because the Bible condemns it," added Pastor Lester Fernandez of the Methodist Church in Havana. According to the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, about 59% of Cubans are Christian. Cuban Christians face constant government surveillance and infiltration despite the faith growing on the island. The Cuban government amended its Constitution in 1992, declaring it a secular state instead of an atheist state, partially allowing religious activities. Since then, the percentage of the country's population that identifies as Christian has grown. However, the communist regime continues to persecute Christians. A new constitution was adopted in 2019, which lists the country as a secular state. Sunday's referendum was held amid the country's worst economic crisis in 30 years, marked by shortages of food, gas and medicine. Last July, the people of Cuba demonstrated their anger against the government in what was said to be the largest protest in decades amid shortages of medicine and food during the pandemic. International travel restrictions and the monthslong COVID-19 lockdown within the country compacted the country's already spiraling economic crisis at the time. After the protests erupted, President Diaz-Canel addressed the nation, urging the regime's supporters to confront the protesters on the streets. He also accused the U.S. of causing the crisis in Cuba by imposing sanctions. Many religious leaders were also targeted, arrested and beaten during the protests. Ex-porn star-turned-pastor shares tips for Christians to overcome lustfulness and loneliness A former porn star who became a pastor recently shared tips for Christians on overcoming lustfulness and loneliness, stressing that lack of awareness can lead Christians down a path of temptation that they can take steps to avoid. Joshua Broome, the 40-year-old who founded the nonprofit Finding Hope Inc. with his wife, Hope, was a guest speaker on an episode of Brittni and Richard De La Mora's "Let's Talk Purity" podcast last week. Broome said that the feelings of isolation and lust can still be persistent for Christians even if they are thriving in their romantic relationships and have achieved great success in many areas in their lives. But he said that loneliness and lust are not impossible to combat if Christians actively pursue closeness with Jesus daily. "When you have an appropriate understanding of who God is, and you draw close to Him, that is where intimacy is found," Broome said. "And I think when we try to replace God with things, people like even our marriage, even our kids, even our ministry when we try to replace the intimacy that God is calling us to have, we will feel lonely [and] we will feel discontent." Broome said that he has to spend time with God. "I have to talk to Him. It's like your faith. It can't be passive," he said. "It has to be active. So, I have to actively be walking out and stepping into my relationship not my status, but my relationship with Christ. That is where intimacy is found." According to Broome, a strong relationship with Christ can't be accomplished alone, stressing the importance of good relationships and "finding good friendships." "I would say the evidence of health is fruit. So, if you look at John 15, where it's like, 'If you remain [in] Me, and I in you, your life will bear much fruit. But apart from Me, you can do nothing,'" Broome said. "In that Scripture, it's talking about cutting off dead branches. And why would you cut off dead branches? Because they're not producing fruit." "We need to get better at having self-awareness," he added. "And just saying, 'Hey, is this friendship producing fruit? Is it, like, benefiting me? Is it edifying me higher?'" Broome believes that "awareness leads to fruitfulness," which can help Christians combat loneliness and lust. "People often think that adultery just happens, like instantly. [They think], 'Oh, I see a girl. I look at her. Go to bed with her.' It happens little by little. But I really believe that that happens because of a lack of awareness," he said. "[Christians need to be] asking ourselves the big question; 'Why do I want to talk to her?' 'Why do I want to reach out to him?' [Let's say] somebody is being tempted with lustful thoughts, and, I don't know, maybe they are being triggered online. How can we help them and give them awareness to traffic through that, so they don't find themselves doing something that is out of character?" Broome believes that a key to living a Christian life and resisting temptation is living "step by step" and "moment by moment." "Know that your heart is deceitful," said Broome. "Really ask God to search your heart and bring to the forefront of your mind, literally pray that dangerous prayer: 'God, show me my inadequacies, show me how I'm offending you. Bring that to my attention because I want to submit to You.' That is where purpose is found. That is where freedom is found." Earlier in the podcast, Broome shared that being a Christian is a journey with God that takes time for every individual, urging Christians to "be patient [with yourself] in the process because God often wants to do something in you before He does something through you or for you." "I obtained all these things that I thought would make me happy and I figured out they didn't work and my life was in this pit. And then I was walking with God. It was a process. It wasn't just a 'Yes, Jesus saved my soul and gave me a new heart in that moment.' But walking with Him has been a process," Broome recounted his journey to Christ after finding success in the adult film industry. Broome said one struggle he faced after giving his life to Christ was the temptations of longing for approval. He judged himself based on how much he achieved. "When I wasn't operating out of acceptance, when I was trying to go back to my old thinking, I was operating out of achievement," Broome recalled. "My achievement drove my happiness." "In ministry, there's a lot of big wins, but that's not every day. That's not every season. And I think it's so easy to get caught up in, 'Well, I'm not experiencing what I think my life should look like or what I think I should be accomplishing.'" During his time of temptation, Broome said Psalm 23 by David served as an inspiration for him to put God first. "[When I am] thinking about David [and] Psalm 23, [it] is like: 'Lord you are my shepherd. I shall not want.' Laying my wants, my success, my understanding of belief in victory because it's not about me. It's about furthering the Kingdom," Broome noted. "More importantly, it's not even about what I could ever do for the Kingdom. It's about me growing closer to Jesus Christ every day, me growing in intimacy with Him. Because so often, as ministers of the Gospel, which we all are ... sometimes your life is not going to look like what you think it should." "Your objective is not to achieve; it's to obey," Broome said. Nun murdered, 6 beheaded by the Islamic State in Mozambique Amid rising jihadist violence in Mozambique, an 83-year-old Italian nun was shot and killed and six others were beheaded earlier this month by suspected militants aligned with the Islamic State. Sister Maria de Coppi was killed in the Sept. 6 attack in Chipene city when gunmen stormed a Catholic mission compound and set fire to buildings, including the church and hospital, according to reports. The attack lasted five hours as the militants ransacked and burned the Diocese of Nacala's mission church, school, health center, dwellings, library and vehicles, reports Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. "They destroyed everything," said Bishop Alberto Vera of Nacala in a phone interview, saying de Coppi served as a nun there for 60 years. "The attackers broke open the tabernacle and vandalized part of the sacristy, looking for whatever they could find probably money." According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists forced the sisters to leave the convent. Other nuns fled with the girls. As de Coppi was about to leave, she remembered smaller children were still in the building. When she went back to retrieve the children, she was shot. The nun's killing is "part of a progression of attacks by insurgents" that began in late August in two northern provinces of Mozambique, the Catholic news outlet Fides reports. President Filipe Nyusi issued a statement revealing that on the day the nun was killed, "terrorists" also beheaded six citizens, kidnapped three people and torched dozens of houses in Erati and Memba districts in Nampula province. According to reports, the gunmen were likely running away from security forces from Mozambique, Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community. At least 24 countries have sent troops to support the fight against insurgents in Mozambique, whose army has been accused of being corrupt and having 7,000 "ghost soldiers," according to the BBC. Islamic State-affiliated insurgents in northern Mozambique, a Christian-majority country, have internally displaced more than three-quarters of a million people, according to the United Nations. In the coastal province of Cabo Delgado, Islamic extremists have been exploiting the crisis after a civil war started in 2017. The area is rich with gas, rubies, graphite, gold and other natural resources. Protesters demonstrated at the time against what they say is profits going to an elite in the ruling Frelimo Party, with few jobs for local residents. "In 2017, jihadist insurgents began in the Cabo-Delgado province, winning over some locals due to the fact that they gave back resources to villagers from the government and killed no one," the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reported earlier. "This did not last, however, as IS started setting fire to Christian villages, and killing those who lived there." Cabo Delgado is a mostly Muslim region where at least 300 Christians have been killed for their faith, according to ICC. There have also been over 100 attacks on churches in the area. In March 2021, the United States labeled Islamic State-Mozambique as "Specially Designated Global Terrorists." ISIS-Mozambique is also known as Ansar al-Sunna and known locally as al-Shabaab. The group reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State as early as April 2018 and has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians. In November 2020, Islamic State-linked militants beheaded over 50 people, including women and children, and abducted others in weekend raids in the Miudumbe and Macomia districts of the Cabo Delgado province. Over 40 killed as mass protests rock Iran after morality police kill woman over improper hijab More than 40 people have reportedly been killed as anti-government protests rocked dozens of Iranian cities in the last week following the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested by the Iranian "morality police" for not properly wearing a hijab earlier this month. At least 41 people have been killed, and more than 1,200 have been arrested during the protests as of Saturday, Iran's state television reports. According to Reuters, the death toll is unofficial as an official count has not been released. The unrest followed the death Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who is said to have fallen into a coma in police custody after her arrest for not following Iran's strict conservative dress codes. Amini was interrogated at the Vozara detention center, where she reportedly experienced blows to the head while under interrogation. Authorities claim she died of natural causes, but critics are skeptical. Acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif called for an impartial investigation by an "independent competent authority, that ensures, in particular, that her family has access to justice and truth." The U.N. reports that Amini's death comes as morality police have expanded street patrols in recent months, "subjecting women perceived to be wearing 'loose hijab' to verbal and physical harassment and arrest." The U.N. Human Rights Office has received numerous verified videos of violent treatment of women, including women being beaten with batons and thrown into police vans. In protest, women worldwide have burned headscarves and cut their hair. In Iran, CNBC reports that crowds called for the fall of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and shouted: "death to the dictator." State-organized rallies to counter anti-government protests were also held in several Iranian cities, calling for the execution of "rioters" who were portrayed as "Israel's soldiers," according to Reuters. "Offenders of the Koran must be executed," the marchers chanted. According to Reuters, some demonstrators have torched police stations and vehicles. Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, who addressed the U.N. General Assembly last week, said the government would "deal decisively with those who oppose the country's security and tranquillity," calling the unrest "a riot." Iran's Chief of Police Hossein Ashtari also warned protesters, telling state television that people "involved in sabotage and creating insecurity based on directives from outside the country should know that they will be strongly dealt with." The Islamic Republic's morality police, known as Gasht-e Ershad or "Guidance Patrol," is part of the country's law enforcement and enforces respect for Islamic morals as described by clerical authorities. Even in Iran, prominent politicians are calling for an investigation into the police unit. "In order to prevent repetition of such cases, the processes and the method of implementation in guidance patrols ... should be investigated," CBS News quoted Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as saying. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the bipartisan body tasked with advising the U.S. federal government and Congress on religious freedom issues, condemned Amini's death and the use of force on protesters. "Mahsa Amini's horrific death is a culmination of months of violent Iranian government repression of women on the basis of religion," said USCIRF Commissioner Sharon Kleinbaum. "Those responsible for her death must be held accountable. Furthermore, we urge President [Joe] Biden to unreservedly condemn Iran for its violent and systematic attacks on women like Ms. Amini for wearing an 'improper hijab,' and other egregious violations of religious freedom, in his upcoming U.N. General Assembly speech." USCIRF noted that Iran's government has mandated that women wear a hijab since 1979, citing its interpretation of religious conceptions of modesty as grounds to legally force women to cover their hair in public. "In late 2021, Iran's government produced a policy document detailing plans to more strictly enforce these rules against women deemed to be covering their hair in an improper manner," USCIRF added. "In July 2022, security forces announced the beginning of these crackdowns, during which authorities harassed, shoved into vans, arrested, and tortured under interrogation scores of women." In the last week, solidarity protests were held in several major international cities, including Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Stockholm Toronto, Vancouver and Washington. The nationwide protests in Iran are the largest in Iran since the 2019 "Green Movement," an anti-government uprising in which 1,500 people were reportedly killed in a crackdown, according to Reuters. But this time, "the protesters are much bolder," Evan Siegel, an expert on Iranian history, told CNBC. "Driven by their fury of decades of repression and humiliation, they have held their own in street fighting with the repressive organs, particularly the hated para-police." He added that protests over the regime's "medieval attitudes" towards women are taking place, perhaps, for the first time. Iran, a Shia country, is ranked the ninth worst country when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USA's World Watch List. The B-21 Raider has been rumored for quite a while, but the US Air Force said before 2022 ends, there will be answers. Everything needed to know about the long overdue successor of the B-1 Spirit might be revealed soon. Most Advanced Stealth Bomber of the US Air Force The building of the nuclear-capable B-21 has been kept secret since Northrop Grumman was given the contract for what was then identified as the Long-Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) program started in 2015, reported EurAsian Times. The Air Force and Congress members have made several public statements in favor of the B-21 program. It is designated after the legendary Doolittle Raiders, United States Army Air Force service members best remembered for their unexpected raid on Japan on April 18, 1942, that compelled the Japanese to recall their combat troops, states Northrop Grumman. It also boosted morale among Americans and allies around the world. The stealth plane is identified as the B-21, the initial bomber of the twenty-first century. There will still be few public details about costs and timelines, such as whether either has changed substantially over the past seven years. The airframe, in contrast, is a piercing attack bomber with cloaking characteristics as well as a flying wing design. Because it can carry both conventional and nuclear missiles, the cutting-edge warplane is double trouble. Northrop Grumman is actively developing six covert next-generation airframes in different phases. B-21 Raider Bomber To Fly Before 2022 Ends Based on a Congressional Research Commission report, the first B-21 Raider units will be manned, with an unpiloted version deployed some few years after the initial operational capability (IOC) has been reached. Read Also: Kim Jong-un Net Worth 2022: How Wealthy Is North Korea's Leader? Following the IOC, the nuclear certification process would take nearly two years. The intentional speed of the aircraft hasn't been revealed. Nevertheless, the B-21's long-range capability, large payload, and budget restrictions imply that it will be subsonic. But the bomber's physical characteristics are speculative at this point; all the components have been top secret. Its engines are located near the wing root, where the wings and fuselage reach. The Raider has over-wing exhaust systems and angular engine intake vents to conceal the infrared signal from the four engines. Such an aircraft would most likely be a key strategic bomber that can transport nuclear and conventional munitions. The US needs to conduct nuclear operations. The Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) next-generation cruise missile would be equipped on the B-21 by the Air Force. Armed with the B61 family of nuclear gravity bombs, such as the brand-new B61-12, with the capacity to "dial-a-yield," will be able to be transported. It is a great addition at a moment when the bomber fleet is beginning to appear anachronistic and obsolete. The B-2 and the B-52, the two main bombers of the USAF, are well past their best in age. B-52 and B-2 could serve as critical enablers for the B-21 stealth bomber, even though Air Force hasn't divulged any proposals for phasing them out. The B-21 Raider's first flight is supposedly scheduled to occur sometime next year, rather than this year as initially anticipated, per Air Force Technology. One question is, even with the deployment of the Raider, with the advent of a hypersonic missile, it becomes an expensive anachronism with radars able to detect stealth craft, making it untenable. Related Article: China's H-20 Next Generation Bomber Might Fly Ahead of the US B-21 After Encountering Delays @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. UK parents win gov't commitment to reform school guidance on trans-identified students, awarded $23K Christian parents in the United Kingdom, who pulled their children out of a church-run school due to its guidance on trans-identified students, have been awarded over $23,900 in legal costs and a commitment from the British government to reform trans-affirming policies in schools. The victory for Nigel Rowe, 49, and his wife, Sally, 47, comes after a five-year legal battle, according to the Christian Legal Centre, which represents the parents. The parents raised concerns after two boys in their sons' classes at the age of 6 were allowed to identify as girls at the Isle of Wight school. In July 2017, the Church of England officials wrote to the Rowes, explaining the school doesn't require any form of medical or psychological evaluation when a student requests to be affirmed as a member of the opposite sex. The family was given an ultimatum to accept the policy or leave the school. They and their 6-year-old sons were told by a Church of England primary school that they would be labeled "transphobic" if they refused to accept policies that require affirmation of two trans-identified students' gender identities. The family says their complaint to the Department of Education was rejected, and the department "refused to properly assess this evidence." The couple took legal action against the Department for Education. After the Rowes won permission for a judicial review of the government's policies, CLC reports that the government settled the case rather than go through a full judicial review. "We are delighted with the outcome and pray that it will contribute to real change in primary schools," the couple said in a statement. "The new guidance must ensure that no more children come to harm. Transgender affirming policies must end in schools and issues with gender confused children compassionately and professionally managed outside of the classroom. "Many have tried to make light of this issue by suggesting it is just about boys dressing up. This case has always been about a dangerous ideology that is now firmly embedded in schools, local authorities, and Church of England leadership, and which is causing serious long-term harm to thousands of children." CLC Chief Executive Andrea Williams said the Rowes were "the first parents to expose transgender ideology in our primary schools five years ago." "At the time, for their courage and determination to expose the truth, they were ostracised by their local community and faced personal abuse for daring to question policies which they believed were harmful," Williams said. Transgender Guidelines of Cornwall Schools, published in 2015 by campaigners for transgenderism, direct schools to create gender-neutral bathrooms and allow students to wear clothes matching their gender identity rather than biological sex. The guidelines urge teachers and governors to affirm the gender identities of trans-identified students. According to the CLC, the guidelines have been held up as best practices for other schools and adopted by the Department of Education since 2018. A high court order confirming the settlement states that the Department of Education is developing guidance on transgender issues "in conjunction with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with a view to undertaking a public consultation on draft guidance." The order stipulates that the department will consult on fresh guidance this fall. "We've seen the regret of people who have gone down the transgender route; we've seen the rising statistics of children being pushed down that road and the more you affirm a child as transgender, the further down that pathway they go," the Rowes said in their statement. "This is a health crisis. It's about pushing an agenda in schools, and now the numbers are off the scale. It's devastating." Discovering a remnant of feudal Europe in Liechtenstein Sandwiched in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria is the often-forgotten Principality of Liechtenstein. The capital city of Vaduz, like the rest of the country, is located on the east bank of the Rhine a river steeped in European history since antiquity. Flash forward to today, and Liechtenstein holds the distinction of being the last remnant of medieval Europe. Back then, the continents map consisted of feudal states ruled by kings, princes, dukes and other assorted ranks of nobles. The principality has remained as-is despite all of the other realms disappearing and the ruling family, known as the House of Liechtenstein, losing their once-extensive land holdings that stretched across central Europe and into the present-day Czech Republic. Even the storied Holy Roman Empire the empire the philosopher Voltaire once called neither holy nor Roman nor an empire that ultimately gave Liechtenstein its sovereignty was dissolved in 1806. It is remarkable that this small country exists, not least under the rule of a prince and with Roman Catholicism established by the Constitution. While freedom of religion exists, the church of Rome, by and through the Archdiocese of Vaduz, is the state church. This means the prelate and priests have the same government employee status as the policeman and librarian. And yes, its size of 62 square miles and its population of just 38,700 souls makes it a small country by any measure. As I learned over a three-night visit, Europes fourth-smallest country punches well above its weight. Everything Americans want to see and do in the Old World can be found here. Think centuries of quaint history, castles, royalty, churches, museums, vastly underrated wine and year-round outdoor recreation and activities among mountains that reach 8,526 feet in elevation. I stayed in the heart of Vaduz at Hotel Vaduzerhof, which has modern rooms with balconies facing Vaduz Castle, the capitals namesake. Perched on a hill about 400 feet above town is the home of the royals in the princely family. Unlike the palaces of other European crowned heads that allow some form of public access, the castle is entirely a private residence. Liechtensteiners repeatedly told me that Prince Hans-Adam II and his heir, Prince Alois, who reigns as the regent of His Serene Highness, tightly guard their privacy. With no army since 1868 and crime relatively rare, no guard is mounted at the gates. There also isnt a sentry outside the sleek modern building containing the Landtag, as the parliament is called. Presumably, the Instagram set is disappointed at the lack of a changing of the guard photo opportunity. While unable to enjoy views from the castles ramparts, the marked walking paths connecting Vaduz and the castle offer equally spectacular views of the Rhine Valley. Looking past the Alps, I saw a stately church spire and the vineyards of Liechtensteins little-known wine industry, which produces superb pinot noir, riesling, pinot blanc and chardonnay. The spire is that of St. Florins Cathedral, a late 19th-century Gothic revival edifice that serves as the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishop. Vaduzs cathedral has an impressive interior that includes some wonderful examples of modern stained glass and a royal box perched above the quire and altar used by the princely family, who I am told are regular churchgoers. At street level beneath the west front are two sculptures by Hans von Matt that depict Mary at the birth and death of Jesus. Given its small size and limited number of hotel rooms, Liechtenstein will surely remain a best-kept secret for the foreseeable future. So much so that you may be the only tourist walking the streets of Vaduz after 5 oclock on any given Saturday. And for me, that is exactly the experience I want. If you go Not only is Liechtenstein landlocked, but there is no airport. The closest major international airport is 83 miles away in Zurich, Switzerland. Switzerlands flag carrier, Swiss, flies nonstop between Zurich and several U.S. airports, including Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington. From Zurich, a rental car is the easiest way to get to and from Liechtenstein. Just be sure to book something with built-in navigation to avoid the expensive roaming charges that result from using your phone for driving directions. While indisputably a sovereign state, Liechtenstein enjoys a special relationship with Switzerland that goes beyond using the Swiss franc. Next year, the two countries will celebrate the centenary of a full customs union. The hotel where I stayed, Hotel Vaduzerhof, has automated most of its guest-facing services. This includes replacing the front desk with a kiosk for check-in and check-out. Breakfast and self-parking are free for all guests. Recommended restaurants include New Castle Restaurant, Brasserie Burg and the Cafe in the Art Museum (Cafe im Kunstmuseum). Just be aware that Liechtenstein still allows smoking inside establishments. The tourist information center on Vaduzs main street is the best place to go for maps and other basic information. It also has a gift shop with assorted souvenirs as well as locally produced food and wine. Besides buying the three-day Adventure Pass for about $35 per adult, you can get the highly coveted Liechtenstein passport stamp for a nominal charge. Dennis Lennox writes a travel column for The Christian Post. Biden blasts 15-week abortion ban: My church doesnt even make that argument President Biden criticized Sen. Lindsey Grahams proposed bill that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of gestation nationwide, saying, My church doesnt even make that argument now. Biden blasted Republicans at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York last week over Graham's bill, which was introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this month. It's the first pro-life legislation introduced at the federal level since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. The Dobbs decision does not ban abortion nationwide but gives state and federal lawmakers the authority to set limits on abortion or increase gestational ages for abortion. Several states have moved to ban abortion in the weeks following the Dobbs decision, while abortion remains legal up to the moment of birth in other states. Biden said at a DNC fundraising dinner at a private residence in New York Thursday: You have Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and others talking about how theyre gonna, you know, make sure that Roe is forever gone and Dobbs becomes a national law. He added, "My generic point and I happen to be a practicing Roman Catholic my church doesnt even make that argument now. And so were in a situation where things have changed a lot. But theyve [Republicans] gotten more extreme in their positions." The Catholic Church, of course, never justifies the killing of an innocent person by abortion, Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said in response to Bidens claim. In response to the Dobbs decision, congressional Democrats have restarted their earlier efforts to pass the so-called Womens Health Protection Act, which would codify abortion into federal law and limit the ability of states to pass pro-life laws. Biden claimed that the bill provides for no exceptions rape, incest, no exceptions. The bill includes exceptions in cases of rape, incest and physical dangers to the life of the mother, The Hill noted. Biden then said, I happen to be a practicing Roman Catholic, my church doesnt even make that argument, adding, Im going to veto the bill. A few months before Bidens speech at the DNC fundraiser, Speaker Nancy Pelosi's archbishop said the Democratic leader wouldn't be allowed to receive communion due to her staunch support and advocacy for abortion. In May, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone sent a letter to Pelosi, D-Calif., a practicing Catholic, informing her that she had been warned to either repudiate your advocacy for abortion rights or refrain from referring to your Catholic faith in public and receiving Holy Communion. Bidens presidency has intensified the debate among American Catholic leaders over whether Catholic public officeholders who advocate for abortion should be denied communion, a practice done in some dioceses. As Biden campaigned for president ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a priest in South Carolina refused to serve him communion due to his abortion advocacy. Supporters of withholding communion from pro-abortion Catholic politicians, both inside and outside the Church hierarchy, point to the Churchs Code of Canon Law as the justification for their position. The Code of Canon Law states that those who are obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. However, last November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a document on communion that didnt overtly call for a ban on pro-choice politicians receiving the sacrament despite. At a general meeting at the time, bishops overwhelmingly approved a document from the USCCBs Committee on Doctrine known as The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church. Eight bishops voted against the document, while 222 bishops voted in favor. Three abstained. However, the document stated that Catholic laity who exercise some form of public authority have a special responsibility to form their consciences in accord with the Churchs faith and the moral law, and to serve the human family by upholding human life and dignity. It read, As Christians, we bear the responsibility to promote the life and dignity of the human person, and to love and to protect the most vulnerable in our midst: the unborn, migrants and refugees, victims of racial injustice, the sick and the elderly. Doctors refute Stacey Abrams' claim there is 'no such thing' as fetal heartbeat at 6 weeks Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is being accused of spreading "misinformation" after she stated this week that the unborn do not have a heartbeat at six weeks gestation, despite evidence from medical journals. During an event at the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, Abrams asserted that "there is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks," adding that she believed the sound of a fetal heartbeat at that stage is "manufactured" to convince people that men have a right to "control" women's bodies. Abrams' comments were in response to Georgia's heartbeat bill, also known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act. She claimed the legislation shouldn't be called a "Fetal Heartbeat Bill" because "that's medically false, biologically a lie." The bill bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable but includes exceptions for rape, incest, or if the mother's life is in danger or the fetus is unviable. The law was passed in 2019, but a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, returning authority over abortion laws to the states, a federal appeals court overturned the lower court ruling on July 20, allowing the law to go into effect. Dr. Donna Harrison, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an organization that boasts over 7,000 pro-life doctors, disagreed with Abrams. In a Friday statement to The Christian Post, Harrison stated that Abrams' claims are an example of "misinformation" that ignores evidence from "basic embryology." "In fact, at six weeks' gestation, the embryonic heart rhythmically contracts to pump blood through its arteries, which flows to the placenta to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen," she wrote. "To call this anything other than a beating heart is dishonest, and serves only to dehumanize preborn people. ... Playing semantics with the definition of a heart does nothing to serve science or the public, but rather only advances a pro-abortion agenda." Tara Sander Lee, the director of Life Sciences at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute who studied heart development at Harvard Medical School, said in a statement that the human heart starts beating 22 days after fertilization. "A baby's heart is actively beating at six weeks gestation and will have already beat nearly 16 million times by 15 weeks," said Lee. "In fact, at six weeks, when Stacey Abrams says a heartbeat doesn't exist, that baby's heart is actually beating at about 110 beats per minute (bpm)." Lee cited peer-reviewed research published by the Charlotte Lozier Institute and a 2019 study published in the National Library of Medicine titled "The Transitional Heart: From Early Embryonic and Fetal Development to Neonatal Life." Another study, published in October 2019 by the Department of Radiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, also affirmed that cardiac activity begins as early as six weeks gestation. In addition, the absence of a detectable heartbeat is a sign of pregnancy failure, according to the study. "Most American parents have seen their baby's beating heart during prenatal ultrasound and discussed it with their obstetrician," she continued. "The mainstream media can perform Olympic-level semantics gymnastics all they want, but most Americans instinctively understand that a developing human organ which beats rhythmically and pumps blood throughout the body is, in fact, a heart." As The National Review reported in February, up until recently, Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, stated on its webpage that a "very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop" during the fifth to sixth week of pregnancy. Now, the website states that at five to six weeks, "[a] part of the embryo starts to show cardiac activity." "It sounds like a heartbeat on an ultrasound, but it's not a fully-formed heart it's the earliest stage of the heart developing," the website states. According to a Monmouth University Poll conducted Sept. 15-19, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp holds a slight lead over Abrams, with 49% of respondents saying they will "definitely" or "probably" vote for him, versus 45% saying they will "definitely" or "probably" vote for her. The same poll found that 46% of respondents will "definitely not" vote for Abrams, versus 37% who said they will "definitely not" vote for Kemp. Evangelical charities partner with churches to aid Puerto Ricans impacted by Hurricane Fiona As Hurricane Fiona has left at least eight people dead and hundreds of thousands without water or electricity in Puerto Rico, Evangelical humanitarian groups have partnered with local churches on the island to bring relief to those suffering. The North Carolina-based Samaritan's Purse, led by evangelist Franklin Graham, airlifted over 16 tons of emergency relief supplies after Fiona tore through the southern and western portions of the Caribbean island. The storm hit the Caribbean Island as a Category 1 hurricane and brought torrential rains, as high as 30 inches or more in some places. The massive rainfall triggered catastrophic flash flooding and landslides, causing power and water outages impacting up to as many as 3 million people. The relief supplies airlifted by Samaritan's Purse include 2,200 shelter tarps, two community water filtration units and 1,000 portable family water containers, Samaritan's Purse said in a statement. "At least 1,000 people had to be rescued from raging currents," the statement reads. "We are partnering with local churches that we worked with after Hurricane Maria in 2017 to meet families' physical needs while reminding them of the hope found only in Jesus Christ," said Samaritan's Purse President Graham, the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham. Operation Blessing, a nonprofit affiliated with the Christian Broadcasting Network, has delivered over 10,000 aqua tabs to clean water to be used for drinking and cooking. The charity has also provided cleaning buckets, tarps and other essential items. "That is exactly what we need now in this time where there are so many people with fear and anxiety," Pastor Giovanni Sasde of Gosen Family Church in the southern coastal city of Ponce said in a statement shared by the charity. International Christian aid charity World Vision is also raising funds and preparing to send supplies, including cleaning supplies, clothes, blankets, tents and fans. World Vision says that its relief workers connect with partners, including churches, to help areas impacted by natural disasters. "I couldn't imagine being in such a place and not getting the assistance and the help that I need and you know people can't reach me," Roberta Taylor, the warehouse manager for World Vision in Fife, Scotland, told KIRO7. "You see the water or whatever's going on still in place and then you see all these people displaced by this disaster, nowhere to go." Hurricane Fiona had strengthened to as high as Category 4 before weakening into what is now a post-tropical cyclone. The storm barrelled into Canada's Atlantic coast Saturday, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power. Parts of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are experiencing torrential rains and hurricane-force gusts. According to the Canadian Hurricane Center, Fiona is the lowest-pressure land-falling storm in Canadian history. "It's going to a bad one," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday. "We of course hope there won't be much needed, but we feel there probably will be. And we will be there for that. In the meantime we encourage everyone to stay safe and to listen to the instructions of local authorities and hang in there for the next 24 hours." Fiona comes five years after Hurricane Maria killed over 3,000 people across the Caribbean. Striking Puerto Rico as a Category 4, Maria was the costliest storm in the island's history. Central Puerto Rico Resident Carlos Correa told The Weather Channel that his family had to flee Fiona just like they did after Hurricane Maria. "The PTSD is really strong around here, but, you know, we have to stand still and keep going," Correa said. A Harvard University study estimated at the time that 4,645 deaths could be linked to Hurricane Maria, a number that far exceeded official data. In the aftermath of Maria, Samaritan's Purse conducted 41 airlifts to deliver shelter materials, food, generators and water filtration systems. The charity worked with over 300 churches and provided basic medical care for survivors of the hurricane. The group tallies that it provided relief to over 350,000 families in the year following the hurricane. Samaritan's Purse also launched a multi-year recovery plan to rebuild hundreds of homes and dozens of churches severely damaged by Maria in central and southern Puerto Rico. Pro-life pregnancy center CEO accuses police of 'withholding evidence' of firebombing at NY office Authorities say they are 'still investigating' The CEO of a pro-life pregnancy center severely damaged in an activist firebombing earlier this year is accusing police in upstate New York of withholding evidence of the crime. Rev. Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, which saw its medical office in Amherst, just outside Buffalo, attacked on June 7, released a statement Tuesday alleging police have failed to return video footage of the attack. In response, attorneys for CompassCare filed a special proceeding in the Supreme Court of New York in Erie County to compel the Amherst Police Department to return the footage, according to the statement from CompassCare. Following the attack in June, CompassCare released the footage to police after the organization could not make a copy of the original video "due to catastrophic damage" from the firebombing. Since then, the organization said police denied several requests to view the footage. No public reports have been issued, nor have any arrests been made since the bombing. Saying, "Our patience with the Amherst Police and FBI to make an arrest is at an end," Harden accused police of withholding criminal evidence. "The Amherst Police are withholding evidence, barring CompassCare and its attorneys from taking appropriate legal action that justice may be done and the violence can stop," he said. According to CompassCare, police failed to return the footage after an attorney sent a letter requesting the property by Aug. 19. When an attorney reached out to Amherst Town Attorney Stanley Sliwa earlier this month, CompassCare said Sliwa "relayed the Amherst Police department's obstinance." Sliwa, who represents the Town of Amherst and the Amherst police, told a local Buffalo-area news outlet the reason they have not returned the footage is that "we're still investigating it. "We don't want to disseminate the tape to anyone at this time because we don't want it to get out, what we're doing and who we're looking at," Sliwa told ABC affiliate WKBW. When asked why police hadn't returned the footage, Silwa told The Epoch Times he is concerned the information could provoke more violence. Silwa vowed that the video could be released once the investigation is complete. "You're aware of all the nut jobs out there with guns and AK-47s, bombing and killing people because they have certain political views," Sliwa was quoted as saying. The Christian Post's request for comment from Sliwa and APD was not returned as of Friday afternoon. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturnedRoe v. Wade in June, dozens of attacks have targeted pregnancy centers, churches and other pro-life organizations. But Harden points out a single arrest has yet to be made in those attacks. By contrast, Harden added, a suspect was arrested in just four days in an FBI investigation into an attack on a Planned Parenthood facility in Michigan. "If four days are enough for federal law enforcement to arrest a perpetrator of attempted arson against a Planned Parenthoodabortion clinic, 105 days ought to have been enough to locate arsonists causing a half-million dollars in damage to CompassCare's pro-life medical office in Buffalo," said Harden. Describing CompassCare as "a Christ-centered agency dedicated to empowering women to erase the need for abortion by transforming their fear into confidence because everyone is made in the image of God," Harden told CP in August that he credits the swift reopening of the facility to the "generosity of the people of God." While the firebombing undoubtedly caused CompassCare hardship, Harden said it opened up new opportunities for growth. "We're able to engage ... additional partners to help us kind of realize our plans that we've been developing since 2018," he said, pointing to the addition of a global telehealth partner called Let's Talk Interactive operating in 79 countries and 50 states. Suspect free on bail after killing teen with car, calls victim a 'Republican extremist' A North Dakota man is out on bond just days after he was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide in the death of a teen he allegedly described as a "Republican extremist." Shannon Brandt, 41, was arrested on Sept. 18 in the hit-and-run death of 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson, who police say Brandt ran over with his car during a political dispute, according to an affidavit obtained by The Christian Post. Police responded to a 911 call just before 3 a.m. on Sept. 18 in McHenry, where prosecutors told local news media Brandt was chasing Ellingson following a local street festival. According to the affidavit, Brandt told investigators he struck Ellingson because he "was threatening him." According to police, Brandt said Ellingson "called some people" and that Brandt was "afraid they were coming to get him." He later admitted to hitting Ellingson and claimed the teen was a "part of a Republican extremist group," according to the affidavit. Upon arrival on the scene, paramedics reportedly found Ellingson lying in the street and rushed him to a nearby hospital. A short time later, the victim's and Brandt's families arrived on the scene, according to authorities. Brandt later called police and reported that he had struck Ellingson. After investigators went to Brandt's home, he "admitted to consuming alcohol prior to the event" and striking Ellingson with his car over what Brandt said was a "political argument," the affidavit stated. In addition to admitting that he left the scene to call 911, investigators said Brandt told authorities he also believed Ellingson was calling people to "come get him." Brandt was arrested on suspicion of DUI and booked at the Stutsman County jail. He later failed a breathalyzer test, authorities said. Police say Ellingson's mother told authorities at the hospital that while she knew Brandt, she "did not believe" her son knew his alleged assailant. Brandt's attorneys did not respond to a request for comment by CP as of Thursday afternoon. In his first court appearance via Zoom on Monday, Brandt was arraigned on felony charges of criminal vehicular homicide and leaving the crash scene. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison. After Brandt reportedly requested no bond because he has "a family and a job" and is not a flight risk, Foster County District Court Judge James Hovey set bond at $50,000. Brandt posted bond Tuesday and is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 11. Since then, the story has garnered national attention from prominent Republicans, including Donald Trump Jr., who shared the story on social media with the caption, "Joe Biden's America!" Trump claims a connection between Ellingson's death and "Joe Biden and his insane speech of just 2 weeks ago." In a speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Biden called former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters a threat to "the very foundations of our republic." Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also highlighted Ellingson's death, tweeting, "Leftist murders a teenager because he was a Republican. Then, he's promptly released on bail. Twisted. Dems' hateful rhetoric continues to bear toxic fruit." A GoFundMe campaign to help the Ellingson family raised over $43,000 as of Friday afternoon. Trans health group removed age recommendations for gender surgeries to protect doctors The co-author of a leading LGBT health association's new guidelines says they removed a section on the minimum age requirements for children to obtain puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or undergo body-altering surgeries to protect doctors from lawsuits. Amy Tishelman is the author of the "Child" chapter in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's (WPATH) Standards of Care 8th Edition guidelines published earlier this month in the International Journal of Transgender Health. On Monday, journalist Colin Wright tweeted a video of Tishelman explaining at an annual WPATH conference that the group removed its minimum age recommendation for "gender-affirming" hormones and surgeries to protect doctors from liability. ????BREAKING: Amy Tishelman, lead author of the Child chapter in WPATHs new guidelines, admits that minimum age recommendations for "gender-affirming" hormones and surgeries were removed so that practitioners could not "be sued because they werent following exactly what we said. pic.twitter.com/sgFlupRSjf Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) September 19, 2022 "We were thinking, and it was scary for me, about the potential uses of the chapter for legal and insurance contexts," Tishelman said. "What we didn't want to do was create a chapter that would make it more likely that practitioners would be sued because they weren't following exactly what we said." "We wanted there to be some clinician judgment without being at risk for being held in court for not sticking completely to these standards," she continued. "So, we did write them in a way I think so that ... there is leeway, that we recommend things, but then we suggest that clinicians use their judgment about what to do in therapy situations and in assessment situations so that they ... can use individualized clinical judgment and not face malpractice suits." WPATH did not respond to The Christian Post's request for comment about the changes or Tishelman's remarks. According to Tishelman's LinkedIn page, she works as a clinical psychologist at the Boston Children's Hospital and previously worked in the hospital's Gender Multispecialty Service. Boston Children's Hospital came under fire last month after the Twitter account Libs of TikTok published a video revealing a doctor there discussing how the hospital provides "gender-affirming hysterectomies." Screenshots provided by Libs of Tik Tok indicate that Boston Children's Hospital updated its website following outrage over the matter to state that its patients must be at least 18 years or older to qualify for vaginoplasty. .@BostonChildrens updated their website this week to try to have us believe that they dont perform gender affirming surgeries on minors. Luckily everything was archived. pic.twitter.com/BhkRjC0zHh Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 14, 2022 A data table featured in an article published earlier this year titled "A Single Center Case Series of Gender-Affirming Surgeries and the Evolution of a Specialty Anesthesia Team" reveals that 65 double mastectomies were performed on minor girls from 2017-2020. The WPATH guidelines co-authored by Tishelman were published on Sept. 6. The organization issued a correction later in the month, removing sections related to "suggested minimal ages" for offering so-called "gender-affirming care" or "surgical treatment." Chapter 6 of the new guidelines asserts that double mastectomies can alleviate "chest dysphoria" in girls who identify as the opposite gender. The guide states that performing vaginoplasties creating a fake vagina using penis tissue on trans-identified boys can lead to "improved psychosocial functioning." "While the sample sizes are small, these studies suggest there may be a benefit for some adolescents to having these procedures performed before the age of 18," the guide reads. WPATH's new guide also recommends healthcare professionals providing "gender-affirming" treatment to youth involve parents or guardians in the process unless deemed "harmful" or unfeasible. WPATH maintains that helping youth work with their parents or caregivers is the "primary goal," clarifying that a "clinical evaluation process" is necessary to determine if parents have rejected their "child's gender needs." "In these situations, youth may require the engagement of larger systems of advocacy and support to move forward with the necessary support and care," the new guide advises. According to a 2017 study titled "Age is Just a Number," published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, more than half of 20 surgeons affiliated with WPATH said they have "performed vaginoplasty [on] minors." Actually, America is too a Christian nation To say the founding of the United States reflects biblical Christianity is to state the obvious. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution incorporated many fundamental precepts of the Reformation, and these precepts long have been recognized by American statesmen and jurists. From overt assertions that people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and are entitled to the liberties of the Laws of Nature and of Natures God, to the more subtle acknowledgment of the birth of Jesus Christ in Article VII of the Constitution, biblical Christianity was absolutely central to the American founding. Whats more, 46 states explicitly mention God in their own constitutions, according to a report from Pew Research Center. Clearly, Christianity remains central to our national character today. Such observations ought not to be controversial, but saying what is true can get you in big trouble these days. In this instance, the media outlet Politico is sounding alarms over some Republicans self-describing as Christian nationalists, while others are talking about formally declaring the United States to be a Christian nation. Calling America a Christian nation today might be debatable; a 2021 poll by Pew found that the number of Americans who describe themselves as Christian fell to 63%, down from 78% in 2007. But our national founding and ongoing civic philosophy are unquestionably Christian. President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, said it most succinctly in observing, America was born a Christian nation. Wilson is by no means alone in his recognition of the Christian roots of America and the absolute necessity of biblical Christianity in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, said: The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. President Herbert Hoover, a fellow Republican, echoed Roosevelt by saying: The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life. President Harry Trumans observations of the importance of the Bible to America stretch back to the Old Testament. The fundamental basis of this nations law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul, Truman, a Democrat, said. The House of Representatives was clear in its declaration of the American character. A House Resolution from May 1854 stated: The belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ was vital to the American system of government. Presidents, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, and many others long have recognized the role of the Bible and Christianity in the United States, both in terms of the nations founding and its continuation as a global beacon of liberty. So why is it that in 2022, some are denying history and encouraging their fellow Americans to forsake our national legacy? Its no secret that a lot of people want an American future that is radically different from its past and present. The 1619 Project, critical race theory, and other vehicles that are built from the ground up to revile the United States and its founding are symptomatic of a deep enmity toward our nation. But these attacks also validate the truth of Christianitys powerful influence on society, both here and across the world. Biblical Christianity enshrines liberty and informs good government. Adherents of Marxism, socialism, communism, and other authoritarian structures know this too. They are well aware that the imposition of tyranny is far more difficult when the society they seek to subjugate believes in the truths of biblical Christianity. That is why the political Left and its acolytes are so focused on their slander of the faith. The marginalization and destruction of Christianity is the necessary precursor to forcing despotism on Americans. To claim that declaring America a Christian nation amounts to the establishment of a state religion is silly. If people of other faiths wish to live here in peace, they are and always have been welcomed and protected in the practice of their faith; the First Amendments protection of freedom of religion is an outgrowth of the Reformation. But America and its founding dont cease to be Christian just because a small number of political and cultural elites cast themselves as deniers of history. Todays attacks on Christianity are not new. Theyve been going on since the first century and will continue apace, just as Jesus Christ told his disciples. Today, these assaults are being propelled into our political discourse and only will increase. Christians, indeed Americans of all faiths, must not permit the whitewashing of our history and the continued erosion of the liberties articulated in biblical Christianity. Originally published at The Daily Signal. Gavin Newsom: The king of late-term abortion This isnt about Pro-Choice or Pro-Life anymore. Gavin Newsom has gone all-in on the cruelest and most extreme form of abortion: Late-term. The California Governor and his huddle from hell legislature anticipated that Roe v. Wade would be overturned. In a rush to show how much they loved abortion, they quietly crafted the vaguely written Proposition 1, which states, The state shall not deny or interfere with an individuals reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives. Make no doubt, this is the Birth Day Abortion amendment and the most radical legislation attempt in the history of the United States whereby a child can be exterminated up until the moment of birth. The U.S. Supreme Courts overturn of Roe had no effect on California, which already allows abortion up to the viability of the fetus generally considered 24-28 weeks and with exceptions for the health or life of the mother. As a constitutional amendment, Prop 1 would override the existing California abortion law. Youve heard the old saying the devil is in the details. Well, Newsom and the California legislature have gotten smart. With Prop 1 there are no details. The devil left out the details to make it sound like its a sweet, happy little pill to take. With AB2223, the bill that preceded Prop 1, they got caught being too specific. They included the word perinatal, and people knew that referred to infanticide. Sacramento leadership screamed No its not, but ultimately, they had to strip that language from the bill. Dont believe Prop 1 is the Birth Day Abortion bill? Orange County Register opinion columnist Susan Shelley asked proponent groups of Prop 1 and California Attorney General Rob Bonta if the claims from opponents that Prop 1 would legalize abortion at any time for any reason were accurate in the official Voter Information Guide. None of the people Shelley asked would commit to an answer, and none of them challenged the late-term claim in the Voter Information Guide, which they had the right to do if they felt the claim was misleading or not factual. And if you think Newsoms stopping in California, youll be betting with the lives of future generations. He recently began placing billboards in pro-life states encouraging women to have abortions in California. Hes even using scripture on his billboards of death to justify his actions. There have been numerous articles written that have serious concerns about how far-reaching the constitutional amendment could go. Former California pro-choice Congressman Tom Campbell said in the Orange County Register, Sacramento should withdraw Proposition 1 to specify post-viability abortion limits. The Los Angeles Times said the abortion measure wording confuses some. Even pro-choice Californians draw a line in the sand when it comes to when abortion should take place. A recent survey from Rasmussen revealed that 79% of likely voters in California are against late-term abortions. This is Germany in the 1930s all over again. They started with the children and those with infirmities. Newsom needs to own what hes inventing. As a pastor, Im called to defend life. The Bible says Im called to defend those who are destined for crushing, those who have no voice for themselves. If that doesnt describe an unborn child, I dont know what does. Im calling on the body of Christ to stand up against this abomination. They can visit www.StopProp1.com to find ways to help. Sane and compassionate people never want to see images of children being torn limb-by-limb from their mothers, moments before birth. Dr. Kermit Gosnell performed such horrific procedures. He is now in prison for the rest of his life. Maybe Governor Newsom and the California state legislators should join him. Alleged reports have recently been published about how the Biden administration has used the US strategic petroleum reserves (SPRs) to their very lowest. Washington's unsuccessful attempts to use the stock to lower gas prices have only worsened the situation. US Oil Reserves at Its Lowest The US strategic oil reserves are at their lowest in 40 years. It mentioned the data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), reported the Wall Street Journal, Since 1984, crude oil inventories have decreased by nearly 7 million barrels. It showed that on September 16 of this year, only 430.8 million barrels of oil had left commercial storage facilities, the lowest level since 1983, noted the Good Word News. In March, the US president said that 180 million barrels of crude oil were released. The excessive use of the SPR was to stop the raging oil prices due to the Ukraine war that Moscow cited as a proxy war against it. The White House and Democrats would tap about 1 million barrels daily for six months. But analysts cautioned that it was three times more than expected. Data reveals the White House waywardly used 155 million barrels so far, but instead of taking the warning, there will be ten million barrels by November. In the action of the Biden administration, the US treasury publishes an explanation for the oil reserves use. They claim gas went down by a paltry 40 cents a gallon if the reserves weren't used based on their explanation, mentioned RT. Read Also: Vladimir Putin Net Worth 2022: Does Anyone Know Russian President's Hidden Wealth? As shown by data from the American Automobile Association (AAA), wholesale gas prices in the United States have been continuously decreasing for more than 13 weeks. Nevertheless, the nationwide average backtracked this week due mainly to routine maintenance at several US refineries. Stopping Oil, Gas Projects Could Mean Crisis Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has advised that dismissing whatever prospective fossil-fuel energy initiatives will be catastrophic for the United States, per CSM Times. Dimon outright denied Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's orders that his financial institution abstains from financing future oil and gas developments. At a House Financial Services public hearing last Wednesday, he characterized the Democrats' imposition as "completely foolish," disregarding a downward spiral that would lead to ruin for the country. The committee member informed Dimon that JPMorgan and six other American banks have agreed to stop lending to such projects as a result of the Democrats' New Green Deal and a zero-emissions target for 2050, which has been criticized. One line of questioning to bolster her party's anti-oil-and-gas stance is whether her bank has a policy of not funding oil and gas initiatives, according to a Minnesota Democrat. He abruptly answered there was not, and it would be suicidal for America not to fund such a projected, very much aware of the Democrat's line of questioning. Dimon was not alone, as three other CEOs would not be swayed by the Democrat's aim in conducting the public hearing. All were in agreement that financing is crucial for all gas and oil projects, adding that renewable energy projects are also financed. But Talib was obstinate and declared the climate crisis should need net zero that should stop oil and gas projects. Relate Article: US Strategic Petroleum Reserve Might Be Refilled If Oil Prices Fall Below $80 per Barrel @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Vote to defend faith, family, life and freedom Ive asked my colleague, Gary Bauer, to write the following letter to our constituents in these final days before the midterm elections. I consider this to be one of the most important votes in American history. It may be our last opportunity to restore a balance of power to the three branches of government in time to save us from tyranny and moral collapse. Does that sound alarmist to you? I think not. I believe the danger facing this country cannot be overstated. Read on to understand the peril we are facing and what God-fearing citizens can do to help save this nation, the greatest in the history of the world. America is in deep trouble. Our country is experiencing skyrocketing crime, racial division, political and economic corruption, disrespect for life, failing schools, and a growing drug epidemic. Many of our problems are a reflection of growing moral relativism and the breakdown of reliable standards of right and wrong. Our founders believed that only virtuous people could remain free. We appear to be intent on testing that proposition. The only hope for our country is for Christians to rise up and let our voices be heard. To save the country, America's churches must boldly speak the truth to a hurting nation. Millions of individual Christians, like you, must fulfill their responsibilities of Christian citizenship. We are blessed to live in a country where we have enjoyed a level of religious liberty that's rare in human history. But now powerful forces in government, the universities, and mass media are threatening religious liberty as well as our other freedoms. No solutions to the American crisis are possible without the participation of millions of American Christians leading the way. We must participate in the halls of government, in the public square, and lead the national debate. It is essential that we are in the pews on Sunday and first in line to cast our votes on Election Day. At the federal level, this election will determine who has the majority in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. At the state level, dozens of governorships and state legislatures are at stake. At the local level, new mayors, city councils, and school boards will be elected. At all three levels of government, the men and women we elect will pass laws that will determine the kind of country we pass on to our children and grandchildren. The U.S. Senate is divided today 50 to 50. Tie-breaking votes are cast by Vice President Kamala Harris. Thirty-five of these U.S. Senators are up for election. The new Senate that takes office in January will confirm hundreds of new judges to all the federal courts during the next two years. They will also fill any Supreme Court vacancy that may occur. The sanctity of life, religious liberty, your Second Amendment rights, freedom of speech, and much more will all be at risk if a new Senate majority rejects the Judeo-Christian values that are the foundation of the United States. Polling indicates over a dozen of the Senate races are so close that the winner may very well be determined by only a few percentage points. Think of the impact we can have on Election Day if just a few more Christians will vote in each precinct in America. Not all issues in an election are of equal importance. As a Christian voter, it is imperative that you zero in on those matters with a moral basis and give them the highest priority. And remember this: behind every candidate is the party platform that he or she stands on and the policies he or she will promote. Here are three of the key issues every Christian voter must consider when supporting or opposing a candidate this November. The right to life After years of prayer and hard work, the Supreme Court decided this year that there is no constitutional right to abortion. This is a tremendous victory that could save countless lives. The court sent the abortion issue back to the people of each state to debate and reach a consensus. Planned Parenthood and radical pro-abortion forces have launched an all-out multi-million-dollar campaign to defeat pro-life members of Congress, state legislators, and governors. A recent effort in Congress to make abortion on demand, without any restrictions, the law of the land actually passed the House 219 to 210. Thankfully, it failed in the Senate, as it could not clear the chamber's 60-vote filibuster threshold. The vote was strictly along party lines. All but two Democrats voted pro-abortion. All Republicans voted pro-life. In both cases, this reflected the position of each party's platforms. Religious liberty Our fundamental right to the "free exercise of religion" in the First Amendment of the Constitution has recently come under sustained legal and political attacks. Thankfully, this year we scored another major victory in the Supreme Court when Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch, all appointed by then-President Donald Trump, voted in the majority to strengthen the guarantee of religious liberty. The battle rages on, however. At every level of government, we must elect men and women who unambiguously support religious freedom. Because the Senate confirms nominees to the Supreme Court, it is particularly important to elect senators who strongly support this basic constitutional liberty. Protecting children All candidates claim they are pro-child. But the devil is in the details. There is a well-financed powerful movement dedicated to exposing America's children in the classroom to the radical LGBT agenda, inappropriate explicit sexual education material, and transgender ideology at the earliest ages. In some schools, so-called "critical race theory" is dividing our children by race. It teaches white children that they are genetically racist and tells minority children they are oppressed and cannot accomplish their dreams. These are unfounded and deeply damaging doctrines. Even in more traditional, conservative areas of the country, parents have been shocked to find out their child's school may be promoting these corrupt agendas. Make sure local school board candidates, from rural communities to Washington D.C., support parental rights in the education and upbringing of our children. Look for candidates who are also pro-school choice and support faith-based Christian schools. Elect candidates who are willing to stand with you against the transgender agenda that is deceiving and harming an increasing number of our children. Parents have the divine calling to raise their kids, not the government or some radical agency that has no regard for the welfare of our youth. The sanctity of life, religious liberty, and protecting children are all issues that should guide the vote you cast. But there are many more policies to also consider. Our southern border is being overwhelmed with millions of people entering illegally. Among them are drug smugglers, human traffickers, and even some on the terrorist watch list. Vote for candidates who will restore the rule of law at the border. Vote for candidates who support racial unity, stand with law enforcement, and are committed to helping our veterans. Vote for candidates who support the Second Amendment and who are working against voter fraud. Our country desperately needs Christian men and women to stand up now for faith, family, life, and freedom. Please join us in praying for a revival to sweep our land and for God to bless us with courageous leaders. And pray that millions of Christians will fulfill their civic and moral responsibility to vote on November 8th to restore our sweet land of liberty before it's too late. Family suspected of killing Christian father for refusing to perform Hindu ritual NEW DELHI Christians in eastern India suspect a church members Hindu family killed him last month for refusing to renounce his faith, sources said. In West Bengal states Gobindapur village, Jhargram District, Hindu relatives of Madhab Gorai had threatened to burn him to death and feared his faith jeopardized his daughters impending marriage, the sources said. Church members last saw the 46-year-old Gorai on Aug. 7, when his wife and adult son disrupted the start of a church service and threatened him, said Ashish Hansda, lay leader in charge of the Church of North India (CNI) congregation in the village. Gorais wife was carrying a bottle of gasoline, and his son was carrying a wooden baton, he said. In a scuffle outside the church building, Gorais wife and son threatened to burn him alive, Hansda said. Gorais wife and son pressured him to perform Hindu marriage rituals at his daughters impending wedding, where according to custom, the father of the bride would be required to worship sacred fire, said the pastor in charge of the church, the Rev. Subendu Soren. Gorai refused to involve himself in Hindu worship practices that contradicted his Christian faith, Pastor Soren told Morning Star News. Gorais family had argued that his refusal to perform the Hindu rituals would raise doubts about the family that could lead to the breaking off of his daughters engagement, said a close friend of Gorai who requested anonymity. When his wife and son disrupted the start of the Aug. 7 church service, Hansda intervened, and Gorais wife and son took him home, Hansda said. Unpleasantness was created due to the scuffle, and so we did not have a church service that Sunday, he said. When he learned of the incident, Pastor Soren advised Hansda to file a police complaint about Gorais family carrying gasoline and scuffling with him outside the church building. He filed a complaint at the Ramgarh outpost, which falls under the Lalgarh police station. An officer at the Ramgarh outpost said he informed the Saranga Thana police station about the incident and sent a volunteer to check on the church the next Sunday, Aug. 14. Madhab Gorais house does not fall under my jurisdiction, so I did not take any action once they had gone home, the officer told Morning Star News. The in-charge at the Saranga Thana police station told Morning Star News that he was on leave during that period and had no knowledge of a death in the area. Pastor Soren said no formal complaint was registered at the Saranga Thana police station. No formal complaint was registered in the police station by any of Madhabs relatives, though people in the village knew the tension in their family about Madhabs faith and had mixed feelings about the sudden death, Pastor Soren told Morning Star News. Suspicions As Gorais wife and son repeatedly threatened to burn him alive and took him home on Aug. 7, Hansda was concerned about his safety and visited their home late that afternoon, he said. Madhabs wife told me that he was not at home and had gone to the market, Hansda said. I left my phone number with his wife and requested her to ask him to give me a call. Hansda said he received a call from Pastor Soren at 11 that night informing him that a church member had said Gorai was dead. The next day, when church members asked family members about Gorais death, the relatives said he had eaten dinner and died peacefully in his sleep. The family had cremated Gorais body that morning (Aug. 8) according to Hindu ritual, but none of the church members had been informed about it, Hansda said. Hansda said he questioned several of Gorais neighbors about his death. All of them told me that there was tension in Madhabs family related to his Christian faith, and they heard the arguments the family had, he told Morning Star News. One person also told me that Madhab was sitting and chatting with him until 6:30 in the evening, and he was absolutely fine. Christian leaders, eyewitnesses to the threats and several acquaintances in the area suspect Gorais family members killed him to avoid jeopardizing his daughters marriage. It is easy to say that the father of the bride is dead, and that the brother of the bride will perform those rituals in his absence, said Gorais close friend. Sumanta Naru, pastor of the CNI congregation in Bankuda town, said he is suspicious of the death and secret cremation of Gorais body. Nobody knows how Madhab died, Pastor Naru told Morning Star News. Even the neighbors had last seen him healthy. The Christians were not even called for the cremation. They got rid of his body as soon as they could. Pastor Soren said he fears Gorai must have suffered much. We do not know what caused his death, but this is for certain, that the family was persecuting him and pressuring him to participate in the Hindu rituals, Pastor Soren told Morning Star News. Gorais family members were unavailable for comment. Pastor Naru said Gorai put his faith in Christ several years ago after learning the Gospel from a relative. Keeping the keys of the church building, he would be the first to reach it and open it for Sunday worship, the pastor said. Madhab was a sincere Christian. He helped in whatever way possible to contribute and serve the church, Pastor Naru said. The hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, against non-Hindus has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack Christians since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say. India ranked 10th on Christian support organization Open Doors 2022 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, as it was in 2021. The country was 31st in 2013, but its position worsened after Modi came to power. This article was originally published by Morning Star News. The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p. According to the Hungarian Foreign Minister attending the United Nations General Assembly, the Ukraine conflict might become an apocalyptic one. What matters is avoiding a military standoff between NATO and the Russian Federation, which would be disastrous. Catastrophic Consequences if Ukraine Conflict Continues As said by Hungarian Minister Peter Szijjarto, the escalating tensions should not lead to a military conflict between the Western military alliance, reported Cialgetusa. He spoke to Russian news agency RIA Novosti while attending the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, warning that diplomacy is more important than ever. The diplomat reminded the assembly that failing to see eye to eye would result in disastrous consequences, telling them in the UN General Assembly. He said that most of his generation of Europeans opposed another great war that led to the Nazis' defeat in the 1940s. Europe was devastated after WWII, and this should not happen again. The Foreign Minister of Budapest, a NATO member, stated that his country is doing everything possible to resolve the conflict in Ukraine that could lead to a nuclear war in Europe, according to Good Word News. Budapest refused to impose new sanctions on Vladimir Putin's Russia last Friday, in contrast to the other members of the EU. They want to believe that more sanctions will make a difference by focusing on energy resources, which they do not have. The Hungarian Foreign Minister made it clear last Friday that he has no plans to approve additional sanctions against Moscow, particularly regarding energy imports. Read Also: Vladimir Putin: 3 Facts You Didn't Know About Russia's President - From His Judo Records to His KGB Pseudonym It is a red line for them, Szijjarto added. Despite what Brussels claims, they do not want to make the Hungarians suffer or be a part of the sanction. Another important point is that the EU is suffering due to the poorly advised sanctions and decisions made by its leaders. Budapest To Ignore Total Ban on Russian Tourists The procedure will be more challenging now, and Hungary will continue to issue Schengen visas to Russians, based on the foreign minister's words, per Anaeve. This statement was made last Friday after other EU members had stopped issuing these visas. Speaking to the TASS news agency, Szijjarto clarifies that the EU's latest dismissal of the visa facilitation arrangement with Moscow doesn't mean a visa will not be granted since the process would be longer. He made it abundantly clear that despite opposition from those who are hostile to Russia, there is no directive to stop issuing visas to Russian tourists. The official then remarked that not having the visa facilitation agreement simplified the process. Visas will be given, but there will be complicated processes that will take longer, unlike before the Ukrainian conflict. Szijjarto commented on the same day that his Finnish counterpart, Pekka Haavisto, announced a ban on entry for Russians with tourist visas, regardless of whether these visas had been issued by Finland or by any other Schengen nation. Helsinki took its decision in reaction to a sharp increase in the number of Russian tourists visiting Finland, while at the same time, reservists there are still partly deployed. The Hungarian Foreign Minister spoke to fellow counterparts during UN General Assembly; stopping the conflict in Ukraine is very urgent as things are getting out of hand. Related Article: Orban Tells Zelensky To Stop Rhetoric, Asserts To Stay Out of Russia-Ukraine War @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Two popular programs of family sponsorship for parents and grandparents of Canadian permanent residents and citizens. Parents and Grandparents Program vs. Super VisaWhat is the difference? Two popular programs of family sponsorship for parents and grandparents of Canadian permanent residents and citizens. Parents and Grandparents Program vs. Super VisaWhat is the difference? Two popular programs of family sponsorship for parents and grandparents of Canadian permanent residents and citizens. Parents and Grandparents Program vs. Super VisaWhat is the difference? Two popular programs of family sponsorship for parents and grandparents of Canadian permanent residents and citizens. Asheesh Moosapeta Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif Sans Font Size A A The Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) allows parents and grandparents of Canadian permanent residents and citizens to immigrate to Canada, and experience the benefits of permanent residence (PR) and even citizenship; though it is less available than the Super Visa, due to its lottery system selection process, and once-a-year availability. Sponsor your family for Canadian immigration The Super Visa functions as a temporary resident visa (TRV) and allows parents and grandparents of Canadian PRs/citizens to enter and remain in Canada on a long-term basis (up to 10 years validity, with five years continuous stay). It is available year-round, but doesnt provide parents/grandparents with the same options to PR and eventually citizenship, as the PGP. Eligibility At minimum, candidates hoping to sponsor their parents/grandparents through either program must be: At least 18 years old; A Canadian citizen, or PR; Residing in Canada at the time of application and when parents/grandparents are expected to arrive; Of good financial standing; Ineligibility In addition to failure to comply with the eligibility criteria, candidates will also be ineligible for either program if they: Did not pay back an immigration loan, a performance bond, or court-ordered family support (i.e.: alimony or child support); Did not provide promised financial support they agreed to when sponsoring a family member in the past; Fall under any other ineligibility criteria. Financial requirements For the Super Visa, candidates will have to prove that their household meets the required Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO) criteria. For the PGP, candidates should look to meet the Minimum Necessary Income (MNI) requirements for the program. Candidates must show proof of funds by requesting a Notice of Assessment (NOA) from the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA); showing that the sponsor has met the MNI for their case, and has done so for the last three taxation years, before applying. Application process For Super Visa sponsorship, the application process is similar to that of a regular TRV. Additional documentation is needed, however, to prove that parents/grandparents can be looked after, upon arriving in Canada. For the PGP, candidates must follow the steps to meet and prove their eligibility, and then submit this information to be included in the candidate pool. If candidates are selected, they will receive an invitation to apply, which carries subsequent steps. For either the PGP or the Super Visa, the sponsored individuals cannot be medically or criminally inadmissible to come to Canada. An Immigration Medical Exam (IME) is required for both programs, and the PGP also requires a police certificate. Availability in Quebec Both programs are available to Quebec residents and citizens as well, though there are added steps, including a unique MNI system (for both sponsor and the sponsored), and the need to obtain a Quebec Selection Certificate (CSQ). Sponsor your family for Canadian immigration CIC News All Rights Reserved. Visit CanadaVisa.com to discover your Canadian immigration options. David Vidoni wants to be sure that workers throughout his company know how IT can transform the business. Vidoni, vice president of IT at tech company Pegasystems, gets the word out using various channels, from reports on metrics to easily accessible dashboards. He also launched a quarterly newsletter that in addition to sharing tech tips, information about available technology tools, and new initiatives showcases how IT is improving company operations. Its about making sure theres universal awareness of the work were doing, how IT impacts individual employees and departments, and how IT helps us operate better as a company, Vidoni says. Its another level of engagement, to put IT stories into context and make them available for all employees in terms that are meaningful to them, he adds. We want this newsletter to bring more visibility to what were doing, how IT helps the business and how IT aligns to our [corporate] strategy. It helps raise awareness on the value were delivering to them. Vidonis actions get at a longstanding challenge for CIOs: How to effectively demonstrate the value of IT. And its a pervasive issue. Research firm Gartner found 63% of surveyed CIOs struggle to communicate ITs value; 14% of them said theyve rarely succeeded in the task. Similarly, Info-Tech Research Groups CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic survey found that 80% of CIOs and CEOs experience frustration with ITs failure to deliver value, even as C-suite leaders rank delivering benefits as the most important goal for IT. Vidoni says a newsletter helps him escape being part of such statistics, noting that while that approach is working for him, other strategies can prove to be just as effective for CIOs. Indeed, researchers, CIO advisors, and experienced IT executives say CIOs need a multipronged strategy to demonstrate the business value of IT and show how much IT positively impacts business outcomes. CIOs are finding out what value actually means, theyre tracking it consistently and theyre directly linking back to improvements, to the various initiatives and tasks, and theyre saying, Here are the numbers to prove it, says Info-Tech Research Group principal research director Ross Armstrong. Here are some steps IT leaders can take to ensure IT gets the business cred it deserves. First, ensure business-IT alignment Multiple experts say CIOs who want to more effectively communicate how IT brings value to the business must first actually deliver that value. Its much more powerful to deliver value, not talk about it, says Andy Sealock, a senior partner at consulting firm West Monroe. That, though, remains a challenge for many. Info-Tech Research Group, for example, has found that two-thirds of CIOs are misaligned with their CEOs when it comes to the target role for IT. The role of an IT leader is not to provide technology but to enable the delivery of business value and benefits through technology, Armstrong says. So the challenge is for the CIO to understand what the business actually needs when it says, You need to deliver value. CIOs have been getting that message for a while now, Armstrong says, but many have yet to live it. He points to Info-Tech data that shows only 25% of business leaders in struggling IT organizations believe IT has an effective understanding of business goals, whereas 72% of leaders in expanding and transforming organizations believe IT understands goals effectively. Larry Wolff, who as founder and CEO of the consulting firm Wolff Strategy Partners has long focused on what he terms the IT value journey, says CIOs who want to leap into that latter category of transformative IT departments must do so by first building credibility among their business-unit colleagues and earning their trust and respect. That means delivering the fundamentals flawlessly, identifying opportunities to enhance business operations, and developing programs that transform them. If youre all in [the] maintaining [category], then youre not delivering value. So boost that by enhancing IT services for example, by delivering better services at a lower cost or getting to software and infrastructure upgrades. And then partner with business leaders to build transformational projects that will put dollars on the top or bottom line, Wolff says. IT will always be doing some maintenance and enhancement but also hopefully doing some level of transformation. So what youre talking about here is a shift in the balance, where youre able to continually do more transformation that has a positive ROI. Deliver business outcomes, not IT projects Bobby Cameron, vice president and principal analyst at research firm Forrester, says the majority of organizations still talk about funding IT projects. He advises funding specific business outcomes instead. That, however, requires CIOs and their IT teams to plan, manage, and report in business terms, Cameron explains. And it requires business function leaders to become and remain engaged with the initiative, too. Cameron says this approach means executives including the CIO must identify and articulate how exactly the technology supports a business objective. That in turn helps everyone involved understand the raison detre for the technology, and it allows everyone to identify whether and by how much the endeavor succeeded. He cites the case of a CIO at a b-to-b property casualty company who unsuccessfully lobbied for money to upgrade her tech stack to increase resiliency and speed. The CEO denied the request because he felt the legacy technology still worked. But the CIO got the CEOs approval and executive suite backing when she shifted the projects focus, saying it was designed to support sales and marketing objectives that could demonstratively improve revenue and profitability. Thomas Phelps, CIO and senior vice president of corporate strategy at software maker Laserfiche, has a similar take. Where CIOs may struggle is communicating how a new digital initiative creates business value in a way that resonates with the C-suite and board, he says. Similar to a Shark Tank pitch, put yourself in an investors shoes and speak in the language that the C-suite will respond to. Be ready to explain in a few minutes and with the right set of visuals and compelling storytelling how a digital initiative could increase revenue, reduce costs, mitigate risks or otherwise lead to a desired business outcome, he says, noting that even something technical like a containerization initiative, which typically doesnt garner interest in the C-suite, could gain traction when its positioned as key to a specific business outcome such as cost reduction. Identify IT metrics that demonstrate business success IT has conventionally used metrics that measure how well technology performs but do little to show how much it supports business outcomes, so Cameron and others advise CIOs to find more business-oriented ways to quantify how technology delivers. Cameron says he believes objectives and key results (OKRs) are effective for demonstrating how technology delivers business outcomes. Benjamin Rehberg, a managing director with Boston Consulting Group and leader of its Technology Advantage practice in North America, also endorses the use of OKRs. Rehberg explains that OKRs describe what CIOs are trying to do and enable them to measure whether IT achieved its goals, by how much, and the impact of those achievements. For example, one objective could be to reduce the time required to run a transaction by a certain percentage, with the OKRs showing how close IT came to hitting or exceeding the target and what its performance is worth. Mark Taylor, CEO of the Society for Information Management (SIM), a professional association for CIOs and IT leaders, says return on investment (ROI) and other financial measures of a technology initiatives success such as how much it boosts revenue, increases profitability, or decreases costs are just the start. He says CIOs can and should now quantify how technology initiatives impact other business functions for example, how much it speeds up closing a deal and how much additional stickiness it creates in customer relationships. CIOs can even use business-outcome metrics such as days sales outstanding (DSO) to show the value of back-end technology like an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Taylor says. Those are all measurements that technology can impact, and its incumbent on the tech leader to know them, Taylor says, noting that systems today actually enable CIOs and business-unit heads to collect the data for a much more expansive list of metrics. You have to demonstrate the value of IT in a way thats measurable, and the technology will help you measure some of the things were talking about. Juan Perez, CIO at Salesforce, also believes its important to identify and use metrics that quantify ITs successful impact on business objectives. Justifications for IT investments should be closely aligned with business objectives, and IT strategies should line up with business strategies in order to maximize the return on such investments, he says. For CIOs, its important that both IT and business professionals agree on the metrics that define a successful investment and work together to jointly act and monitor for results. He points, as an example, to business interest in using automation to reduce low-value manual tasks so that workers can spend more time on customer-focused activities that drive growth and revenue. So CIOs here can quantify how many hours of work automation saves and the value of that. Share the story of ITs impact Using metrics to quantify ITs value is just half the equation, experts say. The other half is using them to tell ITs story another area that has traditionally been a struggle for tech leaders. The value of tech investments hasnt been communicated properly, and thats a big pain point for IT as well as for the business, even as there has been a shift away from viewing IT as a cost center and seeing IT instead as a value center, Armstrong says. IT still misses out on being seen as a strategic partner to the business because its not measuring properly and its not communicating. So there is a misalignment about what value actually means both to IT and the business. To be clear, CIOs dont need a full-scale marketing campaign, or even a newsletter although, as Vidoni attests, it can be helpful. Rather experts say its about CIOs sharing details on ITs successes and putting them in business context; they should not assume that their business-unit colleagues can see for themselves how technology delivers business value. Theres not enough focus on storytelling in IT, Armstrong says. So remember, words matter; dont be too technical. Second thing, know your audience. And third, know whos your protagonist and what conflict theyre trying to resolve. Telling how youve helped them overcome that conflict is what creates the great story. Volunteer traffic policeman works to protect students on dangerous road Xinhua) 10:43, September 26, 2022 CHANGSHA, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Tang Qixue, a 65-year-old retired elementary school teacher from Wangxian Township in central China's Hunan Province, has been voluntarily doubling as a traffic policeman for 16 years. Every morning and afternoon, Tang guides passing vehicles with a flag and a whistle at a busy fork on China's National Highway 106, helping students cross safely. Tang's daily routine can be traced back to an afternoon 16 years ago, when he witnessed two of his students die in a car accident at the same fork in the road. Tang thought such tragedies could be reduced or avoided entirely if someone were to direct the traffic when students passed, and he believed that he should be the one to protect the students. When Tang Qixue told his family about the idea, he was met with strong opposition. Wangxian is a town with a large population, as well as a large number of vehicles. There are 10 intersections within a 50-meter range of the fork Tang planned to manage. There are so many cars and a lot of dust, his wife told him at the time, warning him of the dangers of his plan. But the idea was set in his mind and he would not be moved. After the accident, he began stationing himself at the fork from 6:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., helping students cross the road safely during term time. He waves a flag with the word "STOP" printed on both sides, using standard signs to direct passing vehicles. In the summer, the scorching sun tans his skin and sweat drenches his clothes. In the winter, his ears are often numb from the biting cold. But Tang has never given up. "I always feel happy and at ease when I see the students cross the road safely," he said. Over the past 16 years, Tang has been hit twice by passing vehicles, resulting in multiple rib fractures. Both times he was injured, he worried about the safety of the students in his absence. After retiring from his teaching career in 2017, he was able to devote more time to guarding the safety of students. Over the years, he has given more than 200 lectures on road safety, drowning prevention, and other aspects of personal safety. "Though I have retired, my love for the students will never fade. I will keep teaching them lessons on safety," he said. Tang also participates in many public welfare activities. He often visits impoverished children, orphans, and left-behind elderly people, and helps them obtain societal assistance. "Whenever and wherever I am needed for volunteer work, I will always pitch in," he said. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) National security advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that the US has warned the Kremlin of the terrible repercussions using nuclear weapons in Ukraine would bring upon Russia. Jake Sullivan stated on NBC's Meet the Press that if Russia exceeds this line, there will be terrible consequences for Russia, and the United States would respond firmly. In private channels, we have spelled out in further detail just what that would mean. US Says Putin Must be Responsible for War Crimes, Atrocities Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, said he doesn't think Vladimir Putin was lying when he indicated last week that he would be justified in employing any amount of force, suggesting tactical nuclear weapons are still a possibility. President Vladimir Putin must be held responsible for the war crimes and other atrocities carried out by Russian troops in Ukraine, according to Jake Sullivan, who also admitted that diplomacy will ultimately be needed to put a stop to the crisis. That is unlikely to occur until Putin is prepared to engage in negotiations. According to a survey issued on Sunday by a Russian company, 93% of those who cast ballots on the first day of the referendum on the Zaporizhzhia region joining the Russian Federation were in favor. 500 people in the Russian-occupied territory were reportedly polled, according to the Crimean Republican Institute for Political and Sociological Research. Sham referendums voting started on Friday, as per Ukrainian and American officials. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed on Sunday, on CBS's that President Vladimir Putin knows he is losing the war and must provide an explanation for why Russia is pressing ahead with referendums in the regions of Ukraine it controls. Putin intends to annex the territories, so he can continue the invasion while claiming to be defending Russian territory, as per USA Today. Read Also: Migrant Crisis: Heartbreaking Photo Shows Innocent Victims of Current Situation on Southern Border Zelensky Acknowledges US for HIMARS, Weapons Aid In an interview, Zelenskyy admitted that the US had promised to give Kiev a sophisticated air defense system called the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). Zelenskyy also expressed appreciation for the US's provision of HIMARS and other many rocket-launching systems, which allowed Ukraine to advance against the Russian occupiers. In the meantime, supporters of Vladimir Putin from Bulgaria have gathered close to Kalofer in the country's center, brandishing flags with the identical Z emblems seen on Russian military equipment in Ukraine. Many people in the EU and NATO member state of the Balkans still harbor sentimental feelings for the old communist government. The annual Russophiles meet, a pro-Moscow gathering, took place as Sofia prepared for new elections and as the nation struggled with its identity. After Moscow hurriedly mobilized hundreds of thousands of recruits to fight in Ukraine, divisions over whether to welcome or send away Russians escaping conscription have grown more pronounced throughout Europe, Aljazeera reported. President Zelensky brought up the most recent atrocities discovered in Kharkiv, which the Ukrainian forces had just recently freed from Russian rule. However, earlier this month, the White House warned that such a move may jeopardize the tenuous humanitarian arrangements made with Russia in regions of Ukraine that are under its authority. The US first used the channel of communication established during the Cold War to alert Russia to JFK's murder. Obama's 2016 warning to Moscow not to meddle in the US presidential race was its last recorded use. Putin urged more Russians to join his stumbling invasion, which has been going on for seven months, in a speech last week. He also made a comment that many took to be a nuclear threat, according to Daily Mail. Related Article: Vladimir Putin Secretly Passes Law To Send 1 Million Russian Soldiers To Fight in Ukraine; Kremlin Claims West Wants To Destroy Russia @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Since the late 19th century, cash-operated vending machines and kiosks have been used to sell drinks, snacks, newspapers and much more. However, new digital technology is expanding how customers pay through these types of unattended commerce. Todays consumers use mobile apps, wearables, and contactless cards to pay for food, groceries, parking, bike rentals and other goods and services. And businesses are meeting these customer demands by continuing to design creative ways to provide cashless unattended commerce to customers. Customer experience is key The entire landscape of unattended commerce is changing. For years,vending machines only took cash. This not only restricted payment options for consumers (who were out of luck if they had no bills or coins), it required someone to physically place cash in the machine, ensure it had enough change then collect the cash later something along those lines. The cost of this type of routine maintenance may be avoided by installing a payment card or other digital payment options in vending machines. Although unattended commerce can feel intimidating for retailers, there are some examples of how its being used for digital ordering. An excellent example of innovative use of cashless unattended commerce comes from global pizza chain Little Caesars. Using a suite of payment and fraud management solutions from Cybersource, a Visa solution, the stores payment platform enabled customers to order online or via a mobile app and pick up their pizza using a QR code at the brands exclusive Pizza Portal, a heated, self-service mobile order pickup station located in the lobby of each store. This endeavor required no interaction between people, making it particularly timely when it launched during the pandemic. The payment system can be tailored to suit preferred local payment methods, using Cybersources Global Payment Gateway, which secures payment data via a token management service. Customers quickly fell in love with this new digital ordering channel, and sales soared. After seeing success with the Pizza Portal in the US and Canada, the global chain wanted to make these ecommerce tools available to their more than 850 stores abroad, which they manage from their headquarters in Detroit. Since no development is needed to add new local-market acquirers, Cybersources flexible Decision Manager fraud detection and prevention software was integrated globally, ensuring the customer experience was seamless and secure. Digital payments offer huge opportunities for businesses. A software-first approach and open APIs mean they can now connect to partners and banks around the world. Cybersource gives businesses a powerful and flexible cloud-based digital payments platform that serves the needs of consumers for convenience, options, and peace of mind. Learn more about Cybersource here. Sorry, no valid subscriptions were found for this Publication. Please select from an option below to start a subscription. SUBSCRIBE TODAY! 24 Hour Access Primeste notificari pe email Nota bene: Adresele email cu extensia .ru nu sunt acceptate. Contractare si Achizitie Bunuri Anunturi de Angajare Granturi - Finantari Burse de studiu Stagii Profesionale Oportunitati de voluntariat Toate Articolele Standard property policies typically contain an exclusion which provides that the insurer will not pay for loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by . . . water that backs up or overflows from a sewer, drain, or sump. A reasonable reading of that language would likely include within the application of the exclusion, damage caused by sewerage that backed up or overflowed from the sewer. Not so fast. Until recently in Ohio, the water-backup exclusion had been found to not include damage caused by sewerage as a result of the backup or overflow. However, in AKC, Inc. v. United Specialty Insurance Co., 2021-Ohio-3540, 187 N.E.3d 501 (Ohio 10/6/21), the Ohio Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Ohio Ninth District Court of Appeals and found that a water-backup exclusion necessarily included sewerage within the scope of the exclusion. The Court of Appeals had found that the exclusion was ambiguous because it did not specifically use the word sewerage. The Ohio Supreme Court found that when water backed up or overflowed from a sewer, the water was necessarily going to contain some sewerage. Referring to the Websters dictionary definition of sewer and sewage, there was no doubt to the Supreme Court that the average person purchasing insurance would understand this to be so because sewers naturally carry a watery mixture that most people typically call sewage. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected the ambiguity methodology of the Court of Appeals. According to the Ohio Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals had improperly created ambiguity in the insurance policy by asking whether the insurer could have included different or more express language in the contract. The Supreme Court found that the question was not whether the water backup exclusion could have been worded differently or should have specifically stated that it applied to sewerage, even though it could have necessarily and succinctly done so with the mere addition of the very word. The correct question was whether the water backup exclusion, as written, applied to sewerage carried into the insured property during a backup or overflow event. The Supreme Court found that it plainly did. The Supreme Court also noted that there were standard endorsements available for purchase to the insured that effectively removed the water backup exclusion from the policy and thereby would have provided property owners with coverage for that type of event. The obvious intent of the water-backup exclusion was to bar damages caused directly or indirectly by water that backed up or overflowed from a sewer. As such, the exclusion applied to damage caused by sewerage, even though the word sewerage was not used in the exclusion. Hurricane Ian is expected to build power as it nears western Cuba later Monday and menace Floridas west coast, where a close call could be as bad as a direct hit. Ian was about 275 miles (442 kilometers) southeast of the western tip of Cuba, the US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory at 8 a.m. New York time. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour and is expected to rapidly intensify as it moves north. A hurricane watch is in effect along Floridas west coast, including Tampa Bay, and hurricane warnings have been issued for Grand Cayman and parts of Cuba. Ian is forecast to become a major hurricane tonight when it is near western Cuba, Brad Reinhart, a hurricane specialist at the center, wrote in his outlook. Ian is the second destructive hurricane to rip across the Atlantic in less than a week, following Hurricane Fiona. Fiona struck Atlantic Canada over the weekend, causing extensive damage, power outages and flooding across Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Ians center is set to pass near the Cayman Islands Monday and then overnight near western Cuba, where the storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 14 feet (4 meters) above normal, the hurricane center said. Rains could produce flash flooding and mudslides in parts of Cuba. The hurricane will likely move west of the Florida Keys late Tuesday and approach the states west coast Wednesday. Some tornadoes are possible late Monday and Tuesday across the Florida Keys and into the southern part of the state. Heavy rain is expected to hit the north, including parts of the Florida Panhandle toward the weekend. It is going to be a very dangerous storm, said Paul Walker, a meteorologist with commercial forecaster AccuWeather Inc. This will likely be the first major storm to hit the US this year. AccuWeather expects Ian will make landfall Friday on the Panhandle and ride up the western coast. Hurricanes spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, so in Ians case its strongest side would be pointed directly at the Florida coastline. The path of the storm could cause travel delays, with some airlines warning that flights could be canceled as the system moves across the Gulf of Mexico into the southern US. Emergency Declaration The storm could cause $25 billion to $50 billion in damage to the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research. A near miss could be worse than a direct strike, Watson said. If the hurricanes eye wall were to graze Tampa Bay it would send more storm surge into the waterway than if Ian came into the city directly. A near miss could cause water to rise by about 20 feet in the Tampa Bay, bringing widespread flooding and driving economic losses and damage higher. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida on Saturday, freeing federal disaster aid to the state. He also postponed a scheduled trip on Tuesday to the state that included a Democratic National Committee rally in Orlando. Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency across Florida and warned residents to prepare. Forecasters are also watching a second system that has a 70% chance of becoming the Atlantics next storm later Monday. About the photo: Office buildings stand in downtown Tampa, Florida, U.S., as the eye of the storm moved over the lower Florida Keys on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. Exxon Mobil temporarily halted maintenance at an East Texas oil drilling facility after a fatality this week, which was at least the second death this year of a contractor at one of its Texas production sites. The incident occurred on Tuesday near Hawkins, about 110 miles east of Dallas. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating, the Harrison County Sheriffs Office said. The name of the worker, an employee of Axis Energy Services, was not immediately available. The death was ruled accidental, the sheriffs office said in a Facebook post. Axis could not immediately be reached for comment. Our thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues at this difficult time, Meghan Macdonald, a spokesperson for XTO and ExxonMobil, said in a statement. She declined to comment further. This year, Pamela Bleyl, 49, was killed in an incident at an Exxon shale oil production site in West Texas. An employee of oilfield services provider Liberty Energy Inc, Bleyl was crushed between two pieces of equipment while working in Martin County, according to a negligence lawsuit filed in April in Harris County district court in Houston. We are very sorry this incident occurred, and we continue to express our deepest sympathy to Pamelas family and friends, Macdonald said, adding safety is a priority for the company and the core value at all of our operations and facilities. Following the Queen Elizabeth II's passing, a source claims that Prince Harry is "desperately" attempting to alter his tell-all book. The Penguin Random House publication of the "intimate and passionate" book will be postponed due to the period of royal mourning. With top royals including King Charles III and Prince William reportedly becoming increasingly unhappy about the memoir's contents, it is now expected to be released the following year. Publishers Might Ask Prince Harry to Add About Queen Elizabeth II' Death In light of his grandmother's passing, an insider now claims the Duke of Sussex is desperate to have the book polished, but warns that it may be too late. Prince Harry has thrown a wrench in the works because he is keen to get it perfected in light of the Queen's passing, her funeral, and his father Charles taking the throne, a source claimed. The revelation of the book sent a tsunami of terror through royal circles, but Prince Harry has sworn that it will be a "truthful and totally true chronicle of his life." Following the Queen Elizabeth II's funeral on Monday, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle are returning to the US after attempts were made "on both sides" to mend fences with their royal kin, a friend said. King Charles III, Prince William, and Prince Harry reunited after the death of the monarch as they grieved, followed her casket in many processions, and attended her funeral along with their wives. Although the publishers are said to want the book to be on the stores in the US by Thanksgiving on November 24 so that it will target the crucial Christmas market, no publication date for the book has yet been made public. It is still possible that the publishers will want the Duke to add information about what transpired after the Queen's death, when there were evident tensions between Prince Harry, his brother Prince William, and the King over his own role in the events leading up to the funeral and that of the Duchess of Sussex. This would not mean that the publishers would want the Duke to water down the memoir. It comes after new allegations regarding the Duchess were published in royal author Valentine Low's book 'Courtiers, The Hidden Power Behind the Crown'. According to the report, Meghan Markle's advisers referred to her as a "narcissistic psychopath" and themselves as the Sussex Survivors Club. Royal household officials believed there might be a compromise for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to continue with part-time royal duties before they stepped down from their positions, but the late Queen rejected the notion, according to Low. There were five various options explored, including giving the couple a month off each year to spend however they pleased. Some senior courtiers even thought they could use the same model in the future for junior members of the Royal family. The Queen emphasized that the pair could not do any royal duties at all if they were unable to follow the restrictions placed on all working members of the Royal family, which meant they could not accept paid employment, as per Mirror. Read Also: Tom Hardy Wins Jiu-Jitsu! Here's How the Actor Entered Martial Arts Tournament and Dominated Prince Harry Thinks He Would be 'Irrelevant' When Prince George Turns 18 In the meantime, a recent book claims that the Duke of Sussex was keen to make a difference before Prince George turned 18 because he was concerned he would lose his relevance after that. Prince Harry reportedly felt irritated that his advisors were holding him back when he wanted to get involved in the same fields as his brother, the Prince of Wales, according to a new book by The Times' royal writer Valentine Low. Low spoke to members of the royal family and according to an excerpt from The Times, Low was informed that Prince Harry had long-standing "anxiety that his time was running out" while he was still a working royal. The Duke's staff allegedly tried to reassure him that if he laid the proper foundations now, he would still have an impact well into his later years, but their efforts failed to calm his fears, according to the book. Low claims that some of Prince Harry's advisors spent much of their time talking him down because it would not fit into the bigger picture of what the three of them - Prince William, Kate Middleton, and Prince Harry - were trying. Prince Harry allegedly harbored a great mistrust of the courtiers at Buckingham House and his father's palace and his desire to establish his legacy in the same areas as Prince William could lead to tensions, Independent reported. Related Article: Royal Snub: Here's Why Prince Harry Sat Behind King Charles III, Not Next to Prince William; Duke's Uniform Missed Symbol To Honor the Queen @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Many Californians will discover a pleasant surprise in their mailboxes in the coming weeks: their eagerly anticipated gas tax return. The 2022-2023 budget, which was unveiled by Governor Gavin Newsom in late June, featured a $9.5 billion middle-class tax return, also known as the gas tax rebate. Californians who qualify will get 18 million payments from the state in October. Who Can Receive $1,050 Gas Tax Rebate? A check between $200 and $1,050 will be sent to residents who filed their 2020 tax return by October 15, 2021, depending on their income. Families making more than $500,000 and single filers making more than $250,000 in 2020 are ineligible. According on your income, you will receive the following: Single: $700 with a dependant and $350 without one, respectively, for $75,000 or less. $75,001 to $125,000: $500 for those who have dependents, $250 for those who don't For income between $125,001 and $250,000, the price is $400 with a dependent and $200 without. Married: $1,050 with a dependent, $700 without one, or less than $150,000 $751 with a dependant; $500 without a dependent for income between $150,001 and $250,000. $400 without a dependant; $600 with a dependent for income between $250,001 and $500,000 Head of household or qualifying widow/widower: $700 with a dependent, $350 without one, or less than $150,000 $500 with a dependent; $250 without a dependent from $150,001 to $250,000. $250,001 to $500,000: $400 for those who have dependents; $200 for those who don't A direct deposit will be made to those who electronically filed their 2020 taxes between October 7 and November 14. Debit cards will be distributed to everyone else between October 25 and January 15, as per CBS Sacramento via MSN. Gas Tax Rebates in Missouri In Missouri, drivers have five days to submit a gas tax rebate claim. The deadline for anyone residing in Missouri or a driver who topped off their petrol tank during certain dates in the state is September 30. The gas tax rebate was established by the state of Missouri to offset the rise in gas taxes. Beginning on October 1, 2021, and continuing through June 30, 2022, Missouri residents might request gas reimbursements of their expenditures. Missouri raised its gas rates by 2.5 cents per gallon in October 2021. Car owners in Missouri must act now to collect the gas tax rebate as the deadline draws near. Vehicle owners must submit an application to the Missouri Department of Revenue by September 30. From October 2021 through June 2022, residents of Missouri could apply for a 2.5-cent per gallon rebate. The Kansas City Star provided an illustration of how the frequency of gas fill-ups will affect refunds. The people of Missouri must have what, in the Department of Revenue's opinion: The vehicle's number and identification Gas sales date Name and location Name and address of the seller Gallons bought Taxes incurred Your vehicles must weigh no more than 26,000 pounds, and you must have your gas station receipts on hand. If you still have your receipt and charged gas in Missouri, you are eligible for the rebate. Gas taxes in Missouri will rise by 2.5 cents annually until 2025, which all motorists in the state must be aware of. According to statistics, Missouri's gas tax will be 29 cents per gallon by 2025. Republicans raised taxes while decrying rising gas prices. However, Missouri will cost more to fill up with gas than any of the blu-states they attacked. Read Also: How Big Data Transformed the Real Estate Industry Tax Rebate in Georgia In the meanwhile, Governor Brian Kemp signed a law in March enabling reimbursements to individuals who filed federal returns in both 2020 and 2021. Household heads received $375 in May, married couples filing jointly received $500, and individual taxpayers received $250. Partial-year residents, those who pay little to no taxes, those who owe money in the form of taxes, child support, or other responsibilities may have received a smaller rebate. The majority of residents who filed their 2021 federal return by April 18 should have gotten their refunds by early August, according to the Department of Revenue's website. According to CNET, the Department of Revenue started providing rebates in May, Marca reported. Related Article: Stimulus Checks for Immigrants: Here's How You May Receive $1,000 To Use for Documents Expenses @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form Awards will be given out in five categories, with $2,000 going to the winner of each category and $500 to selected runners-up. The award categories are: Rising Star Award This award recognises an individual who is less than three years into their cyber security career and is already having an impact in the industry, showing strong leadership and innovation skills. Community Innovator Award This award recognises an individual or start-up that shows creativity and entrepreneurship by working to solve a problem plaguing the cyber security community. Against the Odds Award This award will be given to an individual who has persevered in their cyber career in the face of hardship, and has not been afraid to fail to achieve long-term success. Inspirational Mentor Award This award acknowledges the impact of a mentor who has actively sought mentoring relationships beyond their day-to-day role, proving themselves to be a positive role model to the next generation of cyber talent. Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award This award recognises an individual who has worked to make the cyber industry more diverse and inclusive, modelling their day-to-day behaviour to promote acceptance and support all communities. The CommBank Cyber Community Awards cover these five categories because they capture the breadth of the talent, dedication, and achievement across the cyber industry not only those on the frontlines, but those working to strengthen the cyber community as a whole, said Mr Howard. The cyber security industry is very community-spirited across the board and these awards are our way of celebrating this community. The award categories acknowledge the dedication and impact that individuals within the cyber industry have on keeping Australians safe and secure. Nominations for the awards opened on 5 September 2022, with the entry period extended until 9 October 2022. For full details about the competition, and to find out how to enter or nominate someone, visit the CommBank Cyber Community Awards site. Jim Matthews, a Michigan news anchor, was killed in a violent home invasion; his son, who attempted to wrestle with the attacker, was critically injured. Authorities discovered 57-year-old Jim Matthews' body inside the unit along with a 10-year-old youngster who had suffered severe beatings. Investigators said the alleged murderer was still inside the home but she had overdosed and was wounded herself, as per ABC7 Chicago. Michigan Radio News Anchor Jim Matthews Killed Shortly later, police were called to the house where they discovered Matthews dead and Nichole Guertin, his 35-year-old girlfriend, with life-threatening stab wounds. Guertin was found in a neighboring parking lot, critically bleeding, and wrapped with duct tape. After undergoing brain and ear surgery, Hunter, the Michigan news anchor's son, is in a critical condition. When Hunter attempted to confront his father's killer, he was beaten, handcuffed, and thrown into a cupboard. Hunter was discovered in a closet tied up and injured. The suspect, who is still in the hospital and has not been identified, is believed to have brutalized the kid when he attempted to defend himself. The child is being given medication while he goes through the hardest battle he has yet to face, according to his aunt Ashley Quigley. In an interview, Joe Nicolai praised his brother Jim Matthews, saying he was just a great person. "He was really enthusiastic about his kids, took care of them, and was a family man." When asked why the suspect was at his brother's house, Nicolai said he have no idea why he was there, what he was doing there, or what business he had there, Daily Mail reported. Read Also: Republicans Prepare To Impeach US President Joe Biden Once They Take the House Majority in the Midterm Elections Attacker was a 'Family Friend' The grieving brother said to a news source in Michigan that the brutality is not even something you'd see in a horror movie. Nicolai said his wife comforted Matthews' partner and 5-year-old kid who managed to escape the savage attack when she contacted him on Friday to inform him about the incident. Hours prior to the horrifying incident, the alleged killer was invited inside Matthews' home and routinely visited, according to the police. The culprit, who attempted suicide after the slaughter, was hospitalized along with the three survivors, authorities confirmed. "There is no motive, and I'm not clear what he is doing there. According to the primary investigator I spoke with, my brother most likely arrived home to this," Nicolai said. Matthews arrives home at 5:30 p.m in the morning, was probably attacked by surprise. The attack on Quigley's sister's family, which she called vicious and needless, has prompted her to launch a GoFundMe page to help her family, according to New York Post. There have been many tears shed in our newsroom this afternoon, according to Matthews' coworkers, who praised him as "a consummate professional" when he was delivering the news. They said, "Our thoughts go out to Jim's family and friends. The situation is still being investigated into. Related Article: New York Crime: Suitcases Full of Dismembered Body Parts Found in Brooklyn Apartment After Tenant in Her 20s Reported Missing @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The largest multinational four-day workweek experiment to date has reached the midway point in the UK, and feedback from participating organizations indicates most hope to retain a 32-hour workweek after their pilot ends. The experiment is being run by the 4 Day Week Global coalition in collaboration with researchers at Cambridge University, Boston College, and the University of Oxford. With a few exceptions, most companies taking part in the project are smaller firms. The pandemic made all of us reevaluate the place of work in our lives, and it showed that we could adopt new ways of working faster than we ever thought possible, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, program director for the 4-day workweek, said via email. Many people don't want to go back to office life Monday through Friday, and a four-day [workweek] offers features that for some companies make it more attractive than flexible or fully remote work (though you can combine those with a four-day week)." The shorter workweek has proved popular with CEOs as well as employees, Pang said. "The four-day week trial so far has been extremely successful for us, said Claire Daniels, CEO at Trio Media, one of the 70 companies participating in the pilot project. "Productivity has remained high, with an increase in wellness for the team, along with our business performing 44% better financially." For some companies, the workweek shift has meant throwing out old norms and embracing new ones. It wasn't a walk in the park at the start, but no major change ever is, and we were well briefed and prepared by the 4 Day Week Global team, said Nicci Russell, managing director of Waterwise, which now shuts down on Fridays. "We have all had to work at it some weeks are easier than others and things like annual leave can make it harder to fit everything in but we're much more settled with it now overall.... We certainly all love the extra day out of the office and do come back refreshed. It's been great for our wellbeing and we're definitely more productive already. Joe OConnor, CEO of 4-Day workweek Global, said most companies have had a fairly smooth transition to a four-day week. For others, there are some understandable hurdles, especially among those [with] comparatively fixed or inflexible practices, systems, or cultures [that] date back well into the last century. A lot of businesses have more flexibility and nimbleness among their people and teams that leaders often know at the outset there is friction for others, and this can be based on a variety of factors, many of which can be addressed or substantially improved in the pilot itself, he said. One surprise for most participating organizations was the support from partners and clients, "or, at worst, [they] take the attitude, 'So long as the work gets done, who cares how long it takes?'" Pang said. "In conversations with about 300 companies, Ive heard exactly two stories of clients or prospects not working with companies after they moved to a four-day week. Even to me, a fierce advocate of the four-day week, thats remarkable." The study involves 3,300 workers in the UK and another 2,000 who are located in about a half dozen countries. Compensation for employees remains the same as when they worked five days; they're simply expected to complete their work in four days. The changes companies have had to make include shorter meetings, monotasking rather than multitasking, better communications, and sharing responsibility for clients across a week, according to Pang. "Theres also a lot of muscle memory to fight against: the belief that your hours are a direct measure of your professionalism, worth to the company, or passion for your job, are ground into us from an early age, and take time to unlearn," he said. In addition to improved worker wellbeing and productivity, 63% of businesses have found it easier to attract and retain talent, Pang said. The average knowledge worker loses something like two to three hours of time every day to pointless meetings, interruptions, and technology-enabled distractions. So, if you can just get a handle on those, you're a long way to making the four-day week work, he said. Add in efficiencies that come from using technology more mindfully, or designing the workday to give everyone meeting-free time or periods for deep work, and productivity [was] equal or exceeded that of companies working five-day weeks. Most organizations in the pilot include all of their employees, said Juliet Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College and one of the studys administrators. There are only a few that do a subset [of employees], she said. But many of our companies are small. The ones that do a subset arethe biggest ones. For example, one company with about 1,000 employees included 400 of them in the pilot, Schor said, adding, We are launching new programs every quarter in different regions. We've been starting a new one roughly every six months." The six-month test began in January, with the first trial taking place in Ireland and including four US-based companies. From there, the pilots expanded in April to the United States and Canada, in June to the United Kingdom, and then to Australia and New Zealand. A second US/Canada pilot is set to begin in October. "Were just beginning to talk to companies for our EU and South African trials, so too early to tell how large those will be," Pang said. A survey of the UK organizations in the pilot found that: 88% see the four-day week as working "well" for their business at this stage. 46% said business productivity remained the same, 34% said it "improved slightly," and 15% said it "improved significantly." 86% said at this point, they are "extremely likely" and or "likely" to consider retaining a four-day week after the trial ends. When asked how smooth the transition has been (with 5 being extremely smooth and 1 being extremely challenging), 29% selected 5, 49% chose 4 and 20% pegged the transition at 3. The 4-Day Week pilot is not the first of its kind. In 2019, the US-based fast food chain Shake Shack ran a trial for its Las Vegas-based locations. Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti, said during an earnings call that the pilots results were promising and expanded it to restaurant managers. The fast food chain suspended the test in September 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. More companies have experimented with four-day weeks during the past two years, according to Pang. In his "Shorter," Pang discusses 100 companies around the world that moved to a four-day week. We have more than that in our current trials, and many others are doing it themselves, he said. Amy Loomis, a research vice president with IDCs Future of Work practice, said researchers are seeing momentum outside the US for a four-day workweek. It may need to originate there and provide significant enough results to [achieve] broader global adoption, Loomis said. I think culturally that is a harder sell in North America and Asia Pacific. She called the discussion around how many actual hours are worked in a week a red herring or a throwback to the industrial eras 9-to-5, five-day-a-week schedule, which was used to measure employee productivity. Our research suggests that the move to outcomes-based measurements of productivity is growing and as such, use of an hourly [measurement] is not in keeping with the discussion of outcomes, Loomis said. Its by no means easy to get a whole business ecosystem to change standards either regionally or around the globe. As analytics become more sophisticated, it is possible to look at other metrics to measure productivity, such as teaming how much productivity is achieved by a team of employees in a set period or agile metrics such as customer satisfaction scores, Loomis said. Another factor is company size. Because most of those participating in the current experiment are small, their founders or CEOs are typically driving participation, according to Pang. Companies are also more willing to participate in the experiment now than before the pandemic. Companies were often reticent to talk publicly about their trials, but now they issue press releases, and the CEO posts about it on LinkedIn, Pang said. This shows how quickly popular perceptions about the four-day week have shifted, from being a slightly weird and definitely a risky thing, to a flex [strategy] that shows you care about your employees. SRINAGAR, SEPTEMBER 25: From last two years Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha led administration has setup a system which works for the welfare of common masses. Government has initiated several measures to uplift the economic conditions of the people here which in turn has shown great signs of improvement on daily basis. During the past three years, the Government has introduced numerous self-employment schemes to help the youngsters to set up their ventures. Mission youth has been one of the most rewarding initiatives on behalf of the J&K administration. Self Employment has become a Governments priority area and the Mission Youth is working at it. Various reports of different national surveying agencies including NITI Aayog showed Jammu and Kashmir well ahead of national average and can be rightly described as changing Jammu and Kashmir. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha hailed the Jammu and Kashmir Budget for the financial year 2022-23 and said that it will meet the needs and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. He also added that the main goal of the Budget for 2022-23 is the economic development of every region in the Union Territory. The Budget for 2022-2023 is going to meet the needs and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This is a development-oriented budget and economic development of every region is the main goal of this Budget. This Budget is going to bring a change in J&K at a polemic pace, Sinha remarked. Remarkably, Jammu and Kashmir is first to launch District Good Governance Index. Tourism has gone all time high in last 6-7 months. During last year, 11,578 recruitments were made taking total to 30,000 in three years. There has been highest ever air traffic at Jammu and Srinagar airports. Among all 4290 Panchayats, barring 8-10 where land is not available, every Panchayat has playfield. The UT also stood best in transparency and COVID management. fill in the gap between demand and supply of skilled workforce and to create a strong environment for professionals and technical skill development in Jammu and Kashmir, the Government has roped in prominent organisations like ICICI Foundation, Tata Technologies Ltd, Primal Foundation, Wipro, among others for working on upgrading skills of youth in the sectors having high employability potential like banking and financial services, digital marketing, media management etc. Another initiative of stopping Durbar Move has saved Rs 400 crore expenditure every year by ending the bi-annual practice. Rs 1000 crore worth works on National Highways and tunnels are going on in Jammu and Kashmir while as Distance from Jammu to Srinagar has been reduced from 10 hours to five and half hours and after completion of some works, it will further come down to four and half hours to four hours. There has also been a significant increase in revenue generation in Jammu and Kashmir. The GST, Excise, ST and other taxes have recorded 25 percent growth due to proper tax planning, effective monitoring and efficient implementation of the tax statutes aimed at bringing transparency and accountability in the system which contributed towards scaling up the momentum of revenue collection in J&K. Australians are unhappy with Telstra for not protecting their data, and a mysterious hacker who claims to have stolen millions of Optus users' personal information is demanding $1 million as ransom. Millions of people's personal information including addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, license numbers, and passport numbers will be exposed, the hacker has said, unless Optus pays $1 million in Monero cryptocurrency. Optus Data Breach They claim to be in possession of information on 11.2 million Optus customers in a significant breach that tech experts now accept as credible. On Saturday morning, the hackers posted a ransom demand on a website, giving the operator one week to respond. The warning comes as Optus consumers express their annoyance on social media, with chief executive and parenting expert Dannielle Miller just one of the millions who claim the company's response has been inadequate. Miller, an Optus client for 30 years, told Daily Mail Australia that she had come to expect more from the telco after such a long period of devotion. The Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin's apology. Miller declared that she would advise her employees to switch carriers and close the Optus accounts that belonged to her, her daughter, and herself. She said that Optus should reimburse customers for any out-of-pocket costs incurred when they may be need to amend details like their license number, as per Daily Mail. The cyberattack, according to Anthony Albanese earlier on Monday, was a major wake-up call for the corporate sector over the need to protect people's data. In response to the attack, Jim Chalmers claimed that the federal government was responding effectively, but he wouldn't say how swiftly additional security improvements would be implemented. The Treasurer responded that Clare O'Neil, the Home Affairs and Cybersecurity Minister, should handle any urgent adjustments needed to safeguard Australians' financial security from similar data breaches. After the Attorney-Department General's presents the Albanese government with its final report on its review of the law, it is anticipated that Australia's privacy laws will also be modified. Read Also: North Korea 'Threatens' Indo-Pacific Peace and Security With Ballistic Missile Launch Prior To Kamala Harris Visit Australia Urges to Improve Cybersecurity Laws The Morrison administration started the review of the Privacy Act in 2020 and put out a number of improvements, including extending users' legal recourse against businesses for data breaches. Two years prior to last week's incident, Optus lobbied against amending privacy regulations to offer Australians more control over their data. This was because it would have meant losing the personal information of customers dating all the way back to 2017. The telco behemoth repeatedly resisted proposed amendments to the Privacy Act that would have offered users the option to ask for the deletion of their data. Optus Chief Executive Officer Kelly Bayer Rosmarin stated that as soon as the business became aware of the incident, steps were taken to put a halt to it and an inquiry was started, News reported. In a statement released this morning, the telco said that it had emailed or SMS messages to all of its customers whose ID document numbers, such as their license or passport number, had been compromised. Additionally, people are warned not to grant computer access to anyone who phones, even if they pose as representatives of a trustworthy organization and make sure to ignore websites that seem dubious. Optus also claimed in the letter that it chose to inform the public about the incident because it believed doing so would be the quickest and easiest way to reach the most number of customers, with individual contact to follow, according to 9 News. Related Article: Biden Urges Enforcement in Crypto, Digital Asset Rules as Administration Warns These Markets Pose Threat to Financial Stability @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In August, Patrick Hillman, chief communications officer of blockchain ecosystem Binance, knew something was off when he was scrolling through his full inbox and found six messages from clients about recent video calls with investors in which he had allegedly participated. Thanks for the investment opportunity, one of them said. I have some concerns about your investment advice, another wrote. Others complained the video quality wasnt very good, and one even asked outright: Can you confirm the Zoom call we had on Thursday was you? With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Hillman realized that someone had deepfaked his image and voice well enough to hold 20-minute investment Zoom calls trying to convince his companys clients to turn over their Bitcoin for scammy investments. The clients I was able to connect with shared with me links to faked LinkedIn and Telegram profiles claiming to be me inviting them to various meetings to talk about different listing opportunities. Then the criminals used a convincing-looking holograph of me in Zoom calls to try and scam several representatives of legitimate cryptocurrency projects, he says. As the worlds largest crypto exchange with $25 billion in volume at the time of this writing, Binance deals with its share of fake investment frauds that try to capitalize on its brand and steal peoples crypto. This was a first for us, Hillman says. I see it as a harbinger of what we think is the future of AI-generated deepfakes used in business scams, but it is already here. The scam is so novel that if it werent for astute investors detecting oddities and latency in the videos Hillman may have never known about these deepfake video calls, despite the companys heavy investments in security talent and technologies. Deepfakes as a service With AI-generated deepfakes getting easier to produce, they are already being used to social engineer trained employees and bypass security controls. The misuse of deepfakes to commit fraud, extortion, scams, and child exploitation is enough of a risk for businesses and the public that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently issued a 40-page report on deepfakes. It details how deepfakes are created by composites of images and voices culled from online sources and it also offers opportunities to mitigate deepfakes at the intent, research, creation, and dissemination stages of an attack. Were already seeing deepfakes as a service on the dark web, just like we see ransomware as a service used in extortion techniques, because deepfakes are incredibly effective in social engineering, says Derek Manky, chief security strategist and VP of global threat intelligence at Fortinets FortiGuard Labs. For example, leveraging deepfakes is popular in BEC [business email compromise] scams to effectively convince somebody to send funds to a fake address, especially if they think its an instruction from a CFO. Whaling for executives, BEC scams, and other forms of phishing and farming represent the first phase of type of attacks against businesses. For example, in 2019, scammers using a deepfake of a corporate CEOs voice marked as urgent convinced a division chief to wire $243,000 to a Hungarian supplier. But many experts see deepfakes as part of future malware packages, including in ransomware and biometrics subversion. Retooling needed to spot deepfakes Beyond convincing company executives to send money, deepfakes also present unique challenges to voice authentication frequently used by banks today, along with other biometrics, says Lou Steinberg, former CTO of Ameritrade. After Ameritrade, Steinberg went on to found cyber research lab CTM Insights, to tackle problems like data integrity weaknesses that allow deepfakes to bypass security controls. He came to the realization that biometrics are just another form of data that criminals can manipulate after a demonstration with Israeli researchers. We saw Israeli researchers replacing images in a CT scanner to hide or add cancer into the scan images, and we realized this could be used in ransom situations when the bad guys say, Well only show you the real results of your real CT scan if you pay us X amount of dollars, Steinberg says. As such, he says, there needs to be more focus on data integrity. Deepfakes are AI-generated, and traditional signature technology cant keep up because it only takes a little tweak of the image to change the signature. Knowing that traditional security controls wont protect consumers and businesses from deepfakes, Adobe launched the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) to address the issue of content integrity in image and audio down to the developer level. CAI members have drafted open standards to develop manifests at the point of image capture (for example from the digital camera taking the picture) so viewers and security tools can verify authenticity of an image. The initiative has more than 700 supporting companies, many of them media providers including USA Today, Gannett News, Getty Images, along with stock image providers and imaging products companies such as Nikon. The issue of deepfakes is important enough that the Adobe CEO is pressing for authentication of content behind the image and audio files. This is one example of how protecting against deepfakes will require a new set of countermeasures and context, including deep learning, AI, and other techniques to decipher if something is real or not, explains Brian Reed, former Gartner analyst who is now advisor at Lionfish Technology Advisors. He also points the Deep Fakes Passport Act introduced as Senate Bill HR 5532, which seeks funding for deepfake competitions in order to foster mitigating controls against them. Steinberg suggests taking a cue from the financial industry, in which fraud detection is beginning to focus more on what a person is asking a system to do rather than just trying to prove who the person is on the other end of the transaction request. We are overfocused on authentication and under-focused on authorization, which comes down to intent, he explains. If you are not authorized to wire millions to an unknown entity in a third world, that transaction should be automatically rejected and reported, with or without the use of biometric authentication. Faking biometric authentication Proving the who in a transaction is also problematic if attackers turn deepfakes against biometrics controls, he continues. Biometrics images and hashes, he says, are also data that can be manipulated with AI-driven deepfake technology that can match the characteristics the biometric scanners authenticate against, such as points on a face and an iris, or loops on a fingerprint. Using AI to identify AI-generated images is a start, but most matching technologies are not granular enough, or theyre so granular that scanning a single image is onerous. Brand protection company Allure Security scales CTMs AI-driven micro-matching technology to identify changes against its database of tens of thousands of original brand images and scanning 100 million pages on a daily basis, says Josh Shaul, CEO of Allure. To identify deepfakes designed to bypass analysis and detection, we are using AI against AI, he explains. We can grow the same technology to detect fake images, profile pictures, online video and Web3 spots. For example, we recently looked at some impersonation in a Metaverse land purchase opportunity. Hillman also urges businesses to update their training and awareness, both internally for employees and executives, and externally for clients. The idea of whether deepfakes are going to be a problem is no longer a question of if but when and I dont think businesses have a playbook about how to defend against deepfake attacks, he predicts. Use your outreach channels to educate. Perform external audits on executives to see who has content out there that makes them susceptible. Audit your controls. And be prepared with crisis management. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have published a new Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) for protecting operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS). The CSA outlines the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) malicious actors use to compromise OT/ICS assets and recommends security mitigations that owners and operators should implement to defend systems. The new advisory builds on previous NSA/CISA guidance on stopping malicious ICS activity and reducing OT exposure, and comes as the cybersecurity risks surrounding OT and ICS continue to threaten to safety of data and critical systems. Securing OT/ICS assets a significant challenge for organizations While OT/ICS assets operate, control, and monitor industrial processes throughout US critical infrastructure, traditional assets are difficult to secure due to their design for maximum availability and safety, the CISA/NSA noted in Alert (AA22-265A). Their use of decades-old systems often lack recent security updates, too. Newer ICS assets may be able to be configured more securely but often have an increased attack surface due to incorporating internet or IT network connectivity to facilitate remote control and operations. The net effect of the convergence of IT and OT platforms has increased the risk of cyber exploitation of control systems, CISA/NSA wrote. This has led to increased malicious cyber activity against OT/ICS systems, with actors ranging from nation state APT attackers to independent hackers targeting OT/ICS assets for political gains, economic advantages, and potentially destructive effects. More recently, APT actors have also developed tools for scanning, compromising, and controlling targeted OT devices, the advisory added. A report commissioned by cloud security company Barracuda discovered an increase in major attacks on industrial IoT/OT systems in the last year with security efforts to protect these systems continuing to lag behind. The report found that 93% of 800 senior IT and security officers surveyed admitted that their organization had failed in their IIoT/OT security projects, with a lack of skills and tools often blamed. Bob Kolasky, senior VP for Exiger and former Assistant Director at CISA, tells CSO that the ubiquity of these assets coupled with the reality that reliance on ICS/OT industrial control is not always well understood is a big security challenge. Perhaps an even bigger challenge is the lifecycle of use for OT which makes ensuring that effective security practices are in place and maintained difficult for products that were designed without security in mind and which may be in use for decades. Retrofitting security and prioritizing in future buy cycles should be a priority but doing so takes concerted effort and investment, he adds. 5 steps to compromise critical infrastructure control systems CISA/NSA stated that malicious actors typically take a five-step approach to planning and executing critical infrastructure control system compromise: Establishing intended effect and selecting a target: For example, cybercriminals are financially motivated and target OT/ICS assets for financial gain, whereas state-sponsored APT actors target critical infrastructure for political or military objectives, such as destabilizing political or economic landscapes or causing psychological or social impacts on a population. The cyber actor selects the target and the intended effect to disrupt, disable, deny, deceive, or destroy based on these objectives. Collecting intelligence about the target system: Once the intent and target are established, the actor collects intelligence on the targeted control system. The actor may collect data from multiple sources, including open-source research, insider threats, and enterprise networks. In addition to OT-specific intelligence, information about IT technologies used in control systems is widely available. Developing techniques and tools to navigate and manipulate the system: Using the intelligence collected about a control systems design, a cyber actor may procure systems that are similar to the target and configure them as mock-up versions for practice purposes. Access to a mock-up of the target system enables an actor to determine the most effective tools and techniques. Actors may also develop custom ICS-focused malware based on their knowledge of the control systems. For example, TRITON malware was designed to target certain versions of Triconex Tricon programmable logic controllers (PLCs) by modifying in-memory firmware to add additional programming. APT actors have also developed tools to scan for, compromise and control certain Schneider Electric PLCs, OMRON Sysmac NEX PLCs, and Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) servers. With TTPs in place, a cyber actor is prepared to do virtually anything that a normal system operator can and potentially much more. Gaining initial access to the system: To leverage the techniques and tools that they developed and practiced, cyber actors must first gain access to a targeted system. Poor security practices around remote access allow cyber actors to leverage these access points as vectors to covertly gain access, exfiltrate data and launch other activities before an operator realizes there is a problem. Malicious actors can use web-based search platforms, such as Shodan, to identify these exposed access points. This access to an ostensibly closed control system can be used to exploit the network and components. Executing techniques and tools to create the intended effects: Once an actor gains initial access to a targeted OT/ICS system, they will execute techniques, tools, and malware to achieve the intended effects on the target system. To disrupt, disable, deny, deceive, and/or destroy the system, the malicious actor often performs, in any order or in combination, the following activities: Degrading the operators ability to monitor the targeted system or degrading the operators confidence in the control systems ability to operate, control and monitor the targeted system. Operating the targeted control system, including the ability to modify analogue and digital values internal to the system or changing output control points. Impairing the systems ability to report data, accomplished by degrading or disrupting communications with external communications circuits, remote terminal units (RTUs) or programmable logic controllers (PLCs), connected business or corporate networks, HMI subnetworks, other remote I/O, and any connected Historian/bulk data storage. Denying the operators ability to control the targeted system, including the ability to stop, abort or corrupt the systems operating system or the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems software functionality. Enabling remote or local reconnaissance on the control system. Leveraging specific expertise and network knowledge, malicious actors such as nation-state actors can conduct these steps in a coordinated manner, sometimes concurrently and repeatedly, as illustrated by real-world cyber activity, the advisory stated. Mitigating ICS/OT system cybersecurity threats System owners and operators cannot prevent a malicious actor from targeting their systems, but by assuming that the system is being targeted and predicting the effects that a malicious actor might intend to cause, they can employ and prioritize mitigation actions, the advisory stated. Owners/operators can apply several ICS security best practices to counter adversary TTPs. The first is limiting the exposure of system information, with a particular focus on information about system hardware, firmware, and software in any public forum, incorporating information protection education into training for personnel. The advisory read, Document the answers to the following questions: From where and to where is data flowing? How are the communication pathways documented and how is the data secured/encrypted? How is the data used and secured when it arrives at its destination? What are the network security standards at the data destination, whether a vendor/regulator or administrator/financial institution? Can the data be shared further once at its destination? Who has the authority to share this data? Eliminate all other data destinations, share only the data necessary to comply with applicable legal requirements, do not allow other uses of the data and other accesses to the system without strict administrative policies, ensure agreements are in place with outside systems/vendors when it comes to sharing, access and use, have strong policies for the destruction of data, and audit policies/procedures to verify compliance and secure data once it gets to its destination, it added. Owners/operators should also maintain detailed knowledge of all installed systems, including which remote access points are (or could be) operating in the control system network. Creating a full connectivity inventory is a critical step in securing access to the system, the CSA stated. Once all remote access points have been identified, the following are just some of the best practices suggested by CISA/NSA to improve their security posture: Reduce the attack surface by proactively limiting and hardening internet-exposed assets. Establish a firewall and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) between control systems and the vendors access points and devices. Enforce strict compliance with policies and procedures for remote access. Use jump boxes to isolate and monitor access to systems. Change all default passwords throughout the system and update any products with hard-coded passwords. Patch known exploited vulnerabilities whenever possible. Continually monitor remote access logs for suspicious accesses. Restricting access to network and control system application tools/scripts to legitimate users is another important area covered in the advisory, along with the performing of independent security audits of systems and the implementation of a dynamic network environment. Kolasky says CISA and the NSA have done a service by continuing to highlight the importance of protecting ICS and OT as a core element of building cyber resilience. This risk is particularly acute for critical infrastructure providers who often operate highly industrialized systems and depend on digital management of those systems, he adds. Because of that, the impact of a breach to an ICS system can be severe and can be felt broadly across critical infrastructure. The new guidance is useful as it encourages cybersecurity professionals to think like the attacker and design defensive processes that are most useful to address common tactics used by attackers, Kolasky continues. The guidance also encourages more effort for professionals to map and understand where their systems are most at risk and focus on building resilience to attacks in those areas. Using the guidance as a check against existing security programs should be helpful for critical infrastructure operators. In Bangladesh's deadliest waterways accident in more than a year, a boat carrying Hindu pilgrims sank on Sunday, killing at least 25 people and leaving scores more missing, according to a local official. Twelve women and 8 children were among the corpses that have so far been found, according to Jahurul Islam, district administration of northern Panchagarh, the accident's scene. Boat Carrying Pilgrims to Temple Overturns in Bangladesh Islam added that the ferry was mostly transporting worshippers to a Hindu shrine in honor of Mahalaya and stated that the search for the missing was still ongoing. Although passengers claimed there were more than 70 persons on the boat when it sank in the Karatoya river, Islam claimed to not be aware of the precise number of those still missing. The district administrator claims that a committee has been formed to investigate into the situation. While some of the passengers were able to swim ashore or were saved, the police said that over 20 persons were still missing, as per New York Post. He added that the ferry was mostly transporting worshippers to a Hindu shrine in honor of Mahalaya and stated that the search for the missing was still ongoing. He claims that a committee has been formed to investigate into the situation, Reuters reported. Around 1:30 p.m., the engine-driven boat capsized near Awalia ghat under the Maria union as it was traveling toward Bodeshari Hindu temple under the Borososhi union, according to Sujoy Kumar Roy, officer-in-charge of Boda Police Station. The Daily Star newspaper, headquartered in Dhaka, stated that a witness claimed two cargo ships struck the boat, which rapidly sank. On the pond's edge, I was grazing some cattle. When the cargo ships hit the passenger trawler, "I heard a huge noise. I witnessed the trawler rapidly sinking," witness Nurul Amin told the newspaper. Read Also: Hurricane Fiona in Canada: Videos Show Major Damage as Houses Get Washed Away to Ocean Boat Accidents in Bangladesh This is not Bangladesh's first boat-related accident, after a cargo ship struck a boat carrying scores of people along a river outside the capital of Bangladesh in March 2022, rescuers found six bodies. Fire department spokesperson Rozina Akhter stated that they were unable to tally the number of people on the ferry. According to local media, there were between 30 and 50 passengers aboard the ferry when it collided near Narayanganj, a town outside of Dhaka. In a different occurrence in 2021, a passenger boat carrying more than 100 passengers capsized in Bangladesh after colliding, and authorities reported that 21 people were killed and about 50 went missing. Every year, hundreds of people in Bangladesh, a low-lying country with extensive inland waterways and inadequate safety laws, pass away in boat accidents. Bangladesh is a delta country where people and goods are frequently transported by water, yet fatal accidents are frequently caused by inexperienced operators and lax enforcement of safety regulations, Independent reported. Related Article: Imagery Reveals North Korea's Plan To Launch New Missile Submarine; Pyongyang Denies Supplying Weapons to Russia @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. During this summer's US court case against Amber Heard, Johnny Depp and his London lawyer girlfriend Joelle Rich were dating, according to sources close to the couple, although they aren't exclusive. They stated that Schilling's attorney Rich had no part in his defense and had to leave for professional reasons, but Johnny Depp is not now searching for a committed relationship. Johnny Depp Has a New Girlfriend Amber Heard's 2018 piece for The Washington Post, in which she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse, was the subject of a defamation lawsuit against the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' actor, 59, which he won in June. Amber Heard, 36, was ordered to compensate Johnny Depp for damages totaling over $8 million. According to sources who spoke to TMZ, Depp dated his former lawyer Joelle Rich during the court proceedings this summer, and the two were'very much' dating. The most recent information appears to substantiate earlier rumors that the two were there together throughout the summer trial. They claimed that Joelle, a 37-year-old mother of two, abandoned her family in the UK while backing Johnny Depp in his legal battle in Virginia. She wasn't there in a professional role because she wasn't a member of the US team handling the investigation, a source previously told The Mail. Joelle's friends claimed that when she abruptly left London in June, she fell off the radar. Many were surprised by the move because Rich and her banker husband Jonathan Rich had just lived in her north London property for approximately a year. According to acquaintances, everything in their world appeared secure, and they had even started making home upgrades. According to reports, Rich and her husband Jonathan are currently divorcing. Rich, a partner at renowned London privacy lawyers Schillings, whose clients include Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle, was a member of Depp's legal team in the High Court. In pictures from a High Court libel case more than two years ago, they can be seen conversing and grinning as they arrive at court, as per Daily Mail. Read Also: Tiffany Haddish, Aries Spears' Accusers Drop Child Abuse Lawsuit; Actress Says She Becomes Jobless After Grooming, Molestation Allegations Who is Joelle Rich? The source tells PEOPLE that despite being married, Depp's new love is currently estranged from her spouse. Rich is also a mother who has two kids with her estranged spouse. She shares that characteristic with Johnny Depp, a parent of two children, son Jack Depp and daughter Lily-Rose Depp, whom he has with his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Paradis. Rich participated in the Virginia defamation trial against Heard earlier this year in support of Depp even though she wasn't a member of his defense team. She attended many court hearings. Rich was spotted in the courtroom on May 16 cuddling Depp's attorney Camille Vasquez. Rich was observed exiting the building with Depp and his employees on May 19. In order to work for Schillings, Rich studied law at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England, from 2003 to 2006. According to her LinkedIn profile, she later attended the BPP Law School in London from 2006 to 2007, where she studied a legal practice course.. Related Article: Kim Kardashian Sends Family to Tears with Emotional Speech for Khloe Kardashian @Youtube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. DAN WOOTTON (pictured) Perhaps the greatest irony in the campaign by the Sussexes to present themselves as having been silenced by the monarchy is that the very people who have the receipts to prove what really happened are themselves silenced by law. The Sussex Survivor Squad, as they now refer to themselves, are the band of once loyal staff members who made a herculean bid to keep Meghan Markle happy as a new member of the British Royal Family, only to see their efforts burnt down time and again by the American actress and her deeply unhappy husband Prince Harry. Its easy to understand why many of the previously devoted courtiers are now convinced the couple were on a self-destruct mission from day one, looking for any slight, aggrievement or apparent discrimination to weaponise against the institution that was working so hard to appease them. These staff members, many of whom had personally devastating exits from the employ of the Sussexes, have been unable to speak publicly, even to correct the record, constrained by draconian confidentiality provisions of working for the Royal Family, including the Official Secrets Act. But over the past three days their stories have taken centre stage in the latest round of the Royal Family fighting back against the Sussexes thanks to a bombshell book by the highly respected royal correspondent for The Times Valentine Low, who has diligently covered the monarchy for a quarter of a century. While I have long been aware of the acrimony behind-the-scenes, to read the words of the staff members, who were once prepared to dedicate much of their lives to serving the Sussexes, is still shocking. Pictured: Oprah Winfrey interviews Prince Harry and Meghan on CBS Primetime Special The most damning conclusion is that Meghan is a narcissistic sociopath who played her former advisers, but that is just the beginning of the devastating claims. During a walkabout in Fiji, Meghan is reported to have said: I cant believe Im not getting paid for this. It was like working for a couple of teenagers, according to the reported words by Low of Samantha Cohen, their highly regarded private secretary who had been recommended by the Queen after years of loyal service. And Meghans behaviour had apparently been difficult and demanding from the start, including when she is said to have threatened to dump Harry unless he released his first statement eviscerating the media and confirming their relationship. A source told Low: She was saying, "If you dont put out a statement confirming Im your girlfriend, Im going to break up with you". In fact, he reports, keeping Meghan happy and, by extension, keeping Harry happy was an ongoing challenge. Pictured: Prince William, left, Kate, Princess of Wales, second left, Prince Harry, and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, right, pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II Six months before their engagement was announced, Low claims that Meghan ominously told one of Harrys courtiers: I think we both know Im going to be one of your bosses soon. Once the preparation for the wedding got under way, Meghans behaviour appeared to worsen. I was the first journalist to break the story of Tiaragate, where Harry was warned by the Queen about the way Meghan was speaking to close advisers, and the fact Kate had fallen out with her sister-in-law over the treatment of staff by Meghan at Kensington Palace. Lows book recounts one occasion where Meghan had been especially horrid to a young female staff member at a meeting, telling her: Dont worry. If there was literally anyone else I could ask to do this, I would be asking them instead of you. When the courtier was later reassured by Prince William that she was doing a really good job, Low reports that she burst into tears. Meghan regularly rang staff members throughout the night, with one telling Low about a dinner on a Friday night: Every ten minutes, I had to go outside to be screamed at by her and Harry. It was, "I cant believe youve done this. Youve let me down. What were you thinking?" It went on for a couple of hours. You could not escape them. There were no lines or boundaries it was last thing at night, first thing in the morning. Meghan Markle, pictured above with Prince Harry at Kensington Palace in 2017, according to a palace insider, thought she was going to be the Beyonce of the UK when she married Harry One staff member branded Harry and Meghan outrageous bullies to another colleague when they were considering quitting who replied: Thats so dreadful. And they are bullies. During their time in the Royal Family, a host of staff members left the employ of Harry and Meghan. They included private secretaries Samantha Cohen and Amy Pickerill, two PAs, including Melissa Touabti, and two nannies. At least ten former staff members were reported to want to give evidence to the formal investigation into the Palaces handling of complaints about Meghan's alleged bullying, the findings of which have been hushed up by Buckingham Palace. Once again, its the courtiers who find themselves silenced. Thats not the case for Meghan who described the bullying allegations as a 'calculated smear campaign'. Her solicitor Jenny Afia added: What bullying actually means is improperly using power repeatedly and deliberately to hurt someone physically or emotionally. The Duchess of Sussex absolutely denies ever doing that. Knowing her as I do, I cant believe she would ever do that. It just doesnt match my experience of her at all. It was like working for a couple of teenagers, according to the reported words by Low of Samantha Cohen, their highly regarded private secretary who had been recommended by the Queen Elizabeth (pictured above in June this year) after years of loyal service I feel this book is corroboration of years of reporting by myself and other top royal correspondents, which has seen us, completely unfairly, branded both racists and bullies by the Sussex Squad social media trolls simply for accurately reporting the reality of the behaviour by Harry and Meghan that culminated in me revealing their decision to Megxit in January 2020. Looking back, such a decision was now inevitable. Lows book reveals Harry was terrified of becoming an also-ran once his nephew Prince George turned 18 and stole his thunder. Meghan, meanwhile, according to a palace insider, thought she was going to be the Beyonce of the UK. Such a toxic combination was a recipe for disaster. The staff were treated so badly because they were the messengers who had to try and keep their aggrieved royals happy while working within the suffocating rules of the Royal Family. In the end it proved to be an impossible task. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Queen Elizabeth II (accompanied by Samantha Cohen (c), Private Secretary to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex pictured in June 2018 in Widnes, England But Im of the belief that Meghan never actually wanted this to work. In the months before Megxit, I had revealed her Hollywood team was already negotiating commercial deals, including for her childrens book. As one former staff member told Low: Everyone knew that the institution would be judged by her happiness. The mistake they made was thinking that she wanted to be happy. She wanted to be rejected, because she was obsessed with that narrative from day one. As weve seen so many times before, just because its Harry and Meghans narrative it doesnt mean its true. The real silenced parties in this tawdry tale of the Sussexes versus the Royal Family have now been heard by the world and it sounds a lot more candid than what the couple told Oprah Winfrey. SHOPPING: Products featured in this Mail Best article are independently selected by our shopping writers. If you make a purchase using links on this page, DailyMail.com will earn an affiliate commission. You cant put a price on your peace of mind where your baby is concerned. With the Hubble View Pro baby monitor in your corner, though, you can breathe a big sigh of relief knowing you can always keep a watchful eye on your little one. This parent-favorite is big on the important features and right now its marked down to just $97, a savings of 23% off the list price. Part of the innovative Hubble Connected range, which is touted as a leader in the connected nursery space, the monitor provides just what you need to keep a close eye on baby at all times. Hubble View Pro 5 Video Baby Monitor Meet the baby monitor that does more. You can rely on it to provide an excellent view of your little one at all times plus provide excellent sound quality. The device also behaves as a 2-way intercom and comes pre-loaded with lullabies, soothing sounds, and audiobooks for baby's listening pleasure. Shop The monitor checks every box and it begins with a 5-inch screen that offers real-time footage of baby, complete with zooming capabilities so you can easily keep watch of the entire room. You can also control the camera remotely, making it simple to adjust the vantage point from anywhere in the home. Use it to zoom in, tilt, or pan around the room. Youll have a complete view of your little one from every perspective. Plus, with infrared night vision, the monitor makes it simple to check on baby while theyre sleeping. The picture quality is great, and the range is perfect, raves one parent. Able to take it outside while doing yard work, etc. and we do not lose connection. Love the panning feature!! Peace of mind: This baby monitor provides everything you need to ensure baby's needs are met when you aren't in the room, from two-way talk capabilities to built-in lullabies. Thats the kind of priceless benefit that people expect of a baby monitor but this model also happens to offer added advantages on top of a complete view and excellent picture clarity. Its also equipped with a highly sensitive microphone that picks up every single noise baby makes, so youll know right away when its time to drop everything and check in on them. You can also soothe baby from afar thanks to the monitors intercom system. Behaving like a two-way device, it works from up to 1,000 feet with no need for a Wi-Fi connection. If you arent singing to your child yourself, you can take advantage of one of the systems pre-loaded lullabies. There are also different sounds to help baby relax, along with audiobooks for their listening enjoyment. Importantly, the Hubble View Pro baby monitor also includes a temperature sensor so you can be alerted when the room isnt just right for your little ones comfort. Too cool? Not warm enough? You'll know right away. Soothing sounds: An array of soothing audio options are pre-loaded in the device, including lullabies and audiobooks. Setting it up couldn't be simpler, as one shopper shared. 'The best part about the Nursery View Pro is how easy it is to use and set up. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that there's really no set-up required. Plug the camera in, turn the viewing screen on, and you're good to go.' Upgrading to a "smart" nursery is the way to go if you want to take advantage of more more bells, more whistles, but most importantly, more ability to keep a close eye on your baby. At this price, the Hubble View Pro is well worth the investment. Whipping up a culinary masterpiece or a delicious sweet treat takes a lot of skill - but you might be better off ordering from a professional if you're ever offered any of these baked treats. Bored Panda collated some of the most disastrous photos of baking fails from across the globe - including a seemingly depressed baby Yoda and a toothy hedgehog baked Alaska. From a psychedelic cheesecake to potentially X-rated cookies and terrifying dough monsters, these photos are enough to get you chuckling as you eat your homemade cupcakes. Here, FEMAIL shares a selection of the most shocking examples... We're hoping this blue hedgehog-style creator, created by a baker thought to be based in Germany, wasn't meant to be made in the image of the unsuspecting 50-year-old celebrating their half century Created by a US-based baker, these are meant to be a pack of Cookie Monster lookalikes but we have a feeling these would terrify adults let alone the kids! If ever there was a cake in need of a few sessions of therapy, this baby Yoda sure looks like he could need do with the help It almost never looks as good as it's meant to when you try to mimic the professionals but you may as well give it a go... there's no denying this horse, created by a baker thought to be based in the US, has character Sometimes baking gets you feeling all tingly and excited. This chef may have felt that way as well, though it looks as if it were in a slightly different way... If Goldilocks had encountered this family of hench bears she may have thought twice about stealing their porridge While this is a gallant effort to make blue meringues, this person's family, thought to be based in North America, told her they looked like 'alien turds' Ah this is the age-old classic of dough a la broken glass. This takes crunchy to a whole new level, as created by a bread maker believed to be based in North America If you imagine the Sphinx was really a giant cake crossed with a bunny rabbit, then this might be the result, as submitted by a baker thought to be based in the US There's something both terribly adorable and slightly scary about this hedgehog version of a baked Alaska Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it a loaf of bread that has turned out to look rather similar to a pair of buttocks? Smoking kills and these cookies are likely to drive that point home as the odd mix of black volcanic salt and pretzels makes them look like ashtrays This could be possibly the worst baking in the history of mankind as these cookies are swimming in oil Sometimes the dough has a mind of its own and this case it's decided to become a monster and take over the fridge, as demonstrated by one baker, thought to be based in the Netherlands Psychedelic cheesecake has to be your next baking attempt at any 60s themed parties you're planning Although these biccies could have been very cute, their self-aware eyes give them an unsettling intense look A handwritten note from a neighbour threatening to call the police on a couple due to a visit from their 'very loud' grandchildren has divided Australia. A parent shared a photo of the note to Reddit, explaining they had left their kids with their in-laws to babysit over Saturday night at their townhouse in Ashfield, in Sydney's inner west. While the parents were on their 'much needed' date night, their in-laws were left with a note demanding their 'screaming' grandchildren quiet down, or be taken to a park to play. 'Dear Neighbour. Could you please consider that sound travels and your grandkids are making a lot of noise,' the letter began. 'Today your visitors have been screaming and dragging loud toys and disturbing the peace.' A handwritten note from a neighbour threatening to call the police on a couple due to a visit from their 'very loud' grandchildren has divided Australia The neighbour said that as the couple lived in a 'high density building', they should take their grandchildren to the park to play like other residents in the complex did. 'I just wanted a nice, quiet day in my apartment but can't have that as your supervision of kids is non-existent,' the note continued. Poll Do you think the note is fair? Yes, parents should teach their children to behave No, kids should be allowed to play Do you think the note is fair? Yes, parents should teach their children to behave 1718 votes No, kids should be allowed to play 243 votes Now share your opinion 'Lack of consideration for others. 'If this continues I will consider contacting Strata and police as we are aware of our rights. There is no need for screaming. 'It is our day of rest on Sunday.' The note has since sparked a fierce debate about who was in the wrong, with many pointing out it was left in a 'passive aggressive' manner. 'I wouldn't write a passive aggressive letter like this, but I live in a human dense community and it really grinds my gears when I hear the neighbours' kids screaming incessantly,' someone said. Others pointed out the fact it was likely a one-off and the neighbours were overreacting. 'As someone who has been listening to someone's toddler literally high pitched screaming and it echoing off the walls.. I can kinda feel their pain. But I understand it can't be helped,' one comment read. 'Kids screaming does suck but this seems extreme if it was a one off and the kids aren't actually living there,' added another. Others defended the neighbour, and said parents had a responsibility to make their children behave. Many Reddit users said children should be taught how to play without disturbing others (stock image) 'As an apartment dweller myself, I totally understand their point. We have young kids too but make every effort to teach them to not bang and jump around as it echoes through the building,' one wrote. 'That said, I'd expect this kind of letter after repetitive noise disturbances, not just a one off.' Another said: 'I mean, it's a bit passive aggressive, but if the kids were making that much noise what were the grandparents doing?' 'We live in apartment and have our 4yo grandson stay over twice a week. It's the same for lots of apartments around us. We are all aware sound travels so don't let the grandkids scream, run around loudly or bash things on the ground. It's common courtesy,' said another. Comes after the Jordanian queen joined her husband at the Queen's funeral Queen Rania of Jordan is celebrating her daughters' birthdays this week Proud mother Queen Rania of Jordan shared a touching photograph with their daughters as they celebrate their birthdays. Princess Salma turns 22 today and Princess Iman turns 26 tomorrow, marking a week of celebrations for the Jordanian royal family. Rania shared a stunning photo with her daughters to mark the occasion, writing: 'Our friendship gets stronger as you both get older Couldnt have asked for better besties. Happy birthday Iman and Salma.' Proud mother Queen Rania of Jordan shared a touching photograph with their daughters as they celebrate their birthdays. Princess Salma turns 22 today and Princess Iman turns 26 tomorrow, marking a week of celebrations for the Jordanian royal family It comes a week after the Jordanian queen and her husband, King Abdullah II, joined other foreign dignitaries and royals at the Queen's funeral, pictured The photo shows Rania, 52, posing with her arms around her daughters in a beautiful outdoor setting. It comes a week after the Jordanian queen and her husband, King Abdullah II, joined other foreign dignitaries and royals at the Queen's funeral. Following the funeral, Rania jetted off to New York where she joined Hillary Clinton for a talk during the Clinton Global Initiative 2022 Meeting. Queen Rania paid tribute to the Queen by re-wearing an outfit she had previously worn to meet the monarch when she attended her funeral. The glamorous royal, 52, looked respectful in the black ruffled fabric wrap coat which she first wore during a visit to meet Her Majesty at Windsor Castle in November 2001. Following the funeral, Rania jetted off to New York where she joined Hillary Clinton for a talk during the Clinton Global Initiative 2022 Meeting Queen Rania seemed fond of the late monarch and she referred to her as the 'Queen of the World' in a sweet Instagram tribute. Sharing a snap of herself with her husband at the state funeral in London she wrote: 'Bidding farewell to a Queen whose legacy will never fade or be forgotten. With His Majesty at Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in the UK.' It comes after the Queen admitted she 'looked up' to Queen Elizabeth during an interview with the ITV News. She said: 'Despite being the most important person in the room, she always made you feel like the most important person in the room. 'She just had a very gentle and subtle way about her. Her elegance wasn't just in her appearance but in the way she lived her life. King Abdullah II and Queen Rania looked sombre as they made their way to the state funeral in London Queen Rania first wore the ensemble during a visit to Windsor Castle in November 2001 to meet Her Majesty, Prince Philip (left) and King Abdullah of Jordan (right) 'I just have the most wonderful memories of her, throughout the years, every time I met her, I felt she was warmer and warmer. 'She didn't always presume that you wanted her advice but she was very generous when you asked for it. I really looked up to her. To me, she is the queen of the world.' Queen Rania also expressed her confidence in King Charles III as a leader calling him 'incredibly intelligent.' 'He has been preparing for this role his whole life, we have known King Charles for many years and we know the man that he is', she said. 'He is incredibly intelligent, very thoughtful, genuine person. Everything he does, he does from the heart. He is the person best suited for this country at this time.' Tens of thousands in Pakistan, including women and children susceptible to infection, have acquired communicable and water-borne ailments due to the recent severe flooding. Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in Pakistan's northern mountain areas have killed about 1,600 people; a third were children. Floodwaters destroyed homes, leaving tens of thousands without food or water. Affected individuals now are in dire need of food, housing, potable water, toilets, and medicine. Although the flood has subsided and the floods have started to leave, the stagnant water can linger in some areas for two to six months, putting people who live in the impacted areas at risk of skin conditions and diseases like dysentry, malaria, and dengue fever, as per a CNN report. Stagnant Water Is Now the Enemy Shehbaz Shrif, the prime minister of Pakistan, recently addressed a SCO gathering in Uzbekistan. He noted: "Stagnant water is giving rise to water-borne diseases. Children getting malaria and diarrhea ... all kinds of diseases... millions of people are living under the open sky," per VOA. UN reports 44,000 Pakistan malaria, while the UN Refugee Agency says more than 3 million children need emergency life-saving aid, per Reuters. Since July 1, around 2.3 million individuals have received care at temporary medical facilities built up in the flooded area. Villages have been completely cut off in Sindh, one of the regions most severely affected, making it practically problematic for families to get medical attention for their sickly children. Read Also: New COVID-19-Like Virus That Is Vaccine-Resistant Discovered in Bats, Could Spread in Humans According to Aadarsh Leghari, UNICEF's communication officer in Pakistan, many children do not get treated in hospitals "because the medical facilities they could access are either underwater or just not accessible." With no access to food, water, or a means of support, young children are forced to live in the open with their families, and exposed to a variety of new flood-related dangers and hazards, such as snakes, destroyed structures, and drowning in flood waters. Moreover, schools, water systems, and health facilities that children rely on have been destroyed or damaged. On the outskirts of the Sindh town of Qazi Ahmed, a mother is pushing her little child on a flimsy boat that is ferrying stranded locals to medical services, CNN reported. The mother was anxiously trying to cool her daughter's forehead with a handkerchief soaked in the filthy floodwater that had made her ill when she exclaimed, "She has a high-grade fever and has become unconscious." Pakistan Badly Needs Help From International Community This is the face of Pakistan's near-unprecedented health crisis, but relief isn't reaching. Moreover, humanitarian organizations warn that if the international community does not take immediate action, the situation of Pakistan disease would only worsen. The United Nations described the situation in Pakistan as "alarming" and "millions of youngsters are still struggling to live, and we fear thousands will not make it." Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan remarked in a statement: "Girls and boys in Pakistan are paying the price for a climate disaster not of their making. As we respond to their urgent needs today, we must also begin looking at the months ahead and the need to rebuild the lives of these millions of vulnerable boys and girls - to ensure they are safe, healthy, well nourished, learning and preparing for their futures." Related Article:Bangladesh Ferry Accident: More Than Two Dozens Dead, Others Missing After Overcrowded Boat Capsizes @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Heinz has delighted shoppers with the release of its first range of frozen ready meals. The UK food brand has unveiled Heinz Beanz Bowls, which come in Herby Tomato, Smoky Chilli and Fragrant Coconut varieties. Priced at 2.50, the Heinz Beanz Bowls feature the classic Heinz Beanz alongside other plant-based ingredients for an instant winter-warmer. Heinz has delighted shoppers with the release of its first range of frozen ready meals. The UK food brand has unveiled Heinz Beanz Bowls, which come in Herby Tomato, Smoky Chilli and Fragrant Coconut varieties The ready meals, which are available at Asda and via Ocado, come off the back of other new Heinz products, the Heinz Beanz Burgerz and Heinz Beanz Filled Hash Browns. Sophie Higgins, of Heinz said, said: 'Beans are brilliant, tasty little parcels of goodness. 'That's what lead to us dreaming up our new Heinz Beanz Bowls ready meal range a completely new way to enjoy all types of beans and are absolutely delicious, packed with goodness, and ready in minutes. Priced at 2.50, the Heinz Beanz Bowls feature the classic Heinz Beanz alongside other plant-based ingredients for an instant winter-warmer 'Stick a few in the freezer and you'll have the perfect quick lunch or dinner ready to go for those days when you don't have the time or inclination to cook but still want something wholesome and tasty, with up to 4 of your 5 a day - or a whopping 20g of protein - in a single bowl! 'But we're not stopping there: in addition to our new Beanz Bowls, Beanz Hash Browns and Beanz Burgerz, we're looking at more new ways to bring you the Beanz you know and love, whether that's in ways you remember, ways that you've never seen before, or ways you've never even imagined. 'No-one knows Beanz like Heinz does, and we want to show the world how amazing and versatile they are.' Details of the plot have been kept under wraps but reviews say it's 'gripping' BBC thriller Inside Man promises to have viewers hooked when it premieres The autumn TV boom brings with it new BBC thriller Inside Man that has been hailed 'deliciously dark' and 'gripping' by critics - and is set to have viewers hooked. The four-part series, which premieres tonight on BBC One, stars British TV heavyweight David Tennant as Harry Watling, a village vicar who becomes entangled in a dark secret that threatens to destroy his life. Half a world away, on death row in a US prison, is Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci), a convicted killer and leading professor of criminology who is called upon to help solve difficult cases. The four-part series, which premieres tonight on BBC One, stars British TV heavyweight David Tennant as Harry Watling, a village vicar who becomes entangled in a dark secret that threatens to destroy his life Half a world away, on death row in a US prison, is Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci), a convicted killer and leading professor of criminology who is called upon to help solve difficult cases The two parallel storylines slowly intersect when Grieff is profiled by British journalist Beth Davenport (It's A Sin star Lydia West) who seeks his help on a case involving her friend The two parallel storylines slowly intersect when Grieff is profiled by British journalist Beth Davenport (It's A Sin star Lydia West) who seeks his help on a case involving her friend, a maths tutor, whose client is Watling's son. Although details of the plot have been kept tightly under wraps, TV critics given a sneak peek have given the series rave reviews, describing it as 'absorbing', 'gripping' and 'deliciously dark'. James Hibbs writes in his four-star review for Radio Times: 'Inside Man is a devilishly, deliciously dark piece of drama, hinging on a string of catastrophically bad decisions made throughout the first episode. 'Audible gasps could be heard at an early screening ahead of its BBC One premiere, and it's easy to imagine that effect being replicated nation-wide, even for those who see the impending doom coming.' Speaking on his role, Tennant said the premise of the show is 'very hard to sum up' because there are 'two separate worlds' that exist side by side. Pictured, in the series Although details of the plot have been kept tightly under wraps, TV critics given a sneak peek have given the series rave reviews, describing it as 'absorbing', 'gripping' and 'deliciously dark'. Pictured: Dillon Kempton (Atkins Estimond) and Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci) James Hibbs writes in his four-star review for Radio Times: 'Inside Man is a devilishly, deliciously dark piece of drama, hinging on a string of catastrophically bad decisions made throughout the first episode.' Pictured, Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci) Dan Einav writes in the Financial Times: 'This absorbing new BBC drama... explores this fatalistic idea that goodness can readily cede to evil and the more optimistic inverse, that it can also re-emerge... One man is willing to follow a path of self-preservation at all costs; the other is guided by notions of moral worth and justice.' Pictured, Harry Watling (David Tennant) Dan Einav writes in the Financial Times: 'This absorbing new BBC drama... explores this fatalistic idea that goodness can readily cede to evil and the more optimistic inverse, that it can also re-emerge... One man is willing to follow a path of self-preservation at all costs; the other is guided by notions of moral worth and justice.' A trailer for the series offers a glimpse at what viewers might expect, including scenes of violence, edge-of-your-seat tension, and a maths teacher trapped in a cellar. Speaking on his role, Tennant said the premise of the show is 'very hard to sum up' because there are 'two separate worlds' that exist side by side. 'Part of the joy of watching the show is wondering if these worlds are ever going to collide,' he said. A trailer for the series (pictured) offers a glimpse at what viewers might expect, including scenes of violence, edge-of-your-seat tension, and a maths teacher trapped in a cellar Dillon Kempton (Atkins Estimond), Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci) and Beth Davenport (It's A Sin star Lydia West) pictured in the series Speaking on his role, Tennant (pictured in the series) said: 'Part of the joy of watching the show is wondering if these worlds are ever going to collide' Ben Watling (Louis Oliver) and Harry Watling (David Tennant) in the BBC's Inside Man Edgar Hopperwood (Mark Quartley) pictured in the BBC's new all-star thriller 'But from my characters point of view, its a story about a man who, in pursuit of doing the right thing, makes a series of catastrophically bad decisions.' The actor continued: 'Its very difficult I think to immediately imagine how they will ever come together on different sides of the world, for these characters living entirely separate existence, they couldnt seem to be more different. 'Yet as an audience we assume there must be some link but really were quite far into the story before those links start to appear. 'Its part of the set- up of the sort of puzzle of that along with the almost breath-taking awfulness of what occurs, the incremental steps to doom that Harry takes, the unravelling of normality. Steven described it as a sitcom that goes terribly wrong.' Meghan Markle is in line to take home a prize at the glitzy 2022 GQ Men of the Year Awards in London, it has been reported. The Duchess of Sussex, 41, is set to receive 'one of the top awards of the evening' at the event, which will be held at the Tate Modern on November 16, an unnamed source told The Sun. Meghan, who will reportedly receive an honorary award in recognition of her charity work, is expected to attend the annual bash, which often attracts A-listers like the Beckhams, Ed Sheeran and Idris Elba. Last year, the Duke of Sussex appeared at the awards live from California via video link. Tickets for the awards show cost 5,999. The Duchess of Sussex (pictured here with the Duke of Sussex at the NAACP Awards in February) is set to receive a major honour at the 2022 GQ Men of the Year Awards, according to reports Meghan, who will reportedly receive an honorary award in recognition of her charity work, is expected to attend the annual bash, which often attracts A-listers like the Beckhams, Ed Sheeran and Idris Elba. Pictured, the Duchess of Sussex at the Queen's funeral last week An unnamed source told The Sun that the Duchess has been offered 'one of the top awards of the evening' for charity work, describing it as a 'massive coup' for her. The source added: 'She already has a close relationship with GQ due to her friendship with Vogue's Editor-In-Chief Edward Enninful which is also owned by Conde Nast. 'Edward is very much seen as a friend rather than a business acquaintance.' The awards, which will be held in November, usually take place in September, but were reportedly moved to accommodate the Sussexes, the source claimed. The Duke of Sussex, speaking at a surprise virtual appearance at the GQ Awards at the Tate Modern in London in 2021, delivered a lecturing speech urging governments to do more to vaccinate poorer countries Initially set to take place on September 7, the bash was postponed, with the source telling the Sun that Meghan would not have been able to attend as she was undertaking a mini tour of Europe with Prince Harry at the time. The source added: 'Talks about the evening were already happening before The Queen's passing so no doubt things will have to be re-evaluated to make sure it's as respectful as possible.' It comes as excerpts from a bombshell new book have made claims that Meghan believed she would be the 'Beyonce of the UK' when she married Prince Harry, before she found that she hated the strict rules of royal life and later sensationally quit her duties. The Duchess of Sussex (pictured with the Duke of Sussex at Westminster Hall following the procession of the Queen's coffin from Buckingham Palace) is expected to attend the London bash in November Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown by Valentine Low, were published by The Times today. Insiders have claimed the duchess believed that she would become 'Britain's Beyonce' upon marrying the Queen's grandson - but was disillusioned by the strict protocols and rules of life as a working member of the royal family and felt increasingly 'cornered and misunderstood' by The Firm. The book also ran allegations that the Queen was forced to put her foot down over Megxit and told the Sussexes they were 'either in or out' at the crunch Sandringham summit where the royals decided Harry and Meghan's future. Mr Low said that the royals met at a so-called 'Sandringham summit' five days after the Duke and Duchess announced their plans to step down as senior working royals on January 8, 2020. During initial deliberations, the Queen wanted all four royal households to work together quickly in order to find a solution. A new book claims the Duchess of Sussex struggled with the rules of being a working royal, and had hoped to be the 'Beyonce of the UK' - mixing celebrity with royalty Meghan Markle thought that she would be the Beyonce of the UK when she married Prince Harry, a bombshell new book has claimed. )Pictured, the Sussexes meeting Beyonce and Jay-Z (R) on July 14, 2019) In the days that followed, meetings were held at Clarence House, then Prince Charles' home, including secretaries from the four households, before discussions moved to Buckingham Palace. Simon Case, Prince William's private secretary, was also involved, 'talking to both sides', the newspaper reported. These included five possible scenarios including giving the Duke and Duchess a month each year for their own activities, or taking on only a small number of engagements and spending most of their time doing other things. As part of these options, blanket rules on not making decisions for financial or material gain - either for themselves or friends - would apply. A former palace insider said: 'I think Meghan thought she was going to be the Beyonce of the UK. Being part of the royal family would give her that kudos. It was the Queen who felt that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex should 'not be allowed to carry out official duties' unless they were 'willing to follow the rules which apply to all working royals', according to Valentine Low's book Many meetings were held after the Duke and Duchess announced their plans to step down as senior working royals, in an attempt to find a solution (pictured (L-R): Queen Elizabeth, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in 2018) 'Whereas what she discovered was that there were so many rules that were so ridiculous that she couldn't even do the things that she could do as a private individual, which is tough.' But another called it an impossible task, with the two worlds of royalty and celebrity unable to comprehend each other. They said that the Duchess would be unable to fit the model of a working royal, with the palace unable to accept 'who she wanted to be'. Mr Low writes that it was the monarch herself who felt that unless the couple were willing to follow the rules which apply to all working royals, they would 'not be allowed to carry out official duties'. 'There was a very clear view: you can't be in and out,' a source told Mr Low. 'And if you've got such clarity of view, it's very difficult to say, 'Why don't we go 10 per cent this way instead of 20 per cent?'' This meant that compromise was taken off the table by the Queen, the author said. According to royal author Valentine Low, the Duke and Duchess (pictured at Windsor on September 10) felt 'cornered and misunderstood' by the Palace due to 'initial inflexibility' surrounding their request The book says that there 'was a very clear view: you can't be in and out' when the couple first broached the idea of changing their role within The Firm He also claimed that the couple felt 'cornered and misunderstood' by the Palace due to 'initial inflexibility' surrounding their request. Prince Harry initially sent an email to his father, then Prince Charles, regarding their concerns and desire to move to the US, but was told that it required a 'proper family conversation' that could not be held until at least January 29, 2020. This, Mr Low wrote, was received badly by the couple, who had hoped to quickly resolve the matter following their request. The response prompted the prince to organise a private meeting with the Queen, but this was cancelled, with Harry being told that she was no longer available and had been confused about her diary arrangements. Courtiers saw the meeting as a chance for the Duke to win the Queen's support first, before beginning wider talks with the royal family. 'There was a danger that a private conversation could be interpreted very differently by two people,' a source told Mr Low. The author added that Harry considered driving unannounced to Sandringham to speak to the Queen, but decided against the move. Jacinda Ardern has noted the 'deep connection' New Zealand had with Queen Elizabeth as she spoke earlier today during a national day of morning. New Zealand's state memorial follows the death of Her Majesty, who died peacefully at Balmoral on September 8 at the age of 96. The British monarch is head of state - a largely ceremonial role - of 15 countries, of which New Zealand is one. Screens were set in the Parliament grounds in the capital of Wellington, with hundreds gathering to watch the closed-door service at the Cathedral of Saint Paul. Meanwhile, further services were set to be held across the country. The Queen and Prince Philip are photographed en route from Primerston North to Nes Plymouth during her first trip to New Zealand, in 1953 Prime minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern is greeted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace, during a 2018 meeting Today the prime minister spoke during a memorial service at St Pauls Cathedral in Wellington, remembering Her Majesty, who died on September 8 Governor General Dame Cindy Kiro led tributes for the monarch in the capital, with hundreds at the house of worship including current and former governors general, prime ministers, MPs and mayors. The ceremony, which started with a minute of silence, included a speech by the prime minister. She said: 'Today, we have gathered to acknowledge the deep connection New Zealand has had to her late majesty the Queen for more than 70 years, a connection grounded on her first visit in 1953.' The Queen visited New Zealand 10 times during the first 50 years of her reign, the last visit in 2002 for her golden jubilee. The politician looked sombre during the state memorial service she attended today in Wellington New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern gave a moving reading at the ceremony today (pictured) as she read from a souvenir book detailing Her Majesty's first trip to the country in 1953 During her address, Ms Ardern read excerpts from a souvenir book which detailed that royal visit, which ran from December 1953 to January 1954. She read a segment detailing Her Majesty's departure from the country in early 1954: after five weeks in New Zealand, the royal couple left from Bluff - the southernmost town on South Island - sailing to Milford Sound before travelling on to Australia. 'As the great white ship moved slowly through the channel, crowds ran along marine parade keeping abreast of her, everyone cheering, many weeping, reluctant to give up their waving until the answering white-gloved hand could be seen no longer,' Ms Ardern read. She added: 'With no crowds to acclaim them, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh gazed lingeringly at the splendid scenic wonder epitomising the beauty of the land they were leaving, until the Royal yacht turned again and headed into the open sea.' New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern paid tribute to the Queen during her speech at the memorial service today Ms Ardern attended the service with her husband Clarke Gayford (left) and their daughter Neve, four (centre) During the rest of the service, attendees sang Psalm 23, beginning 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want', the same tune sung at the monarch's wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947 and at her state funeral last week. Several clergy led the service, including Bishop of Wellington; Justin Duckworth, Pihopa o Te Upoko o Te Ika; Waitohiariki Quayle, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington; Cardinal John Dew. Her Majesty's final visit to New Zealand was in 2002, during which, she said she admired New Zealanders' 'increasing energy and confidence', describing the 'enduring values' of Kiwis. At a state dinner, she said: 'A sense of fairness and justice; a willingness to be outward-looking; a natural compassion for others; and above all an individuality of approach, which somehow has a very powerful connection with the rich diversity of this beautiful land.' The sister of one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims - who infamously screamed at the serial killer in court - has slammed Netflix's reenactment of her breakdown, while blasting the streaming site for failing to contact her and accusing it of exploiting her trauma for money. Dahmer, who became known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, wrecked havoc across the Wisconsin city from 1978 to 1991 - killing 16 boys, teens, and men over the span of 13 years. The monstrous murderer also committed necrophilia and cannibalism, and would dismember and preserve many of his victim's body parts. Now, his horrific crimes are being retold in a brand new 10-part Netflix show called Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which premiered on September 21 and stars Evan Peters, Niecy Nash, Molly Ringwald, and Richard Jenkins - however, the family of one of the victims has now spoken out about the 'harsh and careless' series and begged people not to watch it. Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey - who was 19 when he was brutally killed by Dahmer after they met at a Milwaukee mall - blasted the 'greedy' platform for 'making money off of this tragedy' in a powerful new essay for Insider. The sister of one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims - who infamously screamed at the serial killer in court - has slammed Netflix's reenactment of her breakdown Dahmer (seen in 1991), who became known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, wrecked havoc across the Wisconsin city from 1978 to 1991 - killing 16 boys, teens, and men over the span of 13 years Now, his horrific crimes are being retold in a new, 10-part Netflix show called Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, starring Evan Peters. He is seen in real life (left) and in the show (right) 'I could understand it if they gave some of the money to the victims' children. Not necessarily their families - I mean, I'm old, I'm very, very comfortable - but the victims have children and grandchildren,' she wrote. Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey (pictured) - who was 19 when he was brutally killed by Dahmer after they met at a Milwaukee mall - blasted the 'greedy' platform for 'making money off of this tragedy' in a powerful new essay for Insider 'If the show benefited them in some way, it wouldn't feel so harsh and careless. It's sad that they're just making money off of this tragedy. That's just greed.' Lindsey was reportedly approached by Dahmer at a shopping center in 1991. The teen was then lured to Dahmer's apartment after the infamous serial killer offered him money in exchange for posing for nude photos. Dahmer allegedly drugged Lindsey and began to drill a hole in his skull, before he poured acid into the opening. It was said that Lindsey woke up during the gruesome torture, prompting Dahmer to strangle him to death. Dahmer was arrested in July 1991, after which, he confessed to many of his crimes. He was later convicted of all sixteen of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. At his trial, Isbell took to the stand to make a victim statement, during which, she began to scream at the top of her lungs and fling her body around in rage, while yelling, 'Jeffrey, motherf**ker, I hate you.' She then tried to approach Dahmer and his lawyers, while screaming that she was going to 'kill him.' Dahmer was arrested in July 1991, after which, he confessed to many of his crimes. He was later convicted of all sixteen of the murders and sentenced to life in prison During his trial, Isbell (seen above) took to the stand to make a victim statement, during which she began to scream at the top of her lungs and fling her body around in rage She then tried to approach Dahmer and his lawyers, while screaming that she was going to 'kill him' 'I could kill you, I could f**king kill you,' she said as guards grabbed her; Dahmer remained passive throughout the entire exchange, hardly even batting an eye 'I could kill you, I could f**king kill you,' she said as guards grabbed her; Dahmer remained passive throughout the entire exchange, hardly even batting an eye. The courtroom breakdown has now been showcased in the Netflix show, in a dramatic scene starring DaShawn Barnes that is pretty much exactly word-for-word to the real moment. 'When I found out I could read a victim impact statement, I knew I was going to let Jeffrey Dahmer have it. I just didn't know what I was going to say,' recalled Isbell in her Insider essay. 'I hadn't written anything down. If I had, I would've torn it up anyway. It wouldn't have gotten read. 'That was my first time ever being in front of him. Whatever I thought I was going to say, that didn't happen. It all just came out in the moment. 'My plans were to get up there and say how it made my mother feel and what it did to her and all this other stuff. 'But no, when I got in front of his face it was a whole new ball game. I recognized evil. I was face-to-face with pure evil.' Lindsey's sister explained that her anger became heightened because Dahmer wouldn't look at her. 'I was out of body. I wasn't myself in that moment,' she continued. 'Whatever I had on the inside, I let it out. 'I didn't hold it in and later say: "Oh, I wish I had said or done this when I had the opportunity to." And I think I was speaking for a lot of the other family members of the victims.' The courtroom breakdown (pictured) has been showcased in the Netflix show, in a dramatic scene starring DaShawn Barnes that is almost word-for-word exact to the real moment Isbell told the outlet that she was extremely 'bothered' by the show - especially because Netflix did not reach out for permission. The reenactment is seen left and Isbell is seen in real life right She added that it 'brought back all the emotions she was feeling back then' and that it forced her to 'relive it all over again.' Barnes, the actress who played her, is seen in the Netflix show Isbell told the outlet that when she saw the reenactment of her lashing out in the series, she was extremely 'bothered' by it - especially because the streaming service did not reach out for permission. 'I was never contacted about the show. I feel like Netflix should've asked if we mind or how we felt about making it,' she said. The Netflix series retells the story of Dahmer from the perspective of his victims and explores major mistakes Wisconsin police made in handling the probe of the notorious mass murderer. Peters is seen in the series 'They didn't ask me anything. They just did it. But I'm not money hungry, and that's what this show is about, Netflix trying to get paid. 'When I saw some of the show, it bothered me, especially when I saw myself - when I saw my name come across the screen and this lady saying verbatim exactly what I said. 'If I didn't know any better, I would've thought it was me. Her hair was like mine, she had on the same clothes.' She added that it 'brought back all the emotions she was feeling back then' and forced her to 'relive it all over again.' However, she added that it did have some benefits as it gave her an opportunity to speak out about her brother, as well as his daughter, in a way she couldn't before. 'The show bringing up old feelings did hurt, but it also benefits me,' she continued. 'I benefit from it because I can deal with it differently today than I did in the past. I can talk about it with not as much anger. 'I'm still learning how to forgive, even if I don't understand, and keep on with my life. I can't change other people or things that have happened. I can only change myself. 'The positive thing to come out of this is that the world didn't know that my brother had any children. Lindsey's cousin, Eric Thulhu, has also spoken poorly of the new series in a series of tweets earlier this week, stating that it has 'retraumatized' their family Thulhu went on to say that Netflix didn't 'notify' or 'pay' the family for the recreation, since it's 'all public record' 'Recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is wild,' he added 'That has never been discussed to the public, but he had gotten someone pregnant before his death. Today, she's exactly 31 years old, and this happened 31 years ago. 'Errol's always going to be alive in my spirit. And his daughter - I have to keep him alive so I can talk about him to her. 'It's not about me anymore, it's about her. So when they mention my name, I'm going to always refer to her, Tatiana Banks: Errol Lindsey's daughter. And now, he even has a granddaughter, too. 'When I think of my brother, I think of how he was such a goofball, and I think he's going to appreciate the fact that I'm still standing for him until my last breath. He knows that I'm still here for him.' Lindsey's cousin, Eric Thulhu, has also spoken poorly of the new show in a series of tweets earlier this week, stating that it has 'retraumatized' their family. 'Im not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge [right now], but if youre actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbells) are pissed about this show,' he wrote on Twitter. 'Its retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?' The Netflix series retells the story of Dahmer from the perspective of his victims and explores major mistakes Wisconsin police made in handling the probe of the notorious mass murderer. 'If I didn't know any better, I would've thought it was me,' Isbell (seen left at the trial and right in the show) said of the reenactment. '[Barnes] hair was like mine, she had on the same clothes' Barnes (seen in the show) defended it last week, writing: 'I feel it really important to tell these parts of the story and I hope everyone watching it has empathy for the victims' Netflix is also set to released a three-part documentary series about Dahmer, entitled Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, on October 7. A wide variety of other docs have already been released since the sensational case hit courtrooms. Dahmer died on November 28, 1994, at age 34, after he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin Thulhu went on to say Netflix didn't 'notify' or 'pay' the family for the recreation, since it's 'all public record.' 'So when they say theyre doing this with respect to the victims or honoring the dignity of the families, no one contacts them,' he added. 'My cousins wake up every few months at this point with a bunch of calls and messages and they know theres another Dahmer show. Its cruel. 'Like recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD. WIIIIIILD.' Barnes, who played Isbell in the series, defended the show last week, writing: 'I didnt know the victims stories [before the show], and could only imagine the impact of his actions on the family and community. 'I feel it really important to tell these parts of the story and I hope everyone watching it has empathy for the victims and everyone affected.' Dahmer died on November 28, 1994, at age 34, after he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin. DailyMail.com has reached out to Netflix for contact. Google Maps fans have noticed a sobering change has been made to the app following the death of Queen Elizabeth. Her Majesty died peacefully at Balmoral on September 8, aged 96. Since then, the company has got rid of a special 'Easter Egg' royal fans could enjoy when using Street View mode. When switching to this mode, a small yellow human-shaped figure, known as PegMan, that users can make move around the map, appears. For those in the vicinity of Buckingham Palace, the figure would don a crown, white frock, and blue sash, in a facsimile of the Queen. This special character was known as PegMa'am. PegMa'am would also appear around other royal residences including Windsor Castle and Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Her Majesty (pictured in London in 2011) used to feature on Google Maps' street view mode, in the form of a special edition PegMan, which was initially implemented in 2015, and wore a crown, long white gown, and blue sash PegMa'am (pictured) was the special royal edition of Google Maps mascot PegMan, released in 2015 to celebrate the royal becoming the longest reigning British monarch. It has been quietly removed since the Queen died earlier this month The special character was introduced on September 9, 2015, to commemorate Queen Elizabeth becoming the longest reigning British monarch. On that day, she overtook Queen Victoria who reigned for 63 years and 216 days. Her Majesty was reported to have made it known that she didn't want undue recognition of this milestone, on account of celebrating beating another royal's record being poor form. To mark her becoming the longest reigning monarch in British history, Buckingham Palace released a photograph of the monarch, showing her hard at work reading government correspondence. The photo shows her working her way through official letters in the audience room at Buckingham Palace, which is dotted with framed snaps of her family, among them Prince Harry and the Queen Mother. This 2015 photograph of the Queen was released to mark the moment she became the longest reigning British monarch Beside her is one of her trademark black patent 'Judy' handbags by British manufacturer Launer, while around her neck is a triple string of perfectly matched white pearls. She also wears a pink sapphire and diamond brooch. The photograph was taken by Mary McCartney, the daughter of Beatles star Paul who famously sang of the Queen being 'a pretty nice girl' in the song Her Majesty which was released on the famous Abbey Road album 45 years ago. According to royal sources, the official portrait was the 46-year-old's idea. Advertisement As former First Daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama are used to enjoying the finer things in life - including a swanky dinner at a high-end sushi restaurant with their dad on Saturday night. But by Sunday, it was back to reality with a bump for the two sisters, who were seen running errands in LA, looking for the most part like any other cool California residents. The two siblings were pictured out an about in Los Angeles on Sunday, when they donned coordinating green ensembles while dashing out to The Home Depot and grabbing sandwiches from a local eatery. Older sister Malia took on the lion's share of the manual labor for the day; the 24-year-old was seen wheeling two large boxes out of the hardware store, before heaving the hefty packages into the trunk of her car, while her sister Sasha dashed across the street to pick up some snacks. Malia kept things casual for the outing, sporting a green zip-up hoodie with a pair of long denim shorts, which she paired with some chunky white flip flops. Her younger sister went with the same color palette, but chose a more boho-style look in the form of a pale green maxi dress that had ruffles around the waist and on the sleeves. The 21-year-old accessorized her ensemble with some large orange-tinted sunglasses, several chunky rings, and a pair of quilted black dad sandals that had a green fur trim. Former President Barack Obama's daughters Malia and Sasha were pictured out an about in LA on Sunday, when they donned coordinating green ensembles while dashing out to The Home Depot and grabbing sandwiches from a local eatery Malia, 24, was pictured sporting a green zip-up hoodie with a pair of long denim shorts while picking up some boxes at The Home Depot, where she was seen wheeling her purchases out of the store, before packing them into her car The budding TV writer was smiling from ear to ear as she made her way out of the hardware store, wheeling a trolley with her boxes on top of it The younger Obama daughter was seen clutching a brown paper bag as she made her way back across the street to where her sister was parked in their car, and she was also pictured carrying her cellphone and a wallet. Malia meanwhile went without her phone, but she had her hands full with the boxes, which she wheeled over to her car on a large trolley, grinning happily as she made her way out of The Home Depot with her purchases. After placing the boxes in the back of the vehicle, she then clambered into the car, while her sister went on her snack run. The budding TV writer - who is currently working on a project for Donald Glover - styled her long braids in a half-up 'do, and she had a pair of sunglasses perched on her head as she made her way out of the DIY-focused store. Sasha and Malia's latest outing came just hours after they enjoyed a lavish dinner with their father at pricey sushi restaurant Hamasaku, where eight-piece sushi rolls cost $50 and specialty rolls go for more than $20 each. Hamasaku boasts a fusion of traditional Japanese sushi with a taste of California, and features a plethora of dishes containing salmon, lobster, crab, tuna, yellowtail and other tasty seafood. Malia - who is currently working on a project for Donald Glover - styled her long braids in a half-up 'do, and she had a pair of sunglasses perched on her head as she made her way out of the DIY-focused store Her younger sister Sasha, 21, stayed in the car while Malia completed her Home Depot run The former First Daughter had a big grin on her face as she made her way out of The Home Depot She was seen loading the two boxes into the back of her vehicle before returning her trolley The former President, 61, was pictured leaving the eatery on Saturday night and climbing into the back of his Secret Service SUV, which had spent two hours parked in a handicapped parking spot outside the restaurant while Obama enjoyed dinner with his daughters. Obama could be seen waving goodbye to the restaurant staffers and turning down their offer of free ice cream dessert before the agents warned them to stand back as they made their exit. It's not known how long Obama plans to stay in Los Angeles, however he made the trip without his wife Michelle, who was in Seneca Falls, New York, being inducted in the National Women's Hall of Fame on Saturday night while the rest of her family enjoyed their sushi outing in LA. On Friday, perhaps in anticipation of his dinner date with his daughters, Obama shared a sweet throwback photo of himself with Sasha and Malia while penning a post about Banned Books Week. The former President posted a snap of himself and the two girls in a book store, while writing: 'Today, books that shaped my lifeand many othersare being challenged in schools, bookstores, and libraries by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives. Often, these banned books are written by or feature people of color and members of LGBTQ communities.' He continued: 'This is a mistake. Not only is it important for young people to see themselves represented in the pages of books, but its also important for all of us to engage with different ideas and points of view.' Both Sasha and Malia are currently living in Los Angeles, having relocated there from the East Coast following their father's exit from the White House, with the older sibling heading to California not long after graduating from Harvard in order to pursue a career as a TV writer. After Malia completed her Home Depot errand, her sister Sasha ran across the street to a European sandwich counter The younger of the two siblings opted for a more boho-style look in the form of a long pale green dress Sasha's dress had several ruffle embellishments, however she added a bit of edge to the girly look with some chunky black dad sandals, which featured a green fur trim She went without the colorful necklaces that she is so often seen sporting, but did add several chunky rings to the look In March, Donald Glover revealed that he had given the 24-year-old her first job as a writer on his new series, which is reportedly about 'a Beyonce-type character,' with the actor calling her 'amazingly talented' and 'really focused.' Glover has not said how Malia - who previously interned on Lena Dunham's HBO series Girls in 2015 and at The Weinstein Company in 2017 - landed the job after she graduated from college but he added that he believed she has a promising future in the industry. Her younger sibling joined her on the West Coast this year, having transferred from the University of Michigan to the University of Southern California for her senior year of college. Since moving to Los Angeles, both Obama girls are understood to have settled into new relationships. In August, DailyMail.com exclusively revealed that Malia was dating Ethiopian DJ Dawit Eklund, 33, who is nine years her senior, after the pair were spotted on several outings together. Dawit is the son of retired State Department officer Jon Eklund, 72, who worked at several US embassies in Africa and his Ethiopian wife Yeshi, 66. The music producer co-founded Washington, D.C.-based record label 1432 R, which specializes in Ethiopian music. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is also a registered Democrat. Sasha joined her older sister on the West Coast this year, having transferred from the University of Michigan to the University of Southern California for her senior year of college Since moving to California, both Sasha and her sister have embraced a much more laidback, boho style The college student and her sister dined out with their father on Saturday night, when they joined him at high-end sushi restaurant Hamasaku A 2016 Washington Post article about the label said: 'Their music seamlessly brings together house music grooves, the stutter of U.K. garage, an uneasy electronic ambience, and perhaps most notably Ethiopian folk music.' Dawit told the paper at the time: 'Ethiopian music is super distinct. There are only four or five musical scales that they play in; each has its own meaning and attitude and mood.' A separate Post piece called him 'one of Washington's most exciting dance music producers,' adding: 'Its not because hes splicing styles from around the globe, its because he spent a lot of his young life learning how to communicate with different kinds of people.' He was educated at the International Community School in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, before going to George Washington University where he studied International Development in Africa. Dawit who also goes by David, the Anglicized version of his name is one of four children. His father Jon was heavily involved in helping the refugee crisis caused by the war in Sudan in the early 2000s, when hundreds of thousands fled to Ethiopia to escape the fighting. His mother Yeshi comes from a successful family of business people in Ethiopia. His sister Sara Eklund was featured in a 2019 Vogue article for introducing menstrual cups to Ethiopia. Malia was seen without her boyfriend, Ethiopian DJ Dawit Eklund, 33, who is nine years her senior She looked happy and relaxed as she made her way back to her car Malia completed her look with some white flip flops Sasha and Malia's latest outing came just hours after they enjoyed a lavish dinner with their father at pricey sushi restaurant Hamasaku, where Obama's Secret Service SUV remained parked in a handicapped spot for two hours while he ate Obama and his daughters (seen in a throwback photo) dined out without mom Michelle, who was being inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame on Saturday night Meanwhile Sasha was recently revealed to have started a romance with Clifton Powell Jr., 24, who is the son of Ray actor Clifton Powell. Clifton Jr. and Sasha are understood to have met after she relocated to the West Coast, and he is already close with the family, as he has been seen hanging out with Malia a few times in recent months. In April, Sasha and Malia's mother, Michelle, opened up about how both of her daughters are all grown up during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Ellen, 64, reminded the former First Lady of how Sasha and Malia had first visited the show when they were little girls who wanted to see the Jonas Brothers. But over a decade later, they've graduated from boybands to boyfriends. 'Now they're bringing grown men home,' Michelle said. 'Now they have boyfriends and real lives and all that stuff. They have grown up right before our very eyes and they are doing well.' While the mom-of-two gushed about the 'amazing young women' her daughters have become - 'Women, I know! Scary,' she said - and divulged that they were both now dating, she was much more discreet about the details of their love lives and didn't share any further details. Mandarins are just one fruit undergoing a price increase due to supply issues The 'seasonal fruit cup' was advertised as gluten free and vegetarian There was outrage online after the shopper shared a picture of the product 'Ridiculously' priced product was spotted for sale in Sydney's eastern suburbs The price of a peeled mandarin marketed at $9.50 shocked an Aussie shopper A shopper in Sydney's eastern suburbs was left shocked at the 'insane' cost of just one peeled mandarin in a special 'eco cup', which was priced at $9.50. Mandarins generally cost under a dollar to buy in a supermarket if you purchase them whole, however this mandarin was both peeled and packaged in a BioPac cup. The 'ridiculously' peeled mandarin was marketed as a 'seasonal fruit cup' and advertised as gluten free and vegetarian. It's not known what store the peeled mandarin was sold in. The insane price of a peeled mandarin recently caused outrage after it was shared on Twitter The price caused outrage online after a shopper uploaded a picture of the product to Twitter, with the caption: 'A mate just sent me this. No surprise it's in the eastern suburbs. It's a peeled mandarin in a cup.' The peeled mandarin is more expensive than the yogurt pot seasonal compote for sale beside it. Shoppers were quick to point out the ridiculousness of the price. The peeled mandarin cost $9.50, which one shopper referred to as 'daylight robbery'. The increase in price is common with other fruit and vegetables due to supply issues 'Did they add another $1.50 and public holiday surcharge to that as well?' 'Daylight robbery.' Others took issue with the product itself. 'Wouldn't it be great if fruit evolved to grow its own disposable packaging.' Poll Would you pay $9.50 for a peeled mandarin? Yes! No way! Would you pay $9.50 for a peeled mandarin? Yes! 16 votes No way! 336 votes Now share your opinion However some argued the fact the mandarin was peeled makes it more accessible. 'People with disabilities love things like this. Same with cut up veggies.' The high price of mandarin is common with many fruit and vegetables due to supply issues. The price of watermelons recently caused outrage, with each one costing up to $34 at Woolworths. For shoppers who prefer to peel their own mandarins, there's a simple peeling 'hack' that is wowing thousands online. The easy-to-follow trick was popular on social media, with many praising the idea because you don't need to remove all of the skin. The video demonstration shows how you can roll the segments out into one straight line, allowing you to simply pick off pieces as you want them. Start by peeling both ends of the mandarin, before splitting a line on the side. Next spread the peel out, dividing up each segment carefully into sections with your fingers. Unroll the fruit so the individual segments separate along the skin - now you can enjoy each piece without having to peel the entire mandarin. The video demonstration shows how you can roll the segments out into one straight line, allowing you to simply pick off pieces as you want them Unroll the fruit so the individual segments separate along the skin - now you can enjoy each piece without having to peel the entire mandarin The trick is said to make eating and sharing 'easier'. Despite being around for years, the 'food hack' - dubbed the 'caterpillar mandarin' - often resurfaces on social media. 'I've never peeled it this way, less messy way and I love it,' one said. An Aussie mum has impressed thousands by revealing a simple space-saving method for folding clothes before a long trip. Chantel Mila, who goes by Mama Mila on TikTok and Instagram, said her easy fold helps 'prevent wrinkles and saves space.' The Melbourne mum-of-two showed her followers two easy ways to fold tops and pants into little 'rolls' of clothing. An Aussie mum has impressed thousands by revealing a simple space-saving method for folding clothes before a long trip 1. Shirts and t-shirts Mila first placed the t-shirt flat on her bed. She then inverted and folded the bottom four inches to make a cuff, much like a sleeve that has been folded up. Next, she folded the sides inwards until the shirt was a slim line. The mum folded the t-shirt from the top until she reached the cuff and tucked it in. Mila first placed the t-shirt flat on her bed. She then inverted and folded the bottom four inches to make a cuff, much like a sleeve that has been folded up 2. Pants, jeans, and shorts Bottoms are much easier to fold compactly because of their layout. Mila simply folded each pant leg upwards and then in half before folding the pants into themselves until they were small enough without being bulky. Thousands who saw the video were impressed with the mum's easy fold. The Melbourne mum-of-two showed her followers two easy ways to fold tops and pants into little 'rolls' of clothing 'So many clever folds!' said one woman. 'This is excellent - I'm always taking extra suitcases because I don't have space!' added another. Previously an Australian mother and full-time world traveller with a fanbase of 130,000 people shared her foolproof hacks for visiting a foreign country - and getting there with all of your bags in tow. Evie Farrell has travelled to seven different countries since the start of the new year, some with her young daughter and others alone, blogging about her journey on her page mumpacktravel. While travel after Covid is certainly more of a headache than it was before the global pandemic Ms Farrell has found numerous ways to travel luxuriously for less with the help of carry-on only luggage, using 'the pillow hack' and making good use of the 'sleeping in airports' app. When it comes to nailing your airport arrivals and departures the jetsetting mum often opts in on purchasing lounge tickets, which are usually around $50 for four hours, to enjoy the perks of a shower, hot food, drinks and wi-fi. Evie Farrell has travelled to seven different countries since the start of the new year, some with her young daughter and others alone, blogging about her journey on her page mumpacktravel If her trip isn't overly long Ms Farrell will opt for carry-on only so there is no worries about losing her luggage between airports, and it ensures she actually wears everything inside the bag. To ensure everything remains neat and tidy she swears by packing cubes for swimming costumes, underwear and bras so they don't end up jumbled together in her bag. For those struggling to fit everything they own into a tiny carry-on, Ms Farrell has shared her all-important 'pillow hack'. To ensure everything remains neat and tidy she swears by packing cubes for swimming costumes, underwear and bras so they don't end up jumbled together in her bag 'This is a cheapskate tip, and one that my daughter and I tried last month when we went to Vietnam with carry-on luggage only. Every airline allows passengers to carry a pillow, and so instead of an actual pillow inside the case, you can pack the pillowcase with clothes,' she told Mamamia. 'You'll need two pillow cases - pack your clothes in the first one, then slip the other one over it so that the opening of the first faces the closed end of the second.' When she leaves the country she's transiting through, particularly if its Asia, Ms Farrell chooses to wash and dry her dirty clothes there to avoid having to do it as soon as she's landed. HOW TO STUFF YOUR NECK PILLOW WITH EXTRA CLOTHES: Chelsea Dickenson, from North London, who runs cheapholidayexpert.com took to TikTok to reveal her favourite travel tip. In the clip, Chelsea, 32, removed the foam from her neck pillow and proceeded to stuff it with numerous clothing items. She captioned the video, which racked up over 1.4 million views, 'If this works it's gonna be a GAMECHANGER! #travelhack #budgettravel #cheaptravel' Chelsea said her hack was more 'lower risk' than the one she's seen on TikTok where users stuff clothes in a large pillowcase. @cheapholidayexpert If this works its gonna be a GAMECHANGER #travelhack #budgettravel #cheaptravel Soulful Strut - The Fame Gang Chelsea Dickenson, from North London, who runs, cheapholidayexpert.com revealed a useful hack to bring more clothes on a flight without checking in a bag in viral TikTok video She said: 'So I have got a lower risk option for you to try, and it includes this. Yeah, so the other day I noticed it had a zip so I opened it up, there's the memory foam - goodbye sunshine! 'And instead, here's my pants, probably shouldn't have them on show, soz about that. 'Theres some tights that I'm putting in, also my hat, space for leggings also my T-shirt, so much room honestly. 'Look how chocka full it is, I tightened it up, we are good to go.' She said revealed the idea came to her when she 'noticed it had a zip' so she opened it up and packed it full of clothes In the clip, Chelsea, 32, removed the foam from her neck pillow and proceeded to stuff it with numerous clothing items She captioned the video, which racked up over 1.4 million views, 'If this works it's gonna be a GAMECHANGER! #travelhack #budgettravel #cheaptravel' From inside the airport the travel expert said:' I am about to start boarding, let's see if this works.' In a follow-up video, she revealed that her hack did indeed work. Advertisement Her final tip is to use the Sleeping in Airports website to see which airports having the best ratings, hotels nearby or, if you get stuck, the best places to have a nap before your next flight That way, she's prepared for the next trip should it be back-to-back. 'All across Asia, and in many countries around the world, you can get your entire travel wardrobe washed, dried, and folded at laundries very cheaply. I get everything washed the day before I leave, pop it into my packing cubes then back into my wardrobe when I get home,' she said. Her final tip is to use the Sleeping in Airports website to see which airports having the best ratings, hotels nearby or, if you get stuck, the best places to have a nap before your next flight. Ms Farrell said she often slept in airports between flights pre-Covid, with Starbucks being their favourite spot, although usually it's easier to curl up in a lounge now. An Australian podcast host has sparked debate after giving parents a bottle of champagne to celebrate their first year of parenting - instead of getting a present for their one-year-old child. Phoebe Parsons took to TikTok to explain her reasoning and ask the community whether they think it's 'fair' to mark the occasion in this way. Online opinion was divided over the controversial question. The majority of those who commented described it as 'completely fair' and the 'best idea ever', whilst others felt it wasn't enough on its own. Scroll for video Phoebe Parsons took to TikTok to ask the community whether they think it's 'fair' to buy the parents a present in place of the child for a first birthday In the video, Phoebe said: 'I would really love to know other peoples' thoughts on this. I'm on my way to a first birthday party and I actually got the parents a bottle of champagne instead of the child. 'So in the child's lifetime so far (he's 12 months old), I've gotten him a baby shower present and a being born present. 'I only thought it was fair to give the parents a present to celebrate the first year they've survived as parents. 'Furthermore, the child is not actually going to remember their first birthday party and there are around 50 other people going who I'm assuming are all going to buy the kid presents. 'So do you think its fair for the first birthday party to buy the parents a present in place of the child?' Opinion was split on the question. Some users felt the gift was well deserved and a lovely idea: 'Hell yes, it was probably one of the most challenging years of their life, they deserve a treat!' Opinion was split on the question of whether a bottle of champagne is an appropriate gift for a first birthday party 'Omg YES! I was gifted a bottle of scotch for my only boys 1st birthday. Apparently I was going to need it for the days to come. Great idea!' Some mums shared that they would have appreciated this more than 'any annoying noisy toy'. Others outlined that a present for the parents was just what was needed after the first year: 'My favourite gift at my one-year-old's party was a voucher for a hotel for me and my fiance and free babysitting for the night.' Poll Is a bottle of champagne for the parents an appropriate gift on a child's first birthday? Yes! No! It depends on the situation. Is a bottle of champagne for the parents an appropriate gift on a child's first birthday? Yes! 43 votes No! 4 votes It depends on the situation. 1 votes Now share your opinion Others felt the gift wasn't enough on its own. 'Not instead of, but as well as,' said another. 'Yes but I would probably buy a small teddy for the baby as a keepsake,' added another. 'Yes, BUT! Only in addition to a gift for the child. Or a bottle when the baby is born is more appropriate.' Some felt there was no need to gift at all: 'I wouldn't be buying a present for either of them.' Whilst for others it depended on the situation: 'In this situation, yes. If the parents have not got much, no.' Some users were just confused: 'Why would you get a baby a bottle of champagne?' Startups have the upper hand in continuously disrupting and revolutionizing multiple sectors and industries. As the need for cloud-native solutions rapidly accelerates and obsolete business models decline, up-and-coming companies are in the loop for the latest, more advanced, and more cost-effective SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions. From relentless creativity to robust innovation, startups embody the future of web-based businesses. Below is a list of 10 startups that are the next big thing in SaaS: SubStrata Founders: Ori Manor Zuckerman, Baruchi Har-Lev, Eran Yessodi Equity Raised: $3.2 Million Lead Investors: Raptor Group, Verissimo Ventures, Ophir Capital Group, Tiferes Ventures, David Kaufman, Lair East, Park Avenue Capital, Singularity Capital, Ron Gross, Ori Manor Zuckerman SubStrata is the first and only company that develops Social Signal Processing Technology to analyze non-verbal nuances and dynamics in negotiations, sales, and deal-making. It's specifically designed to perform an in-depth analysis of paralanguage data often displayed in social cues, body language, and voice. This data-driven, AI-powered tool informs dealmakers of the next best step in real time, allowing them to gear up for their next move to close a deal. The company's one-of-a-kind business solution covers deep learning, natural language processing, linguistics, social science, cognitive science, and psychology. This tool revolutionizes transcript-dependent conversation intelligence with a much more layered, socially aware technology. Walnut.io Founders: Yoav Vilner, Danni Friedland Equity raised: $56M Lead investors: Felicis, NFX, Eight Roads, SV Angel, Liquid2 Founded in 2020 by Yoav Vilner and Danni Friedland, Walnut.io is the world's first interactive demo software that streamlines the SaaS buying process. Its cutting-edge technology and design were created so sales reps do not need to rely on any other parties. This state-of-the-art product also allows GTM teams to analyze and gather data on the demo process, plug the process into their CRMs (e.g. SalesForce, HubSpot), and scale the demo operation within the organization. This became one of the most successful tech tools in B2B and SaaS. With continuous growth and hundreds of happy clients from Fortune 500 companies, Walnut.io proves to be a force that's on its way to accelerating in the SaaS industry. Voyantis.ai Founders: Eran Friendinger, Ido Wiesenberg Equity raised: $19M Lead investors: Schusterman Foundation, Target Global, Kaedan Capital, Jibe Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Stormbreaker Ventures, Two Lanterns Venture Partner Founders Eran Friendinger and Ido Wisenberg noticed that marketing and growth teams struggle with growth and opportunities due to the lack of R&D, making it difficult to analyze and utilize company-owned data to make time-sensitive decisions and activate growth. They founded Voyantis in 2020 to transform the way online businesses acquire and retain customers of the highest value by shifting to LTV-based growth. This tool uses superior predictive AI solutions and insights from thousands of data points to efficiently achieve exponential profitability. Birdie Founders: Abeed Mohamed, Gwen Le Calvez, Max Parmentier, Rajiv Tanna Equity raised: $52.6M Lead Investors: Index Ventures, Sofina, Kamet, Public, AXA Group Birdie is a UK-based care tech SaaS maker that has revolutionized the elderly care industry with its cutting-edge technology. This platform provides care workers with digital tools that allow them to streamline admin and patient management, as well as enable real-time visibility to care duties. The company is committed to providing innovative solutions and tools to deliver high-quality, person-centered care. Between 2020 and 2021, Birdie has resolved 81% of client concerns in under 72 hours; 16 million visits to their platform were seen in 2021, and 34% of agencies see a faster response to medication alerts after just 6 months. This startup's modern, platform-approach makes it stand out as one to look out for. Mavenoid Founders: Gintautas Miliauskas, Shahan Lilja Equity raised: $39.9M Lead investors: ABB Technology Ventures, Creandrum, Mosaic Ventures, NordicNinja VC, Silicon Valley Bank UK, Smedvig Capital, Point Nine Mavenoid is a Sweden-based company that combines self-service and live support, both human and AI-enabled, for hardware companies. From setup, daily use, to troubleshooting, their seamless diagnosis engine gets work done in days - from printers, ovens, electric scooters, to industrial equipment. Their unique problem-solving solution is designed just like how the human brain works. Currently, they are partnered with hardware and consumer electronics companies including HP, Husqvarna, and Jabra, providing automated technical support and onboarding for customers. Isovalent Founders: Dan Wendlandt, Thomas Graf Equity raised: $69M Lead investors: Thomvest Ventures, Google, Andreessen Horowitz Founded in 2017, Isovalent offers top-notch, cloud-native technology solutions focusing on networking, security, and connectivity. From unified workload, connectivity security, eBPF-based networking, load balancing, to application visibility, the company provides open source software and enterprise-ready Cilium. Isovalent is the golden standard for secure and transparent cloud-native connectivity and has been the default in major public cloud providers like Google Kubernetes Engine, Google Anthos, and Amazon EKS Anywhere. Middesk Founders: Kurt Ruppel, Kyle Mack Equity raised: $77M Lead investors: Canapi Ventures, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital, Accel Middesk provides deep contextual information on any business, helping them onboard faster and significantly reduce risks. They offer automated business verification solutions and underwriting, tax registration embedding, and business registration, catering specifically to B2B companies. Their solutions also simplify and accelerate the process of commercial banking and payroll. Their one-click support allows customers to set up payroll tax accounts, register with the Secretary of State, and manage government communications in no time. Lumos Founders: Andrej Safundzic, Leo Mehr, Alan Flores-Lopez Equity raised: $30M Lead investors: Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), Google Cloud CISO Phil Venables, OpenAI CTO Greg Brockman, Neo and Lachy Groom Lumos is a San Francisco-based startup that offers the first internal AppStore for organizations that replace IT tickets with a self-service portal and baked-in security for admins. It is designed for employees to select the apps and permissions they require, cutting down the time for access requests and reducing help desk tickets. Users can discover, request, and get access in minutes. Founders Andrej Safundzic, Leo Mehr, and Alan Flores-Lopez envisioned this product as a tool to deliver a consumer-grade experience to employees while maintaining maximal integrity to top management. DoControl Founders: Adam Gavish, Liel Ran, Omri Weinberg Equity raised: $43.4M Lead investors: Insight Partners, RTP Global DoControl is a SaaS security company that provides organizations with automated self-service tools for SaaS application data access monitoring, orchestration, and remediation. The company focuses on customer-focused solutions to achieve labor-intensive security risk management and data loss prevention (DLP). This solution can identify, detect and block sensitive data from leaving your organization's cloud through preventative measures and detective mechanisms. This is an event-driven platform, which means there are no agents or redirections, which are common problems in Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solutions. ACTO Founders: Kapil Kalra, Kumar Erramilli, Parth Khanna, Sameer Jiwani Equity raised: $32.1M Lead investors: Questa Capital Management, Resolve Growth Partners Inspired by the phrase "Act Today," ACTO started as an agnostic training mobile app. They offer proven learning pedagogies of micro-learning and action-based learning to improve behavior and drive better employee engagement. The company shifted its focus to the life-sciences industry where they currently provide a cross-platform app for field teams, a command center for educational content lifecycle management, and LAICA - the industry's first conversational AI assistant. ACTO is currently revolutionizing the education software landscape with its chart-topping growth, significant traction, and next-generation learning technology. A popular TikTok user has explained why singing the 'Happy Birthday' song in English is so uncomfortable and awkward for everyone involved. The man, who goes by the username @iamsbeih, argues the song lacks beat and energy. Sbeih gave a rendition of the 'Happy Birthday' song in English and then in Arabic to demonstrate the difference in energy. Scroll down for video A popular TikTok user based in the US (@iamsbeih) explained why singing the Happy Birthday song in English is so uncomfortable and awkward. He is singing the song in English in this image. Poll Is the Happy Birthday song uncomfortable and awkward in English? Yes! No! Is the Happy Birthday song uncomfortable and awkward in English? Yes! 99 votes No! 96 votes Now share your opinion 'You know why singing Happy Birthday is so uncomfortable for both the birthday person and for everyone else singing? It's because there's no beat. There's no rhythm. It's not engaging. I don't know who chose to write it like that,' explained Sbeih. 'When my family sing the Arabic Happy Birthday, which is based on the English Happy Birthday, there's energy, there's life. We hold the note to give it a beat,' he added. 'Everybody's clapping, everyone's dancing. There's someone playing a beat on a wall or a table. Even the birthday person can clap with them,' Sbeih enthused. 'There's energy y'all. Energy. Usually we sing Happy Birthday first in English and it's just.. that ain't it. And then the Arabic part comes afterwards. You've got to give it a beat.' Sbeih is a popular TikToker who often discusses the culture of his Palestinian/Filipino heritage. He has 449,000 followers on the platform. In many countries across the world the Happy Birthday song features similar lyrics to the English version, but is sung in different languages. Sbeih is singing the Arabic version of Happy Birthday in this song, which he contends has a lot more energy and beat and is therefore less uncomfortable to sing. People from across the world commented on the post. Many outlined that the song in their language is also more energetic and comfortable. 'Same goes for the Spanish version and the remixes,' one woman said. 'Same with Latinos, we have our own adornments and beat,' another agreed. 'Latinos version of Happy Birthday has verses and even jokes in the song, and there's always an aunt dancing,' one woman added. 'Check out the Persian version' one user suggested, another advised listening to the Venezuelan version. Many users agreed the Happy Birthday song in English is uncomfortable. 'The Happy Birthday song in English sounds like they are offering the birthday person as a sacrifice,' one woman said. The majority of users loved the Arabic version of the song. 'I'm gonna need a full version of the Arabic version,' one woman said. Drinking beer every night may lower your risk of dementia, scientists claim. Australian researchers studied the drinking habits and dementia rates among 25,000 over-60s. Results showed people who drank the equivalent of two pints a day were a third less likely to get the memory-robbing condition than teetotalers. Non-drinkers faced the highest threat, according to the results. They were roughly a fifth more likely to be struck down with dementia than the biggest boozers, who got through at least three pints a night. The researchers said their findings show that abstaining from alcohol seems to carry no protective benefits against dementia. However, experts noted that while moderate alcohol consumption may stave off the cruel disorder, excessive drinking is dangerous. Australian researchers, who studied the drinking habits and dementia rates among 25,0000 over-60s, found two pints a day slashed the risk of the memory-robbing condition by a third How much alcohol is too much? To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level, the NHS advises men and women not to regularly drink more than 14 units a week. A unit of alcohol is 8g or 10ml of pure alcohol, which is about: half a pint of lower to normal-strength lager/beer/cider (ABV 3.6%) a single small shot measure (25ml) of spirits (25ml, ABV 40%) A small glass (125ml, ABV 12%) of wine contains about 1.5 units of alcohol. But the NHS warns the risk to your health is increased by drinking any amount of alcohol on a regular basis. Short-term risks include injury, violent behaviour and alcohol poisoning. Long-term risks include heart and liver disease, strokes, as well as liver, bowel, moth and breast cancer. People who drink as much as 14 units a week are advised to spread it evenly over three or more days, rather than binge drinking. Women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant are advised not to drink to reduce risks for the baby. Source: NHS Advertisement With global dementia rates set to triple over the next 30 years, Dr Louise Mewton and colleagues said it is 'fundamental' to scale back on the risky habits that could contribute to the rise. Experts previously estimated that four in 10 dementia cases worldwide could be prevented or delayed if risk factors were eliminated. Obesity is one of the biggest risk factors. The team, from the University of New South Wales, gathered data from 15 old studies. They contained data on the alcohol drinking habits and dementia rates of 24,478 over-60s. The cohort was divided into teetotalers, occasional drinkers (1.3g of ethanol per day), light to moderate drinkers (1.3g to 25g per day), moderate to heavy drinkers (25g to 45g per day) and heavy drinkers (more than 45g per day). For comparison, one pint of beer contains around 16 grams of ethanol, while a medium-sized glass of wine has around 18g. None of the participants who were followed for up to 40 years had dementia at the start of the study. Over the course of the study, 2,124 people were diagnosed with dementia, according to the findings, published in the journal Addiction. When compared to teetotalers, occasional and light to moderate drinkers were 22 per cent less likely to develop the condition. And those who consumed up to two-and-a-half pints a day had a 38 per cent reduced risk of being diagnosed compared to non-drinkers. Even the biggest drinkers were 19 per cent less likely to be a dementia sufferer than those who didn't consume alcohol. When the researchers further crunched the numbers, drinking 40g of ethanol per day the equivalent to five units was linked with a lower risk of dementia compared to those who had never had a tipple. Dr Mewton, a public health researcher, said abstaining from alcohol appears to be associated with a higher risk of being diagnosed with dementia. Scientists say alcohol in moderate levels may reduce the the build-up of plaque in the brain, which is a telltale sign of the illness. It could also boost levels of 'good' cholesterol, while antioxidant-rich red wine may protect the heart which both in turn protect against dementia. The researchers said their data was robust and shows the impact of alcohol drinking on dementia rates worldwide. However, they noted that alcohol intake was self-reported by participants who are prone to under-estimate their drinking. And the type of alcohol consumed was not logged. Some studies have found that only certain drinks such as wine may protect against dementia. Meanwhile, the data included few excessive alcohol drinkers, who are thought to be at most risk from dementia. UK health chiefs advise Britons to drink no more than 14 units per week around six pints of beer or 10 small glasses of wine. Drinking large amounts of alcohol for many years raises the risk of high blood pressure, strokes, liver disease and some cancers, as well as dementia. Dr Sara Imarisio, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said: 'The results showed that people who never drank alcohol had a higher chance of developing dementia than those who did. 'These results are consistent with previous research on this topic, which also show that heavy consumption of alcohol, as well as not drinking, seems linked to a higher risk of dementia.' However, she noted that alcohol is toxic to brain cells, so excessive drinking over time can 'change the way our brains works', alter its shape and structure and stop the body absorbing vitamins properly. Previous studies have highlighted that alcohol is a risk factor for dementia, due to the toxic effect of ethanol on the brain. Studies have even shown that excessive drinking is one of the biggest contributors to dementia, more so than high blood pressure or diabetes. However, research has also thrown up contrary results. Some papers show heavy drinking is not linked to the condition, while others found light to moderate drinkers have a lower risk than teetotalers. Global dementia rates have tripled over the least three decades from 20.2million in 1990 to 57.4million in 2019. The surge is predicted to continue with experts estimating 152million will be suffering from the memory-robbing condition by 2050. As it stands, around 900,000 people are thought to be living with dementia in the UK. The figure is nearly seven times higher in the US, with 6.2million blighted by the memory-robbing condition. There is no cure for the disease, meaning doctors can only prescribe drugs that lessen its symptoms. Women going through IVF with frozen embryos might be more prone to pregnancy complications, a study claimed today. Norwegian academics found mothers-to-be relying on thawed embryos were 74 per cent more likely to be struck down with high blood pressure in pregnancy. This was compared to women who became pregnant naturally, who carried the same lower risk as those using fresh embryos. The study involved more than 4.5million pregnancies. High blood pressure disorders in pregnant women include pre-eclampsia, a serious condition that can prove deadly to both babies and mothers. Kim Kardashian and Beyonce both suffered from the condition, which is thought to affect around 5 per cent of pregnancies in Britain and the US. Scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology called on fertility clinics to make 'careful consideration' of the potential risks before freezing embryos as a standard procedure. Mothers who conceive using frozen embryos in IVF are more at risk of high blood pressure problems during pregnancy, a study claims What is the difference between fresh embryo transfer and using frozen embryos in IVF? IVF involves fertilising eggs outside the womb and then transferring them back to the uterus. An embryo, an egg fertilised by a sperm in a petri dish, is transferred to the womb two to five days in fresh embryo transfer. But for thousands of women, good quality embryos are left over. These can be frozen and then thawed for use in the future. Freezing is becoming more common because of the improved technology and cryopreservation methods that started in the late 2000s. But frozen embryo transfer is known to come with a higher risk of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy than both natural conception and fresh embryo transfer. Prior to this study, it was not known whether this was due to the freezing process or a risk factor from the parents. Advertisement The study, published in the journal Hypertension, assessed more than 4.5million births. The majority of IVF clinics in the UK and the US rely on the fresh embryo technique, when eggs are taken, fertilised soon after and then implanted. Figures suggest around one in five cycles of IVF use the frozen technique when 'spare' embryos from a previous attempt are kept frozen. Previous studies have shown hypertensive disorders are more common after frozen embryo transfers. Yet experts still have no idea why. This is the first paper to indicate that the greater risk is caused by something in the freezing process itself, rather than risk factors from the parents. To tease out whether it was the parents themselves or the IVF process to blame, the researchers also looked at 33,000 women who had given birth from natural conception and frozen embryo IVF. Results showed there was still a clear elevated risk. However, they are still clueless as to what exact part of the freezing process is to blame, arguing that further studies are needed. Mothers involved in the study came from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and were aged 22 to 46. The majority of the 4.5million pregnancies were naturally conceived, with 78,300 being fresh embryo transfers and around 18,000 frozen. Results showed 7.4 per cent of women who used frozen embryos had hypertensive disorders. For comparison, the rate was 4.3 per cent with natural conception. Lead author Dr Sindre Petersen insisted that most IVF pregnancies are 'healthy and uncomplicated'. However, he added: 'This analysis found the risk of high blood pressure in pregnancy was substantially higher after frozen embryo transfer compared to pregnancies from fresh embryo transfer or natural conception. 'Our results highlight that careful consideration of all benefits and potential risks is needed before freezing all embryos as a routine in clinical practice. 'A comprehensive, individualised conversation between physicians and patients about the benefits and risks of a fresh versus frozen embryo transfer is key.' Pregnancy adds extra strain to a woman's heart and blood vessels, making high blood pressure disorders such as pre-eclampsia more likely. A Caucasian man's skin has turned black after a mystery reaction to a commonly prescribed anti-depressant. Tyler Monk, from Louisiana, was prescribed Prozac in May 2021 following a diagnosis for depression and anxiety. Within a week, the 34-year-old's skin began changing to a grayish-blue color, even though it was having little effect on his mental health. Mr Monk, a pest control field inspector, claims he stopped the medication after a few weeks but his skin continued to darken. First, his ears started to change color before it rapidly spread to his neck and his face - before affecting his arms and hands. Mr Monk also experienced other symptoms such as extremely red, irritated eyes and his skin becoming very sensitive to the sun and feeling like it has been burned. He admits to initially being 'in denial', but after speaking to two of his co-workers, Mr Monk accepted he was actually turning black. Mr Monk has visited several specialists near the couple's home in the small town of Kinder, since the discoloration, but they have all been stumped. Doctors have ruled out any serious diseases, poisoning and autoimmune conditions but he claims they still can't tell what is causing the problems. Tyler Monk, from Louisiana, has seen his skin turn black after a mystery reaction to a commonly prescribed anti-depressant Within a week of taking Prozac in May 2021 his skin began changing to a grayish-blue color. First, his ears started to change color before it rapidly spread to his neck and his face - before affecting his arms and hands (shown) Can antidepressants change the color of your skin? Millions of Americans and Britons take antidepressants every day and most side effects are mild. The most common are feeling agitated, shaky or anxious. feeling or being sick. indigestion. diarrhea or constipation. loss of appetite and weight loss. dizziness. blurred vision. dry mouth. However, in extreme cases, some antidepressant medication can result in hyperpigmentation of the skin, acne, or increased dryness. This sees the skin over-produce melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color. People with more melanin generally have darker skin, eyes and hair compared to those with little melanin Advertisement Fluoxetine, the generic name for Prozac, is a type of antidepressant known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). More than 28million Americans take fluoxetine. SSRIs are the most popular type of drug for treating depression, and work by blocking the reabsorption of serotonin in the brain. In extremely rare cases, these drugs can cause the skin to produces excess melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color. Mr Monk's dermatologist has now referred the seemingly unsolvable case for an appointment with a team of eight skin specialists. He is due to receive additional scans and new rounds of blood work to find the culprit. Mr Monk said: 'First, they thought it was photosensitivity, so I'm having a reaction to light, but I've been covering up and I'm still getting darker. 'I can't get any answers from the specialists, so we decided to post on TikTok. We thought that it couldn't hurt to share online, so let's see if by some chance anyone else out there has had this happen or maybe has some answers for us. 'It's mainly been supportive. People have made lots of jokes. But we joke a lot so we just laugh along with them.' His wife Emily Monk said they have tried their best to keep their two daughters educated without scaring them or making them worried about their father. Mrs Monk said: 'For me and the children, we just worry about his health. 'We really don't mind the color change as long as he's healthy and okay with it. We support whatever he chooses to do about it.' Mrs Monk posted about Mr Monk to the social media app TikTok earlier this year to raise awareness about this drug and warn others about the importance of knowing the side effects of what you are taking. She has used her TikTok to chat with people around the world who have suggestions on what it could be and where they could get help. Mrs Monk has organized a GoFundMe page in the hopes of raising some money to cover any medical costs, travel and expenses to get her husband the diagnosis and treatment he needs. It's a normal reaction for any expectant mother. But worrying during pregnancy may raise the risk of a premature birth, a study suggested Monday. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles found those who suffered anxiety had a significantly higher risk of going into labor early. They are now calling for more pregnant women to be screened for the condition, saying anxiety is a 'potent' risk factor. As many as one in four pregnant women suffered from anxiety symptoms like constant dread and worry, previous research indicates. Women who are anxious in pregnancy are significantly more likely to have a premature birth, a study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, suggests (file) Experts believe anxiety causes premature births because it raises levels of stress hormones that have long been linked to early labor. Babies born prematurely before 37 weeks are at higher risk of a host of issues including breathing problems, infections and jaundice or yellowing of the eyes. Studies also indicate they perform worse in school and are more likely to have learning difficulties. HOW DOES STRESS AFFECT PREGNANCY? Stress in pregnancy makes women more vulnerable to smoking and air pollution, research suggests. Highly-stressed pregnant women who smoke are significantly more likely to have low-birth weight babies than more relaxed expectant smokers, a study review found. The combination of high stress and air pollution also increases the risk of having a low-birth weight baby. Senior author Dr Tracey Woodruff, from the University of California, San Francisco, said: 'It appears that stress may amplify the health effects of toxic chemical exposure, which means that for some people, toxic chemicals become more toxic.' Co-author Professor Rachel Morello-Frosch, from the University of California, Berkeley, added: 'The bottom line is that poverty-related stress may make people more susceptible to the negative effects of environmental health hazards, and that needs to be a consideration for policymakers and regulators.' The researchers analysed 17 human studies and 22 animal trials that investigated the link between stress, chemicals and foetal development. Stress was defined by factors such as socioeconomic status. Advertisement About 10 in every 100 babies born in the US are premature compared to around eight in 100 in the UK. In the study published today by the American Psychological Association scientists analysed data from 196 pregnant women in Denver and Los Angeles. They were 31 years old on average, more than half had a college degree and for 55 percent it was their first pregnancy. Researchers used four different anxiety scales, in both the first and the third trimesters of their pregnancies. One was a five-question screener for general anxiety and three were specific worries about pregnancy - such as fears about labor, parenting and finances. The impact of the Covid pandemic was not considered in the study because it looked at women who gave birth between 2013 and 2018. Results showed that 12.5 percent of women or 25 participants had clinically significant levels of anxiety during pregnancy. In the first trimester, those with general anxiety were significantly more likely to give birth earlier. But in the third, women specifically worried about birth were more likely to give birth preterm. The results remained even when other risk factors like smoking, obesity and deprivation were factored in. One possibility is that general anxiety early in pregnancy could raise women's risk of being anxious about the pregnancy itself down the line, according to the researchers. They are now calling for wider screening for anxiety in pregnant women. Lead author and health psychologist Dr Christine Dunkel Schetter, said: 'These days, depressive symptoms are assessed in many clinic settings around the world to prevent complications of postpartum depression for mothers and children. 'This and other studies suggest that we should also be assessing anxiety in pregnant women.' Anxiety is when someone suffers from persistent, excessive worries such as about a birth or finances that do not go away over time. Signs of the condition can include restlessness, feeling on edge all or most of the time, and being unable to concentrate due to the pregnancy. One in three Americans are estimated to suffer from the condition at some point of their life, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Previous research has linked both this and stress to a higher risk of preterm birth. But scientists are yet to determine exactly why this is the case. It is thought to be linked to higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the body. Advertisement There's an age-old saying: you get what you pay for. And in terms of the Dacia Jogger, 16,645 lands you the cheapest seven-seat car in Britain today. To put its budget-busting price into perspective, the Jogger costs around half the next most-affordable model on sale that can transport as many people at any given time. It sounds like an incredible deal, doesn't it? But will its cut-down price mean you get half the car? And can it really be considered as an alternative to a traditional people-carrying multi-purpose vehicle? We decided to find out by putting the budget-friendly family motor through its paces. Half the price of an MPV, but is it half the car? We put the 16,645 Dacia Jogger - the cheapest seven-seat car on sale in Britain - to the test to see if it really can be used on a day-to-day basis as a budget-friendly people carrier The Romanian brand has been synonymous with affordable motoring since it was brought back to life under Renault's stewardship at the turn of the century, reentering the UK market in 2013. Its Sandero has for years been the cheapest supermini in showrooms, while the Duster SUV continues to significantly undercut all rivals in its segment. These no-frills models have been a hit, with over 200,000 Dacias bought by Britons in the last decade. The Jogger looks to build on this by opening Dacia ownership up to customers who need even more space and extra people-lugging capacity for a snip of what they would normally have to pay. Dacia Jogger: Just how cheap is it? One of the biggest victims of the recent growth of the SUV market has been MPVs, with most brands culling the availability of conventional, box-shaped, people carriers with three rows of seats from their ranges. Among the most affordable traditional MPVs in showrooms today are small van-inspired models, like the Ford Tourneo Connect and Volkswagen Caddy, which will set you back between 26,000 and 28,000 respectively. The most affordable seven-seat SUV is the Skoda Kodiaq, though at 33,000 is double the price of the entry-spec Dacia. That said, our test car wasn't the bog-standard 16,645 model. We were treated to the range-topping Extreme SE spec with optional metallic bronze paint and the 300 addition of a spare wheel instead of a puncture repair kit (a must when ordering any new car, if you ask us). That takes our on-test Jogger price up to 19,640. With the majority of new car buyers opting for finance packages, our Jogger costs 274 per month on PCP - so not what you'd call bank busting. Compared to cars like the Ford Tourneo Connect, VW Caddy and Skoda Kodiaq - all seven-seat models at the more affordable end of the market - the Dacia Jogger is a snip. Our range-topping test car rings in at under 20,000 It's not an old Renault underneath... When Dacia dealers began popping up across Britain offering customers a sub-6,000 supermini in 2013, the car wasn't what you'd call 'cutting edge'. In fact, the original Sandero - which remained on sale until 2020 - was underpinned by the same platform as the Clio that Renault launched way back in 2002. But that's no longer the case with the latest-generation Dacias, which are now based on existing cars in its French parent group's line-up. The CMF-B platform underpinning the Jogger is the same one used for the current Sandero. This also means it gets the latest three-cylinder petrol engine and chassis that's used in the newest Clio. From the front, it's identical to the Sandero, with a short bonnet and arrow-like LED headlight clusters. But that's where the styling similarities end, with the CMF-B platform stretched by almost half a metre (46cm) to make provisions for the extra seats in the back. The flat roof gives it a hearse-like profile and the boot door is squared off to maximise interior space. At 4,547mm long, its's around the same as a medium-size family hatchback. Though the chunky plastic cladding and slightly raised ride height give it more presence than its on-paper dimensions suggest. The 3-cylinder petrol engine packs a modest 108bhp with turbocharging. To its credit, it doesn't feel underpowered. It produced maximum torque between 2,300-3,500rpm, so it's punchy when accelerating from low speeds - almost diesel like It's certainly not the best-handling family car we've ever driven, but it rolls in corners no more so than van-inspired MPV rivals, which are notoriously terrible in the turns The steering is very light and tuned for navigating tight space in town or taking on multi-storey car parks rather than chasing lap times What's it like to drive? Unless running extremely late for the morning school run, this isn't a car customers will judge predominantly for its driving performance. That's fortunate, given the 999cc petrol engine is the smallest to power any seven seater on the market today. The TCe 110 packs a modest 108bhp thanks in part to turbocharging and, to its credit, doesn't feel underpowered. It produced its maximum torque (148 ftlb) between 2,300 and 3,500rpm, so it's punchy when accelerating from low speeds - almost diesel like. This ample grunt does a stellar job of masking the pedestrian 11.2 seconds it takes to rumble from zero to 62mph. Will it fit in my garage? Dacia Jogger On sale: now Price: from 16,645 Model tested: Range-topping Extreme SE Test car price with options: from 19,640 Engine: 1.0 litre, three-cylinder turbocharged petrol Power: 108bhp 0 to 62mph: 11.2 seconds Top speed: 114mph Fuel efficiency: 48.7mpg CO2 emissions: 130g/km Dimensions Length: 4,547mm Width (mirrors extended): 2,007mm Height (with roof-bars): 1,691mm Wheelbase: 2,898mm Weight: 1,261kg Gross weight: 1,862kg Fuel tank: 50 litres Boot volume: 160 litres with third row in place (up to 2,085 litres with second and third rows folded/removed) Get up to motorway speeds and the limitations of the diminutive powertrain's ability to add to the mph-counter is more exposed, but it will still cruise at 70 quite happily. Even at these higher speeds the characteristic three-cylinder chug has been well muted from the cabin, which means drivers won't be wanting for a megaphone to hold a conversation with passengers in the third row. Top speed is 114mph, says Dacia, though you'd need all of Heathrow's runways put together to see that figure on the speedo. With all seven seats filled, expect to see a big drop off in acceleration time. Our week-long test included 100 miles with five passengers and their luggage onboard. This required more forceful jabs of the throttle to get up to speed. A hybrid Jogger is due next year offering closer to 140bhp, which might be worth waiting for if you intend to transport big groups frequently. The raised ride height and soft suspension means it swings and pitches in the corners like a daredevil dangling from a bungee cord. However, it doesn't roll any more so than top-heavy, van-inspired MPV rivals, which are notoriously terrible in the turns. And the Jogger's extended platform means it does a decent job of ironing out bumps and ruts in the tarmac than the shorter Sandero. As for the steering, it is very light and tuned for town driving rather than chasing lap times. It's the best compromise for customers in this segment who don't want to pull a muscle doing a three-point turn. The brakes - discs at the front and drums at the rear - offer enough initial bite to give confidence in everyday driving, and the six-speed manual transmission in our test car, while not the slickest-shifting we've ever handled, engages each gear without a fumble (even after a few thousand miles of likely hard use in the hands of other spirited motor journalist types). The Jogger's extended platform means it does a decent job of ironing out bumps and ruts in the tarmac than the shorter Sandero, on which it is based Running costs at a glance On paper, the Jogger's three-cylinder engine is said to return 48.7mpg, but fully laden with passengers won't likely get near that. If you are using it for the daily school-run, it should be pretty frugal once the kids have been dropped off at the school gates. In terms of tax, its official 130g/km C02 output means it just dips into the 190 first-year VED band, then it's the flat 'standard rate' from the second year of 165. Read our latest VED guide here to find out how much you'll be paying in car tax. With the engine and parts tried and tested in the Sandero and smaller Renault models, reliability should be strong. And it comes with Dacia's three-year, 60,000-mile warranty. Every model comes with air conditioning, rear parking sensors, cruise control, roof bars and auto headlights as standard. Our top-spec car came with this 8-inch infotainment screen, which isn't the sharpest we've used Some of the interior materials are a clear sign this is a car built to a strict budget. Scratchy plastics protecting the lower parts of the interior (like the bottom of the centre console pictured) are those that stay marked forever if scratched These spongy inset panels in the dashboard feel like the polystyrene chips you find shoved into fragile delivery parcels. While cheap, we're not sure how durable it will be Does it feel like a 16,500 car? The first thing to note is that the Jogger wasn't supposed to be a 16,645 car - it was originally launched under the proviso it was be priced under 15,000. However, Dacia blamed the rising cost of raw materials - namely steel and plastic - for having to bump the price higher by the time it reached UK showrooms. Still, for such a modest price tag you're getting a lot of car for your money. Every model comes with air conditioning, rear parking sensors, cruise control, roof bars and auto headlights as standard. And while the entry 'Essential' trim gets a cradle for your smartphone to use as the infotainment screen for DAB radio, Bluetooth and navigation, our Extreme SE variant has the eight-inch display, though this isn't the flashiest or most responsive we've ever used. It's important to note that basic and mid-spec versions come with steel wheels, so you'll need to fork out extra if you want your Jogger to be running on alloys. And while you might get a surprising amount of equipment, the material quality is more telling of the reasonable asking price. Nobody spending 16,500 on a family car should be expecting plush leather or swathes of Alcantara, but there's something distinctly bargain basement about some of the cabin touch points, like the control dials and switches. Scratchy plastics protecting the lower parts of the interior are those that stay marked forever if a sharp object happens to scrape a panel, and the spongy insets in the dashboard feel like the polystyrene chips you find shoved into fragile delivery parcels. At just over two-metres wide (2,007mm) including the wing mirrors, the Jogger measures is the same across as the Sandero it is based on. It feels like a squeeze, even in the front Frustratingly, only the two outboard second-row seats have Isofix points for child car seats. And if you have three adults sat here, they'll be packed in tighter than a tin of sardines There's little in terms of legroom in the third row (pictured with the second row seats folded forward). That's because the rearmost chairs are not elevated, meaning a below-average-height pre-teen will have their knees up near their ears A one-star Euro NCAP crash test rating needs consideration While the number of airbags and all-round safety equipment available in the Jogger as standard is adequate, it's important to note that it scores a lowly one-star Euro NCAP crash test rating. This is because it is marked down for having a radar-only automatic emergency braking system that activates when it detects other vehicles - but not pedestrians or cyclists. While this is also the case for the two-star rated Sandero and Sandero Stepway models the Jogger is based on, the seven-seat estate loses a star because there's no seatbelt reminder system installed for the two rearmost seats. Both adult and child occupant test scores are also low compared to many family car rivals - something that shouldn't be overlooked by customers. A one-star crash test rating will certainly frighten plenty of family car buyers, and you'll need to give this area some real thought if you are considering purchasing a Jogger. Is it a genuine seven-seater? Our biggest gripe with the Jogger is around its people-carrying capability, because we don't think it fits the bill as a genuine seven seater. Yes, it has two additional seats in the back, but only children can fit in them. There's little in terms of legroom here, and because the rearmost chairs are not elevated even taller pre-teens will have to sit with their knees up near their ears. With the rear chairs in place, there's also next to no luggage space as a result. Dacia says there's 160 litres, but we doubt we'd fit 160 sheets of A4 in the minimised boot compartment. Getting in and out of that back row also isn't easy, requiring part of the 60:40-split second-row seats to be flat-packed and tilted forwards to allow access. With the small rear door apertures you almost need to dislocate joints in the process of entry and exit. In all honestly, we can only recommend using the third-row seats for short and infrequent journeys. And while the two back seats can be independently folded up, they take up usable load space. They can also be removed but are extremely bulky, so be prepared for them to take up vital room in your garage or shed. There's another issue, too. Trying to stretch the Sandero supermini's platform to create a capacious family car always felt like it was going to be a big ask, and in practice it hasn't worked. At just over two-metres wide (2,007mm) including the wing mirrors, the Jogger measures the same across as the Sandero it is based on. As a result, this motor aimed at families does feel cramped from every seating position - and like a tin of sardines if you're in the second row with other adults. Add to the equation that only the two outboard chairs in row two have Isofix mounting points for child car seats and it's yet another limitation of the Jogger's people-carrying claims. Slide me With the Jogger's two rearmost chairs in place, there's also next to no luggage space as a result. Dacia says there's 160 litres, but we doubt we'd fit 160 sheets of A4 in the non-existent boot compartment Our biggest gripe with the Jogger is around its people-carrying capability, because we're not sure if it really fits the bill as a genuine seven seater. While it might be a tempting prospect for large families, those regularly transporting seven people are better off buying a second-hand traditional MPV Cars & Motoring verdict There simply aren't many family cars on the market today for less than 20,000, so there are few motors that can compete with the Jogger at this price point, which gives it a unique selling point. It drives well, is comfortable, should be cheap to run and comes with most of the kit you'd ever need when buying a new car on a budget. However, its lowly one-star crash test rating will most certainly be a sticking point for many who might have considered entrusting the Dacia to protect their kids, though potential buyers need to take a closer look at the full Euro NCAP report before writing off the Jogger entirely. That said, we recommend that anyone on the hunt for a genuine seven-seat vehicle not to be lured in by the comparatively low price. While it might be a tempting prospect for large families with tight purse strings, anyone who regularly needs to transport seven people will be better off spending the same amount of money on a second-hand traditional MPV instead. The boss of Marmite to Magnum maker Unilever is retiring months after a bungled 50billion takeover tilt at GlaxoSmithKline's consumer healthcare business. Alan Jope will step down as chief executive at the end of 2023 following a period in which it has been criticised for 'woke' decision-making and clashed with the founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Shares in Unilever rose 1.8 per cent, or 73.5p, to 4100p yesterday on the announcement. Tough tenure: Unilever chief executive Alan Jope (pictured) has overseen a flat share price Jope took over in January 2019 and the shares zipped higher early in his tenure but have since returned to roughly where they were when he started. He was paid 4.4million in 2021 and has received just under 12million over three full years in the job. The consumer goods giant, whose products include Hellmann's mayonnaise and Domestos bleach, this year abandoned an attempt to buy the division of GSK behind products such as Sensodyne toothpaste. That business was later spun off and floated under the new name Haleon and is valued at just over 25billion, about half of what Jope had offered. Unilever's bid to buy it was met by disapproval from shareholders. Fund manager Terry Smith told investors Unilever had 'lost the plot' for example, through a statement in which it defined the purpose of Hellmann's. 'The brand has existed since 1913 so we would guess that by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert - salads and sandwiches),' he wrote. Smith said managers seemed 'obsessed with publicly displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on the fundamentals of the business'. There was also controversy about Ben & Jerry's decision not to sell ice cream in the West Bank as sales 'in the Occupied Palestinian territory' were 'inconsistent with our values'. Unilever, which owns the brand, tried to sidestep the row by selling the Israeli part of the business to a local licence holder but last month a US judge rejected a legal attempt by Ben & Jerry's to try to stop its parent company from carrying out the move. Founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield said the sale violated an agreement when Unilever bought the brand in 2000 that gave the independent board of the ice cream company authority over its 'social mission'. Meanwhile, Unilever this year revealed plans to cut about 1,500 management jobs. Jope's announcement of his departure came two months after activist investor Nelson Peltz joined the board after his Trian Partners built up a stake. Unilever is dealing with soaring costs and shaky consumer confidence. It said over the summer it had put up prices by 11.2 per cent in response to surging costs, and admitted this had some impact on sales. Tineke Frikkee, fund manager at investor Waverton Investment Management, said Jope's exit 'may signal more welcome future change'. She added: 'The unappealing plan to buy consumer healthcare from GSK has tainted Mr Jope's track record somewhat.' Russ Mould, at AJ Bell, said: 'The influence of Peltz is only likely to increase in the wake of this announcement and this could mean more radical action to streamline the group and improve its performance.' Mutual insurer LV has brought in a new chief executive to replace disgraced boss Mark Hartigan. The Bournemouth-based group has appointed David Hynam, the former head of UK and global markets at health insurance firm Bupa and chief operating officer of French insurer AXA, to take over as head of the firm. Hartigan announced plans to step down in July after his attempt to sell LV to US private equity shark Bain Capital was voted down by furious members last December. Mutual insurer LV has appointed David Hynam, the former head of UK and global markets at health insurance firm Bupa, to take over as head of the firm His decision came after policy-holders who own the business due to its status as a mutual launched a campaign to oust him at the firms annual meeting next month. LVs customer-owned structure is key to its history. The 179-year-old firm was founded to help the poor of Liverpool pay for decent burials, and its mutuality meant it offered reasonably priced products without having to make a profit for cash-hungry shareholders. The planned sale to Bain raised fears this focus would take a back seat to profits. Members were also incensed when it emerged they would only receive around 100 each from the sale. The blocking of the takeover followed a Save LV campaign by the Mail backed by members, industry experts and politicians. LV was also blasted after its board initially backed Hartigan following the failed takeover while also handing him a 511,000 bonus on top of his 435,000 salary for 2021, which was branded a reward for failure. Hynam, 51, said his priority would be to create a true mutual culture at LV and realise the firms huge potential and drive its business forward. I am excited to be part of the future growth of LV= and look forward to driving opportunities, whilst meeting challenges head on, he added. Chairman Simon Moore said Hynam was a truly market leading chief executive and was a perfect fit for LVs mutual business model. Moore added that the appointment marked a new era for LV and that he would make an unprecedented address to members at the groups annual meeting on October 18 to outline the next steps for the business. Under my tenure, LV will be a leading example of the value that mutuality can bring both to its members and wider society and David is going to be a very important part of that, the chairman said. Former banker Moore was appointed after his predecessor, Alan Cook, was pushed out after the Bain debacle. While at Bupa, Hynam led its response to the pandemic, which resulted in it becoming the first major health insurer to offer Covid rebates. My previous employer has failed to auto enrol me into a workplace pension scheme. I am a nanny and as I understand it when the workplace pension scheme came into force nannies were not eligible and then when it was decided nannies were eligible it was done by working from the youngest nannies up to the oldest. I worked for my previous employer for four years, until recently. I have spoken to my former employer about this situation and she said it was an honest mistake and she will get it sorted. Since then she is not replying to emails and texts. Lost contributions: I am a nanny and my ex-employer didn't enrol me into a pension - what can I do? I have spoken to Acas and they said to contact the Pensions Ombudsman which I have done. They said to email a letter to my former employer stating what I was doing and that they needed to reply to me within eight weeks. They also told me to contact the Pensions Pegulator. I did this and they said I would have to report my former employer for failing to register me and they would get fined. I don't want to get her in trouble. What do you suggest I do first? SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT HOW TO ASK STEVE YOUR PENSION QUESTION Steve Webb replies: Although the law requiring employers to enrol certain workers into a pension has been very successful, not every employer has complied with their legal duties and you appear to have missed out as a result. As it happens, this week marks the 10th anniversary of the start of 'automatic enrolment', which began in October 2012 and started off with Britain's largest employers. Steve Webb: Find out how to ask the former Pensions Minister a question about your retirement savings in the box below Over the following five years, the duty to enrol workers on more than 10,000 a year was steadily extended to medium sized employers and eventually to small employers, including people who employ a nanny. This means that when you started working for your previous employer in 2018, she was already required by law to enrol you in a pension if you were paid more than 10,000 per year. There were no special rules for nannies, other than the fact that small employers were brought into the scheme later than larger employers. There were also no special rules about the age of nannies, apart from the fact that the legal duty to enrol a worker only applies to those aged 22 or above. In summary, if you earned over 10,000 and you were aged 22 or above, your employer was breaking the law if she did not enrol you into a workplace pension within three months of you starting work. By not doing so, she has deprived you of the contributions she should have been making into a pension on your behalf, as well as the investment growth on that money since then. In terms of what you can do to put things right, it is definitely sensible to contact your former employer directly first. I see that you are getting no response, so I suggest a final email which says that if she does not put things right you will be forced to make a complaint to the Pensions Regulator (TPR) which has the power to fine employers for non-compliance. You could mention that in the last year TPR issued over 51,000 such fines according to page 20 of their latest annual report. If you still get no response then you will need to decide whether to make a complaint. Whilst I can understand that you don't want to create ill will with your former employer, now that she clearly knows that she has broken the law it is unacceptable that she is trying to avoid her responsibilities. If you follow this through you should not only get the missing contributions that you are owed, but any future nanny employed by the same employer should hopefully find they do not have to battle to get what is rightfully theirs. Listen to our special podcast where Steve Webb answers readers' pension questions on the player below, or at Apple Podcasts, Audioboom, Spotify or visit our This is Money Podcast page. While almost all prices are increasing, nowhere is it more painful than the amount we pay for household energy. Many of us are already spending double what we did a year ago, loading extra pressure onto household budgets. The arrival of winter - where we will all need to turn up our thermostats to keep warm - makes the prospect of even higher bills particularly worrying. Rapidly rising energy bills are one of the most worrying aspects of the cost of living crisis With our 'Beat the Big Squeeze' series, brought to you in partnership with Halifax, we will be bringing you useful, practical advice on how to deal with the cost of living crisis. In the first article of the series, we provided an overview of the crisis and how it might affect you. This week, we take a deep dive into one of its key causes - the increasing cost of energy. More articles will be published in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out to make sure you never miss one. Below, we look at the key dates and changes to the way you are charged for energy, how you can prepare for rising bills, and the support available to you and your family. We'll also examine how you could save money on energy this winter, and how to keep up to date about which bills are coming to avoid any nasty shocks. How much can I expect to be charged? Ofgem recently announced the price cap on how much energy suppliers can charge households will now change every three months rather than six as before. Jargon buster Energy price cap: The maximum cost per unit that energy companies can charge for both gas and electricity. This is then used to calculate a typical annual bill. Ofgem: The government regulator for gas and electricity markets in the UK. One of its responsibilities is to set the energy price cap. Wholesale cost of energy: What your energy firm pays for gas and electricity before selling it on to you. The energy regulator said this would provide more stability and reduce the risk of suppliers going bust by having to sell energy to consumers for less than they paid for it. Recently, Liz Truss - the new UK Prime Minister - announced her plan to combat the crisis - the Energy Price Guarantee - which will freeze the energy price cap at 2,500 per year for the average household from October. This will be automatic and apply to all households for two years. Without the measure, the average household annual bill would have risen to 3,549 per year from October - compared to 1,277 last year. One thing to note is that this cap only sets a limit on the rates you pay for each unit of gas and electricity, not the total price suppliers can charge. So, if you use more than a typical household, you will ultimately pay more. The cap freeze for households, plus further support for businesses, will cost an estimated 150 billion, although its final cost will depend on movements in the gas market. It will be funded by Government borrowing rather than higher taxes. What help is available? If you are worried about not being able to afford to pay your energy bills or have fallen behind on payments, the first thing to do is contact your supplier. Under Ofgem rules, they must work with you to agree on a payment plan you can afford. If you prepay for energy there are several other ways your supplier can help. From October, the government will give every household in England, Scotland, and Wales 400 off their electricity bill through the Energy Bills Support Scheme. The cap for a typical household paying by direct debit is currently 1,971 a year, but this will rise by 80 per cent to 3,549 on October 1 Even though the government has subsequently committed to freeze the energy price cap at 2,500 from October, this money will still be paid. Ministers say the 400 - when taken together with the freeze - will bring costs close to where the energy price cap stands today. The cash will come in six monthly installments, either as a discount on your direct debit amount or as cash paid straight into your bank account. You won't have to do anything to get this money and you won't need to pay it back. If you are struggling to pay your energy bills you may be able to apply for additional support, including cash grants from the government, charities, or the suppliers themselves. For more information on what help is available and how to apply for it, visit the Ofgem website. In what other ways can I prepare? Usually when you're faced with a high energy bill the advice is to switch to a cheaper company. But right now, it's not so simple, because the current state of the energy industry means you won't find many tariffs (the set rates that you pay to your energy provider for gas and electricity). So, if you don't find a better tariff than the one you're on, Citizens Advice says it is probably best to wait. There's also the option of fixing your tariff. This could save you money in the long run, but rapidly changing prices mean the outlook is uncertain. One good way to prepare your finances for rising energy bills is to do some calculations about what you expect to come out of your account over the next month. Understanding your outgoings will help you plan for price increases in the future. If you're a Halifax customer, you can use the bank's Upcoming Payments tool to see what regular payments are due to leave your account in the next 31 days and how much you'll have left until payday. That way you can cut down on spending if needed to avoid not having enough money to cover your expenses later down the line. Halifax is bringing you useful, practical advice to deal with the cost of living crisis through its 'Big Squeeze' series Quick ways to save energy at home - and cut your bills Of course, one way to control your energy bills is by reducing the amount of gas and electricity you use. While replacing your existing appliances with energy efficient ones or installing major new insulation would be a great way forward, there are plenty of cheaper, quicker ways you can start saving right away. Here are our top seven tips: 1 - Run your washing machine at 30 degrees and try to wash a full load; 2 - Ensure your fridge is set between three and five degrees and defrost your freezer regularly as ice build-up will make it work less efficiently; 3 - Close your curtains in the evening to keep in the heat when it's cold outside; 4 - Turn off plug sockets at the wall if you're not using them and try to avoid keeping electrical devices on standby; 5 - Have a look for draughts coming through windows and doors and consider installing draught proofing; 6 - Unplug your phone once it is fully charged rather than leaving it plugged in; 7 - Be savvy with your kitchen appliances - so only fill your kettle with the water you need and try to wait until your dishwasher is full. Did you miss the first article in our Beat The Big Squeeze series? Read it by clicking HERE. *INSERT HYPERLINK ONCE FIRST STORY IS LIVE* Korea Development Bank (KDB) Chairman and CEO Kang Seog-hoon speaks during a press conference on the planned sale of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) at KDB headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Monday. Yonhap By Yi Whan-woo Hanwha Group will take over debt-ridden Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) as the two firms signed a preliminary investment deal on a conditional sale, Korea Development Bank (KDB) said Monday. The state-run bank, which is the main creditor and largest shareholder of DSME with a 55.7 percent stake, said Hanwha Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to acquire a 49.3 percent stake in the ailing shipbuilder. Under the MOU, the group's subsidiaries will participate in DSME's 2 trillion won ($1.39 billion) rights offering for a 49.3 percent stake and managerial control. Hanwha Aerospace will fund 1 trillion won, Hanwha Systems 500 billion won, Hanwha Impact Partners 400 billion won, and three subsidiaries of Hanwha Energy will fund 100 billion won to participate in the rights offering. After the rights issue, KDB will still hold a 28.2 percent stake in DSME. A view of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering's (DSME) main dockyard on Geoje Island, South Gyeongsang Province / Yonhap The CDC was today blasted over its decision to drop the word 'women' from monkeypox guidance in favor of the term 'pregnant people'. Former Trump Administration staffer Roger Severino said the move was another 'dangerous' sign of woke gender ideology creeping into crucial health advice. The CDC was slammed last year for erasing 'women' from advice about Covid vaccines in favor of the gender-neutral term. The new monkeypox pregnancy guidance was issued in July, when more than 100 cases of the virus were being detected across the US every week. It warns an infection could severely hamper fetal development and could lead to a spontaneous miscarriage or stillbirth. The agency urges pregnant and breastfeeding 'people' who contract the virus to be prioritized for treatment. Reacting to the monkeypox guidance, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) said it was an attempt to erase 'half of the human race'. Critics argue that de-sexing important health advice will confuse messaging that is meant to keep women safe especially those who are vulnerable or whose first language isn't English. Mr Severino, vice president of domestic policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told DailyMail.com: 'It's becoming the standard for this administration. 'They're trying to replace scientific realities about sex with a gender ideology, which is dangerous, ultimately.' The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention replaced mention of 'women' with 'people' in pregnancy guidance to protect against monkeypox. IS THE CDC GOING WOKE? The agency has come under fire several times in recent months for using gender-neutral language over the terms 'women', 'woman' or 'females'. Aug 11, 2021: CDC director rochelle walensky encourages all 'pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding' to get the Covid vaccine. July 1, 2022: Agency warns 'people who are pregnant or recently pregnant' are at greater risk than non-pregnant people of severe Covid infection. Autumn 2022: The agency's guidance for the annual flu shot encourages 'pregnant people (and people up to two weeks postpartum)' to get vaccinated. Advertisement 'Pregnant people' is designed to be more inclusive to transgender and non-binary people who can also conceive. A woman who transitions to a man keeps her uterus unless it is surgically removed, meaning trans men have the capacity to become pregnant. But conservatives say the attempt at inclusion itself excludes another group that has long faced discrimination women. Dr Jane Orient, executive director of the right-leaning AAPS told DailyMail.com that by using gender-neutral language, the CDC is 'saying that half of the human race doesn't exist or is the same as the other half.' She added: 'So much for evidence-based medicine.' The CDC guidance says the symptoms in 'people who are pregnant' are similar to 'non-pregnant people'. But pregnant and breastfeeding 'people' should be prioritized for antiviral treatments because of the potential risk to their unborn child. It is not clear whether the monkeypox vaccine JYNNEOS causes fetal harm, so medics should weigh the risks versus benefits, the CDC says. However, the agency highlights clinical studies of the vaccine in animals 'have shown no evidence of harm to a developing fetus.' Early symptoms of monkeypox infection typically include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and exhaustion. Within a few days of detecting early symptoms, patients will develop a rash and lesions that spread from the face throughout the body. Ex-Trump officials blasts CDC for stripping the word 'women' in the context of pregnancy in monkeypox safety guidance. Mr Severino - the former director of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights under former President Donald Trump - said the constant use of gender-neutral terms in the CDC advice was an 'attempt to deny that it is [biological female] women who get pregnant'. He added: 'And that has consequences for health, as well as policy down the road.' The vast majority (99 per cent) of monkeypox cases have been in men and 94 per cent of these patients recently had sex or close intimate contact with another man. But experts worry the outbreak could become more widespread among other parts of the population. There have already been more than 150 confirmed cases in children since May, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and dozens of infections in women. Monkeypox is transmitted when someone makes close contact with the lesions of another person who is infected, their clothing, or bedsheets. The CDC puts the current tally of global cases at around 65,000. The US leads the world in confirmed cases with roughly 25,000 as of September 14. Official monkeypox safety guidance is just the latest healthcare issue to be caught in the culture war crosshairs. The abortion rights movement has adopted more gender-neutral language to describe those who are affected by the June Supreme Court decision to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion. Abortion rights advocacy group NARAL, for instance, advised activists in 2020 to refer to abortion as a women's issue. But two years later, the group is advising campaigners use non-gendered terminology 'to be more inclusive of the trans men, nonbinary and gender non-conforming people'. Blue ribbon Optus boss and ex-NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been invisible since the company was plunged into crisis by its massive cyber hack last week. The high profile hire was unveiled in a blaze of publicity last February after joining the corporate giants as Managing Director of Enterprise, Business and Institution. But she has faced a baptism of fire ever since, and despite being called a 'proven leader' by her new boss and her extensive experience in managing crises, Ms Berejiklian hasn't been seen since the attack was revealed. Last week's Optus data leak has been hailed as the worst privacy breach in Australian history and follows a flood of customer complaints and a series of network crashes. Although it's not suggested she was responsible for any of the issues, Ms Berejiklian now faces a mountain to climb in helping rebuild Optus's plummeting reputation. But she has yet to discuss the issue in public, despite being the face of Optus's corporate division, tasked with winning over new customers and currently locked in a bitter battle with Telstra and TPG. Blue ribbon Optus boss and ex-NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been invisible since the company was plunged into crisis by its massive cyber hack last week Ms Berejiklian quit politics after ICAC launched a probe into claims she prioritised funding to projects pushed by her ex-partner and now ex-MP Daryl Maguire. The Liberal Party tried to lure her back to fight for former PM Tony Abbott's Sydney seat of Warringah - currently held by independent MP Zali Steggall - at the federal election. But playing politics in Canberra would be a cakewalk compared to the task now facing her at Optus, with confidence in the company at an all-time low. Ms Berejiklian's salary in her new Optus role has not been revealed but her Telstra equivalent - David Burns, group executive enterprise - takes home $1.1million a year. 'I'm going in another different direction and I'm looking forward to the opportunities next year brings,' she told Nine radio last year. 'I'm looking forward to a much less public life.' Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said in February that Ms Berejiklian would be a 'game-changer' for their department in charge of business customers. 'Gladys is a proven leader,' said Ms Rosmarin. Seven months later, those skills hailed by her CEO will be tested to the limit as the company tries to restore confidence after the cataclysmic data breach. The hack, revealed on Thursday, gave away personal details of around 10 million Australians, including passport and driver licence numbers, email and home addresses, dates of birth and telephone numbers. It followed a string of Optus outages, including a major crash in April that saw hundreds of thousands of people unable to make calls or use data. The series of crises come as Ms Berejiklian is tasked with closing the gap with Telstra and tries to block a proposed network-sharing deal between TPG and Telstra. The telecommunications giant appointed the former NSW premier to the newly created position of Managing Director, Enterprise, Business and Institution in February The former premier has been fighting the tech merger claiming it would hurt competition in regional areas and drive up prices. But last week's devastating data hack and privacy breach has undermined Optus's position - and made her work life potentially far more difficult. Ironically, when the Ms Berejiklian joined Optus, she said she was 'excited to join an organisation that impacts the lives of millions of Australians every day.' Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin addressed the media on Friday morning, confirming it detected the cyber breach on Wednesday. 'I'd like to start off by making sure that it's clear that we are apologising to all our customers,' she said. 'We know that this attack creates great concern and it's something that we learned about on Wednesday that some customers' information had been compromised. 'Throughout, we have used what's best for customers' approach to guide our response to this attack. 'That is why we wanted to put a call out to all of our customers to be on alert in the best way that we can, and we decided was by using you, the media. 'We know that in these situations time can be of the essence. So we contacted the media in less than 24 hours from when we learned that this incident had occurred.' The telco boss said 9.8million impacted customers would be the 'absolute worst case scenario' and said investigations are underway as to whether it was conducted by foreign criminals or state-based hackers. 'We're keeping it all open, it could be criminal, it could be state-based actors,' she said. 'We're working closely with all the government authorities and the Australian Federal Police to look into it. 'There is no cross contamination. We are very confident that the limited number of fields we have mentioned to you is the extent of it. 'And we're also very confident that the 9.8 million is an absolute upper bound number.' Telecommunications giant Optus has apologised after a major cyberhack saw up to 9.8million customers' private information accessed A cyber-security expert said customers need to watch out for criminals impersonating them online after hackers potentially stole personal details from the entire telco's client database. Alastair MacGibbon, who is chief strategy officer at cyber-security firm CyberCX and a former advisor to the prime minister, said customers should vigilant for any signs of suspicious activity. 'Personal information has been stolen,' he told the ABC. 'A lot of personal information for several million people and slightly less information for about 6 million more. 'They should be looking for whether criminals are mimicking them, or stealing their identity, trying to obtain credit in their name ... etc.' He said Optus could guard the interests of their customers is by paying for credit monitoring. 'That way you will be monitored by credit monitoring services if someone has been using your name and other details to obtain credit,' Mr MacGibbon said. Nearly 10 million Optus customers have had their personal details stolen in what is believed to be one of the biggest cyber attacks in Australian history The cyber expert warned the personal information gathered by a large organisation was 'potentially valuable for criminals'. 'If you collect a lot of information it is more valuable so any company that collects a lot of information is at risk of this type of incident occurring,' he said. 'It appears this is about customer data being stolen.' Mr MacGibbon said the breach was 'pretty significant by Australian standards'. 'My understanding is that it is about 9 million people that have been impacted so I am going to say that's probably the Optus database, which is very significant,' he said. 'This size is rare but not completely unlikely in a place like Australia.' It's recommended customers change the passwords of their online services to safeguard any privacy leaks. In April, hundreds of frustrated customers woke on on Tuesday morning unable to send texts, make calls or use internet services. Many took to social media to vent their frustration of not being able contact loved ones in an emergency arose. 'Is my son getting a credit because he can't work without it?' one woman tweeted. 'He can't contact me and turned up to check on me because the phones are out. 'I use the mobile for emergencies and if I fall or need assistance. Will there be compensation for this outage?' Thousands of Optus customers were unable to access internet and mobile services in April after nationwide outages Another man added:' My father was taken to hospital this morning with chest pain and vomiting. 'I have been trying to call my brother and others but keep getting a message 'the mobile no you have called is no longer connected'. Do better please.' The outrage also affected hundreds working from home. 'My broadband decided to drop out halfway through a client call this morning,' one man posted. Another added: 'I think it's time to cancel my contract, this is beyond a joke.' One customer shared his simple solution to fixing the problem. 'Optus customer here. I restarted my phone and voila! I can make calls. So do that. Try turning it off and on,' he tweeted. A TikToker was gunned down after she received a phone call from a person who asked her to step outside her home in western Mexico. Karla Pardini, 21, was ambushed and shot multiple times near her Culiacan residence September 20, according to the Sinaloa State Attorney General's Office. Pardini's mother told investigators that her daughter had answered a call around 10:30pm. on the night of the killing. Mexican TikToker Karla Pardini was shot dead near her home in Culiacan, Sinaloa, on September 20 after receiving a phone call from a person who asked her to come outside No arrests have been made in connection to the shooting that left Mexican 21-year-old influencer Karla Pardini dead near her home in Culiacan, Sinaloa The influencer was found dead on the side of a street at the intersections of Catedraticos and Ignacio Lopez Rayon streets in the Culiacan neighborhood of Tierra Blanca. Witnesses told authorities that several armed individuals were seen roaming the area before Pardini was killed. 'We registered it as a femicide in virtue of the fact that she was exposed and was in a state of helplessness when the attack took place,' Sinaloa State Attorney General Sara Quinonez told reporters Friday. Investigators have not revealed the name of the person who shot Pardini. 'We have reserved everything,' Quinonez. 'We are doing the investigation following the utmost secrecy so as not to alert the possible suspect.' No arrests had been made as on Monday. Just a day before she was shot dead, Karla Pardini loaded a video on TikTok with the Spanish captions that read: 'when they tell I can't stand you' and 'in short: I hope you don't like me' Pardini was known for posting fashion content on her TikTok account, which was followed by more than 88,000 followers Pardini was known for posting fashion content on her TikTok account. Her last post was September 19 when she uploaded three videos for her more than 88,000 followers. One of the short clips contained two captions in Spanish that read 'when they tell I can't stand you' and 'in short: I hope you don't like me.' Authorities have not said if the video in question may have been related to her killing. Pardini is the 14th woman murdered in the Sinaloa in 2022, according to state government data. The Canadian military had been deployed to help clear trees and roads while hundreds of maintenance crews work to restore power Channel-Port aux Basques Mayor Brian Button called the state of the town 'a total war zone' due to the heavy damage it sustained The historic storm brought intense winds of 80 miles per hour, 40 foot waves and torrential rain Advertisement Two people have died in Canada following the 'immense' devastation caused by powerful storm Fiona - which swept houses into the sea and caused major power outages for hundreds of thousands of residents. Officials found the body of a 73-year-old woman who was killed after her home in Newfoundland was destroyed, while another person died on Prince Edward Island, where generator issues may have played a role. The woman in Newfoundland is thought to have been sheltering in her basement when waves as high as 40 feet broke through her home and swept her out to sea. The storm - which was previously classed as a hurricane - packed intense winds of 80 miles per hour when it arrived with force rarely seen in eastern Canada, bringing torrential rain and waves of up to 40 feet. 'The devastation is immense,' Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said. 'The magnitude of the storm is incredible.' More than 300,000 people were still without electricity across five provinces Sunday after the storm felled trees, ripped roofs from buildings and damaged power lines, officials said. Hundreds of utility crews were working to restore power. A picture shows damage caused to coastal homes by Hurricane Fiona in Channel-Port aux Basques, Nova Scotia, Canada Houses were swept into the water by strong winds and catastrophic 40 foot waves, including at least 20 homes swept away in Channel-Port aux Basques, Newfoundland The full devastating journey of #HurricaneFiona from Puerto Rico to Atlantic Canada pic.twitter.com/zytrKxPBAN Zoom Earth (@zoom_earth) September 24, 2022 A person looks towards the sea after the arrival of Hurricane Fiona in Channel-Port Aux Basques, where Mayor Brian Button called the damage 'a total war zone' A person points towards a damaged house after the arrival of Hurricane Fiona in Port Aux Basques Fiona had earlier claimed seven lives as it roared through the Caribbean at the start of a week of havoc. Storm surges swept at least 20 homes into the sea in the town of Channel-Port aux Basques, on the southwestern tip of Newfoundland. Mayor Brian Button described 'a total war zone' in the coastal community as residents reckoned with the damage, though 200 residents were evacuated before the storm hit. 'Some people have lost everything, and I mean everything,' Button told CBC News. 'The sea was taking back the land and we were getting separated. A lot of our homes are built along the coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. Down there, Fiona just wiped out parts of that,' he said. Tempers were fraying Sunday as residents tried to return to their homes - or what was left of them. 'I know people are showing up at the barricades angry this morning and wanting to move in and go check up on their properties,' said Button in a live video on Facebook. 'The weather may have cleared, but the situation has not cleared at all. You've got to give us a little bit of time... Unfortunately, this is going to take days, could take weeks, could take months in some cases,' he said. 'I'm seeing homes in the ocean. I'm seeing rubble floating all over the place. It's complete and utter destruction. There's an apartment that is gone, that is literally just rubble,' said Rene J. Roy, a resident of Channel-Port Aux Basques and chief editor at Wreckhouse Press, said in a phone interview. Roy estimated between eight to 20 houses and buildings have washed into the sea. 'It's quite terrifying,' he said. Nova Scotia premier Houston told CBC the Canadian military had been deployed to help clear trees and roads. Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said the Canadian armed forces would also provide assistance to Newfoundland's cleanup efforts. This is the third province to request federal military assistance, after Nova Scotia on Saturday and Prince Edward Island earlier Sunday. 'The initial assessments say that, overall, our road infrastructure may have fared out a little bit better than we initially thought, but there are considerable pockets of severe damage all across Prince Edward Island,' said P.E.I. Premier Dennis King. 'The magnitude and the severity of the damage is beyond anything that weve seen in our provinces history,' added King. Port aux Basques Mayor Brian Button speaks with two people whose house were damaged after the arrival of Hurricane Fiona Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said 'the devastation is immense' and said the Canadian military has been deployed to help with cleanup efforts Damage caused by Fiona on the Burnt Islands in the Newfoundland and Labrador Province of Canada Search and rescue crews are digging through rubble in Port aux Basques, searching for the missing woman swept out to sea yesterday. #nlwx #HurricaneFiona pic.twitter.com/aqHfhtygoj Malone Mullin (@malonemullin) September 25, 2022 Town officials speak with a lady, whose house was destroyed, in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona in Port Aux Basques Television images showed a long line of cars and people on foot queuing to get gas for generators in Cape Breton, an island off Nova Scotia, where dozens had spent the night in relief centers operated by the Canadian Red Cross. On Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown Police Chief Brad MacConnell pleaded with residents to stay inside as recovery efforts continue. 'We ask people to stay home unless absolutely necessary,' he told CBC, adding that there's 'a lot of devastation' and hardly an area of the city that had not been significantly affected. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that he had met again with his Incident Response Group to ensure that 'resources are available to help those affected by the storm.' The Canadian Hurricane Center called the storm 'the lowest pressured land falling storm on record in Canada.' Lower pressure systems cause more intense storms, providing lift and moisture in the atmosphere to fuel showers and thunderstorms. The 931.6 mb measurement would be not only a Canadian record but the lowest pressure ever observed in either Canada or the US for any storm north of the Gulf Coast, according to Yale Climate Connections. The pressure is similar to what is usually expected with a Category 4 hurricane but it's only a tropical storm because of the wide differential in pressure across the storm. Hurricanes in Canada are somewhat rare, in part because once the storms reach colder waters, they lose their main source of energy. But post-tropical cyclones still can have hurricane-strength winds, although they have a cold core and no visible eye. They also often lose their symmetric form and more resemble a comma. Port Aux Basques Mayor Brian Button, who called his town a 'total war zone,' walks through the town examining damage after the arrival of Hurricane Fiona Qantas has been named as one of the world's best airlines despite battling delays, cancellations, worker shortages and repeated calls for its CEO to step down. The airline was announced the world's fifth-best airline in the World Airline Awards hosted at the Langham Hotel in London on Friday night. The award comes amid controversy over the airline's handling of customer service issues and a decision to stop offering meat-free meal options on domestic flights. Qantas has also copped criticism for the quality of its airport lounge, with customers taking to social media to slam the premium area as dirty, overpriced and a 'rip-off'. The carrier was also named the best catering in premium economy class and won four awards for the Asia-Pacific region, including best airline, best business class, best economy class and best cabin cleanliness. Qantas has been named as one of the best airlines in the world despite battling delays, cancellations, worker shortages and repeated calls for its CEO to step down Australia's flagship airline was announced the world's fifth-best airline in the World Airline Awards hosted at the Langham Hotel in London on Friday night The world's best airlines in 2022 1. Qatar Airways 2. Singapore Airlines 3. Emirates 4. ANA All Nippon Airways 5. Qantas Airways 6. Japan Airlines 7. Turkish Airlines 8. Air France 9. Korean Air 10. Swiss Int'l Air Lines 11. British Airways 12. Etihad Airways 13. China Southern 14. Hainan Airlines 15. Lufthansa 16. Cathay Pacific 17. KLM 18. EVA Air 19. Virgin Atlantic 20. Vistara Advertisement The awards are based on customer satisfaction surveys conducted by company SkyTrax, an airline and airport review and ranking site. Travellers from 100 countries participated in the survey, which featured 350 airlines, with Qatar Airways named the best airline in 2022 for a record seventh time. Virgin Australia dropped from 34th place to 43rd this year, while Jetstar, a subsidiary of Qantas, dropped one spot from 56th to 57th. Qantas' place in the world's top five airlines comes following several significant hits to the national carrier's reputation, which currently sits at an all-time low. Customers' plans have been constantly interrupted by Qantas and Jetstar cancellations, flight delays, lost and damaged luggage, refund nightmares, and some have even been stranded at airports. Travellers have taken to social media to air their complaints, with one passenger posting a photo of their seat with food crumbs and dirt underneath it. 'Qantas cleanliness has really fallen off the cliff. Or has it always been like this?,' the poster said in a note with the photo in the Sydney sub Reddit. Flyers generally agreed Qantas planes are messier than they once were - although others said people expect too much on such a busy route. 'Cleanliness has declined!' a woman replied. 'I used to fly only Qantas and quite regularly. But my last flight I found a half eaten sandwich and muffin in the seat. 'And the seats were all sticky. Lucky I had antibacterial wipes but the next few hours my friend and I felt nasty sitting in those seats.' Several cleaners chipped in, saying cost-cutting and fast-turnarounds on flights mean they don't have enough time to do a thorough cabin clean. One customer said of the Qantas Lounge in Sydney that the buffet area was 'messy and uncomfortable. Nothing was refilled and seem no one do cleaning' (Pictured, a photo from a review on airlinequality.com) Qantas CEO Alan Joyce earlier this year apologised to Qantas customers for the slip in standards and vowed the airline would do better 'I used to treat all domestic flights like catching the bus or train. Set yourself low expectations and you won't be disappointed,' another commenter said. The complaints about dirty planes extended to the Qantas lounge with customers complaining of a mediocre buffet, dirty chairs and having nowhere to sit. Frequent flyers have unleashed on online review websites to call out the failing standards of food, cleanliness and service inside the exclusive lounges. On productreview.com.au, Qantas lounges has an average of 1.3 stars from 77 reviews, with many noting the airline had dropped its previously good standards. The carrier has previously responded to customers complaints saying many passengers are happy with its food and their experiences in their business lounges. Qantas added all its aircraft are cleaned between flights and at the end of each day. Vegan and vegetarian flyers have also had cause for complaint after the airline announced it would be 'simplifying' meals for flights under 3.5 hours by giving attendants just one meal to serve - a chicken and leek pie. Despite the airline backing down on its menu, the high-profile executive and vegetarian who led the protests believe that Qantas boss Alan Joyce should be sacked anyway. A TikTok video displayed the buffet selection at Qantas's international business lounge Vegan and vegetarian flyers have also had cause for complaint after the airline announced it would be 'simplifying' meals for flights under 3.5 hours by giving attendants just one meal to serve - a chicken and leek pie (pictured) Jon Dee, managing director of charity DoSomething, says Qantas has been 'rubbish' since Covid and that Mr Joyce should be 'off the menu'. 'If you add together all the vegetarians, vegans, people who eat a certain way for their health, like gluten-free, and everyone who eats kosher or halal that's a lot of disappointed passengers, he said. On Friday the airline's product and service executive manager, Phil Capps, announced a zucchini and corn fritter would be rushed back onto the menu as an evening meal on all domestic flights. 'We've heard the message loud and clear about having vegetarian offerings on all of our flights and so we're making that change as a priority,' Mr Capps said. He added that the airline would roll out 'a broader menu, which includes new vegetarian options' and would reintroduce fresh fruit to all flights. Despite some reported benefits, cannabis has been linked to mental illness He received advice that the govt can override the states to legalise marijuana Sen David Shoebridge says policing causes more harm than the use of the drug The Greens have drafted a bill to legalise cannabis by the end of next year Recreational cannabis use could be legal in Australia by as early as next year, if a bold new bill being proposed by the Green party passes through parliament. Greens senator David Shoebridge announced the progressive's party's push to legalise the drug in a controversial draft bill to be released for public consultation later this year - before hitting the floor of parliament for a vote sometime next year. The Greens are hoping to pressure the Albanese government to pass the bill, which will allow cannabis to be legalised in Australia for personal use. Senator David Shoebridge, who has been the face of the party's push to legalise the drug, said there was more danger with the policing around cannabis rather than its usage, and now was the time for legalisation. Australians will be able to grow and smoke their own cannabis by the end of next year under a push by the Greens to legalise the drug (stock image) The Greens are hoping to put pressure on the Albanese government to pass their bill through federal parliament (pictured, Greens leader Adam Bandt with partner Claudia Perkins) 'We've been told to wait for cannabis law reform for too long, even when it's obvious that the majority of harm caused is by policing and the war on drugs, not the plant,' he told The Daily Telegraph. 'Experts and Government inquiries keep pointing out how the war on drugs is failing and how heavy handed policing and the criminal justice system is causing harm, not fixing the problem.' Mr Shoebridge claimed 40 per cent of Australians had smoked marijuana at some point in their life, and having a law that makes '40 per cent of Australians criminals' was 'plain ridiculous'. According to 2019 government data, 36 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over had used cannabis in their lifetime. More than 40 per cent support the legalisation of the drug for personal use, a figure that has doubled since 2013. Though the states have consistently said no to legalising cannabis, Mr Shoebridge said he had received constitutional law advice that showed the federal government had the power to override the states and legalise marijuana in Australia. 'When state governments are captive to law and order agendas and endlessly increasing police budgets despite all the best evidence, it's time for the federal government to enforce sensible drug laws,' he added. Greens senator David Shoebridge (pictured) claimed the 'heavy-handed policing' around cannabis had caused more harm than the plant itself Support for the legalisation of marijuana has doubled since 2013, with more than 40 per cent of Aussies believing the drug should be legalised for personal use (pictured, a woman smoking a joint) Since 2020, the ACT has allowed adults to possess up to 50g of dried or 150g of fresh cannabis. Poll Should cannabis be legalised across Australia? Yes, it's less dangerous than alcohol No, it's a drug and should not be legalised Should cannabis be legalised across Australia? Yes, it's less dangerous than alcohol 151 votes No, it's a drug and should not be legalised 117 votes Now share your opinion It has also been legal for people to grow two plants per person and smoke it at home for personal use. The Coalition government under Scott Morrison did nothing to stop it. Meanwhile, medicinal cannabis was legalised in Australia in 2016. There have been 260,000 scripts filled for medicinal cannabis in the years since. About half of all prescriptions handed out have been issued in Queensland where a review is currently underway to examine whether patients should be exempt from drug driving prosecutions. Medicinal cannabis has been used to treat chronic pain and reduce inflammation. It can also be used for anxiety, epilepsy and cancer-related symptoms. But despite the reported health benefits, there are concerns about the drug's effects on mental illness. Recent analysis has found the use of high-strength cannabis was linked to a greater risk of addiction and psychosis. The ACT has allowed adults to possess up to 50g of dried or 150g of fresh cannabis since 2020. It has also been legal for people to grow two plants per person and smoke it at home for personal use (stock image) A review of 20 studies involving almost 120,000 people discovered people that use cannabis products high in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are more likely to develop conditions such as schizophrenia. THC is the main psychoactive substance in cannabis, meaning it affects how the brain works, thereby influencing the user's mood, reactions, thoughts and emotions. The risk of developing a psychotic disorder was five times higher among those who use high-strength cannabis on a daily basis compared to those who never use it, according to one study reviewed. The analysis also found an increased risk of addiction, or 'cannabis-use disorder', among those who use high THC products compared to users of milder forms of the drug. A review of 20 studies involving almost 120,000 people found people that use cannabis products high in THC are more likely to develop conditions such as schizophrenia One study indicated a four-fold increase in the likelihood of developing an addiction among users of high THC cannabis compared with those using products with lower concentrations. The study is thought to be the first systematic review of the available evidence on the link between cannabis strength and mental health problems and addiction. The studies varied in size, scope and design, so the report's authors were unable to quantify the risk posed by high THC cannabis, but they told the PA news agency the link between strong cannabis use and the risk of addiction and psychosis was a 'consistent finding'. Researchers say the findings could be vital in informing drug policy as more countries move to legalise cannabis, because THC concentrations in certain products have surged in recent years. The son of a Michigan news anchor, who was slain in alleged murder-suicide attempt by a 'family friend,' tried to wrestle the attacker off his father before being beaten and bound in a closet, according to his distraught family. Overnight anchor Jim Matthews, 57, was killed at his Chesterfield Township home outside Detroit - and his son Hunter, 10, was whacked with a hammer when he fought the attacker on Friday night. Shortly after, police were called to the residence and found Matthews dead and his 35-year-old girlfriend, Nichole Guertin suffering from serious stab wounds. When Guertin was discovered, she was bleeding severely and bound with duct tape in a nearby parking lot. Hunter is in a critical condition following brain and ear surgery after being being beaten, tied up, and thrown into a closet when he tried to fight his father's killer. Speaking to WXYZ, Jim Matthews' brother Joe Nicolai described the scene as being 'not even something you'd see in a horror movie.' News anchor Jim Matthews pictured with his girlfriend and the mother of his children, Nichole Guertin Ten-year-old Hunter Matthews (left) and sister Rosie, 5 (right), were hospitalized following the murder of their father, WWJ950's overnight anchor Jim Matthews Nicolai said of the suspect: 'There is no motive, I don't know why [the suspect] was in the house. I talked to the lead investigator, and my brother probably came home to this.' He continued: 'He comes home about 5:30 in the morning and was probably surprised and attacked. 'I believe that Hunter the 10-year-old was trying to fight off this man that was attacking and trying to kill his father, and thats how Hunter ended up injured and tied and put into a closet.' Jim Matthews, who also went by Jim Nicolai, was an anchor for WWJ950. Hunter was found tied up in a closet suffering from head trauma. Police said the boy was brutalized after he tried fighting off the murderer, who is in the hospital and has yet to be named. The boy is currently sedated as he 'goes through the biggest challenge he has yet to face,' his aunt Ashley Quigley said. Quigley, who described the attack on her sister's family as 'vicious' and 'needless,' has started a GoFundMe page to support her family as she is also taking in her niece, Rosie, 5, who suffered less serious injuries in the incident. In a separate interview with Fox2, Joe Nicolai spoke lovingly about his brother saying: 'He was very passionate about his kids, took care of his kids, a family man, he was just an awesome person.' He also said: 'Just the children, my God, the children, scarred for life.' Nicolai reiterated that he didn't know why the suspect was at his brother's home saying: 'I have no idea why he was there or what he was doing there or what business he had there.' Matthews, 57, was killed and his girlfriend and their two kids injured in what police are calling a murder and attempted suicide after the anchor invited a 'family friend' inside Hunter, pictured with mother Nichole Guertin and his sister, underwent brain and ear surgery after being beaten and tied in a closet when he tried to fight off his father's murderer Guertin, Matthew's live-in girlfriend, was critically injured in the attack, cops said, after escaping the horrific scene with her and Matthews' daughter. Stabbed multiple times and leaving her older child behind, the woman was able to escape the house with the young girl and flag down a driver to call police, despite reportedly being bound and gagged. Upon arriving at the residence, authorities also found the 54-year-old male suspect, overdosing on heroin and suffering from self-inflicted wounds in the home's basement. The suspect was then resuscitated by officials with the prescription medicine Narcan, and was taken into police custody. Chesterfield Police said the investigation was still ongoing. Guertin and the kids survived the assaults, after escaping the horrific scene with the pair's other daughter, Rosie, who suffered less serious, unspecified injuries, cops said The unnamed assailant remains hospitalized and is in stable condition, but faces a litany of charges for the assault - for which cops have yet to glean a motive. Cops noted that the unidentified attacker was an acquaintance of the family as well as frequent visitor of the residence, and had been invited inside the home before carrying out the attack, police said. The sudden tragedy has since left locals reeling as they mourn the late journalist, who spent nearly seven years as the radio station's overnight news anchor. The late broadcaster was remembered by his longtime employer as a devoted and dependable family man who was passionate about reporting the news throughout his time with the network. 'He would often talk to co-workers about his children and his love for them and their adventures at school,' the radio station wrote. 'He was a consummate professional and was dedicated to WWJ and the broadcasting industry. He loved delivering the latest news to his listeners.' The station added that 'there have been many tears shed in our newsroom' in the wake of Matthews' sudden death, and that 'our thoughts and prayers go out to Jim's family and friends.' Troublingly, many of Matthews' colleague's learned of his passing live on air, forced to anchor Jackie Paige report the then breaking incident to thousands of daytime listeners. Stabbed multiple times and leaving her older child behind, the woman was able to escape the house with the young girl and flag down a driver to call police 'We are updating our top story this afternoon,' Paige said while announcing the grisly murder Friday. 'It's very difficult to report. Our overnight news anchor Jim Matthews was killed this afternoon in Chesterfield Township.' Staffer added that Matthews would often talk about his children and tout his love for them to his coworkers at WWJ, excitingly telling them about their adventures at elementary school. 'Something like this I never would have expected it in a million years,' said broadcaster Charlie Langton, who reports for the station during the day, of his late colleague. 'When he was off at 5 am I was just coming in at 5 am, so I would see him,' Langton recalled. 'He always had a nice word, always had something good to say. He was just a great guy.' The sudden tragedy has since left locals and the Detroit news scene reeling as they mourn the late anchor, who spent nearly seven years as the radio station's overnight news anchor The attack happened around midday Friday at Matthews' and Guertin's home on Bayview Drive off Hooker Road in the Chesterfield Township, a quiet suburb outside of Detroit Neighbors in the close-knit suburb were similarly shocked by the tragedy, which is currently being probed by local police. 'I think it's crazy. I can't make sense of it,' said Thomas Teague, who said. 'I just got a ton of phone calls of them telling me what happened and she was laying outside bound and gagged.' His colleagues fought through their emotions as they remembered Matthews on air. 'He would often talk to co-workers about his children and their adventures at school,' Paige said during an on-air tribute. 'He was a consummate professional and was dedicated to WWJ and the broadcasting industry. He loved delivering the latest news to his listeners every night. 'There have been many tears shed in our newsroom this afternoon. Our thoughts and our prayers go out Jim's family.' Police said they found 10-year-old Hunter (at right, locked in a closet with a severe head injury. Sources said the youngster was beaten by the alleged perpetrator over the head multiple times with a hammer - as he tried to fight off the suspect. He is currently in critical condition, while his younger sister Rosie, who suffered less serious injuries, was in stable condition The 54-year-old suspect, who police said was a friend of the family and had been invited inside prior to the assault, remains hospitalized and is in stable condition, police said Police said they were notified of the incident after a bound and gagged Guertin managed to escape the home with Rosie in tow before flagging down an unidentified driver. The driver then called 911, and police would descend on the scene minutes later. 'A 35-year-old white female had escaped with her five-year-old daughter,' said Chesterfield Police Chief Brian Bassett. The top cops added that Guertin 'was suffering from stab wounds at that time,' to which 'our police officers and firefighters began rendering aid.' At that point, Bassett added, 'additional officers made entry into the home,' where they came across Matthews, who was already deceased. Both kids, as well as their mother, remained hospitalized as of Saturday morning - Hunter and his mom in critical condition, and young Rosie in stable condition, police said 'We also found a 10-year-old white male bound and suffering from blunt force trauma,' Bassett said. The boy, like his mother, was also hospitalized and said to be in critical condition. Police added that Rosie also 'injured' but did not detail the severity of those injuries, saying that she was in stable condition. The chief did not disclose the location of or specific type of injuries the suspect - as well as the victims suffered. 'Our investigation has determined this is an isolated tragedy that does not present a danger to our community at this time,' Bassett said during the news conference, Police have yet to reveal the identity of the attacker, and have only hinted at a supposed connection to the family. Their investigation is currently ongoing, with the suspect likely facing first-degree and attempted murder charges. Advertisement Britain's flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has arrived in New York on its latest mission to America. The 65,000-tonne behemoth dropped anchor within sight of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour early on Sunday evening. The 3.2bn aircraft carrier set sail from its home base in Portsmouth earlier this month to act as a stand-in for sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales - which was meant to be sailing to America but broke down near the Isle of Wight hours after departing. The Queen Elizabeth will be acting as the floating venue for the Atlantic Future Forum (AFF) a defence conference focusing on Anglo-American military, political and strategic relations. HMS Queen Elizabeth, the flagship of the Royal Navy, sails into New York on Sunday on her second visit to the American city The ship has a crew of about 700 sailors and is the biggest warship ever created for Britain. She is also the first in the world custom built to support the deadly new stealth jet, the F-35 The arrival of the warship to New York comes hours after Liz Truss spoke about her intentions to make the UKs 'special' relationship with the US 'even more special' in the next few years. In an interview on CNNs State Of The Union programme, the Prime Minister was asked about concerns in US president Joe Bidens administration that she does not share the same belief in the special relationship as some of her predecessors in No 10. Ms Truss said: 'I do think our relationship is special and its increasingly important at a time when were facing threats from Russia, increased assertiveness from China. 'Im determined that we make the special relationship even more special over the coming years.' HMS Queen Elizabeth was welcomed into New York by the UKs Ambassador to the United States, Dame Karen Pierce. Dame Karen said: 'HMS Queen Elizabeth is not only the United Kingdoms flagship, but is a fantastic demonstration of the soft power and the close working relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the transatlantic relationship. 'Its an enormous honour to sail into New York on her. 'We share an endeavour in remaining the United States closest ally and I am very proud of what the ship has achieved for Britain in her deployment to the Indo-Pacific last year.' The arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth in New York comes hours after Prime Minister Liz Truss spoke about her intentions to make the UKs 'special' relationship with the US 'even more special' in the next few years. The 65,000-tonne behemoth dropped anchor within sight of the Statue of Liberty, pictured, in New York Harbour on Sunday evening. All the ship's crew lined the huge four-acre flight deck of the ship as it sailed into New York Harbour, with Queen Elizabeth followed closely by frigate HMS Richmond, pictured rear Captain Ian Feasey, HMS Queen Elizabeths commanding officer, said: 'It is an amazing privilege to bring HMS Queen Elizabeth back to New York and to be formally welcomed to the United States by His Majestys ambassador. 'We are very much looking forward to hosting the fifth Atlantic Future Forum and welcoming onboard senior leaders that embody our deep and special relationship with the United States.' The carrier debuted in New York in 2018 again to host the forum ahead of fast jet trials with F-35 Lightnings. Shes joined in New York by her frigate escort, HMS Richmond, which sailed up the Hudson River for a berth on Manhattan Island. As well as hosting the two-day forum, the carriers crew will also have the opportunity to get ashore and visit New York, including formally paying their respects at the 9/11 memorial. Now fully operational the ship led an international carrier group to the Pacific Rim last year HMS Queen Elizabeth will return across the Atlantic and spend the remainder of the autumn leading operations and exercises in European waters upon completion of the visit. The Queen Elizabeth will be acting as the floating venue for the Atlantic Future Forum (AFF) a defence conference focusing on Anglo-American military, political and strategic relations. Some of the 700-strong even lined the aircraft carriers ramp, which is used when the F-35 stealth jets take off, as the ship crossed under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge HMS Queen Elizabeth was welcomed into New York by the UKs Ambassador to the United States, Dame Karen Pierce, after the ship sailed past the iconic Statue of Liberty, pictured The massive vessel's arrival to New York was never on her original schedule of planned deployments, with her sister ship HMS Prince of Wales meant to be flying the flag for Britain in the States. The trip to Manhattan would have been Prince of Wales's first jaunt to America since being commissioned into the Royal Navy by King Charles in 2019. The warship - which is fractionally larger and heavier than her older sister, HMS Queen Elizabeth - had meant to remain overseas until about Christmas, carrying out trials with Britain's deadly new stealth jet, the F-35. But the problem-plague carrier suffered a major mechanical malfunction hours after leaving her home port of Portsmouth, with a fault crippling the starboard shaft. Since the breakdown, on August 27, the ship has been languishing alongside at Portsmouth Naval Base, with specialist divers today continuing with their assessment of the damage. At the moment, it is not known when HMS Prince of Wales will be back in action or when major repairs will take place. Defence procurement minister Alec Shelbrooke - who is in charge of buying all of Britain's military kit - admitted in a parliamentary question: 'This is a very unusual fault, and we continue to pursue all repair options. It is too early to say what the timetable is for rectifying the issue.' The aircraft carrier has two distinctive 'towers' - the rear contains the bridge while the forward tower houses the warship's air traffic control centre HMS Prince of Wales, the newest of Britain's two aircraft carriers, was supposed to sail to America but she suffered a serious fault with her starboard shaft which damaged the ship so severely that top brass were forced to call off its trip to the USA Members of the ship's company are expected to make a trip into New York, where they will pay tribute to the victims of the 9/11 terror attack. Here they are pictured lining the flight deck of the aircraft carrier as she sails down the Hudson Pictured with frigate HMS Richmond, rear, as she approached New York, HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected to return back across the Atlantic after her trip to America to spend the remainder of the autumn leading operations and exercises in European waters Facilities on board the ship include a chapel, a medical centre and 12-bed ward, staffed with GPs, a nurse and medical assistants, as well as a dentist and dental nurse. It also five galleys and five gyms HMS Queen Elizabeth can has space for up to 1,600 personnel when she is deployed - more than double the crew on normal day-to-day operations. As well carrying the F-35 stealth jets, the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers can also embark a number of helicopters like the Merlin MK2, pictured on the ship's flight deck The fault is not the first suffered by HMS Prince of Wales; it flooded twice in 2020 in incidents that cost the Ministry of Defence million of pounds to fix. The first flood was in May 2020 when a video emerged showing water pouring through the ceiling into an accommodation area. Then, months later in October, an faulty fire system caused unleashed hundreds a huge torrent of water, which flooded an engine room, damaging sensitive electrical equipment. The issue caused about 3.3 million of damage, with the MoD forking out an additional 2.2 million for 'remedial works' on both the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers to stop future floods taking place. In 2017, HMS Queen Elizabeth also faced multi-million pound repairs after it was discovered that a faulty seal on a propeller shaft was letting in 200 litres of sea water an hour. The aircraft carriers built in Scotland for 6.2 billion are the navy's largest and most powerful ships ever. They are due to serve the country for the next 50 years. Advertisement Hundreds of protesters have clashed with riot police across London demanding an end to the Islamic Republic of Iran after an Kurdish woman was arrested and allegedly tortured to death for wearing her hijab too loosely. Scotland Yard said the disorder at Sunday's protest initially broke out in the immediate vicinity of the Iranian embassy in London, which protesters were attempting to attack as a symbol of the Islamist regime. It then moved to Marble Arch and then to Maida Vale where the Islamic Centre of England was targeted. Protesters were also seen demonstrating outside the Kilburn Islamic Centre. The force said several officers were hurt during the protest, five of whom are in hospital with serious injuries including broken bones. Meanwhile, 12 people were arrested on suspicion of violent disorder. It comes as protests in Iranian cities have spread across the world, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody after being detained by Iranian morality police. Demonstrations in Iran are extremely risky and often met with deadly force. Footage shared only showed angry protesters shouting and pushing against officers who had formed a line in front of the embassy on Sunday afternoon. Crowds chanted 'Death to the Islamic Republic' and waved Iran's former national flag from before 1979. One particular clip shows two officers wrestling a protester to the ground who appears to have broken through the police line. Elsewhere, riot police could be seen trying to clear protesters off the road near Marble Arch. Scotland Yard said officers were able to protect the security of the embassy but in doing so, were subjected to further attacks. Masonry, bottles and other projectiles were thrown and a number of officers were injured, the force said. By 7.30pm, the protesters had been cleared from the area outside the Iranian embassy, but handful of police officers remained outside the building. Scotland Yard said the disorder at Sunday's protest initially broke out in the immediate vicinity of the Iranian embassy in London before moving to Marble Arch and then to Maida Vale (pictured) where the Islamic Centre of England was targeted Protesters demonstrate outside the Kilburn Islamic Centre on Kilburn High Road in London following the death of Mahsa Amini in an Iranian detention centre Footage shared only showed angry protesters shouting and pushing against officers who had formed a line in front of the embassy on Sunday afternoon Two women are asked to leave the area after stoping to clash with protesters outside Kilburn Islamic Centre in London Police have put a Section 35 dispersal order in place for the next 48 hours in the area impacted by the disorder It comes as protests in Iranian cities have spread across the world, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody after being detained by Iranian morality police Two women are asked to leave the area after stoping to clash with protesters outside Kilburn Islamic Centre in London By 7.30pm, the protesters had been cleared from the area outside the Iranian embassy, but handful of police officers remained outside the building Police and protestors gather outside the Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale General views of the scene where protesters clashed with police outside the Kilburn Islamic Centre in London Commander Karen Findlay said: 'We respect the right of people to protest peacefully and always work with organisers to make that possible, but we will not tolerate unprovoked attacks on our officers as we have seen today or protest that leaves other communities feeling unsafe' The force said several officers were hurt during the protest, five of whom are in hospital with serious injuries including broken bones. Meanwhile, 12 people were arrested on suspicion of violent disorder Protesters are asked to leave the area after clashes with police outside the Kilburn Islamic Centre in London It comes after Iran's foreign ministry said on Sunday it had summoned Britain's ambassador Simon Shercliff over what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets Iranian Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in Iran while in police custody, was arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code. Pictured: The Kilburn Islamic Centre in London It follows protests around the world following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman was detained in Tehran by Iranian morality police who believed she was wearing her hijab too loosely. Pictured: Police and protestors gather outside the Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale A protester holds a flag atop the Islamic Centre of England in London General views of the scene where protesters clashed with police outside the Kilburn Islamic Centre in London The protests broke out in north-western Iran at the funeral of Amini, who died after falling into a coma following her detention There was little sign of the scenes from earlier in the day, except for a few battered protest posters. A photo of Mahsa Amini could be seen on one poster, while another said 'stop execution in Iran'. Police have put a Section 35 dispersal order in place for the next 48 hours in the area impacted by the disorder. Commander Karen Findlay said: 'We respect the right of people to protest peacefully and always work with organisers to make that possible, but we will not tolerate unprovoked attacks on our officers as we have seen today or protest that leaves other communities feeling unsafe. 'We have officers in hospital tonight because they were attacked in what was a significant outbreak of violent disorder. We will make sure they get the support they need. 'We have already made a number of arrests, but we know there are people who were not caught tonight who committed serious offences. 'In the coming days, we will be using all the tools at our disposal - including CCTV and other footage - to identify those people and bring them to justice.' It comes after Iran's foreign ministry said on Sunday it had summoned Britain's ambassador Simon Shercliff over what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets. It follows protests around the world following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman was detained in Tehran by Iranian morality police who believed she was wearing her hijab too loosely. The protests broke out in north-western Iran at the funeral of Amini, who died after falling into a coma following her detention. Her cousin has since said that she was 'tortured and insulted' before she died. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time demonstrations since unrest first broke out after Amini's death on September 16. At least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the Islamic republic's security forces, according to an official toll, although other sources say the real figure is higher. Video footage from outside the embassy shows a large group of people gathered, with police officers forming a line to stop the group Protesters clashed with police as they call for an end to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the London embassy Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody after being detained by Iranian morality police over hijab laws Protester Hadis Najafi, 20, died after being shot six times by security forces in Iran, according to social media reports A woman affected by the tear gas thrown by French riot police when protesters tried to approach the Iranian Embassy In Paris, a woman leans against a wall after being affected by the tear gas thrown by French riot police Water pours from a man's face after he has been affected by tear gas used by French riot police in Paris on Sunday Police officers held down a man during the protest (left) outside the Iranian embassy in London as the crowd pushed against officers (right) Witnesses reported that some were trying to 'attack' and 'storm' Iranian embassies, as people entered the British premises, 'throwing rocks and chairs at the building' In London, five people were arrested following the demonstration, the Met Police confirmed. In a statement, the force said: 'During the afternoon of Sunday, 25 September a large number of protesters gathered at the location, with a substantial group intent on causing disorder. 'Further police resources were brought in to support those on the ground after protesters attempted to breach police lines and had thrown missiles at officers. 'Five arrests have been made for offences including violent disorder. 'We are aware of a number of police officers who received injuries while dealing with the disorder; none of those are thought to be seriously hurt. 'A significant policing presence will remain in and around the area to monitor the situation.' It comes as Amini's cousin, Erfan Mortezaei, has said that on the day she was arrested, she was forced into a police van and taken to the station where she was 'tortured'. 'There is a report from Kasra hospital [in Tehran] that says effectively by the time she reached the hospital she was already dead from a medical point of view,' he told Sky News. 'She suffered a concussion from a blow to the head.' He said that Amini has since become a voice of the anger coming from Iranian people, as uprisings spread across the country. A protester outside the London embassy holds a placard calling on the government to 'be vice of Iranian people' In London, a demonstrator hold an image of Iranian Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in Iran while in police custody Protesters hold images of Iranian Mahsa Amini, after she died in police custody for allegedly wearing her hijab to loosely Demonstrators hold placards outside the Iranian Embassy in London on Sunday afternoon Police patrol the area in Knightsbridge outside the Iranian embassy where protests took place earlier in the day Police stand guard outside the Iranian Embassy after a small group of protesters threw paint at the building Red paint has been thrown at the Iranian embassy in London during a protest on Sunday afternoon Riot police stood guarding the Iranian embassy in London on Sunday as protesters demonstrated against the death of an Iranian woman Red paint has been splattered on the Iranian embassy in London after being thrown at the building by protesters Iranians protest for tenth night, defying judiciary warning Iranians took to the streets for a tenth consecutive night Sunday, in defiance of a warning from the judiciary, to protest the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. At least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the Islamic republic's security forces, according to an official toll, although other sources say the real figure is higher. Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) on Sunday evening said the death toll was at least 57, but noted that ongoing internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities in a context where the women-led protests have in recent nights spread to scores of cities. Echoing a warning the previous day by President Ebrahim Raisi, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei on Sunday 'emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency' against the core instigators of the 'riots', the judiciary's Mizan Online website said. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time demonstrations since unrest first broke out after Amini's death on September 16. Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jhina, was detained three days before that for allegedly breaching the rules that mandate tightly-fitted hijab head coverings and which ban, among other things, ripped jeans and brightly coloured clothes. Images circulated by IHR showed protesters on the streets of Tehran, shouting 'death to the dictator', purportedly after nightfall on Sunday. Advertisement In Paris, France, police in riot gear could be seen opposing protesters in the city who were holding flags and shouting. French police on Sunday used tear gas and employed anti-riot tactics to prevent hundreds of people protesting in Paris from marching on Tehran's embassy, reporters and eyewitnesses said. The protesters had gathered for the second day running to express outrage at the death of Amini following her arrest by Iran's morality police last week - and to show solidarity with the protests that have erupted in Iran. The protest had began peacefully at Trocadero Square. Some demonstrators chanted 'Death to the Islamic Republic' and slogans against supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But police in full anti-riot armour, backed by a line of vans blocked the path of the protesters as they sought to approach the Iranian embassy a short distance away. Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters. 'I don't feel good, it was catastrophic,' said one protester, who asked not to be named, recovering from the effects of the tear gas. The use of tear gas angered activists already upset by President Emmanuel Macron's talks and public handshake with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week. 'Police used tear gas to disperse Iranian protesters in Paris in an effort to protect the Islamic Republic embassy. Meanwhile, @EmmanuelMacron shook hands with the murderous president of Iran,' tweeted the US-based Iranian women's rights activist Masih Alinejad. Protesters also repeated the viral Persian chants used by protesters inside Iran such as 'zan, zendegi, azadi!' (woman, life, freedom!) and also its Kurdish equivalent 'jin, jiyan, azadi!' Amini, also known as Jhina Amini, was Kurdish. 'In view of what is happening, we Iranians are fully mobilised,' said Nina, a Paris-based French Iranian. 'We must react given that we are far from our homeland, our country. 'It's really time we all come together so we can really speak up so the whole world can really hear our voice,' she added. In Iran, a female protester has died after being shot six times by security forces in the country. Protesters in Paris, France, have been showing their solidarity for the 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in police custody Hadis Najafi, 20, died after being shot six times by security forces in Iran, social media reports have claimed It is understood that Najafi was shot in the chest, face and neck and died from the wounds Ghazale Chelavi (left), Hanane Kia (centre) and Mahsa Mogoi (right) were killed in Iran after protesting the death of Amini in police custody Hadis Najafi, 20, was killed after protesting in Iran, the Sun reported. She is understood to have been shot in the chest, face and neck, according to reports on social media. Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad tweeted about Najafi, sharing a video of her tying up her hair, appearing to prepare before joining a protest. 'This 20 Yr old girl who was getting ready to join the protest against the murdering of #MahsaAmini got killed by 6 bullets,' Alinejad wrote on Twitter. 'HadisNajafi, 20, was shot in the chest, face and neck by Islamic Republic's security forces.' Other victims of the protests, where people have hurled rocks, torched police cars, set ablaze state buildings, and shouted 'death to the dictator', included Ghazale Chelavi, Hanane Kia and Mahsa Mogoi. Some Iranian women protesters have since removed and burnt their hijabs in the rallies and cut off their hair, some dancing near large bonfires to the applause of crowds that have chanted 'zan, zendegi, azadi' or 'woman, life, freedom'. The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Sunday that Iran's crackdown on protests is 'unjustifiable' and 'unacceptable', as Tehran vowed no leniency against the unrest gripping the country. In a statement on behalf of the EU, Borrell said: 'For the European Union and its member states, the widespread and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protestors is unjustifiable and unacceptable'. Moves 'to severely restrict internet access by the relevant Iranian authorities and to block instant messaging platforms is a further cause for concern, as it blatantly violates freedom of expression', he added. A molotov cocktail bomb was thrown against the Iranian embassy in Athens on Sunday. According to Greek police, at around 1am local time, two people riding a motorcycle with their faces covered hurled the weapon on the wall of the embassy where it exploded. No damage was caused. Iran's foreign ministry said it had summoned Britain's ambassador over what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets. The state-run IRNA news agency reported the ministry also summoned Norway's ambassador to Iran due to remarks made by the president of the Norwegian parliament, Masud Gharahkhani. State television has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the protests began on September 17. It is thought that more than 1,200 demonstrators have been arrested as well. Paris: Police in riot gear are mobilized in response to anti-Islamic regime protesters who have gathered outside the Iranian Embassy in solidarity with the #MashaAmini protests in Iran. #Masha_Amini pic.twitter.com/WGwqIr2OwJ Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) September 25, 2022 People face riot police as they take part in a demonstration in support of Iranian protesters in Paris on Sunday People take part in a demonstration in support of Iranian protesters in Paris, following the death of a woman in morality police custody 'Rolling blackouts' hit coverage of Iran The world has learnt of the violence largely through shaky mobile phone footage posted on social media, even as authorities have throttled internet access. Web monitor NetBlocks noted 'rolling blackouts' and 'widespread internet platform restrictions', with WhatsApp, Instagram and Skype having already been blocked. This followed older bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. Protests abroad have been held in solidarity with Iranian women in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among other cities. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell deplored the security forces' response to the unrest late Sunday as 'disproportionate... unjustifiable and unacceptable'. Iran - which is ruled by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, and which has been hit with tough economic sanctions over its nuclear programme - has blamed 'foreign plots' for the unrest. The foreign ministry said Sunday it had summoned Britain's ambassador over what it described as an 'invitation to riots' by Farsi-speaking media based in London, and Norway's envoy over 'unconstructive comments' made by his country's parliament speaker. Foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Amir-Abdollahian criticised 'the US interventionist approach in the affairs of Iran... including its provocative actions in supporting the rioters'. Advertisement The foreign ministry's website said it summoned Simon Shercliff, the ambassador to Iran, on Saturday over the UK's hosting of critical Farsi-language media outlets. The ministry alleges the news outlets have provoked disturbances and the spread of riots in Iran at the top of their programmes. Iran said it considers the news agencies' reporting to be interference in Iran's internal affairs and acts against its sovereignty. Running clashes between demonstrators and security forces have continued to erupt. A member of the Basij, a volunteer force with Iran's Guards, was killed by protesters last night in Tehran, semi-official Fars news agency reported on Sunday. Another Basij member, who was in a coma since Thursday after street clashes, died in Urmia, West Azerbaijan province on Sunday, IRNA reported. US support for 'rioters' is contrary to Washington's diplomatic stance towards Iran, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency on Sunday. 'Peaceful protest is the right of every nation. However, the U.S. involvement in Iran's affairs and support to 'rioters' in implementing their destabilisation project is in clear conflict with Washington's diplomatic messages to Iran regarding the necessity of a nuclear deal and establishing stability in the region,' Amirabdollahian said. The crisis in Iran began as a public outpouring of anger over the the death of Amini, who was arrested by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her Islamic headscarf too loosely. The police said she died of a heart attack and was not mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account. Ms Amini's death has sparked sharp condemnation from Western countries and the United Nations. Pro-government rallies were also held on Sunday in several cities across Iran. Thousands attended a rally in the capital's Enghelab, or Revolution Square, waving Iranian flags. The country's judiciary chief vowed no leniency on Sunday against the wave of unrest that has rocked the country since the death of Amini. The warning from Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei came after nine nights of protests and street clashes, and it echoed earlier comments by Iran's ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi. The judiciary chief 'emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency' against the core instigators of the 'riots', the judiciary's Mizan Online website said. A woman is among the crowd facing riot police as they take part in a demonstration in support of Iranian protesters in Paris Iranian pro-government protesters burn flags of the US, Israel and Britain during a rally against the recent anti-government protests in Iran Iranian pro-government protesters burn flags during a rally against the recent anti-government protests in Iran, in Tehran Flames rip through a flag set alight by Iranian pro-government protesters during a demonstration in Tehran Iranians carrying the coffin of a security man who was killed during the anti-government protest in Tehran The coffin of a security man who was killed during the anti-government protest in Tehran is carried in the street An Iranian pro-government demonstrator holds up a copy of Islam's holy book, Quran, in a rally condemning recent anti-government protests Iranians took to the streets for a tenth consecutive night on Sunday, in defiance of a warning from the judiciary, to protest the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. At least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the Islamic republic's security forces, according to an official toll, although other sources say the real figure is higher. Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) on Sunday evening said the death toll was at least 57, but noted that ongoing internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities in a context where the women-led protests have in recent nights spread to scores of cities. Echoing a warning the previous day by President Ebrahim Raisi, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei on Sunday 'emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency' against the core instigators of the 'riots', the judiciary's Mizan Online website said. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time demonstrations since unrest first broke out after Amini's death on September 16. Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jhina, was detained three days before that for allegedly breaching the rules that mandate tightly-fitted hijab head coverings and which ban, among other things, ripped jeans and brightly coloured clothes. Images circulated by IHR showed protesters on the streets of Tehran, shouting 'death to the dictator', purportedly after nightfall on Sunday. State media quoted President Raision Saturday as saying Iran must 'deal decisively with those who oppose the country's security and tranquillity'. Raisi was speaking by telephone to the family of a member of the Basij volunteer force killed while taking part in the crackdown on unrest in the north-eastern city of Mashhad. The president 'stressed the necessity to distinguish between protest and disturbing public order and security, and called the events ... a riot,' state media reported. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time demonstrations that have spread to scores of cities since unrest first broke out after Amini's death. Security forces have fired live rounds and bird shots, rights groups charge, while protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars, set ablaze state buildings, and shouted 'death to the dictator'. Iran's largest protests in almost three years have been led by women, triggered by anger over the Islamic republic's strictly enforced gender-based dress code. Amini was arrested on September 13 for allegedly breaching the rules that mandate tightly-fitted hijab head coverings and which ban, among other things, ripped jeans and brightly coloured clothes. Protesters march through Sadeqieh Square in West Tehran on Saturday night, the eighth evening of demonstrations that have rocked the Islamic regime Iran's president has called for a 'decisive' crackdown on the mass protests that have sent the Islamic theocracy reeling over the past week after the death in custody of a woman detained by the Islamic Republic's morality police (picture from Wednesday September 21) Iran organises pro-government rallies Iran has also organised large rallies in defence of the hijab and conservative values. Pro-government rallies were held Sunday, with the main event taking place in Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, where demonstrators voiced support for mandatory hijab laws. 'Martyrs died so that this hijab will be on our head,' said demonstrator Nafiseh, 28, adding that she was opposed to making the wearing of the hijab voluntary. Another demonstrator, 21-year-old student Atyieh, called for 'strong action against the people who are leading' the protests. The main reformist group inside Iran, the Union of Islamic Iran People's Party, however, has called for the repeal of the mandatory dress code. Human rights groups based abroad have sought to shine light on the turmoil rocking Iran, citing their own sources in the country. IHR reported on Sunday that an umbrella of Iranian teachers' unions were calling on teachers and students to boycott classes on Monday and Wednesday in support of the protests. Iranian authorities have yet to state the cause of death of Amini, who activists say died as a result of a blow to the head. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has said Amini was not beaten and that 'we must wait for the final opinion of the medical examiner'. Advertisement The army warned on Friday that it would 'confront the enemies' to ensure security and peace in the country said 'these desperate actions are part of the evil strategy of the enemy to weaken the Islamic regime'. Cities within Iran have been likened to a 'warzone' since the protests kicked off, with tires burning, petrol bombs being launched and cars being destroyed. There have even been claims that some cities, such as Oshnavieh, Sanandaj and Rudsar have been partially or totally occupied by protesters. Babol, Amol and Rezvan Shahr which are all situated in the north of Iran, have the most reported killings by security forces, according to Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO). The group report, via an informed source, that 'at least six people were killed as a result of direct bullet fired by security forces on Thursday night,' including a father of two. Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said Thursday: 'The Iranian people have come to the streets for their fundamental rights and human dignity, taken away by Islamic Republic leaders for more than four decades. Their peaceful protests are met with bullets from the authorities.' Huge crowds marched through Tehran on Friday night chanting and beeping horns. A resident of the capital told MailOnline: 'It was like a war zone in several parts of the city last night. People were throwing stones at the police and police was firing rubber bullets and tear gas directly at people, I heard gunshots too but I guess they just fired into air. 'Last night the crowd started to gather at around 7pm and the clashes continued after mid night,' he added. 'It was more chaotic last night than previous nights and I heard more gunshots. People burned a tyre in the middle of the road. The internet is filled with videos of riots and protests across the city, despite a government shut down of local internet services. The world has learnt of the violence largely through shaky mobile phone footage posted on social media, even as authorities have throttled internet access. Web monitor NetBlocks noted 'rolling blackouts' and 'widespread internet platform restrictions', with WhatsApp, Instagram and Skype having already been blocked. This followed older bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. Protests abroad have been held in solidarity with Iranian women in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among other cities. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell deplored the security forces' response to the unrest late Sunday as 'disproportionate... unjustifiable and unacceptable'. Iran - which is ruled by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, and which has been hit with tough economic sanctions over its nuclear programme - has blamed 'foreign plots' for the unrest. The foreign ministry said Sunday it had summoned Britain's ambassador over what it described as an 'invitation to riots' by Farsi-speaking media based in London, and Norway's envoy over 'unconstructive comments' made by his country's parliament speaker. Foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Amir-Abdollahian criticised 'the US interventionist approach in the affairs of Iran... including its provocative actions in supporting the rioters'. In one video from Tehran, amid a cacophony of gunfire, a voice can be heard saying: 'They are shooting at people! Oh my God they're killing people!' Another resident of the capital told MailOnline that he had seen armed men with no uniforms on roofs of people's houses in a neighbourhood in Tehran. 'I noticed them last night. I have not seen them shooting but they were just checking who goes where. Probably to come and arrest them later,' he said. 'Local people are closing their shops early these days,' he added. Even in Qom in central Iran, known as the country's religious powerhouse, protesters have stormed the streets armed with Molotov cocktails. Meanwhile, the authorities shut off access to popular social media services such as Instagram and Whatsapp and even LinkedIn, according to internet traffic monitor Netblocks. There have also been reports that Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink has been removed from the app store Google Play. The Iranian government organised counter protests on Friday, where hijab-wearing women carried signs reading: 'We are obedient to the leader' An Iranian pro-government woman holds the Iranian flag during a rally against the recent protest gatherings in Iran, after the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran September 23 Iran has also organised large rallies in defence of the hijab and conservative values. Pro-government rallies were held Sunday, with the main event taking place in Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, where demonstrators voiced support for mandatory hijab laws. 'Martyrs died so that this hijab will be on our head,' said demonstrator Nafiseh, 28, adding that she was opposed to making the wearing of the hijab voluntary. Another demonstrator, 21-year-old student Atyieh, called for 'strong action against the people who are leading' the protests. The main reformist group inside Iran, the Union of Islamic Iran People's Party, however, has called for the repeal of the mandatory dress code. Human rights groups based abroad have sought to shine light on the turmoil rocking Iran, citing their own sources in the country. IHR reported on Sunday that an umbrella of Iranian teachers' unions were calling on teachers and students to boycott classes on Monday and Wednesday in support of the protests. Iranian authorities have yet to state the cause of death of Amini, who activists say died as a result of a blow to the head. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has said Amini was not beaten and that 'we must wait for the final opinion of the medical examiner'. Iranians defy the Islamic regime and take to the streets for the 10th night in a row over the death of woman, 22, arrested by morality police for 'not wearing her hijab properly' ByJamie Phillips For MailOnline Iranian protesters have defied the Islamic regime and taken to the streets for a tenth consecutive night in a row over the death of a woman in morality police custody arrested for 'not wearing her hijab properly'. Mahsa Amini, 22, died in custody after she was detained in Tehran by Iranian morality police who believed she was wearing her hijab too loosely. Demonstrations continued for a tenth night in a row this evening, in defiance of a warning from the judiciary, with violent unrest having spread to at least 46 cities, towns and villages across Iran following her death. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time protests since unrest first broke out after Amini's death on September 16. At least 41 people have died since the unrest began - including both protesters and some members of the Islamic republic's security forces - according to an official toll, although other sources say the real figure is higher. Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) this evening said the death toll was at least 57, but noted that ongoing internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities in a context where the women-led protests have in recent nights spread to scores of cities. Echoing a warning the previous day by President Ebrahim Raisi, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei this evening 'emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency' against those organising the 'riots', the judiciary's Mizan Online website said. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian also criticised US support for the 'rioters' amid a security crackdown and curbs on internet and phones. Iran has summoned the British and Norwegian ambassadors over what it called interference and hostile media coverage of the nationwide unrest. Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jhina, was detained three days before that for allegedly breaching the rules that mandate tightly-fitted hijab head coverings and which ban, among other things, ripped jeans and brightly coloured clothes. Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody after being detained by Iranian morality police over hijab laws on September 16 At least 41 people have died since the unrest began - including both protesters and some members of the Islamic republic's security forces Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) this evening said the death toll was at least 57, but noted that ongoing internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities Members of the Iranian community and their supporters rally in Ottawa, Canada, in solidarity with protesters in Iran Protesters clashed with police as they called for an end to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the London embassy earlier today Activists of the 'Femen' organization hold placards showing solidarity with Iranian women during a protest near the Iranian Embassy in Paris Members of the Iranian community and their supporters rally in solidarity with protesters in Iran today over Mahsa's death Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jhina, was detained three days before that for allegedly breaching the rules that mandate tightly-fitted hijab head coverings 'Rolling blackouts' hit coverage of Iran The world has learnt of the violence largely through shaky mobile phone footage posted on social media, even as authorities have throttled internet access. Web monitor NetBlocks noted 'rolling blackouts' and 'widespread internet platform restrictions', with WhatsApp, Instagram and Skype having already been blocked. This followed older bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. Protests abroad have been held in solidarity with Iranian women in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among other cities. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell deplored the security forces' response to the unrest late Sunday as 'disproportionate... unjustifiable and unacceptable'. Iran - which is ruled by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, and which has been hit with tough economic sanctions over its nuclear programme - has blamed 'foreign plots' for the unrest. The foreign ministry said Sunday it had summoned Britain's ambassador over what it described as an 'invitation to riots' by Farsi-speaking media based in London, and Norway's envoy over 'unconstructive comments' made by his country's parliament speaker. Foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Amir-Abdollahian criticised 'the US interventionist approach in the affairs of Iran... including its provocative actions in supporting the rioters'. Advertisement Images circulated by IHR showed protesters on the streets of Tehran, shouting 'death to the dictator', purportedly after nightfall tonight. Security forces tackling the protests have fired live rounds and bird shot, namely small rubber or lead sphere. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell deplored the security forces' response to the unrest late this evening as 'disproportionate... unjustifiable and unacceptable'. Meanwhile, protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set ablaze state buildings. Some Iranian women protesters have removed and burnt their hijabs in the rallies and cut off their hair, while others have danced near large bonfires to the applause of crowds chanting 'zan, zendegi, azad' - meaning 'woman, life, freedom'. The world has largely been made aware of the unrest via shaky mobile phone footage posted on social media, even as authorities have throttled internet access. Internet monitor NetBlocks has noted 'rolling blackouts' and 'widespread internet platform restrictions', with WhatsApp, Instagram and Skype having already been blocked. This followed existing bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. Protests abroad have been held in solidarity with Iranian women in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid and New York among other cities. It comes as riot police arrested protesters reportedly trying to storm Iranian embassies in London and Paris today. Video footage from outside the English capital's embassy showed a large group of people gathered, with police officers forming a line to stop the group from moving closer to the building. Witnesses reported that some were trying to 'attack' and 'storm' Iranian embassies in both London and Paris, as people entered the British premises, 'throwing rocks and chairs at the building'. Dozens of demonstrators gathered at the embassy in Princes Gate, Knightsbridge, could be seen standing on walls, holding flags and placards in the street, with some throwing bottles and other objects at officers. Pro-government rallies were also held today, with the main event taking place in Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran Two police officers held a man down as others tried to hold the crowd of people back. Red paint was also thrown at the embassy building. The protesters were calling for an end to the Islamic Republic of Iran, shouting and pushing against officers who had formed a line in front of the embassy. Crowds chanted 'Death to the Islamic Republic' and waved Iran's former national flag from before 1979. Footage shared online also showed violent altercations breaking out among those in the crowd. Five people were arrested during the demonstration, with police officers injured by the 'substantial group intent on causing disorder', the Metropolitan Police said. Meanwhile, Iran has blamed 'foreign plots' for the unrest. The country, ruled by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also organised large rallies in defence of the hijab and conservative values. It comes as Iran has already been hit with tough economic sanctions over its nuclear programme. Pro-government rallies were held today, with the main event taking place in Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, where demonstrators voiced support for mandatory hijab laws. But the main reformist group inside Iran, the Union of Islamic Iran People's Party, has called for the repeal of the mandatory dress code. Human rights groups based abroad have also sought to shine light on the turmoil rocking Iran, citing their own sources in the country. IHR today reported that an umbrella of Iranian teachers' unions were calling on teachers and students to boycott classes on Monday and Wednesday in support of the protests. Iranian authorities have yet to state the cause of death of Amini, who activists say died as a result of a blow to the head. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has said Amini was not beaten and that "we must wait for the final opinion of the medical examiner". An Optus executive has been left red-faced after claiming on live radio that every customer affected by Australia's biggest ever cyber attack had been notified - only for a victim to ring in and claim she hadn't been told. An estimated 11.2million Optus customers' personal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, passport details and drivers licences may have been compromised in last week's data breach. A mysterious hacker who claims to be behind the breach has since demanded Optus hand over $1.5million in ransom money in the form of cryptocurrency Monero, or they will publish the data. On Monday, Sally Oelerich - the telco's director of corporate affairs for regulatory and public affairs - dialled into the 2GB Breakfast program and said: 'For customers who've had their data compromised because of this attack we've now informed them'. But customer Casey Robinson then phoned in, reporting her husband's account had been hacked and personal details such as his phone number compromised as early as September 12. Optus Director of Corporate Affairs Regulatory and Public Affairs Sally Oelerich was left red faced when she told 2GB's Chris Smith all effected Optus customer had been contacted by the telco - only for a woman to ring in and say that wasn't the case A mysterious hacker who claims to be behind the breach has since demanded Optus hand over $1.5million in ransom money in the form of cryptocurrency Monero, or they will publish the data When Mr Smith asked if the telco had been in touch with Ms Robinson, she said they had reached out to Optus themselves. 'You have not been informed by Optus what you should do with your accounts?' the radio host said. 'Not at all, not one email,' Ms Robinson replied. Mr Smith then put the question to Ms Oelerich. 'You said you've contacted everyone who you've thought have had their data compromised?' he said. 2GB radio host Chris Smith fired off several questions to the Optus executive about the breach that has potentially impacted more than 11 million customers Ms Oelerich responded: 'As a result of this attack.' 'You're saying Casey's scenario doesn't fit the circumstances!?' Mr Smith hit back. Ms Oelerich then stumbled before apologising to Ms Robinson for the breach of her husband's details. 'It's not something I would wish on my worst enemy,' she said. The executive then said all Optus customers who had been impacted by the breach had been contacted by the telco, before Mr Smith pointed out this wasn't the case. 'I don't believe, well, I don't know Casey's individual circumstances or her partner,' she said, before asking for Ms Robinson's details and promising to personally follow up on her matter. Earlier in the messy interview Ms Oelerich said she herself had been a victim of the cyber attack and had her driver's licence number compromised. She dodged several questions about claims from the hackers who allege they were behind the attack, instead telling Mr Smith the matter was under investigation. It's estimated that the personal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, passport details and drivers' licences have been compromised for 11.2 million Optus customers She added the alleged hackers had not contacted Optus directly, and couldn't 'validate if that was even legitimate'. Tech experts believe the hacker's claims are legitimate, but Ms Oelerich wouldn't give an answer to whether she thought it was real or not, saying she was doing everything she had been advised to 'protect customers'. On Saturday morning the ransom demand appeared on an online forum with the hackers warning the telco it had one week to respond. 'Optus if you are reading! price for us to not sale data is 1.000.000$US We give you 1 week to decide,' part of the message read. The warning comes as Optus customers take to social media to vent their frustration, with some claiming it took three days for Optus to start personally contacting them. Pictured: Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin On Friday morning, CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin made an emotional apology to the millions of Optus customers whose details had been compromised. She confirmed payment details and account passwords were protected but admitted she felt 'terrible' the breach had happened under her watch. 'I think it's a mix of a lot of different emotions,' she said looking downcast. 'Obviously I am angry that there are people out there that want to do this to our customers, I'm disappointed we couldn't have prevented it. 'I'm very sorry and apologetic. It should not have happened.' South Africa: SIU to apply for review of R273.5m PPE tenders The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) says it will institute a civil suit to have five personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts worth some R273.5 million reviewed and set aside in the Special Tribunal. This after four members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) appeared at the Military Court on allegations of corruption related to the contracts. The suspects are Lieutenant Dimakatso Modise, Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Seadimo Peu, Captain Mbomolelo Avroline Tshikosi and Leading Seaman Suzen Jiane. SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the four are facing charges of corruption and fraud related to the procurement of items such as masks and gloves between May and August 2020. He said an investigation by the SIU has revealed that the contracts were awarded irregularly. Evidence from the SIU probe shows that the list of service providers was predetermined and some of the PPE items were delivered before approval, thus deviating from normal supply chain management processes. Furthermore, the SIU investigation revealed that the procurement process followed by the SANDF to procure PPE related items was not fair, transparent, equitable, competitive, or cost effective and thus contravened the provisions of Section 217(1) of the Constitution, Kganyago said. He explained that the investigation was mandated by proclamation made by President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate the affairs of all State institutions in respect of the procurement or contracting for goods, works and services, during, or in respect of the National State of Disaster during the height of the pandemic. The appearance of Modise, Peu, Tshikosi and Jiane is a continuation of the implementation of the SIU investigation outcomes and consequence management to recover assets and financial losses suffered by State institutions and to prevent further losses, and to hold them accountable. The SIU will institute a civil action in the Special Tribunal to review and set aside the contracts, and to recover financial losses suffered by the State and SANDF as result of corruption and negligence, Kganyago said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Largest cranberry planting base in China enters harvest season People's Daily Online) 11:01, September 26, 2022 China's largest cranberry planting base, located in Fuyuan city, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, enters its earliest harvest season. (Photo/Courtesy of the culture, sports, radio, television, and tourism bureau of Fuyuan city) A cranberry planting base in Fuyuan city, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the largest of its kind in China, recently entered its harvest season 10 days earlier than usual, thanks to the abundant sunlight and heat it has enjoyed during the second half of the year. Farmers flooded cranberry fields until water ran over the cranberry trees, and the ripe fruit floated to the surface of the water, resembling bright rubies. Located in the east of the Sanjiang Plain in Heilongjiang, Fuyuan boasts flat land, black soil that enjoys good air and water permeability, and rich water resources, which guarantee favorable conditions for the harvest of cranberries through this flooding method. Fuyuan introduced cranberry planting techniques to local farmers in 2014, and now the city's total planting area of the fruit has reached 4,200 mu (280 hectares). (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) A renowned U.S. activist on North Korean human rights called Monday for more efforts to help the people in the reclusive nation access information from the outside world, as an annual weeklong campaign designed to enhance public awareness on the issue got underway. Suzanne Scholte, head of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, issued the appeal during the opening ceremony of the 19th North Korea Freedom Week in central Seoul, reiterating concerns about the country's rights situation under the Kim Jong-un regime. "The president of Korea must uphold the rights of every Korean wherever they are," she said. "We should be doing everything in our power to get information in North Korea, by land, by sea and by air." Scholte, who has long campaigned for improvement in the North's human rights situation, also criticized the preceding liberal Moon Jae-in administration of the South, arguing that Moon "turned his back on the people of North Korea." The event was attended by some North Korean defectors and rights advocates, including defector-turned-lawmaker Rep. Tae Yong-ho of the ruling People Power Party and former Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Moon-soo. This year's North Korea Freedom Week, which runs through Saturday, will feature a series of events, including forums on the North's rights related issues. On Friday, Seoul's unification ministry urged local activist groups to refrain from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border amid concerns that the move could lead to the escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap) The first ad for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament campaign makes an emotional pitch for a grassroots rallying from everyday Australians to 'make right' the injustice that First Peoples have 'no say in matters that affect them'. The Voice to Parliament is a proposed body that will advise federal parliament on matters concerning Indigenous people. The new ad, which was shot near Alice Springs, features Pitjantjatjara and Nyungar playwright and actor Trevor Jamieson talking to a group of seated Indigenous children in an outback setting, as if around a campfire. 'I've got a story to tell you. It's a good one,' Jamieson says. The first ad promoting a 'yes' vote in the upcoming referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament has been released 'It's about how these people, the First People, got a voice.' Poll Will you vote for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament? Yes No I don't know yet Will you vote for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament? Yes 62 votes No 546 votes I don't know yet 33 votes Now share your opinion Scenes then cut between an Asian grandmother cooking with her grandchildren and a dad with helping his son repair a bike as they talk at some future point about how they proudly voted 'yes' in the referendum. Jamieson then says Indigenous people have 'no voice. No say in matters which affected them. It wasn't right.' The ad shows a grassroots swell of mostly young people showing their support for a yes vote by texting, phoning, talking in the street and getting a tattoo. 'Everyone walked side-by-side,' says the elderly Asian woman. 'And that's how we changed this country for the better, how we made history' Jamieson continues. 'Is that story true?' one of the children asks Jamieson. The ad stars Pitjantjatjara and Nyungar playwright and actor Trevor Jamieson as the 'story teller' What appears to be an Asian grandmother tells her children about how she proudly voted for a Voice to Parliament With a longing expression Jamieson answers: 'It could be.' The ad finishes with a caption of the new campaign's tagline 'History is calling' and a last pitch to 'Vote Yes for a First Nations Voice to Parliament'. On the Twitter account of Indigenous advocacy body the Uluru Statement Group, which funded the ad and will be running the larger campaign, the commercial had garnered 6000 views on Monday morning. 'We are proud to release our official ad as part of the History is Calling referendum education campaign,' the group tweeted. 'You, the Australian people, can make history by supporting a First Nations Voice to Parliament.' The first reactions were generally positive. Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson (centre) appeared in the ad and said of the campaign that 'history is calling' Australians to vote yes A father helping his son repair a bike tells about how he decided to 'make right' the fact that Indigenous people 'had no voice' 'For all those who say it happened in the past, before my time etc. Well it's now your time, let's see what you'll do now. Be on the right side, be the author of this history #VoteYes,' one of the comments read. The ad's mostly Indigenous creators have an impressive pedigree, The director of photography Tyson Perkins is the grandson of ground-breaking Indigenous rights activist Charles Perkins, while the score composer, James Henry, is the grandson of famed musician Jimmy Little. Mr Albanese has indicated this model would form the basis of the Voice's design and be refined as the debate evolved Uluru Dialogue co-chair Pat Anderson, who appears in the ad standing between two children, told The Guardian the commercial was encouraged to get Australians talking about a better future. 'Silence never made history, and history is calling,' Anderson she said. 'It's up to all Australians to answer. We call upon the nation to continue walking with us on this final stretch to a better future.' Meanwhile, Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney has provided more detail on what areas the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament would cover and how it would work. The first 'history is calling' ad shows Australians from various walks of life supporting the yes vote for a Voice to Parliament According to the ad people will 'make a song and dance' about supporting an Indigenous Voice to Parliament Ms Burney said the body would advise parliament on issues that directly effect Indigenous people and would scrutinise bills before they are introduced. 'It won't be on things like taxation or defence and some of the other nonsense that's been spouted in the last few weeks,' Ms Burney told Sky News. 'It will be absolutely on issues that affect directly the lives of First Nations people and one of the keys for this is focusing particularly on Closing the Gap targets.' 'For example, domestic violence. We're going to have a separate First Nations strategy. 'We've also got to be very conscious we've got the Coalition of Peaks (bodies). The role of the voice is not to usurp any of that but to provide advice to parliament on things specifically to do with First Nations people. 'Think about housing. Within that, there's a component of decisions to be made around First Nations housing. It's not like this thing (Peter) Dutton's saying where it's everything that affects Aboriginal people, it's where there is a specific impact.' Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney, here seen at the Albanese government's swearing in ceremony earlier this year, has provided more detail about how a Voice to Parliament would work Other issues that would potentially fall within the Voice's ambit include native title, water rights, cultural issues and child care. A referendum, likely to be held in the next 10 to 18 months, is needed to change Australia's constitution to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Will Australians vote for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament? A poll by the Australia Institute in July found not just strong support for the Voice, but for it to be added to the constitution. The poll found 65 per cent would vote yes, up from 58 per cent when the same poll was run in June. Some 14 per cent said they would vote no with the other 21 per cent undecided. Support was highest among Greens voters, but even 58 per cent of those Coalition aligned would vote yes. Some 59 per cent of One Nation voters would cast a yes ballot, despite its leader Pauline Hanson leading the charge against it. This was up from 35 per cent in June. For a referendum to succeed, a majority of the states must also vote yes, but the poll showed that was also easily covered. All of the four biggest states had comfortable majorities with Victoria on 71 per cent, Queensland 66 per cent, WA 63 per cent and NSW 62 per cent. Support was highest at 85 per cent for Australians aged 18-29 but those over 50 were still above 50 per cent yes. Advertisement Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has indicated the referendum question is likely to be: 'Do you support an alteration to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?' Three lines would be added to the Constitution to create the advisory body; one stating it may 'make representations to parliament' on issues concerning indigenous Australians; and that Parliament may legislate how it works. To succeed a referendum must both get an overall majority of votes and a majority of voters in the majority of states. Polls conducted in July indicated Australians strongly support the Voice to Parliament with 65 per cent of respondents saying they would vote yes. Nearly half of voters still dont know what Sir Keir Starmer stands for, a survey shows. Despite the polls giving Labour a commanding 12-point lead over the Conservatives in the polls, just 46 per cent of the electorate were aware of the party leaders political values. The Savanta ComRes poll found that just a third of the public were clear on Sir Keirs policies. Another bombshell survey by the same pollsters had put Labour in line for a comfortable 56-seat majority at the next election with 353 seats to the Conservatives 211 as Red Wall seats won by the Tories in 2019 reverted. It found that 35 per cent expect to see Sir Keir in Downing Street at the next election, while 47 per cent regard it as unlikely. The findings left Labour frontbenchers talking bullishly about their chances. The Labour Party leader speaks at Britain's Labour Party's annual conference in Liverpool yesterday. Nearly half of voters still dont know what Sir Keir Starmer stands for, a survey shows National Campaign Co-ordinator Shabana Mahmood told the conference: Britain needs a majority Labour government. After our defeat in 2019 that looked impossible. But it is possible. We have done it before and we can do it again. She added: The road to Downing Street runs through all those seats I mentioned earlier but if we want a Labour majority then we must also pass through Dudley, Blackpool and Uxbridge. And theres no Labour majority without wins in Scotland and in Wales. The constituency-by-constituency analysis, which showed the Tories losing 146 seats, suggested swathes of Red Wall seats first won by Boris Johnson in 2019 could revert to Labour, as could Mr Johnsons own constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Labour will attempt to strengthen an anti-Tory pact by targeting only two seats held by the Liberal Democrats in the next election. Rather than have a scattergun approach, Sir Keir Starmer will focus the Partys efforts on seats that he thinks it can win against the incumbent Tories. Sir Keir has previously denied accusations of forging a secret pact with the Lib Dems. Labour will attempt to strengthen an anti-Tory pact by targeting only two seats held by the Liberal Democrats in the next election, according to a senior Labour source But a senior Labour source told The Sunday Times: If you look at the 120 or so key marginal seats, only one or two are Lib Dem-facing fights for us. Its Sheffield Hallam and another seat in Scotland all the others are non-fights with the Lib Dems. Why would we take our resources and put them into a seat when its a Lib Dem-Tory fight? Why would we send the Shadow Cabinet to Tiverton and Honiton when we needed to win in Wakefield? Its pretty obvious that we are not going to be adopting a scattergun approach. Labour won the crunch Wakefield by-election earlier this year after the Lib Dems said they would put their focus elsewhere. Instead, Party leader Sir Ed Davey concentrated efforts on winning the Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton where it ousted the Tory MP. Sir Keir has, however, ruled out doing a deal with Nicola Sturgeons SNP to win power at the next general election. The SNPs grip on Scotland has led to questions over whether he would need their support through a so-called progressive alliance to unseat the Tories. The Labour leader has said there would be no coalition going into those elections and no coalition coming out of it. Sir Keir told the BBCs Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme yesterday that there was now a belief that Labour will win the next general election. Labour won the crunch Wakefield by-election earlier this year after the Lib Dems said they would put their focus elsewhere. Party leader Sir Ed Davey (pictured) concentrated efforts on winning the Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton He said: Something has happened in the Labour Party this year, which is that the hope of a Labour government has turned into a belief in one. And if you consider where we were in 2019, to now be in a position where theres a belief that Labour will win the next general election is real progress for our Party. But he faces a split with members over changing the voting system after the Labour conference chose to consider electoral reform. Calls to ditch the first-past-the-post system and replace it with proportional representation at general elections were made by several constituency parties at the first day of Labours annual conference in Liverpool yesterday. Sir Keir told the BBCs Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme yesterday that there was now a belief that Labour will win the next general election They warned the current system in which the candidate with the most votes in a constituency becomes an MP favours the Conservatives and encourages voter apathy. Instead they are calling for Labour to pledge to introduce PR, which would see the distribution of Commons seats more closely linked to the number of votes cast. The conference is scheduled to debate the question but Sir Keir told The Observer: A lot of people in Labour are pro-PR but its not a priority. Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo says operating ban is down to professional jealousy A celebrated brain surgeon who has been banned from operating in Australia unless he gets approval from a second independent neurosurgeon has hit out at 'jealous' colleagues. Dr Charlie Teo, 64, is unable to operate without written approval from a fellow surgeon due to restrictions placed on him by the Medical Council of NSW after the body received three complaints. Dr Teo told 2GB radio host Chris Smith he had 'had enough' of the 'effective ban' after 15 months and said he would be happy to perform life-saving operations in public hospitals free of charge to save kids lives, but no one will let him in. He said 'jealous' colleagues were stopping him from performing his 'miracle' surgeries. 'It's gang warfare,' he said. 'It's purely based on professional jealousy. Even a governing body has said that I'm a competent surgeon.' Renowned neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, 64, is unable to operate without written approval from a fellow surgeon due to restrictions placed on him by the Medical Council of NSW after receiving three complaints Dr Teo told 2GB that one of his receptionists had broke down into tears while speaking to a mother who had begged the surgeon to operate on her child. 'The bottom line is, it's a pretty desperate situation, it's sad, it's wrong,' he said. 'It all started from nameless, faceless, cowardly people who went to the media, made allegations and made up stories about me to try and destroy my reputation. 'If I'm as bad as surgeons say I am, if I'm offering people false hope and false promises, come out and say it... and put a face to the allegations.' He said he still has a licence to operate as an independent surgeon outside of Australia, but at home surgeons were 'ganging up' and refusing to let him work. The surgery restrictions were placed on Dr Teo following three complaints about his conduct and approach, two of which are still under investigation. Dr Teo still has his licence to operate as an independent surgeon outside of Australia, but he said at home, surgeons were 'ganging up' and refusing to let him work Under the restrictions, which Dr Teo said he was willing to work under, he cannot perform surgeries without the written permission of another brain surgeon, something he blames on the 'jealousy' of his colleagues. Dr Teo's willingness to contradict the advice of other surgeons has made him a high profile figure across the country. He has long maintained that he is a target of 'persecution' and has been subjected to media 'vilification' over the last few years. Under the restrictions, which Dr Teo said he was willing to work under, he cannot perform surgeries without the written permission of another brain surgeon - something he blames on the 'jealousy' of his colleagues So in demand are Dr Teo's services that patients have been willing to fly overseas to be operated on by him, or for him to oversee their surgeries. Under those circumstances, Dr Teo said he waived his fee. One surgery Dr Teo supervised was on Natalie O'Brien, whose family had been told the tumour was inoperable because it was the centre of her brain. Only Dr Teo said the surgery was possible, which left Natalie's dad Scott to raise the hefty sum for the operation to take place, which it did on July 26. Despite other surgeons telling the O'Brien's that Natalie would die on the operating table, the operation was completed in Europe and she is back in Australia. A woman from Pretoria, a capital city in South Africa, said he removed a dangerous brain tumour from her husband. 'Dr Charlie came to South Africa to remove my husband's brainstem glioblastoma together with Dr Chris Profyris,' she wrote. Celebrated but now-restricted brain surgeon Dr Charlie Teo operated on a young Sydney woman, Monica Lopresti in Madrid, Spain (pictured, Christina Lopresti with her daughter, Monica Lopresti) 'They did what no other surgeon was willing to do and we'll be forever grateful to these two surgeons. The best with such good hearts.' Dr Teo is believed to have taken part in operations in South Africa, Spain and Switzerland despite being banned in Australia. It is understood the Medical Council of NSW has enquired into Dr Teo's overseas surgeries and is poised to alert Spanish authorities to its concerns. The Medical Council of NSW contacted Dr Teo's medical indemnity insurer after it was alerted Dr Teo was working overseas. 'If the written statement does not support the practitioner performing the procedure(s) the practitioner cannot recommend or perform the surgery,' the statement on his registration states. Dr Teo has previously said an enemy he labelled 'The Mole' was determined to paint him as a 'money-hungry sexual predator' and sabotage his career. An allegation surfaced in September 2019 that Dr Teo had told a nurse 'while you're down there...' as she bent down to pick something up. The neurosurgeon admitted he made the 'bad joke' but said it had been taken out of context and the nurse in question had been with him for 12 years, was like a 'sister' and the pair always joked around together. Labour's tax policy descended into chaos yesterday as two senior figures contradicted Sir Keir Starmer over the 1p cut to income tax. On the first day of the party's annual conference in Liverpool, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, echoed deputy leader Angela Rayner by saying he would reverse cuts to both the basic and top rate of income tax. But moments later, Sir Keir confirmed he backed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's decision to slash the basic rate from 20p to 19p in the pound. Mr Burnham told Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday that it was not 'the most targeted way of using the resources that we've got at this moment in time'. Moments later, Sir Keir confirmed he backed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's decision to slash the basic rate from 20p to 19p in the pound 'That's my position, I don't think it was a time for tax cuts. I think this is a time to support people through a crisis.' Mr Burnham branded Friday's mini-Budget as 'the most flagrant act of vandalism on the social cohesion of our country', adding that the Government had 'drawn battle lines with ordinary working people'. But just half an hour later, Sir Keir said he supported Mr Kwarteng's decision to cut the basic rate of income tax, paid on earnings between 12,571 to 50,270, from April. 'I've long made the argument that we should reduce the tax burden on working people,' he told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme. 'That's why we opposed the national insurance increase earlier this year, which of course the Government is now reversing.' But the Labour leader said he would reintroduce the top 45p rate of income tax, paid by the highest earners, if he won the next general election. Mr Burnham branded Friday's mini-Budget as 'the most flagrant act of vandalism on the social cohesion of our country', adding that the Government had 'drawn battle lines with ordinary working people' 'I do not think that the choice to have tax cuts for those that are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds is the right choice when our economy is struggling the way it is, working people are struggling in the way they are and our public services are on their knees. I would reverse the decision.' On Saturday, Miss Rayner sparked confusion by suggesting the party would reverse the income tax cut. She said: 'We've said that, you know, the income tax cut is the wrong priority. So, yes, we don't think that that's the priority. 'We will set out our tax proposals which will guarantee that those on the lowest wages, their cost of living will improve. 'We will invest in high-skilled jobs and renewables, so we're self-reliant on our energy needs. We'll set out our proposals towards the next election, but we've been very clear that those with the broadest shoulders should pay more.' Mr Kwarteng seized on the remarks, tweeting: 'A Labour tax hike for millions.' The Chancellor told MPs on Friday that millions of workers will keep more of what they earn when the basic rate of income tax is cut by 1p in the pound from April a year earlier than planned. Some 31 million will be better off by an average of 170 a year under the plans, according to Treasury estimates. It is the first cut to the basic rate of income tax in 15 years. In a shock move, the Chancellor also said the 629,000 earners getting more than 150,000 a year will no longer pay the top rate of 45p. From April, they will instead pay same 40p as those on over 50,271. Mr Kwarteng insisted the move would 'benefit the whole economy', simplify the tax system and incentivise growth, but he faced a backlash from finance experts. Mr Burnham also highlighted splits in Labour over electoral reform, saying he was 'disappointed to hear the party say it is going to rule [it] out'. In an appearance at a fringe meeting last night, he hinted at frustration with Sir Keir's cautious approach. 'We need to get a bit more on the front foot and say we're going to fight back,' he said, listing a string of policies he wanted Labour's leader to announce, including renationalising trains and making decent housing a human right. Tory MP Chris Clarkson said: 'It's the same old Labour, isn't it? They've never had a tax rise they don't like, but they have no policies of their own. They're all so busy fighting each other that they don't know what the policies are.' A Conservative spokesman said: 'Labour's chaotic tax confusion belies a simple truth Labour instinctively want to put up taxes, but desperately want to hide that from the public.' Barger, who founded the motorcycle club in 1948, died in June following a brief battle with throat cancer aged 83 Tucker Carlson turned up at the funeral of Hells Angels leader funeral Sonny Barger Saturday, and delivered an impassioned speech in honor of the fallen societal figure. Carlson, 53, was one of more than 7,000 gathered at the Stockton 99 Speedway to pay respects to the fallen Ralph 'Sonny' Barger, who died in June following a brief battle with throat cancer, aged 83. Thousands turned out on two wheels for Barger's six-hour service - despite for years him bringing fear into the hearts of housewives and miscreants alike as the head of a group that is still considered an organized crime syndicate by the US government. It was an event the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office warned Friday could become dangerous - but the hulking, leather-clad mourners in attendance stayed peaceful, crying, and sharing stories of how they remembered the gang's longtime leader. Of those to deliver a stirring tribute to the Modesto native - who moved to the Bay Area as a child before the area was overrun by a dangerous wave of crime - was Carlson, who in the past had expressed his admiration for Barger's no-nonsense, patriotic ideals. Arriving in a button-down shirt amid a sea of bare chests and leather vests, Carlson took to the podium and delivered a heartfelt tribute to Barger, offering an anecdote about the late gang leader and a letter he left to his widow that the Fox News host said perfectly encapsulate his - and the quintessential American's - values. Scroll down for video: Carlson, 53, was one of more than 7,000 gathered at the Stockton 99 Speedway to pay respects to Ralph 'Sonny' Barger, who founded the first Oakland chapter of the motorcycle club in California in 1957 and eventually ascended to the 3,500-strong group's leader Ralph 'Sonny' Barger died in June following a brief battle with throat cancer at 83. Barger became the club's president and helped grow it to the international organization it is today after founding its first Oakland branch back in 1957 'Sonny Barger died in his home state of California. He was 83 years old,' Carlson began, addressing thousands in the crowd. 'When he died, his letter to his wife and friends was released, and my college roommate was also a Harley-Davidson fan sent it to me.' The famously outspoken host of Tucker Carlson Tonight continued: 'We'd always been fans of Sonny Barger, but I didn't know what his personal views were apart from representing the club. 'And the letter,' Carlson said, trying to recall the contents of the note, 'if I can summarize it from memory, was: 'Always stand tall, stay loyal... remain free, and always value honor.' While remembering the motorcycle club boss' supposed credo, Carlson paused at a point, clutching his chest in a fit of emotion. He to the crowd, 'Ah, it made me emotional reading it.' The Fox News host, however, pressed on, repeating the mantra to those in attendance, asserting that the phrase served as his own personal creed that he continued to live by. 'Stand tall, stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor,' Carlson said, before thinking to himself and taking another emotional pause. 'And I thought to myself, if there is a phrase that sums up more perfectly what I want to be, what I aspire to be, and the kind of man I respect.' 'I can't think of a phrase that sums it up more perfectly than that,' the host proclaimed, later posing with some of the Hells Angels in attendance. Carlson, 53, posed with Hells Angels members at the Saturday funeral that the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office previously warned 'could become dangerous' The talking head proceeded to pan detractors who criticized Barger's rough-and-tough image, while slamming the left and seemingly the Biden Administration for supplanting ideals expressed by Barger and other likeminded Americans. 'And I thought that, that's the outlaw biker that every mom in my neighborhood was scared s**tless of as a child,' Carlson said, sharking his head in disapproval. 'That's Sonny Barger's world view?' Carlson continued, appealing to those in attendance. He then asked, growing increasingly animated: 'Why aren't we hearing that from the people who run the country? Why is it left to Sonny Barger to say, "Stand tall, stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor?" 'The president of the United States should be saying that - every single morning as he salutes the flag - but only Sunny Barger is saying it,' Carlson continued. 'And I thought to myself, "I want to pay tribute to the man who spoke those words."' Thousands turned out for Barger's six-hour service - despite for years him bringing fear into the hearts of housewives and miscreants alike as the head of a group that was branded - and is still considered - an organized crime syndicate by the US government During his eulogy to the motorcycle club boss, Carlson panned detractors who criticized Barger's rough-and-tough image, while slamming the left and seemingly the Biden Administration for supplanting ideals expressed by Barger and other likeminded Americans Carlson would go on to offer a heartfelt signoff that saw him tout how he dropped his fulltime broadcasting responsibilities to attend the procession, which was held Saturday from 2 pm to 8 pm at the 99 Speedway on North Wilson Way. 'When I was invited to this funeral, I cleared my schedule, and I thought, 'I don't care how hard it is to get from Maine to Stockton - I'm going. And I'm here. And I'm honored to be here,' Carlson told the crowd, before offering a characteristic signoff. 'Thank you for having me, and I hope that you continue to represent those views. Amen.' The surprisingly touching tribute from Carlson echoed that of dozens of other eulogies delivered for the late Barger, who is credited with creating the first Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels in 1957. Thousands of those in attendance staged a funeral ride for Barger, riding in solidarity for their fallen brother Mourners decked out in garb associated with the notorious motorcycle gang pose for a photo at the Saturday funeral The group - which has a reported 3,500 members in the US - has chapters across the globe, as shown by this mourner Carlson himself even dedicated a portion of his broadcast to the late leader the day of his death - a tribute that also saw him mention Barger's mantra as detailed in the note to his wife, Zorana, 63. Thousands of bikers and members of the group - which rose to prominence in the 60s under Barger and other members of the now 3,500 strong group, which has a hazy history as to whether it was a group of likeminded individuals bound by brotherhood, or a violent criminal syndicate with footholds all across the nation. And while many saw Saturday's procession as an event to be cherished, the San Joaquin County sheriff did not see the service the same way. 'I made it clear we did everything to stop this from happening,' said Sheriff Pat Withrow. However, the funeral went off without a hitch, and served as fitting send off for such a prominent personality. Barger moved to Oakland, California, as a child and was suspended from school for slapping a teacher. He then enlisted in the U.S. Army at 16 after forging his birth certificate. He was kicked out with an honorable discharge in 1956 when his deception was discovered and was drawn to the oil-stained world of the so-called 'one-percenters' - a term coined by the American Motorcycle Association to describe the tiny minority of bikers they deemed troublemakers. 'I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to live it,' Barger said in 2008, explaining the credo of loyalty and rugged individualism he once expressed as 'don't be a rat, and sometimes you literally have to fight to be free.' The California outlaw, who was involved in drugs and protection rackets, died surrounded by his wife Zorana and other loved ones. In the early 1980s, Barger was diagnosed with throat cancer which required the removal of his vocal chords Sonny Barger, (center front row), President of the Hells Angels' Oakland chapter, announces at a press conference that the notorious California motorcycle gang would not stage a demonstration against anti-Viet Nam marchers in November 1965 Sonny Barger and company try to tame bull in a scene from the film 'Hells Angels '69', in 1969 Ridin High Livin Free a book by Ralph 'Sonny' Barger Barger says in one of his autobiographies that the Hells Angels were a small club in San Francisco which had fizzled out when he and other bikers decided to pick up the name, starting the Oakland Hells Angels, the club's most significant charter. Trading his first motorcycle, an Indian, for a Harley Davidson - widely known as 'hogs' for the firm's one-time pig mascot - he swiftly became leader of the Hells Angels Oakland charter and oversaw the formation of independent charters, or branches, across the United States and then worldwide. Barger became the club's national president and was the most famous member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, which was founded in San Bernardino, California, on March 17, 1948. He helped grow it to the international organization it is today. His reputation as the two-fisted granddaddy of the world's oldest, largest and most notorious motorcycle club, has spread far beyond the biker community, attracting both hero worshipers and detractors on the way. The Hells Angels' hell-raising activities shocked 'straight' America in the 1960s, when among other exploits, Barger offered the services of club members to President Lyndon B. Johnson as a 'crack group of trained guerrillas' to drop behind enemy lines in the Vietnam War. His offer was turned down flat. In another notorious incident, he forced the Rolling Stones to play at gunpoint in 1969 at Altamont Speedway, near San Francisco, after the band had threatened to pull the plug on a concert when an 18-year-old man was stabbed to death by a member of the club. An FBI agent said in a documentary that bad blood from the incident lingered for years, and the Hells Angels later plotted to kill Stones frontman Mick Jagger. 'I have no recollection of it ever happening, and why it showed up 35 years later, I don't know,' Barger said in 2008. Portrait of American biker and founding member of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels Sonny Barge in San Francisco, California, January 1979 Hells Angels members congregate at an event where Sonny Barger signs copies of his autobiographical book on life in the Hells Angels Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels holding their flag in a scene from the film 'Hells Angels '69' in 1969 How the Hells Angels became a global group after forming 74 years ago The Hells Angels were a small club in San Francisco which had fizzled out when Sonny Barger and other bikers decided to pick up the name, starting the Oakland Hells Angels, the club's most significant charter. Trading his first motorcycle, an Indian, for a Harley Davidson - widely known as 'hogs' for the firm's one-time pig mascot - he swiftly became leader of the Hells Angels Oakland charter and oversaw the formation of independent charters, or branches, across the United States and then worldwide. Barger became the club's national president and was the most famous member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. He helped grow it to the international organization it is today. Their hell-raising activities shocked 'straight' America in the 1960s, when among other exploits, Barger offered the services of club members to President Lyndon B. Johnson as a 'crack group of trained guerrillas' to drop behind enemy lines in the Vietnam War. His offer was turned down flat. In another notorious incident, he forced the Rolling Stones to play at gunpoint in 1969 at Altamont Speedway, near San Francisco, after the band had threatened to pull the plug on a concert when an 18-year-old man was stabbed to death by a member of the club. The Hells Angels have been around for 74 years - and they are now in an increasingly regulated world. Barger said in 2008 he sees less room for the kind of rugged American individualism he sees exemplified by cowboys and bikers. 'We're the last of the free Americans in the United States,' he says. 'There's very few of us left.' Advertisement Barger had frequent run-ins with the law, spending several stretches in prison mostly for narcotic and firearm offences, but he has also avoided longer sentences after beating a number of more serious charges in court. In 1972, Barger and three others were acquitted of murder after a Texas drug dealer was killed in Oakland and a residence was set on fire. Barger was sentenced to ten years to life behind bars in 1973 after he was convicted of possession of narcotics and a weapon by a convicted felon. He was later paroled in November 1977 after serving four-and-a-half years of his sentence. In 1979, Barger was among 33 people indicted on charges that violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. But he was let off for racketeering charges in a split verdict while nine others were convicted. In his book Hells Angel, Barger claims he was sentenced to 30 years' in jail but served just five and had addictions to 'bikes, booze, girls and good times'. After a rival gang stole Barger's Harley Davidson, he hunted down the person responsible, before beating him senseless and breaking his fingers one by one with a hammer. In 1987, Barger was arrested on charges relating to narcotics, weapons, and explosives after FBI agents carried out raids. A year later, Barger was convicted of conspiracy to transport and receive explosives in interstate commerce with intent to kill and damage buildings and sentenced to four years in jail. Barger and three others were convicted on another charge dealing with a stolen government manual, and five others were acquitted on all charges, Schwartz said. The government contended that Barger and the other defendants planned the attacks in revenge for the slaying of John Cleve Webb, a Hells Angel from Alaska who was shot outside a Jefferson County bar in August 1986. A Louisville Outlaw later pleaded guilty to reckless homicide in Webb's death. Barger was released from prison in November 1992 after serving three-and-a-half years of his sentence. In the early 1980s, Barger was diagnosed with throat cancer which required the removal of his vocal chords. Following the health scare, Barger publicly advocated against smoking, tailoring his message with the Hells Angels' textbook anti-establishment attitude: 'Want to be a rebel? Don't smoke as the rest of the world.' Barger and his wife Sharon are shown after his release $100,000 bond in San Francisco after he spent a year in prison on racketeering conspiracy charges In Hunter S Thompson's seminal book Hells Angels, Barger was described as the group's 'maximum leader'. He has fiercely defended the group despite its multiple controversies, including when Meredith Hunter was killed by its members during a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Free Concert in 1969. Barger said the Stones wanted to stop playing but he managed to convince Keith Richards to continue. He recalled: 'I stood next to him and stuck my pistol into his side and told him to start playing his guitar or he was dead.' Barger was diagnosed with cancer in 1983 but continued to smoke three packs of Camel cigarettes a day and eventually had his vocal chords removed. Only around one-in-every-1,900 polio infections in unvaccinated persons will result in paralysis, CDC data shows 94.73 per cent of Australians have been vaccinated against polio by the age of five There has been no indication that the virus has reached Australian shores NSW Health will be joining other health departments in testing sewage for polio Australian health authorities are on high alert after polio cases were detected overseas. Health authorities have begun testing sewage for polio across the country and experts have urged the public to consider getting vaccinated to be protected against the virus. In August, it was confirmed that polio was spreading throughout London for the first time since the 1980s. The virus is also circulating in New York, with a state of emergency declared by the governor this month. Australian health authorities are on high alert after cases of polio were reported in the UK and the US (pictured, a child infected with polio in Nigeria) Common symptoms of polio include high temperatures, extreme fatigue, headaches, vomiting, stiff neck and muscle pain Polio is a serious viral infection that is transmitted via droplets in the air when someone coughs or sneezes, or coming into contact with the faeces of an infected person There are no reports of polio reaching Australian shores, but health authorities have remained alert in case the virus enters the country. NSW Health announced this week that it would join other states across Australia to test sewage for polio. 'NSW Health convened an expert panel last week that included experts from Victoria, to consider the value and parameters of wastewater surveillance to help detect other infectious diseases, including polio,' a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. 'While there is currently no indication of polio infection in NSW, as a precaution, NSW Health is developing a wastewater surveillance for poliovirus, building on the success of the SARS CoV-2 wastewater surveillance program.' 'NSW Health is working with Sydney Water to finalise the methods and implement surveillance as soon as possible.' Australia had two polio epidemics in the 1930s and 1950s, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1000 people. A vaccine was developed in the US by American virologist Johas Salk in 1952. It was introduced to Australia four years later and effectively ended the epidemic. Polio is a serious viral infection that lives in the throat and intestines for up to six weeks, with patients most infectious from seven to 10 days before and after the onset of symptoms. Only around one-in-every-1,900 polio infections in unvaccinated persons will result in paralysis, according to the CDC. There is no polio vaccine booster and vaccination in infancy provides protection for a person's entire life. The virus is more common in infants and young children and can be transmitted via droplets in the air when someone coughs or sneezes, or coming into contact with the faeces of an infected person. Most people infected with polio will show no signs of infection at all, but about one in 20 people will have minor symptoms such as fever, muscle weakness, headache, nausea and vomiting. Around one in 50 patients develop severe muscle pain and stiffness in the neck and back. Less than one per cent of polio cases result in paralysis, and one in 10 of those result in death. WHAT IS POLIO? Polio is a serious viral infection that used to be common all over the world. The virus lives in the throat and intestines for up to six weeks, with patients most infectious from seven to 10 days before and after the onset of symptoms. But it can spread to the spinal cord causing muscle weakness and paralysis. The virus is more common in infants and young children and occurs under conditions of poor hygiene. How deadly is it? Most people show no signs of infection at all but about one in 20 people have minor symptoms such as fever, muscle weakness, headache, nausea and vomiting. Around one in 50 patients develop severe muscle pain and stiffness in the neck and back. Less than one per cent of polio cases result in paralysis and one in 10 of those result in death. Of those who develop symptoms, these tend to appear three-to-21 days after infection and include: High temperature Sore throat Headache Abdominal pain Aching muscles Nausea and vomiting How does it spread? People can catch polio via droplets in the air when someone coughs or sneezes, or if they come into contacted with the faeces of an infected person. This includes food, water, clothing or toys. Are there different strains? There are three strains of 'wild' polio, which has been largely eradicated throughout Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Types 2 and 3 were eliminated thanks to a global mass vaccine campaign, with the last cases detected in 1999 and 2012 respectively. The remaining, type 1, wild polio remains endemic in only two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Wild polio has been eliminated in almost every country in the world thanks to vaccines. But the global rollout has spawned new types of strains known as vaccine-derived polioviruses. These are strains that were initially used in live vaccines but spilled out into the community and evolved to behave more like the wild version. Am I vaccinated against polio? The polio vaccine is offered as part of the routine childhood vaccination programme. It is given at age eight, 12 and 16 weeks as part of the six-in-one vaccine and then again at three years as part of a pre-school booster. The final course is given at age 14. There are concerns vaccine hesitancy has risen during the Covid crisis due to misinformation spread about jabs for that virus and school closures. Advertisement Polio dates back to 1500 BC, crippled rulers in Ancient Egypt and paralysed thousands of children for decades before being almost entirely wiped out by a vaccine that used a weakened version of virus: The disease's history laid bare You could be forgiven for thinking polio was a disease resigned to history. The paralysis-causing disease was officially eradicated in the UK in 2003 and the last domestic outbreak was in the 1980s. But dwindling vaccination rates, in part due to complacency, appear to have allowed polio to creep back in decades later. The archaic disease has existed as long as human civilisation itself, with the earliest records dating back to ancient Egypt. But it was until the 1800s that outbreaks began to really take off. Millions of Brits will remember the devastation polio caused in the early 1950s and why it was one of the most feared infections in the world. The UK was rocked by a series of polio epidemics in the mid-20th century that saw thousands crippled by the virus each year. Mary Berry, the ex-Great British Bake Off judge, was hospitalised after contracting polio aged 13, leaving her with a twisted spine and damaged left hand. Despite being eradicated in most of the world, it still spreads in two countries Afghanistan and Pakistan while parts of Africa suffer flare-ups of vaccine-derived versions of the virus. Here, MailOnline takes a look at the history of the virus: 1500 BC Polio epidemics, when the virus is constantly spreading within a community, did not start happening until the late 1800s. But records suggest it dates back to as early as 1570 BC in ancient Egypt. This is based on a drawing on a stele a stone slab which shows a priest with a withered leg and using a cane to help him walk. And an Egyptian ruler called Siptah, who died in 1188 BC, is thought to have had polio based on his deformed left leg and foot, spotted by archaeologists who found his mummy in 1905. 1700s But apart from these two incidents, polio largely vanished from the record books until it was logged in in 1789 by London-based Dr Michael Underwood. He published the first clear description of polio in infants, who are particularly vulnerable to the disease, in a medical textbook, calling it 'debility of the lower extremities'. Records show polio dates back to as early as 1570 BC in ancient Egypt. This is based on a drawing on a stele - a stone slab (pictured) - which shows a priest with a withered leg and using a cane to help him walk 1800s In the early 1800s, a handful of polio cases were sporadically reported in medical journals. But scientists believe people were commonly exposed to the virus in the typical unhygienic environments of the time, especially when they were young. However, polioviruses started causing problems in Europe and North America at the end of the 1800s. This was, bizarrely, blamed on sanitation improving. Polio spreads through consuming an infected person's faecal matter which can happen as a result of poor hand hygiene. While better water and sewage systems saw the demise of typhoid and cholera, outbreaks of polio became more common. Three-quarter of those who become infected don't have symptoms. But around a quarter suffer a flu-like illness, including a sore throat, fever and tiredness. Up to one in 200 will develop more serious symptoms that affect their brain and spinal cord, including paralysis. Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at Reading University, explained the virus 'wasn't a problem until hygiene improved'. Previously, low levels of infection would have given immunity to people but the unforeseen circumstance of better living conditions was that this declined and polio 'took off', he said. Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline that although polio has been around for centuries or millennia, it was only during the early part of the 20th century that big epidemics of paralytic polio took off. He explained: 'When every child got infected with poliovirus in the first couple of years of life you still saw some paralysis but it was only when infections were delayed until older age that such paralysis became more common. 'Young children who contract poliovirus infection generally suffer only mild symptoms, but delay those infections to teens and adulthood and paralysis becomes more common.' The first epidemic struck more than a dozen people in Norway in 1868, while the second, which occurred 13 years later, caused a similar number of confirmed cases in Sweden. An outbreak in the US in 1894 saw 132 people infected. Early 1900s It was in 1916 that the first large-scale epidemic took hold in Brooklyn, New York, with more than 9,000 cases and 2,000 deaths. The outbreak spread to the rest of the US and led to more than 27,000 cases and 6,000 polio deaths that year. Newspapers published the names and addresses of infected people, 'keep out' notices were nailed to their doors and their families were quarantined. Parents were urged to keep their children away from public spaces, such as swimming pools, parks and beaches, over virus fears. The outbreak triggered concern across the world and sped up research into the illness. Scientists had already made some progress in understanding and treating the virus. In 1840, German orthopaedic Dr Jacob von Heine had become the first to produce a robust study on polio. He suggested that the disease may be contagious. By 1908, Austrian physicians Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper said that polio may be caused by a virus. Early treatments of the disease included tying the paralysed limbs of infected patients to splints, in a bid to stop their muscles from tightening. But by 1928, an invention called the iron lung was rolled out to revolutionise how the disease was treated. The contraption a respirator that resembled a 'coffin on legs' was developed for patients whose lungs were so paralysed that they could no longer breathe unaided. Paul Alexander, 76, from Texas, is still in the machine today 70 years after contracting polio at the age of six in 1952 But by 1928, an invention called the iron lung was rolled out to revolutionise how the disease was treated. The contraption a respirator that resembled a 'coffin on legs' was developed for patients whose lungs were so paralysed that they could no longer breathe unaided. It was first used that decade to save an American child infected with the virus who needed help breathing. The majority patients stayed inside the chamber for short spells until their lungs recovered. But some struck down by permanent paralysis stayed inside the machines for the rest of their lives. Paul Alexander, 76, from Texas, is still in the machine today 70 years after getting polio at the age of six in 1952. And by 1930, Elizabeth Kenny, a self-trained nurse from Queensland, Australia, developed a treatment applying hot packs to muscles and exercise to keep stimulating nerve cells and avoid long-term muscle damage. The methods are still used today. As part of the increased focus on research, Australian virologists Sir Macfarlane Burnet and Dame Jean MacNamara identified for the first time that there were three types of the polio virus in 1931. The fight against the virus was further boosted when a team of scientists at Harvard Medical School, led by Dr Jonas Salk, in the 1940s used blood samples of infected patients to extract and grow the virus in live cells. Late 1900s By 1955 the team, with the support of funds from the March of Dimes non-profit organisation, developed the first effective vaccine an injectable inactive (killed) polio vaccine (IPV). Nearly 2million children in the US were jabbed as part of the largest medical trials ever seen at the time. They proved successful and 450million doses of the jab were dished out across the country. Cases subsequently fell from 18 per 100,000 people to two per 100,000. The following decade, a team at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, led by medical researcher Dr Albert Sabin, developed a second vaccine using a live version of the virus that could be given in drops through the mouth. This vaccine was much more effective and became the most popular throughout the world. Politicians in the US didn't support Dr Sabin's oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), so he tested it in the former Soviet Union. The USSR rolled out the jab and polio subsequently declined. Drops in cases were also seen in nearby Eastern Europe and Japan. The US licensed the jabbed in 1961 and it became the main vaccine used worldwide. The fight against polio was further boosted when a team of scientists at Harvard Medical School, led by Dr Jonas Salk, in the 1940s used blood samples of infected patients to extract and grow the virus in live cells. Pictured: Dr Salk at the Municipal Hospital laboratory in April 1955 after announcement of the successful vaccine results Great Britain was pronounced clear of polio in 2003 with the last case coming in 1984. A young girl is pictured getting her polio jab in May 1956 By 1955 researchers at Harvard Medical School, with the support of funds from the March of Dimes non-profit organisation, developed the first effective vaccine against polio an injectable inactive (killed) polio vaccine (IPV). Pictured: children getting a lump of sugar while getting a polio vaccine at a mobile unit in Blackburn in Lancashire, England in 1965 Professor Jonathan Ball, a virologist from the University of Nottingham, told MailOnline that polio had a 'devastating effect' worldwide and the introduction of the two jabs was 'immense'. Studies throughout the 1970s and 1980s revealed the virus was widespread in many richer nations, which pushed leaders to introduce routine vaccination using the OPV in national immunisations programmes. The jabs saw polio vanish in developed countries. In the UK, cases fell from a peak of 8,000 a year to just a few hundred before being eradicated. In the US, infections dropped from a peak of 58,000 to zero just a few years after the jab was dished out. Kathleen O'Reilly, an associate professor in statistics for infectious disease and expert in polio eradication, told MailOnline: 'After the second world war cases of paralytic polio in England and Wales rose considerably, reaching several thousand cases each year. 'Vaccines were developed in response to these worrying outbreaks, and were introduced in the late 1950s. 'The number of polio cases quickly declined, and since the 1970s only a small number of cases were reported each year. There has not been a single case of polio in the UK since 1984.' But in poorer nations, where the virus caused fewer outbreaks, uptake was much lower. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched an worldwide immunisation rollout in 1974, in an attempt to vaccinate all children against polio. By 1988, the UN health agency set the target of eradicating the virus globally by 2000. Two years later, a global virus surveillance system is set up to detect the virus. The US logged its last case in 1991, in a three-year-old boy called Luis Fermin Tenorio living in Junin, northern Peru. The WHO certified the region as polio-free three years later the duration set by the agency before a nation can be deemed to have eradicated the virus. A team at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, led by medical researcher Dr Albert Sabin, developed a second vaccine using a live version of the virus that could be given in drops through the mouth. This vaccine was much more effective than the inactivated one, and became the most popular throughout the world. Pictured: a health worker giving a oral polio vaccine to a child in Karachi, Pakistan There was also success in ridding the world of two wild types of the virus, with type two eradicated in 2015 and type three stamped out by 2019. However, the WHO global goal of eradicating the virus by 2000 has still not been met. Polio is endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pictured: a child in Kabul, Afghanistan being given the oral vaccine in November 2021 2000 Nearly every country in the world used the oral polio vaccine in their rollout. But after infections were brought under control in the US and the UK, both countries stopped using this vaccine in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Other nations followed suit. While the oral version provides higher levels of protection against infection meaning it is more effective at limiting spread in endemic countries the weakened live virus in the vaccine can mutate on very rare occasions and cause paralysis. It can also spread to others and cause an outbreak of vaccine-derived polio. Professor Hunter explained that the live vaccine does a better job at stopping infection 'but can very rarely cause paralysis'. Meanwhile, the inactivated vaccine 'doesn't cause infection and is still excellent at stopping paralysis but not quite as good at preventing infection', he said. Only a handful still use the oral vaccine. In 2002, Europe was certified as polio-free. Its final case was logged in a 33-month-old child in Turkey in 1999. The Western Pacific was labelled polio-free in 2000, with the last confirmed infection being in a 15-month-old girl called Mum Chanty in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. And the WHO confirmed South East Asia is virus free in 2014. There was also success in ridding the world of two wild types of the virus, with type two eradicated in 2015 and type three stamped out by 2019. However, the WHO global goal of eradicating the virus by 2000 has still not been met. Polio is endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Travellers from these two nations frequently spread the virus to other countries. 2010 China lost its polio-free status in 2011 after the infection spread to the country from Pakistan. However, it regained it after the outbreak fizzled out. Professor Ball explained: 'The live vaccine has proven to be incredibly effective at eliminating the virus. 'But on rare occasions it can revert to wild-type and cause the disease; that's why countries that do get rid of the virus switch to using killed vaccine to keep their populations safe.' Professor Jones said the dilemma around polio is now around eradication. 'Is it worth the cost in terms of money and lives lost to eradicate the last few cases or is it better to maintain where we are? 'Lastly, another dilemma, if it is eradicated how long do you continue to vaccinate and with what?' UK health chiefs revealed polio could be spreading in the community for the first time in four decades after the virus was spotted in sewage samples in parts of London on June 22, 2022. It is a vaccine-derived strain. But there are signs it is spreading between people as officials have picked up several samples from different people, each with new mutations. Professor Hunter added: 'Whilst most of the world has moved away from live attenuated vaccine some countries still use it and there is a risk that you can get secondary infections (generally a family member) which very rarely can be associated with paralysis in someone who has not been immunised. 'The concern here is that even a vaccine derived virus if it continues to spread could eventually recover its full virulence over a year or two and then cause an outbreak of paralytic polio in people who have not been vaccinated and that would be a disaster. 'So probably the current situation does not pose an immediate threat to public health but if transmission goes on long enough and the virus recovers its virulence it could become a public health disaster.' An award-winning author who was accused of 'racism' has hired private investigators to look into the social media profiles of Chocolat novelist Joanne Harris OBE, following a war of words between the two. Last year, author Kate Clanchy was accused by online commentators of stereotyping and being derogatory towards children from ethnic minorities and with autism in her memoir Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me. Clanchy said the social media investigators she has hired have evidence that Harris, who is the head of the writers' trade union, sent her a message telling her to apologise to her critics immediately after she had spoken with one. In a letter to staff and members of the Society of Authors seen by The Times, Clanchy, an Oxford poet and teacher, also accused Harris of calling her 'ignorant, cruel and patronising'. She wrote that she had become a scapegoat for issues throughout the publishing industry, as 'Harris had suggested [she should]'. In a letter to staff and members of the Society of Authors seen by The Times , Oxford poet and teacher Kate Clanchy accused Society of Authors Chairwoman Joanne Harris of calling her 'ignorant, cruel and patronising' Clanchy's letter to the Society describes the online abuse she experienced after critics drew attention to some phrases in her book. Clanchy writes that the ordeal had left her close to suicide and that it offended her students, whose poetry was included in the book. She further said in her letter that Harris had not read the book but still agreed with commentators online that it was 'problematic'. Meanwhile, detractors including Sunny Singh, a professor at London Metropolitan University, claimed they were targeted by racists for calling Clanchy out. Clanchy claims Harris contacted her 'in an unsolicited direct message', despite her not being a member of the society last year. In the message, Clanchy said, Harris encouraged her to apologise to Singh and two others who claimed to have been attacked after criticising her. Harris wrote: 'This isn't really about you: the anger and dissatisfaction with the industry's attitude to race was waiting to erupt at some point and you just happened to be the trigger this time.' French-English author Joanne Harris, who wrote Chocolat. Harris is Chairwoman of the writers' trade union the Society of Authors, which has come under attack from writer Kate Clanchy Clanchy was attacked online for including 'racist tropes' in her book, including describing pupils as having 'chocolate-coloured skin' and 'almond-shaped eyes'. The 57-year-old writer said sorry and pledged to rewrite parts of the book but was essentially dropped by publisher Pan Macmillan. Clanchy earlier won the Orwell Prize for political writing in 2020, and the book included poetry by students where she taught at Oxford Spires Academy, but the revised version was shelved. The Society for Authors, which has over 12,000 members, became embroiled in 'the culture war' when its former president, His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman, defended Clanchy last August. In his online post Pullman said those who condemned it before reading it would 'find a comfortable home in Isis or the Taliban'. He later deleted the tweet and apologised after a backlash from activists who claim the book was 'racist'. The Society later invited Pullman to attend race awareness training. His Dark Materials author Sir Philip Pullman was blasted for defending Kate Clanchy after she was 'cancelled' by her publishers over her award-winning memoir. He later resigned as President of the Society of Authors The 75-year-old author later resigned his post in March, writing in his resignation letter: 'I realised that I would not be free to express my personal opinions as long as I remained president.' In a letter sent by Pullman this month, he reportedly said the Society's management committee and chairwoman, Harris, had 'immediately adopted a position of self-righteous neutrality... Though more self-righteous than neutral.' He added part of the union wanted 'to use the society as a vehicle for gesture politics,' as reported by The Times. In a statement made to those who received Clanchy's letter, the Society said the letter 'made serious allegations about the chair which should be fully investigated', adding: 'Joanne Harris strongly denies these allegations.' The Society has been contacted for comment. Australia's most outspoken republican Peter FitzSimons has suggested his critics are hypocrites after they claimed his campaign group isn't 'diverse' enough. In a new column for the Sydney Morning Herald, FitzSimons said the same people who attack his organisation - the Australian Republican Movement - for being made up of white men relentlessly attack Meghan Markle, the royal family's 'only' diverse member. 'The charge that the ARM is not diverse enough? I will take that from those with a background of pushing diversity on all fronts, and we are addressing it,' FitzSimons wrote. 'But I'll be damned if I'll take it from critics with a track record of fawning and cooing to all of the English royal family bar its one actually diverse member, who they incessantly criticise for everything: Meghan.' FitzSimons (right) is married to Lisa Wilkinson (left), who fronted Channel 10 and The Project's coverage of Her Majesty's funeral in London FitzSimons took aim at the Royal Family saying the 'incessantly criticised' their only diverse member Meghan Markle (pictured) who married Prince Harry before the pair relocated to LA Today Show host Karl Stefanovic recently suggested the republican movement wouldn't gain traction because there wasn't any diversity in the people fronting the campaign. 'Let me tell you, it is not going to happen while you've got pasty white guys like Peter FitzSimons and Malcolm Turnbull fronting up in Australia,' Stefanovic said. Co-host Langdon agreed, saying: 'I did tell Peter if he was at the front of the movement, I would always vote for a monarchy.' Less than an hour after the Queen's passing the ARM issued a condolence statement which thanked the Queen for her 'significant contribution' to Australia. - but stoked the fires of the republican debate. 'The Queen backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation during the referendum on an Australian republic in 1999, saying that she has 'always made it clear that the future of the Monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide,' the statement read. On Monday, FitzSimons thanked the 'winter soldiers' who kept the movement going in the 'lean years' after the 1999 referendum - which was knocked back by a nearly 55 per cent majority of Australians due to the suggested model. But he claimed the monarchy's popularity rested in the 'rock-solid stability' of Queen Elizabeth II and that her 70 year reign ending 'changes everything'. 'The fact Australia has now demonstrably evolved to an entirely new era - under a new monarch not enjoying the same fierce loyalty as his predecessor - is lost on no one,' he said. 'Does it not seem ludicrous that in the next Ashes campaign, our Head of State - an unelected English aristocrat, installed by the last gasp of colonialism - will be cheering for the other side?' Today Show hosts Karl Stafanovic and Allison Langdon (pictured) said they wouldn't support a Republic while 'pasty white guys like Peter FitzSimons' were fronting the movement The Australian Republic Movement temporarily suspended its push for a republic after an initial 'rude' statement within an hour of the Queen's passing FitzSimons claimed traffic on the ARM website has jumped 'a hundred-fold' over the previous two weeks and new memberships have surged. As well as the UK, King Charles III is now head of state in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. Six of those 15 nations have said they would take steps towards moving to a republic. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, himself a republican, has ruled out holding a referendum for Australia for at least four years. A digital watchdog must be brought into law urgently to prevent mounting harm to UK firms and consumers, a Lords committee has warned. Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan has been urged to make the Digital Markets Unit set up to rein in so-called Big Tech online firms a priority. The DMU was devised to tackle the dominance of Big Tech in sectors such as digital advertising, which poses a threat to quality journalism, and ensure web giants pay a fair price to news publishers for content. Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan (pictured) has been urged to make the Digital Markets Unit set up to rein in so-called Big Tech online firms a priority The Lords communications and digital committee said Britain had fallen behind the EU in regulating Big Tech. Chairman Baroness Stowell told Miss Donelan: It is disappointing that the necessary legislation has not been introduced. We recommend that you prioritise this as a matter of urgency. In May, the Government revealed its draft Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill to empower the DMU. But the unit is likely to remain toothless until at least next year. During the Tory leadership race, Liz Truss committed to prioritising approval for the draft Bill this autumn. In the meantime, the EU has introduced its own pro-competition framework called the Digital Markets Act. This is set to be published this Autumn and come into force by Spring 2023. Deputy National Assembly Speaker Chung Jin-suk was set to leave for Japan on Monday to attend this week's state funeral for late former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Chung will make the three-day trip to Tokyo, leading a group of lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties belonging to the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians' Union aimed at increasing parliamentary exchanges between the two countries. Eight lawmakers are travelling with Chung. Later Monday, Chung's delegation plans to meet with the leaders of Japan's main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito, the junior coalition partner of Japan's ruling party, and have a dinner meeting with Japanese members of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians' Union. On Tuesday, Chung plans to attend Abe's funeral in his capacity as head of Korea's government delegation, together with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo. The rest will not attend the funeral. This marks Chung's first visit to Japan since becoming head of the parliamentary friendship union. Han, meanwhile, will hold a meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on the sidelines of the funeral, according to the foreign ministry. Discussions are also under way to arrange a meeting between Han and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, officials said. (Yonhap) Andrew Marr, the former BBC political editor and presenter, is a man I like and admire. So it saddens me to see that he appears to have launched a campaign to encourage our new King to become the focal point of opposition to the policies of our equally new Prime Minister. In his column for the preeminent left-of-centre magazine, the New Statesman, Marr declared that the current state of politics in the UK had caused him to 'rethink some of what I have written before about the man who is now King Charles. Like many, I've always argued that on the throne he must relinquish his previous views and campaigning a King who meddles in politics would seem to be in particular danger'. A friend who knows both Truss and King Charles quite well explained to me just how diametrically opposed the two are in their world view: 'He is a romantic pastoralist. She is all about ruthless efficiency, and has no great attachment to the countryside: she sees it purely as a means of production' Now, however, Marr has decided that 'to put it bluntly, Right-wing ministers thinking about a difficult election in 2024 and with a record of hostility to 'green c**p', can't be trusted. A King who feels differently might be the best short-term argument for the monarchy'. A week later, Marr spied the opportunity for Sir Keir Starmer to identify Labour's opposition to Liz Truss's policies with Buckingham Palace. Prophet This would be achieved, he said, not just by opening the party's annual conference with a rendition of God Save The King (now done) but also 'the apparent determination of the new government to ditch net zero [carbon emissions] something the King will loathe gives Labour a great opportunity'. The King's Party, no less. But the leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, Sir Ed Davey, is also bidding for the political equivalent of a royal warrant. Television cameras recorded the opening of his meeting (along with other opposition party leaders) with Charles III in the week of the Queen's death. The BBC's microphones picked up the opening words between the two men. King Charles: 'I have not seen you for far too long.' Sir Ed Davey: 'I would love to come to talk to you about similar issues on the environment and climate change in due course.' Those are the issues which have long gripped the King, and on which he counts himself as a prophet, so this was doubtless music to royal ears. Andrew Marr, the former BBC political editor and presenter, is a man I like and admire. So it saddens me to see that he appears to have launched a campaign to encourage our new King to become the focal point of opposition to the policies of our equally new Prime Minister As Energy and Climate Change Secretary in the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government, it was Davey who, in 2012, imposed the regulation which required companies fracking for gas to halt work if their drilling triggered tremors over 0.5 magnitude on the Richter scale. That is vastly more restrictive than the limits imposed on other extractive industries, and put a stop to the whole business. Indeed, in 2019 Davey told a Channel 4 interviewer: 'I'm very proud that you're looking at the person who basically stopped the fracking industry in this country.' But Liz Truss has immediately scrapped that rule, as part of her drive to boost British gas production: sensibly so, as the logical response to the crisis caused by over-reliance in Europe on gas from Russia is to produce more of our own. The new Truss administration has also ditched schemes intended to block North Sea oil and gas projects deemed 'incompatible' with our 'net zero' commitments. No doubt, all this will give King Charles conniptions and even more if Truss agrees to the onshore gas companies' request that their projects are designated as 'nationally strategic infrastructure', which would short-circuit the otherwise painfully slow planning process. Sir Ed Davey meeting Prince Charles on September 10. The monarch opened their conversation by saying: 'I have not seen you for far too long.' Sir Ed responded: 'I would love to come to talk to you about similar issues on the environment and climate change in due course' This would be in line with what the Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced last week: a total of 40 new 'investment zones' across England, where existing habitat planning regulations would be eased, to promote growth. This, along with other de-regulation promised by Liz Truss, provoked the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to issue the following (hysterical) statement: 'Where you live, the wildlife and places you love, from the shires to the cities all under threat from bulldozers, from concrete.' Romantic That might tear at King Charles's heartstrings but it will bother Truss not one whit. In yesterday's Mail on Sunday, she wrote that her administration would be 'focusing relentlessly on economic growth Everything we do will be tested against whether it helps our economy to grow or holds it back'. For King Charles, however, growth is the problem, not the solution. He has long believed this, declaring in a speech in 2009 that 'nature' could not survive the quest for 'unlimited growth' and that 'poverty, stress and ill-health seem reluctant to respond to the cure of yet more consumption'. Five years later, as Environment Secretary, Liz Truss issued a pointed rebuttal to that philosophy, criticising the call to 'feel guilty about buying more stuff', and adding: 'It's all been about having less, but it can and should be about having more.' As this former declared republican (when a student politician) might have been thinking, but wouldn't say: it's easy for people living in inheritance tax-exempt palaces to denounce 'having more'; but how can the state fund the better public services the public demands, if not through economic growth? A friend who knows both Truss and King Charles quite well explained to me just how diametrically opposed the two are in their world view: 'He is a romantic pastoralist. She is all about ruthless efficiency, and has no great attachment to the countryside: she sees it purely as a means of production.' But will this provoke Charles to play the role demanded by Andrew Marr and the ecologically-minded British journalist Aris Roussinos? He wrote on the UnHerd website last week that 'our constitution grants our monarch greater power than the Queen chose to exercise, and we are fortunate that our new King possesses a willingness to intercede in public life'. My friend, who has experience of the interactions between Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Westminster, thinks not: 'Charles will try very hard to restrain himself. And his team will help him try to hide the strength of his feelings. He will take the advice to be circumspect. Dangerous 'The thing is, even if he felt particularly upset by the policies of his Prime Minister, what could he actually do? Even if he was being implored by the RSPB or the Wildfowl And Wetland Trust to stop her plans to demolish obstacles to development in rural areas, what could he do? He might grumble over a drink with Rory Stewart [the former Tory cabinet minister who tutored Princes William and Harry], but nothing would happen.' We have Charles's word for that. In a television interview to mark his 70th birthday in 2018, asked if he would intervene in issues as King, in the way he did as Prince of Wales, he responded: 'I'm not that stupid. I do realise that it is a separate exercise, being Sovereign. I understand entirely how that should operate.' And in the week his mother died, Charles pledged to 'maintain the precious principles of constitutional government which lie at the heart of our nation'. That, as Winston Churchill once summarised it, is 'the separation of pomp from power'. It would be immensely dangerous, above all for the institution of the monarchy, if Charles were seduced by Marr, or any of the King's many admirers within the environmentalist movement, into putting what they regard as duty to the planet ahead of duty to the democratic constitutional order he has sworn to uphold. It is true the new King has a mystical view of monarchy and its connections with the eternal interests of humanity as a whole. But a previous King Charles, convinced of the imperative of his own divine insights, paid the ultimate price for challenging Parliament. And while it is fashionable to point out that Truss has not won a general election, her status legitimately rests on being the leader of a parliamentary majority. It is for that body to challenge and if the votes are there to defeat her. The idea that King Charles should usurp any part of that function would risk everything his mother worked so long to protect. Eyewitnesses to a rollercoaster crash that left a woman, 26, fighting for life claim she had been on the ride. Horrified families watched on as the chaos unfolded at The Rebel Coaster on Sunday with paramedics treating the woman for serious facial injuries at the scene before taking her to hospital in a critical condition. On Monday, police claimed the woman was struck by the ride at the Royal Melbourne Show while trying to retrieve her mobile phone from the tracks. A woman in her 20's has been rushed to hospital after being injured on a ride at the Royal Melbourne Show. Pictured: The Rebel Coaster at the Royal Melbourne Show But witnesses have cast doubt on the cause, claiming the young woman had been onboard the rollercoaster. 'She flew from the ride, loud bang. Followed by a scream and very loud crack of her hitting the ground,' one eye witness stated on social media. 'I was standing right next to it when it happened. Poor girl laying in a large pool of blood as medical response was so slow!' 'My daughter was there too and they have called Crimestoppers as they felt like she had fallen from the ride too,' another person wrote. Passengers on the ride had been left stranded atop the rollercoaster for hours after the ride was shut down. One witness, who had been positioned next to the ride, claimed police assertions the woman had been retrieving a phone were not accurate. 'I did not see her walking or climbing on the tracks at all, we saw her flying from the ride, where she landed and how she landed is not consistent with being hit,' a woman claimed. 'Not from what we witnessed. We were standing right next to the ride when it happened.' The witness had taken her young son on the ride shortly before the accident. 'We saw her fall from the ride, (heard) the scream and the crack of her hitting the ground. My husband was one of the first on the scene. We were standing right next to it when it happened ,' she said. In a statement issued by Victoria Police, investigators claimed the woman 'may' have walked onto the track to try and retrieve a dropped phone. 'Sadly the woman was then found injured on the ground,' police stated. Others on the ride were left stranded atop the rollercoaster for some time with the ride immediately shut down A woman remains in a critical condition after a tragic rollercoaster incident in Melbourne One passenger alleged they were forced to carry their personal belongings with them onto the ride. 'They made you take your belongings on the ride with you! I went on Friday and they made me take my bag and bottle of coke on it. I was freaking out that I was going to drop something,' the woman stated. 'You didn't have a choice. I was on it today and had to take my sunglasses and hold on to them very tightly. They should have had lockers,' another said. A spokesperson for The Royal Melbourne Show told Daily Mail Australia it was working with authorities to ascertain how the tragedy happened. 'We are working closely with the ride operator, WorkSafe Victoria and Victoria Police to investigate the issue further, however we can confirm that no one has fallen from the ride,' it said. 'The ride in question will be closed for the foreseeable future and updates will be made as information comes to hand. 'The visitor has been taken to hospital for further assessment. 'The safety and well-being of our visitors to the Show is our number one priority.' The family-friendly event is running from September 19 to 29 after being cancelled for the past two years due to the Covid pandemic. Brexit was never intended to end immigration into this country. It was about reclaiming the power to decide who should and who should not be allowed to live here. So reports that Liz Truss is to extend the visa system, allowing some key sectors of the economy to recruit more overseas workers, shouldn't come as a great surprise. In agriculture, for example, there has been a shortage of seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers. If those vacancies can't be filled domestically, it makes sense to look abroad. However, entry into this country cannot become a free-for-all, or the entire concept of taking back control is rendered a sham. There have been endless pledges from politicians to stem this human tide but so far without even a glimmer of success. Migrants are seen being brought into Dover by Border Force earlier this month The numbers are huge more than 30,000 this year placing impossible demands on local authorities and threatening to overwhelm some communities. Migrants are seen arriving on the beach at Folkestone earlier this month Yet every day, hundreds of illegal migrants are crossing the Channel in small boats with little or no hindrance from the authorities. The vast majority are not seeking safety from persecution. What they want is work, housing, free healthcare and all the other benefits Britain offers. The numbers are huge more than 30,000 this year placing impossible demands on local authorities and threatening to overwhelm some communities. There have been endless pledges from politicians to stem this human tide but so far without even a glimmer of success. As we report today, the Home Office believes challenges by Left-wing campaigners may leave the Rwanda scheme, under which asylum seekers would be sent to Africa while their claims were considered, in limbo for up to a year. So what's the alternative strategy? It must be quick and it must be effective. Faith in the system is crumbling. Without urgent action it will collapse altogether. Right royal stunt Asking Labour conference delegates to put down the Red Flag and pick up the Royal Standard was always going to be tricky. And so it proved yesterday. After a short, awkward speech in praise of the late Queen, Sir Keir Starmer who himself once advocated the abolition of the monarchy asked the comrades to join a rendition of God Save the King. Presumably worried they might not actually know it, party managers brought in a professional soprano to help them with the tune and handed round crib cards inscribed with the lyrics. After a short, awkward speech in praise of the late Queen, Sir Keir Starmer who himself once advocated the abolition of the monarchy asked the comrades to join a rendition of God Save the King Even then, this sudden burst of royalism was less than convincing. Indeed, some union delegates found they had more important things to do and stayed away. If Sir Keir was hoping to rebut the charge that Labour is unpatriotic and riddled with class envy, he has a lot more work to do. One desultory verse of the National Anthem doesn't quite cut it. Two faces of Labour As Kwasi Kwarteng doubled down on his radical tax-cutting mission yesterday promising more help soon for families Labour's response descended into confusion, with the party leader and his deputy singing from different hymn sheets. Sir Keir said he would retain the 1p cut in the basic rate of income tax, while Angela Rayner (backed by Manchester mayor Andy Burnham), pledged to rescind it. And this is not the only issue on which Labour's two most senior figures resemble Doctor Dolittle's pushmi-pullyu joined at the hip but with two heads facing in opposite directions. While Sir Keir is trying to distance his party from the ruinous campaign of coordinated union strikes, Miss Rayner is happily joining the picket line. Labour is still two parties, one seeking to move closer to the centre after the humiliations of Corbynism, the other still unashamedly hard-Left. Sir Keir has cobbled together a flimsy coalition of these opposing forces but the cracks are showing. The question is not whether it will fall apart but when. The widow of a man who was shot dead by Somali pirates claims the man convicted of his murder is innocent and says she is supporting his bid for freedom. Judith Tebbutt, 67, and her husband David were abducted by armed Somali pirates from a beach resort in Kenya in 2011. David was shot dead and Judith was held hostage for six months. She was released after a ransom payment, reputedly around 600,000, was paid by her family. Former hotel worker Ali Babitu Kololo - the only person ever convicted in relation to the murder and kidnapping - was given a death sentence in 2013, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. But now Mrs Tebutt says she is supporting Kololo's bid for freedom, accusing Scotland Yard detectives of using him as a 'scapegoat' and failing to find her true attackers. Judith Tebbutt, 67, and her husband David (pictured together) were abducted by armed Somali pirates from a beach resort in Kenya in 2011 Ali Babitu Kololo (pictured) was the only person ever convicted in relation to the murder and kidnapping The former social worker told the Sunday Times : 'I believe he is an innocent man and should be freed. 'I know for sure that he wasn't part of that group that took me that night. 'You could go so far as to say he was a bit of a scapegoat... when he was put in prison. The people that took me are still out there'. A few days after the kidnap, a team of counter-terrorism detectives from the Met Police flew to Kenya to help with the investigation Mr and Mrs Tebbutt were kidnapped from the Kiwayu Safari Village Beach resort (pictured) in Kenya, near the border with Somalia The head of the Met's investigation team, detective chief inspector Neil Hibberd, was the prosecution's key witness during Kololo's trial in a Kenyan court. An Independent Office for Police Conduct investigation found earlier this year that there was a 'suspicion' that now retired DCI Hibberd 'would have a case to answer for gross misconduct' in relation to the evidence he provided in the trial. But Commander Richard Smith, from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command said there is no avenue to investigate Mr Hibberd, who was later promoted to detective superintendent, as he retired before December 2017. China said there were 'positive signals' its troubled relationship with Australia was getting back on 'the right track' after the two nations' foreign ministers met in New York. In what seems to be a growing diplomatic thaw, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had only good things to say after talks with Australia's Penny Wong on the sidelines of a UN session. 'The Chinese side stands ready to work with the Australian side to seriously take stock of experience, properly manage differences, and steer the sound and steady development of bilateral relations,' China's foreign ministry said in a statement. Australian foreign minister Penny Wong met with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of a UN session in New York 'The two sides should meet each other halfway, uphold a more positive mindset, send more positive signals, tell more stories of win-win cooperation. 'We should follow the spirit of mutual respect to steer bilateral relations back on the right track as early as possible.' Major 'unmanageable differences' between China and Australia emerged after the former Morrison government called for a deeper investigation into the origin of Covid. Trade wars erupted as Beijing also expressed anger at Australia's decision to buy nuclear-powered submarines as part the AUKUS defence pact with the US and UK, while Australia spoke out against China's claim on disputed South Sea islands. Ms Wong expressed hopes volatile relations might be entering a period of calm, with economic openness restored. The government of Anthony Albanese has made improving relations with China a major selling point 'I think it is a long road on which many steps will have to be taken by both parties to a more stable relationship,' she said. 'In terms of issues of difference, obviously first amongst them is the issue of trade blockages, and that is the issue I focussed on at the outset.' China also expressed its commitment to 'trade liberalization and facilitation' and 'building an open world economy'. Ms Wong urged China, which is often seen as an ally to Russia, to use its UN position of power as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, to help end the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. 'China is a great power,' she said. 'We encourage China as a P5 member with a special responsibility to uphold the UN charter to use its influence to end the war.' China's ambassador to Australia has raised the possibility of a meeting between Mr Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping (pictured) Ms Wong said she also raised the issue of Australian journalist Cheng Lei and blogger Yang Hengjun, who have been detained in China on charges of spying and denied any family contact. The Albanese ministry has made improving relationships with China a major point of difference between itself and last Coalition government. It appears to be working as earlier this month China's ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, raised the possibility of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meeting with Chinese President Xi Jipang. 'It's very important for countries like China and Australia to keep in touch at various levels, including top levels,' he said. Australian journalist Cheng Lei is being held in China on spying charges and has been denied family visits 'I've been trying to compare notes with our Australian colleagues in DFAT to see how we can move forward to create an atmosphere that'd be conducive to a possible top level meeting.' Ms Wong's meeting with Mr Wang was held on the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam Labor government's establishment of diplomatic relations between Australia and the Chinese communist government in 1972. Many western governments did not recognise the Chinese Communist Party's rule for decades after they seized power in 1949. A 19-year-old woman has died after being thrown across an intersection when her e-scooter collided with a car. Emergency services were called to the corner of Drakeford Drive and O'Halloran Circuit in Kambah, Canberra, at about 3.10pm on Sunday following reports of a scooter and car accident. Police said the female scooter rider was not wearing a helmet when she smashed into the car. A 19-year-old woman has died after she was thrown across an intersection when her e-scooter collided with a car (pictured) She was thrown a 'substantial distance' across the intersection. The young woman was rushed to The Canberra Hospital with serious head and leg injuries and was later pronounced dead. ACT Policing's Major Collision Team are investigating the crash and will pass on their findings to the Coroner. Detective Acting Inspector Paul Hutcheson, officer in charge of road policing, offered condolences to the family and friends of the young woman in a statement on Monday. 'This is another tragic and preventable death of a young Canberran on ACT roads,' Detective Hutcheson said. 'The impacts of this incident are very significant and wide-ranging throughout the community.' Detective Hutcheson added: 'any of our vulnerable road users who are using scooters, e-scooters, bicycles, or skateboards on and around our roadways to slow down, check the road before you enter or cross and please wear your helmet.' The young woman's death marks the 12th road fatality in the Australian Capital Territory this year and the first e-scooter related death. Police are urging anyone who witnessed or captured dashcam footage of the accident to contact Crime Stoppers via the ACT website or on 1800 333 000. It's understood the e-scooter the woman was riding was not from a Canberra public-hire operator. Police revealed the young woman was not wearing a helmet. An investigation into the accident is ongoing (pictured, police examining the woman's e-scooter) It marks the 12th road fatality in the Australian Capital Territory this year and the first e-scooter related death (pictured) Rules around the popular devices vary state to state in Australia, with some banning the scooters while others enforce a list of strict requirements on the riders. Electric scooter laws in the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, and Western Australia allow riders to drive e-scooters with a normal driver's license. However, in the Australian Capital Territory, NSW, Tasmania, and Victoria, riders must complete training before taking the devices for a spin with their e-scooters to meet certain requirements. Riders in Canberra are required to wear a helmet at all times while operating their device and are not permitted on roads or on-road bicycle lanes, unless a residential street does not have a footpath. In July 2022, NSW introduced a shared e-scooter scheme which allowed tourists and locals alike to rent a scooter from an approved provider and ride it at a select trial location - Western Sydney Parklands and Australian Botanic Gardens. Riders who take their devices for a spin outside the permitted trial locations could be slapped with a $697 on-the-spot fine for riding a prohibited or uninsured vehicle on NSW roads or pavements. Shylah Rodden sustained horrific injuries in a rollercoaster accident in Melbourne on Sunday A Melbourne woman has brain damage after suffering 'horrific' injuries in a shocking rollercoaster incident that saw her plunge nine metres. Shylah Rodden, 26, remains in an intensive care unit after sustaining 'horrific' injuries in the accident at the Royal Melbourne Show on Sunday. Her father, Alan Rodden, told Daily Mail Australia mystery surrounds how Shylah came to grief on the ride, name The Rebel Coaster. 'There are a lot of stories going around and I don't know which one is true and if someone is covering their tracks,' he said. On Monday, police claimed Shylah was struck by the ride at the show while trying to retrieve her mobile phone from the tracks. Eyewitnesses to the tragedy claim the rollercoaster had crashed into her and carried her up to 9m high into the air before she plunged to the ground. Shylah Rodden and her sister Caisha in happier times. Shylah is fighting for life in hospital A woman in her 20's has been rushed to hospital after being injured on a ride at the Royal Melbourne Show. Pictured: The Rebel Coaster at the Royal Melbourne Show Horrified families watched on as the chaos unfolded with paramedics treating Shylah for serious facial injuries at the scene before taking her to hospital in a critical condition. Mr Rodden suggested his to Daily Mail Australia that his daughter had suffered life changing injuries. 'Obviously I can't talk to my daughter. She's going to be in a coma for quite a while,' he said. 'The injuries are horrific. Horrific. She's brain damaged. It's pelvic, her arms, legs, back, neck - there's hardly a thing that's not broken. 'I just can't work out how the hell so much damage has been done. 'Even the doctors have said they haven't seen anything as bad as this for a long time.' Shylah Rodden had been working at the show when she apparently decided to go on the rollercoaster during a break Shylah Rodden is fighting for life after a shocking rollercoaster crash in Melbourne Shylah Rodden had nearly every bone in her body broken in the shocking accident Shylah's sister Caisha Rodden told Daily Mail Australia her sister had been working at the show. 'Shylah was actually there working. She was helping out her friend at her stall for the day and she was sent on her break with another worker and they decided to go on a few rides to kill time and this happened unfortunately,' she said. Caisha lashed out at cruel trolls who hit social media to mock her critically ill sister. 'Its sad and disgusting to see the false stories and cover up when my sister is fighting for her life,' Caisha said. While police maintain Shylah had been attempting to retrieve her phone, some eye witnesses claim she had been onboard the rollercoaster. 'She flew from the ride, loud bang. Followed by a scream and very loud crack of her hitting the ground,' one eye witness stated on social media. 'I was standing right next to it when it happened. Poor girl laying in a large pool of blood as medical response was so slow!' 'My daughter was there too and they have called Crimestoppers as they felt like she had fallen from the ride too,' another person wrote. Passengers on the ride had been left stranded atop the rollercoaster for hours after the ride was shut down. Others on the ride were left stranded atop the rollercoaster for some time with the ride immediately shut down One witness, who had been positioned next to the ride, claimed police assertions the woman had been retrieving a phone were not accurate. 'I did not see her walking or climbing on the tracks at all, we saw her flying from the ride, where she landed and how she landed is not consistent with being hit,' a woman claimed. 'Not from what we witnessed. We were standing right next to the ride when it happened.' The witness had taken her young son on the ride shortly before the accident. 'We saw her fall from the ride, (heard) the scream and the crack of her hitting the ground. My husband was one of the first on the scene. We were standing right next to it when it happened ,' she said. In a statement issued by Victoria Police, investigators claimed the woman 'may' have walked onto the track to try and retrieve a dropped phone. 'Sadly the woman was then found injured on the ground,' police stated. A woman remains in a critical condition after a tragic rollercoaster incident in Melbourne One passenger alleged they were forced to carry their personal belongings with them onto the ride. 'They made you take your belongings on the ride with you! I went on Friday and they made me take my bag and bottle of coke on it. I was freaking out that I was going to drop something,' the woman stated. 'You didn't have a choice. I was on it today and had to take my sunglasses and hold on to them very tightly. They should have had lockers,' another said. A spokesperson for The Royal Melbourne Show told Daily Mail Australia it was working with authorities to ascertain how the tragedy happened. Speaking to ABC Mornings host Virginia Trioli on Monday, Show CEO Brad Jenkins refused to say whether there was a fence around the ride or how high that fence was. 'I cant comment specifically on that particular ride,' he said. 'There [are] operators down at each of the rides.' A video published on YouTube in 2021 from aboard the ride when it was at the Sydney Royal Easter Show shows a fence around the ride appearing to be no higher than 1.5m. Mr Jenkins maintained Shylah had gone to recover her phone when she was hit. 'From all reports shes gone to recover her phone. Its not a malfunction or whatever,' he said. He would not say exactly how she got on to the tracks. Victoria Police and WorkSafe are investigating the incident. Anyone who witnesses it should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. A teen passenger tragically killed after his best mate lost control of his car and crashed into a telegraph pole was about to sit his HSC and was four days away from celebrating his 18th birthday, his grieving mother revealed. Zakariya Rahim, 17, spent Saturday night posing for photos with his mum and siblings at a family wedding, not knowing they were the last moments they would spend time together. A few hours later, the Year 12 student lost his life after his friend veered off the main thoroughfare at Hoxton Park in Sydney's south-west early Sunday morning. The latest tragedy comes just three weeks after five teenagers were killed in a horror crash at Buxton south-west of Sydney. Just last Wednesday, his mother Sofina Khan proudly shared photos of her beaming son Zak in his graduation gown and cap during a ceremony at Hoxton Park High School. This is one of the last photos of Zakariya Rahim (left), pictured with his sister and brother at a family wedding on Saturday 'I can't believe you have grown up so much into this very handsome, caring and strong soldier I wish you brightest future, inshallah. Love you so much and you always make feel like proud mum,' Ms Khan posted on Facebook. On Saturday, she shared photos of Zak, other son Jude and daughter Zaiba attending their cousin's wedding. 'My world,' she captioned a photo of the siblings. The shattered mum broke her silence on Monday to insist the family has no hard feelings towards the green P-plate driver, 17, who remains in hospital. She is praying for a speedy recovery for her son's friend, just as Zakariya would be. Ms Khan also paid gutwrenching tribute to her youngest son with a heart of gold. Year 12 student Zakariya Rahim (pictured at his high school graduation ceremony last Wednesday) was about to celebrate his 18th birthday 'He was the one who could brighten up any dull moment. He had an amazing personality and a bright future ahead of him and had already planned what he wanted to do after his HSC,' Ms Khan told the Daily Telegraph. 'We don't have words to describe how we feel right now. He was an obedient child and very respectful to young and old.' 'He (Zak) was of a very forgiving nature, therefore he would pray for his best friend who was driving to recover and we want the same.' Zak was due to celebrate his 18th birthday in four days time. 'RIP Zak Rahim taken so soon always in our heart in four days you would have turn 18 will be missed by all of us especially your first cousins and family,' a relative posted. The school will provide counselling for shattered students. Emergency services rushed Hoxton Park Road shortly after 3.30am on Sunday after reports a white Toyota Camry crashed into a pole. Sofina Khan (pictured with her two sons on Saturday) said Zak (left) had a heart of gold who would be wishing his best mate injured in the crash a speedy recovery The busy thoroughfare through Hoxton Park was closed for several hours on Sunday morning as crash Investigation Unit officers examined the scene. Residents have recalled being woken up by the crash, followed by the driver's frantic screams for his friend trapped inside the vehicle. 'There was someone standing there saying, 'help me, my friend's inside still',' one local recalled Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the crash continue. Anyone who has information or may have dashcam footage is urged to contact police. Zakariya Rahim died after his best mate lost control of his car and slammed into a power pole at Hoxton Park early Sunday morning (pictured, emergency responders at the crash scene) The tragedy occurred less than three weeks after after a horror smash at Buxton near Picton in Sydney's south-west that killed five teens aged between 14 and 16. Tyrell Edwards, 18, faces five charges of dangerous driving after his five passengers, were killed in the high-speed crash on the night of September 6. The three girls and two boys killed in the accident were all friends from Picton High School. Antonio Desisto, Tyrese Bechard, Summer Williams, Lily Van De Putte and Gabriella McLennan - all aged between 14 and 16 - died when a Nissan Navara ute veered off the road in Buxton. The driver, Edwards, escaped the smash with non life-threatening injuries and remains behind bars. Ten days after the crash, five teens miraculously survived after their car slammed into a pole at Beverly Hills in Sydney's south. The driver Jordan Tye Maaka, 18, was charged with dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, negligent driving causing grievous bodily harm, three counts of causing injury while in charge of motor vehicle and driving while suspended. He was bailed to reappear in Sutherland Local Court next month. The US was accused of risking starting war with their combined naval exercises North Korea has accused the US of risking starting a war after they held their first combined naval exercise with South Korea in five years. The joint drills, which took place near to the peninsula today, came a day after nuclear-armed Pyongyang conducted another ballistic missile launch. The four-day exercise on South Korea's east coast will involve more than 20 vessels and an assortment of aircraft, which will conduct drills for anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare operations, tactical manoeuvres and other maritime operations, the navy said. At the United Nations, North Korea's ambassador, Kim Song, said that the exercises draw 'serious concern.' 'Obviously, this is an extremely dangerous act of igniting the fuse to drive the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of war,' he told the General Assembly. The North, who have held a record-breaking blitz of weapons tests this year, revised its nuclear weapons law, enshrining a 'first strike' doctrine and vowing never to give up its nukes. After years of failed diplomacy with North Korea under his predecessor, South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol has vowed to beef up joint military drills with the United States. 'This exercise was prepared to demonstrate the strong will of the South Korea-US alliance to respond to North Korean provocations,' the South's navy said in a statement. South Korea and the United States began their first combined naval exercise near the peninsula in five years on Monday, leading to a warning by North Korea that the allies risked triggering war (Pictured: USS Ronald Reagan) A North Korean representative said the join naval exercises were 'an extremely dangerous act' that risked starting a war The drills came just a day after Pyongyang conducted another ballistic missile launch Kim told the United Nations that the United States 'compelled' action by the North, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 'The US should clearly understand that its heinous, hostile policy against the DPRK over the past 30 years has brought about today's reality and ask itself and ponder how far it will prolong this situation.' Washington is Seoul's key security ally and stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect it from the North. 'Through this exercise, we will further improve the ability to conduct joint operations between the naval forces of the two countries,' Kwak Kwang-sub, a senior South Korean naval officer, said in the statement. North Korea is under multiple sets of international sanctions over its programmes to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. South Korea's hawkish President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, has vowed to beef up joint military exercises with the United States Close neighbour China said it had 'noted' the joint military drills in the region when asked about the missile launch on Monday, and called for 'dialogue and consultation'. 'The main issue is that the North Korean side's legitimate and reasonable concerns have not received due response,' foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a routine briefing. 'The US should shoulder its own responsibilities, stop confrontation and pressure, and create conditions for the resumption of meaningful dialogue.' Seoul has also detected signs the North is preparing to fire a submarine-launched ballistic missile, the president's office said Saturday, a weapon Pyongyang last tested in May. Washington and Seoul have long carried out joint exercises, which they insist are purely defensive. North Korea, however, sees them as rehearsals for an invasion. Last month, the United States and South Korea staged their biggest combined military drills since 2018 -- the resumption of large-scale training sessions that had been scaled back due to Covid-19 and the period of diplomacy with Pyongyang. Advertisement New Zealand is reflecting on the life of Queen Elizabeth II with a minute's silence and a public holiday to honour her service. Sixteen days since the monarch's death, dignitaries and officials gathered at Wellington Cathedral of St Paul on Monday for a national service. New Zealanders stopped for a minute of reflection at 2pm (NZDT) at the top of the service. Governor General Dame Cindy Kiro led tributes for the monarch in the capital, with hundreds at the house of worship including current and former governors general, prime ministers, MPs and mayors. New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern, her husband Clarke Gayford and their daughter Neve, four, attend a memorial service for the Queen in NZ (pictured) New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (L) and Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro (R) look on during a State Memorial Service for Queen Elizabeth II at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul on Monday 'She strove to faithfully serve all the peoples of the Commonwealth to whom she pledged her life,' Dame Cindy said. 'The Queen asked of us simply to have faith in her commitment ... in return, our Queen gave us a lifetime.' Hundreds more gathered outside parliament, bringing rugs and chairs to sit on the lawns and watch an outside broadcast of proceedings. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern read an extract from the Queen's first royal visit to New Zealand in 1953-54 describing the Queen's departure from the country. After five weeks in New Zealand, the royal couple left from Bluff - the southernmost town on South Island - sailing to Milford Sound before travelling on to Australia. 'With no crowds to acclaim them, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh gazed lingeringly at the splendid scenic wonder epitomising the beauty of the land they were leaving, until the Royal yacht turned again and headed into the open sea,' Ms Ardern read. Ms Ardern's four-year-old daughter Neve was among the youngest attendees, spending most of the service in her father's arms and observing the minute's silence. Queen Elizabeth II laid the cathedral's foundation stone almost seven decades ago Queen Elizabeth laid the foundation stone for the cathedral, 68 years ago. The Queen visited New Zealand 10 times during the first 50 years of her reign, the last visit in 2002 for her golden jubilee. At a state dinner on that occasion, Queen Elizabeth said she admired New Zealanders' 'increasing energy and confidence', describing the 'enduring values' of Kiwis. 'A sense of fairness and justice; a willingness to be outward-looking; a natural compassion for others; and above all an individuality of approach, which somehow has a very powerful connection with the rich diversity of this beautiful land,' she said. Hundreds of New Zealanders gathered outside the cathedral as Ms Ardern spoke of Queen Elizabeth's commitment to service Attendees sang Psalm 23, beginning 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want', the same tune sung at the monarch's wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947 and at her state funeral last week. Several clergy led the service, including Bishop of Wellington; Justin Duckworth, Pihopa o Te Upoko o Te Ika; Waitohiariki Quayle, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington; Cardinal John Dew. A New Zealand Defence Force band accompanied young choristers from the cathedral and a nationally selected choir of adults. Piper Murray Mansfield, New Zealand's leading bagpiper, also performed. The service was the last time the Queen's personal flag for New Zealand was paraded by the New Zealand Defence Force, with a new royal standard to be designed for King Charles III. British Ambassador to Korea Colin Crooks gives a tour of his residence to Korean media ahead of Jeongdong Culture Night, Friday. Yonhap By Kwon Mee-yoo Jeong-dong area is known as a diplomatic center in Korea's early modern history and is still home to several embassies in Seoul. As Jeongdong Culture Night, a festival celebrating the history and culture of the neighborhood in the heart of Seoul, returned from a two-year hiatus last Friday and Saturday, four embassies took part in the festivities. Nestled behind the Seoul Anglican Cathedral near Deoksu Palace, the old U.K. ambassador's residence is a Victorian-style architectural gem and is the only authentic building remaining in the area. The former legation building is now used as the ambassador's residence. British Ambassador Colin Crooks offered a tour of the compound, from Aston Hall to Broughton's Bar. "We took part in this event because we want to take a step closer to the people of Seoul," Crooks said. Rouslan Kats, political, economic & public affairs counsellor of the Canadian Embassy, said the embassy has been participating in the Jeongdong Culture Night festival since 2015. "We moved to Jeong-dong in November 2007. We are very lucky to be located in this beautiful neighborhood," Kats said. "Located in this historic area of Seoul, the embassy reflects many values that Canadians and Koreans share, including a passion for the environment, an appreciation of the unique culture found in both countries and a commitment to protect and promote our cultural heritage." The Canadian Embassy in Seoul re-created the iconic red door from the Korean drama "Goblin" in front of the embassy building as part of Jeongdong Culture Night, Friday. Courtesy of Canadian Embassy in Korea Kylie Carson, a special counsel specialising in general compensation at Shine Lawyers, said if an Optus customer had a financial loss as a result of the data breach, they would potentially be able to pursue a claim The millions of Optus customers who fell victim to Australia's biggest ever data breach could be able to claim compensation from the telco, a top lawyer says. It comes as the embattled telco offered the 'most affected' customers access to free credit checks with the company Equifax - which suffered a massive data breach of its own in 2017, with some 140million people affected. Up to 11 million Australians have potentially had their personal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, passport details and drivers licences stolen in Optus cyber attack. The data breach, which Optus has apologised for and is investigating, has left many wondering what they can do to protect themselves - and whether they can be financially compensated for what has occurred. Kylie Carson, a special counsel specialising in general compensation at Shine Lawyers, said if an Optus customer had a financial loss as a result of the data breach, they may be able to pursue a claim. There have since been calls for the telco to provide access to credit monitoring services for those affected so they could check if there'd been any suspicious activity in their accounts (stock image) 'To pursue a claim, it would have to be viable and you'd have to prove that Optus didn't do enough and didn't put sufficient things in place to protect your data,' she told Daily Mail Australia. Ms Carson added something like human error would also have the potential for victims to make a claim. 'Optus is vicariously liable for the actions of their employees,' she said. Ms Carson herself was the victim of the data breach. She added Optus was providing customers with 'more questions than answers' and urged people to stay vigilant. 'Everyone should be a bit cautious about the messages and texts they get sent, if it looks suspicious it probably is,' Ms Carson added. Optus on Monday announced the 'most affected' customers would be given a 12-month subscription to credit monitoring and identity protection service Equifax Protect. 'The most affected customers will be receiving direct communications from Optus over the coming days on how to start their subscription at no cost,' the company said. Equifax suffered its own massive data breach in 2017, with 147 million people in the United States affected. The data that was leaked included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers. The breach was announced six weeks after it was discovered and led to a $425million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 50 U.S. states and territories to help those affected. Meanwhile a mysterious hacker claiming to be behind the breach has since demanded Optus hand over $1.5million in ransom money in the form of cryptocurrency Monero, or they will publish the data Australian law firm Slater and Gordon on Monday said they were investigating a possible class action against Optus. The firm's senior associate Ben Zocco said they were assessing possible legal options for those caught in the cyber attack. 'This is potentially the most serious privacy breach in Australian history, both in terms of the number of affected people and the nature of the information disclosed,' Mr Zocco said. 'We consider that the consequences could be particularly serious for vulnerable members of society, such as domestic violence survivors, victims of stalking and other threatening behaviour, and people who are seeking or have previously sought asylum in Australia. 'Given the type of information that has been reportedly disclosed, these people can't simply heed Optus' advice to be on the look-out for scam emails and text messages.' Sydney-based solicitor Jahan Kalantar said he'd already been inundated with Optus customers seeking legal advice about the breach. Pictured is an email sent to one Optus customer informing them their data had been breached 'People will be no doubt making various complaints to the Information and Privacy Commission NSW,' he said. 'And there'll be no doubt furious scrutiny on Optus to how this has happened.' He said those who subscribe to the telco should do everything they can to minimise the exposure like changing their passwords, and making detailed records of the conversations they have with Optus since the breach has happened. Meanwhile a mysterious hacker claiming to be behind the breach has since demanded Optus hand over $1.5million in ransom money in the form of cryptocurrency Monero, or they will publish the data. On Saturday morning the ransom demand, which tech experts believe is legitimate, appeared on an online forum with the hackers warning the telco it had one week to respond. 'Optus if you are reading! price for us to not sale data is 1.000.000$US We give you 1 week to decide,' part of the message read. On Friday morning, CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin made an emotional apology to the millions of Optus customers whose details had been compromised. She confirmed payment details and account passwords were protected but admitted she felt 'terrible' the breach had happened under her watch. 'I think it's a mix of a lot of different emotions,' she said. 'Obviously I am angry that there are people out there that want to do this to our customers, I'm disappointed we couldn't have prevented it. 'I'm very sorry and apologetic. It should not have happened.' Paramedics took her to Bunbury Regional Hospital but she died a short time later She had been guiding the trailer down a driveway when she was hit on Sunday A woman, 64, has died after she was struck by a camper trailer in Bunbury, WA A woman has died after she was struck by a camper trailer that was reversing down a private driveway. Western Australian police were called to a house in the Bunbury suburb of Usher just after 3pm on Sunday. The woman, 64, had been guiding the trailer down the driveway at the property when she was hit. A woman, 64, has died after she was struck and run over by a camper trailer at a property in Bunbury, WA on Sunday (stock image) 'It appears the woman either fell or was knocked to the ground, and was subsequently run over by the camper trailer,' a police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. Paramedics from St John WA arrived at the scene and transported her to Bunbury Regional Hospital. She died a short time later. Her death is not being treated as suspicious. A report will be prepared for the coroner. NASA has been forced to postpone the launch of moon rocket Artemis 1 for a third time as Tropical Storm Ian, which could soon become a hurricane, bears down on Florida. The Tropical Storm has sent panic throughout the state with residents clearing shelves at grocery stores, and now the nation's space program has felt the fear as well, cancelling the launch that was set for Tuesday. Artemis 1 is a space launch vehicle designed to bring astronauts and equipment to and from the moon after a 50-year wait. The last manned mission to the Moon was Apollo 17, taking place from December 7 to December 19 in 1972. The space agency is still deciding whether to bring Artemis 1 back to it's assembly site, and if they do so, they would not be able to launch during the launch window that ends on October 4. NASA officials said they would 'review the latest information on the storm from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Space Force, and the National Hurricane Center' and decide on Monday. Tropical Storm Ian is about to undergo explosive intensification into a major hurricane on its way up to Florida from Grand Cayman Artemis 1, NASA's rocket that aims to bring astronauts back to the moon after a 50-year hiatus, has been postponed again due to the impending Tropical Storm Ian A line of shoppers are seen outside a retail warehouse as Floridians rush to prepare for the storm, which is predicted to be a strong hurricane Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared an emergency across the entire state and its 67 counties on Saturday afternoon, leading to stores full of panicked shoppers The rocket's first launch failed at the end of August due to technical glitches, while the second attempt in September was stopped by a fuel leak. Tropical Storm Ian is expected to strengthen into a hurricane on Monday and reach 'major' hurricane strength - anything Category 3 or above - on Tuesday before it hits Cuba. The storm is expected to make landfall in Florida midweek, either late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, and bring with it 130mph winds. 'Ian is going to be a large and powerful hurricane in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and spread its impacts over a large portion of the Florida peninsula,' said Jamie Rhome, acting director of the National Hurricane Center. 'The surge vulnerability along the west coast of Florida is very extreme,' said Rhome, and pointed out 'it doesnt take an onshore or direct hit from a hurricane to pile up the water.' Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared an emergency across the entire state and its 67 counties on Saturday afternoon in a sign of officials' high concern. The cities of Orlando, Panama City and Tampa are all in Tropical Storm Ian's path, according to the most recent projections The Weather Channel. Parts of Alabama and Georgia are also likely to be affected. Residents in the expected path have been urged to make hurricane preparations as National Hurricane Center officials warn of the higher-than-normal degree of 'uncertainty' in the storm's forecasted path and intensity. DeSantis reiterated the uncertainty surrounding Ian's path, and said 'just dont think if youre not in that eye, that somehow you dont have to make preparations.' DeSantis also warned of the storm's unpredictability and said that residents not in the eye of the storm should still be careful and make preparations A graphic from the National Weather Service shows potential storm surge depths across southern Florida, and warns they will likely be joined by 'large and destructive waves' Cars lineup at a Costco gas station in Orlando, Florida as residents rush to stock up on gasoline ahead of the impending storm The National Hurricane Center issues warnings of storm surges across parts of coastal Florida including the Florida Keys as forecasters predict water levels could rise by several feet. The Center also predicted that some areas of the state could get up to 6 inches of rain through Tuesday evening and warned of potential flash floods. John Cangialosi, a senior hurricane specialist, said Sunday that it is not clear exactly where Ian will hit hardest in Florida. Residents should begin preparations, including gathering supplies for potential power outages, he said. 'It's a hard thing to say stay tuned, but that's the right message right now,' he said. 'It's still time to get your supplies.' Meanwhile, authorities in Cuba are preparing for Tropical Storm Ian by evacuating some areas of the island and suspending classes at schools on the Western part of the island. At 11pm EST on Sunday, Ian was moving northwest at 13 mph, about 140 miles south of Grand Cayman, according to the center. It had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. President Biden also declared an emergency in Florida and activated federal disaster relief aid for the state, just an hour before he cancelled his Florida visit to campaign with Democrat midterm candidates. The lead investigator who uncovered Melissa Caddick's multimillion-dollar fraud claims the conwoman filed her nails and took a nap during the 12-hour raid of her home by ASIC agents and Australian Federal Police officers. Isabella Allen from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission led the formal investigation into Ms Caddick's Ponzi scheme from September 8, 2020 - culminating in a raid months later. She noted Ms Caddick's strange behaviour when her Dover Heights home was searched by officers on November 11, 2020, just hours before the conwoman vanished the following morning. Melissa Caddick (pictured) was seen by lead investigator Isabella Allen filing her nails and taking a nap as investigators searched her home It comes as an inquest into Ms Caddick's disappearance heard that Ms Allen does not believe the Ms Caddick was tipped off before her house was raided - even though she started shredding documents shortly after the investigation commenced. On September 14, ASIC conducted a telephone interview with one of her investors, Dominique Ogilvie, about the investigation. 'We said if (Ms Ogilvie) were to run into Ms Caddick or have subsequent phone calls or speak to her, she could speak to her freely but keep the contents of our conversation confidential,' Ms Allen said. Data obtained from Ms Caddick's mobile phone indicated that she had been searching for shredding services that evening, Ms Allen told the NSW Coroner's Court on Monday. A day later she booked the services of Shred-X for business document destruction at her home. Following the extensive search warrant conducted on November 11 at Ms Caddick's home, Ms Allen her team looked closely at some of the evidence shredded. She determined it was not the result of her being 'tipped off by anyone.' Meanwhile, her luxurious five-bedroom, four-bathroom eastern suburbs home has come on the market, the prime asset in the estate of Caddick, 49, who disappeared on November 12, 2020. The Dover Heights mansion boasts uninterrupted and expansive views of Sydney Harbour and a 'stunning pool', which receivers hope will fetch at least $10 million. The conwoman's home (pictured) was raided by ASIC and the AFP on November 11, 2020. Ms Caddick vanished the following morning Investigators rummaged through the Dover Heights property for 12 hours. Ms Allen believes Ms Caddick was not tipped off before her house was searched Bruce Gleeson from Jones Partners, the receivers of Melissa Caddick and liquidators of Maliver, said the sale campaign would be conducted via an expressions of interest until October 31. 'We are also well advanced and close to finalising an application to the Federal Court which will seek sale orders regarding the designer jewellery, clothing and artworks,' Mr Gleeson said in a statement on Monday. The last verified sighting of Ms Caddick was when ASIC and the Australian Federal Police raided her mansion on November 11, 2020. Ms Caddick's mother Barbara Grimley holds ASIC responsible for her daughter's suspected death, saying she was highly distressed during the raid and was not allowed any food or water. The AFP's Constable Amelia Griffen shadowed Ms Caddick for the majority of the 12-hour search and confirmed she did make herself food and was allowed to leave the property whenever she wished. On Monday Const Griffen returned to the witness box and reaffirmed she watched Ms Caddick make herself a protein smoothie in the morning. 'I recall having a conversation with her that she was free to roam around the premises if she wished to do so, Const Griffen said. Ms Allen confirmed during the raid Ms Caddick was observed filing her nails 'from time to time,' and taking a nap in the afternoon. Her husband Anthony Koletti reported the 49-year-old as missing some 30 hours after he says she walked out of their home for the last time on November 12 about 5.30am to 'go for a jog'. In February 2021 Ms Caddick's decomposing foot encased in an Asics shoe washed ashore at Bournda Beach on the NSW south coast, about 400km south of Sydney. She preyed on mostly friends and family, and stole up to $30 million between 2013 and 2020, counsel assisting Jason Downing SC earlier told the court. The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan continues. A mysterious figure claiming to be the hacker who stole the personal data of up to 10million Australians from Optus has warned the telco it has just five days to comply with their demands. The apparent hacker posted again on an anonymous chat forum on Monday, repeating their earlier demand for $US1million and noting it is a 'small price to pay' for such a massive breach. 'We are businessmen,' the new message reads, in broken English. '1.000.000$US is a lot of money and will keep too (sic) our word. If you care about customer you will pay! Revenue 9B$, $1MUS is small price to pay. 'If 1.000.000SUS pay then data will be deleted from drive. Only 1 copy exist. Completely gone!' At the bottom in red Optus is reminded of the ultimatum: '5 more day to decide Optus'. Hackers have made a fresh demand Optus pay $US1million with the promise they will delete the personal data of around 10 million Australians stolen from the telco The message says Optus can only contact the poster by using the chat forum. In a previous message the hacker warned millions of personal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, drivers' licences will be leaked if Optus doesn't pay $US1million in cryptocurrency Monero. Earlier on Monday, Optus has received a solid backhander from the federal minister who oversees the telco giant, along with the threat of fines 'amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars', over the huge security breach. Albanese government cyber-security minister Claire O'Neal did not miss when taking aim at Optus over the massive security breach last week, which she said the government was alerted to on Wednesday. Cyber-security minister Claire O'Neal was scathing in her assessment of the huge Optus data breach saying it's not something we should 'expect in Australia' 'Responsibility for this security breach rests with Optus and I would note the breach is of a nature that we should not expect to see in a large telecommunications provider in this country,' she said. In a bluntly worded reply to a question about what the government was going to do about the breach, Ms O'Neil made a not-so-veiled threat. 'I also note in other jurisdictions a data breach of this size would amount to fines of hundreds of millions of dollars,' she said while flagging there would be 'substantial reforms' needed because of the breach. Ms O'Neil left no doubt where her sympathies lay as she demandrf Optus provide free credit monitoring to those affected. 'Put yourself in the shoes of an Optus customer... you might be a pensioner whose information has been stolen,' she said. Optus has come under fire this week after it revealed a huge data breach, where personal details of 9.8 million customers from as far back as 2017, were stolen (pictured, an Optus store in Sydney) 'This is a time of intense anxiety and I say to Optus "You can do something about this problem today" and I ask you to do that.' Ms O'Neil called on Optus to make the commitment to free credit monitoring today. 'We expect Optus to continue doing everything they can to support their customers and former customers,' she told parliament. One of the questions Ms O'Neil said would 'emerge from a breach of this scale and size' is whether the cyber-security requirements placed on telecoms companies are fit for purpose. Optus customers whose passport or driver's licence numbers were stolen in the massive data breach are at the potential mercy of cyber-criminals (pictured, a stock photo) She said it was an issue she and others will be addressing in coming days. Following the breach, Ms O'Neil said 'substantial support' had been offered by the government to Optus, in particular from the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Cyber-Security Centre and the Australian Federal Police. Ms O'Neil thanked the 'many hundreds of public servants had worked through recent holidays and through the night and straight though the weekend' Pictured: Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin She said the government along with financial watchdogs ACCC and APRA are engaging with banking sector to see what extra steps could be taken to protect customers. Additional protections have also been added to government platforms such as MyGov website Hackers claim to have access to the details of 11.2 million Optus customers in a major breach that tech experts at this stage believe is legitimate. The ransom demand appeared on an online forum on Saturday morning with the hackers warning the telco it had one week to respond. 'Optus if you are reading! price for us to not sale data is 1.000.000$US We give you 1 week to decide,' part of the message read. The warning comes as Optus customers take to social media to vent their frustration, with chief executive and parenting educator Dannielle Miller just one of the millions of people who say the company's response has been 'inadequate'. Ms Miller told Daily Mail Australia she has been an Optus customer for 30 years and expected more from the telco after decades of loyalty. She said the apology from Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin 'missed the mark'. A hacker has warned personal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, drivers' licences and passport details of millions will be leaked if Optus doesn't pay $1.53million 'The CEO referred to Optus as a victim of cyber-hacking. They're not the ones who have had their personal details hacked - the customers are the victims,' she said. 'It's hard to hear them crying victim when it's clear they've been very slack.' Ms Miller said she intended to close the Optus accounts belonging to herself, her daughter and her employees and plans to advise them to change carriers. She said customers who may be forced to change details like their licence number should be compensated by Optus for any out-of-pocket expenses. 'I'm personally not after compensation, what matters to me is peace of mind and security for my data,' she said, adding customers needed to be prioritised. The mysterious hacker who claims to have stolen the personal details of millions of Optus customers has demanded $1.5million in ransom money (pictured, an Optus store in Sydney) On Friday morning, Ms Bayer Rosmarin made an emotional apology to the millions of Optus customers whose details had been compromised. She confirmed payment details and account passwords were protected but admitted she felt 'terrible' the breach had happened under her watch. 'I think it's a mix of a lot of different emotions,' she said looking downcast. 'Obviously I am angry that there are people out there that want to do this to our customers, I'm disappointed we couldn't have prevented it. 'I'm very sorry and apologetic. It should not have happened.' Harris is visiting Japan to discuss security partnership and attend Shinzo Abe's funeral after former Prime Minister was assassinated nearly three months ago American allies in eastern Asia seeking clarity following mixed messages over whether Biden would send troops to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion Vice President Kamala Harris has lauded the alliance between the US and Japan as the 'cornerstone of peace, stability and prosperity' in the Indo-Pacific region following a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishidi. Harris discussed a partnership between the two countries on Taiwan security issues with Kishidi today. 'The alliance between Japan and the United States is a cornerstone of what we believe is integral to peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,' Harris said at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo. Harris is visiting Tokyo for the state funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated nearly three months ago. Kishida said Abe 'poured his heart and soul' into strengthening ties between the US and Japan. 'I feel it is my duty to carry on his aspirations,' Kishida said. Abe forged closer ties with the United States at a time of increased concern about China's ambitions, and Kishida is continuing his push for a stronger national defense. The potential for war over Taiwan, a self-governed island that China claims as part of its own territory, has troubled Japan, which would likely be pulled into such a conflict. American allies in the eastern region of Asia, including Japan, have sought clarity following mixed messages over whether President Joe Biden would send troops to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. Self-governed Taiwan's 23 million people live under the constant threat of invasion by authoritarian China, which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary. Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (R) greets U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday at the Akasaka State Guest House in Tokyo, Japan U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attend the Japan-USA bilateral meeting at Akasaka Palace State Guest House in Tokyo, on Monday Self-governed Taiwan's 23 million people live under the constant threat of invasion by authoritarian China, which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary Amid increasing fears that China will soon invade Taiwan and that conflict could spill over to different countries, regional players such as Japan are moving forward with plans to increase its military spending. With its proposed military spending, Japan will have the world's third-largest defence budget in the coming years. Harris' visit comes after Biden reiterated his support for the One China policy during his speech on Wednesday before the United Nations - days after saying he would defend Taiwan militarily if China attacked. 'We remain committed to our One China policy, which has helped prevent conflict for four decades. And we continue to oppose unilateral changes in the status quo by either side,' Biden said before the UN General Assembly in New York. He had riled up Beijing again for comments he made to 60 Minutes for an episode that aired Sunday. Biden answered 'yes' when asked whether 'U.S. forces, U.S. men and women, would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.' 'Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack,' Biden said, adding that unlike Ukraine, he would commit American troops to the effort. But there is no formal defense treaty with Taiwan and administration officials have repeatedly said Biden's comments don't reflect a change in policy, muddying the waters over what, exactly, the U.S. would do. 'It is ambiguous,' said Ja-Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. 'But whether it's strategically ambiguous, I don't know.' 'The president has addressed that issue. And if it comes up, the vice president will align with the president,' said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting. The official also said Harris would 'make clear our ironclad commitment to Japan's security.' It comes as China this weekend said anyone who tries to stop its 'reunification' will be 'crushed' - sparking new fears that it will invade Taiwan. Vice President Harris has arrived in Japan to discuss a partnership on Taiwan security issues with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishidi U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (R) is greeted upon her arrival by U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel (6th L) and Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kenji Yamada (5th R) at Yokota Air Base in Fussa, Tokyo prefecture on Monday U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with a U.S. military member after arriving at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo, Japan, on Monday Harris, who is leading a delegation of current and former U.S. officials to Abe's funeral, plans to spend three nights in Tokyo U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is greeted by Japanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Kenji Yamada and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo, Japan on Monday Vice President Kamala Harris is greeted by U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel arrives at the Yokota Air Base on Monday Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, made fresh fiery comments pushing Beijing's long held claim to Taiwan, which separated from the mainland after a 1949 civil war. Mr Yi told the United Nations on Saturday: 'Only when China is fully reunified can there be true peace across the Taiwan Strait.' He added that Beijing would 'take the most forceful steps to oppose external interference' on the self-governing island, referencing China's regular pressure worldwide on any entity - country, corporation, mapmaker - that even implies Taiwan might be a separate country. China has isolated the island's government, who is not part of the UN, though a few members - continue to have diplomatic relations with Taipei rather than Beijing. Mr Yi also claimed anyone who tries to stop China will be 'crushed by the wheels of history'. Harris, who is leading a delegation of current and former U.S. officials to Abe's funeral, plans to spend three nights in Tokyo. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is welcomed by officials at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo on Monday The then US Vice President Joe Biden meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on September 26, 2014 in New York City Even Abe's state funeral Tuesday itself is a sensitive topic in Japan, where such memorials are uncommon and the late leader's legacy remains disputed. Abe, a conservative nationalist in a country that embraced pacifism after World War II, was assassinated with a homemade firearm nearly three months ago. Meanwhile, during her visit, Harris is expected to meet with Kishida, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Harris also plans to meet with Japanese business leaders as the U.S. seeks to expand computer chip manufacturing and visit with U.S. sailors serving on an American destroyer at a nearby naval base. It will be the vice president's second trip to Asia since taking office in January 2021. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited the Taiwan in August, outraging Beijing, which responded by holding military exercises. Although Chinese leaders have claimed they seek peaceful reunification with Taiwan, the exercises are a reminder of the possibility that Beijing could use force. China also fired missiles into waters near some of Japan's southern islands, a reminder that any conflict over Taiwan would be a threat to other countries as well. The U.S. has 55,000 troops based in Japan, with more than half on the southern island of Okinawa. Earlier this month, Okinawa reelected a governor who calls for a reduction in the U.S. presence there. Sharon Graham had a premonition about a terrible accident, weeks before Bruce Saunders was found in a woodchipper, a court has heard. Graham, 61, and Gregory Lee Roser, 63, are on trial having pleaded not guilty to the so called 'love quadrangle' murder after Mr Saunders, 54, died while working on a property north of Brisbane in November 2017. Graham is accused of asking Roser and another man, Peter Koenig, to kill Mr Saunders and make it look like an accident to claim her ex-partner's $750,000 life insurance policy. Ex-partner Barry Collins said Graham spoke about a premonition 'three or so weeks' before he first heard about Mr Saunders' death on the news. Gregory Lee Roser, 63, (left) and Sharon Graham, 61 (right), are standing trial for the murder of Bruce Saunders 'She said I have had a premonition, there is going to be a terrible accident that someone is going to get hurt,' he told the Supreme Court in Brisbane. When pressed on what Graham said about the premonition, Mr Collins said: 'They are going to be clearing a block, clearing some land and there is going to be an accident and someone is going to get hurt.' The jury has earlier been shown police video and pictures of Mr Saunders' legs protruding from a woodchipper at the Goomboorian property near Gympie after he had been clearing trees with Roser and Koenig. Weeks after the death, Mr Collins said Graham had a conversation about what had happened to Mr Saunders. He said Graham didn't go into detail but told him it was an accident. Graham has been accused of being in a 'love quadrangle' with Roser, Koenig and Mr Saunders, plotting the latter's murder for months. Mr Collins said Koenig had been a long-term employee for his transport business. During their de facto relationship, Mr Collins moved from South Australia to Queensland with Graham and Koenig had come with them, living on the same property as the couple. Bruce Saunders, (pictured) died on a rural Queensland property north of Brisbane in November 2017. The 54-year-old was allegedly murdered and fed through a woodchipper He described Koenig's relationship with Graham as 'very close'. Before relocating to Queensland, Mr Collins said he had found a handgun that he had forgotten he had owned and gave it to Koenig but had 'never seen it again'. The court heard a 'very stressed' Roser visited a fellow resident at a caravan park north of Brisbane in July 2017 and told her that his girlfriend wanted him to shoot and kill her partner. Joan Balfour said caravan park neighbour Roser told her that he had obtained the small handgun from his girlfriend's 'friend'. Sharon Graham (pictured) is accused of asking Gregory Lee Roser and Peter Koenig to kill Bruce Saunders and make it look like an accident Ms Balfour said she had never met the girlfriend or knew her name but had seen the blonde woman visit Roser at the caravan park. 'He told me his girlfriend wanted to get rid of her partner at the time,' she told the court. 'She wanted Greg to shoot her partner ... I advised him not to do that obviously.' Ms Balfour said Roser revealed the gun was in the boot of his car when they met for lunch the next day. She said Roser had also told her that the girlfriend had provided an address and times to lay in wait to shoot the partner. The court was shown police video of Bruce Saunders' legs protruding from the chipper at the Goomboorian property (inset) near Gympie 'He told me the last time he saw his girlfriend, she sent him to her friend's house and this friend gave him a gun,' Ms Balfour said. 'I asked "What sort of idiot gives someone a gun?", and he said that the guy who gave him the gun was in love with his girlfriend but nothing had ever happened. 'I just said ... "Don't do it, it's stupid". Before we had finished the conversation he agreed with me that it was stupid and he wasn't going to do it.' The trial before Justice Martin Burns continues. The family of a young woman who suffered 'horrific' injuries in a shocking rollercoaster incident have hit back at cruel online bullies. Shylah Rodden, 26, remains in an intensive care unit after falling nine metres in the mysterious accident at the Royal Melbourne Show on Sunday, which remains under investigation. The heartbreak comes as her family is still reeling from the death of her brother in July. As Shylah's worried loved ones rally around her hospital bed, her sister told Daily Mail Australia she was appalled at the online abuse aimed at her critically ill sister. The beloved young Melburnian is in a coma, after suffering a broken pelvis, arms, legs and back. 'It's sad and disgusting to see the false stories and cover up when my sister is fighting for her life,' Caisha said. Shylah Rodden sustained horrific injuries in a rollercoaster accident in Melbourne on Sunday Shylah Rodden, 26, remains in an intensive care unit after falling nine metres in the mysterious accident, which remains under investigation. Pictured: The Rebel Coaster at the Royal Melbourne Show Shylah Rodden and her sister Caisha in happier times. Shylah is fighting for life in hospital Online sleuths have coldly blamed Shylah for the tragedy after police claimed she had been hit while trying to retrieve her mobile phone. 'Serves herself right for going where she is not supposed to be going,' one man posted under a news report on the tragedy. 'It's not a freak accident, when she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be,' another said. Many of the comments are so cruel Daily Mail Australia has chosen not to publish them. Caisha said the rumours being spread online are causing even greater pain to her family struggling to cope. 'Definitely misinformation regarding the accident, which is really sad and causing more distress for our family,' she said. 'Shylah is in critical condition and we won't know more until later today as we will be discussing with police and giving some eye witness statements.' Her father, Alan Rodden, said mystery still surrounds how Shylah was hit. 'There are a lot of stories going around and I don't know which one is true and if someone is covering their tracks,' he said. Shylah Rodden had been working at the show when she apparently decided to go on the rollercoaster during a break On Monday, police claimed Shylah was struck by the ride at the Royal Melbourne Show while trying to retrieve her mobile phone from the tracks and was hit by the ride travelling at about 70km/h. Horrified families watched on as the chaos unfolded at The Rebel Coaster on Sunday with paramedics treating Shylah for serious facial injuries at the scene before taking her to hospital in a critical condition. Mr Rodden said his daughter had suffered life changing injuries. 'Obviously I can't talk to my daughter. She's going to be in a coma for quite a while,' he said. 'The injuries are horrific. Horrific. She's brain damaged. It's pelvic, her arms, legs, back, neck - there's hardly a thing that's not broken. I just can't work out how the hell so much damage has been done. 'Even the doctors have said they haven't seen anything as bad as this for a long time.' Shylah Rodden lost her brother Jason just two months before the shocking rollercoaster crash in Melbourne The family's anguish comes after Shylah's brother Jason died just two months earlier. She wrote on Facebook that her 'world came crashing down' when he died. 'Dad sat me down and told me that my brother had passed away,' Shylah wrote just weeks before her accident. 'He wasn't just my big brother, he was my best friend, my everything, the person I looked up to and inspired to be like. 'He taught me so much in life, he showed me the difference between right and wrong and he was never afraid to tell me how he really feels. 'It doesn't feel real, I keep thinking you'll call me back.' Shylah Rodden (pictured) had nearly every bone in her body broken in the shocking accident Caisha revealed that her sister had been working at the show. 'Shylah was actually there working. She was helping out her friend at her stall for the day and she was sent on her break with another worker and they decided to go on a few rides to kill time and this happened unfortunately,' she said. While police maintain Shylah had been attempting to retrieve her phone, some eye witnesses claim she had been onboard the rollercoaster, which somehow dislodged her up to 9m high before she plunged to the ground. 'She flew from the ride, loud bang. Followed by a scream and very loud crack of her hitting the ground,' one eye witness stated on social media. 'I was standing right next to it when it happened. Poor girl laying in a large pool of blood as medical response was so slow!' 'My daughter was there too and they have called Crimestoppers as they felt like she had fallen from the ride too,' another person wrote. Passengers on the ride had been left stranded atop the rollercoaster for hours after the ride was shut down. Others on the ride were left stranded atop the rollercoaster for some time with the ride immediately shut down One witness, who had been positioned next to the rollercoaster, claimed police assertions she had been on the tracks were not accurate. 'I did not see her walking or climbing on the tracks at all, we saw her flying from the ride, where she landed and how she landed is not consistent with being hit,' a woman claimed. 'Not from what we witnessed. We were standing right next to the ride when it happened.' The witness had taken her young son on the ride shortly before the accident. 'We saw her fall from the ride, (heard) the scream and the crack of her hitting the ground. My husband was one of the first on the scene. We were standing right next to it when it happened ,' she said. In a statement issued by Victoria Police, investigators claimed Shylah 'may' have walked onto the track to try and retrieve a dropped phone. 'Sadly the woman was then found injured on the ground,' police stated. A spokesperson for The Royal Melbourne Show told Daily Mail Australia it was working with authorities to ascertain how the tragedy happened One passenger alleged they were forced to carry their personal belongings with them onto the ride. 'They made you take your belongings on the ride with you! I went on Friday and they made me take my bag and bottle of coke on it. I was freaking out that I was going to drop something,' the woman stated. 'You didn't have a choice. I was on it today and had to take my sunglasses and hold on to them very tightly. They should have had lockers,' another said. A spokesperson for The Royal Melbourne Show told Daily Mail Australia it was working with authorities to ascertain how the tragedy happened. Speaking to ABC Mornings host Virginia Trioli on Monday, Show CEO Brad Jenkins refused to say whether there was a fence around the ride or how high that fence was. 'I can't comment specifically on that particular ride,' he said. 'There [are] operators down at each of the rides.' A video published on YouTube in 2021 from aboard the ride when it was at the Sydney Royal Easter Show shows a fence around the ride appearing to be no higher than 1.5m. Mr Jenkins maintained Shylah had gone to recover her phone when she was hit. 'From all reports she's gone to recover her phone. It's not a malfunction or whatever,' he said. He would not say exactly how she got on to the tracks. Victoria Police and WorkSafe are investigating the incident. Anyone who witnessed the incident is urged to contact police. A British tourist was sexually assaulted in the back seat of a taxi last week after a night out on the Greek island of Rhodes, according to reports. The 32-year-old woman was at a bar in Lindos on the largest of Greece's Dodecanese islands last Wednesday, where she met a man and decided to leave with him. The pair climbed into the back of a taxi and were headed to the tourist's hotel in Pefkos when the unnamed man allegedly began groping her. She later informed police from the 1st Directorate of the Dodecanese that the man forced his hands down her shorts and she underwent a physical exam. The Rhodes prosecutor's office has filed a case against the alleged attacker, while police are searching for the taxi driver so he can provide a statement. The 32-year-old woman was at a bar in Lindos (pictured) on the largest of Greece's Dodecanese islands last Wednesday, where she met a man and decided to leave with him The sexual assault claim comes a month after another Briton alleged she was raped in a violent attack in Western Greece. The female victim, 24, told police that a local man violently tugged her hair before raping her at a secluded beach in the city of Palairos on Friday, August 19. Officers arrested a 26-year-old male suspect the next day following a manhunt but Greek authorities released the suspect the following week pending further investigation. Authorities said the woman had returned to the UK after levelling charges against a young man she met at a local bar, frequented mainly by British holidaymakers in western Greece. She and friends were vacationing at the Neilson Vounaki Beachclub in Paleros. The two met the same night, introduced by one of the victims female friends, also vacationing in the region. The British tourist claimed she had gone for a walk on a nearby beach with the man following a night out at a local pub when he raped her. A 24-year-old British tourist claims a man forced her to have sex with him near a bar in Palairos, western Greece, on Friday, August 19 (file image) Police arrested a 26-year-old suspect near Palairos following a manhunt but released him shortly after after an investigating magistrate found 'no compelling grounds' to keep him detained Details of the assailant were not divulged, the man's lawyer said, adding that an investigating magistrate released his client on Monday after hearing his testimony and 'finding no compelling grounds to keep him detained pending trial.' 'The only damning allegation he faces is the charge made by the alleged victim,' he said. 'But even that,' Masouras quipped, 'is quickly being knocked down by a line of unbiased facts presented before the investigating magistrate, who moved to release him pending trial.' The 24-year-old victim was not reachable for comment, nor have authorities confirmed her details. The United States has privately warned Russia of 'catastrophic' consequences if it uses nuclear weapons over the war in Ukraine, top US officials have confirmed. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US has sent private messages to 'Russians at very high levels' that Washington will 'respond decisively' to any use of nukes. It comes after Vladimir Putin threatened the West with Armageddon over his failing war last week - falsely accusing NATO of plotting strikes on Russia and adding: 'Those who try to blackmail us should know that winds can turn in their direction.' America will 'respond decisively' if Russia opts to use nuclear weapons amid failing war in Ukraine, top US officials have confirmed Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US has sent private messages to 'Russians at very high levels' that Washington will 'respond decisively' to any use of nukes 'We have been very clear with the Russians publicly, and, as well as privately, to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons,' Blinken told the CBS News program '60 Minutes' in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. 'It's very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. And we've made that very clear,' Blinken said. 'Any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects for, of course, the country using them, but for many others as well.' Concerns are growing that Russia may seek to escalate the conflict once it completes what Ukraine and the West see as illegal referendums in parts of Ukraine under its control. The voting, which ends Tuesday, happened after thousands of residents had fled and has included images of armed Russian troops going door-to-door to pressure Ukrainians into voting. Russia is widely expected to declare the results in its favor, a step that could see Moscow annex the territory and give it the pretext to seek to defend it as its own territory under the Russian nuclear umbrella. Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser, made clear that Russia would pay a high price if it made good on threats to use nuclear weapons in the conflict. 'If Russia crosses this line there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively,' he told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. Washington's message has been more detailed in private conversations with their Russian counterparts, he said, without elaborating. 'So, the Russians understand where we are. We understand where we are. We are planning for every contingency' he said in separate comments to ABC's This Week. 'And we will do what is necessary to deter Russia from taking this step.' Russia and the United States are the world's largest nuclear weapons powers, but separate from the threats of planetary destruction, Russian military doctrine permits the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield to force an enemy to retreat. Vladimir Putin last week threatened the West with Armageddon over Ukraine, having falsely accused NATO of plotting nuclear strikes on Russia Russia is now into its eighth month of fighting in Ukraine, and is rushing conscripts to the frontlines having suffered huge casualties in the early months of fighting (file) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, asked during a news conference Saturday at the United Nations about Putin's comments, said only that Moscow's doctrine 'is an open document.' President Volodymyr Zelensky told 'Face the Nation' that Putin's veiled nuclear threat 'could be a reality,' saying Russian military activity at nuclear power plants in Ukraine are 'the first steps of his nuclear blackmail.' 'He wants to scare the whole world,' the Ukrainian leader said of Putin. 'I don't think he's bluffing. I think the world is deterring it and containing this threat. We need to keep putting pressure on him and not allow him to continue,' Zelensky added. No country has used nuclear weapons on the battlefield except the United States in 1945, when it destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people. Imperial Japan surrendered days later, ending World War II. Meanwhile, an overnight Russian drone strike near the Ukrainian port of Odesa sparked a massive fire and explosion, the military said Monday. The airstrike was the latest in a series of drone attacks on the key southern city in recent days. This one hit a military installation and detonated ammunition when it struck. Firefighters were struggling to contain the blaze, the Ukrainian military's southern command said. USS Ronald Reagan, a U.S. Navy Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, departs from the South Korean Fleet Command in Busan, Monday, for combined drills with the South Korean Navy. The two allies have begun their biggest naval exercise in five years in response to North Korea's intensifying nuclear threat. Yonhap Warships, nuclear-powered submarine, fighter jets send warning to North Korea By Jung Min-ho South Korea and the United States started their biggest combined naval exercise involving a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier near the peninsula since 2017, a day after North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile in its latest military provocation. According to the Ministry of Defense and Navy, Monday, the allies will mobilize more than 20 vessels including the USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class supercarrier of the U.S. Navy, as well as key South Korean warships, such as the 7,600-ton Aegis destroyer Seoae Ryu Sung-ryong and the 4,400-ton Munmu the Great destroyer, for the four-day drills. Other participating maritime assets include the nuclear-powered USS Annapolis submarine, USS Chancellorsville, a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, USS Barry, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer and USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Formidable air force and army weapons including F/A-18E Super Hornets, P-3 and P-8 maritime surveillance aircraft, AH-64E Apache helicopters and South Korea's most advanced fighter jets F-15K and KF-16 will also take part in the East Sea training exercise. "Through this exercise, we will further improve the combined operations capability between the naval forces of the two countries," Kwak Kwang-sub, a senior South Korean naval officer, said in the statement. "Over the past 70 years, the two countries have cooperated to defend peace and free democracy of the Korean Peninsula." Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, commander of the Carrier Strike Group 5, said the exercise will demonstrate the two allies' power and strong will to defend their shared values against North Korea's evolving threat. Details of the exercise remain undisclosed. But it is expected to include drills to respond to North Korea's missile attacks and to detect and track its underwater threats. North Korea is believed to have the world's largest submarine fleet operating up to 90 diesel-powered submarines. The exercise would mark the two allies' first joint drills involving the Reagan in South Korea's territorial waters since 2017, when the U.S. sent the aircraft carrier and two others for joint drills with the South in response to North Korea's sixth nuclear weapons and missile tests. Intelligence reports show that the North may be on the verge of another nuclear test. Aircraft are parked on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, in Busan, Friday. UPI-Yonhap The family of a woman with a severe dairy allergy who died after eating a Pret a Manger vegan wrap containing traces of milk say she was 'religious' about checking what was safe to eat. Mother-of-five Celia Marsh, 42, suffered a fatal allergic reaction on December 27, 2017, shortly after eating a 3.75 super-veg rainbow flatbread bought from the chain's store in Bath, Somerset. Mrs Marsh, a dental nurse from Melksham, Wiltshire, had a severe dairy allergy and collapsed in the street after eating the sandwich while on a post-Christmas shopping trip with her husband and three of her daughters. Ashleigh and Shanaye Grice (pictured left and centre) spoke about how their mother would religiously check food labels as they appeared on Good Morning Britain alongside Michelle Victor (right), the lawyer who represented Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who also died following an allergic reaction to a Pret sandwich in 2016 Celia Marsh, 42, died after having an allergic reaction to a Pret a Manger super-veg rainbow flatbread on December 27, 2017 Two of her daughters, Ashleigh and Shanaye Grice, appeared on Good Morning Britain today to speak about the tragic events surrounding their mother's death. Speaking to Susanna Reid and Ed Balls, the pair told how their mother 'religiously' checking' what was safe to eat was a 'big part' of their lives as a family because she feared having a severe reaction. Ashleigh said: 'It was a massive part of our lives and she was so strict and religiously checking everything because obviously it was so terrifying that this could ever happen. 'So as a family it was a big part of our lives, our home lives, it was just all the time, everything for us as a family. 'It was just so religious for her to make sure, double check, triple check.' Two of Celia Marsh's daughters, Ashleigh and Shanaye Grice, spoke about the events surrounding their mother's death with Susanna Reid and Ed Balls on Good Morning Britain Ashleigh continued: 'Like she did that day when she purchased that wrap from Pret. 'She would have triple checked and possibly even asked herself because she was very religious about that. 'The wrap itself had a list of ingredients on it and everything on there she knew she could have and then at the bottom, it did say dairy free Planet Coconut yoghurt alternative, so she knew or she thought that it was safe to eat that.' Two of Mrs Marsh's daughters appeared on Good Morning Britain to talk about their mother's death amid calls for stricter rules around food labelling and more 'vigorous testing' across the entire supply chain Her daughter Shanaye told the presenters that Mrs Marsh had suffered an allergic reaction months prior to her death after eating a marshmallow cereal bar at work. She said that her mother required 15 adrenalin shots after having a severe allergic reaction to the bar - which said on the label that it may contain traces of dairy - but she thought it was okay because she had eaten it before without issue. This prompted Susanna Reid to assert that it is 'like a Russian roulette' for allergy sufferers when they go out to eat. Mrs Marsh's family are now calling for stricter rules around food labelling and more 'vigorous testing' across the entire supply chain to prevent other tragic deaths. Ashleigh added: 'There are quite a few things that we want to change. 'The main number one is testing, so we believe that there needs to be vigorous testing throughout the whole supply chain from one company to another.' Lawyer Michelle Victor said it was 'absolutely imperative' that better labelling was introduced across the 'whole supply chain' Lawyer Michelle Victor, who is representing the family of Mrs Marsh, said: 'It is absolutely imperative that there is full transparency throughout the whole supply chain and that if there is anything even including a risk of contamination, that information is passed on down the food chain. 'What we do know is that Planet Coconut had information in its possession to indicate that the HG1 and the yoghurt ultimately made was contaminated with milk. 'And had that information been passed on to Pret a Manger, they say that they would never have used that yoghurt and Celia may be here today.' Following the interview, Susanna Reid read a statement from Planet Coconut. It said: 'Planet Coconut disputes they were made aware of the potential contamination and say that they did not for one minute believe that the product could contain dairy.' Pret a Manger said: 'It goes without saying that if Pret had ever known that the CoYo yoghurt may have contained milk, we would have never used the ingredient.' Earlier this month, an inquest investigating the mother-of-five's death heard that Pret a Manger was not conducting its own checks on manufacturers supplying dairy-free products for its vegan ranges. The wrap had contained yoghurt which was supposed to be vegan but was later found to contain traces of dairy protein, Avon Coroner's Court heard. The yoghurt was produced by Planet Coconut, which is the UK manufacturer and distributor of products developed by Australia-based yoghurt company CoYo. Kirsty Langford, a trading standards officer for Bath and North East Somerset Council, told the inquest Pret a Manger had not apparently conducted its own audit of the claims made by Planet Coconut. Celia Marsh, 42, suffered a fatal anaphylactic reaction after eating a 'super-veg rainbow flatbread' at a Pret store The dental nurse, from Melksham, Wiltshire, suffered from a severe dairy allergy and later died in hospital from the reaction Mrs Marsh's family, including husband Andy, pictured arriving for her inquest yesterday. Members of the family wept as written statements were read to the court 'When a dairy-free claim is made on a product you expect some sort of testing to be taking place,' she said. 'That may not itself be the responsibility of Pret A Manger but it would probably be Pret's responsibility to ensure their supplier was undertaking some sort of testing.' Ms Langford continued: 'When we went back to Planet Coconut we weren't supplied with any test certificate and we weren't sure that Pret had been supplied with any either - we haven't been supplied with any evidence of that. 'That becomes more important when there is a dairy-free claim on the product, that is when you would expect finished product testing to make sure that 'free-from' claim can be verified.' Ms Langford said that ordinarily, a free-from claim on a product would be supported by a risk assessment by the retailer checking all the processes and ingredients in the supply chain. She said that Planet Coconut had said it was testing its product for allergens every year, and added that how often a product should be tested was not enshrined in law. Mrs Marsh died after eating a 'super-veg rainbow flatbread' (pictured) which had been contaminated with milk protein She had been enjoying a family meal at the Pret A Manger store (pictured) in Bath, Somerset, in December 2017 (Stock image) Mrs Marsh's husband Andy Marsh (back, centre) and her family outside the inquest at Avon and Somerset Coroner's Court in Bristol yesterday 'There is nothing in law to say how often you should be testing, there is nothing in law to say you should be testing every batch for example,' Ms Langford said. 'With a small supplier like Planet Coconut it would be less often than a bigger (company).' She added: 'I would expect Pret to check that testing was being undertaken through their supplier - there were supplier audits being undertaken (by Pret) but I don't think the audit picked up on the testing of the product.' An investigation into Planet Coconut found the yoghurt contained few ingredients - primarily coconut cream and 'HG1' starch supplied by sugar giant Tate & Lyle. The starch was identified as the possible source of the contamination. 'Tate & Lyle had never said the HG1 starch was suitable for a dairy-free claim,' Ms Langford said. A bag of the starch had the warning: 'Manufactured in a factory that handles milk, eggs, cereals containing gluten, sulphur dioxide and sulphites.' Ms Langford said Tate & Lyle had said the information concerning the risk of contamination in its products was passed to Planet Coconut, while Planet Coconut said it was not. The court heard evidence that the trace of milk in the flatbread was so small, that it would only be expected to have an effect on around 5% of people with the most acute dairy allergy. Mrs Marsh's husband Andy said his wife had 'religiously' avoided dairy after suffering a near-fatal incident a few months previously in which she needed 15 shots of adrenalin. The mother-of-five, pictured here with her husband Andy Marsh, was rushed to hospital after the incident in December 2017 but she sadly later died Mr Marsh (Centre) has previously said his wife had eaten her usual breakfast of overnight oats with soya milk on December 27, 2017 Teenage girl, 15, died of allergic reaction to Pret a Manger baguette just a year earlier Mrs Marsh's death came just a year after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15, died in similar circumstances when she suffered a reaction to hidden sesames in a Pret baguette in 2016. She knew she was allergic to milk, eggs, banana, nuts and sesame seeds so along with her dad, Nadim, had checked the label carefully. But the artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette contained sesame seeds that were baked into the dough and were not visible or listed in the ingredients. Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15, suffered an allergic reaction to a Pret baguette She went into anaphylactic shock within minutes of take off on a British Airways flight to France. Despite efforts to give her adrenaline shots, she was unable to breathe and suffered a heart attack and later died in a French hospital on July 17, 2016. Her father Nadim, 56, administered two Epi-pens which delivered potentially lifesaving adrenaline to his daughter as she struggled to breathe. But they did not work and she suffered multiple cardiac arrests. Advertisement On December 27, Mr Marsh said in a written statement, he believed his wife had eaten her usual breakfast of overnight oats with fruit and soya milk. Shortly after 1pm, their daughter Taylor, then aged seven, said that she was hungry and went into a pasty shop to get a sausage roll. Mrs Marsh went with her but did not buy any food there because the staff said that the pasties were washed in egg and milk. Instead, she purchased a super-veg rainbow flatbread from Pret A Manger on Stall Street, which she believed to be dairy-free. The family then headed towards Gap, with Mrs Marsh eating her sandwich as she walked. While they were in the Gap store, Mrs Marsh told her husband she 'felt a bit funny', but she often felt like that after she had eaten something new. After a quick look upstairs the family left the shop. Because it was cold outside as they headed back down Stall Street, Mrs Marsh took out her inhaler, her husband previously told the court. Mr Marsh said: 'I asked if she was okay and she said that she was struggling to breathe.' When her condition did not improve Mrs Marsh took out her EpiPen, which her husband told her to use, and he said that she did so. She then told him to phone an ambulance. They continued walking for a few metres until Mr Marsh could see a street name to give the call handler. Mrs Marsh collapsed while her husband was on the phone with the emergency services and an off-duty doctor came to help, the inquest heard. The inquest previously heard from Brendan Turvey, a civil servant with first aid training, who tried to help before Mrs Marsh's death. In a statement, Mr Turvey said he was heading to the theatre with his family and friends when Mrs Marsh collapsed near him. Mr Turvey said: 'I heard a little girl scream and saw a lady lying on the ground in the middle of the street. The little girl was very upset and there was a lady talking to the woman on the floor. 'It was very distressing so I told my family to keep back and then headed over. As I arrived, Celia was losing consciousness and her face was quite blue and swollen. 'Her eyes were open but her breathing was laboured. I put my jacket over her and some other folk did that too. A first response ambulance car arrived and then two more paramedics shortly after.' He added that the first paramedic put an oxygen mask on Mrs Marsh and asked him to fetch the defibrillator from his car. When Mrs Marsh stopped breathing, he and the female doctor took turns administering CPR. Then two more paramedics arrived in an ambulance and Mrs Marsh was taken to hospital, accompanied by the off-duty doctor. Mr Turvey tried to find out afterwards whether Mrs Marsh had survived but it was not until October that year that he saw on the news that she had died. Pret was charged with food safety failures in the wake of Mrs Marsh's death, but the prosecution was later dropped due to lack of evidence. Mrs Marsh's death came a year after 15-year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, pictured, died after eating a Pret baguette which had packaging that did not display it had sesame seeds baked into it All Pret sandwiches are displayed with a warning stating they are made onsite in a busy kitchen, and that the company cannot guarantee they are suitable for people with allergies. The inquest also heard that food standards officers found no evidence cross contamination had occurred within Pret's Bath store's kitchen. In their latest statement, Pano Christou, chief executive of Pret a Manger said: 'As a father and husband, I can only imagine how distressing this has been for Celias children and family. 'Our deepest sympathies remain with everyone who knew and loved Celia. 'We fully support the Coroners findings. 'As the Coroner made clear, Planet Coconut had information which should have alerted them that their CoYo yoghurt may have contained milk and this information was not passed on to Pret. 'It goes without saying that if Pret had ever known that the CoYo yoghurt may have contained milk, we would have never used the ingredient. 'On Prets part, we have taken significant steps forward with our suppliers and labelling policies since 2017. 'Through the Pret Allergy Plan, we made a clear commitment to lead the industry in developing new policies for people with food allergies. 'We will continue to do everything we can to help every customer get the information they need to make the right choice for them.' An investigator from the corporate watchdog has denied feeling responsible for Melissa Caddick's suspected death after it was suggested to her by the fraudster's brother. Isabella Allen from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said Adam Grimley asked her the loaded question in June 2021. 'How do you feel being responsible for Melissa's death,' Mr Grimley asked Ms Allen, she said on Monday in the NSW Coroner's Court. 'Do you feel responsible for her death?' her lawyer John Sutton asked. 'No I was doing my job,' Ms Allen said. Last Feburary, Caddick's husband Anthony Koletti was hit with a restraining order on behalf of Ms Allen after he released songs blaming her and ASIC over the death. Caddick's former Dover Heights home goes on the market this week, with a $10,000 deposit required just to view it. ASIC investigator Isabella Allen (pictured) departs the inquest into the death of Melissa Caddick at the Lidcombe Coroner's Court in Sydney, Monday, September 26, 2022 Isabella Allen (pictured right) got a a restraining order against Melissa Caddick's husband Anthony Koletti last Feburary, after he wrote songs blaming ASIC for his wife's death An inquest into Melissa Caddick's (pictured) suspected death is being heard at the NSW Coroner's Court Koletti's cringeworthy song about ASIC investigator Isabella Allen Anthony Koletti was hit with a restraining order by police on February 8 on behalf Isabella Allen - the woman at the helm of the ASIC investigation into his wife Melissa Caddick - after releasing songs blaming the corporate regulator over Caddick's presumed death. In one bizarre tune, Mr Koletti called Ms Allen 'ugly', compared her to a snake and a rat, and launched a personal attack about her 'government job'. But on July 28, a court tore up the AVO banning the hairdresser-turned DJ from producing tracks about her. Legal documents alleged Mr Koletti also sent texts to Ms Allen and trolled her on social media. Advertisement Ms Allen also denied the accusation that ASIC officers were 'parading' around the expensive luxury items they were seizing from Ms Caddick on November 11, 2020. Nor did she see anyone putting on Ms Caddick's clothing or hanging jewellery around their neck, 'giggling and laughing'. The last verified sighting of Ms Caddick was filmed when ASIC and the Australian Federal Police raided her mansion that day. Ms Caddick's husband Anthony Koletti has since made several complaints to police about Ms Allen's behaviour during the raid. And Ms Caddick's mother Barbara Grimley holds ASIC responsible for her daughter's suspected death, saying she was highly distressed during the raid and was not allowed any food or water. Ms Allen described 'as fantasy' the suggestion she was to blame for the current situation. The AFP's Constable Amelia Griffen shadowed Ms Caddick for the majority of the 12-hour search and confirmed she made herself a protein smoothie in the morning. Parents of Melissa Caddick, Barbara Grimley (left) and Ted Grimley depart the inquest into her death at the Lidcombe Coroner's Court in Sydney, Monday, September 26, 2022 Melissa Caddick's husband, Anthony Koletti, arrives for the inquest into her death at the Lidcombe Coroner's Court in Sydney. Caddick disappeared hours after her Dover Heights home was raided by AFP and ASIC officers in November 2020 'I recall having a conversation with her that she was free to roam around the premises if she wished to do so, Constable Griffen said. Ms Allen also confirmed during the raid Ms Caddick was observed filing her nails 'from time to time,' and taking a nap in the afternoon. She did not appear anxious at all and only showed emotion, a 'look of horror,' when her wedding rings 'clanged' as they were put into a ziplock bag, she said. Ms Allen led the formal investigation into the conwoman's Ponzi scheme operated under her fake company Maliver, from September 8, 2020. About August 2020, one of her investors, Dominique Ogilvie, had a chance encounter with Jennifer Porter, whose Australian Financial Services Licence Ms Caddick was illegally using as her own. ASIC conducted a telephone interview with Ms Ogilvie about the investigation on September 14. Melissa Caddick's brother Adam Grimley (centre) her mother Barbara Grimley (centre) and father Ted Grimley (right) depart the inquest into her death at the Coroner's Court in Sydney 'We said if (Ms Ogilvie) were to run into Ms Caddick or have subsequent phone calls or speak to her, she could speak to her freely but keep the contents of our conversation confidential,' Ms Allen said. Data obtained from Ms Caddick's mobile phone indicated her searching for shredding services that evening, and a day later booked the services of Shred-X. Ms Allen said following the extensive search warrant her team looked closely at some of the evidence shredded. She determined it was not the result of Ms Caddick being 'tipped off by anyone'. Melissa Caddick's former Dover Heights home (pictured) goes on the market this week. It required extensive repairs, cleaning and maintenance after Caddick's husband was evicted Melissa Caddick's former home's rooftop has stunning views of the city's iconic skyline and the Sydney Harbour Bridge Prospective buyers need to fork out $10,000 just to inspect Melissa Caddick's former home (pictured kitchen and living area) Meanwhile, her luxurious five-bedroom, four-bathroom eastern suburbs home has come on the market, boasting uninterrupted and expansive views of Sydney Harbour and a 'stunning pool', which receivers hope will fetch at least $10 million. Mr Koletti reported the 49-year-old as missing 30 hours after he says she walked out of their home for the last time on November 12 at about 5.30am to 'go for a jog'. In February 2021 Ms Caddick's decomposing foot encased in an Asics shoe washed ashore at Bournda Beach on the NSW south coast, about 400km south of Sydney. She preyed on mostly friends and family, and stole up to $30million between 2013 and 2020, counsel assisting Jason Downing SC earlier told the court. The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan continues. Antony Blinken said US took action 'to advance internet freedom' for Iranians Musk said Friday he would activate Starlink satellite internet service in response Iran cut off internet following protests over the death of Mahsa Amini last week The US has given a green light for SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Iran after the Islamic theocracy shut down internet access in reaction to deadly protests against the 'morality police' after the arrest of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in custody. 'Starlink is now activated in Iran,' said Musk on Sunday. 'It requires the use of terminals in-country, which I suspect the [Iranian] government will not support, but if anyone can get terminals into Iran, they will work.' Musk said Friday he would activate the firm's satellite internet service in response to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's tweet that the United States took action 'to advance internet freedom and the free flow of information' to Iranians risking their lives to protest against their government. Human rights groups and Western governments began searching for ways to support Iranian protesters locked in deadly protests against security forces since September 16. Iranians have been protesting over the death of Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jhina, after she was detained for three days for allegedly breaching the rules that mandate tightly-fitted hijab head coverings. The Iran Human Rights (IHR) group, based in Norway, said that at least 57 had been killed in the protests as of Sunday, whereas the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said the death toll exceeded 180 people. According to the list of victims identified by the NCRI, three of those killed were teenagers. On the night of 21 September alone, shootings by security forces left at least 19 people dead, according to Amnesty International. MailOnline could not independently confirm the death toll. Rights groups said internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities in a context where the women-led protests have in recent nights spread to scores of cities. Protesters chant during a protest over the death of a woman who was detained by the morality police, in downtown Tehran Women and men protest as they march in a pro-hijab rally in Iran's capital Tehran on September 23 Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, has been given the green light to activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Iran after the Islamic theocracy shut down internet access The photo shows an antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by Elon Musk in Ukraine Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being arrested for wearing her hijab incorrectly Starlink offers internet packages to those living in areas it covers. Until recently, this excluded Iran, but Starlink terminals which the company calls 'kits' are still needed in order to get the internet up and running. But getting user terminals into Iran could prove challenging, as the government is unlikely to cooperate with US efforts to help the population. The US has sent more than 15,000 Starlink kits to Ukraine, but Ukraine's government is working closely with the US to import terminals and maintain internet infrastructure whereas the Iranian regime is actively looking to shutdown internet access. The US Treasury Department on Friday issued guidance on expanding internet services available to Iranians, despite US sanctions on the country. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said: 'We took action today to advance Internet freedom and the free flow of information for the Iranian people, issuing a General License to provide them greater access to digital communications to counter the Iranian governments censorship.' I spoke w/ @elonmusk about Starlink in Iran, he gave me permission to share this: Starlink is now activated in Iran. It requires the use of terminals in-country, which I suspect the [Iranian] government will not support, but if anyone can get terminals into Iran, they will work" Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) September 25, 2022 A Treasury official briefing reporters said: 'Our understanding of Starlink is that what they provide would be commercial grade, and it would be hardware that's not covered in the general license; so that would be something they would need to write into Treasury for.' A US State Department spokesperson later said of Friday's updated license that it was self-executing and that 'anyone who meets the criteria outlined in this general license can proceed with their activities without requesting additional permissions.' The US State Department spokesperson added that if SpaceX were to determine that some activity aimed at Iranians requires a specific license, '[the Office of Foreign Assets Control] would welcome it and prioritize it'. 'By the same token, if SpaceX determines that its activity is already authorized and has any questions, OFAC also welcomes that engagement,' the State Department spokesperson said Members of the Iranian community and their supporters rally in Ottawa, Canada, in solidarity with protesters in Iran Protestors stand in solidarity with Iranian women after the death of Mahsa Amini, in London, Britain September 24 People take part in a protest following the death of Mahsa Amini in front of the United Nations headquarters in Erbil, Iraq Protesters which are mainly Iranians gather to demonstrate against the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini in Athens A demonstrator holds a sign demanding freedom for Iran during a candlelight vigil for Mahsa Amini at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington Iran's foreign ministry condemned the United States' move and said 'bids to violate Iran's sovereignty won't go unanswered'. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani in a tweet accused the US of 'nefarious designs'. He said Washington was 'loosening communications sanctions, while keeping Max Pressure in place. Both meant to provoke instability.' In an interview with Nour news, which is affiliated with a top security body, he also said: 'Washington is always trying to weaken Iran's stability and security although it has been unsuccessful.' The anti-government protests are the largest to sweep the country since demonstrations over fuel prices in 2019, when Reuters reported 1,500 people were killed in a crackdown on protesters the bloodiest bout of internal unrest in the Islamic Republic's history. Demonstrations continued for a tenth night in a row yesterday, in defiance of a warning from the judiciary, with violent unrest having spread to at least 46 cities, towns and villages across Iran following her death. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time protests since unrest first broke out. Protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set ablaze state buildings. Some Iranian women protesters have removed and burnt their hijabs in the rallies and cut off their hair, while others have danced near large bonfires to the applause of crowds chanting 'zan, zendegi, azad' meaning 'woman, life, freedom'. The world has largely been made aware of the unrest via shaky mobile phone footage posted on social media, even as authorities have throttled internet access. She said that she would campaign for Democrats if it meant Trump not reelected Liz Cheney said that the Republicans who make unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump pose a threat to democracy Outgoing Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney has vowed to do 'whatever it takes' to stop former President Donald Trump from becoming a Republican Presidential nominee. Cheney, a vocal critic of Trump, refused to say if she would prefer the Democrats to hold their majority in the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections. Cheney, who is leading the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, argued that voters must be aware of the power some Republicans, who continue to make unfounded and false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, have in the Republican party. She said that the threat posed by those Republicans, like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert, who are challenging the election results may outweigh her policy differences with the left. Outgoing Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney has vowed to do 'whatever it takes' to stop former President Donald Trump from becoming a Republican Presidential nominee Speaking about whether she would prefer it if the Democrats won the midterm elections in November, Cheney, 56, said on Saturday: 'It's a tough question. I think that the policies of the Biden administration, there are a lot of bad politics, for example what we're seeing now with respect to government spending.' 'I think it's really important though, as voters are going to vote, that they recognize and understand what the Republican Conference consists of in the today, and how much power the election deniers, the people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and Jim Jordan, how much power those people will have in a Republican majority,' Cheney told the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, reports Fox News. She added: 'Partisanship has to have a limit. There's got to be an end.' Cheney, who lost a Republican primary to a challenger backed by Trump in Wyoming last month, added that she would campaign for the Democrats if necessary if it meant that Trump would not become president again. Cheney said: 'I'm going to make sure Donald Trump, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee, and if he is the nominee, I won't be a Republican.' Cheney, a harsh critic of Trump, refused to say if she would prefer the Democrats to hold their majority in the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections. Pictured: Trump tosses 'Save America' caps to the crowd as he held a rally on Friday September 23 in Wilmington, NC Speaking to NBC in the wake of her loss, the third-term congresswoman called Trump 'a very grave threat and risk to our republic,' and said defeating him will require 'a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and independents and that's what I intend to be part of.' She declined to say if she would run for president but conceded it's 'something that I'm thinking about.' The primary results and the more than 35-point margin of her defeat were a powerful reminder of the GOP's rapid shift to the right. Trump is purging the Republican Party, ridding it of dissenters like Cheney and others who dare to defy him, shifting the coast-to-coast GOP landscape and the makeup of Congress Of the 10 House Republicans including Cheney who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, at the Capitol, only two remain candidates for re-election. The others have bowed out or, like Cheney, have been defeated by Trump-backed challengers. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) (C) presides over a hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) (L) and Rep. Elaine Luria (D-CA) in the Cannon House Office Building on July 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. If Republicans gain control of the House and Senate in the November elections, the new Congress is destined to be remade in Trump's image. However, his influence may in fact cut two ways, winning back the House for Republicans but costing the party the Senate if his candidates fail to generate the broader appeal needed for statewide elections. For 50 years, the Cheneys have had important influence in Washington, from the time Dick Cheney first ran for Congress later being elected vice president to the arrival of his daughter, elected in 2016 alongside Trump's White House victory. But a party once dominated by national security-oriented, business-friendly conservatives like her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, now belongs to Trump, animated by his populist appeal and, above all, his denial of defeat in the 2020 election. Such lies, which have been roundly rejected by federal and state election officials along with Trump's own attorney general and judges he appointed, transformed Cheney from an occasional critic of the former president to the clearest voice inside the GOP warning that he represents a threat to democratic norms. She's the top Republican on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, an attack she referenced in nodding to her political future. 'I have said since Jan. 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office and I mean it,' she said during her concession speech in August. Jacinta Price has labelled the federal government 'racist' for keeping the controversial basics card in certain communities while abolishing the cashless debt card in others. Anthony Albanese's government confirmed plans to keep the Northern Territory under income management programs - which offers cards with payments that can only be used in approved stores. The territory has a higher percentage of Indigenous residents. The BasicsCard is used exclusively for 20,000 welfare recipients in the NT and cannot be used on alcohol, pornography, tobacco and gambling. The cashless debit card, used around the country, sees 20 per cent of the holder's income quarantined against cash withdrawals, gambling and purchases of alcohol. Other areas, including East Kimberley, Goldfields and Bundaberg-Hervey Bay, will see the cashless debt card become a voluntary opt-in scheme. Jacinta Price has labelled the federal government 'racist' for keeping the controversial basics card in certain communities while abolishing the cashless debt card in others The BasicsCard is used exclusively for 20,000 welfare recipients in the NT and cannot be used on alcohol, pornography, tobacco and gambling BasicsCard and Cashless debit card explained BasicsCard: The card can't be used to buy any of the following: Alcohol, pornography, tobacco and tobacco products, gambling products, gambling services, home-brew kits and home-brew concentrates, gift cards or vouchers that can be transferred for cash or credit. Cashless debit card: The card can't be used to withdraw cash or buy: Alcohol, gambling products, some gift cards Advertisement Ms Price said the Albanese government were targeting Aboriginals with the scheme - which is set to be voted on in the Senate. 'First they say that's racist to introduce income management, now they're allowing just for those in the Northern Territory who we know are predominantly Indigenous Australians - to be kept on the basics card,' she told reporters. 'So, it's these actions I would call racist. Because the former Coalition government made plans to ensure that the cashless debit card would be available to all welfare recipients eventually across the nation.' The change will see 17,000 people given the option to opt in or out of the cashless debit card system. The enhanced program will come into play from July next year for whoever opts in, while residents in Cape York and the Northern Territory will be automatically moved over under the new income management program. Deputy PM Richard Marles described the cashless debit card as a legislation that would 'strip people of their dignity'. Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth defending the decision, saying there were different models for different areas. 'That is a different model that is not like the other sites,' she told ABC Radio. 'In Cape York, it is a model where individuals are referred as an option with elders, as well as a number of other interventions.' Anthony Albanese's government confirmed plans to keep the Northern Territory under income management programs - which offers cards with payments that can only be used in approved stores. The territory has a higher percentage of Indigenous residents Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the move to allow people to opt in to the cashless system was appealing to an 'inner-city woke audience'. 'The Coalition strongly supports the cashless debit card for welfare payments to working age recipients where alcohol and drugs are a problem,' Mr Dutton said in July. 'Research from the University of Adelaide showed the cashless debit card led to a 21 per cent decrease in gambling and 45 per cent of people believed it had improved their lives. 'Prime Minister, to please an inner city woke audience, you've abolished the card, and as Jacinta Price points out, it will result in high instances of domestic violence and assault in Indigenous communities. Why make a bad situation worse?' The attacker was identified as Artyom Kazantsev, a former pupil of the school His guns meanwhile bore tributes to the infamous Columbine school shooters Images of the gunman's corpse showed the man clad all in black wearing a balaclava and carrying 'Nazi symbols' according to investigators he death toll stands at 15 and more than two dozen people were injured Pictures have emerged of a Russian gunman who killed at least 15 including 11 children in a school shooting rampage apparently inspired by the Columbine massacre. Terrified pupils jumped from windows and cowered in their classrooms as Artyom Kazantsev stalked the corridors of No. 88 school in Izhevsk - the capital of Russia's Udmurt Republic roughly 600 miles east of Moscow. The slaughter only came to an end when the 34-year-old dressed in black and wearing a swastika t-shirt - turned his gun on himself in a classroom. Cops later found him to be carrying key chains paying tribute to Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who staged an infamous school shooting in Colorado, USA, in 1999. One chain displayed the words 'Eric' and 'Dylan', while the other one read 'Columbine'. Kazantsev, a former pupil of No. 88 school, had also scrawled the word 'hate' on some of the ammo magazines he used. Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the shooting as an 'inhuman terrorist attack'. But a message thought to have been written by the attacker reposted to the Telegram messaging app read: 'What happened is not a terrorist attack. 'As the only reason for what happened, I ask you to cite hatred. I am not a member of any extremist organisations, I have no political demands.' The shooter was identified as Artyom Kazantsev, a former pupil of school No. 88 who was born in 1988 Armed police are seen tearing up the stairs in pursuit of the gunman as primary school age children run down stairs and are hustled toward the exits by officers and teachers Grieving family members are pictured at the scene of a school shooting in Izhevsk Police later found the attacker dead in the school, having committed suicide. His motive is unknown, but he was clad all in black and wearing a balaclava Gunman's weapons bore personalised keychains paying tribute to Columbine school shooters. Images published of the attacker's clothes also showed Nazi symbols Ammunition magazines recovered from the shooter had the word 'HATE!' painted across them Initial reports said two security guards and several children were wounded or killed in the No. 88 school in Izhevsk - the capital of Russia's Udmurt Republic roughly 600 miles east of Moscow Video footage posted on the Telegram messaging app showed terrified children and a teacher sheltering inside in a biology classroom as the gunman roamed the halls. An unnamed girl posted from inside the siege: 'We are in biology class. 'Moved from class to lab. The whole class is sitting and crying. They don't tell us anything. Very scary.' Another video saw children aged around nine or ten huddled in a classroom and crouched on the floor. They can be heard whispering 'Be Quiet!' to each other. Reports said school director Elena Semashko, 50, had locked herself and a wounded teenager in an office to avoid the attack. Artyom Kazantsev is pictured during his time at the No. 88 school in Izhevsk The press service of the Ministry of Education stated that the head of the department, Sergei Kravtsov, has dispatched a delegation to the school in the wake of the attack to oversee the investigation. A major operation was underway from Russian law enforcement to break the siege, until it transpired that the gunman had shot himself in room number 403. Once the attack was over, footage showed wounded children being taken out of the school to waiting ambulances. One - with apparent wounds - was carried out on top of a school desk. The school has 982 students and 80 teachers. Many of those affected were first graders - seven years old - according to reports. Russia's Investigative Committee confirmed the death toll of Kazantsev's attack stands at 13, while 14 more were injured. Rescuers are seen carrying a wounded child on a stretcher to an ambulance outside of the school Video footage posted on the Telegram messaging app showed terrified children and a teacher cowering inside in a biology classroom as they hid from the gunman Ambulances are pictured outside the No. 88 school in Izhevsk as a victim lies on the ground by the roadside A major operation was underway from Russian law enforcement to break the siege, until it transpired that the gunman had shot himself in room number 403 A police van is pictured outside the school in Izhevsk Governor of Udmurtia Alexander Brechalov said: 'We've got everything deployed at school 88. Special services, ambulance are all there. I am at the site, I'll be reporting all updates. 'So far, an unidentified person entered the school, killed a guard, it is already known that there are victims among children and wounded. Now the evacuation has ended. Brechalov later reported: 'It is already known that a guard was killed, there are victims among children, wounded... The attacker shot himself.' Izhevsk is the headquarters of the Kalashnikov weapons empire and the birthplace of the famed AK-47 assault rifle, among many other small arms used the world over. The school is in the centre of Izhevsk, a city of about 650,000 residents, close to central government buildings. The attack came as another gunman opened fire inside a Russian military enlistment office in the far-eastern city of Irkutsk, leaving the chief military recruiter in critical condition. This is the moment gunman Ruslan Zinin, 25 (far left and second right), walked into a Russian enlistment office in Irkutsk and shot military commissar Alexander Eliseev (second left) Dramatic footage captured the moment the man walked up to the recruiter has he stood on stage in front of new conscripts and fired a single shot at point-blank range while shouting: 'Nobody is going to fight!'. The man - identified as Ruslan Zinin, 25 - was angry after his friend got called up to the army following Putin's announcement of a partial military mobilisation amid the war in Ukraine. Zinin had told his mother that he was going to the recruitment office to enlist voluntarily, according to local reports. Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, said military commissar Alexander Eliseev was in 'critical condition' after the attack and that the shooter was arrested at the scene 'and will definitely be punished.' It comes as opposition to Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine grows after he gave the order to start conscripting men into the military, with a recruitment office in the Volgograd region fire-bombed overnight. Pfizer boss Dr Albert Bourla has tested positive for Covid for the second time in a month. The 60-year-old who has been vaccinated four times with his company's shot last had the virus in mid-August. He revealed on Twitter Saturday he had tested positive again but was 'feeling well and symptom-free'. Dr Bourla said he had not yet had Pfizer's new bivalent vaccine which is designed to give higher protection against Omicron variants. He used his back-to-back positive tests to warn people not to be complacent, adding: 'While we've made great progress, the virus is still with us.' It is unusual for someone to catch Covid twice in such a short time period. Natural infection is thought to provide strong protection for several months. A faulty test or leftover virus from the previous infection are normally the reasons people test positive in quick succession. However, a small number of people do suffer genuine reinfections within short time periods. Those with weakened immune systems are thought to be at higher risk. Pfizer CEO Bourla has tested positive for Covid for the second time in a month. Pictured: about to testify on drug prices before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington in February 2019 Bourla tweeted to his 55.3K followers to let them know of his positive test and warn them not to be complacent Dr Bourla said he had not got his fifth vaccine because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people should wait three months after an infection. During his illness last month, he was given a course of Pfizer's oral Covid antiviral treatment Paxlovid, which is used to treat high-risk people such as older patients. Just 1% of eligible Americans roll up their sleeves for bivalent Covid booster US health officials say 4.4 million Americans have rolled up their sleeves for the updated COVID-19 booster shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted the count Thursday. The White House said more than 5 million people received the new boosters by its own estimate that accounts for reporting lags in states. Health experts said it is too early to predict whether demand would match up with the 171 million doses of the new boosters the US ordered for the fall. 'No one would go looking at our flu shot uptake at this point and be like, 'Oh, what a disaster,' said Dr David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 'If we start to see a large uptick in cases, I think we're going to see a lot of people getting the (new COVID) vaccine.' Advertisement In his tweet on Saturday, Dr Bourla said: 'I have tested positive for Covid. I'm feeling well & symptom free. 'I've not had the new bivalent booster yet, as I was following CDC guidelines to wait three months since my previous Covid case which was back in mid-August. 'While we've made great progress, the virus is still with us.' The comments appear to be in reaction to President Joe Biden's assertion last week that the Covid pandemic is 'over'. Biden's remarks took officials even in his own administration by surprise and led to questions about why the government continues to enforce federal mandates and seek more funding to fight the disease. Around 53,000 Americans are still testing positive for Covid every day and the virus is killing about 350 people daily, latest CDC data shows. All over-12s are being offered Pfizer or Moderna's updated booster shots that target the dominant BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which were approved by the FDA last month. Around 25 million doses of the so-called bivalent shots have been sent out to state health authorities. But just 4.4million Americans have received the updated shot, according to the latest CDC data. This number represents just 1.5 per cent of people currently eligible to receive the booster in the US. The White House said more than 5 million people received the new boosters by its own estimate that accounts for reporting lags in states. A temporary shortage of Moderna vaccine caused some pharmacies to cancel appointments while encouraging people to reschedule for a Pfizer vaccine. Overall, around 109million Americans have received at least one booster dose. That represents just 35 per cent of the total US population over the age of five and less than half of those who were double-vaccinated. The new bivalent Covid booster is a half and half vaccine, made from the genetic material of the original Wuhan Covid strain and Omicron. This differs from the last generation of jabs that were based solely on the first Covid strain and are less effective against newer variants. It comes as Pfizer seeks to expand its bivalent Omicron booster to children as young as five. Elementary school-aged children already received kid-sized doses of Pfizers original vaccine, a third of the dose given to everyone 12 and older. They are eligible for two primary shots plus a booster. If the Food and Drug Administration agrees, they would start getting a kid-sized dose of the new Omicron-targeted formula when it was time for their booster. FDA vaccine chief Dr Peter Marks said last week he expected a decision on boosters for that age group soon. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech also announced a new study of the Omicron-focused booster in even younger children, those aged six months to four years old. Only six per cent of all crimes resulted in a charge in the year to September 2021 Officers have been filmed performing TikTok dances and joining in with festivals Home Office stats show forces are solving the lowest proportion of crimes ever Andy Marsh, head of the College of Policing, said police must focus on crime Police should spend more time catching criminals than involving themselves in 'spats on Twitter' and attempts at 'inclusion' like dancing on duty, a chief constable has warned. Andy Marsh, who has been head of the College of Policing since September 2021, said forces should prioritise reversing exceptionally low rates of solving crimes. Home Office figures released just weeks ago revealed forces were solving the lowest proportion of crimes ever, with only six per cent of all crimes resulting in a charge in the year to September 2021. The guidance comes as police officers have repeatedly been warned over dancing on duty at events such as the Notting Hill festival and pride parades. It also follows comments from new Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who told chiefs to spend less time on 'diversity' and concentrate on fighting crime. In a letter to chief constables, she reprimanded forces for failing to tackle offences such as burglary, car theft, graffiti and drugs. Her intervention amounted to a call for a 'back to basics' approach to policing and came after incidents which have seen police criticised for taking up 'woke' causes. Andy Marsh (pictured), head of the College of Policing, has warned police should be catching criminals instead of getting involved in 'spats on Twitter' and dancing on duty Home Secretary Suella Braverman tells woke police chiefs to spend less time on 'diversity' In a letter to chief constables Ms Braverman said: 'Unfortunately, there is a perception that the police have had to spend too much time on symbolic gestures [rather] than actually fighting criminals. 'This must change. Initiatives on diversity and inclusion should not take precedence over common sense policing. 'The public have a right to expect that the police get the basics right driving down anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime which can so easily rip through our communities. To put it simply, the public want to know that an officer will visit them after a crime such as burglary. 'They want to feel safe in their cities, towns and villages. This is not just about doing your day job well, it is also about victims needing to feel supported and not ignored.' 'We also need to see a renewed focus on tackling neighbourhood crime and anti-social behaviour. Drugs, vehicle theft, vandalism and graffiti are not being treated seriously enough.' Suella Braverman speaking with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley (right) and London Mayor Sadiq Khan (left) Advertisement Mr Marsh told the Telegraph that police forces' 'frivolous' attempts at 'inclusion' are counterproductive and that they may lose public trust if they don't investigate high vulnerability crimes, such as rape. The police executive, who was chief constable of Avon and Somerset and Hampshire, said: 'Our new guidance on managing non-crime hate incidents, for example, is very clear: The police should not be involving themselves in spats on Twitter. 'It is not where the public want the police to be. We cannot pick sides on contested social issues, we have a job to do: to police without fear or favour, to prevent and detect crime. 'What so irritates the public when they see videos of officers on duty dancing is that they don't see an expression of inclusion, they see an officer who has closed their burglary case with no further action - without even visiting the scene - stepping over the line from respectful and polite policing of an event, into frivolity.' Latest Home Office figures showed that just 3.7 per cent of burglaries, 4.2 per cent of thefts and 6.6 per cent in robberies result in a charge. Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke said these were 'not minor crimes' and they 'strike at the heart of how safe people feel in their own homes and communities'. Meanwhile, more than 120,000 people in the past five years were recorded by police for non-crime incidents. Police officers have faced criticism for getting involved with festivities at major events, such as Notting Hill carnival and pride festivals. Back in 2017, PC Daniel Graham made headlines for entertaining carnival-goers at Notting Hill festival with his moves, and was told 'you must be an undercover raver'. In May, five officers were branded a 'disgrace' for performing a TikTok-style dance at a 'youth engagement' event in Edmonton - a north London suburb with a high crime rate. In March this year 387 crimes were reported in Edmonton, according to police websites. The most recent example was in August as members of Lincolnshire Police performed the macarena at a pride festival. Police officers have faced criticism for getting involved with festivities at major events. A video went viral of officers performing the macarena at Lincoln pride in August A police officer danced with a group of volunteers at a Commonweath Games warm-up event, in an incident that also went viral These five police officers were branded a 'disgrace' for performing a TikTok-style dance in a north London suburb with a high crime rate In July police were told not to treat trivial internet spats as hate incidents. The national standards body issued guidance telling police officers to target real crimes and not online debates, in a move that was haled as a victory for freedom of speech. Social debate must not be 'stigmatised simply because someone is offended', said a spokesperson. Mr Marsh said that there were events where officers could still show their empathy for social and political causes, such as LGBT officers being able to march in uniform in pride. A 'hugely naive' businesswoman who sold illegal 'self-defence kits' including CS gas and a knife designed to protect women from would be attackers has narrowly avoided jail. Renea Thorn-Jones, 21, set up an online business called Brat Boutique advertising 'self-defence kits' for 11, which included a CS gas canister and a concealed knife stored within a key. Thorn-Jones, from Wythenshawe, said she'd spotted similar items for a sale on an American website and regarded it as a 'business opportunity'. But she did not realise what she was doing was illegal and could land her in jail. Manchester Crown Court heard that she sold about 20 to 30 of the kits, which she advertised on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube alongside other items on her website including press-on fingernails, eyelashes and tarot readings. She made about 300 from selling the kits but police were alerted to her website and officers arrested her at her home. During the arrest, they discovered 60 'highly dangerous and noxious' CS gas canisters and 25 knives concealed in keys. Pictured: Renea Thorn-Jones, a 'hugely naive' businesswoman who sold illegal 'self-defence kits' including CS gas and a knife to protect women, has narrowly avoided prison sentence The 21-year-old believed she was helping women, a judge found during her sentencing hearing Thorn-Jones said she sourced the items from a website in China and had them delivered in the post, and did not suspect what she was doing was illegal. She narrowly avoided jail after facing a prison sentence of up to six years, after a judge said Thorn-Jones had been 'hugely naive' and learned a 'difficult lesson'. 'You genuinely believed that these kits would protect women,' Judge Sarah Johnston told her. 'You regret deeply your naivety and foolishness. 'You are yourself troubled by the potential consequences of the sale of these items, and into whose hands they have now fallen.' Prosecutors said GMP were alerted to her website in August last year by the Metropolitan Police. Thorn-Jones appeared in a video on her YouTube channel titled 'not so sweet self-defence kit', which was viewed more than 24,000 times. Renea Thorn-Jones (pictured outside court) has been convicted of weapons trafficking offences after she was caught selling potentially lethal 'self defence kits' via an online store Thorn-Jones told officers that she sold the gas (pictured) to help women fend off an attacker She said that the items, apart from the CS gas, could be shipped worldwide. Police went to her home in October last year and arrested her. She told officers that she sold the gas in a bid to help women fend off an attacker. When questioned about the knives, she said she hadn't thought of them being used as a weapon or falling into the wrong hands, prosecutor Gavin Howie said. The court heard prosecutors are currently unaware who she sold the self-defence kits to, and the judge urged police to investigate so the weapons can be retrieved. Defending, Jeremy Barton said it 'beggars belief' that Thorn-Jones 'could be so naive', and she genuinely believed she wasn't acting illegally. Mr Barton said she'd donated some of the proceeds of her business to Hands Off, a charity which supports women who have been sexually assaulted. Thorn-Jones admitted possessing bladed articles with intent to sell over these key knives 'She realises how wrong what she has done is, she is remorseful and respectful of the law,' Mr Barton said. Judge Johnston told Thorn-Jones: 'There is in my judgement a terrible irony, that this business presented a turning point in your life in that it gave you a sense of purpose and achievement, against a background of mental health frailty, anxiety and depression, but has now had the consequences that you are here to be sentenced before me for very serious offences.' Thorn-Jones has not been in trouble with the law before and her crimes were 'wholly out of character', the judge said. She ruled it would be 'arbitrary and disproportionate' to send Thorn-Jones to jail, and instead handed her a two year prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, as well as unpaid work. 'Your intention was to keep women safe, in the absence of any knowledge that these items were illegal,' the judge said. Thorn-Jones, of Drake Avenue, Wythenshawe, pleaded guilty to possessing CS gas with intent to sell and possessing bladed articles with intent to sell. The Duke of York stepped back from his royal duties after details of his ties to US financier and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein emerged Royal expert Nick Bullen said that Prince Andrew's life as working royal is 'over' A royal expert has claimed that King Charles III has no plans for Prince Andrew to play a role in the future of the British monarchy following the Queen's death. Nick Bullen, the co-founder of True Royalty TV, said that Prince Andrew's life as a working royal is 'well and truly over'. 'For Prince Andrew, his life as a working royal is well and truly over,' Bullen told Fox News Digital. 'We won't be seeing very much more of him in the coming weeks and months. 'I don't believe that he is part of the king's plan for the future of the monarchy. The King has been very clear in saying that he wants a slimmed-down monarchy.' Bullen added: 'The King is focusing on immediate heirs. Having [his grandchildren] Prince George and Princess Charlotte as part of the funeral was a very clear message this is the future.' The Queen's second son was seen at his mother Queen Elizabeth II's funeral earlier this month, after previously being stripped of his royal HRH title and his military and charitable affiliations after details of his ties to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein emerged. But King Charles is widely reported to be planning a 'slimmed-down' monarchy during his reign, which would mean he could be focusing on his heirs - rather than his disgraced brother. A royal expert has claimed that King Charles III has no plans for Prince Andrew to play a role in the future of the British monarchy following the Queen 's death. Pictured: Prince Andrew (centre) out riding today in Windsor Prince Andrew, Duke of York, King Charles III, Anne, Princess Royal, and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex at Westminster Abbey for the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on September 19 Nick Bullen, the co-founder of True Royalty TV, said that Prince Andrew's life as a working royal is 'well and truly over'. Pictured: Prince Andrew attends the Committal Service for Queen Elizabeth II at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on September 19 Who is royal expert Nick Bullen? Nick Bullen, a former Editor of the UK's daytime show This Morning, is the co-founder of True Royalty TV - the world's first service dedicated to the Royals. Bullen launched his independent production company Spun Gold TV in 2004. Since then, the company has launched a series of programmes focusing on the Royal Family. Spun Gold TV says on its website that the production company is 'one of the world's leading suppliers of royal programming'. Bullen is also said to have been dubbed the 'King of Royal TV' after he and two partners launched True Royalty TV in 2008. Advertisement Bullen said that there is no longer a role for Prince Andrew in the monarchy, adding that the Duke of York will not be given any of his military titles again after he was stripped of them following revelations about his ties to Epstein emerged. Buckingham Palace announced in January that the Prince would be stripped of all his military titles and patronages. It is understood King Charles was instrumental in influencing the decision. Bullen said: 'A role for Prince Andrew just doesn't exist anymore. He won't be given any of his military titles again. He's not going to be a working royal again. So I think we won't be seeing very much of him on the public stage.' A spokesperson for Prince Andrew declined to comment on Bullen's claims, telling MailOnline: 'We won't be commenting on the utterances of every self-proclaimed "royal expert".' MailOnline has contacted representatives for King Charles for comment. Following the revelations of Prince Andrew's connections to Epstein and his disastrous Newsnight interview with the BBC's Emily Maitlis, he faced a US lawsuit by Virgina Roberts - who now goes by her married name of Giuffre. As pressure and bad publicity continued to pile on Duke of York over the New York civil sex assault case, it was announced in January 2021 that the Prince would lose his royal patronages so he could fight the allegations as a 'private citizen'. Despite vowing to fight Ms Roberts' allegations directed against him in the civil case filed in New York - and repeatedly protesting his innocence - Andrew agreed to pay 12million to settle the case before it reached a jury in March. Virginia Giuffre (centre) opened a civil sex assault case against Andrew in New York. Pictured right is Ghislaine Maxwell, who procured girls for sex predator Jeffrey Epstein Pictured: Prince Andrew and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in New York following Epstein's prison term in 2011 Prince Andrew said he would make a 'substantial donation' to her charity supporting victims' rights and also praised her 'bravery', saying he had 'never intended' to malign her character. Prince Andrew was briefly allowed to wear his military uniform last week as he and his siblings stood vigil next to their mother's coffin as she lay in state in Westminster Hall. Prince Andrew also greeted mourners at Balmoral shortly after the death of Her Majesty as they gathered outside the castle where the Queen passed away to lay flowers and pay tribute. The King allowed his brother to wear his ceremonial military uniform at the Queen's vigil as 'an act of kindness', according to a palace source. Sex abuse victims of Epstein were reported to be 'frustrated' by Andrew's return to public life, with some accusing him of trying to 'rehabilitate' his public image. Andrew last appeared publicly before the Queen's death in March during a memorial service to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh who died last year. The prince arrived with the Queen from Windsor and supported her as she used a walking stick to get to her seat. He then helped her back out of the church and into the Royal limousine at the end of the service. It was later reported that Prince William and King Charles had raised concerns 'on more than once occasion' about the optics of allowing the duke to escort the 96-year-old monarch down to her seat at such a well-publicised event. The father and son were 'absolutely united' that it was 'unnecessary' for him to have the high profile role, according to The Mirror. There was surprise in March when Andrew was given a frontline role at the memorial service for the Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey It was later reported that Prince William and King Charles had raised concerns 'on more than once occasion' about the optics of allowing the duke to escort the 96-year-old monarch down to her seat at such a well-publicised event But their protests were overruled by The Queen, who made it her 'wish and final decision' in choosing for Andrew to have a special role on the occasion. Yet Andrew was then banned from the Buckingham Palace balcony for Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, an act which royal experts said proved there was 'no way back' for the disgraced duke. In 2011, it emerged that Andrew was friends with American financier Epstein, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution. Photos surfaced of him with his arm around Mrs Giuffre, previously known as Virginia Roberts, who claimed that Epstein employed her as a masseuse but exploited her while a teenage minor. The Duke was also pictured walking in New York's Central Park with Epstein in December 2010, a year after Epstein's release from prison, and this led him to quit his role as a trade envoy. In 2013, Andrew was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, but Britain's pre-eminent scientific institution faced unprecedented dissent from members over the move, with one professor describing the Duke as an 'unsavoury character'. Meanwhile, an explosive new biography has claimed that Andrew secretly plotted with Princess Diana and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson to try to prevent Charles becoming King and allow Prince William to take the throne with the Duke of York as Regent. Andrew is also alleged to have 'lobbied' the Queen and campaigned against the marriage between Charles and Camilla, now King and Queen Consort, telling his mother that she was not trustworthy. Prince Andrew thanked mourners for their good wishes outside Balmoral Castle, where the Queen passed away earlier this month Angela Levin's new book on the life of Camilla, serialised in the Telegraph, claims that the Duke of York was 'very nasty' to her and conspired with Princess Diana to prevent the Queen's eldest son from becoming King. Under Andrew's alleged plan, William would have been lined up for the throne with Charles pushed out and Andrew made Regent if the Queen had died before William was 18. Citing a 'senior insider', Ms Levin writes that the Duke of York 'plotted' with Diana to 'push Prince Charles aside', with the aim of Prince Andrew becoming 'Regent to Prince William'. 'Andrew lobbied very hard with the hope that Charles would not become king when his mother died, and that William would wear the crown', she said. Ms Levin added the Prince 'lobbied very hard' to try and prevent his older brother from taking to the throne. A 'senior insider' at the palace is said to have told Ms Levin: 'When Diana was alive, through her friendship with Andrew's wife Sarah, [Duchess of York] she plotted with Andrew to try to push Prince Charles aside so Prince Andrew could become Regent to Prince William, who was then a teenager. 'They were dark and strange times, where paranoia became reality, and this was a worry. 'His behaviour was very, very negative and extremely unpleasant to Queen [Elizabeth], who disagreed. I was told it was one of the rare occasions he didn't get his way. 'Nonetheless, he was apparently very angry that he couldn't rule the country in some way. He remained so hostile to Camilla's emergence and acceptance that it's doubtful it has ever been forgiven.' Buckingham Palace and representatives for the Duke of York have been contacted for comment. Ms Levin also wrote about the Duke's hostility to Charles' marriage to Camilla, claiming Andrew was 'poisonous' and 'very nasty' about her to the late Queen Elizabeth. The insider said: 'He tried to persuade the Queen to block Charles marrying Camilla by being quite poisonous, mean, unhelpful and very nasty about Camilla.' These claims allegedly included that Camilla was insufficiently aristocratic and was untrustworthy. In 1998, when Charles turned 50, a party was thrown but the Queen and Prince Philip declined in case Camilla was there. Camillas close friend Lucia Santa Cruz said: When Camilla was married to Andrew Parker Bowles, she used to go to Balmoral with him and join the Royal family. They got on marvellously well with her But when the marriage failed and she was with Prince Charles, she was rejected and got all the blame, which was so unfair'. The Duke of York and King Charles have reportedly had a strained relationship over the years, which has worsened dramatically since Prince Andrew's ties to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein emerged. When Buckingham Palace announced in January that the Prince would be stripped of all his military titles and patronages, and would defend his sex abuse case against Virginia Giuffre as a private citizen, it was understood the now-King had been instrumental in influencing the decision. Jeon Joo-hwan, a former subway worker who murdered his female ex-colleague at Sindang Station in Seoul on Sept. 14, leaves Namdaemun Police Station on Sept. 21 to head to the prosecutors' office. Joint Press Corps. By Ko Dong-hwan The recent stalking murder of a female employee at Seoul's Sindang Station has sent shockwaves throughout Korean society, focusing the public's attention on the problem of women continuing to be targeted and even murdered by stalkers, as existing protective measures by police are proven ineffective in many cases. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on Monday visited the office of 1366 Seoul Center, a hotline call center for women suffering from various forms of violence and stalking, and listened to the voices of the employees there regarding the offenses and how victims are being treated. The Gender Equality Policy Division under the city government's Women and Family Policy Office on Monday announced its initiatives for preventing further stalking incidents. First, the authority will introduce three new shelters next month for stalking victims in the city two reserved for as many as 10 women and one for four men. The shelters, for the first time in the country, not only provide protection and psychological therapy to the victims, but also allow them to maintain their daily lives. At present, facilities designed to protect stalking victims limit them from resuming their daily routines in order to minimize the risks of exposing their whereabouts to stalkers. Starting next year, the city will also launch a one-stop service for the victims, providing psychological therapy, legal support, medical treatment and protection. Currently, victims have to apply for each service separately. The one-stop service will be provided starting in 2024 by the city's new independent comprehensive support center dedicated to stalking victims. Seoul Metro CEO Kim Sang-bum bows to the public after visiting a women's restroom at Sindang Station on Seoul Metro lines 2 and 6, Sept. 24, where a female subway worker was killed by a stalker on Sept. 14. Kim was criticized for not having prevented the crime in advance. Yonhap A Russian oligarch dubbed 'Putin's chef' has confirmed for the first time that he founded the notorious Wagner Group. Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose other business provides catering services to the Kremlin, said he founded the mercenary unit during Russia's first Ukraine invasion in 2014. The group has since gained a reputation for doing the Russian military's dirty work, leaving a trail of brutal violence, rapes and war crimes in its wake. It is known to have operated on battlefields from Europe to the Middle East, South America and Africa. Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch dubbed 'Putin's chef' (left, recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine) has admitted founding the notorious Wagner mercenary group Prigozhin (left), whose other business provides catering to the Kremlin, said he was 'proud' to have brought together 'a group of patriots' to assist first Ukraine was in 2014 'I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this,' Prigozhin said in a statement issued by his Concord catering firm on Russian social media site, VKontakte. 'From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion. I am proud that I was able to defend their right to protect the interests of their country.' Prigozhin has long-refuted any association with Wagner, and has threatened to sue journalists who reported on his involvement with the group. For years after it was first established, the Russian government refused to even acknowledge the existence of the group. However, after its members were frequently spotted on the frontlines in Ukraine the name has been mentioned in state media reports. Wagner's first deployment was to the frontlines in eastern Ukraine in 2014 - where they assisted Russian-backed separatist groups fighting the country's new government following a 2013 revolution that toppled the Kremlin-friendly president. Since then they have gone to Libya - fighting for warlord Khalifa Haftar against the Western-backed Government of National Accord - and Syria, alongside the forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Wagner is known to have operated in Ukraine (pictured), Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Mali, and has been accused of war crimes in each of those locations Russia is thought to have lost tens of thousands of soldiers fighting in Ukraine, with Wagner also suffering heavy casualties (pictured, destroyed Russian tanks) They were also deployed to the Central African Republic where they were accused of rape, robbery and torture against unarmed civilians, and are currently deployed to Mali where they have been accused of massacring civilians. Wagner largely recruits from the regular Russian military, often taking on those who have been thrown out of its ranks. However, after suffering high casualties fighting in Ukraine, Prigozhin has begun recruiting from prisons in Russia. Recent footage shows Prigozhin telling men formed up in an exercise yard that if they fight for him in Ukraine for six months then their sentences will be excused. Those he is addressing include murderers, sex offenders and burglars, according to local media reports. 'This is a hard war, not even close to the likes of [Chechnya] and the others,' he was videoed telling them. 'My ammo consumption is two-and-a-half-times higher than in the battle of Stalingrad,' - where there were almost two million casualties. Police are hunting for P-plate driver who killed father-of-four in a hit-and-run Police are hunting for the P-plate driver who killed a beloved father-of-four in a brazen daylight hit-and-run in Sydney's west. Saad Maqdasi Hanna was attempting to cross Sackville Street in Fairfield on Monday morning when he was mowed down by a black Honda Accord with green P-plates. CCTV footage from the petrol station across the road shows the father's final moments, smoking a cigarette while waiting for a break in traffic. The vehicle can then be seen turning onto the main road before speeding off after the collision. Police are hunting for the P-plate driver who allegedly killed a beloved father-of-four in a hit-and-run in Sydney's west Black Honda Accord had green P-plates at the time of the incident in Fairfield Witnesses attempted to assist Mr Hanna but he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. Police believe the father was struck by the Honda at 5:46am on the busy road which locals say is a hotspot for speeding. Friends and family were pictured consoling each other at the scene on Monday. 'You just feel sad. He's going to work in the morning and that just happens to him out of nowhere,' friend Michael told Nine News. 'Honestly, I've known the guy long time , he's a very nice guy - he's got a family, four children. It's very sad.' Friends and family were pictured consoling each other at the scene on Monday after Mr Hanna's death Police have released CCTV footage from the scene in an attempt to find the driver. They are urging anyone who was driving in the area between 5:45am and 5:50am on Monday morning to come forward, particularly drivers with dashcam footage. 'The driver should hand themselves into the nearest police station,' Detective Inspector Jason Hogan told reporters. The litigation executive had a valid parking permit provided by the hospital She had leukaemia so was waiting for blood tests at Manchester Royal Infirmary Brian Foote visited his wife Nahruma Ahmed, 46, after she collapsed on June 20 A father-of-one was hit with a 70 parking fine as he visited his dying wife in hospital - despite having a permit. Brian Foote, 47, went to see Nahruma Ahmed, 46, after she collapsed while waiting for blood tests at Manchester Royal Infirmary on June 20. Nahruma, who had leukaemia, passed away just eight days later on June 28, leaving the family devastated. Brian began receiving letters from Parkingeye nine days after his wife's death - saying he had been fined 35 for parking without permission. Despite having a valid parking pass, Brian said Parkingeye continued to demand payment - and increased the fine to 70, later threatening to take him to court. Brian Foote, 47, was hit with a 70 parking fine after visiting his wife Nahruma Ahmed (pictured together), 46, in hospital, despite having a valid parking pass Nahruma was waiting for blood tests at A&E at Manchester Royal Infirmary (stock image) when she collapsed on June 20 Brian, a litigation executive, said: 'I feel completely corporately bullied. To treat me in such a way is despicable and terrible. 'I'm not looking for sympathy here - I haven't done anything wrong.' When approached for comment, Parkingeye said they had decided to cancel the fine after a 'review'. Brian attended Manchester Royal Infirmary on June 20 after Nahruma was admitted to A&E. She had been sent to the outpatient unit for treatment but had taken a turn for the worse while at the hospital. Due to arriving late, the hospital provided him with a parking permit the next day and it was validated by car parking staff on site. The former paratrooper even took a picture of the pass after it had been validated - showing that he was covered for parking on June 20. In a heartbreaking turn of events, Nahruma passed away on June 28. And, on July 7, Brian received a letter from Parkingeye which said they were charging him 35 for parking without permission. Brian began receiving letters from Parkingeye nine days after his wife's death - saying he had been fined 35 for parking without permission Still dealing with the ramifications of his wife's death and knowing that he had a valid permit, he didn't respond to the letter at the time. He then received another letter in August - demanding a payment of 70. This time he provided the parking management company with picture evidence of his valid parking permit in response and explained the circumstances. Expecting the matter to be resolved, he put the issue to the back of his mind - only to receive yet another letter on September 21. He says this said Parkingeye said it had not accepted his permit as valid - and demanded a payment of 70 or potential legal action. Nahruma was classed as highly vulnerable during covid, meaning the hospital provided Brian with regular car parking passes. Brian said: 'My partner was very suddenly and completely out of the blue diagnosed with leukaemia on August 30, 2021. 'It was absolutely devastating and tore our family apart. Nahruma was classed as highly vulnerable during covid, meaning the hospital provided Brian with regular car parking passes 'She spent 90 per cent of her time in hospital and because of the nature of her condition the hospital provided me with regular car passes. 'Regardless of Covid, she was classed as highly vulnerable with regards to anxiety and I was her main carer so I was there every single day in hospital. 'On June 20, she went back into the day unit for some treatments and took a bad turn while she was there. 'She was passed to A&E and, as I was her main carer and she was on over 20 different types of medication three times a day, I had to go up that evening. 'By the time I left it was about 11.30pm. The next day I spoke to the haematology department and asked for an updated and backdated car pass which is completely normal. 'They did so and I took it straight to the car parking staff at the barrier. I gave them the pass, said it had been signed by the hospital and backdated, so they filled out the rest of it. 'I have no part in the car parking pass, it's all done by the hospital and the car park staff. 'I asked them to hold it up against the window and took a picture of it. 'A couple of weeks later, I received a letter on July 7 asking for 35 from Parkingeye. I had lost my partner on June 28 so I didn't open or deal with it, I just left it in a pile of letters. 'I got another letter in August asking for 70 which I responded to on August 25 and forwarded them the screenshot from my phone and explained the circumstances. 'I said they could see the pass was dated from June 20. I haven't done anything wrong, please confirm this matter is resolved. 'And, on September 21, I received a letter threatening court as they've declined the official car pass I sent to them which authorised me to park there - and they've failed on their obligation to provide me with reasons.' Parkingeye said it had decided to cancel the fine after a 'review'. Parkingeye said they decided to cancel the fine - which had increased to 70 - after a review A spokesperson said: 'Parkingeye provides a modern consumer-facing car-park management system which has enhanced accessibility and made parking at the hospital easier and safer for staff, patients and visitors. 'The system is designed to ensure the efficiency and smooth operation of the hospital by ensuring that patients, visitors and staff park in their allocated car parks. 'Following a review of the case we have cancelled the charge and have written to the motorist to confirm this. 'We would add that Parkingeye operates a BPA (British Parking Association) audited appeals process, which motorists can use to appeal their parking charge. If anyone has mitigating circumstances then we would encourage them to appeal.' Tory MP and ex-soldier Tom Tugendhat has shared a video of the moment he was 'followed' by a herd of cows as he walks through a field. Mr Tugendhat, 49, posted a short clip of the encounter to Twitter on Sunday, telling his feed: 'Im being followed.' The new Minister of State for Security, surrounded by a herd of cows walking in his direction, accused the cattle of 'outflanking' him. He joked the encounter was an example of 'crowd control.' The video comes as livestock encounters are seemingly gaining popularity across the UK. Social media users have started sharing stories of livestock attacks and brushes with death in harrowing detail. Last month, a campaign was launched lobbying for new laws to protect walkers from 'killer cows' in the countryside. The campaign demands insurance for all farmers who keep livestock, cattle to be separated from walkers on National Trails and a national database of cow attacks. Video shows the moment Tory MP and ex-soldier Tom Tugendhat was 'followed' by a herd of cows as he walks through a field Mr Tugendhat shared the seemingly playful video of his walk through the field on Sunday. It is unclear where specifically the conservative MP, whose constituency includes for Tonbridge and Malling, took his stroll on the rather sunny day. 'I don't know about you, but I think I might be being followed,' he said in the 24-second clip. As he walked through the field, the herd appeared to follow behind him. 'This is becoming a little bit friendlier,' Mr Tugenhadt added. 'Being outflanked! Here we go. Here's crowd control.' The Tory MP was surrounded by a herd of cows walking in his direction. He accused the cattle of 'outflanking' him and joked the encounter was an example of 'crowd control' As he walked through the field, the herd appeared to follow behind him. He said: 'This is becoming a little bit friendlier' The MP's video comes just one month after website 'Killer Cows' called for new laws pertaining to livestock in the UK, prompted by a slew of animal attacks. 'Killer Cows' was set up by a group of walkers who had 'experienced aggressive behaviour by cattle'. The campaign is lobbying for legislation including compulsory public liability insurance for all farmers who keep livestock, cattle to be separated from walkers on National Trails and a national database of cow attacks. Alongside its campaigning, the site is dedicated to sharing stories of ramblers attacked by cattle near farmers' fields, with headlines including 'Julia: scared for her life' and 'Martin and Margaret: Trampled by cows'. One story describes how a woman named Julia was attacked by a herd while holidaying near Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland. Out walking with her partner and dog on the rocky shore, she decided to walk on the path near cattle because she 'believed that cows do not pose dangers to humans without dogs'. The MP's video comes just one month after website 'Killer Cows' called for new laws pertaining to livestock in the UK, prompted by a slew of animal attacks Sharon Eley has said she is 'very lucky to be alive' after the ordeal involving around 20 cows when they attacked as she walked through the Lancashire countryside Martin and Margaret: Trampled by cows On May 9, we were walking on a public footpath across a field in West Burton, in the Yorkshire Dales. The footpath provides direct access into the village from a B road and from other public rights of way over adjoining fields. It is an area we know well, and a route we've walked many times before. We had our dog with us on a lead. We didn't see the cows to start with, but when we reached the top of a slight incline we realised there were maybe eight cows in the field, which was quite small. Two cows were grazing directly in the line of the public footpath, so we gave them as wide a berth as we could, and walked in close proximity to the perimeter wall. We kept our small dog on a short lead. The cows with very little warning became extremely agitated. We didn't see the calves until it was too late. Suddenly, one of the cows came toward us. Then, a big brown cow got up and came charging. MARTIN'S STORY 'I shouted to Margaret to let go of the dog, which she did, and the dog ran away. I managed to get in front of the brown cow to protect my wife, but the cow butted me and tossed me up into the air like a matchstick. When I got up from the ground, I saw the cows were trampling Margaret. I ran at them, shouting and kicking. 'The whole attack only lasted 20 seconds or so, but it seemed like a lifetime.' MARGARET'S STORY 'The next thing I knew, I was down on the ground, and the cow was trampling on top of me. I lay on my side and managed to protect my stomach. I truly believe if I had been on my back I would have been killed. I was wearing a leather bum bag, which probably saved me from worse injury. It was completely split in two by the force of the cows' hooves.' INJURIES AND AFTERMATH Margaret was airlifted by Yorkshire Air Ambulance to James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough, where she was found to have suffered six broken ribs, a collapsed lung and, more seriously, a seven cm deep tear to her liver. She was kept in hospital for five days for observation, but luckily did not need surgery to repair her liver. As far as we know, the cows are still in the field. Source: Killer Cows Advertisement She wrote: 'The cows seemed to feel threatened by me, and began circling around me. Seeing this, and likely sensing aggression from the cows, my loyal dog escaped from his harness and ran towards me, then began growling at the cows... 'Unfortunately, my partner and I were under the impression that the cows would be aggressive only to my dog, and not me.' After her partner got the dog back in its harness, Julia described being stalked by a lone cow as she tried to walk away. She wrote: 'It was only three feet away... It was jumping up and down and snorting and looked like it was about to attack at any moment. I was absolutely terrified. 'I could sense the cow, right there, hear it panting, see it snorting at me, see the ground move under it as it jumped up and down. 'My partner, safely through the gate, and sensing I was about to be attacked, shouted run. I was now just ten or so feet from the gate and so I did run. 'Thankfully I reached the gate, managing to escape my brush with intense injury or death.' Another woman, Sharon Eley, shared how she was 'lucky to be alive' after being strangled and repeatedly headbutted by a herd of rampaging cows in Lancashire. Ms Eley, 51, was surrounded by 20 cows as she walked her five-year-old Lhasa Apso called Ralphie this past May. The herd was led by an agitated 'ringleader' which threw her to the ground twice before repeatedly headbutting her, leaving her with 15 broken ribs, a punctured lung, a dislocated and shattered ankle and a broken clavicle. The 51-year-old was also nearly garrotted when the strap on her bag wrapped around her throat during the attack, leaving her with a ligature mark around and severe bruising. It was only when other walkers entered the field and managed to distract the cows that the glamping business owner was able to escape. The other walkers escaped unharmed. Ms Eley managed to drag herself to her feet before a stand-off between her and one remaining cow, which eventually backed down. She was then able to crawl to the edge of the field and haul herself over a dry-stone wall. Livestock owners are currently liable for damages caused to property by straying livestock. Damages caused to people often depend on individual circumstances and are assessed individually by the courts, although farmers are expected to carry out risk assessments and put up appropriate signage. Where a farmer has failed to implement reasonable safety measures, they can also be liable for prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive. Fraudsters posing as British Gas are trying to con hardworking British families out of thousands of pounds as part of a new scam sweeping the nation, a bank has warned. Lloyds Bank said conmen pretend to be workers from the energy supplier in fake emails sent to cash-strapped households. In the bogus email, fraudsters claim to their victims that their latest energy bill direct debit has not gone through and that as a result, their electricity could be cut off. But Lloyds has warned these messages are a hoax and have urged people not to reply to them. In a statement to customers, Lloyds said: 'You could get an email that looks like it's from British Gas. 'It will say that your latest payment by direct debit didn't go through and your gas supply could be cut off. Conmen are sending fake emails pretending to be from British Gas in an attempt to steal people's hard-earned cash, British Gas has warned Lloyds has issued advice to customers on how to avoid falling victim to the con, which is sweeping across the UK If people are unsure about an email they receive, they are being urged to contact British Gas, directly, via information from the company's official website 'They want you to click on a link to check and update your payment details. This is a scam. 'The link is to a fake site to try and get your personal or payment details.' It comes as millions of families face an unprecedented rise in their energy bills as soaring prices slice into people's savings. Energy bills will be frozen at 2,500 a year for two years in a moved announced by Prime Minister Liz Truss to protect homes from soaring gas and electricity prices The price cap will coming into force on October 1 and will last until 2024 - the same year as the next General Election. Without the cap, experts feared household energy bills could have soared from an average of 1,971 to a whopping 3,549 a year. In a bid to combat fraudsters taking advantage of the energy crisis, Lloyds has since released advice to help people avoid falling victim to the conmen. People are being urged not to open emails if they don't know who sent them - and to check the sender's email address to make sure it is legitimate. Lloyds is also asking people not to click on any links or attachments unless they know they are safe. Links can often send people to malicious websites or could infect a computer or phone with a virus. Emails can also contain spelling errors, which could be an indication that they are not genuine. Those unsure about an email are being urged to contact their energy supplier directly, via links on the company's official website, to check. A former Met Police officer who grabbed a man by the throat and threw him to the ground has been indefinitely barred from the force. Archie Payne, 28, grabbed 26-year-old Scott Rooney by the throat and threw him to the floor after responding to reports of a fight in Romford on January 5, 2020. His colleague, PC Jack Wood, struck Jake Smith, 26, with his baton during the same incident, causing a gash to his skull. Mr Rooney, a railway engineer, had told a court how he was attacked after he tried to take a picture of PC Wood and his officer number outside the Worlds Inn in South Street. Body worn footage showed Payne grabbing Mr Rooneys throat, pushing him to the wall and lying on top of him. Former PC Archie Payne, pictured, has been permanently banned from serving as a police officer after his appeal against an assault conviction at Southwark Crown Court failed. He is due back in court on October 3 where a judge may wish to adjust his sentence Mr Rooney had touched PC Woods jacket lapel to which Payne told him theres no need to touch him. Payne is then heard saying tell you what mate, well deal with you as he takes Mr Rooney to the ground. The Met Police received a formal complaint about the force used by both officers. In July 2020, Payne was charged with assault by beating. He was ultimately convicted in May 2021 following a trial at Hendon and then City of London Magistrates Court. He was ordered to pay a total of 1,632 in compensation and court costs last June. The former PC appealed his conviction in June this year but the appeal was not upheld. Southwark Crown Court had heard Payne left the force and became a railway driver. His sentence for the assault will be heard again on October 3, following his failed appeal A Met Police misconduct panel found Payne had breached the standards of professional behaviour in relation to discreditable conduct and use of force. Assistant Commissioner Amanda Pearson, who chaired the panel, decided former PC Payne would have been dismissed without notice. It was also decided that his name would be added to the Barred List held by the College of Policing. Those appearing on the list cannot be employed by police, local policing bodies (PCCs), the IOPC or HMIC. Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell, East Area Borough Commander said: Police officers have powers that allow them to use force. Mr Rooney, a railway engineer, said he was the victim of an unprovoked onslaught after trying to take a picture of Pc Wood and his officer number It is expected and demanded that when officers use those powers, they are used in a reasonable, proportionate and lawful way. An officer in each case must justify their use of force. It is clear that in this incident these standards were not met. Throwing out Paynes appeal earlier this year the judge, Mr Recorder Ben Douglas-Jones, KC, said: Mr Rooney was calm and not disorderly throughout. He was seeking evidence and information from the officers. We are sure that Mr Rooney asked for permission to take the photograph. His hands were behind his back demonstrating that he was not threatening. He came back and wanted to gather information and did that in an orderly manner. PC Payne acted violently and there was no basis for doing so. Mr Rooneys body language showed no sign of threatening behaviour. There was no basis for an arrest and no reason, rightly or wrongly, to arrest [Mr Rooney]. [PC Payne] caused a violent episode that was completely unnecessary. PC Wood denied but was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Mr Scott and assault by beating against Mr Rooney following a trial at City of London Magistrates Court last year. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment suspended for 12 months after a judge took into account his exemplary record. A pregnant woman has been found butchered with her genitals mutilated and her stomach ripped open in Brazil in what police believe may have been a ritual killing. Ohana Karolin, 24, a mother-of-three from the municipality of Mogi Guacu in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, was seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she was killed on Wednesday. Passers-by saw her maimed corpse with the womb cut out in Portal dos Lagos and alerted police, an area which is surrounded by evangelical churches of different denominations. A pregnant woman has been found butchered with her stomach ripped open in Brazil in what police believe may have been a ritual killing Police found the body of Ohana Karolin, 24, who was reportedly seven months pregnant in the municipality of Mogi Guacu The mother was only wearing a T-shirt and officers discovered shorts, a pair of flip-flops and a number of coins lying next to her mutilated body. Investigators said a 'macabre ritual' in which the woman was 'sacrificed' is one of their lines of enquiry. They immediately called her ex-husband, the father of her children, to identify the body after her corpse was found. Police are also investigating whether a partner or boyfriend could be behind the brutal killing. A friend told local news site UOL: 'She met a kind of tough gang. I even moved away from her a little bit because of that. 'But I don't know what happened. She was really nice, she didn't have a bad time. Everyone liked her.' In Portal dos Lagos, services and vigils are regularly held in open air in the devout Catholic country. She was only wearing a T-shirt when officers discovered shorts, a pair of flip-flops and a number of coins lying next to her mutilated body Investigators said a 'macabre ritual' in which the woman was 'sacrificed' is one of their lines of enquiry Meanwhile, one of her friends claimed she saw Ohana inside a black car around midnight on the day of the crime. Other witnesses confirmed seeing what appeared to be the same vehicle near the crime scene at around 3am the same day. The police initiated an investigation concerning the incident and are waiting for a follow-up analysis from the Legal Medical Institute and the Institute of Criminalistics. The crime was registered as a homicide at the Mogi Guacu General Investigations Police Station. Jeremy Corbyn's career as a Labour MP appears to be over after party members blocked an attempt to let him represent it at the next election. The former opposition leader has sat as an independent MP since 2020 after being stripped of the party whip over his attitude to a probe into anti-Semitism during his time in charge. At the annual party conference in Liverpool today his supporters tried to change selection rules to allow local constituency parties (CLPs) to have the final say on candidates at election, removing the power of the central party to veto them. It would have allowed the CLP in his Islington North constituency to select him, forcing the Parliamentary party to restore the whip if he won in the ultra-safe seat. But the proposal was rejected by 41 per cent to 59 per cent. It means he is almost certain to stand as an independent against the party at the next election, expected in 2024. Mr Corbyn remains a party member and has appeared at a number of leftwing fringe events in the margins of the party conference. Last night he was the guest of honour at a Labour party conference fringe event calling for appeasement of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. The former opposition leader has sat as an independent MP since 2020 after being stripped of the party whip over his attitude to a probe into anti-Semitism during his time in charge. Before the vote, Peter Talbot, of Islington North CLP, said: 'We need a range of Labour candidates. We need to demonstrate that the Labour Party truly is a broad church. And that's particularly important in relation to the thousands of young people that Jeremy brought into supporting Labour.' He added: 'If we don't change the rules and Jeremy can't stand for Labour at the next election, well that would just be a disaster for us frankly, it would not end well. 'It would be a gift to the Greens, to the Lib Dems and the Tories.' Mr Corbyn remains a party member and has appeared at a number of leftwing fringe events in the margins of the party conference. Last night he was the guest of honour at a Labour party conference fringe event calling for appeasement of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. The former opposition leader attended a Stop the War Coalition event in Liverpool demanding successor Keir Starmer 'push for peace' in Ukraine in order to reduce energy bills in Britain. The organisation has attacked Western military support for Kyiv and the event will call for an end to Putin's brutal invasion through 'a negotiated peace'. Last night Mr Corbyn attacked plans to increase UK defence spending to 3 per cent, and attacked the United Nations, saying; 'Let's be absolutely clear and I'll say this slowly, I totally condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 'There's no one here that is an apologist for that invasion. But it does mean we also have to look at how we end that and bring them about the peace process. 'The opportunities for negotiation on many occasions were completely missed and I think the United Nations has a lot to answer for.' Shylah Rodden sustained horrific injuries in a rollercoaster accident in Melbourne on Sunday The family of a young woman in critical condition after a horror rollercoaster incident were recently hit by another tragic loss - with her brother losing his life about two months earlier. Shylah Rodden, 26, remains in an intensive care unit after sustaining 'horrific' injuries when she plunged nine metres on the The Rebel Coaster at the Royal Melbourne Show on Sunday. Her father, Alan Rodden, told Daily Mail Australia on Monday mystery surrounds how Ms Rodden came to grief on the ride. 'There are a lot of stories going around and I don't know which one is true and if someone is covering their tracks,' he said. A recent Facebook post from Ms Rodden revealed her 'world came crashing down' when brother Jason died in July. 'Dad sat me down and told me that my brother had passed away,' she wrote on July 27. He wasn't just my big brother, he was my best friend, my everything, the person I looked up to and inspired to be like,' Ms Rodden said. 'He taught me so much in life, he showed me the difference between right and wrong and he was never afraid to tell me how he really feels. 'It doesn't feel real, I keep thinking you'll call me back.' Ms Rodden revealed in a recent Facebook post her brother Jason had died and sent her 'world crashing down' A woman in her 20's was rushed to hospital after being injured on a ride at the Royal Melbourne Show. Pictured: The Rebel Coaster at the Royal Melbourne Show Police have claimed Ms Rodden was struck by the ride at the show while trying to retrieve her mobile phone from the tracks. Eyewitnesses to the tragedy said the rollercoaster had crashed into her and carried her up to nine metres high into the air before she plunged to the ground. Horrified families watched on as the chaos unfolded with paramedics treating Ms Rodden at the scene before rushing her to Melbourne hospital in a critical condition. Mr Rodden suggested his to Daily Mail Australia that his daughter had suffered life-changing injuries. Shylah Rodden and her sister Caisha in happier times. Shylah is fighting for life in hospital 'Obviously I can't talk to my daughter. She's going to be in a coma for quite a while,' he said. 'The injuries are horrific. Horrific. She's brain damaged. It's pelvic, her arms, legs, back, neck - there's hardly a thing that's not broken. 'I just can't work out how the hell so much damage has been done. 'Even the doctors have said they haven't seen anything as bad as this for a long time.' Shylah Rodden is fighting for life after a shocking rollercoaster crash in Melbourne Shylah Rodden had nearly every bone in her body broken in the shocking accident Shylah's sister Caisha Rodden told Daily Mail Australia her sister had been working at the show. 'Shylah was actually there working. She was helping out her friend at her stall for the day and she was sent on her break with another worker and they decided to go on a few rides to kill time and this happened unfortunately,' she said. Caisha lashed out at cruel trolls who hit social media to mock her critically ill sister. 'It's sad and disgusting to see the false stories and cover up when my sister is fighting for her life,' Caisha said. Several eyewitnesses have disputed police claims Ms Rodden had been attempting to retrieve her phone, saying she had been onboard the rollercoaster. 'She flew from the ride, loud bang. Followed by a scream and very loud crack of her hitting the ground,' one eye witness stated on social media. 'I was standing right next to it when it happened. Poor girl laying in a large pool of blood as medical response was so slow!' 'My daughter was there too and they have called Crimestoppers as they felt like she had fallen from the ride too,' another person wrote. Passengers on the ride had been left stranded atop the rollercoaster for hours after the ride was shut down. Others on the ride were left stranded atop the rollercoaster for some time with the ride immediately shut down One witness, who had been positioned next to the ride, claimed police assertions the woman had been retrieving a phone were not accurate. 'I did not see her walking or climbing on the tracks at all, we saw her flying from the ride, where she landed and how she landed is not consistent with being hit,' a woman claimed. 'Not from what we witnessed. We were standing right next to the ride when it happened.' The witness had taken her young son on the ride shortly before the accident. 'We saw her fall from the ride, (heard) the scream and the crack of her hitting the ground. My husband was one of the first on the scene. We were standing right next to it when it happened ,' she said. In a statement issued by Victoria Police, investigators said the woman 'may' have walked onto the track to try and retrieve a dropped phone. 'Sadly the woman was then found injured on the ground,' police stated. A woman remains in a critical condition after a tragic rollercoaster incident in Melbourne One passenger alleged they were forced to carry their personal belongings with them onto the ride. 'They made you take your belongings on the ride with you! I went on Friday and they made me take my bag and bottle of coke on it. I was freaking out that I was going to drop something,' the woman stated. 'You didn't have a choice. I was on it today and had to take my sunglasses and hold on to them very tightly. They should have had lockers,' another said. A spokesperson for The Royal Melbourne Show told Daily Mail Australia it was working with authorities to ascertain how the tragedy happened. Speaking to ABC Mornings host Virginia Trioli on Monday, Show CEO Brad Jenkins refused to say whether there was a fence around the ride or how high that fence was. 'I can't comment specifically on that particular ride,' he said. 'There [are] operators down at each of the rides.' A video published on YouTube in 2021 from aboard the ride when it was at the Sydney Royal Easter Show shows a fence around the ride appearing to be no higher than 1.5m. Mr Jenkins maintained Ms Rodden had gone to recover her phone when she was hit. 'From all reports she's gone to recover her phone. It's not a malfunction or whatever,' he said. He would not say exactly how she got on to the tracks. Victoria Police and WorkSafe are investigating the incident. Anyone who witnessed the incident is urged to contact police. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves was awkwardly quizzed about her new haircut this morning as she began a TV interview on Labour's economic agenda. Ahead of her keynote speech today at Labour's conference in Liverpool, Ms Reeves appeared on ITV's Good Morning Britain as she continued her attack on the Government's tax cuts. But, before she could spell out what Labour would do differently if they were in power, Ms Reeves was first grilled about her appearance by host Susanna Reid. The ITV presenter joked that Ms Reeves had undergone 'a cut of your own' as she noted the politician's shortened hair. The uncomfortable exchange left fellow host Ed Balls, a former Labour shadow chancellor himself, to state how it was 'a good job I didn't ask that question'. Social media users blasted Ms Reid's 'sexist' focus on Ms Reeves' appearance. Ms Reeves was expected to use her Labour conference speech today to announce her party's plans to create an 8billion sovereign wealth fund to invest in green projects such as battery factories and wind farms. Yet fashion came before fiscal matters on Good Morning Britain this morning, as Ms Reid asked: 'It looks like you've had a cut of your own! Have you had your hair chopped in time for conference?' Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves was awkwardly quizzed about her new haircut this morning as she appeared on ITV's Good Morning Britain Show host Susanna Reid joked that Ms Reeves had undergone 'a cut of your own' as she noted the politician's shortened hair before asking her about the Government's tax cuts The uncomfortable exchange left co-host Ed Balls, a former Labour shadow chancellor himself, to state how it was 'a good job I didn't ask that question' Ms Reeves pictured speaking at a business conference in London in June when she had noticeably longer hair The awkwardness of the exchange was heightened by Ms Reeves initially being unable to hear the ITV presenter. 'Sorry, I didn't catch that, sorry Susanna. Oh, my hair, my haircut,' she replied. 'More responsible than the cuts we've seen from the Chancellor! I hope you approve.' Looking to make light of his fellow GMB host's queries about Ms Reeves' looks, Mr Balls complimented the shadow chancellor on her 'good segue' into talking about economic matters. 'It's a good job I didn't ask that question. A good job I didn't ask it,' he added. Ms Reid then told Ms Reeves she couldn't 'reverse your hair cut' but asked the shadow chancellor which of the Government's tax cuts Labour would reverse if they win power. She replied that Labour would restore the 45p additional tax rate, for those earning more than 150,000 a year, that Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng abolishing from April. 'We will fight that every step of the way in Parliament because it is not right that somebody earning one million pounds a year - already doing incredibly well - will be handed a tax cut worth more than 50,000 by this change that the Chancellor announced on Friday,' Ms Reeves said. Social media users were left angered by Ms Reid's 'sexist' focus on Ms Reeves' appearance ahead of her asking about Labour policy. One posted on Twitter: 'Rather sexist of Susanna to ask Rachel Reeves about her haircut, either that or she was trying to put her on the back foot. Whatever the reason, it was the wrong one.' Another added: 'Thanks Susanna Reid for furthering the cause in asking Rachel Reeves about her new haircut, whilst supposedly interviewing her about Government policy. 'On behalf of all other women, cheers.' Ms Reid was also directly challenged on Twitter herself, with one user asking: 'Any need to be so cruel about the guest speaker's hair? This is when @GMB acts like a petty school playground. 'I couldn't focus on the rest of the conversation as this school-girl bullying annoyed me.' Seen is pepper spray, a popular self-defense weapon available online. Screenshot from the internet By Lee Hae-rin The recent murder case at Sindang Station on lines 2 and 6, in which a Seoul Metro employee stalked and stabbed his former female colleague in her 20s to death in the station's bathroom, has led to an increase in sales of self-defense tools and weapons. A Gyeonggi Province-based office worker in her early 30s, who wished to be identified only by her surname, Kim, said she bought an alarm device and pepper spray for her protection after reading about the subway station murder in the paper last week. "I thought anyone could fall victim to such an incident anytime, so I decided to carry a weapon for self-protection," Kim said. "If such a horrific incident could happen in a busy neighborhood like that, I need to be the one to look after my safety." Another Gyeonggi-based office worker, who also wanted to be identified only by her last name of Kwon, told The Korea Times that she has also started carrying pepper spray and a portable stun gun on her way to work every morning. She said she hears about crimes and sexual harassment targeting women in the media every day and said she "feels unsafe without a self-defense tool since the Sindang Station murder incident." Kwon added that she reactivated the emergency SOS function on her smartwatch, which automatically enables her to call an emergency contact at the press of a button, and said she had also chosen to wear sneakers instead of heeled shoes in case she needs to run away from a potential assailant. Similar concerns of many women here, including Kim and Kwon, who no longer believe they are safe or under any basic protection, have led to an increase in the sales of self-defense weapons and tools. Several self-defense tools, including pepper spray, emergency alarms, batons, self-defense knuckles and portable stun guns are available at prices ranging from 7,000 won ($4.90) to 30,000 won online. An official of a website selling self-defense items, who also wished to remain anonymous, told The Korea Times that the company has seen sales nearly double since the subway station murder incident. On the website, many clients left reviews about their purchases, saying that they felt unsafe to walk around the neighborhood at night or afraid that someone would follow them into elevators or public toilets and harm them. The official said that the gender ratio of its clients has come close to 50:50 these days, as many men have chosen to buy self-defense equipment as a gift for their female family members or partner. Many of the reviews by the male customers on the website said that they had purchased the items for their newly employed daughter or partner. The characteristics of and instructions for using several types of self-defense tools have spread online as well. One online user recommended a tactical flashlight as a more effective and safer self-defense tactic, because it could buy time for a victim to run away, while disorienting the assailant without physically hurting him, as the latter could later lead to the assailant filing a complaint. Russian conscripts with no training have already been thrown on to the frontlines in Ukraine, Kyiv's generals have said. Drafted civilians are being used to plug holes in Russian units that have been mauled in more-than seven months of fighting, the Ukrainian general staff said, which will badly affect their morale, 'psychological state' and combat performance. Meanwhile British intelligence said none of the tens of thousands of conscripts called up so far are likely to receive good training, as most of Russia's instructors have been sent away to fight. 'Drafted troops will deploy to the front line with minimal relevant preparation [and] are likely to suffer a high attrition rate', the Ministry of Defence said. Russian men load on to buses as they are shipped off to Ukraine, with Kyiv claiming they are being thrown on to the frontlines with no training A woman holds a child up to the window of as bus as she waves goodbye to her partner, who has been conscripted to fight in Ukraine A woman weeps after waving goodbye to her loved ones, who are off to fight on the Ukrainian frontline after being drafted by Putin Conscripted men arrive at a Russian military base and immediately tell their commander to 'go f*** yourself' when ordered to fall into two ranks It comes as Ukraine continues to press its advance in the eastern Donbas region, with footage showing a massive artillery barrage on the town of Zelena Dolyna. That town is located 10 miles to the north of the Russian stronghold of Lyman, which Ukraine is trying to capture. Taking it would allow Ukraine to advance further into the Luhansk region - one of the key objectives of Putin's invasion - and is a key checkpoint along the road to the cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. Russia spent months capturing those two cities over the summer, making them a prime target for future Ukrainian counter-attacks. Vladimir Putin last week gave the order to begin conscripting men into the Russian military after his army suffered heavy casualties in the war. Kyiv says some 57,000 Russian troops have died fighting in the war so far, while Western intelligence puts that figure lower - up to 25,000 dead and 60,000 wounded, according to an August estimate. Russia claims to have lost around 6,000 men, but has officially called up 300,000 reservists - giving proof to the lie. Some reports have suggested the actual number being called up could be in excess of 1million. What footage has emerged of the Russian reinforcements has done little to suggest they will turn the tide of the war in Moscow's favour. Tearful Russian villagers wave goodbye to their loved ones as they are conscripted into the army and sent to fight in Ukraine A woman touches hands with her partner through the window of a bus as he leaves for Ukraine A woman hugs one of her loved ones goodbye as he is shipped off to the battlefields of Ukraine, having been conscripted into the military Multiple videos have emerged of men getting drop-dead drunk as they load on to buses, apparently waiting to be transported east to the battlefields. Others have showed them arriving at training camps and either arguing with instructors or refusing to carry out orders. In one such piece of footage from the weekend, a drill instructor can be heard telling a group to 'fall into two ranks' as they unload from a military transport. 'Go f*** yourself with your two ranks,' one of the men yells back. And yet more footage has suggested that even those recruits who do want to join the fight and manage to get decent training won't be armed for the fight. Video shows a newly-recruited tank crew complaining about the state of their assault rifles in Russian. The guns - identified as AKM machine-guns - are badly rusted, and it is not clear whether or not they still work. 'It's the tank boys who were given this c**p,' says one voice. 'They said: "You've got tanks, so don't give a f*** about the Kalashnikovs". 'F***** up, I'm f****** up. I wont comment on anything. Im shocked.' Vladimir Putin (pictured today with Belarus dictator Lukashenko) gave the order to begin conscripting men into the military last week Ukrainian civilians are trained in battle as the country prepares for an influx of conscripted Russian soldiers that Putin hopes will alter the course of the war Russia is now more than seven months into what was intended to be a days-long war, and has wasted some of its best military assets for relatively little gain. Putin's men have captured the southern city of Mariupol and established a land bridge to the occupied peninsula. But they failed in their early attempts to capture the capital Kyiv, and earlier this month were forced to withdraw from the northern Kharkiv region after a stunning Ukrainian counter-attack. They have also failed in their mission of capturing Donetsk province - with around half of the region still in Ukrainian hands. Luhansk province - which together with Donetsk makes up the Donbas - has fallen under Russian control, but is vulnerable to attack after the Kharkiv offensive. Meanwhile pressure is building on Putin back at home, with protests erupting in multiple Russian regions after he announced the mobilisation. A military commissar was shot at a recruitment centre in Irkutsk on Monday by a man angry that his friend had been drafted, while another man set himself on fire at a bus station in Ryazan after refusing to go to the frontlines. Elsewhere, the Moscow stock exchange plunged 10 percent to its lowest point since Russia began its Ukraine offensive seven months ago . The benchmark ruble-denominated Moex index sank 10.2 percent to 1,873.55 points in early afternoon trading, dropping below the 1,900 points mark for the first time since the February move into neighbouring Ukraine. Arthur Williamson has now been charged with murder according to court documents Officers confirmed that the suspect had taken a heroin overdose in the basement of the property but has since been taken into police custody Family members say that the suspect, 55, was known to Guertin and they got on 'pretty well' Police discovered the body of Matthews in the home, as well as his son Hunter, 10, bound and gagged in a closet with serious injuries Guertin fled the property with the couples daugher, 5, and flagged down authorities His on-off girlfriend Nichole Guertin, 35, managed to escape the house despite being bound, gagged and stabbed multiple times Jim Matthews, 57, was found dead at his home in Chesterfield, Michigan, after returning home from a night shift Arthur Williamson, 55, has been charged with the murder of Jim Matthews after attacking him in his own home in Michigan Police have charged a man with the murder of a news anchor who knew his girlfriend 'pretty well' and lay in wait for him to get home from a night shift in Michigan. Jim Matthews, 57, was found dead at his home in Chesterfield Township after returning home from a night shift at WWJ950 radio. Police have now charged Arthur Williamson, 55, with the murder of Matthews after he attacked him on Friday. He pleaded not guilty and had no bond set court on Monday, his 55th birthday, and did not speak during the short hearing. According to the Michigan Department of Corrections Williamson has at least eight previous convictions including kidnapping and assault with intent to commit murder. Family members claim that his suspected killer had been 'welcomed into the home' hours before and waited for him to come back to the property before launching the violent assault. Matthews 'on-off girlfriend' and the mother of his children Nichole Guertin, 35, had managed to escape the property despite being stabbed multiple times as well as gagged and bound. News anchor Jim Matthews, 57, was killed at his home in Michigan, and his 'on off' girlfriend Nichole Guertin was stabbed multiple times in the incident The couples two children, Hunter, 10, (left) and Rosie, 5 (right), were hospitalized following the murder of their father According to the Michigan Department of Corrections Williamson has at least eight previous convictions including kidnapping and assault with intent to commit murder Hunter was discovered by offices stuffed into a closet after being hit with a hammer when he tried to pull his fathers attacker off him She fled with their 5-year-old daughter, Rosie, who was not seriously injured, and managed to flag down a car after collapsing in a nearby parking lot. Their son Hunter, 10, was beaten, hit with a hammer and bound before being thrown into a closet after the incident. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition and had to undergo brain and ear surgery after bravely trying to fight his father's killer. Police discovered Williamson overdosing on heroin and suffering from self-inflicted wounds in the basement of the family home. The 55-year-old was resuscitated by officials before being rushed to hospital and was then taken into police custody at Macomb County Jail. Pammy Healy, the children's aunt, told DailyMail.com: 'It's someone that Nicole knew. I know that he knew Nicole pretty well. 'It's really disturbing.' She said the family were in shock and were trying to get ready for when the children returned home. Family members confirmed that Nichole is now in a stable condition, with her daughter remaining' normal and happy' despite the terrifying incident. Family members say that the alleged killer was known to the family and knew Matthews girlfriend 'very well' Pammy Healy, the children's aunt, told DailyMail.com that the suspect Arthur Williamson knew Nichole 'really well' The attack happened around midday Friday at thehome on Bayview Drive off Hooker Road in the Chesterfield Township, a quiet suburb outside of Detroit A GoFundMe page confirmed that Hunter underwent successful surgery on his neck and can now move both sides of his body. Both children are set to be looked after by their other aunt - Healy's stepsister Ashley Quigley - after leaving hospital. Healy continued: 'Where they lived was the nicer part of the town. Rosie is doing amazing. 'After the things that happened to her, I'm so thankful that she isn't quite old enough to understand it. She's in a chipper mood and ready to go see auntie Ashley. 'Ashley now has guardianship of Hunter and Rosie, we're hoping that's long term.' Matthews, who also went by Nicolai, was reportedly found in a scene worse than 'a horror movie' by his brother Jim. He told WXYZ: 'There is no motive, I don't know why [the suspect] was in the house. I talked to the lead investigator, and my brother probably came home to this. 'He comes home about 5:30 in the morning and was probably surprised and attacked. 'I believe that Hunter the 10-year-old was trying to fight off this man that was attacking and trying to kill his father, and that's how Hunter ended up injured and tied and put into a closet.' Chasterfield Police have charged a 55-year-old man with murder in connection to the the brutal assault Hunter is now in a stable condition after undergoing several surgeries, and his younger sister Rosie, who suffered less serious injuries, remains 'happy and normal' The unnamed assailant remains hospitalized and is in stable condition, but faces a litany of charges for the assault. Police say that the unidentified attacker was an acquaintance of the family as well as frequent visitor of the residence, and had been invited inside the home before carrying out the attack. Colleagues of the news anchor were forced to report on the death of the late journalist, who spent nearly seven years as the radio station's overnight news anchor. Jacki Page reported the breaking incident to thousands of listeners, saying: 'We are updating our top story this afternoon. 'It's very difficult to report. Our overnight news anchor Jim Matthews was killed this afternoon in Chesterfield Township.' An Audacy spokesman added: 'We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of our dear colleague Jim Matthews. 'As this is an ongoing police investigation, we have no further comment at this time.' Graham Norton has sparked a Twitter backlash after commenting on the controversy surrounding JK Rowling and the trans debate before admitting 'I don't know what's happened there'. The talk show host, 59, invited the Harry Potter author onto his Virgin Radio show last month despite disagreeing with her views on gender identity and sex-based rights which have been labelled transphobic by activists. Now, after commenting on the controversy, some Twitter users have accused Norton of speaking on the issue without being fully informed. Norton went on to say that 'hordes from every side' want to tell you you're wrong when commenting on Rowling. The Harry Potter author has been accused of transphobia since posting a series of tweets in 2020 where she said 'erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives'. Rowling appeared on Graham's Virgin Radio Show in August to talk about her new novel The Ink Black Heart, the latest in her series of novels written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Norton was asked this morning on the BBC's Today programme if he thought JK Rowling was a 'transphobe' but he was reluctant to express any strong opinions that went that far - instead saying she was 'fuelling the fire'. Answering the question, the 59-year-old said: 'Well, I think she's certainly not making the situation better. Norton was asked this morning on the BBC's Today programme if he thought JK Rowling was a 'transphobe' but he was reluctant to answer instead saying she was 'fuelling the fire' of the trans debate before admitting he 'doesn't know what's happened' with the children's author Views: The talk show host, 59, said the 'easiest' thing to do would have been to not have the author, 57, on the show, but said it didn't 'seem right' not to just because he disagrees with her 'I think she's fuelling the fire. I don't know what's happened there. It's like: here I am and you're asking me about it again. So now, I'll be linked to her again. 'Her name is like beetle juice except you don't need to say it three times. You just say it once and you unleash the hordes. 'And there's hordes everywhere, every side, everyone who's ever had an opinion wants to tell you your opinion is wrong.' He added: 'So many issues are couched in terms of debate, and you're for or against. 'And yes, that's true when it comes to a planning application but I think with lots of other things in life, that's not it. 'It's got to be a conversation, it's got to be a dialogue, maybe a negotiation, maybe just a rambly road that get us all forward somewhere in the future. 'But if anyone's success is only measured by somebody else's failure, that doesn't seem like a great place to be or a nice bit of society to live in.' His response was criticised by Twitter users who expressed disappointment that he appeared to lack a grasp of the core issues at the centre of the debate. Allison Bailey accused LGBTQ charity Stonewall of operating 'like a criminal protection racket' by persuading firms to follow its transgender policies. Pictured: Harry Potter author JK Rowling with Ms Bailey during a lunch with other prominent feminists in London in April British anti-domestic violence activist Karen Ingala Smith said: 'So, Graham Norton says he doesn't know what has happened re JKR, but only after he said that she wasn't making the situation better and she was fuelling the fire. 'Do some reading, Graham. What have you got against women's rights? If you're going to have an opinion, get informed.' Rebecca Bull, founder of the Sex Matters movement, added: 'On Radio 4 Graham Norton is asked if he thought JK Rowling is a transphobe. 'He dodges the question and says she is fuelling the fire.... the term debate is unhelpful and there should be a negotiation. I take from his answers that hes well aware that no debate is over. 'But hasnt quite cottoned on that insinuating that women who express an opinion are nasty agitators wont work anymore. 'Nor that reality is not something with which you can negotiate. We wont be hostages to someone elses political agenda.' While THD tweeted: 'Super surprised by his response.' Bert asked: 'Really? He has always seemed an extremely shallow and self-serving man to me. Very amusing, but never profound or troubled by thought.' Controversy: JK Rowling has been accused of transphobia since posting tweets in 2020 saying 'erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives' Simon Edge said: 'He just knows he's a Bad Gay if he doesn't express disapproval with JKR, even though he doesn't know the first thing about the issues. 'The same applies to 90% of the gay men sounding off on this subject.' Norton had already responded to backlash over her appearance as a guest on the show in an interview with the Times last week. 'Am I suddenly the f***ing moral arbiter of the world who says who can be on TV or can't? No,' Graham told The Times. 'I wouldn't have her on to air her views, but she has the right to still wang on about her crime novel. The easiest thing would be to not have her on, but that didn't seem right.' Graham said he hasn't spoken to the author about what he described as her 'problematic' views on gender identity, but imagines that they would disagree on the topic. But he said he believes he should still talk to people that he disagrees with, and reflected on cancel culture by saying that Rowling will still sell 'a gazillion books' whether he interviews her or not. Rowling frequently comes under fire on Twitter for her views, and Graham said he got insight about how she 'enjoys' the 'pub argument' aspect of social media when he interviewed her. Graham went on to explain that he doesn't talk about politics with guests on his radio show, but does touch on topics of gender and race. On Graham's show, JK Rowling described social media as 'a gift for people who want to behave in a malign way', after she received a death threat from an Islamic extremist in response to her support for stabbed Salman Rushdie. The Harry Potter author tweeted that she was 'feeling very sick now' and 'let him be ok' after Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly as he prepared to give a lecture in upstate New York earlier this month. But an Islamic extremist then appeared to threaten Ms Rowling, writing: 'you are next'. Rowling has also been repeatedly targeted by trolls after making critical comments about the transgender lobby - including protesters standing outsider her home with placards after her address was posted online last year. Speaking to Graham Norton on his Virgin Radio show, she said: 'Social media can be a lot of fun and I do like the pub argument aspect of it. 'That can be a fun thing to do. But there's no doubt that social media is a gift for people who want to behave in a malign way.' And on whether anything can be done to prevent online trolls, she added: 'I think on one level I'm not sure I can. Reunion: Speaking to Graham, Rowling said she wasn't snubbed from the Harry Potter reunion show over her divisive views on transgender people - but instead turned down an invitation 'I'm not sure any individual can. I try to behave online as I would like others to behave. I wouldn't ever want to... I've never threatened anyone, obviously, and I certainly wouldn't want anyone to go to their houses or anything like that.' But she insisted her latest book The Ink Black Heart, the latest in her series of novels written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith, about a cartoonist trolled online by a fan, has nothing to do with the threats she has faced in real life. Asked if the story had echoes of her own experiences, she continued: 'More echoes than I realised because I should make it really clear after some of the things that have happened to me online in the last year, I had written the book before certain things happened to me online. 'I said to my husband, 'Everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me.' 'But it genuinely wasn't. The first draft of the book was finished at the point where certain things happened to me.' Rowling also said she was not snubbed from the recent Harry Potter reunion show over her controversial views on transgender people - but instead turned down an invitation. Opinions: Rowling (pictured in 2017_ has spoken out about cancel culture amid claims she has been 'cancelled', but in a rare interview, she said she 'didn't want to be a part of it' The Return To Hogwarts reunion was released on January 1, but did not feature Ms Rowling aside from in old archive footage. Her appearance on the 20-year anniversary show was widely speculated about following her statements about women's and transgender people's rights, for which she accused of being 'transphobic', but no statement from the author clarified the matter at the time. She has historically spoken out about cancel culture amid claims she has been 'cancelled' by younger generations, but in a rare interview, she said she 'didn't want to be a part of it'. She said: 'I was asked to be on that and I decided I didn't want to be a part of it. 'It was about the films not the books, quite rightly. That was what the anniversary was about. 'So no one said don't [do it] I was asked to do it and I decided not to.' She clarified that she wasn't advised against making an appearance, explaining that it was her own decision, following fan speculation around her absence. An archive shot during the reunion showed the author at a signing for the first book, while Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid, also lauded JK for helping people establish a love of books again during the rise of Potter mania. The only footage of the author speaking herself as opposed to being discussed is a segment from a 2019 interview which is repeatedly serialised. In the interview she is seen discussing the uphill struggle to find an actor to play Harry when casting the first movie, Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone. Since the last Harry Potter film was released, Rowling has become a deeply divisive figure. The author has also often tweeted critically about the use of inclusive language and spaces, most memorably retweeting a post which referred to 'people who menstruate' and adding: 'I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?' Transgender activists say Ms Rowling's stances are discriminatory and fail to recognise the difficulties that transgender and non-binary people face, but some feminists argue it is vital to retain single-sex spaces to protect vulnerable women. She has also received backlash from claims she made in a bid to defend herself in 2020, including the claim that only people who are 'privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence' support inclusive spaces. A senior executive sacked after his behaviour at work was affected by steroids he was taking for an illness that turned out to be cancer has won a 2.5 million payout. While suffering from the side effects of medication he had been prescribed for a skin condition, David Barrow sent his boss a difficult email complaining about how he was being treated by the company. Two days later he sent another message blaming the powerful drug for his outburst. He later said that at the time the steroid had left him feeling his head was like a pressure cooker with all my emotions overflowing. But bosses at US construction and engineering giant Kellogg Brown Root (KBR) decided they wanted to get rid of him and the following month gave him 20 minutes to clear his desk at their Leatherhead branch, Surrey, after more than 35 years with the firm. Dad-of-two Mr Barrow - who after his dismissal was diagnosed with cancer - successfully sued the firm for disability harassment and unfair dismissal. And in a newly-published judgement an employment tribunal awarded him more than 2.5 million in compensation - one of the largest discrimination awards ever. David Barrow, pictured, was given him 20 minutes to clear his desk at the Kellogg Brown Root branch in Leatherhead, Surrey, after more than 35 years with the firm The hearing in south London was told Mr Barrow first started working for KBR in 1980 and at the time of his dismissal held the title of project director. He was a member of the senior management team based in the UK and was described by the panel as hugely ambitious and driven and challenging. In September 2017, the tribunal heard he went to see his GP about an increasingly worrying skin redness and itchiness and was prescribed anti-fungal cream, anti-inflammatory cream and antihistamine tablets. Three days later he had a meeting with boss Andrew Barrie who was concerned he had voiced negative opinions about the business with other members of his team. The following month Mr Barrow attended an appointment with a skin specialist, in which his condition was attributed, at first, to an acute case of hives caused by a virus. 'Unfortunately, although the lymphocytes could also be an indicator of cancer, the potential for early diagnosis was masked by the viral infection,' the tribunal heard, with Mr Barrow being prescribed strong anti-inflammatory pills and steroid skin cream. Next month, with his condition deteriorating rapidly and suffering from rampant eczema, Mr Barrow was given a two-week course of the strong oral steroid, Prednisolone. 'By Monday 6 November 2017, the Prednisolone had built up in the Claimants system and started to affect his behaviour,' the tribunal found. 'He was hyperactive and energetic, and had difficulty sitting quietly to concentrate on things when needed. 'His secretary became quite concerned for his welfare and said many times during the week that he should calm down and take things easier.' By the weekend, the tribunal found Mr Barrows emotions and state of mind were highly influenced by the prednisolone which, after over 10 days of treatment, was at maximum effect. He had been upset after not receiving a substantial pay rise for a recent promotion, the panel was told, and was feeling victimised, treated unfairly and undervalued by his boss, Mr Barrie. Mr Barrow had worked for KBR for 36 years when he was unfairly sacked from his position at the US firm's base in Leatherhead, Surrey, pictured In a written statement to the tribunal, Mr Barrow said his head was 'like a pressure cooker with all my emotions' and explained he had decided to send an email to Mr Barrie to explain how he felt. 'He said he knew it was unwise to send any kind of "difficult" email in haste, but he was in such an agitated state of mind that he was unable to exercise his usual professional logic or self control,' the tribunal heard. 'He resolved to send the email by the end of the day and he worked late into the night to finish it.' Among a series of issues he raised in the three-page message, Mr Barrow complained to Mr Barrie that he felt he was being underpaid, that his contributions werent being recognised and that he had been denied a meaningful promotion. In response to his email, Mr Barrow was advised by a senior manager to seek medical help. He replied: 'I have been aware the pills have had an effect on my general disposition including increased energy levels and higher emotional response.' He added he was aware he may exhibit unusual behaviour. The tribunal heard Mr Barrow was examined by the company doctor who advised he could return to work once he had stopped taking the steroids. At the start of December, however, he left unhappy after a meeting with Mr Barrie and emailed him afterwards to express his disappointment that he had unable to discuss his aims and objectives for the coming year. Four days later he was invited to a meeting with the HR director Tim Rosbrook, who told him: 'These discussions are always difficult but Im afraid KBR can no longer employ you. 'I will escort you to your office to maintain your dignity and you can have 20 minutes to clear up and collect your personal things.' Mr Barrow then left work for the last time and in March started chemotherapy, the hearing was told. The tribunal heard that after he left the company launched an investigation which concluded in April the next year that the firm had lost confidence in him and as a result dismissed him. However, the tribunal - chaired by Employment Judge Tony Hyams-Parish - ruled that the justification for his sacking was a ruse and he had been unfairly dismissed. 'Mr Barrie had decided he wanted (Mr Barrow) to go, and the only way this could be done quickly was to dress it up as a breakdown in trust and confidence,' the judgement said. 'No reasonable employer would have acted in the way (KBR) did in dismissing an employee who had spent 36 years working for the company.' The tribunal also upheld Mr Barrows claim of disability harassment in relation to the emails he had sent. '(They) were written when (he) was still affected by the prednisolone he was prescribed. The tribunal accepts that...he would not have written either email in such terms had he not been taking prednisolone. 'It was clear to the tribunal that both these emails were influential in Mr Barries decision making.' The firm was also found to have create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for Mr Barrow when it described his inability to attend meetings related to the dismissal process because he was undergoing cancer treatment as unacceptable. He was awarded 2,567,831.96 compensation in total. In a statement to the Daily Mirror, KBR said: 'KBR respects the courts decision and is committed to conducting its business honestly and with integrity. 'We remain focused on always evolving our processes creating a workplace where our employees feel valued and respected, and affirming that we do not tolerate any form of discrimination.' Voters are split on the transport of migrants to Democratic jurisdictions Two-thirds of registered voters feel their rights and freedoms are highly at risk A few key issues have changed the political landscape ahead of the midterms A CBS/YouGov estimate shows the House breakdown at 223-212, with Republicans holding an 11-seat majority - the second straight decrease The likelihood of a Republican bloodbath in the 2022 midterms has decreased The Republican bloodbath expected in the 2022 midterms has dwindled to an estimated 11-seat majority in the House with just over a month before voters head to the polls. Changing political landscapes, including migrants being transported to Democratic cities and legislation emerging from the overturn of Roe v. Wade, has altered the predicted outcome of the midterm elections in November. A CBS News model estimate shows Republicans emerging from the election with a slim majority of 223-212. This is a second month of downward movement for Republicans, who were at 226 seats in August and 230 in July. The model has a margin of error of plus or minus 13 seats. The Senate, currently at a 50-50 split, is less likely to flip to a GOP majority in the election in just 42 days. But new polling from the Senate Opportunity Fund shows that when moderates are presented with GOP messaging, they are more likely to want to see the right controlling the Senate next year. Republicans are losing their favor for picking up a House majority in predictions for the 2022 midterms showing a second-straight month of decreasing favorability. The latest model shows a 223-212 GOP majority When blindly presented with two different messages, one Democratic and one Republican, voters who identify as moderate were 13 percent more likely to favor GOP control pre and post messaging. Democratic messaging did not move respondents on their view of which party should control the Senate. The Senate, currently at a 50-50 split, is less likely to flip to a GOP majority in the election in just 42 days. It's unclear how the election will play out in a non-presidential election year, but if Biden's continuously low approval is any sign, it isn't looking good for Democrats. While nowhere near his summertime low in the mid to high 30s, Biden's approval is hovering in the lows 40s. Voters are split on the initiative launched by Republican governors to bus and fly migrants from southern border states to sanctuary cities and Democratic areas like Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago and Martha's Vineyard. While overall the split is 51 percent approval to 49 percent disapproval, the margins are much larger when broken down by party. A whopping 87 percent of Republicans say they approve of the busing and flying of migrants to liberal jurisdictions, while 80 percent of registered Democratic voters say they do not approve of the so-called 'political stunt.' Independent voters are split 48 percent approval to 52 percent disapproval. The issue came to a head earlier this month when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent a private plane of 50 migrants to the wealthy island of Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts. A class action lawsuit was launched against him claiming he misled the migrants into boarding the flight. Voters are overall split on the transportation of migrants to Democratic jurisdictions, but a whopping 87 percent of Republicans approve of the move dubbed by liberals as a 'political stunt' DeSantis' flight came after months of migrants being bused from Texas and Arizona by their respective Republican governors to sanctuary cities. Of the 2,253 registered voters surveyed in the CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker, two-thirds feel their rights and freedoms are highly at risk in the midterm election and both Republicans and Democrats feel that if the opposite side gained control of Congress, they would have fewer freedoms. When considering likely voters, 68 percent say 'a lot' of their freedoms are at risk in the election and 22 percent say 'some' are at risk. Only 10 percent of likely voters feel that their rights and freedoms are not at risk due to the outcome of the upcoming election. Fifty-nine percent of likely voters say that abortion is very important when it comes to who they will vote for on November 8. Those who say abortion is a top issue are nearly twice as likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans, according to the poll. Key issues like abortion have changed the landscape of the 2022 midterms after the overturn of Roe v. Wade earlier this summer led to a string of legislative proposals that could restrict women's ability to terminate their pregnancies Republican Senator Lindsey Graham proposed legislation earlier this month that would put a nationwide ban on abortion after 15-weeks of a pregnancy, which has alarmed Democrats and pro-abortion activists. The House and Senate are out of session on Monday but the Senate will return on Tuesday and vote on a continuing resolution to keep the government funded past Friday and avoid a shutdown. Before the midterms, Democrats also want to pass codification of gay marriage after the future of that right was put into question with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June. But Kyiv, Western governments and even close Russia ally Kazakhstan have condemned the referendums and confirmed the results will not be recognised Britain has sanctioned 92 Russians and entities after Vladimir Putin held 'sham referendums' in separatist parts of Ukraine. Among those targeted were four oligarchs with a combined worth of 6billion, Moscow's head of government in Kherson and IMA Consulting, which the UK government dubbed 'Putin's favourite PR agency'. Votes are ongoing in Russia-controlled Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson which the Kremlin claims are legitimate but the UK dismissed as 'a clear violation of international law'. Earlier today, Putin's chief press officer teased a formal announcement that occupied territories of Ukraine will soon be formally incorporated into Russia, despite the referendums still going on. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement: 'Sham referendums held at the barrel of a gun cannot be free or fair and we will never recognise their results. 'Today's sanctions will target those behind these sham votes, as well as the individuals that continue to prop up the Russian regime's war of aggression,' he said. Among the individuals sanctioned were Sergei Yeliseyev, Moscow's head of government in the Kherson region of Ukraine and a vice admiral in the Russian navy, who defected from Ukraine's navy in 2014. A municipal worker casts her ballot during a referendum on the secession of Zaporizhzhia region from Ukraine Among the individuals sanctioned were Sergei Yeliseyev (pictured), Moscow's head of government in the Kherson region of Ukraine Votes are ongoing in Russia-controlled Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson which the Kremlin claims are legitimate but are widely believed to be rigged Among those targeted were Moscow's head of government in Kherson and IMA Consulting, which the UK government dubbed 'Putin's favourite PR agency' Russian-backed leaders in Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia were also targeted, as was Goznak, which the statement said holds a monopoly on production of Russian state documents in the annexed territories. PR firm IMA was reportedly asked to support the implementation of the votes in the four temporarily controlled territories and spin their false legitimacy back in Russia. Britain has now sanctioned more than 1,200 individuals and over 120 entities from Russia, including over 120 oligarchs, since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in late February. Added to the list of penalised oligarchs today were God Nisanov and Zarakh Iliev, known as the 'Kings of Russian real estate'. The pair have a joint global net worth of 2billion through the Kievskaya Ploshchad Group, a major construction company operating across Russia Iskander Makhmudov, who is worth 2.7billion, is president and founder of Ural Mining and Metallurgic Company, was also sanctioned today, as was Igor Makarov, worth 1.6billion as president and owner of ARETI International Group, a major investor in the oil and gas sector. Earlier today, the Kremlin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow that the date of the official admission of new regions to Russia would be announced in short order, TASS reported. The statement came despite the fact that the referendums in several regions of occupied Ukraine, where citizens are expected to vote on whether to join Russia, are not scheduled to finish until Tuesday. '[The announcement] will be preceded by a certain procedure associated with legislators,' Peskov said cryptically. 'We will inform you in a timely manner.' The Kremlin has maintained the referendums in the Russian-controlled Luhansk, Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions are democratic and will show a strong desire among the citizens of these territories to become part of Russia. But video footage circulated on social media in recent days showed armed thugs going door to door telling residents to turn out to polling stations, while some early exit polls suggest that close to 100 per cent of respondents are in favour of acceding to Russia. Kyiv and its Western allies meanwhile have denounced the referendums as rigged, describing them as nothing more than a sham pretext for annexation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the official date for accession of occupied territories to Russian Federation will soon be announced A military vehicle drives along a street with a billboard that reads: 'With Russia forever, September 27', prior to a referendum in Luhansk, Luhansk People's Republic controlled by Russia-backed separatists, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022 A heavily armed mercenary from the infamous Wagner Group stands guard outside of a polling station in Zaporizhzhia People cast their votes in controversial referendums in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on September 25, 2022 Russian state media has issued implausible exit polls which suggest 97 per cent of people in Donetsk and Luhansk are in favour of joining Russia Voting on a formal accession to Russia began in the Luhansk, Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions on Friday, with polling set to continue until Tuesday. Many residents fled the regions before the so-called referendums got underway, scared about being forced to vote or potentially being conscripted into the Russian army. Others have described hiding behind closed doors, hoping to avoid having to answer to armed soldiers going door-to-door to collect votes. A flood of videos and images posted on the Telegram messaging app and social media showed armed policemen setting up poll boxes, many of which were guarded by menacing, heavily armed Russian mercenaries from the infamous Wagner Group. Other clips showed soldiers armed with automatic weapons strolling through residential areas telling citizens to go to the polling stations, while pro-Russian billboards were seen adorning the streets. Peskov's declaration belies the notion that referendums in occupied Ukraine could possibly show any result other than an overwhelming majority in favour of joining Russia. It came just days after a Russian MP told TASS that the occupied regions of Ukraine would be incorporated into Russia 'likely on September 30', providing yet more evidence that referendum results are a foregone conclusion. The anonymous lawmaker said Putin could take part in the formal announcement, while Yaroslav Nilov, deputy head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) faction, claimed senators were instructed to turn in three negative PCR test results in order to 'take part in an important event on September 30.' People line up to vote in a referendum in Luhansk, Luhansk People's Republic controlled by Russia-backed separatists, eastern Ukraine, Sept. 24, 2022 People from Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the territory controlled by a pro-Russia separatist governments, who live in Crimea, vote during a referendum in Sevastopol, Crimea, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022 The Kremlin employed a tactic of holding sham referendums in an attempt to legitimise a seizure of Ukrainian territory less than a decade ago. In 2014, it held a hastily called referendum in Ukraine's Crimea region to justify annexation of the Black Sea peninsula, a move that was denounced as illegitimate by most of the world. Ukrainian and Western authorities have already announced they will refuse to acknowledge this week's referendum results should they turn out in Russia's favour. But Turkey and Kazakhstan this week also joined Kyiv and Western governments in condemning the practice. As member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation - a NATO-like security pact among former Soviet republics - Kazakhstan is one of Russia's closest ex-Soviet partners. Turkey meanwhile has proven to be the most effective negotiator between Ukraine and Russia, and took a leading role in mediating talks which led to the agreement of the Black Sea Grain Initiative - a vital pact between the warring nations allowing for the safe export of foodstuffs to prevent a global food crisis. 'Kazakhstan proceeds from the principles of territorial integrity of states, their sovereign equivalence and peaceful coexistence,' ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov said. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has repeatedly called for the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict in line with the United Nations charter. Turkey's foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu took a much more direct tack. 'We will not recognise the annexation of Crimea, and we have told Russia about that,' he said. 'We have expressed our concerns over the referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. We made it clear we would not recognise those.' Bosses at Doncaster Sheffield Airport have announced it must close at the end of next month after the business was declared 'unviable' - leaving about 800 jobs at risk. Peel Group, which owns the major UK airport, said high 'fixed costs' and recent world events had left the business with a 'fundamental lack of financial viability'. Managers at the regional terminal, serving 1.4 million passengers a year across 54 destinations, had been in talks with government officials about a rescue plan. But a spokesperson for the groups said these hadn't delivered 'any tangible results', and following a strategic review, the business was declared 'unviable'. Bosses will be 'winding down' their operations as the airport prepares to close at the end of October this year. This comes despite the fact Liz Truss vowed to save the airport as part of the levelling-up campaign in her first prime minister's questions as she said regional airports - including Doncaster Sheffield - 'are a vital part of our economic growth'. The new PM told the House of Commons she would make sure the new transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, was 'immediately on to this issue...to make sure we do protect this airport and we protect that vital infrastructure and connectivity that helps our economy grow'. Doncaster Sheffield Airport must close at the end of October after the business was declared 'unviable' South Yorkshire's Mayor Oliver Coppard said the council was still trying to demonstrate there was a 'viable future' for the airport Speaking about the decision Robert Hough, Chairman of Peel Airports Group, said: 'We recognise that this will come as a great disappointment to many. 'The intractable problem remains the fundamental and insufficient lack of current or prospective revenue streams, together with the airport's high operating costs. 'Our employees have always been DSA's greatest asset, and we are grateful to them all, past and present, for their dedication and diligence over the years. 'The immediate priority remains to continue engaging closely with them over the next few weeks. 'As such, DSA will now begin a formal process of consulting with team members.' A spokesperson for Peel Group said they had been 'actively engaging' with a range of government officials on a 'weekly basis' about the future of the international terminal. The airport opened in 2005 after it was converted by Peel from the old RAF Finningley airbase (File photo) They said these talks were primarily led by officers at Doncaster Council, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) and the Department for Transport. And on Friday they said they'd received a proposal to provide the business with public money to cover losses incurred until October 31, 2023. But the board later decided it could not 'responsibly accept' the funding amid a backdrop of its 'unviable, loss-making operating business.' Robert Hough added: 'We will do everything we can to minimise the impact of these proposals and work closely with local authorities and agencies to support our employees through what we know will be an extremely difficult period. 'DSA has remained in contact with union representatives on site throughout and we are committed to ensuring they are updated through every step of this next phase.' However, speaking this morning, South Yorkshire's Mayor Oliver Coppard said the council was still trying to demonstrate there was a 'viable future' for the airport. He said: 'We're doing everything we possibly can to save our region's airport. Mr Coppard said: 'I'm devastated by today's announcement by Peel and angry about the impact it will have on our communities' 'We've taken the initiative, gone out to the market and brought potential investors to the table, demonstrating that there is a viable future for DSA. 'But it has become clear that any deal to find a new owner or operator for DSA cannot be done in weeks. 'That's why over the past few days we have made an offer to step in with financial support for DSA. 'This is not just about giving potential investors a sensible amount of time to put their proposals together, but also about protecting more than 800 jobs and providing certainty to customers, operators and our community at Doncaster Sheffield Airport. Mr Coppard said: 'I'm devastated by today's announcement by Peel and angry about the impact it will have on our communities.' The Labour mayor said the DSA had received public money for years, including through the pandemic, and an offer to continue that support has been rejected. He said: 'The fact that they chose to turn our offer down simply confirms what many of us suspected: that Peel was never serious about finding an alternative and safeguarding the future of DSA. 'It is still not too late for them to do the right thing; for them to reconsider their decision for the sake of those employees, businesses and communities directly impacted by this appalling decision.' Mr Coppard said the next step would be to ask the Government to step in and keep the airport open. In the summer, the owners of the airport said that DSA had never achieved a critical mass of passengers to become profitable (File photo) Peel said it had received a letter from the mayor's office earlier this month, saying a group interested in buying the airport had come forward, but the firm had not received any more details about this potential purchaser. Steven Underwood, Peel Group chief executive, said: 'We will not accept any public sector grant to cover the costs of an airport that is not viable due to its lack of adequate forward revenues and high operating costs.' Mr Underwood said the focus would be in developing Peel's 1.7 billion GatewayEast site next door to the DSA. He said: 'We have the potential to attract cutting-edge, future-tech businesses to South Yorkshire, but only if we are able to collaborate with our local stakeholders and community in South Yorkshire.' The airport opened in 2005 after it was converted by Peel from the old RAF Finningley airbase. In the summer, the owners said that DSA had never achieved a critical mass of passengers to become profitable. Once Wizz Air withdrew from using the airport, it was left with Tui as its only base carrier. A Household Cavalry soldier has been dismissed from the forces for climbing into bed with a naked female colleague and 'grinding' against her bottom. Trooper Louis Anderson stroked his victim's back before thrusting against as she lay 'frozen' with fear following a drunken night out. As he was handed a two year suspended sentence for the sexual assault a judge told him his actions were likely to 'undermine the bonds of trust' between soldiers. Anderson was also handed a 24 month community service order. Trp Anderson was convicted following a four day trial at Tidworth Barracks, Wiltshire. Trooper Louis Anderson stroked his victim's back before thrusting against as she lay 'frozen' with fear following a drunken night out Trooper Anderson, pictured, entered the female soldier's bedroom without permission before sexually assaulting his victim Anderson, pictured, who joined the Household Cavalry in October 2019, was thrown out of the army following his conviction. His defence solicitor said Anderson hoped he would now be able to get a job with Network Rail or maybe BAE Systems The military court heard that both soldiers were part of the 360-year-old Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, which is known for its iconic tunics and plumed helmets. Trp Anderson enlisted in October 2019 and the regiment only began accepting women the same year. The court heard that the female soldier, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had gone back to her barracks in a taxi with friends after a night out. She later woke to find Trp Anderson - who did not have permission to be in her barracks - sitting on the edge of her bed stroking her naked back, the court heard. When the female soldier got up and went to her toilet to be sick, Anderson followed her, and even stuck his fingers to the back of her throat, the court was told. The court heard that after she had finished being sick, the female soldier returned to her bed alone. A few minutes later Trp Anderson returned to her bed, started stroking her face and grinding against her bottom, the court heard. When one of her female friends came into the room shortly after, the woman 'raised her hand for help,' the court was told. The friend then 'pulled her away' by the hand and she spent the rest of the night in a spare room, the court heard. Anderson was found guilty of sexually assaulting the young soldier following a four-day court martial at Tidworth barracks in Wiltshire Trp Anderson did not leave the female soldier's bed until the following morning, the court heard. The next day the female soldier told her boyfriend what had happened and then decided to report the incident to her commander, the court was told. Trp Anderson was later quizzed by military police and charged. The soldier - who denied the charges - was cleared of one other count of sexual assault. He had been accused of touching the woman's leg in a bar after telling her she had a 'great arse'. Defence barrister Aleks Lloyd said that Trp Anderson now 'intends to work with network rail or BAE systems.' Lloyd added that the offending was 'out of character' for him. Sentencing Trp Anderson, Judge Advocate General Darren Reed told him that he had 'avoided an immediate prison sentence by the very narrowest of margins'. He added: '[The female soldier] did not invite you back to her room at any point. 'You returned after being specifically told to leave. 'Service personnel have little choice around where, and with whom they serve. 'Sexual offending undermines the bonds of trust between those who serve together. '[The female soldier] is being treated for PTSD and depression, she has had to move out of her block and has been issued with a service dog. 'You entered the room of a colleague who was vulnerable due to her intoxication. 'It should have been perfectly obvious to you that she was not interested in you sexually.' Anderson will complete 40 days of rehabilitation, and 150 hours of unpaid work to be completed within the next 24 months. Meghan Markle is the eighth most admired member of the Royal Family, despite the controversy that has followed her and Prince Harry since 'Megxit' two years ago. The Duchess of Sussex, 41, is well-liked by younger Brits, aged 18 to 25, a new survey conducted by The Sun has revealed. The survey, which polled 2,000 Brits, indicated she was the least-favoured royal among people over the age of 65. Meghan, who was admired by 9 per cent of the poll, has more public support than her husband's uncle Prince Edward and nephew Prince George. Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton were the most favoured royals, being admired by 23 and 20 per cent of survey-takers, respectively. Harry, 38, was more highly regarded than his wife and admired by 16 per cent of overall survey-takers. He is still not as popular as new King Charles and Princess Anne. The Sussexes have been surrounded by controversy since they quit being working royals in 2020. The pair, who said they wanted a more private lifestyle, have received global backlash over allegations they've made in bombshell interviews about their short-time as a working royal couple. Meghan Markle is the eighth most admired member of the Royal Family, despite the controversy that has followed her and Prince Harry since 'Megxit' two years ago. Meghan is pictured with Prince Harry in 2017 Meghan, who was admired by 9 per cent of the poll, has more public support than her husband's uncle Prince Edward and nephew Prince George Of the 2,000 people polled, 40 per cent said they would prefer if Meghan and Harry did not return as working royals Of the 2,000 people polled, the majority of participants said they would prefer if Meghan and Harry kept out of royal affairs. Forty per cent of surveyors indicated they did not want the couple to return as working royals. Thirty per cent voted they should resume royal duties and another 30 per cent said they didn't know. It is unclear what age demographic thought the Sussexes should be working royals, but the poll does indicate they are most well-liked among young Brits. Harry was the most admired royal by surveyors aged 18 to 25. He had the most admired by 29 per cent of the younger demographic. Meghan, admired by 19 per cent of young adults, was the second most-admired royal among that same age group. She was least favoured by middle-aged and older Brits. The 65+ demographic gave her a 4 per cent rating, the lowest of the ten royals listed. She was the seventh most-admired royal, at 10 percent, by surveyors aged 45 to 54. The Duchess did not even make the top 10 rankings among poll takers in the 25 to 44 demographic or the 55 to 64 group. Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton were the most favoured royals, being admired by 23 and 20 per cent of survey-takers, respectively. Harry was also more highly regarded than his wife. William, Kate, Harry and Meghan are pictured paying their respects to the Queen while her coffin lied in state at Westminster Hall on September 14 Harry and Meghan are most well-liked among young Brits. The Sussexes are pictured during a walkabout at Windsor Castle on September 10, following the Queen's death Kate Middleton was the most liked royal partner followed by Sophie and Meghan The Princess of Wales was also deemed the best dressed member of the Royal Family Meghan's seemingly poor favour could be tied to the seemingly outlandish claims she makes in interviews. Most recently, The Times revealed that Meghan believed she would be the 'Beyonce of the UK' when she married Harry. The newspaper, in a report published Sunday, attributed the bombshell claim to Valentine Low's forthcoming book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown. Royal insiders have claimed the Duchess believed that she would become Britain's Beyonce upon marrying the Queen's grandson - but was disillusioned by the strict protocols and rules of life as a working member of the royal family and felt increasingly 'cornered and misunderstood' by The Firm. The book also ran allegations that the Queen was forced to put her foot down over Megxit and told the Sussexes they were 'either in or out' at the crunch Sandringham summit where the royals decided Harry and Meghan's future. The Duchess of Sussex, 41, is well-liked by people aged 18 to 25, the survey revealed. She is pictured taking a selfie with a fan outside a town hall on September 6 during an Invictus Games 2023 event in Dusseldorf, Germany Meghan Markle thought that she would be the Beyonce of the UK when she married Prince Harry, a bombshell new book has claimed. Pictured, the Sussexes meeting Beyonce and Jay-Z (R) on July 14, 2019 The Duchess of Sussex gave a bombshell interview to The Cut - part of New York magazine - in which it was claimed that she and Harry 'were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy'. Pictured: The front page of The Cut The latest accusation follows Meghan's controversial interview with The Cut last month where she claimed that 'just by existing' she and Harry were 'upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy' before they stepped down as senior working royals. In that same publication, Meghan said it takes 'a lot of effort' to forgive and hinted that she can 'say anything', in what was seen by some as a thinly-veiled threat to the Royal Family. She also said she had been compared to South African hero Nelson Mandela when she married Harry. She alleged a South African cast member of the 2019 film The Lion King told her 'they rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.' The Duchess did not name the cast member. However, an actor who says he's the only South African in live action Disney film claimed he actually never met Meghan. Additionally, The Cut interview saw Meghan claimed Harry had 'lost' his father, King Charles III, during Megxit. Meghan told the magazine: 'Harry said to me, 'I lost my dad in this process.' It doesn't have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that's his decision.' Allies of the couple later clarified that the duchess had actually been referring to the breakdown of her relationship with her own father. Meghan's unofficial spokesman Omid Scobie wrote on social media: 'I understand that Prince Harry is actually referring to Meghan's loss of her own father, and Meghan is saying she doesn't want Harry to lose his.' A three-year-old boy tragically passed away Sunday, six days after his aunt allegedly shoved him off of Chicago's Navy Pier into the depths of Lake Michigan. The Illinois toddler, identified as Josiah Brown, died just after 10.00am on Sunday, according to local reports. Last Monday, Josiah was with his aunt, Victoria Moreno, 34, at the Navy Pier - a popular tourist attraction in the Windy City - when she pushed the child 6.5 feet into the lake while no one was watching. Moreno reportedly seized the boy from his grandmother's house in Des Plaines after his mother dropped him off there earlier in the day. Moreno, who has a reported history of insomnia, depression and anxiety, has allegedly pseudo-kidnapped her nieces before as well. Surveillance footage from Monday afternoon shows Moreno pushing the child into the lake while no one was looking and watching while he fought for his life in the water for 30 minutes. Victoria Moreno, 34, allegedly pushed her three-year-old nephew into Lake Michigan last week. Charges against her will almost certainly be upgraded now that the child has died Josiah 'JoJo' Brown, three, suffered brain swelling, bleeding from the lungs and seizures for nearly a week in the hospital before passing away on Sunday Brown was pulled from the depths of the lake in Chicago 30 minutes after being pushed by his aunt. He reportedly vomited twice in the water as he fought to stay afloat Moreno allegedly stood on the pier and watched her nephew drown as onlookers called for help. She initially told authorities she did not know the child Police say Moreno stood back and watched while the 3-year-old vomited twice in the water before sinking. He was later recovered by divers. One witness to the incident told the Chicago Sun-Times that she eventually spotted Josiah 'floating on his back and just looking up at the sky, his head was the only thing that was bobbing above the water.' Before passing, Josiah 'JoJo' Brown suffered gruesome injuries including a swollen brain, seizures and bleeding in his lungs. His heart was also depressed, which necessitated a heart infusion. The family has established a GoFundMe for financial assistance with medical bills and now, presumably, funeral expenses. JoJo's godmother is organizing a GoFundMe for the family who will now have to stomach medical and funeral expenses When she was initially questioned by authorities, Moreno denied knowing the child, but later claimed he had been 'acting up' and fell into the lake when she let go of his shirt. She added that she had brought her nephew to the pier so that he could go on rides. Moreno has been charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery of a child under the age of 13. Those charges will almost certainly be upgraded now that the child has died. Moreno is currently being held on no bail in a Cook County jail and is not allowed to have contact with witnesses to the incident or Josiah's family. She will appear in court next on Friday. Floods of sympathy messages have reached the social media profiles of Josiah's parents - Dantrell and Maria Brown. 'So sorry for your loss. hes forever an angel. rest easy little one..hes always going to be with you and your family,' wrote Esmeme Perez. 'This beautiful baby so innocent and precious may he be cared for now by God and angels Im praying for you,' said Memphis Breeze. In a post dated shortly before Josiah's death, Dantrell, who suffers from end-stage heart failure, wrote about how painful it was to read comments from people saying that he and his wife should be 'locked up' because of what happened to their child. 'The only thing I feared in life has happened. My bubba is fighting for his life and is so innocent,' he wrote in a post that garnered more than 800 shares. Firefighters use a hose to put out a fire at Hyundai Premium Outlet in the central city of Daejeon, Sept. 26. Yonhap The death toll from an outlet mall fire in the central city of Daejeon has risen to four, officials said Monday, amid fears more deaths could come, as a search is under way for two missing people. The blaze is believed to have started from the basement parking lot at Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, at 7:45 a.m. and spread quickly on cardboard boxes, sending dark smoke filling the entire floor, according to witnesses and survivors. This photo shows a fire that broke out at an outlet mall in the central city of Daejeon, Sept. 26. Yonhap Two men, one in his 50s and the other in his 30s, were found with serious injuries and sent to a hospital, but later pronounced dead in the morning. Two more people died later, while a search is under way for two others, according to the officials. Some 110 people, mostly customers at nearby accommodation buildings and employees, evacuated. No outlet customers were around, as the fire broke before the mall's business hours. More than 126 personnel and 40 pieces of firefighting equipment were combating the fire, but firefighters were having difficulties in the search operation due to massive amounts of smoke issued from burning paper boxes in the mall's underground cargo handling area. This photo provided by a reader shows a fire at Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul. Yonhap The robbers pulled the victim to the ground and snatched the Cartier watch The victim ran to the intersection of West 24th Street and Ninth Avenue The robbers approached the victim and acted like they had a gun Brazen thieves swiped a pricey Cartier watch from a man's wrist in Manhattan after they acted like they had a gun and chased him down. Video footage released by the NYPD captured the August 29 incident in which the suspects made off with the $35,000 timepiece in Chelsea. The victim was approached by the two suspects, one of whom lifted his shirt and acted as if he had a weapon in his waistband. 'What's up with the watch?' one of the robbers is said to have asked the victim of his Cartier watch. When the victim attempted to flee, the suspects chased him to West 24th Street and Ninth Avenue where video footage shows them pulling him to the ground and yanking the watch from his wrist. It is not known if the suspect actually had a gun. No arrests have been made. Video footage recently released by the NYPD captured the August 29 incident in which the suspects made off with the $35,000 Cartier watch in Chelsea, Manhattan The victim attempted to flee and the suspects chased him to West 24th Street and Ninth Avenue where they pull him to the ground and yank the Cartier watch from his wrist Police are trying to identify and nab the suspects who were caught on camera robbing the victim around 10 p.m. in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Leading up to the robbery on the New York City sidewalk, the victim was spotted with two other people who fled as the robbers approached. One of the robbers asked the victim about his watch before trying to snatch it, the New York Post reported. Leading up to the robbery on the New York City sidewalk, the victim was spotted with two other people who fled as the robbers approached One of the robbers asked the victim about his watch before trying to snatch it The robbers are seen on video trying to grab the victim who pulls from their grip and flees The robbers are seen on video trying to grab the victim who pulls from their grip and flees to the intersection where he's knocked to the ground. The victim, who has not been identified, did not suffer any injuries. The duo then fled the scene in a black sedan last seen traveling southbound on Ninth Avenue. The incident happened as new data revealed that more than 40,000 New Yorkers have migrated to Florida due to soaring crime, eye-watering taxes, and cost of living skyrocketing. The victim runs to the intersection of West 24th Street and Ninth Avenue where video footage shows them pulling him to the ground and yanking the watch from his wrist There was a struggle between the due and the victim, who did not suffer any injuries One of the robbers dragged the victim to the ground while trying to swipe his watch The robber is seen yanking the pricey watch from the victim's wrist while he's on the ground The highest number of monthly New Yorkers switching to the Sunshine State was recorded in August, with 5,838 trading in their Empire State licenses, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles data, obtained by DailyMail.com. New Yorkers have experienced a high number of crimes over the past few years since the onset of the pandemic. Overall crime is up 34 percent, finally starting to come down in the past few months. Felony assaults, rape, and robbery are all up 17, 10, and 38 percent, respectively. Transit crime alone are up 45 percent and city-goers have experienced shootings, stabbings, and robberies both on and off the platform. Wealthy residents were the first to ditch the New York scene and now the middle class is migrating out of the state, according to Valley. Overall crime is up 34 percent compared to the same time last year in the Big Apple Throughout the first eight months of 2022, a total of 41,885 New York state residents have switched their primary residency. A total of 61,728 left in 2021 The highest number of monthly New Yorkers switching to the Sunshine State was recorded in August, with 5,838 trading in their Empire State licenses. Throughout 2022, New Yorkers have been switching to Florida in droves bigger than 4,000 each month Retired NYPD Lieutenant John Macari, who moved to Florida last year, told the Post that many were moving around the time because of COVID-19 mandates and crime were the main reasons people left. He also claimed 'zero competence' among NYC elected officials also pushed borough residents to ditch town because they didn't 'see a future in New York City for themselves.' And the continuously flow of migration has even caught the eyes of NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who reportedly put up digital billboards around Florida to hopefully convince former residents to make a return. A suspected human trafficker has been arrested for smuggling hundreds of migrants into the United States - and charging them each as much as $15,000 before allegedly holding them ransom in her Arizona home. Tania Estudillo Hernandez, 24, was arrested at a traffic stop by police officers in El Mirage on Friday, according to a post shared by the law enforcement agency. It came after officers received a tipoff claiming that multiple people had been kidnapped and held for ransom at a home in the area. While surveilling the home, officers observed the vehicle holding Estudillo Hernandez and a Guatemalan national leave the the residence. Estudillo Hernandez was stopped while actively transporting a Guatemalan national, officials said. An initial investigation revealed that the woman was allegedly responsible for processing anywhere from 80 to 100 migrants at the home each month. Officials believe that this scheme went on for at least six months. As a fee for smuggling the individuals into the country, the woman would charge as much as $15,000 per migrant. EMPD learned that while conducting the traffic stop, two smugglers left the home with 10 undocumented Immigrants. Tania Estudillo Hernandez, 24, accused of smuggling hundreds of migrants into the U.S. and holding them for ransom in an Arizona home The Maricopa County jail where Estudillo Hernandez is currently held Police officers arrested the 24-year-old woman on suspicion of money laundering and conducting an illegal enterprising. She was later booked into the Maricopa County Jail for kidnapping, money laundering, illegally conducting or participating in an an illegal enterprise, and conspiracy. Inside the home, officers executing a search warrant and located a semi-automatic rifle, handguns, human smuggling ledgers, and 'other evidence of human smuggling.' One of the handguns found by officers had been reported stolen from Phoenix. EMPD officials said in the post that the evidence gathered showed that Estudillo Hernandez had managed and directed the operation. El Mirage is a small city located northwest of Phoenix. The city has a population of less than 40,000, according to U.S. Census data. According to the Migrant Policy Institute, as of 2022, Arizona has an estimated unauthorized population of 273,000 people. At least 80 per cent of those mirgrants living in the Grand Canyon State are believed to be from Mexico. Officials believe that of the nearly 300,000 unauthorized people currently in Arizona, 85 per cent are from either Mexico or Central America. As of early September, nearly 750 migrants had died while attempting to enter the United States. That number rose sharply from 2021's total of 558 total deaths. Those looking to enter the U.S. without the proper documentation face conditions ranging from treacherous weather conditions to dangerous falls from the border wall itself. NBC News reported in June that more than 225 people have been injured either attempting to scale the 30-foot wall or get down from it since the fiscal year began in October 2021. Reporters Julia Ainsley and Didi Martinez went on a ride along with United States Border Patrol agents and personally observed a teenage migrant injured while attempting to make it to the ground on U.S. soil. 'This little girl was exploited by a smuggler,' Agent Valeria Morales said. 'She was forced to scale the border barrier and she fell.' A prominent San Francisco real estate mogul who was mugged for his watch outside his $15 million Pacific Heights home says that the rampant crime rate has reached a tipping point, saying the city 'may never recover' because its residents have 'no sense of security.' Hamid Moghadam, the CEO of Prologis, which was founded and is based in the Bay City, said that two armed robbers confronted him on June 26, flashed guns at him and took his Patek Philippe watch. Moghadam, who shares the neighborhood with some of the world's most rich and powerful people, like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, angel investor Peter Thiel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to Bloomberg News, said the experience left him shaken. Billion-dollar real estate CEO, Hamid Moghadam, who heads Prologis, was mugged in June. He says that the city's crime rate threaten to destroy its reputation and drive away businesses Homeless people line the sidewalks in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco where crime has spiked over the last year He decided to speak up, doing interviews for Bloomberg, Fox News and CBS News, among others. Moghadam also penned a letter to California elected officials sounding the warning that the city's quality of life had slipped so far that it was in peril of losing its tax base. 'I get all kinds of San Francisco jokes when I travel the world. It's almost embarrassing and that's the perception and that affects tourism and convention business,' Moghadam told CBS News. 'A lot of jobs are involved. Once you go over the tipping point, it becomes very, very difficult to getting it back.' He told the news station that it's more than just business and jobs, he's worried about the well-being of his employees. 'It is now difficult for me to tell potential candidates that they should move to San Francisco,' he wrote in his letter, Fox News reported. 'We pay some of the highest taxes, local and state, in the nation, yet we have no sense of security. 'Protecting public safety should be the government's top priority that is the foundation of a successful city. Only in a community where people feel that they and their families are safe will jobs and culture flourish.' San Francisco real estate mogul Hamid Moghadam wrote this letter to officials after he was mugged I am writing you today as, I am sure, only the latest San Francisco citizen and business owner to ask for your immediate attention and action around crime in our city. Sunday evening, I was held up at gunpoint and robbed outside my home on ______ Street. I recognize we live in an urban environment, but the level of crime, including violent behavior, has become absolutely unacceptable. Obviously, the majority of voters feel this way, which is why they voted to recall our district attorney earlier this month. I run one of the highest market cap companies in the city, which I founded here forty years ago. Over the years, I have invested in this city and recruited talent to move here to work in our global headquarters at Pier 1. Ten years ago, we acquired a larger company that was headquartered in Denver, but I insisted we keep our headquarters in San Francisco. Today, I am not sure I would make the same decision. It is now difficult for me to tell potential candidates that they should move to San Francisco. We pay some of the highest taxes, local and state, in the nation yet we have no sense of security. Protecting public safety should be the governments top priority that is the foundation to a successful city. Only in a community where people feel that they and their families are safe will jobs and culture flourish. I am deeply concerned that our city may be so far down the path toward decline that we may never recover or at least not for a long, long time. I am an entrepreneur and a problem solver. I would like to help you. I dont believe that money is the problem. Earlier this year, the Chronicle reported that the City has only spent about a quarter of the Prop. C funds it has available, yet we continue to have a substantive homeless problem, which is not the cause, of course, but contributes to the crime issue. We need a change in how criminals see our city. Do they see a city where we look the other way when crime rates rise, and law-abiding citizens dont feel safe in their own neighborhoods? Or do we want a city that is safe because we enforce the laws on the books and put public safety over political correctness? I was frustrated by my long wait when I called into 911 to report the crime. I do want to call out Officers Gaetano Acerra and Kevin Lynch, who responded to my call and were exemplary in their handling of the situation. Their superiors should know that these two officers represented the Department and the City in the best way possible and gave me the help and information a victim of crime needs. Never in my life have I ever had this kind of life-threatening experience. It is simply unacceptable for any resident of our city to experience something like this. We must make a change now. Best, Hamid Advertisement A shocking poll revealed nearly half of San Franciscans have been robbed in the past five years, as the city continues to attempt to clean up its act under Mayor London Breed (pictured) A mob of homeless drug addicts are seen brawling on a San Francisco street amid trash and squalid conditions as city officials call for blue sky 'ideas' to fix its open air drug market problem The August crime statistics show that although murders are down nearly 3 percent, other violent crime has jump from last year. Rape is up 8.3 percent, larceny climbed a whopping 18.5 percent, assaults spiked nearly 10 percent and muggings, like the one Moghadam suffered are up 3.4 percent. 'I recognize we live in an urban environment, but the level of crime, including violent behavior, has become absolutely unacceptable,' he wrote in his letter. Moghadam, who co-founded the business in San Francisco in 1983, said that in his own case, the muggers targeted him for his watch. He said that they followed him from his billion-dollar real estate business in the Embarcadero to his home in Pacific Heights where the median annual income is $125,550 per year. 'This is a gang that does this all the time and they had targeted me from the parking lot,' he told KPIX 5. He said when he got to his home, the thieves confronted him. 'A car rushed by, stopped right next to me and two guys jumped out with guns pointed at my face,' he told the station. 'It just happened so quickly, honestly, I didn't have time to get scared.' A homeless drug addict sits passed out next to his milk, cereal, and candy on the street near City Hall A homeless man injects fentanyl into his armpit, due to a lack of usable veins, as people walk by in the Tenderloin District of the city A homeless man injects fentanyl into his friend's armpit, due to a lack of usable veins, as people walk by near San Francisco's City Hall in early September A homeless woman named Rockey smokes fentanyl in front of her tent in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, California Kim, a homeless trans drug addict, sits on the street in the Castro District of San Francisco He decided that 'enough is enough' and wrote to Mayor London Breed and California Governor, Gavin Newsom, a former city mayor, told them what happened. He told the politicians that San Francisco 'may be so far down the path toward decline that we may never recover or at least not for a long, long time.' He said that he heard back from the governor and the mayor right away. Breed told Fox News that she is 'focused on making San Francisco a place where people want to live, do business and work.' She noted that she has budgeted for 200 new police officers and pushed legislation to crack down on the market for stolen goods. Moghadam's concerns are no secret to city residents. A shocking California public radio station KQED found that nearly half of San Franciscans have been robbed in the past five years. A poll of 1,653 people in the City by the Bay by the station found 43 percent of white people reported being victims of theft, 54 percent of black San Franciscans and 55 percent of mixed race San Franciscans surveyed said they'd been robbed in recent years, according to the SF Chronicle. Crime is up 8.5 percent in San Francisco through September 11 compared to 2021, according to the city's data. While that's less than cities like New York (up 35 percent) and Chicago (up 37 percent), homicide is the only crime to see a decrease from last year in the northern California city. Of those asked, 65 percent said the city was declining, while 37 percent said they would live elsewhere in three years. A staggering 84 percent of people aged 65 and over said they are planning to leave. It's a thought that's crossed Moghadam's mind too. 'Ten years ago, we acquired a larger company that was headquartered in Denver, but I insisted we keep our headquarters in San Francisco,' Moghadam said in his letter. 'Today, I am not sure I would make the same decision.' Frustration with San Francisco's decline has intensified in recent months, with the ejection of District Attorney Chesa Boudin and, in February, the recall of three members of the city's school board, who were accused of putting progressive politics ahead the needs of children during the pandemic. Forecasts are predicting wild winds and severe thunderstorms to wreak havoc Almost every part of Australia will experience rainfall over the next 10 days Almost every part of Australia will be hammered by rain over the next 10 days as a massive rain bomb engulfs the country. Extremely heavy falls, hailstones, thunderstorms and flooding is expected for large parts of the east coast, particularly southern New South Wales and Victoria. A large low pressure system is set to collide with a cold trough - sparking significant precipitation through Australia's states and territories. Almost every part of Australia will experience rainfall over the next 10 days as a massive rain bomb engulfs the country Heavy rain, thunderstorms and flooding is expected for large regions of the east coast, particularly southern New South Wales and Victoria The heaviest rain is expected to be seen in northern Victoria and southern NSW - areas which are already experiencing flooding in the past few days. Some catchments have already seen more than 200 per cent of annual rainfall in just the last month. Forecasters are warning three states could see severe thunderstorms over the next three days. Moderate to major flooding is set to continue through NSW this week, with the worst of the weather expected on Tuesday and Wednesday. The state's east will experience thunderstorms on Tuesday, with strong winds and even hail predicted. Heavy rainfall is predicted for NSW's southern regions on Tuesday and Wednesday The state's east will experience thunderstorms on Tuesday, with strong winds and even hail predicted The rain is expected to ease on Thursday, but further rain is expected on the weekend. Weatherzone says almost the entire country will see rainfall over the next 10 days as the huge system sweeps through. Another low pressure system is predicted to hit the Kimberly and Pilbara areas of Western Australia early next week - which could bring unseasonable rain. Broome has seen no rainfall so far through September, but could see significant precipitation to start October. A low-pressure system that brought torrential rain and flooded dozens of river systems in inland NSW and the state's north in the latter part of the week is moving offshore, although forecasters say the situation is still 'evolving'. Early on Saturday, flood warnings remained active for 28 river systems from the inland west, through to the Northern Rivers and the Mid North Coast. Emergency services used a boat to rescue four people from the Hilux who were found clinging to trees, including a 37-year-old man, a 28-year-old woman, and a young boy and girl. However, the five-year-old boy became trapped in the car before it submerged and was swept away In the town of Gunnedah, home to 9000 people, major flooding was continuing after the Namoi River peaked at 8.24 metres on Saturday morning. The water is expected to remain high going into Sunday. At Wee Waa, just 120km northwest, floodwaters are still slowly falling but could remain above major flood levels into next week. The cotton town is protected by an 8km levee but Narrabri Shire mayor Ron Campbell said the rainfall had destroyed local roads. 'If we get substantial rain across the summer, we could have a record flood for sure - probably something not seen since the 1970s,' Mr Campbell said. The wet weather has caused anxiety in the Tumbulgum community on the Tweed River after its burst its banks and flooded paddocks on Friday. Many locals remained hyper-vigilant after major flooding hit the region earlier this year, Husk Distillers co-owner Harriet Messenger said. 'Everybody in the region is always very on edge - particularly so close to another major event,' she said. A five-year-old boy died after becoming trapped in a car last week that was swept away by floodwaters in central western NSW A five-year-old boy died after becoming trapped in a car that was swept away by floodwaters in central western NSW. Two vehicles, including a Toyota Hilux, became trapped in floodwaters on McGrane Way at Tullamore, northwest of Parkes, on Friday night. Emergency services used a boat to rescue four people from the Hilux who were found clinging to trees, including a 37-year-old man, a 28-year-old woman, and a young boy and girl. However, the five-year-old boy became trapped in the car before it submerged and was swept away. NSW Police officers started searching on Saturday for the Hilux and at about 3.20pm the boy's body was located in the still-submerged car by police divers. His family were taken to Dubbo Base Hospital for observation. The occupants of the second vehicle weren't injured. The Hilux has since been retrieved and police are investigating ahead of a report being prepared for the coroner. A large low pressure system is set to collide with a cold trough - sparking significant precipitation through Australia's states and territories New Mexico prosecutors have indicated they may charge Alec Baldwin over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his movie Rust last year, after the actor handed over his cellphone to be considered as evidence. In a letter to the state's financial board, asking for funding to prosecute the high profile case, Santa Fe District Attorney District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said she was 'ready' to file charges against four people. She stopped short of confirming the charges she planned to bring, but said was 'certainly looking all the homicide statutes and any gun statutes under New Mexico criminal code'. 'One of the possible defendants is well known movie actor Alec Baldwin,' she wrote. Carmack-Altwies asked for $635,000 to prosecute the case, saying she needed the money to go up against well-paid attorneys. Alex Baldwin with his wife Hilaria and their kids yesterday. The actor may soon be charged over the fatal 2021 shooting, according to documents filed by the Santa Fe District Attorney The DA said in her request that as many as four people may be charged, including Baldwin The state agreed to award her office $317,000 to appoint a special prosecutor to take the case forward. Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on October 21 on the set of the movie The request was quietly submitted on August 30 and was recently approved. After it was filed, Baldwin - who welcomed his seventh child with wife Hilaria last week - listed his Hamptons home for sale. He has always maintained that he did not pull the trigger, and that the blame lies with the stunt handlers and prop managers who should have ensured the gun was 'cold' - empty of live bullets. 'I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger, no,' he said in an interview about the shooting. He lays the blame with the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who he says was in charge of ensuring the safety of the props. The gun should have only contained blank rounds. Gutierrez-Reed has always denied culpability, despite also being blamed by Hutchins' family for the tragedy. She was named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit launched by Hutchins' widower. ABC News on Monday said that one of the final pieces of evidence that prosecutors had been waiting for was Baldwin's cellphone. The DA wrote that one of the 'final pieces of evidence' her office had been waiting for was Baldwin's cellphone. Baldwin and Hutchins on the set of Rust last year. He maintains he never pulled the trigger Baldwin is shown buckled over in tears after being interviewed at the Sante Fe County Sheriff's Office on October 21 The actor has not commented on the DA's recent remarks. His attorney did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's inquiries on Monday. In addition to listing their Hamptons home, Baldwin and his wife sold a property in upstate New York earlier this year for $530,000. They still own their $16million Manhattan penthouse and $1.75million farm in Vermont. The couple recently welcomed their seventh child together, a daughter named Ilaria. Hilaria, 38, announced the birth on Instagram. 'She's here! We are so excited to introduce you to our tiny dream come true, Ilaria Catalina Irena,' she said. Alec Baldwin is listing his longtime Hamptons home for $29 million, less than three months after selling an upstate property Runner explained that the 100-strong flock of sheep wouldn't stop following her Artist Eleanor Scholz was on a hike when she came across the bewildered runner Video shows woman being followed by flock of 100 sheep whilst out on run For many runners, they might have their dog as a companion whilst out on a run - but one trail runner in France was left bewildered after she was followed by no less than 100 sheep. Video shows the French woman running along a forested path near Puy de Dome in central France - and she was following in quick succession by an entire flock of sheep after they became lost. Artist Eleanor Scholz was on a hike when she came across the bewildered runner who explained that the 100-strong flock just wouldn't stop following her after she found them lost in the woods. For many runners, they might have their dog as a companion whilst out on a run - but one trail runner in France was left bewildered after she was followed by no less than 100 sheep Artist Eleanor Scholz was on a hike when she came across the bewildered runner who explained that the 100-strong flock just wouldn't stop following her after she found them lost in the woods In the video, filmed by Scholz, the sheep can be seen running behind the woman and stopping when the runner did so. The runner stopped to chat to Scholz for a few minutes to explain the bizarre situation - and during this time, the sheep waited patiently for her to finish talking. The woman explained that the whole flock of sheep had become lost and followed her for her entire run. And video shows that when the woman began running again, the 100 sheep all quickly ran after her in a blur of white and black. Scholz joked on Instagram that the woman is a 'shepherdess now'. And video shows that when the woman began running again, the 100 sheep all quickly ran after her in a blur of white and black Scholz joked on Instagram that the woman is a 'shepherdess now' She later said on social media that the runner had told her than she was leading the sheep back to where she'd seen some pastures earlier on in her run. She added: 'It wouldnt have been difficult to ask around in that small community and figure out who they belong to, since the sheep were all painted to identify which farm they came from.' Scholz joked that it would have been a 'confusing' day for the farmer to discover his entire flock missing - and to learn that the sheep had gone out on a run with a random woman. Sheep instinctively flock together and follow a leader - and when one sheep moves, the rest will follow. 'Sheep display an intensely gregarious social instinct that allows them to bond closely to other sheep and preferentially to related flock members,' experts wrote in a research paper published in the MSD Veterinary Manuel. 'Flock mentality movements protect individuals from predators.' It is not known whether the sheep ended up back at their farm - or why they began following the woman in the first place. US diplomat Anne Sacoolas will face court on Thursday over Harry Dunn's death. The hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court was supposed to happen earlier but was vacated to allow 'ongoing' discussion with the US suspect. Sacoolas is accused of causing death by dangerous driving following a fatal road crash outside US military base RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in August 2019. Today in a statement confirming the court date, the Crown Prosecution Service said: "A hearing has been scheduled for September 29 at Westminster Magistrates' Court. "We remind everyone that Mrs Sacoolas has a right to a fair trial and there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice any proceedings." The suspect had diplomatic immunity asserted on her behalf by the US government following the collision, and was able to leave the UK 19 days after the incident. Harry Dunn's alleged killer will face court this week after he died over three years ago US citizen Anne Sacoolas (pictured in Virginia) is accused of killing the teenage motorcyclist in a road crash outside US military base RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on August 27, 2019 In December the CPS said it remained 'committed to securing justice in this matter'. Immediately after that statement, Sacoolas' legal representatives said: 'While we have always been willing to discuss a virtual hearing, there is no agreement at this time.' An extradition request for Sacoolas was submitted by the Home Office after she was charged with death by dangerous driving, but that was rejected by the US State Department in January 2020. Mr Dunn's parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, pictured above have not commented The Dunn family were then advised that, although there could be no criminal proceedings in the US, they could bring a civil claim for damages against Sacoolas as her immunity was no longer valid when she returned to her home country. Lawyers acting on behalf of Sacoolas and her husband Jonathan attempted to throw the case out on the grounds it should be heard in the UK. Judge Thomas Ellis dismissed Sacoolas's submissions that the UK was a 'more convenient' forum, keeping the case in Virginia, describing the motion as 'not warranted'. Harry's parents then flew out to the US to give evidence under oath as part of the 'discovery' process. A grandmother was left humming after being slapped with a hefty fine for honking her horn at a car that pulled in front of her - an action a police officer deemed road rage. Alma Smith, 85, was shocked to discover that she, not the other driver, was the one fined over the incident in June, for using the horn 'excessively'. She was driving to work at Myer in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Roselands, when she had the near miss on Belmore Road at Riverwood. 'There was cars parked and this guy just (pulled out) in front of me. I thought I was going to collide with him so I applied the brakes and the horn,' she told 9News. Under NSW law you can only honk if you need to warn other road users about the position of your car or get animals off the road. But police allege Ms Smith beeped for too long. Alma Smith, 85, (pictured) is fighting a $352 fine for beeping her car horn 'excessively' Just seconds later, she was pulled over. Her son Warwick Smith said there was a police officer behind his mum counting the length of her horn honk. According to Mr Smith, three seconds is OK, but four seconds isn't. To make matters worse, the officer gave her a $352 fine. 'He said I had used the horn excessively, unnecessarily and that's like road rage.' Ms Smith, who has been driving for more than 60 years, went silent with shock and then asked the officer if they were serious. 'I couldn't believe it. Is this a joke? Haven't they got better things to do,' she said. In NSW, you cannot beep your car horn to say hello, out of annoyance or frustration or to get someone moving when a traffic light goes green. Ms Smith has vowed to fight the offence and will have her day in court next May, almost a year after the incident. Alma Smith was fined $352 (pictured) for beeping her horn at a car that pulled out in front of her Alma Smith (pictured) is going to court to fight a fine she got for beeping at a car that cut in front of her By taking the matter to court, she runs the risk of the fine being increased to $2,200. But Ms Smith may have good grounds to get off. According to lawyer Sam Macedone, if what she said happened is accurate, Ms Smith was correct to use her horn. 'I can't see anywhere in the legislation that indicates you can only give a short beep,' he said. EXCLUSIVE: Tony Garnett, 30, claims he's thrown out Sofiia Karkadym, 22, after they had a furious argument Advertisement A security guard who started a relationship with a Ukrainian refugee after he and his long term partner gave her a place to live has dumped her following a furious bust-up, MailOnline can reveal today. Tony Garnett, 30, claims he has thrown out Sofiia Karkadym, 22, after accusing her of not being able to handle alcohol and using a knife to damage a wall at their rented home. With her belongings now in black bin liners ready for collection, he also accused her of interfering with his relationship with his two daughters, saying that he would always put them 'first'. Tony fell for Sofiia just days after she started living with him and his partner of ten years Lorna Garnett, 28, who is the mother of his two children. He and his now ex-girlfriend made headlines in May after he left Lorna and moved out of the family home with his new lover so they could start a new life together. In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, he revealed today: 'I am 100 per cent through with her. We are finished as a couple.' Tony claimed that matters came to a head when they rowed on Saturday night while celebrating his 30th birthday at their home in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He said he ended up calling police after Sofiia apparently damaged a wall, leading to officers attending the address. Tony dumped Sofiaa after accusing her of not being able to handle alcohol and using a knife to damage a wall at their rented home in Bradford (pictured) Tony Garnett at his Bradford home today with his ex-girlfriend's luggage and belongings in bin liners waiting to be collected Tony Garnett, 29, who left his partner of ten years for Ukrainian refugee Sofiia Karkadym, 22, after 10 days of her living with them. They have split, MailOnline can reveal Tony has said: 'I have made a mistake going into a relationship with Sofiia' The security guard left the mother of his two children, 28-year-old Lorna Garnett (pictured), for the refugee Tony told MailOnline how he had become 'fed up' with what he described as her irrational behaviour during the four-and-a-half months they were together. He said: 'I can't take her abuse or anger any longer. 'I left Lorna and my two children for her, and I made every extra effort I could to help her keep us together. 'I worked so hard to make this relationship work. I knew that we would look like tw*ts if we broke up because we have a media profile and all the attention that has been put on us on television and on the internet. Sofiia Karkadym (pictured) arrived in the UK at the start of May after fleeing the war in Ukraine 'I also genuinely felt sorry for her. She left her home and her country which was at war and knew nobody here. 'Yes, I felt and I thought I was in love with her. But there is a side to her which I just cannot put up with any longer. She gets angry and aggressive. He claimed that: 'On Saturday night she picked up a knife and stabbed the wall several times. 'It really scared me and I had no choice but to call the police. That doesn't make me happy at all. But I was worried about my safety. ' The row happened when two other Ukrainian refugees - Sofiia Rastorhuieva and her boyfriend Illia Tronevych were staying with the couple. They had moved in with Tony and Sofiia after he saw a desperate appeal from them on Facebook, asking for accommodation. Heavily tattooed Tony added: 'I have made a mistake going into a relationship with Sofiia. 'As I have said before, my relationship with Lorna was already over and I was really unhappy. 'But this wasn't the right thing for me. I have tried to help her. I really have. 'I haven't abandoned her and have even been messaging her mother to get her to help with the aid of Google Translate. She may be suffering from PTSD. But she is from Kyiv where there hasn't been much of the war. 'I hope that she finds somewhere safe to live and is in a happier place. But she's not for me.' Tony, who received a barrage of online abuse over his relationship with Sofiia, said he would be looking for a new home soon and would also part with the other Ukrainian refugees. He said that Sofiia had sent him a string of messages since the bust-up, saying that she loved him and begging for a reconciliation. But he said he had told her that he did not want back her back, saying he had already given her 'chance after chance after chance'. Tony said he had accused her of 'ruining' his 30th birthday. He claimed he told her that he would be contacting the local council and the Home Office to try and get her re-housed. Tony and Lorna first took in Sofiia after applying to be part of the Government's refugee scheme because they wanted to help people fleeing from war-torn Ukraine IT manager Sofiia (pictured) was renting a property in Bradford with Tony after he left his partner and children four months ago The couple were making plans to visit Sofiia's family back in Ukraine so that Tony can formally ask her father for his daughter's hand in marriage. Tony has said their relationship is over But Tony grew impatient at how long the process was taking and joined Facebook groups where Ukrainians were looking for sponsors. He made contact with Sofiia through one of the groups and she arrived in the UK on May 4 and she went to live in Bradford with him and Lorna and their daughters, aged three and six. Tony told how they 'just clicked' and got on really well straight away, partly because he could speak Slovakian which is similar to Ukrainian. The two them started chatting in a language Lorna did not understand, staying up to watch TV after she had gone to bed and regularly went to gym with each other. They both said that although they were 'getting on brilliantly' at this time, 'it was no more than that' and 'innocent'. But they ended up 'finding excuses to touch and brush against each other' and things got tense in the house. Tony said he would return home to meals cooked by Sofiia who would tell him how 'lucky Lorna was to have him'. Lorna was angry about the situation that she eventually asked Sofiia to leave the family's home just ten days after she arrived But she was shocked when Tony told her: 'If she's going, I'm going'. The new couple ended up moved in with Tony's parents before finding their own place and beginning the process of applying for a permanent visa for Sofiia. Tony said at the time: 'I am so sorry for what Lorna is going through, this was not her fault and it was not about anything she did wrong.' Sofiia added: 'As soon as I saw him I fancied him. It's been very quick but this is our love story. I know people will think badly of me but it happens. I could see how unhappy Tony was.' The couple later talked of their hopes of getting married and having children of their own, once Tony had his vasectomy reversed. He told MailOnline: 'I want to propose to this beautiful lady,' Sofiia said: 'We are planning our life together. I want to be a mother. I want to have children. 'I am a young woman so it can wait a few years and I hope that Tony can have his vasectomy reversed so that we can become a family together.' As their ill-fated relationship made headlines, Tony revealed that he had suffered a torrent of abuse on social media over his decision to leave his family home. He even spoke of his hopes of launching a pop career after recording a rap about their experiences. Tony also insisted that his relationship with Lorna was already on the rocks before he met Sofiia. One of Lorna's friends told back in May how the now single mum was 'devastated'. Millions more people could be exposed in Australia's biggest ever data breach even if they're not customers of Optus, as legal experts say victims could pursue legal action against the telecommunications giant. As many as 11 million customers - both past and present - have potentially had their personal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, passport details and drivers licences stolen in the Optus cyber attack. The telco giant only has about 5.8 million active users, with the remainder of the victims no longer with the service provider. This is because under the Telecommunications Act 1979, companies like Optus must keep some customer data for at least two years after closing an account. Experts fear millions of former customers, even those who only joined Optus for a brief time, may be exposed even if they joined as far back as 2017. Millions more people could be exposed in Australia's biggest ever data breach even if they're not customers of Optus Simon Haddadim, an app developer, said he had been warned his data was part of the leak despite leaving Optus 12 months ago. 'This is why the whole concept of a decentralised system is coming in,' he told the Daily Telegraph on Monday. '(Optus) shut down the system as soon as they discovered the cyber attack. Why aren't they saying how long it took them to discover that?' The legislation is in place to help assist police investigations, but experts believe the practice is outdated. Cybersecurity leader Susan McLean said the current data climate had drastically changed and storing information may no longer be safe. 'The data that is held should be the bare minimum. So once you have proven this is Billy Smith, do you really need to keep the passport number and driver's license number?' she said. 'If the police need to find out who owns the number they have a name and address and it is not hard to find out their driver's license and passport number.' As many as 11million Aussies have potentially had their personal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, passport details and drivers licences stolen in the Optus cyber attack (stock image) Steven Georgantis, a candidate for the Australian Peoples Party called for the government to bring in a new law which would force companies to delete customers' details after three months. 'Optus has around 5.8 million active users, so the rest up to 10 million must be previous customers so why are they keeping the private details of 4.2 million previous users?' he wrote on Twitter. The concerns come as a federal police investigation has been launched into the data breach. Operation Hurricane has been established by the AFP to identify the people behind the hack, as well as prevent identity fraud of those affected. Assistant Commissioner of Cyber Command Justine Gough admitted the investigation into the source of the data breach would be complex. 'We are aware of reports of stolen data being sold on the dark web and that is why the AFP is monitoring the dark web using a range of specialist capabilities,' she said. 'Criminals, who use pseudonyms and anonymising technology, can't see us but I can tell you that we can see them.' The task force will work with the Australian Signals Directorate, overseas police as well as Optus. Ms Gough said customers should be more vigilant in monitoring unsolicited texts, emails and phone calls in the wake of the Optus breach. 'The AFP will be working hard to explain to the community and businesses how to harden their online security because ultimately it is our job to help protect Australians and our way of life,' she said. Under the Telecommunications Act 1979, companies like Optus must keep some customer data for at least two years after closing an account Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil launched a scathing attack on Optus in parliament. Ms O'Neil said responsibility laid squarely at the feet of the telco giant and that the government was looking at ways to mitigate the fallout. 'The breach is of a nature that we should not expect to see in a large telecommunications provider in this country,' Ms O'Neil said on Monday. 'We expect Optus to continue to do everything they can to support their customers and former customers.' The minister called on the telco to provide free credit monitoring to former and present customers who had their data stolen in the breach. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Optus data breach was a 'huge wake-up call'. Kylie Carson, a special counsel specialising in general compensation at Shine Lawyers, said if an Optus customer had a financial loss as a result of the data breach, they would potentially be able to pursue a claim Meanwhile, Kylie Carson, a special counsel specialising in general compensation at Shine Lawyers, said if an Optus customer had a financial loss as a result of the data breach, they may be able to pursue a claim. 'To pursue a claim, it would have to be viable and you'd have to prove that Optus didn't do enough and didn't put sufficient things in place to protect your data,' she told Daily Mail Australia. Ms Carson added something like human error would also have the potential for victims to make a claim. 'Optus is vicariously liable for the actions of their employees,' she said. Ms Carson herself was the victim of the data breach. She added Optus was providing customers with 'more questions than answers' and urged people to stay vigilant. Optus Director of Corporate Affairs Regulatory and Public Affairs Sally Oelerich was left red faced when she told 2GB's Chris Smith all effected Optus customer had been contacted by the telco - only for a woman to ring in and say that wasn't the case 'Everyone should be a bit cautious about the messages and texts they get sent, if it looks suspicious it probably is,' Ms Carson added. Optus on Monday announced the 'most affected' customers would be given a 12-month subscription to credit monitoring and identity protection service Equifax Protect. 'The most affected customers will be receiving direct communications from Optus over the coming days on how to start their subscription at no cost,' the company said. Equifax suffered its own massive data breach in 2017, with 147 million people in the United States affected. The data that was leaked included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers. The breach was announced six weeks after it was discovered and led to a $425million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 50 U.S. states and territories to help those affected. Meanwhile a mysterious hacker claiming to be behind the breach has since demanded Optus hand over $1.5million in ransom money in the form of cryptocurrency Monero, or they will publish the data Australian law firm Slater and Gordon on Monday said they were investigating a possible class action against Optus. The firm's senior associate Ben Zocco said they were assessing possible legal options for those caught in the cyber attack. 'This is potentially the most serious privacy breach in Australian history, both in terms of the number of affected people and the nature of the information disclosed,' Mr Zocco said. 'We consider that the consequences could be particularly serious for vulnerable members of society, such as domestic violence survivors, victims of stalking and other threatening behaviour, and people who are seeking or have previously sought asylum in Australia. 'Given the type of information that has been reportedly disclosed, these people can't simply heed Optus' advice to be on the look-out for scam emails and text messages.' Sydney-based solicitor Jahan Kalantar said he'd already been inundated with Optus customers seeking legal advice about the breach. Pictured is an email sent to one Optus customer informing them their data had been breached 'People will be no doubt making various complaints to the Information and Privacy Commission NSW,' he said. 'And there'll be no doubt furious scrutiny on Optus to how this has happened.' He said those who subscribe to the telco should do everything they can to minimise the exposure like changing their passwords, and making detailed records of the conversations they have with Optus since the breach has happened. It comes as a mysterious hacker claiming to be behind the breach has since demanded Optus hand over $1.5million in ransom money in the form of cryptocurrency Monero, or they will publish the data. On Saturday morning the ransom demand, which tech experts believe is legitimate, appeared on an online forum with the hackers warning the telco it had one week to respond. 'Optus if you are reading! price for us to not sale data is 1.000.000$US We give you 1 week to decide,' part of the message read. On Friday morning, CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin made an emotional apology to the millions of Optus customers whose details had been compromised. She confirmed payment details and account passwords were protected but admitted she felt 'terrible' the breach had happened under her watch. 'I think it's a mix of a lot of different emotions,' she said. 'Obviously I am angry that there are people out there that want to do this to our customers, I'm disappointed we couldn't have prevented it. 'I'm very sorry and apologetic. It should not have happened.' Two Liberian government officials Daniel Tarr, director of the Department of Marine Environmental Protection, second from left, and Moses Owen Browne, Liberia's permanent representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), right have been accused of raping two Korean teenagers in the southeastern port city of Busan. Screenshot from Liberian Observer website By Lee Hyo-jin Liberian residents here are furious over two male civil servants of their country who have been accused of having raped teenage Korean girls during their visit to the country to attend an international event held in the southeastern port city of Busan. The two men Moses Owen Browne, Liberia's permanent representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and Daniel Tarr, director of the Department of Marine Environmental Protection were arrested on site for allegedly raping two middle school students at a hotel in Busan around 11 p.m., Sept. 22. The suspects' personal information was disclosed by the Liberia Maritime Authority (LiMA) the following day. They were in Busan to participate in the 2022 Korea Maritime Week, co-organized by the Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the IMO, running from Sept. 21 to 23. Browne and Tarr reportedly took the victims to their hotel after meeting them near Busan Station. They were arrested on the spot after an acquaintance of the alleged victims filed a police report, according to Busan Dongbu Police Station. The two have been detained after the Busan District Court approved an arrest warrant, Sunday, citing concerns of them fleeing or destroying evidence. One of the men, who holds a diplomatic passport, invoked diplomatic immunity to the police. But the law enforcement authorities viewed that he was not entitled to it as he was not dispatched to a diplomatic mission. The head of the 500-member Liberian association of Korea, Christina Doe, told The Korea Times, Monday, that she was "devastated and disturbed" to hear the news. "It's like a nightmare for us. These government officials holding diplomatic passports should be good role models and set examples. We strongly condemn their uncivilized behavior on minors that mustn't occur in any parts of the world," said the Liberian national who has been living in Korea for 13 years. Regarding speculations raised by some Liberian media reports that the suspects were set up by the teenagers, she said, "We don't care about what the teenagers did wrong. And even if they (the men) didn't know that they (victims) were underage, it doesn't justify them to act immorally." She also said Liberian residents fear this case may stigmatize Liberians and tarnish their home country's image. The association is planning to organize a public gathering in Seoul to show solidarity with Koreans and demand strong punishment in accordance to Korean laws once the suspects are proven guilty. For its part, the LiMA expressed "grave concerns" and vowed to cooperate fully with the Korean government in the ongoing investigation. "LiMA unequivocally maintains a zero-tolerance stance on any and all types of sexual and gender-based offenses, and views these allegations of the conduct of its officials as most egregious, having no place in any civilized society," it said in a press release, Sept. 23. "Liberia Maritime Authority will fully cooperate with the Government of the Republic of South Korea in the investigation of this incident and vows to take appropriate actions, pursuant to national and international laws." The Liberian Embassy in Japan, which oversees affairs in South Korea, did not respond to The Korea Times' inquiry for comments. Joe Biden's Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to keep airlines and travel websites more accountable after Americans lost $700 million in cancellation and change fees alone in 2021. The president will announce Monday a new rule requiring more transparency on websites to disclose additional fees outside the base ticket cost, including fees for ticket changes, baggage and the ability to sit with all those in the reservation. The rules set to be proposed by the administration are meant to boost customer protections when dealing with airlines and other third-party travel sites that sell flight tickets as well as drive competition and lower prices for Americans purchasing flights. 'Airline passengers deserve to know the full, true cost of their flights before they buy a ticket,' Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. He added: 'This new proposed rule would require airlines to be transparent with customers about the fees they charge, which will help travelers make informed decisions and save money.' Buttigieg directed the DOT earlier this summer to create an online dashboard readily showing passengers flight cancellations and delays. It was prompted after a slew of airlines issues this summer, including tens of thousands of flights that were either canceled or delayed. President Joe Biden will announce during a White House Competition Council meeting Monday new proposed rules for airlines requiring them to increase transparency for prices and fees, which made them at least $700 million in cancelation and delays in 2021 alone Airlines have struggled with staffing shortages over the summer and have struggled with the weather to continue operations as normal. Biden will announce the proposed rule changes during a meeting Monday afternoon with the White House Competition Council. A White House official told CNN that 'in 2021, top airlines made nearly $700 million just on cancellation and change fees alone.' It is not immediately clear what Americans spent on other fees like baggage or seats. The aim, the administration says, is for Americans to be able to find the 'actual best deal' when searching for flights. The White House notes the rule will likely spur more competition in future pricing of airline tickets. 'Those fees add up,' the White House official said. Some 'budget' airlines boast low prices, then charge additional fees for almost everything, including carry-on bags and checked-bags. The summer of travel chaos this year included hundreds of thousands of flight cancellations and delays with staffing shortages and weather complications Another frequent practice imposed by airlines in charging people to be able to make sure their whole party is able to sit together on the plane, even if this includes young children booked on the same reservation. The DOT's statement on the proposed rule change notes the [proposal requires U.S. air carriers and ticket agents 'to clearly disclose family seating fees' as well as provide 'accurate information regarding adjacent seating fees for families traveling with young children, if any' to third-party websites and ticket sellers. While the figure for ticket change and cancellation fees inches toward $1 trillion, Biden's executive order on this front includes 72 initiatives from more than a dozen federal agencies to address competition in the U.S. economy. The White House Competition Council was formed last fall and has met two times previously before the Monday afternoon gathering. The group is tasked with promoting competition in the U.S. economy to help lower costs for Americans in the midst of an economic crisis that include. Former minister Andy Burnham launched yet another challenge to Keir Starmer today as he backed a Labour grassroots campaign to change the Uk voting system. The Greater Manchester mayor accused MPs of 'hoarding political power' as he backed a campaign for proportional representation (PR) to replace the current first past the post system (FPTP). Voters rejected a similar plan in a UK referendum in 2011, but the shake-up was put to the vote at the party's conference in Liverpool this week. Sir Keir has said it is 'not a priority' for him while focused on getting into power. But Labour members voted in favour three electoral reform motions, including to replace first past the post with a form of proportional representation at general elections. Mr Burnham, who was an MP for 15 years before quitting to return to local politics, has made several interventions during the conference that put him at odds with the current leader. He is seen as a potential rival for the position if he can find a new seat, but has so far refused to confirm when and if he would stand again. Yesterday he suggested the party campaign ahead of the next election on a platform of reversing all Tory tax cuts, including a 1p cut to the basic rate Sir Keir has vowed to retain. The mayor blamed the current voting system on making Britain one of the most regionally divided nations in the world. 'It's a lot to do with the hoarding of political power in a very small place, SW1A 0AA,' 'First past the post combined with the whips system in Parliament concentrates power in the executive to 50 to 100 pairs of hands. That in my view has given us the country we've got, that doesn't work for everybody, everywhere. The Greater Manchester mayor accused MPs of 'hoarding political power' as he backed a campaign for proportional representation (PR) to replace the current first past the post system (FPTP). Mr Burnham, who was an MP for 15 years before quitting to return to local politics, has made several interventions during the conference that put him at odds with the current leader. 'We need to talk about rewiring Britain to make power flow differently throughout Britain. 'It's got to be a proportional system for the Commons.' Mr Burnham said the whip system is 'forcing people to adopt the London-centric policies of the civil service', as he also called for an elected senate of nations and regions and 'maximum' devolution. Some Labour members have argued that the FPTP system - in which the candidate with the most votes in a constituency becomes an MP - favours the Tories and encourages voter apathy. They are calling for Labour to commit to introducing PR, ensuring a distribution of seats more closely linked to the number of votes cast. Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, is among those who have expressed support for PR. But at the weekend Sir Keir told the Observer: 'There are a lot of people in the Labour party who are pro-PR but it's not a priority and we go into the next election under the same system that we've got, first past the post, and I'm not doing any deals going into the election or coming out of the election.' Meanwhile, Mr Burnham backed shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh's commitment to bringing back railways into public ownership, but said he did not support the same move for energy firms. 'I think energy is different. I think rail has to be run as a national system given the complexity of the timetable. When it comes to energy we're moving towards a more localised approach with renewable energies, solar wind,' he said. 'So what I would say is start thinking about more public ownership of energy but not necessarily going in and nationalising everything.' However, he did show a slight difference of opinion from Sir Keir's opposition to renationalising energy giants, by saying a limited amount may be beneficial. 'Maybe some nationalisation because I think some might be justified,' Mr Burnham said. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing backlash for fleeing the crime-ridden Big Apple and traveling to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, which he refers to as New York's 'sixth borough.' Adams arrived in Puerto Rico on Saturday night to survey the damage from Hurricane Fiona and reassured the people there that New York City is ready to provide immediate assistance. He told San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero that Puerto Rico is the 'sixth borough of New York. We're tied at the hip.' But Adams' words were criticized on social media by many New York residents who said the mayor should be focusing on the city's five boroughs instead. While Adams was traveling to the island, a migrant crisis continues in New York City and crime is still escalating as a Bronx teen was gunned down by a group wearing ski masks and a jogger was sexually assaulted by a mugger in a park - both happening in broad daylight. New York City Mayor Eric Adams arrived in Puerto Rico on Saturday to survey the damage from Hurricane Fiona and reassured the people there that New York City is ready to provide immediate assistance Adams tours a village outside Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, which was damaged by Hurricane Fiona Adams announced his trip to Puerto Rico last week, stating in a video that he was headed to the island 'to help our brothers and sister on the ground.' In a video clip, Adams appeared with San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero who said the city needs electricity to provide its citizens with water. 'Puerto Rico is our sixth borough of New York. We're tied at the hip,' he said in the video as he stood alongside Romero. 'We're going to identify exactly what's needed,' the mayor said. 'We want to pinpoint what the needs are.' Members of the New York and New Jersey state police departments also traveled to Puerto Rico to help with recovery efforts, where half of the island is still without power, ABC7 reported. Adams traveled to the far southwest corner of the island to survey the damage in Cabo Rojo, where he reassured the residents that New York City stands ready to provide immediate assistance. 'I am a mayor that has gone through a lot and I want to help people who are going through a lot,' Adams said. 'Far too often in my life no one was there, and I don't want to have a city where we are not there.' Adams also made a trip to the Dominican Republic - another home country to many New Yorkers. In response to Adams' trip to the islands over the weekend, many have chimed in on social media to criticize his actions - saying the mayor should focus on the five boroughs. Adams tours a village outside of Cabo Rojo which was damaged by Hurricane Fiona while crime continues to escalate back in New York City Adams tours a village outside of Cabo Rojo on Sunday, the same day a Bronx teen was gunned down just a block from his home by a group wearing ski masks Adams, along with a New York City delegation, visits San Juan, Puerto Rico, but many New York residents are criticizing him for not dealing with issues back at home first The comments were in response to the mayor's tweet he posted about helping Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona's devastation. 'We call Puerto Rico our sixth borough and we don't take that name lightly. We're going to do the work on the ground to make our neighbors whole again.' One user on Twitter responded: 'Crime is rampant in the city but sure focus on a different area instead of fixing the issues here.' Another tweeted: 'Hey @NYCMayor. 2 shot dead down the block from me here in East NY-a real life crime scene of it's own-but hey listen don't worry ppl in the community aren't surprised by the occurrence-after all, no matter how many community board meetings one goes to, nothing has been done.' One other person tweeted: 'Hopefully much more successful than your work on crime. Worse now then when you took office.' Crime in New York - which is up overall 34 percent - continued to escalate over the weekend. Adams received some backlash after he posted about traveling to survey the damage in Puerto Rico, where he reassured the residents that New York City stands ready to provide assistance One other person tweeted: 'Hopefully much more successful than your work on crime. Worse now then when you took office' The comments were in response to the mayor's tweet he posted about helping Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona's devastation In response to Adams' trip to the islands over the weekend, many have chimed in on social media to criticize his actions - saying the mayor should focus on the five boroughs One user on Twitter responded: 'Crime is rampant in the city but sure focus on a different area instead of fixing the issues here' On Saturday, a 35-year-old woman jogging through Manhattan's Fort Tryon Park in Inwood was beaten and sexually assaulted at knifepoint by a mugger, the New York Daily News reported. The assailant dragged her by her hair behind a tree at Henry Hudson Parkway and Tryon Place where he punched her multiple times in the face and threatened her with a knife. He then sexually assaulted her, stole her watch and cellphone and rode off on a scooter. The woman was taken to the hospital where she was treated for her injuries. The suspect, who is described as being in his 20a or 30s, fled down Riverside Drive and was wearing a black hoodie with the words 'Honor Thy Gift' on the back, black jeans and black-and-white sneakers. On Sunday, a 17-year-old Bronx teen was gunned down in broad daylight by a group of suspects wearing ski masks. Police identified Jordany Aracena, who lived down the block, as the victim who was shot and killed on Beekman Avenue near East 141st Street in Mott Haven around 6:15 p.m. Five males in ski masks and dark clothing approached him and shot him, it was reported. Aracena had no prior arrests and a motive for the shooting is not yet known, the Daily News reported. On Saturday, a 35-year-old woman jogging through Manhattan's Fort Tryon Park in Inwood was beaten and sexually assaulted at knifepoint by a mugger, the New York Daily News reported Overall crime is up 34 percent compared to the same time last year in the Big Apple Jordany Aracena, 17, was shot by five males in ski masks on Beekman Avenue near East 141st Street in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx around 6:15 p.m. on Sunday Others on social media pointed out the mayor is using tax dollars on flying to the island instead of helping with the current crisis in New York. One user posted: 'Dems just pandering for http://votes.As a mayor of a US city you have nothing to do with this. You have no right to spend tax dollars for you, staff & security to travel to PR. FOR PHOTO OPS. Coordinate relief efforts from city hall but concentrate on the ACTUAL 5 BOROS' Another said: 'Not sure why it's your business to be there? Certainly they need help. But based on your salary, it would be a better utilization of your time to stay back & fix NY & sending a crew of people to help - you know, people that can roll up their sleeves & actually do some real work.' One user made a jab at the city's rising rents with the comment: 'That's a heck of an Uber ride, but probably balances out with more affordable rents.' Others on social media pointed out the mayor is using tax dollars on flying to the island instead of helping with the current crisis in New York Another user responded to the mayor that it 'would be a better utilization of your time to stay back & fix NY & sending a crew of people to help' One user made a jab at the city's rising rents with the comment: 'That's a heck of an Uber ride, but probably balances out with more affordable rents' Adams' trip to the island comes just days after he said that he plans to erect hangar-sized tents as temporary shelter for thousands of international migrants who have been bused into the Big Apple as part of a campaign by Republican governors to disrupt federal border policies. The tents are among an array of options - from using cruise ships to summer camps - the city is considering as it struggles to find housing for an estimated 13,000 migrants who have wound up in New York after being bused north from border towns in Texas and Arizona. New York Citys huge system of homeless shelters has been straining to accommodate the unexpected new flow of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. In Arizona and Texas, officials have loading people on buses for free trips to Washington and New York City. More recently, Florida, which has a Republican governor running for reelection, flew migrants - at public cost - to Marthas Vineyard in Massachusetts. Adams said the city had opened 23 emergency shelters - and was considering 38 more - to handle the people bused into the city since May. The city also recently opened a new, multimillion dollar intake center to help the newcomers quickly get settled. The first tent has been proposed for a remote corner of the Bronx, a parking lot at a popular city beach on Long Island Sound where public transportation is limited. Officials are looking into other areas. A rendering of the likely design of the facility, released by the city, showed rows and rows of cots. Presumably, the tent would be heated, as autumn nights in the city can be quite cool, but the city released few details. An example of the type of site NYC Eric Adams plans to open to house the thousands of migrants arriving every day. One will go in the Bronx and a second location is yet to be confirmed. Adams claimed it as a moral victory. The tents include rows of beds with thin-looking sheets in an outdoor tent, just as winter approaches An aerial view of an example site. Adams, claiming it as a moral victory, said the issue needed to be treated like a humanitarian crisis One of Adams' proposed sites is near Orchard Beach, on the peripheries of the city Earlier this month, Adams had floated the idea of housing hundreds of migrants on cruise ships. Critics pounced on that idea, saying he needs to offer more lasting solutions to a problem that has long vexed the city: How to find permanent shelter for the citys unhoused - not just new migrants but for the considerable population of the homeless. Overall, the number of people staying nightly in New York City's homeless shelters had fallen in recent years, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That led city officials to reduce shelter capacity, leaving the system unprepared for the sudden surge in people needing help. Russian troops have been deployed near the border with Georgia today even as the Kremlin tries to stamp out rumours that Putin is about to introduce martial law and ban people from leaving in order to avoid being conscripted into the army. Footage geolocated to the small town of Chmi, on the main highway from Russia into Georgia's South Ossetia region, shows at least six soldiers sitting on top of an armoured vehicle passing a queue of cars in the direction of the crossing. Troops arrived to set up a checkpoint, sources told the Russia's RBC network, with the FSB saying they were sent to stop people storming the crossing after miles-long queues of men trying to dodge the draft built up. But it raised fears that Putin is preparing to seal Russia's borders to stop men fleeing the draft, amid reports that 260,000 have fled in just five days. Russian troops have deployed to the border with Georgia where huge queues have built up as men try to flee the country to avoid Putin's draft order The FSB said the soldiers were there to prevent disorder, as the Kremlin tried to stamp out rumours that Putin is about to declare martial law This is how Verkhny Lars looks from the drone. A huge line of cars. Video: The Insider pic.twitter.com/JX6nSwwklm NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 26, 2022 Dmitry Peskov, asked about rumours of border closures and martial law today, insisted that he had no idea about any such plans. 'No decisions have been made for now,' he told reporters in Moscow. Meduza was first to report rumours that the borders could be sealed, citing a source within the presidential palace who also revealed the figure that were estimated to have fled across the border In a rare admission, the Kremlin did admit 'errors' in the mobilisation - saying Putin's order to conscript 300,000 men with military experience had not been followed, after footage showed middle-aged men and students being drafted. But, Peskov insisted, 'instances of non-compliance (with the decree) are decreasing. We hope this will speed up and that all errors will be corrected.' However, there appeared little sign that compliance was improving today as a commissar in the Siberian region of Irkutsk was shot inside a draft office. Investigators said the suspect was a 25-year-old local, and a woman who identified herself as his mother said he was 'very upset' after his friend - who had no prior military experience - received call-up orders. 'They said that there would be partial mobilisation, but it turns out that they are taking everyone,' the woman, Marina Zinina, was cited as saying by local media. Huge queues have built up along the main highway that crosses from Russia into Georgia, amid reports 260,000 Russians have fled the country in just five days Putin last week ordered 300,000 military reservists to be called up to prop up his failing war in Ukraine, but many have fled fearing the net will be cast far wider Regional governor Igor Kobzev said a recruitment officer had been wounded and that 'doctors are fighting for his life'. 'I'm ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united. We must not fight with each but against real threats,' Kobzev said. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a 'partial' mobilisation last week after Moscow's army faced a bruising counter-offensive that saw them pushed back from much of Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region. The announcement sparked panic and demonstrations, with more than 2,000 anti-mobilisation protesters detained across the country. Critics have accused the Kremlin of focusing conscription efforts in remote regions like Siberia or the North Caucasus populated by ethnic minorities to avoid sparking dissent in urban centres, especially Moscow. Authorities in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan arrested more than 100 people at anti-mobilisation protests, a police-monitoring NGO said. Footage on social media showed violent confrontations between protesters and police in the poor and Muslim-majority republic, which has seen more men killed in Ukraine than any other part of Russia, according to a tally of death notices compiled by Russian media. Putin today hosted Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi, who told him that 'our cause is just' and 'we will win' 'Why are you taking our children?' one woman could be heard shouting in protest videos shown by Russian media. The OVD-Info police monitoring group said 24 people had been arrested at similar protests on Sunday in Yakutsk, the capital of the vast eastern Siberian region of Yakutia. Since Putin's announcement last week there have been several attacks on recruitment centres in Russian regions. Authorities said assailants had tried to set fire to an office in the southern city of Volgograd in the early hours of Monday. Analysts have said the mobilisation was spurring protests against the Kremlin in regions usually loyal to Moscow's political ambitions and could dent Putin's popularity. The mobilisation was showing signs of causing further economic strain, compounding Western sanctions on Moscow for sending troops into Ukraine. The Moscow stock exchange plunged 10 percent on Monday to its lowest point since Russia began its Ukraine offensive seven months ago. A black cab driver has been cleared by a jury of raping a drunken passenger in her flat after taking her home. David Jacobs, 61, was accused of sexually assaulting the City worker after collecting her from Fleets near St Paul's Cathedral on February 3 this year. The woman, in her 20s, drank ten glasses of wine and a beer in three hours before she was helped into Jacobs' taxi by colleagues who feared she was so drunk she might upset her boss. CCTV was shown in court of the woman falling backwards in the bar while collecting her bag and coat. Black cab driver David Jacobs was cleared of raping a passenger after she went out for drinks with colleagues. Jacobs pictured outside Inner London Crown Court Amanda Hamilton, prosecuting, said the woman recalled Jacobs asking her to show him her breasts during the journey to which she pressed the record button on her phone. During the recording, played to jurors at Inner London Crown Court, Jacobs can be heard saying 'You might as well let me f*** you'. The woman said she woke up the following morning lying next to a pile of her vomit with no recollection of opening or closing her front door. She later told police she recalled a man with a hairy body and pot belly pulling a dress over her head, then having sex with her. Jacobs, who has worked as a taxi driver for more than 20 years, claimed his fare became flirty very quickly as she allegedly showed her breasts to him to which he admitted asking 'are they yours?'. The married father-of-two maintained that the woman consented to sexual intercourse at her flat and the jury cleared him of rape. A jury cleared Jacobs of rape at Inner London Crown Court (pictured) on Monday Amanda Hamilton, prosecuting, had told jurors Jacobs was married with two children who are older than the victim 'and so you seriously expect us to believe this slurring staggering woman invited him in like a siren calling him onto the rocks to cause harm. 'He wants you to believe that he is a victim, that he is the victim of a flirty attention seeking seducer who has set him up and that's why he is here and that's the bed rock on which he has built his arguments, this was all her plan,' said Ms Hamilton But Rhiannon Crimmons, KC, defending Jacobs, told the jury in her closing speech: 'How many times in your life have you heard people say 'I can't believe I did that' 'omg I cant believe that' after a night out?' She said: 'People make bad decisions when they've been drinking all the time, whether or not someone regrets that situation is neither here nor there.' 'There is no requirement the consent be verbal it can be from acts or behaviour. 'It is not rape for a man to have sex with a woman who has been drinking, the question is what she could understand, that doesn't change regardless of if the man was sober or drunk, just because a woman has been drinking it doesn't mean a man can't have sex with her. 'I'm not saying David Jacobs is any kind of saint, quite evidently he is not, he is a married man, he hurt his wife, his family, he's lost his job. 'He will not work as a black cab driver again, he should never have had sex with a passenger no matter what she said or did and of course he will pay for all of that he will have to rebuild the relationships. 'In his family he is in his own words the very least a fool, but he is not a rapist.' Jacobs, of Barking, east London, denied and was cleared of rape. It comes after Ukrainian authorities discovered burial site with 447 bodies Ukraine has discovered two more mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of people in the the northeastern town of Izyum, which Kyiv recaptured from Russia this month. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the mass burial sites were found in Izyum in the Kharkiv region - days after the area was liberated by Ukrainian troops having spent four months under Russian occupation. Ukraine is also probing a third suspected mass burial site located in a shell-damaged and abandoned industrial chicken farm in Kozacha Lopan, a mile away from the Russian border. It is not known how many bodies lie there - Ukrainian troops and officials speak of 90 to 100 without saying how they know - but the signs of recent violence lie in rubble all around the chicken farm. Reports of the grim discoveries comes after Ukrainian authorities uncovered a large burial site further south containing the bodies of 447 people next to a cemetery in a wooded area in Izyum. In total there were 425 civilians buried in the mass graves, including five children, and 22 Ukrainian servicemen. Ukraine is probing a third suspected mass burial site located in a shell-damaged and abandoned industrial chicken farm in Kozacha Lopan, a mile away from the Russian border. Pictured: Sandbags and the letter Z, the symbol of Russian forces, is seen on a wall at an industrial chicken farm, near which the Russian forces were dug in, near a suspected mass grave in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv region A damaged building is seen at an industrial chicken farm, near which the Russian forces were dug in, near a suspected mass grave in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv region, Ukraine Pictured: Debris in a bunker at an industrial chicken farm, near which the Russian forces were dug in, near a suspected mass grave in Kozacha Lopan Ukraine has discovered two more mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of people in the the northeastern town of Izyum, which Kyiv recaptured from Russia this month. Ukraine is also probing a third suspected mass burial site located in a shell-damaged and abandoned industrial chicken farm in Kozacha Lopan, a mile away from the Russian border Zelensky said that two further mass burial sites have been found in Izyum. 'Today I received more information... They found two more mass graves, big graves with hundreds of people... We're talking about (the) little town of Izium,' Zelensky told CBS News on Sunday, while calling for further sanctions against Russia. 'The sanctions need to continue. These sanctions will have political impact, as well as financial impact.' Further north, a potential mass grave has been discovered in Kozacha Lopan. De-mining teams have not yet arrived at the site and the suspected burial site has yet to be disturbed. 'I was told by the soldiers who came to our village that they saw a burial place of soldiers, but they didn't specify the number,' said Lyudmyla Vakulenko, head of the Kozacha Lopan local administration. 'They said a specialised unit would look into it,' she added. The forensic teams are expected later this week, once the area is deemed safe for work. On Monday, soldiers moved gingerly, avoiding unpaved areas, wary of mines and unexploded shells. Reports of the grim discoveries comes after Ukrainian authorities uncovered a large burial site further south containing the bodies of 447 people next to a cemetery in a wooded area in Izyum People carry out bodies from a mass burial site in the city of Izyum, Kharkiv region, Ukraine on September 23 after the bodies of 447 people were discovered But reports of the potential mass burial will confirm the worst fears of Ukrainians, still shocked by the discovery of a makeshift forest cemetery containing 447 bodies in Izyum. The Kharkiv regional governor, Oleg Synegubov, said that most of the Izyum bodies showed signs of a violent death and that 30 of the victims appeared to have been tortured beforehand. Meanwhile, it is not yet known whose bodies lie in the chicken plant. Soldiers guarding the complex told AFP they expected to find the corpses of both Russian and Ukrainian troops and local civilians. But Vakulenko says the officer who told her of the find said the military thinks it is a grave for soldiers, and that she has received another clue as to the soldiers' potential identity. On April 22, she says, a Ukrainian force from the 72nd Mechanised Brigade counterattacked Russian forces dug in near the chicken plant, but were beaten back with heavy casualties. The area was finally liberated by Ukrainian forces this month, and over the weekend Vakulenko - who runs the civil administration in the border area north of the city of Kharkiv - got a call. 'Yes, there was a phone call on the community hotline from a woman named Olena. I don't know if she's a relative or a friend, just 'Olena',' Vakulenko told AFP. 'She left her phone number said that some of her relatives or friends were killed on April 22 near the village of Kozacha Lopan. 'She asked, 'Can I get some official information?' And we answered: 'So far, no. Until the exhumation is carried out. Until this unit does its work and tells us what happened'.' Whoever is buried under the chicken plant, it seems clear who was there when the burials took place. The hangars and outhouses are full of the signs of Russian occupation. A Ukrainian soldier enters a destroyed building at an industrial chicken farm, near which the Russian forces were dug in, near a suspected mass grave in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv region, Ukraine A picture taken on September 26, 2022 shows debris and graffitis at an industrial chicken farm in Kozacha Lopan Pictured: A damaged car bearing the letter Z, the symbol of Russian forces, at a possible mine field next to an abandoned industrial chicken farm in Kozacga Lopan, Ukraine Deep trenches have been dug under the floors of some of the sheds, each the size of the tank that would have squatted there under the cover of the cavernous, metal-roofed poultry barns. A Russian tank crewman's leather helmet hung on a fence post, and a Russian-issue military jacket lay in the mud. Ukrainian forces said the unit based there was recruited from Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia under Russian occupation. In the farm's mechanical workshop, a bunker has been dug under the concrete floor, and the former residents have built a makeshift gym with a concrete barbell and a punching bag made of car tyres. A shell hole has ripped through one corner of the roof, allowing a shaft of sunlight into the gloom. The mayor of a small city in Georgia died over the weekend in a horrific motocross accident that officials called 'unavoidable.' According to reporting done by The Daily Tribune News, Perry Bell, 54, of White, Georgia, was killed during a stunt attempt that went wrong Saturday morning. The incident happened at the Lazy River Motocross, 40 miles north of the town that Bell worked in. Murray County Deputy Coroner Jonathan Sosebee told local news outlets that Bell was struck by another rider on the track after a jump. Mayor Perry Bell (far left) pictured with friends at a gathering for motorcycle riders 'From what I understand, he was on a jump and then he crashed on top of a jump. There was another rider right behind him and he was unable to do anything he wasn't able to see him to avoid it,' Sosebee said. Interim Mayor Gary Crisp told WSB Radio that it was a 'freak accident'. 'They brought a helicopter in... Flew him to a trauma center but he didn't make it. He passed away,' Crisp said. Sosebee, however, told The Daily Tribune News that the mayor was too badly injured to be evacuated via helicopter from the scene and that he later died at a hospital in Chatsworth. 'It was an unavoidable accident,' Sosebee said. The other rider involved also sustained minor injuries, officials said. Lazy River Motocross racetrack where a Georgia mayor was killed in a freak accident Crisp also told the Georgia radio station that he had known his colleague for many years and that he had a love his community and the outdoors. 'He was just a caring person for the community and just wanted to help the people who lived here,' Crisp said. The 54-year-old was just three months into his first term in office. Bell received 53 of the less than 130 votes cast in the mayoral election during a May 24 primary and was sworn in one month later. Bell was an avid guitar player and lover of nature, according to family and friends Crisp has stepped in to the role for the time being until a special election is held to fill Bell's position. DailyMail.com reached out to officials at city hall in White, Georgia, who said they have 'no statement at this time' regarding the mayor's death. Friends were quick to react to the news on social media, remembering the 'blessing' of knowing Bell and describing him as 'a true friend.' 'RIP Perry Bell. I can't believe I just typed that. Unfortunately a post can't say enough to capture the essence of this man. A true friend and much more,' said friend Roy Cicola in a Facebook post. 'Emotions are raw so bear with me on this. This man is LEGEND! He accomplished so much in a short period of time.' Anthony Moss, a resident of White, said that the community has been shaken by the mayor's death and will never be the same. 'Everybody is hit hard from it,' Moss said. It is unclear whether the 54-year-old was survived by a spouse or children. Bell (left) enjoyed outdoor activities, including riding dirtbikes, motorcycles, and regular bicycles with friends Injuries sustained on a dirtbike track can be incredibly common, according to MX-Gear.com. 'Dirt bike riding & racing is one of those sports, and hobbies, where the odds are somewhat against you. At some point a crash or accident is bound to happen,' a post on the sport reads. There were more than 1,870 recorded rider injuries over a 12-year period, mostly to the upper extremities. Some of the most common injuries motocross racers encounter are concussions and broken bones in the arms and wrist. Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg sought to dismantle Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' arguments for sending a planeload full of migrants to Martha's vineyard calling it a 'stunt' that was hurting people 'to get attention.' The Biden cabinet member blasted DeSantis by name and cast the move as self-serving, speaking at a Texas Tribune festival in a state where Gov. Greg Abbott has also shipped migrants to Washington, DC, Chicago, and New York. 'Obviously, there are issues with the border and with migration, but these are the kinds of stunts you see from people who don't have a solution,' Buttigieg said, earning applause from an audience. 'Like, Gov. DeSantis was in Congress. Where was he when they were debating immigration reforms? What have any of these people done to be part of the solution? So, I get if you're after attention. It's one thing to call attention to a problem when you have a course of action,' Buttigieg told Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith at the event. 'It's one thing if that was just being obnoxious. But human beings are being impacted,' Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg said, blasting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' move to fly Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard 'It's another to just call attention to the problem because the problem is actually more useful to you than the solution and that helps you call attention to yourself,' he said. 'That's what's going on. It's one thing if that was just being obnoxious. But human beings are being impacted. 'You flee a communist regime in Venezuela, you come here and then somebody tricks you - somebody using Florida taxpayer money for some reason, tricks you from going from Texas to Massachusetts. It's not just ineffectual. It is hurting people in order to get attention.' Buttigieg appeared to be suggesting that DeSantis undertook the move this month to boost his own political prospects as he considers a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Biden himself called the move 'unAmerican' and said it was 'playing politics with people's lives.' Abbott has also gained national attention through his own efforts to bus 11,000 migrants to liberal enclaves. His office shot back that Buttigieg 'knows nothing about Texas' busing operations and needs to stay in his lane,' spokesperson Renae Eze told the Tribune. Some of the migrants, Venezuelans who had migrated to Texas, filed a federal class action lawsuit after being enticed to board the flight after being offered employment and benefits. DeSantis is relying on $12 million earned from interest on federal coronavirus funds to allocate money to 'facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state,' Florida NBC affiliate WPTV reported. Groups of migrants receive food from the San Antonio Catholic Charities outside the Migrant Resource Center on September 19, 2022 in San Antonio, Texas. The City of San Antonio Migrant Resource Center is the place of origin of the two planeloads of mostly Venezuelan migrants who were sent via Florida to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis DeSantis defended the move to send migrants to 'sanctuary cities' A Venezuelan migrant reacts as he is led onto a bus at St. Andrews Episcopal Church on Friday on the island of Martha's Vineyard after group of 48 migrants was flown to the island from Texas Buttigieg spoke to Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith at the event Buttigieg accused DeSantis of arranging the flight for personal political reaons. ''It's another to just call attention to the problem because the problem is actually more useful to you than the solution and that helps you call attention to yourself,' he said. Both men are potential presidential candidates The flight that landed in liberal Martha's vineyard transported migrants who were recruited in Texas. Buttigieg is considered one of the Biden Administration's more effective TV surrogates and ran for president against Biden in 2020. He is sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate should Biden decide not to seek reelection in 2024. DeSantis is regularly mentioned as a leading Republican candidate if former President Donald Trump doesn't run, and unlike many Republicans he has not ruled out a primary run against Trump. Buttigieg also took a shot at Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn at the event when asked about their opposition to codify protections for gay marriage. The former South Bend, Indiana mayor is married to Chasten Buttigieg and recently moved his residency to Michigan. 'I've met both of your senators and your governor. I don't know their spouses. I don't really think about their marriages. But I can't imagine a situation where I would attempt to undo one of their marriages. So what makes them think that they are fit to pronounce upon mine?' he said. DeSantis defended the flights last month. 'Those migrants were being treated horribly by Biden. They were hungry, homeless. They had no opportunity at all,' he said on a stop in his state. 'It was volunteer, offered transport to sanctuary jurisdictions because it's our view that one, the border should be secured and we want to have Biden reinstitute policies like remain in Mexico Two teenagers charged with murdering a boy outside his school gates have made their first appearance in court. Khayri McLean, 15, died in hospital after being stabbed near the entrance of North Huddersfield Trust School (NHTS) on Woodhouse Hill at 2.45pm on Wednesday. Two males, aged 15 and 16, appeared before a district judge at Leeds Youth Court on Monday jointly charged with murder and possession of a knife. The teenagers, who are both from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, were not asked to enter pleas during the brief hearing. Two teenage boys have been charged with murder over the stabbing of Khayri McLean, on Wednesday The 15-year-old was stabbed to death outside his school in Fartown, West Yorkshire, on Wednesday in an attack that shocked the community Wearing grey prison tracksuits, they spoke only to confirm their names, dates of birth and addresses. Their age means they cannot be legally identified. They were remanded in custody until their next appearance at Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday. Floral tributes from Khayris family, friends and schoolmates were left near the scene of the attack throughout Thursday and Friday. Shocked residents also attended the spot to pay their respects, alongside a police community support officer who was pictured leaving flowers at the scene near Khayri's school. The teenagers mother left flowers near the school gates on Friday afternoon, and students from the school could be seen hugging each other and crying at the makeshift memorial after school had finished. A police community support officer lays a floral tribute at the scene in Woodhouse Hill, Huddersfield The scene in Fartown, a suburb of Huddersfield, West Yorks, following the stabbing on Wednesday Khayris girlfriend, Shyana James, 16, and her mother Sherrin James, 35, made an emotional return to the scene to see the growing pile of flowers and cards. Ms James said on Thursday that her daughter had been going out with Khayri for about eight months. She said they were 'literally inseparable', adding: 'He was her first proper boyfriend. She absolutely adored him and he absolutely adored her. She said he was perfect.' Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling for an additional $290 million to fight drug trafficking as he warned of the growing threat of 'rainbow fentanyl' which could be mistaken for candy by children ahead of Halloween. The new funding would be used for 61 Overdose Response Strategy teams to help curb fentanyl, specifically the 'rainbow' kind, the New York Democrat said in a press conference. 'This is fentanyl, this is a Sweetart you tell me the difference,' Schumer said at a press conference Sunday as he held photos of the candy and photos of the deadly drug side by side. 'Simply put, it is not candy,' Schumer said. 'They don't tell the kids it's candy, but they say, 'Oh, this will give you a great high,' and it looks innocent, so the kids are far more likely to take it.' 'Our drug dealers will stop at nothing, and are now giving this evil drug the morbid moniker of 'Rainbow.' It's gross, it's disgusting,' he said. 'This is fentanyl, this is a Sweetart you tell me the difference,' Schumer said at a press conference Sunday as he held photos of the candy and photos of the deadly drug side by side 'Our drug dealers will stop at nothing, and are now giving this evil drug the morbid moniker of 'Rainbow.' It's gross, it's disgusting,' Schumer said The candy-like colorful pills have been around for about six months, according to Schumer What is 'rainbow fentanyl'? The new brightly colored form of the highly lethal drug appears to be aimed at luring in young people, according to the DEA. 'Brightly colored fentanyl is being seized in multiple forms, including pills, powder, and blocks that resembles sidewalk chalk,' the DEA said. Advertisement The candy-like colorful pills have been around for about six months, according to Schumer. In 2021 there were over 100,000 drug overdose deaths, and over 70 percent of those were due to the highly potent fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control. There has been an 80 percent uptick in fentanyl deaths over the last two years, according to the CDC. Experts say the drug is 50 times stronger than heroin. 'We know that one of these pills can kill. That's black and white, not rainbow,' Schumer said. 'You can ask police officers, you can ask doctors, you can ask health professionals all of them have this vantage point that this is one of the biggest health threats today.' The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said in August that rainbow fentanyl has been found in 18 states. 'Rainbow fentanylfentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizesis a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults,' said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. 'The men and women of the DEA are relentlessly working to stop the trafficking of rainbow fentanyl and defeat the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in the United States.' Earlier this month a boy aged just 13 was arrested for the overdose of a middle school worker. The Bakersfield Police Department responded to Chipman Junior High School when the school reported a boy was in possession of about 150 fentanyl pills disguised as Percocet, BakersfieldNow reported. When the supervisor confiscated the pills, they inadvertently overdosed not by ingesting but simply by taking a whiff of the drugs. A local school police officer administered Narcan and the administrator was hospitalized. Meanwhile the Justice Department charged two men from Maryland last week for trafficking rainbow fentanyl in Skittles and Nerds containers. President Yoon Suk-yeol arrives for work at the presidential office in Seoul, Sept. 26. Yonhap President Yoon Suk-yeol saw his approval rating dip slightly at the end of last week, a survey showed Monday, after he was caught on video using foul language during a visit to New York. In the poll of 2,533 voters conducted by Realmeter from Monday to Friday last week, 34.6 percent positively assessed Yoon's job performance, up 0.2 percentage point from the previous week. Yoon's disapproval rating was 62.2 percent, down 1 percentage point. Yoon's approval rating, however, showed a downward trend from 36.4 percent on Tuesday to 32.8 percent on Friday. A Kentucky man who blamed voices in his head for shooting dead three of his high school classmates and injuring five others will serve out the remainder of his life sentence after the state parole board denied his bid for freedom on Monday. Michael Carneal, now 39, appeared briefly via video conference before the full Kentucky Parole Board in tan prison scrubs and glasses and listened to the seven-member panel vote down his request for early release. Each member voted for the killer, who sprayed bullets from a semi-automatic rifle at a pray group that had gathered at the entrance of Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, on December 1, 1997, to 'serve out' his sentence of life behind bars. Kentucky high school shooter, Michael Carneal, right, listens to the Parole Board vote to keep him in prison for the rest of his life A Heath High School student screams at seeing the scene of a shooting at the school where fellow student Michael Carneal opened fire, leaving three students dead and five wounded on Dec. 1, 1997, near Paducah, Kentucky Michael Carneal, 39, who was only 14 at the time, was serving a life sentence, but was granted an opportunity for parole at 25 years, the maximum sentence permitted for someone his age. His bid for release was denied on Monday 'Due to the seriousness of your crime your crime involved a weapon, you had lives taken, and the seriousness, again it is the decision of the parole board today to allow you to serve out the remainder of your sentence,' Kentucky Parole Board chairwoman Ladeidra Jones said Monday. Carneal, who admitted last week during a preliminary meeting that he still heard the 'demonic' voices in his head that told him to harm himself and others, sat in a chair in front of a window shade in stark room of the Kentucky State Reformatory where he's held with his hands folded in front of him and nodded as the chair spoke. 'Yes, ma'am,' is all he said before getting up from the chair and exiting the video meeting. Missy Jenkins Smith, who was shot by Carneal, is paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. She said Carneal should not be free Michael Carneal, 39, seeks parole despite the fact that he still hears the voices that drove him to kill three classmates and wound five others Last week, a two person panel met with Carneal to discuss his bid for release. He said that as recently as 'a couple of days ago' he had heard voices in his head ordering him to throw himself down a flight of steps. The gunman said that he had learned to ignore those voices. 'I know now that it's not something that I should do,' he told. Carneal, whose inmate file lists his mental health prognosis as 'poor,' said he has been receiving therapy and taking psychiatric medications in prison. He said there are days that he believes he deserves to die for what he did, but other days he thinks he can still do some good in the world. 'It doesn't have to be something grand,' he said. 'Every little thing you do affects somebody. It could be listening to someone, carrying something. I would like to do something in the future that could contribute to society.' Carneal attributed the shooting to a combination of factors that included his mental health and immaturity, but added that it was 'not justified at all. There's no excuse for it at all.' Those voices told him to steal a pistol and shoot into a crowded pray meeting that had gathered at the entrance of the high school. After gunning down three of his peers, Nicole Hadley, 17, Jessica James, 17 and Kayce Steger, 15, Carneal, submitted his weapon and the principal walked him to the school office. Carneal, who was 14 at the time (pictured) is seen being escorted by officials after his arraignment at the McCracken County Courthouse on January 15, 1998 Michael Carneal (pictured right) appears with his attorney, Charles Granner, at Carneal's arraignment January 15, 1998 in the McCracken County Circuit Court in Paducah, Kentucky Students arriving at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kemticly, embrace an unidentified adult on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 1997, after student Michael Carneal opened fire at the school the day before, leaving three students dead and five wounded 'I believe there is a real demonic force that would drive someone to do this,' a minister, and the father of Benjamin Strong, who lead the pray group that was attacked, told The New York Times. The attack was two years before the massacre at Columbine High School the 1999 mass murder at Columbine High School by two students who killed 15 schoolmates. He was given the maximum sentence possible at the time for someone his age, life in prison with the possibility of parole. A quarter century later, in the shadow of Uvalde and in a nation disgusted by the carnage of mass shootings, Carneal, now 39, tried to convince the parole panel he deserves to be freed. He told the board that he feels responsible for subsequent school shootings, especially Columbine. 'I really feel responsible. That's when I became suicidal and I attempted to hurt myself and I had to be sent to a hospital,' Carneal said last week. Carneal said he knew all of his victims. 'Nicole was a very good friend,' he said. 'Some of them I knew more than others, but it was a small school and a lot of these people were in band with me. I'd went to several of them's birthday parties. ... None of them do I have any negative memories of them.' He ended his bid for freedom with an apology. 'I would like to say to you and the victims and their friends and families and the whole community that I'm sorry for what I did. I know it's not going to change things or make anything better, but I am sorry for what I did.' Missy Jenkins Smith, who was paralyzed by one of Carneal's bullets and now uses a wheelchair, testified last week as well, asking the board not to release him. 'Continuing his life in prison is the only way his victims can feel comfortable and safe,' she said. She also said it would be unfair to the girls he killed and their loved ones for Carneal to be released. 'They will forever be a 17-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 15-year-old -- allowed only one full decade of life. A consequence of Michael's choice,' she said. An 'armed SWAT team of 25' arrested a Catholic pro-life activist at his Pennsylvania home on Friday after he allegedly assaulted an elderly man twice at a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2021. Mark Houck, 48, is the co-founder of The King's Men ministry, which assists in the spiritual development of young men. He is accused of injuring a 72-year-old volunteer at Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center on Locust Street on October 13, 2021. Ryan-Marie, Mark's wife, spoke about the horrific arrest as officers came to serve the warrant with 'guns pointed' at her seven children. 'A SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door,' Ryan-Marie told the Catholic News Agency. 'They said they were going to break in if he didn't open it. And then they had about five guns pointed at my husband, myself, and basically at my kids.' 'The kids were all just screaming,' she later told LifeSite. 'It was all just very scary and traumatic.' Mark has received an outpour of support on social media as some call his arrest with more than two dozen armed agents a 'power grab.' If convicted, Mark will face up to 11 years in prison, three yeas of supervised release, and about $350,000 in fines, according to the Department of Justice. Mark Houck, 48, was arrested in front of his family early Friday morning after allegedly shoving an elderly Planned Parenthood worker to the ground in 2021 Mark is accused of injuring a 72-year-old volunteer working at the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center on Locust Street on October 13, 2021. Pictured: outside the center Mark apparently pushed the worker Mark had taken his 12-year-old son to pray with him outside the clinic in October 2021 when the elderly worker allegedly began to harass the duo. Pictured: Pro-life protestors praying outside the Philadelphia Planned Parenthood clinic in May 2019 A fundraising profile to support the Houck family claimed that Mark had pushed the 72-year-old after the elderly man refused to leave him and his 12-year-old son alone A fundraising profile to support the Houck family claimed that Mark had pushed the 72-year-old after the elderly man refused to leave him and his 12-year-old son alone. Mark and his son were praying outside the clinic when the elderly worker began to harass them, according to the fundraising page. The pair then decided to leave the clinic and were followed down the street by the howling worker. The ministry worker then pushed the elderly man after he refused to leave the duo alone. Meanwhile, United States Attorney Jacqueline Romero announced Mark's arrest and his 'intent to injure' a 'reproductive health care' provider identified as B.L. B.L. accused Mark of pushing him down twice resulting in the need for medical attention. 'In the first incident, B.L. was attempting to escort two patients exiting the clinic, when the defendant forcefully shoved B.L. to the ground,' the Department of Justice wrote in a statement. 'In the second incident, the defendant verbally confronted B.L. and forcefully shoved B.L. to the ground in front of the Planned Parenthood center, causing injuries to B.L. that required medical attention.' A Philadelphia FBI spokesperson later denied the claims a SWAT team was present at Mark's arrest. 'There are inaccurate claims being made regarding the arrest of Mark Houck,' an FBI spokesperson told DailyMail.com. 'No SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved. 'FBI agents knocked on Mr. Houck's front door, identified themselves as FBI agents and asked him to exit the residence. He did so and was taken into custody without incident pursuant to an indictment.' The spokesperson further debunked the claims that 25 personnel were present at the time of Mark's arrest and called it 'an overstatement.' The Pennsylvania Department of Justice announced Mark's arrest and his 'intent to injure' a 'reproductive health care' provider identified as B.L. Pictured: police outside the Planned Parenthood clinic during a May 2019 protest B.L. accused Mark of shoving him to the ground as the clinic worker attempted to escort two others outside the clinic. Pictured: pro-life activist gathered outside the abortion clinic in May 2019 B.L. later claimed he was shoved a second time and had to receive medical treatment. Pictured: pro-life activist gathered outside the abortion clinic in May 2019 Court documents show the accusations made against Mark on October 13, 2021 Supporters of the pro-life activists spoke out in support of Mark on Twitter Critics weren't too pleased at Mark's actions and applauded his arrest Some supporters of Mark were outraged to learn about the manner of his arrest, including Catholic icon Chris Stefanick. 'A friend of mine's bro-in-law, Mark Houck, runs a men ministry and prays & counsels women outside an abortion clinic in Philly. He's not a yelling/chain yourself to the entrance door types. He's saved lives & supported children he's saved. He's the real deal.' Stefanick continued: '[Friday] a SWAT team broke down his door and put a gun in his face in front of his wife and kids for restricting access to an abortion clinic. Which he never did. Total, blatant, false charge against a man who poses no threat to justify a SWAT team. 'For the record: 1 its NOT ok to assault someone at an abortion clinic. 2 it IS understandable why youd shove a perv away from your child. Being 72 doesnt automatically make you a victim. Being 12 & intimidated with sexual comments does.' Others pointed fingers to President Biden's administration and his 'abuse of power' against Americans through the use of the 'weaponization of the FBI.' 'Mark and Ryan-Marie Houck's seven children were traumatized and in tears as they witnessed their parents held at gunpoint and their father hauled away in handcuffs, Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano wrote in a statement. Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson added: 'The FBI turned into Biden's secret police force. Sending a small army of heavily armed agents to raid Mark Houck's home should frighten EVERY American. The FBI using fear & intimidation tactics to go after conservatives needs to END!!' 'Mark Houck is now facing a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000. All because he pushed a Planned Planned Parenthood Volunteer to the ground who got in his son's personal space and yelled obscenities at him,' another supporter added. Meanwhile, some weren't opposed to Mark's arrest following the allegations. 'I don't care if Mark Houck had thirty children and lived in a shoe, if he assaulted a senior citizen, he gets arrested,' one person wrote on Twitter. Another added: 'Mark Houck is a THUG! I don't care how many kids he has. He assaulted a 72-year-old man! He belongs in JAIL! He should've been arrested on the spot.' President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked information showing the NSA was covertly collecting data on millions of Americans. Snowden, who is wanted in the U.S. on espionage charges, is one of 75 foreign nationals listed by the decree as being granted Russian citizenship. The 39-year-old former NSA staffer has been living in Russia since 2013 to escape prosecution in the U.S. after sharing classified documents detailing government surveillance programs with the British newspaper, The Guardian. He was granted permanent residency in 2020 and said at the time that he planned to apply for Russian citizenship, without renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Russia first granted him asylum in 2014 and have refused calls to extradite him to the U.S. American officials and Republican and Democrat lawmakers responded to the news by saying Snowden should now be drafted and put on the frontline to fight against Ukraine. State Department spokesman Ned Price told a briefing: ''Perhaps the only thing that has changed is apparently now he may well be conscripted to fight in the reckless war in Ukraine.' GOP Senator Lindsey Graham said: 'Now that Edward Snowden has been granted full Russian citizenship I expect he will be on the battlefield in Ukraine fighting for Putin any day now. Or could it be that he will be exempt while other Russian citizens are told to fight in a war of aggression on Putin's behalf? 'I believe now, more than ever, Putin's days are numbered.' President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden, according to a decree signed by the Russian leader on Monday Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton added: 'Let's hope he gets drafted and sent to the front.' Last week Putin ordered that 300,000 men of fighting age be conscripted into the army - sparking chaos and bids to flee Russia to avoid going into battle. Snowden could face 30 years in prison if convicted of espionage. His lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti the former contractor's wife Lindsay Mills, an American who has been living with him in Russia, will also be applying for a Russian passport. The couple had a child in December 2020. Snowden, who has kept a low profile in Russia and occasionally criticised Russian government policies on social media, said in 2019 he was willing to return to the US if he is guaranteed a fair trial. 'But if I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in prison, the one bottom line demand that we have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial,' he said at the time. He has not commented on being granted Russian citizenship. The Hawaiian-based whistleblower worked for the CIA and NSA for several years and says he concluded that both agencies had 'hacked the constitution' with extensive government surveillance, putting everyone's liberty at risk and forcing his hand to leak the information to the media. Snowden's decision to go public with the information set off a global debate about government surveillance, put in place by intelligence agencies in a perceived bid to avoid a similar attack to 9/11 from happening ever again. The former contractor's wife Lindsay Mills, an American who has been living with him in Russia, will also be applying for a Russian passport. The couple had a child in December 2020 Snowden, who is wanted in the U.S. on espionage charges, is one of 75 foreign nationals listed by the decree as being granted Russian citizenship The 39-year-old former NSA staffer (pictured speaking virtually at a conference last year) has been living in Russia since 2013 to escape prosecution in the U.S. after sharing classified documents detailing government surveillance programs Family tributes have poured in for a 24-year-old holidaymaker who died after falling 30ft from a hotel balcony in Ibiza resort San Antonio. Robyn-Eve Maines from Wallsey, Liverpool was described as 'beautiful inside and out' by close relatives. Mother Claire Maines told Liverpool Echo: 'Our beautiful 24-year-old daughter sadly passed away after falling 30ft off her balcony. There are no words for us. We are truly heartbroken.' Her brother Cam added: 'For those who don't already know today I lost my big sister Robyn-Eve Maines, she fell 30ft from a hotel balcony in Ibiza. She will forever be loved and remembered for the fantastic person she is. Our hearts bleed for the loss of someone so special. I love you big sis always will.' Robyn-Eve Maines, 24, from Wallasey died after falling from a hotel balcony in Ibiza The woman is reported to have fallen around 30 feet from a second-floor balcony of the Rosamar Hotel She was pronounced dead at the scene after she fell at 9am at the Rosamar Hotel on 25 September. Ms Maines's partner is understood to have been with her at the time and reportedly told police she had fallen from a second-floor balcony. Paramedics raced to the scene but could do nothing to save her. A police investigation was underway on Sunday. Rosamar Hotel is a four-star adults' only hotel a short walk from the beach in Cala de Bou, in the west of the island and a short drive from San Antonio. No-one from the hotel could be immediately reached for comment. At the start of this month a 35-year-old British woman died after plunging from the sixth-floor of the Hotel Bellver in the Majorcan capital Palma. File photo: The party resort of San Antonio, close to where the incident took place, is pictured Earlier in September, a55-year-old British tourist slipped and plunged nearly 400 feet off a cliff on the paradise Balearic island of Formentera. Local reports said he was with his partner and a group of friends when the tragedy occurred. Last month another British woman, a 48-year-old, died after plunging from an eighth-floor room at the four-star Hotel Melia Palma Marina which is also in the Majorcan capital. The protest began on Sunday, when 12 protesters were arrested and several officers were hospitalised Protesters are angry at Iran's regime after 22-year-old Amini was allegedly tortured to death Advertisement Dozens of protesters in London clashed with police outside the Iranian embassy for a second day, after a woman was allegedly tortured to death after she was arrested by Tehran's morality police for apparently wearing her hijab too loosely. Crowds remained outside the embassy today in Princes Gate, Knightsbridge, after protests broke out on Sunday following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. A large group of predominantly men, some wearing Iran's pre-revolutionary national flag, continued to demand an end to the Islamic Republic of Iran as police did their best to hold them at bay. Videos posted to social media showed missiles and a metal railing being thrown at the embassy and officers, as the line of police struggled to contain the crowd. On Monday evening, a Met Police spokesperson said: 'Officers continue to respond to demonstrations in the vicinity of the Iranian Embassy in Princes Gate, SW7. 'On the afternoon of Monday, September 26 a number of protesters were involved in disorder. 'One man has been arrested on suspicion of violent disorder and taken into custody. A significant policing presence remains the area.' In Iran, officials say 35 people have been killed since protests broke out, though the figure is believed to be above 40. While clashes have continued in several cities across the world. Clashes have continued to occur today between protesters and police outside the Iranian embassy in London, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran after she was detained by the country's morality police The Iranian Embassy building in Knightsbridge had paint thrown on it and windows smashed as protesters gathered outside Protests started outside the embassy on Sunday, when 12 people were arrested and several police officers were hospitalised The protests have been raging in Iran, where at least 40 people are believed to have died since the unrest began - mostly protesters but including members of the Islamic republic's security forces (Pictured: A protester in London being taken away by police) Footage on social media showed protesters throwing a metal railing and breaching police lines (pictured a man being detained on the floor) Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody after being detained by Iranian morality police over hijab laws Footage posted online from Sunday's protest showed scuffles breaking out among those in the crowd. One clip showed two officers wrestling a campaigner - who appeared to have broken through the police line - to the ground. Scotland Yard said several Metropolitan police officers sustained injuries during the protests, including broken bones, but none are believed to have been seriously hurt. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: 'The scenes that took place last night were completely unacceptable. The selfish minority who attempted to hijack a peaceful protest must be brought to justice. 'The right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy, but violence and attacks on our police and communities will never be tolerated. I am in close contact with the Met Commissioner and the police have my full support in pursuing those behind the disorder. 'On behalf of all Londoners, I wish all the officers injured a swift recovery and urge anyone with information on those involved to call the police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously.' Commander Karen Findlay said: 'We respect the right of people to protest peacefully and always work with organisers to make that possible, but we will not tolerate unprovoked attacks on our officers as we have seen today or protest that leaves other communities feeling unsafe. 'We have officers in hospital tonight because they were attacked in what was a significant outbreak of violent disorder. We will make sure they get the support they need. 'We have already made a number of arrests, but we know there are people who were not caught tonight who committed serious offences. 'In the coming days, we will be using all the tools at our disposal including CCTV and other footage to identify those people and bring them to justice.' A police officer arrests a protester outside the Embassy of Iran in London earlier today, as crowd gathered for a second day Police officers were seen preventing a crowd of protesters of charging at the embassy in Iran, while several managed to break through the line Scotland Yard said the disorder at Sunday's protest initially broke out in the immediate vicinity of the Iranian embassy in London before moving to Marble Arch and then to Maida Vale (pictured) where the Islamic Centre of England was targeted Protesters on Sunday demonstrating outside the Kilburn Islamic Centre on Kilburn High Road in London following the death of Mahsa Amini in an Iranian detention centre Footage shared only showed angry protesters shouting and pushing against officers who had formed a line in front of the embassy on Sunday afternoon Two women are asked to leave the area after stopping to clash with protesters outside Kilburn Islamic Centre in London Protests originally broke out in north-western Iran at the funeral of Amini, who died after falling into a coma following her detention. Her cousin has since said that she was 'tortured and insulted' before she died. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time demonstrations since unrest first broke out after Amini's death on September 16. At least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the Islamic republic's security forces, according to an official toll, although other sources say the real figure is higher. Amini's cousin, Erfan Mortezaei, has said that on the day she was arrested, she was forced into a police van and taken to the station where she was 'tortured'. 'There is a report from Kasra hospital [in Tehran] that says effectively by the time she reached the hospital she was already dead from a medical point of view,' he told Sky News. 'She suffered a concussion from a blow to the head.' He said that Amini has since become a voice of the anger coming from Iranian people, as uprisings spread across the country. The march comes after Texas Gov. Abbott sent two buses of migrants to VP Kamala Harris' home and Gov. DeSantis sent a plane of 50 migrants to Martha's Vineyard Advertisement Armed activists with a coalition of black self-defense groups marched in Austin, Texas over the weekend calling for an end to illegal immigration and demanding that President Biden close the borders. Some of the activists chanted 'close the borders' and 'take your a** home' as they marched toward the Texas Capitol in the 'Second Amendment Unity Walk' on Saturday. The march was led by The Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt Pistol & Rifle Gun Club. Their demands also included reparations for descendants of enslaved people and a hate crime bill protecting Black Americans. The group faced opposition from a handful of Trump supporters and other protesters gathered at the Texas State Capitol to support January 6 defendants. Saturday's march comes after Texas Gov. Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey sent thousands of migrants by bus to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago, Illinois all three sanctuary cities that have pledged not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Armed activists with a coalition of black self-defense groups marched in Austin calling for an end to illegal immigration and demanding that President Biden close the borders Video and photos of the third annual 'Second Amendment Unity Walk' show marches armed with guns as they walked through the streets of Austin toward the Texas State Capitol Video and photos of the third annual 'Second Amendment Unity Walk' show marches armed with guns as they walked through the streets of Austin toward the Texas State Capitol. Other than The Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt Pistol & Rifle Gun Club, several other groups were involved including the Black Riders Liberation Party. 'Reparations now!' the group chanted, according to Ford Fischer who tweeted from the march. 'We don't say 'hands up, don't shoot!'' one explained. 'Guns up!' they chanted. 'Shoot back!' The activists continued their march through Austin holding a massive sign that read 'Reparations now!' 'Close the borders!' they chanted. One yelled 'build the wall' but the phrase didn't catch on. 'Immigrants, we've been here!' another person yelled. 'Take your ass home!' Vehicles honked their horns at the activists as they marched through the intersections chanting: 'What do we want? Closed borders! When do we want it? Now!' Once at the capitol building, a speaker summarized the group's demands as 'Reparations now, delineation, a stop to illegal immigration.' The activists held a sign that read 'Reparations now!' Their demands included reparations for descendants of enslaved people and a hate crime bill protecting Black Americans Some of the activists chanted 'close the borders' and 'take your a** home' as they marched toward the Texas Capitol in the 'Second Amendment Unity Walk' on Saturday Vehicles honked their horns at the activists as they marched through the intersections chanting: 'What do we want? Closed borders! When do we want it? Now!' Aside from The Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt Pistol & Rifle Gun Club, several other groups were involved including the Black Riders Liberation Party 'We need an anti-crime bill for Black Americans.' 'And we need the same protection act that the Native Americans have against CPS for our Black American children.' 'Republicans, do not dare to make the mistake of thinking you will get our vote just because we believe in exercising our Second Amendment.' 'Yes, I'm talking to you Ted Cruz and Governor Abbott.' 'Don't think we are standing with you because we are against illegal immigration.' The speaker also called out Vice President Kamala Harris to step up. Nick Bezzel, one of the activists with the group, advocated reparations for descendants of enslaved people as a 'justice claim.' 'What we don't wanna hear is 'America doesn't have the money' - Ukraine!' he told the group. 'That could be going to the children of the people who built this nation.' Nick Bezzel, one of the activists with the group, advocated reparations for descendants of enslaved people as a 'justice claim' The march was led by The Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt Pistol & Rifle Gun Club Activists from the black rights groups marched in Austin on Saturday The march was held in the days after Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Republicans for dragging migrants to locations across the country for the 'sake of a headline' He later told Ford Fischer that they brought attention to the 'Black agenda' including reparations and other legislation. He then said they plan to go into the Texas State House in January to lobby for legislation. 'We do have a problem with illegal immigration,' he said. 'Because a lot of times, jobs are taken away from Black people. Black people are locked out from employment due to illegal immigration.' Another activist on the walk stated: 'I am a racist' and then broke down the word, claiming that as a 'pianist' practices piano, 'I am a racist, I practice my race.' 'I practice hard too. Get good at it.' The march was held in the days after Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Republicans for dragging migrants to locations across the country for the 'sake of a headline' after Governor Greg Abbott dropped two buses full of asylum-seekers off in front of her home. The vice president was put in charge of the migration crisis by President Joe Biden, but her office quickly branded the role as addressing the root causes why people flee to the U.S. from Northern Triangle countries. Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Republicans for 'playing games' with human lives and making migrants part of a political stunt for the 'sake of a headline' A class action lawsuit was opened into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after he flew a plane of 50 migrants to the wealthy island of Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts. 'They're playing games,' Harris told Vice News in an interview released Thursday. 'These are political stunts with real human beings who are fleeing harm.' While Republican governors continue to send migrants to sanctuary cities, a majority of Democrats agree that these jurisdictions should bear the brunt of the immigration crisis. The CRC Research survey shows that 63 percent of likely voters think the burden should not only be on border states and 51 percent of Democrats agree. But Harris said the governors are just 'doing it for the sake of a headline.' 'What we're seeing with these governors is irresponsible and it's inhumane,' she added in the interview released just three days after new figures revealed two million migrants have been arrested at the southern border in a year for the first time in history. 'Frankly it's a dereliction of duty when you are an elected leader to play those kinds of games with human lives and human beings,' Harris said, urging Republicans to be 'part of the solution. She also blamed former President Donald Trump and his administration's policies for 'decimating' the process designed to help people come to the country and claim asylum when fleeing their homes. Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey have sent thousands of migrants by bus to Washington, D.C., New York City and now Chicago, Illinois all three sanctuary cities that have pledged not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Asylum seeking migrants are seen waiting at a new Mobile En-Route Processing Unit (MERC), in El Paso, Texas, used by U.S. Border Patrol to rapidly process asylum seeking migrants A teenager who had dreams of becoming a bull rider and competing in the United States died from a heart attack after falling off a bull at a rodeo in southeastern Brazilian state of Sao Paulo. Thiago Castilho, 18, was participating at an event in the Sao Paulo city of Ribeirao Preto on Thursday night when he suffered the fall. Multiple videos surfaced online that show Perez mounted on the bull for nearly eight seconds as the animal was trying to buck him off. The teen ultimately lost his grip on the bull rope and appeared to hit his neck on the bull's horn as he was falling to the ground. Two men rushed to his side as he was lying on the ground unconscious while another individual chased down the bull. Thiago Castilho was participating at a bull riding event in the southeastern Brazilian city of Ribeirao Preto on Thursday when he suffered a fall and hit his neck on the animal's horn. The 18-year-old was taken to a local hospital and died early Friday morning after suffering a heart attack After turning 18 years old in February, Thiago Castilho started competing in bigger rodeo shows throughout cities in the southeastern Brazilian state of Sao Paulo Castilho was rushed to a local medical facility and went into cardiac arrest early Friday morning. The incident is being investigated by the Ribeirao Preto Civil Police as a suspicious and accidental death. Jean Carlos Castilho told Brazilian news outlet G1 that his son was only 11 years old when he started riding horses and by the age of 16 was riding an ox. As soon as he turned 18 in February, Thiago Castilho began participating in bigger rodeo shows that were held in several Sao Paulo municipalities, including his hometown of Brodowski. Thiago Castilho, 18, had dreams of one day traveling to the United States to compete in bull riding events. He started riding horses as the age of 11 and he was just 16 when he started riding an ox Thiago Castilho was warned multiple times by his father about the dangers that came along with riding bulls. However, the 18-year-old loved the sport so much that he once told him, 'If I died one day, I'm going to die happy, I'm going to die riding' Despite warning his son about the dangers that came with riding bulls, Thiago Castilho was willing to put his life on the line for the sport he loved. 'Unfortunately, that's what rodeo is all about. It's a dangerous sport. I always said to him: 'My son, stop it,'' Jean Carlos Castilho recalled. The mourning father said his son refused to quit, telling him, 'If I died one day, I'm going to die happy, I'm going to die riding. Local rodeo announcer Ronald Xavante honored Thiago Castilho with a video Friday, calling him a rising star in the sport. 'Thiago was an 18-year-old who, since he was a child, has been awakening the dream of being a rider,' Xavante said. 'His dream came true, so Thiago had been making great presentations and was arousing interest in several national rodeo teams.' A Chicago man is in critical condition in the hospital after being shot in the face after infiltrating a SWAT team training exercise. The unnamed man was picking up personal property from the evidence collection center at Homan Square in Chicago. He scaled a fire escape five floors and entered the building, interrupting a training exercise for the city's SWAT team. They had placed their weapons on a table. Unbeknownst to the suspect, the guns did not contain live rounds - instead, they had been switched out for rubber pellets. There is a large police presence at the evidence holding center in Homan Square, Chicago Dozens of officers are now at the scene. It's unclear if they have a suspect in custody He grabbed two of the weapons and pointed them at officers, who shot him in the face with live rounds in retaliation. The man is now in the hospital recovering from non-life-threatening injuries. The man involved has a 'lengthy' criminal history of arrests, according to Chicago Police Chief David Brown. It's unclear whether the officers involved in the SWAT training knew that the guns contained live rounds or rubber pellets. The incident is now under investigation. At a briefing on Monday afternoon, Chief Brown said one officer suffered a twisted ankle in the chaos, but that no one else was injured. Arthur Williamson, 55, has been charged with the murder of Jim Matthews after attacking him in his own home in Michigan The heartbroken brother of a news anchor who was brutally murdered in his own home has slammed authorities for allowing the career criminal out on parole. Arthur Williamson has been charged with seven felonies, including first degree murder, after attacking WWJ950 radio host Jim Matthews, 57, at his home in Chesterfield, Michigan. The 55-year-old pleaded not guilty and had no bond set court on Monday and did not speak during the short hearing. He has been charged with felony murder, two counts of assault with intent to murder and three counds of unlawful imprisonment. Matthews brother, Joe Nicolai, claims that the killer was a friend of Nichole Guertin, 35, Matthews partner and mother of his two children. Joe told DailyMail.com that the pair had met at a narcotics anonymous meeting in a nearby church, and that he had seen Williamson come and go into his brothers home on several occasions. He said: I dont know exactly what business he has there with them. All I know is that he met Nichole at a NA meeting, Id never heard him mentioned and I live across the street. I have seen him a couple of times leave and go into the place. He is a demon sent straight from hell. He should have been institutionalised years ago he shouldnt have been allowed out. News anchor Jim Matthews, 57, was killed at his home in Michigan, and his 'on off' girlfriend Nichole Guertin was stabbed multiple times in the incident The couples two children, Hunter, 10, (left) and Rosie, 5 (right), were hospitalized following the murder of their father According to the Michigan Department of Corrections Williamson has at least eight previous convictions including kidnapping and assault with intent to commit murder Guertin was stabbed multiple times during the horror attack on Friday but managed to escape the property despite being gagged and bound. She fled with their 5-year-old daughter, Rosie, who was not seriously injured, and managed to flag down a car after collapsing in a nearby parking lot. Their son Hunter, 10, was beaten, hit with a hammer and bound before being thrown into a closet after the incident. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition and had to undergo brain and ear surgery after bravely trying to fight his fathers killer. Joe said that Hunter is now in a critical but stable condition and managed to squeeze his relatives hands as well as open his eyes after the surgery. The couple moved into the property after Matthews' mother, Pauline, passed away earlier this year, taking on the mortgage and other responsibilities. According to the Michigan Department of Corrections Williamson has at least eight previous convictions including kidnapping and assault with intent to commit murder. He was released on parole on January 22 this year, after being sentenced for assaulting a police officer in 2015. He was arraigned on his 55th birthday. Joe described seeing bloody footprints up and down the stairs, saying that it was difficult to see where his brother had died, with blood spatter covering the walls of the house. He told DailyMail.com: Hes got a really bad track record is what the police and his colleagues said. Im very happy that he is going to be arraigned, and face justice for the crimes that he has committed. Family members say that the alleged killer was known to the family and knew Matthews girlfriend 'very well' The attack happened around midday Friday at thehome on Bayview Drive off Hooker Road in the Chesterfield Township, a quiet suburb outside of Detroit There are still a lot of emotions with the family, as well as anger. What business did this man have at the home with the children, why was he a frequent visitor. These are the answers I would like to have. How someone with his history can just be released into this society I just cant wrap my brain around it. Joe also confirmed that Guertin is on suicide watch and remains in hospital in a stable condition, adding that Rosie may be released later today. He said that his brother had been with Guertin for at least 20 years, before their eldest was born, and that she had recently moved back into the house. The couple had recently moved back in together, after Guertins struggles with drug abuse, and had been becoming a family again. Police discovered Williamson overdosing on heroin and suffering from self-inflicted wounds in the basement of the family home. The 55-year-old was resuscitated by officials before being rushed to hospital and was then taken into police custody at Macomb County Jail. Pammy Healy, the childrens aunt, added: 'It's someone that Nicole knew. I know that he knew Nicole pretty well. 'It's really disturbing.' She said the family were in shock and were trying to get ready for when the children returned home. Chasterfield Police have charged a 55-year-old man with murder in connection to the the brutal assault Pammy Healy, the childrens aunt, told DailyMail.com that the suspect Arthur Williamson knew Nichole 'really well' Hunter is now in a stable condition after undergoing several surgeries, and his younger sister Rosie, who suffered less serious injuries, remains 'happy and normal' Family members confirmed that Nichole is now in a stable condition, with her daughter remaining normal and happy despite the terrifying incident. A GoFundMe page confirmed that Hunter underwent successful surgery on his neck and can now move both sides of his body. Both children are set to be looked after by their other aunt - Healy's stepsister Ashley Quigley - after leaving hospital. Healy continued: 'Where they lived was the nicer part of the town. Rosie is doing amazing. 'After the things that happened to her, I'm so thankful that she isn't quite old enough to understand it. She's in a chipper mood and ready to go see auntie Ashley. 'Ashley now has guardianship of Hunter and Rosie, we're hoping that's long term.' Colleagues of the news anchor were forced to report on the death of the late journalist, who spent nearly seven years as the radio station's overnight news anchor. Jacki Page reported the breaking incident to thousands of listeners, saying: 'We are updating our top story this afternoon. 'It's very difficult to report. Our overnight news anchor Jim Matthews was killed this afternoon in Chesterfield Township.' An Audacy spokesman added: 'We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of our dear colleague Jim Matthews. 'As this is an ongoing police investigation, we have no further comment at this time.' Labour members have backed a motion calling for Britain's voting system to be overhauled - with First Past The Post to be ditched and replaced by Proportional Representation. This is the first time a major party in the UK has called for the traditional voting system to be replaced. Party members also passed motions to abolish the House of Lords and strengthen the standards for MPs. Labour leader Keir Starmer previously said electoral reform is 'not a priority' for him, while the party is focusing on getting into power. But this afternoon, at the party's annual conference in Liverpool, members voted in favour of the party including a commitment to introduce proportional representation in the UK is included in its next manifesto. The motion also made clear that if Starmer is elected as Prime Minister, he would have to overhaul the current voting system to 'a form of PR' within his first term in Number 10. The motion said that 'Labour should convene an open and inclusive process to decide the specific proportional voting system it will introduce'. Labour members have backed a motion calling for Britain's voting system to be overhauled - with First Past The Post to be ditched and replaced by Proportional Representation. But Labour Leader Keir Starmer previously said electoral reform is 'not a priority' for him It said the UKs political system had 'catastrophically failed to represent peoples wishes, needs and votes' arguing that the first-past-the-post system does 'long-term damage to the health of our democracy'. It was swiftly passed with a show of hands and cheers at the conference this afternoon. Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham are among those who have expressed support for PR. Under the current 'first-past-the-post' system, voters choose from a list of candidates in their local constituency, and whoever gets the most votes is elected as their representative. Under a PR system, the distribution of seats corresponds more closely with the proportion of total votes cast nationally for each party. Despite the motions being carried over, there is no guarantee they will be included in the next manifesto as the party is not bound by policy passed at its annual conference. It comes hours after Mr Burnham announced he was backing a Labour grassroots campaign to change the country's voting system. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said he was in favour of the campaign to change the UK's voting system. During the party conference he has made a number of interventions putting him at odds with the current leader While challenging Sir Keir, the former minister accused MPs of 'hoarding political power' as he backed a campaign for proportional representation (PR) to replace the current first past the post system (FPTP). Mr Burnham blamed the current voting system on making Britain one of the most regionally divided nations in the world. He said: 'It's a lot to do with the hoarding of political power in a very small place, SW1A 0AA. 'First past the post combined with the whips system in Parliament concentrates power in the executive to 50 to 100 pairs of hands. 'That in my view has given us the country we've got, that doesn't work for everybody, everywhere. Over the weekend, the Labour leader also discussed the possibility of PR. He told the Observer: 'There are a lot of people in the Labour party who are pro-PR but it's not a priority and we go into the next election under the same system that we've got, first past the post, and I'm not doing any deals going into the election or coming out of the election.' Mr Burnham was an MP for 15 years before he stepped back to return to local politics. Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales (pictured), is among those Labour members who have expressed support for an overhaul of the First Past The Post System During the party conference he has made a number of interventions putting him at odds with the current leader. If Mr Burnham can find a new seat, and get elected, he is seen as a rival for Sir Keir. As well as coming head-to-head with the Labour Leader of electoral reform Mr Burnham also suggested the party campaign ahead of the next election on a platform of reversing all Tory tax cuts, including a 1p cut to the basic rate Sir Keir has vowed to retain. Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski welcomed the news that Labour members voted in favour of ditching FPTP. He said: 'It's promising to see Labour members vote overwhelmingly to join with the rest of Europe and embrace modern, fair and proportional elections in the UK. 'However, it's disappointing that Keir Starmer appears to remain unmoved by the democratic rights of his own members.' Mr Polanski insisted that 'if Keir Starmer does not listen to his members and back PR, it will leave him ensuring future Tory victories'. Delegates at the Labour conference also backed a motion urging Labour to commit to the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with an elected second chamber or senate. The motion reads: 'Conference believes that Labour should now commit itself to the abolition of the current House of Lords and its replacement with an elected second chamber or senate and should legislate to that end in the first term of the next Labour government.' Several Labour members spoke in favour of electoral reform during the debate on Monday afternoon. Maureen McDaid, of Garston and Halewood Constituency Labour Party (CLP), said: 'For many years I actually opposed proportional representation and electoral reform because I believed it would let in extreme right-wing parties. 'Well conference what do we have? Under first past the post we have the most right-wing Conservative government ever.' Moving the motion on the abolishment of the House of Lords, Paul Cruikshank, a delegate from Glasgow Anniesland CLP, told the exhibition centre: 'A senate of the nations and regions, a senate as a revising chamber, not just for English regions, but for the Scottish and Welsh regions as well, having distinct regional national voices involved in a national forum will strengthen our democracy, genuinely.' President Yoon Suk-yeol touches his face mask as he answers reporters' questions on his way to the presidential office in Yongsan District, Seoul, Monday. Yonhap DPK urges Yoon to sack Foreign Minister Park Jin; PPP plans to sue broadcaster MBC By Nam Hyun-woo President Yoon Suk-yeol blamed the media for reports on his apparent use of foul language during his visit to New York last week, saying such "false reports" are "undermining the alliance" with the U.S. "Except for two or three powerful nations, there are no other nations that can protect singlehandedly the lives and safety of their peoples," Yoon told reporters on his arrival to the presidential office in Seoul. "Thus, an alliance (with the U.S.) is essential in protecting lives and safety, and false reports that undermine the alliance are simply putting the people under great risk." Yoon continued, "I want to verify the facts first, and the truth related to this should be found clearly." Yoon was caught on a hot mic using foul language while speaking privately to his aides during his exit from a fundraising event in New York, Thursday. In the video footage, Yoon was heard saying "Biden will surely lose face if those bastards in Congress do not pass it." Senior presidential secretary for public relations Kim Eun-hye later claimed that Yoon had not said "Biden" but a similar-sounding Korean word, and he was saying "I will surely lose face if the Korean National Assembly scraps my pledge at the fundraising event." While explaining this, Kim said such reports were "patchwork efforts for distortion." Following the explanation, the controversy became a subject of inter-party wrangling. Liberal main opposition Democratic Party of Korea floor leader Rep. Park Hong-keun speaks during the party's Supreme Council meeting at Gyeonggi Provincial Government Office in Suwon, Monday. Joint Press Corps President Joe Biden has invited French President Emmanul Macron and his wife Brigitte to the White House on December 1 for the first state dinner of the administration. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the announcement Monday at the top of the briefing. 'This will be the first state visit of the Biden-Harris administration,' she said. 'It will underscore the deep and enduring relationship between the United States and France, our oldest ally.' It's been a year since the U.S., the U.K. and Australia rattled relations with France over the formation of the tri-lateral pact AUKUS, which resulted in Australia cancelling a lucrative submarine deal with the French government. President Joe Biden has invited French President Emmanul Macron and his wife Brigitte to the White House on December 1 for the first state dinner of the administration French first couple Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron (left) were also the first state dinner guests of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump (right). They visited the White House on April 24, 2018 White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the announcement Monday at the top of the briefing that the Bidens would be hosting the Macrons for a state visit on December 1, the first of the Biden administration Former President Donald Trump (right) hosted French President Emmanuel Macron (center right) and his wife Brigitte (left) to the White House in April 2018, for a state dinner with First Lady Melania Trump (center left) First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump (left) brought French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte to Mount Vernon (right), the Viriginia home of George Washington, during their state visit In the lead-up to last year's October G20, Biden tried to make good with Macron, and made meeting him a priority when the gathering kicked off in Rome, Italy. First Lady Jill Biden also took out Brigitte Macron for wine. Jean-Pierre wouldn't bite when asked if France was picked because the relationship needed repairing after the submarine snafu. 'This is a valued, deeply valued relationship,' she said. Biden will be 22 months into his administration when he breaks bread with the Macrons. 'COVID certainly has delayed many of the in-person events the president traditionally hosts at the White House,' Jean-Pierre noted. Traditionally, a president will hold a state dinner within the first year - however former President Donald Trump didn't hold a state dinner until April 2018, also inviting the Macrons to come. Trump hosted Australia for a second state dinner in September 2019. The COVID pandemic also hindered Trump from hosting large-scale White House events. Biden and Macron last saw each other last week, speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, though they didn't have an official bilateral meeting. A brutal mugging on the Chicago El caught on video shows an older man bleeding profusely after two attackers rifled his pockets for cash before one hits him on the head with a full wine bottle. The victim is shown sitting on the Red line just after 2 a.m. on September 24 when a bearded man and another suspect wearing a ski mask confront him on the Chicago Transit Authority train as it heads to the 95th Street/Dan Ryan station. The bearded aggressor and his partner surround the man, demanding to see his identification and then start patting down the victim's pockets causing him to draw back. 'Where's your wallet,' one attacker says. 'Let me see your ID.' The other says, 'Can I get $5?' One of the attackers pulls a full bottle of white wine from his jacket pocket as the other dips his hand in and pulls out what appears to be cash and some cards. The thieves rifle through the victim's pockets in this video still, grabbing his wine bottle and taking his cash The two muggers, seen here, confront the man on the Red Line, take his cash and his wine before beating him over the head with the bottle The victim on the Red Line attempts to retrieve his stolen cash as the muggers ward him off The assailant cocks his arm holding the white wine as the victim staggers just before the blow comes The victim, who appears to be slightly out of it, braces for the drubbing across the head with a full wine bottle It's unclear why the suspect decided to assault his victim, who had already been relieved of his cash and cards The other mugger drops the wine bottle and the two thieves start to bicker over the minor score. The victim, who appears to be unsteady on his feet in the early Chicago morning, tries to grab his items back, but loses his balance and sits back down on the transit car bench. Unprovoked, the mugger in the ski mask picks the wine bottle off the floor and brings it down on the man's head as witnesses in the nearly empty car cry out in shock. 'Oh, my Gooooood,' one witness screams. The victim grabs his head with his hands as two other subway perpetrators-- a woman with a flaming red wig on and a man in a green hoodie, appear in the video frame and gravitate toward the man counting the cash he lifted off his prey. The camera shifts back to the victim, whose head appears to be split open and a pool of blood forms on the floor of the train car. 'Charmaine,' the witness says, appearing to address the woman in the wig. 'He's bad. He's bleeding.' Just then the train comes to a halt at the 95th Street/Dan Ryan station. 'This why I don't ride the Redline,' Teshaun Terry, who posted the video on Facebook, wrote. 'Y'all Be Safe At Night On The CTA Terry, who did not respond to a MailOnline request for an interview, added 'Yall can help find these disgusting man [sic]. They said they do this all the time.' Chicago police and the CTA are asking for the public's help in finding the two assailants. 'This kind of behavior is absolutely reprehensible and should not happen to any CTA customer,' officials told the Fox News Chicago. 'CTA began working very closely with CPD immediately after the incident was reported, including sharing relevant video from our security camera system.' Chicago, which has a reputation for gun violence, has actually seen a 15 percent decline in murders over the last month from the year before and a similar 18 percent drop in shootings. Overall, however, crime has spiked by 37 percent from 2021 and violent crimes like robbery is up 6 percent, according to police statistics. Chicago crime overall has spiked by 37 percent from 2021 and violent crimes like robbery is up 6 percent, according to police statistics Chicago police said that the victim, seen here bleeding profusely from the head, is now in good condition Chicago police had no information on what was stolen. Cops said that they are seeking four males for the attack, though it's unclear from the video that four men were involved. The victim is recovering from the attack. 'When I finished watching it, as you saw, it's painful to watch,' Chicago Ald. Raymond Lopez told NBC News Chicago. 'You feel the pain.' He called for the mayor to put more cops in the transit system. 'We must reinstate an separate Transit Police now, riding the trains & walking platforms, in order to bring safety back to public transportation,' he said on Twitter. Transit riders said that they fear using the Second City's transit system because of the increased crime on the line. 'Actually I have anxiety and it's really been getting to me, riding the train by myself,' CTA rider Breann Carroll told ABC 7 Chicago. 'It's just a lot and I kind of do fear for my life. But I don't really have another way to get to work, so what do you do?' Crime on the system risks the economic stability of the middle class, said one Chicagoan. 'You try to go to work, pay your taxes and pay your bills, and this is what you have to go through?' Activist Bishop Anthony Scales told ABC. 'Every day? When is it going to change?' Advertisement Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are celebrating the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah with their family. The political power couple were seen arriving at the Kushner Family estate in Long Branch, New Jersey, on Monday after attending temple with their children Arabella, 11, Joseph, 8, and Theodore, 6. Joining in on the Jewish New Year celebration were Jared's brother Joshua and his supermodel wife Karlie Kloss. The brothers chatted for a moment before parting ways as Karlie sipped coffee and grabbed onto Joshua's arm. Ivanka, who converted to Judaism before her marriage to Jared, had her blond hair loosely tied back and wore a tan and black striped dress, with a camel-colored coat and signature red-soled black ballet flats. Jared, 41, wore a sharp suit with a red striped tie as he led their children down the sidewalk. Son Theo rode a scooter, Arabella paired Nike sneakers with a dress and red coat and Joseph wore a yarmulke as he rode his scooter alongside his father and into the estate. The family-of-five traded the Miami heat where they live in the plush Arte Surfside apartment building for a visit to New Jersey on a windy day. DailyMail.com spotted Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner celebrating the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah Joining in on the celebration were Jared's brother Joshua and his supermodel wife Karlie Kloss The brothers chatted for a moment before parting ways as Karlie sipped coffee and grabbed onto Joshua's arm They attended temple with their children Arabella, 11, Joseph, 8, and Theodore, 6 Ivanka had her blond hair loosely tied back and wore a tan and black striped dress, with a camel-colored coat and black ballet flats with red bottoms Arabella paired Nike sneakers with a dress and red coat and Joseph wore a yarmulke as he rode his scooter alongside his father and into his grandparent's estate Son Theo rode a scooter ahead of his mother Ivanka and behind his big sister Arabella The family have been seen frolicking around Miami as of late and have appeared to not let the stress of the death of Ivanka's mother, Ivana, earlier this summer, Donald Trump's legal troubles, and Jared's battle with cancer get them down. Jared's second surgery for thyroid cancer has been deemed a success while the rollout continues for his White House memoir. In a September interview with The National Desk, Jared confirmed his surgery saying: 'I had the surgery last week. It was very successful.' He is also celebrating his White House memoir becoming a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Ivanka took the time to post about how proud she was of her husband's achievement, posting on Instagram 'It is an incredible book.' Their faith is clearly important to them as they've been spotted heading to their local Miami synagogue. The family now observes the sabbath and keeps kosher. The family were heading back to the Kushner family estate in Long Branch, New Jersey Doting mom Ivanka was seen walking behind her 11-year-old daughter Arabella with a hand on her back The family-of-five left the Miami heat where they live in the plush Arte Surfside apartment building for a visit to New Jersey on a windy day Jared continues to be a public figure in politics and on Sunday he condemned Florida governor Ron DeSantis' recent move to fly migrants to Martha's Vineyard - calling it 'very troubling' for people to be 'used as political pawns.' The former White House senior advisor appeared on Fox where he was shown clips of DeSantis discussing his bold move of flying dozens of migrant to Martha's Vineyard on September 15. Two planes carrying about 50 migrants were flown into Martha's Vineyard. The flights that were paid for by DeSantis left San Antonio to the exclusive New England area. Kushner said: 'We have to remember these are human beings. They're people. So seeing them being used as political pawns one way or the other is very troubling to me.' 'Many of them are exploited, put in human trafficking and modern slavery in a lot of ways,' he added. He then took the opportunity to criticize President Joe Biden's handling of the crisis at the border, and applauded former President Donald Trump - his father-in-law's - immigration policy. He felt certain that the focus should be on 'coyotes' - those people who smuggle migrants across the border for 'a lot of money.' Joe Biden's student loan relief plan could cost the country $400 billion over the next decade as the administration prepares to unveil next steps for borrowers to apply for forgiveness as early as next month. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noted in a letter to the Senate and House Labor committees noting the high cost of the president's relief plan, as well as reporting the plan would cause outstanding student loans to increase by $20 billion. In August, Biden announced his plan to cancel $10,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 individually and $250,000 jointly. That forgiveness would rise to $20,000 for those with Pell Grants. The White House now says that more guidance is coming that will provide more information on how borrowers can apply for their slice of the forgiveness. Biden's announcement included extending the repayment moratorium for a fifth and final time past the previous August deadline and making it so that student loan payments will resume in January 2023 for the first time since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that the administration will share more information on how to apply for student loan forgiveness 'very, very soon' The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says Biden's plan will cost America $400 billion over the next decade and the latest moratorium will increase loan debt by $20 billion Payments, interest accrual and involuntary collections for federal student loans were put on moratorium throughout the public health emergency. This final extension of repayments from September 2022 to December 2022 will lead to an increase of $20 billion in outstanding loans, the CBO noted in their letter to Senator Richard Burr and Representative Virginia Foxx, the two Republican ranking members of their respective chamber's labor panels. 'CBO estimates that the cost of student loans will increase by about an additional $400 billion in present value as a result of the action,' the letter adds. Phillip Swagel, once the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President George W. Bush, is director of CBO and penned the Monday letter. Burr and Foxx asked the CBO questions regarding Biden's plan, which will likely be legally challenged by several red states' Attorneys General once more specifics and criteria are laid out in October. Biden's ambitious forgiveness plan is not automatic, and would require that borrowers apply for the relief, the administration revealed when unveiling the plan in August. 'We'll have something to share on that very, very soon on the application process and the next steps,' White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her briefing on Monday. 'Once we have that we'll share it with all of you,' she assured when asked about the application process. The CBO's projections show that 95 percent of borrowers with outstanding federal student loans would be eligible to apply for forgiveness and that 65 percent of income-eligible borrowers received a Pell Grant, making them eligible for $20,000 in relief. Biden's plan forgives $10,000 in federal student loan debt to those making less than $125,000 individually and $250,000 jointly that relief goes to $20,000 for those who had Pell Grants Ninety percent of eligible borrowers are expected to apply for debt cancellation, according to the CBO projections. The action would relieve 45 percent of eligible borrowers of their entire student loan debt to the federal government. Jean-Pierre noted that the majority of those benefiting from the relief would be those making $75,000 or less. 'There's always a lot of noise around the student loan debt relief. And the bottom line is, this is going to give some breathing room to many Americans tens of millions of Americans,' the president's spokesperson noted to reporters on Monday. 'This is going to be an important step forward in giving people an opportunity to save some money,' Jean-Pierre said. Democrats lauded the CBO estimates, claiming it proves Biden's plan is a win for 'millions of middle class families' who they claim now 'have more breathing room.' 'We don't agree with all of CBO's assumptions that underlie this analysis, but it is clear the pandemic payment pause and student debt cancellation are policies that demonstrate how government can and should invest in working people, not the wealthy and billionaire corporations,' Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren admitted in a joint statement. Two judges were 'wrong' to bail three defendants awaiting trial due to the unavailability of defence barristers who were taking part in strike action, the High Court has heard. Judges in two separate criminal cases in Bristol and Manchester refused to extend the custody time limit of three defendants who were being kept behind bars pending the start of their respective trials. They concluded that the unavailability of defence barristers due to ongoing industrial action by members of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) was not a 'good and sufficient cause' to keep the suspects locked up on remand. But the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Max Hill KC is challenging the decisions at the High Court, arguing that the rulings were 'unlawful' and should be quashed. Tom Little KC, representing the DPP, today told a hearing in London that it is 'inappropriate for applications for extensions to custody time limits to be determined based on the individual views of judges as to the competing arguments in the dispute'. He said: 'While it is invidious for any view at all to be expressed on the merits of the industrial action, the prospect that judges will reach different conclusions on the issue is one which will lead to inconsistent and unfair results.' It comes as hearings across England and Wales in recent weeks have been adjourned due to the unavailability of barristers striking due to a row over pay and conditions. The CBA is demanding a 25 per cent pay rise in legal aid fees to curb an exodus of young barristers - but the Government has refused to negotiate on its 15 per cent offer. Criminal barristers gathering in protest at the Supreme Court on September 6 amid strike action across England and Wales Judge Peter Blair KC, sitting at Bristol Crown Court, earlier this month ruled that the absence of a lawyer arose out of the 'chronic and predictable consequences of long term underfunding'. He also highlighted that the Government had 'many, many months' to resolve the pay dispute. The judge added: 'On the one hand the state demands trials to commence within an applicable custody time limit, and on the other it holds the purse strings for remunerating those who are required under our rule of law to be provided with advocacy services.' Meanwhile, Mr Little today argued that Tina Landale, another judge who reached the same view in a criminal case in Manchester, had placed 'tacit reliance' on Judge Blairs earlier ruling, He said her judgments wording being 'either identical or similar'. Mr Little the court that 'properly analysed these two respective decisions involved a view being expressed as to fault', adding: 'In other words this is the Governments fault.' He continued: 'The judges formed a view which they expressed in the course of their ruling which was one we submit should not have been formed.' Mr Little also claimed there had been a 'total failure to engage with a bespoke case-specific approach to the facts before the judge'. Mr Little said the DPP was not making arguments about the 'merits' of the pay dispute, but was seeking 'clarity and some certainty' with the legal challenge. Mr Hill, meanwhile, has previously described the issues raised by the cases at the centre of his challenge as 'a matter of the greatest importance to the running of the criminal justice system in the next few weeks'. Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), which represents barristers in England and Wales, outside Manchester Crown Court on the first of several days of court walkouts earlier this year The court heard from Mr Little that it had 'simply not been possible' to bring a challenge over other court decisions, but argued that criticism over the Manchester and Bristol rulings had 'a general application to the correct approach that should be taken in other cases'. In written submissions, Mr Little said the DPP 'takes no position on the adequacy or otherwise of remuneration of those carrying out defence legal aid work'. He added: 'It is submitted that the judges in both cases appeared to take a clear position on the dispute, and that to do so was both wrong in principle and unnecessary to their decisions whether the custody time limits should be extended.' When an accused person appears at a crown court, the custody time limit until the start of their trial is 182 days or around six months and can only be extended if certain stipulations are met - including that there is a 'good and sufficient cause' to do so. David Hughes, representing the Bristol defendant - listed as an interested party to along with the two defendants in the Manchester case - said Judge Blair had said nothing... that was wrong, improper or inaccurate' and had made 'no error of law'. He added: 'He was making that ruling from a position of considerable knowledge and experience, being the resident judge at a busy court centre... and he was entitled to make that decision based on that knowledge and experience Mr Hughes said Judge Blair was not expressing a view but 'just expressing what the reality of the situation is', including that the dispute has been going on for many months. He also highlighted the fact there was a backlog in the criminal justice system before Covid restrictions, which exacerbated it, and said the circumstances were 'predictable'. Mr Hughes added: 'This was a well-known problem that was going to occur, not only in this case, but in courts all over England and Wales very widely.' Benjamin Knight, representing one of the Manchester defendants, said in written submissions that Judge Landale 'did not stray into assessing the merits of the CBA action', but had noted it was 'foreseen and foreseeable... that such a problem would arise'. Barry Grennan, representing the other Manchester defendant, told the court judges faced making decisions over cases that had 'absolutely no chance whatsoever of being heard within the custody time limits' and argued that the barrister pay dispute had become a 'predictable and persistent problem' that dated back to April. He argued: 'The idea this was a sudden and unforeseen action... is highly misleading.' Mr Grennan also said it was clear before the judges rulings that the majority of the criminal bar was to withdraw their services and the Government therefore knew by that point that unless something was done ... the courts were essentially looking at potential standstill, as well as a rapid increase in the backlog. He said defendants in the Manchester case could have faced up to 10 months in custody before their trial was heard. The hearing before Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Chamberlain continues. A man has been arrested after a 10-year-old boy plunged 100ft from a cliff while on holiday in Brighton. Sussex Police said a 52-year-old man from Oxfordshire was arrested on suspicion of allowing a child to come to serious physical harm. They said the boy 'fell from height' at Ovingdean at about 5pm on Saturday. He was found to have suffered serious injuries and was airlifted to St George's Hospital, in south London, where he remains in a stable condition. A 10-year-old boy plunged 100ft from a cliff while on Saturday, while on holiday in Brighton Sussex Police said a 52-year-old man from Oxfordshire was arrested on suspicion of allowing a child to come to serious physical harm Witnesses reported seeing a man pleading for help on Saturday evening. The man who was arrested in connection with the incident has been bailed until next month while the investigation continues. Police are appealing for information from the public. A passer-by on the evening of the incident told The Argus: 'I saw all the emergency services at the cliff and it looked really worrying. 'I had heard it was a child so I really hope they are ok. It's absolutely awful.' The boy was airlifted to St George's Hospital, in south London, where he remains in a stable condition The boy's family is receiving support from specially trained officers. The child's fall was from the same spot where Nick Cave's 15-year-old son, Arthur, plunged to his death in 2015. An inquest found the Australian rock star's son had taken LSD. Anyone with information relevant to Saturday's incident is urged to report online or call 101, quoting Operation Chaucer. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that President Joe Biden still planned to run for a second term despite a new poll that showed 56 percent of Democrats would prefer someone else. Jean-Pierre was asked at the press briefing about an ABC News/Washington Post survey that was released Sunday that found only 35 percent of Democrats wanted Biden to run again. Among Democratic voters under 40, 75 percent wanted a new face. 'I will reiterate what we have said many times from here, what the president has said many times even recently - as recently as the 60 Minutes interview - is that he intends to run - don't have any more announcements on that,' Jean-Pierre said. Jean-Pierre pointed to the Hatch Act - which bars federal employees from politicking at work - when a reporter pointed out that the poll also showed Biden's approval numbers on the economy were 'deeply underwater' in advance of the November midterms. 'Again, I can't talk about the midterms,' she said. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (left) said Monday that President Joe Biden (right) still planned to run for a second term despite a new poll that showed 56 percent of Democrats would prefer someone else An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Sunday found that 56 percent of Democrats wanted someone else atop the presidential ticket in 2024, while 35 percent said they preferred President Joe Biden Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they disapproved of Biden's handling of the economy, versus 36 percent who said they approved. 'We are going to go out there - not just the president - the vice president, the cabinet secretaries, you have Congressional members in their districts as well. And we're going to talk about how we've delivered for the American people,' the press secretary said. 'Here's the thing, when you think about Medicare, you think about Social Security, you think about the pieces of legislation that we have passed, they are very popular with the American people,' she continued. 'With Republicans and Democrats. And so that is also important to note.' Jean-Pierre hinted the president would continue traveling to swing states in the run-up to the elections. Biden was supposed to headline a Democratic National Committee event in Orlando, Florida Tuesday, but that got called off due to the impending hurricane. At the briefing, she had no further updates on the president's travel. 'So, look, we're going to keep getting out there,' she said. 'The president loves going out to, you know, to states across the country, to communities across the country, talking directly to the American people, and that's what we're going to do.' 'I understand what you're saying about the poll,' she added. 'I understand what you're saying about the president's numbers. But what we are going to focus on is how we are going to continue to deliver for the American people.' Newly uncovered texts reveal former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanging messages with a conspiracy theorist who pushed to gain access to voting machine data and forwarded a powerpoint about having the president declare a national emergency claiming election fraud. Meadows sometimes responded simply 'OK' when Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel, would provide updates on far-fetched aspects of the election overturn effort. But Meadows wrote 'Pathetic' when Waldron updated him on an Arizona judge's decision to rule against a lawsuit demanding access to voting machines in a state carried by Joe Biden. The texts, obtained by CNN, are just the latest evidence of top advisors to President Donald Trump pulling in information from a collection of allies scrounging for scraps of information that might back up the president's claims of voter fraud. The texts reveal Meadows, a former head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, keeping tabs on those efforts during the last weeks of the Trump administration, while Trump and his allies were searching for ways to stay in power and repeatedly claiming fraud even as a series of courts rejected their claims. Retired Col. Phil Waldron texted with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about accessing voting data. He put forward numerous conspiracy theories about voter data Waldron, an associate of fired and pardoned former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, is a retired Army colonel who owns a bar and became connected with Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Sidney Powell after the election. His theories pulled in such figures as the Chinese Communist Party, financier George Soros, and Dominion Voting Systems which has sued a host of figures and media outlets claiming defamation. The House January 6 Committee last year subpoenaed Waldron over a power-point presentation he says he circulated titled 'Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN.' The texts show former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows getting updates on doomed efforts to overturn the results in battleground states 'Pathetic,' Meadows responded to a Waldron text about an Arizona judge's ruling He worked directly with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani on gaining access to voting systems, sources told the network It called for President Trump to declare a national emergency to delay certification of the election results, citing unverified claims of China and Venezuela controlling voting machines to change the outcome. In the Dec. 23, 2020 exchange, Waldron expressed concern that the Arizona judge's ruling would lead to 'delay tactics' that would keep him and allies from gaining access to voting machines. He called Arizona 'our lead domino we were counting on to start the cascade.' He also texted Meadows Dec. 28 about an analysis of vote irregularities in 'several counties' he said were part of a 'Southern steal.' Meadows responded: 'OK' indicating he got the message. Meadows handed over a trove of email information early in the Jan. 6 investigation, but both he and Waldron have been trying to prevent the panel from getting access to their cell data. Other texts and emails reveal Waldron was in contact with other state officials who raised fraud claims and helped secure a controversial private audit that ended up reaffirming Biden's win in the state. Waldron owns a bar outside Austin, Texas The House Jan. 6 Committee subpoenaed Waldron One Dec. 11 email to state lawmakers asked if a member of his team could ''take a hard drive' to the county elections office to get gain access to voter data and ''get the files to us.' Waldron testified at some of the public hearings organized in GOP-controlled states after the November elections, including a December 2020 hearing along with lawyer John Eastman, who has become a key figure for the House Jan. 6 panel. Eastman spoke at the 'Stop the Steal' rally near the White House, and took part in a furious Oval Office argument over wither then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to refuse to accept votes certified by states. He worked directly with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani on gaining access to voting systems. 'Waldron was responsible for planning and overseeing execution' of efforts to gain access to voting systems, a source told the network. House Jan. 6 Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said last year when the panel subpoenaed Waldron that he 'reportedly played a role in promoting claims of election fraud and circulating potential strategies for challenging results of the 2020 election. He was also apparently in communication with officials in the Trump White House and in Congress discussing his theories in the weeks leading up to the January 6th attack.' He calls the powerpoint presentation he circulated an 'alarming blueprint for overturning a nationwide election.' It cited his public comments that he visited the White House eight to 10 times, and briefed lawmakers on election fraud theories. The actress-turned-aristocrat Dowager Marchioness of Bath has died just 10 days before her 79th birthday. Hungarian-born Anna Gael died in Paris, where she spent most of her time, despite being married to Alexander Thynn, the 7th Marquess of Bath and chatelain of Longleat House, in Wiltshire, for more than 50 years until his death in 2020. The couple had, by any measure, an unusual relationship. Not only did they spend most of their time living in separate countries, but Anna also tolerated her eccentric husband keeping more than 70 mistresses, whom he dubbed 'wifelets'. 'It was never quite as easy and harmonious as an 'open marriage',' their son and heir Ceawlin, now the 8th Marquess of Bath, once said, 'but that's the general gist'. While Mrs Gael put up with her husband's womanising that saw him acquire the nickname 'The Loins of Longleat', she was less understanding of Ceawlin's choice of bride. She allegedly asked her heir - who now oversees 10,000-acre Longleat, best known for its wildlife park - if he was sure about ruining '400 years of bloodline' by marrying Emma McQuiston, the half-Nigerian daughter of an oil tycoon. Known as Emma Weymouth after marrying Ceawlin, then Viscount Weymouth, in 2013, she went on to find fame as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing and is close pals with fashionistas like Naomi Campbell, Edward Enninful and Lady Kitty Spencer. Lord Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, poses with his wife, actress and war correspondent Anna Gael, outside Longleat House Anna was a model and budding actor when she met Alexander Thynn aged 15 in Paris while he studied at the at La Grande Chaumiere art college in Montparnasse Emma Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, and Ceawlin Thynn, Viscount Weymouth attend the launch of Idris Elba And David Farber's Porte Noire Bar and Shop in Coal Drops Yard last year Emma Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, attends the amfAR Gala Cannes 2022 at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc earlier this year Lord Bath and his wife Anna at home in Longleat, Wiltshire, in March 1971 Lord Bath, who died of pneumonia after testing positive for Covid in 2020, aged 87, failed to attend the couple's wedding. His wife was also absent, claiming they had already accepted another invitation. Ceawlin was said to have stopped his mother from seeing his son, John, to prevent the child being 'contaminated' by her racism. Anna later denied she was a racist and said she had 'absolutely nothing' against her daughter-in-law. Anna was born in Hungary to a mathematician father and poet mother who moved their family to France when their daughter was just a child. She began acting as a teenager under the stage name Anna Gael, appearing in films including Therese And Isabelle, and Take Me, Love Me. She met Alexander at the movies while skipping school aged 15. He was then 26 and a student at La Grande Chaumiere art college in Montparnasse. According to The Times, the English nobleman invited Anna for a coffee, and within month, convinced her to pose nude for him in his art studio. The couple also spent a year travelling around South America in Alexander's Jaguar. Anna Gael (lying down) with Essy Persson in a sensual scene from 1968 film Therese and Isabelle Viscount Weymouth, future Lord Bath, and Lady Weymouth, pictured outside the London Palladium in May 1975 Anna enjoyed a blossoming career as an actress before she married Alexander Thynn. Pictured in 1977 Thynn and Anna were part of the People for Europe group. Here they are pictured with Sheila Scott, Nicholas Parsons, Doris Hare, Patricia Hayes in 1975 Viscount Weymouth, then 36, attending his brother's wedding. A year later, he asked Anna whether she would like to make him an heir When they returned to France, Anna dedicated herself to acting, under the stage name Anna Gael. In 1963, she married French director Gilbert Pineau who cast her in several television films, not knowing she was secretly dating Alexander behind his back. She got her break playing a seductive spy in Jean Leduc's Via Macau in 1966, before being propelled to international fame in Radley Metzger's lesbian drama Therese and Isabelle in 1968. She later denied that it was a pornographic film, saying: 'The most anyone saw was two pairs of ankles touching each other. It was two schoolgirls getting a crush on each other. You never saw them sleeping or kissing.' However, the actress admitted she had gone topless for movies when necessary. She posed for Penthouse in scantily clad pictures in 1970, but later threatened to sue anyone who would republish them, opposing that times had changed. Throughout her career, Gael and Thynn kept seeing each other casually in spite of their respective affairs. Alexander had previously entered into an 'anti-marriage' with Tania Duckworth, an Anglo-Ceylonese model, but by age 37, he was ready to produce an heir. 'I was coming up to 37 and I needed a legitimate son if Longleat was to pass down through me,' he told People magazine in 1976. 'I broached the idea of a son and asked did she want to be the mother.' Alexander with daughter Lady Lenka Thynn, young Ceawlin Thynn and his wife Anna Gael, in 1987 Alexander, then known as Lord and Lady Weymouth, pictured together at Longleat nine years into their marriage in 1978 Anna, clad in black, walking behind Alexander at his brother's funeral where he escorted their mother The Honorable Daphne Fielding Anna was still with Pineau at the time, but Thynn later said the relationship was disintegrating. Eventually, she divorced the director, and she and Alexander agreed to marry in London while she was three months pregnant in 1969 in Kensington. Anna revealed the couple had pizza after their nuptials, which was 'awfully romantic.' Anna Gael, the actress turned aristocrat, in her headshot for the 1969 film The Bridge at Remagen The actress locks lips with George Segal in a scene in The Bridge at Remagen. Lord Bath described his wife as the 'sexiest actress of all time' The young actress in a scene from an episode of Jason King in 1972 In the early days of their marriage, Alexander and Anna each had their own drawing room, and would eat dinner together. A few months later, she gave birth to their daughter Lenka, who went on to be a model and a TV researcher. Five years later, Ceawlin was born, and became the eighth marquess. After their family was completed, Alexander and Anna worked out an arrangement whereby he would spend most of his time at Longleat and she would be filming in Paris. Ceawlin and Lenka were raised by Alexander and a nanny and would receive sporadic visit from their mother. Anna told the New York Times in 1972 that she had been criticised for being a distant mother, but that Alexander understood her need for independent and that she couldn't sacrifice herself for anyone. Thynn succeeded his father as Marquess of Bath in 1992, and Anna became Marchioness, however, she said she found that side of her life boring. On the other hand, she said that the title 'Lady Thynn' had been detrimental to her acting career because people thought she didn't need the money. Speaking at the time of his father's death in April 2020, Ceawlin had his own take on whether his parents embarked on a marriage of convenience to provide Longleat with a male heir. 'It's not that cut-and-dried,' he said. 'They just lead such very different lives. It was a love-match at the beginning. She fell for Dad first and Longleat was an added bonus. 'She found being the Lady of Longleat fun for seven months and then realised it was not that great.' For many years she remained responsible for conserving Longleat's treasures and returned every three weeks or so for up to ten days. Lord Bath with his wife Anna at the wedding of Tracy Ward to the Marquis of Worcester in 1987 For most of their long-distance marriage, which endured for more than half a century, she was based in Paris from where, after boring of acting, she reported on the Vietnam War, the Northern Ireland Troubles and other hotspots. Pictured, the couple in 1992 Their marriage didn't stop working, said Ceawlin. 'It was never quite as easy and harmonious as an 'open marriage', but that's the general gist.' Eventually, she stopped acting and became a journalist, spending two months in Vietnam during the war with the British army, writing for a French news agency. While working from Cambodia soon after, she was caught in an air raid and was besieged for four days. Her articles and features were published on the front pages of French magazine including the publication Le Point, and she published several books on international politics. Meanwhile, in Wiltshire, the 7th Marquess of Bath spent his 87 years sheltering from the chill winds of modern life behind an exquisite Elizabethan facade while dressed as a superannuated hippy and surrounded by an ever-changing court of nubile young women. While his father, a pioneer of the stately home business, collected Nazi memorabilia including Himmler's spectacles and some of Hitler's watercolours, Alexander adopted the ideals of the flower-power generation and covered the walls of Longleat, his ancestral seat, with his own paintings of his 75 'wifelets' and erotic murals. Yet Lord Bath remained not just married to Anna, the wife he so grievously betrayed, but devoted to her, describing the former French film star as 'the sexiest actress of all time'. Anna would complain to a newspaper if it reported that they were separated, insisting that was untrue. It wasn't just Emma's arrival at Longleat that put strain on Ceawlin's relationship with his parents. The biggest cause of dispute was over the decision by Ceawlin and Emma to remove some of Lord Bath's garish murals, which his father had painted for him and his sister when they were children. The quarrels were exposed by a memorable BBC1 documentary, All Change At Longleat. Senior Yemeni military officers survive Houthi missile attack Xinhua) 11:18, September 26, 2022 ADEN, Yemen, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- A celebration gathering, which was held in Yemen's northern province of Hajjah and attended by some senior military officers from the Yemeni government, was hit by missiles on Sunday, a government official told Xinhua. The official, who prefers to be anonymous, said a torch-lighting ceremony was held in the Midi district of Hajjah province to celebrate the upcoming September Revolution Day when four missiles landed in and around the site. The senior military officers, along with dozens of civilians, left the site just minutes before it was hit by the missiles, the official said, adding the attack caused no casualties. The official accused the Houthi group of launching the missiles, calling it an "apparent plan to assassinate the government military officers and other local leaders." The Houthi group, which controls large swathes of northern Yemen, made no comments regarding the missile attack. Yemen marks September Revolution Day on Sept. 26 each year to commemorate the overthrow of the Imam Muhammad al-Badr on this day in 1962, which led to the establishment of the Yemen Arab Republic. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the Saudi-backed Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa. The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million, and pushed the country to the brink of starvation. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) President Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday pledged to root out voice phishing and stalking crimes that target vulnerable people, saying relevant authorities should redouble efforts to prevent such crimes. Yoon made the remarks at a weekly meeting with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo earlier in the day, according to Lee Jae-myeong, deputy spokesperson for the presidential office. Yoon told Han that relevant authorities need to root out the two crimes "with the determination of declaring a war," according to Lee. "The government's most basic duty is to protect the safety of people's daily lives," Yoon said. Earlier this month, the shocking murder of a subway worker by a colleague rekindled the need to improve the anti-stalking law. On Sept. 14, Jeon Joo-hwan, a 31-year-old employee of Seoul Metro, was apprehended at Sindang Station on Line No. 2 after stabbing a female colleague in her 20s to death in the subway station's ladies' restroom. The case shocked the nation, as it was revealed the killing took place one day before a court was set to sentence him on charges of stalking her. The two had known each other since entering Seoul Metro the same year. (Yonhap) Cops have released video footage of the last known sighting of murdered Georgia mom Debbie Collier entering a Family Dollar Store less than 24 hours before her naked and burnt body was discovered in a wooded ravine. The 59-year-old appeared calm and not in fear of anything as she bought several items some of them later found with her in footage released by Habersham County Sheriffs Office. Collier, a real estate officer manager, is wearing a replica of Herschel Walker's shirt from his time at the University of Georgia, a blue skirt, what appear to be black boots with slight heels and a red sun visor as she walks into the store in Clayton, Georgia, at 2.55pm on September 10. She is then seen at the cash register buying a rain poncho, refillable torch lighter, a 2-roll pack of paper towels, a 7.5 x 9.5 tarp, and a reusable tote bag. Video from the Family Dollar store in Clayton, Georgia shows Debbie Collier shopping there around 3pm on September 10, the day she disappeared She bought a rain poncho, refillable torch lighter, a 2-roll pack of paper towels, a 7.5 x 9.5 tarp, and a reusable tote bag Habersham County Sheriff's office confirmed Collier's purchases by obtaining a receipt from the Family Dollar storein Clayton, Georgia Collier leaves the store at 3.09pm. Investigators confirmed the purchases by getting a copy of the receipt, said the sheriffs office. Eight minutes after leaving the store, her daughter Amanda Bearden said she received a mysterious message along with nearly $2,400. In the video, the victim appears to be calm and not in fear of anything, said the department. All video footage obtained from the store and surrounding businesses reflect that the victim was alone in the van at the time she visited the store. Mention of the van is a reference to the black Chrysler Pacifica the mom rented from Enterprise because her own truck was in a repair shop. Debbie Collier, 59, was found naked and clutching a tree on September 11, the day after she went shopping The minivan was discovered the next day at the entrance to a densely wooded area off Route 15 close to scenic Tallulah Falls 60 miles north of where Collier lived in Athens, Georgia, with husband Steve, 67. Clayton is another 12 miles further north of Talulah Falls. This information allows investigators to narrow the time of death to a window beginning at 3:09 p.m. on Saturday, September 10 to the discovery of the body on Sunday, September 11 at 12:44 p.m, said the sheriffs department. The baffling horrific death has additionally taken a new twist. The sheriffs office also revealed that Colliers daughter Bearden, 36, was not at the store, as they had been told originally. Over the weekend, investigators were given information that Amanda Bearden was at the Family Dollar Store in Clayton, Georgia on Saturday, September 10, it said. An interview of the store clerk on duty on the 10th, in addition to a review of store camera footage, revealed that Ms. Bearden was not at the store on the 10th of September. Debbies 15 minute visit to the Family Dollar came just before she sent 36-year-old Amanda $2,385 via the Venmo financial app and an eerie message that created speculation of a kidnap. She was discovered, naked and dead, a day later. The message read: They are not going to let me go, love you there is a key to the house in the blue flower pot by the door. She was a beautiful woman and I loved her,' distraught Steve Collier said about his wife 11 days after her charred, naked body was found in a ravine 60 miles from their Georgia home Amanda Bearden, 36, leaves her home in Athens, Georgia, on Friday September 23. Police are yet to rule anyone out in the murder of her mother, Debbie Collier Amanda's live-in boyfriend, former MMA fighter Andrew Giegerich. He has complained about them being 'interrogated' by police Collier, 67, picked up his wife's black pick-up from a repair shop. She was driving a rental at the time of her murder A close family friend told DailyMail.com: 'Steve loved Debbie with all his heart. I know that for a fact. I cannot imagine what hes going through right now' Collier was reported missing and her rental van was found by police beside the entrance to an old logging road near Victory Home Lane, Clarksville Her body was discovered some quarter of a mile away. Police reported she was clinging to a small tree, was naked and her body was charred. A red tote bag was nearby as was a blue tarp, both items she had bought in Clayton. She was found laying next to an area of burnt leaves a few feet away from an uprooted tree which has its roots burnt. No one has been arrested for her brutal killing and there is no indication that either Bearden or her boyfriend, Andrew Giegerich, are considered suspects. Bearden has a history of lying to police and violent lovers tiffs with Giegerich, her live-in, MMA fighter boyfriend who says the pair have been 'interrogated' over her mother's killing. Police have now ruled out kidnapping and suicide as possible causes of the woman's death, and are now focused on arresting her killer. In May last year, police intervened in the couple's relationship after Amanda phoned 911, claiming Andrew had 'broken in' to the house to beat her. She showed them photos of bruises on her arms and shoulders to prove it. She was however arrested for a falsely reporting a burglary, after police determined he was living in the home and had full access to it. Giegerich, 27, was arrested on September 4, 2021, for violating a no-contact order and banging on his on-and-off-again girlfriend 's home. He claimed his Bearden was stealing money for drugs from him and had kicked him out. The arrest came almost a year before he alleged wrote a threatening handwritten message, contained in police evidence files, stating: 'If you or your family ever come near me again I will hurt them. 'Have a nice life you lying a** b**ch. Don't ever contact me again!!!'' But they are now back living together in Athens and Giegerich has complained that the pair were recently 'interrogated' by police over Debbie's death. Amanda Bearden, 36, (pictured in an unrelated mug shot) called the police because her boyfriend Andrew Giegerich was banging on her door at 8.30am and had broken their no-contact order Jeffrey Bearden, said his mother's death was the ''darkest and most harrowing time' in a statement released on Saturday Debbie Collier's son Jeffrey Bearden wrote a heartbreaking tribute to her on Facebook, saying his family's lives were 'irrevocably change' after her death In December 2020, Debbie posted these horrific photos of a black eye on Facebook. She told friends she'd 'faceplanted' on the sidewalk 'The [police have] interrogated all of us. The people who are closest to [Collier] are kind of looked at as suspects right now,' he told the Post. On Friday, Debbie's husband Steve Collier fought back tears as he told DailyMail.com that Debbie was the 'love of his life. The couple had been married for nine years and both had children from previous marriages. 'It has been a long two weeks and Im very tired. My wife was a wonderful person, he said. A close friend of the couple, who did not want to be identified, confided to DailyMail.com: Steve loved Debbie with all his heart. I know that for a fact. I cannot imagine what hes going through right now, with the terrible loss of his wife and having to be part of the murder investigation and all that entails. I have known them both for many years and they were a devoted couple.' In a direct move of support, he added: I know suspicion can fall on the family of murder victims, but I would bet my life Steve had nothing whatsoever to do with Debbies disappearance. Steve Collier appeared frail and had difficulty walking, when DailyMail.com saw him. The murderer would have had a strenuous job dragging or carrying Debbie Collier's body a quarter of a mile over rough terrain. On September 10, Steve reported Debbie as missing, claiming that he hadn't seen her since 9pm the previous night at their home. He said they slept i separate bedrooms because of his heavy snoring. Neighbors say they heard fighting and screaming coming from the house the night before she vanished. Police then tracked the car Debbie had been driving - a rented SUV hired because her own vehicle was undergoing repairs - to a wooded ravine 60 miles from her home. Her naked body was found there, charred and clinging to a tree. The exact cause of her death remains unconfirmed. When questioned, Bearden told police that she last saw her mother the night before she vanished, and that everything was normal. She received the Venmo message the day her mother was reported missing. In an interview with CBS after her mother's body was found, Amanda appeared shaken and struggling to speak. 'My mom was my everything. Somebody took my whole world from me. She was a beautiful, kind, giving woman. She didn't deserve this,' she said, her head and hands shaking. Keir Starmer will today try to present himself as the heir to Tony Blair and claim Labour is now the party of economic credibility. Amid rising confidence in his party about the next election, he will directly recycle his predecessors claim that Labour represents the political wing of the British people. But his economic credentials risked being undermined last night after Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves revealed that union leaders would be given a role in setting economic policy. She wants to appoint them to a new national economic council sitting alongside figures from industry. A Labour source yesterday dismissed the idea that Sir Keir believed he was on course for a 1997-style landslide at the next election. But the insider added: He wants to be the next Labour leader to take the party from opposition to government. Tony Blair was the last person to do that. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) with former Prime Ministers Tony Blair (middle) and Gordon Brown (right). Amid rising confidence in Sir Keir's party about the next election, he will directly recycle his predecessor Mr Blair's claim that Labour represents the political wing of the British people Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks on day two of the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. He will try to present himself as the heir to Tony Blair and claim Labour is now the party of economic credibility Sir Keir will use his speech to Labours conference in Liverpool to try to exploit turmoil in financial markets and claim the Government has lost control of the economy. He will say he is ready to fight the Tories on economic growth; with Labour now the party of sound money. A Labour spokesman said the party would go into the next election as the guardian of fiscal responsibility. Sir Keir will today pledge to make the UK a growth superpower, saying his plans for a green revolution would create a million jobs and tackle climate change. And he will signal that Labour is ready to extend its energy price freeze beyond its current six-month lifespan, saying: We should never be left cowering in a brace position, worrying about how to get through a winter. Its time for Britain to stand tall again. Revealing her plans, Miss Reeves said: I would bring together a national economic council that will bring together industry and trade unions, so working people and businesses were at the heart of economic decision-making. A Labour source said unions would have an advisory role only. But the move will raise fears of a return to the beer and sandwiches approach of the 1960s and 1970s which saw union leaders gain ever more control over economic policy. And it will raise eyebrows at a time when unions in a range of industries are pushing for strike action. Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, yesterday offered to give Sir Keir a bacon butty if he visited striking postal workers on the picket line. Keir, if you believe in the sovereignty of this country, dont worry too much about whether people sing the national anthem, get out there, show your support that youre going to save the Royal Mail, he said. In a sign of the unions continuing influence over Labour, Miss Reeves yesterday paved the way for the introduction of a higher minimum wage. Unions are pushing for the legal minimum to be increased to 15 an hour from its current rate of 9.50, despite warnings it could cost jobs and saddle public services with huge additional wage bills. The Shadow Chancellor declined to set a target for the new wage, but said it should reflect the real cost of living. She said her first act in government would be to write to the Low Pay Commission telling it to set the minimum wage at a level that reflects living costs. The last Labour government delivered Britains first national minimum wage, she said. The next Labour government will introduce a genuine living wage. The Shadow Chancellor also pledged to reinstate the top rate of tax, and use the 2billion in revenues to increase NHS staffing. Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng scrapped the tax rate of 45 per cent on earnings above 150,000 last week, giving around 660,000 high earners an average tax break worth 10,000. Miss Reeves said Labour would ensure the better off pay their fair share by restoring the tax. She said the cash raised would allow the NHS to double the number of district nurses qualifying every year, train more than 5,000 health visitors and create an extra 10,000 nursing and midwife placements every year. But, despite criticising the Governments decision to pay for the tax cut with borrowing, she indicated the extra money for the NHS would also be borrowed rather than raised elsewhere. She claimed it was only the scale of state borrowing that had spooked the markets. When I set out my fiscal rules last year I said that in emergency situations and we are absolutely in a national emergency at the moment you can borrow and the Government is borrowing, its the scale of the borrowing, she said. Miss Reeves criticised Mr Kwarteng for waiting until November to give further information about the Governments fiscal rules, saying: Is he looking at what is happening on the financial markets? Has he noticed the reaction to his fiscal statement on Friday? A Labour source also confirmed the party would keep the corporation tax rise that had been planned for April until scrapped by Mr Kwarteng. But they stressed this would need to go alongside targeted investment allowances. Former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman said his mom practically disowned him after he criticized former President Donald Trump for retweeting a QAnon believer's account on CNN before the 2020 election. 'You are now part of the swampI'm sorry you were ever electedYou are officially a politicianI have cried over you and my heart is broken by you,' Riggleman wrote his mom texted him in his forthcoming book, The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th. The Hill newspaper obtained an early copy of the book, where Riggleman wrote about his mom's reaction to him becoming a public critic of the ex-president over Trump's habit of pushing conspiracy theories. During the October 2020 interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Riggleman called it a 'dangerous tweet' after Trump shared a post promoting a conspiracy theory about the Bin Laden raid making its way through QAnon circles. 'What will it take to wake you up son.I love you so, but cannot stand by and listen to your elitist attitude and being praised by elitist journalist and democrats,' he said his mother texted him after his CNN appearance. Former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman said his mom practically disowned him after he criticized former President Donald Trump for retweeting a QAnon believer's account on CNN before the 2020 election Denver Riggleman's book, The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into Janyary 6 will be released Tuesday Prior to the CNN appearance, Riggleman had co-sponsored a House resolution condemning QAnon, which received bipartisan support, but 17 Republican no votes. On CNN, he called some of the theories being floated by QAnon adherents 'bats**t crazy.' 'I knew my mom and I were not on the same page politically, but this is something else,' Riggleman said. 'Any hope for a mostly normal relationship seemed dim.' 'She was damn near disavowing me,' he added. Riggleman wrote that he and his mom's relationship previously soured when he left the Mormon church. They got closer when he entered Republican politics - unsuccessfully running for Virginia governor in 2016 and then beating Democrat Leslie Cockburn - who happens to be actress Olivia Wilde's mother - during a colorful Congressional race in 2018. Cockburn, among other things, charged Riggleman with being obsessed with 'Bigfoot erotica,' after he posted several funny drawings of the faux forest giant, including with genitalia, on social media. Then in 2020, Riggleman lost a Republican primary in his rural Charlottesville, Virginia-area district after he officiated a same-sex wedding. He's since left the Republican Party. 'My relationship with my mom made it through my break with her Mormon Church,' Riggleman wrote. 'I wasn't sure if it would survive the Church of Trump.' Appearing on CBS Mornings Monday, Riggleman hinted that things were better. He said he believed that 'the love for my mother and her love for me will overcome that. And it did overcome it.' Riggleman also used his mother as an example of how 'this sort of information warfare, this digital metastasization of crazy, can get everywhere, right?' 'If it's the president telling me and all the people around him it obviously [has] to be true,' he said. 'It's just not, it's hogwash.' 'But what I wanted to explain to people is that there's so many families that are almost in trauma, trying to talk to individuals about something that is is absolutely not true, right? It's a falsehood. It's just not true. There's no - there's no parsing it,' he continued. Riggleman's new book is mostly about his experience serving on the January 6 House select committee, which he did after leaving Congress in January 2021 - concluding his service just three days before the Capitol attack. Riggleman, who was formerly in military intelligence, served on the committee as a senior staffer from August 2021 until this April. Riggleman said he left the GOP, in part, because of some of text messages he saw Trump-aligned officials sending due to his work on the January 6 committee. 'If QAnon or these conspiracy theories have saturated the GOP at the highest levesl of leadership, I think maybe it's time for me to go from this type of career,' Riggleman said. Construction workers in the Bronx were beginning on Monday to build the first of two tent cities, designed to host the 13,000 migrants who have been bussed since August into the city from Texas. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, last week announced the creation of the tents to house the influx of migrants. One site would be Orchard Beach in the Bronx, he said, and the second had not yet been determined. Yet on Monday, as construction was underway, the Bronx president said she was concerned about the new development - both the impact it would have on her community, and the safety of all those involved. Workers in hardhats were seen carrying metal poles that were delivered on trucks - as others drilled into the ground and prepped for the construction of the tents. Vanessa Gibson warned that Orchard Beach frequently floods, and pointed out that the location was isolated, without access to public transport. Tents arrive on trucks as workers set up the 'cities' within the Bronx to house the migrants Groups of workmen are seen on Monday at the Bronx site Workers in the Bronx are seen on Monday beginning work on the first of two tent camps to house migrants It is unclear how many migrants the tents, pictured being built on Monday, will house Workers are seen at Orchard Beach readying the site of the migrant camp on Monday Rental agencies are seen brining in equipment to the Orchard Beach site on Monday Workers are pictured measuring the site on Monday - one of two to be constructed in NYC An example of the type of site Eric Adams plans to open to house the thousands of migrants arriving every day. One will go in the Bronx and a second location is yet to be confirmed. Adams claimed it as a moral victory. The tents include rows of beds with thin-looking sheets in an outdoor tent, just as winter approaches An aerial view of an example site. Adams, claiming it as a moral victory, said the issue needed to be treated like a humanitarian crisis Migrants are seen on Monday arriving in New York City from Texas, having boarded buses put on by the governor, Greg Abbott The Federal Emergency Management Agency considers the entire Orchard Beach parking lot a 'special flood hazard area.' The city also lists the parking lot as a 'Zone 1' hurricane evacuation area, meaning it's especially vulnerable to dangerous flooding during storms. Vanessa Gibson, president of the Bronx, said she had concerns about the tent camp in her district 'While this is not the ideal location and we have raised reasonable concerns, my team and I are working with the Adams administration to ensure that any site designated for our borough has wraparound services,' she said in a statement. 'These services must be provided in a dignified, humane, quality, and safe space that does not do further harm nor add burden to clients and families. 'Under these emergency circumstances, we will work together with the administration in a balanced and strategic manner to ensure the Bronx is not overburdened.' Adams' team said they will provide a shuttle bus for migrants to get to public transport. They have not responded to concerns about flooding. A spokeswoman for the mayor told The New York Daily News she would not comment directly on Gibson's statement, but said 50 sites across all five boroughs were evaluated before the administration approved the Orchard Beach location. Adams touted the plan last week as a victory and proof that he understands his 'moral duty' to the thousands of mainly Venezuelan migrants currently arriving in New York City every week. His press release failed to give specifics of when the sites will open or, crucially, how many beds they will contain. The Orchard Beach site is expected to open within a few weeks. Meanwhile, thousands of migrants continue to be sent every week from Texas and Florida, where Republican leaders say it's time Democrats like Adams understand the true scale of the crisis. Migrants are pictured on Monday arriving in New York City Many of the migrants arriving in the United States at the moment have traveled from Venezuela One of Adams' proposed sites is near Orchard Beach, on the peripheries of the city In addition to the two migrant sites, Adams has awarded a $34 million contract to Bronx Family Network to set up beds for both migrants and the homeless in the same area. Adams, claiming the new relief sites will help absolve the problem in New York, said in a press release on Thursday: 'More than 100 years ago, Ellis Island opened its doors to welcome in those 'yearning to breathe free.' 'Now, more than ever, it's clear that we are again dealing with a humanitarian crisis created by human hands. Adams says it's unfair for leaders in Texas and Florida to send the migrants to him - despite NYC being the top of all of their lists for refuge 'While other leaders have abdicated their moral duty to support arriving asylum seekers, New York City refuses to do so,' he said. In photos of an example site, cot beds are shown lined up in rows in the outdoor tent. Adams said they'd only stay there for up to 96 hours, then be moved on to their desired 'settlement' sites. 'This is not an everyday homelessness crisis, but a humanitarian crisis that requires a different approach,' he said. 'That's why the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers will be the first touchpoint for asylum seekers that will provide them with a range of services and support as families determine their next steps. 'This emergency response represents what we know must be done during this humanitarian crisis, as we continue to seek assistance from our federal and state partners to continue this work. 'Like the generations that came to our city before, New York will provide the thousands now coming to our city with the foundation to build a better life,' Adams said. Advertisement The jilted girlfriend of a British man who dumped her for Ukrainian refugee he welcomed into their home after Putin's invasion has ruled out getting back together with him and said she 'knew it would end in disaster for them'. Tony Garnett, 30, ditched his partner of ten years Lorna Garnett, 28, for Sofiia Karkadym, 22, just 10 days after she arrived at their Bradford home. Just four months later, the security guard now claims that he has broken up with Sofiia and thrown her out of their rented home, after accusing her of not being able to handle alcohol, using a knife to damage a wall and interfering with his relationship with his two daughters. Lorna, the mother of Tony's two children, has now told her friends that she 'knew it would end in disaster' for them - but was surprised that it happened so quickly. She is unable to speak publicly about Tony due to court proceedings, but The Sun reported that she told her friends that she would not take him back 'in a million years'. She added: 'He has thrown away so much. He can't see me because of a restraining order and he hasn't been seeing the children. But it's hard to feel any sympathy.' A friend reportedly said that Lorna has been hurt Tony's actions but has remained strong and that 'her entire focus has been on the children'. Tony Garnett, 30, left the mother of his two children, 28-year-old Lorna Garnett (pictured), for Ukrainian refugee Sofiia Karkadym after 10 days. He has now broken up with Sofiia, but Lorna said she 'wouldn't have him back in a million years' Tony Garnett, 30, left his partner of ten years for Ukrainian refugee Sofiia Karkadym, 22, after 10 days of her living with them. They have split, MailOnline can reveal Tony Garnett at his Bradford home with his ex-girlfriend's luggage and belongings in bin liners waiting to be collected Tony dumped Sofiaa after accusing her of not being able to handle alcohol and using a knife to damage a wall at their rented home in Bradford (pictured) Tony has said: 'I have made a mistake going into a relationship with Sofiia' In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Tony revealed : 'I am 100 per cent through with her. We are finished as a couple.' Tony claimed that matters came to a head when they rowed on Saturday night while celebrating his 30th birthday at their home in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He said he ended up calling police after Sofiia apparently damaged a wall, leading to officers attending the address. Tony told MailOnline how he had become 'fed up' with what he described as her irrational behaviour during the four-and-a-half months they were together. He said: 'I can't take her abuse or anger any longer. 'I left Lorna and my two children for her, and I made every extra effort I could to help her keep us together. 'I worked so hard to make this relationship work. I knew that we would look like tw*ts if we broke up because we have a media profile and all the attention that has been put on us on television and on the internet. Sofiia Karkadym (pictured) arrived in the UK at the start of May after fleeing the war in Ukraine 'I also genuinely felt sorry for her. She left her home and her country which was at war and knew nobody here. 'Yes, I felt and I thought I was in love with her. But there is a side to her which I just cannot put up with any longer. She gets angry and aggressive. He claimed that: 'On Saturday night she picked up a knife and stabbed the wall several times. 'It really scared me and I had no choice but to call the police. That doesn't make me happy at all. But I was worried about my safety. ' The row happened when two other Ukrainian refugees - Sofiia Rastorhuieva and her boyfriend Illia Tronevych were staying with the couple. They had moved in with Tony and Sofiia after he saw a desperate appeal from them on Facebook, asking for accommodation. Heavily tattooed Tony added: 'I have made a mistake going into a relationship with Sofiia. 'As I have said before, my relationship with Lorna was already over and I was really unhappy. 'But this wasn't the right thing for me. I have tried to help her. I really have. 'I haven't abandoned her and have even been messaging her mother to get her to help with the aid of Google Translate. She may be suffering from PTSD. But she is from Kyiv where there hasn't been much of the war. 'I hope that she finds somewhere safe to live and is in a happier place. But she's not for me.' Tony, who received a barrage of online abuse over his relationship with Sofiia, said he would be looking for a new home soon and would also part with the other Ukrainian refugees. He said that Sofiia had sent him a string of messages since the bust-up, saying that she loved him and begging for a reconciliation. But he said he had told her that he did not want back her back, saying he had already given her 'chance after chance after chance'. Tony said he had accused her of 'ruining' his 30th birthday. He claimed he told her that he would be contacting the local council and the Home Office to try and get her re-housed. Tony and Lorna first took in Sofiia after applying to be part of the Government's refugee scheme because they wanted to help people fleeing from war-torn Ukraine IT manager Sofiia (pictured) was renting a property in Bradford with Tony after he left his partner and children four months ago The couple were making plans to visit Sofiia's family back in Ukraine so that Tony can formally ask her father for his daughter's hand in marriage. Tony has said their relationship is over But Tony grew impatient at how long the process was taking and joined Facebook groups where Ukrainians were looking for sponsors. He made contact with Sofiia through one of the groups and she arrived in the UK on May 4 and she went to live in Bradford with him and Lorna and their daughters, aged three and six. Tony told how they 'just clicked' and got on really well straight away, partly because he could speak Slovakian which is similar to Ukrainian. The two them started chatting in a language Lorna did not understand, staying up to watch TV after she had gone to bed and regularly went to gym with each other. They both said that although they were 'getting on brilliantly' at this time, 'it was no more than that' and 'innocent'. But they ended up 'finding excuses to touch and brush against each other' and things got tense in the house. Tony said he would return home to meals cooked by Sofiia who would tell him how 'lucky Lorna was to have him'. Lorna was angry about the situation that she eventually asked Sofiia to leave the family's home just ten days after she arrived But she was shocked when Tony told her: 'If she's going, I'm going'. The new couple ended up moved in with Tony's parents before finding their own place and beginning the process of applying for a permanent visa for Sofiia. Tony said at the time: 'I am so sorry for what Lorna is going through, this was not her fault and it was not about anything she did wrong.' Sofiia added: 'As soon as I saw him I fancied him. It's been very quick but this is our love story. I know people will think badly of me but it happens. I could see how unhappy Tony was.' The couple later talked of their hopes of getting married and having children of their own, once Tony had his vasectomy reversed. He told MailOnline: 'I want to propose to this beautiful lady,' Sofiia said: 'We are planning our life together. I want to be a mother. I want to have children. 'I am a young woman so it can wait a few years and I hope that Tony can have his vasectomy reversed so that we can become a family together.' As their ill-fated relationship made headlines, Tony revealed that he had suffered a torrent of abuse on social media over his decision to leave his family home. He even spoke of his hopes of launching a pop career after recording a rap about their experiences. Tony also insisted that his relationship with Lorna was already on the rocks before he met Sofiia. One of Lorna's friends told back in May how the now single mum was 'devastated'. The LAPD have released footage showing the moment a teenager was shot dead by an officer outside of his home and his screaming mother while he wielded a toy rifle. Cops arrived at 19-year-old Luis Herrera's home in south Los Angeles on September 17 after he himself called 911 to allege that his father had been abusing him and his mother. That call later proved to be untrue. Body cam footage shows the moment that two uniformed officers approached the home. Before they got to the door, Herrera appeared while holding what looked like a black rifle. The officers retreated to the side of the house and sought cover amid trash cans. They can be heard yelling: 'Put that down, put that down,' and 'let go of that gun.' After ignoring the officers' multiple commands to drop the apparent weapon, the officers begin shooting Herrera. The video shows the teen fall the ground and drop the weapon. He appears to be still moving in the video, but is incapacitated. Upon further inspection, the rifle in question turned out to be an Airsoft gun, a BB-style toy that fires plastic projectiles. As the officers approach the home, 19-year-old Luis Herrera can be seen emerging from the front of the house clutching what appeared to be a large black rifle As he lay on the ground, the officers continued to demand that he drop the gun Teenage victim Luis Herrera, shown here in a Univision news broadcast, was armed with two Airsoft style guns when he was shot dead Behind the garbage cans the officers opened fire on Herrera, hitting him six times, the victim's father said As Herrera lay mortally wounded, officers placed him in handcuffs The Airsoft rifle that was wielded by Herrera, many prominent gun manufacturers allow Airsoft to use their designs in their toys In the 911 call, Herrera told an operator: 'My dad is drunk, and he started beating on my mom, and I tried to get involved, and now he attacked me.' He went on: 'My dad... I'm all bloody because of him.' The new video released by the LAPD also shows security footage from Herrera's backyard. That footage shows his family's reaction to the shooting. The video is presented by LAPD spokesperson Captain Kelly Muniz. Muniz describes the events, saying: 'He did not comply with officers commands and shouldered the rifle and pointed directly at the officers resulting in an officer-involved shooting.' Video also shows the officer approaching Herrera's bloodied body after the shooting and handcuffing him. When they roll him over, a pistol can be seen under his body surrounded by blood. Investigators have said that it was also an Airsoft gun. A woman can be heard yelling in the aftermath of the shooting: 'It's a toy. Why did they assault him?' The same woman yells repeatedly throughout the video: 'That's my son.' The officers quickly drew their weapons, demanded that Herrera drop the gun and ran for cover at the side of the home The family's security camera capture the moment the officers arrived at the home while they family was in the backyard The new video shows Herrera laying wounded at the front of the home as members of his family are told to stay back by the officers The teen's father, Vicente Herrera, shown here, described the teen's behavior as very unusual on the day that he was shot Herrera's father, Vicente Herrera, also emerges and told officers that the rifle was a toy. The officers tell him to go back in the house. Vincent told the Los Angeles Times the day after his son's death that the fight began when the teen hit a dog. His father said: 'He hit my dog and we argued I said the dog is like a little kid, dont hit it.' He went on to describe his son as a quiet and immature, saying that he enjoyed playing video games. Herrera was due to turn 20 two days before the shooting. Vicente admitted that the argument he had with his son was out of character. He said: 'I don't know what happened in his mind.' At the time, Vicente alleged that the responding officers had not commanded his son to drop the gun. He also said that his son was shot six times. Paramedics with the Los Angeles Fire Department determined that Herrera died at the scene after being shot in the chest. The police officer who fired the fatal shots has been named as Police Officer II Luis Navarrete. No officers were injured in the shooting. He has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the LAPD's Force Investigation Division. Muniz says in the video: 'We also do not draw any conclusions about whether the officers acted consistent with our policies and the law until all the facts are known and the investigation is complete.' Airsoft guns have long been a concern for law enforcement officers due to their apparent authenticity. Major firearms manufacturers such as Glock and Barretta allow their designs to be replicated for Airsoft versions. In 2019, three Democratic senators sent letters to the Consumer Product Safety Commission demanding that stricter rules be adopted regarding the sale of the toys. There are no federal laws or regulations regarding the sale of the toys, according to the Trace. Since 2014, Google has banned the advertising of Airsoft guns on their platform while in 2018, Walmart ceased selling the toys. The hacker behind the Optus security breach has reportedly released 10,000 customer records and demanded a $1.5 million ransom. The cybercriminal is threatening to release another 10,000 records every day for the next four days if the ransom is not paid. The customer records include passport, drivers licence and Medicare numbers, dates of birth and home addresses. Cybersecurity journalist Jeremy Kirk, who says he has been in contact with the hacker, shared details of the ransom note on Tuesday morning. 'The Optus hacker has released 10,000 customer records and says a 10K batch will be released every day over the next four days if Optus doesnt give into the extortion demand,' he wrote on Twitter. About 11 million Optus customers had personal details stolen in data breach, and a hacker has threatened to release 10,000 of those everyday unless the company gives into a ransom of AUD $1.5m The ransom demand appeared on the dark web, with the hacker warning Optus had four days to decide The hacker has demanded the ransom of US$1million - or $1.5million Australian - be paid in Monero, a decentralised cryptocurrency. 'We are businessmen 1.000.000$US is a lot of money and will keep too (sic) our word,' the hacker's message read. The ransom demand comes after Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil launched a scathing attack on Optus in parliament, saying it was a 'basic' hack. She laid blame for the security breach, which involved 9.8 million current and former customers, at the feet of the telco. 'The breach is of a nature that we should not expect to see in a large telecommunications provider in this country,' Ms O'Neil said on Monday. 'We expect Optus to continue to do everything they can to support their customers and former customers.' However, Optus has rejected Ms O'Neil's claim that the hack was not 'sophisticated'. The telco's CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said the breach was 'not as is being portrayed'. 'Unfortunately I think our briefing of the Minister happened after she (made those claims),' she told the ABC. 'Our data was encrypted and we have multiple layers of protection.' Ms Bayer Rosmarin said the company could not do much about the ransom threat while it was being investigated by the Australian Federal Police. 'We have seen that there is a post like that on the dark web and the Australian Federal Police is all over that,' she said. Speaking to the Today Show on Tuesday morning, Mr Kirk said no one knows the true identity of the hacker. 'This is the real challenge for investigators right now, they want to find this person, right, obviously, because this person is perpetrating extortion against an international company, and is in possession of a huge amount of personal data,' he said. 'There's just a lot of ways to stay anonymous on the Internet and so what police and other investigators will be doing right now is trying to find out if that person has made any mistakes. Anything that leads to their in real life identity so hopefully they can make an arrest.' Cybersecurity threat analyst Brett Callow, said the hacker's only motivation was money and echoed Ms O'Neil's claims that it was not a sophisticated attack. 'It would sound like something potentially a highschool kid could've pulled off,' he said. Operation Hurricane was established by the AFP on Monday to identify the people behind the breach as well as prevent identity fraud. Assistant Commissioner of Cyber Command Justine Gough said the investigation into the source of the data breach would be complex. Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin says the company couldn't do much about the ransom threat as it was being investigated by the Australian Federal Police 'We are aware of reports of stolen data being sold on the dark web and that is why the AFP is monitoring the dark web using a range of specialist capabilities,' she said. 'Criminals, who use pseudonyms and anonymising technology, can't see us but I can tell you that we can see them.' The task force will work with the Australian Signals Directorate, overseas police as well as Optus. Ms Gough said customers should be more vigilant in monitoring unsolicited texts, emails and phone calls in the wake of the Optus breach. 'The AFP will be working hard to explain to the community and businesses how to harden their online security because ultimately it is our job to help protect Australians and our way of life,' she said. Slater and Gordon Lawyers are investigating whether to launch a class action lawsuit against Optus on behalf of former and current customers. Class actions senior associate Ben Zocco said the leaked information posed a risk to vulnerable people, including domestic violence survivors and victims of stalking. Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil slammed Optus saying the security breach was 'basic', however the telco has rejected those claims Consequences may be less severe for other customers but the information could easily lead to identity theft, he added. Ms O'Neil called on the telco to provide free credit monitoring to former and present customers who had their data stolen in the breach. Optus has announced it will be providing the most affected current and former customers with a free 12-month credit monitoring subscription to Equifax Protect. Ms O'Neil said the government was looking to work with financial regulators and the banking sector to see what steps could be taken to protect affected customers. 'One significant question is whether the cyber security requirements we place on large telecommunications providers in this country are fit for purpose,' she said. 'In other jurisdictions, a data breach of this size will result in fines amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Optus data breach was a 'huge wake-up call'. As the government prepares to introduce new cybersecurity measures, Mr Albanese said the new protections would mean banks and other institutions would be informed much faster when a breach happened so personal data could not be used. King Charless entire press office at Clarence House have been told their jobs are at risk as a result of his move to Buckingham Palace. They are among up to 100 distraught staff including those in research and finance sent letters in the past few days warning them of redundancy as a result of the former Prince of Waless accession to the throne. Previously they had been told only that a process of consultation would legally have to begin as a result of the Queens death. Now dozens have been specifically told their jobs are under threat as the process of merging the Kings former household at Clarence House with the existing team at Buckingham Palace begins. The move, it is understood, has left many employees, some of whom have worked for the royals for several decades, upset and concerned. King Charless entire press office at Clarence House have been told their jobs are at risk as a result of his move to Buckingham Palace. The monarchs team of just over 100 people is known to be tightly knit and hard working. A former royal staffer said: I know people there are worried and upset. It is expected that number of personal staff will move across the road to Buckingham Palace, as well as a handful of people in senior roles. But that leaves dozens more facing a difficult and uncertain time in the run-up to Christmas. A royal aide said: We are absolutely doing everything we can to protect and look after them and anyone who cant be accommodated elsewhere will be offered above statutory redundancy pay. Palace sources said the potential redundancies were sadly inevitable as a result of the change in reign. Buckingham Palace, which employs more than 1,000 staff, is not affected as employees work for the sovereign, whoever that may be. The new Prince of Wales - Prince William - already has his own team in place at Kensington Palace, leaving the loyal Clarence House team caught between a rock and a hard place. Unfortunately the process of integration means that the roles at Clarence House, the household of the former Prince of Wales, are no longer required, a royal aide explained. Senior officials say they are trying to find as many employees as they can new roles at Buckingham Palace, although they say they are mindful of the head count at the tax payer-funded institution, and clearly not everyone can be accommodated. They are also looking to find roles with charities set up by, or with links to, the former Prince of Wales. Affected staff will be allowed to stay in their roles until the new year as the operation at Clarence House winds down. Tropical Storm Ian is barreling its way across Florida, leaving a devastating trail of destruction in its wake as hundreds of people are feared dead, many remain trapped in their flooded homes and two million are left without power. The formidable hurricane blasted ashore with catastrophic force on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 4 storm, packing sustained winds of 150mph and smashing homes with an 18ft wall of water in some areas. Biden declared a 'major disaster' in Florida early Thursday morning. The clear up cost is set to cost billions. The storm is now projected to regain hurricane strength as it heads north and takes aim at South Carolina. Here, follow DailyMail.com's live blog for the latest developments on Hurricane Ian today: Prosecutors on Monday indicted three key suspects in the Daejang-dong development scandal on additional charges of corruption involving a separate development project, both allegedly linked to opposition leader Lee Jae-myung. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said it indicted Yoo Dong-gyu, former acting president of Seongnam Development, accountant Jeong Young-hak and lawyer Nam Wook on charges of sharing internal secrets related to the Wirye urban development project, straddling southeastern Seoul and nearby Seongnam and Hanam, in July 2013, to get a private asset management firm selected as a private partner for part of the project. The suspects are also accused of using the same method to get Hoban Construction chosen as the builder, and then using the resulting profits, worth 41.8 billion won ($29.2 million), to pay dividends of 16.9 billion won and 4.23 billion won, respectively, to Hoban and the private asset management firm. Yoo, Jeong and Nam are all standing trial in connection with the Daejang-dong development project, which was conducted in 2015 when main opposition Democratic Party leader Lee was mayor of Seongnam. Daejang-dong is a district in Seongnam, just south of Seoul. (Yonhap) Advertisement NASA is set to intentionally crash a spacecraft into an asteroid at 15,000mph today. Such a mission may evoke memories of a Hollywood disaster movie such as Armageddon or Deep Impact, but this is very much real and is actually part of the US space agency's first ever planetary defence test. Of course, there is no actual risk to Earth. This is merely an experiment that, if successful, could one day pave the way for protecting our planet from a catastrophic impact from space. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was launched last November ahead of an almost year-long journey to crash into the small asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger one called Didymos. Didymos and Dimorphos are currently making their closest approach to Earth in years, passing at a distance of about 6.7 million miles (10.8 million kilometres) from our planet. The impact is due to take place at 19:14 ET (00:14 BST, Tuesday) and can be watched live on NASA TV from 17:30 ET (22:30 BST) and the agency's YouTube channel. Telescopes will be watching and studying from afar, including NASA's new $10 billion (7.4 billion) James Webb observatory, while DART will also return images to Earth at the rate of one per second as it heads towards its 'deep impact'. After the feed cuts out when the spacecraft explodes, a 30lb (14kg) Italian cubesat that was released by DART several days ago will record the aftermath and ensuing crater. Dimorphos currently takes around 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle Didymos but the impact is expected to reduce this to about 11 hours and 45 minutes. Telescope measurements will confirm this in the weeks and months ahead. The theory is that if an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, you would only need to change its velocity by a small amount to alter its path so that it misses us, provided this was done far enough in advance. Rome-based Virtual Telescope Project has also teamed up with several observatories in South Africa, and will be showing the target asteroid in real-time at the moment of the scheduled impact. The animation and graphic below shows how the mission will work, while MailOnline also explains the test's purpose and how it compares to a couple of the more famous asteroid-related disaster movies. Brace for impact: NASA's first ever 'planetary defence' spacecraft sent to deflect an asteroid 6.8 million miles from Earth is set to hit its target on Monday, September 26. The graphic above shows how the mission will work The spacecraft has captured images of its target double-asteroid system, which includes the asteroid it will crash into, called Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos The Double Asteroid Redirection Test was launched last November ahead of a year-long journey to crash into the small asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger one called Didymos WHAT IS THE NASA DART MISSION? DART will be the world's first planetary defence test mission. It is heading for the small moonlet asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger companion asteroid called Didymos. When it gets there it will be intentionally crashing into the asteroid to slightly change its orbit. While neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth, DART's kinetic impact will prove that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and kinetically impact it. Then, using Earth-based telescopes to measure the effects of the impact on the asteroid system, the mission will enhance modelling and predictive capabilities to help us better prepare for an actual asteroid threat should one ever be discovered. Advertisement Astronomers say that anybody tuning it to watch the impact may well be able to spot changes in brightness of the asteroid as a result of the collision. That's if it is successful, of course, which wasn't quite the case in Deep Impact. The 1998 film depicts the attempts to prepare for and destroy a 7-mile (11 km) wide asteroid that is set to collide with Earth and cause a mass extinction. A team of astronauts are sent to land on the space rock and drill nuclear bombs deep beneath its surface, but rather than deflect the asteroid, when they're detonated they only split it in two. The smaller fragment goes on to hit Earth, creating a megatsunami that destroys much of the East Coast of the United States and also hits Europe and Africa, before the spacecraft and its crew that deployed the nuclear bombs sacrifice themselves by crashing into the bigger remnant of the asteroid and blowing it into smaller pieces. It is the latter technique that bears a similarity to the real-life DART mission, although there won't be any nuclear bombs involved. Part of the reason is that when the $325 million (240 million) DART craft hits Dimorphos, the plan is for it to change the speed of the 'moonlet' by a fraction of a percentage, rather than obliterate it. Although the 525ft-wide space rock doesn't pose a danger to Earth, NASA wants to measure the asteroid's altered orbit caused by the collision. This demonstration of 'planetary defence' will inform future missions that could one day save Earth from a deadly asteroid impact. 'This isn't going to destroy the asteroid. It's just going to give it a small nudge,' said mission official Nancy Chabot of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which is managing the project. Dimorphos completes an orbit around Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes 'just like clockwork', she added. DART's goal is a crash that will slow Dimorphos down and cause it to fall closer toward the bigger asteroid, shaving 10 minutes off its orbit. The change in the orbital period will be measured by telescopes on Earth. The minimum change for the mission to be considered a success is 73 seconds. The DART technique could prove useful for altering the course of an asteroid years or decades before it bears down on Earth with the potential for catastrophe. NASA considers any near-Earth object 'potentially hazardous' if it comes within 0.05 astronomical units (4.6 million miles) and measures more than 460ft in diameter. More than 27,000 near-Earth asteroids have been catalogued but none currently pose a danger to our planet. Deep Impact (pictured) depicts the attempts to prepare for and destroy a 7-mile (11 km) wide asteroid that is set to collide with Earth and cause a mass extinction. A team of astronauts are sent to land on the space rock and drill nuclear bombs deep beneath its surface, but rather than deflect the comet, when they're detonated they only split it in two. The smaller fragment goes on to hit Earth, creating a mega tsunami With Dimorphos, a small nudge 'would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and the Earth wouldn't be on a collision course,' NASA said. The US space agency's Bobby Braun added during a media briefing earlier this month: 'This inaugural planetary test mission marks a major moment in human history. 'For the first time ever we will measurably change the orbit of a celestial body in the universe. 'Doing so has clear benefits in ensuring humanity's ability to deflect a potential threatening asteroid in the future.' Andrea Riley, DART programme executive at NASA HQ, said: 'The DART demonstration of technology to deflect an asteroid is one we believe is important to conduct before there is an actual need. 'So while DART's target does not pose a threat to Earth, this mission and demonstration will give planetary defence experts more confidence that this is a viable mitigation technique should we ever discover [an asteroid that is].' An asteroid the size of Dimorphos could cause a continent-wide destruction on Earth, while the impact of one the size of the larger Didymos would be felt worldwide. One of the main reasons for the mission is that although astronomers know in a lot about the orbits of most of the 26,115 currently known near-Earth asteroids, they don't understand the density of the material the rocks are made of. This means they can only guess how the surface might behave upon impact, such as from a spacecraft. Pictured is the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which carried DART off the planet when it was launched in November 2021 DART will arrive at Dimorphos in two weeks' time, where it will deliberately smash into the asteroid at speeds of 15,000mph DIMORPHOS AND DIDYMOS Dimorphos completes an orbit around Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes. It was discovered in 1996 by the Spacewatch survey at Kitt Peak. The sub-kilometre asteroid is classified as both a potentially hazardous asteroid and a near-Earth object. Orbiting Didymos is a 'moonlet' called Dimorphos, which was found in 2003. Advertisement 'Asteroids are complicated, they look different, they've got boulders, they've got rocky paths, they've got smooth parts,' Chabot said. 'And so how exactly the DART spacecraft interacts with a real asteroid of this size and where it hits is one of the main factors for those models and also how that asteroid is put together. 'We know a lot of asteroids are maybe like rubble piles.' Scientists constantly search for asteroids and plot their courses to determine whether they could hit the planet. 'Although there isn't a currently known asteroid that's on an impact course with the Earth, we do know that there is a large population of near-Earth asteroids out there,' said Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer. 'The key to planetary defence is finding them well before they are an impact threat. 'We don't want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed towards Earth and then have to test this capability.' NASA is targeting the impact to be as nearly head-on as possible 'to cause the biggest deflection', but the 1,210lb spacecraft will not 'destroy' the asteroid. When DART spacecraft smashes into Dimorphos it will also have a witness in the form of an Italian cubesat called LICIACube, or the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids. This is a 31lb (14 kg) micro-satellite that has hitched a ride on DART to the Didymos-Dimorphos binary asteroid system, before being deployed yesterday to give it 15 days to assume a safe position to observe the spacecraft's collision. 'LICIACube will be released from the dispenser on one of DART's external panels, and will be guided (braking and rotating) to start its autonomous journey toward Dimorphos,' Elena Mazzotta Epifani, an astronomer at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and a co-investigator on the LICIACube mission, told Space.com. 'The cubesat will point its cameras toward the asteroid system, but also to DART, and will probably take some pictures of it.' She added: 'Together, DART and LICIACube will analyse for the first time and with high detail the physical properties of a binary near-Earth asteroid, allowing us to investigate its nature and have hints on its formation and evolution. 'LICIACube will obtain multiple images of the ejecta plume produced by the impact itself, of the DART impact [crater] size, as well as the non-impact hemisphere to help us to study the size and morphology of the crater and the effects on the surface properties in the surroundings.' Both Didymos and the smaller Dimorphos were discovered relatively recently; Didymos in 1996 and the smaller Dimorphos in 2003. The year it was discovered, Dimorphos came within 3.7 million miles of Earth 15 times farther away than the moon. If confirmed, it would provide material evidence of Roman seafaring and trading Archaeologists claim it could be from an ancient Roman merchant vessel The 15 stone artefact is thought to be between 1,600 and 2,000 years old An anchor discovered during survey works for an offshore wind farm could date from Roman times or the late Iron Age, an archaeologist has claimed. The 15 stone (100 kg) wrought iron anchor, which is over two metres (6' 6") long, was found at the bottom of the southern North Sea, off the Suffolk coast, in 2018. This was during marine seabed survey works prior to construction of ScottishPower Renewables' East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm. The artefact is thought to be somewhere between 1,600 to 2,000 years old, and could provide material evidence of ancient Romans' seafaring and trading. Brandon Mason from Maritime Archaeology Ltd described the anchor as 'an incredibly rare piece of history'. 'If this date is confirmed, it would be hard to overstate its significance,' he said. 'We only know about three pre-Viking anchors from northern European waters outside the Mediterranean region and only two actually survived. 'We believe this find could be the oldest and one of the largest surviving examples, giving us hard evidence of the incredible amount of activity that must have been going on in the waters in Roman times, but that we know relatively little about.' The 15 stone (100 kg) wrought iron anchor, which is over two metres (6' 6") long, was found at the bottom of the southern North Sea in 2018 After its discovery, the anchor was protected by an exclusion zone and strictly monitored using remote underwater technology. Last year, it was raised more than 140 feet by the Glomar Wave accommodation vessel around 25 miles off the coast of Suffolk before being taken to shore. Several features on the anchor are comparable with those used on ships from the Imperial Roman period. It is believed to have come from one of the larger Roman merchant ships of the Classis Britannica fleet, that weighed between 500 and 600 tonnes. Classis Britannica was the regional fleet of the Roman province of Britannia and the first navy of Britain. It operated from the mid-first century to the mid-third century and employed merchant vessels to transport food, troops, horses and war machinery such as catapults and rams. So far, very little physical maritime evidence of the fleet has been discovered. Last year, the anchor was raised more than 140 feet by the Glomar Wave accommodation vessel around 25 miles off the coast of Suffolk before being taken to shore CLASSIS BRITANNICA The Romans used 10 regional fleets to cover different areas, and the Classis Britannica was the British equivalent. It was created from the 900 ships built for the Claudian invasion in the year 43 AD and staffed by about 7,000 personnel. After the occupation of Britain, the role of the navy was to provide coastal support to land forces and control the waters around the Roman province of Britannia. For example, the Classis would have scouted the coastline and resupplied the advancing legions as they pressed further north into tribal territories, establishing forts and temporary encampments during Agricolas campaign into Caledonia (Scotland). In the final years of Roman rule, the fleet was devoted almost entirely to protecting the Eastern and Southern coasts against Frankish pirates, and Saxon raids against coastal settlements. Advertisement The anchor is currently undergoing detailed imaging and analysis to better pinpoint its age and provenance. Conservation works are being carried out by Maritime Archaeology Ltd, Mary Rose Archaeological Services and Historic England. It will then go on permanent display in conjunction with Colchester and Ipswich Museums in 2025. Mr Mason added: 'Everything points to this being a Roman anchor of almost 2,000 years old, which is an incredibly rare piece of history. 'It's an absolute privilege to bring the anchor to the surface and to share its story with people not just across the East of England, but right around the world.' Stuart Churchley, Historic England marine planning archaeological officer, said: 'The discovery of such a potentially significant anchor of this date, among the vast seafloor expanse of the southern North Sea, is testament to the careful and methodical steps taken by the East Anglia ONE project. 'This area of the North Sea has been mapped and investigated in a way not completed before.' The anchor is the latest in a series of historical finds during work on the wind farm. These include a missing German submarine from the First World War and numerous artefacts from the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman and Medieval periods. Other finds include a prehistoric monument dating back more than 4,000 years, complete with a rare Neolithic wooden trackway and platform and an ancient wild cattle skull radiocarbon-dated to around 6,000 years ago. Ross Ovens, ScottishPower Renewables' managing director East Anglia Hub said: 'Our East Anglia ONE wind farm has proven to be an archaeological treasure trove both onshore and offshore and this latest find shows that it just keeps giving.' The anchor is believed to have come from one of the larger Roman merchant ships of the Classis Britannica fleet, that weighed between 500 and 600 tonnes. Left: A Roman naval bireme depicted in a relief from the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia in Praeneste, Italy, which was built c. 120 BC. Right: Graphic showing fleet of ancient Roman warships (stock image) A 4,000-year-old wooden trackway that forms the centrepiece of a Neolithic henge (pictured) was unearthed at a ScottishPower Renewables site near Woodbridge, Suffolk in 2018 TikTok could face a 27m fine if it is found to have breached data protection law TikTok is facing the prospect of a 27 million fine for breaking UK data protection law by failing to protect children's privacy when using the platform. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued the social media company with a notice of intent a legal document that precedes a potential fine. It states that, between May 2018 and July 2020, TikTok may have processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent. It may also have failed to provide proper information to its users in a 'concise, transparent and easily understood way', and processed 'special category data' without legal grounds to do so. TikTok is enormously popular with teens, who post videos ranging from dances and pranks to the war in Ukraine. The social media phenomenon is owned by Beijing-based internet giant ByteDance and is used by more than one billion people worldwide every month. The maximum fine the ICO can impose would be based on a calculation of 4 per cent of TikToks global annual turnover. 'We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections,' said Information Commissioner John Edwards. The ICO said its findings in the notice are provisional, with no conclusion to be drawn at this stage that there has been any breach of data protection law Information Commissioner John Edwards said: 'We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections' 'Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement. 'I've been clear that our work to better protect children online involves working with organisations but will also involve enforcement action where necessary.' Primary children lose one full night's sleep a week due to social media Young schoolchildren are missing out on the equivalent of one full night of sleep a week, with their sleep worse the more time they spend on social media. Children aged ten are recommended to get nine to 12 hours of sleep a night, with less sleep linked to poor performance at school and risky behaviours. But a study found 10-year-olds who use social media more have worse sleep, and that this age group now only get 8.7 hours of sleep a night on average. Added up over a full week, that is the equivalent of one full night's missed sleep. Advertisement Mr Edwards, who began his five-year term as Information Commissioner in January, said the ICO was also looking at more than 50 other online services to see if they were conforming with the Children's Code. He also said the ICO has six ongoing investigations looking into companies providing digital services who haven't, in the ICO's initial view, taken their responsibilities around child safety seriously enough. Rolled out in September last year, the Children's Code put in place new data protection codes of practice for online services likely to be accessed by children, built on existing data protection laws, with financial penalties a possibility for serious breaches. The ICO said its findings in the notice are provisional, with no conclusion to be drawn at this stage that there has been any breach of data protection law. It added: 'We will carefully consider any representations from TikTok before taking a final decision.' A TikTok spokesperson said: 'This notice of intent, covering the period May 2018-July 2020, is provisional and as the ICO itself has stated, no final conclusions can be drawn at this time. 'While we respect the ICO's role in safeguarding privacy in the UK, we disagree with the preliminary views expressed and intend to formally respond to the ICO in due course.' In 2021, TikTok was given a 750,000 Euro fine (676,350) by the Netherlands' Data Protection Authority for violating children's privacy and failing to offer information in Dutch. TikTok is appealing the punishment. Commenting on the latest news, technology lawyer Nigel Jones, co-founder of the Privacy Compliance Hub, said that the move by the ICO may be designed to act as a warning to other online services. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued the social media company with a notice of intent a legal document that precedes a potential fine 'It looks like the Information Commissioner has decided to come out fighting and defend the interests of children against online companies such as TikTok,' Jones told MailOnline. 'What is interesting is that rather than carry out a full, time-consuming investigation into TikTok, the regulator has come to a provisional view, issued a notice of intention to fine the company and said that there are another 50 providers of online services being investigated. 'John Edwards is putting down a marker that the Children's Code is going to be enforced, so companies better get their acts together.' Andy Burrows, Head of Child Safety Online Policy at the NSPCC, added: 'It's welcome to see the ICO investigating and enforcing regulation. Companies should take note and make sure they are keeping children safe on their platforms. 'The Children's Code is a reminder that regulation works, with a number of sites implementing better safety measures. 'Children can be given even stronger protections by Government delivering the Online Safety Bill in full and without delay.' The aim of the Online Safety Bill is to introduce rules to social media and other user-generated content-based sites that compel them to remove illegal or harmful material from their platforms, with a particular emphasis on protecting children. Companies that fail to comply with the laws could be fined up to 10 per cent of their annual global turnover and will also be forced to improve their practices and block non-compliant sites. However, critics of the Bill believe the measures risk making social media platforms 'online policemen' and that attempts to define 'legal but harmful' content are 'authoritarian'. The previous government had already amended the Bill so that social media platforms have to notify recognised news publishers if they intend to block or take down news content, and wait for the result of any appeal. Last week, the new Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan announced that the Online Safety Bill would be 'tweaked' again, to re-examine controversial measures targeting 'legal but harmful' content. She did not say exactly how the bill would be changed, but stressed that the parts of the bill designed to protect children would remain unaltered. 'That element is in relation to adults. The bits in relation to children and online safety will not be changing. And that is the overarching objective of the Bill, and why we put it in our manifesto,' she said. Because it takes at least 11 hours to return the rocket, Artemis I will not take off during the launch window that closes on October 4 NASA is rolling the Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule back to the Vehicle Assembly Building tonight, as Florida braces for Hurricane Ian that will be the worst to hit in 100 years- and the move leaves the historic moon mission in limbo. The roll back means the historic Artemis I mission will launch during the launch window that ends on October 4. Tuesday's moon mission was canceled over the weekend, but the American space agency was still deciding whether to bring Artemis I back to the assembly site. SLS is set to make the return journey at 11pm ET when it will travel about one-mile-per-hour back to the building, which will take at least 11 hours to complete. NASA is rolling the Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule back to the Vehicle Assembly Building tonight. Pictured is the rocket currently standing on the launch pad NASA announced its decision Monday at 10:07am ET, detailing that this also 'allows time for employees to address the needs of their families and protect the integrated rocket and spacecraft system,' reads a post from the agency. Artemis I is the first of the three phases that aims to put human boots back on the moon - the last time was in 1972. However, the first phase has yet to get off the ground due to several technical glitches that scrubbed two previous attempts - Tuesday marks the third scrubbed mission. Tropical Storm Ian is about to undergo explosive intensification into a major hurricane on its way up to Florida from Grand Cayman Artemis 1, NASA's rocket that aims to bring astronauts back to the moon after a 50-year hiatus, has been postponed again due to the impending Tropical Storm Ian A line of shoppers are seen outside a retail warehouse as Floridians rush to prepare for the storm, which is predicted to be a strong hurricane Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared an emergency across the entire state and its 67 counties on Saturday afternoon, leading to stores full of panicked shoppers The rocket's first launch failed at the end of August due to technical glitches, while the second attempt in September was stopped by a fuel leak. However, when Orion soars into space, cameras will capture every moment of the 42-day trip, including what is said to be an epic picture of the spacecraft with the moon and Earth in the background. Artemis I is designed to show that the SLS rocket and Orion capsule are ready to carry astronauts for Artemis II, and ultimately the Artemis III mission to return humans to the moon. The first mission will be uncrewed. Tropical Storm Ian is expected to strengthen into a hurricane on Monday and reach 'major' hurricane strength - anything Category 3 or above - on Tuesday before it hits Cuba. The storm is expected to make landfall in Florida midweek, either late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, and bring with it 130mph winds. 'Ian is going to be a large and powerful hurricane in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and spread its impacts over a large portion of the Florida peninsula,' said Jamie Rhome, acting director of the National Hurricane Center. 'The surge vulnerability along the west coast of Florida is very extreme,' said Rhome, and pointed out 'it doesnt take an onshore or direct hit from a hurricane to pile up the water.' Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared an emergency across the entire state and its 67 counties on Saturday afternoon in a sign of officials' high concern. The cities of Orlando, Panama City and Tampa are all in Tropical Storm Ian's path, according to the most recent projections The Weather Channel. Parts of Alabama and Georgia are also likely to be affected. Residents in the expected path have been urged to make hurricane preparations as National Hurricane Center officials warn of the higher-than-normal degree of 'uncertainty' in the storm's forecasted path and intensity. DeSantis reiterated the uncertainty surrounding Ian's path, and said 'just dont think if youre not in that eye, that somehow you dont have to make preparations.' DeSantis also warned of the storm's unpredictability and said that residents not in the eye of the storm should still be careful and make preparations A graphic from the National Weather Service shows potential storm surge depths across southern Florida, and warns they will likely be joined by 'large and destructive waves' Cars lineup at a Costco gas station in Orlando, Florida as residents rush to stock up on gasoline ahead of the impending storm The National Hurricane Center issues warnings of storm surges across parts of coastal Florida including the Florida Keys as forecasters predict water levels could rise by several feet. The Center also predicted that some areas of the state could get up to 6 inches of rain through Tuesday evening and warned of potential flash floods. John Cangialosi, a senior hurricane specialist, said Sunday that it is not clear exactly where Ian will hit hardest in Florida. Residents should begin preparations, including gathering supplies for potential power outages, he said. 'It's a hard thing to say stay tuned, but that's the right message right now,' he said. 'It's still time to get your supplies.' Meanwhile, authorities in Cuba are preparing for Tropical Storm Ian by evacuating some areas of the island and suspending classes at schools on the Western part of the island. At 11pm EST on Sunday, Ian was moving northwest at 13 mph, about 140 miles south of Grand Cayman, according to the center. It had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. President Biden also declared an emergency in Florida and activated federal disaster relief aid for the state, just an hour before he cancelled his Florida visit to campaign with Democrat midterm candidates. If it was successful, the technique could be used in future to push an asteroid from colliding with our planet asteroid from its orbit, but NASA won't know the results for weeks Advertisement NASA's DART spacecraft has completed the first planetary defense test, after it impacted the asteroid Dimorphos while traveling 14,000 miles per hour. Confirmation came seconds after the 19:14 ET (00:14 BST) collision, sparking applause among the ground team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. 'Humanity - 1, Asteroid - 0,' a commentator on the livestream said, noting how incredible it is that humans carried out such an epic mission. 'Impact success!' NASA tweeted after the DART spacecraft collided with the 560 foot asteroid, around 6.7 million miles away from Earth. Scientists believe the impact carved out a crater, hurled streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, altered the asteroid's orbit. NASA will not know the results for at least another two months, after Earth-bound telescopes collect data on Dimorphos and its twin, Didymos, which the targeted asteroid orbits. However, scientists said the mission produced an 'ideal outcome'. By striking Dimorphos head on, NASA hopes it pushed it into a smaller orbit, shaving 10 minutes off the time it takes to circle Didymos, which is currently 11 hours and 55 minutes. The space probe used what is called kinetic impact, which involves sending one or more large, high-speed spacecraft into the path of an approaching near-earth object. Such a mission may evoke memories of a Hollywood disaster movie such as Armageddon, but this is very much real and could save Earth from colliding with a deadly space rock. NASA's DART successfully impacted the Dimorphos asteroid on Monday at 7:14pm ET. This is the first planetary defense test and it could be used to save Earth. Pictured is an image from the DART satellite just before impact This is one of the first close-up pictures of the asteroid ever taken. The space probe used what is called kinetic impact, which involves sending one or more large, high-speed spacecraft into the path of an approaching near-earth object The last complete image of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, taken by the DRACO imager on NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission from 7 miles (12 kilometers) from the asteroid and 2 seconds before impact Confirmation came seconds after the 7:14pm ET collision, sparking an applause among the ground team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory The last image to contain a complete view of asteroid Didymos (top left) and its moonlet, Dimorphos, about 2.5 minutes before the impact of NASA's DART spacecraft, taken by the on board DRACO imager from a distance of 571 miles (920 kilometeres) WHAT IS THE NASA DART MISSION? DART is the worlds first planetary defense test mission. It comprises a satellite that's crashed into the small moonlet asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger companion asteroid called Didymos. The satellite was intentionally crashed into the asteroid to slightly change the latter's orbit. Dimorphos is about 525 feet in diameter, and although it doesn't pose a danger to Earth, NASA wants to measure the asteroid's altered orbit caused by the collision. Post-impact observations from Earth-based optical telescopes and planetary radars will measure the change in Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos, according to NASA. This demonstration of planetary defense will inform future missions that could one day save Earth from a deadly asteroid impact. Advertisement NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated the DART team shortly after the mission was completed, highlighting how the successful test could one day save humanity. 'We are showing that planetary defense is a global endeavor, and it is very possible to save our planet,' Nelson said. Elon Musk's SpaceX also applauded NASA on the successful mission. 'Congratulations on successfully crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid,' the billionaire entrepreneur's company said in its tweet. The US space agency's staff cheered and clapped in a video shared online as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully smashed into Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium. 'And we have impact. A triumph for humanity in the name of planetary defense,' a member of NASA's team said in a video recorded in the control room as the collision took place. The asteroid's bread bun shape and rocky surface finally came into clear view in the last few minutes as DART raced toward it. 'Woo hoo,' exclaimed Johns Hopkins mission systems engineer Elena Adams. 'We're seeing Dimorphos, so wonderful, wonderful.' With an image beaming back to Earth every second, Adams and other ground controllers in Laurel, Maryland, watched with growing excitement as Dimorphos loomed larger and larger in the field of view alongside its bigger companion. As the craft propelled itself autonomously for the mission's final four hours like a self-guided missile, its imager started to beam down the very first pictures of Dimorphos, before slamming into its surface. 'Impact success!' NASA tweeted after the DART spacecraft collided with the 170-metre wide (560ft) asteroid, around 6.8 million miles away from Earth. SpaceX replied: 'Congratulations on successfully crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid!' This astonishing image from NASA shows asteroid Dimorphos as seen by the DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact. DARTs on board DRACO imager captured this image from a distance of 42 miles (68 kilometers). This image was the last to contain all of Dimorphos in the field of view The closer DART got, the more detailed the asteroid appeared and the last shot was an up-close image of the asteroid's rocky surface - before the screen went black. In a live question-and-answer session after the crash, senior leaders from NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory said the mission was 'straight down the middle' and nothing went wrong. Engineers said DART is completely destroyed, but there might be pieces of it in the crater it left during impact - and some of the team said they shed a tear knowing the craft is now gone. Adams said the craft landed 55 feet from the targeted landing site, but still enough to assume it was a success. 'It was basically a bullseye. I think, as far as we can tell, the first planetary defense test was a success, and we can clap to that,' she said in a post-mission press conference. 'Earthlings should sleep better, and I definitely will.' Didymos (left corner) and Dimorphos (back, right) are currently making their closest approach to Earth in years, passing at a distance of about 6.7 million miles from our planet. The livestream showed the twin asteroids getting larger as the craft got closer NASA 's DART spacecraft capture its first look of the asteroid Dimorphos that appeared like a bright dot in the blackness of space DIMORPHOS AND DIDYMOS Dimorphos completes an orbit around Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes. It was discovered in 1996 by the Spacewatch survey at Kitt Peak. The asteroid is classified as both a potentially hazardous asteroid and a near-Earth object. Orbiting Didymos is a 'moonlet' called Dimorphos, which was found in 2003. Advertisement A toaster-sized satellite called LICIACube, which already separated from DART a few weeks ago, made a close pass of the site to capture images of the collision and the ejecta - the pulverized rock thrown off by impact. DART launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last November, which was called NASA's 'Armageddon moment'. DART 'is something of a replay of Bruce Willis's movie, "Armageddon", although that was totally fictional,' Nelson said in a November interview referring the 1998 film that saw teams travel to an asteroid heading to Earth with the hopes of destroying it before impact. Didymos and Dimorphos are currently making their closest approach to Earth in years, passing at a distance of about 6.7 million miles from our planet. The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching a mission in 2024 that will send a probe to Dimorphos and Didymos to study the pair in greater detail. An asteroid the size of Dimorphos could cause a continent-wide destruction on Earth, while the impact of one the size of the larger Didymos would be felt worldwide. NASA emphasized that the asteroids in question pose no threat to our home planet, but were chosen because they can be observed from ground-based telescopes here on Earth. Andy Rivkin, of JPL's 's applied physics laboratory, and Dart investigation team lead, said Monday that the two asteroids are perfect to test this planetary defense test. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test was launched last November ahead of a year-long journey to crash into the small asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger one called Didymos 'We needed something with a moon that was small enough that we could move it with a strike from a from a spacecraft, but not so small that we wrecked the moon,' Rivkin continued. 'So when you kind of tick off all the possibilities, Didymos ended up as the best choice, and really the only choice, that would provide a mission in this time period.' Telescopes were also watching and studying from afar, including NASA's new $10 billion James Webb observatory, while DART will also return images to Earth at the rate of one per second as it heads towards its 'deep impact'. The theory is that if an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, you would only need to change its velocity by a small amount to alter its path so that it misses us, provided this was done far enough in advance. Rome-based Virtual Telescope Project has also teamed up with several observatories in South Africa, and will be showing the target asteroid in real-time at the moment of the scheduled impact. Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a box-shaped space probe, crashed into its target at 7:14pm. This is human's first planetary defense test Brace for impact: NASA's first ever 'planetary defense' spacecraft sent to deflect an asteroid 6.8 million miles from Earth hit Monday, September 26. The graphic above shows how the mission worked The change in the orbital period will be measured by telescopes on Earth. The minimum change for the mission to be considered a success is 73 seconds. The DART technique could prove useful for altering the course of an asteroid years or decades before it bears down on Earth with the potential for catastrophe. NASA considers any near-Earth object 'potentially hazardous' if it comes within 0.05 astronomical units (4.6 million miles) and measures more than 460 feet in diameter. More than 27,000 near-Earth asteroids have been cataloged but none currently pose a danger to our planet. Advertisement These are the bars that put the water in watering hole. MailOnline Travel has scoured the Seven Seas (and the odd canal) for the best floating and island bars, with a cocktail barge in London, a lively wooden schooner in New York and an offshore tiki hut in Antigua among those making the cut. Sail on down if you have a thirst for more... Cloud 9, Fiji Cloud 9 in Fiji takes around 30 minutes to reach from the mainland The floating bar can accommodate up to 100 guests and transfers run daily House cocktails at Cloud 9 include the Lady Pink - a mix of vodka and grenadine - and the Cloud 9 Frosty, which combines raspberry vodka, melon liqueur, orange and pineapple juice Let your cares float away with a trip to the paradisiacal Cloud 9 bar in Fiji. The two-level floating platform features a sundeck and multiple daybeds, with a maximum limit of 100 guests. House cocktails include the Lady Pink - a mix of vodka and grenadine - and the Cloud 9 Frosty, which combines raspberry vodka, melon liqueur, orange and pineapple juice. Diama L wrote on Tripadvisor after visiting the bar in September: 'Good music, delicious food and a variety of beverage options you can choose from... We all had the most fabulous time out here. To make it even better, we had turtles swimming alongside the bar.' Daily transfers to Cloud 9 run from Port Denarau on Fiji's west coast, with the journey taking around 30 minutes. If you want to arrive in style, guests are also welcome to come by seaplane or jet ski. The Willy T, British Virgin Islands The Willy T is a decommissioned tanker-turned-pleasure cruiser that sits off Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands A visit to The Willy T was described as 'a pretty cool experience' by one Tripadvisor reviewer Play at being a pirate for the afternoon or evening aboard The William Thornton Floating Bar and Restaurant (aka The Willy T), which sits just off Norman Island at the southern tip of the British Virgin Islands. This decommissioned tanker-turned-pleasure cruiser is reachable via water taxi or sailors can drop anchor nearby and dingy it over. Painkillers are one of the most popular beverages - a heady blend of rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, cream of coconut and topped with grated coconut - and the punch is another recommended tipple. User 'Nick C' from Pennsylvania wrote on Tripadvisor after a visit in August: 'We stopped here for lunch on a catamaran with Aristocat boat tours and it was a pretty cool experience. The fish and chips were delicious and the tuna steak may have been the best I've ever eaten. Then we jumped off the roof of the boat. Highly recommended.' Kon Tiki bar, Antigua The floating Kon Tiki Bar in Antigua was built by British owner Emma (pictured) and it features a fascinating array of knickknacks on the walls, from bottle openers to NYC firefighter patches The Tiki hut is reachable via a short boat transfer from Dickenson Bay, about 80 metres (260ft) away. Rum punch is one of the most popular beverages at the watering hole Settle in for a drinking session to remember (or not, as the case might be) at the cash-only Kon Tiki Bar in Dickenson Bay, Antigua, reachable by a free boat transfer from the beach around 80 metres (260ft) away. This floating Polynesian-style hut was built by British owner Emma and it features a fascinating array of knickknacks on the walls, from bottle openers to NYC firefighter patches. The author of this article visited the bar in August, and commented: 'I ventured to the Kon Tiki bar expecting to stay for a drink or two but this is a bar that sucks you in, with a great atmosphere and very punchy concoctions. Be sure to get there early to get a seat at the bar. Luckily, the bar chairs are bolted down so there's no risk of toppling over at sea. Barmaid Emma is a much-loved character in the area and she makes her own purple-hued vodka "death shots" served from holes in an old wooden ski. It made my throat burn - but had a butterscotch aftertaste. When I asked for the toilet, Emma simply directed me to the sea. Along with a lack of a loo, there is no till and only cash is accepted.' Frying Pan, New York The Frying Pan in New York is a former 'lightship' that has been converted into a bar and restaurant Sail over to the Frying Pan in New York for a different kind of bar experience aboard a former 'lightship' that was built in 1929 and kept boats from harm off the coast of North Carolina. This characterful vessel, which was dredged from the sea floor and partly restored, is now a beloved party venue located on Pier 66 Maritime on the west side of Manhattan. On the food front, this spot serves up everything from Maine lobster to key lime pie, while drinks-wise the white wine sangria is a popular pick. The author of this article visited the bar in 2019, and commented: 'If you're looking for a different kind of bar experience in New York, the Frying Pan has to be it. 'It has a kind of pirate ship feel, with rusting ramshackle interiors and drinks in free flow. Going to the toilet involves going below deck and entering the bowels of the boat where former sleeping quarters remain intact. 'In hot weather, this spot gets pretty bustling so it's best to hop aboard early to avoid a queue.' The Floating Bar, The Philippines This floating bar off Lakawon Island in the Philippines was described by one former visitor as the 'perfect place to just lie down and chill' Bobbing off the white-sand shores of Lakawon Island in the Philippines, 'The Floating Bar' claims to be the biggest floating bar in Asia. The open-air venue offers plenty of space to enjoy the watery views, with a 360-degree balcony and terrace area. Tripadvisor contributor iLa_Noah, who visited the bar in 2019, described it as the 'perfect place to just lie down and chill'. Access is via a short boat transfer from the pier on the main island, and the bar is part of a resort and spa complex there, so you can soothe your hangover with a massage the next day. Casa en el Agua, Colombia The Casa en el Agua floating eco-hostel is located on Colombia's dreamy Caribbean Coast A boat runs every morning from the harbour in Cartagena to Casa en el Agua, with the transfer taking roughly two hours Casa en el Agua is a Robinson Crusoe-esque island eco-hostel in the San Bernardo Islands on Colombia's Caribbean Coast. There's no Wi-Fi, showers involve throwing cups of water over yourself and the toilets are of the compost variety. At the bar, though, there's no skimping on the cocktails, which range from Mai Tais to Espresso Martinis. Travellers on Tripadvisor describe them as 'delicious' and 'strong' and the perfect accompaniment to watching the sun set. Reaching the hostel is via a boat that runs every morning from the harbour in Cartagena at 9am, with the transfer taking roughly two hours. Grand Banks, New York Grand Banks is a bar and restaurant located aboard a historic wooden schooner in New York The floating bar is moored on the southwest edge of Hudson River Park's Pier 25 in Tribeca Lap up prime views of Manhattan and New Jersey while downing nautically inspired cocktails at the Grand Banks. This New York bar and restaurant, located aboard a historic wooden schooner, is open seven days a week until 12:30am. Some of the signature beverages include the Mariner - a blend of gin, Champagne, blueberry, tarragon and lemon - and the 'I'm the Captain Now', containing a mix of single-barrel rye whiskey, Aperol, pineapple, and lime. Tripadvisor reviewer 'foodieinTR' offers a spot of advice for those considering a visit, writing: 'Amazing experience! Great oyster selection, acceptable beer and wine menu. The ambience is the reason to hit up this spot. Just beware of the steep steps to the bathroom if you drink too much.' Grand Banks is moored on the southwest edge of Hudson River Park's Pier 25 in Tribeca. Floating Bar Lamu, Kenya Floating Bar Lamu in Kenya bobs along a channel off Lamu island. The wooden pontoon is supported by 250 plastic drums For those looking for a lively floating bar experience, disco nights run every Friday aboard Floating Bar Lamu - and when there's a full moon Soak up the natural beauty of Lamu island in Kenya aboard this unique floating bar. Floating Bar & Restaurant Lamu bobs along a channel between Lamu Town (known by the same name as the island) and the village of Shela, which lies slightly further south along the island's coast. The wooden pontoon is supported by 250 plastic drums and it includes four guest rooms and a bar area. For those looking for a lively floating bar experience, disco nights run every Friday - and when there's a full moon. Specialities aboard the floating residence include Madagascan rum shots, cold crab salad and bacon sandwiches. Susana S wrote on Tripadvisor after visiting the bar in 2018: 'Lively and incredible floating bar where you can enjoy a quiet beer while watching the Milky Way or dancing to the rhythm of both local and international music. Both warm and cold beer available.' The bar is reachable by public boat from any jetty in Lamu Town. Darcie May Green, London Don your sunglasses for a trip to this London-based floating bar as its exterior, designed by British pop artist Sir Peter Blake, is vibrant to say the least Daisy May Green is located on the Grand Union Canal in Paddington. The floating venue consists of two barges Don your sunglasses for a trip to this London-based floating bar as its exterior, designed by British pop artist Sir Peter Blake, is vibrant to say the least. The venue, which is located on the Grand Union Canal in Paddington, is actually formed out of two canal boats called May and Darcie Green, and both are open until 11pm Monday to Saturday and to 10pm on Sundays. Speciality cocktails it serves include the Aloha Colada - a blend of Aloha 65 fruit spirit, coconut rum, fresh pineapple shrub, ginger and citrus - and the non-alcoholic Sun Kissed Soda, combining rhubarb cordial, fresh lemon and soda. To line the stomach, there's a spread of Australian-inspired bites ranging from smashed avocado on sourdough to banana bread sandwiches. Tripadvisor reviewer 'Daydream49235689970' wrote after visiting in May: 'Lovely experience of brunch with friends on a canal boat. Perfect stop for watching the world go by.' Maisie Smith was told she is 'f****** terrible' after failing to do a backwards dive into the ocean on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Win on Sunday. The former EastEnders actress, 21, came away from the risky fall with 'two black eyes' and had to have medics check if she had broken her eye sockets. The star admitted that she has come out of the show as 'a completely different person.' 'I literally got black eyes': Maisie Smith was told she is 'f****** terrible' as she fails to do a backwards dive into the ocean on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Win on Sunday She told The Sun: 'I literally got black eyes from where I fell in the water on my face. For the whole show I had two black eyes. 'Literally when I came out of the show my thighs were still dark purple for two weeks, they were still dark purple just from falling onto water from a height. 'I hit it so hard that the medic had to check I hadnt broken my eye sockets. I was absolutely battered, but luckily nothing was broken. I was fine.' 'I was absolutely battered': The former EastEnders actress, 21, came away from the risky fall with 'two black eyes' and had to have medics check if she had broken her eye sockets Incredible: Maisie stood on the edge of the platform with her arms crossed over her body as she was yelled at by the instructors The series is known for its limit pushing stunts and has seen Maisie jump out of a helicopter causing her to have urgent medical attention. Recently Maisie revealed she has not ruled out a return to the hit BBC soap EastEnders playing her former character Tiffany Butcher. The actress, who played her role from 2008 and left the show last year, said she would 'absolutely' come back. 'I hit it so hard that the medic had to check I hadnt broken my eye sockets': The star admitted that she has come out of the show as 'a completely different person' She revealed that she thinks nobody 'ever really leaves' the BBC One show and that everyone 'always has a place there' even when they've left. Maisie told Inside Soap Magazine: The moment I left they said to me were so excited to see what youre going to do, but youre always welcome to come back and reunite the family and I said, absolutely! I said if they ever need me, just call me. I have so much family there with cast and the crew, I dont think anyone ever really leaves. I said if they ever need me, just call me': Recently Maisie revealed she has not ruled out a return to the hit BBC soap EastEnders playing her former character Tiffany Butcher 'You always have a place there': The Strictly star revealed that she thinks nobody 'ever really leaves' the BBC One show and that everyone 'always has a place there' even when they've left 'Thats what is nice about EastEnders. You always have a place there. The beauty is reportedly planning to venture into the music industry with the help of her boyfriend Max George. The former Strictly star is said to be hoping that her appearance on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins will be a springboard to launch her music career. Plans: The beauty is reportedly planning to venture into the music industry with the help of her boyfriend Max George She is reportedly seeking help from her boyfriend, Max, 34, who has connections in the music industry after shooting to fame as part of The Wanted. A source told The Sun: 'She's made no secret to Max of her desire to try her hand in music and Max has been very encouraging. 'He's enjoyed great success over the years with The Wanted so has plenty of contacts who can help Maisie achieve her goal.' Maisie has tried her hand at music before, having released an EP called Where My Heart Is in 2017, but the track failed to chart. MailOnline has contacted Maisie and Max's representatives for comment. Khloe Kardashian has set her fans' tongues wagging after she was pictured cosying up to Michele Morrone during Milan Fashion Week this weekend. The reality star, 38, was seen getting close to the hunky Italian actor, 31, in a picture which went viral on social media. In the image, 365 Days star Michele is seen wearing a copper-hued silk shirt which he wore open at the collar and a pair of black PVC trousers as he cosied-up to Khloe. Getting close? Khloe Kardashian, 38, has set her fans' tongues wagging after she was pictured cosying up to Michele Morrone, 31, during Milan Fashion Week this weekend Khloe looked glamorous in a black catsuit and a diamante encrusted pair of hotpants and matching corset top as she prepared to head to the Dolce & Gabbana SS23 show on Saturday. She could be seen leaning in to Michele and standing with her arm around him while wearing a pair of dark sunglasses in the snap. The pair were later seen chatting and affectionately touching each other as they enjoyed the afterparty in the Italian city. Fashionista: The reality star was seen getting close to the hunky Italian actor, 31, in a picture which went viral on social media ahead of the Dolce & Gabbana show Michele could be seen resting his hand in the small of Khloe's back as he spoke into her ear over the loud music while Khloe touched his arm as she spoke. MailOnline has contacted representatives for Khloe and Michele for comment. Khloe's fans were quick to take to social media after seeing Michele's original picture, with many delighted with what they saw. Getting to know one another? The pair were later seen chatting and affectionately touching each other as they enjoyed the afterparty in the Italian city Deep in conversation: Michele could be seen resting his hand in the small of Khloe's back as he spoke into her ear over the loud music Khloe Kardashian e Michele Morrone durante o After Party na Italia - 24 de setembro. pic.twitter.com/m4axDQqiG5 Khloe Kardashian Brasil (@khloedashbra) September 25, 2022 One person wrote on Twitter: '@khloekardashian has THE pic with Michele Morrone and I am here for it!!! Khloe baby girl come back season with him pleaseeeeee' While another posted: 'Shipping Khloe Kardashian with Michele Morrone so hard.' Someone else shared: 'You dont understand after ive seen that picture i NEED Khloe Kardashian and Michele Morrone together.' While another person tweeted: 'Okay Michele Morrone and Khloe Kardashian???? PLEASE this is a power couple that I just need to happen????' Hunk: Michele also sat front row at the Dolce & Gabbana show, wearing a pair of skin-tight crocodile trousers Happy bunch: Khloe's fans were quick to take to social media after seeing Michele's original picture, with many delighted with what they saw Who is Italian hunk Michele Morrone? The hunk is 31-years-old and hails from Italian city Bitonto He is best known for his role in Netflix's 365 Days - in which he plays lead role Massimo Torricelli Michele is dad to two sons, Marcus, eight and Brando, five - with his ex-wife Rouba Saadeh Boasting over 15M Instagram followes, the actor had only 4,000 before 365 Days hit Netflix It's no surprise that the star also models for brands such as Guess and Dolce & Gabbana He speaks Italian, English and Arabic Advertisement '@khloekardashian To even think for a second that Khloe is dating that absolute banger Michele Morrone makes me the happiest!! He is delicious and she deserves every inch,' wrote another fan. While someone else remarked: 'Khloe Kardashian really said TRISTAN WHO? Because Im so here for her and Michele Morrone. Sis really got her lick back!!!!' 'Oh wow okay Michele Morrone and Khloe Kardashian girl is about to get the 365 days treatment,' posted someone. And another eager social media user wrote; '@khloekardashian u gotta tell me what Michele Morrone scent was like he look like he smell good give up the details.' It is understood Michele is currently single having been linked to a number of women in the spotlight recently. It comes days after Khloe was seen choking back tears in an upcoming episode of her family show The Kardashians as she detailed her shock at learning her on/off boyfriend Tristan Thompson had been unfaithful yet again while they were expecting their second child together. In a new teaser trailer for the second season - which will launch on Thursday - the reality star admitted it had a been 'a difficult time' as she tried to come to terms with another betrayal. In December last year the couple were secretly expecting a son via surrogate when it emerged that Tristan had cheated on Khloe with fitness instructor Maralee Nichols - who was pregnant with his child. He'd initially denied the child was his but later admitted to his infidelity in a statement published to Instagram in January, which included a direct apology to Khloe. 'There is something I am ready to talk about... Tristan and I are having another baby,' she revealed in the trailer. Kardashian trailer: It comes after Khloe choked back tears as she detailed her shock at learning her on/off boyfriend Tristan Thompson had been unfaithful yet again Heartbreak: Khloe and Tristan, pictured with their daughter True, four, were secretly expecting their second child together via surrogate when it emerged Tristan had fathered a child with another woman Despite looking forward to their impending arrival, Khloe was clearly distraught over the state of her personal life and the circumstances surrounding Tristan's betrayal. 'It's supposed to be a really exciting time and it's just a different experience,' she explained. In her own confessional, Khloe's mother Kris Jenner remarked that 'it's hard to watch her in pain.' Baby mama: Maralee gave birth to Theo in early December 2021 and accused Tristan of refusing to pay child support as he continued to insist that the child was not his The Good American co-founder went on to express that, although she found the experience to be particularly wrenching, she was looking forward to her future as a mother-of-two. 'This has been a difficult time in my life but it's the start of something positive and happy and beautiful,' she said. Khloe and Tristan, 31, began seeing each other in 2016 while his ex Jordan Craig was pregnant with his now five-year-old son Prince. They welcomed their daughter True, now four, two years later in 2018. The former couple's on/off romance was plagued by infidelity on Tristan's part, including an infamous incident in 2019 when he was caught kissing her sister Kylie Jenner's best friend Jordyn Woods. Despite their up and downs, Khloe and Tristan reconciled amid the coronavirus pandemic after quarantining together to co-parent their daughter. The couple separated again in 2021 before it was publicly revealed that he'd cheated on her in March 2021 with Maralee Nichols, who would later fall pregnant with his son Theo - now nine months. Ups and downs: Despite their up and downs, Khloe and Tristan reconciled amid the coronavirus pandemic after quarantining together to co-parent but they then split in 2021 Maralee gave birth to Theo in early December 2021 and accused Tristan of refusing to pay child support as he continued to insist that the child was not his. But after taking a paternity test, Tristan was forced to reveal that Theo was indeed his son and that he'd stepped out on Khloe for the umpteenth time. Seven months after the scandal, it was revealed that Khloe was expecting a baby boy with her former partner via surrogate. Khloe has been in Italy this week with her sister Kim Kardashian, 41, Kim's children North West, nine, Saint, six, Chicago, four, and Psalm, three, who she shares with rapper ex-husband Kanye West, 45 - and her mother Kris Jenner, 66. Style icon Kim has been promoting her collaboration with designers Dolce & Gabbana, with the new collection featuring the their Milan Fashion Week show this week. The looks feature a slew of her signature corseted and distressed pieces, with the show's models donning a 'KIM' choker when taking to the catwalk. Fashion forward: Style icon Kim has been promoting her collaboration with designers Dolce & Gabbana, with the new collection featuring the their Milan Fashion Week show this week (Kim seen during the show) The show, which was live streamed via Instagram, opened with dramatic light flickers, paparazzi camera clicker noises and sound effects of 'We love you Kim' screams, before a video was blown up on a screen as the models took to the runway. Closing it off, Kim took to the runway alongside designers Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce. And releasing a limited collection to their website following the show, shoppers can now by a 150 T-shirt from Dolce & Gabbana with a print of Kim eating pasta on it. Designers: Closing the show off, Kim took to the runway alongside designers Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce Production: The show, which was live streamed via Instagram, opened with dramatic light flickers, paparazzi camera clicker noises and sound effects of 'We love you Kim' screams The collaboration, dubbed 'Ciao, Kim', has been teased via social media over the coming days - with a slew of vintage Hollywood-style adverts featuring Kim. She has once again been chanelling iconic actress Marilyn Monroe in the new campaign, which even saw her face projected onto the building of Dolce & Gabbana's Milan store. And looking the epitome of Italian glamour, one ad showed her peroxide blonde hair bundled away as she ate a cone of traditional gelato, surrounded by hounding paparazzi. Jamie Foxx, John Boyega and Teyonah Parris find their lives turned upside down when they get engulfed in a government conspiracy in the trailer for They Cloned Tyrone. This thriller follows Slick Charles (Foxx), Fontaine (Boyega) and Yo-Yo (Parris) as they discover bizarre government experiments. The film is expected to be released on December 30 on the Netflix streaming service, though the date was not confirmed on the trailer (via Netflix YouTube). Trailer: Jamie Foxx, John Boyega and Teyonah Parris find their lives turned upside down when they get engulfed in a government conspiracy in the trailer for They Cloned Tyrone Thriller: This thriller follows Slick Charles (Foxx), Fontaine (Boyega) and Yo-Yo (Parris) as they discover bizarre government experiments The trailer begins with the three main characters standing silent in an elevator, when for some reason Slick Charles starts singing Mary J. Blige's 1994 hit I'm Going Down. Yo-Yo joins in, as Slick Charles and Yo-Yo use their guns as makeshift microphones, as Fontaine turns and gives them both a strange look. When the elevator door opens, though, this trio is all about business, with all of their guns at the ready. Thriller: The trailer begins with the three main characters standing silent in an elevator, when for some reason Slick Charles starts singing Mary J. Blige's 1994 hit I'm Going Down Look: Yo-Yo joins in, as Slick Charles and Yo-Yo use their guns as makeshift microphones, as Fontaine turns and gives them both a strange look Elevator: When the elevator door opens, though, this trio is all about business, with all of their guns at the ready They are seen entering a secret laboratory of some kind, as Slick Charles says, 'What kind of s**t is this?' Slick Charles tells Yo-Yo not to touch anything, when one of the lab workers sees them, causing Fontaine to throw him against a wall. 'You don't want to do this man,' the worker says as Fontaine says he better talk as the worker says he's just, 'trying to collect an hourly paycheck man.' Lab: They are seen entering a secret laboratory of some kind, as Slick Charles says, 'What kind of s**t is this?' Wall: Slick Charles tells Yo-Yo not to touch anything, when one of the lab workers sees them, causing Fontaine to throw him against a wall Fontaine asks, 'Who are you?' and the worker just says, 'We're everywhere,' as we see how detailed this operation really is. Another worker is listening to a phone conversation between characters named Keisha and Shante, while taking very detailed notes. Fontaine asks the lab worker, 'N***a, who the f**k is we?' as we see other shots of the trio breaking into a house. Everywhere: Fontaine asks, 'Who are you?' and the worker just says, 'We're everywhere,' as we see how detailed this operation really is Notes: Another worker is listening to a phone conversation between characters named Keisha and Shante, while taking very detailed notes 'Somebody is conducting experiments on us,' Yo-Yo is heard saying, seemingly referring to Black people as a whole. Slick Charles is seen in the back of a white van as he mouths, 'Help me!' to another character. Yo-Yo is seen trying to act inconspicuous though a friend notices her, causing her to walk away. Experiments: 'Somebody is conducting experiments on us,' Yo-Yo is heard saying, seemingly referring to Black people as a whole Slick Charles is seen sitting in the back of a convertible while a number of other convertibles follow as they start to mobilize. 'Let's take care of this s**t,' Slick Charles says as the trio is seen standing over corpse. The final shot shows Slick Charles sharing a drink with Fontaine, stating, 'If we're gonna buy into the insanity... let a pimp freshen up first' as he goes into another room as the trailer comes to an end. Mobilize: Slick Charles is seen sitting in the back of a convertible while a number of other convertibles follow as they start to mobilize By Lee Eung-tae At 9 on a Friday night, Christina walks around a platform of Stockholm station whistling. She's finished work and is going to have her 28th birthday party with her family. Full of expectations, she gives a broad smile to the passengers. Best of all, she is now free from the importunities of her ex-boyfriend who harassed her after she broke up with him. He is now in jail because he was convicted of stalking her. If he approaches her in any way after his release, he will be immediately re-arrested. At 9 on a Friday night, Hana anxiously enters Seoul subway. Looking nervously around to see if the guy is following, she tries to smile at the passengers. She has been stalked for nine years by a former male colleague. She has been harassed, threatened, verbally abused by him on 900 occasions. She reported him to the police several times. He faced trial and was supposed to be in jail, but, he was set free. Why? A court incredibly decided that a man with his decent job would not commit crimes. Incessant horrific harassment has driven Hana to attempt suicide. Christina and Hana are fictitious, but the representatives of the truth: stalking is dealt with in radically different ways in different countries. Under Swedish law, a stalking crime carries a sentence of up to four years in prison. In 2011, repeated harassment became a criminal offence under the rubric of unlawful persecution. By contrast, in Korea, stalking was considered to be a mere misdemeanor until 2021, so offenders were given small fines or released with a warning. Numberless helpless women were left vulnerable to vicious stalking. Under new legislation, stalking is labeled a criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to three years of imprisonment or a 30 million won ($21,000) fine. Despite the revision, the number of reported cases has increased. As a society, we need more awareness. Stalking is a felony that devastates the lives of our mothers, wives, daughters and close friends. We must understand that because the aggressors are usually known to the victims, the latter usually avoid seeking justice for fear of retaliation. This actually encourages the perpetrators. To be frank, this infuriates me. The whole nation was shocked by the appalling news last year of three women murdered by a stalker. He bore a grudge because they avoided him and reacted by brutally killing the three of them. The same year, a woman in her 20s was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. He stalked her for several months after their breakup and finally murdered her. It is really heartbreaking to imagine how horrible her life had been for those awful months before she was murdered. What if she were my lovely daughter, my close friend, my brilliant student or my dear colleague? Stalkers do not look like criminals whatever a criminal might look like, they are us. They have the same decent jobs, the same hobbies. They live in nice homes. They are our sons, friends, colleagues or neighbors. We all could become stalkers if we ignored the abysmal consequences or if we did not empathize with the victims' pain, just dismissing the crime as nothing but a minor offence. With hindsight we see those heinous criminals are the products of our society's neglect to create an awareness of the seriousness of stalking. When I heard the news that a young female subway worker was killed by a stalker in Sindang Station on Sept. 14, I was deeply heartbroken, as a father of a daughter who is the same age as the victim. My prayer is that all the victims find peace in heaven, where there is no stalking. Lee Eung-tae (eungtae@gmail.com) is a former high school teacher who taught English for 35 years. Lily James revealed that she has lost lots of jobs due to living in character as Pamela Anderson during the intense filming process for her hit show Pam & Tommy. The actress, 33, who played the Baywatch star in the Hulu series, admitted she was 'shot to s**t' and 'a real wreck' after she lived in character the entire time. The star said she even spoke to her own mother in Pamela's voice and never properly left character while filming, insisting the difference between her real-life self and Pamela were too different. 'Shot to s***': Lily James revealed that she has lost lots of jobs due to living in character as Pamela Anderson after filming biographical drama Pam & Tommy Lily told The Mirror: 'It was such a screwed-up process. You just have to be patient with yourself. 'The hours are so long and you feel really burnt out. Your nervous system is just like, shot to s***. I felt like a real wreck at the end of it.' Lily portrayed Pamela's rocky relationship with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, 59, who was played by actor Sebastian Stan, 40, in the series. 'I felt like a real wreck': The actress, 33, who played the Baywatch star in the Hulu series, admitted she was 'shot to s**t' and 'a real wreck' after she lived in character the entire time The actress admitted that because she is so different from Pamela it was 'too extreme to go back and forth' so continued to play her in real life. She added: 'The difference from me to her was too extreme to go back and forth. So, I had to stay in this middle no man's land of like Lily/Pamela most of the time. I would totally slip into her voice. 'Even when I went out for dinner and was ordering with the waitress or talking to my mom on the phone, I would be American. I think I've lost lots of jobs because I keep speaking like Pamela in any audition.' Lily had to spend four hours a day in makeup to transform into the star and admitted it gave her 'courage from disappearing' as someone else. Lily was nominated in the Lead Actress category at the 2022 Emmy Awards but was beaten by Amanda Seyfried who won the prize for her role as Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout. Pam & Tommy chronicles the sex tape scandal which rocked Pamela and her then-husband during their three year marriage. The Downton Abbey star previously told PORTER that it felt 'liberating' playing Pamela, but explained: 'Ive never worked so hard. I read the books [Anderson] has written, I read her poetry, I can parrot along to all her interviews. Telling the tale: The actress, 33, played the Baywatch star in the show which chronicled the marriage between Pamela and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee (Lily pictured as Pamela in show) She said: 'Of course, there was the physical transformation. Slowly, our incredible team found a balance where I resembled Pamela but also felt like I could act through it. 'Ive never done anything where I look very different from myself before. And Id really like to continue in this vein, because I felt there was something very freeing and liberating in it. There was a bravery that came from that. A courage that came from disappearing.' Pamela, 54, and Tommy, 59, tied the knot on a beach in Mexico in 1995 after dating for just four days. At the time, Pamela's mother hadn't even met Tommy. The pair would go on to welcome sons Brandon, 25, and Dylan, 24, but they divorced in 1998. All stars: Lily starred opposite Sebastian Stan, who played Tommy Lee (pair pictured in series) In 2015, Pam told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live that she never profited from the sex tape, nor even watched it. She said: 'I've never seen it. I made not one dollar. It was stolen property. 'We made a deal to stop all the shenanigans. I was seven months pregnant with Dylan and thinking it was affecting the pregnancy with the stress and said, "I'm not going to court anymore. I'm not being deposed anymore by these horny, weird lawyer men. I don't want to talk about my vagina anymore or my public sex anything."' The sex tape was stolen by Rand Gauthier, who is played by Seth Rogen in the show, after Tommy reportedly refused to pay for work that he had performed on their house. Seeing double: Lily (L) looked the spitting image of Pamela (R) as she slipped into a busty red swimsuit for the series When Gauthier confronted the musician about not being paid the $20,000 he was owed, Tommy pulled out a gun to scare him away. Gauthier took his revenge by stealing the giant safe that had been kept in the couple's garage, which mainly housed the drummer's guns and Pamela's jewelry, in addition to the sex tape. Earlier this year, Pam claimed that the video wasn't actually a sex tape, but was merely a compilation of footage of them naked on vacation, which just happened to include sex acts. Bella Hadid left little to the imagination with her outfit while backstage of Versace's Milan Fashion Week show on Saturday. The 25-year-old supermodel showed off quite a bit of her bust in a low-cut black silk shirt with a neckline that ended near her navel. She wore tight black pants and a black belt, studded with silver metal that wrapped around her slender waist. Baring some skin: Bella Hadid left little to the imagination with her outfit while backstage of Versace's Milan Fashion Week show on Saturday Her dark locks were parted in the middle and touched the top of her chest. Her black eyeliner was streaked off to the sides, running toward her temples. She painted her nails black, and her full lips were colored a bright pink She took a number of mirror selfies which she then posted to Instagram. Long hair: Her dark locks were parted in the middle and touched the top of her chest Makeup: Her black eyeliner was streaked off to the sides, running toward her temples Toned down: Though she wore a toned down ensemble off stage, her runway outfit was far more colorful Though she wore a toned down ensemble off stage, her runway outfit was far more colorful Bella wore a stunning purple gown while walking the show's runway. The garment was a sexy take on a wedding dress, slit down her right leg and complete with a matching purple veil. Stunning: Bella Hadid looked stunning on the runway of Versace's Milan Fashion Week show Stunning: The supermodel wore a stunning purple gown while walking the show's runway The flowing train dragged behind her as she sauntered down the runway during the show. She walked in tall matching high heels, and she added lacy underwear and gloves to the outfit. The Washington D.C. native captioned the set of snaps, '[purple heart emoji]VERSACE[purple heart emoji]' followed by the Instagram accounts for a number of the people involved with her outfit including Donatella Versace herself. Long gown: The flowing train dragged behind her as she sauntered down the runway during the show Lots of thanks: The Washington D.C. native captioned the set of snaps, '[purple heart emoji]VERSACE[purple heart emoji]' followed by the Instagram accounts for a number of the people involved with her outfit including Donatella Versace herself Chatting: Hadid ran into another superstar before walking down the runway Lots of gray: The 2016 Models.com Model of the Year wore a gray bra under a lighter gray blazer and a matching skirt which ended at her knees Wow factor: Christine looked absolutely stunning in a shimmering black look Hadid ran into another superstar before walking down the runway. The sister of Gigi ran into Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn at the suave affair. The 2016 Models.com Model of the Year wore a gray bra under a lighter gray blazer and a matching skirt which ended at her knees. She also wore long black socks. Christine, 33, donned a sparkly black gown, matching shoes and a silver handbag slung over her right shoulder. Wavy platinum blonde hair reached down to her waist. The duo embraced tightly after chatting. Sparkly: Christine, 33, donned a sparkly black gown, matching shoes and a silver hand bag slung over her right shoulder Enjoying herself: The star seemed to be having a very fun time in Milan Trio of super models: She shared photos to her Instagram showing models Irina Shayk and Emily Ratajkowski as well as her sister Gigi Matching: Precious Lee and Gigi held hands in matching black outfits A legend: Donatella Versace looked on as a man cut into a celebratory cake Getting close: She sat very close to Selena Forrest (left) and Normani (right) at the event The star seemed to be having a very fun time in Milan. She shared photos showing models Irina Shayk and Emily Ratajkowski as well as her sister Gigi. Irina stunned in a tight black gown while Emily showed off her chest in a tiny silk shirt. Gigi wore a bright red silky outfit with long sleeves ending around her wrists. Precious Lee, Normani, Selena Forrest and a number of other stars featured in an Instagram post she shared earlier on Sunday as well. Two of the most venerated actors in Hollywood history, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep, attended A Celebration of Film gala Saturday at The University of Texas at Austin, which included an endowment dedicated in De Niro's name. De Niro was clad in a dark navy blue shirt with a grey tie and glasses. Streep was clad in a dark brown lace coat over a green top with dark brown pants and her hair pulled back. She wore glasses and dangling earrings to the autumn event. The De Niro Curator of Film endowment, which was announced three months ago, will showcase artifacts from De Niro's career, including costumes, props and scripts, at the university's Harry Ransom Center, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The latest: Two of the most venerated actors in Hollywood history, Robert De Niro, 79, and Meryl Streep, 73, attended A Celebration of Film gala Saturday at The University of Texas at Austin, which included an endowment dedicated in De Niro's name The display will also include an etched glass window featuring the Goodfellas star. De Niro, 79, made an 'undisclosed contribution' to funding toward the endowment, according to the paper, which has a goal of $3 million. Streep, 73, gave a speech at the event in which she said De Niro 'has the quality of consistency of character, but as an actor, hes almost completely unpredictable' and is modest and loyal. She said De Niro is a loyal friend and credited him for his rebuilding efforts in establishing the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002 after the events of September 11, 2001 in an effort to boost tourism to lower Manhattan. De Niro said he began giving pieces of his prolific cinema collection to the Ransom Center in 2006, joking that he would have ended up on a Hoarders episode otherwise, the paper reported. Streep gave a speech at the event in which she said De Niro 'has the quality of consistency of character, but as an actor, hes almost completely unpredictable' and is modest and loyal She said De Niro is a loyal friend and credited him for his rebuilding efforts in establishing the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002 after the events of September 11, 2001 in an effort to boost tourism to lower Manhattan. De Niro thanked the institution's curator of film Steve Wilson 'for producing the exhibition,' adding, 'Honestly, if Id seen all my junk displayed so elegantly, I think I wouldve kept it' The Cape Fear actor chat with the exhibit's curator Wilson at the cinematic exhibition He said he followed in the footsteps of his late father, an artist, in keeping collections of the past, noting how his father's art studio has been preserved as is since he used it. 'It seems more real when they can walk into the studio and see where he worked and get a sense of his process and his spirit,' the actor said. 'And maybe it was those feelings of connecting to our past through something tangible that motivated me as I saved every script, costume, prop, award, correspondence, calendar and notes. 'I thought that maybe someday my family would get something out of all that crap. At first, I hadnt considered that there might be a greater interest.' De Niro said he began giving pieces of his prolific cinema collection to the Ransom Center in 2006, joking that he would have ended up on a Hoarders episode otherwise The famed actors posed alongside filmmaker Robert Rodriguez at the gathering Actor Luke Wilson donned a brown suit with blue tie as he posed with Streep and De Niro Streep enjoyed a moment with a young fan at the gathering in Texas De Niro was clad in a dark navy blue shirt with a grey tie and glasses The Casino star said he was 'flattered just to be in the neighborhood' of people honored at the Harry Ransom Center, which features works from iconic artists including Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Stella Adler, T.S Eliot and Harry Houdini. 'I imagine my papers talking to their papers, or trying to anyway, and their papers asking my papers, "What the hell are you doing here?"' he said. He thanked the institution's curator of film Steve Wilson 'for producing the exhibition,' adding, 'Honestly, if Id seen all my junk displayed so elegantly, I think I wouldve kept it.' Other notable show business personalities at the event included actor Luke Wilson and director Robert Rodriguez. Kate Ritchie took a rather unusual trip down memory lane on Sunday by defrosting a slice of her wedding cake from more than a decade ago. The day marked what would have been her 12-year anniversary with her ex-husband, retired NRL player Stuart Webb, whom she divorced in 2020. The former Home and Away star, 43, posted a photo to Instagram of the top-tier slice of the cake, which had been frozen and wrapped in plastic since the ceremony. Kate Ritchie (pictured) took a rather unusual trip down memory lane on Sunday by defrosting a slice of her wedding cake from more than a decade ago. The day marked what would have been her 12-year anniversary with ex-husband Stuart Webb, whom she divorced in 2019 She wrote in the caption: 'Who is still eating their wedding cake? Why? And for what benefit? This is mine defrosting today.' The top tier of a wedding cake is traditionally saved for the newlyweds' one-year anniversary and is thought to symbolise good luck and prosperity. Many of Kate's followers were stunned she had kept her cake frozen for so long. One fan said the cake was 'part of your story' while another cheekily remarked it 'lasted longer than the marriage did'. The former Home and Away star, 43, posted this photo to Instagram of the top-tier slice of the cake, which had been frozen and wrapped in plastic since the ceremony Kate and Stuart began dating in 2008 and announced their engagement a year later. The couple wed in a countryside ceremony in Tasmania in 2010. They split in 2020 after 10 years of marriage, and the former child actress reportedly moved out of their marital home in Sydney. Kate was married to retired rugby league player Stuart Webb from 2010 to 2020. The exes are parents to eight-year-old daughter Mae (all pictured in January 2019) The exes are parents to eight-year-old daughter Mae. Kate grew up in front of Australian television audiences after first appearing as Sally Fletcher on Home and Away aged nine in 1988. She appeared on the program for the next 20 years, winning the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality in 2007 and 2008 and Silver Logies for Most Popular Actress from 2006 to 2008. More than six years after his passing, the secret journals of actor Alan Rickman is shedding new light on why he continued to play Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies. The actor passed in January 2016 in London at 69 years of age, after quietly battling prostate cancer, which he was first diagnosed with in 2005. It was announced in June that Henry Holt & Company will publish Madly Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman in October, with The Guardian publishing excerpts from the journal over the weekend, shedding new light on his role in the Harry Potter movies. Severus: More than six years after his passing, the secret journals of actor Alan Rickman is shedding new light on why he continued to play Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies Cancer: The actor passed in January 2016 in London at 69 years of age, after quietly battling prostate cancer, which he was first diagnosed with in 2005 The actor was first diagnosed with prostrate cancer before production began on the fifth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. He received treatment and underwent a procedure to have his prostrate removed in January 2006, and in a journal entry dated January 30, 2006, he revealed why he 'finally' agreed to return for Order of the Phoenix. 'Finally, yes to HP 5. The sensation is neither up nor down. The argument that wins is the one that says: See it through. Its your story,"' Rickman stated. Treatment: The actor was first diagnosed with prostrate cancer before production began on the fifth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Finally yes: 'Finally, yes to HP 5. The sensation is neither up nor down. The argument that wins is the one that says: See it through. Its your story,"' Rickman stated A few months later in April, he shared an entry from the set, revealing he has never been less chatty on the set. 'I realise as soon as that [Snapes] ring and costume go on something happens. It becomes alien to be chatty, smiley, open. The character narrows me down, tightens me up. Not good qualities on a film set. I have never been less communicative with a crew. Fortunately, Dan [Radcliffe] fills that role with ease and charm. And youth, he said. Another journal entry from July 27, 2007 reveals Rickman's thoughts after reading J.K. Rowling' final Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Costume: 'I realise as soon as that [Snapes] ring and costume go on something happens. It becomes alien to be chatty, smiley, open. The character narrows me down, tightens me up. Not good qualities on a film set. I have never been less communicative with a crew. Fortunately, Dan [Radcliffe] fills that role with ease and charm. And youth, he said Journal: Another journal entry from July 27, 2007 reveals Rickman's thoughts after reading J.K. Rowling' final Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. ' I have finished reading the last Harry Potter book. Snape dies heroically, Potter describes him to his children as one of the bravest men he ever knew and calls his son Albus Severus,' Rickman says. 'This was a genuine rite of passage. One small piece of information from Jo Rowling seven years ago Snape loved Lily gave me a cliff edge to hang on to,' he added. He also detailed his first conversation with Rowling in October 2000, which started rather oddly. Last book: ' I have finished reading the last Harry Potter book. Snape dies heroically, Potter describes him to his children as one of the bravest men he ever knew and calls his son Albus Severus,' Rickman says 'First conversation with Joanne Rowling. Her sister answers Shes not here can I leave a message? [There is] cackling in the background Sorry about that! ' he wrote. He added that he tells her, 'There are things that only Snape & you know I need to know,' adding that she replied, 'Youre right call me tomorrow; no one else knows these things.' The next day he wrote, 'Talk to Joanne Rowling again and she nervously lets me in on a few glimpses of Snapes background.' 'Talking to her is talking to someone who lives these stories, not invents them. Shes a channel bubbling over with, Well, when he was young, you see, this, that and the other happened never, I wanted so & so "' Rickman added. He also shared his thoughts after watching the first Harry Potter movie, stating, 'The film should only be seen on a big screen. It acquires a scale and depth that matches the hideous score by John Williams. Party afterwards at the Savoy is much more fun.' Conversation: 'First conversation with Joanne Rowling. Her sister answers Shes not here can I leave a message? [There is] cackling in the background Sorry about that! ' he wrote Snape: He added that he tells her, 'There are things that only Snape & you know I need to know,' adding that she replied, 'Youre right call me tomorrow; no one else knows these things' Ella Ding has confirmed her split from Made in Chelsea's Miles Nazaire. She told Daily Mail Australia they failed to form a lasting connection after meeting in real life - in scenes set to air on the E4 show - following months of chatting online. The former Married At First Sight star, 28, said that despite being attracted to the 26-year-old British influencer, it just wasn't meant to be. MAFS star Ella Ding (left) has confirmed her split from Made in Chelsea's Miles Nazaire (right) 'Made in Chelsea was pretty crazy. The show was intense. It was probably harder than MAFS. It's such a short period of time. I didn't find love,' she said at Channel Nine's Upfronts presentation in Sydney earlier this month. 'I should probably learn not to find love on TV,' Ella then laughed, before glancing over at her MAFS co-stars Brent Vitiello and Jack Millar, who also began chuckling. Ella said that despite going their separate ways, she and Miles have stayed in touch. 'There's never bad blood with any guys, you know. It's always amicable. He's great, but he just wasn't for me,' she revealed. She told Daily Mail Australia at Nine's Upfronts that they failed to form a lasting connection after meeting in real life - in scenes set to air on the E4 show - after months of chatting online It comes after Ella fired back at claims her fling with the Englishman was a publicity stunt to get back on reality TV. She said on her podcast Sit With Us earlier this month: 'People were saying that this was a PR stunt.' 'I can reassure you it is not a PR stunt,' she insisted. 'And I think that you guys will see that when it does come to air.' 'Made in Chelsea was pretty crazy. The show was intense. It was probably harder than MAFS. It's such a short period of time. I didn't find love,' said Ella (pictured in London last month) Her podcast co-host Domenica Calarco then chimed in to defend her friend. 'No one would put themselves through what Ella did and putting everything on the line,' Domenica said. 'Not only your name, but your heart, your soul, everything... No one would do that for a PR stunt, unless they are literally that desperate - and there's no desperation here.' It comes after Ella fired back at claims her fling with the Englishman was a publicity stunt to get back on reality TV Ella and Miles connected after he watched her on MAFS, which airs in Britain on E4, the same network that broadcasts Made in Chelsea. He slid into her DMs and 'a lot of flirting' ensued before they eventually met up in scenes yet to air on the structured-reality series. Daily Mail Australia understands Ella was granted permission from both Channel Nine and Endemol Shine to appear on the UK show. MAFS participants would normally need to wait one year after their contract expires to appear on another reality show. Hilarie Burton, Bethany Joy Lenz, and Sophia Bush had a reunion of sorts when they attended the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, over the weekend. The One Tree Hill stars, who have remained close friends since the drama series ended in 2012, got to take the stage and introduce the 1980's rocker icon Pat Benatar and her husband and collaborator Neil Giraldo. The three ladies have since taken to their respective Instagram pages to gush over their weekend in Sin City, especially their time hanging out with the Hit Me With Your Best Shot star. Reunited! One Tree Hill alum Hilarie Burton, Bethany Joy Lenz, and Sophia Bush teamed up to serve as presenters at day one of the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Friday The trio, who host the Drama Queens podcast, which is an iHeart Productions, would first hit the red carpet ahead of the day one of the festival. The ladies struck poses both individually and then as a united tandem, where they showed off their undeniable chemistry. Lenz, who played Haley James Scott on One Tree Hill, stood in the middle of her two gal pals in a metallic gold minidress with a large bow adorned on the left side. For an added touch of sexy style, the actress, 41, donned fishnet stockings to go with her black platform heels. Her look was rounded out by having her blonde tresses styled at shoulder length with added volume and a part in the middle. Golden touch: Lenz, 41, showed off her fab figure in a metallic gold minidress with a large bow adorned on the left side with black platform heels Burton, who played Peyton Sawyer on the series, opted to go with a black and red sparkling suit that consisted of pants that hugged her hips while flaring out from the knees down. The matching top was left unbuttoned just enough to give a hint of her cleavage. The 50-year-old Sterling, Virginia, native also went with platform heels and had her long locks pulled back off her face, with the exception of some strands she left falling over her left eye. Unique: Burton, 40, opted to go with a black and red sparkling suit that consisted of pants that hugged her hips while flaring out from the knees down and gold platform heels Bush, who portrayed Brooke Davis, went with a mix of cool elegance in a black pinstripe suit with slacks that hugged her curves all the way down to her ankles. The Pasadena native got daring and wore only a black bra-like top underneath her her blazer. She also donned a pair of gold heels and had her raven tress styled long, straight and sleek with a part on the slight left. Chic: Bush, 40, went with a mix of cool elegance in a black pinstripe suit, consisting of slacks that hugged her curves all the way down to her ankles and gold heels Revealing: Bush only wore a bra-like top underneath her blazer Dream gig: The ladies would eventually hit the stage on day one of the festival and introduce legendary rockers Pat Benatar and her husband and collaborator Neil Giraldo All three ladies would share their gratitude for being included in to the musical event on the Instagram pages. 'VIVA LAS VEGAS Ladies! Thank you @iheartradio for giving your #dramaqueens the coolest opportunity! Y'all we introduced Neil Giraldo and #PATBENETAR last night at the #iheartfestival and it was siiiiick. Thank you to all our fans who keep showing up for us every week. We love YOU!!!' Lenz wrote in the caption of a series of snaps taken during the weekend. Burton wasted little time and responded her comments section, writing, 'A dream!!!!!! Viva Las Vegas!!!' Giving thanks: Lenz thanked iHearRadio for adding them to the event so they could hang out with the Hit Me With Your Best Shot stars 1980s icons: Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo would eventually take the stage and deliver many of their hits; they couple have been married since 1982 One Queen with the King: Burton shared some images of herself with an Elvis impersonator Burton would also post a photo of herself standing next to an Elvis impersonator. 'When your child is OBSESSED with Elvis, and you're hitting Vegas, the ONLY appropriate thing to wear is @anyoldiron !!!' she began, adding, 'My suit era has begun thanks to @sophiabush! And Gus keeps threatening to steal my get-ups. This one wins! Hands down! I felt like a walking @bazluhrmann movie the entire night.' The actress continued: 'Thanks to @iheartradio for the opportunity to dance to @lionelrichie @theblackkeys and our goddess @benatargiraldo with my @dramaqueensoth sisters, @joylenz and @sophiabush. Epic night.Perfect practice for our TOUR in a couple weeks! (Get your Live Stream Tickets) More pics to come.' Bush also gushed over being able to introduce Pat Benatar and her husband at the event. 'What a moment': Bush shared that she's still 'giddy' over getting to hang with Pat Benatar 'Queens love icons! It was an absolute dream for us @dramaqueensoth to introduce the legend herself Pat Benatar, and Neil Giraldo @benatargiraldo at the @iheartradio festival in Vegas this weekend. We were positively GIDDY! We may never recover,' she began. 'She is everything. They are just unreal together. And their musical history and love story combined!? A rock n' roll fairy tale that's just so damn cool. What a moment. This was one we'll never forget. Thank you to our iHeart family, and all of you who listen to our show. Love love love! ' the actress added, along with a red heart emoji. Along with Benatar and Giraldo, the lineup of artists taking the stage at the festival over the weekend included the likes of Avril Lavigne, Black Eyed Peas, Halsey, Lionel Richie, LL Cool J, Luke Combs, Maren Morris, Megan Thee Stallion, Morgan Wallen, Pitbull, Sam Smith, The Black Keys, Diplo and Marcus Mumford, among others. The festival was broadcast live for fans via iHeartRadio stations throughout the country across more than 150 markets, and on the iHeartRadio app. The ladies' Drama Queens podcast, where they discuss all things One Tree Hill, made its premiere in June 2021. Beaming: The ladies were all smiles as they made their way backstage on day one The Bachelor's newest leading man Jed McIntosh appears to making the most of his newfound fame despite the show not going to air until next year. The musician, 25, attended his friend George Christoudias' birthday party at trendy Melbourne hotspot Ms Collins on Saturday night. Jed exuded style in a white studded jacket which he teamed with a multi-coloured printed shirt and black leather jeans. The Bachelor's Jed McIntosh (right) celebrated a friend's birthday in Melbourne on Saturday after it was revealed his season of the Channel 10 dating show won't air until 2023 The rocker accessorised with a studded belt and chain. At one point, Jed appeared in good spirits as he posed with a three-litre bottle of Belvedere Vodka alongside his pal. The sighting comes after Daily Mail Australia revealed the upcoming season of The Bachelor featuring three leads will not air until 2023. The musician, 25, attended his friend George Christoudias' birthday party at trendy Melbourne hotspot Ms Collins on Saturday night (both pictured) Jed exuded style in a white studded jacket which he teamed with a multi-coloured printed shirt and black leather jeans 'Ten have made the call to delay the show until early 2023 so they can focus on promoting The Real Love Boat,' a source revealed last week. 'I don't see them airing reality dating shows back-to-back and there's only 10 ratings weeks left... they would rather hold it and give it the publicity it needs.' Both suitors and contestants will be now able to access their social media accounts after they were taken off them by the network ahead of the show going to air. At one point, Jed appeared in good spirits as he posed with a three-litre bottle of Belvedere Vodka alongside his pal The upcoming season of The Bachelor featuring three leading men won't air until 2023. Jed is pictured alongside Felix Von Hofe (left) and Thomas Malucelli (right) Jed and fellow leads Thomas Malucelli and Felix Von Hofe have also been given permission to return to social media posting with new guidelines. The source added that several of the contestants vying for the trio's hearts aren't happy with the show being held over until the New Year. 'The show was filmed four months ago and the cast weren't able to return to social media until three months after the final air date,' they said. 'Some of them were hoping to be bona fide influencers by now.' Channel 10 is expected to make an announcement about the show at the network's upfronts presentation next month. 'Ten have made the call to delay the show until early 2023 so they can focus on promoting The Real Love Boat,' revealed a well-placed source Byron Bay influencer Jade Kevin Foster has recalled the terrifying moment a group of thugs assaulted him and stole his diamond engagement ring after a night out in Brisbane. Foster, known for starring on Netflix reality show Byron Baes, was attacked on 15 June, but has only now found the strength to discuss his harrowing experience publicly. Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia, Foster spoke of how he was at a nightclub promotion event with a pal in Brisbane when a group of men began stalking him. Byron Bay influencer Jade Kevin Foster (pictured) has recalled the terrifying moment a group of thugs stole his diamond engagement ring after a night out in Brisbane 'I noticed a group of three men outside my VIP booth at the event. They were drinking quite slowly and staring at me, but didn't think too much of it,' Foster recalled. Unfortunately, the star had unintentionally made it easy for the men to find him by posting his location on Instagram. 'I never had to second guess or question myself before posting on my social media telling fans where I will be or where I'm going, as I've only ever experienced positive encounters from followers who have come to my location to meet me,' he lamented. Pictured is Foster's pear-shaped diamond engagement ring, which was stolen during his attack on 15 June Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia this week, Foster spoke of how he was at a nightclub promotion event with a pal in Brisbane when a group of men began stalking him. (Pictured with his fiance Johnny Magz) Foster left the club alone at 4am and jumped into an Uber. Little did he know, he was being followed by the very men who were eyeballing him at the club. 'As I was dropped home and walking inside the same three men - now wearing different coloured hoodies and jumpers - approached me and threw me to my cement wall next to my garage,' he recalled. Foster found fame starring on Netflix reality show Byron Baes. (Pictured: Foster pictured with Byron Baes co-stars Lauren Johansen-Bell (left) and Jessica Johansen-Bel (right) 'The ringleader held his hand tightly over my mouth telling me to be quiet, while a second man grabbed my hand and stole my engagement ring.' Foster's fiance, fellow influencer Johnny Magz, was asleep inside. 'The third man kept aggressively asking me 'Who else is home?' to which I replied, 'My partner', he continued. Foster left the club alone at 4am and jumped into an Uber. Little did he know, he was being followed by the very men who were eyeballing him at the club 'As the main man took his hand off my mouth I screamed so loud the neighbours switched their lights on across the street. The men proceeded to jump back in their car and sped off.' 'I was in complete shock, I couldn't breathe and thought I was having a heart attack, I couldn't believe what just happened.' Foster immediately went to the police station 'hysterical in disbelief' but claims the officer told him to come back when the station opened at 8am. 'As I was dropped home and walking inside the same three men - now wearing different coloured hoodies and jumpers - approached me and threw me to my cement wall next to my garage,' he recalled The three men have not been found and Foster's ring has never been recovered. 'I haven't been helped at all and have completely lost all faith in our justice system,' Foster said. 'Even though I'm upset about the value and materialistic possession of the ring what I'm more upset about is the sentimental value that I have now lost and cannot be replaced.' 'The ringleader held his hand tightly over my mouth telling me to be quiet, while a second man grabbed my hand and stole my engagement ring,' he said The incident has also caused lasting psychological damage for Foster, who says he now struggles to trust others. 'I'm scared and constantly anxious looking over my shoulder. I wouldn't wish what happened to me upon anyone,' he said. Foster said he hopes his plight serves as a warning for others to be more careful about broadcasting their exact location on social media. Courtesy of Jul Lee By David Tizzard David A. Tizzard To define whether or not a country is modern is a rather difficult thing. Some of us instinctually reach for economic factors as a mark of a state's development. The simple equation being: the more cash it has, the more modern it is. Yet such figures can be deceiving. Rather than just mere gross domestic product, people expect a reasonable amount of economic distribution in a modern state and so look at GDP per capita. The two ways of presenting such information put South Korea either 12th or 36th. More dramatically, China drops from 2nd to 79th when seen in such a way. For others, money cannot buy modernity if certain values are lacking. The Gulf States, for example, are drowning in money providing fabulous backdrops for Instagram influencers wanting to flex. Yet there are those who would suggest that despite being able to buy gold from vending machines, there are cultural obstacles which prevent these countries from being modern. Whether such requirements are fair or rather a neo-colonial form of cultural imperialism remains a matter of perspective. It also raises the question of whether there are any absolute moral or ethical standards vis-a-vis modernization or whether we are all simply left adrift in a horizon-less ocean of liquid modernity and a post-Nietzschean world. Certainly there are many who believe a modern state is a secular one and not theocratic. Reason rules, not god. Ernest Renan gave this view its clearest pronouncement when he said, "Mankind used to believe, but now it knows." A wonderful irony being that tolerance allows anyone to believe what they want (from Buddhism, to Scientology, and Jedi) providing such beliefs don't influence their decisions should they be in positions of power. Gender, race, and sexual orientation are far more acceptable as choice-drivers than anything spiritual. How we derive ethics from science remains a very fun and interesting discussion though. Whether or not modernity has values, absolute or otherwise, it has certainly conquered time and space. We are no longer influenced by the natural rhythms of night and day, summer and winter. A modern state is one in which anything is available, all the time. Our desires no more constrained by the hour of the day or geographic location. We have swimming pools in winter, neon lights at night, and strawberries all year round. Fulfillment is instantaneous. It is achieved by large-scale urbanization: another important feature of modernity. With it, the civilizing process takes place as CCTV and social media become the Foucauldian panopticon observing our every move and threatening punishment should we do anything not 'normal'. As Freud, Stiglitz, and many others have observed, modernity brings with it discontents: anxiety, depression, and suicide. Atomized living and hyper-individualization is far too much for some to bear. What was once solid has melted. The necessity of becoming oneself, a branded commodity, is suffocating. Sadly, as suggested by Mark Fisher, this becomes seen as an individual problem requiring insurance, counselling, and the right amount of meds. All purchased with money of course. And the problems are attributed to chemical imbalances or generational trauma. Few ever dare suggest that the cause is structural or something inherent in the modern system itself. Despite this brief and clearly inadequate exploration of what modernity might be, I will end with the suggestion that South Korea is now more modern than its erstwhile sponsor, the United States. This is of course not to suggest that South Korea is perfect, far from it; nevertheless, its trajectory and modern environment is one of ascension and progress rather than regression. Its streets are relatively safe to walk a single tragic and senseless murder sees outrage and demand for immediate action and change rather than empty platitudes of thoughts and prayers; its shopping malls and churches free from mass shootings; drug and opioid crises on a nationwide scale non-existent. The health care is excellent and available. The transport and infrastructure is modern, clean, and cheap. The university classrooms are places of education and learning with professors still commanding respect and students free from ideological culture wars dividing the population. The culture itself promotes hard work, effort, study, and respect. It's easy to bash South Korea, and my column will attest to the fact that I'm not blind to these problems. But my word, isn't it worth celebrating the fantastic achievements once in a while? This country has achieved so much. Will it avoid the various pitfalls to which the west has succumbed? Perhaps. It will no doubt have its own problems on the journey. But when has this country ever done things the easy way? Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast, which can be found online. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times. Actor Andrew Garfield wound down his weekend by stocking up on toilet paper and other groceries on Sunday afternoon. The 39-year-old actor was spotted leaving Vintage Grocers in Malibu, carrying a pack of toilet paper in one hand and another bag of groceries in the other. The Spider-Man: No Way Home star also stayed safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic by wearing a medical-grade face mask. Errands: Actor Andrew Garfield wound down his weekend by stocking up on toilet paper and other groceries on Sunday afternoon Garfield stepped out with an old white t-shirt with a hole in it while stepping out on the grocery run. He also wore black shorts and black Nike slides while he headed to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon. The accomplished actor was also holding his phone as he went on the grocery run in Malibu. Andrew's look: Garfield stepped out with an old white t-shirt with a hole in it while stepping out on the grocery run The actor is coming off his first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his work in FX's Under the Banner of Heaven. He went up against Colin Firth (The Suitcase), Michael Keaton (Dopesick), Himesh Patel (Station Eleven), Oscar Isaac (Scenes From a Marriage) and Sebastian Stan (Pam & Tommy). He ultimately lost the Emmy to Dopesick star Michael Keaton at the Emmys, held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Emmy: The actor is coming off his first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his work in FX's Under the Banner of Heaven Garfield made headlines recently when he revealed on Marc Maron's WTF podcast that he abstained from sex for six months for his role as a priest in Silence, while addressing misconceptions about method acting. 'People are still acting in that way, and it's not about being an a**hole to everyone on set,' Garfield said. 'It's actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances, and being really nice to the crew simultaneously, and being a normal human being, and being able to drop it when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it,' he said. Abstain: Garfield made headlines recently when he revealed on Marc Maron's WTF podcast that he abstained from sex for six months for his role as a priest in Silence, while addressing misconceptions about method acting Acting: 'People are still acting in that way, and it's not about being an a**hole to everyone on set,' Garfield said While Garfield is mainly known for his big-screen movie roles, he'll be staying busy with a few TV projects over the next few years. He is part of a star-studded cast for Luca Guadagnino's Brideshead Revisited TV series with Cate Blanchett, Ralph Fiennes and Rooney Mara. The actor will also be playing entrepreneur Richard Branson in the new limited series Hot Air for Universal International Studios. Busy: While Garfield is mainly known for his big-screen movie roles, he'll be staying busy with a few TV projects over the next few years Sending a child off to college is one of the biggest milestones in any parent's life. And Gwyneth Paltrow compared the event to childbirth itself. The 49-year-old mogul sat down for an in-depth interview with CBS' Sunday Morning as she talked about sending her only daughter, Apple Martin, to college. Opening up: Gwyneth Paltrow sat down for an in-depth interview with CBS' Sunday Morning Bond: The 49-year-old mogul talked about sending her only daughter, Apple Martin, to college She did not share any details on the institution her eldest child with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is attending but she did talk candidly about the milestone. Gwyneth said: 'I know this sounds nuts, [but] it feels almost as profound as giving birth.' The Oscar winner and Chris, 45, - who also share 16-year-old son Moses - famously split in 2016 after nearly 13 years of marriage but still have a great relationship despite 'consciously uncoupling.' I know this sounds nuts, [but] it feels almost as profound as giving birth': She did not share any details on the institution her eldest child with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is attending but she did talk candidly about the milestone What does turning 50 look like to actress and wellness entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow? She talks with correspondent Tracy Smith about fame, family, and wellness. https://t.co/ToUeII7Xpd pic.twitter.com/wfcJhuTXgT CBS Sunday Morning (@CBSSunday) September 25, 2022 Family first: Gwyneth also has 16-year-old son Moses Of their relationship Gwyneth said: 'Hes completely my family, and I love him. 'And he would do anything for me. I would do anything for him. He would do anything for our kids. We really did commit to wanting our children to be as unscathed by the divorce as possible.' The couple were married for 11 years before famously 'consciously uncoupling' in 2014, followed by their official divorce in 2016. Aww: The Oscar winner and Chris, 45, famously split in 2016 after nearly 13 years of marriage but still have a great relationship despite 'consciously uncoupling' Of their relationship Gwyneth said: 'Hes completely my family, and I love him' She explained: 'And he would do anything for me. I would do anything for him. He would do anything for our kids. We really did commit to wanting our children to be as unscathed by the divorce as possible' In 2018, Gwyneth remarried to Glee producer Brad Falchuk, while Chris has been in a relationship with Dakota Johnson for the last few years. This comes just days after the A-lister has revealed that she is embracing her 'loosening skin and wrinkles' ahead of turning 50. The Goop founder, whose milestone birthday is on September 27, penned a candid essay about her aging on Thursday as she told how she has 'accepted her body and let go of the need to be perfect'. Elsewhere in the extract she opened up about owning her past mistakes, learning to set boundaries and her hopes for her future. Honest: Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed that she is embracing her 'loosening skin and wrinkles' ahead of turning 50 (left this month and right in 1999 age 26) The section about her aging reads: 'My body, a map of the evidence of all the days, is less timeless. A collection of marks and irregularities that dog-ear the chapters. Scarred from oven burns, a finger smashed in a window long ago, the birth of a child. 'Silver hair and fine lines. The sun has left her celestial fingerprints all over me, as if she soaked a brush in dark-taupe watercolor, flecking it over my skin. 'And while I do what I can to strive for good health and longevity, to stave off weakening muscles and receding bone, I have a mantra I insert into those reckless thoughts that try to derail me: I accept. Having her say: The Goop founder, whose milestone birthday is on September 27, penned a candid essay about her aging on Thursday as she told how she has 'accepted her body and let go of the need to be perfect' 'I accept the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles. I accept my body and let go of the need to be perfect, look perfect, defy gravity, defy logic, defy humanity. I accept my humanity.' Gwyneth is best known for her wellness brand Goop which sells a range of beauty products and accessories. Later in the essay she reflected on the regrets and mistakes that still keep her up at night, saying that she hopes she has 'learned from them all.' Candid: She penned: 'I accept the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles. I accept my body and let go of the need to be perfect, look perfect, defy gravity, defy logic, defy humanity' (pictured in 2000) 'I have hurt people, never intentionally, but I have done so just the same. I have let people down by not being who they needed me to be. I have betrayed myself to keep the peace,' she wrote. 'I have crossed lines, the thoughts of which sometimes rip me from sleep and suspend me into the hollowness of shame for a long, dark night. Most regretfully, and so often, I have not spoken my truth to spare some perceived consequence, that hurting someone will tear us both apart.' Paltrow admitted that she used to have a hard time standing up for herself and setting boundaries in both her personal life and career because she was afraid of upsetting people. She had appeared in a number of movies at a young age and won an Academy Award for her breakout performance in Shakespeare in Love in 1999. Confident: The section about her aging reads: 'My body, a map of the evidence of all the days, is less timeless. A collection of marks and irregularities that dog-ear the chapters' The actress also had high-profile romances with actors Ben Affleck and Brad Pitt, whom she broke up with just a few months after they got engaged in 1996. 'My most lasting mistakes and the mess that comes with them have all stemmed from me not standing fully in my truth and speaking from it, come what may,' she explained. 'Saying the words that could have spared seasons of heartache and repercussions. No. This does not feel right to me. Your expectations are not appropriate. Your behavior is not appropriate. This relationship is no longer right for me. This project is not right for me. You are no longer right for me.' Paltrow noted that she isn't sure if she would go back in time to correct her mistakes because they have taught her 'meaningful' lessons. Life: The Goop founder (pictured in 1996) also reflected on the regrets and mistakes that still keep her up at night, saying that she prays she has 'learned from them all' 'If nothing else, they have led me to a path of questioning. Of seeking a better version of myself,' she wrote. 'People often ask, "If you could go back to your 21-year-old self and give her some advice" Well, I would know my boundary and hold on to it more tightly than my life itself.' The mother of two has given similar advice to her children Apple, 18, and Moses, 16, whom she shares with her ex-husband, Chris Martin. She has encouraged them to trust their instincts and make decisions based on how they feel, especially when it comes to love and sex. Paltrow was instrumental in bringing down convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein, who had produced a number of her films, including Shakespeare in Love. The disgraced movie mogul was kicked out of the Academy in 2017 after he was accused of rape and sexual harassment by a slew of actresses. Strong: Paltrow, who wrote about learning to set boundaries and call out inappropriate behavior, was instrumental in bringing down convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein (pictured in 1999) The lifestyle guru shocked Hollywood when she joined the clamor of voices accusing him of abusing his power over women in the industry. Paltrow alleged that Weinstein came on to her at the start of filming Emma in 1995, saying he summoned her to his hotel room, put his hands on her, and then asked her for a massage. 'I had one really uncomfortable, weird experience; then he was never inappropriate with me again in that way,' she told Variety in 2019. Paltrow had previously shared that Pitt, her then-boyfriend, had confronted Weinstein for sexually harassing her, saying he threw the Hollywood heavyweight against a wall and said: 'If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I'll kill you.' Parent: The mom said she'd advise her 21-year-old self to 'know [her] boundary and hold on to it more tightly than [her] life itself.' She's given similar advice to her children Apple, 18, and Moses, 16 In 2020, she explained that she lost interest in her acting career at a young age after enduring an abusive working relationship with Weinstein, who is serving 23 years in prison after being convicted of felony sex crimes. The businesswoman, who now spends most of her days running her Goop brand, wrote in her 50th birthday essay that she wants to take more time for herself in the future and to continue to build on her relationship with her husband, Brad Falchuk 'I would like to slow down. I would like to retreat a little bit. I would like to make my circle smaller. I would like to cook dinner more. I would like to see misunderstandings become understandings,' she said. 'I would like to continue to open the deepest part of myself to my husband, even though it scares me. I would like to sing more, even if its just in the shower. I would like to tell anyone that had a negative experience with me that I am sorry. I would like to fully acknowledge myself.' Paltrow admitted that she is 'imperfect' while sharing both her flaws and strengths. 'I can shut down and turn to ice, I have no patience, I swear at other drivers, I dont close my closet doors, I lie when I dont want to hurt feelings,' she explained. 'I am also generous and funny. I am smart and brave. I am a searcher, and I can bring you along on my quest for meaning. When I love you, you will feel it encompass you through time and space and till the end of the earth. I am all of it.' With her 50th birthday less than a week away, she also discussed how she has come to terms with her aging body over the years. 'My body, a map of the evidence of all the days, is less timeless. A collection of marks and irregularities that dog-ear the chapters. Scarred from oven burns, a finger smashed in a window long ago, the birth of a child. Silver hair and fine lines. The sun has left her celestial fingerprints all over me, as if she soaked a brush in dark-taupe watercolor, flecking it over my skin,' she wrote. Incredible figure: Paltrow shared photos of herself frolicking in her yard in a bikini ahead of her birthday 'And while I do what I can to strive for good health and longevity, to stave off weakening muscles and receding bone, I have a mantra I insert into those reckless thoughts that try to derail me: I accept. I accept the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles. I accept my body and let go of the need to be perfect, look perfect, defy gravity, defy logic, defy humanity. I accept my humanity.' Paltrow noted that she could remember both of her parents' 50th birthdays, saying they were dramatically different celebrations. She recalled how her mom Blythe Danner's 50th birthday was held at Michael's restaurant in Los Angeles in February 1993, saying the 'dinner was delicious' and 'the good wine flowed.' 'Everyone was asked to contribute a poem instead of a typical gift,' she explained. 'I remember uproarious laughter, happy tears. I remember my mother full of life and joy at the convergence of the love on display, the deliciousness, and wonderful/heartfelt/brilliant/messy poems.' Chef: The cookbook author (pictured in 2011) also shared that she wants to 'slow down,' 'retreat,' and 'cook dinner more' in the future Paltrow said the following November she and her younger brother, Jake Paltrow, traveled to the island of Nevis with their parents to celebrate their dad Bruce Paltrow's birthday. In addition to the 'grey and unseasonably cool' weather, she could tell her father was going through something, but she couldn't figure out what. 'He said he was "fine," but I found him swallowed by something he felt bereft, unanchored in some way. It was unsettling,' she said. 'He could not embrace the milestone, this marking of the passage of time. Perhaps on some level he knew it would be his last decade.' Paltrow's father was 58 when he died from complications of oral cancer and pneumonia in October 2002. 'I am struck by how, for both of my parents, 50 seemed like a reckoning. For my mother, it was a culmination of the wonderous, the highs, the loves, the art. For my father, a culmination of sorrows,' she noted. Paltrow's memories of her own parents' birthdays have made her wonder what her teenage daughter and son will take from her 50th birthday celebration. 'I think of my children, now old enough to remember this "big" birthday of mine into their own adulthoods,' she said. 'Perhaps their memory of it will be neither that I was solely elated, nor grieving the things I lost or did not bring to fruition. 'I hope that they can feel me feel all the things and hold in the complexity of that notion. That they know I am both good through and through, yet sometimes not. That my feelings of regret and my mistakes can act as scaffolding for what I build from now on. That they are the greatest accomplishment of my life.' Michael Jackson's son Prince Jackson was seen enjoying a motorcycle ride in Malibu with girlfriend Molly Schirmang in tow. The 25-year-old heir of the King of Pop was dressed in all black as he stepped out with his longtime love. He pulled his hair back into a low ponytail as they made a coffee run to grab iced beverages. Out and about: Michael Jackson's son Prince Jackson was seen enjoying a motorcycle ride in Malibu with girlfriend Molly Schirmang in tow Molly, who's been with Prince since 2017, showed a slither of her stomach in jeans and a black top. They both wore jackets with Jackson stepping out in a black one and Schirmang opting for a forest green variety. Putting safety first, they wore protective black helmets while cruising on a black Harley Davidson. And they also sported utilitarian black gloves for their ride on the two-wheeled vehicle. Quality time: The 25-year-old heir of the King of Pop was dressed in all black as he stepped out with his longtime love Prince was dressed in dark-colored cargo pants and black boots that he teamed with a black t-shirt with a white skull print on the front. He kept the glaring sunshine out of his eyes with a pair of dark aviator sunglasses. His counterpart wore her blonde hair in a side part with the front strands tucked behind her ears. While on the bike she pulled the glossy locks back to keep them out of her face. She wore cuffed and belted denim blue jeans and sported a small black bag crossbody-style over her torso. Low-key: He pulled his hair back into a low ponytail as they made a coffee run to grab iced beverages Prince paid tribute to his relationship on social media back in March as the pair marked five years of dating. Sharing a carousel of images with his more than 800,000 followers he wrote in the caption, '5 year together,' with a red heart emoji. Then he continued, 'Lots of trips, miles, smiles, meals, desserts and all kinds of adventures in between. 'Love you babs,' he signed off on the post, which included intimate images of him and his girlfriend on his motorcycle. Fashionista: While Prince kept a low profile in California, his younger sister Paris Jackson was busy in Milan, Italy for fashion week While Prince kept a low profile in California, his younger sister Paris Jackson was busy in Milan, Italy for fashion week. The tattoo-covered beauty turned heads as she participated in multiple high fashion runway shows, including Missoni and Philipp Plein. Paris, who's just one year younger than Prince, joined the likes of public figures like model Joan Smalls and actress Indya Moore. Farmer Wants A Wife star Will Simpson is set to find love with Jess Cova on the show. Jess has been spotted on Will's farm post filming and has moved to the town of Berriwillock, Victoria,' reports So Dramatic. A source told the publication that Jess has been busy playing netball for the town's local side. The winner of Farmer Wants A Wife star Will's heart has been leaked with the lucky lady already 'relocating' to his farm 'From what I've heard they're very happy together and she's loving the community,' a source told the publication. Jess' parents, Rebecca and Mark Hurley, were also seen visiting the farm, giving away the secret their daughter has moved there. Jess' mother also follows Will on Instagram, who follows her back. While Will's sister is following Jess, who is following her back. Jess has been spotted on Will's farm post filming and has moved to the town of Berriwillock, Victoria,' reports So Dramatic! It comes amid news dairy farmer Harry was using a borrowed farm to woo contestants on the reality dating series. Harry, was presented on the show as owning a farm in Gloucester, NSW, but The Herald Sun has since revealed his property is located in Kyabram, Victoria. Seven confirmed the farm Harry used was not his real property in a statement to Daily Mail Australia, but insisted the show was not deceiving viewers or his potential partners. Channel Seven has confirmed that the property farmer Harry (pictured) used during his time on Farmer Wants A Wife was not his real property 'Due to Covid, part of Harry's Farmer Wants A Wife journey was filmed on a dairy farm near Gloucester,' a spokesman said in a statement. 'The location of the farm didn't impact the series as Harry's ladies were able to experience life on a dairy farm with Harry, including the early morning starts.' The dating series interestingly never refers to the farm as his own, with voiceovers instead referencing 'Farmer Harry' when the show cuts to his storyline. Farmer Wants a Wife continues Monday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven Pierce Brosnan shared a heartfelt tribute to his wife of 21 years Keely Shaye Smith on Monday as he wished her a happy birthday. The James Bond star, 69, took to Instagram to share snap of the loved-up pair embracing one another gushing how he loved her 'dearly'. Former model Keely, 58, looked stunning as she appeared bare-faced, wearing a beautiful pink flower at the side of her ear. Golden couple: Pierce Brosnan shared a heartfelt tribute to his wife of 21 years Keely Shaye Smith on Monday as he wished her a happy birthday on his Instagram account With her eyes closed, Keely placed her head on The James Bond star's shoulder while he grinned from ear-to-ear. His short but sweet love note read: 'Happy Birthday my darling @KeelyShayeBrosnan. I love you dearly. So many years of love, life, work and play. Onwards we go.' A host of Pierce's fans and showbiz pals were quick to reply to his post as they sent their well wishes on the special day. Actress Lyndie Benson commented saying: 'The most inspiring couple there ever was. Love you and HBD Queen Keely. Love you dearly too. @keelyshayebrosnan,' Wedding day: Pierce exchanged vows with Keely in his native Ireland in August of 2001 Love: His short but sweet love note read: 'Happy Birthday my darling @KeelyShayeBrosnan. I love you dearly. So many years of love, life, work and play. Onwards we go' Comment: A host of Pierce's fans and showbiz pals were quick to reply to his post as they sent their well wishes on the special day British born star Anna Friel gushed: 'Awwwwwww.' Tom Hanks' wife Rita Wilson posted: 'Happy Birthday 'nutty Keely' the sweetest ever!' While supermodel Cindy Crawford said: 'Happy birthday beautiful, soulful @keelyshayebrosnan!' Pierce exchanged vows with Keely in his native Ireland in August of 2001. The couple met at a party in 1994 after the death of Pierce's first wife Cassandra Harris in 1991, and hit it off before eventually deciding to tie the knot seven years later. Sweet: The couple met at a party in 1994 after the death of Pierce's first wife Cassandra Harris in 1991, and hit it off before they tied the knot seven years later (pictured in 2018) The couple share two sons together, Dylan, 25, and Paris, 21, and are the youngest of Pierce's five children. The Mamma Mia! hunk also has son Sean, 38, and adopted son Chris, 49, as well as his late adopted daughter Charlotte with Cassandra. Pierce adopted Cassandra's children Chris and Charlotte after their father Dermot Harris died in 1986. Pierce has often been vocal about how Keely saved him from depression following his personal tragedies, describing her as a strength 'I wouldn't be able to live without.' Pierce in April of 2017 opened up to People about how the pair enjoy one another's company. He said: 'My wife and I took a short road trip up to Santa Barbara - we were going for a romantic weekend and to look at houses and drink great wine,' he said. 'We didn't listen to any music, but we just listened to the sounds of each other's voices and sorted out the world.' Romance: Pierce has often been vocal about how Keely saved him from depression following his personal tragedies, describing her as a strength 'I wouldn't be able to live without' Meanwhile, the actor has a number of projects due out this year, including the movie The King's Daughter, in which he plays King Louis XIV; the DC film Black Adam, in which he will play Dr. Fate alongside Dwayne Johnson; and The Out-Law, an action-comedy also featuring Nina Dobrev and Michael Rooker. Brosnan will also be featured in a project for The History Channel called History's Greatest Heists, which will chronicle large-scale robberies that have occurred, Deadline reported Wednesday. The series will air in eight installments and chronicle events ranging from 1899's Wilcox train robbery to 1950's Great Brink robbery in Boston, with 'stylized' recreations of the crimes and visual effects, the outlet reported. The 2023 season of The Block will film in Hampton East, Victoria, and Channel Nine has snatched up five houses in the area for the Blockheads to renovate. A first look at the properties reveals a series of quaint, suburban brick houses that look primed for a makeover. The classic dwellings on Charming Street were sold to Micjoy Pty Ltd, a company owned by Nine, between June 29 and July 1, reports Realestate.com.au. The 2023 season of The Block will film in Hampton East, Victoria, and Channel Nine have snatched up five houses in the area for the Blockheads to renovate. Pictured: Scott Cam Producers for the hit renovation show spent $14.3million on the row of five homes in Hampton East, in Melbourne's Bayside, 14km from the CBD. Only one of the five properties purchased along the row of homes at numbers 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22 has two bedrooms. The other four boast three to four bedrooms. The Block filmed its 2021 season in neighbouring Hampton, only two kilometres from the 2023 location. A first look at the properties reveals a series of quaint, suburban brick houses that look primed for a makeover The classic dwellings on Charming Street were sold to Micjoy Pty Ltd, a company owned by Nine, between June 29 and July 1, reports Realestate.com.au Producers for the hit renovation show spent $14.3million on the row of five homes in Hampton East, in Melbourne's Bayside, 14km from the CBD One of the Block's regulars, Denise Jacobs, said East Hampton was 'taking off' even if it was the 'poor cousin' to Hampton, which tends to be pricier. The buyers agent, who sold her own home in Hampton to Nine for $1.59million for the 2021 season of The Block, described Charming Street as 'great'. 'It's a happy little pocket and there are some lovely established homes,' she said. Only one of the five properties purchased along the row of homes at numbers 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22 has two bedrooms. The other four boast three to four bedrooms The Block filmed its 2021 season in neighbouring Hampton, only two kilometres from the 2023 location The teams are each building a home on 10 acres of land The prices buyers paid for the Hampton homes in 2021 were between $2.3million and $3million, so fans should expect to see similar prices for East Hampton. Jacobs added that the 2023 season of The Block will be 'easier' for the producers than the current season. The Block 2022 was being filmed in Gisborne, in country Victoria, a 40-minute drive from Melbourne, and is said to be one of the most ambitious seasons yet. One of the Block's regulars, Denise Jacobs, said East Hampton was 'taking off' even if it was the 'poor cousin' to Hampton, which tends to be pricier Jacobs added that the 2023 season of The Block will be 'easier' for the producers than the current season The buyers agent, who sold her own home in Hampton to Nine for $1.59million for the 2021 season of The Block, described Charming Street as 'great'. Meanwhile, Channel Nine has this month begun casting for next year's season of The Block The teams are each building a home on 10 acres of land. Meanwhile, Channel Nine has this month begun casting for next year's season of The Block. Would-be Blockheads for the nineteenth season are told to expect filming to begin in March 2023 and last for 10 to 12 weeks, reports 9Honey. Lily Collins has unveiled her brand new haircut ahead of the much anticipated third season of Emily In Paris - which will see the character give herself a fresh do'. The actress, 33, who plays eponymous Emily Cooper, took to Instagram this week to show off her usually middle-parted brunette locks as they sported a choppy fringe. And it comes as Netflix have given a sneak peek into the new series of the show, where the star can be seen as she ponders a 'hard decision' whilst drastically taking the scissors to her hair. Emily gets the chop in Paris! Lily Collins has unveiled her brand new haircut ahead of the much anticipated third season of Emily In Paris - which will see the character give herself a fresh do' Posing for a snap in an oversized pinstripe shirt, Lily looked gorgeous with the new look - as her chestnut locks fell into a soft curl. 'The kids are calling it coastal grandmother,' she captioned while showing off the new bangs. And it appears fans of Emily In Paris will get to see the trim on-screen, with the release date for the new series announced as December 21. Throwback: The actress, 33, who plays eponymous Emily Cooper, took to Instagram this week to show off her usually middle-parted brunette locks as they sported a choppy fringe (pictured before) Yay! Netflix revealed the release date of the much anticipated third season of Emily In Paris on Saturday, with the first trailer showing main character Emily cutting a fringe In the recently released teaser clip, the marketing whiz chops into her fringe as she stands in front of the mirror - whilst her pal Mindy (Ashley Park) screams, 'Emily, no!' Further in the teaser, following a montage of clips from the upcoming season, she could be seen reassuring her love interest Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) that 'everything is fine.' The sneak peak concludes with a black screen that reads 'Only on Netflix, December 21,' as the release date was finally revealed. Back again: The much-anticipated third season will see Lily reprise her role as Emily Cooper in the Frecnh city Soon: The streaming service delighted fans with a sneak peak of the upcoming series in which they announced its release for December 21 (pictured is Gabriel's love interest Gabriel) OMG! In the clip, the main protagonist Emily can be seen as she ponders a 'hard decision' whilst drastically taking the scissors to her hair It comes after Lily Collins offered her 26.8M Instagram followers a glimpse into the long-awaited season of her Netflix drama. Season two of the show left fans on the edge of their seats with the cliffhanger of whether the actress's eponymous character will stay in the City of Love or head home to the US - and which love interest she'll end up with. Teasing viewers to 'get ready for another wild ride', Lily shared a slew of snapshots from the new season, featuring returning co-stars such as Lucien Laviscount and Lucas Bravo. Reaction: Standing in the bathroom mirror, the marketing whiz chops into her fringe whilst her pal Mindy (Ashley Park) screams, 'Emily, no!' Busy: Following a montage of clips from the upcoming season, she could be seen reassuring her love interest Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) that 'everything is fine' Upcoming: The sneak peak concludes with a black screen that reads 'Only on Netflix, December 21,' as the release date was finally revealed Season two saw Emily's new beau Alfie (Lucien) admit that he's heading back to the UK after some time in Paris - hoping to keep the romance alive long-distance. But things weren't so straight forward for the couple, following a messy love triangle between Emily, her neighbour Gabriel (Lucas) and his girlfriend, Camille - who is Emily's best friend. And as one of the teaser snaps shows Emily seemingly getting close to Alfie during season three, fans are now left curious for an update on which suitor the main character will end up with. Tough: Season two saw Emily's new beau Alfie (Lucien) admit that he's heading back to the UK after some time in Paris - hoping to keep the romance alive long-distance Coming soon! It comes after Lily offered her 26.8M Instagram followers a glimpse into the long-awaited season of her Netflix drama as she teased at 'new love triangles' Triangle: One of the teaser snaps shows Emily seemingly getting close to Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) during season three as fans are now left curious for an update Get ready! Taking to the caption, Lily teased fans to 'get ready for another wild ride' Taking to the caption, Emily explained: 'First look at @emilyinparis Saison Trois!! Get ready for new looks, new locations, new love triangles Merci France for being a home away from home and embracing us yet again. 'So proud of this cast and crew and cannot WAIT for you all to see what our girl Emily gets up to! Get ready for another wild ride' One teaser shot from the new season shows the star soaking up the French sun in a gingham bikini as she sips on a drink poolside, while the show's stars such as Ashley Park and Camille Razat were also seen on-screen. Another displayed Gabriel and Emily appearing to be in a tense conversation, following the latter's season 2 slip up that she's in love with her taken neighbour. The first episode of Strictly Come Dancing aired just two days ago and Jayde Adams has set her sights on Blackpool week already. The comedian 37, has revealed she would love to make it to the spiritual home of UK ballroom dancing in tribute to her late sister Jenna, who died from a brain tumour 11 years ago at the age of just 28. She said her experience on the show is 'bittersweet' given that her dance-loving sister is not around to see her perform on the show. Strictly star Jayde Adams, (right), says she would love to make it to Blackpool week in tribute to her late sister Jenna who died from a brain tumour 11 years ago at the age of just 28 - (pictured with her sister) Speaking in an emotional interview with the Guardian's G2, the BBC star told how it was 'bittersweet' to take part in the dancing competition to honour her sibling - who studied contemporary dance at university. During the very first series of Strictly in 2004, Jayde turned to her family at home and said: 'I'm going to be on Strictly.' Blackpool week and the ballroom has ever since loomed large in Jayde and her late sister's childhood. Dancing queen: The BBC star said it was 'bittersweet' to take part in the dancing competition to honour her sibling - who studied contemporary dance at university Remarking on the chances of getting to the later stages of the competition, Jayde said: 'That would be amazing, if I can last.' What makes the journey even more sentimental is how one of the shows falls on what would have been Jenna's 40th birthday. Speaking about her late family member she said: 'She wouldn't have ever really understood any of the standup or the cabaret I've done she didn't really watch that sort of stuff. Eyes on the prize: Remarking on the chances of getting to the later stages of the competition, Jayde said: 'That would be amazing, if I can last' 'But she would understand this. It will be bittersweet.' The podcast host also admitted that her sister's absence will be huge but she is determined to do her very best: 'What if I hadn't been able to tell her story in 2016: would I have any of this stuff? 'All I know is I'd give it all up to spend a day with her. But that's not possible so I'm just going to go and smash Strictly,' she said. As a child, growing up in Bristol, Jayde used to enter freestyle disco-dancing competitions alongside her sister who was two years older than her. The pair used to do the cha-cha-cha 'quite a lot together' and to go clubbing and do synchronised dance routines where everyone would watch. While Jayde failed to win any competitions, however Jenna was more successful with Jayde joking she won 'loads. The b*tch.' However, the day Jayde did win, in a performance with her sister at one of the disco dancing's main contests at a holiday camp, is cemented in her mind. The presenter explained how she came off stage, people were touching her 'like she was a god' and was perhaps the moment when she realised she wanted to be a performer, describing it as 'her first experience of the rush of audience appreciation' - something which Jenna had before because 'she was so good.' Emotional: Jayde broke down in tears after getting a standing ovation on her first week performance on Strictly Come Dancing Jayde's words come after she broke down in tears after getting a standing ovation for her first week performance during Strictly's first live show on Saturday. The writer gave a sassy, attitude filled performance with her professional partner Karen Hauer, leaving the audience and judges stood up on their feet giving a thunderous round of applause. Motsi Mabuse, who stood after Jayde's performance alongside Shirley Ballas, excitedly claimed: 'Samba you're in trouble, you've never met this woman!', while Shirley quipped: 'I haven't seen that much attitude on week one - just fantastic!' They've got the moves: An excited Motsi exclaimed: 'Samba you're in trouble, you've never met this woman!', while Shirley quipped: 'I haven't seen that much attitude on week one!' They turned up the heat to kick off the first week of Strictly Come Dancing by giving their all to a Samba, dancing along to Dirrty by Christina Aguilera. Jayde, who stands at 6ft 2in tall, wore a showstopping first week outfit wearing a black and silver sparkling dress with her wild blonde curls thrown up in a high ponytail. Dance partner Karen stunned in a sparkling mini dress and her warm brown curly locks worn loosely. Amazed: Tess Daly asked how she was feeling about receiving a standing ovation for her performance, she put her hand to her face and looked down without being able to say a word Hug it out: Jayde, who stands at 6ft 2in tall, wore a showstopping first week outfit wearing a black and silver sparkling dress with her wild blonde curls thrown up in a high ponytail When asked by host Tess Daly how she was feeling about receiving a standing ovation for her performance, she put her hand to her face and looked down without being able to say a word. After receiving her score of 23 out of 40 from the judges, Jayde struggled to hide her emotions as she paid tribute to Karen. Nothing her fellow celebrities who cheered as she received her score, Jayde said: 'I love you all so much! If I think about it too much I am going to cry.' Turning to Karen, she added: 'We get to do this once a week, and you'll say it with your partners as well. It's all about you, baby. 'This Strictly experience is going to be through you and I'm so proud. It's been a great time rehearsing with her, it has been amazing.' She is never shy showing off her incredible physique on social media. And Carol Vorderman showed off her sensational figure in her latest sizzling Instagram video on Monday. The television personality, 61, showed off her sensational figure in a busty zip-up khaki top and matching gym leggings. Wow! Carol Vorderman showed off her sensational figure in a busty zip-up khaki top and matching gym leggings in her latest sizzling Instagram video on Monday Carol looked radiant as she opted for a natural makeup look and styled her golden locks straight in the short social media clip. The mathematician, who has been sharing her fitness journey with her fans, said: 'So I've got a very sweaty kettlebell session coming up now. I did it yesterday and woah was it hard - 25 minutes, more or less non-stop, online and it's free on YouTube. 'I found this amazing couple, called Juice and Toyah and they have lots of different workouts and I really like them.' Beauty: Carol looked radiant as she opted for a natural makeup look and styled her golden locks straight in the short social media clip It comes after Carol put on yet another sizzling display as she showed of her curves during a spa day while holidaying in Portugal last week. The former Countdown whizz was enjoying a pampering after recently returning from a Portuguese fitness retreat. Carol told fans that she had opted for lymphatic drainage massage as a treatment to maintain her youthful face. She wrote: 'Tried to do some mirror selfies...not sure I succeeded.....looking all hoity toity and posh in one of them. Lols. As if. I couldn't be that if I actually tried. Glam: It comes after Carol put on yet another sizzling display as she showed of her curves during a spa day while holidaying in Portugal last week Carol has embarked upon an incredible body transformation in recent months. Earlier in the year, she showed off her weight loss and new hair in a series of sultry selfies, after getting a blow dry at her local salon. Carole posed up for a mirror selfie in a racy skintight outfit, after dropping a dress size at a fitness retreat in Portugal. Detailing the visit via Instagram, Carol shared her intense workouts during the visit - in which guests only drink juices for the duration of their visit. Looking trim and toned: Carol recently showed off her weight loss and new hair in a skintight outfit - after losing a dress size during her stay at the fitness retreat in Portugal 'We're coming home soon....still another day to go. 18 days -3 days (going to restaurants) = 15 days on juice here at @juicemasterretreats @jasonvale,' she wrote online during her stay at the retreat. She continued: 'I've dropped over a dress size and bursting with energy. Haven't been into these shorts for a few years and now they're loose. Boommmm. 'My other half here @jules__sampson has dropped TWO dress sizes and looks incredible and feels so strong. 'It's a special place here. So chilled out and happy. Jason has created the magic alright.' Ali Bastian has revealed she's expecting her second child with husband David O' Mahony. The Hollyoaks star, 40, announced that she is five months along and is expecting her bundle of joy in February. She debuted her blossoming baby bump in a sweet photoshoot with OK! Magazine, alongside her husband and their two-year-old daughter Isla Rose. Congratulations! Ali Bastian has revealed she's expecting her second child with husband David O' Mahony In an interview with the publication, Ali revealed how she told her daughter the exciting news: 'Isla came into our room one morning and we were having snuggles. I said to David over her head, 'I think we should tell her now' and he agreed. 'I said, 'Have you noticed that mummy's tummy has been getting bigger?' and she said 'Yes!' I said, 'I've got a baby in my tummy.' And then there was this big smile across her face. 'I wish we had captured that, it was magical, Ill never forget it. She understood. I said, You are going to be a big sister and her face lit up.' Good news: The Hollyoaks star, 40, announced that she is five months along and is expecting her bundle of joy in February (pictured during her first pregnancy) The soap star gave birth to her first child in March 2020, during the first coronavirus lockdown. In a sweet post shared to Instagram, the actress gushed over her 'beautiful baby girl' after welcoming her bundle of joy. She shared two images of her newborn's hands and feet as she penned: 'Shes here! We welcomed our beautiful baby girl into the world last week' - months after a heartbreaking New Year's Eve miscarriage. Family: The soap star gave birth to her first child in March 2020, during the first coronavirus lockdown Expressing her delight at being a first-time mother, the elated parent wrote: 'Words cannot describe how much we love her already. 'We have climbed whole heartedly into the most beautiful of new parent bubbles and are enjoying some quiet family time. Mum and baby are doing brilliantly. More soon xxxx @davidcomahony', Ali added. Posting the same images, stage actor David wrote on his social media account: 'The first handhold. #NewDad #Dad #Daddysgirl.' The Bill actress was met with praise from her industry pals, as fellow new mothers, reality star Lady Nadia Essex and Celebs Go Dating's Anna Williamson warmly welcomed Ali into parenthood. Milestone: In a sweet post shared to Instagram, the soap star uploaded two snaps of Isla's hands and feet after welcoming her bundle of joy The TV star first revealed she was expecting a child in October 2019, a few months after she tied the knot to David. The happy couple wed in an intimate ceremony at the Old Marylebone Town Hall in London, before Ali opted to jump back into work following their honeymoon in the Maldives. Ali, who currently stars in BBC hit Doctors, told HELLO! at the time: 'We feel incredibly lucky. The moment I found out, I was so excited I could hardly speak.' The blonde admitted that morning sickness took its toll during her pregnancy as she shared: 'I can't even make a cup of tea or coffee for anyone as that makes me feel sick. Couple: The happy couple wed in an intimate ceremony at the Old Marylebone Town Hall in London in 2019 (pictured in June 2019) 'And I couldn't go near a fridge or dishwasher. I can only go near a fridge now if I hold my breath.' Ali also opened up for the first time publicly about the heartbreaking miscarriage she suffered on New Year's Eve. A miscarriage is the loss of a pregnancy during the first 23 weeks. According to the NHS, It is highly unlikely that you will ever know the actual cause of a one-off miscarriage. On her heartbreaking experience, the media personality: 'It took a while to process it emotionally. I had been so excited I'd wrapped up the pregnancy test and put it in the Christmas tree for David. I think I was a bit naive about how fragile it all was. 'I've now got to the point where I feel comfortable talking about it. So many people go through this, which is why we want to be open.' 'Amid chip downturn, SoftBank wants Samsung's financial help for Arm's successful US IPO' By Kim Yoo-chul SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son's plan to meet Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in Seoul comes just months after the global tech investor dropped plans for the London listing of British chip designer Arm due to the departures of investment minister Gerry Grimstone and digital minister Chris Philp following the resignation of of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Grimstone and Philp played leading roles in talks with SoftBank over the U.K. listing. Son is set to ask the Samsung chief to forge a strategic alliance with Arm, while the Korean chipmaker appears to be somewhat stumped, saying that it has no idea what Son's business proposal could be. Samsung didn't elaborate further. After President Yoon Suk-yeol granted a pardon for the Samsung leader, the company's top executives are increasingly being asked to implement very detailed and applicable business plans to boost shareholder returns amid a slowdown in demand for memory chips. Samsung's share price fell some 30 percent from January to Sept. 23, while South Korea's benchmark KOSPI index was down 23 percent during the same period, according to data provided by the Korea Exchange (KRX). Samsung Electronics had some 6 million minority shareholders as of today following its 50-to-1 stock split in 2018. Senior company executives said that Samsung, which is a leader in the global memory chip industry, is on track to explore acquisition opportunities in order to secure future growth engines. However, despite repeated positive comments by Samsung executives over the progress of its corporate acquisition efforts, several sources familiar with the issues said chances are low that Samsung will pursue a sizable stake in the British chip designer. "First, the departures of the two British ministers mean a lot because they were strong supporters in backing Son's idea for Arm's London initial public offering (IPO). SoftBank will pursue a direct U.S. listing of Arm. Its founder Son needs Samsung's support for Arm's successful U.S. listing process," a senior industry executive said via telephone, asking not to be named. In June this year, Son told investors and shareholders that he was in favor of a U.S. listing because most of Arm's clients are based there. Plus, its CEO Rene Haas recently told the Financial Times that Arm wants to use the capital raised from its upcoming IPO to look at pursuing deals. "Arm executives are pretty confident the company can stand on its own two feet. The timing is good for us," Hass was quoted as saying. The U.S. market is much better than London in terms of liquidity and the number of prospective larger investors. Meanwhile, Arm's battle over control of its China unit, earlier considered the biggest hurdle to pursuing an IPO, has been resolved. Samsung could play role of financial investor Simply put, SoftBank is in severe financial trouble because of the global sell-off of technology stocks. Gains made through its investment arm, Vision Funds, in tech startups including Alibaba, Coupang and Doordash were almost wiped out. Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, left, and SoftBank Founder Masayoshi Son, right, arrive at the Korea Furniture Museum in Seoul, in this July 4, 2019, file photo, to attend a dinner with leaders of South Korean conglomerates. Korea Times file Son said he was ashamed of himself for being so elated by big profits in the past. Son drastically scaled back investments as Vision Fund spent $600 million in new investments in the first quarter of this year down from $20.6 billion in the same period, a year ago. "While Samsung's cash reserves were at some 130 trillion won, as of August this year, it is unlikely for Samsung to serve as a kind of white knight to save SoftBank by purchasing major stakes in Arm because there's no need to do so," another executive said on condition of anonymity. The entire value of Arm is estimated at some 95 trillion won, at least. Samsung has acquired 29 companies including seven in the last five years. A total of four acquisitions happened from private equity firms (PEFs). It also divested a total of seven assets. Samsung's largest-ever acquisition was in 2016 when the company bought Harman for $8 billion. It has acquired in seven different U.S. states and nine countries, while the company's most preferred target sectors include software products and software services, according to company disclosures. "Recent failed attempts at blockbuster deal proposals were due to regulatory concerns regarding national security and competition. Samsung may take a role as a financial investor through the participation of Arm's U.S. IPO process by purchasing large volumes of new shares, for example," the executive added. SoftBank owns a 75 percent stake in Arm with Vision Funds owning the remaining 25 percent. Son hopes to remain as the largest shareholder in it by only selling the stakes owned by Vision Funds, said sources close to the matter. "SoftBank wants to ensure prospective Wall Street investors that its $60 billion valuation target for Arm is supported by major partners including Samsung. In fact, Son hopes to use his meeting with Samsung's Lee as a bar to boost the financial value of Arm in the eyes of other buyers," said an executive by telephone at a local PEF, who has previously handled sizable deals. "Investor sentiment for semiconductor stocks will recover from early next year." ASML case, no huge synergy even for a part of Arm Citing a top industry official, The Korea Times was the first to report Samsung's plan to acquire between a 3 percent and a 5 percent stake in Arm as a way to reduce payable royalties. The reports also went on to say that Arm will be acquired by a consortium led by multiple parties given the complex nature of Arm's shareholding structure. Samsung responded to this by saying the story was "groundless." An ARM and SoftBank Group branded board is displayed at a news conference in London, UK July 18, 2016. Reuters-Yonhap They've made no secret of their dislike for one another. And TOWIE enemies Dani Imbert and Chloe Meadows were seen embroiled in a bitter bust-up as they filmed upcoming scenes for the ITVbe series. Pictures show the duo in the midst of a cat-fight giving each other the middle finger with co-star Junaid Ahmed left to witness their war of words. Cat fight: TOWIE enemies Dani Imbert and Chloe Meadows were seen embroiled in a bitter bust-up as they filmed upcoming scenes for the ITVBe series It's unclear who started the argument, however - the pair let rip in the midst of an Essex market. Dani, who was dressed in a white cut-out gown stared Chloe straight in the eye as she shared the rude gesture. Chloe then gestured back, determined to make her point to Dani as she seemed incredibly frustrated. Angry: Pictures show the duo in the midst of a cat-fight giving each other the middle finger with co-star Junaid Ahmed left to witness their war of words It's unclear who started the argument, however - the pair let rip in the midst of an Essex market At one stage Junaid had to step in and try put a halt to the arguing as things started to heat up. Dani, who is a relative TOWIE newbie but who has been causing waves on the ITVBe show ever since her arrival. The cast member looked completely dumbfounded as Chloe vented her frustrations. Talk to the hand: : The castmember looked completely dumbfounded as Chloe vented her frustrations It is unclear what caused the argument but it is likely to involve Gatsby, who Chloe considers one of her best friends. Earlier this month, Gatsby, real name Liam Blackwell, broke down in tears as he confided to his mum how he thought Dani was not loyal in the aftermath of their break-up Looking to be on much better terms on the day was Dan Edgar and Amber Turner. Loved-up: Looking to be on much better terms on the day was Dan Edgar and Amber Turner Stunner: Brunette beauty Elma Pazar also look in great spirits as she joined the cast for filming - looking stunning in a frilled co-ord The long term couple both put on a very stylish display as they took a break from filming. Brunette beauty Elma Pazar also look in great spirits as she joined the cast on set looking stunning in a frilled co-ord. Chloe Meadows' best friend Courtney Green was also present, looking stunning in a lace bodysuit. Raunchy: Chloe Meadows' best friend Courtney Green was also present for filming, looking stunning in a lace bodysuit Couple goals: Amy Childs and her boyfriend Billy Delbosq also put on a united display for the outing as they cosied up to each other on the day Bronzed: Newcomers Mia Sully and Hannah Voyan both put on a leggy display as they turned up the heat during filming OG: Original cast member and make-up artist Harry Derbidge cut a casual figure on the day wearing a buttoned-up shirt and a pair of ripped denim jeans Newcomers Mia Sully and Hannah Voyan both put on a leggy display as they turned up the heat during filming. Original cast member and make-up artist Harry Derbidge cut a casual figure on the day wearing a buttoned-up shirt and a pair of ripped denim jeans. One of the series favourite characters James Bennewith also known as Diags put on an animated display on the day as he larked around in between scenes. Meanwhile, Chloe Brockett looked tense as she strolled through the market wearing a striped co-ord. Hands up: One of the series favourite characters James Bennewith also known as Diags put on an animated display on the day as he larked around in between scenes Pensive: Meanwhile, Chloe Brockett looked tense as she strolled through the market wearing a striped co-ord Amy Childs and her boyfriend Billy Delbosq also put on a united display for the outing as they cosied up to each other on the day. TOWIE's newest couple, Pete Wicks and Ella Rae Wise also looked loved-up with each other. Former bad boy Pete looked smitten with Ella as he wrapped his arm around the stunning blonde. Cheers! Pete Wicks quenched his thirst with a bottle of lager as he took a break between scenes Cooled off? Chloe Meadows appeared to have cooled down as she was all smiles as she posed for a snap later in the day Lust: Former bad boy Pete looked smitten with Ella as he wrapped his arm around the stunning blonde The pictures come after Ella aired her thoughts on her 11-year age gap with her co-star fter the pair rekindled their will-they won't-they romance. The reality star, 22, has revealed her concerns over 'what people will think' about her relationship with Pete, 33, but admitted that she is 'more mature than her age'. Speaking to The Sun, Ella explained: 'He is 11 years older than me. It is quite a bit,' before confessing that Pete worries about outside opinions. Comment: Ella has aired her thoughts on her 11-year age gap with co-star Pete Wicks, 33, after the pair rekindled their will-they won't-they romance She continued: 'It's hard because in my head I am not 21, I feel like I am more mature than my age and I get that from people too. 'Even Pete doesn't feel like he's talking to a 21-year-old when he talks to me.' Ella also expressed her fears about the pair not being able to stay friends if their romance didn't work out, saying she isn't sure if Pete is 'looking for a relationship'. Mature: Ella said 'It's hard because in my head I am not 21, I feel like I am more mature than my age and I get that from people too' (James Bennewith, Ella and Pete L-R in 2019) MailOnline has contacted Pete's representatives for comment. It comes as The Only Way Is Essex stars were seen as they sat down for an al fresco date in the stunning setting as they filmed upcoming scenes for the ITVBe Show. Pete and Ella looked to have rekindled their flame as they were also seen enjoying a kiss and cosy embrace after the ITV Summer Party last month. The blonde beauty and the tattooed hunk had a steamy smooch outside Stringfellows in central London, after their brief romance during last year's series of TOWIE swiftly fizzled out over their 11-year age gap. Ella and Pete dominated the 2021 series of ITV's The Only Way Is Essex with their undeniable chemistry. Older: 'Even Pete doesn't feel like he's talking to a 21-year-old when he talks to me' she added The pair never made it official. The will-they, won't-they couple then decided they were a better match as 'flirty friends' after they shared an off-screen kiss. He also admitted he wasn't looking for a relationship after two failed relationships with TOWIE co-stars Chloe Sims and Megan McKenna. In an interview with Closer Magazine in April, Ella said: 'When I said to the girls, 'we're quite flirty,' I think they took it as a little thing; they didn't realise how flirty we were. Even the show producers said, 'we can sit there and watch you look at each other.'' History: Ella and Pete dominated the 2021 series of ITV's The Only Way Is Essex with their undeniable chemistry but never made it official But nonetheless, Ella decided she needed to do what was best for her at the time. 'Pete hasn't got the best track record when it comes to that and I've been hurt before, so I'm focusing on myself right now.' She added: 'But never say never if it happens, it happens. I'm not going put pressure on the situation. If it's meant to be, it'll find its way.' Stacey Hampton has shared moving images of her young sons bravely facing their father's funeral. Senior Rebels boss Shane Smith, 38, was killed in a motorcycle crash in Adelaide's north-east earlier this month. The father-of-four died at the scene, despite paramedics' desperate attempts to revive him. Stacey Hampton has shared moving images of her young sons bravely facing their father's funeral. All pictured Married at First Sight star Stacey, 28, shares the two boys - Kruz and Kosta - with Smith. In the images, which were posted to Instagram on Monday, Stacey and her sons each wore black outfits. The little boys managed to share a warm moment with their mother despite the tragic circumstances. 'Proudest mother,' Stacey wrote in the caption alongside the images 'Proudest mother,' Stacey wrote in the caption alongside the images, as well as adding a white love heart and praying hands emoji. She was inundated with support from her fans, with one writing: 'Thinking of you all today' while one more wrote, 'Sending lots of love to you Stacey'. Another said: 'Sending much love and light to you all I do hope the boys are coping okay as well as yourself'. Senior Rebels boss Shane Smith, 38, (left) was killed in a motorcycle crash in Adelaide's north-east earlier this month. Pictured together 'It was sort of like, how dare you do that to me, so I am going to do that to you,' she said The former reality star recently paid a heartbreaking tribute to her bikie ex and hailed the father of her two sons as an amazing dad with a heart of gold. It's the latest in a series of tragedies to hit Hampton after her father took his own life and her brother's tragic death - also in a motorcycle accident - on the day she was due to give birth. Hampton dated Smith from the age of 19 until their split in July 2017, a month before he was convicted of bashing two nightclub bouncers Hampton dated Smith from the age of 19 until their split in July 2017, a month before he was convicted of bashing two nightclub bouncers. The Rebels' Adelaide president was also the father of her two young boys Kruz and Kosta and had her name tattooed on his hand. Hampton had remained on good terms with Smith since their separation five years ago. The former reality star paid a heartbreaking tribute to her bikie ex and hailed the father of her two sons as an amazing dad with a heart of gold. Pictured with their son 'He is now at peace with his brother, mother and friends,' Hampton told Nine News. 'He was an amazing father. He adored his children and his parents. Our hearts are broken, and our lives will never be the same. 'He had a heart of gold and adored his family and friends.' The former couple share sons Kruz and Kosta. Smith has Stacey and Kosta's names tattooed on his hand Smith described himself on his Facebook profile as 'straight up (and) loyal to those loyal to me'. He also included: 'One club one life, family is everything.' His distraught sister was among those who laid flowers at the scene in Redwood Park. Smith's passenger, a 45-year-old man who was riding on the back of the bike, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The father-of-four died at the scene, despite paramedics' desperate attempts to revive him In 2020, she defended Smith and urged society not to judge her ex on his criminal past. 'He's honestly the greatest person, and I think he's ashamed of his past,' she said in a magazine interview. 'I met him when I was really young, 19, through mutual friends, and I wasn't aware of his lifestyle, but I fell for him so quickly,' she continued. Proud parent Shane Smith poses with Kosta (left) and a newborn Kruz in 2017 'At the time, I didn't realise he actually had charges from ages ago that had come up, assault charges.' Stacey, who is 11 years younger than Smith, told Daily Mail Australia in 2020 that the pair had a tumultuous bond. 'Shane and I met very young, I fell hard and fast, and we will always be each other's kryptonite,' she said. 'He was always very supportive, and I had terrible post-natal depression, which is my motivation behind my charity. 'He is now at peace with his brother, mother and friends,' Hampton told Nine News. 'He was an amazing father. He adored his children and his parents. Our hearts are broken, and our lives will never be the same' 'He took the kids when I was in no state to have them. I had to fix myself, and I was alone. He was great to me. 'He still emotionally supports me and my decisions, helps me with relationship advice and also looks out for me and my children's happiness. 'We still share kids' birthdays together and do lunches. We just can't be together because we argue, and we both have a lot of damage from our past, which clashes. 'It was a civil break-up. He's an amazing dad and I have no regrets.' 'He still emotionally supports me and my decisions, helps me with relationship advice and also looks out for me and my children's happiness,' Stacey said of her former partner Smith, pictured with their son Kruz Hampton shared her struggles with being a young mother while Smith was behind bars in a previous interview with Daily Mail Australia. 'I fell pregnant at the age of 20 and gave birth at 21 when my partner was incarcerated,' she says. 'I had to get admitted to hospital with shingles from stress, and then I had Bell's palsy with stress whilst heavily pregnant.' Shane was killed in a motorbike crash in Adelaide's north-east around 3am earlier this month In February 2019, Smith was convicted and fined $3,500 for assaulting two bouncers outside a nightclub in Bendigo on August 6, 2017. He narrowly avoided jail after a magistrate dismissed an affray charge because the savage beatings weren't deemed to be evoking of terror in bystanders. Stacey rose to fame on season seven of Married At First Sight Australia in 2020, where she was paired Michael Goonan, but they split before the reunion episode. Advertisement Katie Price appeared slightly downcast on Sunday as she and fiance Carl Woods spent time at the Autumn Show and International horse trials in Haywards Heath. The former glamour model, 44, was promoting her K.P equestrian clothing brand during the day out - but took a moment's seat as she appeared to rest her head in her hands. And the outing comes just two weeks after the TV personality shared to MailOnline that she was raped during a horrifying carjacking in South Africa in 2018, which also saw her being held at gunpoint. Day out: Katie Price, 44, and her fiance Carl Woods spent time at the autumn International horse trials to promote her equestrian clothing brand Taking to the equestrian event, Katie sported a bright purple polo shirt with a pair of bright pink jodhpurs, which featured a leapord detail and retail for 45.99 from her brand. She kept warm with a padded black gilet on top of the ensemble, adding long purple socks as she continues to have casts on both feet. Her ombre blonde locks were styled straight as they fell freely to her torso in a lengthy style, while she went for a full palette of makeup. She took dogs Buddy and Blade along for the day, with partner Carl helping to watch the pooches. Moment away: Taking a seat alone, she appeared slightly downcast while resting her head in one hand Promoting: She sat at a stand decked out with her K.P equestrian clothing branding, setting up shop at the grassy spot Jam-packed: The event featured showjumping, dressage and cross-country phases, while guests could give t fly casting, archery and axe throwing a go Family day out: She took dogs Buddy and Blade along for the day, with partner Carl helping to watch the pooches Kitted out: Taking to the equestrian event, Katie sported a bright purple polo shirt with a pair of bright pink jodhpurs, which featured a leapord detail and retail for 45.99 from her brand Walking alongside his fiancee, Carl kept comfortable for the day as he sported a nude tracksuit co-ord - consisting of a matching hoodie and slim leg joggers. He teamed the two piece with grey panelled trainers and a pair of aviator sunglasses, with his blond highlighted locks slicked back the way. The pair walked alondside one another with Blade as they toured the show, with Katie setting up shop at a dedicated K.P Equestrian stand. She seemed to be in higher spirits at the stand, beaming as she signed autographs for young fans. Layering: She kept warm with a padded black gilet on top of the ensemble, adding long purple socks as she continues to have casts on both feet Comfortable: Walking alongside his fiancee, Carl kept comfortable for the day as he sported a nude tracksuit co-ord Nude: Katie opted for a full palette of makeup for the outing, but kept an understated lip and eye look Sporty: Carl teamed the two piece with a pair of white and grey panelled trainers Grabbing some refreshments at the event, Carl and Katie also lined up at food trucks while getting stuck in on the action. The event featured showjumping, dressage and cross-country phases, while guests could give t fly casting, archery and axe throwing a go. But the appearance comes just two weeks after Katie revealed she was raped during a horrifying carjacking in South Africa in 2018 - as she recently spoke ahead of her harrowing documentary Trauma And Me, which will detail the ordeal. She said: 'The experience when I was filming with ITV in South Africa, we had no security, if we had security they would have been able to deal with the six guys that jumped us, held me at gunpoint and raped me.' Katie was thrown out of the vehicle by the attackers, during her journey from Johannesburg to Swaziland in two people carriers with the production crew. The vehicles were ransacked of laptops, iPads, passports, cash and jewellery but the robbers left behind a fortune in camera gear which the crew had stored on board. The attackers were never apprehended. In the zone: Carl seemed to be enjoying the day as he got stuck in, chatting and smiling with guests Lifted: Katie seemed to be in higher spirits later in the day, beaming as she signed autographs for young fans Popular: She sat at her stall to sign the autographs, chatting to fans who patiently waited The reality star has also admitted in the new show that she hit rock bottom after she was raped at gunpoint during the ordeal and tried to hang herself, but after passing out she 'saw her kids faces' and realised she 'never wanted it to happen again.' Katie is mother to sons Harvey Junior, 17, and Jett, nine, and daughters Princess, 15, and Bunny, eight. She also said she'll likely need therapy 'for the rest of her life,' after being diagnosed with PTSD. Coordinated: Her nails were painted in a bright pink to match the setup Hands-free: While Katie's mobile hung around her neck in a handy case Awful: The appearance comes just two weeks after Katie revealed she was raped during a horrifying carjacking in South Africa in 2018 - as she recently spoke ahead of her harrowing documentary Trauma And Me, which will detail the ordeal Traumatic: Katie was thrown out of the vehicle by the attackers, during her journey from Johannesburg to Swaziland in two people carriers with the production crew She's the queen of daytime TV who never puts a foot wrong. However, on Monday Lorraine Kelly was forced to apologise after making a blunder on live TV - before blaming it on having a 'heavy weekend'. The presenter, 62, got her words mixed up as she told Good Morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Ed Balls about what to expect on her show. Whoops! Monday Lorraine Kelly was forced to apologise after making a blunder on live TV on Monday - before blaming it on having a 'heavy weekend' Speaking from her cosy studio she said: 'Harry Hill... I'm going to be teaming up with him for a very interesting product.' She quickly corrected herself and said: 'Project, even. So I'll see you at 9 o'clock.' Intrigued, Ed asked: 'What is this product?' Laughing Lorraine explained: 'It's a project, not a product. Giggles: The presenter, 62, got her words mixed up as she told Good Morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Ed Balls about what to expect on her show 'I'm sorry. I've had a very heavy weekend and I apologise, profusely.' In fits of laughter with his co-host Susannah, Ed asked what she had been up to. Lorraine replied: 'Honestly, a young man like you doesn't want to know. You'd be shocked.' The Scottish star then kicked off her show with a segment on how to cure a hangover with Doctor Amir Khan who said Lorraine looked tired. 'I may or may not have been partying all weekend,' she told the telly medic. Party: The Scottish star then kicked off her show with a segment on how to cure a hangover with Doctor Amir Khan who said Lorraine looked tired 'My lovely Rosie threw us a totally surprise anniversary party. 'So many people were there and I had absolutely no idea. It was lovely with all the attention to detail. 'She had flowers that were used from my bouquet 30 years ago. 'But it went on.. John Kelly, no relation, but he's like my big brother... he threw us another party yesterday. 'You know when you've got loads of booze left and you don't know what to do? So you have another one. 'It was great, really good.' Colleagues: In fits of laughter with his co-host Susannah, Ed asked what she had been up to The gaffe comes after Hollywood hunk George Clooney made Lorraine blush and erupt into a fit of giggles during a live interview on her show last week. Lorraine confessed she went 'bright red' after asking the star, 61, about a kissing scene in his new film, Ticket to Paradise. In a clip, where Lorraine interviews both Julia Roberts, 54, and George, Lorraine asked the pair: 'You have a wee kissing scene, but you couldn't do it for ages as you were laughing too much?' 'I've gone bright red!' George Clooney made Lorraine blush during a cheeky interview on her show last week as he and Julia Roberts promoted their new film Ticket to Paradise 'It is daft, kissing your best pal, it's like, ''what, this is weird,'' she said. 'It is,' Julia agreed. George couldn't help but playfully tease Lorraine about the term 'wee kissing scene'. 'That's a strange phrase though, ''wee kissing scene.'' I mean, what time is this show on?' he joked. 'I'm red. I have actually gone bright red, I'm being very calm and very cool,' Lorraine joked. Julia then consoled Lorraine and quipped: 'It's hard to be like that [calm and cool] in front of George Clooney isn't it?' The pair appeared on Lorraine to promote their new film, Ticket to Paradise. New film: The pair appeared on Lorraine to promote their new film, Ticket to Paradise Helmed by Ol Parker, the director of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Ticket to Paradise is a rom-com about two badly behaved people rediscovering love. George and Julia play exes on a mission to stop their daughter from making the same mistake they did 25 years ago by marrying young. Their daughter Lily (played by Kaitlyn Dever) meets the love of her life on a post-graduation jaunt to Bali, which is where her parents must travel to in order to change her mind. Plot line: George and Julia play exes on a mission to stop their daughter from making the same mistake they did 25 years ago by marrying young As the pair scheme together to ruin their daughter's upcoming nuptials, they might just reignite the spark they once had. It's the fourth time that George and Julia have worked together, after Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004), and Money Monster (2016). The pair spent months filming the show in Australia's Far North Queensland. Julia spent her quarantine period at a $56.9million mansion in Sydney's Vaucluse. The property was the former rental home of Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch, the son and daughter-in-law of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The home was patrolled by around-the-clock armed guards, while multiple chefs, waiters and housekeepers stayed with Julia as part of her travel bubble. Advertisement Bella Hadid and Irina Shayk looked sensational as they hit the runway for the Burberry delayed London Fashion Week show on Monday. The British heritage brand had originally planned to showcase their SS23 line on September 17 but cancelled the show in the wake of the Queen's death on September 8. Despite the new date clashing with the final day of Milan Fashion Week, there were still a host of big names in attendance with Naomi Campbell also seen on the catwalk while Kanye West was among the celebrity attendees. Model moment: Bella Hadid wowed in a leggy bodysuit as she joined glamorous Irina Shayk at Burberry's London Fashion Week show on Monday after the presentation was postponed following the Queen's death Bella, 25, exuded glamour as she sashayed down the catwalk in a baby blue bodysuit with a glamorous train that flared out behind her. The eye-catching garment was adorned with lace panels and cinched in at her tiny waist while featuring a cropped overshirt and matching lace gloves. A pair of strappy heeled sandals with a thick ankle cuff gave the 5 9 beauty some extra height and perfectly finished off the striking ensemble. Blue-tiful! Bella, 25, exuded glamour as she sashayed down the catwalk in a baby blue bodysuit with a glamorous train that flared out behind her Striking: The eye-catching garment was adorned with lace panels and cinched in at her tiny waist while featuring a cropped overshirt and matching lace gloves Stunning: A pair of strappy heeled sandals with a thick ankle cuff gave the 5 9 beauty some extra height and perfectly finished off the striking ensemble Stunning: Irina, 36, also looked phenomenal as she slipped into a black velvet gown that skimmed over her enviably toned physique and boasted bardot sleeves that contained sheer gloves Working it: Naomi's look was more muted, with the 52-year-old model donning a nude jacket paired with a matching maxi dress and a scarf in the brand's iconic checkered print Here come the girls: Naomi stormed the runway in a nude ensemble while fellow model Ella Richards looked sensational in a blue playsuit layered over a lace body stocking and Stella Maxwell stunned in another version of the garment Double denim darling: Erin O'Connor donned a denim jacket and maxi skirt combination paired with black flip flops Working her angles: Erin looked in the zone as she strutted her stuff down the runway Irina, 36, also looked phenomenal as she slipped into a black velvet gown that skimmed over her enviably toned physique and boasted bardot sleeves that contained sheer gloves. Naomi's look was more muted, with the 52-year-old model donning a nude jacket paired with a matching maxi dress and a scarf in the brand's iconic checkered print. The Vogue covergirl swapped her heels for flats in a shock move, donning pair of black flip flops as she sashayed down the runway. Dressed to impress: Maya looked sensational in a fitted little black dress that clung to her incredible curves, while a cut out section on the hem offered a glimpse of her toned pins Two's company: Maya was joined at the event by Headie One, with the pair posing for pictures together Sitting pretty: Maya exuded glamour as she settled in on her seat in her stunning leather boots Case of the ex: Inside the show Maya ran the risk of bumping into her ex Stormzy, who she dated for four years before they split in 2019 order to focus on their careers Fantastic four: (L to R) Kanye West was joined by a friend Stormzy and Melissa Holdbrook-Akposoe on the front row Chilling out: Kanye seemed in high spirits as he posed for snaps with his pals Catching up: Kanye was seen chatting away to Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Carine Roitfeld at the event Also hitting the catwalk was the legendary Erin O'Connor, 44, who looked effortlessly chic in an oversized denim jacket and maxi skirt. The audience was just as star-studded as the runway, with the likes of Maya Jama, Winnie Harlow and Normani taking their seats in the front row. Maya looked sensational in a fitted little black dress that clung to her incredible curves, while a cut out section on the hem offered a glimpse of her toned pins. Putting on a brave face: Camila Morrone showed the strain of her split from Leonardo DiCaprio while attending the Burberry delayed London Fashion Week show on Monday Wow! The model, 25, flaunted her impeccable sense of style in a leather midi dress with a belt which cinched in her waist as she showed her ex Leo, 47, what he's missing Gorgeous: Camila's wavy brunette locks fell effortlessly to her shoulders as she rocked a heavy fringe Model of the moment: Winnie Harlow looked sensational in a little black dress with stud detail that she paired with thigh high leather boots while Normani dazzled in a midi dress and trench coat in the iconic Burberry print Three of a kind: The duo posed alongside Lori Harvey who looked effortlessly stylish in a T-shirt paired with a lace mini skirt Snap happy: Winnie and Normani posed up a storm as they snapped selfies from the front row Glamorous girls: The duo looked stunning alongside Sabrina Sato who wowed in a sheer scarlet bodysuit Legs eleven: Lori flashed her toned pins in the thigh-grazing mini while Madeline Brewer wowed in a tiny blue dress Dapper duo: Labrinth and Michael 'Buck' Maris looked suave as they posed together inside the show The presenter - who recently split from her fiance Ben Simmons - donned a pair of thigh high leather boots to boost her modelesque frame while oversized shades completed the look. Inside the show she ran the risk of bumping into her ex Stormzy, who she dated for four years before they split in 2019 order to focus on their careers. However, the pair were spotted looking cosy together in the smoking area at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards 2021. Nude ambition: Sabrina Elba caught the eye in a skintight tan ensemble as she paired figure-hugging leggings with a cropped bardot jumper and skimpy vest top Eye spy: Jourdan Dunn let her accessories do the talking in a pair of clip off sunglasses at the runway show Legs eleven: The model looked sensational in a little black dress that she paired with Burberry tights and kitten heels Chilling out: Jourdan and Fireboy seemed in good spirits as they chatted away at the fashion show In the blue: Fireboy donned a shark printed co-ord while Daniel Lismore donned a caped ensemble with silver hood The two stars had been one of the most popular couple in showbiz prior to their shock split, with the stunning presenter moving out of their shared home shortly after her 25th birthday celebrations. Stormzy seemed to address rumours he had strayed in his subsequent music releases - with his song Lessons said to be about the heartbreaking split and lyrics confessing that he had 'done the dirt' on the TV star. Another newly-single star at the show was Camila Morrone, who seemed to be showing the strain of her split from Leonardo DiCaprio. Pretty in prints: Editor-In-Chief of American Vogue and Chief Content Officer of Conde Nast Dame Anna Wintour took her place on the front row alongside actress Gillian Anderson Dapper: Sitting alongside them was Editor-In-Chief of British Vogue Edward Enninful and actor Daniel Kaluuya Delightful duo: Gillian and Daniel posed for a cosy snap with one another The model, 25, flaunted her impeccable sense of style in a leather midi dress with a belt which cinched in her waist. The beauty elevated her height in a pair of black stiletto's, while accessorising with a stylish handbag at the star-studded event in Bermondsey. Camila's wavy brunette locks fell effortlessly to her shoulders as she rocked a heavy fringe. The Los Angeles native sported a bronzed makeup palette which accentuated her natural features with a swipe of nude lipstick. She's a long way from Westeros! House Of The Dragon's Milly Alcock looked worlds apart from princess Rhaenyra Targaryen as she put on a very glam appearance Flashing the flesh: Her dress was embellished with gems and it had a fringed gem, which showed off her legs Kanye West seemed in good spirits as he bumped into his former flame Irina Shayk. He indicated that he's still not over his ex Kim Kardashian as he spoke about missing his 'Queen' in a bizarre Instagram post on Sunday, yet Kanye's attention was focused on another ex the following day. As he reunited with Russian beauty Irina at the Burberry runway bash, the creative flashed a wide smile while greeting her with a warm embrace. The rapper, 45, caught the eye on the outing as he paired diamante flip flops with socks and donned a leather co-ord set teamed with a hoodie. A-listers: Camila Morrone, Milly and Jourdan Dunn all sat together at the show Friends in high places: (L to R) Labrinth, Camila, Milly , Jourdan and Fireboy Milly Alcock looked worlds apart from her character as fearless princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in HBO's House Of The Dragon. as she put on a glam display in a silver dress. The 22-year-old actress swapped her famous platinum blonde wig to show off her natural short wavy locks. Her dress was embellished with gems and it had a fringed gem, which showed off her legs, while she accessorised with a silver Burberry bag . Seeing double: Simone Ashley and Emma Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath cosied up for a snap together Posing up a storm: (left) Madeline Brewer, Daniel Kaluuya and Lena Waithe posed up a storm together while Skin and Ladyfag also seemed in good spirits at the show Glamorous gals: Vanessa Kingori, Chief Business Officer at Conde Nast Britain posed for a snap alongside Emma Man of the hour: CCO of Burberry Riccardo Tisci was seen posing backstage with Lara Stone The event comes just a week after Milly spoke out about the 'shocking' experience of filming scenes for the series in a brothel, where she claims extras were in sex positions for up to 12 hours. The actress said she felt 'overdressed' while recording her scenes in the call house while surrounded totally naked people for a full day in the Game Of Thrones spin-off. She told the New York Post: 'There were extras who we had just met who were like, 69-ing for 12 hours. 'It's pretty gnarly, we felt pretty overdressed because everyone else was nude.' Is that fashion now? Kanye jetted to London for the presentation and opted for a controversial look in socks and silver flip flops as well as a leather co-ord and hoodie Out in the rain: Kanye didn't seem to be in the best spirits as he stood out in the rain Reunited: Yet as he reunited with Russian beauty Irina the creative flashed a wide smile while greeting her with a warm embrace Earlier this month Burberry announced they would be cancelling their runway show as a mark of respect for Queen Elizabeth II. The brand had worked with the monarch, being awarded a Royal Warrant in 1955 and was one of Her Majesty's preferred 'weatherproofers' of choice. In a statement, Burberry said: 'It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of Her Majesty The Queen. 'As a mark of respect, we have taken the decision to cancel our Spring/Summer 2023 runway show due to take place on 17 September in London. We hope to see you in the near future.' Top of the crops: Bella was seen leaving the show in a taupe crop top that she paired with baggy jeans and leather boots Tanned and toned: Irina exposed her taut stomach in a white crop top paired with nude combat trousers All about the accessories: Irina carried a Burberry trench coat and a small Louis Vuitton pouch Bend and snap: Irina showed off her peachy bottom in the fitted trousers and heel combination London Fashion Week kicked off as planned on September 16 yet was scaled back while the country was in an official period of mourning. As well as Burberry, fashion house Raf Simons cancelled their show as a mark of respect to the Queen. A statement from The British Fashion Council said: 'London Fashion Week is a business-to-business event, and an important moment for designers to show their collections at a specific moment in the fashion calendar, we recognise the work that goes into this moment. On the move: Naomi left the presentation in a blue maxi dress that she paired with a black leather trench coat Striking: Naomi was a vision of beauty as she made her way out of the venue Bold look: Anna clashed prints in a brown trench coat layered over a leopard print maxi dress and snakeskin boots Lovely in leather: Lara Stone looked sensational in an all-black ensemble as she paired a wet look coat with thigh high leather boots and a little black dress 'Therefore, shows and presentations of collections can continue, but we are asking that designers respect the mood of the nation and period of national mourning by considering the timing of their image release.' In 2018 the Queen made a surprise appearance at London Fashion Week where she sat in the front row next to editor-in-chief of Vogue US, Anna Wintour. The then-91-year-old was pictured sharing a joke with the long-standing editor as the pair watched Richard Quinn's show. Her Majesty then presented him with the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design. Ramsay Street will not go down in Australian history as a heritage listed site, a new report revealed on Monday. A petition for six homes at Pin Oak Court in Vermont South, Melbourne, to be granted heritage protection based on their appearance in soap opera Neighbours was rejected at a Whitehorse Council meeting on Monday evening. A heritage claim requires the location to hold 'historic, aesthetic and social significance'. Ramsay Street will not go down in Australian history as a heritage listed site, a new report revealed on Monday. Pictured is the cast of the finale episode Councillor Andrew Munroe spoke at the meeting, as reported by The Herald Sun, and downplayed the cultural importance of the homes. 'Pin Oak Court is no Como House it's no Windsor Castle. It's six residential homes that are 4050 years old in an isolated cul-de-sac,' he said. 'When the (security) guards are gone what is the intent to have an unregulated museum to pop culture for these poor residents?' Munroe added. A petition for six homes at Pin Oak Court in Vermont South, Melbourne, to be granted heritage protection based on their appearance in soap opera Neighbours was rejected at a Whitehorse Council meeting on Monday evening Councillor Andrew Munroe spoke at the meeting, as reported by The Herald Sun, and downplayed the cultural importance of the homes Councillor Mark Lane pointed to the long-running soap's cancellation as further proof that the homes do not hold heritage significance. 'Neighbours finished for a reason it was a great show but the ratings dropped,' Lane said. Pin Oak Court was the location for external shots of the famous Neighbours locale Ramsay Street, which lays in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough. 'Pin Oak Court is no Como House it's no Windsor Castle. It's six residential homes that are 4050 years old in an isolated cul-de-sac,' he said It comes after nearly a million fans tuned into Channel 10 in July to say goodbye to Neighbours. Following the monster ratings, there was talk of a reboot of the long-running series. TV Tonight reported that Channel 10 boss Beverley McGarvey says it is possible that the show might make a return. Councillor Mark Lane pointed to the long-running soap's cancellation as further proof that the homes do not hold heritage significance. 'Neighbours finished for a reason it was a great show but the ratings dropped,' Lane said The report suggests that character spin-offs, one-off specials and reunion episodes could be a way of reviving the characters. There was an outpouring of grief from fans and supporters in March when it was announced that Neighbours would end its epic 37-year run. The show was axed after UK broadcaster Channel 5 confirmed its decision not to renew their contract to air the Aussie soap with producers Fremantle Australia. Brad Pitt looked low-key as he was spotted heading out for a lavish meal in Paris on Sunday with a French billionaire and businesswoman. The actor, 58, cut a casual figure in a red zip-up jumper, teamed with a matching t-shirt. He was reportedly dining with French telecoms tycoon Xavier Niel and director and executive vice president of Louis Vuitton Delphine Arnault. Outing: Brad Pitt looked low-key as he was spotted heading out for a lavish meal in Paris on Sunday with a French billionaire and businesswoman It comes after Brad dubbed George Clooney and Paul Newman the 'most handsome men' in the world. The Bullet Train star joked that he had to pick his Ocean's co-star and close pal, Clooney, 61, as the hottest male on the planet right now, while late Hollywood icon Newman, who was 83 when he died in 2008, is his choice for the past because of how he 'aged so gracefully'. Asked by Vogue who the 'most handsome men in the world past and present' are, Pitt replied: 'You know in the acting world because it's my day job the immediate go-to is Paul Newman. Because he aged so gracefully.' Looking good: The actor, 58, cut a casual figure in a red zip-up jumper, teamed with a matching t-shirt The star also said, 'And by all reports [he was] a really special, giving, warm and truthful human being.' Speaking about silver fox Clooney, he quipped: 'If I was gonna name someone present, well I gotta name that George Clooney f***** because why not?' He added: 'Because usually, I'm always taking him out, and he's always taking me out. And this time, I'm gonna go the other way, just this once.' The pair are known to poke fun at each other. His top picks: The Oscar winner said he thinks Paul Newman (left) and George Clooney (right) are 'the most handsome men' in the world Last year, Clooney joked that he was really looking forward to working with 'cheap' Pitt again. He said: 'He's a friend of mine and we have a really good time together. I'm really looking forward to it.' Clooney then quipped: 'Brad was obviously the cheapest of the actors available.' Meanwhile, the pals look set to reunite with Matt Damon for a new Ocean's movie. The Hollywood trio previously starred together in the 2007 heist movie, Ocean's Thirteen, and they're now poised to reunite for the latest film in the money-spinning franchise. A source told The Sun newspaper last week: 'Rumours of a film starring George, Brad and Matt have swirled for years but the timing was off and their jam-packed schedules meant that it was just not possible. 'Finally the right team for the job has come together in a bid to make it a huge success and the main stars thought it would be good fun to revisit. 'The franchise is hugely popular and the brilliant storyline was an opportunity that was too good to miss.' Cara Delevingne kept a low profile on Monday as she arrived to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for the city's fashion week. The model, 30, went incognito as she sported a marble face covering, donning a panel checkered suit for the appearance. But the arrival comes after a string of erratic behaviour, including a recent incident at Van Nuys Airport - where she appeared disheveled while preparing to board the Jay-Z owned puma private jet. The incidents have allegedly sparked concern for her personal wellbeing - with claims circulating that her family are set to stage an intervention. Masked: Cara Delevingne, 30, cut a low profile on Monday in a checkered two-piece suit as she touched down in Paris for the city's fashion week Unusual behaviour: Fans began to worry about Cara, following a seemingly erratic appearance as she headed to the Puma private jet owned by Jay-Z on September 5 Arriving in the city of fashion, Cara sported a pair of tailored trousers with differing navy, red and white checkered designs on each leg. She teamed the statement trousers with a matching blazer of the same design, breaking it up with a plain white long-sleeved T-shirt. The London native finished the look with a pair of black lace-up shoes - wrapping headphones around her neck for the journey. Co-ord: Arriving in the city of fashion, Cara sported a pair of tailored trousers with differing navy, red and white checkered designs on each leg - teamed with a matching blazer Low-key: The star was almost unrecognisable in the shots, adding aviator sunglasses and a beanie alongside her marble Covid-19 mask And the star was almost unrecognisable in the shots, adding aviator sunglasses and the marble Covid-19 mask. Making her way through the airport, she kept her head down and eyes fixated on her mobile phone. Cara arrived in the French capital for day one of fashion week, which saw style icons such as Naomi Campbell and Bella Hadid take to the Burberry catwalk. Kicking it off: Cara arrived in the French capital for day one of fashion week, which saw style icons such as Naomi Campbell and Bella Hadid take to the Burberry catwalk The appearance comes after a New York Fashion Week blunder from the model, which saw her fail to attend the official launch of her brand new capsule collection CARA LOVES KARL - an exciting collaboration with the late Karl Lagerfeld's iconic fashion house. As guests converged earlier this month on New York's financial district and Pine Street restaurant Saga, no doubt chosen for its sweeping 63rd floor views, the brand's principal designer appeared to be curiously absent. The model's fans have been voicing their worries for the star after she was seen smoking a pipe of some kind while sitting alone in a car earlier this month, before appearing erratic and out of sorts at an Airport in Los Angeles. Now, her friends and family are searching for ways to help the troubled former 'it girl'. Close: Cara with her supportive model sister Poppy. It's understood that her family are now planning an intervention in a bid to help the troubled star 'We are all incredibly concerned. The situation has been building for a few weeks now, and Cara's family is involved,' a close friend told The Sun. 'There is talk of staging some kind of intervention and making sure Cara gets the help she may well need,' the person added. 'She has been burning the candle at both ends of late, and it's clearly taking its toll.' Of the airport appearance in early September, sources told DailyMail.com that the cover girl appeared unable to control her body movements at certain points as she was seen on the phone, bending over, dropping her phone, and walking around looking very jittery and as if she was unable to stop moving. Prior to this, she spent some time at the Burning Man festival - with sources telling DailyMail.com at that time the she didn't eat or shower while at the event. The source said: 'She had just spent days in the desert, not eating all that much and she looked disheveled because she hadn't had time to scrub up yet.' He went on: 'Her friends are worried about her generally after some erratic behavior, but she has a good group around her. Her sister was at the festival with her. She wasn't alone and she has her back.' The source continued: 'Burning Man isn't lined with burger vans like other festivals. You chuck everything you need in an RV and that's what you have to live on while you're there. Everything works on a swapping system.' Alison Hammond was left in tears on Monday as her This Morning colleagues surprised her with a huge celebration marking her 20th anniversary on the show. The presenter, 47, who first found fame in the Big Brother house in 2022 said she was 'overwhelmed' as she marked the best day of her life. Hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were in on the act as they sent Alison to her hometown of Birmingham to supposedly meet a Dosh on the Doorstep competition winner sharing her name. Milestone: Alison Hammond was left in tears on Monday as her This Morning colleagues surprised her with a huge celebration marking her 20th anniversary on the show Speaking via video link to her co-star, Holly said: 'This is gonna be a specially good one today, because not only has she got the same name as you, but aren't you in your home town as well?' Then, the feed to Alison's earpiece was cut, and with Holly explaining she thought they were having a 'technical issue', while they duo told the viewers what was really going on. 'We have made everything up because the person we are surprising today is actually Alison herself as she's been on This Morning for an incredible and wonderful 20 years,' Phil smiled, while Holly added: 'We have set up a whole morning for surprise.' Throwback: Alison entered the Big Brother House as a housemate back in 2002 The iconic presenter had the shock of her life when she knocked on the door and it was opened by friend and This Morning colleague Josie Gibson, and pal Kate Lawler. 'Normally you're doing the surprising, today the surprise is on you! Happy 20th anniversary on This Morning! Congratulations Alison Hammond,' Kate shouted. Alison was then whisked away to the Midlands Arts Centre, where a special This Is Your Life- style best bits compilation played out with friends and family in the audience. Surprise! Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby sent Alison to her hometown of Birmingham to supposedly meet a Dosh on the Doorstep competition winner sharing her name Alison gasped, 'How did you do this? This is the best day of my life!' Holly and Phillip led the tributes from the studio with poignant video messages from the likes of Dermot O'Leary, Rylan Clark, Strictly Come Dancing star Aljaz Skorjanec, Rick Astley, former Big Brother host Davina McCall and even Alison's teenage son Aiden. At the end of the presentation, an emotional Alison said: 'Thank you This Morning for giving me the opportunity firstly, I'm really overwhelmed by this to be honest with you. TV pals: The iconic presenter had the shock of her life when she knocked on the door and it was opened by friend and This Morning colleague Josie Gibson, and pal Kate Lawler Tribute: There were poignant video messages from the likes Alison's teenage son Aiden 'I've had the best 20 years. Every day has been the best and thank you to the viewers for watching. All I ever want to do is make you guys happy.' Holly said, 'Alison, that is exactly what you do. You make everyone so happy all the time. Whoever's around you - you are so infectious with your spirit and joy. We love you.' Phillip said, 'She is, without doubt, one of the best friends you could ever have. She's an amazing person.' Janet Street-Porter appeared to weigh in on Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield's queue-gate drama during Monday morning's episode of Loose Women. Eagle-eyed viewers spotted a subtle dig from the 75-year-old, taking to social media to jest that 'at least someone has the guts to say something' as fellow panellist Coleen Nolan appeared less than impressed. Holly and Phil were accused of jumping the queue at Westminster Hall in London last week while tens of thousands of mourners patiently waited for 12 hours at a time to pay their respects to Her Majesty - but argued their visit was 'strictly for reporting'. 'At least someone has the guts to say something': Loose Women viewers spotted Janet Street-Porter, 75, make a subtle dig at Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield's 'queue-gate' drama on Monday During the show, panelists Coleen, Janet, Ruth Langsford and Brenda Edwards detailed being woken up by a cockerel. With Janet recalling being woken up by her partner's dog Badger while she was having a good dream. Describing her dream, she explained: 'You're in the middle of your sleep having a really lovely dream... you know I'm at a party with loads of famous people getting into the VIP area... without any queuing...' as she paused, and put an emphasis on the last word. Drama: Holly and Phil were accused of jumping the queue at Westminster Hall in London last week while tens of thousands of mourners patiently waited for 12 hours at a time to pay their respects to Her Majesty - but argued their visit was 'strictly for reporting' Social media: And picking up on the moment was the show's viewers, who took to Twitter during the show - with many praising Janet for her comments The studio audience instantly caught on to the apparent jibe, as they giggled afterwards. But Coleen appeared less than impressed, shooting an uneasy look to the camera following the moment. And picking up on the moment was the show's viewers, who took to Twitter during the show - with many praising Janet for her comments. 'OMG that look Coleen gave / well done Janet I say, at least someone has the guts to say something,' wrote one fan. Unsure: But Coleen appeared less than impressed, shooting an uneasy look to the camera following the moment DiscussionDuring the show, Janet recalled being woken up by her partner's dog Badger while she was having a good dream While another echoed: 'Nothing sly about this' as others said they 'love Janet'. But unimpressed, some dubbed the moment 'unprofessional', penning: ' @The_Real_JSP's dig at Holly and Phil, about "queueing" was rude and unacceptable. Uncalled for. #LooseWomen @loosewomen.' Ruth stayed quiet following the dig - despite her husband, Eamonn Holmes, publically speaking out against the incident last week. Speaking on GB News Breakfast, Eamonn, 62, made no bones about the fact he didn't believe his former colleagues and said they 'messed up'. Chatting with presenter Clare Muldoon, Eamonn said: 'I'll tell you what's strategic. Why is Holly fighting to keep her job, according to The Sun, but Mr Phillip isn't?' Clare replied: 'Who knows? Twitter, last night, was saying she didn't want to vacate her job at This Morning. Describing her dream, she explained: 'You're in the middle of your sleep having a really lovely dream... you know I'm at a party with loads of famous people getting into the VIP area... without any queuing...' as she paused, and put an emphasis on the last word Awkward: Panellist Ruth stayed quiet following the dig - despite her husband, Eamonn Holmes, publically speaking out against the incident last week 'Who wouldn't want to give up 600,000 a year and everything else that comes with it? I think the brand is very damaged. There has to be a change from the top down to the bottom on This Morning.' Eamonn then read out the statement from Holly and Phillip, saying: 'We didn't jump the queue, we were working' as he questioned 'Why wasn't your boss there working with you?' Following the drama, sources have claimed that a 'distraught' Holly will not quit This Morning over the 'queue skipping row' - despite many calls for them to be taken off the show. The 'devastated' presenters - who are reportedly paid as much as 600,000 for hosting the popular daytime show from Mondays to Thursdays- have faced growing fury after images of them appearing to 'skip the queue' emerged on Friday while tens of thousands of mourners patiently waited for 12 hours at a time. Holly was reportedly in floods of tears as she and Phil both begged This Morning bosses to defend them from the ensuing storm - and were furious that ITV sat on their hands before issuing a short statement defending the pair on Saturday. The pair were keen to issue a public apology over 'queue-gate', but were talked out of it after taking legal advice, a source told MailOnline. 'Initially Holly and Phillip were prepared to say sorry if they'd upset anyone as they both just desperately want to draw a line under the affair. But they were advised strongly not to go down that road of saying sorry.' This combined photo shows the three sons of Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn. From left, eldest to youngest, are Hanwha Solutions Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan, Hanwha Life Insurance Vice President Kim Dong-won and Kim Dong-seon, head of Hanwha Hotels & Resorts' premium leisure group. Courtesy of Hanwha Group By Park Jae-hyuk Hanwha Solutions' latest plan to spin off its Galleria division has been interpreted by many as part of efforts to hand over control of the group's retail business to Chairman Kim Seung-youn's youngest son Kim Dong-seon, according to domestic securities analysts, Monday. The company announced last Friday that it will list Hanwha Galleria on the benchmark KOSPI market by March next year after spinning off the department store chain operator. It also disclosed its plan to split off its automotive components and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) divisions, in order to focus more on the renewable energy sector. The announcement was made about a year and a half after Hanwha Solutions merged with Hanwha Galleria in April last year, in an attempt to improve the retailer's financial soundness. "Hanwha Solutions' plan to spin off Hanwha Galleria is viewed as a preparatory step for the chairman's third-oldest son," Hana Securities analyst Yoon Jae-sung said in his report. "Because Hanwha Galleria will be upgraded to a first-tier subsidiary [of Hanwha Corp.] from a second-tier subsidiary, the three-way split among the chairman's three sons will be clear." Meritz Securities analyst Rho Woo-ho also said that the structural reform plan can be seen as the largest shareholder family's intention to reorganize the group into three sectors manufacturing, financial services and retail. Despite the group's continued denials, there has been speculation in recent years that the chairman's oldest son, Hanwha Solutions Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan, will inherit the group's solar energy, petrochemical, aerospace and defense technology businesses. The second-oldest son, Hanwha Life Insurance Vice President Kim Dong-won, has been expected to continue directing the group's financial subsidiaries, while the youngest son will be tasked with the group's hotel, leisure and retail businesses. Among the three heirs, the oldest has drawn the most attention, because he has been expected to take charge of the group's core businesses. He has also been co-CEO of Hanwha Aerospace and is in charge of business strategy. Compared to him, his two younger brothers have remained relatively out of the public eye. The youngest son, however, has continued to expand his presence in the group since returning in late 2020 to manage Hanwha Energy's global strategies, after running a restaurant in Germany and working temporarily for the domestic private equity firm SkyLake Equity Partners. The 33-year-old temporarily left the group in 2017 over the allegation that he had assaulted law firm Kim & Chang's new recruits during a binge-drinking session at a bar in Seoul. In May last year, he was transferred to Hanwha Hotels & Resorts to direct its premium leisure business. Earlier this year, he was appointed as an executive of Hanwha Solutions Galleria Division in charge of new business strategies. As Hanwha Hotels & Resorts spun off its horseback riding business into Hanwha Next, he is also set to manage the new company's future strategies, based on his career as a dressage rider for the Korean national team. Since last year, he has also been running Sugimoto, a luxurious sushi restaurant in Seoul, independently from Hanwha Group. Kim Kardashian is known for going to extreme lengths when it comes to pulling off the latest fashion from top designers - even if it means not being able to walk up a flight of stairs. The Kardashians star shared a hilarious video to her fans on Monday, which revealed how she was forced to jump up stairs because her corseted gown was simply too tight for her to maneuver in. The reality star, 41, was decked out in a stunning silver Dolce and Gabbana gown with a laced corset and lacing on the sides for the D&G after party. Tripping up with the Kardashians! Kim Kardashian, 41, has proven, once again, that she will do just about anything for fashion Kim wore a similarly snug number when she debuted her collaboration with the designer at Milan Fashion Week. The Kardashians cast member styled her platinum blonde hair in a 50s throwback updo with dangling tendril in the front. The frock was so curve hugging and so narrow at the hem that she decided to grab hold of the hand rail and hop up the stairs while wearing four inch silver stilettos. Stunning: The reality star was decked out in a stunning silver Dolce and Gabbana gown with a laced corset and lacing on the sides for the D&G after party Dedication: Kim's says her dedication to style knows no bounds, telling Ellen DeGeneres, ' 'I don't care how uncomfortable, I don't care how long, if I have to wear a diaper and not go to the bathroomI don't care what I have to do' She never once attempted to hoist up the hem so that she might walk with more ease, although someone in her entourage pulled it past her ankles to make it easier to duck walk to the celebration. The Skims founder, who famously lost 16 pounds in three weeks to fit into a gown once worn by Marilyn Monroe at the Met Gala in May, has been showing off her slimmer form, rather than sticking to her former tactic of embracing her curves. The social media star, who has 330 million followers on Instagram, faced some backlash after the weight loss, from commenters who saw the quick slimming process as a dangerous message to the young girls and women who watch her every move. Slim: The Skims founder, who famously lost 16 pounds to fit into a gown once worn by Marilyn Monroe at the Met Gala in May, has been showing off her slimmer form, rather than embracing her curves Backlash: The social media star, who has 330 million followers on Instagram, faced some backlash after the weight loss, from commenters who worried it sent a dangerous message to the young girls and women Kim insisted she lost the weight safely, telling Vogue, 'I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely cut out all sugar and all carbs, and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein. I didn't starve myself, but I was so strict.' She hit back at the criticism, telling the New York Times, 'OK, Christian Bale can do it for a movie role and that is acceptable. Even Renee Zellweger gained weight for a role. It's all the same to me. I wasnt saying, "Hey everyone, why dont you go lose this weight in a short period of time?"' In April she explained on the Ellen DeGeneres Show that she would 'literally wear' anything, stating proudly, 'I don't care how uncomfortable, I don't care how long, if I have to wear a diaper and not go to the bathroomI don't care what I have to do.' Safe: Kim insisted she lost the weight safely, telling Vogue , 'I would wear a sauna suit twice a day, run on the treadmill, completely cut out all sugar and all carbs, and just eat the cleanest veggies and protein. I didn't starve myself, but I was so strict' Duck walk: The fashionista never once attempted to hoist up the hem so that she might walk with more ease. Someone in her entourage lifted the dress past Kim's ankles to make it easier to duck walk to the celebration A video shared in Kim's Instagram stories documents her struggles with funny music, showing that she has a sense of humor about the situations she puts herself in. After making her appearance at the fete, the SKNN by Kim founder recorded her efforts to get into the waiting SUV. She once again needed help getting into the back and jumped once again to get into the car. The influencer was unable to sit and seemed to use the back seat as a sort of resting board, which was used by female movie stars so that they wouldn't muss their costumes while on break. More jumping: Kim had to resort to jumping, again, as she entered her waiting SUV Skin tight: Friends tried to help her get situated in the middle of the seat without ruining the skin tight dress She got social media buzzing after she was seen chatting up with Italian hunk Michele Morrone during Milan Fashion Week over the weekend. And on Monday morning, Khloe Kardashian wowed in two snaps shared by hairstylist Andrew Fitzsimons while in the Italian city, looking unrecognizable in both. The mother of two, 38, rocked mermaid hair with bold eyebrows and brown nude lips, opting for smokey eye makeup. Striking: She got social media buzzing after she was seen chatting up with Italian hunk Michele Morrone during Milan Fashion Week over the weekend. And on Monday morning, Khloe Kardashian wowed in two snaps shared by hairstylist Andrew Fitzsimons while in the Italian city, looking unrecognizable in both The stunning star sported long wavy hair, center parted and loose around her; she had brown, glossy lipstick with rosy shimmery eye makeup. She wore a white robe with just her diamond cross around her neck in the glamorous selfie. Khloe posted the image and a second one on Monday - both on Andrew's Instagram. In the second image, Khloe was snapped while she looked at the mirror during her glam session. Lovely: The mother of two, 38, rocked mermaid hair with bold eyebrows and brown nude lips, opting for smokey eye makeup Andrew also posted a video of Khloe posing in the mirror to his Instagram, looking as sultry as ever. The snaps come just days after Khloe got fans into a frenzy after she was pictured cozying up to Italian hunk, actor Michele Morrone, while at the Dolce & Gabbana show during Milan Fashion Week. Michele, who stars as mafia man Don Mossimo Torricelli on the sizzling Netflix films 365 Days. Wow: Andrew also posted a video of Khloe posing in the mirror to his Instagram, looking as sultry as ever Chemistry: The snaps come just days after Khloe got fans into a frenzy after she was pictured cozying up to Italian hunk, actor Michele Morrone, while at the Dolce & Gabbana show during Milan Fashion Week Khloe leaned into his body as he held her close in the sultry image, which he posted on his Instagram stories. Khloe wowed in a Dolce & Gabbana bodysuit featuring diamante encrusted accents around her torso and waist. Michele, 31, chose a copper colored satin shirt with crocodile leather bottoms. The duo were also seen mingling at the after party, much to the delight of their fans. Could be a cute couple! The duo were also seen mingling at the after party, much to the delight of their fans Last week, season two of the Kardashians on Hulu premiered, with Khloe speaking out about love rat Tristan. During the episode, Khloe welcomed her second child - a son - via a surrogate - with Tristan not in the delivery room. In the episode, Khloe said a 'dark cloud was looming over' after it emerged he had cheated on her again, fathering another child with a Houston based trainer named Maralee Nichols. Kim joined Khloe, 38, in the delivery room for the birth of her second child; Khloe shares her son and daughter True, four, with Tristan, 31. Co-parenting: During the episode, Khloe welcomed her second child - a son - via a surrogate - with love rate Tristan Thompson not in the delivery room Aunt: On Monday, Khloe shared a series of clips while with niece Chicago, four Rest: She revealed that jet lag was kicking in Good times: Khloe captioned another clip noting that Chicago picked the filter They've been at the centre of rumours of a Beckham family feud. But Brooklyn Beckham and his wife Nicola Peltz brushed off their recent drama as they walked hand in hand departing Balmain in Paris on Monday. The son of David and Victoria Beckham, 23, cut a casual figure in blue jeans, a long sleeve black jumper and coordinated shoes. Loved-up: Brooklyn Beckham and his wife Nicola Peltz looked loved up as they walked hand in hand as they departed Balmain in Paris on Monday The aspiring chef looked loved up as he flashed a smile to cameras while walking in the rain with his stunning wife Nicola, 27. Nicola dressed to impress for the outing in an eye catching leopard print jacket which she wore over a black jumper and mini skirt. The beauty elevated her frame in a platform pair of knee high boots which she teamed with black sheer tights. Ready for Fashion Week: The couple, who haven't shied away from packing on the PDA since tying the knot in April, were hand-in-hand as they prepared for the Balmain Fashion Show The brunette beauty hid behind a large pair of dark sunglasses and carried her belongings in a chic black shoulder bag. The couple, who haven't shied away from packing on the PDA since tying the knot in April, were hand-in-hand as they prepared for the Balmain Fashion Show in France. The appearance comes as Nicola sensationally claimed that her mother-in-law Victoria Beckham blanked her for days after offering to design her wedding dress. The move reportedly blew the bride's plans out of the water when Victoria said her studio couldn't make actually make the gown. Tension: It comes as insiders claim that Nicola Peltz is pushing a 'false narrative', about mother-in-law Victoria Beckham 'bemused' as to why she keeps 'stoking the rumours of a feud' Insiders have said that the model, 27, is pushing a 'false narrative', leaving Victoria 'bemused' as to why she keeps 'stoking the rumours of a feud' rather than shutting them down. A source told The Sun: 'Frankly, the most interesting thing about Nicola is that she married into the Beckham clan. 'David and Victoria have both reached out to her to try and make peace, and find a way to get along. 'David and Victoria would love to spend more time with their son and his wife, and be given the opportunity to welcome her into the fold, especially given that Brooklyn practically lives with his parents-in-law.' Nicola instead sported a stunning couture Valentino dress on her special day with Brooklyn in April, however she claims the initial plan was for her to wear Victoria's specially-made dress. The model-actress said she was thrilled at the prospect of wearing a dress designed by Victoria, however she didn't hear from the former Spice Girl, 48, for days before she rung to say she wouldn't make the gown for her big day. The devastating news left Nicola stumped - since her stylist Leslie Fremar and mother Claudia were also set to join the design dream team. The plan was shot down in a call between Victoria and Nicola's mom. Feud: The model-actress said she was thrilled at the prospect of wearing a dress designed by Victoria, however she didn't hear from the former Spice Girl, 48, for days (Pictured in 2021) In a bombshell interview with Grazia USA, she revealed: 'We connected to start designing the dress, and then a few days went by and I didn't hear anything. Victoria called my mom and said her atelier couldn't make it.' Doting husband Brooklyn made his position clear amid the family feud, telling the publication that Nicola is his 'number one priority' and that they 'have each other's back 100 per cent'. Nicola, the daughter of New York billionaire Nelson Peltz, attempted to set the record straight as she explained: 'I was planning on wearing Victoria's wedding dress and I was truly so excited to be able to wear a design that my future mother-in-law created. 'I thought that was so beautiful and such a beautiful story.' Following the revelations from Victoria that she couldn't make her daughter-in-law's dress, Nicola recalled: 'So, I spoke to my mom and Leslie, and I was like, 'Well, unfortunately, this can't happen, so what's the next step?' 'I've been a fan of Valentino and their couture for so long. I was really lucky to be able to travel to [the atelier] to try on the dress. That's really what happened.' He indicated that he's still not over his ex Kim Kardashian as he spoke about missing his 'Queen' in a bizarre Instagram post on Sunday. Yet Kanye West's attention was focused on another ex the following day as he bumped into his former flame Irina Shayk, 36, at Burberry's London Fashion Week show in Bermondsey on Monday. As he reunited with Russian beauty Irina at the runway bash, fashion designer Ye flashed a wide smile while greeting her with a warm embrace. Former flames: Kanye West's attention was focused on ex Irina Shayk, 36, at Burberry 's London Fashion Week show in Bermondsey on Monday The rapper - who was linked to Irina when they enjoyed a holiday in France together last June - strolled along in a pair of leather trousers and matching jacket boasting faux folded sleeves across the front. Kanye made a style statement with his unusual choice of footwear, not only with his sandals adorned with eye-catching diamantes but because he also opted to wear black socks. It comes after Kanye indicated he's still not over his ex Kim Kardashian with a bizarre text image shared to his Instagram Stories on Sunday. Reunited: As he reunited with Russian beauty Irina Shayk, 36, at the Burberry runway bash, the creative flashed a wide smile while greeting her with a warm embrace The hitmaker shared his condolences with the UK in the wake of the death of Queen Elizabeth II while referring to Kim as his own 'Queen.' His post referencing his ex-wife comes after Kim visited Milan Fashion Week for her collaborative show with Dolce & Gabbana. Although Kanye's Instagram page is currently blank, he has lately been filling up his Instagram Stories with a storm of posts. Quirky: Kanye made a style statement with his unusual choice of footwear, not only with his sandals adorned with eye-catching diamantes but because he also opted to wear black socks On Sunday, he capped off the barrage with one that seemed to be inspired by the mourning for the Queen. 'London I know how you feel,' Kanye wrote in all capital letters against a black background. 'I lost my Queen too.' He was presumably referring to his ex-wife Kim, who has been a target of his obsessive posts in recent months amid their ongoing divorce proceedings, though both have been declared legally single. Odd: Kanye was presumably referring to his ex-wife Kim Kardashian in a social media post on Sunday as he shared his condolences with the UK after Queen Elizabeth II's death Rent-free: Kim was clearly on the rapper's mind earlier this week when he posted a photo of her with her dyed-blond locks while wearing a shining silver bustier-style top and similarly shimmering floral-print pants Kim was clearly on the rapper's mind earlier this week when he posted a photo of her with her dyed-blond locks while wearing a shining silver bustier-style top and similarly shimmering floral-print pants. Earlier on Sunday, he posted several other seemingly unconnected photos of clothing items, along with pictures of Travis Scott and his daughter North West, nine, though there wasn't any rhyme or reason to the Stories posts. Kanye and Irina's reunion comes on the heels of claims Irina and Bradley Cooper, 47 - who share a five-year-old daughter - are mulling the prospect of having more children. Can't move on: Kanye has continued to obsess over Kim, 41, in a number of posts on his Instagram Stories in recent months (seen together in February 2020) Although they split in 2019, they have remained famously amicable co-parents since then and reportedly recently took their little girl Lea De Seine on a holiday together. Now, a Page Six insider has alleged: 'It was a real family getaway and they are considering getting back together,' asserting that Irina 'would like her daughter to have a sibling,' The publication reports Bradley is amenable to the idea. All about the accessories: Irina carried a Burberry trench coat and a small Louis Vuitton pouch as she left the show in a different ensemble Tanned and toned: Irina exposed her taut stomach in a white crop top paired with nude combat trousers Although Bradley was rumoured to be dating Hillary Clinton's close confidante Huma Abedin, the outlet reports they were only ever casually involved. Meanwhile Irina's dating history includes Cristiano Ronaldo and last year she was briefly linked to Kanye in the wake of his split from Kim Kardashian. She and Bradley were first linked in 2015 before going public as a couple in 2016, welcoming their little girl in 2017 and then going their separate ways in 2019. Shortly after their breakup TMZ reported they had decided to split custody and to both remain based in New York in order to make joint parenting easier. In fact she and Bradley are such close co-parents that they have made sure to live just blocks apart in Greenwich Village in order to raise their daughter. 'He's a full-on, hands-on dad - no nanny,' Irina told Highsnobiety last year. 'Lea went on holiday with him for almost two weeks - I didn't call them once.' Since his brief dalliance with Irina, Kanye has enjoyed a romance with First State Behavioural Health COOO Chaney Jones, 24, and has been linked to supermodel Candice Swanepoel, 33. Christine Quinn dressed to impress as she attended the opening of the Jacquemus' Boutique at Paris Fashion Week on Monday. The Selling Sunset star, 33, looked incredible in a white zip front plunging blazer which she teamed with a coordinated pair of trousers. The reality star carried her belongings in a chic matching white bag and accessorised with a dazzling choker necklace. Glam: Christine Quinn dressed to impress as she attended the opening of the Jacquemus' Boutique at Paris Fashion Week on Monday The beauty boasted a radiant palette of makeup including a smoky eye shadow and glossy pink lipstick. Christine was all smiles as she posed with designer Simon Porte Jacquemus who donned a white T-shirt and a matching V-neck jumper over the top. The real estate agent recently announced that she had left the Oppenheim Group and has been dabbling in her own business, RealOpen, with her husband. Chic: The Selling Sunset star, 33, looked incredible in a white zip front plunging blazer which she teamed with a coordinated pair of trousers Stylish: The reality star carried her belongings in a chic matching white bag and accessorised with a dazzling choker necklace The mum-of-one is no longer working with the Oppenheim Group in star-studded Beverly Hills, and has been putting all her focus on her newest business venture with her husband, Christian. The two started a brokerage called RealOpen, which focuses on the real estate industry and purchasing homes with cryptocurrency. In an interview with People, Christine opened up about moving on. 'I had to make a business decision that was for me, so I had to terminate the contract so I could move it over to my brokerage.' Pals: Christine was all smiles as she posed with designer Simon Porte Jacquemus who donned a white T-shirt and a matching V-neck jumper over the top She also talked about breaking the news to Jason, her boss. 'Jason and I, we have a really good understanding. I told him, "This comes from a career move. I have to do my own thing." So that's why I made the company.' Christine's new business has also taken her across the country to sunny Miami, where her brokerage has some listings. Although her time on the Netflix show has come to an end, the hard-worker will still pursue working in real estate and selling luxury homes. She recently shared a post on her Instagram to her 3.2 million followers that she was now, 'Selling Miami.' Ellie Goulding admitted last year that she drank vodka like water to chase an endless high. Now, the pop star gets her jollies from yoga. Here, she's showing off her flexibility by performing a split-legged headstand pose. 'I get the biggest high when I do yoga,' explains Goulding, 35, who's married to Old Etonion Caspar Jopling, 30. 'People don't realise that there's such an incredible drug that doesn't involve any substances.' Ellie Goulding (pictured) admitted last year that she drank vodka like water to chase an endless high. The pop star now gets her jollies from yoga. Here, she's showing off her flexibility by performing a split-legged headstand pose. 'I get the biggest high when I do yoga,' explains Goulding, 35, who's married to Old Etonion Caspar Jopling, 30 Wife of Bath, who fell out with her son over Strictly Emma, dies at 78 A few wives are prepared to tolerate their husband keeping a mistress. Not many are willing to turn a blind eye to him having more than 70 of them. The Dowager Marchioness of Bath, however, did just that, with the infidelities of her eccentric husband, Alexander Thynn, the 7th Marquess, being made more tolerable by the fact that she spent much of her time in Paris, where she has died ten days before her 79th birthday. While the Marchioness, former actress and model Anna Gael, put up with her husband's womanising that saw him acquire the nickname 'The Loins of Longleat', she was less understanding of her son Ceawlin's choice of bride. She allegedly asked Ceawlin the then heir to Longleat, with its 10,000-acre estate, wildlife park and reputed 150 million fortune, if he was sure about ruining '400 years of bloodline' by marrying Emma McQuiston, the half-Nigerian daughter of an oil tycoon. Lord Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, with his wife, actress and war correspondent Anna Gael, outside Longleat House Known as Emma Weymouth after marrying Ceawlin, then Viscount Weymouth, in 2013, she went on to find fame as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. Lord Bath, who died of pneumonia after testing positive for Covid in 2020, aged 87, failed to attend the couple's wedding. His wife was also absent, claiming they had already accepted another invitation. Ceawlin was said to have stopped his mother from seeing his son, John, to prevent the child being 'contaminated' by her racism. Emma Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, attends the amfAR Gala Cannes 2022 at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in May 2022 Anna later denied she was a racist and said she had 'absolutely nothing' against her daughter-in-law. Anna was born in Hungary to a mathematician father and poet mother. After they moved to France when she was a child, she began acting aged 15, under the stage name Anna Gael, appearing in films including Therese And Isabelle, and Take Me, Love Me. She met Alexander in Paris, becoming his mistress while she was married to French film director Gilbert Pineau. Despite living mainly in Paris while Lord Bath was in Wiltshire for much of their marriage, she would complain to a newspaper if it reported that they were separated, insisting that was untrue. It wasn't just Emma's arrival at Longleat that put strain on Ceawlin's relationship with his parents. The biggest cause of dispute was over the decision by Ceawlin and Emma to remove some of Lord Bath's garish murals, which his father had painted for him and his sister when they were children. The quarrels were exposed by a memorable BBC1 documentary, All Change At Longleat. Holly and Phil 'foolish', says Norton Graham Norton has piled pressure on Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby over 'queuegate' by saying he turned down the opportunity to avoid the 13-hour wait with members of the public. 'There was a two-tier system, you could queue jump,' Norton says. 'I was offered a queue-jump ticket by a friend, an MP. I didn't say yes because I thought, 'If anybody sees me I'll get it in the neck'. I suppose what Phil and Holly got wrong was they thought people wouldn't care. I guess that's their crime.' The BBC presenter adds: 'But really they did nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong. But foolish of them to think people would not be annoyed.' Eden confidential: Graham Norton has piled pressure on Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby over 'queuegate' by saying he turned down the opportunity to avoid the 13-hour wait with members of the public. Sir Michael Palin's trip to Iraq for his new Channel 5 series was not warmly welcomed by his wife, Helen. 'We're old now, so one worries a little bit about parting,' admits the Monty Python star, 79, who underwent heart surgery in 2019. Eden confidential: Sir Michael Palin's trip to Iraq for his new Channel 5 series was not warmly welcomed by his wife, Helen 'You worry you might not come back or illness might strike because you're more vulnerable. All these things were going through her mind when I said I was going to Iraq.' He adds: 'I talked her into me going to North Korea and it was a 'not again' moment.' Novelist Robert Harris is worried about our new monarch's title, Charles III. It had been rumoured he might opt for another moniker, such as George VII. 'Charles is an incredibly ill-fated name to have chosen,' the Fatherland author says at Barnes Bookfest in South-West London. 'Let's hope third time lucky.' His new novel, Act Of Oblivion, is set in 1660 about the hunt for the men said to have killed Charles I. Eden Confidential: Novelist Robert Harris is worried about our new monarch's title, Charles III. It had been rumoured he might opt for another moniker, such as George VII. Turgid dramas can win Oscars, but comedies are no laughing matter for awards judges. 'There is huge snobbery [towards comedy],' says Sherlock star Mark Gatiss, who is also a member of comedy team The League Of Gentlemen. 'There always has been and always will be, and I find it both baffling and annoying. Everyone knows comedy is hard.' Bella Hadid welcomed in the autumn in a sage green ensemble in images shared on Monday. The model, 25, donned a hip hugging midi-skirt and a loose fitting T-shirt, giving a glimpse of the toned abs. The three dimensional skirt had brown piping at the sides which tied in the back, creating a small bustle effect. These glamorous images were dropped before she reposted a message about women being 'murdered for the right to be' in Iran. Autumn: Bella Hadid welcomed in the autumn in a sage green ensemble Monday. The model, 25, donned a hip hugging midi-skirt and a loose fitting T-shirt, giving a glimpse of the toned abs The cover model added an oversized Polo rain jacket to the look that was worn open, making the most of her outfit. Bella's dark tresses were styled in low pig tails. She stood tall in high heel black knee-high boots on a balcony that was surrounded by lush green ferns. Jacket: The cover model added an oversized Polo rain jacket to the look Pig tails: Bella's dark tresses were casually styled in low pig tails The model's makeup looked natural with a neutral lip and she wore sunglasses with brown lenses as she posed against a city skyline. The Ramy actress left a cryptic message next to the post, writing, 'That Issey baby.' Her fans seemed to think she was referring to Japanese designer Issey Miyake, who was known for his pleated clothing that never wrinkles. Natural beauty: The model's makeup looked natural with a neutral lip and she wore sunglasses with brown lenses as she posed against a city skyline 3D skirt: The three dimensional skirt had brown piping at the sides which tied in the back, creating a small bustle effect At the news of his death August 5, Bella posted on social media, 'A dream of mine to work with him. I love you Issey. Rest in heaven.' Bella, has been speaking out on social media about the current protests in Iran following the death of a young woman who died after being arrested by the morality police last week. She shared several posts from human right activist and designer, Celine Semaan Vernon including her own impassioned message. 'Internet blackout in Iran is an attempt to plunge the entire population in silence as atrocities are being perpetrated. I have been searching for words... Patriarchy is violence.' Cryptic message: The Ramy actress left a cryptic message next to the post, writing, 'That Issey baby.' Her fans seemed to think she was referring to Japanese designer Issey Miyake, who was known for his pleated clothing that never wrinkles Dream: At the news of Issey Miyake's death August 5, Bella posted on social media, 'A dream of mine to work with him. I love you Issey. Rest in heaven' Ever since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was revealed, women across the Islamic Republic have been burning their hijabs, the head covering mandated by the Iranian government, and cutting their hair. 'Our sisters are being murdered for the right to be. The right to exist in all their freedom, she wrote, 'The freedom of choosing of their sovereignty over their own bodies. Unarmed, facing with police and their weapons. How can women make a militarized dominant majority so threatened and insecure?' 'The control of our bodies is the same need to control our lands our earth. Patriarchy is the disease.' Activism: Bella, her sister, Gigi, Emily Ratajkowski and other high-profile models have been receiving messages from Iranian women to be their voice after a young woman died after being arrested by the morality police Repost: Bella reposted this from human rights activist and designer Celine Semaan Vernon following deadly protests across Iran in which at least 57 people have been killed She referred the The Guardian, an online newspaper, which has reported at least 57 people have died in the women-led protests. The post received more than 158 thousand likes in the first two hours it was posted and she asked her fans to 'please continue to share information about Iran.' Bella, her sister, Gigi, 27, Emily Ratajkowski, 31, other high-profile models have been receiving multiple requests on their social media pages to use their voices to spread the word about current conditions in Iran. Khloe Kardashian is not moving on with the Italian actor Michele Morrone despite excited fans jumping to the conclusion that they were dating. A representative for Morrone, 31, cleared up the confusion to TMZ on Monday. According to them, he and the 38-year-old Kardashians star met for the first time on the day that they were spotted cozying up together at her sister Kim Kardashian's collaborative Dolce & Gabbana fashion show. Nothing to see here: Khloe Kardashian is not dating the Italian actor Michele Morrone, despite speculation set off by an affectionate photo of the two at the Dolce & Gabbana show for Milan Fashion Week. A rep for the Italian actor told TMZ that they met for the first time at the who Rumors of a relationship began swirling after the two posed together for a photo, with Michele wrapping his arm around Khloe and placing his face just inches from her face, even as she put on her own sultry look while facing away from him. As striking as the photo was, it all took place at the request of Dolce & Gabbana, though that didn't stop Morrone from sharing the photo to his Instagram Stories and setting off the speculation. 'Dolce and Gabbana asked them to take a photo at the show,' his rep told People. 'Michele said she was very nice, and that was the extent of it.' Another source also confirmed to the publication that Khloe had 'never met [Morrone] before' the Milan Fashion Week. 'She just met him in Milan that night,' they continued. 'They are not dating. She has no plans to see him again.' Short and sweet: 'Dolce and Gabbana asked them to take a photo at the show,' his rep told People. 'Michele said she was very nice, and that was the extent of it' Morrone is said to currently be single. In 2014, he married the artist Rouba Saadeh, but the two separated in 2018. Back in June, Khloe was reported to be dating a private equity investor, but few updates have materialized about the reported relationship. In the image that set off speculation, the 365 Days star Michele was seen wearing a copper-hued silk shirt which he wore open at the collar and a pair of black PVC trousers as he cozied-up to Khloe. Khloe looked glamorous in a black catsuit and a diamante encrusted pair of hotpants and matching corset top as she prepared to head to the Dolce & Gabbana SS23 show on Saturday. She could be seen leaning in to Michele and standing with her arm around him while wearing a pair of dark sunglasses in the snap. The pair were later seen chatting and affectionately touching each other as they enjoyed the afterparty in the Italian city. Fashionista: The reality star was seen getting close to the hunky Italian actor, 31, in a picture which went viral on social media ahead of the Dolce & Gabbana show; seen on Saturday Michele could be seen resting his hand in the small of Khloe's back as he spoke into her ear over the loud music while Khloe touched his arm as she spoke. MailOnline has contacted representatives for Khloe and Michele for comment. Khloe's fans were quick to take to social media after seeing Michele's original picture, with many delighted with what they saw. Getting to know one another? The pair were later seen chatting and affectionately touching each other as they enjoyed the afterparty in the Italian city Deep in conversation: Michele could be seen resting his hand in the small of Khloe's back as he spoke into her ear over the loud music Khloe Kardashian e Michele Morrone durante o After Party na Italia - 24 de setembro. pic.twitter.com/m4axDQqiG5 Khloe Kardashian Brasil (@khloedashbra) September 25, 2022 One person wrote on Twitter: '@khloekardashian has THE pic with Michele Morrone and I am here for it!!! Khloe baby girl come back season with him pleaseeeeee' While another posted: 'Shipping Khloe Kardashian with Michele Morrone so hard.' Someone else shared: 'You dont understand after ive seen that picture i NEED Khloe Kardashian and Michele Morrone together.' While another person tweeted: 'Okay Michele Morrone and Khloe Kardashian???? PLEASE this is a power couple that I just need to happen????' Happy bunch: Khloe's fans were quick to take to social media after seeing Michele's original picture, with many delighted with what they saw Who is Italian hunk Michele Morrone? The hunk is 31-years-old and hails from Italian city Bitonto He is best known for his role in Netflix's 365 Days - in which he plays lead role Massimo Torricelli Michele is dad to two sons, Marcus, eight and Brando, five - with his ex-wife Rouba Saadeh Boasting over 15M Instagram followes, the actor had only 4,000 before 365 Days hit Netflix It's no surprise that the star also models for brands such as Guess and Dolce & Gabbana He speaks Italian, English and Arabic Advertisement '@khloekardashian To even think for a second that Khloe is dating that absolute banger Michele Morrone makes me the happiest!! He is delicious and she deserves every inch,' wrote another fan. While someone else remarked: 'Khloe Kardashian really said TRISTAN WHO? Because Im so here for her and Michele Morrone. Sis really got her lick back!!!!' 'Oh wow okay Michele Morrone and Khloe Kardashian girl is about to get the 365 days treatment,' posted someone. And another eager social media user wrote; '@khloekardashian u gotta tell me what Michele Morrone scent was like he look like he smell good give up the details.' It is understood Michele is currently single having been linked to a number of women in the spotlight recently. It comes days after Khloe was seen choking back tears in an upcoming episode of her family show The Kardashians as she detailed her shock at learning her on/off boyfriend Tristan Thompson had been unfaithful yet again while they were expecting their second child together. In a new teaser trailer for the second season - which will launch on Thursday - the reality star admitted it had a been 'a difficult time' as she tried to come to terms with another betrayal. In December last year the couple were secretly expecting a son via surrogate when it emerged that Tristan had cheated on Khloe with fitness instructor Maralee Nichols - who was pregnant with his child. He'd initially denied the child was his but later admitted to his infidelity in a statement published to Instagram in January, which included a direct apology to Khloe. 'There is something I am ready to talk about... Tristan and I are having another baby,' she revealed in the trailer. Kardashian trailer: It comes after Khloe choked back tears as she detailed her shock at learning her on/off boyfriend Tristan Thompson had been unfaithful yet again Heartbreak: Khloe and Tristan, pictured with their daughter True, four, were secretly expecting their second child together via surrogate when it emerged Tristan had fathered a child with another woman Despite looking forward to their impending arrival, Khloe was clearly distraught over the state of her personal life and the circumstances surrounding Tristan's betrayal. 'It's supposed to be a really exciting time and it's just a different experience,' she explained. In her own confessional, Khloe's mother Kris Jenner remarked that 'it's hard to watch her in pain.' Baby mama: Maralee gave birth to Theo in early December 2021 and accused Tristan of refusing to pay child support as he continued to insist that the child was not his The Good American co-founder went on to express that, although she found the experience to be particularly wrenching, she was looking forward to her future as a mother-of-two. 'This has been a difficult time in my life but it's the start of something positive and happy and beautiful,' she said. Khloe and Tristan, 31, began seeing each other in 2016 while his ex Jordan Craig was pregnant with his now five-year-old son Prince. They welcomed their daughter True, now four, two years later in 2018. The former couple's on/off romance was plagued by infidelity on Tristan's part, including an infamous incident in 2019 when he was caught kissing her sister Kylie Jenner's best friend Jordyn Woods. Despite their up and downs, Khloe and Tristan reconciled amid the coronavirus pandemic after quarantining together to co-parent their daughter. The couple separated again in 2021 before it was publicly revealed that he'd cheated on her in March 2021 with Maralee Nichols, who would later fall pregnant with his son Theo, now nine months. Ups and downs: Despite their up and downs, Khloe and Tristan reconciled amid the coronavirus pandemic after quarantining together to co-parent but they then split in 2021 Maralee gave birth to Theo in early December 2021 and accused Tristan of refusing to pay child support as he continued to insist that the child was not his. But after taking a paternity test, Tristan was forced to reveal that Theo was indeed his son and that he'd stepped out on Khloe for the umpteenth time. Seven months after the scandal, it was revealed that Khloe was expecting a baby boy with her former partner via surrogate. Khloe has been in Italy this week with her sister Kim Kardashian, 41, Kim's children North West, nine; Saint, six; Chicago, four; and Psalm, three, whom she shares with rapper ex-husband Kanye West, 45; and her mother Kris Jenner, 66. Style icon Kim has been promoting her collaboration with designers Dolce & Gabbana, with the new collection featuring the their Milan Fashion Week show this week. The looks feature a slew of her signature corseted and distressed pieces, with the show's models donning a 'KIM' choker when taking to the catwalk. Fashion forward: Style icon Kim has been promoting her collaboration with designers Dolce & Gabbana, with the new collection featuring the their Milan Fashion Week show this week (Kim seen during the show) The show, which was live streamed via Instagram, opened with dramatic light flickers, paparazzi camera clicker noises and sound effects of 'We love you Kim' screams, before a video was blown up on a screen as the models took to the runway. Closing it off, Kim took to the runway alongside designers Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce. And releasing a limited collection to their website following the show, shoppers can now by a 150 T-shirt from Dolce & Gabbana with a print of Kim eating pasta on it. Designers: Closing the show off, Kim took to the runway alongside designers Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce Production: The show, which was live streamed via Instagram, opened with dramatic light flickers, paparazzi camera clicker noises and sound effects of 'We love you Kim' screams The collaboration, dubbed 'Ciao, Kim', has been teased via social media over the coming days, with a slew of vintage Hollywood-style adverts featuring Kim. She has once again been channeling iconic actress Marilyn Monroe in the new campaign, which even saw her face projected onto the building of Dolce & Gabbana's Milan store. And looking the epitome of Italian glamour, one ad showed her peroxide blonde hair bundled away as she ate a cone of traditional gelato, surrounded by hounding paparazzi. Kim Kardashian is not ready to date after splitting from Kanye West in 2021 and ending her romance with Pete Davidson this summer. While on Live With Kelly And Ryan on Monday, the 41-year-old siren said she really just needs to be alone before she makes another amorous move. 'I'm just not ready,' said the mother of four - she has North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm with West - who is trying to finish up law school. She also shared: 'I'm not looking for anything.' No thanks: Kim Kardashian is not ready to date after splitting from Kanye West in 2021 and ending her romance with Pete Davidson this summer Solo: While on Live With Kelly And Ryan on Monday, the 41-year-old siren said she really just needs to be alone before she makes another amorous move Kim - who turns 42-years-old next month - wore a black top and colorful slacks with matching boots as she added Balenciaga earrings that resembled credit cards. The conversation began when the reality TV star was asked what kind of man she sees herself with. Kim did not hesitate when she offered a firm: 'Absolutely no one.' Kardashian was not in a playful mood and seemed very matter of fact throughout the interview. So chic: Kim - who turns 42-years-old next month - wore a black top and colorful slacks with matching boots as she added Balenciaga earrings that resembled credit cards. Seen with Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest Not there: 'I'm just not ready,' said the mother of four - she has North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm with West - who is trying to finish up law school. She also shared: 'I'm not looking for anything' Tee hee: Kelly, 51, then went into overdrive telling Kim what she needed in her love life. 'You need a titan of industry... It's a very small field but he's out there, sitting here, watching this,' said Kelly. Kim then hilariously looked into the camera and delivered a seductive gaze Co-host Kelly Ripa then told Kim to 'stay off dating apps.' Kim said in a very droll tone that using dating apps like Match or Tinder 'wasn't even an option' for her. Kelly, 51, then went into overdrive telling Kim what she needed in her love life. 'You need a titan of industry. That's what you need. That is what you are, and that is what you need. It's a very small field but he's out there, sitting here, watching this,' said Kelly. Kim then hilariously looked into the camera and delivered a seductive gaze which made the audience giggle. Her exes: Kardashian split from Kanye West (left last week) in 2021 and ending her romance with Pete Davidson (right last week) this summer And she reflected on the last time she made her wish list: 'I did say before, maybe I should try to date a doctor or a scientist. So maybe a bunch of attorneys or scientists would reach out,' she said. 'But I'm just not ready.' Co-host Ryan Seacrest, who has worked with Kim for the past 15 years - on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and now The Kardashians - if she could 'actually go out on a casual date,' Kardashian said no. 'I don't think so. I think it would have to be something set up at a friend's house,' she said. 'Something very chill. Nowhere out in public. I just want chill.' This took a toll on her: There were plenty of ups and downs with West; seen in 2015 in NYC The sister of Khloe and Kourtney then shared: 'I'm not looking for anything. I think I really just need to be by myself and focus and finish school. And spend time with my kids.' She divorced Kanye last year. In October 2021 she started dating SNL vet Pete Davidson. They split this summer. Kardashian recently said she's 'happily single.' She made a splash! Kardashian walked the runway of the Dolce & Gabbana Fashion Show during the Milan Fashion Week on Saturday 'I haven't really thought about it because I'm not looking. I just want to chill for a minute. I think I need some time to myself and to focus, finish school, all that,' she shared on The Late Late Show with James Corden. 'But I think my next route, I feel like I have to ... go to different places. Clearly, it's not working, whatever I'm doing.' Also during the sit down interview she said she has no gray hair yet even though she is 41. The topic came up when she was asked about her blonde locks. 'Yes, the blonde hair. The roots are definitely growing out. I'm going to dye it soon. I'm going to stay blonde for a minute,' Kardashian said. She the said it takes up to eight hours to bleach her roots which she has not done in a while: 'I've just been lazy. It's so much work.' And when Kelly said it is nice that she has dark roots as opposed to gray roots: 'I have not gone gray yet I haven't had gray hair yet. Isn't that weird?' Millie Mackintosh looked a picture in Paris on Monday evening wearing a pink feather mini dress for Lancome's La Vie Est Belle event for Paris Fashion Week. Arriving at Le Petit Palais after catching the Eurostar from London earlier on Monday, the TV personality brought the party as she wore an eye-catching cocktail dress for the occasion. A host of gorgeous faces posed for the cameras before heading in for a fun-filled evening celebrating 10 years since Lancome's iconic La Vie Est Belle fragrance was launched. Out there: Millie Mackintosh looked a picture in Paris on Monday evening wearing a pink feather mini dress for Lancome's La Vie Est Belle event for Paris Fashion Week Wearing her lightly waved auburn locks tucked behind her ears, Millie let her outfit and flawless face do the talking as she stunned on the red carpet. She wore mismatched drop earrings, one with a star and the other a glimmering moon. Contrasting the bright dress, Millie added some height to her svelte frame with a sleek pair of black patent leather pointed court heels. Life in pink: Arriving at Le Petit Palais after catching the Eurostar from London earlier on Monday, the TV personality brought the party as she wore an eye-catching cocktail dress Behind the scenes: The grand entrance to art museum in the French capital Le Petit Palas was Millie's runway as she posted a video of her strutting her stuff up the lit-up staircase Getting ready: Millie shared snaps as she got ready and posed in her hotel room before hitting the party in the centre of Paris The high neck bubblegum pink sequin covered dress had a midriff cut-out, and on the lower panel of the outfit, lots of pink feathers then lower into a bright green feathers which flood over the hem of the skirt. She shared some behind-the-scenes snaps on her Instagram page to show her 1.4million followers her day in Paris before heading to the star-studded event. The grand entrance to art museum in the French capital Le Petit Palas was Millie's runway as she posted a video of her strutting her stuff up the lit-up staircase. And pose: The high neck bubblegum pink sequin covered dress had a midriff cut-out, and on the lower panel of the outfit, lots of pink feathers then lower into a bright green feathers Also at the event was Victoria's Secret model Sara Sampaio, 31, who looked sensational in a black frilled mini dress and an iconic red lip makeup look. Her raven tresses were kept straight and tucked behind her ears to show off her model features. Finishing the look, the Portuguese model kept it simple and classy by donning a pair of black pointed court heels which had diamante detailing as the ankle cuff. Models: Sara Sampaio, Jasmine Tookes and Josephine Skriver are pictured outisde Le Petit Palais for the Lancome event on Monday Strike a pose: Cindy Brunaattending wore a monochromatic outfit with a stand-out frill skirt and Sara Sampaio wore an all-black outfit in Paris on Monday Fellow VS runway Angel Jasmine Tookes, 31, wore an all-black ensemble and like Millie, went for a cut-out midriff look. Her structured shoulder-padded dress had a busty triangular cut out and a larger panel showing her taut stomach off, with two metallic embellishments at the neck and mid section. She wore Calzedonia tights and finished her outfit with a pair of strappy lace-up heels, while keeping her dark brown locks in a high-top messy bun and keeping two bits out to frame her face perfectly. Angel reunion: Victoria's Secret models Sara Sampaio, Jasmine Tookes and Josephine Skriver are pictured at the Lancome event in Paris on Monday Flawless: VS runway Angel Jasmine Tookes, 31, wore an all-black ensemble and like Millie, went for a cut-out midriff look LBD: Her structured shoulder-padded dress had a busty triangular cut out and a larger panel showing her taut stomach off, pairing the design with a pair of Calzedonia tights Another Victoria's Secret Angel was there to join the beauty-filled celebrations in Paris on Monday, with Danish model Josephine Skriver, 29, donning a graphic eyeliner look for the occasion. She wore her ombre brown choppy brown hair straight and in a side part, showcasing her incredible cheekbones and perfect contour. The model wore a square-neck mini black leather dress with a pair of polka-dot tights from Calzedonia and simple black pointed court heels. A picture: Also at the event was Victoria's Secret model Sara Sampaio, 31, who looked sensational in a black frilled mini dress and an iconic red lip makeup look And pose: Sara's raven tresses were kept straight and tucked behind her ears to show off her model features Beauty: Another Victoria's Secret Angel was there to join the beauty-filled celebrations in Paris on Monday, with Danish model Josephine Skriver, 29, donning a graphic eyeliner look By Lee Kyung-min Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Chung Hwang-keun will attend the G20 agriculture ministers' meeting in Bali, Indonesia, Wednesday, the ministry said Monday. The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). The ministers will promote resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems. Also on the agenda items are ways to promote open, fair, predictable, transparent and non-discriminatory agricultural trade to ensure food availability and affordability for all. They will discuss innovative agripreneurship through digital agriculture to improve farmers' livelihood in rural areas. The meeting was first held in 2011 under the leadership of France, then-chair of the G20. It has been held every year since 2016 to address the global food crisis. Among those in attendance are G20 members and representatives from international organizations including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Minister-level figures from Spain, the Netherlands, Singapore, Cambodia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Rwanda and Fiji will also attend the event. This year's theme is "Balancing Food Production and Trade to Fulfill Food for All." The three sub-agenda items are the resilience and sustainability of the agrifood system, promoting stability in trade and digital innovation. Chung will introduce Korea's agricultural policy directives and efforts to strengthen international cooperation to advance the traditional business into a high-tech growth driver. "The government hopes this year's G20 agriculture ministers' meeting will serve as an opportunity to fortify member countries' capabilities and resolve to bolster sustainable and resilient agrifood systems, despite global geopolitical uncertainties, including climate change issues and the COVID-19 pandemic," he said. The minister will also promote Korea's bid to host World Expo 2030 in Busan. 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Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Park Yun-kyu, second vice minister of science and ICT, speaks during a meeting with heads of state-run science and ICT agencies at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry building in Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of Ministry of Science and ICT By Baek Byung-yeul The ICT ministry said Monday that it will go all-out to help the country take a leadership role in the digital era by implementing President Yoon Suk-yeol's vision, which he formulated during his recent visit to North America last week. "President Yoon unveiled his New York initiative to make the country lead the digital era during his visit to the United States and Canada last week," Park Yun-kyu, second vice minister of science and ICT, said during a meeting with the heads of the state-run science and ICT agencies at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry building in Seoul. "Although the country was late to industrialize itself, it has been trying to lead the way in digitalization since the 1990s, and as a result, we have become a digital powerhouse country. The ministry will try to make efforts to establish the country as a leader in the digital era in accordance with the president's New York initiative," he added. On Sept. 21, Yoon attended a tech forum held at New York University and gave a keynote speech stressing that digital technologies should contribute to expanding freedom above all else. "The digital ecosystem should not be dominated by certain classes, and support should be provided to prevent polarization made by digital gaps and increase digital accessibility and convenience," Yoon said during his keynote speech. "We also need to operate systematic education programs that can help future generations grow into digital natives." The second vice minister held the meeting to discuss how to implement Yoon's vision with state-run agencies in the science and ICT sectors including Korea Communications Agency and the Korea Federation of ICT Organizations. Participants shared the purpose and main idea of Yoon's New York initiative and agreed to work together to implement the plan. "The New York initiative is a very meaningful announcement that presents Korea's vision and value as a model country for digital innovation," the vice minister said adding that the government will soon announce an action plan with more details. By When creative minds meet, the end result is always a masterpiece. The silver screen has an inextricable link with exquisite jewellery, and ace movie maker Mani Ratnam has taken this connection to new heights. His magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan has been grabbing eyeballs for its mind-blowing costumes and jewellery recreated with inspiration from the fashions of a bygone era. Designed to perfection Each character in the film has a look-book, the result of a collaboration among several professionals, including the director, stylist, and apparels designer. The process of arriving at the final design took a lot of time. Before a piece of jewellery was finalised for a sequence, several rounds of discussions were held. Every exquisite ornament worn by every character in the film was handcrafted, as were the trinkets worn by actors who play commoners. We created them all to transport the audience to the Chola era and showcase the opulence of royal jewellery during that time, says Pratiksha Prashant, daughter-in-law of master craftsman Krishnadas of Kishandas & Co. The motifs used in temple jewellery, which first appeared during the Chola Dynasty in the 9th century, were mostly flowers. Filigree work on gold was a favourite style. Three artisans/jewellery designers worked on the ornaments, and the entire process, from inspiration to studying examples from history to character specification, took about six months and involved 50 craftsmen, says Prashant Krishnadas. Heirlooms in the making The jewellery created at Kishandas is predominantly one-of-a-kind, with the price rarely considered or discussed. Every ornament combines heritage design, rare stones, and the beauty of refined hand craftsmanship. Pratiksha claims that the jewels in Ponniyin Selvan are made of real gold and precious stones. They took a long time to make because everything was done according to the tradition of that particular time, and all ornaments were made by hand. The jewellery will later be put up for sale, says Pratiksha. Tough ask Making jewellery for men was the most difficult challenge we faced. Were used to making jewellery for women, but crafting ornaments for men was a new experience for us. We had to make armlets, belts, body chains, and kadas. We were also told to incorporate the Chola Empires tiger emblem in mens jewellery such as rings and armbands, says Nitin of Kishandas. The extensive research done made the task a little easier. Madras Talkies (Mani Sirs team) provided us with a lot of information and pointers. Eka Lakhani, the stylist, and the team did extensive research on the types of pieces that could be used and what could not be used too, says Pratiksha. For example, she says, The Cholas were Shaivites (worshippers of Lord Shiva), we couldnt use any motifs or symbols associated with Lord Vishnu or Lord Krishna. The team described the appearance and hairstyle of each character. The jewellery was then created to complement the clothing style and signature looks. Eka Lakhani went to Thanjavur to see and understand the sculptures at the Big Temple (Peria Kovil) there, and it was then that she realised that jewellery was what would bring the period look to life. Someone who understood heritage aesthetics was required. We approached Kishandas because our aesthetic languages are so similar, says Eka. Recreating past glory The magnificent sets, costumes, and every intricate detail seen in the teasers were all tailored to perfect the Chola Era period look. The kings and queens were dressed elaborately at that time, and we wanted to highlight the wealth of that period through the jewellery, says Pratiksha, adding, We used a few pieces which are seen even today, such as the Magai Mala and the Thussi, but many ornaments, such as hair accessories, belts, hip chains, armlets and the typical vankis that we make for todays brides were made in different styles to fit the period look. Scaled up! Pratiksha was associated with a couple of movies earlier, though not on such a scale. Were used to doing photoshoots and campaign shoots as a jewellery brand, but doing it for a film of this calibre was a completely different ballgame, says Pratiksha, who is the creative director and handles the marketing of the brand. The Kishnadas elite clientele includes members of the Nizams family and the venerable upper crust. Because of our Hyderabad heritage and legacy, our clients and their families often become friends. Actress Aditi Rao is one of my close friends. She was instrumental in suggesting our name to Mani sir and Eka when the team was looking for someone to bring his vision to life, says Pratiksha, adding, We did a look test on Trisha Krishnan during our initial meeting, and they liked it. Pratiksha and I had lengthy discussions prior to each look-test. She used placement jewellery while I did my first round with dummy fabrics. We made the costumes and jewellery that worked well together after we knew what we were doing, says Eka. HYDERABAD: Forceful relocation of dogs amounts to "cruelty, according to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960. However, stray dogs are being relocated illegally, even when they are not causing any harm to residents, according to animal rights activists. Some residents are calling the GHMC and requesting that strays be relocated for flimsy reasons such as that the dogs were barking all day, there were more dogs in the neighbourhood, puppies were born, and so on," bemoaned an animal rights activist. They appear to have a problem even when the dogs are not causing trouble," said animal activist Aanchal Khanna. Khanna stated that she had seen a number of animal organisations affiliated with the GHMC that relocated the dogs and separated them from their families merely because the strays were barking in the neighbourhood. "I called these organisations at random and complained that dogs in my neighbourhood are barking and that I wanted them relocated. Their response was quick. Without even trying to counsel me, they sent teams to relocate the dog the next morning. Residents must be informed that it is illegal to relocate the dog unless it exhibits rabies symptoms and is aggressively biting. Instead, they encourage callers to relocate the dog." Another activist, Karan Shah, stated that she has frequently observed some residents paying money to economically disadvantaged persons to relocate stray dogs. S. Ramachander, director of animal husbandry, stated that animals being relocated constituted cruelty. "Dogs are territorial animals that cannot be relocated. The GHMC must return the stray dogs to the location where they were picked up from for sterilisation and vaccination. If anyone witnesses animal cruelty, they should contact the police station," he suggested. An official from the GHMC veterinary department denied that his employees were relocating strays, claiming that the volunteers were sometimes overly enthusiastic. "There is always room for improvement. We're doing our best. Occasionally, a stray dog could be relocated in another lane of a colony, but it is within 200 metres, which should be fine," the official explained. Meanwhile, residents have long sought a permanent solution to the human-stray dog conflict. Their main complaint was that the stray dogs constantly barking at night, chased people, ripped vehicle seats and covers, and occasionally bit people without provocation. Hussain Kathwala, a resident of Secunderabad, claims that SCB and GHMC employees are not cleaning up the roads properly and that there is dog litter near his home. "I filed a complaint online and also called the departments." They sometimes come and relocate the dogs, or they just close my complaint by saying it has been solved. How fair is it? We are unable to walk freely or travel in vehicles. "There is always fear," he explained. Two infiltrating militants were shot dead along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kupwara district on Sunday. (Representational image/PTI) SRINAGAR: The Indian Army and Jammu and Kashmir police, in a joint operation, shot dead two infiltrating militants along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kupwara district on Sunday. Defence spokesman Emroz Musavi said that based on specific input of likely infiltration, the joint operation was launched in Tekri Nar area in LoC's Machael sector leading to the killing of two militants and the recovery of two AK 47 rifles, two pistols and four hand grenades. Kashmir zone police, in a tweet, said the identification of the slain militants was being ascertained. Meanwhile, the J&K police has attached a residential house in north Valley's Bandipore district for "wilfully sheltering and harbouring terrorists after obtaining sanction from competent authority". A police spokesman said in capital Srinagar, "The J&K police attached the residential house of one person namely Bashir Ahmad Mir of Wanpora (Gurez) at Watrina in Bandipore after obtaining legal sanction from the competent authorities". He added that two hardcore militants were killed in the area on September 26 last year and that the investigation "proved beyond doubt that the said house was used by them for the purpose of terrorism where as a family member for sheltering and harbouring terrorists and this act was voluntarily and knowingly committed by him. Many attacks on civilians and protected persons were carried, conspired and planned by terrorists while using this house as a hideout." Reacting to the outburst of Naidu over the change of the medical university's name, Kakani demanded the TD chief explain the reasons for changing the name of the Aarogyasri scheme. Wikipedia NELLORE: Agriculture minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy said that Chandrababu Naidu was the producer, director, script and screenplay writer for the ongoing Amaravati farmers padayatra. Addressing the media at his residence here on Sunday, Kakani alleged that Naidu sent party men, including cadres, under the guise of farmers in the yatra. The intention of Chandrababu Naidu is to incite people and create law and order problems since he is against prosperity and peace in the state, the minister remarked. He said that Lokesh would not have been defeated in Mangalagiri if Amaravati farmers were really with Naidu. He justified changing the name of the medical university to Dr YSR University as he had rendered noble service in the medical and health fields. He said, Unlike Chandrababu Naidu, we have reverence towards NTR. That is why we named Krishna district after him. Reacting to the outburst of Naidu over the change of the medical university's name, Kakani demanded the TD chief explain the reasons for changing the name of the Aarogyasri scheme. He said that the turnout for the Chief Ministers programme in Kuppam was an indicator of antipathy among people against Chandrababu Naidu. Kakani alleged that Naidu was hatching a political conspiracy, unable to digest the patronage for CM Jagan Mohan Reddy at Kuppam. HD Hyundai CEO Chung Ki-sun, front row center, takes a selfie with Avikus employees at the company's head office in Seoul, Sept. 1. Courtesy of Avikus By Park Jae-hyuk Avikus has emerged as one of the most important subsidiaries of Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Group, as the company specializing in self-navigating technologies has been apparently used for CEO Chung Ki-sun of HD Hyundai, the group's holding firm, to prove his management ability before inheriting control of the conglomerate from his father, Asan Foundation Chairman Chung Mong-joon, the largest shareholder of HD Hyundai, according to industry officials, Monday. Earlier this month, Avikus recruited around 30 engineers, following its previous hiring of some 20 employees in March. The company has continuously been reinforcing its workforce since its establishment in 2020, with the aim of increasing the number of employees to 70 by the end of this year from 40 at this moment. It has also been enlarging its office in southeastern Seoul since late last month. Such an aggressive expansion has been considered to be backed by the HD Hyundai CEO. Earlier this year, he introduced Avikus at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Along with HHI Group Chairman Kwon Oh-gap, the younger Chung even brought doughnuts recently to the employees at Avikus' head office. He also had a dinner with the company's young employees to encourage them. "We started Avikus because we envisioned a more scalable company. No one in the heavy industry sector was up to the challenge so we wanted to pioneer this front," Chung was quoted as saying by Avikus' social media. "I believe in the importance of actions, not words. Avikus has proven its potential through its efforts and key achievements. We will support Avikus in all ways, so that its potential can be maximized and employees can realize their dreams." Industry officials expect the 40-year-old to try to dispel concerns about his abilities as an entrepreneur through the success of Avikus. "He has a keen interest in Avikus, because he has nurtured the company since its beginning," an industry official said. At this moment, HHI Group is led by Chairman Kwon, while Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Vice Chairman Ka Sam-hyun is in charge of managing the group's shipbuilding subsidiaries. The HD Hyundai CEO is basically co-leading the group with the two professional managers. Once the construction of the Global R&D Center in Pangyo, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, is completed by the end of this year, however, the HHI Group heir is likely to come to the fore, as he has directed the establishment of the center that will serve as the control tower for the group to develop new technologies. He is then expected to be promoted to vice chairman next year from president, tightening his grip on the group. Kumar said that the ruling party did not develop the state in its tenure of three years. The finance minister gave distorted figures on the financial situation of the state, which was turning from bad to worse. DC Image/K. Muralikrishna Visakhapatnam: BJP national secretary Satya Kumar said that the round table meeting on the necessity of decentralisation organised by the ruling party in Visakhapatnam on Sunday was an exercise in waste. Except for empty promises, the party has done nothing so far for the welfare of north Andhra, he said while talking to reporters in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. He said the round table was organised to obstruct the ongoing padayatra by the Amaravati farmers. He said that the BJP would protect the padayatra and warned the YSRC leadership not to disturb the yatris. Satya Kumar suggested the government hold a round table meeting on the menace of ganja smuggling, per capita income, and massive unemployment among the youth. He said that the ruling party did not develop the state in its tenure of three years. The finance minister gave distorted figures on the financial situation of the state, which was turning from bad to worse. He went on to say that not a single project had been launched, and that, apart from the centre-approved educational institutions, no new institutes had been established during the three-year period. Regarding the demand for a high court at Kurnool, he said the demand was not new but prior to that, funds were needed to complete the irrigation projects in the Rayalaseema region. Taking a dig at the projects in the Chief Ministers constituency Pulivendula, Satya Kuamr said that foundation stones for projects worth Rs 7,000 crore were laid during the last three years but not even a project of Rs 7 crore had been completed. At the outset, its important to examine why the meeting between the sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and a group of five members of the Muslim intelligentsia was held after much hesitation. Tentativeness, because the request for this interaction was made in the wake of the controversy generated by incendiary statements against Prophet Mohammed by BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. That controversy in May-June, it may be recalled, dominated the headlines, whipped up communal passions and had a diplomatic fallout, forcing the government and the ruling party to act by suspending Ms Sharma. It led to a hostile response from hardliners among Hindutva votaries. Gradual de-escalation of social hostilities was imp-erative but this couldnt be done immediately, by setting up a meeting with Muslims, for fear of erosion in political support. The RSS therefore took a while before acquiescing to the request and calling the group for a conversation at its office in Delhis Jhandewalan area. For the same reasons, the RSS, normally never wary of publicising its activities, chose to put a lid on the interaction for long. It was after close to a month that the information of this meeting was secured by some media people. The five Muslim men former Delhi lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung, former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi, former AMU vice-chancellor Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah (Retd), journalist and political leader Shahid Siddiqui and businessman Saeed Shervani too didnt rush to the media. They chose to speak only after news of the interaction became public. Does this suggest that both groups were apprehensive of a backlash in the event of details of the meeting becoming public? As a result, was it possibly mutually decided to break the news gingerly? While a clear answer to the two questions will remain elusive, the sequence of events suggests that this was indeed so. But on the flip side, if this process of dialogue has to have any future in a socially corroded India and help to smoothen inter-community ties, the process cannot but be done openly. Being secretive on the most disruptive issue at par footing for Muslims will hardly serve any purpose. In any case, Mr Bhagwat, as well as those who have taken the initiative, and any others who may like to follow suit the imam of the mosque visited by the RSS chief, for instance will not find it easy to get their personal or collective views accepted by wider sections within their own communities or political fraternities. This makes transparency of the process absolutely essential. While Mr Bhagwat, at least, has the cushion of the office he holds, the five notables dont represent even the entire Muslims intelligentsia, which in turn too cant claim to be ambassadors of the entire community that is wrongly considered homogenous. The RSS chief too has a past in making statements that havent been followed up by the rank and file of the fraternity, giving rise to allegations that his interventions were duplicitous. However, in a democracy, it is essential to unswervingly pursue dialogue especially on issues that are the cause of frequent social disruption. This couldnt be truer of holding dialogues or conversations between people with different religious faiths. The current government can be faulted for ignoring the task of forging a consensus of even issues that are not particularly contentious. There is little relevance of religious leaders sitting together and finding areas of common concern and commonality on matters related to faith. That all religions preach the same moral values is a cliche, even though adherers of monotheistic religions have major disagreements with others. The schism between Hindus and Muslims has deepened in India since 2014. This is not because of religion and religious philosophies, but for reasons of politics over religion and religious identity, besides the use of religion in politics. It must be recognised, particularly by those desiring to enter into a dialogue process with Mr Bhagwat or with, as reportedly decided at this meetings end, the group of RSS-chosen interlocutors, that these individuals carry the burden of a century-old ideology that makes them bound to a set of definitions most importantly about the nation, nationhood and citizenship. The RSS will become a centenarian in 2025 and no one can ignore the philosophy of cultural nationalism as being integral to its formation and existence. India is also barely 18 months away from the campaign for the next parliamentary elections kickstarting. The BJP has greatly benefited in the past two elections by the veiled use of its Hindutva deck in which the Muslim card is important. This remains and is evident, be it in the excessive use of symbolic weapons of destruction like the bulldozer, or repressive laws. The stance on the core issues of nation and nationhood and whether or not the country is a Hindu Rashtra or not the Sangh Parivar, that includes the whole of the Union government is an evolved and unambiguous position and dilution of this is unlikely, especially with the polls around. The settled position of the Hindutva groups on these issues acted as an insurmountable hurdle during every effort to fashion a harmonious resolution on any point of discord. In fact, when opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act reached its peak in early 2020, the government and its political affiliates showed no inclination to consider the objections of secular activists and Muslim protesters alike. These issues are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg of divergences. However, this must act as the starting point of any dialogue because the three matters nation, nationhood and citizenship were those that the Centre emphasised on immediately after securing its second successive mandate in 2019. Although the five Muslim gentlemen have no mandate from the community, their anxiety has to be recognised because it is shared by most of their own although many disagree with their method. But the RSS and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (a meeting has been sought with him too) have the liberty to widen the field and invite more representative groups for a dialogue. In July, at the BJPs national executive meeting, the PM asked party workers to reach out to socially and economically deprived sections of the community tagged as Pasmanda Muslims. The call for a dialogue has reached the highest two persons in this government as well and its for them to demonstrate the sincerity of their past utterances. Due process of law is given a go by while delivering what they call instant justice. The more heinous the crime, the more the public support extrajudicial punishment generates. PTI The reports of the gruesome murder of a teenage girl by people connected to the ruling BJP in Dehradun in Uttarkhand followed by the demolition of the resort the accused owned display some deeply disturbing trends. As per reports, the 19-year-old was working as a receptionist in the resort at a time when she would have been in college pursuing her education. It was the responsibility of the State to ensure that such an industrious girl faced no harassment in the workplace, leave alone threat to her life. Unfortunately, that did not happen. What is left for the ends of justice to meet is a proper investigation that will bring the perpetrators to book. The demolition of the resort by the authorities follows a pattern now being employed in several states, especially those ruled by the BJP, and is more worrisome. It has now become a practice that the authorities suddenly discover that the property of a person accused of some grave crime or involved in a programme of protest which the powers-that-be detests has some irregularity about it, and then they demolish it. Due process of law is given a go by while delivering what they call instant justice. The more heinous the crime, the more the public support extrajudicial punishment generates. This must stop. Allowed to continue, this practice will slowly erode peoples faith in democracy and its processes, which include rule of law. It may look like delivery of justice but going forward, this mode, which is accountable to none, will be another tool in the hands of the rich and powerful. Those who support this practice little realise this. The government opts for the easy way out when it resorts to the demolition raj whereas the need of the hour is systematic, progressive and sustained efforts to reform the process of criminal justice administration. Justice is one of the most cherished but difficult ideas of human civilisation. There is no easy mechanism to deliver it. The show of unity displayed by a section of the Opposition parties at a rally called by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Fatehabad, Haryana, on Sunday and the subsequent meeting of JD(U) leader and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the realistic comments they made about the Congress being an essential part of an Opposition alliance together mark a realistic first attempt to create a platform to take on the National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. But the absence of some of the tallest figures in the Opposition ranks like West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav reflects the distance the Opposition must cover should they take their assignment seriously. The Opposition leaders have reasons to think of a real fight at the hustings and they have listed some. The BJP is now left with practically no heavyweight partners in the NDA. Three of them which added substantially to the NDA kitty last time Shiv Sena, JD(U) and Siromani Akali Dal have all left the NDA in the last three years, and they were all present at the INLD meet. The BJPs position is not all that safe in several states: the party installed its chief ministers in some via horse-trading, euphemistically called Operation Lotus. Despite the tall claims, the economy does not present a rosy picture and the NDA has never shown the skills to handle it deftly. The Opposition leaders who met Sunday sounded clear that the Congress should be part of the united front. Electoral arithmetic backs the proposition. The Congress is the major political force in several states Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh which the BJP had swept in the last Lok Sabha elections, and an alliance without the party will make no sense in these states. At the same time, there are big states in which the Congress matters less, such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, where the non-Congress parties occupy the major political space. A joint platform and a single candidate against the NDA in each of the 542 constituencies is the necessary condition to put up a decent fight against the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls. Opposition unity alone does not matter in elections. Its the ability to offer the voter an alternative that counts, too. The BJP romped home comfortably in the 2019 elections though it had faced a series of losses in byelections to the Lok Sabha a year before; there were reverses even in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP never regrets playing the communal card for electoral purposes from raising allegations against someone like former PM Manmohan Singh to referring to those behind arson attacks as people who can be identified by their clothes, the party has fired every arm in its arsenal to win elections. The Opposition must realise it cannot defeat the NDA by peddling soft Hindutva as people have no incentive to opt for a B team in national elections. A wider secular liberal platform, that can offer an alternative governance plan, is the first step towards 2024; and the Opposition looks like having taken it. Six Indian Air Force officers have been charged with murder after a trainee cadet, against whom a court of inquiry was initiated, was found hanging, a police officer said. According to police, Ankit Jha (27) was found hanging in one of the rooms of Air Force Technical College (AFTC). Police suspected that the death happened four or five days ago. Based on his brother Aman Jha's complaint, the police registered a case against six IAF officers at Gangammana Gudi police station on Saturday. Also Read | Kochi man stabbed to death for opposing misbehaviour towards woman in party Aman has also alleged in his complaint that attempts were made to tamper with the evidence as people from the AFTC were present around 4.30 am on Saturday at the police station with a piece of evidence he was also looking for. He even wondered how the people from AFTC knew beforehand about his presence in the police station in the early hours and reached there. "The reason behind the death is yet to be ascertained. Our investigations are on. Jha was a trainee cadet and he was found hanging in one of the rooms of AFTC," a senior police officer told PTI. "The officers against whom the complaint was lodged have not been arrested but the Indian Air Force has assured us all assistance," the officer said. He added that they are waiting for the post-mortem report to carry forward the investigation. Circle Police Inspector (CPI) Srimanth Illal, who was seriously injured in a mob attack while investigating the marijuana field case, was airlifted to Bengaluru for further treatment. For the past two days, he had been on ventilator at the United Hospital in Kalaburagi, since being grievously assaulted by ganja peddlers in Basavakalyan taluks Honnali village. The district administration clarified that the CPI was being moved to Manipal hospital in the state capital, because his family members requested it. United Hospital director Dr Vikram Siddhareddy said that though Illals condition was improving, he had been put on a ventilator due to a lung injury. Stating that his kidney, abdomen and brain were in good condition, Dr Siddhareddy said that the police officer remained unconscious and needed 48 hours to recover. The police officer was brought in critical condition as he had received serious injuries on his head, face and abdomen. Now he is recovering and blood pressure has also become normal. His ribs have been damaged. The bleeding caused due to internal injury has stopped. It will require some time to completely recover as his lungs are damaged, Dr Siddhareddy said, adding that the hospital will provide all assistance demanded by the district administration and police officials. Also Read | Murder or suicide? Mystery over cadet's death at IAF college Meanwhile, Mantal police in Bidar district arrested 11 people in connection with the attack on Illal, and continued the search to nab others who were absconding. All of Illals attackers reportedly deserted the village fearing arrest. Maharashtra police also extended their co-operation to trace Illals attackers. Mahagaon station police sub-inspector Asha Rathod, who was also present at the time of attack, filed a complaint against more than 50 people. Kalaburagi City Police Commissioner Dr Y S Ravikumar assured strict action against ganja peddlers. Responding to Dalit leaders plea to curb ganja menace in Kalaburagis Dalit colonies, during a grievance redressal meeting, Ravikumar said that more raids will be conducted on the marijuana fields, apart from lodging complaints against those consuming cannabis. Various Dalit leaders complained that these colonies had become hubs of ganja sale and other illegal activities. MLA Dattatraya Patil Revoor visited the injured police officers home and promised all government assistance to his family. MP Dr Umesh Jadhav visited Illal at the hospital and enquired about the police officers prognosis. By Balsam Mustafa for 'The Conversation', Iranian authorities have cracked down on protests which erupted after the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab appropriately. The death of Mahsa Amini who was reportedly beaten after being arrested for wearing her hijab improperly sparked street protests. Unrest has spread across the country as women burned their headscarves to protest laws that force women to wear the hijab. Seven people are reported to have been killed, and the government has almost completely shut down the internet. But in the Arab world including in Iraq, where I was brought up the protests have attracted attention and women are gathering online to offer solidarity to Iranian women struggling under the countrys harsh theocratic regime. Read | Burning the veil: An Indian response The enforcement of the hijab and, by extension, guardianship over womens bodies and minds, are not exclusive to Iran. They manifest in different forms and degrees in many countries. In Iraq, and unlike the case of Iran, forced wearing of the hijab is unconstitutional. However, the ambiguity and contradictions of much of the constitution, particularly Article 2 about Islam being the primary source of legislation, has enabled the condition of forced hijab. Since the 1990s, when Saddam Hussein launched his Faith Campaign in response to economic sanctions imposed by the UN security council, pressure on women to wear the hijab has become widespread. Following the US-led invasion of the country, the situation worsened under the rule of Islamist parties, many of whom have close ties to Iran. Contrary to the claim in 2004 by US president George W Bush that Iraqi people were now learning the blessings of freedom, women have been enduring the heavy hand of patriarchy perpetuated by Islamism, militarisation and tribalism, and exacerbated by the influence of Iran. Going out without a hijab in Baghdad became a daily struggle for me after 2003. I had to put on a headscarf to protect myself wherever I entered a conservative neighbourhood, especially during the years of sectarian violence. Flashbacks of pro-hijab posters and banners hanging around my university in central Baghdad have always haunted me. The situation has remained unchanged over two decades, with the hijab reportedly imposed on children and little girls in primary and secondary schools. A new campaign against the enforced wearing of the hijab in Iraqi public schools has surfaced on social media. Natheer Isaa, a leading activist in the Women for Women group, which is leading the campaign, told me that hijab is cherished by many conservative or tribal members of society and that backlashes are predictable. Similar campaigns were suspended due to threats and online attacks. Women posting on social media with the campaign hashtag #notocompulsoryhijab, have attracted reactionary tweets accusing them of being anti-Islam and anti-society. Read | Iran vows 'decisive action' against women-led protests Similar accusations are levelled at Iranian women who defy the regime by taking off or burning their headscarves. Iraqi Shia cleric, Ayad Jamal al-Dinn lashed out against the protests on his Twitter account, labelling the protesting Iranian women anti-hijab whores who are seeking to destroy Islam and culture. Cyberfeminists and reactionary men In my digital ethnographic work on cyberfeminism in Iraq and other countries, I have encountered numerous similar reactions to women who question the hijab or decide to remove it. Women who use their social media accounts to reject the hijab are often met with sexist attacks and threats that attempt to shame and silence them. Those who openly speak about their decision to take off the hijab receive the harshest reaction. The hijab is linked to womens honour and chastity, so removing it is seen as defiance. Womens struggle with the forced hijab and the backlash against them challenges the prevailing cultural narrative that says wearing the hijab is a free choice. While many women freely decide whether to wear it or not, others are obliged to wear it. So academics need to revisit the discourse around the hijab and the conditions perpetuating the mandatory wearing of it. In doing so it is important to move away from the false dichotomies of culture versus religion, or the local versus the western, which obscure rather than illuminate the root causes of forced hijab. In her academic research on gender-based violence in the context of the Middle East, feminist academic Nadje al-Ali emphasises the need to break away from these binaries and recognise the various complex power dynamics involved both locally and internationally. Also Read | Iran scrambles to contain spreading unrest over woman's death The issue of forcing women to wear the hijab in conservative societies should be at the heart of any discussion about womens broader fight for freedom and social justice. Iranian womens rage against compulsory hijab wearing, despite the security crackdown, is part of a wider womens struggle against autocratic conservative regimes and societies that deny them agency. The collective outrage in Iran and Iraq invites us to challenge the compulsory hijab and those imposing it on women or perpetuating the conditions enabling it. As one Iraqi female activist told me: For many of us, hijab is like the gates of a jail, and we are the invisible prisoners. It is important for the international media and activists to bring their struggle to light, without subscribing to the narrative that Muslim women need saving by the international community. (The author is Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick) At least one person died and scores of others went missing in an avalanche that hit the 8,163-metre-high Mount Manaslu in western Nepal on Monday afternoon. The rescue operation couldn't be carried out owing to inclement weather, said Chang Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks Pvt Ltd at the base camp of the mountain. Three helicopters have already been mobilised but due to the bad weather, the rescue efforts were also badly hit. Tsum Nubri Rural Municipality (Gorkha) Vice Chairman, Laxmi Gurung said that the identification of the person killed in the avalanche that occurred between camps three and four is yet to done. Also Read | Seven killed, 18 injured in bus accident in Nepal Although a helicopter was mobilised to rescue those stranded on the world's eighth-highest mountain, the rescue operation couldn't be carried out owing to inclement weather. The exact number of those marooned in the mountain is yet to be known. Sherpa said that the climbers, porters and Sherpa guides were swept away by the deadly avalanche, while ascending from third base camp to fourth base camp that is located at the height of 7,450 metres. According to a media report, renowned North Face athlete Hilaree Nelson went missing just below the true summit of Mt Manaslu while her partner Jim Marrison skied down the mountain on Monday morning. Nelson reportedly fell into crevasse from just above the fore summit of the mountain when she, along with Morrison, skied from the real summit this morning. Nelson fell down around 25 metres into vertical crevasse and had gone missing, according to the Himalayan Times. According to the North Face, with a career spanning two decades that includes dozens of first descents through more than 40 expeditions to 16 different countries, Nelson is the most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation. The 45-year-old mother of two was the first female to link two 8000 metre peaks, Everest and Lhotse, in one 24 hour push. In the fall of 2018, she returned to 27,940-foot Lhotse a second time to ski from the summit, linking turns down one of the most prized un-skied lines in the world, as per the TNF website. A total of 404 people from 38 expedition teams have been issued permits to climb the mountain this season. Efforts were underway by senior Congress leaders on Monday to resolve the impasse in Rajasthan after several MLAs loyal to Ashok Gehlot submitted resignation letters over a possible move to appoint Sachin Pilot as the next chief minister. Congress observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken, who had waited in vain for all legislators to arrive for the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting on Sunday, were trying to persuade Gehlot loyalists to meet them one by one in an effort to defuse the political crisis. The Gehlot loyalists had visited Speaker C P Joshis home after a long meeting at minister Shanti Dhariwal's residence on Sunday, saying they were resigning as MLAs. Also Read | Rajasthan crisis: CLP meet cancelled as over 90 MLAs threaten to resign At the chief ministers home, Gehlot, Kharge and Maken waited for all legislators to arrive for the CLP meeting. Pilot and his supporters came but the meeting was a washout. Gehlot loyalists claimed that over 90 MLAs had visited Joshis home, but the number could not be verified independently. Congress has 108 MLAs in the House of 200. There was no word from the Speakers office on the resignation letters. Also Read | A battle of opposites for Congress president's post Ministers Dhariwal, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Mahesh Joshi, along with CM Gehlot's advisor Sanyam Lodha met the AICC observers, but the standoff continued. On their return, sources said, they told the other loyalists that they had put forth three conditions. They wanted the decision on the next CM to be left till after the Congress organisational election and stressed that Gehlot should have a say in picking the new CM who should be someone who stood by the veteran leader during the rebellion by Pilot supporters in 2020. We have submitted our resignation and are now going home. The MLAs want that any decision on the CM's should be taken only after the election of the partys national president, minister Govind Ram Meghwal had said. Also Read | Gehlot loyalists plunge Rajasthan Congress in crisis, give resignation letters to Speaker The loyalists said the views of MLAs should be taken into account. Later, whatever decision taken by the high command will be accepted, independent MLA Babulal Nagar had said. The aborted CLP meeting was seen as a crucial step ahead of Gehlot filing his nomination for the Congress presidents post, amid speculation that the former deputy chief minister Pilot will take his place in the state. Gehlot, seen by many as a reluctant candidate for the top party position, initially appeared unwilling to give up his CMs post. Later, it was speculated that he would rather see Joshi --- or anyone else --- as CM rather than Pilot, who had rebelled against his leadership. Gehlot had told reporters in Jaisalmer that the MLAs would pass a one-line resolution at the CLP meeting calling upon party president Sonia Gandhi to pick his successor. Also Read | Rajasthan's current situation points at President rule: BJP takes potshots at Congress power tussle But the MLAs seemed to go off script. Before setting off for Joshis home, some Gehlot loyalists had said the next CM should be someone who was instrumental in saving the government during the 2020 crisis and not anyone involved in the bid to topple it, a veiled reference to Pilot. "We are going to the Speaker's residence and will submit our resignation," Khachariyawas had told reporters. Another leader, Govind Ram Meghwal, said Gehlot can shoulder both roles, that of the chief minister as well as the party's national president. He said if Gehlot does not remain CM, the party will face problems in winning the next Assembly elections. "If a decision is not taken keeping the MLAs' sentiments in mind, the government will be in danger," independent legislator and advisor to the chief minister Lodha had said. Gehlot and Pilot were at loggerheads over the chief minister's post soon after the Congress won the Assembly elections in December 2018. The high command then chose Gehlot as the chief minister for the third time while Pilot was made his deputy. In July 2020, Pilot along with 18 party MLAs rebelled against Gehlot's leadership. Two villagers living near Assam's Kaziranga National Park (KNP) on Sunday filed a police complaint seeking action against Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudeva of Isha Foundation and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma for a drive inside the park on Saturday night. After reopening the KNP for tourists on Saturday evening, Sadhguru drove a jeep inside the park in the evening with Sarma beside him. Assam Cabinet Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah and others also took the jeep safari at night, which according to the complaint, is a violation of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The complaint was filed at Bokakhat police station in eastern Assam's Golaghat district by Soneswar Narah of Morongial gaon and Prabin Pegu, a resident of Balijan Adarsha Mishing Gaon in Golaghat. Read | One-horned rhino population crosses 4,000-mark "The law should be equal for all. Jeep safari inside the park during the night is prohibited for tourists but Sadhguru and Sarma took the jeep ride at night. The relaxation of the rules for them would remain a threat for protection of Kaziranga and its animals. So the police should show its fundamental duties by arresting them for violation of the Wildlife Protection Act," Narah and Pegu, belonging to the Mishing tribe, said in the complaint. "Action should be taken under the law to make them issue a public apology too," said the complaint. The 1,300-sq km Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve is a tourist attraction and is the biggest home for the greater one-horned rhinos. The park has 2,613 rhinos at present. The park, however, remained closed for tourists since May due to the Monsoon. Sadhguru addressed Assam ministers, MLAs, bureaucrats and others on Saturday at a resort at a "chintan shivir" organised by the BJP-led Assam government. Addressing the event, Sadhguru earlier underscored the potential of sustainable ecotourism in Assam and rest of the Northeast without disturbing the ecology and the environment. The Assam government also signed a MoU with Isha Foundation for sustainable use of soil for agriculture practices. No reaction was available from Sadhguru or Assam CM regarding the complaint or the charges. A Ukrainian serviceman sits on a boat during an evacuation of injured soldiers participating in the counteroffensive, in a region near the retaken village of Shchurove, Ukraine, Sept. 25. AP-Yonhap Russia's rush to mobilize hundreds of thousands of recruits to staunch stinging losses in Ukraine is a tacit acknowledgement that its ''army is not able to fight,'' Ukraine's president said Sunday, as splits sharpened in Europe over whether to welcome or turn away Russians fleeing the call-up. Speaking to U.S. broadcaster CBS, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said he's bracing for more Russian strikes on Ukraine's electrical infrastructure, as the Kremlin seeks to ramp up the pressure on Ukraine and its Western backers as the weather gets colder. Zelenskyy warned that this winter ''will be very difficult.'' ''They will shoot missiles, and they will target our electric grid. This is a challenge, but we are not afraid of that.'' he said on ''Face the Nation.'' He portrayed the Russian mobilization its first such call-up since World War II as a signal of weakness, not strength, saying: ''They admitted that their army is not able to fight with Ukraine anymore.'' Zelenskyy also said Ukraine has received NASAMS air defense systems from the U.S. NASAMS uses surface-to-air missiles to track and shoot down incoming missiles or aircraft. Zelenskyy did not say how many Ukraine received. Although the European Union is now largely off limits to most Russians, with direct flights stopped and its land borders increasingly closed to them, an exodus of Russian men fleeing military service is creating divisions among European officials over whether they should be granted safe haven. The partial mobilization is also triggering protests in Russia, with new anti-war demonstrations on Sunday. In Dagestan, one of Russia's poorer regions in the North Caucasus, police fired warning shots to try to disperse more than 100 people who blocked a highway while protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin's military call-up, Russian media reported. Dozens of women chanted ''No to war!'' in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala on Sunday. Videos of the protests showed women in head scarves chasing police away from the rally and standing in front of police cars carrying detained protesters, demanding their release. Women also protested in the Siberian city of Yakutsk, chanting ''No to genocide!'' and marching in a circle around police, who later dragged some away or forced them into police vans, according to videos shared by Russian media. At least 2,000 people have been arrested in recent days for similar demonstrations around Russia. Many of those taken away have immediately received a call-up summons. Ukrainian servicemen from Dnipro-1 regiment unload a boat in the retaken village of Shchurove, Ukraine, Sept. 25. AP-Yonhap The Gujarat police, on Monday, foiled an attempted marchby several activists who had planned to walk in solidarity with Bilkis Banofrom Randhikpur to Ahmedabad. Bano was gangraped, and seven of her family members were killed, in 2002 in the post-Godhra riots violence. The 180-km march, planned against the Gujarat government remitting the life sentence of 11 of the convicts in Banos rape case, under the banner of Apologizing to Bilkis Bano and Hindu-Muslim Ekta was supposed to begin at Banos village Randhikpur. To begin with, the Panchmahal police detained most of the activists on Sunday night in Godhra. They were reportedly kept at different locations throughout the day and were released in the evening close to Mahisagar district border. Many of them were detained again there, on the grounds that they didnt have the requisite permission to take out the march. Also Read | Activist Sandeep Pandey, 3 others detained in Gujarat ahead of foot march planned in support of Bilkis Bano Some of the detained activists were Ramon Magsaysay award recipient professor Sandeep Pandey, Noorjahan Diwan, Hanif Kalandar, T Gopal Krishna, and Kaleem Siddiqui. According to Diwan, they were picked up by Godhra police on Sunday night and were taken to a B-division police station. As the news of their detention was made public through social media, a large crowd gathered outside the station demanding their release. The police were then forced to move them to another station. Despite repeated attempts, Panchmahal Superintendent of Police Himanshu Solanki didnt respond to calls or messages. Godhra Range Deputy Inspector General M S Bharada told DH that he was not aware of the situation as he was in Gandhinagar. Meanwhile, local police officials maintained that the permission to take out the march was denied in view of the law and order problem. The activists couldnt enter Banos village either due to large-scale police presence, who were screening the entrants. Siddiqui, who lives in Ahmedabad, told DH: The Panchmahal police dropped us on a bridge bordering Mahisagar district. As we started our padyatra, a police team from the district was already there waiting for us. They detained (Sandeep) Pandey ji. They are not letting us take out the march. Condemning the police action, the Hindu-Muslim Ekta Samiti, in a statement, said that the march was organised to apologise to Bilkis Bano as Gujarat government released 11 convicts under its remission policy. These convicts were serving life sentence for gangraping Bano and murdering seven of her family members, the statement read. The remission is under challenge in the Supreme Court. Traffic on the North Gujarat highways came to halt on Friday after over 200 Panjrapole (cow shelter homes) trustees released thousands of cows in protest against the state government's failure to grant Rs 500 crore financial assistance for running the shelter homes. Banaskantha Panjrapoles trustee Kishor Dave told the media that since the last 15 days, the trustees are protesting and demanding financial assistance as promised in the state budget for the year 2022-23. As their repeated pleas fell on deaf ears, the trustees on Thursday released thousands of cows on the state and national highways besides government premises in North Gujarat. There are 1,500 panjrapole in the state giving shelter to around 4.5 lakh cows, alone in Banaskantha, 170 panjrapole shelter 80,000 cows. Panjrapole trust have to bear Rs 60 to 70 per cattle per day to feed them. Post Covid, donations to Panjrapole have dried up, and without funds it is becoming difficult to run shelter homes. If the government does not release funds at the earliest, the agitation will take an aggressive turn. When I got into a taxi in Barcelona, when through the abstraction of the rear view mirror, the driver looked me straight in the eye, when with some deliberate action, he pushed a latch meant for children and enemies to lock me in, when he asked me where I was from, when he declared his origins and drove like it was my last ride, in this most inopportune of moments I recalled Voltaire on his deathbed. When asked by the priest to renounce Satan, Voltaire guffawed and said, Now, now, my good man, this is no time to be making enemies. But in its place, I told the cabbie, Im very sorry for the floods in Pakistan. He looked at me, his eyes again biting in the reflection. He slowed down. He nodded and said that he had lost family members. I was terribly sorry when I heard this. My destination forgotten and left behind; we aimlessly roamed the streets and chatted like we were long-lost chums, lamenting about our loss of brotherhood but also celebrating its presence in neutral, foreign lands. Over chai and samosa at his home, he enquired about the recent drought that had devastated parts of India. His wife offered her condolences. Again, when I dropped a few pounds into a collection box in a corner shop in London run by a Pakistani, when I was once more embraced and judged based on my humanity and not my ethnic group or faith, I began to speculate about the shared and blanket loathing that seems to exist between the same people divided by a border arbitrarily created 75 years ago by an Englishman sitting in London. A task that was supposed to take no less than three years was completed in five weeks. Is the notion of rancour just that, a dark and untrustworthy inspiration planted in our heads by resourceful and persuasive interest groups? Or are these just thoughts of a benighted flowerchild, consciously overlooking sincere differences that lead to the creation of individual states? After all, this remains the criteria for partings and the conception of nations. The two nations are, of course, divided by religion, or we are told that this is the case. One is an Islamic republic and the other a secular republic, though this is now briskly challenged where governance is guided by the sanctification of a majority group. Leaving wide-eyed liberalism and dreams of a unified world of milk and honey behind, if we access the situation on the ground, it is indeed serious and very real. The biggest challenge facing the two nations is the indeterminable problem of Kashmir. Without going into the origins of this conflict, it may be beneficial to consider the acrimony that surrounds it from a contemporary worldview, as seen by the nations diaspora. The cabbie in Barcelona and the shopkeeper in London acknowledged that detached from the hotbed of hostility, and in crucial times when the future of all Pakistanis, all Indians and all of humankind is under threat from the planet heating up, isnt it time that the two societies, abandon directions and dictums from tilted and opportunistic factions and uncover solutions that advance the community? In times of grave danger, we dont kill each other at the sight of an external threat; we gang up to take on the adversary. When faced with the peripheral enemy of climate change that we shaped and is now at our doorstep, do we not need to join forces? The issue of Kashmir may never get resolved, but the cab driver said progress can be made by acknowledging previous misguided steps. State-sponsored terrorism should stop, said the shopkeeper in London. And I concurred, the armys heavy-handedness in Kashmir and marginalisation of minorities was also just that -- extremism. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Indias partition, which caused nearly a million deaths, in the face of climate doom which, without heed to borders or artificial differences, scorches and floods both sides, can the two nations extrapolate and espouse the humanity that exists outside of the breeding ground of geopolitics? Maybe Voltaire was right, now is not the time to make enemies. (The writer is a journalist. He was a recipient of the Guardian Intl Development Journalism Award for reporting on northern Kenyas drought. He is part of the BBC Writers Room Programme.) On the margins of a summit meant as a show of force for a Russian leader seeking a turnaround on the battlefield, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India leaned in with a different message. Democracy, diplomacy and dialogue not war is the answer, he told Russian President Vladimir Putin as the cameras rolled on Sept. 16, before declaring that the two would speak more about how to bring peace in Ukraine. That assured interaction in Uzbekistan was the latest display of Indias rise under Modi. An ambitious and assertive power, India has become increasingly indispensable in the search for answers to some of the worlds most pressing challenges, from diplomacy to climate change to technology and trade to efforts at diversifying supply chains to counter China. Also Read | India on side of peace in Russia-Ukraine conflict: Jaishankar in UNGA It is Indias credentials as the worlds largest democracy that Modi rides on the global stage. But at home, diplomats, analysts and activists say, Modis government is undertaking a project to remake Indias democracy unlike any in its 75 years of independence stifling dissent, sidelining civilian institutions and making minorities second-class citizens. While past Indian leaders exploited religious divisions and weaponized institutions to stay in power, Modis focus has been more fundamental: a systematic consolidation of power achieved not through dramatic power grabs but through more subtle and lasting means, aimed at imprinting a majoritarian Hindu ideology on Indias constitutionally secular democracy. Modi has bent to his will on the courts, the news media, the legislature and civil society referee institutions that guarded Indias democracy in a region of military coups and entrenched dictatorships. As he has done so, the countrys indispensability on major global issues, coupled with challenges to democracy in both the United States and Europe, has ensured little pushback from Western allies. The question for India and the world is whether the country can remain an engine for growth and a viable partner even as its heavy-handed marginalization of minorities, particularly its 200 million Muslims, stokes cycles of extremism and perpetual volatility at home. Also Read | 'Jaage ho': How PM Modi surprised Jaishankar with midnight call The contradictions of Indias rise were crystallized in Germany in late June when Modi stood alongside the leaders of the Group of 7 major industrialized nations as his public relations team worked to document his seeming intimacy with his counterparts: a shared laugh with President Joe Biden, an interlacing of fingers with Justin Trudeau of Canada. But just as Modi was joining his hosts in signing a statement urging the defence of democracies and affirming ideals like freedom of expression and the independence of civil society, his government was continuing a crackdown on dissent back home. Indian authorities arrested an activist critical of the prime ministers past record on human rights and a fact-checker who had highlighted disparaging comments about Islam by a governing party spokesperson. Days earlier, officials had again rolled in bulldozers to raze the homes of Muslims as part of a campaign of instant justice, this time targeting activists accused of leading sometimes violent protests against the provocative remarks. Also Read | Dislodging Modi regime inevitable to save democracy, says Yechury For now, Modis focus is on leveraging Indias strengths. As the global order has been disrupted by Covid, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an expansionist Beijing, Modis lieutenants have made clear that they see this as their moment to establish India, on their own terms, among the foremost powers. India is a rising economic force, having just passed Britain, its onetime colonial overlord, as the worlds fifth-largest economy. It is well positioned to prosper with its improving trade ties, large youth population and expanding technological infrastructure a potential alternative, in the eyes of some democracies, to a future dominated by China. Modis diplomats are emboldened to overcome seeming contradictions, such as holding military exercises with both Russia and the United States and increasing purchases of Russian oil despite American and European pressure. Indias Western allies have shown little appetite to challenge the Modi government as it diverges from some of their professed democratic values. A focus on trade and geopolitics has often pushed human rights to the back burner, analysts and diplomats said. With the European Union fast-tracking negotiations on a free-trade agreement with India, the talk is all this deal, this deal, this deal, one European diplomat in New Delhi said. Also Read | India is a flourishing democracy: Theres proof The United States, which two years into the Biden administration still does not have an ambassador in New Delhi, is reeling from former President Donald Trumps assault on its democratic system. Its seriousness about a foreign policy that prioritizes human rights was questioned as the quest for cheaper oil took Biden this summer to Saudi Arabia, where he fist-bumped with the crown prince implicated in a journalists murder and dismemberment. The U.S. also has lost some of its authority to criticize other countries on their records on democracy, said Lisa Curtis, a former senior U.S. national security official who leads the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. In many ways, diplomats, officials and analysts said, Indias rise brings together two unique developments: a natural opening in the countrys often-uncertain post-colonial trajectory, and the emergence of a leader at the peak of his power who has spent half a century pursuing his vision from the ground up. After Indias violent founding as an independent nation in 1947, the country remained consumed for decades with questions of whether it would remain intact and whether its economy could feed an enormous population. The moment to define itself, and its relations with the world, has come only after those questions have largely been settled. Also Read | Using political epithets lightly in a fatigued democracy Modi, 72, has spent his life in the trenches of a right-wing movement that calls Indias founding as a secular republic a grave injustice that accommodated minorities like Muslims and Christians at the cost of what they see as the Hindu majoritys rightful claims. Modis political consolidation at the top, coupled with extensive welfare projects to maintain a strong voting base, has given Indias right-wing its most effective formula yet to bring about the cultural and systemic changes the movement has long fought for on the streets. The countrys central investigating agencies have become willing levers of intimidation against dissenting voices, analysts say. Journalists and activists face frequent harassment, are mired in lengthy court cases or are thrown in jail under laws that make bail difficult. Independent institutions from courts to parliament to the national human rights commission and the elections body have been overwhelmed or have largely retreated, as the compliant are rewarded and detractors are punished. Modi is not the first Indian leader to capture institutions and unleash them on political opponents, said Josy Joseph, who has chronicled a long history of abuses in his book The Silent Coup. The closest the countrys democracy has come to fracturing was in the 1970s when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared an emergency to jail opponents and censor the media in a bid to remain in power. Also Read | From rights to duties: The deliberate remaking of the citizen Joseph said Modi had been much more effective than Gandhi in achieving his aims, aided by an unparalleled propaganda operation allied broadcast media and newspapers, and a social media machine reaching into every phone that provides cover both at home and abroad. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have very cleverly combined Indias traditional democratic credentials and autocratic controls, Joseph said. Gopal Krishna Agarwal, a BJP spokesperson, attributed criticism of the governments human rights record to politics and an unnamed nexus globally that cannot stomach Indias ascension. Our rise at the international level is because India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is looking out for Indian interests, taking independent decisions, Agarwal said. We are leveraging the strengths of India whether it is the large youth population, resources, manufacturing strength, IT strength, human resource strength. Agarwal said the governments approach to law and order should not be classified as human rights violations. He rejected the contention that Modi was deploying investigating agencies against his opponents, saying the raids were intended to clean up corruption. If somebody has objection to the investigation agency, there is courts, etc., which takes care of the balance of power, he said. But local courts, analysts and activists say, often act as a stamp for the executives abuses. The already-clogged higher courts struggle to keep up and are at times accused of aiding the executive by ignoring important cases of constitutional overreach. There are nearly 6 million cases pending in Indias high courts and more than 70,000 in the Supreme Court. One tactic the governing party deploys is to jail critics under strict laws against terrorist activities and money laundering. The conviction rate is abysmal, but the process of exoneration serves the political purpose of spreading fear, critics say. Siddique Kappan, a journalist, and his taxi driver were arrested in October 2020 as he tried to report on the governments efforts to contain the blowback over a gruesome rape case. Before Kappan had even reached the village, the government charged him with intending to hurt local communal harmony. He was repeatedly denied bail. When the Supreme Court of India finally heard his appeal this month, the judges took less than 30 minutes to rule that the governments case for denying Kappan his freedom was flimsy at best and granted him bail. Both Kappan and the taxi driver had already spent nearly two years in jail. But even the highest courts intervention did not free Kappan: He remains in jail under another pending case against him, while the driver has been freed. In our criminal justice system, the process is the punishment, N.V. Ramana lamented before his retirement as Indias chief justice last month. Modis confidence at home has extended into confidence abroad. Officials in his government often denounce international indexes rating countries on key indicators like health or press and religious freedom, dismissing them as products of colonial agendas or foreign naivete on Indias civilizational approach an attitude that reminds many diplomats of the stance often taken by authoritarian China. Shall we not set our own standards? Modi said last month at an event marking his countrys 75 years of independence, as helicopters showered rose petals. We want freedom from slavery. In April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a rare public comment on Indias domestic policies that the United States was monitoring some recent concerning developments in India, including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials. His Indian counterpart, S. Jaishankar, fired back. I would tell you that we also take our views on other peoples human rights situation, including that of the United States, Jaishankar said during a visit to the United States. So, we take up human rights issues when they arise in this country. A 5.5 million package to ease pressure on GP services in Northern Ireland has been unveiled by Health Minister Robin Swann. The British Medical Association (BMA) has welcomed the funding package but warned it would not be a solution to problems faced by practices. The package includes 1 million in a new Attract, Recruit, Retain scheme to help hire GPs in hard-to-recruit areas. It also boosts support teams for GP practices which are experiencing difficulty by an additional 680,000 and includes investment of 3 million to support practices across Northern Ireland through the winter period. Mr Swann said: The pressures in primary care services are caused in large part by historic underinvestment over a number of years which has left the system struggling to meet ever-growing demand. My department is taking action to address the root causes of these issues in service. Health Minister Robin Swann has today announced a 5.5m package of measures to help ease the pressures facing Primary Care Services across Northern Ireland. The package also includes investment to support practices through the winter period. Read https://t.co/0XDAdWGmtR pic.twitter.com/HjuLZXlR6I Department of Health (@healthdpt) September 26, 2022 This includes increasing the number of GP training places in Northern Ireland to an all-time high of 121 and providing an additional 1.5 million investment to support continued staff recruitment. He added: That said, there is a need to do more in the short-term to help address the pressures in GP services, and ensure that people can still access their doctor when they need them. The package of support I am announcing will help strengthen GP services through the winter period, as well as providing targeted help to those practices that are most at risk. Planning for this winter is ongoing across health and social care. Northern Ireland GP committee chair Dr Alan Stout said: Todays announcement from the minister is welcome and we can see that he understands the problems we are facing; it will hopefully help in the medium to long-term. But unfortunately it will not be a solution to the problems many practices are experiencing right now. The Attract, Recruit, Retain scheme may help practices recruit new GPs but with a well-documented ageing workforce, and with a quarter of our GPs over the age of 55, we need to ensure that we retain GPs as well in order to stabilise and grow general practice. By Comcores As data consumption grows and chip designs evolve to meet this demand, Interlaken is the ideal high-speed chip-to-chip interface with efficiency, reliability and scalability. Interlaken addresses modern chip-to-chip design challenges System and chip designers are challenged like never before. The continuous growth in data consumption is driving demand for higher speeds and capacities, but designs also need to consume less power-per-bit at a lower cost-per-bit. Reliability is, of course, a key requirement, but not at the expense of efficiency and cost. One of the chip design elements that is most critical is the chip-to-chip interface. Poor chip-to-chip interface design can lead to system bottlenecks and unreliable data transfers that can compromise the entire solution. Choosing the right chip-to-chip interface technology is therefore critical. Interlaken provides a high-speed interface with efficiency, reliability and scalability. The design of the Interlaken interface ensures low power consumption and cost-per-bit without compromising on performance, reach or reliability. Multiple design challenges Efficiency The challenge when connecting chips is to find an economic means of transferring data between chips on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) implementation. This means as few pins and PCB physical connections, or trace-routes, as possible. To achieve this, serial interfaces are preferred as they drastically reduce the number of pins required. Serial interfaces consume less power and are less sensitive to electro-magnetic interference compared to parallel connections. Serial interfaces have fewer connections that can be spaced effectively to reduce these effects. This increases the effective reach of the interface leading to longer trace-routes and more flexibility during design. This decreases the complexity and cost of PCB and chip design. Reliability One of the important requirements for chip-to-chip interfaces is that they need to be transparent. Data needs to be reliably transferred from one chip to another without relying on higher layer protocols. First, the chip-to-chip interface needs to ensure that there is bounded disparity, which means that the number of 1s and 0s transmitted are as equal as possible. If not, a Direct Current (DC) offset is introduced that can affect coupling capacitors or transformers on the line. This can lead to challenges in identifying voltage levels accurately and retrieving clock data. To compensate for this, an effective block coding mechanism is needed that will reduce the running disparity, the difference between the number of 1s and 0s, as much as possible. The next step is to ensure that bits have not been corrupted during transmission. An effective Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) for each data transmission can indicate if errors have occurred, while a Forward Error Correction (FEC) can be used to correct any errors. Finally, it is desirable to ensure that the flow of data is controlled so that receiving chips are not overwhelmed, which can lead to packet loss. For bursty data that is switched to different locations, flow control can be extremely effective in managing data bursts and ensuring maximum throughput. Scalability, Configurability and Reuse In an ideal world, each application will have a chip-to-chip interface that is optimized for that specific application, but it is far more desirable to have an interface that can be configured and reused to meet different requirements. Enabling the chip-to-chip interface to scale to meet different data rates enables maximum reuse across multiple designs and applications. In addition, the ability to configure the interface to fit different SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer [1]) lane configurations provides maximum flexibility in meeting application needs. ASIC chip designs are often prototyped on FPGAs first. It is therefore desirable to have a chip-to-chip interface that can not only scale, but also migrate from FPGA platforms to ASIC designs with minimal impact. Today, FPGAs are often combined with ASICs, which requires chip-to-chip interfaces that can be implemented on either platform. Introducing Interlaken Interlaken provides a standardized serial interface that is agnostic of underlying SerDes implementations. It can also be configured to support multiple lane configurations. Interlaken ensures reliable transfer of data over as few physical connections as possible. Interlaken provides mechanisms to ensure the integrity of data transfer as well as manage data flows to ensure that the chip is not overloaded. These mechanisms effectively increase the operational reach of Interlaken interfaces to allow longer chip-to-chip interfaces. Interlaken inspired by XAUI and SPI4.2 Interlaken was introduced in 2006 by Cisco Systems and Cortina Systems to address the need for both a high-speed chip-to-chip interface and a reliable packet transfer mechanism. Available alternatives at the time were XAUI and SPI4.2 and both inspired the design of Interlaken, which combines the best of both. XAUI XAUI, or 10 Gigabit Attachment Unit Interface, was originally introduced in the IEEE 802.3ae standard for 10 Gbps Ethernet. In the standard, the 10 Gbps Ethernet protocol stack defined a new parallel interface between the MAC layer and the PHY layer called XGMII (10 Gbps Media Independent Interface). System and chip designers needed the option of implementing the 10G MAC layer and PHY layer on different chips. However, the XGMII interface requires over 70 pins to connect the MAC and PHY. As a parallel interface with a high number of connections, the effective reach was relatively short at only 3 inches or 7.5 cm. This made XGMII an impractical chip-to-chip interface. XAUI was defined as an alternative XGMII extender interface. XAUI is a serial interface that maps the parallel data of the XGMII interface to 4 serial interfaces operating at 3.125 Gbps. Each interface requires two connections leading to a need for 16 pins for full duplex operation, which is a dramatic improvement on the over 70 pins used by XGMII. The effective reach can be longer than 40 inches or 100 cm, but is specified normally to 20 inches or 50 cm. It is this efficiency that inspired Interlaken designers to adopt a serial interface rather than a parallel interface. The disadvantage of XAUI is that it is limited. While the 8b/10b block coding used in XAUI helps in improving running disparity, it does not remove the effects completely. A CRC is used to ensure that bits are transmitted correctly, but there is no flow control mechanism. This is not needed for communication between the MAC and the PHY, but can pose a problem if XAUI is used for other chip-to-chip applications. SPI4.2 From a flow control perspective, the best example of an interface implementing this capability, at the time, was the SPI4.2 (System Packet Interface level 4, phase 2) interface published by the Optical Interconnect Forum (OIF) in 2003. SPI4.2 was designed as a parallel interface between PHY devices and link-layer devices for 10 Gbps Ethernet, as well as OC-192 ATM and SONET/SDH. One of the big advantages of the SPI4.2 interface is that a separate flow control interface is provided that allows the First-In First-Out (FIFO) buffer status of the receiver to be communicated back to the transmitter. The separate flow control interface enables the transmit and receive data flows to operate separately with their own flow control for each virtual port. This ensures that the FIFOs at the receive side are not overloaded or starved. It also enables rate matching mechanisms, where the line rates on the transmit and receive sides can vary. This was the case with 10 Gbps LAN Ethernet, which operated at a different rate to 10 Gbps WAN Ethernet and OC-192. Interlaken has adopted similar rate matching and flow control mechanisms as SPI4.2 using it as an inspiration for design. Interlaken for high-speed chip-to-chip interfaces Interlaken was conceived as the best of the XAUI and SPI4.2 implementations. It combines the serial, channelized interface of XAUI with the flow control capabilities of SPI4.2 to provide the ultimate high-speed chip-to-chip interface. Interlaken provides efficiency Interlaken is designed as a serial interface similar to XAUI and can achieve long reach using fewer physical pin connections. It makes it possible to use Interlaken in a variety of applications, from system-level chip-to-chip interfaces to chiplet-to-chiplet interfaces within a package. In Interlaken, a meta-frame concept is introduced to control transmission of control and data words on each lane. For each lane, a set of words associated with the meta-frame are sent along with the payload of control and data words. These are: Synchronization: used to align lanes Scrambler State: used to synchronize the scrambler Skip: used for clock compensation Diagnostic: used for per-lane error checks and status messages Click to enlarge Figure 1: Interlaken striping and word format Data is transmitted across the Interlaken interface in configurable bursts, like SPI4.2, which are a subset of the data to be transmitted. The minimum burst size, known as BurstShort, is 32 bytes divided into 8-byte increments known as words. An equivalent maximum burst size, named BurstMax, can also be configured. BurstMax is defined as a multiple of 64 bytes. Similar to SPI4.2, the data word bursts are bookended by control words that provide additional information on the data being sent, as well as control information. The format of the control word is shown in Figure 1. Each burst is associated with one of up to 65536 logical channels, which can represent ports or any other logical stream of data. This allows different data streams to be mixed while meeting tight latency requirements. Click to enlarge Figure 2: Transfer of 72-byte packet with BurstMax = 64 bytes and BurstShort = 32 bytes An IP packet can be transmitted without interruption over several bursts. This is known as Packet Mode. Alternatively, segments from multiple packets can be interleaved. This is known as Segment Mode. The individual segments can be interleaved on different channels. The two modes enable the chip-to-chip interface to match application needs. For example, it might be more important to ensure that packets are not interrupted and sent in full using Packet Mode. Alternatively, for applications that need low latency, Segment Mode can be used to avoid head-of-line blocking and delays. When the amount of data to be transmitted is less than BurstShort, Interlaken includes idle control words that can be inserted to meet the burst size requirements, as shown in Figure 2. When transmitting a specific packet, the start of the packet is indicated by a control word with a Start of Packet (SOP) field. The packet data is segmented into multiple 8-byte data words according to the configured burst size parameters with idle control words inserted as necessary. The final control word contains an End-of-Packet (EOP) Format Field, which not only indicates the end of the packet transmission, but also how many bytes of the last data word are valid. Interlaken provides several reliability mechanisms Interlaken is designed to be completely transparent, thus providing different reliability mechanisms to ensure correct data transmission. Better block encoding First, Interlaken uses a more advanced block coding scheme to reduce running disparity as much as possible. A 64b/67b block scheme is used, where the 8-byte words to be transmitted are mapped or striped on a sequential basis to a 67-bit block. Using a larger block for encoding is more efficient and uses less bandwidth. At the receiver, the reverse operation occurs where the 67-bit block data is mapped to 8-byte words. This is a similar mechanism to the 64b/66b block used in Ethernet implementations and defined in IEEE 802.3ae for WAN applications, but includes the addition of an additional inversion bit. The inversion bit indicates whether data has been inverted allowing mechanisms to reduce running disparity even further. Similar to 64b/66b, the Interlaken implementation scrambles the 64-bit data to improve running disparity, but leaves two added sync bits unscrambled to enable control words to be identified. Interlaken uses a 24-bit CRC in the control word that is calculated across all data in the burst across all lanes. Flow control One of the major advantages of the Interlaken interface is flow control. Inspired by SPI4.2, Interlaken implements a per-channel control mechanism, which enables the receiver to communicate backpressure. The flow status of each channel is communicated using a single bit indicating either a 1 for XON state or a 0 for XOFF state per logical channel. Data can be transmitted on a channel as long as the flow control status is XON. Interlaken provides the option of using a calendar to indicate the status of all logical channels and the link at once. In the calendar, status is provided for the link as well as each logical channel with a single XON/XOFF bit. Interlaken supports both out-of-band and in-band flow control allowing for efficient interface implementations. Out-of-band flow control requires separate pins while In-band flow control information is indicated in the flow control field of the control word. With these flow control mechanisms, it is possible to meet the data flow requirements of each channel individually. Should the receive buffer of an interface become congested, the flow control can ensure that the transmission of data is managed to address this situation An additional control feature is Rate Matching. This ensures that the data rate of the Interlaken interface is matched to the downstream service. This can be helpful in situations where two chip implementations operate with different clocks or there is a need to convert to different data rates. One of the features of SPI4.2 that was not originally implemented in Interlaken was Hit-Less Bandwidth Re-Provisioning. It allows channels to be added or removed, channel priorities to be changed dynamically or channel bandwidth to be changed without affecting traffic on the interface. In 2014, this capability was added with the Interlaken Dual Calendar Extension Revision 1.0. This allows two calendars to be defined, one active and one shadow calendar. A calendar selection bit (CAL_SEL) is added to the flow control word to indicate whether the active calendar or shadow calendar should be used (referred to as CAL0 and CAL1 respectively). Multiple CRC checks CRC checks are applied at multiple levels of Interlaken. First, a 24-bit CRC is calculated across all data in the burst, as well as the control word itself. At the meta-frame level, a 32-bit CRC is calculated across all words in the meta-frame. Out-of-band flow control is also protected with a 4-bit CRC. These multiple levels of CRC checks ensure maximum data integrity. However, CRC checks can only indicate errors and not correct them. Therefore, in 2020, the Interlaken Alliance published the Interlaken Reed-Solomon Forward Error Correction Extension Rev. 1.1, which defines how the RS(544, 514) FEC can be used in Interlaken to provide additional data integrity protection. In 2012, the Interlaken Alliance provided an extension called Interlaken Retransmit Extension Revision 1.2, which enabled buffered data retransmission in the event that a CRC error is detected. Interlaken provides scalability Because Interlaken is designed to be configurable and independent of the underlying physical lane implementation, it can be scaled to meet any requirement. This distinguishes Interlaken from both XAUI and SPI4.2 as both are based on a fixed number of connections. For a chip designer, this is extremely useful. It means that the same Interlaken implementation can be configured to meet different chip-to-chip interface design requirements. For example, the chip-to-chip interface could be based on a single lane at full data capacity. Alternatively, it could be based on 4 lanes each operating at a quarter of the data capacity. Click to enlarge Figure 3: System- and board-level applications When combined with the ability to define logical channels, the chip designer is provided with multiple configuration options that enable Interlaken to scale from single lane 10 Gbps connections to multi-100 Gbps connections. These scalability capabilities provide chip designers with reuse opportunities across multiple designs and applications. Because Interlaken is standardized and independent of the underlying physical implementation, it allows a chip designer to design a chip-to-chip interface for an FPGA platform that can be reused should the design be migrated to an ASIC platform. Interlaken applications As a chip-to-chip interface that is independent of the underlying physical implementation, Interlaken can be used in multiple applications. Because of its configurability and scalability, it can be adapted to meet specific needs while ensuring a narrow, economic and reliable interface. System-level applications In a typical data processing system, the data processing units need to be connected to the data input/output logic. For smaller systems, that can be a single pizza-box motherboard where MAC/PHY chips are connected directly to the data processing unit (e.g., CPU, NPU, GPU or similar) or a switch/mapper chip. In these applications, Interlaken can be used to connect the MAC/PHY chips to the data processing unit or switch. The Interlaken logical channels can represent networking ports or switching ports, types of data, such as control or management data or different types of payload data, such as Ethernet or OC192. Interlaken flow control and rate matching can be used in switch systems to manage the flow of input/output data based on the FIFO buffers for each switch port ensuring that no packet data is dropped in the system. Because Interlaken is independent of the communication protocol or underlying implementation, the designer can choose where chip logic should reside. For example, the designer can choose how many sub-layers of the physical layer should be implemented close to the port and how many should be centralized in a separate chip. This can be seen in Ethernet implementations, but also in 5G RAN implementations with split-PHY eCPRI interfaces. For larger systems, the data processing or switch units can be separated from the data input/output logic on separate plug-in boards connected over a backplane. Now, the Interlaken chip-to-chip interface needs to connect the same chips to each other, but must do so across the backplane. Thanks to the built-in reliability and relatively long-reach of Interlaken interfaces, this does not present a challenge. Figure 3 provides examples of system- and board-level applications. Board-level applications At the board-level, many of the same advantages can be reaped as at the system level. While network adapters have traditionally been focused on transferring data to and from central data processing units, modern adapters are increasingly offloading data processing tasks with more advanced capabilities. This often includes data processing chips, and even switch chips, on the adapter based on ASICs, NPUs, GPUs and FPGAs. Adapter design has thus become more complex with more processing and memory chips on the adapter requiring high-speed chip-to-chip interfaces. As board-level design is limited due to the size of the board (e.g., PCIe adapter, OCP mezzanine cards or motherboards), compact designs are important. Interlaken provides advantages such as reducing the cost, power consumption and complexity of the board design, because only a few physical lanes are required to be implemented. Since board designs can involve multiple chips in the data path, Interlaken can be used to meet the individual requirements of each chip interface with respect to number of lanes and speed rates. Flow control and rate matching can be used to match data rates in applications where there can be clock or data rate discrepancies between chips. Look-aside applications In both system- and board-level applications, co-processing chips are used to offload specific tasks. This could be search engines, policing engines, cryptographic engines etc. Typically, they are focused on processing header information or specific types of packets or some other subset of the data being processed. For these applications, the Interlaken Alliance has defined a lightweight version of the Interlaken protocol called Interlaken Look-Aside. This was published in 2008 as Interlaken Look-Aside Protocol Definition Revision 1.1. The Interlaken Look-Aside protocol is similar to Interlaken, but with the following differences: It is designed for fewer channels Packet Mode is used instead of segment mode Single-burst packets are used for short packets BurstShort minimum is reduced to 8 bytes A single reference clock with only 1 skip word Using Interlaken Look-Aside feature, an even more compact and lightweight implementation can be adopted. For co-processor applications that are used to processing a small subset of the total data, the Interlaken interface can be used to directly connect the co-processor and main processor. Figure 4: Chip-level applications Chip-level applications According to a recent report from PwC [2], global data consumption in 2020 increased 30.4% compared to 2019 and is expected to grow 26.9% per year until 2025. This requires higher speeds and capacities, which means bigger chips and greater power consumption. Power consumption is a major challenge for data centers and is as important as speed and capacity in decisions on which networking technology and chips to deploy. Space is also an issue, so compact solutions are important. The challenge, for both system and chip designers, is to minimize the cost, size and power consumption of systems and chips as much as possible. This is leading chip designers to break up designs so that they can either be implemented on multiple physical chips or on chiplets, which are smaller chip dies that are combined with high-speed interfaces to form an efficient solution within a single package. This technique has been used by CPU manufacturers for some time and can also be seen in System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions, as shown in Figure 4. For chip designs that involve multiple separate chiplets, Interlaken can provide the ideal interconnecting interface. This is especially true for high-speed chip solutions. For the user of the chip, it is important that it operates as if the implementation was on a single die. In other words, the interconnecting chiplet interface should not introduce any observable effects. The reliability and flow control provided by Interlaken ensures that the interface is self-reliant as well as being efficient. It enables different chiplets with different requirements to be combined. Interlaken can configure the interface and control the data flow to match requirements. This allows efficient chiplet designs to be re-used in multiple packages. Another chip-level application of Interlaken is System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions where FPGA logic is combined with hard-coded blocks or separate dies in the same package. A good example of this is SoC solutions supporting digital or even analog signal processing. The signal processing functionality can be provided on a separate die that is optimized for this kind of functionality. Interlaken provides an efficient and reliable interface for connecting blocks and separate dies with the FPGA logic. Because the Interlaken interface is standardized and independent of the underlying implementation, it is also agnostic of the FPGA platform provider and can thus be used in solutions that need to support multiple FPGA vendors. The FPGA can also be migrated to an ASIC without major impact. Suitable for a broad range of high-speed applications and reuse Because of its configurability and scalability, a single Interlaken interface design can be reused to meet a broad range of applications making it an efficient and profitable design investment. However, there is no need to invest in designing Interlaken interfaces, as pre-tested and verified implementations are already available that can easily be integrated into chip designs. Comcores Intellectual Property (IP) blocks can be used in both FPGA and ASIC designs and provide all the configurability and scalability that Interlaken is designed to deliver. Comcores Interlaken IP can be used for a variety of applications making it a valuable investment that not only saves critical time and resources today, but also in future chip designs. Click to enlarge Figure 5: Comcores Interlaken Controller IP Comcores Interlaken Intellectual Property Comcores is the leading provider of reliable and efficient IP Blocks for Ethernet, Wireless and Chip to Chip interfaces including the Interlaken IP. Complete solution with support for fast time-to-market The Comcores Interlaken controller IP provides a complete Interlaken implementation including all extensions. The IP is designed for ease of integration enabling chip designers to quickly and easily implement and configure Interlaken chip-to-chip interfaces to suit their specific needs. Comcores provides extensive documentation, reference design information with a complete simulation environment and Comcores engineers provide support throughout the design and bring-up process. Highly configurable In addition to the configurability expected of a complete Interlaken solution, Comcores also provides support for up to 48 SerDes lanes of 56 Gigabaud signaling rate enabling the Interlaken controller IP to deliver up to 2.6 Tbps per interface in both directions. The width of the SerDes interface can be configured from 10-bit or 67-bit interface widths. An application interface is provided based on the ARM AMBA Credited eXtensible Stream (CXS) interface. The advantage of AMBA CXS as an application interface is that it is designed to support wide interfaces that can transfer packets at high data rates. This enables multiple packets to be merged into a single transfer if required. The Comcores Interlaken controller IP can be configured to support various application interface widths of 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096 and 8192 bits. The number of interface segments can also be configured to be either 2, 4 or 8. The Comcores Interlaken controller IP supports a variety of management interfaces to enable support for various chip designs and platforms: APB: ARM Advanced Peripheral Bus interface, which is part of the Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA ) and can be used in FGPA or ASIC designs Advanced Peripheral Bus interface, which is part of the Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA ) and can be used in FGPA or ASIC designs AXI4-lite: part of the ARM AMBA AXI control interface and used by AMD /Xilinx for connecting to LogiCORE IP AXI interconnect core in an FPGA design AMBA AXI control interface and used by AMD /Xilinx for connecting to LogiCORE IP AXI interconnect core in an FPGA design Avalon: Intel /Altera interface for interconnecting components in an FPGA design /Altera interface for interconnecting components in an FPGA design I2C: Inter-Integrated Circuit serial communication bus interface Simulation and testing environment To enable fast time-to-market and ease of integration, Comcores provides extensive documentation and a simulation environment with test cases and test scripts. This includes a hardware test environment as well as RTL testbenches. The current hardware test environment is based on a Xilinx Virtex-UltraScale VCU108 board (xcvu095-ffva2104-2-e) with External FMC loopback card. This enables two primary test cases to be implemented: Functional test: Implementation of two Interlaken interfaces in the same FPGA, which are then externally connected. A hardware traffic generator block drives data to both interfaces and then examines the received data on both application interfaces. Interoperability test: The same test is performed, but by replacing one of the Interlaken interfaces with a 3rd party Interlaken implementation, such as the Xilinx Interlaken core to test interoperability Click to enlarge Figure 6: Comcores Interlaken IP Core FPGA-based Test Environment Future of Interlaken As data consumption continues to grow, data center processing workloads and data network capacity needs to grow to meet demand. However, the challenge for todays data centers is that low-cost-per-bit is no longer a sufficient performance goal. Low-power-consumption-per-bit is just as important. Raw speed and capacity are no longer enough; they need to be delivered with low power consumption. This is forcing system and chip designers to re-think their approach. Instead of relying on CPUs as the main processing engine, a variety of alternatives are being used, such as ARM processors, NPUs, and GPUs, while there is an increase in the number of application-specific dedicated data processor solutions. Open RISC-V designs are now also available, including chiplets for integration in chip packages. SoC designs and disaggregated chip designs combining multiple optimized chiplets are also becoming more popular in an effort to meet stringent cost, speed, capacity and power consumption targets. The common theme is a need to optimize how data is processed at every stage to ensure that an optimal system solution can be provided. Interlaken provides the ideal chip-to-chip interface to address these needs. As a highly configurable and scalable solution that is agnostic of the underlying physical implementation and whether the chip is FPGA or ASIC based, Interlaken can be optimized to meet the specific needs of modern system and chip designers. Interlaken provides the further advantage of reuse in multiple applications and across platforms. With the Comcores Interlaken IP Controller, chip designers have a complete, highly configurable IP block that can be quickly and easily integrated as well as verified with expert support throughout the process. For more information on Comcores packaged IP solutions and access to Comcores Interlaken IP core visit: www.comcores.com or contact us at sales@comcores.com. The hardware test environment can be controlled at the board level with the possibility of adding control via a UART console running a Linux environment. This can enable test configuration, launch and test result checks via user interface. [1] A physical layer SerDes converts parallel data on multiple physical connections or lanes to serial data on one or more lanes [2] Source: World Economic Forum (weforum.org) September 26, 2022 -- Market leader for Photonic Quantum Processors, QuiX Quantum, will create a prototype Photonic Quantum Computer for the German Aerospace Center (DLR). This European company is the first ever to sell a Universal Quantum Computer based on photonics, worldwide. The ultimate end goal is for QuiX Quantum to deliver a 64-qubit Quantum Computer. QuiX Quantum will deliver 8- and 64-qubit fully Universal Quantum Computers based on photonics, integrating the existing technologies from their processors with sources, detectors, and feedforward to create a modular Photonic Quantum Computer. This represents the first commercial sale of Universal Quantum Computers based on light. The customized development for the DLR will be carried out in a joint four-year project in the framework of the DLR Quantum Computing Initiative. We merge competencies from the Netherlands and Germany in one location, at the innovation center of the DLR Quantum Computing Initiative in Ulm. QuiX Quantum has already proven the functionality of its integrated quantum photonics and is successfully supplying Quantum Photonic Processors to customers throughout Europe, says Dr.-Ing. Stefan Hengesbach, CEO of QuiX Quantum, further explaining that one of the things we expect from the cooperation with DLR is a systematic investigation and demonstration of the potential fields of application, especially in the numerous disciplines of DLR. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) has provided DLR with funding to develop German quantum computers and establish the associated economic environment. Industry, research institutions, and start-ups will be involved in the initiative under the leadership of DLR. The problems identified by the DLR include post-quantum cryptography, quantum machine learning, planning optimization for satellite operations, and simulation of chemical redox reactions for the development of battery systems. The addressed topics have an industrial application background as well. Through its own research, DLR has a clear need for the future use of quantum computers in all its focal areas of aeronautics, space, energy, transport, security, and digitization. Photonics will enable the second generation of quantum technology, and QuiX Quantum is leading in photonics as the market leader in photonic quantum computing hardware. QuiX Quantum has already developed a non-universal quantum computer with a current running Boson Sampler, which is a special purpose quantum computer. At the core is the QuiX Quantum Photonic Processor in the form of a reprogrammable interferometer. The commercialized 20-mode Photonic Processors by QuiX Quantum are low-loss, multimode, fully reconfigurable interferometers for quantum computing that operate at room temperature, vastly reducing the cost and size. The QuiX Quantum Photonic Processors are already the de facto standard at leading institutes for photonic quantum processing in the UK, France, Germany, and Hungary. The contract awarded runs within the framework of DLRs Quantum Computing Initiative and is in line with the roadmap of QuiX Quantum to develop a Universal Quantum Computer. QuiX Quantum have years of invaluable experience in quantum photonics that have led them to be entrusted with the DLR contract. The start-up was founded in January 2019 in Enschede, the Netherlands. Since then, they have successfully commercialized market leading technology and recently raised and secured a funding worth 5.5million. Now, QuiX Quantum will be the first European company to further develop a Universal Quantum Computer based on photonics as a customer-specific development. The QuiX Quantum product portfolio is based on patented Photonic Integrated Circuits, PICs, which are proven to be low loss. This patented innovation of the underlying technology of the worlds most powerful Quantum Photonic Processor offered by QuiX Quantum enables plug-and-play, integrated and reconfigurable hardware. Therefore, making them the most sophisticated and customizable commercialized PIC configurations available. QuiX Quantum PICs drive the quantum revolution with near term NextGen solutions for finance, pharma, chemistry, and data security. Optics and photonics are important enabling technologies that help us address global challenges related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, and more. Kick-starting joint development of applications with the DLR, the German Aerospace Center, QuiX Quantum will have a dedicated space at the DLR Innovation Center in Ulm. "With QuiX Quantum, we are integrating another company into our quantum computing initiative by commissioning it to develop the technology field, here specifically for photonic quantum computing. In our innovation center in Ulm, another player in the quantum computing ecosystem will thus advance this technology with us," says Dr. Robert Axmann, head of the DLR Quantum Computing Initiative. In this close collaboration, companies involved will work at the innovation centers of the DLR Quantum Computing Initiative. This creates a conducive environment through a strong ecosystem. Cyber-security researchers have revealed there were basic flaws in Uber's security gateways as social engineering was employed as an initial attack vector, making the hack "a classic case of failure on multiple levels". Social engineering encompasses a broad spectrum of malicious activities via online human interactions, like phishing, pretexting and baiting. This hack had a tremendous impact on Uber, starting from the obfuscation of the application code, hindering the usability of the application, leaked credentials, and access that could facilitate multiple account takeovers and leaking of sensitive and critical information of the entity, according to AI-driven cyber-security firm CloudSEK. "Equipping malicious actors with details required to launch sophisticated ransomware attacks, exfiltrate data, and maintain persistence, not to mention the reputational damage for Uber," the researchers from the firm emphasised. The ride-hailing major Uber last week blamed the infamous Lapsus$ hacking group for the cyber attack on its internal systems. The company reiterated that no customer or user data was compromised during the breach. "The Uber Hack is a classic case of failure on multiple levels where Over privilege or privilege mismanagement plays a pivotal role. Eliminating privilege escalation paths or monitoring for access changes in accounts can be initial answers for mitigation, apart from Darkweb and surface web monitoring," said Abhinav Pandey, Cyber Threat Researcher, CloudSEK. The threat actor was able to compromise an employee's HackerOne account to access vulnerability reports associated with Uber. To demonstrate the legitimacy of the claims, the actor posted unauthorised messages on the HackerOne page of the company. "Moreover, the attacker has also shared several screenshots of Uber's internal environment including their GDrive, VCenter, sales metrics, Slack, and the EDR portal," said cyber-security researchers. The actor plausibly employed social engineering techniques as an initial attack vector to compromise Uber's infrastructure. After attaining access to multiple credentials, the actor exploited the compromised victim's VPN access. Subsequently, the actor gained access to an internal network (Intranet), where the actor got access to a directory, plausibly with a name "share", which provided the actor with numerous PowerShell scripts that contained admin credentials to the privileged access management system (Thycotic). "This enabled the actor with complete access to multiple services of the entity such as Uber's Duo, OneLogin, AWS, GSuite Workspace, etc," the researchers reported. Lapsus$ typically uses similar techniques to target technology companies, and this year breached Microsoft, Cisco, Samsung, Nvidia and Okta, among others. (Except for the headline and cover image, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited) For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in Subscriber content preview PORTLAND (AP) To help combat a growing gun violence problem, the mayor of Portland is launching a system proponents say can track the location of gunshots using hidden microphones. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports a panel recommended the city adopt ShotSpotter in a July report. Stephanie Howard, Mayor Ted Wheeler's director of community safety, said Thursday the decision to advance a pilot program with the technology was made after Wheeler met with Police Chief Chuck Lovell. . . . Subscriber content preview WOODINVILLE A Walgreens at 17520 Avondale Road N.E. in Woodinville has sold for nearly $6 million, according to King County records. The seller was Walgreens, which acquired the property in 2010 for over $1.9 million. It was then possibly vacant; the building dates to 2012 . . . 2 killed in explosion targeting civilian bus in Yemen's Taiz Xinhua) 13:37, September 26, 2022 ADEN, Yemen, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- At least two people were killed and 11 others injured when an explosion struck a civilian bus in Yemen's southwestern province of Taiz on Sunday, a security official told Xinhua. "An explosion caused by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) targeted a civilian bus while it was passing through a main entrance leading to the besieged city of Taiz," the local security source said on condition of anonymity. The source confirmed that the explosion partially destroyed the bus and left at least two civilian passengers killed at the scene and 11 others wounded. "The incident occurred just a few minutes after a military motorcade passed through the same area, and it was apparently aimed at targeting a pro-government army official," he said. Since 2015, the Houthi militia has been stationed at the main eastern, northern and western entrances to the city of Taiz, besieging the key residential neighborhoods in the strategic city, according to the Yemeni government forces. The ongoing truce, which has been largely held, went into force for the first time on April 2 and was renewed for two months on June 2, and then extended for an additional two months on August 2 and scheduled to expire in a couple of days. Although the truce has largely been upheld, the internationally recognized government and the Houthi group frequently swap claims of violations. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the Saudi-backed Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa. The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million, and pushed the country to the brink of starvation. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) Giorgia Meloni, head of the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, said on Monday Italian voters had given a clear mandate to the right to form the next government and called for unity to help confront the country's many problems. "If we are called upon to govern this nation, we will do so for all Italians, with the aim of uniting the people, of exalting what unites them rather than what divides them," Meloni told reporters. "We will not betray your trust." (Reuters) Subscriber content preview FEDERAL WAY A former industrial property at 822 S. 333rd St. in Federal Way sold last week for a bit over $10.1 million, according to King County records. The seller was MCR RI FW LLC, which acquired the property last year for over $4.7 million. The seller is associated with value-add investor MCR Cos., of Phoenix. . . . SCDNR News The Middle Saluda River flows tranquilly under a bridge at Jones Gap State Park in northern Greenville County. Two public meetings are set--one in Columbia and one in Greenville--to talk about surface water management in the Saluda River basin over the next 50 years. (Photo: SCDNR/Greg Lucas) The S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) has announced dates for two public meetings to provide citizens with an overview of a new water planning framework that will guide surface water management in the Saluda River basin over the next 50 years. The meetings will also serve as venues for engaging volunteers interested in serving on a council that will develop and implement the plan for the Saluda River basin. Meetings are scheduled in Columbia at Saluda Shoals Park on Tuesday, Nov. 1 and in Greenville at Roper Mountain Science Center on Thursday, Nov. 3. Both meetings will be held from 6-8 p.m. In March 2018, SCDNR established the State Water Planning Process Advisory Committee to help draft a framework document that will guide the development of individual river basin plans for each of the states eight major river basins. The Planning Process Advisory Committee includes representatives from a wide range of organizations, including the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, Clemson Universitys S.C. Water Resources Center, municipal and rural water systems, conservation groups, power companies and agricultural interests. In 2019, the group completed a report, the South Carolina State Water Planning Framework, which describes the river basin planning process and the intended contents of a river basin plan. The Planning Framework represents a foundation for the development of regional and state water plans, which are essential for our continued economic growth and protection of the resources and environment that we all share, said Ken Rentiers, deputy director for SCDNRs Land, Water and Conservation Division. Each river basin plan will be created and overseen by a river basin council, a working group of stakeholders with water interests in the basin. River basin councils in the Edisto, Broad, and Pee Dee River basins have already been established and planning activities in those basins are ongoing. The Saluda River basin has been selected as the next basin to implement the new planning framework. Planning efforts and councils in the other four basins will follow as funding becomes available. At its most fundamental level, a river basin plan will address four basic questions: What is the basins current available water supply and demand? What are the current permitted and registered water uses within the basin? What will be the water demand in the basin throughout the Planning Horizon (50-year planning period) and will the available water supply be adequate to meet that demand? What water management strategies will be employed in the basin to ensure the available supply meets or exceeds future projected demand? As stated in the Planning Framework, Answering the fourth question is the heart of the water-planning process and greatly benefits from cooperation and consensus among all stakeholders throughout the basin. A successful and equitable river basin plan addresses the effects all water users have on one another and on the resource. Public involvement is critical to the goal of ensuring that future generations of South Carolinians have secure, well-managed supplies of our most critical natural resourcewater. You can download a copy of the South Carolina State Water Planning Framework and learn more about the Planning Process Advisory Committee and the research underpinning this initiative. Meeting locations and times: ColumbiaNov. 1, 2022, 6-8 p.m. Saluda Shoals Park River Center 5605 Bush River Road Columbia, SC 29212 Directions via Google Maps GreenvilleNov. 3, 2022, 6-8 p.m. Roper Mountain Science Center Environmental Science & Sustainability Building, Room 201 Greenville, SC 29615 Directions via Google Maps U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks to reporters during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 11. Reuters-Yonhap The United States has warned Russia privately of "catastrophic" consequences if it uses nuclear weapons as part of the Ukraine invasion, top U.S. officials said. Russian President Vladimir Putin made a thinly veiled threat to use nuclear arms in a speech Wednesday in which he announced the mobilization of reservists following Ukrainian gains on the ground. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in an interview broadcast Sunday, confirmed reports that the United States has sent private warnings to Russia to steer clear of nuclear war. "We have been very clear with the Russians publicly, and, as well as privately, to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons," Blinken told the CBS News program "60 Minutes" in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. "It's very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. And we've made that very clear," Blinken said. Cllr John Reilly has called on Louth County Council to write to the Office of Public Works (OPW) to ask them to take charge of Faughart Graveyard as a national heritage site. Cllr Reilly told members at the Council's September meeting, that he has made contact with the two main Christian churches, who both claim that they have no responsibility for the graveyard. The councillor says that after carrying out considerable research, he has found that the ownership of the graveyard is in a legal limbo. The graveyard is believed to have been in the control of the Church of Ireland up until the 1850s but was taken over by the Catholic Church in around this period. The local councillor says that no satisfactory records can be found to back this up. Cllr Reilly says that he is delighted to have helped promote Faughart Graveyard as a tourist attraction during his first two years on the council. With the help of Kilcurry Tidy Towns, who are the sponsors of a TUS scheme, an extensive clean-up of the graveyard has been carried out. Cllr Reilly says that the graveyard has been transformed, with new signage recently erected thanks to the help of Louth County Council and Louth Leader. The graveyard is a rich heritage site, both as a religious site, being close to the birthplace of St Brigid, and burial ground of a former Scottish king, Edward De Bruce. Cllr Reilly says he believes that it is now time for the OPW to take over the long-term running of Faughart Graveyard and to keep up the maintenance of such a beautiful and historic site. News that the age rules of the Youth Travel Card scheme are being widened to include 16 to 18 year olds who are in third level education, has been welcomed by local political representatives. Louth Sinn Fein TD, Ruairi O Murchu welcomed the news of the decision, having raised the issue in Leinster House last week with Transport Minister, Eamon Ryan. In response to a question from Deputy O Murchu, Minister Ryan said: The NTA is widening the age rules of the scheme to allow 16-, 17-, and 18-year-old students in third level education to apply for the student leap card so that they can also avail of the discount. This is in line with the approach that has been taken with mature students who are in full-time third level education. I am pleased to advise that the NTA has already commenced the technical work on this matter, which is scheduled to be completed in the coming weeks Deputy O Murchu queried the rule change with the Minister, asking whether apprentices of the same age would be considered for the discount. He also asked whether commercial bus operators will take part in the scheme and if the fare reductions of 20% will continue after the budget this week. Minister Ryan said it would be looked at but added: There is one slight complication relating to the matter raised by Deputy O Murchu. My understanding is that an under-18-year-old on public transport services is entitled to a child fare. The concern about those fares does not apply. There are a limited number of other services where those fares would not apply, if young people are working and are not students, but those are very limited and specific circumstances. I will look at those to see if there are other ways of closing that final gap, but the vast majority of those aged under 18 on the vast majority of public transport services are entitled to a child fare. I will announce that on budget day, but I will be very much arguing for it. Minister Ryan further added in relation to commercial operators, to answer Deputy O Murchu's question, I expect the involvement of commercial bus operators to be very significant. Looking at the budget implications, it is not cheap but it is appropriate and right for us to extend the scheme to them. Widening the scheme to include 16 to 18 year olds in third level education, was the sensible decision to make according to Dundalk Senator John McGahon. Senator McGahon said the Government recently brought in a Youth Travel Card which provides a 50% reduction in transport for 19 to 24 year olds, however, this card excluded 16 to 18 year olds who use private operators, like the Matthews Bus, to get to college. Senator McGahon said that most students leaving Dundalk to travel to college in Dublin use the Matthews Bus, a private operator, and as a result they were being excluded from the price reduction because of their age. A number of parents spoke to me about this anomaly, and I went directly to the Minister for Transport and the NTA in an effort to fix it and make sure that 16 to 18 years olds were included. Both the Minister and the NTA agreed that this was an unintended consequence of a good policy and were keen to fix it. Senator McGahon continued, the Minister confirmed in the Dail that they had widened the age rules to allow for 16 to 18 year old students in third level education to apply for the student leap card so they can also avail of the discount. They will be able to apply for the discount from next week."The Fine Gael Sentor added, we are working really hard to make sure that we are putting money back into peoples pockets and this is another example of making sure that no one is being left behind. Taoiseach Micheal Martin will address the Centre for Cross Border Studies highly anticipated 23rd Annual Conference this Thursday, 29th September, at the Crowne Plaza Dundalk. With Foyle Port as its headline sponsor, the Conference will focus on Commitment, Resilience and Perseverance: New challenges and approaches to cross-border cooperation, mobility, and relations, exploring crucial issues across two days, bringing together government officials, policy experts and leaders of civic society and academia. The Taoiseach will deliver a keynote speech focused on his Governments commitment to work with all communities on the island to build consensus around a shared future, underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement. Other speakers include: British Ambassador to Ireland, Paul Johnston. Chief Executive of South Tyrone Empowerment Programme, Bernadette McAliskey. Director of the Office of the First Minister of Wales, Desmond Clifford. Alliance Party Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Sorcha Eastwood MLA. Ulster Unionist Party Policy Officer, Lauren Kerr. Director of Public Policy at The Wheel, Ivan Cooper. Assistant General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Owen Reidy. Partner at Flint Global, Sam Lowe. Vice President and Registrar at Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dr Sheila Flanagan. Executive Dean at Dublin City University Institute of Education, Professor Anne Looney. Research Fellow at Queens University Belfast, Dr Lisa Claire Whitten. President of the EU-UK Follow-up Committee of the EESC, Jack OConnor. A business breakfast and three panels focused on cooperation, mobility and relations will also take place with a dinner later that evening that will have Brian Rowan (author and former BBC correspondent) as a guest speaker. A technical workshop focused on practical issues affecting cross-border and all-island organisations will be held on 30 September. Taoiseach, Micheal Martin said: The interconnected nature of communities on our island has come into sharp focus over the last few years. Whether it is healthcare, transportation or infrastructure, there are real benefits to working together to address shared challenges and opportunities. "I am very much looking forward to attending the Centre for Cross Border Studies Annual Conference, and to engaging on their theme of new challenges and approaches to cross-border cooperation, and on the importance of working with all communities on this island to build consensus around a shared future, underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement. Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies, Dr Anthony Soares said: We are very much looking forward to our first in-person Annual Conference since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The last two years have shown how the success of these islands is interdependent and based on mutual understanding, respect, and co-operation on issues of shared concern. Our Annual Conference is an opportunity for policy-makers and decision-makers to discuss ideas and address pertinent issues on the island of Ireland, the UK and the EU. As we approach the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement our hope is that Thursdays conference will serve as a starting point for the restoration of mutual dialogue, based on the ethos of the Agreement, to solve the problems surrounding the current political crises in our institutions. The Centre encourages anyone interested in taking part in this conversation to attend our Annual Conference to gain a deeper understanding of our rooted interdependence and need for co-operation on a variety of fronts. Spinal Injuries Ireland (SII) is hosting a meeting in Louth to provide public representatives with a better understanding of the issues that local people living with a Spinal Cord Injury are facing on a daily basis. The organisation has published a Pre-Budget Submission calling on the Government to designate Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) as a long-term and permanent condition and to extend eligibility for the medical card to anyone with a SCI on a permanent basis. The meeting, which is set to take place at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Dundalk from 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 28th September, is part of a national roadshow that has been organised by Spinal Injuries Ireland to generate wider support for its Pre-Budget proposal. Louth residents who are living with life altering spinal cord injuries will tell the meeting how the Governments current approach to awarding medical cards is having a negative impact on their lives and why a change in policy is necessary. They will highlight how anyone who sustains a Spinal Cord Injury and who is in need of a medical card is currently assessed on their means rather than their needs, as well as the fact that the maximum period for any medical card is just three years. This is an arbitrary and inhuman approach which is delaying or denying treatment and the supply of necessary equipment to many people living with a Spinal Cord Injury, said Fiona Bolger, CEO of Spinal Injuries Ireland. It also contributes to significant stress, financial hardship, erosion of personal dignity and independence and additional physical and mental challenges. It is inhuman and it must change, she added. Spinal Injuries Ireland estimates that three people sustain a devastating Spinal Cord Injury every week in Ireland. Some lose the ability to walk and depending on the level of injury can also lose arm and hand function. A SCI can also result in serious secondary health issues including chronic pain, loss of body function, severe psychological distress and financial issues. The experience is life changing for individuals and their families who are suddenly faced with the cost of medical care, bowel and bladder care and pressure relieving equipment along with specialist requirements such as a motorised chair, a bed hoist and adaptions to their car and home. Spinal Injuries Ireland is the only organisation dedicated to providing support services to over 2,200 people in Ireland living with a Spinal Cord Injury. Its call for a change in Government policy follows extensive consultation with service users, their families, health care professionals and with its own board and medical advisors. Our number one priority is the permanent provision of medical cards based on assessment of need. Our shared belief is that a Spinal Cord Injury should be classified as a life-long condition, similar to diabetes or epilepsy. It is critical to recognise that anyone living with such a life-long condition is also at risk of developing secondary conditions that can be debilitating and even life-threatening, said Ms. Bolger. In many cases people with a SCI are unable to return to their former employment. Spouses, family members or partners commonly give up their employment to provide them with home care. There is a huge loss of family income and it is estimated that 25% of those with a SCI live below the poverty line, she added. Spinal Injuries Irelands Pre-Budget Submission also calls for the implementation of the National Strategy for Neuro-rehabilitative services, including a National Trauma System for Ireland. The automatic approval of funding for home care packages for patients with the most complex needs is also proposed. Romana EBRD makes an initial commitment of up to US$ 40 million in Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV from up to US$ 50 million Board-approved envelope Fund to focus on growth equity in tech and export-oriented SMEs in Ukraine and Moldova The EBRD has committed up to US$ 40 million (40 million) to Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV (HCGF IV), managed by Horizon Capital, a leading private-equity manager in Ukraine and Moldova and a longstanding EBRD client. The Bank may increase its commitment to the fund up to US$ 50 million at a later date. HCGF IV aims to raise up to US$ 250 million to make growth equity investments, ranging on average US$ 10 million to USD$ 30 million, with a focus on tech and export-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine and Moldova. The agreement, signed today at the International Finance Corporations (IFC) London office, is in line with the EBRDs commitment to investing over 1 billion in Ukraine this year. We welcome Horizons new fund, which will have an important catalytic effect on the Ukrainian and regional market, said Hassan El Khatib, EBRD Managing Director, Equity, at the signing ceremony. The fund will not only improve the resilience of private capital markets in the region by developing private equity as an alternative funding source but also boost inclusion by offering support to businesses affected by the war. Through this investment, the EBRD and its international partners are effectively bridging a financing gap caused by adverse market conditions, by bringing in a private equity fund to add to the pool of financing available. The funds first-close investors, alongside the EBRD, include the IFC, DEG - Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO), the Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets, the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, and the Zero Gap Fund, an impact investing collaboration between The Rockefeller Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February has created unprecedented challenges for the Ukrainian economy. Some businesses have ceased operations, while others have been forced to adapt to a new reality of logistical disruptions, fuel deficits, relocated production facilities and staff, tighter currency controls and shortages of finance. Ukrainian companies have demonstrated great resilience, however, while tech-focused SMEs have proven their importance to the economy since the start the war, contributing to the countrys economic revival. HCGF IV will maintain Horizon Capitals focus on tech and export-oriented companies, initiated over a decade ago, building on the contribution made to the regions information technology (IT) sector by Horizon Capitals predecessor vintage 2017 US$ 200 million fund, also backed by the EBRD. In late 2021, Horizon Capital launched fundraising for its new flagship fund, originally aiming to reach first close by April 2022. The start of the war on Ukraine delayed the process, but fundraising was relaunched soon afterwards, underpinned by the strong performance of the existing Horizon portfolio companies. The EBRD has pledged to invest over 1 billion this year to support the Ukrainian economy, with risks shared by donors and partners. To address the Ukrainian economys most pressing current needs, the EBRD is prioritising five areas: trade finance, energy security, vital infrastructure, food security (covering the provision of liquidity to farmers through banks for the spring sowing season, as well as to agribusiness companies and food producers and retailers) and providing liquidity to pharmaceutical companies. So far, the EBRD has invested 920 million in response to the war on Ukraine. The EBRD was swift to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February and pledged to stand by Ukraine. In early April, the EBRDs Board of Governors voted to suspend the access of Russia and Belarus to EBRD finance and expertise, and the Bank has closed its offices in the two countries. Bank launches the EBRD Literature Prize 2023 Competition celebrates translated literature from the regions where the EBRD operates Winning writer and translator to be revealed in spring 2023 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has launched the EBRD Literature Prize 2023. The EBRD Literature Prize 2023 will be awarded to both the writer and the translator of the best work of literary fiction written in any language of the EBRD regions, translated into English, and published for the first time by a European (including UK) publisher in the eligible period. The Prize has gained ever more visibility and recognition in recent years. The independent judging panel of the EBRD Literature Prize 2023 will be chaired by Toby Lichtig, Fiction and Politics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, in his third and last term chairing the competition. Mr Lichtig is also a freelance editor and writer for a range of publications, including the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian. He is a former Chair of Judges of the 2018 JQ-Wingate Prize and a jury member of the 2019 EU Prize for Literature. Other judges on the panel for the EBRD Literature Prize 2023 include: Maya Jaggi, an award-winning writer, critic and artistic director in London. Her cultural writing has appeared widely, from the Guardian Review (where she was a profile writer for a decade) and FT Weekend to New York Review of Books. Arkady Ostrovsky, The Economists Russia and eastern Europe editor. He was previously Moscow Bureau Chief for The Economist and spent a decade with the Financial Times covering Russia. He wrote the 2016 Orwell Prize-winning book The Invention of Russia: The Journey from Gorbachevs Freedom to Putins War. Natasha Randall, writer, literary translator and contributing editor to literary magazine A Public Space. Her award-winning translations include books by Dostoyevsky, Lermontov, Gogol and Zamyatin. Her articles and reviews have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Moscow Times, The New York Times and others. Her debut novel, Love Orange, was published by riverrun (Quercus) in September 2020. Since its inauguration in 2017, the EBRD Literature Prize has introduced English-language readers to a wide range of literature from countries as diverse as Albania, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Eligibility Submissions for the EBRD Literature Prize 2023 may only be made for books translated into English for the first time between 15 November 2021 and 14 November 2022, by European (including UK) publishers with an ISBN and the price printed in the currency of a European country. The works must consist of literary fiction (including collections of short stories by a single author), translated into English and written originally in any language, be it official or minority, of a country in which the EBRD operates, by an author who is (or has been) a citizen of a country in which the Bank operates. The submission deadline for publishers is 30 November 2022. The shortlist will be announced in March 2023. This will be followed by an announcement of the three finalists in April 2023. An awards ceremony will be held at EBRD Headquarters in London. The first prize, worth 20,000, will be equally divided between the winning author and translator. The two runner-up books will each receive a prize of 4,000, also equally split between author and translator. EBRD loan of 14 million to UzCarlsberg Greater sustainability and resource efficiency of major Uzbek brewer Promotion of green innovation The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is promoting green innovation in the agribusiness sector of Uzbekistan by supporting operations of the countrys leading brewer UzCarlsberg. A senior EBRD loan of up to 14 million (to be provided in two tranches) to UzCarlsberg will help finance the companys capital expenditure and improve its resource management. The funds will be used to install a CO 2 capture and recuperation system and to improve packaging practices by significantly increasing the share of returnable packaging. As part of the project, UzCarlsberg will also introduce more efficient filtration and cooling systems and acquire cooling units that operate on natural-based refrigerants. The sustainability of the agribusiness sector is particularly important for Uzbekistan as it contributes to almost 30 per cent of GDP and employs more than 3.65 million people across the country. The project is supported by the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) and the Japan-EBRD Cooperation Fund (JECF). To date, the EBRD has invested nearly 3.6 billion in 113 projects in Uzbekistan. Tomas Kairys, senior lawyer at the EBRD, is appointed Head of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania Kairys is the first national of a Baltic state to hold the position The EBRD continues regional focus on green economy in energy and infrastructure, capital markets The EBRD has announced the appointment of a new head of its operations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Tomas Kairys, currently a senior lawyer at the Bank, will formally assume the position of EBRD Head of the Baltic States on 15 October 2022. Kairys will be based in Vilnius, Lithuania, and report to Elisabetta Falcetti, Director, Regional Head of Central Europe and the Baltic States, who is based in Poland. Today, Tomas Kairys was introduced to the authorities in Lithuania during a meeting of the EBRD Board of Directors delegation with the Minister of Finance Gintare Skaiste, who represents Lithuania on the EBRD Board of Governors. Kairys will visit Estonia and Latvia soon after the formal start to his new role. He will succeed Ian Brown, current Head of the Baltic States, who will retire after a long career at the Bank. Tomas Kairys said: In these challenging times for the region, the EBRD remains strongly committed to the Baltic states and plans to increase its investment there. Our priorities remain helping to accelerate a green economy transition in energy and infrastructure, and supporting digitalisation and access to more diversified sources of finance including capital markets. In the context of the war in Ukraine, we will increase our work in the region, not only to help the Baltic states strengthen their energy security and capital markets but also to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), municipal services and the livelihoods of displaced people. A Lithuanian national and the first from the Baltic states to hold this position Kairys first joined the Bank from the private sector in 2006 as a lawyer with the EBRDs Office of the General Counsel in London, specialising in banking projects and capital market transactions. From 2011-15 he was based in Istanbul, the first EBRD lawyer to work locally in Turkey, which had become an EBRD country of operations in 2009. From 2019-21 Kairys was assigned to the newest multilateral development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, in Beijing, China, where he took on a senior role as Chief Counsel for Investment Operations. He brings to his new role a wide spectrum of knowledge and skills as well as sectoral and regional experience, including in supporting complex debt and equity finance and capital market transactions in the EBRDs more economically advanced regions. To date, the Bank has invested about 875 million in Estonia, 1 billion in Latvia and 1.15 billion in Lithuania. In 2022, the EBRD plans to commit at least 350 million to the region, in projects ranging from energy security to SME support. A community group is celebrating 10 years of making the streets of Cork City safer with acts of kindness. On their patrols, Cork Street Pastors have thought of every act of kindness, from distributing flip-flops to women struggling in high heels to reassuring injured people waiting for an ambulance. On Saturday night, volunteers hosted an exhibition outside Bishop Lucey Park, with information on the organisation illustrated by photographs of their patrols. The volunteers patrol the streets every Saturday, between 10.30pm and 4am, to seek out people in need of a helping hand. The Street Pastors movement was pioneered in London in 2003. Since then, more than 12,000 volunteers have been trained to strengthen community life and work for safer streets. David Hoey, who co-ordinates Cork Street Pastors, spoke of their success in helping people in Cork who may otherwise have been forgotten. Read More Wedding of the Week: Cork couple married at renowned church in Gougane Barra Describing one recent act of kindness by way of example, Mr Hoey said: We met one man who had sustained a head injury and needed to be taken to hospital for stitches. Three ambulances had been called for him and he refused them all. When we spoke to him, it turned out that the sight of the flashing lights took him back to his childhood and he wasnt able to cope. He associated flashing lights with embarrassment, on account of growing up in a dysfunctional household. He came from such a close-knit community that everybody knew each other, so anybody who saw the flashing lights knew there was trouble at home. After speaking with the Street Pastors, the injured party agreed to pursue medical treatment. By the time the fourth ambulance came, we were able to explain the situation to the paramedics and they very kindly turned off the flashing lights. He agreed to be taken to hospital and was able to get the treatment he needed. "Its unusual for a controller to send out that many ambulances, so we are really glad the man got the help he needed. To find out more about Cork Street Pastors, visit their website. Cork county councillors have voted to retain the local property tax (LPT) local adjustment factor (LAF) at the same rate applied last year for the next two years. At a meeting today, councillors agreed to leave the LPT at a variation of 7.5 per cent. The Finance (Local Property Tax) Act 2012 (as amended), makes specific provision that elected members of a local authority may pass a formal resolution to vary the basic rate of the LPT for their administrative area by a percentage known as the LAF. Councillors can decide to change the rate upwards or downwards by 15 per cent. While such a resolution may be made annually, the adjustments are not cumulative from year to year. The Elected Members of Cork County Council have voted to retain the Local Property Tax Local Adjustment factor at the same rate applied last year, 7.5% for 2 years. pic.twitter.com/9vgCv7mUHI Cork County Council (@Corkcoco) September 26, 2022 In a report issued to councillors ahead of the meeting, the council executive recommended that councillors would increase the rate by 15 per cent. While there is a strong desire to retain the current level of services, it is clear this will not be possible for 2023. To minimise the reduction and negative impact on services and communities it is imperative our income is maximised... We strongly recommend Members agree to increasing basic rate variation and setting a Local Adjustment Factor of 15 per cent, it stated. The report outlined that the councils current budget 2023 estimation shows a significant funding gap of 16.8m with a potential funding need of 27.4m given requests for reductions to proposed budget cuts and other budget requests. Mayor of the County of Cork, Independent Cllr Danny Collins said he could not support any further increase to the LPT and recommended leaving the variation at 7.5 per cent. Mr Collins also called for additional funding for the council from central Government and proposed that the council would write to secure a meeting with the Cork TDs in power. Calls for additional funding for the local authority were echoed by numerous councillors at today's meeting, including Independent Cllr Declan Hurley. Mr Hurley said he would support the proposal to retain the LAF at the same rate applied last year and suggested that the rate be fixed for 2023 and 2024 at 7.5 per cent. Fianna Fail Cllr Seamus McGrath said under no circumstances could the party increase the burden on households in the coming year by upping the rate beyond 7.5 per cent. That is not something were prepared to do. To do so would put us totally out of touch with reality and the suffering and the pain that people are experiencing out there, he said. Of course, national Government will have to step up to the plate in terms of local authority funding. To be fair, they did do so during the Covid crisis and I have no doubt they will step up to the plate as well during the energy and cost of living crisis and we will await to see what comes tomorrow in that respect, he continued. Sinn Fein Cllr Danielle Twomey said families are "at the absolute pin of their collars" and said she also could not support an increase. At the meeting today it was clarified that councillors may decide to amend the rate of LPT next year but that two-thirds of the councillors would need to be in agreement. Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions. Workers install a new row of Bitcoin mining machines at the Whinstone U.S. Bitcoin mining facility in Rockdale, Texas, on Oct. 9, 2021. MARK FELIX / AFP via Getty Images The U.S. bitcoin industry produces as much climate pollution every year as 6 million internal combustion cars and three times more than the countrys biggest coal plant, concludes a new report from multiple environmental groups. The global share of energy-intensive bitcoin mining in the U.S. has increased by more than an order of magnitude since 2020, jumping from 3.5% to 38% after China banned bitcoin mining in 2021, and the groups called on states to ban new mining operations. Were at an inflection point, Jeremy Fisher, a Sierra Club energy analyst and report co-author told Thomson Reuters. Were trying to rapidly decarbonize Bitcoin mining has the potential to undo some of that progress with its 27.4 million tonnes of emissions in the past year. Although some claim to offset emissions from the mining process, theres a lot of greenwashing going on, Fisher warned. As reporter by the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Environmental groups say the industrys environmental record, energy usage and long-term impact on communities have largely been hidden from scrutiny. Fridays report highlights cases where bitcoin miners have prolonged the life of fossil-fuel plants, pushed up electricity rates, strained power grids, and fallen short on promises of jobs related benefits for the local community. For a deeper dive: Thomson Reuters Foundation For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, sign up for daily Hot News, and visit their news site, Nexus Media News. Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions. On October 2, Braziilans will go to the polls to choose a new president. However, whats at stake in this contest is more than who will lead Brazil for the next four years. Whats at stake, experts say, is the future of the Amazon rainforest. I dont say this lightly as a scientist, but this is the most important election ever in Brazil for the Amazon and its survival, senior research associate at the Ecosystems Lab in the University of Oxford Erika Berenguer told New Scientist. The two front-runners in the election are incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who governed the country from 2003 to 2010. Deforestation has reached record heights under Bolsonaro, who has reduced environmental protections, appointed pro-exploitation ministers to conservation posts and rhetorically encouraged deforestation. [H]e himself has been incentivizing not-sustainable activities in the Amazon saying that the vocation of the Amazon is actually to mine and to produce commodities like soybeans and beef, Pulitzer Centers Rainforest Investigations Network journalist Gustavo Faleiros told NPR. During his four years in office, deforestation has increased by 74.65 percent, according to New Scientist. In just three years after his election, the country lost 34,018 square kilometers (approximately 13,134 square miles) of forest, an area the size of Belgium, according to Carbon Brief. While Lula and his successor Dilma Rousseff governed between 2004 and 2016, however, deforestation decreased 72 percent, New Scientist reported. Lula has also run on a pro-conservation platform, vowing to reverse Bolsonaros deregulations, reappoint scientists to environmental agencies, remove illegal mining from Indigenous territories, create a carbon pricing scheme and form new agencies dedicated to protecting Indigenous rights and meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Assuming Lula keeps these promises and both men govern in keeping with their past policies, a loss for Bolsonaro and a win for Lula could decrease deforestation in the Amazon by 89 percent over the next 10 years, according to a new analysis conducted for Carbon Brief by scientists at the University of Oxford, the International Institute for Applied System Analysis and the National Institute for Space Research. The analysis assumes that the policies enacted by the winner in 2023 would remain constant through 2030. If Lula wins, it would save a portion of forest around the size of Panama by that date. The research is based on whether or not Brazils leader would enforce the Forest Code, a law passed in 1965 that remains the countrys primary tool for enforcing rainforest protections. It stipulates that farmers must preserve a certain amount of forest on their land and also reforest illegally cleared areas. Whether or not it is implemented has an impact not just on the Amazon, but on the global climate. If it is not enforced, then Brazils greenhouse gas emissions from land use change would continue to contribute to the climate crisis through 2050. If it is, however, the land-use sector would actually become a carbon sink by that date. As of now, there is hope that Lula can defeat Bolsonaro. The most recent Ipec institute polling has Bolsonaro receiving 35 percent of the vote and Lula 47 percent, according to Euronews. If Lula receives 50 percent of the vote or more next Sunday, he will win the presidency without the need for a run-off election on October 30. Of course, even if Lula does win, that doesnt mean it will be easy for him to combat deforestation. I think he will face a lot of challenge[s], Faleiros told NPR. There is structural problems in the Amazon and the main one is not having another generative of an economic activity that is not linked to destruction. Mining, cattle ranching and agriculture in general in the Amazon is done with deforestation. Lula will have to propose an alternative in the midst of an economic downtown. He will also begin his tenure with an extremely underfunded environmental budget, Carbon Brief noted. But experts thought there was hope he would be able to improve the situation over time. I think its more likely to expect a drop next year similar to the one observed between 2004 to 2005 (around 30%) and then higher cuts in the deforestation rate as the government reorganises the environmental institutions that were significantly weakened under Bolsonaro`s government and implement additional policies, Dr. Brenda Brito, an associate researcher at the research institute Imazon, told Carbon Brief. Aker BioMarine strengthens QRILL aqua sales team with new talents Norway-based Aker BioMarine is enhancing its QRILL aqua sales organisation after successfully recruiting two new talents for its Norway-based team. The supply of sustainable and nutritious ingredients for fish feed is essential for further growth of the Norwegian salmon industry. Aker BioMarine strongly believes that QRILL Aqua can be part of the solution. Therefore, the company has decided to establish a team that will work closely with the fish farming industry in order to find tailor made solutions for each customer. The team will be led by Maja Bvre-Jensen who takes the role as business development director, and Karen Kirstine sterhus is appointed as business development manager. "We are only at the beginning of uncovering the full potential of QRILL Aqua for salmon in Norway and our competent people are key in helping our customers and stakeholders learn more about the health benefits of Antarctic krill," said Sigve Nordrum, executive vice president of animal health and nutrition at Aker BioMarine. "Maja and Karen both possess solid aquaculture industry knowledge and a passion for exploring new and future looking solutions for the Norwegian industry. Strengthening this team is an important part of our increasing involvement with the aqua industry in Norway." Bvre-Jensen has spent the past five years of her career working with the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund. With two decades of aquaculture experience, she has spent her career exploring new solutions for both Norwegian and global fish farming. Bvre-Jensen holds a master's degree in aqua medicine from the Norwegian Arctic University, with a specialisation in sea lice. "I see Aker BioMarine as a place where everyone is encouraged to bring new ideas to life," said Bvre-Jensen. "I'm a strong believer in the power and potential of QRILL Aqua as an ingredient, and I'm excited to explore and develop new business opportunities in order to help fish farmers reach their goals, alongside this talented team." sterhus previously worked at STIM, where she gained experience with bacteriophages, feed and other fish health-related products. In her most recent role, she focused on fish ready to be harvested and collaborated with farmers throughout Norway. sterhus holds a bachelor's degree in aquaculture management from Nord University and is halfway through a master's degree in sustainable aquaculture from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). "I'm excited for the possibility to contribute to improve fish health and the sustainability of the industry," said sterhus. "With a lot of passion for the industry and as a self-proclaimed fish nerd, the opportunity of becoming a part of Aker BioMarine as such an innovative and forward-looking company, is a dream come true." Both Bvre-Jensen and sterhus have assumed their new roles on September 1. - Aker BioMarine Hamlet Protein appoints new CFO Hamlet Protein, a global producer of specialty ingredients for young animal nutrition, has announced the appointment of chief finance officer Poul Jrgensen. Jrgensen will oversee the finance operations and IT organisation from the company's headquarters in Horsens, Denmark. He is a graduate from the University of Southern Denmark and alumnus of the Copenhagen Business School, and has an international background and experience in finance, IT and logistics. "I am excited to join Hamlet Protein and help implement its ambitious growth agenda," said Jrgensen. "It is important to invest in strong financial leadership in current volatile market conditions," said Hamlet Protein chief executive officer Erik Visser. "We are happy to welcome Poul in our organisation and look forward to partnering with him." Hamlet Protein produces soy-based protein ingredients and fibre specialties for swine, poultry, ruminant and aquaculture at two production plants in Denmark and the United States. - Hamlet Protein 21 September 2022 Over the past 3 days during my visit here in Damascus and to Daraa governorate, I have seen firsthand the devastating impact of war, economic instability and sanctions on innocent Syrians whose health even now continues to deteriorate. In Daraa, once a hotspot of intense fighting and where parts of the governorate still remain in ruins, I met an elderly lady undergoing dialysis treatment who burst into tears as she spoke to me about her medical condition, and the fate that had befallen her country. Sobbing, she turned to me and asked, What has happened to us? It was a hard question for me to answer. Syrians who survived the war continue to be exposed to deadly disease outbreaks, like the current cholera outbreak across 6 governorates that has already claimed 23 lives and infected 253 people. Cases of leishmaniasis are also increasing across the country. Today, more than 20 000 children under the age of 5 across Syria are malnourished, including 1500 children who are at risk of medical complications. No parent should have to stand by and watch their child suffer, but over the past 3 days, I met exhausted mothers whose babies were being treated for medical complications of malnutrition, including respiratory diseases and bloody diarrhoea as a result of weakened immunity. In Damascus, doctors told me they were struggling to work with limited medical supplies and equipment as a result of sanctions on the country. Broken medical equipment like CT scanners and MRI machines stood idle as the spare parts needed to fix them could not be imported from international suppliers due to sanctions. As WHO, we continue to reiterate that health care is a basic human right for all people, everywhere. But in Syria, the harsh reality is that our ability to ensure the health of innocent people is affected by other factors: Political insecurity affects public health. Sanctions affect public health. Economic instability affects public health. Shortages in fuel, water and electricity affect public health. Unless the root causes of this health crisis are addressed, we can only achieve so much, leaving millions of people in Syria without the support they need to survive, recover and rebuild their country. Within WHOs regional vision of Health for All by All we call for solidarity and action from the international community to give the people of Syria a chance to live a life of dignity, well-being and good health. Statement by WHO Representative on health situation in Syria Today, the risks facing Syrians are greater than ever before, as just now highlighted by WHOs Regional Director. WHOs Whole-of-Syria response approach allows us to provide health aid to all Syrians in need across the country using the best modality, regardless of geographical location or political affiliation. As an organization, we also coordinate with all levels of government and ruling parties to facilitate the access we need to ensure that no Syrian is left behind. As part of our response to the current cholera outbreak, a shipment of medicines and supplies landed in Damascus airport from our logistics hub in Dubai just 2 days ago. These supplies, enough to cover 2000 severe cases and 190 000 mild cases, will be distributed to health facilities in northeast Syria where the outbreak is concentrated. A second shipment is also expected to arrive later today. Our immediate priority now is to stop the spread of this deadly disease by continuing to support rapid response teams, expand surveillance, testing and contacting tracing, while raising awareness among affected and at-risk communities on how to protect themselves. We are also working with partners to test water quality and distribute chlorine tablets to affected communities. Overall, our work in Syria takes a 3-pronged approach to: 1) address the immediate needs of more than 12 million people in need of health assistance; 2) restore health system functionality by supporting health facility recovery and rehabilitation efforts and ensuring the availability of enough skilled health professionals; and 3) address the social determinants that affect the health of Syrians with regards to water quality and access to fuel, electricity and other basic resources. But ensuring the health and well-being of all Syrians goes beyond the responsibility of health authorities and WHO, and requires actions by other sectors and all stakeholders, including the Syrian people themselves who need to be more aware of the actions they need to take to protect themselves and others. Only 15% of all Syrians are vaccinated against COVID-19, and coverage remains low among priority groups, such as health care workers and the elderly, increasing their risk of severe infection and hospitalization. WHO is working with partners to increase vaccine demand and raise awareness about the benefits of vaccines in interrupting transmission of the virus and preventing severe illness and hospitalization. The people of Syria have endured more than 12 devastating years of conflict, losing their loved ones, their homes and their livelihoods. We owe it to them to help them preserve their most basic right: the right to health. Manx panda moves to England for breeding programme An endangered panda born on the Island has been successfully moved to an English zoo as part of an international breeding programme. Two-year-old red panda, Aria, has taken up home at the Birmingham Conservation Park after being safely transported by her keepers this week. Aria was the first cub born to dad Kush and mum Sara at the Curraghs Wildlife Park in 2020. In recent years the Park has raised more than 6,200 for the Red Panda Network, which helps protect red pandas in Nepal. Government must continue off-Island engagement says CM The Chief Minister has said that the Manx Government must continue its programme of off-Island engagement to help drive economic growth and prosperity. Alfred Cannan's remarks come ahead of a series of visits scheduled over the next few months which aim to strengthen relationships and raise the Islands profile. The Chief Minister said: Growing our economy is vital to funding high quality public services and maintaining our cherished quality of life. That is why securing a strong and diverse economy is one of the key pillars of our Island Plan. To deliver on this ambition we must engage, build relationships and market ourselves in the UK, Europe and further afield, ensuring we seize opportunities and play to our strengths. The rewards include attracting new workers, increased exports and growing inward investment. This wont happen on its own, nor will it happen overnight. It will take a sustained long-term effort that we must commit to if we are to succeed. The Chief Minister will attend the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this week and the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham in October. Later in October the Chief Minister will visit Brussels and in November he will take part in the 38th summit of the British-Irish Council. Further afield, there will be a visit to Bahrain in October at the invitation of the Crown Prince to explore opportunities for collaboration including in financial services. In November there will be a visit to South Africa at the request of local businesses following a successful trip there in March of this year. Following a request by South Korean prosecutors, Interpol has placed Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon on a "red notice" list, TechCrunch has reported. That will create a request for law enforcement agencies around the world to arrest Kwon following his blockchain company's collapse that took $40 billion from investors with it. After Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kwon last week, he tweeted that he was "not on the run" or "anything similar." However, prosecutors said that they believed Kwon left Korea to "evade investigation" as he told them through his lawyers that he didn't intend to appear before questioning. "He is clearly on the run as his family members and the company's key finance people also left for the same country [Singapore] at the same time," they said. Kwon and other Terraform Labs' employees are under investigation for financial fraud and tax evasion following the collapse of its stablecoins, TerraUSD and Luna. The investors, many of whom lost their life savings following the collapse, filed complaints accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme. The crash of the Luna token also played a roll in the collapse of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. According to Bloombergs Mark Gurman, next years iPhone could introduce a change to Apples naming convention. It could call its largest and most expensive device in 2023 the iPhone 15 Ultra instead of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Gurman expects the iPhone 15 to feature USB-C , among other bigger changes which he didnt elaborate on at this point. Engadget Interestingly, Gurman thinks Apple might not hold another event this fall. He says the company will announce new Mac mini, MacBook Pro and iPad Pro models before the end of the year, but that theyll likely be iterative and land without the Apple event fanfare. Mat Smith Turn on browser notifications to receive breaking news alerts from Engadget You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. Not now Turned on Turn on The biggest stories you might have missed Respeecher recreated the actor's voice as it was in 1977. Disney James Earl Jones has said goodbye to Darth Vader. At 91, the actor recently told Disney he was looking into winding down this particular character. That forced the company to ask itself how do you even replace Jones? The answer Disney eventually settled on, with the actors consent, involved an AI program. Respeecher can use archival recordings and a proprietary AI algorithm to create new dialogue featuring the voices of performers from long ago. Continue reading. Meanwhile, season three of The Witcher arrives next summer. The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel to Netflix's live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's fantasy novel series, will debut on December 25th. Set thousands of years before the story of the Witcher Geralt and Ciri, Blood Origin will center on the moment in the Witcher universe when humans, elves and monsters all come to inhabit the fantasy world of the series. Actress Michelle Yeoh stars as Scian, the elven protagonist. Originally slated to run six episodes, Blood Origin will instead be four episodes long. Continue reading. Night School Studio needs more time to make the sequel truly special. The sequel to 2016s Oxenfree wont arrive until next year, the developer announced on Saturday. To make Oxenfree II truly special and add more localizations, were moving our release window to 2023, the studio posted on Twitter. News of the delay came shortly after Netflix announced subscribers could download the original game for free. Yes, more than six years after its PC debut, Netflix is making Oxenfree available freely to those with a subscription to its streaming service. Continue reading. The 17-year-old may also have been responsible for an Uber cybersecurity incident. Police in the UK have arrested a 17-year-old suspected hacker, with reports connecting it to the Rockstar Games hack that led to a major Grand Theft Auto VI leak . The individual may have been involved with an intrusion on Uber as well. The arrest is the result of an investigation involving the City of London Police, the UK's National Cyber Crime Unit and the FBI. According to reports, he was arrested earlier this year for hacking Microsoft and NVIDIA. Continue reading. The holiday shopping season will begin earlier than ever this year. Amazon plans to hold a second sales event this fall, exclusively for Prime members. The second Prime Day of the year, dubbed Prime Early Access Sale, will be on October 11th and 12th in the US, UK, Canada and 12 other countries, following the same two-day format as the original event. That said, we dont know what sort of discounts this event will include. There will probably be a Kindle or two, though. Continue reading. It arrives this January. A1 Pictures. Square Enixs genre-twisting RPG, NieR Automata was a cult hit in 2017. Now, an anime adaptation is almost here. Titled NieR: Automata Version 1.1a, it will debut in January 2023. NieR creator Yoko Taro shared the release window, adding that the anime's story would differ from its source material. Continue reading. Actress Constance Wu speaks out on sexual harassment she experienced during her time in the sitcom television series, "Fresh off the boat". Wu made her screen debut in 2006 with a supporting role in "Stephanie Daley". Eventually, the actress landed her breakthrough role as the lead actress in the ABC comedy series "Fresh Off the Boat" alongside actor Randall Park. According to Wu, this was her first role in a television series. The show aired from 2015 to 2020 for six seasons. In a recent interview with Variety, the "Crazy Rich Asians" star recalls the disturbing experience she had been facing during her time on "Fresh off the Boat". Written in her upcoming memoir, "Making a scene", the actress recalls a senior producer had "sexually harassed" her during the first two seasons of the show. "I kept my mouth shut for a really long time about a lot of sexual harassment and intimidation that I received the first two seasons of the show. Because, after the first two seasons, once it was a success, once I was no longer scared of losing my job, that's when I was able to start saying 'no' to the harassment, 'no' to the intimidation, from this particular producer," Wu told Variety. READ ALSO: Florence Pugh Outshone Olivia Wilde? Actress Called The Shots on 'Don't Worry Darling' Wu Details the Disturbing Encounters In her upcoming memoir, "Making a scene", Wu wrote about her childhood, heartbreak, and the disturbing sexual harassment she endured in Hollywood. During her interview with Variety, she detailed the kind of harassment she experienced from the unnamed "Fresh off the Boat" senior producer. "The producer told her to send him selfies and to run all her business decisions by him before making them." According to a report from Variety. "She also alleges the producer coerced her to attending a Lakers game with her, during which he touched her thigh and grazed her crotch, and then became cold to her after she told him to stop. 'Fresh off the Boat' Renewal Upset Wu? Notably, the actress had gone through a social media break following online backlash from her upset tweets on the renewal of "Fresh off the Boat" in 2019. Fans had called her out for appearing "ungrateful", to which she explained that the reason for her outburst was that she had to give up on a different project to reprise her role on "Fresh off the boat". Wu eventually returned to social media this year. READ ALSO: Bryce Dallas Howard Asked to Lose Weight? 'Jurassic World' Director Said THIS in Defense "Riverdale" became a hot topic recently since, aside from it being a hit series, one of its minor cast members got involved in a horrendous crime. The actor in question, Ryan Grantham, was recently sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his mother. Two years after the horrifying murder, Grantham received his charges over the second-degree murder he committed. While the topic was sensitive enough, "Riverdale" fans recently talked about how the event was like what his character did. Grantham notably played the role of Jeffrey Augustine, who killed Fred Andrews' in the series' season 4, episode 1. His character hit Fred Andrews while he is helping a woman on the side of the road. On Reddit and Twitter, fans talked about the similarity while also asking everyone not to "tarnish" the show by linking the young man to the show. One said, "Jesus Christ, to think that in the show his character was written killing Archie's father, only for the actor himself to kill is mother in reality." Wait. Luke Perry passes away in 2019. Writers for the show decide Perrys character, Fred Andrews, has died of a hit & run by this kid who then goes on in real life to murder his mother?! Whoa!#Riverdale https://t.co/7pyyxZSkUX DuckingPeachy (Nora) (@DuckingPeachy) September 22, 2022 What Happened to Ryan Grantham? The "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" actor recently received life imprisonment for killing his mother, Barbara Waite at their home in Squamish, British Columbia, in March of 2020. As reported by CBC, the young actor shot his mother in the back of her head using a .22 rifle. She was playing her piano at that time. Grantham then recorded a video through GoPro, confessing that he murdered his mother before showing the matriarch's dead body. The news outlet revealed that the actor covered her body with a sheet and surrounded it with candles. He then put a rosary on the piano after the killing. READ ALSO: Wynonna Judd Still Angry Months After Mom Naomi Judd Tragically Died: 'She Got Better But...' Justice Kathleen Ker said he would not be eligible for parole for 14 years, adding that his sister disclosed that Grantham knew what he did to his mother. The judge divulged the actor underwent difficulties and struggled for weeks before murdering his own mother and watched violent videos on the dark web before the crime. With that, he is currently receiving psychiatric treatment in jail. Meanwhile, his attorney Chris Johnson revealed that the sentence was expected. "I think he anticipated what the judge gave him as a sentence. I think he's pretty apprehensive about the whole thing. He's a fairly tiny person, and to go to the prison system, I'm sure it's a daunting and scary thought for him," Johnson told CTV. READ MORE: Prince Harry Hits Trouble in Creating Memoir Due to Potential 'Insensitive' Content [Details] Mondays volatility in GBP and USD pairs overshadowed any fallout from the Italian elections EUR/USD exchange rate hit a 20-year low but mostly on USD strength. While it is feared the new Italian government could cause the EU and ECB problems, there are more pressing issues to address first. Mondays session has been dominated by the volatility in UK markets with the Pound crashing to all-time lows against the US dollar and Gilts falling sharply resulting in the 2-year yield reaching 4.57%. The cost of debt is going to be very high, and as we know from last Fridays mini-Budget, there will be a lot of it. The UK wasnt the only volatile market. USDJPY recovered most of last weeks drop after Kuroda defended the BoJs intervention and Yen buying whilst also defending its continued QE programme. EURUSD made a new 2022 low and recorded the lowest exchange rate since 2002. This was more driven by US dollar strength than Euro weakness and the Euro was slightly higher against most of the G7. This relative strength comes despite the Italian elections which saw a right-wing coalition take power. Perhaps on a slow news day this event would have got more headlines as it is feared a right-wing government could pursue anti-EU and hurt the Euro, but so far there is no sign of selling. Is the threat less than it was made out to be, or has the Euro got bigger problems elsewhere? Euro Steady After Italian Elections Monday morning volatility in currencies has settled down after the US open and most dollar pairs have recovered the majority of the early drops. With EURUSD nearly flat and the Euro higher against the likes of the GBP, NZD, Yen and AUD, there is no sign in the Euros trading patterns that the Italian elections had any impact; a relief for any Euro bulls. Italian yields are higher but this is not something specific to Italy and amazingly, UK yields are now higher following the crash in Gilts. Things may seem calm now, but Italian politics are never quite for long. The Euro can at least be thankful that the new government is centre right and hasnt built its policies around leaving the EU. However, the budget is the first big task for the new leader, Giorgia Meloni, (assuming she gets the mandate to form a new government sometime in October) and this could put Italy on a collision course with the EU. Meloni will over time have to clarify her stance on the international positioning of Italy. If adhesion to the Atlantic Pact seems not at stake, the relationship with Brussels and big eurozone countries will have to be clarified. If participation in the euro project is neatly reaffirmed in the programme, the notion of doing so while defending national interests has yet to be qualified. Not a very short-term issue, but a potential area of conflict for 2023, when the new European fiscal rules will be discussed, note ING. Italian yields will be a key issue, not just for the Italian government, but for the ECB and the Euro too. The ECB has gone all out hawkish in recent meetings in an effort to support the Euro but this could have unwanted consequences in Italian debt markets. Thios, of course, is not even related to the new government and there is the sense that the Euro has more pressing issues, especially the energy crisis, a recession and the Ukraine war. We think that some Italy-EU confrontation on Melonis party's core themes (like immigration) may trigger some adverse market reaction further down the road, and that fiscal decisions may be scrutinised more if she presses forward with tax cut proposals, but it is simply too early for any risk premium to emerge on EUR/USD or even EUR/CHF, conclude ING. Monday, September 26, 2022 Commentary From Crisis Management Expert Edward Segal, Bestselling Author of the Award-Winning Book "Crisis Ahead: 101 Ways to Prepare for and Bounce Back from Disasters, Scandals, and Other Emergencies" (Nicholas Brealey) The deal to avert a national railroad strike that President Joe Biden announced last week does not mean business leaders should assume that the chances of a service stoppage have completely passed. Indeed, the possible strike is a wake-up call for companies and organizations about the need to prepare for such a situation. ''The agreement does not mean the threat of a strike has gone away entirely,'' according to CNN. ''The deal needs to be ratified by union members. But it's good news for a wide range of businesses that depend upon the freight railroads to continue to operate and for the wider U.S economy. About 30% of the nation's freight moves by rail,'' the news organization reported. "If they accept the deal that was announced at about 5 a.m. (0900 GMT), workers whose pay had been frozen will win double-digit increases and will be allowed to seek certain types of medical care without fear of being punished, union leaders said. The agreement includes an immediate 14.1% wage rise, the railroads said," according to Reuters. Had the national railroad strike become a reality, the labor stoppage would have created another crisis for thousands of companies and organizations. The impact on companies, organizations, and fragile supply chains would have depended, of course, on the duration of the strike. But like any potential crisis, there are steps business executives can take now to help guard their companies against the fallout of a rail strikeno matter when one starts or how long it lasts. Reality Check "The amount of trucking capacity needed to offset the effects of a possible rail strike simply does not exist, so companies will be forced to search for raw material substitutes and be prepared to draw down inventories on the supply side," Jenny Dobmeier, teaching assistant professor of the supply chain at the University of Denver, said via email. "On the demand side, companies should immediately analyze orders and carefully define priorities, serving their most important customers first and delaying production and shipments on lower priority or non-contractually obligated orders," she counseled. "These risk mitigation plans during a supply chain disruption are best handled by mobilizing cross-functional teams to coordinate interventions and responses quickly and effectively," Dobmeier noted. First Things First "The first thing companies need to do is understand how many shipments are currently either on freight trains, in rail yards, or supposed to be shipped via rail from the ports of entry," Mirko Woitzik, global director of intelligence solutions at Everstream Analytics, said via email. "Where it's still possible, get critical shipments off freight trains or change the onward mode of transportation at the ports of entry and arrange alternative transportation via truck or air freight to final destinations. This will help companies keep their own operations running and avoid penalties from customer contracts. "For shipments from Asia into the Midwest, companies should change the port of destination for critical shipments to Canadian ports like Vancouver or Prince Rupert. Then arrange onward transportation to Montreal or Torontowhere they can then be trucked to Midwest destinations." 'The Most Concerning Aspect' "The most concerning aspect of the [averted] railroad strike is that most companies don't receive freight from rail directly, so they don't always know what materials are transported via rail," Ryan Burns, a supply chain expert and owner/principal of RBB Management Consulting, said via email. "First, each business should look at its critical material needs for the next 1- 2 weeks. Use that full information to call your freight providers and talk to them about how rail could impact your deliveries. Then share your priorities with them so that they understand what you want moved by a truck first if the strike will delay your goods," he advised. "At the end of the day, communication of your needs and communicating the supplier's ability to meet your needs back to your operations team and other leadership is key. Outside of logistics alone, think about local secondary sources where you may get materials quicker, even if at a higher cost, to bridge any gaps," Burns said. Focus On Contingency Planning "Organizations should focus on contingency planning and clearly articulating those plans to their stakeholdersin particular their customers/consumers and employees," Andrew Moyer, executive vice president and general manager at crisis management agency Reputation Partners, said via email. He added that,''organizations should be considering what alternative arrangements they can make to support employees who depend on rail for their commutes. This could involve more flexibility to work from home or, where other work locations exist in close proximity, seeking a location that is accessible via non-rail travel." Explain And Assess "When communicating with customers and consumers, organizations should seek to explain the actions they are taking and what that means for their ability to meet current orders and expectations. Have they built up excess inventory, and how long are they prepared to weather potential disruptions? Are they shifting their shipments to other modes of delivery, and what does this mean for availability and costs?" Moyer asked. "Organizations that are investing in preparedness and planning, and communicating those plans clearly, have an opportunity to further burnish their reputations and build additional goodwill with their stakeholders," he concluded. Plymouth, MIThe Paris Book Festival named Mia's Odyssey: Taking Back My Soul, by Mia Odeh, 'Runner-Up in the General Non-Fiction category for 2022. This is the 7th award for the book. The Paris Book Festival is an annual competition honoring the best of international publishing. Submitted works were judged by a panel of publishing industry experts using the following criteria: general excellence and the author's passion for telling a good story, and the potential of the work to gain a wider audience in the worldwide market. Written with Mike Ball, Mia Odeh revisits her life story, beginning in Palestine at age sixteen, where she was forced into an arranged marriage. After being brought to the United States, Mia realizes that her marriage is not only unwanted but unsafe as she experiences almost daily sexual and physical assault. Mia's Odyssey shines an unflinching light on the horrors of domestic abuse and reveals how a survivor with enough determination can find the resources to forge a path to freedom. Imprisoned in an abusive marriage, how can a woman whose culture emphasizes female submission escape the clutches of her husband? After being forced to depend on this kind of violent and untrustworthy man, can she learn to be independent? In the wake of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, what does it take to recover, heal, and gain stability? How does the love of a mother for her children keep her going in even the darkest moments? Mia Odeh shares her journey to answer these questions in her revealing new memoir, Mia's Odyssey: Taking Back My Soul. "You know, sometimes you have to get a little distance from something before you can really see it," says Mia. "From the time I was sixteen years my husband surrounded me like a putrid fog, permeating every minute of every day and completely blocking the sun from entering my life. When my husband left us behind in Arizona and moved to Michigan for work I began to see him as he really was, nothing more than a small, evil, isolated creature. I made it my goal to keep my children pure, to keep them from ever becoming like their father." Watch the book trailer at https://bit.ly/MiasOdysseyBookTrailer "Mia's Odyssey is a compelling, uplifting book that can be difficult to emotionally digest it is also rewarding because her will to survive is strong, her ability to bend but not break is admirable, her love for the children more powerful than the abuser's muscles." Brad Butler, Author, 5-Stars "One night, I told my husband that something he had said was unfair. As soon as the words left my mouth I knew I'd made a mistake," recalls Mia. "This made him believe I was becoming independent, like American women, and he made plans to send me and the children back overseas. Suddenly, I knew that I could not take my children back to that place, where all my choices would be gone. All of their choices would be gone. That place where my daughters would grow up to become slaves to their husbands. That place where my boys would be taught to believe that they deserved to have wives who were nothing more than slaves. I knew that, for the first time in my life, I had to fight back." "Heartbreaking and rich with hope, Mia's Odyssey reveals the resilience of the human spirit in the midst of the darkest situations. This story draws attention to issues of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, and shows the critical role neighbors, police, and safe houses can play in helping women and children to escape such desperate situations." Jessica Tofino, Educator and Writer, 5-Stars "It has taken me a long time, a lot of hard work, and help from others to achieve stability for myself and my children. A few years after leaving my husband, a nice family came to our aid, providing a home for us for five years. These wonderful people made us all feel like we had found a family at last," says Mia. "Eventually I found a mentor who took an interest in my future and the future of my family." "Though not for the faint of heart, Mia's Odyssey is life-affirming and shows the reader that love can conquer even in the worst situations. This book will inspire any woman trapped in seemingly hopeless circumstances, and give hope for an independent life. It will stay with you long after you've finished reading and warm your heart with its promising ending. Highly recommended." John Kelly, Detroit Free Press, 5-Stars "To this day I still struggle with insecurity, afraid that the life I have now is too good to be true. After thirty years of abuse and uncertainty, I can't help wondering when this bubble will burst," shares Mia. Then I look around me and realize that I really have emerged from that long nightmare to become the woman that God meant me to be. I will always be grateful to the people who stepped up to help me at key times during all those difficult years. I hope that telling my life story in this book can help others in need find the courage to fight back and escape whatever situation they might be in." Mia's Odyssey: Taking Back My Soul, ISBN: 979-8-9864056-0-5, ASIN: B0B46V571M, $3.99 Kindle, $14.95 paperback, 232 pages, Simon Publishing Ventures, June 2022. Available at the author's website at http://www.MiasOdyssey.com or on Amazon. About Mia Odeh: Mia Odeh was born in Palestine, became a child bride at age 16, and was brought to Phoenix, Arizona by her husband. She endured years of abuse, bore five children, and was forced to move from Arizona to Qatar, back to Arizona, and eventually to Michigan. Despite the cruelties she suffered, Mia never stopped dreaming of a different life for herself and her children. After fleeing her abusive marriage, with the help of neighbors and police, Mia and her children found a new beginning. This came with many ups and downs, including a time of being homeless with five kids and pregnant with her sixth. With relentless tenacity, Mia worked hard to gain stability for her family, working low paying jobs and moving frequently. Eventually, with the generosity of a family that gave them a place to live, Mia was able to find some more solid footing. She is now completing a degree in criminal justice, holds a job in senior management, and has purchased her own home. From the depths of abuse, Mia and her children have risen to achieve amazing levels of success. Media Contact: For a review copy of Mia's Odyssey: Taking Back My Soul or to arrange an interview with Mia Odeh, contact Scott Lorenz of Westwind Communications Book Marketing at scottlorenz@westwindcos.com or by phone at 734-667-2090. Reach Lorenz on Twitter @abookpublicist. NEWS FLASH Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines have been named among Eastern Europe's best carriers at the annual World Airline Awards, hosted by Skytrax. For the sixth time, the two largest carriers from the former Yugoslavia have been featured among the best in the category, while Air Serbia has also been named among Europes top regional airlines, world's most improved carriers and within the top 100 best airlines in the world. Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines have been named among Eastern Europe's best carriers at the annual World Airline Awards, hosted by Skytrax. For the sixth time, the two largest carriers from the former Yugoslavia have been featured among the best in the category, while Air Serbia has also been named among Europes top regional airlines, world's most improved carriers and within the top 100 best airlines in the world. The Serbian carrier was voted Eastern Europes third best, behind airBaltic and LOT Polish Airlines, while Croatia Airlines placed sixth, proceeding Wizz Air and CSA Czech Airlines. Air Serbia was also named the third best regional airline in Europe, behind Aegean Airlines and Air Malta. Furthermore, it came eighth in the category of the most improved airlines in the world, and was ranked as the worlds 92nd best airline overall, ahead of the likes of ITA Airways, Egypt Air and China Eastern Airlines. The World Airline Awards, described as "the Oscars of the aviation industry", are the most coveted quality accolades for the world airline industry and a global benchmark of airline excellence handed out based on passenger experience. The 2022 awards are based on a customer survey period from September 2021 to August 2022. A total of 13.42 million eligible customer surveys were completed, across a range of topics, resulting in the awards for airline of the year, together with regional and best airline awards. All entries are screened to identify each IP / user information, with duplicate or ineligible entries deleted. The awards are said to be 100% independent with no payment by any airline or other outside organisation for any aspect of the customer survey or awards presentation event. Over 100 different nationalities participated in the customer satisfaction survey. The surveys measure standards across 49 key performance indicators of airline front-line product and service. Qatar Airways was named the worlds best airline for a record seventh consecutive time, while Air France came out on top in Europe. Gulf Air was recognised as being the worlds most improved carrier. MISSOULA, Mont. - The University of Montana saw its largest first-year class this fall for the first time in six years welcoming more than 1,300 new students to the Missoula campus. A release from UM said this is a 6% jump in first-year students over 2021; furthermore, another 74 first-year students arrived to campus with some college credits--bringing the total of UM's fall 2022 first-year students to 1,425. UM's release said this is the second year in a row UM's campus saw a significant jump in first-year student enrollment. There are more students enrolled at UM than last year with a total of almost 8,100 students. UM continues to show a strong enrollment trajectory, UM President Seth Bodnar said in the release. With the number of first-year students increasing, the improved retention rate among our students since 2018 and continued growth on our main campus, UM is now firmly in a cycle of growth. UM is also seeing an exponential increase in its amount of students through employer partnerships not shown in in the the standard headcount. "Since launching in 2021, UMs AccelerateMT has enrolled more than 758 students in Missoula College and short-term academic programs across the state that are taught in conjunction with local businesses to meet the emerging needs of Montanas growing economy," UM's release said. "AccelerateMT is embedded at UM and serves as the economic and workforce development partner for employers across the state." AccelerateMTs proven track record of providing rapid training to meet key workforce needs made it an ideal partner as we seek to strengthen Montanas pipeline of skilled workers, Laurie Esau, commissioner of the Montana Department of Labor & Industry, said in the release. The success we see today will help ensure a robust Montana workforce for years to come. UM's tuition revenue is also seeing an increase alongside the large amount of students enrolled this fall at almost $40 million--a 12.6% increase since the same period in 2021. UM is on sound financial footing, Paul Lasiter, UMs vice president for operations and finance, said in the release. We are well positioned to continue making critical investments in our students and our campus infrastructure for years to come. The total number of students enrolled at UM in fall 2022 is totaled at 9,955, but there is a graduate professional program seeing a noticeable decline within the past year. The Physical Therapy partnership program with Rehab Essentials experienced a 143-student reduction. Now in its twelfth year, the clinical doctorate degree academic partnership program is one of the most successful in the country, with nearly 2,000 graduates who are now UM alumni, Reed Humphrey, dean of the UM College of Health, said in the release. As the pool of physical therapists wishing to bridge to a doctoral degree naturally declines, the number of enrolled students in this program was expected to decrease. Through the same academic partnership, UM is expanding its international reach and also launched this fall a similar bridge curriculum for occupational therapists. This expansion is expected to grow enrollment in the years ahead. Missoula College is experiencing a 2% decline of total students from 2021 with 1,215 students this fall. However, UM said in its release Missoula College is still at a 3% jump in total students from the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. The following is UM's release in part: "Overall, the student retention rate held steady at 74% This figure measures the rate that students persist between their first and second year at UM. Since Bodnar started as president in 2018, the student retention rate at UM has risen 6%. Other highlights from the fall 2022 enrollment census at the UM main campus include: 710 first-year Montana students, an 8.4% increase over 2021. 610 Native American students, a 2.2% increase over 2021. This growth builds on the 23% Native American student growth at UM from 2018 to 2021. 279 student veterans, a 6.5% increase over 2021. 250 law school students, a 1.6% increase over 2021. 192 early admit and dual-enrollment students, a 35% increase over 2021. UMs fall 2022 census report is available online." The first ever agricultural bill for the Welsh farming industry has been laid before the Senedd today, paving the way for transformational legislation to support farmers. The Agriculture (Wales) Bill is the most important piece of agricultural legislation to go through the Welsh parliament in its 23 years of existence. According to the Labour-led devolved government, the bill aims to support sustainable food production while conserving the Welsh countryside, culture and language. The post-Brexit legislation seeks to "recognise the complementary objectives of supporting farmers in the sustainable production of food alongside taking action to respond to the climate and nature emergencies". But farming groups have repeatedly called on the Welsh government to put more focus on food security following the invasion of Ukraine, as well as the aftermath of Brexit and the pandemic. NFU Cymru had said the bill should underpin the financial resilience of Wales' family farms and in so doing, sustaining rural communities, language, culture and heritage. The Welsh government confirmed on Monday (26 September) that the bill would "establish a policy and legislative framework aimed at ensuring farmers can carry on producing food". The new Sustainable Land Management programme will also encourage farmers to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to maintain and enhance the resilience of ecosystems. And the bill will introduce protection for agricultural tenants, ensuring they are not unfairly restricted from accessing financial assistance. Minister for Rural Affairs Lesley Griffiths said: "For the first time, we have the chance to build a system of support and legislation which works for our farmers, our sector, our land and our people. These are difficult and challenging times for our farmers. Climate change, rising costs, new trade deals and the war in Ukraine, are just some of the issues they face. "This Bill provides a framework on which all future agricultural support will be delivered and outlines how we can keep farmers on the land, produce food sustainably and deal with the climate emergency." She added: "Through the provisions in the Bill, I want to ensure we can continue to support and encourage our farmers and producers to create and sustain a thriving agricultural sector. The Minister said she would announce a legislative statement in Plenary on Tuesday (27 September). NFU Cymru's President Aled Jones said that the bill must "underpin the production of a stable supply of safe, high quality, affordable food in Wales. "It is clear that the disruption to food output, supply chains, availability and affordability of food could last for many years," he said. "Over the coming weeks and months, we will take our time to study the bill in detail to see how it matches our policy priorities." The Tenant Farmers Association in Wales expressed disappointment that the bill shows a lack of ambition for the agricultural tenanted sector. It is a major disappointment that the Welsh government has not taken the opportunity to do more," said TFA chief executive, George Dunn. Welsh government has chosen only to take forward one aspect of the 2019 consultation which will give the right to tenants on traditional, Agricultural Holdings Act tenancies the opportunity to object to their landlords unreasonable refusal to allow them access to the new Sustainable Farming Scheme in Wales. "However, the bill does not even extend that protection to farm tenants occupying under Farm Business Tenancies which now make up around half of the let land in Wales, he said. The NFU is using its presence at this year's political party conferences to highlight the importance of domestic food production against the backdrop of numerous challenges. The importance of farmers' contributions to the UK will be showcased by the union as there has "never been a more important time to back British farming". It comes as farmers continue to experience numerous issues, such as surging prices for energy and fertiliser as well as post-Brexit labour challenges. The NFU has a stand in the secure zone at the ongoing Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, as well as October's Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. Delegates will be able to learn how farmers are keeping the nation fed with sustainable food while doing work to boost the environment. The stand will also showcase the work is does with young people, by supporting STEM learning in schools via a variety of farming-based projects. The NFU's Labour Party Conference fringe event takes place on Monday evening (26 September), at 6:30pm. The panel will include NFU Deputy President Tom Bradshaw and Shadow Defra Secretary, Jim McMahon, MP, chaired by journalist Polly Toynbee, discussing Labours vision for farming and food security. NFU President Minette Batters said attending the conferences gave the NFU 'a valuable opportunity' to showcase British farming and engage with MPs. There has never been a more vital time to highlight the importance of domestic food security and just how much farming delivers for the nation. "Its crucial that politicians from all parties recognise the value of British agriculture and what more we can do with the right policies in place." She added: "I hope to see all of them pledge their support for the industry and back British farming. The NFU Conservative Party Conference fringe event will take place on Monday 3 October, 6.30pm. The panel will consist of Minette Batters and EFRA Select Committee Chair, Robert Goodwill, MP, chaired by The Times columnist Alice Thomson, discussing the Conservative's vision for farming and food security. Only subscribers with PAID Print or E-Edition subscriptions enter here to gain access. If you are not a Current Paid subscriber do not go through this portal. Please return to the subscription page to purchase one of our offers. Thank you! Madhya Pradesh tourism will now collaborate with Cambodia to boost tourism ties and enhance cooperation The tourism board of Madhya Pradesh has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cambodia Association of Travel Agents (CATA) to strengthen tourism ties between the regions and to enhance goodwill and cooperation. Madhya Pradesh Tourism organised a road show in Phnom Penh in Cambodia recently. Usha Thakur, Minister of Tourism and Culture, was the chief guest at the event, while Dr Thong Khon, Minister of Tourism of the Royal Government of Cambodia, was the guest of honour, and delivered a speech that highlighted the importance of the role of India in Cambodias socio-cultural milieu. SS Shukla, Principal Secretary (tourism) and managing director of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board, was the host for the evening. Image: Sasin Tipchai/ Pixabay Usha Thakur spoke about how Cambodia and India have been connected since antiquity with cultural and historical ties. She elucidated on several places of interest in Madhya Pradesh such as the three UNESCO World Heritage sites in the state, the holy River Narmada, the rich forests and also about the endeavour of the state to build new circuits encompassing the various shakti peeths, the jyotirlingas and the Buddhist trail. She invited the attendees to the state and assured them of how all travellers would be safe, secure and comfortable. SS Shukla spoke about the subsidy that will be offered to travellers from India visiting the iconic Cambodian site of Angkor Wat (main image) and sought a similar arrangement from the Cambodian government for travellers to India. He announced that the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas will be in Indore in 2023 and sought the support of the Indian diaspora in Cambodia. Image: Rinki Lohia/Pixabay What Do Madhya Pradesh And Cambodia Offer Travellers? The three UNESCO sites of Madhya Pradesh are an integral part of the states tourism draw. A group of Hindu and Jain temples in the Chhatarpur district about 175 kilometres south east of Jhansi, the Khajuraho group of monuments (above) are famous for their architectural symbolism and erotic sculptures. The Buddhist complex of Sanchi is famous for its Great Stupa, while the Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site that spans the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods; it exhibits the earliest traces of human life in India and evidence of the Stone Age. Cambodia, too, is a destination that offers fascinating experiences to visitors. The ancient city of Angkor cocoons the worlds largest monument Angkor Wat which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Cities you must visit include the capital city of Phnom Penh with its National Museum and Royal Palace and its discernible French influences, as well as Siem Reap the gateway city to the ruins of Angkor. There are also sites that hark back to the horrors that Cambodians faced under the Khmer Rouge regime. Main image: Poswiecie from Pixabay Also Read: Nagaland Wants You To Go Off-Road Ten national master craft persons and exporters from across India displayed a wide range of hand-crafted products like home decor, home furnishing, carpets, furniture, lamps, fashion jewellery and accessories, incense, and aroma and wellness products at a recent Made in India Trade Show Exhibition dedicated to Indian arts and crafts in Guatemala City. The exhibition was organised by the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) in association with the Indian mission in the Guatemala from 22 to 24 September. Ten national master craft persons and exporters from across India displayed a wide range of hand-crafted products like home decor, home furnishing, carpets, furniture, lamps, fashion jewellery and accessories, incense, and aroma and wellness products at a recent 'Made in India Trade Show Exhibition' dedicated to Indian arts and crafts in Guatemala City. Rakesh Kumar, executive director, EPCH informed that Guillermo Castillo, vice president of Guatemala and acting president and ambassador of India to Guatemala, Dr. Manoj Kumar Mohapatra inaugurated the Made in India Trade Show in Guatemala and have extended their full cooperation and support to EPCH for organising Made in India - Trade Show Exhibition in their region reflecting the indomitable spirit of the handicraft exporting fraternity to continue furthering the efforts to strengthen the handicrafts sector. EPCH chairman Raj Kumar Malhotra expressed hope that the exhibition will lead to enhanced trade and people-to-people relations with Latin America, according to an official release. Indian ambassador to Guatemala Manoj Kumar Mohapatra said it was an opportunity to present to the world India's abundant skills, competitive edge and adherence to quality compliance. Indias handicrafts exports during fiscal 2021-22 were worth 33,253 crore ($4459.76 million), registering a growth of 29.49 per cent in rupee term and 28.9 per cent in dollar terms over the previous fiscal. However, exports of such items to Latin America were worth 682 crore ($92 million) in 2021-22. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) Unless economic reforms are implemented, Bangladeshs gross domestic product (GDP) is set to decline below 4 per cent by 2035, according to the World Bank. The international financial institution noted three roadblocks on the countrys path to economic reform declining trade competitiveness, a weak and vulnerable financial sector, and unbalanced and inadequate urbanisation. Addressing the three hurdles will not only boost the countrys economic development but also make growth more sustainable, as per the report by World Bank. Even though Bangladesh is among the top 10 fastest-growing countries in the world for many decades, an economic boom cannot be presumed to be a permanent trend. Unless economic reforms are implemented, Bangladesh's GDP is set to decline below 4 per cent by 2035, according to the World Bank. The international financial institution noted three roadblocks on the country's path to economic reform declining trade competitiveness, a weak and vulnerable financial sector, and unbalanced and inadequate urbanisation. Economic growth in countries going through rapid development is always at high risk and few nations see high growth for prolonged periods. Moreover, only one-third of the nations among the top 10 maintained high growth over the next ten years, Bangladeshi media said quoting the World Bank report. The World Bank recommended that products need to be diversified to continue growth in exports. It was also pointed out that since Bangladeshs tariff rate is higher than that of other countries, the countrys trade capacity is decreasing. The banking sector will play a critical role in the future economic development of the country, the report predicted. Despite the improvement of the financial sector in the past four decades, it is yet to be sufficient. Balanced urbanisation should be focused on as urbanisation is vital for the next stage of Bangladeshs development. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB) Vietnamese textile-garment and leather-footwear firms have been advised by experts to improve sustainability of their production processes for export to the European Union (EU) after the European Commission (EC) proposed the goods must comply with ecological design criteria. This needs efforts from enterprises and government agencies, and incentives to encourage investment in supporting industries and material supply centres, they said. Vietnamese textile-garment and leather-footwear firms have been advised to improve production sustainability for export to the EU after the European Commission proposed the goods must comply with ecological design criteria. This needs efforts from enterprises and government agencies, and incentives for investment in supporting sectors, experts said. The EC earlier this year proposed a new strategy to make textiles more durable, repairable, reusable and recyclable to tackle fast fashion, textile waste and the destruction of unsold textiles, and ensure their production takes place in full respect of social rights. Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, vice chairwoman and secretary general of the Vietnam Leather Footwear and Handbag Association (LEFASO), said in addition to ensuring product origin and the use of recycled materials, meeting labour and environmental standards is essential for exports to the EU. A key solution is to invest in technology as it will help solve the labour deficit and environmental problems, Vu Duc Giang, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), was quoted as saying by a news agency. The number of textile enterprises using clean energy has increased to 60-65 per cent, either through buying electricity or investing in installing solar energy projects, Giang said. Giang is hopeful of cent per cent of textile and garment companies fully meeting the clean energy target in the next five to seven years. Promoting modern specialised waste treatment systems is also essential, experts added. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) Ecodelogic, the eco-friendly custom software development company, is creating a new benchmark in the development of web & mobile applications by providing on-demand service Orlando, Florida--(Newsfile Corp. - September 25, 2022) - Ecodelogic, the custom software development company with an eco-friendly commitment, provides on-demand mobile and app developers. With this new launch, customer can hire a developer for a flat monthly fee, which can be as low as $20 per hour. The company also offers 10-day risk-free trial. If a customer is not satisfied, Ecodelogic provides a full refund or allocates a new team of developers until customer satisfaction. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8846/138374_2a6fb64184b66963_001full.jpg The company's developers build projects right from scratch. They also offer their expertise on existing apps or programs that require a little TLC. Ecodelogic expands on offering a monthly fee and allocates get a dedicated developer or a team of developers. The company provides both part-time and full-time developers. The part-time development teams are available at $1900 per month ($22 per hour) and the full-time ones are available at $3500 per month ($20 per hour). They offer simple onboarding process. Interested individual or business can fill an online form providing their personal details like name, email and phone and writing a message. A visit to https://www.ecodelogic.com/custom-software-development-a-guide/ will give an idea of how custom software development is beneficial to a business. On-demand developers of Ecodelogic are ushering in a new breeze of change in the way developers work and in the way clients get work done. There are no long-time contracts; just month-to-month handling of projects. CONTACT: Chiara Accardi 37 N Orange Ave #542 Orlando, FL 32801 Phone: (407) 502-5354 Website: https://www.ecodelogic.com/ To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138374 KYOTO, Japan, Sept 24, 2022 - (JCN Newswire) - Those in power have a choice, whether to use that power for their own benefit at the expense of all others or to use that power to help society constantly improve for the betterment of all. Based on which of these choices they make, the social impact of their efforts will change drastically.As the world faces increasingly complex challenges, the belief that one country, company or individual should win at the expense of others continues to be at the heart of our collective thinking about competition. But what if there was a different way?"The Japanese martial arts, or "Bu-do" in Japanese, are different from traditional sports, because their ultimate goal is to build the character of those who practice," says Yoshie Sugai, Founder of Chiseikan Dojo in Kyoto, Japan. "In doing so, Budo was created to nurture leaders who can lead society toward prosperity and peace, rather than dominating others for individual gain."Yoshie Sugai will present these ideas as part of a larger panel discussion on value creation and sustainability, convened by the Value Research Center (VRC) at Doshisha University for the United Nations General Assembly 77 (UNGA77) Science Summit on Monday, September 26th from 09:00 - 11:30 AM EST.Sugai will speak in the final panel of the "Valuing Value: How any organization can measure stakeholder value" session. She will include insights into the role of "Do" within Japanese culture, and how the actual application of "Seiryoku Zenyo, Jita Kyoei" principles by Minoru Mochizuki-sensei led to unexpected positive results for hundreds of thousands of people. She hopes to spark similar applications of the philosophy, and the fullest use of our energy for the mutual benefit of our communities, societies and countries globally."The idea that those in power have a responsibility to foster prosperity across all of their stakeholders is at the heart of what the VRC will be presenting at this year's UNGA Science Summit," said Dr Masato Yamazaki, Professor Emeritus at Aquinas College in Michigan."Yoshie Sugai-sensei's introduction of the philosophy of 'Seiryoku Zenyo, Jita Kyoei' from Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, and his student and founder of Yoseikan Budo, Minoru Mochizuki, is critically important to anyone who is serious about value creation in business or government. Without the moral and ethical foundation that Yoshie will introduce, value creation efforts are bound to fail."Free registration for the UNGA77 Science Summit, and further information on the Valuing Value workshop are available at https://sched.co/1AWkD.About Chiseikan Dojo (Aikido in Kyoto)Chiseikan Dojo was founded in Kyoto Japan in April 2021. It is built upon a foundation of Aikido which integrates techniques and forms from other Japanese martial arts including karate, judo, jujutsu, and iaido. Chiseikan Dojo also teaches the underlying philosophy of the Japanese martial arts to all students, including children and adults.Chiseikan Dojo teaches the Nenshinryu Budo style which was founded by Toru Kinefuchi-sensei, a live-in student of Minoru Mochizuki-sensei, who held advanced black belts in multiple Japanese martial arts styles and was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur for spreading the martial arts throughout France.Visit online www.aikidoinkyoto.com, or Email: info@aikidoinkyoto.com.Source: Chiseikan Dojo, Aikido in KyotoCopyright 2022 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved. HONG KONG (dpa-AFX) - Japan will on Monday see September results for its manufacturing, services and composite PMIs from Jibun Bank, highlighting a modest day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. In August, their scores were 51.5, 49.5 and 49.4, respectively. Singapore will release August data for industrial production, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 1.5 percent on month and a decline of 0.6 percent on year. That follows the 2.3 percent monthly decline and the 0.6 percent yearly gain in July. Hong Kong will see August figures for imports, exports and trade balance. In July, imports were down 9.9 percent on year and exports fell an annual 8.9 percent for a trade deficit of HKD27.6 billion. Thailand will provide August figures for imports, exports and trade balance. Imports are expected to jump 17.9 percent on year, down from 23.9 percent in July. Exports are called higher by an annual 7.7 percent, up from 4.3 percent in the previous month. The trade deficit is pegged at $3.15 billion following the $3.66 billion shortfall a month earlier. 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. AV AirFinance Limited ("AV AirFinance"), a global commercial aviation loan servicer, announced today that Kiel Garcia has joined AV AirFinance as Senior Vice President-Loan Origination (APAC). Based in Singapore, Mr. Garcia will be responsible for sourcing loan opportunities and developing customer relationships in the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Garcia has over 17 years of experience in aviation and asset finance. Prior to joining AV AirFinance, Mr. Garcia spent three years in MUFG, most recently as Deputy Head of Aviation Finance, APAC. Mr. Garcia transitioned to MUFG when it acquired DVB Bank's aviation finance business where he served as Senior Vice President. In his roles at both MUFG and DVB Bank, he was responsible for sourcing and structuring finance leases, limited recourse operating lease financings, PDPs, engine financings and warehouse facilities across a wide range of airline and lessor clients and jurisdictions in the APAC region. Mr. Garcia also held senior roles at Philippine Airlines earlier in his career dealing with banks, aircraft lessors, and OEMs. "We are delighted to welcome Kiel to the AV AirFinance team," said Stephen Murphy, CEO at AV AirFinance. "Kiel has an in-depth knowledge of the Asian market which is essential as we continue to grow the platform and customer coverage in a key growth market." AV AirFinance is a global commercial aviation loan servicer established by a team of experienced industry professionals and KKR in June 2021. The secured loan servicing platform combines stable, long-term capital and decades of experience structuring commercial aircraft loan transactions to offer creative and innovative financing solutions to commercial aviation customers around the world. About AV AirFinance Limited AV AirFinance is a loan servicer focusing on arranging financing for commercial aircraft to airlines, lessors, manufacturers, cargo operators and investors, secured by new and used commercial aircraft and engines. AV AirFinance services over $1 billion of commercial aircraft loans. AV AirFinance is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland with offices in New York and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.avairfinance.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220922005922/en/ Contacts: AV AirFinance Limited Ciara McGrath +353 1 267 8115 ciara.mcgrath@avairfinance.com Reiterates unequivocal commitment towards sustainability and financial inclusion MUMBAI, India, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Fintech Fest 2022 (GFF) - India's largest fintech conference - held here between September 20-22, brought on one platform global fintech experts and enthusiasts. The conference was abuzz with numerous thought-provoking sessions, addressed by distinguished speakers, along with innovative fintech product launches and much more. It concluded with an unequivocal commitment towards sustainability and financial inclusion. Inaugurating GFF 2022, Indian Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman said on September 20, "We have led the way for an inclusive financial world through a Presence-less Layer, Paperless Layer, Cashless Layer, and Consent Layer. These four layers for inclusion are capturing the attention of the world. We are focussed on creating a sustainable financial world which is global, green, and inclusive." The Day 1 of GFF 2022 commenced with a session on 'Creating A Sustainable Financial World' addressed by Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, GFF 2022 Advisory Board, Chairman, Axilor Ventures and Co-founder, Infosys, Naveen Surya, Chairman, Fintech Convergence Council, Srinivas Jain, ED & Head of Strategy, SBI Mutual Fund and Smita Aggarwal, Global Investments Advisor, Flourish Ventures. This was followed by multiple other sessions throughout the day on themes such as sustainability, financial inclusion, payments, ONDC, fintech chatbots etc. Addressing delegates at GFF 2022, Shri Shaktikanta Das, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, marked the theme of his talk as 'Fintech as a Force Multiplier'. "Technology, innovation and fintech are working in tandem and contributing to the dynamism of the sector. In our journey towards higher level of sustainable development and financial inclusion these forces morphed into force multipliers," Shri Das said. Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Chairperson, Ms. Madhabi Puri Buch laid down some core principles that guide regulators, while delivering her keynote address at the Global Fintech Fest 2022 (GFF 2022) in Mumbai today. "There are some key principles that guide a regulator. These include anonymity, transparency, financial inclusion and structural vulnerability," she said. Among the other key speakers on Day 2 of GFF 2022 were Amitabh Chaudhry, Managing Director & CEO, Axis Bank, Dr. Saurabh Garg, Chief Executive Officer, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and Dilip Asbe, MD & CEO, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). On September 22, Indian Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, in his valedictory address underlined the need for social inclusion in India's digital progress. In this connection, he outlined the government's plans to take high-speed data connection to every village of the country. "Telecom is the very foundation of Digital India and the Hon. Prime Minister has given us a clear mandate to overhaul our digital regulatory framework such that it is globally benchmarked and endorses global competitiveness. We are currently looking at 3-4 legislations cumulatively inclusive of the new telecom bill, the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill and the IT Act of 2000 to create an interactive framework in which the industry's concerns are addressed by the government and government's concerns are duly taken into consideration by the industry. Technological navigation has to be modulated such that the interests of end users are protected," the Minister said. Among the other key speakers who spoke on Day 3 of GFF 2022 were Shri Jayant Sinha, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) & Chairperson, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, Shri Injeti Srinivas, Chairperson, IFSCA, and Shri Rajesh Bansal, Chief Executive Officer, Reserve Bank Innovation Hub. Global Fintech Fest is organised and presented by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, Reserve Bank of India, International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), National Payments Council of India, the Payments Council of India (PCI) and the Fintech Convergence Council (FCC). This is the third edition of the Global Fintech Fest, and the first one where domain experts are participating from across the globe in-person and virtually. GFF 2022 is being supported by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), National Investment Promotion & Facilitation Agency (Invest India), Startup India, Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) and ONDC. Special Partners of GFF 2022 are World Bank Group, United Nations Capital Development Fund, BIS Innovation Hub, KNOMAD, Better Than Cash Alliance and International Finance Corporation (IFC). View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/global-fintech-fest-2022-draws-international-fintech-doyens-301632750.html H1 2022 marked by the start of recruitment for the phase 2b study with AEF0117 for the treatment of cannabis addiction Solid cash position at 39.8 million as of June 30, 2022, including the net proceeds of 22.5 million from the fundraising of the initial public offering on Euronext the 18th of February 2022 Regulatory News: Aelis Farma (Paris: AELIS)(ISIN: FR0014007ZB4 ticker: AELIS, PEA-PME eligible), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specialized in the development of treatments for brain diseases, today announces its half-year results for the period ended June 30, 2022 and takes stock of its development. Pier Vincenzo Piazza, CEO of Aelis Farma, said: "We are very happy with the progress made during the first months of our listing on Euronext. Raising 25.3 million during our IPO in February allowed us to considerably strengthen our financial structure and be able to deploy our strategy with a high visibility. In accordance with the roadmap presented to the financial community, we have reached an important milestone with the recruitment of the first patient in the phase 2b study with Aelis Farma most advanced compound: AEF0117 for the treatment of cannabis addiction. The second part of the year promises to be just as dynamic, in particular with the expected passage of our second drug candidate, AEF0217, into phase 1/2 in individuals with Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21). Built around the discovery of a new class of drugs, the CB1-SSi, we believe Aelis Farma to be one of the most innovative companies in the field of brain diseases. Thanks to the progress of our various clinical programs, we are convinced that we can become one of the leading players in this space that has significant unmet medical needs." Half-year results 2022 (IFRS) Simplified income statement1 (in thousand euros) H1 2022 H1 2021 Revenue from ordinary activities 4,251 8,371 Research and development costs (7,093) (3,157) General and administrative expenses and other operating expenses and income (1,800) (569) Operating income (4,642) 4,647 Financial result (5,710) 497 Income taxes (1,365) Net income (loss) (10,352) 3,781 In the first half of 2022, Aelis Farma recorded income from ordinary activities of 4.3 million, of which: 2 million corresponding to the recognition, according to IFRS 15, of the share of revenue related to the sub-license option contract with Indivior PLC, a leading group in the treatment of addictions, for AEF0117 in cannabis use disorders. The balance of the lump sum payment received and remaining to be recognized over the residual term of the option is 13.6 million. 2.3 million of other income from ordinary activities consisting of the Research Tax Credit (837 thousand) and operating subsidies (1.424 million) relating to the research programs carried out by Aelis Farma. Their increase compared to the previous year is correlated to the increase in research and development expenses incurred over the half-year. Research and development costs In thousand euros 06/30/22 06/30/21 Raw materials, other purchases and external expenses (5,989) (474) Personnel costs (1,045) (866) Intellectual Property (58) (1,817) Research and development costs (7,093) (3,157) The change in research and development costs (+124.7%) reflects the ramp-up of the development program for drug candidates AEF0117 and AEF0217, and the strengthening of research team. The decrease in intellectual property costs is explained by the payment, in 2021, of royalties (1.2 million) to patent owners following the signing of the sublicense option agreement with Indivior PLC. As of June 30, 2022 the operating result shows a loss of (4.642) million against a profit of 4.647 million at June 30, 2021. This change is mainly due to: the start of the phase 2b study of AEF0117 and the pharmaceutical production activities (CMC) for both AEF0117 and AEF0217; and by the schedule of revenue recognition of the down payment of the license-option contract with Indivior PLC for AEF0117, based on the incurred costs of the phase 2b during the first half of 2022. As a reminder, 7.921 million had been recognized when the contract was signed in 2021. As of June 30, 2022, the financial result shows a loss of (5.710) million against a profit of 497 thousand as of June 30, 2021. This change mainly reflects the impact of the conversion of convertible bonds on the date of the Aelis Farma's initial public offer (IPO). This non-cash financial expense corresponds to the difference between the fair value of the securities issued, based on the stock market price on the date of listing, and the nominal value of the initial debt. The net result shows a loss of (10.352) million for the first half of 2022 compared to a profit of 3.781 million for the previous financial year. Cash flow In thousand euros 06/30/22 06/30/21 Cash flow from operating activities (8,377) 24,268 Net cash flow from investing activities (122) (2) Net cash flow from financing activities 22,644 (143) Effect of exchange rate changes 933 598 Change in cash and cash equivalents 15,078 24,721 Opening cash position 24,710 4,538 Closing cash position 39,789 29,258 Financial structure In thousand euros 06/30/22 12/31/21 Liquid assets a 39,789 24,710 Gross financial debt b (4,254) (7,917) Net cash position a-b 35,535 16,793 The financial structure of Aelis Farma was strengthened during the first half of 2022 by: the net proceeds of 22.5 million from the capital increase carried out on the occasion of Aelis Farma's initial public offering in compartment B of Euronext Paris; the conversion into capital of the convertible bonds held by Inserm Transfert Initiative and the Nouvelle Aquitaine Region, leading to a reduction of 3.663 million in gross debt, which decreased from 7.917 million to 4.254 million; and income from operating activities related to the license option agreement with Indivior PLC. The positive evolution of this cash in dollars allowed the recognition of a foreign exchange gain of 0.9 million. Aelis Farma believes that its current cash level makes it possible, according to its forecast, to finance its development in accordance with the strategy presented during the IPO at least up to the end of 2024. Highlights of the first half of 2022 Inclusion of the first patient in the phase 2b study with AEF0117 At the beginning of June, Aelis Farma announced the recruitment of the first patient in the phase 2b study with AEF0117, its most advanced "CB1-SSi" drug candidate, for the treatment of cannabis addiction. The study, coordinated by Prof. Frances Levin of Columbia University, should include approximately 330 patients in 9 participating clinical centers in the United States. The AEF017 program benefits from overall funding from the North American National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National institute of Health (NIDA-NIH) of $7.8 million, including $4.5 million allocated at the end of 2021 for this new phase of development. Participation in the T21RS international conference Aelis Farma participated in the 4th international conference organized by the Trisomy 21 Research Society (T21RS), which was held in Long Beach, California from June 9 to 12, 2022. Pier Vincenzo Piazza, Co-founder and CEO of Aelis Farma, presented the drug candidate AEF0217 during a session entitled "AEF0217: a new approach for the treatment of cognitive impairment in Down syndrome". The Trisomy 21 Research Society (T21RS) is the leading international scientific society dedicated to translational and clinical research on Down syndrome (Trisomy 21). One of its main activities is to support the dissemination and discussion of the latest advances in clinical and preclinical research in this area through a series of biennial meetings. T21RS also connects researchers and patient families associations which have very active interactions with the society. Strategy Outlook Over the coming months, thanks to the strength of its financial position, Aelis Farma intends to pursue the development of its various assets, in accordance with the strategy presented at the time of its IPO: Developing AEF0117 to address the adverse effects of excessive cannabis use The phase 2b clinical trial with AEF0117 is continuing with a good level of recruitment and the results of the study are expected in 2024. If this study proves to be positive, Aelis Farma and its partner Indivior PLC intend to start phase 3 studies in late 2024 or early 2025, in order to quickly obtain approval for AEF0117 in the United States and Europe. Develop AEF0217 to treat various cognitive deficits, including those of Down syndrome (Trisomy 21) AEF0217 has completed the recruitment of its phase 1 program in healthy volunteers. The audited results of these studies are expected in the coming weeks. The launch of a phase 1/2 clinical study in subjects with Down syndrome is planned for the 4th quarter of 2022. This study will investigate the safety and pharmacokinetics of AEF0217 in Down syndrome individuals and could provide the first indications about the activity in the first half of 2023. The development of AEF0217 as a treatment of the cognitive deficits associated with Trisomy 21 has received a 6 million grant from the European community (Project ICOD N 899986). Aelis Farma also works on the extension of the development of AEF0217 for the treatment of other cognitive deficits such as the ones associated to Fragile X syndrome or aging, for which AEF0217 has been shown to be effective in preclinical models. Identify new drug candidates Given the involvement of the CB1 receptor in numerous pathologies, Aelis Farma is pursuing the characterization of its diversified and exclusive library of CB1-SSi in order to identify new candidate drugs to address other brain diseases dependent on the CB1 receptor. About AELIS FARMA Founded in 2013, Aelis Farma is a biopharmaceutical company that is developing a new class of drugs, the Signaling Specific inhibitors of the CB1 receptor of the endocannabinoid system (CB1-SSi). These new molecular entities hold great potential in the treatment of many brain diseases. CB1-SSi were developed by Aelis Farma on the basis of the discovery of a new natural defense mechanism of the brain made by the team of Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza, CEO of the Company, when he was Director of the Inserm Magendie Neurocenter in Bordeaux. For these discoveries, Dr. Piazza was awarded the Inserm Grand Prix and the Grand Prix of Neurology of the French Academy of Sciences, which are among the most prestigious French prizes in medicine and neurology. Aelis Farma is developing two first-in-class drug candidates that are at the clinical stage, AEF0117 and AEF0217, and has a portfolio of innovative CB1-SSi for the treatment of other diseases associated with a dysregulation of the activity of the CB1 receptor. AEF0117, which targets the disorders due to excessive cannabis use (addiction and psychosis), has shown indications of efficacy in a phase 2a clinical trial and has entered a phase 2b clinical trial in the United States in Q2 2022. Aelis Farma has an exclusive option-license agreement with Indivior PLC, a leading pharmaceutical company in the treatment of addiction, for the development and commercialization of AEF0117 for disorders due to excessive cannabis use. As part of this agreement, Aelis Farma received $30 million (option payment). If Indivior exercises the license option at the end of the phase 2b, Aelis Farma will receive a $100 million license fee (potentially in 2024) and up to $340 million in additional payments contingent on the achievement of development, regulatory and commercial milestones as well as, royalties on net sales of AEF0117 ranging between 12% and 20%. AEF0217, which targets various cognitive disorders including those associated with Down syndrome, has finished recruitments of its phase 1 program in healthy volunteers and will start in Q4 2022 a phase 1/2 study in Down syndrome subjects. This compound has undergone an extensive preclinical proof-of-concept program using highly innovative assessing cognitive functions. In this context, AEF0217 has demonstrated its ability to completely reverse cognitive deficits observed in several animal models of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome, as well as in models of certain cognitive deficits associated with aging. Based in Bordeaux, within the Magendie Neurocenter, Aelis Farma has a team of 23 highly qualified employees and has benefited from investments from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, Inserm Transfert Initiative, Bpifrance, regional funds ACI, NACO and Aqui-invest and IRDI Capital Investissement. For more information: www.aelisfarma.com ISIN: FR0014007ZB4 Ticker: AELIS B Compartment of Euronext Paris Disclaimer Forward-looking statements Some information contained in this press release are forward-looking statements, not historical data. These forward-looking statements are based on current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions, including, but not limited to, assumptions about Aelis Farma's current and future strategy and the environment in which Aelis Farma operates. They involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results or other events, to differ materially from those described or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those set out and detailed in Chapter 3 "Risk Factors" of Aelis Farma's registration document approved by the Autorite des marches financiers on 14 January 2022 under number I.22-003. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this press release and Aelis Farma expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any updates or corrections to the forward-looking statements included in this press release to reflect any change in expectations or events, conditions or circumstances on which any such forward-looking statement is based. Forward-looking information and statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond Aelis Farma's control. Actual results could differ materially from those described in, or implied or projected by, forward-looking information and statements. 1The half-year accounts were approved by the Board of Directors on September 23, 2022. The limited review of these accounts has been completed. The auditors' limited review report is in the process of being issued. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005021/en/ Contacts: AELIS FARMA Pier Vincenzo Piazza CEO contact@aelisfarma.com NewCap Dusan Oresansky/Hugo Willefert Investor Relations aelis@newcap.eu +33 1 44 71 94 92 NewCap Arthur Rouille Relations medias aelis@newcap.eu +33 1 44 71 00 15 EQS-News: Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V. / Key word(s): Miscellaneous Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V.: Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V. to Report H1 2022 Financial Results and Operational Progress on September 30, 2022 26.09.2022 / 07:00 CET/CEST The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V. to Report H1 2022 Financial Results and Operational Progress on September 30, 2022 HALLE (SAALE) / MUNICH, GERMANY, September 26, 2022 - Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V. (Euronext Amsterdam: VVY; NL00150002Q7) (Vivoryon), a clinical stage company focused on the discovery and development of small molecule medicines to modulate the activity and stability of pathologically altered proteins, today announced that it will publish its financial results for the first six months of 2022 and provide a corporate update on September 30, 2022. The Company will host a conference call and webcast open to the public. The report will be available for download on the Company's website (https://www.vivoryon.com/investors-news/financial-information/). Conference call details Date: September 30, 2022 Time: 03:00 pm CEST / 09:00 am EDT Access Code: 8323708 From Germany: +49 (0)69 22222 5197 From The Netherlands: +31 (0)20 703 8218 From UK: +44 (0)330 165 4012 From the U.S.: +1 646-828-8143 A live webcast and accompanying slides will be made available at: https://www.vivoryon.com/investors-news/news-and-events/presentations-webcasts/ ### About Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V. Vivoryon is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing innovative small molecule-based medicines. Driven by our passion for ground-breaking science and innovation, we strive to change the lives of patients in need suffering from severe diseases. We leverage our in-depth expertise in understanding post-translational modifications to develop medicines that modulate the activity and stability of proteins which are altered in disease settings. Beyond our lead program, varoglutamstat, which is in Phase 2 clinical development to treat Alzheimer's disease, we have established a solid pipeline of orally available small molecule inhibitors for various indications including cancer, inflammatory diseases and fibrosis. www.vivoryon.com Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding the business strategy, management plans and objectives for future operations of the Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V. (the "Company"), estimates and projections with respect to the market for the Company's products and forecasts and statements as to when the Company's products may be available. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to the Company are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance; rather they are based on the Management's current expectations and assumptions about future events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. The forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties and other factors could materially adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements and from expectations. As a result, no undue reliance should be placed on such forward-looking statements. This press release does not contain risk factors. Certain risk factors that may affect the Company's future financial results are discussed in the published annual financial statements of the Company. This press release, including any forward-looking statements, speaks only as of the date of this press release. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any information or forward-looking statements contained herein, save for any information required to be disclosed by law. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company in any jurisdiction. For more information, please contact: Investor Contact Vivoryon Therapeutics N.V. Dr. Manuela Bader, Director IR & Communication Tel: +49 (0)345 555 99 30 Email: IR@vivoryon.com Media Contact Trophic Communications Valeria Fisher Tel: +49 175 8041816 Email: vivoryon@trophic.eu 26.09.2022 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by EQS - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Archive at www.eqs-news.com Shenzhen, China--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - The 6th China (Shenzhen) Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition Paris France Division is about to begin. The Competition aims to integrate innovation and entrepreneurship resources, assist overseas innovation and entrepreneurship projects in accessing Chinese hi-tech industrial resources, open the Chinese market, and realize mutual benefits and win-win results. The Competition is organized by the Organizing Committee of China (Shenzhen) Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition and co-organized by Chuangsai Innovation Industry (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd and Aiken International. The Competition is open to innovation and entrepreneurship projects. There are industry competitions in fields like new generation electronic information, digit and fashion, high-end equipment manufacturing, green and low-carbon, new material, biological medicine and health, and marine economy, and award competitions in fields like industrial software design and R&D in semiconductor technology. This Competition is open to all foreign innovation and entrepreneurship projects with no restrictions on participators' nationality. The bonuses for this competition have the potential to reach RMB 8.75 million, which includes individual bonuses up to RMB 0.85 million. Those who have projects landed in Shenzhen and met the conditions will be eligible for a startup subsidy of up to RMB 1 million. A venture capital pool of RMB 25 billion has been set up by more than 50 investment institutions, which helps support outstanding projects. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8404/138048_3a2405d8a449ab13_001full.jpg Specific entry conditions are as follows: 1. Overseas high-level entrepreneurship team or individuals with innovation achievements and entrepreneurship plans; 2. The participant has not registered a commercial entity in Shenzhen and is not the legal representative or shareholder, and plans to establish an enterprise in Shenzhen or cooperate with relevant industries in Shenzhen; 3. The participant possesses full ownership of all rights related to the product, the technology and the patent, has no property dispute with any other person, and assumes full responsibility caused by any possible infringement; 4. Participants and projects that have won any award from the 1st China (Shenzhen) Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition and all previous competitions (including domestic and international competitions) are not allowed to participate in this Competition. For detailed registration channels and participation conditions, please log on to the official website http://cn.itcsz.cn/ and click "Paris France Division". Far-sighted participants are welcome to 2022 the 6th China (Shenzhen) Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition Paris France Division. As an international metropolis, Shenzhen boasts the best business environment in China. Guangming District, located northwest of Shenzhen, has a solid industrial foundation, initially forming a development pattern of industry clusters for emerging industries, including the new generation of information technology, new materials and biomedical industries. The District is creating a world-class science city. It aims to become the center of North Shenzhen by building itself into an area of original innovation resources, a leader in the scientific research economy, and an aggregation of innovative talents. It is also speeding up the construction of a pilot zone for a comprehensive national science center in the Greater Bay Area to lubricate the innovation engines there. The specific schedule is as follows: July 15-September 30: Online registration Early October-early November: Paris France Division Early November: Reward competition Mid-November-late November: Seven industry finals Late November: Grand final and award ceremony (The specific time is subject to the official website of the international competition.) Company: IEC Technology Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd./Aiken International. Co. Contact Person: LIruxue/LIshaoqi Email: 908296785@qq.com/lishaoqi426@gmail.com Website: http://apply.itcsz.cn/elogin-paris2022-cn Telephone: +86 16675371737/+33 0658653506 City: Shenzhen, China/Paris, France Address: Tusincere Park, Longgang District, Shenzhen, China To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138048 Dr Jeanne Bolger brings over 35 years of management experience in the pharmaceutical industry to the new Belgium-based vaccine technology company. Last month, AstriVax closed its funding round - led by V-Bio Ventures and Fund+ - on 30 million euros. With this seed capital and the support of Dr Bolger, AstriVax will continue to build its innovative plug-and-play vaccine platform and bring its first vaccines to the clinical development stage. Leuven, Belgium, 26 September 2022 - AstriVax has announced that Dr Jeanne Bolger will chair its Board of Directors as non-executive independent director. With over 35 years of management experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr Bolger offers invaluable expertise that will help AstriVax to continue to build its innovative vaccine technology platform and bring its first vaccines to the clinical development stage. As the new Chair of the AstriVax Board, doctor and biotech investor Jeanne Bolger brings extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with management roles across R&D, commercial and business development, and venture investments. She has held leading positions at GlaxoSmithKline as well as Johnson & Johnson, served as the sole pharma industry representative on two Irish government taskforces, and sits on numerous company and advisory boards. Hanne Callewaert, CEO of AstriVax, said: "I am truly grateful that Dr Jeanne Bolger has agreed to chair our Board of Directors, and I very much look forward to working with her to continue to build this company and address key challenges in vaccinology. Jeanne brings a lot of valuable expertise to AstriVax, with ample life science industry experience in venture investments, business development, and active board roles." Dr Jeanne Bolger (MB BCh BAO) said: "I am delighted to accept the invitation to chair the Board of AstriVax and to support Hanne Callewaert's impressive leadership. Hanne and her team, supported by a strong investor syndicate, will progress the vaccine platform technology from the KU Leuven Rega Institute labs of the renowned Professor Johan Neyts and Kai Dallmeier, with the exciting mission to deliver effective vaccines for multiple infectious diseases across the world." Plug-and-play vaccine platform The announcement of Dr Jeanne Bolger's new role in AstriVax comes mere weeks after the company closed its seed capital funding round - led by V-Bio Ventures and Fund+ - on 30 million. AstriVax will use this seed capital to bring its first thermostable yellow fever vaccine to the clinical development stage, further advance two pipeline vaccine candidates towards clinical trials (vaccines to prevent rabies and treat chronic hepatitis B), and to fuel the preclinical pipeline with several prophylactic and therapeutic leads. The company will also continue to build its highly innovative, first-in-class plug-and-play vaccine platform based on the ground-breaking work of AstriVax co-founders Professor Johan Neyts and Kai Dallmeier, both affiliated with the KU Leuven Rega Institute. The technology of AstriVax can be used to develop a wide range of vaccines that address major challenges in vaccinology: they are easy to produce, offer long-lasting protection against various infectious diseases, and do not require a strict cold chain. Media contact Hanne Callewaert (PhD), CEO of AstriVax,info@astrivax.com About AstriVax Founded in 2022, AstriVax NV aims to address global challenges in vaccinology with its innovative plug-and-play vaccine platform. The Belgium-based company develops novel prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines that are easy to produce, have reduced cold chain requirements, and offer broad and long-lasting protection against various infectious diseases. AstriVax is supported by V-Bio Ventures, Fund+, Flanders Future TechFund, Thuja Capital, Ackermans & van Haaren, Merieux Equity Partners. EQS-News: Daldrup & Sohne AG / Schlagwort(e): Auftragseingange Daldrup & Sohne AG erhalt Bohrauftrag zur Erkundung eines Aquiferspeichers von Hamburger Energiewerke GmbH 26.09.2022 / 06:50 CET/CEST Fur den Inhalt der Mitteilung ist der Emittent / Herausgeber verantwortlich. CORPORATE NEWS Daldrup & Sohne AG erhalt Bohrauftrag zur Erkundung eines Aquiferspeichers von Hamburger Energiewerke GmbH Speicherung industrieller Abwarme im Untergrund Auftragswert bei Vollabruf aller angebotenen Leistungen im oberen einstelligen Millionen-Euro-Bereich Oberhaching / Ascheberg, 26. September 2022 - Die Daldrup & Sohne AG (ISIN DE0007830572), Bohrtechnik- und Geothermiespezialist, hat von der Hamburger Energiewerke GmbH einen Auftrag zur Erstellung eines Bohrplatzes inklusive Ausfuhrungsplanung und Niederbringung einer Bohrung zur Erkundung eines Speicherhorizonts sowie optional einer zweiten Bohrung erhalten. Der Auftragswert liegt bei Vollabruf aller angebotenen Leistungen im oberen einstelligen Millionenbereich. Der Bohrbeginn ist fur November 2022 geplant, die Bohrlange ist je mit circa 1.600 m vorgesehen. Die erste Bohrung soll noch in diesem Jahr fertiggestellt werden. Vorstandssprecher Andereas Tonies sagt zum Bohrauftrag: "Aquiferspeicher sind ein wichtiger Baustein beim Aufbau einer klimafreundlichen Warmeversorgung. Sie erhohen die Flexibilitat durch saisonale Speicherung von Warmeenergie in naturlichen Speichern unter der Erde. Das Projekt Tiefstack in Hamburg wird fur die sichere Versorgung der Bevolkerung und der Industrie mit Warme ein Referenzprojekt darstellen." Zweite optionale Bohrung fur Forderbrunnen Der Auftraggeber will am Standort Tiefstack, Hamburg, einen sog. Aquiferspeicher errichten. Dieser soll als saisonaler Speicher fur uberflussige, klimaneutrale Abwarme aus regionalen Industrie- und Abfallverwertungsbetrieben dienen. Die gespeicherte Warme wird dann bei Bedarf in das Fernwarmenetz der Hamburger Energiewerke eingespeist. Der geplante Aquiferspeicher dient als Demonstrationsanlage zur Evaluation der Nutzbarkeit des Hamburger Untergrunds zur Warmespeicherung, der Speicherperformance und der Sammlung von ersten Betriebserfahrungen bei der Integration eines Tiefenwarmespeichers in das Fernwarmenetz. Die Vertragsparteien haben - bei nachgewiesener, ausreichender Forderrate der ersten Bohrung - ebenfalls vereinbart, eine zweite Bohrung niederzubringen. Diese soll dann zum Forderbrunnen ausgebaut werden. Rege Nachfrage zur Erschlieung geothermischer Energie Insgesamt ist das Interesse von Kommunen, Stadtwerken und privaten Investoren zur Erschlieung und Nutzung regional vorhandener geothermischer Energie rege. Die Daldrup & Sohne AG erwartet in den nachsten Quartalen weitere groere Bohrauftrage. Uber die Daldrup & Sohne AG Die Daldrup & Sohne AG (ISIN: DE0007830572, WKN: 783057) mit einer Unternehmenshistorie von mehr als 75 Jahren ist ein spezialisierter Anbieter von Bohr- und Umweltdienstleistungen und ist unter den fuhrenden Unternehmen in Deutschland positioniert. Die Tatigkeit gliedert sich in die Geschaftsbereiche Geothermie, Rohstoffe & Exploration, Wassergewinnung sowie Environment, Development & Services (EDS). Im Geschaftsbereich Geothermie werden Bohrdienstleistungen sowohl fur die oberflachennahe Geothermie (insbesondere Erdwarmesonden fur Warmepumpen), aber vor allem auch Bohrdienstleistungen fur die Tiefengeothermie von bis zu 6.000 m erbracht, um die so zugangliche Erdwarme fur die Strom- und/oder Warmegewinnung nutzbar zu machen. Im Geschaftsbereich Rohstoffe und Exploration dienen die von der Daldrup & Sohne AG durchgefuhrten Bohrungen der Exploration und dem Aufschluss der Lagerstatten fossiler Energietrager (insbesondere Steinkohle und Gas) sowie mineralischer Rohstoffe und Erze (z.B. Kupfer und Gold). Der Geschaftsbereich Wassergewinnung umfasst den Brunnenbau zur Gewinnung von Trink-, Brauch-, Heil-, Mineral-, Kesselspeise- oder Kuhlwasser sowie Thermalsole. Der Geschaftsbereich Environment, Development & Services (EDS) umfasst spezielle umwelttechnische Dienstleistungen wie etwa die hydraulische Sanierung von kontaminierten Standorten, die Errichtung von Gas-Absaugbrunnen zur Gewinnung von Deponiegas, die Erstellung von Grundwassergute-Messstellen oder die Errichtung von Wasserreinigungsanlagen. Die Aktien der Daldrup & Sohne AG sind im Scale (Teilsegment des Open Market der Frankfurter Wertpapierborse) notiert. Disclaimer Diese Veroffentlichung stellt weder ein Angebot zum Verkauf noch eine Aufforderung zur Abgabe eines Angebots zum Kauf oder zur Zeichnung von Wertpapieren dar. Diese Veroffentlichung und die darin enthaltenen Informationen sind nicht zur direkten oder indirekten Weitergabe in bzw. innerhalb der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika ("USA"), Kanada, Australien oder Japan bestimmt. Presse- & Investor Relations-Kontakt Daldrup & Sohne AG Falk v. Kriegsheim Fon +49 (0)2593-9593-29 Fax +49 (0)2593-9593-60 Bajuwarenring 17a ir@daldrup.eu 82041 Oberhaching www.daldrup.eu Kontakt: Daldrup & Sohne AG Falk v. Kriegsheim Fon +49 (0)2593-9593-29 ir@daldrup.eu www.daldrup.eu Bavariafilmplatz 7 82031 Grunwald/Geiselgasteig 26.09.2022 CET/CEST Veroffentlichung einer Corporate News/Finanznachricht, ubermittelt durch EQS - ein Service der EQS Group AG. Fur den Inhalt der Mitteilung ist der Emittent / Herausgeber verantwortlich. Die EQS Distributionsservices umfassen gesetzliche Meldepflichten, Corporate News/Finanznachrichten und Pressemitteilungen. Medienarchiv unter https://eqs-news.com Brno selected as new research and development site, more than 100 engineering professionals to be hired within 18 months AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Enverus, the most trusted energy-dedicated SaaS platform, has announced it will build a software development hub in Brno, Czech Republic, with plans to hire 20-25 developers this year and more than 200 engineering professionals over the next few years to expand its global technical capabilities and team. Last week, Enverus announced the acquisition of Madrid-based RatedPower, a SaaS company that helps companies discover the smartest ways to design and engineer utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) plants. Combined with past acquisitions and software development in power and renewables, Enverus has invested more than $1 billion into its technology platform. This new office marks another step in Enverus' plans to expand its international presence and solutions portfolio. "We recognize the benefits of a diverse workforce, and the engineering talent in the Czech Republic includes some of the best developers in the world," said Mark Szygenda, chief technology officer at Enverus. "Building the team there will help us continue to deliver innovative solutions to players in the energy industry and help the energy transition taking place across the world. Enverus has been recognized as a best place to work in cities across North America and seeks to do the same in Brno." "We chose the Czech Republic because of our previous, direct experience growing an office to 300 here before, and love its welcoming business environment and strong technical universities that provide an excellent pool of talent that will add to our team of more than 500 developers in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Spain and India," added Szygenda. "We know we can repeat success here again and we seek those who thrive on solving technical challenges and want to be a part of a growing team that serves the largest industry in the world. We're seeking employees who embody our core values of 'One Team, Courageous Innovation and Partners for Life.'" Enverus plans to open its office at the end of September and is immediately recruiting for talent to work remotely in the near term. Anyone interested in job openings in Brno should apply at enverus.com/careers. The announcement arrives as Enverus emphasizes its commitment to intelligent connections which bring together the analytics, people, experience and industry scope to connect the right data and information in the right way to discover previously unseen insights and opportunities, act fast and deliver extraordinary outcomes. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Enverus has offices in Centennial, Colorado; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Midland, Texas; New York; Oklahoma City; Bangalore, India; Brno, Czech Republic; Calgary, Alberta; London; Madrid, Spain; Santander, Spain; Stonehouse, U.K.; and Singapore. By leveraging hundreds of research analysts, data scientists, engineers, traders and economists, Enverus continues to build an offering that covers commercial, asset and macro insights in energy that are data driven and unmatched by anyone in the industry. It is considered the leading energy SaaS and data analytics company worldwide and employs more than 1,400 worldwide. Awards & Recognition: Enverus Earns 2022 Great Place to Work Certification Enverus Named to Alberta's Top Employers List Top Employers List Enverus Announces Key Promotions and Hires Within Its Executive Ranks Enverus Named a Top Workplace in Austin and Houston About Enverus Enverus is the most trusted, energy-dedicated SaaS platform, offering real-time access to analytics, insights, benchmark cost and revenue data sourced from our partnerships to 98% of U.S. energy producers, and more than 35,000 suppliers. Our platform, with intelligent connections, drives more efficient production and distribution, capital allocation, renewable energy development, investment and sourcing, and our experienced industry experts support our customers through thought leadership, consulting and technology innovations. We provide intelligence across the energy ecosystem: renewables, oil and gas, financial institutions, and power and utilities, with more than 6,000 customers in 50 countries. Learn more at Enverus.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1079235/Enverus_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/enverus-opens-software-development-hub-in-czech-republic-301629448.html Regulatory News: Eurofins Scientific (EUFI.PA) (Paris:ERF), the global leader in food testing and a global scientific leader in bioanalytical testing, announces the signing of an agreement to divest its Digital Testing business to Stirling Square Capital Partners ("Stirling Square") for 220m on a cash and debt free basis. This business contributes approximately 1 percent of the Group's sales and employs over 600 staff. Eurofins' Digital Testing was established in 2015 and has increased substantially in size and profitability over the past few years through organic growth, strategic investments and bolt-on acquisitions to expand its range of digital testing tools and services as well as its global reach. Eurofins Digital Testing provides global testing, quality assurance and technical analysis of digital systems, devices, content and cyber security. It is recognised as one of the leading players in its space in terms of technology, innovation and service quality. Dr Gilles Martin, Eurofins CEO, says: "Over the last 7 years, Eurofins Digital Testing has successfully grown to become a recognised leader in its space. In order to facilitate its further development, we have decided to pass the ownership of the business to Stirling Square. We wish the team at Eurofins Digital Testing further success on their onward journey." For Eurofins, proceeds from the divestment will support the Group's capital allocation priorities, including capital expenditure in laboratories, digitalisation and acquisitions to further enhance its leadership in bioanalytical testing and other life science areas. Completion of the transaction is subject to the approval of the relevant authorities and is expected to occur before the end of 2022. Baird acted as M&A advisor to Eurofins on this transaction. Notes to Editors: For more information, please visit www.eurofins.com. About Eurofins the global leader in bio-analysis Eurofins is Testing for Life. Eurofins is the global leader in food, environment, pharmaceutical and cosmetic product testing, and in discovery pharmacology, forensics, advanced material sciences and agroscience Contract Research services. Eurofins is also a market leader in certain testing and laboratory services for genomics, and in the support of clinical studies, as well as in BioPharma Contract Development and Manufacturing. The Group also has a rapidly developing presence in highly specialised and molecular clinical diagnostic testing and in-vitro diagnostic products. With over 61,000 staff across a decentralised and entrepreneurial network of 940 laboratories in 59 countries, Eurofins offers a portfolio of over 200,000 analytical methods to evaluate the safety, identity, composition, authenticity, origin, traceability and purity of a wide range of products, as well as providing innovative clinical diagnostic testing services and in-vitro diagnostic products. The Group's objective is to provide its customers with high-quality services, innovative solutions and accurate results on time. Eurofins is ideally positioned to support its clients' increasingly stringent quality and safety standards and the increasing demands of regulatory authorities as well as the requirements of healthcare practitioners around the world. In 2020 and 2021, Eurofins reacted quickly to meet the global challenge of COVID-19, by creating the capacity to help over 20 million patients monthly who may have been impacted by the pandemic with our testing products and our services and directly supporting healthcare professionals working on the front line to fight the virus. The Group has established widespread PCR testing capabilities and has carried out over 40 million tests in its own laboratories, is supporting the development of a number of vaccines and has established its SAFER@WORK testing, monitoring and consulting programmes to help ensure safer environments, travel and events during COVID-19. Eurofins has grown very strongly since its inception and its strategy is to continue expanding its technology portfolio and its geographic reach. Through R&D and acquisitions, the Group draws on the latest developments in the field of biotechnology and analytical chemistry to offer its clients unique analytical solutions. Shares in Eurofins Scientific are listed on the Euronext Paris Stock Exchange (ISIN FR0014000MR3, Reuters EUFI.PA, Bloomberg ERF FP). Until it has been lawfully made public widely by Eurofins through approved distribution channels, this document contains inside information for the purpose of Regulation (EU) 596/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on market abuse, as amended. About Stirling Square Capital Partners Stirling Square Capital Partners was established in 2002 as a pan-European private equity firm which invests in mid-market companies with enterprise value of 100m to 500m. The firm manages over 2.5bn on behalf of a global and diverse investor base. Important disclaimer: This press release contains forward-looking statements and estimates that involve risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements and estimates contained herein represent the judgment of Eurofins Scientific's management as of the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees for future performance, and the forward-looking events discussed in this release may not occur. Eurofins Scientific disclaims any intent or obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements and estimates. All statements and estimates are made based on the information available to the Company's management as of the date of publication, but no guarantees can be made as to their completeness or validity. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005034/en/ Contacts: Investor Relations Eurofins Scientific SE Phone: +32 2 766 1620 E-mail: ir@eurofins.com Stirling Square Capital Partners Fergus Wheeler Phone: +447710128347 E-mail: fergus@ferguswheeler.com Free barista training provided for hearing-impaired trainees in NW China's Shaanxi Xinhua) 14:20, September 26, 2022 Trainees learn to make soaps with coffee grounds at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Training instructor Sun Yu (L) and sign language teacher Qu Wenmin are seen during a barista training class at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Chen Jiayue (C), a hearing-impaired barista, works at her own cafe in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 24, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Trainees prepare to make soaps with coffee grounds at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Training instructor Sun Yu (L) gives a thumb-up to the coffee made by hearing-impaired barista Zhou Jie during a barista training class at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Chen Jiayue, a hearing-impaired barista, makes a cup of coffee at her own cafe in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 24, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Hearing-impaired trainees attend a barista training class at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Zheng Xin) A trainee takes pictures of soaps made with coffee grounds at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) A trainee gives a thumb-up to the coffee made by hearing-impaired barista Zhou Jie during a barista training class at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Trainees pack soaps made from coffee grounds at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Zheng Xin) Wang Ru (R) and Li Sha, both hearing-impaired baristas, communicate through sign language at a sign language store of Starbucks in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, July 4, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Hearing-impaired barista Zhou Jie demonstrates how to use a syphon coffee maker during a barista training class at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Chen Jiayue (2nd L), a hearing-impaired barista, communicates with family members of other hearing-impaired people at her own cafe in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 24, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Zheng Xin) Sign language teacher Qu Wenmin (top R) translates for hearing-impaired trainees during a barista training class at Shaanxi Urban Economy School in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 22, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) Wang Ru (R) and Li Sha, both hearing-impaired baristas, communicate through sign language at a sign language store of Starbucks in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, July 4, 2022. The International Day of the Deaf falls on the fourth Sunday each September. Since 2019, Shaanxi Urban Economy School has been providing free barista training for the hearing-impaired. Trainees can learn coffee-making skills as well as cafe operation knowledge during the training programme, which could help them in paving the way either to start their coffee business or get employed in this industry. So far, more than 20 people who have graduated from the training programme are working at cafes in various places across China. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) PARLIAMENT has cancelled its controversial laptops and desktop computers tender following an outcry over inflated prices as demands for transparency and accountability on the flawed process grow. A recent confidential report showed that the Clerk of Parliament, Kennedy Chokuda, had authorised a tender to supply 173 laptops valued at US$9 200 each to Parliament, but were deemed over-priced by the Finance ministry. I take this chance to appreciate your effort for supply and ensure delivery of 173 laptops and 79 all-in-one desktops. The evaluation committee was impressed by your documentation and how you presented your bid, the letter by Chokuda read. According to the leaked official communication, Blinart Investments P/L won the tender to supply Parliament with 173 laptops for $1 602 755,77, translating to US$9 200 per gadget. Another company, Mid-End Computers and Hardware, was asked to supply 79 desktop computers, pricing its gadgets at above US$3 000 each. Chokuda later issued a statement blaming Parliament staffers for the corrupt deal, but did not say what measures would be taken against the alleged culprits. Yesterday, Parliament succumbed to pressure from the public and admitted that the prices of the laptops and desktops were abnormal, and cancelled the tenders. In a letter dated September 23, Chokuda said the tender has been cancelled in the public interest. In accordance with section 42(1)(f) of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act [Chapter 22:23] you are hereby notified that the tender for the supply and delivery of 173 laptops and 79 all-in-one desktops under number POZ(13/2022) has been cancelled in the interest of the public, read Chokudas letter. It is the Parliament of Zimbabwe's considered view that it is not morally and prudently justifiable to purchase the goods at the tendered prices. It is in this context that the initially awarded tender could not be fully concluded. Efforts to get a comment from Chokuda yesterday were fruitless as he was not answering his phone. However, while addressing legislators last week, Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda said the officials responsible for the questionable deal should appear before the Public Accounts Committee (Pac). That process will proceed, and only after the interrogation by Pac will they decide whether there will be need for a forensic audit or not, Mudenda said. Yesterday, Parliament was also under fire over revelation by the Auditor-General, Mildred Chiris report that fuel meant for Members of Parliament (MPs) was not properly noted down by parliamentary staff, giving rise to suspicion that there could be looting as it was not clear what was disbursed to who. A review of the MPs fuel register revealed that 22 000 litres (3 760 petrol and 18 260 diesel) fuel coupons distributed in March, June, October and November 2020 had incomplete serial numbers recorded, the 2020 Auditor-Generals report on Appropriation Accounts, Finance and Revenue Statements and Fund Accounts read. The report noted that the act was contrary to the law and exposed fuel to looting. This was contrary to the provisions of section 104(1) of the Public Finance Management Act (Treasury Instructions) 2019 which requires entities to keep a complete record of fuel received and issued. There was no evidence that records were reviewed regularly by an independent senior official, the AG report said. Chokuda told the committee that the huge number of legislators distorted the issuance of fuel as the process was time consuming. We procure our fuel in bulk for Parliament; both for administration and MPs. What happens is when we receive the fuel; we then note the serial numbers and then record them in the fuel register. What the auditors want us to do, and which is the correct thing, is to say honourable members have been given coupons quoting the whole serial numbers of each coupon, but because of the nature in which members come to collect their fuel, you would appreciate that if the AG wants us to record each serial number, it would take forever to issue the fuel coupon. So, the officers would then resort to say from number 1 to 10 and would sign for it. He said to correct the anomaly, Parliament staff was now recording the coupons using the format recommended by auditors. Pac committee members, however, grilled Chokuda over why the party chief whips were being given more fuel than other MPs. The fuel for the chief whips was for the additional work that they do in Parliament in terms of pursuing their work, Chokuda said. Newsday Exclusive distribution agreement in the USA for the full range of BIOCERA-VET products with Invictos Orthopedics, US specialist in veterinary orthopedics Significant step in the expansion of sales throughout all the states Regulatory News: TheraVet (ISIN: BE0974387194 ticker: ALVET) (Paris:ALVET) (Brussels:ALVET), a pioneering company in the management of osteoarticular diseases in pets, announces today it has entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Invictos Orthopedics LLC, a North America company designing, developing and commercializing veterinary orthopedic products and medical devices. Harold Wotton, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Invictos Orthopedics, said: "The addition of the TheraVet line of products represents an important step forward for our orthopedic portfolio. TheraVet products fits seamlessly into our growing offering in orthopedic surgery and we are excited to advance the next generation of healing in orthopedics." Under the terms of the agreement, Invictos will promote and distribute BIOCERA-VET throughout the United States of America. This distribution agreement covers the full range of BIOCERA-VET products i.e., BIOCERA-VET Bone Surgery RTU, BIOCERA-VETSmartGraft, BIOCERA-VET Granules and BIOCERA-VET Osteosarcoma RTU. Also, Invictos will co-host with TheraVet a Satellite Event in marge of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) Surgery Summit, the largest conference on veterinary surgery in the US, taking place the next October 12-15, 2022 at Portland (USA). This Event will be an opportunity for TheraVet to officially launch the BIOCERA-VETSmartGraft and to present its full range of products to orthopedic veterinary surgeons. This agreement represents a significant step for the distribution of BIOCERA-VET product line in the United States of America, the largest companion animals market worldwide, accounting about 89 million dogs and 104 million cats with $4.8 bn revenues estimated in 2021 and a projected CAGR1 of 10.2% over the next 8 years (2022-2030)2 Enrico Bastianelli, Chief Executive Officer of TheraVet, comments: "Signing a distribution agreement with such a specialized company is key to achieve TheraVet's commercial objectives in the USA. We are pleased to start this collaboration and to benefit from Dr. Wotton's unique expertise in US veterinary orthopedic market, a decisive advantage for the promotion of BIOCERA-VET About TheraVet SA TheraVet is a veterinary biotechnology company specialising in osteoarticular treatments for companion animals. The Company develops targeted, safe and effective treatments to improve the quality of life of pets suffering from joint and bone diseases. For pet owners, the health of their pets is a major concern and TheraVet's mission is to address the need for innovative and curative treatments. TheraVet works closely with international opinion leaders in order to provide a more effective response to ever-growing needs in the field of veterinary medicine. TheraVet is listed on Euronext Growth Paris and Brussels, has its head office in Belgium (Gosselies) with a US subsidiary in Texas. For more information, visit the TheraVet website or follow us on LinkedIn Facebook Twitter About Invictos Orthopedics LLC Invictos Orthopedics LLC is an innovative customer-focused company dedicated to servicing the customer with the highest level of integrity. Invictos Orthopedics LLC was founded by Harry Wotton, an extremely seasoned CEO in the American orthopedic market. He has a solid experience and a well-developed network in the American market. He is the founder and former CEO of Securos Orthopedic, which is one of the most important players in the supply of veterinary orthopedic implants, and Everost Veterinary Orthopedics before its integration into Steris Animal Health in 2018. After 4 years as Vice President of New Business Development Engineering, he created Invictos Orthopedics LLC in 2022. About BIOCERA-VET In close collaboration with an international scientific board, THERAVET has developed a new line of calcium-phosphate and biological bone substitutes, BIOCERA-VET. BIOCERA-VET is a full range of innovative, easy-to-use, efficient cost-effective bone substitutes indicated in bone surgeries where a bone graft is required and as a palliative alternative in the management of canine osteosarcoma. Based on extremely promising clinical results, this line offers the possibility of a better, more convenient and more efficient orthopedic surgery. BIOCERA-VET is declined in different lines: BIOCERA-VET BONE SURGERY RTU, ready-to-use highly injectable self-hardening calcium-phosphate cement BONE SURGERY RTU, ready-to-use highly injectable self-hardening calcium-phosphate cement BIOCERA-VET SMARTGRAFT, a naturally osteoconductive bone graft SMARTGRAFT, a naturally osteoconductive bone graft BIOCERA-VET GRANULES, an affordable biocompatible calcium-phosphate bone substitute GRANULES, an affordable biocompatible calcium-phosphate bone substitute BIOCERA-VET OSTEOSARCOMA RTU, a ready-to-use highly injectable calcium-phosphate bone substitute for cementoplasty For more information, visit BIOCERA-VET website. 1CAGR:Compound annual growth rate 2https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-companion-animal-health-market; https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220601005747/en/United-States-Companion-Animal-Health-Market-Report-2022-Market-to-Reach-11.39-Bn-by-2030---Rising-Number-of-Companion-Ownership---ResearchAndMarkets.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005017/en/ Contacts: TheraVet Chief Operating Officer Sabrina Ena investors@thera.vet Tel: +32 (0) 71 96 00 43 Chief Corporate Officer Julie Winand investors@thera.vet NewCap Investor Relations and Financial Communications Theo Martin Hugo Willefert theravet@newcap.eu Tel: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 94 Press Relations Arthur Rouille theravet@newcap.eu Tel: +33 (0)1 44 71 00 15 NewCap Belgique Press Relations Laure-Eve Monfort lemonfort@newcap.fr Tel: +32 (0) 489 57 76 52 Internet City, Dubai--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - LBank Exchange, a global digital asset trading platform, has listed PRIMEZTOKEN on September 23, 2022. For all users of LBank Exchange, the PRIMEZTOKEN/USDT trading pair is now officially available for trading. PRIMEZTOKEN Listing Banner To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8831/138149_ffe5717714001b07_001full.jpg Aiming to introduce Japan's world-class contents to Japan and overseas using blockchain technology, Primez provides an NFT marketplace where Japanese contents can be converted into NFTs. Its native token PRIMEZTOKEN has been listed on LBank Exchange at 8:00 UTC on September 23, 2022, to further expand its global reach and help it achieve its vision. Introducing Primez Japanese content is highly acclaimed worldwide, ranging from traditional art to animation, games, music, contemporary art, and sports. The overseas market for Japanese content has more than doubled in the past 10 years. The largest overseas market by category is anime, followed by online games for smartphone applications, which have grown rapidly, and then print publication and distribution of manga. The Primez NFT Marketplace will focus on the value of these Japanese contents and convert them into NFT, protecting and enhancing the value of creators active in Japanese culture, and creating a new economic zone not only in the Japanese market but also in the US and Asia. PRIMEZTOKEN was issued in order to stably operate the PRIMEZ chain as a decentralized platform, a blockchain specialized in the issuance, management, and distribution of NFTs in the Japanese content domain, and designed in accordance with the business model. In addition, the PRIMEZ chain can be connected to multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, and functions as a cross-chain platform that serves as a hub for the issuance and distribution of NFTs. By establishing a platform for the use of two new types of assets, NFT and cryptographic assets, Primez will introduce Japan's world-class contents to Japan and overseas using blockchain technology and create a new market. About PRIMEZTOKEN Users will enjoy various benefits if they have PRIMEZTOKEN. Unique NFT artworks sold only on Primez marketplace can be purchased with PRIMEZTOKENs. In addition, 5% of Primez sales will be returned to token holders based on the amount of PRIMEZTOKENs they hold and the length of time, calculated every 6 months. They can also support their favorite idols using PRIMEZTOKEN on a new and unique live-streaming site called MetaLive, supported by Primez. Furthermore, PRIMEZTOKENs give them the right to vote in events. Based on ERC-20, PRIMEZTOKEN has a total supply of 1 billion (i.e. 1,000,000,000) tokens, of which 35% is provided for community mining, 20% is allocated for ecosystem development and growth, another 20% is allocated to official management team, another 20% is provided for pre-sale, and the remaining 5% is allocated to advisors. The PRIMEZTOKEN has been listed on LBank Exchange at 8:00 UTC on September 23, 2022, investors who are interested in the Primez investment can easily buy and sell PRIMEZTOKEN on LBank Exchange right now. Learn More about PRIMEZTOKEN: Official Website: http://primez.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/primez_JP About LBank LBank is one of the top crypto exchanges, established in 2015. It offers specialized financial derivatives, expert asset management services, and safe crypto trading to its users. The platform holds over 7 million users from more than 210 regions across the world. LBank is a cutting-edge growing platform that ensures the integrity of users' funds and aims to contribute the global adoption of cryptocurrencies. Start Trading Now: lbank.info Community & Social Media: l Telegram l Twitter l Facebook l LinkedIn l Instagram l YouTube Contact Details: LBK Blockchain Co. Limited LBank Exchange marketing@lbank.info business@lbank.info To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138149 LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Consumer goods major Unilever PLC (UN, ULVR.L, UL) announced Monday that CEO Alan Jope has informed the Board of his intention to retire from the company at the end of 2023. He will be retiring after five years in the role and after more than 35 years in Unilever. The Board will now proceed with a formal search for a successor and will consider both internal and external candidates. Unilever Chairman Nils Andersen said, 'Unilever has seen improved performance, enabled by its clear strategic choices and a significant company transformation. ...Under his leadership, Unilever has made critical changes to its strategy, structure and organisation that position it strongly for success. This work continues, and we will thank Alan wholeheartedly for his leadership and contribution to our business when he leaves next year.' Jope added that growth remains the company's top priority, and in the quarters ahead he will remain fully focused on disciplined execution of its strategy, and leveraging the full benefits of new organisation. 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. EQS-News: SGT German Private Equity GmbH & Co. KGaA / Schlagwort(e): Aktienruckkauf/Dividende SGT German Private Equity GmbH & Co. KGaA: SGT German Private Equity - Erhohung des Umfangs des bevorstehenden offentlichen Aktienruckkaufangebots 26.09.2022 / 10:13 CET/CEST Fur den Inhalt der Mitteilung ist der Emittent / Herausgeber verantwortlich. +++ Pressemitteilung +++ SGT German Private Equity - Erhohung des Umfangs des bevorstehenden offentlichen Aktienruckkaufangebots Frankfurt am Main, 26. September 2022 - Die SGT German Private Equity GmbH & Co. KGaA (SGF), ein borsennotierter Private Equity-Asset Manager, plant ihren Aktionaren, wie bereits angekundigt, sehr zeitnah ein offentliches Aktienruckkaufangebot zu unterbreiten. Die Geschaftsfuhrung hat nun entschieden, das Volumen des Aktienruckkaufangebots um 40% von 5 auf 7 Mio. EUR aufzustocken. Das entspricht 14 Cent pro Aktie oder knapp 9% ihres aktuellen Aktienkurses und ihrer Marktkapitalisierung (Vorjahr: Null). Zusammen mit der im August bereits ausgezahlten Dividende fur 2021 von 2 Cent pro Aktie (Vorjahr: Null) schuttet die SGT Germany Private Equity aus dem Gewinn 2021 damit insg. 8 Mio. EUR oder 16 Cent pro Aktie an ihre Aktionare aus. Das entspricht 10% ihres aktuellen Aktienkurses und ihrer Marktkapitalisierung. Den daruber hinausgehenden Gewinn 2021 thesauriert die Gesellschaft. Uber SGT German Private Equity SGT German Private Equity ist ein in Deutschland beheimateter, borsennotierter Private Equity-Asset Manager mit Sitz in Frankfurt am Main. Ihre 100%ige Tochtergesellschaft SGT Capital Pte. Ltd. ist ein globaler Alternative Investment- und Private Equity-Asset Manager mit Hauptsitz in Singapur. SGT Capital Fund II, mit geografischem Fokus auf Europa und Nordamerika (Fondslaufzeit zehn Jahre), investiert in marktfuhrende Unternehmen und nutzt sein eigenes Fachwissen, um die Unternehmen weiter zu globalisieren, insbesondere in asiatische Markte. SGT strebt ein Fundraising-Zielvolumen von 2 bis 3 Mrd. USD an. Das Management-Team verfugt uber langjahrige Fuhrungserfahrung bei namhaften Adressen - globalen Private Equity-Hausern, Managementberatungen und Investmentbanken. SGT Capital verwaltet derzeit von ihr aufgelegte Private Equity-Fonds und ein Joint Venture mit einem asiatischen Finanzdienstleister in einem Gesamtvolumen von mehr als 800 Mio. USD. Aus ihrer Historie als ein fuhrender deutscher Venture Capital-Anbieter unter der Marke German Startups Group halt die SGT German Private Equity desweiteren ein Heritage Portfolio an Minderheitsbeteiligungen an teils aussichtsreichen deutschen Startups. Investor Relations Kontakt Rosenberg Strategic Communications Dirk Schmitt d.schmitt@rosenbergsc.com +49 170 302 8833 26.09.2022 CET/CEST Veroffentlichung einer Corporate News/Finanznachricht, ubermittelt durch EQS - ein Service der EQS Group AG. Fur den Inhalt der Mitteilung ist der Emittent / Herausgeber verantwortlich. Die EQS Distributionsservices umfassen gesetzliche Meldepflichten, Corporate News/Finanznachrichten und Pressemitteilungen. Medienarchiv unter https://eqs-news.com Dubai, United Arab Emirates--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - The ViCA Foundation, a blockchain-based ecosystem, has announced its ViBot trading solution which is designed to address pain points in the world of crypto arbitrage trading. Developed over a 3-year period with $2.3 invested in its creation, the ViBot was formally launched in May 2021. Since then, it has become a favorite of the industry and it has also taken care to address all the needs and issues facing crypto arbitrage traders. First, the ViBot tool can navigate between major exchanges like Binance and Upbit, giving its users access to some of the biggest liquidity pools in the industry and uses Ethereum, KRW, and Tether USDT to complete trades. It is also compatible with all the major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, ADA, Dogecoin, and Litecoin. It also uses the cross-exchange arbitrage trading technique that makes sure that the exchanges being leveraged can conduct transactions simultaneously. This also means that users will not have things like exchange fees, transfer fees, and gas fees cutting into their profits. Then there is the ever-present issue of market volatility which ViBot has measures in place to avoid, making sure that its users can continue to trade without fear. Since it hit the market, ViBot has become an industry favourite, with $1.3 Million in underlying assets as of September 2022 an average of 2% profit per month. But the ViCA Foundation isn't stopping there. Currently, only South Korean users have access to its arbitrage tool, though this is about to change. This comes as the foundation has launched its native Ethereum-based token which gives holders a share of profits. With this, even those outside of Korea can benefit. The token has a current supply of 2 billion though 1.8 billion of these tokens will be burned over time. The foundation has also been making the rounds within the industry, acting as a diamond sponsor at the upcoming Crypto Expo in Dubai. The expo is one of the largest events for crypto investors in Asia and ViCA is positioning its community at the forefront through its participation. About The ViCA Foundation The ViCA Foundation is a blockchain-focused ecosystem that includes the ViBot arbitrage trading solution, the ViWallet and the ViVerse Telegram community. The foundation is dedicated to providing the best access and information in the blockchain industry. Media Contact: Ahmad Hassan smd@vica.global Website: https://vica.global/ Medium: https://medium.com/@vicafoundation LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vica-foundation Twitter: https://twitter.com/ViCA_Foundation Telegram: https://t.co/90iitUZ7bK To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138169 New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - Mogul Press, a US-based public relations and communications agency, has expanded its global operations and is now offering its widely-recognized services to a wide array of enterprises, entrepreneurs, and other industry experts based in other parts of the world. The services that would now be available to a vast audience include strong media placements, social media verification, personal branding, book publishing, marketing strategy, reputation management, and others. Mogul Press The firm has years of experience in building strong personal brands for entrepreneurs and helping them shape their communications strategy, develop publicity and oversee public relations campaigns. With a presence in the USA and UK, Mogul Press is rapidly expanding its presence in new markets like the UAE, Australia, India, and other European countries. Moreover, Mogul Press is also recognized as one of the fastest-growing PR firms in the world and one of the top PR agencies of 2022. Mogul Press is increasingly becoming a one-stop solution for entrepreneurs, influencers, and large corporations to handcraft the best PR strategies. The PR firm says it understands that the right angle is the key to building a press foundation and crafting an exciting pitch to stand out in today's digital landscape. Good storytelling goes a long way and has the power to enhance the visibility of a brand. In addition, Mogul Press also firmly believes in the power of the press in the digital space and says the dynamics of a relationship between customers and businesses have changed; people now run thorough research about an enterprise they interact with, and that is what makes a 'robust online presence' a need of the minute. "Effective public relations is the key to building a powerful and recognizable personal brand in 2022. Mogul Press has the power to generate strategic media coverage for its clients to help them share their stories with the world," says the founder, Nabeel Ahmad. He further added that authenticity and consistency are the core principles of Mogul Press and that they have, so far, worked efficiently to 'create exciting angles' that have allowed clients to tell their stories most naturally. Founded in 2019, the firm has served more than 1000 top entrepreneurs, influencers and established businesses and has a track record of publishing 1000's of articles for its clients on numerous world-renowned and top-tier publications. Additionally, the company expects a significant boost in revenue after its recent move to expand its PR operations beyond the United States and the United Kingdom. Contact Info Mogul Press LLC info@mogulpress.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/137971 BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French stocks edged higher on Monday, though a cautious undertone prevailed amid concerns about a possible recession. Euro zone government bond yields hit fresh multi-year highs amid a fresh sell-off in British gilts after Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng announced the biggest package of unfunded tax cuts. The spread between Italian and German yields widened after the rightist coalition won a clear majority in Sunday's general elections. The benchmark CAC 40 was up 21 points, or 0.4 percent, at 5,804 after plummeting 2.3 percent on Friday. Valneva SE shares jumped more than 4 percent. The vaccine maker focused on infectious diseases said it is in active discussions with a prospective partner for potentially funding the development of a potential second-generation COVID-19 vaccine. These ongoing talks may continue for several months and may not lead to an agreement, it said. 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. Vertical Aerospace has celebrated "wheels up" for the first time as its electric VX4 prototype conducted its very first airborne test celebrated "wheels up" for the first time as its electric VX4 prototype conducted its very first airborne test Vertical becomes the first British aerospace company to manufacture a new aircraft in over 20 years* The new phase in its intensive test programme saw the piloted aircraft lifted from the ground under tethered conditions It is hoped the VX4 will be certified in 2025 The test took place following the company receiving its 'Permit to Fly' from the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Vertical Aerospace (Vertical) [NYSE: EVTL], a global aerospace and technology company that is pioneering zero-emissions aviation, saw its VX4 eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft take off from the ground for the very first time over the weekend. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005200/en/ A Vertical test pilot walking towards the VX4 prototype. (Photo: Business Wire) It becomes the first British company to start flight tests with a new aircraft in over 20 years, with its full-scale, piloted prototype. The moment marked a significant milestone as Vertical continues to progress successfully through its intensive flight test programme. The programme is expected to continue for several months, completing different stages which will involve reaching higher altitudes and speeds and demonstrating the transition from vertical to horizontal forward flight. Engineers and flight technicians watched on as Chief Test Pilot, Justin Paines, took to the controls for the aircraft's maiden take-off which saw the eight sets of aerodynamic propellers lift the aircraft from the ground at hover-thrust, while tethered to the ground for safety. Vertical Aerospace Chief Test Pilot, Justin Paines said: "This test represented the culmination of many months preparation by a huge team and being at the controls of the VX4 for the first time was an honour and a proud moment for us all." The company, unlike many of its competitors, decided to conduct its first flight tests with a pilot on board to prove it could meet the most stringent safety standards. To do this, Vertical Aerospace received regulatory approval in the form of a 'Permit to Fly' from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), after demonstrating the test could be conducted safely. The permit and the positive results of these early tests allow the teams at Vertical to progress confidently on their mission to certify the VX4 by 2025. It is hoped the aircraft will carry a pilot and four passengers and is expected to have a range of up to 100 miles with the ability to cruise at speeds of around 150 miles per hour, with a top speed of 200 miles per hour. The company has already received more than 1,400 conditional pre-orders from some of the world's leading airlines, operators, lessors and tourist groups including Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, Japan Airlines and Air Asia and recently announced that American Airlines has conditionally committed to make a pre-payment for its first 50 deliveries of the VX4, a strong vote of confidence from the industry. Stephen Fitzpatrick, Founder CEO, Vertical, said "This moment represents a small step for Vertical Aerospace, but it's a giant leap forward for British aviation. For more than 100 years the UK has been a global leader in aviation and today, in the 21st century, Britain is leading the world in the development of zero carbon aircraft." Vertical's test programme is also supported by the Aerospace Technology Institute, a UK government-industry programme designed to promote transformative technology in air transport Notes to editors: Based on research from Aviation historians, it is believed this is the first British-made aircraft to be launched in the last 20 years. About Vertical Aerospace Vertical Aerospace is pioneering electric aviation. The company was founded in 2016 by Stephen Fitzpatrick, an established entrepreneur best known as the founder of the Ovo Group, a leading energy and technology group and Europe's largest independent energy retailer. Over the past five years, Vertical has focused on building the most experienced and senior team in the eVTOL industry, who have over 1,700 combined years of engineering experience, and have certified and supported over 30 different civil and military aircraft and propulsion systems. Vertical's top-tier partner ecosystem is expected to de-risk operational execution and its pathway to certification allows for a lean cost structure and enables production at scale. Vertical has a market-leading pre-order book by value for more than 1,400 aircraft from global customers creating multiple potential near term and actionable routes to market. Customers include American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Avolon, Bristow, Marubeni, Iberojet and FLYINGGROUP, as well as Japan Airlines (JAL), Gol, Air Greenland, Gozen Holding and AirAsia, through Avolon's VX4 placements. Vertical's ordinary shares and warrants commenced trading on the NYSE in December 2021 under the tickers "EVTL" and "EVTLW," respectively. About the VX4 eVTOL Aircraft The piloted zero operating emissions four-passenger VX4, is projected to be capable of travelling distances over 100 miles, achieving top speeds of up to 200mph, while producing minimal noise and has a low cost per passenger mile. The VX4 is expected to open up advanced air mobility to a whole new range of passengers and transform how we travel. Find out more: vertical-aerospace.com Vertical Media Kit Available here Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any express or implied statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding the certification and the commercialization of the VX4 and related timelines, the differential strategy compared to its peer group, expectations surrounding pre-orders and commitments, the features and capabilities of the VX4, the transition towards a net-zero emissions economy, expected financial performance and operational performance for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022, as well as statements that include the words "expect," "intend," "plan," "believe," "project," "forecast," "estimate," "may," "should," "anticipate," "will," "aim," "potential," "continue," "are likely to" and similar statements of a future or forward-looking nature. Forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, including, without limitation: Vertical's limited operating history without manufactured non-prototype aircraft or completed eVTOL aircraft customer order; Vertical's history of losses and the expectation to incur significant expenses and continuing losses for the foreseeable future; the market for eVTOL aircraft being in a relatively early stage; the potential inability of Vertical to produce or launch aircraft in the volumes and on timelines projected; the potential inability of Vertical to obtain the necessary certifications on the timelines projected; any accidents or incidents involving eVTOL aircraft could harm Vertical's business; Vertical's dependence on partners and suppliers for the components in its aircraft and for operational needs; the potential that certain of Vertical's strategic partnerships may not materialize into long-term partnership arrangements; pre-orders Vertical has received for its aircraft are conditional and may be terminated at any time in writing prior to certain specified dates; any potential failure by Vertical to effectively manage its growth; the impact of COVID-19 on Vertical's business; Vertical has identified material weaknesses in its internal controls over financial reporting and may be unable to remediate the material weaknesses; Vertical's dependence on our senior management team and other highly skilled personnel; as a foreign private issuer Vertical follows certain home country corporate governance rules, is not subject to U.S. proxy rules and is subject to Exchange Act reporting obligations that, to some extent, are more lenient and less frequent than those of a U.S. domestic public company; and the other important factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on April 29, 2022, as such factors may be updated from time to time in Vertical's other filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof and accordingly undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Vertical disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than to the extent required by applicable law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005200/en/ Contacts: Vertical Media Victoria Madden (Head of Communications) Victoria.madden@vertical-aerospace.com +44 7885 571989 Ambika Sharma nepeanverticalteam@nepean.co.uk +44 7596 474 020 Vertical Investors Eduardo Royes investors@vertical-aerospace.com +1 (646) 200-8871 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Hannan Metals Limited ("Hannan" or the "Company") (TSXV:HAN)(OTC PINK:HANNF) is pleased to announce the closing of the strategic private placement financing (the "Private Placement") announced on September 20, 2022. Pursuant to the Private Placement, Teck Resources Limited (TECK.A and TECK.B, TECK) ("Teck") has subscribed for 9,180,000 common shares (the "Common Shares") of Hannan at a price of $0.28 per Common Share (the "Issue Price") for gross proceeds to Hannan of C$2,570,400. Prior to the Private Placement, Teck held no securities of Hannan. Upon closing of the Private Placement, Teck holds 9.0% of the issued common shares of Hannan. No finder's fees or commissions were paid on the Private Placement. The Common Shares are subject to a statutory hold period, expiring on January 24, 2023. The Private Placement is subject to final acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange. Michael Hudson, CEO, states, "We welcome Teck as a shareholder and thank them for their support of both our technical and social teams, as well support for Hannan's strategy to open up new search spaces in Peru's frontiers to find the next generation of large-scale global copper-silver and copper-gold deposits. This strategy has led some of the biggest names in our Industry to partner with Hannan, with both Teck and JOGMEC now involved at equity and joint venture levels, respectively. Our partnerships allow us to strategically plan sequential tests of multiple large-scale mineral systems in the foreland basins and back-arc of Peru over the coming years. The opportunities are tremendous." The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Private Placement for exploration on the Company's mineral exploration projects in Peru and Ireland, and for working capital and general corporate purposes. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or the securities laws of any state of the United States, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) absent registration under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration requirements. About Hannan Metals Limited (TSXV:HAN) (OTCPK: HANNF) Hannan Metals Limited is a natural resources and exploration company developing sustainable resources of metal needed to meet the transition to a low carbon economy. Over the last decade, the team behind Hannan has forged a long and successful record of discovering, financing, and advancing mineral projects in Europe and Peru. Hannan is a top ten in-country explorer by area in Peru. On behalf of the Board, "Michael Hudson" Michael Hudson, Chairman & CEO Further Information www.hannanmetals.com 1305 - 1090 West Georgia St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V7 Mariana Bermudez, Corporate Secretary, +1 (604) 685 9316, info@hannanmetals.com Forward Looking Statements. Certain disclosure contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Canadian securities laws, including statements regarding the intended use of the net use of proceeds of the Private Placement. These statements may relate to this news release and other matters identified in the Company's public filings. In making the forward-looking statements the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to: the proposed use of the net proceeds received from the Private Placement; political environment in which the Company operates continuing to support the development and operation of mining projects; the threat associated with outbreaks of viruses and infectious diseases, including the novel COVID-19 virus; risks related to negative publicity with respect to the Company or the mining industry in general; planned work programs; permitting; and community relations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news. SOURCE: Hannan Metals Limited View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/717337/Hannan-Announces-Closing-of-Strategic-Investment Medford, Wisconsin--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - Green Light Metals Inc. ("Green Light" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that on September 21, 2022 Green Light's wholly-owned subsidiary Green Light Wisconsin LLC (the "Purchaser") acquired a 100% interest in the Kalium Canyon Project in the Walker Lane district of Nevada from Renaissance Exploration Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Orogen Royalties Inc. (collectively, "Orogen") (the "Transaction"). Orogen will receive C$30,000 in cash, 1,000,000 common shares of the Company, and a net smelter return ("NSR") royalty of up to 3%, of which 1% can be purchased for US$2 million. The Kalium Canyon Project was previously subject to an option agreement dated June 21, 2021, between Orogen and the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary Badger Minerals LLC (the "Option Agreement"). "As evidenced by past surface investigations and exploration drilling, the Kalium Canyon Project has the potential to host epithermal mineralization similar to many other gold discoveries in the Walker Lane," commented Green Light President & CEO Dan Colton. "We are pleased to acquire a 100% interest in the project, providing Green Light with maximum flexibility to advance Kalium Canyon and unlock its value for our shareholders." About the Kalium Canyon Project The Kalium Canyon Project covers 135 unpatented lode mining claims in the Walker Lane district of Nevada where many low sulfidation epithermal gold discoveries in Nevada have been found, including North Bullfrog, C-Horst/Lynnda Strip, Silicon, Eastside, and Goldfield. Locally, the project lies within the Red Mountain district. The Kalium Canyon Project comprises the Argenta prospect and the Kalium Canyon prospect (see Figure 1). A block of 80 "Kalium" claims cover the prospective mineralization system at the Kalium Canyon prospect. To the east, the "Marty" claims that comprise the Argenta prospect were acquired by Orogen from Bridgeport Gold Inc. in June 2021. In December 2021, the Purchaser staked the "GLM" claim block adjoining the east boundary of the Marty claims. These newly staked claims cover the eastern extension of the Argenta prospect. The property covers a total of approximately 2,758 acres (1,117 ha). The undrilled Kalium Canyon prospect is characterized by a 1-2 km long zone of alunite-kaolinite alteration interpreted to be a steam-heated cell. Similar argillic alteration and associated siliceous sinters are found overlying epithermal gold mineralization at the Argenta prospect. Siliceous sinters provide evidence of underlying hydrothermal fluid flow and are an important exploration tool when searching for low-sulfidation epithermal gold mineralization. The character of mineralization at the Argenta prospect is best exemplified by the main mineralized zone historically targeted by exploration, defined initially by Camnor Resources Ltd. in the late 1990s, called the Adit Zone. The Adit Zone refers to an extensive zone of gold bearing quartz veining, breccia and stockwork located in the footwall of a southward dipping, east-northeast trending fault. The host lithology is a variably silicified and argillically altered latite porphyry. Mapping has traced the Adit Zone for 2,000 feet (610 m). In 1947, an 80-foot (24 m) adit was completed that tested a part of the Adit Zone. The adit exposes several parallel quartz veins throughout the zone. Continuous chip sampling of a 167-foot (50.9 m) section of the adit is reported to have returned an average of 1.97 gpt gold. Rock chip samples of the silicified zone exposed in the adit were reported by Camnor Resources to return a value of 3.74 gpt gold across 50 feet (15.2 m). Drilling shows the Adit Zone to be composed of at least two, possibly three, distinct mineralized structures composed of quartz veining and stockwork. The grade of each of these structures and of the Adit Zone itself varies considerably along strike and down-dip. The best intersections occur in the vicinity of the historic adit and include a 270-foot (82.3 m) section averaging 0.86 gpt gold. The historic exploration results indicate that potentially economic gold grades are found over lengths that warrant further exploration for both bulk-tonnage and high-grade precious metal deposits. Furthermore, geologic indicators interpreted to vector toward buried epithermal deposits are present at the Argenta prospect and reported at the Kalium Canyon prospect area. These indicators include host rock alteration and paleosurface features, such as siliceous sinters, commonly interpreted to overlie hydrothermal systems related to epithermal precious metal deposits. The Company has filed on www.sedar.com a technical report titled "Kalium Canyon, Goldfield Quadrangle, Esmeralda County, Nevada, United States of America" with an effective date of January 12, 2022 (the "Kalium Canyon Property Technical Report"). The Kalium Canyon Property Technical Report was prepared by Peter Bittenbender, a "qualified person" as such term is defined in NI 43-101. Figure 1 - Mineralized structures near Kalium Canyon. Geology from Stewart et al (1974) To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7506/138290_351fd5c8442dda0d_001full.jpg Transaction Highlights Pursuant to a Property Purchase Agreement dated September 14, 2022 between Badger Minerals LLC, the Purchaser, the Company, and Orogen (the " PSA "), the Purchaser has acquired the Kalium Canyon Project for C$30,000 in cash and the issuance of 1,000,000 Company common shares. In the event the Company is not listed on a Recognized Canadian Exchange, as such term is defined in the PSA, by September 21, 2024 , the Purchaser shall pay Orogen an additional C$100,000 in cash. The Company will also issue Orogen additional Green Light common shares should the Listing Price, as such term is defined in the PSA, on a Recognized Canadian Exchange be less than $0.40 per Green Light common share. "), the Purchaser has acquired the Kalium Canyon Project for C$30,000 in cash and the issuance of 1,000,000 Company common shares. The Option Agreement has been terminated, eliminating all future work commitments as well as significant future option payments totaling US$1,725,000. Pursuant to a Net Smelter Returns Royalty Agreement between the Purchaser and Orogen dated September 21, 2022, the Purchaser has granted to Orogen up to a 3% NSR (the " Royalty ") on the Kalium Canyon Property. In the case of claims with an existing underlying royalty, the Royalty payable to Orogen will be reduced such that the total royalty on any claim shall not exceed 3%. In the event the Purchaser acquires additional claims within a 1-kilometer wide radius surrounding the perimeter of certain existing Kalium Canyon Project claims (the Kalium and Marty claims as shown in Figure 1), Orogen shall be granted a 3% NSR Royalty on these claims. ") on the Kalium Canyon Property. In the case of claims with an existing underlying royalty, the Royalty payable to Orogen will be reduced such that the total royalty on any claim shall not exceed 3%. In the event the Purchaser acquires additional claims within a 1-kilometer wide radius surrounding the perimeter of certain existing Kalium Canyon Project claims (the Kalium and Marty claims as shown in Figure 1), Orogen shall be granted a 3% NSR Royalty on these claims. The Purchaser has the right to purchase one-third of the Royalty (i.e., an undivided 1% of Net Smelter Returns) at any time by making a cash payment of US$2,000,000. Within 60 days following the Commencement of Commercial Production, the Purchaser will pay Orogen a one-time payment of US$5.00 per ounce of Gold Equivalent, on ounces of Gold Equivalent contained in 8 of the 135 claims (for which, as a result of underlying royalties, the Royalty to Orogen is 0%) based on the NI 43-101 mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates set out in the then current feasibility study relating to the Kalium Canyon property, provided that this production payment shall be capped at a maximum of US$5,000,000. The Purchaser and Orogen will work together to finalize certain post-closing matters in the coming weeks. Qualified Person Statement All technical data, as disclosed in this press release, has been verified by Peter Bittenbender, a "qualified person" as defined under the terms of National Instrument 43-101. ABOUT GREEN LIGHT Green Light's mission is to expand known mineral resources and make new discoveries on one of North America's most prolific yet underexplored volcanogenic massive sulfide ("VMS") greenstone belts - the Penokean Volcanic Belt (the "Belt") in Wisconsin, USA. The Belt's deposits are rich in the clean energy metals copper and zinc, as well as gold, that are required to power the imminent green, low carbon economy. The Company's strategy is to capitalize on its first mover advantage to consolidate, secure, and drill dominant land positions. Green Light is committed to operating in a responsible and sustainable manner that benefits our local communities, bolsters national security, and assists in building and securing crucial US supply chains, all while protecting the environment. The Company has established an Environment, Sustainability, and Communities Committee and is fully committed to transparency, accountability, environmental stewardship, safety and community engagement. The Company's key assets on the Belt are the Reef gold-copper and Bend copper-gold properties, each of which contains known historical resources with the potential for expansion. In addition, with the closing of the amalgamation with Can-America Minerals Inc. on July 25, 2022, the Company now controls two additional prospective properties in Wisconsin - Lobo and Black. Outside of Wisconsin, the Company now owns 100% of the Kalium Canyon property, an exciting epithermal gold prospect located in the Walker Lane district of Nevada. For more information, please contact: Green Light Metals Inc. Dan Colton President & CEO, Director (612) 839-8286 dancolton@greenlightmetals.com David Carew CFO & Corporate Secretary (416) 786-4867 dave@greenlightmetals.com Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "intend", "may", "will", "expect", and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current beliefs or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Actual future results may differ materially. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to the Company. The material facts and assumptions include the potential of the Kalium Canyon Project and the ability to list on a Recognized Canadian Exchanged at the Listing Price on the timelines outlined in the PSA and risk factors including, but not limited to , business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; changes in commodity prices; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to inaccurate geological and engineering assumptions; risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties; risks relating to adverse weather conditions; political risk and social unrest; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; changes in laws (including regulations respecting mining concessions); risks related to the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19 including, but not limited to, its impact on general economic conditions, the ability to obtain financing as required, and causing potential delays to exploration activities; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time. The Company cautions the reader that the above list of risk factors is not exhaustive. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Due to the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward- looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138290 THE teachers strike planned for yesterday appeared to have failed after government claimed it was a flop while unions insisted educators had heeded their call. At a number of schools visited by NewsDay in Harare and other parts of the country, it was business as usual. Last week, teachers unions threatened industrial action after the government failed to meet their United States dollar-denominated salary demand. Their strike had been earmarked to coincide with Grade 7 examinations which began yesterday. Visits to different schools by NewsDay revealed that Grade 7 examinations started yesterday, while teachers reported for duty. Primary and Secondary Education ministry spokesperson Taungana Ndoro said the call for a strike emanated from some teachers unions. That strike was just a very malicious statement by some people who think they can derail the examination process. But what is happening in our schools is that teachers are competing against each other, schools are competing against each other to ensure that their pass rate is very high. This is what we have managed to establish as the Primary and Secondary Education ministry, Ndoro said. However, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Takavafira Zhou said around 38% of teachers across the country did not report for duty. There were few takers of the call, about 38%. The challenge is that some teacher unions decided to wait for a purported meeting today (yesterday). There is certainly a need for a collective approach in confronting the government. All the same, even a wrong action is better than inaction because teachers are wallowing in poverty and the government has deliberately neglected them in order to silence them. As much as many teachers may be physically present in schools, they are mentally absent as they are not conducting meaningful lessons due to poverty and misery, Zhou said. Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe president Obert Masaraure said he would send an update soon on the state of the strike. Educators Union of Zimbabwe (EUZ) vice-president Tapedza Zhou said teachers would not report for duty until their demands were met. The situation in schools is self-telling; the US$25 added to teachers' salaries has no traction, but is just a slap in the face. As EUZ, we call upon the employer to stop gimmicks of adding a mere US$25 to teachers' insignificant salaries to hoodwink the nation that they are doing something about teachers issues when they are not. Learning time is never recoverable. Once lost, it cannot be recovered, he said. Newsday San Francisco, California--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - In a bid to empower parents with the right strategies and tools for the tough but rewarding job called parenting, renowned Family Advocate and founder of the Kahlon Family Services School, Vanessa Kahlon has launched a new book titled How To Do Parenting With Confidence. The book which was released recently is one of the latest efforts by Kahlon to help parents deal with the complexities of parenthood by teaching openness, confidence and flexibility. Parenting with confidence by Vanessa Kahlon To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8744/137174_dd8a88733464bb9b_001full.jpg The book, which is divided into different sections comprising more than 40 guides, comes as another bold statement on the heels of her years of outstanding work in the areas of parenting, child development, and education. Drawing on her experience as a child development specialist and educationist, she has put out a truly practical guide that touches on the core, reflects the ups and downs, and offers an honest guide on ways to navigate the never-ending journey of parenthood. The book underscores the importance of confidence and trust, touching on the need for parents to be open to the many things they can learn from their unique children. "No two children are alike", she writes. "What works for the Burtons, Charltons, or Johnsons may not work for you. So, it's important to keep an open mind, be open to learning, and be flexible enough to try a different approach when one is not working", she adds. Kahlon harps on the idea that the only consistent attribute to successful parenting is learning. This involves learning from one another, learning from challenges, and resisting the pressure of trying to get it right at all times. In How To Do Parenting With Confidence, parents are reminded that there is no magic wand or one-size-fits-all approach to parenting, but that only by opening up to the actions and attitudes of their children can they become better parents. Specific steps to dealing with picky eaters, tantrums, and sleep deprivation, as well as other challenging issues, derived from real-life examples and expert advice, are provided in this thought-provoking, transformative and practical book. The author says the goal is to help parents see challenging situations as opportunities to connect with their children and attain healthy relationships. Kahlon writes with empathy and transparency as she connects with other parents using personal stories and anecdotes, showing how to understand children's temperaments, set limits, teach socio-emotional skills, and show practical ways to deal with children of all age categories. She shows her consistency following the success of her wide-acclaimed book, Shut Up & Parent which sought to help parents manage behavioural struggles. The new book, How To Do Parenting With Confidence takes a more practical approach to show parents how to have honest and progressive conversations with their children. It is available on amazon, kindle, and her website. Media Details- Name: Vanessa Kahlon, MA Company's Name: Kahlon Family Services Position In the Company: Founder & Director Contact: +1 415-847-1961 Location: San Francisco, California To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/137174 TAIPEI, TAIWAN / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Taiwanese battery material manufacturer Aleees (TWSE:5227) and ASX-listed Avenira has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Northern Territory Government of Australia to develop and operate the territory's pilot battery cathode manufacturing facility in Darwin. Aleees and ASX-listed Avenira has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Northern Territory Government of Australia to develop and operate the territory's pilot battery cathode manufacturing facility in Darwin. (Photo via Aleees) The MoU between the trio outlines the final investment decision (FID) on a pilot project by early next year. A significant economic and strategic opportunity for the Northern Territory, the plant will manufacture lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cathode material. The lithium cathode material is a critical active material used within an electric vehicle battery or energy storage battery. It determines the battery's capacity, safety and durability. Government will also work proactively with Aleees Group, Avenira and its supply chain partners to identify a suitable site in Darwin for the facility. Northern Territory chief minister Natasha Fyles expresses that "Increasing demand and the transition to renewable energy, battery storage and use of high technology products has resulted in global organisations looking to establish diversified, reliable and stable supply chains." The Northern Territory Government says with the potential to create 1000 jobs this project will benefit Territorians from the Top End to the Barkly with the manufacturing plant to be built in Darwin, which will exclusively source phosphate from the Wonarah Phosphate Project in the Barkly. Quotes attributed to Brett Clark, Executive Chairman of Avenira Limited "This MOU opens the door for Avenira to learn from Aleees about LFP battery cathode manufacturing technology. We can leverage this experience to optimise the production of phosphoric acid from the Wonarah Project and develop downstream assets to produce Australia's first LFP precursor cathode material." Brandon Chang, head of the Aleees' Australian arm, said this move has the potential to have a "significant impact on strengthening the lithium battery supply chain in the world." This cooperation enhance the development of the lithium battery industry in Australia, promoting green energy high-tech development. "One of the most exciting opportunities created by renewable energy technologies like cathode materials is the ability to change the world's sustainability." It is estimated the project will create 100 jobs, growing up to 1,000 jobs generating more than $4-billion in revenue annually once scaled to full production. About Aleees Aleees (TWSE: 5227), founded in 2005 with main office and factory located in Taiwan, is a lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery material manufacturer with longest history as well as an IP licensor in the world, and is also one of the few companies outside China with complete LFP battery material manufacturing technology and patents. Aleees Taiwan owns more than 120 exclusive patents worldwide, with customers including world-renowned energy storage battery and EV battery customers across Europe, U.S., Japan, Korea, and Asia. At present Aleees co-develops various types of LFP products with more than 40 global customers, and produces high-quality, low-cost, and long-life-cycle LFP cathode materials. In the 17 years since its establishment, it has accumulated more than 15,000 tons of LFP product shipments totally from Taiwan facility. https://www.aleees.com/ Media Contacts: Aleees Chief Investment Officer, Chu, Rui-Yang Tel: +886 3-364-6655 E-mail: paul_chu@alechem.com SOURCE: Advanced Lithium Electrochemistry Co., Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/717411/Aleees-Ink-MoU-with-Avenira-and-Northern-Territory-Government-to-set-up-LFP-Manufacturing-Plant-in-Darwin Over 97% of Colleges and Universities Confirm That BankMobile Vibe is in the Best Interest of Students RADNOR, PA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / BM Technologies, Inc. (NYSE American:BMTX), one of the largest digital banking platforms and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers in the country, announced that over 97% of BMTX college and university partners across the U.S. have provided feedback that they value the BankMobile Vibe Checking Account as an option for their students, and attested that it is in their students' best interest. Due diligence is completed every two years by BMTX college and university partners who review the BankMobile Vibe Checking Account and confirm that the low fees associated with the account are consistent with or below the prevailing market rates. This includes an analysis of the mean and median costs incurred by students who use the BankMobile Vibe Checking Account. It also entails a review of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's "Data Point: Checking Account Overdraft Report" and a comparison of the BankMobile Vibe Checking Account to other accounts from banks such as Wells Fargo, Chase, and Bank of America. Per regulation from the U.S. Department of Education, every two years, schools are required to attest that the account offered by a tier one provider is in the best interest of students. Some of the BMTX college and university partners that have attested to conducting reasonable due diligence include the Austin Community College District, California State University, Bakersfield; California State University, Fresno; Los Angeles Community College District Office, Nassau Community College, SUNY Broome Community College, SUNY College at Oswego, SUNY College at Plattsburgh, SUNY College at Potsdam, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY College of Technology at Canton, SUNY College of Technology at Delhi, SUNY Corning Community College, SUNY Empire State College, SUNY Oneonta, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; and the University of Houston. "It is an honor that the majority of the colleges and universities that we serve report that the BankMobile Vibe Checking Account is in the best interest of their students," said Luvleen Sidhu, Chair, CEO, and Founder of BM Technologies (BMTX). "As a company that invests in the financial education and literacy of students, this vote of confidence is a testament to the financial empowerment and easy to use disbursement and banking products that we provide to colleges and universities across the U.S." BMTX has forged relationships and provides disbursement services at approximately 750 college and university campuses across the country, enabling BMTX to reach one of three college-bound students, introduce them to BMTX, and offer them a choice to open a competitively positioned BankMobile Vibe Checking Account. BMTX is the engine through which several hundred thousand new accounts are opened annually, helping students across the country better save, grow, and manage their money. BMTX has disbursed $13.8B over the last 12 months, with $1.7B of that into BankMobile Vibe Accounts. Additionally, BMTX retained more than 98% of its higher education institutions based on enrollment. Features of the BankMobile Vibe Checking Account include interest-bearing accounts; access to more than 55,000 fee-free Allpoint ATMs; early payday; money management tools; robust mobile apps; and financial wellness. Students who use BankMobile Vibe have access to Passport, the account's recognition program. Users earn stamps for smart money management, academic achievement, and good financial behavior. Every stamp earned also gives them an entry into the Student Success Sweepstakes for a chance to win money to put toward paying off their student loan debt. About BM Technologies, Inc. BM Technologies, Inc. (NYSE American:BMTX) - formerly known as BankMobile-is among the largest digital banking platforms and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers in the country, providing access to checking and savings accounts, personal loans, credit cards, and financial wellness. It is focused on technology, innovation, easy-to-use products, and education with the mission to financially empower millions of Americans by providing a more affordable, transparent, and consumer-friendly banking experience. The BM Technologies (BMTX) digital banking platform employs a multi-partner distribution model, known as "Banking-as-a-Service" (BaaS), that enables the acquisition of customers at higher volumes and substantially lower expenses than traditional banks while providing significant benefits to its customers, partners, and business. BM Technologies (BMTX) currently has approximately two million accounts and provides disbursement services at approximately 750 college and university campuses (covering one out of every three college students in the U.S.). BM Technologies, Inc. (BMTX) is a technology company and is not a bank, which means it provides banking services through its partner bank. More information can be found at www.bmtx.com. BMTX has signed a definitive agreement to merge with First Sound Bank, a Seattle, Washington-based business bank. The combined company will be a fintech-based bank focused on serving customers digitally nationwide. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second half of 2022. SOURCE: BM Technologies, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/717409/BM-Technologies-Incs-BMTX-Student-Focused-Checking-Account-BankMobile-Vibe-Considered-a-Must-Have-on-College-Campuses Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - SoLVBL Solutions Inc. (CSE: SOLV) (OTCQB: SOLBF) ("SoLVBL" or the "Company"), an innovative cybersecurity company that provides immutable data authentication using advanced cryptography on a SaaS based model, is pleased to announce that on September 22, 2022, the Company entered into a technology integration Pilot Agreement (the "Agreement" or the "TIA") with a view to integrate its Q by SoLVBL cybersecurity technology throughout one of the UK's leading distributors of CBD infused health and wellness products, the Healthy Habit Limited (the "Healthy Habit", operating under SurePure, "surepure.co.uk" and NewU "new-u.co.uk" labels). Kaiser Akbar, President & CEO SoLVBL commented "we are pleased to announce our highly anticipated first roll out of the Q by SoLVBL technology. The integration of Q by SoLVBL into Healthy Habit's customer management system and e-commerce platform will showcase our leading-edge cyber security technology. The team at Healthy Habit have been working diligently with our team to understand the need to protect their customer data and for SoLVBL to provide them with a seal of security in their competitive marketplace. We look forward to expanding our footprint in the healthcare vertical, and now markets in Europe - that have been brought to us by our partners at Darkhorse. Having recently announced a potential transaction with Darkhorse, the team there has immediately started to introduce the Q product to their eco systems in Europe and North America, and we look forward to pursuing further sales opportunities with them." James McNichol of The Healthy Habit commented "As a leading online retailer of both CBD infused and non-CBD health and wellness products, we are constantly looking to offer our consumers innovative approaches and technologies. It is clear that enhanced digital security is one of the innovations needed, specifically with regard to our consumers' personal data, so that they can feel more safe and secure when shopping online. After speaking with SoLVBL, we learned that while there is no online retail platform that can be 100% secure from a data breach, the Q software is able to securely encrypt data and can detect any breach. We have made the clear and simple decision to integrate the Q by SoLVBL cybersecurity software across our ecosystem. Especially now, as our group transitions from the private sector into the Public Marketplace, we can now operate our business with the added comfort that should we ever have a cyber or ransomware attack our systems and customer data is without doubt securely protected." About The Healthy Habit Limited The Healthy Habit & Its Group of Companies are committed to improving your health and lifestyle. We operate a "B2B" and digital shop front "DTC" business offering our customers a CBD and non-CBD infused range of premium health and wellness products, both online and instore. Whether it's muscle pain, tiredness or sensitive skin, we aim to enhance your quality of life. Making sure you have confidence in your body is a key focus for us and we are here to help you achieve transformative results. The company offers its consumer base access to purchase a wide range of CBD infused products including CBD oil drops; skin care and edibles, in addition our Non-CBD range includes specialty formulated vitamin patches; premium skin creams and muscle balms. For details, please visit surepure.co.uk or new-u.co.uk. SoLVBL Solutions Inc. SoLVBL is an innovative cybersecurity and data authentication company. The Company's mission is to empower, better, faster decisions by developing a universal standard for establishing digital record authenticity. Q by SoLVBL, is a proprietary technology platform of the Company, designed to be easy to use and adopt, economically priced and provide digital record authentication at very high speed. Q by SoLVBL allows organizations to establish trust in their data. The Company is currently pursuing the following verticals: chain of custody for digital evidence; including, NG-911, data used in the financial sector, medical applications and critical IoT infrastructures. For Further Information, Contact: SoLVBL Solutions Inc. Kaiser Akbar, President & CEO 100 King Street West, Suite 5700 Toronto, ON, M5X 1C7 E: kaiser.akbar@SoLVBL.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. NEITHER THE CSE NOR ITS MARKET REGULATOR (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE CSE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: the ability of the Company to successfully achieve its business objectives, including, the implementation and success of Q by SoLVBL, and expectations for other economic, business and/or competitive, factors. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, SoLVBL assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138418 AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Xtra Energy Corp. (OTC PINK:XTPT) is excited to share that after review of production records, maps, and geological reports on the recently announced acquisition of Arrance Prospect (see 9/20/2022 Company News), promising data on possible reserves were located. What are possible reserves? Possible Reserves represent valuable mineralization not sampled enough to accurately estimate its tonnage and grade, or even verify its existence also called "inferred reserves." Located in a 1970 memorandum and property report by D.L. Evans "consulting geologist"(see July 19th, 1970 Memorandum) Xtra Energy is given detailed guidance on integral Antimony mines that made up the Bernice Canyon, Nevada. Historical data and maps as authored by Geologist D.L. Evans indicates a total of 1,045,000 tons possible in the Arrance Prospect split between a south upper tunnel 20ft wide and lower tunnel 14ft wide. A total of 60,000 tons of that 1,045,000 tons marked as currently developed leaving the bulk behind. This historical evidence makes the ownership of this mine a substantial find. No records of further production have been noted since these 1970 reports leaving Xtra Energy confident this reserve is still present. The historical production records that are accessible for Bernice, Nevada also give great insight into the purchase requirements of ore from this area. The lowest grade of ore purchased was 50% Sb as referenced by the Chapman Smelting Co. of San Francisco, California, the most frequently referenced purchaser of Antimony from claims in Bernice, Nevada see Chapman Smelting Co. History. Using this historical data Xtra Energy projects a possible 985,000 tons at a 50% Sb or higher grade present at its 100% owned Arrance Prospect. Today's average per ton price of Antimony ranges from $1,910.00 - $6,750.00 USD Averaging around $2,900 USD see Antimony Ore Market Report. The XTPT Chairman Mac J. Shahsavar, P. Eng. commented "In our last release I stressed the importance of proving up a portfolio of antimony-rich assets to progress towards partnerships for supply. The Arrance Prospect is accomplishing exactly that with the introduction of an inferred reserve. In conjunction with progressing this reserve towards an indicated status we will strive to locate the many other antimony deposits hidden within the Bernice Mining District. The inferred reserve will also enable Xtra Energy to begin discussions with the appropriate parties for partnerships to develop and supply Antimony ore." *Arrance Prospect index map from 1970 memorandum. *ore reserves for the Arrance Prospect from 1970 memorandum *Conclusions from 1970 memorandum Contact & Learn More: Xtra Energy Corporation Phone: 512-412-3636 Corporate Website: https://americanantimony.com/ Corporate Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xtra-energy-corp/ Corporate Twitter: https://twitter.com/xtra_corp Corporate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xtraenergycorp/ About Xtra Energy Corp. Xtra Energy Corp. is an antimony exploration company focused on developing its flagship project "American Antimony". Known in historical records as the "Antimony King Mine" located approximately 31 miles northeast of Eastgate, Nevada. Xtra Energy Corp. holds a 100% ownership in a 40 lode claim, 825 acre antimony project surrounding the historical Antimony King and covering several documented antimony producers. The Company is seeking to develop this portfolio of potentially antimony-rich assets to become a major supplier of antimony based products. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements relate to future events, including our ability to raise capital, or to our future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond our control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects our current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to our operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. We assume no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see our filings with the OTC Markets Group Inc. Our public filings with the OTC Markets Group Inc are available from commercial document retrieval services and at the website maintained by the OTC Markets at https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/XTPT/disclosure. SOURCE: Xtra Energy Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/717422/Xtra-Energy-Corp-Announces-Review-of-Historical-Data-Indicating-Potential-Significant-High-Grade-Reserve-of-Antimony-Present-at-the-Arrance-Prospect-Historical-reports-Indicate-an-Approximate-ONE-Million-Tons-of-Inferred-Reserve-with-Purity-over-50 -Actylis Integrates Aceto and its 10 Acquired Specialists with Broad Expertise in GMP and Non-GMP Raw Material Manufacturing and Sourcing into a Singular Global Brand- -Unique Hybrid Model Provides Unparalleled Flexibility for Individualized, Customer-Centric Ingredient Solutions Along with Exceptional Supply Chain Dependability- -Brings Decades of Deep Expertise and Intimate Customer Knowledge to Pharmaceuticals, Biopharmaceuticals, Nutrition, Cosmetics, Agriculture, and Specialty Chemicals Markets- Actylis, a leading global manufacturer and sourcing expert of critical raw materials and performance ingredients for the life sciences and specialty chemicals markets, made its debut today. The new company combines Aceto and 10 industry specialists into an integrated global ingredient powerhouse. Actylis ("Ac-till-iss") is the culmination of an ambitious initiative launched several years ago to address the major unmet need for better and more dependable access to critical raw materials and performance ingredients essential for the manufacture of highly regulated products in key industries. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005021/en/ To achieve this goal, Actylis has integrated leading specialty ingredient manufacturing and sourcing companies, including A&C, A&C Bio Buffer, Aceto, Biotron Laboratories, Cascade Chemistry, Finar, Inter-Actifs, IsleChem, Pharma Waldhof, Syntor Fine Chemicals and Talus into one company. Their breadth of capabilities enables Actylis' unique hybrid manufacturing and sourcing model, which provides key benefits to its customers in high-growth end markets, including pharmaceuticals, agriculture, cosmetics, nutrition and specialty chemicals. Gilles Cottier, Chief Executive Officer of Actylis, said: "Today we are introducing Actylis, an entirely new and transformed company designed for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Actylis unites multiple industry specialists with a wide range of capabilities into a new, global enterprise with a unique hybrid approach that is greater than the sum of its parts. This consolidation enables us to offer customers across diverse locations and industries highly flexible, customized solutions addressing their specific needs, while assuring reliable on-time delivery of the high-quality ingredients essential to their success." Rakesh Sachdev, Chairman of the Board of Actylis, added: "The Actylis brand is inspired by the Latin terms for 'act' and 'life'. It reflects our commitment to action in bringing life to everything we do. Our company tag line, 'The Partner of Choice', represents our unique hybrid model of manufacturing and sourcing. Actylis brings together our combined broad competencies, intimate knowledge of customers' needs, consultative perspective, and focus on innovation and quality to provide unparalleled choice and flexibility to our customers. The supply challenges of the past few years have made our vision for Actylis especially relevant, and we are proud to help our customers dependably manufacture the life-giving products we all rely on." Andre Moura, Managing Director at New Mountain Capital, the lead shareholder of Actylis, added: "Through our longstanding efforts in the life sciences materials sector, we identified an opportunity to build a new leader in the supply of specialty ingredients to life sciences and other regulated end markets. Built through significant organic and inorganic investments over the last three years, Actylis now has the scale and broad capability set to meet the needs of demanding customers for the reliable supply of innovative, high-quality products. We are excited to continue investing in Actylis as the company continues to grow." Actylis was created from the merger of eight specialty manufacturing companies and three sourcing firms, integrated into a single enterprise with more than 850 staff with intimate, in-depth knowledge of every segment they serve. Actylis has a presence in 10 countries spanning three continents and offers more than 4,000 products. With over 75 years of manufacturing and sourcing experience and a portfolio of GMP and non-GMP manufacturing facilities across multiple regions, Actylis offers customers the flexibility to choose from a wide range of individualized solutions, all backed by the same world-class quality, supply chain reliability and regulatory expertise. Its capabilities encompass the entire R&D, product development and manufacturing spectrum, including technical sales support, R&D, manufacturing and production, quality, supply chain, global sourcing, and regulatory compliance. Actylis' expert procurement teams, which are strategically located in centers of excellence in key regions across North America, Europe and Asia, represent a major resource for their customers, facilitating product customization and seamlessly addressing customers' needs. For more information, visit www.actylis.com. About Actylis Actylis is a leading global manufacturer and supplier of differentiated specialty ingredients to life sciences and specialty chemicals end markets. With business operations in 10 countries, Actylis manufactures and supplies over 4,000 chemical compounds used principally by the pharmaceutical, nutritional, agricultural and specialty chemical industries. Building on a series of strategic acquisitions, Actylis has integrated their manufacturing, R&D, quality and sourcing capabilities to create a worldwide supplier of critical raw materials that includes a robust manufacturing footprint. Its global operations include a significant presence on the ground in North America, Europe, India, and China. Actylis is well positioned to innovate new solutions, ensure quality and customize products to meet customers' specific needs. Its expanded capabilities and decades of global sourcing expertise are especially valuable now that supply chain management is a critical strategic issue for companies worldwide. For more information, visit www.actylis.com. About New Mountain Capital New Mountain Capital is a New York-based investment firm that emphasizes business building and growth, rather than debt, as it pursues long-term capital appreciation. The firm currently manages private equity, credit, and net lease real estate funds with over $37 billion in assets under management. New Mountain seeks out what it believes to be the highest quality leaders in carefully selected "defensive growth" industry sectors and works intensively with management to build the value of these companies. Additional information about New Mountain Capital is available at www.newmountaincapital.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005021/en/ Contacts: Media: Charya Wickremasinghe, Ph.D. Brandwidth Solutions cwickremasinghe@brandwidthsolutions.com Gearoid O'Rourke Actylis gorourke@actylis.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will crash into an asteroid on Monday as part of an experiment to see how difficult it would be to deviate an earth-bound sizeable space rock to prevent it from hitting the planet. At 7:14 p.m. ET on Monday, DART will intentionally crash into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos, to slightly change its motion in space. The demonstration, which is taking place about 11 million kilometers away, poses no threat to Earth, NASA says. This is the world's first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft, for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards. This test will show a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it to change the asteroid's motion in a way that can be measured using ground-based telescopes. DART will provide important data to help better prepare for an asteroid that might pose an impact hazard to Earth, should one ever be discovered. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, manages the DART mission for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency's Planetary Missions Program Office. Live coverage of DART's impact with the asteroid Dimorphos will start on NASA TV and the U.S. space agency's website at 6 p.m. ET. The public also can watch it live on NASA's social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. 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. EQS-Ad-hoc: Jungheinrich AG / Schlagwort(e): Prognoseanderung/Prognoseanderung Jungheinrich AG: Jungheinrich konkretisiert Prognose fur 2022 23.09.2022 / 15:44 CET/CEST Veroffentlichung einer Insiderinformation nach Artikel 17 der Verordnung (EU) Nr. 596/2014, ubermittelt durch EQS - ein Service der EQS Group AG. Fur den Inhalt der Mitteilung ist der Emittent / Herausgeber verantwortlich. Jungheinrich konkretisiert Prognose fur 2022 Der Vorstand der Jungheinrich AG konkretisiert seine Prognose fur das Jahr 2022 vom 24. Marz 2022 und liegt damit uber der gegenwartigen Markterwartung. Der Jungheinrich Konzern konnte im 3. Quartal des laufenden Jahres die bislang robuste Geschaftsentwicklung des 1. Halbjahres 2022 unvermindert fortsetzen. Ferner wurden Produktionsstillstande durch gezieltes Lieferkettenmanagement bisher weitgehend vermieden. Jungheinrich erwartet nunmehr fur das Jahr 2022 einen Auftragseingang zwischen 4,6 Mrd. und 4,9 Mrd. (bisher: leicht unter Vorjahr, 2021: 4,9 Mrd. ). Der Konzernumsatz durfte sich innerhalb einer Bandbreite von 4,6 Mrd. bis 4,8 Mrd. bewegen (bisher: leicht uber Vorjahr, 2021: 4,2 Mrd. ). Das Ergebnis vor Finanzergebnis und Ertragsteuern (EBIT) wird nach aktueller Einschatzung zwischen 340 Mio. und 380 Mio. liegen (bisher: deutlich unter Vorjahr, 2021: 360 Mio. ). Dementsprechend wird eine EBIT-Rendite innerhalb einer Bandbreite von 7,2 Prozent bis 8,0 Prozent erwartet (bisher: deutlich niedriger als Vorjahr, 2021: 8,5 Prozent). Das Ergebnis vor Steuern (EBT) durfte 305 Mio. bis 345 Mio. erreichen (bisher: deutlich unter Vorjahr, 2021: 349 Mio. ). Die EBT-Rendite soll zwischen 6,5 Prozent und 7,3 Prozent liegen (bisher: deutlich niedriger als Vorjahr, 2021: 8,2 Prozent). Der Vorstand geht von einem ROCE zwischen 14,0 Prozent und 17,0 Prozent (bisher: deutlich unter Vorjahr, 2021: 20,2 Prozent) aus. Die mit Wirkung zum 30. Juni 2022 eingefuhrte Steuerungskennzahl Free Cashflow soll unverandert einen gegenuber dem Vorjahr deutlich negativen Wert (2021: 89 Mio. ) erreichen. Diese konkretisierte Prognose basiert auf der Annahme, dass es bis zum Jahresende nicht zu erheblichen Produktionsunterbrechungen kommt und Lieferketten weitgehend intakt bleiben. Es kann nach wie vor nicht ausgeschlossen werden, dass eine Verknappung von Gas zu gravierenden Einschrankungen in der Produktion fuhren kann. Die Quartalsmitteilung der Jungheinrich AG zum 30. September 2022 wird am 11. November 2022 veroffentlicht. Presse-Ruckfragen bitte an: Dr. Benedikt Nufer, Pressesprecher Tel.: +49 40 6948-3489 Mobil: +49 151 27791245 benedikt.nufer@jungheinrich.de Ruckfragen von Analysten/Investoren bitte an: Andrea Bleesen, Leiterin Investor Relations Tel.: +49 40 6948-3407 andrea.bleesen@jungheinrich.de 23.09.2022 CET/CEST Die EQS Distributionsservices umfassen gesetzliche Meldepflichten, Corporate News/Finanznachrichten und Pressemitteilungen. Medienarchiv unter https://eqs-news.com Key topics at the Open RAN Summit Fyuz 2022 brought by the O-RAN ALLIANCE O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022 initiated at 6 venues across Asia, Europe and North America 36 new demos of O-RAN technology at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition O-RAN ALLIANCE: Key topics at the Open RAN Summit Fyuz 2022 brought by the O-RAN ALLIANCE The Open RAN Summit Fyuz, powered by O-RAN ALLIANCE and Telecom Infra Project, will take place in Madrid on October 25-26, 2022. As a main partner of the event, O-RAN ALLIANCE brings key topics to the agenda and invites utmost erudite speakers. Join the event to get the latest news and views on: O-RAN ALLIANCE and TIP cooperation Established operators worldwide showcasing how they are overcoming Open RAN challenges and moving forward with deployments Open RAN cloudification options and realities Achievements and challenges on the open RAN supply side, along with insights into value chain evolution Rich variety of Open RAN deployment paths tailored to meet diverse operator's needs How the testing and integration work is critical to making Open RAN a success What's behind the hype of the RAN Intelligent Controllers and how an empowered ecosystem delivers customized operator value And many more in a wide range of breakout sessions The Open RAN Summit Fyuz is being prepared in an attractive way combining focused sessions with food experience. Register and learn more at www.fyuz.events. O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022 initiated at 6 venues across Asia, Europe and North America O-RAN ALLIANCE global PlugFests represent a major platform enabling efficient progress of the O-RAN ecosystem through well-organized testing and integration. O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022, second O-RAN PlugFest this year, has been initiated at 6 venues. Number of registrations currently exceeds 80 companies or institutions, of which many are ready to participate at more than one venue. O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022 is scheduled to conclude in December this year. Upon then, O-RAN plans to add its results, including the final list of participants, to the O-RAN PlugFest Virtual Showcase. O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022 comprises: In Asia: PlugFest in Japan, hosted by KDDI, NTT DOCOMO, Rakuten Mobile, SoftBank, YRP and YRPC currently counts 14 registered participants including: Anritsu, Calnex Solutions, ComWorth, DZS, HCL Technologies, IP Infusion, ITRI, Keysight Technologies, LITEON, MiTAC Computing Technology, NEC, SageRAN Technology, VIAVI Solutions and Wind River. PlugFest in South Korea hosted by LG Uplus currently counts 7 registered participants including: Ciena, DELL Technologies, ETRI, Innowireless, Juniper Networks, Keysight Technologies and Viettel High Technology Industries. PlugFest in South Korea hosted by SK Telecom currently counts 10 registered participants including: ETRI, Intel, HFR Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Keysight Technologies and Wind River. In Europe: Joint European O-RAN and TIP PlugFest, hosted by Deutsche Telekom, EANTC, EURECOM, Orange, TIM, Vodafone and BT, currently counts 36 registered participants including: Aarna Networks, Acceleran, ADVA Optical Networking, AMD, Analog Devices, Anritsu, Azcom Technology, Calnex Solutions, Capgemini Engineering, Dell Technologies, DZS, Fujitsu, HCL Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IP Infusion, ITRI, Juniper Networks, Keysight Technologies, LITEON, Mavenir, MICAS, Microamp Solutions, NEC, Net AI, Nokia, Open Valley, Precision Optical Transceivers, Red Hat, Rimedo Labs, Rohde Schwarz, SIAE MICROELETTRONICA, SOLiD, VIAVI Solutions, VoerEir, Wind River, VMware and Xena Networks. In North America: PlugFest in North America, hosted by CableLabs, currently counts 6 registered participants including: Capgemini, Fujitsu, Radisys, Rohde Schwarz, Sunwave and VIAVI Solutions. PocFest in North America, hosted by UNH-IOL, currently counts 15 registered participants including: Analog Devices, Anritsu, DZS, Fujitsu, Intel, IP Infusion, Keysight Technologies, LitePoint, NEC, Rohde Schwarz, SOLiD, VIAVI Solutions, Telecom Engineering Centre, Vodafone and Wind River. 36 new demos of O-RAN technology at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition O-RAN ALLIANCE member companies have been progressing with their O-RAN based implementations. One demonstration will be presented on-site at MWC Las Vegas: VIAVI Solutions, Rohde Schwarz and AMD jointly demonstrate O-RAN Open Fronthaul (OFH) conformance and 3GPP pre-conformance validation of AMD's reference design O-RU. The AMD O-RU is validated by VIAVI automated TM500 O-RU Tester with R&S SMW200A vector signal generator, R&S FSVA3000 spectrum analyzer and the R&S VSE signal analysis software. The demonstration highlights a progressive test plan including functional, interoperability, conformance and performance testing, with a single point of control for the entire testbed. Visit the demo at AMD,booth W1.720 More new demonstrations will soon be available at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition. Newly added Intelligent RAN control demonstrations include: AirHop and VMware demonstrate how automation and programmability efficiently detect and remediate PCI collisions/confusions to optimize RAN performance. The proposal is a solution to current RAN frequency planning, conflict mitigation and optimization methods which are costly and time-consuming, slowing deployment of new services and decreasing performance of existing ones. Cellwize and VMware demonstrate how to bring programmability to any type of RAN deployment, including purpose-built RANs. As an example, we demonstrate how Cellwize's rApp onboarded on VMware Centralized RIC optimizes EN-DC anchoring to maximize spectral usage in purpose-built RANs; leading to monetizable gains in performance. Cohere and VMware demonstrate how using RAN programmability, operators can double mobile bandwidth without any changes to antennas, radio or devices. Using Cohere's Spectrum Multiplier xApp powered by VMware Distributed RIC, now Services Providers can activate broadband in rural areas while avoiding costly changes in handsets or infrastructure. Ericsson demonstrates how CSPs can enhance customer experience with SMO and rApps. Ericsson FLM (Frequency Layer Manager) rApp running on the EIAP (Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform) manages the complexity of traffic load distribution in 4G/5G RAN deployments. It automatically configures the network in order to provide the best customer experience while reducing OpEx and optimizing spectral usage. Groundhog demonstrates O-CLOUD and Intelligent RAN control using CovMo, a cloud-native geo-location solution that detects and mitigate a multitude of challenges currently faced by MNOs including RAN-optimization, VIP-care, and next-generation network rollout strategies. Combining superior accuracy and geo-KPIs, CovMo intelligently provides critical insights on the QoS experienced by the subscribers. Inventec and NYCU showcase how to integrate the O-RAN SMO with the factory and academic fields as a first step to realizing digital twins with a painless upgrade of a 5G vertical ecosystem from a system integration perspective. NYCU demonstrates an academic 5G O-RAN field and SMO/xAPP validation platform in Taiwan. It is built for enhancement to AI algorithms for 5G O-RAN Private Networks, develop B5G technology, training, use case, B5G/6G Research, implementation of the PoC application and third party verification based on ISO 17025 standard. Polte and VMware demonstrate how to leverage RAN programmability to deliver precise sub-meter UE positioning. Using cellular as prime technology (as opposed to GPS or Wi-Fi), Polte's xApp powered by VMware's Near-Real-time RIC offers global location indoors/outdoors, while lowering cost and extending battery life of the IoT asset tracker. VIAVI demonstrates how multiple xApps can work together to improve the user experience of UEs (standing, walking, and driving) after an anomaly in the radio environment has negatively affected their data throughput. VMware and Intel demonstrate how simple it is for xApp partners to use Intel FlexRAN E2SM-KPM and E2SM-RC libraries integrated in VMware Distributed RIC's code to monitor, control and optimize the performance of a set of UEs distributed in a sector. Newly added Open RAN demonstrations include: Anritsu demonstrates O-RAN open fronthaul conformance test. A O-RU transmitters and receivers characteristics are tested by Anritsu signal analyzer and generator. This demonstration highlights how to perform certainly and efficiently specified tests and other realistic test scenarios to accelerate installation and scaling of Open RAN. ArrayComm showcases its 5G Distributed Small Cell, a flexible 5G coverage solution with low power consumption. It includes white box BBU, Fronthaul Gateway, and O-RU. The BBU supports 2 FHGW connections, each FHGW supports maximum 12 O-RU connections. The 5G SA E2E demo shows the high performance and stability testing with measured large uplink throughputs, with networking of BBU, FHGW and O-RU as 1:2:2. ArrayComm demonstrates its 5G Distributed Small Cell E2E capability based on a Marvell platform white box base station. O-RAN Option7.2x eCPRI Fronthaul interface and SCF FAPI are used by the white box base station which can be widely used in the capacity coverage improvement scenarios, and can be easily deployed as cloud RAN. Azcom Technology showcases an O-RAN based Multi-RAT 5G RU reference design, the AZR-5000 RU. The reference can also be utilized for initial 5G network field trials or integration purposes. CIG, Actiontec and Keysight Technologies participated in the O-RAN ALLIANCE PlugFest to demonstrate Open Fronthaul functionality between CIG O-RU and Keysight O-DU Emulator. DeepSig demonstrates its OmniPHY-5G Neural Receiver Software improving the 5G uplink capacity and throughput while improving the energy efficiency of the O-RAN O-DU. This demonstration uses a commercial UE over-the-air and a RIC xApp to provide online training to improve key air interface KPIs and performance. Infosys demonstrates the architecture of its O-RAN solution for Private 5G, integration, end-to-end testing with Keysight's emulated UE, and onboarding of Industry 4.0 use cases for enterprises. IS-Wireless showcases a Multi MNO scenario supported in the form of a Neutral Host. The end-to-end Open RAN network is deployable on any cloud in an automated manner as containers and supports both Open Fronthaul Split 7.2x and 3GPP split 2. GDCNi demonstrates its O-RAN based disaggregated solution and deployment models, achieving interoperability with multiple vendors using O-RAN Open Interfaces. GDCNi's ecosystem includes a variety of flexible features and deployment options (RU, DU, RU+DU, CU+RU+DU, and CU+DU+RU+5GC) enabling an E2E product solution to meet the different demands of customers. Keysight Technologies and Cisco demonstrate O-RAN Xhaul transport network test solution consisting of Open RAN distributed units (O-DU) and Open RAN radio units (O-RU) emulation (IxNetwork Novus) to validate SRv6 uSID-based transport network elements' performance, benchmarking latency characteristics of fronthaul traffic under real-world conditions specified by the O-RAN WG9: Open X-haul Transport Work Group. Which enables 5G success with robust Xhaul Transport Infrastructure. Keysight Technologies showcases 5G deployment readiness testing with its Network Emulator 3. O-RAN deployments, consisting of Open RAN distributed units (O-DU) and Open RAN radio units (O-RU), are required to conform to stringent latency, delay variation and timing constraints. Keysight's Network Emulator 3 reproduces real-world network behavior, is used to test O-RAN conformance and interoperability, and validates application stability, SLA and performance under sub-optimal network conditions. Keysight Technologies showcases IxVerify 5G O-RAN, a pre-silicon testing solution in emulation focused on O-RU system-on-chip (SoC) designs. The ability to send O-RAN compliant testing stimulus into the emulated O-RU design ensures robust testing of the beamforming, precoding, decompression and iFFT blocks matching post-deployment real-life scenarios. Keysight Technologies and the University of Utah integrated Keysight's RICtest O-RAN Near-Real-Time RIC test software into Utah's POWDER "lab as a service" automation framework. This integration provides a powerful cloud-native platform for O-RAN testing that supports automatic, on-demand, workflow-driven test and validation of O-RAN Near-Real-Time RICs and xApps. Lenovo presents realistic testbed environment for project design and experimentations with support for Machine Learning based solutions. This emulation platform provides KPIs to the Near-RT RIC using Mininet-WiFi emulator, following O-RAN architecture and specifications. LIONS showcases their O-RU interworking with a third-party RAN (O-DU/O-CU) using the Open Fronthaul conformance and performance specifications. Five use cases are demonstrated. Two cases are for O-RU/Open Fronthaul covering CUS-Plane. The other three cases are for O-RAN end-to-end covering performance at different cell locations, connecting to commercial 5G core network, and under mobility of UE. Picocom demonstrates O-RAN split 7.2 architecture interoperability milestone with Picocom's PC802 SoC, boards and PHY software, together with Radisys' Connect RAN 5G stack software. Picocom's silicon features both the O-DU and O-RU, connecting over the O-RAN Open Fronthaul Interface in this end-to-end demo. Reign, a new HTC subsidiary, demonstrates Open RAN Stack and Open Interface using portable 5G private network solution (REIGN CORE) powered several experiences at Mobile World Congress, including a scaled-down example of driving cars remotely, AI-based 5G security camera system, and cloud VR streaming to HTC VIVE Focus 3 simultaneously on the same private 5G network. Second part is validation of result of O-RAN E2E Test Specification (O-RAN.TIFG.E2E-Test) using VIAVI testing equipment. SageRAN demonstrates a complete O-RAN white box small cell solution that is based on an x86 platform with an FPGA Accelerator card that showcases a stand-alone end-to-end use case using white box hardware for an indoor cell, which supports MIMO and all 4T4R. VIAVI Solutions demonstrates O-RAN Open Fronthaul performance testing of a real O-RU, which is complementary to conformance testing. A customer O-RU is validated over the 3GPP Physical Layer using the VIAVI TM500 O-RU Tester in conjunction with the TMLite UE emulation to demonstrate that the best performance can be obtained from the O-RU. This significantly increases the success rate of integration with a real O-DU and End-to-End testing at later stages. Viettel showcases its newest O-RAN demo towards the future of 5G called Massive MIMO 32T32R. This demo tests the 5G commercial UE OTA with Viettel 5G NSA gNodeB, which runs in Intel X86 COTS Server integrated with Viettel Outdoor Macro O-RU 32T32R, all built on O-RAN Category B architecture. UE speed test give DL: 1066 Mbps (4 Layer) and UL: 60.8 Mbps (1 Layer). Viettel showcases an end-to-end Macro 8T8R system based on O-RAN Open Fronthaul. This integrated system is verified using a commercial UE/sim card, Viettel's public network, UE Emulator from VIAVI, support SU-MIMO 4T4R up to 1.7Gbps for downlink and 150Mbps for uplink. Viettel showcases a 5G commercial UE with Viettel 5G NSA gNodeB, which is running Viettel's CU/DU software on the same Intel x86 server and integrated with Viettel's Mirco O-RU, all built on the O-RAN IP/UDP architecture. The O-DU and O-RU are connected through a transport network. This is the first step on the way to Viettel's C-RAN solution. Wind River showcases a demonstration of CNF orchestration into a distributed cloud by the SMO over the O-RAN O2 interface. The Wind River Studio Conductor acting as an SMO communicates with the Wind River Studio Cloud Platform which is distributed cloud via O-RAN O2 interfaces. Wiwynn teams up with Intel and WNC to bring the benefit of 5G to AOI and AMR applications and solve the factory automation pain point. Wiwynn's O-RAN based 5G SA Sub-6 O-DU and O-CU solution running on Wiwynn EP100 fulfills the requirements of O-DU/O-CU and reduces the setup efforts. WNC demonstrates an O-RAN end-to-end system, with O-CU/O-DU running on a Wiwynn x86 server, supporting NG Backhaul, F1 Midhaul and 10GbE eCPRI Fronthaul. The O-RU is a Sub-6 indoor picocell (4T4R with 24dBm output power per channel). The same system passed the third O-RAN PlugFest interoperability test and is currently deployed in a 5G private network belonging to a large telecom operator in Taiwan. About O-RAN ALLIANCE The O-RAN ALLIANCE is a world-wide community of more than 320 mobile operators, vendors, and research academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. As the RAN is an essential part of any mobile network, the O-RAN ALLIANCE's mission is to re-shape the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks. The new O-RAN specifications enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve user experience. O-RAN based mobile networks at the same time improve the efficiency of RAN deployments as well as operations by the mobile operators. To achieve this, the O-RAN ALLIANCE publishes new RAN specifications, releases open software for the RAN, and supports its members in integration and testing of their implementations. For more information, please visit www.o-ran.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005689/en/ Contacts: O-RAN ALLIANCE PR Contact Zbynek Dalecky pr@o-ran.org O-RAN ALLIANCE e.V. Buschkauler Weg 27 53347 Alfter/Germany Utility and industry participants striving to improve energy resourcefulness through edge intelligence-enabled applications SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Frost & Sullivan is pleased to announce Tampa Electric Company (TEC) and Warren County Water District, Simpson County District, and Butler County Water System as recipients of its seventh annual Excellence in Resourcefulness Awards in collaboration with Itron. The awards, which were presented today at Itron Inspire 2022, recognize utilities and municipalities using innovative products and services to minimize electric, gas, and water waste. Winner in the energy category, Tampa Electric Company has taken a highly strategic and methodical approach to executing a successful transition to clean energy. For example, TEC's Energy Planner Program is an automated price-based demand response program. These technologies consist of Itron's GenX load control switch, IntelliSOURCE Enterprise, and smart metering solutions. Customers can expect to see as high as 10 percent of savings on their electric bill while allowing the utility to shed as much as 3.1 kW during winter peak and 2.0 kW during summer peak since 2008. "Parallel to this highly successful program, Tampa Electric Company is investing in the future by monetizing its $500 million advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) investment further by rolling out outcome-oriented distributed intelligence applications from Itron aimed at decarbonization and climate resiliency. All the apps are powered by distributed intelligence, which allows Tampa Electric Company to effectively use real-time data at the edge," noted Farah Saeed, Research | Director Energy & Environment Growth Advisory at Frost & Sullivan. "Roll out of these highly sophisticated IoT systems requires collaborating with a highly innovative technology solution provider such as Itron that not only has many decades of grid modernization projects under its belt but also holds the highest number of peer and customer recognized IoT-enabled platforms." Winner in the water category, three counties in Kentucky comprising 40,800 residential, agricultural, commercial, and industrial customers throughout 2,110 miles of distribution main - Warren County Water District, Simpson County District, and Butler County Water - joined forces to improve water resourcefulness. According to a report produced by Kentucky Water Resource Information system (WRIS), non-revenue water loss in the state was about 24% in 2018, by far exceeding the national average of 16 percent. Causes for this level of loss consisted of water main breaks and leaks, inaccurate meter reads, and water line flushing, among other issues. To address this problem, the counties deployed automated meter readings (AMR) and AMI across their territories. "Parallel to this project, WSB also installed 13,600 Itron acoustic leak sensors that are seamlessly integrated with the AMR and AMI system," Saeed stated. "Since the commencement of this project, the three counties combined have been able to detect 371 leaks (equivalent to 76 million gallons of water) and have been able to notify 916 customers about leakage problems at the customer end. These would have otherwise gone undetected without investments in AMR and AMI. In return, savings from non-revenue water can used for financing further infrastructure development that will serve the community as a whole." As part of the selection process, Frost & Sullivan conducted in-depth research and interviews and evaluated utilities against industry best practices and the decision criteria, including societal impact and business impact for each category. Indicators for societal impact included improving customer awareness and participation, enabling behavioral change to reduce waste through customer engagement and technology-driven programs, and yielding impressive waste reduction results that benefit the overall served community. Indicators for business impact included drafting a clear vision to address excessive waste through technology implementation, achieving operational effectiveness as a result of a successful strategy for sustainability, and strengthening a utility's brand image as a leader for sustainability. About Frost & Sullivan For over six decades, Frost & Sullivan has helped build sustainable growth strategies for Fortune 1000 companies, governments, and investors. We apply actionable insights to navigate economic changes, identify disruptive technologies, and formulate new business models to create a stream of innovative growth opportunities that drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion About Itron Itron enables utilities and cities to safely, securely, and reliably deliver critical infrastructure services to communities in more than 100 countries. Our portfolio of smart networks, software, services, meters and sensors helps our customers better manage electricity, gas and water resources for the people they serve. By working with our customers to ensure their success, we help improve the quality of life, ensure the safety and promote the well-being of millions of people around the globe. Itron is dedicated to creating a more resourceful world. Join us: www.itron.com. Itron is a registered trademark of Itron, Inc. All third-party trademarks are property of their respective owners and any usage herein does not suggest or imply any relationship between Itron and the third party unless expressly stated. Contact: Nicole Ryder Corporate Communications E: Nicole.Ryder@frost.com https://www.frost.com/ View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/frost--sullivan-honors-tampa-electric-company-and-warren-simpson--butler-county-water-districts-with-itron-excellence-in-resourcefulness-awards-301633367.html The World's first Electric Motorcycle with built in Solar Panels goes on sale today. SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / The Spy Motorcycle - The World's first electric motorcycle with built in solar panels, goes on sale today. The Spy Motorcycle looks straight out of a futuristic sci-fi movie, with a 125 mile range on a single charge, 40mph top speed, and six hour charging time. The electric motorcycle has built in solar panels that connect directly to the battery, allowing the owner to charge the battery by letting it sit outside in the sun. "The average car ride is less than six miles, and the majority of those rides are just one person in the car. With gas prices rising, and most people using these giant vehicles just to run errands to the grocery store, gym, or their friend's house, it is a massive waste of energy and we wanted to create something that would get them there safely and without the need of gas," Dylan Welch, CEO of Spy Motorcycles shares. The Spy Motorcycle is the perfect mix of an e-bike, a vespa, and a Ducati. It has more power than an e-bike, but a similar ease of use. It is about the size of a vespa, making it easy to ride for men and women, particularly for people who don't want a big loud motorcycle, and it has the sexy look of a sleek Ducati. "Our goal is to transform the way we move around cities and reduce the need for gas and oil. This is about making America the leader in electric vehicle and electric motorcycle transportation," Dylan Welch, CEO of Spy Motorcycles, shares. While there are other electric motorcycles on the market, none of them have implemented the built in solar panels for charging. The Spy Electric Motorcycle has a top speed of 40 mph, specifically because it is meant for driving around cities and for short trips to maximize safety. "Other electric motorcycle companies brag that their top speed is in the 180s and 190s. We want the opposite of that. No one on the planet needs to go 190 on a motorcycle, that is how accidents happen. Our goal is to give the average person a safe, easy way to ride around their neighborhood and city without having to spend exorbitant amounts of money on gas or risk their health and safety," Dylan Welch, CEO of Spy Motorcycles shares. Today, The Spy Motorcycle will take orders for the first 100 motorcycles, with delivery estimated to take four months. Click Here for Photos of the Spy Electric Motorcycle About Spy Motorcycles Spy Motorcycles is an electric motorcycle company based in San Diego, California. The company's goal is to provide the average person with an easy to ride electric motorcycle that is safe and fun to ride. Spy Motorcycles has offices in San Diego. Press Contact Dylan Welch Dylan@DylanWelch.com 518-248-4498 SOURCE: Dylan Welch Media, LLC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/717480/The-Tesla-Of-Electric-Motorcycles-Launches-Today HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- "Hangzhou Expats", a series of videos depicting the lives of foreigners in Hangzhou, become a hot topic on a group of social media accounts of Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism. The compelling short videos, aiming to showcase Hangzhou's inclusiveness, has garnered a large number of views on the Facebook, Instagram and YouTube platforms. Romanian entrepreneur Ileana Maier said living in Hangzhou is like living in the future. For Benjamin Saltzman, a teacher from Los Angeles, Hangzhou is the perfect combination of tradition and modernity. They all have their own reasons to live in Hangzhou, according to "Hangzhou Expats". Taking the Hangzhou lifestyle as its backdrop, the eight-episode video series showed how foreigners view the city, and their passionate living experiences in the city. Tosimitsu Takao, an IT technician from Japan, has lived in Hangzhou for 5 years. He was occasionally invited to join in a Hangzhou-based Chinese-Japanese band. During his training and performances, he made many friends sharing similar musical taste. Takao also discovered a Japanese bar where he could grab a drink after work. " Gaining weight with friends" is the "evidence" of his happiness Hangzhou life. Canadian rock climber Joe Langwald married a Hangzhou girl and has lived in Hangzhou for 20 years. He has spent 10 years developing Lion's Head Mountain into the largest climbing area for both bouldering and sport climbing base in eastern China. Langwald loves Hangzhou green tea and Lin' an bamboo shoots. "Don't ask me if I like here, time tells all," he told. "Hangzhou Expats" has attracted attention on social media immediately after its first seven episodes, which resulted in 350,000 views. " Nardus Smith left a comment: "I recently started rock climbing in Hangzhou and it's been so wonderful being part of a community where foreigners and locals truly get along," and his comments were echoed by others such as "I really want to live there, Hangzhou is so beautiful, ". Whether the city is inclusive or not? The expats living there have the final say. For overseas viewers who have never been to Hangzhou, "Hangzhou Expats" give them an objective presentation of the city. They can even imagine their future life in Hangzhou simply by watching these videos. Among the first group of Chinese cities to promote tourism overseas via social media platforms, Hangzhou has committed to developing international communication through cultural exchange and interactive communication in the past ten years. Hangzhou has shown its Chinese style, local charm and internationalization to the world by hosting a series of promotion activities, such as "Modern Marco Polo -Dr. Hangzhou"global recruitment campaign, Hangzhou Global Tour, and Hangzhou Global Qipao Festival. By the end of August 2022, over 1.3 million people followed the Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts of Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism, with over 35 million annual impressions and over 1.74 million annual interactions (including video views). A series of ongoing and upcoming activities, like Mid-Autumn Festival Photography Contest, interactive comics Su Dongpo's New Life in Hangzhou, "Hello Hangzhou" video collection on social media and traditional Chinese festivals celebrations, Asian Games and other hot topics, have offered overseas fans valuable chances to participate in Hangzhou's global culture and tourism endeavor. For more information, visit Hangzhou on Facebook , Instagram or YouTube . View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/localized-hangzhou-expats-posted-on-social-media-showcase-hangzhous-inclusiveness-attractiveness-301633473.html DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Gold River Production, Inc. (OTC PINK:GRPS) ("GRPS") (http://www.transamaqua.com ) (D/B/A Trans American Aquaculture) announced today that Gold River Productions, Inc. (a Colorado corporation) has acquired all of the [equity/membership interest] of Trans American Aquaculture (TAA) (a Texas-based limited liability company) through an [equity/stock for membership interest] exchange in which 100% of the equity of Trans American Aquaculture, LLC was exchanged for preferred shares in the public entity. The exchange has been approved by 100% of the members of the LLC. The exchange was also approved by the former control shareholder of the public company. The former members of Trans American Aquaculture, who are now preferred shareholders of Gold River Productions, Inc including the managing members have no current near-term plans to convert any preferred stock to common stock. The main business of the company going forward will be aquaculture production and aquaculture genetics. The former business will be divested of, and the public company will receive compensation in the form of equity in the divested operations or a royalty on any future sales. Terms of the divesture are still being negotiated. Based in Rio Hondo Texas and covering 1880 contiguous acres of both land and water, the company operates the largest land-based aquaculture technology company in the United States pursuant to the number of acres of both land and water under control . Bowers Shrimp is the largest known land-based producer of shrimp for human consumption ranked by total revenue in the United States. Trans American Aquaculture was founded by the Granda family of Ecuador and their business partners in 2017. The Granda family are a preeminent aquaculture family with decades of experience in shrimp production and shrimp genetics in Ecuador. To date, over $9 million USD has been committed by the Granda family and their business partners to the Rio Hondo facility to build the operations. Trans American Aquaculture has produced close to 1 million pounds of pacific white shrimp in Texas since inception and is also prolific in the sale of broodstock (mating shrimp) and post larvae shrimp (these are baby shrimp which are used to stock RAS-based production facilities and land-based shrimp farms). Recently Adam Thomas, the CEO of Trans American Aquaculture traveled to Algeria to sign a historic deal for the delivery of both post larvae and broodstock as the sole provider of shrimp genetics for the first large scale shrimp aquaculture facility in Algeria, which was publicized by the US embassy in Algeria. It is a government funded program, in which the government of Algeria is committing more than $30M USD to create a shrimp cultivation facility that ultimately aims to produce up to 1,000 tons of shrimp a year. Contracts have been signed to provide PLs and Broodstock, that will generate a significant amount of revenue, which they believe to be on an ongoing basis. A link to the photos of the historic order signing can be found on the U.S. embassy website or by clicking here. (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=421622980008867&set=pcb.421623103342188) Unlike many other aquaculture technology companies specializing in shrimp production (both public and private), Trans American Aquaculture completely controls its own genetics which significantly reduces the risk of disease and virus into its facilities because the genetic loop is completely controlled (broodstock to PL's to shrimp for human consumption). By controlling genetics, an aquaculture technology company like Trans American Aquaculture can also accelerate the growth rate and increase disease resistance, which aids in significantly reducing mortality rates of the shrimp which potentially increases the profitability of the system. The Rio Hondo-based facility produces broodstock and post larvae shrimp for its own shrimp production and for sale to other aquaculture companies including companies featuring (RAS) recirculating aquaculture systems. The company also produces shrimp for human consumption. By controlling its own "proprietary" genetic lines, the company can produce lineages with superior and sustained growth rates that are cold water tolerant (most RAS companies targets 82-84-degree water temperature) and disease resistant. All the company's shrimp for human consumption, broodstock (mating shrimp) and PL's are produced in the USA without the use of antibiotics or hormones. Adam Thomas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Trans American Aquaculture commented, "It is my sincere pleasure to take the Granda family's decades of experience in the aquaculture industry and its world class science to a small public company. We are not "public company" operators. We are businessmen and some of the former members of the private company who are now shareholders of the public company are world class leaders in the segments of the aquaculture industry they operate in." Mr. Thomas continued, "We apply science and genetics to the aquaculture industry and our products are produced in the United States without the use of hormones or antibiotics. We sell to distributors throughout out Texas and the West coast with direct lines into stores such as HEB and Safeway and they gladly accept our product as a superior product to any imported products from countries such as India, Vietnam, and China. We are also getting significant international interest because are genetics are U.S.A-borne which is highly desirable to responsible aquaculture operations throughout the world." Mr. Thomas concluded, "We are supremely confident that we will be the number 2 land-based producer of shrimp in the United States in 2023 among all private and public companies and our genetics business will continue to grow." The exchange agreements between the two companies includes customary representations, warranties and covenants of the Company and Trans American made to each other as of specific dates. The assertions embodied in those representations and warranties were made solely for purposes of the exchange Agreement. The company is in the process of reconfiguring the board. The current plan is to have three former members of Trans American Aquaculture (who are now shareholders of the public entity) comprising of 3 board members and 3 independent board members. As soon as practicably possible, the company will hire an auditor to up list to a senior exchange. Granvil Treece, President of Treece & Associates and Current Board Member of the Texas Aquaculture Association had this to say, "The Trans American Aquaculture team is experienced in shrimp culture, and they are environmentally sustainable, having a zero-water discharge operation and hatchery. There is a good labor force to draw upon and there are shrimp processing plants in the area. The company started at the 1,880-acre site in 2017 and completed their new hatchery in 2019. As their consultant, I assisted Trans American Aquaculture, LLC to obtain the ever important and coveted Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP Certification) for their hatchery so that they can sell all shrimp stages internationally. During their 5 years at the site, Trans American Aquaculture, LLC has developed a cold-tolerant line of the Pacific white shrimp (vannamei) which is highly desirable to both marine-based systems as well as RAS-based systems operating in colder climates." As previously announced, the company will conduct a conference call on September 26, 2022 (today) at 5PM EST. The call is expected to discuss in detail the company's extensive business plan for the next 18 months. Since the company expects certain industry leaders from multiple countries and continents to be on the call from far away as China, the call will begin promptly at 5PM EST. The call can be accessed live by dialing (267) 807-9601. When prompted to enter an access code, the code should be entered as 808621#. All expected conference call participants will be encouraged to ask questions. Any listener that has a question should email all questions as soon as possible to grpsconferencecall@gmail.com. The company will try to answer as many questions as possible during the call during the Q&A phase of the call. Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements in this press release, which are not purely historical, are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with new projects and development stage companies. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations, and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions will prove to be accurate. Contact: For inquiries: Email: adamt@transamaqua.com SOURCE: Gold River Production Services, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/717458/Gold-River-Productions-Inc-Announces-It-Has-Acquired-100-of-Trans-American-Aquaculture-LLC--a-Texas-based-Land-Based-World-Class-Integrated-Aquaculture-Business-Specializing-in-Shrimp-Production-and-Shrimp-Genetics Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - Royal Coal Corp. (the "Company") announces the resignations of Mr. A. Tom Griffis as the President and a director of the Company and Ms. Elia Crespo as a director of the Company effective the date hereof. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Griffis and Ms. Crespo for their valuable contributions to the Company and wishes them every success in their future endeavors. In addition, the Company is pleased to announce that Mr. Nicholas Konkin has been appointed as the President and a director of the Company. Mr. Konkin has extensive business experience with over a decade of developing successful private and public resource and technology start-up's combined with a strong background in wealth management and investor relations spanning resources, technology and medical services. Mr. Konkin is currently Director of Capital Markets for Grove Corporate Services and service as a director of Graycliff Exploration Ltd. For more information, please contact: Nicholas Konkin President nick@grovecorp.ca 416-642-1807 Ext 305 This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "would", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the information is provided, and is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, unless required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138499 Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - Cleantek Industries Inc. (TSXV: CTEK) ("Cleantek" or the "Company") (formerly Raise Production Inc. ("Raise")) is pleased to announce that shareholders have approved the Company's newly adopted share-based compensation plan (the "Omnibus Plan") at Cleantek's Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders held on August 25, 2022. The Omnibus Plan will replace the Company's stock option plan (the "Stock Option Plan"). The Omnibus Plan will provide the Company with the flexibility to grant diverse equity awards as part of its objective to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified directors, officers, employees and consultants, all granted under one plan which will allow such awards to be subject to the same administration and overall limits. The Omnibus Plan is a "rolling" share-based compensation plan pursuant to which up to an aggregate of 10% of the Common Shares outstanding may be reserved for issuance under it and any other security-based compensation plans of the Company, with a sublimit of 5% of the Common Shares outstanding being reserved for restricted share units ("RSUs"), deferred share units ("DSUs") and performance share units ("PSUs"). Pursuant to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV"), "rolling" share-based compensation plans must receive shareholder approval annually. The Omnibus Plan will replace the existing Stock Option Plan and no further stock options ("Options") or other awards will be granted under the Stock Option Plan following Shareholder approval of the Omnibus Plan. Outstanding Options and other awards under the Stock Option Plan will continue to be governed by the Stock Option Plan. The Company currently has 1,927,500 Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to Options already granted and outstanding pursuant to the Stock Option Plan, representing an aggregate 7.1% of the Common Shares outstanding. The Omnibus Plan was approved and adopted by the Board on July 5, 2022. The Omnibus Plan is subject to final acceptance by the TSXV. No RSUs, PSUs, DSUs or Options (collectively, "Awards") have been granted to-date under the Omnibus Plan. The Omnibus Plan is a long-term incentive plan that, once approved, permits the grant of Awards to directors, officers and employees of, and consultants to, the Corporation and its subsidiaries. The purpose of the plan is to promote share ownership of the eligible individuals to align the interests of such individuals with the interest of our Shareholders. The Omnibus Plan will replace the Stock Option Plan and no further grants of Options will be made under such plan. As a result, the Omnibus Plan streamlines the administration of long-term incentive grants to eligible individuals as all future grants will be made under the Omnibus Plan and therefore all future grants (whether Options, RSUs, DSUs, or PSUs) will be subject to the rules and restrictions of that plan. SUMMARY OF THE KEY TERMS OF THE OMNIBUS PLAN A summary of the key terms of the Omnibus Plan are detailed below. A full copy of the Omnibus Plan is available for viewing under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Limitations under the Omnibus Plan The aggregate number of Common Shares that may be reserved for issuance at any time under the Omnibus Plan, together with any Common Shares reserved for issuance under any other security-based compensation plans of the Company, shall be equal to 10% of outstanding Common Shares from time to time (on a non-diluted basis), provided that the aggregate maximum number of Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to the settlement of all DSUs, RSUs and PSUs shall not exceed 5% of the outstanding Common Shares from time to time (on a non-diluted basis). Any Common Shares underlying Options under the Omnibus Plan and the Stock Option Plan that have been exercised, or disposed of or that have expired or been terminated for any reason (without being exercised), shall become available for subsequent issuance under the Omnibus Plan. Any Common Shares underlying DSUs, RSUs, PSUs under the Omnibus Plan that have been settled, or disposed of or that have expired or been terminated for any reason (without being settled), shall become available for subsequent issuance under the Omnibus Plan. Accordingly, the Omnibus Plan is a "rolling plan" and as a result, any and all increases in the number of outstanding Common Shares will result in an increase to the number of Awards available for grant under the plan. In addition, any grant of Awards shall be subject to the following restrictions (subject to applicable Shareholder approval in accordance with the policies of the TSXV): the aggregate number of Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to Awards, together with awards granted under any other security-based compensation plan of the Company, granted to any one person in any twelve (12) month period may not exceed 5% of the outstanding Common Shares (on a non-diluted basis) determined at the time of grant; the aggregate number of Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to Awards, together with awards under any other security-based compensation plan of the Company, granted to insiders (as a group) may not exceed 10% of the outstanding Common Shares (on a non-diluted basis) at any point in time; the aggregate number of Common Shares reserved for issuance pursuant to Awards, together with awards under any other security-based compensation plan of the Company, granted to insiders (as a group) in any twelve (12) month period shall not exceed 10% of the outstanding Common Shares (on a non-diluted basis) determined at the time of grant; the aggregate number of Common Shares issuable pursuant to Awards, together with awards under any other security-based compensation plan of the Company, granted to any consultant in any twelve (12) month period shall not exceed 2% of the outstanding Common Shares (on a non-diluted basis) determined at the time of grant; and Investor Relations Service Providers shall only be entitled to Options under the Omnibus Plan and the aggregate number of Common Shares issuable pursuant to Options under the Omnibus Plan, together with Options under any other security-based compensation plan of the Company, granted to all such persons in any twelve (12) month period shall not exceed 2% of the outstanding Common Shares determined at the time of grant. Except as permitted by the Board, and to the extent that certain rights may pass to a beneficiary or legal representative upon death of a participant by will or as required by applicable law, Awards are not assignable or transferable. Description of Options issuable under the Omnibus Plan All Options granted under the Omnibus Plan will have an exercise price fixed by the Board when the Option is granted. Such price shall not be less than the volume weighted average trading price per Common Share on the TSXV for the five (5) consecutive trading days ("VWAP") ending on the last trading day preceding the date that the Option is granted and such exercise price shall be determined in accordance with the policies of the TSXV or other applicable stock exchange. Exercise of Options Participants may exercise vested Options by providing payment in full of the exercise price for the Common Shares which are the subject of the exercise. Provided that the Common Shares are listed on the TSXV or another exchange, and that the Company is in compliance with applicable stock exchange requirements, the Company may permit a participant to elect that the Company satisfy any obligations to the participant in respect of any vested Options exercised by the participant by issuing such number of Common Shares that is equal in value to the difference between: (a) the VWAP of the Common Shares prior to the date of exercise; and (b) the aggregate exercise price of the vested Options being exercised (the "Net Share Exercise Right"). The Net Share Exercise Right is not available to any Investor Relations Service Providers in accordance with the policies of the TSXV. In addition, the Company may permit a broker-assisted cashless exercise whereby the participant elects to receive: (a) an amount in cash equal to the cash proceeds realized upon the sale in the capital markets of the Common Shares underlying the vested Options by a securities dealer designated by the Company, less the aggregate exercise price, any applicable withholding taxes, and any transfer costs charged by the securities dealer to sell the Common Shares; (b) an aggregate number of Common Shares that is equal to the number of Common Shares underlying the vested Options minus the number of Common Shares sold in the capital markets by a securities dealer designated by the Company as required to realize cash proceeds equal to the aggregate exercise price, any applicable withholding taxes and any transfer costs charged by the securities dealer to sell the Common Shares; or (c) a combination of (a) and (b). Description of RSUs, PSUs and DSUs issuable under the Omnibus Plan An RSU is a right to receive a Common Share issued from treasury upon settlement, subject to the terms of the Omnibus Plan and the applicable award agreement, which generally becomes vested, if at all, following a period of continuous employment or engagement. The vesting period of RSUs will be determined by the Board at the time of grant. RSUs may not be granted to consultants or directors under the Omnibus Plan. A PSU is a right to receive a Common Share issued from treasury upon settlement, subject to the terms of the Omnibus Plan and the applicable award agreement, which generally becomes vested, if at all, subject to the attainment of performance criteria established by the Board in its discretion at the time of grant. The vesting period and performance criteria for any PSUs granted will be determined by the Board at the time of the grant. PSUs may not be granted to consultants or directors under the Omnibus Plan. DSUs are the only type of share unit issuable under the Omnibus Plan that may be issued to non-employee directors of the Company. A DSU is a right to receive a Common Share issued from treasury upon settlement, subject to the terms of the Omnibus Plan and the applicable award agreement. The vesting period of DSUs will be determined by the Board at the time of grant. Settlement of RSUs, PSUs and DSUs Vested RSUs, PSUs and DSUs may be settled by a participant at any time prior to their expiry date by the Company issuing to the participant such number of Common Shares that is equal to the number of vested RSUs, PSUs or DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if any) being settled. Notwithstanding, the Company may, in its discretion, permit applicable participants to elect to receive an amount in cash (net of applicable withholding taxes) equal to all or a portion of the vested RSUs, PSUs or DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if any) being settled by the participant multiplied by the VWAP prior to the applicable settlement date. Dividend Equivalents A dividend equivalent is a right equivalent in value to an RSU, PSU or DSU credited to a participant who holds such Awards when dividends are declared by the Company and paid with respect to the outstanding Common Shares ("Dividend Equivalents"). The number of Dividend Equivalents to be credited to a participant is determined by multiplying the aggregate number of DSUs, RSUs or PSUs held by the participant on the relevant record date by the amount of the dividend paid by the Company on each Common Share, and dividing the result by the closing price of a Common Share on the TSXV on the trading day immediately preceding the dividend payment date, rounded down to the nearest whole unit. A Dividend Equivalent will be subject to the same vesting and settlement conditions applicable to the related DSU, RSU or PSU and shall be payable on the settlement date of the related DSU, RSU or PSU in the same form as the related DSU, RSU or PSU being settled, provided that, in no event will the settlement of Dividend Equivalents cause the maximum number of Common Shares issuable under the Omnibus Plan's reserve or participation limits (as described above) to be exceeded. Expiry The expiry date of Awards granted pursuant to the Omnibus Plan is set by the Board, and must not be later than ten (10) years from the date of grant. The Omnibus Plan contains provisions that address expiring Awards during, or within two (2) business days after, a self-imposed blackout period on trading securities of the Company. In such a case, the expiry date will be deemed to be extended to the tenth (10th) business day following the end of the blackout period. Cessation of Employment or Services Termination without Cause or Voluntary Resignation Unless otherwise determined by the Board, if a participant's employment or engagement with the Company or a subsidiary ceases as a result of a termination without cause or the participant's resignation (including a resignation from the Board), all unvested Awards held by the participant shall automatically terminate and the participant may, within ninety (90) days after the termination date (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Awards), exercise or settle the participant's vested Awards. At the end of such 90-day period (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Awards), any outstanding Awards shall automatically terminate. Termination for Cause Unless otherwise determined by the Board, if a participant's employment or engagement with the Company or a subsidiary ceases as a result of a termination for cause, all Awards held by the participant, whether vested or unvested, shall automatically terminate on the termination date. Death or Disability Unless otherwise determined by the Board, if a participant's employment or engagement with the Company or a subsidiary ceases as a result of the participant's death or, in the case of an employee, the incurrence of a disability, all unvested Options held by the participant shall automatically terminate and the participant (or the participant's legal representative) may, within twelve (12) months after the participant's termination date or date of death (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Options), exercise the participant's vested Options. At the end of such 12-month period (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Options), any outstanding Options shall automatically terminate. Unless otherwise determined by the Board, if a participant's employment or engagement with the Company or a subsidiary ceases as a result of the participant's death or, in the case of an employee, the incurrence of a disability, a pro rata portion of the unvested RSUs, PSUs and DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) held by the participant will vest. The number of unvested RSUs and DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) that will vest will be based on the number of days elapsed between the applicable date of grant and the termination date and the number of PSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) that will vest will be based on performance achieved up to the termination date as determined by the Board. All remaining unvested RSUs, PSUs and DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) shall automatically terminate on the termination date. The participant (or the participant's legal representative) may, within twelve (12) months after the participant's termination date or date of death (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Awards), elect to settle the participant's vested RSUs, PSUs and DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable). At the end of such 12-month period (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Awards), any outstanding RSUs, PSUs and DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) shall automatically terminate. Termination of Consultants Notwithstanding the foregoing, the following will apply in the event of a termination of a consultant's engagement with the Company or a subsidiary. Unless otherwise determined by the Board, if a consultant's engagement with the Company or a subsidiary ceases as a result of a termination by the Company or a subsidiary for cause, all Options held by the consultant, whether vested or unvested, shall automatically terminate on the termination date. Unless otherwise determined by the Board, if a consultant's engagement with the Company or a subsidiary ceases for any reason other than for cause, all unvested Options held by the consultant shall automatically terminate on the termination date and the consultant may, within thirty (30) days after the consultant's termination date (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Options), exercise the consultant's vested Options. At the end of such 30-day period (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Options), the unexercised Options shall automatically terminate. Accelerated Vesting Subject to the requirements of the policies of the TSXV (including Shareholder approval if applicable), the Board may permit the acceleration of vesting of any or all Awards or waive termination of any or all Awards in connection with a cessation event described above. Change of Control Change of Control and Termination of Employment or Engagement Subject to the terms and conditions of any award agreement, if there is a change of control of the Company and a participant who is an employee or a director (in each case, other than an Investor Relations Service Provider) ceases employment as a result of a termination by the Company or a subsidiary without cause or ceases to be a director (for any reason other than for cause) and, in each case, his or her termination date is within twelve (12) months following the change of control, all unvested Options, RSUs and DSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) held by the participant on the participant's termination date shall immediately vest and the participant may, within six (6) months after the participant's termination date (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Awards) exercise or settle the Awards. At the end of such 6-month period (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Awards), the unexercised Awards shall automatically terminate. Subject to the terms and conditions of any award agreement, if there is a change of control of the Company and a participant who is an employee (other than an Investor Relations Service Provider) ceases employment as a result of a termination by the Company or a subsidiary without cause and his or her termination date is within twelve (12) months following the change of control, a certain number of PSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) will vest based on performance achieved up to the termination date as determined by the Board. All unvested PSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) shall automatically terminate on the termination date. The participant may, within six (6) months days after the participant's termination date (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the applicable PSU), elect to settle the participant's vested PSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable). At the end of such 6-month period (or such shorter period as is remaining in the term of the Awards), any outstanding PSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) shall automatically terminate. Discretion to Board Subject to the policies of the TSXV, in the event of an actual or potential change of control of the Company, the Board may, in its discretion: (a) accelerate, conditionally or otherwise, on such terms as it sees fit (including, but not limited to those set out in (c) and (d) below), the vesting date of any Awards; (b) permit the conditional settlement or exercise of any Awards, on such terms as it sees fit; (c) otherwise amend or modify the terms of any Awards, including for greater certainty by (1) permitting participants to exercise or settle any Awards to assist the participants to participate in the actual or potential change of control, or (2) providing that the surviving, successor or acquiring entity may assume any outstanding Awards or substitute similar awards for the outstanding Awards, as applicable; and (d) terminate, following the successful completion of a change of control, on such terms as it sees fit, the Awards not exercised or settled prior to the successful completion of such change of control, provided that, any accelerated vesting in respect of any PSUs (and related Dividend Equivalents, if applicable) will be based on performance achieved up to the change of control as determined by the Board. In the event that any Awards are conditionally exercised or settled and the change of control does not occur, the Board, may determine that any (a) Awards so exercised or settled shall be reinstated as the type of Award prior to such exercise or settlement, and (b) Common Shares issued be cancelled, any cash payments made to the participants be returned to the Company, and any exercise price or similar price received by the Company shall be returned to the participant. Amendment The Board may, without notice and without shareholder approval, amend, modify, change, suspend or terminate the Omnibus Plan or any Awards as it determines appropriate, provided, however, that no such amendment, modification, change, suspension or termination of the plan or any Awards may materially impair any outstanding rights of a participant without the consent of the participant, unless the Board determines such adjustment is required or desirable in order to comply with any applicable securities laws or the policies of the TSXV. Notwithstanding the foregoing and subject to any policies of the TSXV and/or any applicable regulatory authority, shareholder approval (including approval of the disinterested shareholders if required by the policies of the TSXV) must be obtained for any amendment that would have the effect of, among others: increasing the percentage of Common Shares reserved for issuance under the plan, except pursuant to the provisions in the plan which permit the Board to make equitable adjustments in the event of transactions affecting the Company or its capital; increasing or removing the participation limits set forth in the plan (including to insiders); reducing the exercise price of an Option (for this purpose, a cancellation or termination of an Option prior to its expiry date for the purpose of reissuing an Option with a lower exercise price shall be treated as an amendment to reduce the exercise price of an Option), except pursuant to the provisions in the plan which permit the Board to make equitable adjustments in the event of transactions affecting the Company or its capital; amending an Award that results in a benefit to an insider, in which case disinterested shareholder approval is required (including amending an Award to reduce the exercise price of an option or extending the term of an Award); amending any method or formula for calculating prices, values or amounts under the plan that may result in a benefit to a Participant, including but not limiting to the formula for determining the exercise price of Options; extending the term of an Award beyond the original expiry date (except where an expiry date would have fallen within a blackout period applicable to the participant); permitting an Option to be exercisable beyond ten (10) years from its date of grant (except where an expiry date would have fallen within a blackout period); increasing or removing the limits on the participation of non-employee directors; amending the amendment provisions of the plan; amending the termination or early termination provisions of the plan or any Award; changing the eligible participants of the plan; or amendments required to be approved by shareholders under applicable law (including the policies of the TSXV). Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the Board may, without shareholder approval, at any time or from time to time, amend the Omnibus Plan or award agreements for the purposes of: making any amendments to the general vesting provisions of each Award; making any amendment necessary to suspend or terminate the plan; making any amendments to add covenants of the Company for the protection of participants, as the case may be, provided that the Board shall be of the good faith opinion that such additions will not be prejudicial to the rights or interests of the participants, as the case may be; amendments necessary for Awards to qualify for favourable or intended tax treatment under applicable tax law; making any amendments not inconsistent with the plan as may be necessary or desirable with respect to matters or questions which, in the good faith opinion of the Board, having in mind the best interests of the participants, it may be expedient to make, including amendments that are desirable as a result of changes in law in any jurisdiction where a participant resides, provided that the Board shall be of the opinion that such amendments and modifications will not be prejudicial to the interests of the participants; or making such amendments of a "housekeeping" or administrative nature and such changes or corrections which, on the advice of counsel to the Company, are required for the purpose of curing or correcting any ambiguity or defect or inconsistent provision or clerical omission or mistake or manifest error, provided that the Board shall be of the opinion that such changes or corrections will not be prejudicial to the rights and interests of the participants. About Cleantek Cleantek is a clean energy technology company focused on ESG accretive technology solutions with operations across North America. Cleantek has developed and commercialized its patented wastewater dehydration technology, the ZeroE, which it rents to its customers for use at gas processing facilities and on drilling rigs focused on hydro-sustainability. Cleantek's ZeroE technology separates wastewater into (i) clean water which is evaporated and returned to the natural hydrological cycle and (ii) concentrated brine which is disposed of using traditional means. The ZeroE technology is powered by the waste heat generated from the engine exhaust of gas plants and drilling rigs. Complimenting Cleantek's ZeroE technology is the suit of low carbon LED lighting systems containing our patented Solar Hybrid lighting systems and HALO Crown mounted lighting systems. Matt Gowanlock, President & Chief Executive Officer E-mail: mgowanlock@cleantekinc.com Orson Ross, Chief Financial Officer E-mail: oross@cleantekinc.com Cleantek Industries Inc. Tel: 403-567-8700 www.cleantekinc.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138515 Nurse.com, a Morrisville, NC-based online education company providing lifelong career support to nurses, acquired Holliblu, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a social networking app designed exclusively for nurses. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The Nurse.com app enables nurses to connect with each other for peer support, knowledge sharing, and skill development with the aim of helping every nurse thrive throughout their career journey. The app which delivers the community and career resources nurses need to organize their professional lives provides a platform for nurses to advocate for change within the industry they serve. It is initially launching in beta and over time will expand offerings to include the job resources and accredited continuing education courses nurses have come to expect through Nurse.com. Nurse.com is part of parent company Relias family of brands, which includes the Wound Care Education Institute, Relias Academy, freeCME, and Relias Media. Cara Lunsford, RN, Founder and CEO of Holliblu, is now Vice President of Community at Nurse.com. The Nurse.com app is already available. FinSMEs 26/09/2022 Hurricane Ian Update Weather Alert: Flagler College is monitoring Hurricane Ian, follow along as we continue to update our Saints Community throughout the storm. Flagler College to open in phases beginning Oct. 2 Saturday, Oct. 1, 1:45 p.m. After assessing the campus grounds and buildings, Flagler College sustained minimal damage and will be opening in phases beginning tomorrow, Sunday, Oct. 2. Sunday, Oct. 2 | All Clear Residence halls will open at 10 a.m. for students to return. All other campus buildings remain closed such as Bistro, POD, the library and the student center. The Dining Hall will open at 11 a.m. for brunch and resume normal dining hours. Monday, Oct. 3 Campus returns to normal operations and classes resume. Academic buildings 7:30 a.m. Library 7:30 a.m. Learning Resource Center 8 a.m. Student Center 7 a.m. Counseling Center 8 a.m. Bistro 7 a.m. POD 10 a.m. Campus offices 8 a.m. For students, staff and faculty still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, professors and supervisors are encouraged to be understanding and flexible. Below are resources and information to assist you during this time. Information for students: Counseling The Counseling Center is available for virtual appointments to help students navigate through this challenging time. Individual appointments can be made by reaching out to the Counseling Center at counseling@flagler.edu. Financial Aid The Financial Aid Office can work with students to update their financial aid information based on any changes related to the storm. To do this reach out to financialaid@flagler.edu to schedule an appointment youre your counselor. Emergency Relief Fund The emergency relief fund can help students who are in need of food, transportation, etc. due to the storm. Students can complete an application by reaching out to Financial Aid at financialaid@flagler.edu. Return to Campus If you are unable to return to campus to resume classes on Monday, reach out to your professors to discuss your individual situation. Fall Break The scheduled fall break will take place Oct. 10-11. Information for Employees: Emergency Relief Fund The emergency relief fund can help employees who are in need of food, transportation, etc. due to the storm. The emergency relief fund can help employees who are in need of food, transportation, etc. due to the storm. Employees can complete an application by reaching out to Shari Stanford at sstanford@flagler.edu. Return to Campus If you are unable to return to campus to resume work on Monday, reach out to your supervisor to discuss your individual situation. ### The College will remain closed but will begin its assessment of the grounds and buildings as early as tomorrow. Thursday, Sept. 29, 4:45 p.m. Over the last 48 hours, the path of Hurricane Ian has taken it across the state of Florida leaving significant devastation along its path, particularly on the southwest coastline. As the College begins its process of assessing the campus to ensure it is safe and ready to resume normal operations, we know that our staff, faculty, students, and their families will be doing the same. As such, the time after a storm can be stressful, so the College has resources in place to support you if needed. Available Resources: Counseling The Counseling Center is available for virtual appointments to help students navigate through this challenging time. Individual appointments can be made by reaching out to the Counseling Center at counseling@flagler.edu https://flaglercollege.zoom.us/j/81092529565. The Center will be holding a group session on Friday, Sept. 30 at 3 p.m. via Zoom. You can access the session here - Financial Aid The Financial Aid Office can work with students to update their financial aid information based on any changes related to the storm. To do this, reach out to financialaid@flagler.edu to schedule an appointment your counselor. Emergency Relief Fund The emergency relief fund can help students and employees who are in need of food, transportation, etc. due to the storm. Students can complete an application by reaching out to Financial Aid at financialaid@flagler.edu Employees can complete an application by reaching out to Shari Stanford at sstanford@flagler.edu or through the below link. Link to employee relief fund application - https://my.flagler.edu/ICS/Portlets/ICS/Handoutportlet/viewhandler.ashx?handout_id=f9febf2d-389c-4946-adef-19f7ff797149 The College will remain closed but will begin its assessment of the grounds and buildings as early as tomorrow. However, only essential personnel are permitted on campus until College and government officials deem conditions safe enough for students and employees to return. Based on what we are seeing from the storm today, there is minimal damage to the campus. We are still anticipating an all-clear for the return to campus on Sunday, Oct. 2 and a return to classes on Monday, Oct. 3. But we will communicate updates as they become available. Flagler College is closed in anticipation of impacts from Hurricane Ian Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2:30 p.m. As Hurricane Ian approaches the area, the Flagler College campus officially closed at noon today and residential students were safely evacuated in accordance with the St. Johns County Emergency Management Office order for a mandatory evacuation. The College will remain closed until campus and government officials deem conditions safe enough for students and employees to return; with the exception of essential personnel. No one is allowed on the campus grounds or buildings. The all clear process includes a check for electrical shortages and standing water hazards due to wind and rain. We anticipate an all clear for the return to campus on Sunday, Oct. 2 and a return to classes on Monday, Oct. 3, but will communicate updates as they become available. What you need to know: Communications about the storm are sent via email and OmniLert text messages. Classes are expected to resume on Monday, Oct. 3. Only essential personnel are allowed on campus during the mandatory evacuation. Students, faculty and staff will not be allowed to return to St. Augustine or the campus until authorized by county Emergency Management Officials, and College officials determine the campus is safe and normal operations have resumed. The College will communicate any possible changes to reopening as soon as information is available. be allowed to return to St. Augustine or the campus until authorized by county Emergency Management Officials, and College officials determine the campus is safe and normal operations have resumed. The College will communicate any possible changes to reopening as soon as information is available. The evacuation mandate includes Evacuation Zones A, which includes downtown St. Augustine and the Flagler College campus, as well as Zones B and F (south of County Road 214). The evacuation order was effective as of 6 a.m. this morning. ### St. Johns County orders evacuation in anticipation of impacts from Hurricane Ian Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2:30 p.m. The Flagler College campus will officially close at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 28 and will remain closed until campus and government officials deem conditions safe enough for students and employees to return. We will communicate updates on the return to campus and start of classes as they become available. Today, the St. Johns County Emergency Management Office issued an order for a mandatory evacuation for Evacuation Zones A, B and F (south of County Road 214), which includes downtown St. Augustine and the Flagler College campus, beginning on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 6 a.m. in preparation for Hurricane Ian. In order to allow students, staff and faculty to properly respond to the evacuation order, academic classes and events are canceled, effective immediately. Residential students who have no alternative housing options will be transported to the general population shelter, Osceola Elementary School, at noon on Wednesday. All students, faculty and staff who live in Evacuation Zones A, B and F should immediately make plans to evacuate and seek shelter from the storm, and county officials are encouraging residents in the evacuation area not to wait until the order takes effect. This evacuation also includes the beaches, Anastasia Island and other property on the waterfront. If you are uncertain of your zone, visit https://www.gis.sjcfl.us/MYEZ/MYEZ.html to check your address. What you need to know Classes have been cancelled through at least Monday, Oct. 3. Only essential personnel will be allowed to stay on campus during the mandatory evacuation. The Office of Residence Life will conduct room checks beginning at noon tomorrow. Any resident remaining on campus at that time will be escorted to the evacuation shelter. Additionally, a separate communication to residents will be sent from Res Life with more instructions and information for residents. Students, faculty and staff will not be allowed to return to St. Augustine or the campus until authorized by county Emergency Management Officials, and College officials determine the campus is safe and normal operations have resumed. The College will communicate any possible changes to reopening as soon as information is available. be allowed to return to St. Augustine or the campus until authorized by county Emergency Management Officials, and College officials determine the campus is safe and normal operations have resumed. The College will communicate any possible changes to reopening as soon as information is available. We understand changes in reopening the campus may complicate efforts to return. Any class absences due to the storm will be counted as excused absences, and these absences will not be counted against your overall class attendance. Monitor the latest updates and advisories on Hurricane Ian at the National Hurricane Center: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov More information A list of Frequently Asked Questions concerning Flagler College and Hurricane Ian can be found here: www.flagler.edu/hurricanefaqs Hurricane forecasts and other information can be found at the National Hurricane Center: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov Local information on evacuation routes, shelters and other storm-related topics can be found at St. Johns County Emergency Management: https://www.sjcemergencymanagement.com/ Hurricane evacuation shelters will be opened by Emergency Management officials on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 6 a.m. If possible, evacuees should seek alternatives other than shelters outside of the evacuation area. Flagler students looking for a general population shelter should head to the below shelter option. Pedro Menendez High School, 600 SR-206 West Those who have special needs or need a pet-friendly shelter should head to the below shelters. Pacetti Bay Middle School, 245 Meadowlark Ln. (Special needs) Southwoods Elementary, 4750 State Road 206. (Pet-friendly) For more information on the countys evacuation order and shelters, visit: www.sjcemergencymanagement.org If you are uncertain of your zone, visit https://floridadisaster.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=c788060028cb43809a25744ead39c0d6 to check your address. ### Flagler College wont hold in-person classes starting Wednesday in preparation for Hurricane Ian; offices to go remote Monday, Sept. 26, 3:30 p.m. In anticipation of potential impacts from Hurricane Ian, Flagler College will not hold in-person classes on Wednesday morning through Friday, and offices will move to remote operations during this time. Campus events will also be canceled Wednesday through Friday. Students should expect communication from their faculty as to how the missed class time will be covered or made up, as instructors have broad discretion, and what is done may vary by course. College residence halls and the dining hall will remain open, unless there is an evacuation ordered for St. Augustine. Students, however, are encouraged to return to their homes after classes on Tuesday, unless in an area that is expected to be impacted by the storm. Residential students will need to checkout before leaving, and Resident Advisors will distribute emergency cards to fill out beforehand. Students may leave cars in the Flagler College Parking Garage on Malaga Street, but must park above the first floor. In addition, this weekends Family Weekend has been cancelled and refunds will be issued. Flagler College is continuing to monitor the development of Hurricane Ian, which the National Hurricane Center has warned is likely to develop into a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico this week. College officials are coordinating with St. Johns County Emergency Management officials on plans and updates on the storm. Most of central and northern Florida is currently within the 5-day forecast cone, including St. Augustine. The National Weather Service in Jacksonville advises to expect strong winds, coastal flooding, beach erosion and bands of heavy rainfall Wednesday through Friday. There is the potential for Tropical Storm force winds as early as Wednesday, but more likely late Wednesday Night into early Thursday. We will continue to monitor the storm and notify you immediately of any updates or new information. Pay close attention to weather forecasts and advisories from the college over the next couple of days. More information At this time, Flagler is continuing with normal operations, and classes remain on schedule, through Tuesday. Flagler expects to resume classes and normal operations on Monday, Oct. 3, unless otherwise notified. The college has a hurricane plan that includes evacuation procedures in the event that it becomes necessary. Please continue monitoring these Flagler College communication channels for future advisories: Campus e-mail (for students, faculty and staff) www.flagler.edu Family Portal (parents) Additional Resources Tagged As On the morning of 15 September local time, President Xi Jinping met with President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon at Forumlar Majmuasi Complex in Samarkand. President Xi pointed out that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, China-Tajikistan relations have achieved leapfrog growth. China firmly supports Tajikistan in safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and security. China is always a neighbor, friend and partner that Tajikistan can trust and rely on. As international and regional situations undergo profound and complex transformation, China and Tajikistan need to continue to provide solid support for each other and bring about more concrete results in China-Tajikistan ties. President Xi Jinping underscored Chinas readiness to enhance practical cooperation with Tajikistan, expand import of quality Tajik agricultural products, elevate the scale and level of bilateral trade, advance cooperation in such areas as infrastructure, water management and transportation, discuss cooperation in green technology, digital economy and artificial intelligence, and assist Tajikistan in promoting cross-border transportation capability. China is ready to work with Tajikistan and other central Asian countries to enhance the China+Central Asia (C+C5) Meeting mechanism and other cooperation, deepen counterterrorism cooperation, and jointly safeguard peace and tranquility in this region. President Rahmon noted that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Tajikistan and China. Over the past three decades, Tajikistan-China relations have made significant progress. He reaffirmed that Tajikistan unswervingly abides by the one-China principle, firmly maintains that Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinas territory, and will continue to firmly support Chinas stance on issues concerning Chinas core interests. China is not only a good friend, but also an important strategic partner of Tajikistan. Tajikistan is ready to develop closer high-level interactions with China, learn from Chinas development experience, promote practical cooperation in areas such as economy and trade, agriculture, transportation, production capacity and green economy, and raise Tajikistan-China relations to a new level. Tajikistan is ready to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China in the United Nations, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and the C+C5 framework to deepen security cooperation and jointly safeguard regional security and stability. President Rahmon wished the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China a full success. The two Presidents exchanged views on the situation in Afghanistan. The two sides signed cooperation documents in digital economy, green development, transportation and other fields. Ding Xuexiang, Yang Jiechi, Wang Yi, He Lifeng and other officials attended the meeting. On September 21, 2022 local time, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Somali Foreign Minister Abshir Omar Huruse on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Wang Yi said that the traditional friendship between China and Somalia is an important part of China-Africa friendship. Somalia is the first East African country to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and the two countries have always respected each other and supported each other on issues related to each other's core interests. China has always advocated that all countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are equal, and will continue to be a trustworthy friend of Somalia, providing support and assistance to Somalia within its capacity, so as to achieve common development and prosperity. Huruse said that Somalia and China has long enjoyed the friendship and no word can be enough to describe the friendship between the two countries. Huruse thanks China for always standing with Somalia at critical moments, especially for firmly supporting Somalia in safeguarding its sovereignty. Somalia unswervingly supports the one-China principle and opposes the interference by external forces in China's internal affairs. Somalia is proud to have China, a major country with significant international influence, as a friend. Developing relations with China is neither make-shift nor interest-driven. Although Somalia is a small country, it has never wavered in upholding its position in the international arena. Wang Yi said that China firmly supports the governance of the new Somali government and believes that Somalia's peaceful development will continue to move forward. China appreciates Somalia's firm adherence to the one-China principle, supports Somalia in safeguarding its sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity, and will continue to stand with Somalia in the international arena and support its legitimate demands. China is willing to strengthen solidarity with all developing countries, oppose unilateral bullying and jointly uphold non-interference in internal affairs, which is a basic norm of international relations. On September 21, 2022 local time, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Wang Yi said, in June this year, China and Poland held the third plenary session of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Committee to synergize and implement cooperation in various fields. The two heads of state had a successful phone conversation just days ago, providing strategic guidance for maintaining the sound and stable momentum of China-Poland relations. The two sides understand and support each other on issues concerning respective core interests, thus providing a solid political guarantee for the development of bilateral relations. The two countries jointly act on true multilateralism and uphold the important norm of non-interference in internal affairs, constantly injecting new impetus into China-Poland cooperation. Wang Yi said that China is ready to strengthen strategic synergy with Poland and advance cooperation in various fields, including China-Europe freight trains, civil aviation, agriculture and investment. China is willing to steadily advance the cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) on top of deepening bilateral cooperation. Poland is a major country in Central and Eastern Europe and an important initiator of China-CEEC cooperation. China supports Poland in building a CEEC wholesale market for agricultural products and making it a regional distribution center for agricultural products. Rau expressed that Poland views China as a friendly and reliable strategic partner, and the two countries have maintained close high-level interactions and exchanges at various levels. The two sides share common views on safeguarding independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Poland adheres to the one-China policy and appreciates China's consistent pursuit of a foreign policy of peace. Poland is committed to advancing China-CEEC cooperation and is ready to strengthen cooperation in agricultural product trade with China. Poland attaches importance to China's international status and influence and hopes that China will play an important role in restoring peace in Europe. Wang Yi said, a magnified and prolonged Ukraine crisis serves no one's interests. Hope the conflict will end as soon as possible and peace talks could resume. It's China's consistent proposition that a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture should be established to provide a lasting guarantee for peace. China will remain committed to promoting peace talks. I'm dealing with this on my 600 mile 2 week old 22 7.3. 15 messages a day in the app. I had it to dealer already for wheel balance issues and I asked them to check on that as well, and that is the response they gave. It also sends me messages that the app will not work with remote start and lock unlock. They claimed the battery was ok, but yesterday I couldn't even open the truck with the fob, had to use the key as it was dead from the outside. Once I put the key in the dash sprang to life and it did start, cranked a little funny and certainly ran with a miss for a minute. There is something draining the battery thats making this happen. So now I have my battery tender hooked up to my new truck. I'll be interested to see what they do for whatever they did to cause this. For the second time this month, the surfing community gathered on the beach for a paddle-out ceremony in memory of a Ball High School student who died as a result of a Sept. 2 crash. Sam Mixon, a freshman at Ball High School who died Sept. 16 after nearly two weeks in critical condition, was honored Sunday with a paddle-out ceremony on the beach near 28th Street in Galveston. On Sept. 11, a paddle-out was held for Mason Nelson, who was killed in the crash. Nearly 100 people on surf boards, paddleboards, kayaks and boats paddled out past the rock groins to lay flowers in the water and share a moment of silence for Mixon. Part of the surf culture, paddle-outs are memorials held on the water. Jennifer Reynolds Close Jennifer Reynolds Photography Editor Follow Jennifer Reynolds 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 Selbyville, Delaware, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The biopreservation market value is anticipated to cross USD 9.5 billion in revenue by 2030, according to a new research report by Global Market Insights Inc. Increasing demand for regeneration medicines due to rising occurrences of lifestyle diseases will drive the industry trends. Growing need for effective healthcare systems, along with prominent healthcare expenditure, will increase the demand for biopreservatives. The soaring cases of chronic diseases among the elderly population have encouraged government agencies to spend massively on healthcare, pushing gene banks, bio banks and hospitals to focus on biopreservation. Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/762 Wide applicability in research laboratories to push the industry landscape Biopreservation market from equipment segment was valued at over USD 3.5 billion in 2021, due to the growing demand for biopreservation equipment to preserve blood, vaccines, and more, in hospitals and laboratories. The equipment includes freezers, refrigerators, consumables, and liquid nitrogen and are widely utilized in DNA, stem cell, plasma, and tissue research sectors. CD34+ cell provider segment to foster market expansion The CD34+ segment was worth more than USD 810 million in 2021. This is attributed to the prevalent use of cell surface marker CD34+ for the diagnosis of hematopoietic stem cells that can differentiate into multiple lineages. Blood from newborns umbilical cords is a crucial source of these cells. Notable advancements in stem cell research will stimulate product penetration. Browse key industry insights spread across 260 pages with 413 market data tables & 13 figures & charts from the report, Biopreservation Market Analysis By Product (Equipment {Freezers, Refrigerators, Consumables [Vials, Straws, Microtiter, Bags], Liquid Nitrogen}, Media {Pre-formulated, Home-brew}, Laboratory Information Management System [LIMS]), By Application (Regenerative Medicine {Cell Therapy, Gene Therapy}, Biobanking {Human Eggs, Human Sperm, Veterinary IVF}, Drug Discovery), By Cell Provider (CD34+, CD19+, MSC, iPSC, hESC, Tumor Cells), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2022 2030 in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/biopreservation-market High demand for advanced storage facility to boost industry size Biopreservation market from regenerative medicine segment accounted USD 1 billion in 2021. owing to the rising demand for advanced bio storage facilities. Intensifying demand for regenerative therapies that require regenerative medicines will propel the demand for effective bio-storage procedures. For instance, in September 2022, CIRM provided around $2.7 million to UCI to establish a regenerative medicine training program to spread awareness regarding its benefits. North America to emerge as a prominent regional market due to surging incidences of chronic diseases North America biopreservation market held a substantial industry share of more than 45% in 2021 and is slated to depict significant growth over the assessment timeframe. Exponential demand for diagnosis of chronic diseases may be a key factor pushing regional market revenue. In addition, government guidelines supporting ethical usage of biological samples and the development of novel drugs & therapies in the healthcare space will foster the North America industry outlook. Effective expansion plans to remain a vital development strategy for industry players The competitive landscape of the biopreservation market is inclusive of Arctiko A/S, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, PHC Holdings Corporation, Cryport, Inc, Eppendorf AG, Helmer Scientific, VWR International (Avantor, Inc.), Biolife Solutions, Azenta, and Merck KGaA. These companies primarily focus on research and development and enter into strategic mergers and collaborations to proliferate their market position. Request for customization of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/roc/762 About Global Market Insights Global Market Insights Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider, offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy, and biotechnology. Pune, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Coconut Water Drinks Market 2016-2030 report discovers comprehensive insights on key manufacturers with share information, market size and projection, key dynamics, growth factors, and new company profiles. The report provides detailed information about the market overview, prevalent trends, demand, and recent developments impacting the market growth in the coming years. Coconut Water Drinks Market opportunities analysis, strategic growth analysis, product launches, marketplace expanding, and technological innovations are also highlighted. The report uncovers Coconut Water Drinks market size, potential growth, trends and expansion strategies followed by top prominent players. Get a Sample PDF of the report @ https://www.industryresearch.biz/enquiry/request-sample/20980185 This report provides detailed historical analysis of global market for Coconut Water Drinks from 2016-2021, and provides extensive market forecasts from 2022-2030 by region/country and subsectors. It covers the sales/revenue/value, gross margin, historical growth and future perspectives in the Coconut Water Drinks market. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 is also concerned. Since outbreak in December 2019, the COVID-19 virus has spread to all around the world and caused huge losses of lives and economy, and the global manufacturing, tourism and financial markets have been hit hard, while the online market/industry increase. Fortunately, with the development of vaccine and other effort by global governments and organizations, the negative impact of COVID-19 is expected to subside and the global economy is expected to recover. This research covers COVID-19 impacts on the upstream, midstream and downstream industries. Moreover, this research provides an in-depth market evaluation by highlighting information on various aspects covering market dynamics like drivers, barriers, opportunities, threats, and industry news & trends. In the end, this report also provides in-depth analysis and professional advices on how to face the post COIVD-19 period. The research methodology used to estimate and forecast this market begins by capturing the revenues of the key players and their shares in the market. Various secondary sources such as press releases, annual reports, non-profit organizations, industry associations, governmental agencies and customs data, have been used to identify and collect information useful for this extensive commercial study of the market. Calculations based on this led to the overall market size. After arriving at the overall market size, the total market has been split into several segments and subsegments, which have then been verified through primary research by conducting extensive interviews with industry experts such as CEOs, VPs, directors, and executives. The data triangulation and market breakdown procedures have been employed to complete the overall market engineering process and arrive at the exact statistics for all segments and subsegments. Get A Sample Copy Of The Coconut Water Drinks Market Report 2016-2030 Coconut Water Drinks Market Top Manufacturers Analysis : The report covers extensive analysis of the key market players along with their business overview, expansion plans, and strategies. Top Key Players covered in the report are: VITA COCO Pepsico (ONE) Coca-Cola (Zico) Green Coco Europe Taste Nirvana C2O Pure Coconut Water Tradecons GmbH UFC Coconut Water Edward & Sons Maverick Brands Amy & Brian CHI Coconut Water Grupo Serigy Sococo PECU Koh Coconut CocoJal Naked Juice Goya Foods Harvest Bay The report focuses on the Coconut Water Drinks market size, segment size (mainly covering product type, application, and geography), competitor landscape, recent status, and development trends. Furthermore, the report provides detailed cost analysis, supply chain. Technological innovation and advancement will further optimize the performance of the product, making it more widely used in downstream applications. Moreover, Consumer behavior analysis and market dynamics (drivers, restraints, opportunities) provides crucial information for knowing the Coconut Water Drinks market. Based On Product Types, the Coconut Water Drinks market from 2016 to 2030 is primarily split into: Mixed Coconut Water Pure Coconut Water Based On Applications, the Coconut Water Drinks market from 2016 to 2030 covers: Online Sales Offline Sales Enquire before purchasing this report - https://www.industryresearch.biz/enquiry/pre-order-enquiry/20980185 Geographically, the report includes research on production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate, and forecast (2016 -2030) of the following regions: North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) South America (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia etc.) Middle East & Africa (South Africa, UAE and Saudi Arabia etc.) Major Highlights of Coconut Water Drinks Market Report: Define and discuss the growth of the global Coconut Water Drinks market Analyze the various segments and dynamics of the Coconut Water Drinks market To identify and make suitable business plans according to industry and economic shifts. The key objective of presenting an in-depth research study on the global Coconut Water Drinks market is to conduct an extensive analysis and Coconut Water Drinks performance. The report highlights the latest trends, market drivers, and investment avenues for the new entrants and the market players looking for market expansion. It is helpful to combine relevant facts and offers a wealth of information and analysis on the global Coconut Water Drinks market. This report assesses the performance and profit potential of the global Coconut Water Drinks market. Different variables are used to analyze attractiveness and strengths. TO KNOW HOW COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND RUSSIA UKRAINE WAR WILL IMPACT THIS MARKET - REQUEST SAMPLE What ideas and concepts are covered in the report? The assessments accounted by all the zones and the market share registered by each region are mentioned in the report. The study sums up the product consumption growth rate in the applicable regions along with their consumption market share. Data regarding the Coconut Water Drinks Industry market consumption rate of all the provinces, based on applicable regions and product types is inculcated in the report. Region-based analysis of the Coconut Water Drinks Industry market: The Coconut Water Drinks Industry market, with regards to the provincial scope, is segmented into USA, Europe, Japan, China, India, South East Asia and more. The report also includes information regarding the products use throughout the topographies. Some of the key questions answered in this report: Which are the five top players of the Coconut Water Drinks market? How will the Coconut Water Drinks market change in the upcoming years? Which product and application will take a share of the Coconut Water Drinks market? What are the drivers and restraints of the Coconut Water Drinks market? Which regional market will show the highest growth? What will be the CAGR and size of the Coconut Water Drinks market throughout the forecast period? What is the current market size, what will the market size be in 2030 and what will the growth rate be? What are the challenges to grow in the market? What are the market opportunities and challenges faced by the key vendors? Who are the major competitors and what is their strategy? What are the barriers to entry for new players in the market? Purchase this report (Price 2500 USD for a single-user license) - https://www.industryresearch.biz/purchase/20980185 With tables and figures helping analyze worldwide Global Coconut Water Drinks market trends, this research provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market. Detailed TOC of Coconut Water Drinks Market Forecast Report 2016-2030: Chapter 1 Coconut Water Drinks Market Overview 1.1 Coconut Water Drinks Definition 1.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Status and Outlook (2016-2030) 1.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Region (2016-2030) 1.4 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Type (2016-2030) 1.5 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Application (2016-2030) 1.6 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Sales Channel (2016-2030) 1.7 Coconut Water Drinks Market Dynamics (COVID-19 Impacts) 1.7.1 Market Drivers/Opportunities 1.7.2 Market Challenges/Risks 1.7.3 Market News (Mergers/Acquisitions/Expansion) 1.7.4 COVID-19 Impacts 1.7.5 Post-Strategies of COVID-19 Chapter 2 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Player 2.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Sales and Market Share by Player (2019-2021) 2.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Player (2019-2021) 2.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Average Price by Player (2019-2021) 2.4 Players Competition Situation & Trends 2.5 Conclusion of Segment by Player Chapter 3 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Type 3.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market by Type 3.1.1 Mixed Coconut Water 3.1.2 Pure Coconut Water 3.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Sales and Market Share by Type (2016-2021) 3.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Type (2016-2021) 3.4 Global Coconut Water Drinks Average Price by Type (2016-2021) 3.5 Leading Players of Coconut Water Drinks by Type in 2021 3.6 Conclusion of Segment by Type Chapter 4 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Application 4.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market by Application 4.1.1 Online Sales 4.1.2 Offline Sales 4.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Application (2016-2021) 4.3 Leading Consumers of Coconut Water Drinks by Application in 2021 4.4 Conclusion of Segment by Application Chapter 5 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Sales Channel 5.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market by Sales Channel 5.1.1 Direct Channel 5.1.2 Distribution Channel 5.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Sales Channel (2016-2021) 5.3 Leading Distributors/Dealers of Coconut Water Drinks by Sales Channel in 2021 5.4 Conclusion of Segment by Sales Channel Chapter 6 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Region 6.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR by Region (2016-2030) 6.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Sales and Market Share by Region (2016-2021) 6.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Region (2016-2021) 6.4 North America 6.4.1 North America Market by Country 6.4.2 North America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.4.3 North America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.4.4 United States 6.4.5 Canada 6.4.6 Mexico 6.5 Europe 6.5.1 Europe Market by Country 6.5.2 Europe Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.5.3 Europe Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.5.4 Germany 6.5.5 UK 6.5.6 France 6.5.7 Italy 6.5.8 Russia 6.5.9 Spain 6.6 Asia-Pacific 6.6.1 Asia-Pacific Market by Country 6.6.2 Asia-Pacific Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.6.3 Asia-Pacific Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.6.4 China 6.6.5 Japan 6.6.6 Korea 6.6.7 India 6.6.8 Southeast Asia 6.6.9 Australia 6.7 South America 6.7.1 South America Market by Country 6.7.2 South America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.7.3 South America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.7.4 Brazil 6.7.5 Argentina 6.7.6 Colombia 6.8 Middle East & Africa 6.8.1 Middle East & Africa Market by Country 6.8.2 Middle East & Africa Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.8.3 Middle East & Africa Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.8.4 UAE 6.8.5 Saudi Arabia 6.8.6 South Africa 6.9 Conclusion of Segment by Region Chapter 7 Profile of Leading Coconut Water Drinks Players 7.1 VITA COCO 7.1.1 Company Snapshot 7.1.2 Product/Service Offered 7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share) 7.2 Pepsico (ONE) 7.3 Coca-Cola (Zico) 7.4 Green Coco Europe 7.5 Taste Nirvana 7.6 C2O Pure Coconut Water 7.7 Tradecons GmbH 7.8 UFC Coconut Water 7.9 Edward & Sons 7.10 Maverick Brands 7.11 Amy & Brian 7.12 CHI Coconut Water 7.13 Grupo Serigy 7.14 Sococo 7.15 PECU 7.16 Koh Coconut 7.17 CocoJal 7.18 Naked Juice 7.19 Goya Foods 7.20 Harvest Bay Chapter 8 Upstream and Downstream Analysis of Coconut Water Drinks 8.1 Industrial Chain of Coconut Water Drinks 8.2 Upstream of Coconut Water Drinks 8.3 Downstream of Coconut Water Drinks Chapter 9 Development Trend of Coconut Water Drinks (2022-2030) 9.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size (Sales and Revenue) Forecast (2022-2030) 9.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Region (2022-2030) 9.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Type (2022-2030) 9.4 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Application (2022-2030) 9.5 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Sales Channel (2022-2030) Chapter 10 Appendix 10.1 Research Methodology 10.2 Data Sources 10.3 Disclaimer 10.4 Analysts Certification Detailed TOC of Global Coconut Water Drinks Market @ https://www.industryresearch.biz/TOC/20980185 About Us: Market is changing rapidly with the ongoing expansion of the industry. Advancement in technology has provided todays businesses with multifaceted advantages resulting in daily economic shifts. Thus, it is very important for a company to comprehend the patterns of the market movements in order to strategize better. An efficient strategy offers the companies a head start in planning and an edge over the competitors. Industry Research is a credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs. Luton, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Exactitude Consultancy, the market research and consulting wing of Ameliorate Digital Consultancy Private Limited has completed and published the final copy of the detailed research report on the Ceramic Fiber Market. The global Ceramic Fiber Market held a market value of USD 1.91 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 4.46 billion by 2029. The market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 9.9% from 2022 to 2029. Ceramic fiber is lightweight, has a high compressive strength, and enhances thermal performance without requiring vacuum, it is utilized in aeroplanes. It is also known as high-temperature insulating wool. Only in high-temperature industrial applications and other activities are they used. Ceramic fibers are used in a variety of industries such as aluminum, petrochemicals, power generation, iron and steel, ceramics, and so on. Aluminum silicate fiber, also known as refractory ceramic fiber, is the first type of ceramic fiber. Request Sample PDF Brochure of Ceramic Fiber Market Size and Global Analysis with Strategic Developments at: https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/5653/ceramic-fiber-market#request-a-sample Recent Industry Developments: In 2022: Sappi has pledged to contribute to the solution and is attempting to decarbonize its business practices. As the next step in its long-term commitment to preserving the planet and promoting sustainable production on a global scale, it will stop using coal at its German facility in Stockstadt. To achieve this, Boiler 9, the mill's current coal-fired boiler, will be demolished, and the mill will run entirely on natural gas and renewable biomass. In September 2021, Enexor BioEnergy announced its partnership with the University of Tennessee. This partnership will help Enexor to test high-temperature ceramic filter technology and gather information about energy and cost saving characteristics of ceramic fibers. Asia Pacific shares 28% of total market. After that, Rest of the World 72% of global market respectively. The Asia Pacific region is dominating the market of ceramic fibers due to intensive R&D, increasing infrastructural development activities, and increasing awareness created by regulatory organizations, such as EPA and REACH, for environmental protection. The ceramic fiber market in the region will benefit greatly as a result of this. The ceramic fiber market in the region has a lot of potential because of the metal, refining & petrochemical, and power generation industries. Aerospace industry holds the largest market share owing to growing adoption of ceramic fiber. Ceramic fibers are employed in the aerospace sector because of their lightweight, high-temperature resistance, electrical insulation, corrosion resistance, chemical stability, wear resistance, and vibration resistance. Ceramic-fiber reinforced composites are employed in the manufacturing of engine parts such as turbine blends, compressors, and exhaust buckets, as well as aerospace rockets. Iron and steel industries hold the highest market size owing to its higher thermal performance in comparison with other materials. Ceramic fiber is increasingly being used as a refractory lining for heat treatment and preheating furnaces in the iron and steel industries. This is owing to the fact that it has a higher heat efficiency per unit thickness than insulating fire bricks. Ceramic fiber is lightweight and has low conductivity, which helps to conserve energy by preventing heat from escaping from furnaces and kilns. It can help in saving up to 20% of energy, lowering overall production costs. Report Scope: Report Attribute/Metric Details Market Size USD 1.91 billion in 2021 USD 4.46 billion by 2029 CAGR 9.9% (2022 - 2029) Base Year 2021 Forecast Period 2022 - 2029 Historical Data 2017 Forecast Units Value (USD Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered Material Type, End-Use Industry and Region Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW) Key Vendors Morgan Advanced Materials plc, Unifrax LLC, Harbisonwalker International Inc., Nutec Fibratec, Rath Group, FibreCast Inc., Double Egret Thermal Insulation, Luyang Energy Savings Material Co., Ltd., Ibiden Co., Ltd., Isolite Insulating Product Co. Ltd. and Yeso Insulating Product Co., Ltd. Key Market Opportunities The refining and petrochemical industry has the largest market share and is predicted to grow the fastest over the projection period. Key Market Drivers The growing demand for ceramic fiber in the refining and petrochemical industries is driven by the need to reduce operating costs, improve dependability, and reduce energy consumption in furnace linings. Ceramic fiber products have opportunities in alternative energy also, due to their high-temperature resistance. Fuel cells, solar, geothermal, biofuels, and waste incinerators are examples of alternative energy applications. Some Major Findings of the Ceramic fiber Market: Innovation is one of the most important and key strategies as it has to be for any ceramic fiber market. However, companies in the Ceramic Fiber Market have also opted for and successfully driven inorganic growth strategies like mergers & acquisitions and so on. Key players in global ceramic fiber market are Morgan Advanced Materials plc, Unifrax LLC, Harbisonwalker International Inc., Nutec Fibratec, Rath Group, FibreCast Inc., Double Egret Thermal Insulation, Luyang Energy Savings Material Co., Ltd., Ibiden Co., Ltd., Isolite Insulating Product Co. Ltd., Yeso Insulating Product Co., Ltd. and others. Browse the full report at@: https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/5653/ceramic-fiber-market Ceramic Fiber Market Dynamics: Driver: Increasing use of ceramic fiber in petrochemical industry Ceramic fiber is widely used in the petrochemical industry for filtration, fire protection, and thermal management solutions, among other applications. One of the major factors driving Ceramic Fiber Market growth is the increasing use of ceramic fiber in the petrochemical industry. It is used in the iron and steel industries as a refractory liner for heating furnaces during thermal processing. Ceramic fiber materials help to prevent heat leaking from kilns and furnaces, lowering overall production costs. Ceramic fiber filtration technology is also used to reduce pollution in the environment. Moreover, increasing focus on research and development activities, rising application of ceramic fiber in the manufacturing of aerospace components, and rising environmental concerns are some other key factors expected to continue to drive Ceramic Fiber Market revenue growth going ahead. Restraint: Side-effects of ceramic fiber Ceramic fiber materials are composed of inorganic compounds known as carcinogens, such as alumina or Al2O3 and silica or Si2O3. Prolonged exposure to ceramic fiber may cause eye and skin irritation, as well as respiratory problems such as chronic cough, dyspnea, and wheezing. This factor is expected to limit the use of ceramic fiber materials and have a negative impact on Ceramic Fiber Market growth. Furthermore, the high cost of production and the presence of stringent regulations regarding the use of petrochemical-based products due to negative environmental effects are key factors that are expected to limit revenue growth to some extent. Opportunities: Increasing demand from various applications in aerospace and alternative energy industry Ceramic fiber products, due to their high-temperature resistance, are being used in new applications, such as aerospace and alternative energy. The alternative energy applications include fuel cells, solar, geothermal, biofuels, and waste incinerators. Ceramic fiber, which is very strong and lightweight, is slowly revolutionizing the aerospace industry. Key Insights from Primary Research As per the analysis, the Ceramic fiber market is likely to grow above a CAGR of around 9.9% between 2022 and 2029. The Ceramic fiber market size was worth around USD 1.91 billion in 2021 and is estimated to hit approximately USD 4.46 billion by 2029. Due to a variety of driving factors, the market is predicted to rise at a significant rate. By process of manufacturing, the natural Ceramic fiber category dominated the market in 2022. By application, Ceramic fiber for the textile segment dominated the market in 2022. On the basis of region, The Asia Pacific dominated the Ceramic fiber market in 2022. Browse some more of Exactitude Consultancys report - Aircraft Insulation Materials Market The global aircraft insulation materials market was valued at USD 20.007 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 39.33 billion by 2029, expanding at a CAGR of 7.8% during the forecast period. https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/4658/aircraft-insulation-materials-market Exterior Wall Systems Market The global Exterior Wall Systems Market is expected to grow at a 3.25% CAGR from 2020 to 2029. It is expected to reach above USD 189.2 billion by 2029 from USD 141.9 billion in 2021. https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/6233/exterior-wall-systems-market Cladding Systems Market The global cladding systems market is expected to grow at a 5.6% CAGR from 2022 to 2029. It is expected to reach above USD 362 billion by 2029 from USD 221.28 billion in 2021. https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/5862/cladding-systems-market Polyurethane Adhesives Market The global Polyurethane Adhesives Market will witness a CAGR of 6.2% for the forecast period of 2022-2029. It is expected to reach above USD 11.95 Billion by 2029 from USD 7.50 Billion in 2021. Dublin, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Military Lighting Market by End Use (Ground, Marine, Airborne), Product (LED, Non-LED), Type (Internal Lighting, External Lighting, Others) and Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Rest of the World) - Forecast to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The military lighting market is projected to grow from USD 559 million in 2022 to USD 807 million by 2027, at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2022 to 2027. The market is driven by the ongoing defense industry initiatives to modernize military platforms. However, the market's growth is limited by the lower lifespan of existing incandescent lights to foresee the market growth. The COVID-19 outbreak has had an impact on the military lighting supply chain. The spread of COVID-19 in the United States and Europe is expected to be slowed by lockdowns at military lighting vehicle research and development centres. As a result of the Asia Pacific lockdown, many businesses in the military lighting industry have lost revenue. Many startups have failed to continue operating in the area due to delays in development and a lack of funds. The commercialization of military lighting appears to have been delayed by a year when compared with pre conditions. The ground segment is expected to hold major share of the market during the forecast period on the basis of end use Several companies are designing military lighting for armored vehicles. For instance, a range of rugged LED solutions is developed and manufactured by Oxley for use on armored vehicles, including infantry fighting vehicles and multi-role military vehicles. Oxley provides both visible lighting and technology for covert operations, such as NVG compatible and infrared lighting, suitable for use on wheeled and tracked vehicles. Solutions from Oxley include driving lights and interior and task lighting, as well as panel lamps, data capture, and EMI filters. The LED segment is anticipated to lead the military lighting market in near future A light-emitting diode (LED) transforms energy to light often in a very tiny area, less than one square millimeter, so that in an LED lamp, there are several light-emitting diodes. LED is solid-state illumination (no moving components and no gas within). Military aircraft use LEDs for fast takeoffs, landings, and taxiing, which has several benefits over the older halogen or xenon bulb-based aircraft lighting technology. Interior lighting segment to grow at highest rate in the military lighting market Military aircraft are installed with dedicated lighting to illuminate the main cabin. Further, an independent lighting system is also provided in some cases so that passengers can read when the cabin lights are off, and an emergency lighting system on the floor of the military aircraft to aid passengers of the aircraft during an emergency. Cabin lights include dome lights installed in cabins, cargo bays, loading ramps, exits, walkways, and general illumination that includes dome lights, area lights, and mini floodlights. Asia Pacific to grow at the highest rate in terms of value Asia Pacific is estimated to account for 29% of the military lighting market in 2022. The market in Asia Pacific is projected to grow from USD 160.1 million in 2022 to USD 247.2 million by 2027, at a CAGR of 9.1% from 2022 to 2027. Market Dynamics Drivers Modernization and Upgrade of Military Vehicles, Aircraft, and Naval Ships Use of LEDs as Efficient Alternative to Incandescent and Fluorescent Lights Enhanced Safety and Quality Features of LEDs Restraints Lower Lifespan of Existing Incandescent Lights Short-To-Medium-Term Impact on Lighting Component Supply due to US-China Trade Conflict Opportunities Compatibility of LEDs with Military/Navy/Air Force Operations Increasing Demand for Intelligent Military Lighting Solutions Challenges High Initial Cost Existing Defense Backlog Key Topics Covered: 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 5 Market Overview 6 Industry Trends 7 Military Lighting Market, by Type 8 Military Lighting Market, by Product 9 Military Lighting Market, by End Use 10 Regional Analysis 11 Competitive Landscape 12 Company Profiles 13 Appendix Companies Mentioned Adb Safegate Agi Holdings Astronics Corporation Calzoni Cilas Company Cobham Limited Consolite Technology Daeyang Den Haan Rotterdam (Dhr) Glamox Honeywell International. Karl Dose GmbH Lightpartner Lichtsysteme GmbH & Co. KG Lopolight Company Marl International Optonaval GmbH Orion Energy Systems Oxley Group Peters and Bey Company Raytheon Technologies Soderberg Manufacturing Company The L.C. Doane Company Unilux Geomar SA Wiska Hoppmann GmbH Zodiac Aerospace For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/nka3sn Attachment Selbyville, Delaware, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fabry disease treatment market value is projected to cross USD 3.5 billion by 2030 , according to a new research report by Global Market Insights Inc. Rising emphasis on the advancement of genetic disease therapies will drive market expansion. Several biotech companies have been collaborating with healthcare organizations to design breakthrough disease treatment options. For example, 4D Molecular Therapeutics (4DMT) partnered with the NFDF (National Fabry Disease Foundation) to develop advanced treatments for Fabry disease patients. Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/4237 Chaperones to emerge as a key treatment option for Fabry disease patients Chaperone therapy segment accounted for 18% business share in 2021, given the increasing awareness regarding the use of active-site-specific chaperone 1-deoxygalactonojirimycin. This therapy can facilitate the folding of mutant GLA (-galactosidase A) in the endoplasmic reticulum and increase its lysosomal residual activity. Moreover, the reduction of Gb3 (globotriaosylceramide) deposits is shown in lymphoblasts from Fabry disease patients with missense mutation GLA. Browse key industry insights spread across 109 pages with 123 market data tables & 17 figures & charts from the report, Fabry Disease Treatment Market Size By Treatment Type (Enzyme Replacement Therapy (ERT) {By Drug Type (Agalsidase Alpha, Agalsidase Beta}, End-use (Physician Office and Home Settings)}, Chaperone Therapy), Industry Analysis Report, Price Trends, Regional Outlook, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2022 2030 in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/fabry-disease-treatment-market Rising elderly population to support the APAC industry development Asia Pacific Fabry disease treatment market is poised to depict a CAGR of more than 10% through 2030, driven by the growing disease prevalence and awareness about its precise treatment. Due to the rising complications associated with the disease, and need for precise diagnosis and treatment, government bodies have also introduced varied initiatives. The report also reveals that the growing elderly population, which contributes to the target disease burden, will likely result in the expansion of Fabry disease treatment centers in the region. Increase in product approvals from regulatory authorities to strengthen the industry landscape Key players operating in the fabry disease treatment market are Takeda, Sanofi, Amicus Therapeutics, ISU Abaxis, and JCR Pharmaceuticals Co Ltd, among other companies. These market participants are rapidly developing innovative products with approval from various regulatory bodies. Request for customization of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/roc/4237 About Global Market Insights Global Market Insights Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider, offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy, and biotechnology. CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pan American Energy Corp. (the Company or Pan American) (CSE: PNRG) (OTC PINK: PAANF) is pleased to announce the Company has executed a Master Services Agreement (the Agreement) with RESPEC Consulting Inc. (RESPEC), a leader in geoscience, engineering, data, and integrated technology solutions for industry. We are pleased to be moving ahead with RESPEC as our strategic partner for the Green Energy Lithium Project (the Project) comments Jason Latkowcer, Chief Executive Officer. We believe RESPECs multi-disciplinary team of geologists, geophysicists and engineers, and their direct experience in the Paradox Basin, will be of tremendous assistance in our planned execution of a successful, safe, and timely well re-entry. This is the first stage in our exploration efforts as we strive towards our goal of establishing a mineral resource estimate at the Project. Our team in Grand Junction Colorado, just next door to this very active mining district, is well positioned and experienced to help advance the Green Energy Lithium Project, commented Tabetha Stirrett, VP of Mining for RESPEC. We have been working in this area for a few decades and understand the complexities of not only the geology and mining of commodities in the Paradox basin but also the importance of relationship building with the local community and stakeholders. We are looking forward to helping to advance this Project. Pan American presently holds 208 placer mining claims on contiguous U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) managed lands (Figure 1) totaling 4,160 acres. The Pan American holdings are adjacent to Anson Resources (Anson) lithium claims that are currently being defined and developed, with a present JORC-compliant Resource of 186 thousand tons (kt) of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE). Pan American is interested in exploring the Project for brines that may contain attractive concentrations of lithium or other critical minerals capable of extraction. Pan American has previously published an NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Project, having an effective date of March 24, 2022, which is available on the Companys SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Pan American will work directly with RESPEC to develop the Project through an assessment of currently available data and development a well re-entry plan. RESPECs project team is familiar with the geology of the Paradox Basin, having performed numerous desktop reviews, geologic modeling efforts, and exploration programs within the basin. The currently compiled information on the Project, and other available data, are expected to form the basis for the development of an exploration plan aimed at establishing a mineral resource estimate at the Project. Figure 1. Project location map RESPEC has developed a brief Scope of Work for the Project. The initial tasks in Phase I are as follows: Phase I Pre-Exploration Task 1: Review Data and Reports Task 2: Site Inspection Task 3: Prepare Drilling Plan and Permits Task 4: Prepare Vendor Packages Task 5: Vendor Selection and Contracting Task 6: Pre-exploration Planning and Contractors Qualified Person The technical and scientific information contained within this news release has been reviewed and approved by an independent consulting geologist Bill Fleshman, Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy AusIMM and a CP (chartered professional #107342), and Qualified Person (QP) as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Policy. About RESPEC Consulting Inc. RESPEC was founded in Rapid City, South Dakota in 1969 and operates in 14 states and two Canadian provinces. RESPECs projects and products have been completed for clients in seven continents and 50 countries. Underground. Aboveground. Natural. Technical. Digital. Inside. Outside. On-Site. No matter the market, RESPEC integrates solutions tailored to clients and communities needs. RESPEC unites engineering and applied sciences with technology, professional, and creative services so that everyone gets cutting-edge outcomes. RESPEC finds answers that work for the needs at hand. RESPECs diversified team can handle projects ranging from early-stage exploration to multi-disciplinary feasibility studies. About Pan American Energy Corp. Pan American Energy Corp. (CSE: PNRG) (OTC PINK: PAANF) is an exploration stage company engaged principally in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties containing battery metals in North and South America. The Companys flagship asset is the 100% owned Green Energy Lithium Asset, located in the Paradox Basin, Utah, USA. The Company has also executed an option agreement with Magabra Resources with the right to acquire up to 90% interest in the Big Mack Lithium Project, 80 km north of Kenora, Ontario. On Behalf of the Board of Directors Jason Latkowcer CEO & Director Contact Phone : (585) 885-5970 Email: info@panam-energy.com Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Companys current beliefs or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking information relating to, among other things, the Companys plans to undertake a well re-entry (and to work with RESPEC in respect thereto), the Companys objective to establish a mineral resource estimate at the Project, the Companys exploration plans and objectives at the Project and the exploration potential of the Project and the current work plans for Phase 1 of the Companys exploration of the Project. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information, including, in respect of the forward-looking information included in this press release, the assumption that: the Companys partnership with RESPEC will allow it to undertake the well re-entry in a successful, safe and timely manner; the results of the prior scientific and technical work completed at the Project are accurate and are representative of the actual geology and mineralization present at the Project, that the Company will successfully complete its planned exploration program in accordance with the expected parameters and that such program will yield the results anticipated by the Company, including the establishment of a mineral resource estimate at the Project. Such assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to the Company. Although forward-looking information is based on the reasonable assumptions of the Companys management, there can be no assurance that any forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks inherent in the exploration and development of mineral deposits, including risks relating to changes in project parameters as plans continue to be redefined, that mineral exploration is inherently uncertain and that the results of mineral exploration may not be indicative of the actual geology or mineralization of a Project, that mineral exploration may be unsuccessful or fail to achieve the results anticipated by the Company, including the establishment of a mineral resource estimate at the Project, and that the Companys partnership with RESPEC may not produce the anticipated benefits or results. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof, and the Company not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5ffef628-1df0-4673-92d3-8b3afa6fe3bd Chicago, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Military Drone Market is projected to grow from USD 12.0 billion in 2022 to USD 17.0 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 7.3% from 2022 to 2027, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. The growth of the market across the globe can be attributed to surging investment in development and procurement of modern military solution to enhance defense forces capabilities. Moreover, the increasing incidences of piracy and island grabbing in Central Asia, South America, East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and West Africa have led to increased maritime patrolling and anti-piracy operations in these regions. This, in turn, has led to the increased use of UAVs to carry out maritime patrolling to identify hot spots. UAVs can recognize and observe suspicious ships and safeguard routes that are of commercial importance by providing vital real-time information to concerned agencies in an effective manner. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=221577711 Browse in-depth TOC on Military Drone Market 302 Tables 69 Figures 271 Pages Based on propulsion, the battery segment is anticipated to record the highest growth rate during the forecast period. Based on propulsion, the military drone market has been classified into engine, piston engine, and battery. The battery segment includes military drones which are operated on lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and hybrid cells. The battery segment is anticipated to record the highest growth rate during the forecast period, with many short-range and medium-range drones adopting batteries besides the small drones. Battery or electrically-powered military drones use batteries to store energy and power electric motors. These drones are easy to operate and emit lesser noise as compared to turbo engine drones. However, lithium-ion batteries used in military drones need to be recharged once the charge is depleted; the process of recharging consumes a substantial amount of time. In contrast, fuel-powered military drones can be refueled at a quick pace. Hydrogen-powered military drones offer the benefit of electric propulsion, thereby enabling military drones to fly for long durations. Based on speed, the subsonic segment is estimated to register large share in the base year. Based on speed, military drone market has been segmented into subsonic and supersonic. The subsonic segment has been further divided into <100 Km/hr, 100300 Km/hr, and >300 Km/hr. The subsonic segment contributed to the majority share of the market as currently, most military drones operate at conventional subsonic speeds. Drones with a speed of less than 100 km/hr generally include small ISR drones and some close-range drones. The growing demand for small drone platforms is set to boost the growth of the <100 km/hr segment. Moreover, drones with a subsonic speed ranging from 100300 km/hr are generally medium endurance, low to medium range drones such as close range, short range, medium range, and tactical drones. The increasing use of tactical drones for ISR applications is set to boost the growth of the 100300 km/hr segment. Furthermore, drones with a more than 300 km/hr subsonic speed are high endurance, medium to long range, high-speed drones. The growing demand for armed drones such as lethal drones and target drones is set to boost the growth of the >300 km/hr segment. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=221577711 The Asia Pacific region is projected to be high growth potential markets for the military drone during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is known as a global leader in technology and innovation. It has the fastest-growing technology companies based on percentage revenue growth over three years. China, Malaysia, South Korea, and India heavily invest in military drone development projects. India imports a significant amount of military solutions from North America and Europe. Besides, China is a technologically advanced country with one of the biggest technology manufacturing industries. The country is known worldwide for its speed and efficiency, which are the major focal points for drone manufacturers. Some well-known military drone, payload, and drone component manufacturing companies in China are Autel Robotics, China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, Chengdu Rainpoo Technology Co., Ltd. Sichuan, Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. There are different research teams in China working on launching military drones. New technologies create new products and new processes. Apart from improving quality, technological advancements can also help reduce costs. Advancements in technology and increasing adoption of technologies to improve defense operations will result in the growth of the military drone market. The Major Players includes Northrop Grumman Corporation (US), Raytheon Technologies Corporation (US), Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (Israel), General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) (US), and Teledyne FLIR LLC (US). Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=221577711 Browse Adjacent Market: Aerospace and Defence Market Research Reports &Consulting Related Reports: Drone Software Market by Solution (Application, System), Platform (Defense & Government, Commercial, Consumer) Architecture (Open Source, Closed Source), Deployment (Onboard Drone, Ground-Based, Region - Global Forecast to 2027 Fixed-wing VTOL UAV Market by Application (Military, Government & Law Enforcement, Commercial), Propulsion (Electric, Hybrid, Gasoline), Mode of operation (VLOS, EVLOS, BVLOS), Endurance, Range, MTOW and Region - Global Forecast to 2030 Newark, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As per the report published by The Brainy Insights, the global system-on-chip market is expected to grow from USD 157.2 billion in 2021 to USD 311.6 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 7.90% during the forecast period 2022-2030. Customers' increasing needs for smart and power-efficient gadgets and the broad adoption of IoT (Internet of things) by different industry domains are predicted to be one of the pushing elements for the manufacturers in the system-on-chip market. Increased initial costs of SoC associated with higher maintenance prices of these systems is one element that would restrict the future growth of the system-on-chip market. The advancement in the construction of smart cities and smart transportation is expected to give ample opportunities for the players operating in the system-on-chip market. Download Free Sample Report (Get Detailed Analysis in PDF 230 Pages): https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/sample-request/12834 Expansions in system-on-chip technology have shown differences in CPUs that run high-end applications like Illustrator, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Autodesk Maya, which previously needed dedicated graphics cards and a considerable amount of RAM (Random Access Memory), and solid cooling systems. Most classic computers had different features strategically placed on a motherboard, like RAM, storage, and network elements. These features separately process the data and then send it to the CPU. The whole process consumes time to generate an outcome. Competitive Strategy To enhance their market position in the global system-on-chip market, the key players are now focusing on adopting the strategies such as product innovations, mergers & acquisitions, recent developments, joint ventures, collaborations, and partnerships. Imagination Technologies announced in March 2022 that its IMG B-Series BXE-4-32 GPU with IMGIC image compression technology had been integrated into Realtek's latest System-on-Chip (SoC), RTD2885N, and is now shipping to major digital television (DTV) brands around the world. Realtek had previously licenced the IP in 2021. This is a continuation of the two companies' long-established innovation-driven collaboration. Report coverage & details: Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 20222030 Base Year 2021 Market Size in 2021 USD 157.2 billion Market Size in 2031 USD 311.6 billion CAGR 7.90% No. of Pages in Report 230 Segments Covered Type, End-User, Regions Drivers The need for smart and power-efficient electronic gadgets Opportunities The increased cost of design & maintenance and development Restrains The rise in adoption of the Internet of things (IoT) Market Growth & Trends SoC technology offers the future of computing. The system on chip is utilized in tablets, laptops, smartphones, and wearables products. System on chips incorporates a computer's components into a tiny piece. It connects the hardware by-products like internal memory, central processing unit (CPU), and output & input ports into one single unit. The multitask process of Soc allows powerful computer processing on compact motherboard composition. The system on chip needs little energy to power, can work using internal batteries, and delivers advantages like it helps lower power consumption. Moreover, 25% of system on chip patents worldwide are recorded to significant-tech service providers such as Samsung, Qualcomm, Intel, Ericsson, and Huawei. The requirement for SoC technology is expected to increase constantly; source SoC components put quality assurance and consumer service. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our analyst at: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/12834 Key Findings In 2021, the digital signal segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 35% and market revenue of 55.02 billion. The type segment is divided into mixed signal, analog signal & digital signal. In 2021, the digital signal segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 35% and market revenue of 55.02 billion. In 2021, the consumer electronics segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 16% and market revenue of 25.15 billion. The end-user segment is divided into aerospace & defense, IT & telecommunication, automotive, industrial, healthcare, consumer electronics, and others. In 2021, the consumer electronics segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 16% and market revenue of 25.15 billion. The broad usage scope for systems on the chip is driven by the high penetration of smartphones, which is attributed to the household incomes of consumers. Regional Segment Analysis of the System-On-Chip Market North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India, Rest of APAC) South America (Brazil and Rest of South America) The Middle East and Africa (UAE, South Africa, Rest of MEA) Among all regions, the North American region emerged as the largest market for the global system-on-chip market, with a market share of around 34.5% and 54.2 billion of the market revenue in 2021. The advancement in the digitalization trend along with the expansion of the information technology (IT) domain across the region is one of the major factors driving the development of the system-on-chip (SoC) market in North America. An in-depth understanding of algorithms can automatically intercept known data points, enhancing the decision-making procedure's precision and efficiency. Any query or customization before buying: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/request-customization/12834 Key players operating in the global system-on-chip market are: Toshiba Corporation Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited Stmicroelectronics N.V. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Qualcomm Incorporated Nxp Semiconductors N.V. (Freescale Semiconductor, Ltd.) Mediatek Inc. Intel Corporation Broadcom Limited Apple Inc. This study forecasts revenue at global, regional, and country levels from 2019 to 2030. The Brainy Insights has segmented the global system-on-chip market based on the below-mentioned segments: Global System-On-Chip Market by Type: Mixed Signal Analog Signal Digital Signal Global System-On-Chip Market by End User: Aerospace & Defense IT & Telecommunication Automotive Industrial Healthcare Consumer Electronics Others About the report: The global system-on-chip market is analyzed based on value (USD Billion). All the segments have been analyzed on a worldwide, regional, and country basis. The study includes the analysis of more than 30 countries for each part. The report offers an in-depth analysis of driving factors, opportunities, restraints, and challenges for gaining critical insight into the market. The study includes porter's five forces model, attractiveness analysis, raw material analysis, supply, demand analysis, competitor position grid analysis, distribution, and marketing channels analysis. About The Brainy Insights: The Brainy Insights is a market research company, aimed at providing actionable insights through data analytics to companies to improve their business acumen. We have a robust forecasting and estimation model to meet the clients' objectives of high-quality output within a short span of time. We provide both customized (clients' specific) and syndicate reports. Our repository of syndicate reports is diverse across all the categories and sub-categories across domains. Our customized solutions are tailored to meet the clients' requirement whether they are looking to expand or planning to launch a new product in the global market. Contact Us Avinash D Head of Business Development Phone: +1-315-215-1633 Email: sales@thebrainyinsights.com Web: http://www.thebrainyinsights.com New York, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Drugs in Development by Stages, Target, MoA, RoA, Molecule Type and Key Players, 2022 Update" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06319589/?utm_source=GNW Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a group of lung diseases. It is characterized by inability to completely breathe out air from the lungs leading to shortness of breath. The airflow to the lungs is further blocked. Other symptoms include cough, fatigue and chest pain. The disease tends to worsen over the time hence increasing the complications. The risk factors involved in causing COPD include smoking as the primary reason. Exposure to chemicals and air pollution also contribute in the development of COPD. Report Highlights Pharmaceutical and Healthcare latest pipeline guide Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) - Drugs In Development, 2022, provides comprehensive information on the therapeutics under development for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory), complete with analysis by stage of development, drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The guide covers the descriptive pharmacological action of the therapeutics, its complete research and development history and latest news and press releases. The Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory) pipeline guide also reviews of key players involved in therapeutic development for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and features dormant and discontinued projects. The guide covers therapeutics under Development by Companies /Universities /Institutes, the molecules developed by Companies in Pre-Registration, Filing rejected/Withdrawn, Phase III, Phase II, Phase I, IND/CTA Filed, Preclinical, Discovery and Unknown stages are 1, 1, 12, 33, 28, 5, 95, 26 and 8 respectively. Similarly, the Universities portfolio in Preclinical and Discovery stages comprises 8 and 4 molecules, respectively. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory) pipeline guide helps in identifying and tracking emerging players in the market and their portfolios, enhances decision making capabilities and helps to create effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage. The guide is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, company/university websites, clinical trial registries, conferences, SEC filings, investor presentations and featured press releases from company/university sites and industry-specific third party sources. Additionally, various dynamic tracking processes ensure that the most recent developments are captured on a real time basis. Note: Certain content / sections in the pipeline guide may be removed or altered based on the availability and relevance of data. Scope - The pipeline guide provides a snapshot of the global therapeutic landscape of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory). - The pipeline guide reviews pipeline therapeutics for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory) by companies and universities/research institutes based on information derived from company and industry-specific sources. - The pipeline guide covers pipeline products based on several stages of development ranging from pre-registration till discovery and undisclosed stages. - The pipeline guide features descriptive drug profiles for the pipeline products which comprise, product description, descriptive licensing and collaboration details, R&D brief, MoA & other developmental activities. - The pipeline guide reviews key companies involved in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory) therapeutics and enlists all their major and minor projects. - The pipeline guide evaluates Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory) therapeutics based on mechanism of action (MoA), drug target, route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. - The pipeline guide encapsulates all the dormant and discontinued pipeline projects. - The pipeline guide reviews latest news related to pipeline therapeutics for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory) Reasons to Buy - Procure strategically important competitor information, analysis, and insights to formulate effective R&D strategies. - Recognize emerging players with potentially strong product portfolio and create effective counter-strategies to gain competitive advantage. - Find and recognize significant and varied types of therapeutics under development for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory). - Classify potential new clients or partners in the target demographic. - Develop tactical initiatives by understanding the focus areas of leading companies. - Plan mergers and acquisitions meritoriously by identifying key players and its most promising pipeline therapeutics. - Formulate corrective measures for pipeline projects by understanding Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (Respiratory) pipeline depth and focus of Indication therapeutics. - Develop and design in-licensing and out-licensing strategies by identifying prospective partners with the most attractive projects to enhance and expand business potential and scope. - Adjust the therapeutic portfolio by recognizing discontinued projects and understand from the know-how what drove them from pipeline. Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06319589/?utm_source=GNW About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Newark, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As per the report published by The Brainy Insights, the global gesture recognition market is expected to grow from USD 8.32 billion in 2021 to USD 43.25 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 20.10% during the forecast period 2022-2030. Gesture recognition in smart televisions allows users to manage the process of the smart TV with hand & finger gestures. The gesture recognition software is now incorporated with smart televisions, and the recognition software attempts to compare users' hand gestures to a predefined set of gestures. Similarly, gesture recognition technology in personal computers & laptops is one of the significant elements of modern devices. Gesture recognition is one of the new ways to deliver inputs or maintain computer devices. For example, a Korea-based famous company, Samsung, introduced the S4 Galaxy series mobile phone with an air gesture technology that authorizes users to scroll down and take the calls without touching the phone. The gesture recognition technology allows the user to interact with the computer naturally and makes the computer view interactive & authentic. Regardless, increased power consumption by gesture-supporting products is anticipated to hinder the development of the global gesture recognition market. Download Free Sample Report (Get Detailed Analysis in PDF 230 Pages): https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/sample-request/12837 Competitive Strategy To enhance their market position in the global gesture recognition market, the key players are now focusing on adopting the strategies such as product innovations, mergers & acquisitions, recent developments, joint ventures, collaborations, and partnerships. In 2020 April, the expansion of Cypress let Infineon further boost its emphasis on the structural development of drivers and a more comprehensive range of applications. In 2021 June, Windows 11 is the current operating system, designed by Microsoft. Report coverage & details: Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 20222030 Base Year 2021 Market Size in 2021 USD 8.32 billion Market Size in 2031 USD 43.25 billion CAGR 20.10% No. of Pages in Report 230 Segments Covered Type, End-User, Regions Drivers Increasing digitalization and growing technological advances across industry verticals Opportunities Increasing digitalization and growing technological advances across industry verticals Restrains Trade constraints between China and US Market Growth & Trends The market for gesture recognition has acquired momentum; the growth is pushed by hygiene problems and the increasing need for advanced techniques of contactless authentication. The gesture recognition market is propelled mainly by technological advances with improved precision. Gesture recognition provides ease of use when incorporated; thus, it is anticipated to report high demand in the future. Additionally, increasing digitalization globally coupled with the growing use of smart devices and customization in the automotive industry is driving the development of the market. Similarly, lower technical complexness is the reason for the easy adoption of gesture recognition technology widely. Therefore, it is driving the development of the market. Regardless, the lack of haptic sensation is expected to hinder the growth of the gesture recognition market. Despite remarkable growth trends, the market is encountering challenges such as increased cost of products, power consumption of sensors, and executing the shortest possible sensor size. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our analyst at: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/12837 Key Findings In 2021, the touchless segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 55% and market revenue of 4.56 billion. The type segment is divided into touchless system & touched system. In 2021, the touchless segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 55% and market revenue of 4.56 billion. (TUI) A touchless user interface is a growing type of technology about gesture control. The touchless user interface controls the computer through gestures and body motion without touching a mouse, keyboard, or screen. In vehicles, touchless gesture recognition helps in enhances safety while driving. In 2021, the consumer electronics segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 15% and market revenue of 1.24 billion. The end-user segment is divided into consumer electronics, healthcare, automotive, retail, transportation, aerospace & defense, gaming, and others. In 2021, the consumer electronics segment dominated the market with the largest market share of 15% and market revenue of 1.24 billion. Consumer electronics, like digital signage, gaming, interactive devices, and commercial automation account for the maximum share of the global gesture recognition market. The gesture recognition technology has been believed to be a positively growing technology, as it eventually helps in timesaving when interacting with a device. Regional Segment Analysis of the Gesture Recognition Market North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India, Rest of APAC) South America (Brazil and the Rest of South America) The Middle East and Africa (UAE, South Africa, Rest of MEA) Among all regions, the North American region emerged as the largest market for the global gesture recognition market, with a market share of around 34.5% and 3.55 billion of the market revenue in 2021, due to the increasing smartphone penetration in the region and growing use of internet-connected devices. Automotive, consumer electronics, and industrial automation are fast developing application segments of the region's gesture recognition market. Any query or customization before buying: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/request-customization/12837 Key players operating in the global gesture recognition market are: Synaptics Incorporated SOFTKINETIC QUALCOMM Incorporated Microsoft Corporation Microchip Technology Incorporated Intel Corporation Infineon Technologies AG Eyesight Technologies Ltd Apple Inc. Alphabet Inc This study forecasts revenue at global, regional, and country levels from 2019 to 2030. The Brainy Insights has segmented the global gesture recognition market based on the below-mentioned segments: Global Gesture Recognition Market by Type: Touchless System Touched System Global Gesture Recognition Market by End User: Consumer Electronics Healthcare Automotive Retail Transportation Aerospace & Defense Gaming Others About the report: The global gesture recognition market is analyzed based on value (USD Billion). All the segments have been analyzed on a worldwide, regional, and country basis. The study includes the analysis of more than 30 countries for each part. The report offers an in-depth analysis of driving factors, opportunities, restraints, and challenges for gaining critical insight into the market. The study includes porter's five forces model, attractiveness analysis, raw material analysis, supply, demand analysis, competitor position grid analysis, distribution, and marketing channels analysis. About The Brainy Insights: The Brainy Insights is a market research company, aimed at providing actionable insights through data analytics to companies to improve their business acumen. We have a robust forecasting and estimation model to meet the clients' objectives of high-quality output within a short span of time. We provide both customized (clients' specific) and syndicate reports. Our repository of syndicate reports is diverse across all the categories and sub-categories across domains. Our customized solutions are tailored to meet the clients' requirement whether they are looking to expand or planning to launch a new product in the global market. Contact Us Avinash D Head of Business Development Phone: +1-315-215-1633 Email: sales@thebrainyinsights.com Web: http://www.thebrainyinsights.com English French OTTAWA, Ontario, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As Monday September 26 is World Contraception Day, the SOGC wishes to bring your focus on issues still not solved in Canada. Statistics shows that 48% of young women unintentionally become pregnant (1). This means too few women and girls do not know enough about the options available. Policymakers, educators, corporations and even medical professionals must do more to help. First option: education. We are offering a podcast to help women and young women to learn about contraception options available and how to discuss the matter with a physician. A panel of experts was gathered by The Brand is Female on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (free recording available on Monday). The Brand is Female is Canadas leading podcast about women leadership. For World Contraception Day, the SOGC also came up with a specific set of solutions gathered in one location: www.sogc.org/contraception. The SOGC also offers reliable and trustworthy online tools pregnancyinfo.ca, itsaplan.ca and a partner such as Organon offers essencelle.ca. They provide women, particularly those in vulnerable positions, with vital information to become their own advocates. Second option: availability. Abortion pill is unequally available throughout Canada, for example rarely proposed in Atlantic Provinces and Quebec, and rarely available without prescription. The SOGC is totally in favor of health solutions, including contraceptives, being easier to get for women and girls Canada-wide. In many places, barriers will have to burst through or worked around. Third: time for men to do more. Men must educate themselves on contraception issues and become responsible sexual partners. And where they hold positions of decision-making and sway, men must champion progress and push for positive change. On this September 26th, World Contraception Day is an opportunity to recognize that millions of women and girls need more education, better availability for contraception options, and better cooperation from men. The SOGCs latest podcast hopes to help these women to learn and discuss contraception more openly with their partner or with their doctor. (1) Organon Canada Ipsos Survey Results, March 2022. Podcast Preview: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tI9dRIwHru9-nLLr7xI_os_tv3CQ9CV7/view?usp=sharing episode part 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hqJhTBe6ktUP0-7Gs3Upyk9xg7Nx6i9k/view?usp=sharing Source: Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada 1-800-561-2416 ext. 232 or media@sogc.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/88e321ce-03c9-4f16-9b0a-74d4f8521d4a Marion, North Carolina, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greene Concepts, Inc. (OTC Pink: INKW) is pleased to announce that it has appointed Brian Adkins as the Companys new National Sales Director. The position entails coordinating all efforts in the Companys expansion of national and regional retail chain partners for all Greene Concepts brands. Mr. Adkins is a distinguished sales professional with more than 20 years of consumer-packaged goods industry experience including beverage, frozen/dry and natural food categories. Mr. Adkins holds strong relationships with numerous regional and national retail chains. I am ready and able to make all Greene Concepts brands nationally known conveys Brian Adkins, Greene Concepts new National Sales Director. I have contacts and connections within many of the countrys giant retailers and business outlets. I fully believe that we will be in all major retailers soon as they see the value of BE WATERTM, STAY, and Happy Mellow and how the brands resonate with consumers. Health, quality, strong packaging, and a strong story are all important and our brands excel in each of these. Brian Adkins continues, Many people have been asking when BE WATER and the companys other brands will be available in more stores nationally. That time is coming quickly as we continue negotiations, timing, and placement discussions. Weve already made tremendous inroads and in short order I believe everyone will soon be able to find the Companys brands in every major retailer across the country. Lenny Greene, CEO of Greene Concepts, states, Brian is primed to launch us into a greater sphere of recognition and market influence. His experience will assist in the Companys overall growth and expansion of our brands nationally. We are very happy to have him onboard. Stay tuned for some terrific announcements ahead. As a supplement to todays announcement, the Company would like to additionally share that the Company was recently featured in an online interview with Proactive Investors which can be viewed on the Proactive Investors website or a copy of the online interview on YouTube . Follow Greene Concepts Inc. on Twitter as well as BE WATER TM and Happy Mellow Submit investor questions to asklenny@greeneconcepts.com About Greene Concepts, Inc. Greene Concepts, Inc. ( http://www.greeneconcepts.com ) is a publicly traded company whose purpose is to provide the world with high-quality, healthy and enhanced beverage choices that meet the nutritional needs of its consumers while refreshing their mind, body and spirit. The Companys flagship product, BE WATER , is a premium artesian bottled water that supports total body health and wellness. Greene Concepts beverage and bottling plant is located in Marion, North Carolina, and their water is ethically sourced from seven spring and artesian wells that are fed from a natural aquifer located deep beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains. Greene Concepts continues to develop and market premium beverage brands designed to enhance the daily lives of consumers. Safe Harbor: This Press Release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a few uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. A more extensive listing of risks and factors that may affect the company's business prospects and cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the reports and other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission and OTC Markets, Inc. OTC Disclosure and News Service. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, because of new information, future events or otherwise. Greene Concepts, Inc. Investor Relations IR@greeneconcepts.com Attachments 26 September 2022, 17:00 CET ArcelorMittal announces the issuance of 600,000,000 4.875 per cent notes due 26 September 2026 (the Notes). The issuance closed today. The Notes were issued under ArcelorMittals 10,000,000,000 wholesale Euro Medium Term Notes Programme. The proceeds of the issuance will be used for general corporate purposes and refinancing of existing indebtedness. Important note : This press release does not, and shall not, in any circumstances constitute a public offering by ArcelorMittal of the Notes nor an invitation to the public in connection with any offer. No communication and no information in respect of the issuance of the Notes may be distributed to the public in any jurisdiction where a registration or approval is required. No steps have been or will be taken in any jurisdiction where such steps would be required. The offering or purchase of the Notes may be subject to specific legal or regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. ArcelorMittal takes no responsibility for any violation of any such restrictions by any person. This press release is an advertisement for the purposes of the Prospectus Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 (the Prospectus Regulation). A prospectus prepared pursuant to the Prospectus Regulation has been published, which can be obtained from the website of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange at www.bourse.lu. The base prospectus of the 10 billion wholesale Euro Medium Term Note Programme of ArcelorMittal dated as of 19 November 2021 and the supplements to the base prospectus dated 2 September 2022 and 14 September 2022, which together constitute a base prospectus (the Base Prospectus), and the final terms prepared by the Issuer in connection with the issuance of the Notes have been prepared on the basis that any offer of Notes in any Relevant State of the European Economic Area (each, a "Relevant State") will be made pursuant to an exemption under the Prospectus Regulation, as implemented in that Relevant State, from the requirement to publish a prospectus for offers of the Notes. In any Relevant State of the European Economic Area, this communication is only addressed to and directed at qualified investors in that Relevant State within the meaning of the Prospectus Regulation. This press release is only being distributed to and is only directed at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom, (ii) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the Order) or (iii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as relevant persons). Any Notes will only be available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such Notes will be engaged in only with, relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents. Notwithstanding any target market assessment, distributors should note that: the price of the Notes may decline and investors could lose all or part of their investment; the Notes offer no guaranteed income and no capital protection; and an investment in the Notes is compatible only with investors who do not need a guaranteed income or capital protection, who (either alone or in conjunction with an appropriate financial or other adviser) are capable of evaluating the merits and risks of such an investment and who have sufficient resources to be able to bear any losses that may result therefrom. The target market assessment is without prejudice to any contractual, legal or regulatory selling restrictions in relation to the offering. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities in the United States. The Notes have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") or the laws of any state within the U.S., and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to or for the account or benefit of U.S. Persons, except in a transaction not subject to, or pursuant to an applicable exemption from, the registration requirements of the Securities Act or any state securities laws. This press release and the information contained herein may not be distributed or sent into the United States, or in any other jurisdiction in which offers or sales of the Notes would be prohibited by applicable laws and should not be distributed to United States persons or publications with a general circulation in the United States. No offering of the Notes has been made or will be made in the United States. ENDS About ArcelorMittal ArcelorMittal is the world's leading steel and mining company, with a presence in 60 countries and primary steelmaking facilities in 16 countries. In 2021, ArcelorMittal had revenues of $76.6 billion and crude steel production of 69.1 million metric tonnes, while iron ore production reached 50.9 million metric tonnes. Our purpose is to produce ever smarter steels that have a positive benefit for people and planet. Steels made using innovative processes which use less energy, emit significantly less carbon and reduce costs. Steels that are cleaner, stronger and reusable. Steels for electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure that will support societies as they transform through this century. With steel at our core, our inventive people and an entrepreneurial culture at heart, we will support the world in making that change. This is what we believe it takes to be the steel company of the future. ArcelorMittal is listed on the stock exchanges of New York (MT), Amsterdam (MT), Paris (MT), Luxembourg (MT) and on the Spanish stock exchanges of Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid and Valencia (MTS). For more information about ArcelorMittal please visit: http://corporate.arcelormittal.com/ Contact information ArcelorMittal Investor Relations General +44 20 7543 1128 Retail +44 20 3214 2893 SRI +44 20 3214 2801 Bonds/Credit E-mail +33 171 921 026 investor.relations@arcelormittal.com Contact information ArcelorMittal Corporate Communications Paul Weigh Tel: E-mail: +44 20 3214 2419 press@arcelormittal.com Boston, MA, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SVN International Corp. (SVNIC), a full-service commercial real estate franchisor of the SVN brand, announces the addition of its newest franchise office, SVN | Providence Realty Advisors headquartered in McLean, Virginia. SVN | Providence Realty Advisors operates primarily in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, including northern Virginia and nearby Maryland counties. Led by Managing Directors Terrell Marsh and Robert Seidel, SVN | Providence Realty Advisors offers expert commercial real estate brokerage services in retail, office, and flex/warehouse leasing and investment sales. The firm anticipates future expansion into new markets and market areas and will concentrate on growth in their present markets through their strategic alliance with SVN. We anticipate that we will grow dramatically under the SVN platform and will benefit from a greater degree of specialization within our market, says Marsh. Seidel added, Partnering with SVN gives us access to some of the best tools, technology and systems in the industry. That allows us to maximize client return, streamline operations and save time. Both Terrell and Robert are excited to partner with SVN to expand their presence in the Washington D.C. area and beyond by leveraging SVNs national presence, collaborative culture, vast network, and robust training platforms. For more information, visit https://www.providencera.com/. About SVN | Providence Realty Advisors SVN | Providence Realty Advisors provides advisory and brokerage services for commercial real estate clients throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. Crafting solutions for clients is accomplished by fully understanding each clients unique requirements, constraints, and objectives. There are numerous variables and disciplines in each transaction that need to be thoroughly considered, understood, and incorporated into a strategic plan. We guide our clients through that process, which enables us to collaboratively shape and mold our clients goals and objectives into real estate solutions. About SVN The SVN organization is a globally recognized commercial real estate entity united by a shared vision of creating value with clients, colleagues, and our communities. The SVN brand is comprised of over 2,000 advisors and staff in more than 200 offices across the globe in six countries. Our brand pillars represent the transparency, innovation, and inclusivity that enables all our advisors to collaborate with the entire real estate industry on behalf of our clients. SVNs unique Shared Value Network is just one of the many ways that SVN advisors create amazing value with our clients, colleagues, and communities. For more information, visit www.svn.com. All SVN offices are independently owned and operated. To learn more about becoming an SVN commercial real estate business owner, visit http://www.svn.com/franchising-opportunities/. LinkedIn: SVN International Corp. Instagram: @svninternationalcorp Twitter: @SVNic Facebook: @SVNIC BW Ideol has signed a partnership agreement with Taiya Renewable Energy for the joint development, subject to further due diligence and negotiation of the final agreements among the Parties, of a floating offshore wind pipeline including a 50 MW floating wind pilot-project and commercial-scale projects off Taiwan. The two-fold agreement first covers the development of a pilot project in response to the specific tender announced by the Taiwanese government this August. BW Ideol is granted the exclusive EPCI contract to design, engineer, build and install the floating foundations based on its proven and highly competitive Damping Pool technology. Subject to the project reaching final investment decision, COD is targeted before the end of 2026, with construction expected to start as early as 2025. The partnership agreement also covers the joint development of several commercial-scale projects. Environmental Impact Assessment efforts are ongoing to ensure a timely qualification by the time the tenders are officially launched. We are pleased to pursue the growth of our global project pipeline, in line with our dual-leg strategy as co-developer and as technology and EPCI services provider. We are happy to join forces with Taiya and benefit from its strong local footprint and experience in engaging with local stakeholders. We look forward to actively contributing to the acceleration of commercial-scale floating offshore wind in Taiwan and further strengthen our already strong Asian presence said Paul de la Gueriviere, CEO of BW Ideol. Based in Taiwan, Taiya is a local renewable energy development team that focuses on site selection and development of offshore wind farm. Through environmental impact assessment and sound communication with local community, Taiya proactively responds to the policies of competent authorities. Taiya Renewable Energy has recently entered into a partnership with French energy major EDF Renewables to jointly bid in Taiwans upcoming auction with the Huan-Yang bottom-fixed offshore wind project. Richard Liu, GM of Taiya Renewable said, Taiya is honored to sign the agreement with BW Ideol. BW Ideol is a highly competitive and leading integrated floating wind platform without a doubt. As a Taiwan local renewable energy development team, our local strength is on site selection of good developing conditions with limited environmental impacts. By joining force with BW Ideol, the two companies can strategically connect together for asset co-developer and technical expertise in the floating offshore wind industry. About BW Ideol BW Ideol is a leading fully integrated platform in floating offshore wind with more than 12 years of experience from design, execution and development of floating wind projects based on Ideol S.A.'s patented floating offshore wind technology and engineering capabilities. The company has a dual-leg growth strategy as a floater EPCI and maintenance services provider and as a wind-farm project developer and co-owner. BW Ideol has two full-scale offshore floating wind turbines in operation in France and Japan, a significant project pipeline, and is supported by BW Offshore's extensive experience from developing and operating offshore energy production systems. About TAIYA Renewable Energy TAIYA is a renewable energy company that is dedicated to the development, planning and design, engineering and construction, O&M, and asset management of offshore wind farms and strives to make use of advanced international technology for the establishment of a local development team to create local synergy and explore international collaboration. The team comprises of members with extensive experience in the areas of stakeholder relationship, local supply chain, project development, project financing, and permitting. English French Leroy Merlin, France's leading home improvement retail company, and Voltalia (Euronext Paris, ISIN code: FR0011995588), an international player in renewable energies, have announced the signing of a sales contract for the production of a new 30-megawatt solar power plant located in the Centre-Val de Loire region. Leroy Merlin and Voltalia have signed a CPPA1 for the production of an additional solar power plant with a capacity of 30 megawatts specifically built for Leroy Merlin. This agreement is concluded at a pre-determined price for a minimum of 15 years (with the possibility of extension) and will allow Leroy Merlin to source approximately 15% of its electricity consumption from renewable energy. The solar power plant is scheduled to be commissioned in 2025. This sales contract is part of a global partnership with ADEO, the leading international player in home improvement, which brings together ten specialist brands including Leroy Merlin. Sebastien Clerc, CEO of Voltalia, said: "With this first CPPA concluded, Voltalia is proud through this project to carry out a concrete action in favour of the environment and to contribute to bringing competitive energy to its partner. With the associated agricultural activity, adding a dimension of local co-development, Voltalia pursues its mission "to improve the global environment by promoting local development. " Jerome Paternotte, Director of Development for Leroy Merlin France: "Leroy Merlin obviously has a role to play in the energy transition. We support residents in this process and of course take action on our own buildings. We are renovating them to consume less, just what is necessary. Between 2018 and 2021, we have already recorded a 13% reduction in the carbon impact of their energy consumption. Today, with Voltalia, we are shifting up a gear to consume better thanks to renewable energy. Our trajectory is clear: stores powered 100% by green energy by 2025, with a share produced directly on site." Next on the agenda: First half 2022 results, on September 28, 2022 (before market opening) About Leroy Merlin Leroy Merlin, a pioneer company of the Adeo Group, is today the leading brand in France in all distribution channels for home improvement and the living environment. Specialized in the sale of products, projects and services, Leroy Merlin France's ambition is to build with everyone new ways of living for a better tomorrow and puts customer satisfaction at the heart of its business. 28,000 employees in 143 stores in France are now committed to this idea. This mission is reflected on the www.leroymerlin.fr website, which is now one of the Top 10 French e-commerce sites. Leroy Merlin France was voted France's favorite retailer in 2021 and 2022 and has a turnover of more than 8.9 billion (including VAT in 2021). About Voltalia (www.voltalia.com) Voltalia is an international player in the renewable energy sector. The Group produces and sells electricity generated from wind, solar, hydraulic, biomass and storage facilities that it owns and operates. Voltalia has generating capacity in operation and under construction of more than 2 GW and a portfolio of projects under development representing total capacity of 11.1 GW. Voltalia is also a service provider and supports its investor clients in renewable energy projects during all phases, from design to operation and maintenance. As a pioneer in the corporate market, Voltalia provides a global offer to private companies, ranging from the supply of green electricity and energy efficiency services to the local production of their own electricity. The Group has more than 1,400 employees and is present in 20 countries on 3 continents and is able to act worldwide on behalf of its clients. Voltalia is listed on the regulated market of Euronext Paris, compartment B (FR0011995588 VLTSA) and is part of the Enternext Tech 40 and CAC Mid & Small indices. The Group is also included in the Gaia-Index, an index for socially responsible midcaps. Loan Duong, Head of Communications & Investor relations Email: invest@voltalia.com T. +33 (0)1 81 70 37 00 Actifin Press Contact: Jennifer Jullia jjullia@actifin.fr . T. +33 (0)1 56 88 11 11 [1] Corporate PPA : Corporate Power Purchase Agreement. A Corporate PPA is a long-term contract that directly connects the electricity consumer, a company, to the producer, which builds a new renewable energy power plant to supply its customer. Attachment Austin, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National FFA Organization works to strengthen science and agricultural educational opportunities for students across the country. The Texas FFA Association and Texas FFA Foundation are the largest state organizations in the country. On this episode of the Growing Our Future Podcast, Aaron Alejandro introduces Ray Pieniazek, Executive Director of the Agriculture Teachers Association of Texas, an organization devoted to supporting teachers through professional development opportunities, mentorship, and legal guidance. Drawing on his decades of experience with agricultural education, Pieniazek gives listeners a rare look at the demanding and rewarding reality of ag teachers across the country. A Day in the Life Ray Pieniazek, Executive Director of the Agricultural Teachers Association of Texas (ATAT), knows first hand how busy the life of an agricultural educator can be. In addition to teaching as many as 6-7 different classes in one day, ag teachers have the responsibility of managing their specialized learning spacesfrom maintaining animal and plant facilities to purchasing supplies and equipment for welding and woodworking. "There's a lot more moving parts," Pieniazek says. He recalls bringing a cow to school so students could practice palpation, and remembers another educator using chalk to draw skeletal structures on an actual horse. Furthermore, an agricultural educator's job continues after the end of the school day. "Their second day starts when the bell rings," Pieniazek says. After school, perhaps during FFA meetings/events or Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAEs), teachers are able to build relationships with students that provide that "extra oomph"--in other words, the "competitive edge" that ag education gives students. Supporting Unique Educators The state of Texas offers six programs of study under the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources career cluster: Agribusiness, Animal Science, Plant Science, Applied Agricultural Engineering, Food Science, and Environmental Science. Within each program of study, there are 5-7 courses. The range of offerings means that agricultural educators must be well-versed in everything from floral design to swine to agricultural metal structures. Furthermore, Alejandro points out, teachers must keep up with "growing populations, urban sprawl, pests, wildlife, and more to be able to share the most contemporary information with students." As part of its professional development programming, the ATAT offers an annual conference offering everything from "pesticide certification to tours of a hatchery." The many facets of the job can be daunting, Pieniazek says, which is why the ATAT's mentorship program, an initiative that pairs retired agricultural educators with new teachers, has been so successful. "We're able to pay retired ag teachers to go into schools and get with first or second year ag teachers to provide that mental and moral support as they navigate their way through a school system", Pieniazek says. Investing in Teachers and Students Alejandro and Pieniazek agree that investing in agricultural educators creates more opportunities for participating students. "We know that in the state of Texas these students graduate at a higher rate than their peers. They go to college at a higher rate than their peers. They finish college at a higher rate than their peers," Alejandro says. Pieniazek points out that while agriculture science education produces great leaders in the agricultural sector, its reach goes far beyond. The "soft skills" learned in the ag science classroom and in FFA, such as public speaking, leadership strategies, and collaboration, prepare students to become doctors, lawyers, and accountants as well. "We are preparing them for those situations where they're going to make a difference in the lives of someone else," Pieniazek says. Listen to the full episode with host Aaron Alejandro and Ray Pieniazek here. In this podcast, the host covers: The mission and history of the Agriculture Teachers Association of Texas (ATAT) What makes agricultural educators unique, and how can they be supported? What are the agricultural science options offered to public school students in Texas? How does agricultural education and participation in FFA prepare students for the future? About the Podcast Host and Guest The Texas FFA Foundations purpose is to strengthen agricultural education and the Texas FFA program, so each student can develop their potential for personal growth, career success and leadership in a global marketplace.. Learn more about the Texas FFA Foundation at mytexasffa.org. Learn more about the Agricultural Teachers Association of Texas at TexasTeachers.org Learn more about Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources at: https://www.txcte.org/resource/agriculture-food-and-natural-resources-career-cluster Media Communications Inquiries: adamtorres@missionmatters.com Media contact and published by KISS PR az@kisspr.com Attachment Beverly Hills , Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Guest CyberCEO Douglas shares how partnering with Cyberbacker has allowed him to focus on revenue-building In this episode, Douglas urges listeners to take a "leap of faith" by partnering with Cyberbacker. Listen to Angelo Cruz and John Douglas' conversation here. Leveraging Virtual Support "There are lots of small tasks I'm not good at," says John Douglas, co-owner of a small Keller Williams real estate team based in Lansing, Michigan. Douglas' realization that he wanted to spend more of his time making connections with clients prompted him to partner with Cyberbacker this year. Though Douglas and his partner considered other options, "None of them felt as safe or as well-trained or as well-prepared as Cyberbacker," he says. Still, Douglas was new to the world of virtual leverage, and he kept his expectations low. "Boy, were we surprised at how quickly and smoothly the process went." Affordable Expertise For Douglas, Cyberbacker's affordability is one of its best qualities. "I can hire a crew of people who are really excellent at what they do," he says. Furthermore, Cyberbacker's investment in training saves Douglas time and money. Cyberbacker Adrian is well-prepared to tackle daily tasks like CRM Database management, marketing, and email communication with clients so Douglas can focus on growing his business. "We can spend our time building relationships with people, bringing value to their lives," he says. Best of all, Douglas believes that partnering with Cyberbacker is "not just about us, it's about the people who work for uswe're helping build better lives for everybody." A "Leap of Faith" Douglas understands that business owners may be hesitant to work with virtual assistants because "you can't get across the table from them." But, he points out, the rise of virtual work during COVID-19 forced businesses to adapt. "That's the world now," he says. "Virtual is the new normal." Video-conferencing, texting, and phone calls help Douglas communicate daily with Cyberbacker Adrian. "Hire leverage now," Douglas urges fellow business owners. "Because you're spending time each day doing things that are not in your 20 percent, your ten percent, or even your five percent." About: Cyberbacker's goal is to match accomplished individuals to clients who share similar values and goals to optimize growth. Find more information at www.cyberbacker.com, or contact Cyberbacker directly by email: growth@cyberbacker.com or phone: +1 801 686 8043 John Douglas is the co-owner of a Keller Williams realty group based in Lansing, MI. Find more information here: johndouglas.kw.com Media Communications Inquiries: adamtorres@missionmatters.com Publicist for Adam Torres and Mission Matters Media KISS PR Brand Story PressWire Brand Publicity Partners KissPR.com For more details, visit Kisspr.com. KISS PR Digital PR & Marketing powers the Mission Matters Business podcast with brand storytelling. T: 972.437.8942 Attachment New York, US, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Market Overview According to a Comprehensive Research Report by Market Research Future (MRFR), Detox Drinks Market Information by Product Type, Category, Packaging Type, Distribution Channel and Region- Forecast till 2030, the market is estimated to acquire a size of over USD 3.2 billion by the end of 2030. The report further predicts the market to thrive at a healthy CAGR of over 10.98% during the review timeframe. Market Synopsis Detoxification is a process that helps enhance body functions while getting rid of harmful toxins in the body. It elevates the functions of digestion, the immune system, and several organs. Due to the surging awareness level with regard to detoxification products as well as their health advantages, natural detox beverages are enjoying considerable demand in the market. Alcohol consumption and drug abuse have become public health concerns worldwide. A study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration pertaining to drugs and health reveals that in 2017, 15% of the U.S. population, above the age of 12, indulged in illicit drug usage in the past. Marijuana is the most commonly used drug among the youth. Illicit drugs cause various chronic disorders like diabetes and heart attack. With the rising number of consumers of illicit drugs, governments are working on educating teachers to detect any symptoms of alcohol consumption or drug abuse among their students. These initiatives will most likely enhance the demand for detox products in subsequent years. Get Free Sample PDF Brochure @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/7330 Report Scope: Report Attribute Details Market Size in 2030 USD 3.2 Billion CAGR 10.98% (20222030) Base Year 2021 Forecast Period 2022-2030 Historical Data 2020 Forecast Units Value (USD Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered by Product Type, Category, Packaging Type, Distribution Channel and Region Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW) Key Market Drivers increasing health awareness increasing consciousness regarding increasing body weight Market Competitive Landscape: Some of the biggest companies in the detox drinks industry include Jus By Julie (New York) Suja Life, LLC (US) Project Juice (California) Terranova Synergistic Nutrition (UK) Temple Turmeric (New York) Raw Generation (New Jersey) Pukka Herbs (UK) Hain Celestial (US) Dr Stuarts (UK) Market USP Covered: Market Drivers: The COVID-19 outbreak has put a halt on discretionary spending across the globe, with consumers now more inclined towards safe and health boosting products. Products with reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 contamination due to the use of automation and extended shelf lives stand out in the market. Therefore, detox drinks have been able to maintain a strong demand despite the novel coronavirus. An increasing number of brands, as a result of the rapid escalation of the pandemic, are focusing on fortifying their supply chains with greater emphasis on E-commerce channels. Companies are leveraging the online platform since the worldwide lockdown, to maintain the sales of detox drinks among consumers and remain competitive in this fraught business environment. Detoxification is a health measure that is rapidly being adopted by consumers who desire to boost their body functions and eliminate toxins. The rising interest in boosting digestion, immune system, and the functions of the organs among people has favored the sales of detox drinks in recent years. The alarming rise in cases of drug abuse and addiction, especially among the youth has led to a greater demand for detox drinks and can be a lucrative opportunity for the leading vendors. The mounting popularity of these drinks in view of the rising health consciousness among people in the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific can also emerge as a huge opportunity for international companies in the following years. Manufacturers primarily focus on boosting their product sales by expanding their offerings or by building new manufacturing plants across regions. Intensifying competition and the resultant increase in the number of product launches can be favorable for the global market over the next few years. Browse In-depth Market Research Report (90 Pages) on Detox Drinks: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/detox-drinks-market-7330 Market Restraints: Low awareness levels about detox drinks in emerging countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific will inhibit market growth to some extent. COVID 19 Analysis The COVID-19 outbreaks negative impact has led to a series of severe repercussions on peoples health status globally. The aftermath is in line with the considerable social and economic burden on people worldwide. While the major policymakers are implementing new frameworks and industries are adopting advanced models of expansion to maintain their relevance, people are facing a series of mental trauma. However, there is a huge demand for detox drinks among consumers focused on maintaining their health. Also, the alarming rise in alcohol consumption and drug abuse elevates the demand for a variety of detox drinks. As a result, the worldwide markets strong position will remain somewhat stable, albeit a few minor hiccups. Market Segmentation By Product Type The product types available in the detox drinks market are juice, water, tea & coffee, smoothie, and more. By Category Organic and conventional are the primary categories specified in the report. By Packaging Type Depending on packaging type, the market caters to pouches & sachets, bottles, and others. By Distribution Channel Some of the key distribution channels in the market are store based as well as non-store based. The store-based sections are convenience stores, hypermarkets & supermarkets, and others. Buy Now: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=7330 Regional Insights North America could possibly emerge as the market leader in the coming years, given the high demand for various detox drinks and the robust presence of highly reputed firms in the region. Another factor that works in the markets favor is the escalating consumer preference for healthy beverages in view of the surging illnesses and the rising prevalence of a sedentary lifestyle. Organic and natural detox drinks enjoy strong demand in the region, especially across the United States owing to the growing awareness about the toxic effects of artificial ingredients. Sensing the huge opportunity that lies in the region, manufacturers are boosting their R&D spending to bolster their product portfolio and cater to a higher number of consumers. The APAC market for detox drinks is set to progress at the fastest rate, thanks to consumers surging per capita income, soaring preference for ready-to-drink beverages, and the prominence of inactive lifestyles among people. The region also notes a high number of collaborations and agreements between competitors, who are launching new and improved products that aim to boost the general well-being of the consumer. Share your Queries @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/7330 Discover more research reports on Food and Beverages Industry, by Market Research Future: Coatings and Fillings Market Information: by Flavor (Chocolate, Hazelnuts, Caramel, Fruit, Vanilla and others), Form (Liquid, Powder, Granules & Chunks and others), Application (Bakery and Confectionery, Dairy and Frozen Desserts, Sweet and Savory Snacks, Beverages and others), and Region - Forecast till 2027 Algae Products Market Information: by Source (Macro-Algae- Edible Seaweed, Kelp; Micro-Algae- Chlorella, Spirulina; others), Application (Food Supplements, Feed Supplements, Nutraceuticals, Pharmaceuticals, Pollution Control, Paints and Colorants others), Distribution Channel (Store-Based and Non-Store Based) and Region Forecast till 2027 Heart Health Ingredients Market Information by Type (Omega-3, Beta Glucan, Phytosterol, Soy Protein and others), Application (Pharmaceuticals, Supplements, Beverages, Oils and Fats, Bakery and Confectionery, Dairy and Frozen Desserts, Sweet and Savory Snacks and others) and Region - Forecast till 2027 About Market Research Future: Market Research Future (MRFR) is a global market research company that takes pride in its services, offering a complete and accurate analysis with regard to diverse markets and consumers worldwide. Market Research Future has the distinguished objective of providing the optimal quality research and granular research to clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help answer your most important questions. Austin, Texas, United States, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HOT NEW RELEASE: Founder of Rastegar Property, Ari Rastegar, announces the launch of his much anticipated book, The Gift of Failure: Turn My Missteps Into Your Epic Success Tuesday, September 27th, 2022. Everything Ari Rastegar has achieved was forged through failure. From delivering pizzas at DoubleDaves to his rise as real estates Oracle of Austin (Forbes)and every step (and misstep) in betweenAri owes his success not to what he did right but to what he did wrong. Discover how Ari was able to maximize his business ventures during the most recent housing boom all thanks to his previous failures. In The Gift of Failure, Ari pulls back the curtain on his darkest momentsrevealing the hard-learned lessons from his struggles, showing why prosperity in any enterprise is linked to prosperity in life. Full of Aris trademark wit, energy, compassion, and candor, this book will help you see failure in an entirely new way. President and Managing Director of Starwood Property Trust Jeffery F. DiModica endorses Ari, saying, We all fail, but in ten years of talking to Ari almost daily, Ive never seen anyone get back up so quickly. Aris ability to avoid and learn from speed bumps and turn them into wins is unparalleled and defines him as a friend, leader, and motivator. Dont miss your chance to be the first to learn the precious gift failure can become in your life. Ari Rastegar, a licensed attorney by trade, founded Rastegar Property in 2015 with one mission: to build the future of real estate. He lives in his hometown of Austin, Texas, with his wife and their three children. For more information, visit arirastegar.com. The Gift of Failure is available at amazon.com. For the original news story, please visit https://www.prdistribution.com/news/ari-rastegar-releases-the-gift-of-failure-turn-my-missteps-into-your-epic-success/9313705 Attachments GUADALAJARA, Mexico, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V., (NYSE: PAC; BMV: GAP) (the Company or GAP) announced today that it successfully completed the issuance of 27,575,876 long-term bond certificates in Mexico (Certificados Bursatiles) at a nominal value of Ps. 100 each (One hundred pesos 00/100), for a total value of Ps. 2,757,587,600 (Two billion seven hundred fifty-seven million five hundred eighty-seven thousand six hundred pesos 00/100 M.N.). The bond certificates were issued in accordance with the following terms: 27,575,876 bond certificates were issued under the ticker symbol GAP 22L, at a nominal value of Ps. 100 (One hundred pesos 00/100) each, for a total value of Ps. 2,757,587,600 (Two billion seven hundred fifty-seven million five hundred eighty-seven thousand six hundred pesos 00/100 M.N.) Interest will be payable every 28 days at a variable rate of TIIE-28 plus 26 basis points; and Principal will be due at maturity on September 21, 2026, with an early payment option. In accordance with the Sustainability-Linked Bond Framework, GAP will annually publish, within its Annual Sustainability Report, an update on the Sustainability-Linked Bond, which will include information regarding the Key Performance Indicator. The Key Performance Indicator is the reduction of absolute scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and will be verified by December 31, 2025 and audited by an external party, in case the target is not met, there will be an upward adjustment of 0.2% to the nominal value of the bond certificates at the expiration date. The issuance obtained the highest credit ratings in Mexico, Aaa.mx by Moodys and mxAAA by S&P, both on a national scale with a stable outlook. Additionally, the Company obtained a Second Party Opinion by Sustainalytics, in accordance with the best practices in the industry. The proceeds from this issuance will be allocated to the payment of the bond certificates under the ticker symbol GAP 17-2 issued in November 2017 and maturing on November 3, 2022, for an amount of Ps. 2.3 billion and the remainder will be used for capital investments. Company Description Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V. (GAP) operates 12 airports throughout Mexicos Pacific region, including the major cities of Guadalajara and Tijuana, the four tourist destinations of Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, La Paz and Manzanillo, and six other mid-sized cities: Hermosillo, Guanajuato, Morelia, Aguascalientes, Mexicali and Los Mochis. In February 2006, GAPs shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PAC and on the Mexican Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GAP. In April 2015, GAP acquired 100% of Desarrollo de Concessioner Aeroportuarias, S.L., which owns a majority stake in MBJ Airports Limited, a company operating Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In October 2018, GAP entered into a concession agreement for the operation of the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica and took control of the operation in October 2019. This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are statements that are not historical facts and are based on managements current view and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance and financial results. The words anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, plans and similar expressions, as they relate to the company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements regarding the declaration or payment of dividends, the implementation of principal operating and financing strategies and capital expenditure plans, the direction of future operations and the factors or trends affecting financial condition, liquidity or results of operations are examples of forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views of management and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. There is no guarantee that the expected events, trends or results will actually occur. The statements are based on many assumptions and factors, including general economic and market conditions, industry conditions, and operating factors. Any changes in such assumptions or factors could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. In accordance with Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and article 42 of the Ley del Mercado de Valores, GAP has implemented a whistleblower program, which allows complainants to anonymously and confidentially report suspected activities that June involve criminal conduct or violations. The telephone number in Mexico, facilitated by a third party that is in charge of collecting these complaints, is 01 800 563 00 47. The web site is www.lineadedenuncia.com/gap . GAPs Audit Committee will be notified of all complaints for immediate investigation. Hundreds of weapons collected as Afghans voluntarily hand in arms Xinhua) 14:34, September 26, 2022 ASADABAD, Afghanistan, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan security forces have collected hundreds of pieces of weapons as locals willingly handed over their arms and ammunition to local authorities in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province on Sunday. "The weapons handed over to local authorities today include nine anti-aircraft guns, 135 pieces of U.S.-made M16 assault rifles, 65 AK-47 rifles, 19 pieces of mortars, several RPG-7 and scores of light and heavy weapons, besides thousands of bullets," Ghaziabad district chief Qari Zia Ur-Rahman told reporters. At a ceremony attended by Defense Ministry officials, they called upon people to hand over their weapons to the Taliban-led caretaker government. "The weapons collected in Ghaziabad district will be handed over to the relevant security agencies through a transparent process," Mawlawi Sayedullah, an official from the Defense Ministry, said at the ceremony. Following the hasty withdrawal of the U.S.-led coalition forces in August last year, a large amount of military equipment, including thousands of military vehicles, light and heavy firearms, plenty of ammunition went missing in Afghansitan. The Afghan caretaker administration has been trying to collect arms and ammunitions from individuals as parts of efforts to ensure lasting peace in the war-torn country. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) The US Maritime Administration (MARAD)the US Department of Transportation agency responsible for the US waterborne transportation systemlaunched a 16-month study exploring low-carbon options for shipping on the Great Lakes. The study group, led by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) in partnership with the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers (GSGP), will assess the suitability of alternative fuels and power options for Great Lakes shipping. The bi-national Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System is one of the largest commercial waterways in the country and is essential to strengthening the economy, supply chain, and the creation of jobs. It extends more than 2,000 miles and contains more than 110 ports. The Great Lakes/Seaway System is a 3,700 km marine highway that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. More than 200 million tonnes of cargo travel on the waterway on an annual basis. Over a period of 16 months, researchers will assess alternative fuels and power options in the region and will develop a detailed profile of Great Lakes fleets, ports, and fueling infrastructure. MARADs biofuel initiative began in 2010 and has since then grown into a multi-agency cooperative effort for testing of hydro-treated renewable biodiesels (HRD) on board MARAD-owned training ships and other vessels. MARAD-sponsored projects have included testing of blended and neat fuels (unblended fuel) compared with ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) as baseline fuel on board training ships both underway and pier-side. In 2014, MARAD began working with the Department of Energy (DOE) to investigate marine applications of fuel cells. A new $10.95-million research center, led by Michigan Engineering and funded by the US Department of Energy, will focus on understanding an emerging branch of science involving mechanical and chemical phenomena that affect advanced battery designs. The University of Michigan (U-M) and eight partner institutions will explore the use of ceramic ion conductors as replacements for the traditional liquid or polymer electrolytes in common lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and in flow cells for storing renewable energy in the grid. The recent discovery of ceramic ion conductors that simultaneously exhibit unprecedented performance and stability has the potential to change the electrochemical energy storage technology landscape. Jeff Sakamoto, professor of mechanical engineering at U-M and director of the new center Ceramic ion conductors could help advanced batteries pack more power than lithium ion batteries of the same size. However, when these new conductors are in contact with other components, researchers have noticed some new and unusual behaviors arising from that blend of mechanical, electrical and chemical interactions. The four-year DOE grant establishes a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) at U-M, the Mechano-chemical Understanding of Solid Ion Conductors (MUSIC). Established in 2009, the EFRC program is designed to tackle the toughest scientific challenges preventing advances in energy technologies. Ceramic ion conductors represent one of those advances, and MUSIC is charged with performing the basic science needed to explore their potential impact on a variety of technologies. Those include long-duration energy storage and hydrogen fuel cells. Critical barriers remain before widespread commercialization can be realizedmany of which center around the unique mechanical properties that emerge at solid-solid interfaces in electrochemical cells. An overarching goal of MUSIC is to reveal the fundamental mechanisms of how mechanical stresses and strains interact with electrochemistry, which will inform future efforts to scale-up and accelerate commercialization of next-generation energy storage technology. Neil Dasgupta, MUSICs deputy director and an associate professor of mechanical engineering at U-M MUSIC researchers will look at manufacturing techniques using new materials as a means of lowering battery costs. And theyll examine how the introduction of ceramic ion conductors impacts degradation in lithium metal, sodium metal and other solid state configurations. Partner institutions in MUSIC include: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Texas, Austin, Northwestern University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Purdue University. Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Washington (UW) have developed a simple way to isolate a pure magnesium salt, a feedstock for magnesium metal, from seawater. The new method flows two solutions side-by-side in a long stream. Called the laminar coflow method (LCM), the process takes advantage of the fact that the flowing solutions create a constantly reacting boundary. Fresh solutions flow by, never allowing the system to reach a balance. Wang et al. A paper on their work is published in Environmental Science & Technology. Here, we show that the nonequilibrium conditions in LCM achieved using a microfluidics device and by simply coinjecting a NaOH solution with seawater can result in improved selectivity for Mg(OH) 2 unlike in a conventional bulk mixing method. The resulting precipitates are characterized for composition, and the process yield and purity are optimized through systematic variations of the reaction time and the concentration of NaOH. This is the first demonstration of LCM for selective separation, and as a one-step process that does not rely on novel sorbents, membranes, or external stimuli, it is easy to scale up. LCM has the potential to be broadly relevant to selective separations from complex feed streams and diverse chemistries, enabling more sustainable materials extraction and processing. Wang et al. In the mid-20th century, chemical companies successfully created magnesium feedstock from seawater by mixing it with sodium hydroxide, commonly known as lye. The resulting magnesium hydroxide salt, which gives the antacid milk of magnesia its name, was then processed to make magnesium metal. However, the process results in a complex mixture of magnesium and calcium salts, which are hard and costly to separate. This recent work produces pure magnesium salt, enabling more efficient processing. PNNL chemist and UW Affiliate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Chinmayee Subban and the team tested their new method using seawater from the PNNL-Sequim campus, allowing the researchers to take advantage of PNNL facilities across Washington State. In the laminar coflow method, seawater flows alongside a solution with hydroxide. The magnesium-containing seawater quickly reacts to form a layer of solid magnesium hydroxide. This thin layer acts as a barrier to solution mixing. The laboratory-scale flow device for extracting magnesium salt. (Photograph courtesy of Qingpu Wang | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) The selectivity of this process makes it particularly powerful. Generating pure magnesium hydroxide, without any calcium contamination, allows researchers to skip energy-intensive and expensive purification steps. The new and gentle process has the potential to be highly sustainable. For example, the sodium hydroxide used to extract the magnesium salt can be generated on site using seawater and marine renewable energy. Removing magnesium is a necessary pre-treatment for seawater desalination. Coupling the new process with existing technologies could make it easier and cheaper to turn seawater into freshwater. This new approach has many additional potential applications, but more work needs to be done to understand the underlying chemistry of the process. The published study was supported by the PNNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development program. Elisabeth Ryan of UW was also a co-author of the study. Current development of this technology is supported by the Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Water Power Technologies Office under the Marine Energy Seedlings Program. Resources Samsungs next-generation Galaxy S23 and S23+ received their 3C certification honors earlier today and both devices support up to 25W charging just like their predecessors. The Galaxy S23 (SM-S9110) and Galaxy S23+ (SM-S9160) are both certified with the same EP-TA800 charger. The device identifiers confirm these units are meant for the Chinese market. Galaxy S23 (SM-S9160) and Galaxy S23+ (SM-S9110) on 3C database The news comes just a few days after the Galaxy S23 Ultra (SM-S9180) was also certified with 25W charging. Were expecting this is the Chinese unit as well and this could still leave the possibility for international models to support higher charging speeds say 45W. The Galaxy S22 Ultra does support up to 45W charging speeds though in our testing we found out that it doesnt really have any tangible benefits over the 25W charging. A full 0-100% charge on the S22 Ultra with the 45W charger took just 5 minutes less than with the 25W charger. Samsung is expected to announce its Galaxy S23 series in Q1 2023. Via Xiaomi keeps the Redmi Note 11 train going and is planning to launch yet another member of the ever-growing series. The device with model number 22095RA98C appeared on China Telecom with the name Redmi Note 11R, as well as an extended specs sheet. This phone will have dual camera and familiar hardware - it is going to be identical to the Poco M4 5G. All the specs of the Redmi Note 11R match the Poco - 13MP and 2MP dual cameras on the back and a 5MP selfie shooter. It's built around a 6.58 screen and the fingerprint scanner is on the side, embedded into the power key. Storage is up to 128 GB, and China is apparently getting the 8GB RAM version on top of the already 4GB and 6GB that the Poco had. The phone is coming with MIUI 13 on top of Android 12 which will be heavily modified, just how the local audience desires its phones. We dont have confirmation on the chipset - it will likely still be Dimensity 700, but we have to wait for the official announcement for confirmation. Source (in Chinese) | Via Dont call Jan Iriarte an artist. After creating tourist souvenirs as the owner of Tun Juan Products since the late 1980s, he prefers to be called a manufacturer. But the fantastic undersea metal sculptures he has created out of slabs of black steel paint the picture of works that are undeniably artistic. If you were lucky, you might have caught them along Marine Corps Drive in Hagatna during your morning or afternoon commute over the last few months. There was the one with a skipjack atop tendrils of seaweed growing almost 6 feet high out of the sidewalk, or the one with a haggan centered between three glass fishing floats cupped by flowers grown by Neptune. The 10 roadside drive-by exhibits were set up for only a couple of hours at most, as part of a yearlong project funded by a $10,000 grant from the Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities. The cool thing about metal The flash street show took place mostly in east and west Hagatna, but there was also one at the entrance to Adelup, with 10 metal skipjack affixed to signs. At 150 pounds and standing about 5 feet tall with a circumference of about 7 feet, the haggan is one of the largest pieces hes fabricated since taking up metalwork during the pandemic. Thats the cool thing about metal, is obviously its really strong. So you could extend a piece of metal, you know, 5, 6 feet and put something heavy on the end of it and obviously itll stand, he said. So it kind of looks like seaweed is growing out of the sidewalk and the fish on top looks like its like going through the seaweed. The project, which began last September and was completed this month, included creating 27 reef fish in addition to the haggan, jellyfish, staghorn coral, and more at his home workshop in Pulantat, Yona. How it started Before the pandemic, he had been using the shop to create the souvenirs such as magnets and Tiki statues that he sold at his former shop at CHamoru Village as well as in about 19 tourist businesses around the island. But during the COVID-19 lockdown, he had time on his hands and was trying to figure out what to do next since he felt that tourists werent going to be coming back anytime soon. I guess that creative bug since Ive always liked to make things kind of took hold, and then I purchased a couple metalworking tools and just started to make a few things. And it was kind of weird, because it kind of like came naturally. So I decided, well, let me just keep making more things. And then, the more harder the project seemed, it was kind of like a challenge. I guess I had to fake to see if I could do it. And then like I said, I mean, since Ive been making smaller things for so long, I guess it just was easy, came natural, to do larger things out of metal. Windsurfer to entrepreneur He then transformed the 500-square-foot indoor space and outside covered patio into a metal workshop, complete with forge. He learned by trial and error to cut, hammer and weld the sheets of black steel into replicas of the aquatic wildlife he grew up with as a waterman in the Marianas. A windsurfer who represented Guam in the 1992, 1996 and 1998 Summer Olympics, the 59-year-old also has been fishing for decades. I like rod and reel, and a couple of friends of mine have boats. So every once in a while well head up to Rota Banks or just go trolling. For the CAHA project, he focused on reef, rather than pelagic fish such as bunita, manahak, tataga, palakse, tasen guagan and saksak. Sometimes I try to go for a more realistic kind of look. But of course, you know sometimes you just go off on a different tangent and make something that resembles a fish or turtle to give it just a different look. You can do a lot of funky things with metal to give it different looks, rather than if it was just with fiberglass resin or like paper mache or clay. For example, you know when I make something that makes it look like its growing out of the sidewalk? Again, the strength of the metal can make it look like it is growing out of the sidewalk or out of the side of a tree. Open to commissions Now that the project is over, hes keeping the sculptures on hand to include in art shows. While hes slowly returned to creating and selling resin products to the tourist shops that have reopened, hes not looking to his new hobby as a source of immediate income. I have a hard time selling what I make, he said with a laugh. I dont want to sell what I make, I mean, its kind of like its personal, you know? However, once Ive made it, then I know I can make it again, and I guess if somebody wanted to commission me to make something, I would consider it. I mean some things take months to figure out, you know, how to make. Like the turtle. Ive never done anything like that before, so many nights were spent in the shop, you know, just looking at different stages and going like, OK, how am I going to do this? But just from staying with it and past experience making stuff, eventually I figured it out. The turtle took months to make, so I dont want to sell it. But now that Ive done it, Id like to keep it, that way if somebody wanted to commission me to make it, or if I need to make another one, I could look at it and figure out, OK, thats how I did it. Less than half of the families in reported COVID-related deaths 195 of 401 received $10,000 for funeral costs and related expenses. This is based on the use of $1.95 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding for the COVID-19 Bereavement Fund as of August, government data shows. For many Guam families mourning the loss of their loved ones with no life insurance or burial policy, that $10,000 is a big help. Adelup said more people have been coming to the Department of Administration in the last few weeks to inquire about the bereavement grant. As of 5 p.m. Monday, more information had yet to be gathered as to why only about half got the one-time $10,000 assistance grant. It could have been a result of disqualifications or families just not wanting to avail of the COVID-19 Bereavement Fund. I think its also fair to consider these families are grieving and making plans to bury their loved ones, which is why there may be a delay in them coming forward, according to the governors director of communications, Krystal Paco-San Agustin. More updated data will be forthcoming, she said. Its been two years since Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero launched the $10,000 bereavement grant through an executive order signed in September 2020 to assist the families of individuals who have died due to COVID-19 or COVID-19 related complications. Gov. Leon Guerrero continues to support this effort, which provides our grieving families $10,000 in financial relief. In fact, Gov. Leon Guerreros COVID-19 bereavement fund was established long before FEMAs COVID-19 bereavement grant, which offers at most $9,000 in aid, Paco-San Agustin said. The government also has disqualified applications, mainly because of the following reasons: The deceased wasnt a Guam resident. The death wasnt related to COVID-19, which would be indicated on the individuals death certificate. The person may not have died on Guam from COVID-19. The Department of Public Health and Social Services, however, from time to time, adjusts the reporting of COVID-related deaths, based on updated reports coming from hospitals or after a review of death certificates. Theres $1.95 million in ARP funding used for the COVID-19 bereavement assistance, based on the Bureau of Budget and Management Researchs ARP funding status report as of August. Thats an increase of $50,000 from July 2022, which at the time was $1.9 million. Guam remains under an extended state of emergency due to COVID-19. Addressing Chinas security threats in the region and the impacts of climate change will be at the center of President Joe Bidens meeting this week with leaders of Pacific islands, including Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero. The governor was invited as an observer, acting Gov. Josh Tenorio said Monday, to the first U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit, set for Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, D.C. The United States hopes to strengthen ties with the region that China has been increasingly courting. The summit comes on the heels of Bidens renewed statement that the U.S. would help Taiwan if China attacks. Guam has been trying to woo Taiwanese tourists to return in the wake of the pandemic. Guam and its island neighbors have been feeling the effects of climate change, as well as Chinas overtures in the region, Tenorio said. I think this is an opportunity for the president to listen in to see what the rest of the Pacific is thinking and talking about. The governor will be in a supportive role. I think shell be able to bridge the gap and understanding I think that exists in some corners of the government with the rest of Micronesia, Tenorio said. Among the invited countries is the Solomon Islands, which entered into a security pact with China in April. The Solomon Islands switched its ties from Taiwan to China. Biden, host of the summit, asked the governor be part of the U.S. delegation, Tenorio said. The governor received the invitation a few days ago. She left Monday afternoon. Tenorio will be acting governor until Oct. 1. She is the only governor from the Pacific Im aware of that has been invited and of course its very appropriate, given Guams role in the security situation here in the Pacific, Tenorio said. He added that there is a big security situation in the region. We in Guam are seeing it first hand. Elsewhere in the Pacific, they read about it but they dont know the extent. Guam has recently been seeing Chinese nationals illegally entering Guam from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Key issues The White House said the summit will reflect the United States broadening and deepening cooperation on key issues such as climate change, pandemic response, economic recovery, maritime security, environmental protection and advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific. Tenorio said climate change is a threat to the Pacific and the Pacific is looking at the United States leadership role. But I also think that its a contrasting moment for the U.S. because the U.S. is making a lot of progress on reducing emissions but their greater competition in this region, China, is not. And I think thats something thats pointed out for the countries with relations with (China). I said it last week, we try to make sure that they are accountable, make sure that they reduce their emissions, Tenorio said. In a separate statement released by Adelup, Tenorio said Guam has historically served as the grounds for geopolitical action and as a critical driver of regional diplomacy, so the administration looks forward to leveraging these enduring ties to secure substantive and long-term benefits for Guam and the Pacific community. As the leader of progressive advancement in the Western Pacific, Guam stands ready to further build climate change resiliency, enhance natural resource management and renewable energy growth, support the Compacts of Free Association and foster sustainable economic development, Tenorio said in the statement. Two people were at this Mangilao home at the time of a fire on Sept. 26, 2022. A man suffered significant injuries, according to firefighter Nick Garrido, Guam Fire Department spokesman. The Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz Toys for Tots campaign is one week away from beginning and will accept donations all the way to Dec. 10. Collection for the 13th Toys for Tots campaign will begin on Oct. 3, according to a news release from the campaign. The generosity and holiday spirit of our local community is what makes our local Toys for Tots campaign successful, and it would not have been possible without the continued support from everyone, said Col. Christopher Bopp, Camp Blaz commanding officer. The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation is a not-for-profit charity with a 75-year history, according to a press release. Last year, 6,239 toys were collected on Guam and given to children in need. At the end of the campaign, 9,241 toys where distributed throughout Guam, Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. Its amazing to be able to look back and to see how much the Toys for Tots program has grown and the impact we are able to make in the community, said Maj. Diann Rosenfeld, Toys for Tots lead Coordinator for Guam and the CNMI. Catherine Castro, President of the Guam Chamber of Commerce, said the Chamber is honored to partner with Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz on the Toys for Tots program. We thank the community for their continued support of this special toy campaign that impacts the lives of so many children. Your generous gift contribution will leave a lasting impact on a child for years to come, added Castro. Newly purchased, unwrapped toys can be donated to many businesses and organizations that have volunteered to be drop-off locations for the program. For information on drop-off locations, or information on Toys for Tots, visit GuamChamber.com.gu, the Camp Blaz Facebook page, or the Instagram at @mcbcampblaz. For families in need and would like to request toys, contact either the Salvation Army at 671-477-9872 or Catholic Social Services at 671-635-1442. Former Gov. Carl T.C. Gutierrez is the president and CEO of Guam Visitors Bureau, Guam Permit Czar, and chairman of the Governors Economic Strategy Council. Send comments or questions to GVB at communityrelations@visitguam.org. Haiti - FLASH : The Caracol Industrial Park stopped for lack of fuel Following the September 21 press release addressed to its customers by the American company (NRECA international), supplier of 10 MW of thermal electricity (oil, diesel) to the Caracol Industrial Park (PIC) as well as to the surrounding population (villages of the district of Trou-du-Nord and Limonade, about 14,000 inhabitants), which warned of a possible breakdown of its services due to lack of fuel https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37704-haiti-crisis-the-lack-of-fuel-threatens-all-jobs-in-the-caracol-industrial-park.html , NRECA announced Saturday in a new press release the total shutdown of the power plant of the PIC for lack of fuel and in the impossibility to stock up. Let's recall that the Varreux oil terminal (70% of Haiti's reserves) has been completely blocked by "Barbecue" and his men for a week https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37702-haiti-flash-barbecue-blocks-the-varreux-terminal-and-defeats-the-pm-video.html "[...] Unfortunately, the road situation and access to fuel terminals in the country has not improved and our fuel reserves have run out [...] We inform you that the electricity service will be completely interrupted at from Sunday, September 25, 2022 at 2pm [...]" the statement indicates. The largest industrial park in Haiti (nearly 13,000 direct jobs and 125,000 indirect jobs) and the companies which had observed a work stoppage due to the blocking of the roads, hoped to resume their activities this Monday, which will not be the case. This forced work stoppage for lack of energy will have major consequences (if the situation continues) on orders in progress, on workers (direct and indirect), not to mention the negative impact on the development of the Park when new customers were planning to come and settle there... In addition, it should be recalled that in order to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and respect the environment, the Ministry of Economy and Finance signed a contract with the Wineco-Siemens Living Energy Group in July 2022, for the construction at PIC, of 2 solar power plants totaling 12 MW (the most powerful in Haiti) financed to the tune of 17 million US dollars by the Inter-American Bank (IDB) and the American Development Agency (USAID). The work will last 16 months and the new solar power plant should enter into operation in November 2023. Find out more : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37333-haiti-technology-all-the-details-on-the-construction-of-the-largest-solar-power-plant-in-the-country.html See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37704-haiti-crisis-the-lack-of-fuel-threatens-all-jobs-in-the-caracol-industrial-park.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37702-haiti-flash-barbecue-blocks-the-varreux-terminal-and-defeats-the-pm-video.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37333-haiti-technology-all-the-details-on-the-construction-of-the-largest-solar-power-plant-in-the-country.html SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Social : More than 400 migrants stranded at the Guatemalan border On Saturday September 25, 2022, the Guatemalan authorities arrested at the Corinto border post with Honduras (Northeast Dept. of Izabal) a group of more than 400 migrants, including children without legal documents to enter Honduras and pregnant women in from Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba, who were trying to reach Mexico and then reach the United States, reported Alejandra Mena, Spokesperson for the Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM). The Government of Guatemala has activated a migratory attention protocol after locating the migrants because, according to the IGM, another large group may attempt to enter Guatemalan territory from Honduras in the same way very soon. Despite their irregular migration situation, 121 migrants were admitted for humanitarian reasons, including women (including 3 pregnant) and children who needed help for various reasons. The Red Cross, the Office of the Attorney General of Honduras and representatives of United Nations agencies were present. The other migrants were not allowed to enter the territory of Honduras. Let's recall that Guatemala is a corridor for thousands of migrants of other nationalities fleeing poverty, violence and lack of opportunities in their country and trying to reach American territory in search of better living conditions. S/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Economy : The Association of Petroleum Professionals requests the unlocking of the Varreux Terminal In a note addressed to Michel Patrick Boisvert, the Minister of the Economy, the Association of Petroleum Professionals (APPE) urges the State to unblock access to the Varreux oil terminal to supply service stations, institutions and businesses. The APPE reminds the Minister "Oil companies have imported fuel and currently have sufficient stocks to supply service stations and their industrial customers. However, the blocking of the Varreux terminal does not allow trucks to access it and load fuel for distribution." In addition, the APPE specifies "Distributors want the majority of service stations to be refueled before they can reopen them with the new prices, in order to prevent them from being stormed and/or destroyed [...]" emphasizing "We believe that any attempt to partially refuel certain service stations would expose them and their staff, carriers and drivers, to too great risk. And we also know that an attack on a truck or a station would be enough to dissuade the rest of the profession from resuming their activities [...]" "We have a common interest in ensuring that fuel distribution can resume under conditions acceptable to all players and therefore believe that the unblocking of the Varreux terminal is a necessary condition for this restart of our activities [...] We understand that the PNH is doing everything possible to clear these accesses which, once achieved, will reassure carriers and distributors to resume their activities." Let's recall that since September 19, the largest oil terminal in Haiti, where 70% of the country's fuel is stored, has been completely blocked by the former police officer Jimmy Cherizier alias "Barbecue", radical leader and Head of the most powerful coalition of gangs of Haiti namd "G9 fanmi and allies" and of many heavily armed men https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37702-haiti-flash-barbecue-blocks-the-varreux-terminal-and-defeats-the-pm-video.html See also : https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-37738-icihaiti-crisis-hospitals-and-a-physiotherapy-center-threatened-with-closure-for-lack-of-fuel.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37735-haiti-flash-the-caracol-industrial-park-stopped-for-lack-of-fuel.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37704-haiti-crisis-the-lack-of-fuel-threatens-all-jobs-in-the-caracol-industrial-park.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... RFI Theater Prize 2022 : Gaelle Bien-Aime Haitian Gaelle Bien-Aime, 34, won the 2022 RFI Theater Prize for her play "Port-au-Prince et sa douce nuit". The Prize was awarded on Sunday 25 September at the Festival des Francophonies in Limoges, France. Emmelie Prophete Milce Minister of Culture presents her warmest congratulations to the Haitian actress and author Gaelle Bien-Aime, winner of the 2022 RFI Theater Prize. Her play will be read at the opening of the 11th edition of the reading cycle "Ca va, ca va le monde !" organized by RFI at the Avignon Festival. Public transport : Call for action Public transport unions are urging the government to reverse the rise in fuel prices. Mehu Changeux, President of the Association of Owners and Drivers of Haiti (APCH) calls for the continuation of the mobilization in a peaceful manner. Bahamas Embassy : Haitian employee released The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has confirmed the release of a Haitian employee of the local staff of the Embassy of the Bahamas who had been kidnapped on September 2nd https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37569-haiti-insecurity-kidnapping-of-a-haitian-employee-of-the-bahamas-embassy-in-pap.html Crisis : The Catholic Church ready to get involved IF... In an interview on Vatican radio, the Apostolic Nuncio Msgr. Francisco Molina expressed concern about the deterioration of the situation in Haiti and advocated dialogue indicating that the Catholic Church would be ready to get involved if a serious dialogue was initiated to resolve the crisis. The border very well protected The Minister of Defense, Lieutenant-General Carlos Luciano Diaz Morfa, assured that the Dominican border with Haiti "has never been as well protected as now." See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37722-haiti-crisis-the-dr-deploys-armored-vehicles-at-the-border.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-37664-icihaiti-dajabon-helicopters-and-aircraft-monitor-the-border.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37650-haiti-security-the-dominican-army-raises-security-levels-at-the-border.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-37608-icihaiti-dom-rep-a-large-dominican-military-contingent-deployed-at-the-border.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37571-haiti-flash-the-construction-of-the-dominican-border-wall-is-progressing-rapidly-video.html 80,000 deaf people in the country September 23 marks the International Day of Sign Languages. while in Haiti more than 80,000 people are deaf. It is important to include sign languages in all our activities in order to facilitate communication, inclusion, and access to services for people living with disabilities. Committing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Haiti means committing to the inclusion of people living with disabilities and the respect of all their rights. HL/ HaitiLibre Matti Pitkaniitty , the director of international co-operation at the Finnish Border Guard, on Saturday told YLE that almost 7,700 Russian nationals entered Finland on Friday, representing an over two-fold increase from Friday, 16 September. THE NUMBER of Russians entering Finland has been rising at border-crossing points along the eastern border since the partial mobilisation announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin . The number was 3,500 a week ago, he said. Over the weekend the number of border-crossings may add up to 15,00020,000, he estimated in an interview with STT. Most of the crossings, he reminded, are by travellers who use legal channels and legal documents to cross the border. Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday reported that the number of border-crossings was higher than the average for a Saturday, the busiest day of the week at border-crossing points, on both Thursday and Friday. Pitkaniitty stated to the newspaper that traffic across the border began to increase immediately after the mobilisation announcement. The growth may not be attributable entirely to people who are fleeing the country to avoid being called up, however. The announcement drove home the point that Russia is at war to every Russian. There are people who decided that thats the last straw. Russians with the possibility to leave the country, he estimated, are presently trying to put distance between themselves and their home country and monitoring how the situation will develop at a safe distance. He added that the number of people crossing the border into Finland has exceeded that of people crossing into Russia since August. The difference, though, remained fairly modest until last week. When examining the numbers, you should understand the mechanics of the Schengen Area, he reminded. Even if a person enters the Schengen Area in Finland, they may leave it somewhere else. Aleksi Teivainen HT All Russians holding a tourist visa, he revealed, will be prohibited from entering the country and prevented from using the country as a transit country to other parts of the Schengen Area. Finland will also enable the revocation of multiple-entry visas granted to Russians. MINISTER for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto (Greens) on Friday announced a plan to restrict the entry of Russian citizens to Finland, report YLE and Helsingin Sanomat . All border crossings made on grounds of tourism will be prevented, he summed up while speaking to reporters via a video link from New York City, the US. Also existing visas can be re-evaluated and invalidated once the decision has entered into effect, according to Haavisto. Finland, though, would remain open to people travelling to work, study or meet family. Haavisto said the restrictions could come into force in the coming days, possibly this week, following a legal and technical evaluation. The visas could be invalidated at the border on a case-by-case basis whenever the requirements arent met. The acceptance of visas can be suspended or it can be restricted except for certain special groups such as people travelling to meet their relatives. The decision was made on grounds of the detriment the prevalent situation is causing to the international standing of Finland by the President and Ministerial Committee on Foreign and Security Policy. An in-principle decision on the issue is to be made in the coming days by the government. Russias mobilisation has started to slightly increase transit travel through Finland. Its our view that at this moment its causing a needless detriment to the international position and relations of Finland, he explained. With other European countries shutting down their borders for Russians, Finland and Norway have become the only countries in the visa-free area without strict entry restrictions on Russians. Haavisto said Finland decided to take action due to its own situation instead of waiting for a joint decision by the European Union. Rules of the Schengen Area include a provision about damage to the international standing of the receiving country. Finland is of the opinion that the provision provides a sufficient foundation for the tightening of visa practices, meaning it has not had to, for example, define all Russian tourists as security threats, according to Haavisto. The Finnish Border Guard on Friday revealed that it has detected a two-fold increase in the number of Russian citizens arriving in Finland. Aleksi Teivainen HT VOLUNTEERS in Henley are appealing to schools, colleges, churches and other community groups to organise collections of warm winter coats to keep refugees warm this winter. Care4Calais is supporting more than 800 refugees in the Thames Valley who have come from war-torn countries including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea. Sam Jonkers, regional lead for the charity, said: We urgently need help to keep them warm this winter. Henley schools and businesses have always been very supportive of displaced people and we are confident they will be keen to be involved. We particularly need mens and womens coats in nearly new condition as well as working umbrellas well, this the UK. We are working alongside other charities which support those in financial hardship and any excess coats from our appeal will go to other families in need. While we we aim to be sustainable and used recycled items wherever possible we do have a fund- raising page at Thames Valley Refugee Support for the hard-to-get items and would welcome offers of sponsorship. Care4Calais has set up a Facebook page designed to be a meeting place for people in Henley who are interested in helping refugees. This will offer help, information and details of ways in which people can get involved. Visit the new Facebook page called Henley Refugee Support aimed to be a digital meeting place for all in Henley who are interested in helping refugees or are displaced. The page offers help, information and details of ways in which people can get involved. Alternatively email Sam.jonkers@care4calais.org. GROWING up in a family of antique rug dealers introduced me to the art of weaving. Thames Carpets is our family business and has been based in Henley since 1956. My parents acquired the company in 2001, which meant my brother Hugo and I were brought up with the business. Carpets were our playground. If we werent climbing over them we were crawling under them, often mystifying clients with piles of moving rugs. They say youre a product of your environment and a childhood spent immersed in rugs left me deeply connected to them. Now I am in my mid-twenties, theres nothing that evokes a sense of comfort in me more than the musty scent of a pile of old rugs. Another prevalent feature of my childhood was travelling, as any antiques dealer from the pre-online auction era would understand. Weekends and school holidays consisted of frequent road trips across the UK, visiting as many auction houses as we could. I applaud my parents for their ability to keep me and my brother entertained during those long journeys. In fact they were so successful that one of my first words was cattlecod, an attempt to request the auction catalogue! I even dabbled in our weaving department, commissioning my favourite Crayola butterfly drawing to be woven into a rug. When I finished my studies at the Arts Educational Schools in London, it was clear to me that my heart lay in the antique rug world and that it was time to return home to Thames Carpets. Founded in 1956 by Joseph Bernadout, Thames Carpets specialises in the cleaning, restoration and sales of antique carpets and rugs. As reported by the Henley Standard in a 1996 article marking the companys 40th anniversary, our previous work has included restoring the carpets from Windsor Castle after the fire there in June 1992, cleaning the carpet at Westminster Abbey for a royal wedding and much work for the National Trust. We were originally located in Reading Road by Christ Church and later moved to Newtown Road. Its so heartwarming to hear stories from people who knew the business in its earlier days. Only the other day someone stopped by and said he used to work for us in the Nineties and he was pleased to see we were still going. A client said she used to visit the shop when she was a little girl and could still remember watching the repairman restoring the rugs. Its a true honour to receive such loyalty and interest from the people of Henley. We have a display of historical souvenirs of the business. Im not sure who the people in the photographs are but Ive been told that the man sitting at the table is possibly the then Shah of Iran. He was known to be passionate about encouraging the art of carpet-weaving. Even without this assumption, the display tells us that the business originates from a notable carpet shop in the Middle East. My father Bahram worked in a carpet-weaving factory from a young age in a small village in the mountains of north-west Iran. The village is called Babreh, which is not an Islamic name because the natives were Christian. Islam conquered them much later than the rest of Iran. My father came to England in the Eighties to study mathematics at university but was pleasantly surprised to discover the countrys appreciation of oriental carpets. With his rug-weaving expertise and an unwavering passion for the art, he left university and embarked on a career in hand-woven rugs and textiles. It seems the Eighties were heaven on earth for the rug world. My dad has an endless collection of entertaining stories from his adventures. The characters were an eccentric cast of dealers and collectors. Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting one of his old friends, who is the owner of a well-established rug business in New York. He told me a great story of how my dad once bid on a rug at an auction for 22,000 with only 50 to his name. He was confident it was a masterpiece! Fortunately, this dealer called him and offered to buy it for 2,000 more than he had bid it for and to collect and pay for it himself. A serendipitous ending to a brave move. I love the stories of the epic country house sales that lasted several days, selling all sorts of antiquities, with bidders competing on hundreds of items without hesitation. My dad joked to the auctioneer at one of these auctions many years later that that auction cost me my marriage. The auctioneer replied: Me too. They say every cloud has a silver lining and this proved true in the event that led to the introduction of my family to Thames Carpets. Mr Bernadout had retired and his sons David and Cecil were running the business. You may be aware that some handmade rugs have a signature at the bottom; this is the signature of the weaver. David and Cecil faced disaster when their repairer accidentally removed the signature on a client's rug. They were advised that there was only one repairer in the UK that could re-weave the signature, my father, who was then running a repair business in Lincolnshire. They went on to work together regularly and when David and Cecil retired my dad was delighted to be given the opportunity to purchase the business. The experience Ive gained at Thames Carpets so far has been invaluable. The expertise within the business and the trust of clients has enabled me to work with exceptional people who have been greatly inspiring and supportive. Ive handled items that I only dreamed of working with so early on my career and discovered that nothing educates you more than hands-on experience. Whether its inspecting a rug for restoration or examining a new item of stock, being able to see and touch the rug teaches you things you simply cannot learn from a photograph. It exposes you to the subtle differences in the quality of materials. Im delighted to have the opportunity to innovate the business further and hope my passion will captivate and engage a new audience in this timeless artform. Its clear to see that our love for antique carpets has not dwindled and rightly so. Its a rare pleasure to find something that is artistic, of exceptional quality and functional, not to mention the amount of history it carries, whether its a villagers rug that was woven intermittently throughout a lifetime, resulting in an incongruous design and shape, or a piece commissioned for royalty. I often wonder what these rugs have seen, every footstep leaving a mark of the person gone by. I believe that they do so much more than their original purpose of providing warmth and decoration that they have a more divine purpose, which they so humbly achieve. Its this which makes our clients so often refer to them as part of the family, which I can absolutely relate to. RAIL commuters faced delays and cancellations because of a wiring problem on the mainline. While services on the Henley branch line were not affected, many connecting trains from Twyford to London this week were disrupted. All trains from Twyford to London Paddington were cancelled on Monday with only a skeleton service running on Tuesday and about half the trains resuming by Wednesday. The issue was caused by damage to overhead wires at Hayes & Harlington station in west London. Neil Gunnell, who runs the train passenger support group Henley Trains, said the issue had affected people from Henley travelling to London for the Queens funeral on Monday. He said: To get to London, people usually get the train from Henley to Twyford and from there to Paddington, which takes about an hour in total. As no trains ran on Monday, people had to travel to Reading to get a train to Waterloo, which takes over two hours. As people returned to work on Tuesday after the bank holiday, they faced delays of up to 30 minutes with the restricted service to Paddington. Mr Gunnell said: Tuesday was particularly bad for commuters as for many this is their only fast way to get to London. They were able to run some direct services from Reading as they used bi-modal trains, which can run on diesel as well as electric, but it was still largely reduced. Despite being told by Great Western Railway that services would return to normal on Wednesday, only half of the usual trains from Twyford were running. Mr Gunnell said: They made the switch to electric trains about five years ago, while the branch line from Henley still runs on diesel. From time to time, the wires have been damaged, either by wind blowing things into them or when they are dislodged by bad trains. Henley commuters have been left in this situation before but usually they can run some trains as there are two lines each way. IN the week of the Queens funeral, Jeremy Irons recalled a weekend visit to Sandringham in conversation with his friend Simon Williams on stage at the Mill at Sonning, writes Julie Hanson. Irons and his wife Sinead Cusack, who live in Watlington, said they arrived worryingly late due to a train strike and were greeted at the door by Prince Charles who immediately served them Bloody Marys. Which lightened everything, he said. They do look after you very well. His wife had been given the late Queen Mothers bedroom while he was shown to the single room next door. When he joined his wife the next morning for a cup of tea, he found a valet had taken away his only pair of underpants for washing. He remembered that on hearing the story, fellow guest Richard E Grant who had a burst boil on his backside said he couldnt let anyone take his underpants and threw them on top of a high wardrobe. Unfortunately, the actor forgot to retrieve them when he left. They could still be there, said Irons. Williams had an anecdote of his own. He sat beside the Queen at a lunch before US president Donald Trump made his state visit to the UK in 2019. He asked Her Majesty if she would be holding a grand banquet in honour of her forthcoming guest. She gave me a look worthy of Maggie Smith and said I think well make do with tea. The event was held to raise money for the George Hatfield Theatrical Arts Foundation, set up by The Mill in memory of the young actor who died of oesophageal cancer, the youngest person to have the disease in the UK. Anthony Cox joins Norton Park Hotel, Spa & Manor House as the new General Manager. This follows recent investments in the stunning Hampshire countryside property close to Winchester to assist with repositioning the hotel and officially launching the newly refurbished manor house which is available for exclusive use from this Autumn. Cox, whose career history spans over 30 years in the hospitality industry, has previously managed hotels within The QHotels Collection so is delighted to return to take on this new challenge. Most recently Cox has led multi award-winning independent luxury hotels such as Thyme, Cotswolds and Danesfield House Hotel & Spa, Marlow. Prior to this, he was Hotel Director for The Vineyard Group. A Master Innholder and Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality, Cox is an exciting addition to The QHotels Collection management team. Cox has plans to implement a destination-led strategy that supports putting this part of Hampshire firmly on the map by creating a contemporary resort feel for the property. Brinkman Will Oversee Company's Operations as Stonebridge Continues its Strategic Growth. Stonebridge Cos., a Denver-based, privately owned, innovative hotel owner, operator and developer, announced that renowned hospitality industry leader Tom Brinkman has joined the team as president and chief operating officer. Brinkman's addition strengthens Stonebridge's commitment to expand its diverse hotel portfolio. In his new role, Brinkman will drive operational performance and assist in the execution of the company's calculated growth strategy. He will be responsible for the hotel operations, business development, finance/accounting, sales and marketing, human resources, risk management, information technology and legal departments. Widely recognized for his decorated career in the hospitality industry, Brinkman brings more than 30 years of experience as an executive with Marriott International. Most recently, Brinkman served as chief development officer for United States full-service brands, where he was responsible for leading development strategies for Marriott's U.S. full-service development team. Over his career at Marriott, Brinkman led various hotel development teams responsible for its numerous brands, including The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, JW Marriott, The Luxury Collection Hotels, Gaylord Hotels and Resorts, Renaissance Hotels, Autograph Collection Hotels, Westin and Le Meridien Hotels, in addition to holding multiple regional and global management roles. Brinkman's appointment follows on the heels of Stonebridge announcing plans to acquire more than $1 billion in hotel assets with a recent investment by TowerBrook Capital Partners and other private investors. Stonebridge has announced plans for significant growth with a focus on third-party management opportunities. In addition, the company is creating new jobs while also providing existing staff the opportunity to grow from within. NASHVILLE, Tennessee Whether a recession is approaching in the short-term future or not is uncertain, but revenue managers and analysts agree that the effects of one wouldnt be harsh on the hospitality industry. After dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic the past few years, any impending problem isnt as frightful as it once was. Hotel revenue managers discussed the concerns of a potential recession and how the pandemic strengthened them for one in a roundtable discussion hosted by Hotel News Now at the Hotel Data Conference. Nicole Havens, vice president of revenue management, digital and distribution for Peachtree Hospitality Management, said managing through the pandemic has prepared her team in the case of another rough patch. As it relates to our industry in a recession, at least over the past couple of years, weve become very comfortable being uncomfortable, Havens said. What that has done is its helped us be more nimble in our strategies and our ways to overcome adversity. Read the full article at HotelNewsNow (part of CoStar) One of Pariss most expensive hotel suites just got even pricier. A night in the top suite at the Bristol, one of the citys famed palace hotels, has risen by 5,000 ($4,990) as American tourists, traveling with their strong dollars, have returned en masse to the French capital. Le Bristol, a three-minute walk from the presidential Elysee Palace residence, increased all its room rates following a summer season that broke records in terms of occupancy and average rates, says Catherine Hodoul-Baudry, the hotels commercial and marketing director. She expects the high-end hotel to have its best year ever. The Bristols top Imperial suite went up to 30,000 a night during the week of Aug. 29, says Hodoul-Baudry, a 20% increase. The price for the hotels entry-level rooms has also increasedby 300, to 2,290following a jump in demand since May. Read the full article at BloomBerg.com Since the pandemic has changed the way people think of business travel, large U.S. airlines have been thinking of new travel types that could replace it. Delta has spoken of the premium leisure passenger, or people that will pay for a nicer onboard experience and an upgraded hotel and ground package. Other large U.S. airlines have spoken of the blended passenger, or some say the bleisure passenger. This supposed growth category includes people whose travel includes some business and some leisure. Its understandable why the big U.S. airlines would look for this kind of traffic. Faced with business traffic levels stuck at about 75% of 2019 volume, this loss of revenue would be sizable for the three largest U.S. carriers. Corporate travelers have historically paid three to four times that of the discretionary, price-sensitive traveler. Even a 10% loss of business traffic volume would mean that airlines dont have enough seats to make up the revenue with just leisure passengers. So, focusing on travel types that may not pay four times the rate, but could pay two times the discretionary rate, is enticing. Unfortunately for them, there are five big issues with this approach: Business And Leisure Has Always Been Blended The idea that blending business and leisure on single trip is a new and innovative thing is ignoring reality. Who has gone to a convention in Las Vegas and not taken time in the evening, or stayed on an extra day, to see Cirque du Soleil, another good show, or just do some gambling? Orlando is another big convention city. Many people have gone to business events at the Orlando Convention Center while their family is enjoying the day at Disney or Universal Studios. In the year 2000, I spoke at an event in Amman, Jordon. My wife joined me on that trip, and had fun during the day while I was at work. We wouldn't have left the country without visiting Petra, one of the most fascinating historical archeological sites on the globe. Twelve years ago, no one spoke of blended or bleisure travel, but it was happening regularly. Read the full article at Forbes Sustainability is a new marker of transparency in real estate as investors, companies, governments and the public increasingly look for clear long-term targets, regulatory standards and metrics to measure environmental impact and risk. Amid the widespread acknowledgement that climate change poses a financial risk and urgent action is needed, the pressure is on to show tangible progress in decarbonizing the built environment and boosting resilience. And thats a boon for greater transparency in real estate markets. Transparent real estate markets are based on accurate and reliable information, metrics and data to enable investors and occupiers to make intelligent decisions, explains Jeremy Kelly, director in global research at JLL. They need to have a robust legal and regulatory framework thats enforceable, along with good corporate governance so that corporations are doing what they say theyll do. More companies are increasingly gathering data and publicly reporting back on their progress towards their own decarbonization targets but the move to make energy efficiency and emissions standards for buildings mandatory is also having an impact on boosting transparency. JLLs 2022 Global Real Estate Transparency Index report ranked countries on a range of sustainability instruments such as building energy use and efficiency reporting; energy performance standards; emissions tracking and benchmarks; and climate risk reporting. European markets made the most progress due to their focus on sustainability measures and frameworks, coupled with the increased use of green and healthy building certifications. The EUs updated Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and initiatives such as the Green New Deal and Fit for 55 package are also having an impact. However, its major cities such as London, New York, Paris, Sydney and Toronto that are really pushing hard on decarbonizing buildings and introducing some of the more stringent regulations, says Kelly. Theyre gravitating from energy efficiency to measuring emissions, from voluntary to mandatory, and from operational emissions to whole-life embodied carbon. In the future well see more carbon pricing and more focus on looking beyond carbon in terms of circularity and biodiversity, he adds. A fast-evolving space As the global decarbonization drive gathers pace, more sustainability initiatives are also starting to address climate resilience by ensuring that standards provide clarity around making buildings, cities and urban planning frameworks more able to withstand future risks. And while the environment remains top of mind, sustainability and ESG concerns are now broadening to consider how the built environment can deliver a positive social impact by supporting community health, wellbeing and equitability. Many companies are now focusing more strategically on the S and the G the Social and Governance aspects of their business, and setting related goals, says Cynthia Curtis, JLLs Corporate Sustainability Officer for the Americas. More regulations and metrics to enhance and provide guidelines for these goals are likely. Its part of a wider move towards more robust corporate reporting on sustainability initiatives. Market forces are really putting corporate sustainability reporting in the spotlight and with it highlighting the growth in perceived greenwashing, Curtis adds. More standardization needed While sustainability is improving transparency within real estate, there are challenges limiting its impact particularly due to the lack of standardization in policy, regulation and reporting across markets. Many sustainability indicators are new and are used in different ways in different countries. Meanwhile, inconsistencies around data collection and reporting prevent benchmarking and accurate measurement of progress. As a result, investors, owners and occupiers find them difficult to navigate and understand their responsibilities across markets. Alignment of regulatory initiatives, harmonization of targets and more standardized data will be needed to help improve transparency and enable companies to achieve their decarbonization targets, says Kelly. Furthermore, standardization would enable them to learn, share and improve upon current practices. Incoming legislation enforcing specific frameworks in the EU and at national level will be a step in the right direction. Up until fairly recently, the frameworks used for sustainability have all been voluntary and were essentially created by the sustainability industry, explains Curtis. Governments have recognised that and were starting to see more regulatory requirements being proposed, if not already put in place. Industry initiatives are also underway to improve alignment from the OSCRE Industry Data Model to the IFRS Sustainability Standards Board on financial reporting. But with the market already moving faster than legislators, companies who wait until the last minute to take action on decarbonizing their real estate could get left behind, warns Curtis. Owners and occupiers behind the sustainability curve risk their asset losing value or could be unable to lease their property or command the highest price point, she says. At the end of the day, its an economic decision to recognize the investments needed and those that dont could end up with a stranded asset. About JLL JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. JLL shapes the future of real estate for a better world by using the most advanced technology to create rewarding opportunities, amazing spaces and sustainable real estate solutions for our clients, our people and our communities. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $19.4 billion, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 100,000 as of March 31, 2022. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit jll.com. View source U.S. Travel Association recently hosted its Future of Travel Mobility conference which brought together seasoned policymakers and influential industry and business leaders to explore the exciting new innovations that will shape travels futureand the policies that will help us get there. Its a pivotal moment in time for our industry. The decisions we make today will lay the foundation for a reimagined traveler experience and radically transform howand wherewe travel for years to come. After an action-packed day of insightful conversations, I came away from the conference with five key takeaways: First, were seeing very encouraging signs of travels comeback, but recovery is not guaranteed. We must deliver a welcoming experience for travelers from around the world, embrace diversity, protect Americas natural treasures, modernize our travel infrastructure and streamline visa processing. Our actions now will determine what travel looks like in a post-pandemic world. We must deliver a welcoming experience for travelers from around the world, embrace diversity, protect Americas natural treasures, modernize our travel infrastructure and streamline visa processing. Our actions now will determine what travel looks like in a post-pandemic world. Second, the good news is that the reports of the death of business travel were greatly exaggerated. As American Airlines Chief Executive Officer Robert Isom said, the idea that business travel wont recover is wrong, wrong, wrong. As Enterprise Holdings President and Chief Executive Officer Chrissy Taylor said, there are strong indicators that business travel is gaining momentum. As American Airlines Chief Executive Officer Robert Isom said, the idea that business travel wont recover is wrong, wrong, wrong. As Enterprise Holdings President and Chief Executive Officer Chrissy Taylor said, there are strong indicators that business travel is gaining momentum. Third, as members of our industry work to win back business and international travel, theyre not just competing with each other; theyre competing with technology. That means travel needs to be as friction-free as possible. As MGM Resorts Internationals Chief Executive Officer and President Bill Hornbuckle said, we also need to make a compelling case for meetings and events and demonstrate the value they create. That means travel needs to be as friction-free as possible. As MGM Resorts Internationals Chief Executive Officer and President Bill Hornbuckle said, we also need to make a compelling case for meetings and events and demonstrate the value they create. Fourth, if you build, it, they will come. Amtrak found that when they introduce new services and upgrade the traveler experience, people respond. Customer preferences are shifting quickly and its our job to meetand exceedtheir expectations. Travelers are looking to the industry for sustainability and mobility solutionsand its up to us to lead. Amtrak found that when they introduce new services and upgrade the traveler experience, people respond. Customer preferences are shifting quickly and its our job to meetand exceedtheir expectations. Travelers are looking to the industry for sustainability and mobility solutionsand its up to us to lead. And finally, were on the cusp of some truly exciting transformations in travel mobility. From rail travel and autonomous vehicles to supersonic jets, emerging technologies promise greater connectivity and comfort thanks to the vision and hard work of todays visionary entrepreneurs and innovators. Thank you to all our speakers and panelists for sharing their expertise and insights at this momentous time for our industry. The Future of Travel Mobility conference provided us with an exciting glimpse as to what the future holdsnow, its up to us to work together and make that vision a reality. And when our industry comes together, anything is possible! Wait! Before you go Please sign up for our Evening Digest and Breaking Newsletters Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. Columbia-Greene Media has recently teamed up with the US Postal Service to provide same-day delivery of your local newspaper with your mail. Our expanded daily delivery of your local news reaches into the following areas: Williamstown Committee Begins Review of Town Charter WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The town's first Charter Review Committee began its work on Thursday with a reminder of what its mission is and, as importantly, what it is not. "The only thing I want to make us conscious of is part of the charge says we don't want to become a discussion ground for current social issues," Select Board member Andy Hogeland told the group at its morning meeting at Town Hall. "Things may come in the door about sustainability or equity. That's not what the Select Board wants us to be looking at. "We want to check over the engine of government. It will be the vehicle through which people can make changes. If those issues come up, we'll refer them to the Comprehensive Plan Committee or the DIRE Committee." Actually, as the Charter Review Committee noted on Thursday, the charter is just one of the engines that drives town government. Other forces include town bylaws, votes of town meeting and, of course, Massachusetts General Law, which sometimes compels or overrides actions at the local level. Understanding the intersections of those drivers is one of the committee's first orders of business. But the engine in the shop, as it were, has not had a tune-up since it was adopted in 1956. Some parts of the charter clearly are out of date, like Section 5, which lists which positions in town are elected but does not include the Planning Board, which was converted from an appointed to elected body by an act of town meeting in 2007. The '56 Charter also lays out the powers of the town's School Committee, a body that has since been replaced by the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee. Then there is Section 10, which prohibits an elected officer of the town from holding any other town office by election or appointment. Select Board members Hogeland and Jeffrey Johnson being on the Charter Review Committee alone shows how anachronistic that clause has become. And the enabling legislation that created, for example, the Community Preservation Committee requires it include a "one member of the board of park commissioners" but, in Williamstown, the Select Board serves as the parks commission. A Select Board member therefore serves on the CPC. Hogeland on Thursday morning pointed to other areas of town government that might need to be clarified. The town's Historical Commission, which has statutory authority under Massachusetts General Law, was created by an act of town meeting but is not mentioned in the town's bylaw, let alone the charter, Hogeland said. Of course, many of the inconsistencies stem from the fact that town governance has changed in ways not contemplated by those who drafted the charter. That is why the Select Board called for the tune-up in the first place. Once the door is open to potentially changing the charter, the committee and, later, the town will have a multitude of options to consider. Hogeland said the Charter Review Committee should engage in bench marking to see how other municipalities conduct their affairs and may want to consider a paid consultant. At the very least, he said the committee should take note of a webinar on charter changes being held next month by the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "I think we need more help on, 'What are other towns doing?' on open meeting versus [representative town meeting] or recall provisions," Hogeland said. "We need some outside expertise." The Charter Review Committee, which includes volunteers with decades of experience in municipal government as both employees and volunteer public servants, is slated to sit for about a year and a half with plans to make any recommendations for change in time for the May 2024 annual town meeting. For the next meeting, Hogeland tasked the committee members with drafting questions that the group wants to ask of stakeholders, including town employees and committee members, about what concerns they might have about the local government structure. Johnson pointed out Thursday that it is a review committee, not a revision committee. "I have no expectations," Johnson said. "It's a review. It takes us where it takes us. Obviously, parts of the charter are very well written." Kevin Hines, who survived a jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, will speak at Wahconah Regional High School on Monday about suicide prevention. Purgatory Road Returns, Funds Bring Kevin Hines to Dalton DALTON, Mass. "Purgatory Road," a long-standing spooky event that raises money for suicide prevention, is back this year. Attendees will be taken through a "cursed haunted mansion" themed trail in the woods behind the Dalton CRA. The event will run on Oct. 14, 15, and 21 from 7 to 10 p.m. and all proceeds support the Berkshire Coalition for Suicide Prevention. The fundraiser was started by Joann Farrell and Betsy Nichols 11 years ago and has raised about $200,000 since. It usually draws about 300 people per night. This year, the effort has brought a globally known activist to Dalton. "We did it for eight years and we were going to stop but with COVID, we decided that we needed to restart our efforts," Nichols explained. "We went to the [Berkshire Coalition for Suicide Prevention] last year and said that we really wanted them to hire a speaker for the kids, one that could really make an impact, so that's where Kevin Hines comes into play this year." With funds from previous years, suicide prevention activist Kevin Hines will speak at Wahconah Regional High School on Monday at 7 p.m. He will present to the high school students in the morning and at night he will host the hourlong event that is open to students and families of Berkshire County schools. In 2000, Hines survived a suicide attempt after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Immediately after leaping, he realized he still had the will to live and has since spoken to the world about his experience. Hines has also written a book titled "Cracked Not Broken" and produced various other forms of media. "We want to raise awareness about mental illness and about suicide," Lisa Herland, Central Berkshire Regional School District's interventionalist for social emotional health, explained. "And we want to open up the conversation and not make it something that's taboo to talk about and we want people to know that they're not alone and that there's help out there for them and we're hoping that something like this gets people to open up and reach out." Vice President of BCSP Bertha Connelley added that the organization will have a table at the evening event and there will also be school adjustment counselors. It is noted that the presentation is appropriate for ages middle school and up. "You can be feeling very not OK but there's hope that if you reach out and get help, there's hope that you can find joy again," she said. Nichols explained that she and Farrell started Purgatory Road after their kids graduated from high school because they wanted to give back in some way. "We have a lot of really loyal people and Purgatory Road is very much a team effort with sponsors and kids so we don't like to focus on any one thing because everyone is important," Nichols added. "Everyone's contribution is important." They were happy to report that they are starting off this year with $5,000 in donations. Tickets are $15 and are sold at the door. Protesters march in Pittsfield for better mental health services six month's after the police shooting of Miquel Estrella. Meg Bossong of Invest in Pittsfield speaks to the crowd at Persip Park. PreviousNext Community Marches on 6-Month Anniversary of Miguel Estrella Killing Miguel Estrella's family speaks Sunday of his loss and the need for change in how the city addresses people in crisis. His sister Elina Estrella is calling for a system that doesn't include police. PITTSFIELD, Mass. Six months after the fatal police shooting of Miguel Estrella, family and community members marched on North Street and demanded change. Since his death, there has been a call for improved mental health support and alternatives to policing. "I've lost a sibling, but I've gained a community who sees exactly what I see: a need for change, a change that Miguel deserved a change that we deserve," his sister Elina Estrella said during a rally at Park Square. "This march may not mean much to many, but it means so much for us, for the people who showed up, for the people who will be impacted in the future. It saddens me that we're here because of a death but it also enlightens me because we're trying to bring change and we're trying to make a difference in this small, small, small little world." She added that six months later, one would think it gets easier but it doesn't. On Friday, Estrella would have been 23. On March 25, police responded to the 22-year-old's home after a 911 call reporting that he was harming himself. After another 911 call, police returned and Officer Nicholas Sondrini fatally shot Estrella after failed taser deployments, alleging that he had charged him with a knife. A preliminary investigation by the PPD reported that the responding officers acted in compliance and an independent investigation by the Berkshire County District Attorney's office exonerated Sondrini. The PPD's report said Estrella did not meet the criteria for a person in crisis yet the DA said "many systems failed" Estrella and that he did not receive the mental health services that he needed. His cousin, Cintia Polanco said what happened to Estrella is tragic and is, unfortunately, occurring all over the United States. "People all over get murdered, brutally attacked, simply because they are misunderstood or because the police are afraid of them because they look different," she said. "These people have access to armored military vehicles, entire armories of machine guns and they are the ones that are supposed to be protecting us. But why do they have access to weapons of mass destruction? You are supposed to be protecting me but you have an AK 47 In your police precinct. What are you ever going to need that for?" Polanco has observed that the police are getting millions of dollars while homeless people are dying on the street. The Pittsfield police's FY22 budget was more than $11 million. "This is the craziest thing I have ever witnessed in my whole life," she said. "But I never ever in a million years would have ever imagined that something like this would have happened here in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, would I have ever imagined I would have witnessed or even experienced police brutality." Polanco added that growing up, she was told to trust the police because they were there to help. She reported being the victim of police brutality at 11 years old and urged people to stop telling children that police are there to help. The event was held by a number of community organizations to demand change and accountability in the police and the city as a whole. Meg Bossong of Invest in Pittsfield explained that it was also a day to mourn Estrella and celebrate his life. "We are in a conversation with each other about change. We are in a conversation with each other so that we can remember all the people we have lost in our city. We have lost Miguel, we lost Danny Gillis to a similar killing," she said. Berkshire Athenaeum Now a Fine-free Library PITTSFIELD, Mass. The Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfields public library, has announced it is now a fine-free library. Patrons returning library materials late will not be assessed daily charges. "Our Trustees have given time, thoughtful discussion, and careful analysis to taking this impactful step," said Athenaeum Library Director Alex Reczkowski. According to the American Library Association, many libraries find that going fine-free helps erase barriers to library use. Research shows that fines are not effective in ensuring library materials are returned. CWMARS, the consortium of 157 central and western Massachusetts libraries to which the Berkshire Athenaeum belongs, includes 126 libraries that are now completely fine free. In October 2021, the New York Public Library joined a growing number of libraries across the nation going "fine free" and explained that this policy shift was intended to offer a fresh start. Circulation Department Supervisor Catherine Congelosi observes that the librarys semi-annual fine amnesty events proved that library patrons will return overdue library materials if they can do so without penalty. "Weve had fine amnesty in April and November for over 15 years and the response has consistently been wonderful. In retrospect those seem to have served as a test case for removing late fees," she said. Reczkowski further explained that overdue fine removal is retroactive. "Library staff are aware there are Pittsfielders who have stopped visiting the library out of fear they owe fines or may accrue fines if they return something a day or two late. Fines were counter to the overall purpose and vision of our library. We want this clean slate to be a new beginning and a gesture of welcome to those who havent visited us in some time." The library continues to require that those who return damaged items or fail to return items pay the cost of repair or replacement. For questions about borrowing from the Berkshire Athenaeum, please call 413-499-9480 during library hours or email info@pittsfieldlibrary.org Pittsfield's Rise Together walk to support the Elizabeth Freeman Center marches down North Street. The last two fundraising walks are this week in North County. PreviousNext Community Marches to Raise Funds for Elizabeth Freeman Center The center has raised 90 percent of its goal of $125,000 so far. PITTSFIELD, Mass. Residents and community leaders marching down North Street last week were encouraged by passing vehicles honking their support for the walk to raise funds for the Elizabeth Freeman Center. "It's been a tough 2 1/2 years. I think with COVID, we've all been feeling the pain and Elizabeth Freeman Center, we knew that COVID would create the very conditions that lead to increased violence," said Executive Director Janis Broderick. "And we've been seeing we've been seeing more calls, much higher levels of danger, and much greater financial need prior to COVID are written to protection of violence." Since 2006, at least 14 people, including three children, have "been murdered by their current or former partners, husbands and father," Broderick said. For the third consecutive year, the center is taking a different form from the organization's former fundraiser "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes," which featured men walking a mile in perceivably feminine footwear down North Street at the year's last Third Thursday event. Members of the LGBTQ-plus community collaborated with the center to create an event that is representative of all gender identities and sexual orientations. This resulted in "Rise Together for Safety and Justice," a series of smaller walks around the county. This year's fundraising goal is $125,000 and, by this past weekend, the organization had raised almost 90 percent of its goal from underwriters, walkers, teams, and individual donors. To put the fundraising dollars in perspective, $25 will provide safety transportation to the center's emergency shelter and $100 ensures a night of emergency shelter and food for a family. The final walks are being held this week (because rain delays): meet at North Adams City Hall on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 5:30 p.m. and at Tunnel Street Cafe in Williamstown on Friday, Sept. 30, at noon. You can donate to the Elizabeth Freeman Center here Broderick last week wanted to take a moment to recognize a former staff member and leading activist in the transgender community, Jahaira DeAlto, who was murdered in May 2021. DeAlto was a domestic violence survivor. She took in a needy family and the husband murdered his wife and DeAlto. Moved to tears, Broderick stopped to take a moment of silence for DeAlto and all the other victims of domestic abuse. "We rise as part of a growing community movement to stand up, speak out, reach out and support survivors hold abusers accountable and hold our systems accountable," Broderick said. "We rise to defend our rights to bodily autonomy, to love and marry whomever we choose to vote, to live without fear. We rise to claim the change we want to see." With the help of the community, a difference is being made, she said. "I also truly believe that we are receiving so many calls because you are spreading the word you are spreading the word that help is available," Broderick said. The statistics on domestic violence is in the United States is astonishing, NAACP chapter President Dennis Powell said. Intimate partner violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crimes annually in the United States. More than 1 in 3 women, and 1 in 4 men experience either physical violence, rape or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, he said. Victims are commonly abused by those they are closest to. Each year, domestic violence hotlines in the United States receive more than 20,000 calls reporting incidences. An average of 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner, Powell said. "That shows us just how prevalent this is in our society. A weapon is used and 19 percent of domestic violence incidences. Women who are victims of intimate partner violence are most likely to be between the ages of 18 and 24," he said. In Massachusetts, 22.9 percent of women and 31.7 percent of men experience violence, however, Massachusetts is not the leading state there are some worse. "Domestic violence is a violent crime. The abuser also often believes that the abuse is an entitlement, acceptable, justified or unlikely to be reported. Now we're all here to rise together," Powell said. "Domestic violence is not an entitlement. ... Domestic violence is not justified. ... Domestic violence will be reported," the audience collectively repeated after Powell for all of North Street to hear. "Let's rise. Let's put an end to this inhumane treatment of human beings. Let's rise together," Powell concluded. Concluding the evening, Mayor Linda Tyer praised the event and the "extraordinary organization, the employees, and the volunteers who make our city safer for everyone." Making change starts with one set, she said quoting one of the signs she saw that evening. "And that's what we did tonight, we took steps towards change. And it's so great to be among you and to share this experience with all of you. And when we walk, we remember those we've lost," the mayor said. The work Broderick and her team do at the center provide opportunities for survivors to thrive, she continued. "There are survivors. People do overcome and they have opportunities to thrive because of the Elizabeth Freeman center. So please be generous. They need your help." Interprint is asking for a 10-year tax incentive agreement as it plans a $22 million expansion of its Route 41 facility. Interprint Asking Pittsfield for Tax Incentive in $22M Expansion PITTSFIELD, Mass. Interprint is investing more than $20 million in its printing facility and its asking the city for a 10-year tax increment financing agreement. The TIF is expected to save the company $482,000 over the next decade on an estimated $1.9 million more in valuation. The current valuation of the property is $5,580,300. The decorative printing company is also receiving $300,000 in state Economic Development Incentive Program credits through the state's Economic Assistance Coordinating Council. The company said on Monday that it will invest $22 million into its Central Berkshire Boulevard facility for additional printing presses and is planning a 57,000 square-foot expansion. The expansion will mean 20 more jobs at the facility by 2025, bringing the company's staff to about 185. "We are thankful for the support of our owners and management group so that we can continue to meet the dramatic rise in popularity of our customers' products long into the future," said co-Managing Director Bill Hines Jr. "Creation, and continued support, of family-supporting jobs in Berkshire County has always been a major goal of ours." Interprint Inc. is the North American headquarters of the Germany-based Interprint Group that was acquired by the global printing company Toppan Inc. in 2019. The City Council will take up the TIF at Tuesday's meeting. The TIF will provide 100 percent forgiveness of the incremental increase in property taxes resulting from the construction of the new building in the first and second years and decrease by 20 percent every two years. The company announced on Monday that it will invest $22 million into its Central Berkshire Boulevard facility for additional printing presses and storage. Separately, another investment of $7 million will replace its oldest press with a new one capable of printing on both paper and film. "Over the next several years, lnterprint has an opportunity to become the leading domestic supplier in the luxury vinyl tile (LVT) market. To compete with LVT market leaders from China and Taiwan, lnterprint must expand their manufacturing facility, purchase new equipment, and hire more employees," Mayor Linda Tyer wrote in the order requesting the TIF. "lnterprint's primary customers have enticed them to locate the new manufacturing facility in Georgia by promising lower operational costs. To compete with Georgia, the City of Pittsfield and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have committed its support for lnterprint's expansion here in Pittsfield." The company's announcement detailed a 57,000 square-foot expansion to accommodate three new printing machines and storage that will begin construction in November and is set to be completed next summer. Last month, the Community Development Board approved an amendment to Interprints site plan that allows an approximately 57,500 square foot addition to the rear of the building. It was revealed that this will be the fourth expansion of the building. After iBerkshires' publication of the meeting coverage, a representative from the company said some of the information provided during the presentation may not be correct and could not confirm any of the details listed in the application. No further information was received before Monday's press release. Early this month, the Conservation Commission also approved the expansion. It was said to be a 57,000 square-foot addition during this meeting. Last week, the Baker-Polito administration announced the approval of five economic development projects supporting job growth and business expansion in the state, one being Interprint's project for expanding a new luxury vinyl tile production. The administration described the addition as being 54,000 square feet and the company contributing a private investment of $27.5 million (City Council materials quote $28 million). It also stated that Pittsfield had approved the 10-year TIF Interprint was founded in Pittsfield in 1985 and today is considered one of the world's leading printers of surface decors, including timber products, living room, kitchen and bathroom furniture, laminate flooring, and interior furnishing in trains, ships, and RVs. Libraries in New Zealand city receive donated children's books on Chinese Immersion Day Xinhua) 14:41, September 26, 2022 Local residents participate in the Chinese Immersion Day activities in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, Sept. 25, 2022. (Photo by Walter/Xinhua) WELLINGTON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Immersion Day was held in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Sunday, with the local libraries receiving donations of popular Chinese books. The Chinese Consulate General in Christchurch gave popular children's books in Chinese and those about modern China to the central city library, as part of the nationwide celebration of the New Zealand Chinese Language Week which started on Sunday. "Last time when I visited the library, I was told that Chinese books are very popular and new books are often checked out as soon as they hit the shelves," Consul General He Ying told the donation ceremony. The donated books this year include children's favorite idiom stories, traditional culture and drawing books, as well as books on modern China, according to He, who said the books are expected to help fellow Chinese understand the latest development of China and help Kiwis learn and understand more about the East Asian country. Carolyn Robertson, libraries and information manager for Christchurch City Council, said the donated books were wonderful gifts for the community to enjoy, adding that the city libraries need diverse language books as part of a wide range of books offered. On the Chinese Immersion Day, an extravaganza of traditional Chinese music and Lion Dance was staged, followed by various Chinese language and culture activities, such as calligraphy, paper cutting, Chinese knots making, Chinese painting, tea art, fun language workshops and games. Consul General He said the Chinese language, which is extensive and profound, has a far-reaching influence. New Zealand has more than 260,000 people with a Chinese origin, who make the Chinese language an important part of New Zealand multicultural society. Local children participate in the Chinese Immersion Day activities in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, Sept. 25, 2022. (Photo by Walter/Xinhua) (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) The Hong Kong Journalists Associations (HKJA) annual press freedom index has reached a new low for a third consecutive year, reflecting a rapidly deteriorating situation for journalists and media workers in Hong Kong and growing uncertainty over the medias effectiveness as a watchdog. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the destruction of Hong Kongs media and calls on the administration to respect press freedom and ensure all journalists can work without fear of persecution. Based on a survey of 169 people in the media industry and 1,016 members of the public, the HKJA recorded a 6-point drop in Hong Kongs press freedom index, the sharpest decline since the index was introduced in 2013. In a statement, the HKJA said that the closure of Apple Daily and Stand News in June and December last year respectively, as well as the persecution of the associations staff, were key factors contributing to the decline. As a direct consequence of a shrinking news industry, less information of public interest is now available, and those that remain accessible become more homogenous than diverse, the statement said. The results of the index come shortly after Hong Kongs Chief Executive John Lee said patriotic journalists should be delivering the right Hong Kong message and reporting the truth in the spirit of objectivity, fairness and impartiality. The IFJ has documented the frequent harassment, intimidation and detainment of journalists in Hong Kong, and the use of orchestrated campaigns to shutter media outlets and civil society organisations. On September 7, HKJA chairman Ronson Chan was arrested while covering a homeowner committee meeting at the MacPherson Stadium in Mong Kok and subsequently charged with obstructing police. Late last month, a High Court upheld a warrant allowing authorities to access confidential information on two phones owned by media tycoon Jimmy Lai as part of an ongoing investigation into the media tycoons alleged national security offences. The IFJ said: The Hong Kong Journalists Associations press freedom index has exposed, yet again, the grim conditions facing Hong Kongs journalists and the increasingly restricted environment for press freedom. The IFJ calls on the Hong Kong government to maintain the independence and freedom of the media and act to safeguard the rights of all media workers. UPDATED 03.10.22 Twenty one journalists have been detained amid national protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, and internet showdowns and social media blockages have intensified. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urges Iranian authorities to immediately release the reporters and restore the free flow of information. A picture obtained by AFP outside Iran on September 21, 2022, shows Iranian demonstrators burning a rubbish bin in the capital Tehran during a protest for Mahsa Amini, days after she died in police custody. The nationwide protests flared up across Iran after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, died in detention of the Morality Police of Tehran on 16 September. Web monitor NetBlocks noted widespread internet platform restrictions on Skype, WhatsApp and Linkedin and rolling blackouts. This followed older bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. According to the Association of Iranian Journalists, an IFJ affiliate, 16 journalists have been arrested since the beginning of the protests. Those detained are: 1- Mr Ahamd Halabi Saz, freelance news photographer 2- Mr Iman Beh Pasand, freelance journalist 3- Mrs Vida Rabani, freelance journalist at Shargh newspaper 4- Mrs Fatemeh Rajabi, Haft Sobh newspaper and Boursan website journalist 5- Mrs Elahe Mohammadi, journalist at Hammihan newspaper 6- Mr Mojtaba Rahimi, freelance journalist 7- Mr Alireza Khoshbakht, freelance journalist 8- Mr Rouholah Nakhaei, freelance journalist 9- Mrs Nilofar Hamedi, journalist at Shargh newspaper 10- Mrs Yalda Moayeri, freelance news photographer and award-winning photographer 11- Mr Masoud Kordpur, editor at Mukrian news agency 12- Mr Khosro Kordpur, journalist at Mukrian news agency 13- Mrs Marzieh Talaee , journalist at Mukrian news agency 14- Mr Ali Khatibzadeh, journalist at Mukrian news agency 15- Mrs Batool Balali, journalist at Kerman Farda news website 16- Mrs Samira Alinejad, journalist at Kerman no news website 17- Mrs Mehrnoush Tafian, local freelance journalist 18- Farshid Ghorbanpour, Journalist at Haft Sobh newspaper 19 - Arya Jafari, a photojournalist at ISNA news agency in Isfahan 20 - Safieh Gharebaghi, Freelance journalist at Zanjan city 21 - Sivash Soleimani, a veteran journalist at Urmia city On 24 September, the Tehran Province Journalists Association(TPJA) published a second statement in the week condemning the arrests, interrogation and house search of journalists. Addressing the Iranian government, TPJA said: "From a professional point of view, news coverage of general or limited protests is no different from news coverage of earthquakes, floods, the opening of dams or factories etc. From our point of view, as journalists, all these topics are newsworthy, and our professional duty dictates that we cover them competently and impartially. From a professional point of view, it does not matter whether we talk to the protester or the police officers". The TPJA warned about the risk of weakening the media institution in Iran because of government actions and asked for the release of all arrested journalists. Prevent Unauthorized Transactions in your demat / trading account Update your Mobile Number/ email Id with your stock broker / Depository Participant. Receive information of your transactions directly from Exchanges on your mobile / email at the end of day and alerts on your registered mobile for all debits and other important transactions in your demat account directly from NSDL/ CDSL on the same day." - Issued in the interest of investors. KYC is one time exercise while dealing in securities markets - once KYC is done through a SEBI registered intermediary (broker, DP, Mutual Fund etc.), you need not undergo the same process again when you approach another intermediary. No need to issue cheques by investors while subscribing to IPO. Just write the bank account number and sign in the application form to authorise your bank to make payment in case of allotment. No worries for refund as the money remains in investor's account." www.indiainfoline.com is part of the IIFL Group, a leading financial services player and a diversified NBFC. The site provides comprehensive and real time information on Indian corporates, sectors, financial markets and economy. On the site we feature industry and political leaders, entrepreneurs, and trend setters. The research, personal finance and market tutorial sections are widely followed by students, academia, corporates and investors among others. Saudi Arabia is home for over 2.6 million Indian workers today. The two countries share very warm bilateral ties that go beyond usual trade and commerce. Over the years, Saudi Arabia has been Indias trusted partner in counter terrorism and sharing intelligence. The Delhi Declaration 2006 and Riyadh Declaration 2010 boosted the energy cooperation between both countries. The Riyadh Declaration aimed at a strategic partnership based on complementarity and interdependence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the Kingdom twice since becoming the guest for the first time in 2016. Indian Embassy Riyadh Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman visited India in February, 2019. Since then a new era in the bilateral relations has begun and resulted in setting up of the Strategic Partnership Council (SPC), co-chaired by the two leaders. Strategic Partnership Council is a holistic institution covering various sectors of cooperation, overarching the existing institutional mechanisms of Joint Working Commission. In the past few years, India and Saudi Arabia have forged strong defence ties as well. Besides this, Saudi Arabia remains Indias fourth largest trade partner and a major source of energy as India imports around 18% of its crude oil requirement and ~22 % of its LPG requirement from the Kingdom. In FY 2021-22, bilateral trade was valued at US $42.8billion. Saudi Arabia is the 17th largest investor in India with investments amounting to $3.13 billion (March 2021). The Vision 2030 of the Kingdom along with Indias Energy policy are moving ahead towards alternative renewable and clean sources of energy. Both the countries are said to be helping each other in achieving their respective goals. Furthermore, both countries are collaboratively exploring Hydrogen Energy as a future source of energy. An upcoming book by journalist-author Ghazanfar Ali Khan explores such aspects of the bilateral relations. The book, that details all the aspects of bilateral relations - analysing history and contemplating the future - will hit the stands early next year. Ghazanfar Ali Khan Because of their historical roles and significance in contemporary international politics, Saudi Arabia and India have perpetually been in the crosshairs of policy circles and interested observers in almost every other part of the world. Gucci, an Italian clothing and accessories brand, presented its "Gucci Twinsburg" fashion show in Milan, featuring 68 pairs of identical twins. Instead of just one model at a time, the show featured double and identical models. In one of the videos, twins are seen going down the ramp one at a time while holding hands. Furthermore, the clip shows the twin models donning a coordinated set of designer clothing and accessories. The audience at the event was divided into two areas. Models went alone on each side until a wall was lifted to unveil their siblings walking the opposite way, dressed the same. Each family of siblings walked together and held hands for the grand finale. "After walking two separate runways divided by a wall of portraits, 68 sets of twins and doppelgangers joined hands with their sibling or other for the Gucci Twinsburg finale," wrote Gucci while sharing the video. Have a look at stunning photographs from Milan Fashion Show. Gucci/Twitter The brand's new spring-summer collection has left Twitter users amused and impressed. There were 68 pairs of twins walking the Gucci show at Milan Fashion Week. What an incredible casting team. Apparently they sent a scouting group to the Twins Day Festival in Ohio. Pablo Headasso (@phat808s) September 23, 2022 Gucci found 68 pairs of twins for their runway show . . Repost: @declanchan on TikTok pic.twitter.com/DWDsRFSkVH Gone with the twins (@Twinthusiastic) September 25, 2022 gucci casting director finding 68 pairs of identical twins for this collection: pic.twitter.com/iJ1g9ErhKL https://t.co/rJECrdvxdX im speechless *insert speech* (@alexaisonIine) September 23, 2022 Gucci and getting 68 set twins for their ss23 show, love it pic.twitter.com/slDOF2cBFB dan (ctrl) (@dansmension) September 24, 2022 The Gucci show????? The casting was only twins???? And they were walking at the same time in the same outfit in different rooms??? fernanda (@gigimyfeels) September 23, 2022 So proud of Our twin sons for landing an opportunity to walk for Gucci in their identical twins collection in Milan. Fun fact: theyre not identical. #GucciTwinsburg https://t.co/9rDv4gLIBQ Dieula "Jurla" is writing a book (@DieulaMPrevilon) September 24, 2022 I love that gucci sent identical twins on the runway for their spring 23 ready to wear collection pic.twitter.com/amAmH8zefc (@royalsultana) September 23, 2022 Gucci did really managed to find 68 pairs of twins for the show talk about a good casting director sofia (@SOFIssticated) September 23, 2022 The Gucci twins show casting director is incredible pic.twitter.com/7f7rh8Vtk2 (@honestninaruno) September 23, 2022 During the show, Mr. Michele showcased a variety of outfits that featured symbols and icons, bold tailoring interpretations, historical prints, and a tribute to various civilizations whose components complemented and strengthened his narrative. In one of his outfits, a hand-painted image of the furry creature Gizmo from the 1980s was visible on a dress. There were also many other clothes and accessories. Also seen on the runway, was a furry creature named Gizmo from 80s cinema lore hand-painted on a dress envisioned by #AlessandroMichele. GREMLINS and all related characters and elements & WBEI. (s23) pic.twitter.com/UwqoepPhJY gucci (@gucci) September 25, 2022 "And then, the revelation: the same clothes emanate different qualities on seemingly identical bodies," stated Mr. Michele in his show notes. "Twinship is a topos that transcends biology, showing us the sense of co-belonging and sisterhood that should guide our trip through this planet," he added. For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram. Every year, Forbes releases its much-awaited list of the worlds richest people wherein it's often billionaires from the USA, China, India, the UK etc. who we hear of. But a not so known billionaire who many of you might not have heard of, is Nepals first and only billionaire to have featured on the Forbes list. Nepals Binod Chaudhary first got featured on the Forbes list about a decade ago in 2013, on the 1342 rank. And currently, the businessman has slipped to the 1929th rank, but still does feature as a billionaire on the list, with $1.5 billion net worth. tatlerasia And two years later in 2015, Binod Chaudhary added another feather to his cap as he featured on the cover of Forbes Asia's September issue for his efforts to rebuild the quake-hit nation by working on a project that would construct 10,000 earthquake-proof houses for the quake victims in the country. Moreover, he had also pledged $2.5 million through his Chaudhary Foundation to restore schools and homes destroyed or damaged by the quake, according to Forbes. At present, 67-year-old Binod Chaudhary controls CG Corp Global and is Nepal's sole billionaire, as per Forbes. His biggest assets are a controlling stake in Nepal's Nabil Bank and CG Foods, maker of the popular Wai Wai noodles. Wai Wai has overseas factories in India, Serbia and Bangladesh with a new one being constructed in Egypt, it reportedly plans to launch a range of sauces. Whereas CG's hotel assets reportedly consist of 135 owned and managed properties, including a string of luxury hotels with India's Taj hotel chain. As far as his early life is concerned, Binod Kumar Chaudhary was born in Kathmandu, Nepal, to a Marwari family. His grandfather, Bhuramal Das Chaudhary, was an entrepreneur who started a textile business and migrated to Nepal from Rajasthan, India, in the 19th century. Also Read: Alexandr Wang: Forbes' New Youngest Self-made Billionaire Building Dubais Taj Jumeirah Lakes Towers Binod Chaudharys Nepal-based CG Hospitality had signed a pact with Tata Group's Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) in 2019, under which its five-star hotel property Taj Jumeirah Lakes Towers in Dubai would be managed by the Indian firm. wannabemaven happy to announce the opening of our newest Taj JLT dubai! Congratulations to our cg hotels team and particularly to my son Rahul. The man who Did it all.... pic.twitter.com/hPIDYST2df Binod Chaudhary (@BinodKChaudhary) November 27, 2019 As per Tajhotel's website, Taj Jumeirah Lakes Towers was named Favourite New Hotel in the Middle East and North Africa region at the annual Conde Nast Traveller Middle East Readers Choice Awards 2020. Also Read: Rihanna Becomes America's Youngest Self-made Billionaire Woman For the latest and interesting financial news, keep reading Indiatimes Worth. Click here. Big business brokers Insurance broking is huge business. Intermediaries, such as brokers, placed approximately 55% of the $57.5bn GWP in the year to December 2021, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. So not only are they doing mega numbers, Insurance Businesss Top Brokerages in 2022 have distinguished themselves by doing it professionally and effectively. Its not an easy industry to rise above the rest. Statistics from the Australian Financial Complaints Authority showed 4,762 complaints in the last six months of 2021; however, only 29 (0.6%) of those were against brokers. Insurance Advisernet is one of the largest general insurance businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Managing director Shaun Standfield offered his expert view of the sector, As brokers, we need to do more to promote what we do because we dont just place insurance, we actually advise on risk management, claims advocacy and actually support our clients with information that helps to make sure they get the right insurance coverages. I think all brokers should be proud of that. After reviewing impressive growth rates for clients, policies and revenue, Insurance Business gave the 2022 IB Top Brokerages awards to two dozen brokerages. We just never shifted from the values and the culture, and the mission and vision of our business Amanda Morris, ARMA Insurance Brokers Hunter Valley What differentiates the winners One winner, ARMA Insurance Brokers Hunter Valley, based in Maitland in New South Wales, is doing what it needs to succeed. In addition to chalking up impressive growth figures, the company has made great advances in providing an attractive work-life balance for its employees by recently going back to a four-day week. But thats not all theyve done though to earn their Top Brokerage status. We just never shifted from the values and the culture, and the mission and vision of our business, says ARMA Hunter Valleys managing director Amanda Morris. We just kept coming back to that in the last two years and staying grounded keeping that consistent level of customer service and bubbling our business so that the outside influences of the world didnt have much of an impact on us has been the reason why weve grown the last two years consistently. Weve got a few battle scars, but were a lot stronger and better than a lot of other businesses. I attribute that to the attention we spend on our employees mental health and the experience of the client. We do a lot of automation prior to renewal. We start 10 to 12 weeks out and nurture our clients through, so weve got that relationship and rapport thats enabled us to have hard conversations, and I think thats probably been our big point of difference. Were very old school. Were face-to-face brokers. We answer our phone calls. We are good to our word, and I think society is looking for that now. Paul Daniele, director of fellow winner Prasidium Trade Credit Insurance, echoes that perspective and notes that if employees are happy, results take care of themselves. In addition to impressive growth figures, Prasidium has achieved a more than 95% customer retention rate. We have a very flat structure, says Daniele. The owners and the directors of the business are equally as hands-on as everyone else. In regard to how weve seen the revenue grow, theres been a combination of factors. Yes, with a harder market, we are seeing higher premiums. Our retention rate has been market leading, so weve sort of ridden the wave of that. It's been the high retention rate, its been the referral channels, which has developed new opportunities coming through, and the referral channels are the GI brokers and the banks especially. The third one is diversifying our income streams and bringing on some other new products to generate additional income. And, lastly, we have a really strong federal program with our existing customers. We have a very flat structure. The owners and the directors of the business are equally as hands-on as everyone else Paul Daniele, Prasidium Trade Credit Insurance Not enough brokers One challenge confronting the broking industry is the lack of staff to realise its full growth potential. With unemployment at a meagre 3.4%, some insurance brokerages are encouraging the government to open more migration channels. Some are not fond of the idea. Of the unemployed, 26% (or approximately 127,900) are long-term unemployed (those out of work for more than 52 weeks), according to Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Daniele at Prasidium says the hard market conditions have placed a premium on adapting to market changes and proved his firm possesses the technical know-how to maintain excellent customer service. Theres a lot of shareholder motivations around consolidation. I think one of the drivers around a lot of these consolidations of different brokerages is that people want to make sure theyve got the necessary skills and people in their companies to be able to manage these scenarios again. So, the last few years has really exposed some of those brokers who have become more complacent and need to sharpen up. Our biggest challenge is bringing new people in, adds Daniele. Its really hard. The ability to employ even someone who doesnt have experience, its just really hard to get the right people. Other than talent acquisition through consolidations, another option is to loosen migration restrictions. The government migration cap dropped to 160,000 in 2019-20, but for the first time in a decade its been raised to 195,000 for this financial year. Standfield feels theres no simple silver bullet, but his firm has been using bots for domestic and business insurance. I was looking at ways we can make our brokers lives more efficient, because ultimately, we want to take all the back-office tasks off them and ultimately have them spend more time with their customers. Weve got a number of brokers now using offshore services based in the Philippines, he explains. As brokers, we need to do more to promote what we do because we dont just place insurance, we actually advise on risk management, claims advocacy and actually support our clients with information that helps to make sure they get the right insurance coverages Shaun Standfield, Insurance Advisernet A taxing situation In addition to migration issues, Daniele cites taxes as an extra challenge in the Australian market for brokers to contend with, especially the goods and services tax (GST) and stamp duties. The customers eyes light up when they see the GST and stamp duties, he says. Typically, were looking at additional costs of anywhere between 12% and 20% on any policy in regard to duties and costs. Meanwhile, in New South Wales where ARMA Hunter Valley is based, theres a fire levy of anywhere from 38% to 40%. So, straight away were on the backfoot in this state because of that one change, says Morris. I dont think our clients even realise how many levies in taxes and charges are on their insurance premiums, and its having a massive impact now because people just cant afford to insure. Ive tried to bring this to the forefront of our government, and it just seems to fall on deaf ears. Standfield echoes this frustration. The people that pay insurance are disadvantaged because theyre paying for the emergency services, through their premiums and if you choose not to have insurance, you still get looked after by the emergency services, he adds. So, a fair way of doing it would be to perhaps put the levy or include [it] in your council rates and charges based on every property. That way, everybodys paying for our proportion of the service. ARMA Insurance Brokers Hunter Valley Austbrokers Coast to Coast Bell Partners Insurance Blynx Insurance Services Pty Ltd CCM Insurance Group Clear Insurance Dixon Insurance Services Dunk Insurance Elliott Insurance Brokers Grace Insurance GSK Insurance Brokers IMC Insurance Brokers Maxton McLardy McShane National Credit Insurance (Brokers) Prasidium Credit Insurance Proinsure Shielded Insurance Brokers Stellar Insurance Brokers Stewart Insurance Group West Rock Insurance Brokers Whitbread Insurance Group In a year of multiple challenges, how have BDMs been performing? How are they attracting new business, supporting brokers, and helping them identify the best products for their clients? Insurance Business is searching Australia for 5-Star BDMs who deserve recognition due to their top-level customer service, stellar portfolio performance, extensive product knowledge, and more. The three-year deal will see Coface use CreditorWatch's API to automate and integrate credit reports including fully digitised financial information credit Risk Score, and credit monitoring into the Coface system. Read more: Coface names APAC chief executive CreditorWatch CEO Patrick Coghlan commented: We're excited to be providing Coface with detailed credit risk data to support its insurance underwriting business. This will help deliver invaluable information to Coface so it can make data-driven business decisions, a necessity in the current competitive financial and economic environment. Roberto Bastos, manager of credit research of Coface Australia and New Zealand, said having access to fully digital financial information will allow the company's information team to provide a diverse range of analytics and credit exposure recommendations to Coface's risk and underwriting team. Chris Little, CEO of Coface Australia and New Zealand, added: Coface is pleased to engage CreditorWatch to support our global organisation. Working with Patrick's team is a very positive experience, and our insurance underwriting is all the stronger now, as we're able to leverage the superior data and product offerings provided by CreditorWatch. Operating for 75 years, Coface is a leader in trade credit insurance and adjacent specialty services, including factoring, debt collection, single risk insurance, bonding, and information services. Its experts work to the beat of the global economy, helping around 50,000 clients in 100 countries build successful, growing, and dynamic businesses worldwide. The unit is plotting quick growth and is targeting a nine-digit premium figure within a handful of years, according to Liewald. I think sometimes, and Im not saying in all instances, agents can get lost in the mix of some of the larger shops, Liewald told Insurance Business. Our focus is to make sure that our clients are getting the attention they need versus just being kind of a number. Liewald, who joined Falvey from USG Insurance in January to head up the division, has ambitions to provide great service for retail brokers and further build on Falveys reputation with its clients. Read more: Falvey Insurance Group launches wholesale division This is about us continuing the service and expertise that they currently receive through Falveys other products, Liewald said. Falvey has been active in the managing general agent (MGA) space for more than 25 years and works with more than 1,000 agents. The launch of the wholesale division is expected to plug a lost opportunity gap for the business, according to Liewald, with Falvey keen to offer access to products that are outside its typical program appetite to its growing roster of agent partners. [Falvey] decided that they could handle the customers that they currently have and be able to give them the same great service that that theyve been giving for years, Liewald said. An MGA has a product and they write within a box and outside of that, the business goes elsewhere; if you cant write it, it goes somewhere else, he pointed out. Having a wholesale division will mean that for areas of business not covered by a Falvey program the MGA will be able to broker these out and find solutions, meaning the client can be kept within the firm. It complements, it supports, and it rounds out our product suites, the wholesale division boss said. Traditionally a marine and logistics MGA, Falveys new unit will, for now, continue to concentrate on this space. Read more: Falvey launches coverage for logistics service providers Products in focus include motor truck cargo, warehouse, legal, and product recall because were shipping a lot of these products, Liewald said. On the inland marine side it will look to builders risk, as well as active shooter, an area that can be a bit of a dicey product where there has been an uptick unfortunately, Liewald said. Those are what I would say our main focuses are, and Im looking to do some of the more difficult to place stuff within that space as well, Liewald said. Moving forwards there is scope for expansion into other areas. Our current goal is to dovetail around the products that we have and offer additional products in the space to our agents, but down the road, it could grow, Liewald said. As for where the wholesale division may look to branch out, given Liewalds construction expertise he speculated that this could be a good place to start while environmental is another area it could look to. It could, it could not be, he caveated. But we have the opportunity to do what we want based on our clients needs, which is really cool. Maintaining and building on strong relationships with London and Lloyds firms will be a key component of the divisions success, according to Liewald. Were the largest coverholder in London for cargo, Liewald said. I want to leverage that access point to really help some of the retail agents and to give them better access to London for hard to place business. The good thing about having us with access to Lloyds is, were already talking about potentially producing new and unique products for Falvey on the brokerage side, and a lot of thats going to depend on what we start seeing [in terms of appetite], Liewald added. Thats also the beauty of being on the smaller side and new were nimble, and we have terrific relationships in London. Alliances will not be limited to Lloyds, with domestic carriers also very much in the frame. We are looking at possibilities for new products and programs here as well, based on what our clients needs are, Liewald said. In Liewalds experience, retail brokers can sometimes be unsure about what exact product they need to access for their client. This has been the case on the construction side and Liewald said he is already seeing this in the marine and logistics space following a period of rapid change and the growth of players like Amazon. The market is ripe for people that can help these agents properly insure their clients, as were seeing a lot more of them, Liewald said. We feel like now is a great time to be in this space. This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync. Hurricanes. Wildfires. Earthquakes. What do they have in common? If youre in the insurance industry, the answer is that theyre all guaranteed to trigger weather and disaster claims from those with disaster coverage. For carriers and adjuster firms, that ultimately means activating an emergency response amongst their staff. This could involve deploying a tsunami of hundreds of adjusters to an affected state or region. Whether these are staff adjusters or independent contractors brought on just for a single emergency response, onboarding and license compliance are critical to ensuring claims can be processed and filed in a timely manner. Before we jump into the meat of the blog, its important to keep in mind that were not lawyers, and were presenting this information for the sake of general education and industry discussion youre responsible for doing your own due diligence. Claims processing in a timely manner Many states particularly those with robust weather disaster cycles have specific timelines in which to process claims. Insurers that want to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff of legitimate vs. fraudulent claims need to act fast. There are a number of reasons insurance carriers want to be quick to the scene in the aftermath of a natural disaster or weather event such as a hurricane or wildfire: The law. Legally, most states have set timelines of days or weeks for processing and paying clean claims, or claims that are clearly covered by the policy and have all relevant data available. We stand by following the law. Speed equals satisfaction. Clients with faster claims resolution and response times scored their insurers higher. In a word-of-mouth industry like insurance, getting adjusters on the ground to file and process claims quickly is key to growing and retaining business. Like a crime scene, evidence deteriorates over time. Adjusters are your eyes on the ground to spot insurance fraud and determine what qualifies as a legitimate claim. If an adjuster cant check out a claim site for days, weeks, or even months, then sussing out fraud gets a lot harder. Unaddressed, damages (and corresponding claim amounts) can rise. Consider some Kansas retiree whose shingles blow off the house. The damage is covered, and the insurer agrees to fix the roof. But the insurers preferred roofer is going to take a while to get to it. Meanwhile, each subsequent drizzle or storm pours more onto the exposed roof. Even with tarps, trickling water begins to cause damage inside the home. Now the insurer has to pay to replace a ceiling in a bathroom in addition to the roof. (See how this can spiral?) The longer you wait, the longer schemers and scammers have to move in. Nature abhors a vacuum. So does your dog. And so does insurance. In the wake of a natural disaster, if you dont act quickly to connect with your affected customers, theres more opportunity for some scammer with a generic file your claim scheme to befuddle your policy holders. Adjuster licensing affecting claims processing times You may be thinking, Surely thats what all the apps and AIs are for, right? Ive seen a million instant-claims-filing app advertisements on the Snapchat, so, speedy claims problem SOLVED. Unfortunately, many claims arent clean, and thus human adjusters with their human need for licensing have to get involved, either by being physically on site or by virtually handling the claims process via photos, videos, and other digital data gathering. Problem decidedly not solved. Similar to insurance producers, insurance adjusters also have to maintain licenses in most states, with continuing education and license renewals and the whole shebang. For P&C insurers that are handling this manually, a natural disaster may also equal a paperwork disaster. Maybe you assign an adjuster to a set of claims only to realize they arent appropriately licensed for that state, or they dont have a designated home state. Then you have to reassign the adjuster, and find a stand-in to meet the customers needs. Churning adjusters either because of insurer staff attrition or because they are inappropriately licensed is so common that Louisiana introduced a law this session to prohibit insurers from churning more than three adjusters through a claim assignment within a certain period. According to Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance Jim Donelon, the rule addresses the most-frequent concern raised in the 4,000 complaints [the Louisiana Department of Insurance] received from consumers in the aftermath of Ida. Turns out, insurance consumers dont like getting handed off to multiple adjusters any more than insurance carriers like finding and replacing them. Speed dating is just not an attractive business model for any angle of the insurance industry. Right now, a lot of carriers and adjuster firms are relying on manual processes that use self-reported information from adjusters. Its a gas-and-brakes game of compliance management while also trying to have enough staff to work the phones in the aftermath of a disaster. But imagine doing business differently. Imagine knowing where an adjuster is licensed and authorized to do business no ifs, ands, or buts and being able to correctly route claims accordingly. Imagine connecting to a new adjuster and knowing the first day of the relationship which states you would need to designate an appointment with. How much could the frenzy of adjuster assignments be reduced? Speedy onboarding for claims adjusters P&C claims processing is cyclical sometimes you cant find enough people to take phone calls, and other times the whole staff can take a long lunch. Staying compliant while you ramp up for a disaster season is easier said than done, and we all know Mother Nature doesnt wait for insurers to dot is and cross ts. With AgentSync Manage, carriers can onboard adjusters in as little as hours, and give carrier and adjuster firms the knowledge that their adjusters are up-to-date on licensing, and licensed in the states they need. Instead of scrambling for background checks, license verification, and other required documentation, Manage can provide a single portal for adjuster self-servicing, and integrates easily with digital background check providers. When having a licensed adjuster is critical to a speedy and compliant claims process which in turn delivers for the bottom line it just wont do to have manual errors and spreadsheet tracking slow you down. Offboarding those adjusters when disaster season is over can also be a pain point when you use manual processes. But, with AgentSync Manages automations and integrations, you can set adjuster licenses to inactive status in bulk, if necessary! and kick off workflows to email a legal notice to an adjuster that youve terminated their contract. At AgentSync, we can help you lock down your adjusters licensing and compliance requirements so you can reduce churn and increase your team and customer satisfaction. See how; check out our Solutions page. Topics Claims Property Casualty Maine has opted out of a $440 million multistate settlement with electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs in objection to certain conditions. Maine would have received roughly $11 million over six to 10 years under the agreement announced Sept. 6 that settled a two-year investigation by 33 states into Juuls marketing of its high-nicotine vaping products. The investigation found that Juul marketed its e-cigarettes to underage teens with launch parties, product giveaways and ads and social media posts using youthful models. But Maine was not willing to agree to Juuls condition that would have barred school districts from suing the company. We are disappointed in the outcome of these negotiations, but ultimately we were unwilling to waive the rights of other entities who are also trying to hold Juul accountable for its deception, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a statement Friday. An email seeking comment was left with Juul on Saturday. When the settlement was announced, Juul said the terms were aligned with its current business practices implemented in the fall of 2019, and its goal was transition adult smokers away from cigarettes and combat underage use. The settlement includes restrictions on how Juul can market its products. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Maine A property management company owned by the family of former President Donald Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has agreed to pay a $3.25 million civil penalty and restitution to settle a 2019 lawsuit in Maryland over allegations of charging tenants illegal fees and failing to maintain properties, Attorney General Brian Frosh announced Friday. Frosh announced that his offices Consumer Protection Division has reached a settlement with Westminster Management, LLC, a New Jersey-based corporation, and the 25 companies that own or owned 17 residential communities managed by Westminster Management in Maryland. The settlement addresses charges that Westminster and the property owners violated the Consumer Protection Act. The attorney general said in a news release that the properties in question contained more than 9,000 rental units across Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Prince Georges County. The settlement will potentially pay restitution to thousands of current and former residents of the communities, the attorney generals office said. The settlement, contained in a final order entered by the Consumer Protection Division, requires Westminster to return to consumers excessive application fees; improper agent fees, writ fees, and court costs charged in summary ejectment actions; small credit balances that were improperly retained by the company; and security deposit interest that was not paid to vacating tenants. Tenants in Westminster properties suffered with mold, leaks, floods and infestations of rodents, roaches and bedbugs, Frosh, a Democrat, said. Management hid these conditions only to reveal them to their tenants after they were locked into long-term leases. Westminster knew the condition of its properties, and it charged tenants illegal fees to live in those miserable conditions. Westminsters conduct was unconscionable. Westminster is not admitting wrongdoing under the settlement. Westminster is pleased to have settled this litigation with no admission of liability or wrongdoing, Peter Febo, Kushner Cos. chief operating officer, said in a statement. We look forward to moving past this matter so that we can focus on our ever-expanding real estate portfolio. Kushner stepped down as chief executive of Kushner Cos. in 2017 when he became a senior White House adviser to President Donald Trump. To address the charges, the settlement provides for a claims procedure where current and past tenants of properties managed by Westminster can make claims to a special master, who can return rent to consumers if, during their tenancies, they faced serious maintenance issues that impacted their use and enjoyment of their apartments, including leaks or floods; rodent, roach, or bedbug infestations; or a lack of electricity, water, hot water, heat or air conditioning. Kushners family real estate firm owns thousands of apartments and townhomes in the Baltimore area. Some have been criticized for the same kind of disrepair and neglect that Trump accused local leaders of failing to address, when he referred to Baltimore as a rat and rodent infested mess in 2019. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Property Maryland Fiona, the most powerful storm of this years Atlantic hurricane season, roared ashore in eastern Nova Scotia early Saturday as one of the strongest systems ever to hit the region, knocking out power, toppling trees and forcing residents to flee. Across Nova Scotia, 414,000 households were without power, or about 80% of Nova Scotia Powers customers. Thousands more were hit in neighboring areas as well. We are asking Nova Scotians to stay close to home if it is safe, Tim Houston, Nova Scotias premier, said in a tweet. Please check in on your family, friends and neighbours. Update: Hurricane Fiona Roars Toward Atlantic Canada as New Storm Threatens Florida Nearby Price Edward Island was also hit by outages, and officials had urged residents to stay indoors until Sunday. Conditions are like nothing weve ever seen, police in Charlottetown, the provincial capital, tweeted, showing photos of downed trees and damaged homes. Conditions are like nothing weve ever seen. We are logging reports of downed trees and wires but will only be responding to emergency calls. -Dispatcher Kelly pic.twitter.com/gX7YPTPDSN Charlottetown Police (@ChtownPolice) Sept. 24, 2022 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, set to fly to Japan for Shinzo Abes funeral, is delaying his trip, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said citing his office. The news agency also said Port aux Basques in Newfoundland and Labrador was under an emergency evacuation order and people had to flee from flooding. The storm, which ravaged the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico earlier this week, made landfall on the Canso Peninsula near Hart Island with winds of 90 miles per hour, according to the US National Hurricane Center. Its expected to unleash flooding rains across Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador. Fiona is a potent sign the Atlantic hurricane season is coming to life after months of quiet. The Atlantic didnt spur a single tropical storm during August. Now September has given rise to three hurricanes, with a fourth threating to form and strike Cuba and Florida next week. Forecasters have warned it will be an unusually busy season as climate change fuels more frequent and powerful storms. Fionas winds peaked earlier this week at 130 mph, making it a Category 4 hurricane and the Atlantics strongest storm of 2022. It knocked out power across all of Puerto Rico Sunday and caused outages, floods and landslides on the Dominican Republic Monday as it moved north. The storm took a swipe at Bermuda Friday before bearing down on Canada. By mid-morning, the storm had moved into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and was losing power, said Adam Douty, a meteorologist at commercial-forecaster AccuWeather Inc. The worst impacts are likely over, he said. Fiona could cause between $1 billion to $1.5 billion in damage in Canada, based on its current forecast, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research. The storm in the Caribbean is on track to pass just west of Havana and strike Florida near Fort Myers. There is a chance the track will change, potentially shifting further west into the Gulf of Mexico. The storms current forecast keeps it away from offshore oil and natural gas production in the western Gulf. The storm could cause about $12 billion in losses in western Florida and Cuba, Watson said. The damage could be particularly harsh for citrus growers, who are just about to start harvesting their crops. Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm Hurricane This edition of International People Moves details appointments at Gallagher, SiriusPoint and Willis Towers Watson (WTW). A summary of these new hires follows here. Gallagher Promotes Raven as CEO of Energy Practice Gallagher has made a key new appointment in its Specialty leadership team, promoting Julian Raven to the role of CEO of its energy practice. Raven joined Gallagher 14 years ago when the firm first established its London-based energy practice and has been deputy managing partner for the last four years. Prior to joining Gallagher, Raven worked at Aon specializing in energy broking. He will report to Gallaghers Specialty CEO, Jonathan Turner. Raven replaces Jonathan Smith who has led Gallaghers energy practice since 2018, having joined to deliver specific results over a fixed period of time and is now retiring from the industry. Gallaghers Energy Practice handles upstream, downstream, casualty, power and renewable energy risks for firms internationally and includes over 65 risk professionals. The team has grown significantly in recent years, most recently with a focus on building its specialist renewables team with industry heavyweights including Huw Turner and Mike Parry joining in recent months. *** SiriusPoint Names Heerasing Active U/W of Lloyds Syndicate 1945 SiriusPoint Ltd., the Bermuda-based specialty insurer and reinsurer, announced that Bobby Heerasing has been appointed active underwriter of Lloyds Syndicate 1945, effective Sept. 1, 2022. Currently also head of International Strategic Business Development, it was previously announced that Heerasing will take on the role of SiriusPoint UK country brand manager, following the sale of SiriusPoints Lloyds managing general agent to Mosaic Insurance. The sale, which is expected to complete in Q4 2022, subject to Lloyds and regulatory approvals, will see Robert Harman, managing director of Sirius International Managing Agency (SIMA) and SiriusPoint London chief executive officer, transition to Mosaic to continue his role as CEO of the managing agency. SiriusPoint will retain Syndicate 1945 and its UK Branch operations. Heerasing joined SiriusPoint in October 2021 with over 25 years of market experience. Previously CEO of Asia Capital Re and a board member of ACR Holdings and ACR Group, he also spent 18 years at Catlin as chief underwriting officer, and XL Catlin as regional underwriting director of Asia Pacific (Insurance). I am delighted have an underwriter of Bobbys caliber and experience leading Syndicate 1945, commented Scott Egan, chief executive officer of SiriusPoint. The Lloyds market is an important and integral part of SiriusPoints offering. The strength of this appointment reflects our commitment to building a profitable and sustainable business and adding value to the Lloyds franchise. *** WTW Appoints 3 Execs for Natural Resources Business Insurance broker WTW announced three senior appointments in its natural resources business: Andrew Brunero, Will Fremlin-Key and Ahmed Abdel-Gawad. Brunero has been named the global head of downstream energy broking for WTWs natural resources business. He joins WTW from Marsh Energy, after spending more than a decade at the company, working in London, Houston and Dubai, where he is currently based. In his new position, Bruneros initial focus will be on building WTWs production and growth strategy internationally. WTW also named Will Fremlin-Key as the global head of mining and metals for its natural resources business. Fremlin-Key joins WTW from Gallagher, where he led a specialty team in mining and heavy industry across London. In his new position, Fremlin-Key will be responsible for coordinating and developing WTWs mining & metals presence globally, executing his broad industry knowledge across casualty, management liability, cyber, marine, energy and property. WTW also announced the appointment of Ahmed Abdel-Gawad as the companys head of natural resources for the CEEMEA region. His role is effective immediately. Based in Egypt, Abdel-Gawad joined WTW in 2021 as head of specialty for Egypt, having previously worked at Aon. Abdel-Gawad will lead the growth strategy across the four sectors of natural resources, building on recent successes, by leading WTWs regional teams and placement hubs, in order to acquire new clients and grow the companys footprint across the CEEMEA region. All three new appointees will report to Graham Knight. Topics Excess Surplus Lloyd's A.J. Gallagher Willis Towers Watson The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a settlement with Altivia Petrochemicals LLC for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at its petrochemical manufacturing facility in Haverhill, Ohio. The company will pay a $1,112,500 civil penalty, improve leak detection and repair work practices. Emissions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), such as phenol, from leaking equipment impact the environment and may cause serious health effects including anorexia, vertigo, and blood and liver effects. According to the seven-count complaint, filed on October 5, 2021, in the Southern District of Ohio, Altivia allegedly violated CAA requirements to monitor and repair leaking equipment, demonstrate compliance with regulations applicable to chemical plants and control HAP emissions from equipment as required. In addition to paying a penalty, Altivia will implement a comprehensive program to reduce emissions of HAPs from leaking equipment such as valves and connectors. These emissions, known as fugitive emissions because they are not discharged from a stack, but rather leak directly from equipment, are generally controlled through work practices, like monitoring and repairing leaks. The settlement requires Altivia to implement enhanced work practices, including more frequent leak monitoring, better repair practices and innovative new efforts designed to prevent leaks. Source: EPA Topics Ohio Deutsche Bank AG agreed to pay $26.25 million to settle a U.S. shareholder lawsuit accusing the German bank of lax oversight while doing business with risky, ultra-rich clients like Jeffrey Epstein and Russian oligarchs. The preliminary all-cash settlement filed on Friday in federal court in Manhattan requires approval by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who in June allowed the proposed class action to proceed. Shareholders led by Yun Wang, who traded Deutsche Bank stock in 2018 and 2020, claimed that the bank had known its know-your-customer and anti-money laundering controls were ineffective, and that its share price fell as problems emerged. Deutsche Bank denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. Chief Executive Christian Sewing and his predecessor John Cryan are also defendants, and also denied wrongdoing. A bank spokesman declined to comment. Sewing has since taking over in 2018 tried to show investors that Deutsche Bank has addressed its internal controls shortfalls. The lawsuit faulted Deutsche Banks work with Epstein, the late financier and sex offender, and with Danske Banks Estonia branch, which become embroiled in a money laundering scandal. New Yorks Department of Financial Services fined Deutsche Bank $150 million in July 2020 over its relationships with Epstein and Danske Estonia. Shareholders also objected to Deutsche Banks taking on oligarchs like billionaire Roman Abramovich as clients, in what they called the banks relentless pursuit of profits. Fridays settlement covers Deutsche Bank investors in the United States from March 14, 2017 to Sept. 18, 2020. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the $26.25 million payout is 49.4% of the likely recoverable damages available, compared with a median 1.8% in settled securities class actions in 2021. The lawyers may seek up to one-third of the settlement fund for legal fees. The case is Karimi v Deutsche Bank AG et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-02854. Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. Topics Russia Ranger Tool and Die, Inc. (Ranger), an industrial machine shop with locations in Paragould and Jonesboro, Arkansas, violated federal law when it failed to prevent sexual harassment at its Jonesboro location and then retaliated against employees who complained, according to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). According to the EEOCs lawsuit, one female employee first complained of sexual harassment to owner John Wallace, and a second female employee complained to the Jonesboro site manager about one month after the first complaint. Ranger fired both women the day of the second complaint. The next day, when a male coworker objected to the womens termination simply for complaining of sexual harassment, Ranger fired him as well. Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects employees from sexual harassment and retaliation. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Northern Division, Civil Action No. 3:22-cv-00247-DPM, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. The suit seeks monetary relief in the form of back pay, compensatory, and punitive damages, and compensation for lost benefits, and an injunction against future discrimination. Ranger was founded in 1999 with its main headquarters in Paragould, Arkansas and a second location in Jonesboro, Arkansas. According to its website, Ranger services businesses located in northeast Arkansas, western Tennessee, and southern Missouri. Topics Lawsuits Arkansas A Texas city has settled a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a Black mother after she and her daughter were wrestled to the ground and arrested by a white police officer following a dispute with a neighbor. Jacqueline Craig and one of her daughters were wrestled to the ground and had a stun gun pointed at them by Fort Worth officer William Martin in December 2016. Another of Craigs daughters, who filmed the incident on her cellphone, was also arrested. Charges against all three were later dropped. Martin served a 10-day suspension for violating departmental policies. The city agreed to settle the lawsuit for $150,000, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Friday. The settlement is pending City Council approval. As part of the settlement, the city admits no other fault and there are no other requirements, a Fort Worth spokesperson said. Craig has alleged the neighbor grabbed and choked her young son after seeing him litter. Craig and the neighbor both called police. Video of the arrests, which was posted on Facebook and viewed more than a million times, raised accusations of racism. Mayor Pro Tem Gyna Bivens told the newspaper she was glad the lawsuit was settled. This put a big weight on her. It put a big weight on the city, and I hope the settlement is enough for everyone to feel refreshed and ready to move forward, Bivens said. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Texas An investigation into a fire that destroyed a 40-year-old furniture upholstery business in North Carolina has been turned over to the state Department of Insurance. Morgan Chair, a 25-employee company in Stanfield, North Carolina, was almost completely burned to the ground Sept. 16, according to local news reports. No one was injured, but the business lost everything, company officials said. I literally walked out with a laptop and tape measure and we had to start over from that, owner Jesse Morgan told WBTV news. Morgan Chair had over 800 orders pending. And within two days, the firm had relocated its operation to a vacant building in Oakboro, the Stanly News & Press reported. Late last week, local fire officials said the insurance department investigators will now examine the cause and potential perpetrators of the blaze. We turned the origin and cause investigation over to the State Fire Marshals office Fire Investigation Unit, Stanly County Assistant Fire Marshal Evan Faulkner told the newspaper. Were still assisting them, but theyre actually the ones that will be writing the final report. The department is sometimes asked to investigate fires that result in large losses of property, Faulkner said. Topics North Carolina An electrician sustains a head injury on the job. He signs a mediation agreement absolving the employer of any workers compensation liability while he pursues a tort action against the warehouse owner. Five years later, the mans guardian files a workers comp claim for the head injury and argues that the mediation settlement should be voided because the worker wasnt mentally competent at the time. On Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed. In Strickland vs. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., the court noted that even though Alabama law sets strict rules regarding a benefit review conference and agreement, including a 60-day window to rescind the agreement, those rules are abrogated by basic contract law. This court need look only to the plain meaning of the relevant statutory text to determine that the 60-day period in 25-5-292(b) does not govern an action challenging a benefit-review agreement as void ab initio on the basis of the mental incompetency of a signatory, Justice Sarah Stewart wrote for the majority in the Sept. 23 opinion. The high court upheld a state appeals court ruling, which had overturned a trial court that had dismissed the comp claim for the head injury. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court in Birmingham for further proceedings, to consider the argument that he mediation agreement was void. Alabama is one of the few states that does not have a dedicated workers compensation court system, but utilizes circuit courts for all claims disputes. The state Legislature adopted the benefit-review conference approach in 1992 as a way to avoid court review on claims. The program allows an ombudsman from the state Department of Labor to mediate. In this case, electrician John Gray sustained a serious head injury in 2014 while at work for the cast iron pipe company, known as ACIPCO. Two years later, he, his attorney, the employer and the ombudsman signed off on the agreement, letting the pipe company avoid responsibility for the claim while the suit against the warehouse was pending. The employer also released any potential subrogation interest it may have had in Grays suit against the warehouse owner, the court explained. In 2017, a federal court dismissed Grays tort suit against the warehouse. Two years after that, a probate court declared Gray mentally incompetent and appointed his mother-in-law to be his guardian. Strickland then filed the workers comp claim, arguing that the mediation agreement was void because of the electricians mental state. Grays wife had said in an affidavit that he had difficulty understanding written instructions after his head injury, that he believed he was in the 1980s and did not recall that he had a wife and two children, the Supreme Court said. Alabama Cast Iron Pipe contented that, regardless, Gray and his attorney had signed the agreement in 2016, denoting that had read and understood it. But the majority of the justices said state law is clear on contracts signed by mentally impaired people. The agreement is voided, so the 60-day window for cancelling the agreement does not apply. This court presumes that when the Legislature enacted the legislation creating the ombudsman program in 1992, it was well aware of the long-standing statutory and common-law principle that a contract is absolutely void if entered into by a person who lacked the requisite mental capacity, the court wrote. The justices quoted from a 1905 state Supreme Court decision: This court is fully committed to the doctrine that the contract of an insane person is absolutely void. For parties to agree to something, they must understand it, the court said. The majority said that if the court adopted the pipe companys interpretation of Alabama law, then Gray will have (1) relinquished his right to pursue a potentially meritorious workers compensation claim by signing the 2016 agreement while mentally incompetent, (2) consented to a procedure, which he lacked the capacity to understand and (3) waived any right to collaterally attack the 2016 agreement as void ab initio after the expiration of the 60-day period. Justice William Sellers dissented. He wrote that Grays attorney and wife were present when he signed the agreement. To further assure that Grays agreement to settle his claim against ACIPCO was appropriate, a neutral ombudsman reviewed the agreement and also concluded that it was fair, Sellers said. Alabama comp law allows two-thirds of a workers average weekly wage for permanent total disability, up to $983 a week, with no limit on the duration of benefits, according to a 2022 report by the Workers Compensation Research Institute. Topics Alabama Extraordinary use of electricity has long been a telltale sign of illegal grow houses producing thousands of marijuana plants hidden in seemingly ordinary homes. But a lawsuit filed by a data privacy watchdog says a Northern California utility went too far by racially profiling Asian communities as it routinely fed customers power use information to police without requiring a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing, in violation of state laws. The data disclosure deliberately targeted Asian Americans, with resulting disproportionate penalties against those of Asian descent, the suit says. The suit illustrates a flashpoint in law enforcements efforts to combat illicit drugs. In 2018, federal and state law enforcement agents seized about 100 Northern California houses that they alleged were bought with money wired to the United States by a Chinese-based crime organization, one of many such actions against alleged perpetrators of Asian descent. Earlier this year Asian Americans filed at least two lawsuits against Siskiyou Countys sheriff alleging racial bias particularly against the Hmong community in his departments effort to combat widespread illegal marijuana cultivation. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District scoured entire ZIP codes worth of power usage information for the Sacramento Police Department but left out homes in a predominantly white neighborhood, says the lawsuit. And a police analyst removed non-Asian names from a list provided by the utility, forwarding only Asian-sounding names for more investigation, the suit claims. The utility would turn over a list of customers who used more than a certain threshold amount of energy in a month, the lawsuit alleges. For instance, while a typical household might use less than 1,500 kilowatt hours of electricity in a month, the suit says the utility would disclose homes using more than 3,000 kWhs. The bulk disclosure turns its entire customer base into potential leads for police to chase, the lawsuit says. It says the utility liberally discloses customers Social Security, drivers license and telephone numbers. SMUD and Sacramento police said they couldnt comment on pending litigation, but SMUD spokeswoman Lindsay VanLaningham denied any wrongdoing. We agree that our customer usage data should be (and is) treated with care, she said, but she said state law allows and sometimes requires sharing the information with law enforcement agencies. We share the information on specific properties to stop what weve identified and believe to be power theft and when we are required to do so per local law enforcements request to assist them with their investigations, she said in an email. We look forward to being available for questions once legal proceedings have concluded, Sacramento police Sgt. Zach Eaton said. The suit was filed Wednesday by the watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of the nonprofit Asian American Liberation Network and SMUD customer Khurshid Khoja, who is described as being an Asian American Sacramento resident, cannabis industry attorney and cannabis rights advocate. Megan Sapigao, co-executive director of the network, said themass surveillance program is unlawful, advances harmful stereotypes, and overwhelmingly impacts Asian communities. Its unacceptable that two public agencies would carelessly flout state law and utility customers privacy rights, and even more unacceptable that they targeted a specific community in doing so, she said in a statement. EFF Senior Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey said the foundation isnt aware of any other California public utilities that are sharing data in the same way as SMUD. Private utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are barred from disclosing customer utility data to law enforcement without a court order under state law and California Public Utility Commission rules, he said. Public utilities like SMUD arent regulated by the commission, but state law bars themfrom disclosing entire neighborhoods worth of data to law enforcement absent a court order or ongoing investigation, Mackey said. SMUD is the nations sixth-largest community-owned electric service provider, serving more than 600,000 customers, the suit says. Southern California Edisons policy generally requires a warrant or subpoena to share information with law enforcement. The other two major private utilities did not immediately respond to queries from The Associated Press about whether they have similar information-sharing programs, nor did the California Public Utilities Commission comment. The lawsuit comes as officials are struggling to curtail illegal cannabis grows that are stunting the growth of the legal, licensed recreational marijuana production that California voters approved in 2016. Disguising illegal cannabis farms in ordinary appearing homes became prevalent nearly two decades ago as authorities disrupted outdoor plots they could spot from helicopters and other surveillance flights. Law enforcement authorities often discovered the illegal grow houses because of their extraordinary use of electricity to run high-intensity lights, ventilation fans and other devices to grow thousands of marijuana plants, often enabling several harvests each year. Sometimes the tipoff came when the houses caught fire due to illegal electrical hookups. Sacramento officials estimated in 2017 that there might be as many as 1,000 illegal grow houses in Californias capital city. The foundation said the crackdown has been highly lucrative for Sacramento, since a city ordinance in 2017 allowed police to levy large penalties on the owners of properties where marijuana was found. The city issued nearly $100 million in fines in just two years, the foundation said, about 86% of them on people of Asian descent. The privacy violation is more acute with the proliferation of smart meters that send power usage information to the utility several times a day. That information, collected in increments of 15 minutes or less, can providea detailed picture of what occurs within a home, the foundation said. It can provide inferences about private daily routines such as what devices are being used, when they are in use, and how this changes over time. Topics Lawsuits California A judge has approved a $230 million lawsuit settlement by the owners of a pipeline that spilled more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean off California in 2015, lawyers announced. A federal judge in Los Angeles gave final approval on Tuesday to a settlement of a class-action suit that blamed All American Pipeline, L.P. and Plains Pipeline, L.P. for the May 2015 spill off the Santa Barbara coast. The corroded undersea pipeline ruptured north of Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles. All American Pipeline later estimated that 142,800 gallons spilled. It was the worst California coastal oil spill since 1969. It blackened popular beaches for miles, killing or fouling hundred of seabirds, seals and other wildlife and hurting tourism and fishing. Due to failed maintenance and extensive pipeline corrosion, the pipeline ruptured and spilled, devastating the fishing industry and soiling coastal properties from Santa Barbara County to Los Angeles County, said a press statement from the law firms that filed the suit. People who believe they may be entitled to some of the money have until Oct. 31 to submit claims. The companies didnt admit liability in the settlement agreement, which was reached in May following seven years of legal wrangling. Federal inspectors found that Plains had made several preventable errors, failed to quickly detect the pipeline rupture and responded too slowly as oil flowed toward the ocean. Plains apologized for the spill and paid for the costly cleanup. In 2020, Plains agreed to pay $60 million to the federal government to settle allegations that it violated safety laws. It also agreed to bring its nationwide pipeline system into compliance with federal safety laws. Plains has applied for permission to build a new pipeline but it is facing an uphill battle. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics California Legislation Energy Oil Gas Ireland will benefit from expertise, training, and exercises when it joins a European centre for hybrid threats. The director of the centre said Ireland faces the same threats as its current 31 members in terms of attacks on democratic processes, public debate, and economic infrastructure. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats currently has 31 members, comprising EU and Nato members. It will get its 32nd member on Wednesday, when Malta joins. Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has signalled Irelands intention to join and he is currently drafting a memo for Government. Ireland and Malta are both EU states and are militarily neutral, and they will join another neutral state, Austria, in the network. Hybrid threats can include disinformation campaigns aimed at interfering in democratic institutions in a country, the deployment of economic pressures, such as energy supply restrictions, and cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure. Speaking at a webinar organised by the Institute of International and European Affairs, Teija Tiilikainen, the director of the centre, said Ireland will benefit from an enormous network, where work is being done on hybrid threats every day. European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats director, Teija Tiilikainen says Ireland's open media is vulnerable to interference with the aim of 'steering public debate, political debate and Irish decision-making'. We are addressing the whole range of hybrid threats, Ms Tiilikainen said. There is a lot of expertise, a lot of networks, and we provide a full programme of training and exercises. We provide all the material to our participating states. She said Ireland faces the same dangers as other Western states. Ireland, as a modern technological dependent society, shares the same threats, vulnerabilities as all the others. For example, she said Ireland has an open media, which is vulnerable to interference with the aim of steering public debate, political debate and Irish decision making. Other threats target economic dependencies, including energy supplies. Her comments echo warnings made by the Governments top security adviser at a conference in University of Galway last Friday. National Security Analysis Centre director Dermot Woods said there has been a rise in cyber and hybrid threats. He said there is an increasing threat from foreign interference and espionage traditional and cyber as well as disinformation, attacks on democratic systems, and economic interference. The Governments new lobbying reforms have been accused of being technical rather than substantive and it has been warned that much further action is needed to restore public confidence in policy making. The new Regulation of Lobbying (Amendment) Bill 2022 has been published by the Government, and allows for fines of up to 25,000 to be dished out for breaches of the cooling off period, where former ministers, special advisors or senior officials cannot become lobbyists for at least a year. The Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) has long called for reforms of legislation and the power available to it, and the Government has said these new laws will ensure the way lobbying is regulated will remain up to date and fit for purpose. These calls for reform of SIPO had been renewed in other forums in the wake of the controversy around Fianna Fail minister Robert Troy and his registering of rental properties last month. In publishing the legislation, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath said that lobbying is a vital component in maintaining a healthy and well-functioning democracy. However, transparency is critically important in order to allow citizens to follow the activities and potential influence of interest groups, representative bodies and industry and civil society organisations on policy and funding discussions and decisions, he said. An all-party Oireachtas committee had scrutinised the general scheme of the legislation, and recommended that former TDs and Senators who become lobbyists should not enjoy special privileges such as permission to enter the Oireachtas without an invitation. The Government had previously committed to reforming laws around lobbying, following the controversy surrounding former Junior Finance Minister Michael DArcy. Fine Gaels Mr DArcy stepped down as a senator to join a funds lobbying group just a few months after he had held his finance portfolio. At the time, Taoiseach Micheal Martin told the Dail that he is "not happy, or in any way comfortable" with politicians leaving public office to join interest groups. Under current laws, ministers, special advisors and senior public officials must have a cooling off period of one year after they leave office, during which they cannot engage in lobbying or work for a group carrying out lobbying activities. Last year, five former special advisors in Government roles applied for a waiving of this cooling-off period. There have been 21 such applications since the Lobbying Act was enacted in 2015. Where former ministers or advisors seek to become lobbyists before a year has passed, they must abide by any conditions attached to SIPO allowing them to take up the new job under the new legislation. Loopholes John Devitt, chief executive of Transparency International Ireland, said that while new provisions around the cooling off period are welcome, other loopholes have not been closed. Mr Devitt said his organisation had called for an outright ban on members of the Oireachtas or local authorities from acting as lobbyists or receiving any income for the purpose of influencing public policy. It also called for an extension of the standard cooling off period from one year to two years, as is the case in Canada. Neither of these proposals have been adopted and it appears that the bulk of the amendments are technical rather than substantive, he said. If we are to restore public confidence in policy-making or prevent damaging controversies, we need to go much further than introducing technical reforms. Burma Depayin School Massacre a War Crime, Myanmars Parallel Govt Says The body of a young victim of an air strike on a school building in Depayin Township in Myanmar's Sagaing Region is prepared for funeral on Sept. 17, a day after the attack by a Myanmar military helicopter. / AFP The Ministry of Human Rights of Myanmars parallel National Unity Government (NUG) said the Depayin school massacre provided vivid evidence that the junta is openly and continuously contravening international humanitarian law and committing war crimes. At least 12 people including seven children have been confirmed killed and many others were injured during the targeted attack on a school in Let Yet Kone Village in resistance stronghold Sagaing Regions Depayin Township, the ministry said in a statement issued on Sunday, in which it released the identities of those killed. One of the dead has not yet been identified because only body parts, which were placed in rice sacks, remained, the ministry said. It said soldiers of the terrorist Myanmar militarys Infantry Battalion 368 under the No. 10 Inspection Headquarters were among the perpetrators. On Sept. 16, Mi-35 military helicopters swooped down and opened fire on the school, where about 200 young students were attending classes. Infantry troops then attacked on the ground. The junta troops took away the bodies of killed students in rice sacks and detained 15 people including seven children, five teachers and three villagers as hostages. Among the detainees were Mg Phone Pyae Sone Kyaw, 7, who suffered injuries to his eyes, and Ma Nan Ei Wai, 12, whose legs were badly wounded. The two were being held at Monywa Military Hospital. The bodies of those killed were cremated the morning after the attack at Ye-U cemetery, about 11 km away. Captain Zay Thu Aung, a Myanmar Air Force pilot who defected from the military soon after the February 2021 coup, told The Irrawaddy that the helicopter pilots would have clearly seen the children in the school compound. They [the pilots] dropped bombs despite seeing kids running on the ground, he said. While denouncing the attack as a war crime during his interview with The Irrawaddy, Zay Thu Aung said that aside from the pilots, major responsibility for the carnage lay with the regional commander who ordered the attack. Air strikes on a school where young children are studying is an inhumane and most cruel act, NUG Prime Minister Mahn Winn Khaing Than said last week, while calling on the international community to stop turning a blind eye to the severe human rights violations and war crimes committed against children and other civilians in Myanmar by the junta. Below is the information published by the NUGs Human Rights Ministry. Burma Myanmar Junta Shelling Kills Two Children in Northern Rakhine The remains of a junta mortar shell that hit Na Ga Yar village in Kyauktaw Township and a house after a regime attack in Minbya on Sunday. / CJ Two seven-year-olds were killed by Myanmar junta shelling in Rakhine State where fighting continues between the Arakan Army (AA) and the regime. On Sunday night, mortar shells were fired from the army headquarters in Kyauktaw on civilian targets without any apparent reason. Mg Ko Naing was killed in Na Ga Yar village beside the Kaladan River, Rakhine media outlet Narinjara reported. His house, in which other residents were sheltering, was directly hit by a junta shell. The boy died three hours later with a back wound, Western News reported quoting a resident. A male villager, U Kyaw Tun Sein, was injured by the shelling. A seven-year-old Muslim boy was killed and two of his neighbors wounded when regime forces on the Bangladesh border shelled homes in Buthidaung Township on Friday. The boy was wounded in his thigh and died a few days later in the townships hospital, according to Western News. Around 300 Muslim villagers sought shelter in other villages and Buthidaung town. In April the regime started the growing administrative dominance of the AA. Since an informal ceasefire ahead of the November 2020 general election, the United League of Arakan, the AAs political wing, has expanded its parallel administration in the state, including a judiciary, revenue department and public security offices. Renewed clashes started in November 2021. Heavy clashes have erupted in the last month in the north of the state in Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Rathedaung and Mrauk-U townships and neighboring Paletwa Township in Chin State. The junta has reportedly lost more than 36 bases and outposts and suffered numerous deaths. Last Tuesday, a family of four was wounded when the Kyauktaw command base shelled Na Ga Yar village. Many villagers have been displaced. In September, nearly 20 child death caused by regime forces have been reported in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine states and Sagaing Region. Since the 2021 coup, at least 382 children had been killed or injured and more than 1,400 detained and an estimated 142 tortured, according to a June report by Thomas Andrews, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar. On Sunday morning, houses and other buildings were damaged when regime forces shelled the towns of Kyauktaw and Minbya in the state, although no clashes with the AA were reported. On Sunday morning Battalions 379, 380 and 541 attacked civilian targets in the town and a house and shop were reportedly destroyed. The town is under a nighttime curfew. The junta has tightened security in the state and has been detaining Rakhine civilians. Burma Pope Francis Urges World to Focus on Myanmar Peoples Struggle Pope Francis greets the Catholic faithful before a mass in Yangon during his first official visit to Myanmar in November 2017. / The Irrawaddy Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for greater international attention to the plight of Myanmars 54 million people, urging that they not be forgotten and noting that they have endured horrific violence by the junta amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity for nearly two years since the coup. His latest plea on Sunday followed the juntas brutal helicopter attack on a school in Depayin, Sagaing Region, which killed around 11 children and injured more than a dozen during airstrikes and a ground raid. More children were also reportedly killed in junta air strikes across the country last week. Speaking at the conclusion of a Holy Mass in the southern Italian city of Matera, the Pope said he was thinking of Myanmar, where violence continues to cause death and displacement. This week I heard the cry of grief at the death of children in a bombed school, he said. May the cry of these little ones not go unheard! These tragedies must not happen! the Pope added. Despite the scale of the juntas atrocities against civilians since the coup, including increasing brutality against children, the junta has gone unpunished by the international community, including the UN. The lack of practical action or support offered for the popular resistance movement against the regime has left many in Myanmar feeling abandoned. Highlighting the Myanmar peoples disappointment over the international response to their countrys crisis, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews said at a UN Human Rights Council meeting last Wednesday in Geneva that many in Myanmar have come to the conclusion that the world has forgotten them, or doesnt care. Echoing the Myanmar peoples frustration, Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has also expressed his disappointment over the UNs lack of action on the Myanmar crisis. Due to resistance from regime allies Russia and China, the UN Security Council has yet to pass any resolutions against the junta, failing to deter it from committing atrocities, including the killing of more than 2,300 of its own people so far, mostly for anti-regime activism. These include more than 230 children. It is very saddening when the Security Council does not take any serious action in dealing with this situation. Some even see the Security Council as having washed its hands off and handing the matter over to ASEAN, Ismail told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday. Another Southeast Asian leader, Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta, said at the UNGA the extremely generous support for Ukraines resistance to Russias invasion was in stark contrast to the muted reaction to the war waged against the people of Myanmar who are still fighting and dying every day. People there feel abandoned, betrayed, by the so-called international community, he said. Burma Rival Shan Armed Groups Clash in Eastern Myanmar Shan State Army-North women fighters during a drill. SSA-N Rival ethnic Shan armed groups the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) and Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) clashed recently in Kyethi Township in central Shan State, as long-running territorial disputes continue to cause military tensions between the two groups, according to the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP), the SSA-Ns political wing. The SSA-N is also fighting the Myanmar military in Momeik Township in northern Shan State. Fighting broke out on September 17 when around 80 junta troops advanced to Mt. Hui Kham in the east of Momeik. Seven junta soldiers were killed and at least five others were injured in two days of fighting, according to the SSPP. The clashes came after the SSPP refused a junta order to withdraw its fighters from Momeik, said the SSPP. Junta forces and SSA-N fighters are still deployed in the township and tensions remain high, added the SSPP in a statement. The Irrawaddy was unable to contact an SSPP spokesperson for a comment. On September 21, SSA-N troops clashed with the SSA-S, the armed wing of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), near a village in the south of Kyethi Township. There were no casualties in the fighting, said the SSPP, whose headquarters are located at Wan Hai in Kyethi Township. RCSS Secretary-2 Major Kham San denied that the SSA-S had fought with SSA-N fighters, saying it was just an excuse for the SSA-N to invade RCSS territory. They [SSA-N] have entered our territory. They faked a clash as an excuse to move their troops into our areas. They have now entered Lai-Hka [in southern Shan State], he said. In February 2022, the SSA-N drove SSA-S fighters out of northern Shan State, with the assistance of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmars most powerful ethnic armed organization. Since then, the RCSS has dispatched small groups of fighters to re-enter northern Shan State, resulting in the clash in Kyethi, said one ethnic affairs analyst. A political observer who wished to remain anonymous said that the RCSS is attempting to retake its bases in northern Shan State. I think the RCSS has made this move after reaching an understanding with the military regime. The RCSS chairman Yawd Serk met coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and they reportedly discussed military issues. We dont know exactly what the RCSS chairman demanded during the meeting, said the observer. He added: But the regime might be happy to see armed conflict between the SSPP and the RCSS. The regime might support the RCSSs attempts to move back there [northern Shan State] instead of taking matters into its own hands. The SSPP is backed by the UWSA, and if the RCSS goes too far the UWSA will not just stand by and do nothing. Based in Loi Tai Leng on the Myanmar-Thailand border in southern Shan State, the RCSS is a signatory to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), which the SSPP opted out of signing. While the RCSS is a member of the Peace Process Steering Committee, a body formed by NCA signatories to conduct talks with the government, the SSPP is one of the seven members of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee based in north and northeast Myanmar. Both SSPP and RCSS leaders joined the recent peace talks at the invitation of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing. Guest Column Myanmar Civil Society Is Right to Criticize the UN on Aid Distribution UNICEF Myanmar representative Marcoluigi Corsi presents his credentials to regime foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin in Naypyitaw on June 16. / MOFA DW Asia editor Rodion Ebbighausen has written an opinion piece in which he argues that Myanmar activists are attacking the wrong target. Activists and civil society groups in Myanmar are increasingly attacking humanitarian aid organizations, especially the United Nations, online. They are the wrong target, says Ebbighausen in the DW article. Let me quickly comment on why Ebbighausens defense of the UN agencies is wrong and why the UN agencies are coming under deserved public scrutiny and criticism. What Ebbighausen is overlooking is that no UN agencies have signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with the legitimate National Unity Government (NUG), which does not intentionally and systematically kill the civilian population and uproot them from the land. However, all relevant UN agencies (OCHA, UNICEF, ICRC, FAO and IOM) have simultaneously signed MoUs with the illegitimate power-usurper, which is intentionally and systematically executing cleansing operations and terror over the civilian population. They have signed MoUs with a force that is waging a war, not against guerrillas, but against the civilian population. They have signed an understanding with the same force and the same people who are actually creating a humanitarian emergency and using brutal violence to expel the population from the land. In addition, the military juntaafter 19 months in which the people have mounted a heroic self-defense operationcurrently controls only about half of the countrys territory. There is a long history of the junta using a Four Cuts policy, which means cutting the civilian population off from food, supplies, medicines, fuel and anything else in order to blackmail the insurgency into conceding defeat through the heavy price imposed on the civilian population. The military did that for decades and is doing it now. So once the UN agencies sign an MoU with the junta, they agree that they will not deliver aid to half of the territory where the situation is the most dramatic and urgency is the greatest. If at the same time there is not a single UN agency that has signed an agreement with the NUG and Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs) about delivering much-needed aid to non-junta controlled territory as well, then what we have is UN agencies assisting the brutal counterinsurgency operations of the junta. This is a problem and this is a big problem, and that is why the UN agencies are coming under deserved public scrutiny and criticism. Cheap, pathetic arguments about a starving child receiving food does not starve to death should not hide this ugly reality. There is a systematic, murderous and brutal counterinsurgency operation going on in the rural areas of the country. This is being done by the military junta. This must be stopped. This is a humanitarian imperative. If that is too much for the UN to do, then at least the UN agencies must be on both sides of the conflict lines, and not only on the side of the aggressor. Activists and civil society groups, as well as the people of Myanmar, are rightly outraged because the UN agencies have signed an understanding with the junta and have not made any agreement that aid will also be delivered to the NUG- and ERO-liberated territories. Myanmar society has enough determination and strength to defend itself from the attempted military power grab. Myanmar society and its own civil society also have enough determination and capacity to keep under scrutiny what the UN agencies are doingand what they are not doing. The UN has a long history of failures in Myanmar. The 2019 Rosenthal Report analyzed and highlighted systemic and structural failures of the UN agencies during the Rohingya genocide in 2017. The same military under the same command structure that committed the crime of genocide in 2017 in Rakhine State is now applying the same cleansing operations in other parts of Myanmar. The UN agencies have obviously not learned anything from their own previous failures. The people of Myanmar have learned. They have learned enough to know that they have only one way to gain security, peace, development, rights and freedom, and that is by liberating themselves from predatory and repressive military rule. They have also learned enough about the humanitarian neocolonialism of the UN agencies. That is why the UN agencies will get pushback from Myanmar society whenever they start to do harm. The UN agencies have started walking down the very slippery road of doing more harm than benefit. Myanmar civil society is ringing alarm bells. The UN agencies would do well to hear those alarm bells, and not to make themselves blind and deaf, hiding behind an argument that it is fulfilling a humanitarian commitment that can alleviate the suffering of the people. In places like Myanmar, where the junta (and only the junta) has weaponized humanitarian aid, it is not enough to say that one is alleviating the suffering of the people. One must be more precise and say where the aid is going and where the aid is not going, and why. It also matters a lot when the aid is delivered and when it is not delivered, and why. It also matters through whom the aid comes and through whom it does not come. At this moment UN agencies have committed themselves to deliver aid where the junta wants them to send it, to deliver it when the junta allows them to send it, and to do it through structures that are affiliated with the juntathe same junta that is the sole and only source of all suffering and of the humanitarian emergency. This is rightly criticized. Igor Blazevic is senior adviser with the Prague Civil Society Centre. Between 2011 and 2016 he worked in Myanmar as the head lecturer at the Educational Initiatives Program. Law firm Slater and Gordon is looking at the possibility of initiating a class action suit against Optus over the massive data breach revealed by the telco on 22 September. In a statement issued on Monday afternoon, the company's class actions senior associate Ben Zocco said while specifics of the breach were yet to be made public, the consequences could potentially be significant for some customers. Due to this, he said the law firm was assessing possible legal action for those affected. A page has been set up with information for those who are interested in such an action. Optus issued an update about the breach this afternoon, offering "the most affected current and former customers" whose information was compromised the option of a 12-month subscription to Equifax Protect, a credit monitoring and identity protection service that can help reduce the risk of identity theft. Such customers would be contacted, Optus added. Today I gave an update on the Optus security breach. Responsibility for this security breach rests with Optus. This is a breach we shouldn't expect to see in a large telecommunications provider. In the coming days, I'll have more to say on what steps need to be taken.#QT pic.twitter.com/hpoMtx4iSl Clare O'Neil MP (@ClareONeilMP) September 26, 2022 In 2017, Equifax, an American credit monitoring company, itself suffered, with the details of up to 143 million Americans being leaked. Zocco said: This is potentially the most serious privacy breach in Australian history, both in terms of the number of affected people and the nature of the information disclosed. We consider that the consequences could be particularly serious for vulnerable members of society, such as domestic violence survivors, victims of stalking and other threatening behaviour, and people who are seeking or have previously sought asylum in Australia. Given the type of information that has been reportedly disclosed, these people cant simply heed Optus advice to be on the look-out for scam emails and text messages. Very real risks are created by the disclosure of their personally identifiable information, such as addresses and phone numbers. For other affected customers, the impact may be less serious. However, the fact that some customers appear to have had identification information such as drivers licence and passport numbers disclosed is extremely concerning. This information alone would go a long way in allowing a criminal to steal an affected customers identity. Slater and Gordon has extensive experience in mass claims arising out of privacy law. This includes acting for class members in a landmark representative data breach case against the Australian Government on behalf of thousands of asylum seekers whose personal information was leaked online in 2014. We are continuing to explore potential legal avenues for affected customers. In the meantime, we encourage anybody who may have been affected by the data breach to register their interest in Slater and Gordons investigation on our website, and to otherwise remain vigilant and look out for suspicious account activity or contact by email, SMS and phone." COMPANY NEWS: Talend, a global leader in data integration and data management, has released the results from its second annual Data Health Barometer , a survey conducted globally among nearly 900 independent data experts and leaders. While a majority of respondents believe data is important, 97% face challenges in using data effectively and nearly half say it's not easy to use data to drive business impact. The Data Health Barometer explores the disconnect between data and decision, which can impede enterprises and executives from supporting their strategic objectives through any economic conditions. Barrier to getting real value from data isnt budget or technology its the people In the coming years, businesses are only going to become more reliant on data to navigate the challenges of a turbulent economy and an increasingly competitive marketplace, said Christal Bemont, CEO at Talend. By putting a focus on reliable data supported by a strong data culture with a focus on agility and trust businesses can not only weather any storm, but come out ahead. Having a healthy data environment in place gives organizations the power to run lean in tough times without sacrificing their long-term strategy. A companys overall data health describes not just the state of a companys data, but how well it supports targeted business outcomes. Major findings from the survey include: Companies ability to manage data is worsening YOY: On all five markers of healthy data timeliness, accuracy, consistency, accessibility, and completeness companies rate themselves around 10 points lower in 2022 than they did in 2021. Timeliness (-29pts) and accessibility (-15pts) saw the greatest drops, as respondents struggle with getting the data they need as a result of remote work (57%). There is a data literacy skills gap: Respondents shared that the No. 1 barrier to getting real value from data isnt budget or technology its their people. One in three respondents have reservations about how well employees understand the data they work with. Without a common language for data, these businesses may not be prepared to face the challenges ahead. Businesses are preparing for economic turbulence: Respondents ranked increasing revenue (+10pts) and optimising costs (+13pts) at the top of the list for data use and have increased in priority from last year. However, nearly half of companies claim that their data doesn't yet have the speed and flexibility they need to satisfy all the demands of the business, and 41% claim they dont have fast access to the right data. Data trust and data quality remain top challenges to using data effectively: More than one-third of companies report that trusting the data they rely on to make business decisions is a major challenge. In fact, nearly half of respondents feel that ensuring data quality is a top challenge in using data effectively. Gartner research found that organisations believe poor data quality to be responsible for an average of $15 million per year in losses. Demonstrating the value of data health in an organization is Covanta, a leader in sustainable materials management, offering solutions that keep trash out of landfills, reduce greenhouse gases and generate clean energy. With Covantas data hub approach and Talend, IT can deliver the data quality needed for the business to have far greater confidence in its decisions. There is now a shared understanding across operations and strategy, business and IT, of what our data means. Now we trust the quality of the data we use to operate our facilities," said Charles Link, Chief Data Officer at Covanta. For more information on the 2022 Data Health Barometer visit here. Survey Methodology In June 2022, Talend led a global survey via Qualtrics among a base of independent respondents. 895 answers were collected, 892 answers were considered complete for analysis (28% USA, 28% France, 28% UK, 16% Singapore). The respondents are all data experts and leaders from medium and large companies, who regularly work with data. As data becomes a key asset for any organisation, respondents represent a variety of industries and departments. About Talend Talend, a global leader in data integration and data management, is taking the work out of working with data. Talend offers the only end-to-end platform that combines enterprise-grade data integration, integrity, and governance capabilities to unify data across any cloud, hybrid, or multi-cloud environment. With Talends no-code and low-code modules, data experts and business users actively collaborate to make data more discoverable, usable, and valuable organisation-wide. Over 7,250 customers around the world rely on Talend for healthy data and a healthy business. For more information, please visit www.talend.com and follow us on LinkedIn.com and Twitter @Talend. Get unlimited access to all content and features at ivpressonline.com with our Full Online Access Subscription. Read our E-Edition, the digital replica of the print newspaper online, access content in exclusive sections including Family, Teen, Business, Databases, Farm and more. This option does not include daily home delivery of the Imperial Valley Press newspaper. For home delivery service, please select Premium or Premium Plus. 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. Wearing T-shirts showing Russian bears, waving flags with "Z" symbols, and holding pictures of Putin aloft -- the Ukraine war has not deterred Bulgarian Russophiles, who rallied in the centre of the country on Sunday to show their support. The Balkan state -- an EU and NATO member with historically close ties to Russia -- still has many citizens nostalgic for the former Communist regime. The pro-Moscow rally came as Sofia readies to return to the polls and the country grapples with its identity. Hristo Ganev, a 60-year-old driver, had arrived at Sunday's event early and bought a T-shirt emblazoned with the "Z" of the Ukraine offensive from one of the many stalls selling trinkets and souvenirs. "Without Russia, Bulgaria would not have existed," he told AFP, referring to the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878, in which Russia freed Bulgaria from five centuries of Ottoman domination. Ganev is married to a Russian he met when he was working in Siberia in the 1980s, and says he supports President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He believes Putin's claim that the troops are needed to "fight Nazism" and says he is even in favour of a nuclear war, "if that is the price to pay to free yourself from American domination". - 'Like loving your sister'- Unlike in most other European countries, regular pro-Russian rallies have been held alongside pro-Ukrainian gatherings. Sunday's event was due to be held on the shore of Lake Koprinka -- but the local mayor refused to host it due to the sensitivities of the Ukraine war. Instead, it took place half an hour away in a mountainous spot overlooking the town of Kalofer. "It's the only free gathering in the world," said Nikolay Malinov, the leader of the organisation that brings together Bulgarian Russophiles. Bulgarian prosecutors in 2019 accused Malinov of spying for Moscow -- the same year Putin decorated him with a state award, the Order of Friendship. His idea of bringing together Bulgarians in an "international Russophile movement" also gained the approval of Sergei Lavrov -- Russia's foreign minister -- when the two men met recently in Moscow, he said. "For Bulgarians, loving Russia is like loving your sister, your mother," he told the crowd on Sunday to wide applause. Among the youngest to join the rally was 17-year-old Georgi Ivanov, who was wrapped in a flag honouring Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. "I appreciate authoritarian regimes because they guarantee unity without worrying about ethnic and sexual minorities," the high school student said, saying he didn't believe claims that Russian troops have carried out war crimes in Ukraine. - Deadlock - Most middle-aged Bulgarians studied Russian in school, understand the language and some regularly follow Russian news. The two countries share close cultures, with the Cyrillic alphabet and Orthodox Christianity. In the Communist years, Sofia was considered Moscow's staunchest ally. One attendee in her seventies, who gave her name as Veneta, was carrying a banner supporting the referendums on joining Russia being carried out by pro-Moscow authorities in four Ukrainian regions. She would welcome the same opportunity in Bulgaria, she told AFP. A poll carried out in April found that nearly half of Bulgarians considered that Russia was not responsible for the situation in Ukraine, and many did not support the delivery of arms to Kyiv. And a week before new legislative elections, many have concerns about the country's political direction. "It is unfortunate that Bulgarians, who are largely Russophiles, have let themselves be governed by a handful of pro-Westerners," said 66-year-old Tatiana Ivanova, a Russian who has lived in Bulgaria for four decades. Staunch pro-European Prime Minister Kiril Petkov will seek to return to power in the upcoming election on October 2. He won the last ballot in November 2021, but his cabinet was overthrown by a motion of no-confidence in June. The conservative Boiko Borissov, who led the country almost continuously between 2009 and 2021, is the contender almost certain to win. But analysts warn that he may have difficulty building a coalition, and some are predicting another poll in the months to come. On August 26, in a "Second Decision on the Representation of Felicien Kabuga", Judge Iain Bonomy confirmed Emmanuel Altit as defence counsel for the elderly Rwandan. Kabuga is to be tried before the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), successor to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the UN court that operated between 1995 and 2015 in Arusha, northern Tanzania. The former businessman, considered 30 years ago to be the richest man in Rwanda, is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Tutsis of Rwanda in 1994. He was indicted by the ICTR in 1997 but managed to escape its clutches for 23 years before being caught in France in March 2020. His trial is a sort of "reactivation" of the former ICTR, with the IRMCT transformed into a full-time tribunal for this case alone. Expected to start at the end of 2021, the trial is now set for September 29. Among the many uncertainties surrounding the trial is the situation of lawyer Altit. Kabuga has tried several times to replace this lawyer, without success. In its August 26 decision, "the Trial Chamber considers that the request to change counsel has not demonstrated the existence of exceptional circumstances warranting Mr. Altit's withdrawal or presented new facts that would warrant reconsideration of the Decision of 1 April 2021, it said. Contempt of court investigation In its previous decisions, the judges have consistently found that the breakdown in communication between Kabuga and Altit was the result of a misunderstanding regarding the involvement of Kabuga's family in the defence strategy, a problem that they said did not justify the removal of the lawyer and his team. In fact, the point of contention is that Kabuga and his family are asking Altit to receive instructions directly from Kabuga's family and allow them access to the case file, saying that the accused is very ill, confused, and senile and cannot properly conduct his defence. The lawyer argues that only Kabuga should give him instructions, and that sharing information with his family may go against attorney-client privilege and violate judicial confidentiality. Kabuga had requested that Altit be replaced by Peter Robinson, a lawyer long familiar with Rwandan cases before the ICTR. But the chamber also rejected this request because Robinson, it said, is the subject of a judicial inquiry. Robinson allegedly filed ex facie fraudulent documents on behalf of certain members of Kabuga's family in a proceeding before the Mechanism", the chamber said in its recent decision, adding that Mr. Robinson and those members of Kabuga's family are now the subject of an on-going contempt investigation. Larochelle's failed offensive After Robinson's rejection, Kabuga and his family brought in Philippe Larochelle. The Canadian lawyer, who has also long been familiar with Rwandan cases, submitted an application last July to be appointed lead counsel in the case, accompanied by a mandate signed by Kabuga and attested to by his son. In his application, Larochelle referred to statements of the medical experts in the case, according to which Kabuga does not trust his lawyer. He stated that during a meeting with the accused on July 4, 2022, Kabuga expressed his dissatisfaction with Altit's lack of efforts to restore trust between them and to discuss the defence objectives. Larochelle also declared his willingness to take on the case without risking a delay in proceedings. But the judges did not agree, saying that any change in Kabuga's representation at this stage would likely result in a delay of several months. In their view, [Larochelle's] ability to quickly familiarize himself with the case to avoid lengthy delay to the start of trial cannot be assumed because he does not have access to the confidential filings in this case, the Prosecution's disclosure of potential evidence and other relevant material, or the case file maintained by the Defence team. Therefore, given Kabuga's age and fragile health, the time required for Mr. Larochelle to familiarize himself with the case would likely frustrate the fair and expeditious continuation of the case. In sum, the Trial Chamber remains of the view that granting the request to change counsel would have the consequence of causing delay in the proceedings. The Chamber also said it had no guarantee that Kabuga's (or his family's) request would not be followed by a new request to change counsel again. Funds blocked And so the court has maintained Altit, but the conflict is not settled. "We do not agree with this decision, so we asked the Chamber to suspend proceedings in the case until the Appeals Chamber makes its decision," Larochelle told Justice Info. The prosecutor opposes this request. "Mr. Larochelle has no standing to support this request because he is not Kabuga's court-appointed counsel," the prosecutor said in his response. On September 20, the trial chamber granted the lawyer's appeal, but denied him a stay of proceedings. Larochelle said he was surprised by the court's persistence in denying Kabuga a lawyer of his choice. "We find it very surprising, especially since the main argument seems to be to ensure a fair trial for Kabuga by insisting on the speed of the proceedings, whereas the right to a fair trial does not only provide for being tried as soon as possible (a right that belongs to the accused), but also for being represented by the lawyer of one's choice," he argues. He and the accused's eldest son, Donatien Kabuga, also say they do not understand why the Mechanism Registry is blocking the Kabuga familys push to be allowed to pay for a lawyer and thus leave legal aid, which they say the Chamber is using to impose a defence team. "This depends on the Registry's investigation to determine Kabuga's indigent status, which has not yet been completed. I don't know why this investigation is taking so long, given the importance of access to these funds in relation to Kabuga's representation," says Larochelle. Deja-vu Kabuga's son goes further. "We are nowhere, since the IRMCT has still not agreed to unfreeze these funds," he complains. "It should be noted that in the request we made to unfreeze them so that we could help our father have a lawyer of his choice, the prosecutor opposed it. But, more surprisingly, Altit also opposed it, which proves that he is not defending my fathers interests. Altit shows all the signs of being on the prosecutors side. When asked about the status of the investigation into the accuseds indigence and the issue of restituting Kabuga's frozen assets and property, the IRMCT Registry replied that it "cannot comment on an ongoing case. This is the context in which the trial is due to start. For anyone who followed the early years of the ICTR, particularly in 1996-1998, the impression of deja vu is striking. Debates over the accused's freedom to choose a court-appointed lawyer constantly disrupted the first trials of the UN tribunal, with the same conflicts between the accused, lawyers, judges and the administration. This came at the cost of some embarrassing scenes and multiple delays. As early as June 1997, Judge Yakov Ostrovsky decided to dissent on this issue. "Today, in the countries where legislation is most advanced in this area, that is, the Scandinavian countries, the indigent defendant has the right to choose. And I believe that the international court must be guided by the most advanced practice," he said. In the end, it was the Ostrovsky doctrine that largely prevailed to break the deadlock -- in those bygone days when a Russian judge helped bring the most liberal law... KABUGA REFUSES TO APPEAR IN COURT On the eve of the opening of his trial, Felicien Kabuga issued a statement explaining that he would not appear in court on 29 September due to lack of access to a lawyer of his choice. Download the statement [in French / PDF] A former Central African Republic rebel commander pleaded not guilty at the International Criminal Court on Monday at the start of his trial on charges of "awful" war crimes. Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, 52, an alleged member of the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel group, is accused of torturing opposition supporters as the country spiralled into violence in 2013. One of the poorest countries in the world, the former French colony was plunged into a bloody sectarian conflict after the Seleka ousted president Francois Bozize. "I have listened to everything and I plead not guilty," Said told judges at the Hague-based court, where he faces seven charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. "I plead not guilty to all charges and all situations," added Said, wearing a charcoal suit and light blue shirt with dark blue tie. Prosecutors say Said was a senior Seleka commander in charge of a police compound where alleged Bozize supporters were beaten and severely tortured after they were arrested, mainly at night. The coup against Bozize had unleashed a bloodbath between the Seleka and "anti-Balaka", which means "anti-machete" forces, who were mainly Christian or animist and who backed Bozize. "Mr Said has entered not guilty pleas, that is his right," ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan told the judges. "But the beauty of the law is that there is no place to hide... The charges that are faced, are really quite awful." Sometimes referred to as "colonel", Said oversaw day-to-day operations at the compound which belonged to a police unit called the "Central Office for the Repression of Banditry" or OCRB, said Khan. "His voice determined the fates of so many individuals," added the prosecutor. "He didn't protect them, but rather, he actively participated in their capture, hunting them down and subjecting them to the most dire conditions that he could conjure up." - 'Grotesque abuse' - Said allegedly instructed subordinates to mistreat detainees, subjecting them to the so-called "arbatachar" torture method to extract confessions. The prosecutor showed pictures in court of victims' bodies tortured this way -- a technique involving tying a person's elbows to their feet behind their backs, causing excruciating pain. It left "so many" victims with partial or temporary paralysis and numbness, Khan said. "These wounds cut deep indeed," he said. Prisoners were kept in cramped conditions and even thrown in a small underground cell, only accessible through a hole in the floor of Said's office at the OCRB headquarters in the capital, Khan said. "These are cells in which men were detained and subjected to what the prosecution says was grotesque abuse," Khan said. Detainees were "treated not as humans, not even as animals, a class below. A humanity apparently eviscerated by the policies and action of the accused," said Khan. CAR authorities handed Said to the ICC in January last year in response to an international arrest warrant issued in 2019. The ICC, the world's only independent war crimes court set up in 2002, late last year partially confirmed charges against Said including counts of torture, persecution and cruel treatment of detainees committed at the OCRB compound. Two former anti-Balaka leaders, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and Alfred Yekatom, are also on trial at the ICC. Thousands have lost their lives in the ongoing conflict despite intervention by former colonial power France and the United Nations. The country of some five million people -- which the UN says is the world's second least developed -- remains gripped by violence and human rights violations. Five rescuers were killed in the Philippines after being dispatched to a flooded community during a powerful typhoon, authorities said Monday, the first confirmed casualties from the strongest storm to hit the country this year. The typhoon unleashed heavy rain and fierce winds as it swept across the main island of Luzon on Sunday and Monday, downing trees and inundating low-lying communities. So far there have been no reports of large-scale serious damage. The five rescuers were in the municipality of San Miguel in the province of Bulacan, near the capital Manila, when they died. They were dispatched by the provincial government to a flooded area, said Lt. Col. Romualdo Andres, San Miguel Police Chief. Andres said rescuers were wading through floodwater when a wall collapsed next to them, sending them into the fast current. Storms regularly batter the Philippines, with scientists warning they will intensify as the world warms due to climate change. Super Typhoon Noru slammed into the archipelagic nation on Sunday after an unprecedented explosive intensification in wind speeds, the state weather forecaster previously said. It made landfall about 100 kilometers northeast of the densely populated capital Manila before weakening into a typhoon as it crossed a mountain range, coconut plantations and paddy fields. Nearly 75,000 people were evacuated from their homes before the storm hit, as the meteorological agency warned heavy rain could cause serious flooding in vulnerable areas, triggering landslides and destroying crops. But as of Monday morning there were no signs of the widespread devastation many had feared. We were prepared for all of this, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said at a briefing with civil protection agencies. You might think we overdid it. There is no overkill when it comes to disasters. The community of Burdeos in the Polillo Islands, part of Quezon Province, bore the brunt of Noru when it made landfall. Fierce winds ripped off some roofs and downed large trees, while heavy rain flooded riverside houses, said Ervin Calleja, a 49-year-old teacher. It was really worrying, Calleja told AFP via cellphone. The wind was howling and it was raining heavily. Thats the more dangerous part. Despite the typhoons full force, authorities said it passed quickly and there had been no reports of major damage to homes. But some crops were destroyed. Here in the city center, all the banana trees have been cut down 100 percent, said Liezel Calusin, a member of the Polillo Municipality Civil Protection team. We still have no electricity, but the phones are working. In the village of Banaba near Manila, Terrence Reyes fled his riverfront home with his family and neighbors during the storm as flood waters rose. When they returned home Monday, they found their belongings caked in mud. Weve just got to throw them out and start fresh, said Reyes, 25. It happens every time theres a storm here. Japan and China will mark 50 years of diplomatic ties this month with few public celebrations as rising friction over territorial rivalries and disputes over military spending strain ties. The worlds second and third largest economies are major trading partners and just a few years ago seemed poised for a diplomatic blossoming, with plans for a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Since then, relations have deteriorated significantly as Beijing strengthens its military, projects its power regionally and beyond, and takes a harder line in disputed territory. Chinese missiles are believed to have fallen into Japans exclusive economic zone in recent months, and Tokyo has protested what it describes as mounting air and maritime law violations. Japan also regularly complains about Chinese activity around the disputed Tokyo-controlled Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims and which Diaoyus calls. Chinese ships have been floating in the East China Sea for dozens of days, while an artificial island and base have already been built in the South China Sea, said Kenichiro Sasae, director of the Japan Institute of International Affairs. This leaves us wondering how far will Chinas naval ambitions go? added Sasae, a former ambassador to Washington and deputy secretary of state. The war in Ukraine has only deepened the rift, with Japan backing Western allies opposed to the Russian invasion while Beijing avoids criticizing Moscow. And the conflict has returned attention to whether China might attempt to forcibly reunite Taiwan with the mainland, prompting Japans Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to warn that the situation in Ukraine could be in East Asia tomorrow. Fear of China Beijing and Tokyo normalized relations in a joint communique on September 29, 1972, which officially ended their state of war and Japan dropped its recognition of Taiwan. Economic ties grew rapidly and steadily, but political ties were more unstable, weathering a series of crises including the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands. Beijings growing power has made Japan concerned about China, said Rumi Aoyama, director of the Waseda Institute of Contemporary Chinese Studies. Japan views Chinas activities in the Senkaku Islands as problematic and includes a core interest,' she told AFP. But the problem is that China doesnt understand this Japanese perspective. Instead, it tends to see Japan as following only what the US says. Tokyo is a long-standing and important US ally, but has expanded its partnerships as a bulwark against Beijing. It backed a revived quad alliance with Australia, India and the United States, and Kishida was Japans first leader to attend a NATO summit in June. China is gaining power and trust, its a trend that cannot be ignored, said Ken Endo, a professor of international politics at the University of Tokyo and a security expert. Japan must declare consistently internationally that a violent change in the status quo, be it in Ukraine or in Taiwan, is unacceptable. And he says Tokyo needs a more robust defense capacity, something Kishida and his ruling party have already publicly endorsed, showing that if you invade us, its going to cost a lot. trading partners Japan is reportedly considering increasing defense spending from the current 1 percent to 2 percent of GDP within five years. That would mean a sea change in Japan, whose pacifist constitution still limits its military capacity, but a modest increase compared to Beijings decades of extra spending. It could also pose its own dangers and fuel regional tensions if communications with China arent carefully managed, Sasae said. Every country has contingency plans, including China, but Japan should make it clear that it does not want a military confrontation. Japans brutal occupation of parts of China before and during World War II remains a sore point, with Beijing accusing Tokyo of failing to atone for its past. Visits by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors war dead including convicted war criminals regularly provoke anger from Beijing. Despite all the tensions, the two countries remain economically intertwined: China is Japans largest trading partner and Japan is Chinas second largest after the United States. And reports suggest Tokyo may seek talks between Xi and Kishida, online or in person, in the coming months. Business connections are a crucial factor in stopping a relationship from falling, said Aurelio Insisa, a history professor at the University of Hong Kong and author of a book on Sino-Japanese relations. But they may not be enough to unfreeze connections. Beijings behavior in its neighborhood and Tokyos perception of it are the two main factors that can change the current dynamic, Insisa said. Cubans voted to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption and surrogacy in a referendum over the weekend, the communist countrys election officials said on Monday. Preliminary results point to an irreversible trend, with 66 percent of the votes counted so far in favor of the government-backed change, Electoral Council President Alina Balseiro said on state television. The Family Code has been ratified by the people, she said. The updated code represents a major shift in a country where machismo runs high and where authorities sent LGBTQ people to militarized labor camps in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, official attitudes have changed, and the government has conducted an intense media campaign in favor of the revision that will replace the countrys 1975 Family Code. The new law allows surrogate pregnancies as long as no money changes hands, while strengthening the rights of children, the elderly and the disabled. It defines marriage as the union between two people and not that of a man and a woman. According to the National Electoral Council, as of 5:00 p.m. (2100 GMT) Sunday evening, about 68 percent of Cubas 8.4 million eligible voters had cast their ballots. A majority of 50 percent of voters was required for the law to pass. President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to US whistleblower Edward Snowden, who exposed the US National Security Agencys massive surveillance over Americans and then sought refuge in Russia. A presidential decree released Monday added Snowden to a list of new Russian citizens at a time when relations between Washington and Moscow are at an all-time low over the Ukraine conflict. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told news outlets Snowden obtained Russian citizenship based on his own application in 2020 to help his American wife Lindsay Mills travel back and forth. After years of being separated from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our SONS, Snowden wrote on Twitter. After two years of waiting and almost ten years in exile, a little stability for my family will make a difference, he said. The former US intelligence official, 39, leaked classified documents to media outlets in 2013 showing the NSA was collecting vast amounts of communications metadata and other information about US citizens in violation of their constitutional right to privacy. The exposure of the NSAs secret spying program resulted in laws and regulations prohibiting this activity. After revealing these secrets, Snowden sought refuge in Russia. He married his longtime girlfriend Mills in Moscow in 2017. Three years later they had a son, and Snowden said he will seek Russian citizenship to make it easier for his family to be together, especially given travel restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. But he said he wanted to keep his US citizenship. Lindsay and I will remain Americans and will raise our son with all the values ??of the America we love including the freedom to speak his mind. And I look forward to the day when I can return to the States so the whole family can be reunited, he said at the time. The couple welcomed a second son earlier this year. Snowdens lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told Russias state news agency RIA Novosti that Mills will now also apply for Russian citizenship. US-Russian dual citizen US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday that Snowden, who has been charged with multiple crimes in a US court, will retain his American citizenship. I am not aware of any change in his citizenship status, Price said. The only thing that has changed is that now, apparently, because of his Russian citizenship, he may very well be drafted to fight in the ruthless war in Ukraine, he said. Putin last week announced a mobilization of 300,000 Russian reservists to help fight the Russian army in Ukraine. However, Kucherena said that Snowden would not be called up for duty because he had no experience in the Russian army. The White House did not comment directly on Snowdens Russian citizenship. As I believe charges have been filed against him, we are referring you to the Justice Department for details on the matter, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. After he sought refuge in Russia, the US Department of Justice filed a criminal complaint against Snowden with three counts: theft of government property, disclosure of vital US defense information, and disclosure of classified information to unauthorized persons. South Korea and the United States began their first joint naval exercise near the peninsula in five years on Monday, a day after Pyongyang conducted a ballistic missile launch. Washington is Seouls top security ally, stationing about 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect it from the nuclear-armed North. South Koreas hawkish President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, has vowed to step up joint military exercises with the United States after years of failed diplomacy with North Korea under his predecessor. This exercise was prepared to demonstrate the strong will of the South Korean-US alliance to respond to the North Korean provocations, the South Korean Navy said in a statement. The four-day exercise on South Koreas east coast will involve more than 20 ships and a number of aircraft, which will conduct drills on naval and submarine warfare, tactical maneuvers and other maritime operations, she added. Through this exercise, we will further improve the ability to conduct joint operations between the naval forces of the two countries, Kwak Kwang-sub, a senior South Korean naval officer, said in the statement. The exercises come a day after nuclear-armed Pyongyang conducted another ballistic missile launch, the latest of its record-breaking weapons tests this year. North Korea is subject to several international sanctions for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development programs. Seoul had also spotted signs the North was preparing to launch a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the presidents office said Saturday, a weapon Pyongyang last tested in May. Earlier this month, the North revised its nuclear law, enshrined a first strike doctrine and vowed never to give up its nuclear weapons. The allies have long been conducting joint drills that they claim are purely defensive. However, North Korea sees them as rehearsals for an invasion. Kim Go Eun is in hot waters due to her upcoming 10th debut anniversary. On her social media, the actress made the announcement through a series of photos and a special message to her fans. Dubbed as "Go Eun Day: Come in Closer" the "Little Women" star gave a special treat to her followers with a surprising announcement about her meet and greet. Marking her 10th anniversary in the industry, Kim Go Eun's fan meeting will feature interactive activities such as games, singing, and dancing. Interestingly, the upcoming meet and greet is set on October 15, 2022, at the YES24 LIVE HALL. However, ahead of the much-awaited event, Kim Go Eun is facing criticisms regarding her alleged "expensive" ticket prices. Kim Go Eun Fan Meeting Faces Backlash Because of Overpriced Tickets "Go Eun Day: Come in Closer" ticket price is reportedly around 88,000 won for all seats, while some K-drama stars retail their fan meeting tickets at 30,000 to 50,000 won. In a report cited by Wikitree, the public expressed their disappointment over the tickets being way too expensive, claiming that it is higher than other fan meetings. It can be recalled that "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" star, Park Eun Bin's fan meeting tickets cost around 55,000 won, which got sold out immediately. The same goes for Bae Suzy during her 2018 meet and greet, where tickets retailed at 55,000 won while Girls Generation's Sooyoung values at 33,000 won. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Kim Go Eun's 'Little Women' Responds to Accusation Over Poster Plagiarism Kim Go Eun's upcoming fan meeting is her second meet and greet since her debut. The actress had her first-ever fan meeting in 2017 following the success of her K-drama "Goblin" with Gong Yoo, Lee Dong Wook, and Yoo In Na. At the time, hundreds of fans, not only in South Korea but also in neighboring countries such as the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan, were entertained by Kim Go Eun's singing skills as she sang Lee So-ra's "Track 3" live. From 'Goblin' to 'Little Women' Kim Go Eun made her debut in 2012 after landing the lead role of Han Eun Gyo in the movie "A Muse." From then on, viewers were drawn to her exceptional acting in playing various characters but gained massive attention as she played Gong Yoo's bride in "Goblin." Apart from this, she also had a slew of remarkable series such as "The King: Eternal Monarch" with Lee Min Ho and Woo Do Hwan, as well as the webtoon-based K-drama "Yumi's Cells" seasons 1 and 2. Currently, Kim Go Eun is once again making headlines, wowing viewers with her performance as she plays Oh In Joo, the eldest sister among the siblings in the Korean adaptation of "Little Women." Kim Go Eun stars alongside Nam Ji Hyun and Park Ji Hoo from "All of Us Are Dead." READ MORE: 'Yumi's Cells' Season 3: Timothee Chalamet to Join Kim Go Eun? KDramastars owns this article Written by Geca Wills Chinese, Gabonese FMs meet on sidelines of UNGA session Xinhua) 14:52, September 26, 2022 Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Gabonese Foreign Minister Michael Moussa Adamo on the sidelines of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the United States, Sept. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) NEW YORK, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met here with Gabonese Foreign Minister Michael Moussa Adamo on Saturday on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly. Noting that Gabon is a good friend of China in Africa, Wang said the two countries have always been sincere and friendly, treated each other equally, achieved win-win cooperation and common development, forged a profound friendship, and the comprehensive cooperative partnership between the two sides continues to consolidate and develop. China is ready to work with Gabon to promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, so as to help Gabon accelerate its development and revitalization and bring more benefits to the Gabonese people, he added. Noting that China has always maintained that all countries, big and small, are equal, Wang said that China has always stood on the side of developing countries and African countries, and will continue to deliver tangible results for African partners, as well as develop and revitalize together with African brothers and sisters. He also extended congratulations to Gabon on assuming the rotating presidency of the Security Council next month, saying that China stands ready to strengthen coordination in international and regional affairs, jointly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries, and uphold the basic principle of international relations of non-interference in internal affairs. For his part, the Gabonese Foreign Minister said that Gabon and China have a time-honored friendship and have yielded rich fruits through mutually beneficial cooperation. Noting that China is Gabon's largest trading partner, he said that China helped Gabon improve its infrastructure and was among the first countries to assist Gabon in fighting the pandemic. Chinese enterprises have made important contributions to Gabon's economic development, which the Gabonese government and people will never forget, he added. Noting that Gabon is also China's reliable partner, the senior official said Gabon will continue to firmly abide by the one-China principle and oppose politicizing human rights. He stressed that Gabon is willing to strengthen the synergy between "Emerging Gabon" and the Belt and Road Initiative to diversify the country's economy. Gabon warmly welcomes Chinese investment and looks forward to expanding cooperation and achieving more mutually beneficial and win-win results, he added. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) Nam Joo Hyuk returns to the big screen as he joins the press conference for his upcoming movie "Remember." Interestingly, the said event was the actor's first public appearance since he got involved in the bullying controversy. On September 26, Nam Joo Hyuk was joined by co-star Lee Sung Min and director Lee Il Hyung to talk about the forthcoming action thriller movie. Gracing the media briefing with an all-black ensemble, the trio shares experience filming the movie and what to expect in "Remember." In the movie, Nam Joo Hyuk plays In Gyu, who is in his early twenties and works alongside Pil Joo, played by the veteran actor Lee Sung Min. The 80-year-old man suffers from Alzheimer's disease whose mission is to have his revenge against people who wronged him. In Gyu gets winded up with his plan after Pil Joo offered to work with him as a driver for a week. With a hefty amount of money, In Gyu agreed but was clueless that his new sideline would turn his world upside down. 'Remember' Press Conference: Nam Joo Hyuk Talks About New Movie At the "Remember" press conference, Nam Joo Hyuk revealed what it's like working with the veteran actor. "The atmosphere at the set was phenomenal," he said, talking about his working relationship with the team, adding "Lee Sung Min was really approachable and friendly. Sometimes, he even took pictures of me dozing off." In a separate report, the South Korean heartthrob confessed that there are challenges playing the role of In Gyu, especially the age gap between the other male leads. "Above all, it was not easy to play an ordinary young man in his twenties," the actor said, adding that he finds it "difficult for an ordinary character to face an unusual situation. Despite this, the 28-year-old managed to pull off playing the role of In Gyu. Nam Joo Hyuk's attendance at the press conference if "Remember" was his first public appearance since he made headlines due to a controversy. In June 2022, viewers were surprised after an accuser exposed an issue saying that the "Start-Up" star was a bully during their high school years. At the height of Nam Joo Hyuk's controversy, his agency, Management SOOP strongly denied the accusations and warned personalities of legal actions for violating the Act on Promotion of Information and Communication Network Utilization and Information Protection and defamation for spreading malicious content. In the wake of the issue, Nam Joo Hyuk's former classmate revealed the school violence and harassment they face from the actor and his group of friends. It was after the hit rom-com series "Twenty-Five Twenty-One" officially wrapped up, leaving K-drama viewers swooning with Kim Tae Ri and Nam Joo Hyuk's chemistry. Nam Joo Hyuk's Movie: 'Remember' Cast and Theatrical Release The press conference comes ahead of the "Remember" premiere slated to hit the big screen on October 26 with a running time of 2 hours and 8 mins. Joining the South Korean star and Lee Sung Min are Jung Man Shik, Koo Ja Keon and more. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Nam Joo Hyuk Gears Up for New Drama 'Vigilante' After Controversy KDramastars owns this article Written by Geca Wills In this Oct. 30, 2012 photo, a doctor wears a stethoscope around his neck as he tends to patients in his office in Illinois. Ontario family doctors left the profession at the start of the pandemic at double the rate of the years before COVID-19 hit, new research indicates. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Jeff Roberson Experts to discuss impact and future of tourism during Kennesaw State forum KENNESAW, Ga. | Sep 26, 2022 Georgias more than $50 billion tourism industry will be the topic of Kennesaw State Universitys inaugural Campus to Community Forum at 10 a.m. on Sept. 29. Panelists Leonard Jackson, director of KSUs Hospitality Management program, Kim Franz, director of programs and events for Cobb Travel & Tourism, and Dale Kaetzel, park president for Six Flags Over Georgia will discuss the challenges and the future of an industry that currently supports more than 410,000 jobs across the state. The Campus to Community Forum is a new series developed by KSUs Office of Economic Development and Community Engagement to bring together University and industry experts to engage in a dialogue about some of the states most pressing topics. As Georgias economy continues to grow, it is vital to connect whats happening on our campuses to the communities we serve, Associate Vice President for Economic Development Tyler Reinagel said. Innovation and research will continue to change the face of Georgias industries, and KSU is well positioned to contribute. The Campus to Community Forums will help us connect that work with partners across sectors and industries. Future discussions include: Housing, Nov. 7 A critical part of the economy, regardless of sector or industry. With rapid growth in Cobb County and metro Atlanta, leaders have had to adapt to unique challenges and work toward long-term regional solutions. Community Improvement Districts, Feb. 9 CIDs are a type of business improvement district widely used throughout metro Atlanta. CIDs are voluntary self-taxing districts, with commercial and industrial property owners making additional investments in infrastructure, parks, and transportation. Small business development, April 25 Businesses with fewer than 300 employees or less than $30 million in annual revenue in Georgia are a priority in Cobb County, metro Atlanta, and state of Georgia economic development plans. There are many resources available to bridge the research and innovation ecosystem of KSU with the broader economy. Reinagel said topics for the Campus to Community Forums were selected based on feedback from economic partners throughout metro Atlanta and northwest Georgia. The community is invited, free of charge, to view the program via livestream at https://CampustoCommunityTourism.eventbrite.com. Related Stories 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. The University of Wisconsin-Parkside College of Arts and Humanities has announced Roberto Torres Mata as the featured artist for its Artist-in-Residence Program for emerging artists. The goal of the residency is to support early-career artists and provide first-rate facilities and instruction for our art-making communities in southeast Wisconsin. Mata is a printmaker who finds inspiration in the centuries-long craft traditions of the indigenous cultures of the Americas. While specializing in printmaking, his work includes papermaking, installations, and sculpture. A recent graduate, he earned both an masters of arts and masters of fine arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the mentorship of John Hitchcock. Mata was the 2021 Russell and Paula Panczenko MFA prize winner, an award offered annually by UW-Madison and the Chazen Museum of Art, which sponsor a solo show for the awardee at the museum. Born in California to Mexican parents, Mata has spent considerable time in the Midwest, toggling back and forth between his culture of origin and the U.S. He said the Zapotec and Mixtec people from Oaxaca have served as inspiration and influenced his work. In Untethered: Our Journey Beyond Borders, his recent exhibition at the Chazen Museum of Art, Mata explored the idea of migration both animals and peoples highlighting the consequences of political and cultural dislocation while seeking a shared narrative that might inspire hope. While in residence at UW-Parkside, Mata will be creating his own work in the print studio, which will be on view in a solo exhibition to open on Nov. 30 in the UW-Parkside Foundation Gallery with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. on Dec. 8. Additionally, he will be teaching a non-credit, community art class and hosting open studio hours on Friday and Saturday mornings throughout the fall semester. His course, Ink and Paper, will kick off on Thursday, Oct. 20 and run each Thursday evening thru Dec. 1. The class will focus on monotypes, relief printing techniques, and an introduction to the artistic range of print media. Professor Lisa Marie Barber and Roberto Torres Mata hosted an open studio morning on Saturday to introduce Mata to the local community artmakers, This project is a collaboration between UW-Parkside, the Osborne and Scekic Family Foundation, and the RAM/Wustum Art Museum. For more information: contact Lisa Marie Barber at barberl@uwp.edu. 40 Shares Share The stigma of addiction is alive and destructive in Nebraska. I can speak to the truth of this statement because I am an opioid addict in recovery. And if you happen to be a physician like I am, you better be prepared to have your profession and life destroyed. The Nebraska Medical Board and our legal system aggressively work to punish, not heal. This article intends to use my story to explain how Nebraska is more punitive than other states and to promote change in the medical and legal systems. Substance use disorders whether drug or alcohol are diseases of the brain, which I did not know before I entered treatment. A national leader in addiction medicine, Dr. Robert DuPont, explained addiction to me in terms that make it easier to understand. He was the White House drug czar during the Nixon and Ford administrations and now is in private practice. I encourage those interested to read his book, Chemical Slavery Understanding Addiction and Stopping the Drug Epidemic. During addiction, the brain becomes hijacked, which then exaggerates the need for the drug and minimizes the dangers associated with the use of the drug. This is so affirming because the chemicals in my brain told me I was going to die if the opioid was not available. It was a horrible and terrifying way to live. Some may question how a physician can become addicted. The rate of addiction in physicians is higher than in the general population as this disease does not care how much education you have. What varies is the consequences different professions face or what drug was involved. One of many examples was the late Rush Limbaugh, who suffered from such a severe addiction to Oxycodone that he damaged his cochlea and became deaf. Yet he kept his job and did not face the system that is in place in Nebraska to destroy the careers of our physicians. So, here is how the Nebraska Medical Board differs from other states. We are one of only three states that do not have a Physicians Health Program. The purpose of a PHP is to protect the provider from the medical board allowing the physician to receive treatment, agree to monitor and return to their practice. In North Carolina, their PHP has helped over 4,000 physicians, and my license is listed as active. In Nebraska, with no PHP, I am active on probation. That is a prohibitive term for anyone that may want to hire me. As an example, the Bryan Hospital System does not hire physicians who are on probation. These discriminatory restrictions persist even though it has been more than 52 months since I last used a narcotic. The North Carolina Medical Board president recently sent an email to all licensed physicians. His message was, Do not wait to seek help for substance use anyone who is struggling should know they can seek help without fear of reprisal from the board. He goes on to say to licensees, the board values their health and well-being. The North Carolina Medical Boards proactive approach is one way to remove the stigma and encourage treatment. This is not how a physician is treated in Nebraska. Once our board becomes aware, the physician faces suspension or revocation of their license, and when reinstated, we are placed on probation for at least five years. My addiction progressed, and treatment was delayed because I was isolated. The Nebraska Medical Board and the Office of the Attorney General treat physicians as if we are bad people and label us as morally corrupt. I am a proud alumnus of Talbott Recovery Campus in Atlanta, Georgia, where they use a comprehensive program to treat physicians and pilots from all over the world. Pilots complete a five-week program and return to the cockpit if they agree to monitor. Physicians are required to spend three months, and I returned to my license on suspension, a U.S. attorney ready to indict. My medical practice closed, forcing thousands of my patients to find a new medical providers. It is my mission to have a PHP formed in Nebraska to protect the public and prevent physicians from losing their careers. Addiction is a disease, not a moral failure. And I will do my part to remove the mark of disgrace that has been placed by society, our medical board and the legal system. Jeffrey L. Fraser is a family physician. Image credit: Shutterstock.com Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Here's what you need to know: Monday, Sept. 26 MEXICO The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services approved Platinum Health's request to extend temporary suspension of its hospital license at both the Mexico and Fulton locations. TIMELINE: Audrain and Callaway Community Hospitals suspension of services A timeline of the developments regarding the Audrain and Callaway Community Hospitals' suspension of services. DHSS confirmed that the licenses for both hospitals will now expire Dec. 20, 2022, giving them 90 days to reopen doors at each location. Amy O'Brien, the CEO of the Audrain Community Hospital, said Platinum requested a variance to the existing extension adding those additional 90 days. That means if the DHSS did not approve this variance, Platinum's hospital licenses in Fulton and Mexico would have expired when the original extension did on Thursday, Sept. 21. This temporary suspension will give the Audrain Community Hospital time to repair windows that are boarded up at the emergency room entrance and the Callaway Community Hospital time to address plumbing issues, according to O'Brien. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. The suspension comes just weeks after Platinum Health said it was terminating employees and closing facilities. Employees received a letter on Sept. 8, notifying them that their positions would be terminated the following day. While there is no timeline in place, O'Brien said Platinum is working to sell the hospitals to interested buyers. The Texas-based company assumed control of both hospitals and nine of its clinics in April. But to Callaway County resident Jody Buchholz, any time without a hospital in his community is a loss. "If you got anything life-threatening, you're living on a thin line to survive or you may not make it," Buchholz said. The hospitals' previous owner, Noble Health, suspended services in March. Noble Health then laid off 175 of their employees at the two hospitals. The final resting place of Queen Elizabeth II is shown at the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle. Kansas City startup Free From Market, founded by Emily Brown, is one of three Missouri startups selected for the new cohort of the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. | Via Google for Startups President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks in a brief meeting with reporters as he enters the presidential office in Seoul, Sept. 26. Yonhap President Yoon Suk-yeol has expressed concern that a potential military conflict between China and Taiwan could raise the likelihood of North Korea's provocations, making clear the "top priority" of the Seoul-Washington would lie on dealing with Pyongyang. Yoon made the remarks when asked whether he would support the United States coming to Taiwan's military defense if China were to attack the island, which Beijing regards as part of its territory. "In the case of military conflict around Taiwan, there would be increased possibility of North Korean provocation," he said through an interpreter during an interview with CNN in New York last week, as he was there to attend the U.N. General Assembly session. It was aired on the cable news channel's world affairs program Sunday (Washington time). He added: "Therefore, in that case, the top priority for Korea and the U.S.-Korea alliance on the Korean Peninsula would be based on our robust defense posture. We must deal with the North Korean threat first." There have been debates at home and abroad over whether Korea, as a key U.S. ally, would have to play any direct or indirect role should a conflict break out between China and Taiwan. Asked if Korea would ask the U.S. to first fulfill its security obligations toward the South before getting involved in Taiwan, Yoon said it would not be appropriate to "reply about U.S. priorities." "Because both the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan are very important for the U.S., I suppose, and are to be defended by the U.S. together with their allies and partners," he said. "Therefore, I would say that both issues have significant importance." Yoon was also asked to comment on the speculation that he decided not to meet U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in person during her visit here last month in consideration of relations with China. "I decided to have a pleasant and fruitful phone call not only with Speaker Pelosi, but six other members of the House of Representatives. And we had a really productive and friendly conversation," he said. "Speaker Pelosi also understood my situation that I was on vacation and she respected it as well." (Yonhap) The Israel-Korea Metaverse, a virtual version of the Embassy of Israel in Korea, has an olive tree on its first floor. Courtesy of Embassy of Israel in Korea By Kwon Mee-yoo The Embassy of Israel in Korea opened in the metaverse, becoming the first diplomatic mission in the country to gain a presence in the virtual world. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Korea and Israel, the Israeli Embassy opened a pavilion in the metaverse to offer information about Israel and promote exchanges between the two countries. "The Israel-Korea Metaverse is a truly unique platform for sharing a virtual reality immersive experience, the history of Israel-Korea relations and also for carrying out all kinds of interesting interactions between Israelis and Koreans. Even though they are 8,000 kilometers apart, yet in the metaverse, they are right next to each other," Israeli ambassador to Korea Akiva Tor said during a launching event at a hotel in Seoul, Sept. 20. According to the embassy, there is no other embassy metaverse with this level of functionality existing anywhere in the world at this time. The embassy developed this with a Korean company called Vrillar. "I'm quite sure that this is the way forward. It won't be the only tool of public diplomacy and, of course, we will always want to bring real people to Korea and to hold in-person conferences and in-person cultural performances. But I think the embassy metaverse will become the essential standard just as websites became the essential standard about 20 years ago and SNS channels are now," the ambassador said. "The more I think about the potentialities of this breakthrough platform and how it can grow, the more exciting it seems... We'll create new avenues of interaction for people at far distances, like Israelis and Koreans at the opposite ends of Asia." Ambassador of Israel to Korea Akiva Tor speaks during the Israel-Korea Metaverse launching event at RYSE, Autograph Collection in Seoul, Sept. 20 Courtesy of Embassy of Israel in Korea New York, US (PANA) - The Secretariat of the United Nations has expressed "grave concern" about the continued detention since 10 July of Ivorian soldiers in the Malian capital, Bamako, and called for their "urgent release" People look at their damaged home after the arrival of Hurricane Fiona in Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland, Canada Sept. 25. Reuters-Yonhap Parts of eastern Canada suffered "immense" devastation, officials said Sunday after powerful storm Fiona swept houses into the sea and caused major power outages, as the Caribbean and Florida braced for intensifying Tropical Storm Ian. Canadian authorities have now confirmed two deaths caused when Fiona, then a post-tropical cyclone, tore into Nova Scotia and Newfoundland early Saturday. Fiona had earlier claimed seven lives as it roared through the Caribbean at the start of a week of havoc. Officials on Prince Edward Island on Sunday confirmed the death of one person there, though there were few details. And officials have found the body of a 73-year-old woman believed to have been swept from her home in Newfoundland. She apparently was sheltering in her basement when waves broke through. The storm packed intense winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour when it arrived with force rarely seen in eastern Canada, bringing torrential rain and waves of up to 40 feet (12 meters). "The devastation is immense," Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston told reporters. "The magnitude of the storm is incredible." Storm surges swept at least 20 homes into the sea in the town of Channel-Port aux Basques, on the southwestern tip of Newfoundland. Mayor Brian Button described "a total war zone" in the coastal community. Some 200 residents had been evacuated before the storm hit. On Sunday, residents were reckoning with the damage. "Some people have lost everything, and I mean everything," Button told CBC News. "The sea was taking back the land and we were getting separated. A lot of our homes are built along the coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. Down there, Fiona just wiped out parts of that," he said. Tempers were fraying Sunday as residents tried to return to their homes or what was left of them. "I know people are showing up at the barricades angry this morning and wanting to move in and go check up on their properties," said Button in a live video on Facebook. "You've got to give us a little bit of time... Unfortunately, this is going to take days, could take weeks, could take months in some cases," he said. Downed power poles and trees are seen near homes in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Sept. 25. AP-Yonhap 'Incredible storm' More than 300,000 people were still without electricity across five provinces Sunday after the storm felled trees, ripped roofs from buildings and damaged power lines, officials said. Hundreds of utility crews were working to restore power. Nova Scotia premier Houston told CBC the Canadian military had been deployed to help clear trees and roads. Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said the Canadian armed forces would also provide assistance to Newfoundland's cleanup efforts. This is the third province to request federal military assistance, after Nova Scotia on Saturday and Prince Edward Island earlier Sunday. Television images showed a long line of cars and people on foot queuing to get gas for generators in Cape Breton, an island off Nova Scotia, where dozens had spent the night in relief centers operated by the Canadian Red Cross. On Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown Police Chief Brad MacConnell pleaded with residents to stay inside as recovery efforts continue. "We ask people to stay home unless absolutely necessary," he told CBC, adding that there's "a lot of devastation" and hardly an area of the city that had not been significantly affected. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that he had met again with his Incident Response Group to ensure that "resources are available to help those affected by the storm." By Sunday, with a waning Fiona dissipating over the Labrador Sea, the country's environmental agency said all warnings had been canceled. A fallen tree lies on a crushed pickup truck following the passing of Hurricane Fiona, later downgraded to a post-tropical storm, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Sept. 24. Reuters-Yonhap Jisoo has been in the limelight ever since she made her debut as an idol and a member of the it girl group, BLACKPINK. Ever since she made her debut, Jisoo has been an inspiration to many for her impeccable fashion sense. In fact, each of the four BLACKPINK members have their own distinctive style that exude their personalities. If you love Jisoo's fashion sense and want to dress similar to her, check out some of the staple items that you should have in your closet! BLACKPINK Jisoo Fashion 1. Oversized hoodies and sweaters BLACKPINK Jisoo loves to keep herself nice and cozy, so it is not a surprise that one of her staple items in her closet are oversized hoodies and sweaters! The idol-actress usually stays comfy in cotton sweaters, ranging from different designs and even turning it into a mini dress. Oversized hoodies are also an all-time favorite among idols. Jisoo varies her style by accompanying these with either jeans or skirts! If you are looking to cop an oversized sweater, check out this sweater by the brand Lecieldusoir on Amazon. 2. Sweater vests Jisoo is known to rock the school girl or preppy look, and one of the clothing items that she can be seen wearing a lot of times is a sweater vest! Jisoo loves layering her clothing, and often matches her sweater vests with a button-down blouse and pattern-on-pattern. But sometimes, she just goes for a more simpler style or wears her sweater vest alone. Her sweater vests range in style, such a cropped vests, knit vests, and more. If you want to add a sweater vest to your closet, check out this basic Cowasto oversized knit sweater on Amazon. 3. Midi or tea-length dress While Jisoo's fellow BLACKPINK members are known to usually don mini dresses, the "Snowdrop" actress loves to wear longer dresses that go past her knees. Although this is not her usual every day look, Jisoo just radiates princess vibes when she wears opts for a longer style. If you are looking for a Jisoo-inspired dress, you might want to check out this lace dress by Meetjen on Amazon. 4. Nano-sized bags IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: BLACKPINK Jisoo Reveals Self-Care TMI & Current Favorite Exercise If you have been following Jisoo's social media for a while now, you may have noticed that she carries around a small purse whenever she attends events! Her nano-sized bags are perfect for carrying her essentials. And the best thing about it is that these bags are versatile, and can be used for any look! If you are looking to cop a nano-sized bag of your own, you might like this Kate Spade mini heart crossbody bag on Amazon. What is your favorite closet staple from Jisoo? For more K-Pop news and updates, always keep your tabs open here on KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article. Written by Robyn Joan Praia, Cabo Verde (PANA) - A week after schools reopened in Cabo Verde, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Regional Integration, and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), have signed an agreement to meet the food and nutrition needs of nearly 90,000 school children through the national school feeding programme If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here Kullu (Himachal Pradesh) [India], September 26 (ANI): As many as seven people were killed and ten others were injured after a tourist vehicle rolled down from a cliff in the Ghiyagi area of Banjar Valley of Kullu district on Sunday, said police. The accident took place at around 8: 30 pm on Sunday on NH305. Also Read | Rajasthan Congress Crisis: CLP Meet, Called at CM Ashok Gehlot's Residence, Cancelled As Over 90 MLAs Threaten To Resign. Ashutosh Garg, Deputy Commissioner of Kullu District said that as per the initial report there were 17 people travelling in the vehicle including the driver. All the injured have been shifted to the hospital and they are under treatment. Also Read | RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Says 'Anyone Living in India Is Hindu'. "As per the initial report, there were 17 people travelling in the vehicle including the driver. Police, home guards and local administration teams have reached on spot. Some of them are feared dead and the priority is to save the lives and rescue the injured," said Garg. Gurdev Singh, Superintendent of Police (SP), Kullu said, "Seven people have died and 10 others are injured. Five injured have been shifted to Zonal hospital at Kullu and five are under treatment at Banjar in a local hospital." Further details are awaited. Earlier, a total of eighty-three tourists stuck up in Triund hill station due to heavy rains were rescued on Sunday, Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Dharamshala informed. SDM, Dharamshala, Shilpi Beakta told ANI that the administration had received a call at around 1:30 pm after which they communicated with the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF). "Initially, we got information that 11 people have been stuck up in Triund and around 5 pm, our rescue team reached there. But, our team then told us that there were a total of 83 people," the SDM said. The SDM further informed that all 83 people have been rescued safely and no one was injured. "The 11 who had sent us a distress call were rescued safely; apart from them, 72 others have also been rescued safely. No one was injured or hurt and they all were from different states," the SDM said. Earlier, Himachal Pradesh State Emergency Operation Centre informed about the incident in its bulletin "11 tourists are stranded at Triund. There are six females and five males, all hailing from Punjab. The information has been shared with SDRF and Home guards. The team of SDRF has rushed to the spot," the bulletin stated. "Message received from DSP SDRF. All persons stranded at Triund were rescued by the SDRF team. In addition to this, there were 72 other tourists also who were rescued by the SDRF Team," the bulletin further stated. (ANI) (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, Sep 26 (PTI) With 4,129 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, India's tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 4,45,72,243, while the active cases declined to 43,415, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Monday. The death toll climbed to 5,28,530 with 20 fatalities which includes 13 deaths reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am showed. Also Read | India-UAE CEPA; Indian Exports to the UAE, Excluding Petroleum Products Grew from US$ 5.17 Latest Tweet by Prasar Bharati News Services. The active cases comprises 0.10 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has increased to 98.72 per cent, the health ministry said. A decline of 579 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. Also Read | Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Likely To Come With 25W Fast Charging Support. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.51 per cent. The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 1.61 per cent, according to the health ministry. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,40,00,298, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent. According to the ministry, 217.686 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4, three crore on June 23 last year and four crore on January 25 this year. (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 [India], September 26 (ANI): Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi for adopting a holistic approach toward health infrastructure, Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Monday praised the Gujarat government over its improved facilities on various health parameters like maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate and institutional delivery. Shah's remarks came while performing Bhoomi Pujan of 350 bedded Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Hospital in Gujarat's Sanand. Also Read | Bengaluru Shocker: Man Stabs Wife to Death After Fight Over Daughters Wedding. "Apart from this, free health facilities up to Rs 5 lakh have been provided to 60 crore people under the Ayushman Bharat Yojana. The Gujarat Government has also improved on various health parameters like maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate and institutional delivery," said Shah. He said this hospital would provide excellent health facilities to about 3 lakh workers of the Sanand area as well as benefit about 12 lakh workers and their family members from the region and its adjoining areas as well as all the villagers of the Sanand tehsil. Also Read | Maharashtra Minister Tanaji Sawant Draws Criticism for Maratha Quota 'Itch' Statement, Apologises. On the occasion, Shah extended Navratri greetings to the people and said that the hospital would have many modern facilities including OPD, indoor facilities, X-ray, radiology, laboratory, Operation Theatre, obstetrics, ICU and ultrasound. The Minister said that the hospital would be made into a "perfect hospital for all". Initially, this 350-bed hospital to be built on nine and a half acres will cost Rs 500 crore and the Ministry of Labour has made arrangements with foresight that it can be made into a hospital of 350 to 500 beds immediately if needed. The Home Minister said that after Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister and Bhupendra Yadav became the Labour Minister in 2014, the ESIC scheme has become more meaningful and has moved forward. After the construction of the hospital, the Minister also said Gujarat Government would also provide land for the construction of a medical and nursing college. At the event, the Minister praised Prime Minister Modi for adopting a holistic approach towards health infrastructure having three parts--first, to expand all types of infrastructure and human resources related to medical science; second, to mainstream traditional Indian systems of medicine like AYUSH; and thirdly, to provide expert facilities to all villages through technology. The Minister further said there were only 387 medical colleges in the country in 2013-14 but PM Modi helped to increase their number to 596 in 2021-22. "The government led by Modi has also increased the number of MBBS seats from 51,000 to 89,000; and Post Graduate seats from 31,000 to 60,000," he added. Shah also inaugurated Bhadaj Overbridge and Virochnanagar Primary Health Centre constructed by Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority and Milan Kendra-Samaj Wadi built by AUDA near Science City in Gujarat. On his two-day visit to Gujarat, the Home Minister also visited the Meldi Mataji temple. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Patna, Sep 26 (PTI) Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) founder Krishna Patel on Monday called on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, recalling the latter's long association with her deceased husband Sone Lal Patel. Patel, whose daughter Pallavi had defeated BJP heavyweight and Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya in the Assembly polls held earlier this year, met Kumar at his official residence. Also Read | PFI Has Strong Roots in Gulf, Money Was Sent to India via Hawala, Say Sources in NIA. "My husband had a long friendship with Nitish ji. His efforts at forging opposition unity are commendable though that was not on the agenda of our meeting," she told reporters later. The Apna Dal (Sonelal), headed by her estranged daughter Anupriya who is an NDA ally and a Union minister, however, said the meeting does not hold much relevance saying "she has lost all assembly elections so far". Also Read | Vivo Y16 With 13MP Dual Rear Camera Setup Debuts in India; Price, Features & Specifications. Apna Dal was founded by Patel nearly three decades ago with a view to providing a separate platform to Kurmis, a powerful OBC group. After his death, Anupriya headed the party for some time before differences over giving a ticket to her husband in a bypoll caused a rift in the family, leading to a split in Apna Dal. "The meeting between Krishna ji and Nitish does not hold much relevance as she has lost all the Assembly elections she has contested so far. She even lost the 2007 Assembly election when she contested as the joint candidate of BJP-JD(U) and Apna Dal alliance," a source in Apna Dal (Sonelal) said. Krishna Patel's meeting with Kumar comes in the backdrop of the buzz that the longest serving chief minister of Bihar, who looks forward to playing a role in national politics, may contest the next Lok Sabha polls from the adjoining state. JD(U) leaders in Uttar Pradesh are of the view that Kumar should contest from the Kurmi-dominated seats of Phulpur, which was represented by Jawaharlal Nehru in his lifetime, and Mirzapur. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Lucknow, Sep 26 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court on Monday deferred till October 31 the hearing of an appeal challenging the acquittal of all 32 accused, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani and the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, in the Babri mosque demolition case. The hearing was deferred by a Lucknow bench of justices Ramesh Sinha and Renu Agarwal as the appellants' counsel sought more time to file a reply against the preliminary objection filed by the CBI during the previous hearing against the maintainability of the appeal. Also Read | Maharashtra Shocker: Eight Held for Practising Witchcraft, Black Magic in Thane District. Senior BJP leaders MM Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiar, Sadhvi Ritambhara and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh are among the other accused in the case. The appeal has been filed by two Ayodhya residents Haji Mahmood Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad Also Read | Bengaluru Shocker: Man Stabs Wife to Death After Fight Over Daughters Wedding. On September 5, the CBI filed a written preliminary objection against the appeal. The bench had then granted time to appellants to respond to the preliminary objection. The appellants, however, sought more time to file their response. The duo has claimed in the petition that they were witnesses in the trial against the accused and were among the victims of the demolition of the disputed structure. In its objection, the CBI had stressed that the two appellants were not complainants or victims of the case and as such, they cannot file an appeal as a "'stranger"' against the verdict of the trial court. The Babri mosque was demolished by Karsewaks on December 6, 1992. After a long legal battle, the special CBI court on September 30, 2020 pronounced the judgment in the criminal trial and acquitted all the accused. The trial judge had refused to believe newspaper cuttings and video clips as evidence as the originals of the same were not produced, while the entire edifice of the case rested on these pieces of documentary evidence. The trial judge also held that the CBI could not produce any evidence that the accused had a meeting of mind with Karsewaks who demolished the structure. Assailing the findings of the trial court, the appellants have contended that the trial court committed an error in not convicting the accused when ample evidence was on record. The trial judge did not appreciate the evidence of conspiracy in the right perspective,'' the appellants claimed. The appellants have sought the setting aside of the judgment of September 30, 2020. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Ludhiana (Punjab) [India], September 26 (ANI): Professor Jagmohan Singh, nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh on Sunday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement to name the Chandigarh Airport after the great martyr and termed it as a victory of the people. In the 93rd episode of his monthly Mann ki Baat address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that Chandigarh airport will now be named after Shaheed Bhagat Singh as a tribute to the great freedom fighter. Also Read | Rajasthan Congress Crisis: CLP Meet, Called at CM Ashok Gehlot's Residence, Cancelled As Over 90 MLAs Threaten To Resign. "We welcome the decision to honour the great freedom fighter but I think this was the long pending decision as the issue was raised in 2006 and a resolution was brought in the Punjab Assembly session on the 100th birth anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, demanding that Chandigarh airport be named after him. But the Haryana government started suggesting names of their own people and at that time a Central minister's statement came that the airport will not be named after any particular person and it will be named only after a city," said Singh. Professor Singh further said that later when under pressure of the people of the State, the Haryana government passed a resolution in the State Legislative Assembly in 2010 to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Also Read | RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Says 'Anyone Living in India Is Hindu'. He said that it is also necessary that the said airport should not be handed over to any corporate, which would be against the thinking of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. "However, photographs of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev should be put up inside the airport because Vidyavati ji, mother of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, believed that her son does not like standing alone, he should be allowed to stay with his companions. Similarly, it was officially accepted by the Prime Minister that Shaheed Bhagat Singh is the biggest martyr of the country and now Chandigarh airport will also be named after him," Singh added. PM Modi during his monthly address said, "As a tribute to the great freedom fighter, it has been decided that the Chandigarh airport will now be named after Shaheed Bhagat Singh." The renaming of the airport is seen as a victory for the efforts of the Bhagwant Mann government in Punjab. The AAP expressed that the continuous efforts of the Punjab government were successful. Mann tweeted, "We welcome the decision to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh Ji on behalf of entire Punjab...Thank you very much Prime Minister @narendramodi Ji...a big demand of Punjabis for a long time completed". The Punjab government was in talks with Haryana last month and raised the demand to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. The AAP government further claimed that the previous government in the state hadn't been able to take consent and change the name of the airport and thanked PM for accepting the Mann government's decision. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Mysuru (Karnataka) [India], September 26 (ANI): Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has vowed to bring back the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in the Assembly polls scheduled next year. Speaking after distributing various facilities to beneficiaries of the Chamaraja Assembly constituency here on Sunday, Bommai said, "We will turn your criticism into stairs and work 24 hours a day to bring back pro-people government to power". Also Read | Third Condition Was That the CM Should Be from the 102 MLAs Who Are Loyal to CM Ashok Latest Tweet by ANI. The Chief Minister called for the last-man delivery of the welfare schemes and said that the schemes "must make people to lead independent and self-reliant lives". "The programs must not remain mere slogans but must be implemented. In the name of various Bhagyas, they pushed the state to penury. Those who gave the Bhagyas were rejected by the electorate. Someone can cheat some people for some time but they cannot cheat all people all the time. With a bundle of lies and a false campaign, they cannot win people's hearts," he said. Also Read | Pan-India Gang of Cyber Thugs Involved in Duping People on Pretext of High Return Busted in Lucknow. Taking a veiled jibe at the Opposition, Bommai said that the "power-hungry" politicians want to "grab power". "The power-hungry politicians would always want to grab power but those who wish to win the place in people's hearts don't grab power. Many people, once they are out of power, would act like fish out of water. Anybody can become anything with the support of people but they would not have the blessings of people by going in other routes," he said. "The chief minister said there are two kinds of characters, Arjuna and Karna. The warrior Arjuna would need to be praised to aim and shoot but Karna would need to be criticised to hit the bull's eye. 'I am like Karna, how much ever you criticise, I will get more strength. I will develop the state and help the party to come back to power. We will make you stand in the place where you standing to paste the poster," he said. Bommai's remarks followed in the wake of Congress' aggressive PayCM campaign targeted against him. Under the campaign, Congress had started putting up posters on public walls in various parts of Karnataka accusing the Bommai government of indulging in corruption. Karnataka is headed into elections for its Legislative Assembly early next year. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Chennai, Sep 26 (PTI) A POCSO court here sentenced eight people to life imprisonment on Monday for raping and pushing a teenage girl into prostitution, while a police inspector, BJP functionary and journalist were among 13 people given a 20-year jail term each for their involvement in the case. Also Read | Union Minister @DrJitendraSingh Announced One Week One Lab Theme-based Campaign to Latest Tweet by Prasar Bharati News Services. The special court constituted to deal with cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, had convicted all 21 accused in the case on September 15 and announced the quantum of sentences today. Also Read | Maharashtra Shocker: Eight Held for Practising Witchcraft, Black Magic in Thane District. Besides the jail term, the court's presiding officer M Rajalakshmi directed the government to pay Rs 5 lakh to the victim as compensation. The fine amounts imposed on the 21 people, which would come to about Rs 2 lakh, should also be given to her, the judge said. The life term convicts included the stepfather and stepmother of the victim. Suspended inspector C Pugalendhi, attached to Ennore police station; BJP functionary G Rajendran and Vinobaji, a journalist working at a private media channel, were among those who were given 20 years jail term. The case was registered by the All Women Police in Washermenpet against 26 people following a complaint from the victim's mother and the chargesheet, running to more than 560 pages, was filed in November, 2020. Of the 26 accused, four absconded and one person died during the pendency of the case. The case was split and the prosecution pursued the case against the remaining 21 accused. The case was in the limelight as the victim, just 13-years-old then, was raped by more than 100 people and forced into prostitution and it had the involvement of a police inspector, a politician and a journalist. (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, Sep 26 (PTI) A Delhi court on Monday granted interim bail to actor Jacqueline Fernandez in a Rs 200 crore money laundering case against alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekar. Special Judge Shailendra Malik granted Fernandez the relief on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and posted the matter for further hearing on October 22. Also Read | Himachal Pradesh Accident: Tourist Vehicle Falls Into Gorge in Kullu, Three IIT-Varanasi Students Among Seven Killed. On August 31, predecessor judge Praveen Singh had taken cognizance of a supplementary charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate and asked Fernandez to appear before the court. Fernandez, who was summoned by the ED several times in connection with the investigation, has been named as an accused for the first time in the supplementary charge sheet. Also Read | Elon Musk To Depose Before Twitter Lawyers Ahead of October Trial. ED's earlier charge sheet and a supplementary charge sheet did not mention her as an accused. The documents, however, had mentioned the details of the statements recorded by Fernandez and fellow actor Nora Fatehi. According to ED, Fernandez and Fatehi, who were examined, had received luxury cars and other expensive gifts from Chandrashekar. The ED said Fernandez's statements were recorded on August 30 and October 20, 2021 where she admitted to having received gifts from Chandrashekar. Statements of Fatehi were recorded on September 13 and October 14, 2021 and she also acknowledged having received gifts from the alleged conman and his actor wife Leena Paulose. PTI MNR (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 [India], September 26 (ANI): The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate on the plea of former Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain challenging the order of transfer of his case, and asked ED to file a reply. The court will hear the matter on Wednesday. Also Read | Ghulam Nabi Azad Launches Democratic Azad Party in Jammu and Kashmir. The bench comprising of Justice Yogesh Khanna posted the matter on September 28, after Additional Solicitor General SV Raju said to argue the case later. On the other hand, senior advocates N Hariharan and Rahul Mehra submitted that it is an urgent matter. Also Read | Congress President Election: You Will See the Support I Enjoy When I Submit My Nomination Paper, Says Shashi Tharoor. Hariharan submitted that the hearing on bail application was going on from August. This transfer order is unwarranted and sends a wrong message to society. Mehra submitted that the order of the Supreme Court said that the bail matter should be decided in 14 days. This matter should be heard today or tomorrow. ASG SV Raju said that the notice has not been issued. "I am not available tomorrow, so please keep the matter on Wednesday," he added. At this point, Hariharan said, "there is an election on Wednesday. So please keep it for tomorrow." Satyendar Jain had on Friday moved the Delhi High Court seeking a transfer of his case to another judge. Jain moved Delhi High Court challenging the Principal District and Sessions Court order allowing ED petition to transfer his case to another judge. The Division Bench of Justice Satish Chander Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad allowed the mentioning and listed the matter for Monday after senior advocate Rahul Mehra appearing for Jain mentioned the matter to the bench. The move came hours after Rouse Avenue Court transferred the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case of Satyendar Jain to another court on Friday morning, after hearing a petition from the Enforcement Directorate (ED). On Friday, the Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta agreed to transfer the Satyendar Jain money laundering case to another judge and listed the matter afresh for hearing today itself. According to the order, the case was transferred to Special Judge Vikas Dhull. Earlier, it was heard in length by Special Judge Geetanjali Goel. Earlier on Thursday, during arguments of ED, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju submitted that there was an attempt to seek medical bail by using false medical reports. "Satyendar Jain was also the Jail Minister. He spent most of the time in the hospital during judicial custody, the medical report was fake. We gave all the documents to the court, but nothing happened. He has been handling the Delhi Prisons too as a Minister and can use power, money, and influence," ASG Raju added. Appearing for Satyendar Jain, senior advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that he was shifted to LNJP Hospital and as per the jail manual no violation was held. "When the same judge granted remand to Satyendar Jain then it was fine. The ED plea seeking the transfer of the case to another is clearly showing a malafide contention. The ground taken by the ED is totally vague," Sibal said. Earlier the court of District Judge had stayed Satyendar Jain's trial after ED plea had sought the transfer of the case and issued notices to all the accused persons. All three accused, Satyendra Jain and the co-accused Ankush Jain and Vaibhav Jain are currently in Judicial Custody. Senior Advocate N Hariharan, appearing for Satyendra Jain, expressed his displeasure with Special Judge Geetanjali Goel and submitted, "It's really unfair. Totally uncalled for. They are preempting things. We'll oppose it tooth and nail." The ED had arrested Satyendar Jain and two others in a money laundering case based on a CBI FIR lodged against the AAP leader in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The minister was accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him. On September 16, the ED quizzed Jain inside the Jail in relation to the Excise policy case. Special Judge Geetanjali Goel allowed the application moved by the ED seeking permission to question Satyendar Jain in the excise policy case. Recently the court also took cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the ED against Satyendra Jain, his wife, and eight others including four firms in connection with the money laundering case. The ED on June 6 claimed to have seized Rs 2.85 crore in cash and 133 gold coins weighing 1.80 kg from Satyendar Jain's aides during its day-long raid conducted at various places across Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). During these raids, the agency also seized various incriminating documents and digital records. The ED initiated the money-laundering investigation on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on August 24, 2017. The FIR was registered under Section 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against Satyendar Jain, Poonam Jain, Ajit Prasad Jain, Sunil Kumar Jain, Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], September 26 (ANI): As the most awaited festival of Durga Puja is around the corner and preparations for the festival are in full swing in Kolkata, which is known for the yearly event. Durga Puja of Kolkata is world famous and it was also included in UNESCO's representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2021. Also Read | Rajasthan Congress Crisis: CLP Meet, Called at CM Ashok Gehlot's Residence, Cancelled As Over 90 MLAs Threaten To Resign. Every year, Kolkata brings a new theme to Durga Puja pandals, which are unique and innovative in their own way. From pandals to the Durga idol, devotees get to see various themed Durga puja in Kolkata. In keeping with the celebrations of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the Babubagan Sarbojanin Durgotsav Puja pandal at the Dhakuria in South Kolkata has come with a unique pandal which is made of thousands of commemorative coins issued since independence. Also Read | RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Says 'Anyone Living in India Is Hindu'. The Babubagan Sarbajanin Durgotsav Samiti Durga Puja Pandal, made of thousands of commemorative coins issued since independence, The theme of this year's Durga Puja pandal is "Maa Tujhe Salaam". This time Babubagan Sarbajanin Durga Puja is being celebrated for the 61st year. Realizing the artistic vision of Sujata Gupta and welcoming Maa Durga in an atmosphere of remembrance of 75 years of the country's independence, tributes have been paid to the great freedom fighters of the country. The theme of this puja pandal depicts the freedom fighters and great personalities through Maa Tujhe Salaam. Upon entering, one can feel the presence of prominent figures of India, who were directly involved in India's freedom struggle and who shaped our modern India and various Indian independence movements. The park will also have landmarks of various pillars of our country that have helped them stand on their feet. Prof Sujata Gupta, Concept Maker and Puja Committee Treasurer told ANI, "Maa Tujhe Salaam is the theme of the pandal. Maa means 'Durga Maa' and it also means 'Bharat Mata'. We are celebrating 75 of years of India's independence. The pandal is made of thousands of commemorative coins issued since independence. From 1947 till date, a number of commemorative coins have been released on important occasions. We have collected such coins and adorned the pandal with them. While some of the coins are original, the rest are replicas." The idol will be placed in a coin museum. "There will be a coin museum. The idols of Durga Maa is replicated on the coins. Also, we have placed replicas of freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Swami Vivekananda and others on coins," said Gupta. She further said that around 150 coins have been used in the pandal. "It is my hobby to collect coins and this is my concept. My husband also used to collect coins. We had all these old coins which are not in use today. So we thought of giving a message to the next generation with this pandal and senior citizens will feel nostalgic as they are not able to see old coins. This will work as a feel-good factor," she said. Gupta said it took around two months' time to complete the pandal. Talking about the budget she said around Rs 30-40 lakh has been spent. The Puja Committee has thanked UNESCO for declaring Durga Puja as an "Intangible Cultural Heritage". Durga Puja is one of the most renowned and cherished Hindu festivals observed in India. The holy Goddess Durga is ceremonially worshipped. People celebrate Durga Puja with great fervour and devotion. Durga Puja, an auspicious event, symbolises the victory of good over evil. The Ashwin month, which is normally between October and September, is when this celebration is held. The Hindu festival of Durga Puja, also known as Durgotsava or Sharodotsava, is a yearly celebration that honours the Hindu goddess Durga and commemorates her victory over Mahishasur. Over the years, Durga puja has become an inseparable part of Indian culture with innumerable people celebrating this festival in their own unique way while pertaining to tradition. Hindu mythology holds that the goddess comes to her earthly abode at this time to bless her devotees. For the Bengali community, Durga Puja is extremely important. To destroy Mahishasura, Goddess Druga appeared from the fusion of all the gods' energies in heaven. She had ten arms, and on each of them, she carried the most lethal weapon belonging to each God. All of Goddess Durga's weapons are sanctified during this time. Devotees dress in new garments, chant aartis, visit temples, hand out sweets, clean their homes, and some may even fast to express gratitude to the Goddess during this festival. This year Durga Puja begins on October 1 with Maha Shashti and will end on October 5 with Maha Dasami. The significance of Durga Puja goes beyond religion and is revered as the celebration of compassion, brotherhood, humanity, art and culture. From the reverberation of 'dhaak' and new clothes to delicious food, there remains a merry-go-round mood during these days. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kulgam (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], September 26 (ANI): An encounter broke out in the Batpora area of Kulgam on Monday. The Police along with the security forces are carrying out the operation in the region, said the police. The Kashmir Zone Police informed, "Encounter begins at Batpora area of Kulgam. Police and security forces are carrying out the operation". Also Read | Maharashtra Shocker: Eight Held for Practising Witchcraft, Black Magic in Thane District. Further details are awaited. Earlier in the day, an infiltration bid was foiled along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kupwara district of north Kashmir as security forces killed two terrorists and recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition, said police. Also Read | Bengaluru Shocker: Man Stabs Wife to Death After Fight Over Daughters Wedding. According to police, the terrorists were trying to infiltrate the LoC near Tekri Nar area of Machil sector in Kupwara. "Based on intelligence input of likely infiltration in Machil Sector of Kupwara district, troops were put on high alert and joint ambushes of Police and Army were laid. Today, on September 25, 2022, two armed infiltrators were observed approaching the LoC near Tekri Nar taking advantage of bad weather. Both the infiltrators were challenged and engaged in a fierce firefight. In the ensuing firefight, both the terrorists were eliminated," the statement reads. The Police said that the identification of the killed terrorists is yet to be ascertained. The security forces also recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition including two AK-47 rifles, six AK magazines, 53 AK-rounds, four hand grenades, two Pistols, two Pistol Magazines and 35 Pistol Rounds. "Pakistani currency three notes of Rs 1000, two notes of Rs 500 and seven notes of Rs 50 were recovered from the possession of the killed terrorists," the police added. Accordingly, a case under relevant sections of law has been registered and further investigation is in progress. Back in August, the Indian Army foiled an infiltration attempt by Pakistani terrorists in forwarding areas of the Uri sector and killed three terrorists. The Indian Army recovered the terrorists' bodies after a search of the area along with a large quantity of war-like stores including two AK rifles, one Chinese M-16 rifle and other ammunition. It is the fourth infiltration bid foiled by the Army in the last three days at the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir. According to PRO (Defence) Srinagar, the operation was launched based on specific intelligence from Army Intelligence agencies. "Consequently, on 24th Aug afternoon, multiple ambushes were laid to trap the infiltrators. Intensive electronic surveillance of the suspected area led to the detection of the attempt at 0700h on 25th Aug. Terrorists were hoping to use the cover of thick undergrowth, foliage and continuous rain and low clouds to infiltrate," said Defence PRO. The Indian Army's successful operation has not only led to the elimination of three Pakistani terrorists but also has resulted in thwarting Pakistan's nefarious designs and intent to disrupt peace, prosperity and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir. Use of electronic surveillance and intelligence-based operations continue to be the mainstay of IA ops against Pakistan-sponsored terror in Jammu and Kashmir, it added. (ANI) (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, Sep 26 (PTI) The government on Monday said it has decided to extend the existing Foreign Trade Policy (2015-20) by another six months till March 2023. The current Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) was to end on September 30. Also Read | #Meta Founder and CEO #MarkZuckerberg Announced That #WhatsApp is Latest Tweet by IANS India. Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce, Amit Yadav, said there were demands from different quarters, including industry associations and export promotion councils, to extend the policy and not introduce a new policy at this time. They have stated that currently there are challenges like global uncertainties and currency fluctuations. Also Read | Bengaluru Shocker: Man Stabs Wife to Death After Fight Over Daughters Wedding. There was also a view to align the rollout of the new policy with the new financial year. The commerce and industry ministry had earlier announced that it will release the new FTP by the end of this month. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Shillong (Meghalaya) [India], September 26 (ANI): Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat, while stating that there is "no particular definition of Hindu", said that the terms "Bharatiya" (Indian) and "Hindu" are synonyms, and added that it (Hindu) is a "geo-cultural identity". Bhagwat said that India had lost its freedom in the past because of "forgetting" its "civilizational motto and values". Also Read | Apple Watch Ultra Durability Tested With Hammer by YouTuber TechRax. Addressing a public meeting in Shillong on Sunday, Bhagwat said, "We are an ancient nation since time immemorial, but due to forgetting our civilizational motto and values, we lost our freedom. Our binding force among one another is our inherent faith in our age-old values which lies in spirituality. These values of this country's eternal civilization had been named as Hindutva by people outside our country. We are Hindus, but there is no particular definition of Hindu, although it's our identity. Both the terms Bharatiya and Hindu are synonyms. It is a geo-cultural identity in fact". The RSS chief said that the organisation teaches to make sacrifices for the country while also giving up one's "individual selfish ends". Also Read | Himachal Pradesh: Woman, 3 Minor Buried Alive As House Collapses Following Landslide in Sirmaur. "In the one-hour Sangh shakhas, people learn about these benevolent values and duty to the motherland," Bhagwat said. "The RSS draws this tradition of sacrifice from this country's ancient history. Our ancestors had visited different lands beyond and had departed the same values to Japan, Korea, Indonesia and many other countries. We are following the same tradition even today." Stating the instances of 'Vaccine Maitri' and India's aid to economic crisis-hit Sri Lanka, Bhagwat said that India served humanity in these instances. "Our ancestors have done great things... We taught Mathematics, Science and Ayurveda... Even today we do the same, who helped Sri Lanka during the crisis and provided them loans. India did. Who gave vaccines to the world in Covid? We did," he said. The RSS chief emphasised how the Sangh for five generations with the help of workers has contributed in the national reconstruction work for years. Bhagwat stressed on helping India proceed towards "all-round development" and said that the mission of the RSS is to make society organised for the purpose. "Sangh is not just another organisation working for making the organisation itself strong, but the real mission is to make this society organised in order to make Bharat attain her all-round development," he said. "Sangh's orientation is to deepen it into one's own habit by doing it on daily basis. These things are emphasised as Rashtriyata, Swayamsevakatva," the RSS chief added. Among the audience, many educationists, leaders as well as spiritual and social representatives participated. The two-day Meghalaya visit of Bhagwat which will end today will include his meetings with different Sangh functionaries and socio-cultural leaders. (ANI) (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 [India] September 26 (ANI): India recorded 4,129 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Affairs on Monday. India's active caseload currently stands at 43,415 which accounts for 0.10 per cent of the total cases. Also Read | UP Shocker: 10-Year-Old Girl Ends Life in Kanpur by Jumping in Front of Train After Fight with Sister. The recovery rate currently is at 98.72 per cent. As many as 4,688 recoveries were made in the last 24 hours, taking the total recoveries to 4,40,00,298. The country has recorded a daily positivity rate of 2.51 per cent and a weekly positivity rate of 1.61 per cent. Also Read | Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Likely To Come With 25W Fast Charging Support. As part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the Government of India has been supporting the States and Union Territories by providing them with COVID-19 Vaccines free of cost. In the new phase of the universalization of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, the Union Government will procure and supply (free of cost) 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the vaccine manufacturers in the country to States and UTs. So far, under the nationwide vaccination drive, 217.68 crore total Vaccine doses (94.78 crore Second Dose and 20.44 crore Precaution Dose) have been administered, of which 11,67,772 doses were jabbed in the last 24 hours. (ANI) (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 [India], September 26 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed with cost a PIL that sought that the Election Commission (EC) be barred from allocating poll symbols claiming they were "misused" by political parties. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on the petitioner while observing that the relief claimed was "disruptive of the election process" and that litigation cannot be a "hobby". Also Read | CUET PG Result 2022 Declared at cuet.samarth.ac.in; Know Steps To Check and Download Score Cards. The bench while dismissing the "misleading" petition said it was a complete waste of judicial time. Petitioner advocate Shraddha Tripathi contended that Election Commission has no power to allot a symbol to political parties and only the Returning Officer can allot the symbols to contesting candidates. Also Read | 7th Pay Commission: Here's a Calculation of Monthly And Annual Salary Hike if DA Increased to 38 Percent. "The law clearly states that the symbols are to be allotted at the election and by the Returning Officer and to the contesting candidate, what authority does the Election Commission possess to give the symbol to the political party and is creating a problem also," the petitioner argued. The top court was hearing a plea challenging the Allahabad High Court's 2021 judgment which had dismissed a petition that said the Election Commission has no power to allot an election symbol. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Chhatarpur, Sep 26 (PTI) The family of a 30-year-old Dalit man has alleged that he was beaten up by a group of persons for sitting on a chair in a village panchayat office in Madhya Pradesh's Chhatarpur district. Also Read | #COVID19 Update 11,67,772 Doses Administered in Last 24 Hours Indias Active Caseload Latest Tweet by PIB India. But, Bijawar's sub-divisional officer of police Raghu Kesri on Monday denied the claim that the man was thrashed for sitting on a chair and said the incident, which took place on Saturday, was a fallout of an enmity between the man and the accused. Also Read | UP Shocker: 10-Year-Old Girl Ends Life in Kanpur by Jumping in Front of Train After Fight with Sister. A case has been registered and efforts are on to arrest the accused, he said. The man's wife and a panchayat official said the victim was seriously injured in the incident which took place in Chauka village under Matguan police station limits, around 10 km from the district headquarters. Talking to reporters, the victim's wife alleged that one Rohit Singh Thakur thrashed her husband after he sat on a chair in the village panchayat office on Saturday. She said Thakur objected to it saying how a Dalit man dared to sit on a chair in front of him and asserted that only Thakurs will sit on the chair. She said her husband was injured seriously after Thakur and his accomplices beat him up. The woman said she feared for the safety of her family. She also said she had filed a complaint with police, but claimed no action was taken on it. Chauka village panchayat secretary Arvind Kumar Ahirwar said the victim had come to his office to submit papers for the construction of a well under the Kapil Dhara Yojana on Saturday. He also claimed that Thakur objected after the victim sat on a chair and beat him up. On Sunday, Thakur along with two others reached the victim's home and attacked him again for sitting on the chair despite being a Dalit, he further alleged. The victim suffered serious head injuries, fractures on hands and injuries on other body parts, and was undergoing treatment at the district hospital, Ahirwar said. Village sarpanch Krishna Gopal Ahirwar claimed the victim was beaten up for the reason that he came to the panchayat office in a car and sat on the chair. He said after the dispute over sitting on the chair on Saturday, the accused along with others reached the victim's home on Sunday evening and thrashed him. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. Mumbai, Sep 26 (PTI) A court here on Monday extended till October 3 the ATS custody of five people, arrested during the multi-agency raids conducted on the Popular Front of India (PFI) in Maharashtra last week. Also Read | Maharashtra Minister Tanaji Sawant Draws Criticism for Maratha Quota 'Itch' Statement, Apologises. Also Read | PFI Has Strong Roots in Gulf, Money Was Sent to India via Hawala, Say Sources in NIA. The five accused were among 20 people nabbed from the state by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in multi-agency raids across the country spearheaded by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) last Thursday. The ATS produced the five accused before the court of additional sessions judge A M Patil on Monday on the expiry of their previous remand. They were booked on charges of engaging in unlawful activities, promoting enmity among communities, and waging a war against the country. In a massive crackdown on PFI, multi-agency teams had arrested 106 leaders and activists of the radical Islamic outfit in near-simultaneous raids in 15 states for allegedly supporting terror activities in the country. Maharashtra and Karnataka accounted for 20 arrests each, Tamil Nadu (10), Assam (9), Uttar Pradesh (8), Andhra Pradesh (5), Madhya Pradesh (4), Puducherry and Delhi (3 each) and Rajasthan (2). (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Jaipur, Sep 26 (PTI) Five people were killed and another was injured when a speeding car crashed into two stationary trucks in the Sadar police station area of Tonk district, police said on Monday. The vehicles were parked on the Jaipur-Kota National Highway. Also Read | Maharashtra Minister Tanaji Sawant Draws Criticism for Maratha Quota 'Itch' Statement, Apologises. Four students sitting in the car were killed and one was injured. A watchman who was sitting on a cot near the trucks also got killed, police said, adding that the accident that took place late Sunday night. The deceased have been identified as Roshan, Suraj, Shreyans alias Gyaneshwar, Abhishek and Mohammad Sadiq. The students were residents of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Also Read | PFI Has Strong Roots in Gulf, Money Was Sent to India via Hawala, Say Sources in NIA. Rishabh, who was injured in the accident, was sent to Jaipur for treatment and is reportedly stable. A case has been registered against the car driver on behalf of the relatives of the deceased watchman, they said. The post-mortem will be conducted after the arrival of their families, they added. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], September 26 (ANI): As the majority of Congress MLAs from the Ashok Gehlot camp are submitting their resignations, party interim president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday directed observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken to conduct one-on-one talks with Rajasthan MLAs to resolve the issue. Both the observers are likely to meet around 90 MLAs who have tendered their resignation to Assembly Speaker. Also Read | Rajasthan Congress Crisis: CLP Meet, Called at CM Ashok Gehlot's Residence, Cancelled As Over 90 MLAs Threaten To Resign. We are not going to Delhi at the moment, we have been instructed by Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi to conduct one-to-one talks with Rajasthan Congress MLAs. We will meet them tonight," Maken told ANI. Congress leader KC Venugopal said that things would be sorted out soon. Also Read | RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Says 'Anyone Living in India Is Hindu'. "Neither did I talk to CM Ashok Gehlot, nor did he call me, things will be sorted out soon," said Venugopal. Meanwhile, disgruntled with the party, Rajasthan ministers Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Shanti Dhariwal are meeting AICC observers Ajay Maken and Mallikarjun Kharge at CM Ashok Gehlot's residence. Earlier, state legislator Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said that all the MLAs are angry and are resigning as they were not consulted before the decision. "All the MLAs are angry and are resigning. We are going to the speaker for that. MLAs are upset how can CM Ashok Gehlot take a decision without consulting them", said Khachariyawas. He further said that alleged that the party doesn't listen to them and decisions are being taken without any discussion. "10 to15 MLAs are being heard while other MLAs are being neglected. Party doesn't listen to us, decisions are being taken without it," said Khachariyawas. Meanwhile, CM Ashok had expressed their willingness to contest for the party's topmost position. He said, "It's decided that I'll contest (for the post of Congress President). I'll fix the date soon (to file his nomination). There's the need for the Opposition to be strong, looking at the current position of the country." Khachariyawas said, "CM Gehlot should pay heed to the suggestions of MLAs. We have 92 MLAs with us". In the meeting, there are chances that a resolution will be passed relating to the change of leadership in Rajasthan. Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot is also likely to resign from his post before filing his nomination for the Congress President poll. On Saturday, Ajay Maken had a meeting with Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi. AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal said the Congress president had appointed Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken as observers for the Rajasthan CLP meeting to be held on Sunday at 7 pm in Jaipur. Filing of nominations for the post of Congress president began on Saturday with a contest between Ashok Gehlot and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor on the cards. The nominations will be filed till September 30 and results declaring the new Congress chief will be announced on October 19. This will be the first time in 25 years that Congress will see a non-Gandhi chief after Sonia Gandhi replaced Sitaraman Kesri as party chief in 1998. The last time the party had a non-Gandhi chief was in 1997 when Sitaram Kesri defeated Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot. Chairman of Central Election Authority Madhusudan Mistri will be available in Congress headquarters in the national capital to take the nomination papers as returning officer of the election. Gehlot had earlier made it clear that there will be no candidate from the Gandhi family this time. Speaking to ANI Gehlot said, "I have requested him (Congress MP Rahul Gandhi) multiple times to accept everyone's proposal of becoming the Congress President. He clarified that no one from the Gandhi family should become the next chief." (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Mumbai, Sep 26 (PTI) Religious organisations and NGOs in Mumbai will conduct a health campaign and reach out to 35,000 households in different parts of the city from the first week of October, an official said on Monday. Also Read | PFI Has Strong Roots in Gulf, Money Was Sent to India via Hawala, Say Sources in NIA. As per a release, the pilot campaign called 'Apni Baat Apno Ke Saath' will be rolled out at specific locations in Mumbai to address mental health issues, immunisation and anaemia in adolescents. Also Read | Vivo Y16 With 13MP Dual Rear Camera Setup Debuts in India; Price, Features & Specifications. The Maharashtra Forum - An Inter-Faith Alliance, UNICEF and Citizens Association for Child Rights (CACR) have come together to work on mental wellbeing, health, immunisation and anaemia in adolescents, it said. Organisations such as Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Archdiocese of Bombay, the youth wing from Brahma Kumaris and Buddhist Society of India will participate in the campaign, which will begin from the first week of October. Brahma Kumaris will cover suburban Santacruz and Vakola areas, while JIH will be at Mominpoora and Madanpoora, the Buddhist Society of India in Goregaon, Archdiocese of Bombay at Bandra and Mahim areas, the release said. As many as 35,000 households will be covered under the campaign by January 2023, it was stated. (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 [India], September 26 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Centre on a suo moto it took regarding the menace of drug mafia network operating in the country. A bench Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and JB Pardiwala appointed advocate Shoeb Alam as amicus curiae in the suo motu case. Also Read | Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Criticises States Seeking More Funds, Says 'You Me' Culture Won't Work. The apex court took suo moto cognisance of the issue after a letter petition was sent to the then CJI NV Ramana regarding the "menace of drug mafia network operating in the country". The top court also directed the Registry to hand over the case records to Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati to assist the court from the government's side. Also Read | Rajasthan Congress Crisis: Sonia Gandhi Seeks Written Report From Ajay Maken, Mallikarjun Kharge. "The office note put up before Chief Justice on November 17, 2021, has been converted under the directions of the Chief Justice in suo moto Writ Petition. Considering the gravity of the situation and the material placed before this court, we have requested Mr Shoab Alam to assist the court as amicus curiae, an offer which he has graciously accepted. At this stage, we issue notice to the Union government. We also issue notice to Aishwarya Bhati, Additional Solicitor General (ASG). List the matter on October 18," the bench stated in its order. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kupwara (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], September 26 (ANI): The infiltration bid was foiled along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kupwara district of north Kashmir as security forces killed two terrorists andrecovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition, said police. According to police, the terrorists were trying to infiltrate the LoC near Tekri Nar area of Machil sector in Kupwara. Also Read | Rajasthan Congress Crisis: CLP Meet, Called at CM Ashok Gehlot's Residence, Cancelled As Over 90 MLAs Threaten To Resign. "Based on intelligence input of likely infiltration in Machil Sector of Kupwara district, troops were put on high alert and joint ambushes of Police and Army were laid. Today, on September 25, 2022, two armed infiltrators were observed approaching the LoC near Tekri Nar taking advantage of bad weather. Both the infiltrators were challenged and engaged in a fierce firefight. In the ensuing firefight, both the terrorists were eliminated," the statement reads. The Police said that the identification of the killed terrorists is yet to be ascertained. Also Read | RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Says 'Anyone Living in India Is Hindu'. The security forces also recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition including two AK-47 rifles, six AK magazines, 53 AK-rounds, four hand grenades, two Pistols, two Pistol Magazines and 35 Pistol Rounds. "Pakistani currency three notes of Rs 1000, two notes of Rs 500 and seven notes of Rs 50 were recovered from the possession of the killed terrorists," the police added. Accordingly, a case under relevant sections of law has been registered and further investigation is in progress. Back in August, the Indian Army foiled an infiltration attempt by Pakistani terrorists in forward areas of Uri sector and killed three terrorists. The Indian Army recovered the terrorists' bodies after a search of the area along with a large quantity of war-like stores including two AK rifles, one Chinese M-16 rifle and other ammunition. It the fourth infiltration bid foiled by the Army in the last three days at the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir. According to PRO (Defence) Srinagar, the operation was launched based on specific intelligence from Army Intelligence agencies. "Consequently, on 24th Aug afternoon, multiple ambushes were laid to trap the infiltrators. Intensive electronic surveillance of the suspected area led to the detection of the attempt at 0700h on 25th Aug. Terrorists were hoping to use the cover of thick undergrowth, foliage and continuous rain and low clouds to infiltrate," said Defence PRO. The Indian Army's successful operation has not only led to the elimination of three Pakistani terrorists but also has resulted in thwarting Pakistan's nefarious designs and intent to disrupt peace, prosperity and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir. Use of electronic surveillance and intelligence-based operations continue to be the mainstay of IA ops against Pakistan-sponsored terror in Jammu and Kashmir, it added. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Madurai (Tamil Nadu) [India], September 26 (ANI): Two persons were arrested for their involvement in hurling petrol bombs into the house of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu on September 24, said police on Sunday. The accused have been identified as Usain and Samsuddin. Also Read | Rajasthan Congress Crisis: CLP Meet, Called at CM Ashok Gehlot's Residence, Cancelled As Over 90 MLAs Threaten To Resign. Two persons are still absconding and would be arrested soon. "Two persons were arrested for their involvements in hurling petrol bombs at the house of RSS functionary Krishnan on Sept 24. A total of four persons were involved in the incident. Two are absconding and would be arrested soon. RSS functionaries MS Krishnan house is still under inquiry," said T Senthil Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Madurai. Also Read | RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Says 'Anyone Living in India Is Hindu'. He further said the police also registered against the petrol station owner for selling of 'loose' petrol in bottles, which was used for filling up petrol bombs. He also requested the petrol bulk owners to avoid giving loose petrol. "We have taken the list of vulnerable Hindu outfit persons and have been given protection," he said. As many as three petrol bombs were hurled into the house of a RSS member in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. The incident was captured in the CCTV footage which as per the timestamp took place around 7:38 pm on Saturday at Mel Anuppanadi housing board area in Madurai at the residence of MS Krishnan. The CCTV footage shows bike-borne men were seen approaching the house and hurling petrol bombs before the duo sped away. In this regard, RSS member Krishnan and BJP Madurai district president Suseendran had filed a petition to the Keerathurai police. "I have been working in an RSS organization for the last 45 years. Around 7 pm we did puja at my house with about 65 people. Then I heard a noise outside and when I came out, my car was on fire. Last year in 2014 police gave protection to me due to danger to my life but the police protection was withdrawn in 2021. More than 20 RSS workers like me have been attacked in Tamil Nadu alone. We have lodged a complaint with the police regarding the petrol bomb hurled at my house. They assured to arrest the accused by tonight," said Krishnan. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu BJP has written to Home Minister Amit shah highlighting the increasing attacks against BJP and RSS functionaries in recent times. The letter to Amit shah mentioned 19 attacks against those belonging to Hindu outfits (the incident include the damaging of houses, vehicles, hurling of petrol bombs etc.). Earlier, a petrol bomb was hurled at the house of an RSS leader near Tambaram near Chennai in the early hours of Saturday, said the police.(ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Thane, Sep 26 (PTI) Maharashtra's Thane district has reported 52 new COVID-19 cases, raising its infection count to 7,44,837, a health official said on Monday. Also Read | PFI Raids: RSS' Muslim Wing Demands Union Government to Immediate Ban on Extremist Organisation From Centre. With the addition of these numbers on Sunday, there are currently 452 active COVID-19 cases in Thane district, which is part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, he said. Also Read | Samsung Reportedly Working on Dual Under-Display Camera for Facial Recognition. No fatality was reported on Sunday and the death toll in the district remained unchanged at 11,962. The recovery count has reached 7,33,127, the official added. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Ahmedabad, Sep 26 (PTI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday inaugurated a flyover and a primary health centre near Gujarat's Ahmedabad city. Also Read | Pan-India Gang of Cyber Thugs Involved in Duping People on Pretext of High Return Busted in Lucknow. Shah is on a two-day visit to Gujarat from Monday where he will participate in a host of programmes including a farmers' conference in Ahmedabad district. Also Read | Interpol Issues Red Notice to Crypto Firm Terraform Founder Do Kwon: Report. In the morning, Shah inaugurated a flyover near Bhadaj village on SP Ring Road on the city's outskirts, which falls under his Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency. This six-lane flyover has been built by the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) at a cost of Rs 73 crore to ease traffic congestion on the busy Bhadaj circle of the ring road, a release by the Gujarat government said. Later, Shah inaugurated a primary health centre in Virochannagar village of Sanand taluka, which also falls under his parliamentary constituency. As per the official schedule, the Union minister will also lay the foundation stone for a hospital to be run by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) at Sanand in Ahmedabad district. In the afternoon, he will attend a farmers' conference at Bavla village in Ahmedabad district. Farmers from Shah's Gandhinagar parliamentary constituency are organising the Rin Sweekar Sammelan (gratitude acceptance conference) to express gratitude for providing irrigation facilities in 164 villages, a government release said. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Ahmedabad, Sep 26 (PTI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah is on a two-day visit to Gujarat from Monday where he will participate in a host of programmes including a farmers' conference in Ahmedabad. Also Read | PM @narendramodi Wishes Former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh. Latest Tweet by Prasar Bharati News Services. He will also lay the foundation stones for an hospital at Sanand in Ahmedabad district and a lake beautification project here, as per the programme schedule shared by officials. Also Read | Google Home Can Now Detect Users' Presence via Nest Speakers. "Shah will stay in Gujarat on September 26 and 27 where he will take part in a host of programmes," a government release said. He will attend a farmers' conference at Bavla in Ahmedabad district and will also inaugurate an overbridge on SP Ring Road here, a primary health centre at Sanand and an office of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Farmers from Shah's Gandhinagar parliamentary constituency are organising the "Rin Sweekar Sammelan" (gratitude acceptance conference) to express gratitude for providing irrigation facilities in 164 villages, the release said. "Farmers had been demanding irrigation water supply for a long time. Shah, as the parliamentarian, recommended a permanent solution to the problems of these farmers after which the Gujarat government included 164 villages under Fatewadi-Kharikat irrigation project," the release added. (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, Sep 26 (PTI) Apple's newest phone iPhone 14 will be made in India as the global tech titan bets big on the manufacturing prowess of the world's second-biggest smartphone market after China. Cupertino, California-headquartered Apple started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017 with iPhone SE. Today, Apple manufactures some of its most advanced iPhones in the country including iPhone SE, iPhone 12, iPhone 13 and, now, iPhone 14. Also Read | IOCL Recruitment 2022: Vacancies Notified for 1535 Post of Trade Apprentice, Apply Online at iocl.com. Earlier this month, Apple Inc unveiled its latest iPhone series -- the iPhone 14 models - with an improved camera, powerful sensors and satellite messaging feature to send SOS texts in emergencies. The new lineup has four models: iPhone 14, Plus, Pro and ProMax. According to sources, the Made-in-India iPhone 14 will begin to reach local customers in the next few days. Phones manufactured in India will be both for the Indian market and exports. Also Read | Mahesh Babu and Namrata Shirodkar Wish Sitara Ghattmaneni a Happy Daughter's Day With Sweet Notes (View Pics). The iPhone 14 will be shipped from Foxconn's Sriperumbudur facility on the outskirts of Chennai. Foxconn is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and major iPhone assembler. When contacted, Apple in a statement to PTI said: "We're excited to be manufacturing iPhone 14 in India." The new iPhone 14 lineup introduces groundbreaking new technologies and important safety capabilities," it said. The iPhone 14 was launched on September 7, 2022, and is available to customers in India simultaneously with the US, among other markets, since September 16, 2022. The iconic brand has a long-standing history in India that started more than 20 years ago. Apple launched its online store in the country in September 2020 and is set to deepen its commitment with the upcoming launch of Apple retail store. The recent manufacturing expansion builds on several Apple initiatives in the country, including App Design and Development Accelerator in Bengaluru and programmes with local organisations to support renewable energy training and development for communities. India's vibrant market is turning out to be the sweetspot for the US tech giant, as the company reported a "near doubling" of revenue in the country in the quarter ended June 2022. Apple CEO Tim Cook, during earnings call in July had said: "We set June quarter records in the Americas, in Europe and the rest of the Asia Pacific region. We also saw June quarter revenue records in both developed and emerging markets, with very strong double-digit growth in Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam and a near doubling of revenue in India." A recent report by JP Morgan on `Apple Supply Chain relocation' predicted that Apple "is likely to move about 5 per cent of iPhone 14 production to India from late 2022 and reach 25 per cent by 2025". It is also forecast that nearly 25 per cent of all Apple products, will be manufactured outside China by 2025 as compared to five per cent at present. "US-China trade tensions kicked off the production relocation cycle and the search for a `China+1' manufacturing approach for the Apple supply chain from late 2018," the report said. COVID-19 put the brakes on this over the last two years, but with pandemic concerns easing, "we have seen more companies in the Apple supply chain re-accelerating supply chain relocation efforts", the brokerage said in its report. "Supply chain risks (such as COVID-19-related lockdowns in Shanghai/Shenzhen) are likely to be a primary driving force for these moves in the next two to three years," it added. Southeast and South Asian countries (like India, Vietnam, Thailand) have become preferable locations for geopolitical diversification away from China for Apple food chain vendors, given their lower labor costs, sufficient skilled manpower support and appealing policies and government support, according to JP Morgan analysts. While a booming market for smartphones has added to India's sheen, New Delhi's policy push in the electronics sector has nudged large global suppliers to expand in India, and driven new players to set up base. After tasting success in local smartphone manufacturing, India is moving swiftly to replicate the success with other parts of electronics ecosystem, as it makes solid efforts to cut reliance on imports. The government has unveiled attractive incentives to spur local production and export of telecom and networking equipment as well as IT products, and a Rs 76,000 crore semiconductor scheme was announced late last year to boost local manufacturing of chips and display panels. To attract global giants such as Intel and TSMC, the Centre, last week, sweetened the semiconductor package further by increasing the fiscal support for new facilities (across technology nodes) to cover 50 per cent of project cost. (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, Sep 26 (PTI) The high price of coal will adversely impact the profitability of domestic non-ferrous metal companies mainly operating in the aluminium and zinc space, Icra said on Monday. The domestic e-auction premium on coal, though it has softened in recent months, continues to remain high at around 300 per cent. Also Read | Vivo Y16 With 13MP Dual Rear Camera Setup Debuts in India; Price, Features & Specifications. "In the domestic market, power costs have significantly increased for domestic base metal companies, owing to the lower availability of coal linkages to non-power sectors and elevated coal prices in both domestic e-auction and the international markets," Icra said in a statement. Besides, the price of alumina decreased along with the price of aluminium, giving some respite to the non-integrated players. Also Read | Apple To Reportedly Replace Pro Max Branding Next Year With iPhone 15 Ultra. "Owing to the twin onslaught of corrections in metal prices and continued high coal costs, the estimated operating profitability of domestic players is likely to contract by 600-700 bps in FY2023 after a weak performance in Q1 FY2023,"Icra Senior Vice-President and Group Head, Corporate Sector Ratings Jayanta Roy said. The high cost of coal remains a concern in the near term. The rating agency said that it has changed the outlook of the base metal industry to stable from positive in July on account of this likely reduction in profitability, Roy stressed. (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 [India], September 26 (ANI): Bandaru Wilsonbabu, presently Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), has been appointed as Indian Ambassador to Madagascar, the MEA said on Monday. He is expected to take up the assignment shortly. Also Read | Pakistan Chopper Crash: Pakistani Military Helicopter Crashes in Balochistan, 6 Soldiers Dead. "Bandaru Wilsonbabu (IFS: 2004), presently Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to the Republic of Madagascar," the MEA said in a statement. Wilsonbabu, who has served as the joint Secretary in the Eurasia division, will be replacing ambassador Abhay Kumar. Also Read | Rabi Ul Awwal Moon Sighting 2022 Live News Updates: Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia To Look For Rabi al-Awwal Crescent Today. India and Madagascar enjoy cordial bilateral relations with cooperation on multiple fronts. Madagascar generally supports India's candidature in the multinational fora. Apart from UNSC, in recent past Madagascar has consistently supported India's candidature for various international organizations such as the UNSC non-permanent seat, India's entry as an observer at the Indian Ocean Commission, India's proposal to become an Observer at the Djibouti Code of Conduct among others. There are about 17 500 persons of Indian origin in Madagascar, including approximately 2500 Indian passport holders. Most of them are in trading but also in manufacturing and other businesses. In recent years a number of Indian professionals have been working in different companies including multi-national companies in Madagascar. The first Indian settlers, mostly from Gujarat, arrived in Madagascar in 1880. Most of them are in trading but some of them are also in manufacturing, real estate and other assorted businesses. According to African media sources, among the richest businessmen in Africa, four are from Madagascar and among whom three are PIOs. The role played by the Indian community and diaspora in the economic development of Madagascar is appreciated at all levels. Some of the Indian Diaspora is quite influential and their contribution to the total GDP of Madagascar is substantial. In recent years a number of Indian professionals have migrated and are working in different companies, including multi-national companies in Madagascar. The Indian Diaspora has been playing a significant role in preserving and promoting Indian culture and traditional values. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) People vote during the new family code referendum in Havana. (Photo Credit - Reuters) Havana [Cuba], September 26 (ANI): Cubans voted in a landmark referendumon Sunday on whether to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption, allow surrogate pregnancies and give greater rights to non-biological parents. Almost 6 million Cubans (around 69% of eligible voters) voted in the referendum, according to electoral officials. Also Read | Pakistan Chopper Crash: Pakistani Military Helicopter Crashes in Balochistan, 6 Soldiers Dead. Over 8 million Cubans over the age of 16 were eligible to vote "yes" or "no" for the proposal, which is supported by the communist government but criticized by Catholic and evangelical church leaders, reported DW News. More than 79,000 neighbourhood meetings were held earlier this year to debate the proposal, which is backed by the communist government. Church leaders have expressed opposition to the idea. Also Read | Rabi Ul Awwal Moon Sighting 2022 Live News Updates: Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia To Look For Rabi al-Awwal Crescent Today. The final week of campaigning saw the government flood TV, radio and social media with pro-equality messages, along with glitzy billboards, public rallies and tweets from President Miguel Diaz-Canel urging Cubans to vote yes "in favour of democracy," reported DW News. The official attitude toward homosexuality has changed significantly over the past 20 years after decades of persecution. In 2019, the government sought to include same-sex marriage in the country's new constitution but backed down after criticism from the Church. The Conference of Bishops has once again come out against the current proposal. Political scientist Rafael Hernandez said the referendum on same-sex marriage is the "most important human rights legislation" in Cuba since the 1959 revolution, reported DW News. However, the current economic unease may overshadow Cuba's historic vote. Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in 30 years due to a collapse in international tourism and ongoing US sanctions. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kyiv, September 26: An overnight drone strike near the Ukrainian port of Odesa sparked a massive fire and explosion, the military said on Monday, as Russia's leadership faced growing resistance to its efforts to call up hundreds of thousands of men to fight in Ukraine. The airstrike on Odesa was the latest in a series of drone attacks on the key southern city in recent days, and hit a military installation and detonated ammunition when it struck. Also Read | Russia-Ukraine War Dragging Down Global Economic Growth More Than Expected, Says OECD. Firefighters were struggling to contain the blaze, and civilians nearby were evacuated, the Ukrainian military's southern command said. It came hours after the United States vowed to take decisive action and promised catastrophic consequences if Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Concerns are growing that Russia may seek to escalate the conflict once it completes what Ukraine and the West see as illegal referendums in parts of Ukraine under its control. The voting, which ends on Tuesday, happened after thousands of residents had fled and has included images of armed Russian troops going door-to-door to pressure Ukrainians into casting a ballot. Russia announced the referendums as its war on Ukraine has bogged down amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Every night and day there is inevitable shelling in the Donbas, under the roar of which people are forced to vote for Russian peace,'" Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said on Monday. Russia is widely expected to declare the results in its favour, a step that could see Moscow annex the territory and give it the pretext to defend it as its own territory under the Russian nuclear umbrella. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said Russia would pay a high, if unspecified, price if it made good on veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the conflict. If Russia crosses this line there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively, he told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. On Monday, Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held an unannounced meeting in the southern Russian city of Sochi and said they were ready to cooperate with the West if they treat us with respect, Putin said. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that Putin had told Turkey's president during their meeting in Uzbekistan last week that Moscow was ready to resume negotiations with Ukraine but had new conditions for a cease-fire. The minister didn't elaborate on the conditions. The Kremlin last week announced a partial mobilisation to add at least 300,000 troops to its force in Ukraine in the run-up to the votes in the occupied regions. The move, a sharp shift from Vladimir Putin's previous efforts to portray the war as a limited military operation that wouldn't interfere with most Russians' lives, proved extremely unpopular at home. Thousands of men of fighting age flocked to airports and Russia's land border crossings in an effort to avoid being called up. Protests sparked in various parts of the country, and Russian media reported an increasing number of arson attacks on military enlistment offices, including one that hit the southern city of Uryupinsk. In a separate, unusually bold attack, a young man entered a military enlistment office Monday in the Siberian city of Ust-Ilimsk and shot the military commandant at close range. Russian media reports claimed the man walked into the facility saying no one will go to fight and we will all go home now. Local authorities said the military commandant was in intensive care, without elaborating. The man, identified in the media as 25-year-old local resident Ruslan Zinin, was reportedly upset that a call-up notice was served to his best friend who didn't have any combat experience - which the authorities have said is the main criteria for the draft. Meanwhile, the first batches of Russian troops mobilised by Moscow have begun to arrive at military bases, the British military said Monday. In an online intelligence briefing, the British Defense Ministry said tens of thousands had been called up so far. However, the Russians face challenges ahead, the ministry said. The Russian military provides low-level, initial training to soldiers within their designated operational units, rather than in dedicated training establishments, it said. Under normal circumstances, two battalions deploy while a third remains behind to train. But in the Ukraine war, even the third battalion is deploying, weakening that training, the British Defense Ministry said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday said the Russian mobilisation its first such call-up since World War II was a sign of weakness: They admitted that their army is not able to fight with Ukraine anymore. Zelenskyy said in a Facebook post on Monday that the Ukrainian military is pushing efforts to take back the entire territory of Ukraine, and has drawn up plans to counter new types of weapons used by Russia, without elaborating. New Russian shelling struck the area around the Zaporozhzhia nuclear power plant, according to Zelenskyy's office. Cities near the station were fired on nine times in recent hours by rocket launchers and heavy artillery. In the town of Izium in eastern Ukraine, which Russian forces left earlier this month after a Ukrainian counteroffensive, Margaryta Tkachenko is still reeling from the battle that destroyed her home and left her family close to starvation. With no gas, electricity, running water or internet, she said, I can't predict what will happen next. Winter is the most frightening. We have no wood. How will we heat? (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Hong Kong, September 26: Known as the "conscience of Hong Kong" among his supporters, Cardinal Joseph Zen, a 90-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong has gone on trial on Monday under the national security law. Zen, one of Asia's most senior Catholic clerics, was arrested by Hong Kong's national security police in May along with three other leading democracy activists, including Cantopop star Denis Ho, reported CNN. Hong Kong: Riot Police Stop Peaceful Protest Against National Security Law. The four trustees of the protest fund were initially arrested on suspicion of "collusion with foreign forces," a charge under a sweeping national security law that carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. CNN reports that he is also charged over his role in a relief fund for the city's pro-democracy protests in 2019. He along with Cantopop star Denis Ho has been charged with a lesser offence for failing to register the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, set up in June 2019 to help pay the legal and medical fees for protesters under arrest. The fund ceased operations last year following an investigation by the national security police. The charge under the Societies Ordinance, a century-old colonial-era law, carries a fine of up to HKD 10,000 (USD1,274) but not jail time. All have pleaded not guilty. Zen's trial comes at a sensitive time for the Vatican, which is preparing to renew a controversial deal with Beijing over the appointment of bishops in China, reported CNN. Under the original deal struck in 2018, the Vatican recognized the legitimacy of seven bishops appointed by the Chinese government. The deal came at a time when China was doubling its crackdown on underground Christian groups as part of leader Xi Jinping's campaign to bring religion under the absolute control of the Communist Party. Zen has openly criticized the deal, calling it an "incredible betrayal" and accusing the Vatican of "giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves." In 2020, the Vatican said the deal was extended for another two years. Zen has long advocated for democracy, human rights and religious freedom. He has joined some of the city's most important protests, from the mass rally against national security legislation in 2003 to the "Umbrella Movement" demanding universal suffrage in 2014. Zen's prosecution is the latest in an ongoing crackdown on Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, which saw the Asian financial hub rocked by street protests throughout much of 2019 in resistance to Beijing's tightening grip. Beijing responded by imposing a controversial national security law in 2020, which critics say has been used to crush the city's opposition movement, overhaul its electoral system, silence its outspoken media and cripple its once-vibrant civil society. Most of Hong Kong's prominent pro-democracy figures have either been thrown in jail or gone into exile, reported CNN. The Hong Kong government has repeatedly denied the national security law is suppressing freedoms. Instead, it insists the law has ended chaos and restored stability to the city. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh) [India], September 26 (ANI): The draconian measures adopted by China to enforce its zero-Covid policy in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases in Tibet has endangered the lives of Tibetans. "The zero-Covid policy is causing more harm than good. The mismanagement of the pandemic outbreak in Tibet only exposes Beijing's failed Covid-policy implementation," read the Central Tibetan Administration press release. Also Read | Rabi Ul Awwal Moon Sighting 2022 Live News Updates: Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia To Look For Rabi al-Awwal Crescent Today. In an attempt to present itself as a role model in curbing the outbreak, China is downright disregarding the safety and security of Tibetans in need of medical assistance and covid care evidenced by the dire lockdown conditions being reported and exposed online by a number of affected Tibetans. Tibetans complained about crowded quarantine facilities, food scarcity, lack of medical supplies and unhygienic living conditions, added the release. Also Read | Outdoor Mask Mandate Fully Lifted in South Korea As New COVID-19 Cases Hit Over 2-Month Low. Some Tibetans said that the condition is worse than a prisoner and another Tibetan was beaten up for protesting against the dire living situation under the Covid lockdown. Tibetans in the COVID regions are being forcibly dragged to be put into isolation centres and their families have to live with the uncertainty of their return and updates in general. The entire world suffered when the pandemic hit but the situation in Tibet could not have gotten worse since it was already in a saddening state. Tibetans in Tibet are stuck in another helpless state where the government is only focusing on carrying out their policy to seem like a capable nation. China publicly reported the first Covid outbreak in Tibet on August 8 this year, with 22 cases of Covid-positive in Lhasa and Ngari. This has been the first official admission of Covid in Tibet after the repeated public announcements of the zero-Covid policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) since early 2020, read the CTA release. Within weeks, at least 3627 people had reportedly tested positive indicating a rapid increase. Strict government-imposed lockdowns were soon enacted in Lhasa, Shigatse, and Ngari after news of positive cases were reported from nearby areas of Nagchu, Chamdo, Lhoka, and Nyingtri. Currently, an estimated 53,076 people reside in isolation centres in the "TAR" alone. Meanwhile, a number of Tibetan areas outside of the "TAR", including Karze and Ngaba in Kham and Amdo provinces respectively, continue to report daily Covid cases resulting in sporadic lockdowns, Chengdu being the worst-hit area in China's Sichuan. Meanwhile, China's propaganda machinery has been actively covering up the situation. China's state media claimed no shortcomings in the implementation of the zero-covid policy during the latest covid outbreak in Tibet, read the release. When the Covid cases escalated, Chinese authorities labelled the BA.2.76 virus as a "foreign import" and misled the public with false claims of high-quality medical services and timely supply of essential commodities. On August 9, the "TAR" Internet Network Information Centre called for "striking hard" on those "spreading pandemic rumours" and warned that "offenders" would be severely dealt with. Several propaganda videos even depicted Chinese Communist Party officials as heroes in their "tough battle against the Covid". (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Islamabad [Pakistan], September 26 (ANI): Pakistan Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Sunday said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has taken notice of audio leaks involving the prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and an inquiry has been initiated. Sanaullah said that the inquiry of leaked audio would involve high-level officials from all agencies. He further said that the inquiry will determine whether the PM's House's security was breached or not, reported ARY News. Also Read | US Losing Air Superiority to China in Pacific Region Amid Beijing's Rapid Fleet Expansion. This statement came after the opposition leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) questioned the security of the Prime Minister's Office saying that the audio leaks show the state of the country's cybersecurity and prove that the ruling coalition came into power to make money, reported Dawn. In the clips which were shared by several PTI leaders, the conversations between Pakistan Muslim League-N Vice President Maryam, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Law Minister Azam Tarar, Sanaullah and former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif were heard. Also Read | PTI Chief Imran Khan Bats for Merit-Based Appointment of Pakistan's New Army Chief. The first clip purportedly features a conversation between PML-N Vice President Maryam and PM Shehbaz about the country's finance minister Miftah Ismail, who has reportedly faced criticism from within the party for taking tough economic measures, reported Dawn. The PML-N vice president has publicly stated that she does not agree with the decision to hike petrol and electricity prices, saying she did not own such decisions, whether her party was in government or not. However, the minister said that there is nothing to be embarrassed about after the audio leaks, reported ARY News. In the clip, one can be heard advising Sharif to not import a plant from India as the step will harm the reputation of the government. "The problem is that that matter will first go to AC and then to the cabinet and importing machinery from India on the instructions of the Prime Minister won't be easy as it can become an issue," the official could be heard replying to a PM. A day earlier, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry shared a two-minute-long clip on his Twitter handle, claiming that it shows the PM is putting his family's business interests before the state's. In an over a two-minute audio recording, a voice -- said to be that of Shehbaz Sharif -- can be heard saying that Maryam Nawaz Sharif had asked him to facilitate her son-in-law Raheel for the import of machinery for a power plant from India, reported Dawn. "If we do so, we will get a lot of flak when this matter goes to the ECC and cabinet," the official can be heard saying in the audio clip, as per Dawn. At this, Prime Minister's alleged voice can be heard saying: "The son-in-law is very dear to Maryam Nawaz. Tell her very logically about this and then I will talk to her." The same voice also agrees with the perception that this would be bad for optics and may cause political trouble, according to the Dawn. Notably, Maryam Nawaz's daughter Mehrunnisa married industrialist Chaudhry Munir's son Raheel in December 2015. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Geneva [Switzerland], September 26 (ANI): A large number of Pashtuns participated in a protest outside the United Nations to raise the human rights violations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The demonstration was organised by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) during the ongoing 51st session of the UN Human Rights Council. The participants, including the Afghan Pashtuns, raised slogans decrying Pakistan for supporting terror groups and carrying out atrocities on the Pashtuns. Also Read | Pakistan Security Breach: PM Shehbaz Sharif's House Audio Recording Leaks Trigger Political Uproar in the Country. "The issues of Baloch, Pashtuns and Sindhis which are arising due to Punjabi domination in Pakistan will be raised at the United Nations. The representatives of PTM are forcibly disappeared and extra-judicially killed. The Pakistan army is helping the Taliban to regain in the region," Malik Barzai, the representative of PTM in Belgium said. Fazal-ur Rehman Afridi, a Pashtun human rights activist said: "Its important to raise awareness among the people, not only in Pakistan but around the world that the Pashtuns are the victims of state-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan is using terrorists for such activities". Also Read | Hong Kong Puts 90-Year-Old Cardinal Joseph Zen on Trial Under National Security Law. The Pashtuns also organised a conference inside the UN where experts and intellectuals make deliberations on the situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The people in Pakistan's Pashtun-dominated areas are facing persecution since Pakistan Army launched so-called war against terrorism. They targeted the innocent Pashtuns, including women and children. A large number of youth disappeared, and the Pakistan Army brutally killed many. The residents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are demanding peace and have rejected terrorism and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who enjoys Islamabad's support. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Moscow, September 26: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday denounced the attack on a Russian school in Izhevsk as "inhuman", according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday. "President Putin deeply mourns the deaths of people, children at a school where there was a terrorist attack by a person, who apparently belongs to a neo-fascist group," Kremlin spokesman said, as quoted by Al Jazeera. Izhevsk School Shooting Video: Gunman Kills Nine Including Five Students and Two Teachers Before Shooting Himself. "The president wishes for the recovery of those injured as a result of this inhuman terrorist attack," he added. An unidentified attacker opened fire in a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk in which at least 13 people were killed including seven children. Russia School Shooting: Six Dead, 20 Others Injured in Izhevsk Shooting (Watch Video). While 21 others including 14 children were injured, TASS reported citing Russian Investigative Committee today. "According to preliminary reports, the crime claimed the lives of 13 people, including six adults and seven young children. Fourteen people and seven kids were wounded," the investigators said. Media reports said a young man reportedly started shooting at the military enlistment office in Irkutsk Region's Ust-Ilimsk. The 25-year-old shooter was immediately detained. A criminal case has been initiated against the suspect who is a resident of Ust-Ilimsk. According to Al Jazeera, school shootings are rare in Russia. In April this year, an armed man opened fire in a kindergarten in Russia's Ulyanovsk region, according to media reports. In May 2021, nine people - including seven children - were killed after a lone teenage gunman opened fire in Russia's southwestern city of Kazan. In 2018, a student at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea killed 20 people before turning his gun on himself, as per Aj Jazeera. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Over half of Japan companies want stable economic ties with China: survey Xinhua) 16:18, September 26, 2022 TOKYO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A recent survey of major Japanese companies showed more than 50 percent believe the economic ties between Japan and China should remain stable, a Japanese media outlet has reported. The survey, published on the Sankei Shimbun website on Aug. 11, showed more than 50 percent Japanese companies believe the economic relations between Japan and China should remain stable, while none said they "should keep a greater distance." September marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. Many Japanese companies said that China is a huge neighboring market that cannot be ignored. In terms of GDP, China overtook Japan to become the second largest economy in the world and the gap between the two countries is widening, the report said. When asked about the ideal state of economic relationship between Japan and China, 34.7 percent of respondents said it "should maintain the status quo as the goal", while 6.8 percent replied "should further expand." About 12.7 percent said it should be slightly expanded. Companies that answered "should further expand" or "should expand slightly" also said "China is deeply integrated into the world economy. It is necessary to develop economic and political relations between Japan and China," according to the survey. Regarding the question of the desired distance of Japan and China in their economic relations, only 2.5 percent said they should maintain a little distance, while none said they "should keep a greater distance." The report pointed out that many companies believe that for Japan, China is "the largest trading partner country", and "without China, an economic superpower, it is unrealistic to build foreign economic relations." (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) Washington, Sep 26 (PTI) America's relationship with Pakistan has "not served" either of the two countries, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Sunday raising questions on the Biden administration's approval of a USD 450-million sustenance package for F-16 fleet. "Very honestly, it's a relationship that has neither ended up serving Pakistan well, nor serving the American interests. So, it is really for the United States today to reflect on what are the merits of this relationship and what do they get by it, Jaishankar said in response to a question during an interaction with the Indian-Americans. Also Read | Morning Bid: Asias FX Doom Loops Latest Tweet by Reuters. Referring to the argument made by the US that F-16 sustenance package is to fight terrorism, he said everybody knows where and against whom F-16 are used. "You're not fooling anybody by saying these things," he said in response to a question. Early this month, the Biden administration approved a USD 450 million F-16 fighter jet fleet sustainment programme to Pakistan, reversing the decision of the previous Trump administration to suspend military aid to Islamabad for providing safe havens for the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. Also Read | US Losing Air Superiority to China in Pacific Region Amid Beijing's Rapid Fleet Expansion. In a notification to the US Congress, the State Department made a determination approving a possible foreign military sale for sustainment and related equipment for an estimated cost of USD 450 million, arguing that this will sustain Islamabad's capability to meet current and future counterterrorism threats by maintaining its F-16 fleet. In a call with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had expressed India's concerns about the F-16 package to Pakistan. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Lucknow, September 26: Nine people were killed when the tractor-trolley in which they were travelling overturned after it lost control and fell into a pond here on Monday, a senior district official said. Around 45 people were travelling in the vehicle which was on their way to a temple for a mundan' ceremony, District Magistrate (Lucknow) Surya Pal Gangwar said. The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) team has been called to assist in the rescue operations, police said. Video: School Bus Rolls Down Slope and Overturns in Mumbais Ambernath, Narrow Escape For Students. On hearing the noise, the locals rushed to the spot and rescued several victims trapped under the vehicle. About 10 injured people were rushed to a nearby hospital, they said, adding efforts are on to identify the deceased. The DM instructed the concerned officials to ensure all possible help to the victims. New Delhi, September 26: After the action taken by the various central investigating agencies against the extremist organisation -- Popular Front of India (PFI), the demand for banning the latter has started growing louder with each passing day. The Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an affiliate of the right wing organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has demanded an immediate ban on the PFI from the Central government after holding a meeting with other nationalist organisations. The RSS Muslim wing has asked the Union government: "If the PFI has become so dangerous, then why is it not being banned at the earliest? Why are the organisation's bank accounts not being frozen yet? Why are its properties not being attached? Why strict action is not being taken against the leaders, office-bearers and representatives of the PFI on the basis of their involvement in violence-related incidents?" Kerala Police Conducts Raids at Houses, Shops Owned by PFI. However, a few days ago the Union government told the Supreme Court that PFI is being banned in several states and it is going to impose a ban on the extremist organisation. After a meeting with other nationalist organisations, Mohammad Afzal and Shahid Akhtar, the National Convenor of Muslim Rashtriya Manch, described PFI as a more dangerous terrorist organisation than SIMI and said that the evidences recovered during the raids conducted by the central investigating agencies are enough proof to ban this organisation. Hence, the government should immediately ban the PFI by taking strictest action against it. PFI Protest Slogan Video: Pune Cops Add Sedition Charge to FIR. The Rashtriya Muslim Manch Media In-charge Shahid Saeed said that all the evidences found against the PFI clearly shows that it is a terrorist organisation which receives funding from foreign countries and slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad' are raised in the rallies conducted by it. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 26, 2022 08:41 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Alan Rickman's diary excerpts give a deeper look into why the actor continued to play Severus Snape in the Harry Potter franchise. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer in 2005 prior to production on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. A fruit merchant with suspected links with the #IslamicState (IS) terror group was arrested in #Karnataka's #Koppal district, police said on Monday. pic.twitter.com/x3WQBN1dDb IANS (@ians_india) September 26, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) Delhi High Court issued a notice of the plea of Delhi Minister Satyender Jain challenging the order of District and Sessions Judge. The Rouse Avenue Court has transferred Jain's bail plea in the ED case to another judge after considering the hearing agency's plea. pic.twitter.com/QRiKubbTRe ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vows to take "decisive action" against unrest erupted since the death of #MahsaAmini detained by morality police in #Iran. EU's foreign policy chief Borrell terms Iran protest crackdown as 'unjustifiable and unacceptable' pic.twitter.com/htIvlEQa5S DD News (@DDNewslive) September 26, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) Malayalam actor Sreenath Bhasi was arrested by Maradu Police after a lady journalist working in an online media complained of being verbally abused during an interview. Since charges are bailable, he is expected to walk out of the Police station after sureties are presented. pic.twitter.com/GCqhZSvpMK IANS (@ians_india) September 26, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) Tamil Nadu cabinet headed by CM MK Stalin today approved the ordinance to ban online gaming in Tamil Nadu. The ordinance will be promulgated after getting the assent of the governor ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) The #Kolkata-headquartered All India Fair Price Shop Dealers' Federation, the biggest association of fair price shop owners in the country, has demanded permission to sell alcoholic beverages through their network of fair price shops or ration shops. pic.twitter.com/T1B58mxneG IANS (@ians_india) September 26, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) The footage also shows demonstrators trying to prevent the police from arresting other protesters. The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) September 25, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) Tropical storm Ian weakened slightly on Sunday afternoon but is expected to gain strength and shift its path west overnight. The tropical storm, which was some 495 miles southeast of the western tip of Cuba, had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and was moving west-northwest at 12 mph. The National Hurricane Center forecasted the tropical storm to become a hurricane on Monday and a major hurricane on Tuesday. ABC 11 reported that it slightly slowed down and shifted west on Sunday morning, which could make the storm stronger and bring more elements to North Carolina. As of 5 p.m., dry air ahead of the storm has delayed the strengthening trend. However, rapid intensification is expected to happen on Monday into Tuesday as it travels across the northwestern Caribbean and closes in on western Cuba. The shift in the path of the storm would bring its center of rotation more inland as it pushes north through the U.S., which would allow the storm's wind and rain to blanket more area of North Carolina. Tropical storm Ian is forecasted to weaken slightly before making landfall along the Gulf Coast side of Florida. READ NEXT: Hurricane Agatha Threatens Mexico and Its Tourist Towns Tropical Storm Ian Path Forecasts show that tropical storm Ian could affect the Caribbean islands such as Jamaica and Grand Cayman within the next 24 hours. ABC News reported that the islands were expected to experience heavy rain, possible flooding, and storm surge. By Tuesday night, tropical storm Ian could be starting to hit the Florida keys and the southern parts of the state. The National Hurricane Center has already issued a tropical storm watch for parts of the Florida Keys on Sunday night. Tropical Storm Ian Florida AccuWeather reported that tropical storm Ian could reach Category 4 as it approaches Florida. According to USA Today, it means that the storm has sustained winds between 130 mph and 156 mph. Senior Meteorologist for AccuWeather, Adam Douty, said tropical storm Ian will likely be "a dangerous, major hurricane" in just a matter of few days. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had urged state residents to store food, water, medicine, batteries, and fuel. DeSantis noted that it was too soon to say when or if Ian would make landfall. However, he said evacuations might be ordered in the upcoming days as a measure of caution. The Republican governor has already declared a state of emergency for Florida, covering all 67 counties. He warned that "even if you're not necessarily right in the eye of the path of the storm, there's going to be pretty broad impacts throughout the state." According to the National Hurricane Center, storms like Ian can cause "catastrophic" damage, with power outages that could last weeks or months, and areas can also be uninhabitable for weeks or months. The weather service update said North Florida, the Florida panhandle, and the southeast United States could experience heavy rainfall on "Thursday, Friday and Saturday," with flooding that "can't be ruled out" later this week, particularly in central Florida. Senior hurricane specialist John Cangialosi noted that Florida residents should gather supplies for possible power outages. AccuWeather meteorologists also warned that the storm could impact the Florida west coast, which is an often-missed target. Out of around 160 hurricanes that affected Florida, only 17 had made landfall on the west coast north of the Florida Keys. READ MORE: Winter Storm Update Texas: Will There Be Another Power Outage Amid Dangerous Storm? This article is owned by Latin Post Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Tropical Storm Watches for Portion of Florida as Tropical Storm Ian Sets Sights on Florida - From FOX 13 Tampa Bay Former Virginia Republican Representative Denver Riggleman sat down with "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker and talked about the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building. During the interview, he said the links between the Donald Trump White House and the Capitol insurrectionists "need to be explored more." His biggest bombshell revelation was that the White House switchboard had connected to a January 6 rioter's phone while the riot was happening. Riggleman was a Republican congressman representing Virginia up until 2021. He then worked as an adviser to the January 6 Committee until April. Before that though, he was also a military intelligence officer who knew his way around telecommunications. READ NEXT: January 6 Hearing Day 8 Highlights: From Donald Trump's Inaction to Josh Hawley Running Away From Same Mob He Helped Incite White House Switchboard Connected to January 6 Rioter Was No Accident Says, Denver Riggleman According to Vanity Fair, the former House Republican was asked by Bill Whitaker if the call had been an accident. To this, Denver Riggleman replied: "When the White House just happened to call numbers, that somebody misdialed a rioter that day, on January 6? Probably not." In a clip for the "60 Minutes" interview that will be aired on Sunday night, the former military intelligence officer also said that he already knew who the rioter was. However, he still does not know who in the White House that rioter was talking to. Bill Kristol, who knew about White House communications as former chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle, shared his concerns regarding the revelation. In a tweet, he said: "I placed many calls through the wonderful people at the White House switchboard during an earlier Republican Administration. I'm confident I never asked them to connect me with someone assaulting the U.S. Capitol. But that was a different era and a different Republican party." I placed many calls through the wonderful people at the White House switchboard during an earlier Republican Administration. I'm confident I never asked them to connect me with someone assaulting the U.S. Capitol. But that was a different era and a different Republican party. https://t.co/RkRTWejjDE Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 24, 2022 According to CBS News, Riggleman left the January 6 committee in April, before the committee aired its prime-time hearings. There had been a disagreement between the former congressman and the committee over White House phone numbers, which were always kept secret to protect every administration. Riggleman wrote in a soon-to-be-released book that he begged the January 6 committee to push harder to identify the numbers. January 6 Committee Aware of Connection Between White House Switchboard and Capitol Rioter's Phone After the clip of Denver Riggleman's "60 Minutes" interview was released, January 6 committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told NBC News they were aware of the call. He said they cannot be specific about that particular call, and they have been aware of "lots of contacts between the people in the White House and different people that were involved." The Maryland representative added that the call was one of the thousands they are aware of and explained that their job was to "put everything into a comprehensive portrait and narrative timeline of what took place." Another committee member, Rep. Adam Schiff (D.-California), said the panel has already looked into all of the issues Riggleman has raised. However, he did not offer any further information. READ MORE: January 6 Hearings: Former Aide Says Donald Trump Tried to Join the Crowd, Grab the Steering Wheel From Secret Service Agent This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Riggleman: White House Switchboard Called a Capitol Rioter on January 6 - From 60 Minutes Rep. Liz Cheney has made a commitment to do "whatever it takes" to prevent the 2024 nomination of the GOP for presidential elections to be handed to former U.S. President Donald Trump. Axios reported that the Republican lawmaker made her criticism of the former president during the Texas Tribune Festival, wherein she noted that she will be doing whatever it takes to ensure that Trump "isn't anywhere close to the Oval Office." Cheney added that it surprised her how most about her work on the committee is "how sophisticated the plan was that" Trump was involved in and oversee every step of the way. The Republican lawmaker did not mention if she will run for president in 2024 but noted that it was important to immediately jump into "the horse race" and think about what the country needs. READ NEXT: Donald Trump Would Face 'Jail Time One Way or Another,' Legal Experts Say Amid New Civil Lawsuit Filed by New York Attorney General Rep. Liz Cheney Shunning Away Republican Party Rep. Liz Cheney said that if Donald Trump were to become the party's presidential nominee in, "I won't be a Republican," according to a CNN News report. Cheney noted that she will be campaigning for Democrats to ensure that Republican candidates "who promote election lies" will not be in a position of power. However, the Republican House lawmaker also mentioned that there are several "bad policies" under the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden. Cheney lost against Trump-backed attorney Harriet Hageman last month. Regarding questions about whether she will run as a president in 2024, she previously said that she plans to wait until next year to make any decisions when she is no longer serving as the vice chair of the House's January 6 select committee. Cheney's term will end on Jan. 3, 2023, but has not made any definitive announcements about what is next in her political career. Donald Trump Republican Presidential Nomination Donald Trump has been repeatedly teasing about her next presidential run despite facing numerous legal and political problems. A PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll noted in early September that more than six in 10 Americans do not want Trump to run in 2024. Director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, Lee Miringoff, said Trump's numbers do not move and that "they're locked in." Miringoff said that it can be considered a good thing as his numbers do not drop. However, only about a third of the electorate is in his corner, which is not a "great place" to start an election campaign. Only 28% of independents believe that Trump should be running again for the presidential seat. The former president is currently facing probes and legal challenges, with more recently a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The Department of Justice has also been looking at top secret documents seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence while the U.S. House select committee is looking at the events leading to the riot on January 6. READ MORE: Donald Trump Admits He Didn't Win Presidential Election 2020 During Interview With Presidential Historians This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: 'I won't be a Republican': Liz Cheney if Trump becomes presidential nominee - from CNN A Texas family filed a lawsuit against the city of Fort Worth after Fort Worth Police Department officers pointed a stun gun at them and wrestled the mother and her daughter to the ground, as well as the other daughter filming the incident. The city has now agreed to a settlement and will pay the family $150,000. A white police officer named William Martin pointed a stun gun at Jacqueline Craig and one of her daughters and wrestled them to the ground. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the two were charged with assaulting an officer. However, upon review of Martin's bodycam footage, the charges were later dropped. Meanwhile, the police also arrested Craig's other daughter, who filmed the entire incident and posted it on Facebook. It raised over a million views and accused Fort Worth Police of racism and outcries of police bias against African Americans. A Spat Between Neighbors Leads to an Act of Police Brutality Against a Black Family A report by the Associated Press revealed that the incident started with a spat between Jacqueline Craig and one of her neighbors. Craig alleged that the neighbor grabbed and choked her young son for littering. This led both sides to call the police. However, instead of helping Craig out and settling the dispute, police officers who responded to the scene of the neighborly spat wrestled Craig and her daughter to the ground and arrested them. READ NEXT: 'The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power' Star Ismael Cruz Cordova Is Not Backing Down From Racist Trolls Officer Martin's body camera footage showed that he was arguing with Craig before he pointed a stun gun at her and wrestled her to the ground. Footage from her daughter also showed a similar situation, with Martin pointing the stun gun at the other family members who wanted to confront the neighbor. The incident, which happened in 2016, led to Officer William Martin's suspension in 2017 for violating Fort Worth PD policies. The Craig family then filed a lawsuit against the city for the officer's actions. Officer Martin was only suspended for 10 days, even with the outrage his actions have sparked. Meanwhile, the neighbor was found guilty of misdemeanor assault for choking Craig's then-7-year-old son. Pastor Mediates Settlement Between Craigs and Fort Worth Pastor Michael Bell served as the intermediary between the two parties. He praised the city of Fort Worth for its willingness to work with Craig and the plaintiff for continuing her pursuit of justice with the settlement, despite the trauma she was dealing with and the media scrutiny. He stated that the settlement acknowledged that she matters, that her family matters, and that despite perceived limitations, everyone can get a "fair shake." The city itself admitted no other fault as part of the settlement and added that there are no more other requirements. Mayor Mattie Parker released a statement following the settlement and said that they will remain committed to fostering greater communication and understanding with the needs of Fort Worth. Mayor Pro Tem Gyna Bivens added that she is happy that the Craig family and the city could reach an agreement. The payment for the settlement is now pending approval by the City Council of Fort Worth. READ NEXT: Formula One Legend Nelson Piquet Investigated in Brazil for Racist, Homophobic Slurs Against Lewis Hamilton This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: New Footage Released in the Controversial Police Takedown in Fort Worth - ABC News Two states have announced the distribution schedule for SNAP benefits in October 2022, with California and Texas set to deposit recipients' SNAP benefits to their respective Electronic Benefit Transfer cards. SNAP benefits program is a federal program that helps low-income households or individuals to provide nutritious meals in their homes. Food stamps can be used to procure food at grocery stores and other retailers. Go Banking Rates reported that SNAP benefits program is part of the U.S. Agriculture Department. However, the program is administered at the state level. In addition, each state and U.S. territory has its own monthly schedule for releasing the SNAP benefits to their respective recipients. Different parts of the nation also have their own monthly schedule for when payments are made and deposited into EBT cards instead of food stamps. Some states have different names for the cards they use for the SNAP benefits program. READ NEXT: SNAP Benefits Update: What to Do if Your SNAP Application Is Pending for Over 30 Days Now? SNAP Benefits California California residents who receive SNAP benefits get their benefits every month and are deposited on their CalFresh accounts linked to CalFresh EBT cards. CalFresh benefits are distributed over the first 10 days of each month, with specific dates determined by the last digit of the recipients' case number. SNAP benefits California are deposited on the assigned day, even if it falls on a weekend or holiday, according to another Go Banking Rates report. Those with case number ending in 1 will receive their benefits on October 1, with those ending in 2 will receive theirs on October 2. Meanwhile, case numbers ending in 3 and 4 will receive theirs on October 3 and October 4, respectively. Case numbers ending in 5 and 6 will receive SNAP benefits on October 5 and October 6, respectively. SNAP benefits recipients with case numbers ending in 7 and 8 will have their food stamps deposited into their EBT cards on October 7 and October 8. Those with 9 and 0 ending in case numbers, they will receive their SNAP benefits on October 9 and October 10, respectively. SNAP Benefits Texas Texas has also set a schedule for the distribution of its SNAP benefits, which are administered by the state's Health and Human Services Commission. SNAP benefits are distributed monthly to Texas Lone Star Card accounts, which can be used at any store with a Lone Star Card sign. Go Banking Rates noted that recipients could ask a store employee if they accept the EBT cards. Texas Lone Star Card SNAP benefits distribution has been divided into two separate calendars. Benefits are made available for the first 15 days of the month for SNAP households certified before June 1, 2020. For those who got certified for their SNAP benefits after June 1, 2020, benefits will be made available between October 16 and 28, depending on the last two digits of the EDG number. SNAP benefits can be used to buy fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, bread, cereals, and other non-alcoholic beverages. READ MORE: SNAP Benefits 2022 Update: $301.8 Million Texas Payments Confirmed for July 2022 This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: CalFresh Awareness Month 2022 Kick-off Event - from County of Los Angeles DPSS Case Title: M/s Daiichi Sankyo Company Ltd. vs Oscar Investments Limited and Ors. Date of Order: September 22, 2022 Bench: Honble Justice U.U Lalit Honble Justice Indira Banerjee Honble Justice K.M Joseph Parties: Petitioner- M/s Daiichi Sankyo Company Ltd Respondents- Oscar Investments Limited and Ors SUBJECT A Foreign Arbitral Award was leveled against twenty respondents to be given to Daiichi Sankyo Company Ltd. An apprehension was raised by the petitioner-company that the respondents were clandestinely acting towards making their assets out of the reach of Daiichi company. On analysing this matter the Court went into analysing assurances and submissions made by the respondents and found inconsistencies in information disclosed. Violations of court orders were also found. Thus, this Court sentenced Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh for six months imprisonment and Rs. 5000 fine to be paid. IMPORTANT PROVISIONS Section 2 (b), Contempt of Courts Act,1971- This Section defines civil contempt of court as wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other processes of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court. OVERVIEW The petitioner had initiated action for a Foreign Arbitral Award, at Singapore, against the twenty respondents, which directed them to jointly pay a sum of around Rs. 2562 crores along with pre-award interest and post-award interest of 4.44% and 5.33% rates respectively. All challenges raised against the Award were dismissed both in Singapore and in India. As a result of an objection raised by respondents in the Delhi High Court, two respondents were declared as dismissed as they were minors. Daiichi Private Ltd. Expressed its apprehensions regarding the actions of the respondents with the objective of moving their assets out of the reach of Daiichi.It was accused that the shares of the company Fortis Healthcare Limited held by Fortis Healthcare Private Limited were being sold by the respondents. They submitted an undertaking regarding this, which was recorded by the High Court. The value of shares were disclosed to the Court, and it was assured that they would not be hampered in any manner. In this Special Leave Petition, the order passed by the High Court based on this undertaking is challenged, as no appropriate process was put forward by the High Court regarding securing the assets of respondents. Not only that, this undertaking was the fifth assurance given by the respondents. Previously they had submitted four other assurances before the Delhi High Court, which are as follows: First Assurance: On an apprehension being expressed by the petitioner that the respondents might fritter away their assets from the reach of the company, Daiichi, it was assured by the respondents by means of a letter sent by the senior counsel to the petitioners, that their interests would be protected as far as the total sum under the Arbitral Award was concerned. This assurance was requested not to be recorded in the Court as it would affect the value of shares that the respondents hold in the share market. Second Assurance: The Court had asked the respondents to disclose the value of immovable assets and properties they hold and also of those that have been alienated and encumbered to third parties. This was because reports had appeared in several media that the respondents were disposing of their stakes in subsidiary companies, in a clandestine manner. Therefore, based on a petition filed by the petitioner, this order was passed and respondents sought two weeks time to furnish these information in an affidavit. Third Assurance: As the respondents did not provide with the required information as assured in the second assurance, the Court, by an order dated 6.3.17 clarified that the respondents were to disclose information regarding all unencumbered, moveable and immoveable assets and not merely investments, loans, and advances. The respondents agreed to provide with such information within one week, in this third assurance. Fourth Assurance:In this assurance information demanded by the Court were filed by respondent companies like OIL, RHC,who held major shares in FHL through the subsidiary company FHHPL. Following this, a notice was sent to their shareholders by FHL, which proposed increasing foreign investment in their shares. The petitioner approached the Court to restrict the company from doing so. Thus the Court issued an order restraining the respondent company from making any changes in their shareholding in any manner. While dealing with this SLP, this Court had noted that the main contention of the petitioners was that no order of restraint was passed despite the respondents violating the terms of undertakings filed by them. A contempt petition was also filed by the petitioners, accusing the respondents of violating these terms. The Court disposed of this contempt petition as no such case was made out. The SLP was also to come up into consideration on 23.11.17 and therefore there was no reason to delve into its details at that stage. The interim order of this Court was to be held until the High Court decides on it. The transfer of FHL shares by Indiabulls Ventures Ltd. to IHFL was alleged to be in contempt of previous court orders. On analysing whether these shares were pledged previously, it was found that they were pledged in the disclosure dated 21.8.17. IHFLs stand that they were not pledged was found to be wrong, and its excuse that the company was unaware of the court orders was also proved to be wrong as a mail was sent to the company by RHC informing about this. It was despite this information that the transfer of shares were continued by IHFL. On analysing a chart in which the shares of FHL were disclosed to the Bombay Stock Exchange, it was found that both sets of respondents in the cases in this Court and the Delhi High Court, had violated court orders.There were inconsistencies in the shareholdings of these companies, which were listed down by the Court in this judgement. The interim order issued by this Court was found to have been violated by the respondent companies, and the Court found the excuses put forward by them to be unacceptable and lame. The directors of IHFL and IVL were found guilty of contempt. Considering the actions of Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, they were also found to have violated the Court orders and assurances submitted, several times. It was found that they had no intentions of complying with the Court orders, despite the Court having shown leniency by not filing contempt cases against them in a petition filed by Daiichi company. They had already planned to dilute their shares in FHL and deprive the petitioner of the amounts due to the company. The Court analysed the definitions of contempt of court. No person or institution no matter how powerful can be permitted to misuse the process of the Court. Contempt of court can be committed in various ways. Civil contempt is wilful disobedience of any judgment, decree, direction, or order, or wilful breach of an undertaking given to the Court, while criminal contempt includes anything which scandalizes or tends to scandalize or tends to lower the authority of the Court. It also means any act which prejudices or interferes or tends to interfere with the due course of judicial proceedings. In this case,the respondent companies have not only undermined the authority of the Court, an international arbitral award has been avoided by the respondents by misuse of the legal process. However, the Court took a lenient view and treated it as a case of civil contempt, though it can be considered as criminal contempt. Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh along with other respondents, on having deposited Rs. 1793 crores, as demanded by the Court, were purged of this contempt petition. However, the Court on finding that the respondent companies had entered into financial transactions with seventeen banks, sent notice to them to disclose these information. On analysing information, it was revealed that several shares of FHL had been pledged with these banks, and that most shares put under the head of unencumbered shares, were actually encumbered shares. It was also found that the banks had provided with repeated loan facilities by which Rs. 350 crores was siphoned away. On the basis of Court order demanding documents of clarification regarding these information, the noticee-banks furnished such information, which went into more than 200 volumes. The outline of these submissions was that various loans provided were on the basis of shares pledged as collateral security in favour of the banks, who could sell these shares in the open market if the value of security was diminished. The dates regarding all arbitral and executive proceedings taken towards this were provided. ISSUESRAISED Whether Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh and companies under them had acted towards making their assets out of reach of the Daiichi Company and whether such acts were in contravention to assurances made by them before the court, and would it amount to contempt? Whether the sale of shares by the noticee banks were purely of commercial nature or were they deliberate attempts to go against court orders? Whether the transactions entered into with or by IHH/NTK were bonafide? ARGUMENTS ADVANCED BY THE PETITIONER The respondents implemented a well-planned scheme to evade the Foreign Award they had to pay the petitioner company. They did this by diluting their shares and thus impeding the execution of the Award. Though the submissions before the Court show that there were various properties such as charge on immovable properties, personal undertakings, and other securities pledged as security before the noticee bank, only the shares held by FHL and FHHPL were proceeded against. The dilution of controlling interest in FHL is doubtful and questionable. Acquisition of the same by respondent companies, IHH and NTK shows that the controlling interest now comes under RHC, which does not have authority for the same, except a trust established. The Court was requested to appoint Forensic Auditors to find the truth behind actions of the respondents. In the submissions Daiichi company made in response to the Court enquiry on the roles of judgement debtors, in the previous contempt judgement passed by this Court, the company had explained how these companies, namely MMS and SMS misled the court. These companies in their affidavit had provided with wrong information regarding actions of the noticee banks. They were also accused of misrepresentations of unencumbered shares and so on. The banks were also said to have had committed contemptuous acts hand in hand with the judgement debtors. On the Court order seeking explanations as to these submissions, few banks had replied. By categorising the banks and proposing certain relief with respect to wrongful pledges made by these banks, the petitioner requested for Forensic Auditors be appointed to look into the matter. In a special plea raised, the petitioner also submitted that respondent companies had committed tort of conspiracy and theory of attribution. That is, they had already planned a scheme to evade the Arbitral Award and that the Singh brothers were to be held responsible for the acts committed by companies managed and controlled by them. Submissions were also made by Daiichi company, in response to the written submissions of respondents explaining how all submissions made by them were bona fide. The petitioner also requested the court to make further directions using its contempt jurisdiction as the sanctity and validity of undertakings submitted before this Court and the Delhi High Court were at stake. ARGUMENTS ADVANCED BY THE RESPONDENT On behalf of Malvinder Mohan Singh, it was submitted that the transactions in question were entered into in the normal course of business and that there was no attempt on part of the contemnors to put the assets beyond the reach and control of Daiichi. All actions of the banks and financial institutions were pursuant to the transactions they had entered into even before the assurances/undertakings were submitted at the High Court and this Court. In an attempt to purge himself of contempt, it was also submitted by him that certain properties held by his relations and companies under the control of his group could still be proceeded against. The details of such properties were given in written submissions. Shivendra Mohan Singh submitted that he was not involved in the management of the company and also in negotiations or talks in respect of any of the transactions entered into, which were under question. It was his brother Malvinder Singh, who was responsible for all said transactions. According to the records, a bulk of the shareholding held by FHHPL in FHL was pledged with YES Bank Ltd. (YBL) and Axis Bank Ltd (ABL). In several submissions it was advanced that these transactions were entered into well before the assurances were submitted before the Court. It was also submitted that all allegations of YBL acting alongwith the judgement debtors in order to infringe the rights of the petitioner were not true as there were several recovery proceedings of YBL pending against the debtors. Similar submissions were also made on behalf of ABL. The allegationsagainst IHH/NTK were denied as the transfer of shares under questions were a subscription of fresh shares. The purpose of such a transfer was also clarified through several submissions. Written submissions regarding these events were set out. Thus the allegations that the submissions were not bona fide were also denied. JUDGEMENT ANALYSIS On being given a chance to purge themselves out of contempt, as the respondents have failed to satisfy the amount awarded in favour of Daiichi company, it was held that they were to be held for contempt. In view of the enormity of their actions, the maximum sentence of six months imprisonment was awarded to them. A fine of Rs. 5000 was also imposed. In case of failure to pay this amount, they shall undergo two months more of imprisonment. Regarding the role of notice banks, the Court was unable to come to a conclusion as to whether there were any antecedents that enabled them to keep attaching shares and keep on converting them from encumbered to unencumbered shares. This demanded further analysis on documents and accounts to ascertain the necessity of the shares being sold. As the notice banks were not parties in the initial court proceedings and they have defended that all actions carried out by them were of commercial nature, actions empowered by the contempt jurisdiction of this Court cannot be taken. However, the appointment of Forensic Auditors as suggested by the petitioners could be undertaken. It would help the Court to arrive at an appropriate conclusion. Therefore, no actions were to be taken against the notice banks as of now, however the executing court or any other competent authority shall undertake a forensic audit. A direction in this manner was issued to the High Court. The amount of around Rs. 1793 crores deposited by the respondents in the registry shall be moved to the High Court along with any interest accrued on it. Alongwith this, certain shares lying with the banks, all properties offered by Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh in order to purge themselves of contempt, shall also be transmitted to the High Court. CONCLUSION Thus, the petition was disposed of. The case pending before the High Court shall duly be decided upon. The issue of Arbitral Award shall also be decided upon by the High Court and it shall be open to passing such orders and directions the Court thinks necessary. All pending proceedings before the concerned courts, including the First Information Reports and proceedings before NCLT shall be taken to logical conclusion in accordance with law. The Registry shall send copies of all volumes, submissions and pleadings filed by the parties in the instant matters to the executing court for facility and record. Click here to download the original copy of the judgement Learn the practical aspects of CrPC HERE, CPC HERE, IPC HERE, Evidence Act HERE, Family Laws HERE, DV Act HERE RTEs will be in Laois tomorrow as part of its Budget 2023 coverage tomorrow. The national broadcaster said Eileen Whelan will be getting the latest reaction from various interest groups and members of the public in Waterford and Portarlington. Live coverage of Dail Eireann proceedings across the day including responses from the opposition will be broadcast on the RTE News channel from 1pm. Television coverage of Budget 2023 begins on RTE One at 12.40pm as David McCullagh and Vivienne Traynor present live coverage and analysis of the Budget speech right through the afternoon. There will be reaction from politicians, representative bodies and organisations across the country via RTE's network of regional studios. An extended Six One News will provide a comprehensive look at the Budget, live interviews, and analysis from RTE correspondents along with reaction from politicians. Later in the evening there will be further coverage of budget measures and reaction on the Nine OClock News with Sharon Ni Bheolain followed by an hour-long Prime Time Budget Special at 9.40pm presented by Miriam OCallaghan and Sarah McInerney will feature the first head-to-head debate with the Minister for Finance and Sinn Fein Finance Spokesperson in front of a live studio audience. The impact of Budget 2023 on Ireland's workers, families, business and the vulnerable will be analysed and explained using real life cases. On the morning after the budget, Claire Byrne will be joined in studio by Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath for the annual budget phone in special. As always, Today with Claire Byrne invites listeners to phone in to speak with the Ministers directly and put their own questions to them about their concerns as a result of Budget 2023. The desecration of wreaths and tributes at the site of a Troubles atrocity in Co Down has been condemned. Wreaths, memorial crosses and floral tributes were desecrated at Narrow Water where 18 British soldiers died in an IRA bomb attack in 1979. The incident is being treated by the Police Service of Northern Ireland as a hate crime. Ulster Unionist councillor David Taylor said the constant targeting of the memorial needs to stop. Once again, those driven by hate have taken the opportunity to cause further hurt and trauma to the loved ones of the brave soldiers who lost their lives at Narrow Water enough is enough with the constant targeting of this memorial site @uuponline https://t.co/phEaqWM87t David Taylor (@DavidTayloruup) September 25, 2022 Once again those driven by hate have taken the opportunity to cause further hurt and trauma to the loved ones of the brave soldiers who were murdered at Narrow Water in 1979, he said. The constant targeting of this memorial site should stop. Those responsible are of a sick mentality. The families have already endured more pain than most will ever experience in their lives through the loss of their loved ones. Enough is enough. Police are appealing for witnesses after receiving a report of criminal damage at the Narrow Water memorial. We are appealing for information following the removal of wreaths from a memorial at Narrow Water. pic.twitter.com/SiDOaFDiaI Police Newry, Mourne and Down (@PSNINMDown) September 25, 2022 A spokesperson said the report was made to police on Sunday morning but the damage could have happened some time between Saturday at 12pm and Sunday morning. Inspector Paddy Heatley said: This report is being treated as a hate crime and we are investigating. I would urge anyone who witnessed what happened or who has dashcam or other footage to get in touch with us on 101 quoting reference number 683 25/09/22. Irelands ambassador to the UK has stressed the need to find a negotiated solution to the problems surrounding Northern Irelands post-Brexit arrangements. Martin Fraser said he was an optimist about the chances of resolving the issues around the Northern Ireland Protocol but the situation was currently in the words phase and had to move to the actions phase. The UK Government is legislating to effectively tear up parts of the agreement, which sets out how goods flowing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are treated. Mr Fraser, speaking at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, said the protocol was the only way to resolve the problems caused by Brexit. The agreement, signed by then prime minister Boris Johnsons government, effectively keeps Northern Ireland aligned with many EU single market rules to avoid a hard border with Ireland, therefore requiring some checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea. Devolution in the region has been in flux since February when the DUP withdrew its first minister from the governing executive in protest at the economic border created in the Irish Sea by the protocol. Mr Fraser acknowledged there were legitimate concerns but said: How do we solve it? We solve it by negotiating through the issues that are there. From our point of view, from the European Union, we solve it by implementing the protocol that was agreed with the British government, which the British government signed and fought an election, passed through Parliament. We think its the best and only solution. But of course we recognise that people have legitimate issues and we do definitely recognise that the Unionist community in Northern Ireland has legitimate concerns which we have to try and address. But we address them by negotiating. Asked if he was optimistic about the situation, he said: I think we have to solve this problem, I think we can, I think we should. He added: I couldnt have worked on Northern Ireland politics for the best part of 20 years without being optimistic and I think we should all be optimistic. Author and writer Patricia Burke Brogan died on September 5 2022. Splodar Theatre Company, The Glens Centre, Manorhamilton produced her remarkable play, ECLIPSED, on three occasions, most recently in 2019 and a radio version in 2021. This ground-breaking work focuses on life in a Magdalene Laundry and it portrays the sad lives of the women incarcerated there. Patricia Burke Brogan was in the audience on the occasion of our first production. Some members of Splodar company went to visit her prior to our 2019 production. They said, "Though her health was deteriorating then, it was wonderful to see her alive, enquiring eyes and it was a privilege to have met her. We also met her sister Claire Mc Garry, Ballinamore and she attended our 2019 production. In a break in Covid restrictions in 2021 the cast regrouped to make a radio version of Eclipsed." Above: Rebecca Farrell plays Megan in Splodars new play- The Last Prime Minister of Ireland. Now, as Splodar prepare to stage a new play, The Last Prime Minister of Ireland, they remember with fondness and appreciation their meeting with Patricia. May this great woman who has done so much to highlight that dark time in irish history Rest In Peace. To rent or purchase audio recording of Eclipsed visit splodartheatre.com. For information on The Last Prime Minister of Ireland written by Gerry Farrell and directed by Prin Duignan, visit www.theglenscentre.com or call 0719855833. Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric who was seen as the spiritual leader of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, died on Monday, September 26, at the age of 96, according to his official website. He died in the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar, where he had been living in exile following the militarys overthrow of a Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt in 2013. Al-Qaradawi had been tried and sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt. For many years while living in exile, he had a popular talk show on Qatar's Al-Jazeera network and often weighed in on controversial political topics. He supported suicide bombings and other attacks by Palestinians against Israel and also voiced support for the Iraqi insurgency that erupted after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. But he also backed the Muslim Brotherhood's embrace of democratic elections and was a staunch critic of more radical groups, like Islamic State. He had strongly criticized the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, calling on all Muslim nations at the time to prepare to fight the Americans there "if the Iraqis fail to drive them out." "By opening our ports, our airports and our land, we are participating in the war," al-Qaradawi said in a pointed critique of US-allied Arab governments. "We will be cursed by history because we have helped the Americans." Read more Subscribers only Ayyam Sureau: 'The slow and meticulous reorganization of Islam into a militant ideology began in Egypt' Qatar, which hosted him for decades, also hosts American troops and now serves as the forward headquarters of the US militarys Central Command. The Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt nearly a century ago and has branches across the region, played a major role in the 2011 uprisings that rocked the Middle East and rose to power in Egypt's first democratic elections after the overthrow of long-ruling autocrat Hosni Mubarak. But their year-long rule proved extremely divisive, and the military removed the Brotherhood from power in 2013 amid mass protests against them. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates included al-Qaradawi on a list of dozens of organizations and individuals that they sanctioned for alleged terrorism in 2017 as part of a diplomatic dispute with Qatar, which denied the allegations. Read more Subscribers only Egypt remains Gaza's lifeline, for lack of a better option Le Monde with AP File photo Congress leader Ajay Maken, who was in Jaipur along with Mallikarjun Kharge to convene the CLP meeting for deciding the new CM face, on Monday spoke to the media after a high-voltage drama in Rajasthan and said that three members from the Gehlot camp had met them with three proposals, which they did not accept as it raised conflict of interest. Congress leader Ajay Maken, who was in Jaipur along with Mallikarjun Kharge to convene the CLP meeting for deciding the new CM face, on Monday spoke to the media after a high-voltage drama in Rajasthan and said that three members from the Gehlot camp had met them with three proposals, which they did not accept as it raised conflict of interest. Maken, told the mediapersons, said that Shanti Dhariwal, C.P. Joshi and Pratap Khachriyawas, representing the Gehlot group, visited him on Sunday night with three proposals and had said 'a strict no for Sachin pilot as the new CM'. "In their first proposal, they said if you want to pass a resolution that the Congress high command should be allowed to take a final decision, then pass it after October 19. "We told them that this raises conflict of interest, as if Gehlot is elected as the Congress president then this proposal will empower him further after October 19 and there can be no bigger conflict of interest than this. "Secondly, when we told them that we wanted to talk to each of them in person, they said 'we will talk in groups'. We categorically told them that this has been the Congress practice to take feedback from each leader and we will do the same, but they insisted on coming in groups and further insisted that 'you will have to publicly announce this'. "Thirdly, they said that the CM should be picked from the 102 MLAs who were loyal during the rebellion, and not from the Pilot group. "We said that we will have one-on-one interaction with each MLA and then will give feedback to Sonia Gandhi to convey their exact feelings to her. She will talk to Gehlot and then the final decision will be taken. "However, the three of them insisted that these three points should be part of the resolution. We waited for them to return with some suggestions on Sunday night, but they did not come. "Now, we are leaving today and will present the report to Sonia Gandhi," said Maken. The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, which was called on Sunday at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence, was cancelled as more than 90 Congress MLAs loyal to Gehlot threatened to resign, while demanding that the new CM face be picked from their group. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, September 26, condemned an "inhuman terrorist attack" at a school in central Russia, where a gunman opened fire leaving 17 people dead, including 11 children, the Kremlin said. The gunman also wounded 24 people, including 22 children, before shooting himself dead, authorities said. The shooting took place in School No. 88 in Izhevsk, a city 960 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow in the Udmurtia region. Russias Investigative Committee identified the gunman as 34-year-old Artyom Kazantsev, a graduate of the same school, and said he was wearing a black T-shirt bearing "Nazi symbols." No details about his motives have been released. The governor of Udmurtia, Alexander Brechalov, said the gunman was registered as a patient at a psychiatric facility. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the shooting as "a terrorist act" and said Mr. Putin has given all the necessary orders to the relevant authorities. "President Putin deeply mourns deaths of people and children in the school, where a terrorist act took place," Mr. Peskov told reporters. The school has been evacuated and the area around it has been cordoned off, the governor said. Russia's National Guard said Mr. Kazantsev used two non-lethal handguns adapted to fire real bullets. The guns were not registered with the authorities. A criminal probe into the incident has been launched on charges of multiple murder and illegal possession of firearms. 'Nazi symbols and a balaclava' The attack was the latest in a series of school shootings that have shaken Russia in recent years and came with the country on edge over efforts to mobilize tens of thousands of men to fight in Ukraine. According to investigators, the shooter "was wearing a black top with Nazi symbols and a balaclava" and was not carrying any ID. The shooter, described as "mentally ill", was later found dead, with officials saying he had shot himself. The attack came just hours after a man had opened fire and severely wounded a recruitment officer at an enlistment center in Siberia. Russia's last major school shooting was in April, when an armed man opened fire in a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk region, leaving a teacher and two children dead. Read more Subscribers only Fear, anger and resignation at Moscow's military recruitment offices Blame on foreign influence Mass shootings at schools and universities in Russia were rare until 2021, when the country was rocked by two separate killing sprees in the central Russian cities of Kazan and Perm that spurred lawmakers to tighten laws regulating access to guns. In September 2021, a student dressed in black tactical clothing and helmet armed with a hunting rifle swept through Perm State University buildings killing six people, mostly women, and injuring two dozen others. The gunman resisted arrest and was shot by law enforcement as he was apprehended and moved to a medical facility for treatment. It was the second such attack that year, after a 19-year-old former student shot dead nine people at his old school in Kazan in May. Investigators said that the gunman suffered from a brain disorder, but was deemed fit to receive a license for the semi-automatic shotgun that he used. On the day of that attack, Mr. Putin called for a review of gun control laws and the age to acquire hunting rifles was increased from 18 to 21 and medical checks were strengthened. Authorities have blamed foreign influence for previous school shootings, saying young Russians have been exposed online and on television to similar attacks in the United States and elsewhere. Other high-profile shooting cases have taken place in Russia's army, putting the issue of hazing in the spotlight in the country where military service is compulsory for men aged between 18 and 27. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback In November 2020, a 20-year-old soldier killed three fellow servicemen at a military base near the city of Voronezh. In a similar attack in 2019, a young recruit shot dead eight servicemen, saying he faced bullying and harassment in the army. Read more Uvalde, Texas school board fires police chief after mass shooting Le Monde with AP and AFP LIMERICK councillors are aggrieved after a planning inspectors recommendation to introduce a financial contribution by Aughinish Alumina to the local area was overlooked. Elected representatives in the Adare-Rathkeale Municipal District discussed the omission, following An Bord Pleanala's (ABP) final approval of expansion plans for Aughinish Alumina, in Foynes. Earlier this month, the West Limerick plant received approval to expand the capacity for two of its by-products, bauxite residue and salt cake, by raising the heights they are stored at. The company, which employs 482 people, operates Europes largest alumina refinery and in its application last year, stated that it would cease operations by 2030 if unsuccessful in its expansion. As part of the planning approval, we had made a collective recommendation that there would be a contribution made to a community fund, Cllr Adam Teskey (FG) said at this months meeting. He informed that the planning inspector in his reference to ABP stated that the company should be made to contribute to the local community and local council in terms of enhancing the area. ABP failed to include it in their final approval, and I want to know if there is anything we can do to have the planning inspectors opinion upheld and kept within it, Cllr Teskey questioned. Caroline Curley, Director of Housing with Limerick City and County Council said that decisions made by the national planning body can only be challenged on point of law to the High Court. They regularly would deviate from planners and inspectors reports. Sometimes they can add items or take them out. I would say that is gone, from that point of view, she stated. She stipulated that there would be nothing prohibiting the company then as a goodwill gesture if they so wished, to develop some form of a community fund. Cllr Teskey reiterated that there was a willingness expressed by the West Limerick aluminum plant to contribute to enhancing the area, which was acknowledged by councillors in the planning process. I want us to write to Aughinish Alumina to state that in respect to the granting of their expansion, would they contribute in agreement as previously discussed, adding some funding to a community fund on a once-off annual basis, he said. Cllr Kevin Sheahan (FF) asked that the contribution be distributed to the applicants of community projects in the surrounding area. The amendment was seconded by Cllr Teskey. Thinking of travelling to sunny Australia on a 417 WORKING/HOLIDAY VISA? Travelling to Australia is such an exciting experience, a must-do for anyone with the travel bug, and having us as a free of charge travel buddy is a bonus! 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Our expert team and partners throughout Australia will put you in immediate contact with the best construction and civil companies in Australia. The huge demand for young vibrant people with all qualifications (lads and ladies) is unprecedented. At Adare Recruitment Services we pride ourselves on recruiting and retaining a strong workforce, giving you the enjoyment of a steady job, whilst being on the trip of a lifetime! So what are you waiting for? Forward your CV to: info@adarerecruitment.ie pack your bag, and we will do the rest!! https://adarerecruitment.ie/ 2 min read . Updated: 26 Sep 2022, 04:56 PM IST David Wainer, The Wall Street Journal Manufacturers are facing patent expirations and price pressure, but investors wont make them pay for those problems just yet Indian government bond yields ended higher on Monday as traders braced for another aggressive rate hike from the Reserve Bank of India later in the week, even as the benchmark bond yield dipped amid short covering from traders. The benchmark Indian 10-year government bond yield ended at 7.3781%, after closing at a two-month high of 7.3926% on Friday. It had risen to 7.4173% earlier in the day and has jumped 16 basis points in the last two sessions through Friday. Even as sentiment remains cautious, traders covered short positions in the 2032 note, pushing down the yield as it has lower issuance. "Globally, everything has turned bearish and we cannot remain immune for long," said Vijay Sharma, senior executive vice president at PNB Gilts. "We expect the central bank to go for another 50 basis points hike this week." The Reserve Bank of India's policy decision is due on Friday, with 26 of 51 economists in a Reuters poll predicting a 50 basis-point hike, taking the repo rate to 5.90%. Another 20 predicted a 35 bps increase. Societe Generale also expects the RBI to hike rates by 50 bps and while it expects pricing pressure to ease next year, assuming the exogenous shocks to inflation fade, "it remains a big elephant in the room." India's inflation rose to 7% in August and has stayed above the central bank's upper tolerance level for eight straight months to August. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury yield curve inversion continued to deepen, with yields also reacting to British government debt that jumped after the new government unleashed historic tax cuts and the biggest rise in borrowing since 1972 to pay for them. The 10-year U.S. yield jumped above 3.80% on Friday, its highest level in more than 12 years, while the two-year yield continued to trade near 15-year highs. Last week, the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates by 75 bps for the third consecutive time and Chairman Jerome Powell said central bank officials are "strongly resolved" to bringing down inflation. This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. The selloff in U.K. financial markets accelerated on investors worries that the countrys largest tax cuts in decades would spark higher inflation and put government finances at risk. The southwest monsoon is likely to retreat from the national capital and its neighboring areas by the coming weekend, said weather forecasters as quoted by the news agency PTI. They informed that an anti-cyclone will be established over southwest Rajasthan after 24 hours. Following this, the northwest winds will commence in Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi which will lead to a drop in moisture content in the atmosphere, they added. Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet Weather said, "The conditions will become favorable for further withdrawal of the monsoon in the next two three days. We expect the monsoon to retreat from Delhi by September 30 - October 1." Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the line of withdrawal of the southwest monsoon passes through Khajuwala, Bikaner, Jodhpur, and Naliya at present. In Delhi, the incessant rainfall from September 21 to 24 helped the national capital cover a large rain deficit that had piled up over the last one-and-a-half-month. The rainfall recorded at the Safdarjung Observatory, Delhi's primary weather station, swung from a 49% deficit on September 21 to a surplus of 39% on September 24. In September so far, the capital has recorded 164.5 mm of precipitation against a normal of 118.2 mm. On average, the city gauges 125.1 mm of rainfall in September. The incessant rains between on Wednesday and Saturday also brought down the overall deficit in the monsoon season. Delhi's overall rain deficit in the monsoon season dropped from 35% (till September 22) to 17% by Sunday morning. The maximum temperature in the nation's capital fell sharply, settling at 27.2 degrees Celsius, seven degrees below normal on Saturday. The IMD had also earlier issued a "yellow alert" for Saturday as well, warning of moderate rain in most parts of Delhi, with heavy rain in a few places. (With PTI inputs) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday took a dig at the mainstream US media including The Washington Post, for their 'biased' coverage of India. He was addressing a gathering of Indian-Americans from across the country amidst laughter and applause. "There are some newspapers, you know, exactly, what they are going to write including one on this own," said Jaishankar as quoted by news agency PTI. Responding to a question on the increase in anti-Indian forces in this country, he said, "There are biases, efforts really to determine...Look, the more India goes its way and the people who believe that they were the custodians and the shapers of India lose ground in India the more actually, some of these debaters gonna come outside." He asserted that such groups are 'not winning in India', rather 'will try and win outside or try and shape India from outside'. "This is something which we need to be aware of. It is important to contest. It isn't because most Americans will not know what sort of the nuances and the complexities of back home, so, it's important not to sit back, not to let other people define me. That is something which I feel as a community is very important for us," he added. The minister was further asked about the misrepresentation of the Kashmir issue in the United States. "If there is a terrorist incident, if does not matter what faith the person who's killed belongs to," he replied. "How often do you hear people talking about it; pronouncing it, in fact, look at the media coverage. What does the media cover what does the media not cover?," the External Affairs Minister asked. He underlined that this is how opinions and perceptions are shaped. The minister further cited an example of Article 370 issue and said, "What was a temporary provision of the Constitution was finally put to rest this was supposed to be an act of majority. This was supposed to be majoritarian. Tell me what was happening in Kashmir was not majoritarian? I think the way facts are slanted, things are laid out. What is right, and what is wrong is confusing. This is actually politics at work." "I honestly believe that if you look at the whole 370 the Jammu and Kashmir situation, to me it's mind boggling. Something whose merits were so obvious, should actually there even be people who would think different way," Jaishankar added. (With PTI inputs) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took a sharp dig at the US deciding to send the F-16 fighter jet fleet sustainment programme to Pakistan earlier this month. Attacking the US argument that it was sending the F-16 fighter jet for Pakistan to meet current and future counterterrorism threats, he said 'you are not fooling anybody by saying these things' The EAM who is on a 10-day visit to the US was interacting with the Indian diaspora when he was asked a question about the India-US relationship and the US deciding to sell the F-16 aircraft to Pakistan. Talking about the US-Pakistan relationship he said "Very honestly, it's a relationship that has neither ended up serving Pakistan well, nor serving the American interests. So, it is really for the United States today to reflect on what are the merits of this relationship and what do they get by it," Adding further he said, "It's really for the United States today to reflect on the merits of this relationship and what they get by it," Taking a sharp look at the way the US-Pakistan relationship has evolved in recent years he said, If I were to speak to an American policy-maker, I would really make the case (that) look what you are doing forget about us it's actually not good for you, look at the last 3 years on where this relationship has gone and what cost you have paid" On F-16 aircraft he said, "For someone to say I am doing this because it is all counter-terrorism content and so when you are talking of an aircraft like a capability of an F-16 where everybody knows, you know where they are deployed and their use. You are not fooling anybody by saying these things," Earlier this month, the US government led by President Joe Biden decided to overturn the decision of his predecessor Donald Trump to suspend military aid to Pakistan in lieu of it providing safe havens for the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network. Biden administration, however, approved a $450 million F-16 fighter jet fleet sustainment programme for Pakistan arguing that it would sustain Islamabad's capability to meet current and future counterterrorism threats by maintaining the F-16 fleet. Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had earlier expressed India's concerns over the US decision to provide sustenance package for Pakistan's F-16 fleet. Earlier, the EAM addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday(Local time) and met with UN Security Council Secretary-General Antonio Guterres along with other world leaders. On the Washington leg of his visit, EAM is expected to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken along with other prominent members of the Biden Administration. Winterthur: Build your own satellite ground station As part of a move to reach out to the Maker community Switzerland's national amateur radio society USKA is holding a build your own satellite ground station workshop A translation of the USKA post reads: On Saturday October 8 we invite you to a new workshop: During World Space Week 2022 we will build our own low-cost LoRa satellite ground stations together, and then we will test them together. The workshop will be held at the same time as a World Space Week campaign with Makerspace Esslingen eV. The project is based on ground station developed by Alberto Nunez and described on Hackaday.com With this ground station you become part of the TinyGS community and a network of over 1,000 open-source stations that receive LoRa signals from various satellites. You can find the TinyGS community on Telegram at https://t.me/joinchat/DmYSElZahiJGwHX6jCzB3Q More information and registration here https://fablabwinti.ch/kurse/diverse-kurse/tinygs-satellitenstation/ Willi HB9AMC, source: HB9W Source USKA https://tinyurl.com/IARU-Switzerland Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah's two-day visit to Gujarat starts from Monday where he will participate in a host of programmes including a farmers' conference in Ahmedabad. On the first day on 26 September, he will attend six programs. These include the launch of various programs and the foundation stone laying besides the Kisan Sammelan. "Shah will stay in Gujarat on September 26 and 27 where he will take part in a host of programmes," a government release said. At first Amit Shah will inaugurate the overbridge built by Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority near Science City on SP Ring Road in Bhadaj circle of Ahmedabad at around 9.45 am. After this, he will inaugurate the primary health center at Virochannagar and the Milan Kendra-Samaj Wadi built by the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority. As the Navratri starts from Monday onwards Shah will then offer prayers at the mythological temple of Meldi Mataji located in Virochanagar which falls under his parliamentary constituency and there, he will lay the foundation stone of a hospital to be built by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation at Sanand, Ahmedabad at around 11.45 am. Farmers from Shah's Gandhinagar parliamentary constituency are organising the "Rin Sweekar Sammelan" (gratitude acceptance conference) to express gratitude for providing irrigation facilities in 164 villages, the release said. "Farmers had been demanding irrigation water supply for a long time. Shah, as the parliamentarian, recommended a permanent solution to the problems of these farmers after which the Gujarat government included 164 villages under the Fatewadi-Kharikat irrigation project," the release added. Before this he was on the Two day visit to Bihar where he spoke extensively about the Left Wing Extremism and Naxalism rooted out by Sahastra Seema Bal. With inputs from PTI Russias invasion of Ukraine will cost the global economy $2.8 trillion in lost output by the end of next yearand even more if a severe winter leads to energy rationing in Europethe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday. Hurricane Ian could be 'something that we haven't seen in our lifetime,' Tampa forecaster says If you do not have a current print subscription to the Lodi News-Sentinel, but want to view unlimited articles for the month, please choose this option. The award winning Lough Ree Access for All social enterprise group in Lanesboro Ballyleague is taking part in a national drive to promote local green spaces, biodiversity and community connections with new funding, secured through the AXA Parks Fund. Access for all with its nationally known wheelchair accessible boat on the Shannon - is one of the selected projects committed to enhancing community connections and environments by improving local infrastructure and amenities along the banks of the Shannon in Lanesboro and nearby, after receiving support from the new AXA Parks Fund, which is promoting green spaces across all 32 counties. People of all ages will have access to a new green space in a project being promoted alongside Roscommon county councils Outdoor recreation plan for the riverside park area in Ballyleague which will not only help improve health and wellbeing but will also seek address the bio-diversity emergency which has seen many flowers, plants, trees and animals in danger, or in some cases disappear. The project will see the introduction of new Irish native trees and shrubs, new bird boxes in the area , a beautiful new willow tunnel and much much more Ciaran Mullooly from Lough Ree Access for All said, We have been working with Roscommon county council on this project for some time but the support of the AXA Parks Fund through The Community Foundation for Ireland is a great help in turning our vision into reality. "We are working with ecologist Isabella Donnelly on the project. Local green spaces are vital assets which should be protected, promoted and supported. Our work now will not only deliver benefits for local people now but will help ensure the survival of our local biodiversity to be enjoyed for generations to come. Over 3000 people a year now visit the park to use the Access for All boat and we hope they will enjoy the changes we are making. This project is one of 84 being undertaken by community groups across Ireland with funding totalling 900,000 from the AXA Parks Fund. Antoinette McDonald, Director of Marketing at AXA said, AXA Parks is about helping local communities to thrive by empowering them with the resources they need to bring projects to life. Small, local groups continue to work tirelessly to deliver meaningful projects in their local communities. The grants announced today will become alive over the coming months as the community projects take shape and will brighten up the countryside for everyone next Spring and Summer. Denise Charlton, Chief Executive of The Community Foundation for Ireland added, AXA Parks is helping enhance and develop green spaces for people of all ages and will be a gathering point for local communities. We are delighted to play an active role in this grants programme, which aligns with our own commitment to Sustainable Futures for all. The AXA Parks Fund hands communities the tools they need to make change in their own areas, centering local expertise and insight in an inspiring range of projects across the island supporting thriving ecosystems and stronger communities. Radio Science 2.0: ham radio activities for kids in Romania An small team of EURAO members from Romania, with the financial support of a local foundation in Buzau City: Fondul Stiintescu , started in April a program dedicated to the children and young people in order to experience applied science with the help of amateur radio. The project aims to create an educational space and apply in practice the phenomena that accompany the interaction between people using radio waves. The final selection of the projects was made by a dedicated jury, made up of specialists in fields related to the Fund's themes, together with a member of the Board of Directors of the Buzau Community Foundation. Read more at: https://www.eurao.org/en/node/1244 Frank Milling has been appointed as the 15th Principal and Warden of Wilsons Hospital School, Multyfarnham. Originally from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, Mr Milling graduated from University College, Cork with a BA in Gaeilge and Geography in 2000, and a Higher Diploma in Education in 2001. He graduated from Ulster University with an M.Ed. (Leadership and Management) in 2012. Mr Milling is now a Doctoral candidate at the Institute of Education in DCU, where he is examining the identity of the post-primary principal in a multi-governance environment. As a teacher, Mr Milling was an NQT Mentor, SSE co-ordinator and Department head. He worked as an Assistant Examiner for the State Examinations Commission and as a Local Facilitator for the Professional Development Service for Teachers. From 2016-2018 he was seconded as a Subject Advisor (Gaeilge) to the Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT), a Department of Education Support Service for schools, where he liaised with the Inspectorate, the NCCA, SEC and the Irish language organisations on a regular basis. Most recently, Mr Milling served as Director of Monaghan Education Centre, catering to the CPD needs of over 160 schools and 1,500 teachers across Cavan and Monaghan. Before this, he was appointed the first external Principal of Blakestown Community School, Dublin 15 and served as the first Deputy Principal of Firhouse ETSS. Mr Milling is an Adjunct Lecturer to PME students in TCD and previously served as Occasional Lecturer to PME students in UCD, and as Associate Lecturer (Leadership) at Ulster University. With specialist leadership and planning expertise, and comprehensive experience of CPD provision, organisational and instructional leadership, Mr Milling has a deep interest in distributed school leadership, planning, curriculum and assessment reform, restorative practice, learner empowerment, student-voice, and the building of communities of practice. Married with two children, Mr Milling's actions have promoted inclusion and the promotion of diversity, working in partnership with students, teachers, parents and the wider community to co-create a school culture based on the principles of compassion, personal responsibility and ambition. Ta gra aige don Ghaeilge agus tapaionn se gach deis i a labhairt ina shaol pearsanta agus proifisiunta. His hobbies and interests include hiking, rugby, landscape photography and horticulture. Wilsons Hospital School welcomes Mr Milling to his new position, which will commence on November 7, 2022. This is an exciting time for Wilsons as Mr Milling seeks to advance on the work of his predecessors in a school with a vibrant and progressive outlook. The entire school community of students, staff, parents and Board members wish Frank every success as he assumes his new role. Res non Verba. After eleven days of mourning the British people laid their monarch, Queen Elizabeth, to rest in a solemn ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Britain's new King Charles, his sons William and Harry and other senior royals followed Queen Elizabeth's coffin through the silent streets of London with the appropriate pageantry associated with the longest serving queen in British history, if not in fact human history. Hundreds of thousands of people crammed into central London to witness a ceremony attended by world leaders, church leaders and royalty from across the globe. Across the globe an estimated four billion people joined them by tuning in to the broadcast of the historic funeral. Among them was Pat Hourican, who sat through the four hour ceremony in his Longford home. For Pat there was a particular poignancy about the day. Pat is an artist who has twice sent work to Buckingham palace. So taken with he image of Britain's Queen Elizabeth meeting Pat OConnell of K O'Connell Fish Merchants at The English Market in Cork City on her State Visit to Ireland in 2011 Pat created a watercolour image of the encounter and sent it on to the Palace. Some months later the artist received a correspondence from the Royal Household thanking him for his artwork. When the Queen celebrated her 90 birthday on April 21 Pat wrote to her again, as his own birthday falls on the same day: Again the Royal Household replied to his letter containing his art. Pat said he felt compelled to paint the picture of the 2011 visit: She was just laughing out loud. The photograph just struck me, it was so natural. I painted the two of them in watercolour and sent it on to the palace. I was surprised when they sent the reply, he told the Leader. Pat was impressed by the late queen: I would have liked to have met her. I though she was not only a wonderful person, but a great world leader. She was a great example to other leaders that come and go, while she stayed the course. School & Education By Chris Boyle Published: September 26 2022 "This commitment to academic excellence will leave a lasting impact on Ward Melville students lives and the community, said Congressman Zeldin. Recently, Ward Melville Senior High School in Setauket, New York, was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Blue Ribbon School for 2022. The National Blue Ribbon Award recognizes schools for their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student groups, demonstrating that all students can achieve to high levels. To date, the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program has bestowed more than 10,000 awards to over 9,000 schools. Crime, Business & Finance By Chris Boyle Published: September 26 2022 Nexo Failed to Register as Required by New York Law and Lied to Investors about Their Registration. New York Attorney General Letitia James today joined seven state securities regulators in suing cryptocurrency companies Nexo Inc. and Nexo Capital Inc. (Nexo), for failing to register with the state as securities and commodities brokers or dealers and for lying to investors about their registration status. Despite warnings from the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to register as a securities and commodities broker or dealer, Nexo failed to register and misrepresented to investors that they are a licensed and registered platform. In New York, entities engaging in the offer, purchase, or sale of securities or commodities, including cryptocurrency platforms, must register with OAG if they are operating within the state or offering their products to New Yorkers. Through her lawsuit, Attorney General James seeks disgorgement of any revenues derived from Nexos unlawful conduct and restitution for investors. Cryptocurrency platforms are not exceptional; they must register to operate just like other investment platforms, said Attorney General James. Nexo violated the law and investors trust by falsely claiming that it is a licensed and registered platform. Nexo must stop its unlawful operations and take necessary action to protect its investors. Todays lawsuit filed in New York County State Supreme Court alleges that Nexo promoted and sold securities in the form of an interest-bearing virtual currency account called the Earn Interest Product with promises of high returns for participating investors, while failing to register as a securities broker or dealer as required by state law. In addition, the lawsuit alleges that Nexo engaged in the unregistered purchase and sale of securities and commodities through its virtual currency trading platform called the Nexo Exchange, and misled investors by falsely representing that it was in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Roughly 10,000 New Yorkers have accounts with Nexo. Attorney General James specifically charges Nexo with violating New Yorks Martin Act and New York Executive Law 63(12). Attorney General James seeks restitution for thousands of defrauded investors, disgorgement of revenues derived from Nexos unlawful conduct, and permanent injunctions against the defendants violations of state law. This matter arises from an investigation conducted in coordination with a working group of state securities regulators. Today, state securities regulators of California, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Washington, and Vermont all filed their own administrative actions against Nexo. Todays filing continues Attorney General James efforts to regulate the cryptocurrency industry and protect New York investors. In August, Attorney General James urged New Yorkers affected by turmoil in cryptocurrency markets including frozen accounts and deceptive conduct to report these issues to OAG. In June, Attorney General James warned New Yorkers of the dangerous risks of investing in cryptocurrencies after the market reached record lows. Also in June, Attorney General James reached a nearly $1 million settlement with crypto platform BlockFi Lending LLC for offering unregistered securities. Earlier this year, Attorney General James issued a taxpayer notice to virtual currency investors and their tax advisors to accurately declare and pay taxes on their virtual investments. In October 2021, Attorney General James directed unregistered crypto lending platforms (including Nexo) to cease operations for not fulfilling their legal obligations. In March 2021, Attorney General James warned New Yorkers of the risks of cryptocurrency investments and reminded investment platforms of their legal obligations. Attorney General James continues to urge New Yorkers who have been affected by deceptive conduct in the virtual assets market to report these issues to OAG. Attorney General James also encourages workers in the cryptocurrency industry who may have witnessed misconduct or fraud to file a whistleblower complaint with her office, which can be done anonymously. This case is being handled by Assistant Attorney General Jesse Devine of the Investor Protection Bureau, with assistance from Legal Assistant Charmaine Blake, also of the Investor Protection Bureau, and Detective Investigator Brian Metz of the Investigations Division. The Investor Protection Bureau is led by Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe and Acting Deputy Bureau Chief Ken Haim, and is a part of the Division for Economic Justice, which is led by Chief Deputy Attorney General Chris DAngelo and overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy. Crime By Chris Boyle Published: September 26 2022 Defendant Participated in a Multi-Million Dollar Market Manipulation Scheme Involving Four Publicly Traded Companies. On Friday, September 23, in federal court in Brooklyn, Craig Josephberg, a former registered broker who worked at multiple brokerage firms in New York, New York, was sentenced by United States District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano to 36 months imprisonment, to be followed by three years supervised release, for orchestrating a multi-million-dollar market manipulation scheme. Josephberg was also ordered to pay more than $16 million in restitution and $706,052 in forfeiture. Josephberg pleaded guilty to the charges set forth in a superseding indictment in March 2018, including two counts of securities and wire fraud conspiracy, two counts of securities fraud, and one count of wire fraud relating to his manipulation of stocks of multiple microcap or penny stocks, including the stock of CodeSmart Holding, Inc. (CodeSmart), Cubed, Inc. (Cubed), and others, (collectively the Manipulated Public Companies). Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the sentence. Josephberg abused his position as a registered broker to victimize both his customers and the investing public through an expansive fraud scheme to manipulate the stock price of multiple companies for his own financial benefit, stated United States Attorney Peace. This prosecution and sentence shows that licensed professionals will be held to account when they deceive their customers and harm investors. Mr. Peace expressed his thanks to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Regional Office, for their invaluable efforts in the case. The evidence at the trial of his co-conspirator Abraxas Discala established that Josephberg and his co-defendants participated in two schemes to manipulate the stock price of CodeSmart and Cubed as part of an overarching conspiracy to commit securities, mail and wire fraud with respect to the Manipulated Public Companies. Josephbergs co-defendant Abraxas Discala purported to raise capital for private start-up companies and offered to take them public through reverse mergers with public shell companies in exchange for obtaining control of a large portion of the free trading or unrestricted stock. Josephberg, Discala and their co-conspirators, including co-defendants Ira Shapiro, Marc Wexler, Matthew Bell, Victor Azrak, Darren Goodrich, Darren Ofsink and Michael Morris, then artificially inflated that stock through manipulative trading and promotional campaigns, generating large profits for themselves at the expense of unwitting investors. Josephberg, a registered investment advisor, sold inflated shares in the Manipulated Public Companies to his clients, ultimately leaving them with worthless shares while he made approximately $700,000 in trading profits, as well as additional commission income. The CodeSmart Scheme In early May 2013, Discala and his co-conspirators engineered a reverse merger of CodeSmart, a private company, with a shell public company. After gaining control of CodeSmarts unrestricted shares, Discala and his co-conspirators on two occasions, fraudulently inflated CodeSmarts share price and trading volume and then sold the unrestricted CodeSmart stock at a profit when the share price reached desirable levels. Shapiro, the Chief Executive Officer of CodeSmart, issued numerous press releases, including press releases with false information to facilitate inflating CodeSmarts stock price. The defendants fraudulently manipulated CodeSmarts stock price from $1.77 to a high of $6.94 on July 12, 2013, leading to an inflated market capitalization of over $85 million. The co-conspirators, including Josephberg, profited by selling CodeSmart stock, issued to them at pennies, to their clients and customers. On some occasions, Josephberg had his customers buy CodeSmart shares without his customers knowledge and consent. Additionally, Josephberg sold CodeSmart shares in his personal trading accounts at the same time that he purchased CodeSmart stock in his customers accounts. Josephberg, Discala, Wexler, Bell, Ofsink and Morris made more than $6 million in illicit trading profits from the CodeSmart scheme, and the co-conspirators caused more than $12.5 million in losses to approximately 900 CodeSmart investors who purchased the publicly traded stock. The Cubed Scheme In March 2014, Discala and his co-conspirators took Cubed public through an asset purchase agreement by a shell public company. After gaining control of all of Cubeds unrestricted shares, between April 22, 2014 and April 30, 2014, Discala and his co-defendants, including Josephberg, Wexler, Bell, Goodrich and Azrak, fraudulently created trading volume in Cubed stock by purchasing more than 50% of the total number of Cubed shares purchased during this period. The defendants also were able to successfully control the price and volume of Cubeds stock. Josephberg both purchased and placed bids on Cubed stock at specific prices to help manipulate the stock price and create the appearance of false demand. On June 23, 2014, Cubed reached its highest closing price of $6.75 per share, resulting in a market capitalization of approximately $200 million. Investors who bought publicly traded Cubed stock lost over $400,000. In addition, Cubed was able to raise over $2 million in a private offering of stock to investors who were deceived by how Cubed stock was performing in the market. Discala and Wexler also made over $1 million worth of illegal private sales of Cubed stock to over three dozen investors. Discala and his co-conspirators caused more than $4 million in total losses to approximately 100 Cubed investors. Discala, who was convicted after a trial, was previously sentenced to 138 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $16,346,023 in restitution. The remaining convicted defendants entered guilty pleas. Shapiro was previously sentenced to 21 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $12,557,553 in restitution, Goodrich was previously sentenced to 41-months imprisonment and ordered to pay $479,007.05 in restitution, and Morris was sentenced 6 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $112,575. 35 in resitution. Wexler, Bell, Azrak, and Ofsink are awaiting sentencing. In July 2022, Mr. Peace was selected as the Chairperson of the White Collar Fraud subcommittee for the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC). As the leader of the subcommittee, Mr. Peace will play a key role in making recommendations to the AGAC to facilitate the prevention, investigation and prosecution of various financially motivated, non-violent crimes including mail and wire fraud, bank fraud, health care fraud, tax fraud, securities and commodities fraud, and identity theft. Community, Charity & Cause By Chris Boyle Published: September 26 2022 The first wave of 50 Troopers, along with 69 New Jersey State Troopers, flew out of JFK airport at about 10 a.m. this morning. State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen and Commissioner Jackie Bray of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services today announced that a contingent of 50 State Troopers left this morning for Puerto Rico to help the island nation as it recovers from the devastation left behind in the wake of Hurricane Fiona. The first wave of 50 Troopers, along with 69 New Jersey State Troopers, flew out of JFK airport at about 10 a.m. this morning bound for Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The flight was donated by Jet Blue Airlines. State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen said, New York State Troopers have always answered the call for assistance wherever its needed, from Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to our first assistance mission in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Our Troopers will be on the ground assisting our partners with the Puerto Rico Police Department with public safety and recovery efforts as long as necessary. Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Jackie Bray said, We are grateful to the team of State Troopers deploying to Puerto Rico to help keep the public safe in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona. As New Yorkers, we are always available to support others in their times of need. DHSES and our state agency partners stand ready to assist with additional requests, as we are committed to helping Puerto Rico recover from the devastating impacts of this hurricane. "As New Yorks hometown airline and the largest air carrieer in Puerto Rico, we are pleased to fly state troopers from New York and New Jersey to San Juan so they may provide much needed assistance on the island," said Joanna Geraghty, president and cheif operating officer of JetBlue. "Working with our government and our other partners in New York and Puerto Rico, we will conitnue to provide support to our crew members, customers, and the community. The 50 NYS Troopers that departed this morning will be assisting the Puerto Rico Police Department with traffic control and other law enforcement missions as needed, primarily in Aguadilla and Arecibo. A second group of 50 Troopers will also be deployed in the coming weeks. Crime By Chris Boyle Published: September 26 2022 Zeeshan Naeem, 36, of North Babylon, NY, was pronounced dead at the scene. On Saturday, September 24, 2022, just after 5:00 am, the State Police received calls for a vehicle crash on the Southern State Parkway eastbound west of exit 15A in the town of Hempstead, Nassau County. Driver Zeeshan Naeem, 36, of North Babylon, NY, was driving a 2011 Ford Mustang eastbound on the Southern State Parkway, west of exit 15A when he rear ended a 2018 Mercedes Benz operated by Bestrim Asllani, 37 of Jamaica, NY. The collision caused Naeems vehicle to leave the roadway onto the right shoulder where it overturned and struck a tree. This collision also caused Asllanis vehicle to leave the roadway onto the right shoulder where it struck a tree. Naeem was pronounced dead at the scene and Asllani was transported to Winthrop Hospital with non-life-threating injuries. LX9S Jamboree On The Air LX9S will be on the air from Luxembourg as part of the 65th Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) on October 14-16 A translation of an SSA post reads: As you all know, the JOTA 2022 will take place next month. This is the opportunity to present our hobby to a large public. Here in Luxembourg we are once again representing the WOSM, the World Scouts Office Europe. The call sign is again LX9S and we are not alone in this task. Radio amateurs from the Netherlands, Switzerland, France will travel to Luxembourg City. I think we will have around 20-25 radio amateurs present, 2-3 IT staff, 6 kitchen staff and 4 scout leaders. Preparations are in full swing I just wanted to let you guys know and the LX9S Team 2022 will do whatever it takes to put on a good show again. Hi. Watch LX9S JOTA-JOTI preview 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI2H-O9KOFQc Source SSA https://tinyurl.com/IARU-Sweden (Alliance News) - Beowulf Mining PLC announced on Monday that its Finnish subsidiary, Grafintec Oy, has agreed to work with Qingdao Hensen Graphite Ltd to build an anode materials hub in Vaasa, Finland. Both companies have signed a memorandum of understanding, and submitted a joint proposal to the City of Vaasa last week to establish a production facility in the GigaVaasa area. The previous memorandum for the area was terminated, as Grafintec and Epsilon Advanced Materials Private Ltd are no longer partners. Grafintec is focused on leveraging Finland's natural resources and targeting net zero CO2 emissions across the supply chain. It was granted EUR791,000 in funding by Business Finland last year to develop sustainable technological solutions for use in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery anodes. Hensen has been producing graphite-based anode materials since 2003 and has plans to increase production to 50,000 tonnes per annum in 2023 from current levels of 10,000. Kurt Budge, Chief Executive Officer of Beowulf, expressed enthusiasm for combining his company's resources with Hensen's "knowledge and experience in the graphite industry" and Grafintec's "strong position in the anode space of the Finnish battery cluster". Beowulf shares were trading at 4.25 pence in London on Monday afternoon, down by 5.9%. By Holly Beveridge; hollybeveridge@alliancenews.com Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. (Alliance News) - Liverpool Victoria Financial Services Ltd, a life insurance and retirement investment firm that trades as LV=, on Monday said it has hired David Hynam as its new chief executive. Hynam joined LV= on Monday, replacing Mark Hartigan, whose departure the company announced back in July and who will leave this coming Friday. Hynam has 30 years experience in retail financial services, LV= noted, including as CEO of heath insurance provider Bupa's UK and Global markets. Hynam also was UK CEO of Friends Life and and oversaw the UK and Ireland operations of French insurer AXA SA. "I look forward to introducing David at our [annual general meeting] in October, as his appointment marks a new era for LV=," said Chair Simon Moore. "At the AGM, I will also give an unprecedented address directly to our members so that they are the first to hear about the steps David and I are taking to demonstrate that transparency and fairness will be at the heart of our mutual business going forward." Hartigan stepped down after a failed attempt to sell LV= to a US private equity firm Bain Capital. LV= members voted against the deal back in December. Previous LV= chair Alan Cooke also departed, replaced by Moore. By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Carnival PLC - Miami, Florida-based cruise line - Welcomes the decision from Transport Canada to remove all Covid-19 requirements to enter the country. Says Princess Cruises is now "prepared to welcome all guests on cruises visiting, arriving or departing from Canadian ports". Lifted restrictions also apply to its Canada/New England voyages and Alaska cruises. "We applaud these decisions by Transport Canada to make visiting the country easier and more convenient for all guests sailing our popular Alaska and Canada/New England itineraries, and look forward to welcoming everyone on our incredible Alaska and Canadian cruises," says John Padgett, president of Princess Cruises. Current stock price: 716.20 pence 12-month change: down 60% By Heather Rydings; heatherrydings@alliancenews.com Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. (Alliance News) - Gemfields Group Ltd on Monday said it expects its profit to more than double due to robust demand for coloured gemstones, including emeralds and rubies. The London-headquartered gemstones supplier said its net profit after tax is likely to surge to USD56.7 million, or ZAR864.0 million, for the six months that ended June 30, up from USD23.8 million, or ZAR346.0 million, in the prior year. Earnings per share is seen leaping to 3.0 US cents from 2.0 cents. Headline earnings per share, which includes Sedibelo's fair value loss, is expected to rise to 3.0 cents from 2.0 cents. Gemfields' two key operating assets, Montepuez Ruby Mine and Kagem Emerald Mine, generated revenue of USD95.6 million and USD85.2 million, respectively, up sharply from USD58.9 million and USD31.2 million. "2022 saw the group return to its normal auction schedule of two emerald auctions and one ruby auction in the first half of the year," the company said. "Following on from the strong auction results in the second half of 2021, the auctions held in the first half of 2022 saw a continuation of the robust demand for coloured gemstones with record auction revenues and per carat prices being realised." Faberge recorded revenue of USD9.5 million, higher from USD4.9 million, driven by stronger wholesale sales and the sale of the 'Faberge X Game of Thrones' egg for USD2.2 million. Less positively, a review of Gemfields' shareholding in Sedibelo Resources Ltd, previously known as Sedibelo Platinum Mines Ltd, has resulted in a fair value write down of USD4.2 million to USD33.0 million. The write down of the asset reflects the uncertainty in the market putting downward pressure on the enterprise values of Sedibelo and its peer group. The company's interim financial results are expected to be released on Thursday. Gemfields shares were down 0.3% to 19.19 pence in London early Monday. They were flat at ZAR3.60 in Johannesburg. By Artwell Dlamini; artwelldlamini@alliancenews.com Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. (Alliance News) - Thor Mining PLC said that it has begun drilling at the Wedding Bell and Radium Mountain projects in the Uravan Mineral Belt in south-west Colorado, US. Thor Mining shares were down 16% at 0.50 pence on Monday in London. The Australia-focused exploration and development company announced the start of a 2,000-metre drilling program targeting the prospective 'Salt Wash' horizon of sandstone-hosted uranium and vanadium mineralisation at shallow depths. The drilling is designed to test extensions to high-grade uranium and vanadium mineralisation. Managing Director Nicole Galloway Warland said that the commencement of the project was a "significant milestone" for Thor. In the context of increasing demand for nuclear energy, Galloway argued that "as Uranium prices rise and the US looks to secure domestic uranium supply, Thor is in an excellent position to advance this promising US asset". The company explained that by the standards of historical mining in the Uravan District, the vanadium layer in question is relatively low in uranium content and usually ignored by miners. It said that proposed drilling will test for any lateral continuation of mineralisation to the south, with holes extending down through the stratigraphy "to test for potential stacked mineralisation" in the Salt Wash Sandstone. By Holly Beveridge; hollybeveridge@alliancenews.com Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Britons are now split on whether they would move to Spain and the Balearics in the post Brexit era. According to a Bulletin poll, in which more than 1,000 people voted, 563 people said that they would move to Spain while 44 percent said they wouldnt. The biggest changes to the lives of British expats and new residents are noted below but the fact that Spain doesnt recognise British driving licences in causing many headaches. The result of our poll is significant because for many years the majority of Britons had always said that they would love a new life in Spain. Post Brexit changes Driving licences Many British expats could have to re-take their driving test in Spain to secure a licence because the Spanish authorities no longer recognise British licences for resident Britons. To be honest, the Spanish authorities have introduced "grace periods" when the switch-over could take place, but many missed the deadline, leaving them being unable to drive legally in Spain. The British embassy is working on a deal with Spain which could involve a new "grace" period and a longer term agreement. (NB: the British driving licence ruling only apply to British residents of Spain not tourists). 90 day rule This has hit second home owners hard because, as non-residents of Spain, they can only spend a maximum of 90 days or 180 days a year in two blocks of 90 days. Previously, non-resident holiday home owners would spend long periods at their second homes. It has also led to longer queues at airport immigration desks because British passports are now required to be stamped on arrival and departure to show that they have not been in Spain for more than 90 days. Buying a home There is now more paperwork involved for a British person (non-European Union) buying a house in Spain. In some cases, permission has to be sought from the Spanish military if the house or apartment is in a "strategic area". The new TIE cards replaced the "Green residence certificate" for British citizens living in Spain. Initially, the changeover was quite smooth but now there are reports of long delays. It has been reported that more staff have been recruited at the Foreigners' Department in Spain to ease the backlog. Conclusion Taking all the above into account, there is a need for Spain and Britain to sign a bilateral agreement which would mean that the rights of British citizens in Spain remain the same as when the UK was a member of the European Union. However, some would say that Britain left the European Union knowing (or not) the consequences of the move. While the above is "worst case scenario", Brexit has altered the lives of British citizens living in Spain. The Netherlands booked their spot in the Nations League Finals after defeating Belgium 1-0 at the Johan Cruyff Arena on Sunday. Virgil van Dijk's header in the second half proved the difference, as the Oranje maintained their unbeaten record since Louis van Gaal's return. As for Belgium, who needed to win by three goals or more, the defeat saw their run of 49 consecutive matches with a goal come to an end as well. Although both teams entered with a chance of topping Group A4, the opening 45 minutes proved to be rather flat. Kevin De Bruyne of Belgium MAURICE VAN STEEN EFE Belgium threatened early on with Michy Batshuayi firing a low, first-time effort that Remko Pasveer easily handled. Denzel Dumfries had the home side's best chance on the half hour, but he hooked his left footed strike high over the bar. As a result the two teams headed into the break level, with Belgium needing to do much more if they had any hopes of topping Group 4. Belgium opened up the second half by pinning the Dutch deep, but nevertheless, they couldn't turn that into any sort of clear cut chances until the 67th minute. Amadou Onana side-footed a Kevin De Bruyne pass towards the far post, only for Pasveer to deny him with a wonderful one-handed save. Eden Hazard (front) of Belgium in action with Dutch player Steven Bergwijn Koen van Weel EFE The save seemed to spark the Dutch, who woke up from their lull and opened the scoring. Cody Gakpo's inswinging corner found Virgil van Dijk, who's header flew into the bottom left corner. The header all but secured Netherlands' spot in the Final Four, but there was still time for one last chance for Belgium. Leandro Trossard's cross from the left found fellow substitute Dodi Lukebakio, but his spectacular overhead kick came thumping off the upright. Kim Kardashian has her new line out and ready to be had by fashionistas everywhere, and to make a statement, Kim dressed in all leopard print after the Dolce & Gabbana collaboration and showcase in Milan, this past Saturday. At this point, it is unclear if his combination of full leopard print is part of the collection, since she already wore a similar getup back in 2019, and that was concocted by none other than Tunisian fashion designer Azzedine Alaia. The collection will be released until Spring/Summer Her collection will be featured in Dolce & Gabbana's spring/summer rollout, which represents a great deal to Kim since she's dedicated to changing the fashion world. Both Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian were there to support Kim, along with some of the Kardashian's kids, and obviously, the cameras were pointed at them most of the time that the runway was empty. It was a 90s and 200s show Kim Kardashian addressed the experience "I always loved the beautiful, quintessential 90s & 2000s looks... feminine, bold, they always made me feel so confident & glamorous. You could feel the moment you put on a D & G dress that the intention when it was designed & made was to celebrate the woman wearing it." Kim Kardashian curated the whole show Kim also mentioned the process which took months to make the selection of what actually would work in the runway, so she had to curate the whole show. "Not only did the D & G team allow me to curate the collection they also trusted me & my team to create all of the content, the short film, music & creative direction of the show, working alongside their incredible team. This process really allowed me to express my creativity without limitations." Interview: Granddaughter of former Japanese PM sees bright future in Japan-China relations Xinhua) 16:21, September 26, 2022 TOKYO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- "I firmly believe that the future of Japan-China relations is bright," said Mitsuko Watanabe, granddaughter of former Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira. "The normalization of Japan-China diplomatic relations has not come easily. I hope the two countries can continue to maintain their friendship in the future," said Watanabe in a recent interview with Xinhua. On Sept. 25, 1972, despite pressure and opposition at home, the then Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited Beijing with officials including then Foreign Minister Ohira for the negotiation on the normalization of the Japan-China diplomatic relations. The Chinese and Japanese governments on Sept. 29, 1972 issued a joint statement on normalizing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Watanabe, only a 10-year-old girl five decades ago, still remembered the morning of that Sept. 25. "I was in the last car in the convoy to see off the delegation. On the capital's highways red-flashing police department patrol cars were silently clearing the way. The image of the motorcade quietly driving to Haneda Airport is still imprinted in my mind like a movie scene." "Before the delegation left for China, there were daily demonstrations by opposition forces. One day, more than 1,000 right-wingers clashed with riot police in my neighborhood. The usually quiet residential area suddenly became noisy," Watanabe recalled. "I peeked out of the closed windows, terrified." Normalizing ties with China was a long-standing political aspiration of Ohira, which is linked to the two countries' historical bond and his personal experience in China's mainland as a young man. In 1939, Ohira was relocated for work to China's Zhangjiakou city. For about a year and a half, he visited many parts of China and witnessed the brutality of the Japanese army, which brought him the idea of making atonement for Japan's sins, Watanabe said, adding it was also at that time Ohira realized that Japan and China would have to work relentlessly to achieve harmonious co-existence. After becoming Japanese prime minister, Ohira supported Japan's official development assistance to China, promoted the training of Japanese language teachers for China, and vigorously advanced cultural exchanges between the two countries. "In 1992, I accompanied my parents in a trip to Beijing to attend the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China. It was my first visit to China, and I was warmly received," Watanabe said, adding that when her late grandfather was awarded the China Reform Friendship Medal in 2018, she went to Beijing to receive the award wearing her grandmother's kimono decorated with peace doves. "I was deeply moved as I truly felt the respect for my grandfather in China," said Watanabe. Watanabe has been determined to be devoted to Japan-China exchanges since her childhood. After becoming a television producer, she rolled out a lot of major television programs related to China. Also serving as the vice chairman of the Japan-China Film Festival Executive Committee, Watanabe often participates in exchange activities between the Japanese and Chinese cultural and artistic sectors, which, according to her, have kept her life "to the fullest." "I was recently invited to a Japan-China student conference initiated by young people, and found that the youth from both countries showed much respect for each other's culture," Watanabe told Xinhua. "It is up to us as adults to create an environment for sustainable dialogue and exchanges between the young people of the two countries, who shoulder the future of their nations," Watanabe added. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) The U.S. Coast Guard on Friday brought in a much larger floating crane to remove the Alert, one of two vessels that sank near the Interstate 5 Bridge. The former World War II submarine chaser should be lifted and moved to the shipyard within three days. While the process of lifting and moving the Alert and the sunken towboat Sakarissa is complex and expensive, nearly $3.25 million, there's a plan for Oregon's government to have a much better way to prevent boats from becoming derelict. The Oregon legislature will consider the new plans in the next session, which might lead to also removing the roughly 250 other abandoned derelict boats in the Columbia and Willamette rivers. "I'm so grateful we got to a solution here," said Capt. Scott Jackson, commander of Coast Guard Sector Columbia River. Removal Beginning at about 7 a.m. Saturday, the D.B. Pacific Lifter ship, the largest crane barge on the West Coast, will begin lifting the Alert, which sunk in November. Diving crews already threaded chains underneath the hull of the vessel, and the crane will lift the ship up slowly while crews observe to see if the hull is holding together. If the ship doesn't start collapsing and tearing open, it will be either patched up so it can float, or it will be placed on a floating dry dock and taken to Diversified Marine where any oily water left in the ship will be removed. The Pacific Lifter ship is contracted to work on the site for three days. The Oregon Department of State Lands will then retake control of the two ships and scrap them. If the Alert starts tearing open during lifting this weekend, the Coast Guard will stop and reassess its options. One possibility is to remove as much contaminated water and trash in the boats and then cut the ship open while it's still in the water. The Coast Guard had to do that recently with another sunken ship in Astoria called Tourist No. 2. The Sakarissa was lifted by a smaller floating crane barge and removed by the Coast Guard earlier this week. It is now at Diversified Marine being cleaned of contaminants. Watery conundrum The historic Sakarissa and Alert ships were planned to be restored and turned into museum exhibits by Harvey Walter James, but he could not raise enough money for the fix-ups. James died sometime in the last few years, but details about the former owner are sparse. Both ships had homeless people living on and in them. The Coast Guard saw evidence that someone had cut holes in the pipes and the hull, causing both ships to sink within the past year. The Oregon Department of State Lands, which owns the land underneath the sunken ships, officially seized control of both boats after they sunk. The agency was aware of the boats and the homeless people living on them, but there isn't a state program to coordinate the removal of abandoned ships until they've sunk and caused a greater issue, said Bill Ryan, Deputy Director for Operations at The Oregon Department of State Lands. Ryan said that local law enforcement was reluctant to remove the homeless people living on the ships, further delaying the removal. Once the ships sunk, the removal process became easier for both the Oregon Department of State Lands and the U.S. Coast Guard, said Ryan. That might change with a new push to have a system to better prevent and also remove the other derelict boats in Oregon, mostly in the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. Ryan said he wants Oregon to replicate some of Washington's vessel oversight programs. He wants Oregon to have the ability to better register boats, enforce insurance requirements for boats and track who owns them. Washington has a law that the seller and buyer of a boat must have insurance. A draft of a bill is being analyzed by the Oregon State Governor's office now, he said. "If people have an old boat, and they want to get rid of it, they can sell it to someone for a dollar," he said. "If you're driving your car down the street and you leave it on the side of the street, it would take police a short time to know whose it is." A rough estimate to remove all the 350 or so abandon or derelict vessels in Oregon could cost $40 million, Ryan said. The Oregon Department of State Lands is next month going to consider ending overnight camping on the stretch of Hayden Island beach near the sunken ships where there has been an increase in homeless camping. There are still signs of campfires and encampments near the sunken ships. The U.S. Air Force Academy is pushing back after recent reports accusing it of overly "woke" policies that bar cadets from using "gender-specific terms" such as Mom or Dad, boyfriend or girlfriend. An informational slide on "inclusive language," included as part of a recent employee diversity seminar, was intended to demonstrate how "respect for others should be used to build inclusive teams." "It is the diversity of Airmen and Guardians coming from all corners of our nation who perform the Department of the Air Force's hundreds of critical mission sets that make us the best, most innovative Air and Space Forces the world has ever known," according to a statement from the Academy. Rep. Mike Waltz, a Green Beret and Afghan War veteran who represents Florida's 6th Congressional District, was among those who called out the academy for hosting a diversity and inclusion summit that struck him as anything but. "It's been a tradition in the military to get letters from Mom and Dad or your boyfriend and girlfriend for as long as there's been a military," he told Fox News Digital. "Now we're instructing every cadet entering the Air Force to not say Mom and Dad, to not say boyfriend or girlfriend. ... I think the Air Force should be worried about the macro-aggressions against America that are happening all over the world." Air Force Academy officials say that's simply not what's happening, and that the wording on the slide in the employee seminar was taken out of context. "The Air Force Academy does not prohibit the use of 'Mom and Dad' or other gender-specific terms," according to the academy. "The slide in question was not intended to stand alone." The slide on "inclusive language" was meant to "demonstrate how respect for others should be used to build inclusive teams" and ultimately build better offensive and defensive units, said the Air Force Academy. "Until you know a person's situation," it counsels, "we should not make assumptions about them." The words it used to make such a point "began their evolution long before the current conversation took roots," it said. According to the academy, discussions about updating the policy began with cadet leaders and academy staff who wanted to "introduce all cadets to Department of the Air Force definitions of diversity and inclusion, as well as how these concepts enhance our warfighting effectiveness." "USAFA develops leaders of character that can lead diverse teams of Airmen and Guardians inclusively, to enhance innovation and win future conflict," said the academy. "It is the diversity of Airmen and Guardians coming from all corners of our nation who perform the Department of the Air Force's hundreds of critical mission sets that make us the best, most innovative Air and Space Forces the world has ever known." UNITED NATIONS (AP) Russia made its case to the world Saturday for its war in Ukraine, repeating a series of grievances about its neighbor and the West to tell the U.N. General Assembly meeting of leaders that Moscow had no choice but to take military action. After days of denunciations of Russia at the prominent diplomatic gathering, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sought to shift the focus to Washington. His speech centered on a claim that the United States and its allies not Russia, as the West maintains are aggressively undermining the international system that the U.N. represents. Invoking history ranging from the U.S. war in Iraq in the early 2000s to the 20th-century Cold War to a 19th-century U.S. policy that essentially proclaimed American influence over the Western Hemisphere, Lavrov portrayed the U.S. as a bully that tries to afford itself the sacred right to act with impunity wherever and wherever they want and can't accept a world where others also advance their national interests. The United States and allies want to stop the march of history, he maintained. The U.S. and Ukraine didn't retort at the assembly on Saturday but can still offer formal responses later in the meeting. Both countries' presidents have already given their own speeches describing Russia as a dangerous aggressor that must be stopped. Lavrov, for his part, accused the West of aiming to destroy and fracture Russia" in order to remove from the global map a geopolitical entity that has become all too independent. The Ukraine war has largely dominated the discussion at the assembly's big annual meeting, and many countries have laid into Russia for its Feb. 24 invasion denouncing its nuclear threats, alleging it has committed atrocities and war crimes, and lambasting its decision to mobilize call up some of its reserves even as the assembly met. Neither partial mobilization, nuclear saber-rattling, nor any other escalation will deter us from supporting Ukraine, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde declared Saturday. Russia does have some friends in the sprawling chamber, and one Belarus offered a full-throated defense Saturday of its big neighbor. Echoing Russia's talking points, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said it was precisely the West that made this conflict inevitable in Ukraine. The speeches came amid voting in Russian-occupied parts of eastern and southern Ukraine on whether to join Russia. Moscow characterizes the referendums as self-determination, but Kyiv and its Western allies view them as Kremlin-orchestrated shams with a foregone conclusion. Some observers think the expected outcome could serve as a pretext for Russian President Vladimir Putin eventually to escalate the war further. We can expect President Putin will claim any Ukrainian effort to liberate this land as an attack on so-called Russian territory," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. Lavrov dismissed the complaints as the West throwing a fit about people making a choice on where they feel they belong. Russia has offered a number of explanations for what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine. Lavrov recapped a couple: risks to Russia from what it considers a hostile government in Kyiv and a NATO alliance that has expanded eastward over the years and relieving Russians living in Ukraine especially its eastern region of the Donbas of what Moscow views as the Ukrainian governments oppression. The incapacity of Western countries to negotiate and the continued war by the Kyiv regime against their own people left us with no choice but to recognize the two regions that make up the Donbas as independent and then to send troops in, Lavrov said. The aim was to remove the threats against our security, which NATO has been consistently creating in Ukraine, he explained. While Ukraine has recently driven Russian troops from some areas in the northeast, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this week warned the assembly that he believes Moscow wants to spend the winter getting ready for a new offensive, or at least preparing fortifications while mobilizing more troops. Regardless, he declared that his forces will ultimately oust Russian troops from all of Ukraine. We can do it with the force of arms. But we need time, said Zelenskyy, the only leader who was allowed to address the assembly by video this year. The war has disrupted the trade of Ukrainian and Russian grain and Russian fertilizer, touching off a global food crisis. A deal recently brokered by the U.N. and Turkey has helped get Ukrainian grain moving, but fertilizer shipments have proved more difficult. At a news conference after his speech, Lavrov said he discussed problems with the deal at a meeting this week with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Although international sanctions against Russia did not target food and fertilizer exports, shipping and insurance companies and banks have been loath to deal with Moscow and the Kremlin has frequently pointed to that in alleging that Western sanctions have exacerbated the crisis. Lavrov told reporters Saturday that Russia wants fertilizer stuck in European ports to be given to needy countries quickly. At the Security Council on Thursday, Ukraine and Russia faced off, in a rare moment when Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, were in the same room though they kept their distance. The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in March to deplore Russias aggression against Ukraine, call for immediate withdrawal of all Russian forces, and urge protection for millions of civilians. The next month, members agreed by a smaller margin to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. The Army is in the midst of a historic recruiting slump, but the active-duty soldiers who do get into the uniform want to stay. The service has surpassed more than 100% of its retention goals every year since 2017, including new numbers for 2022, according to internal data reviewed by Military.com, meaning more active-duty soldiers are sticking around than the service intended. "Some soldiers really love it for themselves. Some people love it for their families," Sgt. Maj. Tobey Whitney, the Army's senior career counselor, told Military.com in an interview. "There's so many factors that come into play on why a soldier stays, but we're definitely seeing that. For soldiers who actually decide to join the Army, the vast majority of them stay." Read Next: From Yale to Jail: Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes' Path Army planners aim to keep tens of thousands of soldiers from leaving when their contracts are set to expire each year. That number ranges, but typically stays between 50,000 and 60,000. This year, the service convinced 58,000 soldiers to extend their service time, meeting 104% of its retention goal. The Army offers a handful of major incentives to keep soldiers on board, the main one being retention bonuses. About 45% of soldiers who extend their contracts get those bonuses, the average of which was $14,000 this year. In rare cases, those bonuses can be up to $81,000, but that money is usually reserved for highly technical jobs covering only a relatively small number of soldiers. Troops coming up on the end of their contract sometimes also have room to negotiate their duty station or job. "Some people want to just stay where they're at," Whitney said. "We offer them the opportunity to stabilize there for up to 30 months. So now, for the next 30 months, if you reenlist, you will be guaranteed to stay at your duty station, so that you can stabilize your family or if you're going to school, whatever the situation may be. And this is the largest incentive that we see people taking is a different duty station or a different [job]." The top reason soldiers want to continue their Army career is retirement pay, which soldiers typically can earn after 20 years of service, according to a 2021 service study. Generally, a soldier is most likely to leave after their first contract, which is usually four years and when a soldier is typically on the cusp of being promoted into a leadership role as a non-commissioned officer. After that, a soldier becomes less and less likely to leave the service as they get closer to that 20-year mark. Soldiers are also often motivated to continue their career for benefits, such as health care. Some troops leave simply because Army life wasn't for them or they had a poor experience, but one major concern among service leadership is the competition with the civilian workforce, especially for soldiers in technical jobs. The Army has often invested heavily in training those troops, but the skill sets they've developed are highly desirable to outside employers. But even in jobs, such as combat arms, for which the training pipeline and barrier to entry is less complicated, job opportunities can still lure soldiers. "There are a lot of other government agencies that are really targeting those folks to go work in law enforcement, fire departments or the FBI, for example," Whitney said. "We're competing against other governmental agencies, because we have the people that have the talent and the skills and they have a proven record of being able to perform at a high level, and so those people are very sought after." The biggest reason soldiers leave, according to the 2021 study, is the effect service has on their families and their lack of predictability in Army life. Service leaders have made some adjustments, such as a quality-of-life improvements for families, including extended leave in the wake of miscarriages and new rules that aim to make pumping breast milk easier while on duty. Yet the service continues to struggle with issues such as rampant mold infestations in its barracks and family housing. The Army is also coming off two decades of the post-9/11 wars, and while deployments are less frequent, units are still constantly rotating into Europe, Africa and the Pacific, in addition to long-term training exercises at home such as at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. With what is effectively a peacetime Army, it is unclear how that will impact retention. Combat deployments are sometimes seen as a way to build camaraderie in units. Some recruits, especially in combat arms roles, join specifically for the chance to fight. On the flip side, combat deployments cause a lot of stress on families and can quickly burn some soldiers out. "It probably averages out," Whitney said about whether a lack of a war makes retention easier or more difficult. While the Army has been successful with retention, the active component of the Army is expected to be short as many as 15,000 new recruits this year due to a mixture of issues, such as the majority of young Americans being too overweight to serve or unable to pass the service's academic entrance exam. High retention paired with trouble recruiting for years at a time could create a top-heavy Army, with too many soldiers in leadership roles and not enough new privates to fill in the ranks, although service leaders have yet to sound the alarm about such a possibility. While the active-duty component is having no issue retaining its troops, the National Guard is bleeding out soldiers on multiple fronts -- with soldiers swiftly heading for the exit while an additional 40,000 are set to be discharged for refusing to be inoculated against COVID-19. The Guard could see itself short tens of thousands of soldiers by 2025. This year, the Guard will miss its retention goal by about 4,800 soldiers, or about 14%. That grim number might be one of the first signs that the extensive use of the Guard during the pandemic, with units on near constant domestic missions running from protecting the Capitol after the insurrection to missions far outside its typical Rolodex, including substitute teaching and bus driving, is taking a toll. -- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon. Related: The National Guard Is Having a Nightmarish Time Keeping Soldiers and Recruiting New Ones The curtain is closing for a research institute and advocacy group that spearheaded the effort to repeal Pentagon policies that barred LGBTQ troops from serving openly in the U.S. military. After 24 years of research and more than 65 studies, the Palm Center -- an independent organization with roots at the University of California Santa Barbara -- will close its doors Sept. 30 with the departure of its director Aaron Belkin, who also serves as a political science professor at San Francisco State University. The Palm Center was instrumental in researching and publicizing the service of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender military personnel under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a Defense Department policy instituted in 1994 by the Clinton administration that sought to protect LGBTQ service members from prosecution and harassment but also prohibited them from enlisting or disclosing their sexual orientation if they already were in the military. Read Next: The Army is Having No Issue Retaining Soldiers, Amid a Crisis Recruiting New Ones The center exposed that the Defense Department deployed gay troops to combat, only to fire them on return, and uncovered data on the firings of nearly two dozen Arabic linguists for their sexuality in the early 2000s -- a period when the military services were short of needed interpreters. The center rallied more than 100 retired generals and flag officers in 2008 to sign a statement against Don't Ask, Don't Tell, saying it affected military readiness. And it sought to upend the medical arguments that prohibited transgender troops from serving, leading to the dismantling of the policy that prevented them from enlisting or pursuing gender affirmation medical care. During an interview with Military.com, Belkin cited the lifting of the ban under the Obama administration in 2016 of transgender service members serving openly and receiving medical support as one of the Palm Center's greatest victories. "It was clear when we started working on the trans ban in 2013, opponents were going to rally around the idea that transgender individuals were not medically fit. So, we had to dismantle that argument in order for the repeal campaign to work," Belkin said. Belkin established the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military -- the research institute that would later become the Palm Center -- in 1998 at the University of California-Santa Barbara. At the time, there was little data on the number of U.S. troops and veterans who identified as gay or lesbian and little understanding of their contributions to the military services. "Few organizations figured out how to move the needle on military opinion so effectively as the Palm Center," former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said in a statement Monday. "Its research and policy guidance were invaluable in showing that inclusive service was not complicated and would not harm readiness. The Palm Center reframed the national conversation." Belkin said that although the center is closing, other organizations, such as GLAAD and the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles, will continue the advocacy and research efforts, while a "range of fierce litigators" will continue to defend the rights of LGBTQ service members. And, Belkin added, there is more work to do. Belkin would like the Defense Department to establish an advisory board similar to Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services for LGBTQ members and believes that DoD should give non-binary service members the chance to check a box in the military's human resources management system, known as the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System other than "male" or female." He'd like to see intersex individuals -- those born with male and female biological traits -- be allowed to serve. And he thinks more needs to be done to cement trangender troops' service, as indicated by the decision in 2018 by President Donald Trump to bar individuals with gender dysphoria -- a diagnosis often given transgender individuals with mental health issues related to their sexuality -- from serving. President Joe Biden repealed that policy five days after taking office in 2021. "Future administrations will reinstate or try to reinstate transgender bans, and so the inclusive policy needs to be inoculated as much as possible," Belkin said. A Defense Department study published in 2020 found that roughly two-thirds of active-duty soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines supported transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military. Just seven years before, only 20 countries in the entire world allowed transgender troops to serve, not including the United States. To drive such change, Belkin said, it's important to forge connections and find common ground. "Before our work, there had been such a disconnect between the LGBT community and the Pentagon and so much animosity," Belkin said. "The military should be proud of its inclusive policy, not just for the obvious reasons that inclusion helps readiness, helps service members pursue the mission better. There's a deeper reason that has to do with democracy and evidence and truth. I think most military leaders would acknowledge that military policy doesn't work when facts are ignored." -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime Related: Milley: No Problem with Transgender Troops if They Meet Standards The Navy simulated a spill response exercise Thursday in preparation for draining approximately 1 million gallons of fuel from its Red Hill pipeline system. The Navy hopes to drain the pipes in October under a that still needs to be approved by the state Department of Health. The major defueling of the facility is not expected to begin until 2024, when the Navy plans to begin draining 104 million gallons from 14 tanks. The Department of Defense said in a news release that Thursday's exercise was "the culmination of weeks of training, coordination and scaled exercises " that included representatives from DOH, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard. "Demonstrating that our personnel have the ability to quickly and appropriately respond to a release or spill at Red Hill is crucial in our continued effort to safely and expeditiously defuel the facility, " Rear Adm. Stephen Barnett, commander, Navy Region Hawaii, said in the release. "We remain committed to working closely with our partners in the Department of Health and Environmental Protection Agency to protect our community and our aquifer." The Pentagon announced in March that it would permanently shut down Red Hill after leaks from the fuel facility contaminated the Navy's drinking water system in 2021, sickening residents living in neighborhoods around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. But military officials say defueling the massive, underground tanks likely won't be complete until July 2024. A third-party assessment completed earlier this year found major deficiencies throughout Red Hill's fuel distribution system that need to be fixed in order to safely defuel the tanks. The Navy's proposed timeline for defueling the facility has worried environmentalists and officials with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. They're concerned that additional leaks from the facility could further contaminate the aquifer and southern Oahu's supply of drinking water. Approximately 250,000 gallons of fuel leaked from Red Hill between 1947 and 2014, according to Navy rec ords. In January 2014 another 27,000 gallons of fuel was released, and approximately 19,000 gallons in 2021. Chronic, undetected fuel leaks from the facility have been estimated at 5,800 gallons a year. ___ (c)2022 The Honolulu Star-Advertiser Visit The Honolulu Star-Advertiser at www.staradvertiser.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. SAN DIEGO Navy prosecutors rested their case Friday against the 21-year-old sailor accused of starting the devastating fire on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, just 1,000 feet from where the $1.2 billion warship burned more than two years ago. Seaman Recruit Ryan Sawyer Mays, a 19-year-old deck seaman on the ship at the time of the fire, is charged with aggravated arson and the willful hazarding of a vessel. Mays denies starting the blaze. He faces life in prison if convicted. With no eyewitness to anyone setting the fire, Capt. Jason Jones told the military judge Friday that he and fellow prosecutors had met their burden to proceed with the case in response to a defense motion to find Mays not guilty at this juncture in the trial. Mays had the motive and opportunity to start the fire, Jones said, and circumstantial evidence is still evidence especially in an arson case where the crime scene was destroyed. The Navy's key witness, a sailor on watch on the Bonhomme Richard the day of the fire, testified Thursday he saw Mays walk down a ramp from the upper vehicle storage area where he was on watch to the lower vehicle storage area about 20 minutes before seeing smoke. An investigator from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives testified earlier in the week that the fire was set intentionally in that lower storage area, called the "lower V," just after 8 a.m. that morning. Petty Officer 2nd Class Kenji Velasco, who was also a deck seaman at the time, is the only witness placing Mays at the scene near when investigators say the fire began. He said he saw a person he believes to be Mays, wearing a face mask, hat and "boot camp" coveralls. Velasco said the person was the same build as Mays and that Mays stood out among Deck Department sailors for wearing that type of coverall, as most wore a different, flame-resistant coverall uniform on board. Velasco said the person was carrying a metal bucket with both hands and passed about 7 feet from him. "I love Deck," the person said as he passed, according to Velasco. Velasco said he recognized Mays' voice but wasn't sure Mays was on duty that day. He said on July 13, 2020 the day after the fire he called a Deck Department duty supervisor to find out. During that call he told Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Beau Benson he'd seen someone in boot camp coveralls head into the lower V just before the fire and asked if Mays was on duty. Benson told him yes, Velasco said. Velasco then asked where he'd sent Mays after duty section muster, but Benson couldn't say. Benson also testified and confirmed the conversation took place. He testified he remembered Velasco being "fixated" on one person but did not remember who. Later on the day after the fire, Velasco said, he told Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Matthew Betz about the person he saw the morning of the fire going into the lower V. Velasco said Betz told him Mays wore boot camp coveralls upon hearing that detail. Betz confirmed this conversation took place during his testimony Thursday. Investigators interviewed Velasco several times after the fire. However, he did not give them Mays' name at first and initially told agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service he could not identify the sailor he saw. Lt. Cmdr. Jordi Torres, Mays' lead defense attorney, pushed Velasco to explain why during cross-examination. "Did NCIS pressure you?" Torres asked. "Yes, sir," he replied from the witness stand. "They told you a lot was riding on your testimony?" Torres asked. "Yes, sir," Velasco answered. Velasco told Torres some people on the ship started accusing him of setting the fire. Some began calling him "fire-starter." Asked by Cmdr. Leah O'Brien, a Navy prosecutor, why he didn't name Mays sooner, Velasco said "I just didn't want to mention names or anybody to get in trouble." Benson, Betz and other Bonhomme Richard Deck Department sailors testified Mays made it known on board he was not happy and wanted to get back into the Navy SEAL training pipeline at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL school in Coronado. Prosecutors allege this was Mays' motive in starting the fire that he hated being a deck seaman on a ship and was looking for a way back to BUD/S. The prosecution's theory is that Mays retrieved a flammable substance, such as paint thinner, after duty section muster that morning and carried it into the lower V in a metal bucket. After lighting a large, triple-thick cardboard box on fire, he then left the lower V via a conflagration station ladder that brought him three decks above, where he changed into his camouflage uniform, prosecutors said. Betz testified that just a week and a half before the fire, he showed Mays two conflagration stations in the ship's lower V. NCIS Special Agent Al Porter, who interrogated Mays, said the sailor initially told him the main ramp was the only way in and out of the space but later bragged about "skating off" avoiding work inside the lower V's conflagration stations. Mays also told Porter he lost all his clothes and letters from boot camp in the fire clothes and letters NCIS found in Mays' truck and barracks room, Porter said. Prosecutors wrapped their case Friday afternoon with testimony from two Navy masters-at-arms who were tasked with escorting Mays to the Miramar brig upon his arrest on Aug. 20, 2020. Both testified they heard Mays utter "I'm guilty, I did it," upon learning he was going to the brig. Gary Barthel, a civilian military attorney who previously represented Mays, has been in court for the trial. He said these statements, and others attributed to Mays, are key for the prosecution. "Because this is a circumstantial case, they have to establish guilt somehow," Barthel said Friday after court. Barthel said he thought it odd prosecutors only called one NCIS agent one who left the case early in October 2020 and not the co-supervising agent. Barthel said that agent was involved in NCIS' monthslong pursuit of another suspect they eventually cleared, and that alternative theory will be a big part of Mays' defense. Mays' court martial resumes at Naval Base San Diego on Monday morning, when the defense will put on its witnesses. 2022 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. SEOUL, South Korea North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile Sunday toward its eastern seas, extending a provocative streak in weapons testing as a U.S. aircraft carrier visits South Korea for joint military exercises in response to the Norths growing nuclear threat. South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile launched from the western inland town of Taechon flew 600 kilometers (370 miles) cross-country on a maximum altitude of 60 kilometers (37 miles) before landing in waters off North Koreas eastern coast. South Koreas presidential office said National Security Director Kim Sung-han called an emergency National Security Council meeting where members denounced the launch as a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and accused the North of raising tensions in the region. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the launch did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies, but still highlighted the destabilizing impact of North Korea's illicit nuclear weapons and missile programs. The launch came as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group arrived in South Korea for the two countries joint military exercises that aim to show their strength against growing North Korean threats. South Koreas Foreign Ministry said its nuclear envoy Kim Gunn held telephone calls with Sung Kim, U.S. President Joe Bidens special representative for North Korea, and Funakoshi Takehiro, director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs at Japans Foreign Ministry, to discuss trilateral cooperation in face of North Korean threats. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a statement Tokyo is doing its utmost to gather information on North Koreas launch and confirm the safety of ships and aircraft, although there were no immediate reports of damages. The North Korean threat is also expected to be a key agenda when U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visits South Korea next week after attending the state funeral in Tokyo of slain former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. North Korea has dialed up its testing activities to a record pace in 2022, testing more than 30 ballistic weapons, including its first intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017. North Korea is exploiting a divide in the United Nations Security Council that deepened over Russias war on Ukraine to speed up arms development. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has punctuated his weapons tests with repeated threats that the North would proactively use its nuclear weapons when threatened, increasing security concerns for its conventionally armed rival South Korea. The flight details announced by Seouls military suggest that North Korea could have tested a nuclear-capable short-range weapon modeled after Russias Iskander missiles, which travel at relatively low altitudes and are designed to be maneuverable in flight, making them harder to be intercepted by missile defenses. Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said it was notable that the missile flew 600 kilometers (370 miles) from its Taechon launch point roughly the distance to South Korea's southern port Busan, where the Reagan arrived Friday. The Iskander-like missiles are part of a growing arsenal of short-range, solid-fuel systems North Korea has been developing since 2019. The North describes some of those weapons as tactical," which experts say communicate a threat to arm them with small battlefield nukes and proactively use them during conflicts to blunt the stronger conventional forces of South Korea and the United States, which stations about 28,500 troops in the South. North Korea has so far rejected U.S. and South Korean calls to return to nuclear diplomacy, which have been stalled since 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of U.S.-led sanctions against the North and the Norths disarmament steps. The USS Reagans arrival in South Korea came after Kim told Pyongyangs rubber-stamp parliament this month that he would never abandon his nuclear weapons and missiles he needs to counter what he perceives as U.S. hostility. Kim's speech came as North Korean legislators passed a law that enshrined its status as a nuclear power and authorized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios where the country or its leadership comes under threat, spelling out an escalatory nuclear doctrine. Speaking to U.S. and South Korean troops Saturday aboard the Reagan, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said the dispatching of U.S. strategic assets to the region shows unwavering U.S. commitment to defend South Korea. He said the North would be met with an overwhelming response if it attempts to use nuclear weapons, according to a statement by his ministry. Sundays test could soon be followed with a more provocative weapons demonstration as South Korean officials said they detected signs that North Korea was preparing to test a missile system designed to be launched from submarines. The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Saturday that he was briefed on such developments before his flight back home from a visit to Canada. On Wednesday, 38 North, a North Korea-focused website, said its analysis of commercial satellite imagery shows multiple barges and other vessels gathered at the eastern port of Sinpo, where North Korea has a major shipyard building submarines. The report said the North was possibly preparing to launch a new submarine capable of firing ballistic missiles. North Korea has been pushing hard to be able to fire nuclear-armed missiles from submarines. Such weapons in theory would bolster North Koreas deterrent by ensuring retaliation after absorbing a nuclear attack on land. Ballistic missile submarines would also add a new maritime threat to the Norths growing collection of solid-fuel weapons fired from land vehicles, which are being developed with an apparent aim to overwhelm missile defense systems in South Korea and Japan. Still, experts say the heavily sanctioned nation would need considerably more time, resources and major technological improvements to build at least several submarines that could travel quietly in seas and reliably execute strikes. ___ Associated Press writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to the story from Tokyo. The Department of Veterans Affairs is taking steps to secure its facilities as it starts offering abortion services for the first time, VA Secretary Denis McDonough told reporters Monday. While McDonough stressed he has no specific indications of protests or threats that could disrupt VA services, he framed the measures as precautionary and "prudent." "We're taking appropriate precautions, working with interagency, making sure that we have a good handle on what to expect," McDonough said at a reporter roundtable hosted by the Defense Writers Group. "We're working closely, obviously, with [the] VA Police force -- we have the largest police force in the federal government -- to make sure that we're taking, as I say, prudent and appropriate steps to protect our veterans and our facilities." Read Next: Navy Prosecutors Say Circumstantial Evidence Enough to Convict Sailor in Bonhomme Richard Fire Trial In addition to the police force, McDonough said the inspector general's office also plays a role in security and so "we're obviously working closely with the inspector general's office." McDonough's comments come after he revealed at a congressional hearing last week that the department had already performed its first abortion, just a couple of weeks after the agency issued the rule expanding its medical coverage to include abortion services and counseling. In addition to a long history of protests outside abortion providers in the United States, there have also been instances of anti-abortion violence. At least 11 people -- including doctors, clinic employees, a clinic escort, a security guard and a police officer -- were killed between 1993 and 2016 in the United States and Canada, according to pro-abortion rights group NARAL. Between 1977 and 2015, there were at least 42 bombings and 185 arson attacks, according to the group. Under a rule published in the Federal Register earlier this month, the VA will provide abortions for veterans, as well as beneficiaries of its CHAMPVA coverage, in cases where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or where the life or health of the mother is at risk by carrying the pregnancy. The department will also offer abortion counseling, or consultations about how to handle an unwanted pregnancy, including where abortion services are provided, to any veteran who requests it. The change in coverage was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned the 50-year-old precedent of Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed abortion rights nationwide. The Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization set off waves of anti-abortion legislation in Republican-run states. At least 14 states have banned or nearly banned abortion since the Supreme Court's decision, while another nine have moved to restrict abortion but have been blocked by courts from enforcing the restrictions amid pending legal challenges. In addition to the possibility of protests and threats, the specter of prosecution has been raised against VA doctors who perform abortions that contradict state law. For example, Alabama's attorney general said earlier this month he has "no intention of abdicating my duty to enforce the states law banning abortion while suggesting he could prosecute VA doctors who conduct abortions in cases of rape or incest, something the law does not allow. In a legal analysis issued last week, the Justice Department affirmed its opinion that federal law allows the VA to cover abortions, that federal law supersedes state law and that states "may not penalize VA employees for providing such services, whether through criminal prosecution, civil litigation or license revocation proceedings." The Justice Department also said it would defend any providers that states try to prosecute for following VA's rules. But McDonough acknowledged on Monday that the threat of being prosecuted could still deter some doctors from performing abortions. Still, there are no "imminent plans" for additional steps to reassure doctors beyond the Justice Department opinion, McDonough added. "We will continue to stay in touch with our providers to see what more they need or would like to see," he said. -- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel. Related: Republicans Threaten 'Sanctions' Against VA After Department Moves to Offer Abortions Key Select Mineral List Type Standard Detailed Gallery Strunz Chemical Elements Detailed Mineral List: Azurite Formula: Cu 3 (CO 3 ) 2 (OH) 2 Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Birnessite Formula: (Na,Ca) 0.5 (Mn4+,Mn3+) 2 O 4 1.5H 2 O Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Chalcocite Formula: Cu 2 S Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Chalcopyrite Formula: CuFeS 2 Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Chrysocolla Formula: Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4 nH 2 O, x < 1 Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Copper Formula: Cu Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Cuprite Formula: Cu 2 O Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Hematite Formula: Fe 2 O 3 Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield 'Limonite' Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Malachite Formula: Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Pyrite Formula: FeS 2 Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Tenorite Formula: CuO Reference: personal correspondence with Giles Peatfield Gallery: List of minerals arranged by Strunz 10th Edition classification Group 1 - Elements Copper 1.AA.05 Cu Group 2 - Sulphides and Sulfosalts Chalcocite 2.BA.05 Cu 2 S Chalcopyrite 2.CB.10a CuFeS 2 Pyrite 2.EB.05a FeS 2 Group 4 - Oxides and Hydroxides Birnessite 4.FL.45 (Na,Ca) 0.5 (Mn4+,Mn3+) 2 O 4 1.5H 2 O Cuprite 4.AA.10 Cu 2 O Hematite 4.CB.05 Fe 2 O 3 Tenorite 4.AB.10 CuO Group 5 - Nitrates and Carbonates Azurite 5.BA.05 Cu 3 (CO 3 ) 2 (OH) 2 Malachite 5.BA.10 Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 Group 9 - Silicates Chrysocolla 9.ED.20 Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4 nH 2 O, x < 1 Unclassified Minerals, Rocks, etc. 'Limonite' - List of minerals for each chemical element H Hydrogen H Azurite Cu 3 (CO 3 ) 2 (OH) 2 H Birnessite (Na,Ca) 0.5 (Mn4+,Mn3+) 2 O 4 1.5H 2 O H Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4 nH 2 O, x < 1 H Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 C Carbon C Azurite Cu 3 (CO 3 ) 2 (OH) 2 C Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 O Oxygen O Azurite Cu 3 (CO 3 ) 2 (OH) 2 O Birnessite (Na,Ca) 0.5 (Mn4+,Mn3+) 2 O 4 1.5H 2 O O Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4 nH 2 O, x < 1 O Cuprite Cu 2 O O Hematite Fe 2 O 3 O Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 O Tenorite CuO Na Sodium Na Birnessite (Na,Ca) 0.5 (Mn4+,Mn3+) 2 O 4 1.5H 2 O Al Aluminium Al Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4 nH 2 O, x < 1 Si Silicon Si Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4 nH 2 O, x < 1 S Sulfur S Chalcocite Cu 2 S S Chalcopyrite CuFeS 2 S Pyrite FeS 2 Ca Calcium Ca Birnessite (Na,Ca) 0.5 (Mn4+,Mn3+) 2 O 4 1.5H 2 O Mn Manganese Mn Birnessite (Na,Ca) 0.5 (Mn4+,Mn3+) 2 O 4 1.5H 2 O Fe Iron Fe Chalcopyrite CuFeS 2 Fe Hematite Fe 2 O 3 Fe Pyrite FeS 2 Cu Copper Cu Azurite Cu 3 (CO 3 ) 2 (OH) 2 Cu Chalcocite Cu 2 S Cu Chalcopyrite CuFeS 2 Cu Chrysocolla Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 )(OH) 4 nH 2 O, x < 1 Cu Copper Cu Cu Cuprite Cu 2 O Cu Malachite Cu 2 (CO 3 )(OH) 2 Cu Tenorite CuO References Sort by Year (asc) Year (desc) Author (A-Z) Author (Z-A) Boronowski, Alex (1990) Geological and Geochemical Report on the King and Queen Claims, Copper Mountain Property, Greenwood Mining Division, British Columbia. British Columbia Geological Branch, Assessment Report 20,807. Brock, R.W. (1905) The Boundary Creek District, British Columbia, in Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report (New Series) Volume XIV, 1901, Report A, pp. 64A-67A. Brock, R.W. (1906) Preliminary Report on the Boundary Creek District, British Columbia, in Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report (New Series) Volume XV, 1902-3, Report A, pp. 125A-126A; 135A; 137A. Hoffmann, G. Christian (1903) Mineralogical Notes, in Report of the Section of Chemistry and Mineralogy, in Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report (New Series) Volume XIII, 1900, Report R, pp. 20R-21R. Hoffmann, G. Christian (1906) Chemistry and Mineralogy, in Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report (New Series) Volume XV, 1902-3, Report A, pp. 429A; 432A; 436A. Lambly, C.A.R. (1895) Copper Camp, in Annual Report of the [British Columbia] Minister of Mines for the Year Ending 31st December 1894, p. 755, following p. 758. LeRoy, O.E. (1912) The Geology and Ore Deposits of Phoenix, Boundary District, British Columbia. Canada, Department of Mines, Geological Survey Branch, Memoir No. 21. LeRoy, O.E. (1913) Motherlode and Sunset Mines, Boundary District, B.C. Canada, Department of Mines, Geological Survey, Memoir No. 19. Longe, R.V. (1980) Copper Queen Claims, Diamond Drilling and Geological Mapping, Greenwood Mining Division. British Columbia Mineral Resources Branch assessment Report No. 8823. McMynn, W.G. (1899) Copper Camp, in Annual Report of the [British Columbia] Minister of Mines for the Year Ending 31st December 1898, p.1125. Newell, J.M. (1970) Final Report, Okanagan-Boundary Reconnaissance, Greenwood Mining Division, B.C. Unpublished report for Texas Gulf Sulphur Company. Giles Peatfield personal files. Peatfield, Giles Russum (1978) Geologic History and Metallogeny of the Boundary District, Southern British Columbia and Northern Washington. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Geological Sciences, Queens University at Kingston. Peck, J.W. (1955) Copper Queen, in Minister of Mines, Province of British Columbia, Annual Report for the Year Ending 31st December 1954, pp. A119-A122. Other Databases Link to British Columbia Minfile: 082ESE054 Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality North America Columbia Mountains Mountain Range North America Plate Tectonic Plate This page contains all mineral locality references listed on mindat.org. This does not claim to be a complete list. If you know of more minerals from this site, please register so you can add to our database. This locality information is for reference purposes only. You should never attempt to visit any sites listed in mindat.org without first ensuring that you have the permission of the land and/or mineral rights holders for access and that you are aware of all safety precautions necessary. The former King Solomon mine is one of a number of former small mines and copper occurrences in the so-called Copper Camp, located on Copper Mountain in the area of the headwaters of Ingram and Wallace creeks, 11 kilometres west of Greenwood, British Columbia. Also included in the Camp were the Big Copper and other occurrences (Minfile No. 082ESE 053).There are descriptions of several of these deposits in the general locality on the British Columbia Minfile sites, current to 2020. Relevant portions for the King Solomon are quoted below:The rocks most commonly exposed on the property are lavas, breccias and feeder dikes and sills of the Penticton Group. These Tertiary rocks rest unconformably on a thick sequence of southeasterly dipping Brooklyn limestone (Triassic). Distal parts of the property are underlain by sharpstone conglomerate intercalated with the limestone and, below the Triassic assemblage, massive chert of the Knob Hill Group (Paleozoic).A zone of oxidation and enrichment marks the unconformity at the base of the Tertiary in Copper Camp. This zone includes regolithic copper showings that are believed to have formed by Tertiary concentration from sulphide bodies previously developed within the Brooklyn limestone.On the King Solomon claim, the main deposit occurs at the contact between an alkali porphyry dike and crystalline limestone. These rocks are much fractured and traversed by little slips and in places the limestone is reduced to small blocks. Locally the main fissures in the limestone are filled with oxidized iron and copper sulphides. Where the Tertiary volcanic rocks have been stripped away by glacial erosion, the upper surface of the deposit is characterized by earthy red hematite. The edges of the limestone blocks are commonly corroded and encrusted by red hematite, yellow limonite and copper ore minerals. Specimens can be gathered showing a nucleus of chalcopyrite surrounded by bornite and a periphery of chalcocite. Malachite, azurite, native copper, chrysocolla are some of the associated accessory minerals. The ore is said to have run several per cent copper accompanied by appreciable gold and silver values.At this point, I (Giles Peatfield) believe it is appropriate to present some information regarding the principal copper deposits of the region the so-called Boundary District and some speculations regarding the presence of secondary copper minerals in the Copper Camp:In the period from the last years of the 19th century until 1919, there was important copper production from two large and a number of smaller satellite deposits in the district. These mines produced direct smelting ores that were transported by two railway systems to three separate smelters (Peatfield, 1978). The principal deposits were in the Phoenix Camp, east of Greenwood (LeRoy, 1912) and at the Deadwood (Motherlode) Camp, west of Greenwood (LeRoy, 1913). Ore in these deposits was contained in calc-silicate skarn bodies, hosted by a distinctive stratigraphic sequence (the Brooklyn Formation) of Triassic age, consisting of limestone and siliceous pebble (sharpstone) conglomerate. The Brooklyn stratigraphy is widespread, in several isolated areas, throughout a large area (Peatfield, 1978). The important point to be made here is that, with the exception of the Copper Camp, the area of concern here, the deposits have very little of secondary copper mineralization, with generally fresh chalcopyrite and pyrite at the grass roots. There is good evidence to suggest that the metal concentrations in the sedimentary package are old, probably coeval with the sedimentation (see, Peatfield (1978) on the Emma deposit east of Phoenix); in any event, the deposits are generally considered to have formed long before the deposition of the Eocene sedimentary and volcanic packages the basal Kettle River, and overlying Marron formations.This leads one to the conclusion that in most cases the surfaces of the deposits were exposed to scouring in the last ice age. J.E. Stockwell (in Newell, 1970) mapped the Copper Mountain area at a scale of 1:12,000. His work shows scattered areas of Brooklyn Formation limestone and sharpstone conglomerate with local calc-silicate skarn occurrences, especially in the areas of the King Solomon and Big Copper deposits. In both areas, there are closely associated overlaps of Kettle River continental clastic sedimentary rocks, and overlying Marron Formation volcanic flows. The region is cut by numerous major dykes of Tertiary intrusive rocks, generally regarded as feeders for overlying Marron flows. The supposition is that the (probably relatively small) skarn-hosted copper deposits were exposed to pre-Tertiary weathering and formation of secondary copper minerals, subsequently protected from erosion by the Kettle River and Marron strata. Post-glacial erosion would have removed some of the clastic sediments, and exposed the secondary copper minerals to view. This concept was first suggested in print by Brock (1905, p. 65A) who wrote That this zone of oxydation (sic) and enrichment should be found in the Copper camp and not in other parts of the district, is in part explained by the local topography and the broken nature of the country rock, but a cap of volcanic rock which covers the hilltops all around and extends almost to the King Solomon ledge, has been, in all probability, a factor. This capping, in glacial times is likely to have extended a little farther, in which case it would have protected the deposit from the scouring effects of the ice-sheet which has been shown above to have covered this area.Production from the King Solomon and Big Copper deposits has been sporadic, between 1901 and 1955, with the majority between 1901 and 1918. A small amount of ore was shipped from the Copper Queen occurrence in 1954 and 1955, which is included in the King Solomon totals. Annual shipments ranged in grade from about 2.6% copper from the Big Copper in 1916 to as high as 15.3% copper from the King Solomon in 1917. It is important to stress that most of this material was probably carefully hand-sorted ore, and that the reported production figures represent metal recovered at various smelters or other treatment facilities.According to Minfile records, the overall production for the Camp, over the total time period, was 3,454 tonnes which yielded about 3,072 troy ounces of silver, 253 troy ounces of gold, and 130,244 kilograms of copper.Azurite: Hoffmann (1903) wrote that Very pretty specimens of a fine berlin-blue azurite in the form of crystalline incrustations and small spherical crystal aggregates, have been obtained at the King Solomon mine, in the Copper Camp, . . . .Birnessite: The Pacific Museum of Earth at the University of British Columbia has a specimen (Catalogue No. 6126) of birnessite with azurite and malachite, from the King Solomon mine. This is a complex manganese-bearing secondary mineral (refer to Mindat minerals). Of interest here is that Hoffmann (1903); Brock (1906); and Johnston (1915) reported a complex hydrated material that Hoffmann described as cupreous manganese or wad and that Johnston called a Hydrated mixture of various oxides, chiefly of manganese, cobalt, copper and iron. The name given to this material was lampadite; this has subsequently been discredited by the IMA. It seems likely that what Hoffmann saw and called lampadite was actually birnessite. Finally, Boronowski (1990) reported geochemical analyses (ICP) of a number of copper-rich samples from the King Solomon and Big Copper occurrences these samples show moderate enrichment in manganese.Copper: In describing the King Solomon deposit, McMynn (1899) commented This ore showed native copper freely, and, being very pretty specimen ore, was much talked of.Chalcocite: Reported by Hoffmann (1903) and by Brock (1906).Chrysocolla: Reported by Brock (1905, 1906), but not by Hoffmann (1903).Cuprite: Hoffmann (1903), referring to cuprite in specimens collected by Mr. R. W. Brock, described . . . occasional small fissures or cavities lined with minute, translucent, cubic crystals of the mineral, having a fine crimson-red colour by transmitted light, which are in some instances elongated to very slender prisms.Malachite: Hoffmann (1903) described the malachite at the King Solomon mine as . . . an earthy coating, also as a fine velvety incrustation, as likewise in small spherical crystal aggregates, and occasionally in small groups of verdigris-green and emerald-green, radiating, slender acicular prisms, . . . .Pyrite: This is not common on surface in the mineralized areas. Brock (1905) did see, on a small vein north of the King Solomon workings, pyrite and chalcopyrite a few feet below the surface.Tenorite: This copper oxide mineral was originally described at this locality as melaconite (Hoffmann, 1903; Johnston, 1915).The rock types reported for the Copper Camp are listed, with the exception of chert, in the detailed mapping by J. E. Stockwell (for Newell, 1970). Stockwell did, however, report siliceous argillite in his lowest stratigraphic units. Longe (1980) reported cherts in diamond drill core in a similar setting, and the two rocks are probably the same. MBULUZI After two years of not hosting the Sibebe Survivor Challenge, corporate companies and individuals came all out to take part in this years hike as over 3 200 attended. A total of 3 500 people registered for the 2022 Sibebe Survivor Challenge but 3 200 committed as some cancelled. As early as 6:30am, companies had already pitched their gazebos and at around 7am, they set out for the challenge. The team that finished first was AG Thomas which completed the 11km trek in two hours. Won Meanwhile, Eswatini Revenue Service (ERS) won the category of being the largest team with 273 members, followed by Nedbank Eswatini with 235 and Eswatini Water Services Corporation (EWSC) with 170. Other big teams were Steffanutti&Stocks with 162 members, Central Bank of Eswatini had 141 participants and Eswatini Royal Insurance Corporation (ESRIC) had 117. Although there was a slight misunderstanding regarding the starting point, which was changed from the usual base to Sibebe Resort, it did not deter the determined hikers who climbed up to the resort before setting off, adding a few kilometres. Most of the hikers expressed their desire to admire nature while attaining fitness. Herina and Phillip Pretorius did not leave behind their 20-month-old baby, adding that their motive behind the participation was to admire nature and attain fitness. Lindo Ntimane also walked up to the rock with her baby. Ntimane stated that the toddlers father always hiked with him. The main sponsors of the event was, Nedbank, and Managing Director (MD) Fikile Nkosi commended their partner Mbuluzi-Mbababe Rotary Club for having innovated and improved the event to attract a bigger and better crowd. Nkosi also recognised other core sponsors who understood that in order for them to be sustainable, they needed to have a society that was developing. The MD stated that 100 per cent of the proceeds, which would be received from the event, would go towards developing the societies and communities using various strategies in doing good for individuals, families and communities. We do good because we have the passion and the love for the people out there, she said. Rather than the fitness and nature conservation attained by the participants, Nkosi said the proceeds were to assist a number of underprivileged people in the country. The MD stated that they were happy with the reports they received from the Rotary Club. She said the funds were accounted for to the last cent, which was also appreciated from rotary. We have audited financials which would be made public and you will see your sweat and your money, where it goes in as far as alleviating poverty in Eswatini, she said. Furthermore, she commended all the participants who conquered Sibebe. Mbuluzi-Mbabane Rotary Club President Andrew Muwonge, said due to the popular demand of the event, they tried to do things differenttly, adding that this year, they hosted a two-day event, which was a trial and were hoping next year would be much bigger and better. Muwonge thanked the major sponsor of the event; Nedbank together with partner Sibebe Resort for the successful event. May Edochie, first wife of Nollywood actor, Yul Edochie has said she can't be cajoled into accepting polygamy. According to her, she can never accept polygamy because it doesn't align with her values. The comment follows her husband's recent decision to marry a second wife. Yul Edochie on April 27, 2022, announced to the world that he had gotten married to a second wife, Judy Austin Muoghalu. He described Judy as his second wife while also showing off his son by her. May has since been giving signals that she may consider divorce at the end. In a statement on social media on Saturday, she said her ability to accept the situation and tolerate challenges and problems should not be misconstrued. According to her, it was worthless trying to make an already bad situation worse hence the need to remain calm. Beyond all the unnecessary facades, Polygamy is a life choice and no one should be compelled to accept it, she said. It is something I think all parties involved should embrace willingly, and it's okay for anyone who chooses it. Some religions and traditions allow polygamy and I have nothing against it. However, I am absolutely certain that I will not be numbered as a wife or be cajoled to accept a practice that does not align with my faith and family values. May pointed out that until the second wife saga she had a stable and loving home. In line with the Foundations vision, the board members of the Time to Think Foundation at its recent board meeting outlined plans to help put an end to the challenges bedevilling education in some deprived communities in Ghana and West Africa at large. The newly formed non-profit organization has a strong desire to assist brilliant but underprivileged students in achieving their life goals. As a result, the organization's leadership at a board meeting on Friday, September 23, at the Grand Star Hotel in Haatso, Accra reiterated their intention to embark on a mega donation to eight (8) schools in about four regions of Ghana before the end of the year. The organization will not only focus on students but will also organize seminars and workshops for teaching staff in the targeted schools to help build their capacity to effectively meet the standards of the fourth industrial revolution. These generous donations are intended to benefit Ishadia E/A Primary School and Nasiria Primary School, both located in Karaga District in the Northern Region. Other schools to benefit from the initiative include Sabilu Rashad Islamic Primary and Junior High School in Akuse and Amedika M/A Basic School in Amedika, all in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The donations would be extended to two other schools in the Ashanti and Greater Accra regions. Also at the meeting, the newly appointed board members were officially introduced and welcomed, preceding a review of the organizations newly drafted constitution. About the Foundation The Time To Think Foundation is a non-profit organization that has been assisting learners from Kindergarten to Junior High School. The Foundation intends to operate in Ghana and other African countries such as Cote d'Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso, with a focus on areas with little educational support. The Foundation also hosts learning seminars, role-plays, and workshops, as well as exchange programs between regions and amongst African countries to actively promote exposure. It also seeks to identify brilliant but financially-challenged individuals in order to provide assistance through scholarships, for the realisation of the career aspirations of beneficiaries within the Country and the African Continent. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been urged to forge ahead in unity going into the 2024 general elections as far a breaking the '8' agenda is concerned. Members of the party have also been told to work hard devoid of any internal wrangling that may exist between members due to the internal elections of new executives and the presidential candidate contest yet to be organised. The party's Director of External Affairs, Mr. Frederick Kofi Ameyaw made the appeal at the NPP New York branch General Meeting held on Saturday in the United States. According to the NPP communicator, the NPP since 2017 has made a lot of achievements under the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia led administration which require a unified a team to push the disseminate information to Ghanaians. He gain called on party members, communicators as well as the grassroot to continue to propagate the works of the party to lure more voters for the party come 2024. The program was hosted by the NPP NY Chairman, Frank Antwi and was attended by many party leaders and Government appointees from both Ghana including, the KMA Boss, Sam Pyne; Hon Freda Prempeh, Minister of State in charge of Works and Housing; Eric Okyere Darko Esq, Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund; Hon. Kingsley Daniel Atta Boafo, Consul General, GH Consulate, New York. The rest are Dr. Akwasi Acheampong, CEO of International Maritime Hospital, (MoH) and MadaJosephine Agyekum-Wallace, DMD, PMMC. The Law Society of Ghana has debunked media reports that the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has quit the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) as a member during its visit. The leadership of the society paid a courtesy call on the Speaker on Tuesday, September 20. The purpose of the visit was to congratulate him on his elevation as President of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) of the world and also to introduce the new Lawyers Society of Ghana to him. After the visit media houses reported that Speaker Alban Bagbin has quit the Ghana Bar Association (GBA). Having cited the news making round, the Law Society of Ghana has issued a press release to set the records straight. It must be placed on record that nowhere in the Speakers welcoming remarks during our visit, did he ever state that he has resigned from the Ghana Bar Association (GBA). In his remarks, he expressed in strong words, his revulsion about the state of the GBA and wishes to see a change for a better Bar Association committed to the aims, objectives and ethics as captured and practiced globally, a release signed by Acting Law Society of Ghana President Hon. Rockson Dafeamekpor has said. In his welcome, Rt. Hon. Speaker welcomed the formation of the Law Society of Ghana (LSG) and pledged his unflinching support to the Interim Executives and the Society to establish and develop a better professional group. Find more on the Law Society of Ghana's visit to the Speaker in the release below: LAW SOCIETY OF GHANA PAID COURTESY CALL ON SPEAKER OF PARLIAMENT. The Interim Executives of the Law Society of Ghana (LSG) paid a Courtesy call on the Speaker of Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin at his office on Tuesday, 20th day of September, 2022. The purpose of the visit was to congratulate him on his elevation as President of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) of the world and also to introduce the new Lawyers Society of Ghana to him. It must be placed on record that nowhere in the Speakers welcoming remarks during our visit, did he ever state that he has resigned from the Ghana Bar Association (GBA). In his remarks, he expressed in strong words, his revulsion about the state of the GBA and wishes to see a change for a better Bar Association committed to the aims, objectives and ethics as captured and practiced globally. The Rt. Hon. Speaker welcomed the formation of the Law Society of Ghana (LSG) and pledged his unflinching support to the Interim Executives and the Society to establish and develop a better professional group. He was very excited to learn from the Interim President, the novelty in roping on board not only Lawyers but Paralegals, Law Students at the Ghana School of Law and the Law Teaching Faculties at the Universities. His interest and excitement of LSG also stems from the fact that he together with learned senior Ward Brew, Esq had actually earlier sponsored the formation of the Bar Association of Ghana (BAG) when the frustration from the GBA became unbearable, until the some impediments came their way, which impediments rendered the forward march of BAG impossible or near impracticable. He charged the LSG to seek to shape national discourse and fight against injustice in all forms in Ghana. According to the Rt. Hon. Spealer, the GBA has now become too elitist, stressing that he used to pay his dues religiously until it came to his attention that any lawyer that had close association with the then *Public Tribunal Court* was not recognized and paid their last respects by the GBA, upon death. He cited instances. As a result, his interest in the GBA has diminished and with it the non-payment of his membership dues. He advised LSG to come up with reasoned legal opinions and constructive criticisms of Court judgements so as to enrich our law reports and publish same in Journals. He finally pledged his overwhelming support to the LSG. The delegation was led by the Interim LSG President, Hon. Rockson Dafeamekpor, Esq. (MP), who congratulated the Speaker on his new position as the President of the CPA. The Acting President bemoaned the GBA deviation from its core values and mandate in terms of fairness, inclusiveness, defending lawyers and promoting lawyers welfare. The Acting President was accompanied by the Vice President Biadela Mortey Akpadzi Esq, General Secretary Atukwei Quaye Esq, Treasurer, Enoch Deegbe Esq, Women Commissioner Anatu Anne Seidu Bogobiri, Dep. General Secretary David Worwui-Brown, Esq and Deputy Director of Communications, Mercy Dankwa, Esq all in interim capacities. On the side of Speaker, he was in the company of his chief legal and political advisors. The Courtesy visit was part of a rolled-out plan to introduce and interface LSG with prominent men, women and relevant academic & state institutions in Ghana by the end of the year. SIGNED. Hon. Rockson Dafeamekpor, Esq. (MP) AG: LSG PRESIDENT Ghana will, for the second time, hold series of meetings with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the country seeks for a loan facility to help it navigate through the current economic hardship. Led by Stephane Roudet, Mission Chief for Ghana, the team would be in Accra from September 26 October 7 to continue discussions with the Ghanaian authorities on policies and reforms that could be supported by an IMF lending arrangement. The Fund announced on Sunday that it would further engage with other stakeholders during the visit on the same issue. An IMF staff team led by Carlo Sdralevich visited Accra between July 6 and 13, 2022, to assess the current economic situation and discuss the broad lines of the Government's Enhanced Domestic Programme. The engagement between Ghana and the IMF is expected to be completed in about six to seven months. Ghana is eligible for a credit facility of up to $3 billion under the IMF's extended credit facility (ECF) and extended fund facility (EFF). When the IMF team first visited Ghana, they concluded that: Ghana is facing a challenging economic and social situation amid an increasingly difficult global environment. It noted that the West African country with a population of 32 million and the world's second largest cocoa producer had its fiscal and debt situation severely worsened following the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, investors' concerns had triggered credit rating downgrades, capital outflows, loss of external market access, and rising domestic borrowing costs. The Fund identified policy priorities in the near term, with a focus on improving fiscal balances sustainably while protecting the vulnerable and poor. Again, the IMF said it would work together with Ghanaian authorities to ensure credibility of the monetary policy and exchange rate regimes, preserve financial sector stability, design reforms to enhance growth, create jobs, and strengthen governance. The Government, while admitting that times are tough, has encouraged Ghanaians not to give up amid the current economic crunch, but to continue to work hard for a prosperous Ghana. Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance, said the Government had put in place measures to lessen the plight of its citizenry and evidence of growth in the economy was seen in the second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figure. He noted that policies, including the homegrown economic programme with the IMF, from which the Government expects to receive a $3 billion loan from the Fund, would help restore confidence in the Ghanaian the economy and make it resilient. We're having an arrangement with the IMF so that we move beyond the dependence on Government and donors into our creative synergies, the Finance Minister said. Some economic experts, trade and industry players are of the view that the programme with the IMF would repose confidence and bring the needed stability to the Ghanaian economy. Nonetheless, they urged the Government to double up efforts and institute and targeted policies that would transform the economy from being primarily import-dependent to a value-addition economy. The Finance Minister did admit it and that's true: the IMF programme will not transform our economy, unfortunately we haven't heard of so many things new that will structurally change the economy the way he was saying, Dr Patrick Asuming, an Economist, said. Mr Kenneth Thompson, the Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance, also noted that Ghana needs effective economic management measures rather than seeking bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). IMF is a circus that attracts attention but doesn't deliver much, but with discipline and dedication we can build our own country without relying on foreign aid, he said. Since 1957 Ghana has entered 17 bailout arrangements with the IMF to restore the health of government finances, having existed the last one in April 2019. GNA A new company, Marriage Link Consult has been set up to respond to pressing social and family challenges facing the Ghanaian society, particularly in relation to marriages. Set to be known as M-LINK Consult, Marriage Link Consult was officially launched on Friday, September 23, 2022, at the companys office offices at house number DF123 Mantse Boi Street, opposite the Cocoa Clinic. M-LINK Consult among other things has been set up to promote social happiness and wellbeing through the institution of marriage. In this regard, the company will be providing a one-stop shop of marriage support through four distinct but interrelated packages. Speaking at the event launch of Marriage Link Consult, Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Dickson Antwi indicated that there is the need to counter the threat to the institution of marriage and promote social harmony and peace in the home by providing a safe, reliable and trustworthy avenues for the ready-to-marry individuals in society to find marriageable partners. He said M-Link Consult has come to complement the efforts of religious and civil society leaders to maintain family harmony through the provision of customised counselling services. He assured that his outfit will protect and promote the institution of marriage through various services they will be offering to clients. Gracing the event as one of the special guests, former Ghana Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Sylvanus Tettey-Tamaklo welcomed the new company, adding that it will have an important role to play. In an advise, he charged couples to learn to forgive one another whether married or just in a relationship. He implored M-Link Consult to make it a point to always preach forgiveness to clients. The issue of forgiveness is very important in every marriage or relationship. Marriage Link must treat it. I also want you to treat the intestate succession law and the sickling tests as topics. They are very important, Sylvanus Tettey-Tamaklo remarked in his speech. Delivering a virtual speech, counselor Mrs. Marilyn Suttah who is one of the resources persons for M-Link Consult shared that while courtship limited to only faith-based organizations has its merits, many prospective couples have had to battle with difficult decisions of backing out of their relationships when certain sensitive and threatening issues arise during counselling sessions. She said in some cases, this has driven many individuals into terrible relationships for fear of ridicule or criticism by their church members, friends, or society in general. According to Mrs. Marilyn Suttah, she is confident such problems will be addressed by an institution such as Marriage Link Consult. I am glad a new era is finally approaching where reputable counselling firms like the Marriage Link Consult have been established to cater for such needs. I am honoured to be a resource person for this noble institution. It is my earnest prayer that the good Lord will sustain it and out of this initiative, many lives will be touched and directed onto the right paths. Congratulations to you Mr. Dickson Antwi and your team and well done for this brilliant initiative, counselor Mrs. Marilyn Suttah said in her speech. Packages offered by M-Link Consult: (i) Marriage Partner Identification and Matching for people who are ready to take the long walk to marriage and need assistance to identify partners in a confidential, reliable, and purpose-driven manner; (ii) Premarital Counselling for faith and non-faith-based individuals to adequately prepare them before marriage. This includes legal education on the types and meaning of the various forms of marriages under the laws of Ghana; (iii) Marriage Events Organization to assist couples to have stress-free marriage events which are customized to suit their budget thus making it easy for people to marry without much financial strain; and (iv) Marriage Juice-Up service that enables already married couples who have challenges in their marriages and who require independent, private, and professional counselling support. Reach to Marriage Link Consult HERE: The Founder and CEO of the Atta Mills Institute, Samuel Koku Anyidoho has called for support for Akufo-Addo's government to help liberate the country from its current economic struggles. He said Ghanaians must pray for President Akufo-Addo and his ministers as they work to find solutions to the country's challenges. In a tweet spotted by Modernghana News on Sunday, September 25, the former NDC deputy General Secretary stated that Ghana needs divine intervention at this critical moment. I am more than convinced that we must go on our knees and genuinely pray for the President and Mother Ghana because we definitely need the divine intervention of God for Him to bless our Homeland Ghana Thank God the President himself is on his knees praying, he posted as a caption to picture of the President and himself praying on their knees in separate places. On Saturday, the President was at the Global Citizens Concert organised at Black Stars Square. While mounting the stage to deliver a speech, President Akufo-Addo was subjected to booing by a section of the crowd. The youth clapped their hands while shouting away 'away.' This has generated huge debates on social media as NPP and NDC engage in a 'dog fight.' Twenty years after Le Joola ferry sank, the Senegalese town where half of the nearly 1,900 dead lived will on Monday hold commemorations for a "wound that never heals". When news spread that the vessel had capsized on the night of September 26, 2002, no one in the southern city could believe it. "It was unthinkable," said Nouha Cisse, who was head teacher at a secondary school in Ziguinchor that lost 150 pupils to the tragedy. A total of 1,863 people drowned or were lost -- surpassing the Titanic toll of more than 1,500 some 90 years earlier. Le Joola sailed into a storm off the coast of The Gambia on the way from Ziguinchor to the capital Dakar. The ferry played a major role in the town in the isolated Casamance enclave, providing a lifeline to Dakar and transporting agricultural produce as well as tourists. The Casamance, almost separated from the rest of Senegal by the tiny state of The Gambia, had since 1982 been wracked by a separatist rebellion. September 2002 saw a surge in attacks. On September 26, more than 1,928 people officially crowded on to the ferry, which had a capacity for 536 passengers. Fishing boats joined rescuers searching for survivors the day after the Senegalse capsized in 2002. By - (Marine Nationale/AFP/File) Victims' associations say more than 2,000 passengers from more than a dozen countries died, and only 65 survived. 'Unbearable' news With crowds gathering at the port the morning after, the prime minister announced Le Joola had capsized. "After that it was unbearable in Ziguinchor," recalled Ibrahima Gassama, a journalist who covered the disaster for Sud FM radio. "No one could console anyone. The gendarmes cordoned off the area because some people were threatening to throw themselves into the sea. "They had lost everything," Gassama said. "It really was a catastrophe," said 65-year-old Khadidiatou Diop, who lost her mother. "In this house one person died, in that house another death, across the road one dead. It was like that all over Ziguinchor." For Gassama, "It's a wound that never heals. Mourners gather by containers at Dakar port holding victims after the disaster. By SEYLLOU (AFP/File) "I don't think it ever can because the subsequent behaviour over the handling of the catastrophe was a second shipwreck." He noted the rescue effort that only happened the next day and the official "lies", denying the high death toll. Questions remain Two decades on, many questions remain unanswered. The causes of the incident have never been fully established, despite a Senegalese government inquiry and a French probe launched because of the deaths of 18 French citizens. Engine failure, a navigational error, bad weather, poor maintenance and overcrowding -- or a combination -- were likely to blame. Senegal closed the case in 2003 after concluding an investigation that blamed the captain, lost in the catastrophe. French courts also dismissed a years-long probe, which found evidence against seven Senegalese officials, concluding that Paris did not have jurisdiction. Senegalese and French victims' associations want the raising of the wreck of Le Joola, which sunk to a depth of some 20 metres (60 feet), and is thought to hold many bodies. An aerial view of the doomed ferry. By HANDOUT (Marine Nationale/AFP/File) They also want a memorial erected. One was promised for five years ago but the site is still nowhere near ready in Ziguinchor in time for Monday's anniversary. Senegalese victims' relatives have been compensated but President Macky Sall has not attended the annual anniversary remembrance since he took office. In the town on the banks of the Casamance river, as at every anniversary of the sinking, "everyone will gather to pray together", noted Diop. "But for those of us affected by this, it's the same every day. From 2002 till today, there has not been a day when I haven't thought about the boat," she said The Member of Parliament for Madina Constituency Francis Xavier-Sosu has filed a Private Members Bill in Parliament to demand the complete overhaul of the General Legal Council (GLC). He says it is about time the membership of the Council was reconstituted in order to improve legal education in Ghana. According to him, he is championing the Private Members Bill together with his colleague who represents South Dayi Constituency, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor . Mr Sosu revealed this on TV3s Ghana Tonight on Friday, September 23 after a rescheduling of the entrance exams to the Ghana School of Law earlier in the day. The exams were rescheduled to a later time after leakages were reported prior to the paper in the morning. Lawyer Sosu acknowledged the need for reforms to legal education in Ghana, rallying support from the entire citizenry. For me, it shouldnt really be whether the General Legal Council is interested in this change or not or whether the Independent Examination Body is interested in this or not, I think this is the time that every citizen must be involved, he told host Alfred Ocansey. He stressed that the Council is not a body without mistakes and since it is an agency under the Attorney General, it can be made to account for its actions and inaction. In my view, it is obvious that change is imminent and it is the only way we can resolve the matters. In fact, it is part of the reasons why myself and my colleague, Hon Dafeamekpor, [are] championing a Private Members Bill in Parliament, requesting for a complete overhaul of the General Legal Council; its membership, its composition, its function and everything has to be overhauled. READ ALSO: Akufo-Addo starts 7-day tour of three northern regions today The same thing has to be applied to the approach we see legal education. Mr Sosu was in 2017 suspended by the Council but this was quashed by the Human Rights Division of an Accra High Court. Earlier this year, the Association of Magistrates and Judges of Ghana (AMJG) threatened to drag him to the Council for some comments he made about some judges. 3news.com MBABANE - Government Spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo says the Kingdom of Eswatini is not a banana State but a solid one, founded on specific values, principles, goals and objectives. Nxumalo said the kingdom was governed by laws and rules as provided for in the Constitution. He said it was well-known throughout the country as to who was endowed with the powers and authority to summon and commission a national dialogue. I can only imagine that some people are daydreaming big to assume that they can convene a dialogue of that magnitude with a hope that its outcomes will be embraced by emaSwati, said Nxumalo. Meetings He added that in any case, the group (Multi-Stakeholders Forum (MSF) had been holding meetings under the banner of Political Party Assembly (PPA) over a stretched passage of time now. What have been the end results? zero, said Nxumalo. He said if any at all, more confusion was added in their fragile and ailing political camp. Nxumalo noted that political parties were not yet sanctioned by any law in the land to operate. He said the freedom to meet they currently enjoyed was by default in all probabilities. He further warned that government must not be provoked to the point of taking drastic actions to maintain peace and order in the country. Nxumalo told the Sunday Times that security challenges had forestalled the envisaged national dialogue, which was to serve as a forum to help find solutions to any political challenges which emaSwati could have prevented through dialogue. He was responding to information that two formations wanted to host a peoples dialogue and a national dialogue. The Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF), in collaboration with the Swaziland Unemployed Peoples Movement (SUPMO), have scheduled to host their own peoples dialogue at Bosco Skills Centre on Thursday. It was announced that this dialogue would look at addressing the political way forward and the huge unemployment rate in the country. The event has been themed the peoples dialogue for the peoples government. SUDF President Lucky Dlamini confirmed the upcoming event. He stated that today they would convene a press conference to outline the topics to be discussed during the dialogue. He stated that as SUDF and SUPMO, they were concerned about the situation in the country hence there was a need to come together and talk about a way forward. He said there was a need to talk on peaceful means into resolving the political turmoil engulfing the country. Meanwhile, the MSF announced that on Friday it would host its national dialogue. Thulani Maseko, Chairperson of the MSF, told our sister publication, the Times Sunday, that it was high time for the community dialogues to begin. Maseko said the traditional activities proved that the climate was now conducive for the dialogue to be held and, therefore, MSF was going ahead with planning and preparations. Maseko told the Times SUNDAY that they were not going to wait for His Majesty King Mswati III and the government to announce the dialogue. We will continue our programme on community dialogues. We will not allow traditional ceremonies to derail our plans, said Maseko. When contacted yesterday to speak on the plans, he insisted that they would announce in due course. Mr. Paul Asare Ansah presenting the equipment to leadership of the Foundation 26.09.2022 LISTEN In continuous support for women empowerment, the 2020 parliamentary candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Paul Asare Ansah has donated some equipment to the Ohemea Afrakoma II Foundation. The equipment includes two heavy duty industrial sewing machines, three multipurpose hair dryers, three sinks and four streetlights. The Foundation seeks to offer young girls in the area the opportunity to learn different trades at the Nana Afrakoma II Vocational Training Institute at Akwamufie in the Asuogyaman District of the Eastern region. Mr. Paul Ansah in his brief remarks indicated the donation is to help the vision of the institute to be realised by providing the youth with the necessary skills in order have a brighter future. The former GPHA Boss however, pledged his continuous commitment to help improve the livelihood of people within the constituency in the areas of skills training, health, education and job creation among many others. Meanwhile, the leadership of the school upon receiving the equipment commended Mr. Paul Ansah for his intervention as it would help deal with some challenges facing teaching and learning. Cooperate bodies, NGOs and philanthropists were urged to come on board and support the institute in the era of projecting STEM education in Ghana. President Nana Akufo-Addo has expressed optimism that Ghana will have a female president in the future. Mr Akufo-Addo while speaking at the 2022 Global Citizens Festival assured that as co-chair of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and as AU gender champion, he is committed to putting measures in place to empower women. He added As President of Ghana, as co-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and as AU gender champion, I am committed to putting in place policies and programmes aimed at improving the development of the girl child in Ghana. I'm equally committed to ensuring access to a minimum of senior high school education for the girl child in Ghana, a policy that has already begun to work. Together, we can achieve gender equality, empower the women and girls and achieve the global needs and goals of the SDGs, and one day, we are going to have a female President of Ghana, Mr Akufo-Addo said. The Festival brought together artists including Stormzy, Sarkodie, Usher, Gyakie, Stonebowy and others together in Accra. They left massive footprints on Ghana's memory as this concert is being touted as the most organized sound engineering ever. ---3news.com Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, is optimistic the world can be COVID-19-free in the next three months. He is of the view that this is possible if countries implement stricter measures to control the spread of the virus. Several countries are still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. In Ghana, the government has been forced to seek support from the International Monetary Fund partly attributed to the effects of the pandemic. Speaking at a high-level event on ending COVID-19, Antonio Guterres said equitable access to vaccines would ensure that countries end Coronavirus by end of 2022. Countries are increasingly integrating COVID-19 measures into routine services and programs. The lessons from these successes are clear. The virus is treatable; we can save lives and bring the virus under control even among high-risk populations. If we can combine these tools with great ambitions as world leaders, we could end the pandemic this year. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) said there is an end in sight for the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director General of the WHO, says the pandemic is gradually fading out following the reduction in the number of death globally. Addressing a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus however added that more needs to be done to eradicate COVID-19 permanently. We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic. We are not there yet. But the end is in sight, he mentioned. He urged countries to keep up their efforts against the virus that has killed over six million people. Last week, the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 was the lowest since March 2020, said Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus. Globally, 10,935 Covid-19 deaths were recorded in the week of September 5 to 11, according to WHOs latest report. Thats a decrease of more than 20 percent compared to the week before. In that same period, the WHO reported 407 new deaths in Australia. As of September 11, more than 6.4 million Covid-19 deaths had been reported globally since the pandemic began. Australia has recorded 14,421 Covid-19 deaths, according to the last federal government update from September 9. ---citinewsroom 26.09.2022 LISTEN Cost sharing measures have been introduced into the health and education sectors as part of Ghanas economic reforms which began in 1983. Under the cost recovery legislation for the health sector, fees differ by type or clinical level of facility, treatment location, age, nationality, and type of service provided (Asenso-Okyere 1995). There is full cost recovery for drugs or medicines in all public health facilities in the country. Global and local initiatives Supply of essential medicines especially at the primary level of health facilities is one of the fundamental reasons for the Primary Health Care (PHC) initiative which was declared in 1978 and popularly known as the Alma-Ata declaration of 1978. Member countries declared to make all essential services accessible at the community level at a cost the country can afford with methods that are practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable. In tandem with the Alma-Ata Declaration, the Government of Ghana introduced the Community-Based Health Planning and Services concept as a key strategy of primary healthcare delivery for the ultimate benefit of hard-to-reach areas in the country. Several other global declarations and initiatives including but not limited to the 1987 Bamako Initiative, the 2000 Millennium Development Goals and the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) concept were launched with the aim of ensuring that health care is accessible at the grass root levels. Supply of essential medicines has been key on the agenda because without them, curative care given at health facilities will be incomplete. The UHC concept, for example, is meant to ensure that all people have geographical and financial access to the health services they need, when and where they need it. It is a people-centered initiative to achieve health for all, knowing that at least half of the people worldwide are unable to receive the health services they need. Overall, these programmes were aimed at improving quality of life and general health outcomes which have an impact on a countrys growth not to talk of averting Catastrophic Health Expenditure (CHE) to already impoverished households which according to the World Health organization (WHO) is an Out Of Pocket (OOP) expenditure, which is greater than or equal to 40% of a House Holds (HH) non-subsistence income, that is, income available after basic needs have been met. Surveys in 89 countries covering 89% of the worlds population, suggested that 150 million people globally suffer financial catastrophes every year due to OOP medical cost and several factors account for this (Liu et al, 2019). Why the drug revolving fund? A drug revolving fund is a scheme where drugs are sold at cost-prices, plus a mark-up, and the revenue is used to replenish the drug stocks. In Ghana, the Drug Revolving Fund (DRF) was introduced as a result of frequent shortages of drugs, purchasing of drugs at exorbitant prices, lumping of proceeds of the funds into a general account, poor management, misappropriation of funds, irrational use of medicines, non-reimbursement of the cost of drugs for exempted patients among other challenges. This led to Ghanas introduction of the national drug revolving fund scheme known as the cash and carry in 1990 which was piloted in Greater Accra and Volta Regions and extended nationwide in 1992 (Asenso-Okyere et al, 1999). The global inclination is that this approach of ensuring constant supply of essential medicines has continuously been used in many low- and middle-income countries to establish a user financed system which seeks to establish and sustain the essential drug supply and to provide all public health facilities with adequate and safe drugs at affordable prices. It was also introduced to maintain a regular supply of medicines compared with a non-revolving drug fund, maintain an appreciable stock of tracer medicines, improve geographical access to medicines and the need to meet operating expenses. Drug Revolving Fund in Retrospect In Ghana, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MFEP) provided the initial seed capital in terms of free drugs through the Central Medical Stores (CMS) to the government health care system. Accordingly, individual health facilities were expected to sell the drugs to patients and use the proceeds to procure more drugs under a revolving fund scheme, hence since 1992, government did not provide much funding for drug purchases except for exemptions. The introduction of the Drug Revolving Fund resulted in improvement in the availability of essential medicines nationwide except the ongoing implementation of the Framework Contract Policy in the public sector whereby health facilities can procure about 66 medicines from the Regional Medical Stores only tend to create artificial shortage of certain essential medicines in the public hospitals any time the RMS does not have stock of those medications. Challenges that threaten the Drug Revolving Fund Several factors threaten to frustrate the efforts of managers to provide essential medicines including tracer medicines to clients who visit their various public health facilities in Ghana and if care is not taken, even National Health Insurance (NHI) card holders will buy drugs out of pocket even including drugs covered under the Health Insurance. Firstly, the importance of the National Health Insurance which was introduced in 2003 to mitigate the cost of health care and increase financial access to health cannot be over emphasized. However, the operations of the scheme inadvertently lead to delays in release of funds to enable the health facilities procure drugs due to late reimbursement for services already provided to its clients. Currently, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is indebted to facilities since January, 2022. Per regulation, the reimbursement period for any claim submitted should be within 90 days. All things being equal, health facilities should have been paid up to at least May, 2022 but that is not the case. Another way facilities are losing money through the NHI which can frustrate the DRF is the rejection of claims submitted by facilities for vetting and reimbursement. Among other things, the Scheme cites the following reasons for rejecting claims; treatment or medicines billed did not match diagnoses stated on the claim form, unclear diagnoses, wrong application of tariff, treatment diagnoses mismatch just to mention a few, a phenomenon which has generated a lot of debate even among clinicians. Yet another way facilities lose monies meant for the DRF is unrealistic medicine prices. Anecdotal evidence indicates that Inj. Hydralazine hydrochloride, a drug which is crucial in maternal healthcare delivery, is purchased on the open market between Gh34 and Gh40. However, NHIA reimburses Gh26 and even this will be paid after several months by which time the money has devalued even further, forcing managers to do magic to sustain the DRF. Secondly, rising overhead cost/recurrent expenditure is affecting the management of the DRF, in that, the little returns realized from markups by facilities is not enough to meet the growing demands of pharmacy- related activities including carrying out operational research, maintaining an effective Drugs and Therapeutic Committee (the Committee responsible for ensuring Rational Use of Medicines among others). Thirdly, frequent and avoidable emergency purchases, a phenomenon that connotes stockout situations due to lack of adequate funds to replenish drugs. Lastly, inadequate human resource, a burden on Internally Generated Fund (IGF). Due to the inability of the Service (Ghana Health Service) to meet the human resource needs of every Profession due to various germane factors, certain services like janitorial, security and catering have been outsourced in some hospitals. Other cadres who are also in short supply are engaged as temporary or locum staff to complement the efforts of mechanized staff. This poses a big challenge for facility managers where a huge chunk of IGF is paid as compensation to these non-mechanized staff. These monies could have been channeled to improving quality service and increase tracer drugs availability and provision of essential medicines. To this end, one is left with no question other than the caption of this piece which I hereby repeat perhaps in a lengthier manner, is the Drug Revolving Fund in Ghana, a pseudo reality, or an objective reality? Conclusion In conclusion, the importance of the DRF cannot be over emphasized. It will be sad for a client to arrive at a health facility and be attended to by clinicians/healthcare providers but cannot access drugs. That begs the question, what is the curative use of clinicians/healthcare providers if after all the expert care they give there is no drug available at the hospital dispensary to complement their therapeutic efforts, a situation that ought to be avoided especially in emergency situations. I hereby call on Dr. Bernard Oko Boye, the new CEO of National Health Authority, to take a second look at the NHI tariffs even though there were some upward adjustments, which the current economic situation has swallowed. I humbly call on him to also reimburse facilities up to June 2022 to enable them pay debts owed Regional Medical Stores of GHS and the huge debts owed other suppliers to avoid what I refer to as pseudo shortage of drugs by pharmaceutical companies where your ability to honour your debt as they fall due earns you supply of drugs or vice versa. I also call on health facility managers of the GHS to adhere strictly to guidelines by the Service in the use of the DRF, simply known as the IGF- Drug Account including maintaining a functional and useful DTC, a vibrant Vetting Committee to avert or reduce claims rejection to the barest minimum. Adelaide Setordji Health Service Administrator [email protected] 26.09.2022 LISTEN If you believe that despite its many failings, democracy is still a much, much better system of government, than any other governance-system known to fickle-humans, then the concerns of Ghana's current Chief Justice, about how dangerous undermining public confidence in the judiciary, is, is spot on. Definitely. Cool. Sadly, however, it seems to have escaped the Chief Justice, that the worst exemplifiers of that ilk, happen to be the regime-insider-cronies, who openly boast that they have put in place, at the helms of all our system's key institutions (including the judiciary, for example), their ideological-soul-mates, who will more or less ensure that they can continue to dominate our homeland Ghana, even when out of power, and do so for at least the next 30 years. Sickening. Treasonable. Abominable. Unpardonable. The so-called Danquah Institute was the source of that astonishing-idiocy, dear reader. Eiiiii, Oman Ghana: enti y3wieye paaaa enei? Asem kesie bi ebeba debi ankasa oooo. Yoooooo... For those who aren't au fait with the raison d'etre of the Danquah Institute, it is the vehicle for the plagiarised-ideas of the Western world's ultra right-wing ideologues, pushed in Ghana, as the clever-ideas of the narcissistic, too-clever-by-half Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, who is apparently a key adviser to President Akufo-Addo (any wonder that our nation is in such a shambolic state?). Hopefully, the Chief Justice will do some straight tu-okra-3na-momoni-nyinaa-fu, talking, to the genius-folk at the Danquah Institute, whose revisionist-historical-lies seek to brainwash our younger generations into believing that Dr. J. B. Danquah was the one-man-thousand-creator-in-chief, of the enterprise Ghana (yet, truth be told, Dr. J. B. Danquah was a known well-paid-agent, of Western intelligence agencies, who sought the physical elimination of President Nkrumah to enable him eventually take over Ghana, as it's pro-Western sell-out-puppet-in-chief). Hmmm, eyeasem, oooo... The fact of the matter, which is being hidden from our younger generations, is that Dr. J. B. Danquah & Co's vision of the post-independence nation-state, meant to replace the departing British occupiers of the territorial landmass of the Gold Coast colony, was a federal state, made up of the pre-colonial era's tribal Chiefdoms, which was roundly rejected by ordinary Ghanaians, in the elections of 1951, 1954 and 1956. Wise, paaaa, as always, the aspirational African people of Nkrumah's Ghana. Cool. Furthermore, dear reader, it was Nkrumah's vision of a united unitary African state (which would be a meritocracy, in which any citizen could rise to the top of society, regardless of their background, and in which there would be universal adult suffrage), which resonated with the masses - who voted overwhelmingly, to opt for that Nkrumahist future. Hmmm, ey3nsem piiiiii, oooo, Ghanafuo. Finally, Ghanafuo, in light of all the above, one's humble-considered-advice for Ghana's Chief Justice is: Over to you, Joe Lartey - 3yaa-tu-okra-3na-momoni-nyinaa-fu, wai. Case closed. Enough, really is enough, ooooo, Opanin. Yooooooo... The report of the regional assessment on eTrade readiness of Member States of ECOWAS highlights the prerequisites for the growth and development of e-commerce within and between member states. The Regional E-commerce Strategy Development Project was launched in October 2021, by the ECOWAS Commission and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) with funding from the government of the Netherlands. The project aims to provide a roadmap for e-commerce development that leads to the use of technology to accelerate structural change and development, and foster regional integration, including through economic diversification, job creation and more inclusive trade activities within the ECOWAS region. As a precursor to the Strategy, UNCTAD conducted an eTrade Readiness Assessment of Member States of ECOWAS (ECOWAS eTrade Ready). The ECOWAS eTrade Ready followed UNCTADs eTrade Ready methodology which is designed to identify e-commerce development challenges in developing countries, especially least developing countries. It assesses the state of e-commerce preparedness in countries or regions based on seven (7) policy areas namely: i) e-commerce readiness and strategy formulation ii) ICT infrastructure and services iii) trade facilitation and logistics iv) legal and regulatory framework v) payment solutions vi) skills development and vii) access to finance. The ECOWAS eTrade ready report notes that most Member States have placed digitalization at the centre of their efforts towards economic growth, and for this, have adopted and are implementing strategies and policies to convert this ambition into results. Unfortunately, there remains a need for deliberate action to extend this digitalization effort and channel it into trade-driving activities that are supportive of e-commerce. The report highlights the need to: Strengthen Trade ministries in ECOWAS Member States on e-commerce development, Enhance trust within the e-commerce ecosystem within and between Member states, Improve monitoring of the e-commerce market, and Foster inclusion. The final report is available in all ECOWAS languages here: Member States of the Economic Community of West African States: eTrade Readiness Assessment: https://unctad.org/webflyer/member-states-economic-community-west-african-states-etrade-readiness-assessment About the Regional E-commerce Strategy Development Project in ECOWAS Following a request by the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2020, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is providing support for the development of a Regional E-commerce Strategy for ECOWAS thanks to the support of the Government of the Netherlands. The E-commerce Strategy Development project developed in cooperation with the ECOWAS Commission has the objective to assist it in its efforts to use technology to accelerate structural change and development, and foster regional integration, including through economic diversification, job creation and more inclusive trade. Website ECOWAS: https://ecowas.int/ UNCTAD: Regional e-commerce strategy development for the Economic Community of West African States Members of the Council of State should be blamed for the humiliation suffered by President Akufo-Addo at the Global Citizens Festival in Accra on Saturday when he was heckled by some participants. A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Gordon Edudzi Tameklo said the Council of State failed to give President Nana Addo Dankwa Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo true advise in order for him to govern the country to the satisfaction of the people. In his view, the Presidents poor performance in office has angered the people hence their action at the event. Mr Tameklo however, described the situation as unfortunate. Speaking on the New Day show with Johnnie Hughes on TV3 Monday September 26, he said Unfortunate as the incident may be I think that persons working around the president and the managers of the current economy need to begin to pick some of these signals especially persons within the National Security. You cannot always tell the president what he wants to hear, the very moment a president closes his ears to all other things this is what you will have. This morning, with the greatest of respects, the Council of State members, they be bow down their heads, all the advisors of the president, they should bow down their heads. It is the kind of advise that they have been giving the president that is what has taken this country to the doldrums. Mr Akufo-Addo during the event delivered a keynote address amidst jeering from the crowd. He spoke about the government of Ghana's involvement in eradicating poverty and upholding national unity. Ladies and gentlemen, I extend a hearty Akwaaba, our word of welcome, from a very hospitable people. To all of you, who have come from afar and wide, to our vibrant city of Accra, Ghana's capital, to join us on this great occasion, the President said at the event amidst the heckling. 3news.com The programmes manager for Tropenbos Ghana, Daniel Kofi Abu has questioned why government is giving away the Atiwa forest to foreigners to mine bauxite in that important forest reserve for just $ 2billion dollars when ecotourism can give Ghana $1.1 billion dollars annually. He bemoaned the destruction of rivers and water bodies in Ghana through illegal mining activities and warned that if drastic measures are not instituted, water would be imported into the country in some few years to come. Trust me, Atewa forest is not even spared and we all know the recent development with the bauxite. We have done extensive studies to suggest that government could make $1.1 billion dollars annually from developing eco-tourism in the Atewa forest instead of giving it out to foreigners for paltry $2billion dollars to mine bauxite and destroy the forest he mentioned. Kofi Abu told Alfred Ocansey on 3FM Sunrise Morning Show that the government has not used the right approach for the galamsey fight. That is, the main perpetrators of the illegal mining are not arrested and prosecuted but rather the mere labourers. It is unfortunate that in this country we celebrate mediocrity. It is the people we have entrusted with power to take care of our resources that are engaging in the crimes. We have failed to go for the heads; the big fishes that are sponsoring the galamsey Abu noted. He called for a collaborative effort of all stakeholders to protect our water bodies and environment as the world marks World Rivers Day. 3news.com MTN GROUP President and CEO, Ralph Mupita, Senior Vice President for Markets, Ebenezer Asante, and Chief Sustainability and Corporate Affairs Officer, Nompilo Morafo, paid a courtesy visit to President Akufo-Addo, at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly set of meetings. They discussed issues related to the current global macro-economic developments and the impact on African countries, developments in the telecommunications sector, rural broadband coverage, progress with MTN's localisation plans, now at 23.7%, and MTN's commitment to Ghana as a key market for the MTN Group. MTN Ghana is the market leader in the mobile telecommunications industry in Ghana, offering subscribers a range of exciting options under Pay As You Go, Pay Monthly and Mobile Financial Services. The company is part of the MTN Group which is a leading emerging market leader with a clear vision to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world to our customers. We are inspired by our belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life. Scancom PLC is listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. Our strategy is Ambition 2025: Leading digital solutions for Africa's progress, the company said in a statement. Mr Ambrose Dery, the Minister of Interior, has called on factions in the Bawku Chieftaincy dispute to give peace a chance to restore normal times for socio-economic development. He said when all the parties agree and commit to ensuring peace by their action, the security restrictions imposed on the area would be reviewed to allow people to engage in their businesses. Mr Dery made the appeal at Bawku when a government delegation including Mr Dominic Nitiwul, the Minister of Defence and the Inspector General of Police, Dr George Akuffo-Dampare and other staff from the two ministries visited the area to engage the factions. He said the government was committed to restoring peace in Bawku through various arrangements including beefing up security in the area, imposing certain restrictions and called on the residents to work together to achieve lasting peace. I have not come to say things that will please you, I have come to tell you that we need peace, we cannot make our children inherit a worse Bawku than our parents made us to inherit, so we are coming to tell you to give peace a chance. If you give us peace, within a week we will review the restrictions, but if you want to tell us that the only thing you know is war, well, we will increase our outskates, he said. Mr Dery reiterated the ruling of the Supreme Court on the matter and noted that was the government's position and urged all parties to respect the ruling to ensure peace. He said, the President said we should come and tell you that it is not all about laws, it is about you and not the Chieftaincy because Bawku already has a Chief. On his part, the Defence Minister said the delegation was there to ensure that the factions laid down their arms and not to discuss the chieftaincy issue, adding because there is nothing to talk about, the President has come to settle the matter and the Minister of Chieftaincy also read the position of government during last year's Samapiid festival, so there is nothing to talk about. Zugraan Naba Asigri Abugrago Azoka II, the Paramount Chief of the Kusaug Traditional Area, lauded the efforts of the government to restore peace in the area and reiterated the commitment of his traditional council and people to abide by the peace tenets imposed on the area. He however, called on the government to tackle and uproot causes of the recurrent conflict since that matter had been settled by the laws of the country. Mr Mohammed Tahiru Nambe, the Mamprusi Youth Leader, said the people were going to work to ensure peace to enable normal life and for businesses to thrive. Since the re-emergence of the conflict in 2021, several lives and property have been destroyed and economic and social activities had come to a standstill. The protracted conflict is partly due to disagreement over the performance of the funeral of a Chief who died more than 42 years ago, to pave way for the enskinment of another Chief. Meanwhile, the government, through the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, noted that the Chieftaincy disagreement was settled by the Supreme Court in 2003 and urged all parties to respect the ruling. The Ministry of the Interior and the Upper East Regional Security Council had imposed various restrictions including curfew, ban on wearing of smock, riding of motorbikes and tricycles among others in the Bawku Township and its environs. GNA SITEKI Police are investigating the commotion. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, confirmed that the shooting was reported to the police. Vilakati said there was a reported matter to the effect that a commotion took place at Ngcina and shots were fired. There were no injuries sustained during the shooting, she said. Ludzidzini Royal Council Chairman Chief Mdlaka Gamedze, said he was not aware of the incident but only been informed about the function of the introduction of Musa to Ngcina community. He said he last saw both factions on Thursday during the meeting they held with the Dlamini family council (lusendvo) on the matter. Factions Gamedze said the two factions, one led by Moses Dlamini and the other by Hynd Dlamini, had both submitted two candidates to the council and were not in agreement as to who was supposed to replace and succeed the late Chief Mphini. The chairman said the faction led by Moses submitted Musa as the chief candidate, while the one led by Hynd submitted Sibambiso to the council. He said the council summoned both factions to hear their sides of the story whenever there was a dispute. The chief said the council made a ruling based on the submissions made by both parties. We considered their submissions and the background of the matter as per the dictates of our culture and history of this issue. We based our verdict on this merit because we only issue a verdict based on the submissions by both concerned parties, he said. On the other hand, it is worth noting that on Thursday, Gamedze informed this publication that Sibambisos introduction came as a result of submissions from both factions. He said it was a norm that the council summoned both parties to state their side of the story whenever there was a dispute. Getty Images; Russia Beyond 26.09.2022 LISTEN As the UN marks the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, the United States has warned Russia of "catastrophic" consequences if it uses nuclear weapons as part of the Ukraine invasion. In a speech on Wednesday announcing the mobilisation of reservists following Ukrainian gains on the ground, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a thinly veiled threat to use nuclear arms in the Ukraine war. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed in an interview on Sunday that the United States has already sent several warnings to Russia. Blinken told the CBS News program "60 Minutes" on the side lines of the UN General Assembly in New York: "We have been very clear with the Russians publicly, and, as well as privately, to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons." "It's very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. And we've made that very clear," Blinken said. "Any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects for, of course, the country using them, but for many others as well." Decisive response to nuclear threat In a separate interview, President Joe Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said that the United States has warned Russia at "very high levels" of "catastrophic consequences" for using nuclear arms. The United States and its allies would "respond decisively," Sullivan said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We have been clear and specific about what that will entail." Russia and the United States are the world's largest nuclear weapons powers, but separate from the threats of planetary destruction, Russian military doctrine permits the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield to force an enemy to retreat. When asked during a news conference at the United Nations about Putin's comments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said only that Moscow's doctrine "is an open document." 'Scare the whole world' Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky also told "Face the Nation" that Putin's veiled nuclear threat "could be a reality," saying Russian military activity at nuclear power plants in Ukraine are "the first steps of his nuclear blackmail." "He wants to scare the whole world," Zelensky said of Putin. "I don't think he's bluffing. I think the world is deterring it and containing this threat. We need to keep putting pressure on him and not allow him to continue," Zelensky added. UN marks anti-nuclear day No country has used nuclear weapons on the battlefield except the United States in 1945, when it destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people. Imperial Japan surrendered days later, ending World War II. The latest positioning of the nuclear threat at the centre of world politics comes as the United Nations marks the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. In a statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the UN rejects claims that nuclear disarmament is some "impossible utopian dream." "Eliminating these devices of death is not only possible, it is necessary," he said, especially at a "moment of rising geopolitical division, mistrust and outright aggression. "We are in danger of forgetting the terrible lessons of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Cold War, and inciting a humanitarian Armageddon." Last month, signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons reportedly came close to consensus but failed to agree on the total elimination of nuclear weapons. The UN statement adds "We urge all States to use every avenue of dialogue, diplomacy and negotiation to ease tensions and reduce risk." Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) has welcomed a commitment by President Nana Akufo-Addo to ending Child Marriage. On Saturday, at the 2022 Global Citizen Festival , President Akufo-Addo made a commitment to mobilize support towards ending child marriage in Ghana and Africa. According to UNICEF, 1 in 5 girls marry before age 18 in Ghana, a situation which affects the ability of girls to complete basic and secondary education. Eduwatch in a statement issued by its Executive Director Kofi Asare said it welcomes His Excellency's Commitment to ending Child Marriage and reiterate our support towards the realization of that vision. Eduwatch in partnership with STAR Ghana Foundation, with support from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is implementing the SERVE 3 Project, to among others, strengthen the child marriage response system at all levels. Eduwatch further assured it will continue to collaborate with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection by working together to strengthen the existing child marriage reporting, response and support systems, and improve collaboration among social protection and justice sector institutions. 3news.com 26.09.2022 LISTEN As plans are underway to equip sympathizers and members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) across the country, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microfinance and Small Scale Centre, Mr. Paul Sarbeng has shared government policies and programs with party executives. He explains what the NPP government has done and is continuing to do for the people of Ghana to reduce poverty in the country. At a meeting with NPP Constituency Organizers in Kumasi, Mr. Sarbeng also explained that the welfare of the party executives should be taken seriously. "MASLOC is for all Ghanaians and we intend to equip and resource you. The loan is not for free and you can also apply for it to cushion your small business if you are interested. Don't hesitate to do so," Mr. Sarbeng stated. He added, "I must also say that if we are going to get another term of office, the work will depend on people like you." The meeting with the Deputy MASLOC CEO comes shortly after thirty-four trader groups at Kejetia Market received loans totaling Ghc1.7 million to sustain their businesses. He also stated that recovery is ongoing and the institutions ability to recover will enable it to give more loans to Ghanaian businesses and request their assistance in recovering the loans. "There's nothing the President can do and exclude Ashanti Region from it. So just exercise patience and it will get to your time," Mr. Paul Sarbeng received cheers from party members present. 26.09.2022 LISTEN An activist of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Stan Dogbe has reacted to the statement from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) condemning the boos directed at President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo over the weekend. On Saturday, the President was at the Global Citizens Concert organised at Black Stars Square. While mounting the stage to deliver a speech, President Akufo-Addo was subjected to booing by a section of the crowd. The youth clapped their hands while shouting away 'away.' Reacting to the incident, the New Patriotic Party has alleged that it was the NDC that organised some of its supporters to humiliate the President. Theres nothing wrong if President Akufo-Addo goes to an event and receives cold reception. Thats a normal occurrence. But then, to allow politics to take centre stage at such an event and single out the President unfairly for political point scoring raises serious concerns. To put it more bluntly, it is pure evil and utter disgrace for the NDC to organize its supporters to go and shout down the President the manner it happened, a statement signed by Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah Bonsu who is the party's Director of Communications has said. Shocked by the response, Stan Dogbe has taken to his Facebook to comment on the matter. According to him, it will only be a fool who will believe the boos at President Akufo-Addo were politically motivated. "Stop the foolhardiness, mates. The hardship is real, and it can only increase. Nana Akufo-Addo, Bawumia and their government have absolutely no clue. "The resounding reaction of ordinary Ghanaians- not the fake and real middle class- who are feeling the brunt of the hopelessness being forced on us by a completely clueless, useless and incompetent administration, is just what it is, Stan Dogbe shared. In his view, the booing of President Akufo-Addo is just a small part of the expression of disappointment on the part of the Ghanaian people over the failures of the ruling government. The booing of the President off the stage, a global stage, is just a tip of the iceberg of the frustration and disappointment of the people of Ghana. You will be fooling yourself if you think that Saturdays global embarrassment of Nana Addo was a political masterpiece! Check well, and you will find that the spontaneity of it, means some of your card bearing members who are now openly expressing their disgust, were the loudest, Stan Dogbe added. Fire has gutted portions of a Cargo Terminal at Ashtown in the Kumasi Metropolis of the Ashanti destroying about 15 coffins. The ravaging fire which occurred on Saturday September 24, 2022 also burnt other valuables amounting to thousands of cedis. Firemen responded promptly to the emergency call and ensured that the fire did not spread to adjoining buildings. A worker at the terminal, Mr Abdullahi told this reporter that, "Our cargo cars load goods from Kumasi to Bolga and other parts of the three northern regions, so we were packing our goods as usual until we suddenly heard a blast in one of our containers. "A thick smoke followed the blast almost immediately; we rushed to the scene and saw a fire burning so we called fire officials to help" Items lost include refrigerators, plastic containers, several boxes of matches, tricycles, canned foods, and coffins among others. As of the time of this report, fire service officials were still dousing the inferno. A 59-year-old Trotro driver has been stabbed to death by some suspected armed robbers at Afrancho in the Afigya Kwabre South District of the Ashanti Region. Alex Kwadwo Boateng was found dead at a place near Blue Ice Hotel on Saturday September 24, 2022. Some residents in the area who spoke to this reporter said the deceased was on his way to pick up his Urvan bus when the incident occurred. A fuel station attendant who lives in the area said, hes our customer, he parks his car here at our fuel station. Mr Alex as we call him is the first to come here every morning for his car." He added, "We heard that the suspected robbers attacked him and stabbed him in the stomach while he was on his way to take the car early Saturday morning." The body of the deceased has since been deposited at the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital by police in the area. The Elders and Council of Greater Accra Moshie Yadega have installed a businessman and a philanthropist, Naaba Adamu Hamid Ouedraogo as the Greater Accra Moshie Yadega Chief. The installation of Naaba Adamu Ouedraogo took place at the Moshie Yadega Palace in Mamobi, a suburb of Accra immediately after the 40 days Dua (prayers) of the late Greater Accra Moshie Yadega Chief, Naaba Tugourie I. The installation ceremony brought together high profile personalities including, His Eminence the National Chief Imam of Ghana, Sheikh Osumanu Nuhu Shaributu, His Royal Majesty Naaba Kiba of Yadega, Burkina Faso, Members of Parliament and some political parties representatives. The newly installed Chief of Greater Accra Moshie Yadega, Naaba Adamu Ouedraogo expressed his profound gratitude to the National Chief Imam, the Chief of Yadega of Burkina Faso as well as other traditional and Muslim tribal Chiefs for their support. He assured them of good leadership that will ensure the well-being of all Ghanaians adding that his area of focus will be agriculture. He said government hands are tied and the people are suffering hence the need for him to motivate the youth to venture into skill training. He said he will encourage his people especially the youth to invest in agriculture adding that no one ventures into agriculture. According to him, most of the people in the rural areas move to Accra to trade neglecting agriculture hence his decision to educate his people to redirect their minds back to the farms. He assured the people of Yadega community in Accra and Ghana that his good work will speak for him as come next year the benefit will not be for only the people of Yadega but for all Ghanaians. According to him, leadership is not about money but rather how to become part of the people's problems and provide lasting solutions to make life bearable for them. He advised the youth to be tolerant and treat each other fairly as action begets reaction. He also appealed to the youth to ensure they help promote peace within the Zongo communities and the country at large. He called on his fellow Chiefs to serve the people and not the people serving them adding that most of the Chiefs carry titles around forgetting that they are to render help for people to achieve their goals. The newly installed Greater Accra Moshie Yadega Chief, Naaba Adamu Hamid Ouedraogo is a philanthropist and the Chief Executive Officer of Sissamba Empire Company Limited an entity specialized in land management and administration. He doubles as the development Chief of Sarpeiman with a stool name Nii Abbey Okanfrah I and popularly known as Staff. Source: Muhammed Faisel Mustapha 26.09.2022 LISTEN The most costly price of democracy is having a timeserver President. It maybe a bitter pill to swallow but the truth reveals itself in this form. And the truth is that our President is now a timeserver, just occupying space and time until his retirement. After all nobody can remove him from power until his time is up. In other words, President Akufo Addo is now Konongo Kaya who makes little to no effort at all to solve our problems created by his own government except blame it on the broken record of Russia-Ukrain war and Covid-19 pandemic. When I say the President is a timeserver, I am not even exaggerating because in five years he still hasnt accomplished the easiest task of simply reshuffling his own cabinet - something any sleeping President can do. What effort does it take for a leader to hire and fire? Isnt it an intrinsic part of leadership to be able to hire and fire workers? Yet our time server President has failed monumentally even with that. What a big shame! At the recent UN general assembly in New York, our President said, every bullet fired in the Russia-Ukraine war lands in the pocket of Ghanaians. It was the most absurd statement ever made on that global platform. Even the Ukrainian President did not make such a spurious claim. Indeed, every travel our President and his entourage makes, directly impacts the pockets of Ghanaians yet he has seen nothing wrong with constantly jetting off in privately rented flights on non-essential travels. Despite the war between Russia and Ukraine, those countries are still exporting grains, gas and oil to many parts of the world including Africa. What do we export as a country besides the traditional exports from colonial times? Nothing. All we do is importation. So why is our timeserver President constantly irritating our ears with this broken record? Is it the duty of Russia and Ukraine to feed our people? Is that why we elected him to mislead us? And Is that what makes us lucky to have him as our President? This is a President who is only interested in winning elections and nothing more. He recently boasted while on a tour in the Upper West region that he has won two prior elections against the predictions of his political opponents and hes now on his way to winning the third election for his party the NPP in 2024. Hes also been seen and heard campaigning for some of his appointees who wants to enter parliament in 2024 two clear years to the next general election. How much more irresponsible can he be in the midst of all the economic and social upheavals in our society. No wonder he now relies on a doomed cathedral to count for his eight year legacy as President of Ghana - a cathedral which construction is only now supported by greedy pastors and sycophantic political allies. The people of Ghana have rejected that one needless object that brings no food to the table - the doomed cathedral - and they will definitely reject his doomed party the NPP in 2024. The only thing our timeserver President does now, besides giving absurd speeches, is watch the clock tick towards his retirement while the people of Ghana suffer his lack of effort. By: Sacut Amenga-Etego (Freelance Journalist) The Assembly member for Akokoamong Electoral Area in the Ejisu Municipality, Hon Daniel Owusu, has disclosed that more foreigners are still hiding in the community at the blindside of authorities in the area. Some of these outlanders according to the assembly member are engaging in illegal activities including operating a school for men between the ages of 18 to 30 without any permit. It is yet to be known by authorities as to what they are teaching the men who have been camped at secret places in the community. The foreigners suspected to hail from Cameroon, Niger, Burkina and other neighboring countries have been camping secretly without the notice of authorities in the area. In an interview on the Kumasi-based OTEC 102.9 FM's morning show, Nyansapo, on Monday September 26, 2022, Hon Daniel Owusu said although police in the region have arrested some foreigners, there are dozens of them who are still hiding in the community. "Sources in the community say there are many of these immigrants hiding in our area, and I must say the situation has sparked fear among us," he stated. ARREST OF FOREIGNERS Police in the Ashanti Region on Thursday September 22, 2022 arrested 48 foreigners suspected to be illegal immigrants living in a five-bedroom house at Akokoamong. The arrest follows a combined action by security officials and community members who claimed to have observed the suspicious moves by these people in the past few months. The suspects have since been held at the Ejisu Divisional Police Command assisting investigations. 26.09.2022 LISTEN The United Nations in Ghana is committing at least $260 million (GHC2.6 billion) to support Ghana accelerate and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda 2063. Through the UNs Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, the UN in Ghana, represented by over 30 UN agencies, funds and programmes will focus on empowering people and institutions through capacity development and other areas, reaching the most vulnerable to ensure no one is left behind. The UN Resident Coordinator for Ghana, Mr. Charles Abani announced this at the Global Citizen Festival, co-hosted by Ghana, in Accra, over the weekend. The festival brought together renown artists, Ghanaian leaders and thousands of young people from all walks of life determined to add their voices to accelerate the attainment of the SDGs and create a just, equitable and sustainable world. The event was broadcast live across the world. Mr. Abani, representing the UN in Ghana, and flanked by Barbara Clemens, World Food Programme Director for Ghana and Esther Akua Gyamfi, Executive Secretary of the National Council of Persons with Disabilities said today is the best time to rally the needed support for Ghana, adding that the UN stands with Ghana on this forward-looking ambition to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs and Agenda 2063. The commitment above represents about 50% of the proposed funding by the UN to support the UN Cooperation Framework, which will soon be signed by the UN and the Government of Ghana. It will cover the period 2023 to 2025 to support inclusive economic growth, equitable access to services, and durable peace in Ghana and across the sub-region. The festival, the first-ever in Ghana, was held as part of the 65th anniversary of the countrys independence. -United Nations SITEKI Four gunshots were supposedly aimed and fired at Musa Dlamini with his family and well-wishers, while they held a vigil leading to his introduction as the chief of Ngcina. This happened around midnight on Friday. Leading to the incident, two factions had been at loggerheads at Ngcina on who to succeed Chief Mphini. This resulted in the matter being taken to the Ludzidzini Royal Council whereupon something out of the norm happened, according to Ludzidzini Royal Council Chairman Chief Mdlaka Gamedze. This was when the Ngcina Umphakatsi faction led by Moses Dlamini walked out of the meeting with the Ludzidzini Royal Council, indicating that they were opposing the introduction of Sibambiso as the chief candidate of the area. Sibambiso is the late Chief Mphinis grandson, born by the chiefs firstborn Vusi, who died after having been earmarked to be the successor of his father as chief. Subsequent to this development, both factions were preparing for the introduction of both candidates to the community of Ngcina. As the faction supporting Musa prepared for his introduction, it was gathered that they held a vigil within the compound of the royal kraal. At around midnight, it was gathered that a group of about 30 people were heard talking as they walked into the compound. It was said those who were seated near a fire in anticipation of Musas introduction, dismissed them to be drunkards and continued with their business. However, within minutes, the so-called drunkards started pelting stones at the people in the compound. Among the people who were seated around the fire was Musa. He said one of the people shielded him from the stones that were hailed at them. However, in the manner the stones were hurled at them, they all ended up leaving the fire and running in all directions. As they did so, Musa said he heard voices saying unpalatable words. At that instance, Musa said he heard gunshots and supposed they were targeting him, given the utterances leading to them being fired. Luckily enough, he said, the fired shots missed him as he ran and hid in a nearby forest. While in hiding, he said they reported the matter to the police, who, however, showed up at the royal kraal on Saturday. He said when the police arrived, they showed them the two cartridges and live rounds that were within the compound of the royal kraal. They have opened a case on my behalf as these people were specific that they wanted to end my life, Musa said. His assertions were further supported by his daughter, Tricia. She said the perpetrators of the violence drove into the premises of the main home and found family members and relatives seated around fire while roasting meat. Tricia said the mob fired gunshots and further pelted stones at the family members and relatives when they arrived and shouted that they wanted her father dead. She alleged that the mob further vandalised cars found parked at the premises and three family members sustained injuries when they were pelted with stones. One was injured on the knee and some were assaulted while running away from the mob. It was a scary sight and we were told police were handling investigations leading to this circumstance, Tricia said. Live Also, Ngcina Umphakatsi Inner Council (Bandla Ncane) Member Sikelela Mohale, said about two live rounds and a cartridge were found outside the gate of the chiefdom. Mohale said eight men at the gate were manning security given that there were threats of burning the royal kraal. He said the mob came and violently entered the chiefdoms gate being followed by a sedan. He said they had suspects in mind and as such, the matter had been reported to the National Commissioner (NATCOM) of Police William Tsitsibala Dlamini. After the threats, a police officer who is currently on leave and resident assisted the chiefdom with security on the night with community police members of the area. However, the mob outnumbered us and we managed to whisk Musa Dlamini to safety with the assistance of the police officer as they wanted him dead, he alleged. Meanwhile, the function to introduce Musa to the community proceeded as he was given a new name Jingizibovu, after being officially introduced to the Ngcina community. Musa said after the violent incident preceding his introduction to the community, the ceremony went ahead on Saturday without any challenges. An effort to get the faction that had submitted Sibambiso as a candidate proved futile. Indvuna of Ngcina, Titi Abraham Magagula, requested not to engage in issues of the royal kraal with the media. He said such issues should be discussed within the compounds of the royal kraal. 26.09.2022 LISTEN The aura of fear, panic and insecurity that has engulfed the entire Wa Municipality, as a result of the bizarre abduction and murder of night security men in Wa, is a matter of grave concern to the NDC. It is worrisome that, within a space of three months, about ten law abiding and dutiful residents of Wa, have disappeared in the most horrifying circumstances that has thrown the entire Upper West Region and more particularly, the Wa Municipality into a state of mourning, fear, panic and uneasiness. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the region wishes to seize this opportunity, to commiserate with the residents of the Wa Municipality and particularly extend our sincere condolences to all families who have lost relatives to this condemnable menace. To no uncertain terms, we strongly condemn this criminal, barbaric and dastardly act and call on all stake holders to immediately put their shoulders on the wheel, to help unravel this enigma that appears to elude us. We have keenly monitored unfolding events in the collective effort to apprehend the perpetrators of such ungodly acts and secure the serenity of the Municipality. We wish to profoundly commend our traditional rulers, gallant youth search teams, religious leaders, the security services and the law-abiding residents of the Wa Municipality, who have all been relentless in their efforts to smoke out these social misfits, who cause us so much pain. We commend the Inspector General of Police (Dr. George Akufo Dampare) and Alhaji Alhassan Uthman Gbangu for pledging to pay a reward of Hundred Thousand Ghana Cedis and Ten Thousand Ghana Cedis respectively to anyone who will volunteer useful information that will lead to the apprehension of the criminals. The NDC is so much conscious of the pain, anxiety, fear, panic and insecurity that has enveloped the entire Region as a result of these unfortunate happenings. The party stands in solidarity with the Region in these precarious moments. We would however wish to plead that, we collectively apply surgical diligence to ensure that, a toad does not sweat for the lizard that has gone to eat pepper. Against this backdrop, we condemn reports of unprovoked attacks on some Igbos resident in Wa. We encourage the youth and the search teams, to carry out this arduous task within the realms of our laws. Whilst we are committed to insulating the fore-going discussion from pedestrian political interest, we are equally conscious of the fact that, one does not need to hit the side of the drum when the face is there. It is our deep-seated conviction that, the Akufo Addos administration is complicit in the security lapses that has degenerated to our current predicament. The government must thus, be held accountable for every life lost in this sad turn of events. We all can remember that, on 22nd August,2017, the then Deputy Upper West Regional Minister (Hon. Issahaku Amidu Chinia) as reported by Joy news portal, indicated that, 583 Police Officers were transferred from the Region without replacement. The revelation hit the region like a thunderbolt and generated so much public uproar. The government paid a deaf ear to all calls to immediately reverse the hemorrhage of police officers from the region. It is sad that, our intelligence on the grounds still point to the fact that, the menace still continues unabated. Also, prior to the advent of the Akufo Addos regime, the Police visibility policy that was used as a tool to suppress the rising rate of crime by the erstwhile Mahama regime, was very efficacious. Here in the Wa Municipality, tents were mounted at strategic points with perpetual police presence to ward off miscreants, who engaged in unlawful or nefarious activities. Is it not a subject of wonder, that such a beautiful idea was killed by this regime? In our relentless brainstorm, to unravel the mystery surrounding the unexplained abduction and murder of lawful citizens, we were shocked at the vulnerabilities that, the failures of the Akufo Addos regime has subjected the Police Service to, in their efforts to fight crime. It is shocking that, regular fuel allocations to the police service for their routine patrols, has been a bone of contention now between government and the police service, as our intelligence suggests that, fuel supplied to the Police Service (in the midst of unmitigated fuel price hikes) can even barely support administrative purposes. Additionally, the failure of this administration to retool the police in the Upper West Region with adequate modern crime fighting equipment, must be a matter of concern. Our checks reveal that, the armoury of the service in the region, is replete with obsolete equipment that cannot meet the test of time. It sounds quiet shocking that, the region is the home of Ghanas Interior Minister (Hon. Ambrose P. Dery). It is paradoxical that, the Hon. Regional Minister, the Hon. Municipal Chief Executive and all entrusted with the power of the State seem to find different causes of all this insecurity, except their obvious failure to ensure the well-lighted Municipality they inherited, continues to be lighted. The cloud of darkness that has engulfed the Municipality since the advent of this regime, is shameful and condemnable. We hereby commend the Hon. Dr Rashid Hassan Pelpuo (MP) who has immediately made available, two- hundred street light bulbs to redeem the Municipality from darkness. We have also heard of reactive efforts being put in by the Municipal Assembly, to procure more street light bulbs for the Municipality. Though we see it as a knee jerk measure and the lack of proactivity, we think it is better late than never. We have become aware of the deployment of about three hundred and fifty police officers by the IGP, to beef up the police strength in Wa. Our intelligence has gathered that, over 80 % of those deployed are newly passed out recruits, whose first assignment is to help unravel the mystery behind the serial killings in Wa. Without any prejudice against the IGP or the officers deployed, we are of the candid opinion that, the issues at hand required much more experienced hands and a greater attention from the government. We encourage the IGP, the Hon. Interior Minister, the Hon. Upper West Regional Minister and the Hon. Wa Municipal Chief Executive, to immediately step down from their social media stardom and to channel all frantic efforts at apprehending the culprits and rendering justice to the people of the Wa Municipality. Whilst we are not surprised that, the President of the Republic, who doubles as Commander In Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and also head of National Security apparatus, has chosen to be as silent as night, while law abiding citizens continue to lose their lives in the most gruesome manner, we would want to caution the government, to be mindful of its sacred responsibility to guarantee the inalienable right to life that every citizen and lawful resident in Ghana has. We wish to assure the people of the Upper West Region that, the NDC is poised to pursue this government until it discharges its primary responsibility of ensuring the peace and security of the region. We are very much aware of dubious intentions by this government, to leverage on security challenges in NDC strongholds and to use same as levers to declare them high risk security areas ahead of election 2024.This we believe is within their ill brewed master plan, to unleash party hoodlums concealed within the National Security apparatus, such that, such miscreants would aid them in their infamous Break the eight mantra. The knee jerk reactions to the Wa crises and the lack of proactivity by government, further confirms our suspicion. We deem it a sad development that, not only are our compatriots in Wa murdered in cold blood by unscrupulous people, but through omission, commission and negligence, this government remains complicit to the sad turn of events, where many more people are silently murdered by poverty, bad roads, under resourced health facilities, hunger, rising cost of living and illiteracy. We call on government to demonstrate commitment to the well-being of the Upper West Region. We equally call on all residents in the region, to co-operate with the security agencies in the fight against this new trend of crime. Signed Puo-Ire Prosper (RCO) 0204852735/0543422805 Senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, Legon, Prof. Ransford Gyampo has bemoaned the boos directed at President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo over the weekend. On Saturday, the President was at the Global Citizens Concert organised at the Black Stars Square. While mounting the stage to deliver a speech, President Akufo-Addo was subjected to booing by a section of the crowd. The youth clapped their hands while shouting away 'away.' Reacting to the incident today, Prof. Ransford Gyampo has condemned the actions of the crowd, indicating that the position of the Presidency must be respected at all times. We do not like how the country is being governed but we cannot suddenly also throw our culture of courtesy, respect, and civility to the dogs. The position of the PRESIDENCY MUST be respected by ALL, regardless of its occupant, the UG Professor said. According to him, the embarrassment happened because someone failed President Akufo-Addo by not doing his intelligence-gathering duty. It is part of intelligence gathering to know the mood of a people to be addressed. Someone failed and caused this monumental embarrassment. Unfortunately, the President cannot even reshuffle, let alone sack anyone, Prof. Ransford Gyampo added. The people of Wuru, a deprived community in the Sissala East Municipality of the Upper West Region are not using the Ghana Cedis, the official currency of Ghana as its medium of exchange due to the depreciation of the Ghana Cedi and other compelling factors. The only way they accept the cedi as medium of exchange or legal tender is to receive the money in CFA equivalent when selling their products. The community, with a population of more than 3,000, transacts business with neighbouring Burkina-Faso and accepts the CFA as the legal tender for convenience. They trade in livestock, cereals and sheanut as well as fowls. Maize, millet, and sesame are the major crops produced in the area. Wurupio Mahama Bataachia Dawuri IV, the chief of the area speaking to the GNA, said there was nothing wrong with spending a foreign currency in the area since they do not recognize themselves as Ghanaians because they have been neglected, and do not benefit from government projects. He attributed the problem to among other things, poor road infrastructure, depreciation of the Ghana cedi and increases in prices of petroleum products as well as Burkinabes being their only business partners. Some people making payment with the CFA in the Wuru market. The community, about 70 kilometres from Tumu borders Burkina-Faso and speaks only Kassem, the language of Navrongo and other Kassena Nankana communities of the Upper East Region. It took the GNA more than three hours on a motorbike from Tumu to the community due to the deplorable nature of the road, which a vehicle cannot access. The GNA visited the Sissala East Municipality to see problems facing the people and to report on them for assistance by state actors. Wurupio Dawuri explained that the Ghana Cedi and the CFA were spent concurrently, but that the people stopped accepting the Ghanaian currency due to depreciation and high fuel prices. The chief said the Wuru community is only remembered during elections, where politicians come to deceive them for their votes. He said: We consider ourselves as being in a neutral zone. We do not know whether we belong to Ghana or Burkina-Faso because nobody cares about us, and that they appealed for support over the years that were ignored. He explained that they have been compelled by circumstances to ignore the Ghana Cedi since they could not convey their produce to any of the Ghanaian communities for sale because of lack of roads and transportation. People come here to tell us that it is illegal for us to spend the CFA other than the cedis. We also tell them it is not our fault because the only way for us to survive is to accept the CFA since all the goods come from Burkina-Faso, he said. He expressed concern about the inability of the National Identification Authority (NIA) to register and get the Ghana Card for them due to lack of network service in the area for registration. Wurupio Dawuri said it was important for the government to ensure that the Wuru community gets good roads to be linked to the rest of Ghana to ensure the people belong to Ghana and to enjoy the national cake. He also appealed for water, communication network and security in the area since they cannot defend themselves from terrorists attacks. Mr. Yakubu Fuseini Batong, the Sissala East Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) said the Tumu-Kunchokor-Wuru road had been awarded and that construction would soon start. He said efforts were being made to construct and repair broken bridges on the Wuru road. GNA A long-running state of insecurity has recently intensified in Unity State one of South Sudan's 10 states resulting in many innocent lives being lost . The security crisis is being stoked by many factors. One is fighting between sections of the civilian population, caused by cattle raiding , among other things. Another is armed confrontation between government forces and insurgents like the South Sudan People's Movement/Army . This is a group of disgruntled soldiers who were recently discharged from the military and are agitating for new government roles. Broadly, the crisis speaks volumes of the fragility of South Sudan as a state. It is the consequence of weak political institutions in the country, not just Unity State. It is my view that the national government of South Sudan and Unity State government should work together to address the crisis in an effective way. Such a way may involve disarming young people, which has worked elsewhere in the country, for example in the Lakes State. It is the use of arms by civilians to fight each other that has made the situation much worse. The role of states The roles of states as regional institutions are relevant in the scheme of things. South Sudan is made up of 10 states and three administrative territories. States were created under the country's transitional constitution in 2011 . Of the three administrative territories, two Pibor an Ruweng were created by the national executive government. The third Abyei, in the north of the country was created under the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement as a disputed territory between South Sudan and Sudan. Abyei's status remains unresolved. Each state has a legislative assembly (one chamber of parliament). Its members are drawn from the government and opposition parties as parties to the 2018 revitalised peace agreement . This agreement has been incorporated into the transitional constitution. The responsibilities and functions of state governments include maintaining peace and good order, protecting and promoting human rights and freedoms, and undertaking their own economic and infrastructure development. States have not been able to achieve these essential goals due to lack of resources. Aside from generating their own revenue, states are supposed to receive a share from the petroleum money public money under the transitional constitution . The constitution is, however, silent on how much money each state should receive. That leaves the national government to decide. The petroleum producing areas Upper Nile and Ruweng are allocated 2% of the net petroleum revenue. But reports suggest they do not receive the amount due to them annually. Security problems States have been hampered by security problems since at least independence in 2011. Reports have identified communal conflicts as the main cause. These stem from longstanding land disputes and cattle raids. A proliferation of arms has made the conflicts worse. It is estimated that every young person in the villages has a gun. The Unity State governor has acknowledged this problem , and urged the national government to lend him support to disarm young people. These conflicts have deepened divisions in the country, weakening the government's effort to implement peace. State power under the transitional constitution Key to understanding the security crisis is perhaps the division of state power under the country's transitional constitution. The transitional constitution outlines the powers and functions of government institutions in South Sudan. In particular, it provides for the powers and functions of the two chambers of the national legislature the national legislative assembly and the council of states. The national legislature has the overall power to enact laws and to supervise the national executive government. The second chamber the council of states has 100 members representing the states. The council's role has come under scrutiny recently. This came after its decision to impeach the governor of Unity State, Nguen Monytuil, for the crisis. But President Kiir Mayardit has overruled the council's decision, saying it was unconstitutional. The president has the power to sack a state governor if a crisis has occurred in the governor's state that threatens South Sudan's territorial integrity. While the president acted appropriately in this matter, the national government is not doing enough to help Unity State resolve the security crisis. Like the rest of the states, Unity State has limited capacity and resources to deal with matters of security decisively. Next steps There are obvious measures the government could take. One is total disarmament of young people throughout the country. To make this more effective, parliament should enact a law to make possession of arms by civilians a criminal offence that carries serious penalties. This approach has been applied in some states in South Sudan, such as Lakes State. And it is working. Lakes State used to be the most violence-stricken place in the country. But its security has improved significantly since its governor, Rin Tueny, started disarmament in 2021. The same approach is being trialled in Warrap State, another violence-hit territory. It is still too early to tell whether it is working. Lastly, the power arrangement in the country as set out in the transitional constitution needs to be revised. It's this arrangement that is partly to blame for the power overreach by the council of states. In one sense, it gives the council a supervisory role over states. This is justifiably what encouraged the council to interfere in the affairs of Unity State government. This problem will need to be fixed in a new constitution to be drafted for the country. That constitution must be founded on a balance of power between the national and state governments with a focus on allowing state governments to operate independently, politically. This is arguably the most effective way to constrain the national government from interfering in the political affairs of states. Mark Deng does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. By Mark Deng, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Sessional Law Lecturer, The University of Queensland Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has turned HIV into a manageable chronic condition. When ART is working effectively, HIV cannot be transmitted. This allows people with HIV to live fuller lives without the fear of infecting others. It's also led global HIV control efforts to focus on increasing ART coverage. The aim is to improve the health of people living with HIV, and to decrease and eventually halt the spread of the virus. UNAIDS set 90-90-90 targets to measure global progress by 2020: 90% of people with HIV know their status, 90% of those with a known status are on treatment, and 90% of those on treatment are virally suppressed (a blood test result that means ART is working effectively). These targets have now been increased to 95-95-95, to be reached by 2030 . Read more: HIV, AIDS and 90-90-90: what is it and why does it matter? South Africa has achieved the first 90 target but it falls short on the second 90. Despite having more than 5.5 million people on treatment, only 75% of those with a known status are on ART. Poor retention in health services is one of the most important reasons for this. People living with HIV need to be on ART for their whole lives. This is a tough ask, and although the pills are available free of charge in public health institutions, many people interrupt treatment . Modelling and programme data suggest that the number of people re-initiating ART is as high as, or higher than, the number of people starting treatment for the first time. Interrupting treatment is a problem for two reasons. First, people who aren't on treatment are likely to become sick and die. Second, without consistent treatment HIV can be transmitted, leading to additional infections. At Anova Health Institute we support the Department of Health in providing HIV services in five districts of South Africa. In a recent study , we wanted to know more about why people with HIV interrupt and return to treatment, and how we can support them to stay in care. Reasons for stopping treatment We surveyed 562 and interviewed 30 people returning to care after interrupting ART in three provinces in South Africa. We also explored service provider challenges in providing treatment and care. Our analysis showed that retention in care is influenced by multiple factors. These include individual, family, societal and healthcare service barriers. Mobility or relocation was the most common reason for treatment interruption, reported by close to a third of respondents. It was followed by ART-related factors, including side effects, and feeling too sick to continue ART (15% of respondents); and time limitations due to work (10%). Participants who move around a lot said managing their ART was difficult because of administrative hurdles. Health service barriers included negative service provider attitudes and providers insisting on transfer letters, which led to interruption of treatment and care. Feedback sessions conducted with 99 healthcare providers revealed that people returning to care were sometimes sent to the back of the queue or turned away if they did not have transfer letters. Both these practices are discouraged in national guidelines. Most providers reported they had seen or heard other providers act poorly towards recipients of care after interrupting ART. The poor behaviours and attitudes of providers were partly attributed to limited resources and work overload. On the other hand, we found that clinics which had flexible and extended hours services were better able to keep people in care. This shows that health services need to be more responsive to different life circumstances. What must be done Health systems should be set up to allow people to change where they pick up their drugs. Movement between provinces is common in South Africa. Health services need to be more responsive to people moving within and between districts and provinces, as well as outside South Africa. A functional health information system is needed to link medical records and allow movement between clinics or drug pick-up points anywhere in the country. Healthcare providers should not insist on transfer letters. The official policy requires people to be assisted without a transfer letter, in practice many are turned away. Improved treatment literacy would also empower people to understand their own treatment and demand access to care. ART and other services relating to HIV and other chronic diseases can be provided in many ways inside and outside health facilities . In South Africa, ART and chronic medication can be provided through the Dablapmeds programme . This allows people to collect three months' medication at pick-up points closer to home or work. Models like this should be supported and strengthened. People with HIV told the Department of Health they wanted prescriptions for 12 months, and ART refills of three to six months. A 12-month prescription was used during COVID-19 as an emergency measure, and Anova's programmes reported no decrease in viral suppression. This policy should be expanded. Healthcare providers need improved working conditions and support to improve their ability to provide empathetic, quality services. Overall, the country needs more patient-centred and responsive health services to improve retention on ART. People on ART need comprehensive support that covers medication-related issues, psychosocial support and socioeconomic support. Proactive strategies could include check-in phone calls or messages, appointment reminders, and pop-up sites to collect treatment in remote communities, and after-hours facilities. Task shifting allows different forms of treatment support to be offered and can promote ART adherence . Why this matters Supporting people living with HIV to stay on treatment is the biggest challenge currently facing South African HIV services. The needs and views of people with HIV must be heard and considered to protect and build on the health gains from the country's antiretroviral programme. Services that are flexible and take into account people's changing life circumstances will improve health and decrease HIV transmission. Melanie Bisnauth is employed at the Anova Health Institute, a South African-based NGO, that receives funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through USAID. Some of the work discussed in this article was funded through this grant. Kate Rees is employed at the Anova Health Institute, a South African-based NGO, that receives funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through USAID. Some of the work discussed in this article was funded through this grant. Cathrine Chinyandura is employed at the Anova Health Institute, a South African-based NGO, that receives funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through USAID. Some of the work discussed in this article was funded through this grant. By Melanie Bisnauth, Public Health Technical Advisor, Anova Health Institute and Doctoral Researcher, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand And Kate Rees, Public Health Medicine Specialist, University of the Witwatersrand Its no doubt that funding or financing of businesses has been identified as a top bottleneck for businesses of all sizes, irrespective of location, region, and or industry. This is supported by centuries of surveys conducted to ascertain the challenges that businesses face. All businesses, regardless of size, require cash to cover ongoing operating expenses, build infrastructure, and for marketing, R&D, and client acquisition, among other things. The reasons for capital injections vary, yet the bottom line is that, at a point in every business, funding is a key element. While businesses of all sizes require funding, the sources and opportunities for such funding differ. Large businesses frequently have a wide range of financial support alternatives available to them. But for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), obtaining conventional funding can be extremely difficult and even fatal. The focus of this article is to build a pipeline of funding opportunities that SMEs could explore to meet their short-, medium-, and long-term funding needs. Fortunately, Annan Capital Partners has been at the forefront of supporting multiple SMEs in Ghana and across the African sub-region to access funding for their businesses. Whats an SME? It is widely acknowledged that an SME is different from companies that are primarily used by their owners as vehicles for self-employment. A business is considered a small- to mid-size organization (SME) if its revenues, assets, or workforce are below a specific threshold. Unfortunately, there isn't a universally accepted definition of a SME. Each nation is free to choose its own definition and may also opt to impose particular restrictions on particular businesses. The standards for classifying a SME differ between nations and occasionally between industries. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), which make up a significant portion of firms in Africa, are the backbone of the global economy. SMEs are thought to account for 90% of the private sector in the developing world and for 80% of jobs on the continent of Africa, making them a significant force behind economic progress. Abor and Quartey (2010) claim that the SME sector makes up the majority of firms in Ghana, accounting for over 92% of all businesses. In addition, it was predicted that in 2018, SMEs contributed an estimated 70% of Ghana's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or around 90% of all enterprises that were in operation. Close to 85% of jobs in Ghana are reportedly provided by this industry. It is impossible to overstate the importance of SMEs to the stability of any economy, especially, that of Ghana and the rest of Africa. Numerous studies about the primary forward-thinking function that SMEs play in every economy have been conducted in both developed and developing nations. For these enterprises to grow, create more jobs, and generate economic growth, they need access to funding opportunities. Funding gateways for SMEs The owners of SMEs frequently gripe that a lack of funding prevents them from expanding and fully using lucrative investment prospects. The "funding or financing gap" refers to this difference between the financing options available to small and medium-sized businesses and the financing they could effectively employ. There are quite a lot of potential funding sources for SMEs. However, a lot of them have real-world issues that can make them less beneficial. The ideal scenario, according to many SMEs, is to never need to raise money; instead, the business would support its own initial start and expand going forward at the rate at which it makes money. Many SME CEOs who don't want to answer to outside investors find this strategy to their liking. And the successful consequence is typically a stable business with little growth. Let's begin by exploring some of the funding gateways available to SMEs as they set out to fund their businesses. Owner, Family & Friends This is always the first attempt and source of funding for SMEs. Even before receiving external funding, you are typically asked how much of your own resources you initially invested in the business. Due to the fact that these individuals' (family and friends') motivations for investing may not be solely financial, they may be ready to accept a lower return than many other investors, making this a potentially excellent source of funding. The main drawback is that, for the majority, the ability to raise money from friends and family and on our own is relatively constrained. Bootstrapping Bootstrapping is the practice of launching a business using only one's own finances, together with money borrowed or invested from family or friends and revenue from the first few sales. Self-funded firms do not rely on conventional financing techniques like bank loans, investor money, or crowdfunding. Instead, as the name implies, business owners must "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" by starting with their own money. Bootstrapping is the best place to start for new businesses, especially if market validation of their goods or services has not yet been completed. The benefit of this approach is that the SME owner retains total control. Since it shows the owners' faith in and dedication to the company, it might also be used to persuade investors to join. Angel Funding Angel investors are people or organizations who make investments in start-ups or early-stage businesses in exchange for an equity ownership interest. However, securing an angel investor is only half the battle. Once you've connected, you'll need to sell your business to investors. One drawback is that these people are uncommon and frequently very picky about what they are willing to invest in. Once a business angel expresses interest, they can be of considerable assistance to the SME because they frequently possess excellent commercial judgment and are likely to be connected to a wealth of resources. Angel investors may be relatives or family members, but they are mostly outsiders eager to support start-up businesses with creative ideas. Some of the angel investor networks in Ghana/Africa includes the following: African Business Angels Network Accra Angels Network Ghana Angels Investor Network Venture Capital (VC) Most people undoubtedly picture VC when they think of early-stage financing. Some investors will put money into a new business, while others may wait until it has been operating and proving itself. A venture capitalist firm is very often a subsidiary of a company that has significant cash holdings that they need to invest in. The venture capital subsidiary is a high-risk, potentially high-return component of their investment portfolio. These companies invest quite a significant amount of capital into a SME and have already performed market research and generated initial sales. In return, they receive stock in the business, which entitles them to a seat on the board and a voice in its operations. The injected capital may occasionally be set up as a convertible debt. A presentation to a venture capitalist must demonstrate how they would be able to "exit," or release their value, after a number of years, as these investors rarely wish to remain invested for the long term. This is frequently accomplished by either selling the business to a larger firm engaged in the same industry or expanding it to the point where a stock market listing is feasible. An SME needs a business idea that could generate the high returns a venture investor is looking for in order to get venture capital funding. Invoice Factoring / Discounting Invoice factoring is a type of accounts receivable finance that is also known as "factoring" or "debt factoring". Invoice factoring enables businesses to sell outstanding invoices (accounts receivable) to a third-party commercial finance company (a factor). These sources of finance effectively let a company raise finance against the security of their outstanding receivables. This funding is only temporary and frequently costs more than an overdraft. One advantage of these sources of funding, though, is that when a SME expands, their existing receivables will expand as well, increasing the amount they can borrow from their suppliers or through invoice discounting. Therefore, factoring and/or invoice discounting are two of the extremely limited number of financial sources that expand on their own in tandem with the expansion of the business. Loans & Bank Finance Here, a business borrows money from an individual, a microfinance organization, or a bank that must be repaid with interest after a certain amount of time. When a loan can be secured against significant assets like land and buildings, banks may be ready to offer some type of overdraft as well as long-term loans. Accessing loans can be challenging, particularly when collateral is needed. But thanks to technology, it's now simpler to get unsecured loans through mobile-based services. Crowdfunding Crowdfunding is a method of obtaining outside money from a big audience as opposed to a limited number of specialized investors (such as banks, business angels, or venture capitalists), where each person contributes a small portion of the desired funding. The contributions are then given a reward by the company, which may take the form of gifts, special offers, or even stock. When it comes to crowdfunding, individuals provide the funds that the business requires. Crowdfunding typically occurs through specialized networks, particularly the internet, with the business owner outlining the activities and goals of the company, sometimes in the form of a business plan, and asking for funds under a set of rules and regulations. With regard to traditional types of financing, this constitutes the main novelty of crowdfunding because it allows business owners to access big audiences' savings without the need for a middleman like a bank. Agoo Africa Crowdfunding Coming highly recommended as an efficient crowdfunding platform for small businesses and start-ups in Africa is the yet to be launched Agoo Africa by Annan Capital Partners. Agoo Africa is a crowdfunding platform for African early-stage start-ups and small traditional businesses. When launched, it will allow owners of such businesses to make their project and their pitch accessible to a large number of investors, from young non-professional business angels to established international funds. On the other hand, any investor can now have access to a curated database of small Ghanaian companies from various sectors and invest in them seamlessly via our platform. Another distinguishing feature of Agoo Africa is that, unlike most of the existing equity crowdfunding/crowdinvesting platforms, Agoo doesn't require your startup to be incorporated in Delaware. On the contrary, it's the first such platform which clearly encourages fundraising for companies registered in Africa. When to Raise Finance When you're not in need of funding is the best moment to begin looking. On-boarding new investors requires time, especially if they are corporate investors like venture capitalists (VC) and or even angel investors. Utilize every opportunity you get to inform potential investors about your company, your vision, and what makes it special. This will ensure that they have heard of you and, ideally, are familiar with your narrative when you approach them later to discuss a fundraising effort. Annan Capital Partners, bringing on board decades of experience in connecting multiple SMEs across the African region to funding opportunities, will be an ideal partner in your quest to fund your SME. 26.09.2022 LISTEN A Bachelor of Laws(LLB) student at the Wisconsin University College, Issifu Seidu kudus, has admonished the General Legal Council to reform the various law faculties in the country and prescribe for them the number of students to admit. This he said would help reduce the frustrations students go through in trying to enter the Ghana Law School. In an exclusive interview with this reporter, he said legal education over the years has been treated as a preserve of the privileged class. He added that, not until some young men and women began to agitate, Northern Ghana had no single law faculty. "If the General Legal Council believe that the number of students being churned out by the about 13 law faculties across the country is way too much to be in the system, it can, as required by the General Legal Council Act, 1960 (Act 32), regulate the faculties and prescribe for them a required and reasonable number to admit. "This issue of having to leave the faculties to admit more numbers just to make profit at the expense of the expectations and ambitions of many helpless students is by any imagination, unfair and unjust. You do not allow huge numbers from the entry point only to frustrate same with some technicalities which are alleged to be borne out of mafia and convenient tactics at the termination point into the Ghana Law School," he lamented. In his view, the Chief Justice instead of limiting legal education in the country should direct his energy to ensuring a clean system is established to get more lawyers trained. According to him, the recent leakage of the law entrance exam questions is a clear manifestation of a frustrated system of students craving to memorize their way to the bar and would adopt all means possible to bend the rules to get their way through. Whilst calling for an expansion in access to legal education in Ghana, he said there was no way to trigger any conversation about fairness in an unfair system, cautioning that the brain drain that was currently taking centre stage in the medical profession will soon hit the legal profession if measures are not taken to avert the challenges. Political Scientist and member of the ruling NPP, Dr. Amoako Baah wants President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to take a cue from the hooting incident that happened over the weekend in Accra. On Saturday, the President was at the Global Citizens Concert organised at the Black Stars Square. While mounting the stage to deliver a speech, President Akufo-Addo was subjected to booing by a section of the crowd. The youth clapped their hands while shouting away 'away.' Sharing his thoughts on the incident, Dr. Amoako Baah has indicated that it is important that the President uses what happened to him to advise himself. He said Ghanaians are very angry and the President must do his checks to be updated on matters. He should use this to advise himself as to how angry Ghanaians are. For such an occasion to be turned into such a fiasco is very bad. If he has been listening to his handlers to tell him what he wants to hear, now, he should put his ears down and get others to tell him what is going on, Dr. Amoako Baah told Starr FM in an interview. The Political Scientist added, He has to know his own popularity among his people. People are hungry, you go to this occasion in a convoy, why should you do that? The country is in hardship and yet you dont behave in any way to let people know that you feel for them and that youre in it with them. You continue doing business as usual. Insisting that what happened was sad, Dr. Amoako Baah is of the view that the handlers of President Akufo-Addo did not help him. In his view, officials should have gone to the aid of the President when he was being subjected to the booing. Countless Guineans have waited 13 years for the trial of former junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara and others held responsible for an appalling massacre committed on September 28, 2009. That time has come. Victims and relatives will head on Wednesday to a brand-new court in Conakry, where the trial of Captain Camara and 10 former officials will open, barring a last-minute adjournment. The court is just a few kilometres (miles) from the September 28 stadium, where soldiers, police and militiamen cut down opposition supporters and sympathisers. On that day and the next, 156 people were slaughtered and thousands injured, while at least 109 women were raped, says a report of a UN-mandated international commission, published three months after the event. The actual numbers are probably higher. Delays by those in power and the impunity for security forces that had become an "institution", according to the commission, long cast doubt on the chances of a trial. The west African country has mostly been ruled for decades by authoritarian regimes. Red Beret troops of the presidental guard in central Conakry just days after the 2009 stadium massacre. By SEYLLOU DIALLO (AFP/File) Then the head of the current military junta, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who came to power in a putsch in 2021 after 11 years of civilian rule, asked in July for the trial to be held before the next anniversary date. 'I expect the truth' "This year will not only be a commemoration, but a trial," said Saran Cisse, who describes herself as a "survivor of September 28". She cannot hold back tears or find words for the "shame" of the treatment she endured, then the social stigma. "From this trial, I expect the truth, nothing but the truth, because 13 years is not 13 days." Tens of thousands of people were gathered at the stadium to demonstrate the strength of the opposition and to dissuade Camara from running for president in January 2010. He had come to power nine months earlier via a coup in a nation steeped in poverty despite considerable natural resources. Numerous testimonies report how the the presidential guard's Red Berets, police officers and militiamen entered the stadium around noon, cordoned off the exits and opened fire indiscriminately on a crowd that had previously been festive. The killers attacked unarmed civilians with knives, machetes and bayonets, leaving the stands, corridors and grass strewn with the dead and dying. They sexually assaulted and then killed many women. Others were trampled to death in the panic. 'Like a jungle' "It was like a jungle," recalled AFP and Radio France Internationale correspondent Mouctar Bah. Moussa Dadis Camara lors d'une confArence de presse A Ouagadougou, le 11 mai 2015. By AHMED OUOBA (AFP/File) "People were running everywhere, children and youths were climbing the walls while soldiers shot at them. The luckiest ones managed to escape, even wounded, but others... were finished off." One victim, Fatouma Drame, told AFP how soldiers held her by the stadium for two hours after the killing started. They put her in solitary confinement for two weeks where she was repeatedly raped by four men. Drame still endures the trauma of the door opening. "It was infernal," she said. International investigators found the abuses could qualify as crimes against humanity, noting the brutality went on for several days against sequestered women and male detainees who were tortured. The trial should establish the responsibilities of Captain Camara and his co-defendants, including several military and government figures of the time. Some have been detained for years. "Dadis Camara played a central role in the September 28 massacre," either by issuing the order or consenting to it, declared Human Rights Watch in 2009 after carrying out its investigation. Presidential guard chief Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, alias "Toumba", who shot Camara in December 2009. By SEYLLOU (AFP/File) The international commission charges Camara with "personal criminal responsibility and command responsibility". Camara's return The former ruler lives in exile in Burkina Faso. In December 2009, his presidential guard chief Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, alias "Toumba", shot Camara. Toumba, who accused Camara of ordering the massacre, is also due in court. Camara returned to Guinea overnight on Saturday. "He will be there to deliver his part of the truth," lawyer Almamy Somory Traore told AFP. "He proclaimed his innocence and we are going to prove it." Civic associations hope the trial opening will not just be a show, before being adjourned. The junta wants to make a stand against impunity even as it has recently cracked down on civil liberties, say rights activists. "We hope to have clear, transparent justice, no parody of justice, and in the presence of all the defendants," said Asmaou Diallo, president of the Association of Victims, Parents and Friends of September 28. A former National Organiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Yaw Boateng Gyan has called on the partys Council of Elders to advise the General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, not to contest for the position of National Chairman if he has such an intent. According to Mr Boateng Gyan, Mr Nketia contesting for the position of National Chairman has the potential of derailing the efforts of the party to win the 2024 general elections. It has the potential to make things difficult for the party. We want to win the 2024 elections, he said. He noted that a contest between the two individuals, the incumbent, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo and Asiedu Nketia, would demoralise the support base of the party going into the 2024 general elections. He added that the support base of the two stalwarts of the party can make things difficult for the party going into the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections. The contest between these two stalwarts will be fiercely contested because the two individuals have huge followings in the party, he added. Mr Boateng Gyan made this plea to the Council of Elders in an interview on Accra 100.5 FMs mid-day news on Monday, September 26, 2022. He highlighted how Mr Nketia has served as a Member of Parliament and has been the General Secretary for the past 17 years and how Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo has served the party in the capacity of National Organiser, Member of Parliament, Vice Chairman and National Chairman. He was of the view that only the Council of Elders can deal with the issue adding that the two are potential members of the council by virtue of the positions they have held in the party. Source: Classfmonline.com MANZINI An effort to stop the sale of the three hotels under Sun International Management Limited by Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd has fallen through. It was gathered that Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd had written to the liquidators, seeking that the sale of the three hotels, which are SwaziSpa Hotel and Casino, Lugogo Sun, and Ezulwini Sun, be stopped as they had a contract with them. It was gathered that Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd had sought that the matter be sent to arbitration and as such, suggested senior legal professionals for the arbitration, failing which the Law Society should appoint the arbitrator. Agreement Initially, a sale agreement had been reached between Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd and Manzane Estates Limited-Ezulwini Properties Limited in Liquidation for the sale of SwaziSpa Hotel and Casino, Lugogo Sun, and Ezulwini Sun, following the liquidation of five companies under Sun International Management Limited. Canham had agreed to buy the properties in a deal that was signed in Matsapha and Sandton on May 24, 2022. The parties agreed on a price of E782 601 571, with a 10 per cent deposit due within two days of the signing of the agreement. However, Canham was unable to fulfill the agreement. The buyer defaulted on the deposit and the final balance, the latter due within 45 days after the signing of the agreement. The liquidation committees lawyer, Nkosingivile Dlamini, said the deal fell through after Canham defaulted on the agreement. Shareholders He said they were left with no choice but to come back and report to the shareholders and creditors on the fate of the deal, and also to seek their guidance on a way forward. Subsequent to these developments, Dlamini was sought for comment following the collapse of the deal with Canham Mining International, shareholders and that creditors had agreed in principle that the sale of the three hotels under Sun International Management Limited be restarted. Dlamini was asked to outline the status of the sale currently and what was being done by the liquidators to put it to finality. He was also asked if the sale would now be conducted through an auction and if yes how? He was also informed that this publication had gathered that Caham Mining International (Pty) Ltd was claiming that it had a contract of sale (with the liquidators). Dlamini was requested to outline their (Caham Mining International (Pty) Ltd) bone of contention and the response by the liquidators as this publication had gathered that they wanted that aspect (alleged dispute about the contract) to go on arbitration. In response, the liquidators lawyer said the liquidators were mandated by the body of creditors and members to issue a second request for proposal (RFP). He said: They were required to broaden the scope of the advertising to South Africa and abroad. The Liquidators will therefore be putting up the properties by way of private treaty with the assistance of external experts in disposal of assets of such magnitude. Dlamini said Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd was under the impression that the sale entered into with his company was still valid though the company failed to perform as per the terms of the agreement which did not come into full effect as the conditions precedent were not met. He said the liquidators have therefore indicated that they would not participate in any purported arbitration that emanated from an agreement that never came to life. Creditors It is worth noting that on August 26, 2022, this publication reported that shareholders and creditors of Sun International Management Limited had taken a resolution that the process should be restarted, with RFPs (requests for proposals) advertised both locally and in outside markets, specifically the Republic of South Africa, to expand the search for a buyer. It was reported that the RFPs would be for both movable and immovable assets. Co-Liquidator, Paul Mulindwa was quoted outlining that assertions that the sale process was private had been misguided because the RFPs were advertised extensively in the local press. He said any interested party could have come forward with a bid. There remains a need to expand the process to South Africa, Mulindwa said, so that a vast market can be accessed. The co-liquidator said if one were to be honest, there was only one institution in the country that was positioned to raise E500 million and up to E1 billion as the market was very small, and had limited the entire process. He said should the restarted process fail, it may be necessary for the parties to consider re-visiting unsuccessful bidders from the first round to see if they could increase their bids in order to close a sale. He said if that failed, the liquidators may have to go to a public auction as a last resort. In the initial bidding, other than Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd were Eswatini National Provident Fund (ENPF), Yeoman Properties (PTY) Ltd, WZN Investments (Pty) Ltd and Africa Orbit Holdings (Pty) Ltd. According to a report of the master of the High Court, compiled by the co-liquidators, Marisa Boxshall-Smith and Paul Mulindwa on April 22, 2022, the Creditors Committee ranked the bidders. On top of the list was Canham Mining International, followed by ENPF, Yeoman Properties, and WZN Investments. Africa Orbit Holdings came last. Liquidation The sale agreement between Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd and Manzane Estates Limited-Ezulwini Properties Limited in Liquidation was signed on May 24, 2022. The agreement stated that Canham Mining International (Pty) Ltd shall, not later than 45 days from May 27, 2022; furnish the conveyancers with an unconditional and irrevocable bank guarantee in favour of Swazi Spa Holdings and its subsidiaries from a commercial bank registered in Eswatini, for payment of the balance as approved by the seller. Dlamini (liquidators lawyer) said Canham failed to fulfill the agreement even after an extension was granted to the end of July 2022. 26.09.2022 LISTEN Madam Virginia E. Palmer, the United States(US) Ambassador to Ghana, says the US government will work with Congress to provide 138 million dollars to support human capital development in education, health and peace building in Ghana. She said the US Government would also support all their principles of Gender equality, women empowerment and inclusive development. Madam Palmer was speaking at the Global Citizen Festival held at the Black Star Square in Accra. The twin-city event was held in Accra, Ghana and New York City in the United States of America. Gyakie, Sarkodie, Stonebowy, Stormzy, TEMS, Usher and Uncle Waffles performed to the admiration of the packed crowd. The Global Citizen is a Social action platform for the global generations that aims to solve the worlds biggest challenges. With stages in the two iconic locations, leaders, artists, activists and Global Citizens are being united to achieve an ambitious policy agenda focused on empowering women, and girls, taking climate action, breaking systemic barriers and lifting up activists and advocates. Global Citizen is calling on world leaders, corporations and philanthropists to do more than they have ever done before to improve the welfare of the ordinary person. The US Ambassador said the US government would work again across West Africa to promote improved economic growth and inclusive governance and prevent violence and conflict. The US government is providing more than 30 million dollars in initial funding to launch this Regional Programme and they will work with Congress to increase funding for the next decade, she said. Madam Palmer said the US government was committed to creating a new professional exchange with a special focus on US and Global Citizen communities. She said the US government would increase the Peace Corps volunteers in Ghana in the areas of agriculture, education and Healthcare. Mr Charles Abani, United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator, speaking live from Black Stars Square, said Ghana was committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He said the UN was proud to commit at least 260 million dollars to help strengthen Ghanaian institutions and people to achieve these goals. He said the UN would try to mobilize the resources Ghana needed to achieve the SDGs, calling on all citizens, and corporate organisations to support the UN SDGs fund. Mr Abani said the partnership with the Government, Civil Society Organisations, and the private sector, would work to bring a broad range of collaboration that would ensure the people of Ghana have prosperity across all boards. Ms Barbara Tulu Clemens, the Country Director for the World Food Programme, said the UN would commit resources to support inclusive economic growth, equitable access to services and durable peace for Ghana. We will integrate climate change, digitalisation, urbanisation and inclusiveness in all the work we do in Ghana, she said. GNA Hopeson Yaovi Adorye, a staunch member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described the booing of President Akufo-Addo as a blemish on the country's image on a global scale. This was after outraged and suffering Ghanaian youth who attended the Global Citizens music festival gave the President an unpleasant evening during his speech at the event. Soon after the President mounted the stage to deliver the 6-minute welcome address, he was booed with "away! "Away! "chants from the crowd. It continued till the President concluded his speech at the Black Stars Square on Saturday, September 24. This, Hopeson Adorye claimed the action of the youth was improper and did not project a positive image of the country to the rest of the world. On Monday, September 26, he spoke on Accra-based Neat FM's Ghana Montie Morning Show, advising the youth to act responsibly whenever any leader speaks at such an international event in the country. I will say that what they did wasnt right and did not portray Ghana well. This is because the event is a global one and not organized only in Ghana. So next time if an event is taking place of such repute and there is a leader speaking, there is a need for comportment, he said. The 2020 Kpone Katamanso NPP parliamentary candidate again lamented that this is the problem of our country, we look more at the negatives than focus on the positives. We are fixated on propaganda. People do not want to hear good news, they want to only promulgate negative things. The Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) has assured the nation that there are sufficient stocks of all petroleum products to satisfy national demand into the New Year. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CBOD, Dr. Patrick Ofori said concerns about a potential fuel shortage are unfounded. We have more than enough petroleum products at the depots and in the ports ready for discharge. These products, ranging from petrol and diesel to kerosene, premix and aviation fuel, are available in sufficient quantities to meet national demand beyond the Christmas holidays, he stated. Dr. Ofori noted that the nations strategic fuel stocks have been maintained and replenished through policy intervention by the Bank of Ghana (BOG) and nationalistic sacrifices by the bulk oil distribution companies. He explained that the BOG has allocated 120 million US dollars every month untill the end of the year for the importation of all essential petroleum products into the country. For this, we are very grateful to the Central Bank, which has been working with us to assist our members, the bulk distribution companies, to secure foreign exchange forwards to meet the nations petroleum import bill, Dr. Ofori said. With the BOGs intervention, the forex challenges we faced around the middle of the year have been stabilized to some extent and there is little, if any, cause for alarm, Dr. Patrick Ofori stressed. He continued, "What the BOG is providing, however, is just a fraction of what the BDCs need to meet their medium- to long-term foreign exchange liquidity demands and CBOD is hoping that more will be done soon to shore up foreign exchange liquidity in the country." Dr. Ofori also commended the bulk distribution companies for placing the national interest above their commercial interests to help ensure adequate petroleum supplies in the country. He pledged the continuous support and cooperation of CBOD with all the relevant national agencies to ensure adequate supplies of petroleum products to keep the engines of the Ghanaian economy running. A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Gordon Edudzi Tameklo has described the hooting of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as unfortunate. On Saturday, the President was at the Global Citizens Concert organised at Black Stars Square. While mounting the stage to deliver a speech, President Akufo-Addo was subjected to booing by a section of the crowd. The youth clapped their hands while shouting away 'away.' Speaking to TV3 on Monday morning, Gordon Edudzi Tameklo indicated that the incident happened because people working around the President failed him. Unfortunate as the incident maybe I think that persons working around the President and the managers of the current economy need to begin to pick some of these signals especially persons within the National Security. You cannot always tell the President what he wants to hear, the very moment a President closes his ears to all other things this is what you will have, the NDC member noted. According to him, Council of State members and all other advisors of the president must bow their heads. In his view, the country is in its current poor state because of them. This morning, with the greatest of respects, the Council of State members, they should bow down their heads, all the advisors of the president, they should bow down their heads. It is the kind of advise that they have been giving the President that is what has taken this country to the doldrums, Gordon Edudzi Tameklo shared on the New Day programme. Traders at the Tuesday market in Accra have appealed to authorities to refurbish the market to ensure the health and safety of sellers and buyers and to provide more market spaces. According to the traders, the deplorable state of the market has affected sales, losing their customers by the day. The Tuesday market is located at Korle Gonnor, a suburb of Accra, under the Accra Metropolitan Assembly. It is one of the oldest markets in the capital, having existed for decades. Although the market operated every other day, Tuesdays were observed as market days when many traders troop in with their wares to make good sales. The market was mainly seen as a hub of smoked fish and seafood, notably shrimps, herrings and many other types of fish as well as other consumables. Customers who visited the market are greeted by traders with foodstuffs right from the streets and entrance of the market due to the lack of space for the traders. A recent visit by the Ghana News Agency (GNA), saw the Tuesday market in a deplorable state, with inadequate sheds to accommodate the huge numbers of traders. For decades, the market has faced the challenge of flooding anytime it rained with the entire market becoming messy, leaving traders and customers no option but to wade through the flood waters to escape the dangers that may lie ahead. A portion of the market has been covered for construction, however, work has stalled for about four years, according to the traders, resulting in low sales which have become a source of worry. Madam Lebene Okeji, a smoked fishseller at the market, said they had been managing with the deplorable state of the market until the place was earmarked and covered for the construction of sheds which had not materialised. She said: we are suffering over here, we are scattered all over without a proper place to trade. Our customers do not find the market attractive anymore and we keep losing them.'' Other traders facing similar challenges said reptiles in the covered and weedy area often invaded the space and wares, describing the situation as disturbing. Elizabeth Okailey Akrong, Market Queen said traders had endured the challenges for the past four years but could no longer bear the inconvenience as well as the health implications and called on authorities to intervene to help put the market in good shape. Meanwhile, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) says it is redeveloping the various markets in the Metropolis. In an interview with the GNA, Mr Gilbert Nii Ankrah, Head of Public Relations (PR), said the Assembly would see a redevelopment of all markets within its jurisdiction, targeting the markets one after the other. The Head of PR at the AMA said the assembly was aware of the peculiar challenges within the Tuesday Market, adding that efforts had been put in place to ensure some rehabilitation of the market. He added that with the recent redevelopment, other markets including the Tuesday Market would benefit from the redevelopment project while assuring traders of the mayor's commitment to ensure that there is a conducive environment at the markets to do their business. As and when that one is done, the Assembly will then move to other markets that are not in good shape and we are looking at the Agbogbloshie market that has even come into the picture. The mayor has met all the market Queens within these various markets and the recent meeting was about a month ago to even let them know of plans to rehabilitate the market, their plans, and challenges as well, So, I can assure you that the Assembly will move in to ensure that the Tuesday market, especially the sheds, that are not in good shape are brought back to good shape to encourage trading activities within that enclave, Mr Ankrah said. Mr Ankrah said, the portion of the Tuesday market earmarked was a project being undertaken by the Coastal Development Authority (CODA), which would complement the AMAs redevelopment project, however, he could not state the reasons for its stalling for the past four years. I can say that the Tuesday market will see some improvement very soon. As part of efforts to redevelop the market, the Coastal Development Authority has come in to work on some markets within the Metropolis. We know of one project within the Tuesday market. In as much as the project has stalled, we are hopeful that when it is completed it will serve its purpose. He said work had commenced in some markets, indicating that a few months ago, about 500 traders benefitted from the commissioning of Shed 2 of the Makola market by the Assembly after previously commissioning phase one of Shed 1 within the Makola space as part of the market's redevelopment project. GNA Sheikh Dr Amin Bonsu, National Chairman, Ghana Muslim Mission said Muslims need to eschew bickering and triviality and instead work together to build the capacity of the Muslim community to better serve the nation. He said the unity of a relatively large population of Muslims despite being a minority presented an opportunity to raise the needed financial capital to embark on human development projects. We are about six million of the population. Give four million to the youth and the aged. If the 2 million of us can raise GH1 cedis each Friday in a week we can raise GH2 million, he said. He gave the advice at the recent second edition of the National Muslim Conference (NMC) on the theme: Towards a Coherent and Holistic Economic Empowerment Strategy for National Development-The Ghanaian Muslim Ummah in Context. The conference was to create a Forum for Ghanaian Muslims to deliberate on how to make communities economically prosperous and eliminate extreme poverty and deprivation. Sheikh Umar Ibrahim, the Imam of Ahlusunna Wal Jamma, noted that a lack of trust over the years had bedevilled the developmental agenda of Muslims in the country due to a lack of transparency and accountability. He said it was better late than never for Muslims to come together for a collective goal. If we had conceived this thought since the time of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, we would have progressed better. However, Allah knows the best time for doing things, he said. The Imam of the Shia sect in Ghana, Sheikh Abubakar Kamaludeen, said the Muslim populace must learn to trust politicians who suffered from scepticism even if they meant well for the people. Any initiative coming from a politician is always welcomed by suspicion, he said. He further called for the development of a well-structured dialogue process to ensure stakeholders have ample opportunity to make input into the formulation of documents that would be binding on all stakeholders. Maulvi Muhammad Noor Bin Salih, Ameer and Missionary of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission in Ghana, commended the Muslim leadership for setting aside their differences and working together. The NMC is expected to serve as the mouthpiece of all Muslims on matters of mutual concern and also to serve as a forum for Ghanaian Muslims to deliberate on national policies and programmes. It would also offer opportunities for Muslims to participate in the legislative process through the submission of memoranda to committees of parliament when bills are been considered as well as represents Muslims to seek redress in the courts of the land on matters affecting the legal and fundamental rights of Muslims in Ghana. The Conference is established under a deed signed by the National Leaders of all the Muslim groups in Ghana, namely, Ahmadiyya, Tijania, Ahlu Sunnah and Shia as well as the Ghana Muslim Mission and the Muslim Caucus of Parliament. GNA Mrs Joana Adzoa Opare, Member, Governing Board, National Peace Council (NPC) has called for a re-look at Ghana's arms acquisition, utilisation, and monitoring regime to ensure peace and security are maintained in the country. She noted that there was the need to ensure small and light weapons did not fall into wrong hands; because such weapons falling into wrong hands could lead to violence, thereby disturbing the peace of the nation. She said reports from the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons revealed there were still thousands of illegally acquired arms used for all kinds of criminal activities. Mrs Opare made the call at a community engagement on peaceful coexistence in Accra, which was organised by the council in collaboration with the United Nations in Ghana on the theme: Managing Ethnic Diversity in Ghana for Sustainable Peace. The workshop, which was attended by market women, commercial drivers and artisans, forms part of activities marking the week-long celebration of the 2022 International Peace Day on the theme: End Racism. Build Peace. The International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by the UN General Assembly to commemorate and strengthen the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples as a period of non-violence and cease-fire. Mrs Opare said Ghana was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural society. There are more than seventy ethnic groups in Ghana, who, regardless of their differences, had co-existed in an environment of tolerance for divergent views, and acceptance of differences. Ghana's 1992 Fourth Republican Constitution in pursuit of ensuring an inclusive society, states in Article 35 (5) thus: The state shall actively promote the integration of the peoples of Ghana and prohibits discrimination and prejudice on the grounds of place of origin, circumstances of birth, ethnic origin, gender or religion, creed or other beliefs. Article 35(6) gives the details of the integration envisaged by the Constitution which must be pursued by all citizens. Mrs Opare reiterated that managing ethnic diversities for sustainable peace, however, requires challenging work from both the government and the citizenry. She said the NPC was calling on Ghanaians, institutions of state and civil society to join forces to remove barriers to the realization of a just, fair, open, and inclusive society for all the peoples of Ghana. She said the Global Peace Index (GPI) for 2022, was an indication for Ghana to step up its efforts at ensuring sustainable peace through the promotion of positive peace; adding that positive peace was a gamut of attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful communities. Mrs Opare appealed to all Ghanaians, especially market women, drivers, and artisans to help preserve the peace of the nation. GNA The National Democratic Congress (NDC) branch in the Upper West Region wants swift action from the Ghana Police Service to bring to book the perpetrators of the many killings in Wa, the regional capital. In the past months, several private security men have been attacked, others kidnapped and killed. Ten people are reported killed. In a statement from the NDC in the Upper West Region, the party says it is unhappy with the Inspector General of Police, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare's posture. The party wants the IGP to stay off social media and focus on bringing the perpetrators of the crime to book. We encourage the IGP, the Hon. Interior Minister, the Hon. Upper West Regional Minister and the Hon. Wa Municipal Chief Executive, to immediately step down from their social media stardom and to channel all frantic efforts at apprehending the culprits and rendering justice to the people of the Wa Municipality, part of the NDC release signed by RCO Puo-Ire Prosper reads. The party alleges that the over 300 police officers deployed to beef up security in the Upper West Region are inexperienced. The NDC believes that with the number of killings recorded, the police must assign experienced personnel to deal with the matter. We have become aware of the deployment of about three hundred and fifty police officers by the IGP, to beef up the police strength in Wa. Our intelligence has gathered that, over 80 % of those deployed are newly passed out recruits, whose first assignment is to help unravel the mystery behind the serial killings in Wa. Without any prejudice against the IGP or the officers deployed, we are of the candid opinion that, the issues at hand required much more experienced hands and a greater attention from the government, the NDC release adds. Read more: Wa killings and matters arising. 26.09.2022 LISTEN The National Democratic Congress (NDC) branch in the Upper West Region has accused the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) of a plot to benefit from the killings in the region. In a press release, the NDC insists that it knows of the dubious intention of the government to take advantage of the insecurity in the region to pursue the breaking the eight agenda. We are very much aware of dubious intentions by this government, to leverage on security challenges in NDC strongholds and to use same as levers to declare them high-risk security areas ahead of election 2024. This we believe is within their ill brewed master plan, to unleash party hoodlums concealed within the National Security apparatus, such that, such miscreants would aid them in their infamous Break the eight mantra, the NDC release signed by RCO Puo-Ire Prosper has alleged. According to the NDC in the Upper West Region, the knee-jerk reactions to the Wa crises and the lack of proactivity by the government further confirms its suspicion. The NDC in the region insists that the government remains complicit in the sad turn of events, where many more people are silently murdered by poverty, bad roads, under-resourced health facilities, hunger, the rising cost of living, and illiteracy. As a matter of urgency, the party wants the government to commit to dealing with the insecurity in the Upper West Region. We call on government to demonstrate commitment to the well-being of the Upper West Region. We equally call on all residents in the region, to co-operate with the security agencies in the fight against this new trend of crime, the release from the Upper West Region NDC office concludes. READ MORE: Wa killings and matters arising. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) branch in the Upper West Region is alleging that the police personnel deployed to beef up security in the region are inexperienced. Following investigations into the killings of private security guards in the Region, the Ghana Police Service has deployed over 300 officers to the region. According to the NDC office in the region, over 80% of the personnel deployed are new recruits who recently passed out. The party while insisting that it has nothing against the Inspector General of Police said looking at the seriousness of the crimes committed in the region, more experienced officers are required. The opposition party is of the view that through that, the mystery killings will be unraveled and dealt with as soon as possible. We have become aware of the deployment of about three hundred and fifty police officers by the IGP, to beef up the police strength in Wa. Our intelligence has gathered that, over 80 % of those deployed are newly passed out recruits, whose first assignment is to help unravel the mystery behind the serial killings in Wa. Without any prejudice against the IGP or the officers deployed, we are of the candid opinion that, the issues at hand required much more experienced hands and a greater attention from the government, part of the NDC release signed by RCO Puo-Ire Prosper reads. Meanwhile, the NDC has called on IGP Dr. George Akuffo Dampare to stay off social media and focus on bringing the perpetrators of the crime to book. In the latest update on investigations into the Wa killings, some 18 suspects have been arrested by the Upper West Regional Police command. Sources have confirmed that while eight of the suspects have been released on bail, the remaining ten are in custody assisting in investigations. MBABANE The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) wants to review the case of the two incarcerated MPs and former MP Mduduzi Gawuzela Simelane during their upcoming session in Kigali, Rwanda. The IPU is a global organisation of national parliaments. In a correspondence dated September 15, 2022, the Secretary General (SG) of the IPU, Martin Chungong, wrote to the Speaker in the House of Assembly, Petros Mavimbela, informing him of a proposed session from October 10 to 14, 2022. He indicated that on that occasion, the committee would review the case of Hosea Member of Parliament (MP) Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza, Ngwempisi MP Mthandeni Dube, and former Siphofaneni MP Mduduzi Gawuzela Simelane. I attach for your information, the most recent decision which was adopted on this case. In as much as the requests for information and concerns expressed therein remain valid, I would be grateful for your assistance in helping ensure that we receive this information together with an update on relevant and important developments which may have occurred since the adoption of the decision. Naturally, I would gladly submit to the committee any other observation which you consider relevant regarding the case, stated Chungong in the correspondence. The SG further stated that he required the updated information from the Speaker in order for the committee to take the official information and views on the case into account at the session in October. Chungong further expressed the wish to meet with the Eswatini delegation during the IPU Assembly in Kigali. I would like to propose that such a meeting takes place in (location withheld for security purposes), which is the venue for the committee session. As for the date and time, I would like to propose that the meeting takes place on Tuesday, October 11 at 4pm, local time. I would be grateful if you could confirm whether this proposal is convenient, reads in part the correspondence. The Speaker was reached for comment on the purported correspondence, firstly to confirm receipt of same and further confirm attendance of parliamentary representatives in the session. He was further questioned on his response as well as whether he furnished the IPU secretary general with the requested information. In response, he said he would check in the office today and further respond accordingly. Previously, the committee expressed concern that the MPs rights to freedom of expression had been violated and that the charges they faced were politically motivated. Graphite player Syrah Resources [Syrah] emerged from a trading halt on Monday, disclosing its Balama operations in Mozambique have been hampered by illegal industrial action. Syrah said its in discussions with the Internal Union Committee and Mozambique Government officials to work towards a resolution to the ongoing situation. SYR shares slumped more than 20% on the news. Year to date, SYR shares are down 22%. Source: TradingView Syrahs Balama Project hit by industrial action On Monday, Syrah advised of interruptions at its Balama Graphite Operation, describing the complications as illegal industrial action by a small contingent of local employees and contractors. The strike has disrupted operations at Balama. SYR also said the small contingent while not representative of the majority of the Balama workforce managed to disrupt access to the site. Out of caution, Syrah halted operations and moved its workforce from site on 20 September. Syrah said its working with Mozambiques Internal Union Committee and the Mozambique Government to resolve the matter. SYR elaborated: Syrah is focussed on resolving the industrial action through mediation and negotiation under the legal framework of the Company Level Agreement in order to safely restart operations at Balama. Syrah fully supports the rights of employees and contractors to collectively organise under Mozambican labour law and is committed to working constructively with the Union to resolve outstanding issues. Following a review of security, the Company is coordinating the return of employees and contractors to return to site and planning for Balamas full operational capability to be restored as soon as possible. Syrah expressed that its strong relationship with its employees as well as the Mozambique Government have been integral to the successful development and operations at Balama. Brief graphite production update Syrah also noted in Mondays update that its Balama site had produced 38kt natural graphite in the quarter. Natural graphite sales are 54kt for the quarter to date with approximately 5kt of further shipments from Nacala this month that will not be impacted by the industrial action, Syrah said. The great EV battery race Manufacturers like Ford and Tesla are ramping up production, and governments are pushing for decarbonisation the world over. Yet the rush to pivot to EVs is also leading to a supply crunch. More battery tech materials will be needed if this is going to work. Lithium, graphite, copper, nickel, and cobaltpushing prices higher. Our energy expert Selva Freigedo thinks the industry is set for a supply crunch and has recently profiled three key metals at the forefront of the EV revolution. To read Selvas Three Ways to Play the Great EV Battery Race, click here. Regards, Kiryll Prakapenka, For Money Morning September 26, 2022 The U.S. Is Winning Its War On Europe's Industries And People Disclose.tv @disclosetv - 10:03 UTC Sep 26, 2022 JUST IN - German economy deteriorated significantly in September. IFO business climate index continues to fall. On February 7 Professor of Economics Michael Hudson explained why Americas Real Adversaries Are Its European and Other Allies: What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO? And if there is no inherently adversarial relationship, why do foreign countries need to sacrifice their own trade and financial interests by relying exclusively on U.S. exporters and investors? These are the concerns that have prompted French President Macron to call forth the ghost of Charles de Gaulle and urge Europe to turn away from what he calls NATOs brain-dead Cold War and beak with the pro-U.S. trade arrangements that are imposing rising costs on Europe while denying it potential gains from trade with Eurasia. Even Germany is balking at demands that it freeze by this coming March by going without Russian gas. Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat. What the U.S. needed was to provoke Russia, and later China, into reacting to U.S. arranged threats in a way that would oblige its 'allies' to follow its sanction policies. The rather dimwitted European leadership fell for the trick. The U.S. arranged for a Ukrainian attack on the rebel held Donbas region. This started on February 17 with intense artillery preparations against Donbas positions as recorded by the OSCE observers at that border. Russia had to react or see the ethnic Russians in those areas getting maimed and killed by Nazi devoting Ukrainians. There was no way to prevent that but by other than military means. On February 22 Russia recognized the Donbas republics as independent states and signed defense agreements with them. The same day the German chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled the launch of the undersea Nord Stream II pipeline which was to transport Russian gas to Germany's industries and consumers. The Europeans launched a sequence of extremely harsh economic sanctions against Russia which, prodded by the U.S., had been prepared months in advance. Russia's Special Military Operation, under Article 51 of the UN Charter, commenced on February 24. A follow-up piece by Michael Hudson on February 28 stated that Germany had been defeated for a third time in a century: The active military force since 1991 has been the United States. Rejecting mutual disarmament of the Warsaw Pact countries and NATO, there was no peace dividend. Instead, the U.S. policy by the Clinton administration to wage a new military expansion via NATO has paid a 30-year dividend in the form of shifting the foreign policy of Western Europe and other American allies out of their domestic political sphere into their own national security blob (the word for special rentier interests that must not be named). NATO has become Europes foreign-policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests. The recent prodding of Russia by expanding Ukrainian anti-Russian ethnic violence by Ukraines neo-Nazi post-2014 Maiden regime aims at forcing a showdown. It comes in response to the fear by U.S. interests that they are losing their economic and political hold on their NATO allies and other Dollar Area satellites as these countries have seen their major opportunities for gain to lie in increasing trade and investment with China and Russia. ... As President Biden explained, the current military escalation (Prodding the Bear) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers. ... So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices. In addition to creating profits and stock-market gains for U.S. companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy. (Some people currently peddle a 'Secret RAND study from January 2022'. It is obviously faked. It is simply a write up of Hudson's analysis.) Nord Stream II was created to make Germany independent from pipelines running through Poland and the Ukraine. Blocking it was the most stupid thing for Germany to do and thus chancellor Scholz did it. In the following months Poland blocked the Yamal pipeline which also brought Russian gas to Germany. Ukraine followed up with cutting off two Russian pipelines. The main compressor stations of the Nord Stream I pipeline, which the German company Siemens had build and has the maintenance contract, failed one after the other. Sanction are prohibiting Siemens from repairing them. It is not Russia that has blocked its gas and oil from European markets. It were the German, Polish and Ukrainian governments that did it. Russia would in fact be happy to sell more. Putin has recently again offered to push as much Russian gas as possible through Nord Stream II to Germany: After all, if they need it urgently, if things are so bad, just go ahead and lift sanctions against Nord Stream 2, with its 55 billion cubic metres per year all they have to do is press the button and they will get it going. But they chose to shut it off themselves; they cannot repair one pipeline and imposed sanctions against the new Nord Stream 2 and will not open it. Are we to blame for this? It is the German government that is to blame for rejecting that offer. The economic war against Russia that the sanctions against were meant to win has failed to move Russia. The Rubel is stronger than ever. Russia is making record profits even while selling fewer gas and oil than before the war. Russia may have a small recession this year but its standard of living is not in decline. As was easy predictable and, as Michael Hudson explained, the economic consequences of the anti-Russian sanctions within Europe have in contrast huge catastrophic consequences for the Europe's industries, its societies and its political standing in the world. Governments and the media had so far refrained from noting the gigantic problems that are coming up and which industry leaders had pointed out early on. Only over the last two weeks or so have they picked up the urgent warnings. Der Spiegel, Germany's major weekly, asks: How Bad Will the German Recession Be? and states the obvious: The first German companies have begun throwing in the towel and consumption is collapsing in response to the fallout from exploding energy prices. The economy is sliding almost uncontrolled into a crisis that could permanently weaken the country. The piece discusses the five stages along which the catastrophe will happen. Act One: Freezing Production - It is becoming prohibitively expensive to produce in Germany. Act Two: The Price Trap - No one buys at the high prices German products now cost. Act Three: The Consumer Crisis - Needing to pay high energy prices German consumers buy less of everything else. Act Four: The Wave of Bankruptcies. Act Five: The Final Act on the Labor Market. When Germany will have some 6 to 10 million unemployed people, and the government less tax income as only a few companies will be profitable, the social system will break down. European industry buckles under weight of soaring energy prices headlines the Irish Examiner: Volkswagen, Europes biggest carmaker, warned last week that it could reallocate production out of Germany and eastern Europe if energy prices dont come down. Europe is paying seven times as much for gas as the US, underscoring a dramatic erosion of the continents industrial competitiveness that threatens to cause lasting damage to its economy. With Russian President Vladimir Putin redoubling his war efforts in Ukraine, theres little sign that gas flows - and substantially lower prices - would be restored to Europe in the near term. OilPrice.com provides that Europe Faces An Exodus Of Energy-Intensive Industries. In fact The EU is sleepwalking into anarchy: All eyes may be on the Italian election results this morning, but Europes got much bigger problems on its hands than the prospect of a Right-wing government. Winter is coming, and the catastrophic consequences of Europes self-imposed energy crisis are already being felt across the continent. As politicians continue to devise unrealistic plans for energy rationing, the reality is that soaring energy prices and falling demand have already caused dozens of plants across a diverse range of energy-intensive industries glass, steel, aluminium, zinc, fertilisers, chemicals to cut back production or shut down, causing thousands of workers to be laid off. Even the pro-war New York Times was recently forced to acknowledge the crippling impact that Brusselss sanctions are having on industry and the working class in Europe. High energy prices are lashing European industry, forcing factories to cut production quickly and put tens of thousands of employees on furlough, it reported. ... Its truly a sign of the feebleness of Europes politicians that despite the fast-approaching cliff, no one can bring themselves to state the obvious: that the sanctions need to end. Theres simply no moral justification for destroying the livelihoods of millions of Europeans simply to school Putin, even if the sanctions were helping to achieve that aim, which they clearly arent. The U.S., while also going into a recession, will profit, as it had planned, from the European catastrophe. The Handelsblatt, a business daily, reports that Germany companies are moving production to North America. Washington is attracting German companies with cheap energy and low taxes. The German government is claiming it wants to prevent that but that is impossible without ending the energy sanctions. The New York Times is of course happy with the situation. As European producers get out-priced from their markets the U.S. is taking up their slack: Factory Jobs Are Booming Like Its the 1970s U.S. manufacturing is experiencing a rebound, with companies adding workers amid high consumer demand for products.. The U.S., with the help of European politicians, is waging a war against the people of Europe and their standard of living. It is now on the verge of winning that war. No help will come from outside to prevent that from happening: Germany Secures Just One Tanker of Gas During Scholzs Gulf Tour Europe, and especially Germany, can only escape this obvious trap if it opens the pipelines from Russia. It now high time to do that. Posted by b on September 26, 2022 at 16:34 UTC | Permalink Comments next page (Alliance News) - Ireland's ambassador to the UK has stressed the need to find a negotiated solution to the problems surrounding Northern Ireland's post-Brexit arrangements. Martin Fraser said he was an optimist about the chances of resolving the issues around the Northern Ireland protocol but the situation was currently in the "words phase" and had to move to the "actions phase". The UK government is legislating to effectively tear up parts of the agreement, which sets out how goods flowing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are treated. Fraser, speaking at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, said the protocol was the only way to resolve the problems caused by Brexit. The agreement, signed by then prime minister Boris Johnson's government, effectively keeps Northern Ireland aligned with many EU single market rules to avoid a hard border with Ireland, therefore requiring some checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea. Devolution in the region has been in flux since February when the DUP withdrew its first minister from the governing executive in protest at the economic border created in the Irish Sea by the protocol. Fraser acknowledged there were "legitimate concerns" but said: "How do we solve it? We solve it by negotiating through the issues that are there. "From our point of view, from the EU, we solve it by implementing the protocol that was agreed with the British government, which the British government signed and fought an election, passed through Parliament. "We think it's the best and only solution. But of course we recognise that people have legitimate issues and we do definitely recognise that the Unionist community in Northern Ireland has legitimate concerns which we have to try and address. "But we address them by negotiating." Asked if he was optimistic about the situation, he said: "I think we have to solve this problem, I think we can, I think we should." He added: "I couldn't have worked on Northern Ireland politics for the best part of 20 years without being optimistic and I think we should all be optimistic." source: PA Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. MBABANE There are allegations that the two incarcerated legislators, Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, want to be treated differently from other inmates. It is claimed that Hosea Constituency Member of Parliament (MP) Mabuza and Ngwempisi Constituency MP Dube are supposedly a threat to the security at His Majestys Correctional Services (HMCS) as they allegedly engage in behaviour contrary to the regulations of the facility. The allegations were made by sources within the Matsapha Correctional Services, wherein the two lawmakers are being remanded. The sources purported that what transpired on Thursday morning was a result of the legislators questioning Correctional officers who were supposedly searching for contraband. This publication on Friday reported that warders assaulted the MPs and other inmates in an ordeal that was said to have lasted for 45 minutes. According to impeccable sources, the legislators, with seven other inmates, were assaulted by Correctional officers at the crack of dawn. Balaclavas It was alleged that about 20 officers from the Rapid Response Unit, which is a para-military unit of HMCS, went to the cell occupied by the MPs Mabuza and Dube. It was allegedly that during the attack, the Correctional officers had their faces covered with balaclavas. Upon entry, it was claimed that the officers started assaulting the two legislators with open hand claps, fists, kicked them and also spray guns. In light of this, some officers within the HMCS have come out to claim that the legislators wanted to be treated differently and be accorded the status of MPs. They said officers on Thursday morning ended up using minimal force to instil order as the pair was allegedly first to assault them. They claimed that there was supposed to be a search for contraband in the cell housing the two MPs. The sources alleged that the search was set to be extensive as there had supposedly been claims within the facility that there was a cellular phone which posed a threat to the security of the facility. The cellphone is used to make video calls and engage with people on the outside of the prison and the officers wanted to get it and minimise any possible threat to the security of the facility, said a source. Veracity It was claimed that the search sought to establish the veracity of the claims through a thorough search; however, this initiative fell through as the hunt reportedly downgraded to being physical. The sources claimed that there were instances wherein some of the inmates within the Matsapha facility had been violent with officers in the facility. They claimed that this was after the law enforcers had reprimanded inmates who wanted to be intimate with (touching and kissing) their partners when they visited them. They claimed that this resulted in a rift which would entail threats by either party to the other. HMCS Public Relations Officer (PRO) Senior Superintendent Gugulethu Dlamini confirmed the allegations. She confirmed an incident that supposedly happened on Wednesday wherein one of the legislators MP Mabuza allegedly wanted to beat a senior Correctional officer. Dlamini said: The behaviour of the MPs and other inmates is sometimes against our regulations. As professionals, we understand that they are in a stressful environment and try to deal with it professionally. Rhetorically, she asked why they would have decided to beat the MPs on Thursday all of a sudden if they had been in their custody for a longer period without reports of such. Dlamini further said there had been reports alleging that the legislators were rude and used a tone and language which was deemed inappropriate within the facility. She said: We understand they are respected members of society outside the facility; but within (Correctional facility), all inmates are equal and are treated as such. OPINION | On the precipice of change, education always leads the way OPINION | Puerto Rico and the US territories: The need to resolve their constitutional and political issues MBABANE There is none such as this has not been brought to our attention. This was said by the legal representative of the two legislators, Ben J. Simelane. He dismissed the allegations by His Majestys Correctional Services (HMCS) and said if the Hosea Constituency MP Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and his co-accused, Ngwempisi Constituency MP Mthandeni Dube, had engaged in such behaviour, they should have been charged using the internal processes of the facility. There is no such as nothing has been brought to my attention, the senior attorney said. Worth noting is that offenders, while in custody, can be charged and taken to a court of law if they engage in unlawful behavior. On Thursday, the legislators filed an application to compel the Commissioner General of HMCS, Phindile Dlamini, to produce them for medical examination at Manzini Clinic. MP Mabuza was captured at the Manzini Clinic by Eswatini News at around noon. Leading to this, in his application to be taken to the hospital, Mabuza and Dube claimed that they thought the Correctional officers wanted to kill them. The Correctional officers who allegedly assaulted the MPs on Thursday morning, according to MP Mabuza were uttering the words; iso ngeso when assaulting them. He described their attack by the warders as an act of cowardice. Narrating his side of the story in an affidavit for the application to be taken to a medical facility, MP Mabuza said he was in his cell with MP Dube when they were attacked by several Correctional officers. He said the warders turned off the lights and allegedly began assaulting them heavily. Injured The unlawful exercise went on for a very prolonged period such that we were both severely injured, MP Mabuza told the court. He stated that when he enquired as to why they were being assaulted, he did not get an explanation. The MP pointed out that he seemed to have infuriated the warders by asking them why they assaulted them as they allegedly continued to assault them. I am currently feeling severe pain all over my body, especially around my ribcage and, therefore, I am desirous to have myself produced for medical attention at Manzini Clinic. I state that I am currently experiencing nose bleeds and the second applicants (MP Dube) eye was severely injured. We were heavily assaulted and during the course of same, the designated juniors of the first respondent (commissioner general) were making utterances to the effect that iso ngeso, MP Mabuza narrated. The legislator said he had serious apprehension that his life was in serious jeopardy. According to MP Mabuza, as the assault went on for a long time, he thought the warders intended to kill them. He submitted that he could barely move and he felt like his limbs were dislocated. I hasten to add that the injuries were severe and inflicted in a brutal manner with the sole intention of decapitating and/or taking our lives. I state that the assault was unjustified and an act of cowardice perpetrated by the first respondent and/or its designated juniors solely to harm us. There has been no indication on the part of the first respondent to assist ourselves medically. Thus we fully comprehend that the assault was wilful and meant to harm ourselves and further undermine our bodily integrity, said MP Mabuza. MP Dube filed a confirmatory affidavit aligning himself with MP Mabuzas submissions. They argued that the matter was urgent. The Crown did not oppose the MPs application. Canadian navy vessel headed to areas hit hardest by Fiona View Photo TORONTO (AP) Canadas defense minister said Monday that 100 soldiers have been deployed to each of three Atlantic provinces hit by former Hurricane Fiona and a navy vessel will visit the most devastated area of Newfoundland, where 76 homes were destroyed or structurally damaged. Defense Minister Anita Anand said the HMCS Margaret Brooke will conduct wellness checks at four hard-hit communities. She more troops are ready if called upon. After surging north from the Caribbean as a major hurricane, Fiona came ashore before dawn Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone, battering Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Quebec with hurricane-strength winds, rains and waves. Fiona swept homes into the sea in one Newfoundland coastal community and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people in Eastern Canada. Anand said troops would help remove fallen trees, restore transportation links and do whatever else is required for as long as it takes. Fiona was blamed for at least five deaths in the Caribbean, and two deaths in Canada. Authorities found the body of a 73-year-old woman who had been missing in Channel-Port Aux Basques, a town on the southern coast of Newfoundland. And the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday they have ended a weekend search for an 81-year-old Nova Scotia man missing since Friday who is believed to have been swept out to sea during the storm. Gudie Hutchings, the federal lawmaker for the area in Newfoundland hardest hit, said 76 families did not have a place to live. Pictures do not portray the utter devastation in this area, Hutchings said. It will be a long time before this area gets back on its feet. Across Atlantic Canada, eastern Quebec and in southwestern Newfoundland, the economic impact of the storms wrath is still being tallied. And electricity had yet to be restored to 266,000 homes and businesses. At the height of the storm on Saturday, more than 500,000 were in the dark, including 80% of Nova Scotia Powers customers and 90% of Prince Edward Island. Utility companies warned it could be several days before the power is back on for everyone. By ROB GILLIES Associated Press Russian military recruiter shot amid fear of Ukraine call-up View Photo KYIV, Ukraine (AP) A young man shot a Russian military officer at close range at an enlistment office Monday, an unusually bold attack reflecting resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putins efforts to mobilize hundreds of thousands of more men to wage war on Ukraine. The shooting comes after scattered arson attacks on enlistment offices and protests in Russian cities against the military call-up that have resulted in at least 2,000 arrests. Russia is seeking to bolster its military as its Ukraine offensive has bogged down. In the attack in the Siberian city of Ust-Ilimsk, 25-year-old resident Ruslan Zinin walked into the enlistment office saying no one will go to fight and we will all go home now, according to local media. Zinin was arrested and officials vowed tough punishment. Authorities said the military commandant was in intensive care. A witness quoted by a local news site said Zinin was in a roomful of people called up to fight and troops from his region were heading to military bases on Tuesday. Protests also flared up in Dagestan, one of Russias poorer regions in the North Caucasus. Local media reported that several hundred demonstrators took to the streets Tuesday in its capital, Makhachkala. Videos circulated online showing dozens of protesters tussling with the police sent to disperse them. Demonstrations also continued in another of Russias North Caucasus republics, Kabardino-Balkaria, where videos on social media showed a local official attempting to address a crowd of women. Concerns are growing that Russia may seek to escalate the conflict including potentially using nuclear weapons once it completes what Ukraine and the West see as illegal referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine. The voting, in which residents are asked whether they want their regions to become part of Russia, began last week and ends Tuesday, under conditions that are anything but free or fair. Tens of thousands of residents had already fled the regions amid months of fighting, and images shared by those who remained showed armed Russian troops going door-to-door to pressure Ukrainians into voting. Every night and day there is inevitable shelling in the Donbas, under the roar of which people are forced to vote for Russian peace, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said Monday. Russia is widely expected to declare the results in its favor, a step that could see Moscow annex the four regions and then defend them as its own territory. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday no date has been set for recognizing the regions as part of Russia but it could be just days away. Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said Russia would pay a high, if unspecified, price if it made good on veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively, he told NBC. Elsewhere, the British government on Monday slapped sanctions on 92 businesses and individuals it says are involved with organizing the referendums in occupied Ukraine. U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called the votes on joining Russia sham referendums held at the barrel of a gun. He said they follow a clear pattern of violence, intimidation, torture and forced deportations. The White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre likewise said Monday the U.S. will never recognize the four regions as part of Russia, and threatened Moscow with swift and severe economic costs. Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, meanwhile, held an unannounced meeting Monday in the southern Russian city of Sochi and claimed they were ready to cooperate with the West if they treat us with respect, Putin said. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday that Putin had told Turkeys president last week that Moscow was ready to resume negotiations with Ukraine but had new conditions for a cease-fire. The Kremlin last week announced a partial mobilization its first since World War II to add at least 300,000 troops to its forces in Ukraine. The move, a sharp shift from Putins previous efforts to portray the war as a limited military operation, proved unpopular at home. Thousands of Russian men of fighting age have flocked to airports and Russias land border crossings to avoid being called up. Protests erupted across the country, and Russian media reported an increasing number of arson attacks on military enlistment offices. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday once again decried the Russian mobilization as nothing more than an attempt to provide commanders on the ground with a constant stream of cannon fodder. In his nightly televised address, Zelenskyy referenced ongoing Russian attempts to punch through Ukrainian defense lines in the eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, a key target of Moscows military campaign. Despite the obvious senselessness of the war for Russia and the occupiers loss of initiative, the Russian military command still drives (troops) to their deaths, Zelenskyy said in his nightly televised address. The Ukrainian military on Monday said in its regular Facebook update that Moscow was focusing on holding occupied territories and attempts to complete its occupation of the Donetsk region, one of two that make up the Donbas. It added that Ukrainian troops continued holding Russian troops at bay along the frontline there. Meanwhile, the first batches of new Russian troops mobilized by Moscow have begun to arrive at military bases, the British Defense Ministry said Monday, adding that tens of thousands had been called up so far. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday on Facebook that the Ukrainian military is pushing efforts to take back the entire territory of Ukraine, and has drawn up plans to counter new types of weapons used by Russia. He did not elaborate. An overnight drone strike near the Ukrainian port of Odesa sparked a massive fire and explosion, the military said Monday. It was the latest drone attack on the key southern city in recent days, and hit a military installation, setting off ammunition. Firefighters struggled to contain the blaze. New Russian shelling struck near the Zaporozhzhia nuclear power plant, according to Zelenskyys office. Cities near the plant were fired on nine times by rocket launchers and heavy artillery. Local Ukrainian officials said Monday evening that the strikes had wounded three civilians in the town of Marhanets, across the Dnieper river from the plant. Russia also kept pummeling Ukrainian-held territory in the countrys east, parts of which have seen ramped-up shelling and missile strikes since Ukraines ongoing counteroffensive made sweeping gains there this month. At least seven civilians, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed Monday in a rocket attack on the city of Pervomayskiy in the northeastern Kharkiv region, local officials reported. Further south, Ukrainian officials reported that a Russian missile on Monday evening destroyed a civilian airport in the eastern city of Kryvyi Rih, President Zelenskyys birthplace. The regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko said that while there had been no casualties, the airport had been knocked out of commission. In Ukraines industrial heartland of Donbas, four civilians were wounded on Monday after a Russian strike slammed into apartment blocks in the city of Kramatorsk, its mayor said on social media. Kramatorsk is one of two largest Ukrainian-held cities remaining in the Donbas, and home to the headquarters of Ukrainian troops there. In the town of Izium in eastern Ukraine, which Russian forces fled this month after a Ukrainian counteroffensive, Margaryta Tkachenko is still reeling from the battle that destroyed her home and left her family close to starvation with no gas, electricity, running water or internet. I cant predict what will happen next. Winter is the most frightening. We have no wood. How will we heat? she asked. ___ Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, Lori Hinnant in Izium, Ukraine, Joanna Kozlowska in London and Yesica Fisch in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, contributed to this report. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine By ADAM SCHRECK and JON GAMBRELL Associated Press Police arrest 4 in drug smuggling in W. Afghanistan Xinhua) 16:41, September 26, 2022 ZARANJ, Afghanistan, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police have thwarted attempts to traffic more than 100 kg illicit drugs including heroin in western Afghanistan's Herat and neighboring Nimroz provinces, making four arrests in the past couple of days, officials said Monday. In the crackdown on illicit drugs, counter-narcotics police have arrested three persons in Guzara district of Herat province and seized more than 80 kg contraband goods including 20 kg heroin from their possessions, provincial police spokesman Mahmoud Shah Rasouli told reporters. The police would spare no efforts to curb poppy cultivation and drug smuggling in Herat province, the official emphasized. The police arrested a man who held 25 kg morphine in the neighboring Nimroz province, a border security official, Abdul Salam Hajji Omar has confirmed. Afghanistan's Taliban-run caretaker government has vowed to check poppy cultivation, processing to drugs and trafficking until war-torn Afghanistan gets rid of the drug menace. (Web editor: Shi Xi, Liang Jun) MBABANE - Six officers have been appointed to lead an inquiry which seeks to establish what happened in the alleged assault of prisoners last Thursday morning. The inquiry, which started on Saturday, will seek to establish information from the about nine inmates, who include the two incarcerated Members of Parliament (MPs), Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube. This publication on Friday reported that the two MPs, together with seven other inmates, were attacked by warders who had their faces covered in balaclavas. Upon entry, it was claimed that the officers started assaulting the two legislators with open hand claps, fists, kicked them and also used spray guns. As this was happening, the sources alleged that the Correctional officers were using expletives and also claiming that it was an eye for an eye. Intervene Seeing this, it was said the seven inmates occupying the same cell with the MPs tried to intervene and questioned the violence. However, the intervention of the inmates supposedly drew the ire of the His Majestys Correctional Services (HMCS) personnel, as they supposedly started assaulting them as well. During the skirmish, it was claimed the law enforcers continued to use all sorts of missiles and assaulted all the inmates in the cell. The sources claimed that MP Dube was also pressed with a bed and against the wall such that he sustained an injury to his eye. On the other hand, it was purported that MP Mabuza was assaulted all over the body in such a way that he bled profusely through his nose. The assault was said to have lasted for 45 minutes. According to sources, during the skirmish, two HMCS officers, who were part of the search party, suffered lacerations and were injured in various body parts. It has since been gathered that the enquiry shall also determine the charges to be levelled against those found to have carried themselves against the Correctional Services Act. Confirmed HMCS Public Relations Officer (PRO) Senior Superintendent Gugulethu Dlamini confirmed that an inquiry was instituted to investigate what actually happened on this day. Dlamini was sought for comment to establish what had been uncovered at Matsapha Correctional Facility and if the officers responsible would be taken to task. She said at the moment, details from all relevant parties were being sought, in order to determine what transpired and use the law to deal with it. When asked if the warders had a mission to assault the inmates, inclusive of the legislators, as alleged or were in search of contraband, Dlamini said: In most instances, Correctional officers engaged in random searches to ensure the safety of inmates and officers alike. Dlamini further explained that there were instances when there were extensive searches. In these instances, she said, the administration instituted them based on information they may have. When asked if there were officers who were injured on Thursday, she responded to the affirmative. However, she said the inquiry would assist in establishing and shedding light on any questions which may arise from the allegations purporting that inmates were assaulted. Dlamini was further asked how transparent would the investigations be as there was reasonable apprehension of bias in that Correctional officers were behind the alleged assault, she said the institution was professional and in previous instances had even taken officers to task for being engaged in behaviour and or acts contrary to the mandate of the HMCS. Contravened Some officers who have contravened the Corrections Services Act have been investigated and charged and the same applies with inmates, without taking sides, Dlamini said. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that there was still an ongoing inquiry into the issue of two cellphones which were found in the possession of the incarcerated Hosea Constituency legislator, Mabuza.This resulted in the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) directing MP Mabuza, to furnish it with detailed information and documents pertaining to the eight officers from HMCS who had accounts at Baceth Investments. He was also ordered to depose 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. MP 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 to the smuggling of two cellphones, whose were found in Mabuzas possession. The officers whose 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. Documents The ACC served the MP with the document directing him to furnish it with the information and documents at the Matsapha Maximum Prison and in the correspondence, the commission requested MP 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 the date they were opened to the 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 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. Russia gives citizenship to ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden View Photo MOSCOW (AP) Russia on Monday granted citizenship to former American intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who fled prosecution after he revealed highly classified U.S. surveillance programs to capture communications and data from around the world. A decree signed Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin listed Snowden as one of 75 foreign citizens listed as being granted Russian citizenship. After fleeing the U.S. in 2013, Snowden was granted permanent Russian residency in 2020 and said at the time that he planned to apply for Russian citizenship without renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Ties between Washington and Moscow are already at their lowest point in decades following Putins decision to launch what the Kremlin has dubbed a special military operation in Ukraine. While Snowden, 39, is considered by supporters to be a righteous whistleblower who wanted to protect American civil liberties, U.S. intelligence officials have accused him of putting U.S. personnel at risk and damaging national security. He currently faces charges in the United States that could result in decades in prison. Our position has not changed, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday. Mr. Snowden should return to the United States where he should face justice as any other American citizen would. Snowden becomes a Russian citizen as Moscow is mobilizing reservists to go to Ukraine. In Russia, almost every man is considered a reservist until age 65, and officials on Monday stressed that men with dual citizenship are also eligible for the military call-up. Snowden, however, has never served in the Russian armed forces, so he is not eligible to be mobilized, his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told the Interfax news agency. Having previous combat or military service experience has been considered the main criterion in the call-up. Kucherena told Russias state news agency RIA Novosti that Snowdens wife, Lindsay Mills, an American who has been living with him in Russia, will also be applying for a Russian passport. The couple has two children. After two years of waiting and nearly ten years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family, Snowden tweeted Monday. I pray for privacy for them and for us all. Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist known for his exposes of Moscow security services, said that strictly speaking, (Snowden) could be drafted, strictly in theory. But that would be bad PR for the Kremlin so it wont happen, said Soldatov, who is on Russias wanted list for spreading false information. Russian authorities have also frozen his bank accounts and he lives in exile. Snowden, who has kept a low profile in Russia and occasionally criticized Russian government policies on social media, said in 2019 that he was willing to return to the U.S. if hes guaranteed a fair trial. Snowden has become a well-known speaker on privacy and intelligence, appearing remotely at many events from Russia. But he has been sharply criticized by members of the intelligence community, and current and former officials from both U.S. political parties say he endangered global security by exposing important programs. A U.S. damage assessment of his disclosures is still classified. James Clapper, who served as U.S. director of national intelligence at the time of the disclosures, said Snowdens grant of citizenship came with rather curious timing. It raises the question again about just what he shared with the Russians, Clapper said in an email Monday. Snowden has denied cooperating with Russian intelligence and was traveling through Moscow when the U.S. revoked his passport. Snowden leaked documents on the National Security Agencys collection of data passing through the infrastructure of U.S. phone and internet companies. He also released details about the classified U.S. intelligence budget and the extent of American surveillance on foreign officials, including the leaders of U.S.-allied countries. Snowden says he made the disclosures because he believed the U.S. intelligence community had gone too far and wrongly infringed on civil liberties. He also has said he didnt believe the administration of former President Barack Obama, which was in office when Snowden leaked the records to journalists, would act had he made an internal whistleblower complaint instead. His decision to turn against the NSA came when he used his programming skills to to create a repository of classified in-house notes on the agencys global snooping and as he built a backup system for agency data, he wrote in his 2019 book Permanent Record. Reading through the repository, Snowden said he began to understand the extent of his governments stomping on civil liberties and became cursed with the knowledge that all of us had been reduced to something like children, whod been forced to live the rest of their lives under omniscient parental supervision. Snowden was charged in 2013 with unauthorized disclosure of U.S. national security and intelligence information as well as theft of government property. The three charges each carry a maximum 10-year penalty. The Justice Department also sued to stop Snowden from collecting profits on his memoir, saying he had violated his nondisclosure agreements with intelligence agencies. The White House on Monday referred comment on Snowdens citizenship to the Justice Department, citing the pending criminal charges. ___ Associated Press writers Matt Lee and Nomaan Merchant in Washington and Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this report. Classic Corvettes on display at 2022 Concours d'Elegance View Photos Murphys, CA Around 325 classic cars and other vehicles were on display at the Ironstone Concours d Elegance in Murphys. The founder of the event, Gail Kautz welcomed everyone during a Friday evening Cars And Stars opening ceremony and dinner. Many local Calaveras wineries were also on hand pouring complimentary tastings. Kautz announced that over the decades, the annual car show has raised over $1-million for youth 4H and FFA style programs. It is one of the signature youth ag fundraisers throughout all of California. She added, Having been at this for 26 years, I have been able to see these kids grow up and be involved in agriculture, and contribute meaningfully. She thanked everyone who has made the event possible over the years. Her husband, John Kautz, and various other supporters from the beginning were also in attendance, welcoming guests. Earlier on Friday, there was also a Vintage Back Roads Tour for the participants. The car show itself took place on Saturday and drew another big crowd to the winery grounds. In addition, Local FFA and 4H participants were on hand showing off their programs and projects. Another highlight was speaker forums on classic automobiles. Lebanon retirees scuffle with police; 2022 budget approved View Photo BEIRUT (AP) Lebanese army retirees scuffled with parliamentary guard troops as they briefly broke through a cordon leading to Parliament in downtown Beirut during a rally Monday. They were protesting their decimated monthly pay amid the countrys economic meltdown. The troops managed to push the crowd back and fired teargas, forcing the elderly retirees to turn away from the street. After a short while, they gathered nearby to continue their protest and demand higher pay. They later dispersed. Hours after the protest, Parliament passed the 2022 budget, a key demand by the International Monetary Fund, with 63 legislators voting in favor, 37 voting against and six abstaining. The new budget will calculate customs tax revenue at 15,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar at a time when the black market rate is more than double that at about 37,000 pounds to the dollar. Since the meltdown began three years ago, the customs tax revenue was calculated at the official rate of 1,500 pounds to the dollar. According to the new budget, government expenditures stand at 40.9 trillion pounds ($1.1 billion) at the parallel market rate, while revenue stands at 30 trillion pounds ($810 million). The government also approved a 200% salary increase to civil servants and civilian and military retirees on condition that their monthly income does not exceed 12 million pounds ($324). The rally came as banks in this crisis-hit Lebanon partially reopened Monday following a weeklong closure amid a wave of heists in which assailants stormed at least seven bank branches earlier this month, demanding to withdraw their trapped savings. The Association of Banks in Lebanon had said last Monday it was going on strike amid bank holdups by depositors and activists. Public sector workers and retired officers and soldiers frequently protest in Lebanon, demanding better wages and pensions. However, scuffles with active officers are a sign of the ongoing meltdown and growing chaos in the tiny Mideast nation. Lebanons cash-strapped banks had last closed for a prolonged period back in October 2019, for two weeks, during mass anti-government protests triggered by the crisis. That year, the banks imposed strict limits on cash withdrawals, tying up the savings of millions of people. The countrys economy has since spiraled, with about three-quarters of the population plunged into poverty. The Lebanese pound has lost over 90% of its value against the dollar. The frustrations boiled over this month, with angry and desperate depositors including one armed with a hunting rifle started holding up the banks. One of them, Sali Hafez, broke into a Beirut bank branch with a fake pistol and retrieved some $13,000 in her savings to cover her sisters cancer treatment. However, only a handful of bank branches opened Monday accepting only customers with prior appointments for corporate transactions. The partial reopening was to continue indefinitely, until banks can secure the safety of their employees. Crowds of anxious Lebanese gathered around ATM machines. Ive been here for three hours, and they wont let me in or schedule an appoint, Fadi Al-Osta told The Associated Press outside a bank branch in Beirut. The security guards can let us in one at a time and check for weapons. Isnt that their job? George al-Hajj, president of Lebanons Federation of Bank Employees Syndicates, said branches have downsized, to have a larger number of security guards per branch. Our goal isnt to harm anyone, but we want to go to work feeling safe and secure, al-Hajj said. Were also human beings. Tensions were simmering in the southern city of Sidon, where State Security forces armed with assault rifles stood outside some bank branches. Some police officers and army soldiers, whose salaries have lost over 90% of their value, unsuccessfully tried to break into a bank branch to collect small cash bonus recently granted by the government. Depositors Outcry, a protest group that has supported bank heists to retrieve savings, said Monday it was committed to a war on the banks but that it had also called for a meeting with the bankers to find solutions so that depositors can live with dignity. We will continue organizing actions, including strong actions that will target and shock the banks, said the groups media coordinator, Moussa Agassi. Lebanons talks with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout have progressed sluggishly, with authorities failing to implement critical reforms, including restructuring the banking sector and lifting banking secrecy laws. Last week, a visiting IMF delegation criticized the governments slowness to implement desperately-needed financial reforms. By KAREEM CHEHAYEB and BASSEM MROUE Associated Press IRBIL, Iraq (AP) Irans powerful Revolutionary Guard on Monday unleashed a wave of drone and artillery strikes targeting what Tehran says are bases of Iranian Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, a semiofficial news agency reported. It was the second such cross-border assault since Saturday, at a time when Iran is convulsing with protests over the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who was detained by the nations morality police. A representative of one of the separatist groups in Iraq targeted in the attack which struck the Sidikan area in the northern Kurdish-run region said there were no casualties. Today three times, the Islamic Republic (of Iran) bombed the Halgurd Mountain side where our forces are based, said Atta Nasir, a member of the central committee for Komala, a Kurdish opposition party that is exiled from Iran. He spoke to The Associated Press from the partys headquarters near the Iran-Iraq border. Each attack lasted two to three hours, he said, with artillery fire and Katyusha rockets. Thankfully we dont have any human losses until now, he said. On Saturday, the Guard said it targeted bases and training camps of Kurdish separatist groups in northern Iraq, claiming it inflicted serious damage. Protests over the death of Mahsa Amini have spread across at least 46 cities, towns and villages. Iranian state TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the protests began Sept. 17. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with more than 1,400 demonstrators arrested. Col. Ali Mirahmadi, deputy chief of police in Semnan province, said 155 protesters have been arrested since the crisis began, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Monday. It said the detained people were rioters or active on social media. In Mondays report, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said the Guards attacks were in response to the support that the separatists have allegedly provided for the unrest inside Iran, as well as their attempts to smuggle in weapons. Responding to the Iranian claims, Nasir said: We have shown our full support for the peoples demands. We supported these protests and will continue supporting them in every possible way. He said Komalas members did not participate directly in the protests but showed support through the participation of their followers and relatives in Iran. Last year, the Guard similarly attacked what it called bases of terrorist groups in northern Iraq. There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi government. The two neighboring countries have close political and military ties, and Tehran had provided extensive military support for Baghdad, during its yearslong war against the extremist Islamic State group. Germanys Foreign Ministry said Monday it summoned Irans ambassador following the protests and especially regarding the brutal actions of police there. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for new sanctions against Iran following the violent crackdown. We will now have to talk very quickly in the EU about further consequences, which for me also includes sanctions against those responsible, she told German news agency dpa in Berlin. The attempt to now suppress peaceful protests with even more deadly force must not go unanswered, she added. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, meanwhile, said it documented the arrests of at least 20 journalists as the clashes between security forces and protesters heated up. CPJ in a Monday statement called on Iranian authorities to end its crackdown on journalists and release all arrested since the start of anti-government protests last week. Iranian authorities should be ashamed of themselves for orchestrating this brutal crackdown, said CPJs Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. ___ Associated Press writer Samya Kullab in Baghdad contributed. By SALAR SALIM Associated Press US case against American Airlines and JetBlue heads to court View Photo DALLAS (AP) The governments antitrust lawsuit against American Airlines and JetBlue begins Tuesday and the outcome could determine how closely the Biden administration examines other airline deals, including JetBlues pending attempt to buy Spirit Airlines. The Justice Department and six states are suing American and JetBlue to break up their partnership in the Northeast, namely New York and Boston. It is a significant test of the administrations opposition to mergers even though the American-JetBlue partnership is not a full merger. The government argues that the alliance will reduce competition and lead to higher fares. The Trump administration approved the alliance, but the Justice Department began taking a closer look shortly after President Joe Biden took office. American and JetBlue will argue that the partnership has already been in effect for about 18 months and has allowed each airline to offer new routes that would not be economical for either on its own. They say there is no evidence that the deal is hurting consumers. The current and former CEOs of American and JetBlues CEO, along with senior officials from other airlines, are among potential witnesses identified by the two sides. Delta Air Lines tried to prevent two executives from testifying, saying they are too busy in Atlanta, where the airline is based, to attend the trial in federal court in Boston. The judge ruled Monday that one of them, a senior vice president, must be available to testify. U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin has set aside nearly three weeks for the trial. There will be no jury. Sorokin could take weeks or even months to issue a decision, which is likely to be appealed by the losing side. When the Justice Department filed the lawsuit a year ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland called the American-JetBlue alliance an unprecedented maneuver that would lead to higher fares, fewer choices, and poor service for travelers. The Justice Departments top antitrust official, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, echoed those arguments during a hearing last week before a Senate subcommittee. He said that while new airlines have entered the business over the years, leading to lower fares and better service, too many of them have been swallowed up by mergers and acquisitions. We remain committed to fighting airline concentration when it breaks the law, Kanter told the senators. We are looking very carefully at our approach to airline consolidation we have numerous other matters under review. Kanter didnt say what those other matters are, but one likely could be JetBlues proposal to buy Spirit for $3.8 billion. Spirit CEO Ted Christie, who preferred a merger with Frontier Airlines, fought JetBlue for months by arguing that antitrust regulators would never allow his low-fare airline to be swallowed up by JetBlue, a more conventional and higher-priced carrier. Under the alliance, American and JetBlue sell seats on each others flights and share the revenue. They say they coordinate on schedules but not prices. And they give customers reciprocal benefits in the frequent-flyer programs. American and JetBlue argue that their alliance is not a merger and helps them compete against United and Delta in the Northeast. They say the alliance has let them add 50 new routes, add flights on previous routes, and increase their share of the Northeast market from 16% to 24%. The carriers profess to be confounded by the Justice Departments claims that the deal is anti-competitive. They are wrong, and well prove it, Doug Parker, then Americans CEO, said around the time that the lawsuit was filed. He said blocking the deal would take away consumer choice and inhibit competition, not encourage it. The government argues that the alliance will further reduce competition among airlines and cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. JetBlue was once a scrappy opponent and Americans most nettlesome competitor in New York. But now, JetBlue has sold out and cashed in, government lawyers say in one filing. The government says that together, American and JetBlue will control more than 50% of the market sometimes more than 80% on routes from New York and Boston where they previously competed head-to-head. The Justice Department seems to be expressing buyers remorse about many previous airline mergers that went largely unchallenged. Those deals eliminated Continental, Northwest, US Airways, AirTran, TWA and other airlines, and they led to the downgrading of once-bustling hub airports including St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Consumer advocates say those mergers have led to higher prices and lower service, particularly from the four biggest airlines: American, Delta, United and Southwest. They have gotten too big to fail and too big to care, said Bill McGee, an aviation expert at the American Economic Liberties Project, a group that opposes concentrated power within industries. We feel that there should be a moratorium on all mergers in the airline industry until (federal regulators) go back and look at all the negative effects of all the consolidation. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said last week that a lack of competition caused the widespread flight problems that aggravated travelers this summer. Americans are beyond furious about cancellations and delays by airlines, and they are beginning to understand that the reason why airlines mistreat them and why they are mismanaged is because of consolidation, he said. ___ The case is 21-11558 in U.S. district court in Massachusetts. In addition to the federal government, other plaintiffs are the states of Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia. By DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer AP source: Funding bill includes more than $12B on Ukraine View Photo WASHINGTON (AP) More than $12 billion in Ukraine-related aid will be included as part of stopgap spending bill that would fund the federal government into mid-December, a person familiar with the legislation said Monday. The funding package, which Congress is set to consider this week, will also provide disaster assistance, including for Jackson, Mississippi, where improvements are needed for the citys water treatment system after its main facility malfunctioned in late August, leaving many stranded without clean water. Also in the package is money to help households afford winter heating and funding to assist Afghans in resettling in the U.S. And it will reauthorize user fees that the Food and Drug Administration relies on to fund some of the agencys most critical safety programs, such as product safety reviews. The text of the bill could be released as soon as Monday ahead of a procedural vote in the Senate on Tuesday evening. The details were provided by a person who was not authorized to discuss the legislation publicly and was granted anonymity. Both chambers of Congress must approve legislation by the end of Friday, which is the end of the fiscal year, to prevent a partial government shutdown. It represents the last bit of unfinished business for lawmakers before the midterm elections in November. Both sides are eager to wrap up and spend time on the campaign trail rather than in Washington, lowering the risk of a federal stoppage. The Biden administration has requested that billions of dollars in emergency funding be attached to the package, including for Ukraine, COVID-19 and other priorities. Senators from both parties have been largely supportive of providing Ukraine with more military assistance. The White House request for the spending bill included $11.7 billion for security and economic assistance for Ukraine, on top of some $53 billion Congress had already approved through two previous bills. I think were going to be good in supporting Ukraine, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said when discussing the measure recently. But Republican senators have balked at Bidens request for the COVID funding, calling it unnecessary. One factor that could complicate passage of the funding bill is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumers promise to include a proposal that would streamline permitting for energy projects. The plan is a top priority for West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, but other Democrats, particularly in the House, say the issue should be dealt with separately. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has also been critical, calling the permitting measure a reform-in-name-only plan. Ahead of Tuesdays procedural vote, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called on the Senate to attach permitting legislation to the stopgap spending bill, saying Manchins bill isnt perfect, but it would strengthen energy security in the U.S. and lower costs for consumers and businesses. Now, there is an opportunity to make more progress, and Congress should take it, said Neil Bradley, the business lobbying groups executive vice president and chief policy officer. Senators on both sides of the political aisle voiced confidence last week that Congress would avoid a shutdown. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday the Biden administration hoped that would be the case, calling on Congress to pass the legislation. We encourage Congress to get it done, she said. ____ Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report. By KEVIN FREKING Associated Press Frances Macron lands 1st state visit of Bidens presidency View Photo WASHINGTON (AP) French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Washington in early December for the first state visit of President Joe Bidens tenure, an occasion marked by pomp and pageantry that is designed to celebrate relations between the United States and its closest allies. The Dec. 1 visit, following the U.S. midterm elections and the Thanksgiving holiday, will be the second state visit for Macron, who was first elected to lead his country in May 2017 and won a second term earlier this year. Macron also had a state visit during the Trump years. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced the visit Monday, saying it will underscore the deep and enduring relationship with France, our oldest ally. It will be the first time the White House has hosted a world leader for a state visit since the coronavirus outbreak. The invitation comes as a sign that relations between Biden and Macron have come full circle. The relationship tanked last year after the United States announced a deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia. The decision by the U.S. undermined a deal that had been in place for France to sell diesel-powered submarines to Australia. After the announcement of the deal, which was born out of a new security agreement between the U.S., Australia and Britain, France briefly recalled its ambassador to Washington, Philippe Etienne, to Paris. Biden also sought to patch thing up with France by eventually acknowledging to Macron that his administration had been clumsy in how it handled the issue. The Biden administration since has heaped praise on Macron for being among the most vociferous Western allies in condemning Russias 7-month-old war in Ukraine and pressing broad sanctions on the Russian economy and officials close to President Vladimir Putin. Central to Bidens pitch for the presidency was a vow to restore Americas global leadership after four years of Donald Trumps America First worldview. But Biden has acknowledged that Macron and other allies remain skeptical about whether he can make good on robust U.S. leadership worldwide. Biden is fond of telling the story of how, at a world leader meeting he attended soon after taking office, he declared that America is back. He says his counterparts, starting with Macron, countered by asking, For how long? Macron also was the first world leader to earn a state visit under Trump, though their relationship later became fractious. The French leader had sought to cultivate a close partnership with Trump and hosted the Republican in 2017 for Bastille Day celebrations in Paris. Trump reciprocated with Macrons state visit. But the relationship soured after Trump pulled U.S. troops from Syria without coordinating with France and other NATO allies. Trump disparaged NATO. In one of their last face-to-face encounters, at a gathering of NATO leaders in London in 2019, Trump and Macron hardly hid their frustration with each other. Not long before that meeting, Macron had complained that the alliance was suffering brain death caused by diminished U.S. leadership under Trump. Trump snapped back after a meeting with Macron that the French leader had made very, very nasty and disrespectful comments. When Macron visited in April 2018, Trump and his wife, Melania, planned a double date with Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, Americas founding president. The couples helped plant a tree on the White House lawn before they departed on a helicopter tour of monuments built in a capital city designed by French-born Pierre LEnfant as they flew south to Mount Vernon, situated along the Potomac River. Macron was welcomed at the White House the next day with a booming 21-gun salute, his first Oval Office meeting with Trump, a joint news conference with the president and a state dinner for 150 guests in the White House State Dining Room. Scott Morrison, then the prime minister of Australia, also came on a state visit at Trumps invitation in September 2019. Trump had announced a third state visit, by Spains King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, but it was postponed due to the pandemic and could not be held before Trump lost reelection in 2020. President Barack Obama also afforded France the honor of a state visit, in 2014. Obama and French President Francois Hollande celebrated ties between their nations by touring Monticello, the sprawling Charlottesville, Virginia, estate owned by Thomas Jefferson, the former U.S. president and famed Francophile. Jefferson was an early U.S. envoy to France. Hollandes visit was the first such recognition for France in two decades. But it proved a bit of a diplomatic challenge as he traveled without a female companion following a very public breakup with longtime partner Valerie Trierweiler. Holland and Trierweiler were a couple when the White House extended the invitation, but the relationship ended after a gossip magazine revealed a secret tryst between Hollande and a French actress. The last-minute change of plans Hollande coming solo caused heartburn for U.S. officials planning the diplomatic event. The Obamas tried to put the issue to rest by seating Hollande between them at a state dinner for 350 invited guests in a heated pavilion on the White House South Lawn on a frigid February night. By AAMER MADHANI and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press Lambert: This was written immediately before the Italian election, but the logic applies now that the lurch to the right has taken place. By Stella Levantesi, an Italian climate journalist, photographer, and author. She is the author of the Gaslit series on Desmog. Her main areas of expertise are climate change delay and denial, climate disinformation, climate litigation, and corporate responsibility on the climate crisis. Originally published at DeSmog. Italys gas lobby should be entering early retirement. Instead, its rarely been riding so high. The energy crisis triggered by Russias invasion of Ukraine, and the prospect that far-right politician Giorgia Meloni will win snap elections on Sunday, have all but eclipsed growing calls from a younger generation for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. In fact, Italy seems to be moving in the opposite direction. An emergency decision to approve two new gas import terminals, and the virtual absence of discussion of climate policy on the campaign trail, have raised the risk that energy companies will leave Italy hooked on planet-warming fossil gas for decades to come, campaigners say. Fears of winter have been stoked, and families are terrified of being in the cold, said Elena Gerebizza, energy and infrastructure campaigner at ReCommon, an advocacy group. In this scenario, its getting harder to explain why we dont need new gas infrastructure, or why we have to reduce consumption and dependence on gas. With the European Union pledging to slash carbon emissions by 55 percent by the end of the decade, compared with 1990 levels, Italian oil and gas company Eni and pipeline operator Snam have adopted net zero targets. But both companies remain wedded to fossil fuel-dominated business models, according to analysis by Oil Change International and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, even as climate impacts intensify. Italy was hit by its worst drought in 70 years this summer, and less than 10 days before voting day, the eastern region of Marche was drenched with 400 millimetres of rain an amount that would usually fall over six months. At least 10 people were killed in resulting flash floods, with four missing, including a boy who was swept from his mothers arms, according to reports. Even as the country experiences extreme weather first-hand, politicians referenced the climate crisis in less than 0.5 percent of their statements on Italian talk shows, online and on their Facebook accounts, according to a study by Greenpeace Italy and Osservatorio di Pavia, a media research institute. With the exception of the leftist coalition Green Leftist Alliance and the populist Five Star Movement, which are trailing in the polls, all major parties want to double down on new gas infrastructure, according to a review of manifesto commitments by Ecco, a think tank. If Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, wins the election and forms a coalition with other right-wing parties, as polls project, then the gas lobby, which has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Italian state, may find it even easier to sidestep scrutiny, campaigners say. The Italian ultranationalist right will rely even more on turnkey Italian champions, from Eni to Snam to solve the energy crisis, fueling their billion-dollar business abroad, and subsidising new drilling in Italy, said Antonio Tricarico, programmes manager at ReCommon. Greater influence for the gas lobby could have implications far beyond Italy, which produces 11 percent of the EUs greenhouse gas emissions. Eni and Snam are key members of Italian chamber of commerce Confindustria, which research group InfluenceMap says has been lobbying the EU to back new fossil gas projects, while opposing policies to limit demand. The European Union is at a historical turning point for its energy mix. Yet despite scientific guidance, the Italian industry association Confindustria is opposing the shift away from gas, said Will Aitchison, InfluenceMaps EU strategy manager. Confindustria, Eni and Snam did not respond to requests for comment. Lock-In Even before the snap election was called in July, when prime minister Mario Draghi resigned following the collapse of his national unity government, Italys gas industry had won important concessions in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. As Italy joined the scramble to secure alternatives to Russian gas, Draghis government authorised Snam to spend more than 700 million euros on two new terminals to receive cargoes of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) fracked gas supercooled into liquid form for transport on tankers. Known as regasification terminals, the projects will be used to convert imported LNG back into gaseous form so that it can be fed into Italys pipelines. Underscoring the sense of urgency, the government decreed that all such infrastructure should be considered strategic, non deferrable and urgent. Critics fear the projects will lock Italy into long-term dependence on fossil gas, pointing out that Snam has asked for a 20-year concession on a floating LNG terminal it plans to install at Piombino, Tuscany. Similarly, the other planned terminal, in Sardinia, could tie the island to gas for years, campaigners say. All the new gas infrastructure, including LNG terminals that Italy is mandating Snam to buy, has an impact in the long term, ReCommons Gerebizza said. This means that Italy is preparing to maintain this dependence on gas in the long term too. Italy says it has slashed the proportion of gas it imports from Russia to 25 percent from 40 percent last year, when it was the second biggest importer of Russian gas after Germany. Nevertheless, with the cost of wind and solar plummeting, think tank Ecco questions whether large and opaque investments in publicly-subsidised gas infrastructure could leave Italy saddled with stranded assets at the taxpayers expense. I see this as a huge dead end, but one thats incredibly profitable for the gas industry, said Pascoe Sabido, researcher and campaigner with the Brussels-based research group Corporate Europe Observatory. Nevertheless, leading candidates have rushed to back the projects. LNG terminals must happenbecause we must free ourselves from dependence on Russian gas, Meloni told a television show broadcast in late August. At a rally in Mestre, in the northeastern region of Veneto, on September 11, Meloni gave a speech voicing her support for new gas drilling and, in a media interview, declared that Italy could become a gas hub for Europe. Italian Gas Although Meloni and other candidates have mentioned renewables during the campaign, the emphasis of right-wing parties, especially, has been on fossil fuels, from reopening coal plants to new gas infrastructure and drilling for Italian gas in the Adriatic. Abandoning fossil fuels overnight is unthinkable, Nicola Procaccini, a Member of the European Parliament who serves as the Brothers of Italy partys environment spokesman, told a delegation from climate movement Fridays for the Future this month, according to a video of the meeting published by Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. On August 25, Matteo Salvini, former deputy prime minister and a leading figure in the right-wing Lega party, told a talk show: Unblock all energy facilities that to date are blocked by bureaucracy, extract gas, for example, in the Adriatic, because otherwise the Croatians will steal it from us, according to the Greenpeace study. Politicians closer to the centre of the political spectrum, such as Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister and leader of the Italy Viva party, and Carlo Calenda, leader of the Action party, have also voiced support for the new gas terminals and increasing Italian production. Experts say fresh drilling in the Adriatic would generate only marginal benefits relative to Italys overall energy needs. Nonetheless, the calls are reassuring for the sector. Certainly, it is no mystery that a gas pipeline, or oil and gas, company would prefer a government that says yes to new pipelines, regasifiers and more drilling in the Mediterranean, said Luca Iacoboni, Head of National Programs at Ecco. In the year to June 2021, companies including Eni and Snam met more than 100 times with Italian ministers, including Roberto Cingolani, minister of the ecological transition, according to a report by ReCommon. The companies wanted to ensure that Italys COVID-19 recovery funds would be used to tie us to gas for the next decades, the report states. Conflict of Interest In a move that appeared emblematic of the close ties between the gas lobby and the Italian state, Claudio Descalzi, chief executive of Eni, joined foreign minister Luigi Di Maio on a trip to Algeria in February, and then to Angola and Republic of Congo in March, in a push to diversify sources of gas away from Russia. Confindustria has also provided an important vehicle for Eni and Snam to promote their interests, with Descalzi serving on the groups General Council and Advisory Board, and Snam represented on working groups on issues including energy efficiency and industrial emissions. During the past year, Confindustriahas mounted a two-pronged strategy against the energy transition: supporting new fossil gas infrastructure and expansion of national production, while at the same time advocating against policies at EU level that would limit fossil gas demand, said InfluenceMaps Aitchison. In 2021, Snam spent nearly 300,000 euros on lobbying European institutions, LobbyFacts reported. According to the InfluenceMap findings, Snam advocated for preferential treatment for fossil gas and LNG in its November 2021 consultation response on an EU framework for taxing energy products. Snam is also active in a network of interlocking European lobby groups seeking to present fossil gas as part of the solution to the climate crisis. The Milan-based company is a member of Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), a Brussels-based group representing the LNG terminal industry. GIE is in turn a member of Gas Naturally, a group arguing that natural gas helps make a clean future real. Snam also belongs to Gas for Climate, another group promoting renewable gas, an attempt to paint the gas industry green, according to Corporate Europe Observatory. Snam is also part of ENTSOG, a pipeline operators association, which Sabido described as a gas lobby group within the European Commission structures which is given the responsibility of projecting the next 10 years of gas use. So, theres a huge conflict of interest where you have these companies providing the Commission on how much gas we need, Sabido said. Young Activists Fight Back While octogenarian Italian politicians set up TikTok accounts in a bid to reach the younger generation, party manifestos generally lack comprehensive commitments on climate change despite polling showing the crisis is a priority issue for voters aged 18-24. With electricity bills projected to double after October, youth activists say the gas lobby is crowding out discussion of policies that could ease the energy and cost-of-living crisis and, at the same time, speed a transition to cleaner energy: from energy efficiency and windfall taxes to cushion the impact of soaring bills, to simplifying the long authorisation processes delaying the roll-out of renewables. The Ministry of Ecological Transitions decision to sponsor a four-day gas industry conference Gastech in Milan earlier this month became a flashpoint for such criticism. Its terrifying that people who should be thinking about the good of their citizens, have sponsored this [event], said Sara, a twenty-three-year-old activist with Extinction Rebellion Italy, who asked to be identified by her first name. There is basically this idea that gas can be the only solution to all our energy problems. Filippo Sotgiu, 21, a spokesperson for Fridays for a Future Italy, which proposed its own science-based climate agenda, urged Italians to join a global climate strike on Friday and cast their votes carefully. Voting for those who succeed better than others in putting the climate at the center can be a very important tool, he said. We want to make sure that politics gives answers to those who do not feel heard, but its also the parties responsibility to make sure this happens. (Natural News) President Joe Biden said in a recent interview with 60 Minutes on CBS News that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is over. He noted that the return of large events and eased masking are proof that citizens can breathe a little easier following the pandemic that claimed countless lives. The interview took place at the 2022 Detroit Auto Show on Wednesday Sept. 14. This marked the return of the annual event after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Biden was quick to add that coronavirus is still a problem. Were still doing a lot of work on it but the pandemic is over. If you notice, no ones wearing a mask. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think its changing, said Biden. According to New York Times data, the U.S. is still recording an average of more than 400 deaths per day from coronavirus. Additionally, over one million Americans have died from coronavirus since the pandemic began back in 2020. Despite Bidens claims, highly contagious COVID-19 variants are still spreading worldwide. This made it much harder to fully eradicate the virus. To address the spread of COVID-19, the Biden administration focused its messaging on the importance of getting vaccinated and receiving booster shots to improve immunity. The administration also worked to make antiviral pills and other forms of treatment available for those who were infected. Last July, Biden himself contracted COVID-19 but he allegedly only experienced mild symptoms. Officials said Bidens mild case was due to being fully vaccinated and Paxlovid, an antiviral drug. America and much of the world has resumed large events this year, like the Detroit Auto Show, and abolished requirements that attendees wear masks or provide proof of vaccination. However, the U.S. still requires foreign visitors to be fully vaccinated before traveling to the country by plane. (Related: Biden wants more money to prepare for the second pandemic he promises is coming.) Experts dont agree with Biden According to Bill Hanage, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health associate professor of epidemiology, noted that previous pandemics ended when people stopped counting the fluctuations in cases large enough to merit calling it such. Hanage added that the end of a pandemic can be defined when there is no longer excess mortality. But things can get complicated since mortality shifts, like when those who would have normally been expected to be dying now died in 2021. Additionally, mortality can be affected by the quality of healthcare. It might also be higher than expected if the pandemic has negatively affected the healthcare system. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, said she thinks the pandemic will end when coronavirus no longer has the ability to disrupt our lives. The World Health Organization (WHO) said COVID-19 is still classified as a pandemic. Earlier this year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Bidens top medical adviser on the pandemic, said the U.S. was moving out of the pandemic phase with COVID-19. Fauci also highlighted the manageable levels of hospitalizations and deaths in the United States. Biden previously argued that America turned a corner on the pandemic, specifically during a speech on Independence Day in 2021, when he claimed the country had the resources necessary to declare independence from COVID-19. However, in the following weeks the delta variant contributed to a surge in cases and deaths in the country. By late 2021 into early 2022, the omicron variant also caused a spike in cases and deaths. Visit Pandemic.news for more updates about COVID-19. Watch this video to know more about why Bidens war on COVID-19 is a globalist economic siege on humanity. This video is from the Gustel Nobell channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Doctors, scientists sue Biden over online censorship of COVID-19 information. Biden administration warns Americans: Another pandemic is coming around the midterm election. Fauci claims full-blown pandemic is over, hints at when Covid restrictions will end. Sources include: TheHill.com FactCheck.org Brighteon.com Kuwait-based Jazeera Airways has partnered with Icelandic technology provider Dohop to launch Jazeera Global to enable passengers to book connections from Jazeera flights on to other airlines to various destinations. The connections may be made in a single seamless transaction, on the Jazeera website and App. With the help of Dohop's API-based technology, Jazeera will have access to a network of airlines, including Turkey-based Pegasus Airlines, allowing customers to book tickets across airlines that do not have traditional interline or code-sharing agreements. Initially there are 23 new destination options which connect with Jazeera flights including London, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Athens plus regional airports in Turkey. Jazeera Airways Chief Executive Officer, Rohit Ramachandran, said: This is a unique offering to help our passengers connect from Kuwait to destinations in Europe. We are pleased to be working with Dohop and their platform and look forward to expanding the service over time. "We are thrilled to be expanding our presence in the Middle East. Partnering with an innovative and forward-thinking airline like Jazeera only highlights the need for alternative interline solutions in international markets. We anticipate extending our collaboration with Jazeera as we enter the final quarter of 2022 and expanding their offering through additional partner connections, said Sarah Hanan, Commercial Director at Dohop. Jazeera Airways operates commercial and cargo flights out of its Jazeera Terminal T5 at Kuwait International Airport. The airline flies to 53 popular destinations across the Middle East, Central and South Asia, Africa and Europe comprising high-demand business, leisure and weekend destinations. TradeArabia News Service The University of Pennsylvania Law School is gunning to expel a heterodox professor. (Natural News) (Article by Alexander Riley republished from AmericanMind.org) The University of Pennsylvania Law Schools campaign to purge Professor Amy Wax from its ranks for challenging the emerging woke left orthodoxy in higher education is now reaching a fever pitch. Just a couple months ago, Law School Dean Ted Ruger made a formal charge to the faculty senate to bring major sanctions against Wax, suggesting they strip her of tenure and remove her from her position. Dean Rugers bold assertion is that Wax has failed to adhere to the standards of her profession and, therefore, should potentially be removed from its ranks. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) posted Rugers letter sent to the faculty senate chair online. It demonstrates, with stunning clarity, just how low the standard of argument and analysis has sunk at the highest levels of American academia. Wokeism is destroying higher education, and it is nowhere clearer than in the anti-intellectual rhetoric issued by high-level administrators such as Ruger when faced with perspectives with which they disagree and about which they patently know almost nothing. People outside academia only occasionally have an opportunity to peer inside the walls of the university system to see just what kind of foolishness is now being perpetrated there in the name of the woke revolution sweeping through American culture. Rugers letter is a depressing document of this phenomenon. A short tour through its contents gives insight into what higher education is becoming. Ruger accuses Wax of having failed utterly as an intellectual: Much of her public persona has become anti-intellectual: she relies on outdated science [and] makes statements grounded in insufficiently supported generalizations. But somehow, no examples of this outdated science or insufficiently supported generalizations are indicated or argumentatively challenged in his letter. The letters charge against Wax consists of two parts: a list of student complaints against Wax and a collection of brief excerpts from Waxs public speech that purportedly show how unscholarly and bigoted she is. The Student Complaints The claims presented in Rugers letter about what shes said in class are unverified by any objective evidence. For this reason, those knowledgeable about such things must conclude that they cannot alone serve as the basis for any formal action against Wax. Putting these comments into the general context of Waxs teaching record raises real questions. In 2015, she received a prestigious UPenn Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, which involved a detailed examination of her record in the classroom and a broad solicitation of student comments. So, just a few years ago, UPenn publicly recognized Wax as an exemplar among her peers as a teacher. It seems clear that it is not Wax or her teaching style that has changed in the intervening years. Anyone who teaches in higher education knows that students these days do not infrequently have ideological axes to grind, and they often mishear or misremember what was said in such a way as to be offended by things imagined that were, in fact, never uttered. I have had students make claims to my superiors about things they allege Ive said in class during Zoom meetings that were recorded. Fortunately, I had objective evidence of what was said. Nevertheless, the difference between the claim and reality was remarkable in every case. But it turns out that even if you take Waxs students claims on their face, they constitute no case for major sanctions against her. A look at a few examples makes this clear. A student claims that Wax affirmed that blacks are inferior to whites by responding, You can have two plants that grow under the same conditions, and one will just grow higher than the other. This statement reflects the simple fact that individuals respond differently to stimuli, which holds true for both members of the plant and animal kingdoms owing to a host of factors. It is not a general statement about human racial groups. Far from indicating a belief in white racial superiority, Waxs observation speaks to the basic equality of people, who all start from zero and then rise to the limits of their constraints due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Wax allegedly told a black student she was double Ivy (meaning she had attended two Ivy League institutions) because of affirmative action. Here Wax raised an open empirical question. If the students overall academic pedigree (GPA, high school rank, and standardized test scores) is below those of other non-black double Ivy students, then it was quite likely a true statement. Wax presumably knew something more than we do of the students qualifications in making the statement. But how can the assertion that a black student with two Ivy League schools on her resume is likely to have benefited from affirmative action be taken as an insult in a culture that openly defends the positive good and undeniable need for affirmative action to achieve desired levels of minority representation? It is widely known that black students, on average, have lower GPAs and standardized test scores than whites and Asians and that their performance relative to their peers remains comparatively low throughout college. How is it an unmentionable transgression for Wax to allude to a set of facts no one who knows the data disputes? Wax also allegedly told a student that black students do worse academically than whites because they are less well prepared because of affirmative action. This point is certainly arguable from the facts, as illustrated in the previous paragraph. On average, black students come to college with lower academic qualifications than students from other racial groups. And it is equally arguable that one of the things that contribute to their relatively lower preparation might be that, thanks to affirmative action, they do not need to achieve at the level of other students to be rewarded disproportionately for their accomplishments. This point has been argued by a number of black critics of affirmative action, including the economist Glenn Loury who has noted that affirmative action does not further the agenda of real equality but only allows institutions to cover their asses and pretend they are pursuing that goal. We do not know with certainty that affirmative action is acting as a mechanism for curbing black effort. Nor is it yet a settled matter whether affirmative action handicaps at least some black students by putting them into academic situations for which they are comparatively poorly prepared and in which they are comparatively more likely to struggle. Still, these are plausible hypotheses that are being legitimately explored in research. Ruger complains that Waxs invitation of the race realist conservative Jared Taylor to her class, and her assignment in the same class of an interview with British politician Enoch Powell, who died 25 years ago, constitute monstrous offenses against legitimate academic discourse and a deliberate attack on minority students. In one of the interviews to which Ruger links, Wax makes clear that the course at issue is on conservative political and legal thought. To this end, Wax introduced the ideas of both Taylor and Powell, without any hint of her own agreement or disagreement with them, to students as aspects of that body of thought. She made it clear that this was an elective course that no student was required to take. What is going on here then is scarcely debatable. As Wax notes in one of the interviews, Ruger is essentially telling her that she has broken with the basic professorial code by introducing students to varieties of conservative thoughtin a course on conservative thought. This point merits more exploration. In a course on Nazism or fascism, for example, students might well and reasonably be asked to read material written by Nazis or fascists to be exposed to the ideas of the philosophies and movements as expressed by those inside them. This neednt imply any justification of the views; presenting them in this scenario is entirely educational in purpose. The same is true in a course on revolutionary communism, in which students might be legitimately asked to read Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, and other unsavory characters in the murderous history of global communism. What Ruger is attempting here is as dangerous a thing as a college administrator can do. Ruger gives no specifics of what in Powells or Taylors expression of political ideas cannot be presented to law school students. To attack Taylor, he cites only the Southern Poverty Law Center, the contemporary go-to source for impugning anyone on the Right who says anything about human population genetics, mass immigration policies, or a number of other increasingly taboo topics in the woke vision. But the SPLC citation offers no substantive bits of Taylors speech or thought, nor any refutation of those ideas. It simply calls him names. We are told that he hosts the American Renaissance conference, where racist intellectualsKlansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists meet. Who are we talking about here, specifically, and what have they argued in detail? Nothing is provided. Taylor is impugned simply because some racists have come to his conference, and Wax is equally blackened because she invited the convenor of the conference that gave a platform to racists to appear in her class as a representative of a variety of conservative thought. A little investigation of specifics proves of interest. Jared Taylor has been invited to speak on many other college campuses. He has also appeared frequently on numerous mainstream media programs and popular podcasts. Phil Donahue invited him on his former program a few times in the early 2000s. The leftist Huffington Post Live, hosted by black scholar Marc Lamont Hill, much more recently had him on to debate antiracist activists Tim Wise and Michael Eric Dyson. Taylor has been invited to public stages to debate and discuss with black interlocutors on both the right and the left on many occasions. Here he is telling a nearly all black audience that he identifies as a kind of Marcus Garvey-ite who wants blacks to be free and independent in their own state within the American nation, a position taken up by many black nationalists. Here is another civil discussion with a black interlocutor. And here he is as the invitee and debate opponent of black scholar Wilfred Reilly at the campus of Kentucky State University, a Historically Black University. It is remarkable that a man who has been invited to present his views at many mainstream institutions and who has a record of doing so cordially and respectfully is presented by Rugeragain, without any evidence of the content of his viewsas self-evidently beyond the limits of acceptable academic discourse. If university administrators can so frivolously and anti-intellectually restrict the range of presentable ideas and the freedom of their faculty to expose their students to such controversial ideas, we have reason to fear what will become of modern higher education. Indeed, it is already happening. Waxs Public Remarks Ruger also gives as evidence against her a collection of tidbits from videos and transcripts of interviews and conversations Wax has had in the public sphere. He presents this section of his letter with many footnoted links to online sources, but they are not cued to the precise point at which she allegedly makes the statements he reports. Nearly all of these are lengthy interviews of an hour or more; Ruger has made it impossible, short of listening through the entirety of each interview, to verify his claims about what shes said and to place it in its appropriate context. This is intellectually sloppy at the failing undergraduate level, and it is the dean of a prestigious law school reporting to the faculty senate on a matter of ultimate professional import for the person involved who is giving us this F-level performance. A review of the substance of what Wax is alleged to have said in just a few examples reveals the weakness of Rugers case. The first excerpt centers on claims Wax purportedly made about differences between the sexes regarding their interest in and proclivity for different kinds of work and their different psychological predispositions as groups. There is a vast literature on this topic. I wrote a book a year ago that contains a chapter summarizing a good deal of this material. The British psychologist Simon Baron-Cohens The Essential Difference is an excellent book-length summary of the basic empirical case, though much data has been added to the argument in the years since it was first published in the first decade of the 2000s. Ruger gives no indication that he has even the slightest familiarity with this literature. He accuses Wax of misleading citation ofsources, while providing no details of the sources or how Wax is being misleading in presenting them. Among other sources to which she refers in the several linked interviews, Wax mentions the work of David Lubinski at Vanderbilt. Lubinski studied groups of academically high-achieving boys and girls and discovered that even among such intellectually exceptional groups, there were clear sex differences in life values, especially those having to do with relative interest in work and family life. Waxs summary of this and other such research is completely consistent with what we know about these sex differences. Ruger assumes that anyone reading his letter will know as little as he does about this literature, as they would have to be so ignorant to accept his claims at face value. Ruger indicts Waxs presentation of what she calls cultural distance nationalism, a political position that argues that the cultural proximity or distance of new immigrants with respect to the dominant culture of the country they are entering will very strongly influence how well or poorly they will assimilate to that culture. In this context, she notes that a culture such as the United States that has historically always been centered on what the political theorist Samuel Huntington and others have described as Anglo-Protestant cultural values will likely be most compatible with immigrants who are closer rather than more distant from that dominant culture. Further, she argues that citizens of such a country might well see it as a defensible national policy on immigration that this question of cultural distance is considered in making immigration decisions. Does Ruger think that such cultural differences between groups do not exist or that they do not have the effects Wax suggests they might? He gives no evidence to support those beliefs. He simply assumes that he knows what Wax has said to be false without argument and without acknowledging the academic literature that affirms her position. Wax purportedly notes group differences in human populations along racial lines. One of the claims is that black and white mean IQs are not the same. This is well-established in the IQ literature. Wax does not make any claims about the causes of that difference, the specific balance of which remains unknown. However, no one knowledgeable about the relevant fields of research doubts that group differences in IQ exist. Once again, Ruger insinuates that a position held by virtually every single serious researcher on this question cannot be presented in a public setting. Another claim Ruger finds offensive has to do with the different range of political beliefs and behavioral predilections that can be seen along racial lines. Asians, whites, and blacks have different profiles here, and there is much empirical evidence of that. Does Ruger doubt that its true? If he takes issue with these facts, he should familiarize himself with the relevant literature then argue against their empirical findings. Does Ruger believe Waxs claims that such differences might potentially have meaningful social and political consequences are false and morally unutterable? On what grounds? Ruger occasionally stoops to outright dishonesty about the contour of Waxs statements on how policy might be applied in light of these group differences. He claims that shes said publicly that black UPenn law students should not be in institutions of higher education. Shes said no such thing. In conversation with Glenn Loury, she discussed the well-known mismatch theory of affirmative action, which states that this policy frequently brings relatively high achieving black students to the most elite campuses where their qualifications, however comparatively good they are within their group, are poorly suited for academic success. If those students were directed instead to somewhat less demanding schools, they would do better academically and professionally. After summarizing the position, Wax says explicitly, were not saying they shouldnt go to college. Then she adds, as Loury starts to talk, Well, some shouldnt. The general thrust of her remark in this context is clearly sympathetic to mismatch theory, which does not insinuate that black students should not be in higher education but rather that, in at least some cases, they would do better in institutions other than the ones they are in. As to her qualifier about some, no honest academic with more than a decade of experience in that line of work can feasibly say that shes never met a student about whom that couldnt reasonably be said. Some young people of all races clearly lack the work ethic and the desire to finish a degree, and Wax is obviously referring to that small minority of students here. The evidence of the truth of this claim is in the significant number of students who leave colleges every year for non-economic reasons without completing their degree program. Somehow, Waxs observation of this unremarkable fact is yet another example of her professional negligence in Rugers eyes. In the interest of space and the readers patience, I have considered only the first three claims made in the two bodies of complaints Ruger presents. I could easily continue the exercise through both sets of claims because none of Rugers case holds up to careful scrutiny. The truth lurking behind Rugers rhetoric is evident. Hea dean speaking in an administrative capacity with punitive intent against a faculty member under his professional powerdoesnt know the relevant literature on which Wax is relying on to make wholly defensible statements to which he objects in his ignorance. His lack of familiarity whatsoever with established scholarly domains such as sociobiology and evolutionary biology is transparent. His simplistic way of framing the claims Wax makesany statement about individual or group differences is stereotyping, which is always illegitimate, no matter how much empirical evidence exists to support itshows his ignorance of the relevant fields. He is relying on the faculty senate members being equally free of any knowledge of these academic fields, which is, unfortunately, a safe bet in todays university. Let us be clear about what is happening in Amy Waxs case. This is not just an attack on her, though it is also that. She is being attacked as the representative of a whole set of heterodox intellectual frameworks and bodies of research. It is that set of ideas that Ruger and his ilkindeed, all the academic purveyors of woke moralitywant to destroy. They will do it one individual at a time, as this is the most feasible and practical way to advance their agenda. However, the goal is not just to remove the individuals. Its to make it impossible even to think those ideas in the contemporary university. This is an effort to shape the basic contours of intellectual life in America in a way hostile to intellectual freedom and subservient to moral totalitarianism and childish emotionalism. Amy Waxs case is not just about Amy Wax. It is about all of us in higher education and everyone else with an interest in free intellectual inquiry and expression. We had better all be paying close attention. Read more at: AmericanMind.org (Natural News) STORY AT-A-GLANCE In late June 2022, the United States became the first country in the world to grant emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizers and Modernas COVID jabs for toddlers as young as 6 months. The Food and Drug Administration issued the EUA June 17, and the very next day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all toddlers get the shot as soon as possible The pediatric EUA was based on extremely weak evidence and thats after the FDA lowered its efficacy requirements for the pediatric population, even though they have the lowest risk of COVID and therefore have the least need for the shots With this recommendation, the FDA and CDC have evaporated any last vestiges of trust they may have held onto. The reason they authorized COVID jabs for toddlers is because the drug industry needs this age group to be included under the EUA for legal indemnity purposes Once the emergency is over, the next phase of liability shielding requires that the shots receive approval by the CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Once the COVID jab is on the childhood vaccination schedule, the vaccine makers are permanently shielded from liability for injuries and deaths that occur in any age group, including adults The FDA and CDC have sold out Americas children. Once enough people realize what theyve done, they and the entire childhood vaccine program will be finished, as no one will trust any of the vaccines on the schedule. Already, only 44% of Americans believe what the CDC says (Article by Dr. Joseph Mercola republished from Articles.Mercola.com) Why the Rush for Toddler Vaccines? asks Wall Street Journal editorial board member Allysia Finley in a July 4, 2022, op-ed.1 Indeed, many are asking that same question, and Im glad the legacy medias WSJ had the courage to print it. In the last days of June 2022, the United States became the first country in the world to grant emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizers and Modernas COVID jabs for toddlers as young as 6 months. The Food and Drug Administration issued the EUA June 17,2 and the very next day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all toddlers get the shot as soon as possible.3 President Biden called it a very historic milestone, a monumental step forward.4 But is it? COVID was clearly a health emergency for adults in 2020. By contrast, the urgency now feels political, Finley writes.5 In fact, we dont know if the vaccines are safe and effective. The rushed FDA action was based on extremely weak evidence. Its one thing to show regulatory flexibility during an emergency. But for children, COVID isnt an emergency. The FDA bent its standards to an unusual degree and brushed aside troubling evidence that warrants more investigation. Another person who thinks the EUA of the COVID shot for infants is part of political theater is Toby Rogers, Ph.D. In the video above, he discusses the authorization process which he watched live with Against the Wind host Paul Thomas. Rogers reveals how the FDA and CDC trampled scientific norms, ran roughshod over proper methods and abandoned science. He tells Thomas: What you want from a process like this is good science having hard conversations and sifting through evidence of signals and noises in order to make good decisions on behalf of the country. What you get instead is politics getting products across the line no matter what. COVID Is Inconsequential for Young Children Finley points out that only 209 children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years have died from COVID, per CDC data.6 She uses the word from, but the evidence suggests most children die with COVID and from other serious health conditions such as cancer.7,8,9 That said, Finley does note that the two children in Pfizers pediatric trial who developed the most serious infections also tested positive for other viruses, so its possible that many hospitalizations attributed to COVID this winter were actually instigated or exacerbated by other viruses. Another telling statistic is that the number of toddlers hospitalized with COVID between October 2020 and September 2021 was about half the total number of toddlers hospitalized with influenza the previous winter.10 That data, again, comes from the CDC, so clearly, theyre fully aware of how the COVID risk compares to other common infections. Shots Dont Work Well in Young Children Finley then goes on to discuss effectiveness, noting that while the shots initially seemed to offer robust protection for adults, the same cannot be said for children. The Moderna shot was only 51% effective against symptomatic Omicron infection in 6-month-olds to 2-year-olds, and a mere 37% effective in 2- to 5-year-olds. This is lower than what we normally accept for vaccines, which makes the authorization even more irrational. Why use such an experimental injection with such poor effectiveness in children who arent at grave risk of death from the infection in the first place? Pfizer, meanwhile, claimed its shot was 80% effective, but this is misleading, Finley says, and goes on to explain: For one, Pfizer contravened numerous clinical-trial conventions. Its initial protocol involved only two doses, but this failed to generate the antibody levels required for FDA approval. So Pfizer added a third dose, which the FDA generously allowed. Usually the agency wont let drugmakers make a course correction when a trial ends in failure. Pfizer then planned to track at least 21 cases to establish a bare-bones measure of efficacy. By comparison, Moderna tracked more than 250 cases. Yet Pfizer truncated its data collection on April 29 even though a mere 10 cases had been recorded after the third dose. Its hard not to conclude that Pfizer cut corners to avoid getting beaten by Moderna. But as a result too few cases were documented to measure with any degree of confidence Pfizers vaccine efficacy More troubling, vaccinated toddlers in Pfizers trial were more likely to get severely ill with COVID than those who received a placebo. Pfizer claimed most severe cases werent clinically significant, whatever that means, but this was all the more reason that the FDA should have required a longer follow-up before authorizing the vaccine. Also worrisome: Most kids who developed multiple infections during the trial were vaccinated. This warranted more investigation, since experimental vaccines for other diseases sometimes increase susceptibility to infection. Scientists are also discovering that triple-vaccinated adults who were previously infected with the Wuhan variant have a weaker immune response to Omicron, leaving them more susceptible to reinfection. This phenomenon, called immunological imprinting, could explain why children who received three Pfizer shots were more likely to get reinfected. CDC and FDA Are Recklessly Throwing Caution to the Wind Basically, the CDC and FDA are betting that giving the COVID jab wont blunt toddlers immune responses to other infections, be it a SARS-CoV-2 variant or something else. This is reckless in the extreme, seeing how the immune system of young children is still immature and faces countless potential foes on a daily basis. This ongoing training that the immune system undergoes during the first few years of a childs life is what allows them to develop a well-functioning immune system over time. Immunological imprinting could throw a huge wrench in the works, making children less able to combat infections. Young children are exceptionally hardy and can bounce back from most infections. However, thats provided something hasnt been done that prevents their immune system from functioning normally. Of course, we also know the shots are associated with even more serious effects, including heart inflammation, neurological disorders and cancer. The FDA standard for approving vaccines in otherwise healthy people, especially children, is supposed to be higher than for drugs that treat the sick. But the FDA conspicuously lowered its standards to approve COVID vaccines for toddlers. Why? Finley asks.11 Why indeed? What are they thinking? Sadly, theyre likely not thinking about childrens health at all, but rather Big Pharmas profits. The EUA authorization of the COVID jab for toddlers eliminates all questions about whether the FDA and CDC are captured by pharma or not. They are. Thats now beyond clear, and the consequences of this blatant capture are likely to be far-reaching. It could even destroy the childhood vaccination program as a whole, as parents are now catching on to the fact that these agencies are corrupt to the core and basically work as covert promotional agencies for Big Pharma. Read more at: Articles.Mercola.com (Natural News) Democrats have officially gone off the deep end, as evidenced by a ridiculous claim from a gubernatorial candidate who is very much a favorite within her party. Stacey Abrams, who is running against incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, recently told a crowd that fetal heartbeats at six weeks are fabricated so that men can control women. There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a womans body, Abrams said this week during a campaign event at the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta. I believe that abortion is a medical decision, not a political decision. Arbitrary politically-defined timelines are deeply problematic because they ignore the reality of medical and physiological issues, she added. Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams: There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a womans body. REMINDER: Abrams supports NO LIMITS on abortion. pic.twitter.com/f7XxeqzfF6 RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 22, 2022 Later, in an interview with CNN, Abrams made it clear that Democrats are first and foremost the party of death. Women deserve full citizenship in the United States and certainly in the state of Georgia, and they are being denied that because of Brian Kemps 6-week ban, she said. We are driving not only doctors and nurses out of the state, were likely going to drive jobs away. And that should be terrifying to anyone regardless of your political persuasion. Abrams was quickly called out for her ridiculous claim. Stacey Abrams said theres no such thing as a heartbeat at 6 weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a womans body She is wrong! I heard my babys heartbeat at my 1st OBGYN appointment. It was not manufactured! noted former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany in a tweet containing a video clip of her refuting the Democratic candidate on her Fox News program, Outnumbered. Stacey Abrams said theres no such thing as a heartbeat at 6 weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a womans body She is wrong! I heard my babys heartbeat at my 1st OBGYN appointment. It was not manufactured! pic.twitter.com/KWcGinNzcV Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) September 22, 2022 Others joined in the mocking and ridicule as well. I wont ever tell you I told you so. I promise. Look at whos on stage with her. Look at how they are willingly eating up the BS. Blind loyalties to skin color and ideologies based on identity is killing this country. Its a slow death, former Georgial congressional candidate and writer Barrington Martin II noted. I wont ever tell you I told you so. I promise. Look at whos on stage with her. Look at how they are willingly eating up the BS. Blind loyalties to skin color and ideologies based on identity is killing this country. Its a slow death. Barrington Martin II (@_BarringtonII) September 22, 2022 The thing I dont understand about pro abortion people is the fact that they themselves wouldnt be here if their mothers had the same philosophy, another user responded. The thing I dont understand about pro abortion people is the fact that they themselves wouldnt be here if their mothers had the same philosophy. Jtum (@jgtumblin) September 22, 2022 Stacy has a masters in public affairs. Last I checked she definitely has ZERO right to weigh in on what a babies heartbeat is or is not. This is just foolishness designed to make abortion sound less gruesome than it is. Its a bunch of word salad from a partisan hack! noted another user. Stacy has a masters in public affairs. Last I checked she definitely has ZERO right to weigh in on what a babies heartbeat is or is not. This is just foolishness designed to make abortion sound less gruesome than it is. Its a bunch of word salad from a partisan hack! Shannon ??I stand with America (@thewriterme) September 22, 2022 Democrats are the party of death. They prove it daily with their defense of abortion at any moment. Sources include: CharlieKirk.com Breitbart.com (Natural News) Europes economy, currencies and industries are in free fall, plunging toward economic wasteland status thats less than a year away if natural gas supplies from Russia arent quickly restored. Thats the conclusion of numerous experts who have spoken to Natural News over the last two weeks, including war correspondent Michael Yon, Finnish economist Tuomas Malinen, global agricultural trends researcher David Dubyne, and Italian-American author Leo Zagami. The situation is so dire that Germany chemical giant BASF formerly part of the Nazi-run IG Farben chemical conglomerate that carried out war crimes against humanity is now threatening to shut down operations for industrial plants that have run continuously since the 1960s. As explained by author Philip Oltermann in a UK Guardian article entitled, How gas rationing at Germanys BASF plant could plunge Europe into crisis, BASF is close to shutting down its massive chemical facilities in Germany due to a lack of natural gas. But shutting down production might be permanent, since no one knows if the plants can ever resume operations after a shutdown, since the very act of shutting the system down may break it. BASF is critical to the worlds supply chain for fertilizer, petroleum refining, medicines, plastics, consumer products, industrial materials and more. If BASF were to go down, Western Europes industrial economy would rapidly collapse into ruin, and the global supply chain crisis would dramatically worsen far beyond anything we saw due to covid lockdowns. To understand all this, first consider this March, 2022 Reuters article, BASF says it would stop output if gas supplies fell to half its needs. That article explains: Germanys BASF (BASFn.DE) said on Wednesday it would have to stop production if natural gas supplies fell to less than half its needs, as the worlds largest chemicals group warned of the damage to its operations from Europes power crunch. The article reveals that BASF not only uses natural gas as its energy source for chemical manufacturing, but that the hydrocarbons in natural gas are the feed stock for critical chemical production such as ammonia (NH3) which must have hydrogen (H) from hydrocarbon molecules. You cant simply replace natural gas with electricity, since electricity contains no hydrogen. Thus, wind and solar power can never replace natural gas in industry and manufacturing, including for fertilizer production, plastics and more. As Reuters explains: In Europe, BASF uses around 60% of the gas it buys to generate energy needed in production and the remaining 40% as a raw material to produce important basic chemicals Note that the above Reuters article was published well before Gazprom ceased gas flows in Nord Stream 1. Current flow is at zero, and Russia has no compelling reason to restore flows anytime soon. This means Germany is running on stored natural gas even as winter approaches. Those gas stores will not last even through the end of this year, by the way, and the really cold weather hits in 2023. BASF warns of an imminent shutdown due to lack of natural gas If natural gas supplies fall to 50% of BASFs full demand, the company will have to shut down operations. Via The Guardian: Once we can receive significantly and permanently less than 50% of our maximum requirements, we would need to wind down the entire site, says Daniela Rechenberger, a company spokesperson. That is something that has never happened in BASFs history, and something no one here would want to see happening. But we would have little choice. Astonishingly, BASF warns that if it were to shutter operations, no one knows whether it could be restarted: With large parts of the verbund site having run around the clock since the 1960s, BASF says it is unclear if production could simply be restarted afterwards or if the drop of pressure would cause some machinery to break. In other words, you cant simply flip a switch and turn the plant off, then expect to flip the switch the other way and turn it all back on again. These systems are incredibly complex ammonia production all by itself requires a network of 1,771 miles of pipeline at just one BASF facility (Ludwigshafen), merely to process and distribute ammonia across the 10 sq km campus. That ammonia is then used to create fertilizers, Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) and many other industrial chemicals, including engine oil additives. The consequences of a shutdown at Ludwigshafen would be far-reaching, not just in Europes largest economy but the entire continent, writes The Guardian. A shutdown of BASF would mean the closing down of automobile manufacturing, consumer products, agricultural chemicals, sterilization chemicals for hospitals and much more. Across Western Europe, ammonia production is already down by 70%, which will have devastating repercussions on spring planting in 2023 (expect mass famine across Europe throughout 2023 2024). Metals smelting operations are more than 50% shut down, and an industry group called Eurometaux has warned that without immediate government intervention (i.e. bailout money), Europe faces permanent deindustrialization, meaning it becomes an economic wasteland. From that warning letter, found here: (pdf) (emphasis added) RE: Europes non-ferrous metals producers call for emergency EU action to prevent permanent deindustrialisation from spiralling electricity and gas prices 50% of the EUs aluminium and zinc capacity has already been forced offline due to the power crisis, as well as significant curtailments in silicon and ferroalloys production and further impacts felt across copper and nickel sectors. In the last month, several companies have had to announce indefinite closures and many more are on the brink ahead of a life-or-death winter for many operations. Producers face electricity and gas costs over ten times higher than last year, far exceeding the sales price for their products. We know from experience that once a plant is closed it very often becomes a permanent situation, as re-opening implies significant uncertainty and cost. Imagine Europe without metals or chemicals. Essentially, we are looking at Western Europe being plunged into the 18th century, complete with 18th century plagues, famine and destitution. War correspondent Michael Yon warns of Europes collapse under green energy policies Saturday, I published an interview with war correspondent and analyst Michael Yon, who warns that Europes infatuation with green energy policies has pushed the continent to the brink of economic destruction, leading to famine, pandemics and war: Brighteon.com/96d70e5c-495e-4a35-b631-cdd3fcffaa44 What Michael Yon understands is that once European industry is shut down, its likely going to stay down for many years to come. As OilPrice.com warns in a new story, Europes Energy Crisis Will Not Be A One Winter Story. From that story, we learn that this energy crisis is going to be a multi-year catastrophe: Even if European countries manage to survive winter, as it appears they will, they will face similar struggles the following winter. This is not a one winter story, lets just make it very, very clear, Amrita Sen, founder and director of research at Energy Aspects, told Bloomberg television in an interview on Friday. Europe will need to ration demand in order to be able to balance the market, not only this winter but also the next winter and potentially the one after that, she noted. Germany also moved this week to nationalize its biggest gas importer, Uniper, to prevent a collapse of the German energy and gas suppliers. Across Europe, industries are forced to curb or shut down production due to soaring energy prices The question remains: How many large energy suppliers and industrial giants can Germany bail out before the Euro collapses from all the money printing? How can Germany (or Western Europe as a whole) function without energy, metals, food and industry? Food production is also going offline across Europe Not surprisingly, this energy crisis is causing food production to plummet across Europe. As RT.com reports in a story, EU farmers warn of food shortages: Vegetable producers across northern and western Europe are considering halting operations, thus further threatening food supplies, as a result of the energy crisis hitting the continent, Reuters reported this week. According to the report, skyrocketing power and gas prices are the biggest cost facing vegetable farmers employing greenhouse cultivation. Two French farmers renewing their electricity contracts for 2023 told the media outlet they were being quoted prices more than ten times higher than in 2021. It begs the question: How are Europeans going to eat this winter if the food growers cant buy the energy needed to grow food? And how is industry going to function when companies like BASF go offline due to unavailability of natural gas? Germany is guaranteeing a collapse of industry by protecting gas supplies to residential households The German governments policies now point to a collapse of industry across Western Europe, given that energy supplies to residential homes are given top priority. This means the cuts in energy usage will have to come from industrial producers like BASF. Via The Guardian: Under German law, households would be excluded from gas rationing along with other protected customers such as care homes or hospitals. The brunt of reductions would have to be made by industry, accountable for about a third of the countrys demand. Thus, industry is the target for severe cuts in energy usage. That means massive, energy-hungry mega-corporations like BASF have little chance of staying in production through this winter, and a shutdown has unknowable long-term consequences. Add to this scenario the risk of a nuclear war in Europe, as America and NATO countries keep pushing Russia into a nuclear escalation of some sort. If nuclear bombs begin to fall on European cities, then its over for not just European industry but also its financial system and central bank (ECB). As Leo Zagami writes on his website, Europe will soon become a Nuclear wasteland as the woke West will be crushed for the arrival of the Antichrist. He sees Western Europe collapsing into a Mad Max type of scenario, with near-total devastation of industry, food production, financial assets and more. David Dubyne told me in a recent interview that he thought Western Europe would not survive the coming winter without mass famine and people freezing to death, likely followed by civil unrest and the collapse of currencies. Just yesterday, the British Pound flash-crashed, revealing that European currencies are on the brink of free fall as investors flee Europe in anticipation of the coming economic doomsday scenarios that weve outlined here. This is End of Days for Europe The bottom line? The final chapter of Western Europe appears to be under way as self-inflicted COVID lockdown insanity followed by suicide sanctions against Russia have brought European industry, food and financial instruments to the brink of annihilation. The Europe we all once knew is about to be transformed into an economic wasteland worse than any post-World War II scenario you can think of, including the bombing of Dresden by allied forces. The hydrocarbon scarcity reality that has already been unleashed on Europe is not fixable for years to come, meaning Europeans are going to have to somehow survive for multiple winters with very little food, energy, industry, jobs or electricity. This is the real-world impact of delusional green policies that go hand it hand with wokeism of socialists and left-wing fascists who dominate European governments. It turns out you cant actually power your economy with transgenderism fairy tales and solar power fantasies. Without hydrocarbons, your civilization collapses into ruin. Thats exactly whats coming for Europe. We are watching the End of Days for the EU, the Euro, and the British Empire in particular, with the failure of the City of London and the Vatican to boot. Ten of the worlds most important banks are going to be wiped out across Europe, bringing the wests financial infrastructure to a crippling end (part of the great reset agenda). Anyone who doesnt want to be financially annihilated should probably take a hard look at physical gold and silver or other real-world assets that dont vanish in a financial collapse. Notably, a lot of assets are about to get a whole lot cheaper, too, as demand destruction accelerates. Watch for prices of automobiles, homes, guns, ammo and certain commodities to fall in the coming months as western societies go bankrupt and are plunged into social chaos and political revolutions. Learn more in todays Situation Update podcast via Brighteon.com: Brighteon.com/c2aa0b85-26ad-455f-a3f7-07d7e0ed5dc9 Discover more interviews and podcasts each day at: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/HRreport Follow me on: Brighteon.social: Brighteon.social/@HealthRanger (my breaking news gets posted here first) Telegram: t.me/RealHealthRanger (breaking news is posted here second) Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@healthranger Gettr: GETTR.com/user/healthranger Parler: Parler.com/user/HealthRanger Rumble: Rumble.com/c/HealthRangerReport BitChute: Bitchute.com/channel/9EB8glubb0Ns/ Clouthub: app.clouthub.com/#/users/u/naturalnews/posts Join the free NaturalNews.com email newsletter to stay alerted about breaking news each day. Download my current audio books including Ghost World, Survival Nutrition, The Global Reset Survival Guide and The Contagious Mind at: https://Audiobooks.NaturalNews.com/ Download my new audio book, Resilient Prepping at ResilientPrepping.com it teaches you how to survive the total collapse of civilization and the loss of both the power grid and combustion engines. (Natural News) For some reason, it has become the mission of left-wing billionaire George Soros to destroy America, despite the fact that it has greatly contributed to his wealth and he has made the U.S. his home. That much is evident by his continued financing of campaigns for Marxists running for district attorney in major American cities. For years now, Soros candidates all of whom run under the banner of the Democratic Party have been winning their races in cities like St. Louis, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. And once they are in office, the new DAs implement reforms that include getting rid of cash bail and refusing to charge or prosecute people for increasingly violent crimes. The effect of these soft-on-crime policies was predictable: Not only has violence and crime risen, but criminals are becoming increasingly brazen. Case in point: Daytime heists of high-end retailers are common now in these major cities, featuring gangs of thieves who pull up in several vehicles, run hooded and disguised into stores, and rapidly steal expensive items like handbags, jewelry, clothing, and other items most of which show up for sale online. These groups operate very quickly and are usually in and out of stores before police arrive not that the Soros DAs would charge them, anyway. The thefts are becoming so commonplace that retailers and their lobbying organizations are pleading with authorities to actually enforce laws and reverse many of the so-called reforms that they say, correctly, have led to the brazen robberies by young people who have no fear of repercussions. Retail theft is becoming a national crisis, hurting businesses in every state and the communities they serve, said Neil Bradley, the U.S. Chamber of Commerces chief policy officer, in a letter to Congress in March. We call on policymakers to tackle this problem head-on before it gets further out of control. No store should have to close because of theft. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials are also fed up with the revolving door in jails and lockups. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has frequently blamed radical Democrats and left-wing prosecutors, saying that they live in this woke palace where theyre not affected by the policies, but the average person IS impacted by them. In a recent episode, Fox News host Tucker Carlson lambasted these Democrat-run cities where Soros-installed DAs have turned their cities into dystopian nightmares. Imagine dystopia. You hear that word frequently, what does that mean? Imagine a world where the police will not protect you. They refuse. At the same time, you are not allowed to protect yourself. Who runs a world like that? Well, young men with guns, they are in charge, Carlson said. The cruelest and most violent element of any society. People with the least to lose, the shortest time horizons, the shallowest reservoirs of impulse control. People like that have all the power. You have no power. That means everything you have is theirs. That is the end of civilizations, it exists in, Mogadishu famously. He went on to describe an attempted robbery in Chicago and how police were not allowed to pursue the suspects because a supervisor ordered them not to. The same group engaged in multiple robberies, Carlson said, hours after police were barred from pursuing them, CWB Chicago reported. Police believe two organized armed gangs are now operating with impunity around buck town which means the gangs are in charge now. That is what the collapse of civilization looks like, but its normal in Chicago, Carlson said. In Chicago right now, taxpayers are more likely to be victims of crime than criminals are to be punished for it. So the question is: why would anyone in Chicago pay taxes? You would have to be a masochist to do that, and pretty soon only the masochists will be, Carlson added. So how did this happen? Its no mystery. There are many threads, but George Soros is a big one. Soros paid for this to happen. Soros backed a prosecutor called Kim Foxx who turned Chicago over to the most vicious people who lived thereThe ones who truly dont care about others. Who want to kill people for their shoes or their car. The worst people, and they run things now. Sources include: DailyCaller.com TheEpochTimes.com (Natural News) Joe Bidens handlers instructed him to reverse President Donald Trumps strict immigration and border enforcement orders on Day One of his fake presidency, and the result was predictable. Waves upon waves of people from all over the world streaming across our border into our country by the hour. Thus far, more than 4.9 million people have crossed illegally into the U.S., with the Biden regime allowing most of them to stay because the plan is to literally replace our population with loyal subjects grateful for the scraps that will be thrown to them. But in addition to the worlds poor, criminals are also being allowed into our country, along with terrorists, according to reports. Border Patrol agents intercepted 12 men on the FBIs Terrorist watchlist at the U.S.-Mexico frontier in August, according to new data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, WorldNetDaily reported this week, noting that it is very likely that many more have crossed who were not intercepted because the ratio of getaways to those who are captured is in the neighborhood of 4 or 5-to-one. That brought the total number of people on the list apprehended this year at the border to 78, which is triple the figure of the past five fiscal years combined, the outlet continued. ADN America added: The number reported by the CBP data might only be a small percentage of the individuals that attempted to cross the border and were caught by Border Patrol agents. Many other individuals on the list could have crossed the border along with the more than 500,000 gotawaysundocumented migrants who crossed the border without being caughtreported by the CBP this fiscal year. The rise in encounters with individuals on the terror watchlist comes as an unprecedented number of migrants attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Border agents have encountered a total of 2,150,639 undocumented migrants this year, surpassing the 2 million mark for the first time in U.S. history, according to Department of Homeland Security data released this week. It should be noted that thanks to Trumps enforcement policies, there were only around 636,000 illegal crossings the entire final year he was in office, from January 2020 to January 2021. In recent days, Vice President Kamala Harris, who was appointed border czar by Biden less than a month after the two of them took office, has done literally nothing to fix the problem. In fact, she ridiculously claimed in an interview earlier this month that the border is secure. Speaking with Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd, Harris was asked about the current status of the border. I think that there is no question that we have to do what the president and I asked Congress to do. The first request we made, pass a bill to create a pathway to citizenship. The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed, she said. But several people in the know immediately refuted her claims, including Goliad County, Texas Sheriff Roy Boyd, in an interview with Fox News. It was a great ploy by Governor Abbott to bring attention back to something that was kind of fading away from mainstream media, Boyd said in response to the Texas governors efforts to bus illegal migrants to Democrat-run sanctuary cities. Hes put it back in their lap, and I applaud him for what hes done. The border is wide open, Boyd said. In Texas, the Border Patrol is encountering over 100,000 illegal aliens. So every month, Border Patrol agents tell me that on a good day, they encounter between eight and 15 percent of the number of people that actually come across. Sources include: ConservativeBrief.com ADNAmerica.com WND.com (Natural News) During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and China were both communist countries, but they were not at all allied. In fact, the two countries had more than 100 divisions of troops, combined, stationed along their common border and even fought several border clashes. But that was then. Today, after Russian President Vladimir Putin was heavily sanctioned by the West for invading Ukraine, China which also has revisionist designs on the global order has moved closer to its former Communist foe in a bid to create a multipolar world once again. To that end, Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping recently at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan, where he told Putin Beijing is ready to team up with Moscow, according to Great Game India. The Wests attempts to create a unipolar world have recently taken on an absolutely ugly shape and are absolutely unacceptable to the vast majority of nations on the planet, the Russian leader told Xi, according to a state media translation. Putin also said such attempts were absolutely unacceptable to the vast majority of nations on the planet, he added. We highly value the balanced position of our Chinese friends regarding the Ukrainian crisis, we understand your questions and concerns on this matter, and during todays meeting we will of course clarify all of these in detail, Putin added, according to Great Game India. Putin tells Xi Jinping that Russia understands your questions and concerns about Ukraine. Does that mean China has some? pic.twitter.com/Zd5XNW7cMD max seddon (@maxseddon) September 15, 2022 In addition to boosting diplomatic cooperation, the Russian and Chinese militaries have also been engaging in joint land and naval operations. Also, China is snapping up cheap Russian oil, gas, and coal after Western countries decided to stop purchasing Russian fossil fuels and energy following the invasion. During his remarks, Putin also addressed the issue of Taiwan reunification, which is vitally important to the ChiComs. We firmly adhere to the One China principle in practice. We condemn the provocations of the United States and its satellites in the Taiwan Strait, he said. According to private intelligence firm Forward Observer, China is continuing to ramp up operations to retake Taiwan either peacefully or by force. [Peoples Republic of China] officials and PLA planners see Taiwan as a potential obstruction to naval advances into the East and South China Seas. The PLA knows that it cannot freely maneuver or effectively employ its A2/AD capabilities if a pro-western Taiwan exists, equipped with advanced weapons like the U.S.s missile-killing Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system (THAAD). Taiwan must be brought under PRC control for both cultural and strategic reasons, the August 24 report stated. [T]he PRC views reunification of Taiwan almost as an act of charity. It believes that a peaceful reunification, similar to Hong Kong and Macaus reintegration, will allow for greater cross-Straits economic and cultural cooperation. The PRC and Taiwan could then combine their economies for a greater global market share, the report continued. The PRC, as they did for Hong Kong and Macau, promises to respect and protect the rights and interests of all Taiwanese people though the PRCs definition of rights and interests is likely much different than the Taiwanese version. Below the surface, PRC leaders know these platitudes and promises hold little weight, but they intend to mouth the words while using political warfare, gray zone activity, and military coercion to force a mostly peaceful reunification, the report added. Concluding, Forward Observer noted: The PLA stands ready to assist and incentivize that mostly peaceful reunification with increasingly intrusive military exercises that function as de facto blockades of the island. The PRC would like for Taiwan to come along peacefully, but it will choke it into submission if required. Russia appears to be in that sphere now, as well. Sources include: ForwardObserver.com GreatGameIndia.com (Natural News) Attorneys general from nearly half the country have sent a letter to the major credit card companies after they pledged to begin using a special code to track sales of guns and ammunition. The 24 AGs are critical of a decision by the payment processors like Visa, MasterCard and American Express to begin utilizing new Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for gun and ammo sales after they were set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) said the tracking violates the Second Amendment as well as customers Fourth Amendment right to privacy. But far-left anti-gun groups and Democrats in states like New York have pressed the credit card companies to employ the four-digit code with the lie that tracking weapon sales will improve public safety. The creation of a new code would help financial institutions detect and report suspicious activity, such as unusually large purchases of firearms or ammunition, or purchases from multiple stores, that may be used for criminal purposes, a letter from New York officials to the card companies stated. Earlier this week, the AGs sent a letter to American Express Company CEO Stephen J. Squeri, Mastercard Inc. CEO Michael Miebach, and Visa Inc. CEO Alfred F. Kelly Jr. strongly objecting to the use of the code. The new code will not protect public safety. Categorizing the constitutionally protected right to purchase firearms unfairly singles out law-abiding merchants and consumers alike. First, efforts to track and monitor sales at gun stores would only result in vague and misleading information. This categorization would not recognize the difference, for example, between the purchase of a gun safe and a firearm. Nor would it capture firearm purchases made at department stores, resulting in arbitrarily disparate treatment of gun store merchants and consumers, said the letter. More importantly, purposefully tracking this information can only result in its misuse, either unintentional or deliberate. Creating and tracking this data only matters if your institutions are considering using that information to take further, harmful actionlike infringing upon consumer privacy, inhibiting constitutionally protected purchases by selectively restricting the use of your payment systems, or otherwise withholding your financial services from targeted disfavored merchants, it added. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is the Republican nominee for retiring GOP Sen. Roy Blunts seat, added: The creation of a Merchant Category Code for sales at U.S. gun stores will not only not accomplish its intended goal, but is rife for misuse and abuse. Missourians value their Second Amendment rights and oppose any attempts to create a de-facto gun registry. Im proud to stand up for those rights and will oppose this decision by the major credit card companies at every turn. Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis also issued a strong statement this week warning that if the companies proceed with their plans, they will face penalties. The second amendment is foundational to our American way of life, Patronis said. The idea that law-abiding Americans would be put on some kind of corporate watchlist is disturbing. Our rights come from our Creator, not the government, and especially not big corporations. It is clear that the actions by these credit card companies are part of a larger effort to curtail God-given constitutional rights of Americans. It is also symptomatic of the virus known as ESG, which is part of a global effort to socially re-engineer the country that we love so much. There is no way we are going to allow that to happen in the free state of Florida, he continued. If we come to the legislative session and companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express are generating these reports to create a chilling effect against the purchase of firearms, then Ill work with the Legislature to pass a law penalizing businesses who are targeting the right to bear arms, Patronis continued. Weve seen a groundbreaking ruling come out of the Fifth Circuit limiting corporations ability to curtail Americans constitutional rights, so we are on solid legal footing to pursue a bill protecting Floridians 2nd Amendment Rights, noted Patronis. We can also take it a step further by barring these companies from doing any business with the State of Florida. We will send a message out to these large corporations that if you are interested in doing business with Florida, you need to make sure that youre protecting Floridians right to arm and defend themselves, he added. Sources include: CharlieKirk.com KTTN.com (Natural News) The Biden regime is trying to erase the First Amendment but only for certain people. Joe Biden himself at a recent United We Stand summit declared open war on white supremacists, whom he says should not be afforded free speech. Under that banner, we assume this also includes conservatives and Christians based on past White House rhetoric. White supremacists will not have the last word, Biden confusingly mumbled before an audience of local leaders, experts, and survivors of online hate. The current political climate, Biden went on to murmur, has given too much oxygen to white supremacists, prompting various false flag attacks and shootings that evidence suggests were deep state patsy plots. Its so important that we keep hollering, Biden said about his crusade to stamp out hate on the internet. Its so important for people to know thats not who we are. Susan Bro, whose daughter Heather Meyer was reported to have been killed at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, introduced Biden at the event while openly supporting his agenda. Her murder resonated around the world, but the hate did not begin or end there, Bro said, allowing Biden to segue into calls for widespread censorship across social media. After Biden muttered that he wants to hold social media companies accountable for spreading hate, the audience burst into a standing applause. Im calling on Congress to get rid of special immunity for social media companies and impose much stronger transparency requirements on all of them. (Related: Biden has been calling for digital censorship and social media witch hunts since before he was even installed as president.) Both parties seem to oppose free speech, depending on who is doing the speaking What Biden wants to happen is for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) to be eliminated. That law shields social media companies from liability for the things their users post or share. Former President Donald Trump called for the same thing during his tenure, though from the opposite political angle. Both Trump and Biden have said that Big Tech needs to be held liable for what passes across their platforms, but Trump wants it aimed at leftists while Biden wants it aimed at rightists. Biden is explicit in his calls for specifically conservatives to be censored online, calling them extremists and likening them to white supremacists during a recent speech in Philadelphia. Silence is complicity we cant remain silent, Biden proclaimed, calling Republicans a threat to democracy. There are those that say we bring this up, we divide the country. Bringing it up we silence it. Biden also announced a $2 billion push by philanthropists to (supposedly) try to build bridges among Americas many not-so-peacefully-coexisting races and cultures, an initiative also supported by Barack Hussein Obama, George Walker Bush, Bill Clinton, and Gerald Ford. Concerning the current Biden censorship crusade, YouTube (owned by Google) responded that it is already removing and censoring content left and right under the guise of combatting violent extremism. Microsoft, which was founded by billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates, also announced that it is deploying artificial intelligence (AI) robots and machine learning tools to help identify offensive free speech for removal from the internet. Attorney General Merrick Garland further indicated that all 94 U.S. Attorneys Officers are banding together for a United Against Hate initiative that over the next year will expand what constitutes a hate crime so that more people who say things the regime does not approve of can be punished. The latest news about the Biden regimes efforts to eliminate the free speech rights of its political and religious opponents can be found at Censorship.news. Sources for this article include: Reuters.com NaturalNews.com Mercury contamination is still a problem in the majority of historic Maya cities today. On archaeological digs, sealed jars containing elemental liquid have been discovered. In a research article, researchers concluded that the Maya of the Classic Period, which lasted from 250 to 1100 CE, were the ones who frequently used mercury and products containing mercury. There are areas where the pollution is so bad that it could still present a health risk to unwary archaeologists today. Using Mercury for Centuries According to Dr. Duncan Cook, an associate geography professor from the Australian Catholic University, modern urban areas and industrial landscapes are typically where mercury pollution in the environment can be found. Until the team started to take into account the archeology of the area, which claimed that the Maya were using mercury for centuries, the discovery of mercury buried deep in sediments and soils in ancient Maya cities would be difficult to explain. Cook, the lead author of the study, and his colleagues here conducted a comprehensive review of all available information on mercury concentrations in soil and sediments at ancient Maya sites. They demonstrated that mercury pollution is detectable everywhere at Classical Period sites for which measurements are available, except Chan b'i. Actuncan has a concentration of 0.016 ppm, while Tikal has an astounding 17.16 ppm. For comparison, the Toxic Effect Threshold (TET) is set at 1 ppm for mercury in sediments. Adorned with Mercury and Cinnabar The authors draw attention to the discovery of sealed vessels containing "elemental" mercury, or liquid mercury, at numerous Maya sites, including Quiriqua in Guatemala, El Paraiso in Honduras, and the formerly multiethnic megacity Teotihuacan in Central Mexico. Archaeologists have discovered objects painted and adorned with mercury-containing paints, mostly made from the mineral cinnabar, in other parts of the Maya region. The authors concluded that cinnabar, as well as mercury-containing powders and paints, were widely used by the ancient Maya for decoration. Dr. Nicholas Dunning, a professor from the University of Cincinnati, explained that for the Maya, objects could encompass ch'ulel, or soul-force, which resided in blood. As a result, this mercury may have leached from patios, floors, walls, and ceramics. Consequently, the brilliant red cinnabar pigment was a priceless and sacred material, but unbeknownst to them, it was also lethal, and its effects can still be seen in the soil and sediments surrounding historic Maya sites. Dunning is a co-author of the study. They hypothesized that the cinnabar and elemental mercury discovered at Maya sites may have been previously mined from known deposits on the southern and northern confines of the ancient Maya community and imported to the cities by traders because mercury is scarce in the limestone which underlies much of the Maya region. Reas also: Imaging Technology Reveals Hidden Ancient Maya City with Buildings Mercury Poisoning, Mayacene For example, chronic mercury poisoning damages the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system and results in tremors, blurred vision, paralysis, hearing loss, and mental health issues. The ancient Maya would have been at risk from all of this mercury. The fact that one of the last Maya kings of Tikal, Dark Sun, who reigned around 810 CE, is portrayed in murals as pathologically obese is perhaps significant. Metabolic syndrome, which can be brought on by chronic mercury poisoning, is known to have obesity as a side effect. If mercury exposure contributed to more significant sociocultural trends and changes in the Maya world, similar to those at the end of the Classic Period, more investigation is required. Dr. Tim Beach, a professor from the University of Texas at Austin, said that even the prehistoric Maya, who hardly ever used metals, greatly increased the levels of mercury in their surroundings. This finding provided additional proof that there was a Maya Anthropocene, also known as the "Mayacene," which parallels how humans live today in the "Anthropocene." Metal contamination appears to be a historical consequence of human activity. Beach is also a co-author of the study, Phys Org reported. Related article: Collapse of the Ancient Maya Blamed on Drought and Shifts in Climate Emirates said it will be bringing new travel opportunities, choice and convenience for customers traveling to and from South Africa with additional services to Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The ramp up of flights are part of the airlines ongoing commitment to support South Africas economic and tourism recovery through enhanced connectivity across all of its gateways. The airlines latest move also reaffirms South Africas strategic importance on its network, as it prioritises service expansion and rebuilding its capacity to unlock further growth potential. The airline will be expanding its schedule to and from Johannesburg with three daily flights from 1 March 2023. Cape Town will be served with double daily services starting from 1 February 2023. Emirates will also be adding two more flights to Durban, making it a daily operation from 1 December 2022. The reintroduction of the new flights between Dubai and the airlines three gateways in South Africa will enhance Emirates schedule to 42 weekly services. Emirates flight EK 767 from Dubai to Johannesburg will operate with a Boeing 777 aircraft, complementing its double daily A380 operation. The flight will depart at 2325hrs, arriving at 0535hrs the next day to Johannesburg. The return flight will depart Johannesburg at 2220hrs and arrives in Dubai at 0820hrs the next morning. The third daily flight from Johannesburg will help meet high demand with more than 300 available seats each way, and will offer additional flexibility for South African travellers with a new evening departure for easier connectivity to Europe, the Americas, West Asia and Far East via Dubai. Emirates second daily service to Cape Town will depart Dubai at 0910hrs, landing at 1645hrs. It will then depart Cape Town at 1325hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0110hrs the next day. With the double daily service to Cape Town, the airline will have restored its pre-pandemic schedule, supporting the citys tourism industry right during peak season arrivals by providing convenient connectivity from key source markets such as Europe, the Middle East, West Asia and Australasia. As part of its longstanding commitment to support tourism recovery efforts in South Africa, Emirates and the South African Tourism Board signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) earlier this year to jointly promote tourism and boost visitor arrivals to South Africa across the airlines network of over 130 passenger destinations. The additional services to all three gateways will also benefit customers with more connecting choices to an array of domestic and regional cities across Southern Africa via Emirates codeshare and interline partners including South African Airways, Airlink, FlySafair and Cemair. The unique connections and onward travel options are not offered by any other airline. Customers flying between Dubai and South Africa can look forward to an elevated experience across every cabin class, with thoughtfully designed menus and locally sourced beverages, signature amenities and exceptional hospitality delivered by the airlines diverse, multinational crew. The airline continues to raise the bar on the premium experience for its South African customers with a local selection of South African wines including Ken Forrester, Porseleinberg, Klein Constantia, Waterkloof, Boekenhoutskloof, amongst others. In addition to this, customers can look forward to dining on authentic, proudly South African dishes and flavours with an array of local cheeses and Rooibos-inspired cuisine. In addition to providing much needed seat capacity in and out of South Africa, Emirates new flights to Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban will collectively provide more cargo belly-hold capacity to further scale up import and export opportunities for local businesses, helping carry vital exports including seafood, fruits and vegetables, fresh and frozen meats, wine, pharmaceuticals, and gold between the UAE, South Africa and beyond. Emirates has been serving South Africa for 27 years, and has connected over 20 million travellers to and from South Africa via Dubai and beyond to its global network, firmly establishing the airline as a long-term partner of South African aviation, tourism, and trade. TradeArabia News Service Astronomers detected a hot bubble of gas spinning around the Sagittarius A using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). According to research, the ALMA helped astronomers to look into the polarised radio emission from Sagittarius A, showing the magnetic field of a black hole. Maciek Wielgus, who led the study, shared that they thought they were looking at a hot bubble of gas spinning around the Sagittarius A in orbit with planet Mercury's similar size. Wielgus is also from Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. He added that it showed a full loop in around 70 minutes, requiring a velocity of about 30% speed of light. He is also part of the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre, Poland, and the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, USA. The Astronomy and Astrophysics published the research, which can also be read at ScienceDaily. Based on the study, the astronomers say that GRAVITY and ALMA data say the flares originated in a "clump of gas" spinning around the blackhole at 30% speed of light. It is in the clockwise direction of the sky. The team also said they hope to look into the gas clumps using EHT. ALMA According to the NASA, black holes refer to astronomical objects with a strong gravitational pull that even light can't escape. The research applied observations with theoretical models to unlock the formation of the hotspot and the surroundings and magnetic field present. The discovery can offer insights into the dynamic environment of the massive black hole and inspire interest in building theoretical interpretations. The ALMA in the Chilean Andes is from and co-owned by European Southern Observatory radio telescope (ESO). The study noted that the first image of Sagittarius A came because the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) linked the eight existing radio telescopes globally, such as the ELA. Moreover, Wilgus team looked into the ALMA data recorded with the EHT's Sagittarius observations, unveiling more clues about the nature of the black hole. Flares observation Wielgus explained they saw an indication of orbiting hotspots present in radio observations for the first time. He added that the interesting flares were present in X-ray and infrared observations of the Sagittarius A. The study revealed that the observed flares from X-ray and infrared telescopes are said to be associated with hot gas bubbles orbiting around the black hole. The new findings in the study can support the idea that flares came from magnetic interactions in the hot gas spinning close to Sagittarius A. Also Read: NASA Rover catches Amazing Image of Cat Loaf Rock on Mars. Jesse Vos, a Ph.D student at Radboud University, said that the hotspots from the infrared wavelengths could manifest that infrared-emitting hotspots become visible at longer wavelengths as they cool down, which is like the EHT and ALMA observed. On the other hand, the research said that the observations could support previous discoveries of the GRAVITY instrument ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). Co-author Ivan Marti-Vidal said that they should track hotspots across frequencies with multiwavelength observations using GRAVITY and AlMA, which could present a milestone in the physics of flares in the Galactic center. Vidal is also from the University of Valencia in Spain. Related Article: NASA Says Jupiter Will Reach Closest Approach to Earth For the First Time in 59 Years For more similar stories, don't forget to follow Nature World News. According to information published by Taiwan News on September 26, 2022, Taiwans Ministry of National Defense (MND) has announced plans to build 10 more Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link Taiwanese Tuo Chiang class corvette Fu Chiang (Picture source: Taiwanese government) The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is a Taiwanese-designed class of fast (up to 45 knots, 83 km/h, 52 mph) and stealthy multi-mission corvettes built for the Republic of China (Taiwan) Navy. It is designed to counter the numerous and increasingly sophisticated People's Liberation Army Navy ships by utilizing hit-and-run tactics, and thus featured clean upper structure design with very few extrusions to reduce radar signature, pre-cooled engine exhaust to reduce infrared signature, and a reduced visual signature to reduce chance of detection. The program was announced by the Republic of China (Taiwan) Ministry of National Defense (MND) on 12 April 2010. It was developed by the Naval Shipbuilding Center in Kaohsiung. The Tuo Chiang class was developed to address common weakness of traditional small warships such as patrol craft and corvettes not fit for extended periods of time in rough seas around Taiwan Island. The ship is a wave-piercing catamaran design which is 60.4 metres (198 ft) long, 14 metres (46 ft) wide and carries a crew of 41. It is capable of a top speed of 40 knots and a range of 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km; 2,300 mi). It is armed with eight subsonic Hsiung Feng II and eight supersonic Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles launchers, a Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, and a 76 mm (3 in) main gun. The ship can operate up to sea state 7 in waves up to 2030 ft (6.19.1 m) high. Taiwan Security Analysis Center (TAISAC) stated that the ship features stealth technologies to minimize radar detection, a combat system that includes a distributed-architecture combat direction system known as "Taiwan Aegis" developed by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology and an indigenous search/track and fire-control radar and electro-optical director. The ship increases its survivability in naval warfare by utilizing advanced stealth technology and low radar cross section (RCS), which makes it less detectable by radar and allows it to be obscured by background radar noise when operating closer to the coastline. According to information published by the Indian government on September 26, 2022, INS Tarkash made a port call at Port Gentil, Gabon as part of her ongoing deployment in the Gulf of Guinea for anti-piracy patrol. This marks the first visit by any Indian Naval Ship to Gabon. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link Indian Navy's Talwar class frigate INS Tarkash. (Picture source: Indian Navy) Her professional interactions will include discussions and drills on fire fighting and damage control, medical and casualty evacuation issues, and diving operations. There will also be familiarisation visits. In addition, yoga sessions and social interactions are also planned. INS Tarkash (F50) is the second Talwar-class frigate constructed for the Indian Navy. She is part of the second batch of Talwar-class frigates ordered by the Indian Navy. She was built at the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad, Russia. She was commissioned to Navy service on 9 November 2012 at Kaliningrad and joined the Western Naval Command on 27 December 2012. Tarkash belongs to the second flight (F45, F50, F51) of Talwar class of guided missile frigates. These are modified Krivak III-class frigates built by Russia. These ships use stealth technologies and a special hull design to ensure a reduced radar cross-section. Much of the equipment on the ship is Russian-made, but a significant number of systems of Indian origin have also been incorporated. The main difference between Tarkash and the earlier flight of Talwar-class ships (F40, F43, F44) is the use of BrahMos missiles in place of the Klub-N missiles in the earlier ships. It is the second of the three frigates built in Russia as a follow-up order to the first batch of Talwar-class frigates. The Talwar class can accommodate one Ka-28 Helix-A antisubmarine helicopter or one Ka-31 Helix-B airborne early warning helicopter which can provide over-the-horizon targeting. The vessel can also embark the navalised variant of the indigenous HAL Dhruv. Reporter Debra Pressey is a reporter covering health care at The News-Gazette. Her email is dpressey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@DLPressey). Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government that is distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). AP Typhoon Noru has left a trail of destruction in northern Philippine provinces with at least eight people dead, including a group of rescuers who were scrambling to save villagers trapped in floodwaters Shinhye et al. look into the impact of COVID-19 measures on influenza circulation in Canada between 2020 and 2022 and the vaccine effectiveness against late-season influenza illness due to A(H3N2) in 2022. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the circulation of influenza virus stopped in Canada, as a result from the implementation of public health measures against COVID-19 e.g. physical distancing and wearing masks. In spring 2022, when these measures were relaxed, influenza virus re-emerged. Vaccine effectiveness against late-season influenza VE analyses were done using a test-negative design including nasal or nasopharyngeal specimens. The analyses included test results from patients older than 1 year, within 7 days of acute onset of influenza-like illness in community-based clinics or COVID-19 sites in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. Among the 327 eligible specimens collected during the analysis period, 13% tested positive for influenza A(H3N2). All belonged to the clade 3C.2a1b.2a.2 considered antigenically different from the A(H3N2) 3C.2a1b.2a.1 strain in the 2021/22 influenza vaccine. However, the influenza A(H3N2) clade found in Canada was similar to that in the vaccine for the upcoming northern hemisphere 2022/23 season. Study results support composition decision for 2022/23 influenza vaccine Adjusted (age group, province, comorbidity and calendar month) VE against influenza A(H3N2) was 36% (95% confidence interval -38 to 71) in the three Canadian provinces. The authors note that the "confidence intervals around our VE estimates are wide and we cannot rule out an interpretation of no protection. However, point estimates remain the most likely findings". Additionally, the results are comparable to 2021/22 VE estimates against influenza A(H3N2) reported from the United States and from Europe [2,3]. Authors also highlight that "despite mismatch of the vaccine clade 3C.2a1b.2a.1 strain against the circulating clade 3C.2a1b.2a.2 viruses and an unusually long time since vaccination, the Canadian SPSN shows that the 2021/22 vaccine reduced the risk of medically attended influenza A(H3N2) illness by about one third during the late spring wave." Finally, based on their analysis, the authors conclude that "the findings reinforce the World Health Organization's decision to switch to a clade 3C.2a1b.2a.2 strain for the northern hemisphere 2022/23 vaccine". New Delhi, Sep 26 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday left for Tokyo to attend the state funeral of former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. "I am traveling to Tokyo tonight to participate in the State Funeral of former PM Shinzo Abe, a dear friend and a great champion of India-Japan friendship," the Prime Minister said in a tweet. "I will be conveying heartfelt condolences to Prime Minister Kishida and Mrs Abe on behalf of all Indians. We will continue working to further strengthen India-Japan relations as envisioned by Abe San," the Prime Minister added in thread. The Prime Minister will attend the State Funeral ceremony at Budokan, followed by a greeting occasion at Akasaka Palace. Representatives from over 100 countries, including more than 20 Heads of State or Heads of Government are expected to participate in the State Funeral. India had announced one-day national mourning on July 9 as a mark of respect for Abe Shinzo. The visit will be an opportunity for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to honor the memory of former PM Abe, who he considered a dear friend and a great champion of India-Japan ties. Addressing a special briefing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said that Modi and Abe developed a personal bond through their meetings and interactions spanning over a decade, beginning from PM Modis visit to Japan in 2007 as Chief Minister of Gujarat. The two leaders elevated India-Japan relations to the status of Special Strategic and Global Partnership in 2014, he said. "PM Abe made significant contributions to deepening India-Japan relations, turning a largely economic relationship into a broad, comprehensive, and strategic partnership, making it pivotal for the two countries and regions security. His famous Confluence of Two Seas speech in the Indian Parliament in 2007 laid the ground for the emergence of Indo-Pacific region as a contemporary political, strategic, and economic reality," Kwatra said. PM Abes contribution to India-Japan relations was recognized by the conferment upon him of the prestigious Padma Vibhushan in 2021, he added. This visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Japan comes after PM Kishidas visit to India for India-Japan Summit meeting in March, and Modis visit to Japan for the Quad Leaders Summit in May this year. Both leaders also held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of Quad Leaders Summit. These meetings underscored the two leaders commitment towards deepening India-Japan ties, particularly in the context of shaping a post-pandemic regional and global order, Kwatra said. This year marks the 70th anniversary of India-Japan diplomatic relationship. Japan is one of the most trusted and valued strategic partners of India. "The two sides are committed to strengthening bilateral partnership on key areas of Trade and Investment, Defence and Security, Climate Change, Health Security, Infrastructure, Digital, Industrial Development, Energy, Critical and Emerging Technologies, and Human Resources, among others," the Foreign Secretary said. There is deep convergence in our visions of Indo-Pacific region and there is close cooperation between our countries on issues of international importance, he added. The bilateral meeting between Modi and Kishida during the upcoming visit will be an opportunity for the two leaders to reaffirm their commitment to further strengthening of India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership, Kwatra concluded. UNI ASU SY In a recent article by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the researchers highlighted basic, translational, and clinical cancer research and cancer-related population sciences in the 12th edition of its annual Cancer Progress Report. AACR Cancer Progress Report Highlights Innovative Cancer Research That Improves, Extends, and Saves Lives. Image Credit: ESB Professional / Shutterstock The extensive report covered the most recent research in cancer biology, diagnosis, early detection, treatment, and prevention, including the usage of tools like artificial intelligence (AI)-based early detection systems as well as liquid biopsies that are quickly making their way into the clinic. It also provided up-to-date cancer incidence, death rates, and survivorship statistics. The report also included the individual accounts of patients who have benefited from cutting-edge, recently licensed anticancer medicines. Additionally, it presented legislative proposals to guarantee that the United States maintained its momentum against cancer for all patients, including cancer health inequities and the physical, mental, and financial burdens endured by cancer survivors. Ongoing progress in cancer research The progress made over the 12 months covered by the report for the period between 1 August 2021 and 31 July 2022 is highlighted in the section below: More than 18 million Americans have a history of cancer as of January 2022. Yet, more people than ever are enjoying more prolonged and more fulfilling lives after receiving a cancer diagnosis. As evidenced by a decrease in cancer deaths of 2.3% each year between 2016 and 2019, the cancer mortality rate has rapidly declined in recent years. Eight new anticancer therapeutics were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including the first drug for uveal melanoma, the most prevalent adult form of eye cancer, and the first molecularly targeted therapy for cancer patients with Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, which is a rare inherited genetic disorder, and the first immune checkpoint inhibitor discovered in the past eight years that attacks a novel target. In addition, the FDA authorized two novel diagnostic imaging agents and increased the use of 10 anticancer treatments. Numerous FDA approvals for AI-based tools that can assist doctors in detecting tumors earlier in their progression and providing more thorough diagnoses with possibly curative outcomes are the result of intensive research and promising advancements in the application of AI in the clinic. Challenges facing cancer research Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today Despite the extraordinary advancements in the battle against cancer in recent years, this complicated illness still seriously threatens people's health worldwide. In 2022, it is predicted that cancer will claim more than 600,000 lives in the United States alone. Cancer research and patient care face many problems, which are covered in the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2022. Racial and ethnic minorities and other medically underserved U.S. groups bear a disproportionately greater incidence of cancer, a chronic public health issue. While some of these discrepancies have been better identified, understood, and addressed, more research and policy solutions are urgently required to achieve equitable progress against cancer. The recent Supreme Court ruling and related legislative restrictions on reproductive rights in many states will significantly negatively impact access to high-quality healthcare, including for cancer patients. Since cancer therapy might end a pregnancy, delaying or refusing to begin cancer treatment could cause the disease to advance, making it harder to treat and more likely to endanger the woman's life. Global crises affect all facets of cancer research and patient treatment, including ongoing wars and the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, researchers warn that, when combined with an aging global population, the burden of cancer might considerably increase globally in the ensuing decades. Conclusion Overall, the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2022 outlined explicit policy recommendations and urged Congress to adopt particular actions to address these and other issues and ensure continued progress for all patients. These suggestions include: Provision of increases in the NIH and NCI base budgets of at least $4.1 billion and $853 million, respectively, to maintain significant, ongoing, and predictable annual funding growth. Entirely financed programs permitted under the 21st Century Cures Act, such as the National Cancer Moonshot. Renew the extensive Childhood Cancer Survivorship, Treatment, Access, and Research (STAR) Act and allocate at least $30 million to its execution. Funding by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in cancer-related initiatives. Expand Medicaid to guarantee that all cancer patients have fair access to high-quality, reasonably-priced healthcare. Tax rules should be designed to promote charitable donations to enable nonprofit cancer research groups to continue funding high-risk, high-reward research ideas and expedite the development of novel therapies and cures. In a recent study published in Viruses, researchers presented the direct plasmid transfection method for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus-like particle (VLP) production in insect cells and applied the VLPs to evaluate the efficacy of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and vaccinated donor sera. Background Biosafety restrictions limit research with authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus, and therefore, lentivirus- or vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based pseudovirus (PV) systems are used. However, the resulting PV particles express only one of the SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins [envelope (E), spike (S), membrane (M), and nucleocapsid (N). In addition, PV production involves complex processes and requires biosafety level 2 (BSL2) laboratories. Alternatively, VLPs can be produced that resemble authentic viruses, assemble by themselves upon SARS-CoV-2 protein co-expression, and are safe since they lack genomic data and, therefore, cannot replicate. Additionally, VLPS can be produced in BSL1 laboratories. SARS-CoV-2 VLPs are usually produced in BEVS (baculovirus expression vector system)-based cell systems that offer high VLP yields and have neutralized SARS-CoV-2 in Syrian hamsters. Thus, BEVS-VLPs can potentially be used as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines. About the study In the present study, researchers produced plasmid-based SARS-CoV-2 VLPs in an insect cell system and used them for a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-based cellular assay for simple and rapid screening of serological immunity induced by anti-S mAbs and sera. The team analyzed different expression vector designs and optimal ratios of SARS-CoV-2 M for GFP-based cell binding assays and assessed their performance in SARS-CoV-2 S-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Subsequently, VLP quality was assessed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), epifluorescence microscopy, confocal microscopy (CFM), Western blot, and nano tracking analysis (NTA) to evaluate angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) binding and resemblance to authentic SARS-CoV-2. Further, mAbs and sera from vaccinated German individuals were screened using the self-developed VLP inhibition assays to assess their inhibition potential. SARS-CoV-2 E-, M-, and S-encoding deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-Hu-1 strain were inserted into the pOpiE2 vector and transiently expressed in High Five cells. SARS-CoV-2 M was fused to GFP. For transient expression in Expi293F cells, ACE2 protein lacking the signal peptide (SP) was inserted into the pCSE2.5 vector. TMPRSS2 expression was attained by substituting half of the pCSE2.5-ACE2 plasmid with Corona2a1 DNA, and transfection experiments were performed, following which the VLP-containing supernatant was harvested. Further, VLPs were subjected to sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, (SDS-PAGE), staining, in-gel fluorescence, and immunoblotting analyses. Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today The enriched VLPs were analyzed by sandwich ELISA assays performed using STE90-C11 as the SARS-CoV-2 S RBD-specific capture Ab and soluble ACE2-mFc fusions for detection. Ratios such as 1:1:1, 1:1:4,1:1:6, and 1:1:8 for S:E:M expression and VLP-6M-Furin (VLP-6M lacking Wuhan-Hu-1 S) were assessed. Concentrated VLPs were transfected with ACE2-expressing Expi293F cells, and flow cytometry (FC) analysis was performed to determine the amount of VLP bound to ACE2-expressing Expi293F cells. Results Straightforward plasmid ratio adjustments were used to co-express SARS-CoV-2 E, M, and S that were self-assembled into VLPs. M protein fusion to GFP enabled direct quantification of ACE2-binding inhibition by mAbs or sera from vaccinated individuals. Secondary Abs were not required for VLP purification or fluorescent labeling for FC analysis. SP and M protein fusion significantly reduced the VLP-binding signal in the sandwich ELISA assays, whereas SP fusion to E protein enhanced the binding. VLP expression vectors encoded E and S preceded by SP, whereas M expression lacked one. The sandwich ELISA and FC analyses did not show significant differences in VLP binding when different S:E:M ratios were used except for slight binding for VLP-6M-Furin. For subsequently performed cellular assays, the team chose VLP-6M. The TEM analysis showed similar VLP and SARS-CoV-2 authentic virus structures. The S amount on the VLP surface correlated with that of the S expression vector used in transfection experiments and led to a typical S aura for VLPs-1M, 4M, and 6M. The NTA analysis showed a yield of 1013 VLPs per liter for all VLPs, with a lower yield (1012) for VLP-6M-Furin. The mean particle diameter for VLP-6M was 145 nm (VLP-6M), similar to that of CoVs (100 to 200 nm). The Western blot and SDS-PAGE analyses showed M and S (but not E) incorporation into VLPs. VLPs were seen as tiny green dots on the surfaces of ACE2-TMPRSS2 co-expressing Expi293F human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells with autofluorescence. VLP counts and GFP intensity were marginally higher for VLP-6M than VLP-6M-Furin and varied based on ACE2 expression. In the FC analysis, significant differences were observed between VLP-6Ms VLP and GFP histograms, in which two different populations were identified, one expressed bound VLP-6M and ACE2, whereas the other did not. Contrastingly, for VLP-GM-Furin, a population shift was observed, indicative of lower binding capacity, as seen in ELISA. Further, the optimization experiments showed that cell-binding assays could be performed within an hour without significant signal loss, and VLPs could be stored at 80 C. STE90-C11, STE94-F12, STE94-B1-E12, and STE90-B2-D12 mAbs (in 150 g/mL concentration) showed successful VLP-ACE2 binding inhibition and the VLP assay results mirrored those of authentic SARS-CoV-2 neutralization assays. Significant binding inhibition was observed at 1:10 dilution of sera of triple BNT162b2 vaccinees. Conclusion Overall, the study findings showed that SARS-CoV-2 VLP production using the direct plasmid transfection approach is a simpler, more rapid, and reliable alternative to the BEVS approach. A clinical suite at a University of Queensland health research facility is ready to help unlock the mysteries of neurological conditions experienced by one billion people worldwide. Launched recently, the Neurosciences Clinical Research Suite (NCRS) at UQ's Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR) will be a go-to place for scientists, clinicians and health professionals to work directly with clinical trial patients to help find new treatments for brain disorders. Specialist Neurologist and clinical researcher at UQCCR Associate Professor Rob Henderson said the suite, based at Herston Health Precinct, had been designed to help meet a growing demand and allow them to potentially increase clinical trials. Neurological trials are one of the fastest-growing therapies in Australia and this clinical research suite will help ensure Queensland is at the forefront of advancing this vital research. It gives our researchers and clinicians more capability to assess patients in a person-centered way, which could eventually help us conduct more clinical trials and facilitate ground-breaking medical discoveries." Dr Rob Henderson, UQCCR Associate Professor Neurological research underway at UQCCR is centered around improving outcomes for patients with brain disorders such as stroke, epilepsy, motor neuron disease, movement disorders, demyelinating diseases, progressive neurodegenerative diseases, mental illness, and brain injury. Dr Henderson said the suite provided a one-on-one approach with clinical trial patients. "This suite has a full fit-out of medical equipment and will allow those participating in a clinical trial to be assessed and receive specialized treatment in one easily accessible location," he said. "Having a 'one-stop-shop' can make all the difference to someone who has a brain disorder, along with their carers and families." Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today Brisbane resident Matt Whyte was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in February and has signed up to multiple clinical trials at UQ to help scientists find a cure. MND is a condition that affects the brain and nerves and causes weakness that gets worse over time. There is no cure. "Last October, I lost balance stepping off the back of my car, landing flat on my back and fracturing my spine," Mr Whyte said. "While I was recovering, my legs started getting weak and unstable and I was losing the ability to walk and falling into walls. "It wasn't until February this year that I was diagnosed with MND, and by then I was on crutches. Now I'm in a wheelchair." Mr Whyte has signed-up to various clinical trials for MND underway at UQ, including Dr Henderson's research into a drug that aims to slow down the effects on lungs and hand strength, as well as other trials that are looking at genetics, metabolism, muscle biopsies, and changes in the brain and spine using MRI scans as the disability develops. He said a suite like the new one at UQCCR made perfect sense. "If all the procedures can be done at one facility, the research trials can be a lot more proactive and there's less impact on someone like myself," Mr Whyte said. "MND is very fatiguing and having to wait all day at multiple places can really wear you out, so to be able to go to one place, and work with people who know and respect the disease, is really important. "I don't think they'll find a magic cure in the time I've got left but hopefully my contribution will give them an insight to get one step closer." David Confer, a bicyclist and an audio technician, told his doctor he "used to be Ph.D. level" during a 2019 appointment in Washington, D.C. Confer, then 50, was speaking figuratively: He was experiencing brain fog a symptom of his liver problems. But did his doctor take him seriously? Now, after his death, Confer's partner, Cate Cohen, doesn't think so. Confer, who was Black, had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma two years before. His prognosis was positive. But during chemotherapy, his symptoms brain fog, vomiting, back pain suggested trouble with his liver, and he was later diagnosed with cirrhosis. He died in 2020, unable to secure a transplant. Throughout, Cohen, now 45, felt her partner's clinicians didn't listen closely to him and had written him off. That feeling crystallized once she read Confer's records. The doctor described Confer's fuzziness and then quoted his Ph.D. analogy. To Cohen, the language was dismissive, as if the doctor didn't take Confer at his word. It reflected, she thought, a belief that he was likely to be noncompliant with his care that he was a bad candidate for a liver transplant and would waste the donated organ. For its part, MedStar Georgetown, where Confer received care, declined to comment on specific cases. But spokesperson Lisa Clough said the medical center considers a variety of factors for transplantation, including "compliance with medical therapy, health of both individuals, blood type, comorbidities, ability to care for themselves and be stable, and post-transplant social support system." Not all potential recipients and donors meet those criteria, Clough said. Doctors often send signals of their appraisals of patients' personas. Researchers are increasingly finding that doctors can transmit prejudice under the guise of objective descriptions. Clinicians who later read those purportedly objective descriptions can be misled and deliver substandard care. Discrimination in health care is "the secret, or silent, poison that taints interactions between providers and patients before, during, after the medical encounter," said Dayna Bowen Matthew, dean of George Washington University's law school and an expert in civil rights law and disparities in health care. Bias can be seen in the way doctors speak during rounds. Some patients, Matthew said, are described simply by their conditions. Others are characterized by terms that communicate more about their social status or character than their health and what's needed to address their symptoms. For example, a patient could be described as an "80-year-old nice Black gentleman." Doctors mention that patients look well-dressed or that someone is a laborer or homeless. The stereotypes that can find their way into patients' records sometimes help determine the level of care patients receive. Are they spoken to as equals? Will they get the best, or merely the cheapest, treatment? Bias is "pervasive" and "causally related to inferior health outcomes, period," Matthew said. Narrow or prejudiced thinking is simple to write down and easy to copy and paste over and over. Descriptions such as "difficult" and "disruptive" can become hard to escape. Once so labeled, patients can experience "downstream effects," said Dr. Hardeep Singh, an expert in misdiagnosis who works at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. He estimates misdiagnosis affects 12 million patients a year. Conveying bias can be as simple as a pair of quotation marks. One team of researchers found that Black patients, in particular, were quoted in their records more frequently than other patients when physicians were characterizing their symptoms or health issues. The quotation mark patterns detected by researchers could be a sign of disrespect, used to communicate irony or sarcasm to future clinical readers. Among the types of phrases the researchers spotlighted were colloquial language or statements made in Black or ethnic slang. "Black patients may be subject to systematic bias in physicians' perceptions of their credibility," the authors of the paper wrote. That's just one study in an incoming tide focused on the variations in the language that clinicians use to describe patients of different races and genders. In many ways, the research is just catching up to what patients and doctors knew already, that discrimination can be conveyed and furthered by partial accounts. Confer's MedStar records, Cohen thought, were pockmarked with partial accounts notes that included only a fraction of the full picture of his life and circumstances. Cohen pointed to a write-up of a psychosocial evaluation, used to assess a patient's readiness for a transplant. The evaluation stated that Confer drank a 12-pack of beer and perhaps as much as a pint of whiskey daily. But Confer had quit drinking after starting chemotherapy and had been only a social drinker before, Cohen said. It was "wildly inaccurate," Cohen said. "No matter what he did, that initial inaccurate description of the volume he consumed seemed to follow through his records," she said. Physicians frequently see a harsh tone in referrals from other programs, said Dr. John Fung, a transplant doctor at the University of Chicago who advised Cohen but didn't review Confer's records. "They kind of blame the patient for things that happen, not really giving credit for circumstances," he said. But, he continued, those circumstances are important looking beyond them, without bias, and at the patient himself or herself can result in successful transplants. The history of one's medical history That doctors pass private judgments on their patients has been a source of nervous humor for years. In an episode of the sitcom "Seinfeld," Elaine Benes discovers that a doctor had condescendingly written that she was "difficult" in her file. When she asked about it, the doctor promised to erase it. But it was written in pen. The jokes reflect long-standing conflicts between patients and doctors. In the 1970s, campaigners pushed doctors to open up records to patients and to use less stereotyping language about the people they treated. Nevertheless, doctors' notes historically have had a "stilted vocabulary," said Dr. Leonor Fernandez, an internist and researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Patients are often described as "denying" facts about their health, she said, as if they're not reliable narrators of their conditions. One doubting doctor's judgment can alter the course of care for years. When she visited her doctor for kidney stones early in her life, "he was very dismissive about it," recalled Melina Oien, who now lives in Tacoma, Washington. Afterward, when she sought care in the military health care system, providers whom Oien presumed had read her history assumed that her complaints were psychosomatic and that she was seeking drugs. "Every time I had an appointment in that system there's that tone, that feel. It creates that sense of dread," she said. "You know the doctor has read the records and has formed an opinion of who you are, what you're looking for." When Oien left military care in the 1990s, her paper records didn't follow her. Nor did those assumptions. New technology same biases? While Oien could leave her problems behind, the health system's shift to electronic medical records and the data-sharing it encourages can intensify misconceptions. It's easier than ever to maintain stale records, rife with false impressions or misreads, and to share or duplicate them with the click of a button. "This thing perpetuates," Singh said. When his team reviewed records of misdiagnosed cases, he found them full of identical notes. "It gets copy-pasted without freshness of thinking," he said. Research has found that misdiagnosis disproportionately happens to patients whom doctors have labeled as "difficult" in their electronic health record. Singh cited a pair of studies that presented hypothetical scenarios to doctors. In the first study, participants reviewed two sets of notes, one in which the patient was described simply by her symptoms and a second in which descriptions of disruptive or difficult behaviors had been added. Diagnostic accuracy dropped with the difficult patients. The second study assessed treatment decisions and found that medical students and residents were less likely to prescribe pain medications to patients whose records included stigmatizing language. Digital records can also display prejudice in handy formats. A 2016 paper in JAMA discussed a small example: an unnamed digital record system that affixed an airplane logo to some patients to indicate that they were, in medical parlance, "frequent flyers." That's a pejorative term for patients who need plenty of care or are looking for medications. But even as tech might amplify these problems, it can also expose them. Digitized medical records are easily shared and not merely with fellow doctors, but also with patients. Since the '90s, patients have had the right to request their records, and doctors' offices can charge only reasonable fees to cover the cost of clerical work. Penalties against practices or hospitals that failed to produce records were rarely assessed at least until the Trump administration, when Roger Severino, previously known as a socially conservative champion of religious freedom, took the helm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights. During Severino's tenure, the office assessed a spate of monetary fines against some practices. The complaints mostly came from higher-income people, Severino said, citing his own difficulties getting medical records. "I can only imagine how much harder it often is for people with less means and education," he said. Patients can now read the notes the doctors' descriptions of their conditions and treatments because of 2016 legislation. The bill nationalized policies that had started earlier in the decade, in Boston, because of an organization called OpenNotes. For most patients, most of the time, opening record notes has been beneficial. "By and large, patients wanted to have access to the notes," said Fernandez, who has helped study and roll out the program. "They felt more in control of their health care. They felt they understood things better." Studies suggest that open notes lead to increased compliance, as patients say they're more likely to take medicines. Conflicts ahead? But there's also a darker side to opening records: if patients find something they don't like. Fernandez's research, focusing on some early hospital adopters, has found that slightly more than 1 in 10 patients report being offended by what they find in their notes. And the wave of computer-driven research focusing on patterns of language has similarly found low but significant numbers of discriminatory descriptions in notes. A study published in the journal Health Affairs found negative descriptors in nearly 1 in 10 records. Another team found stigmatizing language in 2.5% of records. Patients can also compare what happened in a visit with what was recorded. They can see what was really on doctors' minds. Oien, who has become a patient advocate since moving on from the military health care system, recalled an incident in which a client fainted while getting a drug infusion treatments for thin skin, low iron, esophageal tears, and gastrointestinal conditions and needed to be taken to the emergency room. Afterward, the patient visited a cardiologist. The cardiologist, who hadn't seen her previously, was "very verbally professional," Oien said. But what he wrote in the note a story based on her ER visit was very different. "Ninety percent of the record was about her quote-unquote drug use," Oien said, noting that it's rare to see the connection between a false belief about a patient and the person's future care. Spotting those contradictions will become easier now. "People are going to say, 'The doc said what?'" predicted Singh. But many patients even ones with wealth and social standing may be reluctant to talk to their doctors about errors or bias. Fernandez, the OpenNotes pioneer, didn't. After one visit, she saw a physical exam listed on her record when none had occurred. "I did not raise that to that clinician. Its really hard to raise things like that," she said. "Youre afraid they wont like you and wont take good care of you anymore." Promise: I'm never going to raise the white flag and surrender. We're going to beat this virus. We're going to get it under control, I promise you. President Joe Biden caused a stir in a 60 Minutes interview on Sept. 18 when he declared that the covid-19 pandemic is over. We still have a problem with covid were still doing a lot of work on it, Biden said. But the pandemic is over. Critics countered that the U.S. is still averaging about 400 deaths daily from the virus, that nearly 30,000 Americans remain hospitalized, and that many others are suffering from long covid symptoms stemming from previous infections. Two days later, Biden acknowledged that despite the negative reactions by some, the pandemic basically is not where it was. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the coronavirus a lot more manageable. Past experience means we know what works, she said. PolitiFact has been tracking a campaign promise Biden made in 2020 that is closely related, but distinct, from what Biden told 60 Minutes. During the presidential campaign, Biden said, Im never going to raise the white flag and surrender. Were going to beat this virus. Were going to get it under control, I promise you. Biden is on safer linguistic ground with his promise to get covid under control than saying the pandemic is over. There remains some debate among public health experts about whether the pandemic is over or whether it realistically can ever be. There is no official arbiter for making that decision, and the word over suggests a finality that is not well suited for describing a pathogen that will exist in some form indefinitely. However, we found broad agreement among infectious-disease specialists that the pandemic by now is under control. When Biden was inaugurated, physical distancing was widely enforced, schools were often virtual, public events were rare or tightly controlled, and few Americans had yet received a vaccine. Today, life for many Americans is much closer to the pre-pandemic norm, with virtually all schools open, concerts and restaurants well attended, and travel back to its typical level. The nation clearly has made tremendous progress on covid-19 since President Bidens election, said Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at KFF. I would probably say that we are in a pandemic transition phase that is, moving from the pandemic into a post-pandemic period. But this is a continuum, not a cliff, where its a pandemic one day and over the next, Kates added. Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, added that the promise to get the pandemic under control is certainly well on course, or perhaps even met, as far as what the federal government can provide to accomplish that. And Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University, agreed that the emergent phase of the pandemic is coming to a close. Were now moving into the ongoing struggle call it a truce with the virus. Medical experts said pandemics inevitably become endemic, meaning that the pathogen is here to stay but does not present a widespread emergency. We will always have to manage covid in the medical system, said Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. Unfortunately, although we can bring down deaths to very low, I dont think we will ever get to zero deaths from covid-19. The level of U.S. deaths from covid is lower today than it has been during most of the pandemic, and it has been that way since the spring. Notably, the number of excess deaths is also down. Thats a metric that gauges how many more deaths are occurring beyond the long-term average for that time of year. The number of excess deaths nationally per week has been consistently between zero and 5,000 since the spring, after peaking at 20,000 to 25,000 per week during four previous surges since the pandemic began. Hospitalization has held steady recently at some of the lowest rates of the pandemic. And even this level may overstate the viruss impact; routine testing upon admission often detects cases that are asymptomatic and largely coincidental to the reason a patient is admitted. Gandhi pointed to data from Massachusetts hospitals showing that most hospitalized patients who test positive for covid have only "incidental infections," with only 1 in 3 being treated primarily for a covid-related illness. Experts noted that hospitalizations and deaths, even at these reduced levels, remain too high, and they cautioned that infections could increase as winter forces people indoors. Still, they credit the availability of vaccines and therapeutics, as well as the knowledge gained from living with the virus for more than two years, for the likelihood that the darkest days of the pandemic are behind us. I am not worried at all that we will go back to the scale of hospitalizations and deaths of the worst days of the pandemic, said Brooke Nichols, an infectious-disease mathematical modeler and health economist at the Boston University School of Public Health. We will likely enter into a seasonal covid vaccine situation, potentially combined alongside the flu into the same vaccine, and these seasonal vaccines will become critical to avoiding hospitalizations and deaths during the flu and covid seasons. There has been no major new variant since omicron emerged in late 2021, and even the most recent omicron subvariant to emerge, BA.5, has had a long run as the dominant strain in the U.S., prevailing since early July. This doesnt mean that a more dangerous new strain couldnt emerge. However, public health experts take comfort from recent patterns. The trend during most of 2022 suggests that a rapid succession of ever-more-confounding and vaccine-evading variants is not inevitable. If a major new variant does emerge, mRNA vaccines like those made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech can be updated fairly easily for it. Vaccination uptake, though, remains an urgent question. About one-third of Americans are not fully vaccinated, and an even smaller percentage have received boosters. Plescia said the main deciding factor right now is not going to be the president or the response of the federal government its going to be the response of the public. I think theres disease fatigue and vaccine fatigue and wearing-a-mask fatigue, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. People are just tired of covid and trying to wish it away, and its unfortunate because its not gone. Were tired of it, but its not tired of us yet. Some experts caution that a pandemic under control doesnt mean the costs will be minimal. The degree of protection afforded by the current vaccines available, especially to the most vulnerable, is of limited duration, and nonfatal outcomes from covid can still have knock-on consequences to the population health, said Babak Javid, an associate professor in the division of experimental medicine at UCSF. These consequences are called long covid, and nearly 1 in 5 Americans who have had covid are suffering from it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines long covid as symptoms lasting three or more months after contracting the virus that werent experienced before. Under control suggests progress on keeping further spread within modest limits. It does not mean that people havent lost loved ones or felt continuing effects from the virus; clearly, they have. What does Biden still need to do? Biden and his administration still have work to do, experts said. Several public health experts urged Congress to pass Bidens request for $22 billion in covid-related funds. The White House has framed this funding as a way to be ready for a resurgence even though case levels are low now. It proposes that the funding support testing, research on new vaccines and therapeutics, preparations for future variants, and global assistance. Bidens open declaration that the pandemic is over could make congressional approval less likely, however. Gandhi said the federal government should do a better job targeting boosters and therapeutics at populations most at risk of severe breakthrough infections, notably older Americans and people who are immunocompromised. And Schaffner urged more effective and unified messaging, with efforts to remove any hints of politics. I wish the federal government would get together on who the main messenger is, and provide sustained, clear, simple messages, he said. Biden may not have used the most appropriate word when he described the pandemic as over, but the long-term statistical trends have been trending in the right direction, and the vaccines and treatments should dampen the severity of future waves. For these reasons, experts say its fair to declare that the pandemic is under control. If circumstances change, we will reassess our rating, but for now, this receives a Promise Kept. In a recent study published in PLoS Pathogens, researchers investigated the receptor tropism and serological cross-reactivity for spike (S) protein receptor-binding domains (RBDs) from two clade 3 sarbecoviruses found in Russian Rhinolophus (horseshoe) bats: Khosta-1 in Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Khosta 2 in R. hipposideros, that are divergent from receptor-binding domains (RBDs) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-1 (SARS-CoV-1) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Zoonotic spillover of the SARS-CoV-2 sarbecovirus has led to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Several sarbecoviruses have been discovered among Asian bats; however, most of them do not infect humans. Researchers have accelerated viral detection efforts globally, expanding genomic databases with novel zoonotically transmitted and circulating sarbecoviruses. The authors and other researchers have categorized sarbecovirus RBDs into three clades: clade 1 viruses among Asian bats do not contain deletions and bind to the hACE2 (human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2) receptor; clade 2 viruses among Asian bats contain two deletions and dont bind to hACE2; clade 3 viruses among European and African bats contain one deletion and bind to hACE2. In 2021, viruses were detected among Chinese bats, comprising clade 4, that also bind with the hACE2. About the study In the present study, researchers investigated host cell infection by Russian Rhinolophus bat sarbecoviruses S and their neutralization by monoclonal antibodies (mAb) and vaccinated donor sera. The full-length Khosta S gene was synthesized, SARS-CoV-1 S RBD was substituted with that of Khosta viruses and chimeric S expression plasmids were generated. In addition, chimeric S RBDs from other previously tested clade 3 viruses (BM48-31, Uganda), SARS-CoV-2 and related RaTG13 viruses were included for comparative analysis. The chimeric S constructs generated VSV (vesicular stomatitis virus)-pseudotyped VLPs (virus-like particles) carrying chimeric SARS-CoV-2 S with Khosta RBDs to mimic the potential recombinant threat from Khosta viruses. Further, the Huh-7 (human liver cell line) cells were infected with the VLPs bearing the chimeric Khosta S RBDs to test viral compatibility with human cells. For characterizing potential Khosta virus receptors, a receptor tropism test was performed, wherein baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells were transfected with human orthologues of known CoV receptors and subsequently infected with the viral pseudotypes. Human entry efficiency between the viral S proteins and human ACE2 (hACE2) was further assessed by infecting hACE2-expressing 293T- cells. Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today The 293T producer cells were lysed, and the lysates were subjected to Western blot analysis. To explore protein interactions between Khosta 2 and hACE2 in comparison with other clade 1 S RBDs, Khosta 2 RBD structure predictions were made based on previously published data, which was then aligned by multiple sequence alignment (MSA) to ACE2-bound SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 co-structures for phylogenetic assessments. Pseudotype experiments were repeated with sera obtained from vaccinated individuals. To compare Khosta 2 and SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) neutralization, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron VOC S RBD was generated and tested against serum samples obtained from six vaccinated (doubly-vaccinated by the Pfizer vaccines or Moderna vaccines), four non-infected donor indiviudals and three vaccinees with breakthrough Omicron infections. Human orthologs of ACE2, APN (Aminopeptidase N) and DPP4 (dipeptidyl peptidase IV) and plasmid S sequences from human CoV (HCoV)-229E, the Middle East respiratory syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV), and SARS-CoV-1 were obtained. Neutralization assays were performed using vaccinated donors sera and bamlanivimab, a SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific mAb. Results and discussion The exogenous protease mediated Khosta-1 RBD entry into Huh-7 cells; however, protease addition did not facilitate Khosta-1 RBD entry in BHK cells transfected with several CoV receptors, indicating that trypsin-dependent Khosta-1 entry in Huh-7 cells did not depend on hACE2. Contrastingly, trypsin addition enhanced receptor-dependent entry signals for SARS-CoV-2 RBDs and Khosta 2 RBD, indicating that Khosta 2 RBDs utilized hACE2 receptors for cell infection. However, the full-length Khosta 2 S was less infectious than the chimeric SARS-CoV-based S. Khosta 2 RBD infected hACE2-expressing cells with cell entry levels comparable to that of RaTG13, an hACE2-binding bat sarbecovirus highly similar to SARS-CoV-2 RBD. Both African clade 3 RBDs also showed hACE2 binding, although with considerably lower efficiency than SARS-CoV-2. Contrary to hACE2 receptor findings, only HCoV-229E and MERS-CoV infected APN-expressing and MERS-CoV DPP4-expressing cells, respectively. Of surprise, Omicron S was neutralized effectively by bamlanivimab, whereas SARS-CoV-2 S with the Khosta 2 RBD showed slight resistance (and complete resistance to the Wuhan-Hu-1 strain), even at high serum dilutions, indicative of slight cross-reactivity between the two RBDs. Similar findings were observed when vaccinated donors sera were used. The higher resistance to neutralization by Khosta 2 than SARS-CoV-2 could be since Khosta 2 RBD and SARS-CoV-2 RBD are only 60% similar, and the vaccination-induced neutralization responses were primarily RBD-directed. Bamlanivimab contacts 17 SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-Hu-1 strain residues, 10 of which are shared by Khosta 2. Further, bamlanivimab escape could be due to Omicron mutations Q493R and E484A; Khosta 2 encodes G435 at a site analogous to E484 on SARS-CoV-2. Overall, the study findings highlighted hACE2 receptor preference in Khosta 2 clade 3 viruses using pseudotyped VLPs with chimeric and full-length clade 3 S proteins. Pseudotyped VLPs containing recombinant SARS-CoV-2 S-encoding Khosta 2 RBD resisted neutralization, indicating that new recombinant sarbecoviruses circulating beyond Asia could threaten current COVID-19 vaccine efficacy. Afghanistan Expert to Speak at UW Wednesday A former longtime official in Afghanistan who advocates for freedom and democracy in that nation is scheduled to speak Wednesday, Sept. 28, at the University of Wyoming. Ambassador Omar Samad will discuss The End of Americas Longest War: Lessons and Prospects from Afghanistan from 5:20-6:20 p.m. in the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center auditorium. The public is invited to the presentation, which is hosted by UWs School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies. Samad currently is a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council South Asia Center in Washington, D.C., dealing with South and Central Asia, U.S.-Afghanistan, geopolitical and reconciliation issues. Recently, he advised Afghanistans High Council on National Reconciliation on peace diplomacy and reconciliation strategy through a United Nations development program on peacebuilding. Samad also is the CEO of Silkroad Consulting based in Virginia, and he taught on Islamic radicalism for the University of Maryland. Samad had a distinguished career in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served as ambassador-designate to Belgium, the European Union and NATO (he resigned before posting in 2016); ambassador to France and Canada; and spokesperson for the ministry. He also served as the senior adviser for policy and strategy to the chief executive of Afghanistan in Kabul; was the Senior Central Asia Fellow at the New America Foundation; and was the senior Afghan expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Since 1979, he has actively advocated for freedom and democracy in Afghanistan, and he is a regular contributor and commentator to international and Afghan media. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Cloudy this evening with showers after midnight. Low around 35F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Cloudy this evening with showers after midnight. Low around 35F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%. Since the late 1970s, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell ned.rozell@alaska.edu is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Agencies | Jeddah The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are committed to strengthening bilateral relations and cooperation at various levels for the benefit of the two countries and their peoples. His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa yesterday left for Jeddah to hold a meeting with the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at Al Salam Palace. They reviewed the progress of the long-standing solid Bahraini-Saudi relations, as well as various aspects of bilateral cooperation, joint action and coordination vis-a-vis current issues and developments in a way that enhances mutual interests. HM King Hamad affirmed the depth and distinction of the Bahraini-Saudi relations, and the mutual keenness to strengthen them across various levels. The two leaders affirmed their keenness to bolster bilateral cooperation and develop mutual coordination mechanisms at various levels for the benefit of the two countries and peoples. Warm welcome HM the King expressed thanks and appreciation to King Salman for the warm welcome and hospitality accorded to him. He also expressed deepest congratulations to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the brotherly Saudi people on the 92nd National Day of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, wishing the kingdom continued glory, prosperity, security and prosperity, under King Salmans leadership. His Majesty also conveyed the greetings and best wishes of Bahrains Ruling Family, government and people to the Saudi monarch, government and people on the cherished national occasion. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com The Deputy King, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, has highlighted Bahrains commitment to enhancing competitiveness and providing quality opportunities for citizens, in line with Bahrains comprehensive development, led by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister expressed pride in Team Bahrain and affirmed the importance of their responsibility to continue the Economic Recovery Plans implementation and achieve economic sustainability and fiscal balance. This came as HRH Prince Salman yesterday chaired the Economic Development Board (EDB) Board of Directors Meeting to review the developments of the Economic Recovery Plan and the latest economic indicators. During the meeting, the Board reviewed the Economic Recovery Plans progress and the Kingdoms positive economic indicators. His Royal Highness commended Team Bahrains determination to improve the Kingdoms economy and the importance of economic diversification and connecting with the global economy. He praised the EDB for attracting direct investment, creating opportunities for citizens, and strengthening the Bahrains position as an investment destination and an attractive business centre. His Royal Highness noted that Bahrains Economic Vision 2030 fosters cooperation between the public and private sectors. The Deputy King highlighted the importance of developing policies and legislation that supports private sector growth, given its role as a major driver of economic growth and enhances development opportunities. Developments During the meeting, the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, HE Hamad bin Faisal Al Maliki, presented the Economic Recovery Plans latest developments. The presentation showed that 17 of the 27 Economic Recovery Plan programmes are complete. This includes creating quality job opportunities to ensure citizens are the first choice in the labour market, facilitating commercial procedures and increasing their effectiveness, implementing major development projects, developing promising sectors, and achieving financial sustainability and economic stability by achieving fiscal balance by 2024. Q2 financial statistics show that the Economic Recovery Plan has contributed to remarkable economic growth during the second quarter of this year, as Total Real GDP grew by 6.9%, the highest annual increase since 2011. The Hotel and Restaurant Sector recorded the highest growth rate out of non-oil sectors (18.1%), followed by transportation and communications (15.1%), manufacturing (7.6%), and trade (7.5%). The implementation of the Economic Recovery Plan has led to positive growth in the non-oil economic sectors. The Chief Executive of the EDB, Khalid Ebrahim Humaidan, outlined the EDBs success in attracting investment, with the volume of inwards investment up to 2021 totalling U$33.5 billion, equivalent to 86% of the Kingdoms GDP, exceeding the global average of 47%. Humaidan confirmed the EDB successfully attracted $921 million in direct investment from 66 projects, over 90% of the $1 billion target set by the Board of Directors. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Bahrain will host the Arab International Cybersecurity Summit (AICS). Held at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre on December 6-8, the event will attract a wide range of participants from various countries. On the occasion, National Security Advisor, Royal Guard Commander, His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, asserted that cybersecurity is a fundamental pillar of the kingdoms national security and economic development. HH Shaikh Nasser added that Bahrains security and prosperity depend on the existence of a secure information and communication technology infrastructure. He noted that the Kingdom is committed to protecting its interests in cyberspace and has developed the National Cybersecurity Strategy to address the current and growing cyber threats and reduce the risks associated with them. HH Shaikh Nasser also indicated that the AICS is in line with the National Cybersecurity Strategy, and aims to meet the specific needs of exploring new technology, learning and dealing with the evolving global cyberspace. The summit aims to promote innovation in the field of cybersecurity, highlight global initiatives and the latest trends in this field. During the summit, experts and leaders in the field of cybersecurity from all over the world will discuss the most prominent challenges facing the field of cybersecurity in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as provide practical solutions and studies of the best practices across key sectors. AICS also aims to provide a platform that takes participants on a comprehensive journey through simulation workshops, interactive seminars and round table discussions, in addition to a number of live challenges and competitions, which will ensure building sufficient cybersecurity capacity. The summits Startup Zone will provide a dedicated area for startups to connect with key decision makers and investors, as well as encourage youth and support talent in the cybersecurity field. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT) hosted six students from the College of Science at the University of Bahrain (UoB) for a two-month summer internship programme. This initiative is in line with DANATs commitment to supporting Bahraini youth, building their capacities, enhancing their skills, and introducing them to various professional opportunities in the gemology field. DANAT organised a comprehensive and integrated training programme, which began with theoretical lectures on pearls and oysters covering their formation process, a study of their environment, and the extraction process. The students were also given the opportunity to visit the field to observe the different types of oysters, search for pearls and practice extraction. The trainees underwent a two-week training course on the different methods of pearl testing using the latest international technologies found in the DANAT laboratory. The students were able to observe the efforts of the qualified research team in gathering data related to the observation of oyster specimens under the supervision of DANATs Research Manager Dr. Reem Al Mealla. The trainees gained practical knowledge related to the different methods and skills used in collecting data related to pearl oysters and the surrounding ecosystems. UWs Blackler Publishes Book About German Identity in Southwest Africa Adam Blackler, a University of Wyoming assistant professor of history, poses with his first book titled An Imperial Homeland: Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa. The book -- published with the Max Kade Research Institute at Penn State University Press -- is scheduled for release Sept. 27 and will be available in hardcover and as an e-book. (Julia Ault Photo, University of Utah) Adam Blackler, a University of Wyoming assistant professor of history, recently published his first book titled An Imperial Homeland: Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa. The book -- published with the Max Kade Research Institute at Penn State University Press -- is scheduled for release Sept. 27 and will be available in hardcover and as an e-book. The books primary contribution is that it traces German political and cultural engagement with, and reliance on, Southwest Africa as a formative element in becoming an empire, over a much longer time span than is typical for histories of German Southwest Africa, Blackler says. The book incorporates the now voluminous scholarship on the German empire that has probed its effects across different dimensions of German life. It shows that colony and metropole became inextricably tied together, starting in an age that is not typically considered part of the story of the German empire and moving through the age of formal settler colonialism, Blackler explains. The book further reveals how profoundly the colonial experience in German Southwest Africa, and especially its violence, manifested in the elevation of a new ideal of German masculinity that emphasized characteristics thought to be pertinent both to succeeding in the colony, as well as in life in Germany in the Kaisserreich. The principal audiences for this work will be historians of modern Germany, modern Europe, imperial history and global history, according to Blackler. Blackler has already discussed his tome with New Books Network online; the German Studies Association in Houston, Texas; the University of Minnesota; Penn State University; and the German History Society in London. Upcoming discussions are scheduled at Goucher College in Baltimore, Md.; the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel; the George Mosse Center at the University of Wisconsin; the University of Oregon; the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C.; and Heinrich Boll Stiftung in Berlin, Germany. Blackler also recently received the Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute Grant -- worth $75,000 -- from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), or the German Academic Exchange Service. The DAAD is an international service that funds faculty and student research in Germany. While the grant is not directly connected to his book, the grant did engage with similar topics. My colleagues and I used the funding to organize an international seminar that focused on local discussions surrounding reparations and social justice in the context of Indigenous dispossession, anti-Black violence and structural racism, Blackler says. The seminar, titled Reparations: A Global German Affair, asked participants to engage with the following questions: What role does remuneration play in the aftermath of mass violence? Who gets to determine the parameters of these exchanges, and who is left out of the conversation? How do reparations shape historical memory in the communities representing victimized groups as well as in those compensating for past crimes? At UW, Blackler is a historian of modern Germany and southern Africa. His research emphasizes the transnational dimensions of imperial occupation and settler-colonial violence in the 19th and 20th centuries. His scholarly and teaching interests also include the political and social dynamics of Germanys Weimar Republic and the interdisciplinary fields of the Holocaust and genocide studies, and international human rights. Agencies | Bucharest The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Transportation and Telecommunications Minister Mohammed bin Thamer Al Kaabi met with the International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Houlin Zhao on the sidelines of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22). The two parties reviewed the policies and initiatives taken by the Kingdom to support ICT's development process. The meeting praised Bahrains digital transformation progress using modern technologies to ensure high quality and efficient services . The secretary-general lauded Bahrains advanced telecommunication sector. Agencies | Rome The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Giorgia Meloni is on course to become the first female prime minister of Italy as her party the Brothers of Italy is predicted to win between 22-26% of the vote, according to exit polls. If Melonis party is elected, the European Union will likely take it with concern, as her party is the most rightwing party to govern Italy after the World War II and there are fears that due to close ties between Brothers of Italy and Russia, Italy may go soft on Russian president Putin for his so called military operation in Ukraine. Melonis Brothers of Italy party is likely to have control of both houses, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. She is projected to win more than a quarter of the vote for the Senate. Following the exit poll Meloni said: It is a starting point, not a finish line. Right-wing parties will now control most of the Senate as former prime minister Silvio Berlusconis party Forza Italia is projected to win 7.9% of the votes and Matteo Salvini of the far-right League is projected to win 8.8% of the vote. Both leaders have in the recent past questioned the rhetoric on Vladimir Putin. Berlusconi claimed that the West pushed him into the war while Salvini questioned the sanctions. Her rivals, Enrico Lettas Democratic Party and Giuseppe Contes Five Star Movement, together could win 35% of the votes and convince allies like More Europe and the Italian Left/Greens and also the moderate Third Pole but Conte and Letta do not see eye-to-eye. Italian president Sergio Mattarella will consult party leaders to determine who can lead a stable government and Meloni has the highest number of votes and remains in pole position. We want a different Italian attitude on the international stage this does not mean we want to destroy Europe, that we want to leave Europe, that we want to do crazy things, Meloni was quoted as saying by the BBC, in order to assuage concerns regarding her partys fascist roots. The new government is the most right-wing government in Italy since its World War II days under dictator Benito Mussolini. Melonis recent speech at a rally by Italian right-wing party Vox contained a line that scared many: Yes to the natural family, no to LGBT lobbies!. She also said a naval blockade around Libya would address the migrant issue. Right-wing parties in Europe are also excited for this new phase that Italian politics is about to witness. Viktor Orban, Hungarys strongman leader, and his long-serving political director, Balazs Orban, have also congratulated Meloni and said Europe needs friends who share a common vision more than ever. Speaking to the BBC, a professor Gianluca Passarelli of Romes Sapienza University, said: Meloni is not a danger to democracy, but a danger to the European Union. TOKYO, Sep 26 ( Nikkei ) - Komeito, the junior coalition partner of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on Sunday endorsed an eighth term for its leader Natsuo Yamaguchi ahead of a spate of local assembly elections next spring. After formally being approved at the party's convention in Tokyo, Yamaguchi, 70, said Komeito "will do (its) utmost to support the Kishida administration." Prime Minister and LDP chief Fumio Kishida, who attended the convention as a guest, congratulated Yamaguchi and called on the participants to "together overcome the difficulties faced by our nation." Komeito is backed by Japan's largest lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai. The self-claimed "peace party" has been a part of the coalition government since 2012. Yamaguchi, who has served as a lawmaker since 1990, is expected to take a leading role in securing as many seats as possible in the local elections across the country in April as Komeito plans to field a number of candidates. ...continue reading TOKYO, Sep 27 ( Nikkei ) - Japan on Monday provided details of its full-scale tourism reopening, following Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's announcement last week. The country will allow visa-free entry for visitors from 68 countries and regions, as it did before the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, there will be some coronavirus-related hoops to jump through, such as providing proof of vaccination. Starting on Oct. 11, the government will allow general travelers to enter almost as they did before the pandemic. The current requirement of signing up for package tours will be dropped. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visitors from 68 countries and regions -- including South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. -- will no longer have to obtain a visa. This restores the visa exemption arrangements that existed for short-term stays before COVID-19. In principle, a short-term stay is 90 days, though there are some exceptions, such as 15-day limits for visitors from Indonesia and Thailand. As far as entry requirements are concerned, visitors will need to show proof of having received three doses of coronavirus vaccines. Alternatively, they can show a negative test result. ...continue reading TOKYO, Sep 27 ( AFP ) - Thousands of Japanese and foreign dignitaries gather in Tokyo on Tuesday to honour assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe, at a rare state funeral that has sparked controversy and protest. Abe was Japan's longest-serving prime minister and one of the country's most recognisable political figures, known for cultivating international alliances and his "Abenomics" economic strategy. He resigned in 2020 over recurring health problems, but remained a key political voice and was campaigning for his ruling party when a lone gunman killed him on July 8. The shooting sent shockwaves through a country with famously low gun crime and prompted international condemnation. But the decision to give him a state funeral -- only the second for a former premier in the post-war period -- has provoked growing opposition, with around 60 percent of Japanese against the event in recent polls. ...continue reading YAMAGUCHI, Sep 27 ( NHK ) - The year's first blowfish auction kicked off early Monday morning in the western Japan port city of Shimonoseki. Before dawn, some 1.7 tons of the torafugu variety arrived at the city's Haedomari fish market, where blowfish is landed most. The catch included the coveted wild blowfish from the Sea of Japan and the Seto Inland Sea. The largest blowfish weighed about 4.5 kilograms. The auction coincides with the start of blowfish fishing season this month. Bidding began at 3:20 a.m. Deals were negotiated the traditional way. Individual buyers thrust their hands through a sleeve worn by the seller and indicated how much they would pay by touching his fingers. This way, their bids were hidden from other buyers. Bids sank for the third year in a row. The highest price was more than 110 dollars per kilogram, about 14 dollars cheaper than last year. ...continue reading Partnership will expand area served by Richmond, BC clean energy system Disponible en francais RICHMOND, BC, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), Lulu Island Energy Company (LIEC) and Corix Infrastructure Inc. (Corix) have achieved financial close on a district energy expansion project in the City of Richmond, British Columbia. Under the agreement, the CIB will provide $175 million in financing for the LIEC City Centre District Energy Utility project. It will enable expansion to more than 170 new residential and mixed-use commercial development sites in the area by 2050, using low-carbon heat recovered from the Gilbert Road regional sewer system. CIB, Lulu Island Energy and Corix have achieved financial close on a district energy expansion project in the City of R Tweet this When complete, the project is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one million tonnes by 2050, with the amount of connected space to the district energy system increasing 10fold to 50 million square feet. The LIEC is a municipal corporation wholly owned by the City of Richmond. It was established to implement and operate district energy utility systems in Richmond's City Centre area in British Columbia's Metro Vancouver region. The CIB financing will enable the district energy expansion which will drive economic benefits through new construction work and deliver an expanded sustainable energy network which will reduce the operating costs of property owners. Corix will provide expertise in district energy management and be responsible for the design, construction, financing, operations and maintenance of the City Centre system. Corix has been LIEC's partner since 2014 in the delivery of the Oval Village District Energy Utility under a previous agreement. District energy systems leverage proven technology to create a long-term reliable, efficient and cost-effective energy distribution network. Through a system of underground pipes, energy stored in water from central energy plants is transported to buildings, alleviating the need for separate heating and cooling systems in connected buildings. This financing will support the City of Richmond, an award-winning leader in district energy systems, in meeting its Community Energy and Emissions Plan (CEEP) 2050 goals to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in community GHG emissions by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. The project also supports the City's goal to provide low-carbon energy services to customers that is competitive with conventional heating and cooling costs. Endorsements We are proud to invest $175 million to help create a green energy network which will benefit businesses, institutions and residents of the City of Richmond for generations to come. Our investment will help Richmond meet its ambitious climate change goals and create spin off economic benefits in one of British Columbia's largest cities. Ehren Cory, CEO, Canada Infrastructure Bank The benefits of this expansion will be realized not only by the residents and businesses connected to the utility, but the entire community as it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated one million tonnes when completed. District energy is a key pillar for achieving Richmond's short- and long-term community greenhouse gas emission reduction goals as well as the delivery of efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly energy for the community. Mayor Malcolm Brodie, City of Richmond We are thrilled to be building upon the success of the Oval Village District Energy Utility project and our partnership with Lulu Island Energy Company which has spanned nearly a decade. The closing of the City Centre District Energy Utility project marks a major achievement in demonstrating how Public Private Partnerships can be used as an effective tool in leveraging financing and transformational strategies to deliver affordable, low-carbon infrastructure for consumers. Lisa Sparrow, President and CEO, Corix Group of Companies Quick Facts The project is expected to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 34,000 tonnes per year, when compared to conventional heating and cooling systems used today. District energy is a component of the City of Richmond's climate change strategy toward the Community Energy and Emissions Plan (CEEP). climate change strategy toward the Community Energy and Emissions Plan (CEEP). Corix is a leading provider of sustainable energy infrastructure solutions across Canada and the U.S. and the U.S. The CIB seeks to invest up to $5 billion into clean energy projects which are in the public interest and support Canadian sustainable economic growth. into clean energy projects which are in the public interest and support Canadian sustainable economic growth. All CIB investments are subject to approval by its Board of Directors Learn More: Canada Infrastructure Bank Lulu Island Energy Company City of Richmond Corix SOURCE Canada Infrastructure Bank For further information: Media Contacts: Electronic Media Kit; Canada Infrastructure Bank, [email protected]/; Lulu Island Energy/City of Richmond, [email protected]; Corix, [email protected] TSUUT'INA NATION, AB, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - Today, the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance, on behalf of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities and Roy Whitney, Xakiji (Chief), Tsuut'ina Nation, announced more than $1.9 million in federal funding to support green infrastructure upgrades for a community health and wellness facility in Tsuut'ina Nation. The Tsuut'ina Nation Community Drop-In Centre for Healthy Living, also known as the Spirit Healing Lodge, has played an important role in the Tsuut'ina Nation community for over 30 years. The facility is a place where Nation members can go to access a wide range of services and resources, including support for mental health, addiction, trauma, and domestic and socioeconomic issues. "Our Government is committed to working together with First Nations, Inuit and Metis people to build a brighter and greener future in Alberta and across Canada. Investing in projects that improve community resources is an integral part of that mission. This project will see necessary upgrades brought to a cornerstone of Tsuut'ina Nation and allow the building to serve the community for years to come," said the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance, on behalf of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities. "Tsuut'ina is making steady strides towards cultural preservation and the celebration of our history. Central to those efforts are facilities like museums, our schools and of course our drop in and healing centre. Intergeneration trauma is real, but can be overcome, with time, through our collective commitment to nurturing our community members. The federal contribution to this centre is as important as it welcomed, and represents a step forward on the path to reconciliation," said Roy Whitney, Xakiji (Chief), Tsuut'ina Nation. By investing in infrastructure, the Government of Canada is growing our country's economy, increasing the resiliency of our communities, and improving the lives of Canadians. The funding announced today will improve the building's efficiency by upgrading the heating system, boilers, lighting, commercial kitchen equipment, and windows and doors. Additional green upgrades will include the installation of solar panels and re-grading and landscaping to improve the Lodge's drainage and climate resiliency. Federal funding will also support accessibility enhancements, like the construction of new concrete sidewalks with ramps for wheelchair access. The green and accessibility upgrades to the Tsuut'ina Nation Community Drop-In Centre for Healthy Living will provide essential services and resources to the community of the Tsuut'ina Nation, while extending the longevity of the existing building and ensuring that the environmentally conscious improvements help further Canada along its path towards a greener future. Quick facts The Government of Canada is investing nearly $1,930,000 in this project through the Green and Inclusive Buildings program. is investing nearly in this project through the Green and Inclusive Buildings program. Federal funding for this project is conditional on the signing of the contribution agreement. The Green and Inclusive Community Buildings program is an integral part of Canada's Strengthened Climate Plan, providing $1.5 billion over five years towards green and accessible retrofits, repairs or upgrades of existing public community buildings and the construction of new publicly accessible community buildings that serve high-needs, underserved communities across Canada . Strengthened Climate Plan, providing over five years towards green and accessible retrofits, repairs or upgrades of existing public community buildings and the construction of new publicly accessible community buildings that serve high-needs, underserved communities across . At least 10 percent of funding is allocated to projects serving First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities, including Indigenous populations in urban centres. Provincial/territorial governments, municipal or regional governments, public sector bodies, not-for-profit, and Indigenous organizations interested in the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings program are invited to apply on the Infrastructure Canada website. website. Applicants with large retrofit projects to existing community buildings or new community building projects with total eligible costs ranging from $3 million to $25 million were accepted through a competitive intake process which closed on July 6, 2021 . A second intake is anticipated later in 2022, however the date has not yet been determined. Details about the second intake will be published to the Infrastructure Canada- Green and Inclusive Community Buildings' website as soon as they become available. to were accepted through a competitive intake process which closed on . A second intake is anticipated later in 2022, however the date has not yet been determined. Details about the second intake will be published to the Infrastructure Canada- Green and Inclusive Community Buildings' website as soon as they become available. Applicants with small and medium retrofit projects to existing community buildings ranging in total eligible cost from $100,000 to $2,999,999 will be accepted and funded on a rolling intake basis. to will be accepted and funded on a rolling intake basis. Announced in December 2020 , Canada's Strengthened Climate Plan includes 64 new measures and $15 billion in investments towards a healthy environment and economy. Associated links Green and Inclusive Community Buildings Investing in Canada Plan Project Map Strengthened Climate Plan Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn Web: Infrastructure Canada SOURCE Infrastructure Canada For further information: (media only), please contact: Jean-Sebastien Comeau, Press Secretary and Communications Advisor, Office of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, 343-574-8116, [email protected]; Morten Paulsen, External Relations, Paulsen Group, 403-399-3377, [email protected]; Media Relations: Infrastructure Canada, 613-960-9251, Toll free: 1-877-250-7154, Email: [email protected] OTTAWA, ON, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - The Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable ("The Roundtable") welcomes the announcement made today by the federal government to remove all remaining COVID-19 border restrictions, including mandatory random testing, mandatory masking in airports, airplanes and trains, quarantine requirements, and the mandatory use of the ArriveCan app for health declarations. Ensuring the safety of travellers has always been a priority for the travel and tourism industry. The Roundtable has long advocated for the removal of these measures as they were not rooted in science and were inconsistent with rules governing all other community activities Today's announcement is aligned with the findings Evaluating Canada's Pandemic Border and Travel Policies: Lessons Learned authored by four esteemed infectious diseases doctors. The findings were clear: the federal government's border measures should not be re-deployed for future Variants of Concerns. As such, the Roundtable continues to encourage the federal government to follow the science and avoid using these tactics in the future. About the Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable The Canadian Tourism Roundtable is a cross-Canadian coalition of leaders in the tourism and travel sector including representatives from airports, airlines, hotels, and chambers of commerce across the country committed to working together to restart the sector smoothly and safely. Travel and Tourism is a $105 billion sector, employing millions of Canadians and accounting for 2.1% of the country's gross domestic product. The CTTR advocates for safe and prosperous tourism and travel sector across Canada. SOURCE Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable For further information: Media Contact: Connor Whitworth, [email protected] ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia, Sept. 15, 2022 /CNW/ -- Mongolia's Prime Minister, L. Oyun-Erdene, has met today with major Hollywood studios and film companies to discuss how they can work together to further develop and promote the Mongolian film industry internationally. Attendees at the meeting included senior representatives from HBO, Netflix, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers, who are all in Ulaanbaatar at the invitation of Mongolia's Culture Minister, Nomin Chinbat. Prime Minister of Mongolia L. Oyun-Erdene met with representatives from HBO, Netflix, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers to discuss the development of the Mongolian film industry. Opening the meeting, the Prime Minister outlined the Government's efforts to develop Mongolia's creative industries as part of strengthening and diversifying the country's economy. Developing the creative industries is a key part of Mongolia's New Recovery Policy and provides opportunities to create a new, independent source of growth away from mining. The Prime Minister stressed the Government's commitment to create a favourable filming environment in Mongolia to take its film industry to the next level. Mongolia's Law on the Support of Cinematography was approved in 2021 and started to be implemented in early 2022. The law introduced competitive incentives, including a reimbursement program for film production costs, to help major global productions and studios create jobs and build capacity, attracting more investment into Mongolia, increasing tourism and creating greater awareness of the country's unique heritage. The visit by the leading film executives coincides with "FAM TOUR-2022", an initiative jointly organised by Mongolia's Ministry of Culture and the Mongolian National Film Council to promote the incentives available for filming in Mongolia, as well as the activities of the Council and Mongolia's beautiful natural environment. It is running from 14-19 September. During the rest of their visit to Mongolia, which lasts until 19 September, the film executives will meet with Mongolian filmmakers, directors, producers and artists, including Nomadia Pictures and the world-class recording studio B Production. They will also visit the Mongol Nomadic Tourist Camp and see an equestrian stunt show at Terelj National Park. Speaking following the meeting, Mongolian Prime Minister L. Oyun-Erdene said: "Mongolia's creative industries have the potential to become a major pillar of our economy, and strengthening our partnership with these leading film companies is key to making progress in this area as part of our New Recovery Policy. "I look forward to our work together in future and to seeing an increasing number of studios choosing to work in Mongolia in the years ahead, helping to put our film industry firmly on the map." Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1900050/The_Government_of_Mongolia.jpg SOURCE The Government of Mongolia For further information: Michael Dowsett, [email protected], +44 (0) 7539324008 Girls across Canada call for equal power and representation and declare that young women are leaders in their own right TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - As part of its unwavering commitment to advancing children's rights and girls' equality, Plan International Canada continues to connect young women with leadership opportunities through its longstanding youth engagement program Girls Belong Here. Now in its seventh year, the program has expanded to include more industries, amplifying girls' voices and honouring their inherent power across different sectors of society. This fall, more than 30 young women leaders will team up with participating civil society organizations, corporations and politicians to claim equal power and representation and to call for tangible action toward a future of leadership that is more diverse and inclusive. Since 2016, the program has engaged over 150 girls and young women in Plan International Canada's activities for the International Day of the Girl (IDG). As a driving force in creating the global day, Plan International Canada will celebrate the 10th anniversary of IDG on October 11, 2022. "Girls face significant challenges when accessing leadership opportunities and exercising their right to equitable participation in society. This is due to discrimination and a lack of resources for education, skills development and mentorship," says Anjum Sultana, Director of Youth Leadership and Policy Advocacy at Plan International Canada. "Our Girls Belong Here program, in collaboration with and for girls, seeks to change that by tearing down gender-related barriers and stereotypes and supporting young women as they build their path to power and equality." In addition to youth from across Canada, the program will include youth ambassadors from Sweden who will step into the roles of executives and business leaders with this year's Global Sponsor, AstraZeneca. Youth participants from the United States will also partner with AstraZeneca and the Bank of Montreal (BMO), another major program sponsor. "With limited representation in the media, workplace, and all spheres of life, it can be hard for girls to see themselves in leadership positions," says Alisha Ahmed, a youth ambassador partnering with AstraZeneca in Canada this year. "We need to increase the visibility of women around the world doing incredible things because they will inspire the changemakers of tomorrow. This experience will help grow my confidence and abilities and help other young women realize their potential." "AstraZeneca is proud to be the largest global supporter of the Girls Belong Here program, promoting gender equality and girls' rights around the world," says Rebekah Martin, Senior Vice President of Reward, Inclusion and Talent Acquisition at AstraZeneca. "Young girls need to see it, to be it. As a science-led company, with 48% women in our management and senior roles, we are passionate about inspiring and advancing the next generation of women and girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). We hope to inspire the girls of today to become the leaders of tomorrow." "Our efforts extend beyond AstraZeneca, and through our Young Health Programme, we are empowering young people to realize their right to good health and well-being by creating an environment which advocates for equitable access to healthcare. In turn, this will lead to a healthier, more sustainable future for us all." Partners participating in Plan International Canada's Girls Belong Here program this year include: AstraZeneca Atlantic Council for International Cooperation Bank of Montreal (BMO) (BMO) Brother International Church & Dwight Fighting Blindness Canada Fora: Network for Change Habitat for Humanity Home Depot IKEA International Development and Relief Foundation (IDRF) Jays Care Foundation Ontario Council for International Cooperation Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations in New York to the United Nations in Pfizer Alesse Results Canada Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) (RBC) The Canadian Partnership for Women and Children's Health (CanWaCH) University of Alberta Women's College Hospital Foundation World Vision Canada YWCA Canada Various politicians in Canada The Girls Belong Here program has expanded this year to two moments in time. In addition to fall 2022, activities will take place in the spring of 2023 as part of Plan International Canada's International Women's Day celebrations. For more information on how to get involved in the next group of participants, please visit: plancanada.ca/girlsbelonghere. Check out @PlanCanada and the hashtag #GirlsBelongHere on social media to follow our program participants' journeys. ABOUT INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL Plan International Canada led an extensive two-year campaign in 2009 that engaged thousands of Canadians in a call for an International Day of the Girl, a global initiative to recognize girls' rights as human rights. In December 2011, with unanimous all-party support, the Canadian government led the United Nations to officially declare October 11 as the International Day of the Girl. ABOUT PLAN INTERNATIONAL CANADA Plan International Canada is a member of a global organization dedicated to advancing children's rights and equality for girls. We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 85 years and are now active in more than 75 countries. Visit plancanada.ca for more information, and follow @PlanCanada on social media to join the conversation. SOURCE Plan International Canada For further information: For media inquiries, please contact: Plan International Canada, PR and Communications, [email protected] Punjabi Singer Alfaaz Out Of Danger; Rapper... Alfaaz was admitted to a hospital after he was hit by a former worker of the Dhaba (eat... 3 October, 2022 Read more South Africa: Constitutional Court ruling on Copyright Act commended Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has commended the Constitutional Court ruling on sections of the Copyright Act being unconstitutional. Last week, the Constitutional Court declared that sections of the Copyright Act of 1978 is unconstitutional for limiting access to reading materials in accessible formats for persons who are blind or visually impaired, without first securing permission from copyright holders. Nkoana-Mashabane said the court ruling paves the way for blind and visually impaired people, previously prevented from converting written material to braille or other accessible formats without the permission of copyright holders, to now be able to do so. We welcome and applaud the intervention from the highest court in our land. It affirms the rights of persons with disabilities particularly the need to access information, Nkoana-Mashabane said. The judgment also defends the rights of persons with disabilities to ensure equality, dignity, basic and further education, freedom of expression, language and participation in social and cultural life. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Visitors walk by a FAW-Volkswagen new energy vehicle during the 19th China (Changchun) International Automobile Expo in Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, July 18, 2022. (Xinhua/Zhang Jian) HEFEI, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- The global carbon reduction ambition and the transformation of the automobile industry have created tremendous opportunities for China-Germany cooperation in the new-energy vehicle (NEV) sector, industry experts said at the Sino-German Forum on the Development of the NEV Industry. As part of the 2022 World Manufacturing Convention held in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, the forum was attended by experts and heads of NEV enterprises from the two countries. "Both China and Germany are leading car-producing countries and have developed complementary advantages in automobile technology and the market. Cooperation in the automobile industry between the two countries has been carried out in multiple fields and achieved remarkable results," said Xiong Meng, an official of the China Federation of Industrial Economics. China has a booming NEV market, with both sales and production ranking first globally for seven consecutive years. The promising performance of the Chinese NEV market has injected confidence into cooperation work. In August alone, China's NEV sales volume was 530,000 units, a year-on-year expansion of 111 percent. This kind of sales achievement showed that the future market has huge potential, said Erwin Gabardi, CEO of Volkswagen Anhui. Many Sino-German cooperation projects covering both the upstream and the downstream of the NEV industrial chain are advancing at full speed. In June, Chinese battery cell manufacturer Gotion High-Tech held an opening ceremony for Gotion Germany at its Gottingen base in Germany. China's leading automaker FAW and German carmaker Audi launched a project in the same month to produce purely electric vehicles in Changchun, capital of northeastern Jilin Province. Volkswagen Anhui will begin the pre-series production of its first model next month, with mass production scheduled for 2023. NEV cooperation is closely linked to the green and low-carbon vision shared by the two countries. Hildegard Muller, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, said profound changes are taking place in the automobile industry. The European Union aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, according to the European Green Deal, and China has announced that it will peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. These goals present great challenges for the automobile industry. "We're committed to making carbon neutrality possible, but we're only able to achieve the goals jointly," Muller said. The concept of green manufacturing is deeply anchored in China's industrial development strategy, said Gabardi. Volkswagen's new MEB plant in Anhui will be powered by green energy and incorporate energy-saving strategies to reduce overall carbon emissions, he said. Li Ming, general manager of Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Corp., Ltd., said that the new trends in the automobile industry, including electrification, networking and intelligentization, bring Sino-German cooperation into a new era. Li said that new bilateral cooperation will not only promote coordinated development in the era of intelligent connected vehicles and realize a green transformation, but also deepen economic and trade cooperation between the two countries and foster global economic growth. The global NEV industry has recently been greatly affected by chip shortages and the rising cost of batteries. Attendees at the forum said they believe that close cooperation between NEV enterprises in China and Germany could help enhance the resilience of industrial and supply chains. "China and Germany should deepen the integrated and coordinated development of industrial chains based on their own advantages, and join hands to tackle chip shortages and skyrocketing commodity prices," Li said. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has re-echoed its stand that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of t... Apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has re-echoed its stand that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, should be rejected at the polls in 2023. Ohanaeze hinged the decision on the PDPs jettisoning of zoning arrangement before its presidential primary election. Unlike the All Progressives Congress, APC, that zoned the position to the Southern Nigeria, the PDP threw it open. In a statement on Sunday by Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, the Secretary-General of Ohanaeze, he said the PDP should not be trusted having breached its own constitution. He said, anyone who breached the gentleman arrangement by our patriots for a rotational presidency between the North and the South as enshrined in our consciousness to balance equity, inclusiveness, national peace, and stability of the country does not mean well for Nigeria. The Ohanaeze scribe stressed that 2023 is the turn of a Southern presidency and attempts by the opposition party to ride on ethnicity and religious predispositions to get power will plunge Nigeria into the abyss of disintegration. Isiguzoro added that Atiku Abubakars desperation is not healthy for the Northern region as the North has seen total neglect, poverty and insecurity. He advised the North to free itself from the illusion of ethnicity and break the spells of deceit which the PDP and Atiku are using ahead of the 2023 election. Its only a southern Presidency that will unify the country and end the insecurity challenges in Nigeria, not Atiku Abubakar. He expressed optimism that Nigerians were enthusiastic about how to dethrone incompetence in governance with a strong, competent, and healthy President in 2023. The nightmarish episode of a sitting President always on medical tourism in Europe, and Asia must end with President Buhari in 2023. PDP and Atiku should remain in opposition until they are ready to accept that principle of zoning in PDPs constitution should be respected and obeyed before seeking power in the future. Newly elected President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop Daniel Okoh, has reacted to Nigerias 62nd Independence An... Newly elected President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop Daniel Okoh, has reacted to Nigerias 62nd Independence Anniversary, saying though Nigeria had 23 years of uninterrupted democracy, it is still enmeshed in collective struggles. Among the issues CAN noted were still of great cause for concern are insecurity, kidnapping, ill-perceived killing and decapitation of innocent citizens, diminishing value of human life, including social injustice, making many citizens angry and distressed. His views were made known in his message at the 62nd Independence Anniversary Service held at National Christian Center, Abuja, titled, The Righteous Shall Rule the Land. In his homily, I would like to congratulate the past and present leaders of our nation since Independence, especially President Muhammadu Buhari, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on this day and to appreciate his commitment to ensuring the stability of our democracy. For many it appears that the wicked is winning all, taking all and enjoying all. Many are worried and even afraid that the wicked is about to take over the rulership of the land as we witness desecration of worship places, violent threat to the seat of political power, cheating, blatant stealing of our oil, flagrant degradation of our human environment, denial, betrayal, rejection and outright exclusion in many areas of our existence as a nation. Archbishop Okoh equally lamented that with the distressing situation we have found ourselves, the wicked appear to be having their way by making fortunes out of evil practices with impunity; and terrifying the upright, the pure, the meek, the voiceless, the honest, and the hardworking individuals in our society. He, however, noted that in the midst of all these quagmires, there is hope, noting that the bible tells us that the kingdom of Israel in King Davids time passed through difficult times in the land that God gave to them to inherit as we experience today in Nigeria. His words, God took them out of the house of bondage in Egypt, gave them freedom, and brought them to the land of Canaan. At a time, the wicked ways of their neighbours who worshipped and served other gods influenced Israel to sin. Those who sinned by engaging in idolatry and all kinds of corrupt practices flourished, but the righteous who could not see instant judgement by God became worried. It was in the midst of that situation that King David in his older years, wrote the book of Psalm, Chapter 37 to encourage his people, Israel, not to allow themselves to be tempted by the prosperity of the wicked. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Sunday, said despite Nigerias troubled past and present, its future holds more peace and glory. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Sunday, said despite Nigerias troubled past and present, its future holds more peace and glory. The future of Nigeria will be far more glorious, more peaceful than her past, and so it shall be for you too. Every year will be happier for you, more glorious, more prosperous and more peaceful, in Jesus name, Osinbajo said in his address at the interdenominational church service to mark the 62nd independence day anniversary at the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja. According to the Vice President, we stand at the gates of a new nation. And we see its lights shining bright. The nation of Gods promises. A nation of opportunities, of equity and justice, a secure and prosperous nation, a nation of laws and righteousness. Even if what we see today seems bleak, and dark, we are confident that God who owns the heavens and the earth will fulfill His promises concerning this nation. Citing a portion of scripture, Deuteronomy 33.25(b) which says as your days, so shall your strength be, Osinbajo noted that For the average person, as you grow older you become slower and less fruitful and even barren. But the Word of God to Nigeria today is that it shall not be so with you. Even as you grow in age, you will be more fruitful. You will not be weaker with age. And for every Nigerian, you will be more fruitful as you grow in age, and you will be stronger day by day in Jesus name. The Vice President added that even though what most Nigerians see today seems bleak, and dark, they should be confident that God who owns the heavens and the earth will fulfill His promises concerning the nation. Indeed, He says in Joshua 21:45: not a word failed, of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass. And we pronounce concerning this nation, that not a word will fail regarding any good thing which the Lord had spoken to Nigeria. All will come to pass in Jesus name, he prayed. He also congratulated the new President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Dr. Daniel Okoh, and all the new members of the Executive of CAN saying I pray that your tenure will bring blessings, light and encouragement to our nation in Jesus name. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), and his running mate, Yusuf Baba-Ahmed, paid a courtesy visit to Ibrahim Badam... Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), and his running mate, Yusuf Baba-Ahmed, paid a courtesy visit to Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, former head of state, on Sunday. Obi and Baba-Ahmed also met with Abdulsalami Abubakar, a former head of state. The LP chieftains met with the former military leaders at their residences in Minna, Niger state capital. Obi said they had insightful conversations on the state of affairs of the country with Babangida. Today, my running mate, Dr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed and I visited President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, GCFR, at his home in Minna. He received us very warmly and we had insightful conversations on the state of affairs in our country, he tweeted. Commenting on the meeting with Abdulsalami, Obi described him as a true statesman with an abiding love for Nigeria who fueled our hope for a better future. Below are pictures: There was tension at Sabon Gari Quarters in the Fagge Local Government Area of Kano State after two traders, Ifeanyi Ilechukwu and Chibuke ... There was tension at Sabon Gari Quarters in the Fagge Local Government Area of Kano State after two traders, Ifeanyi Ilechukwu and Chibuke Emannuel, were killed by gunmen suspected to be assassins. An eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the incident occurred on Saturday around 8pm at 25, New Road, Sabon Gari. He said, The gunmen first shot at their first target, Ifeanyi Ilechukwu, who died instantly, while they gave the second target, Chibuke Emannuel, a hot chase before he was shot. Ilechukwu, a battery dealer, was said to have been lured to his shop by one of the assailants, who pretended to be a customer. He was shot at close range and killed while his friend was chased and shot. The spokesman for the Kano State Police Command, SP Abdullahi Kiyawa, who confirmed the incident, said investigation was ongoing. Kiyawa said 41-year-old Ilechukwu was confirmed dead on arrival at a hospital, while Emmanuel, 33, died while been attended to at the hospital. Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State said Nigeria still has hope despite the countrys basket-full challenges at 62. Uzodimma spoke o... Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State said Nigeria still has hope despite the countrys basket-full challenges at 62. Uzodimma spoke on Sunday at the Maria Assumpta Catholic Cathedral Owerri during a church service to mark the 62nd independence anniversary of Nigeria. He challenged Nigerians to stand up to tackle the challenges retarding the progress of the nation. He advised Nigerians to learn to differentiate the meaning of collective interest as against individual or personal interest, noting that what defines a Nation is collective interest. Governor Uzodimma explained that all nations have their peculiar challenges, but we must take time to study how countries overcame such challenges and deplore proactive approaches in confronting the challenges of our time. Every generation has a responsibility to confront every challenge that befell them, be it leadership or followership but the common denominator to solve a problem is by identifying the root cause of the problem. The Governor regretted that the attitude of Nigerians has always been to complain and lament about problems, identifying where things are not going well, but not doing much in planning how things can go well. The Governor acknowledged that at 62, Nigeria has come of age and continued to struggle for survival failures and successes but said, despite all the challenges that confronted the country, Nigeria and Nigerians still have life and faith in God to continue to drive the nation. He assuaged the congregations fears that Nigeria is not making progress saying, in spite of the challenges of leadership, insecurity, poverty and unemployment the country still remains very hopeful and God has been very merciful to all of us. While acknowledging that the current and past leaders of Nigeria must have made their mistakes with regard to the mega problems, he, however, said that the strength and energy are still available to them, particularly as the blessings which God has endowed Nigeria with natural and human resources provide hope for tomorrow. How many of us are interested in how Nigeria can be better, and if yes what have we done in that direction? Drawing an inference from Imo State with her peculiar problems, the Governor said: Leadership came, leadership left but problems are here and there. We should brace-up and confront the challenges of our time. In his homily, Archbishop Ugorji thanked God for the numerous blessings He endowed Nigeria with as a nation as well as so many talents and human endowments given to her leaders, indicating that there is still hope for the country. Ugorji recalled the expectations of Nigerians 62 years ago and said they desired a nation devoid of rancour, ritual killings, insecurity, poverty, and all forms of immoralities. Also, he said that Nigerians deserve a nation where everybody will be respected, given equal opportunity, justice, and fair play, and experience a life of freedom. He added that the citizens are desirous of benefiting from God-given natural resources, in a state of peace and obedience to the rule of law. The Archbishop acknowledged that the Independence Anniversary Mass was not just to mark the 62nd Independence of Nigeria but an event intended to remember our forefathers, brothers, and sisters who paid the supreme price to make us a nation. We look forward to celebrating a peaceful country, where peace and unity will dominate the entire nation and the citizens will be happy for it. The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, on Saturda... The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, on Saturday, left Nigeria for London, the United Kingdom. It was gathered that Tinubu and Shettima decided to take a break to prepare them for campaigns. Tinubu and Shettimas trip to London coincided with that of the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, who also travelled to London with his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom, on Friday. According to the schedule released by the Independent National Electoral Commission, campaigns for the presidential election will begin on September 28. When contacted on Sunday, the Director of Media and Publicity for Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, confirmed that his principal took a break. He only took a week break for vacation, he said. He added that Tinubus campaign might begin on October 8. Although the campaign will flag off on October 8, we will kick off the stipulated September 28 date with a prayer in all the APC branches nationwide. After committing the day to God, we will embark on road work in Abuja. However, I am sure the policy document will be ready before October 2, he said. The Northern Elders Forum has vowed that it would subject all the major 2023 presidential candidates to rigorous scrutiny to ascertain their... The Northern Elders Forum has vowed that it would subject all the major 2023 presidential candidates to rigorous scrutiny to ascertain their goals before endorsing any of them. The spokesman of NEF, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, who stated this yesterday while featuring on Channels Television, boasted that they have the responsibility of telling the entire Northerners who to vote. He said unlike in 2015, when they told Northerners to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari without finding out what he aimed to achieve, the group would scrutinize Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar until the NEF is convinced about who can fix the country. According to him, the 2023 election would no longer be about fixing the economy, security and the fight against Boko Haram, stating that the candidates must be specific on what they aim to achieve if they win the election. He said, We will subject all candidates, including Atiku, Tinubu, Obi, through a rigorous process, and they had better be willing because, believe me, we carry the responsibility on our shoulders to advise people in the north where to go. I am not saying this to impress anybody. We will exercise that responsibility seriously. What we promise not to do this time around was not to repeat what we did in 2015 and say Vote for only Sai Baba where we escort him to the villa but failed to sit him down and ask what he planned to do. Thank you for using NNY360! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. For more than 40 years, Gambit has remained true to our original mission--to serve our community by keeping you informed on the latest news and events. From holding our leaders accountable to celebrating The Best of New Orleans--and all the zaniness in-between--we strive daily to uphold this vision. We have been able to do this for so many years because of the generous support of small businesses who advertise with us and, most recently, our Gambit Community Members. To show our appreciation for those who have signed up to support what we do, we are launching GAMBITS TWENTY DAYS OF GIVEAWAYS. Starting on September 26, well be selecting a new winner every day (Monday - Friday) for 20 days. Giveaways will include concert and theater tickets, restaurant gift certificates and more. Here's the best part: Every Gambit Community Member will be automatically entered to win! Sign up to become a Member for your chance to win. The sooner you sign up, the more chances you will have! September 26: (2) tickets to the National Fried Chicken Festival on Oct. 1-2 (Winner: Robert P.) 27: (2) tickets to the Liberty Kitchen Come Grow With Us Gala on Sept. 30. (Winner: Paul H.) 28: $100 gift card to Brown Butter Restaurant. (Winner: Erin F.) 29: Friends of City Park Family Membership (Winner: Daniella C.) 30: (2) pairs of Bonfolk Socks October 3: (2) tickets to Pitbull w/ Iggy Azalea at Smoothie King Center on Oct. 6 4: $25 gift card to Katies Restaurant 5: A fun-pack of Gambit swag 6: (2) tickets to O What a Night! Gala on Oct.15 7: (2) tickets WWE Friday Night SmackDown on Oct. 14 10: (2) tickets to see In the Heights at JPAS 11: (2) tickets to The Millennium Tour at the Smoothie King Center on Oct. 28 12: (2) tickets to a select New Orleans Film Fest film 13: (4) tickets to Abita Fall Music Fest on Nov. 4 14: A pair of ResiNOLA earrings 17: Wild Card Mystery Gift Bag! 18: (2) tickets to the New Orleans R&B Music Experience with Monica, Bobby Brown and 112 on Nov. 11 19: Gambit and Miller Lite Holiday Gift Swag 20: (2) tickets to Just Say YAYA Gala on Nov. 18 21: One night stay at the Higgins Hotel CLICK HERE TO JOIN TODAY Gambit's September movie night: In Mr. Jones, a journalist exposes the Stalin-made Ukrainian famine Based on a true story, the film follows Gareth Jones (James Norton), a Welsh journalist who becomes the first Western journalist to report on the Ukrainian famine under his own name. Official Rules: Sweepstakes runs from 12:01 am CT on 9/26/22 to 11:59 pm CT on 10/21/22. 2 ways to enter: Gambit Community Members are automatically entered or send an email with "20 Days of Giveaways Sweepstakes" in subject line & your name, home address, phone # & email address by email to vip@gambitweekly.com. Limit 1 entry per person necessary to be eligible to win for the entire duration of the Sweepstakes. Odds depend on # of elig. entries per day. 1 prize per day. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. 1. Open to legal residents of the Continental United States. 2. Must be 18 years or older to enter to be eligible to win listed prizes, unless otherwise stated. 3. No substitution or transfer of prize permitted. Prizes are non-redeemable for cash. 4. Gambit reserves the right to refuse any submission for any reason. 5. Odds of winning depend upon the number of eligible entries received. 6. Winners will be notified by email or telephone. 7. Employees of Gambit, its subsidiaries, affiliates, and their families are not eligible to enter. 8. For the names of the prize winners send a SASE for receipt within 60 days following the end of the Promotion Period to the attention of Marketing Department at the below address. Please be sure to specify the name of the Promotion for which you are requesting the winners list. Gambit, Marketing Department, 823 Camp St., New Orleans, LA 70130. 9. By entering, participants agree to release and hold harmless Gambit and any other sponsors of the contest, their parents, subsidiaries and affiliated entities, and each of their respective directors, officers, employees, attorneys, agents, and representatives from any damage, injury, expense, cost, death, loss, claim, action, demand, or other liability that may arise in connection with the Contest, or resulting from their acceptance and/or use of any prize, their travel to or from any prize related activity, their participation in this promotion, or from any misuse or malfunction of any prize awarded, including, without limitation, personal injury, death, and/or property damage. 10. By participating, entrants agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Gambit, which shall be final and binding with regard to all matters relating to the Contest. A blue tarp rests on the ground as a crew installs new rafters and other roof elements, as large trees cut up for disposal rest in piles, foreground, at a house on Oak Hills Parkway, just off Siegen Lane, Monday, Sept. 6, 2021 in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which blew through the area a week earlier. After a three-hour standoff last week, a man suspected of shooting a Gentilly Terrace resident in his doorway five months ago was arrested and booked last week with attempted second degree murder and attempted home invasion, New Orleans police said. Tyrin Wiltz is accused of shooting Joe Cooper in broad daylight on May 23 while trying to break into his home in the 4400 block of St. Roch Avenue. Cooper's wife, WWOZ DJ Leslie Cooper, said her husband was shot protecting her. A longtime fixture of the local music scene known for his colorful personality and equally colorful tie-dye creations, which he sold at The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Joe Cooper spent five weeks in the ICU after sustaining a bullet wound to the abdomen and developing cardiac and kidney problems and strokes, according to updates from the family's GoFundMe page. Family members had no comment about Wiltz's arrest. An anonymous Crimestoppers tipster led detectives to develop Wiltz as a suspect in the shooting and secure an arrest warrant, New Orleans police said. At around 6 a.m. Sept. 21, when the United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force tried to serve Wiltz with multiple warrants, he barricaded himself inside his Slidell apartment, Slidell Police said. That led to a three hour standoff with multiple agencies. Wlitz's girlfriend and two children were also inside the apartment at 301 Spartan Drive in Slidell. Wiltz released them and surrendered peacefully, and noone was injured, Slidell Police said. Wiltz was booked in Slidell on Sept. 22 and will be extradited to Orleans Parish, according to NOPD spokesperson Reese Harper. Kristen Clarke, center, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, speaks at a press conference at Russell B. Long Federal Court House in Baton Rouge, during The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into Louisiana State Police, probing whether troopers have a pattern of using excessive force and discriminating against Black people and other people of color, Thursday June 9, 2022. Others, from left, are Duane A. Evans, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Ronald C. Gathe Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana, and Brandon B. Brown, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. The 'pattern or practice' probe comes long after Louisiana's Legislative Black Caucus and civil rights groups called for a federal investigation of State Police over motorist Ronald Greene's death after a police chase in Union Parish. Government Ministers Become Dementia Friends This morning, ahead of the weekly Cabinet meeting, Ministers, staff of the Chief Ministers Office at No.6 Convent Place and Mrs Picardo, took part in a Dementia Friends session held by the Gibraltar Alzheimers and Dementia Society. This is in line with the Governments policy, set out in the Gibraltar National Dementia Strategy, of making Gibraltar a dementia friendly community. The session took part before the last Cabinet meeting held within September, World Alzheimers Month. The Deputy Chief Minister was unable to attend as he is representing the Gibraltar Government at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. The Chief Minister, the Hon Fabian Picardo KC MP, said: I am proud to have become a Dementia Friend, alongside my cabinet colleagues and office staff. This mornings session was particularly moving and reminded us all of the importance of being aware of what it might be like to live with Dementia. My Government is fully committed to rolling this initiative out across the wider public service and continue doing whatever we can to ensure those living with this disease, and their families, are cared for in the most respectful and dignified manner. A working group of representatives of the WCO Anti-Corruption and Integrity Promotion (A-CIP) Programme Partner Administrations from the Americas and Caribbean Region came together on 20-22 September 2022 at the WCO Secretariat in Brussels. The group aimed to review and, where necessary, develop new communities of practice, or knowledge hubs, on various topics that would assist in mainstreaming integrity in day-to-day Customs operations and administration in the region. This exercise took forward an idea that emerged from the WCO A-CIP Coordinators meeting in February this year, where participants were keen to learn from each other and others in the region and beyond and use this collective knowledge to combat corruption in Customs. Representatives from Customs of Antigua & Barbuda, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica and Mexico heard from the WCO regional Vice-Chair and ROCB, as well as speakers from the IMF, UNODC, IADB, OAS, and the regional PSCG who kindly joined the meetings to offer some perspectives on their initiatives on integrity in the region. Representatives from different workstreams across the WCO, including trade facilitation, enforcement security and communications, shared their work, enabling the group to discuss the many links with integrity as a cross-cutting issue. The WCO Deputy Secretary General Ricardo Trevino emphasized in his opening remarks that sharing knowledge and experience is critical to combat corruption. This sentiment was echoed by the representatives of Canada, both as a Programme donor and a major contributor of expertise that has been enhancing the application of inclusive and gender-responsive regional and global frameworks to support Customs administrations in the fight against corruption. The group consensus was that strong communities of practice exist within the WCO and in the region, which will be important sources of knowledge for Members looking to build integrity. Nevertheless, the group also concurred that there were opportunities for more robust knowledge sharing in areas such as transparency and communications for integrity and corruption risks in customs procedures and automation. The WCO A-CIP Programme will mobilize resources to help build more inclusive communities of practice for knowledge sharing on these topics. For more information, please, contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org. From 12 to 16 September 2022, a group of tariff experts of the Ethiopian Customs Commission (ECC) conducted a study visit to the WCO Headquarters to familiarize themselves with various aspects of WCO Secretariats work on the Harmonized System. The study visit was organized by the EU-WCO Programme for Harmonized System in Africa (HS-Africa Programme) as part of its ongoing capacity building support to the ECC and competency development in the area of implementation of the Harmonized System and commodity classification. During the study visit, the Ethiopian experts were introduced to the activities and programmes of the WCO Secretariat, with a specific focus on the work related to the Harmonized System and commodity classification. The experts became acquainted with the WCO tools and publications related to the HS, the organization of work in the Documentation Centre of the WCO and the methodology of keeping archives and records, as well as the work of the Tariff and Trade Affairs Directorate. In order to get some hands-on experience, the experts attended the 70th Session of the HS Committee, where they became familiar with its functioning and met with fellow delegates from other countries to discuss various issues of commodity classification. The experts also had a series of meetings and consultations with staff members of the Nomenclature Sub-Directorate to discuss the approach to determining classification of some specific categories of products whose classification presented some difficulties. One of the meetings was focused on examining the prospect of establishing a Customs laboratory in Ethiopia. In conclusion of the study visit, the ECC experts met with the HS-Africa Programme team to discuss the best way to improve the mechanism of implementation of HS amendments and reviewed the work plan on building the ECCs capacity in the area of commodity classification. A draft work plan of cooperation with the HS-Africa Programme and a scheme for the implementation of the next version of the HS (HS 2027) were established, and will be implemented in partnership with the HS-Africa Programme. For more information, please contact hs@wcoomd.org. Gas prices rose across Northwest Indiana after the fatal fire at the BP Husky Refinery near Toledo and as Hurricane Ian headed toward Florida. The national average for a gallon of gas increased to $3.72 last week, about five cents higher than the previous week, according to AAA. Gas is averaging over $3.80 a gallon across most of the Calumet Region, even creeping back over an average of $4 a gallon in LaPorte County. "Slack demand and lower oil prices should take some pressure off rising gas prices, said Molly Hart, spokesperson for AAAThe Auto Club Group. "But Hurricane Ian could cause problems, depending on the storms track, by disrupting oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and impacting large coastal refineries. The cost of fueling one's ride is 14 cents a gallon less than a month ago and 54 cents more than a year ago, according to AAA. Gas now costs an average of $3.92 a gallon in Lake County, $3.99 a gallon in Porter County and $4.01 per gallon in LaPorte County, according to GasBuddy.com. As of Monday, the average price of gas was $3.59 in Newton County, $3.86 in Pulaski County, $3.86 in Jasper County and $3.85 in Starke County. Gas prices rose 11 cents per gallon in Lake County, 17 cents in Porter County and 42 cents per gallon in LaPorte County. Gas prices in the greater Chicago metropolitan area average $4.23, including an average of $4.71 within city limits, according to AAA. The Energy Information Administration estimates gas demand fell from 8.49 million barrels per day to 8.32 million barrels per day last week. An estimated two-thirds of adults in the United States told AAA they have adjusted their driving habits since the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices soaring worldwide in late February, such as by driving less often and combining errands when they go out. Gas prices first spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to near-universal embargos of one of the largest oil exporters in the world. They had fallen nationwide for 14 straight weeks, due to a number of factors, including recessionary fears. One of the longest gas price declines on record has finally come to an end after 14 weeks, with gas prices shooting up in several regions amidst myriad refinery issues from the West Coast to the Great Lakes and in between, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. I dont know that Ive ever seen a wider gamut of price behaviors coast to coast in my career." The last week has been wild. "A slew of unexpected refinery disruptions, including fires and routine maintenance, have seemingly all happened in a short span of time, causing wholesale gas prices to spike in areas of the West Coast, Great Lakes and Plains states and some of those areas could see prices spike another 25-75 cents per gallon or more until issues are worked out," De Haan said. "In addition, as [Hurricane] Ian nears the U.S. coast, some refiners could see limited disruption. Hopefully, disruptions will be very limited due to Ian, but there remain many factors driving prices both up and down across the country. A longtime pizza joint and Italian deli from Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood will soon bring an authentic taste of South Side Italian cuisine to the square in Crown Point. S&T Provisions, the "home of the original pizza setup," plans to open an S&T Too in the part of the former Old Town Square Antique Mall that's being redeveloped. It also recently opened an outpost in south suburban Frankfort. S&T opened on Chicago's far southwest side 62 years ago and is known for its pizza setups, in which customers get pizza ingredients that they take home and bake themselves. It was originally a wholesaler supplying ingredients to South Side pizzerias that serve up square-cut tavern-style pizza, but then transitioned into providing ready-made pizza kits directly to customers. It also sells Italian sausage, a meatball mix, frozen pasta and bread. "Crown Point will be our fourth location," Regional Director Dan Klaric said. "We also ship nationwide. There are a lot of people who grew up in Chicagoland and then moved away. We'll deliver right to your door." A neighborhood institution since 1962, S&T took off in popularity during the shutdown early in the coronavirus pandemic. It expanded to Bolingbrook and then opened in June at 20214 S. LaGrange in Frankfort. "We're a fourth-generation family-owned business," Klaric said. "We're heavily involved with fundraising for schools and the community. When COVID hit, we raised $600,000 to save local businesses." A local partner from Crown Point is bringing S&T to 101 W. Joliet Street just off the Historic Old Lake County Courthouse Square in downtown Crown Point. "That square is just awesome," Klaric said. "It's a busy area and just feels like a hometown." The deli will offer Italian food to go, including its signature pizza setups that it sells three for $25. "It's basically three pizzas for the price of one delivery," he said. "We make our own sauce and sausage. We bring in award-winning cheese from Wisconsin." Customers can choose toppings like sausage, pepperoni and veggies. S&T also has 10-packs of individual cheese pizzas. The pizzas are assembled at home and baked for 15 to 20 minutes at 400 degrees. "It's a fun thing to do as a family," Klaric said. "You make it how you want it. You're probably not going to eat three so you can put the others in the freezer. You can get authentic ingredients you can make right at your house." S&T Too will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week. It's looking to open sometime in the next few months. For more information, visit sandtprovisions.com or find the business on Facebook. CROWN POINT A Milwaukee man made an initial appearance Monday on a charge he stabbed a man to death in 1991 in Gary. Quentin M. Smith, 51, was extradited to Lake County last week to face a murder charge secured in June by members of the FBI's Gang Response Investigative task force. Smith is accused of stabbing 35-year-old John T. Currie multiple times in the back, chest, shoulders, neck, face and head. Currie's relatives found his body Nov. 26, 1991, inside his apartment in the 2000 block of Carolina Street. A magistrate entered a not guilty plea on Smith's behalf and granted his request for a public defender, records show. While processing the grisly homicide scene, police found three broken pieces of a large kitchen butcher knife on the living room floor near Currie's body and a steak knife on a love seat, records state. Investigators also found a trail of blood that led out of Currie's apartment, down a stairway, across a snow-covered lawn and around a brown 1978 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight parked outside. More than 20 samples of suspected blood were collected from the crime scene, and forensic testing showed some were consistent with Currie. Analysts determined eight of the samples were from a single, unknown male, according to court records. Investigators with the GRIT task force submitted the samples to an Indiana State Police lab in 2021 for further testing. An analyst entered one of the samples associated with the previously unknown male into the Combined DNA Index System, which showed Smith likely was a match, records state. GRIT task force members executed a search warrant a DNA sample and palm prints from Smith, who was on parole. Wisconsin court records showed Smith was convicted of robbery in 2004 and sentenced to prison time. During an interview with task force members, Smith admitted he was originally from Gary but denied he knew Currie and ended the interview after he was asked why investigators had evidence placing him at the scene of Currie's homicide, records state. Investigators submitted Smith's DNA sample to Indiana State Police, and an analyst concluded there was a high probability Smith was the contributor of DNA in samples taken from inside and outside of Currie's apartment and a piece of a knife blade, according to court documents. Smith was being held without bond Monday at the Lake County Jail. CROWN POINT A Gary man accused of slapping his then-fiancee in 2020 and shooting her friend pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor domestic battery. Larry Easter, 54, told Lake Criminal Court Judge Salvador Vasquez he had married his fiancee since the 2020 fight and would be successful on probation. Defense attorney Adrian Guzman said Lake County prosecutors agreed to dismiss Easter's felony counts because recently gathered physical evidence didn't match up with a statement given by Easter's wife's friend. Lake County Deputy Prosecutor Tara Villarreal said the evidence corroborated Easter's claim of self-defense with regard to his wife's friend. According to charging documents, the friend became angry when Easter slapped his then-fiancee and grabbed a knife. Easter grabbed a gun from a closet, and the female friend was shot in the leg. Easter admitted in his plea agreement he slapped his then-fiancee. He told the judge he had no prior criminal history. Vasquez accepted his plea agreement and ordered him to serve a year in jail, suspended in favor of probation. Easter asked if the conviction would allow him to find suitable employment because his son was killed in a homicide and he now supports his grandchildren. A 21-year-old Crown Point man faces several charges after allegedly leading police on high speed vehicle chase from Porter County to Lake County, causing a crash and then attempting to flee on foot, according to Indiana State Police. A trooper said he attempted to pull over a red Chevrolet Camaro shortly before 5 p.m. Friday after seeing the vehicle weaving in and out of traffic in an aggressive manner along westbound Interstate 94 near the Portage exit. The driver, later identified as Marcellous Thomas Woods Jr., fled on the shoulder of the highway and then lost control of his vehicle west of Ripley Street, striking a guardrail and another vehicle, police said. Woods drove off again, dragging the rear bumper of his vehicle, police said. While an officer remained to provide medical care to the occupants of the struck vehicle, other officers continued the pursuit. Woods exited the highway on northbound Broadway in Gary and then fled on foot from the area of 11th Avenue, police said. A trooper pursued on foot through several yards and alleys and made several failed attempts to convince Woods to stop, according to police. Police said they used a stun gun to stop Woods and take him into custody. Woods was cleared medically before being taken to the Porter County Jail on a preliminary felony count of resisting law enforcement with a vehicle and misdemeanor resisting law enforcement, leaving the scene of an injury crash, operating a vehicle without ever receiving a license and reckless driving, police said. The three occupants of the struck vehicle were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. State police were assisted by officers from Gary and Lake County and firefighters from Lake Station and Gary. RENSSELAER A state police trooper was taken to the hospital early Monday after a Griffith-based tanker truck sideswiped her patrol vehicle along a stretch of Interstate 65 as she responded to an earlier crash, Indiana State Police said. The trooper was on scene around 5 a.m. with emergency vehicle lights on, helping to block the right lane of the highway, when her vehicle was struck by a truck driven by a Remington man, police said. The trooper was taken to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, police said. She is expected to make a full recovery. The tanker driver was cited for failure to yield to a stationary emergency vehicle, according to police. "An inspection was also completed on the tanker truck, which found several violations," police said. "The Indiana State Police reminds drivers to always slow down and/or change lanes when approaching emergency vehicles that are on the side of the roadway," ISP said. "Also, never drive a vehicle when youre fatigued or tired," police said. "Pull over to a safe location, a rest stop or service station, and rest before continuing to your destination. The life you save could very well be your own." HOBART A staggering number of people are killed each year in Northwest Indiana, and each death creates a ripple effect in the community. Those left behind turned to each other Sunday for words of encouragement and support. Family members and friends of homicide victims gathered at Hobart's Festival Park to release lanterns and share their stories during a National Day of Remembrance event organized by Circle of Love NWI. One of the group's founders, Sylvia Galvan, encouraged those close to grieving families to show support by staying in touch. Family members and friends sometimes disappear after a homicide, leaving those left behind to grieve alone, she said. "If you just give us a text or give us a call," Galvan said. "Please don't forget. A small text helps a great deal. We all grieve so differently." Galvan's words resonated with a number of other families. Cornelius Lewis, whose daughter 22-year-old daughter Diamond Lewis was killed in 2016 in Merrillville, said he also has felt abandoned and experienced times when talking about his daughter makes others uncomfortable. "This is my family now," he said, as he surveyed the crowd. Lewis, who sits on the board of the national Parents of Murdered Children, has become a fixture in Lake County's four felony courts, where he often attends hearings and offers support to other families. Pamela Yarbrought-Newson, whose 23-year-old son Iyuan Yarbrought was shot to death in 2016 in Hammond, said people seem to think it will make a grieving person sad to say their loved one's name, but those left behind are going to be sad either way. "That's where the bond (among victims' families) comes in, because we can relate on a much deeper level," she said. It's sad families have to come together because their loved ones were killed, she said. "There's no words that can ever bring our babies back," she said. "We have to keep their names alive, keep their memories alive." Lavell Hughes Sr. said his son, Lavell Hughes Jr., 26, is among about 80 people killed so far this year in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties. Forty-seven of those homicides occurred in Gary, police said. In all of 2021, Gary recorded 48 homicides. Lavell Hughes Jr. was fatally shot March 6 at the Trendsetters bar in the 4400 block of Cleveland Avenue in Calumet Township. "I can't sleep," Lavell Hughes Sr. said. "I'm angry all the time. I'm confused. I don't understand." Hughes said wants to see justice for his son, but police haven't told him much. The case remains under investigation. Lisa Mays, whose 30-year-old daughter Tiara Thomas was killed in 2015 in Portage by the father of her children, told those gathered there's a light at the end of the tunnel. "It took me all this time just to find myself," Mays said. "Please take care of yourself." Mays said she didn't have time to grieve because she was fighting for custody of her grandchildren. The stress of continuing on after a loved one is killed can take a toll, she said. "We'll never get an answer to why," she said. Lindsey Lanham, whose sister Molley Lanham was murdered in 2019 in Porter County, said her family started a foundation in her sister's name to create a healing space for families of homicide victims. It's been three years and seven months since Molley Lanham was killed, and every day is still difficult, she said. "We know others are feeling that loss as well," she said. Lindsey Lanham, a recent law school graduate who works with the Lake County prosecutor's office, said the office employs some exceptional victims' advocates, but it can be difficult for them to keep up because of the number of homicide cases. One of the foundation's goals is to provide extra support to families as needed, she said. Marsha Jung, whose 27-year-old son Dion Clayton was killed in Gary in 2020, talked to the group about her struggle for justice. The Indiana Court of Appeals overturned the murder conviction of the man accused of killing her son, and the Indiana Supreme Court plans to hear oral arguments Nov. 3 on the state's appeal of the decision. "I don't know how my life is going to change," Jung said. She's afraid the defendant knows where she lives, so she's in the process of selling her home, she said. Jung said she still talks to her son every day. "In my heart, my son is still there," she said. "And he's always going to be there." HOBART Three-time cancer survivor Mary Anne LaHayne is called the energizer bunny by her husband of 52 years. LaHayne, who has battled and defeated breast, Stage 4 Lymphoma and lung cancer, received a standing ovation and rounds of applause Sunday as she was presented the 2022 Dorothy Marie Gillespie Humanitarian Award. "I love life. I won't give up," LaHayne said. The award was presented Sunday by Ann M. Peters at the 21st annual Pink Ribbon Society Survivors' Celebration luncheon. Peters, the president and founder of the Pink Ribbon Society, praised LaHayne's courage and her dedication and commitment to the fight against breast cancer, including her service to numerous local and national chapters of the Y-Me National Breast Cancer Organization. "She is one of the strongest people I know," Peters said. The Dorothy Marie Gillespie Humanitarian Award, which was given for the first time last year, honors Gillespie, who died of COVID-19 in December 2020. Gillespie's own lumpectomy and treatment in 1987 became the catalyst for her involvement in the support of breast cancer patients, Peters said. A longtime nurse, Gillespie served as an Open-Door support group coordinator for Y-Me National Breast Cancer through Munster Community Hospital from 1990 to 2012. Peters, who wore a white dress and a smile that radiated warmth to all those who packed the Avalon Manor Banquet Center, is herself a breast cancer survivor. A lump was discovered in her breast in 1977 when Peters went to her doctor for what she called "a little enhancement." Her doctor agreed to the surgery but told her she first needed to have a little spot on her breast checked out, Peters said. The spot on her breast was diagnosed as stage 2 metastatic breast cancer. "If I didn't go to the doctor when I did, and if he did not insist I have it checked out, I probably wouldn't be here today," Peters said. The Pink Ribbon Society, founded in 2001, is an organization that helps promote breast cancer awareness. The organization serves men and women in Lake, Porter, Jasper and Newton counties whose lives have been touched by breast cancer. "Twenty-one years. That's a long time for a business, let alone for a not-for-profit. That says a lot for the quality of the organization and the need," Peters said. Peters said that not being able to hold the luncheon in 2019 and 2020 put a damper on fundraising as it is one of the group's major fundraisers. She said the organization was able to collect some $20,000 in funds from a fundraiser called SOS or Save Our Society while an additional $10,000 was received from GoFundMe. The majority of the donations received by the organization came from the community and businesses. To date, the Pink Ribbon Society has raised three-quarters of a million dollars, all of which goes back to the people in the four counties served. "When I look back, I feel so proud of what we do," Peters said. One of the longtime business supporters is the Times Media Company, a platinum sponsor of the luncheon along with McColly Real Estate and Strack & Van Til. Times Media Co. PresidentTom Schager told Peters that it has been an honor to be a part of the organization and that the company will continue to be in the future. "I guarantee we will be here for as long as we are needed," Schager said. Also honored were the 12 cancer survivors who are featured in the Pink Ribbon Society 2023 calendar each month featuring the honoree's story. The honorees are: Ms. January, Crystal Bixenman; Ms. February, D. Birdine Gilliam; Ms. March, Lisa Kavanaugh; Ms. April, Jodie Black; Ms. May, Sue Breymeyer; Ms. June, Deborah Jordan; Ms. July, Mary Ann Cunningham; Ms. August, Misty Goetz; Ms. September, Kate Philbin; Ms. October, Cynthia Finelli; Ms. November, Nicole Hipp; and Ms. December, Jackie Stutzman. In addition, 20 Celebrity Servers, prominent community leaders/volunteers, also were paired with experienced Avalon staff members to serve lunch to the attendees. Maura Rowley, who is secretary/treasurer of the Pink Ribbon Society, served as the event's master of ceremonies. Lola Stephens-McCann, 95, a 2005 honoree, served as vocalist. "I'm 95, and if I keep up the good music, I'll be here a long time," Stephens-McCann said. HAMMOND A U.S. District Court judge granted U.S. Steel's motion Friday to dismiss a lawsuit filed in 2018 over Clean Water Act violations at the company's Portage plant. U.S. District Chief Judge Jon DeGuilio found claims in a citizens lawsuit filed by Surfrider Foundation and Chicago were thoroughly litigated in a separate case brought against U.S. Steel by the government and resolved with a consent decree DeGuilio approved a year ago. Surfrider Foundation and Chicago were granted permission to intervene in the government's case and already litigated their claims as part of that lawsuit, the judge wrote. Surfrider Foundation and Chicago could have appealed DeGuilio's approval of the consent decree in September 2021, but they did not, the judge wrote. Surfrider Foundation said in a statement it was still reviewing the decision. "Surfrider Foundation is disappointed and disagrees with the court's ruling, particularly in light of U.S. Steel's continued permit violations after it fully implemented the governments' consent decree," the statement said. "However, Surfrider is proud to have filed our citizen suit to hold U.S. Steel accountable for their significant Clean Water Act violations, which started the process leading up to the governments' consent decree. "While we continued calling for improvements to the proposed consent decree, Surfriders intervention in the governments' case, along with the city of Chicago, resulted in meaningful improvements, with U.S. Steel agreeing to implement a local environmentally beneficial water quality monitoring project for the community negatively impacted by its pollution, and agreeing to improved public notification requirements in the event of future violations." An agreed order, which was adopted by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in 2021 for U.S. Steel permit violations after the consent decree was entered, could have been stronger, Surfrider said. However, the 2021 order "included a notably higher penalty than that included by the consent decree, and much higher than IDEM orders typically seem to include when public watchdogs like Surfrider are not at work," the statement said. The foundation was represented by attorneys at the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. U.S. Steel said in a statement it "greatly respects the decision of the court." "We remain committed to environmental stewardship and sustainability in Northwest Indiana and in all our communities," a U.S. Steel spokeswoman said. Attorneys for Indiana and the U.S. government began negotiating the settlement with U.S. Steel after its 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. Hexavalent chromium, the chemical featured in the movie "Erin Brockovich," is an occupational carcinogen and can be harmful to the eyes, skin and respiratory system, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As part of the consent decree, U.S. Steel agreed to pay a $601,242 civil penalty and more than $625,000 in response costs and damages to government agencies for the April 2017 spill. The company also agreed to conduct a three-year sampling program along Lake Michigan's shoreline at a cost of about $600,000. IDEM's May 2021 agreed order included a $950,000 civil penalty for wastewater permit violations from November 2018 to December 2020 at U.S. Steel Midwest. DeGuilio rejected the plaintiffs' arguments that U.S. Steel continuously violates the Clean Water Act by failing to properly maintain and operate its facility. The judge wrote he previously found the consent decree was adequate and violations that occurred after it was entered were not sufficient "to overcome the presumption of diligent prosecution in this case" and did not "deserve meaningful weight." "As noted in this court's order implementing the consent decree, the decree was not designed to be an instant cure for the issues at the Midwest Plant," DeGuilio wrote. "Rather it was designed to be an 'iterative process' of improvement and remediation." It is natural to expect some violations might occur after the implementation of the consent decree, and such violations should not be taken as evidence the decree was insufficient, DeGuilio's order states. IDEM demanded stipulated penalties for violations in September and October 2021, indicating "the decree's enforcement provisions are being utilized to hold U.S. Steel accountable and deter future violations," the judge wrote. DeGuilio found a May violation, which was disputed by U.S. Steel, also deserved little weight when considering whether the consent decree is effective. At the invitation of the United Nations (UN) Land-Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs) Ministers of Foreign Affairs Meeting held on 22 September 2022 during the UN General Assembly in New York, the Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO), Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, spoke about Customs and the WCOs contribution to LLDCs. He also participated in bilateral meetings during his visit to UN Headquarters. In his speech, Dr. Mikuriya emphasized the important role played by Customs in connecting LLDCs at borders and the WCOs contribution to developing relevant standards and tools related to transit and interoperability and to providing capacity building support. He listed the specific actions that the WCO had taken since the Almaty Programme of Action in 2003 and the ensuing Vienna Programme of Action (2014-2024). The meeting was held in preparation for the next framework of support for LLDCs to which the WCO has committed to further contribute. Secretary General Mikuriya made the most of his visit to attend a series of talks at UN Headquarters. He had a meeting with the UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu, to discuss ways to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction under UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540. He also presented the WCOs agenda regarding Fragile Borders and Customs activities in conflict situations. UN High Representative Nakamitsu welcomed Customs contribution to implementing UNSCR 1540 and, more broadly, to strengthening border security and supporting the Fragile Borders concept. She also thanked the WCO for organizing the upcoming Global Conference on Fragile Borders in Nigeria. In addition, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya had a meeting with the Secretary General of the Developing Eight Organization for Economic Cooperation (D-8), His Excellency Ambassador Isiaka Abdulqadir Imam, to explore future areas of cooperation. The D-8, comprising eight countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Republic of Turkiye), aims at enhancing economic cooperation through various mechanisms, including the establishment of preferential trade agreements, and therefore requires Customs cooperation. HOBART The Shared Ethics Advisory Commission (SEAC) will hold its 2022 Ethics Summit on Oct. 27 at Avalon Manor in Hobart. Admission is free and open to the public. Preregistration is now open on SEACs website: sharedethics.com. Registration and breakfast are at 8 a.m. The program follows at 8:30 with a panel discussion moderated by Jose Padilla, president of Valparaiso University. Panel members include Indiana Inspector General David Cook, Porter County Commissioner Laura Shurr Blaney and Michael Tolbert, past president of the Indiana State Bar Association. The program will end late morning after a group discussion of relevant ethics case studies. Founded in 2005, the Shared Ethics Advisory Commission represents local government entities of Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties, which have voluntarily committed themselves to the Shared Code of Ethics & Values. These cities, towns and counties work together to achieve the commissions primary goals of heightening awareness of ethics issues within municipal government and assisting municipal employees with the practical tools to make ethical decisions. This mission is accomplished through a variety of methods, including regular training sessions, printed training materials, advocacy articles and an ongoing collaborative effort to enhance ethical behavior within participating governments. Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties are members of the commission as are the municipalities of Crown Point, East Chicago, Gary, Hobart, Lake Station, Portage, Valparaiso, Whiting, Burns Harbor, Cedar Lake, Chesterton, Dyer, Hebron, Highland, Lowell, Merrillville, Munster, Ogden Dunes, St John and Schererville. Saul Kripke, from the apex of analytic philosophy, inspires those around him who are committed to the partnership between philosophy and mathematics. Surprisingly, Kripke himself thinks this partnership has been overblown. Many people think that philosophers have become mathematicians, he says, but most philosophers are far from being experts in the field. Only a handful of philosophers, including Kripke, attended the last meeting of the Association for Symbolic Logic, and Kripke believes the inevitable has already come about : The mathematicians have taken over logic after the philosophers nurtured it for 75 years. Once again philosophy is crowded out. (Philosophy is the mother of sciences, says Prof. Morris Lazerowitz, but she herself is sterile.) Kripke is equally skeptical of any claim that analytic philosophy has thorough scientific objectivity a claim that enables them to dismiss the desire for a more traditional philosophy as emotional and therefore unscientific. Kripke believes that philosophers do not escape their desires entirely; they only suppress them. Take Quine [W.V.O. Quine of Harvard, the senior eminence of American logic]. I think parts of his views are a kind of materialism or physicalism in which everything is physical and behavioristic there are only physical causes of behavior. And with that view comes the view that philosophy should be a scientific enterprise, continuous with science. And that's a view in his work that's almost not even argued for, hut assumed at the beginning. And I should think that's highly personal, in a way. The notion that philosophy should be conii units with science can itself he sort of a religion. Kripke shies away from the scientific sellimage, but this does not mean he is ready to minister to the world with incantations. He does not believe in consumer philosophy. Some people from outside philosophy want something thats emotionally gripping, lie says, with no corresponding thought to the analysis behind it The mood has horn strongly against that. And Ive often thought dial certain views got a lot of it because people felt they were in some wave exe???ng rather than because of the quality of the argument behind them. Among analytic philosophers. the prevailing view is that their isolation iS normal They scott in our image of a past when statesman and ordinary citizens kept abreast of philosophical developments, when politicians got together to discuss Montesquneu instead of slush funds. They say philosophy Was always too difficult for anyone but the specialist. Intellectuals only pretended to comprehend quality work. Some philosophers, such as Hilary Putnam of Harvard. go so tar as to argue that Isolation from the outside world is itself a sign of strengthif outsiders could understand enough to get interested, It would mean the profession had gone soft. Kripke stops short of this Vince Lombardi standard of philosophical fitness. He thinks it is unfortunate that there is so little lay interest in modern philosophy, but he also believes outsiders have unrealistic expectations: The mindbody problem is still around in philosophy, but it probably wouldnt help any sophomore through his identity crisis or help him decide whether to he a Communist or a Catholic, and it probably wouldnt appear as the theme in many novels. There are archscientists in philosophy who would like to see the linguistic and logical tools polished to perfection, however long it takes, before tackling the old stumpers again. There are also romantics around who would like to bring forth some earthshaking new world view by natural concentration, the way a hen lays an egg. As preposterous as these extremes may seem, there is precious little middle ground. In the past few years, two philosophers have attempted to apply new analytic techniques to general theories in political philosophy. John Rawls's A Theory of Justice and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia are synthetic approaches that sparked attention both within philosophy and outside it. Both men are highly respected in the profession, Rawls is one of those rare people who is almost universally admired for his personal qualities and also fur his painstaking scholarship, and Nozick is respected for the analytic skills that took him to top positions at Princeton, Rockefeller and Harvard. Yet philosophers tend to he polite about these books, Rawls's work is in the Adlai Stevenson spirit of social obligation, buttressed mainly by modern economic utility theory. And Nozick's book lies somewhere in the ThoreauAyn Rand spectrum of individual rights, buoyed by symbolic logic. In both cases, the theory is hardly new and the analysis plays a secondary role. The analysis looks impressive and scientific, but it is nevertheless a kind of chrome plating over rather standard models of liberal and conservative Grave peril awaits any philosopher who wanders outside the safety of technical work. Even Kripke is not im mune. When word that Kripke had granted an interview to The New York Times Magazine passed quickly around the New York convention, a number of philosophers pressed eagerly to learn of his thoughts. (Timidity and decorum have prevented most philosophers from asking Kripke much. He remains something of a mystery figure, and informal chatter from and about him is highly prized.) One professor asked if he had spoken of Watergate. Kripke had in fact remarked on the hypocrisy of certain media commentators; they lionized Nixon after the 1972 election even though they had known him for years and the basic facts of Watergate were already available. Then they professed to be shocked and dismayed when the scandal came to a head. Upon hearing of Kripke's remark, the inquiring philosopher, who by his own account was overwhelmed with admiration for Kripke's truth lecture, instantly lost his humility. Then Professor Kripke should confine himself to modal logic, he said icily, drawing himself up to full height. For that strikes me as false. For months, administration officials have said they could think of almost no circumstances in which a nuclear detonation by Russia would result in a nuclear response. But there has been discussion of several non-nuclear military responses using conventional weapons, for example, against a base or unit from which the attack originated, or giving the Ukrainian forces the weaponry to launch that counterattack. In the minds of many officials, any use of nuclear weapons would require a forceful military response. But many of the options under discussion also involve nonmilitary steps, casting Mr. Putin as an international pariah who broke the nuclear taboo for the first time in 77 years. It would be a chance, some officials say, to bring China and India, along with much of Asia and Africa, into the effort to impose sanctions on Russia, cutting off some of the biggest markets that remain for its oil and gas. Mr. Putins nuclear threats have hung over the war from its opening days, when he publicly ordered that nuclear forces be placed on a heightened alert status. (There is no evidence it ever happened.) More recently the shelling, apparently by Russian forces, of Ukraines Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has raised the specter of deliberately turning a commercial facility into a potential dirty bomb. Shelling near the plant has continued in recent days, though the reactors have now been shut down, lowering the risk of a runaway nuclear accident. On Wednesday, for the first time in more than six months, Mr. Putin revived his nuclear threats, saying he could use all arms available to him in the war remarks interpreted by officials in both Russia and the West as a veiled threat about the use of nuclear weapons. If Russia feels its territorial integrity is threatened, we will use all defense methods at our disposal, and this is not a bluff, he said. Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the winds can also turn in their direction. Mr. Sullivan said in several interviews that he was taking Mr. Putins nuclear threats seriously saying at one point that the United States was preparing for every contingency in the conflict and working to deter Russia from using nuclear weapons. We do have the capacity to speak directly at senior levels and be clear about our messages to them, he said, adding: Russia understands very well what the United States would do in response to nuclear weapons use in Ukraine because we have spelled it out for them. Video released by Colorado authorities on Friday shows the moment when a freight train smashed into a patrol car in which a handcuffed woman was sitting, as the vehicle straddled the railroad tracks following her arrest on Sept. 16. The woman, Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20, of Greeley, Colo., was seriously injured and continued to be treated at a hospital, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which was investigating. She was in a Platteville Police Department patrol car when the collision took place; Fort Lupton Police had also responded to the scene and participated in the arrest. Paul Wilkinson, the lawyer for Ms. Rios-Gonzalez, told The Denver Post that the impact left her with nine broken ribs, a fractured sternum and back and head injuries. She also needed surgery for a broken arm, according to the newspaper. She saw it coming and could hear the horn, Mr. Wilkinson told The Denver Post. She was trying to get the police officers attention, screaming at them. She tried unlocking the door. She had her hands behind her back and was frantically trying to unlock the door. This is a sad day for the country, Debora Serracchiani, a leader of the Democratic Party, which underperformed and will now lead the opposition, said in a statement Monday. Ms. Melonis victory showed that the allure of nationalism of which she is a strong advocate remained undimmed, despite the breakthroughs by E.U. nations in coming together to pool sovereignty and resources in recent years, first to combat the coronavirus pandemic and then Mr. Putins initiation of the largest conflict in Europe since World War II. How, and how deeply, a right-wing coalition in Italy led by Ms. Meloni could threaten that cohesion is now the foremost concern of the European establishment. Ms. Meloni has staunchly, and consistently, supported Ukraine and its right to defend itself against Russian aggression and has vowed to supply Kyiv with arms if she were prime minister. But her coalition partners Matteo Salvini, the firebrand leader of the League, and the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi have shown themselves partial to Mr. Putin, questioning sanctions and echoing his propaganda. That fracture, and the bitter competition between the right-wing leaders, could prove fatal for the coalition, leading to a short-lived government. But some political analysts say Ms. Meloni, having attained power, may be tempted to soften her support for sanctions, which are unpopular in much of Italy. If she does, there is concern that Italy could be the weak link that breaks the European Unions strong united position against Russia. Biden administration officials have warned Russian officials in private conversations of catastrophic consequences if Moscow uses nuclear weapons in its invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. national security adviser said on Sunday. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Wednesday that he could use all arms available to him in the war remarks interpreted by officials in both Russia and the West as a veiled threat about the use of nuclear weapons. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said in televised interviews on Sunday that the United States has detailed its potential response to the use of nuclear weapons to Russian officials, though he declined to make those details public. Appearing on ABCs This Week, Mr. Sullivan said the administration is taking Mr. Putins nuclear threats seriously preparing for every contingency in the conflict and working to deter Russia from using nuclear weapons. The Santa Fe County District Attorneys Office has said that up to four people, including the actor Alec Baldwin, could be charged in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film Rust last year if prosecutors decide criminal charges are warranted. The district attorneys office speculated on the possible charges in a request to state officials late last month that asked for additional funding to cover the costs that would be incurred if charges were brought, which would result in several high-profile trials. While the district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, made it clear in her funding request that her office had not yet decided whether to bring charges If charges are warranted, she began one sentence the funding request also went into greater detail than she has in the past, noting that her office could charge up to four people. A document attached to the funding request said, One of the possible defendants is well-known movie actor Alec Baldwin. A web search led her to Albert Ayler, whose roaring, quavering tone and palpable thirst for transcendence have made him an icon to generations of freethinking tenor players. Amba immediately identified not just with his music but also with the resistance he faced in his own home. She heard an interview where Ayler recalled practicing saxophone in his parents house. He comes downstairs and his mother tells him, I dont think youre my child; I think they made a mistake at the hospital, and he just cried, just feeling like, people arent accepting me, she said. I really understood that. After high school, Amba attended the San Francisco Conservatory, where her allegiance to free jazz put her at odds with her teachers. I love straight-ahead, she said, referring to the mainstream of jazz. But unfortunately, its just not the song in my heart. After two years, she dropped out. Growing up, Amba was intensely drawn to religion, but the absolutism of Christianity turned her off. In San Francisco, a fellow musician gave her a book on Advaita Vedanta, a tradition that embraces all faiths as equally valid. As soon as I found it, she said, it was a huge turning point for every single thing in my life. She dropped out of the conservatory and spent time at Vedanta centers on the West Coast. Within the community, she was given the name Amba, a Sanskrit word meaning mother. (She has added her given middle name, Zoh.) She moved back to Tennessee, but in the fall of 2020, after being invited by a mutual acquaintance, she made daylong drives from Kingsport to Harlem to meet and eventually study with David Murray, the master saxophonist who has reconciled the whole history of jazz tenor, from swing to free, during a wildly prolific career. We would play really high together and just scream on the horn together in our lessons, and hes like, Come on, give me more, Amba said. Hes the one who encouraged, like, Dont stop, keep pushing, let me hear it, go farther. Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Sept. 26-Oct. 2. Details and times are subject to change. Monday NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS (2007) 8:30 p.m. on Freeform. This movie, the second in the National Treasure franchise (with a new series, National Treasure: Edge of History, coming in December), stars Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Gates. He is the great-great-grandson of Thomas Gates, a man who has been accused of helping to assassinate President Lincoln after being named on a resurfaced page fragment from John Wilkes Booths diary. From there, the younger Gates enlists the help of his friend Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) to prove that his relative is innocent, and the two go on a wild goose chase that ultimately leads them to Cibola, the mythical city of gold. Tuesday BACHELOR IN PARADISE 8 p.m. on ABC. After a pretty disastrous Bachelorette finale last week, Paradise, the show where castoffs from the franchise gather on a beach in Mexico to mingle, might be a breath of fresh air. Because cast members on this spinoff are often able to spend much more time together, the success rate of couples who come off this show engaged, versus the ones from The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, tends to be higher. Jesse Palmer will host the show following a slew of interim hosts last season, including David Spade and Lil Jon and Wells Adams will be the official bartender on the beach. SEOUL Interpol has issued a red notice for the search and arrest of Do Kwon, the South Korean co-founder of Terraform Labs, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office said on Monday. The South Korean authorities had requested assistance from the global police agency to trace Mr. Kwons whereabouts earlier this month. Mr. Kwon and his company faced investigations by the South Korean government after the value of his cryptocurrencies, Luna and TerraUSD, plummeted and contributed to a $300 billion crash across the crypto economy in May. The plunge caused an uproar among investors and led to calls for an inquiry into Mr. Kwon and his company after allegations of tax evasion and fraud. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Kwon and five others last week on charges of violating the countrys financial laws. Mr. Kwon was believed to be in Singapore at the time. According to local media in Singapore, the police say he is no longer there. Mr. Kwon took to Twitter after the South Korean arrest warrant was issued to say that he was willing to cooperate with investigators. I am not on the run or anything similar, he wrote. According to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, prosecutors responded by saying that Mr. Kwon was obviously on the run. BEIJING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The China Development Bank has provided another 150 billion yuan (about 21.45 billion U.S. dollars) to support major infrastructure projects, according to the bank. The funds are part of the additional 300 billion yuan of infrastructure investment announced by the government in late August, and have financed 421 infrastructure projects, the bank said. As of Sept. 20, the bank has channeled a total of 360 billion yuan of such investment funds into over 800 infrastructure projects. At a State Council executive meeting last month, China pledged to increase the 300-billion-yuan policy-backed and development-oriented financial instruments for specific projects by another 300-plus billion yuan. The bank said it will continue to ensure solid work is carried out on fund operations and post-investment management, and it will push for concrete progress in the projects. If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit Mention Two-Buck Chuck, the nickname for the famously cheap Charles Shaw wines made by Bronco Wine Company, and you are likely to get two completely different reactions from wine drinkers. On the one side are people who see it as a bottle for those who want to enjoy wine without spending a lot of money. On the other are people who see it as a cheap wine whose producer used it to make a cynical case that those aspiring to better (and more expensive) wines constituted a snobbish elite. The producer, Fred Franzia, the head of Bronco, died on Sept. 13 at 79, having sold more than a billion bottles of Charles Shaw, the company said. Mr. Franzias death is an opportunity to consider the meaning of Two-Buck Chuck and what its production and popularity might say about American wine culture. First, I will say that I was not a fan of the wine or the man. My predecessor as New York Times wine columnist, Frank J. Prial, was kinder when he wrote about Two-Buck Chuck in 2003: Nondescript would not be too harsh a characterization. Nothing wrong with that: Wine is supposed to accompany food and Charles Shaw will do that quite adequately. But falling case numbers may soon lead these men to believe that the threat has passed. We cant ask people to change their behavior forever, Dr. Daskalakis said. That didnt really work with H.I.V., so its not going to work here, either. Vaccination is likely to be a more effective containment strategy in the long term, he added. As of Sept. 20, health officials had administered nearly 700,000 doses of Jynneos in the 48 jurisdictions for which data were available. While that is a substantial improvement over the early weeks of the outbreak, it accounts for only 22 percent of the doses needed to protect the 1.6 million Americans estimated to be at high risk. Even as infections decline, the proportion of cases among Black and Hispanic men has grown to 70 percent in mid-September from 37 percent in late May. Yet Black men have received less than 9 percent of the doses administered so far, and Hispanic men about 16 percent. Federal health officials are intensifying efforts to reach high-risk groups and have vaccinated at least 11,000 attendees at large gatherings where Black and Hispanic men congregate, such as Atlanta Black Pride. The C.D.C. has announced a new program that would make up to 10,000 vials of vaccine or 50,000 doses, under the new dose-sparing strategy available to communities where hesitancy, language barriers, immigration status or other obstacles prevent widespread vaccination. Eligibility for the vaccine is scattershot by location, and the criteria often opaque, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Some states, like Indiana and New Mexico, offer no information online about who qualifies. Laboratory and health care workers who may be exposed to the virus are eligible in only 18 states and cities. Many men at high risk have opted for a single dose, which may not be sufficiently protective. Although the proportion of second doses has increased, so far 77 percent of administered doses are first doses. But some clinicians have pointed to the rising demand and the turmoil of adolescent development as reasons for doctors to slow down before offering irreversible procedures. Although medical experts believe the likelihood to be small, some patients come to regret their surgeries. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an international group of gender experts who write best practices for the field, had been planning for months to set new age minimums for most gender-related surgeries, including endorsing top surgery for adolescents age 15 and up. Although the guidelines are not binding, they provide a standard for doctors across the world. But this month, the group abruptly withdrew the proposals, a shift reflecting both political pressures and a lack of consensus in the medical community. There are no official statistics on how many minors receive top surgeries each year in the United States. The New York Times surveyed leading pediatric gender clinics across the country: Eleven clinics said they carried out a total of 203 procedures on minors in 2021, and many reported long waiting lists. Another nine clinics declined to respond, and six said that they referred patients to surgeons in private practice. Dr. Gallagher, whose unusual embrace of platforms like TikTok has made her one of the most visible gender-affirming surgeons in the country, said she performed 13 top surgeries on minors last year, up from a handful a few years ago. One hospital, Kaiser Permanente Oakland, carried out 70 top surgeries in 2019 on teenagers age 13 to 18, up from five in 2013, according to researchers who led a recent study. I cant honestly think of another field where the volume has exploded like that, said Dr. Karen Yokoo, a retired plastic surgeon at the hospital. Experts said that adolescent top surgeries were less frequent than cosmetic breast procedures performed on teenagers who were not transgender. Around 3,200 girls age 18 to 19 received cosmetic breast implants in 2020, according to surveys of members of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and another 4,700 teenagers age 13 to 19 had breast reductions. (Surveys from other groups have shown that girls under 18 also receive implants, though the ASPS does not recommend breast augmentation for minors.) In this lesson, you will learn about the efforts of Republican governors to provoke outrage over record arrivals at the border and what it has meant for the migrants caught in the middle. In Going Further activities, we invite you to share your thoughts and opinions on the story and to learn more about the human impact of the migrant busing crisis. Warm-Up Before reading the featured article, watch the three-minute video, G.O.P. Governors Transfer Migrants to Faraway States, published on Sept. 15, at the top of this lesson. Then, in writing or through discussion with a partner, respond to the following prompts: What are three facts you learned from the video? What are two questions you have about the situation? What does the video make you think or feel? Questions for Writing and Discussion Read the featured article, then answer the following questions: 1. How did nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants end up in Marthas Vineyard, Mass., on Sept. 14? Why is the situation getting so much national attention? 2. Why are Republican governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona transporting migrants from the southern border to Democratic strongholds? 3. What has been the impact of the migrant arrivals in places such as Marthas Vineyard, New York City and the nations capital? How have local communities and leaders responded? 4. Who are the migrants involved in the transfers by bus and plane and why are so many from Venezuela? Describe the journey to the southern border of the United States for migrants like Deilinyer Mendoza, 25? Everyone agrees that early childhood education is important, but with limited resources, the city has to decide what to prioritize. Adamss schools chancellor told you there have been a lot of messes to try to clean up. Its an astonishingly blunt statement. What did he mean? He was very critical of the Education Department under Mayor de Blasio. He said the work force was too large, child care centers were not being paid on time, and there were too many empty 3-K seats in certain neighborhoods that werent being filled. The whole child care industry has been destabilized by the pandemic families left the city and workers quit; some parents were afraid to send their children to group child care settings because of the coronavirus. I think that education officials under Mayor de Blasio would say they did their best in difficult circumstances and theyre proud of the pre-K and 3-K programs. With the city heading toward potential budget problems as federal pandemic funds run out, is 3-K an easy target for cutbacks? Yes, the expansion of 3-K was funded with federal pandemic aid and needs a long-term funding source. If Mayor Adams has to make difficult choices, he might cut the budget for 3-K. He has already cut funding for public schools. That angered a lot of parents. Critics say he should cut the police budget instead. But hes a former police captain who has been supportive of the police and has pledged to reduce crime. What about the 3-K providers that are owed millions of dollars? Has the city been slow to send the checks? Is there any way to tell whose fault that might be? Jim Florio, who was elected governor of New Jersey in 1989 by persuading voters that he would not raise state taxes but who then pushed through a record increase shortly after taking office, incurring public wrath that led to his defeat in his bid for a second term, died on Sunday. He was 85. He died of heart failure in a hospital in Voorhees, N.J., his son Chris said. The nation was facing a worsening economy and New Jersey the prospect of a yawning budget deficit when Mr. Florio, then an eight-term Democratic congressman, insisted during his campaign that he would balance the budget only by cutting waste in state spending. But two months after taking office in January 1990 he proposed a budget that called for sharp increases in income and sales taxes totaling more than $2.5 billion, in addition to deep cuts in most state services. He had no choice, he said. On taking a close look at the states books after he took office, he said, it was plain that just cutting spending would not be enough to balance the budget. Mr. Florio said tax-revenue projections by the previous Republican administration of Gov. Thomas H. Kean Sr. had been grossly overstated, even phony, and made even the deep spending cuts he proposed insufficient by themselves. State cannabis regulators plan to issue 150 recreational licenses this fall, including 70 in New York City. An additional 25 licenses will go to nonprofits serving people who have been arrested or incarcerated. New Yorks approach to dispensary licensing differs from other states, which have either barred people with certain criminal convictions or set aside a portion of licenses for people affected by the drug war. It is the first state to put those who were punished for marijuana offenses ahead of everyone else in the application process for owning dispensaries. New Yorks cannabis industry is expected to grow to include some 900 retail licenses and generate $4.2 billion in revenue by 2027, according to an industry report. Patrick Phelan, the former chief of police in Greece, a Western New York suburb of Rochester, and the executive director of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police, said that putting people with convictions ahead of people who had not broken the law seemed unfair. His organization opposes legalization over traffic-safety concerns and does not have an official stance on the licensing efforts. State officials said they would not disclose how many people had started or completed applications for adult-use dispensary licenses before the Monday deadline. Applications doubled over the last week, from less than 250 on Monday to about 500 on Sunday, officials said. Im really feeling like New Yorkers saw that we decided to take a different approach and they have supported it, he said. Lost Time New York legalized recreational cannabis in March 2021, but for six months Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo tussled with lawmakers over who should lead the newly created Office of Cannabis Management and its governing panel, the Cannabis Control Board. The gap between what the administration is claiming as its foreign policy objectives, and what it is actually willing to do, is a serious problem for American security, for Russia and beyond. In mid-September President Biden said for the fourth time that should China invade Taiwan, the United States would send troops to defend it. And, for the fourth time, administration officials claimed this obvious change in policy represented no change in policy. The Biden administration bungling its messaging is bad enough. But worse are the real gaps in capability that call into question whether the United States could indeed defend Taiwan. The ships, troop numbers, planes and missile defenses in the Pacific are a poor match for Chinas capability. The director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, has assessed that the threat to Taiwan between now and 2030 is acute, yet the defense budget is not geared to providing improved capabilities until the mid-2030s. More broadly, the Biden administration isnt funding an American military that can adequately carry out our defense commitments, a dangerous posture for a great power. The Democratic-led Congress added $29 billion last year and $45 billion this year to the Department of Defense budget request, a measure of just how inadequate the Biden budget is. Further, though the Defense Department knows industry needs multiyear contracts to keep production lines open, the Biden defense budget is long on research and development, short on purchases of weapons and ammunition. Our supplies to Ukraine have revealed unacceptable shortfalls of munitions in U.S. inventories and industrial incapacity to resupply. Nor are the deficiencies just military. In fact, the absence of an international economic policy helping the United States and other countries reduce their reliance on China may prove an even bigger problem. Although its strategy relies fundamentally on allied support to counter China, the Biden administrations foreign policy for the middle class, as outlined on the campaign trail and by the national security adviser, appears to be indistinguishable from Trump administration trade protectionism. The current administration allowed trade promotion authority from Congress to lapse, wont rejoin the trans-Pacific trade agreement, has aggrieved Asian allies with the protectionism of the Inflation Reduction Act and offers only vague promises of future negotiations. It is not a recipe for success. Nor are these the only gaps between stated policy and the willingness and ability to carry out the policy. The administration appears to lack an effective strategy for the dangers posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea beyond the empty statements that we will not allow North Korea to have nuclear weapons, though experts believe the leadership in Pyongyang may have dozens of them. Or look to Iran, where the administration pursued a strategy known as more for more more sanctions relief for more constraints on the Iranian nuclear program and yet it cannot even get a return to the 2015 terms from Iran. Moreover, war with Iran is surely a non-starter for a president who abandoned Afghanistan, and is effectively indifferent to the fate of Iraq and Syria. Odds are that no one is going to drop out of Stanford University and get a certificate in somatic bodywork just to take advantage of the income-driven repayment plan. At the margin, though, some people could be more likely to enroll in programs that have poor career potential because their net cost is falling a lot. That would make those schools richer and taxpayers poorer. I understand that the United States needs all kinds of occupations, not just those that make the most money. Health care industry occupations, for example, might need a subsidy. But income-driven repayment doesnt differentiate between necessary and less necessary occupations. China isnt catching up to the United States because it has better-trained cosmetologists. By making it possible for many more students to stop paying without being considered in default, Bidens plan guts a rule that prohibits institutions from participating in federal grant and loan programs if too many of their students default on their loans. Combined with auto-enrollment of some borrowers, this eliminates the last remaining policy with any teeth that keeps predatory schools out of the loan program, Looney said. (In a response, the Department of Education wrote that the rule captures something on the order of 10 to 15 colleges a year that are really tiny.) At many large for-profit schools, Looney wrote, 30 to 75 percent of student loans are returned to students in cash to cover things like living expenses. The Biden plan strengthens the lure of schools that offer lots of cash back, because for many students, the money never has to be repaid. Bidens plan is less generous to graduate programs, which soak up a lot of student loans. Since 2006, graduate students have been eligible for Grad PLUS loans, which supplement other types of student loans, enabling many grad students to borrow the entire cost of their studies. Done right, income-driven repayment can be a form of social insurance. People borrow with the expectation that they will repay in full, but theres a safety net in case things dont work out for them. One flaw in Bidens plan is that many people will not expect to repay their loans in full and will behave accordingly. The other flaw is that too many of the programs that absorb all their loan money arent worth it. With a candidate like Mr. Rapini running in a state like Connecticut, where the last Republican secretary of state left office in 1995 (and the last one before that left office in 1959), it would be easy enough to mistake his nomination as unimportant. Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at U.C.L.A. and a leading election law expert, cautioned anyone who might ignore such candidacies. First of all, just running these races politicizes even further the office of secretary of state, he told me. Additionally, Mr. Hasen said that having a candidate on a statewide ballot making constant false claims of massive voter fraud cant help but create more doubt about election integrity in the minds of a lot of people. Although President Biden carried Connecticut by over 20 points in 2020, about 715,000 residents voted for Mr. Trump. If national estimates of support for Mr. Trumps election lies were to apply in Connecticut, that would mean as many as half a million voters dont trust elections there already. A statewide candidacy by someone so dedicated to pressing unfounded claims even if unsuccessful could, at the least, solidify that election skepticism. Its crucial to remember what the office actually means: In Connecticut, as in many states across the country, the secretary of state is the lead elections official. As the commissioner of elections, Connecticuts secretary of state is responsible for administering its election laws and, under federal law, doing the same for federal elections. Mr. Rapini has made clear that he would use the position to focus on election security, as he wrote on the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection. This would be a marked change from the former secretary of state, who was elected three times and focused on making voter registration and casting a ballot more convenient and obstacle free for every eligible Connecticut citizen. Stephanie Thomas, a first-term Connecticut state representative and longtime nonprofit fund-raising and strategy consultant, is the Democratic nominee facing Mr. Rapini in November. As a nonprofit fund-raiser, the adage used to be if you send someone an email three times, they think they know your organization and theyre more likely to give. So we know that repetition can sometimes prove effective, even if the message is incorrect, she said in an interview last month. This type of false narrative just chips away at the fabric of the integrity of our elections, and I think that is just as dangerous as someone in a more reliably red state saying the election was stolen. One of the people already in these offices who went through the 2020 election and its aftermath agrees. Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state and the chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, is running for re-election this year. She told me she worries about a wide range of state and local dangers to voting rights, including threats to election workers, excuses for voting restrictions and local election security breaches, because local officials embrace conspiracies and become security threats themselves. The point that harm doesnt just build up but also trickles down is what most worries Sam Oliker-Friedland, who previously worked on voting rights cases at the Justice Department and is now the executive director at the Institute for Responsive Government. Shreveport pastor H. Calvin Austin shares a history lesson with onlookers at the site where he was arrested by Shreveport Police on September 23, 1963. Austin was leading a group of students from Booker T. Washington High School to downtown Shreveport when he and others were arrested about a block from the school. ROME It happened here, again. Nearly 100 years since the March on Rome, Italy on Sunday voted in a right-wing coalition headed by a party directly descended from Benito Mussolinis fascist regime. This is, to put it mildly, concerning. Yet the most pervasive worry is not that Giorgia Melonis Brothers of Italy party will reinstitute fascism in Italy whatever that would mean. Its that a government led by her will transform Italy into an electoral autocracy, along the lines of Viktor Orbans Hungary. During the campaign, the center-left Democratic Party Brothers of Italys main opponent obsessively invoked Hungary as Italys destiny under Ms. Melonis rule. The contest, they repeated, was one between democracy and authoritarianism. In the end, the Democrats anguished alarm for democracy failed to persuade voters: At an early reckoning, the party took 19 percent against the Brothers of Italys 26 percent. There are many reasons for that. One surely is that the picture they drew of Ms. Meloni, as a would-be tyrant taking an ax to Italian democracy and ushering in an era of illiberalism, was unconvincing. For all the rhetorical radicalism and historic extremism of her party, the fact remains that it will not be operating in circumstances of its choosing. Tethered to the European Union and constrained by Italys political system, Ms. Meloni wont have much room to maneuver. She couldnt turn Rome into Budapest even if she wanted to. The major bulwark against autocracy in Italy can be summed up in one word: Europe. Our fragile economy set to grow, in a best-case scenario sketched out by the International Monetary Fund, only 0.7 percent in 2023 is heavily dependent on European institutions. Beyond the usual web of economic ties, the country is the biggest beneficiary of a European Commission-led recovery fund set to disperse in the next four years over 200 billion euros, or $195 billion, in grants and loans. Crucially, this economy-saving aid, without which the country may well spiral into recession, is conditional on respecting democratic norms. Any step down an Orban-like path would imperil Italys entire economy, surely a no-go for the new government. Gail: I dont think the news that Letitia James accused him of fudging his financial statements will upset the base theyve always known this is a guy who responded to the World Trade Center terror attack by bragging that his tower was now the highest building in Lower Manhattan. Bret: A graceless building, by the way, far surpassed by the Chrysler Building, for those who care about architectural rivalries. Gail: Maybe I need to stop obsessing about this and take a look at the rest of the public world. Anything got your attention in particular? Bret: Am I allowed a rant? Gail: Bret, rants are what we do. Bret: The investigation of Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, which looks like its about to fall apart, is an F.B.I. disgrace for the ages. It should force heads to roll. And Congress needs to appoint a Church-style committee or commission to reform the bureau. After the Ted Stevens fiasco, James Comeys disastrous interventions with Hillary Clintons emails, and the bureau misrepresenting facts to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as part of its investigation of Trump and Russia, something dramatic has to change to save the F.B.I. from continuing to lose public trust. Gail: Are you upset by the investigation or the fact that the investigation is failing? Bret: Im upset by a longstanding pattern of incompetence tinged by what feels like political bias. I dont like Gaetzs politics or persona any more than you do. But what we seem to have here is a high-profile politician being convicted in the court of public opinion of some of the most heinous behavior imaginable trafficking a minor for sex until the Justice Department realizes two years late that its case has fallen apart. We have a presumption of innocence in this country because we tend to err the most when we assume the worst about the people we like the least. Security can be improved later, but only if necessary. If youve survived the start-up world and become a runaway success, youve had to scale to accommodate your customers or users. Youve been forced to improve performance and reliability, because your new higher-profile customers demand more. Youve had to make your internal systems work for your hundreds and maybe thousands of employees. Youre now an established company, and you had better look and act that way. But in all of that, youve never had incentive to upgrade your security. The quick-and-dirty systems you built in the beginning still work, and your customers or users dont know whats going on behind the curtain. Your employees are expected not to tell anyone, like chefs being told to stay in the kitchen. And truth be told, its expensive and time-consuming to rebuild everything from the ground up with security in mind. This is something I see again and again in companies, and not only in start-ups. Its even the same thing that the former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko (better known as Mudge) is accusing that company of doing. Companies large and small skimp on security when the market doesnt reward doing any better. The result is that hackers have an easier time breaking into networks, and once they break in there are few controls that prevent them from accessing everything. Some companies do manage to make the change. We saw it with Microsoft, when Bill Gates changed the companys direction in 2002 with a now-famous memo. Googles shift to a more robust security culture happened in 2010, after being hacked by attackers in China. The lack of incentives obviously has profound implications for the security of all of our personal data, stored by a seemingly unknowable number of different companies who are all collecting dossiers on our movements and habits. It also has national security implications. We know that countries are stealing as much data as possible for their own purposes. China, in particular, is apparently using its resources collecting data on Americans in general. State-sponsored Chinese hackers are believed to be behind the theft of personal data on U.S. government employees, especially those with security clearances, from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 2015. Hackers suspected of working on behalf of the countrys civilian spy agency were also apparently behind the theft of data on 500 million guests from the Marriott hotel chain in 2018 and about 80 million former and current patients and employees from the health insurer Anthem in 2015. The principal intent of campaigns is to give voice to the candidates positions on major issues. When casting their ballots, voters consider personality, party allegiance, character traits and other factors. In Pennsylvanias Senate election, a candidates personal health has come to the fore, and the outcome could be a key in determining control of the Senate. In my experience, politicians who are not fully transparent in disclosing their health information can become vulnerable to the spread of misinformation, rumors and antics that detract from the candidates stances on major issues. That risk is playing out in the Fetterman-Oz race in Pennsylvania. It began in May, when the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, experienced a stroke, a common affliction. But his campaign has undergone criticism for delays in disclosing relevant health information. It was learned that Mr. Fetterman was diagnosed with a serious abnormal heart rhythm, atrial fibrillation, in 2017. Since that diagnosis, Mr. Fetterman had failed to take prescribed medications and to visit a doctor until the stroke emergency. After his stroke, Mr. Fetterman received a pacemaker-defibrillator for another heart ailment, cardiomyopathy, which reduces the organs strength in pumping blood to the body. During recovery he has stammered, spoken haltingly and acknowledged difficulty in auditory processing, a common problem in strokes. In the upcoming Oct. 25 debate with his opponent, Mehmet Oz, Mr. Fetterman has requested accommodations, like a closed-caption monitor so he doesnt miss words. Even before Jens Rasmussen and Maria Aparo decided to spend their lives together, they shared several experiences. Both, for instance, have enjoyed long theatrical careers in New York, and both left the city during the coronavirus pandemic to care for a dying family member. But sharing a 3,200-square-foot loft in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was completely unexpected. They knew each other only remotely, having run in the same professional circles for more than a decade. When Ms. Aparo wrote on social media about the experience of caring for a grandmother with Parkinsons disease, Mr. Rasmussen, who was temporarily living in Wisconsin to care for his ailing father, responded. The two had several exchanges before Mr. Rasmussen decided to pick up the phone. I finally said: Im going to reach out because I need to talk about it and you probably do, too. This is not a text conversation, he said. TikTok, the popular video-sharing app, may face a fine of 27 million, or about $29 million, for failing to protect childrens privacy in the United Kingdom. In the first major case under new British rules protecting minors online, British regulators on Monday sent a warning notice to TikTok saying the company had handled youngsters information without appropriate permission from their parents, processed sensitive details without the legal grounds to do so and failed to explain the platforms data practices in ways that children could easily understand. While the findings are provisional, the legal document sent to TikTok by Britains data protection agency, the Information Commissioners Office, constitutes a formal notification that regulators intend to impose a fine. It is not the first time that the video-sharing app has faced charges of failing to protect the privacy of younger users. In 2019, Musical.ly, the operators of the platform now known as TikTok, agreed to pay a fine of $5.7 million to settle federal charges that it had violated the federal childrens online privacy law in the United States. The Biden administration and TikTok have drafted a preliminary agreement to resolve national security concerns posed by the Chinese-owned video app but face hurdles over the terms, as the platform negotiates to keep operating in the United States without major changes to its ownership structure, four people with knowledge of the discussions said. The two sides have hammered out the foundations of a deal in which TikTok would make changes to its data security and governance without requiring its owner, the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, to sell it, said three of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are confidential. The two sides are still wrangling over the potential agreement. The Justice Department is leading the negotiations with TikTok, and its No. 2 official, Lisa Monaco, has concerns that the terms are not tough enough on China, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The Treasury Department, which plays a key role in approving deals involving national security risks, is also skeptical that the potential agreement with TikTok can sufficiently resolve national security issues, two people with knowledge of the matter said. That could force changes to the terms and drag out a final resolution for months. TikTok, one of the worlds most popular social media apps, has been under a legal cloud in the United States for more than two years because of its Chinese ties. Lawmakers and regulators have repeatedly raised concerns about TikToks ability to protect the data of American users from Chinese authorities. President Donald J. Trump tried to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company in 2020 and threatened to block the app. The Asia travel pause at Kensington Tours, where monthly sales figures were recently up 80 percent over the same period in 2019, is officially over. Travelers are going to Thailand despite the rainy fall season. Theyre booking temple stays in South Korea. Theyre going to India at the last minute. Vietnam is absolutely bananas, said Jessica Vandermey, a director of sales at Kensington Tours. And Im getting amazing reviews from clients being at Angkor Wat with a handful of people versus the masses. After a costly pause in travel that in some places stretched to more than two years, much of Asia is back. Though China remains closed to tourism and Japan has been fine-tuning its policy on independent travelers, hotel and tour operators are reporting strong growth. Intrepid Travel said its sending as many Americans to Asia as it did in 2019. At Minor International, a Thailand-based hospitality company that manages Anantara, Avani, NH and other popular hotel brands in the region, bookings have already doubled 2021 totals. Consumers have moved beyond revenge travel and are making travel part of their everyday lives again, said Brett Keller, the chief executive of the online travel agency Priceline, where hotel searches in Asia have nearly tripled in the past year. This mind-set is taking them beyond the near-border travel they were limited to in the past two years and back to incorporating long-haul, international trips into their lives. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Along the Gulf Coast of Florida, whose history is punctuated by the passage and destruction of major hurricanes, millions of residents on Monday were anxiously watching forecasts, stocking up on groceries and preparing as best they could for the expected arrival of Hurricane Ian. The authorities urged residents to begin evacuating some low-lying areas, with a troubling combination of dangerous storm surges, flooding and powerful winds predicted for the coming days. Safety is paramount, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news briefing, asking Floridians to take the threat seriously. There is going to be damage. The National Hurricane Center said early Tuesday that Ian had become a major hurricane meaning Category 3 or stronger, with winds of at least 111 miles per hour as it neared Cuba. It was expected to remain so over the next day. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. Heavy monsoon rains would normally be cause for celebration in the drought-parched mountains of northeastern New Mexico, where the Rockies meet the Great Plains, especially after the largest wildfire in state history came within a mile of torching the regions largest community this spring. But not this year, when fears of running out of fresh water forced officials to cancel an annual arts and crafts fair that draws thousands of visitors in Las Vegas, N.M. All over this town of 13,000 people, carwashes are closed. Swimming pools are empty. Restaurants are serving food on paper plates. And the gushing skies are no help. Instead of replenishing reservoirs, the downpours are flooding a burn scar left by the blaze known as the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire, releasing contaminants into private wells and overwhelming Las Vegass main water supply with ashy sludge. WASHINGTON The White House announced on Monday that it would host President Emmanuel Macron of France and his wife, Brigitte Macron, in December in the first state visit of President Bidens administration. The visit, which is scheduled for Dec. 1, comes as both leaders have sought to shore up cooperation between the United States and Europe amid several global crises, in particular Russias invasion of Ukraine and the ripple effects it has caused across global markets. We work closely with France on the full range of global challenges, as you all know, including the war in Ukraine, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Monday. It is for these reasons that the president and first lady thought it was important to welcome this close and valued partner to the White House for their first state visit. It will underscore the deep and enduring relationship between the United States and France, our oldest ally, she said. All through his primary, Don Bolduc, a far-right Senate candidate in New Hampshire, said the 2020 election was stolen. A day after his victory was called, he reversed course. But eight days after that? He indicated on a podcast that he had not completely turned his back on the stolen-election movement, conveying that he found it unclear why his election-denial message had not been resonating with voters in the battleground state. The narrative that the election was stolen, it does not fly up here in New Hampshire for whatever reason, Mr. Bolduc said in a Sept. 23 appearance on The Mel K Show, a podcast aligned with the QAnon conspiracy movement. Then he renewed his false claim there had been fraud in the election. What does fly in New Hampshire, Mr. Bolduc said, is that there was significant fraud and it needs to be fixed. WASHINGTON On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, shortly after President Donald J. Trump took to Twitter to tell the mob of his supporters assaulting the Capitol that you have to go home now, someone used a White House landline to call the phone of one of the rioters, according to a new book from a former staff member of the House Jan. 6 committee. The book, written by Denver Riggleman, who was also previously a Republican member of the House from Virginia, did not name the man whose phone was called by the White House. But in an interview on Monday, Mr. Riggleman said he and his staff determined that the phone belonged to Anton Lunyk, 26, of Brooklyn, who was later charged with breaching the Capitol and sentenced to a year of probation. The call lasted nine seconds and took place at 4:34 p.m. Mr. Lunyks name was reported earlier by CNN. A lawyer for Mr. Lunyk did not respond to requests for comment. In an appearance on Sunday night on 60 Minutes on CBS, Mr. Riggleman referred to the incident as an aha moment but in the interview Monday he said he was not willing to call it a smoking gun showing a connection between rioters and the Trump White House. That the conference is willing to take a stand here highlights how extreme and dangerous the argument of the North Carolina legislators is, he said. That argument would undermine the authority of state courts to interpret state law a bedrock principle of our system of federalism, and one that conservative justices historically championed, not questioned. How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause. Learn more about our process. Empowering state legislatures at the expense of state courts would, these days at least, generally seem to help Republicans, who control more legislatures. But Chief Justice Hecht, who was elected as a Republican and has called for ending partisan elections for judges in his state, said the constitutional principles should remain constant. Politics can shift, he said. You can say, We want these people to make the call because theyre in the right party. But tomorrow they might not be in the right party but they still get to make the call. Evan Caminker, a law professor at the University of Michigan who represents the conference along with two prominent Supreme Court specialists, Carter G. Phillips and Virginia A. Seitz, said the filing was part of a useful dialogue. This brief provides a rare and important opportunity for federal Supreme Court justices to receive direct input from their peers who sit on state supreme courts, Professor Caminker said. State justices have a central stake in this case because, in our federalist system, they typically have the final say over the meaning of state law, and here they can directly explain to their federal counterparts why their traditional state role is worthy of protection. The independent state legislature theory is based on a literal reading of two similar provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The one at issue in the North Carolina case, the Elections Clause, says: The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof. WASHINGTON President Bidens plan to erase significant amounts of student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans could cost about $400 billion, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report Monday, making it one of the costliest programs in the presidents agenda. The C.B.O. said the price tag might rise even higher because of Mr. Bidens decision to extend a pause on federal student loan repayments through the end of the year, which could end up costing some $20 billion. The report gauged the cost over a period of 30 years, though the bulk of the effects to the economy would be felt over the next decade. Although the office called the figures uncertain, they are generally in line with those that economists put forth after Mr. Biden announced the program in August. The report is certain to revive the political debate over student loan forgiveness just weeks before the midterm elections. Critics have cast the plan as a costly giveaway that could exacerbate inflation, while the administration argues that it will help millions of low- and middle-income Americans get their footing in a volatile economy. Mr. Bidens plan cancels $10,000 in debt for those earning less than $125,000 per year and $20,000 for those who had received Pell grants for low-income families. In its report, the C.B.O. said that of the 37 million borrowers with direct loans from the federal government, 90 percent who are eligible could be expected to take advantage of debt forgiveness once it becomes available. (White House officials have suggested that a far smaller share of eligible borrowers are likely to opt into the program than the budget office predicts, which would reduce its cost.) Then, at the 8,163-meter (26,781-foot) peak, the couple strapped on their skis and pointed them down the slope. Fifteen minutes later, the guides radioed Mr. Ghimire once again: big problem. They said Ms. Nelson, 49, appeared to fall into a 2,000-foot crevasse. Whether Ms. Nelson, an athlete and mother of two based near Telluride, Colo., survived the fall was unknown. After the incident, Mr. Morrison skied safely to base camp seeking help. He arrived around four and a half hours after the celebratory pictures were taken from the mountains peak. On its website, the North Face, her sponsor, said of Ms. Nelson, With a career spanning two decades that includes dozens of first descents through more than 40 expeditions to 16 different countries, Hilaree Nelson is the most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation. The incidents highlighted the extreme risks taken in Nepal by mountaineers and the local guides who support them and comprise an outsize share of injuries and deaths on the peaks. The Sherpas, members of an ethnic group in Nepal known for their skill at high-altitude climbing, fix rope, carry supplies and establish camps. They are often the barrier between the foreign teams who hire them and death on the mountain, frequently expending their health or even lives to protect visiting climbers. Canada announced on Monday that it would remove all remaining coronavirus entry restrictions, including testing and quarantine requirements, effective Oct. 1, ending some of the worlds longest and most stringent rules. Travelers, regardless of citizenship status, will no longer have to submit public health information, proof of vaccination, coronavirus test results before or after arrival or be subject to random P.C.R. testing, the Public Health Agency of Canada said. The country is also removing its requirement to wear masks while on planes and trains. Thanks largely to Canadians who have rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated, we have reached the point where we can safely lift the sanitary measures at the border, Jean-Yves Duclos, the minister of health, said in a statement. Canada boasts one of the highest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the world, with 84 percent of its population fully vaccinated against the virus; about 50 percent have received a booster. In the United States, by comparison, only 68 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and 33 percent have received a booster. President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to Edward J. Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor who became one of the worlds most high-profile fugitives after he disclosed mass surveillance techniques to news organizations. Mr. Snowden said in 2020 that he was applying for Russian citizenship, describing the decision as a practical measure to give his family greater freedom crossing borders. His request was granted by Mr. Putin in a decree dated Monday and published by the Kremlin. Mr. Snowden, 39, was among dozens of foreigners granted citizenship in the decree. After giving hundreds of highly classified N.S.A. documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post in 2013, Mr. Snowden had planned to seek asylum in Ecuador, and set out from Hong Kong to reach South America. But as the U.S. authorities sought to reach him, he became stranded on a layover in the transit zone of Moscows Sheremetyevo International Airport. After 40 days, he was allowed to leave the transit zone, and he has remained in Russia for the nine years since. But the League party, which sought to expand from its northern, business-oriented base to a nationalist party on the strength of an anti-migrant appeal, had such a poor showing on Sunday that analysts said it was unlikely to be able to argue about who gets to lead the country. The party won less than 9 percent of the vote, about half of what it obtained in 2018, hemorrhaging support especially in its stronghold in the northern regions. Ms. Melonis party devoured the Leagues support, leaving Mr. Salvinis leverage, and even leadership, in doubt. Some representatives of the League have started calling for his resignation. Mr. Berlusconi, positioning himself as the most moderate partner in the coalition, should hold on to his influence even though his party also lost support. Forza Italia took 8 percent in this election, compared with 14 percent in 2018. In 2001, the party had 29 percent. The Five Star Movement was resurgent. One of the surprises in the vote was the performance of the Five Star Movement, the once anti-establishment party that was part of the coalitions that governed Italy for more than four years from 2018 until earlier this year. The party had been struggling because of internal divisions and lackluster showings in opinion polls. But after it prompted the collapse of Mr. Draghis government, it managed to gain 15 percent of the votes on Sunday, becoming the third-largest party, after Brothers of Italy and the center-left Democratic Party, which took 19 percent. But analysts said Russia should not expect a change from Ms. Meloni anytime soon, believing that her position on Ukraine is credible and that the weak showing of her partners in the election will allow her to keep them in their place without blowing up their alliance. I put my hand today on fire that she is not going to bend, said Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Institute for International Affairs in Rome. Shes very gung-ho about Russia. Despite a widespread suspicion that political calculation lay behind Ms. Melonis pivot during the campaign to less hostile positions on the European Union and away from leaders such as Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France, analysts judged that on the issue of Ukraine, Ms. Meloni was not likely to budge. In the past, Ms. Meloni has admired Mr. Putins defense of Christian values, which is consistent with her own traditionalist rhetoric. But unlike other hard-right politicians and newbie nationalists, like Mr. Salvini, Ms. Meloni was raised in a post-Fascist universe in Italy where Russia and especially Communist internationalists represented an Eastern force that threatened the sanctity and peculiarities of Western European identities. For Ms. Meloni it was less difficult to step away from the Putin adoration that swept the populist-nationalist right over the last decade. During the campaign, she was happy to point out this difference with her coalition partners, as she was competing with them and it helped differentiate her and reassure the West of her credibility. Pummeling the competition in Sundays election will have made it easier to withstand any attempted pressure from Mr. Salvini or Mr. Berlusconi, who both failed to break into double digits in the polls and were thus left with little leverage. Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and close associate of President Vladimir V. Putin, acknowledged on Monday that he is the founder of the Wagner Group, a shadowy private military company that has fought on Russias side in the war in Ukraine. I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this, Mr. Prigozhin said in a statement that was posted on Monday by the press service for one of his companies, Concord Management and Consulting. The statement is Mr. Prigozhins first public admission of his connection to the group, whose fighters have also been deployed in support of the Kremlins military campaigns in Africa and the Middle East, occasionally doing battle against U.S. forces. The Russian oligarch had previously denied links to Wagner and sued a Britain-based investigative journalist this year for suggesting he was its founder. He said that his group of patriots was formed in May 2014, adding that he was proud to have supported heroes who defended the Syrian people, other people of Arab countries, destitute Africans and Latin Americans. DONETSK REGION, Ukraine The Ukrainian soldier walked to the edge of the river, looked toward the sound of artillery in the distance and cast his fishing rod toward the murky green water below. His nonchalance on Ukraines front line close to the eastern city of Lyman was telling: His comrades nearby were winning. To the southeast, less than 30 miles away, a group of Ukrainian soldiers, rifles slung and helmets donned, moved cautiously to the wreckage of a destroyed bridge in the center of another city Bakhmut. The high pitched whistle of a Russian artillery round, followed by a plume of dirt and smoke nearby, sent just as telling a signal: The Russians were pounding away, and getting close. The battle for the critical Donbas region in Ukraines east is now centered on these two strategically important cities; the fighting is fierce as both armies race to claim new ground before winter sets in. In the broader war, momentum remains with the Ukrainians, whose sweeping victories in the countrys northeast this month exposed ineptitude and glaring weaknesses in the Russian force. But the Donbas, which President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia considers his primary prize, is a different, more entrenched fight. Iranian forces unleashed drone and artillery attacks on the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on Monday, targeting what Tehran said were bases of militant Iranian Kurdish separatist groups there, according to a semiofficial news agency. The attacks by the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were the second in three days against Iranian militants based in Iraq, according to the Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards. The new strikes occurred as Iran was reeling from 10 days of protests over the killing of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurdish woman, in police custody. She had been accused of violating the countrys strict codes on modest dress for women. The largest antigovernment movement since the countrys 2009 Green Revolution, the protest has thrust Iran into turmoil that has cut across ethnic and social divides. The unrest has been especially intense in northwest Iran, where many members of the countrys Kurdish minority live. For Yasi, the news felt too close to ignore: A young woman, Mahsa Amini, had died in the custody of Irans morality police, days after being arrested for failing to cover her hair modestly enough. When protests broke out after Ms. Aminis death, 20-year-old Yasi the first woman in her immediate family to reject the hijab ran into the streets, waving the thin shawl she usually wears over her blond hair in public, in a grudging concession to the law of the land. I keep thinking Mahsa could be me; it could be my friends, my cousins, she said in an interview from Tehran, where protests have since raged every night outside her familys apartment complex. You dont know what they will do to you. The nationwide protests challenging Irans authoritarian leadership, now in their 10th day, have fed on a range of grievances: a collapsing economy, brazen corruption, suffocating repression and social restrictions handed down by a handful of elderly clerics. On Monday, they showed no sign of abating, and neither did the harsh government effort to suppress them despite international condemnation. A retroverted uterus (also known as a tilted or tipped uterus) occurs when the organ angles toward the lower back. The March of Dimes estimates that about 20 percent of women have one, and it may cause pain during sex in some cases but doesnt generally interfere with pregnancy. If you have pelvic pain, discuss it with your gynecologist. Pelvic pain can have many causes, including infections, irritable bowel syndrome or bladder problems, so bring it up with your doctor to figure out why its happening to you. Its also the classic symptom of endometriosis, when uterine tissue travels outside its home base and forms lesions in other areas of the body, such as in the pelvic or abdominal cavity. Endometriosis can lead to pain outside of periods, during periods or during sex. About 10 percent of women in their reproductive years have the condition, and it often recurs even after treatment, according to ACOG. There are many theories about what causes endometriosis; for example, retrograde menstruation when menstrual blood flows in reverse may send endometrial cells through the fallopian tubes and into the abdominal cavity, said Dr. Kristin Patzkowsky, M.D., a gynecologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine. But its not known why the cells implant and grow in the wrong place for some women but not others, she said. Nor is the exact cause of the pain fully understood, though it may be sparked by swelling and inflammation of the active endometrial tissue during menstruation. Not everyone with endometriosis, even in more advanced stages, suffers pain or other problems. Endometriosis is a risk factor for infertility but that doesnt mean that everyone with endometriosis has a hard time conceiving, even in serious cases, Dr. Patzkowsky said. (About 40 percent of women with infertility have endometriosis, according to ACOG.) Rarely, endometriosis can invade other organs, such as the bowel, bladder or ureter (the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder), and potentially cause other serious health problems. If you have suspected or confirmed endometriosis, treatment will depend on your symptoms, the specifics of your condition and whether you want to have children. Medical treatments can include hormonal therapy delivered via a combination birth control pill, patch or ring; or a progesterone-only pill, injection, implant or I.U.D.; as well as drugs called GnRH agonists and antagonists. (Pain relievers may also help.) Your doctor might advise laparoscopic surgery (to remove lesions) in order to nail down a diagnosis, if first-line treatments havent worked or if youre actively trying to conceive, Dr. Patzkowsky said. Your doctor may also discuss hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), depending on the severity of your symptoms, your age and your personal wishes. Dont dismiss heavy bleeding without investigating the cause. Heavy periods are common and can have many causes, including perimenopause or certain I.U.D.s. One of the more common problems: uterine fibroids, or benign tumors of the uterus that can lead to excessive bleeding and pain. Some 65 to 70 percent of women overall and more than 85 percent of African-American women have them by age 50, said Dr. Erica Marsh, M.D., an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School and chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility. Most fibroids are asymptomatic. (Thats the only good thing about them, Dr. Marsh said.) Symptomatic fibroids can cause heavy bleeding, pain and pressure in the abdomen. In general, they arent associated with poorer pregnancy outcomes, but may need to be removed if theyre large enough or in a position where they might interfere with conception or carrying a pregnancy. Fibroids can be diagnosed in a variety of ways, including via ultrasound or other imaging tests. Generally, if fibroids arent bothering you with symptoms, you dont need to bother them, Dr. Marsh said. But for some women, the heavy bleeding associated with fibroids can cause anemia, fatigue and decreased quality of life. As with endometriosis, there are both medical and surgical options: Hormone therapy can shrink the tumors; surgery called a myomectomy removes fibroids; and a hysterectomy removes the entire uterus, which is the only way to guarantee women will never get another uterine fibroid. (Fibroids are the leading cause of hysterectomy in the United States, just ahead of endometriosis.) Once a woman goes through menopause, fibroids dont typically continue to grow. An Indian sadhu monk has been holding his arm in an upward position continuously for more than a decade in honor of his god. Mahant Radheypuri Juna Akhara, an Indian sadhu a religious or holy person who has renounced their worldly life from Allahabad has been keeping his right arm raised high above his head for more than 10 years in honor of a Hindu deity. He was recently featured in a viral Twitter video, telling the interviewer that he wanted to do something for his god, so that it notices him. So he raised his right arm up and never put it down again. Today, its sort of stuck in that position, and he claims he doesnt even feel it anymore. Photo: Twitter video caption If Mahants sacrifice looks familiar, thats probably because he was not the first to ever do it. Over a decade ago, we wrote about another sadhu, Amar Bharati, who at the time had been holding his right arm up for 38 years, becoming a symbol for Shiva worshipers all over India. He has now been keeping his arm raised for over half a century. Bharatis feat makes that of Mahant Radheypuri Juna Akhara seem easy by comparison, but it turns out that the first couple of years are the most difficult. After that, the muscles in the arm become so atrophied that the whole appendage becomes numb and stuck in that abnormal position. Juna Akhara even pinches himself in the video to demonstrate that he doesnt feel anything anymore. Asked how long he planned to keep his arm raised like that, Mahant, who even sleeps with his right arm in the unusual position, said that he hadnt even thought about it. He prefers to live in the present, but he expects to keep it raised for the rest of his life. Its unclear how long the sadhu has been keeping his arm up like this, he just says over 10 years in the video, but there are photos of him on the internet from 2018 with captions that claim he had been doing it for over a decade then. So its been at least 14 years The St. Louis Economic Partnership is looking to hire a strategic communications firm to promote diversified economic growth to advance the quality of life in the county and city of St. Louis, which has a combined population of just over 1M people. With the death of a young Iranian woman in police custody sparking demonstrations around the world, hundreds of people took to the streets of Ottawa Sunday to protest against Iran's Islamic Republic. Rumble 28 Sep 2022 Friends, world leaders and family gathered on Tuesday in Tokyo to attend the state funeral of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo.. 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. The NRLs all-western Sydney decider has limited tickets remaining almost a week out as Maika Sivos family plans an emotional reunion on the grandest stage. Akon says he and Michael Jackson were discussing plans to open a number of music-focused schools across Africa ... which got tragically derailed with the death of the King of Pop. We got Akon in New York City and he told us about a concept he Politicians across the ideological spectrum in Germany have expressed concern about Giorgia Meloni's electoral success. However, the far-right AfD voiced support for Meloni, who looks likely to be Italy's next leader. Protesters have clashed with police outside the Iranian embassy in London as they call for an end to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Belfast Telegraph 25 Sep 2022 A court injunction filed by five Western University students to block the London, Ont., institution's COVID-19 booster shot mandate has been rejected by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, according to court documents. Aaron Rodgers came out the winner against Tom Brady in the latest showdown featuring the GOATs, but it was anything but a gunslinger shootout. Rumble 28 Aug 2022 It's been too long but I will be LIVE here soon! Come hang out we have a lot to talk about in the sports world! Russian conscripts are likely to be sent to Ukraine with minimal training and preparedness, UK intelligence has said. Russian ally Kazakhstan has refused to back "referendums" in eastern Ukraine. DW has the latest. Evacuations are underway in the north-western tip of Cuba, while Florida authorities urged residents to stock up on food and water. Meteorologists warn Hurricane Ian is likely to grow even stronger. In the second part of her story, Ghanaian medical student Dorcas Djabatey, who was studying in Ukraine before the war broke out, talks about her escape from Sumy, why she feels let down and her future. National chief RoseAnne Archibald spent Sunday afternoon in James Smith Cree Nation paying her respects for those who were killed in the Sept. 4 stabbings. Previous attempts at rounding up Russians to fight have likely drained the pool of reservists ahead of the latest partial mobilisation," says the Institute for the Study of War. The UK has announced new sanctions over Moscow's "referendums" in southern and eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, British intelligence predicted a high attrition rate among Russian conscripts. DW has the latest. The UK has announced new sanctions over Moscow's "referendums" in southern and eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, the US will provide more financial aid to Ukrainian law enforcement. DW rounds up the latest. Reports say people with no military experience, or who are too old or disabled, are being enlisted. Politicians across the ideological spectrum in Germany have expressed concern over Giorgia Meloni's electoral success. However, the far-right AfD voiced support for Meloni, who looks likely to be Italy's next leader. Before he graced the cover of TIME magazine as Afghanistan's, and the world's, most prolific heroin kingpin, and before the White House's prisoner swap Monday that traded him for kidnapped American contractor Mark Frerichs, Haji Bashir Noorzai had another, far more dangerous identity. As few people outside the closed world of counter-terror missions know, Noorzai was a high-priority target on the U.S. special operations forces' highly classified kill-or-capture list, because he was pouring millions of narcodollars into the Taliban treasury. "We were running around Afghanistan looking for him from 2001 to 2005," a retired, formerly high-ranking U.S Army. special operations commander tells SPYTALK. "I was almost exuberant when we found out that Mike's team got him." "Mike" was Michael Braun, chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He oversaw, among other things, an intricate sting that lured Noorzai to his arrest in New York City in April 2005. Braun's team was a group of agents from the DEA's Special Operations Division who focused on "narcoterrorists," meaning, people who use drug money to finance terrorism. The special ops commander was exuberant because DEA's guileful collar, which went down in an Embassy Suites hotel in Manhattan, no shots fired, meant that American soldiers could stop pounding sand outside the wire, searching for the extremists' elusive paymaster. "U.S. military special operations forces considered Noorzai a Tier 1 target," Braun says. U.S. intelligence showed that he was using his formidable resources to sustain the Taliban's war against the fragile Afghan government and its U.S. and NATO allies. "Hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the Noorzai heroin trafficking enterprise went straight into the war chests of the Taliban and most assuredly funded attacks against our military forces and those of our allies in Afghanistan and the region," Braun says. "The lives of U.S. military and coalition partners were placed at great risk while executing several highly dangerous operations to hunt him down." As I observed first-hand during several years traveling to Afghanistan to research the Afghan drug cartel, military officers there welcomed DEA operations that took important Taliban associates like Noorzai off the battlefield. The more collars, the fewer potential firefights. The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Afghanistan put Noorzai on its kill list soon after the U.S. went into Afghanistan. It wasn't his role as a heroin kingpin that interested JSOC but rather his close relationship with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, dating from their time as mujaheddin comrades-in-arms fighting the Soviets. According to declassified U.S. cables, Noorzai financed Mullah Omar's religious school, madrassa, then helped him create and arm a militia that became known as the Taliban in 1994, when Afghanistan was plagued by anarchy, civil war and banditry. Omar's men took Kabul in 1996, the intelligence said, with arms financed in part by Noorzai; the warlord's financial support continued after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, and Mullah Omar and his inner circle fled to Quetta, Pakistan. While American soldiers were looking for Noorzai and other Taliban leaders in the backcountry, DEA agents in New York were investigating Noorzai. Their investigation, opened in March 2001, determined that Noorzai's organization had shipped at least $50 million worth of heroin to New York and other cities internationally. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York filed a sealed indictment against him in June 2004. A team of DEA agents learned that Noorzai, was living in Quetta, Pakistan, near other Taliban leaders, so they could evade U.S. ambushes and drone attacks. But the agents heard that Noorzai was eager to return to Afghanistan to cement his leadership over his one-million-strong tribe and run his business. Working through two American contractors, the DEA agents got word to him that he could extricate himself from the military kill list by traveling to Manhattan, meeting with CIA officials, and offering useful information. Noorzai had dealt with the Agency before, during the Soviet war and afterwards, retrieving Stinger missiles from former mujaheddin groups in exchange for CIA payments. If Noorzai had bothered to Google himself, he would have discovered that on June 1, 2004, the Bush White House added him to the President's list of most-wanted drug kingpins. This might have given him pause. Overconfident, he flew to New York, landing on April 13, 2005, and enjoyed U.S. government hospitality over 11 days at the Embassy Suites in Manhattan and talking to men who identified themselves as DEA agents. (The agents gave him several Miranda warnings, which he ignored, according to court records. He later insisted he had no idea he was under investigation.) In fact, DEA agents went into these sessions open to a dealif he gave up spectacular information that would shorten the war. "We told him, if you give us Mullah Omar, all this could go away," says Paul Craine, the DEA supervisor on the case. Noorzai didn't tell the DEA agents anything they didn't already know, Craine says, so they arrested him. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in federal prison, where he acquired yet another identity: Basheer Ahmad, prisoner 57722-054. Renewed Efforts The leaders of the Taliban had not forgotten their debt to Noorzai. During peace talks conducted by the Trump administration, Taliban negotiators pressed hard for Noorzai's release, U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad backed the idea, according to reports at the time, but FBI, DEA and Justice Department officials succeeded in killing it. The Taliban renewed their efforts on Noorzai's behalf when President Biden took office. In early 2020, the Haqqani group, an ally of the Taliban, had abducted Navy veteran Mark Frerichs, a civil engineer working on development projects in Kabul. His plight moved President Biden to grant clemency to Noorzai, in exchange for Frerichs. When the exchange was consummated earlier this week, the White House insisted that releasing the drug lord's would not make a significant difference to U.S. security or to the heroin business. At a background briefing Monday, an unnamed White House official said: We consulted with experts across the U.S. government who assessed that Noorzai's return to Afghanistan would not materially change any risk to Americans emanating from the country or the nature of the drug trade thereThe President made the difficult decision this summer in June to grant clemency to Noorzai if that meant bringing an American home where he belonged and reuniting him with his family who missed him. The official didn't say who exactly the White House consulted. DEA's experts on the Afghan trade say White House officials never called them, but if they had, they would have said that Noorzai was sure to return to drug trafficking. Drugs opium, heroin, methamphetamine and hashish constitute the only industry in Afghanistan that generates hard currency lots of it. Afghanistan accounts for an estimated 86 percent of the world's illicit opium production, generating billions of dollars in the global underground economy, by the latest report of the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime. The UN agency says that Afghan production has actually increased by eight percent over the past year, despite, or because of, political chaos and widespread hunger. "If Noorzai is not going to help the drug trade and he is no threat, why did the Taliban want him back?" says Larry Baumeister, a DEA group supervisor who oversaw investigations of Afghan trafficking networks until his recent retirement. "Once he was arrested, the Noorzai drug trafficking organization fractured into lesser but still significant organizations. Now that Noorzai is back, he will consolidate all the Noorzai traffickers back under one roof. Also, since he is highly respected by the Taliban, he will be able to operate freely and provide major funding to the Taliban, since they are in desperate need of funds. Maybe that is why they wanted him back so bad." Now they've got him. Twitter feeds from Kabul show Noorzai, now a robust 59-year-old (by his own account), receiving a hero's welcome, greeted with flower garlands and wild applause. (This tweet is erroneous in one respect: Noorzai was never a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. He was held in the federal prison system.) Many U.S. law enforcement and military officials fear that Noorzai's release will inspire other terrorist and criminal organizations to kidnap innocent Americans and seek to trade them for incarcerated leaders. What will the Biden administration do, agents ask, when Mexican cartel gunmen round up some Americans vacationing in Cancun and seek to exchange them for Sinaloa cartel boss Chapo Guzman? "Now we're just starting to exchange kidnapped people for bad guys," says Jack Lawn, a former DEA administrator and FBI official. "I'm glad we got the American [Frerichs] out," says the former military special operations commander who pursued Noorzai. "I just think Noorzai was too much of a price." This article by Elaine Shannon originally appeared on Spytalk.co. The nursing home data is part of the Biden administration's effort to shine a light on an industry that receives substantial federal funding. Najafi was shot six times and killed in the city of Karaj by Iranian security forces on Wednesday, sustaining injuries in the abdomen, neck, heart and hand. Washington (AFP) Sept 26, 2022 NASA's Artemis 1 rocket - waiting to blast off on a delayed mission to the Moon - will be rolled back into its storage hangar Monday night, the space agency said, as Florida braces for Hurricane Ian. The move, to protect the rocket from strong winds and heavy rain forecast for the Kennedy Space Center, will cause further setbacks for the uncrewed Moon mission, which was scheduled to launch Laurel, United States (AFP) Sept 26, 2022 NASA's DART mission to test deflecting an asteroid using "kinetic impact" with a spaceship is just one way to defend planet Earth from an approaching object - and for now, the only method possible with current technology. The operation is like playing billiards in space, using Newton's laws of motion to guide us. If an asteroid threat to Earth were real, a mission might need to be lau After months of pandemic-related disruptions to President Bidens diplomatic calendar, the White House is set to welcome the French president in December. (RFE/RL) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has provided guarantees to Russian soldiers who surrender to Ukrainian forces and called on Russians to dodge their countrys recent partial military mobilization. Speaking in a September 24 *address* in which he switched to the Russian language, Zelenskiy offered... At a time when most African countries are not meeting local demands for wheat supplies as a result of the war in Ukraine, it is refreshing that Zimbabwe has increased wheat production. At the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) summit held in Rwanda earlier this month, Zimbabwes achievement was attributed to the... A research team led by Matthias Preusser from MedUni Vienna's Division of Oncology had already demonstrated that cancer patients benefit from a third vaccination to protect them against COVID. A recent study now also supports fourth vaccination for this vulnerable group. However, passive immunisation by administering an antibody... Watch VideoItalians voted Sunday in an election that could move the country's politics sharply toward the right during a critical time for Europe, with the war in Ukraine fueling skyrocketing energy bills and testing the West's resolve to stand united against Russian aggression. Four hours before polls' closing time,... Russia will face "catastrophic consequences" if it deploys nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the US has warned Kremlin officials. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said on Sunday night that the US had "communicated directly,... The American president Joe Biden recently warned Russian president Vladimir Putin to not change the face of war by using weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine. Bidens remarks were possibly in response to Putins warning against Ukrainian terrorist attacks against civilian targets in Russia and, based on... Men are fleeing Russia by land or air days after President Vladimir Putin said he was mobilizing more forces into Ukraine. NPR met Russians arriving in Turkey, where they don't need visas to enter. NASA's Artemis 1 rocket - waiting to blast off on a delayed mission to the Moon - will be rolled back into its storage hangar Monday night, the space agency said, as Florida braces for Hurricane Ian. Rumble 27 Sep 2022 If youre wondering why all the worst people on the planet are having a meltdown over Giorgia Melonis victory in the Italian.. Dubai, UAE (23 Sep 2022)- Homesmiths, your favorite home improvement brand, is all set to make you happier. The ongoing offer on Weber Grill is making the heat rise and it's time to get your hands on your favorite grill brand. Wondering what the fuss is all about? The ongoing "Buy 1 Get 2" Offer is for every barbecue lover out there. So, all you have to do is buy your "The first feature that parents notice in a school bag before examining its other features is whether it has anatomical back and straps. Price is the third most important criterion." Athens, September 2022 - Tetragono Bookstores conducted the first school bag survey in Greece. The survey was about how parents choose a school bag for their children in our country and a total of 1,281 moms and dads participated. Main Research Findings: Overall, Director of Content and Operations Spencer McKee is OutThere Colorado's Director of Content and Operations. In his spare time, Spencer loves to hike, rock climb, and trail run. He's on a mission to summit all 58 of Colorado's fourteeners and has already climbed more than half. Photo: (Photo : DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images) A new wave of concern has spread among parents across the United States over rainbow fentanyl, with the multi-colored pills, powders, and blocks, which look similar to candy or sidewalk chalk, being sold and used in several states. They potentially pose a threat to young people, with the emergence of this new product just one small part of the more significant ongoing opioid crisis. Rainbow fentanyl, which comes in bright colors, is a powerful synthetic opioid. That makes the drug extremely addictive and potentially deadly if someone overdoses. Rainbow fentanyl may appeal to the youth or fool them into thinking that it is safe, but experts maintain that illicit fentanyl has been hiding in what appears to be other products for a long time now. Rainbow fentanyl has been around for a few years now Joseph Palamar, an associate professor in the Department of Population Health at New York University Langone Health, told CNN in an email that colored fentanyl pills have been around for a few years. Palamar, who has studied trends in illicit fentanyl, said that they have typically been blue pills labeled as "M30" to counterfeit oxycodone, a much weaker opioid. Palamar thinks the big difference people are concerned about with rainbow fentanyl is accidental ingestion. He said that people are worried that their kids will take one of these pills thinking they are another drug or some candy. He does not think the color of the pills significantly increases the danger to people who don't use fentanyl. There is always a possibility, however, of someone who uses fentanyl leaving their pills around in the reach of kids. Palamar added that they need to keep in mind that these pills cost money, so people are not going to be throwing them on the ground for kids to find, and he does not think people will be giving these pills out as Halloween candy. Read Also: Miracle Baby Now Home After Being Born on Same Day Her Mom Was Fatally Shot in Saginaw Rainbow fentanyl driving addiction amongst young adults and children The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released a warning in August, advising the American public of this alarming emerging trend of colorful fentanyl available across the country. The agency said that the DEA and its law enforcement partners seized fentanyl pills and brightly colored fentanyl across 18 states. According to the DEA, fentanyl remains the deadliest drug threat facing the United States. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram announced that rainbow fentanyl is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst children and young adults. Some universities and colleges have cautioned students about the presence and dangers of rainbow fentanyl since then. The California Department of Public Health has also alerted K-12 school administrators about rainbow fentanyl being a new trend in the state. Related Article: Local Dad Creates Group For Las Vegas Fathers To Build Community in Nevada Where They Share Parenting Tips AMDs Ryzen 7000 processors are launching into a hostile environmentand through no fault of their own. These CPUs, based on AMDs new Zen 4 architecture, boast clock speeds over 5GHz, powerhouse multithreaded performance, and better power efficiency than the competition. AMD Ryzen 9 7950X The flagship Ryzen 9 7950X and its fellow launch chips (Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 7700X, and Ryzen 5 7600X) also mark the dawn of the AM5 era. This new motherboard socket platform enables faster speeds across the board, not just for the processors themselves. Support for DDR5 memory and PCIe 5 mean PC builds with RAM, storage, and discrete graphics cards that will scream, now and in the future. Intel doesnt want you to pay attention to AMDs advances, of course. Not long before the Ryzen 7000 launch, Team Blue dropped a few juicy facts about its upcoming 13th-generation Raptor Lake processors, like clock speeds up to 6GHz and a 24 core, 32 thread chip. But you should keep your eyes firmly on AMDs Ryzen 9 7950X. Its a ferociously impressive CPU, the fastest ever releasedand one that both answers and raises questions about the future of desktop PCs. Weve included exhaustive benchmarks and analysis below, but if youre interested in a shorter synopsis, be sure to check out our roundup of 6 essential things to know about AMDs Ryzen 7000. What are Ryzen 7000 and Zen 4? You can read up on Ryzen 7000 in our initial report following AMDs announcement, but most important is knowing these chips represent several firsts for AMD: the first to use Zen 4 architecture, the first on 5nm, the first with integrated graphics, and the first built for the companys new AM5 socket. The initial Ryzen 7000 processor lineup. AMD Theyre also the companys first shift to LGA desktop processors, which moves the pins from the CPU to the socket. Using an LGA socket allows higher power delivery to Ryzen 7000 processors, which translates to chips capable of better performance. It also means a more stressful fix if you bend or break a pin in the motherboard socket. On the flip side, the move means AMD has become as durable an option as Intel for smugglers strapping CPUs to their bodies.) As you might expect, more electricity running to Ryzen 7000 processors equals higher TDP ratingsor an expected wattage drawn under load. But dont confuse the default TDP with the maximum wattage drawn. The top two Ryzen 7000 processors may be rated at 170W, for example, but their socket can provide them as much as 230W. Intels chips currently operate in a similar manner, with Team Blue even changing its naming system to reflect this. TDP is now referred to as Processor Base Power, and a Maximum Turbo Power is also now listed as part of processor specs. For the Intel Core i9-12900K, the Ryzen 9 7950Xs primary rival, that works out to 125W and a peak of 241W, respectively. This flexibility means big boosts in performance when the system calls for it, and as youll see in the benchmarks, the net result is a healthy jump up from the previous generation of Ryzen chipsyet with lower power consumption than Intel and Ryzen 5000 in some key areas. In fact, power efficiency is so good that you can manually limit the power running to Ryzen 7000 CPUs with minimal performance loss. How we tested For our tests, we spun up three different test systems to compare our Ryzen 9 7950X sample against its main Intel competitor, the Core i9-12900K, as well as the now-superseded Ryzen 9 5950X. Specs for the three flagship CPUs benchmarked for this review. PCWorld Each benchmark PC had different motherboards (for obvious compatibility reasons) and memory manufacturers (due to available equipment on hand). In the interest of an even comparison, memory speed for both DDR5 systems (7950X, 12900K) was set to 6,000MT/sAMD recommends this speed as the current sweet spot for memory overclocking. All machines were otherwise equipped with the same CPU cooler, storage, graphics card, power supply, and operating system for uniformity. Machine 1 (AMD) CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Motherboard: Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master (bios ver. 813b) Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master (bios ver. 813b) RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 (EXPO 1 profile) Machine 2 (Intel) CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K Intel Core i9-12900K Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero (bios ver. 1720) Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero (bios ver. 1720) RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6000 (XMP 1 profile) Machine 3 (AMD) CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Motherboard: MSI MEG X570 (bios ver. 1.10) MSI MEG X570 (bios ver. 1.10) RAM: Corsair Dominator DDR4-3600 (AMP2 profile) All systems CPU Cooler: Corsair H150i (Manual fan speed of 2,000RPM; Extreme pump speed [2600]) Corsair H150i SSD: SK Hynix Gold P31 2TB 2000GM SK Hynix Gold P31 2TB 2000GM GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition (driver ver. 516.94) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition (driver ver. 516.94) PSU: Corsair HX1000 1000W 80+ Platinum Corsair HX1000 1000W 80+ Platinum OS: Windows 11 Home 21H2 (22000.878) Performance-boosting features (Intel Thermal Velocity Boost, Intel Multi-Core Enhancement, AMD Core Boost Performance, AMD Precision Boost Overdrive) were left on automatic. This default setting allows the system to control speeds and power draw to squeeze the most out of the chips, and was kept as such to mimic the typical user experience. Resizable bar (aka AMDs Smart Access Memory) was also flipped on, while encryption in Windows 11 was turned off. Due to time constraints and sample availability, we also looked at the data graciously provided by our colleague Sebastian Schenzinger of PC Welt, who tested the Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 5 7600X. While our focus will remain on the 7950X, his test results provide a glimpse into the wider context (and impact) of the Ryzen 7000 launch. Performance When you spend $699 for a flagship processor, you can safely assume thats the best performance the company has to offer at launch. AMD doesnt let consumers down herewhen it wins big against the Intel Core i9-12900K, the Ryzen 9 7950X is unapologetic about how much better it is. But make no mistake: The 12900K doesnt roll over in the fight. In some battles, Team Blue still skirts ahead. Unlike with AMDs Ryzen 5000 launch, theres no complete trouncing here of the competition. (For a deeper dive into the benchmarks, be sure to watch the video embedded above.) Production Bragging rights aside, you dont buy a flagship consumer desktop processor for gaming. These days, you pick one up because you need a chip that will tear through heavy workloads fast. That puts the emphasis on multithreaded performance, and on this front, the Ryzen 9 7950X delivers in spades. Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Shorter bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Shorter bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld When rendering and encoding, the Ryzen 9 7950X whomps on the Core i9-12900K, with a comfortable, chunky double-digit lead across our multithreaded benchmarks. How comfortable? As much as 60 percent. The smallest win hits the books at 37 percent. The 7950X also leaves the Ryzen 9 5950X eating its dust, with the gains reaching as high as 48 percent. Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Blue represents better Intel performance. Red bars indicate better AMD performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Blue represents better Intel performance. Red bars indicate better AMD performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld But AMDs new top chip isnt completely invulnerable to the 12900K. The subscores of tests like Geekbench indicate areas where Intel might still retain an advantage. (For example, machine learning and encryption.) Also, peek at the difference in single-core performance and youll see the 12900K holding its own. It cedes the top spot to the 7950X by a slim margin of just a few percentage points in our rendering tests. Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld That small difference in performance, plus software optimizations, mean that the 12900Kor more likely its upcoming successor, given the rumors about the Core i9-13900Ks imminent launch datewill still be the better choice for some folks. AMD simply cant win the battle in Adobe Premiere Pro, for example. Premieres use of QuickSync to boost video editing tasks gave Intel a nearly 20 percent edge in our PugetBench benchmark results. That said, not everyone uses Adobe Creative Cloud, nor is willing to give up the AMD ecosystem. If youre upgrading from a 5950X, youll get tangible gains across the board, both for single-core and multithreaded work. In short, if youre seeking an absolute beast of a chip, the 7950X can keep your projects steaming full speed aheadbut Intel might be a better option in select applications. Gaming Real talk: Unless you have money you want to burn (and actually lighting it on fire is just a little too wasteful), purchasing a Ryzen 9 7950X for gaming alone is impractical. But gaming is still a popular way to evaluate chips, especially since flagship chip owners sometimes play after work is over. In the battle between the 7950X and the 12900K, the wins largely went to the 12900K, with the overall average of our nine 1080p benchmarks showing AMD underperforming Intel by about 1.5 percent. With single-core performance still important for many games, this outcome isnt a surprisethe 7950Xs results here are similar to our other single-core benchmarks. But in real-world terms, this loss is a fairly minimal one. Youre generally looking at a difference of 3 to 12 frames per second at already high frame rates. Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld But what about 720p benchmarks, you say? We chose to focus on 1080p benchmarks for practical reasonsa PC with a 7950X typically runs games at 1080p or higher. But if you must know what happens when further isolating CPU performance, you can get an idea of Ryzen 7000s behavior at 720p through our sister site PC Welts test results, which examines how the lower-cost Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 5 7600X compare against a variety of competing chips. (Caveat: This data cant be directly compared with the gaming benchmarks above, due to key component differences between PCWorld and PC Welts test machines. Different CPU, GPU, memory speed, and operating systems were used for testing [7950X vs 7900X & 7600X; RTX 3090 vs RX 6900 XT; DDR5-6000 vs DDR5-5200; Windows 11 vs 10].) Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt Longer bars indicate better performance. PC Welt When you drop down to 720p, AMDs latest chips trades blows with Intels flagship processorin fact, the 7900X, not the 7950X, is the one that frequently tops the Core i9-12900K in PC Welts game benchmarks. When averaged out, AMDs second-best chip takes the lead by 4.4 percent. Keep in mind, though, individual 720p game results vary and sometimes by a sizable amount. For example, the 7900X beat the 12900K by 25 percent in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, while in Watch Dogs Legion, its a scant 1.51 percent difference. As for gen-on-gen improvement, the 7950X outpaces by 5950X at 1080p by as much as 16 percent, though in a handful of games, its roughly a draw. At 720p, PC Welts data shows the 7900X pulling ahead of the 5950X by an average of 12 percent. Overall, individual benchmarks varyso your individual experience will vary, too. Real-world tasks When new chips are announced, people rarely talk about how fast theyre going to be in Microsoft Office apps or browsers like Chrome. But those apps are everyones daily life blood, and when it comes to number crunching in particular, some peoples full livelihoods. Performance gains matter here, too. Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld The quick version is that for Microsoft Office apps, the 7950X offers a decent bump in performance versus the 12900Kan average of almost 10 percent. Youll see double-digit gains for Excel and PowerPoint, while Outlook posts a minimal 2 percent lead. The outcome is more exciting in the showdown with the 5950X; the increase in performance averages over 20 percent, with as much as a 42 percent jump for Word. (Note for folks who regularly sling huge sets of data: Our hard-hitting Excel eSports benchmark didnt work properly during our tests, so unfortunately we lack our usual data for chip performance in heavy spreadsheets.) Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld As for web browsing, the 7950X is generally the fastest chip, though Intel is better at rendering in Chrome (aka graphics performance). For tasks related to Javascript, HTML, web apps, and more, the 7950X comes out aheadmore modestly against the 12900K, but by a sizable amount compared to the 5950X. Compared to the latter, the 7950X posts double-digit improvements that reach as high as 33 percent. Power draw & Eco mode Discussing power draw used to be more of an academic exercise. Youd test to see who had better efficiency and to get a general idea of power consumption, but typically the results werent of large concern. In just the last couple of years, thats changed. As mentioned earlier, chips have started to consume more power. Ryzen 7000 joins that trend. While the Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X had TDP ratings of 105W, the Ryzen 9 7950X and 7900X now enter the lists at 170W. TDP ratings have also become a baseline for power usage under load, rather than an expected maximum. Todays chips have much more variability and can pull down considerably more electricity while chasing higher performance. For the Core i9-12900K, that works out to a base of 125W and a peak of 241W. The 170W Ryzen 9 7950Xs max is its socket power rating, or 230W. Combine this higher power consumption with rising electricity rates, and both power draw and power efficiency are no longer intellectual concerns. Benchmarks spell out how hard a chip will hit your bank account each month. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld The good news is that Ryzen 7000 lives up to AMDs claims of greater power efficiency in multithreaded tasksthat is, the ability to squeeze more performance from each watt used. Its also more energy efficient, too, as you can see in our first batch of power draw benchmarks. The 7950X renders about 33 percent more frames than the 12900K in Cinebench R23s 10-minute multithreaded benchmark. And it does so while consuming about 25W less in total system power than the 12900K throughout. The Blender benchmark expresses this advantage in a different waywhen not tied to a fixed-length benchmark, the 7950X simply finishes faster, dropping the system down to lower electricity consumption for longer periods. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld This clear advantage diminishes as you move into single-threaded and lightly threaded applications. Here, the 12900K generally outperforms the 7950X in energy efficiencywhich, when paired with its performance wins in some applications, means that the scorecard could tip in favor of Intel depending on your game purchase and usual software. Longer bars indicate better performance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Or will it? If you live somewhere that has painfully high electricity rates, AMDs Eco mode could sway you back toward the 7950X. You might call it AMDs ace up its sleevethis setting adds a flourish to its boasts about power efficiency. Its a simple, straightforward way to set power limits on a chip; no need to go into the BIOS. Via AMDs Ryzen Master software, you can drop a 170W chip down to 105W or 65W, with a fairly minimal hit to performance in single-core and lightly threaded tasks. Just take a look at the Cinebench R23 single-core results for our 7950X. Its score stayed all but locked in the same spot, even as we dropped the TDP from to 105W and then even further to 65W. For additional context, you can hop back to PC Welts gaming tests. The 7900X and 7900X Eco mode results are typically within a percent or so of each other at 1080p; the gap widens by only a few more percentage points at 720p. (Note: the 7900X was dropped to 65W for PC Welts benchmarks.) At both resolutions, the winner per game see-sawed between the stock profile and Eco mode. Longer bars indicate better perfomance. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Of course, Eco mode does hamper performance in multithreaded tasks, but thats no surpriseyou need the additional power to let the chip run at full capacity. But the option is there, in case you need to keep a tight leash on power draw. Final thoughts The Ryzen 9 7950X is an impressive start to the AM5 era. Zen 4 offers significant, tangible performance benefits for multithreaded tasks and power efficiency, and its backed by AM5s bleeding-edge speeds for other system components. If you make full use of what the 7950X brings to the table, you cant go wrongthis chip offer unprecedented levels of performance. To emphasize the point, just look at how its relative performance scales against the Core i9-12900K and last-gen Ryzen 9 5950X as you involve more and more threads. Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld At the same time, Ryzen 7000 stands on unstable ground. Its spot in the winners circle isnt as secure as when Ryzen 5000 launched. It must contend with both Intel 12th-generation chips and the near-term prospect of 13th-gen Raptor Lake, too. In fact, Intel may spill the beans about Raptor Lake at its Intel Innovation 2022 event on September 27th, the very date that Ryzen 7000 hits streets. That realistically gives 7950X and its siblings but a day of focused attention in the spotlight. But dont read the situation as bleak for AMD. Ryzen 7000s launch is more like the opening to a revamped theater show: Before AMD and Intel took clear turns, with long pauses between each act. Now the storys getting complex, with faster pacing, an intricate plot, more actors on stage, and constant action in the background. So sure, Intel has teased gen-on-gen improvements of 15 percent for single-threaded performance and a whopping 41 percent increase for multithreaded. But the rumors also suggest Intels Raptor Lake chips can shoot past 300W for power consumption while boostingnot a surprise, given the claims of 6GHz clock speeds. And that could end up problematic for Team Blue. PCWorld One of the greatest things AMD did for the PC was taking high-octane computing and put it into the hands of the masses. Before Ryzen launched, an 10-core, 20-thread processor cost a painful $1,723; an 8-core, 16-thread processor came in at just under $1,110. Team Red put the stuff of dreams (and server rooms) into hands of consumers. AMD is the reason we now take processors with more than four cores for granted. With electricity rapidly becoming more expensive worldwide, high-wattage partseven ones that boast insane specsstart to float back up into the stratosphere. Power bills are rising, with some reports out of Europe indicating dramatic price jumps or anticipation of coming ones. CPUs may no longer be as affordable they once were (particularly at the high-end) thanks to secondary costs. And so AMDs focus on power efficiency could end up being the next important fight with Intel. But how that plays outand where that plays out, given the popularity of laptopsremains to be seen. Itll be revealed in time, during the next acts of the AMD vs Intel show. In the meantime were going to have plenty to discuss at the next intermission, and its coming in a little over 24 hours. No matter how the battle turns out, the Ryzen 9 7950X stands as a ferocious start to AMDs next chapter. 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. Oxford Universitys African Studies Centre officially announced its cooperation with Ghana Gold Expo Foundation to organise the 1st Strategic Mining Workshop on CSR and Community Engagement, Impact on December 6th 7th, 2022 at the Best Western Atlantic Hotel Takoradi. The University of Oxfords African Studies Centre has announced its official cooperation with Ghana Gold Expo as they focus on the CSR and Community Engagement workshop. Professor Miles Larmer, Director of the African Studies Centre, explained that the vision for the workshop, which has been jointly developed with Ghana Gold Expo and key stakeholders, is to bring together international and national leaders in the mining sector governmental and mine company representatives with non-governmental organisations, local community leaders, and academics, from both Ghana and the University of Oxford. The workshop will focus on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Mining Sector, Investment Agreements between the government and the mining companies, and the use of royalty funds, encompassing the themes of stakeholder engagement, human rights, reporting, and impact assessment. In Ghana, the Corporate Social Responsibility impact assessment by major mining companies has key policies that ensure the fulfillment and pledges by mining companies in areas including: Education Governance Health Infrastructure Development (Roads, Housing, Lighting) Conservation and Sanitation Capacity Building & Womens Empowerment Agriculture The workshop will assess the extent to which current Corporate Social Responsibility programmes and mechanisms are meeting the promise of these policies. According to the Executive Director of Ghana Gold Expo Foundation, Dr. Steven Blessing Ackah, he stated that this cooperation with the University of Oxford is very crucial and has come at the right time as mining activities are the bedrock of our society, a requisite for Ghanas development and also the need to have the national framework on CSR impact and reporting in Host Communities. The Western Regional Minister Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, anticipates that the workshop will invite the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, The Ghana Chamber of Mines, Minerals Development Fund, Minerals Income Investment Fund, Minerals Commission, Small Scale Miners Association, Gold Fields Ghana Limited, Adamus Resource Limited and Northern Ashanti mining, Newmont Ghana Limited, AngloGold Ashanti, Asante Gold Corporation and other stakeholders. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video More families from Ghana than ever before are considering a UK Boarding School Education for their daughters and sons, according to Mark Brooks, an experienced educational consultant who has been advising families from the region for 14 years and is hosting another exhibition in Accra this October. Parents are choosing the UK for their children in increased numbers in the past 12 months because of secluded settings, strong values, academic ambition, and superb support within a welcoming international community, Mr Brooks says. A delegation of 16 Principals and Registrars from leading schools, the largest group to visit the country, will be meeting with families at the UK Boarding Schools Week fair at The Kempinski Gold Coast City Hotel, Accra on Wednesday 5th October from 2 pm to 4 pm and an Evening Reception from 6 pm to 8 pm. UK schools offer traditional British values in an environment where students live and learn with others from across the globe. We are an exceptional community of genuinely diverse people, we actively welcome everyone," says Barnaby Sandow, Head of School, at ACS Cobham, who inspires the worlds next global thinkers and doers from 70 different nations, whose school will be attending. Sylvia Brett, Principal of Harrogate Ladies College says: We have a duty and responsibility to send pupils into the world with the best possible qualifications they can achieve and a lifelong love of learning. The full list of schools taking part in the delegation includes ACS Cobham, Bromsgrove School, Cardiff Sixth Form College, CATS, Culford School, David Game College, Earlscliffe College, Harrogate Ladies College, Holmewood House, Lancing College, LVS Ascot, Mount Kelly, Millfield, TASIS England, Westonbirt School and Wellington School. The events are fully supported by the British High Commission in Accra, in association with the UKs Department for International Trade (DIT) and organised by Mark Brooks Education, a DIT Export Champion. "This is the most wonderful educational environment to be in," concludes Christine Cunniffe Principal of LVS Ascot and summarises the benefits of a UK school. Our thriving schools will support your child to reach their full potential and become confident individuals both inside and beyond the classroom. For more information and to register go to www.markbrookseducation.com/ghana Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ghana does not, and will not, recognise any Ukrainian territory that is unilaterally and forcefully acquired or dismembered from a sovereign entity, Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, has stated. She, therefore, urged the Russian Federation to immediately and unconditionally cease its operations, withdraw its troops from the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine and respect its neighbours sovereignty and political independence. The Minister stated Ghanas position in her address at the United Nations Security Council High-Level briefing on Maintenance of Peace and Security of Ukraine, during the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The statement was made available to the Ghana News Agency by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration. The meeting, which was organised by France, places focus on the Russian - Ukraine war. The need for a credible pathway for a genuine diplomatic process is urgent," the Foreign Minister said. "The barrel of the gun does not provide such a pathway. It only leads to needless loss of lives and destruction on both sides. Indeed, the costs of the war have been high, not only for the parties, but also for the rest of the world. She called on the UN Security Council to act in an urgent and unified manner to end the near-paralysis of the Council and the war in Ukraine. She noted that the toll of that war was intolerable and the lack of a unified resolve risks making "our universal organisation an enabling factor for impunity in Ukraine". The damage to the standing of the Charter might be incalculable, she added. She reiterated that Ghana was especially concerned about the intensification of the war in Ukraine across several lines, with civilian populated areas and civilian infrastructure being the targets of bombardments. We regret that the basic laws, which govern the conduct of modern warfare and protect ordinary people, who are caught in the crossfires of war, have not been respected, Madam Ayorkor Botchwey stated. We are distressed by the diverse horrifying and painful humanitarian threats which have accompanied the war." She noted that some 14 million people, mostly women and children, had been displaced from their homes and faced heightened risks of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence. She said human trafficking, filtration processes, enforced disappearances, torture and other violations of the rights and freedoms of the people were widespread. We remain gravely concerned by the manifest threats of a nuclear episode, whether by accident or deliberate action, because of the constant military engagements around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant." The Minister said the disregard for the requisites for nuclear safety and security, including for the delineation of a safe zone, were deplorable. She said Ghana supported the efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to avert a nuclear catastrophe. With the rising death toll, civilian casualties and growing reports of war crimes and other human rights violations, the UN Security Council must uphold its responsibility as a Council and send a clear message that perpetrators of atrocities would be held to account, she urged. Ghana supported the importance of ensuring accountability for all war crimes committed in Ukraine, she emphasized. We must affirm our determination that the litany of atrocious acts that have taken place in Ukraine would be submitted to thorough, transparent, and independent investigations to establish the facts, and for the attribution of international crimes to their perpetrators. She said, Ukraine, as a sovereign State and a member of this Organisation, had every right and, indeed, a responsibility, to defend its territorial integrity and political independence. 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. Featured Video The police have debunked reports that Christopher Ekow Clarke Quansah, the Tufuhen of Akwakrom, near Mankessim, who has been accused of being involved in the murder of a prospective student-nurse at Mankessim, has died. The report circulating in the media that the chief arrested in connection with the murder of a prospective student-nurse at Mankessim has died is false, the police said in a statement issued on Saturday. According to the police, chief and his accomplice, the self-styled pastor who were remanded into police custody by the court to reappear on October 4, 2022, were alive and in custody. The Police, therefore, urged the public to treat the report with the contempt it deserved. The two accused persons were on Thursday remanded by the Cape Coast District Court 2 over the murder of Georgina Asor Botchwey, a 25-year-old who was seeking admission into the Ankaful Nursing School. The incident happened at Mankessim in the Central Region. Christopher Ekow Clarke Quansah, 65 and Michael Darko, 48, a self-styled pastor, have been charged with conspiracy to commit the crime, to wit murder and murder. Upon police interrogation, Darko allegedly admitted to the crime and said they wanted to use the deceased for money rituals. The pleas of the accused persons were not taken when they appeared before the court presided over by Mrs Bernice Mensimah Ackon, and are to reappear on Tuesday, October 4, 2022. Prosecuting, DSP Daniel Gadzo said the complainant, Mr Duodu, a military officer stationed at Takoradi, was a brother of the deceased. He said Darko, who resided in Kumasi, was the boyfriend of the deceased's sister, while Quansah was a resident of Sikafoambantem at Mankessim. On Thursday, September 8, Georgina, who had come from Yeji in the Bono East Region for an interview at the Ankaful Psychiatric Nursing Training School in Cape Coast, as a student applicant, called Darko to inform him of her presence in the town. He said Darko promised to pick her up after the interview on Friday, September 9, 2022. As promised, the two accused persons went to pick Georgina up from Ankaful in a taxicab to Pedu in Cape Coast, where Quansah had parked his Benz, with registration number GT 8686 C and drove her to Akwakrom, near Mankessim. Quansah and Darko then took Georgina's iPhone, locked her in a room and left for Sikafoambantem, a suburb of Mankessim, where they dug a hole in an uncompleted storey building. They later took the lady to the uncompleted building and Quansah hit her neck with a club from behind while Darko held her neck till she died. They then shaved her hair and buried her. The Central Regional Police Command reportedly picked intelligence, which led to the arrest of Darko at Anomabo but Quansah managed to escape. On Wednesday, September 21, Quansah was also picked up from his hideout upon a tip-off. Investigations are still ongoing, DSP Gadzo told the court. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The African Court on Human and Peoples Rights Judges will undertake a five-day peer-to-peer visit to the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court. The visit which is fixed for September 26 - 30, 2022 is aimed at exchanging experiences, and enhancing cooperation among the continental judicial fraternity, a statement signed by Dr. Robert Eno, African Court Registrar and copied to the Ghana News Agency, stated. The African Court statement explained that the purpose of the visit was also to generally engage with global judicial institutions, whose mandates stood at the intersection between public international law, and human rights justice. The African Courts delegation which includes seven Judges, Legal Officers, and Registry Staff, would be led by its President Lady Justice Imani Daud Aboud. According to the statement, the visit is part of the African Courts long-standing endeavour to pursue cooperation with peer institutions involved in human rights adjudication in a bid to reinforce judicial dialogue and exchange practices pertinent to international justice. The African Continental Court is composed of eleven Judges, nationals of Member States of the African Union elected in their individual capacity. The African Court was established pursuant to Article one of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples Rights, (the Protocol) which was adopted by Member States of the then Organisation of African Unity in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in June 1998. The Protocol came into force on 25 January 2004. 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. Featured Video Police in Nigeria has arrested a suspected notorious kidnapper known for flaunting his wealth on social media. Many knew John Lyon as a banker whose posts always advised people to work hard and to stay safe, local media report. A spokesperson for the police in the southern Bayelsa state told the BBC that Mr Lyon was in their custody. The suspect was transferred to the state after being arrested in the capital, Abuja, said Asimi Butswat. "When they get the money they go to Abuja to live lavishly," Mr Butswat told the BBC. At least ten kidnappings for ransom in Bayelsa state had been traced to his gang, the authorities say. But he is not the group's leader. Many Nigerians have expressed dismay over the development with some describing the suspect as a generous person who was fond of giving gifts. Mr Lyon has not yet commented publicly. But a video reportedly of him while in police custody has surfaced on social media. In the short clip, the detained man is seen asking for forgiveness after his arrest. The police are expected to give further updates on Monday afternoon. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A former Chairman of the New Patriotic Party(NPP) in the Kwabre South constituency of the Ashanti Region, Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, has urged Ghanaians to rise up and support the government in its efforts to restructure the economy and make the country a safe haven. He made the clarion call when he spoke to Owuohene Addai Mununkum on Nyame Nipa Radio in Dusseldorf, Germany on September 25, 2022. COKA stated that the government continues to prioritize the needs of the Ghanaian people, especially in the Ashanti Region. He was responding to development concerns that have sparked public interest in the Ashanti Region and the Nation at large. "You see, Rome wasn't built in a day. And it takes the effort of not only the government but all of us inclusive to make things work. Yes, the government is playing its part but the rest lies with us to come together, little by little, contributing our quota.and the country will be exactly as we prayed for. "Development doesn't happen in a day. It takes a bit of time. That is why we(NPP) are asking for 4 more years to break the eight, to enable us to finish the good works. He emphasized, however, that in order to ensure a full recovery, 'we must have the oneness of mind'. He also touched on efforts by the government in the area of roads and highways, transport and interior, fast-tracking the implementation of the Jobs and Skills Programme to enable private sector businesses to expand and employ more people. "The government is doing most in terms of Infrastructure. The visibility of these developments mostly depends on where you are. You cannot see development in Tamale standing in Kumasi. It's not possible. The public sector cannot employ everyone..therefore I urge graduates to use the knowledge acquired in school to start businesses on their own. I've realised here in Germany that there are more Private owned businesses than the government, and that's how it should be, he stressed. The former Chairman added that the government ensured that the worst possible effect of the pandemic was averted. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The family of a Cameronian who was lynched are currently seeking justice stating that their relative was never a criminal as it was alleged. Akroman Betro Stephane, a 44-year-old Cameronian, lost his life following a mob attack at Ahwiaa in the Kwabre East Municipality of the Ashanti region. The 44-year-old Cameronian, who lived in Ghana as a business mogul, met his untimely death on Thursday dawn following an alleged robbery and kidnap with his brother-in-law, a 29-year-old Aka Christ. The two are said to have allegedly snatched a car and kidnapped two children. Other reports suggested that the two only stole a phone. According to eyewitnesses, the foreign nationals were chased from Adabraka near Pankrono. Luck eluded them at Ahwiaa in the Kwabre East Municipality where they became victims of a mob attack. The Mamponteng police came to the rescue of the two who were later admitted to the Mamponteng government hospital. Unfortunately for 44-year-old Stephane, he passed on at around 3:30 am on Thursday dawn, according to the doctor's report. Twist A thorough investigation from a security source revealed that the two suspects were innocent. As earlier reports suggested, they neither snatched a car, kidnapped children nor stole a mobile phone. The police and immigration officers who have been investigating the matter refused to speak on the matter at the time of filing this report. However, a tip-off by a security source confirmed that the said car belonged to the duo with credible documents backing it. Police are yet to establish any accurate charge that led to the brutality of the two victims as no one had officially lodged any complaint at the time this story was filed. Reaction from the deceased' wife and family: Mrs. Faha Nadine Victoire, wife of the 44-year-old deceased and sister of Aka Christ, speaking with journalists said the victims were innocent. According to her, she and the husband peacefully lived in Accra where the husband deals in phones and accessories as a business mogul. She further revealed that she and her husband came to Kumasi for a meeting organised by Cameron nationals in Ghana. The wife, who was in a sombre mood, revealed that she was in a hotel room at Pankrono when the information came that her husband and her brother had been attacked. "I immediately called my husband but one guy picked up the call and told me that he seized my husband's phone because my husband was nabbed as a thief. But when I inquired about my husband's whereabouts, he hung up on me. My husband is not a thief, he is a businessman and the car they claimed he stole is his own car. I'm disappointed in Ghana people," she said while weeping. She has, however, called on the security service to make ensure justice is served and the perpetrators brought to book. According to her, the husband left behind three children. Meanwhile, some family members have declared the innocence of their two relatives and called for justice to prevail. They also appealed to the police and the immigration officers to as a matter of urgency take charge of the matter. In a related development, information gathered revealed that the surviving victim was carried along with the police to help in their investigation. Reaction from the MCE: Meanwhile, the MCE for the area, Opoku Agyemang Bonsu, has urged the police to thoroughly investigate the matter and bring the perpetrators to book. He further called on the public to always exercise restraint when it comes to mob attack Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on corporate individuals and organisations to become part of Africas change makers for prosperity on the continent. According to him, there is currently a limited opportunity for Africa to act decisively in eradicating poverty, fostering inclusiveness, championing equality and safeguarding the health of our planet. Speaking at the 2022 Global Citizen Festival held in Accra on September 24, 2022, President Akufo-Addo advocated for needed reforms and measures aimed at addressing Africas pressing needs. We have a limited opportunity to act decisively to leave millions out of poverty for both inclusiveness and equality to safeguard the health of our planet, President Akufo Addo said. I invite other corporates and individuals to be part of this historical journey towards the creation of African prosperity for the Africa we want, he added. He further called for investments aimed at improving Ghana and Africas climate change efforts in order to ensure citizens can live in a safe and clean environment. President Akufo-Addo however announced the launch of a $1 billion fund called the African Prosperity Fund in collaboration with the Southern African government. It will fund strategic and transformational projects on the continent in the areas of infrastructural development, financial access and participation of women and youth, education healthcare, technology ad sustainability so that we leave no one behind in Africa, he explained. In his conclusion, the president commended the organisers of the Global Citizen Festival for choosing Ghana for this years event and urged for more collaboration in the future. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Every dog must be vaccinated once every one or two years to help Ghana achieve immunity by 2030. The critical proportion of all dogs that ought to be vaccinated is 70 per cent in order to break the dog-to-dog transmission of rabies. Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, Director of Public Health at Ghana Health Service, disclosed these ahead of this years World Rabies Day celebration at a press briefing in Accra yesterday. He said mass vaccination of dogs should be preceded by evidence-based research of the dog ecology, population numbers and transmission in Ghana. After this, adequate planning in strategy and logistics informed by policy is needed. All these must be done as quickly as necessary, considering the exigencies of the times. Community engagement and participation is key in assuring success of set targets in mass dog vaccination, he stated Dr Bekoe said this years celebration would be held on the theme One Health, Zero Deaths to coincide with a recent record of cases of human rabies in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, saying the one health approach is an intersectoral collaboration between institutions concerned with human health, animal health and environment health. Rabies is considered a proxy for One Health because it has the human, animal and environmental components. This year, we want to remind ourselves of the One Health strategies and approaches, the systems, institutions and other resources we will fall on, and what our objectives ought to be from now till the next celebration he stated. He said from May 21 to 25, 2018, relevant stakeholders met to develop the current Ghana Rabies Control and Prevention Action Plan (2018-2030) whose goal was to use the One Health Approach to control rabies in Ghana. The plan he said highlighted prevention and control of rabies, data collection and analysis, laboratory diagnosis, dog population management, information, education and communication, intersectoral collaboration and legislation. Dr Bekoe pleaded with all relevant stakeholders to collaborate to drive progress towards Zero human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030. Dr Patrick Abakeh, Acting Chief Veterinary Officer said human vaccines were expensive and that it was currently estimated to cost USD$4,087,970 annually. For him, every exposed person who received a PEP vaccine, 50 dogs could have been vaccinated at the same cost, adding that in the hierarchy of importance of control of rabies , vaccinating dogs came first, followed by vaccinating exposed humans. Dr Abakeh called for the resource of the Veterinary Service Directorate (VSD) to be able to deal with zoonotic diseases as Ghana, together with other countries in the sub region, were endemic to rabies which is a Neglected Tropical Zoonosis. Dr Guyo Guracha , a representative from World Health Organisation, said his outfit regularly updated and disseminated technical guidance on rabies, for example epidemiology, surveillance, diagnostics, vaccines, safe and cost-effective immunisation , control and prevention strategies for human and animal rabies, operational programme implementation and palliative care for human rabies patients. Benjamin M.Adjei, Assistant Food and Agriculture Organisation Representative of the United Nations, added that Rabies had a significant impact on lives and livelihoods, particularly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and that the poor and marginalised communities were most heavily impacted as they often could not afford treatment or transport for care. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video One more person involved in last January's Appiatse disaster has passed on. The victim suffered a spine injury and has been in hospital all this while. He passed on at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital where he was on admission last Friday. John Opare, 27, developed a spine injury during the disaster which happened in January 2022. Opare had been in and out of hospital for the past eight months. He was paralyzed as a result of the spine injury. This brings the total number of casualties from that disaster to 16. Thirteen were pronounced dead on the spot and the remaining three died in the ensuing months. Maxam Ghana Limited, the company at the centre of the explosion that occurred at Appiatse in the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality of the Western Region, has been fined US$1 million plus other costs totaling US$6 million. Source: Graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A very popular youth group belonging to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Northern Region, BIG-6 has joined the camp of the trade and industries minister, Alan Kojo Kyeremanteng ahead of the partys flagbearership race. In an interview on Radio Tamale evening political talkshow dubbed Alan Dundongni last night, some members of the group made the announcement, disclosing that their chairman and one other member are not part of those joining the Alan camp. They explained that out of a total of 43 members, one member is with the Agric Ministers camp, while the chairman who is their leader is with the Dr. Mahamadu Bawumias. We have taken this decision to join Alan camp against the will of our chairman. We know he is not happy, but this is good for us. About 40 of our members are all poling station executives. And that makes us delegates, one the members, Alhassan Bawa said. When asked why the Alan Kyeremanteng team and not any of the persons availing themselves for the position, another member, Choggu Zagban Naa answered, We have done our research and Alan is the right man to lead the NPP to break the 8. And again we have not been treated well as members of the ruling party. Few weeks ago, Alhaji Abdul Mumin Salifu C.O.P. also declared his support for Mr. Alan, also describing him as the right man for the job. Jack who was the firsr runner up in the last NPP regional executive elections in the Northern Region in a Facebook post yesterday assured the Alan Kyeremanteng that he shall avail himself to work for his interest 24/7. I know that change only happens when ordinary NPP people get involved in your team and I have no regret meeting you. I will work with you hand in hand 24/7, Jack wrote on Facebook. 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. Featured Video Campaign Manager of defeated Northern Regional Chairman hopeful of the governing New Patriotic Party(NPP), Alhaji Hindu Abdallah has disclosed that he will lead the campaign of Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumias. His decision to support the Vice President he disclosed in a radio interview, is not borne of being a Northern brother but because Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia can provide the quality leadership the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Ghana need going forward. To him, it will be imperative for all members of the New Patriotic Party to rally behind a man who has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he is capable of helping the party break the eight. Alhaji Inusah Dagomba Boy was speaking on Radio Tamale when he made this known. If Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is contesting, then I will be the lead campaigner for him. Im not supporting Bawumia because he is a Northerner or Muslim but rather supporting him because he is competent, he said. He continued; Dr. Mahamudu is extremely knowledgeable and fit for the job. Theres nobody who is more popular than Bawumia in the NPP. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) will choose a new leader for the 2024 elections. The Governing political party seeks to make history in Ghanas political space by going past the eight-year cycle enjoyed by all political parties in the country. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) meets with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the ongoing 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the United States, Sept. 23, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres here Friday on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly. Secretary-General Guterres has called for strengthening international cooperation as the world today is full of changes and chaos, which the Chinese side deeply appreciates, said Wang. China has always been advocating that major countries, especially permanent members of the UN Security Council, should take the lead in complying with the international law, in maintaining the authority of the UN, in practicing true multilateralism and in helping developing countries, he said, adding it is regrettable that certain major country, for its self-interest, practices unilateralism in the name of multilateralism, and creates small circles or cliques everywhere under the pretext of maintaining so-called rules. China will stand firmly with the UN, unswervingly support the UN's central role in international affairs, and support the UN in playing a bigger role in addressing challenges confronting peace and security, Wang said. Guterres expressed appreciation for the key role China has been playing for a long time in upholding multilateralism, promoting international cooperation and sustainable development, saying the partnership with China is an important pillar for the UN and multilateralism. He said that the two sides have been carrying out close and effective cooperation, and that the UN supports the Global Development Initiative (GDI). He congratulated China for successfully organizing the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the GDI recently, which he believed would help accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Guterres briefed Wang about the recent efforts to promote Ukrainian grain shipments and Russia's fertilizer exports, and expressed deep concern about the difficulties facing developing countries due to spillover from the Ukrainian crisis. Guterres said that the UN takes development as a priority and hopes to strengthen cooperation with China on issues bearing the interest of developing countries, such as financing, climate change responses, biodiversity, and anti-pandemic measures. Wang said that China appreciates the Secretary-General's active mediation and tangible results, adding that China's core position on the Ukrainian issue is to promote peace talks and stand on the side of peace. He stressed that China will continue to play a constructive role in its own way. Wang emphasized that Chinese President Xi Jinping has proposed the GDI and Global Security Initiative, which has contributed a China plan to boosting international development cooperation and helping implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and has provided public goods to mitigate peace and security deficit and jointly cope with the current severe challenges. Wang said that China is willing to work closely with the UN to form greater consensus, gather more forces and facilitate more actions, adding that China will continue to support the various causes of the UN and assume its due responsibilities. On the same day, Wang also met with Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai and Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Ali Sabry respectively. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed optimism that the country will have a female President in the near future. He said he would relentlessly pursue a fight against gender inequality to bring women to the standards they deserved to be. He added that the government placed emphasis on policies that would make the girl child reach her full potential, for the benefit of not only females but also the country at large. Women and girls account for 51 per cent of the population of Ghana, the majority and that is the same everywhere on the continent. So, empowering them is critical to speeding up Africas progress, he stated. President Akufo-Addo said this when he delivered an address at the Global Citizen Festival held at the Black Star Square in Accra last Saturday night. The festival, which took the form of a musical concert, was timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly to leverage opportunities to get policy and financial commitments from government, corporate and philanthropic leaders. The 2022 Global Citizen Festival took place simultaneously at the Black Star Square in Accra, and on Great Lawn in Central Park in New York City, USA. President Akufo-Addo, in his address, said, As President of Ghana, as co-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and as AU gender champion, I am committed to putting in place policies and programmes aimed at improving the development of the girl child in Ghana. The President added, Im equally committed to ensuring access to a minimum of senior high school education for the girl child in Ghana, a policy that has already begun to work. Together, we can achieve gender equality, empower the women and girls and achieve the global needs and goals of the SDGs, and one day, we are going to have a female President of Ghana. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video To mark his 45th birthday yesterday, September 19, gospel musician Nii Okai has released a new album Revealing Jesus. The eight-track album was unveiled at a ceremony which took place at Alisa Hotel in Tema on Saturday, September 17. Four of the songs namely Moko be (Praise), Breaking Seals ft MOG Music, Kron (Holy), Naano Lala had earlier been released and enjoying playing time. Other songs on the album are Weep No More ft Eugene Zuta, Worthy is the Lamb, To Him Who Sits on the Throne and Reign Forever. The album was produced by KODA and also features the likes of Pastor Isaiah Fosu-Kwakye. In an interview with Graphic Showbiz, Nii Okai said that the latest album marks a new beginning of his career. This album marks a new beginning in my ministry as I look forward to what is to come. I have come to appreciate that Jesus has to be revealed through us. This album was started in 2020 during the lockdown, when the Lord in a single night gave several heavenly melodies put to varied scriptures from the book of Revelation, Nii Okai said. The album launch was graced by media personnel such as Fiifi Folson, religious leaders, and notable figures like Dr. Zanetor Rawlings and Samuel Atta Mensah, General Manager of Citi FM. Frema Adunyame was the host for the night. From the inception of Nii Okai Ministries (NOM) in 2003, the Mokobe hitmaker has grown his craft and making impact both in Ghana and beyond for the past 19 years. He has earned a reputable image with his commitment to integrity, trustworthy approach to Ministry, charity projects such as Save a Heart foundation which has been a means to support the medical bills of people with heart conditions. Next year marks his 20th anniversary and Nii Okai told Graphic Showbiz that he is gearing up for [email protected]. Source: Graphic Showbiz Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A WestJet Airlines Boeing 737 Max aircraft arrives at Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, B.C., Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. Airports in Atlantic Canada are resuming operations after hurricane Fiona stopped most flights in and out of the region over the weekend. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck A resident and search and rescue worker examine the destroyed remains of a home in Port aux Basques, N.L., Monday, Sept.26, 2022. Post-tropical storm Fiona carved a path of devastation across parts of Atlantic Canada, leaving behind smashed homes, roads strewn with debris and hundreds of thousands of people without power. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn Colin Haley making the first winter solo of Supercanaleta on Fitz Roy in Patagonia, September 2022. 'I think this might be my favorite photo that I have ever taken from a solo climb' Photo by Colin Haley Colin Haley making the first winter solo of Supercanaleta on Fitz Roy in Patagonia, on 19 September 2022. 'Self portrait high on the ridge. It doesnt look it in this photo, but I was in fact very stressed!' Photo by Colin Haley Colin Haley completes first winter solo of Supercanaleta on Fitz Roy in Patagonia 26.09.2022 by by Planetmountain Chamonix-based alpinist Colin Haley has made the first solo winter ascent of the classic Supercanaleta route on Fitz Roy in Patagonia Chamonix-based alpinist Colin Haley has completed a climbing goal that has been playing on his mind for the last nine years, namely the first winter solo ascent of the Supercanaleta on Fitz Roy in Patagonia. The phenomenal 1600m climb up the mountains West Face is regarded as a natural masterpiece; first ascended in 1965 by the Argentineans Carlos Comesana and Jose Luis Fonrouge, it embraces all styles of climbing (ice, mixed and rock) past difficulties up to 85, 5+ and over the years has transformed into one of the biggest jewels in Patagonias lavish crown. Before embarking on his solo Haley knew the route well. He first climbed the line in December 2007 with Maxime Turgeon, then completed only the second solo ascent of the Supercanaleta in January 2009 after Dean Potter had made the first in 2002. In 2016 Haley teamed up with Andy Wyatt to climb Fitz Roy in less than a day roundtrip from the road for the first time, requiring just 21 hours from the car and back. Haley traveled to Patagonia this August and at the end of the month and start of September he made two trips into the mountains to stash climbing gear near the base of the route. He then approached the mountain on the 6th of September but reached the base late in the day due to the copious amount of snow and, after receiving an updated weather forecast, he returned to El Chalten the next evening. He made a second attempt on the 12th; he crossed the Bergschrund at 7:00am, but progress was slow due to hard, grey ice on the lower section. He reached the diagonal rappel above the Bloque Empotrado at 14:30 and after inadvertently bending his pick and knowing that a storm was approaching, he descended. The abseils proved arduous and while dodging falling rocks he vowed he would never try to solo the route again. He returned to the safety of his tent at 21:30, just a few hours before a major storm arrived. He packed all his gear and throughout the night made what he describes as an "epic" hike back to civilisation. The thought of the Supercanaleta didnt leave him though and on the 18th of September he was back again. Hed split the approach over two days due to the fresh snowfall and the fact that he had to transport all his gear to the base of the mountain once again. He felt fatigued and considered taking a rest day, yet after consulting Patagonian expert Rolando Garibotti - with whom in 2008 hed made the coveted first Torre traverse - he opted to make his push on the 19th. The 38-year-old crossed the Bergschrund at 7:00am once again and despite reaching his previous highpoint only 15 minutes earlier than before, this time he was slightly more confident because he knew the weather would hold. He negotiated dry terrain and after stashing one of his 60m ropes, he reached the upper southwest ridge at 15:45. He finished the last difficult pitch in last light at 20:05 and summited at 21:23. Anxious about the descent, he started downclimbing almost immediately and made a couple short rappels along the upper 200m of mixed terrain to reach the top of the huge gully. 1000 meters of rappelling followed, at first with just one rope for the first 200m, then with his second roped stashed in the gully. He returned to his tent at 5:00am on the 20th of September. Feeling wasted physically, mentally, and psychologically he rested for 12 hours, then started the walk out at 17:30. He bivied one last time, on dry ground between Piedra Negra and Piedra del Fraile, and returned to El Chalten on the 21st. In his excellent report on his website, he sums up the experience as follows: "There is no one pitch on the Supercanaleta that is extremely difficult or dangerous, but the length of the route, having to be in a hyper-focused state non-stop for 21.5 hours, and doing it all in the cold and solitude of winter made it a very intense experience. It is difficult for me to gauge or quantify how much more difficult it was than soloing the route in summer back in 2009. For sure it was a significant step up, even though in 2009 I had particularly bad conditions for summer, and even though this time I had, I think, pretty good conditions for winter, and certainly good weather. It is also difficult for me to gauge, at least in my still-tired state, where this ascent stands among my other climbing accomplishments, or how this ascent will be viewed by others. I often find the public reaction to various climbing accomplishments to not correlate very strongly with the actual difficulty of the climbing accomplishment. These days what seems to count is making movies rather than making difficult ascents. It doesnt matter really. I know from the intensity of my experience that it was pretty darn badass, and I dont need external affirmation to confirm that to me." Haley thanks Petzl, SCARPA, Patagonia Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that evidence is being preserved so that others can pick up the 1/6 investigation if Democrats lose the House. Video of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) on Meet The Press: Transcript via: Meet The Press: CHUCK TODD: So if the Democrats hold the Senate though, youll know this in December? If Democrats hold the Senate or if Democrats lose the House, do you send your investigative materials over to the Judiciary Committee and Dick Durbin? REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Well, were going to make sure that our investigative materials are made public and are available for the future. And were going to preserve them. Were not going to allow them to be destroyed. CHUCK TODD: But its my understanding, the investigation, Im told youve got so much evidence that you cant finish this up by the end of the calendar year. You do need more time. The president could create a committee by executive order to finish this job. And Liz Cheneys not going to be in Congress, maybe shes one of the co-chairs. Do you do that to preserve this investigation? REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Look. It would have been a lot better, had Donald Trump essentially not gotten the Republicans in the House to veto the creation of an independent, 9/11-style commission. But were going to make sure that all of the evidence is preserved. But the main thing is this coming Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. And in our report, we want America to understand there was a premeditated and deliberate hit on American democracy in attempt to override the will of the people. And the forces that supported that are still out there and would gladly do it again. And a lot of them are running for high offices, like Mastriano in Pennsylvania. These are people who are election-deniers who are committed basically to their party winning, regardless of who actually won the election. Losing the House might not be the end of the 1/6 investigation. Biden could create a committee to keep the work going, and if Democrats keep the Senate, they could use the evidence to continue or expand on the House investigation. House Republicans claim that they are going to investigate the investigation if they win the majority, but that effort will likely gain very little traction with the press and the public as recent years have demonstrated a general skepticism toward the blatantly partisan investigations that Republicans used to run in the House like Benghazi. The bad news for Trump and his co-conspirators is that even if Republicans win control of the House, the investigations arent going to stop, and the foundation that has been set by the 1/6 Committee may be the basis for future probes. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said that the state of New York could be looking to recover $750 million to $1 billion in penalties and fines against Trump. Video of Michael Cohen on MSNBCs The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart: Cohen said when asked if the New York case against Trump will go to trial: They had opportunities to settle. We dont know what the facts behind that t are. However, the 250 million pursuant to the 200-page indictment by just our unshakable attorney general is the base that she is looking for. Thats not the ceiling. Were talking about anywhere, in about anywhere my estimation based upon the documents that I know the attorney general has, I suspect are probably looking at somewhere between 750 million to one billion dollars in penalties and fines. Cohen pointed out that these are financial and tax crimes that Trump has potentially committed and the numbers dont lie, so unlike other cases against Trump where it is his word against someone elses, the problem here is a mountain of written evidence and documents laying out the fraud that was committed. If New York tries to recover a billion dollars against Trump, it will financially ruin the former president, his family, and his business. Trump has an estimated $900 million in loans that are coming due from 2022-2024. His businesses have been failing for years, as his main source of revenue was fundraising, and when he was president, grifting off of the taxpayers and using his position to make money. If New York comes after Trump for everything that is owed, he will be financially destroyed. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print While speaking at the McConnell Center, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) called for strengthening the filibuster. Video of Sinema: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) says she's not only against abolishing the filibuster, she's for strengthening it: "The best thing you can do for your child is to not give them everything they want We should restore the 60-vote threshold for areas in which it has been eliminated." pic.twitter.com/OR53ymuE4x Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) September 26, 2022 Sinema said, Not only am I committed to the 60 vote threshold, I actually think we should restore the 60 vote threshold to areas where it has been eliminated. Sen. Sinema was speaking at the Mitch McConnell Center, where McConnell introduced her. Sinema is already cruising for a primary challenge from Democrats, and the clips of her speech reflect someone who arrogantly believes that she is above the passions of Republicans and Democrats. The message that Sinema sent was clear. Democrats need to pick up two Senate seats in six weeks to render Sinema irrelevant, and she will no longer be able to obstruct progress. Kyrsten Sinema has now given more speeches with Mitch McConnell (1) than she has held town halls with her constituents in Arizona (0). Sinema knows that she could never get elected as a Republican in Arizona. She needs the Democratic Party, but she is also under the delusion that she is the reincarnation of John McCain and she can be above partisan politics. Sen. Sinema is standing with Mitch McConnell on the filibuster, so Democrats must end her obstruction on election day. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Trumps attempt to delay the Florida case is not only failing to get him any real delay; the tactic is now firmly backfiring. After classified documents were found at Mar-a-Lago, Trump and his legal team must have believed that an indictment was near-imminent. We know this because Trump sought to delay a process in which he hasnt even been charged with filing that is rarely seen. It is not uncommon at all for some defendants to press to bring matters to a standstill. But, again, Trump hadnt been charged. Enter the Special Master. Trump offered up former FISA judge Raymond Dearie who oversaw the Carter Page matter, on the belief that Dearie would hold a grudge or at least be more skeptical of the FBI. In effect, they applied Trumpian-logic, hoping that Dearie would want to protect Trump in a legal question unrelated to the FBI. It didnt work out that way. From The Daily Beast: Raymond Dearie, the semi-retired Brooklyn federal judge specifically brought in to second-guess the Justice Department, has actually used his special master role to speed up the review. On Friday, Dearie set an Oct. 28 deadline to know what documents Trump actually wants to hold back from the DOJ on the head-scratching theory that a former president can cite executive privilege that somehow supersedes the current executive branch. And with respect to the bizarre claims out of court, Dearie wants Trumps team to provide any evidence that Trump declassified the documents or that the FBI planted the files by the end of the week. It is a fast put up or shut up order that is separate from the question regarding whether executive privilege is a thing in this context and, if it is, whether the privilege covers these documents. Dearie wants to clear away the B.S. fast, thus making Trump look like an even bigger fool whose public pronouncements are complete lieshurting Trump. The Daily Beast sets out that Trump has already suffered his own self-inflicted fate in the 11th Circuit, too: The 11th Circuit panel even called out Trump for publicly claiming it was fine for him to have classified records because hed already declassified themmaybe even in his head, as he mused to Fox News. The appellate panel noted that Trumps lawyers have yet to make that argument before Dearie (perhaps, as some have pointed out because lying to a judge would cost them their license to practice law). [Trump] suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was president. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified. And before the special master, [Trump] resisted providing any evidence that he had declassified any of these documents, the panel wrote. The 11th Circuit and Judge Raymond Dearie are not allowing Trumps delay tactic to work. The courts have far more leeway to strip arguments that delay a case when charges havent been filed. If an indictment is handed down, Trump will have more opportunities for a real delay because the rules of criminal procedure, rules meant to protect a defendants rights, kick in. But even there, Trump faces problems. Any indictment that may come down will publicly lay out Trumps actions that led to the indictment. There will still be a few portions blacked out to protect certain sources. But the public will get far facts to support indicting Trump. The facts if charged will almost surely be very compelling, or they wouldnt go forward. Thus, slowing the process down after an indictment doesnt provide Trump much cover. Many people will see him as guilty right out of the gate. After celebrating his 101st birthday earlier this month, Charles Combier said he was enjoying himself immensely during a special event held in honor of his longevity Sept. 24. The site was David Meuniers La Bourgogne polo center on Coleman Bridge Road between Aiken and Wagener. During the Coupe Charles Combier 101, the festivities included two polo games and an Argentinestyle barbecue. Attendees included Combiers three children, 10 or so other family members and members of a club he belongs to, Alliance Francaise dAiken. Combiers wife, Madeleine, who died in 2008, was among the co-founders of the organization. I could be dead, you know, but Im not dead, and that is a feat in itself, Combier said. And its not only that Im alive because Im also in good health and my head is altogether fine. Im a little hard of hearing, but I think Im extremely lucky. Im eating well and enjoying good wine. As Combier talked, he sat at a table between his daughters, Catherine Combier-Donovan and Anne Elmerick. It is great to be able to enjoy being with him on a regular basis, said Elmerick, who lives in Greenville. I come to Aiken every week. My brother (Philippe) comes regularly, and my sister does as well. We are so fortunate to be able to spend time with him. He tells us all these stories of his past. He has an amazing memory. A native of France, Combier is a retired textile engineer and co-founder of the Whiskey Road Foxhounds. Meunier, who also was born in France, is a fellow member of Alliance Francaise dAiken. Last year, Meunier organized a 100th birthday party for Combier that also was held at La Bourgogne, and he wanted to commemorate his friends longevity again. We have a meeting (of the Alliance Francaise) every month, Meunier said. One of the topics was about polo, and I gave a speech. Then during the annual Alliance Francaise dinner, I said, 'You know what, Charles, Im going to do a polo game for you,' and thats when it started. Two matches were scheduled when the plans were finalized. In the first, a preliminary contest that featured female players, the Barbarians beat France, 6-5. In the main match that followed, the Barbarians also won, defeating France 7-6. Combier awarded the trophies after both games. Even though Meunier was on the main matchs losing team, he was named the most valuable player. During the Coupe Charles Combier 101, spectators gathered in and around the new, three-story Anthony Francois Meunier Pavilion. The structure is named for Meuniers late son, who died in August at the age of 22 in a single-vehicle crash. Prior to the start of the main match, the national anthems of France and the US both were played. There also was a moment of silence for Anthony Meunier and Henry Cato, a former member of the Aiken Polo Clubs board of directors who died in August at the age of 67. Caitlin Ashworth is a crime reporter for The Post and Courier in Columbia. She spent several years in Thailand before moving to South Carolina. The intense, layered pounding of drums pulsed through the gym at Meeting Street Elementary at Brentwood one Saturday. Under fluorescent lights, dancers in the center of the room hopped and stepped their bare feet to the beats. They twisted their torsos and kicked their legs. With their focus and precision, the performers could have been mistaken for professionals. Instead, the group, from the drummers to the dancers, were all elementary students or alumni from either the private school Meeting Street Academy in Charleston or the public school Meeting Street Elementary at Brentwood. They were a part of the Watoto Academy of Performing Arts, a youth arts program at the two schools. Donald OConnor, Watotos director, studied them. With their performances just two days away, this was their final opportunity to practice and refine their public show, The Sounds of Joy. At the heart of Watoto is a celebration of Black culture and history, from the drumming and dancing to the West African-inspired costumes. That representation is key. Both Meeting Street Academy and Meeting Street Elementary at Brentwood serve mostly Black students. Traditionally, performing arts programs, from plays to dance pieces in schools, highlight works by White American and European authors and creators. In 2020, the play She Kills Monsters, written by Vietnamese American playwright Qui Nguyen, was the only production by a non-White artist among the top 10 plays performed in high schools, per an Educational Theatre Association report. Watotos emphasis on highlighting African and African American cultures stands out. The program teaches students about humanity through music and history, which OConnor said connects many of the young performers with older generations. Past themes have focused on the value of education during the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance, and the courage of Ruby Bridges and her teacher Barbara Henry. Donate to our Investigative Fund to support journalism like this Our public service and investigative reporting is among the most important work we do. Its also the most expensive reporting we do. We cant do it without your support. Donate Now I got so many calls from grandparents I couldn't believe my child was singing this old song, OConnor said. And we, as a culture, we have to preserve that, as any culture does. Like much of the world, the Watoto Academy was jostled by the pandemics disruptions. The group didnt hold a performance in 2021. The show in January 2022 was the students first time returning to the stage in two years. Ahead of the performances, OConnor said he felt the anticipation growing from many families eager to see their children sing and dance again. Watotos origin story OConnor first created the Watoto program more than 30 years ago in Memphis, his hometown. Seeing children in his neighborhood in need of a community, he decided to take action using his background as a musician, songwriter and producer. The program quickly grew from practicing on street corners and in churches to performing for then-Vice President Al Gore and at a festival in Italy. Meeting Street Academy invited OConnor to visit Charleston in 2015. He said he initially hesitated to move the program, but six months later, the mass shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME Church shook the city. Nine Black worshipers were killed during a Bible study by a White supremacist. OConnor felt galvanized to create something in response. What OConnor landed on was the idea of Love America, the overarching theme for his Watoto performances. Looking around, he said he saw increasing polarization and negativity emerging in the country. He wanted to show young children in Charleston another possibility. I want them to see a wonderful place and an America that their ancestors loved, he said. And their ancestors did everything and will continue to do everything they can to be successful in this country. More about Bright Spots Bright Spots is an ongoing data-driven series that highlights the accomplishments of K-12 schools in South Carolina. The series isnt focusing Each Watoto production may only run for a few days, but it involves a year of work. OConnor first lands on a particular lesson he wants to impart on students. He hopes to craft them into what he calls loving citizens who care about the world. Following research, he selects stories in history to illustrate that specific lesson and immerses students in the sounds and movements of that era. The history is the tool by which we go to tell the bigger story, OConnor said. With the production about the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance, students learned about jazz and performed swing dance. Ultimately, OConnor said he brought students into that era because he wanted to show how people at the time so valued a better life, including education, that they were willing to move great distances. A push for more inclusion OConnor recognizes hes not the only one integrating the celebration of Black and African cultures into childrens schooling. Education opportunities similar to Watoto exist elsewhere and dont necessarily have to involve a private school. Nasha Thomas similarly recognizes the lasting power of exposing young students to the performing arts. Shes a master teacher for the Arts in Education program from the famed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the national director for AileyCamp summer program. Sign up for our Education Lab newsletter. Email Sign Up! Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey, when founding his pioneering modern dance group in New York in the late-1950s, prioritized creating a multicultural company. He envisioned a company that would both celebrate and preserve the American modern dance tradition and African American cultural experience. A lot of times our children of color are the ones that don't have access to this stuff, Thomas said. They are kind of left behind. And it's important for, I think, all cultures, races to share their stories. Thomas travels with the company across the country and hosts dance workshops in schools, prioritizing institutions serving students from mostly low-income families to reach those who may not have access to the arts. The program, which uses the companys ballets as the basis of curriculums, spends just a week at each school. Thomas sees the workshops as an all-encompassing experience. Students learn choreography and various other topics, such as Aileys life growing up with a single mother; jazz and Duke Ellington; and how to present themselves to others. She believes the skills imparted from the performing arts are important for everyone, not just performers. More Information The Post and Courier Education Lab is a multi-year project, employing four reporters, focused on the need for public education reform in South Carolina. The Coastal Community Foundation and Spartanburg Foundation serve as fiscal sponsors for the Education Lab, which is supported by grants from the Jolley Foundation, Intertech, anonymous donors, and generous donations on behalf of donors to The Post and Courier Public Service and Investigative Fund who designate to the Education Lab. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Watoto ultimately fit into a larger effort to make the performing arts more inclusive. In recent years, more institutions appear to be recognizing and supporting the works produced by Black artists. Seven new plays debuted on Broadway in fall 2021, and all were written by Black playwrights. Whether that inclusiveness on stages as big as Broadways continues to be sustained remains to be seen. But Watoto and programs like it certainly help children at a young age feel the effects of representation. A sense of pride Last school years iteration of Love America was titled The Sounds of Joy. Students traced the evolution of blues, jazz, R&B and hip hop in the 20th century to music from the 19th century and as far back as the 18th century. Throughout centuries of slavery, enslaved Black people in North America developed worship songs by blending Christian music with African traditions. The music was a means of survival, capturing both sorrows and hope. Students devoted their weekday afternoons, many Saturdays and a part of their summer to understanding and capturing the strength and joy in the music and dancing over the course of a year. The lessons they learned went beyond rhythms, notes and vocalizations. The Watoto program drew them closer to histories and families. Shavawn Davis-Milford, principal of Meeting Street Academy, noticed that, in addition to exposing the students to the arts, the Watoto program has impacted students academically. Prior to her role as principal, she worked as a math teacher at the school, and she said she saw students building confidence and competency with the program. When we're talking about taking chances and taking risks, they're learning that in the Watoto room and they're bringing that into the classroom, Davis-Milford said. Grant Higgins, at the time in the fourth grade, said he learned about how enslaved people used the hush harbors as a hiding place from armed slave patrols. In these secret, protected locations, often wooded areas or swamps, enslaved people gathered together so they could worship communally and freely. That sense of creativity made him feel more confident in his identity. Now, because of the program, he aspires to be an actor on Broadway. His classmate, Olivia Desaussure, said shes eager to make people happy when she goes on stage and enjoys the connection with her grandma now because of singing gospel songs like Welcome. Those connections between the students and their family histories were on full display on Jan. 11, the last night of performances for The Sounds of Joy. Families and friends of Meeting Street students filed past the ornate columns of the facade of Charlestons Dock Street Theatre. The hall filled with whispered small talk. The coos, cries and giggles of young children punctuated the muffled conversations. As the lights faded, the students paraded through the aisles clad in costumes inspired by West African dress and walked up to the stage. Soon, the pounding of drums overwhelmed the space. Heads in the audience bobbed to the rhythm. The students wove up and down the stage, twisting and jumping. Family members held up their phones trying to record every second of the performance. When the students began miming along to the lyrics of blues and gospel songs, including Old Landmark by Aretha Franklin, the audience clapped along. After an hour and a half of intense choreography, the students breathed heavily, but kept beaming as they traced their way from West Africa to gospel proclamations. Their parents, grandparents, relatives and friends looked on with pride. Carolyn Salter had her eyes on her granddaughter Sanaa Belcher, one of the Meeting Street Academy alumni who came back to perform in the program. At one point, she later recalled, she thought she was in a church and not the theater. It took me back in time, Salter said. Now, with a new school year in full swing, Meeting Street students are already readying for the next Watoto production, "The Happy People." The performances, planned for Jan. 5 and 6 in the Dock Street Theatre, will highlight the African roots and traditions in Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Cuban and Caribbean cultures. Correction: The original version of this story had an error, incorrectly listing Meeting Street Academys school type. Meeting Street Academy in Charleston is a private school. A small restaurant specializing in traditional fish and chips has joined Mount Pleasants ever-changing dining scene. The Fish & Chippy is now open at 565 Belle Station Blvd. The new 17-seat spot is owned by Galen Le Cheminant and Babak Bryan, a local architect who designed The Fish & Chippy. The sport of squash brought Le Cheminant to the United States and Charleston, where he manages The Charleston Squash Club. British fish and chip shops date to the 1870s, when the Industrial Revolution led to new inventions that enabled English fishermen to source from the North Sea. Fried fish and potatoes became a popular meal among those working in factories and mills in London and Manchester. According to Le Cheminant, a casual conversation over a couple beers turned into a business venture celebrating the fish and chip eateries that are still prevalent in England today. Its a creation from England, Le Cheminant said. Every village in England has a little chippy somewhere. Haitian-born chef Jean Pierre is leading The Fish & Chippy kitchen, which serves snacks like Scotch eggs and pimento cheese grit fritters with its fish and chips that are made with Icelandic cod. Its a preferred source of fish in the U.K., Le Cheminant said. Its such a meaty cod because of the deep cold waters. The Fish & Chippy diners who don't want their fish fried can order it the way Queen Elizabeth II preferred it: breaded and baked with a tarragon hollandaise drizzle and stack of chips. The Fish & Chippy is open from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, visit thefishandchippy.com. GREER A California-born fast casual burger chain is coming to Greer in 2023. The Habit Burger Grill a restaurant known for burgers chargrilled over an open flame will be one of three businesses on a 1.69-acre site along West Wade Hampton Boulevard, positioned between a dentist's office and an Aldi with a Dunkin' Donuts, Popeyes and Andy's Frozen Custard across the street. One of the other buildings on the site has been leased by fast casual Mexican restaurant Chipotle. The third space has yet to be leased but there has been a lot of interest in it, Langston-Black Real Estate agent Brad Toy told The Post and Courier. There are over 350 locations of The Habit Burger Grill across the world with most being located in California. The Greer eatery will be the second in South Carolina. The first opened in October 2019 in Indian Land, S.C., a town close to the North Carolina border east of Fort Mill. The Greer location at 1126 W. Wade Hampton Blvd. will be an equity-owned and operated store. It will be in a standalone building with a drive-through. It is expected to open in the second quarter in 2023. The Habit Burger Grill started in Santa Barbra, Calif. in 1969. It serves burgers, grilled tenderloin steak and grilled chicken sandwiches among other foods. For the first time in over 10 years, Jackie Hyman felt normal. The 56-year-old Goose Creek resident was preparing to go see Elton John in concert at Credit One Stadium on Daniel Island, something she could barely dream of doing just a few years ago. "I can't believe I'm doing it," Hyman said smiling, her eyes wide with excitement. Hyman was diagnosed with Wegener's disease in 2006, a rare autoimmune disease that restricts blood flow to vital organs and tissues like the lungs, kidneys, throat, ears and nose. Her case was severe and caused irreparable damage to her nose tissue. Dr. James Benner, a cardiovascular surgeon at Trident Medical Center, said more common forms of the disease occur in the lungs or kidneys and can be treated using a combination of steroid treatments when caught early. Benner said only in severe cases does the disease progress toward complete degeneration of tissue and bone. "It's a form of vasculitis," Benner said. "Your body attacks its own arteries and tissues, viewing them as foreign and then destroying them." Hyman recalled looking into the bathroom mirror at work one day, finding she had two black eyes and discoloration around her nose. The tissue was dying. "My nose was retracting and shrinking back into my face," Hyman said. "All of a sudden it was not there." Treating the disease At the time she was living in Shreveport, La., raising her three boys, Kessler, Luke and Jack, and working full time. "I was young enough to where I worried about them and how I looked in my life to be there for them," Hyman said. "So I just chose to do everything I could." Hyman underwent many small surgeries to get the disease under control, stopping the spread of dying tissue and limiting the other symptoms. Symptoms of the disease include chronic sinus infections and nosebleeds, pus-like drainage around the nose, trouble breathing and sleeping, and pain around the affected area. In 2011, she started the decade-long journey to rebuild her nose, enduring more than 50 nasal reconstruction surgeries from doctors in Miami and the Medical University of South Carolina. The procedures were intense, followed by painful recovery periods. In one of her first surgeries, doctors took skin from her arm, molded it into a ball and attached it back to her arm. The plan was to let the tissue grow large enough to reconstruct a nose and attach at a later date. For other surgeries, doctors have taken skin from her scalp and bones from her skull and hip in an effort to reconstruct her nose. But all of them were unsuccessful. She contracted numerous infections and other complications. Her life consisted of taking trips back and forth to Miami for surgeries. She spent years hiding her face from family and friends under bandages and gauze wrappings. "It was always a burning and raw feeling," she said, remembering the pain she felt recovering from her scalp surgery. She even missed two of her sons' high school graduations, afraid she would bring unwanted attention to herself and to her kids. "I worried I would've embarrassed them," Hyman said. "But they never acted like they minded. They were great." End of the road After more than 50 surgeries, doctors from Miami and MUSC had come to the end of the road. There was no more to do, which meant Hyman was out of options and her hopes for reconstructing her nose were over. It was time to go the prosthetic route, which she consistently denied when offered to her in the past. "I was totally against the whole prosthetic process," Hyman said. That was until she met Dr. Betsy Davis, a head and neck specialist at MUSC. Davis has been making prosthetics since 1994 and now practices at Trident Medical Center's Head and Neck Specialist Charleston location. Davis is one of the few prosthetics makers in the southeast region. She made Hyman's first prosthetic nose in 2017. "She saved my life and she saved my face," Hyman said. Hyman admits going through the motions of multiple unsuccessful surgeries and losing her dreams of rebuilding her nose put her in a deep depression. But seeing Davis and how positive and confident she was about the process brought her relief. Without it, Hyman said she probably wouldn't have gone forward with the process. "It's a privilege to treat these patients and be able to restore their facial appearance," Davis told The Post and Courier. A new sense Hyman's surgeries cost her and her partner millions of dollars, including costs for travel and hospital stays. "I wanted to try everything, and I did," Hyman said. She said her looks meant a lot to her and were part of how she defined herself before her illness. "I was hot," she said proudly. "I looked good and I was pretty skinny. So this (diagnosis) was devastating." But she insists she still wouldn't trade her experience for anything. She's learned a new sense of self and is even more grateful for her loving partner, her children and family who've continued to love her through years of hard times. "You realize how strong you are," Hyman said, fighting back tears. "And I realized how great my children and my partner were to love me when I looked like that." Since getting her prosthetic nose in 2017 and growing accustomed to the way she looks while using it, Hyman has slowly regained her confidence to live her life outside of her home. For years she stayed home, afraid people would point and talk about her condition loudly. Every once in a while she woke up with the strength to not care about the way other people saw her. "Every now and then, I'd say eff it and just go run my errands," Hyman said. Now, she's grown to love her prosthesis, and even went as far as to tell one of her close friends and neighbors about her condition. "They were super sweet about it and swore that if I'd never told them they would have never known about the prosthetic," she said gleaming with relief. Hyman said up next on her list of things to do include going out to dinner and sitting in restaurants with her partner for the first time in over a decade. You are the owner of this article. NORTH CHARLESTON Ray Anderson, who worked quietly behind the scenes as the mayor's special assistant but was believed by many to have been second in command when it came to running the state's third-largest city, died unexpectedly over the weekend. Anderson, special assistant to Mayor Keith Summey and among the city's leaders in revitalizing the old Charleston Naval Base, died Sept. 25 while hiking in the mountains of North Carolina, the city announced Sept. 26. He was 69. A lifelong resident of North Charleston, Anderson had worked as Summey's special assistant since 1996. In that role he oversaw nearly all of the city's capital projects undertaken within the last 26 years, teaming behind the mayor to modernize facilities and resources. Beyond his professional achievements, Anderson was a friend to many. "Ray was my pal, and he was everybody's pal up here," Councilman Ron Brinson said. "He was a fount of institutional knowledge ... He's gonna be missed." Before joining the mayor's executive staff, Anderson served on the North Charleston Planning Commission. He was elected to North Charleston City Council for two terms, once in 1986 under the city's first mayor, John Bourne, and again in 1995 under Summey. Anderson was appointed to the first Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority in 1993. "Rays institutional knowledge of the people and spirit of North Charleston was unmatched and will forever remain unparalleled," the city said in a press release. The statement added that he provided "invaluable expertise and advice for the advancement of traditional and new neighborhoods, the enhancement of cultural and recreational amenities, and the improvements of city services utilized by every resident." Prior to serving as assistant to the mayor, Anderson a 1974 Clemson University architecture graduate worked nine years for the Charleston County School District, where he developed several district guidelines. Anderson also served as chairman of the Clemson University Board of Visitors, and served on various other boards at the university. Anderson's latest work with the city involved spearheading the North Charleston Battery Park plan, which envisions high-rises and commercial space on 90 acres of land on Noisette Creek at the foot of the city's new pedestrian bridge. Anderson said the ambitious project could invite the first high-rises in the city of North Charleston, where the tallest building is the 10-story former Navy hospital. He spoke to the city's growing population of people, many of whom come from more dense urban environments and might be attracted to a similar space at Battery Park. "Some people like that lifestyle and, you have to admit, we've certainly enticed a number of folks into our community that come from urban areas," Anderson said in an interview earlier this year. "They may enjoy being in what I call a 'robust urban environment' again." Funeral arrangements are being planned. The city asked for prayers for Anderson's family and everyone else who knew him. Editors Note: The Index-Journal is one of 18 newspapers partnering with The Post and Courier for Uncovered, an investigative project meant to ferret out misconduct and questionable behavior by public officials. GREENWOOD - Despite yet another lackluster state audit, John de la Howe breezed through a recent hearing that left its purchasing authority intact. But much has changed at the South Carolina Governor's School for Agriculture at John de la Howe since the audit period, which ran from July 1, 2021 to Jan. 31. At the forefront of that change: the state Department of Administration now directly oversees the school's finances. During the Aug. 30 meeting of the State Fiscal Accountability Authority, a board composed of top state officials that has spending oversight, the Division of Procurement Services recommended the agreement stay in place as a condition of the school maintaining its purchasing authority. Last year, reporting for The Post and Courier's ongoing Uncovered investigative project by the Charleston-based Pulitzer winner and the Index-Journal unveiled questionable purchasing practices on the school's sprawling McCormick County campus, which resulted in reviews by the state Office of Inspector General and Procurement Services. This included the school dividing construction purchases to thwart state guidelines for competition. The initial procurement audit last year documented more than $1.5 million in divided construction purchases that appeared to steer business to favored vendors. This subsequent audit found no evidence that such practices continue at the agency's facilities department. Other problems, however, lingered. Problematic procurements Auditors found the school did not follow through with required reporting of three unauthorized or illegal procurements identified last year while identifying two new ones. The largest was the contract extension for Student Centered Education Consulting Group, which the John de la Howe board approved May 26, 2020 and was worth as much as $225,000 more than four times the school's spending authority. As was first reported by the Post and Courier, interim agency head Sharon Wall left the school and joined the consulting group just weeks after the new contract was finalized. Emails obtained by the Index-Journal show John de la Howe President Tim Keown, who became agency head July 2 of that year, considered sacking the entire business office when its employees raised concerns about the arrangement. Auditors determined necessary documentation was not submitted to Columbia and it was never approved outside the agency, a requirement for purchases at John de la Howe above $50,000. Another unauthorized purchase, an emergency procurement for a long-term food contract, was flagged by auditors last year as the school's determination incorrectly labeled food as an exempt item and the $145,000 contract exceeded John de la Howe's spending authority. Also, while the last-minute arrangement arose only after John de la Howe received approval to open amid the COVID-19 pandemic the dates on the purchase order, requisition form and online ad announcing an emergency procurement all correspond with the first week of classes auditors have since determined the procurement wasn't an emergency. Despite last year's audit, the agency continued to buy food from the vendor without putting the contract out to bid. Some payments were made directly to the vendor in a process that bypassed the state Office of Comptroller General. Another contract, this one for counseling services with a former employee, worth $57,000 was awarded in May 2020 without competition despite topping the school's purchasing authority. While this procurement was reviewed in the earlier audit, it wasn't deemed improper until the latest audit. Two other purchases were deemed improper: a mold inspection that cost $17,190 and was performed as an emergency procurement despite no immediate suspicion of danger and purchases of propane that were treated as utility payments, which don't require competition. John de la Howe appears to have satisfied the audit recommendations for these purchases by getting written determinations for each approved by the chief procurement officer before reporting each to the state. During the State Fiscal Accountability Authority meeting, Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom asked Keown if the unauthorized and illegal procurements mentioned in the latest audit had happened before the departure of Sylvester Coleman, who served as school finance director. "It happened before my arrival," he responded. However, two of those procurements happened when Keown was director of the education center and was being prepared to take on the role of president and one happened while he was president. The Index-Journal asked the agency to clarify Keown's response. In a statement, Keown said he "inherited some established procurements that have since been deemed unauthorized/illegal procurements" in this case, from an administration he was part of and has "not knowingly signed off on anything that did not meet the threshold of the law." Keown expressed a markedly different sentiment last year to people associated with Student Centered Education Consulting Group when the contract was facing questions. "I will defend you all to the end," he wrote in an email obtained by the Index-Journal. "If they dont like what were doing, then I might toss them the keys to the school. I can have another job tomorrow. Never in my life have I been bothered like this over trivial matters." Other findings Sylvester Coleman, who spent more than five years at John de la Howe, resigned earlier this year under an agreement that saw the school pay him $90,000. In return, he dropped a complaint alleging discrimination filed with the State Human Affairs Commission and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The agreement included a stipulation that "neither party will make negative statements about the other." He came up during the State Fiscal Accountability Authority meeting, with Eckstrom noting the departure although not naming Coleman while asking why auditors had repeat findings. "During this audit, our director of finance resigned in March not placing blame on anyone, but that happened," Keown said in response to Eckstrom. "With that being said, we contracted with the Department of Administration, who have been a life a godsend to get our finances back in order." The statement seems to imply something was awry with the finances after Coleman's departure. The Index-Journal sought clarification on what Keown meant but received none. Keown similarly lauded the agreement with the Department of Administration to his board. "I can sleep well at night now. That's been a load off I think for all of our staff here," he said Sept. 10. "We should not have any issues or worries in procurement, accounts payable, our budget." A board member asked if the school was now paying its bills on time. "Absolutely," Keown responded. Ongoing lessons While John de la Howe is saying publicly that all employees now follow the proper procurement protocols, the Index-Journal obtained campus-wide emails that point to continuing concerns about employees adhering to state purchasing law. In July, procurement specialist Melissa Simpson stressed that employees must receive permission before spending from the school's coffers. "I wanted to send an email to remind staff that you are not allowed to go out into the community and order items or pick up items without contacting the Business Office first," Simpson wrote. "This is called an illegal procurement." She stressed that "this is not the way we do purchasing at a state agency" and warned staff members that "if you've obtained items without approvals from the Business Office, you are now responsible for the cost of the items, not the agency/school." She told staff members to expect a training session "in the very near future." Another email later that month, this one from fiscal technician Bart Hanna, sought to understand why John de la Howe received an invoice from a company in Lincolnton, Georgia that services generators. "We received this at the business office, and we don't have record of a requisition and other documents for it," he wrote. "If you have information, please contact us with that so that we know how to procede (sic)." Scott Mims, director of facilities, asked in a reply if he and Hanna could speak about the company after lunch. Responding to a request for context on these emails, agency spokesman Tony Baughman said staff members at the time were still learning the ropes after internal changes to the purchasing process. "I would imagine those e-mails are somehow related to that learning process, to remind folks that all purchases must be approved through the business office with proper documentation," he wrote in an emailed response. Training, Baughman said, was conducted by business office and Department of Administration employees as part of a professional development week before the semester started. "The staff reviewed how to complete the new requisition forms ... and the improved workflow through the business office," he said. Concerns about staff members purchasing outside of the procurement process are nothing new at the school, nor is the requirement that employees go through the legally prescribed procedures when buying with taxpayer dollars. After Inspector General Brian Lamkin investigated questionable practices exposed by The Post and Courier and Index-Journal last year, he found that staff members especially teachers would circumvent the purchasing process entirely. "Interviews conducted of educational staff identified a lack of confidence in JDLH's procurement services office ability to complete their procurements in a timely manner that resulted in the educational staff trying to manage most of the procurement process before a requisition was sent forward for the necessary approvals." That probe resulted in staff training some 13 months before Simpson's email, along with recommendations tasking the school's administration with ensuring staff members abided by the law and were adequately trained. Since then, the agency has entered into its shared services agreement with the Department of Administration and all business office employees have turned over. Yet if those July emails are any indication, it seems that lesson is ongoing. As Scott has noted, this years election offers a real opportunity to end Keith Ellisons disgraceful career in public life. In fact, the most recent poll shows Republican challenger Jim Schultz with a narrow lead over Ellison for Attorney General. I think all of Minnesotas statewide races will go down to the wire this year. As always, the Democrats have a huge cash advantage. Political insiders say that Governor Tim Walzs re-election campaign will out-spend Republican challenger Scott Jensen by ten to one. The disparity wont be as bad in the Attorney General race, but there is no question that Ellison, funded by the far Left, has far more financial resources than Schultz. Jim can win, but he needs your support. Here are some reasons why I ask you to seriously consider donating to his campaign: * Ellison is a national leader of the defund the police movement. He backed the failed charter amendment in Minneapolis that would have effectively disestablished the Minneapolis Police Department. Ellisons defeat will be a major setback for the Lefts anti-law enforcement movement. * Minnesota is a deeply troubled state. One of its virtues is that it has always been a low crime state, but now Minnesotas serious crime rate is higher than the national average. Keith Ellison has zero interest in law enforcement. In fact, during his tenure the AGs office has thrown the book at precisely two criminal defendants: police officers Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter. Minnesota needs your help! * Schultz has a real opportunity to make history here. If he wins, he will be Minnesotas first Republican Attorney General in 56 years and the first Republican statewide office holder since 2006. * Jim Schultz is a political outsider. He grew up in rural Minnesota (a town of 186) and graduated from Harvard Law School. His experience is entirely in the private sector. He came forward to challenge Ellison because Minnesota desperately needs change. * I know Jim personally and can assure you that he is an excellent candidate, a man of high integrity who is eminently worthy of your support. Lets take this opportunity to send Keith Ellison to the sidelines and elect a real Attorney General. If you want to help Jim Schultz, you can donate to his campaign here. Todays Star Tribune features a profile of Bock, the indicted mastermind of the free lunch fraud that we have been covering since this past January. The profile draws heavily on the reporters interview of her in the immediate aftermath of the FBI raids that made the scandal public. The only really new element is its mention of my friend Abdi Nur at the top of the story: Aimee Bocks organization was keeping a low profile as it handled millions in government money when the video appeared on Facebook in January. It purportedly showed one of Bocks employees receiving an astonishing wedding present: an ornamental cart, laden with so much gold that guests gathered around to see it up close. Abdihakim Nur, a Somali activist and blogger who shot the video, said he heard the gold came from food vendors who were getting rich off the money they collected through Bocks nonprofit, Feeding Our Future. Nur was appalled, and his video created a stir in the Somali community. We cannot close our eyes to such corruption which will put our entire communitys name in the news as fraudsters and criminals when we only have a few bad apples, Nur posted. We quoted Abdis Facebook post and embedded the cited video here on February 2. The Star Tribune reports on it now, nearly eight months later. Its almost funny. In 2016 Abdi was my first Somali source on Ilhan Omars marriage to her brother. Since then we have become good friends and he has helped me deepen my knowledge of the Omar story through his contacts in the community. The Daily Mail caught up with Abdi and his knowledge of Omars marriage to her brother in this 2020 story. If you get your news from the Star Tribune, it might come as something of a shock. Abdi is the person who first brought Guhaad Hashi to my attention. Hashi has served as one of Omars enforcers in the Somali community. He is also one of the 48 defendants whose indictment was unsealed in the Feeding Our Future fraud last week. Will the circle be unbroken? Now that the Star Tribune has happened on to Abdi, perhaps they can follow up on the story of Omars marriage to her brother. Its not too late and its quite a story. In the upper reaches of American politics, at least, theres never been anything quite like it. Nigerias oil output was at the lowest since 1990 as its crude oil production fell below 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in August 2022. And data from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in early September showed that Angola and Libya have overtaken Nigeria as Africas highest crude oil producers. The Conversation Africas Wale Fatade asked Omowumi Iledare, professor emeritus in petroleum economics and policy research to explain whats happening. What are the drivers of the decline in oil production? Production has been declining since 2012. Its a combination of a lot of factors. I think insecurity of assets is top on the list and insecurity of life. Secondly, the maturity of the fields. Thirdly, moving away from onshore to deep water. There is also a declining capacity to produce from a technical production point of view and from a market production point of view because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Technical production is what is actually coming out of the wells and fields. This is obviously affected by the number of wells that are put into production and the less producing wells in a field at its peak, less the aggregate field output. Market production is what the country is able to put into the international market and the domestic market. Both of them are related, but the market fundamentals of supply and demand affect both of them differently depending on the inventory level. Inventory levels are whats kept in the tank farms where crude oil is stored while waiting for exports and pipeline movement to the refineries. What are the constraints on whats coming out of the wells? Increasing technical production requires drilling more wells, finding more reserves and installing more infrastructure. When you have infrastructure decay, and field productivity decline, the technical production will decline. Since 2003 Nigeria has not put any bidding processes in place to meet exploration and development of fields. And it takes a lot of years before you can tie them up for production. There have also not been any new leases. The last one was 2007 apart from the bidding for marginal fields in 2003. As a result we see the maturity of the basins. Playing and production capacity has remained static at about 2.5 million barrels per day. In the Niger Delta, an investment of about $19 billion is needed to keep the level of production capacity stable, based on my own estimates. Weve not done beyond 2.5 million barrels per day production capacity since 2002. Nigeria is fortunate that the deep water wells have been able to cover the decline in production from shallow water and the diminishing onshore production. This brought production in Nigeria up to 1.8 million barrels in 2016. But now we have theft and vandalism thats affecting the market production what Nigeria is able to export, what its able to transfer to the refineries. How does insecurity affect crude oil production? Theres asset insecurity. Almost 20% of the capacity of Nigeria is being stolen, about 400 to 500,000 barrels per day. But this isnt happening through pipelines. So there must be some type of conniving, because it is just unbelievable that you can move that much crude oil under the watchful eyes of the security agents either the navy or the army, or whatever. Because theres no way someone can be stealing 500,000 barrels per day by tapping the pipes in the entire Niger Delta. So thats what I mean by asset insecurity. What would it take for Nigeria to reduce its heavy reliance on oil? The engine that will accelerate diversification of Nigerias economy is oil revenue, and perhaps gas revenue in the future. This is what you can use to diversify the economy, if properly used. Unfortunately, that has not been so. Spending approximately a trillion Naira per year over the last 10 20 year, to subsidise petroleum product consumption, is not the best way to spend oil money. The diversification of the Nigerian economy requires the federal government letting go of its hold on some sectors in the economy. They have their hands in so many things. One is power. It is not the responsibility of the federal government to generate power for the nation. It is the responsibility of the federal government to just develop policies that will allow investors to invest in the power sector value chain. The responsibility of the central government is to create an enabling environment. They are not doing that well because of provincialism. Second, the diversification of the economy requires the removal of energy subsidies at the consumption end of the energy value chain with zero value addition. The government is spending so much money on the petrol subsidy it is unable to do what really matters. This includes spending money on infrastructure so that goods and services can be moved from the source to the market. The physical infrastructure that is supposed to be the responsibility of the government is bad because it is not doing what its supposed to do with its oil money. The government too should not cloud out domestic investors. The government is borrowing too much money. It should think more about manpower development. Its the governments responsibility to make skill workers available for the industry. But Nigerias universities have been closed for seven months. So the economy has not been diversified at all. Oil is contributing a lot to government revenues but not to the economy as a whole. Nearly 80% of exports is accounted for by oil. Thats why the economy is not growing. Nigerias economy grew by 3.54% in real terms in the second quarter of 2022. If you have infrastructure deficiency, skilled manpower deficiency, and road infrastructure deficiency, you wont get economic growth. The government must begin to think in terms of decentralising so many things that they take on. What could the government do to reverse the trend? You need to make more leases available quickly so that people can begin to get the rights to produce and export. The biggest challenge right now is attacks on pipelines and criminality. The government must have the courage to prosecute those stealing crude oil and those vandalising the pipelines. If it continues to reward criminality, crime will continue to expand and the oil and gas industry may collapse. In the process, it must also remove the cloud of uncertainty in oil and gas in Nigeria where energy transition is putting a dampener on investment. Also, the government should put more effort into the use of natural gas for domestic expansion. I dont subscribe to this emphasis on exports of natural gas from Nigeria. Im a believer that using gas for domestic economic growth is the way to go. Thats why the Petroleum Industry Act is so good. It is very supportive of domestic gas development for local economy. I want to emphasise also the need for Nigeria to have a transformation leadership mindset. Transformation leadership is not transactional. Such leadership mindset encourages the heart, inspires shared vision, and motivates others in the management team to act. It is a leadership style that is authoritative but not authoritarian in modelling the way to go. It is not averse to challenging traditional management processes that are not optimal. Omowumi Iledare, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Professorial Chair in Oil and Gas Economics and Management, University of Cape Coast This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Nkechi Blessing, a controversial Yoruba actress, caused a stir online after she distributed sex toys and dildos as souvenirs at an event in Lagos on Saturday. The occasion was a ceremony commemorating her mothers death anniversary. The actress lost her mother a few days before her birthday in September 2021. Videos of the event went viral over the weekend and have attracted mixed reactions. Responding to critics, the famous actress said sex toy advertising is a source of income for her and her family. She is, however, being tongue-lashed as many questioned the morality of such advertisement. Checks on her Instagram page show that the actress has been advertising sex toys for the last two years. When PREMIUM TIMES contacted the actress, she declined to comment, saying she pays no attention to critics. She also mocked her detractors, saying they have begged her on WhatsApp messenger to have the dildos despite criticising her on social media. Minutes after, on WhatsApp status, the actress said critics are inconsequential. In a short video of the actress recorded at the event, the actress said: I am not saying men are scum because I have a man, but you need to have one (dildos) for yourself in case you dont have a man. History of controversies The actress broke up with her ex-lover, Opeyemi Falegan, in April over a report by a notorious blog accusing her of infidelity Their affair became troubled after the blog accused the famous actress of having a personal experience with a realtor for an endorsement deal. Aside from acting, Nkechi is the Group Managing Director of a real estate company, Ojulowo Omoluabi Empire Holdings Limited, in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital. READ ALSO: The actress was accused of dating the owner of the company. Lately, the actress, who has a love-hate relationship with her fans, has been in the news over her past relationship with a politician boyfriend of hers, according to a blogger. In his accusation, the blogger tagged Nkechi as Falegans wife. Also, in a television interview recently, the Yoruba actress said she dated Mr Falegan to get back to her former American boyfriend. He was the one that loved me more. I recently broke off a relationship with my ex, who lives in America, and then in the heat of the break-up, he started posting a girl covering her face, and I realised that this man was asking me out. So I tried to use him to get back at my ex; I landed in the relationship. Although yet to be known, the actress has hinted at her newly found love. The New Year of 2022 arrived with death for the Boladejis. On that day, Tawa Boladeji was taking her five-year-old to the hospital in Ede, Osun State. The child never made it to the hospital. Two months later, death struck again in the family. This time, it was Mrs Boladejis 11-year-old who complained of fever. I was rushing them to the hospital in Ede when they died, recalled Mrs Boladeji, 27, a mother of three and an inhabitant of Agbinpa village in the Ede South Local Government Area, Osun State. Other inhabitants, like Mrs Boladeji, would rather make the long trip to Ede to get medical help than visit the Agbinpa Health Centre, the primary health clinic in the village. Agbinpa Health Centre is the only clinic in the village serving over 100 inhabitants, mostly farmers. It had become infamous within the community for allegedly causing the death of several children. So, for the inhabitants, getting treatment there is no longer an option. There is nothing in the centre, that is where I used to take them to for treatment before but rather than getting better, their health was getting worse, Mrs Boladeji said. Nigeria is the highest contributor to under-five deaths in the world, according to a 2020 report by UNICEF, overtaking India to achieve the unenviable feat. Aside from the poor medical treatment administered to children taken to Agbinpa Health Centre, women who are in labour are made to birth their babies on a mat spread in the open, outside the clinic. Afterwards, a piece of cloth would be used to wipe off the blood on the map and floor. And, because the clinic is always out of drugs, patients and new mothers have to wait for a drug salesman known as Brother Lamidi before they could buy their prescribed medications. A nurse in charge of the health centre admitted the clinics infamy and blamed it on the lack of support from the government. If you check everywhere, you cannot find any medicine because we do not have it. The local government people do not provide it for us. What I used to tell my patients is that they should get whatever they need from the chemist or elsewhere before coming, the nurse said. There are emergency situations that I would not know what to do because there is nothing to help patients inside the clinic. Any labouring pregnant patient that comes used to bring oxytocin, pad, cotton wool, spirit, and toilet roll before we could help them deliver a baby. Some years back, the local government used to give us two oxytocin every month that we use for pregnant women, we were even complaining that it is too small because we used to have many pregnant women, we never knew they would eventually stop the distribution. Like Mrs Boladeji, another inhabitant who identified herself as Mummy Samad said she also lost her three-year-old son while taking him to the hospital outside the village. Her son died of malaria. He used to feel sick and I always take him to the hospital in the city for treatment, since there is no good medical treatment here. He died three days after complaining of malaria. He died around 4 p.m. while I was rushing him to the hospital, she said. We are appealing to the government to help us resuscitate our health centre. Labouring mothers used to deliver outside, whenever we visit there for treatment we used to sit outside because it usually smells. Bats have defecated everywhere. Too many deaths According to Akinwande David, the Baale of Agbinpa village, at least five children and many elderly ones died in the community between January and May. He added that there had been too many deaths in the past years. Mr David blamed the deaths on unprofessional medical services and lack of facilities in the only available medical centre in the village. We do not have access to good treatment in the medical centre even when we get injured on the farm, there is nothing there as first aid to help us, he said. Children and elderly ones too are not exempted in this condition. The hospital is not useful, nothing is there, let me even say we do not have it because it is useless. A professor of Medical Laboratory Science, Oladele Hassan, said the practice of women giving birth on a mat in the open is condemnable. It is not good, I am not happy to hear what you are asking because the government is supposed to provide the facilities, the nurse might be doing that because there is no bed in the hospital, he said. Maybe when they hear it from the news, they will know it is their responsibility. It is just unfortunate. When contacted over the phone, in the course of this report, Rafiu Isamotu, the Osun State Commissioner for Health, asked our reporter to come to his office on a fixed date. When this reporter arrived at the office on the date, the commissioner was not in his office. He did not respond to subsequent phone calls and text messages. Like Osun, like Ogun The situation is not different in the nearby Ogun State where residents of Ode-Omi, a community in the Ogun waterside area of the state, have no access to basic health care. During a recent visit to the community, Tolani Olatunji sat outside her home and stared into the distance. One month ago, she lost her child, Orelope, to an unknown ailment because there was no doctor to treat him at the primary health centre. Mrs Olatunji said her son suffered from an ailment that made him faint, from birth; but it became worse when he was two years old. She gave birth to the boy in 2018 at a trado-medical centre in the community. At birth, Orelope looked pale and skinny and, according to the mother, frequently had seizures. Their repeated visits to the trado-medical centres in the community yielded no results. Orelope is my only child. My husband and I were married for three years before I was able to give birth to him. We accepted fate and took him as our only child, said Mrs Olatunji, 33. He was my joy and happiness, but death took him away suddenly. Mrs Olatunji said she would not have patronised a traditional medicine centre if the communitys health centre was functional. To access the nearest functional health centre, the Ibiade General Hospital, residents of Ode-Omi have to travel by boat to Makun, a one-hour journey on the water. The next leg of the journey is another two hours by boat or 40 minutes on a commercial motorcycle to the hospital. Tajudeen Adeola, a boat operator, said he had had numerous experiences over the past two years transporting pregnant women heading to the general hospital from Ode-Omi. Although many of the residents patronise traditional medicine, Mr Adeola explained that pregnant women usually resort to going to Ibiade General Hospital when they have complications during childbirth. We always take them through canoe to Ibiade General Hospital which is about three hours from the community. Many people have lost their lives before getting to the hospital, he said. Adebukunola Ajayi, a resident of Ode-Omi, recalled her experience while she was about to give birth to her second child. She said she never knew she was lucky having had her first child in Lagos while on a visit to a relative. When it was time to deliver my second child, I went through hell because I almost died. On her delivery day, Ms Ajayi said she went into labour around 3:30 a.m. but was rushed to a health centre in Makun community from where she was asked to go to the General Hospital. She said her condition, however, became worse when she could not find a boat to take her to Ibiade. At the time we eventually got to the hospital I was already gone, she said. In fact, my relatives and friend already thought I was dead but my sister told me that a doctor who was visiting a friend in that hospital touched my wrist and told them that I am not dead and that they should hurriedly get a doctor in the hospital. In the long run, they couldnt get a doctor it was that man (visiting medical doctor) who revived me in a ward at the hospital and no medical practitioner asked what was going on. I still have his number because my family took his number and I called to thank him after I was stable three days later. In addition to being the highest contributor to under-five mortality globally, Nigeria also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates (MMR) in the world, according to the World Bank, reaching as high as 821 per 100,000 live births. Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) reports for 2008 and 2013 revealed that Nigeria achieved practically no reduction in MMR. Ode-Omi health centre A visit to the Ode-Omi Primary Health Care Centre showed why the villagers would rather not patronise it. The building is dilapidated: the roof is peeling off, windows are broken, beds are old and rusty, and the wooden benches are ants-infested. When this reporter visited the centre, it was empty. However, after about two hours, an auxiliary nurse, named Ms Yunus, was seen at the facility. The health centre is expected to serve over 26 villages which include, Losumeta, Okun elefon Iroadukora, Adurokora, Okun, Igbosere, Elefon, Abaolori, Iseku, Ijegbe, and Abaolori, among others. Ms Yunus said the facility does not have a midwife, so pregnant women do not come there. Adekunle Hassan, the traditional ruler of Ode-Omi, said the lack of access to basic health care in the community has brought hardship to the people It would have been better if there were more health centres which will pay good attention to maternity and dispensing of drugs against what we have at the moment, he said. But above all that, it will not be enough if we dont have doctors and its not even a standard hospital to start with, just health centres. The current situation there is that a lot of patients with no doctor to attend to them. Mr Hassan said the communitys leaders have tried to provide important things at the health centre foams and mattresses for the maternity ward. Also there are some emergency situations that some patients would need to be rushed to a nearby hospital but theres little we can do, there are times we use boat to transport them but now we have a vehicle in that area, he said. But the real problem is the road that leads to the hospital is terrible, imagine having a sick patient that needs immediate emergency treatment and the road is bad and inaccessible. The road that leads to Lagos State is also terrible so we result to boat in most cases. After losing her two children, Mrs Boladeji is left with a three-year-old son. She said she has no plans of leaving the village for a better life elsewhere. I cannot leave this village because this is my husbands house, she said. I gave birth to all my children in this village. I have farms that I am managing in the village. The only thing is that I will continue to use herbs and whenever the problem gets worse I will rush him to the nearest hospital. As of the time of filing this report, all efforts made to speak with the states commissioner for health, Tomi Coker, on the deplorable condition of the health centre failed as she neither picked up calls nor responded to a text from our reporter seeking her comment. Also, she was not also available the day our reporter visited her office on the issue. African rosewood (mukula) is the worlds most trafficked endangered timber, fuelling a $26 billion market for Ming dynasty-styled furniture and decor for Chinas elite. Networks embedded in governments facilitate the illegal movement of this wood from countries such as Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia through the ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam to China. African rosewood is a tropical timber found mainly in Madagascar, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is essential for local ecosystems and biodiversity and, when harvested sustainably, supports local livelihoods. The wood is also used in traditional medicine. Over the years, demand for this rare timber in other countries has risen and now threatens its existence. In December 2021, the Land and Environment Court in Mombasa ordered the Kenya Revenue Authority to surrender 646 metric tonnes of rosewood worth $13 million to alleged traffickers. The timber had been seized at the Port of Mombasa while in transit from Madagascar through Zanzibar to Hong Kong. The Kenyan court agreed with the alleged traffickers that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) regulation restricting rosewood trade was not in effect in 2014. This was the year the timber was seized by Kenyas wildlife and forest services, and the revenue authority. The ruling was made even though Madagascars law prohibited the trade in rosewood, and the transhipment of the timber through Mombasas port violated Kenyas 2013 Wildlife Conservation and Management Act. A CITES advisory, presented as expert opinion during the proceedings, maintained that the rosewood seized in Kenya had been illegally exported from Madagascar and was being traded in contravention of Appendix II. However, the Kenyan court still released the trafficked rosewood to the Chinese company that had brought it from Madagascar. The networks that facilitate the trafficking of this endangered species include high-level government officials. Investigative reports by civil society organisations in Madagascar indicate that corruption enables the harvesting of rosewood despite laws in line with CITES that protect it. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in Madagascar says rosewood trafficking in the country is enabled through the state protection of traffickers. Malagasy environmental activist Armand Marozafy was jailed for defamation in 2015 for posting information about two local businessmen involved in the illegal harvesting of the timber. An EIA report reveals how rosewood logs marked with paintings that indicate they came from government stockpiles were loaded onto vessels bound for Mombasa in 2014. The vessels docked in Zanzibar instead, where smugglers used offshore transit boats to shuttle the rosewood into shipping containers. The containers were put on legitimate ships destined for Hong Kong, then transhipped to other destinations such as Mombasa to mask their place of origin. The EIA also estimates that 50 40-foot containers of rosewood were exported from Zambia to China between June 2017 and May 2019. The harvesting, transportation and shipment of the timber in these 50 containers is estimated to have cost the traffickers $7.5 million in bribes and informal fees. The report says prominent people in the government of Edgar Lungu, the former president of Zambia, and his family members were part of this mukula cartel. Enforcing laws banning the transport, transhipment and shipping of illicit rosewood through ports in Mombasa, Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam could curb the smuggling from Zambia and Madagascar to Hong Kong and China. These regulations include the East African Community Customs Management Act, which outlaws the falsification of documents at port and border points. Enforcing this law is critical given that rosewood shipped through East African ports is declared simply as wood, enabling its smuggling to China. Sixteen West African states have recently banned rosewood trading. Similar government bans in East and Southern Africa could help save this valuable wood. A regional approach would stem the involvement of corrupt government officials in trafficking from source countries through transit countries such as Kenya and Tanzania. This approach would also enable effective policies to protect endangered rosewood in East and Southern Africa from smuggling. As a first step, the Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement in Southern Africa should be amended to enable the setting up of specialised CITES units at land and sea ports in the region. These units would help identify rosewood and minimise opportunities for it to be smuggled. Willis Okumu, Senior Researcher, Eastern Africa, ENACT Project, ISS Nairobi This article was produced by ENACT. ENACT is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Institute for Security Studies and INTERPOL, in affiliation with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime. (This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish). Sterling Bank Plc will take a new name after receiving shareholders approval to convert from a core banking business to a holding company, its board said on Monday, setting it up for the opportunity to gain controlling stake in companies where it currently holds substantial interest. The announcement comes one week after the bank convened a meeting of shareholders at the order of a court as part of the last key stages of the corporate reformation. The lender will become known as Sterling Financial Holdings Company when the transition is delivered, according to a regulatory filing seen by PREMIUM TIMES on the Nigerian Exchange Limiteds website. Embracing a holdco structure confers on Sterling Bank the leverage to make inroads into other sectors within financial services apart from commercial banking which its current license and those of many lenders in Nigeria do not allow. Such sectors, comprising pension; asset management; payments and fintech, are gaining appeal among banks and provide chances for diversification as competition for interest income, which accounts for the bulk of the revenue of the banking industry turns increasingly fierce. Stanbic IBTC Holdings, one of the early birds that adopted the holdco structure, is a testament that the holdco structure is a model that works. Its pension unit controls around one third of the N14.2 trillion assets under management as the market leader of the Nigerian pension industry. With the key resolutions for the scheme of arrangement now approved, the transition will proceed to its final phase where regulators including the Central Bank of Nigeria are to sanction the new entity into existence. The bank will transfer all the assets, liabilities and undertakings related to the non-interest banking business to The Alternative Bank Limited, the statement said in reference to its newest subsidiary that received an approval-in-principle in December. Sterling Banks issued and paid-up share capital valued at 28.8 billion outstanding shares will passe to the holding company in exchange for the allotment of those same units to shareholders on completion. The leader of the pan Yoruba group, Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, has said the group decided to back the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, for equity and inclusiveness. Mr Adebanjo, who spoke at a press conference in Lagos on Monday, said the Yoruba had taken the first turn of the zonal arrangement in 1999, which led to the emergence of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The current President is a Fulani from the Northwest and by virtue of the zoning arrangement that has governed Nigeria since 1999, power is supposed to return to the south imminently, said Mr Adebanjo, 94. The southwest as I have pointed out has produced a president and currently sits as VP, the South-South has spent a total of6 years in the Presidency, but the Igbo people of the South-East have never tasted presidency in Nigeria, and now that the power is due back in the South equity demands that it be ceded to the Igbo. We cannot continue to demand that the Igbo people remain in Nigeria, while we at the same time continue to brutally marginalize and exclude them from the power dynamic. Peter Obi is the person of Igbo extraction that Afenifere has decided to support and back, he is the man we trust to restructure the country back to federalism on the assumption of office. Read Mr Adebanjos speech at the press conference below: WHY AFENIFERE SUPPORTS SOUTH EAST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FOR 2023 PRESIDENCY. Before the political parties conducted their primaries, a journalist asked what is my view about the 2023 general election? I answered and said the country should be restructured before the general election, and he followed up by asking if there should be an election, which zone should the Presidency come from? And I unhesitatingly said, of course, the South East. After the primaries and the candidates emerge with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu from the South West, APC, Atiku Abubakar on the platform of PDP and Peter Obi on the platform of Labour Party and I announced Afeniferes support for Peter Obi, not a few Yoruba leaders question why I should be supporting Peter Obi a candidate of Igbo extraction against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba. I took my time to explain that the presidency is not a contest between the Yorubas and the Igbos and to a large extent I was able to convince many. But ever since social media has been filled with comments tending to ethnicize the campaign instead of making it issue-based. Afenifere has therefore decided to address you today and through you educate the public on the ideological and equitable principles which have influenced our decision. READ ALSO: Let me state here for the benefit of those who may not know that Afenifere is the Yoruba interpretation of the social welfarist ideology of Action Group, a political party founded by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his colleagues in 1951 with strong advocacy for federalism as the best form of government to give the federating units the requisite autonomy to thrive and peacefully compete among themselves for the ultimate development of Nigeria. The system was eventually agreed to by our founding fathers, Sir Ahmad Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and endorsed by the Colonial Secretary, Sir Oliver Littleton in 1954 and embodied in the 1960 independence constitution. This is the modest contribution of Afenifere in shaping Nigeria into a federation where no person or ethnic nationality is oppressed. In the countdown to the 2023 General elections, long before the parties conducted their Conventions to elect their National Executives and candidates, we had insisted and still advocate restructuring before the elections proposing a synthesis of the identical Resolutions of the 2014 National Conference and the APC El Rufai 2018 True Federalism Committee. We did this as Afenifere and on the wider spectrum of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF). We did this, when politicians, in spite of the monumental crises confronting the nation, carried on as if the attainment of power was all that mattered, the SMBLF unanimously proposed that the minimum condition for a peaceful transition from the disastrous 8years of Buharis government headed by a President of northern extraction was to have the next President from the South. This position was also supported by all the southern governors, irrespective of their political parties at a meeting held in Asaba, Delta State. Incidentally, this North/South consideration which is at the very root of our amalgamated federation is also the most important testament of all political parties in Nigeria. The principle of federal character enshrined in the constitution dictates that the government of the federation or any part thereof shall not be concentrated in any ethnic group or a combination of such groups. It is therefore preposterous to adopt this principle for employment in public service admissions in educational institutions, political appointment, the composition of the executive committee of a political party only to jettison it in the most important question of rulership of the federation. In this quest for peace, based on equity and inclusiveness, the Yoruba took the first turn at the zoning arrangement in 1999, and that led to the emergence of Chief Obasanjo, the current Vice President is a Yoruba man and equity forbids us for presuming to support another Yoruba person for the presidency in 2023. The current President is a Fulani from the Northwest and by virtue of the zoning arrangement that has governed Nigeria since 1999, power is supposed to return to the south imminently. The southwest as I have pointed out has produced a president and currently sits as VP, the South-South has spent a total of 6years in the Presidency, but the Igbo people of the South-East have never tasted presidency in Nigeria, and now that the power is due back in the South equity demands that it be ceded to the Igbo. We cannot continue to demand that the Igbo people remain in Nigeria, while we at the same time continue to brutally marginalize and exclude them from the power dynamic. Peter Obi is the person of Igbo extraction that Afenifere has decided to support and to back, he is the man we trust to restructure the country back to federalism on the assumption of office. We will not compromise this principle of justice, equity and inclusiveness because one of our own Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is a frontline candidate. It is on this same principle, we condemn the PDP for sponsoring Atiku Abubakar, a Northern Fulani Muslim to succeed General Muhammadu Buhari another Fulani Muslim who will soon complete 8 years of uneventful and disastrous rule. One can imagine such a high degree of political insensitivity. On our part, we are certainly not alien to sacrificing personal interests in the quest for a National coalition to put Nigeria on the proper pedestal. In this regard, the starting point is Southern solidarity for which we first enacted a handshake across the Niger, which had dovetailed to the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum. We enjoin the labour movement, students, youth organisations, women associations, and every institution whose foundation is built on fairness and justice to join hands in this task of enthroning a democratic government by supporting Peter Obi. If we are sincere and honest about keeping Nigeria together in peace, the slogan henceforth should be To keep Nigeria one, everyone should be Obi/Datti compliant. In the final analysis, let it be said that we have no apologies but due courage of our conviction that Nigeria can only prosper in righteousness. For me, in the twilight of my sojourn on earth at 94, it is too late to derail me on the track of true federalism and National inclusiveness on which I have travelled for over 70 years of my life as one of the few surviving initial prophets, I prefer to ascend on a chariot of fire, fueled by justice and equity. Thank you all And may the good Lord bless Nigeria Signed CHIEF AYO ADEBANJO Leader of Afenifere The Nigerian government has withdrawn its earlier directive asking the management of federal universities to reopen the institutions to ensure that the striking members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) resume and commence lectures immediately. The latest development was contained in another letter by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and dated 26 September. Like the earlier copy containing the marching order, the new letter was also signed by NUCs Director of Finance and Accounts, Sam Onazi, on behalf of the Executive Secretary, Abubakar Rasheed. The agency had earlier on Friday directed the management of all federal universities to comply with the order of the National Industrial Court (NIC) directing ASUU members to return to classrooms pending the determination of the substantive matter before it. The government had asked the pro chancellors and vice-chancellors to ensure that the striking lecturers resume and commence lectures immediately. U-turn The governments directive had caused confusion for the university management as the vice-chancellors were unsure of how to go about the decision. The confusion is reinforced by the pending application for a stay of execution at the appeal court by the counsel to the striking union, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. But the new letter by the NUC which was addressed to the pro-chancellors and vice-chancellors of the federal universities is titled; Withdrawal of Circular Ref: NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/135 Dated 23rd September 2022. The new letter referenced NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/136 and dated 26 September, reads in part; I have been directed to withdraw the National Universities Commission (NUC) circular Ref, NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/135 and dated 23rd September 2022 on the above subject. Consequently, the said Circular stands withdrawn. All Pro-Chancellors and Chairmen of Governing Councils, as well as Vice-Chancellors of Federal Universities are to please note. Further development and information would be communicated to all relevant stakeholders. The letter, however, did not give reasons for the withdrawal but it might not be unconnected to the criticisms by many Nigerians who have taken to social media to comment on the development. Backlash Many Nigerians including the members of the management of various institutions had earlier on Monday condemned the governments directive for reportedly ignoring the stay of execution application filed at the appeal court against the NIC order by the lecturers union. While some university management members spoken to on the phone on Monday by PREMIUM TIMES said they were yet to take a decision on the matter, others said they were unaware of the development. An official of NUC who spoke to this newspaper on condition of anonymity earlier on Monday said the agency only carried out the instruction by its supervising ministry and that it was not in a position to query the decision. On how the directive would be implemented NUC has no say on that. It is a different matter entirely. We were only asked to communicate the decision and we did, the official who does not want to be quoted for fear of sanction said. True to the sources claim, the earlier directive issued by NUC was a follow-up to an earlier letter by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, conveying the enrolment order of the NIC to his counterpart at the Ministry of Education, Adamu Adamu. Mr Ngige had written to request that the NUC and the universities be directed to immediately re-open all the universities, recall the students of the various Universities, ensure that ASUU members immediately resume/commence lectures, restore the daily activities and routines of the various University campuses. In response to Mr Ngiges letter, Mr Adamu, through his ministrys Director of Human Resource Management, David Gende, told the NUC to carry out the instruction. Background The government through the labour ministry had referred the dispute between it and ASUU to the NICN. The government counsel, James Igwe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, subsequently filed an application seeking the court to order ASUU to suspend the strike while the court heard the dispute. Despite ASUUs objection, the court granted the governments application ordering the lecturers union to suspend its seven-month-old strike. ASUU has appealed the judgement and filed an application for a stay of execution. ASUU embarked on the ongoing industrial action on 14 February, to compel the government to fulfil its part of the 2009 agreement, the Memorandum of Action signed in 2020 and to implement the recently concluded negotiations with the government-constituted committee which renegotiated the 2009 agreement. Ernest Lawrence (Ebonyi State): I believe the agitation for Biafra will not end even if Peter Obi wins the presidential elections. His victory would create room for even a stronger agitation, as we would have our own brother in the front line of the agitation. Unless, however, those leading the agitation would soft pedal based on the fact that for once, weve tasted the presidential seat with Peter Obi winning the election. Chukwudi Ewa (Ebonyi State): If Peter Obi wins in 2023, his leadership style may not favour the Hausas and Yorubas. This could lead to agitation for their own Oduduwa and Arewa states as the case may be, thereby leading to a stronger agitation for the actualisation of the sovereign state of Biafra (in the South-east). So, unless theres no such thing, then there would be no further agitation. And if there is, then the country would move towards division and the Biafra agitation will be among them. Simon Chibueze (Anambra State): To me, Biafra agitation is an idea. If Peter Obi happens to win the election (in 2023), it will calm down the agitation, but that will not end the agitation. It will make the youth not to be violent or disobedient, but as time goes on, I dont think that the idea of Biafra will end. I think so because many Igbo people have sacrificed their lives in the course of this agitation. This means that Igbos need a republic called Biafra. You remember what happened during (Goodluck) Jonathans regime, the agitation was not much because Jonathan happened to come from this Eastern Nigeria, but immediately Jonathan left office, the agitation continued. And as I am seeing it, the same thing may play out if he (Obi) wins the election. So, the agitation will drop, but after Peter Obi leaves office, it will continue. Ifeanyichukwu Emmanuel (Anambra State): The agitation will not end if Peter Obi wins the election in 2023, but it will make Igbos have a sense of belonging. The agitation is something in the minds of the people. It is an ideology. So, Peter Obis victory will not end it, but if he (Mr Obi) governs well, I know the agitation will be temporarily forgotten. It will not be wiped away from the minds of the people, however. Nduka Ezeh (Anambra State): Well, I dont think that the presidency of Peter Obi will end Biafra agitation, because the issue (agitation) on ground is beyond Igbo presidency or Peter Obi. So, I think we actually need to look in-ward. You know people have been clamouring for restructuring. When you look at the structure of Nigeria, for example, we have five states in the South-east, while other regions are actually having six, seven and above. So, for me, I think unless Peter Obi comes in and actually adjusts the system, like in the South-east where so many things need to be done in terms of structure, state creation, resource control. So, I think those things can actually bring down the agitation, but cannot end it. Nonso Oguama (Enugu State): No. It will not end it. I think so because considering the situation in this country, the Igbos are seriously marginalised and the agitation for Biafra precedes Peter Obis presidential bid. It didnt just start today. Its been a long time. Its an ideology, you cannot erase it. Augustus Ike (Enugu State): I dont think it will end because Peter Obis election is quite different from the agitation (for Biafra). Theyre not the same thing. It cant stop it. They (Igbos) are looking for a (sovereign) state of their own, not just the election (of Mr Obi). Nigeria must have a government so that somebody will be on the seat. On that (election) day, I will go and vote, but agitation continues. Oluchi Ihenacho (Imo State): I am not a seer, but I have the opinion that if Igbos are treated fairly, it will definitely stop Biafra agitation. This is because they will no longer feel oppressed in the country. So, if Peter Obi wins the presidential election, it is going to be a source of hope for Igbos. His victory may not end the agitation, but it will reduce the agitation. Somtochukwu Anunonwu (Imo State): Well, if Peter Obi wins the 2023 presidential election, the fact remains that there will still be Biafra agitation. Temple Maduoma (Abia State): Biafra agitators believe that Igbo presidency is not what they need, but independence from Nigeria. So, if Peter Obi win 2023 presidential election, the Biafra agitation will still continue. This is what they have been saying. So, it is not going to stop them from seeking what they want which is Biafra Republic. The Director of Programmes, YIAGA Africa, Cynthia Mbamalu, has blamed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the high incidence of multiple registrations in the recently concluded Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise. She said it was the commissions poor communication during the exercise that resulted in the multiple registrations and other infractions and their subsequent delisting from the voters register. Ms Mbamalu stated this when she featured on PREMIUM TIMES Twitter Spaces on Wednesday. The online event explored challenges and INECs readiness for the 2023 general elections with respect to the number of registered voters. The commission recently announced the removal of 1,126, 359 entries out of the 2,523,458 registrations between June 28, 2021 and January 14, 2022. Its National Commissioner and Chairman Voters Education Committee, Festus Okoye, in a statement, said the clean-up of the register by the Automated Biometric Identification System (AIBS), showed that the over one million registrants did not meet standards. Ms Mbamalu, said most people who wanted to transfer their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) to other locations, registered for new PVC, hence the prevalence of multiple registrations. She said the commission did not give sufficient communication to Nigerians on steps to avoid double registration. The awareness campaign, she argued, would have ensured that the lapses were avoided. There is the part of communicating with people. We did not see a lot of vigour in communication across board. This is why some people, rather than transferring the old data, were doing new registration. And today, you have INEC giving us data of the deletion of names. Some of them were due to the lack of information, she said. The Yiaga director also said that the inability of the electoral umpire to decentralise CVR centres prevented so many people from doing the registration or completing the process. For her, the centralisation of registration points at local government headquarters prevented many who needed to travel a long distance to registration points. She added that insecurity in some parts of the country, specifically the South-east and North-west, hindered many from registering. Ms Mbamalu stated that INEC later realised the challenges with the local government registration centre and decentralised in some places, but that happened very late towards the end of the exercise. At the commencement of registration, it was focused on local government registration areas. If you agree with me, some local government offices are so far away from some villages. In some states in the North-west and North-east, you have to travel for kilometres within a local government to get to INEC registration centres. For individuals, who think about the trip, the fact that you have to travel that long to register without the guarantee that if you get there on that particular day, you will be able to complete the registration because of the number of persons there You can imagine some people making the trip more than once. So, one of the challenges was that we did not have enough materials to ensure the decentralization of the process to bring it closer to the people. Towards the end, INEC identified some wards and they had a rotational process. Imagine if it began early, it would have encouraged the people, she said. The spokesperson of Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), Mark Adebayo, while speaking on INECs registration process said the group discovered several flaws in the data, hence its decision to raise alarm on the possible compromise of the electoral system. PREMIUM TIMES had reported that CUPP raised alarm on foreign names in INECs voters register and mismatch of names and pictures. Mr Adebayo said the evidence by the group has been presented to the public, however, he commended INEC for its swift response to the issues raised by them. He also commended the electoral body for the deployment of technology in the management of elections in the country, noting that positive results are already being seen by the public. I want to commend INEC because their investment in technology is paying off already, and the proactive responses to complaints and observation have been unprecedented, and to that, on behalf of CUPP, I want to say that INEC has really improved from what it used to be in 2015 and 2019. I know that as they said, they are going to clean up the registrar, Mr Adebayo said. Victor Aluko, INECs director of voter education and publicity, in his brief appearance on the space, noted that there is an ongoing clean-up of the register which will address some of the concerns raised about foreigners. The commission now is working assiduously to clean up the registration that was done by not less than 12 million Nigeria. Already, we have 84 million before, when we are done with the process, we will have more, he said. President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday morning returned to Abuja, after successful participation in the 77th session of the high-level meetings of the UN General Assembly in New York, United States. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the presidential jet conveying the president and other members of the entourage landed at the Presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja at about 6.25 a.m. While in New York, Mr Buhari participated in no fewer than 12 high-level events, including bilateral meetings. Mr Buhari attended the opening of the Transforming Education Summit on 19 September ahead of the General Debate and attended the Leaders Roundtable segment of the Summit where he delivered Nigerias statement. The Nigerian leader was also the first speaker, on Wednesday, to deliver Nigerias statement to the world leaders, assuring them of leaving lasting legacies and restating commitment to constitutional terms. He told the global body that his administration was determined to entrench a process of free, fair, transparent and credible elections through which Nigerians would elect their leaders. The president also engaged in various bilateral talks with some world leaders on the margins of the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly. He also alerted the world leaders to the danger of escalation of the war in Ukraine, saying the conflict further justified Nigerias resolute calls for a nuclear-free world and a universal Arms Trade Treaty. Mr Buhari said the call had become necessary to prevent global human disasters. He, therefore, demanded that world leaders must find quick means to reach a consensus on the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty with related commitments by nuclear weapon states. The president also at the Nigeria International Economic Partnership Forum held on the margins of the UNGA77 in New York on 22 September expressed delight that Nigerias investments in improving security were yielding fruitful results. He, therefore, lauded the Nigerian military for making significant progress in the fight against insecurity and building momentum in reducing challenges to their bare minimum. Mr Buhari also spoke at a Leaders Closed-Door Meeting on Climate Change convened by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. He restated the commitment of the Nigerian government toward ensuring a rapid and strategic transition to renewable energy. He said this would be in response to the worldwide efforts for the preservation of the environment. Also at a meeting with the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) at the Nigeria International Economic Partnership Forum on 23 September, Mr Buhari described the United States as Nigerias main trading partner and one of our most important diplomatic partners. This, he said, underscored the need for concerted efforts to increase the volume of bilateral trade. The Nigerian leader told the gathering that in 2020, Nigeria exported more than $1.69 billion worth of goods to the U.S., adding that these exports were primarily made up of crude oil and other petroleum products. Mr Buhari also held bilateral talks with the President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, in New York on Wednesday, where he called on African countries and their Arab partners to work hard and be more united to realise common objectives. READ ALSO: He said the actualisation of the UN resolution, which proposed a two-state solution to the crisis between Israel and Palestine, required a platform to think creatively about how to engage the rest of the world on the matter. The president also engaged in various bilateral talks with some world leaders on the margins of the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly. At a meeting with the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Mr Buhari urged for a closer partnership with Nigeria in education, health, security, and non-oil and gas sectors. While stressing the importance of education and knowledge, he said the time had come to begin to look at practical ways of tackling health challenges coming without notice. The president also on Friday in New York called for more private sector participation in the humanitarian sector in Nigeria. Mr Buhari made the call against the backdrop of lingering challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, catastrophic weather events and conflicts. The Nigerian leader also stressed the need for efficient collaboration among stakeholders involved in humanitarian action and disaster mitigation in the country. Mr Buhari, at a High-Level side event on Food Security Response: Combating Illicit Financial Flows and Securing Asset Returns for Sustainable Development, urged African leaders to fight tirelessly to get rid of corruption. The president, who spoke in his capacity as the African Union Chairman on efforts to eliminate corruption on the continent, lamented that the continent had remained at the far end of the global development index because of its menace. The event, held at the margins of UNGA77 on 24 September, was co-hosted by African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africas Development (AUDA-NEPAD) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). While providing his perspectives on the effects of corruption on the continent and the way forward, the Nigerian leader said he was honoured to serve as AU Chairman on anti-corruption since 2018. Mr Buhari also on Friday inaugurated Nigerias Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) for Sustainable Development. (NAN) A chieftain of the Labour Party (LP), Pat Utomi, has said the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu is not fit and healthy enough to rule the country. Mr Utomi, who spoke on Channels TVs Politics Today, said the current Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, would have been a better candidate to fly the APC flag. Mr Osinbajo was one of the APC presidential aspirants who lost to Mr Tinubu at the partys primary in June. The LP chieftain wondered why Mr Tinibu is still seeking political office at his age and why the APC did not let Mr Osinbajo have the ticket. I would not be seeking public office at his (Tinubu) age, he said on Monday. I told my children to confine me if Im running around after 70. He also said Nigeria has suffered so much for having ailing leaders which is a possible reason why Osinbajo, whom he described as a fit person, stepped up to contest. Tinubu is not fit. You can see he is ailing. Lets not lie to ourselves. Let him go through a medical (checkup) like they do in the US, he said.. Mr Utomi said Nigerians are fed up and the biggest victims are the young ones to whom life has increasingly become meaningless. He said his party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has taken on a more arduous task than other candidates and delivered. Mr Utomis comments come on the heels of calls for the APC to recall its candidate. Since his emergence, Mr Tinubu has been criticised for not being healthy enough and for choosing another Muslim, Kashim Shettima, as his running mate. On the same faith ticket Earlier, a leader of the Middle Belt Forum, Monday Morgan, condemned the APCs choice of 1a Mulsim-Muslim ticket. Mr Morgan is a member of the Northern Christians Against Same Faith Ticket, a group formed to challenge the APCs moves and future occurrences. In the last eight years, he said, Nigerians have been confronted with the sensitivity of Christianity and Islam. While he said he is not a member of the APC, he said his groups movement is driven by serious northern Christian elites. I would kick against a Muslim-Muslim ticket and Christian-Christian ticket, he said as he explained that Christianity, if not protected especially as it relates to the sharing of power, will cause problems Mr Morgan feared that if the APC is allowed to contest and eventually win with the same faith ticket, it would set a bad precedent. If we allow this to go, any other thing will go. It will divide us more. If other political parties are sensitive to it, why should APC not be sensitive to it? We are concerned about a party that doesnt care, he said. He urged Nigerian youth to ensure they get their Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) and vote for people who are sensitive to their plight. A spokesperson of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, says Nigerians are too hungry to be swayed by their religious faiths in the choice they will make in the forthcoming general elections. Mr Keyamo stated this during an interview with Channels Television on Sunday night, against the backdrop of the criticisms that have continued to trail the partys Muslim-Muslim ticket. The ruling APC is fielding Bola Tinubu, a South-west Muslim and Kashim Shettima, a North-east Muslim, as its presidential and vice presidential candidates in the February election. Despite the kicks from groups, organisations and persons of Christian faith, the ruling party has not backed down on promoting the ticket, insisting that it is the best for Nigerians. In reiterating this position, Mr Keyamo, argued that Nigerians would like to see policies that will address their hunger rather than bothering about their faiths. Nigerians are hungry, they want to see how that hunger will be addressed, not how their Christian or Muslim faiths will be addressed. They want to see our policies on agriculture and what Asiwaju has done before as governor of Lagos State, how he improved Lagos and how he will bring that kind of posterity to Nigeria as a whole, he said. Mr Keyamo also seized the opportunity to react to the condemnation of Tinubu/Shettima ticket by the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN). The Christian group said it has no affiliation with clergymen under its umbrella that met with Mr Tinubu in Abuja on Friday. They also rejected the same faith ticket of the party. The APC campaign spokesperson criticised the PFN for its comments on the decisions of his party. They should not be coming to question the decision of our party publicly. The purpose of pastors or their duty is to lead people to heaven not to lead people to villa. If I go to church every Sunday, I want to hear the sermon of God and I dont want to hear the sermon of politics or who should rule me. I want to hear the sermon of God and what will lead me to salvation and not what to lead me to the villa, Mr Keyamo argued. While President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has continued to face strong criticisms from some individuals and groups for poor performance, the 2023 APC presidential candidate, Mr Tinubu, has promised to build on the incumbents legacy. The same ruling party rode into power in 2015 by promising to effectively tackle insecurity, infrastructural decay and economic downturns but the reality differs. As political parties gear towards the official commencement of campaign on 28 September, similar promises are already rolling not only from the APC candidates but also from candidates contesting under the other 17 political parties. Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has suspended the Managing Director of Benue Investment and Property Company Limited, Alex Adum, for allegedly campaigning for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar. In a letter issued by the Secretary to the Government of Benue State, Anthony Ijohor, dated 25 September, Mr Adum was suspended indefinitely for alleged financial misappropriation. However, those close to Mr Adum told PREMIUM TIMES that he was suspended for campaigning for Atiku. Mr Adum, a former attorney general and commissioner for justice under ex-Governor Gabriel Suswam, appears to be on a political trajectory different from Mr Ortom, who is in a political battle with Atiku. The suspended MD has been backing Atiku and the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, a development said to have irked Mr Ortom who prefers that his trusted aides should always queue behind him politically. Ortom warned all his aides not to have anything to do with Atiku. Adum has been openly canvassing Atiku candidature on social media. He has been attending Atiku meetings courtesy of Iyorchia Ayu, a source told PREMIUM TIMES. A glance at the Facebook account of Mr Adum shows that he is a vigorous campaigner for Atiku while his boss remained opposed to the candidate. Six days ago, he made a post on his Facebook page supporting Atiku despite the position of his boss on the ongoing crisis in the PDP. Mr Ortom and other persons within Governor Nyesom Wikes camp had some days ago withdrawn from the PDP presidential campaign council in protest against Mr Ayus continued stay in office. The group had after a meeting at the private residence of Mr Wike in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, announced their withdrawal from the campaign pending Mr Ayus resignation. The group contends that Messrs Ayu and Atiku are from the North, hence, there is a need for the former to resign and allow a southerner to take his place as national chaiman. Mr Wike claimed Mr Ayu promised to resign in the event of an emergence of a northern presidential candidate after the convention. Besides, Mr Ayu has been accused of supporting Atiku during the presidential primary election at the May convention of the party. Often, Mr Wikes faction refers to the viral video of Mr Ayu calling Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State the hero of our convention. Atiku appears to be calling the bluff of Mr Wike and others by insisting that the decision for Dr Iyorchia Ayu to resign from office is personal to Dr Ayu and neither I nor anyone else can make that decision for him. PREMIUM TIMES could not get Mr Ter to comment for this story. The Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ortom, Nathaniel Ikyur, denied that Mr Adum was suspended for political reasons. The statement is written in black and white. There is no need to infer and begin to think about any political reasons. There is nothing like that. The statement from the SSG is unambiguous, Mr Ikyur said. A group of lawyers has petitioned the Senate Ad-Hoc committee over alleged oil theft from the Ugo Ocha export terminal at OML 42 in the Niger Delta region. The OML 42, an oil field located in the swamps of the western Niger Delta, is operated by NECONDE Energy Limited. The terminal has four flow stations with a combined production capacity of around 30,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd). The lawyers complained that an average of one million barrels of Nigerias crude oil is taken away monthly by the company without accurate measurement due to the absence of meters at this export terminal. In the petition seen by PREMIUM TIMES and presented at the committees investigative hearing on Oil Lifting, Theft and the Impact on Petroleum Production and Oil Revenues on 21 September, the lawyers said since the terminal was established in 2017, NECONDE has frustrated efforts by the federal government to install a metering system also known as LACT Unit at the terminal. The company, they said, continues to operate the terminal in full violation of the federal governments requirement for accurate custody transfer measurement at all export terminals. The petition, dated 21 September, was submitted through O. F. Emmanuel & Co. It comes on the heels of oil theft and vandalism in the Nigerian oil sector. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) disclosed that it loses 470,000 bpd of crude oil amounting to $700 million monthly due to oil theft. This paper also reported how Nigeria, amid dwindling revenue, lost $10 billion to crude oil theft in seven months. The lawyers, in the petition signed by the Principal Partner, Oluwatosin F. Emmanuel, alleged that as of the time of the petition, there are no meters at the Ugo Ocha export terminal to accurately determine the volumes of Nigerias crude oil sold to foreign buyers. They said enormous amounts of revenue to the tune of $15 million per month accruable to the Federal Government of Nigeria could potentially be lost due to the absence of a functional measurement system for exported crude oil volumes at this terminal. They also claimed that NECONDE continues to operate the terminal in flagrant violation of the federal governments mandate for accurate custody transfer measurement at all export terminals. Been aware of this monumental revenue loss, the government of Nigeria, through NUPRC, recently placed a ban on all exports of crude oil from NECONDEs OML 42 UGO Ocha terminal until a functional LACT Unit is installed on the terminal, part of the petition read. In spite of the subsisting government ban, NECONDE continues to export Nigerias crude oil illegitimately from the Ugo Ocha terminal while frustrating every effort to install a LACT Unit on the terminal. They asked the Senate panel to ensure that the ban on exports from the Ugo Ocha terminal is enforced and that the company is compelled to install a 1.25 million barrels per day LACT Unit (metering system). The lawyers further prayed the committee to direct the Nigerian Navy to arrest and detain the vessel MT COPPER SPIRIT which is currently lifting oil at the Ugo Ocha terminal, direct the NMDPRA and NUPRC to cancel all barging permits granted to NECONDE and NPDC until a LACT Unit is installed and commissioned at the Ugo Ocha terminal as directed by NUPRC and direct the Nigeria Ports Authority to prohibit the movement of crude oil barges and tankers to and from the Ugo Ocha terminal. Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday commended Nigerians living in the US for the exemplary roles they play in their different areas of endeavour, which has led to some of them being appointed into government. It is gratifying for me to note that many Nigerians in the USA have continued to excel in their careers leading to some being appointed into the cabinet of His Excellency President Joe Biden, he said while speaking to Nigerians living in New York, according to a statement issued by a presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina. He urged them to continue to demonstrate the highest sense of responsibility so they can continue to remain reference points of excellence in the US. Mr Buhari also emphasised the need for the diasporans to continue to remain law abiding as they live in the US and comport yourselves in such exemplary manners that should earn you the privilege of reference as good Ambassadors of Nigeria. He also urged them to live with one another peacefully in order to earn collective self-respect. Furthermore, Mr Buhari said, as our Diaspora Ambassadors, we expect your willingness to give back to Nigeria some of your resources, talents, skills and global exposure in the development of our great country, Nigeria. The president also commended the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission for coordinating the meeting between the president and the diasporans. He gave assurances that the government will continue to support Nigerians living abroad, citing recent evacuations from Libya, South Africa and Ukraine. He added that he had also approved the same in UAE and India. Chiamaka Okafor is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe. A Lagos road user has narrated his experience in the hands of the governments BRT Taskforce, which enforces the states traffic law. In a post widely shared on social media, the driver said he was stopped along Ikorodu Road by the gun-brandishing taskforce officers, for allegedly committing a traffic offence, and his vehicle towed to the LAMATA office in Ketu. He said he was promptly issued a paper to Oshodi mobile court where the magistrate fined him N50,000. Last Friday, the Federal High Court in Lagos ruled that LASTMA lacks the power to impose fines on drivers who allegedly committed a traffic offence and tow their vehicles. Read his story below: Entrapment by LAMATA BRT Taskforce at Mile 12, Ikorodu Just a few weeks ago Nigerians viewed a viral video of an OAP working with a major tv station caught in the snare of a BRT taskforce in Lagos in which he made frustrated outbursts of I will tell the governor repeatedly. Trust Nigerians, we had a grand time analysing and chastising the hapless OAP. He later paid the fine and apologized to Nigerians on air. What we did not seek to ask was what were the circumstances that led to his apprehension by this BRT task force. Well, on a certain Wednesday a few weeks later, at around 11.00 a.m., I fell victim to this same BRT task force entrapment tactic at Mile 12/Owode in Ikorodu. And as I found out during and after my ordeal, a large number of unsuspecting citizens are also victims. Practically all victims are people who were strangers to Ikorodu and were only passing through. Even yesterday, an elderly acquaintance narrated his shocking experience at that same spot. He had to part with N40,000 to the task force officials. Unfortunately, for some reason, we all choose to bear our crosses silently and move on. Which is why I have chosen to publicise my sordid ordeal at the hands of this dubious task force. My story: I had an appointment that for 12 noon that Wednesday at Imota, on the outskirts of Ikorodu, inwards Ogun State. Now, Ikorodu is a place I had not been to in over 3 years. I set out at about 10.30 a.m. from Alausa. No traffic. I should reach Imota within a few minutes to 12 noon according to Google maps. All was going smooth until I descended the 2-lane Mile 12 flyover inbound Ikorodu which links to a 2-lane road with the outer (left) lane designated as a BRT lane. From the top of the flyover, I saw that the only lane reserved for non-BRT traffic was impeded by some policemen and other officials (about 7 in total) who surrounded a vehicle. This forced oncoming traffic to cut briefly onto the BRT lane so as to bypass the impediment. I followed the flowing traffic and did same (see attached pictures for clearer understanding). Just as I was bypassing the impediment (one has to slow down there as the policemen spilled onto the lane), an armed mobile policeman jumped in front of my vehicle with a gun aimed at me, causing me to stop dead on that lane to avoid hitting him. I thought it might be a check point and wondered why it was set up at that spot and blocking traffic on both lanes. But then, this is Nigeria. I stopped as ordered and the menacing looking policeman waved his gun to indicate that I should come down. I indicated with my hand that I couldnt park there and he should let me clear off the road and park in front of the already parked vehicle. He reluctantly agreed and after I had cleared, I came down. The gun brandishing mobile policeman asked me if I knew why he stopped me. I responded in the negative (I honestly had no clue). Then he said I was driving on a BRT lane. No way, I said. I drove along with other traffic unto that lane to bypass the obstruction caused by them on the lane we were hitherto on. He proceeds to show me a picture of my car on the BRT lane as evidence. To say I was stupefied puts it mildly. Then they moved in on me, about 5 of them, including other gun-brandishing policemen. I observed that the car I parked in front of had left. And it was my car they were now surrounding and blocking the non-BRT lane with. Anyway, I didnt play ball (if you know what I mean) and ended up being slammed in court by the now very hostile, abusive, and very threatening and abusive gun-brandishing policemen who towed my vehicle to LAMATA office at Ketu, where I was promptly issued a paper to Oshodi mobile court. I guess my recording the attached visuals did not rub them the right way. It was while in the court premises at Oshodi later that day that I discovered that all the BRT infractions on that day (7 or were from the same spot, all apprehended and card impounded within the last 24 hours, under very similar circumstances. All strangers to Ikorodu. While my co-accused and myself were discussing the matter and trying to decide whether to plead not guilty in unison, we were advised by some helpful bystanders that if we want your vehicles back quickly we had better plead guilty and pay our fines. And that if anyone chose to plead not guilty such person should be ready for several adjournments which would deny them use of their impounded vehicle until the case is finally over. And if eventually still found guilty after the process the fine could be even worse and one might be forced to go through other processes before you getting their vehicle back. During the course of the trial, we were all charged with passing the BRT lane (count 1) and causing obstruction (count 2). In my case I was also charged with towing my vehicle. We all pled guilty. Yes, we were on the BRT lane, and yes, if you are on the BRT lane you are automatically obstructing traffic. Luckily, we were allowed to speak before the magistrate gave his judgement and fined us. A few explained that they arent familiar with that route as they were only passing through and didnt see the sign (the sign is not visible from the bridge), and once you descend from the bridge you are liable to enter the BRT lane immediately if you are a stranger to that route. Others like me only followed the traffic in front of them. Luckily, the magistrate allowed me to tender the video I recorded as evidence (we had been told by the helpful bystanders that phone videos were not admissible) and listened to my explanation that the thing was entrapment. He asked several questions about the video which I answered (he apparently hadnt any understanding of the setup of that location hitherto my video). He pondered for about 5 minutes the video evidence which indicated with other evidence (all the BRT infractions were from that same spot and all with similar stories) that something was not quite right. Magistrate eventually fined us all N20,000 for the first charge (instead of the statutory N70,000), and N30,000 for the second charge as a deterrent since we were all first offenders, and warned us to be conscious of road signs and the environment when driving. For my third charge he discharged and struck it out since the police counter video revealed that my car key was with them, but they chose to tow my vehicle for whatever reason. The next morning I went to the LAMATA Ketu office to pay the fine and pick up my car so I could proceed to Imota. When I got to LAMATA office around 10.00 a.m., I observed they had already brought in 5 fresh victims from the same spot that morning. The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has travelled to the United Kingdom for a meeting earlier scheduled for last week. Insiders within the camp of the former Lagos State Governor disclosed that Mr Tinubu will meet with an unnamed group in the UK and he is expected back into the country before the official flag-off of the presidential campaign. PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report that the flag-off of the APC presidential election will hold in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, within the week. Campaigns for the 2023 national elections will officially kick off on 28 September ahead while that of governorship and state houses of assembly will commence on 12 October, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). According to some aides of Mr Tinubu, who spoke to this newspaper, the meeting was scheduled for last week, but the controversies that trailed the composition of the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) led to its postponement. The sudden trip has also fuelled speculations of another medical trip or meeting with Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and members of his group, some of who are already in the UK. Last month, Mr Tinubu had a covert meeting with the aggrieved members of the Peoples Democratic Party led by Mr Wike and some other governors. Yes, he (Tinubu) travelled to the UK yesterday. He is to meet with some people in the UK. He ought to have left the country last week, but he had to postpone it because of the whole campaign council list. The meeting is not with the Wikes group and not for a medical reason. Yes the consultation with Wike and others is still ongoing, but this is not about that. A group invited him for a meeting. For now, I cannot disclose the identity of the group, the source said. PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the PCC list generated controversy among the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) headed by Governor Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi State. The governors nominated five persons each to be in the campaign council. However, some of the governors were left fuming when the 422-member list was released by the secretary of the campaign council, James Faleke, a federal lawmaker from Lagos State. Their nominees were not properly captured in the list. According to a top source in the party, the Director-General of the APC PCC, Simon Lalong and Mr Faleke compiled the list which either excluded the nominees of the governors or wrongfully designated them. The source familiar with the matter added that a comprehensive list is being generated by Messrs Bagudu and Faleke. The position of the governors unsettled Mr Tinubu. The governors were very angry. The governor has a Whatsapp group. They dropped five names of people who will represent their respective states in the campaign council. These names were passed to Messrs Lalong and Faleke (but) unfortunately, a lot happened along the way. The resolution is that a new list will be released in the next couple of days. Those nominees of governors will assume their intended designations at the directorate level. There are the heads of directorates and members of directorates. Tinubu could not leave until yesterday morning as he had to resolve the matter, the source said. Prayer, peace walk Meanwhile, the PCC, via its spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement, said all members of the directorate are to report at the secretariat of the council on Wednesday for a special prayer to commence the flag-off of the campaign and participate in a peace walk. Controversies had trailed the release of the partys campaign council list on Saturday. There were speculations that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo declined membership of the committee due to his opposition to APCs Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket. However, the spokesperson of the PCC, Festus Keyamo, in a statement, said President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the exclusion of Mr Osinbajo and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, to enable them to concentrate on governance. The Federal Government of Nigeria on Friday directed the management of all federal universities to comply with the order of the National Industrial Court (NIC) directing the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to return to classrooms pending the determination of the substantive matter before it. The government asked the pro-chancellors and vice-chancellors to ensure that the striking lecturers resume and commence lectures immediately. The new directive, which was contained in a letter addressed to the universities by the National Universities Commission (NUC), seems to have ignored the stay of execution application filed at the appeal court against the NIC order by the lecturers union. But the management of the various universities is currently unsure of how to execute the new directive by the government. Some of the members of the different managements of some universities who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES said they were worried based on the judicial interpretation of the current status of the pending case at the court. FGs directive Along with NUCs letter dated 23rd September and signed by the Director of Finance and Accounts, Sam Onazi, on behalf of the Executive Secretary, Abubakar Rasheed, is the attached enrolment order of the NJC. The letter was a follow-up to an earlier letter by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, conveying the enrolment order to his counterpart at the Ministry of Education, Adamu Adamu. Mr Ngige had written to request that the NUC and the universities be directed to immediately re-open all the universities, recall the students of the various Universities, ensure that ASUU members immediately resume/commence lectures, restore the daily activities and routines of the various University campuses. The letter by the labour and employment ministry was dated 22nd September and referenced NUC/ES/138/Vol.64/135. In response to Mr Ngiges letter, Mr Adamu, through his ministrys Director of Human Resource Management, David Gende, told the NUC to carry out the instruction. Universities confused Meanwhile, the management of the various universities contacted by this newspaper on Monday was either unsure of what step to do or was unaware of the development as of the time their reactions were sought. On his part, the Vice-Chancellor, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Sulaiman Bilbis, said his school was yet to make a decision on the matter. Mr Bilbis in a telephone interview with a PREMIUM TIMES reporter on Monday said the management of the institution would have to meet before any decision would be made. But the spokespersons for Bayero University Kano (BUK), and Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Lamara Garba and Abiodun Olarewaju respectively, said they were unaware of the directive. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin and newly elected Chairperson of the Committee of Vice-Chancellor of Federal Universities, Lilian Salami, neither picked up calls to her mobile phone nor responded to a short message sent to her. Background The government through the labour ministry had referred the dispute between it and ASUU to the NICN. The government counsel, James Igwe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, subsequently filed an application seeking the court to order ASUU to suspend the strike while the court heard the dispute. Despite ASUUs objection, the court granted the governments application ordering the lecturers union to suspend its seven-month-old strike. ASUU has appealed the judgement and filed an application for a stay of execution. ASUU embarked on the ongoing industrial action on 14 February, to compel the government to fulfil its part of the 2009 agreement, the Memorandum of Action signed in 2020 and to implement the recently concluded negotiations with the government-constituted committee which renegotiated the 2009 agreement. Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe Nigerias electricity grid has collapsed yet again, distribution companies announced Monday. The collapse occured late Monday morning, they said. It is the seventh time the grid would collapse this year, causing blackout across states. The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company PLC (EEDC) said on its Facebook page that The collapse had resulted in the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network. The note by the companys head of cooperating communication, Emeka Ezeh, said it was unable to provide service to customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and the Imo States. READ ALSO: We are on standby awaiting detailed information of the collapse and restoration of supply from the National Control Centre (NCC), Osogbo, it wrote. The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) also reported the collapse. The system collapsed at about 10:55 am today, 26 September 2022, causing the outage currently being experienced. We appeal for your understanding as all stakeholders are working hard to restore normal supply, the company said. Power was later restored in parts of Abuja Monday afternoon. The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council says the inclusion of a PDP senator, Chimaroke Nnamani, in its Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) was not a mistake. PCC Director of Media, Bayo Onanuga, stated this in a statement on Monday in Abuja. The inclusion of Mr Nnamani, who is also a former governor of Enugu State, in the 422-member council charged with prosecuting the campaign of APC Presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, has been generating confusion since Friday when the list of its members was released. Some had argued that the intended person was a former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, a member of the ruling party, who incidentally hails from the Nkanu axis of Enugu East as the former governor. But in the statement, Mr Onanuga said Mr Nnamani was included in the council because of his personal relationship with Mr Tinubu. He stated that the senator may not join the campaign on the field but may give moral support to the APC candidate. The PCC will also want to clarify that the appearance of the name of HE Chimaroke Nnamani, a distinguished senator from Enugu State, was not a mistake. He is on the list in his own right as a supporter of our presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. READ ALSO: Distinguished Senator Chimaroke Nnamani, who is still away in the United States, is a very close friend of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He may not be on the field with us as a PDP senatorial candidate in Enugu East, but his presence is indicative that he may have chosen to give moral support to his old-time friend and brother. In any case, the PCC cannot dictate the extent of Senator Nnamanis support for his friend and brother. That is part of his fundamental human right which supersedes any provision in a Party Constitution. His position and allegiance to his party is self-defining and does not need any qualifying by us, he said. Mr Nnamani, in August, used his verified Twitter handle, to defend Mr Tinubu after the Pyrate Confraternity made some songs disparaging the health of the former Lagos State governor. He praised Mr Tinubu for the reforms in the administration of criminal justice, education, healthcare and employment of non-indigenes when he was governor of Lagos State. He said Mr Tinubu has the best mentorship system in the country. I had cause to engage with him on jobs for Enugu spouses. In the education sector, he introduced Tutor General and raised the bar for teachers, Mr Nnamani tweeted. Mr Nnamani did not respond to a request for comment sent to his Twitter Direct Message by this newspaper. Chukwuemeka Ezekiel, Wale Adebayo, Ahmed Husain. Three very promising Nigerian talents, left the shores of the country 30 years ago in search of greener pastures. Years later Chukwuemeka became a renowned neurosurgeon in the United States of America. Chukwuemekas plan was to attain the pinnacle of success in his career, then at the age of 50 return to Nigeria with his wealth of experience. Wale Adebayo, finished his first degree in International relations in Poland before he moved on to Germany, where he became famous for his work with international organisations. He always tells his friends that he is only in Europe for a short spell after which he is going to develop his community back in Nigeria. Ahmed Husain, a brilliant lawyer who finished his degree in Oxford after which he became a representative for many international businesses. Even though he got married to a white British lady, he always told his children stories about mother Africa and how he was going to go back to the northern part of Nigeria to bring back the development he had been part of in Europe to his own people. Not all Nigerian in Diaspora have a success story like Chukwuemeka, Wale and Ahmed. The story of Nigerians in the Diasporas is as diverse and complex as Nigeria itself. As we have the successful ones, so we have the stranded, dejected wanderers. Nigerians are scattered all around the world from civilized Europe to some backyard third world nations in Asia and Africa. Professionally the Nigerian Diaspora range from Professors, medical doctors to drug pushers, prostitutes and all what not. We have prosperous Nigerians in Diaspora, we have the successful, the wretched, the ship wrecked, the sidelined, the side tracked and the outcast. Nigerians in Diaspora live in conditions ranging from palatial opulence to marginal prison yards under obscured circumstances. Most of these Nigerians, left the shores of their country determined to be away only for a short while. Their ideas were to get educated, make a good amount of money and come back home to both contribute and enjoy. However, the realities of their sojourn compel them to keep on postponing or adjusting their return date. In some cases the only thing that puts an end to the procrastination is the horrible finger of death. Going back to the story of our heroes with which I started this article; Chukwuemeka Ezekiel, Wale Adebayo, Ahmed Husain. None of them saw their dream of returning to Nigeria materialized. As I write, none of them is alive. They studied, they worked, and they struggled and yet If you are an African living outside of your nation and you are reading this article, what is your plan? How do you want your story to end? Oh yea, I know what you are thinking, this would not be my story. Chukwuemeka Ezekiel, Wale Adebayo, Ahmed Husain thought exactly the same way. This wonderful African achievers are now gone without witnessing the renaissance of their beloved fatherland. Africa is still languishing in lack, deprivation, poverty, pain and sorrow. Oh, how badly Africa needed their expertise. Their skills and intelligence could have contributed immensely to the motherland. On daily basis, we hear sad news of young Africans dying outside the shore of their nations. Passing away with the unfulfilled dream of going back to develop Africa starched to their hearts This article, is therefore a wakeup call to those of us still alive and well. It is also a call to the Nigerian government to accelerate the process of creating conducive environment, that will encourage the Diaspora to come back to contribute their quota to their fatherland. We all have only a single shot at life, after which it would be too late. Deep in their hearts every African that went to look for a greener pasture is dreaming of coming back or giving something back. If the conditions are right most of these people will definitely contribute one thing or the other to the development of our continent. Even those who might not be willing to come back might receive extra incentives to contribute in some other ways, if there are policies in place to encourage their participation. Nigeria and Africans in Diaspora indeed have a lot to contribute. If African governments dont move fast to begin to encourage our Diaspora, it could be too late. The second, third and fourth generation immigrants get quickly absorbed in their new environment and culture, that they tend to lose touch with their countries of origin. Our best bet is to entice the first generation immigrants who still have cultural and emotional attachments with their homeland to return and participate in the political, economic and social processes going on at home. So far, it is only Nigeria that has a parliament committee on diaspora in the whole of the continent. One of the very urgent things that the senate committee must do in Nigeria is to ensure that Nigerians in diaspora gain the right to participate in the electoral process. Now, I want to prove that the Nigerian disapora definitely matters: For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your fathers house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Esther 4:14 A Nigerian in the diaspora could soon become the first Black British Prime Minister. Chuka Umunna, could make history by becoming the first black Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Born in London in 1978, Chuka was bred in the UK. His late father, Bennett Umunna, hailed from Anambra State while his Irish mother, Patricia, is a solicitor. Chuka is a British Labour Party politician. He stands the chance of becoming the next head of the Labour party. Incase his party wins the general election, he stands a chance of becoming the first Black Prime Minister of Great Britain. Even if people like Chuka might not move back to Nigeria, in this case they might not need to. We could benefit more from him having love and passion for the country than him moving back. We therefore need our government to put structures in place that would facilitate closer relationship between African immigrants with the continent. This is one reason why the Diaspora matters. They have already attained the highest level of experience and professionalism in first world nations which could make things easier if we could harness their wealth of wisdom back in Africa. The appointment of a Nigerian, Mrs Olufemi Obe as the precinct commander of the New York Police Department, could be a great winning point for Nigeria as a whole, bearing in mind the crippling problem we have with the Nigerian Police system. If the Nigerian government could establish a working relation with Mrs. Olufemi Obe, she could bring her wealth of experience to help us fix the police problem in Nigeria. We all know that New York is a complex city to govern. Her experience will come in handy for Nigeria and Africa in general. This is one reason why we cannot afford to neglect our Diaspora. We need them to move from third world to the first world. The President of the United States of America, President Barack Obama, openly admitted that Nigeria could become the worlds next economic success story. But for that to happen, Nigeria needs to build strong democratic institutions to which the diaspora could be of immense contribution. For Nigeria to truly be moved from the third world to the first, we need to harness the experience of Nigerians who are already playing a leading role in building the first world in America, Europe, and Asia. Etc. it is an added advantage to have them contribute their experience, knowledge and wisdom towards accomplishing this goal. Another factor that tells us that the Nigerian Diaspora matters is the fact that just in America alone there are over 25,000 medical practitioners of Nigerian decent. This explains another major reason why our government must do all they can to establish a rapport with Nigerians abroad. Our despicable medical situation in Nigeria could be fixed almost overnight if we could have a good rapport with Nigerian doctors in Diaspora. We are never going to be a first world nation without an effective health sector. Brussels the capital of Belgium, is also the seat of power of the European Union. A Nigerian Collins Nweke, has become a second term counselor as the only none Belgium born politician to win an elective position in West-Flanders. He is responsible for the economic and social policy portfolio. As we all know social policies are almost none existent in Nigeria. A bridge between Nigeria and Belgium through Hon. Nweke could contribute hugely to the standard of living of Nigerians. Which could go a long way to making us become a first world nation. Sunday Adelaja is a Nigeria born leader, transformation strategist, pastor and innovator. He was based in Kiev, Ukraine. In light of the continents security issues and other difficulties, and to address the problems that are slowly destroying the continent, African political leaders must use the opportunity to restructure the continents democratic system. The promises made by African leaders to develop counterterrorism technology development plans must also be reaffirmed. Establishing strong democratic and political institutions in each African state is crucial to transforming Africa into a safe continent free from terrorist attacks and other types of danger. Undoubtedly, Africa has a persistent issue with insecurity. Terrorist groups like Boko Haram and Al-Shabab have continued to endanger the security of peoples lives and property, as well as the survival of democratic governance in Africa. Unsurprisingly, the threat of terrorism has put Africas collective development and growth in even greater jeopardy. Due to the fear of investing in countries affected by terrorism, economies have collapsed. As statehood in some of these impacted countries slowly deteriorates, political advancements have also been hampered. Lately, discussions have focused on how crucial it is for African governments to stop this threat and nip terrorism in the bud. Africa is experiencing a rise in terrorism which, in addition to other humanitarian disasters, has caused mass migration and the loss of lives and valuables. One of the key factors contributing to the domination of insurgency is the frailty of political institutions in most African countries. The blunt truth is that terrorism grows when the government is unwilling to combat it. Take the case of Nigeria as an example, the governments longstanding unwillingness to engage in tactical warfare with Boko Haram has blown the destructive activities of the terrorist group beyond proportion, creating fertile ground for other insurgents to rise, and daily, it becomes even more complex to eradicate them. Repeatedly, worries have been expressed about the predicament of African countries in the face of internal and international terrorist attacks, as well as concerning potential repercussions for African political states, most of which have been labelled as weak or failed. While different state actions have been carried out against terrorist groups, the lack of robust democratic institutions in Africa is a significant barrier to the success of counterinsurgency efforts across the continent. African nations have been unable to work together to combat insurgency due to acrimonious politics. A close examination of leadership structures in African nations reveals that most of them are unsuccessful. How would this lead to success against the rebels in nations where the state and the people are constantly at odds? Internal conflict hinders African democratisation and fosters rebel domination in return. It is sadder that democratic leaders also take advantage of their nations security to run for political office. Regrettably, most African leaders now place fighting terrorism at the top of their list of political priorities just because it commands a lot of emotions that can sway elections in their favour and not because they genuinely want to tackle it. Most African states security structures are, in fact, relatively flimsy. In many nations, domestic conflict further expands security gaps and creates the conditions for the insurgency to flourish. In debates about terrorism, technological progress is unavoidable. Terrorists in Africa are developing, thanks to technical advancements. Terrorism and counterterrorism rapidly assume a new shape in their operations and subject engagement due to the expanding global instrumentalisation of technology. Although both countries and terrorist organisations are modernising their operational methods, there is evidence that many terrorist organisations in Africa are rapidly creating technical solutions to enhance their lethal operations. The internet, especially, is one technical tool feared for its potential to significantly impact global security. Policymakers are concerned about how communication networks like the internet may be used to carry out terrorist activities. Internets, specialised websites and social media platforms are frequently used in conjunction with secured networks to set up chat rooms for talks and activity monitoring, to produce disinformation that could incite panic and conduct recruitment in Africa. Today, terrorist organisations like Boko Haram, Al-Shabab, and others use untraceable video and audio recordings to broadcast attacks, demand ransom for hostages, and engage in other despicable activities. Creating powerful political institutions is the first transition stage African nations must go through. A nations political structure has a significant role in determining its security architecture. Launching counterterrorism investigations and conflicts between the political class and those in important leadership positions with access to resources and intelligence that could jeopardise government efforts is the second transition stage. Terrorism in Africa has a detrimental effect on the socioeconomic and political developments of the region. However, it has been demonstrated that successful counterterrorism has benefited or, at the very least, can improve the socioeconomic and political environments on the continent. Like every other continent, Africa has experienced significant terrorist activity. The effects of terrorism, however, have affected Africa far more than other, more developed continents. Terrorism still exists on the continent of Africa despite the efforts of various African nations and regional and international organisations to combat it. The failure of the different counter-terrorist strategies launched to maintain long-lasting peace on the continent has exacerbated the continents underdevelopment. Despite security issues, Africa lags behind other continents in scientific, social, and political progress. These reasons are why it has become paramount for African counterterrorism efforts to keep up with technological advancement. Due to the unique characteristics of each nation, the specific insurgent groups, and the nature of operations, counterterrorism battles in Africa assume diverse forms and employ varied techniques. Departments, institutions, and programmes have been established in countries to address the crime afflicted by terrorism. In addition, several laws, regulations, and directives have been passed to guarantee the success of counterterrorism initiatives and tactics. Technology and new technologies are used to acquire additional intelligence and prepare for counter operations. Creating powerful political institutions is the first transition stage African nations must go through. A nations political structure has a significant role in determining its security architecture. Launching counterterrorism investigations and conflicts between the political class and those in important leadership positions with access to resources and intelligence that could jeopardise government efforts is the second transition stage. As a result, corruption and money laundering are curbed, closing doors to money that may be readily transferred to fund terrorists. Additionally, collaboration with the public is required to create a community policing operation. By acting as informants and providing the necessary information to security personnel, citizens would be involved in the security architecture of African states. African nations must also calm ethnic tensions that could lead to domestic conflict because internal weakness in a nation creates favourable conditions for the growth of insurgency. Insecurity in Africa stems from internal crises that aim to undermine peoples safety and the African states coherence. Therefore, individual African states must organise more effective counterterrorism policies. the effectiveness of the actions and policies put in place by the individual governments of African countries will significantly impact the future trajectories of counterterrorism and security in the continent. For African nations to effectively battle terrorism and firmly establish peace and security throughout the continent, better political institutions must be built, alliances with militarily stronger states must be formed, and counterterrorism policies and actions must be well coordinated. For this to be accomplished, effective political leadership and corporate governance must be ingrained at the internal level of the African state. Each African state administration must understand that defeating terrorism requires teamwork and must demonstrate the capacity and willingness to achieve victory. This is because if internal conflicts are permitted to persist and damage the political structure, it will pave the way for external forces to invade. African nations must fortify political institutions in their particular domains to achieve a change in the security architecture. Also, African governments must work together with other nations to implement counterinsurgency strategies. The African Union and regional organisations like the ECOWAS must intervene to maintain Africas peace and security. African nations must cooperate on forward-thinking projects to reach a common goal. The trajectories of political and economic progress have been significantly impacted by security issues brought on by internal conflict, civil wars, and terrorist acts. In light of the continents security issues and other difficulties, and to address the problems that are slowly destroying the continent, African political leaders must use the opportunity to restructure the continents democratic system. The promises made by African leaders to develop counterterrorism technology development plans must also be reaffirmed. Establishing strong democratic and political institutions in each African state is crucial to transforming Africa into a safe continent free from terrorist attacks and other types of danger. These institutions must be capable of using the military and diplomacy to combat terrorism. Lastly, the effectiveness of the actions and policies put in place by the individual governments of African countries will significantly impact the future trajectories of counterterrorism and security in the continent. For African nations to effectively battle terrorism and firmly establish peace and security throughout the continent, better political institutions must be built, alliances with militarily stronger states must be formed, and counterterrorism policies and actions must be well coordinated. African nations must build strong political leadership and corporate governance in the battle against terrorism to overcome the insecurity dilemma brought about by terrorists in their continent. Only then can the fight against terrorism in Africa be won. Toyin Falola, a professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin, is the Bobapitan of Ibadanland. This is excerpt from a Keynote Address to the International Conference on Counterterrorism, Technology and Development in Africa at Stellenbosch University and Obuda University, on 22 September. in Nigeria, a country under threat of brazen conflict entrepreneurs and armed, audacious non-state actors, the incontestable authority of the state must be imposed. State security outfits backed by law, whether in the Western Nigeria, Katsina, Borno, Benue or any Northern state, must have access to the same sophisticated weapons that the marauders have. Anything else is a contradiction in terms. The Western Nigeria Security Network, Amotekun Corps, as a response, is now not just the first line of defence, but the ultimate bulwark in the protection of a way of life and of a civilisation. The efforts of our determined and valiant Amotekun personnel since inception must be underscored, encouraged and highly commended. We must all rise at this time to acknowledge their efforts. On our parts, we will continue to support the operational capacity of all security agencies in the State both in terms of equipment and the welfare of their personnel. The recent donation of 50-fitted patrol vehicles is a testament to our resolve to be up-to-date in fighting crime and criminality because without a secure environment, there can never ne visible and sustained development. The Amotekun Corps must be given the tools to carry out its now pivotal, indispensable duties. For centuries, we have been admonished that a bad workman blames his tools, yet in the case of Amotekun Corps the workman is expected to function without good tools. It is not only absurd, but also a dereliction of duty and a cause of disaffection. Dissatisfaction is induced by a feeling of unfairness. The crises in the conventional wisdom is life-threatening and nationwide. Therefore, it is unacceptable if the state sanctions differing rules of engagement for different sub-national governments. The fight back against marauders committing crimes against humanity must allow subnational and regional authorities to have the tools, the most sophisticated weapons available which the marauders already have in abundance. Without providing the sub-national security forces to be a counter-balancing force, we have a crisis which strikes at the heart of the conception and definition of the state itself. It is not just the definition of the state, the state itself is under existential threat. The modern state is defined by treaties. The conception of the modern state beatified by these treaties gives it an incontestable monopoly of the means of violence, intimidation and coercion. It is evident that the current internal security framework in the country is ineffectual. The response of the subnationals by setting up their own outfits is welcome, necessary, and has become indispensable. Everyone must be given the same access to outgun the criminals. Without uniformity nationwide, the threat to the cohesion of the state will continue. For this reason, in Nigeria, a country under threat of brazen conflict entrepreneurs and armed, audacious non-state actors, the incontestable authority of the state must be imposed. State security outfits backed by law, whether in the Western Nigeria, Katsina, Borno, Benue or any Northern state, must have access to the same sophisticated weapons that the marauders have. Anything else is a contradiction in terms. It is evident that the current internal security framework in the country is ineffectual. The response of the subnationals by setting up their own outfits is welcome, necessary, and has become indispensable. Everyone must be given the same access to outgun the criminals. Without uniformity nationwide, the threat to the cohesion of the state will continue. Those passing out today have undergone rigorous training at great expense to the state. The training will not end here it will be continuous. However, no amount of training will mask the debilitation of fighting with one arm tied against implacable foes. Amotekun must therefore be armed and will be armed and be backed by law. Otherwise, the training will be inadequate and we will be placing the lives of these great patriots in danger. Finally, let me, in very clear terms, charge all of us to do nothing that will soil the image of Amotekun Corps. I enjoin you to take your assignment seriously because much is expected from you. The key guiding principles which you must adhere to at all times include spartan discipline, zero-tolerance to bribery and abuse of power, prompt response to distress calls and display of professionalism in the discharge of your duties. No form of misconduct shall be tolerated. Rotimi Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is governor of Ondo State. This is excerpted from an address delivered at the passing out parade of Courses 3 and 4 of Ondo State Amotekun Coprs held at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Arcade, Akure, on Monday 26 September. Chief Samuel Maduka Onyishi, Chairman and Founder of Peace Mass Transit (PMT) is set to extend his Midas touch in the road transportation business to the education sector, through his Sam Maduka University which is set to come on stream in a matter of months. Chief Onyishi, known for his Midas touch in the road transport business with the establishment of his transport company, PMT in 1995 transformed the face of the industry for good. Through his Peace Mass Transit (PMT) company, he dared to introduce the mini-bus as a means of mass passenger transportation in the midst of the hitherto ubiquitous and fashionable luxurious buses that were prone to frequent breakdowns in transit and inflicting suffering on passengers. He also introduced the novelty of fitting his mini-buses with speed limiters. These and other landmark innovations enhanced the comfort and safety of road travellers, thus making the mini-bus the preferred means of road transportation among Nigerians. Like Midas, Chief Onyishis touch turned the road transport sector to gold for him and other operators. Today, Nigerias road passenger transportation landscape is dominated by mass transit companies using mini-buses. Similar Midas touch is about to be replicated in his Sam Maduka University, Ekwegbe, Enugu State. With Nigerias over 200 universities, unemployment rate of about 33.3 percent, a fast-growing population, and difficulties experienced by students in gaining admission into public universities, Chief Onyishi believes there is room for more private universities like his Sam Maduka University. But his is not meant to just add to the numbers. The new university was designed to address the failings of the existing institutions, especially in the area of addressing unemployment problems in the country. Chief Onyishi revealed that he did not conceive the University as another business. Rather, he conceived it as a social service which should improve the lives of people of all races, mould for limitless attainments, children of all people of the world, irrespective of creed or class. His vision is to have a citadel of learning in all ramifications, founded on the best principles and run on the best ethical practices, maintaining that the institution is determined to build structures that would stand the test of time. Sam Maduka University, according to Chief Onyishi, will make its graduates become employers of labour rather than being job seekers, irrespective of course of study. He explained: People should be able to go to school and come out of school. If you get employed somewhere, its good, but even if you dont get a job, you should be able to employ yourself. I am laying a foundation for self-reliance because my university is an entrepreneurial university. The plan is that any graduate of our university should be able to run his or her own business, the course the graduate read, notwithstanding, he said. The PMT boss added: So if you are reading history in our university, you should read history and leave the school and be able to employ yourself. If you are reading health sciences or law, you should be able to read all those courses and be able to employ yourself. Speaking on his strategies, Mr Onyishi said that the universitys academic curricular would be structured to include entrepreneurial and vocational courses which will be compulsory for all students in the university, irrespective of course of study. We are going to teach you all these courses in a manner that, by the time you come out of the university, you should be a lawyer that can employ yourself. You should be a lawyer for wealth creation or history for self-employment or self-reliance. The long-term goal is human capital development providing a platform for people to acquire knowledge and then, take care of themselves, Chief Onyishi explained. Located along Nsukka road, Ekwegbe, Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State, the university is expected to begin academic activities in December this year. Already the building of massive infrastructure on the over 300 hectares acquired by the university, with more lands still being acquired, is in progress. I hope to engage experienced teachers and I have gotten enough infrastructures to take off, he said. Sam Maduka University boasts of regular gas-powered electricity within the school, administrative office, students hostels, lecturers quarters, ICT hub, faculty of law, while the secondary school has what it takes to run a model private secondary school with a focus on quality and affordable education. The National Universities Commission (NUC) visited the university complex on August 16 this year to assess its readiness for the commencement of academic activities. It was the final inspection visit to the university to determine the conduciveness of the site as a campus. The NUC representatives, in their remarks, said they were impressed with the campus and acknowledged that it would no doubt be a conducive environment for not just the incoming students but also the academic and non-academic staff. A lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, who identified himself as Dr Okoli, said: Maduka University is the destination. The edifice speaks of an emerging world-class university; again, whatever Onyishi puts his hands into must be a serious business. Ill surely seek to work there. Many people do come here and we refer them to the admin. They are coming to look for jobs; some identified themselves as professors, a guard at the university was quoted to have said. The Governor of Enugu State, Mr Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who laid the foundation stone for the university in 2020, expressed delight at the driving spirit of Chief Onyishi in envisioning a University that is entrepreneurial in content, describing it as another milestone achievement. Born in Nsukka, Enugu State, Chief Onyishi, now 59, had a particularly indigent childhood. Having lost his father at a tender age, the responsibility for his education fell on his mother, a housewife who was barely able to eke out a living. At different times, little Samuel had to do odd jobs like being a bus conductor, labourer, and truck pusher, and second-hand clothes (okirika) seller during his primary and secondary education and after. Though very brilliant, he was unable to further his education to university level until 13 years after finishing from secondary school. The money he made during that interval as a spare parts business man in Kano enabled him return to further his education at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) from where he obtained a degree in Social Works and Community Development. In 1995, while still a student of UNN, Onyishi used part of his savings from spare parts business to buy two buses. While he personally drove the first bus, he engaged a driver to handle the second one. When I came back to Nsukka to school, I found out that as a student I had a lot of time to do other things; there was so much time. I couldnt just go to lecture and then come back home to do nothing. So, I had to use my savings to buy those buses and keep myself busy. I go to lecture, after lecture I drive my bus. Sometimes we had lectures in the evening, sometime in the morning, but I had enough time to drive my bus. From the money I made coupled with what my shop in Kano was making, I bought more buses and added to the business. I eventually stopped driving in 1998 when I had 15 buses; that was in my third year. I graduated in 1999 and focused fully on my transport business. By the time I was leaving the university, I had 45 buses, he recalled. From that humble beginning, Chief Onyishis fortunes have grown to the level he couldnt have imagined. Today PMT has over 3000 buses, and his business has grown into what is known as the Peace Group of Companies, comprising Peace Quick Response Insurance Brokers; Peace Petroleum Limited; Peace Micro-finance Bank; Peace Express Service Limited; Peace Capital Market Limited (Stock Brokers); Dealers and Investment Advisers; Maduka Commercial and Futon International Limited, the sole importers of Peace Hiace Brand of vehicles; Peace Bureau de Change; Peace Aviation Services and PMT Beijing Trade Limited, China. This is a divine project and thats why we use the buses for evangelism. The Sam Maduka University may just be a further extension of that divine project. Before you came across this article, you must have been looking for information on How to redeem a Giftcard to naira in Nigeria or find the best website to exchange your gift cards. There are two possibilities here: either youve been exploited in the past by a corrupt merchant, or youve just gotten your first gift card and are seeking a way to exchange it for money right away. The one thing we can ascertain is that youre at the correct spot! Snappy Exchange is the best place to sell your gift cards and receive immediate payment into your Nigerian bank account or get your payment to your ghana cedis if you are transacting from Ghana. Lets give a quick rundown of what gift cards are and why theyre so crucial before we start blowing our trumpet about how effective our gift card exchanges are. What exactly is a gift card? In essence, a gift card is a prepaid stored-value money card typically provided by a retailer, bank, or company to be used as a substitute for cash for transactions within specific stores or online platforms. Simply put, a gift card functions and seems much like a debit card from your bank, only it comes preloaded with cash. You can subsequently use the prepaid funds, the gift cards receiver, to make various authorized online or in-person retail store purchases. Its vital to remember that the money loaded onto the gift card cannot be withdrawn; instead, you can make purchases using the card. Snappy Exchange will buy the card at your request and send the equal amount in naira to your bank account. Nice, huh? What is the role of a gift card? Generally speaking, gift cards are a form of payment used at authorized offline and online retailers. The gift card is loaded with money or is already loaded with cash that you or the gift card recipient may use on offline and online platforms. Surprisingly, gift cards are a standard tool for customers to spend locally or send money to friends and are offered by practically all brands and retailers. Different gift card types In a nutshell, there are two different kinds of gift cards: physical and digital (e-gift cards), and each has pros and cons. On a larger scale, however, you can divide gift cards into three groups based on their nature. According to Acceptance Open Loop (or network): These gift cards are generally accepted because they are typically linked to a specific network, such as Visa or American Express. As a result, it suggests you can use these gift cards anywhere that takes the brands gift cards. Closed Loop: These gift cards are only accepted in a limited number of physical or online retailers or used for a small number of specific brands. According to the ability to reload Reloadable: These gift cards can be refilled with cash until they expire. Non-reloadable: Gift cards like this can only be loaded once. Considering the Issuer Credit card businesses and banks: Gift cards issued by credit card companies and banks are often open loops and may have administrative fees. The gift card, which will undoubtedly contain an expiration date, can be electronically authorized. Usually, you can choose whether or not you want it reloadable. Brands/individual business: Gift cards are typically a way for brands and respective business owners to keep customers loyal and boost sales. How do gift cards make gift-giving simple? Instead of buying anything for a friend or family member and running the chance of purchasing the wrong thing, one can offer them a gift card to the retailer that issued the card, allowing them to buy whatever they want. Lets concentrate on achieving our goal now that we understand what a gift card is and how it makes life easier for recipients. When the recipient receives the gift card, they put it to use. You must redeem a gift card for you to use it. Its not complicated; do not be concerned. If they know the terms, anyone can quickly redeem their gift cards. READ ALSO: How does redeeming your gift card work? Its hardly rocket science, as was previously mentioned. Redeeming a gift card means using it to make purchases from a physical or online store or exchange it for money or digital currency on a safe app. There are many ways to accomplish it, depending on why you want to use a gift card. What are the different ways in Nigeria to redeem a gift card? In Nigeria, there are primarily three methods for using gift cards. 1. Through the existing store of the cards issuer. 2. Online Redeeming. 3. Selling for Cash 1. Redeeming from a Nigerian physical store? The card issuer must have a physical location in Nigeria to be viable. For instance, A gift card brand operates physical stores in Nigeria and provides gift cards or certificates (both the same). It implies that if you have their gift card, you can visit the store, shop for what the card can purchase, and then pay with it in cash. For instance, Spar has physical stores in Nigeria and offers gift vouchers or gift cards (they are identical). This means that if you have an Spar gift card, you are able to visit their stores and buy what your card will allow you to purchase and then use it to pay in cash. If you dont already know the drill, the cashier will help you. 2. Online redeeming You can redeem your gift cards online. Log into the website or app you want to use for redemption. Visit the option to redeem gift cards. Enter the gift card pin in the designated area, followed by the desired purchase amount. You then click Redeem to finish. For online shops or applications, you can employ this technique. A few examples are Google Play Store, iTunes, and other retailers with apps that allow gift cards to be used online. 3. Selling for cash Have you got any gift cards you want to redeem to naira? You can trade that card in exchange of naira. All you have to do is sell it on a website that buys and sells gift cards at competitive prices. The most dependable website in Nigeria And Ghana for selling gift cards is Snappy Exchange. Two of the many qualities that keep them running strong in Nigerias gift card trading market are that they offer the best rates for gift cards and pay with the fastest speed. That concludes our tutorial on How to redeem gift card to naira in Nigeria. Make it work for you; the time has come. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Plateau State, is enmeshed in a crisis following the announcement by a former governor of the state, Jonah Jang, that he was pulling out from the campaign council of the partys presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. Mr Jang alongside other party members, loyal to Governor Nyesom Wike, on Thursday, pulled out of Atikus campaign team, following the refusal of the National Chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu, to resign his position, to pave way for someone from the south of the country to replace him. However, soon after Mr Jangs withdrawal from the campaign council, some stakeholders of the party known as the Plateau for Atiku Group disowned the statement credited to Mr Jang asking Mr Ayu to resign. According to the group, the state chapter of the party did not authorise Mr Jangs statement and what he said was his personal opinion. In a statement signed by its interim secretary, Shedrack Best, the group frowned at the former governors position. Our former governor, Sen. Jonah David Jang has made remarks contrary to the position of the Stakeholders and its time we make clarifications. We dissociate ourselves from the position of our former governor. He did not speak for us nor did he for the party in the state. We were taken aback by such remarks and as loyal party men and women, we encourage the peaceful resolution of the impasse and not actions that will fuel it out of proportion. We stand by the National Chairman and our Presidential candidate. Sen Jang is not the face of the party in the state. He is not our spokesman and he cannot decide for us. While we pray for an amicable resolution of the crisis for the party to take its bearing and prepare for victory, we are not happy that those who are in a position to offer constructive counsel and solutions are adding to the crisis, the statement added. However, Clinton Garuba, media consultant to Mr Jang, described Atikus loyalists as an unknown group, saying Jangs decision to pull out of Atikus campaign team was right, and he did that in the interest of justice, equity and fairness. Senator Jang and the real stakeholders in the party are not surprised that such a publication is authored by Prof. Shedrack Best who is still aggrieved and sulking over his loss in the recently held primaries of the PDP in Plateau State. He needs to let go of the bitterness against Jang as he is not responsible for his loss, as the stakeholders agreed then that, the delegates voted for aspirants and only one winner could emerge, he said. It is unfortunate that the so-called unknown stakeholders are seeking for relevance by using the name of Senator Jang as a launching path. They could go ahead with supporting former Vice President Atiku Abubakar without dragging Senator Jang into their journey to infamy. Former Governor Jang has decided to go with the group that believes in the truth and is not surprised that this group of stakeholders is not in agreement with the path he has chosen. He did not envisage that everyone will agree with him but he is working based on his conviction that the truth must be told in the interest of the party. The call still remains that in the interest of the party, Senator Iyorchia Ayu should resign as the national chairman of the PDP. That is the just, fair and equitable thing to do, to pave the way for resolution of the crisis and set the party on the path to winning the 2023 presidential elections, Mr Garuba added. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has explained why it cannot replace the name of a former Governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, as the senatorial candidate of the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP). Mr Shekaraus name appeared on the INEC final list as NNPPs senatorial candidate for Kano Central District, despite his defection from the party on 29 August. Mr Shekarau defected to the main opposition party in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). PREMIUM TIMES reported how the former governor announced he was leaving the party at an event attended by the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his running mate governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa. At the event, Mr Shekarau said he had written to inform the leadership of the NNPP of his intention to leave the party. I and thousands of my followers have defected to the People Democratic Party, and are now bona fide members of the PDP, he said. READ ALSO: I have formally written to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that I am no longer a senatorial candidate under the NNPP, Mr Shekarau said during his defection to the PDP last month. But INEC said it was unaware Shekarau left the NNPP which guided its decision to publish his name as one of the partys senatorial candidates. The INECs head of legal department in Kano, Suleiman Tahir, in a media interaction with reporters on Thursday said they cannot replace Mr Shekaraus name because the new electoral law did not allow that. The new electoral law said once your name was initially displayed, before displaying the final list, a candidate will write INEC officially, attach his photos, notifying the INEC (his/her) withdrawal from the contest, or in the event someone dies. These are the only two instances one can withdraw once his name was initially displayed. Mr Shekarau did not do any of the above, Mr Tahir said. The official said INEC , as an institution guided by law, did not know whether Mr Shekarau left the NNPP because there is no official correspondence from either his party (NNPP) or himself notifying INEC of his defection, and withdrawal from the contest. There was a heavy presence of security personnel at the premises of the Osun State High Court, Osogbo, when the election petition tribunal began sitting on Monday. Governor Gboyega Oyetola, who is challenging the victory of the Peoples Democratic Partys Ademola Adeleke, had requested to relocate the tribunal sitting to Abuja because of security reasons. But the president of the Appeal Court rejected the request on the ground that security agencies had assured of adequate security at the tribunal. When the sitting began on Monday morning, armed officers of the State Security Service and the police manned the courts gate. Some of the security officers were also stationed at strategic places within the courts premises, stopping, questioning, and searching visitors and vehicles coming inside the court. Mr Adeleke won the 16th July governorship election in the state, polling 403,371 votes to defeat his main challenger, the APCs Governor Oyetola who got 375,027 votes. Arguments The pre-hearing session that was expected to begin Monday on the petition challenging the victory of Mr Adeleke for the Osun State Governorship election was adjourned to 4th October. Tertsea Kume, the chairperson of the tribunal, adjourned after arguments by counsels of the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission over the pre-trial form served on them by the tribunal. READ ALSO: The tribunal on Friday claimed to have sent trial forms to all the parties involved in the suit but counsels of the PDP and INEC argued they did not receive the forms until Monday. Kayode Olatoke (SAN), the counsel of the APC, however, said he received the pre-trial form on Friday. Mr Olatoke, having filled the form, requested that the matter be stood down for a few hours for the respondents to also respond to the tribunal pre-hearing form. Ben Ananaba (SAN), the counsel of the INEC, objected that the pre-hearing should not be stood down because he was served the form on Monday. Mr Ananaba argued that the Constitution gives the electoral body the permission to respond to the form within seven days after receiving it. Nathaniel Oke (SAN), counsel to the PDP, also requested the tribunal to grant them seven days to respond to the form. In light of the controversies over the arming of subnational security agencies in the country, the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, has renewed his commitment to providing adequate equipment for the states security network, Amotekun. The governor said on Monday that the Amotekun Corps would be armed as backed by law, otherwise, the training would be inadequate and the lives of the great patriots would be placed in danger. Mr Akeredolu spoke during the passing out parade of Courses 3 and 4 of Amotekun Corps. He had last week stated that he would be acquiring sophisticated weapons for the outfit to protect his people, and chided the Federal Government for approving the same for Katsina State while depriving Amotekun of the same privilege. The Northern Elders Forum described the move as illegal and unconstitutional, saying the governors were taking advantage of the gaps in the nations security situation. Hakeem Baba Ahmed, who is chairman of the forum, while speaking in an interview with Channels TV on Sunday, said the failure of the federal police had resulted in the current situation and accused Mr Akeredolu and other state governors of playing to the gallery. But Mr Akeredolu, at Mondays ceremony, said he would continue to support the operational capacity of all security agencies in the state both in terms of equipment and the welfare of their personnel. He said the passing out ceremony was a reminder of the need to strategise and tackle the current security situation, which he said had been left to snowball into existential crises across Nigeria. The Western Nigeria Security Network, Amotekun Corps, as a response, is now not just the first line of defence, but the ultimate bulwark in the protection of a way of life, he said. READ ALSO: The efforts of our determined and valiant Amotekun personnel since inception must be underscored, encouraged and highly commended. We must all rise at this time to acknowledge their efforts. On our part, we will continue to support the operational capacity of all security agencies in the State both in terms of equipment and the welfare of their personnel. The recent donation of 50-fitted patrol vehicles is a testament to our resolve to be up-to-date in fighting crime and criminality because, without a secured environment, there can never be visible and sustained development. It is not only absurd but also a dereliction of duty and a cause of disaffection. Dissatisfaction is induced by a feeling of unfairness. The crisis in conventional wisdom is life-threatening and nationwide. Therefore, it is unacceptable if the state sanctions differing rules of engagement for different sub-national governments. Without providing the sub-national security forces to be a counter-balancing force we have a crisis which strikes at the heart of the conception and the definition of the state itself. It is not just the definition of the State, the State itself is under existential threat. Those passing out today have undergone rigorous training at great expense to the state. The training will not end here, it will be continuous. However, no amount of training will mask the debilitation of fighting with one arm tied against implacable foes. He also urged those passing out to take their work seriously, do well and have zero tolerance for bribery. He said they should ensure prompt response to distress calls, and avoid abuse of power as no form of misconduct would be tolerated. The Ondo State Commander of the Amotekun Corps who doubles as the Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Akogun Adeleye, noted that the new recruitment would help strengthen the corps in combating the terrorist dimension of attacks in the state. This arrangement is no doubt a novel initiative spare headed by Mr Governor himself, the strategic measures to combat the terrorist dimension which insecurity has ensued, said Mr Adeleye. The event of Sunday, June 5 this year at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo is still one that we hope and pray doesnt happen again. We hope to use this recruitment exercise to strengthen our intelligence gathering capacity so that hands are nipped at the board before it is carried out. We will continue to explore areas of mutual benefit with sister security agencies in our quest to raise the bar of safety in the land. Mr Governor, very eminent personalities present here, I wish to take this medium to highlight some of the milestones we have attained between last year and now. The passing out parade, which took place at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Arcade had in attendance, the Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly, Bamidele Oleyelogun, House of Assembly members, local government chairmen, commissioners, royal fathers, head of security agencies among many others. Manassas, VA (20110) Today Rain showers early becoming more intermittent for the afternoon. High 56F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Cloudy with showers. Low 47F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Mobis Ventures Silicon Valley (MVSV) invites startup officials and investors to the 1 st Mobis Mobility Day in Silicon Valley. To introduce the company's software-centric future R&D strategies in order to expand its global investment network. Anticipates continued cooperation and investment in global startups featuring cutting-edge mobility technologies, including UAM and robotics. SEOUL, South Korea, Sept, 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Mobis (KRX 012330) announced that it will be hosting the 1st Mobis Mobility Day in Silicon Valley on 29. More than 80 startup officials and investors in the future mobility industry will be in attendance to hear about Hyundai Mobis' future technology and investment strategy, as well as global trends. The 1st Mobis Mobility Day is designed to actively secure the technology partners as the company discovers innovative future mobility technologies and promotes new growth businesses, such as UAM and robotics. Finding partners for future mobility, namely the mobility alliance, is essential in securing a competitive edge in the transition of global automobile industry. Silicon Valley is the ideal place to form strategic alliances as it is where capital, talent, and technology come together. Accordingly, Hyundai Mobis will be explaining to its potential partners about the company's future growth, as characterized by the business transformation into a software and platform-centric global technology giant. Hyundai Mobis hopes to emphasize how its growth strategies and R&D initiatives are closely related to investment in highly promising global technology companies. Mobis Ventures Silicon Valley (MVSV) will host the event to deliver these messages even more effectively. MVSV is one of Hyundai Mobis' global open innovation hubs, founded in 2018 with the mission of discovering and investing in startups with future mobility technologies. MVSV has made major strategic investments in highly promising tech companies, including Velodyne (2019), a developer of LIDAR technology for autonomous driving, Envisics (2020), a British AR HUD innovator, and Zendar (2021), a maker of high-resolution imaging RADAR technology. Hyundai Mobis also has a global open innovation hub in Shenzhen, China. "We are looking forward to working with global partners to develop innovative technologies that will change the future. We will continue to actively communicate with startups and investors by expanding our network through our global open innovation hubs," explained Kim Young-bin, Head of Planning at Hyundai Mobis. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1166884/hyundaimobis_CI_Logo.jpg SOURCE Hyundai Mobis ABU DHABI, UAE, LONDON and SINGAPORE, Sept. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AirCarbon Exchange (ACX) is delighted to have been voted as the best carbon exchange in Environmental Finance's Voluntary Carbon Market Rankings 2022, making it the second consecutive year ACX has been awarded the title following 2021's win. ACX is grateful for all the support it has received from those voting in the awards with particular thanks to Environmental Finance for showcasing the excellent work being carried out in the voluntary carbon market sector. "The Environmental Finance Award is the most coveted industry honor in our space. It is therefore, humbling to receive the award for the second year running," said William Pazos, Managing Director and Co-Founder of ACX. "It's a nod to our world-class team who tirelessly works to bring price transparency through innovation to the carbon markets. But mostly, it speaks to a broader synergy between ACX and its members. In the end, we are here to serve them." The award is the culmination of an incredibly busy year at ACX with the exchange expanding its operations across the world as it seeks to open up carbon markets so companies can achieve their net zero targets. Brazil, Africa and the Middle East have been three key areas where ACX has made significant inroads with the exchange working with its partners EQAO and BlockC to establish a voluntary carbon marketplace in Brazil as well as hosting the world's first ever auction of micromobility carbon credits. In Africa, ACX is collaborating with the Nairobi International Financial Centre and the Nairobi Securities Exchange to develop Kenya's first carbon exchange while in the Middle East ACX has bolstered its presence and helped the Abu Dhabi Global Market achieve the landmark of being the world's first carbon neutral International Finance Centre. As well as helping others achieve their climate goals, ACX stood out among its peers when it became the world's first carbon negative exchange in May 2021, having offset its carbon emissions 12 months into the future through the Onil Stoves Guatemala Uspantan project. This commitment was continued this year with the purchase of credits from the Katingan Peatland Restoration and Conservation Project in Indonesia. In June, ACX went live with the Global Emission Reduction contract, or GER, a pioneering environmental product that has the potential to become the global reference price for carbon offsetters. The previous month, ACX achieved the milestone of 10 million credits transacted through its exchange, highlighting its central importance as the voluntary carbon market sector expands rapidly over the coming years. Receiving Environmental Finance's accolade for a second year in a row only serves to harden ACX's commitment to be the key agent in the democratization of voluntary carbon markets by making them as transparent and efficient as possible with the next year seeing ACX continue to expand globally. About AirCarbon Exchange (ACX): AirCarbon Exchange ("ACX") is a global exchange revolutionizing the voluntary carbon market. The Exchange's client base comprises corporate entities, financial traders, carbon project developers and other industry stakeholders. ACX provides its participants with an efficient and transparent trading platform which is easy to use, frictionless and with the lowest transaction fees available on the market. Its underlying distributed ledger technology will allow the carbon market to scale efficiently to meet global ambitions of Net Zero. ACX was recognized as the Best Carbon Exchange globally in Environmental Finance's prestigious Voluntary Carbon Market Rankings 2022 - the largest and most closely watched survey of the world's Voluntary Carbon Market. ACX was also named as the 'Best Solution in Energy Trading' by Wired UK and Publicis Sapient at their Global EnergyTech Awards, which spotlighted the companies that are 'Winning the Race to Reinvent Energy'. For more information or to trade carbon, please reach out to [email protected] or visit www.aircarbon.co. SOURCE AirCarbon Exchange WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Akin Gump and the Dubai Investment Development Agency, known as "Dubai FDI," a member of the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enable cooperation on matters related to investment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Akin Gump Signs MoU with Dubai FDI on Investment in the United Arab Emirates This cooperation with Dubai FDI will allow Akin Gump to better assist its clients investing or seeking to invest or establish operations in Dubai by providing access to Dubai FDI resources, assistance and support, as well as guidance and facilitation on working with government entities in Dubai. Dubai FDI, which seeks to support, grow and sustain foreign investment in Dubai, provides information and support to foreign businesses looking to invest in Dubai's thriving economy and take advantage of its global strategic importance. The MoU was signed by Fahad Algergawi, CEO of Dubai FDI, and Mahmoud (Mac) Fadlallah, managing partner of Akin Gump's Dubai office, alongside the Dubai Advantage Seminars, hosted by Akin Gump at its New York and Washington, D.C. offices on September 19 and 22, 2022. "As the world evolves in unpredictable ways, Dubai is the emerging jurisdiction-of-choice for many of our clients from a range of sectors, including technology, funds and industry," said Mac Fadlallah. "This agreement will expand Akin Gump's ability to help our clients navigate the regulatory landscape as they invest in, establish or shift operations to Dubai." Fahad Algergawi, CEO of Dubai FDI, added, "We are very pleased to enter into this MoU with Akin Gump, a firm with a long-standing presence in Dubai. Through this cooperation, we are confident we will see further investment in the UAE and continue developing investor demand in Dubai as a preferred global investment destination. We look forward to working with Akin Gump and their clients to facilitate this objective." Akin Gump has operated in the United Arab Emirates for over 15 years and was the first U.S. law firm to establish in the Dubai International Financial Centre. It advises international clients on doing business in the UAE, including through providing corporate, finance, restructuring, disputes, compliance and investigations support. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Media Contact: Mac Fadlallah Akin Gump [email protected] Office: +971 4.317.3030 SOURCE Akin Gump QR Sign-In Kicks Off Next Stage of Investment for Identity and Authentication Technology NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bank of America today announced the launch of QR sign-in for CashPro, a development that makes it easier for companies to access their payments, cash management and trade finance operations. The bank's 500,000 CashPro users now have the option to sign into the website using their mobile device by scanning a QR code and their biometrics via the CashPro App, replacing the need to manually enter password credentials. With their mobile device, a user scans the QR code that is presented on the Online screen, after which the user scans their biometrics to log in. "QR sign-in is a technology that's familiar to our clients from their personal lives, and now they can use it to seamlessly access CashPro," said Tom Durkin, global product head for CashPro Platform in Global Transaction Services (GTS). "The technology kicks off a schedule of enhancements we plan to introduce to CashPro over the next 18 months that will further improve the simplicity and security of our award-winning platform." Mobile authentication is a natural extension of the ubiquitous worldwide adoption of mobile devices and the increasing comfort clients have in using them for business purposes. QR sign-in is powered by patented technology that allows a mobile device to be used as a method for computer authentication. It is the first of a series of enhancements for CashPro aimed at reducing the reliance on traditional forms of user credentials and making the user experience simpler and more secure. Bank of America listens carefully to its client users through the CashPro Client Advisory Boards that represent companies of varying size and complexity as the bank designs and implements new security and innovation features. "The CashPro Advisory Boards generate invaluable dialogue that help ensure the enhancements we make to the platform fuel our clients' own growth objectives," said Ken Ullmann, co-head of GTS for Global Commercial Banking at Bank of America. "QR sign-in is the latest example of the collaboration achieved through the Advisory Boards." Bank of America has been named the World's Best Bank for Payments and Treasury by Euromoney magazine for the past two years. Additionally, CashPro and the CashPro App consistently receive third party recognition such as: Celent Model Bank 2022 Award for Corporate Digital Banking, Celent Best Mobile Cash Management Software, Best Treasury and Cash Management Providers 2022: Systems and Services, Global Finance magazine Best Mobile Technology Solution, Technology & Innovation Awards 2021, Treasury Management International (TMI) CashPro Forecasting named Best Cash Management Project for 2022, The Asian Banker Bank of America Bank of America is one of the world's leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 67 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,000 retail financial centers, approximately 16,000 ATMs and award-winning digital banking with approximately 55 million verified digital users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. "Bank of America" is the marketing name used by certain Global Banking and Global Markets businesses of Bank of America Corporation. Lending, other commercial banking activities, and trading in certain financial instruments are performed globally by banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including Bank of America, N.A., Member FDIC. 2022 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved. For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit the Bank of America newsroom and register for news email alerts. Reporters May Contact: Louise Hennessy, Bank of America Phone: 1.646.858.6471 [email protected] SOURCE Bank of America Corporation New Partnerships Build on BCG's Efforts to Get 25,000 Staff Members Ready to Drive Better Climate Solutions BOSTON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Consulting Group (BCG) today announced new partnerships with Cambridge Judge Business School and Columbia Climate School. Intensive courses at these elite institutions will be part of the company's efforts to provide its 25,000 staff members with the latest in climate science and solutions. BCG works with many of the world's largest companies, agencies, and governments as they transition to a climate-friendly net-zero-emissions economy. Curricula at Cambridge Judge Business School and Columbia Climate School were developed for BCG's most dedicated climate and sustainability consultants. Weeklong intensive courses at each university complemented by virtual training will comprise multiple disciplines ranging from climate science to materials engineering and conservation. To reduce the CO 2 footprint of its training and development programs, BCG intends to introduce an Asian university in 2023 and is building up further regional opportunities. "Cambridge and Columbia universities can offer us the best scientific understanding of the climate crisis, the regulations, and technologies to address it," says Hubertus Meinecke, global leader for Climate and Sustainability at BCG. "Combining that with BCG's ability to translate insight into action, I believe we have a real chance to help our clientsand the worldwin the race to net zero." "This program is a two-way partnership," says Radley Horton, Lamont Research Professor at Columbia Climate School's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "We are bringing cutting-edge climate research and the latest insights from the field, and BCG brings its expertise across sectors and practical realities to create a learning experience geared towards solutions that are actionable now." Christopher Marquis, who holds the Sinyi Chaired Professorship at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University, adds, "The Climate & Sustainability program we offer combines the best of Cambridge and BCG. The curriculum draws on the leadership, change, and strategy expertise of the Cambridge Judge Business School and world-leading Cambridge scholars in climate science and other fields. We deliver the deep interdisciplinary experience needed to meet our day's fundamental climate and sustainability challenges." BCG also has its own internal Climate & Sustainability Academy, which provides 100 hours of internal upskilling opportunities created and facilitated by its sustainability experts and external climate thought leaders. Elements of this program will soon be open to the company's clients. Media Contacts: BCG: Eric Gregoire, +1 617 850 3783, [email protected] Cambridge Judge Business School: Charles Goldsmith, +44 (0)1223 339608, [email protected] Columbia Climate School: Caroline Adelman, +1 917 370 1407, [email protected] About Climate and Sustainability at BCG BCG has an ambitious Climate and Sustainability agenda. The firm will support the COP27 Presidency of Egypt as the exclusive consulting partner, currently acts as the chief advisor to the WEF Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, and has embarked on numerous projects with WBCSD, WWF, SBTi, CDP, and other leading organizations to set the standards for a climate-friendly net-zero-emissions economy. About Boston Consulting Group Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholdersempowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place. SOURCE Boston Consulting Group (BCG) NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The carbon black in the lead-acid battery market is expected to grow by USD 116.06 Mn during 2021-2026, progressing at a CAGR of over 4.45% during the forecast period. The market is driven by the increasing demand from the automotive industry. In addition, the increasing adoption of hybrid power systems in telecom towers is anticipated to boost the growth of carbon black in the Lead-acid Battery Market. Request free sample pages. Major Five Carbon Black in Lead-acid Battery Companies: Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Carbon Black in Lead-acid Battery Market 2022-2026 Imerys S.A.: The company offers dried grapes that include golden raisins, black raisins, malayer raisins, and dark brown raisins. The company offers dried grapes that include golden raisins, black raisins, malayer raisins, and dark brown raisins. Orion Engineered Carbons SA: The company offers dried grapes that include Prunes, Prune Juice, Raisins, and Apricots. The company offers dried grapes that include Prunes, Prune Juice, Raisins, and Apricots. SGL Carbon SE: The company offers dried grapes that include raisins, seedless raisins, golden raisins, and chopped raisins. The company offers dried grapes that include raisins, seedless raisins, golden raisins, and chopped raisins. Superior graphite co: The company offers dried grapes that include Dried Fruit Raisins which have a sweet taste, chewy texture, and nutritional values. The company offers dried grapes that include Dried Fruit Raisins which have a sweet taste, chewy texture, and nutritional values. Cabot Corp.: The company offers dried grapes that include Probiotic Raisins. Find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Buy Sample Report. Carbon Black in Lead-acid Battery Market Driver Demand from the automotive industry, which is on the rise, is one of the main drivers propelling expansion in the market for carbon black in lead-acid batteries. The majority of batteries used in cars across the world are lead-acid batteries. However, because of its improved performance in specific applications, including UPS systems and ignition power sources for cars, carbon black is being used more and more in lead-acid batteries. Significant battery R&D is being done to improve carbon black lead-acid battery technology's performance compared to other battery technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries, in order to increase the use of carbon black lead-acid batteries in the automobile sector. Such elements will increase the demand for carbon black in vehicle lead-acid batteries. A market trend for carbon black in lead-acid batteries that are anticipated to have a favorable effect in the next years is the growing deployment of hybrid power systems in telecom towers. However, over the projection period, the market for carbon black in lead-acid batteries will face significant challenges due to the rising competition from carbon black lithium-ion batteries. Request Free Sample Report. Carbon Black in Lead-acid Battery Market Segmentation The category of flooded lead-acid batteries will significantly increase its market share in carbon black for lead-acid batteries. With regard to deep-cycle battery technology, flooded lead-acid batteries have the advantage of being the most cost-effective and have the lowest cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) cycle. During the forecast period, it is predicted that these factors would encourage the expansion of the flooded lead-acid battery segment in the global carbon black lead-acid battery market. Related Reports: Global Wind Power Systems Market Research Report, Size, Growth, Trends, Opportunity Analysis, Industry Forecast - 2022-2026: The global wind power systems market is projected to grow by USD 49.52 billion with a CAGR of 6.57% during the forecast period 2021 to 2026. Solar PV Tracker Market by Technology, Product, and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026: The Solar PV tracker Market study is a comprehensive report with in-depth qualitative and quantitative research evaluating the current scenario and analyzing the growth of 15.26% and a CAGR of 17.28% with the market share of USD 7.43 billion for the forecast period 2021 to 2026. Carbon Black In Lead-acid Battery Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 4.45% Market growth 2022-2026 $ 116.06 million Market structure Concentrated YoY growth (%) 4.24 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution APAC at 49% Key consumer countries US, Canada, China, Japan, and Germany Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Imerys S.A., IsraZion Ltd., Orion Engineered Carbons SA, SGL Carbon SE, Shandong Jinkeli Power Sources Technology Co. Ltd., Superior graphite co, Birla Carbon USA Inc, Cabot Corp., and Denka Co. Ltd. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and 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. Browse for Technavio "Utilities" Research Reports Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Global Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market by Geography Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Battery Type Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Incremental Growth Exhibit 07: Executive Summary Data Table on Incremental Growth Exhibit 08: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 09: Parent market Exhibit 10: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 11: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 12: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 13: Chart on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 15: Chart on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 16: Data Table on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 17: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 18: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 19: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 20: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 21: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 22: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 23: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by Battery Type 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 24: Chart on Battery Type - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 25: Data Table on Battery Type - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by Battery Type Exhibit 26: Chart on Comparison by Battery Type Exhibit 27: Data Table on Comparison by Battery Type 5.3 Flooded lead-acid battery - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 28: Chart on Flooded lead-acid battery - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Flooded lead-acid battery - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Chart on Flooded lead-acid battery - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Flooded lead-acid battery - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 32: Chart on Valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Chart on Valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Market opportunity by Battery Type Exhibit 36: Market opportunity by Battery Type ($ million) 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 37: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 38: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 7.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 40: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 41: Data Table on Geographic comparison 7.3 APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 42: Chart on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 43: Data Table on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 44: Chart on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.4 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: Data Table on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.5 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 50: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: Data Table on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.6 South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 54: Chart on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 55: Data Table on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Chart on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: Data Table on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.7 Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 58: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 59: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 60: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) and - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.8 China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 62: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 63: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 64: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 65: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.9 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 66: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 67: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 68: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 69: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.10 Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 70: Chart on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 71: Data Table on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 72: Chart on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 73: Data Table on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.11 Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 74: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 75: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 76: Chart on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 77: Data Table on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.12 Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 78: Chart on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 79: Data Table on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 80: Chart on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 81: Data Table on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.13 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 82: Market opportunity by geography ($ million) 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 83: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 84: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 85: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 86: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 87: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 88: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 Birla Carbon USA Inc Inc Exhibit 89: Birla Carbon USA Inc - Overview Inc - Overview Exhibit 90: Birla Carbon USA Inc - Product / Service Inc - Product / Service Exhibit 91: Birla Carbon USA Inc - Key offerings 10.4 Cabot Corp. Exhibit 92: Cabot Corp. - Overview Exhibit 93: Cabot Corp. - Business segments Exhibit 94: Cabot Corp. - Key offerings Exhibit 95: Cabot Corp. - Segment focus 10.5 Denka Co. Ltd. Exhibit 96: Denka Co. Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 97: Denka Co. Ltd. - Business segments Exhibit 98: Denka Co. Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 99: Denka Co. Ltd. - Key offerings Exhibit 100: Denka Co. Ltd. - Segment focus 10.6 Imerys S.A. Exhibit 101: Imerys S.A. - Overview Exhibit 102: Imerys S.A. - Business segments Exhibit 103: Imerys S.A. - Key offerings Exhibit 104: Imerys S.A. - Segment focus 10.7 IsraZion Ltd. Exhibit 105: IsraZion Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 106: IsraZion Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 107: IsraZion Ltd. - Key offerings 10.8 Orion Engineered Carbons SA Exhibit 108: Orion Engineered Carbons SA - Overview Exhibit 109: Orion Engineered Carbons SA - Business segments Exhibit 110: Orion Engineered Carbons SA - Key news Exhibit 111: Orion Engineered Carbons SA - Key offerings Exhibit 112: Orion Engineered Carbons SA - Segment focus 10.9 SGL Carbon SE Exhibit 113: SGL Carbon SE - Overview Exhibit 114: SGL Carbon SE - Business segments Exhibit 115: SGL Carbon SE - Key news Exhibit 116: SGL Carbon SE - Key offerings Exhibit 117: SGL Carbon SE - Segment focus 10.10 Shandong Jinkeli Power Sources Technology Co. Ltd. Exhibit 118: Shandong Jinkeli Power Sources Technology Co. Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 119: Shandong Jinkeli Power Sources Technology Co. Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 120: Shandong Jinkeli Power Sources Technology Co. Ltd. - Key offerings 10.11 Superior graphite co Exhibit 121: Superior graphite co - Overview Exhibit 122: Superior graphite co - Product / Service Exhibit 123: Superior graphite co - Key offerings 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 124: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 125: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 126: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 127: Research methodology Exhibit 128: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 129: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 130: List of abbreviations About Technavio 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. Contacts 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 HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CellOrigin Biotech (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. announced it has made a global strategic collaboration agreement with Qilu Pharma to develop, manufacture and commercialize proprietary "off-the-shelf" induced pluripotent stem cell- (iPSC) derived Chimeric Antigen Receptor Macrophages (CAR-iMAC) for cancer immunotherapy. The collaboration will take advantages of technologies and expertise from both parties, as well as integrate capabilities of R&D, manufacturing and marketing to develop CAR-iMAC clinical products aiming for solid tumors. "Innovation and offering the best products that benefit patients are the core values that CellOrigin Biotech and Qilu Pharma both appreciate," said Dr. Jin Zhang, the Co-Founder of CellOrigin Biotech and a Principal Investigator of Zhejiang University, one of the top universities in China. "This is what brings us together." "We are very excited to collaborate with Qilu Pharma because of its prestige in the field of Chinese pharmaceutical industry, as well as its tremendous track records on drug development," said Dr. Jiansong Tong, the Chief Executive Officer at CellOrigin Biotech. "Meanwhile, we will continue to seek other potential collaborators to jointly develop our innovative anti-tumor CAR-iMac cell products." "CellOrigin Biotech is a startup company established by a group of outstanding scientists who have tremendous experiences both in R&D research and cGMP manufacture. It focused on developing innovative technologies in cell therapy and building valuable pipeline of products. It is an ideal strategic partner for novel cell therapy, and it is our pleasure to collaborate with such a great biotech company," said Qilu Pharma. About CellOrigin Biotech CellOrigin Biotech (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. is dedicated to the development of genetically engineered pluripotent stem cell- (iPSC) derived immune cell therapies (such as macrophages, NK cells), with its own proprietary intellectual property. The founders are experienced leaders from Zhejiang University, Harvard University and top pharmaceutical and biotech companies around the world. They apply cutting-edge technologies in editing and differentiating iPSCs to immune cells in order to deliver novel allogeneic off-the-shelf cell therapies for the treatment of cancer patients around the world. About Qilu Pharma Qilu Pharma is a leading vertically integrated pharmaceutical companies in China focused on discovering, developing, manufacturing and commercializing innovative medicines. With a diverse pipeline of noval therapeutics, 10 manufacturing sites and more than 36,000 employees worldwide, Qilu is dedicated to transforming scientific innovation by internal R&D across 5 R&D platforms based in the US (Seattle WA, Boston MA, San Francisco CA) and China (Shanghai, Jinan), and external partnership globally into healthcare solutions to address unmet medical needs. To date, Qilu has launched 200+ products with 30+ products "First to launch" in China and 3 products "D181 launch" in US with approximately US$5.2 billion sales revenue in 2021. For more information, please visit http:en.qilu-pharma.com. SOURCE CellOrigin The industry veteran joins CIEN+ to oversee global growth initiatives and new product development, as the firm continues on its path of triple-digit growth. DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CIEN+ , an award-winning marketing firm specialized in Cultural Intelligence solutions, expands its executive leadership team with the addition of Ivan Sanchez as Chief Growth and Planning Officer. In this role, Sanchez will oversee the firm's global growth roadmap, to continue to leverage CIEN+'s unique proprietary capabilities in A.I. powered-insights, strategic planning and inclusive creative services. "Ivan joins us at a time in which responding to rapid change and cultural shifts with agility and empathy is critical for organizations and brands to achieve their full business and creative potential," says Lili Gil Valletta, Co-Founder and CEO of CIEN+. "Ivan brings both the experience of a seasoned industry veteran with the innovation and cultural vision of an entrepreneur and founder, which will help us accelerate our offerings and impact in the market" concludes Gil Valletta. Ivan Sanchez joins CIEN+ to oversee global growth initiatives as the firm continues on its path of triple-digit growth. Tweet this The industry veteran Ivan Sanchez joins CIEN+ to oversee global growth initiatives and new product development, as the firm continues on its path of triple-digit growth. Before joining CIEN+, Sanchez served as Chief Strategy Officer at Dentsu International and held various positions at BBDO, GlobalHue, and co-founded and sold the agency Talk- Word of Mouth, a pioneering firm focused on influencer marketing for the Latin American region. In his tenure, Sanchez has impacted the marketing strategies of iconic brands such as Pepsico, General Motors, Verizon Wireless, Pernod Ricard, Microsoft, Diageo, and The Coca Cola Company among others. His work has been honored with Effies, Cannes Lions, and other global awards. "Data and culture are two key assets I will leverage in my role to help our clients achieve strong consumer understanding, business growth, and social good to impact businesses and communities positively," said Sanchez, "I'm thrilled to join CIEN+ and be part of an amazing team that brings culture to the forefront of today's marketing." As an independent minority-owned and woman-owned firm, listed by Inc. Magazine as one of America's Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2022, CIEN+ is facing a prime moment of growth, while investing in talent and technologies to leapfrog its Cultural Intelligence solutions and product portfolio. The firm is a trusted partner today to Fortune 500 brands and leaders, who seek to better understand diverse market segments and turn cultural trends and inclusion into impact and business growth. "I am thrilled to welcome Ivan to the CIEN+ family, a strategic mind we have admired for many years. I am confident that his perspectives will help us elevate and innovate how we continue to activate the power of data, creativity and culture to anticipate market dynamics and empower clients in new ways," says Enrique Arbelaez, Co-Founder of CIEN+ and creator of the CIEN+ Innovations Lab. ABOUT CIEN+ CIEN+ believes in the power of culture as a driver for impact and growth. The Cultural Intelligence marketing firm offers proprietary AI-powered market research with CulturIntel, business strategy, and creative marketing solutions designed to reach today's diverse and fast-changing market. Headquartered in Dallas, TX, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, and Colombia, CIEN+'s roster of clients has included some of the world's most iconic companies, including GSK, Google, Kellogg's, Kroger, Merck, Nestle, PepsiCo, Prudential, among other Fortune 100's. The firm is proudly a minority-owned and woman-owned business founded by immigrants and former corporate executives Lili Gil Valletta and Enrique Arbelaez, who dared to create the company they wished to hire during their corporate careers: one driven by data and inspired by culture. For more information, visit: www.cien.plus and www.culturintel.com . SOURCE Cien Plus NOIDA, India, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new report published by UnivDatos Markets Insights, the SaaS-based Business Analytics Market is expected to witness an incremental growth of around USD 12 billion from 2021-2027 at a CAGR of 14%. The analysis has been segmented into Deployment (On-premises and Cloud); Organization Size (Large Enterprises and SMEs); Industry (Information and Communication Technology, Banking and Financial Services, Retail, Healthcare, and Others); Region/Country. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/saas-based-business-analytics-market-current-analysis-and-forecast-2022-2028/ The SaaS-based Business Analytics market report has been aggregated by collecting informative data on various dynamics such as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. This innovative report makes use of several analyses to get a closer outlook on the SaaS-based Business Analytics market. The SaaS-based Business Analytics market report offers a detailed analysis of the latest industry developments and trending factors in the market that are influencing the market growth. Furthermore, this statistical market research repository examines and estimates the SaaS-based Business Analytics market at the global and regional levels. Request for Sample Pages https://univdatos.com/get-a-free-sample-form-php/?product_id=25784 Market Overview SaaS-based business analytics software helps enterprises interpret and analyze business data by enabling continuous research and exploration of past business performance and uncovering actionable insights for business strategy. It helps enterprises in discovering patterns and connections between data streams and automate tasks and processes for real-time decision-making. Due to its low cost and ease of use, cloud-based business analytics software is in high demand among small businesses. Further on, factors such as the growing acceptance of cloud computing among various industries, increasing use of business analytics to drive process and cost efficiencies, and increasing applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics in businesses are further contributing to the growth of this market. Moreover, increasing investment in AI and AI startups is further contributing to the growth of this market. For instance, according to the 2022 Stanford AI Index report, private venture investment in AI surged to USD 93.5 Bn in 2021, more than doubling from 2020. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/saas-based-business-analytics-market-current-analysis-and-forecast-2022-2028/ The global SaaS-based Business Analytics market report is studied thoroughly with several aspects that would help stakeholders in making their decisions more curated. By organization size, the market is bifurcated into large enterprises and SMEs. Among these two, the large enterprises seized a considerable share of the global SaaS-based business analytics market mainly due to the need for enhanced customer experience, improved efficiency, reduced manufacturing cost, better product management, etc. Moreover, business analytics gives businesses an excellent overview and insight into how companies can become more efficient, and these insights enable such businesses to optimize and automate their processes. On the basis of the end-user industry, the SaaS-based business analytics market is segmented into information and communication technology, banking and financial services, retail, healthcare, and others. The banking and financial services are anticipated to witness robust CAGR during the forecast period, due to the growing preference for cloud-based infrastructure and digital applications to capture information and drive business in the banking and financial services industry. Have a Look at the Chapters - https://univdatos.com/report/saas-based-business-analytics-market-current-analysis-and-forecast-2022-2028/ SaaS-based Business Analytics Market Geographical Segmentation Includes: North America ( United States , Canada , and Rest of North America ) ( , , and Rest of ) Europe ( Germany , United Kingdom , Spain , France , and the Rest of Europe ) ( , , , , and the Rest of ) Asia-Pacific ( China , Japan , India , South Korea , and the Rest of Asia-Pacific ) ( , , , , and the Rest of ) Rest of the World For a better understanding of the market adoption of the SaaS-based Business Analytics industry, the market is analyzed based on its worldwide presence in the countries such as North America (US, Canada, Rest of North America); Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, and the Rest of Europe); Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Rest of Asia-Pacific); and the Rest of World. North America is expected to grow at a steady growth rate owing to the presence of key market players in the region and the quick adoption of new technologies. In addition, the increasing focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics in the major economies in the region is further contributing to the growth of this market. The major players targeting the market include GoodData Corporation Oracle Corporation International Business Machines Corporation MicroStrategy Incorporated OpenText Corporation QlikTech International AB SAP SE SAS Institute Inc. Microsoft Corporation TIBCO Software Inc. Competitive Landscape The degree of competition among prominent global companies has been elaborated by analyzing several leading key players operating worldwide. The specialist team of research analysts sheds light on various traits such as global market competition, market share, most recent industry advancements, innovative product launches, partnerships, mergers, or acquisitions by leading companies in the SaaS-based Business Analytics Market. The major players have been analyzed by using research methodologies for getting insight views on global competition. Key questions resolved through this analytical market research report include: What are the latest trends, new patterns, and technological advancements in the SaaS-based Business Analytics market? Which factors are influencing the SaaS-based Business Analytics market over the forecast period? What are the global challenges, threats, and risks in the SaaS-based Business Analytics market? Which factors are propelling and restraining the SaaS-based Business Analytics market? What are the demanding global regions of the SaaS-based Business Analytics market? What will be the global market size in the upcoming years? What are the crucial market acquisition strategies and policies applied by global companies? We understand the requirement of different businesses, regions, and countries, we offer customized reports as per your requirements of business nature and geography. Please let us know If you have any custom needs. Browse Other Related Research Reports from UnivDatos Market Insights SaaS-based Business Analytics Market Report Coverage Report Attribute Details Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2027 Growth momentum Accelerate at a CAGR of over 14% Incremental Growth (2022-2028) USD 12 billion Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, Rest of World Major contributing region North America to Dominate the SaaS-based Business Analytics Market Key countries covered United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, China, Japan, India, and Australia Companies profiled IBM Corporation, Rockwell Automation Inc., General Electric Co., Schneider Electric SE, Cisco Systems Inc., Tendril Networks Inc., Eaton Corporation, EnerNOC Inc., Elster Group GMBH, and SAP SE Report Scope Market Trends, Drivers, and Restraints; Revenue Estimation and Forecast; Segmentation Analysis; Impact of COVID-19; Demand and Supply Side Analysis; Competitive Landscape; Company Profiling Segments Covered By Deployment; By Organization Size; By Industry; By Region/Country About UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) is a passionate market research firm and a subsidiary of Universal Data Solutions. We believe in delivering insights through Market Intelligence Reports, Customized Business Research, and Primary Research. Our research studies are spread across topics across the world, we cover markets in over 100 countries using smart research techniques and agile methodologies. We offer in-depth studies, detailed analysis, and customized reports that help shape winning business strategies for our clients. Contact UnivDatos Market Insights Ankita Gupta Director Operations Ph: +91-7838604911 Email: [email protected] Website: https://univdatos.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1225049/UnivDatos_Logo.jpg SOURCE UnivDatos Market Insights Pvt. Ltd. SLC6 supports "Silicon Slopes'" need for premier cloud and colocation services DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DataBank, a leading provider of enterprise-class colocation, connectivity, and managed services, announces the opening of its newest Salt Lake City data center, SLC6. The increased capacity meets the growing demand for mission-critical IT infrastructure in Utah and the Salt Lake City market. DataBank SLC6 Utah Data Center The 171,000 square foot expansion adds 100,000 square feet of raised flooring 50,000 of which will be available on day one. The project establishes two new data halls, expected to open in October of this year. Some 11 megawatts of power are available now, with another 11 megawatts to come online in the future. A grand opening event is slated for November 15. More information about the event will be released soon. "Utah is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing tech hubs in the U.S.," says Tony Qorri, DataBank's vice president of construction. "The state's prime real estate, low cost of living, and deep technology talent pool, make it an ideal location for start-ups. Additionally, its internet speeds are among the fastest in the nation, which is attractive to start-ups as well as enterprises." SLC6 resides on DataBank's Granite Point Campus, strategically located between downtown Salt Lake City and Utah's "Silicon Slopes" in Bluffdale. The 23-acre campus is tethered to DataBank's SLC1 data center and carrier hotel by direct fiber and is ideal for West Coast workloads requiring a stable and scalable location. SLC6 has been designed from the ground up with a full suite of customer amenities and all the security features needed to meet HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SSAE-18 SOC1 and SOC2, GDPR, and FISMA compliance requirements. The facility is adjacent to four other DataBank data centers on the Granite Point campus, providing convenience for customers looking to expand capacity and efficiently leverage existing staff and resources. "Bringing this additional capacity to the Silicon Slopes deepens our roots in the region," says Qorri. "This aligns well with DataBank's growth strategy and our dedication to providing our customers with world-class IT infrastructure." For more information about available services at Databank's SLC6 location or to request a quote, visit databank.com or call 800-840-7533. About DataBank DataBank enables the world's largest enterprises, technology, and content providers to consistently deploy and manage their infrastructure, applications, and data on the right platform, at the right time, in the right place. Our colocation and edge infrastructure footprint consists of 60+ data centers and 20 interconnection hubs in 30+ markets, on-ramps to an ecosystem of cloud providers, and a modular edge data center platform with virtually unlimited reach. We combine these platforms with contract portability, managed security, compliance enablement, hands-on support, and a guarantee of 100% uptime availability, to give our customers absolute confidence in their IT infrastructure and the power to create a limitless digital future for their business. To learn more or tour a facility, visit databank.com or call 1(800) 840-7533. SOURCE DataBank MIAMI, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- eMerge Americas, a venture-backed platform focused on transforming Miami into a global tech hub, has announced the kick-off of the annual 2023 Global Startup Showcase. For the second year in a row, the Global Startup Showcase will merge with Panoramic Ventures' Startup Showdown and partner with the most active venture capital firm in Florida - Florida Funders - for a mega-pitch competition. "Each year, the Startup Showcase cohort inspires us with revolutionary ideas. As the Miami movement grows, we're excited to provide a platform through eMerge Americas to celebrate the stories of innovative startups from around the globe," Melissa Medina, President of eMerge Americas said. "We're thrilled to strengthen our 2023 showcase by once again partnering with Panoramic Ventures and Florida Funders." eMerge Americas partners with Florida Funders and Panoramic Ventures for the eMerge Americas 2023 Global Startup Showcase Tweet this Participants will have a chance to win over $400,000 in investments: $250,000 investment by Florida Funders, $120,000 investment by Panoramic Ventures, and $50,000 investment by eMerge Americas. In addition, startups will be eligible to win more in-kind prizes that will be announced soon. "We're excited to bring Startup Showdown back to Miami for the third year as we partner with eMerge Americas," said Paul Judge, Managing Partner of Panoramic Ventures. "This partnership speaks to the ongoing collaboration across the ecosystem to support extraordinary founders building category-leading companies in Miami and across the Southeast." eMerge Americas 2023 Global Startup Showcase selects 100 of the best startups globally through a competitive application process within three stages (University Stage, Early Stage and Later Stage) to participate in a robust multi-week, virtual program, which will culminate at an in-person, grand finale pitch competition. This competition will take place April 20-21, 2023 in Miami Beach at the eMerge Americas global tech conference in front of leading venture capitalists, corporate enterprises, government officials, global media outlets, and guest judges. All selected startups will be allocated prime exhibit space on the 2023 eMerge Expo Floor within "StartUp Alley" to showcase their company over the course of the two-day event. "Florida Funders is excited to once again be a part of this important global tech conference and startup pitch competition," said its Chief Investment Officer, Ryan Whittemore. "If the quality of companies applying are anything like this past year, it will be difficult to select just one for the $250,000 check from Florida Funders. But, we're up for the challenge!" eMerge Americas 2022 Startup Showcase winner, Togal.AI, received a $420,000 investment from Panoramic Ventures, Florida Funders and eMerge Americas. CEO & Founder Patrick Murphy pitched Togal's vision in front of celebrity judges, including Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank. Togal.AI uses machine learning to automatically calculate the square footage of plans, labeling of rooms and walls, and track updates on construction blueprints. For larger projects, which can be hundreds of pages long, this compresses weeks of work into seconds. "We are honored to have won the eMerge 2022 Startup Showcase; the opportunities and connections this provided us have been priceless," Patrick Murphy, Togal.AI Founder and CEO said. "At eMerge, we were able to share our story in front of thousands of people of how Togal.AI is revolutionizing the construction industry, as well as making a huge impact by speeding up the building process." Applications are now open and the deadline for entry is December 20, 2022. Click here to apply. To date, more than 900 startups have participated in the eMerge Americas Startup Showcase since the program's 2014 inception, of which 70 startups have raised an aggregate of more than $1 billion in venture capital funding. To apply to eMerge Americas 2023 Global Startup Showcase, submit your application here. The deadline for applications is December 20, 2022. About eMerge Americas eMerge Americas is a venture-backed platform focused on transforming Miami into the tech hub of the Americas. The eMerge signature event, launched in 2014, is a global tech conference held annually at the Miami Beach Convention Center, attracting more than 20,000 attendees from 50 countries and over 4,000 unique participating organizations. In addition to the annual conference, eMerge organizes and hosts year-round executive summits, innovation challenges, startup pitch competitions, masterclasses, webinars, as well as publishes venture activity and investment insights reports. For the last decade, eMerge has served as a catalyst for innovation and investment across the Americas, working at the forefront of building the South Florida entrepreneurial and tech ecosystem. Visit www.emergeamericas.com for more information. About Florida Funders, LLC Recognized as the top VC in the Southeast region by Pitchbook, Florida Funders is a venture capital firm and angel network that invests in early stage technology companies in Florida and beyond. The Florida Funders platform creates a unique experience that educates our community of investors, provides transparency during the funding process, fosters communication across the ecosystem, and empowers the strategic relationships that drive investments. Our experienced team is composed of investors, entrepreneurs and advisors focused on being the most respected and impactful early stage tech investment firm in the U.S. To learn more, visit floridafunders.com. About Panoramic Ventures Panoramic Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Atlanta that partners with extraordinary founders to build category-leading companies. Panoramic invests in B2B software and tech-enabled service businesses at all stages of maturity, from pre-seed and seed to growth and scale, giving more entrepreneurs access to capital to build leading tech companies. For more information, visit www.panoramic.vc or follow Panoramic Ventures on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter @panoramicvc. SOURCE eMerge Americas SALEM, N.H., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Eric Spofford, a businessman and leader in the substance use disorder recovery industry, has filed a defamation complaint against New Hampshire Public Radio, Inc., its News Director Dan Barrick, and two senior reporters, Lauren Chooljian and Jason Moon. According to the complaint, Spofford brought the "defamation action against the Defendants to hold them accountable for their baseless assassination of his character." The suit was filed in Rockingham County Superior Court by Spofford's legal team, which includes Boston-based libel lawyer Howard Cooper of Todd & Weld LLP and Spofford Enterprises General Counsel Michael Strauss. The complaint is based on a series of NHPR stories about Spofford, including a March 2022 piece titled: "He built New Hampshire's largest addiction treatment network. Now, he faces accusations of sexual misconduct." The articles and an accompanying podcast, the complaint alleges, made false and defamatory accusations about Eric and his relationship with a former client of Granite Recovery Centers, the substance use disorder treatment network he founded, and two former employees. The articles were based on two anonymized accusers who made allegations to NHPR about Spofford's conduct that was said to have occurred several years ago, the complaint alleges. Spofford denies the allegations. "Eric has not sexually assaulted anyone. Nor has any law enforcement agency ever accused him of doing so. Only NHPR has," the suit states. The case is Spofford v. New Hampshire Public Radio et al., No. 218-2022- CV-00803. Contact: Peggy Rose Public Relations [email protected]/+1 (0)617.835.7673 SOURCE Peggy Rose Public Relations Advancement highlights Everest's potential in providing first-in-class therapies to global patients with glomerular disease SHANGHAI, Sept. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Everest Medicines (HKEX 1952.HK, "Everest", or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing transformative pharmaceutical products to address critical unmet needs in Asia Pacific markets, announced today that the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA)'s Center for Drug Evaluation has approved the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for a Phase 1b study of EVER001 (previously known as XNW1011), a next-generation covalent reversible Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, in development for the treatment of glomerular diseases. The planned Phase 1b clinical study will evaluate the safety, efficacy, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of EVER001 in patients in China with glomerular disease characterized by proteinuria, a common cause of chronic kidney disease. Under an exclusive licensing agreement with Sinovent Pharmaceuticals and SinoMab BioScience in September 2021, Everest owns the global rights to develop, produce and commercialize EVER001 for the treatment of renal diseases. Based on a Phase 1 study in healthy subjects in China conducted by SinoMab, EVER001 exhibited high selectivity, excellent pharmacokinetics properties and safety profile as well as robust target engagement. "The advancement in clinical development of EVER001 for glomerular diseases represents one of the potentially first-in-class therapeutic opportunities that exist across Everest's broad pipeline and highlights our long-term growth strategy to advance innovative and high-quality therapies for the benefit of patients worldwide with unmet demand," said Zhengying Zhu, Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer for Internal Medicine at Everest Medicines. "Chronic kidney disease is a leading global public health problem and will remain as a top area of therapeutic focus for Everest Medicines. The initiation of this Phase 1b trial, alongside the pivotal-stage development of Nefecon, our lead asset in renal disease, strengthens the Company's commitment in this space and we look forward to progressing these important potential therapies as quickly as possible." About EVER001 EVER001 (previously known as XNW1011) is a next-generation covalent reversible Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor in development globally for the treatment of renal diseases. BTK is an essential component of the B-cell receptor signaling pathways that regulate the survival, activation, proliferation, and differentiation of B lymphocytes. Targeting BTK with small molecule inhibitors has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment option for B-cell lymphomas and autoimmune diseases. Based in part on results from a completed phase 1 study with healthy subjects conducted by SinoMab in China, EVER001 exhibited high selectivity, excellent pharmacokinetics properties, robust target engagement and a safety profile that supports continued clinical development. Under an exclusive licensing agreement with Sinovent Pharmaceuticals and SinoMab BioScience, Everest owns the global rights to develop, produce and commercialize EVER001 for the treatment of renal diseases. About Everest Medicines Everest Medicines is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing transformative pharmaceutical products that address critical unmet medical needs for patients in Asian markets. The management team of Everest Medicines has deep expertise and an extensive track record of high-quality clinical development, regulatory affairs, CMC, business development and operations both in China and with leading global pharmaceutical companies. Everest Medicines has built a portfolio of potentially global first-in-class or best-in-class molecules, many of which are in late-stage clinical development. The Company's therapeutic areas of interest include oncology, autoimmune disorders, cardio-renal diseases and infectious diseases. For more information, please visit its website at www.everestmedicines.com. Forward-Looking Statements: This news release may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements, including descriptions regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company or its officers with respect to the business operations and financial condition of the Company, which can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, or other factors, some of which are beyond the control of the Company and are unforeseeable. Therefore, the actual results may differ from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and assumptions, such as future changes and developments in our business, competitive environment, political, economic, legal and social conditions. The Company or any of its affiliates, directors, officers, advisors or representatives has no obligation and does not undertake to revise forward-looking statements to reflect new information, future events or circumstances after the date of this news release, except as required by law. SOURCE Everest Medicines "We are pleased to announce the appointment of Thomas Heyden, an experienced futures trader and an award-winning asset manager (Deutscher Fondspreis 2009), to the position of CEO of The Trading Pit AG in Liechtenstein." Vaduz, Liechtenstein - 15 Sep 2022 Christoph Radecker, the co-Founder of The Trading Pit (TTP) LIECHTENSTEIN, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mr Heyden will work closely with TTP's co-Founder Christoph Radecker and the active investors of the company. He will focus on building partnerships with fund management and securitization companies which form a critical part of TTP's business model. Mr Heyden will also focus on regulatory and legal aspects of the growing prop trading business on a global scale while supporting the development of TTP's international partnership network with a focus on Europe and Asia. An Impressive Resume Thomas Heyden Prior to this appointment, Mr Heyden's experience in the sector has been extensive having launched and managed a wide range of investment funds and created investment certificates for banks and other companies. For the past 15 years he managed private asset management firm HS Financials providing him with experience in highly regulated environments. Mr Heyden began his career as a stockbroker and then moved into trading of EUREX products and financial engineering at international banks and investment houses. These included esteemed names such as Merck Finck Privatbankiers and SEB Invest. Prior to joining TTP, Mr Heyden operated his own asset management business where a substantial part of its alpha was generated using his self-developed trading models. An Exciting Future Ahead Thomas Heyden, CEO of TTP Liechtenstein, said: "I am very eager to join the leadership team of TTP. Coming from the asset management and trading industry, I understand how difficult it is to get to the highest ranks in the prop trading industry. Even if you're a talented trader, rarely will you have access to distribution networks to raise capital and in most cases, you are competing with big investment houses. Talented traders, in many cases, do not have access to sophisticated trading technology, or to a wide selection of asset classes. That's in addition to a community of talented traders which can fostering them to become better. At The Trading Pit cover all these needs and I'm confident we are just at the beginning of an exciting growth story." Christoph Radecker, co-Founder of TTP said: "We are pleased to see Thomas joining The Trading Pit and bringing on board his vast experience in prop trading and asset management. TTP provides the ultimate solution for talented traders wanting to become professional asset managers. In fact, the solutions that we provide are something that Thomas himself was looking for throughout his trading career and never found! We are looking forward to working with Thomas and making a difference for traders around the world who deserve to be recognized and rewarded." The Trading Pit's focus is on helping traders to develop their skills and to trade stocks, futures, forex, and cryptocurrencies. The firm's ability to support traders while taking care of the regulatory, structural and funding requirements are key, according to Mr Heyden: "With TTP, I want to implement the concept of nurturing talented traders to develop their skills. It is less about my personal achievement and more about supporting others." About The Trading Pit The Trading Pit is a Liechtenstein-based prop trading firm with global reach. TTP aims to set a new standard in prop trading by supporting its traders and partners in achieving financial freedom. TTP is the only prop firm with a true partnership agreement where the most successful traders can earn up to 80% of the profits on their trades. Prop traders of TTP gain access to industry-leading tools and software and operate within its robust infrastructure and platforms. TTP aims to give traders the tools they need to succeed as their success is the success of TTP. TTP operates with transparent and fair policies and offers regulatory and structural support to its prop traders. TTP has also created a network of experienced traders and a library of educational resources where new traders can learn and improve. www.thetradingpit.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1904239/The_Trading_Pit_Thomas_Heyden.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1904240/The_Trading_Pit_Logo.jpg SOURCE The Trading Pit SEATTLE, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) has recognized Washington's Small Business Flex Fund with an industry award for its positive contributions to the state's economic recovery. Earlier this week at the IEDC's Excellence in Economic Development Awards, the National Development Council (NDC) and the Washington State Department of Commerce shared a Gold Award in Economic Equity & Inclusion for their work with the Flex Fund. Pictured: Todd Greene, IEDCs Chair of the Board of Directors (far left), Dan Marsh (center left), President & CEO of NDC, Keith Swenson (center right), Deputy Assistant Director for the Office of Economic Development and Competitiveness, WA State Dept. of Commerce and Nathan Ohle (far right), IEDC CEO and President. IEDC's Economic Equity & Inclusion award recognizes programs dedicated to improving the quality of life within a community through focused, innovative, and inclusive initiatives that incorporate the unique experiences and knowledge of underserved members of the community. These programs promote economic equity and inclusion and/or provide increased access to government and community resources to an underserved populace. "In the earliest development stages of the Small Business Flex Fund, we knew that this program was going to be a game changer for Washington State, especially for business owners in communities that historically haven't had access to working capital," says Daniel Marsh, president and CEO of NDC. "It's an honor to receive this prestigious award from our peers at IEDC, and it validates the work that we have believed in from the start." "Hearing the inspirational stories of business owners who have benefited from Flex Fund loans is its own kind of reward, and this honor from the IEDC is even more affirmation of our work," says Washington State Department of Commerce Director Lisa Brown. "We are grateful for our ongoing collaboration with the NDC and this recognition from IEDC's voting body for the Flex Fund's tremendous impact on so many of our state's small businesses." The Flex Fund was launched last year as a partnership between the NDC and the Department of Commerce as an equitable pandemic recovery program for Washington's smallest businesses, primarily in historically underbanked communities. The Fund currently has nearly $45 million in available loans for eligible small businesses, and application deadlines have been extended through March 2023 so that more business owners can take advantage of this unique public-private partnership. Since its inception, the Fund has distributed $57 million in low-interest loans to nearly 700 businesses, 80% of which are owned by immigrants, women and people of color. Financial commitments from Heritage Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Umpqua Bank, WaFd Bank, KeyBank and Wells Fargo recently pushed the Fund's total to $105 million, exceeding its initial goal of $100 million. Similarly structured loan programs have also found success in California, New York, Connecticut and several southern states. "We created this Flex Fund to help more small businesses obtain affordable capital, particularly those small businesses within underbanked communities," said Gov. Jay Inslee. "As the state's economy continues to recover from this unprecedented economic challenge, the Small Business Flex Fund continues to be sure disproportionately impacted communities aren't left behind." The International Economic Development Council is the world's largest nonprofit professional association for economic developers. The Excellence in Economic Development Awards were judged by an international panel of economic and community developers, and the winners were recognized Sept. 18-21 during the IEDC's annual industry conference in Oklahoma City. "Communities need our profession now more than ever. This year's awardees exemplify the ingenuity, leadership, and determination needed to meet the challenges of today and the future. The winners of IEDC's Excellence in Economic Development awards represent the best of economic development and demonstrate the level of leadership that our profession strives for every day," says IEDC President and CEO Nathan Ohle. IEDC received over 500 award submissions from five countries. For more information on the Small Business Flex Fund, and to hear stories from loan recipients, visit SmallBusinessFlexFund.org . About the Small Business Flex Fund The Small Business Flex Fund provides access to flexible, low-interest loans and business support services to small businesses and nonprofits across Washington. Supported by the Washington State Department of Commerce, the Fund is a collaborative partnership of local and national community finance organizations created to support Washington's smallest businesses and address the needs of historically under-resourced and underbanked communities. The Fund includes leaders from across sectors, including local community lenders, national and state-based nonprofit organizations, corporations, philanthropic donors, and investors all of whom are passionate about an equitable recovery across the state. SOURCE The Small Business Flex Fund Simplified protocols come as interest grows for booking 2023 Alaska cruises SEATTLE, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Holland America Line is pleased with the recent announcement of the lifting of Canadian pandemic border restrictions. Under the new guidelines, Canadian border vaccination and testing requirements are no longer necessary, which is an important step for the cruise industry in simplifying the travel process for itineraries to Alaska and Canada. Under the new procedures, there is no longer a vaccination requirement for people entering Canada, COVID-19 testing at airports will end and the use of the ArriveCan app will be optional by the end of September. Current cruises will require previously communicated protocols. Holland America Line will notify guests when protocols will be lifted for their future sailings. This is a win for the cruise industry and for our guests, as we are seeing growing interest for booking 2023 cruises... Tweet this "This is a win for the cruise industry and for our guests, as we are seeing growing interest for booking 2023 cruises to Alaska and Canada/New England," said Gus Antorcha, president of Holland America Line. "It's a positive step that puts health protocols for our Canada and Alaska cruises more in line with most of our other global cruises. We thank Transport Canada for taking action that will continue to protect the health of travelers while also making it easier for them to book a cruise that allows us to support the local economy." In addition to Canada lifting border measures, Holland America Line is making it even easier for guests to plan for a cruise with a new Health Protocols Tool on Holland America Line's website. Now booked guests can simply enter their booking number and the exact vaccination and testing requirements will be outlined. All 2022 cruises are available, and 2023 departures are to be loaded soon. Alaska and Canada /New England Itineraries Abundant in 2023 In 2023, six Holland America Line ships will explore Alaska from April through September roundtrip from Seattle, Washington; roundtrip from Vancouver, B.C.; or one-way between Whittier (Anchorage), Alaska, and Vancouver. Offering more visits to Glacier Bay than any other major cruise line, Holland America Line weaves 75 years of Alaska expertise into every nuance of the journey. For explorers who want to travel farther into the Great Land, 16 different Cruisetours combine a three-, four- or seven-day Alaska cruise with an inland exploration of Denali National Park. Holland America Line is the only cruise line that extends land tours up to the unspoiled reaches of Canada's Yukon Territory. Holland America Line's Zaandam and Zuiderdam will head to Canada/New England in 2023 to showcase the natural beauty and maritime history of the region. The itineraries are offered roundtrip from Boston, Massachusetts, or between Boston and Montreal or Quebec City, Canada. From April through September, the two ships feature a series of "Canada & New England Discovery" departures that highlight New England's quintessential towns and Canada's undeniable Old-World French flair. Aboard Zuiderdam guests can set off a 25- days exploration that stretches to Newfoundland, Greenland and Iceland, while Zaandam includes 10- and 11-day cruises to Newfoundland. For more information about Holland America Line, consult a travel advisor, call 1-877-SAIL HAL (877-724-5425) or visit hollandamerica.com. Find Holland America Line on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the Holland America Blog. You can also access all social media outlets via the home page at hollandamerica.com. About Holland America Line [a division of Carnival Corporation and plc ( NYSE: CCL and CUK)] Holland America Line has been exploring the world for 150 years with expertly crafted itineraries, extraordinary service and genuine connections to the destinations. Offering an ideal mid-sized ship experience, its fleet visits nearly 400 ports in 114 countries around the world and has shared the thrill of Alaska for 75 years longer than any other cruise line. Holland America Line's 11 vessels feature a diverse range of enriching activities and amenities focused on destination immersion and personalized travel. The best live music at sea fills each evening at Music Walk, and dining venues feature exclusive selections from a Culinary Council of world-famous chefs. CONTACT: Bill Zucker, Erik Elvejord PHONE: 800-637-5029, 206-626-9890 EMAIL: [email protected] SOURCE Holland America Line Grant to Help Foster Parents of Children Affected by Trauma Access Care Training OKLAHOMA CITY, Sept 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Oklahoma Complete Health announced today it provided a $50,000 grant to Connected Kids to expand access to trauma-informed care training to foster parents and support agencies. These funds will also support Connected Kids' efforts to expand topics and trainings specifically for foster parents. Connected Kids' courses help caregivers understand how to nurture a child in crisis and provide evidence-based strategies to help the child heal from trauma. "As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. It's bigger than any one entity," said Barbara Sorrels, EdD, CEO of Connected Kids. "Together with Oklahoma Complete Health, we will provide foster parents with education to understand how a child with a traumatic past responds to the world and tactics to help them heal." The work to support and retain foster parents is critical to developing a nurturing and healing environment for the more than 7,000 children in the Oklahoma foster care system. Foster parents are often surprised that parenting a child that has experienced trauma takes different approaches, and they must gain an understanding of how trauma can disrupt the development of the child. Responding to this need, Connected Kids and Oklahoma Complete Health is providing free access to online courses for foster parents to receive trauma-informed care training at their own pace. "Oklahoma Complete Health is proud to work with Connected Kids to provide free training to foster parents across the state," said Clay Franklin, CEO of Oklahoma Complete Health. "We continue to support organizations that meet our community's needs and aim to enrich the lives of foster children and their families across Oklahoma." About Oklahoma Complete Health Oklahoma Complete Health is a Care Management Organization that serves the needs of Oklahomans through a range of health insurance solutions. Oklahoma Complete Health serves our communities by focusing on under-insured and uninsured individuals through its federal insurance marketplace plan (Ambetter) and its Medicare Advantage Plan (Wellcare). Oklahoma Complete Health is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Centene Corporation, a leading healthcare enterprise. For more information visit https://www.oklahomacompletehealth.com/. SOURCE Oklahoma Complete Health The exclusive Nate + Jeremiah for PetSmart line features furniture, accessories and decor for small pets, reptiles and fish PHOENIX, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- PetSmart is elevating specialty pet and home decor with world-renowned interior designers Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent by launching an exclusive collection allowing pets and pet parents to live more beautifully, stylishly, and comfortably together. From a faux leather couch for guinea pigs and hamsters to a mahogany stand to showcase aquatic life, the collection is a first of its kind for the specialty pet category and features items that can be layered into a variety of looks and styles. Nate + Jeremiah for PetSmart products are thoughtfully created to give pets everything they need in an environment that's perfect for them and the people who love them. Courtesy of PetSmart "We'll do anything for pets and, with this new collection, pet parents won't have to sacrifice their personal aesthetic to provide a wonderful home for them," said Stacia Andersen, executive vice president and chief customer officer at PetSmart. "We see pet parents taking greater interest in integrating their pets into their homes and, by bringing together Nate and Jeremiah and our unmatched expertise in pet care, we've created a line that is every bit as beautiful as it is functional. We hope to inspire people to share their living spaces with the pets they love and make their habitats the statement piece in the room." Berkus and Brent are known around the world for their stylish aesthetics and accessible home collections. Their partnership with PetSmart gave them a new opportunity to create environments and products for pets. "We wanted to create a collection for PetSmart that helps bring people and pets even closer together," Berkus said. "Our design philosophy is rooted in making spaces feel warm and inviting. With this collection, our hope is that we've been able to give pets the same level of functionality and style as their pet parents." The two drew inspiration from the sleek lines of midcentury modern design and pulled in colors, materials and textures that have an organic and natural feel. "We loved the challenge of bringing spaces and atmospheres to life that not only feel rich with personality but can also be worked into a variety of styles. The idea was to create furniture and accessories that are contemporary but also timeless items that tell the story of the people and pets who live there," Brent said. The Nate + Jeremiah for PetSmart collection includes: Decor and accessories for hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils and other small pets, such as faux leather and Sherpa sofas for relaxation, a yurt for pet privacy, and different aesthetically pleasing chews and grass for foraging and mental stimulation. An assortment of stands in a variety of water-resistant finishes, including spiced mahogany, raven oak and faux marble. Pet parents can use the stands for fish aquariums, reptile terrariums or small pet habitats, and each offers ample storage space with drawers and cord management. Aquatic accessories and decor that suit different species of fish, including wooden archways and ribbed stone towers that give fish swimming and hiding spaces. Decorative plants from the collection provide fish shelter and allow pet parents to further customize their aquariums. Accessories perfect for bearded dragons, lizards, snakes and other reptiles to relax and bask in warmth and light, including a wood tower and stone bask and hide that reference the environments, colors and textures of their natural habitats. Easy-to-clean, modern food and water dishes for a variety of species that match the aesthetic of the pet's space as well as that of the pet parents. For more information on the exclusive Nate + Jeremiah for PetSmart line, including ways to shop, visit petsmart.com/nate-and-jeremiah. About PetSmart PetSmart LLC is the leading pet retailer offering products, services and solutions for the lifetime needs of pets. At PetSmart, we love pets and we believe pets make us better people. Every day with every connection, PetSmart's passionate associates help bring pet parents closer to their pets so together they can live more fulfilled lives. This vision impacts everything we do for our customers, the way we support our associates and how we give back to our communities. PetSmart operates approximately 1,660 pet stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, as well as more than 200 in-store PetSmart PetsHotel dog and cat boarding facilities. We provide a broad range of competitively priced pet food and products, as well as services such as dog training, pet grooming, pet boarding, PetSmart Doggie Day Camp and pet adoption. PetSmart, PetSmart Charities and PetSmart Charities of Canada work with nearly 4,000 animal welfare organizations to bring adoptable pets into stores so they have the best chance possible of finding a forever home. Through this in-store adoption program and other signature events, PetSmart has facilitated over 10 million adoptions, more than any other brick-and-mortar organization. SOURCE PetSmart Rise in need to manage customer traffic and customer movement to boost productivity and surge in emphasis on customer service have boosted the growth of the global queue management system market. PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, titled, "Queue Management System Market by Offering (Solution, Service), by Deployment Model (On-Premise, Cloud), by Mode (Virtual Queuing, Non-Virtual Queuing), by Queue Type (Structured Queue, Unstructured Queue, Kiosk Queue, Mobile Queue), by Enterprise Size (Large Enterprises, SMEs), by Application (Reporting and Analytics, Real-Time Monitoring, Appointment Management, Customer Service, Query Handling, In-Store Management, Others), by Industry Vertical (BFSI, Retail & Consumer Goods, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Government & Public Sector, IT &Telecom, Travel & Hospitality, Energy & Utilities, Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031". As per the report, the global queue management system industry was accounted for $706.0 million in 2021, and is expected to reach $1.4 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 7.2% from 2022 to 2031. Download Free Sample Report (325 Pages PDF with Insights, Charts, Tables, Figures): https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/15309 Major determinants of the market growth Rise in need to manage customer traffic and customer movement to boost productivity and surge in emphasis on customer service have boosted the growth of the global queue management system market. However, high cost of set-up of queue management systems hinders the market growth. On the contrary, present of several SMEs to offer advanced solutions for queue management system would open new opportunities in the future. Covid-19 scenario: The Covid-19 pandemic positively affected the market due to increase in adoption of queue management system in verticals such as healthcare and retail sector. The system reduces waiting time and eliminate the dependency on staff availability during the pandemic. The prolonged lockdown disrupted the supply chain. Critical industries such as fast-moving consumer goods and pharmaceuticals suffered major losses. On the other hand, due to global adoption of work from home culture, the demand for cloud-based solutions and SaaS-based model increased. The solution segment dominated the market By offering, the solution segment held the largest share in 2021, accounting for nearly three-fourths of the global queue management system market. This is due to wide adoption of queue management solutions in verticals such as healthcare and BFSI for better customer experience. However, the service segment is estimated to register the highest CAGR of 8.4% during the forecast period, owing to surge in adoption of cloud-based QMS solutions and increase in demand for professional services. The cloud segment to portray the highest CAGR through 2031 By deployment model, the cloud segment is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 8.0% from 2022 to 2031, owing to its ability to run the solution within the agency's physical infrastructure. However, the on-premise segment held the largest share in 2021, contributing to nearly three-fifths of the global queue management system market, as it helps to access from remote areas. The virtual queuing segment held the largest share By mode, the virtual queuing segment held the largest share in 2021, accounting for nearly three-fourths of the global queue management system market, and is expected to maintain its leadership position during the forecast period. In addition, the segment is projected to showcase the highest CAGR of 8.0% during the forecast period. This growth is because queue management system enhance customer experience. Purchase Inquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/15309 North America held the lion's share By region, the market across North America dominated in 2021, accounting for more than two-fifths of the global queue management system market, due to rise in digital infrastructure in region and presence of key players in U.S. However, the market across Asia-Pacific is expected to register the highest CAGR of 8.7% during the forecast period, due to increase in smart city projects and adoption of QMS solutions by SMEs in the region. Major market players Advantech Co. Ltd AKIS Technologies ATT Systems Aurionpro solution ltd. AwebStar Business Automation Core Mobile Hate2wait JRNI Lavi Industries MaliaTec QLess Q-Matic Qminder Q-nomy Qudini SEDCO The report analyzes these key players of the global queue management system market. These players have adopted various strategies such as expansion, partnerships, new product launches, and others to increase their market penetration and strengthen their position in the industry. The report is helpful in determining the business performance, operating segments, product portfolio, and developments by every market player. Trending Reports in ICT & Media Industry (Book Now with 10% Discount): Public Safety and Security Market Expected to Reach $832.1 Billion by 2031 Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Market Expected to Reach $9.16 Billion by 2027 Field Service Management Market Expected to Reach $24,294.00 Million by 2030 Customer Experience Management Software Market Expected to Reach USD 23,835 Million by 2027 Customer Relationship Management Market Expected to Reach $96.39 Billion by 2027 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 [email protected] Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/reports-store/information-and-communication-technology-and-media Follow Us on Blog: https://www.technologyplz.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE Allied Market Research Demand Response Ready Smart Water Heater Designed for Electric Grid Optimization ATLANTA, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rheem, a leading global manufacturer of water heating and HVACR products has unveiled the enhanced Rheem Professional Prestige Smart Electric Water Heater with LeakGuard and Demand Response. Providing homeowners with advanced electric solutions designed to comply with new energy regulations, Rheem now offers seamless connection to the electric grid. Rheem Launches Professional Prestige Smart Electric Water Heater Demand Response To meet new energy regulations in several states, Rheem's 40-, 50- and 55-gallon demand response ready electric water heaters include a built-in EcoPort (CTA-2045 port) to allow easy connection to utility programs. This high efficiency, smart water heater with up to .93 UEF, was enhanced to become the practical solution for homeowners to potentially save on energy costs while helping optimize energy demand and the electric grid. "Customer satisfaction and hot water performance while ensuring all products meet or exceed local regulations for users are Rheem's primary goals," said Ray Troy, Product Manager at Rheem Manufacturing. Features include optimized energy usage with built-in demand response capabilities, time-of-use scheduling, energy usage tracking and advanced EcoNet Wi-Fi technology advantages that benefit both homeowners and utility companies. The demand response ready water heater line may lower energy bills by reducing usage during peak demand hours and through utility rebates and incentives. Scheduling capabilities, allow users to choose when the water is heated to avoid peak energy rates. Additionally, consumers may view weekly, monthly and yearly energy usage reports from a smart phone, set "Vacation" or "Away" Mode and receive alerts and service reminders. The units share valuable and timely information via the EcoNet app, enabling homeowners to maximize their hot water experience. Another major benefit of the Professional Prestige Smart Electric Water Heater with Demand Response includes LeakGuard, an integrated leak detection and prevention system with factory installed auto water shut-off valve, which limits leaks to no more than 20 ounces of water. Rheem will also launch Professional Classic Plus Smart Electric and Professional Classic Electric water heaters with demand response as part of the line. Features vary by model with tank and part limited warranties ranging from 6-12 years. For more information, please visit www.rheem.com/smartelectric. About Rheem Founded in 1925, Rheem is America's #1 water-heating brand with products available in more than 80 countries. Paloma Co., Ltd. of Nagoya, Japan, acquired the iconic Rheem brand in 1988. Today the company's portfolio of premium brands include Rheem, Intergas, Friedrich, Raypak, Ruud, Eemax, Richmond, Splendid, Solahart and EverHot as well as commercial refrigeration brands Russell, Witt, ColdZone and Kramer, which are part of the Heat Transfer Products Group (HTPG) division. SOURCE Rheem 650 million metric tons China's annual grain output has been stable at over 650 million metric tons for seven consecutive years. The country's grain output in 2021 hit a record high and the per capita grain supply hit 483 kilograms. 900 million China has accumulatively fostered a total of 900 million mu (60 million hectares) of high-standard farmland. Over 95 percent of crop areas in China are planted with independently bred varieties. 72 percent The overall level of mechanization in the plowing, sowing and harvesting of crops has exceeded 72 percent, and that for wheat production has exceeded 97 percent. 50,000 Localities have built more than 50,000 beautiful and livable villages as typical models based on their actual conditions. Sanitary toilets have been used by more than 70 percent of rural households. 18,931 yuan In 2021, the per capita disposable income for rural residents was 18,931 yuan (about $2,668.74), more than twice that of 2012. Over 2 trillion yuan China has fostered more than 30,000 agriculture-related e-commerce stores. Rural online retail sales exceeded 2 trillion yuan, and online retail sales of agricultural products surpassed 420 billion yuan. 700 billion yuan Over 300,000 entities running agritourism businesses had been established in China, generating revenues of more than 700 billion yuan annually. 11.2 million China has built more than 2,200 innovation and start-up parks and incubation bases in rural areas. A total of 11.2 million people have returned to their hometowns to set up their own businesses. 98.99 million China had lifted 98.99 million poor rural residents under the current poverty line out of poverty, with 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 poor villages removed from the poverty list. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah announced today the launch of Nusuk (nusuk.sa), the official Saudi integrated digital platform that offers all pilgrims and visitors an easy-to-use planning gateway for their journeys to Makkah and Madinah. This e-platform aims to enhance the experience of Muslims visiting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from all over the world and facilitate the arrival procedures for visitors to perform Umrah. Nusuk is an initiative of the Vision 2030 Pilgrim Experience Program. Saudi Arabia launches Nusuk, an integrated digital platform, to facilitate pilgrim journeys for visitors from around the world (PRNewsfoto/The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah) Nusuk provides information and a wide range of services for pilgrims and visitors, enabling them to perform the Rituals of Umrah with ease and comfort. It will also raise the quality of the services provided and enrich the religious and cultural experience of visitors, in order to achieve the desired goals of Saudi Vision 2030. Nusuk is launched in cooperation and partnership with the Saudi Tourism Authority to provide the full range of services across the Visit Saudi ecosystem including facilitating visas, permits, booking processes, and procedures. Nusuk also offers various packages and programs to improve and enrich the experience of Muslims visiting Makkah and Madinah. At a later stage, additional services will include interactive maps, a calendar of offers and activities, healthcare information and services, and a digital guide for all policy guidelines which is provided in several languages. Nusuk also offers opportunities for the private sector, enabling service providers to offer their services electronically to pilgrims and visitors. The Maqam platform will continue to support Umrah Trip Program planning until its services are transferred to Nusuk at a later stage. His Excellency the Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Chairman of the Committee for the Pilgrim Experience Program, Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, explained that Nusuk is a continuation of efforts to improve the quality of the services provided to pilgrims by using the latest technology. Additionally, Nusuk, in conjunction with several government agencies, will work to facilitate ease of procedures and enable pilgrims and visitors to enjoy their spiritual journey with ease and comfort. While His Excellency the Minister of Tourism, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Tourism Authority, Ahmed Al Khateeb, addressed the importance of Nusuk under the umbrella of the Pilgrim Experience Program, and its role within the framework of cooperation and integration between the Authority and the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah. This is a key step in achieving the objectives of Saudi's Vision 2030 by facilitating the process of Umrah and providing the best services to all Muslims. For more information, please visit www.nusuk.sa About NUSUK Nusuk, Saudi's first-ever official integrated digital platform, offers all pilgrims and visitors an easy-to-use planning gateway for their journeys to Makkah and Madinah, and beyond. With Nusuk, travelers from all over the world can easily organize their entire visit, from applying for an eVisa to booking hotels and flights. At a later stage, Nusuk can will also be used to schedule visits to important sites, find transportation, curate itineraries and interactive maps. Image - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907444/Nusuk_platform_eng_Infographic.jpg SOURCE The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Scope Carbon Corp. ("Scope" or the "Company") announces it has engaged a consultant to apply for eligibility to The Depository Trust Company ("DTC") for the trading of the Company's shares on the OTC Market in the United States. The Depository Trust Company, a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation DTCC, manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. Securities eligible to be electronically cleared and settled through the DTC are considered "DTC eligible". This electronic method of clearing securities speeds up the receipt of stock and cash and accelerates the settlement process for investors trading on the OTC marketplace. The Company expects it will be fully DTC eligible before the end of 2022. "Scope has received interest from US-based investors and listing on the OTCQB will provide institutional and retail investors with easier access to trade in the Company's shares," commented James Liang CEO of Scope. "When shares can trade electronically, existing investors benefit from greater liquidity and execution speeds, while opening the door to new investors that may have been previously restricted from transacting in Company's shares." The listing of the Company's common shares on the OTCQB remains subject to the approval of the OTCQB and the satisfaction of applicable listing requirements. Similarly, the clearance of settlement through DTC remains subject to DTC approval. The OTCQB, operated by the OTC Markets Group in New York, is the premiere marketplace for early stage and developing U.S. and international companies. Participating companies must be current in their financial reporting and undergo an annual verification and management certification process, including meeting a minimum bid price and other financial conditions. With more compliance and quality standards, the OTCQB provides investors improved visibility to enhance trading decisions. The OTCQB is recognized by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") as an established public market providing public information for analysis and value of securities. DTC eligibility will enable an accelerated settlement process and allow the Company's shares to be efficiently transferred between brokerage accounts electronically within the United States. About Scope Carbon Corp. Scope is a carbon mapping technology company located in Vancouver, British Columbia and is focused on the commercial development of its AI-driven image software, which the Company intends to use for the identification and estimation of carbon-based lifeforms and carbon emissions, both key components in the identification of carbon credits. The Company is currently focused on the commercial development of its technology (the "Scope Analysis Platform") through its research and development program, to expand the capabilities of the Scope Analysis Platform and provide a one-tool solution in carbon mapping. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements that constitute forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements in this news release that are not purely historical statements of fact are forward-looking statements and include statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, future, strategy, objectives, goals and targets, an OTCQB listing in the U.S.; application for DTC on the OTCQB market, the strategic plan of introducing the Company to a broader range of institutional and retail investors in the U.S., and orientations regarding the future as of the date of this news release. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable and reflect expectations of future developments and other factors which management believes to be reasonable and relevant, the Company can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "expects", "aim", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "may", "should", "would", "will", "potential", "scheduled" or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and are based on assumptions and analyses made by the Company in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, including, but not limited to, those risks and assumptions described in the Company's prospectus dated August 10, 2022, a copy of which is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. While Scope considers these assumptions to be reasonable, based on information currently available, they may prove to be incorrect. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. In addition, forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with general economic conditions, continued satisfaction of Canadian Securities Exchange requirements, product safety and recalls, regulatory compliance and risks associated with the Company's business. For more information on the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause anticipated opportunities and actual results to differ materially, please refer to the risk factors set out in the Company's prospectus dated August 10, 2022, a copy of which is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and, unless required by applicable law, the Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities in the United States, or any other jurisdictions in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The Company's securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States (or to any U.S. persons) or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer or sale would be unlawful absent registration under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption is available, or qualification under the securities laws of such other jurisdiction or an exemption is available. The Canadian Securities Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of the business of the Company and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof. Contact Information Darien Lattanzi, Director [email protected] +1 (0)604 683 0911 SOURCE Scope Carbon Corp. TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Scotiabank today announced Brian Porter's decision to retire as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective January 31, 2023. With this announcement, Scotiabank's Board of Directors has appointed Scott Thomson as CEO of Scotiabank, effective February 1, 2023. Mr. Thomson is currently President and CEO of Finning International Inc. and has been a member of the Scotiabank Board since 2016. Mr. Thomson will initially serve as President, effective December 1, 2022, with responsibility for the Bank's business lines: Canadian Banking, Global Banking and Markets, Global Wealth Management, and International Banking. To support the transition, Mr. Porter will become a Strategic Advisor to Mr. Thomson from February 1, 2023 to April 30, 2023. Scott Thomson (L) and Brian J. Porter (R) (CNW Group/Scotiabank) "Brian Porter has been a forward-looking leader who has made bold, strategic decisions that have repositioned the Bank, while growing assets to $1.3 trillion from $744 billion. He refocused the Bank's geographic and business priorities and redeployed capital into businesses with greater growth opportunities, while exiting non-core markets," said Aaron Regent, Chair of the Board for Scotiabank. "During his tenure as CEO, the Global Wealth Management business has more than doubled in size, now ranking #2 by assets in the Canadian retail mutual fund industry; our International Banking business is now focused on fewer, larger markets that offer higher growth potential; and the Global Banking and Markets business, inclusive of the Bank's international wholesale business, has consistently been second largest by profitability among domestic peers. Moreover, the Canadian Banking business has been re-energized, profitably growing market share in key product segments. Throughout, Brian led the Bank's comprehensive digital transformation, creating efficiencies for shareholders and employees, and delivering a superior customer experience. These strategic investments have resulted in a well-diversified Bank that is strongly positioned for sustained future growth." "Brian's focused stewardship through challenging macroeconomic environments and through the global pandemic, has resulted in outstanding employee engagement, customer satisfaction and brand equity, leading the Bank to win multiple industry awards including Bank of the Year in Canada for three consecutive years. As well, Scotiabank has been recognized for its leadership in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and was named Best Bank in Canada for leadership in sustainable finance in 2022," continued Mr. Regent. "On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Brian for his tremendous contributions over his multi-decade career at the Bank, and most importantly, for his leadership as our CEO over the last nine years." "I have always believed that banking is a calling and serving this enduring, 190-year-old institution as President and CEO has been the honour of my lifetime," said Brian Porter, President and CEO of Scotiabank. "I leave the Bank with the same sense of optimism that marked the start of my time in this role. I am confident that Scott Thomson will guide the Bank through the next phase of its growth and development. He is a results-driven and proven leader who executes with purpose and shares values that are aligned with those of the Bank. I have every confidence he will lead the Bank exceedingly well." Mr. Thomson is retiring as President and CEO of Finning International Inc., effective November 15, 2022, after nine years leading the world's largest dealer of Caterpillar equipment and engines across diverse industries in the Americas and Europe. As CEO of Finning, Mr. Thomson led the company through challenging market conditions, yet significantly improved the business' earnings capacity and drove increased return on invested capital in all business units, particularly in Latin America. Mr. Thomson's career has spanned a wide variety of industries including financial services, telecom, natural resources, and industrial services internationally, providing a strong perspective on opportunities and challenges for the Bank's diverse customer base. "The Board congratulates Scott Thomson on his appointment as Scotiabank's next CEO. Scott is an exceptional leader and a seasoned CEO with a history of delivering results across the Americas and in international markets through a strong focus on operational excellence, talent development, and digital transformation, and a proven track record in effective capital allocation and investments in strategic capabilities. He successfully led large organizations in challenging and complex macroeconomic environments, including providing tremendous leadership at Finning throughout the COVID-19 pandemic," said Mr. Regent. "Scott brings a strong commitment to accelerating the Bank's customer focus, digital capabilities, and ESG priorities. As a Board member of Scotiabank since 2016, Scott has a comprehensive understanding of the Bank's strategy, operations, management team, risk appetite, culture, and drivers of growth. The Board is confident that Scott is the right leader to build on the Bank's strengths and commitment to delivering for its customers, employees, shareholders and communities." "Scotiabank has delivered strong performance and steady growth thanks to Brian's long-term vision and strategic investments in people, processes, technology and products. His contributions will continue to benefit the Bank for many years to come," said Scott Thomson, Incoming President and CEO of Scotiabank. "I am incredibly honoured and energized to be joining and leading the Bank's world-class leadership team. During my six years on Scotiabank's Board, I have had the opportunity to see first-hand the incredible potential of this organization, and the dedication and skill of its people. I share their commitment to building an inclusive and sustainable future for all the Bank's stakeholders at a time when our customers, shareholders and communities around the world need us most." About Scotiabank Scotiabank is a leading bank in the Americas. Guided by our purpose: "for every future", we help our customers, their families and their communities achieve success through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With a team of over 90,000 employees and assets of approximately $1.3 trillion (as at July 31, 2022), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BNS). For more information, please visit http://www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter @Scotiabank. SOURCE Scotiabank Denton Realtor receives highest statewide honor for exceptional service in the real estate industry DENTON, Texas, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Greater Denton Wise County Association of Realtors (GDWCAR) is proud to announce Kaki Lybbert was awarded Realtor of the Year by Texas Realtors at the statewide association's annual Shaping Texas Conference. "Our Realtor of the Year is the perfect combination of vision and action, influencing Realtors for generations while also pushing our professional limits. I'm proud to call Kaki Lybbert a colleague and I'm happy to know she is nowhere near done being a role model to Realtors everywhere," said Russell Berry, 2022 Chairman of Texas Realtors. Kaki Lybbert - Texas Realtor of the Year The highest honor bestowed by Texas Realtors, the Texas Realtor of the Year award is given annually to a Realtor who has built a career on service and devotion to Texas real estate. Honorees have made outstanding contributions to the industry through involvement in their national, state and local associations during their careers. Lybbert has spent almost three decades promoting Realtors at the state and local levels and attributes much of her passion for the real estate industry and her drive to serve her community to her early life. She immediately got involved with the Texas Real Estate Political Action Committee (TREPAC) as soon as she joined her local association. She jumped right in after being asked to help, taking positions on the nominating, PAC, and Government Affairs committees. She was her local TREPAC chair in 2005 and was President of the Greater Denton/Wise County Association of Realtors in 2003 and 2004. She is also the 2022 Vice President of Advocacy for the National Association of REALTORS. Her service to the Texas Realtors organization includes involvement on numerous committees, including chairing TREPAC and the member benefits, public policy, legislative management team, and budget committees. She was elected chairman of the Texas Realtors Board of Directors in 2018, which represented more than 120,000 Realtors at the time. Lybbert has a degree in business administration from Louisiana State University. About Texas REALTORS With more than 150,000 members, Texas REALTORS is a professional membership organization that represents all aspects of real estate in Texas. We are the advocates for REALTORS and private property rights in Texas. Visit texasrealestate.com to learn more. Contact: Hunter Dodson 512-448-4950 [email protected] SOURCE Texas Realtors The global EdTech company WuKong Education has recently announced that the number of users for its core product WuKong Math is growing rapidly. In order to meet the market demand, the company will focus on recruiting more excellent math teachers in the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and other countries and regions to further enlarge the size of its math teacher team. AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, WuKong Education, a global EdTech company headquartered in New Zealand, announced that it will expand its math teacher team to meet the rapidly growing market demand for its WuKong Math product. It is reported that their action to enlarge the company's math teacher team will be mainly conducted in the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and other countries and regions. Now that the expansion has begun, the company is looking for more excellent math teaching researchers and teachers to join its team in the above-mentioned countries and regions. "This would be an exciting team expansion for us," said Cicy Ding, the Chief Education Officer of WuKong Education, "Ever since we launched WuKong Math in 2021, we have constantly been trying to attract more and more excellent math teachers to join us at WuKong Education. After our teaching and researching team's two years' hard work, our WuKong Math product has gradually matured and is now well-received by more and more users. It's really hard for our existing math teacher team to meet the growing learning needs of our global math learning community. So we do need more and more excellent math teachers to join us! " It is reported that WuKong Math is one of the two core products of WuKong Education (the other one being WuKong Chinese). WuKong Math was officially launched in 2021, with two categories of Advanced Courses and Challenge Courses. Taking the students' on-campus course content as a reference, the Advanced Courses are benchmarked against the internationally-renowned math competitions, the on-campus placement examinations, the junior high school entrance examinations and so forth, so as to enrich students' mathematical knowledge and improve their logical thinking abilities by stimulating their interest in the math learning process. The Challenge Courses comprehensively cover key learning points from AMC8, Kangaroo and other internationally-renowned mathematics competitions, aiming to help students achieve higher grades in these competitions while at the same time cultivating their mathematical literacy. Fully integrating the world's leading CPA Modeling Teaching Method from Singapore, WuKong Math courses are taught 100% in English by experienced teachers from leading universities. And Similar to WuKong Chinese, WuKong Math also adopts the 6A Teaching Method developed independently by WuKong's own teaching and researching team, which can encourage students to learn through exploration and establish their interest and confidence in math learning. It can also combine math knowledge with real-life encounters to improve students' ability to solve practical problems, and further prepare them for a life-long learning and development journey. "I totally trust WuKong Math, for their teachers are all graduated from top universities with years of teaching experiences," said a parent of a WuKong Math student from the United States. "Every teacher at WuKong would enthusiastically provide guidance and help for my daughter. In addition, WuKong will give me real-time feedback on my child's learning performance through their WuKong Class APP, so as to let me know more about her learning progress. I am very satisfied with WuKong's service and have already recommended it to my friends in need." WuKong Education is an online EdTech company headquartered in New Zealand and has grown from a humble startup aiming at making Chinese language learning simple, easy and fun, to a global online learning platform with about 300,000 students aged 3-18 and 3,000 highly trained and selected teachers working across 4 continents and 118 countries including its core markets i.e. US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The corporate vision of WuKong Education is to "Inspire Learning". With the expansion of its math teacher team, the company is gradually achieving its vision. The global online education industry has been booming since 2020, and WuKong Education is aiming to become a vital player in this game for a long time in the future. SOURCE Wukong EDU NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AUVSI Hampton Roads, working with the Commonwealth of Virginia, will host an Advanced Air Mobility and Space Exposition on September 27-29, 2022 in Hampton Roads Virginia. This hallmark occasion begins on the 27th at Fort Monroe, 100 Stillwell Road with robotic demonstrations (Unmanned Air and Ground) for Virginia's first responders. The 28th and 29th will be a symposium held at the Newport News Marriott, City Center focused on Advanced Air Mobility & Space speakers and panel discussions. Speakers include leadership from the State of Virginia, NASA, DOD, Virginia Space, and more. The 3-day event culminates with a NASA Langley reception celebrating its anniversary and an evening Gala hosted by Virginia AeroSpace Business Association. Event details can be viewed at https://hrauvsi.org/ About AUVSI Hampton Roads: AUVSI Hampton Roads was founded during the mid-1990's to serve the needs of emerging defense and industry technologists who were supporting uncrewed systems development. Our region includes the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Coast Guard, and NASA and 18 local municipalities that comprise Hampton Roads. Our growing base includes members from academia, industry, and local governments. We reach from Northeast North Carolina, to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, to Richmond. About VASBA: VASBA is the voice of all aspects of the aerospace industry in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Representing more than 25 companies, nonprofits, and individuals representing many facets of the market segment, VASBA is the state's advocate for the aerospace industry before federal, state and local policy-makers. Media Contact: Connor Zimmermann, [email protected] SOURCE AUVSI Hampton Roads GALVESTON, Texas, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Abel R. Longoria, MD, is being recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Trusted Physician for his professional excellence in Emergency Medicine and in acknowledgment of his outstanding work at Hospitality Health. Dr. Abel R. Longoria has worked as an emergency physician for 27 years and has practiced with the Galveston office of Hospitality Health for the past five years. Hospitality Health, a freestanding emergency department (FSED), has three facilities in Texas, focusing on changing the culture of how medicine is delivered. Dr. Longoria and his team at Hospitality Health handle all aspects of emergency medicine, going the extra mile to ensure that patients and their families are comfortable and stress-free. Raised in a small south Texas town with no type of healthcare facility within 15 miles, Dr. Longoria understands the importance of access to health care and believes that FSEDs will serve this purpose regardless of the current economic world. To attain his college education, Dr. Longoria earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with a minor in Chemistry at the University of Texas Pan-American. He received his Medical Degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in 1995. The doctor completed his residency in emergency medicine in 1998 at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. An authority in his field, Dr. Longoria is board-certified in emergency medicine by the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM). The doctor served as the Medical Director of Ground Zero for the 14 days immediately after 9/11. His years of pre-hospital care were recognized in 2008 when he was awarded the EMS Medical Director of the Year Award for the Greater Houston Area. Dr. Longoria also served as an officer in the U.S. Army during Desert Storm and was 2nd in command of a Scout Company. He received the Bronze Star for his meritorious service. During Iraqi Freedom, Dr. Longoria was redeployed as a physician. Dr. Longoria is associated with the Texas College of Emergency Physicians, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the Texas Medical Association. He is a charter member of the Texas Association of Freestanding Emergency Centers (TAFEC) and is a past president of this organization. In this role, his goals are to continue to educate legislators, physicians, and the community about the FSED industry and the independent practice of emergency medicine. Dr. Longoria built his first FSED in 2009, and it was during this time that he realized what it entailed to build, license, and manage an FSED. He continues to advocate for the independent practice of emergency medicine. In his spare time, Dr. Longoria supports the local community as Medical Director of EMS for the cities of League City, Friendswood, and La Porte. Happily married since 1986, Dr. Longoria and his wife Mary have four children: Alexandria and triplets, Maria Alicia, Daniel, and Julian. His wife co-founded Ser y Hacer in Galveston. Through this organization, they provide educational assistance to legal immigrants completing the naturalization process. He would like to dedicate this honorable recognition to the loving memory of his parents, Abel R. and Alicia M. Longoria. For more information, visit hher24.com. Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected] SOURCE Continental Who's Who Jim Desler to Steer Global Communications Strategy for Award-winning Cloud ERP Company KIRKLAND, Wash., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Acumatica, the world's fastest-growing cloud ERP company, has named Jim Desler as its vice president of communications. Desler will lead the company's integrated communications efforts in this newly created role, bringing over 20 years of experience working at the nexus of government, business, and technology. Jim Desler, vice president of communications "Jim will play a vital role in expanding Acumatica's external and internal communications and brand strategy, including the continued development of our AcumatiCares program, aimed at environmental, social, and corporate governance initiatives," said Todd Wells, chief marketing officer at Acumatica. "His experience in the public and private sectors, in political and corporate campaigns, make him ideally suited for this important role. I am confident Jim will be a tremendous partner in Acumatica's continued growth." Desler will oversee Acumatica's public relations, analyst relations, internal communications, sustainability efforts, corporate events, and social media and graphic design strategies. "I'm thrilled to join Acumatica's creative and agile marketing team," said Desler. "Acumatica is making a notable impact on the industry with its reputation for customer satisfaction and vertical market functionality. I look forward to sharing the company's competitive differentiators and driving market share through compelling storytelling and relationship building." Before joining Acumatica, Desler headed up the communications function for Microsoft's business solutions division. He also served as the director of global communications, leading Microsoft's worldwide communications operations and coordinating events and messaging across more than 60 subsidiaries. Desler also served as Microsoft's spokesperson for legal, regulatory and policy issues. Before joining Microsoft, he held prominent positions for the U.S. government, including stints in the Commerce Department, the International Trade Administration, the State Department, and the Department of Defense, where he gained expertise in legal, policy, and crisis communications. About Acumatica Acumatica Cloud ERP provides the best business management solution for transforming your company to thrive in the new digital economy. Built on a future-proof platform with open architecture for rapid integrations, scalability, and ease of use, Acumatica delivers unparalleled value to small and midmarket organizations. Connected Business. Delivered. SOURCE Acumatica NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The " Alpha Glucosidase Inhibitors Market by Disease Type and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 " report has been added to Technavio's offering. With ISO 9001:2015 certification, Technavio is proudly partnering with more than 100 Fortune 500 companies for over 16 years. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Alpha Glucosidase Inhibitors Market 2022-2026 The potential growth difference for the alpha glucosidase inhibitors market between 2021 and 2026 is USD 567.96 million. The report identifies various factors including the prevalence rate of the disease, revenue generated by pharmaceutical companies, GDP growth, disposable income, and commodity price fluctuation among others to estimate the size of the market. Download PDF Sample Report Key Market Dynamics: Market Driver Market Challenges The increase in awareness of diabetes and growth initiatives are expected to drive the growth of the market. Government agencies and various organizations across the world are undertaking several community-level and global-level programs to tackle diabetes. For instance, in April 2021, the IDF and Direct Relief announced an initiative to supply diabetes products to vulnerable populations around the world. Similarly, The National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS) by the Australian Government along with Diabetes Australia focuses on enhancing the capacity of people with diabetes to understand and self-manage their condition. Diabetes Australia also seeks to support people with diabetes by providing timely, reliable, and affordable access to NDSS services. The presence of such awareness programs will drive the growth of the market during the forecast period. In addition, the growing awareness of the benefits of alpha glucosidase inhibitors will further drive the growth of the market. However, price pressure and availability of counterfeiter drugs will challenge market growth. The alpha glucosidase inhibitors market report is segmented by Geography (North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World (ROW)) and Disease Type (Type 2 diabetes and Dumping syndrome). North America will dominate the market growth, occupying 42% of the global market share. The increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes and dumping syndrome is driving the growth of the regional market. By disease type, the market growth in the type 2 diabetes segment will be significant over the forecast period. The segment is driven by the high prevalence of type 2 diabetes. View Our Sample Report for highlights on the contribution of various segments and regionals toward the market growth. Key Companies Mentioned with their Offerings Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc.: The company offers alpha glucosidase inhibitors such as alfalfa hay. The company offers alpha glucosidase inhibitors such as alfalfa hay. Bayer AG: The company offers alpha glucosidase inhibitors such as GLUCOBAY. The company offers alpha glucosidase inhibitors such as GLUCOBAY. BioVision Inc.: The company offers various life sciences research tools required for drug discovery in disease-related areas like cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, etc. The company offers various life sciences research tools required for drug discovery in disease-related areas like cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, etc. Border Valley Trading: The company offers alpha glucosidase inhibitors for beef cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and camels. The company offers alpha glucosidase inhibitors for beef cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and camels. Bristol Myers Squibb Co.: The company operates in a single segment and is engaged in the discovery, development, licensing, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sale of innovative medicines for various diseases. The company operates in a single segment and is engaged in the discovery, development, licensing, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sale of innovative medicines for various diseases. AstraZeneca Plc C. H. Boehringer Sohn AG and Co. KG Eli Lilly and Co. GSK Plc Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd Merck KGaA Novartis AG Novo Nordisk AS Pfizer Inc. Sanofi Straight Healthcare Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Related Reports: Alpha Glucosidase Inhibitors Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 2.51% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 567.96 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 2.0 Regional analysis North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of World (ROW) Performing market contribution North America at 42% Key consumer countries US, Germany, UK, China, and Japan Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc., AstraZeneca Plc, Bayer AG, BioVision Inc., Border Valley Trading, Bristol Myers Squibb Co., C. H. Boehringer Sohn AG and Co. KG, Eli Lilly and Co., GSK Plc, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Merck KGaA, Novartis AG, Novo Nordisk AS, Pfizer Inc., Sanofi, Straight Healthcare, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and 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. Table of contents: 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Global Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market by Geography Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Disease Type Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Incremental Growth Exhibit 07: Executive Summary Data Table on Incremental Growth Exhibit 08: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 09: Parent market Exhibit 10: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 11: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 12: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 13: Chart on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 15: Chart on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 16: Data Table on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 17: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 18: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 19: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 20: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 21: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 22: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 23: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by Disease Type 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 24: Chart on Disease Type - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 25: Data Table on Disease Type - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by Disease Type Exhibit 26: Chart on Comparison by Disease Type Exhibit 27: Data Table on Comparison by Disease Type 5.3 Type 2 diabetes - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 28: Chart on Type 2 diabetes - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Type 2 diabetes - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Chart on Type 2 diabetes - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Type 2 diabetes - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Dumping syndrome - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 32: Chart on Dumping syndrome - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Dumping syndrome - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Chart on Dumping syndrome - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Dumping syndrome - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Market opportunity by Disease Type Exhibit 36: Market opportunity by Disease Type ($ million) 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 37: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 38: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 7.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 40: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 41: Data Table on Geographic comparison 7.3 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 42: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 43: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 44: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.4 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: Data Table on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.5 Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 50: Chart on Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: Data Table on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.6 Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 54: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 55: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.7 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 58: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 59: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 60: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.8 Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 62: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 63: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 64: Chart on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 65: Data Table on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.9 UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 66: Chart on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 67: Data Table on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 68: Chart on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 69: Data Table on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.10 China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 70: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 71: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 72: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 73: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.11 Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 74: Chart on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 75: Data Table on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 76: Chart on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 77: Data Table on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.12 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 78: Market opportunity by geography ($ million) 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 79: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 80: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 81: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 82: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 83: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 84: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc. and Grain Co. Inc. Exhibit 85: Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc. - Overview and Grain Co. Inc. - Overview Exhibit 86: Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc. - Product / Service and Grain Co. Inc. - Product / Service Exhibit 87: Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc. - Key offerings 10.4 Bayer AG Exhibit 88: Bayer AG - Overview Exhibit 89: Bayer AG - Business segments Exhibit 90: Bayer AG - Key offerings Exhibit 91: Bayer AG - Segment focus 10.5 Border Valley Trading Exhibit 92: Border Valley Trading - Overview Exhibit 93: Border Valley Trading - Product / Service Exhibit 94: Border Valley Trading - Key offerings 10.6 Eli Lilly and Co. Exhibit 95: Eli Lilly and Co. - Overview Exhibit 96: Eli Lilly and Co. - Product / Service Exhibit 97: Eli Lilly and Co. - Key offerings 10.7 Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd Exhibit 98: Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd - Overview Exhibit 99: Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd - Product / Service Exhibit 100: Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd - Key offerings 10.8 Merck KGaA Exhibit 101: Merck KGaA - Overview Exhibit 102: Merck KGaA - Business segments Exhibit 103: Merck KGaA - Key news Exhibit 104: Merck KGaA - Key offerings Exhibit 105: Merck KGaA - Segment focus 10.9 Pfizer Inc. Exhibit 106: Pfizer Inc. - Overview Exhibit 107: Pfizer Inc. - Product / Service Exhibit 108: Pfizer Inc. - Key news Exhibit 109: Pfizer Inc. - Key offerings 10.10 Sanofi Exhibit 110: Sanofi - Overview Exhibit 111: Sanofi - Business segments Exhibit 112: Sanofi - Key news Exhibit 113: Sanofi - Key offerings Exhibit 114: Sanofi - Segment focus 10.11 Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Exhibit 115: Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 116: Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 117: Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Key offerings 10.12 Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Exhibit 118: Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 119: Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 120: Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 121: Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. - Key offerings 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 122: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 123: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 124: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 125: Research methodology Exhibit 126: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 127: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 128: List of abbreviations 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 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 FREMONT, Calif. , Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Amprius Technologies, Inc. ("Amprius") (NYSE: AMPX), the leader in lithium-ion batteries with its Silicon Nanowire Anode Platform, today announced that Chief Executive Officer Dr. Kang Sun and Chief Financial Officer Sandra Wallach will be participating at the UBS Future of Electric Mobility Virtual Conference on Monday, October 3, 2022. The company will hold one-on-one investor meetings during the day. To schedule a one-on-one meeting, request a conference invitation or receive additional information, please contact your UBS salesperson or Amprius' investor relations team at (949) 574-3860 or [email protected]. AMPRIUS TECHNOLOGIES TO PARTICIPATE AT UBS FUTURE OF MOBILITY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE Tweet this About Amprius Technologies, Inc. Amprius Technologies, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of high-energy and high-power lithium-ion batteries producing the industry's highest energy density cells. The company's corporate headquarters is in Fremont, California where it maintains an R&D lab and a pilot manufacturing facility for the fabrication of silicon nanowire anodes and cells. For additional information, please visit amprius.com. SOURCE Amprius Technologies DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ASCIRA announced today that The Globee Awards, organizers of world's premier business awards programs and business ranking lists, has named Belynda Lee a winner in three distinctive categories at the 15th Annual 2022 Women World Awards. The multiple wins also elevated ASCIRA to a Grand Winner title. Belynda Lee , COO at ASCIRA Global Women World Awards recognizes women in business and professions from all over the world. The coveted annual Women World Awards program encompasses the world's best in leadership, innovation, organizational performance, new products and services, and milestones from every major industry in the world. Organizations from all over the world are eligible to submit nominations including public and private, for-profit and non-profit, largest to smallest and new start-ups. Ms Lee was recognized in three distinctive categories which showcase calibre as a business leader, mentor and visionary. Mentor of the Year Gold Globee In her illustrious career spanning more than 30 years, Ms Lee has mentored more than hundreds of clients and employees. Achievement in Women Empowerment Silver Globee - Started a trailblazing talk show for women from all genres. Female visionary of the year Silver Globee - Built a multi-million-dollar global company during the pandemic. "I am thrilled to be a winner in three categories that showcase different facets of my personality. All three awards are close to my heart, and I will persevere in my efforts to do my best in all these fields." said Ms Lee. "These multiple wins further validate the fact that women can be multitaskers who manage a business while honing their other passions effectively. Getting the Grand Winner title for the company was the icing on the cake." The Globee Women World Awards is an annual awards program for women, which celebrates the individuals and teams who set industry benchmarks for excellence. All organizations private or public, corporations, nonprofits, associations, vendors, and government organizations worldwide are eligible to enter. Judges from around the world representing a wide spectrum of industry experts participated in the judging process. See the complete list of 2022 winners here: https://globeeawards.com/women-world-awards/winner/ Stay posted and read success stories of organizations by subscribing to the Globee Newsletter: https://globeeawards.com/subscribe/ About ASCIRA ASCIRA is a subscription-based company that offers personal development programs online. It targets to create a social lifestyle community of beyond a billion people around the world and provide them the best diversified knowledge available. ASCIRA provides system, training, and support that will show you the way, guide you step-by-step, and help you secure your future for many decades to come. For more information please visit: ASCIRA Global Official The Company of the People. About the Globee Awards Globee Awards are conferred in nine programs and competitions: the American Best in Business Awards, Business Excellence Awards, CEO World Awards, Cyber Security Global Excellence Awards, Disruptor Company Awards, Golden Bridge Awards, Information Technology World Awards, Sales, Marketing, Service, & Operations Excellence Awards, and Women World Awards. Learn more about the Globee Awards at https://globeeawards.com SOURCE Ascira Global DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ASCIRA announced today that The Globee Awards, organizers of world's premier business awards programs and business ranking lists, has named Belynda Lee a winner in three distinctive categories at the 15th Annual 2022 Women World Awards. The multiple wins also elevated ASCIRA to a Grand Winner title. Belynda Lee , COO at ASCIRA Global Women World Awards recognizes women in business and professions from all over the world. The coveted annual Women World Awards program encompasses the world's best in leadership, innovation, organizational performance, new products and services, and milestones from every major industry in the world. Organizations from all over the world are eligible to submit nominations including public and private, for-profit and non-profit, largest to smallest and new start-ups. Ms Lee was recognized in three distinctive categories which showcase calibre as a business leader, mentor and visionary. Mentor of the Year Gold Globee In her illustrious career spanning more than 30 years, Ms Lee has mentored more than hundreds of clients and employees. Achievement in Women Empowerment Silver Globee - Started a trailblazing talk show for women from all genres. Female visionary of the year Silver Globee - Built a multi-million-dollar global company during the pandemic. "I am thrilled to be a winner in three categories that showcase different facets of my personality. All three awards are close to my heart, and I will persevere in my efforts to do my best in all these fields." said Ms Lee. "These multiple wins further validate the fact that women can be multitaskers who manage a business while honing their other passions effectively. Getting the Grand Winner title for the company was the icing on the cake." The Globee Women World Awards is an annual awards program for women, which celebrates the individuals and teams who set industry benchmarks for excellence. All organizations private or public, corporations, nonprofits, associations, vendors, and government organizations worldwide are eligible to enter. Judges from around the world representing a wide spectrum of industry experts participated in the judging process. See the complete list of 2022 winners here: https://globeeawards.com/women-world-awards/winner/ Stay posted and read success stories of organizations by subscribing to the Globee Newsletter: https://globeeawards.com/subscribe/ About ASCIRA ASCIRA is a subscription-based company that offers personal development programs online. It targets to create a social lifestyle community of beyond a billion people around the world and provide them the best diversified knowledge available. ASCIRA provides system, training, and support that will show you the way, guide you step-by-step, and help you secure your future for many decades to come. For more information please visit: ASCIRA Global Official The Company of the People. About the Globee Awards Globee Awards are conferred in nine programs and competitions: the American Best in Business Awards, Business Excellence Awards, CEO World Awards, Cyber Security Global Excellence Awards, Disruptor Company Awards, Golden Bridge Awards, Information Technology World Awards, Sales, Marketing, Service, & Operations Excellence Awards, and Women World Awards. Learn more about the Globee Awards at https://globeeawards.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907463/Belynda_lee_COO.jpg SOURCE Ascira Global GREEN BAY, Wis., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE: ASB) today announced it will release third quarter 2022 financial results on Thursday, October 20, 2022, after market close. The Company will host a conference call for investors and analysts at 4:00 p.m. Central Time (CT) on the same day. Interested parties can access the live webcast of the call through the Investor Relations section of the Company's website, http://investor.associatedbank.com. Parties may also dial into the call at 877-407-8037 (domestic) or 201-689-8037 (international) and request the Associated Banc-Corp third quarter 2022 earnings call. The financial tables and an accompanying slide presentation will be available on the Company's website just prior to the call. An audio archive of the webcast will be available on the Company's website approximately fifteen minutes after the call is over. ABOUT ASSOCIATED BANC-CORP Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE: ASB) has total assets of $37 billion and is the largest bank holding company based in Wisconsin. Headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Associated is a leading Midwest banking franchise, offering a full range of financial products and services from more than 200 banking locations serving more than 100 communities throughout Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, and loan production offices in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Texas. Associated Bank, N.A. is an Equal Housing Lender, Equal Opportunity Lender and Member FDIC. More information about Associated Banc-Corp is available at www.associatedbank.com. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS Statements made in this press release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This includes any statements regarding management's plans, objectives, or goals for future operations, products or services, and forecasts of its revenues, earnings, or other measures of performance. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," "estimate," "should," "will," "intend," "target," "outlook," "project," "guidance," or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations and, by their nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in such forward-looking statements include those identified in the Company's most recent Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. Such factors are incorporated herein by reference. Investor Contact: Ben McCarville Vice President | Director of Investor Relations 920-491-7059 | [email protected] Media Contact: Jennifer Kaminski Vice President | Public Relations Senior Manager 920-491-7576 | [email protected] SOURCE Associated Banc-Corp WESTMINSTER, Colo., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Ball Corporation (NYSE: BALL) announced that Deron Goodwin has been appointed as vice president and treasurer of the corporation, effective on September 26, 2022. Goodwin joined Ball as assistant treasurer in 2016. Since then, he has played a key role in planning and directing the corporation's global treasury activities and long-term strategic initiatives, as well as identifying and developing solutions to financial risks across our global organization. Goodwin has more than 25 years of experience in capital markets and corporate risk management. Before joining Ball, has was managing director, corporate derivatives and foreign exchange, at BNP Paribas. He also held similar positions with Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers. Goodwin received his MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Goodwin succeeds Jeff Knobel, who served as treasurer since 2010 after holding roles of increasing responsibility in Ball's global finance organization after joining Ball in 1997. Knobel was promoted to senior vice president, global beverage finance, earlier this year. About Ball Corporation Ball Corporation supplies innovative, sustainable aluminum packaging solutions for beverage, personal care and household products customers, as well as aerospace and other technologies and services primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ 24,300 people worldwide and reported 2021 net sales of $13.8 billion. For more information, visit www.ball.com , or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter . Forward-Looking Statements This report contains "forward-looking" statements concerning future events and financial performance. Words such as "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "believes," and similar expressions typically identify forward-looking statements, which are generally any statements other than statements of historical fact. Such statements are based on current expectations or views of the future and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied. You should therefore not place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements and they should be read in conjunction with, and qualified in their entirety by, the cautionary statements referenced below. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Key factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to be different are summarized in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Exhibit 99 in our Form 10-K, which are available on our website and at www.sec.gov. Additional factors that might affect: a) our packaging segments include product capacity, supply, and demand constraints and fluctuations and changes in consumption patterns; availability/cost of raw materials, equipment, and logistics; competitive packaging, pricing and substitution; changes in climate and weather; footprint adjustments and other manufacturing changes, including the startup of new facilities and lines; failure to achieve synergies, productivity improvements or cost reductions; unfavorable mandatory deposit or packaging laws; customer and supplier consolidation; power and supply chain interruptions; changes in major customer or supplier contracts or loss of a major customer or supplier; inability to pass through increased costs; war, political instability and sanctions, including relating to the situation in Russia and Ukraine and its impact on our supply chain and our ability to operate in Russia and the EMEA region generally; changes in foreign exchange or tax rates; and tariffs, trade actions, or other governmental actions, including business restrictions and shelter-in-place orders in any country or jurisdiction affecting goods produced by us or in our supply chain, including imported raw materials; b) our aerospace segment include funding, authorization, availability and returns of government and commercial contracts; and delays, extensions and technical uncertainties affecting segment contracts; c) the Company as a whole include those listed above plus: the extent to which sustainability-related opportunities arise and can be capitalized upon; changes in senior management, succession, and the ability to attract and retain skilled labor; regulatory actions or issues including those related to tax, ESG reporting, competition, environmental, health and workplace safety, including U.S. FDA and other actions or public concerns affecting products filled in our containers, or chemicals or substances used in raw materials or in the manufacturing process; technological developments and innovations; the ability to manage cyber threats; litigation; strikes; disease; pandemic; labor cost changes; inflation; rates of return on assets of the Company's defined benefit retirement plans; pension changes; uncertainties surrounding geopolitical events and governmental policies, including policies, orders, and actions related to COVID-19; reduced cash flow; interest rates affecting our debt; and successful or unsuccessful joint ventures, acquisitions and divestitures, including the sale of our Russian business, and their effects on our operating results and business generally. SOURCE Ball Corporation Next Day Animations Announced Winner in BBB of Greater Maryland Torch Awards BALTIMORE, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland recently announced Next Day Animations as a winner of the 2022 Torch Awards for Ethics. The Torch Awards for Ethics are BBB's most prestigious recognition, celebrating businesses that embody its mission to build an honest, fair, and equitable marketplace for all. Founded in 2010, Next Day Animations creates explainer videos for organizations across industries, including healthcare, nonprofit, tech, and finance. A certified B Corp, Next Day Animations helps businesses communicate in an engaging, clear way. "Our judges highlighted two stand-out details in Next Day Animation's application: their scholarship program and volunteerism incentives," says Angie Barnett, president and CEO of BBB of Greater Maryland. "This company developed the Illustrating Awesomeness Scholarship program to support young women and gender nonconforming people of color currently attending or applying to attend college. They also work to encourage staff volunteer hours and civic action by offering volunteer days with local organizations to provide services that align with the organization's mission." "We are honored to receive this award and to be recognized for our dedication to ethical business practices. Our goal as a business is to be a place where people love to work, and a company our clients love to work with. This award speaks to these values and priorities, and we couldn't be more proud," says Hannah Brown, Director of HR for Next Day Animations. The BBB Torch Award for Ethics honors businesses that demonstrate a dedication to trust and integrity when serving their customers, employees, and communities. Next Day Animations' application illustrated their ongoing investment in character, culture, customer service and community engagement. They were selected by a panel of judges including past winners and BBB board members. This award stands among other recognitions for Next Day Animations' commitment to ethical business practices. Next Day Animations has been a certified B Corp since 2019, and a Certified Great Place to Work since 2018. About the BBB of Greater Maryland The BBB of Greater Maryland is located in Baltimore and has been serving the area since 1917. BBB's duty is to set business practices and make sure companies are providing a marketplace with fair and honest practices for consumers and sellers to trust one another. About Next Day Animations Founded in 2010, Next Day Animations specializes in explainer videos for nonprofits, healthcare organizations, and businesses. Their clients include SalesForce, Special Olympics, HBO, Goodwill, and Johnson & Johnson. Based in Baltimore, Next Day Animations partners with clients all over the world to deliver high-quality, powerful animations. Learn more about Next Day Animations at www.nextdayanimations.com . SOURCE Next Day Animations Top Suppliers in the Clinical Trial Logistics Market This Clinical Trial Logistics procurement market report provides a detailed analysis of procurement strategies deployed by major category end-users across several industries while sourcing for Clinical Trial Logistics requirements. In addition, the most adopted and high potential pricing models considered by buyers have been analyzed in this report, which will help understand business scopes for revenue expansion. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Catalent Inc., and Ceva Logistics are a few of the key suppliers in the Clinical Trial Logistics market. Read More Major Price Models in the Clinical Trial Logistics Sourcing and Procurement Market The report discusses in detail each pricing model and the pros and cons attached to every pricing model prevalent in the market. Also, the report provides insights with respect to the category supply chain and the margins of various suppliers within the supply chain. The most widely adopted pricing models in the Clinical Trial Logistics Sourcing and Procurement Market Dynamic/Geographical pricing model Volume-based pricing model Cost-plus pricing model Spend Growth and Demand by Region The Clinical Trial Logistics Sourcing and Procurement market will register an incremental spend of about USD 1867.84 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 regional factors driving the Clinical Trial Logistics Sourcing and Procurement Report: https://spendedge.com/sample-report/clinical-trial-logistics-sourcing-and-procurement-intelligence-report Subscribe to our "Free Limited Period Starter Procurement Plan" to get the following: View 6 full reports View 800+ report samples Pre-order upcoming reports Dedicated account manager Subscribe Now for FREE! Most Adopted Procurement Strategies by Buyers Across the Clinical Trial Logistics Sourcing and Procurement Market The report provides a detailed insight into the most adopted procurement strategies by buyers across industries and an analysis of these strategies with respect to innovation, regulatory compliance, quality, supply, and cost. Adoption of these procurement strategies will enable the buyers to reduce category TCO and achieve cost savings while sourcing for thermal equipment requirements. This Clinical Trial Logistics Sourcing and Procurement Market report answers help buyers identify and shortlist the most suitable suppliers, for instance: Am I engaging with the right suppliers? Which KPIs should I use to evaluate my incumbent suppliers? Which supplier selection criteria are relevant? What are the workplace computing devices category essentials in terms of SLAs and RFx? Our Top Selling Procurement Reports : Asset Recovery Services - Forecast and Analysis: The asset recovery services will grow at a CAGR of 9.49% during 2021-2025. Asia Asset Recovery Pte Ltd., TES-Amm Singapore Pte Ltd., and Iron Mountain Inc. are among the prominent suppliers in the asset recovery services market. Click the above link to download the free sample of this report. Vulnerability Management Sourcing and Procurement Report: Vulnerability Management Procurement Market, prices will increase by 4%-6% during the forecast period and suppliers will have moderate bargaining power in this market. Click the above link to download the free sample of this report. Celebrity Talent Management Services - Sourcing and Procurement Intelligence Report: This report offers key advisory and intelligence to help buyers identify and shortlist the most suitable suppliers for their celebrity talent management services requirements. Click the above link to download the free sample of this report. About SpendEdge: SpendEdge shares your passion for driving sourcing and procurement excellence. We are the preferred procurement market intelligence partner for 120+ Fortune 500 firms and other leading companies across numerous industries. Our strength lies in delivering robust, real-time procurement market intelligence reports and solutions. Contact SpendEdge Anirban Choudhury Marketing Manager Ph No: +1 (872) 206-9340 https://www.spendedge.com/contact-us SOURCE SpendEdge Book an appointment with us and visit booth 607 at the Minneapolis Convention Center from September 30 to October 2 to learn more MISSISSAUGA, ON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Covalon Technologies Ltd. (the "Company" or "Covalon") (TSXV: COV) (OTCQX: CVALF), an advanced medical technologies company, is pleased to announce that it will be co-sponsoring the Association for Vascular Access (AVA) Annual Scientific Meeting and hosting an exhibit from Friday, September 30 to Sunday, October 2, 2022 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Visit us at booth 607 to learn about advanced infection prevention solutions that reduce the burden on patients, practitioners, and caregivers. 71% of catheter-related infections are linked to hub contamination. (CNW Group/Covalon Technologies Ltd.) Covalon's vascular access infection prevention solutions work to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) while ensuring patient comfort and include: VALGuard - an FDA listed, transparent, environmental barrier designed to protect catheter hubs and line connections from external contaminants and gross contamination, including body fluids and other secretions. It incorporates a quick-release pull strip for fast access to infusion hubs and for easy removal. IV Clear- an antimicrobial vascular access dressing that offers complete transparency at and around the insertion site for easy daily assessment. It uses a soft silicone adhesive to preserve the skin's barrier function and minimize skin injuries and incorporates safe amounts of antimicrobials, without sacrificing efficacy, to protect against chemical irritation. "Effective infection prevention strategies require the best products targeted at the contributors to the risk of infection," stated Brian Pedlar, CEO of Covalon. "It is imperative that we do all we can to prevent further complications for patients and care providers already experiencing the burdens of primary illnesses. Patients deserve much better care, and they can access it now through these innovative solutions." VALGuard is the only FDA listed product specifically designed to help prevent vascular line to line contamination, with a safety release mechanism to allow instant access to the line in emergency situations. Vascular access line guards are being recognized as a must-have medical device by major hospitals as 71% of catheter-related infections have been linked to a catheter hub contamination. Patent-pending, VALGuard was developed specifically to help prevent these infections. IV Clear is the world's only clear dual-antimicrobial IV dressing with soft silicone adhesive technology that is designed to protect patients' skin even after multiple dressing changes. Studies have shown the high efficacy of the product in preventing infections. What may not be as obvious, however, is that the product has been specifically designed with human experience in mind patients, clinicians, and caregivers. Covalon's patented technology allows for significantly easier application, monitoring and removal, which is imperative for patients with vulnerable skin, such as pediatric ones. AVA Conference Details Dates: Friday, September 30 to Monday, October 3, 2022 Location: Minneapolis Convention Center (1301 2nd Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55404, United States) Register at: https://www.eventscribe.net/2022/AVASM About Covalon Covalon Technologies Ltd. is a researcher, developer, manufacturer, and marketer of patent-protected medical products that improve patient outcomes and save lives in the areas of advanced wound care, infection management and surgical procedures. Covalon leverages its patented medical technology platforms and expertise in two ways: (i) by developing products that are sold under Covalon's name; and (ii) by developing and commercializing medical products for other medical companies under development and license contracts. The Company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, having the symbol COV and trades on the OTQX Market under the symbol CVALF. To learn more about Covalon, visit our website at www.covalon.com. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements which reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events. The forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan, "estimate", "expect", "intend" or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts, but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the factors described in greater detail in the "Risks and Uncertainties" section of our management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2022, which is available on the Company's profile at www.sedar.com, any of which could cause results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Investors should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise, except as required by law. SOURCE Covalon Technologies Ltd. IRVING, Texas, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Darling Ingredients Inc. ( NYSE: DAR) has released its 2022 ESG Report, which provides a detailed overview of the company's progress against key environmental, social and governance objectives throughout 2021. "The world is at an inflection point that will drive creativity and innovation as we continue to decarbonize," said Randall C. Stuewe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Our ESG report outlines how Darling Ingredients continues to renew, repurpose and reinvent the future and work with stakeholders to build a better world and contribute to a circular economy." Notable 2021 achievements highlighted in the report include: Established an ESG Committee within the Board of Directors; Invested $25 million in energy and water efficiency improvements; in energy and water efficiency improvements; 18% toward achieving the company's energy intensity per unit of production short-term goal in the collagen/gelatin business; Produced 372 million gallons of renewable diesel, on track to produce more than 750 million gallons in 2022; Decreased global water intensity by 1.8%, putting the company 36% of the way to achieving its 2025 goal; and About half of Darling facilities located in water-stressed areas returned 47% more water back to the environment than it uses. The report is aligned with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Core Standard and maps Darling Ingredients' progress to indicators defined by the key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. For the first time, the report outlines information aligned with the Task Force for Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). About Darling Darling Ingredients Inc. ( NYSE: DAR) is the largest publicly traded company turning edible byproducts and food waste into sustainable products and a leading producer of renewable energy. Recognized as a sustainability leader, the company operates more than 250 plants in 17 countries and repurposes approximately 15% of the world's meat industry waste streams into value-added products, such as green energy, renewable diesel, collagen, fertilizer, animal proteins and meals, and pet food ingredients. To learn more, visit darlingii.com. Follow us on LinkedIn. Darling Ingredients Contacts Investors: Suann Guthrie VP, Investor Relations, Sustainability & Communications (469) 214-8202; [email protected] Media: Jillian Fleming Director, Global Communications (972) 5451-7115; [email protected] SOURCE Darling Ingredients Inc. Environmental, Social and Governance and Human Capital Management issues lead focus areas CHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Donnelley Financial Solutions (NYSE: DFIN), a leading risk and compliance company, today released its annual Guide to Effective Proxies, U.S. and Canadian editions. These comprehensive editions help companies design proxy statements and proxy circulars that communicate vital information about business objectives to investors, while also complying with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) regulations. DFIN will host its annual webcast focusing on the impact of the SEC's final rule on pay versus performance and demonstrating how to navigate the guide. Click here to register for this event, to be held on September 28, 2022. The guides provide key insights about critical investor topics addressed in corporate proxies, including Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Human Capital Management (HCM). The searchable, annual publications the tenth edition of the U.S. guide and the fifth of the Canadian guide offer innovative and shareholder-friendly best practices derived from DFIN's deep experience managing the public filings of its extensive blue-chip client base, including over one-third of North American public companies. The guides also provide helpful tips for how companies can prepare for their upcoming proxy season. Organized by proxy section, topic and feature, the guides can help transform proxy statements from traditional compliance documents to more compelling shareholder communications pieces. Key and notable trends from this year's guides include growing interest in ESG and HCM issues on the part of investors and other stakeholders: Expanded Focus on Board Oversight of ESG: The SEC and CSA have proposed new climate disclosure rules that may require disclosure around climate impact, board oversight and director competencies in this area. Both the U.S. and Canadian guides, which have covered these topics for years, can be an invaluable resource for companies needing to comply with these proposed new requirements. Expanded Focus on the Environment and People: Human Capital Management (HCM) continues to drive corporate value and success. Along with recent 2021 10-K human capital disclosures requirements, companies are increasingly disclosing workforce diversity metrics when discussing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I). The Humanizing of Executive & Board Leadership: Critical board functions and processes are becoming more transparent. This can be done via the proxy, investor presentations, sustainability reports and other documents and channels. The Approach to Compensation: Executive compensation practices continue to be tied to the business strategy and increasingly incorporate non-financial and ESG related metrics. Reevaluating Resilience: If the global pandemic has taught us anything, it's that the key to success is learning from the past so we are prepared for the future in business. Applying lessons learned from disruptions, where applicable, and adjusting processes and resources are required to build a more resilient enterprise. "Resilience is everything in today's global business, which is why proxies, ESG and HCM are so critical to an organization." said Ron Schneider, Director of Corporate Governance Services at DFIN. "Investors are interested in ESG-related risks and opportunities, and how resilient companies respond and communicate in the face of unpredictable events. You can have the best practices and processes, but you must also effectively disclose them to the investor community. Because we've been tracking and reporting on these topics for years, these guides contain hundreds of useful examples to help companies comply with proposed new rules and regulations requiring additional climate and board oversight disclosure." "Corporate communications, specifically annual proxy statements and proxy circulars, have become much more than compliance documents. Today, they help investors measure risks and opportunities, and help companies enhance investor communications," said Craig Clay, President of Global Capital Markets at DFIN. "We are proud that our annual guides have become a trusted resource for all our stakeholders. We look forward to continuing to support our existing and future clients now and in the years to come." About Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN) DFIN is a leading global risk and compliance solutions company. We provide domain expertise, enterprise software and data analytics for every stage of our clients' business and investment lifecycles. Markets fluctuate, regulations evolve, technology advances, and through it all, DFIN delivers confidence with the right solutions in moments that matter. Learn about DFIN's end-to-end risk and compliance solutions online at DFINsolutions.com or you can also follow us on Twitter @DFINSolutions or on LinkedIn. SOURCE Donnelley Financial Solutions Fifty percent year-over-year increase in contributions demonstrates Americans' generosity PITTSBURGH, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DipJar, a giving technology platform, today released details on giving trends for Q2, 2022. The numbers are based on 123,895 transactions (aka "dips"), contributing to more than $1.13M to over 3,400 organizations across the country. For the year-to-date, DipJar has helped nonprofits raise $3.04M, a 49% increase as compared with the first half of 2021. The top categories for Q2 2022 included socially-focused organizations, which received more than $200K in donations; faith-based groups, which received more than $160K; and food-related charities, which received approximately $120K. Organizations in the South, once again, received the most contributions via DipJar, more than $600K. The results of these leading categories - as compared with Q1 2022 - are illustrated in the chart below. Category Q1 2022 Q2 2022 Change Socially-focused 88,000 207,000 +135 % Food-related 142,000 117,000 -17 % Faith-based 75,000 160,000 +113 % "We're pleased to be able to offer additional and ongoing insights into the giving behavior seen among the DipJar community," said Chris Selland, the company's CEO. "We're very pleased to see events and in-person fundraising coming back, as it is such a critical channel for so many non-profits." Successful DipJar customers can be found in every corner of the country. A few recent examples include the Utah Pride Center , the Humane Society of SW Michigan , and the Providence Public Library . Very different regions, very different missions, but all benefiting from the easy-to-use DipJar technology. 2022 Aggregate Donations by Region and Quarter Region January February March April May June Northeast $17,000 $17,000 $55,000 $47,000 $61,000 $84,000 South $77,000 $93,000 $124,000 $118,000 $106,000 $94,000 Midwest $16,000 $14,000 $34,000 $37,000 $56,000 $55,000 West $37,000 $37,000 $34,000 $59,000 $51,000 $58,000 "The numbers continue to tell a fascinating story," said Selland, "one that points to the generosity of the public, and also one that provides a glimpse at the types of causes and charities that attract different levels of support." About DipJar DipJar is changing the fundraising game with a connected, cashless donation jar and an integrated payments platform that enables joyful, engaging, and frictionless giving. With DipJar, organizations of any size can collect donations anywhere and "Create More Giving Moments." Learn more at www.dipjar.com. Media Contact: Melissa Smith VP of Marketing and Strategy, DipJar [email protected] SOURCE DipJar The new location provides dog waste removal services to residents and communities of all sizes CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DoodyCalls, a nationwide leader in pet waste removal services, is growing its footprint in the pooper scooper industry with the opening of an office in Madison, Wisconsin. DoodyCalls currently cleans up in over 77 territories across 25 states and has been named the number-one pet waste removal franchise in the United States by Entrepreneur Magazine's annual Franchise 500 list. A family unit of entrepreneurial couple Candi and Tom Frazier, along with Candi's sons Shawn and Lane, embarked on a new business venture that would allow them to serve the community and be environmental stewards: scooping the poop with their own DoodyCalls franchise. The couple, owners of natural health practice, The Family Holistic, realized they could serve their health and eco-minded customers in a unique, new way by caring for yards and disposing of potentially hazardous pet waste. "When my team came across the unique opportunity to work with DoodyCalls we couldn't resist as it was a profitable way to serve our community and help care for the environment that we are so passionate about," said Shawn Flanigan, co-owner and general manager of DoodyCalls of Madison. "We know our background in business and customer service will help our business grow in Madison and beyond and we look forward to working as a family in order to grow our business." As eco-friendly business owners, the Fraziers know how detrimental untreated pet waste and subsequent run off can be for all the beautiful lakes near their Madison community and they decided to help make a positive change. Coupled with the tenacity of the young people within their family to run a business and create success, the couple decided to team up with Candi's sons to create a successful niche in their neighborhood. "The DoodyCalls team is looking forward to a bright future getting the scoop in Madison with a team powered by entrepreneurial youth looking to create success in their neighborhood," said Larry Amos, Vice President of DoodyCalls. "We look forward to supporting the team as they embark on a successful future with their new franchise endeavor." The Madison DoodyCalls franchise will service the following areas: Cottage Grove, Deerfield, Deforest, Madison, Marshall, Mcfarland, Middleton, Sun Prairie, Waunakee, and Windsor. The scoop on what DoodyCalls offers: For residential dog owners, DoodyCalls provides dog waste pickup, brown spot treatment and deodorizing services. DoodyCalls provides dog waste pickup, brown spot treatment and deodorizing services. For communities and parks, DoodyCalls designs, sells, installs, services and maintains common areas, pet waste stations, equipment and supplies. To learn more about the Madison franchise location, please visit https://www.doodycalls.com/madison. DoodyCalls is currently seeking poop scoop franchise operators who align with the brand's values of humility, ethical leadership, integrity, respect, and providing the best service experience possible. To learn more about franchise opportunities or to find a local service technician, visit https://www.doodycalls.com/locations/. About Doody Calls DoodyCalls was founded in 2000 by Jacob and Susan D'Aniello in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. In 2004, the company began franchising its pet waste removal business nationwide and established corporate headquarters in Charlottesville, VA. DoodyCalls provides service to 23 states and the District of Columbia with dog waste pickup with consumer and industrial services. For more information about Doody Calls, visit www.doodycalls.com. MEDIA CONTACT: Sarah O'Connor-Guffey Fish Consulting 815-630-9557 | [email protected] SOURCE DoodyCalls One-time credit helps customers cover the cost of preparing their home for an electric vehicle charger. National Drive Electric Week (NDEW) is Sept. 23 Oct. 2 . CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) is helping defray the cost of electrical upgrades for customers in North Carolina who want to install electric vehicle (EV) chargers at their home or business. The company's Charger Prep Credit program helps cover the cost of EV charging infrastructure by providing a credit for residential or commercial customers in the state who install Level 2 or higher-powered chargers. The one-time credit provided by Duke Energy to cover electrical upgrades for EV charging infrastructure is up to $1,133 per household. "EVs and zero-carbon transportation should be accessible to everyone, so Duke Energy is helping remove financial barriers to EVs for our North Carolina customers and simplifying the process to go electric," said Stephen De May, Duke Energy's North Carolina president. "Steps like this, in addition to key grid infrastructure investments we're making in support of EVs, will support North Carolina's Clean Transportation Plan and help meet state emissions reduction goals." As part of the Charger Prep Credit program, residential and non-residential customers can choose their own contractor to perform the improvements in their home or business to prepare for an EV charger. Residential customers also have the option to use a Duke Energy-approved contractor. Customers who have already had the preparation work completed may also be eligible to receive a credit if the work was completed within the last 120 days of their final invoice or approved permit. Upgrades covered by the credit include the installation of wiring and other upgrades that support EV charging such as new electric plug-in outlets for a garage or other electrical wiring improvements but would exclude the cost of the charging station hardware and software (if needed). Non-residential customers' credit amounts vary and are based on several factors including charger type, total kW and whether service upgrades are needed. Knowledge is power: what to know about EV charging EV chargers come in three different levels Level 1, Level 2 and DC Fast (DCFC). While EVs can be charged with regular household outlets (Level 1) for the typical daily commute, many EV drivers choose to install a faster 220- to 240-volt (Level 2) outlet. A qualified electrician can assess whether an electrical panel has capacity for a Level 2 charger and if upgrades are needed. Most businesses or commercial entities choose to install either Level 2 or DCFC chargers. There are ranges of power output for both Level 2 and DCFC. The higher the level of charging, the faster the speed of the charging process. As customers make plans to prepare their home or business for an electric charger, they should take several factors into consideration. Chargers over 40 amps need to be hardwired and cannot use a dryer plug. Customers should also check with their vehicle manufacturer to ensure that they choose the correct charger for their vehicle's battery. A charged path forward The week of Sept. 23 Oct. 2 marks National Drive Electric Week (NDEW), a nationwide celebration to raise awareness of the many benefits of all-electric and plug-in hybrid cars, trucks, motorcycles and more. Coordinated by Plug In America and supported by the National Electric Highway Coalition (NEHC), NDEW educates consumers about the benefits of EVs and offers in-person across the country related to transportation electrification. "Duke Energy is investing in an electric future, a modernized power grid, and delivering innovative and reliable energy solutions for our customers as we support the growing U.S. adoption of EVs," said Cory Gordon, Duke Energy's director of transportation electrification. "We will continue to work with stakeholders and other interested parties to actively pursue near-term programs that benefit all Duke Energy customers and make a meaningful environmental impact." Duke Energy Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America's largest energy holding companies. Its electric utilities serve 8.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 50,000 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 28,000 people. Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy transition to achieve its goals of net-zero methane emissions from its natural gas business and at least a 50% carbon reduction from electric generation by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The 2050 net-zero goals also include Scope 2 and certain Scope 3 emissions. In addition, the company is investing in major electric grid enhancements and energy storage, and exploring zero-emission power generation technologies such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear. Duke Energy was named to Fortune's 2022 "World's Most Admired Companies" list and Forbes' "America's Best Employers" list. More information is available at duke-energy.com . The Duke Energy News Center contains news releases, fact sheets, photos and videos. Duke Energy's illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter , LinkedIn , Instagram and Facebook . Duke Energy media contact: Logan Kureczka 800.559.3853 SOURCE Duke Energy SYDNEY, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ellucian, the leading higher education technology solutions provider, today announced a new partnership with higher education specialist consultancy, DVE Solutions, to resell Ellucian Quercus, a cloud-based Student Information System (SIS). The strategic partnership combines leading-edge technology with outstanding implementation expertise, enabling Australian higher education institutions to deliver on their digital transformations and drive tangible growth in a rapidly transforming sector. The newly signed deal positions DVE as the go-to-market partner for Quercus in the Asia-Pacific region, taking full advantage of DVE's reputation for delivering exceptional outcomes for educational institutions. With this agreement, Ellucian expands its already impressive partner ecosystem the largest of its kind which provides customers with access to digital expertise, solution providers and specialised systems. "In Australia, 198,000 (13%) of students drop out before completing their chosen course each year. Given this, student retention and engagement are top priorities for higher education, and our Quercus platform is designed to support student success along the entire spectrum of the student journey," said Keith Hawkes, Vice President, Australia for Ellucian. "With DVE helping us drive adoption of Quercus, we're aiming to expand digital opportunities for higher education institutions that will directly impact student outcomes." DVE Solutions CEO, Jo Schneider, added, "We continually hear the challenges around collecting and using student information, providing seamless process for students and staff, and meeting government statutory reporting requirements. The partnership with Ellucian will allow us to deliver end-to-end solutions that ensure efficiency and compliance." Designed especially for higher education, Quercus enables institutions to efficiently manage records, streamline staff efforts and deliver a convenient, connected student experience. The cloud-based student information system features a modern architecture, enabling institutions to adapt seamlessly as functional and technical needs change, offering easy integrations with non-Ellucian solutions as well. About Ellucian Ellucian is the market leader charting the digital future of higher education with a portfolio of cloud-ready technology solutions and services. From student recruitment to workforce analytics; from fundraising opportunities to alumni engagement; Ellucian's comprehensive suite of data-rich tools gives colleges and universities the information they need to lead with confidence. Working with a community of more than 2,700 customers in over 50 countries, Ellucian keeps innovating as higher education keeps evolving. Drawing on its comprehensive higher education business acumen and suite of services, Ellucian guides its customers through manageable, sustainable digital transformationso that every type of institution and student can thrive in today's fast-changing landscape. To find out what's next in higher education solutions and services, visit Ellucian at www.ellucian.com. About DVE Solutions DVE Solutions drives powerful change in educational institutions with a holistic approach that considers People, Process, Structure and Technology. DVE's team of specialists in system implementation, technology and change ensure that every project is undertaken with the right people doing the right work. www.dvesolutions.com.au CONTACT: Lindsay Stanley, [email protected] SOURCE Ellucian Oswald B. Cousins brings nearly three decades of experience advising on a wide variety of complex employment and labor matters. SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Latham & Watkins LLP1 is pleased to announce that Oswald (Ossie) Cousins has rejoined the firm's Bay Area offices as a partner in the Complex Commercial Litigation Practice, and a member of the Litigation & Trial Department. An experienced trial lawyer and trusted advisor, Cousins represents both emerging and established companies in their most complex employment and labor matters. Oswald Cousins, partner, Latham & Watkins LLP "Ossie's experience successfully guiding businesses of all sizes and from all industries through the full spectrum of labor and employment law matters is a perfect complement to our ever-expanding capabilities," said Tad Freese, Office Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins' Bay Area offices. "He started his career with us, and we're thrilled to welcome him back. Our clients here in the Bay Area which are a wide mix of innovative clients, from emerging companies to mature, multi-national brands will benefit from Ossie's multi-faceted approached refined over his many years of growth and experience." "Ossie's return is a great development for our teams and our clients," added Sean Berkowitz, Chair of the firm's Complex Commercial Litigation Practice. "He brings not only a sharply honed set of employment and labor law skills, but also courtroom capabilities from the various cases he's brought to verdict. Our clients increasingly need seasoned practitioners who understand the rapidly shifting nuances of employment and labor law. This is particularly true in our evolving pandemic environment, with remote and flexible work becoming more normalized. Ossie's practice, which spans advisory work, disputes, and transactional support, more than meets this market need." Cousins provides high-level advice and counseling on a wide range of employment and labor law matters, including trade secrets and restrictive covenants, mergers and acquisitions, wage-and-hour compliance, discrimination and harassment allegations, whistleblower and retaliation claims, individual employee separations and reductions in force. He has tried cases to verdict in federal and state court, as well as in arbitrations and administrative proceedings. "During my early years at Latham, it was clear to me the firm had a one-of-a-kind platform and top notch reputation," said Cousins. "Unsurprisingly, Latham continued to push the standard for excellence to new heights, driven by the incredible growth of its elite team of litigators and transactional attorneys. The dynamic and innovative departments and practices in the Bay Area and firmwide will enable me to leverage synergies for my client base as they face novel and increasingly sophisticated legal questions. I consider myself very fortunate to have the chance to return to the firm that helped me launch my practice, and I'm looking forward to plugging back into the collegial, collaborative culture that served as the foundation of my career." Cousins received his JD from the UCLA School of Law, and his BA from the University of Vermont. Cousins returns to Latham from Morrison Foerster. About Latham & Watkins (lw.com) Latham & Watkins delivers innovative solutions to complex legal and business challenges around the world. From a global platform, our lawyers advise clients on market-shaping transactions, high-stakes litigation and trials, and sophisticated regulatory matters. Latham is one of the world's largest providers of pro bono services, steadfastly supports initiatives designed to advance diversity within the firm and the legal profession, and is committed to exploring and promoting environmental sustainability. Notes to Editors Contacts Latham & Watkins operates worldwide as a limited liability partnership organized under the laws of the State of Delaware (USA ) with affiliated limited liability partnerships conducting the practice in France , Hong Kong , Italy , Singapore , and the United Kingdom and as an affiliated partnership conducting the practice in Japan . Latham & Watkins operates in Israel through a limited liability company. Latham & Watkins operates in South Korea as a Foreign Legal Consultant Office. Latham & Watkins works in cooperation with the Law Firm of Salman M. Al-Sudairi , a limited liability company, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia . Tad Freese, Managing Partner of Latham's Bay Area offices, +1.650.463.3060 Sean Berkowitz, Complex Commercial Litigation Practice Global Chair, +1.312.777.7016 SOURCE Latham & Watkins FF Top and Faraday Future have reached an agreement regarding their governance dispute including the resignation of Ms. Sue Swenson and Mr. Brian Krolicki Ms. Sue Swenson will step down from her role as Executive Chairperson upon the Company receiving $13.5 million in net financing proceeds, of which $7.5 million was funded as of September 23, 2022 Ms. Sue Swenson along with Mr. Brian Krolicki , will step down from the Board upon the Company obtaining $85 million in incremental financing commitments and $35 million in net proceeds. As of September 23, 2022 , the Company had received $25 million in commitments towards satisfaction of the above conditions, none of which has been funded as of such date. FFIE Board size increases from Nine to Ten. Mr. Adam He , a senior executive with extensive public company experience, has been appointed as a new independent board member and a member of the Audit Committee and the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board. LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 23, 2022, FF Top Holding LLC ("FF Top"), a Major Stockholder of Faraday Future ("FF", "FFIE", "the Company") and the Company reached a governance restructuring agreement including the resignation of Executive Chairperson Sue Swenson and Director Brian Krolicki, upon the satisfaction of certain conditions. Adam He, who has proven experience in public companies, has additionally been appointed to the FFIE board as a new independent board member and been appointed to the Audit Committee and the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Board in connection with the governance restructuring. Adam He is an experienced CFO with a diverse senior management background in IPO, mergers, audits, is a CPA in China and New York, and holds a bachelor's degree and Master of Science in Taxation from the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing and a Master of Science in accounting from Seton Hall University in New Jersey. The governance restructuring agreement also provides for a collaborative process for the nomination of a new board of directors at FFIE's 2022 annual meeting, consisting of Global CEO Carsten Breitfeld, three nominees selected by FF Top, and three nominees to be chosen by a selection committee from a list curated by a nationally recognized recruiting firm. Additionally, FF Top will withdraw its lawsuit against FFIE, Ms. Sue Swenson and Mr. Brian Krolicki without prejudice no later than September 27, 2022. Since its listing one year ago, FFIE has encountered operational difficulties in connection with governance issues. FF Top believes this governance restructuring will help FFIE to get through its recent difficulties, obtain large-scale financing and complete product delivery. As the largest stockholder of FFIE with more than 35% voting rights, FF Top welcomes the FFIE's board of directors' decision to support the governance restructuring. We hope that the governance restructuring will help to form a genuinely qualified FFIE board that is responsive to the interests of all shareholders, focused on the mass production and delivery of the FF 91 Futurist, and committed to its shareholders, investors, users, and global employees. FF Top is also pleased that Senyun (a Hong Kong equity fund affiliated with Daguan International Ltd," Daguan"), an investor introduced to the Company by FF Top, has entered into an agreement with FFIE for the potential provision of up to an additional $60 million of funding to FFIE, subject among other things to the satisfactory completion of due diligence by the Company. This follows FFIE's recent receipt of new and accelerated commitments from ATW up to 40 million, which FF Top supported with a voting agreement. FF Top looks forward to continuing to assist the Company with its financing efforts. FF Top is a company whose majority is indirectly held by FF Global Partners LLC ("FF Global Partners "). Led and founded by FF Founder and CPUO YT Jia, FF Global Partners are part of the FF Company Futurist Alliance, with a shared vision and values - comprised of 25 partners and pre-partners who are former and current key employees of FFIE, and the Partners Executive Committee makes the top-level decisions. With the ultimate goal of realizing the shared dream and shared mission, all partners and pre-partners share entrepreneurship, share ownership, share returns, share risks, and share governance. This partnership model brings unique and unprecedented competitive advantages to FF's company culture, governance structure and talent system and lays a solid foundation for the success of FF. In the past few years, YT Jia and FF Global Partners have rescued the Company many times and have been committed to maximizing the interests of all shareholders and investors and delivering the Ultimate Intelligent Tech Luxury FF 91 Futurist to users. NO OFFER OR SOLICITATION This communication shall neither constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which the offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS This press release includes "forward looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, the words "estimates," "projected," "expects," "anticipates," "forecasts," "plans," "intends," "believes," "seeks," "may," "will," "should," "future," "propose", "potential" and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, conditions or results, and involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many of which are outside the control of FF Top, that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Important factors, among others, that may affect actual results or outcomes include the Company's ability to satisfy the conditions precedent and close on the various financings referred to in this press release, the failure of any which could result in the Company seeking protection under the Bankruptcy Code; the failure of the conditions to the full implementation of FF Top's governance agreement with the Company to be satisfied and other factors. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and FF Top does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Media Contact [email protected] SOURCE FF Top Holding LLC Results of global survey revealed at major PRIORITY summit in New York City RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A global survey of 130,000 citizens from 13 countries was conducted by the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute, in partnership with market research leader Ipsos. It has revealed that the top priority concerning most people is the rising cost of living. This is more than those worried about poverty and social inequalities (2nd), unemployment (3rd), global warming (7th) or Covid-19 (8th). The survey further revealed that while citizens of high income and African countries have a negative outlook about their personal and their country's futures, citizens of emerging Asian countries including China, India and Saudi Arabia, are much more optimistic. The survey results were unveiled at FII Institute's PIORITY Summit in New York City the 22nd of September 2022 alongside UNGA week, which hosted leading speakers from around the globe to discuss pressing issues and find solutions to help world leaders address the priorities of their citizens. Speakers included: HE Yasir Al Rumayyan, chairman of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, HE Dasho Tshering Tabgay, former prime minister of Bhutan, and HE Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former prime minister of Denmark. Richard Attias, CEO of the FII Institute, said, "This is a landmark survey that should ring alarm bells for governments all over the world. These results show that citizens everywhere are very concerned with the increasing costs of living. We are giving them the roadmap to address these concerns. "Our mission at the FII Institute is to identify global challenges facing humanity and to find practical solutions to help leaders and decision-makers to address them. That is why we have held this keynote PRIORITY summit in New York during the week that the United Nations General Assembly is meeting." The FII Institute commissioned the survey with an objective to identify the top priority of individuals across a broad range of demographics. The survey results were discussed at the summit by leading experts who emphasized the need for global action to meet people's top priority. Next month, the FII Institute will be hosting its flagship event, the Future Investment Initiative, in Riyadh from 25-27 October. More than 300 speakers and 5,000 delegates are expected to participate in the event. NOTES TO EDITORS Details of the survey can be found at: https://fii-institute.org/pillars/think/#priority-report About FII Institute The FII Institute is a global non-profit organisation with an investment arm and one agenda: Impact on Humanity. Launched in 2019, the Institute has published various reports, hosted many international platforms, and launched several initiatives and projects to create a more sustainable future for humanity. In addition, the FII Institute is committed to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles, fostering the brightest minds and transforming ideas into real-world solutions in five focus areas: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Education, Healthcare and Sustainability. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1811613/FII_Institute_Logo.jpg SOURCE FII Institute EXTON, Pa. , Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Exton Region Chamber of Commerce presented First Resource Bank's CEO, Glenn Marshall, with the Harold Martin Leadership award at its 50th Anniversary Celebration and Annual Dinner on September 22nd. First Resource Bank, CEO, Glenn Marshall and Exton Region Chamber of Commerce President, Laurie Ryan at the Chambers Annual Dinner With over 200 local business professionals in attendance, Marshall was recognized for his exemplary leadership and dedication to fulfilling the needs of the Exton community. Having voluntarily served on nearly 20 different boards and committees over the past 30 years, Marshall's selfless commitment to ensuring the progress of the local community has made him a legend within the Exton region and beyond. Exton Region Chamber of Commerce President, Laurie Ryan, commented, "Glenn Marshall has been a pillar of strength in our community for years and a crucial part of the advancement of local infrastructure. All who live, work or travel through Exton have reaped the benefits of Glenn's hard work and influence. I am incredibly grateful for his leadership and guidance and was thrilled that he was selected as this year's awardee." Having received multiple award nominations from the small business community in support of Marshall, members of the selection committee were proud to choose an awardee who exemplified all the leadership qualities of the Chamber's original Chairman, Harold Martin. Martin, much like Marshall, dedicated his time, talent and treasure to strengthening the local community and was relied upon heavily for his innovative approach to meeting the needs of local citizens. Annually, the Chamber recognizes one deserving community member to receive an award in memory of Harold Martin. Having come from humble beginnings, Glenn Marshall worked his way up the corporate ladder to become one of the area's top CEO's. In 2005 when Marshall co-founded First Resource Bank (OTCQX: FRSB), the team stayed true to one core value- doing the right thing. This guiding principle enabled them to develop a financial institution dedicated to helping local businesses and individuals thrive and since its inception has created hundreds of employment opportunities in the community. Under Marshall's leadership, the Bank has been recognized as the Best Bank in Chester County for 5 consecutive years by The Daily Local News, the Best Bank along the Main Line for the past two years from The Main Line Times, and a Best Places to Work Company from The Philadelphia Business Journal for the past 4 years. True to his modest demeanor, when presented with the Harold Martin Leadership Award, Glenn Marshall stated, "I am honored, humbled, and surprised to be selected as this year's awardee. It's a bit foreign to me that I would receive an award for just being myself: however, if there's one piece of leadership advice I can provide it is to get involved. Whether it's with your local fire company, the chamber of commerce or a local non-profit, when you put your community first everyone wins." About First Resource Bank First Resource Bank, a subsidiary of bank holding company, First Resource Bancorp Inc., is a locally owned and operated Pennsylvania state-chartered bank, serving the banking needs of businesses, professionals and individuals in the Delaware Valley. The Bank offers a full range of deposit and credit services with a high level of personalized service. First Resource Bank also offers a broad range of traditional financial services and products, competitively priced and delivered in a responsive manner to small businesses, professionals and residents in the local market. For additional information visit our website at www.firstresourcebank.com. Member FDIC. This press release contains statements that are not of historical facts and may pertain to future operating results or events or management's expectations regarding those results or events. These are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and other statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts. When used in this press release, the words "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "seeks", "estimates", or words of similar meaning, or future or conditional verbs, such as "will", "would", "should", "could", or "may" are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are either beyond our control or not reasonably capable of predicting at this time. In addition, these forward-looking statements are subject to assumptions with respect to future business strategies and decisions that are subject to change. Actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in these forward-looking statements. Readers of this press release are accordingly cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. First Resource Bank disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any of the forward-looking statements herein, whether in response to new information, future events or otherwise. SOURCE First Resource Bank Fusion Education Group Hosts Best-Selling Author and psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour for webinar on teen mental health GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Lisa Damour, Ph.D. will guide parents through the emotional roller coaster of the middle and high school years during a live virtual webinar Wednesday hosted by Fusion Education Group. "Having raised four children with my wife, I know first-hand how challenging the teenage years can be," said Peter Ruppert, Chief Executive Officer of Fusion Education Group (FEG). "Dr. Damour's career is grounded in understanding teens. She consistently uses her research to connect with and support families." "Raising teenagers has always been challenging," said Lisa Damour, Ph.D. "And it's especially difficult now." Tweet this Lisa Damour, Ph.D. will guide families through the tumultuous teenage years to gain a better understanding of teenage emotional and mental health, during a free webinar hosted by Fusion Education Group. A national leader in personalized education, FEG welcomes Dr. Damour for a virtual webinar for families interested in gaining a better understanding of teenage emotional and mental health challenges. Details follow: What: Free Webinar Webinar: Raising Teens in the Pandemic's Wake: What's typical, what's not, and when is it time to worry Date: Wednesday, September 28, 2022 , at 1 p.m. Eastern. , at Eastern. How to attend: Register in advance here. Duration: 45 to 60 minutes, depending on Q&A Recognized as a thought leader by the American Psychological Association, Dr. Lisa Damour co-hosts the Ask Lisa podcast, writes about teenagers for the New York Times, appears as a regular contributor to CBS News, and works in collaboration with UNICEF. She is the author of two New York Times best sellers, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood and Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls. Webinar attendees can expect Damour to help them identify the many bumps along the road to raising teens, and how to distinguish what is normal teenage emotional development and what is cause for concern. Dr. Damour will also reassure parents that many of the emotional and mental health challenges teens currently face existed before March of 2020. "Raising teenagers has always been challenging," said Damour. "And it's especially difficult now. Parents don't always know how to tell if they are looking at a passing mood, or real grounds for concern. We'll delve into when and when not to worry and detail the most important ways that parents can support teens." Webinar attendees can expect to learn: What is typical teen behavior. What are red flags to watch out for. What avoidance looks like. How to help teens both effectively articulate conflicts and manage them. Fusion Education Group operates a nationwide network of schools where student needs always come first, and teaching is personalized and one-to-one. FEG's model means students have one teacher for each class, and lessons are uniquely tailored to reflect how each student learns. Social-emotional well-being and academic progress are of equal importance. The webinar is part of Fusion Education Group's national series. Previously broadcasted webinars can be found here. About Fusion Education Group: Fusion Education Group (FEG) is a revolutionary innovator in personalized education. FEG provides accredited personalized education for than 5,000 middle and high school students at Fusion Academy, with 67 campuses that offer one-to-one instruction; Futures Academy, which offers one-to-one, small group instruction and online learning at 13 California campuses; Barnstable Academy, which offers traditional college-prep in a small school setting in New Jersey; and Fusion Global Academy, which offers one-to-one personalized education through a completely virtual campus that currently serves students in all 50 states and 45 states and 35 countries. More information about FEG's national events can be found here. FEG has more than 80 campuses in 18 states and the District of Columbia. More about Dr. Lisa Damour: In addition to her podcast, thought leadership and books, Dr. Damour serves as a Senior Advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University and has written numerous academic papers, chapters, and books related to education and child development. She maintains a private practice and speaks to schools, professional organizations, and corporate groups around the world on the topics of child and adolescent development, family mental health, and adult well-being. Dr. Damour graduated with honors from Yale University and worked for the Yale Child Study Center before earning her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan. She has been a fellow at Yale's Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy and the University of Michigan's Power Foundation. She and her husband are the proud parents of two daughters. More information can be found at: www.drlisadamour.com. SOURCE Fusion Education Group Greenfield plant to produce extensive line of plates and bowls JACKSON, Tenn., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Georgia-Pacific is serving up some exciting news today: the company has announced that it is investing more than $425 million in Jackson, Tennessee, to build a state-of-the-art Dixie manufacturing facility. The new plant will significantly increase the supply of disposable tableware products that help busy consumers forget about doing dishes and focus on the important things in life. Construction is slated to begin by the end of the year and startup is expected in summer 2024. (PRNewsfoto/Georgia-Pacific) Dixie Dixie Rendering of future Dixie facility in Jackson, Tennessee "Although we have invested to expand existing sites, this is the first new Dixie plant the company has built since 1991," explains Fernando Gonzalez, president of the consumer business at Georgia-Pacific. "This added capacity will help us meet the needs of our customers as consumer demand for high-quality, durable paper plates and bowls continues to grow." "Companies choose to invest in Tennessee because of our skilled workforce and unmatched business climate," said Tennessee Governor Bill Lee. "I commend Georgia-Pacific's commitment to create more than 200 jobs in Jackson so that Tennesseans across the region can thrive." The plant will sit on 241 acres west of the city and is conveniently located near both Interstate 40 and state Highway 223 and offers access to nearby rail service, which are all critical to ensure an efficient and effective supply chain. "We are excited and grateful for the $425 million investment Georgia-Pacific is making at its Jackson Dixie plant in our growing community. This is a thrilling moment for Jackson as this project is the largest single investment in our history," said Scott Conger, City of Jackson mayor. "It has been a pleasure working with the Georgia-Pacific team over the last 18 months, and we are proud the company is calling Jackson home." Once operational, the Jackson plant will produce the well-known brand of tableware products, including the Dixie and Dixie Ultra lines of plates and bowls. The new 900,000-square-foot operation will offer a climate-controlled environment and include a printer, associated plate forming converting assets and other state-of-the-art manufacturing technology. The plant will employ approximately 220 people. "This major investment in our community not only further strengthens our local economy but emphasizes our area's qualified workforce and great location for companies to thrive," added AJ Massey, Madison County mayor. "Through our K-12 schools, technical college and universities, we are continuing to focus on developing the skills to create a workforce capable of meeting the needs of our industries both now and in the future." Currently, Georgia-Pacific directly employs approximately 460 people and operates six facilities in the state of Tennessee. The economic impact of the company contributes to 1,430 additional indirect jobs, $100 million in labor income, and the capital investment in the state has totaled more than $250 million since 2011. In fact, the company recently announced plans to invest more than $20 million in its Lebanon, Tennessee, corrugated plant. About Georgia -Pacific Based in Atlanta, Georgia-Pacific and its subsidiaries are among the world's leading manufacturers and marketers of bath tissue, paper towels and napkins, tableware, paper-based packaging, cellulose, specialty fibers and building products. Our familiar consumer brands include Quilted Northern, Angel Soft, Brawny, Dixie, enMotion, Sparkle and Vanity Fair. Georgia-Pacific has long been a leading supplier of building products to lumber and building materials dealers and large do-it-yourself warehouse retailers. Its Georgia-Pacific Recycling subsidiary is among the world's largest traders of paper, metal and plastics. The company operates more than 150 facilities and employs approximately 30,000 people directly and creates more than 89,000 jobs indirectly. For more information, visit: gp.com/about-us. For news, visit: gp.com/news. SOURCE Georgia-Pacific Connect's partnership will deliver high-speed internet access to homes and businesses across four counties with Connect, powered by Glades Electric Cooperative, fiber network MOORE HAVEN, Fla., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Conexon Connect , the internet service provider formed by rural fiber-optic network design and construction management leader Conexon , has been selected by Glades Electric Cooperative to deliver high-speed fiber internet access for rural Floridians within the cooperative's service territory. The cooperative is partnering with Connect to launch and deploy a nearly 2,600-mile fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network. The Connect, powered by Glades Electric Cooperative, network will deliver reliable, affordable high-speed internet service to homes and businesses across portions of Glades, Hendry, Highlands and Okeechobee counties. The goal is to expand fiber broadband access to all of the co-op's approximately 13,400 members. "The opportunity to partner with a co-op such as Glades Electric takes us right back to the heart of why we do this," said Randy Klindt, Conexon Founding Partner and Conexon Connect CEO. "We look forward to delivering exceptional multi-gigabit internet service to unserved and underserved homes and businesses in the rural heartland of Florida, providing access to the connectivity they need." Glades Electric's nearly $50 million network is expected to be completed within three years. The fiber-optic network will offer members access to symmetrical (same upload and download speeds) multi-gigabit internet capabilities among the fastest and most robust in the nation. "The abrupt change in our lifestyles during the pandemic brought to light how far behind in broadband access Florida's Heartland has been left," said Jeff Brewington, Glades Electric Cooperative CEO. "We began to research how Glades Electric could be part of the solution, which led us to Conexon to help us bridge the gap in a very affordable way and continue our mission of 'Neighbors Working for Neighbors.'" In addition to fiber broadband, Connect, powered by Glades Electric Cooperative, will provide HD-quality phone service and enable the future benefits of smart grid capabilities to the electrical infrastructure, including improved power outage response times, better load balancing, more efficient electricity delivery and more. "Over the past several years, I've heard people analogize rural broadband to the rural electrification movement of the 1930s and 1940s," Conexon Partner Jonathan Chambers said. "To us, it isn't an analogy; it's a reality. The same companies that built electric networks across the state are building broadband networks. After decades of failure by the telephone and cable industries, electric co-ops in Florida are stepping up and stepping in to solve the digital divide. We're proud to join Glades Electric Cooperative in this endeavor." Conexon and Conexon Connect work with electric cooperatives and other organizations committed to serving their communities with fiber broadband. With its clients, the company has designed more than 200,000 miles of fiber, builds more than 50,000 miles of fiber annually and has connected more than 500,000 rural Americans to fiber to the home. About Glades Electric Cooperative Glades Electric Cooperative was formed in 1945 to serve residents of Florida's rural heartland who had been left behind in the electrification of Florida. Today, Glades Electric provides power to more than 17,000 accounts over 2,600 miles of line in portions of Glades, Hendry, Highlands and Okeechobee counties. About Conexon Connect Conexon Connect is the internet service provider (ISP) arm of rural fiber broadband design and construction management leader Conexon. The subsidiary was formed to operate and manage cooperative fiber-to-the-home networks. Connect leverages Conexon's decades of co-op operations, fiber-optic design and construction, telecommunications, federal and state lobbying and customer experience management expertise to successfully launch and operate projects. The Connect approach is to work with electric cooperatives to launch and deploy high-speed fiber-optic networks the gold standard of communications transmission enabling them to offer world-class fiber broadband to their members. Connect today is partnering with multiple cooperatives in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Missouri. About Conexon Conexon works with Rural Electric Cooperatives to bring fiber to the home in rural communities. The company is comprised of professionals who have worked in electric cooperatives and the telecommunications industry and offer decades of individual experience in business planning, building networks, marketing and selling telecommunications. Conexon offers its electric cooperative clients end-to-end broadband deployment and operations support, from a project's conception all the way through to its long-term sustainability. It works with clients to analyze economic feasibility, secure financing, design the network, manage construction, provide operational support, optimize business performance and determine optimal partnerships. To date, Conexon has assisted more than 275 electric cooperatives, 60 of which are deploying fiber networks, with more than 500,000 rural Americans connected to fiber to the home. The company has secured nearly $2 billion in federal, state and local grants and subsidies for its clients. Cindy Parks 913-526-6912 [email protected] SOURCE Conexon Connect DUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Electricity Transmission Poles Market - Forecasts from 2022 to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global electricity transmission poles market was valued at US$6.070 billion in 2020 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.92% over the forecast period to reach a total market size of US$9.695 billion in 2027. Rising global electricity consumption is one of the major factors that is fuelling the growth of the electricity transmission pole market worldwide. According to the IEA (International Energy Agency), global electricity final consumption was 4.0 percent higher than the previous year and reached 22,315 TWh. Out of this, the total electricity final consumption in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) countries was 9,728 TWh while in non-OECD countries, the total electricity final consumption totaled 12,587 TWh in 2018. India, Brazil, China, and the Russian Federation were the four largest non-OECD electricity consumers in 2018, with China accounting for the major share, accounting for 47.8 percent of total non-OECD consumption. Also, electricity in non-OECD countries is dominated by industrial demand which accounts for 50 percent of final electricity consumption. Much of the rising consumption of electricity in OECD countries has taken place in the residential, commercial, and public services sectors since 1974. The industrial sector remained the largest end-use sector for electricity consumption in 2018. However, the industry's share of electricity consumption is now only marginally greater than that of the residential and commercial sectors. The rising number of factories across various industries is also a factor that is contributing to the growth of the global electricity transmission pole market. Growing urban infrastructural development in developing economies has boosted the construction of residential as well as commercial buildings, which is also driving the demand for electricity transmission poles, thus positively impacting the growth of the global electricity transmission pole market. Advancements in the global energy sector are also contributing to the growth of the global electricity transmission pole market. The growing demand for energy-efficient and resilient power grids is another factor that is bolstering the growth of the global electricity transmission pole market. Rapidly growing demand for unhindered electricity supply across various sectors has also fuelled the revenues of market players in the global electricity transmission market. Increasing investments, both public and private, in smart grids in both developed and developing economies will continue to pave the way for new distribution lines and poles as replacements for older infrastructure, thereby driving the overall market growth of electricity transmission poles. In 2017, the Mexican energy minister announced plans to invest US$646 million in the implementation of a smart grid over the next eight years. In the APAC region, Southeast Asian countries are projected to invest more than US$8 billion in smart grid infrastructure between 2018 and 2025. The Government of Canada, through the Ministry of Natural Resources, announced funding of $100 million for the development of smart grids in the country in 2018. However, there has been a gradual shift towards advanced electricity infrastructure that is expected to limit the use of poles and wires, thus hindering the market growth. For instance, in Australia, under the new rules devised by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), distribution businesses across the country will be allowed to service remote areas with stand-alone power systems while avoiding costly network upgrades. Key Developments As a consequence of the rising need for efficient power grids and expanding power demand in nations all over the world, the electrical transmission poles sector has witnessed substantial growth. As stated by Consumers Energy in a release on May 2022, it will invest $100 million in 2022 to minimize the frequency and duration of power disruptions. In order to make the power grid more stable for Consumers Energy's electric consumers, the energy provider will make considerable changes to its high voltage distribution (HVD) system. Consumers Electricity's five-year, $5.4 billion Electric Reliability Plan includes HVD enhancements this year as part of a bigger effort to develop a more stable and resilient energy system. Segmentation By Material Wood Cement Steel By Area Rural Urban By Geography North America United States Canada Mexico South America Brazil Argentina Europe Germany France UK Italy Middle East and Africa and Saudi Arabia UAE Asia Pacific China India Japan South Korea Taiwan Thailand Indonesia Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 2. Research Methodology 3. Executive Summary 4. Market Dynamics 5. Global Electricity Transmission Poles Market Analysis, By Material 6. Global Electricity Transmission Poles Market Analysis, By Area 7. Global Electricity Transmission Poles Market Analysis, By Geography 8. Competitive Environment and Analysis 9. Company Profiles Companies Mentioned Koppers Inc. KEC International Ltd. Skipper Limited Europoles GmbH & Co. KG Nippon Concrete Industries Co., Ltd. Weatherspoon & Williams LLC Valmont Industries, Inc. Nello Corporation Nova Pole International Inc. Finntrepo Ltd For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/aa6hc5 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 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets BOSTON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- GNEMSDC has generously been awarded a grant to support the Mass Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) initiatives. The grant is an overarching initiative aimed at the exploration, development, and implementation of innovative support and training opportunities for Massachusetts-based MWBE companies. With this grant, GNEMSDC will support local MWBE companies with their entry, creation, and expansion into fields that are critical to meeting the Commonwealth's ambitious climate goals of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. MassCEC is a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy field across the Commonwealth to spur job creation, deliver statewide environmental benefits and to secure long-term economic growth for the people of Massachusetts. MassCEC works to increase the adoption of clean energy while driving down costs and delivering financial, environmental, and economic development benefits to energy users and utility customers across the state. MassCEC is committed to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization where everyone is welcomed, supported, respected, and valued. We are committed to incorporating principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and environmental justice in all aspects of our work to promote the equitable distribution of the health and economic benefits of clean energy and support a diverse and inclusive clean energy industry. MassCEC strives to lead and innovate in equitable clean energy and climate solutions. Funding in this grant is intended to support Minority and Women Owned Businesses Enterprises and the creation of MWBEs in Massachusetts for the following goals: Increase MWBE business activity in climate critical business fields, in climate critical business fields, Increase expertise of MWBE's in climate critical business fields, in climate critical business fields, Grow employment and revenue of existing MWBEs that operate in climate critical business fields and continue long-term growth strategies that operate in climate critical business fields and continue long-term growth strategies Create new MWBE firms in climate critical fields and support healthy long-term growth of those firms in climate critical fields and support healthy long-term growth of those firms Tie together relevant existing support for small businesses and fill gaps in support for MWBEs focusing on climate critical business fields As Director of MBE Growth & Development, Gary Stiffler's role is to support all GNEMSDC members including those outside the state of Massachusetts, in garnering knowledge, training and contracts. To make the distribution of grant funds a success, he will work outside the state to aid MBEs in taking advantage of opportunities to partner and participate. In doing so, he will also be engaging with other climate critical MBEs that are not certified through the GNEMSDC. As we begin setting up workshops, training, consulting, and other supportive initiatives, we would like to hear from you about how we can support your business. If interested, please reach out to Gary Stiffler, at [email protected] OR President and CEO Peter Hurst at [email protected] to acknowledge your need for more information and training in the clean energy sector. SOURCE Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council GUIYANG, China, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In the first half of this year, the total import and export of Guian New Area is 698.11 million USD, up 112.9% year on year, accounting for 60.7% of the annual target. Three newly established foreign enterprises reached 19.42 million USD, exceeding the whole year of 2021, and the total import and export of cross-border e-commerce reached 123 million USD. Strong reform activates new drivers of economic development A corner of Guian New Area high-end equipment manufacturing industrial park As an important window of Guizhou Province's opening to the outside world, the main battlefield of "strong provincial capital" of Gui'an Guiyang and the bridgehead of the open economy, since this year, Gui'an has implemented the reform of the system and mechanism, set up independent finance in the free trade zone, given certain management power and project approval power, and improved the "internal skills", focusing on development and construction, investment attraction and industrial development, according to Guian New Area Management Committee. In January this year, as an important department of the economic development of the new district, Gui'an New District Investment Promotion Bureau was formally established, creating an enterprise database of foreign investment, foreign trade, service trade and cross-border e-commerce. It is committed to attracting investment and foreign trade services. Strong industry builds a linkage and communication channel Shuangkun Electronic Technology Company, founded in April this year, is a professional manufacturer dedicated to the production and development of displays and screens. It is also a key enterprise introduced to build the display industry cluster, with a total investment of 380 million yuan. "We have received a lot of orders," the director said that the company's output value is expected to reach 600 million to 800 million yuan this year. Shuangkun Electronic Technology is one of the photoelectric display industry cluster enterprises introduced in Guian New Area. In order to build a new highland of high-level opening-up, Gui'an New Area has vigorously implemented cluster development, and gradually formed a photoelectric display industrial cluster, photoelectric lighting industrial cluster, and electronic remanufacturing industrial cluster. Next, Gui'an New Area will build an industrial channel interconnecting with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and make great strides toward the goal of a ten-billion-level foreign trade park. Excellent services create a new highland of investment and business development In Guian New Area remanufacturing Industrial Park, Guizhou Huajiaxin Technology Co., Ltd., which is engaged in bonded maintenance and remanufacturing, is expected to achieve an import and export of 25 million USD this year. Since its landing, the company has enjoyed the logistics fee reduction, deferred tax payment, rent reduction and other preferential policies. In recent years, Gui'an New Area has specially issued a series of policies to support the industrial development of the open economy, to support the industrial development from the aspects of factories and logistics, to provide convenient and inclusive financial support for enterprises in the park. Image Attachments Links: Link: http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=430337 Caption: A corner of Guian New Area high-end equipment manufacturing industrial park SOURCE Guian New Area Management Committee LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- An HIV-Positive consumer has joined a federal lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturer Gilead Sciences in a complaint alleging unfair and anti-competitive behavior in violation of multiple states' laws, according to an Amended Complaint filed Friday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Download the complaint here. The lawsuit accuses Gilead Sciences, Inc. of paying off competitors in order to prevent generic versions of a life-saving drug, Truvada, from coming to market. Truvada is a medication that both prevents and treats HIV. Gilead holds the patent for Truvada, in addition to various other drugs that treat serious health conditions. The lawsuit details a strategy where Gilead made a large, unexplained payment to a generic drug manufacturer, Cipla, in return for Cipla's agreement not to compete against Gilead by selling a generic version of Truvada. The lawsuit alleges Gilead paid off Cipla in a number of possible ways, including granting it a license to produce another generic drug, the right to provide the ingredients for another company's generic competitor to Truvada, and/or a license to produce drugs for Hepatitis C in India. These types of payments are all made possible because Gilead owns the patents on these critical drugs. "This unlawful agreement between Gilead and Cipla kept the price of Truvada at anticompetitive levels, making it harder for consumers and their health plans to afford to cover it," said Consumer Watchdog attorney Ben Powell. "The bottom line is having access to this medication is literally a matter of life and death for many consumers, and we hope the Court will put a stop to this drug manufacturer putting profits over people's lives." In August, the court denied Gilead's Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit, allowing the case to proceed and finding that the Plaintiff's claims were legally sound. At the same time, the court held that claims under California law require a Plaintiff who purchased Truvada in California. The HIV-positive consumer, referred to in the lawsuit as John Doe, joining the lawsuit fulfills that requirement. The complaint alleges violations of both California and Florida laws, including California's Cartwright Act, the California Unfair Competition Law, and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and includes class members from around the country. It seeks to force Gilead to return any unlawful profits it gained as a result of its illegal and anti-competitive behavior. The case, Jackson Police Officers and Fire Fighters Health Insurance Trust and John Doe v. Gilead Sciences, et al., No. 4:20-cv-06522, was filed in San Francisco federal district court. Plaintiffs are represented by Whatley Kallas LLP and attorneys for Consumer Watchdog. Consumer Watchdog is a non-profit public interest organization. Visit us on the web at www.ConsumerWatchdog.org SOURCE Consumer Watchdog LONDON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Horizon Capital, a U.S. private-equity firm investing in fast-growing tech and export-oriented companies in Ukraine and the near region, announced the launch of Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV, L.P. ("HCGF IV," the "Fund"), with $125 million raised as of first close. Horizon Capital is the leading private equity firm in Emerging Europe with over $1.2 billion in assets from investors with a capital base exceeding $570 billion, raising over $580 million in growth capital to back visionary entrepreneurs from Ukraine and Moldova (the "Region") in just over 5 years. Horizon Capital-managed funds have invested in over 160 companies employing more than 77,000 people in the Region. With the launch of HCGF IV, Horizon Capital has achieved a record high first closing, reaching 50% of its $250 million target, and the highest first close result in the firm's history. The Fund's first closing was backed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ("EBRD"), the International Finance Corporation ("IFC"), Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft ("DEG") and a subsidiary of KfW Group, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank ("FMO"), the Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets ("SIFEM"), the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, and the Zero Gap Fund, an impact investing collaboration between The Rockefeller Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The official signing ceremony took place today at IFC's London office, and included top representatives from these esteemed institutions, together with Horizon Capital's Founding Partner and CEO Lenna Koszarny, and Senior Partner, Vasile Tofan. "We are honored to make history by launching the first fund for Ukraine and Moldova since February 24th, and the first to back these countries since they achieved well-deserved and hard-won EU Candidate Status in June," said Lenna Koszarny, Horizon Capital's Founding Partner and CEO. "We dedicate this Fund to the people of Ukraine, who inspire the world with their bravery and tenacity in defending their homeland, thus ensuring a future where Ukraine assumes its rightful place among European nations. Ukraine needs partners who believe in the country, who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its people, who are leading the way, and who leave no stone unturned to ensure that investment capital is available right now, not when hostilities end. Ukrainians must have access to sufficient resources to lead the economic rebound, renewal and revitalization of their country. Horizon Capital has stood with Ukraine since 2006, stands with Ukraine today and in the future. We are immensely grateful to our esteemed Limited Partners for committing capital which may be deployed now, for their steadfast belief in our team, our track record, our strategy and our vision, and for this strong signaling effect to the market. We are confident that this historic fund will be a resounding success, delivering both returns and impact in the years ahead." Vasile Tofan, Senior Partner, continued: "I am proud of my fellow compatriots in Moldova for welcoming more Ukrainian refugees per capita than any other country, as well as their strength and resilience throughout. This spirit of resilience is also demonstrated by technology companies throughout the Region, especially in Ukraine, where the tech sector fuels a high pace of innovation and digitalization, expanding 23% YoY during the first half of 2022 and delivering record-high export revenues of $3.74 billion, with over $8 billion forecast for 2022. The new Fund will continue to focus on tech and export-oriented companies, led by visionary entrepreneurs with a proven track record of leveraging competitive platforms to succeed globally, building on the success of our vintage 2017 US$ 200 million fund, whose stellar results are driven by the outstanding performance of the underlying companies and their talented founders and management teams. We look forward to continuing to back founders with an average of $10-30 million in growth capital, as well as the strong value-add contribution of our team." Horizon Capital (www.horizoncapital.com.ua) is the leading private equity firm in Ukraine, backed by over 40 institutional investors with over $1.2 billion under management in six funds. Horizon Capital is a value-added investor, backing visionary entrepreneurs leading transformational businesses in Ukraine and the near region. Stephenson Harwood LLP acted as legal counsel for the Fund. This press release is provided for information purposes only. Horizon Capital is not hereby providing investment advice or providing any person with any right to rely on the contents of this press release. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy limited partnership interests in Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV LP (the "Interests") or any other security in any jurisdiction and shall not, in any circumstance, constitute an offer, solicitation or sale in any jurisdiction in which, or to any persons to whom, such offering, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. There is no public offering of the Interests. The Interests are being offered by means of a private placement to suitable investors. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1906660/Horizon_Capital_Logo.jpg Contact: Tetyana Bega +380684481625 [email protected] SOURCE Horizon Capital AUSTIN, Minn., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL), a Fortune 500 global branded food company, announced today that its quarterly dividend on the common stock, authorized by the Board of Directors at 26 cents ($0.26) a share on September 26, 2022, will be paid November 15, 2022, to stockholders of record at the close of business on October 17, 2022. The November 15 payment will be the 377th consecutive quarterly dividend paid by the company. Since becoming a public company in 1928, Hormel Foods Corporation has paid a regular quarterly dividend without interruption. About Hormel Foods Inspired People. Inspired Food. Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minn., is a global branded food company with over $11 billion in annual revenue across more than 80 countries worldwide. Its brands include Planters, SKIPPY, SPAM, Hormel Natural Choice, Applegate, Justin's, WHOLLY, Hormel Black Label, Columbus, Jennie-O and more than 30 other beloved brands. The company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named on the "Global 2000 World's Best Employers" list by Forbes magazine for three years, is one of Fortune magazine's most admired companies, has appeared on the "100 Best Corporate Citizens" list by 3BL Media 13 times, and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts. The company lives by its purpose statement Inspired People. Inspired Food. to bring some of the world's most trusted and iconic brands to tables across the globe. For more information, visit www.hormelfoods.com SOURCE Hormel Foods Corporation LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Californians for Homeownership, a nonprofit organization sponsored by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (C.A.R.) that aims to address California's housing crisis through impact litigation, today announced that it has filed lawsuits against the cities of Claremont, Fullerton and La Mirada to enforce state housing element law. The new lawsuits follow settlements in the organization's prior lawsuits against the California cities of Bradbury, Laguna Hills and South Pasadena. "Californians for Homeownership continues to lead the way in using the courts to enforce these critical laws, which require cities and counties to ensure that their zoning requirements will allow enough housing to be built over the next decade," said C.A.R. President Otto Catrina. "The recent settlements and the new lawsuits send a message to cities throughout the state that every city has an affirmative obligation to plan for the housing growth needed to support California's growing population." New housing planning documents, called housing elements, were due on October 15, 2021, in the Southern California region. While some Southern California cities embraced the process, many have resisted or delayed. The nonprofit's first round of six lawsuits in April targeted cities that had not made sufficient progress toward adopting housing elements and that refused to acknowledge the penalties associated with their delays. The recent settlements with the cities of Bradbury, Laguna Hills and South Pasadena commit those cities to specific timelines for adoption of their housing elements and to make changes as needed to ensure that the housing elements they adopt will be eligible for certification by state regulators. South Pasadena, for example, has committed to removing from its housing element site inventory a number of parcels that are unlikely to be developed with housing in the coming years. The city also agreed to seek a change to its voter-established height limit, which makes it difficult to develop multifamily housing in the city. The settling cities also agreed to reimburse Californians for Homeownership for its costs and legal fees, and to comply with state law penalties that override local development standards for mixed-income housing developments in cities that are out of compliance with housing element law a provision often referred to as the "builder's remedy." The new lawsuits target three additional cities that are far from meeting their housing element obligations. "The cities of Claremont, Fullerton and La Mirada were selected because, in our assessment, they are unlikely to adopt valid housing elements within the next six to 12 months without being forced to do so through litigation," said Matthew Gelfand, the in-house litigator for the nonprofit. "We are already nearly a year into the eight-year planning period that these plans are intended to cover. Developers are anxiously waiting for these plans to be finalized so that they can begin developing much-needed housing, and every month these cities delay is another month working with outdated land use rules that make it hard to build homes." The RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) and housing element process is an interconnected system for ensuring that California's cities and counties plan for adequate housing to address statewide and regional housing needs. In the RHNA assessment, state and local governments work together to identify regional housing needs and distribute them among a region's cities and counties. Each city and county must then develop a "housing element" a component of the city's general plan that identifies sites available for future housing development sufficient to meet the city's RHNA allocation. If the city cannot identify adequate sites, it must change its zoning to allow additional housing development. All three cities targeted in the new lawsuits have been told by state regulators that they must make significant changes to their draft housing elements before they can be adopted and certified by the state. But unlike many of their peers in the region, these cities have made little progress in doing so. "These cities produced draft housing elements that are far from meeting their obligations under state law and have made little progress in fixing them," Gelfand said. "For example, the city of La Mirada failed to explain how it intended to accommodate the assigned RHNA in each income category, which is one of the most basic required features of a housing element. The city's current draft is not a serious attempt to comply with state law." The nonprofit typically offers to forgo litigation against cities that are willing to acknowledge the state law penalties for failing to adopt a housing element. It made that offer to each of the three cities, but they declined. Enforcing these laws has been a major focus for the organization over the last year, and it has approached cities throughout Southern California to discuss their compliance with the law. In the coming months, the focus will shift to the Bay Area and other parts of the state, as those regions complete their housing elements. In prior housing element cycles, without litigation, some cities have allowed the process of developing their housing elements to drag on for years after the state law deadlines. Each new lawsuit seeks an order requiring the city to adopt a compliant housing element on an expedited basis, as well as a judicial declaration that the city is subject to certain state law penalties for being out of compliance. Among other penalties, cities without compliant housing elements are prohibited from using their ordinary zoning rules to reject certain types of housing, such as mixed-income and moderate-income housing developments. The court also has the discretion to control aspects of a city's land use approvals for example, halting the issuance of all non-residential building permits or judicially approving housing development projects that have been held up by a city. The lawsuits are: Californians for Homeownership v. City of Claremont, Los Angeles County Superior Court Case No. 22STCP03414. Californians for Homeownership v. City of Fullerton, Orange County Superior Court Case No. 30-2022-01281840-CU-WM-CJC. Californians for Homeownership v. City of La Mirada, Los Angeles County Superior Court Case No. 22STCP03418. Copies of the filings are available at caforhomes.org/housingelements. Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization sponsored by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS devoted to using legal tools to address California's housing crisis. For too long, California's cities have treated compliance with state and federal housing law as optional. The organization seeks to change that attitude by proactively enforcing the law, on behalf of the important public interest in having additional housing available to families at all income levels. Californians for Homeownership was established by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (C.A.R.), and it receives financial support from C.A.R. and private donors. To make a tax-deductible charitable contribution today, visit caforhomes.org. SOURCE CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (C.A.R.) HOUSTON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, First Bight Ventures, a Houston-based venture firm that focuses exclusively on the advancement and acceleration of early-stage Synthetic Biology companies, announced that it has added Alan McCollough to its growing panel of expert advisors. McCollough served as chairman and chief executive officer of Circuit City Stores Inc. and has decades of proven operating experience with consumer-driven public entities. He recently retired from the boards of VF Corporation and Goodyear Corporation. "We are excited to have Alan join our group of advisors given his deep consumer and retail experience. He has vast knowledge of industrial companies that will offer valuable counsel to our portfolio companies. We hope to leverage his background so that our startups can select appropriate commercialization paths for their business models," First Bight Founder Veronica Wu said. "I believe in the potential of Biotech to address many of the challenges facing our planet today. I hope to bring some of my experience to support innovative startups within the space," McCollough said. McCollough joins First Bight's advisors who represent a variety of companies and industries, including Solugen, a specialty chemicals manufacturer; Proxima Clinical Research, Inc., which helps emerging companies overcome regulatory and clinical obstacles to get their medical products approved; Oracle Cloud, which offers cloud computing services; and DTE Energy, which develops and manages energy-related businesses and services nationwide. "Our plan, in bringing Alan on as a key advisor, is to accelerate our overall investment activity, especially given the fact that the Bioeconomy is a critical factor for addressing global sustainability. President Biden's recent pledge of over $2B in Biomanufacturing will help encourage more research, innovation, and commercialization as it relates to consumer products. This includes more plant- and bio-based materials, as well as drug manufacturing, such as vaccine production," Wu added. More about First Bight can be found on the company's website at firstbight.com. SOURCE First Bight Ventures Mobis Ventures Silicon Valley (MVSV) invites startup officials and investors to the 1 st Mobis Mobility Day in Silicon Valley. To introduce the company's software-centric future R&D strategies in order to expand its global investment network. Anticipates continued cooperation and investment in global startups featuring cutting-edge mobility technologies, including UAM and robotics. SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Mobis (KRX 012330) announced that it will be hosting the 1st Mobis Mobility Day in Silicon Valley on 29. More than 80 startup officials and investors in the future mobility industry will be in attendance to hear about Hyundai Mobis' future technology and investment strategy, as well as global trends. The 1st Mobis Mobility Day is designed to actively secure the technology partners as the company discovers innovative future mobility technologies and promotes new growth businesses, such as UAM and robotics. Finding partners for future mobility, namely the mobility alliance, is essential in securing a competitive edge in the transition of global automobile industry. Silicon Valley is the ideal place to form strategic alliances as it is where capital, talent, and technology come together. Accordingly, Hyundai Mobis will be explaining to its potential partners about the company's future growth, as characterized by the business transformation into a software and platform-centric global technology giant. Hyundai Mobis hopes to emphasize how its growth strategies and R&D initiatives are closely related to investment in highly promising global technology companies. Mobis Ventures Silicon Valley (MVSV) will host the event to deliver these messages even more effectively. MVSV is one of Hyundai Mobis' global open innovation hubs, founded in 2018 with the mission of discovering and investing in startups with future mobility technologies. MVSV has made major strategic investments in highly promising tech companies, including Velodyne (2019), a developer of LIDAR technology for autonomous driving, Envisics (2020), a British AR HUD innovator, and Zendar (2021), a maker of high-resolution imaging RADAR technology. Hyundai Mobis also has a global open innovation hub in Shenzhen, China. "We are looking forward to working with global partners to develop innovative technologies that will change the future. We will continue to actively communicate with startups and investors by expanding our network through our global open innovation hubs," explained Kim Young-bin, Head of Planning at Hyundai Mobis. SOURCE Hyundai Mobis Registry collects real-world data to improve HyperArc radiosurgery techniques PALO ALTO, Calif. and SYDNEY, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- This World Cancer Research Day, Icon Group (Icon) becomes the first international participant in the HyperArc registry, which is sponsored by Varian, a Siemens Healthineers company (Varian). HyperArc technology allows clinicians to treat tumors with highly conformal doses of radiation therapy. The automated system can even target several tumors in different locations in the brain. The Hyperarc registry will collect patient data for clinical research that will be used to inform and expand treatment options for patients with brain tumors. Icon was the first care provider in Australia to offer HyperArc technology. The collaboration marks the first research project for Varian's and Icon's global five-year strategic partnership, which includes the development of ongoing clinical and technical research programs to advance cancer care. The HyperArc registry will contain data collected during and after the course of radiation treatment using HyperArc on a Varian linear accelerator. It helps clinicians understand real-world use cases of HyperArc and evaluate caseloads, processes, and outcomes from treatment techniques. An automated process uploads treatment data to the registry to facilitate clinical research. Radiation Oncologist and Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Matthew Foote says this registry could help physicians improve patient outcomes. "We have already started to see the potential of HyperArc to greatly improve quality of life for patients with multiple brain tumors. Previously many of these patients would have had to receive radiation to the whole brain, resulting in undesirable side effects and suboptimal quality of life. Now we can treat up to 20 metastases in one treatment session, with promising results. The registry is another step forward in our ability to analyze real world data to inform treatment pathway decisions and ultimately push the boundaries of this technology to improve patient outcomes and evolve how we treat cancer," said Associate Professor Foote. The registry will be open across multiple Icon Cancer Centre locations in Australia, with the potential to expand across the group's international network. This multicentre approach will collect anonymized data to evaluate the comparative effectiveness, relative toxicity, and quality of care in a large cohort of patients. Icon Group CEO, Mark Middleton said, "Icon proudly invests in clinical trials and research to bring tomorrow's treatments closer to today's reality. With global partnerships and clinicians passionate about research, we can activate trials and research programs efficiently and effectively to advance cancer care and ultimately benefit even more cancer patients." Kevin O'Reilly, President of Radiation Oncology Solutions at Varian, said, "Varian has a broad commitment to supporting clinical research to advance cancer treatment. Collaborating with Icon and their network of clinicians represents an important opportunity to develop clinical evidence, so that care providers can offer optimal treatment to their patients. We value our strategic partnership with Icon, and we look forward to continuing to work together to improve the overall patient experience." The HyperArc registry will enable Icon to collaborate with other institutions, such as the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which is another key participant in the HyperArc registry. The registry is currently enrolling at Icon cancer centers located in Gold Coast University Hospital and Gold Coast Private. The registry will also open at Icon's locations in Canberra, ACT and Queensland centers at Greenslopes and Maroochydore. About Icon Group Icon Group is one of Asia Pacific's largest comprehensive cancer care providers. The Group has expanded globally into Singapore, Mainland China, Hong Kong and New Zealand and has a strong history of cancer research, now operating the largest private cancer clinical trials program in Australia. Icon Group has 50 cancer centres with several currently in development, including day oncology hospitals, radiation oncology facilities and comprehensive centres that bring both oncology disciplines together. The Group also encompasses Epic and Slade Pharmacy: providers of medication management and pharmacy services to the hospital, oncology and aged care sectors; and Slade Health: one of Australia's largest chemotherapy compounders with three TGA-approved manufacturing sites across the eastern seaboard and one set-to open in Auckland, New Zealand by mid-2022. For more information visit www.icongroup.global and follow Icon Group on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/icon-group About Varian At Varian, a Siemens Healthineers company, we envision a world without fear of cancer. For more than 70 years, we have developed, built and delivered innovative cancer care technologies and solutions for our clinical partners around the globe to help them treat millions of patients each year. We are working to harness advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to enhance cancer treatment and expand access to care. Our 11,000 employees across 70 locations keep the patient and our clinical partners at the center of our thinking as we power new victories in cancer care. Because, for cancer patients everywhere, their fight is our fight. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com and follow @VarianMedSys on Twitter. Press Contacts Varian: [email protected] Icon Group: [email protected] SOURCE Varian MEMPHIS, Tenn., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- International Paper Company ( NYSE: IP) (the "Company") announced today the early tender results as of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on September 23, 2022 (the "Early Tender Deadline") for its previously announced cash tender offer (the "Offer") for up to $400 million combined aggregate principal amount, which the Company has increased by $97.658 million to up to $497.658 million combined aggregate principal amount (the "Aggregate Maximum Amount") of its outstanding 8.700% Notes due 2038 (the "8.700% Notes"), 7.75% Notes due 2025 (the "7.75% Notes"), 7.35% Notes due 2025 (the "7.35% Notes"), 7.30% Notes due 2039 (the "7.30% Notes"), 7.20% Notes due 2026 (the "7.20% Notes"), 7.15% Notes due 2027 (the "7.15% Notes"), 6 7/8% Notes due 2023 (the "6 7/8% 2023 Notes"), 6 7/8% Notes due 2029 (the "6 7/8% 2029 Notes"), 6.65% Notes due 2037 (the "6.65% Notes"), 6.40% Notes due 2026 (the "6.40% Notes"), 6.00% Notes due 2041 (the "6.00% Notes"), 5.150% Notes due 2046 (the "5.150% Notes"), 5.000% Notes due 2035 (the "5.000% Notes"), 4.80% Notes due 2044 (the "4.80% Notes"), 4.400% Notes due 2047 (the "4.400% Notes") and 4.350% Notes due 2048 (the "4.350% Notes," and, together with the 8.700% Notes, the 7.75% Notes, the 7.35% Notes, the 7.30% Notes, the 7.20% Notes, the 7.15% Notes, the 6 7/8% 2023 Notes, the 6 7/8% 2029 Notes, the 6.65% Notes, the 6.40% Notes, the 6.00% Notes, the 5.150% Notes, the 5.000% Notes, the 4.80% Notes and the 4.400% Notes, the "Notes"). The Company further announced today that it has increased the Aggregate Maximum Amount of Notes to be purchased in the Offer from $400,000,000 to $497,658,000. Except as described in this press release, all other terms of the Offer as described in the Company's Offer to Purchase, dated September 12, 2022 (the "Offer to Purchase") remain unchanged. $1,241,573,000 in aggregate principal amount of the Notes listed in the table below were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn as of the Early Tender Deadline. The aggregate principal amount of each series of Notes that were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn as of the Early Tender Deadline is set forth in the table below. Title of Security CUSIP Acceptance Priority Level Principal Amount Outstanding Principal Amount Tendered as of the Early Tender Deadline(1) Principal Amount Expected to be Accepted(2) 8.700% Notes due 2038 460146CC5 1 $264,591,000 $178,393,000 $178,393,000 7.75% Notes due 2025 (3) 158525AQ8 2 $31,429,000 $9,735,000 $9,735,000 7.35% Notes due 2025 (3) 158525AR6 3 $43,832,000 $5,100,000 $5,100,000 7.30% Notes due 2039 460146CF8 4 $722,481,000 $269,378,000 $269,378,000 7.20% Notes due 2026 (3) 158525AT2 5 $57,938,000 $15,000 $15,000 7.15% Notes due 2027 (3) 158525AV7 6 $7,494,000 $172,000 $172,000 6 7/8% Notes due 2023 460146AP8 7 $94,188,000 $7,190,000 $7,190,000 6 7/8% Notes due 2029 460146BD4 8 $37,119,000 $27,323,000 $27,323,000 6.65% Notes due 2037 (3) 158525AU9 9 $3,555,000 $257,000 $257,000 6.40% Notes due 2026 (3) 158525AS4 10 $5,360,000 $95,000 $95,000 6.00% Notes due 2041 460146CH4 11 $585,000,000 $193,140,000 $0 5.150% Notes due 2046 460146CN1 12 $449,264,000 $56,453,000 $0 5.000% Notes due 2035 460146CM3 13 $406,703,000 $79,626,000 $0 4.80% Notes due 2044 460146CK7 14 $686,478,000 $200,028,000 $0 4.400% Notes due 2047 460146CQ4 15 $647,145,000 $89,437,000 $0 4.350% Notes due 2048 460146CS0 16 $740,131,000 $125,231,000 $0 (1) As reported by Global Bondholder Services Corporation, the depositary and information agent for the Offer. (2) Expected to be accepted for purchase, and paid for, on September 27, 2022. (3) Originally issued by Champion International Corporation and assumed by the Company in connection with its acquisition of Champion International Corporation on May 12, 2000. Notes that have been validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or before the Early Tender Deadline and are accepted in the Offer will be purchased, retired and cancelled by the Company on the early settlement date, which is expected to occur on September 27, 2022 (the "Early Settlement Date"). The amounts of each series of Notes that are purchased on the Early Settlement Date will be determined in accordance with the acceptance priority levels and the proration procedures described in the Company's Offer to Purchase. Because the aggregate principal amount of Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or before the Early Tender Deadline exceeds the Aggregate Maximum Amount, (i) all of the Notes with Acceptance Priority Levels 1 through 10 validly tendered and not validly withdrawn will be accepted for purchase and settled on the Early Settlement Date and (ii) none of the Notes with Acceptance Priority Levels 11 through 16 validly tendered will be accepted in the Offer. In addition, because the aggregate principal amounts of Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or before the Early Tender Deadline exceeded the Aggregate Maximum Amount, no more Notes will be accepted in the Offer, regardless of Acceptance Priority Level. Holders who validly tendered and did not withdraw their Notes on or before the Early Tender Deadline, and whose Notes are accepted for purchase pursuant to the Offer, will be entitled to receive the Total Consideration. The "Total Consideration" for each $1,000 principal amount of Notes so tendered and accepted for purchase will be determined in the manner described in the Offer to Purchase by reference to the applicable fixed spread specified in the Offer to Purchase for Notes of the applicable series over the yield based on the bid-side price of the applicable Reference U.S. Treasury Security for such series of Notes specified Offer to Purchase, as calculated by Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. at 10:00 a.m., New York City time, on September 26, 2022, unless extended. The Total Consideration includes an early tender premium of $30.00 per $1,000 principal amount of Notes. Holders whose Notes are accepted for purchase pursuant to the Offer will also receive accrued and unpaid interest on their purchased Notes from the last interest payment date for such Notes to, but excluding, the Early Settlement Date. The withdrawal rights for the Offer expired at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on September 23, 2022; therefore, previously tendered Notes may no longer be withdrawn. The Offer will expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on October 7, 2022. However, because the aggregate principal amount of Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn exceeded the Aggregate Maximum Amount, no more Notes will be accepted, regardless of Acceptance Priority Level. The Offer is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase. The Company has retained Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. to serve as Lead Dealer Manager for the Offer. The Company has also retained Global Bondholder Services Corporation to serve as depositary and information agent for the Offer. Requests for documents relating to the Offer may be directed to Global Bondholder Services Corporation by telephone at (855) 654-2015 or (212) 430-3774, in writing at 65 Broadway, Suite 404, New York, New York 10006. Questions regarding the Offer may be directed to Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. at 1 Columbus Circle, New York, New York 10019, Attn: Liability Management Group, Toll-free: (866) 627-0391, Collect: (212) 250-2955. This press release is not a tender offer to purchase or a solicitation of acceptance of a tender offer, which may be made only pursuant to the terms of the Offer to Purchase. In any jurisdiction where the laws require the Offer to be made by a licensed broker or dealer, the Offer will be deemed made on behalf of the Company by one of the dealer managers or one or more registered brokers or dealers under the laws of such jurisdiction. None of the Company, its board of directors, the depositary, the information agent, any of the dealer managers or the trustee for the Notes is making any recommendation as to whether holders should tender Notes in response to the Offer. Holders must make their own decisions as to whether to tender Notes, and, if so, the principal amount of Notes to tender. Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements describing the Company's acceptance of Notes for purchase, payment of the Total Consideration and other matters relating to completion of the Offer, and similar statements concerning anticipated future events and expectations that are not historical facts. Such forward- looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "may," "will," "could," "should" and "would," and variations of these words or comparable words. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, and inherently involve risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to actual results differing materially from such forward-looking statements are discussed in greater detail in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. You should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to make any revision to the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or to update them to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release. About International Paper International Paper ( NYSE: IP) is a leading global producer of renewable fiber-based products. We produce corrugated packaging products that protect and promote goods, and enable worldwide commerce, and pulp for diapers, tissue and other personal care products that promote health and wellness. Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., we employ approximately 38,000 colleagues globally. We serve customers worldwide, with manufacturing operations in North America, Latin America, North Africa and Europe. Net sales for 2021 were $19.4 billion. Additional information can be found by visiting internationalpaper.com. SOURCE International Paper Rhyperior is the ideal and effective system to enhance performance dramatically for the modern workload. TAIPEI, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Taiwan-based leading server manufacturing company Inventec (TPE: 2356) 's powerhouse GPU accelerator system, Rhyperior, is everything any modern-day business needs in the digital era, especially those relying heavily on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Powerful 4U GPU Accelerator System A unique and optimal combination of GPUs and CPUs, this 4U GPU accelerator system is based on the NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU and Intel Xeon 3rd Gen (Whitley platform). Rhyperior also equips an NVIDIA NVSwitch to enhance performance dramatically, and its power can be an effective tool for modern workloads. Accelerated and mission-critical performance In a world where technology is disrupting our lives as we know it, GPU acceleration is critical: essentially speeding up processes that would otherwise take much longer. Acceleration boosts execution for complex computational problems that can be broken down into similar, parallel operations. In other words, an excellent accelerator can be a game changer for industries like gaming and healthcare, increasingly relying on the latest technologies like AI and ML for better, more robust solutions for consumers. Research suggests that the market size for AI in APAC's healthcare industry crossed USD 274 million in 2020 and is set to grow by around 48 percent between 2021 and 2027. Furthermore, studies have also found that AI in the video games market in the region is set to grow at a sustainable rate until 2028. As such, with a keen focus on the gaming and healthcare industry and the application of AI and ML in these sectors and beyond, Inventec's Rhyperior is the ultimate efficient platform. "By adopting solutions from some of the leaders in the field, including NVIDIA and Intel, we have been able to create this powerhouse 4U GPU accelerator system. In order to fulfill customers' different demands, Rhyperior also comes with a flexible cooling system that provides two cooling solutions; forced air, and liquid cooling. Both of which can be combined for an overall far superior cooling effect," shared George Lin, VP of Business Unit VI, Inventec Enterprise Business Group (Inventec EBG). The accelerator can also be easily monitored and managed from remote locations. It comes with an efficient system's health status monitoring through the baseband management controller. Overall, Rhyperior provides the most efficient monitoring to get computing done faster. Learn more about Rhyperior here: https://ebg.inventec.com/en/product/Server/4U/Rhyperior About Inventec Data Center Solutions (Inventec EBG) Inventec Data Center Solutions (Inventec EBG) was established in 1998 and has been focusing on the design and manufacturing of server systems in Inventec Corporation. Over decades, Inventec EBG has been the key server system supplier of the global branding clients. For more information, please visit https://ebg.inventec.com/en . SOURCE Inventec Corporation PITTSBURGH, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- "We wanted to create a better pillow to keep the spine, neck and head comfortable and supported while relaxing in bed," said one of two inventors, from Margate, Fla., "so we invented the T PILLOW. Our design helps to prevent a stiff neck caused from only elevating the head and not supporting the upper back and neck." The patent-pending invention provides an improved design for a bed pillow. In doing so, it supports the head, neck and upper back when watching television or reading. As a result, it enhances comfort and relaxation and it eliminates the need to arrange standard bed pillows for support. The invention features a user-friendly design that is easy to use so it is ideal for households. Additionally, it is producible in design variations. The original design was submitted to the Fort Lauderdale sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 21-FJK-176, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com. SOURCE InventHelp NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Government of Japan announced a policy of resuming entry by individual travelers for tourism purposes beginning on October 11. JNTO looks forward to welcoming individual inbound travelers back to Japan with the long-awaited lifting of entry restrictions. The resumption of individual travel to Japan and visa waivers, and the elimination of the daily arrival cap will allow international visitors to enjoy Japan in more ways than in the past two-and-a-half years. These measures are long-awaited news for tourists around the world who have been looking forward to visiting Japan. We are eager to welcome you back! Remarks by JNTO President SEINO Satoshi The Japanese government has at last announced the resumption of individual travel for tourism purposes, visa waivers, and the elimination of the daily arrival cap. I am incredibly pleased to finally welcome back individual travelers after coping with the pandemic during a wait of two-and-a-half years. In response to the announcement, JNTO will be doing everything we can to provide you with the latest information on coming to Japan so that many tourists can visit and journey throughout our country. So you can do more than take in Japan's captivating culture, history, nature, and cuisine, we are also working hard on projects for sustainable tourism, adventure travel, and luxury travel. Japan is a highly attractive country not only for tourism, but also for international conferences and incentive travel. With the relaxed travel measures, Japan is fully prepared to host these events. Along with reveling in the many ways to take in the allures across Japan, now is a time when international visitors can take advantage of shopping opportunities. Japan has been busy over the past two-and-a-half years with preparations to welcome back everyone. Come see the new Japan. We eagerly await your arrival! ABOUT JAPAN NATIONAL TOURISM ORGANIZATION (JNTO) As the official tourism board of Japan, JNTO seeks to inspire international travelers to visit Tokyo, Kyoto and beyond. Focusing on sustainability, diversity and preservation of its history and culture, JNTO encourages travelers to explore the country while supporting local businesses, learning about indigenous cultures, and helping conserve its natural sites. For more information about travel to Japan, visit JNTO on its Website , Facebook , Instagram and Twitter . To contact the New York office of the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) directly, please e-mail [email protected] . SOURCE Japan National Tourism Organization BROOKLYN, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Junior R. King, DPM, is being recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Trusted Healthcare Professional for his work in the Medical field and in acknowledgment of his outstanding work in private practice Junior R. King A board-certified podiatrist, Dr. King has practiced medicine for 14 years and has been in private practice for the past two years. The doctor is board certified in Podiatric Medicine by the American Board of Podiatric Medicine. He is licensed to provide online and in-person care to patients in New York. He currently sees patients in his private practice location at 596 Pennsylvania Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11207. A native of the Caribbean Islands, Dr. King grew up seeing a need for healthcare for minorities and underserved communities. In particular, he noticed a much higher likelihood for minorities to have amputations, and he wanted to help reduce those statistics. He is now working toward making his practice multi-disciplinary so that patients can get all of their healthcare needs met at one location. To embark on a career in podiatry, Dr. King graduated with a Medical Degree from the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine, a podiatric medical school associated with Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. He completed his residency at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. Since establishing his career, Dr. King has volunteered his medical services in other countries needing medical help for many years. The COVID-19 pandemic put a temporary pause on his international volunteer work, but he hopes that he will be able to continue those efforts soon. On a personal note, Dr. King enjoys traveling in his spare time and recently returned from a trip to Europe. Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected] SOURCE Continental Who's Who First-of-its-kind technology designed to improve outcomes for women with dense breast tissue DETROIT, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, the world-renowned, Detroit-based National Cancer Institute-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, is the first to receive the SoftVue 3D Whole Breast Ultrasound Tomography System (SoftVue), following its approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Developed by Novi-based Delphinus Medical Technologies, the new and advanced technology was designed to be the screening solution for women with dense breast tissue. The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute will be the first in the world to offer the SoftVue 3D Whole Breast Ultrasound Tomography System, available to patients by the end of the year (2022). Dense breast tissue is common, affecting 40 percent of women and making them four times more likely to develop breast cancer. Compounding the increased risk, dense breast tissue typically appears as a solid white area on a mammogram, making it difficult to distinguish from masses and other serious abnormalities, missing roughly half of new cancer cases. When paired with a screening mammogram, SoftVue has been shown to identify up to 20 percent more cancers, while also reducing false positives and decreasing unnecessary call-backs and biopsies. "As a leading cancer center, we are committed to providing our patients with superior diagnostic and screening technology. The development of SoftVue, in partnership with Delphinus Medical Technologies, will further strengthen our fight against breast cancer that accounts for one in three new cancer diagnoses in women each year," said Brian Gamble, president of the Karmanos Cancer Hospital. "The key to breast cancer survival is early detection and this new screening device will be lifesaving for so many women in our community. Our clinical team worked hard for many years to develop this transformational technology, and we are proud to be the first in the world to offer SoftVue to our patients." Dedicated to the mission of leading in transformative cancer care, research and education, in 2009, Karmanos launched Delphinus Medical Technologies. The two organizations have since worked on various prototypes and conducted dozens of clinical trials to develop the state-of-the-art technology, demonstrating its ability to detect the presence of malignant and benign masses in women with dense breasts safely and more accurately. SoftVue, used as an adjunct to mammography, allows women with dense breast tissue to have both cancer screenings during a single appointment. Taking approximately eight to 10 minutes, a SoftVue mammogram uses warm water and ultrasound technology to create a 3D image of the whole breast to detect the presence of cancer in its earliest stages including masses in dense breast tissue often missed by mammography alone while avoiding radiation exposure and compression, allowing the radiologist to make a more accurate diagnosis. "The team at Karmanos has contributed deeply to the creation of our breakthrough SoftVue ultrasound tomography system, and we are thrilled to announce that they placed the first order and will be the first in the world to offer SoftVue," said Mark Forchette, president & CEO of Delphinus Medical Technologies, Inc. "We are excited about our next steps together to provide a new solution for the unmet needs and challenges of dense breast screening, and to share our proven clinical benefits with their patients." The SoftVue System will be available to patients at Karmanos Cancer Institute before the end of the year. To learn more about the technology, its benefits and request an appointment, visit karmanos.org/softvue. About the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute Karmanos Cancer Institute is a leader in transformative cancer care, research and education through courage, commitment and compassion. The Karmanos vision is a world free of cancer. As part of McLaren Health Care, Karmanos is the largest provider of cancer care and research in Michigan. For more than 75 years, the administrative and research headquarters, along with the premier specialty cancer hospital, have been located in downtown Detroit. With 16 network sites, Karmanos delivers world-renowned care and access to clinical trials throughout Michigan and northern Ohio. The National Cancer Institute recognizes Karmanos as one of the best cancer centers in the nation with a comprehensive cancer center designation. Its academic partnership with the Wayne State University School of Medicine provides the framework for cancer research and education defining new standards of care and improving survivorship. For more information, call 1-800-KARMANOS (800-527-6266) or visit www.karmanos.org. Follow Karmanos on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. SOURCE Karmanos Cancer Institute HANGZHOU, China, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- "Hangzhou Expats", a series of videos depicting the lives of foreigners in Hangzhou, become a hot topic on a group of social media accounts of Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism. The compelling short videos, aiming to showcase Hangzhou's inclusiveness, has garnered a large number of views on the Facebook, Instagram and YouTube platforms. Romanian entrepreneur Ileana Maier said living in Hangzhou is like living in the future. For Benjamin Saltzman, a teacher from Los Angeles, Hangzhou is the perfect combination of tradition and modernity. They all have their own reasons to live in Hangzhou, according to "Hangzhou Expats". Taking the Hangzhou lifestyle as its backdrop, the eight-episode video series showed how foreigners view the city, and their passionate living experiences in the city. Tosimitsu Takao, an IT technician from Japan, has lived in Hangzhou for 5 years. He was occasionally invited to join in a Hangzhou-based Chinese-Japanese band. During his training and performances, he made many friends sharing similar musical taste. Takao also discovered a Japanese bar where he could grab a drink after work. " Gaining weight with friends" is the "evidence" of his happiness Hangzhou life. Canadian rock climber Joe Langwald married a Hangzhou girl and has lived in Hangzhou for 20 years. He has spent 10 years developing Lion's Head Mountain into the largest climbing area for both bouldering and sport climbing base in eastern China. Langwald loves Hangzhou green tea and Lin' an bamboo shoots. "Don't ask me if I like here, time tells all," he told. "Hangzhou Expats" has attracted attention on social media immediately after its first seven episodes, which resulted in 350,000 views. " Nardus Smith left a comment: "I recently started rock climbing in Hangzhou and it's been so wonderful being part of a community where foreigners and locals truly get along," and his comments were echoed by others such as "I really want to live there, Hangzhou is so beautiful, ". Whether the city is inclusive or not? The expats living there have the final say. For overseas viewers who have never been to Hangzhou, "Hangzhou Expats" give them an objective presentation of the city. They can even imagine their future life in Hangzhou simply by watching these videos. Among the first group of Chinese cities to promote tourism overseas via social media platforms, Hangzhou has committed to developing international communication through cultural exchange and interactive communication in the past ten years. Hangzhou has shown its Chinese style, local charm and internationalization to the world by hosting a series of promotion activities, such as "Modern Marco Polo -Dr. Hangzhou"global recruitment campaign, Hangzhou Global Tour, and Hangzhou Global Qipao Festival. By the end of August 2022, over 1.3 million people followed the Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts of Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism, with over 35 million annual impressions and over 1.74 million annual interactions (including video views). A series of ongoing and upcoming activities, like Mid-Autumn Festival Photography Contest, interactive comics Su Dongpo's New Life in Hangzhou, "Hello Hangzhou" video collection on social media and traditional Chinese festivals celebrations, Asian Games and other hot topics, have offered overseas fans valuable chances to participate in Hangzhou's global culture and tourism endeavor. For more information, visit Hangzhou on Facebook , Instagram or YouTube . SOURCE Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism Gran Bestia drilling highlights include: C22-235: 0.91 g/t gold equivalent over 282 metres from 156 metres C22-239: 0.79 g/t gold equivalent over 454 metres from surface C22-G10: 0.83 g/t gold equivalent over 450 metres from surface Including a 118-metre interval from 10 metres down hole of 1.59 g/t gold equivalent VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Lumina Gold Corp. (TSXV: LUM) (OTCQX: LMGDF) (the "Company" or "Lumina") is pleased to announce the remaining results from the 2021-2022 drilling campaign in support of the ongoing Prefeasibility Study ("PFS") at its Cangrejos Project (the "Project") in Ecuador. Results from the final seventeen drill holes, fifteen from Gran Bestia and two from Cangrejos are provided in Table 1. Holes with a "G" designation are combined geotechnical and mineral resource drill holes. Figure 1. Plan map of drilling at the Cangrejos project including the surface trace of the two ultimate pits from the 2020 PEA. (CNW Group/Lumina Gold Corp.) Marshall Koval, President and CEO commented: "Receiving the final assays from Lumina's 36,000 metre PFS drill campaign allows resource estimation work to commence, which is a critical path item for completion of the PFS. The drill results continue to demonstrate the exceptional continuity of grade at Cangrejos and Gran Bestia and are in line with expectations from previous drilling. The newly drilled step-out areas are expected to add to existing Inferred and Indicated resources and the inclusion of the northwest ridge extension at Gran Bestia may lower the stripping ratio at the mine planning stage of the PFS study." Cangrejos Drill-Hole Results Results from C22-G7 and C22-G8 at Cangrejos located in the central and northern central area of the Cangrejos deposit are typical of this area, with hole C22-G7 returning 118 metres from surface grading 0.64 g/t gold and 0.12% copper, for a gold equivalent grade of 0.83 g/t. Gran Bestia Drill-Hole Results Hole C22-239 was drilled to extend the Gran Bestia deposit to the northwest and returned a 454 metre interval from surface grading 0.64 g/t gold and 0.10% copper, for a gold equivalent grade of 0.79 g/t, leaving the deposit open in this direction, to the north and to depth, as well as extending mineralization beyond the 2020 Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") pit boundary. Hole C22-G10 was drilled vertically from the center of the Gran Bestia deposit and returned a 450-metre interval from surface grading 0.64 g/t gold and 0.12% copper, for a gold equivalent grade of 0.83 g/t, including a 118-metre interval from 10 metres down hole of 1.28 g/t gold and 0.21% copper, for a gold equivalent grade of 1.59 g/t. Nine of the remaining fifteen holes were collared on Gran Bestia Ridge to extend mineralization to the west, northwest, north and northeast. Hole C22-235, at the northern part of the ridge intersected 282m grading 0.73 g/t gold and 0.11% copper, for a gold equivalent grade of 0.91 g/t from 156 metres. Hole C22-233 in the central part of the ridge intersected 428m grading 0.41 g/t gold and 0.07% copper for a gold equivalent of 0.51 g/t from 58 metres down hole. Table 1: Drill Results Hole Deposit / From To Interval Au Cu Au Eq Total Depth Azimuth / Dip () (m) (m) (m) (g/t) ( %) (g/t) (m) C22-232 Gran Bestia 24 38 14 0.36 0.06 0.46 484.3 And 330 / -70 50 450 400 0.43 0.09 0.57 And 464 480 16 0.22 0.07 0.32 C22-233 Gran Bestia 22 42 20 0.29 0.06 0.41 488.3 And 150 / -76 48 486 428 0.41 0.07 0.51 Incl 326 362 36 1.01 0.16 1.25 C22-234 Gran Bestia 28 292 264 0.56 0.09 0.69 473.3 And 0 / -90 306 320 14 0.35 0.06 0.45 And 332 432 100 0.30 0.08 0.42 C22-235 Gran Bestia 24 34 10 0.41 0.03 0.47 456.8 And 330 / -70 46 56 10 0.22 0.06 0.32 And 156 438 282 0.73 0.11 0.91 Incl 300 372 72 1.63 0.21 1.95 C22-236 Gran Bestia 2 36 34 0.56 0.07 0.68 470.1 And 270 / -70 50 442 392 0.36 0.08 0.48 Incl 158 172 14 1.13 0.16 1.37 C22-237 Gran Bestia 92 102 10 0.27 0.04 0.34 483.9 And 45 / -70 116 160 44 0.39 0.07 0.51 And 178 190 12 0.28 0.03 0.35 And 226 248 22 0.21 0.05 0.30 And 272 284 12 0.40 0.05 0.48 And 298 460 162 0.60 0.07 0.70 Incl 384 438 54 1.20 0.10 1.36 C22-238 Gran Bestia 2 24 22 0.30 0.06 0.39 476.3 And 0 / -90 36 308 272 0.59 0.08 0.73 And 320 354 34 0.24 0.07 0.34 And (to end of hole) 450 476.3 26.25 0.34 0.08 0.45 C22-239 Gran Bestia 0 453.7 (TD) 453.70 0.64 0.10 0.80 453.7 And 0 / -45 (incl) 50 100 50 1.04 0.15 1.27 Incl 176 264 88 0.83 0.13 1.03 C22-240 Gran Bestia 14 24 10 0.54 0.07 0.66 500.9 And 0 / -70 54 86 32 0.30 0.03 0.37 And 100 150 50 0.26 0.05 0.34 And 166 218 52 0.33 0.05 0.43 And 232 424 192 0.48 0.07 0.59 And 444 456 12 0.29 0.03 0.34 C22-241 Gran Bestia 2 134 132 0.63 0.07 0.74 453.4 Incl 330 / -40 30 56 26 1.09 0.09 1.23 And 150 162 12 0.20 0.05 0.28 And 174 394 220 0.77 0.09 0.90 Incl 314 366 52 1.10 0.10 1.24 And 408 434 26 0.35 0.05 0.42 C22-G7 Cangrejos 0 118 118 0.64 0.12 0.83 651.2 And 348 / -80 130 162 32 0.25 0.07 0.36 And 174 204 30 0.22 0.08 0.33 And 236 258 22 0.33 0.03 0.37 And 364 374 10 0.40 0.05 0.47 And 474 528 54 0.67 0.13 0.88 And 540 556 16 0.26 0.04 0.32 C22-G8 Cangrejos 2 14 12 0.55 0.11 0.77 676.0 And 0 / -90 26 50 24 0.32 0.04 0.39 And 68 88 20 0.20 0.02 0.23 And 268 278 10 0.38 0.08 0.51 And 350 392 42 0.64 0.09 0.78 And 416 552 136 0.51 0.05 0.59 Incl 490 508 18 1.21 0.06 1.30 And 578 620 42 0.42 0.02 0.46 And (to end of hole) 646 676 30 0.43 0.03 0.48 C22-G9 Gran Bestia 0 278 278 0.36 0.08 0.48 393.1 And 0 / -90 290 304 14 0.24 0.04 0.31 And 316 336 20 0.21 0.03 0.26 C22-G10 Gran Bestia 0 450 450 0.64 0.12 0.83 651.8 Incl 0 / -90 10 128 118 1.28 0.21 1.59 And 470 516 46 0.61 0.06 0.70 And 560 582 22 0.25 0.07 0.36 C22-G11 Gran Bestia 0 180 180 0.49 0.11 0.65 334.5 And 0 / -60 308 330 22 0.20 0.05 0.28 C22-G12 Gran Bestia 30 44 14 0.24 0.07 0.34 352.7 And 270 / -70 56 146 90 0.28 0.07 0.38 And 246 264 18 0.20 0.05 0.27 C22-G13 Gran Bestia 62 116 54 0.21 0.03 0.27 450.4 And 0 / -55 170 232 62 0.32 0.06 0.43 And 272 288 16 0.25 0.09 0.37 And 302 338 36 0.94 0.07 1.05 Note: Intervals in the reported holes are calculated using a cut-off of 0.2 g/t Au with maximum internal dilution of ten continuous metres. Sampling is done in consistent, continuous 2-metre intervals. The highest gold value used in the reported weighted averages is 23.2 g/t Au. In addition to the above results there were multiple intercepts of lower-grade material in the drill holes. Equivalent values assume 100% recovery of all quoted metals and the following prices were used: a gold price of US$1,500 per ounce, a copper price of US$3.00 per pound, a molybdenum price of US$7.00 per pound and a silver price of US$18.00 per ounce. Quality Assurance All Lumina sample assay results have been independently monitored through a quality control / quality assurance ("QA/QC") program that includes the insertion of blind standards, blanks and pulp and reject duplicate samples. Logging and sampling are completed at Lumina's secure facility located at the Cangrejos Project. Drill core is sawn in half on site and half drill-core samples are securely transported to ALS Labs' ("ALS") sample preparation facilities in Quito, Ecuador. Sample pulps are sent to ALS' chemical labs in Lima, Peru for analysis. Gold content is determined by fire assay of a 30-gram charge with total copper content determined by four-acid digestion with ICP finish. The lab is independent from Lumina. Lumina is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data referred to herein. Qualified Person Leo Hathaway, P.Geo., Senior Vice President of Lumina and the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects for the Cangrejos Project has reviewed, verified, and approved the contents of this news release and has verified the data underlying the contents of this news release. About Lumina Gold Lumina Gold Corp. (TSXV: LUM) is a Vancouver, Canada based precious and base metals exploration and development company focused on the Cangrejos Gold-Copper Project located in El Oro Province, southwest Ecuador. Cangrejos is being advanced to a Pre-Feasibility Study and is the largest primary gold deposit in Ecuador. Lumina has an experienced management team with a successful track record of advancing and monetizing exploration projects. Follow us on: Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook. Further details are available on the Company's website at https://luminagold.com/. To receive future news releases please sign up at https://luminagold.com/contact. LUMINA GOLD CORP. Signed: "Marshall Koval" Marshall Koval, President & CEO, Director Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information Certain statements and information herein, including all statements that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements or information include but are not limited to statements or information with respect to potentially adding mineral resources and impacts on components of a PFS study. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements or information can be identified by the use of words such as "will" or "projected" or variations of those words or statements that certain actions, events or results "will", "could", "are proposed to", "are planned to", "are expected to" or "are anticipated to" be taken, occur or be achieved. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, the Company has made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about general business and economic conditions, the prices of gold and copper, and anticipated costs and expenditures. The foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive. Although management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include, but are not limited to: risks associated with the business of the Company; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; the supply and demand for labour and other project inputs; changes in commodity prices; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to inaccurate geological and engineering assumptions (including with respect to the tonnage, grade and recoverability of reserves and resources); risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters); risks relating to adverse weather conditions; political risk and social unrest; changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time in the Company's continuous disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities administrators. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. SOURCE Lumina Gold Corp. FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark A. Hanna, DMD, is being recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Trusted Dentist for his exemplary contributions to the Dental profession and in acknowledgment of his many years of exceptional work with Grace Dental. A highly trained Dentistry Practitioner with over 20 years of expertise in his field, Dr. Mark Hanna specializes in cosmetic and sedation dentistry. He offers the latest advances in dental technology, such as digital x-ray, Hybridge Restorations, Invisalign, dental implants, and E4D same-day porcelain restorations. Mark A. Hanna, DMD Dr. Hanna says he knew from the tender age of 10 that he wanted to become a dentist. "I've always loved science, and I've always loved people." For him, dentistry was a natural fit to combine his two loves. In pursuit of his career, Dr. Hanna obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a Biology minor from Boston University in 1995. He completed his Doctor of Dental Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in 2000. Fellowship-trained by the International Congress of Oral Implantologists, Dr. Hanna is among the top 5% of dentists who completed postdoctoral clinical studies. He holds active memberships with the Academy of General Dentistry, the American Academy of Implant Dentistry, the American Dental Association, and the Massachusetts Dental Society. Dr. Hanna served as an associate dentist with two dental practices before opening his clinic Grace Dental in 2004. Well known for his compassionate care, He takes great pride in making his patients feel at ease and comfortable with their dental procedures. "You need to trust your dentist to do the right thing, and it's my mission to earn that trust with everything I do," he says. "At Grace Dental, we don't just fix teeth; we try to change lives." When he's not working, Dr. Hanna enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, and fishing. He is also an active member of his church and a supporter of charitable community organizations. On a personal note, he is fluent in English, French, and Arabic. Dr. Hanna wishes to dedicate this honor to his mentor, Dr. Bahaa Rizkalla. He would also like to acknowledge his wife, Heba, their children, Grace and Noah, and his parents, Adel and Magda, for their love and support. For more information, visit www.gracedental.org. Contact: Katherine Green 516-825-5634 [email protected] SOURCE Continental Who's Who MIAMI, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School has been awarded AMBA accreditation and joins a group of the world's leading business schools that hold the "triple crown" accreditation statusa feat achieved by less than 1 percent of the world's business schools. In the United States, Miami Herbert is one of only three business schools with this coveted designation. Achieving triple-crown accreditation means that the School has earned accreditation from AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA the three most prestigious business school accreditation organizations. "This latest accreditation from AMBA recognizes continuing progress at Miami Herbert," said John Quelch, dean of Miami Herbert. "At Miami Hebert, we cultivate a premier learning community that values diversity, technology, a global mindset, and sustainable prosperity. We don't just talk the talk, or only walk the walkwe shape the future." The Association of MBAs is the leading authority on postgraduate management education. Accreditation from AMBA represents the highest standard of achievement in postgraduate business education. Its rigorous assessment criteria ensure that only the highest-caliber programs achieve AMBA accreditation. Members of AMBA's accreditation panel commended Miami Herbert's commitment to teaching in small class sizes providing a high-touch experience for its MBA students. The panel also noted the significant and impressive investment in faculty size and the research capability at the School. Current MBA students, MBA alumni, and employers who met with the assessment panel during their visit also mentioned that they greatly appreciated the personal touch brought by Dean Quelch. Andrew Main Wilson, chief executive of the AMBA and BGA said, "I am delighted to welcome Miami Herbert Business School into our network of the top 2% of Business Schools globally. This School is internationally known for its quality of teaching and research." For the list of all AMBA accredited Schools, click here. About Miami Herbert Business School Miami Herbert is a leader in preparing individuals and organizations to excel in the complex, dynamic, and interconnected world of global business. The second largest of 12 schools and colleges at the University of Miami, the School offers undergraduate, master's, doctoral, and executive education programs. Miami Herbert is acclaimed for its global perspective, student and faculty diversity, commitment to sustainability, innovation, and engagement with the business community. www.herbert.miami.edu SOURCE University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School GENEVA, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SA, a global leader in transportation and logistics, has started developing a new MSC Air Cargo solution in response to customer demand and as a complementary service to its container shipping solutions. MSC Air Cargo has been under development for several months and the new solution will be available from early 2023, following the delivery of the first of four MSC-branded Boeing 777-200F aircraft that will be operated by Atlas Air, a subsidiary of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. MSC-branded Boeing 777-200F aircraft MSC has appointed Jannie Davel, formerly of Delta Cargo, Emirates SkyCargo and DHL to develop its air cargo business and to build the team that will implement it. Commenting on the new initiative, MSC Chief Executive Officer Soren Toft said: "We are delighted to announce the development of MSC Air Cargo and to welcome Jannie Davel to spearhead this exciting new offering for MSC clients. This is our first step into this market and we plan to continue exploring various avenues to develop air cargo in a way that complements our core business of container shipping." About Jannie Davel Jannie Davel is an accomplished executive in the air freight industry, with nearly 30 years of industry experience. He was appointed Vice President Global RFQ Management of DHL in 2008, then promoted to Vice President Global Airfreight Product Development and Implementation in Germany and, subsequently, SVP Airfreight Americas & USA Head of Airfreight. In 2018 he joined Emirates SkyCargo as Vice President Cargo Commercial Operation Americas and most recently he has served as Managing Director Commercial Delta Cargo based in Atlanta, Georgia. About MSC MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is a global leader in transportation and logistics, privately owned and founded in 1970 by Gianluigi Aponte. As one of the world's leading container shipping lines, MSC has 675 offices across 155 countries worldwide with the MSC Group employing over 150,000 people. With access to an integrated network of road, rail and sea transport resources which stretches across the globe, the company prides itself on delivering global service with local knowledge. MSC's shipping line sails on more than 260 trade routes, calling at 520 ports. For more information visit www.msc.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907358/MSC_1.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1495491/MSC_Mediterranean_Shipping_Company_Logo.jpg SOURCE MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- An early-stage startup born in the heart of Utah's Silicon Slopes, Oops offers doorstep return pickups for in-store and online purchases across the Wasatch Range. Founded by Jonathan Crawley and Joseph Hatch, Oops raised a $5 million seed round led by Peterson Partners , with contributions from EPIC Ventures , Maverick Ventures , Pelion Venture Partners , Village Global , and angel investors. Oops driver picking up returns in a Draper neighborhood The startup, which launched in June, serves neighborhoods along the I-15 corridor from Spanish Fork to Ogden, including most of Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, and Summit counties. Using an intuitive website and mobile app for iPhone and Android , Oops solves the pain of making returns by doing all the heavy lifting. Customers simply schedule a pickup, and an Oops driver in a signature blue van completes the return on the customer's behalf. Boxes and printed labels are not required, and all returns are insured up to $1,000. "We have an incredible opportunity to close the loop in logistics and enable a novel shopping experience where retail happens entirely from the home," explains Joseph, President of Oops. The Oops team is also passionate about helping busy parents spend more time with their families. "Standing in line at Best Buy or Home Depot is not the best way to interact with my kids," says Jonathan, CEO of Oops. "Particularly as a working parent, quality time is really valuable for me, and doing returns just sucked that time away." Formerly the Chief Financial Officer of Collective Medical , Jonathan has deep roots in the Utah tech space, with a background in strategy and finance, having worked at McKinsey . "This is genuinely a need for a lot of people," Jonathan explains, recalling that Oops' first customer had a broken leg and couldn't leave the house. "I'm very excited about solving this need, freeing up time for people so they can do what they want to do." The business concept came to Joseph while he was making returns of his own, feeling frustrated by the need to drive to multiple stores and wait in long return lines. "The idea for Oops came as I was sitting in a UPS parking lot, the first stop on a returns escapade that I realized was about to steal my Saturday," says Joseph. "The core value-add of the platform is to create a single, consumer-oriented touchpoint for returns and give people time back to spend doing the things that they love with the people they love." With a background in venture capital, Joseph has worked most recently at Intermountain Ventures and Goldman Sachs . Oops also provides donation pickups and returns furniture and oversized items. The goal is to reduce shopping anxiety by empowering customers to buy multiple options, keep what works, and easily return what doesn't. "We are very consumer-centric and customer-oriented, and I think that orientation means that we are going to jump through hoops to help people," Jonathan says. New customers can take advantage of a 30-day free trial, then pay $15/month for unlimited returns, or request a single pickup for $6 for the first pickup. While returns can be viewed as detrimental to the environment, Oops is built on the core value of sustainability and makes every effort to minimize environmental impact. "Fifty-five percent of returns don't end up back on shelves, and we plan on helping address that," Jonathan says. To schedule a return pickup, visit oops.io or download the mobile app through the Apple Store or Google Play . Media Contact: Ari Mason [email protected] SOURCE Oops Technologies DUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Regional Analysis By Technology, Product, and Application" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The North America non-lethal weapons market is expected to grow from US$ 2,133.91 million in 2021 to US$ 3,055.40 million by 2028; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.3% from 2021 to 2028. Developed and developing nations experienced a significant rise in military expenditure. For instance, according to the data published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2020, military expenditure experienced a rise of 2.6% compared to 2019. This growth is attributed to the military and law enforcement agencies increasing their acquisition of modern equipment and weapons. A few of the major acquisitions of non-lethal weapons observed over the years. For instance, in June 2017, American Systems, Applied Research Associates, Applied Technologies, and Booz Allen Hamilton received contracts worth US$ 50 million for supplying non-lethal weapons from the US Department of Defense. The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program coordinates non-lethal weapon developments, acquisitions, and deployment among the military services. The rise in procuring non-lethal weapons across developed and developing nations to increase the adoption of non-lethal weapons by military and regional law enforcement bodies is fueling the growth of the non-lethal weapons market over the years across the region. With the new features and technologies, vendors can attract new customers and expand their footprints in emerging markets. This factor is likely to drive the North America non-lethal weapons market . The North America non-lethal weapons market is expected to grow at a good CAGR during the forecast period. North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Segmentation The mechanical and kinetic segment dominated the market in 2020 and electromagnetic segment is expected to be fastest growing during forecast period. Based on product, the market is segmented into direct contact weapons and directed energy weapons. The direct contact weapons segment dominated the market in 2020 and directed energy weapons segment is expected to be fastest growing during forecast period. Based on application, the market is segmented into law enforcement agencies, military, and personalized applications. The law enforcement agencies segment dominated the market in 2020 and military segment is expected to be fastest growing during forecast period. Based on country, the North America non-lethal weapons market is segmented into the US, Canada, and Mexico. Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 1.1 Study Scope 1.2 Research Report Guidance 1.3 Market Segmentation 2. Key Takeaways 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Coverage 3.2 Secondary Research 3.3 Primary Research 4. North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Landscape 4.1 Market Overview 4.2 Porter's Five Force Analysis 4.3 Ecosystem Analysis 4.4 Expert Opinion 5. North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market - Key Industry Dynamics 5.1 Market Drivers 5.1.1 Rise in Acquisition of Non-lethal Weapons 5.1.2 Increased Investments in the Development of New Non-Lethal Weapons 5.2 Market Restraints 5.2.1 Severe Consequences Related of Using Non-Lethal Weapons 5.3 Market Opportunities 5.3.1 Legalization of Non-Lethal Weapons for Personal Applications 5.4 Future Trends 5.4.1 Inclusion of Advanced Technologies with Non-Lethal Weapons 5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints 6. Non-Lethal Weapons Market - North America Analysis 6.1 North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Overview 6.2 North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Forecast and Analysis 7. North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Analysis - By Technology 7.1 Overview 7.2 North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Breakdown, by Technology, 2020 and 2028 7.3 Chemical 7.4 Acoustic 7.5 Electromagnetic 7.6 Mechanical and Kinetic 8. North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Analysis - By Product Overview 8.1 North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Breakdown, by Product, 2020 and 2028 8.2 Directed Contact Weapon 8.2.1 Overview 8.2.2 Direct Contact Weapon: Non-Lethal Weapons Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 8.3 Directed Energy Weapon 9. North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Analysis - By Application 9.1 Overview 9.2 North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market Breakdown, by Application, 2020 and 2028 9.3 Law Enforcement Agencies 9.3.1 Overview 9.3.2 Law Enforcement Agencies: Non-Lethal Weapons Market Revenue and Forecast to 2028 (US$ Million) 9.4 Military 9.5 Personalized Application 10. North America Non-Lethal Weapons Market - Country Analysis 10.1 Overview 10.1.2 North America: Non-Lethal Weapons Market, by Key Country 11. Industry Landscape 11.1 Overview 11.2 Market Initiative 11.3 New Product Development 12. Company Profiles Axon Enterprise, Inc Byrna Technologies Inc. Combined Systems, Inc. Condor Non-Lethal Technologies FN Herstal ISPRA by EL Ltd. Lamperd Less Lethal NonLethal Technologies, Inc. PepperBall Rheinmetall AG For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/t0igqg 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 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets LONDON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the next year, the telecoms industry is going to see a huge amount of innovation, driven by developments such as telco and hyperscaler convergence, the introduction of 5G standalone, the wider adoption of open RAN and new applications and services designed for the network edge. These are the trends that will be discussed and debated at Network X, the new event focusing on the convergence of 5G, fixed networks and the cloud, which will be setting the agenda for telecoms in 2023. Ahead of the event, Omdia analysts share their predictions regarding these key themes and how they are expected to develop over the next year. Research Director Dario Talmesio: "In the next five years, telcos will collectively invest $1.9tn in fixed and mobile networks and operations, but they will spend as much as 66.3% of their revenues on operating expenses. To generate efficiencies, operate more cost-effectively and make a return on their investments, operators are exploring opportunities to shift workloads into a hyperscaler cloud (public cloud), rather than managing them in their own private data centres." Principal Analyst Roberto Kompany: "5G has been hyped for years but has yet to significant upgrade on LTE, or lead to the creation of any new killer applications. However, that may change in 2023 as we see 'true 5G' emerge with more deployments of Standalone (SA) networks. 5G SA can be hailed as true 5G because it enables many of the advanced performance benefits that 5G was designed for, such as low latency, slicing, and edge computing. These features are likely to help with the development of new 5G-native business and consumer applications. Chief Analyst, Julie Kunstler: "In 2023, PON will continue to be the dominant fibre-access technology deployed around the world. This growth provides significant opportunities to existing PON OLT vendors and the unprecedented opportunities for PON equipment vendors will continue." Network X 2022 is taking place between 18-20 October at RAI Amsterdam. Media interested in attending Network X and meeting with Omdia analysts for more trends and predictions can register for a press pass here . ABOUT OMDIA Omdia is a leading research and advisory group focused on the technology industry. With clients operating in over 120 countries, Omdia provides market-critical data, analysis, advice, and custom consulting. Media Contact Fasiha Khan / T: +44 7503 666806 / E: [email protected] Visit Omdia SOURCE Omdia A clear majority in the GCC, North Africa and the Levant (64%) say democracy in the region will never work, despite two-thirds of Arab youth saying they have more freedoms because of the Arab Spring While perceptions of the United States as an ally of the Arab world have strengthened over the past five years, a majority support its disengagement from the Middle East China , Turkey and Russia are seen as stronger allies of their countries by young Arabs than historical powerbrokers the U.S., the United Kingdom and France A third of Arab youth hold the U.S. and NATO primarily responsible for the conflict in Ukraine compared with 18% who say Russia is to blame DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Young Arab men and women in the Middle East & North Africa, a cohort that has lived through the Arab Spring, the rise and fall of Daesh (ISIS) and the Covid-19 pandemic, are charting a new course as they contemplate their future, with a full 82 percent saying that promoting stability is more important than promoting democracy. ASDAA BCW AYS 2022 Findings - 1 ASDAA BCW AYS 2022 Findings - 2 ASDAA BCW AYS 2022 Findings - 3 This is in stark contrast to the results of the 2009 Arab Youth Survey, in which 92% of young Arabs said living in a democratic country was their single-most important priority. A majority in the GCC (57%), 62% in North Africa and 72% in the Levant say that democracy in the region will never work. These were some of the top findings of the 14th Annual ASDA'A BCW Arab Youth Survey, the largest study of the Middle East & North Africa's largest demographic, its 200 million plus youth, unveiled today in Dubai. ASDA'A BCW, the region's leading communications consultancy, commissioned IDS Research & Consultancy to conduct face-to-face interviews with 3,400 Arab citizens aged 18 to 24 in 50 cities across 17 Arab states from May 13 to June 16, 2022. The sample was equally split between men and women. Most of the so-called Arab Spring Generation, which entered adulthood after the momentous events of the early 2010s, say they have more freedoms today because of the protests and that their voice matters to their leadership. A full 59% of respondents say that women have equal rights. Entrepreneurship on the rise While 87% of Arab youth in the GCC say their government has the right policies to tackle the issues most important to young people, fewer than six in 10 in North Africa, and barely a fifth (21%) in Levant say the same. Against this backdrop, more young people say they would prefer to work for themselves or with their family (28%) than for the government or the private sector. Attitudes towards religion The uncertainty of young Arab men and women today is arguably most conspicuous in their attitudes towards religion. Overall, 41% say their religion is most important to their identity (a 7% increase compared to 2021), followed by their nationality (18%), their family or tribe (17%) and cultural heritage (7%), though the attachment to religion is less in the Levant (24%). And nearly three-quarters overall (70%) and a clear majority in all three regions express concern about the loss of traditional values and culture. Most youth in all three regions also agree that preserving the region's religious and cultural identity is more important than creating a more globalized society (65% say this overall). And 70% of youth in the GCC and 60% in the North Africa say that Sharia law should be the basis of their legal systems rather than civil or common law, though just over 4 in 10 in the Levant agree. In contrast, 73% of Arab youth overall (78% in the GCC, 76% in North Africa and 65% in the Levant) say that religion plays too big a role in Middle Eastern life, and more than three-quarters (77%) say that religious institutions in the region require reform. Changing allegiances In a further sign of today's shifting global allegiances, Arab youth now view China, Turkey and Russia as stronger allies of their countries than historical powerbrokers the U.S., the United Kingdom and France. This year, three-quarters (78%) of Arab youth say China is either a strong ally or somewhat of an ally of their country, followed by Turkey (77%) and Russia (72%). The UK and France were the fourth-ranked strongest allies on 70%, followed by the United States (63%) in sixth. Despite the thaw in relations heralded by the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, Arab youth remain steadfast in their opposition to Israel, with 88% saying the country is a strong enemy or somewhat of an enemy. Nearly two-thirds (62%) say the same of Iran. Responsibility for the Ukraine crisis Perhaps most surprising is the stance of Arab youth on the Ukraine conflict, with 31% saying they hold the U.S. and NATO primarily responsible for the conflict, while 18% say Russia is mostly to blame. More youth in the Levant (41%) and North Africa (29%) than other areas surveyed said that accountability rests with NATO and the U.S., while GCC youth are more divided on the issue, with 22% saying Russia is to blame and 21% saying NATO/the U.S. are at fault. The U.S. continues to have by far the most influence on the Arab world, according to the research. More than a third (36%) say the U.S. has the most influence, compared with just 4% who say China is the most influential. After the U.S., Saudi Arabia (11%), Israel (9%), the UAE (7%), and Iran (7%) are said to be the most influential nations. Support for U.S. disengagement from MENA The fact that the U.S. still holds sway over the region could explain why most Arab youth want the country to play a less prominent role in MENA affairs. Three-quarters (73%) say they either strongly or somewhat support the disengagement of the U.S. from the Middle East, with the proportion of Arab youth taking this stance consistent across the GCC, Levant and North Africa. Arab youth still consider Western nations role models Arab youth may be wary of Western political influence in the region, but they clearly approve of Western countries as places to live. After the United Arab Emirates, voted for by 57% of young Arabs, the top five countries they say they would most like to live in are the United States (24%), Canada (20%), France (15%) and Germany (15%). And for the ninth straight the year, the U.S. is also the country most Arab youth say they would like their own to be like, again after the UAE (37%). Around a quarter (22%) of young Arabs say they would like their own country to emulate the U.S., followed by Canada (18%), Germany (14%), France (11%) and Turkey (11%). More young Arabs consider emigration Bleak employment opportunities are encouraging Arab youth to emigrate, with nearly half (45%) saying they are either actively trying to emigrate or have considered emigrating up from 42% in 2020 and 33% last year. Canada (22%), Germany (19%) and the US (17%) are the three most popular destinations the UAE is ranked fourth (14%). Rise of TikTok The popularity of Twitter and Facebook is declining, but the use of TikTok has more than doubled in the past three years, from 21% of youth saying they use it daily in 2020 to 50% today. TikTok is the fifth most popular social media app in terms of daily usage. WhatsApp ranks first, with 82% of Arab youth saying they use it daily, followed by Facebook (72%), Instagram (61%) and YouTube (53%). Donna Imperato, Global CEO, BCW, said the findings of the 14th ASDA'A BCW Arab Youth Survey open a window onto the shifting dynamics of the Arab world. "Once again, the ASDA'A BCW Arab Youth Survey provides rich data for policymakers, businesses and communicators who want to better understand the hopes, attitudes and aspirations of the MENA's region's largest demographic. "While this year's study arguably paints the most enigmatic picture of Arab youth in its 14-year history, some characteristics of the so-called Arab Spring Generation are clear to see. They are united by their faith, their roots, their resourcefulness, and their demand for a fair chance to succeed," Imperato added. Sunil John, President, MENA, BCW and Founder of ASDA'A BCW, said the research presented further valuable insights into the mindset of young Arab men and women across MENA, and the issues decision makers must address if they are to make the most of their potential. "These evidence-based insights inform governments, businesses, multilateral institutions and academics on policymaking and strategy. At ASDA'A BCW, we believe that to understand the Arab world, we must first understand the hearts and minds of its largest demographic, its youth. Once again, this year's survey pinpoints critical themes in their outlook. "The current generation of Arab youth are moving on from the divisions of the early 2010s but have yet to decide the direction they will take. They want more freedoms, but they prioritize stability. They seek reform but want to preserve their culture and traditions. They are optimistic and self-reliant, believing their best days lie ahead, but their expectations are high." The findings of this year's ASDA'A BCW Arab Youth Survey are presented under six distinct themes My Identity, My Livelihood, My Politics, My Global Citizenship, My Lifestyle and My Aspirations. They reveal a generation at a crossroads, confronted with the dilemma of preserving their traditional culture and values on the one hand, and embracing modernization and reform on the other. To know more, please visit arabyouthsurvey.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907645/Asdaa_BCW.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907647/Asdaa_BCW.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907646/Asdaa_BCW.jpg SOURCE Asdaa BCW DSRR to Further Enhance Rail Shipper Capabilities for Customers in Louisiana JACKSONVILLE, Fla. and TALLULAH, La., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Patriot Rail Company LLC today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Delta Southern Railroad, Inc. (DSRR), a short line railroad company operating two line segments in Louisiana. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. DSRR operates over 40 miles of track and serves two port facilities Lake Providence Port and Madison Parish Port located on the Mississippi River. DSRR interchanges with Kansas City Southern and Union Pacific Railroad. DSRR is well situated in a strong chemical and petrochemicals corridor, with a customer base comprising several large-scale chemical manufacturers as well as forest industry shippers. DSRR's lines are located on the Kansas City Southern "Meridian Speedway" and Louisiana Highway 20. Patriot Rail to Acquire Delta Southern Railroad Tweet this The transaction follows Patriot Rail's closure on September 14, 2022 of the acquisition of Pioneer Lines. Upon completion of the transaction with DSRR, Patriot Rail's continuing growth emphasis will increase the company's short line operations to 32 railroads and elevate Patriot's support for rail customers across the U.S. DSRR will enhance Patriot's Louisiana presence along with Patriot-owned Louisiana and North West Railroad (LNW), which is headquartered in Homer, Louisiana, and provides rail service from Gibsland, Louisiana, to McNeil, Arkansas. "Including Delta Southern in Patriot Rail's expanding network will enable further competitive options for rail shippers in Louisiana and across the country," said John E. Fenton, Patriot Rail's chief executive officer. "This strategic acquisition adds to the company's most recent expansion and exemplifies our growth focus on quality rail franchises to meet customer needs." "We are excited to join a highly-respected company like Patriot, which has a strong track record of growth and significant resources to continue building a first-class rail network," said DSRR chief executive officer Jon Ryan. "I am incredibly proud of the strong foundation that DSRR has built, and as we bring together two best-in-class companies, I am excited to see what we can accomplish together. As DSRR enters its next chapter, I am confident we will continue to drive benefits for our customers and our employees, as well as the local Louisiana communities that we operate in." The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory authorization. Winston & Strawn LLP and Gentry Locke served as legal counsel to Patriot. Northborne Partners served as financial advisor to DSRR and Reed Smith LLP served as legal counsel. About Patriot Rail Patriot Rail operates 31 regional and freight short line railroads, a scenic rail excursion train, and rail-related services companies with operations in 23 states. Service capabilities include railcar storage, contract switching, transloading, railcar cleaning, engineering services, excursion railroads, real estate, and track access. Patriot Rail is also a direct partner in providing railcar repair and maintenance, railcar dismantling, and environmental services, including centralized wastewater treatment. For more information, visit patriotrail.com. About Delta Southern Established in 2009, Delta Southern Railroad, Inc. is a short line railroad comprised of two lines, located approximately sixty miles apart in Monroe and Tallulah, Louisiana and serving two port facilities located on the mighty Mississippi River: Lake Providence Port and Madison Parish Port. Delta Southern transports grain, aggregate materials, agricultural products, cotton, coal, chemicals, fertilizer, forest products, sand clay and soda ash. Delta Southern is proud to work closely with well-respected railroad and interchange partners: Kansas City Southern (KCS) and Union Pacific Railroad (UP). DSRR fosters strategic alliances with integrators and service providers to expand new economic opportunities within the region and for the communities it serves and calls home. For more information, visit www.deltasouthern.net. Media Contacts For Patriot Rail: Jamie Caton [email protected] (720) 504-4289 For Delta Southern: [email protected] SOURCE Patriot Rail Company WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) has announced the newest trustees to its honorary board: His Excellency Akbar Al Baker and celebrated Indian American fashion designer Naeem Khan. Each a pioneer in his field, they share a common commitment to arts and culture and join the organization at a pivotal moment as QAIC continues to pursue its multipronged approach for connecting creatives, convening communities, and celebrating art and culture from the United States, Qatar and the larger Arab and Islamic worlds. "The Qatar America Institute for Culture is honored to welcome these two exceptional leaders and visionaries joining H.E. Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani as honorary trustees of QAIC," said Fatima Al-Dosari, the Executive Director of the QAIC. "As we broaden our audience and continue to celebrate what is shared between cultures through art, our new honorary trustees will bring a wealth of inspiration and leadership to further our mission and vision of being a hub for cultural exchange. It's a privilege to work with all of our honorary trustees as QAIC continues to expand its programming in Washington, Qatar and beyond." About the New Trustees His Excellency Akbar Al Baker His Excellency Akbar Al Baker has been the Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive since 1997 and is the Chairman of Qatar Tourism. Al Baker has been the driving force behind Qatar Airways' growth from a small regional airline to a major global carrier, and the exponential growth of the travel and tourism industry in Qatar. Al Baker is also a Group Chief Executive of Haman International Airport, a member of the Executive Committee of the Arab Air Carriers Organization, and a Non-Executive Director of Heathrow Airport Holdings. Qatar Airways has been a sponsor of QAIC since 2021 and is recognized as QAIC's "official airline" for all art and culture delegations and supporting the transport of art exhibitions between Qatar and the United States. In addition, Qatar Tourism, also generously supported many of QAIC's previous art and culture programs in Washington, D.C., New York, and Qatar including delegations to Doha, food festivals, and annual programs. Naeem Khan Award-winning fashion designer Naeem Khan launched his eponymous collection, House of Khan, in 2003. Khan was quickly inducted as a member of the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2008 and his collections have adorned glamourous women around the world, including H.E. Sheika Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned of Qatar, Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, First Lady Michelle Obama, Queen Noor of Jordan, and the Princess of Wales, Catherine Middleton. He launched the Naeem Khan Bridal collection in 2013 which became an annual exclusive event to showcase his design worldwide including Doha, Qatar. In June, Khan was an honorary guest at QAIC where he was interviewed by QAIC board of directors' secretary and inaugural chair of the VCUQatar Fashion Department, Sandra 'Sandy' Wilkins, for an Expressions Series: Art & Culture Talks. The program aims to highlight the intersections and cultural connections that tie the American, Qatari, and people of the Arab and Islamic Worlds through the act of storytelling. The recording, which was released on September 15, coincides with New York Fashion Week and is available on qataramerica.org and QAIC's YouTube channel. About Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) The Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) is a Washington, D.C.-based independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that creates, curates, and executes programs and research that amplify the prominence of all forms of art and culture from the United States, Qatar and the larger Arab and Islamic worlds. To learn more about QAIC and upcoming programs, visit qataramerica.org. SOURCE Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) STOCKHOLM, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sandvik has appointed Mats Eriksson as President of business area Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions (SMR) and new member of the Sandvik Group Executive Management, effective October 1, 2022. He is currently President of Load and Haul, a division within Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions. "Mats Eriksson is an experienced international leader who has successfully delivered strong results and growth for the Load and Haul division. He has also been instrumental in the development of our world-leading offering of battery-electric vehicles. Mats Eriksson has a strong track record of developing high-performing leaders and organizations, and I am confident that he with his solid background and capabilities will be a great President of the Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions business area," says Stefan Widing, President and CEO of Sandvik. Mats Eriksson was born in 1962 and is a Finnish national. He joined Sandvik in 2016, when he assumed the position as President of the Load and Haul division. His previous experience includes being President and CEO for two listed companies, Cencorp Oyj and Salcomp Oyj. Additionally, he has held leading positions for several other companies, building businesses and operations in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, U.S., Brazil and South Korea. For further information, contact Louise Tjeder, VP Investor relations, phone: +46 (0) 70782 6374 or Johannes Hellstrom, Press and Media Relations Manager, phone: +46 (0) 70721 1008. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/sandvik/r/sandvik-appoints-new-president-of-business-area-sandvik-mining-and-rock-solutions,c3636670 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/208/3636670/1630968.pdf Sandvik appoints new President of business area Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions https://news.cision.com/sandvik/i/y9a1020-edit,c3093429 Y9A1020-Edit SOURCE Sandvik De Bolster will use the world's first AI-powered scanning solution to improve the germinability & Usable Plant rate and recover non-sellable seeds MAGSHIMIM, Israel, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- De Bolster, the leading organic seed breeding company, has announced the purchase of Seed-X's breakthrough GeNeeTM technology. De Bolster champions sustainable solutions for organic farmers and is harnessing the power of GeNeeTM Technology to improve the usable plant rate of its tomato, pepper and cucumber seeds. GeNeeTM technology is the world's first seed scanning solution that uses computer vision and artificial intelligence, rather than mechanical sifting processes. By disrupting conventional seed processing, it sets a new standard in seed lot quality. Its non-destructive, seed-by-seed classification, based on image analysis, predicts germination and other unaddressed quality attributes. It promotes seed waste reduction, and increases usable seed quantities. As a result, seed suppliers can restore the market value of otherwise unsellable batches. With traditional separation procedures, an average of 10%-15% seed lots fail to meet the target quality. That figure can drop to only just 5% with GeNeeTM Sorter. De Bolster has bought the GeNee technology ready-embedded in a sorting machine built by German-based company Petkus Technologie GmbH in partnership with Seed-X. De Bolster will use the Petkus OS-P machine to map the size, color and other attributes of germinated seeds, allowing it to improve the performance of its current seed processing line and strengthen its production capabilities, It will provide customers with organic, highly-germinating and vigorous seeds produced in a sustainable, more cost-efficient manner. Sarel Ashkenazi, CEO and Founder of Seed-X Technologies, said: "I believe our breakthrough technology is a perfect fit with De Bolster's commitment to sustainability and supporting organic farming. De Bolster already provides growers with high quality seed of the best varieties. By purchasing our GeNeeTM technology they will be able to upgrade their seed lots, streamline production, and execute more efficient seed production planning. They will also save on storage and operational expenses." Frank Vosselman owner of the family firm De Bolster, said: "After a period of testing we are really excited to start working with Seed-x. Especially for our high tech" organic greenhouse customers we see that quality is key. With Seed-x we are able to bring the usable plants to a higher level. " About Seed-X Seed-X is an AI-driven Agri-Food Tech software company revolutionizing seed quality and food safety across the entire seed and grain value chain for the benefit of seed and food companies. Seed-X's proprietary technology, combining computer vision and deep learning analysis capabilities, facilitates a more sustainable & secure food future by addressing new quality attributes at the single seed level and introducing innovative quality control and segmentation capabilities. About De Bolster With a great passion for organic farming, De Bolster is specialized in breeding and propagation of organic seeds producing over 390 varieties of vegetables, herbs and flowers, all certified organic and GMO-free. As an innovative breeder, De Bolster is the market leader in orange winter squash for the fresh market in North-West Europe developing a broad range of organic varieties in tomatoes, pepper, beans and summer squash. Media Contact: Seed-X Technologies Ltd Inga Balter Marketing Communications Manager Tel: +972.52.4773375 Email: [email protected] www.seed-x.com SOURCE Seed-X DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) today is celebrating the contributions of President & Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven, an industry veteran and proven Leader, who announced plans to step down from his role as Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the end of September and from his role as President at the end of December. Mike will become an Executive Advisor for the Company at the start of 2023. With this announcement, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bob Jordan will assume the additional role of President, effective Jan. 1, 2023. "I want to thank Mike for nearly three decades of Leadership and his unwavering commitment to the cause that is Southwest Airlines. We would not be where we are today without his countless contributions," said Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan. "Mike has spent more than 16 years overseeing our operation as Chief of Operations and Chief Operating Officer, helping to usher in a new era for Southwest Airlines through a series of major initiatives, including modernizing our fleet, achieving ETOPS certification, and allowing us to expand our footprint to Hawaiijust to name a fewall the while serving as a champion for our People." The transition paves the way for several other leadership changes, effective Oct. 1, 2022: Andrew Watterson is promoted from Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer to Chief Operating Officer (COO). Watterson joined Southwest Airlines in 2013 with a wealth of commercial and operational experiencefrom time serving the U.S. Army, to consulting air carriers across the globe in airline operations at both Oliver Wyman and Ernst & Young, and in leadership at Hawaiian Airlines. In his new role, Watterson will provide Executive Leadership to Flight Operations, Inflight Operations, Crew Scheduling, Cargo & Charters, Customer Support & Services, Ground Operations, Hospitality Operations Support, Labor Relations, Network Operations Control, Regulatory Programs & Compliance, Operations Strategy, Performance & Design, Safety & Security, and Technical Operations. Additionally, he will continue to oversee the airline's Network Planning Department. Watterson holds a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's in business administration with a concentration in Operations Management from Vanderbilt University. Ryan Green is promoted from Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer to Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer. In addition to his continued Leadership of the Marketing and Customer Experience & Engagement departments, Green will provide oversight to the Commercial Planning, Revenue Management & Pricing, and Southwest Business departments. Green is a 20-year Southwest veteran, where he has served in a number of capacities focusing on fostering brand loyalty while looking toward future growth and revenue opportunities. Green holds a bachelor's degree in Marketing from Texas A&M University. Linda Rutherford is promoted from Executive Vice President People & Communications & Chief Communications Officer to Chief Administration & Communications Officer. Rutherford currently leads Southwest's Communications & Outreach; Culture & Engagement; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; People (Human Resources); Southwest Airlines University; Talent & Leadership Development; and Total Rewards departments. In addition to these responsibilities, she will provide Executive Leadership to the Technology and Internal Audit departments, and Southwest's Chief Information Officer and Internal Audit Vice President will report to Linda. She is a 30-year Southwest veteran with a bachelor's degree in Journalism from Texas Tech University. Jordan continued, "Mike has led with heart while playing a critical role in transforming our operational capabilities to enable our growth and prosperity. He, alongside his Teams, have laid the foundation to modernize many areas of our complex business and his guidance has kept us moving forwardmomentum we can build upon for generations. Mike will spend the next several months working alongside me, Andrew, Linda and our operational Leaders as he works to transition his existing duties. We are so fortunate to have a deep and talented bench of Leaders to carry on our Legacy and take us to new heights, and I want to congratulate Andrew, Ryan, and Linda on their well-deserved promotions. We are in good hands with their expertise, Leadership, and LUV for our People." "The entire Southwest Familypast and presentowes Mike a tremendous debt of gratitude for his steady Leadership, resolve, and fortitude all these many years. He is a Servant Leader for our People, a trusted confidant to our Leadership Team, and a wonderful ambassador for Southwest Airlines. I, too, am grateful that he will continue to contribute to our ongoing success in his new role," said Southwest's Executive Chairman Gary Kelly. ABOUT SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. Southwest Airlines Co. operates one of the world's most admired and awarded airlines, offering its one-of-a-kind value and Hospitality at 121 airports across 11 countries. Celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2021, Southwest took flight in 1971 to democratize the sky through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel and now carries more air travelers flying nonstop within the United States than any other airline1. Based in Dallas and famous for an Employee-first corporate Culture, Southwest maintains an unprecedented record of no involuntary furloughs or layoffs in its history. By empowering its more than 62,0002 People to deliver unparalleled Hospitality, the maverick airline cherishes a passionate loyalty among as many as 130 million Customers carried a year. That formula for success brought industry-leading prosperity and 47 consecutive years3 of profitability for Southwest Shareholders (NYSE: LUV). Southwest leverages a unique legacy and mission to serve communities around the world including harnessing the power of its People and Purpose to put communities at the Heart of its success. Learn more by visiting Southwest.com/citizenship. Southwest is also continuing to develop tangible steps toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, including offering Customers an opportunity to help the airline offset its carbon emissions. To be part of the solution, visit Southwest.com/wannaoffsetcarbon. 1) U.S. Dept. of Transportation most recent reporting of domestic originating passengers boarded 2) Fulltime-equivalent active Employees 3) 1973-2019 annual profitability SOURCE Southwest Airlines Co. TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSX: SLF) (NYSE: SLF) today announced its intention to redeem all of the outstanding $400 million principal amount of Series 2017-1 Subordinated Unsecured 2.75% Fixed/Floating Debentures (the "Debentures") in accordance with the redemption terms attached to the Debentures. The redemption will be funded from existing cash and liquid assets. The Debentures are redeemable at Sun Life's option on or after November 23, 2022 at a redemption price per Debenture equal to the principal amount together with accrued and unpaid interest to the date of redemption. Sun Life intends to redeem the Debentures on November 23, 2022 (the "Redemption Date"). Notice will be delivered to the holders of the Debentures in accordance with the terms outlined in the trust indenture governing the Debentures. After the Debentures are redeemed, interest will cease to accrue from and after the Redemption Date and holders of Debentures will not be entitled to exercise any rights as holders other than to receive the redemption price. About Sun Life Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing asset management, wealth, insurance and health solutions to individual and institutional Clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of June 30, 2022, Sun Life had total assets under management of C$1.26 trillion. For more information, please visit www.sunlife.com. Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF. Note to editors: All figures in Canadian dollars Forward-looking Statements From time to time, Sun Life makes written or oral forward-looking statements within the meaning of certain securities laws, including the "safe harbour" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements contained in this release include, without limitation, statements relating to Sun Life's anticipated redemption of the Debentures. These statements represent our current expectations, estimates, and projections regarding future events and are not historical facts, and remain subject to change, particularly in light of the ongoing and developing COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the global economy and its uncertain impact on our business. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Information about forward-looking statements and risk factors relating to the Company are set out in our MD&A for the period ended June 30, 2022 and in SLF Inc.'s other annual and interim regulatory filings filed with Canadian securities regulators or furnished to U.S. securities regulators, which are available for review at www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov, respectively. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this document or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. Sun Life Media and Investor Relations contacts: Rajani Kamath Yaniv Bitton Associate Vice-President Vice-President, Head of Investor Corporate Communications Relations & Capital Markets 647-515-7514 416-979-6496 [email protected] [email protected] SOURCE Sun Life Financial Inc. Leading institutional digital asset technology provider continues expansion, adds three new team members NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Talos , the premier provider of institutional digital asset trading technology, today announced three key hires Frank van Zegveld as Head of Sales EMEA, Matt Houston as Client Success Director and Hillary Conley as Business Development Director. These appointments continue the global expansion of the Talos team on the heels of the company's $105 million Series B funding round earlier this year, valuing Talos at $1.25 billion. Frank van Zegveld brings over 20 years' experience across TradFi trading, investing and technology, previously running sales and business development globally at Solid Trading and Lucera Financial Infrastructures. In his new role with Talos, van Zegveld will be responsible for building upon and growing the company's strong presence and customer base in the EMEA to drive future revenue growth. He will officially join Talos in October 2022 and will be based in Amsterdam. Matt Houston comes to Talos with over 20 years of Capital Markets experience. Based in London, Houston spent over 11 years working for Bloomberg enterprise trading solutions. Houston also previously worked for the Australian Securities Exchange and London Stock Exchange in account and business development roles. As Client Success Director for Talos, Houston will be responsible for our growing client base in EMEA as the Talos product suite expands opening up new opportunities. Hillary Conley joins Talos as Business Development Director based in the company's New York office. Conley will be responsible for executing Talos' go-to-market strategy, building partnerships and driving future revenue growth. Before joining Talos, Conley spent five years in the crypto markets at Gemini as Business Development Director and four years at Bloomberg working in various business development roles. She has a degree in Finance from the University of Georgia. "We're excited to welcome these three talented individuals to the Talos team as we continue to expand our sales and business development presence worldwide," said Talos Founder & CEO Anton Katz. "The extensive leadership and industry expertise of these new hires will enable us to build long-lasting relationships as we continue to build out our global presence in EMEA and beyond. We're excited to welcome Frank, Hillary and Matt to the team!" About Talos Talos powers digital asset trading strategies globally. Engineered by a team with unmatched experience in building institutional trading systems, the Talos platform is trusted by the largest and most sophisticated market participants and their end clients for its performance, reliability, and security. Its growing network of services trading platform, marketplace, data and analytics, and portfolio and settlement tools, all offered directly or through service providers on a white-label basis enable clients of all types to transact end-to-end without concern for unnecessary intermediary risk or potential conflicts of interest. Talos has offices in New York, Europe and Singapore. For additional information visit www.talos.com. Media Inquiries Jed Hamilton Forefront Communications for Talos +1 212 380 7455 [email protected] SOURCE Talos Delegation will include the First Lady of Texas, Secretary of State, economic development leaders from across the state AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Texas Economic Development Corporation (TxEDC), the private side of a public-private partnership with Governor Greg Abbott's Office of Texas Economic Development & Tourism, today announced it will lead a delegation to Europe from September 26-29 to meet with business leaders and host events to highlight Texas as the best state in the U.S. to do business. The delegation, which will travel to London, Paris and the Frankfurt region, will include the First Lady of the State of Texas, Cecilia Abbott, Texas Secretary of State, John Scott, President & CEO of the Texas Economic Development Corporation, Robert Allen and the Executive Director of the Governor's Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office, Adriana Cruz, in addition to a dozen other economic development leaders from across Texas. "Texas is an international hub in today's world economy, and we look forward to strengthening our business relationships in Europe as well as developing new ones," said Robert Allen, President and CEO of the Texas Economic Development Corporation. "From record-breaking job creation, our strong workforce pipeline and our leading tier one research universities, Texas plays an outsized role in the global economy, and we will share that story and more on our upcoming mission." "The Texas brand is strong across the globe. After meeting with leaders from more than 50 foreign nations, I can tell you that every single one is hyper-focused on doing business in and with the State of Texas," Secretary John Scott said. "I am honored to join First Lady Cecilia Abbott, Robert, Adriana, and the fantastic delegation of local economic development organizations on this week's mission. I look forward to identifying new opportunities for world-class companies to expand their footprint in Texas and help bring even greater prosperity to communities across our state." "Texas is truly the best state for business, and I am thrilled to be able to join this delegation of state and local community partners as we promote Texas as a premier business destination to business leaders in the U.K., France and Germany," said Adriana Cruz, Executive Director of Texas Economic Development & Tourism, within the Office of the Governor. "I look forward to continuing to develop the strong economic and cultural ties between Texas and three of our top international markets." In addition to the First Lady of Texas, the Texas Secretary of State, and the Executive Director of the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office, the following economic development organizations from across the state will also be joining the international mission: Amarillo Economic Development Corporation Arlington Economic Development Corporation Brazos Valley Economic Development Corporation Dallas Regional Chamber Frisco Economic Development Corporation greater:SATX Regional Economic Partnership Greater San Marcos Partnership Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce Irving Economic Development Partnership Lubbock Economic Development Alliance McKinney Economic Development Corporation The Borderplex Alliance (El Paso) The Texas Economic Development Corporation (TxEDC) is an independently funded and operated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to economic development, business recruitment and job creation in the state of Texas. The public-private partnership of TxEDC and Texas Economic Development and Tourism Office in the Office of the Governor, markets Texas as a premier business destination to let corporate decision- makers and site selection consultants know that they can Go Big in Texas. For more information about TxEDC, visit www.GoBigInTexas.com. SOURCE Texas Economic Development Corporation NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Beckage Firm PLLC, a women-owned, boutique data security and privacy law firm proudly announced the addition of three new members to The Beckage Firm Team. Brandi M. Bennett, Esq. CIPP/US, seasoned data security and privacy compliance attorney, oversees data privacy solutions. Scott M. Lupiani, Esq., years of experience in federal and state courts, oversees litigation, including putative class actions, and regulatory investigations. Shawn Ford, LLM, Esq., experienced data security lawyer and Canadian counsel, focuses on Incident Response. "The team that we are building at The Beckage Firm are truly passionate thought leaders in their respective fields," boasted Jennifer A. Beckage, Esq. CIPP/US, CIPP/E founder of The Beckage Firm. "The data security and privacy industry has changed a lot since when I started and in launching The Beckage Firm we wanted a team that had unique, experienced backgrounds to deal with the new challenges that our corporate clients and insureds face. Brandi, Scott and Shawn all embody these important characteristics." Brandi Bennett is a seasoned technology and data protection attorney with deep experience leading in house legal and data protection teams. Ruthlessly pragmatic, Brandi combines operational and business experience with the rapidly expanding body of global privacy laws to counsel businesses through dynamic and challenging environments. Scott Lupiani draws on his extensive experience in health law, including serving as general counsel for a health care organization to assist clients with HIPAA and other health care compliance matters. He has an extensive background in federal and state court litigation to defend clients in putative class actions, civil litigations. Scott is also a U.S. Army Veteran. Shawn Ford is experienced working with technology-focused organizations at varying stages, including as general counsel for an international health tech company. As a Canadian citizen and lawyer, Shawn works closely with clients on compliance with Canadian data security and privacy matters. Leveraging his background as a data security technology business owner, Shawn has worked with organizations, and high net worth individuals on data security and privacy compliance and incident response matters. The Beckage Firm is headquartered in New York. Its services include Incident Response/Data Breach, Data Security and Privacy Compliance, Personal Privacy, and Data Due Diligence. About The Beckage Firm: The Beckage Firm is a women-owned law firm. Its attorneys and technology professionals counsel clients on matters pertaining to data security and privacy compliance, government investigations, litigation and class action defense, incident response, technology, personal security and privacy, data due diligence, and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). In addition to women-owned, the Beckage Partnership Team also includes military veterans. Learn more at TheBeckageFirm.com. Media contact: Marc Honan, +17168604401 SOURCE The Beckage Firm Global Coffee and Tea Leader Reopens in the Historical Wilshire Courtyard Building with Grand Opening Celebrations LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A beloved Los Angeles The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf store location is back. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand, one of the world's leading roasters and retailers of specialty coffee and tea has opened in the historical Wilshire Courtyard building at 5700 Wilshire Blvd., through the GnarlyGrinds, Inc. franchise. The company will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 28, from 12pm 1pm. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf will celebrate the grand opening with in-store specials, rewards, offers and giveaways for guests from September 27 29, that includes: September 27 BOGO (buy one, get one beverage) from 2pm-6pm BOGO (buy one, get one beverage) from September 28 Giveaways and a ribbon cutting ceremony from 12pm 1pm , featuring members of the Chamber of Commerce, a representative from the local senator's office, and executive members of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Giveaways and a ribbon cutting ceremony from , featuring members of the Chamber of Commerce, a representative from the local senator's office, and executive members of The Coffee Bean & September 29 50% off large, handcrafted beverage from 2pm 6pm "Our guests and surrounding tenants in the Wilshire Courtyard building have something to celebrate as their favorite morning start and afternoon pick-me up is now back and easily accessible" said Matthew Song, Gnarly Grinds, Inc. "The iconic The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has been serving innovative beverages for nearly 60 years, and we are thrilled to serve our guests in this historical location." This location will match the revamped and vibrant new design of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and include ample indoor and outdoor seating, as well as mobile ordering through The Coffee Bean Rewards app. "The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand continues its growth momentum with the reopening of our location in the beloved Los Angeles Wilshire Courtyard," said Peter Vavra, Director of Franchise Operations for The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand. "We are also happy to extend our partnership with the GnarlyGrinds franchise group to continue bringing our iconic beverages to more guests." As in all its locations, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf 5700 Wilshire Blvd. store will offer a variety of the finest grades of Arabica coffee from specially selected estates around the world that are custom roasted, in small batches, at its facility in Camarillo, California. The store will also offer more than several varieties of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf full leaf teas as well as fresh baked goods. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is open Monday through Friday from 7am to 6pm and closed on the weekends. It is located at 5700 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Phone, (323) 931-4948. New store openings represent a key growth initiative for The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand's parent company Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC), who aims to be one of the top five restaurant brands in the world. To date, the beloved Los Angeles-based chain has 205 stores in the United States and more than 1,094 locations across 30 countries worldwide. For more information, please visit www.coffeebean.com . About The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Brand The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand is a leading global roaster and retailer of specialty coffees and teas. It is widely credited for driving high quality and innovation to the coffee and tea industry. The company sources the finest ingredients and flavors from around the world, and hand blends coffee and tea for the freshest flavors. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand started the frozen coffee drink craze with the invention of The Original Ice Blended drink and is also the first global coffee and tea retailer to offer cold brew tea. The company currently has 1,094 retail locations across the globe and can also be found in grocery aisles as well as specialty locations, including airports and hotels. For more information, visit www.coffeebean.com. Media Contacts Tracy Rubin JCUTLER media group [email protected] SOURCE The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf DUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market (2022-2027) by Inverter, Integration Level, Vehicle, Distribution, Geography, Competitive Analysis and the Impact of Covid-19 with Ansoff Analysis" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market is estimated to be USD 29.61 Bn in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 56.86 Bn by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 13.94%. Market dynamics are forces that impact the prices and behaviors of the Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market stakeholders. These forces create pricing signals which result from the changes in the supply and demand curves for a given product or service. Forces of Market Dynamics may be related to macro-economic and micro-economic factors. There are dynamic market forces other than price, demand, and supply. Human emotions can also drive decisions, influence the market, and create price signals. As the market dynamics impact the supply and demand curves, decision-makers aim to determine the best way to use various financial tools to stem various strategies for speeding the growth and reducing the risks. Company Profiles The report provides a detailed analysis of the competitors in the market. It covers the financial performance analysis for the publicly listed companies in the market. The report also offers detailed information on the companies' recent development and competitive scenario. Some of the companies covered in this report are Delta Electronics, Inc., Denso Corp., Eaton Corp, Exide Industries Ltd., Robert Bosch GmbH, Toyota Industries Corp., ZF Friedrichshafen Ag, etc. Countries Studied America ( Argentina , Brazil , Canada , Chile , Colombia , Mexico , Peru , United States , Rest of Americas) , , , , , , , , Rest of Americas) Europe ( Austria , Belgium , Denmark , Finland , France , Germany , Italy , Netherlands , Norway , Poland , Russia , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , United Kingdom , Rest of Europe ) ( , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Rest of ) Middle-East and Africa ( Egypt , Israel , Qatar , Saudi Arabia , South Africa , United Arab Emirates , Rest of MEA) and ( , , , , , , Rest of MEA) Asia-Pacific ( Australia , Bangladesh , China , India , Indonesia , Japan , Malaysia , Philippines , Singapore , South Korea , Sri Lanka , Thailand , Taiwan , Rest of Asia-Pacific ) Competitive Quadrant The report includes Competitive Quadrant, a proprietary tool to analyze and evaluate the position of companies based on their Industry Position score and Market Performance score. The tool uses various factors for categorizing the players into four categories. Some of these factors considered for analysis are financial performance over the last 3 years, growth strategies, innovation score, new product launches, investments, growth in market share, etc. Ansoff Analysis The report presents a detailed Ansoff matrix analysis for the Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market. Ansoff Matrix, also known as Product/Market Expansion Grid, is a strategic tool used to design strategies for the growth of the company. The matrix can be used to evaluate approaches in four strategies viz. Market Development, Market Penetration, Product Development and Diversification. The matrix is also used for risk analysis to understand the risk involved with each approach. The analyst analyses the Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market using the Ansoff Matrix to provide the best approaches a company can take to improve its market position. Based on the SWOT analysis conducted on the industry and industry players, the analyst has devised suitable strategies for market growth. Why buy this report? The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market. The report includes in-depth qualitative analysis, verifiable data from authentic sources, and projections about market size. The projections are calculated using proven research methodologies. The report has been compiled through extensive primary and secondary research. The primary research is done through interviews, surveys, and observation of renowned personnel in the industry. The report includes an in-depth market analysis using Porter's 5 forces model and the Ansoff Matrix. In addition, the impact of Covid-19 on the market is also featured in the report. The report also includes the regulatory scenario in the industry, which will help you make a well-informed decision. The report discusses major regulatory bodies and major rules and regulations imposed on this sector across various geographies. The report also contains the competitive analysis using Positioning Quadrants, the analyst's Proprietary competitive positioning tool. Key Topics Covered: 1 Report Description 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Market Dynamics 4.1 Drivers 4.1.1 Favorable Government Initiatives in The Production of Electric Vehicles 4.1.2 Demand to Improve Efficiency and Size by Integration with Motor or Converter 4.2 Restraints 4.2.1 High Investment Required in Development 4.3 Opportunities 4.3.1 Increasing Infrastructure Development of Charging Stations in Developed Economies 4.3.2 Extensive Technological Advancements in Power Electronics such as High Power Density Inverter 4.4 Challenges 4.4.1 High Current Motor Fuses to Blow Off in Heavy Electric Vehicles 5 Market Analysis 5.1 Regulatory Scenario 5.2 Porter's Five Forces Analysis 5.3 Impact of COVID-19 5.4 Ansoff Matrix Analysis 6 Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market, By Inverter 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Soft-Switching Inverter 6.3 Traction Inverter 7 Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market, By Integration Level 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Integrated Inverter System 7.3 Mechatronic Integration System 7.4 Separate Inverter System 8 Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market, By Vehicle 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Battery Electric Vehicles 8.3 Hybrid Electric Vehicles 8.4 Plug-in Electric Vehicles 9 Global Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market, By Distribution 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Aftermarket 9.3 OEM 10 Americas' Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Argentina 10.3 Brazil 10.4 Canada 10.5 Chile 10.6 Colombia 10.7 Mexico 10.8 Peru 10.9 United States 10.10 Rest of Americas 11 Europe's Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Austria 11.3 Belgium 11.4 Denmark 11.5 Finland 11.6 France 11.7 Germany 11.8 Italy 11.9 Netherlands 11.10 Norway 11.11 Poland 11.12 Russia 11.13 Spain 11.14 Sweden 11.15 Switzerland 11.16 United Kingdom 11.17 Rest of Europe 12 Middle East and Africa's Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Egypt 12.3 Israel 12.4 Qatar 12.5 Saudi Arabia 12.6 South Africa 12.7 United Arab Emirates 12.8 Rest of MEA 13 APAC's Electric Vehicle Power Inverter Market 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Australia 13.3 Bangladesh 13.4 China 13.5 India 13.6 Indonesia 13.7 Japan 13.8 Malaysia 13.9 Philippines 13.10 Singapore 13.11 South Korea 13.12 Sri Lanka 13.13 Thailand 13.14 Taiwan 13.15 Rest of Asia-Pacific 14 Competitive Landscape 14.1 Competitive Quadrant 14.2 Market Share Analysis 14.3 Strategic Initiatives 14.3.1 M&A and Investments 14.3.2 Partnerships and Collaborations 14.3.3 Product Developments and Improvements 15 Company Profiles 15.1 Aptiv PLC 15.2 Bestek 15.3 Continental Ag 15.4 Cree Inc. 15.5 Danfoss Group 15.6 Delphi Technologies 15.7 Delta Electronics, Inc. 15.8 Denso Corp. 15.9 Eaton Corp. 15.10 Exide Industries Ltd. 15.11 Hangzhou Tonny Electric & Tools Co., Ltd. 15.12 Hyundai Mobis Co., Ltd. 15.13 Infineon Technologies Ag 15.14 Lear Corp. 15.15 Magneti Marelli S.p.A. 15.16 Meidensha Corp. 15.17 Mitsubishi Electric Corp. 15.18 NXP Semiconductors N.V. 15.19 Robert Bosch GmbH 15.20 Samlex America, Inc. 15.21 Sensata Technologies, Inc. 15.22 Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. 15.23 Toyota Industries Corp. 15.24 Valeo Group 15.25 Wenzhou Kangyu Electrical Co., Ltd. 15.26 Zytek Automotive Ltd. 15.27 ZF Friedrichshafen Ag 16 Appendix For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/czvpta Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets SEATTLE, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month this October, Tommy Bahama will debut a special capsule collection of women's sportswear and select men's pieces to celebrate its support of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). The BCRF is a non-profit organization whose mission is to prevent and cure breast cancer by advancing the world's most promising research. Tommy Bahama Breast Cancer Awareness Capsule - October 2022 "To bring something beautiful to our guest that honors Breast Cancer Awareness month and the work of the BCRF, we reached into our archives for inspiration," said Julie Snow, VP of Women's Sportswear Design. "Our goal was to create a print that spoke to a sense of ribbon-like movement and embodied a light, ethereal feel. The delicate floral and maidenhair fern motifs in this print provide that femininity." Available in October at tommybahama.com and in select Tommy Bahama stores, this special capsule features the exclusive floral and pineapple "Tropical Treasure" print that was created by Tommy Bahama's in-house team of artists. Fresh tuberose and sugar pink solids compliment the print. Styles include new modern basics in the signature Tropical Treasure print...the Ashby Isles print tee, Two Palms Shift Dress, and Aruba Full-Zip styles for women; while men can also show their support for this worthy cause with the Lux Long-Sleeve Tee and 5 O'Clock Polo with print trim as well as a Breast Cancer Awareness Linen Shirt in sugar pink. A signature Tommy Bahama 9.5 oz candle rounds out the capsule, in their best-selling Island Blend scent, combining Maui pineapple, papaya, sea jasmine, cedar and island musk in a fragrance that will immediately transport you to the tropics. Giving back is a core value for Tommy Bahama. The company has committed to help support the BCRF's efforts to promote breast cancer education and early detection for women and men. The BCRF is the largest private, not-for-profit organization funding breast cancer research and has raised over $569.4 million to support research at medical institutions in the United States and abroad. The Tommy Bahama Breast Cancer Awareness capsule collection will be available in October in stores and online at tommybahama.com. Guests in Tommy Bahama retail stores will also be able to "round up" their purchase or make a donation at checkout in participating Tommy Bahama stores nationwide. Tommy Bahama will donate 100% of contributions to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). In addition, Tommy Bahama is donating $10,000 to the foundation, regardless of sales. For more information about BCRF, visit www.bcrf.org. Media Contact: Dyann Hawkins 323-719-6474 [email protected] SOURCE Tommy Bahama Greg Ergenbright Appointed Chief Executive Officer DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Trive Capital, a Dallas, TX-based private equity firm, along with strategic operating partner, SideKick Operators, announces the formation of OWL Services ("OWL" or the "Company"), the leading sales, installation, program management, and service provider to petroleum and clean energy companies across North America. we have created a turnkey solutions company that will shape and define the future of how we fuel and power our vehicles Tweet this The Company is the result of the recent acquisition of seven industry leading businessesincluding, WildcoPES, CBE, Crompco, e-Structure Solutions, Great Dane Petroleum, JBI Electrical Systems and Oscar W. Larson Company ("Oscar Larson"). Oscar Larson's accomplished management team, skilled staff and technicians, and state-of-the-art technology platform, combined with the expert service offering of these six other leading companies, are the foundation of the OWL Services platform. OWL Services will be headquartered in the Metro Detroit area, and has 21 offices and more than 1,300 field service professionals located across the U.S. OWL provides integrated solutions for all facets of the petroleum convenience and electric vehicle markets, including security, point-of-sale, environmental compliance, and petroleum convenience and EV charging station design, construction, and maintenance. Greg Ergenbright, former President of U.S. Operations for Schindler Elevator Group, joins the newly formed company as its Chief Executive Officer. A 30-year equipment, construction, and maintenance veteran, Ergenbright is a strategic and collaborative leader with a demonstrated record of success building business and driving high-performance cultures focused on operational excellence. "It's an exciting and transformative timenot only for OWL, but also for our industry," says Ergenbright. "By combining the capabilities and strengths of these seven businesses, we have created a turnkey solutions company that will shape and define the future of how we fuel and power our vehicles. I'm thrilled to be a part of this transformation." Beyond its existing offering, OWL will continue to invest in its already industry-leading eMobility services. The Company is a premier partner for fast-charging original equipment manufacturers and customers looking for a solutions provider that can comprehensively build, operate, and manage the electrical charging infrastructure needed to support the rising number of electric vehicles in the U.S. "OWL is fully equipped to take on the unique demands of electrification safely, efficiently, and sustainably, just as our partner companies have done for decades with petroleum equipment," says Ergenbright. Blake Bonner, Partner at Trive Capital, added, "We are thrilled to announce the formation of OWL Services and onboarding of Greg Ergenbright after completing seven transactions in less than two years from the original acquisition of Oscar W. Larson. We have built a differentiated facility maintenance platform to address the unprecedented challenges faced by OWL customers in managing electrification while also maintaining existing infrastructure. OWL is another example of Trive's ability to serve as the preferred partner for owner-operators who want to quickly execute a shared strategic plan." "It has been an honor working side-by-side with the tremendous leadership of these companies," says SideKick CEO Justin Steen. "For over 70 years, OWL's leadership team has fostered a culture of service excellence, fueling the future of these combined organizations. They understand the importance of relentless service to its customers 24/7/365, which positions OWL as the nation's partner of choice for maintaining existing infrastructure and future innovations." Headquartered in the Metro Detroit area with over 21 offices and 1,300 field service staff, OWL Services is the leading sales, installation, program management, and service provider to petroleum and clean energy companies nationally. OWL keeps America fueled up, plugged in and on the go 24/7/365 days a year. The Company's portfolio of brands includes: Oscar W. Larson Company is the Midwest leader in full-service petroleum and fluid handling equipment contracting for more than 75 years. is the Midwest leader in full-service petroleum and fluid handling equipment contracting for more than 75 years. WildcoPES is the East Coast's leading distributor of comprehensive vehicle fueling equipment sales, maintenance, inspection, testing and construction management services. is the East Coast's leading distributor of comprehensive vehicle fueling equipment sales, maintenance, inspection, testing and construction management services. CBE is a leading supplier and service provider of in-store technologies, including point-of-sale systems, video surveillance, alarms, audio, network infrastructure and digital signage. is a leading supplier and service provider of in-store technologies, including point-of-sale systems, video surveillance, alarms, audio, network infrastructure and digital signage. Crompco is the nation's leader in environmental compliance management, site inspection, and managed and information services that are designed and supported specifically for today's underground storage tank owners. is the nation's leader in environmental compliance management, site inspection, and managed and information services that are designed and supported specifically for today's underground storage tank owners. e-Structure Solutions is the leader in electrifying gas stations, parking lots, parking garages, shopping malls, office parks and more. is the leader in electrifying gas stations, parking lots, parking garages, shopping malls, office parks and more. Great Dane Petroleum is a full-service petroleum and general contractor covering the Southeastern U.S. is a full-service petroleum and general contractor covering the Southeastern U.S. JBI Electrical Systems is a nationally recognized and award-winning provider of electrical systems that cater to clients in a diverse range of industries. Learn more about OWL and its services, as well as employment opportunities, at www.owlservices.com Trive Capital is a Dallas, Texas based private equity firm with more than $4 billion of regulatory assets under management. Trive focuses on investing equity and debt in what it sees as strategically viable middle-market companies with the potential for transformational upside through operational improvement. We seek to maximize returns through a hands-on partnership that calls for identifying and implementing value creation ideas. The Trive team is comprised of seasoned investment professionals who have been involved in over 100 middle-market transactions representing more than $6 billion in revenue across Trive's targeted industry sectors and situations. For more than four decades, the partners of SideKick Operators have been building long lasting and sustainable companies across North America. SideKick is a strategic operating partner investing in mission critical trades providing repair, maintenance, inspection and testing services. SideKick joins in partnership with business leaders to build national brand reputations through operational excellence. SideKick comes from a history of deep-rooted appreciation for founder and family-owned businesses. SOURCE Trive Capital TACOMA, Wash., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueBlue is proud to announce that it was named one of America's Best Employers for Women by Forbes and Statista for 2022. This recognition follows the company being named by Forbes as one of America's Best Employers for Diversity earlier this year. TrueBlue is dedicated to fostering an inclusive culture where every employee has an opportunity to contribute and grow while supporting the company's mission to connect people and work. This is encouraged through TrueBlue's Global Mentorship Program, numerous Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) including Women Empowered+ and other opportunities that enable all employees to realize their full potential. TrueBlue is dedicated to fostering an inclusive culture where every employee has an opportunity to contribute and grow. Tweet this "We are deeply committed to fostering a culture that empowers women in leadership at all levels, as well as recognizing TrueBlue leaders who help to strengthen the inclusive environment that we strive to create," said Steve Cooper, CEO of TrueBlue. "This recognition is a true honor, and further inspires our efforts to embed diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of our business." The Best Employers for Women 2022 list was compiled by surveying 50,000 Americans 30,000 women and 20,000 men working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. Organizations were ranked based on criteria such as working conditions, diversity and how likely they would be to recommend their employer to others. Approximately 1,500 companies were evaluated. View the full list of America's Best Employers for Women 2022 here. About TrueBlue TrueBlue (NYSE: TBI) is a leading provider of specialized workforce solutions that help clients achieve business growth and improve productivity. In 2021, TrueBlue connected approximately 615,000 people with work. Its PeopleReady segment offers on-demand, industrial staffing, PeopleManagement offers contingent, on-site industrial staffing and commercial driver services, and PeopleScout offers recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and managed service provider (MSP) solutions to a wide variety of industries. Learn more at www.trueblue.com. SOURCE TrueBlue Unveils new logo and website reflecting the firm's growth and expansion NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Union Square Advisors, a leading technology-focused investment bank, celebrates the firm's 15th anniversary following a record-breaking year of transactions, revenue growth, services expansion and increase in headcount. Founded in 2007 by investment banking veterans Carter McClelland and Ted Smith, Union Square Advisors works with leading public and private technology companies, as well as private equity, credit and venture capital firms that invest across the technology landscape. To address all client needs and diversify the firm's expertise, Union Square Advisors has grown its employee base, including the recent hire of Managing Director Erich Fritz, who covers the AIoT and Industrial Technology verticals. The firm has acted as an M&A and capital markets advisor to a wide variety of clients that span the technology sector, including those in the enterprise software + SaaS, AI, IoT, cybersecurity and Healthcare IT spaces. Since inception, the team has advised on more than 160 transactions, exceeding $115 billion in total value. Some of the firm's recent transactions include the Mondee/ITHAX SPAC, NeoPhotonics' sale to Lumentum, Fastly's acquisition of Glitch, Eversight's sale to Instacart and Aspiration's equity capital raise from Oaktree and Steve Ballmer. "Since day one, our team has been deeply committed to delivering the highest quality of service to our clients, and to advising them across their most important and complex transactions," said Carter McClelland, Chairman and Co-Founder of Union Square Advisors. "I am so proud of the perseverance and dedication we've demonstrated to the technology sector and clients we serve, and how our firm has flourished and grown over the past fifteen years." To address client demand and changing market dynamics, Union Square Advisors expanded its Capital Markets advisory business in 2019, which specializes in providing financing solutions to private equity and corporate clients, including debt and equity capital raising, private placements, capital structure optimization and special situations. The firm hired 30-year industry veteran Michael Meyer to lead the Capital Markets business, which has advised on over 30 financings totaling $6.8B in financing value. Under Meyer's leadership, the Capital Markets business has become Union Square Advisors' fastest-growing service offering, and the team has expanded significantly. In the last two years, the firm has made several senior-level capital markets hires, including Managing Director Michael Moore and Vice President Jono Peters. In recognition of the firm's evolution, growth trajectory, and acknowledgment of its 15th anniversary, Union Square Advisors today unveiled a brand refresh of its logo and website. From a design perspective, the new logo with the layered three-dimensional squares is intended to reflect the three businesses that form Union Square Advisors' advisory services: Mergers & Acquisitions, Capital Markets and Merchant Banking. "Our refreshed brand and new website are reflective of not just where we've been, but where we're going they are a testament not only to our commitment to our clients and diversified offerings, but also to our people and our culture," said Jennifer Hallahan, Chief Marketing Officer at Union Square Advisors. "Looking back on the last fifteen years, we have made tremendous progress by relentlessly leveraging our decades of experience and leadership in the technology industry, to help our clients achieve superior results, all while navigating dynamic markets and unprecedented times," said Ted Smith, President, Co-Founder & Partner at Union Square Advisors. "And we are just getting started!" About Union Square Advisors Union Square Advisors is a leading technology-focused investment bank that offers strategic mergers & acquisitions advice and execution, agented private capital financing and debt capital markets advisory services. Founded in 2007, with offices in San Francisco and New York, Union Square Advisors works with leading public and private technology companies, private equity, venture capital and family offices. Our expertise spans many aspects of the technology landscape, including Enterprise Software and Infrastructure, FinTech, Healthcare IT, Internet+Digital Media, eCommerce, Consumer Software, AIoT & Industrial Technology and other key segments. Since inception, Union Square Advisors has advised on more than 160 strategic transactions, valued in excess of $115B. For more information, please visit http://www.usadvisors.com. Media Contact: Anushka Singh Prosek Partners for Union Square Advisors [email protected] SOURCE Union Square Advisors DUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "US Commercial Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Training Growth Opportunities" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. This study examines the US training market for commercial UAS, highlighting what is driving its revenue growth. In this study, market segments include recreational flight, commercial operations, and public safety training. The market is stable and growing with increasing commercial and public safety UAS and registered aircraft. Commercial applications for UAS have expanded in the past decade, and UAS-related job positions have opened in diverse industry segments, increasing the need to train UAS operators. Service companies, OEMs, simulator software providers, and educational institutions provide training in the United States. Many colleges and universities offer UAS-related programs, and the FAA recognizes most of them. UAS flight simulators are gaining popularity because technology enhancements enable a more realistic and affordable experience. As UAS gains autonomy, the training must adapt to new types of operations. However, the US market landscape is regionally fragmented, as training requirements vary depending on the local environment. Overall, commercial UAS applications are nascent and evolving. Because the industry has not developed many formal standards, instruction varies greatly, challenging the training market and affecting performance outcomes. Key Topics Covered: 1. Strategic Imperatives Why is it Increasingly Difficult to Grow? The Strategic Imperative The Impact of the Top 3 Strategic Imperatives on the Commercial Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Training Industry Growth Opportunities Fuel the Growth Pipeline Engine 2. Growth Opportunity Analysis Purpose and Overview Trends and Challenges FAA Regulations Commercial UAS Training Segmentation UAS Programs in Public Safety Agencies Representative Companies Offering Commercial UAS Training Representative Educational Institutions Offering Commercial UAS Programs Representative Courses UAS Flight Simulation AUVSI TOP Key Competitors for Commercial UAS Training Growth Drivers Growth Restraints 3. Growth Opportunity Universe Growth Opportunity 1: Training for Public Safety Growth Opportunity 2: UAS Programs for Educational Institutions Growth Opportunity 3: Flight Simulation for Commercial UAS Training Conclusions 4. Appendix For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9oyymj 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 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets CLEWISTON, Fla., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As Florida's aging population continues to grow, so does the need for easier access to end-of-life care services, especially in key areas such as the Southwest counties. Now offering quality hospice care in Glades, Hendry and Lee counties, VITAS Healthcare opened its first office today in the City of Clewiston. Submit seamless and secure referrals 24/7 via the VITAS mobile app, at VITAS.com/referrals, or by calling 800.93.VITAS. Tweet this As a hospice leader, VITAS Healthcare brings quality services to patients when they need compassionate care the mostwhen curative modalities are no longer positively impacting their quality of life. VITAS Healthcare, the nation's leading provider of end-of-life care, is now serving Lee, Glades and Hendry counties in Southwest Florida. "VITAS is dedicated to making hospice care available to all who are eligible," said Mark Hayes, VITAS vice president of operations. "Patients have the right to choose among providers as they seek to enhance their quality of life during their final months. With the VITAS value of putting patients and families first, we offer an option to patients who choose to receive end-of-life services from a team of committed and compassionate experts." For more than 40 years, VITAS has provided innovative, patient-centered hospice care throughout Florida. The new Clewiston office serves as a home base for interdisciplinary teams who provide clinical, emotional and spiritual care for patients in their homes, nursing homes, assisted living communities and inpatient care settings. VITAS services for hospice-eligible Southwest Florida patients include: Admissions personnel available 24/7/365at the convenience of the family or upon the request of the physician Physical, emotional and spiritual care provided by a hospice team that visits the patient in the comfort of their home, nursing home or assisted living facility, an average of five-plus times per week 24/7 access to trained clinicians who can send a team member to the patient's home when necessary Continuous care at home for up to 24 hours when needed Comprehensive open formulary pharmacy program, with hospice-related medical equipment and supplies delivered to the home Complex modalities for high-acuity patients (IV therapies, inotropes, paracentesis/thoracentesis, high-flow oxygen, palliative blood transfusions, TPN and more) Additional therapies and patient-focused programs include: Nationally recognized veterans program Music Therapy visits by a certified music therapist with the goal of meeting physical, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual needs through music Paw Pals visits from loving animals and their volunteer owners to provide comfort Specialized sepsis care and palliative care teams Since its founding over 40 years ago in Florida, VITAS has cared for more than 1.5 million patients nationally. As the number of seniors in Florida continues to grow, VITAS is committed to entering new markets to expand access to communities in need of high-quality hospice services. Adding Value to the Local Community VITAS develops deep roots in the communities it joins by partnering with community organizations to help further the mission of providing quality healthcare to all. Care for the community also extends to caregivers and healthcare practitioners. VITAS has plans to offer Alzheimer's and dementia education and support for caregivers, core training for assisted living facilities, and mobile hospice education and outreach. VITAS Is Hiring! Additional offices are expected to open across the three counties, and VITAS offers job opportunities spanning a range of disciplines. Interested candidates can learn more and apply at VITAS.com/careers. Refer Hospice-Eligible Patients Healthcare professionals can submit seamless and secure referrals anytime through the VITAS Healthcare mobile app. Referrals are also accepted 24/7 online at VITAS.com/referrals or by calling 800.93.VITAS. About VITAS Healthcare Established in 1978, VITAS Healthcare is a pioneer and leader in the American hospice movement. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, VITAS (pronounced VEE-tahs) operates 49 hospice programs in 14 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin) and the District of Columbia. VITAS employs 9,509 professionals who care for patients with advanced illness, primarily in the patients' homes, and also in the company's 26 inpatient hospice units as well as in hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living communities/residential care facilities for the elderly. At the conclusion of the second quarter of 2022, VITAS reported an average daily census of 17,360. Visit www.vitas.com. Media inquiries contact: [email protected], 877-848-2701 SOURCE VITAS Healthcare Washington, Sep 26 : India's External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has slammed the Biden administration's proposal to provide $450 million worth of spares and services for Pakistan's F-16s, saying no one is fooled by claims that these highly capable fighter aircraft are meant only for counter-terrorism operations. And, on a separate issue, the Minister left the door open for a possible role for India in mediating the Ukraine-Russia war. Mexico proposed last week at the UN Security Council that a committee of Heads of state and government, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pope Francis, could help UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres end the war. Jaishankar kicked off a four-day visit to Washington DC with a first-of-its-kind public interaction for an Indian External Affairs Minister with the Indian American community: a Q&A in which he took unscreened questions from the audience, which, it must be noted, comprised largely of old fans and new fans -- the moderator, for instance, repeatedly called him a "rockstar", and his every answer was greeted with multiple round of applause, with the most excited springing to their feet. Visiting External Affairs usually confine such Q&As to reporters and audiences at think-tank events. The Minister answered a range of questions from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Pakistan to Kashmir, education, health and his own experiences as a long-time career diplomat. "Very honestly, it's a relationship that has neither ended up serving Pakistan well, nor (is it) serving American interests," the Minister said in response to the F-16 spares, which has greatly exercised some Indian-Americans. He framed his criticism of the package in the overall context of a bilateral relationship, which he argued, has been mutually dysfunctional for both Pakistan and the US. "It is really for the US today to reflect ... the merits of this relationship," Jaishankar added, asking what it wants with this package. "For someone to say I'm doing this because it is all counter-terrorism content and so, when you are talking of an aircraft like a capability of an F-16 where everybody knows, you know where they are deployed and what is their use," the Minister said, and added, "You're not fooling anybody by saying these things." The Biden administration informed the US congress earlier in September that it proposed to provide $450 million worth of spares and services for Pakistan's US-made F-16 for their "sustainment". No new capabilities or munitions are part of the package, which, it was stated, will also not alter the military balance in the region. The US administration claimed in the notification that these F-16s are meant for counter-terrorism operations. But Pakistan has used them for other purposes as well, most recently in an air combat with Indian fighters jets in February 2019. India later said it shot down one of the F-16 deployed. "If I were to speak to an American policy-maker, I would really make the case (that) look what you are doing," Jaishankar said further. "Forget about us. It's actually not good for you what you're doing, reflect on the history, look at the last 20 years." Jaishankar will have the opportunity to convey his advice to plenty of American policy-makers he will be meeting over the next few days, including his US counterpart Antony Blinken. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had lodged an official protest with the US conveying India's concern in a phone call with his counterpart Lloyd Austen, but clearly disquiet over the proposal runs deep and wide in the Modi government. Jaishankar's response to a question about a possible role for India in mediating an end to the Ukraine-Russia war expertly framed. He did not rule it out. But he also made it clear India is not campaigning for it. "If we can help in some way we will be obviously responsible enough to do that," the Minister said, adding, "I think the participants know that the rest of the world knows that. Beyond that what happens that's in the realm of diplomacy so I can't say anything." Mexico has proposed that Modi should mediate between Russia and Ukraine. Foreign Minister Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubon suggested it officially during a meeting of the UN Security Council debate on Ukraine in New York on Thursday. "Based on its pacifist vocation, Mexico believes that the international community must now channel its best efforts to achieve peace," Casaubon said. "In this regard, I would like to share with you the proposal of the President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to strengthen the mediation efforts of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, through the formation of a Committee for Dialogue and Peace in Ukraine with the participation of other heads of state and government, including, if possible, His Excellency Narendra Modi and His Holiness Pope Francis." Lucknow, Sep 26 : At least 12 people have tested positive for dengue in Lucknow in the past 48 hours while reports of another 70 suspected cases are awaited. Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak has asked hospitals to remain alert and make adequate arrangements for treating dengue patients. Pathak, who also holds the health portfolio, has asked the chief medical officers of all the districts to ensure that all hospitals have adequate arrangements for treatment of fever cases. "Separate wards should be made for admitting dengue patients even at community and primary health centres. New equipments are being procured for the government hospitals in the state and single donor platelet facility will also be provided to patients. Apheresis units are being established at the divisional level hospitals in the state," he said in a statement. Experts have warned that the threat of dengue has gone up with water stagnated in several parts of the district due to rain. Prof Kauser Usman, senior faculty at King George's Medical University, said: "The next 10 days are crucial as far as dengue is concerned as cases may rise considerably." Lucknow district health education officer Yogesh Raghuvanshi said that "the state capital has reported a total 159 dengue cases since January this year". "While authorities will do their bid, every house owner should also ensure there is nothing like stagnated water outside as well as inside the house, in the balcony, flowerpots, unused items such as old tyres, utensils or any such thing. Safety from mosquito bite or dengue is in our hands and the way is to remove stagnated water where mosquito breeding takes place," said Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary general, Association of International Doctors. "The number of fever patients coming to hospital has gone up in the past one week and it is possible it may further rise in the coming week," said a senior doctor working at a government hospital. Shukla said that self-medication in case of high fever should be avoided and a proper medical advice should be taken. "High fever may be due to dengue or any other viral infection. Hence, it is significant to diagnose it for a speedy recovery," he said. Seoul, Sep 26 : A fire broke out at an outlet mall in South Korea's Daejeon city on Monday, leaving two people dead, another seriously injured and four others missing, fire officials said. The fire started at 7.45 a.m. at the Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon, 160 km south of Seoul, Yonhap News Agency quoted the officials as saying. Two men, one in his 50s and the other in his 30s, were found with serious injuries and sent to a hospital, but later pronounced dead. Another man in his 40s is under medical treatment after sustaining serious injuries, fire authorities said. Four other logistics employees remain unaccounted for, and a search is underway. Some 110 people, mostly customers at nearby accommodation buildings and employees, evacuated. No outlet customers were around, as the fire broke before the mall's business hours. More than 126 personnel and 40 pieces of firefighting equipment were combating the fire, but firefighters were having difficulties in the search operation due to massive smoke issued from burning paper boxes in the mall's underground cargo handling area. Fire authorities are conducting an investigation to determine the cause of the fire, including the possibility of the explosion of an electric car that was being charged in an underground parking garage. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez will, on Monday, appear before Patiala House Court in connection with the Rs 200 crore extortion case involving multi-millionaire conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar. Recently, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed its second supplementary charge sheet in the case naming her as an accused. The Special ED court is all set to take cognisance of the charge sheet. Jacqueline and another Bollywood actress Nora Fatehi, both had recorded their statements as witnesses in the case. Earlier, the probe agency had attached fixed deposits worth Rs 7.2 crore belonging to Fernandez. It termed the gifts and properties as "proceeds" of crime received by the two actors. Last December, the ED had filed its first charge sheet in the matter before the court of Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh. Later, in February, it filed a supplementary charge-sheet against one Pinky Irani, an alleged aide of Chandrashekhar who introduced him to Fernandez. As per the charge sheet, Pinky used to choose expensive gifts for Fernandez and drop them at her residence after Chandrashekhar made the payments. Sukesh has spent around 20 crore on different models and Bollywood celebrities which a few refused to accept. Lucknow, Sep 26 : A pan-India gang of cyber thugs that was involved in duping people on pretext of lucrative profits has been busted in Lucknow, police said. According to the police, a scheme was launched by the accused in which they trapped a victim by luring him to purchase a product at a low cost from their website and then they asked him to sell it on the same platform. "In the guise of a customer they used to purchase the product and provided a small profit to the prospective victim of fraud. This way they won their trust and made the victims invest much money in the business by purchasing goods," said Firoz Badar, a cyber cell official. "After the deal was finalised, they asked the victim to transfer money in their bank account and later used to freeze his or her account at the website," he added. The police said the accused were identified as Ayush Parashar and Shahrukh Khan, both from Thane; and Shubhankar of Vijay Nagar in Rajasthan's Ajmer district. They were all arrested from Thane. Los Angeles, Sep 26 : Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow has opened up about what she really felt when she took home an Oscar at the age of 26. In a new interview, the Pepper Potts depicter in 'Iron Man' says her mind was "f***ed up" by winning the Best Actress award, reports aceshowbiz.com. Gwyneth, named Best Actress for her role in 1998's 'Shakespeare in Love', made the admission as she discussed her family and her upcoming 50th birthday. During an interview on CBS about getting the award, she said: "It's crazy when I think about that now. At the time I thought I was, like, a full adult, you know?" When correspondent Tracy Smith asked, "what do you think that did to your mind?" the actress laughed, "f**king it up!"The actress went on to say: "You know, to reach that kind of, like, the pinnacle at that age and have that much scrutiny and attention, and then it's like, no matter what you do after that, you can't really win, right? It's like you have a few years of it's, like, nothing's gonna live up to that. It's just a lot to hold." When asked when she decided to focus on wellness, which led to Gwyneth setting up her Goop firm, she said: "I'll tell you exactly, when my father got cancer. And I was helping him one day feeding him with a syringe and feeding tube. And it struck me, like, 'What is in this can that I'm injecting directly into his stomach?' And it was the first time I made a connection between food (and) wellness. I'll never forget that moment." The actress' father Bruce Paltrow died aged 58 in 2002 from complications of oral cancer and pneumonia. She said about approaching her 50th birthday on September 27: "As a woman, you turn 50 and maybe we all give ourselves permission to be exactly who we are. And we stop trying to be what other people are expecting us to be, and you kind of exhale into this other thing." Mum-of-two, who shares daughter Apple, 18, and son Moses, 16, with her 45-year-old Coldplay frontman former husband Chris Martin, from whom she split in 2016 before marrying 51-year-old TV producer Brad Falchuk, said in an essay posted on Goop last week about heading for the milestone age she was accepting her "loosening skin" and wrinkles. Chennai, Sep 26 : The Tamil Nadu Police continued its crackdown against the Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) cadres on Monday over the alleged Molotov cocktail attacks. This comes a day after Director General of Police (DGP) C.Sylendrakumar directed the district police chiefs and commissioners to take stringent action against those disrupting peace. The police have commenced the crackdown after incidents of motorbike-borne suspects throwing petrol and kerosene-laden burning bottles at the residences/ shops, offices of the RSS, BJP workers and their local leaders after the NIA arrest of the PFI leaders and cadres on September 22. The police on Sunday arrested several persons, including Syed Ali (42) who is the SDPI, Salem district president in connection with the attack on the residence of RSS Salem town functionary, V.K. Rajan's residence with petrol bomb. The police took action following CCTV visuals of the accused hurling burning kerosene-filled bottle at the residence of Rajan at 1.40 a.m. on Sunday. K. Khadeer Hussain, ward president of SDPI in Salem was the other arrested in the case. Both were presented before the magistrate and remanded to judicial custody. In Erode also police arrested four SDPI functionaries in a Molotov cocktail attack on the furniture shop of an RSS worker, V. Dakshinamoorthy. The arrested are Sadam Hussain, Khalil Rahman, A. Jaffar, and A. Ashik. The DGP has also warned of serious consequences against the perpetrators of violence and that stringent action would be taken against them, including invoking the National Security Act (NSA). The Tamil Nadu Police were conducting raids at several residences of people affiliated with the PFI and SDPI after the DGP's directive to the SPs and Commissioners. The Molotov cocktail attacks which commenced from Coimbatore have now spread to Erode, Salem, Ramanathapuram, Dindigul, Kanniyakumari and some parts of Chennai, including Tambaram. The police have been instructed to take stringent action against those involved in the violence. The state intelligence was also providing proper inputs on the perpetrators of violence and District Superintendents and Commissioners of police have been given instructions to arrest local leaders as well as district-wise leaders of both the organisations if found that they were part of conspiracies in these Molotov cocktail attacks. Meanwhile, BJP state president K. Annamalai said that the Tamil Nadu Police's hands were tied for the past 15 months and that it was at its peak. He said that the party will not be cowed down by the cowardly acts of Molotov cocktail attacks. The BJP state president also said that the party has constituted four fact-finding teams to report on the damage caused to the residences/ shops and offices of party workers and that a report would be submitted to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah after getting the feedback from the committees. New Delhi, Sep 26 : The recent debate around moonlighting in the IT industry has highlighted the growing demand for skilled talent in the ICT sector. The global shortage for tech talent has been fuelled amid the rapidly changing technology landscape. Companies are looking at leveraging the best of tech talent to not only improve user and client experience but also for exploring new growth avenues. With companies considering an appetite to skill and learn to be a highly desirable trait among employees, skilling focused start-ups and organisations are rapidly coming up to bridge the gap. Rishi Khemka, Founder and CEO, MindBox India, a leading STEM Accredited organisation dedicated towards creating functional literacy in 6-18 years old students said that "As the world changes, the need for skills changes too. With technology being at the centre of everything in the future, kids today will need to develop competencies and skills around this space which shall help them excel in whatever profession they choose." "At present, 90 per cent of the jobs are skill based and we should aim at developing a range of future skills across domains such as AI, ML, drone technology, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, electric vehicles, 5G technologies and mechatronics to improve the employability quotient of India's vast young population," Khemka added. Skilling will help the youth in bolstering their CVs with knowhow of new technologies. Vikram Kumar, co-founder of career platform MyTat said that, "The advent of new-age technologies has changed the overall hiring landscape in India. This has created a substantial talent demand and supply gap across key tech domains. There's a need to ensure relevant skilling opportunities so that youngsters can harness their true potential through adequate skilling, upskilling and reskilling avenues." MyTat has collaborated with AICTE to provide AICTE-approved internships/apprenticeships for youngsters as well as professionals. "81 per cent of individuals who have enrolled with us for professional development have reported career benefits like increment, promotion, increased pay, etc," Kumar added. As telcos in India gear up to launch 5G services, it will not only give us faster communication networks but will have a cascading impact on multiple other sectors which need fast, low latency, reliable networks to function. This will in turn lead to a surge in demand for skilled talent. Arvind Bali, CEO, Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) said that the rollout of 5G in India will lead to adoption of new-age technologies across sectors, "and it is crucial that the graduating population is skilled and made job-ready". "TSSC has curated courses in cutting-edge technologies like drone technology, 5G, AI/ML, etc. and has established numerous Centers of Excellence and training facilities across the nation to cater to this demand," Bali noted. As companies look at future growth-engines they want talent which helps them stay ahead of the curve. The need for future skills has never been felt as much in India before as now, with multiple disruptive technologies impacting everything from banking to pharma to manufacturing and more. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) has been denied permission by the Delhi Police to hold a protest at Jantar Mantar on Monday against NIA crackdown on Popular Front of India (PFI). "...Dharna at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi on September 26 cannot be permitted in order to maintain communal harmony and security/law and order arrangements in the jurisdiction of New Delhi district. In view of this, you are requested to cooperate with Delhi Police," an official communication sent to SDPI's Delhi state president Dr I.A. Khan read. Dr Khan, while speaking to IANS, expressed resentment after SDPI was denied permission to stage a dharna at the Jantar Mantar. "We wanted to protest against the recent arrests of several PFI functionaries throughout the country but we have not been allowed. You will first arrest then register FIR, this act is completely unconstitutional," Dr Khan said. Asked about their next move, Dr Khan said that he will now speak to his partymen and then decide further course of action. Notably, in a nationwide crackdown against the PFI on September 22, around 106 senior office-bearers of the organisation were arrested. The arrested included PFI national Chairman, O.M.A. Salam, Vice Chairman, E. Abdurahman, National secretary Nasseruddin Elamaram, ideologue and national leader, Prof P. Koya, and some other senior functionaries from Kerala. The top leader arrested from Tamil Nadu was A.M. Ismail, the national executive member of PFI from Coimbatore. Ismail was arrested from Coimbatore, Yassar Arafat, the Dindigul Zonal Secretary of PFI from Dindigul, and Cuddalore district secretary, Fayas Ahmad from Cuddalore. Eight other leaders were arrested from various parts of the state. In the raids conducted in 15 states of the country, the investigating agencies have found strong evidence of PFI's involvement in terrorist activities. Soon after the raid, Union Home Minister Amit Shah also held a meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and the NIA chief. During the meeting, instructions were issued to review the facts gathered against PFI for further action. Mysuru, Sep 26 : President Draupadi Murmu inaugurated world-famous state-festival Dasara in Mysuru on Monday by lighting the lamp and offering floral tributes to Goddess Chamundeshwari atop Chamundi Hills. Congratulating the people of Karnataka on the occasion of Dussehra, President Murmu said, "Since time immemorial, festivals have been connecting people. The presence of diversity elevates the respect of India. The spiritual heritage of Karnataka includes the legacy of Buddhism, Jainism, Adi Shankaracharya established Sringeri Mutt, Kalaburagi is known as the centre of Sufi saints," she said. Image Source: IANS News The President also remembered 12th century social revolutionaries Basavanna, Allama Prabhu, Akka Mahadevi, who established 'Anubhav Mantap' to eradicate the caste system. They have also given 'vachanas' 900 years ago which are still being revered. There were 35 women poets who contributed to vachanas, she stated. Woman empowerment is relevant and it has been the women deities who killed demon kings. Rani Abbakka and Rani Chennamma fought against foreign forces. The valor of Onake Obavva (who killed soldiers of Hyder Ali who tried to invade Chitradurga fort in Karnataka) is remembered by people here. They are all fine examples of women empowerment. "There is a need to empower women more today," she underlined. Image Source: IANS News President Murmu also stated that Karnataka has managed to attract 55 per cent of the FDI in software and hardware industry in the entire country. Bengaluru has become the top start up hub in the world. There is 100 per cent enrolment in primary education, she stated. She also mentioned about the rain fury and stated the government is dealing with the situation. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai stated that Karnataka is the first state Murmu is visiting after taking over charge as the President. Image Source: IANS News The city has been decked up for grand-scale celebration of Dussehra, which remained as a low-key affair in the last two years because of Covid. The state government has organised Industrial exhibition, film festival, floral exhibition, food mela, country Kusti competition. Mysuru palace is being decked up with lighting arrangements. The worshipping and Dussehra festivities will take place nine days from Monday. Image Source: IANS News Festival of Dussehra, Navratri and Vijayadashami celebrates good over evil. Hindu legend maintains that goddess Chamundeshwari (durga) killed the demon Mahishasura. It is also said that Mahishasura is the demon whose slaying by the Goddess gave the city name Mysuru. Image Source: IANS News Mysuru has a long tradition of celebrating the festival with grandeur and pomp following the fall of the Vijayanagara kingdom. The Wodeyars of Mysuru formed a kingdom in southern parts of the Vijayanagara Empire and continued the Dussehra festival. The tradition was started initially by Raja Wodeyar in mid Sept 1610 at Srirangapatna town. Latest updates on Navratri Festival 2022 -- Syndicated from IANS Koppal : , Sep 26 (IANS) A fruit merchant with suspected links with the Islamic State (IS) terror group was arrested in Karnataka's Koppal district, police said on Monday. The arrested person was identified as Shabbir Mandalagiri, a resident of Binnigida region in Gangavathy town, where he worked. According to the police, Mandalagiri had ties with Maaz Munir and Syed Yasin, the two terror suspects who were arrested earlier. Mandalagiri's residence was raided on Sunday midnight after which he was arrested, the police added. Meanwhile, the Shivamogga police investigating the case have intensified operations to nab Mohammad Shariq, a cloth salesman, who is the kingpin in Karnataka. Shariq managed to escape after the arrest of Maaz Munir and Syed Yasin. The arrested terror suspects confessed to having conducted trial blasts successfully on the banks of Tunga Bhadra River and burnt Indian flag. They wanted to establish a caliphate in India by overthrowing the present Central government, said the police. They radicalised educated youth to raise their voices to establish an Islamic state in India. Investigations have also revealed that the accused wanted to implement the Sharia law. The accused came into the limelight after the arrest of Jabiulla in connection with a stabbing case following the row over the Veer Savarkar flex row in Shivamogga. Santrampur : , Sep 26 (IANS) The Gujarat Police were searching for three suspects, who are alleged to have damaged the statue of tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda at Kadana in Mahisagar district. Following the case of vandalising, Santrampur MLA and Minister of State of Higher Education Department Dr. Kuber Dindor asked the district administration to erect a new statue of the tribal freedom fighter at the earliest and appealed to the people to not agitate. Kadana Police Inspector K.K. Dindor told IANS, "On Sunday morning, police were informed that tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda's statue was vandalised, police received an application alleging that three persons are suspected to be behind this act. The process of lodging the criminal complaint is underway and at the same time search for the three suspects is going on and soon they will be arrested." Mahisagar district collector Dr. Manish Bansal said to the local media that the statue will be re-installed. The statue was unveiled this August. Beijing, Sep 26 : Purges of senior officials and unfounded rumours of military coups in Beijing have fed into feverish speculation ahead of a key meeting of Chinas ruling party next month, when President Xi Jinping is expected to be granted an unprecedented third term. The jailing of a clique of senior security officials for corruption, followed by days of strange and quickly dispelled rumours of Xi being under house arrest, have fuelled what one analyst called a "hothouse" environment mired in secrecy and suspicion, The Guardian reported. Last week, a Chinese court jailed the former vice-minister of public security Sun Lijun, the former justice minister Fu Zhenghua, and former police chiefs of Shanghai, Chongqing and Shanxi on corruption charges. Fu and the police chiefs had been accused of being part of a political clique surrounding Sun, and being disloyal to Xi. Xi is expected to be re-appointed as leader of the party and military commission at the meeting, after he abolished the two-term limit in 2018 and waged a years-long anti-corruption campaign that also targeted many political opponents. On Sunday, the state media announced the list of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) central committee delegates, numbering almost 2,300, had been finalised. Xi's inclusion on the list further refuted social media rumours that had been swirling since September 24 of a military coup. The unfounded claims, accompanied by unsourced videos of military vehicles and based mostly on mass flight cancellations, were debunked, but not before it began trending on Twitter, The Guardian reported. There was no specific mention of the coup rumours on China's social media, but a Weibo hashtag related to "airports across the country cancel flights" was viewed by more than 200,000 people over the weekend. Some made fun of the rumours, noting the lack of evidence of a political takeover on the ground in Beijing, The Guardian reported. Drew Thompson, a scholar with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said a coup in China wasn't entirely implausible, and Xi had reportedly shown concern about the prospect in the past, but the weekend's rumours looked more like "wishful thinking". They appeared to originate in accounts associated with the Falun Gong movement, which Thompson said was "essentially not credible". "The rumour that Xi Jinping has been arrested has legs because it is such a sensitive political moment in China, and the recent trials (and convictions) of long-serving senior officials creates a hothouse atmosphere," he said on Twitter. Other analysts like Sinocism author, Bill Bishop, said he thought the rumours were "BS" but the "inherent opacity" of the CCP mechanisms easily fuelled their spread. The party congress is a secretive process of power distribution, with the most senior positions not announced until the final day. Government control of the domestic narrative and crushing of dissent has intensified in recent weeks as the meeting approaches. Xi has been absent from the public eye since he returned to China from the SCO Summit in Uzbekistan last weekend. Observers said he is likely to be quarantining, The Guardian reported. "I think the fact this rumour spread so far, and was considered plausible enough to analyse is really a reflection of an underlying shortcoming of Chinese governance," said Thompson. China's government has not responded to the rumours, but public security authorities were among those posting under the hashtag "the truth about large-scale cancellation of flights across the country", disputing the significance of the cancellations which they said was normal for the pandemic. The party congress begins on October 16, The Guardian reported. The event, in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, is closed to the public but is the most important date on the CCP's five-year political cycle. There is speculation that Xi could further consolidate power with the promotion of stronger allies to senior positions, and that the party will resurrect the 'people's leader' title not used since Mao Zedong. Islamabad, Sep 26 : Pakistani politics is surrounded by backdoor engagements, closed door talks, public political rallies and massive challenges for the ruling quarters. But now, a new dimension has been added to the persisting uncertainty as a major security breach was witnessed after a leak of audio recordings suspected to be from the Prime Minister's House, putting more pressure on the incumbent Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition government. Audio clips of telephonic conversations between Sharif and an official of the Prime Minister's House has gone viral on social media, raising concerns over the secret tapping of calls and the alleged misuse of power for personal gains. In the audio leaks, Sharif and the official are talking about the import of machinery from India illegally without getting approvals from the government quarters. And this is being discussed as per directives of the Maryam Nawaz, leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and daughter of former premier Nawaz Sharif. It has also been claimed by opposition PTI leader, Fawad Chaudhry that the audio leaks and about 8gb of data is up for sale on the dark web. "Eight gb data of audio conversations of PM House is on sale on the dark web. The hacker has also claimed that conversations related to security are also in his possession. This is a serious serious matter of concern and an investigation needs to be launched immediately," he said. The audio leaks have also attracted serious criticism from the opposition parties as well as some ally parties, who have raised questions over security. "The audio leaks reveal that the Prime Minister's House is being misused for personal gains. And the main culprit behind it is Maryam Nawaz," former premier and PTI chief Imran Khan said. On the other hand, Information Minister Mariyum Aurangzeb has stated that an inquiry may be launched into the matter after Shehbaz Sharif returns to Pakistan from London. "The decision to hold an inquiry into the audio leaks will be taken up by the Prime Minister once he returns to Pakistan," she added. However, a government official highlighted that the conversation in the audio does not reveal any wrongdoings. "Nowhere in those audio clips was anyone talking about diamonds and gifts. There was nothing controversial in the audio from the ruling party's perspective," the official said. This is not the first time that audio conversations have been leaked where public office holders are discussing strategies and plans against their political rivals. But this current development comes at a time when Pakistan is going through its toughest politically uncertain times, coupled with worsening economic situation and Imran Khan's strong show of public strength, claiming to topple the government through another long march and protest sit-in if it does not hold early elections. The National Investigation Agency : -- which was probing over 100 (Popular Front of India (PFI) members in connection with various cases -- arrested 45 members in raids across the country on September 22. The PFI was under the watch of the central security agencies since long as its cadres were deeply involved in indoctrinating young Muslims and receiving funds from foreign-based entities for waging war within India. Local police forces and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are also probing allegations against the PFI of 'funding' the 2019 anti-CAA protests and the 2020 northeast Delhi riots. Additional charges are terror funding and helping illegal Rohingyas and Bangladeshi migrants to sneak into India. Its footprints can be found in the pan-India protests against the National Register Census (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as well as the hijab row in Karnataka. There is a lot of evidence that the PFI has roots in the banned SIMI (Students' Islamic Movement of India) with many other organisations associated with it in various programmes, such as the Huda Islamic Center, Amity Peace Foundation, Jamaat-e-IslamiHind, Indian Pravasi Council (Oman), etc. Many political parties too have been alleged to be associated with the PFI -- Milli Etihad Parishad (West Bengal), AMMK Party (Tamil Nadu), CPM (Kerala), Ambedkarite Party of India (Rajasthan) and so on. The Uttar Pradesh Police, which is investigating over 19 cases against the PFI members filed in connection with the unrest reported in the aftermath of the Hathras case in September 2020, has accused the PFI of "sedition, conspiracy, disturbing peace and promoting religious hatred". Since its creation in 2006 post-Babri-Masjid demolition, with the merger of three Muslim interest groups, PFI's presence has stretched to 23 states, according to the NIA. It identifies itself as a "neo-social movement" with a vision to empower all marginalised sections in India. Several of its co-founders were originally SIMI cadres, hence the connection. E. Aboobacker, president of PFI's political wing Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), headed the SIMI's Kerala unit from 1982 to 1984, while Professor P. Koya, a member of the PFI's national executive, was a founding member of both SIMI and the NDF. PFI vice-chairman E.M. Abdul Rahiman was a SIMI general secretary between 1982 and 1993. Yet the members refute the connection to SIMI arguing that the banned outfit's solution for the Indian Muslim community's problems against "the rising tide of Hindutva" was Islam only whereas PFI believes India is a pluralistic country with many religions. This is seen by many Muslims simply as changing colours to lie low and out of the government's and security agencies' eyes. It even has a general secretary by the name of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who refutes the ED's (Enforcement Directorate) claims that the PFI had funded the agitation against the CAA in various parts of the country. The charge sheet has a long list -- contact with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) scholar Umar Khalid; providing funds to suspended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain - under arrest for his alleged role in the Delhi riots; link to the Tablighi Jamaat - the Islamic organisation which faced criticism for holding a religious congregation at Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz during the peak of the first wave of Covid infections; 2019 Mangaluru violence in which two people were killed in anti-CAA protests; gold smuggling through diplomatic baggage addressed to the UAE consulate-general in Thiruvananthapuram; carrying out "forced conversions" in Kerala's Malappuram; organising a terror camp in Kannur in 2013; running institutes where young people are indoctrinated; recovery of bombs, IEDs and swords from the same camp; and the most heinous of all the chopping off of a Professor T.J. Joseph's palm in Kerala's Idduki on false charges of blasphemy; plus the murders of various RSS and ABVP workers in South India. Despite refuting all of the above charges, Ahmed Shareef, the founder member of PFI said in its mouthpiece 'Gulf Thejas', "After making India an Islamic state, the PFI will go to other countries." It is clear that India has an internal insurgency going on for several decades and that various Middle Eastern Wahhabi-inspired nations are willing to fund this insurgency. The coming weeks should reveal more about this. Aerial photo taken on March 30, 2022 shows people weeding in a field at Baihu Township in Lujiang County of Hefei, east China's Anhui Province. (Photo by Zuo Xuechang/Xinhua) BEIJING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attaches great importance to food security. He has spoken of the issue on many occasions. The following are some highlights of his remarks. -- Food security is among the country's most fundamental interests. Of all things, eating matters most, and food is the most basic necessity of the people. -- China should be well-prepared, remain vigilant on food security, and adhere to the principle of self-sufficiency based on domestic grain production, guaranteed production capacity, moderate food imports and technological support. -- Farmland is the lifeline of grain production and the foundation of the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. Farmland is for farming and can only be used to grow crops, especially grain crops. The strictest possible system for the protection of farmland must be implemented. -- Party committees and governments at all levels must implement the major policies, decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee on work concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and enhance efforts to ensure grain security. -- Advancing agricultural modernization requires efforts not only of experts but also those of all farmers. The promotion and application of modern agricultural science and technologies and training of farmers must be strengthened, and all big grain growers must be organized to actively develop green, ecological, and efficient agriculture. -- If we Chinese people want to hold tight in hands our rice bowl, we must develop the seed industry on our own. New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on a plea moved by Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain against the transfer of proceedings in the money laundering case against him to a new judge. Seeking the probe agency's reply in the matter, Justice Yogesh Khanna listed the further hearing for September 28. Earlier, the proceedings of Jain's case were heard in a special court where Special Judge Geetanjali Goel was dealing with the matter. However, following the ED's "apprehension of bias" against the Special Judge in deciding the matter, it was transferred to the Special Court of Judge Vikas Dhull. Jain had approached the High Court against the new development. During the course of the hearing, Jain's counsel argued that there was urgency in the matter and even the apex court had asked that his bail plea be decided in 14 days."The district judge did not consider the issues that were to be considered. It sends a wrong message," Jain's counsel Senior advocate N. Hariharan argued. On September 19, Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta stayed the proceedings of the bail hearing before special judge Geetanjali Goel and issued notice to Jain and other co-accused in the case. Jain, whose bail has been denied in various hearings since his arrest in the PMLA case on May 30, is presently lodged in Tihar jail. As per the earlier submissions of the ED, Jain was in de-facto control of shell companies used for alleged money laundering, and the co-accused persons Ankush Jain and Vaibhav Jain were just dummies. The ED had raised certain contentions in connection with the bail arguments being heard by the special judge. Islamabad, Sep 26 : In view of the looming and rapidly worsening food crisis in Pakistan due to the catastrophic floods which have destroyed about 90 per sent of the crops, businessmen and economic experts have urged the government to contemplate and allow import of food items from India. The suggestion comes in reference to the emergency food security problems in the country, triggered after the flash floods since mid-June have wrecked havoc in the country, destroying standing crops spread across thousand of acres of farmland and agricultural fields; displacing and directly affecting over 33 million people; completely diminishing livestock and infrastructure. The business community has also advised the government to also wave all taxes on the agricultural sector until the country returns to normalcy. "We urge the government to allow imports from all four neighbouring countries," stated a press release of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectual Forum (PBIF). PBIF President Zahid Hussain also referred to the Russia-Ukraine war, maintaining that it has caused global damages to agricultural commodities. "War between Russia and Ukraine had caused a lot of damage to global agriculture and the prices of all agricultural commodities had sky rocketed," he said. As per Zahid Hussain, that the biggest impact has been on wheat, whose prices jumped record high, and now following the disastrous floods, its entire crop standing on millions of acres wiped out in Pakistan. "Although imports from Iran and Afghanistan were allowed, the supply of foreign exchange to importers was stopped, which increased the cost of their business significantly," the PBIF press release maintained. Recommendation for allowing imports from India has been done because it is the quickest and cheapest route for food import. Trade with India has been on a halt for some time, forcing traders to opt for the route through the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which adds to the cost for the traders. "The government should give priority to the welfare of the people and give preference to the neighbouring countries instead of importing agricultural products from distance countries," insisted PBIF. PBIF also suggested about the provision of about $17 billion in interest free loans to Pakistani farmers and not distribute it among farmers abroad, there can be a revolution in the country's agricultural production. "Otherwise, the situation could get worse even further by 2050, when Pakistan's population is projected to reach about 380 million," stated the press release by PBIF. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Goldi Solar, India's most quality-conscious solar brand, announced plans to infuse over Rs 5,000 crore as a part of its business expansion plans. Simultaneously, it also unveiled its new and landmark product offering HELOC Plus, a high-efficiency and low on carbon module series with Heterojunction technology. Goldi Solar aims to become an end-to-end and vertically integrated company with module, cell and raw material manufacturing capabilities. Accordingly, it plans to commence production at its cell manufacturing unit in Gujarat Subsequently, it will expand its capacity to 5GW Additionally, Goldi Solar plans to recruit over 4,500 people across various functions, which will increase its workforce to 5,500 plus, including existing workforce. Commenting on the key significant developments, Captain Ishver Dholakiya - Managing Director of Goldi Solar, said, "To create employment at the grass roots level, Goldi Solar plans to hire 25 per cent of the workforce from the local tribal regions adjoining its proposed manufacturing facility. To train the new recruits for a career in renewables, Goldi Solar will conduct three-month certification programmes at a skill development centre that it plans to open in collaboration with the NSDC (National Skill Development Council) in Navsari, Gujarat." He further added, "Renewables are the future of energy. Our future plans of launching a new product line and expanding capacity for module manufacturing is designed to increase the supply of clean energy and motivate its large-scale replacement of fossil fuel. At Goldi Solar, we have committed to the honourable Prime Minister's vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and aspire to create an India self-reliant in renewable energy." Additionally, Bharat Bhut - Director, Goldi Solar said, "Goldi Solar has consistently created and delivered quality modules. Our mantra is to provide better and more efficient products. In accordance with our quality ethos, we intend to form a dedicated product development and R&D team, which will accelerate the creation of high-efficiency models. Goldi is the first Indian manufacturer to announce a 710 Wp module based on the latest HJT technology, and we are confident that our latest offering, HELOC Plus, will be a game-changer in the industry." Hardip Singh, President & Global Head, Sales & Marketing, Goldi Solar added, "Our credo of 'Ghar Ghar Goldi, Har Ghar Goldi', testifies to our ambitions of making Goldi Solar a mass brand in India. Currently, we operate in the segments of IPP, C&I, EPC, exports and manufacturing. Our focus on India's domestic consumer market has enabled us to register a presence in the key Indian cities. We are confident of increasing our presence with the proposed capacity expansion exercise. Our future roadmap is a key step towards enabling every Indian to participate in an impending renewable revolution." Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 26 : Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said that the Gandhi family has no issues with him contesting for the party president's post. The Thiruvananthapuruam MP made a quick visit to Rahul Gandhi soon after his morning session of the Bharat Jodo yatra ended at Pattambi in Palakkad district. "I came and met Rahul Gandhi. I spoke to the three people in the Gandhi family and they have no issue with contesting for it. I am yet to make a decision and have been getting reactions from across the country, he said. Asked if he expects backing from the Congress leaders in Kerala, with a smile, he said, "Yes, surely, but not all would support and my support will increase after the nomination is filed." Meanwhile, the indication is that Tharoor will be filing his nomination on Friday, the last day of filing of nominations. Chennai, Sep 26 : The Tamil Nadu government's flagship project of free educational kits for the students of government schools has drawn flak after the supply of poor-quality products in the kits. This includes unfit uniforms, shoes, and even poor-quality geometry boxes, notebooks and school bags. Other than the quality of the products distributed, in many places the students are yet to receive the educational kits and students have to buy shoes and new uniforms on their own. With already three months elapsed since the reopening of schools in the state, the lethargy on the part of Tamil Nadu Text Book And Educational Service Corporation has led to the students in many places not getting the kits. In the rural and tribal areas, students are yet to receive shoes and other essential items for their educational purposes. A teacher with a government school in Madurai while speaking to IANS said, "Generally, before the pandemic, the kits were distributed two weeks within the reopening of schools, but now things have turned upside down, and in many schools, children are yet to receive the free educational kits. This will lead to students not being able to wear new uniforms, use new instrument boxes, and carry new school bags." However, officials with the Textbook and Educational Services Corporation told IANS that this was not the first time that the delay in distribution took place. It is to be noted that the Textbook and Educational Services Corporation has been distributing free educational kits in the state since 2013. The corporation is in-charge of procuring textbooks, notebooks, uniforms, school bags, crayons, geometry boxes, shoes, etc. Demands have already poured in from teachers and parents that the department stick to locally procured products as some of the batches of uniforms and shoes and slippers were not of sizes that fit the children. Moscow, Sep 26 : At least six people were killed and 20 others injured in a shooting at a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk on Monday, according to media reports. "Today, the police received a report about shooting at School 88 in Izhevsk. Police officers immediately set out to the scene. Measures are being taken to apprehend the suspect," Russia's TASS News Agency quoted law enforcers as saying. The school administration said students and teachers had been evacuated, they added. A BBC report said that the school is located in the centre of Izhevsk, a city of about 650,000 residents, close to central government buildings. Emergency officials are at the scene. Bengaluru, Sep 26 : The Indian Air Force (IAF) has set up a 'Court of Inquiry' to establish the circumstances leading to the death of the Under Trainee Flying Officer (UTFO) Ankit Kumar Jha at Air Force Technical College (AFTC), Bengaluru on September 21. An IAF official release stated that there were reports in the media about the death of UTFO. The deceased UTFO had joined the IAF in February 2021 and was undergoing training at the Air Force Technical College (AFTC). His training had been terminated on September 20 2022, after informing his father of the same. Termination of training was the result of recommendations made by a Court of Inquiry (COI), which was instituted following a complaint by a fellow woman trainee officer against the UTFO on June 30, 2022, it said. It had been established that the UFTO had committed certain acts of misconduct. The Inquiry proceedings were duly examined at multiple levels before being approved at Air HQ, as per the established procedure on the subject, the statement read. As per the existing norms, an IAF officer was deputed to convey the news of this unfortunate happening to the parents of late UFTO A.K. Jha in New Delhi. A post-mortem examination was conducted on September 23, 2022. The report is awaited. On September 24, his kin visited AFTC. They were briefed about the incident. The Indian Air Force condoles the unfortunate loss of life and prays for strength to the bereaved family in their time of grief. IAF is cooperating with the investigation being conducted by the police on the matter, the statement said. Meanwhile, six Indian Air Force officials have been booked for alleged murder case following the death of Ankit Kumar Jha last week under suspicious circumstances. The deceased youth, 27-year-old Ankit Kumar Jha was training at the AFTC in Jalahalli campus for one-and-half years, according to police. He had allegedly committed suicide by hanging after being discharged following a court of inquiry. However, the deceased youth's family have claimed that their son had been killed. In his suicide note, the deceased had mentioned the names of six IAF officials, including a commodore, two wing commanders, and group captain, among other, said police sources. Aman, brother of the deceased, has alleged that a training officer had killed his brother and made it look like a suicide case. Gangammamgudi police have taken up the case and are investigating both angles. Islamabad, Sep 26 : The spread of dengue continues unabated in Pakistan amid an ongoing outbreak blamed largely on deadly floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains since mid-June. In the last 24 hours 419 new cases were reported across Sindh, with the majority registered in the provincial capital of Karachi, (343), Xinhua news agency quoted the local health department as saying. The new cases have increased this year's overall caseload in Sindh to 7,951. Meanwhile in Punjab province, there were 385 new cases, with 186 of them logged in Lahore and 100 in Rawalpindi. The total number of dengue cases in Punjab this year has now gone up to 4,921. Also in the same period, 213 more people were diagnosed with the disease in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, taking the total to 6,625. Islamabad reported 68 new cases, increasing the overall to 1,991 this year. The government has launched an anti-dengue campaign including raising public awareness in response to the alarmingly high number of cases in the country, and has taken special measures at hotspots in order to curb the spread of the mosquito-borne disease. Dengue mosquitos breed in stagnant water like water-filled containers. In severe cases, dengue can cause joint pain, nausea, vomiting, rashes, breathing problems, haemorrhaging and organ failure. Lucknow, Sep 26 : Abdul Majeed, a Popular Front of India (PFI) activist, has been arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) of Uttar Pradesh Police. Abdul Majeed is accused of being involved in anti-national activities. During interrogation by the STF, he has given the names of several other members. Electronic gadgets and objectionable literature related to the PFI and IS have been seized from Abdul Majeed, said STF sources. According to an STF official, Abdul Majeed is a resident of Kakori. He was arrested earlier for his involvement in anti-terrorist activities. After his release on bail, he was working for the PFI. As soon as the STF got information about this, he was arrested from the Vibhuti Khand area. A case has been registered against him by the Inspector of STF in Vibhuti Khand police station. According to the information received, Abdul was increasing the network of PFI by instigating the Muslim youths. He had held several meetings in the name of the organisation in Lucknow as well as Barabanki, Bahraich, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Kanpur, Saharanpur, Meerut, Ghaziabad and Noida. Moscow, Sep 26 : At least nine people were killed, including five students, and several others injured in a shooting at a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk on Monday, according to media reports. The incident took place in School No.88 in the city of about 650,000 residents located in the Urals region. Citing the Investigative Committee, Russia's RT news said that the male perpetrator died by suicide after the attack and his identity is currently being established. The male suspect was wearing a ski mask and a black T-shirt with Nazi symbols, it added. A local MP said that "the gunman was armed with two non-lethal pistols that had been altered to fire live ordnance". The school administration said students and teachers had been evacuated, the state-run TASS News Agency reported. The victims also included teachers and two security guards, reports the BBC. Footage circulating on social media showed blood on a classroom floor and a bullet hole in a window, with children crouching down underneath desks. In May last year, a school shooting occurred in Kazan, Tatarstan, which claimed the lives of seven students and two teachers. The 19-year-old shooter was identified as a former student. New Delhi, Sep 26 : With a goal to touch 400 million lives in India by end 2025, New Delhi-based non-profit organisation ECHO India is working towards building capacities across areas such as healthcare, education and other sustainable development goals. ECHO India (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), along with its partners, has launched over 200 hubs and rolled out more than 350 programmes covering more than 30 disease areas, which has led to the capacity building of over 700,000 healthcare providers across the country. Kartik Dhar, Head Technology & Digital Platforms at ECHO India, told IANS in an interview that Cloud technology is at the heart of all that they do, as it enables them to connect their participants together. The Covid pandemic created a great sense of urgency for the organisation and access to AWS infrastructure allowed them to build their platform much faster and with greater reliability. Here are the excerpts from an interview: Q. What is the vision behind Echo India? A: Established in 2008, ECHO India is a non-profit organisation focused on bringing equity primarily in the fields of healthcare and education through capacity building of healthcare practitioners and educators. We follow the Societal Thinking approach, and are working towards building an open digital infrastructure for capacity building through a community-centred approach, powered by the ECHO's 'hub and spoke' Model of learning; Hub being a group of experts who regularly mentor the learners (spokes). TeleECHO "clinics" are conducted by ECHO ahubs' through basic, widely available teleconferencing tools, and the sessions involve primary care clinicians and healthcare workers (HCWs) from multiple sites presenting patient cases to teams of specialists and each other. In this manner, ECHO creates ongoing learning communities to support primary care clinicians and helps them develop necessary skills. With a goal to touch 400 million lives in India by end of 2025, ECHO India has partnered with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, State NHMs (National Health Missions), Municipal Corporations, Nursing Councils as well as leading medical institutions across India including AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health & Neurological Sciences), NITRD (National Institute for Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases), NICPR (National Institute of Cancer Prevention & Research), Tata Memorial Hospital, and PGIMER (Post Graduate Institute for Medical Education & Research). ECHO India, along with its partners, has launched over 200 hubs and rolled out 350+ programmes covering more than 30 disease areas, which has led to the capacity building of over 700,000 providers across the country. Q: What innovations has Echo brought into the non-profit space? A: The ECHO Model is an innovative learning model that uses case-based learning, guided iterative practice, and tele-mentoring, instead of traditional online and unidirectional learning methodologies like Webinars, Lectures, MOOC (Massive Online Open Courses). Through this practical approach we are able to ensure that health workers have better knowledge retention and practical understanding that they can apply in the field. We have also developed an innovative Digital Platform called iECHO, -- developed in collaboration with Project ECHO USA -- that serves as a shared digital infrastructure for the entire global movement. Through this digital platform, participants can connect with experts, take part in live learning sessions, access best practices, get digital certificates, and potentially connect and share knowledge freely and openly. Q: Tell us about the reach of your work and elaborate on your plans for the next couple of years? A: We launched more than 80 new hubs during 2021-22, representing a strong YoY growth of over 65 per cent, following on from a massive 160 per cent growth in the year before. We signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to facilitate the use of ECHO Model in MoHFW-linked hospitals, central institutions and national-level programmes. We also entered into formal partnerships with 25 state NHMs to enable capacity building at primary and secondary care. We expanded outreach to all the North-eastern states, strengthening ECHO's impact in the country's hinterland, thus reducing inequities in healthcare access. In a recent programme, we mentored 5,500 nurses for infection prevention and control in partnership with the Nursing Councils, state NHMs and Municipal Corporations of Mumbai, Nagpur and Kolkata. We see our role evolving from solving the problem to distributing the ability to solve to our "superhubs", hubs or sometimes even our participants. Our role is to ensure that in this capacity building and skilling of HCWs, there is fidelity to the ECHO Model, an enabling technology infrastructure, defined standards and proper guidance and support all the participants of the ECHO movement. iECHO allows hubs to onboard themselves on the ECHO platform faster, helps them build and operate multiple programmes and onboard their spokes too. They can access all the programme data at one place with ways to manage multiple programmes, see details of attendance, get robust data analytics on participation, conduct assessments and issue certification to the participants. Q: How do you go about addressing Sustainable Development Goals? A: The ECHO model has proven efficient, effective, and scalable across several disciplines in empowering global change, especially in the fields of health and education. Going beyond health and education, the ECHO model can be leveraged to create lasting change across multiple sectors and achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) -- extending even to Gender Equity and Climate -- by empowering stakeholders from relevant fields to think and expand their horizons to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. Q. What types of challenges do you face while working and how do you solve them? A: As a technology enabled non-profit, we are constantly challenged with ensuring our systems are resilient, scalable, and accessible to all. In a resource constrained environment like India, access to fast internet has been challenging, especially as we work in remote areas. Our goal is to ensure equitable access to all our community participants, and we have taken various initiatives to ensure the ECHO platform is accessible to the last mile. A constant challenge in software development is the balance of speed and quality. Given that we are trying to solve a massive challenge of touching 1 billion lives, we need to operate at speed, while ensuring that the solutions we develop are robust and scalable to meet the growing needs of the movement. Q. What are some of the emerging technologies that will further reshape healthcare, education, and livelihood over the next 4-5 years? A: The upcoming Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) platform by the Ministry of Health, Government of India can be a game changer in ensuring equitable access to healthcare for the last mile. By enabling interoperability and digitization, it could potentially transform healthcare in the same way that UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has transformed micropayments in India. We also are optimistic about the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies to impact the last mile. We have seen deep learning language models like GPT-3 transform the way humans can interact with computer systems, and we are collaborating with the Societal Platform team towards building platform capabilities that will allow the ECHO community to discover and access knowledge resources seamlessly. AI-based voice assistant and translation technologies in regional languages of India can also be a game changer towards democratizing access to specialized medical knowledge and expertise to health workers in remote areas who are not comfortable with English. Q: What has cloud technology and AWS helped you to do that you couldn't do before? The ECHO movement is a model which relies on personal touch, mutual respect and connection between the mentor and mentee. The challenge has been not to lose the heart of the model while constructing a digital platform which will enable a huge fore-multiplication to the initiative. Cloud technology is now the heart of all how we propose to expand it exponentially, as it connects our participants together while retaining fidelity to the Model. Amazon has been a critical part of our journey and a key partner. We are using a whole host of AWS services such as the Elastic Kubernetes Service, Pinpoint for messaging, DynamoDB for a highly scalable NoSQL database, and much more. The pandemic created a great sense of urgency for us and we needed to develop our platform at rapid speed. Having access to AWS infrastructure has allowed us to build our platform much faster and with greater reliability. This has been critical in the journey of ECHO. Q. In terms of business outcomes, what benefits have you experienced because of running on AWS? By leveraging containerization and microservices architecture, specifically through Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) and Amazon CloudWatch, we have improved our infrastructure pipelines dramatically. Through ECR we are able to automate our deployment and ensure we can reliably deploy functionality to our users seamlessly. CloudWatch has given us improved insights into infrastructure telemetry data and has reduced the time for issue resolution significantly. Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) has provided us with a highly cost effective and scalable solution for sending email communications and notifications to our users. It has provided a low cost and high reliability solution as compared to other vendors. Having a managed suite of services, especially the database and container registry has allowed us to achieve a lot with a small and lean team. Not having to hire dedicated Database Administrators or system administrators to manage and maintain the database has allowed us to focus our efforts on maximizing value for our users. Implementing DynamoDB with auto-scaling and in-memory caching has given us a highly scalable database with zero downtime, while being able to handle millions of requests. Through our microservice architecture implemented on AWS Cloud we are able to ensure a highly available system with failover protection and auto-scaling to handle high traffic spikes. Amazon Pinpoint has enabled us to send SMS notifications, One-time passwords (OTP), and other communications very easily, thus allowing our users to easily sign up, get updates, and interact with the ECHO platform using mobile devices. Having dedicated technical support and communication from our relationship manager has been highly appreciated, and gives us added efficiency, and an extra peace of mind. Ensuring Cybersecurity and compliance best practices around Identity and Access Management (IAM), separation of development, testing and production environments, while maintaining a highly agile and responsive development workflow has been enabled by AWS. The "business" of ECHO India is not to generate revenue. It is to bring equity in Healthcare using this ECHO model. I am very happy that the use of AWS in our digital platform iECHO is enabling us to do that. San Francisco, Sep 26 : Several Google Photos users have complained that their old photographs had been "corrupted". According to 9To5Google, Google Photos users scrolling back several years through their library have found pictures that can be best described as "corrupted" in recent days. People began noticing that their years-old photos (over five years, approximately) have lines and deep cracks running through them, as well as other blurry or distorted areas, the report said. "White dots are also a common occurrence. Some images are more damaged than others with seemingly no pattern to what's impacted or the severity," it added. According to those affected, the corruption persists when downloading the image. This apparently applies to both individual downloads and when using Google Takeout. The original copies of pictures do not appear to be impacted, but the edited ones are what appear in the Google Photos apps. As per the report, it does not appear that all users have this problem, but it seems to impact a rather sizable number. Meanwhile, Google, this year, added new filters in Google Photos to help users show their skin in its true shade. With the Pixel 6 series, the tech giant worked to adjust the phone's camera to more accurately capture the wide variety of human skin tones so that people can see their true selves in photographs. Kolkata, Sep 26 : How will a deep-drafted port at Tajpur in West Bengal's East Midnapore district, impact Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) -- a port facility under Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (SMP), Kolkata? The state cabinet has already cleared the issuance of a Letter of Intent (LOI) for development of a port at Tajpur to Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) Ltd. It remains to be seen when APSEZ Ltd accepts the proposal. However, one thing is clear. A sustainable port facility at Tajpur will involve huge investment. "It will be an expensive port and charges will have to be high in order to recover costs. An investment of nearly Rs 10,000 crore will be required, just to attain 12 metres of draft. Capital dredging will be required to create a channel apart from the building of a dyke. Even after that, maintenance dredging will be required every year. This will cost Rs 250-300 crore annually," a senior port official said. Draft near the shore at Tajpur is barely 4-5 metres. It increases to about 12 metres 7-8 km into the sea. A draft of 12 metres will enable only Panamax vessels, with a parcel load of 70-80,000 tonnes, to access the port. To handle Cape Size vessels, with parcel loads of 100,000 tonnes, a draft of 15 metres will be required. For this, one would have to move further away from shore. "HDC has a draft of about 8.5 metres. There isn't too much difference between this and 12 metres. Nowadays, importers do not unload cargo at one port. They use two ports. Sometimes, its Paradip and Dhamra. Otherwise, it is Dhamra and Haldia. This is to avoid congestion. After all, evacuation of cargo after it's taken off the ship is very crucial. "Haldia has very good rail and road links and is preferred by importers. No wonder, HDC continues to handle Panamax vessels that have unloaded part of the cargo at Paradip or Dhamra. HDC also handles Cape Vessels at the Sandheads and Sagar anchorage," the official added. Tajpur's success will depend on several factors. One of these is the increase in cargo. The Centre wants a major rise in cargo handling by 2025. So long as there is sufficient cargo, every port facility can enjoy a substantial share, including the proposed Subarnarekha port in Odisha's Balasore. Port charges will matter though. APSEZ Ltd will be mechanising Berth 2 at HDC at a cost of over Rs 298 crore. The rate it proposes to offer shippers is extremely competitive. Mumbai, Sep 26 : It is an exciting time for actor Abhishek Banerjee, who has a flood of back-to-back releases such as 'Bhediya', 'Nazarandaaz', 'Dream Girl 2' and 'Rana Naidu'. The trailer of Abhishek's upcoming film 'Nazarandaaz' has recently been released and has started to take over the hearts of the audience. He said: "I'm thrilled to see the response pouring in for the trailer of 'Nazarandaaz'... I'm super kicked about it, and the story is such that audiences from all quarters and genres will connect to it instantly." "It's such an exciting time, as the projects I have been working on are finally announced. Recently, the teaser of 'Rana Naidu' too was announced... which again is a different character from what I have done before, and then of course 'Bhediya' will drop soon. Loving this phase and couldn't be more grateful," he added. 'Rana Naidu', which stars Rana Daggubati in the lead, tells the story a man named Rana Naidu, who is the go-to person for everyone in the film industry when they have a problem. 'Nazarandaaz', is a comedy drama film directed by Vikrant Deshmukh. It is slated to release on October 7. The film also stars Kumud Mishra and Divya Dutta. Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon-starrer 'Bhediya' is comedy horror film directed by Amar Kaushik. It is the third installment in Vijan's horror-comedy universe, scheduled to release in November. Kochi, Sep 26 : Actor Sreenath Bhasi was on Monday arrested by the Maradu Police after a lady journalist working in an online media complained of being verbally abused during an interview held last week. Since the charges are bailable, he is expected to walk out of the Maradu Police station after sureties are presented. Bhasi is reported to have lost cool while being interviewed after probing questions were put before him at an interview which was done in the course of promoting his latest film, 'Chattambi'. After sensing trouble, he later apologised by saying that he has not abused anyone and just responded in a way that every one person would when insulted and emphatically said he has done no wrong. But the police registered the case and asked him to present before them. On Monday morning, he sought a day's leave to appear before them and that was granted. But later changed his mind and informed the police that he can come on Monday itself. After an hour's questioning, the police arrested the young actor. Bhasi began as a radio jockey and then turned a video jockey and it was in 2011 that he made his film debut in the blockbuster film 'Pranayam' directed by Blessy and starring Mohanlal and Anupam Kher. After that there was no looking back, so far he has acted in around 50 films. New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have sought suggestions from authorities concerned to frame guidelines to tackle the problem of stray cattle and other animals trespassing National Highways. The Ministry, in this regard, addressed a letter to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), National Highway Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDC) and other concerned authorities last week. It referred to the department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture recommendations in this respect. "Urgent steps may be taken in coordination with concerned local authorities to tackle the problem of stray cattle and other animals trespassing National Highways posing tremendous security risk to the passengers, especially women, seniors and children, besides causing hindrance on the smooth flow of traffic on NHs. Barriers may be erected to prevent stray cattle and other animals from coming onto NHs in stretches where this problem is faced frequently. Other possible solutions may be looked into to minimize such incidents across the entire NH network in the country so as to make NH travel safer and free-flowing for all passengers," the standing committee in its recent report had recommended. "In this context, it is requested to kindly provide comments/suggestions to frame guidelines in the matter," said the letter issued by the Ministry to the concerned authorities. The Committee in its report (No. 317) also noted the various measures taken by the Ministry to bolster road safety on national highways across the country. "A huge number of road accident deaths and the resultant negative effect of the same on the economic growth potential of the country is immense. Keeping this in mind, a lot more still needs to be done in order to minimize the number of road accidents and deaths happening in the country. The Committee feels that besides high-quality maintenance of National Highways and implementation of safety measures therein, having well-trained and educated drivers on our NHs holds the key to improving the driving habits of the average Indian driver and making them more aware of traffic rules and the need for adhering to them," said the report. Hyderabad, Sep 26 : Top officials from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will attend a crucial meeting convened by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi on Tuesday to discuss unresolved issues between the two states as per Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act. The chief secretaries of both the Telugu states are likely to attend the meeting along with some other key officials to discuss the pending issues after bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. As many as 14 pending issues were reportedly listed in the agenda. Of them, seven were related to the inter-state issues between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The remaining issues include financial assistance to the Andhra Pradesh capital city, grants to the backward regions development and other assurances given under the Reorganisation Act. Issues related to the division of the institutions listed in the Schedule IX and X of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014 are likely to figure in the meeting to be chaired by the Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla. The meeting would also discuss dividing institutions not mentioned in the Act, division of Andhra Pradesh State Finance Corporation, Singareni Collieries and AP Heavy Machinery Engineering Limited, division of cash and bank balance between the two states and the dues being claimed by both the states on civil supplies corporations. The meeting is being held at a time when Telangana has accused the Centre of bias and withholding crucial funds that may hamper the state's development. The Central government recently wrote to the Telangana government to clear electricity dues of Rs 6,000 crore to Andhra Pradesh before the end of September Telangana claims that it is Andhra Pradesh which owes it Rs 17,000 crore. Officials from Telangana are expected to raise the issue of getting pending power dues. They are also likely to bring to the notice of the Home Secretary about the inordinate delay in getting clearances pertaining to irrigation projects in Telangana from the Central government. They might also highlight the violations being committed by Andhra Pradesh in diverting the Krishna River water to other areas without considering the interests of Telangana. Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 26 : Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Monday shot off a strongly-worded letter to the Kerala University asking for a Senate member to be part of a search committee formed to select a new vice-chancellor. Khan's previous two letters on the same issue had not been responded to. On Monday, he said he will be forced to go ahead with the other two members of the three-member committee that is already in place. The incumbent vice-chancellor superannates next month. Few months back, Khan had first written to the University asking for its nominee and, failing to get any response, he sent another letter. He selected two distinguished academicians -- IIM-Kozhikode director Debashish Chatterjee and Dr B. Satyanarayan, the Karnataka central university vice-chancellor. Incidentally, in the senate meeting held on July 15, the name of V.K.Ramachandran, vice-chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board was floated, but later he himself withdrew. The search committee period is three months and the Chancellor has the powers to extend it by one more month. Khan and the ruling Pinarayi Vijayan government have been lashing at each other on the issue. Gandhinagar, Sep 26 : A Gujarat government employee was shot dead by two unidentified persons when he was on way to his office near Birsa Munda Bhavan in Gandhinagar on Monday. Police have registered a complaint against the unidentified persons. Deceased's brother, Vijay Makwana in his complaint stated that his brother Kiran Makwana was serving as peon with the Home Department as contractual employee. As the family is living in the Indroda area, Kiran starts from home daily around 9.30 a.m on his bicycle to reach office. "I was in office, when I received a call from family members asking me to reach near Birsa Munda Bhavan, as Kiran is murdered. On reaching, I found that Kiran's body was lying on ground next to his cycle," Vijay Makwana said. He added those present at the crime scene told him that two persons had come on a bike and opened fire on Kiran, killing him on the spot. According to witness, two persons had come on Pulsar bike and one of them opened fire on Makwana from back side and fled away towards DGP office. The empty cartridge of the country-made weapon was found by police some 400 meters away from the crime scene. The murder case is being investigated by Police Inspector P.B. Chauhan. New York, Sep 26 : A team of US engineers has developed a battery-free, wireless underwater camera, powered by sound, that is about 100,000 times more energy-efficient than other undersea cameras. The device takes colour photos, even in dark underwater environments, and transmits image data wirelessly through the water. The autonomous camera converts mechanical energy from sound waves traveling through water into electrical energy that powers its imaging and communications equipment. After capturing and encoding image data, the camera also uses sound waves to transmit data to a receiver that reconstructs the image. Since it doesn't need a power source, the camera could run for weeks on end before retrieval, enabling scientists to search remote parts of the ocean for new species, said the team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications. It could also be used to capture images of ocean pollution or monitor the health and growth of fish raised in aquaculture farms. "We are building climate models, but we are missing data from over 95 per cent of the ocean. This technology could help us build more accurate climate models and better understand how climate change impacts the underwater world," said Fadel Adib, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and senior author of the paper. The camera acquires energy using "transducers made from piezoelectric materials" that are placed around its exterior. "Piezoelectric" materials produce an electric signal when a mechanical force is applied to them. When a sound wave travelling through the water hits the transducers, they vibrate and convert that mechanical energy into electrical energy. "Those sound waves could come from any source, like a passing ship or marine life. The camera stores harvested energy until it has built up enough to power the electronics that take photos and communicate data," said the study. Once image data is captured, they are encoded as bits (1s and 0s) and sent to a receiver one bit at a time using a process called "underwater backscatter". The receiver transmits sound waves through the water to the camera, which acts as a mirror to reflect those waves. The camera either reflects a wave back to the receiver or changes its mirror to an absorber so that it does not reflect back. Even though the image looks black and white, the red, green and blue coloured light is reflected in the white part of each photo. When the image data is combined in post-processing, the colour image can be reconstructed. The researchers tested the camera in several underwater environments. In one, they captured color images of plastic bottles floating in a New Hampshire pond. They now plan to enhance the device so it is practical for deployment in real-world settings. Bengaluru, Sep 26 : Social media giant Twitter told the Karnataka High Court on Monday that it was asked to completely block numerous multiple accounts during the farmers' agitation on the borders of Delhi last year. It also told the bench headed by Justice Krishna S. Dixit that the law in this regard only allows blocking of an individual tweet, not the whole account, against the backdrop of political criticism unless there is repeated offence. Senior counsel Arvind S. Datar, appearing for Twitter in connection with 10 blocking orders by the Union government between February 2021 and February 2022 submitted that Section 69 of the Information Technology Act does not give scope for blanket blocking of accounts. He questioned that when the newspapers, and television channels were covering the farmers' agitation, why was that his client (Twitter) asked to completely block all accounts. Noting that freedom of speech includes the right to criticise the government, he said that the Supreme Court has held that criticism can be made within the boundaries of law, and the order by the Union government is a violation of the Supreme Court order. Justice Dixit sought to know how such issues are dealt with in other jurisdictions such as American law for which the counsel sought time. The hearing was adjourned to October 17. Twitter, in its petition before the High Court, maintained that blocking orders by the Union government violate the rights of users under the Constitution. The petition also describes the move of the government as arbitrary and in violation of Section 69 A of the IT Act. The Central government maintains that the blocking orders were issued in the national and public interest, and action was taken to prevent lynching and mob violence. Kathmandu, Sep 26 : At least one person died and scores of others went missing in an avalanche that hit the 8,163-metre-high Mount Manaslu in western Nepal on Monday afternoon. The rescue operation couldn't be carried out owing to inclement weather, said Chang Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks Pvt Ltd at the base camp of the mountain. Three helicopters have already been mobilised but due to the bad weather, the rescue efforts were also badly hit. Tsum Nubri Rural Municipality (Gorkha) Vice Chairman, Laxmi Gurung said that the identification of the person killed in the avalanche that occurred between camps three and four is yet to done. Although a helicopter was mobilised to rescue those stranded on the world's eighth-highest mountain, the rescue operation couldn't be carried out owing to inclement weather. The exact number of those marooned in the mountain is yet to be known. Sherpa said that the climbers, porters and Sherpa guides were swept away by the deadly avalanche, while ascending from third base camp to fourth base camp that is located at the height of 7,450 metres. According to a media report, renowned North Face athlete Hilaree Nelson went missing just below the true summit of Mt Manaslu while her partner Jim Marrison skied down the mountain on Monday morning. Nelson reportedly fell into crevasse from just above the fore summit of the mountain when she, along with Morrison, skied from the real summit this morning. Nelson fell down around 25 metres into vertical crevasse and had gone missing, according to the Himalayan Times. According to the North Face, with a career spanning two decades that includes dozens of first descents through more than 40 expeditions to 16 different countries, Nelson is the most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation. The 45-year-old mother of two was the first female to link two 8000 metre peaks, Everest and Lhotse, in one 24 hour push. In the fall of 2018, she returned to 27,940-foot Lhotse a second time to ski from the summit, linking turns down one of the most prized un-skied lines in the world, as per the TNF website. A total of 404 people from 38 expedition teams have been issued permits to climb the mountain this season. Mumbai, Sep 26 : Actor Pavail Gulati, who is gearing up for the release of his upcoming film 'Goodbye' starring Amitabh Bachchan, has spoken about working with veteran actress Neena Gupta and south sensation Rashmika Mandanna in the movie. In the film, Pavail Gulati is playing the role of Amitabh Bachchan and Neena Gupta's son. He'll be sharing screen space with Neena and Rashmika for the first time. "Neena Ji and Rashmika are a riot on set, Rashmika is such a sweetheart, and has a beautiful smile and a lovely way of working, whenever she used to come on sets she used to bring a smile on everybody's face, as she's always smiling." He added: "Neena ji is a fireball of energy, I can chat with her all day long. Her stories are so beautiful, just standing next to her is like a dream come true. I am honoured to be working with her and I wish to be working with her more and more, what a wonderful talent she has and on top of that she's also a wonderful human being." The story of Goodbye revolves around the importance of being there for each other as a family and coming out stronger irrespective of what life throws at you. The film also stars Sunil Grover, Pavail Gulati, Ashish Vidyarthi, and Elli AvrRam in the film, which will release on October 7. Gandhinagar, Sep 26 : Delegation of BJP and Congress met Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey in Gandhinagar and discussed issues related to Gujarat Assembly elections. Chief Election Commissioner and Commissioner also met all district collectors and police officers on Monday afternoon and discussed the ground situation. Speaking to media persons, Parindu Bhagat, who led the BJP delegation, said "The party has drawn the attention of the Election Commission on 32 issues. Main request to the commission is that Prime Minister's election campaign expenditure should not be counted in party candidates expenditure accounts, but it should be included in party election expenses." "The second request is that the common public should not be harassed and stopped either by the police or the special task team to check cash movement during the election days, they can check vehicles of party workers or party leaders and not the common man," he stated. Whereas Congress has demanded that voters should be provided a hard copy of the VVPAT slip so they can see whether the vote has gone to the right candidate or not, the same should be used as ballot paper and compared with EVM vote counting, said Dipak Babaria, Congress leader. "In many constituencies, there are duplicate votes, these should be deleted at the earliest so no party can misuse those votes," he added. New Delhi Sep 26 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will depart for Tokyo tonight to participate in the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "I am travelling to Tokyo tonight to participate in the State Funeral of former PM Shinzo Abe, a dear friend and a great champion of India-Japan friendship," the Prime Minister tweeted. Apart from meeting his counterpart Fumio Kishida, Modi would be separately meeting Abe's widow Akie Abe to express his condolences. Image Source: IANS News "I will be conveying heartfelt condolences to Prime Minister Kishida and Mrs. Abe on behalf of all Indians. We will continue working to further strengthen India-Japan relations as envisioned by Abe San," he tweeted further. Abe was the longest serving Prime Minister of Japan. He was assassinated on July 8 while addressing an election meeting at Nara prefecture, when he was shot from behind. Around 50 heads of states, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US Vice President Kamala Harris, are expected to attend the funeral. Modi is likely to hold meetings with a few world leaders also during his brief visit to Tokyo. -- Syndicated from IANS Kolkata, Sep 26 : The Kolkata-headquartered All India Fair Price Shop Dealers' Federation, the biggest association of fair price shop owners in the country, has demanded permission to sell alcoholic beverages through their network of fair price shops or ration shops. The Federation's national General Secretary, Biswambhar Basu told IANS that he has already forwarded a letter to the Union Food and Public Distribution Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey on this count, a copy of which has also been forwarded to Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal. "I am already in New Delhi and scheduled to have a meeting with Pandey on this count on Tuesday. In the meeting I will explain to him why it has become necessary to allow the fair price shop dealers to sell liquor," he said. Basu said that in Delhi, liquor is allowed to be sold from registered fair price shops there. "Currently, in India, there are 5,37,868 fair price shops. Excluding those which are in states like Bihar and Gujarat, where the state's own prohibition law exists, our demand is that all other fair price shops in the country should be allowed to sell liquor," he said. According to him, already running fair price shops have become extremely difficult for the owners because of the extremely low margins. "Our profit will shrink further from next month following the decision to discontinue with the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana scheme. In view of the current situation, we request the Union government to allow us to sell alcoholic beverages from licensed manufacturers through fair price shops which will also help the state governments to increase their revenue through state excise," Basu said. Basu also said that sale of alcoholic beverages through fair price shops will also ensure that no spurious or adulterated liquor, that might cause severe health hazards or even deaths, is sold to the public. A senior official of the West Bengal Finance Department, on strict condition of anonymity, said that in principle, there is no reason why the state government will oppose any move by the Union government to permit sale of liquor through fair price shops. "State excise is currently the most important source of the state's own tax revenue generation. At the same time, the state-run West Bengal State Beverage Corporation is currently the only wholesale liquor distributor in the state. More outlets mean sale and hence in such a situation, the state government has no reason to object the move," he said. New Delhi, Sep 26 : With Covid-19 infection, there has been a 25-30 per cent rise in the frequency of heart attacks and heart failure, health experts warned on Monday. According to cardiologists at the Sarvodaya Hospital in Faridabad, they have seen a significant surge in cases of heart attack and heart failure in the post-Covid period. The incidence has gone up by more than one-fourth in the last one year. "After the pandemic, the incidence of heart attacks and heart failure has increased by 25-30 per cent in people who got infected with Covid. Patients, who had to be hospitalised or put on a ventilator due to Covid-19, are now much more vulnerable to heart complications, and we see a considerable surge in such cases," said L.K. Jha, Associate Director-Cardiology at the hospital. According to doctors, there are two ways by which Covid-19 affects the heart. "First is a direct infection of the heart muscle, due to which it gets weakened, leading to heart failure. The second is that after Covid-19, a mild form of the infection persists in the body for many months. The arteries remain inflamed, leading to the tendency of clotting inside the heart. This results in heart attack and other complications," Jha said. Many incidents have come to light in recent months of a sudden heart attack in people, including celebrities, after doing vigorous exercise. "In these cases, the heart muscle may still be inflamed due to long Covid, triggering a heart attack," he said. The doctor also said that people who had a severe form of Covid-19 need to take precautions. According to the expert, it is difficult to predict heart problems in recovered Covid patients. But there are blood tests that measure inflammatory markers like ESR and High-sensitivity C-reactive Protein (hs-CRP). These tests can tell whether any form of infection still exists in the body and how much the risk is. "It is advisable not to do any vigorous exercise for the next six months after getting a Covid infection. Only light exercises like brisk walking or mild jogging are OK. Don't indulge in strength training exercises like the weight-lifting or extreme treadmill because your heart may still be weak," Jha said. Guyana, Sep 26 : Guyana Amazon Warriors rounded off the league stage of the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2022 with a comprehensive defeat of the Barbados Royals, who however topped the points table. With the other match of the Jamaica Tallawahs and St Lucia abandoned because of inclement weather, the four qualifiers for the playoff at the end of 10 matches each are: Barbados Royals (16 points), Guyana Amazon Warriors (11 points), St Lucia Kings (9 points) and Jamaica Tallawahs (9 points). Interestingly, Barbados Royals and Guyana Amazon Warriors will clash in the first qualifier. The winner of the first qualifier will earn go straight into the Hero CPL final. Jamaica Tallawahs and St Lucia will clash in the Eliminator. The Amazon Warriors won the toss and opted to field first. It proved a fine decision as their seamers exploited the fresh surface and grabbed three wickets inside the PowerPlay to leave the Royals in disarray. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals and the Royals managed to muster only 125. As Guyana Amazon Warriors used the movement on offer to their seamers Romario Shepherd, Keemo Paul and Odean Smith all weighed in with wickets to leave the Royals 97 for 9. Late cameos from Ramon Simmonds and Mujeeb Ur Rahman enabled Royals reach 125. The target of 126 was never going to be easy to defend and Guyana went in to chase. The Royals were able to take two early wickets of their own when they had their turn to bowl restricting the Amazon Warriors to 18 for 2 but things got better for Guyana after that. Although the Amazon Warriors lost Chandrapaul Hemraj and Shai Hope in the PowerPlay, Shakib played an enterprising innings to take the drama out of the chase. His knock of 53 came off 30 balls and laid the foundation for the Amazon Warriors to win with five overs to spare. Brief scores: Barbados Royals: 125 all out in 17.3 overs (Jason Holder 42, Azam Khan 20, Romario Shepherd 3/14, Keemo Paul 2/9, Odean Smith 2/42) lost to Guyana Amazon Warriors: 126 for 5 in 14.3 overs (Shakib Al Hasan 53, Rahmanullah Gurbaz 22, Obed McCoy 2/22) by five wickets. Chennai, Sep 26 : The Madras High Court on Monday called for monthly progress reports from District Collectors across Tamil Nadu on the eradication of the exotic and invasive species of shrub, "Seemai karuvelam" that is considered harmful to the ecology. A division bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy ordered that the first such reports must be filed before the court on November 2. It also issued directions to the District Collectors with respect to eradication of Seemai karuvelam from forests and water bodies across the state, and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department to remove the invasive species from all forest areas. The bench also granted permission to private land owners in forest areas to remove invasive species from their land and to use the material as firewood. The Water Resources Department's Chief Engineer informed the court that the invasive species was spread in 1.92 lakh hectares of water bodies under its control and that it was removed from 72,000 hectares of water bodies. The officials also told the court that the rest of the invasive species would be removed in a phased manner but the court refused to accept this. It told the Chief Engineer that the invasive species would grow all again and that the department must call tenders for removal of invasive species from all water bodies in a single go and uprooted. It also ordered the department to complete the tender process within three months. The division bench also expressed surprise on the reported expenses of panchayats on spending Rs 4.74 crore for uprooting the invasive species from 2,700 hectares and directed the District Collectors, in their capacity as the Inspector of Panchayats, to oversee the eradication process of these invasive species and submit monthly reports before the court. New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the Gujarat High Court decision to quash a criminal case filed against Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, filed for allegedly causing a stampede in 2017, while promoting his film "Raees", at the Vadodara Railway Station. A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and C.T. Ravikumar dismissed the appeal filed by the original complainant against the Gujarat High Court's April 2022 judgment. The complainant, Jitendra Madhubhai Solanki had filed a private complaint against Shah Rukh Khan before the judicial magistrate, first class, Vadodara, alleging that his presence at the Vadodara Railway Station coupled with him throwing T-shirts and smiley balls at the crowd assembled at the station led to the stampede. After the local court in Vadodara issued summons, asking him to remain present, Shah Rukh Khan moved the high court against the summons and for quashing the complaint. After the high court on April 27, 2022, quashed the complaint filed against the actor, holding that it has been filed by a person who has no direct connection with the incident in question, Solanki filed a special leave petition challenging the order. The top court dismissed it and has finally afforded a quietus to the said issue. The petitioner was represented by senior advocate Vijay Kumar, and Khan was represented by senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, briefed by a team from Karanjawala & Co advocates led by Ruby Singh Ahuja. In January 2017, the actor and the production team were travelling from Mumbai to Delhi by train to promote the film. When the train reached Vadodara, a huge crowd gathered at the railway station. Chandigarh, Sep 26 : Authorities in Haryana's Hathnikund barrage on Monday released excess water into the Yamuna river, which may pose a flood threat to New Delhi. The water level of the Yamuna river has crossed the danger mark and is expected to rise further with heavy rainfall in the past week, prompting authorities to issue advisory to take appropriate measures to avoid flood-like situation, officials said. Water levels at the Hathnikund barrage along the Haryana-Uttarakhand border rose to nearly 3 lakh cusecs, promoting the government to issue an alert, an official said. According to the official, the water level up to 70,000 cusecs in the barrage is considered normal, while above 2.5 lakh cusecs is considered high floods. As the water level started rising, authorities opened all gates of the Hathnikund barrage, allowing the river water to flow downstream. The government sounded a high alert in Yamunanagar, Karnal, Panipat, and Sonipat districts from where the Yamuna passes through before entering the national capital. There was no report of any loss of life in Haryana so far. The Met Department in Chandigarh said the monsoon in the hill states in Haryana's neighbourhood has largely become subdued with chances of only light to moderate rain in the next 24 hours. New Delhi, Sep 26: Pakistan has lost its second military helicopter in Balochistan in two months, with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claiming that it had shot down the chopper, killing six people on board. In an emailed statement sent to India Narrative, the BLA said that it had first arrested two Pakistani military personnel near Zardaalo, an area in Harnai Balochistan, following which Pakistani helicopters arrived in the area. The BLA said it then shot down at least one chopper near Khost, Harnai. It added that the helicopter was downed in an area which was five kilometres from where the two Pakistanis had been detained. Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) confirmed that a helicopter had "crashed" in Balochistan, but did not say the chopper had been shot down. The ISPR statement said that two Majors, Muhammad Muneed Afzal and Khurram Shyahzad who were both pilots were among the six personnel who were killed. This the second Pakistani military helicopter that has crashed in Balochistan in the last two months. The casualties in the first chopper crash were even bigger as it had killed Quetta corps commander Lt. Gen .Sarfraz Ali and five others, most of whom were senior military officers. In case the BLA claim is confirmed, it would suggest a quantum jump in the group's ability, which was not only capable of launching strikes on the ground, but also equipped to reliably defend against aerial attacks. The two strikes are expected to deter the Pakistanis from launching low-flying helicopter gunship attacks against Baloch insurgents on the ground. The two helicopter downings add to the BLA's heft on the ground. At the beginning of the year, BLA's Majeed Brigade had claimed responsibility for deadly strikes against Pakistan's Frontier Corps contingents camped in Panjgur and Noshki. The BLA has also made it a point that it would target Chinese presence, including the Gwadar port, and other nodes inside Pakistan. Unsurprisingly, the group had earlier claimed responsibility for the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November 2018. In June 2020, the BLA has also claimed responsibility for the strike on the Karachi stock exchange, in which the Chinese are believed to have made significant investments. Three security guards and a police sub-inspector were killed in the strike. In April, Shari Baloch, said to belong to the BLA's Majeed Brigade blew herself up and killed three Chinese nationals involved in running the Confucius institute in the Karachi university. Analysts say that despite the potent strikes and impressive growth in capability, the Baloch insurgency has much work to do to acquire the critical mass to change the balance of power against Pakistan in Balochistan. (The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative Chandigarh, Sep 26 : Former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Monday said he had a mission to accomplish after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "I have a mission to accomplish and that is to work for the interest of the state and the country," he said. Addressing his maiden press meet here after joining the party, Amarinder Singh said he wanted to strengthen the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and party President J.P. Nadda. Accompanying state party President Ashwani Sharma, besides senior leaders, the two-time Chief Minister thanked Prime Minister Modi for opening the Kartarpur Corridor and withdrawal of three agricultural laws. Besides, he added, Modi had special fondness for Punjab as whenever as Chief Minister he met him with any demand for the state, he readily accepted it. Amarinder Singh rapped the Aam Aadmi Party government saying there was no governance in Punjab. He said what happened in Germany was unbecoming of a Chief Minister. He said it was Raghav Chadha who was running the show under Arvind Kejriwal's command. The senior leader said it was shameful for a government that being just six months in the power, it has to bring in the vote of confidence for itself. "That means you have already lost the confidence in your own people," he taunted the AAP leadership. The veteran leader expressed doubts about the survival of the AAP government in Punjab, saying he was not sure how long people of Punjab will tolerate this government. "We have to be battle ready and whenever the occasion demands we will fight it," he said. Amarinder Singh also lashed out at Sikhs For Justice leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, saying he was trying to malign an entire community. "Punjabis have made a place of pride for themselves world over and the activities Pannu was carrying out was only bringing bad name," he said. Amarinder Singh refused to comment on the developments taking place in the Congress in Rajasthan, saying it was the party's internal matter as he was no longer with that party. Guwahati, Sep 26 : Amid the row over violation of the Wildlife (Protection) Act by driving a safari vehicle inside the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNP & TR) in Assam beyond the scheduled time by Chief Minister, Tourism Minister and spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev a.k.a Sadhguru, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) M.K. Yadava on Monday said that the VVIPs did not violate the law. The PCCF said that after the unveiling of three statues of rhinoceros at the Mihimukh of KNP & TR on Saturday, they (forest officials) had invited Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Tourism Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah and spiritual guru Sadhguru to participate in a safari vehicle inside the KNP & TR. "The law has permitted the Chief Wildlife Warden to allow the visitors to take part in a safari vehicle in a special case. Many people do not know the special provision leading to the unnecessary controversy. The issue was raised as part of a hidden agenda to defame the national park," the PCCF told the media. Noting that all arrangements were made for the safari vehicle and there was no way that "we could take it back just because it was becoming dark", the senior Indian Forest Service official said that during the safari vehicle, KNP & TR Field Director and other forest officials were present in the park. "If any one is accused over this issue that is I... myself, not the VVIPs or the guests," Yadava clarified. Environment and animal rights activists alleged that Assam Chief Minister, state Tourism Minister and Sadhguru violated the Wildlife (Protection) Act by driving a safari vehicle inside the KNP & TR at the late evening which is much beyond the scheduled time. Activists Soneswar Narah and Prabin Pegu on Sunday lodged a police complaint at the Bokakhat police station in Golaghat district against the Chief Minister, spiritual guru, and the Tourism Minister, demanding action against them under the act. "Villagers around Kaziranga have sacrificed a lot to protect the world-famous park. Wild tigers, elephants and other animals killed many domestic animals of the people living alongside the park," Narah had told the media. Forest and other law enforcing agencies took action against many people for "violating" the Wildlife Protection Act and many people were sentenced to imprisonment, he said. The activist said that if the law is equal for everyone, then action must be taken against the Chief Minister, Sadhguru, and Tourism Minister for conducting the vehicle safari inside the national park much beyond the scheduled time. A fleet of vehicles carrying Sarma, Sadhguru, and the minister covered around 2 km inside Kaziranga after the inauguration of a rhino memorial about two hours much behind the scheduled time on Saturday. Sadhguru was driving one of the safari vehicles with the Chief Minister in the passenger seat while the Minister sat in the back along with officials and guards. Environment and wild animal expert Rohit Choudhury said that vehicle safari after sunset in Kaziranga is a violation of Section 27 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, which restricts the entry in a wildlife sanctuary of anyone other than a public servant on duty. Another environment and animal rights activist Apurba Ballave Goswami said that it is most unfortunate that an important person like Sadhguru, "whom we expect to practice what we preach, has no sensitivity towards animals". Goswami said that it is known that wild animals in their protected homes and forest feel disturbed by lights, sounds and noises of vehicles at night. India's seventh Unesco world heritage site, Kaziranga is not just a home of at least 2,613 one-horned rhinos, but also to Royal Bengal tigers, Asian elephants, wild buffalos and many more animal species while it is also habitat to thousands of birds of over 125 species. Dharamsala, Sep 26 : In the wake of rising Covid-19 cases in Tibet, China proceeds to adopt draconian measures to enforce its zero-Covid policy, which is evidently causing more harm than good, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said on Monday, saying an estimated 53,076 people reside in isolation centres. The mismanagement of the pandemic outbreak in Tibet only exposes Beijing's failed Covid-policy implementation resulting in the endangerment of Tibetan lives. It said in an attempt to present itself as a role model in curbing the outbreak, China is downright disregarding the safety and security of Tibetans in need of medical assistance and Covid care evidenced by the dire lockdown conditions being reported and exposed online by a number of affected Tibetans. As per the CTA, headquartered in this Himachal Pradesh hill station, Tibetans complained about crowded quarantine facilities, food scarcity, lack of medical supplies and unhygienic living conditions. Some Tibetans likened the condition to being worse than a prisoner and another Tibetan was beaten up for protesting against the dire living situation under the Covid lockdown. "China publicly reported the first Covid outbreak in Tibet on August 8 this year, with 22 cases of Covid-positive in Lhasa and Ngari," said CTA spokesperson Tenzin Lekshay. "This has been the first official admission of Covid in Tibet after the repeated public announcements of the zero-Covid policy in the TAR since early 2020. "Within weeks, at least 3,627 people had reportedly tested positive indicating a rapid increase. Strict government-imposed lockdowns were soon enacted in Lhasa, Shigatse, and Ngari after news of positive cases were reported from nearby areas of Nagchu, Chamdo, Lhoka, and Nyingtri. "Currently, an estimated 53,076 people reside in isolation centres in the TAR alone," added the spokesperson. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi on Monday sought detailed report on the drama in party-ruled Rajasthan, where a number of MLAs supporting Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, came out in open revolt, from state in charge Ajay Maken. A meeting on Rajasthan was held at Gandhi's 10, Janpath residence with Ajay Maken, senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge and General Secretary, Organisation, K.C. Venugopal present. Both Maken and Kharge, who were in Jaipur on Sunday, briefed her about the sequence of events in the state. "I have briefed Congress President... she has sought a detailed report which I will send to her..," Maken told media persons after the meeting. Maken, who was in Jaipur along with Kharge to convene the CLP meeting on Sunday for deciding the new CM face but instead faced a high-voltage drama, on Monday told the media that three members from the Gehlot camp had met them with three proposals, which they did not accept as it raised conflict of interest. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will hold a review meeting of public sector banks on Tuesday, where the focus would be on status and performance of their credit and other welfare schemes for Scheduled Castes (SCs). Public sector banks give credit to people belonging to the SC community for various Central schemes like Stand-Up India, credit enhancement guarantee scheme for SCs and venture capital funds for the community, among others. All these activities are expected to be reviewed during the meeting, official sources said. Apart from this, various loan schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM), the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) as well as education loan, will also be reviewed. Chairman of National Commission for SCs and heads of public sector banks as well as representatives of financial institutions like SIDBI and NABARD as well as officials of the Department of Financial Services would also be present in the meeting. The meeting would also review the measures undertaken for the welfare of SCs in public sector banks, reservation, backlog vacancies and action taken to fill them up and functioning of welfare and grievance redressal mechanisms, sources said. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Given the rapidly growing significance of digital in the government, Digital India Corporation is mulling a comprehensive restructuring plan and an implementation roadmap to ensure that it is well equipped to fulfil its strategic vision. Digital India Corporation is a not for profit company set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It leads and guides in realizing the vision, objectives and goals of the Digital India program. It provides strategic support to the ministries and departments of the Centre and the states for carrying forward the mission of Digital India by way of capacity building for e-governance projects, promoting best practices, encouraging Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), nurturing innovation and technology in various domains. The DIC has multiple divisions including Technology Development & Deployment Division (TDDD), National e-Governance Division (NeGD), MyGov, MeitY Startup Hub (MSH) and India Semiconductor Mission (ISM). AS per the Request for Proposal, DIC is expected to house more divisions in the future on the latest technologies including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Language Technologies etc. "For DIC to play the envisioned role and fulfil its responsibilities, a re-imagination of the organization, operating model, and ecosystem integration is essential. There is a need for a thorough re-assessment of DIC with respect to structure, size, quality of personnel, HR policies, and other tech and non-tech enablers that help the organization perform effectively to deliver targeted outcomes," said a document seeking a response from experienced management consulting firms. The terms of reference include assessment of the potential of DIC, especially in light of the role being envisaged for the DIC in the future with regard to the projects being assigned to DIC in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technologies, DigiLocker, Umang, National Language Technology Mission (NLTM), Managed Service Provider for Cloud Services, e-Commerce Platform Services, Poshan Tracker for Ministry of Women & Child Development, Social Media services for various departments and other projects being assigned to the DIC. Also, Agro Advisory Services being provided by its Integrated Information Dissemination System (IIDS) platform to various States/Central agencies and other assignments by various government departments. The DIC presently has around 500 team members on its projects and assignments and has annual projects worth around Rs 250 crores. With the proposed new projects being assigned to DIC, the annual turnover is likely to exceed Rs 500 crores with an estimated team size of 1000. This will require designing optimal organizational structure and HR policies that promote innovation and motivation for team members, said the terms of reference. Mumbai, Sep 26 : Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan was at his quirky best during a media event here on Monday. The actor was launched as Prime Video's BAE (Before Anyone Else), which means he will don a superfan's avatar with all the inside news. And he used the opportunity to both engage and entertain the reporters present. Talking to the media, Varun said: "Ye andar ki khabar leak karna maine media se hi seekha hai (I have learnt leaking scoops from the media) and now I'll be putting it to a good use." He then went on to pull a sarcastic one. "As Prime BAE, main sab fans ko saari exclusive khabar dunga, jaise aap log dete ho, kabhi kabhi exclusives ke upar jhagadte bhi ho (I'll give all exclusive news to all the fans like the media does and which often results in fights between media houses)." One 'scoop' that Varun did not share was about the comedy-horror movie "Bhediya" coming to Prime Video. All that he revealed was that "a big project, with a big star and a big producer" will be announced by the streamer on October 3. The "big producer" bit, people guessed, was a reference to Dinesh Vijan of Maddock Films, who's been behind such films as "Love Aaj Kal", "Cocktail", and "Angrezi Medium", and the well-received horror comedies "Stree" and "Roohi". Before Varun signed off, however, he howled on stage in line with the title of "Bhediya", where he stars opposite his 'Diwale' co-star Kriti Sanon. Although Varun didn't explicitly say anything, this howling by him points to the film coming on the streamer. "Bhediya" has been directed by Amar Kaushik of "Stree" fame. All of Varun's major films, notably "Coolie No. 1", "October" and "Jugg Jugg Jeeyo", are streaming on Prime Video. Mumbai, Sep 26 : In a thriller for scientists and ornithologists, a migratory bird tagged with a GPS device in Mumbai was traced all the way to Siberia, the Bombay Natural History Society said here on Monday. Terming it an "Eureka moment", the BNHS said that the black-tailed godwit, named Bala, after a renowned expert on bird migration Dr. S. Balachandran had taken wings from Mumbai in March. It was tagged with a GPS device in Mumbai that month and finally it was traced to a location in southwestern Siberia in June, covering a distance of around 5,000 km across countries. It again took flight and returned to Mumbai in just five days, this time covering 4,200 km, and is now resident at the Bhandup Pumping Station in the eastern suburbs. The BNHS said that Bala's return proved the birds' typical habit of "site fidelity", ot a return to the same site that they are accustomed to. It is now studying and analysing the entire flight pattern of Bala and will publish it in a report form soon, said Deputy Director, Dr. Rahul Khot. BNHS' Dr Balachandran is a reputed scientist with over four decades of study and research at various destinations like Chilka in Odisha and Bharatpur in Rajasthan. Prior to this, the BNHS has deployed six GPS/GSM tags on three greater flamingos and three lesser flamingos from January to April 2022 to understand the flamingo migration, and all the pink birds have landed in Gujarat. These experiments are part of the BNHS' study on long-term ecological monitoring of migratory birds visiting the Thane Creek since 2017. In order to better understand the wintering birds' habitat use, migration patterns and other aspects, the scientists deploy bird rings and colour flags at sites around Thane Creek. So far, the BNHS has ringed or flagged around 21,000 birds and has been able to trace and track them within India or foreign countries. New Delhi, Sep 26 : An intervention application has been moved in the Supreme Court claiming that 19-year-old Ankita Bhandari, a resort employee who was allegedly murdered by her employer, fell victim to the century-old practice of the revenue police system in Uttarakhand. The intervention application, filed by journalist Anu Pant, submitted that the present revenue police system prevailing in Uttarakhand is unconstitutional as it deprives the citizens of the state of the equal protection of law as all the citizens are not been given the same treatment in detection and prevention, investigation and trial of criminal cases. Therefore, by practicing two different police systems in Uttarakhand, the state has gone against the spirit and essence of the Constitution, it added. The petitioner said the system, in which revenue officials had been given police functions, had been abolished by the state High Court. However, the state government filed an appeal, which is pending in the apex court and no hearing has been done on it since 2019. The petitioner said the system was responsible for the delay in the complaint being registered. A counsel mentioned the matter on Monday before a bench headed by Chief Justice U.U. Lalit at 4 p.m. and sought hearing on the application. The Chief Justice asked the counsel to mention the matter again on Tuesday with relevant documents. The plea said Uttarakhand is the only state, where revenue collection officials are tasked with the job of policing, especially in the hill regions. "The recent unfortunate and distressing incident of murder of 19-year-old girl Ankita Bhandari, a text book example of failure of century old revenue police system prevailing in the state of Uttarakhand leading to massive outrage amongst the public at large," it said. The plea added, "It is pertinent to mention that the state of Uttarakhand after its inception has still continuing with the revenue police system. ..... the organisational set up of Uttarakhand Police as has been mentioned on the official portal states that work of revenue police area comprises 61.19 per cent whereas the work of regular aolice Area comprises only 38.81 per cent." The plea said the major police work is being carried out by the unequipped, inexperienced, untrained, and century-old revenue police system in Uttarakhand. Pauri/Garhwal, Sep 26 : Virendra Bhandari, father of Ankita Bhandari who was allegedly killed by Pulkit Arya, the son of now expelled BJP leader Vinod Arya, on Monday said that he will not go back from the Laxman Jhula police station until the culprits in his daughter's murder were hanged. Ankita (19), who worked as a receptionist at a resort in Uttarakhand's Pauri district, was reported missing a few days ago. On Saturday morning, her body was recovered. Ankita had reportedly refused to provide 'special service' to the guests at the resort owned by Pulkit Arya. During a conversation with reporters at the police station, Ankita's father Virendra Bhandari said that his daughter had come on August 28 to work in Vanantra Resort. "My daughter was killed by former state minister's son Pulkit Arya and his associates. I will not return home from the police station until my daughter's killers get the death penalty," he said. "My daughter was innocent. She was coerced. She wanted to help the family financially by doing a job. That's why we sent her to Vanantra Resort located in Ganga Bhogpur for a job. But we had no idea that such a thing would happen to our daughter," Virendra Bhandari stated. He said that Ankita was his beloved daughter. "She cared for me and our family. But the resort owner and his associates have shocked us by killing our daughter. Until the accused are not hanged, we will continue sitting in Laxman Jhula police station," he added. Ankita's last rites were performed on Sunday at the cremation ground near ITI on the banks of the Alaknanda river. Mumbai, Sep 26 : Indian policies relating to mining have to be reviewed and correlated with the geopolitics and the nation's vision and other aspects so that the revamping of the industry can be done, states a sectoral report by consulting firm KPMG. The report also lists out various challenges faced by the mining sector. "There is a need to revamp the mining industry in India through implementation of global best practices, elimination of bottlenecks and current policy and regulatory hurdles in order to give boost to the industry and provide a source of global competitiveness to its user industries," it said. According to the report, there is a need to undertake a comprehensive policy review encompassing the review of current policy and regulatory regime and its impact as observed during the last few years, and mapping the global geo-political direction and correlating the same with the vision for the Indian mining sector. There also must be discussion with industry participants in India across the value chain to identify pros and cons of the current system and suitable action points, and steps to understand the perspective of global mining players and determining key factors that influence their investment decisions and others. According to the report, mineral blocks must be put for auction by the state governments only with pre-embedded statutory clearances, which will be transferred to the successful bidder post auction. As regards the top challenges for the mining sector for 2022 the report said environmental risks, including new regulations like Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) and Business Responsibility Sustainability Reporting (BRSR). Disclosure on ESG parameters will surely impact focus of lenders, investors and regulatory establishments which will in turn impact transformation of mining companies with respect to their ESG goals. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday welcomed a sanitation worker from Gujarat -- Harsh Solanki and his family members -- to his Delhi residence for lunch. Kejriwal had invited Solanki to Delhi during his townhall with sanitation workers in Gujarat recently. In a meeting with the Dalit community in Ahmedabad on Sunday, Solanki first invited Kejriwal to have dinner at his house. In response, CM Kejriwal had said: "I will definitely come to your home. But before that, I have a suggestion. Will you accept?" When Solanki agreed, Kejriwal said: "I have that seen ahead of elections, all leaders go to the home of Dalits and have food. But to date, no leader has invited a Dalit to his home. So, will you come to my home for a meal?" Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Gujarat president Gopal Italia accompanied his family to Delhi on Monday. AAP leaders received Solanki at the airport and escorted him to Kejriwal's place for lunch. Raghav Chadha, AAP's Gujarat co-in charge, also received Solanki and his family at the airport. On this occasion, Harsh Solanki gifted him Babasaheb's picture. After having lunch, CM Kejriwal said: "I had the honour of hosting Harsh Solanki and his family, our guests from Gujarat; our families had lunch together at my residence. We don't have time for petty politics, we work for the public, that's why the public likes us. "The people first made our government in Delhi, then in Punjab and now people of Gujarat are saying that AAP's government is going to be formed in Gujarat too." Talking to the media on the recent developments in Rajasthan, Kejriwal said that "we don't know politics but work for the public, build schools and hospitals". "We do politics of work. First, the government was formed in Delhi and then in Punjab. Now, people in Gujarat are saying that AAP government will be formed there too. "They (Congress) are not even able to control their own party, both the parties do manipulations. They keep saying that Kejriwal should stop giving freebies. Today, the hope of the entire country is from the Aam Aadmi Party. I don't understand the alternative, we have to take the country forward," said Kejriwal. Chandigarh, Sep 26 : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday called for further strengthening ties between his state and Canada, especially with its Saskatchewan province. Meeting a high-level delegation from Saskatchewan which called on him at his residence here, he advocated strong and cordial ties between Punjab and the Canadian province, noting that Punjabis have been playing a vanguard role in the social and economic progress of Canada. Mann also said it is a matter of great pride and satisfaction that a large number of Punjabis have also carved a niche for themselves in the political arena of Canada too. The Chief Minister also showcased Punjab as the most preferred industrial destination across the country. He invited the delegation from Saskatchewan to encourage the entrepreneurs to invest in Punjab which is having favourable atmosphere for industrial growth. Mann said the state government has already put the state on high growth trajectory of industrial growth which will benefit the investors. Batting for further streamlining the mechanism to ensure that Punjabis settled in Canada are able to get the branded products of state in a smooth and hassle-free manner, the Chief Minister said the renowned products of state like Sohna brand are acclaimed world over, adding that Punjabi diaspora have special liking for it. Likewise, he said Verka products like ghee, milk, butter, lassi, kheer, curd, ice-cream, sweets and others have already created a niche for themselves. Mann solicited support from Canadian delegation to enhance the supply of these goods to Punjabis sitting abroad. The Chief Minister also said that cooperation between both Punjab and Canada, especially province of Saskatchewan, can be mutually beneficially for them. He said this is need of the hour to give fillip to economic activity in Punjab and ensure the comprehensive development of the state. Mann also envisioned that mutual cooperation between both Punjab and Canada will transform the destiny of the youth of state by opening new vistas of employment for them. Meanwhile, the Canadian delegation comprising Saskatchewan Ministry of Trade and Export Development's ADM, International Engagement, Richelle Bourgoin, Saskatchewan India office MD Victor Lee, Consul General of Canada in Chandigarh Patrick Hebert, and Vice President of Research at University of Saskatchewan, Baljit Singh, thanked the Chief Minister for sparing his time. They also assured fulsome support and cooperation to the Chief Minister in every field. Bagalkot, Sep 26 : The BJP's state unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel has surprised political circles by stating that opposition leader Siddaramaiah will be sent to jail in the de-notification of government land case. Talking to reporters on Monday, Kateel stated that "we will probe the Arkavathy de-notification scandal which took place during Siddaramaiah's tenure. Through the Lokayukta as many as 52 cases will come out in connection with the scandal and those who are involved in the scandal would be sent to jail." "Former CM Siddaramaiah will also land in jail," he underlined. "During its tenure the Congress government was involved in widespread corruption. Not only the Arkavathy land scandal, there are illegalities in the purchase of pillows, beds. Why have the scandals of the Congress party not been investigated?" Kateel questioned. The documents relating to the scandals that took place during the tenure of Siddaramaiah have been concealed. "We have to struggle a lot to dig them out," he stressed. He asked Siddaramaiah why did he close down the Lokayukta during his tenure as the CM? Siddaramaiah ruled with the support of the sand mafia and drug mafia. After B S Yediyurappa became the CM, the drug mafia was confronted and reputed personalities were put behind bars, he added. He stated that records are being gathered in connection with the banning of the Popular Front of India (PFI) and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). He blamed Siddaramaiah for the growth of the SDPI and the PFI in the state. "He had taken back cases against the SDPI and PFI workers accused of serious crimes. If they had been put in jail, the situation would have been different in Karnataka," Kateel said. Siddaramaiah is directly responsible for the spread of terror activities in the state, he alleged. Siddaramaiah and the Congress party have launched an offensive against the ruling BJP especially Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai through the PayCM poster campaign. Siddaramaiah recently said that he has studied law and knows that no legal action can be taken against him. Kolkata, Sep 26 : Even as four days still left for Durga Puja to commence, crowds have started pouring in thousands to have a glimpse of the Puja pandal of Sreebhumi Sporting Club in the northern outskirts of Kolkata which is themed on the St. Peter's Basilica church in Vatican City. This particular Puja committee, which enjoys the patronage of the West Bengal fire minister, Sujit Basu, had been in the attention of lakhs of Puja revellers since last year, when the Puja pandal theme was a replica of Burj Khalifa, the famous skyscraper in Dubai. The frenzy over the pandal last year, was the threat Covid-19 pandemic was still looming over in a major way, was such that the Puja organizers and Bidhannagar City Police had to even stop entry to pandal for a long period of time on the night of Mahashtami, the second day of the festival. Around a lakh of people then assembled at the entry point to the pandal in the last year violating all Covid-19 protocols and bringing the traffic in the entire area to a total standstill. According to Basu, this year, Sreebhumi Sporting Club is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its puja and hence to make the occasion memorable, the pandal this year has been themed on the St. Peter's Basilica church in Vatican City. "Moreover, Kolkata's Durga Puja has the UNESCO tag this time, So, celebrations have started early and so have we. The preparations for setting up the pandal and its surroundings started almost in June this year. However, this time we have given special attention so that we can avoid overcrowding which happened last year. There will be separate entry and exit points as usual and they will be much wider than the previous years this time," Basu said. Over 100 artisans were deployed to achieve the task. In fact, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during the inauguration of the pandal a couple of days ago, cautioned Basu to be careful of overcrowding and traffic blockage. She even went to the extent of cautioning him that if she receives complaints about traffic blockage this time, Sreebhumi Sporting Club will be delisted from the post-Puja immersion carnival. The main pandal, which will be a replica of the St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, will be 65 feet tall and 54 feet wide. More Renaissance-period replicas and depth-controlled LED light is expected to add glory to the surroundings. The Puja will start from October 1 this year and the Vijaya Dashami will be on October 5. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath on Monday said that he doesn't want to become the party President and wants to continue to work for the party in Madhya Pradesh. "I want to remain in MP," Kamal Nath, a former Chief Minister of the state, told IANS. After escalating drama in Rajasthan which has put Congress leadership to think a plan B for the top party post, for which Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was being seen as a contender, Kamal Nath, who was one of the probables, has ruled out himself and now party has limited options with Mukul Wasnik and Mallikarjun Kharge but the time is running out as election process has started and September 30 is the last day of nomination. The party was left red-faced as Congress legislature party in Jaipur on Sunday to decide Gehlot's successor had to be called off after his supporter MLAs came out strongly against Sachin Pilot succeeding him. Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi has sought detailed report from state in charge Ajay Maken, following a meeting held at her residence on Monday with Maken, senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge and General Secretary, Organisation, K.C. Venugopal. Maken, who was in Jaipur along with Kharge to convene the CLP meeting but instead faced a high-voltage drama, on Monday told the media that three members from the Gehlot camp had met them with three proposals, which they did not accept as it raised conflict of interest. Srinagar, Sep 26 : A soldier and two civilians were injured in an ongoing encounter between terrorists and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district on Monday, police said. "One Army soldier and two civilians got injured in the ongoing encounter. All the three injured shifted to hospital for treatment. Operation going on," police said. The firefight in Batpora area of Kulgam started after a joint team of police and security forces got an input about the presence of terrorists in that area. After security forces cordoned off the area, terrorists hiding there started firing drawing retaliation by the security forces. There have been a series of encounters between terrorists and security forces across Kashmir in the recent past in which many terrorists have been eliminated. Chennai, Sep 26 : The Tamil Nadu cabinet on Monday approved an ordinance banning online gaming, and it will be be promulgated after getting assent of Governor R.N. Ravi, an official statement said. The Madras High Court had struck down the state's ban on online games like rummy and poker with stakes, and the Tamil Nadu government had then appealed to the Supreme Court. The state government had told the apex court stated that teenagers and youths were losing their entire earnings and savings by indulging in online games. In its petition, it also said that while rummy could be considered a game with skills, by placing stakes, it had turned into gambling. The state government had constituted a committee headed by Madras High Court's retired judge, Justice K. Chandru to study the adverse effects of online games. The committee had submitted its report to the Chief Minister in two weeks, recommending a ban on online games with stakes. The committee also recommended that the state government ban advertisements that encourage people to play such online games. Justice Chandru committee, in its report, also asked the state government to insist on the Union government enact a national-level law against online gaming with stakes under Article 252 of the Constitution. Dharwad : , Sep 26 (IANS) The Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) will go on making special contributions to the future of the country, said President Draupadi Murmu on Monday in Dharwad city of Karnataka. Giving her speech after inaugurating IIIT campus, President Murmu stated that she can proudly vouch for it. "PM Modi Ji laid the foundation stone in 2019 and today the permanent campus is ready. It is being named as 'Jnana Vikasa' campus. There is vikas (development) within 'Jnan' (knowledge). India should be made a vishwa guru for which knowledge has to be developed. IIIT has a conducive atmosphere for that. Let the students of this campus progress and reach heights by working for the country," she explained. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai stated that IIIT-Dharwad should become the number one institute in the country and students should study hard. Union Minister for Coal, Mining Pralhad Joshi explained that PM Modi was taking updates on the progress of IIIT regularly. The aim was to complete the work in five years, but it's being inaugurated in three years. New Delhi, Sep 26 : People can now take direct flights from Hindon airport in Ghaziabad to Shimla. To offer enhanced air connectivity between Delhi and Himachal Pradesh, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Alliance Air have recommenced the Delhi-Shimla-Delhi flight which will operate daily effective from September 26, 2022. This flight will operate with a brand new ATR 42-600. Initially, this flight of Alliance Air was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017. After operating for more than 2 years under UDAN, this flight was discontinued due to the renovation of the airport and the unavailability of suitable aircraft. Meanwhile, AAI has renovated Shimla airport and Alliance Air has inducted ATR-42 aircraft exclusively to connect airports of Himachal Pradesh. In his address on the occasion of the inauguration of the flight, MoS V.K. Singh said that this flight will provide convenience for the people of Shimla and Delhi-NCR. The ministry is working to further increase this ATR connectivity from Shimla to Kullu and Shimla to Dharamshala. He congratulated the state government and thanked them for their support and cooperation. Jairam Thakur, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, said that the state government is working towards creating more air connectivity in the state in collaboration with the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The introductory all-inclusive Fares for Delhi-Shimla and Shimla-Delhi will be Rs 2,141. Patna, Sep 26 : Three persons were killed and four others injured after a palm tree fell on a three-wheeler in Patna's Phulwarisharif locality on Monday, police said. The victims were on the way to Anisabad and the accident occurred near the Mahaveer Cancer Institute. While two persons died on the spot, five others were critically injured. Passersby and local traders rescued them and took them to the nearby trauma centre where one of the injured succumbed. The condition of the other injured persons is said to be critical. Due to the accident, a huge traffic snarl occurred on Phulwarisharif-Khagaul road. It also affected the Patna bypass road and other connecting roads. A police team reached the spot but they were also unable to resolve the traffic issue. The tree was finally removed with an earth mover and normalcy was only restored then. New Delhi, Sep 26 : Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday awarded the top performing states, districts, integrators and health facilities on the closing day of the two-day Arogya Manthan 2022, celebrating completion of 4 years of Ayushman Bharat PMJAY, and one year of Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission. The Union Health Minister awarded the Ayushman Utkrishtata Puraskaar (Ayushman Excellence Awards) 2022 to felicitate the Top Performing State -- Andhra Pradesh, the Top Performing District to Parvathipuram Manyam in Andhra Pradesh, the Top Performing Government Facility to District Hospital Dharwad, Karnataka, the Best Performing States to Kerala, Meghalaya, Gujarat, Manipur, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the Best Performing UTs to Chandigarh, J&K, and the PMAMs (Pradhan Mantri Arogya Mitras) under the AB PM-JAY and ABDM. "There should be no space for fraud in AB-PMJAY which aims for healthcare of the poorest from the society. We need to use all available technology tools to remove even the smallest scope for any fraud," Mandaviya said here while awarding the top health facilities. Speaking on the occasion, Mandaviya said that the two days' brainstorming session would contribute to giving additional boost for rethinking and improving PM-JAY and ABDM. "Even a small suggestion has the power for bringing big change," he stated. Health Minister also urged states who are still to cover eligible beneficiaries to accelerate their efforts to provide Ayushman Bharat cards to all of them. He also encouraged stakeholders to bring innovative solutions for integrating technology in digital health. The second day of Arogya Manthan 2022 had panel discussions with eminent leaders from relevant public and private sector organisations. Veena George, Minister of Health, Kerala; V.K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog; Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary and R.S. Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority were also present on the occasion. New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a PIL seeking to debar a minister from holding office after two days of judicial custody, like a public servant. A bench, headed by Chief Justice U.U. Lalit, said if the court allows the plea, then it will completely submerge the principle of separation of power. "We cannot incorporate disqualification in this manner and send somebody out," it said, making it clear that it cannot enact a provision which becomes a binding law and an elected representative is thrown out of the House. The bench, also comprising Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and J.B. Pardiwala, told petitioner, advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, that he has done good research to support his case, but the court cannot do much. The plea contended that a lawmaker should get suspended automatically, if he or she is in judicial custody for over 48 hours. Upadhyay argued before the court that if an IAS officer or a court staffer are arrested and put in judicial custody for over 48 hours, then they are suspended and this should also apply to ministers. The top court said this is the matter of law and it is for the legislature to legislate. Upadhyay had filed the plea in June this year seeking a direction to the then Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government in Maharashtra to sack jailed NCP leader Nawab Malik as a minister. The petitioner also sought a direction to the Delhi government to sack minister Satyendar Jain, who was arrested in connection with criminal cases. After the top court said it is not keen to entertain the plea, Upadhyay withdrew it. The plea said alternatively, being custodian of the Constitution, the top court should direct the Law Commission of India to examine election laws of developed countries and prepare a comprehensive report to maintain nobility, dignity of ministers, legislators and public servants in spirit of Article 14. Patna, Sep 26 : Four liquor smugglers, who were part of an interstate syndicate, and two others were arrested on the Patna-Aurangabad national highway in Bihar's Jahanabad on Monday, police said. While the accused were travelling in a luxury car, they used Ranchi-Patna interstate bus for the smuggling - keeping the liquor consignment on the bus' roof amid the passengers' luggage, and followed it from behind. "We received information about some persons smuggling liquor in a bus. Accordingly, we barricaded the district court railway crossing and started checking vehicles. When the bus reached the railway crossing, we checked it and found liquor cartons on its roof," said an officer of Jahanabad town police station. "We immediately arrested the driver and helper of the bus. They revealed that the liquor consignment belongs to persons who are travelling in the luxury car. When the car reached the railway crossing, we stopped them for checking and found liquor bottles of the boot of the car. Accordingly, we have arrested four persons in the car," he said. "We have seized 472 bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor and Rs 77,000 from their possession. Further investigation is on. The liquor was brought from Jharkhand," he said. Islamabad, Sep 26 : Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday demanded that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif should resign over the audio leaks, media reports said. He warned that more leaks were coming, which would prove collusion between the government and the Election Commission to disqualify him, Samaa TV reported. Addressing a ceremony at GC College in Lahore on Monday afternoon, he said that the audio leaks showed how the Prime Ninister was crafting a means to circumvent the ban on trade with India, which his administration had imposed to import machinery from India for his niece Maryam Nawaz's son-in-law, Samaa TV reported. Moreover, he said that the ruling government was planning to set up a grid station for a housing society by Maryam's son-in-law and use taxpayer money to pay for the Rs 700 million station. The PTI claimed that the government was trying to purchase the (stolen) data from a hacker to secure it, Geo News reported. Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said earlier that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered an investigation into the audio leaks allegedly from PM House that features government officials. Security at PM House was called into question by the PTI - the biggest opposition party - after purported audio clips featuring government officials surfaced last week. In a press conference, PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry, quoting the alleged hacker, said that they have not yet leaked an "explosive" audio. "To date, the PM Office has not released a statement on the audio leaks. There are reports that the government is in talks with the hacker to secure the data," the PTI leader said, Geo News reported. The former federal minister claimed that audio of 340 hours was leaked and no one batted an eye despite the PTI government equipping relevant authorities with the latest technology. "Pakistan's Prime Minister's Office is not safe when it comes to cybersecurity and we condemn this. An investigation should be launched into the matter," he demanded. Chennai, Sep 26 : Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday criticised states seeking greater funds from the Central government on the basis of the fact that they generated more revenue. Addressing a CNN-News18 Town Hall event here, she made the comment while responding to Tamil Nadu's demand for more funds. "You can't expect more money just because you generate more money than other states. 'You, me' narrative won't work. A country cannot prosper like that. Revenues earned by states are for India," she said. Sitharaman also described the "revadi" culture (populist measures offered by states) as "bogus". She said such measures are meant for misleading the common man. "Do understand the finances of your state and account for it in your budget. Pay your own subsidies. Do not expect from us," she said. On the issue of releasing funds for states, she said: "The population is coming down. Many states have valid questions to be asked... reproductive rate is almost going to be negative. The Finance Commission took the route to make up for it on some level proves that there is a recognition of the problem. The Commission is addressing it, not to the proportion of expectation, but somewhat." She also said that welfare is equivalent to public good, adding that it undoubtedly means hospitals, public schools, infrastructure and good roads. Sitharaman also called out the opposition parties that have been criticising the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. "Institution building takes time... to trash it is very easy. "Some of us probably will have a greater level of patience, some may not, but institutions need patience," she said. She pointed out that the GST was constituted by a panel of state ministers which was led by West Bengal's Asim Dasgupta, who came from an opposition party. Asked whether southern states were being discriminated against in the devolution of funds as defined by successive Finance Commissions, she said that the issue had been addressed to an extent. New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Supreme Court has directed the Agra Development Authority to remove all business activities within 500 metres from the boundary/peripheral wall of the Taj Mahal. Senior advocate A.D.N. Rao, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae, submitted before a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S. Oka that directions should be issued for barring all commercial activities near the Taj Mahal. The mausoleum is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The top court was informed that a similar order was issued in May 2000, but it is appropriate to reiterate the direction, agreed with the submissions, and directed the Agra Development Authority to immediately clear the 500-metre radius of the Taj Mahal of all commercial activities. "We allow the prayer and thus prayer 'A' of IA... reads as under: direct the Agra Development Authority to remove all business activities within 500 metres from the boundary/peripheral wall of the monument Taj Mahal which shall be in tune with Article 14 of the Constitution of India," it said in its order which was uploaded on Monday. The top court passed the order on an application by a group of shop owners, who have been allotted space outside the 500-metre radius. Counsel, representing the shop owners, submitted that at the western gate of the monument, illegal business activities are thriving, which is a violation of the court's order. Ahmedabad, Sep 26 : Maharashtra's women and Gujarat's men scored upset victories on the opening day of Kabaddi competition in the 36th National Games at the EKA TransStadia Indoor Stadium here on Monday. The Maharashtra women stunned National Champions Himachal Pradesh 32-31 with their controlled play in the first half, opening up a slender two-point lead. They had to defend resolutely in the second half to edge home by a solitary point. Maharashtra men had a much easier outing though, beating Tamil Nadu 49-25. Services trounced Chandigarh 66-32 in a late-night match. Earlier, Amdavadis who turned up in sizable numbers to cheer the Gujarat sides in their first taste of the National Games, watched their men's team spring a surprise on Goa 56-27. Their women counterparts, though, could not stop Bihar from running away to a comfortable 38-15 victory, thanks largely to a command performance in the second half. Meanwhile, Netball action also started in Bhavnagar, with the hosts facing National Champions Haryana in the opening encounter. The Gujarat men's team, clearly the underdogs, came up with a spirited fight in their Pool A clash but ended on the losing side 47-60. The first two quarters were neck-and-neck affairs with Haryana taking a 13-11 lead. Gujarat did not concede any space by ensuring that the lead did not extend beyond two points at half-time. It was in the third quarter that Haryana raced ahead, winning 17 points against 6 by Gujarat. Though the hosts and Haryana bagged 17 points each in the final quarter, the home team had little chance of catching up. Himanshu was the highest scorer for the hosts with 28 points while Vikas contributed 11 points and Manoj Tank scored 8 points. Gujarat captain Vikas Prajapati said his team played quite well but their failure to defend in the third quarter hurt them. "We will surely correct these mistakes in subsequent matches," he said. The results: Kabaddi Men Group A: Maharashtra beat Tamil Nadu 49-25; Group B: Gujarat beat Goa 56-27 Women: Group A: Bihar beat Gujarat 38-15; Maharashtra beat Himachal Pradesh 32-31. Netball: Men's Group A: Gujarat lost to Haryana 47-60 New Delhi, Sep 26 : Delhi Traffic Police on Monday issued an advisory for the people travelling in the city during 10-day Navratri festivities, listing areas which are likely to see heavy traffic. According to the Traffic Police, the Navratras will be celebrated all over Delhi from September 26 to October 5 during which the main temples may attract large gatherings and in parallel, Ram Lila will be organised at several venues that may affect the movement of traffic around those areas. The police shared the list of some major temples which may attract heavy rush of the devotees -- the Jhandewalan Mandir may affect traffic at Rani Jhansi Roads (both carriageways), and similarly Durga Mandir Kailash Colony at Lala Lajpat Rai Marg, Pahari Wala Mandir or Mahavir Mandir GK-1 would affect traffic at Inder Chandra Sen Marg, Adhakatyani Shakti Peeth Mandir at Chattarpur may affect traffic at Chattarpur Mandir Road, CDR Chowk, Mandi cut, Mandi Road, and Andheriya Mor - all on MG Road, as well as Anuvrat Marg, 100 Foot Road, 60 Foot Road, Main Chattarpur Road, and Y-Point The rush of people at Kalkaji Mandir would affect traffic at Outer Ring Road from Nehru Place to Modi Mill (both carriageways) and Kali Bari Mandir at Mandir Marg. "People are advised to carefully plan their travel on these above-mentioned roads//stretches with sufficient time at hand," the traffic police said. Similarly, Ramlilas would be organised at 46 main places in the city including Ramlila Ground and Red Fort. In addition to the above main venues, small Ramlilas may also be organised by local residents, RWAs, MWAs etc. in various colonies, market areas, and open grounds. Some Ramlila committees may also take out processions in their localities, the police said. "Traffic movement may be affected at and around the venues where Ramlila due to the huge gathering of devotees and spectators," the police said. It also said that there may be restrictions on movement of general traffic on the Netaji Subhash Marg, Nishad Raj Marg (New Darya Ganj Road), Jawahar Lal Nehru Marg, and Turkman Gate depending on the crowd situation after 5 p.m. during the aforementioned period as major Ramlilas will be staged at Ramlila Ground and Red Fort and important dignitaries are expected to be present there. The police advised the commuters going to IGI Airport, New Delhi Railway Station, Old Delhi Railway, Nizamuddin Railway Station and ISBT to leave with sufficient time at hand to accommodate possible delays on the route. "Avail public transport to help decongest roads. Park your vehicles only at designated parking lots," said the police in its advisory. It asked the people to avoid roadside parking as it causes hindrance to normal flow traffic and follow the instructions of Delhi Traffic Police officials on duty. "In case any unusual/unidentified object or person is noticed in suspicious circumstances, information should be given to the nearby Police Post, PCR Van or staff deployed on duty," the advisory read. Washington, Sep 26 : A section of the Republicans are "seriously" planning bringing an impeachment motion in the House of Representatives should they retake the house in the upcoming November 8 midterm elections, even as poll pundits predict that the odds are divided, albeit democrats could have swing votes with abortion rights, stricter gun laws and threats to democracy campaigns. Rep. Nancy Mace said on Sunday that some Republicans are thinking about impeaching President Joe Biden if they take over the House chamber following the midterm elections. "I believe there's a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote and put that legislation forward," Mace, R-S.C., told host Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press". Mace said that if the impeachment vote happened, it would be "divisive", and that the House needs to work together. She also said she would back whomever the GOP nominates, including former President Donald Trump.Some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also speculated about a Biden impeachment. "Yeah, I do think there's a chance of that, whether it's justified or not," Cruz said on an episode of his podcast "Verdict with Ted Cruz", as early as January itself. He said he thought Democrats used impeachment "for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him." It may be recalled that Nancy Mace won the republican primaries recently though she had at first slammed: Trump for January 6, then backtracked during her S.C. primary. Did that help her win? But the effort to impeach Trump was bipartisan and included 10 House Republicans who broke from their party ranks and joined House Democrats. Eight of them are retiring. Two of them were in the race. One of them, Liz Cheney, lost her seat in Wyoming to a Trump backed candidate. She has vowed to launch a movement to prevent Trump from entering White House again. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney under former President George W. Bush has supported her. Mace, who defeated Trump-backed challenger Katie Arrington in the GOP primary in June, has supported the results of the 2020 presidential election. Mace worked on Trump's presidential campaign, but criticised him following the January 6 attack. The race for the mid-terms has gained much momentum reaching a very crucial phase and Gallup polls are predicting a 42 per cent to 46 per cent chance for both Trump and Biden in the close race between Republicans and Democrats. Speculation about a hung house is rife as voting is expected to be very partisan along party lines. But swing voters as among independents on either side could hold the trump card to give a wafer thin majority to either side - the Republicans and the Democrats. Pundits call the midterm elections as the most decisive in American politics in recent times and a definite move ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. They also said when any incumbent president got a 42 per cent approval ratings at the hustings , the party lost 17 seats, and if the rating was 50 per cent the party lost 37 seats and this has been the tradition in all elections in the midterms of an incumbent presidency. Moscow, Sep 26 : President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has been in the country since 2013 and was granted permanent residency in 2020, media reports said. His name was included in a list of 72 foreigners who became citizens, RT reported, citing TASS news agency. There was no comment on the decision from Snowden yet. His wife will also apply for citizenship, according to his lawyer. Snowden, who fled the US in 2013, was stranded in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport upon arriving from Hong Kong to catch a connecting flight to Cuba after the US cancelled his passport mid-flight. He was reportedly en route to Ecuador, where he had lodged an asylum request. The US is seeking Snowden to face espionage charges related to his 2013 leak of a mammoth cache of files revealing the NSA's sprawling surveillance operations, which targeted American civilians to a far greater degree than previously known to the public. Rather than release the documents himself, he reached out to a small group of journalists and filmmakers asking them to curate and publish them as needed. However, after the publication of a handful of revelations in a section of Western media, and the purchase of the entire archive by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, only 10 per cent on the leaked files have been made public. Shillong, Sep 26 : Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Monday joined the "Seng Khasi" (indigenous tribal faith) for a prayer at the sanctum sanctorum of the sacred peak, U Lum Sohpetbneng (Navel of the Universe), atop the 1,344-metre high peak, for the well-being, growth and prosperity of 'Ka Mei Ri India' (Bharat Mata) and all her citizens. RSS sources said that the prayer was offered by the head priest of Seng Khasi, Skor Jala, and culminated in rituals unique to the indigenous faith, Niam Khasi, where Bhagwat participated. Sanctified rice was distributed and the RSS chief ended the brief solemn occasion by planting a sapling within the sacred precincts. Seng Khasi is a socio-cultural and religious organisation formed on November 23, 1899 by sixteen young Khasi men to protect, preserve and promote the indigenous way of life and religion of the Khasis. It was 123 years later that the Seng Khasi has grown to more than 300 branches across the Khasi Hills and continues to endeavour in its cause in bringing pride to the people by strengthening their roots and identity, the RSS source said. Bhagwat in his very brief speech expressed his profound gratitude at having experienced Monday's 'darshan' and said he would carry forward the sacred message in the whole country of U Lum Sohpetbneng, that the golden bridge that connects Man and God now lives within a golden heart. The summit of U Lum Sohpetbneng, about 16 km from Shillong, is believed to be the spot where a golden bridge connected man to the heavens. The RSS said it is believed that 16 families traversed between the two worlds until seven remained on the Earth forever to take care of 'Mother Earth' and to earn righteousness and propagate the truth. The RSS chief left Shillong for Guwahati on Monday afternoon for further deliberations. Since Saturday, he has attended a series of events, including the meeting of RSS functionaries and workers across the hill state. Bhagwat during his three-day visit to Shillong attended a series of meetings and events, where several BJP leaders, members of Hindu organisations, intellectuals attended the events organised by the Meghalaya unit of RSS. Bhagwat's visit to Meghalaya -- a Christian majority state, assumes significance as Assembly elections are scheduled to be held there in February next year. Elaborate security arrangements were made in the state in view of the visit of Bhagwat, who has a 'Z Plus' security cover. Agartala, Sep 26 : The Tripura government will conduct an inquiry about the alleged deprivation of financial and other benefits to the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel deployed in Delhi and Chattisgarh, Chief Minister Manik Saha told the state Assembly on Monday. On the request of the Union Home Ministry, nearly 880 TSR personnel were posted in Delhi since November 2019 and nearly 500 TSR personnel were posted in the South Eastern Coalfields Limited in Chattisgarh. Responding to a question raised by CPI-M MLA Ratan Kumar Bhowmik, the Chief Minister told the Tripura Assembly that he would inquire about the alleged deprivation of financial and other benefits to the TSR jawans deployed in Delhi and Chattisgarh to provide security there. Bhowmik told the House that the TSR personnel posted in Chattisgarh are not getting equal financial benefits enjoyed by their colleagues deployed in Delhi. The family members of the TSR personnel often complained that the latter posted in Delhi and Chattisgarh are living in unhygienic conditions and not being provided facilities by the concerned authorities there. Saha, who holds the Home Ministry portfolio, said that currently the state has 12 battalions of TSR and recently the state government has appointed nearly 1,500 TSR jawans, including women, to raise two more new battalions. According to the Tripura Home Department officials, one battalion of TSR was posted in various sites of the Oil and Natural Gas company in Tripura and several companies (with 125 to 130 personnel in each company) to Tripura Natural Gas company, ONGC Thermal Power Plant (at Palatana in southern Tripura), and various gas drilling organisations. Besides providing security during the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, the India Reserve (IR) battalions of TSR had earlier performed election duties in more than 18 states, including Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Haryana and the northeastern states, to provide security during the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Trained in counter-insurgency operations, the elite TSR troopers have demonstrated excellent performance in Tripura in taming the four-and-a-half decade old terrorism in the northeastern state. In the IR battalion, 75 per cent of its personnel are from Tripura, while the remaining are from across the country. The TSR has 12 battalions, of which nine are IR battalions. New Delhi, Sep 26 : A number of PFI members were earlier associated with banned organisations like the Students Islamic Movement of India and the Indian Mujahideen, National Investigation Agency (NIA) sources claim. PFI leader Abdul Rehman reportedly used to be national Secretary of the SIMI, they said, adding that Abdul Sattar, the state Secretary in PFI, was also associated with SIMI in similar capacity. Sources also claimed that PFI leaders had allegedly been hatching conspiracy with Pakistan-based handlers to carry out anti-national activities. They were also getting instruction from Gulf and Middle Eastern countries, the sources added. According to sources, PFI member Mohammed Sakib allegedly sent money to the PFI through hawala channels from Pakistan and was allegedly in touch with Pakistan-based handlers, who wanted to reach out to Pakistani prisoners lodged in different jails. Then S. Ismail, a friend of Sakib was allegedly working for people who were supporting ISIS activities in India, the sources said. They also claimed that lot of hawala money was pumped into India for anti-national activities and linked the barbaric attack on Kerala professor T.J. Joseph, who was accused of insulting Islam, and the murder of several political personalities in 2013 to the PFI. As on now, the NIA is investigating a total of 19 PFI related cases. The NIA has said that around 46 accused which were earlier arrested were convicted in 2010-11 cases. Around 355 PFI members have already been charge sheeted by the agency. Silchar, Sep 27 : To commemorate India's 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' and Bangladesh's golden jubilee of independence, a three-day Silchar-Sylhet festival has been planned to be organised in Assam's Silchar town from October 29-31. India Foundation, in association with 'Friends of Bangladesh', an organisation working to develop Bangladesh's relations with its neighbourhood, is the joint organiser of the three-day event. Chief Ministers of north-eastern states and several Union Ministers along with foreign delegates are expected to attend the festival. BJP MP from Silchar, Rajdeep Roy said that this will be the first grand inter-country festival to be held in Assam to mark the country's 75 years of independence. "In the sideline to the event, we will address the issues related to both countries, including trade and commerce, river sharing, apart from intermixing of art, culture and food," he added. The organisers have claimed that as Sylhet was partitioned in 1947 from India, the event will act to bridge the gap between the two countries. Roy said that nearly 10 Bangladesh MPs and a few Ministers are also expected to attend the three-day event. Major General (retd) of Bangladesh, Samsul Arfin has come to India to look after the things related to organising this major event and said that the festival will further strengthen the ties between India and Bangladesh. He said: "Sylhet was once a part of Assam and we are hoping to witness the old connection between the two places once again during the festival." New Delhi, Sep 27 : Delhi University commenced the second phase of Common Seat Allotment System (CSAS) for seeking admission to undergraduate (UG) programmes from Monday. At the same time, the portal for the admission process on the basis of CUET (UG) examination began in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) from Tuesday. The Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) is an online platform that will facilitate the filling up of the application form for admission into the undergraduate programmes. Candidates who have successfully completed the first stage application process in Delhi University based on CUET (UG) exam can now proceed to choose the courses and colleges of their choice. The candidates who have not yet completed the first stage of registration can still apply and proceed to the second stage thereafter. The DU Registrar said in an official notification that the candidates will be able to view their specialised UG programmes on the CSAS portal. The CUET score of the students will be automatically calculated on the portal and displayed on the dashboard of the candidate. Along with choosing the colleges and courses of their choice, students can use the top available "Advanced Filter" option to filter their UG programmes. This is the second stage of the admission process in which the candidate has to select and sort the preferences as per his/her choice. Delhi University will conduct a series of public awareness webinars for the candidates on September 27, 28 and 29. The webinar will be streamed live on the official YouTube channel of the varsity. More than 6 lakh students had opted for admission in DU through the CUET UG examination. With the release of the cut-off list, students desirous of taking admission in DU will also be able to register the marks obtained in the CUET UG examinations on the admission portal of the varsity. In the second phase, students will also be able to choose the colleges of their choice on the admission portal. According to DU, admission to UG programmes will be completed from September 26 to October 10. DU says that this year all the colleges affiliated to it will comprise three phases of admission through CSAS portal. Due to this the new session of UG courses in DU is likely to start from November. In the first phase, the registration of students through the CSAS portal has started from September 12. Students will now be able to apply for the course and college of their choice through the CSAS portal in the second phase from September 26. Along with this, DU will also release its first cut-off list on the basis of which students will be able to get admission in various colleges and courses. Copenhagen, Sep 27 : Citing a gas leak in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the Danish Maritime Authority issued a navigation warning and established a no-go zone southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. "The Danish authorities have today been informed of a major pressure drop in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline," a statement from the Danish Energy Agency said on Monday. The no-go zone has a radius of five nautical miles (nearly 10 kilometre) around the pipeline, Xinhua news agency reported. The authority noted that there are no safety risks associated with the leak outside the zone and "the incident is not expected to have consequences for the security of the supply of Danish gas". The pipeline had just been completed and filled with 300 million cubic metres of gas when the German government cancelled it only days before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Sanaa, Sep 27 : Rashad Al-Alimi, Chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, met with United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg to discuss efforts to renew and expand the ongoing truce in Yemen, state news agency Saba reported. In the meeting, which took place in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Monday, Al-Alimi welcomed the UN efforts to renew the truce, reaffirming his government's commitment to a "comprehensive peace approach" based on regional agreement and relevant international resolutions. For his part, Grundberg briefed the PLC Chairman on the latest developments in the UN's coordination to renew the truce so as to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the Yemeni state news agency, they also discussed "the international pressures required to push the Houthi rebels to fulfill their obligations" under previous UN resolutions. Last week, Grundberg said he submitted a proposal to the Yemeni warring sides to extend the truce, which will expire within a couple of days. He didn't elaborate further. Meanwhile, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said "paying salaries (to the civil servants in the cities under Houthi control), ending the siege on Sanaa airport and the port of Hodeidah" are among the prerequisites for stability in Yemen, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported on Monday, adding that the Houthi group is still studying the proposal. On April 2, a two-month truce brokered by the United Nations was agreed upon by the government and the Houthi rebels. The truce was later renewed twice through October 2. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia seized control of several northern cities and forced the Saudi-backed Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa. IPUT Real Estate (IPUT) announces the appointment of Ms Annette Kroger as a non-executive Director with effect from 1 October 2022. Kroger is CEO Europe of Allianz Real Estate. With a 20 year career in real estate, she adds significant international industry expertise to the IPUT Board. John... Photos: Grazyna Wislocka - Photography [] Maximilian Klein, MD My wife and I built our own family with the help of fertility treatments, so as both a former patient and a fertility doctor, I have a unique connection with each individual or couple who seeks my assistance. Maximilian Klein, MD Boston IVF, one of the worlds most experienced fertility treatment providers, who has assisted in over 125,000 babies born since 1986, is pleased to announce that reproductive endocrinologist Maximilian Klein, MD (he/him) has joined its team and fertility center in Syracuse, NY. The addition of Dr. Klein is encouraging news for individuals and couples in Syracuse and Central New York who wish to build a family through assisted reproductive technologies like IVF. He joins Boston IVF in Syracuse from a leading Upstate New York fertility practice and brings a full range of expertise in reproductive technologies and treatments including IUI, IVF, egg freezing, LGBTQIA+ fertility, oncofertility, single-parenting, PCOS, and more. My wife and I built our own family with the help of fertility treatments, so as both a former patient and a fertility doctor, I have a unique connection with each individual or couple who seeks my assistance, said Dr. Klein. Fertility treatments are stressful, emotional, and life-changing. Understanding the ups and downs of treatment on a personal and professional level drives me to do everything I possibly can to help my patients achieve their dreams of becoming a parent. In 2013, Dr. Klein was inducted into the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Gold Humanism Honor Society, an organization that recognizes individuals who exemplify clinical care and leadership. He also held a longstanding role as a Clinical Instructor of OB/GYN at the University of Vermont, where he taught the next generation of fertility experts. Boston IVF in Syracuse, located at 5792 Widewaters Parkway, is a full-service fertility center, complete with an innovative IVF laboratory and scientists who together optimize the fertility success rates of patients who wish to build a family. Boston IVF in Syracuse provides advanced reproductive care to patients throughout Central New York and surrounding regions, including Rochester, Binghamton, Ithaca, Utica, Oneonta, Cooperstown, and more. Boston IVF is thrilled to add a reproductive endocrinologist of Dr. Kleins pedigree to our fertility center in Syracuse, said David Stern, CEO of the Boston IVF Fertility Network. Dr. Klein will be a mainstay in the Syracuse region and a trusted resource for exceptional reproductive care. This is nothing but great news for individuals who rely on fertility treatments in Syracuse to help build their families. In addition to the site in Syracuse, Boston IVF also offers a full-service fertility treatment and IVF center in Albany, NY featuring award-winning fertility doctor Sonia Elguero, MD. Board-certified in Obstetrics & Gynecology, Dr. Klein completed his medical degree from New York Medical College, his OB/GYN residency at Wake Forest School of Medicine, and his fellowship in reproductive endocrinology & infertility at The Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at The University of Vermont. To learn more about Dr. Klein, get fertility advice, or to schedule a consultation, visit Boston IVF in Syracuse. ABOUT BOSTON IVF Boston IVF is one of the largest and most experienced fertility networks in the United States, with more than 125,000 babies born since 1986. Founded as one of the nation's first private practice IVF centers, the Boston IVF network has grown to include over 30 reproductive endocrinologists across 30 centers throughout Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, New York, Ohio, and Utah. A renowned innovator of reproductive technologies, advanced protocols, and cutting-edge research, Boston IVF has achieved numerous "firsts" in the field of reproductive care. Its scientific and research arm continues to pave the way for breakthroughs in fertility care and its accredited Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI) Fellowship Program has graduated numerous reproductive endocrinologists as part of its mission to train the next generation of fertility experts. The American Tinnitus Association is pleased to announce that it has awarded its first Kent Taylor Texas Roadhouse Tinnitus Research Grant to Julia Campbell, Au.D., Ph.D., assistant professor for the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Campbell and her team will apply the $120,000 grant to investigate auditory gating and its role in the perception of tinnitus. Gating is a type of automatic filter, suppressing repetitive or unimportant information from reaching conscious perception, Dr. Campbell said. This function has been tied to tinnitus severity in adults with normal hearing, but it is unclear how gating may operate in the presence of both hearing loss and tinnitus, which typically occur together. If decreased gating is highly related to tinnitus even in the presence of hearing loss, it may provide a clinical measure of tinnitus, as well as a potential site for targeted intervention, she added. The two-year investigation could directly inform evidence-based practice for tinnitus assessment and intervention, so that a clinical measure and targeted treatment could become standard care. The Kent Taylor Texas Roadhouse Tinnitus Research Grant was made possible by participating Texas Roadhouse restaurants, which partnered with the ATA during Tinnitus Awareness Week in 2022 to honor their founder Kent Taylor, who struggled with tinnitus the last year of his life. Funds raised by Texas Roadhouse, which has more than 600 locations in the U.S., were equally allocated between research and tinnitus awareness, including support of the ATAs Tinnitus Advisors Program, which offers 15-minute free consultations to people struggling with tinnitus. As a nonprofit exclusively dedicated to supporting people with tinnitus and funding research for cures and better treatments, we are tremendously grateful to Texas Roadhouse, their employees, and their many patrons who believe tinnitus deserves more attention and far more research. We look forward to seeing how Dr. Campbells research unfolds, and working with Texas Roadhouse to advance positive change, said David Hadley, chair of the ATA Board of Directors. About the ATA The core purpose of the American Tinnitus Association is to promote relief, prevent, and find cures for tinnitus, evidenced by its core values of compassion, credibility, and responsibility. The leading cause of tinnitus is exposure to loud sound that damages an individuals auditory system; the second leading cause is head or neck trauma. Tinnitus also is the leading service-connected disability for U.S. veterans. The ATA is almost exclusively funded by individual donors to fulfill its mission. Please donate and/or consider becoming a member so the ATA can continue to improve the quality of life for those living with tinnitus and to educate the public on its prevention. If your tinnitus is causing you distress, getting help is crucial. Call 1-800-634-8978, ext. 3, if you need general guidance on tinnitus management and care in your local area. http://www.ATA.org Personal finance knowledge is a critical life skill. Whether students attend college or pursue a career directly after high school, they need a solid understanding of budgeting, saving and investing. FinTron, Inc., a fast-growing financial technology company promoting financial literacy and freedom for the Mobile Generation (Gen Y and Z), announces its partnership with Stamford Public Schools (SPS) to teach personal finance and career readiness to the systems high school students. Through a two-year licensing agreement that began August 2022, FinTronU Educational Software will be implemented in the SPS high school curriculum as part of the Career Pathways, Workplace Learning and Apprenticeships, a state-led initiative to develop a high level of career and life readiness among students. Additionally, FinTron will offer opportunities for SPS students to shadow its employees and serve internships at its Stamford headquarters. We are thrilled to partner with FinTron to help our students access real-world professional experiences and learn what it means to be financially healthy, Career Pathways Assistant Principal Dr. Claudia Berlage said. Personal finance knowledge is a critical life skill. Whether students attend college or pursue a career directly after high school, they need a solid understanding of budgeting, saving and investing. In an engaging and interactive manner that appeals to todays mobile generation, the FinTronU software teaches essential financial concepts. It even features a simulated trading game for students to invest with fake cash and compete with other school districts for cash prizes. Wilder Rumpf, FinTron founder and CEO, commends and thanks SPS for piloting the software, as he works with the Connecticut Department of Education to expand its use throughout the state: We greatly appreciate Claudia and Stamford Public Schools for believing in our vision and partnering with us to help todays younger generations learn to be financially capable and independent. We firmly believe that financial education is the key to making sound decisions and achieving long-term success in life. As the average FinTron employee is just 25 years of age, it closely identifies with its Gen Y/Z target audience. Rumpf, 26 and a Connecticut native, founded the company in 2017 while attending Sacred Heart University. In 2019 FinTron became one of the youngest firms to register as a broker-dealer (FinTron Invest LLC). It has since created a national digital footprint, serving clients throughout the U.S. in all 53 states and territories, with its education-based, commission-free mobile brokerage application, fueled by nearly $10 million of funding. The FinTron team has also voluntarily presented financial literacy and entrepreneurship programs to more than 3,000 U.S. high school and college students. Rumpf says this hands-on experience was invaluable to their development of the FinTronU Educational Software. Dr. Tamu Lucero, superintendent of SPS, said: We believe this is a great opportunity and will surely enrich the SPS Career Pathways experience. We look forward to improving our students understanding of personal finance and helping them feel confident about their future beyond high school. About FinTron, Inc. FinTron, Inc. is a financial technology company dedicated to fostering financial freedom for the mobile-first generation. Through its subsidiary, FinTron Invest, the firm offers an affordable commission-free, education-based mobile brokerage application that helps Gen Y/Z users take charge of their personal finances. Through FinTronU, the firms education arm, the company offers interactive software (including a simulated trading game) and in-school training. To motivate students and its mobile app users to learn finance, FinTron provides rewards incentives and a philanthropic give-back program. The companys broker-dealer, FinTron Invest LLC, is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). For more information visit http://www.fintroninvest.com. Celebrate Life With a Smile! At just 20 years old, Sherlin has successfully launched her very own lip gloss line Colibri Fascination, in five lip drenching colors. It is time to "Celebrate Life With a Smile!". Young model/entrepreneur Sherlin Colibri has done what many have said is impossible. At just 20 years old, Sherlin has successfully launched her very own lip gloss line Colibri Fascination, in five lip drenching colors. When it comes to beauty, simple is often best approach. Colibri Fascination is made with only the finest plant-based emollients that are Vegan, Paraben Free, Gluten Free and Cruelty Free. Colibri Fascination Lip Gloss looks great on its own or can be worn with your favorite lipstick to accentuate your magnificent smile. Quite often what seems to be missing in many peoples lives today is a smile. A plain simple smile is such a beautiful way to communicate. Sherlin found that by sharing her smile with others it becomes contagious and people pass their smiles on throughout the day. By choosing to launch a lip gloss line, Sherlin is looking to subtly enhance the beautiful smiles people often suppress. Life is beauty, life is joy and everyday we should all celebrate life with a smile. Look for Sherlin at Champ de Mars near the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday 28 septembre 2022 at 11 h 00 CEST. Sherlin will continue her tour of Europe at Via Monte Napoleone in Milan on Friday 30 septembre 2022 at 11 h 00 CEST. Seer Home: making gold-standard video-EEG monitoring available in the home. Now with FDA clearance, Seer will be able to offer a new pathway to better health for Americans with epilepsy - one that does not require a hospital stay and one that will give doctors the data they need to more accurately diagnose epilepsy and episodic disorders. Clinical monitoring company Seer Medical has obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of Seer Home for the diagnosis of epilepsy via multi-day video-EEG-ECG monitoring. Launched in 2017, today Seer is the leading provider of epilepsy diagnostic monitoring in Australia. With this approval, Seer will be able to offer its home-based long-term monitoring to patients across America, opening up access to life-saving neurological monitoring at scale. Epilepsy is one of the most common serious neurological conditions, affecting more than 3.4 million Americans and more than 65 million people worldwide. 150,000 people in the United States are diagnosed each year. CLINICAL GRADE BRAIN AND HEART MONITORING FROM THE COMFORT OF THE HOME Seer Home is an ambulatory electroencephalograph (EEG) system designed to be used at the patients home for week-long studies. A wearable device - the Seer Sense - is worn around the shoulders, with electrodes connected to the skull and chest to record brain (EEG) and heart (ECG) signals. These recordings are wirelessly transmitted to a nearby monitoring hub, which stores the data from the wearable and also records video footage synchronized to the EEG-ECG data. The recorded video data provides additional context and information to the reviewing physician (such as body movement artifacts) to assist in diagnosis of the neurological condition. On completion of the study, the technology is returned to Seer and the collected data is reviewed and annotated by a qualified physician, producing a report for the referring doctor. A NEW PATHWAY TO DIAGNOSIS FOR AMERICANS Seer has demonstrated the effectiveness of ambulant diagnostic monitoring in our home market of Australia. Now with this approval, we are delighted to be able to offer a new pathway to diagnosis for Americans with epilepsy - one that does not require a hospital stay and one that will give doctors the data they need to more accurately diagnose and monitor neurological disorders, said Dr Dean Freestone, CEO & Co-Founder, Seer. The FDA study for Seer Home was completed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, and in March 2022, Seer joined the inaugural cohort of the Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate, to undertake market validation and clinical readiness activities. Dr Ben Brinkmann, Associate Professor of Neurology at Mayo Clinic highlighted the potential for the system to augment the monitoring capabilities of hospitals and healthcare providers. Seer's wireless EEG monitoring system and AI-enabled review platform have potential to help people with epilepsy or other episodic events access the care they need more quickly and with less disruption to their personal lives. This technology may be especially impactful in underserved areas with limited access to neurological health care resources, said Dr Brinkmann. With formal approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Seer will continue to engage with hospital networks and potential partners across the US, with sights set on addressing the backlog of patients waiting for long-term monitoring. https://www.seermedical.com/ __ Media Contact: Sarah Gundlach, Head of Communications & PR, Seer Medical +61-403-793-609 | sarah.gundlach@seermedical.com About Seer Medical Seer is reimagining how and where people undergo long-term brain and heart monitoring for faster paths to diagnoses and better patient outcomes. Seers solutions include an at-home epilepsy monitoring system and wearable medical devices, mobile apps for tracking and forecasting seizures, and cloud technology that translates big data into useful medical insights. Leading health and technology companies around the globe, such as the Mayo Clinic, Kings College London, Fitbit, Epiminder and Cochlear have partnered with Seer, alongside support from the Australian and American Epilepsy Foundations. Seer is recognised as one of the worlds top private digital health companies by CB Insights, and the company has received numerous product design awards for its wearable device the Seer Sense, including a Gold IF Design Award and Good Design Awards in Social Impact and Medical and Scientific design. Learn more about Seer at seermedical.com About Seer Home Seer Home is an ambulatory electroencephalograph (EEG) system designed to be used at the patients home for week-long studies. A wearable device - the Seer Sense - is worn around the shoulders, with electrodes connected to the skull and chest to record brain (EEG) and heart (ECG) signals. The recordings are wirelessly transmitted to a nearby monitoring hub, which securely stores the data from the wearable and also records video footage synchronized to the EEG-ECG data. The recorded video data provides additional context and information to the reviewing physician (such as body movement artifacts) to assist in diagnosis of the neurological condition. On completion of the study, the technology is returned to Seer and the collected data is reviewed and annotated by a qualified physician, producing a report for the referring doctor. Use of Seer Home monitoring improves diagnostic yield by up to 30 times that of standard testing. About Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news. Adrienne Neithardt, MD My role as a fertility specialist combines expertise in all facets of the infertility journey, including unexplained infertility, miscarriage and much more with often-overlooked emotional support that uplifts patients in their path to parenthood. Adrienne Neithardt, MD Boston IVF, one of the worlds most experienced fertility treatment networks, who has assisted in over 125,000 babies born since 1986, is pleased to announce that award-winning reproductive endocrinologist Adrienne Neithardt, MD has joined its team of fertility doctors in Massachusetts. Dr. Neithardt brings over 15 years of clinical care and a full range of expertise in reproductive technologies and fertility treatments to Boston IVF including IUI, IVF, egg freezing, LGBTQIA+ fertility, oncofertility, single-parenting, PCOS, and more. In 2022, she was selected by Castle Connolly as a Top Fertility Doctor in Delaware for the third consecutive year and received Castle Connollys Exceptional Women in Medicine award for the third consecutive year. Castle Connolly, a physician-led healthcare research firm, follows a rigorous screening process to select top doctors at national and regional levels. Exceptional Women in Medicine awardees are recognized annually, based on peer nominations and acknowledgment of outstanding accomplishments and dedication to the field of medicine. Additionally in 2022, Dr. Neithardt was named a Top Fertility Doctor in Philadelphia by Philadelphia Magazine for the third consecutive year. My role as a fertility specialist combines expertise in all facets of the infertility journey, including unexplained infertility, miscarriage and much more with often-overlooked emotional support that uplifts patients in their path to parenthood, said Dr. Neithardt. I am honored to join such an esteemed organization like Boston IVF, which shares my philosophy of treating each patient compassionately, uniquely, and completely. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 25% of infertile couples have more than one factor that contributes to their infertility. Numerous clinical studies also show that people who experience infertility report the same levels of anxiety and depression as individuals with cancer or heart disease. To add a reproductive endocrinologist as esteemed as Dr. Neithardt to the Boston IVF team is substantial for both our practice and our patients, said David Stern, CEO of the Boston IVF fertility network. She possesses world-class, award-winning expertise that will immediately make a difference in the lives of individuals and couples who seek her care at Boston IVF. Double board-certified in Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility and Obstetrics & Gynecology, Dr. Neithardt obtained her medical degree at Georgetown University School of Medicine, her OB/GYN residency at the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University, her fellowship in gynecologic surgery at Northwestern Universitys Memorial Hospital, and completed her fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Boston IVFs Waltham Fertility Center offers a full array of reproductive treatment and care, including on-site andrology and IVF laboratories, blood and ultrasound cycle monitoring, male infertility testing, IUI, IVF, egg freezing, and much more. It also houses the Fertility Wellness Center, the only in-house fertility wellness center in the Northeast. Boston IVFs fertility wellness center offers a team of acupuncturists, psychologists, and nutrition counselors who treat the physical and emotional symptoms that often accompany treatments. ABOUT BOSTON IVF Boston IVF is one of the largest and most experienced fertility networks in the United States, with more than 125,000 babies born since 1986. Founded as one of the nation's first private practice IVF centers, the Boston IVF network has grown to include over 30 reproductive endocrinologists across 30 centers throughout Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Utah. A renowned innovator of reproductive technologies, advanced protocols, and cutting-edge research, Boston IVF has achieved numerous "firsts" in reproductive care. Its scientific and research arm continues to pave the way for breakthroughs in fertility care and its accredited REI Fellowship Program has graduated numerous reproductive endocrinologists as part of its mission to train the next generation of fertility experts. Thinkmax, a leader in digital transformation and unified commerce has achieved the prestigious Microsoft Business Applications 2022/2023 Inner Circle award. Membership in this elite group is based on sales achievements that rank Thinkmax in the top echelon of the Microsofts Business Applications global network of partners. Inner Circle members have performed to a high standard of excellence by delivering valuable solutions that help organizations achieve increased success. 2022/2023 Inner Circle members are invited to the Inner Circle Summit in Spring 2023 as well as virtual meetings between June 2022 and August 2022, where they will have a unique opportunity to discuss strategy with Microsoft senior leaders and fellow Inner Circle partners, while learning more about the companys road maps and future plans, establish strong executive connections, and collaborate on best practices. We are proud to recognize a group of partners who have excelled at accelerating their customers digital transformation through the digital innovations from Microsoft Business Applications, said Peter Jensen, Microsoft Business Application Partner Strategy Lead. Inner Circle partners represent some of the best IP, Industry expertise, and technical capabilities in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. Their dedication to customer success and the Microsoft Cloud have set them apart, and we are honored to recognize Thinkmax for their achievement and membership of the 2022/2023 Inner Circle. Thinkmax provides implementation, training and consultation across North America for small, midsize and corporate businesses using business enterprise applications. Thinkmax specializes in ERP modernization and unified commerce on the Microsoft Dynamics platform to develop and deploy solutions, such as Finance, Supply Chain Management, Project Operations, Commerce, Customer Engagement and Power Platform that help leading global companies across industries, including retail, manufacturing, and engineering & construction, get to market faster and achieve continued success. It is once again an honor to be awarded this prestigious achievement by our partner Microsoft. It proves the tremendous success of our ongoing efforts and commitment in architecting and implementing business applications and ERP systems built around the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ecosystem with industry-specific focus, explained Marc Belliveau, President of Thinkmax. About Thinkmax Leveraging advanced industry and technical expertise with leading-edge technologies, Thinkmax implements efficient and innovative solutions, streamlining business processes, unifying digital experiences, and accelerating transformative change. With offices in Canada and the US and partnerships with world-leading organizations, Thinkmaxs human-centric, hands-on approach and proven methodology build sustainable solutions and enduring relationships for ongoing success. For additional information, visit thinkmax.com. Today, Inc. revealed that Lab Alley, a leader in lab and food grade essential chemicals is No. 882 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America. The list represents a one-of-a-kind look at the most successful companies within the economys most dynamic segmentsits independent businesses, Facebook, Chobani, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names also gained national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000. We are proud of what Lab Alley accomplished, from beginning as a passion project, selling essential chemicals in the B2B space out of our house in Cleveland, Ohio with only $1000, to an e-commerce chemical enterprise that has over 70,0000 customers, says Co-Founders, Fred Elabed and Holly Elabed. The companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 are successful and have demonstrated resilience amid supply chain woes, labor shortages, and the ongoing impact of Covid-19. Among the top 500, the average median three-year revenue growth rate soared to 2,144 percent. Together, those companies added more than 68,394 jobs over the past three years. The accomplishment of building one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., in light of recent economic roadblocks, cannot be overstated, says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. Inc. is thrilled to honor the companies that have established themselves through innovation, hard work, and rising to the challenges of today. During the COVID lockdown, Lab Alley supplied chemicals to companies in need of hand sanitizers and disinfectants. Subsequently after, Lab Alley became the #1 provider of ethanol and hydrogen peroxide to the B2B market. Lab Alleys origin story was to provide food and organic grade high purity essential chemicals at competitive prices with 1-2 day shipping in the US and Canada. Lab Alley is honored to be among Inc. 5000s fastest growing private companies in 2022. I would like to personally thank Scott Omelianuk at Inc. Magazine for acknowledging Lab Alleys growth in the Life Sciences industry. We at Lab Alley are thrilled to receive this well-deserved and prestigious award again. It's amazing to be in the company of equally renowned brands. I built Lab Alley with a big mission to supply essential chemicals to make a better world, and that is what we are doing every day, says Holly Elabed, Co-Founder of Lab Alley, LLC. Lab Alley is a thriving woman-owned essential chemical e-commerce company headquartered in the heart of Austin, Texas. At Lab Alley, the mission is to provide essential chemicals to make a better world. Our goal is to supply daily-use essential food and plant-based natural organic chemicals on-budget and on-time, every time. We ship high purity chemicals and ingredients daily to customers who are making a difference in the CBD/Hemp, Personal Care and Cosmetics, Food & Beverage, R&D/Laboratories, Healthcare, Biotech, Life Science, Pharmaceutical, Industrial, Academia/Education, Government Agencies, and other industries. Lab Alley has been called the Amazon for Chemicals because we provide our customers with: Robust online experience The lowest prices in the market Well-stocked inventory Quick shipping Awesome customer service For more information, please visit http://www.laballey.com. Lab Alleys most notable achievements: 2x Inc 5000 honoree: o 2022: #882 o 2021: #396 Over 70,000 customers and growing each day Close to 100,000 orders shipped CONTACT: For more information contact Fred Elabed at 216-990-3298 or via email fred@laballey.com. More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000 Methodology Companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2018 to 2021. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2018. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2021. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2018 is $100,000; the minimum for 2021 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to four decimal places. The top 500 companies on the Inc. 5000 are featured in Inc. magazines September issue. The entire Inc. 5000 can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000. About Inc. The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit http://www.inc.com. For more information on the Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala, visit http://conference.inc.com/. "I'm still beside myself that MIT accepted us... we are very humbled to walk amongst such giants. MIT is at the top of the list with respect to technology, and it's an amazing feeling to know that they understand the potential of our company." - Mathew Graham, CEO/Founder. GIGAMATIC, is a work-wallet platform for gig-workers, contractors, entrepreneurs, and full-time employees. Using IBM technology, it uses Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence to allow people to self-manage their work administrative tasks such as banking, health insurance, and taxes. Using Machine Learning, it recommends financial and health insurance products and offers the best matched products in their marketplace that are specially tailored for each user. This allows for a more competitive environment of rates from service providers, and also offers new products from fintech and insurtech companies that offer unbundled products for lending and insurance. This Canadian startup is at the edge of innovation and decentralized finance, and is leading the traditional financial and insurance industries. They are on a mission to change the world and level the playing field between gig-workers and full-time employees. They aim to close the gap in financial fairness as well as provide a social safety-net for the underbanked and underinsured. As a result of their alliance with MIT, they will receive mentorship and guidance from PhDs about technology and business strategy. They will also work directly with MIT students who will recommend best practices and help implement solutions. With the likelihood of a future Board of Directors from MIT, this company is squarely positioned for a successful launch. It's still early days for them, but considering their team is built from enterprise banking and insurance companies, they certainly have the right set of skills and experience to achieve their mission. We expect this company raise some significant rounds in the next couple years, add them to your watchlist. https://www.linkedin.com/company/gigamatic http://www.gigamatic.ca Our intention is to proactively ready Black voters to do what we have always done: fight the barriers of voter suppression and insist on our right to be heard. ----Abdul Dosunmu, founder and chief strategist, Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition (YBLOC). As Black voters prepare to cast their ballots in the critical 2022 midterm election amid sweeping new voter suppression laws across the country, the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition (YBLOC) http://www.ybloc.org today launched its Black Ballots, Black Futures 2022 voter protection organizing campaign. Over 300 young Black lawyers and law students will span across Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas to host voter protection education sessions in partnership with the community institutions Black voters know and trust. The seven-state push will be among the largest Black-led voter education efforts to train Black voters to identify and resist voter suppression tactics to ensure that their ballots are counted. These sessions aim to equip an estimated 60,000 Black voters with the information they need to protect their vote and help amplify this message in their communities. YBLOC is mobilizing one of the most ambitious voter protection organizing campaigns in history because inclusive democracy hangs in the balance in November, said Abdul Dosunmu, YBLOCs founder and chief strategist. Our intention is to proactively ready Black voters to do what we have always done: fight the barriers of voter suppression and insist on our right to be heard. YBLOC, in partnership with the Center for Civic Design, recently conducted a focus group in Dallas to understand in greater detail the impact voter suppression laws have on Black voters. The findings from the focus group reveal that: All participants had experienced difficulty voting in the past. This included long wait times, understaffed polling places, a lack of signage to identify polling places, and closed election centers. Participants indicated that Texass State Bill 1 and similar voter suppression bills across the country have impacted Black voters trust in the election process. The focus group participants noted feelings of voter suppression, information deprivation, and concern about the increased criminalization of voter assistants. Participants expressed an overall lack of information from state and local election officials. This included information about where and how they could cast their ballot and important election dates/deadlines. It is vital that our voter protection education efforts are community-informed and rooted in the concrete experiences of Black voters, said Dosunmu. This focus group provided important data on how voter suppression laws and tactics are impacting Black voters and further underscored that our democracy is at a precipice. YBLOC and a coalition of organizations representing the Black legal community launched Pass Her the Gavel, a letter-writing and public engagement campaign that supported a fair confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. As part of the ongoing grassroots effort to protect and empower the Black electorate, YBLOC filed an amicus brief in LUPE, et al. v. Abbott, the federal lawsuit that challenged Texass voter suppression law, Senate Bill 1. The brief outlines how Senate Bill 1 harms Black voters and the civic organizations that serve them. About the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition (YBLOC) The Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition (YBLOC) is a nonpartisan, community-centered movement of young Black lawyers and law students working to protect and empower the Black electorate through voter education and strategic advocacy. The national organization works in collaboration with Black grassroots communities to fight for full access to electoral democracy and realize a full electoral voice. We congratulate Doug on this honor. Having someone of Dougs caliber at the helm of keeping our customers safe from cybercrime is a competitive advantage for our company." - Tyler Kattre, President, Wind River Financial Wind River Financial is proud to announce its very own chief of information security, Doug Buan, has been named the recipient of the 2022 Chairmans Award by the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators (IAFCI). The IAFCI is a non-profit international organization whose mission is to create an environment in which information about financial fraud, fraud investigation and fraud prevention methods can be collected and shared for the common good of the financial industry and the global society. Doug was selected for this prestigious award because of his exemplary contribution to IAFCIs goal of combating fraud and cyber crimes globally. We congratulate Doug on this honor, said Tyler Kattre, president of Wind River Financial. Having someone of Dougs caliber at the helm of keeping our customers safe from cybercrime is a competitive advantage for our company, he continued. Serving as co-chair of IAFCIs Cyber Fraud Industry Group, Doug organized and hosted the 2022 Cyber Fraud Summit in Austin, Texas. The event was held earlier this year at the University of Texas and gave attendees the opportunity to network and receive world-class training in cyber fraud investigations from both public and private sector presenters. Doug has been actively involved in risk and fraud prevention in the fintech and payment card industry for over 20 years. Dougs dedication to preventing cybercrime and maintaining a safe payment environment is shown through his work with the IAFCI and his frequently published articles on cybersecurity. About Wind River Financial Wind River Financial is a multi-generational, family-owned payment processing and services company based in Madison, Wisconsin. For over 20 years, Wind River has brought its unique, customer-centric approach to make payment processing simple, secure, and cost-effective for thousands of loyal merchant clients across the country. In addition, Wind River partners with software providers, financial institutions, and trade associations to design and deliver processing solutions to meet the needs of their customers. For more information, please visit: http://www.windriverfinancial.com Copper Cane goes live on the Grower Components of NuVerge's NuTrax for Wine Solution. [NuVerges] ability to adapt and evolve with our needs has been what really set them apart from the rest of the competition out there. said Joe Wagner, Founder and CEO of Copper Cane. What I love about NuVerge is their alignment with our vision and passion for innovation... NuVerge LLC (NuVerge) announced today that Copper Cane Wines & Provisions (Copper Cane) to provide their NuTrax for Wine Next Generation Winery Software and Professional Services. Copper Cane has gone live as of August 1st on the Grower components of the NuTrax for Wine solution. NuVerge will provide their NuTrax for Wine Software Solution built on Nextworlds No-Code development platform Nextbot, as well as Professional Services to assist Copper Cane in enhancing their operational performance through digital transformation. We always look at different ways of doing things, I think we were a very nontraditional company [NuVerges] ability to adapt and evolve with our needs has been what really set them apart from the rest of the competition out there, said Joe Wagner, Founder and CEO of Copper Cane. What I love about NuVerge is their alignment with our vision and passion for innovation... Jeff Amerine, Senior Vice President, Professional Services & Development, mentioned, In todays environment of volatility, the only true advantage you can have over your competitors is agility. After the first demo of our product, Copper Cane quickly realized our solution would greatly improve their winery operations as well as position them as industry leaders for the future. Copper Cane is progressive in their thinking and always looking to the future. This project will provide flexibility and operational efficiencies for decades to come. About NuVerge Established in 2018, NuVerge is a Global Reseller of Nextworld ERP Applications and Nextbot (a No-Code platform for business process automation). NuVerge is committed to leveraging Next Generation Business Software and Technologies that focus on digital transformation and accelerated process automation. Our NuTrax for Wine Solution focuses on; Farming & Viticulture, Product Control, Winemaking & Blending, Financials & Forecasting, and Technologies that allow Wineries to integrate automated processes with ease. The NuVerge Strategy is simple; assist our clients in the untethering of legacy software while improving their organizational performance and growing their business at an unprecedented pace. NuVerge is headquartered in Longmont, Colorado and serves its North American client base from its East and West regional offices. Please visit http://www.nuverge.com for additional information. About Copper Cane Wines & Provisions. Founded in 2014, Copper Cane Wines & Provisions has redefined the modern winery with their unique approach to the winemaking process. When grapevine canes begin to lignify, or turn to winter hardy wood, they take on a copper hue. This color shift signals that the green character and harsh tannins have been purged from the vine (and therefore the resulting wine). Only then are the grapes ready for harvest. For Copper Cane's founder, Joseph Wagner, this patience is essential. While most growers pick their grapes as sugar content hits a certain mark, Wagner waits for physiological maturity to ensure consistency year to year. The result is a wine full of rich, ripe fruit flavorsa style Wagner and his family have always loved. Representative brands include Elouan, Belle Glos, Napa Valley Quilt, and Boen. For more information, visit http://www.coppercane.com. About Nextworld Nextworld is the only company that offers a modern ERP built on an enterprise, no-code platform. Nextworld delivers the agility, speed, and intelligence required to modernize business processes and gain value from your application investment from the edge to the core of your operations. With Nextworld, businesses can focus resources on innovative opportunities that further their mission both now and into the future. Nextworld keeps its customers ahead of whats next. Please visit http://www.nextworld.net for additional information. Contact: Press@nuverge.com info@coppercane.com Trademarks: NuTrax for Wine and NuTrax for Agriculture are registered trademarks of NuVerge, LLC. Copper Cane Wines & Provisions are registered trademarks of Copper Cane Wines & Provisions and/or its affiliates. Nextworld and Nextbot are registered trademarks of Nextworld and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Rite-Solutions was awarded a $77 million, five-year contract by the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) under the Department of the Navy. The company will support the Strategic and Computing Systems Department, which provides systems engineering, software development, and support services for various commands. Specific to this Task Order, Rite-Solutions will be providing engineering support for Cyber Situational Awareness (SA), Cyber Command and Control (C2), Mission Assurance, and Homeland Defense. Its an honor for us to receive this award in partnership with ECS, notes Laurie Carter, Senior Vice President for Business Development and Strategy. The contract is Rite-Solutions first with NSWCDD. It is also the first time the company will be a prime contractor in surface warfare systems. This award is a testament to our ability to extend strong systems and software engineering capabilities to combat system environments beyond undersea warfare, adds Carter. The majority of work will be performed near Dahlgren, VA. The Rite-Solutions proposal included one-year options within the five-year contract period, and up to 61 full-time employees, annually. In addition to current staff and staff at ECS, Rite-Solutions will be hiring 20 30 people in the Virginia and DC area. We are pleased and proud to be part of NSWC Dahlgrens cyber-assurance team, says Dennis McLaughlin, Rite-Solutions President and CEO. Given world events happening today, cyber defense is more important than ever. This critical cyber-assurance work helps to keep our warfighters safe while they keep us safe. Spooktacular Sweeps - you could win $200! HealthyChildren.org, the official American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) website for parents, celebrates Halloween with their annual Spooktacular Sweepstakes event. Ten lucky participants will win $200! Registered users of HealthyChildren.org may enter once each day during the event which runs October 22 through October 31, 2022. Winners will be announced in November 2022. About HealthyChildren.org The only parenting website backed by 67,000 AAP member pediatricians, HealthyChildren.org offers trustworthy, up-to-the-minute health advice and guidance for parents and caregivers, along with interactive tools and personalized content. Registered users enjoy a customized home page as well as a free monthly e-newsletter. A new Ages & Stages program offers parents of young children (as well as those who are expecting a new baby) weekly texts and/or monthly emails based on the age(s) of their child(ren). The site also offers a Find a Pediatrician service, an Ask the Pediatrician tool, a KidsDoc Symptom Checker, and more than 5,000 articles in English and Spanish. Orange Marketing Certified by the Womens Business Enterprise National Council Orange Marketing pursued the WBENC certification because it is the absolute gold standard in certifications of its kind," says Rebecca Gonzalez, Orange Marketings CEO. Orange Marketing, specializing in sales, marketing, and services implementation for B2B software and technology companies, is proud to announce national certification as a Womens Business Enterprise by the Women's Business Enterprise Council West (WBEC-West), a regional certifying partner of the Womens Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Orange Marketing pursued the WBENC certification because it is the absolute gold standard in certifications of its kind," says Rebecca Gonzalez, Orange Marketing CEO. We are pleased with the rigor of the review process. The WBENC certification further demonstrates Orange Marketings trustworthiness and credibility. The WBENC standard of certification implemented by the WBEC-West is a meticulous process, including an in-depth review of the business, covering financial documents, tax returns, and HR data, as well as an on-site inspection and interview. The certification process confirms the company is at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled by women. By including women-owned businesses among their suppliers, corporations and government agencies demonstrate their commitment to fostering diversity and the continued development of their supplier diversity programs. To learn more about Orange Marketing, please visit http://www.OrangeMarketing.com. About Orange Marketing Orange Marketing specializes in sales, marketing, and services implementation for B2B software and technology companies with a unique focus on start-ups. Founded in 2018, Orange Marketing is a fully remote team with colleagues throughout the United States and partner relationships worldwide. Orange Marketing is headquartered in California and holds more than 120 HubSpot Certifications and over 60 five-star reviews in the HubSpot Partner Directory. For more information, visit http://www.OrangeMarketing.com. About WBENC Founded in 1997, WBENC is the nations leader in womens business development and the leading third-party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women, with more than 17,000 certified Womens Business Enterprises, 14 national Regional Partner Organizations, and more than 350 Corporate Members. More than 1,000 corporations representing Americas most prestigious brands as well as many states, cities, and other entities accept WBENC Certification. For more information, visit http://www.wbenc.org. Mashup Media, LLC, a publisher of medical news platforms, is proud to announce the official relaunch of its genitourinary (GU)-focused oncology platform, GU Oncology Now. The relaunch includes new branding, expanded partnerships, and an enhanced digital platform that will provide key content from experts in urology, oncology, nuclear medicine, and more. A redesigned websitewith enhanced and more intuitive navigationan updated print publication, and more comprehensive access to key opinion leaders also will be included. GU Oncology Now delivers the latest news in therapeutics, clinical trials, and conference coverage, highlighting important advancements in GU oncology treatments and technologies with the goal of better informing oncology decisions and improving patient outcomes. GU Oncology Now is backed by leaders in the field, including the platforms Editor-in-Chief, Catherine H. Marshall, MD, MPH, assistant professor of oncology in the Department of Oncology, Division of Genitourinary Cancer, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, and Editor Jeremie Calais, MD, MSc, director of the theranostics and clinical research programs, Ahmanson Translational Theranostics Division, and associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles. We are learning so much more about the biology of cancer, and it is leading to exciting new changes. The management of patients with genitourinary cancer is very complexfrom new treatments to innovations in survivorship careand it is important to stay connected with the changes, said Dr. Marshall. Additional key contributors include the platforms associate editors, David Ambinder, MD, and Akhil Abraham Saji, MD, urology residents at New York Medical College/Westchester Medical Center. The new GU Oncology Now features interviews and videos from experts and provides innovative cancer research and practice updates. In addition to its website, a monthly publication highlights original articles and leverages the best insights from leaders in the field. The brand also regularly deploys valuable content via weekly email newsletters and through active and timely conversations on its social media platforms. GU Oncology Now exclusively partners with The Uromigos to prominently feature podcasts hosted by Thomas Powles, MD, and Brian Rini, MD, FASCO, international thought leaders in GU oncology. Each episode of The Uromigos podcast dives into the latest data and clinical news relevant to the care of GU oncology patients and features fascinating discussions with leading experts from around the world. In addition, The Uromigos podcast and GU Oncology Nows parent company, Mashup Media, will launch their first live meeting in the GU oncology space in Nashville, Tennessee, September 30 through October 1. The Uromigos Live & Unplugged will convene the best minds in GU oncology to discuss clinically impactful topics. Courtney Leonard, Vice President of Operations, Mashup Media, remarked, the relaunch of GU Oncology Now falls at the perfect time, as were introducing our first GU oncology conference in partnership with The Uromigos. We will cover this intimate yet powerful event on our new GU Oncology Now website and updated email and social media platforms, as well as in our highly regarded print publication. Visit guoncologynow.com to learn more, sign up for our email newsletters, and follow us on social media. About Mashup Media, LLC Mashup Media, based in Manalapan, New Jersey, is a multimedia publishing company passionate about providing health care professionals with a platform to further publicize their work. Driven by data and analytics, Mashup Media produces cutting-edge products that deliver content from trusted sources and industry thought leadership. To learn more, visit mashupmediallc.com. About GU Oncology Now GU Oncology Now is a robust platform that delivers current genitourinary oncology-specific news, with the goal of informing oncology decisions and improving patient outcomes. The website highlights essential clinical content, providing health care professionals with the opportunity to evaluate the latest clinical trials, cutting-edge research, and case studies. Other key features include conference coverage, roundtable discussions, and access to The Uromigos podcast. In addition to its powerful website, GU Oncology Now produces a monthly publication highlighting original articles and leverages email and social media to highlight the best insights from key opinion leaders in the field. About The Uromigos Drs. Thomas Powles and Brian Rini are international thought leaders in genitourinary oncology. Each episode of their podcast delves into the latest data and clinical news relevant to the care of GU oncology patients. Join them for fascinating discussions with leading experts from around the world on these topics and more. CPC Management, LLC has hired David Lin as the companys Chief Operations Officer. David and his team will support CPCs operating companies and their management teams in the pursuit of continuous operational improvement initiatives. David joins CPC from global apparel manufacturer Next Level Apparel, where he served as COO. Prior to Next Level, David held a variety of leadership roles at General Electric, 3M, Danaher, Oakley, and Owens and Minor. Over the course of his career, David has led teams to solve complex operational, process, and supply chain problems. His addition continues CPCs deep commitment to supporting management in the Five Key Battles (http://www.cpc.llc). This is the second strategic hire for the company, following the hire of Dennis Ehrich as CPC Managements Chief Information Officer in January 2022. About CPC Management CPC Management is a subsidiary of CPC. CPC makes long term investments and is organized as a company, not around funds like many traditional Private Equity firms. This structure enables CPC to implement what it believes to be the best strategies to create defensible, long-term value aligning the incentives of shareholders, management, and all stakeholders in CPCs businesses. Sustainable competitive advantage derives from long-term investments in innovation, workforce development, the adoption of new technologies, and supply chain improvements. CPC has many unique traits that differentiate it from traditional private equity firms. CPC is owned by large family offices and successful entrepreneurs that are collectively aligned around long-term decision making and wealth creation. CPC was formed from the merging of Curran Companies and C3 Capitals management teams. CPC seeks to deploy $600MM to $700MM into lower middle market businesses over the next five years. It does not use enterprise leverage to fund acquisitions, instead focusing management teams to excel in what CPC calls the Five Key Battles: People, Systems and Processes, Execution, Customer Intimacy, and Product Leadership. Prior to forming CPC, the management team has invested in over 100 businesses covering a wide variety of industries. CPCs website can be found at CPC.LLC and any inquiries can be directed to abutler@cpc.llc. This document was prepared by CPC Management, LLC for the benefit and internal use of the party to whom it is directly addressed and delivered. None of the materials, nor any content, may be altered in any way, transmitted to, copied, reproduced or distributed in any format in whole or in part to any other party without the express written consent of the Manager, which manages CPC, LLC. This document does not constitute or form part of, an offer to purchase or issue interests in or any security or investment product. Any such offer or solicitation will only be made pursuant to a Confidential Private Placement Memorandum (together with any supplements thereto, the Memorandum) and the relevant subscription documents, which will be furnished to qualified investors on a confidential basis at their request for their consideration in connection with the offering. Any decision by an investor to invest in the securities described herein should be made after a careful review of the Memorandum, the conduct of such investigations as an investor deems necessary or appropriate and after consultation with legal, accounting, tax and other advisors in order to make an independent determination of the suitability and consequences of an investment in the securities. Olaris, Inc., a precision medicine company leveraging metabolomics and machine learning for the discovery and development of its myOLARIS diagnostics products is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Stuart Chaffee, a 20-year veteran in the biopharmaceutical industry, as Executive Chairman. Dr. Chaffee brings a wealth of experience including contributing to starting four publicly traded biotechnology companies, raising over $900M in private and public capital, and $4.9B in transactions. In this new role for Olaris, Dr. Chaffee will partner with CEO Dr. Elizabeth ODay and the Board of Directors to develop and execute strategic growth opportunities for the company. I am delighted and privileged to join the incredible team at Olaris at this exciting time, said Dr. Chaffee. Olaris pioneering metabolomic platform stands ready to deliver on its mission to dramatically improve our industrys ability to accurately diagnose disease, identify the optimal therapies for treatment, and accurately monitor responses to those therapies. Prior to joining Olaris, Chaffee was most recently Chief Business Officer at Affinivax, Inc., until its sale to GlaxoSmithKline in May of 2022. Prior to his time at Affinivax, Chaffee was Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Praxis Precision Medicines, a clinical-stage genetic neuroscience company, where he raised over $100 million in private equity to fund an innovative pipeline identifying candidates for the development of novel therapies for patients affected by central nervous system disorders. He also served as Entrepreneur in Residence with Atlas Venture, where he co-founded and served as Head of Business Operations at Kymera Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company, started from the concept of using the bodys innate protein degradation machinery to target previously untreatable diseases. In addition to early-stage company building, Stuart has spent time at Amgen in drug discovery and at Biogen in several corporate functions. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William and Mary, a Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from Yale University, and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. We are honored to welcome Stuart to our leadership team. As we continue to advance our myOLARIS products, his financial, strategic and operations expertise will be critical accelerators during this next stage of growth, said Dr. Elizabeth ODay, Chief Executive Officer and Founder. I am excited to work together to develop diagnostics that transform how we think about disease diagnosis and treatment. About Olaris Olaris is working to fundamentally change how diseases are treated by leveraging our proprietary metabolomics and machine learning platform to identify metabolomics-based biomarker signatures. Olaris develops in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) to empower patients, providers, and biopharma to pursue the most effective treatment. To learn more, visit https://myolaris.com. Cyrus Chen, Head of Southeast Asia, TuneCore "As TuneCore continues to expand, we not only offer best in class services on a worldwide level, the company also brings that same mindset to our local markets." Andreea Gleeson, TuneCore CEO Leading independent DIY digital music distributor TuneCore, a division of global digital music company Paris-based Believe, expands its payment methods in Southeast Asia to better serve its growing artist base in the region. The first of its kind global agreement affirms the companys commitment to providing the best user experience for independent artists in the Southeast Asia region where alternative payment options are more popular than credit cards. TuneCore, whose international presence has more than doubled over the last 18 months has partnered with global financial technology platform Adyen. The company has launched localized payment methods in the following Southeast Asian countries. Indonesia: Dana (GoPay coming soon) Philippines: Gcash Vietnam: MoMo Global (Non-US Countries): China Union Pay Said Andreea Gleeson, CEO, of TuneCore, As TuneCore continues to expand, we not only offer best-in-class services on a worldwide level, the company also brings that same mindset to our local markets. For TuneCore artists, we not only want to support their artistry but we want to make it easy for them to distribute their music. Last year we launched the New Artist plan, which enables creators to release their music to social platforms for no upfront fee. Now with the launch of our expanded payment services, creators can access full distribution services seamlessly. Commented Cyrus Chen, Head of TuneCore Southeast Asia, In Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam, card penetration remains low while e-wallets usage is quickly becoming ubiquitous among the population in recent years. By prioritizing our payments infrastructure to include local payment options that our artists prefer, demonstrates our commitment to the regions growth. This is part of TuneCore's hyper-localization efforts to ensure the most positive user experience for our Southeast Asian artists. In the coming months, TuneCore will push the program out to other countries and regions. Earlier this year, TuneCore launched its revolutionary new pricing program which allows artists at any stage of their careers to distribute their music. The program allows music creators to release tracks and albums on an unlimited basis via plans ranging from free/no upfront cost (new artist), $14.99 (rising artist), $29.99 (breakout artist) to $49.99 (professional). Said Faryal Khan-Thompson, Vice President, International, TuneCore, Southeast Asia is an important market for TuneCore as there is an abundance of talent and growth in the region. Our partnership with Adyen simplifies and streamlines payments, giving access to music creators who previously would not have been able to distribute. About TuneCore TuneCore is the global platform for independent musicians to build audiences and careers with technology and services across distribution, publishing administration, and a range of promotional services. TuneCore Music Distribution services help artists, labels, and managers sell their music through Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, TikTok, Tencent, and more than 150 download and streaming stores worldwide, while retaining 100 percent of their sales revenue and rights for a low annual flat fee. TuneCore Music Publishing Administration assists songwriters by administering their compositions through licensing, registration, worldwide royalty collections, and placement opportunities in film, TV, commercials, video games, and more. The TuneCore Artist Services portal offers a suite of tools and services that enable artists to promote their craft, connect with fans, and get their music heard. TuneCore, part of Believe, is headquartered in Brooklyn, NY, with offices in Los Angeles, Nashville, Atlanta, and Austin, and operates globally through local teams based in the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Japan and Singapore across 5 continents.http://www.tunecore.com About Believe Believe is one of the worlds leading digital music companies. Believes mission is to develop artists and labels in the digital world by providing them with the solutions they need to grow their audience at each stage of their career and development. Believes a passionate team of digital music experts around the world leverages the Groups global technology platform to advise artists and labels, and distribute and promote their music. Its 1,565 employees in more than 50 countries aim to support independent artists and labels with unique digital expertise, respect, fairness, and transparency. Believe offers its various solutions through a portfolio of brands including TuneCore, Nuclear Blast, and Naive. Groove Attack and AllPoints. Believe is listed in compartment A of the regulated market of Euronext Paris (Ticker: BLV. ISIN: FR0014003FE9). We pride ourselves in our ability to meet the recruitment needs of all of our clinical trial sponsors, offering a state-of-the-art clinical research clinic strategically located in the heart of Toronto, said Peter Wowjewnik, Partner at dicentra. dicentra, a world-renowned Contract Research Organization (CRO) and global consulting firm is proud to congratulate their client, Allerpops, for recently completing enrolment for their phase II clinical trial on allergic rhinitis. The 72 healthy participants volunteered at dicentras clinical research site in Toronto, Canada. dicentras Toronto site allowed for fast recruitment of participants due to its downtown location being located on multiple transit routes, providing access to millions of potential participants within a 20-mile radius. dicentra prides itself on having the capacity to recruit participants quickly to meet the needs of clinical trial sponsors, offering a state-of-the-art clinical research clinic strategically located in the heart of Toronto, Canada. According to the The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), allergic rhinitis, also known as nasal allergies, hay fever, or seasonal allergies, affects between 10% to 30% of the global population. Despite this high prevalence, the etiology and pathophysiology of allergic rhinitis are complex and many cases often go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Allergic rhinitis is characterized by a number of symptoms including sneezing, runny nose, itching, and nasal congestion. This phase II trial marks the first clinical trial for AllerPops, a Los-Alamos-based company dedicated to relieving nasal allergies (allergic rhinitis). The trial, described as a randomized, double-blind, controlled, single-centre, 21-day study, received approval from Health Canada in March of 2022. The trials objective is to assess the efficacy and safety of the investigational product AllerPops on nasal allergy symptoms. "We want to congratulate AllerPops on pursuing this clinical trial and are proud to be a part of fast-tracking a truly innovative concept that intends to address people suffering from allergies," says Peter Wojewnik, Partner at dicentra. "We pride ourselves in our ability to meet the recruitment needs of all of our clinical trial sponsors, offering a state-of-the-art clinical research clinic strategically located in the heart of Toronto, Canada." It was very important to understand the sponsors expectations and vision. Experts from multiple departments stepped in to brainstorm and strategize the most efficient regulatory pathway that will also meet the sponsors long-term goals," says Priyanka Bhatt, Project Manager at dicentra. "The product is a breakthrough concept and we are very happy to be able to bring the Sponsors vision to fruition! After all, this is what happens at dicentra, we accelerate innovation! This trial was an important instrument to grow our business. I am glad to have had dicentra conduct the clinical trial. Said Dr. Cliff Shunsheng Han, the founder of AllerPops, Their expertise in trial design and government regulations allowed the trial creation process to pass much smoother than expected. Their experience and resources also guaranteed the timely completion of participant enrollment." Results from this clinical trial are expected by October 21st, 2022. About Allerpops Allerpops Corp. is a Los Alamos-based company dedicated to relieving allergies for long periods, removing the need for daily shots or pills. The company's guiding principle is reconnecting customers with nature and the world. https://allerpops.com/ About dicentra dicentra is a leading Contract Research Organization (CRO) and global consulting firm that specializes in addressing all matters related to safety, quality, and compliance for all product categories in the life sciences and food industries. We evaluate, implement, and provide all the necessary support for products and operations to gain market access and build confidence in your brand. We achieve this through our three business divisions: consulting, clinical trials, and certifications. Since our inception in 2002, we have completed over 24,000 projects and serviced over 1,400 companies internationally. https://dicentra.com/ Given Capstones acquisition focus and proven track record helping CUSOs complete transactions with privately held companies, we knew their team would help us anticipate the unknown and find solutions as we encountered hurdles." Capstone Strategic, Inc. (Capstone) was recently retained by Janusea and Pure IT Credit Union Services to advise on the acquisition of select assets from KIVA Group. Capstones team delivered targeted support during due diligence and integration planning while providing deal structuring expertise. As a result of this transaction, Pure IT, a Houston-based credit union service organization (CUSO), helped launch Janusea, a fintech company creating a new cloud-based integration platform. Januseas application program interface (API) allows credit unions to connect easily with an ever-growing population of fintechs. In order to create this new technology solution, Janusea needed to access certain assets of the KIVA Group, headquartered in San Antonio. Given Capstones acquisition focus and proven track record helping CUSOs complete transactions with privately held companies, we knew their team would help us anticipate the unknown and find solutions as we encountered hurdles. They listened and helped guide all the parties involved through the due diligence journey while navigating us over the goal line, Kyle Stutzman, CEO of Janusea and Pure IT Co-Founder. Capstone was pleased to be part of this process. During the final phase of this transaction, our team was able to leverage knowledge derived from a couple of decades bringing CUSOs and private companies together, said Capstone Partner John Dearing. Weve had a great business relationship with Pure IT for many years and have enjoyed being part of their ongoing growth story. We expect our future industry relationships to be even stronger as a result of the market impact. About Capstone Strategic, Inc. Capstone Strategic, Inc. is the leader in mergers and acquisitions for credit union service organizations (CUSOs). The firm has helped numerous credit unions and CUSO leaders develop, evaluate, and implement initiatives for growth. Established in 1995 by CEO David Braun, Capstone specializes in strategic not-for-sale acquisitions and corporate growth strategies and has facilitated over $1 billion in transactions in more than 100 industries. For additional information go to the Capstone website at https://www.capstonestrategic.com or call 703-854-1910. About Pure IT Pure IT Credit Union Services is a Credit Union Services Organization formed by industry leaders and enterprise leaders who sought to bring their expertise in many other industries to bear specifically to help the Credit Union Industry. Pure IT provides consulting and professional services to Assess, Remediate, Architect, Deploy, and Manage infrastructure services for Credit Unions. Pure IT partners with large and small credit union leaders all over the U.S., helping with their technology and cloud strategy and then serving as an extension of their IT departments to help them achieve their strategic goals. About Janusea Janusea, a leading fintech company focused on integrations, offers a new API Cloud Platform to connect financial institutions legacy cores with todays growing population of fintechs. Januseas integration platform works by providing a standard message set developed with the community financial institution industry that enables one message set to be translated to legacy messaging. Janusea provides the integration platform and integration team for credit unions, banks, and fintechs to connect their systems and worlds. I enjoy exploring the shaping of a life. Not a traditionally successful life or a perfect one, but an authentic one, said Griffiths. Well, given the inevitability of human conflict, as authentic a life as is humanly possible. Thats my happily-ever-after. Thats contentment. The setting of a story is often just left in the background and is brought to the forefront only when necessary. But sometimes, as is the case in the new novel Gull Island, the setting takes on a life of its own and becomes an additional character. In Gull Island, by Margot Griffiths, a pair of stories unfold in alternating narratives, woven together by a picturesque island off the coast of Vancouver, B.C. Ironic, insightful humor tempers an intimate tale involving a love story, family conflict, societal roles and diversity. I enjoy exploring the shaping of a life. Not a traditionally successful life or a perfect one, but an authentic one, said Griffiths. Well, given the inevitability of human conflict, as authentic a life as is humanly possible. Thats my happily-ever-after. Thats contentment. At thirty-six, Marigold Elliott wakes to the certainty shes living the wrong life. Her hard-driving husband is scaling Vancouvers corporate heights, her shrewd and beautiful sister is on her way up the social ladder, and her democratic mother holds all in equal judgment. As Mari tries to break from a stifling status quo, shes about to lose the one thing she wants in life. Fortysomething Charlie Upton fears his life will never be right again. Following a family tragedy that leads to divorce, he returns to his childhood home on Gull Island searching for a semblance of peace. As a former professor of psychology, I am interested in exploring the shaping of a life, in the face of societal pressures including gender roles, marital expectations, family pressures, said Griffiths. As a divorced mother of three, I bring to this story my personal experience of seeking a life of authenticity and fulfillment, a goal that went against societal norms around womens lives. Gull Island By Margot Griffiths ISBN: 9781984582454 (softcover); 9781984582461 (hardcover); 9781984582447 (electronic) Available at Xlibris, Amazon and Barnes & Noble About the author Margot Griffiths is the author of Angel Hair, set in Victoria, B.C., where she grew up. Her novels are inspired by the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and the vagaries of the human condition. She has a masters degree in psychology from the University of British Columbia and has taught in Canadian and Tanzanian universities. She lives in Point Roberts, Wash., where she is a freelance journalist. To learn more, please visit http://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/795150-gull-island. Managing partner Theresa A. Lyons, Esq., MSW will head the Freehold office, along with Marie T. Bucci, Esq., who will be there day to day, along with the firms other lawyers and team members to enhance client services. As with the firms two other offices in Morristown and Somerville, the Freehold Office will serve the firms growing client base in various types of matters: family law, criminal law, estate planning, financial services and business litigation, administrative law, name-image-likeness contracts, appeals, guardianships, and a number of other issues. Says Ms. Lyons about the new Freehold space: Adding this third office to the firms already strong state-wide presence will enable us to better serve clients in a broader geographical area. We are very excited to get to know and work with other business partners throughout Monmouth and Ocean County. Lyons & Associates, P.C. approaches every matter with zeal, professionalism, and profound respect for its clients and the greater communities in which we serve. Please join us in celebrating this milestone for Lyons & Associates, P.C. We are Your Lighthouse in the Storm. Lyons & Associates, P.C. has clients across countless New Jersey towns, including Morristown, Parsippany, Rockaway, Short Hills, Chatham, Randolph, Madison, Morris Plains, Branchburg, Mendham, Somerville, Woodbridge, Scotch Plains, Bridgewater, Warrant Township, Livingston, Summit, Metuchen, Berkley Heights, Holmdel, Colts Neck, Montgomery, Milburn, Fair Haven, Upper Saddle River, Millstone, and many more. The firm also serves clients across the United States using relationships with other counsel throughout the country. More about Lyons & Associates, P.C. may be found at http://www.lyonspc.com. The event offered a taste of the Kingdom to conference attendees inviting them to visit and experience the countrys cultural traditions and wonders. Logo courtesy of MNTO. Morocco is delighted to be the Skift Global Forum partner at opening reception the largest travel business conference in the industry. We're excited to welcome travelers to the Kingdom of Morocco to discover and enjoy our rich culture, said Siham Fettouhi, executive director, MNTO North America. The Moroccan National Tourist Office (MNTO) North America, in partnership with the Skift Global Forum, brought the vibrantly rich culture of Morocco to the flagship global conferences opening reception in New York City on September 19, 2022. Aiming to highlight Morocco as one of the world's most iconic and inspiring destinations, MNTO offered a taste of the Kingdom to conference attendees inviting them to visit and experience the countrys cultural traditions and wonders. Morocco is delighted to be the Skift Global Forum partner at opening reception the largest travel business conference in the travel industry. We are excited to welcome travelers to the Kingdom of Morocco to discover and enjoy our rich culture, said Siham Fettouhi, executive director of MNTO North America. To promote the countrys diverse travel experiences, MNTO is dedicated to building visibility in North America. As a 2022 Skift Global Forum partner, Morocco tourism reached 550 travel companies and over 1,500 in-person and virtual attendees who represented 56 countries. MNTO is enthusiastic to partner with tour operators, airline companies and additional global leaders and technology platforms that are innovatively redefining the travel industry. The Skift partnership is part of MNTOs ongoing campaign to showcase how Morocco is redefining the traveler experience for North American travelers. In March 2022, MNTO partnered with international travel planners, including the popular travel app, TripAdvisor. In April 2022, MNTO ran the first installment of their international publicity campaign titled Morocco: Land of Light that passed through stops in global cities such as Paris, London and New York. The collaboration with Skift Global Forum aims to enhance its reach on the American market. About Skift Global Forum 2022 The flagship global conference on the business of travel returns as a full scale in-person event in New York City and broadcast online globally on September 19-20, 2022. During the premier Global Forum event, attendees will hear from leaders and innovators across the business of travel as they look ahead with both optimism and vigilance at an industry that is both Reconnected and Reimagined. About Morocco National Tourism Office (MNTO) The Moroccan National Tourism Office promotes cultural and coastal resources and develops select niche themes that place Morocco among the sought-after tourist destinations. It aims to stimulate tourism and the countrys economy and preserve the Kingdoms cultural and environmental heritage. MNTO actively participate in trade fairs, workshops, trade and consumer road shows, familiarization trips, press trips, brochure & multimedia production, and public relations. Nasutsa Mabwa and Sam Simon, president and managing director of Restoration By Simons, win the Daily Herald Suburban Business Entrepreneurial Excellence Award. Entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses are the lifeblood of this nation's economy, so it's important that we as entrepreneurs strive to deliver a product to our consumers with high quality and workmanship. It is a distinct honor to receive this award." Nasutsa Mabwa and Sam Simon, president and managing director of Restoration By Simons, were two of several honorees honored during the Daily Herald Suburban Business 23rd annual Entrepreneurial Excellence Awards, in partnership with NAWBO Chicago. The awards were presented during a virtual ceremony on Sept. 22. The awards recognize and build entrepreneurship in Cook County, DuPage County, Kane County, Lake County, McHenry County, and Will County. Honorees demonstrate the best traits of entrepreneurship, including willingness to take risks, drive, perseverance, and business creativity. Mabwa and Simon oversee Restoration By Simons, an MBE/WBE certified firm and family-run company that provides disaster restoration services to residential and commercial customers residing in the North Shore, Chicago, and the Oak Park-River Forest area. The publication recognized the Evanston couple in the category of Outstanding Service to Entrepreneurs. Honorees were also chosen for their active participation in local and regional business growth, their promotion of charitable and civic causes, and their work to build the regions workforce and enhance its quality of life. Mabwa and Simon demonstrate their service by finding solutions to help residential and commercial clients, researching industry trends, and offering expertise to audiences. They are also known for their extensive volunteer work with North Shore-based nonprofits serving communities such as Evanston and Skokie. Additionally, the couple became authors with their new book called RESTORE. Written as a guide with homeowners in mind, they give readers access to tips and strategies to help them resolve their vexing disaster restoration problems. It is truly an honor for our company to be selected as a 2022 Entrepreneurial Excellence award winner!, Mabwa said. Each and every day, our team works hard to deliver attentive customer service and caring support as we provide responsive emergency restoration and specialty cleaning services to our customers in need." Simon added: Entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses are the lifeblood of this nation's economy, so it's important that we as entrepreneurs strive to deliver a product to our consumers with high quality and workmanship. It is a distinct honor to receive this award. We look forward to continuing to provide great service to our consumers." About Restoration By Simons As an Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IIRC) Certified Firm, Restoration By Simons follows IICRC S500 Standards for professional water damage restoration. Our IICRC-certified technicians will assess the water damage on-site and determine the best course of action to restore your damaged property. For example, clean water damage from a faulty waterline pipe on your property is considerably different from water damage from a sewer backup. As leading experts in the field, we will quickly determine the best course of action so your family or business can get back to normal as soon as possible. Professional restoration companies such as Restoration By Simons have IICRC-trained technicians, appropriate equipment, and the experience necessary for quick and efficient intervention. Restoration By Simons is an MBE/WBE certified firm and family-run company serving Chicago, Oak Park, River Forest, and the North Shore. Recently, the company was awarded a variety of honors, including an SB100 Best of Small Business Award Winner 2021, Bronze Stevie Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, recipient of the 2020 Better Business Bureaus Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, and recipient of the 2020 Skokie Business of the Year Award, Honorable Mention Category. Restoration By Simons provides disaster restoration services including water and flood damage restoration, fire and smoke damage restoration, mold remediation, and a wide range of interior specialty cleaning, including hoarder and clutter cleaning, post-construction cleaning, carpet cleaning, and upholstery cleaning to residential and commercial customers residing in Chicago, Oak Park-River Forest, and the North Shore. For more information, visit http://www.restorationbysimons.com. I Promise Youre Healed: an encouraging message of hope for all of humanity. I Promise Youre Healed is the creation of published author Nathan Moe, a dedicated husband and father of three who has worked in the carpentry industry since 1988. Moe shares, The title I Promise Youre Healed was given to me before I wrote any thoughts down to explain it. It was given to me as a promise directly from God to me and has helped me to see from His perspective the reality that is available to all who live in His Kingdom. The grace of God reserves many blessings for all who will receive them by faith. Everything that comes to us by the grace of God must be received by faith, not a manufactured faith, but Jesuss own faith living in us. In this book, I share the timeless lessons that have shaped my life permanently and allowed me to live fearlessly in a world where sin and fear abound. But the grace of God always abounds much, much more! Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Nathan Moes new book will encourage readers in their faith and trust in Gods word. Moe shares in hopes of aiding others on their journey to truly accepting Jesus into their hearts and receiving the myriad of blessings that come with true faith. Consumers can purchase I Promise Youre Healed at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about I Promise Youre Healed, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. WHAT Digital Summit Los Angeles is a two-day, in-person conference that showcases marketing industry thought leaders who will present the current trends in todays marketing sector. From renowned global leaders like Spotify and Twitter to local and regional experts, each 30-minute speaking session offers highly curated content formatted as an instructional how to, providing attendees with breakthrough strategies and actionable insights immediately applicable to their businesses. The conference is open to all levels of marketing personnel, from campus hires to industry professionals with 40+ years of experience. WHO For attendees seeking guidance for honing specific skills, Digital Summit also offers its signature 4-hour deep dive courses known as Masterclasses. This year, Digital Summit Los Angeles will feature several Masterclasses led by premier thought leaders, including: Burgers, Boxes, Briefs and Bachelor Degrees: Level up and Sell Anything with the Big 5 of Digital Marketing, with Samantha Kermode, Investis Digital Secrets of the Email Marketing Strategist, with Jen Capstraw, Women of Email Advanced Storytelling for Marketers: How to Tell Your Story that Achieves Quantifiable Results, with Ginger Shimp, SAP and Ed Shimp, Writer, Narrator and Video Creator Digital Summit Los Angeles will feature speaker sessions from prominent brands including: A Six-Question Framework for Breaking Through the Social Media Vortex, presented by Kirstin Benson, Getty Images Building Creative Habits That Lead to Better Marketing, presented by Jenny Haggard, Spotify The Art of Insta-Storytelling, presented by Meredith Howard, Deloitte Can You Hear Me Now? Incorporating Audio Into Your Marketing Plan, presented by Ginger Shimp, SAP Cutting Through the Noise: 5 Tactics to Elevate Your Digital Strategy, presented by Mike Epstein, Cinematic Music Group Proven Strategies for Data-Driven Social Content, presented by Ericka Kurtz, Twitter Whats the Story? Amplifying Equitable Brand Messaging, presented by CHerise Bernard, McCann New York Crossing The Sonic Color Line: Strategies for Sonic Diversity, presented by Steve Keller, SiriusXM OMG: Observe, Mentor Gen Z, presented by Dan Shapero, LinkedIn Other notable presentations at Digital Summit Los Angeles include: Whats Trending? How to Break Free from the Buzzwords for Hyper-Focused SEO, presented by Rachel Hernandez, The Hoth 11 Must-Have Automations for Ecommerce Email Marketing, presented by J.J. Abbott, Premiere Creative From Influencers to Raving Fans: Building a Brand Ambassador Program with Lasting Impact, presented by Kate Weaver, Jackson Spalding A Proven Content Strategy for Ranking On Page One of Google, presented by John Triplett, Ignite Visibility The Schitts Creek Guide to Email That Converts, presented by Jen Capstraw, Women of Email Migrating to GA4: How to Prepare Now for the Mandatory Transition, presented by Janet Driscoll Miller, Marketing Mojo Digital Summit Los Angeles will feature two headlining keynotes. The keynote for day one will be Jenny Haggard, Spotifys Global Creative Strategist. Headlining the day two keynote will be Ann Handley, digital marketing and content expert, Wallstreet Journal bestselling author and MarketingProfs Chief Content Officer. To enable attendees to share ideas and insights after the sessions, Digital Summit Los Angeles will also feature several networking opportunities including coffee breaks, catered lunches and opening and closing ceremonies. Digital Summit Series features an extensive network of standout sponsors who attend each Digital Summit conference on-site, offering innovative products and services for branding, merchandising, email and SEO marketing, marketing and advertising automation, digital communications, digital experiences and measurement, among others. Digital Summit Los Angeles sponsors include Pantheon, GoDaddy Pro, Sitecore, Media Shark, Basis Technologies, Investis Digital, illumin, EMRG, SwagChimp, Swell, American Marketing Association Los Angeles and devIT. To view a complete list of speakers, presentation topics and sponsors, go to: https://losangeles.digitalsummit.com/2022/agenda/ WHEN/WHERE Digital Summit Los Angeles will take place Mon., October 3, 2022 - Tues., October 4, 2022. Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City 555 Universal Hollywood Drive, Los Angeles, CA 91608| (818) 506-2500 To purchase passes, go to: https://losangeles.digitalsummit.com/tickets/ About Digital Summit Series The Digital Summit Series is Where Marketers Stay on Top of Their Game. Since 2008, the annual national conference series is held in 18 U.S. cities and features highly curated, engaging content about the newest and most relevant topics in marketing including email marketing, content management, digital advertising, lead generation, social media, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), analytics and more presented by speakers from many of the most creative companies and innovative brands. Each two-day Digital Summit features working sessions formatted as instructional, how to talks that cover a specific topic to provide marketers with practical, actionable tactics that can be immediately applied to their own efforts. Produced by Naylor Association Solutions, a leading provider of innovative tools and services for associations that strengthen member engagement and increase non-dues revenue, Digital Summit Series each year attracts 15,000+ marketing professionals at all experience levels who seek to further their professional development and career networking in the ever-changing and evolving digital ecosystem for marketing communications. For more information, go to https://digitalsummit.com/ and follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Throughout my time in Congress, Ive been proud to champion the important benefits pets bring to our lives, and the vital role veterinary medicine plays in safeguarding public health. The Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI), along with leading organizations in the pet care community presented Congressman Kurt Schrader (OR-5) with the Human Animal Bond Lifetime Achievement Award at Pet Night on Capitol Hill. Pet Night paid special tribute to Congressman Kurt Schrader (OR-5) with the Human-Animal Bond Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize his dedication to animal health and the human-animal bond. Throughout his impressive career, Congressman Schrader, currently the only veterinarian in Congress, was instrumental in developing legislation to safeguard the integrated health of people and companion animals. Throughout my time in Congress, Ive been proud to champion the important benefits pets bring to our lives, and the vital role veterinary medicine plays in safeguarding public health, said Representative Schrader. It was my honor to receive the Human-Animal Bond Lifetime Achievement Award. I hope to inspire my colleagues and others to continue to support policies and legislation that advance the health of people and their pets. The Human Animal Bond Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Congressman Schrader by HABRI, the American Pet Products Association (APPA), American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC), American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), Animal Health Institute (AHI), American Kennel Club (AKC), Cat Fanciers Association, North American Veterinary Community (NAVC), Pet Advocacy Network and the World Pet Association (WPA). On behalf of the entire pet care community, we are incredibly grateful for the dedication of Congressman Schrader and his staff to animal health and the human-animal bond, said Steven Feldman, President, HABRI. Through supporting legislation like the One Health Act that serves to protect the health of animals and humans, Representative Schrader has helped share the message with Congress that that pets play an important role in our health and wellbeing, and we thank him for his leadership and commitment during his time in Congress. About HABRI HABRI is a not-for-profit organization that maintains the worlds largest online library of human-animal bond research and information; funds innovative research projects to scientifically document the health benefits of companion animals; and informs the public about human-animal bond research and the beneficial role of companion animals in society. For more information, please visit http://www.habri.org. Enjoy a special bonus in celebration of the Chapter's 45-year anniversary servicing the Project Management community in the Chicago Metropolitan area. In the last 45 years, PMI Chicagoland Chapter has been positively influencing and contributing to the Project Management community. The legacy continues with the upcoming PM Symposium offering a full day of networking opportunities, knowledge sharing from industry experts on trends impacting our continually changing environment, and key insights on the shifting workforce demanding new skills for the next generation of changemakers. It will be a hybrid event to be held Saturday, October 8th, from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm CDT. On-site attendees will convene at the Wojcik Conference Center of Harper College in Palatine, Illinois. The PMI Chicagoland Chapter is fortunate to be able to engage industry leaders and experts who will share the new dynamics from different perspectives. Why Attend? Be ahead of the curve to provide more value. Be open to exploring new opportunities and ways of working. Earn up to 15 PDUs representing all areas of the PMI Talent Triangle, which can be applied towards obtaining/maintaining PMI certification. Enjoy a special Bonus in celebration of the Chapters Sapphire Anniversary, 45 years of servicing the project management community. We are pleased to offer registrants a coupon good for $45 off the full price. Register to attend on PMI Chicagoland website via PM Symposium Registration URL and use coupon code 2022PMSYMPOSIUM at checkout. The PMI Chicagoland extends their appreciation to this events sponsors. Collins Aerospace (https://www.collinsaerospace.com/) specializes in aerostructures, avionics, interiors, mechanical systems, mission systems, plus power and control systems that serve customers across the commercial, regional, business aviation and military sectors. every day, we imagine ways to make the skies and the spaces we touch smarter, safer, and more amazing than ever. Elmhurst University (https://www.elmhurst.edu/) officially changed its name from Elmhurst College in 2020 to reflect their current educational profile more accurately, as a comprehensive education institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs in the liberal arts and applied sciences. The 2021 academic year marks a major milestone, the schools 150th anniversary since its founding. Congratulations! About PMI Chicagoland Chapter (https://pmichicagoland.org/) The Vision. Be a Model Chapter that Empowers People to make ideas a reality The Mission. To be the Association of choice advancing Project/Program/Portfolio Management discipline including fostering professional growth and empowering individuals to fulfill their potential Benefits of becoming a member Priceless! On September 24, the government of Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone (Hefei High-tech Zone) released an action plan for building a world-leading sci-tech park. "Hefei High-tech Zone is the core area of a comprehensive national science center. It has cultivated future industries such as quantum technology, artificial intelligence, and future energy. Its quantum industry ranks first in China." The relevant person in charge of Hefei High-tech Zone introduced that the zone has become an essential carrier of national strategic scientific and technological strength, has the first-mover advantage for future industrial development, and has formed an ecological soil where innovative achievements continue to emerge. According to the action plan, by 2025, Hefei High-tech Zone will strive to reach the global leading level in some fields. For example, in terms of enterprise cultivation, Hefei High-tech Zone will introduce and cultivate several world-class leading tech enterprises, no less than 50 "Double Five" enterprises (internal R&D investment intensity reaches 5% and operating income exceeds 500 million yuan), no less than 10 "Double Ten" enterprises (internal R&D investment intensity of 10% and operating income exceeding 1 billion yuan), more than 60 listed companies, no less than 100 national SRDI (Specialized, Refined, Differential, Innovational) "little giant" enterprises, and more than 1,000 school-enterprise collaborative company. It is estimated that by 2035, Hefei High-tech Zone will become China's first world-leading sci-tech park with the quantum industry as the leading symbol and will build a "World Quantum Center" to achieve a giant leap from the domestic leader to a world leader. I am excited to be opening this new location in Bend, and to be a part of the PPTS team, says Ocano. This clinic is a great opportunity for us to meet the needs of our patients and offer excellent customer service/care to the Bend community." - Warren Ocano, Bend Clinic Director ProActive Physical Therapy Specialists (PPTS) is pleased to announce their newest clinic has opened today in Bend, OR. Located at 61470 S. Highway 97, Suite #3B, the clinic is PPTS 16th location. Warren Ocano, PT, DPT, will serve as the Bend Clinic Director and primary treating physical therapist. PPTS specializes in providing exceptional physical therapy through a combination of evidence-based practice, care excellence, and clinical excellence. Services offered by the Bend clinic will include a specialization in orthopedic conditions, both conservative and post-operative, and vestibular conditions. I am excited to be opening this new location in Bend, and to be a part of the PPTS team, says Ocano. This clinic is a great opportunity for us to meet the needs of our patients and offer excellent customer service/care to the Bend community. I look forward to helping the community work to achieve their optimal level of function. For more information about the new Bend clinic and a full list of PPTS services and offerings, please visit https://proactivepts.com/. To book an appointment with Warren, please call 541-508-5473. ### About ProActive Physical Therapy Specialists Proactive Physical Therapy Specialists (PPTS) is an Oregon and Washington State-based, private physical therapy practice group. As a proud member of the Confluent Health family, PPTS positively impacts patients' lives by delivering the best care and results through proven research, innovative treatments and technologies, and an approach that treats patients like family. For more information, visit proactivepts.com, or find them on Facebook at @proactivewa. 2022 Hyundai Elantra Prospective buyers at Hiley Hyundai Burleson in Burleson, Texas, can apply for auto financing by filling out a form on the dealerships website. Applicants have to provide the dealership with their personal information such as their name, date of birth and social security number. After that, they are required to mention their residential address, home phone number, cell phone number, email address and other relevant details. Next, customers must disclose their employment information, including employers name, occupation and monthly income. After applicants have filled out the form completely, they can submit it. The dealerships finance team will work with various banks and lending organizations to tailor a finance package that is not hard on the applicants wallets. Moreover, customers can sell or trade-in their current vehicle and use the cash to buy a new vehicle. Once the auto loan is approved, prospective buyers can choose any model from the dealerships inventory of new and pre-owned vehicles. Hiley Hyundai Burleson has different types of vehicles such as sedans, SUVs and trucks, so customers have a wide range of options. All interested parties are encouraged to visit https://www.hileyhyundaiofburleson.com/ or call 817-945-9900 for more information. They may also visit the dealership in person at 320 N Burleson Blvd, Burleson, TX. 5A Loyalty Diagnostics Service The 5A Loyalty Diagnostic service is a brand loyalty diagnostic service that was developed based on the 5A's concept. With the service, businesses can quantify and visualize the result of comparative diagnosis with their competitors at one-stop. transcosmos inc. is pleased to announce that the company has launched a Chinese-version of its 5A Loyalty Diagnostic Service website (https://www.pkmarketing.jp/zh/), which assists businesses in developing their loyalty marketing strategies. Select your preferred language from Language Switcher displayed on the right on the homepage. Visit here for the 5A Loyalty Diagnostic Service Chinese website: https://www.pkmarketing.jp/zh/ The 5A's is a new customer path proposed in "Marketing 4.0/5.0" by Phillip Kotler. In March, 2019, transcosmos formed a business alliance with MarkPlus Inc., an Indonesian marketing consulting and research firm founded by Hermawan Kartajaya, the co-author of "Marketing 4.0./5.0." Since then, transcosmos has been offering the 5A Loyalty Diagnostic Service - its proprietary loyalty marketing service suite - with the exclusive right to use the measurement based on the 5A's in Japan. The 5A Loyalty Diagnostic service is a brand loyalty diagnostic service that was developed based on the 5A's concept. With the service, businesses can quantify and visualize the result of comparative diagnosis with their competitors at one-stop. Based on the result, transcosmos will perform a comprehensive review on various aspects; including clients' market position, marketing communication, and customer touchpoints both before and after purchases. Drawing on the findings, transcosmos will help clients over the medium-to-long term enhance and execute their loyalty and CX strategies with a goal to foster brand advocates brand promoters and fans thereby increasing their sales and customer loyalty. transcosmos has its centers and subsidiaries in cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tenzin, Dalian, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and more. From these locations, the company offers diverse services that are tailored to the needs of the Chinese market based on its clear understanding of local culture and characteristics. In partnership with transcosmos China, the company rolled out the 5A Loyalty Diagnostic Service in October 2021 in the market (reference: https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/company/news/211011.html). The new Chinese-version website features 5A Loyalty Diagnostic Service introduction. Other articles, including interviews with industry leaders and seminar information that are available in the Japanese website, will be posted on the Chinese website soon. About "Marketing 4.0/5.0" Books by Philip Kotler and his team. Philip Kotler devised the 5As model, a completely new customer journey framework to achieve human-centered marketing. Philip Kotler is known as the Father of Modern Marketing and God of Marketing for his concise and specific explanation of marketing concepts that change over time. transcosmos is a trademark or registered trademark of transcosmos inc. in Japan and other countries. Other company names and product or service names used here are trademarks or registered trademarks of respective companies. About transcosmos inc. transcosmos launched its operations in 1966. Since then, we have combined superior "people" with up-to-date "technology" to enhance the competitive strength of our clients by providing them with superior and valuable services. transcosmos currently offers services that support clients' business processes focusing on both sales expansion and cost optimization through our 171 bases across 28 countries/regions with a focus on Asia, while continuously pursuing Operational Excellence. Furthermore, following the expansion of e-commerce market on the global scale, transcosmos provides a comprehensive One-Stop Global E-Commerce Services to deliver our clients' excellent products and services to consumers in 46 countries/regions around the globe. transcosmos aims to be the "Global Digital Transformation Partner" of our clients, supporting the clients' transformation by leveraging digital technology, responding to the ever-changing business environment. Visit us here https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/ Reference Below are some of the contents available on the Chinese-version website. About the ideal patterns of 5A (https://www.pkmarketing.jp/zh/articles/5als_02_zh/) About 5A Key Indicators: PAR/BAR (https://www.pkmarketing.jp/zh/articles/5als_02_zh/) About perception diagnosis (1) (https://www.pkmarketing.jp/zh/articles/5als_03_zh/) About perception diagnosis (2) (https://www.pkmarketing.jp/zh/articles/5als_03_zh/) About CX diagnosis (https://www.pkmarketing.jp/zh/articles/5als_04_zh/) In the next five years, we will jointly tackle the challenges of bringing multiple research streams together to make it possible to predict climate change impacts on our communities, agricultural and wilderness areas, and economy. The Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) has been awarded a new five-year, $95 million cooperative agreement with NASA. Established in 1999, ESSIC is a joint center of the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center that supports research, teaching and career training in Earth system science. We are proud to be collaborating with Goddard Space Flight Center on Earth systems science research that is addressing the pressing challenges of global sustainability, said Ellen Williams, director of ESSIC and a Distinguished University Professor of Physics at UMD who serves as the cooperative agreements principal investigator. In the next five years, we will jointly tackle the challenges of bringing multiple research streams together to make it possible to predict climate change impacts on our communities, agricultural and wilderness areas, and economy. The award will enable UMD to continue and expand its close collaboration with NASA Goddard, building on a legacy of more than two decades of world-class research in meteorology, oceanography, terrestrial physics, hydrology, atmospheric chemistry, ecosystem science and satellite Earth observations. The broad goal of ESSIC is to understand the relationships between Earths atmosphere, oceans, land masses and biosphere, with an eye to the influence of human activities on Earths coupled systems. We have valued and appreciated our scientific engagement over the years and look forward to new opportunities and collaboration going forward, said Dalia Kirschbaum, director of NASA Goddard Space Flight Centers Earth Sciences Division. ESSIC links research efforts at UMDs Departments of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Geology, and Geographical Sciences with the Earth Sciences Division at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. ESSIC also has a cooperative agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to support satellite research focused on weather and water forecasting models and predictions. By fostering close integration within the university community and among government partners in NASA and NOAA, ESSIC serves a unique role as a collaboration hub within the national Earth system science research community. The University of Maryland takes on humanity's grand challenges, and I can think of no greater validation of ESSIC's efforts to tackle the grand challenge of climate change than receiving this renewal from NASA, said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. The future health and welfare of our planet are closely linked to this important work by ESSIC scientists. Over the next five years, ESSIC will continue to prioritize projects within six major research themes: Atmospheric composition and processes (aerosol/cloud physics) Atmospheric chemistry/carbon cycle The cryosphere Hydrometeorology/precipitation retrieval Hydrology/land surface processes Numerical modeling/data assimilation This collaboration between NASA and the University of Maryland recognizes and builds on nearly a quarter century of trailblazing research at ESSIC, said Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMDs College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, which administers ESSIC. ESSIC researchers have given us unprecedented insights into the global and regional connections between land, oceans, atmosphere and human activity. We can't wait for the discoveries that will flow from this new cooperative agreement. ESSICs 88 scientists and students funded by the current NASA cooperative agreement submitted 168 papers for publication in 2021 alone. Some recent ESSIC research highlights include: A 2022 study in the journal Science reconstructed the natural pace and pattern of carbon storage in the forests of the Midwestern U.S., finding that high-biomass species in old forests play important roles in carbon storage. A 2022 study in the journal GCB Bioenergy found that growing giant miscanthus, a type of perennial biomass crop, has a strong likelihood of significantly lowering regional summer temperatures and the vapor-pressure deficit, while increasing rainfall and overall crop productivity. A 2021 study in the journal Remote Sensing reported that snowfall properties measured by the cloud profiling radar on-board CloudSat and used by other satellite missions and climatological models for evaluating and comparing against their snowfall products are likely inaccurate because the radar only collects data during the daytime due to a battery anomaly. The results highlight the need to sample consistently with the CloudSat observations or adjust snowfall estimates derived from CloudSat when using them to evaluate other precipitation products. A paper at the 2021 AGU Fall Meeting featured a machine learning-based model of the normalized difference vegetation index that can be used to identify large-scale changes to irrigation conditions and crop rotations. A 2020 study in the journal Remote Sensing compared a global precipitation forecast provided by NASAs Goddard Earth Observing System with near-real-time satellite precipitation estimates for use in a global landslide forecasting system. A 2019 study in the journal Nature Communications used high-resolution numerical modeling and downscaling of climate projections to find that as Arctic sea ice retreats and surface temperatures increase, upward surface turbulent fluxes increase dramatically, increasing the convective available potential energy and overturning in the atmosphere and thus intensity of Arctic cyclones and their associated precipitation. A 2018 study in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics presented a new method for quantifying regional aerosol indirect effects on the Arctic surface energy budget, as demonstrated in a subset of clouds with high confidence in aerosol classification. A 2018 study in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres found that the intensity and location of the subsidence branch of the Walker Circulation anomaly over the Maritime continent vary with different groups of El Nino-Indian Ocean Dipole events, and so do the resulting drought and Indonesian fires. A 2018 study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters details the use of satellite-based remote sensing, data from a research vessel, field samples and photographic documentation to study a newly erupted Surtseyan volcanic island in the southwest Pacific Ocean unofficially known as Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai. A time series of erosion and deposition play a key role in determining the lifespan of this new island. These scientific results directly inform important decisions that we, as a society, are facing in addressing climate change and global sustainability, Williams said. The renewal of this award is a testament to the quality of the work done by our University of Maryland faculty in their collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientists. Personal background of insecurity and hardships. Author Reba King shares an important lesson-filled fictional series with readers beginning with the first book, Misty's Memories: Letting Go and Finding Love, When He Speaks($14.49, paperback, 9781662857898; $6.99, e-book, 9781662857904). Kings fictional series is off to a powerful start as book one takes readers on a journey with Misty as she works as a counselor in a public high school and as a summer worker at various ranches. While working at the ranch with city campers, Misty is responsible for teaching trade skills that can provide confidence and purpose for their future while at the same time, helping to conquer past hurts and fears. Through ministry, Misty helps others gain a better understanding of Gods desire for a daily walk with His people. The main fictional character provides solid, real life advice and solutions that adult and young adult readers can use in everyday life. The author aims to make the point that although drama is indeed a part of life, it doesnt have to keep one bound in Satans traps. Following this book, King will release 3 additional books in the series. When asked what inspired the author to write this book, King said, Personal background of insecurity and hardships. Reba King was born in Dallas, Texas and has lived in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex for all of her life. As a bus kid at the young age of 3 years old, King attended the Central Park Baptist Church under the leadership of Pastor Bill Slayton, along with her older sister, Gracie. She received Christ as her Savior at the age of 17 and enjoys keeping up with missionary friends from around the world. Kings early years were spent in Farmers Branch, Texas until her family moved to a house in The Colony, Texas toward the end of her 3rd grade school year. She resided there until high school graduation from Lewisville High. King has only been a member of 3 churches and is currently a member of Trinity Baptist in Arlington, Texas under the leadership of Pastor Todd Lasseter. She has worshiped and served there for more than 30 years. King has enjoyed working with young people throughout the years in various ministries and now enjoys ministry with her mother. She also enjoys reading, singing, exercising, crafts and helping others as the Lord leads. Xulon Press, a division of Salem Media Group, is the worlds largest Christian self-publisher, with more than 15,000 titles published to date. Misty's Memories: Letting Go and Finding Love, When He Speaks is available online through xulonpress.com/bookstore, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com. This is where Woolperts quality control and patented technologies really complement our remote sensing capabilities. Woolpert was contracted by Hamilton County, Tenn., to acquire and process orthoimagery and lidar data for the compilation of planimetric features, which are used to map building footprints and measure impervious surfaces. These data will support accurate property appraisals, tax assessments, stormwater management, custom application development and Public Works Department needs. Under this 18-month project, Woolpert collected 3-inch pixel resolution orthoimagery and 2-points-per-square-meter lidar along with countywide planimetric mapping of building footprints and impervious surface data. These data were initially processed using a proprietary machine learning program recently patented by Woolpert Geospatial Specialist Daniel Ngoroi. The system employs artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies, algorithms and workflows, integrating disparate data from multiple sources to achieve the highest possible geographic accuracies. Using these data, object-based image analysis can allow for precise feature extraction, Ngoroi said. Impervious surfaces prevent water from absorbing into the ground, increasing runoff volume, flood risk and urban water pollution. Impervious surfaces can be linked to a particular parcel within a target geographic area for billing purposes through stormwater utilities. This process of defining impervious surface is agnostic and inclusive, and it provides clear, defensible data for each municipality to use as they see fit. Woolpert Geospatial Project Manager Volkan Akbay said Woolpert teams in the U.S. and South Africa performed quality control and manual curation of the planimetric data, which were then delivered in prioritized segments through an Esri ArcGIS geodatabase. This ensured that the information was received in order of need and was accurate and manageable. The amount of vertices produced by these automated impervious surface datasets is out of this world, Akbay said. This kind of mapping data is extremely valuable and versatile, but at that volume, the average user is not able to use it effectively. This is where Woolperts quality control and patented technologies really complement our remote sensing capabilities. We can collect all the data needed, process it efficiently and accurately, and make it applicable and accessible to each end user. Hamilton County Geospatial Technology Manager Jason Shaneyfelt said the planimetric data are already improving efficiencies throughout the county. In Tennessee, we are familiar with applying geospatial data to address a wide range of state and local issues, Shaneyfelt said. We had been working with multiple vendors over the years and did not have a consistent, updated dataset. We decided that a fresh, accurate countywide dataset was needed, and we wanted Woolpert to provide it. We have worked with their team and Program Director Sam Moffat for many years, and we trust their work. We couldnt be happier with our decision, the data and the many benefits for the county moving forward. 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, has earned six straight Great Place to Work certifications 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 1,900 employees and more than 60 offices on four continents. For more, visit woolpert.com. Click here for old website Continuing our series on Read Alouds That Rock, we shine a light on the silliest of storytimes. Click here to see our previous stories. At this very moment, countless teachers and librarians are having silly storytimesand for good reason! With many readily available funny-to-hilarious books to choose from, these educators have their hands full when curating, reading, and using these books to create moments filled to the gills with giggles. PW spoke with five such educators how and why they do it. As a somewhat nervous child growing up, childrens librarian Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boys frontman) found comfort in anything humorous. Humor and finding things that made me laugh put me at ease, Wilson said. Today, as part of the early learning and literacy staff at the Evanston Public Library in Evanston, Ill., a previous member of several national award committees, and the 2022 chair of the Childrens Literature Legacy Award, and a picture book blogger, he offers ample opportunities for humor and laughter for his pre-K through first graders in his popular storytimes. As you start reading a silly story, you begin hearing the kids laugh, and you see them looking at their classmates or kids theyve just met, and theyre like, Wow! Were all having fun reading together! Wilson said, Theres this positive experience and energy that happens. This positivity lights up the room and gives Wilson the confidence to ham things upand take the silliness to a whole new level. For example, when reading Kittens First Full Moon (by Kevin Henkes), I might do this in the quietest, gentlest possible way or turn it into a rollicking, rowdy ride with the kitten chasing the moon and all the slapstick things that happen to the kitten, Wilson said. Wilson says that silly stories can and often do go in different ways depending on his read of the mood of the room, and his own excitement level. He insists on using books that excite him. But it appears that its Wilsons repertoire of storytelling skills that adds the secret sauce. Ill raise the rowdiness or slow things down if we need a laughter break, Wilson said. I want the story to make my students feel like theyve been on a roller coaster, to engage and to hook them! Wilson will also make stops along the way for teachable moments to talk about the storys narrative and characters. And Wilson and his storytime friends are just getting started. Together, were beginning a foundation for early literacy and a lifelong love of reading. Beth Parmer, K-5 librarian at Maryland Elementary School in the Bexley City Schools in Columbus, Ohio, begins her school year with her K-first grade students taking part in fun and funny storytimes. I always open the school year with silly stories for them because this might be their first exposure to the libraryany libraryand I dont know how they feel about books just yet, Parmer said. I want them to think of our school library as a fun place to be, and to make it as joyful as I can. According to her students, shes accomplished all of the above and elevated library time to a revered status at her elementary school. I have kids telling me that their favorite special is library, Parmer said. Thats really good because its hard to top gym class! Palmer creates a worthy contender to P.E. by mixing music, movement, and interaction during storytimes whenever she can. I look for stories that have songs to sing, or repetitive phrases so the kids repeat them, Parmer said. I like making the story as interactive as possible and acting them out; and my students do, too. If the characters in the story are digging for dinosaurs, I make sure theyre digging. If theres moving and marching, were moving and marching! With all of this silliness with a purpose, Parmer is hoping to dispel the myth that kids have to be quiet in the library. Sometimes, there are kids who have this misunderstanding that the library has to be really quiet and serious. So, when I get to a really silly part in a story, I make sure that Im cracking up so they feel that freedom to laugh as well. During their library visits, Parmer gives her kids time to find books of their own to tickle their funny bones, and for some free choice activities (e.g. blocks, puzzles, or art) before sending them back to their classrooms until next time. When they return, Parmer may have yet another silly story waiting for her studentsthey cant seem to get enough of them. But Parmer says they wont ever be too zany or subversive, even though she especially loves those kinds of books. Shes mindful of her readers interests and needs. I wont ever choose a title that might make any kid uncomfortable, Parmer said, Because at the end of the day, the story times are for themand the books have been chosen especially so they will laugh, enjoy books, and have fun! Childrens librarian Basheer Kareems often standing-room-only morning storytimes at the Westover Branch of the Arlington Public Library in Arlington, Va., are filled with lots of fun and silliness. But, its silliness for a greater good. For the little ones he uses a combination of silly songs filled with rich language and opportunities for imaginative fun and games. His favorite go-to songs are often by the Laurie Berkner Band. Their songs are funny, catchy, and, I love sharing them with young audiences because they just love them. One particular song, Lets Go Swimming, is a storytime favorite. The song is about a school of fish that try doing all kinds of things like riding bicycles and brushing their teeth, and then they say, Wait a minute, fish dont ride bikes! (or whatever human activity they tried) and then say, lets go swimming! From the Laurie Berkner Band to Desmond Denniss classic nursery rhyme remixes, Kareem carefully curates his song choices with the intent to introduce kids to silly and new vocabulary words, to get them moving, grooving, and acting out the songs. He also encourages them to use their imaginations and to have a good time. Then, he likes to switch gears. Thats when I begin reading a heartfelt story to give my storytime friends something to think abouta message to take home and to put into practice, Kareem said. For example, we just read a very touching story called A Hundred Thousand Welcomes by Mary Lee Donovan [illustrated by Lian Cho]. It gives readers a glimpse into diverse households from various parts of the world. With older kids (i.e. third through fifth grade) who drop by to unwind after the school day and, maybe, act a little silly, Kareem shares the latest humorous graphic novels and chapter books. For this age, I gravitate towards silly stories because these stories have the power to draw kids in, Kareem said, and are great hooks for reluctant readers. Once a reluctant reader himself, Kareem wished that someone had introduced silly books to him earlier in his reading journey. Today, hell only suggest books (e.g. The Treehouse series by Andy Griffith and Terry Denton, and the Timmy Failure series by Stephan Pastis) that have made him laugh out loud. I want my readers to see their silliness in booksand that being silly can turn into careers like writing silly books. Laura Mossas career choice as an elementary school reading specialist at Grange Elementary School in the Baltimore County Schools allows her the chance to support her striving readers, those still working on a variety of reading skills, and to serve all kinds of readers any way she can. One way is through silly storytimes and read-alouds. Whether shes using them to teach reading behaviors and skills, or blogging about them with her dog, Bella, at Beagles and Books, Mossa gravitates toward picture bookthe sillier, the better. On top of juggling her reading specialist caseload, Mossa instituted the popular #ClassroomBookADay initiative (created by Jilian Heise) in a second grade class back in 2017. As part of the initiative, Mossa reads a picture book to her second graders every day of the school year at the end of the day. At first, she chose different genres including nonfiction, fantasy, and realistic fiction. But, she soon discovered one necessary ingredient for their daily dose of picture books. I found that humors really important, Mossa said, especially todayand in an elementary school, kids have to laugh. For these second graders, humor is the hook to get them into the stories! While she was leading remote learning during Covid, humor became a lifeline for her students and herself. And, even now, she has one question for her students: Who needs to laugh today? Mossa said. The answer is always We do! and they share a silly picture book together. Afterwards, she said, We discuss the authors purpose, and how we might write our own silly stories as well. Sometimes, things will turn serious. At times, I will choose a silly book that has a serious tone, so we can peel back the onion. For example, Somethings Wrong! A Bear, a Hare, and Some Underwear by Jory John is about a bear that gets a pair of underwear from his grandma, and tries them on and forgets to take the underwear off. Mossa said, Throughout the book theres a repetitive phrase: Why is that bear wearing underwear? But his best friend, a rabbit, not only tells him the truth, but also puts on a pair of underwear, and says that its a new style. With four graders, she has used a silly nonfiction book, The Battle of the Butts: The Science Behind Animal Behinds by Jocelyn Rish. At first, the kids were unsure about the book, and some were even embarrassed until they realized that the book was about how animals use their butts, Mossa said. Again, the humor was the hookand we dove into more research about animals. Humor seems to be a wonderful jumping-off point! Mossa leaves behind these picture books in the classroom for continued reading. She hopes that reading aloud picture books each day will encourage her faculty to join the fun. Shed also like to see a space in the library that highlights books for each month that teachers could grab to do #ClassroomBookADay challenges of their own. I just want to bombard the kids with books, help all of them see themselves as readers, elevate the picture book so that more kids read them, Mossa said, and for teachers not to worry about what their students are readingas long as theyre reading! Ann Santori says she wants to become the Ms. Fizzle from The Magic School Bus of reading. But instead of a magic school bus, Santori, who is aschool of information services adjunct at Dominican University in River Forest, Ill., and early literacy specialist educator, uses her library and literacy knowledge and storytelling skills to take young readers and future librarians on field trips through books. She also offers a variety of early literacy consulting, custom programming, and one-on-one with readers services with her Lets Get Early Lit resources. Whether she is working with her readers or librarians in person or online, indoors or outdoors, her favorite thing to do is hold silly storytimes. I especially love reading silly books because theyre usually the most interactive, get the most attention from the kids, and often break the fourth wall speaking directly to them, she said. For Santori, these are essential elements to cut through the many distractions that children face, from the ongoing pandemic to the pervasiveness of technology. One of the ways that Santori heightens the experience with her young readers is through dialogic reading. This involves her reading and talking with the children, having them make predictions, asking them questions, and inviting them and their parents to join her in the telling of the story. Above all, Santori said, it's about giving them a say in what happens in storytime. She also gives kids permission to tap into their inner silliness. I do this by being incredibly silly so the kids and parents who might be self-conscious can let go. They could never be as completely and utterly ridiculous as I am at the front of the room wearing weird outfits, making silly faces, and dancing really terribly. Santori said, I tell everyone there that what happens in storytime, stays in storytime. Santori also tells her future librarians to get comfortable with looking foolish and not being in complete control. Santori says its not if, but when things might get a little chaotic that silliness ensues. Sure, set up expectations, but also embrace the chaosbecause joy comes in that chaos. In the midst of silly storytimes, Santori says a busload of magic can happen. The more engaged adults (i.e. librarians, teachers, and parents) are in the narrative at storytime, the more the child may want to keep it going at home: looking at books, reading them with family members, retelling storiesand so much more. Were always looking for teachers and librarians to share their insights for stories. If youre interested in participating in future features, please get in touch. Two-time Booker Prizewinning author Hilary Mantel died on September 22 at a hospital in Exeter, England, of complications from a stroke she suffered two days earlier. She was 70. Mantel was born on July 6, 1952, in Glossop, England. She graduated from the University of Sheffield in 1973 and, that same year, married geologist Gerald McEwan. Her debut novel, Every Day is Mother's Day, was published in 1985. She was best known for her Cromwell trilogy, which centered on the Tudor-era figure Thomas Cromwell and comprised the novels Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light. In all, she authored 15 books: 12 novels, two story collections, and a memoir. Mantel's Cromwell trilogy earned both critical acclaim and bestseller status. The author won her first Man Booker Prize in 2009 for Wolf Hall and her second for the its 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies. The trilogy's conclusion, The Mirror and the Light, was longlisted for the Booker Prize. According to NPD Bookscan, Wolf Hall has sold more than 600,000 copies and Bring Up the Bodies more than 300,000 in the U.S. The Mirror and the Light, published in March 2020, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list and has sold more than 135,000 copies. "I've had Cromwell in view all my writing career," Mantel told PW in a 2020 interview. "It seemed like a story with endless ambiguity, which is what sustains a writer.... Theres so much we will never know, and what attracts me as a novelist is the combination of documented factthe heavily-inked paperand whats missing and unknownthe white space." Mantel was the winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, Costa Book Award, David Cohen Prize, and British Academy President's Medal, and has twice been named U.K. Author of the Year by the British Book Awards. In 2014, she was made a dame of the United Kingdom. That we won't have the pleasure of any more of her words is unbearable, her longtime editor, Nicholas Pearson, told PBS after her death. What we do have is a body of work that will be read for generations." He also mentioned that, as recently as a month before her sudden death, Mantel had been working on a new novel. From her epic trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell to her poignant memoir and her cutting-edge short stories, everything about Hilary Mantels writing was perfection on the page and a gift for readers, Mantel's U.S. publisher, Macmillan, said in a statement. But moreover, we will miss her great spirit and kindness, and remember her with tremendous affection. SPIs content will be proposed as part of Themas growing portfolio in the region. The deal encompasses SPI channels such as FilmBox Arthouse , Dizi, Gametoon, FunBox UHD, FightBox, DocuBox, Fast&FunBox, 360 TuneBox, FashionBox, Erox, Eroxxx, as well as the FilmBox+ app and related on-demand content.We are delighted to partner with Themas experienced team for the distribution of SPIs suite of thematic channels, FilmBox+ streaming app, and on-demand content that appeal to a wide variety of interests, commented Murat Muratoglu, head of distribution at SPI International . By joining forces with another CANAL+ company, we will leverage each others market presence and strength to expand the reach of our content in the region.Also owned by CANAL+, Thema now includes five subsidiaries and represents 180 channels as well as SVOD/VOD/OTT covering a range of thematic and has created relationships with the main TV platforms in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa and in North America.[We are] very proud to bring Themas experience and network across Asia-Pacific to initiate and pursue the development of SPI content across the region, added Thema APAC managing director Alexandre Bac: Elite will return on Netflix in November. ADVERTISEMENT The streaming service announced a premiere date, Nov. 18, for Season 6 of the Spanish teen drama series Monday. Netflix shared the news alongside a teaser video featuring steamy shots of the show's cast. Andre Lamoglia, Valentina Zenere, Carla Diaz, Martina Cariddi, Adam Nourou and Manu Rios will return to star, while Itzan Escamilla, Omar Ayuso, Claudia Salas and Georgina Amoros have exited the series. Elite follows the students of the exclusive Las Encinas high school. Season 6 picks up in the wake of Samuel's (Escamilla) death. "After Samuel's death, Las Encinas faces a new school year trying to have a facelift by covering up disasters of the past," an official synopsis reads. "However, the conflict in its classrooms is systemic: racism, sexism, domestic abuse or LGBTI-phobia are just a few of the difficult issues that will run through the hallways of the prestigious institution this season. If those who run the system do not actively take action to address these issues, it will have to be the students themselves who do so." Olivia is a senior journalism major at the University of Georgia. Her love for writing and sharing stories from the community led her to The Red & Black. She loves being able to highlight the people who make up the Athens community. Follow OLIVIA WAKIM 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 On Sept. 15, The William released a statement on its website once again delaying move-in for its tenants. The Red & Black reached out to tenants and families of tenants and asked if they wanted to give testimonies on their experience. This is what six had to say. Our fraud columnist notes: "Government agencies and corporations do not use Gmail. After clicking a link, check the address line of the webpage. Many imposter sites appear with GoDaddy, Google or other website provider names. Finally, don't play games. These criminals already have your email address and possibly your name. By opening a website link, you provide your location, type of computer and other personal data." Barbara Guerrero, a school librarian at Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School in Townshend, is going to be retiring, but before she does, she is working on scanning in pieces of ephemera relating to the history of the school. Photographer / Multimedia Editor Has been working as a photojournalist since 2007, before moving into newspapers, he worked with an NGO called Project HOPE. He then went to work for the Press and Sun-Bulletin in New York, and then in New England working for the Brattleboro Reformer. Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook. Matthew Strong is the executive director of Vermonters for Good Government and resides in Island Pond. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media. A Cambodian government delegation urged migrant workers at a festival in Thailand to back Prime Minister Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party, an opposition activist told RFA. At a celebration for the Cambodian Pchum Ben ancestor remembrance festival on Sunday, CPP officials promised the migrants that the government would help them navigate the process for working legally in Thailand, Pong Socheat, a representative for the banned Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), told RFAs Khmer Service. I met the workers, who told me that the Cambodian Peoples Party elements came to persuade them to join the CPP. They always promise to help process documents they need to work, Pong Socheat said. But the workers are not swayed by that because they do not like the way Hun Sens regime rules the country, Pong Socheat said. The CPP has been targeting the Cambodian diaspora for support in countries like the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea and in neighboring Thailand, where, according to labor NGOs, approximately 2 million Cambodian migrant workers live, both legally and illegally. Cambodias Minister of Labor Ith Sam Heng led the delegation of officials and embassy staff as they met with around 4,000 Cambodian migrants at the festival event in Thailands Samute Prakan province near the capital Bangkok. Ith Sam Heng told the workers that the Cambodian government is looking after migrant workers, who remit more than U.S. $2 billion to their families in Cambodia each year. For our brothers and sisters who work in Thailand I wish to re-emphasize that the government will continue to pay close attention to you by taking an effort to keep your job and business opportunities for you through the strong cooperation with Thailand, Ith Sam Heng said at the event. He praised Hun Sen, who has effectively ruled Cambodia since 1985, for overseeing an era of peace, development and cooperation with the countrys neighbors so that we can give opportunities for our brothers and sisters to work here. And he will continue to look after our brothers and sisters But Pong Socheat said that Ith Sam Heng made a mistake by bringing along State Secretary Heng Sour, who he said was infamous for threatening to kill overseas Cambodian workers who criticize the ruling party. Even in Thailand, Hun Sens regime comes after us and threatens us. Even if we just meet among ourselves and discuss our desire for change, we are worried about our safety, because they threaten us, saying the Thai authorities will cooperate with them, Pong Socheat said. Many Cambodian migrants have been critical of their government for failing to protect their rights and interests. The Khmer community in Thailand does not believe that government officials back home are trying to help make their lives easier, Chhorn Sokheoun, a representative of the migrant workers, told RFA. For this reason, the CPP will not be able to persuade many migrants to join the party, he said. The workers attended the Pchum Ben festival in Samute Prakan province because it is our Khmer tradition. But only a very small number would be brainwashed by the CPPs political ideology, Chhorn Sokheoun said. The majority of workers did not attend the gathering because they clearly understand that working in Thailand is difficult. As for the passports and other necessary document issues, the government has not been helpful. It has always ignored the workers problems, he said. Thuch Thy, who is from Cambodias western Battambang province but now works illegally in Thailand, said the cost of living in her new home is immense. A permit to work legally costs more than 17,000 baht (about $450), she said. But Thuch Thy said she has no choice but to work in Thailand because her family has debts in Cambodia and the wages offered there are too low. She said Cambodian migrants in Thailand face many problems, including labor rights abuses from their employers, but rarely receive support from Cambodian officials. I have been working in Thailand for 15 years. I have never seen any [Cambodian] authorities come to provide any emotional or financial support. I have suffered from poverty and survived floods and heavy rains, but I have never seen any aid donations from my government. If Cambodia had job opportunities like in Thailand, I wouldnt have left my village, said Thuch Thy. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is also being fully tested. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) celebrated the 10th anniversary of its first aircraft carrier on Sunday, with mooring trials beginning on the third carrier, state media reported. The two events were hailed as significant progress by China in building its aircraft carrier fleet in the past decade. Chinas state television CCTV said the PLA's third aircraft carrier Fujian, which was launched in June 17, has begun mooring trials as planned. During mooring trials, all equipment and machinery systems on the carrier including propulsion are tested. The 80,000-ton Fujian, also called Type 003, is the PLAs first carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults and arresting devices similar to the ones on U.S. aircraft carriers. The so-called CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery) will help launch a bigger variety of aircraft from the carrier faster and with more ammunition. The PLAs first aircraft carriers the Liaoning and Shandong - use a less advanced ski jump-style launch system. After mooring trials, conducted while the ship is at port, the Fujian will be going on sea trials next year. CCTV said the carriers outfitting is underway. Taiwans Ministry of National Defense, which is watching Chinas military developments closely, said in a report published earlier this year that the Fujian would enable the PLA Navy to project power past the first island chain. The first island chain, conceptualized during the Cold War, commonly refers to the major archipelagos that lie off the East Asian mainland coast. The chain stretches from the Kamchatka Peninsula in the northeast to the Malay Peninsula in the southwest, and includes the territory of U.S. allies Taiwan and the Philippines. The Liaoning aircraft carrier was shown with 24 fighter jets, the largest number of aircraft to date. CREDIT: Screenshot from CCTV report Fully loaded CCTV meanwhile marked the tenth anniversary of Liaoning, Chinas first aircraft carrier, with a special report showing it in a fully operational mode. The Liaoning, commissioned in 2012, was shown fully loaded with 24 J-15 Flying Shark fighter jets, two Z-8 helicopters and a Z-9 helicopter on its flight deck. Chinese observers say this is the largest number of fighters seen on board an aircraft carrier and it demonstrates the growing capabilities of the carrier as the Chinese military has now gained much more experience in operating carrier-based aircraft. The Liaoning regularly patrols the Taiwan Strait and may be deployed in the event of armed conflict with the self-governing island. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that shall be united with the mainland. In May the Japanese and Taiwanese militaries were put on high alert after the Chinese carrier and its strike group sailed past the first island chain to enter the Pacific Ocean. In the next 10 years, the PLA may expand its aircraft carrier fleet to five ships, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), an independent U.S. think tank specializing in defense policy, planning and budgets. The report said that China may have enough resources to expand its naval force to 419 ships and submarines in the next ten years, including five aircraft carriers and 28 nuclear-powered submarines. The PLA already has the largest navy in the world by number with approximately 355 ships and submarines, according to the Pentagon. The U.S. Navy has 11 aircraft carriers, most of them of the large supercarrier category, which are much more advanced and powerful. Press freedom in Hong Kong has declined for yet another year, with most local outlets now hesitant to criticize the Chinese government, according to a recent survey by the city's journalists. "HKs press freedom has declined for yet another year, according to HKJA's latest Press Freedom Index," the Hong Kong Journalists' Association (HKJA) said in a news release posted to its Twitter account. "Ratings by journalists dropped almost six points, showing that the citys press freedom hit a new low in 2021," it said. In a recent poll carried out for the HKJA by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (HKPORI), 97 percent of journalists who responded said press freedom is in decline, while more than half of public respondents agreed with this view. "Some journalists ... did not participate in the survey for fear of reprisals," the HKPORI said in a press release. "Some Hong Kong journalists bluntly said that they were worried about their own safety and did not dare to report on topics that might violate the National Security Law," it said, in a reference to a draconian security law banning public criticism of the government that has been used to jail most of the city's pro-democracy activists and former members of the political opposition. "Some media management said that the government and media executives had put pressure on them to make Hong Kong journalists self-censor and be forced to become official mouthpieces," it said. "Commentators pointed out that the China effect has deteriorated the Hong Kong media." In this June 24, 2021 file photo, a woman takes a photo of the last issue of Apple Daily in front of a newspaper booth where people queue up to buy the publication in Hong Kong. Credit: Associated Press One country, two systems The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Deng Xiaoping had promised Hong Kong could run its own affairs under a "one country, two systems" arrangement, with the city's freedoms preserved for at least 50 years, and with progress promised towards fully democratic elections. The reality has been very different. Just 25 years after the handover, Hong Kong is no longer the world's freest economy and has plummeted in global press freedom rankings following a citywide crackdown on dissent under the national security law. Hong Kong journalist Cheung San said the June 2021 raids on the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper and the jailing of several top editors and founder Jimmy Lai, as well as subsequent targeting of Stand News in December 2021, had changed the environment for working journalists in the city. "There are some stories I will filter of my own accord, as I may be suspected of violating the national security law," Cheung told RFA. "I am afraid that it may already be dangerous to touch on certain issues." "In the past, when I ran into a story that I wanted to report ... I would definitely try to get my superiors [to agree to it]," he said. "Now I dont do that any more, because I know that everyone is worried, and I can't ask others to risk their lives so I can write the stories I want to write." An editorial manager who gave only the surname Yim said media bosses often use the threat of the national security law to suppress media reporting that the Hong Kong government doesn't want to see. "The media fear the red lines of the national security law more than anything now," Yim said. "Media bosses use [it] as a way to put pressure on editors and reporters." Exiles off limits Yim said one topic that quickly became off-limits in Hong Kong was the doings of exiled pro-democracy politicians in other countries. "We can't write about emigres overseas," he said. "On COVID-19 policy, there are some experts who don't agree with the government's zero-COVID policy, but they're not allowed to speak. But if the government criticizes them, then we can report that." "Some of our audience are telling us that a lot of media in Hong Kong have turned into government media," Yim said. Yim believes that sometimes the political pressure on the media comes all the way from Beijing. "If the pressure is coming from higher up, then it could have come all the way from Beijing," he said. "You will find that most of Hong Kong's media are dealing with this ... they are suppressed regardless of who they are, and you can tell that there is someone higher up handing down instructions from behind the scenes." Huang Chao-nien, an assistant professor at the National Development Institute of Taiwan's National Chengchi University, said the rapid disappearance of press freedom in Hong Kong also shows the power of CCP influence far beyond the borders of mainland China. "Hong Kong is a very prominent example, because it had a very high degree of press freedom before, and it has declined in just a few short years," Huang told RFA. "The fundamental factor at play here is China; it's the spillover effect of Chinese authoritarianism." "Hong Kong is just the first stop, when it comes to the damage done by the China factor," he said, calling on the rest of the world to take warning from events in Hong Kong. "[The CCP] is [also] trying to influence and manipulate foreign media through various channels." Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan incarcerated Dong Yaoqiong in a psychiatric hospital for splashing ink on a poster of China's President Xi Jinping in a live-streamed protest on social media. Her father, Dong Jianbiao, was detained by local police after he spoke out about her treatment, and died in prison on Sept. 23, the rights website Weiquanwang quoted activist Chen Siming as saying. Chen himself was detained after telling people about Dong's death, the report said. According to Chen, Dong's relatives said his body was covered in signs of injury when they went to identify him in the morgue, and that the authorities had had his remains cremated just five days later. Dong Yaoqiong was sent for "compulsory treatment" after she streamed live video of herself splashing ink on a poster of President Xi in protest at "authoritarian tyranny" on July 4, 2018. She was then committed as a psychiatric patient in a women's ward in Hunan's Zhuzhou No. 3 Hospital. Dong Jianbiao, who was detained when he tried to visit her, has suggested the authorities put extreme pressure on her mother to sign the committal papers. A cousin of Dong Yaoqiong told RFA that Dong's funeral took place in his hometown of Taoshui in Hunan's You county, on Monday. "The funeral was today -- he has been interred now," the cousin said. "You can't get in there right now; there are roadblocks at all of the intersections, and they're not letting anyone through." "Only family members and local villagers from our ethnic group can go through," the cousin said. Dong Yaoqiong points to a poster of Xi Jinping after splashing it with ink on a street in Shanghai, July 4, 2018. Photo courtesy of @feefeefly Beating or diabetes? The father of a woman sent to a psychiatric hospital for defacing a poster of ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has died suddenly in detention, with the authorities moving to cremate his remains amid suspicions of violence.Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan incarcerated Dong Yaoqiong in a psychiatric hospital for splashing ink on a poster of China's President Xi Jinping in a live-streamed protest on social media.Her father, Dong Jianbiao, was detained by local police after he spoke out about her treatment, and died in prison on Sept. 23, the rights website Weiquanwang quoted activist Chen Siming as saying.Chen himself was detained after telling people about Dong's death, the report said.According to Chen, Dong's relatives said his body was covered in signs of injury when they went to identify him in the morgue, and that the authorities had had his remains cremated just five days later.Dong Yaoqiong was sent for "compulsory treatment" after she streamed live video of herself splashing ink on a poster of President Xi in protest at "authoritarian tyranny" on July 4, 2018.She was then committed as a psychiatric patient in a women's ward in Hunan's Zhuzhou No. 3 Hospital. Dong Jianbiao, who was detained when he tried to visit her, has suggested the authorities put extreme pressure on her mother to sign the committal papers.A cousin of Dong Yaoqiong told RFA that Dong's funeral took place in his hometown of Taoshui in Hunan's You county, on Monday."The funeral was today -- he has been interred now," the cousin said. "You can't get in there right now; there are roadblocks at all of the intersections, and they're not letting anyone through.""Only family members and local villagers from our ethnic group can go through," the cousin said. According to a Sept. 24 notice from the prison authorities, Dong died while serving a jail term at Chaling Prison. "There were injuries from beating all over his body, blood in his anus and his eyes weren't closed," the cousin said. "The authorities said it was due to diabetes." "They would let us take our phones, or take anything in with us; they just let us get a quick look and then they made us leave." The cousin said Dong's body was sent for cremation the following day. "We refused permission for the cremation but they forced it through anyway," they said. "There was nothing we could do. How are we supposed to to bear something like that?" A Hunan resident who asked to remain anonymous said Dong had been jailed for threatening his ex-wife with gasoline after she had Dong Yaoqiong committed to the psychiatric facility. "They needed a signature from the immediate family to incarcerate Dong Yaoqiong, and her mother was the one who signed it," the resident said. "Dong Jianbiao quarreled with his ex-wife, saying she shouldn't have allowed her own daughter to get locked up, but should have called for her release because she didn't have any mental illness." "He took the gas can and said he was going to set fire to their house, so [the ex-wife' called the police, and he was jailed for three years and sent to Chaling Prison." 'Brave and optimistic' Dissident artist Hua Yong, a friend of Dong's, said there is likely more to his death than diabetes. "He was a very strong-minded, stubborn person, but also brave and optimistic, so we can definitely rule out the possibility of suicide," Hua told RFA. "Given that he was alone in a prison with very tight security, he must have been beaten to death," he said. Hua said Dong's insistence on speaking out about the authorities' treatment of his daughter was likely the main factor behind his death. "Dong Jianbiao kept trying to see his daughter, and has been talking about her [publicly] for many years," he said. "I think the authorities were waiting for a reason to get him into prison, and just a year later, he's dead." Weiquanwang said in a Sept. 25 report that Chen Siming, who spread the news of Dong's death, is currently incommunicado, believed detained. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Facing competition from China, the U.S. commitment to the region lacks significant substance, one analyst says. President Joe Bidens summit with Pacific island leaders this week is meant to show a deeper U.S. commitment to a region that is increasingly turning to China to meet its development needs, officials and analysts say. The Sept. 28-29 meetings will be the first-ever Washington summit for leaders of Pacific island nations. But it will need solid outcomes to overcome skepticism that U.S. attention to Pacific island nations is reactive rather than enduring, observers say. Weve seen quite a few attempts from the U.S. recently to speak the language of the Pacific, to demonstrate their commitment to the Pacific. But so far that has been lacking in any significant substance, Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at Australias Lowy Institute and a former diplomat in the region, told BenarNews. Over two decades, China has become an important source of infrastructure, loans and aid for Pacific island nations as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and gain regional allies in international organizations such as the United Nations. Remote, prone to natural disasters and lagging in economic development, the Pacific island countries have welcomed Chinas assistance as easier to obtain and meeting the needs of their people. Some analysts say Beijing also hopes to establish a military presence in the Pacific in a challenge to U.S. dominance. Earlier this year it signed a pact with the Solomon Islands that would allow it to send security forces to protect Chinese interests in those islands. American involvement in the region diminished after the breakup of the Soviet Union, with a reduction in embassies and U.S. development assistance through its Peace Corps agency. Pacific leaders say their top concern is the climate and they dont want to be forced to take sides in the U.S.-China rivalry. Rising sea levels and more extreme weather linked to higher average global temperatures threatens many low-lying Pacific nations. Tuvalu, made up of nine coral islands and home to some 12,000 people, fears it will be submerged this century. For us the most important security issue is climate change. It is not China, it is not the U.S., it is about climate change, said Siaosi Sovaleni, the prime minister of Tonga. We are facing, on an annual basis, extreme weather events. It used to be once every five years, he told a conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the lead up to the summit. David Panuelo, president of the Federated States of Micronesia, said he hoped the summit would result in greater Peace Corps involvement in the region - as already promised by the U.S. - a larger contribution to protection of vast Pacific fisheries and more climate finance. In order to be considered a success, the U.S.-Pacific Summit must see the return of the U.S. Peace Corps to the FSM and other Pacific Islands, he said in an email to BenarNews. The summit must result in additional commitments from the U.S. on helping the Pacific prevent, mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo (center) is pictured at a welcoming ceremony for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Suva, Fiji, July 12, 2022. Credit: AFP U.S. officials are aware they are on the back foot. Kurt Campbell, the White Houses Indo-Pacific coordinator, acknowledged that rivalry with China is behind renewed U.S. attention to the Pacific island countries. However, U.S. leaders also recognize the region had been neglected, he said during the same conference at Carnegie. In the past we have perhaps paid lesser attention to these critical places than we should have. I think being honest about that is important, he said. This is a region that has been disappointed before. Sometimes expectations get raised, theyre unfulfilled. We understand the bar is high and I think what were going to try to do is fulfill those expectations, Campbell said. According to Sora, of the Lowy Institute, there are numerous ways for the United States to show a long-term commitment to the Pacific including with new initiatives and scaling up some of its existing but small-scale involvement. Theres definitely room for the U.S. to demonstrate in some meaningful way that its committed to the region and that its committed to the region for the long term, Sora said by phone. A huge vulnerability for the U.S. right now is the regional perception that U.S. interest in the Pacific is only as a reaction to Chinas increasing influence and presence. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service. Qualified candidates are passed over to make room for relatives and friends of the countrys elites, sources say. Top jobs in the state sector of Laos are going mainly to applicants with the right connections, leaving better-qualified candidates out of work and prompting calls for transparency in government hiring, RFA has learned. Documents leaked on Sept. 21 by sources in the Finance Ministry and spread on social media show that six positions in the ministry were recently filled by applicants who had powerful backers in senior government posts but had not passed exams to get their jobs. Tests for state employment should be given fairly, with hiring standards made more clear and transparent, Lao sources told RFA in recent interviews. Its not right to recruit only the sons and daughters or cousins of powerful people, a resident of Champassak province in southern Laos told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The government should investigate whether or not these people passed their exams, and what their level of education was when they took their exams, he said. They should hire only applicants who have the best qualifications and who want to serve their country. If the sons and daughters of high-ranking officials want to apply for government jobs, they should take and pass their exams like everybody else, and the public will then accept them without argument, the source added. The government hiring of persons with powerful connections has been a common practice in Laos for a long time, said a source in the Lao capital Vientiane. The prime minister has said its not allowed, but in reality people know this practice still continues and cant be stopped, he said. Its hard to get a state job in Laos if you dont have the right connections, agreed another resident of Vientiane, saying his own brother and sister had used this system to find work after finishing school. You might have to wait two or three years to get a job, and then only after seeing the son or daughter of some high-ranking official get hired first. And sometimes you have to pay money to get a job, he added. Long waits, low salaries for jobs Fewer Lao graduates are now interested in finding state work not only because of favoritism in hiring but because salaries are often higher in the private sector, a source living in southern Laos Savannakhet province said, also declining to be named. This new generation doesnt like to work for the government because the salaries are too low. They cant feed their families. They might have to wait 2 or 3 years even to find a job, and then have to wait that long again before theyre self-sufficient, he said. Addressing an opening session of the 9th National Assembly of Laos on June 13, Lao Prime Minister Phanh Kham Viphavanh urged an end to the hiring of unqualified state employees based solely on family connections, calling the practice an obstacle to the countrys development. Today's Lao elites are the offspring of leaders of the Lao People's Liberation Army, or Pathet Lao, a communist movement organized, equipped and guided by Vietnam's Communist Party that overthrew the Lao monarchy in 1975. The Lao People's Revolutionary Party is the only party the landlocked country of 7 million people has ever known. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Richard Finney. Around 100 villagers, unable to escape, are being interrogated by junta forces. Yae Lel Maw village in Wetlet township, Sagaing region was set on fire by junta troops on Aug. 25, 2022. UPDATED AT 10:20 P.M. EDT ON 9-26-2022 A morning raid with heavy artillery shelling by the Myanmar junta military injured five people in a village in the war-torn central region of Sagaing, villagers said Monday. Residents said two houses burned down after being struck by shells Sunday morning in Sagaing region's Wetlet township. A local resident, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that about 40 fully armed junta soldiers arrived at the village early on Sunday morning and shelled Ywar Thar Gyi village. The village is next to the road, so there are no significant defense forces and only passers-by," the local said. "They came yesterday in two columns and opened fire. People got hit because [the shelling] erupted during market time. Everyone ran away to avoid the unexploded shells scattered along the way. The injured people are having medical treatment and there were no deaths, the resident told RFA. He added that more than 4,000 residents of Ywar Thar Gyi village, which has nearly 1,000 houses, fled to nearby villages. RFA called a junta council spokesman for Sagaing region on Monday to ask about the attack but calls went unanswered on Monday. Local residents also said that around 100 villagers who were unable to escape and remained in the village were being questioned by junta troops. Wetlet township has strongly resisted the military council forces in the near 20 months since the military coup. The junta troops have raided Ywar Thar Gyi village four times including this attack, according to locals. Data for Myanmar reported on August 27, that 20,153 houses in Sagaing were destroyed due to arson attacks junta troops and their affiliates from February 1, 2021 to Sunday. UPDATED to add missing language in the beginning of the story. Fighting between the military and the ethnic Arakan Army is intensifying in the region. Myanmar junta forces firing artillery damaged the roof of this house in Na Ga Yar village, Kyauktaw township, where at least one child was killed and several villagers injured in recent days. Military shelling in Myanmars Rakhine state over the past four days has claimed the lives of at least two children and injured several others, residents said Monday, as clashes ramp up between junta troops and ethnic insurgents following a two-year lull. Late on Sunday evening, junta troops from the 9th Military Operations Command (MOC-9) in Kyauktaw township fired shells into Na Ga Yar village, killing 7-year-old Maung Gyi and injuring a man named Kyaw Sein, a resident told RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity. A shell fired by the military fell right on the house at about 11 p.m. and went through the roof, the resident said. That was the only one that fell on our village, but around 30 shells fell along the banks of the [nearby] Kyauktaw river. The boy, who is also known as Moung Ko Naing, was buried on Monday and Kyaw Sein is currently receiving medical treatment, the resident said. Some inhabitants of Na Ga Yar have fled to nearby villages, he added. Separately, residents told RFA that a seven-year-old from Buthidaung townships Ah Twin Hnget Thay village was killed and two residents of North Tha Bauk Chaung village were wounded on Sept. 23 when the 8th regiment of the juntas Buthidaung Township Border Guard Force fired shells toward Tha Bauk Chaung village. Additional details of the incident were not immediately available. The incident in Na Ga Yar came just four days after a shell fired by MOC-9 injured four members of a family in the same village, sources said. Residents reported additional civilian casualties resulting from junta attacks since the weekend. A man staying at the Thein San Guest House in Kyauktaws Ywama ward was injured by a stray bullet on Saturday, while a 21-year-old woman and her two children were injured on Monday when a shell fired by a junta naval boat exploded in Minbya townships Khaung Laung village, sources said. Of the shelling on Monday, residents said that the clash erupted after members of the ethnic Arakan Army (AA) intercepted two naval vessels traveling upriver from the capital Sittwe to Minbya between Khaung Laung and Laung Shay villages. Two Z-craft [boats] came up from Sittwe at about 9 a.m. When they approached our village, [a helicopter] arrived, hovering above. Soon afterwards, we heard the sound of fighting as the vessels approached Khaung Laung village, said a resident of nearby Thut Pon Chaung village. I think the AA fired at the navy. Both vessels were hit. We heard the gunfire. The aircraft also returned fire. The Thut Pon Chaung resident said junta troops were firing from the river between Khaung Laung village to Minbya, and a military unit stationed at Kyein Taung Pagoda in Minbya also fired shells into the area. Pe Than, a former lawmaker and veteran politician in Rakhine state, condemned junta troops for attacking civilians. "What we have seen is that as the fighting throughout Rakhine state has intensified, the junta is targeting residents, regardless of whether there are any clashes nearby, he said. The military is doing whatever it wants in the villages. More people are becoming displaced by fighting. Its like the Myanmar proverb burning down the barn because the mouse cannot be found. He urged residents of the state to keep their eyes and ears open at all times as the fighting between the two sides is likely to become even more severe. A Myanmar military helicopter flies over Minbya, Sept. 25, 2022. Credit: Hantar Growing conflict Fighting between Myanmars military and the AA, which resumed in July after a two-year lull, has intensified and is spreading southward through Rakhine state, sources in the region told RFA last week. What began as intermittent clashes two months ago in northern Rakhines Maungdaw township and across the border to the northeast in neighboring Chin states Paletwa township has since spread to the central Rakhine townships of Buthidaung, Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw, and is now expanding to Toungup township in the states south-central region, according to residents. More than 10,000 residents have fled their homes in townships including Maungdaw, Rathedaung and Mrauk-U in the more than two months since the resumption of fighting. Neither the AA nor the junta has released any news regarding the situation in Rakhine. Attempts by RFA to reach the juntas spokesman in the state went unanswered on Monday. The AA recently announced that it had captured the juntas 352 Light Infantry Battalion camp on Sept. 10 and its Border Guard Station near milepost No. 40 along Myanmars border with Bangladesh on Aug. 31. The AA claimed that many junta soldiers were killed and many others were captured, along with weapons and ammunition. On Sept. 20, Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw that the military is trying to recapture the two locations. Junta shelling has killed three children and three adults and wounded 18 people since fighting resumed in Buthidaung, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw and Minbya townships. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Some prisoners are kept in solitary confinement with one leg chained to a concrete seat More than 30 lawyers across Vietnam have signed a petition calling on the government to stop prisoners being shackled by their feet. They called it inhumane and incompatible with civilized society. The petition was started by lawyer Ngo Ngoc Trai on Sept. 21. Other lawyers who signed it included Ngo Anh Tuan, Le Van Hoa, Le Van Luan and Vu Thi Ha. It was sent to Vietnams senior leaders on Friday. Last Tuesday reports emerged that prisoner of conscience Trinh Ba Tu had been beaten and shackled in Detention Center 6 in Nghe An province. He was allegedly beaten, and locked alone in a cell for 10 days with his feet chained. Being beaten, placed in solitary confinement for days on end, amounts to torture, said Amnesty International Deputy Director for Campaigns, Ming Yu Hah. The petition talked about the case of Dang Van Hien, whose death penalty has just been commuted to life imprisonment by Vietnams president. Hien had been imprisoned and shackled for many years. The petition said shackling is a measure that has been applied for a long time for death row prisoners, or many other serious cases that have not yet reached trial. "Small prison cells for death row inmates with cement pedestals for sleeping and shackles, eating and all other activities in the same place, such detention measures are not in line with the humanity of current state law," the petition said. Lawyer Le Van Hoa told RFA Vietnam needed to improve prisoners living conditions. I think that even though people on death row are deprived of their citizenship, they still need to be treated humanely. Currently, detention, especially for death row prisoners in prisons in Vietnam, is quite strict. I see the reality in Vietnam is that not all death row inmates get an objective sentence. There are many cases of unjust conviction, such as Nguyen Thanh Chan, Han Duc Long, and Nguyen Van Chuong." Hoa, who was an official of the Central Commission for Internal Affairs under the Partys Central Committee, suggested that the detention of prisoners should be reconsidered, and said the government needs to listen to the opinions of legislators. lawyers and the general public. The current Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments and the Law on Execution of Detention and Imprisonment stipulates that prisoners or detainees who violate the rules of detention facilities will be sent to a disciplinary cell where one leg may be shackled. In addition, the law stipulating the detention regime for persons sentenced to death clearly states that "if it is deemed they show signs of escaping, committing suicide or other dangerous acts, the head of the detention facility shall decide on shackles and monitor. It shows that the preventive mentality of prison guards is too high, so in all cases, they shackle prisoners. Their anxiety about their responsibilities towards detainees and their desire to ease their work make them pay little attention to the human rights of others," Lawyer Ngo Ngoc Trai posted on Facebook. Trai said even if the prisoner or person in temporary detention behaved improperly, being kept in solitary and put in shackles goes not guarantee human rights In Vietnam, not only death row inmates are shackled. Vu Van Hung, who served three years in prison between 2008 and 2011 for hanging banners opposing corruption, protecting the sea and islands and demanding multi-party pluralism, was shackled for a week at Nam Ha Prison camp. When my leg was shackled I couldnt sleep at night because sometimes I was sleeping, but my legs flexed, causing severe pain because one leg was tightly shackled. Going to the toilet, I had to use the potty which was dirty and stinking. [I had] no contact with or access to family members and no access to supplies. A former teacher in Hanoi who has been in jail twice said prisons often use foot shackles to punish prisoners of conscience, who stick to their ideas and do not confess wrongdoings. He said prisoners who refuse forced labor or fight for the rights of other inmates are also often disciplined and shackled. Recently, prisoner of conscience Trinh Ba Tu told his family he was shackled in solitary confinement for ten days, and had been on hunger strike since Sept. 6. Lawyer Le Van Hoa of the Hanoi Bar Association said shackling prisoners of conscience, as in Tus case, was inadequate and violated human rights, because prisoners of conscience did not commit violent acts. The shackles of prisoners seriously violate their human rights. This doesn't apply to every prisoner, but I believe it's pretty much abused," said Former officer of the General Department of Military Intelligence, Vu Minh Tri. Tri said human rights violations in prisons and detention camps are very common, especially towards political prisoners "for personal revenge and humiliation." Journalist Vo Van Tao from Nha Trang said he supported the lawyers petition. If the Vietnamese government accepts and implements their recommendation, it will be a step forward for human rights Instead of shackles, the government can strengthen detention facilities to make it more difficult for prisoners to escape. Over the last few years, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has organized a number of training courses on the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) for staff at Vietnams Ministry of Public Security. Article 1 of the Nelson Mandela Rules states All prisoners shall be treated with respect due to their inherent dignity and worth as human beings. No prisoner shall be subject to punishment and all prisoners shall be protected from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, without under any circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as justification. The safety and security of prisoners, staff, service providers and visitors must be ensured at all times. The Russian Defense Ministry says it has withdrawn its troops from the strategic eastern Ukrainian town of Lyman, hours after Kyiv said it had surrounded Russian forces there and a day after Moscow said it was annexing the surrounding Donetsk region. "In connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement, allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of [Lyman] to more advantageous lines," the ministry said on October 1. It said, without providing evidence, that it had inflicted heavy casualties on Ukrainian troops in the fight for the town. But it added that it was forced to withdraw when "the enemy, having a significant superiority in forces and means, introduced reserves and continued the offensive in this direction." Moments before the Russian withdrawal announcement, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said its forces had entered Lyman, a crucial rail hub that had been the target of Kyiv's counteroffensive in recent days. "Ukrainian Air Assault Forces are entering Lyman, Donetsk region," the ministry said on Twitter on October 1. The Twitter post included a video of two soldiers taping a Ukrainian flag up near a sign bearing the name of the town. "We're unfurling our state flag and establishing it on our land. Lyman will be Ukraine," one of the soldiers says in the video. Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesman for the Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces, said earlier on October 1 that Ukrainian forces had encircled Russian troops near the crucial rail hub northeast of Slovyansk. "The Russian group in the Lyman area is surrounded," Cherevatiy said. "The settlements of Yampil, Novoselivka, Shandryholove, Drobysheve, and Stavky have been liberated and stabilization measures are being taken there." Moscow has used Lyman as a logistical hub for operations in the northern part of the Donetsk region. Its fall would mark the most serious setback for Russian forces since a lightning Ukrainian counteroffensive sent Russian troops reeling in the Kharkiv region last month. Cherevatiy estimated the number of surrounded Russian troops at about 5,000, adding that Russian forces continue to try to break out of the encirclement. One road, to the Russian-occupied city of Kreminna, appeared to remain open early on October 1, perhaps giving Russian forces one last escape route. It was not immediately clear how many Russian troops may have escaped the encirclement nor were there any initial reports on casualties from either side in the latest fighting. Cherevatiy added that the liberation of Lyman would enable Ukrainian forces to push into the Luhansk region "toward Kreminna and Syevyerodonetsk." Such a move would further embarrass the Kremlin, which declared the Luhansk region fully occupied in early July. "It is psychologically very important," Cherevatiy said, emphasizing that "the operation is not yet over." Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 30 illegally proclaimed the partially occupied Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya as Russian territory, a significant political escalation that was broadly condemned by the West. The four regions together with Crimea, which Moscow grabbed in 2014, make up around 20 percent of Ukraine, including some of its most industrialized territory. Kyiv has said it will not negotiate with Moscow as long as Putin remains in power. With reporting by Reuters The U.S. Treasury Department has announced sanctions against a Bosnian state prosecutor it said is "brazenly corrupt" with links to organized crime and whose actions have undermined the fledgling former Yugoslav republic's democracy and institutions. U.S. Under Secretary for the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement on September 26 that the Bosnian official, Diana Kajmakovic, "has continued to undermine democracy and the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina." The designation freezes the 56-year-old Kajmakovic's assets or property interests in the United States and bars U.S. nationals from transactions involving her without special permission from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). "Todays designation reinforces the United States commitment to a stable and prosperous Bosnia and Herzegovina by targeting an individual who has played a central role in enabling corruption in the country. Nelso said. Kajmakovic was head of the Bosnian Prosecutor's Office's anti-corruption department until early August, when acting chief prosecutor Milanko Kajganic transferred her to the war-crimes department. Kajganic told RFE/RL's Balkan Service on September 26 that the federal prosecutor's office had already launched a case based on accusations against Kajmakovic. "Two prosecutors are working on the mentioned case and will continue to act in the case until they make a prosecutorial decision," Kajganic said. The head of the Bosnian body that appoints judges and prosecutors, Halil Lagumdzija, told RFE/RL that he didn't know whether disciplinary proceedings would be initiated against Kajmakovic. The U.S. Treasury Department cited criminals' references to Kajmakovic in decrypted conversations and said she "helped hide evidence, prevent prosecution, and otherwise assist criminal activity in exchange for personal gain" and "attempted to block an investigation into her apparent criminal affiliates." It said her "destabilizing" activities took place "against the backdrop of [Bosnia's] most serious political crisis since 1995, as ethno-nationalist politicians and affiliated patronage networks continue to undermine the country." Bosnia, composed of a Bosniak and Croat federation and a mostly Serb entity called Republika Srpska, has faced intensifying challenges from Bosnian Serbs led by Bosnian Presidency member Milorad Dodik, including the establishment of parallel institutions over the past six months. Dodik has maintained close ties with neighboring Serbia and with Russia for diplomatic and other support to resist Bosnia's federal structure and international pressure. The United States announced sanctions against Dodik in 2017 and again in January over his secessionist efforts. Bosnian Croats have also long complained of being sidelined within the three-member presidency, citing grievances that have been acknowledged by European institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Bosnia's fractious leaders failed to agree on electoral reforms or a budget ahead of elections scheduled for October 2 for Bosnia's ethnically designated presidency, the parliaments within its entities, as well as leaders for 10 cantons. The election dispute has largely centered around the ethnically based voting system and administration of the country stemming from the 1995 Dayton agreement that ended three years of brutal conflict in Bosnia. The international community's high representative for civilian affairs and compliance with that peace deal, Germany's Christian Schmidt, said in June that he was allocating millions of euros to fund the voting so the balloting could go forward as planned. Iran has dismissed Western criticism of its deadly crackdown that has killed dozens and led to at least 1,200 arrests since protests broke out after a 22-year-old woman's death in custody for allegedly breaking the country's Islamic dress code. Iranian judiciary officials also said they had set up special courts to try protesters, whom they claimed were "hired from abroad." Meanwhile, defiant demonstrations erupted again after nightfall on September 26. The unrest has spread to more than 80 cities and towns, including in northwestern Iran where Mahsa Amini lived before eyewitnesses and family said she was beaten after being seized by the country's morality police in Tehran on September 13. The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said on September 26 that at least 76 protesters have been killed, nearly double the number acknowledged by Iranian officials. Shared videos and eyewitness reports said the protests kicked off for an 11th night late on September 26 in Tehran, Narmak, Sanandaj, and other places and included chants of "Death to the dictator!" in reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Other chants in cities like Qorveh in Kurdistan Province included "Death to Khamenei!" Video of young women in Sanandaj showed them removing their mandated head scarves and hugging in the street. Earlier in the day, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged "very quick" debate within the European Union on new sanctions on Iran in light of the brutality of the crackdown and the alleged abuse before Amini's death. "We will now have to talk very quickly in EU circles about further consequences, and for me this also includes sanctions against those responsible," Baerbock told the dpa news agency. She said "the attempt to suppress peaceful protests with even more deadly violence must not go unanswered." The outrage over Amini's death has reignited decades-old resentment at the treatment of women by Iran's religious leadership, including so-called hijab laws forcing women to wear Islamic head scarves to cover their heads in public. Baerbock called women's rights "the yardstick for the state of a society" and said that "if women are not safe in a country, no one is safe." She said Berlin had summoned Iran's ambassador to the German Foreign Ministry. Officials in Tehran have accused Western enemies and Iranian elements abroad of fomenting the unrest, whose official death toll is 41. But rights groups and Iran's record suggest that could be underreported, and IHR insisted the number of dead is now at least 76. Security forces have used water cannons and fired live rounds into crowds of protesters, according to rights groups and video shared online. Protesters have thrown rocks and burned police cars and public buildings. State media have cited officials as saying that the number of arrestees is above 1,200, including about 450 in the northern Mazandaran Province. The United States last week announced sanctions on Iran's so-called morality police, and Canada said on September 26 that it would follow suit. Josep Borrell, the European Union's high representative for foreign policy, has said that Iranian officials' "widespread and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protesters is unjustifiable and unacceptable" and communications blackouts are "violating freedom of expression." Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi last week said that the country must "deal decisively with those who oppose the country's security and tranquility," and the head of its powerful judiciary has pledged to act "without leniency" in the crackdown. On September 26, Iran's Foreign Ministry rejected EU criticism. "This is intervention in the internal affairs of Iran and support for the rioters," Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani said. The head of Iran's judiciary in the capital, Tehran, said that special courts would be set up to try demonstrators. The Tasnim news agency quoted Ali Alghasi Mehr as pledging tough punishments against the "leaders of the troublemakers hired from abroad." Mehr said such defendants would be treated like rapists and other serious criminals, who can face the death penalty under Iran's notoriously secretive justice system. With reporting by Reuters, dpa, and AFP Iranian civil rights activist Hossein Ronaghi says he has been beaten by guards in Tehran's Evin prison. Journalist Masoud Kazemi said in a tweet on September 25 that Hossein Ronaghi said prison officers broke his leg during the beating, while Ronaghi's mother said her son told her he had been injured by guards. Security agents stormed Ronaghi's house and arrested him on September 22 as he was giving an interview to the London-based Iran International TV. Hours later, Ronaghi announced in a video message that he had managed to escape the security agents, but that he would turn himself in to the prosecutor's office of Evin prison in Tehran on September 24. "If I am arrested after going to the prosecutor's office, I will go on a hunger strike from that moment," Ronaghi said in his video message. On September 24, Ronaghi went to the Evin prison prosecutor's office and was violently apprehended. The arrest comes amid anti-government protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was taken into custody by morality police for the alleged improper wearing of a head scarf, or hijab. Many high profile activists, rights advocates, and intellectuals have also been arrested in recent days, including Majid Tavakoli and Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour. At least 20 journalists are among those arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). They include photojournalist Yalda Moayeri, Fatemeh Rajabi, and Niloufar Hamedi, who reported from a Tehran hospital where Amini died on September 16. Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has told his followers that "sacrifice in the course of carrying out your military duty washes away all sins." The patriarch's comments during his Sunday sermon on September 25 came amid nationwide protests and rising criticism over the Kremlin's recent announcement of a partial mobilization to replenish Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. Western officials estimate that Russia has suffered 70,000 to 80,000 casualties since it invaded Ukraine in February. Russian officials have said the draft would focus on reservists and would bring 300,000 fresh troops to the war effort. But Russian media has said the real target is 1 million new troops, and reports that men with no combat experience and beyond draft age are being enlisted has attracted criticism even from pro-Kremlin voices. Kirill, a prominent supporter of President Vladimir Putin who has "blessed" the war effort and warned by Pope Francis against becoming "Putin's altar boy," has previously claimed that Russians were doing a "heroic deed" by killing Ukrainians, even as he has urged them not to see the Ukrainian people as enemies. "We know that many today are dying in the fields of internecine battle," Kirill said at a church near Moscow on September 25. "The church is praying that this battle will end as soon as possible, that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war." However, he added, "The church realizes that if someone, driven by a sense of duty and the need to honor his oath, stays loyal to his vocation and dies while carrying out his military duty, then he is, without any doubt, doing a deed that is equal to sacrifice." After Putin announced the military mobilization on September 21, Kirill was quoted by Russian state media as saying that "danger looms over the Ukrainian people," claiming that unidentified forces were trying to turn them from being "part of the holy united Rus into a state hostile to this Rus, hostile to Russia." Kirill sees Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February as a bulwark against a decadent West and has insisted that "Russia has never attacked anyone." About 34 percent of Orthodox believers in Ukraine identify with the main Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which in 2019 was officially recognized as separate from the Moscow Patriarchate by Orthodox Christianity's spiritual head, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. About 14 percent of Ukraine's Orthodox community are members of Ukraine's Moscow Patriarchate Church, according to a 2020 study. Following Russia's invasion in February, about 400 parishes of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine that had remained loyal to Kirill cut ties with the Russian Orthodox Church over the patriarch's position on the war. "Not only did he fail to condemn Russia's military aggression, but he also failed to find words for the suffering of the Ukrainian people," church spokesman Archbishop Kliment said of Kirill's stance in May. Days later, Kirill said he understood the decision to cut ties amid Moscow's invasion but claimed that the "spirits of malice" were trying to divide the Orthodox people of Russia and Ukraine. More than 150 Russian Orthodox clerics called for a stop to the war in an open letter on March 1. Kirill was not among those who signed it. Britain imposed sanctions against Kirill in June as part of a package aimed at punishing Moscow over the war in Ukraine. The measure came shortly after the EU dropped a similar proposal to sanction Kirill following opposition from Russia-friendly bloc member Hungary. Jen Psaki, who was spokeswoman for the White House at the time, said in May when asked about the possibility of sanctioning Kirill that "no one is safe from our sanctions." With reporting by TASS, Ukrainska Pravda, and Meduza The number of people detained in Russia for protesting against the country's partial military mobilization has risen to nearly 2,500 people across the country, as prominent pro-Kremlin voices have begun questioning the way the draft is being conducted. OVD-Info, a human rights group that monitors political arrests in Russia, said that 2,353 people had been detained as of September 25, and at least 141 new detentions had been recorded on September 26. The highest one-day number of detentions came on September 21, when protests were held in 43 cities immediately after the draft was announced. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. The rights group has said that there might be more detainees than those published by police and that it was only reporting names it could verify. It was unclear if the latest figures included the detentions of anti-mobilization protesters in the capital of the southern Russian republic of Daghestan on September 25. Caucasus.Realities reported that police dispersed an unknown number of people who had gathered in Makhachkala to express their anger over the draft. In one of multiple videos shared on Telegram capturing the confrontation, a police officer is shown beating a protester as two other officers hold the man down. OVD-Info said on September 26 that protesters who were detained in Makhachkala were beaten after being taken to a police department in the city's Lenin district, and that officers had refused to provide detainees with water. The rights group also quoted a correspondent for the Caucasian Knot website as saying that he was held along with 60 other detainees at an Interior Ministry branch in Makhachkala's Soviet district. The correspondent, Murad Muradov, said that "some of the detainees were forced by the police to sign a protocol, threatening that otherwise they would be given a summons to the military registration and enlistment office." In at least one case, Muradov added, "they carried out their threat." WATCH: Hundreds came out in the North Caucasus region of Daghestan on September 25 to protest against the partial mobilization announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 21 in an effort to step up the ongoing war against Ukraine. The nationwide demonstrations erupted within hours of President Vladimir Putin announcing the partial military mobilization on September 21, which is intended to buttress Russian military forces fighting in Ukraine. Russian police have been mobilized in cities where protests were called for by the opposition group Vesna and supporters of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny. Images on Russian media have shown scenes of police using force against demonstrators, and many young men detained during the protests have reportedly been summoned to register for military service. In Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia occupied and annexed in 2014, the Russian-installed leadership said on September 25 that their mobilization would be completed by the end of the day. The call-up came as Russian forces suffered significant losses of occupied territories in Ukraine's east owing to a counteroffensive launched by the Ukrainian military. Putin followed up on his mobilization order on September 24 by imposing harsher penalties against Russians who willingly surrendered to Ukrainian forces or refused orders to mobilize. Russian officials have said that up to 300,000 reserve forces will be called up and that only those with relevant combat and service experience will be drafted to fight. However, Russian media reports have surfaced saying that men who have never been in the military or who are past draft age are being called up, and foreign media have reported that the real goal is to mobilize more than 1 million soldiers, which the Kremlin denies. Western officials say that Russia has suffered 70,000 to 80,000 casualties, accounting for both deaths and injuries, since it launched its unprovoked war in Ukraine in February. The mobilization to replenish those losses has seen men across Russia sent to register and to reports of Russian citizens attempting to flee the country. Several military enlistment centers and other administrative buildings in the country have been targeted in arson attacks in recent days, and on September 26 a military commissioner was shot by an apparent recruit at an enlistment center in Siberia. Media reports say the 25-year-old shooter had been called to report to the office in the city of Ust-Ilimsk for mobilization that day. The draft has also led to rare complaints by pro-Kremlin voices. Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of the state-backed media outlet RT, wrote on her Telegram channel on September 24 that while it had been announced that only people up to the age of 35 would be recruited, "summonses are going to 40-year-olds." "They're infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite," Simonyan said of the authorities behind the draft. The same day, the head of the Russian president's Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, called on Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to put a halt to the manner with which many draft boards in the country were proceeding. On September 25, two of Russia's most senior lawmakers weighed in on the growing controversy. In a Telegram post, Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of Russia's Federation Council, said that she was aware of reports that men who should be ineligible for the draft are being called up. "Such excesses are absolutely unacceptable. And I consider it absolutely right that they are triggering a sharp reaction in society," she wrote. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, wrote in a separate post that "complaints are being received." "If a mistake is made, it is necessary to correct it," he said. "Authorities at every level should understand their responsibilities." Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin, has admitted he founded the private paramilitary Vagner group after years of denying any links to the mercenaries who have been involved in the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as conflicts in Syria and Africa. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. In response to a question asked by a journalist from the Bloknot online newspaper, Prigozhin said in a statement posted on September 26 to a VKontakte account belonging to his Konkord company that he himself created the paramilitary private group in 2014 on "a military test field" after he realized that military formations that planned to take part in the war in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk were poorly prepared and unprofessional. Prigozhin, known as "Putin's chef" due to his Kremlin catering contracts, has already been sanctioned by the United States and European Union for his role in Vagner. The Kremlin has denied any ties with the Vagner group as Russian laws do not allow creation of such kind of paramilitary groups. Prigozhin said he avoided admitting to his links to Vagner so as "not to put these guys who are the foundation of Russian patriotism under fire." According to Prigozhin, Vagner troops took over an airport and many other territories in Ukraine's Luhansk region in 2014. He called the paramilitary group "heroes who defended the people of Syria and other Arabic nations, poor people in Africa and Latin America." Prigozhin has launched lawsuits against several journalists who reported that he was behind the Vagner group. In August, Moscow's Presnensky district court recognized as false a statement by Aleksei Venediktov, the former chief editor of the now defunct Ekho Moskvy independent radio station, after he said that Prigozhin was the owner of Vagner. In July, Prigozhin sued investigative journalist Lilia Yapparova and the editorial director of Latvia-based media outlet Meduza, Tatyana Yershova, after the journalists had sent a query to Prigozhin asking him to comment on allegations that he is the owner of the Vagner group. Recent media reports have said that Prigozhin and his group were involved in recruiting inmates across the country to assist in Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, a video circulated on the Internet showing a person looking like Prigozhin talking to a large group of inmates in a penal colony in Russia's Mari El Republic during a recruiting trip for the paramilitary group. Commenting on the video at the time, Prigozhin did not confirm or deny that he was the man in the video, saying only that "either inmates, or your children," will fight in Ukraine. Prigozhin's admission comes less than a week after Putin announced a partial mobilization in the country, a move that prompted protests across Russia and a mass exodus of men who feared they may be called up for duty. Sold out flights. Border crossings backed up for kilometers. For Russians fleeing President Vladimir Putin's partial military mobilization, it's not so easy to get out. Georgia remains one of the few exits left, with long lines of cars stretching for kilometers at the only crossing from Russia into Georgia at Verkhny Lars-Zemo Larsi. (Unconfirmed reports on September 26 suggested that Russia may be moving to close the crossing to most Russian men.) Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. Many Russians trying to get into Georgia have been taking to social media to ask questions, seek advice, and share their experiences. "We got in today. There are three of us in the family, including my husband (34 years old). They did not ask anything either on our side or on the Georgian side [of the border]," said one Russian in a Telegram chat devoted to the Verkhny Lars-Zemo Larsi border crossing. "The wait is very long! We got in line at 17:00 in the evening and we entered Georgia at 11:00 [the next day]. Stock up on water and food." But many Georgians apparently have little sympathy. "You are only worried about not being killed in Ukraine. You had seven months to speak out against the war, but until they knocked on your door, you supported Putin," one person posted in the chat group. Shortly after Putin's address on September 21, Russian media quickly reported a sharp spike in demand for plane tickets abroad amid an apparent scramble to leave despite exorbitant prices for flights. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the West has punished Russia with sanctions and isolation. The EU has closed its airspace to Russian flights and only Finland remains open to Russians with a tourist visa, something Helsinki is mulling whether to scrap. All flights from Moscow to Istanbul, Yerevan, Tashkent, and Baku scheduled for September 21 and 22 were sold out, the Russian business paper RBC reported that very day. Russia's borders to the east, south, and west, have been swamped with cars and trucks trying to get out of the country. Wave Of Protests The announcement has also triggered a wave of protests across Russia, with hundreds arrested. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 300,000 Russians would be mobilized, but reports have emerged that the Kremlin is hoping to dragoon more than 1 million people to fight in Ukraine. Putin's mobilization order comes amid serious Russian setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine amid a counteroffensive by Kyiv's forces launched at the start of September. At the Verkhny Lars-Zemo Larsi border point, many are crossing by car and truck, but also on foot and scooters. Getting past the Russian border guards is no easy task, according to a Russian who made the journey successfully. "Regarding the border, it depends on the person who you get at passport control. I wasn't asked anything. But in the next window, [an official] was coming up with lots of questions and insulting [travelers], accusing them of leaving the homeland at a tough time. They didn't let a few people go on to Georgia -- according to my observation, every 20th person was sent back," an unidentified Russian wrote in the Telegram chat. Others note that males are being grilled by Russian border guards about their military service status: "We crossed the border at 14:00. Five people were in the car: 55, 19, 23, 35, and 45 years old. Military service applies to everyone. It takes about 20 minutes for a man to be cleared. Questions: first name, last name, father's name. 2. Place and date of birth. 3. Did you serve [in the military] or not and details about the military service document. If you were informed about the mobilization. There may have been more questions. We all passed and got through." According to comments in the chat group where there are tens of thousands of questions, Russian men at the border are also facing questions about their patriotism. "'Why are you leaving? Aren't you a reserve officer? The country is in trouble. When will you return?' But [the Russian border guards] didn't create any problems. They let us go," one Russian wrote. Defense Minister Shoigu said on September 21 that only those with relevant combat and service experience would be mobilized and not conscripts and students. However, reports quickly emerged of the Kremlin casting a wider net, with ethnic minorities appearing to be targeted for mobilization. Practical Advice Telegram users were also offering practical advice and services to help shorten the wait at the Georgian-Russian border. "You arrived at the border by taxi and you don't know what to do now? Buy a bicycle, moped, skateboard from us and calmly cross the border. You can PM (private message) me for details," one enterprising Russian offered. Some Georgians have offered to help Russians, including car rides and shelter. Before Putin's announcement, Georgia had already served as a sanctuary for Russians exiting their homeland since the full invasion of Ukraine began in late February. While Tbilisi and other cities in Georgia have witnessed demonstrations in support of Ukraine and condemnation of Russia's invasion, the government has taken a more cautious approach. When many European countries introduced sanctions against Russia, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili refused to impose curbs on the country's northern neighbor, angering many Georgians. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, whose post is mostly ceremonial, has voiced strong backing for Ukraine, saying Georgia has a sense of solidarity since it was invaded by Russia in 2008. And while the border-crossing Telegram group suggests some Georgians may be ready to help Russians fleeing Putin's mobilization, others appear to have little sympathy. "There is no need to come to Georgia! Go to your Belarus! No need to come to us, no!" one person wrote, referring to Moscow's loyal neighbor whose internationally isolated leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka has given his backing to Putin. Another wrote: "The cowardly Russians are running away." Written by features writer Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by Tea Topuria from RFE/RL's Georgian Service EU and U.S. envoys have expressed dismay at Serbia's decision to sign a two-year pledge to consult with Moscow as much of the West seeks to isolate Russia over its escalating war on Ukraine. Moscow's closest ally in the Balkans even as it pursues EU membership, Belgrade has condemned Russia's unprovoked invasion but staunchly resisted joining unprecedented Western sanctions that would curb trade, energy shipments, direct flights, and other links. Alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on September 23, Serbian Foreign Minister Nikola Selakovic announced his signing of a "Plan of Consultations" through 2024 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill said at a conference at Belgrade's Metropol Hotel on September 26 that "the United States would like to hear some clarification of what this agreement or what this protocol really was." He said the U.S. side had "some of the best discussions we've had" with the Serbian delegation on "big-picture and small-picture issues" during last week's General Assembly before learning of the protocol's signing. Hill said he hadn't seen the document's precise contents. "To be very frank, nobody should be signing anything with Russia right now, and frankly no one is signing very much with Russia, except perhaps some very poor recruits who are being forced into this mobilization to support this failing military operation that Russia has launched against its neighbor," Hill said. "It is hard for us to understand, but we do look forward to hearing some kind of clarification of what it is," he said of the document and Belgrade's relations with Moscow. "We want to know what the bedrock is of the relationship with a country that does things like that." Hill said the United States supported Serbia's effort to achieve greater integration into the West and its EU membership goal, and encouraged Serbian energy diversification away from Russia. At the same conference, EU Ambassador to Serbia Emmanuel Joffre said the bloc "expects Serbia to stand by it in defense of European values and international law." "By signing the agreement on cooperation with Russia, Serbia sent a completely opposite message, regardless of the fact that it said it would not recognize the results of the referendum that Russia is conducting on the occupied territory of Ukraine," Zoffre said. He noted that Serbia is on the path to EU membership and is expected to harmonize its foreign policy with the EU's, including the introduction of sanctions against Russia. The Serbian Foreign Ministry described the consultation protocol as a "technical document," and Selakovic suggested it contained no commitments on security issues but rather bilateral and multilateral activities. Serbian opposition parties quickly condemned the move by the government of Selakovic and President Aleksandar Vucic's ruling Progressive Party (SNS) and its nationalist allies. Serbia has kept close relations with Russia in particular to bolster its refusal to recognize the 2008 declaration of sovereignty by its former province Kosovo, which is now recognized by more than 100 countries. But it has frequently balanced those diplomatic ties, along with Moscow's provisions of energy and weapons, with deeper trade and economic ties to EU member states in addition to talks on joining the bloc. Back in Belgrade on September 25, Selakovic announced that Serbia would not recognize the voting that Russia and its separatist allies have staged in occupied parts of Ukraine on September 23-27, citing Serbia's commitment to the UN Charter and respect for international law, among other things. Recognizing what Kyiv and Western governments have called "sham" referendums "would completely violate our national and state interests, the preservation of sovereignty and territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders," Selakovic said. A funeral has been held for a 20-year-old woman who was said to have been shot dead by Iranian security forces in the city of Karaj, near Tehran. Hadis Najafi, who was active on the social media site TikTok, was shot six times on September 21 during ongoing nationwide protests following the death of Mahsa Amini. Amini died in detention on September 16 in Tehran after being arrested by Iran's morality police for not wearing her head scarf, or hijab, correctly. (CORRECTION: This video was edited to remove social-media footage which was wrongly believed to show Hadis Najafi attending protests.) Ukraine's president said late on September 25 that there was fierce fighting taking place on the front lines of its 7-month-old defense against Russia's invasion but that Kyiv was seeing "positive results." Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's battlefield assessment came after he warned in a broadcast interview earlier in the day against dismissing Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats as Moscow's forces lose ground. Meanwhile, new British Prime Prime Minister Liz Truss downplayed Putin's recent statements as "saber-rattling" and "bogus threats," and U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington had outlined to Moscow the "catastrophic consequences" it would face if it used nuclear weapons against Ukraine. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy claimed gains against Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk, northeastern Kharkiv, and the southern Mykolayiv and Zaporizhzhya regions. "We have positive results in several directions." he said. Russia and its separatist allies in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya regions of Ukraine have been holding votes on possible independence and union with Russia that they call referendums but Kyiv and many in the international community have said are a sham. The votes are scheduled to conclude on September 27. They were announced amid Ukrainian counteroffensives in northeastern and eastern Ukraine that Kyiv has said have wrested back thousands of square kilometers this month. Putin and other Russian officials have suggested the votes will result in an irreversible transformation of those areas to make them part of Russia. And Putin suggested this week that Moscow could use all means at its disposal to defend them. After his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was asked if Moscow would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend the annexed regions. He said territory "further enshrined" in Russia's constitution "is under the full protection of the state." Zelenskiy, who has vowed Ukraine will reclaim all of its lost territory, said in an interview with a U.S. broadcaster on September 25 that "maybe yesterday it was a bluff. Now, it could be a reality." He added of Putin: "He wants to scare the whole world. These are the first steps of his nuclear blackmail. I don't think he's bluffing." Truss told CNN in a September 25 interview: "We should not be listening to [Putin's] saber-rattling and his bogus threats." "Instead, what we need to do is continue to put sanctions on Russia and continue to support the Ukrainians because if Putin is allowed to succeed, this wouldn't just send a terrible message in Europe and, of course, huge threats to the Ukrainian population themselves, but it also would send a message to other authoritarian regimes around the world that it's somehow acceptable to...invade a sovereign nation." U.S. officials were less dismissive of the Kremlin threat. "If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia; the United States will respond decisively," Sullivan said on U.S. television. With reporting by Reuters, dpa, and CNN BHP investment offer of $10 bn to Chile to conclude shortly BHP Group, which operates the worlds biggest copper mine in Chile, has announced that the Chilean regulatory uncertainties that have held up some investments in the country are dissipating. BHP had offered $10 billion to develop more resources in the... SUNLIGHT winner of the IJA Jewelry Awards 2022 Jewelry chain No. 1 SUNLIGHT became the winner of the IIFA Awards 2022 jewelry award at the annual IBA Conf XIX conference. The award ceremony took place on September 26. Copper production to show strong and consistent growth for next decade A new study by Fitch Solutions Country Risk and Industry Research forecasts 7.3 million tonnes will be added to global copper production through 2031 as a raft of projects in Chile, China and Congo come online. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo announces highlights from The Hong Kong Watch Auction Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo has announced highlights ahead of The Hong Kong Watch Auction: XV, which will take place over the course of two sessions on 28 to 29 November at the JW Marriott in Hong Kong. Weather Alert ...FROST ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 AM EDT THIS MORNING... * WHAT...Temperatures in the lower to mid 30s will result in frost formation. * WHERE...The Champlain Valley of New York and Vermont. * WHEN...Until 9 AM EDT Monday. * IMPACTS...Frost could kill sensitive outdoor vegetation if left uncovered. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Take steps now to protect tender plants from the cold. && Approaching the first holiday season since his son was killed in a terrorist attack in Nice, Conrad Leslie received what he called a Christmas miracle a measure of comfort in a sea of nearly unrelenting grief. Nicolas Leslie, a 20-year-old UC Berkeley student from Del Mar, was one of 84 people killed July 14 when a Tunisian attacker drove a box truck through a promenade in the French city filled with people celebrating Bastille Day. Conrad Leslie said he and his wife, Paola, had been tormented by thoughts of their sons body abandoned at the scene, until receiving a Facebook message last week saying that two French women had found Nicolas and stayed with his body through the night. Advertisement It was a beautiful Christmas story, Leslie said. It couldnt get any better. In the message, Leslie learned that a mother and daughter from Nice had encountered Nicolas body as they left the scene of the attack. They were there on the 14th, and they came across this young mans body all alone, Leslie said. Something compelled them to stay there. They went home and got candles, and stayed and prayed by his side. The message, Leslie said, helped console him and his wife and represented a milestone in their journey to make sense of their sons death. It was sent by a woman whose mother is a neighbor of the Good Samaritans. Nick Leslie, a graduate of Torrey Pines High School, entered Berkeley to study environmental science and then switched to a business major, hoping to found a sustainable food company. He was participating in a summer entrepreneurship program in Nice, when he was struck by the truck as it barreled through the plaza. His parent initially believed he had survived the attack and arrived in France only to get the devastating news that he had been killed. Even days after the attack, the scene at the plaza was horrific, Conrad Leslie said, with blood still pooled on the ground. Months later, Leslie said he and his wife both struggled with nightmares of the night Nicolas died. The people who died lay there all night until the next day, he said. That thought drove us crazy, that he lay there alone, while we thought he was (still) alive. To deal with their grief and honor Nicolas memory, they worked with UC Berkeley to create a scholarship that will help other students study abroad. Conrad Leslie also began exploring spiritual writings. Ive been trying to find faith, to find meaning to his death, he said. The work of Emanuel Swedenborg, a 17th Century Swedish scientist and mystic, resonated with Leslie. And Swedenborgs illustration of two angels beside a dying person convinced him that Nicolas was not alone the night he died. Then he received the message, which he said confirmed that belief. He shared it with his wife, who was recuperating from hip surgery in the hospital. Basically it was the proof that I needed, that these two people were the embodiment of the angels that I saw in the illustration, he said. It brought us so much peace, and faith in humanity. Paola has communicated with the woman who relayed the message, and the couple plan to meet her in Nice next summer, along with the women who found their sons body, Leslie said. The ongoing story, he said, show how terrorist attacks alter lives far beyond the immediate victims. Thats not just an event, he said. It ripples, and it ripples, and it destroys lives. But there are also ripples of goodness. Donations to the Victory of the People Fund for foreign study in honor of of Nicolas Leslie can be made at www.give.berkeley.edu/victory. In 1967, Robert Pelcyger was a newly minted lawyer who knew little about the rights of Native Americans and even less about water rights. Then he met Patty Durro, an earnest, young woman from the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians in northern San Diego County who was determined to reclaim her tribes share of the San Luis Rey River. She changed his life and the fortunes of five North County tribes that had been robbed of the water they had been promised by the government. Advertisement But it took Pelcyger 50 years to right the wrong. The journey began with a stack of government contracts from the 1900s. Pelcyger had been hired to learn tribal law for a government nonprofit that was providing legal services to rural California residents and was hosting a workshop at the University of California, Riverside when he was approached by Durro. She was there to complain because their wells were going dry, Pelcyger remembers. Patty Durro came up to me during the meeting and gave me some (1914) contracts and said, youre a lawyer, tell me what these mean. I looked at them and saw all kinds of words Id never seen before and didnt understand, so I told her Id take a look at it. That was the beginning of the San Luis Rey litigation. Soon, Pelcyger and a colleague formed California Indian Legal Services, a law firm specializing in Native American issues. During the next couple of years, I tried to find other lawyers who would take the case but wasnt able to do that, he said. It got to the point I had to file something so I did it in 1969. The goal of the lawsuit, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984 and was followed by decades of settlement talks, was to correct this historical injustice the government had created shortly after the reservations were established, Pelcyger said. The reservations were purposely located in areas with access to water so the tribes could irrigate crops in an otherwise arid environment. No sooner had the reservations been created when, through a series of measures, the government gave away the same water they had given to the Indians to Escondido and Vista, Pelcyger said. The bands were dedicated to correcting the historical injustice. Canals were built in the 1890s diverting the San Luis Rey River to farmers in those two cities, making it possible for those communities to thrive. In the 1920s, Lake Henshaw near Warner Springs was built and a diversion dam took even more of the river water to the cities via Lake Wohlford in the hills just east of Escondido. The result was that during dry years the river barely flowed through the reservations, the underground aquifer fed by the river suffered and the Indians wells would dry up. Even today, the two cities rely on the San Luis Rey water for between 20 percent and 30 percent each year. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the aggrieved tribes against Escondido and the Vista Irrigation District. What is ironic is that our adversaries were Escondido and Vista, but it wasnt their fault to begin with, said Bo Mazzetti, chairman of the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians. The federal government gave away the water twice. It gave it to the tribes and then authorized the dam and the diversion. Fifteen years after the lawsuit was filed, Pelcyger found himself arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling of the court, which essentially said all the parties needed to start over, pleased no one. It was frustrating because it meant we had to keep litigating but in retrospect it turned out, many years later, ultimately the best outcome for all the clients. Instead of resuming litigation, a decision was made to go to the U.S. Congress, which in 1988 passed the San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement Act, which recognized the need to provide the tribes with a supplemental water supply to make up for the approximately 16,000 acre-feet of water they lost each year from the river. One acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons. But there were still two more hurdles to overcome. The first, which would take 15 years to resolve, was figuring out where the extra water would come from. In the mid-2000s, the All-American Canal, an 80-mile-long aqueduct near the U.S.-Mexican border that takes Colorado River water to the Imperial Valley and beyond, was lined to stop seepage. The lining project saved 100,000 acre-feet of water each year. The first 16,000 acre-feet of that savings was earmarked for the tribes per the settlement act. But just after the water source was identified, the second hurdle emerged. Lawyers for the federal government decided to revisit the settlement and took the position that the word supplemental meant replace or substitute. The government interjected a new issue for the first time, Pelcyger said. They argued that the 16,000 acre-feet from the canal should replace the water that is taken from the river. The tribes said, no, the 16,000 acre-feet of canal water should be in addition to the water that had been diverted and that they should retain rights to the San Luis Rey. Fourteen more years of argument and settlement talks followed. The feds never agreed to the tribes position, but did say they would accept the fact should Congress enact a law saying the tribes were entitled to the extra water. That happened in 2014. A couple years more went by due to bureaucracy, but finally the 1988 settlement terms became law. In May of this year, 50 years after first hearing about the river, the case came to an end. The settlement guarantees five North County Indian tribes Rincon, La Jolla, Pauma, Pala and San Pasqual equal access to more than 5 billion gallons annually of Colorado River water to compensate them for the lost San Luis Rey River water. The end result is that the water brought in from the Colorado River can be used by the five tribes equally. But should they not need the extra water, they must sell the excess water to the two cities at market rates. For Escondido, it means that this supply of water wed originally been given in the late 1800s is now secure, said Chris McKinney, Escondidos utilities director. For us, its an enormous deal to finally have this settled and to also have the supply secured. It was a long path to go down to get to this point, said Marty Miller, president of the Vista Irrigation Districts board of directors. But we finally worked our way through it. And on the backside we came out friends. We came out partners. The tribes rely now and will continue to rely on groundwater, which is made possible by the recharging of the San Luis Rey aquifer accomplished via water seeping into the ground from the river. That means most of the extra water from the Colorado River will be sold by the tribe to the cities which use far more than that amount annually. There will always be a demand. For the Indians, its a source of income, Pelcyger said. Mazzetti said its a shame that almost all of the elders of the tribes who were there at the beginning of the litigation, not to mention generations of Indians before them, have passed on and could not see the final resolution. The impossible became possible, the Rincon chairman said. Where do you find new sources of water today? You dont. Sixteen thousand acre-feet of water will be coming into the county -- a whole new source of water. That benefits the whole region. For Pelcyger, the end of the case feels wonderful. I feel blessed to have had clients that are so dedicated and loyal, he said. Where else do you find clients that stick with the same attorney for 50 years? He said long before casino money came to the reservations, the bands were committed to correcting an historical injustice and werent going to compromise. For him, that began with the 1967 Patty Durro meeting and continued with other tribal members for decades. She was a fierce advocate of getting back what the bands viewed as being rightfully theirs, he said. Durro has become very private in recent years and did not respond to requests for interviews. It took a lot of courage for them to even enter the fray against pretty long odds, Pelcyger said. Their sense of history is so strong as is their sense of continuity, They wanted to rectify the injustices their parents and grandparents had to bare and also were looking forward toward future generations. It was never about immediate gratification. jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones NASAs Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is set to crash into Dimorphos, a moon of the asteroid Didymos, on September 26, 2022, at 7:14 p.m. EDT (23:14 UTC). DART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroids motion in space through kinetic impact. Its target is the binary, near-Earth asteroid system Didymos, composed of the 780-m-wide Didymos and the smaller, approximately 160-m-wide moonlet Dimorphos. DART launched November 24, 2021, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the United States. The probe will impact Dimorphos to change its orbit within the binary system. Since Dimorphos orbits Didymos at much a slower relative speed than the pair orbits the Sun, the result of DARTs kinetic impact within the binary system can be measured much more easily than a change in the orbit of a single asteroid around the Sun. Youve got the small asteroid passing in front of the big one and then the other way around, said Dr. Cyrielle Opitom, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the DART mission science team. Due to that we are going to observe dips in the light reflected from the big asteroid, letting us calculate how much the orbital period of the smaller one has changed after the impact. The material following the crash will also hopefully provide scientists with more information about the composition of Dimorphos. At Paranal Observatory in Chile, all four 8.2-m telescopes of ESOs Very Large Telescope (VLT) will observe the aftermath of the impact with different instruments, ESO astronomers said. The resulting data will allow us to study the composition and motion of the ejected material, the structure of the asteroids surface and its internal properties. The results of this experiment may provide a method of protecting our planet from hazardous asteroids but will also deepen our understanding of asteroids and hence the formation of our Solar System. (Photo : Unsplash/National Cancer Institute) This scanning electron microscope image shows dendritic cells, pseudo-colored in green, interacting with T cells, pseudo-colored in pink. A new type of cancer therapy was made using a common virus that infects and harms tumors, showing big promise in early human trials. Futurism reports that scientists developed a drug from the genetically modified form of herpes simplex and created cutting-edge cancer therapy. Experts caution that follow-up studies are needed to confirm the safety and effectiveness of the cancer-killing virus. But one patient was seemingly treated for cancer using the drug. Cancer Patient Treated After Using the Drug Krzysztof Wojkowski was diagnosed with cancer of the salivary glands near the mouth in 2017. He underwent surgery and different treatments at the time but nothing seems to work as his cancer continued to grow. The 39-year-old builder from west London became one of the patients who took part in the phase one safety trial of the cancer-killing virus by the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. "I was told there was no options left for me and I was receiving end-of-life care. It was devastating, so it was incredible to be given the chance to join the trial," he told BBC. The virus therapy was a modified version of the herpes simplex virus that normally causes cold sores but the study shows it has cleared Wojkowski's cancer. The injections were administered directly to the tumor, attacking cancer by invading cancerous cells and bursting them, as well as activating the immune system. There were 40 participants in the study who tried the cancer treatment as part of the trial. The injection called RP2 was given in two ways: either on its own or with another cancer drug called nivolumab. About three out of nine who received only RP2 had their tumors shrink while seven out of 30 participants who received both RP2 and nivolumab also benefited. Project lead researcher Kevin Harrington told BBC that it is rare to see a positive response in the early stage of clinical trials, which tests the safety of the cancer treatment. They included patients with a severe form of cancer for whom current therapies have stopped working. READ ALSO: Cancer Treatment: New Software Uses Artificial Intelligence to Grow, Treat Virtual Tumors Viruses Might Help Fight Cancer Researchers presented their findings at the ESMO Congress, a medical conference in Paris, France. The findings suggest that the RP2 injection alone and RP2 injection with a cancer drug have benefits for cancer patients. There were also side effects, like tiredness, but were generally mild. Harrington told BBC that the treatment responses were impressive across a range of advanced cancer. He is interested to see if there are more benefits if they have treated a larger number of patients. This is not the first cancer-killing virus developed as the NHS has also approved a cold virus-based therapy called T-Vec for advanced skin cancer, BBC reported in 2015. Harrington calls RP2 a souped-up version of T-Vec with modifications to the virus that will get it into cancer cells more effectively. Dr. Marianne Baker, from Cancer Research UK, commented that the encouraging findings could change the course of cancer treatment. Given that it is a small-scale trial, more research is needed to find out how well it works. Perhaps combining it with multiple treatments and virus therapies to create a toolkit that fights off cancer. RELATED ARTICLE: Breakthrough Cancer Treatment Points to Common Herbs in Suppressing Tumor Growth Check out more news and information on Cancer in Science Times. Researchers have discovered toxic quantities of mercury frequently associated with the waste products of modern industry in ancient Maya settlements. Long before conquistadors set foot on their lands, Maya tribes may have been treating the soil of ancient urban centers with mercury, as revealed by ScienceAlert. Researchers were urged to protect their health because the sites had high mercury levels. Researchers Find Mercury in Ancient Maya The multidisciplinary team of experts examined all the information on mercury pollution at ten distinct Mayan archaeological sites. At least one site at seven out of the 10 had mercury pollution. Most of these sites date from the Late Classic era, which happened at the end of the first millennium CE. By the 10th century, every site had been abandoned. At Actuncan, mercury concentrations range from 0.016 parts per million (ppm) to 17.16 ppm. "The levels of total mercury found in some ancient contexts at Maya sites today are equal to or greater than modern guidelines we have in place for safe exposure limits for mercury in soils, such as the WHO's recommended safe limit for mercury in soils for agriculture, which is 0.05 ppm," study lead author Dr. Duncan Cook, an associate professor of geography at the Australian Catholic University said in a Cosmos report. However, he continues that it's "extremely impossible to define" how deadly a specific Maya site is. ALSO READ: Mercury Poisoning: 370 Human Bones From Spain and Portugal Contains Highest Levels Of Chemical Element Due To Cinnabar Exposure About Red Cinnabar The mineral crystal mercury sulfide, usually referred to as cinnabar, is another that has been used historically as a mercury source. According to geoarchaeologist Nicholas Dunning of the University of Cincinnati, the Maya thought some objects might contain the ch'ulel, or soul-force, found in the blood. Consequently, the red cinnabar pigment was a rare and precious material, but it was also poisonous, and according to Dunning, its effects may still be detected in the soil and sediments close to ancient Maya settlements. The ancient Maya infrastructure was built on limestone. However, this limestone lacks the geology necessary for cinnabar production. According to an archeological study, cinnabar was mined in Central America during the second and first millennia BCE, during the height of the Olmec civilization. The Maya people started constructing monuments to their gods around the third century CE. Cinnabar was used extensively, primarily as a powder to color decorations or even in funeral rites. According to ScienceAlert, Dark Sun, the final ruler of the Maya metropolis of Tikal, was notably overweight, which may have been a symptom of a metabolic disease brought on by mercury poisoning. The research authors emphasize the need for present archaeologists to use caution as they sift through the complex history of Maya society. Researchers published their study in Frontiers in Environmental Science. RELATED ARTICLE: 3000-Year-Old Canoe Found in Wisconsin, Claimed To Be Earliest Water Transportation Vehicle Used by Ancient Tribes Check out more news and information on Chemistry and Environment in Science Times. Russie : fusillade dans une ecole, au moins six morts et 20 blesses Le drame a eu lieu dans la ville d'Ijevsk dans le centre du pays. Le suspect a mis fin a ses jours, selon le ministere de l'Interieur russe. Au moins six personnes ont ete tuees et 20 blessees, dont des enfants, au cours d'une fusillade dans une ecole d'Ijevsk, au centre de la Russie, a annonce lundi le ministere russe de l'Interieur, selon lequel l'assaillant s'est suicide. Les policiers ont retrouve le corps de l'homme qui a ouvert le feu. Selon nos informations, il s'est suicide, a indique le ministere, faisant etat d'au moins 6 morts et 20 blesses. Un peu plus tot le gouverneur regional avait indique que des enfants etaient parmi les victimes et qu'un garde de securite avait aussi ete tue. Page Content Canadian and U.S. residents currently work side by side with colleagues from five different generations. As the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the workplace, experts say older workers in both countries have been denied new career opportunities and access to job training. "Ageism is prevalent in every aspect of the employment lifecyclefrom recruiting to termination," said Frank Cania, SHRM-SCP, founder and president of HR Compliance Experts LLC in Pittsford, N.Y. Around 93 percent of older employees say they have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace, according to a 2022 survey by AARP. "We need older workers to stay in the workforce longer," said Laura Tamblyn Watts, founder and CEO of CanAge, Canada's national seniors advocacy organization, in Toronto. "Older workers stabilize teams, and they have strong skills working with all generations." Age Discrimination Protection Tamblyn Watts noted that U.S. companies are pushing forward faster with age discrimination protections, whereas in Canada, the federal government is taking the lead while companies are lagging behind. The Canada Labor Code eliminated mandatory retirement in federally regulated workplaces in 2012, explained Ellie Berger, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario. Age discrimination cases at most of Canada's private companies are handled at the provincial level, Berger noted. Employees over 18 years old in Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan are protected from age discrimination, Berger stated. Alberta, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Prince Edward Island and Yukon have no mandatory retirement age. Employees in British Columbia are protected against discrimination in the workplace starting at 19 years old, stated Cissy Pau, principal consultant at Clear HR Consulting in Vancouver, British Columbia. According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, employers cannot refuse to hire, train or promote people based on age or unfairly target older workers when downsizing or reorganizing. If employees experience discrimination based on age, they can report it by filing a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. After hiring, an employer in B.C. might legitimately need to know the employee's age for a purpose like enrollment in a pension or benefits plan, according to the British Columbia government. For employees to make an age discrimination complaint under the British Columbia Human Rights Code, there should be a connection between the way they have been treated and their age, the British Columbia government stated. Individuals must file a complaint within six months of the event. Older workers in Canada filing age discrimination complaints may have to wait years for a resolution, Tamblyn Watts noted. Nonetheless, they could possibly get their jobs back. Employees may also receive monetary damages from their employers for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect, said Evaleen Hellinga, an attorney with SpringLaw in Toronto. "Awards are fairly unpredictable in Canada and can range anywhere from $500 to $50,000 [CAD]," or approximately $381.90 USD to $38,190 USD, she added. "They will not be the large settlements seen in the United States." Mandatory Retirement Generally Prohibited in Canada Canada's human rights legislation prohibits mandatory retirement, Hellinga noted. In general, "an employer cannot force someone to retire at age 65," Pau emphasized. But there are a few exceptions, Berger explained. Some jurisdictions in Canada still allow employers to use mandatory retirement if it is part of a company's retirement or pension plan. An employer in Canada may also justify mandatory retirement if it can establish age as a "bona fide occupational requirement" by saying that mandatory retirement is necessary for job performance, Hellinga noted. These exceptions relate to positions involving physical aptitude and safety concerns, such as firefighters and police officers. Unions in Canada still support mandatory retirement, Tamblyn Watts said. US Rules In the United States, employees over 40 are protected from age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Cania stated. Many older adults find that they are faced with only two employment options, full-time work or retirement, when they want options somewhere in the middle. Organizations that have offered alternative work arrangements, including job sharing, phased retirement, flexible scheduling and remote work, have found these options attractive not just for older adults but also for many other employees seeking greater flexibility. [See SHRM members-only toolkit: Employing Older Workers] The United States also can employ a bona fide occupational requirement regarding age, Cania noted. In addition, an employee in a bona fide executive or high policymaking positionsuch as a C-suite executive or a company leadercould be forced to retire. Ageism Prevention Practices Human resources experts recommended that employers take all allegations of ageism seriously and instill the following practices: Start a conversation about ageism with an intergenerational workforcedefine what ageism is and address it in the company's diversity, equity and inclusion policy. Create mentor roles for older workers. Train employees and management on harassment and discrimination prevention policies in the workplace. Consider a voluntary retirement policy for employees to obtain benefits if they retire at a certain age. "HR professionals should ensure they have the knowledge necessary to set the tone for ageism prevention policies, practices and training," Cania said. "HR should establish itself as a subject matter expert and become the go-to resource for executives, managers and employees." Catherine Skrzypinski is a freelance writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Page Content On Sept. 23, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) proposed additional rules relating to Local Law 144 of 2021, which will regulate the use of automated employment decision tools, starting Jan. 1, 2023. The newly proposed rules provide much-needed clarity on key gaps within Local Law 144. The comment period is now open, with a public hearing set for Oct. 24. Stakeholders may provide written comments or seek to testify orally by way of the DCWP's website. Briefly, the proposed regulations published by the DCWP: Define and limit the scope of the "substantially assist or replace" standard for the applicability of automated employment decision tools (AEDTs), making it clear that an AEDT is covered under the law where it is used as a dispositive decision criterion or to modify a conclusion derived from other factors, including human decision-making. Clarify that a "candidate for employment" means an individual who has applied for a specific employment position and has provided necessary information, such as a resume or application form. This appears to be intended to limit the application of the law to candidates who may have been considered in a search, but have not expressed interest in or applied for a given job. Add significant detail on the structure and content of the bias audit required by the law, including requirements that employers calculate the selection rate of an artificial intelligence tool based on race, ethnicity, and gender, and an impact ratio of the tool's operation on these categories. Expand on the content of the audit summary that employers are required to publish, which includes a requirement that the selection rate and impact ratio of an artificial intelligence tool be required in the summary. Provide alternatives for complying with the notice requirement of the law, including by way of mail or email, notice on the careers section of an employer's website, or via a notice included in a job listing. Littler will publish a fuller analysis of these proposed rules shortly, and a detailed analysis of the underlying law may be found here. Niloy Ray is an attorney with Littler in Minneapolis. Jim Paretti is an attorney with Littler in Washington, D.C. 2022. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Medi Assist, the country's leading health insurance third party administrator (TPA), is set to acquire 100% stake in Mumbai-based Medvantage Insurance TPA, one of the oldest TPAs that manages marquee corporate clients like Microsoft and Wells Fargo. The companies last week signed a definitive agreement towards this merger and are now awaiting approval from sector regulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) for the same, three people familiar with the matter said. The likely size of the deal is about a35 crore, industry insiders said. This could not be confirmed by either of the merging entities. It is, however, learnt that Medi Assist will fund the deal using cash from its balance sheet. The acquisition will help the country's largest TPA to raise its market share in the corporate side of the business to 30% from 27%, Medi Assist chief executive Satish Gidugu said. "Medvantage has over 100 high-quality corporate accounts which has prompted us to explore this acquisition," Gidugu said. "We always explore inorganic growth and have more plans in the pipeline. The outlook to grow business across all segments - retail, corporate and government business - will drive our future strategy." Medvantage (earlier known as UnitedHealthcare Parekh Insurance TPA) earned a30 crore revenue in 2021-22 and managed corporate premiums of a700 crore. "As the industry evolves, scaling up any business becomes important," Medvantage chairman Nimish R Parekh said. "Given the size of our business, it is difficult to scale it up. That's why we thought of a strategic fit for our existing stakeholders, and Medi Assist fits this perfectly." The merger will provide Medvantage customers access to Medi Assist's cashless hospital network, OPD services, and a slew of offerings like navigator (for out-of-pocket cost estimation, financing, etc) which are in the pipeline, the company said. Medi Assist had earlier acquired Dedicated Healthcare Services TPA in 2016 and Medicare TPA in 2018. Founded in 2000, Medi Assist has built a pan-India network of hospitals, developed technologies to improve claims settlement cycle and deployed mobile applications to simplify policyholder access and experience. In FY22, it earned a revenue of a400 crore and managed a total premium of over a11,000 crore including a9,500 crore of corporate premiums. Piramal Financial and Zurich Insurance, who have submitted separate bids for the general insurance business of Reliance Capital, have decided to form an equal partnership to bid for the Reliance General Insurance. According to sources, both Piramal and Zurich will hold 50 per cent each in the proposed joint venture company. If this proposed JV succeeds in emerging as the successful resolution applicant for RGIC, then it will mark the entry of Zurich Insurance in India's general insurance business. In the independent bids submitted at the end of August, Piramal had valued Reliance Capital's general insurance business at Rs 3,600 crore, while Zurich had quoted Rs 3,700 crore for the same. The third bidder, Advent had submitted a Rs 7,000 crore resolution plan for RGIC. By partnering, Zurich and Piramal will not compete with each other, and thus for RGIC, it will only be a two horse race between Advent and Zurich-Piramal consortium. The RCAP Administrator and Committee of Creditors (COC) had appointed a global expert - Tower Watson, to do the actual valuation of RGIC. This valuation is available to all the bidders and the actuarial valuation for 100 per cent of RGIC is Rs 9,450 crore. The last date for the submission of binding bids for Reliance Capital and its multiple subsidiaries is October 30. Earlier, it was September 29, but the COC granted a four week extension, as the majority of bidders had sought more time to complete the due diligence process. Reliance Capital had received 14 non-binding bids for its multiple businesses. Six companies had submitted bids for the entire company, while the rest of the bidders had submitted bids for its multiple subsidiaries. President Droupadi Murmu will inaugurate HAL's state-of-the-art Integrated Cryogenic Engine Manufacturing Facility (ICMF) in Bengaluru on Tuesday. The facility will cater to the entire Rocket Engine Manufacturing under one roof for ISRO. The facility will boost self-reliance in manufacturing of High-thrust Rocket engines. The facility has been set up over an area of 4,500 sq mts housing over 70 hi-tech equipment and testing facilities for manufacturing Cryogenic (CE20) and Semi-cryogenic (SE2000) Engines of Indian Space Launch Vehicles. In 2013, an MOU was signed with ISRO for establishing the facility for manufacturing of Cryogenic Engine modules at HAL, Aerospace Division. The MOU for the Cryogenic Engine facility was subsequently amended in 2016 for setting up of Integrated Cryogenic Engine Manufacturing Facility (ICMF) with an investment of Rs 208 crore. The commissioning of all the critical equipment for the manufacturing and assembly requirement has been completed. The pre-production activities, which involve preparation of the process plans, drawings, quality plan, etc. have also commenced. HAL will start realising the modules by March 2023. HAL Aerospace Division manufactures liquid propellant tanks and launch vehicle structures of PSLV, GSLV MK-II, GSLV Mk-III and also stage integration for GSLV Mk-II. The Aerospace Division entering into manufacture of Cryogenic Engines is a major step in technology upgradation cum modernisation, a HAL release stated. Cryogenic Engines are the most widely used engines world over in the launch vehicles. Due to the complex nature of the cryogenic engine, till date only few countries the US, France, Japan, China and Russia have mastered the cryogenic technology. On January 5, 2014 India successfully flew GSLV-D5 with a cryogenic engine (made by ISRO through private industries) and became the sixth country in developing cryogenic engines. Space exploration in the future is mostly dependent upon cryogenic technology. The holy festival Navratri begins today, it will be celebrated by Hindus throughout the world for the next nine days. As per Hindu rituals, Navratri is celebrated four times a year but only two of them are celebrated on a large scale- Chaitra Navratri and Shardiya Navratri. While Chaitra Navratri falls during the spring season, Shardiya Navaratri is usually celebrated at the start of the Autumn season. Navratri literally translates to nine nights in Sanskrit, and it is celebrated to worship Goddess Durga and her nine avatars known as Navdurga. History of Navratri The festival of Navratri marks the victory of Goddess Durga over the Asur or Demon Mahishasura. The legend goes, Mahishasura had been granted the wish of immortality because of his unwavering devotion to Lord Brahma but the God put one condition to his immortality- only a woman could kill him, but the demon thought himself too powerful to be defeated by a woman. Soon enough, Mahishasura began terrorizing the people and the gods were helpless because of his immortality. In order to overcome the threat of Mahishasura, Lord Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma came together to create Goddess Durga. The gods equipped her with a lot of weapons to defeat the demon. The fight between Mahishasura and Goddess Durga went on for 10 days and the demon was defeated only after he transformed into a buffalo. How is Navratri celebrated throughout the country? Each day of Navratri is associated with an incarnation of Goddess Durga. People observe ritualistic fasts, recite slokas dedicated to each goddess, don new clothes, offer bhog, and clean their homes during these nine days. They ask the goddess for her favour so that they may live prosperous, joyful, and fulfilling lives. In parts of North India including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh Ramlila is organised which starts on the first day of Navratri and ends on the occasion of Dusserah. During the Ramlila, the story of Lord Ram's victory over Ravan is played out and Ravan's effigies burn on the night of Dussehra. In parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, and Bihar, a procession is taken out on the occasion of Vijayadashami where statues of Maa Durga are immersed in a river or sea. In many parts of the country, the festival is celebrated with much vigour by performing Garba and Dandiya Raas. While Garba is a traditional dance in which participants clap their hands and move in a circle while making rhythmic gestures, Dandiya Raas involves dancing with dandiya sticks to the beat of the music. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! Family demands answers after Redland Mayor made executor of mothers will Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss Opposition cybersecurity spokesman James Paterson has told Sydney radio that Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin should resign if the companys defences of its cybersecurity practices turn out to be untrue. Optus has said it had multiple layers of security on customer data, which it has said was encrypted, and only made public by a sophisticated hacker. That has raised eyebrows among cybersecurity experts because high-quality encryption is very difficult to break but some apparent Optus data has been published online in plain English. The personal records of 10,000 Optus customers have been released. Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil, by contrast, has said the attack was quite basic in an apparent reference to claims the hacker simply found a largely unprotected Optus system that sent customer data when requested. Those claims have not been confirmed and Optus has stressed the hack is still under investigation. Paterson said he was inclined to believe the government over Optus, which has said it was hit by a sophisticated attack. It is often the case when there is a cyber attack that the CEO of a company runs out and says it was very sophisticated, as if that protects them from responsibility, Paterson said. But it is almost always the case that these compromises are in fact not sophisticated at all and very basic. He said Optus had effectively accused the minister of misinformation and said its data was encrypted. Now, if those statements turn out to be false, then I really think there is only one option left for the CEO. Asked whether, if that circumstance were to arise, that meant Bayer Rosmarin would have to resign, Paterson said: very clearly. Bikies join procession at funeral for club president in Adelaide Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on August 16, 18, 26, & 27 & September 5, 26 & 28, 1932 WOMAN PILOT. Round Australia Flight Begun. August 16 BRISBANE, Monday. Mrs. H. B. Bonney, a Brisbane aviatrix, who intends flying round Australia, departed northwards from Archerfield aerodrome early this morning in the Gipsy Moth plane that was used by Flight-Lieutenant Hill for his flight from England to Australia in 1930. Mrs Bonney gained her B class commercial pilots certificate 10 days ago. She reached Blackall at 5.45 p.m., and intends leaving there at 8 a m. to-morrow for a non-stop flight to Winton or Cloncurry. Ready To Fly - Mr. H. B. Bonney (left), Mrs. Bonney, and Mr. F. Bonney (cousin of Mr. H. Bonney) snapped just before Mrs. Bonney left on her round Australia flight. August 18 Mrs. H B. Bonney, the Brisbane aviatrix, who is flying round Australia, reached Camooweal at 3.65 p.m. to-day, and will leave at dawn to-morrow for Darwin. MRS. BONNEYS FLIGHT. Rough Weather Near Perth. August 26 PERTH. Thursday. Mrs H B Bonney the Queensland pilot who is flying around Australia in a Gypsy Moth, left Geraldton 260 miles north of Perth, this morning and landed in a paddock about 12 miles from Moora, and 90 miles from Perth. A message received this afternoon stated that she had resumed her flight to Perth, but, in consequence of rough weather had returned to Moora and might start again in the morning. The Western Australian section of the Aero Club has arranged for an escort of women pilots to meet Mrs Bonney The giant advertising billboard on Glebe Islands silos will loom over the inner west for three years before being torn down, after the City of Sydney Council argued the sign had become a permanent blight on the skyline. The NSW Independent Planning Commission approved the short-term extension to the consent for the billboard after finding the signs were not at odds with the character of the industrial port. The silos are at the heart of the Bays West precinct, which the government wants to transform into a residential, commercial and leisure hub. Thousands of motorists on the Anzac Bridge in Sydneys inner west pass the advertisements each day. Credit:Louie Douvis Eye Drive Sydney, a subsidiary of advertising company oOh!media, last year submitted a proposal to the NSW Department of Planning seeking to extend its consent for the advertising billboard for another 10 years to 2032. The billboard was erected in the 1990s as part of Sydneys bid for the 2000 Olympic Games and was originally approved for 10 years. The City of Sydney said rolling extensions to the development consent were at odds with the intent of the original application, and the future character of the area. It wanted the billboard removed. At a time when people are feeling the twin pains of inflation and stagnant wages, it is not surprising that many are sympathetic to the idea of workers fighting for a pay rise. Especially when those workers include nurses and teachers who are responsible for caring for our health and our childrens education. Loading These two professions have been campaigning for a pay rise for months but the rail union has raised the stakes in what has become a more militant and protracted battle that has repeatedly disrupted the train network and commuters. A new poll conducted for the Herald and published today shows that 26 per cent of people blame unions for recent public sector strikes but a higher proportion, 33 per cent, are pointing the finger at the state government for mishandling the conflict. The 59-year-old man was making his way home from a social event when the incident occurred. Emergency services were called to the intersection of Kianawah Road and Youngs Road at Wynnum West about 9.20am on Monday. A motorbike rider allegedly struck by a stolen vehicle at Wynnum West has died in hospital. Credit:Nine News The 59-year-old Hemmant man died following a traffic crash involving an allegedly stolen vehicle at Wynnum West on Monday morning. A man riding a motorcycle who was allegedly struck by a stolen vehicle has died in a Brisbane hospital. He was rushed in a critical condition to the Princess Alexandra Hospital, where he died as a result of his injuries later on Monday afternoon. It will be alleged the two occupants of the vehicle, and two occupants travelling in a second vehicle, fled the scene. Four teenagers were found a short time later at a nearby address, and taken into custody. The vehicle involved in the crash, a Nissan X Trail that was allegedly stolen from a residence in Wynnum West that morning, was seized after it was left at the scene. A second vehicle, a VW Arteon allegedly stolen from Carina overnight on Monday, was found at Wynnum West near the address where the juveniles were taken into custody. Greater transparency is being demanded from Victorias political parties on why they have targeted certain hospitals for massive election spending. Victorias stressed health system has emerged as a political battleground ahead of the November 26 poll, with more than $14.5 billion collectively allocated by the opposition and government for hospitals and other health initiatives, and more promises to come. The Coalition, led by Matthew Guy, have unveiled billions in health promises in the lead up to the Victorian election. Credit:Scott McNaughton But the peak group for the states public health services say its unclear how the parties have been deciding which projects to promise money to and why. There are also questions about how hundreds of new beds would be staffed and how the facilities will be built, with worker shortages across the health and building industries, on top of problems getting materials, particularly in the regions. Cost of living increases have started altering West Australians spending habits but despite the uncertainty, retail sales are at a record high. According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WAs latest consumer confidence survey, respondents were most rattled by living cost increases as inflation hit 7.4 per cent in the June quarter. Shoppers are ditching brands for cheaper alternatives. Credit:Jim Rice This was reflected in the survey where 73 per cent of respondents said living costs negatively impacted their confidence in the economy over the past three months. About 63 per cent of respondents said rising interest rates also had them worriedup 5 per cent from the previous quarter. Greens leader Adam Bandt is warning Labor that his party could withdraw crucial support for the governments scheme to deliver on Australias new climate targets as Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowens promises to work with fossil fuel exporters to reduce the economic impact of pollution caps. Bandt is making his demands just as the debate heats up between big investors, who want coal and gas companies starved of government funding for climate action, and fossil fuel companies that are lobbying for taxpayer-funded support for switching to cleaner technologies. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is finalising the federal governments safeguard mechanism. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen. The safeguard mechanism is a scheme that sets pollution caps on the countrys 215 largest industrial and resources emitters. The Albanese government has committed to tighten these caps to deliver a large chunk of the emissions cuts it needs to reduce emissions by 43 per cent by 2030. New legislation will need to pass the Senate to allow companies that reduce their pollution to trade the carbon credits they earn with other big polluters. The Greens could potentially hold the balance of power needed to approve this change. Australian Federal Police have launched Operation Hurricane, a global hunt to identify the hackers behind the massive Optus cyberattack, as the Albanese government flagged introducing large fines for future breaches and overhauling the nations data retention laws. With law firm Slater and Gordon announcing it is investigating a class action against the telco over the data breach, Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil has lambasted the company for failing to stop a basic hack and for following up with a response that was not adequate. What is of concern for us is how what is quite a basic hack was undertaken on Optus, ONeil said on the ABCs 7.30 program on Monday night, in an apparent reference to claims that the data was left largely unsecured online. We should not have a telecommunications provider in this country that has effectively left the window open for data of this nature to be stolen, she said. A 22-year-old High Court case over grain patents is central to a Greens pitch to legalise cannabis nationally, with the party claiming it has a way to circumvent the criminal laws set by the states. The Greens say there is a constitutional basis for introducing legislation this year that would allow the regulation and sale of cannabis and will announce their intention to do so in parliament this week. The Greens have announced a push to legalise cannabis nationally. Credit:Getty Last week the NSW government announced it would defer drug users from the court system under a two-strike system, but not decriminalise illicit substances, a decision that drew criticism from Dan Howard SC, the commissioner of the ice inquiry that handed down 109 recommendations for reform. Greens senator and the partys justice spokesman, David Shoebridge who said in his first speech to parliament that he would legalise cannabis said experts and government inquiries kept pointing to the failure of the war on drugs, and how heavy-handed policing and the criminal justice system is causing harm, not fixing the problem. Moscow: Russia has granted citizenship to former American intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who fled prosecution after he revealed highly classified US surveillance programs to capture communications and data from around the world. A decree signed on Monday (Moscow time) by Russian President Vladimir Putin listed Snowden as one of 75 foreign citizens listed as being granted Russian citizenship. After fleeing the US in 2013, Snowden was granted permanent Russian residency in 2020 and said at the time that he planned to apply for Russian citizenship without renouncing his US citizenship. Former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden was granted Russian citizenship. Credit:AP Ties between Washington and Moscow are already at their lowest point in decades following Putins decision to launch what the Kremlin has dubbed a special military operation in Ukraine. While Snowden, 39, is considered by supporters to be a righteous whistleblower who wanted to protect American civil liberties, US intelligence officials have accused him of putting US personnel at risk and damaging national security. He currently faces charges in the United States that could result in decades in prison. More than 2000 people detained in Russia over anti-draft protests Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss Washington: The United States has warned Russia there would be catastrophic consequences for the country if Moscow used nuclear weapons in its increasing desperation to hold on to territory in Ukraine, President Joe Bidens national security adviser says, adding that in recent days the United States has spelled out how the world would react in private conversations with Russian officials. The adviser, Jake Sullivan, repeated the comments several times in three television interviews on Sunday (US time), although he left deliberately vague whether those consequences would be military, economic or diplomatic. Officials were quick to say they still had not seen any movement in Russias stockpile of 2000 or so small tactical weapons which can be launched from a short- or medium-range missile despite President Vladimir Putins threats in a televised address last week that this is not a bluff. Footage provided by the Russian Defence Ministry on February 19, 2022, shows a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile being launched during military drills. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signalled his readiness to use nuclear weapons to protect the countrys territory. Credit:AP But Sullivans use of the word catastrophic as a deliberately ambiguous warning of a major if almost certainly non-nuclear response to a Russian nuclear detonation illustrated how quickly the rhetoric has intensified as Russia has faltered on the battlefield in recent months. In late May, Biden wrote a guest essay in The New York Times in which he said that any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences. French Quarter:--- If you have wondered why tons of sargassum have been washing up on St. Martin's shores for the last decade, now you can find out. The story is told in the new book, Suddenly Sargassum! The book was produced by the Les Fruits de Mer association and explores many aspects of this mysterious seaweed. The sudden arrival of sargassum in St. Martin is a big story, said author Mark Yokoyama. In recent years, weve learned about the unseen forces that bring sargassum here each year. Weve also seen how it impacts people and nature. Suddenly, Sargassum! reveals many facets of this unusual seaweed. It includes guides to the creatures that depend on it, both in the sea and on the land. It outlines the process that brings sargassum blooms to St. Martin. It investigates the impacts of sargassum and even how it inspires art. To launch the book, a free book giveaway event will be held on Saturday, October 1st at Amuseum Naturalis at The Old House in French Quarter from 9am to noon. Free copies of the book will be available in both English and French. A new exhibit about sargassum will also be launched. The book was researched and written over the past year. Vivid photos reveal an entire world of life that is hidden in the sargassum, from microscopic sea creatures to birds that have learned to hunt and forage in it. This book and the exhibit were produced with the financial support of the Office francais de la biodiversite, through a micro-project grant from Te Me Um. As part of the project, free copies of the book will be distributed to local schools, libraries and other institutions. PHILIPSBURG:--- St. Maarten artist - Leroy L. Brooks, better known as King Beau Beau, will be featured as the cultural icon on the St. Maarten Hospitality & Trade Association (SHTA) Event Calendar 2023 edition. This news was announced today by the association. King Beau Beau is St Maartens reigning Senior Calypso Monarch. Mr. Brooks, a former music major at Hofstra University, New York continues to display his artistic talents since first gracing the stage. Having claimed the title of Calypso and Road March over 14 times, King Beau Beau released 16 albums that have sold throughout the Caribbean region, Europe, and the United States. Being the natural showman that he is, the famous King Beau Beau had his own show named Bacchanal a carnival-style mixture of song and dance that kept you grooving from start to finish. Due to his passion and versatility, he is able to sway all types of crowds by effortlessly switching between different genres and providing an enjoyable experience for his fans. King Beau Beau is honored to be this years cultural icon of choice and is grateful for the nomination by the SHTA. Since the inception of the project in 2017, the calendar has become a recognizable visual sighted in St. Maarten and beyond, with its distinctive Lego Block Look designed by local artist Loic Bryan. The calendar is often used by foreign representatives, influencers, and Caribbean organizations to promote St. Maartens liveliness and diversity it offers. As of 2019, the calendar has also been added to the SHTAs in-room hotel Magazine VISIT. Previously Roland Richardson the Father of Caribbean Impressionism, renowned steelpan musician Isidore Dow York, and all-round cultural Clara Reyes were the St. Maarten cultural professionals featured in 2022, 2021, and 2020 editions respectively. ILTT hopes the 2022 calendar serves once again as a symbol to the community and visitors that Sint Maarten is a dynamic destination. Commercial Manager Roel Kokkelmans (ILTT): ILTT looks forward to continuing to this now 6-year cooperation with the SHTA to jointly show the vast variety of things to do on the island a feature that makes people returning visitors!. SHTA calls on companies and NGOs looking to highlight their 2023 events to send their events to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before the end of this week. St. Maarten residents can order their free copy via the same e-mail address. In addition to ILTTS world-famous brands Captain Morgan, Smirnoff Vodka, and Johnnie Walker Scotch, SHTA thanks Grant Thornton, Telem Group, Amsterdam, as well as the St. Maarten Tourism Bureau and the Office de Tourisme de St Martin for making the 2023 St. Maarten Event Calendar possible. Vizsla Silver Expands Mineralization West of Napoleon and Acquires New Claims, Adding Over 400 Metres of Potential Vein Strike Vizsla Silver Corp. (TSX-V: VZLA) (NYSE: VZLA) (Frankfurt: 0G3) (aVizslaa or the aCompanya https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/vizsla-silver-corp/ ) is pleased to report results from 13 new drill holes targeting the Cruz Negra Vein located in the western portion of the district and announces the acquisition of two new claims within the Napoleon area at its 100%-owned, flagshipA PanucoA silver-gold project (\Panuco\ or the \Project\) located in Mexico. The results are exclusively from the Cruz Negra Vein located 250 metres west of the Napoleon resource area. The newly acquired claims connect the northwest and southeast extents of Cruz Negra which are situated on pre-existing Vizsla claims and represent approximately 400 metres of new potentially mineralized vein strike to explore. Highlights NP-22-274 returned 541 grams per tonne (g/t) silver equivalent (AgEq) over 09 metres true width (mTW) (413 g/t silver, 1.99 g/t gold, 0.16% Pb and 0.27% Zn) And 357 g/t AgEq over 0.88 mTW (258 g/t silver, 1.54 g/t gold, 0.01% Pb and 0.17% Zn) NP-22-262 returned 1,476 g/t AgEq over 0.65 mTW (168 g/t silver, 16.42 g/t gold, 0.86% Pb and 3.26% Zn) NP-22-290 returned 491 g/t AgEq over 2.85 mTW (76 g/t silver, 2.60 g/t gold, 0.57% Pb and 6.19% Zn) NP-22-293 returned 535 g/t AgEq over 0.76 mTW (481 g/t silver, 1.20 g/t gold, 0.02% Zn and 0.02% Pb) NP-22-298 returned 456 g/t AgEq over 1.60 mTW (297 g/t silver, 1.78 g/t gold, 0.31% Pb and 1.23% Zn) aOur ongoing mapping and sampling efforts in the western area of the district have highlighted several new drill ready targets including Cruz Negra,a commented Michael Konnert, President and CEO. aInitial drill results demonstrate mineralized continuity over approximately 400 metres long with large step outs to the northwest, suggesting the vein continues for at least another 500 metres. Our exploration team has done a phenomenal job this year identifying and expanding new mineralized structures directly outboard of the March 2022 resource areas. As of early September, we have achieved data cut-off for inclusion in the updated resource, slated for mid-December, and anticipate a material increase to contained precious metals.a The Cruz Negra Vein, located 250 metres west of the Napoleon resource area, is a northwest striking vein-breccia dipping steeply to the northeast. The vein breccia consists of quartz veining and quartz cement bearing disseminated sphalerite and galena. Drilling to date has tested Cruz Negra along ~400 metres of strike and 300 metres to depth in proximity to the Josephine Vein. Additionally, hole NP-22-293 tested the potential northwest extension, returning 535 g/t AgEq over 0.76 mTW, indicating the mineralization extends for another 500 metres largely across the newly acquired claims. The drilling also shows potential for vein splays or cymoid loops carry significant silver and gold grades. Mineralized intercepts at Cruz Negra, highlight a range of estimated true widths from 0.65-3.10 metres with grades ranging from 265 to 3,499 g/t AgEq, at the mineralized elevation. Mineralization is observed to be open at depth and to the northwest where Vizsla plans to complete detailed mapping and reinitiate drilling on the vein in the short term to explore the 500 metre gap between the open-ended intercepts In line with Vizslaa?s organic-growth strategy, the company successfully negotiated the acquisition of two claims, submitted and pending record in the mining office, with total surface of 14.75 Ha which cover most of the 500 m gap between the open-ended intercepts. Vizsla Silver will be hosting a live webcast to discuss exploration drilling in the western portion of the district at 11:00am PT on Tuesday, September 27th.A To register, please click here. About the Panuco project The newly consolidated Panuco silver-gold project is an emerging high-grade discovery located in southern Sinaloa, Mexico, near the city of MazatlAn. The 6,761-hectare, past producing district benefits from over 86 kilometres of total vein extent, 35 kilometres of underground mines, roads, power, and permits. The district contains intermediate to low sulfidation epithermal silver and gold deposits related to siliceous volcanism and crustal extension in the Oligocene and Miocene. Host rocks are mainly continental volcanic rocks correlated to the Tarahumara Formation. The Panuco Project hosts an estimated in-situ indicated mineral resource of 61.1 Moz AgEq and an in-situ inferred resource of 45.6 Moz AgEq The Technical Report, titled aNational Instrument 43-101 Technical Report for the Panuco Project Mineral Resource Estimate Concordia, Sinaloa, Mexicoa was filed on SEDAR on April 7, 2022, has an effective date of March 1, 2022 and was prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 a Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (aNI 43-101a) by Tim Maunula, P.Geo., Principal Geologist, T. Maunula & Associates Consulting Inc and Kevin Murray, P.Eng, Manager Process Engineering, Ausenco. About Vizsla Silver Vizsla Silver is a Canadian mineral exploration and development company headquartered in Vancouver, BC, focused on advancing its flagship, 100%-owned Panuco silver-gold project located in Sinaloa, Mexico. To date, Vizsla has completed over 210,000 metres of drilling at Panuco leading to the discovery of several new high-grade veins. For 2022, Vizsla has budgeted +120,000 metres of resource/discovery-based drilling designed to upgrade and expand the maiden resource, as well as test other high priority targets across the district. Quality Assurance / Quality Control Drill core and rock samples were shipped to ALS Limited in Zacatecas, Zacatecas, Mexico and in North Vancouver, Canada for sample preparation and for analysis at the ALS laboratory in North Vancouver.A The ALS Zacatecas and North Vancouver facilities are ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 17025 certified. Silver and base metals were analyzed using a four-acid digestion with an ICP finish and gold was assayed by 30-gram fire assay with atomic absorption (aAAa) spectroscopy finish. Over limit analyses for silver, lead and zinc were re-assayed using an ore-grade four-acid digestion with AA finish. Control samples comprising certified reference samples, duplicates and blank samples were systematically inserted into the sample stream and analyzed as part of the Companya?s quality assurance / quality control protocol. Qualified Person In accordance with NI 43-101, Martin Dupuis, P.Geo., COO, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has reviewed and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. Information Concerning Estimates of Mineral Resources The scientific and technical information in this news release was prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 which differs significantly from the requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the aSECa). The terms \measured mineral resource\, \indicated mineral resource\ and \inferred mineral resource\ used herein are in reference to the mining terms defined in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Standards (the aCIM Definition Standardsa), which definitions have been adopted by NI 43-101. Accordingly, information contained herein providing descriptions of our mineral deposits in accordance with NI 43-101 may not be comparable to similar information made public by other U.S. companies subject to the United States federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. You are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral resources will ever be converted into reserves. Pursuant to CIM Definition Standards, ainferred mineral resourcesa are that part of a mineral resource for which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of limited geological evidence and sampling. Such geological evidence is sufficient to imply but not verify geological and grade or quality continuity. An inferred mineral resource has a lower level of confidence than that applying to an indicated mineral resource and must not be converted to a mineral reserve. However, it is reasonably expected that the majority of inferred mineral resources could be upgraded to indicated mineral resources with continued exploration. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies, except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource is economically or legally mineable. Disclosure of acontained ouncesa in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations; however, the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute areservesa by SEC standards as in place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. Canadian standards, including the CIM Definition Standards and NI 43-101, differ significantly from standards in the SEC Industry Guide 7. Effective February 25, 2019, the SEC adopted new mining disclosure rules under subpart 1300 of Regulation S-K of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the aSEC Modernization Rulesa), with compliance required for the first fiscal year beginning on or after January 1, 2021. The SEC Modernization Rules replace the historical property disclosure requirements included in SEC Industry Guide 7. As a result of the adoption of the SEC Modernization Rules, the SEC now recognizes estimates of ameasured mineral resourcesa, aindicated mineral resourcesa and ainferred mineral resourcesa. Information regarding mineral resources contained or referenced herein may not be comparable to similar information made public by companies that report according to U.S. standards. While the SEC Modernization Rules are purported to be asubstantially similara to the CIM Definition Standards, readers are cautioned that there are differences between the SEC Modernization Rules and the CIM Definitions Standards. Accordingly, there is no assurance any mineral resources that the Company may report as ameasured mineral resourcesa, aindicated mineral resourcesa and ainferred mineral resourcesa under NI 43-101 would be the same had the Company prepared the resource estimates under the standards adopted under the SEC Modernization Rules. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release includes certain aForward?Looking Statementsa within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and aforward?looking informationa under applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words aanticipatea, abelievea, aestimatea, aexpecta, atargeta, aplana, aforecasta, amaya, awoulda, acoulda, aschedulea and similar words or expressions, identify forward?looking statements or information. These forward?looking statements or information relate to, among other things: the exploration, development, and production at Panuco, including plans for resource/discovery-based drilling, designed to upgrade, and expand the maiden resource as well as test other high priority targets across the district. Forward?looking statements and forward?looking information relating to any future mineral production, liquidity, enhanced value and capital markets profile of Vizsla Silver, future growth potential for Vizsla Silver and its business, and future exploration plans are based on managementa?s reasonable assumptions, estimates, expectations, analyses and opinions, which are based on managementa?s experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, and other factors that management believes are relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the price of silver, gold, and other metals; no escalation in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic; costs of exploration and development; the estimated costs of development of exploration projects; Vizsla Silvera?s ability to operate in a safe and effective manner and its ability to obtain financing on reasonable terms. These statements reflect Vizsla Silvera?s respective current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of other assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward?looking statements or forward-looking information and Vizsla Silver has made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation: the Company\-s dependence on one mineral project; precious metals price volatility; risks associated with the conduct of the Company\-s mining activities in Mexico; regulatory, consent or permitting delays; risks relating to reliance on the Company\-s management team and outside contractors; risks regarding mineral resources and reserves; the Company\-s inability to obtain insurance to cover all risks, on a commercially reasonable basis or at all; currency fluctuations; risks regarding the failure to generate sufficient cash flow from operations; risks relating to project financing and equity issuances; risks and unknowns inherent in all mining projects, including the inaccuracy of reserves and resources, metallurgical recoveries and capital and operating costs of such projects; contests over title to properties, particularly title to undeveloped properties; laws and regulations governing the environment, health and safety; the ability of the communities in which the Company operates to manage and cope with the implications of COVID-19; the economic and financial implications of COVID-19 to the Company; operating or technical difficulties in connection with mining or development activities; employee relations, labour unrest or unavailability; the Company\-s interactions with surrounding communities and artisanal miners; the Company\-s ability to successfully integrate acquired assets; the speculative nature of exploration and development, including the risks of diminishing quantities or grades of reserves; stock market volatility; conflicts of interest among certain directors and officers; lack of liquidity for shareholders of the Company; litigation risk; and the factors identified under the caption aRisk Factorsa in Vizsla Silvera?s management discussion and analysis. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward?looking statements or forward-looking information. Although Vizsla Silver has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. Vizsla Silver does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward?looking statements or forward-looking information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements or information, other than as required by applicable law. By Chen Hong US Secretary of State Antony Blinken chaired the first Ministerial Meeting of the so-called Partners in the Blue Pacific in New York, on September 22. Formed in June 2022, this informal group, allegedly aimed to coordinate aid for Pacific island countries, has the US, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the UK as its members, with Canada just announcing its plan to join. Washington claimed building such a partnership is for the good of the South Pacific island countries. Is that true? In recent years, the US has been very anxious about the equal and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and South Pacific island countries. In 2022 alone, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, White Houses Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and several other officials visited a number of island countries in the South Pacific. It came as no surprise that they, without exception, were fabricating and hyping up the China threat theory in the attempt to thwart their cooperation with China, and vowing to provide more aid to them, claiming that the US has come back to the Pacific. However, Washing, facing multiple domestic challenges such as political polarization and economic woes, has no heart to help the South Pacific with real cash and concrete actions. Therefore, after forming the Quad and AUKUS, it is now again scrambling together this new group of allies and trying to use them as its cats paw in the strategic competition against China in the Pacific region. While putting together this small circle of Partners in the Blue Pacific, American officials continued to smear Chinas intention of working with South Pacific island countries. But both the people of those countries and the whole international community know perfectly well who is making waves in the beautiful blue Pacific. The US side claimed that the Pacific island countries are faring much worse than before and that their way of life has been threatened. Well, in history, they were indeed enslaved, exploited and plundered by western colonists. After they gained independence, western countries turned a blind eye to how their colonial rule has damaged the local economy and society, and never provided any substantial aid and support to them, just leaving them with backward economy, inadequate infrastructure, and a dire state of life. In the past decade and more, the cooperation between Pacific island countries and China has yielded tremendous success. Chinas aid, construction, and investment on the principle of equality and mutual benefits are bringing satisfying changes to their economy and livelihood. The rumors like debt trap and military base fabricated by the US-led West out of thin air are falling flat like bubbles. Driven by its anti-China strategy, Americas attempt to turn the Pacific island countries into tools and weapons is the real threat to regional stability, serenity and development. It proclaimed that the Partners in the Blue Pacific will focus on what those countries need, but have they like the US and Japan ever tried to understand and consider their concerns? Or do they even care to? When addressing the general debate of the UN General Assembly on September 22, President of the Federated States of Micronesia David Panuelo condemned Japans decision to dump the radwaste water from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, he said that "the impacts of this decision are both transboundary and intergenerational in nature". He indignantly called upon the international community to face squarely the unimaginable threats that will surely arise from Japans dumping of wastewater, such as nuclear contamination, marine pollution, and the eventual damage tothe blue Pacific continent. While pledging their care for the needs of the people living on the Pacific island countries, the US-led West has connived and indulged in Japan, a member of the Partners in the Blue Pacific, dumping the wastewater into the sea, knowing perfectly thats against international law and humanity. There is no better proof of the double standards and hypocrisy of this small circle. If these western countries are true partners for the island countries, they should fully recognize and reply to their legitimate demand for peace and development, instead of just paying lip service and using them as a tool to contain China. (The author is director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal University) Editor's note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn. Arad border police caught 13 migrants from Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, who tried to illegally cross the border into Hungary, hiding in a truck and under the platform of a minibus. Both vehicles were checked at the Nadlac II Border Crossing Point. Two Pakistanis and an Afghan were found in a truck driven by a Romanian transporting auto parts to Germany. Later, the trained dogs of the border police drew attention to a van pulling a platform, driven by a Romanian. "During the checks, the border police crew and the service dog discovered, hidden in a specially arranged place, ten people. During the investigations, our colleagues established that those in question are citizens from Bangladesh and India," the Arad Border Police informed on Monday, told Agerpres. In both cases, the border police make additional investigations. resident Klaus Iohannis signed, on Monday, the decree decorating the Battle Flag of the 42nd Communications and Information Technology Base Major General Traian Mosoiu, as a sign of "appreciation for the outstanding results obtained by the unit's staff in the fulfillment of specific missions, as well as the contribution brought to promoting the image of the Romanian Army". According to the Presidential Administration, Klaus Iohannis conferred the National Order For Merit in the rank of Commander, with an insignia for peace, for the military, to the Battle Flag of the 42nd Communications and Information Technology Base Major General Traian Mosoiu on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of years since its establishment, told Agerpres. The acting president of the Senate, Alina Gorghiu, received on Monday, on a presentation visit, the ambassador of Ukraine to Romania, Ihor Vasylyovych Prokopchuk, the discussions focusing on the recent geopolitical developments against the background of the war in the neighboring country, a statement from the Senate sent to AGERPRES, reads. Alina Gorghiu welcomed the decision of President Volodymyr Zelensky to send a career diplomat as ambassador in Bucharest, a fact that reflects the importance of the bilateral relations. She reiterated Romania's firm support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and condemned, in the "firmest" terms, the "premeditated, unjustified and unprovoked Russian war of aggression". Alina Gorghiu mentioned that parliamentary diplomacy is an essential tool for developing bilateral relations and exchanging good practices. She highlighted the importance of organizing the first Parliamentary Summit of the Crimea International Platform and thanked the Ambassador of Ukraine in Bucharest for the invitation to participate in this event. The acting president of the Senate recalled the support that Romania gave to Ukraine bilaterally and multilaterally, having a "very active" and "instrumental" role in providing essential outlets for Ukrainian grain exports (more than four million tonnes passed through Romanian ports from the Black Sea and the Lower Danube since the outbreak of the war) and adopting a "firm" and "strong" position towards Russia in multilateral formats. At the same time, Gorghiu strongly condemned the decree of the partial mobilization of the Russian Army and the atrocities and crimes committed in Izyum, as well as the organization of "illegal" referendums in the occupied regions of Ukraine. She also emphasized the importance of the urgent end of this "illegitimate" war and the observance of international law, principles that were supported by Romanian diplomacy, at the highest level, during the 77th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The film "Metronome," directed by Alexandru Belc, the film that won the Un Certain Regard directorial prize at Cannes 2022, will run in the opening of Les Films de Cannes in Bucarest festival, which will take place October 21-30. The focus country of the 13th edition of Les Films de Cannes in Bucarest is Sweden. "A new generation of Scandinavian filmmakers is making waves, following in the footsteps of Ingmar Bergman, Lars von Trier and the Dogma movement: this year, three completely different directors, but with equally strong visions, participated in the Cannes competition. All of them are connected to the famous 'Swedish film school'. An ideal opportunity for us to offer Romanian moviegoers an unmissable Focus Sweden at Les Films de Cannes in Bucarest. 13," according to the organisers, told Agerpres. Cult Swedish director Ruben Ostlund, the 2017 winner of Palme d'Or for "The Square," returned to Cannes this year with "Triangle of Sadness," which once again won him the supreme trophy. This fresh sarcastic masterpiece was joined by two other films by up-and-coming filmmakers of immigrant backgrounds, which the public can watch at this edition: "Boy from Heaven," by Swedish Tarik Saleh - Best Screenplay Award, Cannes 2022, and "Holy Spider," by Danish-Iranian Ali Abbasi - Best Actress Award, Cannes 2022 for Zar Amir Ebrahimi. Both Abbasi's and Saleh's films draw heavily on their immigrant backgrounds. Abbasi left Tehran for Sweden in 2002 and then settled in Denmark, while Saleh was born in Stockholm to a Swedish mother and an Egyptian father. "Boy from Heaven" is a dark thriller set in Cairo about a poor boy who is awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Al-Azhar University, where he finds himself drawn into a brutal power struggle between Egypt's religious and political elite. Ostlund, six feature films under his belt, brought his first film in English to Cannes. "Triangle of Sadness" is a wild satire of the world of fashion and the rich, and also a harsh critique of society's emphasis on beauty. Les Films de Cannes a Bucarest is a cultural project funded by Romania's National Filmmaking Centre, SACD, the French Embassy and the French Institute in Romania. The General Inspectorate of the Border Police informs that, on Sunday, 90,850 people entered Romania through the border crossing points throughout the country, of whom 9,594 were Ukrainian citizens, down 7.6% compared to the previous day, told Agerpres. According to a press release sent to AGERPRES on Monday, approximately 191,800 people, Romanian and foreign citizens, with more than 45,600 means of transport, completed the control formalities at the border crossing points nationwide, both on the way in and on the way out. As of February 10, 2022 (pre-conflict period), 2,417,749 Ukrainian citizens have entered Romania. In terms of the specific activity at the border crossing points and the "green border," the border police discovered 42 illegalities (23 crimes and 19 contraventions) committed by both Romanian and foreign citizens, with the amount of fines applied exceeding 14,500 lei," the same source shows. On Sunday, 38 foreign citizens who did not meet the requirements stipulated by law were not allowed to enter the country and 18 Romanian citizens were not allowed to leave for various legal reasons. The students of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), of whom almost 10,000 "freshmen", started the 2022-2023 new academic year on Monday. Also attending the opening ceremony was Minister of Education Sorin Cimpeanu who announced the approval of additional seats for bachelor's and master's degrees programmes, taking into account the large number of students who want to study at the ASE. "The Education Ministry, by understanding ASE's attractiveness, is supplementing the few remaining seats by 100 spots for the bachelor's degree programme and 50 for the master's, based on your request. On this occasion, 100 bachelor's degree students will be able to switch to the budget, as well as 50 master's freshmen," Cimpeanu explained, told Agerpres. He emphasised that a "wise balance" must be achieved between physical presence in classes and the use of digital technology. ASE Rector Nicolae Istudor informed that all the didactic activities for the bachelor's and master's programmes shall be attended in person. "It is a great joy for me to open a classic university system and to announce that we will organize all the didactic activities for the bachelor's and master's programmes in a personal attendance system," Istudor said. According to him, over 11,500 highschool graduates opted for the admission to ASE's university bachelor's degree studies, a process that resulted in 6,989 being admitted, which means about 7 percent of this year's highschool graduates. Moreover, approximately 2,750 students were admitted to master's programmes and 184 to doctoral study programmes. "Today, we welcome, with joy and emotion into the Bucharest University of Economic Studies family, about 10,000 freshmen who made it to be students of our bachelor's, master's and doctoral university programmes," the rector underscored. "Economy is a dynamic science which develops through each of us, through each of you," Finance Minister Adrian Caciu stated. The National Weather Administration (ANM) on Monday issued a code yellow warning for heavy downpours valid throughout Tuesday evening in 14 Romanian counties. According to the specialist forecast, between September 26, 18:00hrs and September 27, 22:00hrs, heavy downpours and thunderstorms are expected in parts of the regions of Maramures and Banat, the mountain area of Oltenia, in the Western Carpathians and in the north parts of the Eastern Carpathians. Rainwater on the ground should exceed 25 - 30 l/sq.m. and even 40-50 l/sq.m, told Agerpres. The counties covered by the code yellow warning are: Alba, Arad, Bihor, Bistrita-Nasaud, Cluj, Caras-Severin, Gorj, Hunedoara, Mehedinti, Maramures, Salaj, Satu Mare, Timis, and Valcea. In Bucharest City, throughout Monday, it will be cloudy, with spells of rain showers and weak to moderate winds. Lows of 13 - 15 degrees Celsius. Also in Bucharest on Tuesday until 22:00hrs, the weather will be warm, and the probability of showers, thunderstorm and short wind gusts will be higher in the last hours of the interval. Highs will fluctuate between 25 and 27 degrees Celsius. Meteorologists say Tuesday after-noon (September 27), in Romania's south-west and central parts, and in the evening and at night (September 27/28) in the south and south-east parts, there will be local weather fluctuations. Romania's Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca has held talks in Tokyo with the Japan-Romania Parliamentary Friendship League about promoting the bilateral relations between the two countries to a strategic partnership, told Agerpres. "Significant discussions in Tokyo with the Japan-Romania Parliamentary Friendship League about elevating bilateral relations to the level of strategic partnership, a valuable legacy left by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the field of foreign policy," Ciuca said on Monday on the Twitter page of the government. Speaker of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies Marcel Ciolacu and Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca are in Japan from Monday to Wednesday, where they are participating in the state funeral in honour of late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A series of events promoting the Romanian language and culture will be organized by the representatives of the Romanian Cultural Institute on the occasion of the European Day of Languages, celebrated on Monday. Established in 2001, at the initiative of the Council of Europe, the European Day of Languages is celebrated annually to mark the importance of communication and learning foreign languages. Since then, every year, around this date, events such as interactive lessons, book presentations, games and exhibitions take place to celebrate European linguistic diversity, states the ICR in a statement sent to AGERPRES on Monday. * ICR Warsaw In the series of demonstration courses hosted by the Cervantes Institute, but also in other locations in Poland, organized in the weeks preceding and following September 26, ICR Warsaw, in collaboration with the Institute of Romance Languages of the University of Lodz, offers, on Friday, lessons with the theme (Almost) Everything You Wanted To Know About The Romanian Language, But Were Afraid To Ask. The lessons will be taught by Radoslawa Janowska-Lascar, with extensive experience in teaching both the Polish language at the Al. I. Cuza University in northeastern Iasi, and the Romanian language as a foreign language at the University of Wroclaw. * ICR Budapest The European Language Cocktail Bar, the longest-running event of the EUNIC Hungary Cluster, dedicated to the celebration of the European Day of Languages, took place on September 23, at the Italian Institute of Culture. ICR Budapest participated with its own stand, with linguistic games and activities, to which all those who want to get to know the Romanian language or deepen their knowledge were invited. Demonstration mini-course sessions were held by Ana Borca, Romanian language teacher, with over 25 years of experience in teaching it to foreigners. * ICR Madrid As part of the European Week of Languages project, ICR Madrid will be present at the debate The language I Know Helps The Family And The Community, organized on Monday by the Representation of the European Commission in Spain, in collaboration with the Getafe City Hall, the European Commission for Refugees (CEAR) and EUNIC Madrid, at the IES Menendez Pelayo Secondary School. Also, on Friday, ICR Madrid will participate in a joint event of the institutes within EUNIC dedicated to the promotion of languages and culture, which will take place at the headquarters of the French Institute in the capital of Spain, with a series of demonstration lessons with the Romanian language teacher Ruxandra Constantinescu. Also during the event, the representative office in Madrid will have a presentation stand, open between 18:00 and 20:00, where it will present its activity, the organized events, Romanian language courses, the latest Romanian editorials, the latest translations in Spanish, the Institute's translation programs. * ICR Vienna The European Day of Languages will be celebrated by ICR Vienna, on Monday, at Kopp 1 Human Profile High School, with the main theme Romania - Romanian Language And Culture. In the opening, professor Mihaela Laudati, moderator, will talk about the European Day of Languages, the EU and multilingualism. Next is a Romanian language workshop: the origin and history of the Romanian language, then the presentation of multilingualism in Romania, in collaboration with the Dositej Obradovic Theoretical High School in Timisoara. The event will include a mini-class of the Romanian language for the participants and another workshop on Romanian culture presented through materials provided by ICR Vienna, but also with a presentation of the posters made by the students on the theme of Romania. * ICR Brussels ICR Brussels supports the participation of Anastasia Gavrilovici, poet and translator, in the 12th edition of the European festival TRANSPOESIE, from September 26-28, this year having the theme The European Year of Youth. The authors registered in the festival will read in their mother tongue from their own creations, poems that benefit from translation into English, French and Dutch and will participate in various workshops organized during the three days. * ICR Stockholm The European Day of Languages is celebrated, this year, on Tuesday, between 9:00-15:00, with a foreign language cafe, which will take place at Europahuset, during which short language courses will be held in approximately 20 languages, including Romanian, Estonian, Esperanto, French, German, Ukrainian, Icelandic and Swedish. * IRCCU Venice The literary event Storie di viaggi da Venezia e non solo, moderated by Enzo Santese, journalist, translator, poet, editor-in-chief of Amicando Semper publication, will be organized on Wednesday, from 17:00, by IRCCU Venice, at Micromega Arte e Cultura Venezia (MAC). Participating will be Barbara Marengo, writer, journalist and translator, who will present her book "Levante i giu di li. Storie vecchie e nuove di una viaggiatrice", recently published at "Casa editrice al squero", and Maurizio Crema, journalist, literary author of travel, who will read literary texts about his travels in Europe, including Romania. The director of IRCCU Venice, Grigore Arbore Popescu, will present the TPS - Translation and Publication Support Program and travel texts by Romanian authors, and Franco Avicolli, the director of Micomega, will talk about Italian writers, authors of travel literature. * ICR Prague The Representation of the European Commission in the Czech Republic together with the EUNIC Prague Cluster and the Charles/Karlova University of Prague will celebrate the European Day of Languages by organizing language courses dubbed Speak - Dating which will take place on Friday, between 11:00 and 16:00, at the Hybernska Campus in Prague. ICR Prague will promote the Romanian language with the support of Nicolae Adrian Hent, lecturer in the Department of Romanian Language at Charles/Karlova University, through individual courses during the event, for all interested visitors. * ICR New York, together with the Goethe-Institut and in collaboration with several European cultural institutes within EUNIC New York, is co-organizing, on September 30, a large event, mainly dedicated to the so-called Seal of Biliteracy / Certificate Of Bilingual Competence. The project is organized in collaboration with the Departments of Education of the state and city of New York and brings together teachers, decision-makers and specialists in educational policies, with the main goal of promoting the learning of foreign languages in the New York public education system. Romania will be represented by Dr. Daiana Theodora Cuibus, Managing director of the Romanian Language Institute, the main tool for promoting and coordinating Romanian language learning programs outside the country's borders.AGERPRES The name of the new secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will be known on Thursday, at noon, said Sabin Sarmas, the president of the event, on the sidelines of the Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) of the ITU in Bucharest. "The first week is about the elections. There will be policy statements (...) after which, in the second week, after we have the elections that start on Thursday and end on Monday, the way of working on the resolutions will be intensified. We will know the name of the secretary general (of the ITU, ed. n.) on Thursday, at noon. Afterwards, the other four officials are elected. All 193 ITU member countries vote. The majority decides, and the one with the fewest votes leaves the competition. Regarding the discussion topics, each country comes up with proposals. However, there are some important things: Internet governance - how it should look, how free and how regulated, then cyber security, artificial intelligence, OTTs, i.e. services like WhatsApp or YouTube - from the perspective of some telecommunications companies, those who have such services should pay, because they use the telecommunications structure without paying anything. There are other countries that say that it is not good to do this and to keep things as they are. There are things that are negotiated a lot," Sarmas explained. "Another new topic, but one that arouses great interest, is related to how we use technology in moments of crisis - pandemic, war. Romania worked within the European group on many of these proposals, it does not have a proposal itself. It contributed to over ten proposals. The vast majority of the specialists who worked are from ANCOM (National Authority for Administration and Regulation in Communications, ed. n.) and contributed to Europe's proposals. In general, the proposals come from the regions," stated the president of the PP conference -22 of ITU. The Romanian official also mentioned that the private sector in Romania can build a solid business through the relationship it could have with the International Telecommunication Union. The international conference will have one of the most important topics on the agenda, namely the election of the five high officials of the ITU: the secretary general, the deputy secretary general and the directors of the offices of radiocommunications, standardization in telecommunications and development of telecommunications - who will guide the organization's activity in the next four years. Thus, once the mandate of the current general secretary of the ITU, Houlin Zhao, expires, according to the organization's regulations, new elections must be organized, and two people have submitted their candidacy for this position: Doreen Bogdan Martin from the USA and Rashid Ismailov from the Russian Federation.AGERPRES Russia is present at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) in Bucharest with content specialists, said Sabin Sarmas, the president of the 21st edition of the international event at the Palace of the Parliament. "I had a short dialogue with the Russian delegation. I think there are more than ten present. All their specialists are here, all the people who deal with the content. I understand that they did not receive the visa, but this is a piece of information that I would like to ask you to verify, some of their staff helping them during the conference. What the causes were I couldn't tell you, but all their specialists are here. From that point of view I felt they were satisfied. It seems other countries had members who did not receive a visa and it would be good for that to be checked. There is an accreditation process, a delegation assumed by the member country, some credentials must be taken from the ITU. There are two parallel processes: the ITU verifies and says that it is okay, and the Romanian state can say for one reason or another that it cannot accept a citizen in Romania," Sarmas explained. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, on Saturday, in a press release, that entry visas were granted to all 17 officials designated by the Russian Federation as members of the official delegation of this state at the International Telecommunication Union Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) in Bucharest, as per the request of the Russian side. On the other hand, visas were revoked for journalists "abusively notified" as officials, among the reasons being Romania's national security. Partners of the event, alongside the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) and the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Tourism (MAT), are the following Romanian institutions: the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, the General Secretariat of the Government, the Finance Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, the Health Ministry, the Ministry of Culture, the Bucharest City Hall, the Special Telecommunications Service (STS), the Protection and Guard Service (SPP) and the Romanian Television Society. AGERPRES is a media partner of the event. Elevating relations between Romania and Japan to the level of strategic partnership represents an "opportune" political act in the current international context, and this step is a symbol of the recognition of the "special" bond existing between the two states, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca stated on Monday, while in Tokyo for the state funeral of ex-Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, told Agerpres. According to a press release of the Government, the Prime Minister, together with the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Marcel Ciolacu, had a meeting with a delegation of the Japanese Executive, led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. "Elevating the relations between Romania and Japan to the level of a strategic partnership is a timely political act in the current international context, which materializes the remarkable vision of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the field of foreign policy. (...) Romania is deeply committed to developing relations with Japan at the level of strategic partnership, as a recognition of the special bond existing between our countries, as well as of the significant potential for bilateral development. We are ready to agree on the most suitable moment for signing the Strategic Partnership Agreement, once the document is finalized," Ciuca said, as quoted in the press release. The Prime Minister also mentioned that Japan is among Romania's main partners in Asia, both politically and economically, and appreciated the valuable contribution of this country to the transition and modernization of Romania in the past 30 years. An important point of the meeting concerned the security and defence component, one of the four cooperation pillars of the future strategic partnership. In this context, the Romanian head of Executive mentioned that, like Japan, Romania is committed to respecting democracy, the rule of law, the international order based on rules and the defence of peace and stability. Romania supports cooperation between NATO and Japan on all relevant dimensions and firmly opposes any unilateral attempts to change the international status quo, especially by force, Prime Minister Ciuca underscored, according to the same source. The talks between the two PMs also focused on economic collaboration, considering that Japan is the largest Asian investor in Romania. "The recent dynamics of our bilateral contacts are very encouraging. I believe that the opportunities offered by Romania for investments in the fields of green energy, high-quality infrastructure and innovation, nuclear energy production, green hydrogen production and some optical components necessary for the Laser project from Magurele, but also the continuation of the projects currently underway - the metro line to Bucharest Airport, the suspension bridge over the Danube, the European gauge railway Pascani - Iasi - Chisinau - will highlight the development potential of our economic relations and attract new technologies," said Nicolae Ciuca. He also mentioned that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida appreciated the presence, in Tokyo, of the Prime Minister of Romania and assured him of his full support for the conclusion of the strategic partnership and the strengthening of the bilateral collaboration, including in the wider regional and international context that requires the protection of democracy and the rule of law state. Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca and Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Marcel Ciolacu are to participate on Tuesday in the state funeral organized in honour of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. President Kalus Iohannis conveyed on Monday a message on the occasion of the Rosh HaShanah - Jewish New Year 5783, underscoring that, alongside Romania's other national minorities, the Jewish community represents "a serious partner of dialogue and actions for the common good", told Agerpres. "According to the Jewish millennial traditions, the Rosh HaShanah holiday means rejoicing the inception, the renewal of the spirit and of the entire creation. Unfortunately, this year, the celebration of the Jewish New Year takes place under the shadow of the war launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. A military conflict which caused immense suffering, loss of human life and material destruction that overwhelms our peers of Ukraine. The crises generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the dramatic economic and humanitarian consequences produced by the war in Ukraine have left deep marks in our souls. And yet, despite all the attempts, we have become more empathetic and more involved, and the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania - the Mosaic Cult has been throughout this period, through its concrete action, an example of solidarity, compassion and commitment," reads the President's message, conveyed by Presidential adviser Sergiu Nistor, at the Choral Temple in Bucharest. According to President Iohannis, if actions are taken with wisdom and determination, everything that has been destroyed can be rebuilt and the balance of the life which was affected by violence and hatred can be restored. "Let us hope that the Jewish New Year will also mark the beginning of a future of prosperity built on peace, understanding and tolerance! Let us each participate, through concrete gestures, in defending the humanist and democratic values, which are the landmarks of European Romania!," the head of state highlighted. He appreciated the involvement of all the members of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania - the Mosaic Cult in the common effort to overcome the multiple crises of this period. "Together with the other national minorities of Romania, the Jewish community is a serious partner of dialogue and action for the common good, which contributes to our good coexistence in a troubled world," President Iohannis said. As many as 856 new cases of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 were recorded in the last 24 hours in Romania, down 417 from the previous day, with over 9,000 RT-PCR and rapid antigenic tests performed, the Health Ministry informed on Monday. Of the new cases, 184 were in re-infected patients, who tested positive more than 90 days after the first time they recovered from the disease. Most of the newly confirmed COVID-19 cases in Romania since the previous reporting were recorded in Bucharest City - 144, and in Cluj County - 101, told Agerpres. The highest 14-day notification rate is in Cluj County - 1.92, followed by Timis County - 1.9, and Bucharest City - 1.56. As of Monday, 3,262,909 cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus were confirmed in Romania. - Hospitalisations - As many as 1,426 people with COVID-19, up 69 from the previous reporting, including 130 minors, are hospitalised in Romania at specialist care facilities. Out of the total number of hospitalised patients, 128, down one, are in intensive care. Of the 128 patients admitted to ICU, 117 are unvaccinated against COVID-19. - Deaths - According to the ministry, three Romanians, two men and one woman, are reported dead in the last 24 hours. Of the three deaths, one was recorded in the age group 60-69 years, and two in the age group over 80 years. All deaths were in patients with comorbidities, and two deaths were in vaccinated patients. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 66,981 people diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 infection have died in Romania. The "Stefan Zeromski" Theatre from Kielce, Poland, in collaboration with the "Vasile Alecsandri" National Theatre from Iasi have initiated a joint project, called "Romantic Mickiewicz-Eminescu Bridge." According to a press release, in the framework of this project, the two theatre institutions co-produced #mickiewiczeminescu, a show in both Romanian and Polish, which brings together the best-known poems of Adam Mickiewicz and Mihai Eminescu, told Agerpres. The show, directed by Tanja Miletic Orucevic and Radu Ghilas, will be seen for the first time in Iasi, on September 29, at the Cub Theatre, and then in Kielce, in November. According to the same source, the project aims to popularize the lyrical work of the two great romantic poets, on the stages in Romania (Iasi National Theatre) and Poland (the "Stefan Zeromski" Theatre in Kielce). The "Year of Polish Romanticism" is celebrated on the occasion of the 200th anniversary since the publication of Adam Mickiewicz's "Ballads and Romances." The event is marked by the "Adam Mickiewicz" Institute through numerous cultural projects launched around the world, with the aim of making Polish romanticism better known. The projects organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute within the "Year of Polish Romanticism" bring to light the ideas of Polish romanticism as a point of confluence of several cultures, visions and artistic currents. It also certifies the fact that the romantic legacy still strongly influences Polish and foreign artists today, creating a fertile space for artistic dialogue. The project is part of the "44 x Mickiewicz" Programme, a programme financed by the "Adam Mickiewicz" Institute. Co-organizers are: the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, culture.pl, the "Stefan Zeromski" Theatre in Kielce and the National Theatre in Iasi. Speaker of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies Marcel Ciolacu said on Monday that Romania and Japan have a duty to continue all the political and business projects they started, the most important of which is making formal a strategic partnership between the two countries. "Romania and Japan have a duty to continue all the political and business projects they have started. That is the message I sent to the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, during the meeting I and Romania's Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca had with him. The most important objective is to succeed in speeding up making formal the strategic partnership between our two countries, a solid partnership based on four main directions: politics, security, economy, and culture and science. I am convinced that this partnership will strengthen the direction of Romania to be a strong and credible partner of Japan, both in advancing bilateral relations and in terms of its ties with NATO and the European Union," Ciolacu wrote on Facebook, told Agerpres. He told Kishida that he would like one of the stations that will make up the future Bucharest subway line to Otopeni to bear the name of late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, "as a sign of respect and gratitude for the intense efforts he has made to over time in the consolidation of relations between Romania and Japan." "Furthermore, I welcomed Prime Minister Kishida's message of unity regarding the need for democratic states that share common values and visions to act in one voice internationally to give a strong and firm retort to all those who dare disregard peace, democracy and freedom," Ciolacu said. Chamber Speaker Ciolacu and PM Ciuca are in Japan from Monday to Wednesday to attend the state funeral in honour of late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Burkina Faso's coup leader-turned-president defended his military takeover on Friday, though he acknowledged it was perhaps reprehensible" and inconsistent with the United Nations' values. Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba said the overthrow of the democratically elected president in January was "necessary and indispensable." "It was, above all, an issue of survival for our nation, he said. That's even if it was perhaps reprehensible in terms of the principles held dear by the United Nations and the international community as a whole. Burkina Faso's coup came in the wake of similar takeovers in Mali and in Guinea, heightening fears of a rollback of democracy in West Africa. None of the juntas has committed to a date for new elections. Many in Burkina Faso, however, supported the military takeover, frustrated with the previous governments inability to stem Islamic extremist violence that has killed thousands and displaced at least 2 million. Yet the violence has failed to wane in the months since Damiba took over. Earlier this month, he also took over the position of defense minister after dismissing a brigadier general from the post. The Burkina Faso leader said Friday that his transitional government will remain in power for almost two more years despite calls from West African neighbors for a quicker return to democratic rule. But Damiba gave no precise date for the holding of new elections in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He warned, however, that the Islamic insurgency embroiling Burkina Faso has security risks for the rest of the world too emphasizing that Europe is the closest continent to Africa. No precautions or prevention measures will prevent terrorism from crossing the Atlantic if the Sahel is abandoned, Damiba said. Nothing at all will be able to stop the youth in the Sahel countries and its surroundings from giving in to the temptation of perilous immigration to Europe through the Sahara and the Mediterranean if these youth no longer have any hope by staying at home." 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 Having watched her cookie business crumble once, Susie Wilson is determined to rebuild it. Step one was getting her name back. Wilson founded Soozies Doozies in 2003 in her Chesterfield kitchen and quickly got her gourmet cookies on the shelves at Dierbergs and Straubs stores. She sold the business in 2007 to SKU Foods of Union, Missouri, but remained involved and believed she owned a minority interest. She continued representing the brand and even arranged a meeting with a buyer at Walmart. Then, in 2017, the company terminated her role. Wilson sued SKU and two of its officers in 2018, alleging that they had duped her out of her share of the cookie business. By then, SKU had taken on outside investors, including the Capital Innovators and Prosper accelerator funds and members of the St. Louis Arch Angels. The company also had switched from baking cookies to selling frozen cookie dough, which was available in supermarkets in 38 states. The most hurtful part, Wilson said at the time, was that SKU removed all mention of her from its marketing materials. A Facebook page implied that there wasnt a real Soozie (or Susie) behind the clever brand name. According to Wilson, that was an intentional obfuscation of the real origin story. Her suit says SKUs chief operating officer, Robert Stanton, once told Wilson she would always be associated with the brand, like Wally Amos with Famous Amos cookies or Colonel Sanders with Kentucky Fried Chicken. Wilsons lawsuit, originally filed in federal court and later moved to St. Louis County Circuit Court, was dismissed in February. Wilson said it was settled for an undisclosed sum. She also regained control of the Soozies Doozies trademark, which was transferred to her at the end of July. I guess they thought I would go away, but I had no reason to go away, she says of her persistence in pursuing the trademark. The Soozies Doozies brand disappeared from supermarkets in 2020, and Wilson isnt sure why, but shes working on a plan to bring it back. The plan is to return to the original concept: Freshly baked, gourmet cookies, made from recipes she spent thousands of hours perfecting. She is already selling a few cookies around Mountain Home, Arkansas, where she now lives, and plans to set up a web page and start an e-commerce business. She hopes some supermarkets, including those that once sold her cookies in St. Louis, will remember Soozies Doozies and want to offer them again. She also has some new ideas, such as adding muffins to the product line. Wilson, a 63-year-old grandmother of five, says shes both smarter and healthier than when she launched the business 19 years ago. She was recovering from back surgery at the time, and later suffered arm problems because of repetitive strain from mixing so much cookie dough. This time, she says, shell start small and enlist help where she needs it, while always making sure to keep control of the brand name. She knows there is no guarantee of success, but shes just happy to again have control of something thats a big part of her identity. Im at ground zero, but thats OK, she said. The only place you can go is up. I am positive about it. Soozie is back, and were going to make cookies. ST. PAUL, Minns. Richard and Jean Pletcher hoped to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in style. In April 2020, the Eagan couple paid $18,800 to reserve a luxury cruise from St. Paul to New Orleans, which would have been their sixth voyage with Viking, an international cruise giant based in Switzerland. Then earlier in September, just four days before the first trip of the Viking Mississippi from the Mississippi Rivers headwaters to its gulf, the company informed them by mail their reservation had been canceled. The 386-passenger ship, custom-built for the river, departed St. Pauls Lamberts Landing as planned, but the Pletchers were not aboard it. There was worse news to come. I called immediately and was given very little information, only that we could reschedule for the trip during 2023 or 2024 with a 110% credit, said Richard Pletcher, who is in his 70s. When I called just to inquire about this, I was told the first available trip was actually in 2025, because everything earlier was fully booked. In other words, Viking wanted to keep our money for three more years, after already having it for almost two years, said Pletcher, who instead demanded a full refund. Asking for our understanding, loyalty and continued support. Needless to say, my response did not include any of these qualities. The Pletchers arent the only couple who have been bumped from Vikings new Mississippi River cruises at the last minute. Passengers from across the country say theyve received letters from the cruise company informing them their reservation, paid for more than two years in advance, had been canceled just days ahead of departure. The letters offered limited explanation except to say that the company wants to ensure its voyages are top quality, and challenging circumstances mean that the Viking Mississippi must sail at reduced capacity. Entire boat trips planned from St. Paul in July and August were canceled this summer, and interior work aboard the ship has apparently continued right through the first departure from St. Paul toward St. Louis, Missouri on Sept. 3. Its unclear how many reservations have been terminated with days to spare, but a Facebook community page created by a ticket holder on July 1 Viking Mississippi Cruise has drawn dozens of comments, many of them from worried or unhappy reservation-holders. Others said their trips were roughly half full, carrying about 200 passengers. Calls to Viking for comment were not returned. Whether the company is primarily struggling with the national labor shortage, delayed staff trainings or physical considerations such as supply chain issues impacting particular staterooms remains unclear. Passengers have said their consolation letter or on-board experience seems to raise the possibility of all three. We are currently on this ship, wrote passenger Dean Siddons on the Facebook page, during a trip to St. Paul on Sept. 15. There are numerous ship repair/maintenance people onboard and they are taking up rooms. There are also some Viking people here to do staff training, and some other Viking people with unknown functions that are not crew. None of these would normally be on the ship. So some of the rooms are unavailable for these reasons. Viking, which had once planned to debut its new cruise ship in 2017, delayed the launch five years while it worked through federal regulatory challenges under the Jones Act, otherwise known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. The law requires vessels traveling between U.S. ports to carry U.S. crews and to be U.S.-owned, U.S.-registered and U.S.-built. Even after appeasing the U.S. Maritime Administration by leasing a charter from Louisiana-based Edison Chouest, Viking had to deal with federals appeals filed by competing cruise companies. Some media outlets along the river corridor have pointed to likely supply chain challenges. As you may be aware, due to circumstances beyond our control, construction of the custom-built Viking Mississippi was delayed, impacting the ships delivery date and the preparations necessary to welcome guests on board, reads a Sept. 8 letter from Viking to a California-based passenger who opted for a full refund. The ship has now begun sailing with her first guests, but we are still putting the finishing touches on the overall experience and refining the itinerary, the letter continues. On your scheduled departure, we must operate at a reduced capacity as we continue to ramp up service. Unfortunately, this means that some staterooms need to be cancelled, and we are contacting you today because yours is among them. Bumped customers have been offered full refunds or vouchers equivalent to 110% of what theyve already paid so they can book at later dates. Passengers have called the latter easier said than done as trips fill up years in advance. The prospect of waiting until 2025 to board a Viking cruise strikes some elderly passengers as iffy, if not unlikely given their age. When I inquired about how we go about rescheduling a trip in the future, if we even want to, the response was to check every day and maybe there would be a cancellation, Richard Pletcher said. They wouldnt even monitor cancellations and put us first in line to consider whether we could fill the vacancy. Catherine Frohnert and her husband, both in their 80s, booked their Viking trip on the Mississippi River in 2019 and paid for it in early 2020, only to learn this month their reservation from New Orleans to St. Paul had been canceled. Frohnert, a world traveler in her 80s who is Irish by birth but has lived in the U.S. most of her life, had planned to fly to New Orleans and travel back to Minnesota by water for what she assumed would be her final voyage. Rescheduling a trip three years from now sounds unlikely to her. I was looking forward to it. I read all the books of Mark Twain, said Frohnert, a former St. Paul resident who now lives in Rochester, Minnesota. Over the 56 years weve lived in America, mostly Minnesota, we have traveled to over 85 countries. The only thing left that we wanted to do was to sail up the Mississippi, she continued. The price has shot up quite a bit from what we paid. If you go on Facebook, there are many people who were dumped. Ive done Viking cruises on the Danube, the Rhine, and this was my last wish for travel. I was angry last Wednesday. 2022 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at twincities.com. St. LOUIS Fricks Market grocery stores located in Union and Sullivan will soon become Schnucks grocery stores. Schnuck Markets announced Monday that it is acquiring the stores from owners Jennifer and Darren Newbanks. All 66 employees of the Fricks stores will be offered the opportunity to work for Schnucks and will continue to be represented by unions. The Union store will stay open as Fricks until 4 p.m. Oct. 23, when it will close for four days. When it reopens on Oct. 27, it will be be a Schnucks. The Fricks Market in Sullivan will also be closed from 4 p.m. Oct. 23 until Oct. 27. When it reopens, it will still be called Fricks, though it will be operated by Schnucks. This arrangement will continue until a 23,000-square-foot Schnucks Fresh store can be completed on East Springfield Road near Highway 185. Both stores will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. Fricks President Jennifer Newbanks said, As our family moves on to the next chapter, we are grateful for the employees who have worked with us as well as the customers who have shopped with us over the years. Were confident Schnucks another family-owned grocery company with strong core values is the right fit to continue supporting families in our communities. Fricks was founded in 1927, according to an article in Supermarket News. CHURDAN, Iowa In the 1970s when George Naylor said he wanted to grow organic crops, the idea didnt go over well. Back then organic crops were an oddity, destined for health food stores or maybe a few farmers markets. I told my dad I wanted to be an organic farmer and he goes, Ha, ha, ha, Naylor said, noting it wasnt until 2014 that he could embrace his dream and begin transitioning from standard to organic crops. But over the decades, something unexpected happened demand for organics started increasing so fast that it began outstripping the supply produced in the U.S. Now a new challenge has emerged: Its not getting consumers to pay the higher prices, its convincing enough farmers to get past their organic reluctance and start taking advantage of the revenue pouring in. Instead of growing to meet the demand, the number of farmers converting to organic is actually dropping. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture committed up to $300 million to recruit and help more farmers make the switch. It feels good, said Chris Schreiner, executive director of the organic-certifying organization Oregon Tilth, referring to the government help. Its a milestone in the arc of this work. Schreiner, who has worked at the Oregon-based organization since 1998, said expanding technical training is important given the vast differences in farming land conventionally and organically. Schreiner noted that one farmer told him that converting a conventional farmer was like asking a foot doctor to become a heart surgeon. The key difference is the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as well as genetically modified seeds. Most conventional farms rely on those practices but they are banned at organic farms. Instead, organic farmers must control weeds and pests with techniques such as rotating different crops and planting cover crops that squeeze out weeds and add nutrients to the soil. Crops can only be deemed organic if they are grown on land that hasnt been treated with synthetic substances for three years. During that period, farmers can grow crops, but they wont get the extra premium that accompanies organic crops. According to the USDA, the number of conventional farms newly transitioning to organic production dropped by about 70% from 2008 to 2019. Organic comprises about 6% of overall food sales, but only 1% of the countrys farmland is in organic production, with foreign producers making up the gap. In the U.S, There are so many barriers to farmers making that leap to organic, said Megan DeBates, vice president of government affairs for the Organic Trade Association. While farmers seem hesitant, U.S. consumers arent. Annual sales of organic products have roughly doubled in the past decade and now top $63 billion, according to the Organic Trade Association. Sales are projected to climb up to 5.5% this year. That growth is clear to anyone pushing a cart in an average supermarket, past bins of organic apples and bananas, through dairy and egg sections and along shelves brimming with organic beef and chicken. The new USDA effort would include $100 million toward helping farmers learn new techniques for growing organic crops; $75 million for farmers who meet new conservation practice standards; $25 million to expand crop insurance options and reduce costs; and $100 million to aid organic supply chains and develop markets for organics. Nick Andrews, an Oregon State University extension agent who works with organic farmers, called the USDA effort a game changer. It should be especially attractive to farmers with small parcels of land because the added value of organic crops makes it possible to make significant money off even 25 to 100 acre (10 to 40 hectare) farms much smaller than the commercial operations that provide most of the countrys produce. Ive seen organic farmers keep families in business who otherwise would go out of business, Andrews said. Noah Wendt, who in the past few years has transitioned 1,500 acres (607 hectares) of land in central Iowa to organic, noted the shift has been rocky at times for him and his farming partner, Caleb Akin. But he and Akin recently bought a grain elevator east of Des Moines to use solely for organic crops, the kind of project the USDA program can assist. They hope the elevator will not only be a nearby spot to store grain but provide a one-stop shop to learn about growing and marketing organic crops. Seeing all the organic activity is gratifying for George and Patti Naylor, who farm near the tiny central Iowa community of Churdan. But they say they still value most the simple benefits of their choice, such as evenings spent watching hundreds of rare monarch butterflies that flock to their herbicide-free farm. As Patti Naylor put it, It really helps to believe in what youre doing. An Oklahoma prosecutor who is recovering after being stabbed by his adult daughter is calling on state lawmakers for more funding for mental health services. Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler on Wednesday said in brief remarks to reporters that his family endured one of the toughest days in our lives on Tuesday. Police Capt. Richard Meulenberg says Kunzweiler's 30-year-old daughter, Jennifer Kunzweiler, was arrested following the stabbing at the home where she lived with her parents. Meulenberg said the motive was unknown, but that it was related to mental illness. It's the third time since 2015 that an elected Oklahoma official has been stabbed by an adult child. The annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery was held in Philadelphia from Sept. 10 to 14 and attracted approximately 5,000 participants from around the world, including otolaryngologists, medical experts, allied health professionals, and administrators. The conference highlighted the latest advances in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the ears, nose, throat, and related structures of the head and neck. In one study, Rick Nelson, M.D., Ph.D., of Indiana University Health in Indianapolis, and colleagues found that cochlear implantation helps military veterans with hearing loss. The authors evaluated outcomes among 50 veterans who underwent cochlear implantation between 2019 and 2021. Outcomes included the etiology of hearing loss, duration of hearing loss, preoperative testing scores, and type of implant and processor. The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam, postoperative AZBio Sentence Test, and Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant scores were measured at two, three, six, and 12 months after implantation. The researchers found that noise exposure and advancing age did not impact cochlear implantation outcomes in military veterans. Meanwhile, cochlear implantation outcomes among this population were partially dependent upon cognitive function. "U.S. military veterans with severe-to-profound hearing loss should undergo cochlear implantation to significantly improve speech recognition regardless of their history of noise exposure," Nelson said. In another study, Yu-Jin Lee, M.D., of Stanford University in California, and colleagues conducted a first-in-human trial in which peptide-dye conjugate (ALM-488) was administered intravenously for intraoperative real-time fluorescence visualization of nerves. In a phase 1/2 clinical trial, the authors administered ALM-488 in a minimally invasive manner to 27 patients via intravenous infusion prior to parotidectomy, neck dissection, or thyroidectomy. The researchers observed no serious adverse events associated with ALM-488 infusion. Using a visualization scoring system that was adapted from evaluating a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved magnetic resonance imaging contrast imaging agent, the researchers found that the addition of intraoperative fluorescence imaging after ALM-488 infusion led to significantly improved contrast enhancement, delineation of nerve branches, and increased length of the nerves measured. "ALM-488 has a significant potential impact on changing the paradigm and improving outcomes in any surgeries requiring identification of nerves," Lee said. Christopher Noel, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, and colleagues found that more than half of the head and neck cancer population report depressive symptoms; however, only a small number actually receive intervention. The authors performed a population-based study of all Ontario adults with a head and neck cancer diagnosis between January 2007 and October 2020. Of the 14,054 patients evaluated, the researchers found that 9,016 (64.2 percent) screened positive for depression. The rates of assessment were higher among those reporting depressive symptoms, though the absolute number receiving intervention remained low. Within 60 days of first reporting depressive symptoms, 223 (2.7 percent) received a psychiatric assessment, 646 (7.9 percent) received a social work referral, and 1,131 (13.9 percent) received a palliative care assessment. In addition, the investigators found that certain patient populations were less likely to receive an assessment, including the elderly, rural residents, and those without a prior psychiatric history. "This work leverages unique population-based data, with frequent symptom screening and access to all health care interventions, to fill a critical gap in head and neck cancer-related depression management," Noel said. "This study highlights the need to optimize depression screening care pathways, and further direct resources to those most in need." Aisha Sultan Aisha Sultan is home and family editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Aisha Sultan 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 book banners are back louder and more aggressive than ever. Adults raising alarms about young peoples access to certain books have existed for generations. More recently, the movement to censor books has gotten a big boost from the conservative, political right, with Republicans passing laws criminalizing educators for making certain books available to students. The number of book bans nationwide this school year is on track to top last years record total, according to the American Library Association. In Missouri, a new state law banning explicit sexual material defined as any visual depiction of sex acts or genitalia, with exceptions for artistic or scientific significance went into effect at the end of August and applies to both public and private schools. As reported by Blythe Bernhard, 97 books banned in schools across St. Louis this fall cover topics like anatomy, photography and the Holocaust. Back in the 80s and 90s, one of my favorite books was frequently challenged by parents and targeted for removal from schools. Bridge to Terabithia is ninth on the ALAs list of 100 books most commonly banned from schools between the years 1990-2000. The poignant story about childhood friendship was targeted because of swearing and references to witchcraft and atheism. That Newbery Award-winning book failed to make me into an atheist. I think back to the other inappropriate content I read as a tween and teen, along with many of my peers. The best-selling series Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews did not normalize incest for our generation. Stephen Kings novel It did not turn me into a homicidal clown. (Although it changed the way I looked at clowns forever.) In middle school I read Are you in the House Alone? by Richard Peck, a novel about a teenage girl stalked by a stranger who ends up raping her. It scared the hell out of me. Looking back, I may have been too young to read it. But it was on the bookshelf of my 7th grade language arts teachers classroom, and she encouraged my habit of reading four to five books a week. Im glad she fostered that independence and critical thinking. I read Mario Puzos novel, The Godfather, as a young teenager, which was filled with graphic sexual and violent content. It failed to make me join the mob. Im willing to bet some of the same parents clutching their pearls today about inappropriate books read a few of those, as well. I wonder if the same people so threatened by books that theyve shot up copies of them trying to intimidate librarians are the very same people crying about cancel culture? Several books riddled with gunshot holes were returned to a library in Montana. The incident led to all branches of the county libraries closing temporarily. In Oklahoma, the states top education official wants a high school English teachers certification revoked because she shared with her students a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Librarys banned books collection. In the land of the free, some books have become so scary and threatening, they must be removed from the shelves of libraries under the threat of imprisonment. My parents, who are conservative Muslims and raised me with very strict rules, never once monitored what I read. Not once. Imagine that. When I looked at the ALAs list of the 10 most challenged books in 2021, I discovered three that Ive read: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. I found each of them on my daughters bookshelf, among the many books she read in high school. None of them corrupted or harmed her in any way. In fact, reading them enriched her worldview. During the Civil War, St. Louis was filled with soldiers and the brothels they kept busy. Afterward, civic leaders tried to reduce prostitution and the spread of disease by putting it under police supervision. Borrowing ideas from Paris, the City Council adopted a "social evil ordinance" in March 1870. It required prostitutes and brothels to obtain operating licenses. Working girls had to submit to medical exams to screen for venereal disease. To treat infected prostitutes, the city built the Social Evil Hospital at Arsenal Street and Sublette Avenue, near the domed St. Louis County mental asylum (part of which stands today). It opened on Sept. 26, 1872. Many prostitutes, especially street walkers, never bothered to register, and the number of licenses fell by half during the second year of operation. Reformers, led by Unitarian Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot, protested that the ordinance didn't curb prostitution, gave police corrupting leverage and included no sanctions against men who patronized prostitutes. The ancient trade had many faces. Girls from the city's poorest neighborhoods worked the streets roughly where America's Center is now. High-class bordellos operated openly, including Kate Clarke's boarding house at Sixth Street near Chestnut Street. Clarke reputedly had been the wife or mistress during the Civil War of William Quantrill, notorious Rebel bushwacker, who was killed in 1865. The city formally ended its experiment in April 1874. The Social Evil Hospital became the Female Hospital, tending to venereal disease and unmarried expectant mothers. The city demolished the building in 1914. The site is part of Sublette Park. ST. LOUIS The St. Louis police unions often controversial business manager on Monday announced his exit from the organization. Jeff Roorda is leaving after nearly 12 years with the St. Louis Police Officers Association. He said Monday he is greatly concerned about what the future holds for local police officers, arguing the union is deeply divided. Apprehension about the leadership of the current president led this month to contentious elections for several positions on the organizations board, he wrote in a statement. The Association is truly at a crossroads right now. The association is the areas main police union and represents about 1,000 police officers, as well as civilian employees and St. Louis County prosecutors. Roorda, 57, gained notoriety during and after protests in Ferguson following the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown. He wore an I am Darren Wilson wristband at a meeting of a proposed civilian oversight board in support of the officer who killed Brown. He also wrote Ferghanistan: The War on Police, which featured exclusive, sympathetic interviews with Wilson. The unions president, Jay Schroeder, thanked Roorda for his time in a statement Monday afternoon. He said retired St. Louis detective Joe Steiger will take over as business manager on Oct. 3. Schroeder said Steiger has held many executive board positions with the union, including president. He brings vast experience and institutional knowledge to the position, Schroeder said. We look forward to a bright future with Joe. Though Roorda remained employed by the union, members of the St. Louis Police Officers Association opted not to automatically renew his contract in April because Roorda was running for a seat in the Missouri Senate representing Jefferson Countys District 22. Roorda came in second in the Aug. 2 primary, garnering 24% of the vote. In his statement, Roorda suggested his departure was political. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and her predecessor, Lyda Krewson, called on the police officers association to fire Roorda. As for me, I have no regrets, Roorda wrote. Im proud that I stood up for cops at a time when a false and divisive narrative threatened the future of the profession and the safety of our region. For that, I offer no apologies. The speaker of the Missouri House is urging the U.S. attorney in Kansas City to shut down Agape Boarding School, accusing the Christian school of what amounts to organized crime against children. Republican House Speaker Rob Vescovo sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore that was made available to reporters on Monday. In it, Vescovo said state efforts to close the school have failed, and the local prosecutor has failed to take action to protect the boys who attend the school in the southwestern Missouri town of Stockton. Right now in Missouri we are faced with the horrifying truth that a network of immoral individuals have engaged in what amounts to organized crime against children, Vescovo wrote. But he said the situation is more far-reaching and contains more deeply-rooted corruption than we are able to address solely at the state level. Vescovo, who represents a portion of Jefferson County, didnt immediately respond to an interview request to explain his concerns about corruption. A spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office in Kansas City declined to comment. Agapes attorney, John Schultz, called the allegations against the school 100% false. Theres no evidence to support closing down Agape, Schultz said. On Monday, Cedar County Judge David Munton rescinded an order allowing state Department of Social Services workers to remain on the premises of the school. Munton took the action after the Missouri attorney generals office told him of its intent to file a new petition seeking to close Agape, The Kansas City Star reported. DSS workers left the school shortly before 10 a.m. Monday, Schultz said. The state in its new petition seeks a different judge and a court order allowing state workers to remain at the school to make sure the students are safe. We have been steadfast in our fight to protect the students at Agape, and we will not stop until justice is done in this case, Chris Nuelle, a spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, said in an email. The new filing said Agapes director told the state that plans call for moving away from a boarding school facility starting Tuesday. Instead, the petition states, boys will live in five group homes on the property, with about nine boys in each house. The State will not allow Agape to escape accountability or continue to present an immediate health and safety concern to children through corporate shell games while employing the same people and methods that originally led the State to bring this action to protect children, the petition states. Agapes website calls it a boarding school for teenage boys exhibiting bad behavior or failing academics. Our mission is to turn around your troubled teen. Schmitts office first filed a motion to close Agape earlier this month, accusing the school of allowing someone on the state registry for child abuse and neglect to work there, and alleging systemic abuse. Agape officials told authorities that the person on the registry was fired, but a court filing from Schmitts office said the school presents an immediate health and safety concern for the children residing at Agape. Last year, Agapes longtime doctor, David Smock, was charged with child sex crimes, and five employees were charged with low-level abuse counts. Schmitts office contended that 22 workers should have been charged and with more serious crimes. But in Missouri, only the local prosecutor can file charges, and Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither has said no additional employees would be charged. Several lawsuits filed on behalf of former students also have named Agape and Circle of Hope, a Christian boarding school for girls in a neighboring county. Circle of Hope was shut down in 2020 and its husband-and-wife co-founders face a combined 99 charges that include child abuse and neglect and sex crimes. The abuse allegations at the two schools prompted lawmakers to pass a new law last year requiring stricter regulation of boarding schools. Trudy Busch Valentine, the Missouri Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, said last week the COVID-19 pandemic isnt over, breaking with President Joe Bidens stance. Valentines comments, in a Thursday interview with editorial board of The Kansas City Star, come as she faces a Republican opponent, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who has built a reputation fighting mask and vaccine mandates. I dont think its over. I think people are still dying, Valentine said. Valentine, a nurse and heiress to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, said keeping COVID-19 under control is important and emphasized the importance of talking about vaccination booster shots. The federal government has made boosters available to all adults, through the fall, but are waiting on more funding from Congress to purchase more doses. Hundreds of people continue to die each day from the virus. And we have to be respectful of each other enough that if we have COVID or if were around somebody whos susceptible to COVID or has an immune disorder that they feel that they need more protection, we just have to be respectful and wear a mask, she said. In the editorial board interview, Valentine defended mask mandates early in the pandemic, but she indicated they arent necessary now. The mandates were important in the beginning, she said, because people didnt realize how deadly it was and people would not have masked up without a mandate. Biden attracted criticism from some public health experts after his stark declaration the pandemic was over in a 60 Minutes interview broadcast last week. Some Republicans reacted with a certain amount of schadenfreude, saying Biden had acknowledged what many people effectively already believed. Earlier this week, a federal judge blocked the Biden administrations vaccination and mask mandates for Head Start facilities. We were right, Schmitt tweeted alongside a screenshot of an Atlantic article about the candidate with the headline, The Unmasked Avenger of Missouri. The White House moved quickly to qualify his remarks, saying the president has made clear that COVID-19 remains a problem. What he believes is we can acknowledge that, the massive amount of progress that we have made, said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday. Just think about where we were when this President walked into this administration. His comments complicated an effort to get additional funding to address COVID-19 as Congress negotiates the latest version of their government funding bill. The administration is pushing for more money to get more booster shots to help prevent the spread of the omicron variant of the virus. 2022 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. JEFFERSON CITY More states have extended the length of time new moms can access Medicaid, but not Missouri. A plan to extend Medicaid coverage for low-income moms to one year after pregnancy currently the cutoff is 60 days died in the Missouri Senate this year due to Republican infighting. In January, lawmakers plan to restart debate on the topic, which could take on new significance now that nearly all abortions are outlawed in Missouri after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Two states that have passed near-total abortion bans Indiana and West Virginia got the go-ahead from the federal government this month to extend coverage to one year, Stateline recently reported. The outlet said 23 other states and Washington, D.C., had already taken the action, with eight more waiting on federal approval. If were going to be in a situation where the government is mandating pregnancy, then as public policymakers, we need to really do what we can to protect people and keep women alive, said state Rep. Tracy McCreery, D-Olivette, who is running for state Senate in St. Louis Countys 24th Senate District this year. Term-limited state Sen. Jill Schupp, D-Creve Coeur, whom McCreery is trying to replace, was among lawmakers to file legislation for the expanded coverage. McCreery called the legislation a priority if she wins her race against Dr. George Hruza, a Republican, on Nov. 8. Hruza said Friday he would also be in favor of extending Medicaid coverage for new mothers to 12 months. Sen. Elaine Gannon, R-De Soto, attempted to shepherd the extension through the Missouri Senate this year. Gannon was traveling on Friday, her office said. Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder, R-Sikeston, said she also supported the extension and planned to help Gannon with the legislation next year. Extending their coverage for that short amount of time saves lives and money, Thompson Rehder said, noting Missouris high maternal mortality and morbidity rates. A recent report released by the Department of Health and Senior Services found an average of 61 women died each year between 2017 and 2019 while they were pregnant or within a year of their pregnancies. Three out of every four pregnancy-related deaths were preventable, the report said. The risk of pregnancy-related death for Black women was more than three times as high as the risk for white women, the report found. The state also tracked when women were dying, finding that the greatest proportion of pregnancy-related deaths occurred between 43 days and one year after pregnancy meaning many deaths occurred after the states 60-day cutoff for Medicaid coverage. This is one of those areas where you help a little on the front end and reap long-term benefits, Thompson Rehder said. Sam Lee, lobbyist for the anti-abortion Campaign Life Missouri, said he also supported the extension for new moms. Extending from 60 days to one year will really help a lot of women who have ongoing medical problems after their baby is born, he said, adding the medical problems could range from postpartum depression to physical problems following childbirth. Were committed to get it passed, Lee said. ST. LOUIS The staffing crisis at the Childrens Division, the state agency thats supposed to support foster children and their parents in hopes of reunifying families in crisis, has gotten so severe in Kansas City and St. Louis that the director called on volunteers from other jurisdictions and job specialties to parachute in. We have only a fraction of the people we need to do our required investigations in the cities, and we have desperate need in every other program in the metro areas as well, Childrens Division Director Darrell Missey wrote in an email to staff early this month. Missey promised overtime, travel pay and lodging, but Missouris rural areas, where the number of children entering the foster care system has dramatically increased in the past decade, are also struggling. A few days after his Sept. 2 note, there was reluctance from at least one supervisor to help answer the call. I completely understand that this creates a staffing issue in the area from which the volunteer comes, but that is decidedly less severe in most of the state than in St. Louis and Kansas City where we have a daunting number of overdue reports and a severe staffing shortage, Missey wrote in a follow-up note to staff. This was in full evidence last week, when a reporter sat in on family court hearings in the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County. Judges were frustrated that status reports, due days before the hearings so interested parties can make informed decisions, were not filed on time by the Childrens Division. At one point in the county, Judge Jason Dodson told Maudi Gomez, a Childrens Division attorney: Weve got to get our hearing going. This is a problem. The foster childs biological father, calling in from out of state, was among the parties waiting. Hed attended hearings, at least by phone, but he hadnt been in touch with a caseworker. I have no information, he testified, adding that he wanted to be in his sons life. I am in the dark. During a hearing in the city, Judge Steven Ohmer expressed frustration with Kevin Cordia, a Childrens Division attorney who indicated hed also received the reports late from his team. Theres just no excuse for this, Ohmer said from the bench about missing paperwork. Adding to the delays in progress, uninformed Childrens Division supervisors are often filling in to testify on behalf of absent caseworkers who are supposed to regularly meet with foster children and work with their parents. Parents must complete a lot of programs to bounce back from being accused of abuse or neglect. Testimony signaled that communication on both fronts with the parents and children is often lacking. Testimony also signaled that foster children are lingering in the system without good plans in place. Some have been split up from siblings, without regular visits. And some foster parents arent getting the help they need. In one case, a 12-year-old boy with all of his belongings was dumped off in August at the Childrens Division downtown office in the Wainwright State Office Building. There had been hope that his aunt would adopt him after being his foster parent about two years. We are missing outreach opportunities to provide support in the home setting, testified Cari Grant, a pediatrician and volunteer advocate for the boy. After the placement fell apart, Childrens Division lined up an emergency placement that didnt last. The boy landed at SSM Health DePaul Hospital for about a month before recently being transferred to Faith Foundation Childrens Home in southeast Missouri. This kid has so many things going on, said Judge Barbara Peebles, as she ordered more regularly scheduled meetings about the case. Its going to be difficult. The boys mother was dead; his father possibly homeless. Eric Jones, a Childrens Division case manager, recently handled the case. He wasnt part of the court hearing. Childrens Division testified the day before in a different case that Jones was out sick. Asked for clarification on his status at the Wainwright building, supervisor Monica Witherspoon wouldnt comment to a reporter without an attorney present. Later in court, Gomez said it was a personnel matter. Appeal to Parson Child protection hearings like these are open to the public with some restrictions regarding what the judge considers to be in the best interest of the child. Gomez argued to limit what a reporter could see. Meanwhile, Susan Block, an attorney and former St. Louis County family court administrative judge, seized on the opportunity to bring more awareness. In open court, she called on Gov. Mike Parson to launch a special legislative session. We need in the state of Missouri money for Childrens Division, funding for mental health services of all kinds, she said. We are not doing the best we can for the children of our state. Block was in court representing a Webster Groves family unable to connect their 16-year-old adopted daughter with the resources she needs. They said in an interview that she was kicked out of two privately funded residential treatment homes. They said she had a tendency to run away and have run-ins with law enforcement. They said she was suicidal and had spent several months in the past year living at St. Louis Childrens Hospital. Out of options, the parents said they abandoned their daughter at the hospital in March in hopes she would get better access to help through the state. Her stay in Childrens Division custody has been rocky. She was eventually placed at Perimeter Behavioral Health in Springfield. Her parents said Perimeter eventually had her taken back to St. Louis, dropped off at the Wainwright building. Perimeter didnt respond to a request for comment. The 16-year-old girl is back at Childrens Hospital again. For her well-being, shes staying in a room without a bed, according to testimony in her child protection hearing last week. Parties in the case were notified that a new potential home placement had been found in Joplin, 285 miles away. It was at an ISL, or individualized supported living location, though Childrens Division representatives at the hearing didnt immediately know what that meant. They couldnt confirm basic information about the case, such as whether the Department of Mental Health was involved. Its a very new situation for me, testified Witherspoon, the Childrens Division supervisor, vowing: I am going to get clarification on all of these things. The parents looked beaten down. Going from a hospital room without a bed to living in Joplin and attending high school there seemed like a big leap, even if their daughter did have constant supervision in the new home placement. They were also concerned their daughter gained a significant amount of weight. Hopefully, we can break this cycle ... so she can do the work of functioning, testified the mother. We need better places that are more appropriate with the type of mental illnesses we are working with, testified the father. The worst I have ever seen Earlier this month, there was no time to talk about prevention, care and programing for children and families in crisis. Missey, the ninth director of the Childrens Division in about a decade and arguably one of the better hires, called on his statewide staff to help meet the basic needs of the beleaguered agency in St. Louis and Kansas City. I understand the hardship and sacrifice involved in adding anything to your already overloaded schedules, but we need everyone to pull together to get through the current emergency, Missey, a former family court judge in Jefferson County, told staff by email. I am hopeful that we will get the help we need in the next legislative session, and that we will be able to overcome our current struggle. There have always been turnover struggles in this field, said Trish Harrison, 55, a former St. Louis University Law School professor currently representing the interests of foster children in the city. Right now, she said after court last week, it is the worst I have ever seen. JEFFERSON CITY A St. Louis County Democrat is targeting her GOP opponents donations to radical, anti-choice politicians in a television ad that began airing over the weekend. State Rep. Tracy McCreery, an Olivette Democrat running for the 24th Senate District against Dr. George Hruza of Huntleigh, criticized tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions the Republican has made over the years. In an email to supporters, McCreerys campaign singled out $1,000 Hruza gave to the campaign of former U.S. Rep. Todd Akin after his comments on rape in 2012. The then-U.S. Senate candidate claimed in August 2012 that female bodies could shut down a pregnancy if a woman had suffered a legitimate rape. With Hruzas support, these same politicians passed a near-total ban on abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, McCreery said in the 30-second ad, referring to Missouris current abortion law. I trust women to make their own health care decisions. Hruzas campaign called McCreerys ad misleading. George has never agreed with Todd Akins position on abortion, said Frank Catanzaro, spokesman for Hruzas campaign. Akin died in October after a yearslong battle with cancer, his son said at the time. Hruza has campaigned as more of a moderate in the competitive Senate district, which stretches from Maryland Heights south to Fenton and Sunset Hills. He supports (abortion) exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and the health of the mother, Catanzaro said. George Hruza as a doctor has treated thousands of women and has always been a strong advocate for womens health. In the Senate, Dr. Hruza will work for reforms to our foster care and adoption system, affordable birth control, protecting pregnant women from workplace discrimination, supporting family leave, and expanding access to post-partum care for new mothers, Catanzaro said. Catanzaro went on to call McCreerys ad shameful and said McCreery had worked for politicians and groups that have supported defunding the police and abortions without restrictions. If anyone is extreme, its Tracy McCreery, Catanzaro said. Hruza has made thousands of dollars in political contributions since 2009, according to the FEC, with money flowing to well-known Missouri Republicans such as U.S. Sens. Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley, as well as U.S. Reps. Ann Wagner and Vicky Hartzler. Hruza also gave $3,000 in 2020 to Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican who signed Missouris near-total abortion ban in 2019. He has also supported Democrats to a lesser extent, writing checks to politicians such as U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier of Washington, records show. With the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June, Missouri has since outlawed all abortions except in medical emergencies. District tilts pro-choice McCreerys ad followed a poll released earlier this month signaling that voters in the 24th are more in sync with Democrats than Republicans on the issue of abortion. The poll, released Sept. 17 by Missouri Scout and the Remington Research Group, found 53% of respondents in the state Senate district described themselves as pro-choice versus 38% who said they were pro-life. The poll showed McCreery with 50% support in the poll, Hruza with 42% and Libertarian LaDonna Higgins with 1%. Seven percent of voters were undecided. Pollsters surveyed 441 likely voters. The poll showed respondents favored Democrats to handle education issues by a 50%-43% margin, with 7% undecided. On crime, respondents narrowly favored Republicans, with 45% of respondents saying Republicans do the best job on crime and 41% backing Democrats. Fourteen percent of respondents were undecided on the crime question. The advantage on crime for Republicans fell within the polls 4.8% margin of error. Half of Missouris 34 state Senate seats are up for grabs in the Nov. 8 election, but the race for the 24th in St. Louis County is considered the most competitive contest. Sen. Jill Schupp, D-Creve Coeur, flipped the district from Republican control in 2014. She won reelection easily in 2018 and is now term-limited. A panel of appellate judges drew new state Senate districts this year to reflect population shifts following the 2020 U.S. Census. While the new 24th District lines still favor Democrats, the partys advantage shrank with the new boundaries. As President Joe Bidens approval ratings suffered over the summer, Republicans said they would target the district. If the GOP flips the 24th, and no other seats change parties on Nov. 8, Democrats would hold only nine seats in the Senate while Republicans would expand their two-thirds majority to 25 seats. MOBILE, Ala. (AP) Alabama lawmakers may consider harsher penalties for traffickers and distributors of illicit fentanyl next year, but some say a comprehensive approach should also include more health services and helping drug users reduce overdoses. Republicans Reps. Matt Simpson of Daphne and Chris Pringle of Mobile tell Al.com they plan bills next year to increase penalties for distributing the deadly drug that accounted for 66% of all U.S. overdose deaths in 2021. Under Simpsons proposal, prison sentences would increase based on the weight of fentanyl distributed in Alabama. Similar laws exist in other states, but Simpsons proposal would be among the harshest. Traffickers caught with more than 8 grams of fentanyl could face a life sentence under his plan. This is not the run-of-the-mill old-time drugs that there used to be, Simpson said. Its not the pot of the 70s or the cocaine of the 80s. I hate to say it, but its not the meth of the early 2000s. Its highly potent and deadly. Around Birmingham in Jefferson County, health officials report a 118% jump in fentanyl-related deaths from 2019 to 2022, though this year still has more than three months remaining. Pringles legislation, which he has pitched in previous sessions, allows a felony manslaughter charge against someone who is not a licensed pharmacist and who sells an illicit pill that causes death. Alabama State House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, a Huntsville Democrat, said he agrees with Simpson that lawmakers, must do everything possible to stop the illegal sale of illicit fentanyl. But he told the news outlet lawmakers must also be smart about how we design tough-as-nails sentencing guidelines that act as real deterrents to those who would traffic in these dangerous drugs. He said he backs increased penalties, but wants increased addiction and mental health treatment. Others fear stiffer sentences will stack more inmates in overcrowded Alabama prisons, arguing that there's no proof longer sentences deter drug dealing. There is no evidence that mandatory minimums deter the illegal sale of fentanyl and other narcotics, and it will most certainly not prevent any new deaths from their use, said JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. This will only make our prison challenges worse. Timothy Dickinson, a University of Alabama criminology professor, said punitive measures won't do much to decrease fentanyl supplies. He said people who ingest fentanyl often do so unintentionally and do not know the drugs they are taking are laced with the substance. He said many people selling drugs may not know either. If the users and sellers do not know fentanyl is in their drugs, then it stands to reason that harsher penalties for fentanyl trafficking will not impact their decisions to buy and sell the drug, Dickinson said. Dickinson and others want to ensure that naloxone, under the brand name Narcan, is freely available. Naloxone is a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, quickly restoring normal breathing to a person if it has slowed or stopped due to the drug use. The Jefferson County Health Department is distributing naloxone and fentanyl test strips to anyone who requests them statewide, including potential drug users. Fentanyl test strips, long outlawed and considered drug paraphernalia, were decriminalized by Alabama lawmakers this spring. The strips, which the Jefferson County Health Department offers for $1 each, can identify the presence of fentanyl. Proponents believe test strips can allow drug users to reduce the risks of overdose. But Virginia Guy, director of the Drug Education Council in Mobile, said education is needed in how to properly use fentanyl test strips. Do you sit there with the dealer and say, Let me test this. I dont want fentanyl in it? Guy said. I dont know what you do. Forever chemicals are everywhere. The thousands of chemicals in the group known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are found in cookware, packaging, cosmetics, clothing, carpet, electronics, firefighting foam and many other products. The chemicals, which do not naturally break down, are so widespread that theyre found in the blood of 97% of Americans. Research shows that some PFAS compounds may decrease fertility, cause metabolic disorders, damage the immune system and increase the risk of cancer. While states await regulations from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, rising awareness in recent years has prompted more than two dozen states to take the initiative to protect their residents health, in many cases through bipartisan legislation. Some have banned the use of PFAS in certain consumer products. Others have issued stronger water quality standards or empowered state agencies to speed up regulations. Many are pursuing cleanup and remediation efforts, with states suing polluters for compensation ranging from tens of millions to nearly a billion dollars. And as more agencies and lawmakers become interested and begin testing for PFAS, experts say, more changes will come. The interest and action is just increasing, said Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States, an alliance of environmental health groups focused on toxic chemicals. More governmental bodies are looking and finding PFAS in water, sludge and the air. Its burgeoning, and I absolutely anticipate its going to be all over 2023 policy sessions. Dolls group has tracked 203 bills proposed in 31 states related to PFAS issues. I have heard from legislators that testing has been a driving force for them, said Mara Herman, environmental health manager with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a forum for state lawmakers. Its being found in so many places, its not really an urban issue or a rural issue. Still, the patchwork of laws and lawsuits remains uneven, and advocates say Americans need federal action to hold multinational companies accountable for past contamination, clean the waterways and systems now infected and impose sweeping bans on putting PFAS in new products. State by state is just absolutely ridiculous, said Laurene Allen, co-founder of Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, a New Hampshire group that has pushed the state to act on PFAS. The progress you have shouldnt be determined by your ZIP code. The EPA has proposed a rule to regulate two common PFAS chemicals under the Superfund law, but the agency hasnt yet solicited public comment, which is required before the rule can go into effect. Industry advocates, meanwhile, are lobbying on the federal level and in statehouses, arguing that attempts to regulate PFAS broadly could end up banning harmless chemicals that are crucial for important products and industries. PFAS compounds were long seen as a chemistry miracle due to properties that made them nonstick, stain-repellent, waterproof or fire-resistant. All PFAS are not the same, and they should not be regulated the same way, the American Chemistry Council said in a statement sent by Tom Flanagin, senior director of product communications. The most problematic pieces of legislation include inappropriate and overly broad definitions of PFAS that pull in many potentially unintended substances and products. Flanagins email cited a category of fluoropolymers used in renewable energy, health care, electronics and other industries as critical to many products while carrying a low safety risk. PFAS bans Lawmakers in several states point to Maines 2021 passage of a law banning PFAS in all new products as a landmark moment. The measure, which will take effect in 2030, bans any intentionally added PFAS, but allows for exceptions in products that are essential for health, safety or the functioning of society and dont yet have a PFAS-free alternative. I was really concerned when I learned that PFAS is in virtually everything, said state Rep. Lori Gramlich, the Democrat who sponsored the ban. As I became more aware of how pervasive this problem was, I thought, Weve got to do something. Few, if any states, have passed a PFAS ban as sweeping as Maines, but many have enacted laws targeting PFAS in food packaging, cosmetics, firefighting foam or textiles. Colorado passed a law earlier this year covering many products, while also ending its use in oil and gas production. State Rep. Mary Bradfield, a Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said she was moved to act as three water districts in her community struggled with PFAS contamination from nearby Peterson Air Force Base. PFAS chemicals are showing up in alarming amounts, Bradfield said. In certain concentrations, it can be very detrimental to health. My bill targets those products where there is a viable substitution for PFAS. Bradfield said other lawmakers wanted to pursue an economy-wide ban as broad as Maines, but she felt the targeted approach which includes carpets and rugs, food packaging and childrens products was more achievable. In Hawaii, legislators passed a ban on PFAS in food packaging and firefighting foam earlier this year. State Rep. Nicole Lowen, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said it was backed by research that showed alternative products already exist on the market, adding that the writing is on the wall for other PFAS categories. We felt like that would be the politically easiest thing to move forward, she said. From everything Ive learned, unless theres some need that cannot be replaced by anything else we have, these need to be phased out from use, period. Meanwhile, California passed laws this year to ban PFAS in cosmetics and textiles, while requiring companies to report data on other products containing PFAS. Agency action Some lawmakers have focused their efforts on empowering state regulators, rather than targeting specific products. In Washington, legislators passed a law earlier this year that will allow the state Department of Ecology to issue PFAS regulations within three years, instead of the 2030 timeline under the previous regulatory structure. That agency, which will have the authority to issue bans on PFAS in certain products, is expected to act by 2025, giving Washington the fastest timeline in the nation for phasing out PFAS. Its the governments job to protect people, said state Rep. Liz Berry, a Democrat who sponsored the bill. (The agency) has done a lot of the homework already. Its just a matter of pulling the trigger. In some states, agency officials have led the response to PFAS contamination. In Michigan, for example, regulators crafted rules over the past several years for levels of some PFAS compounds in drinking water, groundwater and surface water. The state also brought together seven state agencies to form the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, known as MPART, which serves as a coordinating group for testing, cleanup and public education efforts. The state has conducted extensive testing to identify contaminated sites. The biggest threat to public health has been around water quality, said Abigail Hendershott, MPARTs executive director. If weve got a source [of contamination], were going to find it in groundwater, so thats the easiest way to define and start those compliance actions. Now that it has a better handle on testing and regulating water, the state may turn its attention to consumer products, she said. Cleaning up Banning products and setting regulations may help prevent future contamination. But states still have much work ahead to address the forever chemicals found in their water, soil and residents. Earlier this year, Florida legislators passed a bill requiring the states Department of Environmental Protection to establish rules by 2025 for target cleanup levels of PFAS if the EPA has not set a national standard by then. State Rep. Toby Overdorf, a Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said his community in Stuart, Florida, has had wells contaminated by PFAS. He noted the massive expense to clean up contaminated water systems. There will be state, federal and local funding that will need to come into play to address the problem, he said. We are going to be educating municipalities and letting them know they need to develop a plan to get a hold of this so they can deliver clean drinking water. New Hampshire set aside $25 million earlier this year to bolster a loan fund for PFAS remediation of public water systems and wastewater facilities. And lawmakers in Vermont gave residents the right to sue chemical companies for medical monitoring costs if theyve been exposed to PFAS. Meanwhile, 15 state attorneys general separately have sued companies alleged to be responsible for PFAS contamination, seeking damages for the harm caused by the pollution. Minnesota settled with 3M Company, which produced nonstick chemicals that polluted groundwater in the Twin Cities area, for $850 million in 2018. Delaware also reached a settlement, but the other lawsuits are still ongoing. It costs tens of millions of dollars to remediate PFAS from water and sewer facilities, said Jon Groveman, policy and water program director at the research and advocacy group Vermont Natural Resources Council. Its either going to come from taxpayers or the citizens who pay water and sewer bills. AGs are saying, No, thats not fair. Vermont recently passed a law creating a legal cause of action against manufacturers of hazardous materials who cause harm, without needing to prove negligence. Other states seeking to sue PFAS manufacturers may pursue similar legislation, Groveman said. But some industry leaders think its unfair to hold PFAS manufacturers accountable for every instance of contamination. Its not the person who manufactured it who caused the spill or leak, its the person on whose property the leak occurred, said Scott Manley, executive vice president of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, a pro-business lobbying association. The group opposes a lawsuit brought by Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul, both Democrats, seeking nearly $1 billion from 18 companies state leaders say failed to protect the public. Manley noted that his group has supported efforts to create a grant funding program to help local governments deal with PFAS hotspots. But in some states, leaders would rather see polluters than taxpayers pay for cleanup. These chemicals are very difficult to clean up, and its very expensive, said Minnesota state Rep. Ami Wazlawik, a Democrat who sponsored a bill that banned PFAS in food packaging. The taxpayers of Minnesota are not responsible for putting these chemicals there. 2022 The Pew Charitable Trusts. Visit at stateline.org. The House of Representatives last week overwhelmingly approved a $60 million funding bill to support local police departments across the country. It should be no surprise to St. Louisans that among the opposing votes was Rep. Cori Bush, who tried hard to stretch credulity about rampant police murders to argue that this funding would not correct but might actually encourage police abuses. Bush has long held that the solution is to defund the police, a motto she embraces proudly no matter how wrong it is and how many Democrats, including President Joe Biden, denounce it and the harm shes doing to the Democratic brand. Bush was one of only nine Democrats who joined 55 Republicans in opposing the Invest to Protect Act. The Senate has already passed a similar version of the bill. In most cases where candidates face reelection bids in November, an anti-police stand might seem like a surefire way to be voted out of a job, but St. Louisans seem to have disengaged when it comes to Bushs performance, so her election consequences are likely to be nil. Around the country, this is going to send a very clear signal that Democrats support law enforcement, the bills sponsor, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-New Jersey, stated. Bush countered: Its a matter of unchecked, unmonitored money. This is money for training? Well, we have not seen this training. After all the protests, after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2021 saw the most police murders since police murders have been recorded. Where she gets her data on police murders is unclear. If she means police-involved shooting deaths, including when suspects turn their weapons on officers, 2021 was in fact the deadliest year. As far as training is concerned, the goal should be to boost funding for more training, not to oppose it because lawmakers like Bush dont see an instantaneous decline in deaths at a time when violent criminality is on the rise. Since 2020, the St. Louis police department has taken advantage of diverted funding to establish civilian crisis-intervention teams that are supposed to assist police in defusing tense standoffs, especially when the person resisting arrest is experiencing a mental-health crisis. Thats clearly a training work in progress, as made clear by a standoff early in September when a Sudanese immigrant, Bade Ali Jaber, wielded a knife when St. Louis police arrived to serve him with multiple felony arrest warrants. Police repeatedly summoned a crisis intervention team but no one responded during the hours-long standoff. Could police have defused the situation without shooting Jaber to death? Absolutely. Could the crisis-intervention teams have responded when called in order to perform the very task for which they exist? Of course. Bushs response, blind to the realities on the ground, does nothing to help police improve their performance. But it certainly will help Republicans improve theirs in November. Forecasters say Tropical Storm Ian has strengthened into a hurricane as it moves closer to Cuba on a track expected to take it to Florida in the coming days. Authorities in Cuba have suspended classes in Pinar del Rio province and say they will begin evacuations Monday as Ian is forecast to strengthen before reaching the western part of the island on its way to Florida. A hurricane warning was in effect for Grand Cayman and the Cuban provinces of Isla de Juventud, Pinar del Rio and Artemisa. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ian should reach the far-western part of Cuba late Monday or early Tuesday, hitting near the countrys most famed tobacco fields. It could become a major hurricane late Monday. In 2020, because of public opposition, Japan canceled plans to install two Aegis Ashore ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) systems. The decision to buy and install the two Aegis Ashore in two existing military bases was made at the end of 2017. This decision was encouraged by the fact that in 2016 the first Aegis Ashore system became operational in Romania. The second one, in Poland, enters service in 2022. Unfortunately, Japan is not like Romania and Poland, two nations that suffered decades of brutal Russian occupation. Japan prospered greatly under the protection of the American military after World War II and developed some bad habits when it came to defense matters. What killed the Aegis project were several of those bad habits. First, as defense officials were working out the details they soon found they had underestimated the cost of preparing the two Aegis Ashore sites. That cost was about 25 percent higher than estimated. Costs threatened to increase even more when civilians living near the two Aegis base areas discovered that there were side-effects from the use of Aegis missiles. Planners made some adjustments to the area Aegis would occupy but that was not enough to assure local civilians that the booster portion of the two-stage SM missile would never fall in or near a populated area. In one Aegis Ashore site there were civilian concerns about living too close to the AESA radar Aegis uses to detect and track incoming missiles. Once the Japanese media and local politicians get hold of issues like this, they stay active until the threat goes away. North Korean and Chinese missiles are seen as less of a threat. In Poland and Romania, Russia is always seen as the primary threat and the side effects of using Aegis are not an issue. The Japanese solution to the problem was to order two 20,000-ton AA (Aegis Ashore) ships whose main purpose was to the carry the Aegis Ashore system and spend most of its time offshore, moving slowly to maintain stability for firing purposes while being less vulnerable targets for Chinese and North Korean armed UAVs, ballistic missiles and warships. Their crews of 110 are just large enough to maintain the ship and operate the Aegis Ashore and missiles. There would probably be at least two crews that would alternately serve on the AA ship. Japan believes it can have these novel missile defense ships in service by 2028. As one of the world's major commercial ship builders, Japan can build the ships quickly and inexpensively. The only drawback with the AA ships is that they would periodically be out of service because of the need to return to port for maintenance or, randomly, to avoid a major storm. The two Aegis Ashore systems were originally ordered because two of them can protect all of Japan. When one of the AA Ships is in port, Japan sends several of its Aegis destroyers to maintain the ABM defense. Before the AA ships were approved, Japan considered a more expensive solution of building more Aegis equipped destroyers. This is not as effective as Aegis Ashore which, as a land base, is cheaper to maintain and always available to defend against North Korean or Chinese ballistic missiles. Ships have crews and ships spend only about a third of their time at sea. The AA Ships would spend about 90 percent of their time at sea. North Korea remains the primary threat to Japan. North Korea's unwillingness to get rid of its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs persists. As a result, Japan is still moving ahead to expand its ballistic missile defenses. Most of these will still be based on the Aegis system, which is normally installed on large (8,000 tons and up) warships. Japan has eight Maya and Kongo class Aegis anti-missile system destroyers and is considering ordering two more Kongos, in addition to the AA Ships. The Maya class destroyers are improved versions of the earlier Atago class destroyers. The Mayas also borrow much from the first four Japanese Aegis-ABM ships, the 9,500-ton Kongos, which were built during the 1990s and modeled on the American Burke class Aegis destroyers. The Kongos have 90 VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells for anti-aircraft/missile missiles as well as ASROC anti-submarine rockets (that carry an anti-submarine torpedo to, in effect, extend the range of the torpedo by 22 kilometers). Japanese Burke type destroyers also carry a five-inch gun and eight Japanese designed anti-ship missiles (similar to the American Harpoon). The Maya class has 96 VLS cells (as do Atagos) as well as more advanced electronics that enable the Mayas to link with the U.S. Navy CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability) that allows real-time sharing of sensor and other data in real-time between other CEC equipped ships and even shore-based systems like Aegis Ashore. The two land-based Aegis Ashore anti-missile systems were not expected to be in service until 2024. At that point, Japan would have eight Aegis anti-missile systems and could have two more Aegis anti-missile destroyers by 2024 by upgrading the Aegis systems on two of the older destroyers. That upgrade is more likely now that Aegis Ashore has been canceled. It appears that North Korea will continue to be a threat and how much more of a ballistic missile threat China becomes is still considered less of a problem. China has a long history of threatening but not acting. North Korea has demonstrated an ability to attack without warning and did so in 2010. North Korea has always been less cooperative than China although the Chinese are still a threat. What prompted the original Aegis Ashore order was the Japanese decision, in 2017, that it did not need the more expensive THAAD anti-missile system when it realized that two land-based Aegis systems on the main island could do the same job at less cost. That plus the Aegis equipped destroyers armed with the SM-3A anti-missile missile would enable those two land-based Aegis systems to protect all three of the home islands. In addition, Japan has 24 Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries that can also fire the PAC-3 anti-missile missile. The PAC-3 has one drawback; it only has an effective range of 30 kilometers against incoming missiles. The Aegis SM-3 anti-missile missile has a range of from 700 kilometers (older Block 1) to more than three times that for the later Block II models. This is why two Aegis land-based systems can protect most of Japan (the main island). The Patriot PAC-3 provides local defense for key targets (the capital and major military bases). The first (Romanian) Aegis Ashore system appears to be as reliable as the original ship-based systems. This was expected because the East European Aegis Ashore system had never been to sea. In early 2014 the only land-based Aegis system in existence (in New Jersey) was taken apart, packed into sixty 60 18.2-meter (40 foot) shipping containers and sent to Romania where it was put back together and in 2015 was an operational anti-missile system by early 2016. After that two more ground-based Aegis systems were ordered; one in Poland and one in Hawaii (for testing and development). All three, including new Aegis components for two of them and needed missiles (24 per location) and launching hardware for all of them came out costing $767 million each. Then came the Japanese Aegis Ashore order, which was initially estimated to cost over two billion dollars for each system. Defense projects have always been more expensive in Japan because of local laws (no weapons exports) and customs (creating the maximum number of jobs with government projects). The U.S. has long sought to put anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe to protect against ballistic missile attacks from Iran. Russia has opposed this and sees it as a subterfuge to weaken the effect of Russian ballistic missiles attacking European targets. Most Europeans dont know what to make of that, but East European countries (like Romania and Poland) that spent 1945-89 as involuntary Russian vassal (or satellite) states, do see a need for protection from Russian missiles and Russian aggression and domination in general. Romanians and Poles considered Russian anger over Aegis Ashore as a benefit, not a problem. It is different in East Asia where Japanese atrocities during World War II are still remembered. Japan, in turn, considers itself a victim of World War II and still insists it was trying to help its neighbors. The neighbors disagree and two of them, North Korea and China, openly threaten Japan with more nuclear attacks. Meanwhile, Aegis remains one of the most effective missile defense systems available. Aegis has achieved an 83 percent success rate during live test firings. As a result, many countries want Aegis ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) ships for protection from local ballistic missile threats. The Aegis system was designed to operate aboard warships. These are usually cruisers and destroyers that have been equipped with the special software that enables the Aegis radar system to detect and track incoming ballistic missiles. Currently, the U.S. Navy has about 40 ships with the Aegis anti-missile system. There are over 100 American and foreign warships equipped with Aegis, but less than half of them had the software mods and anti-missile missiles that enable them to shoot down ballistic missiles and low-orbit satellites. Converting an Aegis ship to Aegis ABM costs about $30 million, mainly for new software and a few new hardware items. This is seen as a safe investment and the U.S. expects to see most Aegis equipped ships to be upgraded to ABM versions in the 2020s. To knock down ballistic missiles Aegis uses two similar models of the U.S. Navy Standard anti-aircraft missile, in addition to a modified version of the Aegis radar system, which can now track incoming ballistic missiles. The anti-missile missile is the RIM-161A, also known as the Standard Missile 3 (or SM-3). It has a range of over 500 kilometers and max altitude of over 160 kilometers. The Standard 3 is based on the anti-missile version of the Standard 2 (SM-2 Block IV). This SM-2 missile turned out to be effective against ballistic missile warheads that are closer to their target, as is its replacement, the SM-6. One test saw a SM-2 Block IV missile destroy a warhead that was only 19 kilometers up. An SM-3 missile can destroy a warhead that is more than 200 kilometers up. But the SM-3 is only good for anti-missile work, while the SM-2 Block IV and SM-6 can be used against both ballistic missiles and aircraft. The SM-2 Block IV also costs less than half what a SM-3 costs. SM-3 is not being replaced but instead is constantly upgraded. The SM-3 has four stages. The first two boost the interceptor out of the atmosphere. The third stage fires twice to boost the interceptor farther beyond the earth's atmosphere. Prior to each motor firing, it takes a GPS reading to correct the course for approaching the target. The fourth stage is the nine kg (20 pound) LEAP kill vehicle, which uses infrared sensors to close on the target and ram it. In September Ukrainian forces launched a massive offensive against Russian forces in northeast Ukraine initially and later in eastern and southern Ukraine. As of mid-September, over 8,000 square kilometers was cleared of Russian troops. As a bonus, most of the fleeing Russian troops left behind their armored vehicles. The Russians wanted to flee as quickly as possible and that was best done using cars, trucks and busses. These troops left behind hundreds of undamaged armored vehicles, some of them the latest model tanks with few miles on them. While Ukraine had received thousands of modern anti-tank weapons and towed artillery from NATO nations, but few armored vehicles. The departing Russians solved that problem, greatly expanding Ukraines stocks of tanks, self-propelled artillery and mobile anti-aircraft systems. The Ukrainians also captured some of the latest Russian mobile EW (Electronic Warfare) systems. Some of the more advanced Russians systems, that NATO has little first had information about, will be sent to Poland where NATO experts can examine it. This is how Ukraine encourages NATO nations to send more aid. NATO nations have learned a lot about how Russian fights a war against a well-equipped (near-peer) opponent and this knowledge has been extremely valuable. While no NATO troops are allowed in Ukraine, as many as 20,000 foreign volunteers have served in Ukraine. Many of these are expatriate Ukrainians or the children of older expatriates. But thousands of the volunteers are former NATO troops, some of them experts in various technical fields. These men had to learn Ukrainian (which is very similar to Russian) and were used mainly to train Ukrainian volunteers. A large Ukrainian vocabulary is not needed for this. Some of those foreign volunteers are former American Special Forces, some of whom served in Ukraine after 2014, when Ukraine requested that kind of assistance from NATO. Ukraine requested a lot of top-attack ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) because of a flaw in all Russian tanks built since the 1960s. Between 2015 and 2021 the Ukrainians tested a lot of portable anti-tank weapons and found that Western models, like Javelin, Carl Gustav and several others were ideal for mobile infantry (on foot after riding to the battle zone in civilian vehicles) who destroyed tanks and lighter armored vehicles as the Russians advanced into Ukraine. In the months before the Russian 2022 invasion the Ukrainian military described Russian tactics to NATO without going into detail about how they would deal with it. Anyone paying attention to what was going on in Donbas after 2015 could have figured out what the Ukrainians were planning to do. NATO countries had supplied their latest anti-tank weapons for the Donbas tests, which confirmed that Russian tanks had a fatal design flaw from their use of a main-battery autoloader, which led to the total destruction of Russian tanks hit by a top-attack ATGM. None of the Russian ATGMs used top-attack because of the additional cost and that fact that Western tanks did not use autoloader and were not automatically destroyed by top-attack ATGMs. During World War II the Russian usually kept advancing past damaged tanks and had tank recovery and repair units restore damaged tanks to duty. That no longer worked because most of the damaged tanks in Ukraine suffered catastrophic damage as all Russian tanks built in the past fifty years used autoloaders requiring that a dozen+ shells and their propellant be exposed in the turret to feed the autoloader. The Israelis noted this flaw and pointed it out to their Western allies, which is why Israeli and Western tanks dont use an autoloader and, when hit in the turret, do not suffer massive damage as all those exposed autoloader shells explode when the turret is penetrated. Western anti-tank weapons were designed to take advantage of this vulnerability, which was never seen on a wide scale until the 2022 invasion. That is one reason Western nations so confidently shipped so many of their latest anti-tank weapons to Ukraine in the months before the invasion. The initial Russian main effort was in northern Ukraine, in an effort to take Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. That cost the Russians tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of tanks and other armored vehicles, and many trucks carrying supplies, especially fuel. This large-scale destruction was made possible by the top-attack vulnerability. Since Russian ATGMs do not have top-attack capabilities, the captured Russian tanks are more effective when used by the Ukrainians than they are when used by Russians. Equally important is the Ukrainian use of proper combined arms tactics in which tanks are accompanied by infantry armed with ATGMs and supported by artillery fire from guns that follow behind the advancing mechanized units, ready to fire on obstacles encountered by the tanks and infantry. Russia ignored the combined arms approach during their initial attempt to take Kyiv in February. This was done because the Russians believed they had the element of surprise against Ukrainian forces unprepared to oppose. The Russians were wrong on both counts and were quickly defeated. It is a basic rule in combat, especially the first battle of war, that you must not underestimate the enemy. The Ukrainians took this into account while the Russians did not. Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader who ordered the invasion also outlawed any public discussion of what was going on with combat operations. After about two months of fighting, even some Putin supporters were calling for those military leaders who ignored the true condition of the Ukrainian and Russian forces to be identified and punished. That has still not been done and the Ukrainians are still winning. All this destroyed Russian troop morale and that was what led to the recent Russian Gift to Ukraine. Putin has not been able to fix the morale problem with his troops, especially because despite outlawing public discussion of what is happening in Ukraine, so many Russian troops (over 50,000) have been killed and many more wounded or captured that word of mouth has made existing and potential Russian troops aware that Ukraine is a place they do not want to be. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / SILVER X MINING CORP. (TSXV:AGX) (OTCQB: AGXPF) (FRA:WPZ) ("Silver X" or the "Company") announces the resumption of the operations at its Tangana project after concluding the incident review. All the project safety protocols have been validated before the restart of the operations. About Silver X Silver X is a Canadian silver mining company with assets in Peru. The Company's flagship asset is the Tangana silver, gold, lead, zinc and copper project (the "Project") located in Huancavelica, Peru. Founders and management have a successful track record of increasing shareholder value. For more information visit our website at www.silverxmining.com. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Jos M. Garcia CEO and Director For further information, please contact: Silver X Mining Corp. Jose M. Garcia, CEO +1 604 358 1382 | [email protected] Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE: Silver X Mining Corp. View source version on accesswire.com: PERTH, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Tempus Resources Ltd ("Tempus" or "the Company") (ASXTMR)(TSX.V:TMRR)(OTCQB: TMRFF) is pleased to announce that it has intersected quartz veining containing visible gold in drill hole EZ-22-28, targeting the No. 9 Vein at the Elizabeth Gold Project in Southern British Columbia, Canada. HIGHLIGHTS Drilling has identified Visible Gold (VG') in several locations in quartz veining over a length of approximately 2 metres in drill-hole EZ-22-28 Tempus has completed 9 holes targeting the No. 9 Vein with VG identified in three holes (EZ-22-19, EZ-22-20, EZ-22-28), assays are pending Tempus Resources, President and CEO, Jason Bahnsen, commented "We now have 9 drill-holes into the No. 9 Vein located 120 metres north west of the Blue Vein. This is the third drill hole reporting visible gold in the core. We are encouraged by the wide zones of mineralisation we are seeing in the previously unexplored No. Vein. Assays are pending for all 9 holes." The No. 9 Vein is a previously mapped vein approximately 120 metres north west of Blue Vein. Some limited exploration had been performed on No. 9 Vein in the 1940s and 1950s. Photo 1: No. 9 EZ-22- 28 Drill Core Showing Visible Gold from 117.50m - 118.15m DDH EZ-22-28 EZ-22-28 intersected the No. 9 Vein approximately 100m to the north of the previously announced No. 9 Vein drill holes EZ-22-19 and EZ-22-20 that contained wide zones of quartz with visible gold. See Figure 1 and Tempus announcement of 15 August 2022 for full details. EZ-22-28 intersected quartz veining of approximately 2 metres from 117.50 metres depth that contained multiple specks of visible gold, see Photo 1. Nine drill-holes have been completed targeting the No. 9 Vein. Visible gold has been reported in 3 of the nine drill holes completed to date. Assays are pending on all holes. With reference to the AIG 2015 guidance for visual reporting of massive sulphide mineralisation, the Company reports it has not encountered any massive sulphide mineralisation in drill hole EZ-22-28. While it is not possible to accurately estimate the percentage of visual gold present though out the drill core, the Company suggests that the percentage would be less than 0.01%. The Company cautions that visual observations of visible gold are not a proxy or substitute for laboratory analysis. Laboratory assays and analysis will be required to confirm the visual interpretations presented in this news release. Figure 1 - Elizabeth Plan View Showing 2022 Drill Locations This announcement has been authorised by the Board of Directors of Tempus Resources Limited. Competent Persons Statement Information in this report relating to Exploration Results is based on information reviewed by Mr. Sonny Bernales, who is a Member of the Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia (EGBC), which is a recognised Professional Organisation (RPO), and an employee of Tempus Resources. Mr. Bernales has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined by the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves, and as a Qualified Person for the purposes of NI43-101. Mr. Bernales consents to the inclusion of the data in the form and context in which it appears. For further information: TEMPUS RESOURCES LTD Melanie Ross - Director/Company Secretary Phone: +61 8 6188 8181 About Tempus Resources Ltd Tempus Resources Ltd ("Tempus") is a growth orientated gold exploration company listed on ASX ("TMR") and TSX.V ("TMRR") and OTCQB ("TMRFF") stock exchanges. Tempus is actively exploring projects located in Canada and Ecuador. The flagship project for Tempus is the Blackdome-Elizabeth Project, a high grade gold past producing project located in Southern British Columbia. Tempus is currently midway through a drill program at Blackdome-Elizabeth that will form the basis of an updated NI43-101/JORC resource estimate. The second key group of projects for Tempus are the Rio Zarza and Valle del Tigre projects located in south east Ecuador. The Rio Zarza project is located adjacent to Lundin Gold's Fruta del Norte project. The Valle del Tigre project is currently subject to a sampling program to develop anomalies identified through geophysical work. Forward-Looking Information and Statements This press release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only the Company's beliefs regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of Tempus's control. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or may contain statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "will continue", "will occur" or "will be achieved". The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained herein may include, but are not limited to, the ability of Tempus to successfully achieve business objectives, and expectations for other economic, business, and/or competitive factors. Forward-looking statements and information are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the ability of Tempus to control or predict, that may cause Tempus' actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied thereby, and are developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein and the other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk and Uncertainties" in the Company's Management's Discussion & Analysis for the quarter and nine months ended March 31, 2022 dated May 16, 2022 filed on SEDAR. Should one or more of these risks, uncertainties or other factors materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information or statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although Tempus believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and Tempus does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking information and statements attributable to Tempus or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in its entirety by this notice. Neither the ASX Exchange, the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Appendix 1 Table 1:Drill Hole Collar Table UTM UTM Hole ID Target Easting (NAD83 Northing (NAD83 Elevation (m) Length (m) Azimuth Dip Z10) Z10) EZ-21-01 SW Vein 531203 5653771 2400 105 121 -52 EZ-21-02 SW Vein 531203 5653771 2400 132 146 -55 EZ-21-03 SW Vein 531203 5653771 2400 111 158 -47 EZ-21-04 SW Vein 531203 5653771 2400 135 168 -58 EZ-21-05 SW Vein 531078 5653776 2400 561 123 -48 EZ-21-06 SW Vein 531078 5653776 2400 255 110 -55 EZ-21-07 SW Vein 531203 5653771 2400 126 115 -75 EZ-21-07b SW Vein 531203 5653771 2400 186 115 -75 EZ-21-08 SW Vein 531195 5653839 2427 231 115 -68 EZ-21-09 SW Vein 531200 5654020 2330 360 120 -48 EZ-21-10 SW Vein 530953 5653772 2390 354 127 -50 EZ-21-11 SW Vein 530953 5653772 2390 381 136 -50 EZ-21-12 SW Vein 530953 5653772 2390 375 125 -45 EZ-21-13 SW Vein 530919 5653596 2300 261 94 -45 EZ-21-14 SW Vein 530919 5653596 2300 261 108 -55 EZ-21-15 SW Vein 530919 5653596 2300 330 100 -55 EZ-21-16 SW Vein 530919 5653596 2300 330 83 -48.5 EZ-21-17 SW Vein 530919 5653596 2300 414 98 -63 EZ-21-18 SW Vein 530919 5653596 2300 351 128.5 -63 EZ-21-19 SW Vein 530953 5653772 2390 417 129 -58 EZ-21-20 SW Vein 530849 5653432 2260 300 129 -45 EZ-21-21 East Veins 531695 5653463 2120 357 90 -45 EZ-21-22 SW Vein 531195 5653839 2427 188 75 -45 EZ-21-23 SW Vein 531695 5653463 2120 165 91 -45 EZ-21-24 Blue Vein 530953 5653772 2390 219 84 -54 EZ-21-25 Blue Vein 530953 5653772 2390 201 105 -58 EZ-21-26 Blue Vein 530953 5653772 2390 198 95 -45 EZ-21-27 Blue Vein 530953 5653772 2390 195 150 -60 EZ-21-28 No.9 Vein 530953 5653772 2390 321 300 -55 Table 1: Drill Hole Collar Table UTM UTM Hole ID Target Easting (NAD83 Northing (NAD83 Elevation (m) Length (m) Azimuth (o) Dip (o) Z10) Z10) EZ-22-01 Blue Vein 530953 5653772 2400 222 130 -65 EZ-22-02 Blue Vein 531203 5653772 2400 225 108 -65 EZ-22-03 Blue Vein 531203 5653772 2400 198 95 -50 EZ-22-04 Blue Vein 531200 5653774 2393 375 290 -55 EZ-22-05 Blue Vein 531130 5653775 2399 156 280 -45 EZ-22-06 Blue Vein 531130 5653775 2399 237 290 -55 EZ-22-07 Blue Vein 531130 5653775 2399 216 298 -45 EZ-22-08 Blue Vein 531039 5653887 2422 201 135 -50 EZ-22-09 Blue and SW Vein 530953.1 5653772 2392 468 100 -53 EZ-22-10 Blue Vein 530953.1 5653772 2392 210 95 -65 EZ-22-11 Blue Vein 531039 5653887 2422 207 110 -60 EZ-22-12 Blue Vein 531039 5653887 2422 216 85 -50 EZ-22-13 Blue Vein 531039 5653887 2422 251 123 -65 EZ-22-14 Blue Vein 531004 5653896 2428 249 140 -65 EZ-22-15 Blue Vein 531004 5653896 2428 156 130 -65 EZ-22-16 Blue Vein 531004 5653896 2428 242 120 -65 EZ-22-17 Blue Vein 531004 5653896 2428 251 160 -65 EZ-22-18 Blue Vein 531004 5653896 2428 258 150 -65 EZ-22-19 No.9 Vein 531041 5653893 2422 201 284 -63 EZ-22-20 No.9 Vein 531041 5653893 2422 270 284 -67 EZ-22-21 No.9 Vein 531041 5653893 2422 216 294 -63 EZ-22-22 No.9 Vein 531041 5653893 2422 183 274 -63 EZ-22-23 No.9 Vein 531041 5653893 2422 201 264 -63 EZ-22-24 Main & West Vein 531347 5653777 2378 405 100 -45 EZ-22-25 No.9 Vein 531039 5653888 2422 181 254 -63 EZ-22-26 No.9 Vein 531039 5653888 2422 201 244 -63 EZ-22-27 No.9 Vein 531038 5653891 2422 201 308 -63 EZ-22-28 No.9 Vein 531038 5653891 2422 234 318 -63 EZ-22-29 SW Vein 531136 5653860 2422 246 111 -48 EZ-22-30 SW Vein 531136 5653860 2422 83 111 -55 Table 2: Significant Interval Table Hole ID From (m) To (m) Interval (m) True Thickness (m) Gold Grade MET Screen Grade Vein EZ-21-01 94.00 96.60 2.60 2.21 4.60 5.12 SW Vein and 83.50 84.00 0.50 0.43 20.50 pending SW Vein EZ-21-02 102.40 109.00 6.60 5.61 8.40 pending SW Vein including 105.40 106.50 1.10 0.93 46.30 pending SW Vein EZ-21-03 88.60 95.00 6.40 5.44 7.22 pending SW Vein including 89.30 91.90 2.60 2.21 11.80 pending SW Vein and 90.00 91.30 1.30 1.11 19.80 pending SW Vein and 34.70 35.20 0.50 0.43 3.15 pending SW Vein EZ-21-04 122.00 126.00 4.00 3.40 31.20 34.40 SW Vein including 123.00 124.50 1.50 1.28 52.10 68.30 SW Vein including 124.00 124.50 0.50 0.43 72.00 87.30 SW Vein EZ-21-05 134.00 135.00 1.00 0.85 1.38 Not Preformed 7 Vein 217.55 218.25 0.70 0.59 1.74 1.67 SW Vein and 256.00 256.50 0.50 0.43 1.03 0.89 SW Vein and 554.85 555.35 0.50 0.43 0.24 Not Preformed West Vein EZ-21-06 134.50 136.00 1.50 1.28 1.10 1.71 7 Vein and 245.00 246.00 1.00 0.85 2.05 2.45 SW Vein EZ-21-07 Hole lost EZ-21-07B 40.10 41.10 1.00 0.85 4.88 Not Preformed 7 Vein and 51.50 52.20 0.70 0.60 9.06 Not Preformed 7 Vein and 160.00 165.75 5.75 4.89 0.53 0.70 SW Vein EZ-21-08 196.25 202.40 6.15 5.23 0.65 0.66 SW Vein and 226.60 227.10 0.50 0.43 1.54 1.85 SW Vein EZ-21-09 58.60 59.10 0.50 0.43 0.31 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 270.90 272.90 2.00 1.70 2.56 Not Preformed SW Vein and 355.88 357.00 1.12 0.95 0.85 Not Preformed SW Vein EZ-21-10 223.00 223.50 0.50 0.43 4.04 Not Preformed 7 Vein and 347.70 349.20 1.50 1.28 0.22 0.21 SW Vein EZ-21-11 326.90 327.40 0.50 0.43 0.55 0.44 SW Vein EZ-21-12 117.80 118.80 1.00 0.85 47.6 33.7 Blue Vein and 130.70 131.20 0.50 0.43 26.4 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 163.90 164.40 0.50 0.43 5.50 8.41 Blue Vein and 344.90 347.00 2.10 1.79 0.78 1.22 SW Vein EZ-21-13 230.70 232.60 1.90 1.62 0.76 0.71 SW Vein EZ-21-14 224.00 224.90 0.90 0.77 1.63 1.15 SW Vein Hole ID From (m) To (m) Interval (m) True Thickness (m) Gold Grade MET Screen Grade Vein EZ-21-15 318.40 320.80 2.40 2.04 0.31 Not Preformed SW Vein including 320.30 320.80 0.50 0.43 1.14 Not Preformed SW Vein EZ-21-16 305.00 306.90 1.90 1.61 0.55 Not Preformed SW Vein EZ-21-17 171.00 171.50 0.50 0.43 0.14 0.57 SW Vein and 204.00 204.60 0.60 0.51 0.53 Not Preformed SW Vein and 254.60 256.85 2.25 1.91 1.40 1.58 7 Vein and 350.13 350.75 0.62 0.53 1.01 Not Preformed SW Vein and 379.47 382.00 2.53 2.15 0.63 0.64 SW Vein EZ-21-18 299.50 299.90 0.40 0.34 1.53 Not Preformed SW Vein EZ-21-19 127.50 128.00 0.50 0.43 4.52 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 129.00 130.50 1.50 1.28 4.25 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 167.80 168.70 0.90 0.76 4.50 6.14 Blue Vein and 351.80 354.90 3.10 2.63 0.34 Not Preformed SW Vein EZ-21-20 NSI** EZ-21-21 184.00 186.00 2.00 1.70 1.03 Not Preformed unknown and 263.45 264.30 0.85 0.72 1.34 Not Preformed unknown EZ-21-22 175.55 176.70 1.15 0.98 1.60 2.50 SW Vein EZ-21-23 145.00 149.10 4.10 3.48 1.11 1.83 SW Vein including 147.50 148.20 0.70 0.59 1.08 4.98 SW Vein EZ-21-24 139.80 141.00 1.20 1.02 0.58 0.58 Blue Vein and 181.70 182.65 0.95 0.81 0.85 0.84 Blue Vein EZ-21-25 111.00 113.70 2.70 2.30 13.4 Not Preformed Blue Vein including 111.50 112.00 0.50 0.43 71.3 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-21-26 121.45 122.70 1.25 1.06 9.13 Not Preformed Blue Vein including 121.45 121.70 0.25 0.21 45.1 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 159.06 160.25 1.19 1.01 1.35 1.45 Blue Vein EZ-21-27 152.20 153.60 1.40 1.19 12.1 14.31 Blue Vein including 152.20 153.20 1.00 0.85 16.3 19.19 Blue Vein and 157.00 157.40 0.40 0.34 1.27 1.28 Blue Vein EZ-21-28 245.60 246.85 1.25 1.06 0.67 Not Preformed No.9 Vein Hole ID From (m) To (m) Interval (m) True Thickness (m) Gold Grade MET Screen Grade Vein EZ-22-01 123.90 124.70 0.80 0.68 2.07 2.07 Blue Vein and 125.90 126.00 0.10 0.08 3.82 3.82 Blue Vein and 161.42 161.82 0.40 0.34 2.25 2.25 Blue Vein EZ-22-02 147.65 147.83 0.18 0.15 6.88 6.88 Blue Vein and 185.25 185.85 0.60 0.51 1.89 1.89 Blue Vein EZ-22-03 96.91 97.33 0.42 0.36 2.05 523.00 Blue Vein and 124.02 124.47 0.45 0.38 32.66 Not Preformed Blue Vein including 124.02 124.13 0.11 0.09 130.00 133.00 Blue Vein and 164.41 166.14 1.73 1.47 7.41 Not Preformed Blue Vein including 165.41 166.14 0.73 0.62 17.40 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-04 353.8 354 0.2 0.17 1.25 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-05 44.5 45.2 0.7 0.595 11.20 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 56.8 57 0.2 0.17 1.38 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 84.65 85.55 0.9 0.765 1.33 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 98 99 1 0.85 2.62 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-06 40.2 40.9 0.7 0.595 1.91 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 47.8 48.15 0.35 0.2975 1.17 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 153.35 155 1.65 1.4025 1.71 Not Preformed Blue Vein Including 154.15 155 0.85 0.7225 2.79 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-07 164.6 164.92 0.32 0.272 1.45 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 165.66 165.79 0.13 0.1105 7.30 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 170.17 170.4 0.23 0.1955 48.60 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-08 120.6 121 0.4 0.34 0.494 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-09 105.12 106.17 1.05 0.89 322.54 310.72 Blue Vein including 105.12 105.32 0.20 0.17 1,654 1,572 Blue Vein 105.32 106.17 0.85 0.72 9.25 13.95 Blue Vein and 161.13 162.00 0.87 0.74 2.68 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 356.19 358.38 2.19 1.86 0.41 Not Preformed SW Vein Including 356.19 356.70 0.51 0.43 1.05 Not Preformed SW Vein EZ-22-10 193.1 194.75 1.65 1.40 0.61 Not Preformed Blue Vein Including 193.98 194.23 0.25 0.21 0.997 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-11 102.45 193.42 91.37 77.67 0.31 Not Preformed Blue Vein including 102.45 104.75 2.30 1.96 11.75 Not Preformed Blue Vein including 103.15 103.45 0.30 0.26 85.20 Not Preformed Blue Vein Hole ID From (m) To (m) Interval (m) True Thickness (m) Gold Grade MET Screen Grade Vein EZ-22-12 137.65 139.33 1.68 1.43 1.26 Not Preformed Blue Vein including 138.80 139.33 0.53 0.45 2.08 Not Preformed Blue Vein EZ-22-13 108.52 108.77 0.25 0.21 1.62 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 111.00 111.27 0.27 0.23 1.03 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 112.34 112.45 0.11 0.09 15.30 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 196.42 196.60 0.18 0.15 1.49 Not Preformed Blue Vein and 215.83 216.00 0.17 0.14 1.95 Not Preformed Blue Vein *true thickness is estimated using a multiplier of 0.85. The Company considers anything over 0.2 g/t gold as significant. **no significant intervals Appendix 2: The following tables are provided to ensure compliance with the JORC Code (2012) requirements for the reporting of Exploration Results for the Elizabeth - Blackdome Gold Project Section 1: Sampling Techniques and Data (Criteria in this section apply to all succeeding sections.) Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Sampling techniques Nature and quality of sampling (eg cut channels, random chips, or specific specialised industry standard measurement tools appropriate to the minerals under investigation, such as down hole gammasondes, or handheld XRF instruments, etc).These examples should not be taken as limiting the broad meaning of sampling. Include reference to measures taken to ensure sample representivity and the appropriate calibration of any measurement tools or systems used. Aspects of the determination of mineralisation that are Material to the Public Report. In cases where industry standard' work has been done this would be relatively simple(eg reverse circulation drilling was used to obtain1 m samples from which 3 kg was pulverised to produce a 30 g charge for fire assay'). In other cases more explanation may be required, such as where there is coarse gold that has inherent sampling problems. Unusual commodities or mineralisation types(eg submarine nodules) may warrant disclosure of detailed information. HQ (63.5 mm) sized diamond core using standard equipment. Mineralised and potentially mineralised zones, comprising veins, breccias, and alteration zones were sampled. Samples were half core. Typical core samples are 1m in length. Core samples sent to the lab will be crushed and pulverized to 85% passing75 microns. A 50g pulp will be fire assayed for gold and multi-element ICP. Samples over 10 g/t gold will be reanalysed by fire assay with gravimetric finish Drilling techniques Drill type (eg core, reverse circulation, open-hole hammer, rotary air blast, auger, Bangka, sonic, etc) and details (eg core diameter, triple or standard tube, depth of diamond tails, face-sampling bit or other type, whether core is oriented and if so, by what method, etc). Diamond Drilling from surface (HQ size) Drill sample recovery Method of recording and assessing core and chip sample recoveries and results assessed. Measures taken to maximise sample recovery and ensure representative nature of the samples. Whether a relationship exists between sample recovery and grade and whether sample bias may have occurred due to preferential loss/gain of fine/coarse material. Detailed calculation of recovery was recorded, with most holes achieving over 95% No relationship has yet been noted between recovery and grade and no sample bias was noted to have occurred. Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Logging Whether core and chip samples have been geologically and geotechnically logged to a level of detail to support appropriate Mineral Resource estimation, mining studies and metallurgical studies. Whether logging is qualitative or quantitative in nature. Core (or costean, channel, etc) photography. The total length and percentage of the relevant inter sections logged. Detailed geological and geotechnical logging was completed for each hole. All core has been photographed. Complete holes were logged. Sub- sampling techniques and sample preparation If core, whether cut or sawn and whether quarter, half or all core taken. If non-core, whether riffled, tube sampled, rotary split, etc and whether sampled wet or dry. For all sample types, the nature, quality and appropriateness of the sample preparation technique. Quality control procedures adopted for all sub- sampling stages to maximise representivity of samples. Measures taken to ensure that the sampling is representative of the in situ material collected, including for instance results for field duplicate/second-half sampling. Whether sample sizes are appropriate to the grainsize of the material being sampled. Half core was sampled, using a core saw. Duplicate samples of new and historical core are Quarter core or half core where not previously sampled Sample sizes are considered appropriate for the grain size of the material being sampled. It is expected that bulk sampling will be utilised as the project advances, to more accurately determine grade. Quality of assay data and laboratory tests The nature, quality and appropriateness of the assaying and laboratory procedures used and whether the technique is considered partial or total. For geophysical tools, spectrometers, handheld XRF instruments, etc, the parameters used in determining the analysis including instrument make and model, reading times, calibrations factors applied and the irderivation, etc. Nature of quality control procedures adopted (eg standards, blanks, duplicates, external laboratory checks) and whether acceptable levels of accuracy (ie lack of bias) and precision have been established. Core samples that have been sent to the lab for analysis include control samples(standards, blanks and prep duplicates) inserted at a minimum rate of 1:5 samples. In addition to the minimum rate of inserted control samples, a standard or a blank is inserted following a zone of mineralization or visible gold Further duplicate samples were analysed to assess variability Verification of sampling and assaying The verification of significant intersections by either independent or alternative company personnel. The use of twinned holes. Documentation of primary data, data entry procedures, data verification, data storage (physical and electronic) protocols. Discuss any adjustment to assay data. Re-assaying of selected intervals of historic core have been sent for analysis. Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Location of datapoints Accuracy and quality of surveys used to locate drill holes (collar and down-hole surveys), trenches, mine workings and other locations used in Mineral Resource estimation. Specification of the grid system used. Quality and adequacy of topographic control. All sampling points were surveyed using a hand held GPS. UTM grid NAD83Zone 10. A more accurate survey pickup will be completed at the end of the program, to ensure data is appropriate for geological modelling and Resource Estimation. Down hole surveys have been completed on all holes. Data spacing and distribution Data spacing for reporting of Exploration Results. Whether the data spacing and distribution is sufficient to establish the degree of geological and grade continuity appropriate for the Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimation procedure(s) and classifications applied. Whether sample compositing has been applied. Most drilling is targeting verification and extension of known mineralisation. It is expected that the data will be utilised in a preparation of a Mineral Resource statement. Additional drilling is exploration beneath geochemical anomalies, and would require further delineation drilling to be incorporated in a Mineral Resource. Orientation of data in relation to geological structure Whether the orientation of sampling achieves unbiased sampling of possible structures and the extent to which this is known, considering the deposit type. If the relationship between the drilling orientation and the orientation of key mineralised structures is considered to have introduced a sampling bias, this should be assessed and reported if material. In general, the aim was to drill perpendicular to the mineralised structures, to gain an estimate of the true thickness of the mineralised structures. At several locations, a series (fan) of holes was drilled to help confirm the orientation of the mineralised structures and to keep land disturbance to a minimum. Sample s Security The measures taken to ensure sample security. Samples from Elizabeth were delivered to the laboratory by a commercial transport service. Audits or Reviews The results of any audits or reviews of sampling techniques and data. An independent geological consultant has recently visited the site as part of preparing an updated NI43-101Technical Report for the Project. Section 2: Reporting of Exploration Results (Criteria listed in the preceding section also apply to this section.) Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Mineral tenement and land tenure status Type, reference name/number, location and ownership including agreements or material issues with third parties such as joint ventures, partnerships, overriding royalties, native title interests, historical sites, wilderness or national park and environmental settings. The security of the tenure held at the time of reporting along with any known impediments to obtaining a licence to operate in the area. The Black dome-Elizabeth Project is comprised of 73 contiguous mineral claims underlain by 14 Crown granted mineral claims and two mining leases. The Property is located in the Clinton and Lillooet Mining Divisions approximately 230 km NNE of Vancouver Tempus has exercised the option to acquire the Elizabeth Gold Project and has completed an addendum to the original Elizabeth Option Agreement (refer to ASX announcement 15 December 2020) A net smelter royalty of 3% NSR (1% purchasable) applies to several claims on the Elizabeth Property. No royalties apply to the Blackdome Property or Elizabeth Regional Properties. There are currently no known impediments to developing a project in this area, and all tenure is in good standing. Exploration done by other parties Acknowledgment and appraisal of exploration by other parties. In the 1940s,placer gold was discovered in Fairless Creek west of Blackdome Summit. Prospecting by Lawrence Frenier shortly afterward led to the discovery of gold-bearing quartz veins on the southwest slope of the mountain that resulted in the staking of mining claims in 1947. Empire Valley Gold Mines Ltd and Silver Standard Resources drove two adits and completed basic surface work during the 1950s. The Blackdome area was not worked again until 1977 when Barrier Reef Resources Ltd. re-staked the area and performed surface work in addition to underground development. The Blackdome Mining Corp. was formed in 1978 and performed extensive surface and underground work with various joint venture partners that resulted in a positive feasibility study. A 200 ton/day mill, camp facilities and tailings pond were constructed and mining operations officially commenced in 1986. The mine ceased operations in 1991, having produced 225,000 oz of Au and 547,000oz of Ag from 338,000tons of ore (Godard et al., 2010) After a period of inactivity, Claims taker Resources Ltd. took over the project, reopening the mine in late 1998. Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Mining operations lasted six months and ended in May of 1999. During this period, 6,547 oz of Au and 17,300 oz of Ag were produced from 21,268 tons of ore. Further exploration programs were continued by Claims taker over the following years and a Japanese joint venture partner was brought onboard that prompted a name change to J-Pacific Gold Inc. This partnership was terminated by 2010, resulting in another name change to Sona Resources Corp. Gold-bearing quartz veins were discovered near Blue Creek in 1934, and in 1940-1941 the Elizabeth No. 1-4 claims were staked. Bralorne Mines Ltd. optioned the property in 1941 and during the period 1948-1949, explored the presently- named Main and West Veins by about 700 metres of cross-cutting and drifting, as well as about 110 metres of raises. After acquiring the Elizabeth Gold Project in 2002, J- Pacific (now Sona) has conducted a series of exploration programs that included diamond drilling 66 holes totalling 8962.8 metres (up until 2009) Other exploration work by Sona at the Elizabeth Gold Project has included two soil grid, stream sediment sampling, geological mapping and sampling, underground rehabilitation, structural mapping and airborne photography and topographic base map generation. Geology Deposit type, geological setting and style of mineralisation. The Blackdome property is situated in a region underlain by rocks of Triassic to Tertiary age. Sedimentary and igneous rocks of the Triassic Pavilion Group occurring along the Fraser River represent the oldest rocks in the region. A large, Triassic age, ultramafic complex (Shulaps Complex) was emplaced along the Yalakom fault; a regional scale structure located some 30 kilometres south of the property. Sediments and volcanics of the Cretaceous Jackass Mountain Group and Spences Bridge/Kingsvale Formations overlie the Triassic assemblages. Some of these rocks occur several kilometres south of Blackdome. Overlying the Cretaceous rocks are volcanics and minor sediments of Eocene age. These rocks underlie much of Blackdome and are correlated with the Kamloops Group seen in the Ashcroft and Nicola regions. Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Geochemical studies (Vivian,1988) have shown these rocks to be derived from a "calc-alkaline" magma in a volcanic arc type tectonic setting. Eocene age granitic intrusions at Poison Mountain some 22 kilometres southwest of Blackdome are host to a gold bearing porphyry copper/molybdenum deposit. It is speculated that this or related intrusions could reflect the source magmas of the volcanic rocks seen at Blackdome. There is some documented evidence of young granitic rocks several kilometres south of the mine near Lone Cabin Creek. The youngest rocks present are Oligocene to Miocene basalts of the Chilcotin Group. These are exposed on the uppermost slopes of Blackdome Mountain and Red Mountain to the south. Transecting the property in a NE-SW strike direction are a series of faults that range from vertical to moderately westerly dipping. These faults are the principal host structures for Au- Ag mineralisation. The faults anastomose, and form sygmoidal loops. The area in which the Elizabeth Gold Project is situated is underlain by Late Paleozoic to Mesozoic rock assemblages that are juxtaposed across a complex system of faults mainly of Cretaceous and Tertiary age. These Paleozoic to Mesozoic-age rocks are intruded by Cretaceous and Tertiary-age stocks and dykes of mainly felsicto intermediate composition, and are locally overlain by Paleogene volcanic and sedimentary rocks. The Elizabeth Gold Project is partly underlain by ultramafic rocks of the Shulaps Ultramafic Complex, which include harzburgite, serpentinite and their alteration product list wanite. The gold mineralisation found on the Elizabeth Gold Project present characteristics typical of epigenetic mesothermal gold deposits. The auriferous quartz vein mineralisation is analogous to that found in the Bralorne- Pioneer deposits. Gold mineralisation is hosted by a series of northeast trending, steeply northwest dipping veins that crosscut the Blue Creek porphyry intrusion. The Main and West vein systems display mesothermal textures, including ribboned-laminated veins and comprehensive wall rock breccias. Vein formation and gold mineralisation were associated with extensional-brittle faulting believed to be contemporaneous with mid- Eocene extensional faulting along the Marshall Creek, Mission Ridge and Quartz Mountain faults. Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Drill hole Information A summary of all information material to the understanding of the exploration results including a tabulation of the following information for all Material drill holes: easting and northing of the drill hole collar elevation or RL (Reduced Level - elevation above sea level in metres) of the drill hole collar dip and azimuth of the hole down hole length and interception depth hole length. If the exclusion of this information is justified on the basis that the information is not Material and this exclusion does not detract from the understanding of the report, the Competent Person should clearly explain why this is the case. Refer to Appendix 1 for drillhole collar information Data aggregation methods In reporting Exploration Results, weighting averaging techniques, maximum and/or minimum grade truncations (eg cutting of high grades)and cut-off grades are usually Material and should be stated. Where aggregate intercepts incorporate short lengths of high grade results and longer lengths of low grade results, the procedure used for such aggregation should be stated and some typical examples of such aggregations should be shown in detail. The assumptions used for any reporting of metal equivalent values should be clearly stated. Intervals reported using several samples are calculated using a weighted average. Calculated intervals using a weighted average did not use a top cut on high-grade samples. High-grade samples are reported as including' Calculated weighted average intervals are continuous intervals of a mineralized zone and do not include unsampled intervals or unmineralized intervals. Relationship between mineralisation widths and intercept lengths These relationships are particularly important in the reporting of Exploration Results. If the geometry of the mineralisation with respect to the drill hole angle is known, its nature should be reported. If it is not known and only the down hole lengths are reported, there should be a clear statement to this effect(eg down hole length, true width not known'). In general, drilling is designed to intersect the mineralized zone at a normal angle, but this is not always possible. For the reported intervals, true widths are reported where mineralized core was intact and possible to measure the orientation. Otherwise the true width is left blank Diagrams Appropriate maps and sections (with scales) and tabulations of intercepts should be included for any significant discovery being reported These should include, but not be limited to a plan view of drillhole collar locations and appropriate sectional views. Refer to maps within announcement for drillhole locations. Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Balanced reporting Where comprehensive reporting of all Exploration Results is not practicable, representative reporting of both low and high grades and/or widths should be practiced to avoid misleading reporting of Exploration Results. Where broader low-grade intervals are reported the high-grade intercepts are reported as including' within the reported interval Other substantive exploration data Other exploration data, if meaningful and material, should be reported including (but not limited to): geological observations; geophysical survey results; geochemical survey results; bulk samples - size and method of treatment; metallurgical test results; bulk density, groundwater, geotechnical and rock characteristics; potential deleterious or contaminating substances. Tempus recently completed an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over the Elizabeth Gold Project (refer to ASX announcement 02 August 2021) by completing 97 lines for a total of 735 line-kilometres. Flight lines are oriented east-west with north-south tie lines and spaced 200 metres across the entire 115km2 Elizabeth property. Line spacing of 100 metres was flown over the Elizabeth Main and Elizabeth East Zones. The airborne magnetic survey data was reviewed and interpreted by Insight Geophysics Inc. using 3D magnetization vector inversion (MVI) modelling. The geophysical surveys identified the Blue Creek Porphyry, which is the known host of the high-grade Elizabeth gold-quartz veins, as a relative magnetic low anomaly within the Shulaps Ultramafic Complex. From this correlation of geology and geophysics it was determined that the Blue Creek Porphyry, originally explored / mapped to approximately 1.1km2 in size, is likely much larger. The airborne magnetic survey and MVI 3D modelling interpret the Blue Creek Porphyry to be at least four-times the size at approximately 4.5km2. This interpretation of the Blue Creek Porphyry is also extensive at depth extending to at least 2km deep Further work The nature and scale of planned further work (eg tests for lateral extensions or depth extensions or large- scale step-out drilling). Diagrams clearly highlighting the areas of possible extensions, including the main geological interpretations and future drilling areas, provided this information is not commercially sensitive. Tempus plans to update historical NI43-101 foreign resource estimates to current NI43-101 and JORC 2012 standards Tempus is also seeking to expand the scale of the mineralisation at the project through further exploration. SOURCE: Tempus Resources Ltd View source version on accesswire.com: Canaccord Genuity technical strategist Javed Mirza recommends adding North American equity exposure in the short term and intermediate term. In the short term, defined as a 1-2 week period, Mirza argues that equity markets are deeply oversold, and a sharp counter-trend bounce is likely to develop this week. "The S&P 500, a good barometer for equity markets, is approaching near-term oversold levels that have supported previous short-term (2-4 week) rally phases in March, May, and June," Mirza said. In the intermediate-term, or 2-4 months period, the firm's technical work strongly suggests adding equity exposure as a double bottom attempt is underway, in conjunction with equity markets reaching Sentiment and Oversold extremes consistent with prior intermediate-term (3-6 month) price lows. "If equity markets can hold above their 200-week moving averages in the coming weeks, it would imply that equity markets have forged a double bottom and that the secular bull market remains intact." By StreetInsider.com Staff Morgan Stanley's David Arcaro told investors in a note Monday that they see "several potential technical benefits" to the news ... I'm a New Customer I'm a Returning Customer E-mail Address (or username, if registered via mobile device) Password Douglas Dynamics, Inc. (NYSE: PLOW), North America's premier manufacturer and upfitter of work truck attachments and equipment, today announced that the Board of Directors has elected Joher Akolawala to serve as a director of the Company. The Company also announced that James D. (Jim) Staley has decided to retire from the Board at the end of his current term expiring at the 2023 annual meeting of stockholders. Mr. Staley has been serving as a director since 2010. We are pleased to welcome Joher as a new independent director, said Jim Janik, Chairman of the Board of Directors. He has a track record of proven leadership at multinational enterprises with more than 30 years of global financial and technological experience across a diverse set of industries. His background in C-suite roles with a focus on finance, information technology, cyber-security and value realization will prove invaluable to our entire organization in the years ahead. Janik noted, On behalf of the Board and management team, I want to express our sincere appreciation to Jim Staley for his dedicated service to our Company since before our IPO in 2010. We remain extremely grateful for his advice and leadership over the past 13 years and look forward to continuing to benefit from his knowledge until he retires from our Board next spring. Joher Akolawala Bio and Additional Information Mr. Akolawala is currently Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Pella Corporation, a leading designer and manufacturer of windows and doors for both residential and commercial applications, where he enjoys a broad scope of roles including finance, technology, M&A, and strategy. Prior to joining Pella, Mr. Akolawala was the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer International at Walgreens Boots Alliance, a global retail pharmacy group from 2019 to 2020, based in London, U.K. In 2014, Mr. Akolawala joined Mondelez International, a global snack focused company, undertaking a variety of IT, cyber-security, and finance roles during his six-year tenure, including Senior Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer, and Senior Vice President, Global Finance. From 1991 to 2014, Mr. Akolawala expanded his career at Kraft Foods Group, now part of global food and beverage company The Kraft Heinz Group, where he held a variety of finance and leadership positions in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America focusing on disciplines such as financial planning and analysis, manufacturing, procurement, and global supply chain. Mr. Akolawala received his Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from College of Engineering Pune, India, and a Master of Business Administration from the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Mr. Akolawala will serve on each of the Audit, Compensation and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees of the Board and will be in the class of directors that will be up for reelection at the 2023 annual meeting of stockholders. News highlights New Directors Karen Dykstra and Jeff Sine join Arms Board of Directors Jason Child named new CFO CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Arm today announced the appointment of new Board members Karen Dykstra, former Chief Financial and Administrative Officer of AOL and Jeff Sine, Co-Founder and Partner of Raine Group, effective immediately. These highly qualified leaders bring a diverse range of expertise to Arm as the company prepares for a potential public listing. Arm Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rene Haas said: I extend a warm welcome to Karen and Jeff, both exceptional business leaders who will bring a depth and breadth of experience to the Arm Board. Arm also today announced the appointment of Jason Child as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Child has more than 30 years of experience in leadership at high growth companies and scaling global finance functions. Child will join Arm on November 2, 2022 and lead the companys global finance and IT organizations, reporting to Haas. Haas added, Jason is an experienced leader in global finance and technology. His extensive experience in financial management at public companies and IPO execution will be invaluable in preparation for a potential public listing. I look forward to working with him as part of the Arm leadership team as we continue to define the future of computing, built on Arm. Child will replace current CFO Inder Singh who will remain at Arm in an advisory role and assist in the transition through November before moving to a new opportunity. Haas said, Id like to thank Inder for his contributions and leadership over these past few years. He has helped the company navigate many changes since joining in 2019, including building a strong organization with upgraded systems and processes in the finance, IT and cybersecurity teams. We wish him all the best moving forward. Child most recently served as senior vice president and CFO at Splunk from 2019. Prior to Splunk, Child held multiple CFO positions including at Groupon, which he helped to take public in 2011 and as CFO at Amazon International. Since its founding, Arm has had an incredible history of innovation and leadership in the semi-conductor industry, said Child. Arm is a world-class, category leader and I am thrilled to join as CFO during this exciting time for the company. About Karen Dykstra Ms. Dykstra previously served as Chief Financial and Administrative Officer of AOL, a web portal and online service provider. Prior to AOL, she was a Partner at Plainfield Asset Management, and served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Plainfield Direct, Plainfields business development company. She previously spent over 25 years with Automatic Data Processing (ADP), a provider of human capital management solutions to employers, serving most recently as Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Dykstra is currently a director on the boards of VMware and Gartner, and has also served on the boards of Boston Properties, Crane and AOL. About Jeff Sine Mr. Sine is the Co-Founder and Partner of The Raine Group, a global merchant bank focused on technology, media and communications. Prior to founding Raine, he served as Vice Chairman and Global Head of Technology, Media & Telecom Investment Banking at UBS Investment Bank, was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and was an attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York and London. Mr. Sine currently serves on the boards of many Raine portfolio companies and subsidiaries. He also serves on the boards of National Public Radio (NPR) (Vice-Chair), ITHAKA, Educational Testing Service (ETS) (Chair), American University and The Manhattan Theatre Club. About Jason Child Jason Childs career spans 30 years across all aspects of global finance and strategy, accounting, capital markets/treasury, IPO execution and investor relations. He has extensive experience in scaling disruptive technologies within enterprise software/SaaS, e-commerce, local commerce, consumer hardware/IOT, and online residential real estate. He most recently served as senior vice-president and CFO at Splunk, a technology company specializing in application management, security and compliance, as well as business and web analytics. Before his executive leadership roles, Jason spent more than 11 years leading various global finance teams at Amazon, and served as CFO of Amazon International. Jason has served as a member of the board of directors of Coupang, Inc., an e-commerce company, since April 2022. He holds B.A. from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, where he currently serves on the Global Advisory Board. About Arm Arm technology is defining the future of computing. Our energy-efficient processor designs and software platforms have enabled advanced computing in more than 230 billion chips and our technologies securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. Together with 1,000+ technology partners, we are enabling artificial intelligence to work everywhere, and in cybersecurity, we are delivering the foundation for trust in the digital world from chip to cloud. The future is being built on Arm. All information is provided "as is" and without warranty or representation. This document may be shared freely, attributed and unmodified. Arm is a registered trademark of Arm Limited (or its subsidiaries). All brands or product names are the property of their respective holders. 1995-2022 Arm Group. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005775/en/ Media Arm External Communications Eliza Walsh [email protected] Investor Relations Arm IR Ian Thornton [email protected] Source: Arm KITCHENER, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Bonfire Interactive, Ltd. (Bonfire), a leading in strategic sourcing and eProcurement software, is pleased to announce it has earned a place on the 2022 Report on Business ranking of Canadas Top Growing Companies. With a three-year growth of 230%, Bonfire placed number 187 of 430 companies on this years listing. Canadas Top Growing Companies is an editorial ranking that was launched in 2019. It aims to celebrate the boldest entrepreneurial achievement by identifying and bringing the accomplishments of innovative businesses in Canada to the forefront. In order to qualify for this voluntary program, companies had to complete an in-depth application process and fulfill requirements. Bonfire provides software that helps procurement teams find the right vendors to work with through the request for proposal (RFP) and bid process to make best-value spending decisions. The platform offers an automated workflow, built-in compliance for purchasing processes, and simplifies RFP evaluations with easy-to-use tools. Bonfire powers over $20-billion dollars worth of decision-making across 300+ government agencies across North America. The full list of 2022 winners along with editorial coverage is published in the October issue of Report on Business magazine. The list is out now and online here. Canada's Top Growing Companies recognizes the tremendous ambition and innovation of entrepreneurs in Canada," says Dawn Calleja, Editor of Report on Business magazine. The next generation of Canadian businesses can draw inspiration from this ranking. In an uncertain world, the success stories of the companies marked in this years Report on Business magazines list of Top Growing Companies are a beacon of optimism, says Phillip Crawley, Publisher and CEO of The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail congratulates them on their achievements. About The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail is Canadas foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. With our award-winning coverage of business, politics and national affairs, The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 5.9 million readers every week in our print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 2.3 million readers in print and digital every issue. Our investment in innovative data science means that as the world continues to change, so does The Globe. The Globe and Mail is owned by Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family. About Bonfire Interactive Inc. Bonfire Interactive Inc. (Bonfire) is a business unit of GTY Technology Holdings Inc. and a leader in strategic sourcing and procurement software. Bonfire empowers organizations to find the right vendors and make the right purchasing decisions with ease and confidence. With tools to support the entire vendor lifecycle (sourcing, contract management, and vendor performance), Bonfire goes beyond traditional mechanics of standard procurement suites to make complex decision-making easy. The combination of flexible technology and world-class customer service makes Bonfire the solution of choice for both public and private sector organizations. Bonfire is an award-winning solution recognized by industry-leading outlets including Gartner, GovTech, Spend Matters, Best in SaaS, and the International Business Awards. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005247/en/ Media Contact: Meghan Hennessey Manager, Marketing Communications Bonfire Interactive & GTY Technology Inc. [email protected] 877-707-7755 x4648 Source: Bonfire Interactive, Ltd. NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Citigroup will issue its third quarter results via press release at approximately 8 a.m. (ET) on Friday, October 14, 2022. At 11 a.m. (ET), results will be reviewed via live webcast and teleconference. The press release, webcast and presentation materials will be available at www.citigroup.com/citi/investor. A replay and transcript of the webcast will be available shortly after the event. To attend the live webcast please visit https://www.veracast.com/webcasts/citigroup/webinars/KG34HX.cfm. If youd like to dial into the live earnings review, please call (800) 343-1703 (for U.S. and Canada callers) or (203) 518-9859 (for international callers). A telephonic replay of the call will be available approximately two hours after the event until October 22, 2022, by calling (800) 839-5687 (for U.S. and Canada callers) or (402) 220-2569 (for international callers). Citi is a preeminent banking partner for institutions with cross-border needs, a global leader in wealth management and a valued personal bank in its home market of the United States. Citi does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions, providing corporations, governments, investors, institutions and individuals with a broad range of financial products and services. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/company/citi View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005752/en/ Media: Danielle Romero-Apsilos (212) 816-2264 Investors: Jennifer Landis (212) 559-2718 Source: Citigroup Rimmel, Manhattan & Risque, Join Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny Programme NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Coty, one of the worlds largest beauty companies with an iconic portfolio of brands, extends its strategic partnership with Cruelty Free International, the leading global organisation working to end animal testing. Coty powerhouse brands Rimmel, Manhattan, and Risque are now approved under the Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny Programme, joining Coty brand, COVERGIRL, which was approved in 2018. Coty Chief Brands Officer, Consumer Beauty Stefano Curti, comments, At Coty, we are committed to ending animal testing in the beauty industry. We know consumers expect and search for brands which share their values; they want accessible, kind and cruelty free beauty that works. Rimmel, Manhattan, and Risque have long stood for a better and more kind beauty for all, and for them to have been awarded Leaping Bunny approval is a landmark achievement. Alongside COVERGIRL, Coty is proud to now have four brands approved under the Leaping Bunny Programme. As one of the largest global beauty brands with a presence in over 80 countries, Rimmels approval alongside CoverGirl, is a significant step in the democratisation of cruelty free beauty globally. Manhattan, a leading mass brand in Germany established in 1964, has long stood for self-expression and is now on a mission to offer color cosmetics that are kinder to people, animals and the planet. For Risque, the #1 Brazilian nail polish brand that has been in the market for over 60 years, Leaping Bunny approval is another step delivering on its smart-choice proposition, offering high quality products at a fair price. Cruelty Free Internationals Leaping Bunny Programme is the globally recognisable gold standard for cruelty free cosmetics, personal care, household, and cleaning products with requirements that go above and beyond legal requirements restricting animal testing. Approval must be given to a brands entire range - individual products cannot be approved. Coty collaborated with Cruelty Free International to forensically investigate its entire supply chain for Rimmel, Manhattan, and Risque. This rigorous process included an audit on each brands suppliers, raw materials, and individual ingredients. The Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny Programme is the only global cruelty free approval that also requires a supplier monitoring system to be implemented by the brands to ensure ongoing compliance. Michelle Thew, Cruelty Free International CEO, comments, We began our partnership with Coty in 2018, and Im delighted to enter the next phase of that with Leaping Bunny approval for Rimmel, Manhattan and Risque. Its such an important time for Coty and major brands like these to demonstrate their commitment to a beauty industry based on kinder science. Welcome to the Leaping Bunny family! Rimmel, Manhattan, and Risque products will feature the Leaping Bunny logo later this year, providing the best assurance for consumers that a company has made a genuine commitment to help end animal testing and adheres to the Programmes strict criteria. Coty & CFI partnership in 2018, Coty announced COVERGIRL as its first global brand with the Leaping Bunny cruelty free approval. This announcement makes Risque and Rimmel the second and third brands, respectively, in Cotys portfolio to achieve this important landmark and reinforces the companys commitment to ending animal testing across the beauty industry. About Coty Inc. Founded in Paris in 1904, Coty is one of the worlds largest beauty companies with a portfolio of iconic brands across fragrance, color cosmetics, and skin and body care. Coty serves consumers around the world, selling prestige and mass market products in more than 130 countries and territories. Coty and our brands empower people to express themselves freely, creating their own visions of beauty; and we are committed to making a positive impact on the planet. Learn more at coty.com or on LinkedIn and Instagram. For more on Cotys animal testing policy, visit: https://www.coty.com/sites/default/files/animal_testing_policy_final_july_2022_v1.pdf?faq=10622 About Cruelty Free International Cruelty Free International is the leading organisation working to create a world where nobody wants or believes we need to experiment on animals. Our dedicated team are experts in their fields, combining award-winning campaigning, political lobbying, scientific and legal expertise and corporate responsibility. Educating, challenging and inspiring others across the globe to respect and protect animals, we investigate and expose the reality of life for animals in laboratories, challenge decision-makers to make a positive difference for animals, and champion better science and cruelty free living. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005006/en/ For more information: Media Anna Hua [email protected] Source: Coty New brand positioning underscores HCLTechs commitment to supercharge progress for its clients, its people, communities and planet NOIDA, INDIA & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- HCL Technologies (HCLTech), a leading global technology company, today launched its new brand identity and logo, underpinned by the distinct positioning of Supercharging ProgressTM that reflects its commitment to clients, its people, communities and the planet. The companys new HCLTech brand and logo will be at the heart of its go-to-market strategy and represent its differentiated portfolio of services and products that supercharge digital transformation for enterprises at scale. As the company nears the $12 billion revenue mark, Roshni Nadar Malhotra, Chairperson, HCLTech described the announcement as an evolution for HCLTech to embrace a distinct global brand identity while retaining connectivity with HCL Group. For HCLTech, Supercharging Progress is about accelerating the digital transformation for our clients everyday as well as the ethos of the organization to advance the aspirations of our people, contribute to a sustainable planet and uplift local communities across our global footprint. C Vijayakumar, CEO & Managing Director, HCLTech said, Today, we are proud to share our purpose statement - to bring together the best of technology and our people to supercharge progress. Our purpose accelerates our journey to be the digital partner of choice for global enterprises through differentiated services and products and being an employer of choice for top talent. It also underscores our responsibility to continue contributing toward inclusive growth of communities where we operate and a sustainable planet for the generations to come. Elaborating on the rationale of the new brand positioning, C Vijayakumar added, Supercharging Progress captures the essence of what we do today and our aspiration of what we want to do more of at scale, at speed, for our clients, for our people, communities and planet. The company also launched its new employee value proposition (EVP) Find Your Spark. Built on the broad tenets of opportunity, respect, and trusted employment, HCLTechs EVP emphasizes its commitment to help both current and prospective employees maximize their career potential and ambitions. The company has also expanded its global CSR partnerships and volunteer-led initiatives to supercharge its efforts across core pillars of education and employment, health, wellbeing and basic needs, and environment. Today marks a major milestone in HCLTechs exciting journey as we carve out a distinct brand identity and purpose that will power us at speed - on this next chapter of our journey, said Jill Kouri, Chief Marketing Officer, HCLTech. With such a rich heritage, world-class delivery and emphasis on client service, we will always embody a spirit of flexibility and commitment to being a true partner, in the trenches with our clients every step of the way. HCLTech worked with award-winning agency SomeOne to help create its new brand positioning and identity. Visit https://www.hcltech.com/supercharging-progress for more information. Please click on the links below to watch the videos: About HCLTech HCLTech is a global technology company, home to 211,000+ people across 52 countries, delivering industry-leading capabilities centered around digital, engineering and cloud, powered by a broad portfolio of technology services and products. We work with clients across all major verticals, providing industry solutions for Financial Services, Manufacturing, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Technology and Services, Telecom and Media, Retail and CPG, and Public Services. Consolidated revenues as of 12 months ending June 2022 totaled $11.8 billion. To learn how we can supercharge progress for you, visit hcltech.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005408/en/ Meenakshi Benjwal, Americas [email protected] Elka Ghudial, EMEA [email protected] Devneeta Pahuja, India and APAC [email protected] Source: HCLTech BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- MFS Investment Management (MFS) released today the distribution income sources for six of its closed-end funds for September 2022: MFS Charter Income Trust (NYSE: MCR), MFS Government Markets Income Trust (NYSE: MGF), MFS Intermediate High-Income Fund (NYSE: CIF), MFS Intermediate Income Trust (NYSE: MIN), MFS Multimarket Income Trust (NYSE: MMT) and MFS Special Value Trust (NYSE: MFV). This information also can be obtained by visiting MFS.com by clicking on Products & Strategies > Closed End Funds > Dividend Source Information. MFS Charter Income Trust Distribution period: September 2022 Distribution amount per share: $ 0.04743 The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the current distribution and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income, net realized short-term capital gains, net realized long-term capital gains and return of capital or other capital source. The funds fiscal year begins each December 1st. All amounts are expressed per common share. Total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date % Breakdown of the total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date Current distribution % Breakdown of current distribution Net Investment Income $ 0.00000 0% $ 0.27015 53% Net Realized ST Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Net Realized LT Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source 0.04743 100% 0.23957 47% Total (per common share) $ 0.04743 100% $ 0.50972 100% Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the five years ended 8-31-2022 2.49% Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of month end NAV as of 8-31-2022 8.24% Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through 8-31-2022 -11.20% Cumulative fiscal year distributions as a percentage of NAV as of 8-31-2022 7.38% MFS Government Markets Income Trust Distribution period: September 2022 Distribution amount per share: $ 0.02265 The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the current distribution and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income, net realized short-term capital gains, net realized long-term capital gains and return of capital or other capital source. The funds fiscal year begins each December 1st. All amounts are expressed per common share. Total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date % Breakdown of the total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date Current distribution % Breakdown of current distribution Net Investment Income $ 0.00476 21% $ 0.05330 22% Net Realized ST Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Net Realized LT Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source 0.01789 79% 0.18899 78% Total (per common share) $ 0.02265 100% $ 0.24229 100% Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the five years ended 8-31-2022 0.62% Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of month end NAV as of 8-31-2022 7.39% Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through 8-31-2022 -10.38% Cumulative fiscal year distributions as a percentage of NAV as of 8-31-2022 6.58% MFS Intermediate High-Income Fund Distribution period: September 2022 Distribution amount per share: $ 0.01541 The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the current distribution and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income, net realized short-term capital gains, net realized long-term capital gains and return of capital or other capital source. The funds fiscal year begins each December 1st. All amounts are expressed per common share. Total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date % Breakdown of the total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date Current distribution % Breakdown of current distribution Net Investment Income $ 0.00925 60% $ 0.10391 62% Net Realized ST Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Net Realized LT Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source 0.00616 40% 0.06369 38% Total (per common share) $ 0.01541 100% $ 0.16760 100% Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the five years ended 8-31-2022 1.03% Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of month end NAV as of 8-31-2022 9.94% Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through 8-31-2022 -13.91% Cumulative fiscal year distributions as a percentage of NAV as of 8-31-2022 9.01% MFS Intermediate Income Trust Distribution period: September 2022 Distribution amount per share: $ 0.02242 The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the current distribution and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income, net realized short-term capital gains, net realized long-term capital gains and return of capital or other capital source. The funds fiscal year begins each November 1st. All amounts are expressed per common share. Total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date % Breakdown of the total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date Current distribution % Breakdown of current distribution Net Investment Income $ 0.00650 29% $ 0.07141 27% Net Realized ST Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Net Realized LT Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source 0.01592 71% 0.19307 73% Total (per common share) $ 0.02242 100% $ 0.26448 100% Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the five years ended 8-31-2022 1.53% Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of month end NAV as of 8-31-2022 8.62% Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through 8-31-2022 -7.54% Cumulative fiscal year distributions as a percentage of NAV as of 8-31-2022 8.48% MFS Multimarket Income Trust Distribution period: September 2022 Distribution amount per share: $ 0.03403 The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the current distribution and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income, net realized short-term capital gains, net realized long-term capital gains and return of capital or other capital source. The funds fiscal year begins each November 1st. All amounts are expressed per common share. Total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date % Breakdown of the total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date Current distribution % Breakdown of current distribution Net Investment Income $ 0.0000 0% $ 0.28583 70% Net Realized ST Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Net Realized LT Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source 0.03403 100% 0.12250 30% Total (per common share) $ 0.03403 100% $ 0.40833 100% Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the five years ended 8-31-2022 2.53% Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of month end NAV as of 8-31-2022 8.23% Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through 8-31-2022 -12.99% Cumulative fiscal year distributions as a percentage of NAV as of 8-31-2022 8.23% MFS Special Value Trust Distribution period: September 2022 Distribution amount per share: $ 0.03959 The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the current distribution and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income, net realized short-term capital gains, net realized long-term capital gains and return of capital or other capital source. The funds fiscal year begins each November 1st. All amounts are expressed per common share. Current distribution % Breakdown of current distribution Total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date % Breakdown of the total cumulative distributions for the fiscal year to date Net Investment Income $ 0.01029 26% $ 0.11612 25% Net Realized ST Cap Gains 0.00000 0% 0.00000 0% Net Realized LT Cap Gains 0.00277 7% 0.14864 32% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source 0.02653 67% 0.19973 43% Total (per common share) $ 0.03959 100% $ 0.46449 100% Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the five years ended 8-31-2022 4.36% Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of month end NAV as 8-31-2022 10.40% Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through 8-31-2022 -10.40% Cumulative fiscal year distributions as a percentage of NAV as of 8-31-2022 10.16% The above funds have adopted a managed distribution plan. Under a managed distribution plan, to the extent that sufficient investment income is not available monthly, the fund will distribute long-term capital gains and/or return of capital to maintain its managed distribution level. Investors should not draw any conclusions about the funds investment performance from the amount of the funds distributions or from the terms of the funds managed distribution plan. The Board of the fund may amend the terms of the plan or terminate the plan at any time without prior notice to the fund's shareholders. The amendment or termination of a plan could have an adverse effect on the market price of the funds common shares. The plan will be subject to periodic review by the Board. With each distribution that does not consist solely of net investment income, the fund will issue a notice to shareholders and an accompanying press release which will provide detailed information regarding the amount and estimated composition of the distribution and other related information. The amounts and sources of distributions reported above are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the funds investment experience during its full fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The fund will send shareholders a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell them how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes. The fund may at times distribute more than its net investment income and net realized capital gains; therefore, a portion of the distribution may result in a return of capital. A return of capital may occur, for example, when some or all the money that shareholders invested in the fund is paid back to them. A return of capital does not necessarily reflect a funds investment performance and should not be confused with yield or income. Any such returns of capital will decrease the fund's total assets and, therefore, could have the effect of increasing the fund's expense ratio. In addition, to make the level of distributions called for under its plan, the fund may have to sell portfolio securities at a less than opportune time. About MFS Investment Management In 1924, MFS launched the first US open-end mutual fund, opening the door to the markets for millions of everyday investors. Today, as a full-service global investment manager serving financial advisors, intermediaries and institutional clients, MFS still serves a single purpose: to create long-term value for clients by allocating capital responsibly. That takes our powerful investment approach combining collective expertise, thoughtful risk management and long-term discipline. Supported by our culture of shared values and collaboration, our teams of diverse thinkers actively debate ideas and assess material risks to uncover what we believe are the best investment opportunities in the market. As of August 31, 2022, MFS manages US$556.6 billion in assets on behalf of individual and institutional investors worldwide. Please visit mfs.com for more information. The Funds are closed-end Funds. Common shares of the Funds are only available for purchase/sale on the NYSE at the current market price. Shares may trade at a discount to NAV. MFS Investment Management 111 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02199 15668.168 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005219/en/ Computershare Shareholders Services: Shareholders (account information, quotes): 800-637-2304 MFS Investment Management: Shareholders or Advisors (investment product information): Jeffrey Schwarz, 800-343-2829, ext. 55872 Media Only: Dan Flaherty, 617-954-4256 Source: MFS Investment Management LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE: MOH) (Molina) today announced that its health plan subsidiary, Molina Healthcare of Nebraska, has been selected by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to provide health care services to Nebraskans under the states Medicaid managed care program. The new five-year contract for Molinas Nebraska health plan is expected to begin January 1, 2024. Molina Healthcare of Nebraska is one of three managed care organizations selected to offer health care coverage to approximately 360,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in the state. About Molina Healthcare Molina Healthcare, Inc., a FORTUNE 500 company (currently ranked 125), provides managed healthcare services under the Medicaid and Medicare programs and through the state insurance marketplaces. Through its locally operated health plans, Molina Healthcare served approximately 5.1 million members as of June 30, 2022. For more information about Molina Healthcare, please visit molinahealthcare.com. Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding DHHSs selection of Molina Healthcare of Nebraska. All forward-looking statements are based on the Companys current expectations that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Such risks include, without limitation, a successful protest or legal action, or a delay in the start date for the contract. Given these risks and uncertainties, Molina cannot give assurances that its forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. Information regarding the other risk factors to which the Company is subject is provided in greater detail in its periodic reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Companys most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K. These reports can be accessed under the investor relations tab of the Companys website or on the SECs website at sec.gov. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005055/en/ Investor Contact: Joseph Krocheski, [email protected], 562-951-8382 Media Contact: Caroline Zubieta, [email protected], 562-951-1588 Source: Molina Healthcare, Inc. LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Norge Mining Ltd (Norge Mining or the Company), the Anglo-Norwegian mineral exploration company with a world-class resource of Critical Raw Materials in southwest Norway, is pleased to announce the publication of its Responsible Business Report for 2021. Norge Mining is focused on three EU Critical Raw Materials phosphate, vanadium and titanium. These materials are of major strategic importance to Europe, for example in the green energy transition and in food production. The requirement to produce them in Europe is urgent, to ensure security of supply and to meet ESG agendas in which companies are focusing on the provenance of materials to ensure they are ethically and sustainably sourced. To deliver its plans to move from exploration and into development and production, Norge Mining is committed to the highest standards of responsible stewardship. Alignment with international sustainability programmes and disclosure guidance are central to the Companys strategy for becoming a robust and responsible mining and processing business. The Companys Responsible Business Report 2021, titled Creating a Positive Legacy, can be viewed at this link: https://norgemining.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Norge-Mining_Responbsible-Business-Report_2021_.pdf The report provides an opportunity for all stakeholders to assess the Companys activities and performance, and all feedback is welcomed. John Vergopoulos, Chief Executive Officer of Norge Mining, said: This is our second Responsible Business Report and it outlines the significant progress achieved during 2021 across the Company but particularly from the perspective of sustainability. As a natural resources company we are still at the exploration stage, but the world-class deposits that we have discovered in southwest Norway mean we are determined to have processes and policies in place to meet the highest standards of sustainable practice in readiness for the mining phase. The requirement to produce Critical Raw Materials in Europe has never been more urgent, highlighted by Europes dependence on Russian energy and phosphate. Norge Minings plans are focused on the development of a sustainable mining industry in Norway, embracing the environment, job creation and positive local and European impact. About Norge Mining Norge Mining Ltd is an Anglo-Norwegian natural resources company focused on mineral exploration in Norway. The Companys first Mineral Resource Estimates from the Bjerkreim Exploration Project have confirmed world-class deposits of the EU Critical Raw Materials vanadium, titanium and phosphate. The provenance of these materials is of significant strategic importance for net carbon zero commitments, a key requirement for which is supply chain transparency. Norge Mining, which owns 61 exploration licences totalling more than 520 square kilometres in southwest Norway, is currently conducting a programme of exploration work, building on earlier studies by the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU). The Companys ambition is to become a substantial, sustainable and strategically important exploration and mining business focused on Norway. Founded in November 2018, the Company is headquartered in the UK and has a 100%-owned Norwegian subsidiary, Norge Mineraler AS. For further information, please visit www.norgemining.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005042/en/ For media enquiries, please contact: Buchanan Communications Mark Court / George Cleary +44 (0) 20 7466 5000 [email protected] Source: Norge Mining Ltd DOHA, Qatar--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regulatory News: TotalEnergies (Paris: TTE) (LSE: TTE) (NYSE: TTE): Following its selection as the first partner for the 32 million ton per annum (Mtpa) North Field East (NFE) liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, TotalEnergies has again been selected as the first international partner in the 16 Mtpa North Field South (NFS) LNG project. Pursuant to the agreement, TotalEnergies will obtain a 9.375% participating interest in the NFS project out of a total 25% interest available for international partners while the national company QatarEnergy will hold the remaining 75%. Through its combined participating interests in NFE (6.25%) and NFS, TotalEnergies will add 3.5 Mtpa of LNG production to its growing worldwide LNG portfolio by 2028, in line with the Companys objective to increase the share of natural gas in its sales mix to 50% by 2030. The Second Phase of the World's Largest LNG Project Together, NFE and NFS form the wider North Field Expansion project to increase LNG production from the North Field, adding 48 Mtpa to Qatars export capacity and bringing it to 126 Mtpa by 2028. The upstream part of the project will develop the southern area of the North Field with five platforms, 50 wells and gas pipelines to the onshore processing plant. Downstream, there will be two 8 Mtpa liquefaction trains. NFS will benefit from significant synergies with NFE, making it one of the most cost-competitive LNG projects worldwide. Just like NFE, NFS will apply the highest standards to reduce its GHG emissions intensity. Native CO2 from natural gas production will be captured and sequestered, and the plant will be connected to Qatars electrical grid, which will supply it with a growing portion of renewable electricity in line with Qatars climate ambitions thanks to the 800 MW Al Kharsaah solar power plant project, in which TotalEnergies is a partner, and QatarEnergys new solar power plant currently under construction in Ras Laffan with TotalEnergies support. At the signing ceremony, Patrick Pouyanne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TotalEnergies, said: "Following North Field East, we are truly honored and proud that Qatar has once again chosen TotalEnergies to be QatarEnergys first partner in North Field South. The State of Qatars ambitious leadership in further developing its natural gas resources through this expansion project, which ranks among the world's most competitive in terms of costs and low emissions, will make a major contribution to increasing LNG supply in the years to come. We consider Qatar as a long-term strategic country for TotalEnergies and this latest addition to our portfolio marks an important step toward our low-carbon LNG growth objectives, a key pillar of TotalEnergies transformation into a sustainable multi-energy company. It will also further strengthen our ability, together with Qatar, to support Europes energy security." In his remarks during the ceremony, His Excellency Mr. Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, said: QatarEnergy is moving forward, with the support of our partners, to help meet growing global demand for cleaner energy, of which LNG is the backbone for a serious and realistic energy transition. We are committing significant investments to lower the carbon intensity of our energy products, which constitutes a key pillar of QatarEnergys sustainability and energy transition strategy. I am pleased to welcome TotalEnergies yet again to our flagship LNG projects. I would like to thank Mr. Patrick Pouyanne, Chairman of the Board and CEO of TotalEnergies for his leadership and continued efforts to further strengthen our long-term partnership. TotalEnergies, The Worlds Third-Largest Low-Carbon LNG Company TotalEnergies is the worlds third-largest low-carbon LNG company, with a global market share of around 10% and a global portfolio of nearly 50 Mt/y by 2025 thanks to its interests in liquefaction plants in all geographies. The Company benefits from an integrated position across the LNG value chain, including production, transportation, trading, and LNG bunkering. TotalEnergies ambition is to increase the share of natural gas in its sales mix to 50% by 2030, reduce the gas value chains carbon emissions, eliminate methane emissions, and work with local partners to promote the transition from coal to natural gas. *** About TotalEnergies TotalEnergies is a global multi-energy company that produces and markets energies: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewables and electricity. Our more than 100,000 employees are committed to energy that is ever more affordable, cleaner, more reliable and accessible to as many people as possible. Active in more than 130 countries, TotalEnergies puts sustainable development in all its dimensions at the heart of its projects and operations to contribute to the well-being of people. Twitter: @TotalEnergies LinkedIn: TotalEnergies Facebook: TotalEnergies Instagram: TotalEnergies Cautionary Note The terms TotalEnergies, TotalEnergies company or Company in this document are used to designate TotalEnergies SE and the consolidated entities that are directly or indirectly controlled by TotalEnergies SE. Likewise, the words we, us and our may also be used to refer to these entities or to their employees. The entities in which TotalEnergies SE directly or indirectly owns a shareholding are separate legal entities. This document may contain forward-looking information and statements that are based on a number of economic data and assumptions made in a given economic, competitive and regulatory environment. They may prove to be inaccurate in the future and are subject to a number of risk factors. Neither TotalEnergies SE nor any of its subsidiaries assumes any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information or statement, objectives or trends contained in this document whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Information concerning risk factors, that may affect TotalEnergies financial results or activities is provided in the most recent Universal Registration Document, the French-language version of which is filed by TotalEnergies SE with the French securities regulator Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), and in the Form 20-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220924005004/en/ TotalEnergies Contacts Media Relations:+33 (0)1 47 44 46 99l [email protected] l @TotalEnergiesPR Investor Relations:+33 (0)1 47 44 46 46 l [email protected] Source: TotalEnergies SE NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) (ELC) and BALMAIN have entered into a license agreement to collaboratively develop, produce, and distribute an innovative line of beauty products that will speak to luxury consumers around the world: BALMAIN BEAUTY. The collaboration is expected to launch in fall 2024, with the goal to transform the luxury and couture beauty world through exceptional design, singular craftsmanship, and an unyielding commitment to innovation. In 1945, when founder Pierre Balmain boldly introduced his audacious, fresh, and feminine New French Style, Balmain helped post-war Paris begin to regain its title as the fashion worlds capital. Todays BALMAIN, under the visionary leadership of Creative Director Olivier Rousteing since 2011, builds upon Pierre Balmains legacy, with the houses rich archives providing key inspirations and the legendary savoir-faire of Balmains atelier ensuring the success of Rousteings distinctive Renewed French Style. While revering the past, Rousteing has assumed a pioneering role in advocating for a more inclusive fashion world, while he and his team also expand design possibilities, relying on time-honored Parisian couture techniques to masterfully perfect the latest 21st-century breakthroughs. Founded in 1946 by the remarkable female entrepreneur, Estee Lauder, today The Estee Lauder Companies is the global leader in prestige and luxury beauty, celebrating the diversity of the world and inspiring consumers to express their individual beauty. As the only company focused solely on prestige and luxury makeup, skin care, fragrance, and hair care, the companys brands are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories. Infused throughout the family company are deep-rooted values and a rich history, as well as a passion for creativity and innovation and a desire to push boundaries and invent the unexpected. Drawing inspiration from the bold and breakthrough efforts of Estee Lauder, who helped invent the modern beauty industry, the company is at the forefront of social and environmental impact, with equity and sustainability as top priorities. For over ten years, my BALMAIN team and I have been pushing the boundaries of what is possible in fashion, notes Mr. Rousteing. Weve been determined to reflect the way that todays diverse generation wishes to live and dress. So, obviously, there was no way that we were going to expand into beauty without ensuring that we had found the partner who understood and shared our outlook. From the very beginning, the team at The Estee Lauder Companies made it very clear that they support BALMAINs distinctive vision, as well as our goal of disrupting the global luxury beauty paradigm. Knowing that and knowing that Estee Lauder is the paragon of excellence well, I cant wait to start working with them. Guillaume Jesel will be appointed President, Global Brands, TOM FORD BEAUTY, BALMAIN BEAUTY and Luxury Business Development, effective immediately. BALMAIN and Olivier Rousteing are visionary forces in global fashion. We look forward to working with them to expand the BALMAIN universe and forge a new space in luxury beauty that clearly reflects the strong, inclusive, and fearless spirit of the brand, said Mr. Jesel. Follow on Instagram @Balmainbeauty. About The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. The Estee Lauder Companies (ELC) is one of the worlds leading manufacturers, marketers and sellers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products. The companys products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories under brand names including: Estee Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, MAC, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin Paris, TOM FORD BEAUTY, Smashbox, Aerin Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, GLAMGLOW, Kilian Paris, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, and the DECIEM family of brands, including The Ordinary and NIOD. About BALMAIN For more than ten years, BALMAINs Creative Director, Olivier Rousteing, has been inventively building upon Pierre Balmains extraordinary legacy, while always remaining true to his own determination to design clothes that reflect the way his inclusive, powerful, and global BALMAIN customer wishes to live today. The result is a unique and instantly recognizable BALMAIN silhouette, style and attitude that highlights the singular craftsmanship of the houses celebrated ateliers, while consistently referencing a rich Parisian heritage. For more information, please visit balmain.com. [The forward-looking statements in this press release, including those in the quoted remarks and those relating to the expected launch and expectations for BALMAIN BEAUTY involve risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements include current economic and other conditions in the global marketplace, actions by retailers, suppliers and consumers, competition, the ongoing success of the collaborative relationship of the parties, the abilities to implement the plan, and those risk factors described in ELCs annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2022.] ELC-C ELC-B View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005060/en/ Investor Relations: Rainey Mancini [email protected] Media Relations: Jill Marvin [email protected] Source: The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. Exclusive distribution agreement in the USA for the full range of BIOCERA-VET products with Invictos Orthopedics, US specialist in veterinary orthopedics Significant step in the expansion of sales throughout all the states GOSSELIES, Wallonia, Belgium--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regulatory News: TheraVet (ISIN: BE0974387194 - ticker: ALVET) (Paris: ALVET) (Brussels: ALVET), a pioneering company in the management of osteoarticular diseases in pets, announces today it has entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Invictos Orthopedics LLC, a North America company designing, developing and commercializing veterinary orthopedic products and medical devices. Harold Wotton, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Invictos Orthopedics, said: The addition of the TheraVet line of products represents an important step forward for our orthopedic portfolio. TheraVet products fits seamlessly into our growing offering in orthopedic surgery and we are excited to advance the next generation of healing in orthopedics. Under the terms of the agreement, Invictos will promote and distribute BIOCERA-VET throughout the United States of America. This distribution agreement covers the full range of BIOCERA-VET products i.e., BIOCERA-VET Bone Surgery RTU, BIOCERA-VET SmartGraft, BIOCERA-VET Granules and BIOCERA-VET Osteosarcoma RTU. Also, Invictos will co-host with TheraVet a Satellite Event in marge of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) Surgery Summit, the largest conference on veterinary surgery in the US, taking place the next October 12-15, 2022 at Portland (USA). This Event will be an opportunity for TheraVet to officially launch the BIOCERA-VET SmartGraft and to present its full range of products to orthopedic veterinary surgeons. This agreement represents a significant step for the distribution of BIOCERA-VET product line in the United States of America, the largest companion animals market worldwide, accounting about 89 million dogs and 104 million cats with $4.8 bn revenues estimated in 2021 and a projected CAGR1 of 10.2% over the next 8 years (2022-2030)2. Enrico Bastianelli, Chief Executive Officer of TheraVet, comments: Signing a distribution agreement with such a specialized company is key to achieve TheraVets commercial objectives in the USA. We are pleased to start this collaboration and to benefit from Dr. Wottons unique expertise in US veterinary orthopedic market, a decisive advantage for the promotion of BIOCERA-VET About TheraVet SA TheraVet is a veterinary biotechnology company specialising in osteoarticular treatments for companion animals. The Company develops targeted, safe and effective treatments to improve the quality of life of pets suffering from joint and bone diseases. For pet owners, the health of their pets is a major concern and TheraVets mission is to address the need for innovative and curative treatments. TheraVet works closely with international opinion leaders in order to provide a more effective response to ever-growing needs in the field of veterinary medicine. TheraVet is listed on Euronext Growth Paris and Brussels, has its head office in Belgium (Gosselies) with a US subsidiary in Texas. For more information, visit the TheraVet website or follow us on LinkedIn / Facebook / Twitter About Invictos Orthopedics LLC Invictos Orthopedics LLC is an innovative customer-focused company dedicated to servicing the customer with the highest level of integrity. Invictos Orthopedics LLC was founded by Harry Wotton, an extremely seasoned CEO in the American orthopedic market. He has a solid experience and a well-developed network in the American market. He is the founder and former CEO of Securos Orthopedic, which is one of the most important players in the supply of veterinary orthopedic implants, and Everost Veterinary Orthopedics before its integration into Steris Animal Health in 2018. After 4 years as Vice President of New Business Development & Engineering, he created Invictos Orthopedics LLC in 2022. About BIOCERA-VET In close collaboration with an international scientific board, THERAVET has developed a new line of calcium-phosphate and biological bone substitutes, BIOCERA-VET. BIOCERA-VET is a full range of innovative, easy-to-use, efficient & cost-effective bone substitutes indicated in bone surgeries where a bone graft is required and as a palliative alternative in the management of canine osteosarcoma. Based on extremely promising clinical results, this line offers the possibility of a better, more convenient and more efficient orthopedic surgery. BIOCERA-VET is declined in different lines: BIOCERA-VET BONE SURGERY RTU, ready-to-use highly injectable self-hardening calcium-phosphate cement BIOCERA-VET SMARTGRAFT, a naturally osteoconductive bone graft BIOCERA-VET GRANULES, an affordable biocompatible calcium-phosphate bone substitute BIOCERA-VET OSTEOSARCOMA RTU, a ready-to-use highly injectable calcium-phosphate bone substitute for cementoplasty For more information, visit BIOCERA-VET website. 1 CAGR: Compound annual growth rate 2 https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-companion-animal-health-market; https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220601005747/en/United-States-Companion-Animal-Health-Market-Report-2022-Market-to-Reach-11.39-Bn-by-2030---Rising-Number-of-Companion-Ownership---ResearchAndMarkets.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005017/en/ TheraVet Chief Operating Officer Sabrina Ena [email protected] Tel: +32 (0) 71 96 00 43 Chief Corporate Officer Julie Winand [email protected] NewCap Investor Relations and Financial Communications Theo Martin / Hugo Willefert [email protected] Tel: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 94 Press Relations Arthur Rouille [email protected] Tel: +33 (0)1 44 71 00 15 NewCap Belgique Press Relations Laure-Eve Monfort [email protected] Tel: +32 (0) 489 57 76 52 Source: TheraVet New Clinical Facility in London, Ontario Accelerates Research and Innovation VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Wellbeing Digital Sciences Inc. (Wellbeing or the Company) (NEO: MEDI) (OTC: KONEF) (FRA: SQ2), an evidence-based mental healthcare company focused on the development and implementation of innovative clinical solutions, including psychedelic medicine and digital therapeutics as supported by clinical research, announces that its wholly owned subsidiary KGK Sciences Inc. (KGK) has opened their new Clinical Research Center in London, Ontario, with the aim to accelerate their clients research and drug development needs in the nutraceutical, cannabinoid, hemp and psychedelic space. KGK will host a grand opening ceremony on September 29, 2022 to officially open the new, state-of-the-art clinical research facility and celebrate being a leading contract research organization for over 25 years. The Companys clinical research center empowers KGK to provide high-quality clinical research trials and expert regulatory support for clients in the nutraceutical, cannabis, hemp and psychedelic industries. As a premium full-service contract research organization, KGK is dedicated to providing clinical trial research that meets the highest quality standards. Led by a team of scientific research and regulatory experts, KGK combines cutting-edge clinical science with industry expertise to design clinical trial and claim substantiation strategies customized to meet the needs of our clients. Having over 150 publications, the company is continuously pushing study designs and measurement tools forward in the industry and were most recently published in Frontiers Journal speaking about the assessment and re-evaluation of clinical trial design. The full article can be found here: Breaking new frontiers: Assessment and re-evaluation of clinical trial design for nutraceuticals. Our new research center, located in the heart of London, Ontario will draw upon the strength and heritage of applied research and innovation and will be an ongoing opportunity for ground-breaking research in the fields of nutraceuticals, cannabinoids, hemp and psychedelics with global partners, clients and academics, striving for excellence as we have done over the past 25 years, said Najla Guthrie, CEO of Wellbeing & KGK. Our goal is to strengthen the fundamental research needed for global innovation and enable the creation of next-generation nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. Media interested in attending the opening should contact Natalie Dolphin (email: [email protected]; phone: 416-706-6364) by 12 p.m. ET on Thursday, September 29, 2022. ABOUT KGK SCIENCE Subsidiary of Wellbeing Digital Sciences, KGK is a leading North American contract research organization based in London, Ontario that primarily provides high-quality clinical research trials with a focus on nutraceutical and emerging health care products. Founded in 1997, the business has successfully helped hundreds of companies with custom designed clinical trials and claim substantiation strategies to move products into global markets. KGKs other existing service lines include expert regulatory support and compliance solutions, participant recruitment, research support services and consulting services. Furthermore, the company has produced over 150 publications, executed over 400 clinical trials across more than 40 indications, amassed 25,000 participants in its database and collected 10 million data points. For additional information, please visit kgkscience.com. ABOUT WELLBEING DIGITAL SCIENCES Wellbeing Digital Sciences Inc. is an evidence-based mental healthcare company focused on the development and implementation of innovative clinical treatment solutions, including psychedelic medicine and digital therapeutics, as supported by clinical research. Its mission is supported by a network of North American clinics that provide forward-thinking therapies and other types of treatment to patients as well as through a contract research organization that offers clinical trials services to clients pursuing drug development. For additional information, please visit wellbeingdigital.co. On behalf of: Najla Guthrie Chief Executive Officer WELLBEING DIGITAL SCIENCES Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains forward-looking statements including but not limited to statements regarding the Companys business, assets or investments, as well other statements that are not historical facts. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not occur, which may cause actual performance and results in future periods to differ materially from any estimates or projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the state of the economy in general and capital markets in particular, investor interest in the business and prospects of the Company. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made, by third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005255/en/ For further information, please contact: Natalie Dolphin VP of Marketing & Investment Relations Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Wellbeing_IR Source: Wellbeing Digital Sciences Inc. Scotiabank (NYSE: BNS) today announced Brian Porter's decision to retire as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective January 31, 2023. With this announcement, Scotiabank's Board of Directors has appointed Scott Thomson as CEO of Scotiabank, effective February 1, 2023. Mr. Thomson is currently President and CEO of Finning International Inc. and has been a member of the Scotiabank Board since 2016. Mr. Thomson will initially serve as President, effective December 1, 2022, with responsibility for the Bank's business lines: Canadian Banking, Global Banking and Markets, Global Wealth Management, and International Banking. To support the transition, Mr. Porter will become a Strategic Advisor to Mr. Thomson from February 1, 2023 to April 30, 2023 "Brian Porter has been a forward-looking leader who has made bold, strategic decisions that have repositioned the Bank, while growing assets to $1.3 trillion from $744 billion. He refocused the Bank's geographic and business priorities and redeployed capital into businesses with greater growth opportunities, while exiting non-core markets," said Aaron Regent, Chair of the Board for Scotiabank. "During his tenure as CEO, the Global Wealth Management business has more than doubled in size, now ranking #2 by assets in the Canadian retail mutual fund industry; our International Banking business is now focused on fewer, larger markets that offer higher growth potential; and the Global Banking and Markets business, inclusive of the Bank's international wholesale business, has consistently been second largest by profitability among domestic peers. Moreover, the Canadian Banking business has been re-energized, profitably growing market share in key product segments. Throughout, Brian led the Bank's comprehensive digital transformation, creating efficiencies for shareholders and employees, and delivering a superior customer experience. These strategic investments have resulted in a well-diversified Bank that is strongly positioned for sustained future growth." "Brian's focused stewardship through challenging macroeconomic environments and through the global pandemic, has resulted in outstanding employee engagement, customer satisfaction and brand equity, leading the Bank to win multiple industry awards including Bank of the Year in Canada for three consecutive years. As well, Scotiabank has been recognized for its leadership in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and was named Best Bank in Canada for leadership in sustainable finance in 2022," continued Mr. Regent. "On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Brian for his tremendous contributions over his multi-decade career at the Bank, and most importantly, for his leadership as our CEO over the last nine years." "I have always believed that banking is a calling and serving this enduring, 190-year-old institution as President and CEO has been the honour of my lifetime," said Brian Porter, President and CEO of Scotiabank. "I leave the Bank with the same sense of optimism that marked the start of my time in this role. I am confident that Scott Thomson will guide the Bank through the next phase of its growth and development. He is a results-driven and proven leader who executes with purpose and shares values that are aligned with those of the Bank. I have every confidence he will lead the Bank exceedingly well." Mr. Thomson is retiring as President and CEO of Finning International Inc., effective November 15, 2022, after nine years leading the world's largest dealer of Caterpillar equipment and engines across diverse industries in the Americas and Europe. As CEO of Finning, Mr. Thomson led the company through challenging market conditions, yet significantly improved the business' earnings capacity and drove increased return on invested capital in all business units, particularly in Latin America. Mr. Thomson's career has spanned a wide variety of industries including financial services, telecom, natural resources, and industrial services internationally, providing a strong perspective on opportunities and challenges for the Bank's diverse customer base. "The Board congratulates Scott Thomson on his appointment as Scotiabank's next CEO. Scott is an exceptional leader and a seasoned CEO with a history of delivering results across the Americas and in international markets through a strong focus on operational excellence, talent development, and digital transformation, and a proven track record in effective capital allocation and investments in strategic capabilities. He successfully led large organizations in challenging and complex macroeconomic environments, including providing tremendous leadership at Finning throughout the COVID-19 pandemic," said Mr. Regent. "Scott brings a strong commitment to accelerating the Bank's customer focus, digital capabilities, and ESG priorities. As a Board member of Scotiabank since 2016, Scott has a comprehensive understanding of the Bank's strategy, operations, management team, risk appetite, culture, and drivers of growth. The Board is confident that Scott is the right leader to build on the Bank's strengths and commitment to delivering for its customers, employees, shareholders and communities." "Scotiabank has delivered strong performance and steady growth thanks to Brian's long-term vision and strategic investments in people, processes, technology and products. His contributions will continue to benefit the Bank for many years to come," said Scott Thomson, Incoming President and CEO of Scotiabank. "I am incredibly honoured and energized to be joining and leading the Bank's world-class leadership team. During my six years on Scotiabank's Board, I have had the opportunity to see first-hand the incredible potential of this organization, and the dedication and skill of its people. I share their commitment to building an inclusive and sustainable future for all the Bank's stakeholders at a time when our customers, shareholders and communities around the world need us most." Vietnam-based electric vehicle company, VinFast announced on Monday that they have signed a strategic partnership with Renesas Electronics Corporation. The new agreement aims to expand collaberation between the two companies to include automotive technology development of electric vehicles as well as delivery of system components. The signing ceremony of the strategic collaboration was held at VinFasts factory in Haiphong City, Vietnam earlier this month, which was attended by VinFasts CEO, Le Thi Thu Thuy and Renesas CEO, Hidetoshi Shibata. VinFast is on a course of market expansion worldwide and mass production to ensure the highest vehicle performance and timely delivery to customers said Le Thi Thu Thuy, Vice Chairwoman of Vingroup and Global CEO of VinFast. This new partnership with Renesas will give VinFast access to both advanced in-vehicle semiconductor technology as well as high-level system expertise, with the aim to accelerate the development of safe and sophisticated EVs for global markets. We are committed to supporting the local industry in Vietnam through talent development and business expansion. Since founding our design center in Ho Chi Minh City in 2004, we have continued to expand our presence in Vietnam. We also established a second design center in Da Nang this April, said Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas. The collaboration with VinFast reinforces our commitment. We are thrilled to join VinFasts journey for their global growth beyond Vietnam. By making EVs more widely available, I am convinced we can lead a greener, safer, and more sustainable way of living. VinFast and Renesas have previously collaborated on automotive infotainment systems, and Renesas SoCs (System-on-Chips), R-Car, and analog products have already been implemented in VinFast's new VF8 and VF9 EV models. By Michael Elkins | [email protected] FILE PHOTO: Tropical Storm Ian is seen near the coast of Cuba in this satellite image taken September 25, 2022. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/Handout via REUTERS (This Sept 26 story has been refiled to delete extraneous word "in" in paragraph 6) By Shannon Stapleton and Brendan O'Brien TAMPA (Reuters) - Residents across Florida scrambled to place sandbags around their homes and stockpile emergency supplies on Monday, emptying store shelves as Hurricane Ian spun toward the state carrying high winds, torrential rains and a powerful storm surge. Ian's path toward Florida forced the U.S. space agency NASA to roll its giant Artemis 1 moon rocket off its Cape Canaveral lauchpad after postponing the much-anticipated mission a third time. Ian was a Category 2 hurricane as of Monday evening, packing winds over 100 miles per hour and expected to intensify before making landfall in Cuba. Forecasters said that once Ian left Cuba, the storm could make landfall north of Tampa Bay early on Friday or turn northwest toward Florida's Panhandle. "This is a really big storm," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told a news conference, saying the storm could potentially envelope both coasts of the state. The Biden administration declared a public health emergency for the state on Monday and said it was working with local officials to provide support. Florida has seen wetter, windier and more intense hurricanes in recent years, which experts attribute to climate change. There is also evidence that climate change is causing storms to travel more slowly, meaning they can dump more water in one place. Signs of the impending storm were seen throughout Florida, a state of 21 million people. In Titusville, a city of 43,000 on the Atlantic Coast, crews used chainsaws to trim palm trees. In a grocery store in St. Petersburg, across the state on the Gulf Coast, only empty cardboard boxes remained where the store normally stocks distilled water. Toilet paper, snacks and canned soup could still be found. In the historic Tampa neighborhood of Ybor City, northeast of downtown, Diane Zambito, 64, said she normally doesn't get rattled by hurricanes that hit the state. "But this one's different," she said on Monday afternoon as her husband nailed plywood over their home's windows. "This one scares me. It's too big to not be scared if you have any sense." The couple planned to shovel sand into bags and stack them up in front of the doors to keep water from flowing inside. NATIONAL GUARD MOBILIZED The Zambitos were among many Florida residents preparing for flooding that could submerge streets and homes. Hurricane-force could damage or destroy homes and businesses and trigger power outages in the coming days, forecasters warn. The governor has mobilized 5,000 National Guard members. An additional 2,000 are coming from Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina and nearby states have troops on standby. Key West Mayor Teri Johnston said her island city could be one of the first places in the United States hit by Hurricane Ian. Johnston said homeowners and vacation rentals had nailed up storm shutters or boards across windows as residents stocked up enough food and water to last a week. The city cut down the coconuts from trees lining some streets, she said, explaining: "A coconut can become a 30-pound projectile in a storm." City vehicles were moved to higher ground and residents living on boats were told to seek shelter on land before storm squalls start lashing the city on Monday night. Forecasters predicted a 4-foot (1.2-meter) storm surge that could push seawater up over the shore into the streets. "If there's an evacuation, I will be the one to order it," Johnston said. "We'll consider it if the storm wobbles east." The intensifying storm was about 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Grand Cayman on Monday morning with sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (128 km per hour). BP Plc halted oil production at two platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Ian could intensify into a Category 3 storm once it enters the Gulf of Mexico, forecasters say, but weaken again while parked off Tampa on Florida's Gulf Coast on Thursday. From there, the storm's path is uncertain. Regardless, between 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) of rain were expected to inundate both Florida's Gulf and Atlantic coasts on Thursday, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Ian follows Hurricane Fiona, a powerful Category 4 storm that carved a path of destruction last week through Puerto Rico, leaving most of the U.S. territory without power and potable water. Fiona then barreled through the Turks and Caicos Islands, skirted Bermuda and slammed into Canada's Atlantic coast, where critical infrastructure might take months to repair. (Reporting by Shannon Stapleton in Tampa and Brendan O'Brien in Washington; Additional reporting by Tyler Clifford in Washington, Rich McKay in Atlanta and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Aurora Ellis) FILE PHOTO: Security walks in front of the landfall facility of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 in Lubmin, Germany, September 19, 2022. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo By Thomas Escritt and Stine Jacobsen BERLIN/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Danish authorities on Monday asked ships to steer clear of a five nautical mile radius off the island of Bornholm after a gas leak overnight from the defunct Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline drained into the Baltic Sea. The German government said it was in contact with the Danish authorities and working with local law enforcement to find out what caused pressure in the pipeline to plummet suddenly. Denmark's energy ministry declined to comment. On Monday evening, the operator of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which ran at reduced capacity since mid-June before stopping supplies altogether in August, also disclosed a pressure drop on both lines of the gas pipeline. "The reasons are being investigated," Nord Stream AG said on its website, without disclosing further information. The pipeline has been one of the flashpoints in an escalating energy war between Europe and Moscow since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February that has pummelled major Western economies and sent gas prices soaring. "A leak today occurred on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Danish area," said Denmark's energy agency in a statement. The German network regulator president, Klaus Mueller, said on Twitter the pressure drop in both pipelines "underscores the German network regulator's assessment that the situation is tense." The regulator said it was currently not known what had caused the pressure drop, adding the event had no impact on security of supply in Germany and that the country's gas storage levels were around 91%. Danish maritime authorities had issued a navigation warning and established a zone around the Nord Stream 2 pipeline "as it is dangerous for ship traffic", it added. Nord Stream 2's operator said pressure in the pipeline, which had contained some gas sealed inside despite never becoming operational, dropped from 105 to 7 bars overnight. The pipeline, which was intended to double the volume of gas flowing from St. Petersburg under the Baltic Sea to Germany, had just been completed and filled with 300 million cubic metres of gas when Germany cancelled it days before the invasion. NO CLARITY "Overnight the Nord Stream 2 landfall dispatcher registered a rapid gas pressure drop on Line A of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline," Nord Stream 2's operator said in a statement. "Investigation is ongoing." European countries have resisted Russian calls to allow the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to operate and accused Moscow of using energy as a weapon. Russia denies doing so and blames the West for gas shortages. "We are currently in contact with the authorities concerned in order to clarify the situation. We still have no clarity about the causes and the exact facts," said a statement from the German economy ministry. The Swiss-based operator, which has legally been wound up, said it had informed all relevant authorities about the leak. Russian gas exporter Gazprom referred questions about the incident to the Nord Stream 2 operator. Russia has cut off gas supplies to several countries and also halted flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming Western sanctions for hindering operations. President Vladimir Putin in September chided the West for keeping Nord Stream 2 shut. Monday's gas leak happened a day before the ceremonial launch of the Baltic Pipe carrying gas from Norway to Poland. The project is a centrepiece of Warsaw's efforts to diversify from Russian gas. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is due to travel to Poland on Tuesday to mark the occasion. Nord Stream 2 was widely unpopular among Danish lawmakers and the country in 2017 passed a law which allowed it to ban the project from passing through its territorial waters on security grounds. But Nord Stream 2 later changed the original route to steer it through Denmark's exclusive economic zone, where this veto could not be applied. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt, Christian Kraemer, Stine Jacobsen, Terje Solsvik, Marek Strzelecki, Matthias Williams, Christoph Steitz and Sarah Marsh; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Mark Potter and Marguerita Choy) FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 19,2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake//File Photo By Hilary Russ NEW YORK (Reuters) - Starbucks plans to start negotiating its first labor contracts with employees at hundreds of unionized U.S. cafes in October, the coffee chain said on Monday. When it does, those workers are likely to ask for a key job protection: to only be fired for just cause, according to barista and union spokesperson Casey Moore. Baristas and shift supervisors in at least 240 company-owned U.S. Starbucks Corp locations have unionized in a little over a year. Workers at Chipotle Mexican Grill, Trader Joe's grocers and other retailers have also since filed petitions with the national labor board seeking to join unions. The Seattle-based company sent letters to union organizers at 234 stores on Friday, saying that it was available to begin bargaining in October, according to its post on a Starbucks company blog focused on the union's activities. "We look forward to these negotiations and hopefully setting dates and securing locations for contract bargaining," the post said. Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, said employees at some stores have waited more than five months to start discussions on issues, including worker safety, discrimination, and respect in the workplace. The union's national bargaining committee has made one priority "just cause," Moore said, a core form of employment security requiring a company to discipline workers for some reason that is fair - as opposed to an frivolous cause such as personal dislike - and often allows the union to settle cases in arbitration. More than 110 Starbucks employees have been terminated for minor issues as retaliation for their union organizing, Moore said. After a federal appeals court ruling, Starbucks said earlier this month that it would rehire seven employees in Memphis who the union said were fired in retaliation for organizing. No Starbucks employees have or will be disciplined for supporting unions, the company said earlier this month. Claims of retaliatory firings are false and Starbucks is disputing them in legal proceedings, it said. (Reporting by Hilary Russ; Editing by Aurora Ellis) Dayton, Ohio, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Centric Consulting, an international business and technology consulting firm, has been named a 2022 "Best Firms to Work For" by Consulting Magazine for the fifth consecutive time. This is Centric's second year earning a top ten spot in the "large firm" category, which speaks to the firm's marked growth of more than 500 employees in recent years. The latest Consulting Magazine recognition of Centric Consulting among the best firms to work for reflects the firms continued dedication to creating an unmatched culture for its employees. It also stands as one of Centric Consulting's many accolades this year that point to employee satisfaction. "We have always stayed true to our commitment to developing authentic client and employee relationships and creating an exceptional workplace culture," said Dave Rosevelt, Founder and CEO of Centric Consulting. "Our culture celebrates individuals, collaboration and lifelong friendships. From recognition programs to a flexible, remote work environment ensuring employee happiness is integrated into everything we do." Consulting Magazine's Best Firms survey is the industry's largest and most in-depth employee satisfaction survey. The annual survey collects thousands of responses from hundreds of consulting firms to gauge employee satisfaction in the categories of culture, career development, client engagement, compensation and benefits and firm leadership. "Without question, this year's honorees went above and beyond to ensure service continuity for clients and the health, welfare and betterment of their greatest assets," said Michael Webb, Director, Consulting Magazine. "As an industry, we should all take collective pride in the value placed on delivering outstanding workspaces and professional growth opportunities, and the premium placed on the people who help deliver incredible levels of client service." Click here for Consulting Magazine's full report: 2040995-63245cef2cf04.pdf (swoogo.com) About Centric Consulting Centric Consulting is an international management consulting firm with unmatched expertise in business transformation, hybrid workplace strategy, technology implementation and adoption. Founded in 1999 with a remote workforce, Centric has established a reputation for solving its clients' toughest problems, delivering tailored solutions, and bringing deeply experienced consultants centered on what's best for your business. Headquartered in Ohio, Centric Consulting has 1,500 employees and 14 locations. In every project, clients get a trusted advisor averaging over 15 years of experience and the best talent from across the United States and India. Centric Consulting deliberately builds teams that can scale up or down quickly based on client needs, industry and desired outcome. Visit http://www.centricconsulting.com to learn more. Connect with Centric Consulting: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram ### Lindsay Dawson Centric Consulting 5172046734 [email protected] Source: Centric Consulting WESTPORT, Conn., Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HMG Strategy, the Worlds #1 digital platform for enabling technology executives to reimagine the enterprise and reshape the business world and recently recognized as a Top 10 Producer of Tech Events by Business Chief, has identified the Top 10 events designed for business technology leaders to attend in 2023. HMG Strategys highly interactive events bring together the worlds most distinguished and innovative business technology and security leaders to discuss the most pressing leadership, innovation, strategic, cultural, technology and career challenges and opportunities that they face today and into the future. These world-class business technology leadership events bring together the industrys top minds to explore the intersection of business and technology to help enable global CIOs, CISOs and technology leaders to lead, reimagine, reinvent and inspire trust in the modern enterprise while safeguarding the company in extremely turbulent times. Technology executives have an incredible opportunity to act as enterprise change agents as they sit at the intersection of how technology can be leveraged to drive transformational change across the organization, said Hunter Muller, President and CEO of HMG Strategy. HMG Strategys CIO and CISO Executive Leadership Summits and other events provide forward-thinking business technology executives with a global media platform to share their thought leadership on the bold and authentic leadership thats needed to identify and execute on new digital go-to-market business models, drive new waves of innovation and foster the kind of collaborative and trusting culture needed to attract, retain, grow and motivate the technology professionals needed to fuel the 21st century enterprise and win in the market. The Top 10 Business Technology Leadership Events to Attend in 2023 as cited by HMG Strategy include: HMG Strategys 2023 CIO Executive Summit Series. HMG Strategys CIO Executive Leadership Summits are peer-focused, curated and guided by the insights and commitment of the thousands of advisory board members and global technology executives across 30+ regions where it deliver world-class thought leadership on the most critical macro-economic trends that are impacting global technology leaders and fellow members of the senior leadership team to help them to lead boldly and authentically, to inspire employees and foster a culture of trust across the C-suite, with the Board of Directors and with line-of-business leaders. To learn more about HMG Strategys 2022 CIO Executive Leadership Summit Series event schedule, click here. HMG Strategys 2023 New York and Silicon Valley Global Innovation Summits. These events are custom designed for corporate innovation and business technology leaders, aimed at exploring the top business and operational challenges and opportunities in the global enterprise where innovation can be delivered. World-class speakers and attendees at these events candidly share the top organizational and cultural challenges that must be overcome and fresh approaches that are needed for innovation to succeed. To learn more about HMG Strategys 2022 New York Global Innovation Summit and to register for the event, click here. HMG Strategys 2023 CISO Executive Leadership Summit Series. These CISO-focused events bring together the worlds leading CISOs, security executives and industry experts where they explore the top cybersecurity, business, staffing, funding and communication challenges facing organizational security leaders and their teams. Timely topics explored at these events include recommendations for communicating cybersecurity threats and risks with the CEO, Board of Directors and line-of-business leaders as well as opportunities for positioning security as a competitive advantage. To learn more about HMG Strategys upcoming CISO Executive Leadership Summits and to register for these events, click here. HMG Strategys 2023 Global Women in Technology Summit. This unique, annual event is developed by and geared towards global female business technology executives. Critical topics explored at these events include the top challenges and opportunities facing female business technology leaders as well as insightful best practices for accelerating their career ascent, leading effectively in a male-dominated C-suite, addressing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) from a female leadership perspective and successful strategies for retaining up-and-coming female leaders. To learn more about HMG Strategys 2022 Global Women in Technology Summit on October 17 and to register for the event, click here. 2023 RSA Conference. The RSA Conference is one of the industrys top cybersecurity events that brings many of the worlds cybersecurity professionals together. The 2022 RSA Conference included more than 200 sessions which ranged from keynote presentations to interactive panels and seminars. To learn more about the 2023 RSA Conference, click here. 2023 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. Although in-person attendance was limited due to space restrictions, this annual event has been produced for nearly 20 years and continues to focus on critical themes impacting CIOs in their roles. For instance, the theme for the 2022 symposium focused on Digital Ecosystems: Reshaping the Future of Business?, including the social, political and technological forces that continue to impact businesses in often unpredictable ways. To learn more about the agenda and speakers for the 2022 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, click here. Black Hat USA 2023. Now entering its 26th year, Black Hat has created a unique hybrid event experience thats designed to enable cybersecurity professionals a choice in how they participate and to discover the latest cutting-edge research, developments and trends. The 2022 event opened with four days of training sessions, followed by a two-day conference. To learn more about Black Hat 2022, including highlights and the schedule, click here. AWS re:Invent 2023. This event which is focused on cloud innovation and leadership has quickly become one of the most-attended events in the industry. Keynote presentations and sessions range on topics from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to AI/ML, analytics and architecture as well as industry trends and opportunities. To learn more about the AWS re:Invent 2023 agenda and top speakers, click here. 2023 Gartner IT Symposium|Xpo. This long-running event is focused on technology, strategy and leadership insights. Topic areas covered in the 2022 Gartner Symposium include accelerating the digital business; data, analytics and AI; the future of work; cybersecurity; culture and DEI; and leadership and talent. Gartner analysts and distinguished executives typically address keynotes and sessions. To learn more about the 2022 Gartner IT Symposium|Xpo, click here. The 2023 U.S. CIO 100 Awards. This recognition program, now in its 35th year, acknowledges 100 organizations and their technology leaders for achievements in technology innovation. Winning projects are determined by a panel of external judges (including former CIOs) that have achieved demonstrable business value through the innovative use of technology, created a competitive advantage, improved business processes, enabled growth and enhanced customer relationships. To learn more about the 2022 U.S. CIO 100 Awards along with top speakers and sessions, click here. To learn more about HMG Strategys upcoming CIO, CISO and Global Innovation Summits, click here. About HMG Strategy HMG Strategy is the world's leading digital platform for connecting technology executives to reimagine the enterprise and reshape the business world. The HMG Strategy global network consists of more than 400,000 CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, CDOs, senior business technology executives, search industry executives, venture capitalists, industry experts and world-class thought leaders. HMG Strategys global media model generates more than one million impressions per week, providing vast opportunities for business technology leaders and sponsor partners to promote themselves and their brands. HMG Strategy was founded in 2008 by Hunter Muller, a leadership expert who has worked side-by-side with Fortune 2000 executives with strategic planning and career ascent for the past 30+ years. HMG Strategys regional and virtual CIO and CISO Executive Leadership Series, authored books and Digital Resource Center deliver unique, peer-driven guidance from CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, CDOs and technology executives on leadership, innovation, transformation and career ascent. HMG Strategy offers a range of peer-led research services such as its CIO & CISO Executive Leadership Alliance (CELA) program which bring together the worlds top CIOs, CISOs and technology executives to brainstorm on the top opportunities and challenges facing them in their roles. HMG Strategys Global Peer Actionable Insights Services Stack is a unique set of research services that are designed to keep business technology executives up to speed on the latest leadership, business, technology and global geo-economic trends that are impacting businesses and industries. To learn more about HMG Strategy's unique business model, click here. Contact: Tom Hoffman, VP, Research, HMG Strategy: 203-221-2702 or at [email protected] A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e0da54cd-e747-43bf-ba29-b137677fcfd3 Combines the companys largest clinical image yet with proprietary advanced image clarity designed to enable greater diagnostic and procedural confidence and improve collaboration AMSTERDAM, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FUJIFILM Sonosite, Inc. the world leader in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) solutions has added to its next-generation POCUS portfolio with the launch of its new, premium Sonosite LX system in *Europe, featuring the companys largest clinical image and a monitor that extends, rotates and tilts to enable enhanced, real-time provider collaboration. The clinical display features touchscreen controls to enable an optimised heads-up workflow, allowing clinicians to keep their eyes on the image while making adjustments. The company has also launched a new T8-3 transoesophageal transducer and Cardiac Resuscitation exam type to assist clinicians in using transoesophageal ultrasound (TOU) at the point of care, both of which are designed to be used with the Sonosite LX and Sonosite PX. Sonosite LX was inspired by and designed with clinician partners, focusing on the evolving ways ultrasound can support the quadruple aim at the point of care, wherever that may be, said Rich Fabian, president and CEO, FUJIFILM Sonosite, Inc. Were thrilled to bring the Sonosite LX to Europe, building on the momentum of successful introductions in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This launch reflects an ongoing commitment to delivering leading edge technology for clinicians and their patients, technology thats backed up by a world-class ecosystem of services, support and education. Sonosite LX Point of Care Ultrasound System Sonosite LX has a large, adaptable 21.3 clinical display that extends, rotates and tilts to accommodate the varied clinical environments at the bedside. The systems small footprint and adjustable display foster collaboration, allowing for real-time image and information sharing with the patient, other clinicians, residents and other hospital staff. The system was engineered to include primary and secondary study controls on the clinical touchscreen display including quick access to the most-used optimisations such as depth, gain, and measurements - to deliver an optimised heads-up workflow for clinicians. The Sonosite LX is compatible with the redesigned family of transducers launched with Sonosite PX that have dedicated exam types for study-specific imaging and workflow optimisation. FUJIFILM Sonosite has decades of experience developing and evolving POCUS, and Sonosite LX is what feels like an ideal system for clinician-performed ultrasound, said Dr. Felipe Teran, MD, MSCE, FACEP, emergency medicine physician and founder of the Resuscitative TEE Project, who uses the system in his clinical practice. The Sonosite LX combines their hallmark durability and thoughtful design, with advanced image quality, and an adaptable display that truly elevates the experience of our team. The large and rotating display makes scanning easier and facilitates collaboration among our clinicians at the bedside. Combined with the new T8-3 transducer this system has been the perfect solution for our resuscitative TEE program, added Dr. Teran. Cardiac Resuscitation Exam Type: A high-priority public health issue, death by sudden cardiac arrest impacts approximately 250,000 individuals across the European Union each year.1 Transoesophageal echocardiogram allows the emergency physician to maintain the standard of an ultrasound-informed resuscitation in the scenario of cardiac arrest, where transthoracic echocardiogram is significantly limited. With TEU patients can benefit from more accurate and efficient chest compressions while being evaluated with ultrasound, potentially making the response to a cardiac emergency more effective. Clinicians must act swiftly to ensure imaging does not interrupt or delay compressions, so having the right equipment and cardiac views can be critical.2,3 FUJIFILM Sonosite developed its new cardiac resuscitation exam type to address this need, leveraging insights from physician-leaders in POCUS and the strength of Sonosite as the company that launched the point of care ultrasound category. FUJIFILM Sonosite T8-3 Transoesophageal Ultrasound (TOU): Responding to expressed customer need, Sonosite developed the T8-3 transducer, enabling clinicians to provide TOU at the point of care by: Enabling repeatable cardiac imaging under conditions that are less than optimal for the use of transthoracic ultrasound. Providing a lightweight handle and flexible shaft for easy manipulation and a small tip for ease of insertion. Enabling low power consumption to maintain temperature while monitoring over time. Delivering FUJIFILM Sonosites most advanced image clarity. The Sonosite LX, T8-3 Transducer, and Cardiac Resuscitation exam type are now commercially available in the United States, Europe* (the UK, Ireland, Spain, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway), Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with plans to launch in China and Japan in the future. To learn more about Fujifilms portfolio of POCUS solutions, visit this webpage. As with all Sonosite point of care ultrasound systems, Sonosite LX is built to legendary durability, reliability, and ease of use standards. The ultrasound transducers are drop-tested to one metre and the work surface is sealed to the edge for simplified cleaning and disinfection. 1 Incidence of Sudden Cardiac Death in the European Union 2 Prognostic value of point-of-care ultrasound during cardiac arrest: a systematic review 3 Point-Of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) for Cardiac Resuscitation About Fujifilm FUJIFILM Sonosite, Inc. is the innovator and world leader in bedside and point-of-care ultrasound, and an industry leader in ultra-high frequency micro-ultrasound technology. Headquartered near Seattle, the company is represented by a global distribution network in over 100 countries. Sonosites portable, compact systems are expanding the use of ultrasound across the clinical spectrum by cost-effectively bringing high-performance ultrasound to the point of patient care. For more information, please visit www.sonosite.com. FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, Tokyo, leverages its depth of knowledge and proprietary core technologies to deliver Value from Innovation in our products and services in the business segments of healthcare, materials, business innovation, and imaging. Our relentless pursuit of innovation is focused on providing social value and enhancing the lives of people worldwide. Fujifilm is committed to responsible environmental stewardship and good corporate citizenship. For more information about Fujifilms Sustainable Value Plan 2030, click here. For the year ended March 31, 2022, the company had global revenues of approximately 2.5 trillion yen (21 billion $USD at an exchange rate of 122 yen/dollar). For more information, please visit: www.fujifilmholdings.com. Contact Todd Langton Corporate Communications Manager FUJIFILM Sonosite [email protected] 1.425.381.9290 (Cell) Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/683f26fb-19a7-4a32-9c01-68842618b2dc https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2079e050-290c-4fde-9c7f-014f3dd65fbd San Diego-based companies will collaborate on technology solutions for cloud kitchen and delivery services San Diego, California, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HUMBL, Inc. (OTC Markets: HMBL) announced today the formation of a strategic technology partnership with Great Foods2Go (GF2GO). Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will integrate HUMBLs mobile application, search engine and marketplace technologies in support of GF2GO and its sub-brand, 1Delivery. The partnership will utilize the full HUMBL platform including: HUMBL Wallet, HUMBL Pay, HUMBL Search Engine and HUMBL Marketplace technologies. The partnership will focus initially on the San Diego, California cloud kitchen location and be designed to expand across multiple locations. The location currently prepares and delivers over 2,000 food orders per month across 30 virtual brands, ranging in popular cuisine styles such as American, Mexican, Italian and more. The companies will use this location as the first HUMBL Hub to determine the best technology mix of mobile payment applications, point-of-sale (POS) systems, search engine advertising and marketplace delivery technologies. HUMBL and GF2GO will also test virtual brands using HUMBLs mascot, a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT named BLUE, using such kitchen themes as Blues Tacos and Blues Boring Breakfast, for which HUMBL will receive a revenue share on all orders. GF2GO has a SaaS technology integration partnership with one of its minority investment partners, Maker Kitchens, that will see GF2GO expand its technologies to multiple cloud kitchen locations. Maker Kitchens owns and operates real estate locations that have been developed as food hubs which specialize in providing private, permitted commercial kitchens for pickup and delivery-only restaurants and food and beverage vendors of all shapes and sizes. I have gotten to know the group at GF2GO well over the past year and value their shared commitment to hard work and rapid technology development here in the San Diego border region, said Brian Foote, CEO HUMBL. We know Brian and the team at HUMBL well and have a close connection to the HUMBL brand and customer base. We look forward to a productive and scalable technology partnership together in this category of ghost kitchens and delivery, said CEO, Jorge Santillan. About HUMBL HUMBL is a Web 3 company with consumer and commercial divisions. Its product lines include the HUMBL Wallet, HUMBL Pay, HUMBL Search Engine and HUMBL Marketplace technologies. About Great Foods2Go GF2GO has developed a number of innovative SaaS and marketplace technologies for the food delivery business: including single ticket ordering across multiple restaurants, one-click ordering, easy item substitutions and optimized, last-mile delivery technologies that pair customers with the cheapest and fastest delivery options. GF2GO currently operates a brick and mortar, cloud kitchen facility in San Diego, CA, that serves as its research and development hub for over 30 food and beverage brands from which customers may order online for delivery across its sub-brand, 1Delivery. Safe Harbor Statement This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by the use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimates," "projects," "intends," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to successfully execute its expanded business strategy, including by entering into definitive agreements with suppliers, commercial partners and customers; general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technical advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, regulatory requirements and the ability to meet them, government agency rules and changes, and various other factors beyond the Company's control. Except as may be required by law, HUMBL undertakes no obligation, and does not intend, to update these forward-looking statements after the date of this release. Contact [email protected] Press Contact: Cynthia Kaui, PR Strategist of Focuscom Inc. services. Email: [email protected] MONTREAL, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Saputo Inc. (Saputo or the Company) (TSX: SAP) is proud to mark the fifth anniversary of the Saputo Promise, its approach to social, environmental, and economic performance. Based on Saputos long-standing values, the Saputo Promise guides the Companys everyday actions across seven core pillars to ensure the long-term sustainability of its business and communities. Over the last five years, Saputo has embedded its Promise into its core business, including developing strategic plans to drive, support and enable sustainable growth and introducing ESG targets to its long-term incentive compensation. A few highlights of Saputos accomplishments include: Environment: The Company has established clear climate, water, and waste targets to be reached by 2025 and allocated a three-year investment of CDN$50 million (FY21-23) to fund more than 65 projects globally to accelerate its performance. The Company has established clear climate, water, and waste targets to be reached by 2025 and allocated a three-year investment of CDN$50 million (FY21-23) to fund more than 65 projects globally to accelerate its performance. Responsible Sourcing: Saputo has launched its 2025 Supply Chain Pledges to address sustainability challenges beyond the scope of the Companys operations and support the transition to a net zero dairy industry as a whole. Saputo has launched its 2025 Supply Chain Pledges to address sustainability challenges beyond the scope of the Companys operations and support the transition to a net zero dairy industry as a whole. Our People: With more gender-balanced representation in mind, Saputo has reached 25% of women in senior management in FY22, up by 10% in the last five years, and 60% of Board members are now women. With more gender-balanced representation in mind, Saputo has reached 25% of women in senior management in FY22, up by 10% in the last five years, and 60% of Board members are now women. Community: Saputo has proudly donated more than 6 million kilos of nutritious products to those in need and invested CDN$67 million (FY18-FY22) to help build healthier communities where it operates. Our Promise ensures we live up to the values on which our Company was founded, and we are extremely proud of all that weve accomplished over the last five years said Lino A. Saputo, Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Saputo Inc. It anchors our approach to growth and supports our purpose of feeding our communities and building a healthier future through our passion for quality food. As we celebrate this exciting milestone, its guiding principle of creating shared value is more relevant than ever to our strategy and our stakeholders. Weve now embarked on our Saputo Promise FY23-25 Plan, which will help us continue to grow our business responsibly. The Saputo Promise FY23-25 Plan aims to ensure the Companys strategy remains relevant to todays most pressing ESG issues. Execution is already underway to advance towards its three-year goals with a focus on, among other things, improving gender representation, diversity, and inclusion; reducing environmental impacts by delivering on its 2025 Environmental Pledges; supporting the transition to a sustainable food system through its Supply Chain Pledges; and improving the nutritional quality and performance of Saputos global product portfolio to meet consumer needs. To learn more about the Saputo Promise and consult the 2022 Saputo Promise Report, visit www.saputo.com/our-promise About Saputo Saputo produces, markets, and distributes a wide array of dairy products of the utmost quality, including cheese, fluid milk, extended shelf-life milk and cream products, cultured products, and dairy ingredients. Saputo is one of the top ten dairy processors in the world, a leading cheese manufacturer and fluid milk and cream processor in Canada, and the top dairy processor in Australia and Argentina. In the USA, Saputo ranks among the top three cheese producers and is one of the largest producers of extended shelf-life and cultured dairy products. In the United Kingdom, Saputo is the largest manufacturer of branded cheese and a top manufacturer of dairy spreads. In addition to its dairy portfolio, Saputo produces, markets, and distributes a range of dairy alternative cheeses and beverages. Saputo products are sold in several countries under market-leading brands, as well as private label brands. Saputo Inc. is a publicly traded company and its shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SAP. Follow Saputos activities at saputo.com or via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains statements which are forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These forward-looking statements include, among others, statements with respect to our social and environmental targets, commitments, goals, ambitions and strategic plans including our ability to achieve these targets, commitments, goals, ambitions and strategic plans, and statements other than historical facts. The words may, could, should, will, plan, aim, goal, target, or pledge, or the negative of these terms or variations of them, the use of conditional or future tense or words and expressions of similar nature, are intended to identify forward- looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to a number of inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those stated, implied, or projected in such forward-looking statements. As a result, we cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statements will materialize, and we warn readers that these forward- looking statements are not statements of historical fact or guarantees of future performance in any way. Assumptions, expectations, and estimates made in the preparation of forward-looking statements and risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations are discussed in our materials filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities from time to time, including the "Risks and Uncertainties" section of the Management's Discussion and Analysis dated June 9, 2022, available on SEDAR under Saputo's profile at sedar.com. Forward-looking statements are based on Managements current estimates, expectations and assumptions. Management believes that these estimates, expectations, and assumptions are reasonable as of the date hereof, and are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, and other uncertainties and contingencies regarding future events, and are accordingly subject to changes after such date. Forward-looking statements are intended to provide shareholders with information regarding Saputo, including our assessment of future financial plans, and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Undue importance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, and the information contained in such forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as of any other date. All forward-looking statements included herein speak only as of the date hereof or as of the specific date of such. Investor InquiriesNicholas EstrelaDirector, Investor Relations 1-514-328-3117 Media Inquiries1-514-328-3141 / 1-866-648-5902[email protected] Source: Saputo Inc. ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill., Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sonoco ThermoSafe, a unit of Sonoco (NYSE: SON) and one of the largest global providers of temperature assurance packaging, and United Cargo are pleased to announce a global lease agreement for the new Pegasus ULD temperature-controlled bulk shipping container. The agreement enables pharmaceutical freight forwarders access to Pegasus ULD containers directly from United Cargo. Sonoco ThermoSafes Pegasus ULD is the worlds first FAA and EASA-approved passive bulk temperature-controlled ULD container for pharmaceutical use, which enables it to speed through international air freight handling and customs processes at the lowest possible cost. With a focus on sustainability, the Pegasus ULD is engineered with composite materials, offering a lighter solution that is also substantially more damage-resistant than traditional metal containers. Additionally, the Pegasus ULD contains a fully integrated, FAA-approved telemetry system providing real-time, cloud-based data on payload and ambient temperature and key environmental factors, precisely synchronized with GPS location. United Cargo has over 90 stations in their TempControl global network, trained on pharmaceutical handling according to IATA Temperature Control Regulations. Passive TempControl shipments receive higher boarding priority and enhanced temperature-controlled storage access. Were excited to partner with United Cargo. Healthcare companies can access the Pegasus ULD more readily thanks to United Cargos extensive global network of temperature control logistics stations in the US and around the world, said Bourji Mourad, who heads Logistics and Partner Management for Sonoco ThermoSafes Bulk Rental Group. United Cargo is pleased to offer the Pegasus ULD to our customers and provide them with even more options to transport their temperature-controlled shipments all over the world. Our extensive cold chain shipping solutions, combined with the introduction of this sustainable and efficient container into our service offerings, demonstrate our mutual commitment to the safe and efficient transport of these critical shipments, explains Manu Jacobs, Managing Director of Specialty Products at United Cargo. About Sonoco ThermoSafe Sonoco ThermoSafe, a unit of Sonoco (NYSE: SON), is one of the largest global providers of temperature assurance packaging for the safe and efficient transport of pharmaceuticals, biologics, vaccines and other temperature-sensitive products. Sonoco ThermoSafe shipping solutions mitigate risk for customers and ensure product efficacy throughout the extremes of a supply chain. With operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, Sonoco ThermoSafe has a vast product offering featuring industry-leading technology that encompasses refrigerated, frozen or controlled room temperature applications. In addition, Sonoco ThermoSafe's ISC Labs deliver individualized design and testing services and innovative packaging solutions along with qualification and validation services to meet all regulatory requirements. More information can be found at www.thermosafe.com . For the most part, cannabis reform measures across the United States have included social equity provisions designed to address the harms of the war on drugs. Long considered to be a failure, the drug war disproportionately affected Black and Brown communities and exacerbated systemic racial biases. More than two decades after California legalized recreational and medical cannabis, states are passing cannabis legalization measures with robust social equity and criminal justice provisions to compensate these communities and give them a leg-up in the multi-billion dollar cannabis industry. In Massachusetts, for example, lawmakers recently passed Read More>> NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Advanced Container Technologies Inc. (OTC: ACTX) are available in the companys newsroom at https://cnw.fm/ACTX About CNW420 CNW420 spotlights the latest developments in the rapidly evolving cannabis industry through the release of two informative articles each business day. Our concise, informative content serves as a gateway for investors interested in the legalized cannabis sector and provides updates on how regulatory developments may impact financial markets. Articles are released each business day at 4:20 a.m. and 4:20 p.m. Eastern our tribute to the time synonymous with cannabis culture. If marijuana and the burgeoning industry surrounding it are on your radar, CNW420 is for you! Check back daily to stay up-to-date on the latest milestones in the fast -changing world of cannabis. To receive instant SMS alerts, text CANNABIS to 21000 (U.S. Mobile Phones Only) For more information please visit https://www.CNW420.com Please see full terms of use and disclaimers on the CannabisNewsWire website applicable to all content provided by CNW420, wherever published or re-published: http://CNW.fm/Disclaimer Do you have questions or are you interested in working with CNW420? Ask our Editor CannabisNewsWire420 Denver, Colorado http://www.CNW420.com 303.498.7722 Office [email protected] CNW420 is part of the InvestorBrandNetwork. 4Front Ventures Launches Premier California Cannabis Brand in Massachusetts, Island 4Front Ventures Corp. (CSE: FFNT) (OTCQX: FFNTF) (4Front or the Company), a vertically integrated, multi-state cannabis operator and retailer, announced the launch of its premier California cannabis brand, Island Cannabis Co. (Island), in Massachusetts. Following the Companys acquisition in April 2022 of Island, a California-based producer of pre-rolls, flower and concentrate products, the Company began cultivating 11 new Island flower strains at its state-of-art flower facilities located in Holliston, Georgetown and Worcester, Massachusetts. The 11 new Island strains include: Project 4516; The Cypher; Banana Puddintain; Garlic Z; Star 91; Mimosa; London Pound Mints; TK-43; Wonka Bars; Cookies & Cream; and Grapes n Cream. Each strain has been hand selected for its unique genetic lineage, terpene profile, potency, and nose. Islands new strains are initially available for purchase exclusively at 4Fronts Mission Dispensaries in Georgetown, Worcester, and Brookline, and are expected to roll out to partner dispensaries across the Bay State in the coming weeks. After our acquisition of Island earlier this year, we quickly set out to strategically bring the very best the brand had to offer to our customers - and I couldnt be more pleased with how quickly and efficiently our team was able to deliver these popular California fan favorites to Massachusetts consumers, said 4Front CEO Leo Gontmakher. With the launch of Island in the Bay State, were confident that even the pickiest of cannabis connoisseurs will fall in love with these strains, and that as a whole, the brand will create a loyal following - just as it has in the Golden State. We also look forward to bringing additional high-quality flower products from Island to Massachusetts in the very near future, including larger format flower offerings, and Islands best-selling prerolls and infused prerolls in singles and multipacks. 4Front President of Massachusetts Operations and Island Co-Founder Brandon Mills added, Taking proven products and brands like Island and strategically launching them in key markets is one of the things we do best. With the launch of Island in Massachusetts, we took the best operational practices our team learned from years of cultivating and manufacturing in California, and married them with in-market expertise at our facilities in Holliston, Georgetown and Worcester. Bringing together best-in-class genetics, cultivation practices, and production technology, were delivering a premium cannabis value proposition, coast-to-coast. About 4Front Ventures Corp. 4Front Ventures Corp. (4Front or the Company) (CSE: FFNT) (OTCQX: FFNTF) is a national, vertically integrated multi-state cannabis operator who owns or manages operations and facilities in strategic medical and adult-use cannabis markets, including California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington. Since its founding in 2011, 4Front has built a strong reputation for its high standards and low-cost cultivation and production methodologies earned through a track record of success in facility design, cultivation, genetics, growing processes, manufacturing, purchasing, distribution, and retail. To date, 4Front has successfully brought to market more than 20 different cannabis brands and over 1,800 products, which are strategically distributed through its fully owned and operated Mission dispensaries and retail outlets in its core markets. As the Company continues to drive value for its shareholders, its team is applying its more than decade of expertise in the sector across the cannabis industry value chain and ecosystem. For more information, visit https://4frontventures.com/. Forward Looking Statements Statements in this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed here and elsewhere in the Companys periodic filings with securities regulators. When used in this news release, words such as will, could, plan, estimate, expect, intend, may, potential, believe, should, and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements related to future developments and the business and operations of the Company, statements regarding future financial performance of the Company, statements regarding distribution of product by the Company, and other statements regarding future developments of the business. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there can be other factors that cause results, performance or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including, but not limited to: dependence on entering into definitive agreements and satisfying closing conditions, obtaining regulatory approvals; and engagement in activities currently considered illegal under U.S. federal laws; change in laws; limited operating history; reliance on management; the impact of Covid-19; requirements for additional financing; competition; hindering market growth and state adoption due to inconsistent public opinion and perception of the medical-use and adult-use marijuana industry; and regulatory or political change. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate or that managements expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances or results will materialize. As a result of these risks and uncertainties, the results or events predicted in these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise such information, except as required by applicable law, and the Company does not assume any liability for disclosure relating to any other company mentioned herein. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/4front-ventures-launches-premier-california-cannabis-brand-in-massachusetts-island-301632850.html SOURCE 4Front The post 4Front Ventures Corp. (FFNTF) Launches Premier California Cannabis Brand in Massachusetts, Island appeared first on Marijuana Stocks | Cannabis Investments and News. Roots of a Budding Industry.(TM). COMTEX_415308029/2683/2022-09-26T09:21:18 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - Bayhorse Silver Inc, (TSXV: BHS) (OTCQB: BHSIF) (FSE: 7KXN) (the "Company" or "Bayhorse") reports that the previously announced 1,302 lb metallurgical sample from the Crane Creek Gold Project, Idaho, USA, was milled to minus 1 mm (20 mesh) and was processed through the gravity concentrating circuit and separated into four (4) streams, that were sampled to give an average grade of the total 1,302 lbs. The total contained ounces of gold in the 1302 lb sample was 0.1 oz or 3.09 g, or 0.15 oz (5.12 g) per metric ton, and are tabulated below. lbs kg Pct/ton 0z/t Gms Total Gms Sample Total Tails 856 389 0.43 0.11 3.42 1.46 Con3 365 166 0.18 0.12 3.73 0.68 Con2 52 23.6 0.03 0.32 9.83 0.26 Con1 29 13.2 0.01 1.52 47.21 0.68 1302 592 0.65 3.09 The metallurgical samples were taken from the previously sampled sites as reported in the Company's news release: BHS2022-16, that returned 33.87 g/t (1.089 oz/t) gold and 136.85 (4.4 oz/t) silver ;26.4 g/t (0.849 oz/t) gold and 140 g/t (4.5 oz/t) silver; 15.3 g/t (0.493 oz/t) gold and 68.42 g/t (2.2 oz/t) silver; and 1.36 g/t (0.044) oz/t gold and 124 g/t (4.0 oz/t) silver. The samples have also been submitted to American Analytical Lab for 36 element ICP assays. The Company advises that the larger metallurgical samples are still considered selected samples and may not be indicative of, or representative of potential mined grades. An application has been made to take an up to 1,000 ton bulk sample from the property, that will be processed at the Company's Mill, at Payette, Idaho. Mineralization at Crane Creek consists of gold and silver bearing arsenopyrite. The intent of the metallurgical testing of Crane Creek mineralization is to determine the gravity, flotation and leaching characteristics of the gold-bearing arsenopyrite mineralization. The Crane Creek claims cover a substantial 3 - 6 meter (10 - 20ft) wide gold and silver bearing structure, that extends north from, and lies in close proximity to, Integra's Delamar Gold Project in Southwest Idaho, 120 km (75 road miles) from the Bayhorse Mill. The significant gold mineralization in Southwestern Idaho is interpreted to be the northern extension of the Carlin Gold Trend. Bayhorse CEO, Graeme O'Neill, comments, "As a Company, we have achieved significant progress in advancing the Company's agenda. With the addition of the Crane Creek Gold Project, we have added a significant gold component to add to the current silver feed to our processing facility in Payette, Idaho. We have drill permitted our Brandywine gold/silver project, where we believe a substantial historic gold resource remains to be drill proven, and we are nearing completion of the silver leaching tests being conducted by Clean Earth Technologies, of Singapore, in conjunction with CSIRO, and SGS Australia. Our ultimate goal is to establish a solid silver/gold throughput at our Idaho Mill." The Company is not basing any decision to produce on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability and advises there is an increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risk of failure with any production decision. These risks include, but are not limited to, (i) a drop in price of commodities produced, namely silver, gold, copper, lead and zinc, from the pricing used to make a production decision; (ii) failure of grades of the produced material to fall within the parameters used to make the production decision; (iii) an increase in mining costs due to changes within the mine during development and mining procedures; and (iv) metallurgical recovery changes that cannot be anticipated at the time of production. The Company conducted its Annual General Meeting on September 15th, in Victoria, BC. Directors Graeme O'Neill, James Walker, John Cerenzia and Corey Klassen were each approved as Directors of the Company with over 99% approval of the votes cast for each Director. The number of Directors was set at four for the coming year. Charlton & Company were reappointed auditors, and the Company's Stock Option Plan also received over 99% approval. This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its content. Dr. Stewart Jackson, P.Geo., a Qualified Person and Consultant to the Company has prepared, supervised the preparation of, and approved the technical content of this press release. On Behalf of the Board. Graeme O'Neill, CEO 866-399-6539, 604-684-3394 About Bayhorse Silver Inc. Bayhorse Silver Inc. is an exploration and production company with a 100% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine located in Oregon, USA. With state of the art Steinert Ore-Sorting technology reducing waste rock entering the processing stream by up to 85%, we have created a minimum environmental impact facility capable of mining 200 tons of mineralization per day and the ability to process and supply 3,600 tons per year of silver/copper concentrate ranging between 7,500 to 15,000 g/t using standard flotation processing at its milling facility in nearby Payette County, Idaho, USA, with an offtake agreement in place with Ocean Partners UK Limited. The Company also has an option to acquire an 80% interest in the Brandywine high grade silver/gold property located in B.C. Canada. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive mining expertise in both exploration and building mines. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138385 Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - The Stock Day Podcast welcomed US Nuclear Corp. (UCLE) ("the Company"), a radiation, chemical detection and specialty drone, holding company specializing in the development and manufacturing and sales of radiation and chemical detection instrumentation. CEO of the Company, Bob Goldstein, joined Stock Day host Everett Jolly. "Is radiation measurement still a niche market?", asked Jolly to begin the interview. "Well it certainly was a niche market," said Goldstein. "Before World War II, before the nuclear bomb, nuclear power, and the creation of the US Nuclear Navy there was no nuclear industry at all. After these momentous events there did develop a substantial niche market for radiation measurement and safety equipment to make sure the reactors are working properly and to protect workers, members of the public and the environment." "Could you elaborate on the initiatives of the Company's subsidiary, Overhoff?", asked Jolly. "Overhoff is a radiation measurement company," said Goldstein. "The entire company over the past 50 years has specialized in the detection of Tritium in the air and in water, and those are both very difficult detectors to make." "Tritium is tricky in that it cannot be filtered out of contaminated water, however you can measure it," explained Goldstein, after elaborating on Japan's recent announcement that it will soon start emptying it's 1000 tanks holding 1.25 million tons of wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants into the Pacific Ocean. This Tritium bearing radioactive water is diluted and almost impossible for people to measure." Goldstein continued, "Only Overhoff detectors are sensitive to these ultra low Tritium levels and to see whether it is safe for release," he shared. "We are working with the governments of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, to make these measurements and hopefully to protect the population as well as the fishermen and the sea life of the Pacific Ocean." "Could you give us an update on US Nuclear's partner, MIFTEC?", asked Jolly. "In the relatively near future we expect fusion power to replace fission power for generating electricity and even for powering spaceships. Fusion power will be cleaner and produce more power than fission." said Goldstein. "MIFTEC is developing very advanced technology, including fusion machines," he said. "What are the main factors driving this new demand?" asked Jolly. "To be honest, seeing the huge Ukrainian power plants under threat of explosion on the front page of the newspaper every day and the real danger of a Chernobyl like spread of radioactive fallout all over Europe, has boosted US Nuclear's visibility immensely," said Goldstein. And he went on to discuss some of the many other drivers, "The recent recognition that Nuclear power is an important source of Carbon free, green electricity. Also the rising price of uranium mines and uranium metal. And the hundreds of nuclear fusion prototypes that are now being built in the US and around the world all serve to increase the radiation detection market." "Will US Nuclear's advanced technology and new products keep you ahead of the competition?" asked Jolly. "Yes absolutely," responded Goldstein. "We have been and still are the world's only supplier of high quality radiation in water detectors and of high quality Tritium monitors. More recently we are the first and best to offer Radiation, Chemical, Biological, Fentanyl and Explosive sensors on our drones. These instrumented drones, can be useful for Ukrainian Reactors' surveillance." continued Goldstein. "Additionally, we are instrumenting entrance, exit, and border crossing systems that can not only measure radiation, but can also measure chemicals, nerve gases, explosives, and fentanyl and other drugs. So, we have quite an important solution that the world has not seen before." To hear Bob Goldstein's entire interview, follow the link to the podcast here: https://audioboom.com/posts/8163393-us-nuclear-corp-discusses-growing-interest-in-radiation-measurement-and-the-future-of-fusion-pow Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of "Stock Day," and Stock Day Media encourages listeners to visit the company's message board at https://investorshangout.com/ About US Nuclear Corp. US Nuclear Corp is a radiation, chemical detection and specialty drone, holding company specializing in the development and manufacturing and sales of radiation and chemical detection instrumentation. Through its four operating divisions (Technical Associates (TA), Overhoff Technology (OTC), Electronic Control Concepts (ECC), and Cali From Above (CFA), US Nuclear Corp. harbors more than 100 years of combined experience in supplying top of the line instrumentation to any industry utilizing radionuclides. This includes nuclear power plants, national laboratories, government agencies, homeland security, military, universities and schools, research companies, hospitals, medical and dental centers, energy companies, weapons facilities, first responders, local governments, and manufacturing plants. Safe Harbor Act This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations, estimates and projections and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believes," "predicts," "potential," "continue," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Investors may find additional information regarding US Nuclear Corp. at the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov, or the company's website at www.usnuclearcorp.com CONTACT: US Nuclear Corp. (OTCQB: UCLE) Robert I. Goldstein, President, CEO, and Chairman Richard Landry, Chief Financial Officer (818) 883 7043 Email: [email protected] Usnuclearcorp.com About The "Stock Day" Podcast Founded in 2013, Stock Day is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Stock Day provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. The Stock Day Podcast is the number one radio show of its kind in America. SOURCE: Stock Day Media (602) 821-1102 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138382 FILE PHOTO: Russian and U.S. flags are pictured before talks between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman at the United States Mission in Geneva, Switzerland January 10, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibo MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday it was in "sporadic" contact with the United States on issues related to nuclear arms, days after President Vladimir Putin said he was "not bluffing" over his readiness to use such weapons if Russia felt its territorial integrity was under threat. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two sides had maintained a limited open channel of dialogue to allow for the "emergency exchange of messages" between the world's two largest nuclear powers. "There are channels for dialogue at the proper level, but they are of a very sporadic nature. At least they allow for the exchange of some emergency messages about each other's positions," Peskov told reporters. Putin said last week Moscow would be prepared to use nuclear weapons to "protect Russia and our people" as he announced a mobilisation drive that threatens to significantly escalate the seven-month conflict in Ukraine. The United States warned Moscow on Sunday of "catastrophic consequences" if it uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States would "respond decisively" if Russia deploys such weapons against its neighbour. He did not elaborate publicly, but said Washington had privately told Moscow "in greater detail exactly what that would mean." Peskov declined to comment when asked what the United States had told Russia it meant by "catastrophic consequences." (Reporting by Reuters) A local resident walks past an apartment block damaged in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Mariupol, Ukraine September 25, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Negotiators of a stop-gap spending bill in the U.S. Congress have agreed to include nearly $12 billion in new military and economic aid to Ukraine, sources familiar with the talks said on Monday, reflecting continued bipartisan support for the Kyiv government in the wake of Russia's invasion. In response to a request from the Biden administration, the funding would include $4.5 billion to provide defense capabilities and equipment for Ukraine, as well as $2.7 billion to continue military, intelligence and other defense support, said the sources, who asked not to be identified ahead of the announcement. It also will include $4.5 billion to continue to provide direct budget support to the Kyiv government through the next quarter. That way President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's administration can pay salaries to essential staff, support Ukrainians fleeing conflict and cover other critical expenses to help civilians, a government official said. U.S. President Joe Biden asked Congress earlier this month to provide $11.7 billion in new emergency military and economic aid for Ukraine in the stopgap spending bill. There is widespread support in Congress from both Biden's fellow Democrats - who narrowly control both the House of Representatives and Senate - and Republicans for helping Ukraine to defend itself following Russia's invasion. Congress is facing a midnight Friday deadline to pass the spending bill, which also would temporarily fund a wide range of U.S. government programs. In addition to the previously listed funding, the package - which could be announced as soon as later on Monday - includes $2 billion for the U.S. energy industry, to address the impact of the war and reduce future energy costs. One of the sources familiar with the package said the funding request - known as a continuing resolution - would also include resettlement funding for Afghan refugees. In a separate, but related authorization request, a U.S. official said the Biden administration also planned to ask Congress for an additional $3.6 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the president to authorize the transfer of excess weapons from U.S. stocks. Washington and its allies have sent billions of dollars in security and economic assistance to Ukraine during the seven-month-long war. (Reporting by Richard Cowan, Steve Holland, Mike Stone and Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool and David Gregorio) Mark Tyndall and Alex McCann, experienced and recognized semiconductor industry professionals, join forces with Alexa-Capital to establish a team of semiconductor specialists focused on cross-border M&A and Capital Advisory services. Jalal Bagherli also joins as advisor to Alexa Capital Insights Council. LONDON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexa Capital, an established global corporate finance and M&A advisory firm with extensive experience in energy technology and energy infrastructure, announces today the addition of a new semiconductor focused team to their practice. The new team will focus on supporting innovative mid-market technology companies within the semiconductor ecosystem, helping them realize their full potential by providing tailored M&A and capital advisory services. In addition to their deep semiconductor industry background, broad international reach of executive level contacts, Tyndall and McCann also bring a network of sector focused institutional investors from private equity, venture capital, and asset management industries across Europe, North America and Asia. Alexa Capital CEO Bruce Huber commented: "We are delighted to broaden Alexa's offering with best-in-class expertise to serve the semiconductor sector. As energy markets move 3-D (decarbonized, distributed and digital) and transport markets electrify power-efficient electronics and semiconductors are critical building blocks for our low-carbon energy future. There is increasing capital flowing into energy technology, including semiconductors, as supply chain security is driving more funding opportunities for emerging technology companies in Europe and North America, who we can now offer increased support to with our expanded team. Additionally, we are thrilled to welcome Jalal onboard as advisor, joining our Executive Insights Council, supported by a diverse set of industry executives." Mr McCann brings over three decades of executive leadership in the semiconductor industry with a primary focus on global operations, manufacturing and supply chain. He was the former COO and member of the executive team at Linear Technology Corp that successfully executed a $14 billion trade sale to Analog Devices in 2017 and was also part of the executive leadership team at Dialog Semiconductor. Alex is currently a board member of Probe Test Solutions Ltd. Alex will join Alexa as a semiconductor partner. Mr Tyndall brings to Alexa more than three decades of experience in semiconductors with senior leadership roles at Dialog Semiconductor, MIPS Technologies and Infineon Technologies. Most recently, he held the post of SVP of Corporate Development & Strategy at Dialog Semiconductor, where he supported the company's growth over 14 years, executing on more than ten acquisitions, including a key technology licensing deal to Apple, capital financing transactions and was instrumental in negotiating the Dialog sale to Renesas Electronics for $6 billion. Mark is currently a board member of Probe Test Solutions Ltd in addition to holding strategic advisory positions at Azoteq (Pty) Ltd, Energous Technologies and Indie Semiconductor. Mark will join Alexa as a semiconductor partner. Dr Bagherli was most recently CEO of the global mixed signal and power management specialist Dialog Semiconductor, leading the company over 16 years from a sub $100 million company to a $6 billion trade sale to Renesas Electronics in 2021. Prior to Dialog, Jalal was the CEO of a successful video processing startup - Alphamosaic - sold to Broadcom, in addition to senior roles at Sony and Texas Instruments. He currently serves as Chairman of Fortescue Future Industries' backed Williams Advanced Engineering and chairman of Probe Test Solutions Ltd. Jalal will join the Insights Council at Alexa Capital. About Alexa CapitalFounded in 2012, Alexa Capital is global corporate finance and M&A advisory firm committed to driving capital flows that transform global energy use to create a clean, reliable, secure and low-carbon future. With a particular focus on climate tech and mobility, Alexa Capital advises corporates, entrepreneurs, management teams and investment funds on a range of strategic alternatives, including M&A, capital raises, recapitalizations, restructurings, divestitures and IPOs. Alexa Capital is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. In the US, Alexa Capital is regulated under FINRA, SEC and NFA through broker-dealer MP Securities, Inc. For more information about Alexa Capital, visit: www.alexa-capital.com Contact : Corinna Algranti , [email protected] Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907147/Alexa_Capital.jpgLogo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1907148/Alexa_Capital.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alexa-capital-adds-semiconductor-expertise-with-team-of-former-dialog-semiconductor-executives-301632840.html SOURCE Alexa Capital GREEN BAY, Wis., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE: ASB) today announced it will release third quarter 2022 financial results on Thursday, October 20, 2022, after market close. The Company will host a conference call for investors and analysts at 4:00 p.m. Central Time (CT) on the same day. Interested parties can access the live webcast of the call through the Investor Relations section of the Company's website, http://investor.associatedbank.com. Parties may also dial into the call at 877-407-8037 (domestic) or 201-689-8037 (international) and request the Associated Banc-Corp third quarter 2022 earnings call. The financial tables and an accompanying slide presentation will be available on the Company's website just prior to the call. An audio archive of the webcast will be available on the Company's website approximately fifteen minutes after the call is over. ABOUT ASSOCIATED BANC-CORPAssociated Banc-Corp (NYSE: ASB) has total assets of $37 billion and is the largest bank holding company based in Wisconsin. Headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Associated is a leading Midwest banking franchise, offering a full range of financial products and services from more than 200 banking locations serving more than 100 communities throughout Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, and loan production offices in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Texas. Associated Bank, N.A. is an Equal Housing Lender, Equal Opportunity Lender and Member FDIC. More information about Associated Banc-Corp is available at www.associatedbank.com. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTSStatements made in this press release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This includes any statements regarding management's plans, objectives, or goals for future operations, products or services, and forecasts of its revenues, earnings, or other measures of performance. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," "estimate," "should," "will," "intend," "target," "outlook," "project," "guidance," or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations and, by their nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in such forward-looking statements include those identified in the Company's most recent Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. Such factors are incorporated herein by reference. Investor Contact: Ben McCarvilleVice President | Director of Investor Relations920-491-7059 | [email protected] Media Contact: Jennifer KaminskiVice President | Public Relations Senior Manager920-491-7576 | [email protected] View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/associated-banc-corp-to-announce-third-quarter-2022-earnings-and-hold-conference-call-on-october-20-2022-301633340.html SOURCE Associated Banc-Corp Patrick Mitchell lends winning coalition building and issue advocacy experience to Washington, D.C. office WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Banner Public Affairs (Banner) today announced that Patrick Mitchell has joined the firm as vice president of public relations. Mitchell's wealth of experience delivering winning communication strategies for the clean energy and infrastructure industry and building bipartisan coalition efforts will continue to strengthen Banner's expanded focus on clean water, renewable energy and environmental issues. Prior to joining Banner, Mitchell managed corporate communications in North America for the African Wildlife Foundation. He additionally spent over 15 years at The Hastings Group, a full-service public relations and government relations consulting firm, where he operated as senior vice president. There, he provided successful public relations plans for clients across a wide range of industries, including environmental and energy organizations, sustainable, responsible, impact (SRI) investors, and more. "In today's world where energy and infrastructure needs are at a critical turning point, Banner continues to be committed to providing our clients with the expertise needed to achieve big wins," said former senator and Banner Partner, Jim Talent. "Patrick's wide-ranging knowledge of the media landscape and several decades' worth of experience creating campaigns around critical bipartisan issues is a tremendous addition to Banner's team of experts." Mitchell's work illustrates a strong commitment to a wide range of issues and movement building. He joins the firm's existing bipartisan infrastructure division and will create and implement marketing strategies to lead clients to success from Banner's Washington, D.C. headquarters. About Banner Public Affairs Banner Public Affairs executes winning strategies to achieve the unexpected and avoid the predictable. Our bipartisan team of experienced lobbying, public relations, and digital professionals provides best-in-class counsel and executes long-term growth strategies with a short-term hustle, problem-solving mindset. With a track record of victories, Banner is a natural and sought-after partner for the big moments. Banner is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and with offices in St. Louis, Denver, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/banner-public-affairs-expands-clean-energy-and-infrastructure-advocacy-capabilities-with-new-public-relations-hire-301633150.html SOURCE Banner Public Affairs - CRC data on cord lining media for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers has been accepted at the DFCon, with Dr Wong Keng Lin Francis, CRC's latest KOL, presenting his findings to world leaders in the field of DFU.- Similarly, the results of Corlicyte's Phase 1 study on the treatment of chronic diabetic foot has also been accepted with the presentation being given by Dr Cecilia Low-Wang, the trials Principal Investigator.- DFCon is a global specialist multi-disciplinary congress that attracts specialists in the field of the diabetic foot and is considered the most influential event in the industry. It is co-founded by Dr David Armstrong, a pre-eminent expert in diabetic foot.- Dr Armstrong, who also serves on CRC's scientific advisory board, will be giving the opening address for CRC's breakfast symposium on their lead products Sollagen and Corlicyte.- CorLiCyte is an umbilical cord lining stem cell therapy, for patients suffering with diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), Sollagen is a brand targeting diabetic's skin.- Global diabetes patient population is set to grow from 537 million in 2021 to 783 million in 20451- DFU is a global health emergency that will affect close to 20% of the diabetic population in their lifetime LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CRC is delighted to announce attendance at DFCon, the global specialist multidisciplinary congress focused on the diabetic foot held in late September 2022 in Los Angeles, USA. The meeting is a gathering of a wide range of both generalists and specialists who diagnose and manage diabetic feet, to discuss best practice in diagnostics and interventions for both treatment and amputation prevention. It was co-founded and is co-chaired by Dr David Armstrong, a pre-eminent expert in diabetic foot who also serves on CRC's scientific advisory board. Dr David Armstrong will be introducing CRC's headline symposium on Saturday morning where Dr Paul Kemp, the inventor of Apligraf and scientific advisory board member, and esteemed researchers Dr Brian Freed and Dr Wong Keng Lin Francis will present an overview of CRC's technology and data. Furthermore, CRC have two scientific posters approved for presentation at DFCon on the data generated in Corlicyte and Sollagen: The first poster "Results of the phase 1 open-label safety study of umbilical cord lining (Corlicyte) to heal chronic diabetic foot ulcers" details the Phase I study in Corlicyte and is authored by Cecilia Low Wang and the team from the University of Colorado who conducted the study. The second poster by Dr Wong from Sengkang General Hospital/Duke NUS is titled "Early evaluation of Sollagen, a topical exosomal skin conditioner derived from Umbilical cord lining cell media, in treatment of persistent chronic DFU" and details the impressive early data generated with Sollagen in chronic diabetic foot ulcers. Both posters are a testament to the immense potential of Corlicyte and Sollagen for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcer, a huge issue for patients and health care systems alike. CRC's presence at such a specialized and well-regarded scientific and medical forum reflects the exciting data the company is generating. It is a strong indication of the academic and clinical network that the company is building to deliver products that can make a dramatic difference to patients with a large unmet medical need. About CellResearch Corporation (CRC) CellResearch Corporation was founded in 2002 as a contract research provider focusing on skin cells. In 2004, the company made the discovery that the umbilical cord lining of mammals was an abundant source of both mesenchymal and epithelial stem cells. Today, the company owns this technology through a family of patents and holds the rights to commercialize this technology in most major markets globally. While the closure of diabetic foot ulcers is the company's first allogeneic therapy to make it to the end of Phase 1 USFDA clinical trials, CellResearchCorp has a broad therapeutic pipeline at the pre-clinical stage. Further therapies include solid tumor therapy, inflammatory diseases, cardiac muscle repair, Parkinson's Disease, Age-related Macular Degeneration and Diabetes. CellResearch Consumer Health, a wholly owned subsidiary of CellResearch Corp, is the commercialization vehicle for CALECIM Professional and the newly launching Sollagen. It produces an innovative range of skincare and haircare products using cord lining stem cell media to power its products. It is used in clinics/hospitals and as part of an at-home anti-aging skincare regime. It is distributed globally through over 600 aesthetic physicians and online via their own website. It has a key distribution partnership with Menarini Group across Southeast Asia. CellResearch Corp partner, Cordlife offers parents the opportunity to bank their child's umbilical cord tissue alongside their cord blood. Cordlife has what is believed to be the largest licensed bank of umbilical cord tissue globally. As cell therapies move into the clinic, Cordlife will have the ability to expand stem cells from a banked umbilical cord for autologous and donor-related uses. www.cellresearchcorp.com https://calecimprofessional.com Business Development and Investor Relations: Xavier Simpson +65 8815 6139 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cellresearch-corporation-crc-to-present-promising-new-stem-cell-products-for-the-treatment-of-chronic-diabetic-foot-ulcers-at-the-worlds-premier-diabetic-foot-conference-dfcon-in-los-angeles-301632771.html SOURCE CellResearch Corporation Stock Market SymbolsGIB.A (TSX)GIB (NYSE)cgi.com/newsroom MONTREAL, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - George D. Schindler, President and Chief Executive Officer of CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), will engage in a keynote interview at the Bloomberg Canadian Finance Conference on September 28, 2022, in Montreal, Quebec to share CGI's perspectives on the changing landscape of digitization across industries. Mr. Schindler will discuss how enterprises are utilizing technology to navigate global changes and planning for their futures. The keynote interview is scheduled for 11:55 am (EDT) and will be broadcast on Bloomberg Live. A replay of the interview will be archived on CGI's website in the Investors section under Event Calendar. About CGI Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world. With 88,500 consultants and professionals across the globe, CGI delivers an end-to-end portfolio of capabilities, from strategic IT and business consulting to systems integration, managed IT and business process services and intellectual property solutions. CGI works with clients through a local relationship model complemented by a global delivery network that helps clients digitally transform their organizations and accelerate results. CGI Fiscal 2021 reported revenue is $12.13 billion and CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB). Learn more at cgi.com. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cgis-ceo-to-share-insights-on-digitization-at-the-bloomberg-canadian-finance-conference-in-montreal-quebec-301632520.html SOURCE CGI Inc. CHENGDU, China, Sept. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Guided by the principle of "less effort, more living", CHiQ aims to improve quality of life for its users with smart and dependable products that handle essential tasks intelligently and with ease, whereby customers can lead happier and more relaxed lives. With these objectives in mind, CHiQ launched the +More campaign anchored by a commitment to improve the lives of its users globally with products that give them more, whether it is +Design, +Choice, +Creative, +Style and +Value, the brand's goal is to add value for better living. Driven by CHiQ's customer-first mission to create more colorful and enriching lives for its users, the +More campaign has since demonstrated empirically how its products improves quality of life. Never satisfied with only meeting basic demands, CHiQ has taken into account the most important customer needs and feedback to updated its mission for +More in 2022 with the following core values: +Effort, +Possibility, +Expectations and +Possibilities. CHiQ demonstrates and delivers these values with the following: +Effort CHiQ makes technical aspects and functionality of its products a top priority, and is dedicated to producing home appliances that are more suited to meeting the needs of users' daily lives. This commitment to a higher level of technical excellence is exemplified in CHiQ Refrigerators, which are designed with users' well-being and optimal nutrition in mind. The refrigerators are equipped with low frost technology for less build up of ice and more storage space. They also come with powerful inverters to maintain several cold temperature zones to keep different foods fresh, as well as the four-star freezing button to freeze food quickly and lock in freshness. +Possibility In addition to satisfying customers' demands for great home appliances, CHiQ actively pursues the possibility for further breakthroughs. This pursuit of technological innovation and breakthrough is evident in the G7PF, G7L Series TV which assumes the role of a control hub for your home, as well as an immersive home cinema that is truly extraordinary. The new G7PF line of CHiQ TVs features a frameless design, high screen-to-body ratio for a cinema-like experience, and a 64-bit quad core processor that enables automatic analysis and adjustments on screen for an ultra-immersive viewing. With Google assistant and hands-free voice control built in, users are able to control all their smart appliances through the TV via voice commands in 30+ scenarios, making their lives easier with a single device. +Expectations CHiQ is not content with just attaining the good standard, and expects to deliver more with products that are pleasing and user-friendly, as well as having a solid scientific basis. This dedication to exceed expectations can be seen in the CHiQ Washing Machine which gives users even more comfort than they would expect. Its cutting-edge ultra-slim and embeddable design makes it easy to install in even small spaces, while it comes with a large drum for washing more clothes, and advanced welding skills for better deep cleaning performance. +Possibilities Not satisfied with merely meeting customers' needs, CHiQ aims to bring more possibilities to improve their lives based on their true feedback and stories shared. A case in point is the CHiQ 32P625Q UltraSlim Monitor, with a 31.5'' ultra-slim frameless screen that is designed for maximum comfortable viewing. Its large screen display and switching function also enables home or office work easily, with a multi-window desktop ideal for browsing and managing documents. In addition, its 100% sRGB wide gamut offers 1.07 billion colors for the most lifelike and vivid images to empower the ultimate immersive viewing experience and possibilities. The math is simple: +Effort+Possibility+Expectations+Possibilities = CHiQ, the home appliance solution for consumers that want +More from life. The brand is also anchored by the company's mission to "Create the World-Class Home Appliance Brand, and Building the Leading Global Smart Home Company". Today, CHiQ has entered more than 30 countries and regions in Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the South America, and has expanded its presence on over 40 e-commerce platforms, with products covering TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, monitors, among others. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chiq-brings-more-innovation-to-influence-the-home-appliance-market-301632708.html SOURCE CHiQ TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Denison Mines Corp. ("Denison" or the "Company") (TSX: DML) (NYSE American: DNN) is pleased to announce the completion of commissioning of the lixiviant injection system for the Phoenix in-situ recovery ("ISR") Feasibility Field Test ("FFT") at the Company's 95% owned Wheeler River project ("Wheeler River" or the "Project"). The lixiviant injection system is the critical operating component necessary to support the leaching phase of the FFT. View PDF version. Kevin Himbeault, Denison's Vice President of Plant Operations & Regulatory Affairs, commented, "With the completion of construction and wet commissioning of the injection modules, we have now successfully commenced our initial injection of lixiviant into the test area, which represents the beginning of the leaching phase of the FFT." David Cates, Denison's President and CEO, added, "We are proud of this notable milestone, particularly given the extensive coordination and efforts of Denison's Saskatoon-based technical team and our various construction partners that have delivered on the safe and timely construction and commissioning of this first-of-its-kind test facility." Limited construction activities continue on-site to support future phases of the FFT (discussed below). Construction efforts for the FFT are being completed in collaboration with Tron Construction & Mining, a well-established operator in northern Saskatchewan that is part of the Des Nedhe Group and owned 100% by English River First Nation. Civil earthworks for the FFT are substantially completed, and continue to be supported by Snake Lake Contracting, another northern Saskatchewan-based and Indigenous-owned business. This press release constitutes a "designated news release" for the purposes of the Company's prospectus supplement dated September 28, 2021 to its short form base shelf prospectus dated September 16, 2021. Background on the FFT The FFT is designed to use the existing commercial-scale ISR test pattern ("Test Pattern"), installed at Phoenix in 2021 (see news releases dated July 29, 2021, and October 28, 2021), to facilitate a combined assessment of the Phoenix deposit's hydraulic flow properties with the leaching characteristics that have been assessed through the metallurgical core-leach testing program. The FFT is fully permitted, having been authorized by both the Saskatchewan Minister of Environment (see news release dated July 12, 2022) and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (see news release dated August 8, 2022). Overall, the FFT is intended to provide further verification of the permeability, leachability, and containment parameters needed for the successful application of the ISR mining method at Phoenix and is expected to validate and inform various feasibility study design elements including the expected production and remediation profiles. The operation of the FFT is planned to occur in three phases: (1) the leaching phase, (2) the neutralization phase, and (3) the recovered solution management phase. The leaching phase is designed to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the leaching process in the mineralized zone, which is approximately 400m below the surface. The leaching phase includes the controlled injection of an acidic solution into a portion of the existing Test Pattern within the mineralized zone (the "Leaching Zone") and the recovery of the solution back to the surface using existing test wells. The recovered solution from the leaching phase is expected to contain dissolved minerals, including uranium, copper, iron, molybdenum, and zinc. The neutralization phase involves the recovery of the remainder of the leached mineralized solution from the Leaching Zone and is intended to verify the efficiency and effectiveness of the process for returning the Leaching Zone to environmentally acceptable conditions. During this phase, a mild alkaline (basic) solution will be injected into the Leaching Zone to neutralize the area and reverse the residual effects of the acidic solution injected during the leaching phase. The recovered solution management phase involves separating the solution recovered from both the leaching phase and the neutralization phase into (i) mineralized precipitates and (ii) a neutralized treated solution. About Wheeler River Wheeler River is the largest undeveloped uranium project in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin region, in northern Saskatchewan including combined Indicated Mineral Resources of 132.1 million pounds U3O8 (1,809,000 tonnes at an average grade of 3.3% U3O8), plus combined Inferred Mineral Resources of 3.0 million pounds U3O8 (82,000 tonnes at an average grade of 1.7% U3O8). The Project is host to the high-grade Phoenix and Gryphon uranium deposits, discovered by Denison in 2008 and 2014, respectively, and is a joint venture between Denison (operator) and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited ("JCU"). Denison has an effective 95% ownership interest in Wheeler River (90% directly, and 5% indirectly through a 50% ownership in JCU). A PFS was completed for Wheeler River in 2018, considering the potential economic merit of developing the Phoenix deposit as an ISR operation and the Gryphon deposit as a conventional underground mining operation. Taken together, the Project is estimated to have mine production of 109.4 million pounds U3O8 over a 14-year mine life, with a base case pre-tax NPV of $1.31 billion (8% discount rate), Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 38.7%, and initial pre-production capital expenditures of $322.5 million. The Phoenix ISR operation is estimated to have a stand-alone base case pre-tax NPV of $930.4 million (8% discount rate), IRR of 43.3%, initial pre-production capital expenditures of $322.5 million, and industry-leading average operating costs of US$3.33/lb U3O8. The PFS is prepared on a project (100% ownership) and pre-tax basis, as each of the partners to the Wheeler River Joint Venture are subject to different tax and other obligations. Further details regarding the PFS, including additional scientific and technical information, as well as after-tax results attributable to Denison's ownership interest, are described in greater detail in the NI 43-101 Technical Report titled "Pre-feasibility Study for the Wheeler River Uranium Project, Saskatchewan, Canada" dated October 30, 2018, with an effective date of September 24, 2018. A copy of this report is available on Denison's website and under its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. Denison suspended certain activities at Wheeler River during 2020, including the EA process, which is on the critical path to achieving the project development schedule outlined in the PFS. While the EA process has resumed, the Company is not currently able to estimate the impact to the project development schedule outlined in the PFS, and users are cautioned against relying on the estimates provided therein regarding the start of pre-production activities in 2021 and first production in 2024. About Denison Denison is a uranium exploration and development company with interests focused in the Athabasca Basin region of northern Saskatchewan, Canada. In addition to its effective 95% interest in the Wheeler River project, Denison's interests in the Athabasca Basin include a 22.5% ownership interest in the McClean Lake joint venture, which includes several uranium deposits and the McClean Lake uranium mill that is contracted to process the ore from the Cigar Lake mine under a toll milling agreement, plus a 25.17% interest in the Midwest Main and Midwest A deposits, and a 67.01% interest in the Tthe Heldeth Tue ("THT," formerly J Zone) and Huskie deposits on the Waterbury Lake property. The Midwest Main, Midwest A, THT and Huskie deposits are each located within 20 kilometres of the McClean Lake mill. Through its 50% ownership of JCU, Denison holds additional interests in various uranium project joint ventures in Canada, including the Millennium project (JCU 30.099%), the Kiggavik project (JCU 33.8118%) and Christie Lake (JCU 34.4508%). Denison's exploration portfolio includes further interests in properties covering approximately 300,000 hectares in the Athabasca Basin region. Denison is also engaged in post-closure mine care and maintenance services through its Closed Mines group, which manages Denison's reclaimed mine sites in the Elliot Lake region and provides related services to certain third-party projects. Follow Denison on Twitter @DenisonMinesCo Qualified Persons The disclosure of scientific or technical information related to the FFT or Wheeler River project contained in this release has been reviewed and approved, as applicable, by Mr. David Bronkhorst, P.Eng, Denison's Vice President, Operations or Mr. Andrew Yackulic, P. Geo., Denison's Director, Exploration, who are Qualified Persons in accordance with the requirements of NI 43-101. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain information contained in this news release constitutes 'forward-looking information', within the meaning of the applicable United States and Canadian legislation, concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of Denison. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as 'potential', 'plans', 'expects', 'budget', 'scheduled', 'estimates', 'forecasts', 'intends', 'anticipates', or 'believes', or the negatives and/or variations of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results 'may', 'could', 'would', 'might' or 'will' 'be taken', 'occur' or 'be achieved'. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking information pertaining to the following: status of commissioning and readiness of the FFT; scope, objectives and interpretations of the FS process for the proposed ISR operation for the Phoenix deposit, including the FFT and other testing programs and the interpretation of the results therefrom; the scope and design, and related test work, with respect to plans and process designs for the FS; and expectations regarding its joint venture ownership interests and the continuity of its agreements with its partners and third parties. Forward looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made, and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Denison to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. For example, the modelling and assumptions upon which the work plans for the Wheeler River Project are based may not be maintained after further work is completed. In addition, Denison may decide or otherwise be required to discontinue testing, evaluation and development work if it is unable to maintain or otherwise secure the necessary resources (such as testing facilities, capital funding, regulatory approvals, etc.). Denison believes that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be accurate and results may differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information. For a discussion in respect of risks and other factors that could influence forward-looking events, please refer to the factors discussed in Denison's Annual Information Form dated March 25, 2022 or subsequent quarterly financial reports under the heading 'Risk Factors'. These factors are not and should not be construed as being exhaustive. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Any forward-looking information and the assumptions made with respect thereto speaks only as of the date of this news release. Denison does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this news release to conform such information to actual results or to changes in Denison's expectations except as otherwise required by applicable legislation. Cautionary Note to United States Investors Concerning Estimates of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves: This news release may use the terms 'measured', 'indicated' and 'inferred' mineral resources. United States investors are advised that such terms have been prepared in accordance with the definition standards on mineral reserves of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum referred to in Canadian National Instrument 43-101 Mineral Disclosure Standards ('NI 43-101') and are recognized and required by Canadian regulations. 'Inferred mineral resources' have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. United States investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource exists, or is economically or legally mineable. United States investors are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of measured or indicated mineral resources will ever be converted into mineral reserves. Effective February 2019, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC') adopted amendments to its disclosure rules to modernize the mineral property disclosure requirements for issuers whose securities are registered with the SEC under the Exchange Act and as a result, the SEC now recognizes estimates of "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" and "inferred mineral resources". In addition, the SEC has amended its definitions of "proven mineral reserves" and "probable mineral reserves" to be "substantially similar" to the corresponding definitions under the CIM Standards, as required under NI 43-101. However, information regarding mineral resources or mineral reserves in Denison's disclosure may not be comparable to similar information made public by United States companies. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/denison-completes-commissioning-of-lixiviant-injection-modules--for-phoenix-isr-feasibility-field-test-301632765.html SOURCE Denison Mines Corp. PRINCETON, N.J., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Shanghai Fosun Pharma (Group) Co., Ltd. ("Fosun Pharma", stock code: 600196.SH; 02196.HK) today announced that the 20 ml, Sodium Phenylacetate and Sodium Benzoate (SPSB) liquid product, which is under an exclusive partnership between Fosun Pharma USA Inc. ("Fosun Pharma USA"), the US-based subsidiary of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("Fosun Pharma"; stock code: 600196. SH, 02196. HK) and MAIA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MAIA), a Princeton, NJ based specialty pharmaceutical company, has been recently launched. Fosun Pharma USA has the exclusive commercial rights of this product in the U.S. market. Based upon market feedback, the usage of 50ml SPSB, as prescribed, predominantly in the pediatric setting, is subject to extensive product wastage which is a huge cost to the healthcare system. SBSP is available in 20 ml and 50 ml vial sizes. Currently, only MAIA has the FDA approval for the 20 ml vial size. Rong Yang, Chief Executive Officer of Fosun Pharma USA Inc. and Senior Vice President of Fosun Pharma said, "We are excited that this product in partnership with MAIA has been recently launched which marks a milestone for Fosun Pharma's business development in the US market." Jeremy L. Tatum, Chief Commercial Officer and General Manager of Generics, Fosun Pharma USA Inc. said, "By producing the only commercially available and FDA approved 20 ml SPSB product, MAIA and Fosun Pharma USA are addressing the need to reduce wastage and reduce unnecessary spending on critically needed products. We are ready to ship the Product. For Fosun Pharma USA, this is the first of many 505(b)(2) that will be launched over the next few years." About Fosun Pharma USA Inc. Fosun Pharma USA Inc., a subsidiary of Fosun Pharma, was founded in 2017 and continually works to enhance our existing portfolio of specialty pharmaceutical injectables and to build our pipeline with both innovative and generic pharmaceutical drugs. With strategic manufacturing partnerships around the world, Fosun Pharma USA Inc. delivers high-quality products that comply with international standards. For more information, please visit our official website: https://fosunpharmausa.com/ About Fosun Pharma Founded in 1994, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("Fosun Pharma"; stock code: 600196. SH, 02196. HK) is a global innovation-driven pharmaceutical and healthcare industry group deep-rooted in China. Fosun Pharma directly operates businesses including pharmaceutical manufacturing, medical devices, medical diagnosis, and healthcare services. As a shareholder of Sinopharm Co., Ltd., Fosun Pharma expands its areas in the pharmaceutical distribution and retail business. Fosun Pharma is patient-centered and clinical needs-oriented. The company enriches its innovative product pipeline through diversified and multi-level cooperation models such as independent research and development, cooperative development, license-in, and in-depth incubation. Fosun Pharma has formed technological platforms for innovative small molecule drugs, antibody drugs, and cell therapy with a focus on key disease areas including oncology and immunomodulation, metabolism and digestive system, as well as central nervous system. Fosun Pharma also vigorously explores cutting-edge technologies, such as RNA, gene therapy, ADC and PROTAC, to enhance its innovation capabilities. Guided by the 4IN strategy (Innovation, Internationalization, Intelligentization, and Integration), Fosun Pharma will uphold the development model of "innovation transformation, integrated operation, and steady growth", with the mission of creating shareholder values through strengthening its independent R&D and external cooperation and enriching its product pipelines, as well as promoting the global networks and enhancing operational efficiency. Fosun Pharma will actively promote the digital and physical business layout in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry and is committed to becoming a first-class enterprise in the global medical and health market. For more information, please visit our official website: www.fosunpharma.com About MAIA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. MAIA Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company that identifies, develops, manufactures and markets innovative and niche hospital products. It specializes in Injectables, Niche Generic, Diagnostics, Hormones, Oncology, Steroids, and Controlled/Sustained Release. MAIA Pharmaceuticals is headquartered in Princeton, NJ. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fosun-pharma-and-maia-pharmaceuticals-jointly-announce-the-successful-commercialization-of-only-fda-approved-20ml-sodium-phenylacetate-and-sodium-benzoate-spsb-liquid-product-301633154.html SOURCE Fosun Pharma LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Californians for Homeownership, a nonprofit organization sponsored by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (C.A.R.) that aims to address California's housing crisis through impact litigation, today announced that it has filed lawsuits against the cities of Claremont, Fullerton and La Mirada to enforce state housing element law. The new lawsuits follow settlements in the organization's prior lawsuits against the California cities of Bradbury, Laguna Hills and South Pasadena. "Californians for Homeownership continues to lead the way in using the courts to enforce these critical laws, which require cities and counties to ensure that their zoning requirements will allow enough housing to be built over the next decade," said C.A.R. President Otto Catrina. "The recent settlements and the new lawsuits send a message to cities throughout the state that every city has an affirmative obligation to plan for the housing growth needed to support California's growing population." New housing planning documents, called housing elements, were due on October 15, 2021, in the Southern California region. While some Southern California cities embraced the process, many have resisted or delayed. The nonprofit's first round of six lawsuits in April targeted cities that had not made sufficient progress toward adopting housing elements and that refused to acknowledge the penalties associated with their delays. The recent settlements with the cities of Bradbury, Laguna Hills and South Pasadena commit those cities to specific timelines for adoption of their housing elements and to make changes as needed to ensure that the housing elements they adopt will be eligible for certification by state regulators. South Pasadena, for example, has committed to removing from its housing element site inventory a number of parcels that are unlikely to be developed with housing in the coming years. The city also agreed to seek a change to its voter-established height limit, which makes it difficult to develop multifamily housing in the city. The settling cities also agreed to reimburse Californians for Homeownership for its costs and legal fees, and to comply with state law penalties that override local development standards for mixed-income housing developments in cities that are out of compliance with housing element law a provision often referred to as the "builder's remedy." The new lawsuits target three additional cities that are far from meeting their housing element obligations. "The cities of Claremont, Fullerton and La Mirada were selected because, in our assessment, they are unlikely to adopt valid housing elements within the next six to 12 months without being forced to do so through litigation," said Matthew Gelfand, the in-house litigator for the nonprofit. "We are already nearly a year into the eight-year planning period that these plans are intended to cover. Developers are anxiously waiting for these plans to be finalized so that they can begin developing much-needed housing, and every month these cities delay is another month working with outdated land use rules that make it hard to build homes." The RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) and housing element process is an interconnected system for ensuring that California's cities and counties plan for adequate housing to address statewide and regional housing needs. In the RHNA assessment, state and local governments work together to identify regional housing needs and distribute them among a region's cities and counties. Each city and county must then develop a "housing element" a component of the city's general plan that identifies sites available for future housing development sufficient to meet the city's RHNA allocation. If the city cannot identify adequate sites, it must change its zoning to allow additional housing development. All three cities targeted in the new lawsuits have been told by state regulators that they must make significant changes to their draft housing elements before they can be adopted and certified by the state. But unlike many of their peers in the region, these cities have made little progress in doing so. "These cities produced draft housing elements that are far from meeting their obligations under state law and have made little progress in fixing them," Gelfand said. "For example, the city of La Mirada failed to explain how it intended to accommodate the assigned RHNA in each income category, which is one of the most basic required features of a housing element. The city's current draft is not a serious attempt to comply with state law." The nonprofit typically offers to forgo litigation against cities that are willing to acknowledge the state law penalties for failing to adopt a housing element. It made that offer to each of the three cities, but they declined. Enforcing these laws has been a major focus for the organization over the last year, and it has approached cities throughout Southern California to discuss their compliance with the law. In the coming months, the focus will shift to the Bay Area and other parts of the state, as those regions complete their housing elements. In prior housing element cycles, without litigation, some cities have allowed the process of developing their housing elements to drag on for years after the state law deadlines. Each new lawsuit seeks an order requiring the city to adopt a compliant housing element on an expedited basis, as well as a judicial declaration that the city is subject to certain state law penalties for being out of compliance. Among other penalties, cities without compliant housing elements are prohibited from using their ordinary zoning rules to reject certain types of housing, such as mixed-income and moderate-income housing developments. The court also has the discretion to control aspects of a city's land use approvals for example, halting the issuance of all non-residential building permits or judicially approving housing development projects that have been held up by a city. The lawsuits are: Californians for Homeownership v. City of Claremont, Los Angeles County Superior Court Case No. 22STCP03414. Californians for Homeownership v. City of Fullerton, Orange County Superior Court Case No. 30-2022-01281840-CU-WM-CJC. Californians for Homeownership v. City of La Mirada, Los Angeles County Superior Court Case No. 22STCP03418. Copies of the filings are available at caforhomes.org/housingelements. Californians for Homeownership is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization sponsored by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS devoted to using legal tools to address California's housing crisis. For too long, California's cities have treated compliance with state and federal housing law as optional. The organization seeks to change that attitude by proactively enforcing the law, on behalf of the important public interest in having additional housing available to families at all income levels. Californians for Homeownership was established by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (C.A.R.), and it receives financial support from C.A.R. and private donors. To make a tax-deductible charitable contribution today, visit caforhomes.org. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/housing-group-announces-settlements-with-three-southern-california-cities-three-new-lawsuits-over-failure-to-plan-for-housing-301633505.html SOURCE CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS (C.A.R.) SAINT SIMONS ISLAND, Ga., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Intelivation Technologies, a medical device company with a cutting-edge spinal implant portfolio, announced today that they will be exhibiting their technology during the NASS 37th Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to celebrating successful market launches for the Golden Isles Pedicle Screw and the Advantage-C Cervical Interbody Cage, Intelivation will be featuring their new MIS platform and Advantage - L Lumbar Interbody solutions. General Manager and VP of Sales, Fleet Medford, highlighted several innovations that Intelivation looks forward to introducing to the broader market during NASS. "2022 has been an exciting year for our product development team. We look forward to introducing our current and future customers to our clinically-differentiated portfolio both at our booth as well as our offsite technical showcase. This is an exciting milestone as we continue to get feedback on our current offerings and invest in our rich pipeline." About Intelivation Technologies Intelivation Technologies, dedicated to research and development, is focused on bringing game-changing products to market that make patients' lives better. For further inquiries, interested parties may email [email protected]. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/intelivation-technologies-to-exhibit-at-nass-37th-annual-meeting-301633242.html SOURCE Intelivation Technologies SUMMIT, N.J., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CSL Seqirus, a business of CSL Limited (ASX: CSL), today announced new data from four real-world studies showing the impact that cell-based and adjuvanted influenza vaccines can have in reducing the burden of seasonal influenza on hospitals and health systems. The data were presented at OPTIONS for the Control of Influenza XI (OPTIONS XI), being held in Belfast, United Kingdom, from September 26-29, 2022. An observational study using real-world evidence (RWE) showed that adults 65 years of age and older had fewer influenza-related hospitalizations during the 2019/20 U.S. influenza season when vaccinated with FLUAD (Influenza Vaccine, Adjuvanted), an MF59-adjuvanted trivalent vaccine (aTIV), compared to quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (QIVe) or a high-dose trivalent vaccine (HD-TIV).1 A second study showed FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT (Influenza Vaccine), a cell-based quadrivalent influenza vaccine (QIVc), to be more effective than standard dose egg-based vaccine (QIVe) in preventing cardio-respiratory hospitalizations, including influenza-related hospitalizations in adults 18 to 64 years of age during the 2019/20 U.S. influenza season.2 "These data show the benefits of adjuvanted and cell-based influenza vaccine technology advances, like aTIV and QIVc, in reducing influenza-related outcomes compared to high-dose or standard vaccines in the real-world setting," said Gregg Sylvester, MD, MPH, Chief Health Officer, CSL Seqirus.1,2 "Additional studies presented at OPTIONS XI show the significant burden that influenza places on healthcare resource use; and we, at CSL Seqirus, are committed to pursuing innovative vaccine technology platforms that aim to prevent severe disease, and ultimately help to free up these critical medical resources." A predictive dynamic modeling study showed vaccination with QIVc and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT (Influenza Vaccine, Adjuvanted), an MF59-adjuvanted quadrivalent vaccine (aQIV), compared with QIVe could help avoid hospital bed saturation by preventing use of 24,000 acute hospital beds and 3,600 intensive care unit (ICU) beds in a high incidence flu season in the U.S., greatly reducing influenza-related costs on the health system.3 In an influenza-COVID-19 co-circulation scenario, the immunization rate with QIVc/aQIV would need to be at least 60 percent to prevent ICU bed saturation. The influenza vaccination rate in the U.S. during the 2021/22 season was 45 percent.3 An additional predictive modeling study conducted in Spain also showed that replacing QIVe with aQIV in adults 65 years and older could be highly cost effective from a payer and societal perspective, preventing tens of thousands of complicated influenza cases, which can include hospitalization or death.4 "We at CSL Seqirus are thrilled to add these studies to the existing body of knowledge around the effectiveness of our vaccines to reduce the disease and economic burden of influenza," said Joaquin Mould-Quevedo, PhD, Global HEOR & Value Strategy Director, CSL Seqirus. "As we enter the 2022/23 influenza season in the Northern Hemisphere, we remain committed to working with our partners in public health to do everything we can to increase influenza vaccination rates and protect our communities from influenza." RWE is a complement to randomized controlled trial (RCT) research, assessing influenza vaccine innovation effectiveness on a continual basis and providing an ever-growing data set on real-world outcomes. ABOUT THE STUDIES PRESENTED AT OPTIONS XI Real-World Effectiveness of MF59-Adjuvanted Influenza Vaccine in Preventing Hospitalizations in Adults 65 Years During the 2019-2020 U.S. Influenza Season (Poster Exhibition: Tuesday, September 27, 2022, #P-328) Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study using electronic medical records (EMRs) to estimate the relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) of aTIV compared to HD-TIV and QIVe in preventing cardio-respiratory-related hospitalization. The EMRs included were linked to claims data during the 2019/20 U.S. influenza season for adults ages 65 and older.1 Results showed that, among 4.3 million adults vaccinated for influenza, immunization with aTIV was more effective than QIVe and HD-TIV in preventing cardio-respiratory-, respiratory- and influenza-related hospitalizations. The rVE was consistently higher with aTIV versus QIVe than aTIV versus HD-TIV. The researchers concluded that aTIV offers improved protection against severe influenza disease in older adults as shown by these real-world results from the 2019/20 U.S. influenza season.1 Real-World Effectiveness of Cell-Based Quadrivalent Influenza Vaccine in Preventing Hospitalizations in Adults 18-64 Years of Age During the 2019-2020 U.S. Influenza Season (Poster Exhibition, Tuesday, September 27, 2022, #P-329). To estimate the relative vaccine effectiveness of QIVc compared with QIVe in preventing cardio-respiratory-related hospitalization, researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study analyzing electronic medical records linked to claims data during the 2019/20 U.S. influenza season from adults age 18 to 64 with a record of influenza vaccination with QIVc or QIVe.2 Results showed that among 5.9 million adults who received the vaccines, immunization with QIVc was more effective than QIVe in preventing cardio-respiratory-, respiratory- and influenza-related hospitalizations. No difference was observed between the two types of vaccines in hospitalizations related to pneumonia, myocardial infarction or ischemic stroke. The researchers concluded that QIVc offers improved protection against severe influenza disease in adults ages 18 to 64 as shown by these real-world results from the 2019/20 U.S. influenza season.2 Cost-Effectiveness of Quadrivalent Adjuvanted Influenza Vaccine with MF59 Versus a Standard-Dose Quadrivalent Influenza Vaccines in Spain (Poster Presentation: Monday, September 26, 2022, #P-186) Researchers at several institutions in Spain and Italy evaluated the cost-effectiveness of vaccination with an adjuvanted quadrivalent influenza vaccine (aQIV) compared to QIVe in adults 65 years and older. Using a modeling technique, researchers analyzed recent vaccination rates from the 2020/21 influenza season to predict the number of influenza infections in Spain.4 From the payer perspective, results showed that, with a relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) of 34.7 percent (data considering a meta-analysis including lab-confirmed endpoints only), replacing QIVe with aQIV in an older adult population in Spain would prevent 38,982 complicated influenza cases, 988 hospitalizations and 495 deaths, and the incremental cost per quality adjusted life years (QALY) gained was 2,726.55. With an rVE of 13.9 percent (data from a recent published meta-analysis including multiple endpoints), replacing QIVe with aQIV would prevent 16,824 complicated influenza cases, 433 hospitalizations and 219 deaths, and the incremental cost per QALY was 7,840.89 and 5,081.88 from the payer and societal perspective, respectively. The researchers concluded that aQIV is highly cost-effective compared to QIVe from both a payer and societal perspective and should be the preferred influenza vaccine option for adults 65 years and older in Spain.4 The Impact of Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness on U.S. Hospital System Resources Within an Influenza and COVID-19 Co-Circulation Scenario. (Poster Presentation: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 #P-268) Researchers evaluated the impact that using enhanced influenza vaccines has on hospital system resources in a scenario where both influenza and COVID-19 are circulating. In the study, researchers compared a scenario in which all people are vaccinated with QIVe versus a scenario in which those age six months through 64 years of age are vaccinated with QIVc and those ages 65 years and older are vaccinated with aQIV. The model used two U.S. influenza seasons (2011/12 for low incidence and 2017/18 for high incidence), the average impact of COVID-19 variants (Alpha, Delta and Omicron), and assumed 1,000,000 acute hospital beds and 100,000 ICU hospital beds in the U.S., with a regular occupancy rate of 70 percent related to other diseases.3 Results showed that, compared to QIVe, vaccination with QIVc or aQIV would prevent utilization of 24,010 acute hospital beds and 3,601 ICU hospital beds within a high incidence flu season, and 17,329 acute hospital beds and 2,659 ICU hospital beds within a low incidence flu season. The researchers concluded that this reduction of inpatient services would not be enough to avoid saturation of ICU hospital resources due to COVID-19 hospital bed demand. As a result, they called for increasing the influenza vaccination rate to 60 percent or higher and using QIVc and aQIV for those ages 6 months through 64 years old and those 65 years and older, respectively, to avoid ICU bed saturation in the U.S. when both influenza and COVID-19 are circulating.3 Study Limitations The above studies featuring RWE were subject to the typical limitations associated with retrospective cohort analyses. Observational studies have limitations including the potential for selection bias and residual confounding. Individual study limitations may include: retrospective analyses, a potential lack of laboratory confirmed influenza, and varying data sources. Economic evaluations in health can be a very useful complement to the decision-making process, and the methodological approaches should be continually refined and improved. Caution must be exercised in interpreting the results of economic evaluations performed in a given setting and in extrapolating to a different population, location, healthcare systems and resource use. It's strongly suggested that economic evaluations should be performed on a regular basis to ensure that the results are valid and up-to-date, and consistent with payer's views and priorities of the societies which are under research. About Seasonal Influenza Influenza is a common, contagious seasonal respiratory disease that may cause severe illness and life-threatening complications in some people.5 Influenza can lead to clinical symptoms varying from mild to moderate respiratory illness to severe complications, hospitalization and in some cases, death.5 Because transmission of influenza viruses to others may occur one day before symptoms develop and up to 5 to 7 days after becoming sick, the disease can be easily transmitted to others.5 Estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that during the 2019/20 influenza season, there were an estimated 405,000 influenza-related hospitalizations in the U.S.6 The CDC recommends annual vaccination for individuals aged 6 months and older, who do not have any contraindications.7 Since it takes about two weeks after vaccination for antibodies to develop in the body that help protect against influenza virus infection, it is recommended that people get vaccinated before influenza begins spreading in their community.7 The CDC recommends that people get vaccinated by the end of October.7 About CSL Seqirus CSL Seqirus is a business of CSL Limited (ASX: CSL). As one of the largest influenza vaccine providers in the world, CSL Seqirus is a major contributor to the prevention of influenza globally and a transcontinental partner in pandemic preparedness. With state-of-the-art production facilities in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, and leading R&D capabilities, CSL Seqirus utilizes egg, cell and adjuvant technologies to offer a broad portfolio of differentiated influenza vaccines in more than 20 countries around the world. About CSL CSL (ASX: CSL; USOTC: CSLLY) is a leading global biotechnology company with a dynamic portfolio of lifesaving medicines, including those that treat haemophilia and immune deficiencies, as well as vaccines to prevent influenza. Since our start in 1916, we have been driven by our promise to save lives using the latest technologies. Today, CSL including our three businesses, CSL Behring, CSL Seqirus and CSL Vifor provides lifesaving products to patients in more than 100 countries and employs 30,000 people. Our unique combination of commercial strength, R&D focus and operational excellence enables us to identify, develop and deliver innovations so our patients can live life to the fullest. For inspiring stories about the promise of biotechnology, visit CSLBehring.com/Vita and follow us on Twitter.com/CSL. For more information about CSL, visit www.CSL.com. Intended Audience This press release is issued from CSL Seqirus in Summit, New Jersey, USA and is intended to provide information about our global business. Please be aware that information relating to the approval status and labels of approved CSL Seqirus products may vary from country to country. Please consult your local regulatory authority on the approval status of CSL Seqirus products. Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future results, performance or achievements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performances or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. FLUAD, FLUAD QUADRIVALENT, FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT and MF59 are trademarks of CSL Seqirus. USA-CRP-22-0038 MEDIA CONTACTJon Steed+1 (908) 517-6379[email protected] FLUAD (Influenza Vaccine, Adjuvanted) and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT (Influenza Vaccine, Adjuvanted)IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What are FLUAD and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT? FLUAD and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT are vaccines that helps protect against the flu. FLUAD and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT are for people age 65 years and older. Vaccination with FLUAD or FLUAD QUADRIVALENT may not protect all people who receive the vaccine. Who should not get FLUAD or FLUAD QUADRIVALENT? You should not get FLUAD or FLUAD QUADRIVALENT if you have had a severe allergic reaction to any of the ingredients in the vaccine in the past, including egg protein, or a severe allergic reaction to a previous influenza vaccine. Before receiving FLUAD or FLUAD QUADRIVALENT, tell your healthcare provider about all medical conditions, including if you: have ever had Guillain-Barre syndrome (severe muscle weakness) within six weeks after getting a flu shot. The decision to give FLUAD or FLUAD QUADRIVALENT should be made by your healthcare provider, based on careful consideration of the potential benefits and risks. have problems with your immune system or are taking certain medications that suppress your immune system, as these may reduce your immune response to the vaccine have ever fainted when receiving a vaccine What are the most common side effects of FLUAD and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT? Pain or tenderness where the shot was given Muscle aches Headache Tiredness These are not all of the possible side effects of FLUAD and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT. You can ask your healthcare provider for a complete list of possible side effects. What do I do if I have side effects? Ask your healthcare provider for advice about any side effects that concern you.To report SUSPECTED ADVERSE REACTIONS, contact Seqirus at 1- 855-358-8966 or VAERS at 1-800-822-7967 and www.vaers.hhs.gov.You are also encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1800FDA1088. Before receiving vaccine, please see the full Prescribing Information for FLUAD or FLUAD QUADRIVALENT. The information provided here is not comprehensive. To learn more, talk about FLUAD and/or FLUAD QUADRIVALENT with your healthcare provider or pharmacist. FLUAD and FLUAD QUADRIVALENT are registered trademarks of Seqirus UK Limited or its affiliates. FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT (Influenza Vaccine) IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT (Influenza Vaccine)? FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT is a vaccine that helps protect people aged 6 months and older from the flu. Vaccination with FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT may not protect all people who receive the vaccine. Who should not get FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT? You should not get FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT if you have had a severe allergic reaction to any of the ingredients in the vaccine. Before receiving FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT, tell your healthcare provider about all medical conditions, including if you: Have ever had Gullain-Barre syndrome (severe muscle weakness) within six weeks of getting a flu vaccine. The decision to give FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT should be made by your healthcare provider, based on careful consideration of the potential benefits and risks. Have problems with your immune system or are taking certain medications that suppress your immune system, as these may reduce your immune response to the vaccine. Have ever fainted when receiving a vaccine. What are the most common side effects of FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT? Pain, redness, swelling, or a raised hardened area where the vaccine was given Headache Overtiredness with low energy Muscle aches Feeling unwell (malaise) Additional side effects seen in children include: Tenderness or bruising where vaccine was given Sleepiness Irritability Diarrhea Changes in eating habits These are not all of the possible side effects of FLUCELVAX QUADRIVALENT. You can ask your healthcare provider for more information and for advice about any side effects that concern you. To report SUSPECTED ADVERSE REACTIONS, contact Seqirus 1 855 358-8966 or VAERS at 1-800-822-7967 or www.vaers.hhs.gov. REFERENCES 1 Imran, M., Puig-Barbera, J., et al. (2022). Real-world effectiveness of MF59-adjuvanted influenza vaccine in preventing hospitalizations in adults 65 years during the 2019-2020 influenza season. Presented at OPTIONS XI, September 2022. 2 Imran, M., Puig-Barbera, J., et al. (2022). Real-world effectiveness of cell-based quadrivalent influenza vaccine in preventing hospitalizations in adults 18-64 years of age during the 2019-2020 U.S. influenza season. Presented at OPTIONS XI, September 2022. 3 Nguyen, V. & Mould-Quevedo, J.F. (2022). The Impact of Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness on U.S. Hospital System Resources Within. An Influenza and COVID-19 Co-Circulation Scenario. Presented at OPTIONS XI, September 2022. 4 Ruiz-Aragon, J., Marquez-Pelaez, et al. (2022). Cost-effectiveness of quadrivalent adjuvanted influenza vaccine with MF59 versus a standard-dose quadrivalent influenza vaccines in Spain. Presented at OPTIONS XI, September 2022. 5 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2021). Key Facts about Influenza. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm. Accessed September 2022. 6 CDC. (2021). Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths in the United States 2019-2020 Influenza Season. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2019-2020.html. Accessed September 2022. 7 CDC. (2021). Who Needs a Flu Vaccine. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccinations.htm. Accessed September 2022. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-real-world-data-presented-at-options-xi-show-cell-based-and-mf59-adjuvanted-influenza-vaccines-can-reduce-the-burden-of-seasonal-influenza-on-hospitals-and-health-systems-301632946.html SOURCE CSL Seqirus CHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ryerson Holding Corporation (NYSE: RYI), a leading value-added processor and distributor of industrial metals, announced today that it will host its inaugural Investor Day at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, November 8th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Ryerson's Investor Day will also celebrate 180 years of continuous operation for the business. Ryerson's Investor Day will provide insight into the Company's financial and operational transformation, industry and business outlook, strategic plan highlights and capital allocation policy. Ryerson's Investor Day will also offer the audience a Q&A session to engage with management. Executive Leadership presenters will include: Eddie Lehner, President & Chief Executive Officer Jim Claussen, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer Mike Burbach, Chief Operating Officer Molly Kannan, Corporate Controller & Chief Accounting Officer Srini Sundarrajan, Chief Information Officer John Orth, Executive Vice President of Operations All interested participants may register as in-person or virtual attendees for the Investor Day on the event website www.ryersoninvestorday.com. Ryerson Holding Corporation's Investor Day Details: DATE: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 TIME: 2:00 p.m. ET / 1:00 p.m. CT REGISTER & JOIN: ryersoninvestorday.com Ryerson is a leading value-added processor and distributor of industrial metals, with operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China. Founded in 1842, Ryerson has around 4,000 employees in approximately 100 locations. Visit Ryerson at www.ryerson.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ryerson-to-host-investor-day-on-november-8th-2022-301633562.html SOURCE Ryerson Holding Corporation Evans to be responsible for executing the omnichannel SSP's business and commercial privacy strategy NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TripleLift, the advertising technology company reinventing ad placement, today announced they have hired James Evans to serve as Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President of Legal. In this role, Evans assumes responsibility for the execution of TripleLift's strategic approach to privacy matters globally, including evaluating risks and opportunities. Additionally, Evans will lead a team of attorneys supporting TripleLift's go-to-market (GTM) product and commercial initiatives. He reports to TripleLift's General Counsel, Kama Ostoya. As Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President of Legal, Evans is responsible for ensuring that privacy remains at the forefront of TripleLift's global technology platforms. He is also tasked with working closely with cross-functional teams to ensure the company's products and processes continue to meet global privacy requirements as both they, and the digital advertising market in general, continue to evolve. "TripleLift's growing global footprint and fast expanding portfolio of privacy-centric solutions requires a top-notch legal mind to navigate the privacy regulations in the industry on a global scale," said Kama Ostoya, General Counsel, TripleLift. "James lives and breathes this space and understands not only the legal implications for our company, but those of our clients and partners as well. He is the perfect fit for this role and we are thrilled to have him on board." Evans has more than 15 years of experience in media and advertising, and comes to TripleLift from Yahoo, where he served as Associate General Counsel on its Global Privacy team. Most recently he led Yahoo's international privacy team of lawyers, privacy professionals and engineers. During Evans' tenure at Yahoo (formerly known as Verizon Media, Oath, and AOL) he held a number of roles including Senior Counsel and Head of Data Policy, as well as Corporate Counsel at Millennial Media (which was acquired by AOL in 2015). In addition to his adtech and media experience at Yahoo and Millennial Media, Evans has a long history in the publishing and advertising space having started his career in magazines and digital media at the UK's Professional Publishers Association, where he served as Head of Legal. "I have been familiar with TripleLift and its excellent reputation in the market for a number of years, and I am delighted to join this exceptionally talented team at an exciting time in the company's growth," said James Evans, Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President, Legal, TripleLift. "I'm looking forward to helping drive the global business forward with privacy at its core." About TripleLift TripleLift is the advertising technology company reinventing ad placement at the intersection of creative, media and data. Our marketplace serves the world's leading brands, publishers, streaming companies and demand-side platforms, executing over 1 trillion ad transactions every month. Customers choose us because of our addressable offerings from native to online video to connected television, innovations that insert brands into content in real-time, and supportive experts dedicated to maximizing partner performance. Part of the Vista Equity Partners portfolio, TripleLift has appeared on both the Inc. 5000 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 for five consecutive years, has been named to Business Insider's list of Hottest Ad Tech Companies for three straight years and was awarded Most Innovative TV Advertising Technology by AdExchanger in 2021. Find out how TripleLift is shaping the future of advertising at triplelift.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/triplelift-appoints-james-evans-as-chief-privacy-officer-301633334.html SOURCE TripleLift KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany Col. Vance Klosinski, who led U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz until last year, is being remembered for his leadership following his death from appendix cancer over the weekend. The 48-year-old, who succumbed to the disease Saturday, had been in hospice care in Florida. He died peacefully, surrounded by his family, wrapped in prayer and so much love, his wife, Abigail Klosinski, said Sunday in a public Facebook post, adding that his death came one day after their 16th wedding anniversary. I asked Vance about a month ago, after he made the transition to hospice care, to try to stay with our family until our next anniversary, she said. I said, give me one more to share together, after all the ones weve had to spend apart. A native of Stevens Point, Wis., Klosinski began his military career as an infantry platoon leader with the 10th Mountain Division and later qualified as a Special Forces officer. His deployments took him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Philippines, among other places. Klosinski held a masters degree in defense analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School and a second masters degree in national security from the National War College. Soldiers who worked with Klosinski shared messages and photos over the weekend on the online platform Kudoboard, which had over 100 posts as of Monday in the memorial thread for him. Your knowledge, focus and humility demonstrated to all of us what it means to be a quiet professional, wrote retired Lt. Col. Jamie Alden. We all wonder the size and depth of the wake we leave. Brother, your wake is vast. Thank you for being a trusted adviser, mentor and friend. Rob Snyder, who said he had served as Klosinskis director of operations, described him as a selfless leader. You taught me many things, including the importance of giving yourself time and space to do focused thinking and work, Snyder said. Even while you were battling cancer, you still took the time to give me sound advice and mentorship. Thank you for everything you did for me and countless others. Fellow commander Col. Matthew Gomlak, who leads U.S. Army Garrison Italy, had similar words. Youve been someone I have looked up to for years, Gomlak said. I am still doing it now, as you show us all how to leave this place with dignity and grace. Klosinski was diagnosed with rare, late-stage appendiceal cancer two months after he took the helm at U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz in 2020. The following months saw him undergo surgeries, chemotherapy and two medical evacuations from Germany to the U.S., according to his wifes post. But he still managed to carry out his duties for over a year. In late 2021, Lt. Col. Jeremy McHugh became the garrisons acting commander. In July, McHugh relinquished command on behalf of Klosinski at a ceremony in Kaiserslautern. Speaking at the event, Tommy Mize, the director of Installation Management Command-Europe, called Klosinski an inspiration to everyone around him. Col. Vance Klosinski is simply one of the very best officers Ive known in my 38 years of service: a calm, thoughtful, caring leader who always put his command, his team and the Americans he served in Rheinland-Pfalz first, Mize said. Watching the way that he led and continued to serve so dedicated, so selflessly and so professionally is one of the most inspirational things I have ever witnessed. In addition to his wife, Klosinski is survived by his two sons, Mateo and Sam. STUTTGART, Germany The U.S. Army dispatched long-range artillerymen to Latvia on Monday for national combat readiness drills alongside local and allied forces, service officials said. U.S. Army Europe and Africa said it deployed two M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems with a dozen personnel to the Baltic nation, where security concerns have grown following Russias full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February. Col. Richard Ikena, 1st Infantry Division artillery commander, said the mission highlights the Armys ability to get into position at a moments notice anywhere in the European theater. The HIMARS system entered Army service in 2005. Its heavy warheads and roughly 50-mile rocket range are being credited by military analysts for helping level out Russias numerical advantage, as Ukraine seeks to regain territory in its east and south. The units participating include the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment, which deployed to Germany in February as part of the U.S. effort to bolster forces in Europe. The soldiers are operating under the command of 1st Infantry Division Artillery. The 352nd Special Operations Wing transported the HIMARS teams in C-130 planes to two locations in Latvia. The moves resemble other recent U.S. Army and special operations efforts in Europe over the past two years that have emphasized maneuvering artillery units on short notice to strategic locations. For example, in November 2020, U.S. special operators and Army artillerymen for the first time in Europe loaded ground rockets onto a low-flying aircraft for a quick-strike drill that hit targets in the Black Sea. Even before Russias attacks on Ukraine in February, adding long-range artillery has been a priority for the Army in Europe, where it has reconstituted Cold War-era forces to counter Russian provocations along the NATO alliances eastern flank. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter sighted a formation of Russian and Chinese war ships near an Alaskan island last week, triggering the crew to commence an ongoing monitoring operation, the Coast Guard reported Monday. The crew of the Honolulu-based cutter Kimball was on a routine patrol of the Bering Sea on Sept. 19 when they encountered the Chinese guided-missile cruiser Renhai about 75 nautical miles north of Kiska Island, Alaska, the service said in a news release. Kiska Island is part of the Aleutian Islands and lies roughly 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage. The island is about 700 miles from Russia. The crew later identified the Renhai and two additional Chinese naval vessels in formation with four Russian naval vessels including a Russian destroyer operating within the United States exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, the Coast Guard said. The formation was operating as a combined surface action group, the Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard sightings last week likely were part of a joint Russian-Chinese naval exercise announced by Russias defense ministry on Sept. 15. The exercises were to include tactical maneuvering, communications, firing of artillery and helicopter operations, according to a Sept. 14 report by Russia's Tass news agency. As a result of the sightings, the Kimball began operating under Operation Frontier Sentinel, which is designed to meet presence with presence when strategic competitors operate in and around U.S. waters, the Coast Guard said. Kimball is a 418-foot Legend-class national security cutter. While the surface action group was temporary in nature, and Kimball observed it disperse, the Kimball will continue to monitor activities in the U.S. EEZ to ensure the safety of U.S. vessels and international commerce in the area, the Coast Guard said. An EEZ is an area of sea in which a sovereign state, based on international law, has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources. Rear Adm. Nathan Moore, commander of the Coast Guards 17th District based in Alaska, said in the news release that the formation had been operating in accordance with international rules. It is not unusual for Russia to conduct naval maneuvers in the Bering Sea. In August 2020, Russia conducted massive war games near Alaska that included dozens of ships and aircraft. Relations between Beijing and Moscow have warmed recently, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. Earlier this month, Russia, China and 12 other countries conducted wide-ranging drills in East Asia, with Russian and Chinese warships steaming through the Sea of Japan. This article first appeared in the Stars and Stripes Europe edition, Dec. 3, 2006. It is republished unedited in its original form. CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq When it comes to risky jobs in the States, highway repair crews face more than their fair share of danger. But while they have to worry about problems with speeding traffic, they normally don't have to worry about roadside bombs planted along the interstate or gun shots from unseen snipers. The same cannot be said for the U.S. Army engineers whose job is to plug and repair bomb craters along the main supply routes and local byways of Iraq. Hidden explosives, small-arms fire and swift-moving convoys are just a few of the threats they face on this critical yet thankless task. "There are no orange-ribbon campaigns for us," joked Lt. Col. Courtney Paul, commander of the Fort Knox, Ky.-based 19th Engineer Battalion. Orange ribbons are commonly used for campaigns against such issues as drunken driving, animal cruelty and racism. The road work falls under the heading of "assured mobility" and is aimed at improving road conditions for military and civilian traffic plying major thoroughfares like Iraq's Highway One. The route, which runs the length of the country from north to south, is the site of frequent roadside bomb attacks around Tikrit, which is near Contingency Operating Base Speicher. The detonations can create gaping holes in the asphalt, which, if left unfixed, make convenient hiding places for future explosives and pose hazards for motor vehicles. "If we didn't do this, they could just throw something in that hole and throw some trash over it," said Staff Sgt. Jonathan Orloski, 27, of South Deerfield, Mass. "At least now, they've gotta do some work. They've got to tear up the road or pull out a curb or two" he said of insurgents. Orloski and the rest of 1st Platoon, 60th Engineering Company arrived in Iraq roughly one month ago. In that short time they've filled scores of craters and covered hundreds of miles of roadway. Even a short drive along the supply route provides numerous signs of their handiwork neat patches of smooth, gray concrete. "Some people may think this is a stupid task, but it's pretty important," said 2nd Lt. Don Nguyen, 24, of Cherry Hill, N.J. On a recent mission, Nguyen and his platoon set off in search of new craters near an Iraqi police checkpoint. It didn't take long to spot the craters, which looked like huge bite marks on the edge of the pavement. It also didn't take the team long to spot a freshly deposited roadside bomb. "This is the second mission in a row that this has happened," said Pvt. Michael McFarland, 19, of Newburyport, Mass. "We've really hit the ground running. It's kind of a rush. Before I came here I didn't think I'd be leaving [Speicher] because I'm an electrician. Then they put us on this and gave us all new training. It's kind of neat." Eventually after a bomb disposal crew detonated the explosive the engineers set to work on the craters, shaping and clearing them with a jackhammer and shovels, then filling them with cement. As the wet cement poured down the chute of a cement mixing truck, soldiers used shovels, boards, hoes and trowels to spread and smooth the mixture. The work is strenuous, but the soldiers say that after filling a handful of such holes, they felt a great sense of accomplishment. "It's a good night's work," said Pfc. David Dionne, 22, of Concord, N.H. "You sleep like a baby the next day." The process is also time consuming, particularly since the holes have to be watched while they dry. "It's very important to secure the sites until they dry," Paul said. "Otherwise, if you leave it while it's wet, somebody will put a nasty surprise in it." Orloski said things can get a bit dull while waiting for the mixture to harden, but he knows the task is worthwhile. "The best way I've heard it described is you're watching cement dry for democracy," he said. TOKYO The Japanese leader who normalized relations with China 50 years ago feared for his life when he flew to Beijing for the high-stakes negotiations at the height of the Cold War, according to his daughter, a former Japanese foreign minister. Kakuei Tanaka's mission to normalize relations with China just two months after taking office was a huge gamble, his daughter, Makiko Tanaka, said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the 50th anniversary Thursday of the historic communique that Tanaka signed with his counterpart, Zhou Enlai. The then-prime minister told his daughter before his departure that he would resign if his mission failed, recalled Makiko Tanaka, who served as foreign minister and in other key posts from 1993 to 2012. Opposition was so fierce in Japan, she said, that some ruling party hawks came to their home the day before the trip to try to stop him from leaving. He told his daughter that he feared being poisoned in China, which was a largely closed country in 1972. Earlier that same year, U.S. President Richard Nixon had made his visit to communist China that would transform China's position in the world. His trip led to the U.S. establishing diplomatic relations with China in 1979 and the parallel severing of formal ties with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own. Much has changed, too, in the China-Japan relationship over the past half-century. The neighbors enjoy deep business and cultural ties. Japan has given China more than $25 billion in development aid over the years, and China is Japan's biggest trade partner. But the underlying tension that marked Tanaka's diplomatic foray remains. China, a relative backwater then, is now the world's No. 2 economy and a growing military power. Tensions surround Beijing's rivalry with Washington and its increasingly assertive activity in the region, especially around Taiwan. Japan considers China a security threat and is particularly worried about Chinese naval activity around Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that Beijing also claims. Top-level visits have stalled in recent years, and Japan has been steadily building its military, largely in response to China. Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government has pledged to further reinforce military power and to nearly double its spending over the next five to 10 years. "Japan's alliance with the United States is a lynchpin of our diplomacy, but we should not isolate China," Makiko Tanaka said. She raised worries about U.S.-led groupings of like-minded democracies, including Japan, as a counter to China, and cautioned against pushing Beijing toward closer ties with Russia. "We are just banding together and being confrontational" toward China, said Tanaka, who was foreign minister in 2001-2002 under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. She criticized U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei in August for escalating tensions. Wang Jiaxun, president of the China Enterprises Association in Japan, which includes 150 Chinese companies, acknowledged difficulties but said the neighbors need each other as business partners. "China and Japan have thousands of years of up-and-down relations," said Wang, whose association sponsored a weekend Japan-China festival in Tokyo in hopes of improving rocky ties. China has not forgotten Japan's support after the 1972 normalization, and even though his country has become a major power, the two countries can learn from each other. China can provide a huge market for Japan and further contribute to the Japanese economy, he said. When Tanaka, who died in 1993, made his trip, memories were fresh in Beijing of Japanese brutality during the first half of the 20th century. There was also opposition from anti-communist lawmakers in Tokyo. Makiko Tanaka accompanied her father on many foreign trips, but he refused to take her to Beijing because of safety worries. The main sticking points in 1972 were Japan's apology for wartime aggression and differences over Taiwan issues that strain relations today. Kakuei Tanaka, however, was determined to make amends with China and change the state of the relationship with a country he saw as a growing power, his daughter said. He believed energetic diplomacy was the only way his resource-poor country could rise from the devastation of the war and survive global competition. Makiko quoted her father as saying that "leaving the China issue dangling is not good for Japan's future. She said her father "was ready to lower his head and apologize to China (over Japan's wartime atrocities) to create a win-win relationship for Japan's major benefit." Contrary to his worries, Tanaka was treated in China with extreme hospitality. His biggest relief centered on Zhou's pledge to waive China's right to seek war compensation, which he said saved Japan from going bankrupt. Makiko Tanaka says the waiver was in exchange for Japan's pledge to sever formal ties with Taiwan. The East China Sea islands dispute was not part of the 1972 communique. Kakuei Tanaka raised the issue but Zhou said he did not want to discuss it, according to diplomatic records released by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. In response to Chinese concerns, the Japanese side strengthened an apology over Japan's wartime aggression in the communique. Makiko Tanaka said an improvement in the current political relationship between Beijing and Tokyo is hopeless, but she is pushing for deeper ties in the private sector. She has been invited to speak at Qinghua University in Beijing, and she is planning to invite a Chinese delegation to visit her father's tomb in his hometown of Niigata later this year. "If business, scientists and cultural exchanges were prompted more, there would be a sense of closeness" between the countries, Tanaka said. "Diplomacy is about people, and whether you can develop personal relations and talk when needed, but politicians who can do this are rare." CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa A 20-year-old airman swept out to sea while snorkeling off northeastern Okinawa over the weekend belongs to Kadena Air Bases 18th Logistics Readiness Squadron, the Air Force said Monday. The search for the airman, who has not been identified, continued Monday with boats and aircraft from the U.S. military, boats from Japans 11th Regional Coast Guard and onshore by Kunigami fire department and local police, a Kunigami fire spokesman said by phone that day. The missing airman was one of six Americans snorkeling on Saturday around an offshore reef near the mouth of the Ie River in Sosu, 18th Wing spokesman Staff Sgt. Kyle Johnson told Stars and Stripes by phone Monday afternoon. Three were pulled away from the group by the current before the waves separated them, he said. Coast guard officials dispatched a helicopter from their base in Naha after receiving a distress call at 3:30 p.m., a spokesman said Sunday. A pair of Japanese swimmers went after the three service members using surfboards and floats, the coast guard spokesman said. A 20-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman, both assigned to Kadena, were recovered and received aid from their rescuers. The two Americans and their Japanese rescuers were plucked from the sea by the coast guard helicopter at 4:50 p.m., the spokesman said. A search for the missing airman then began immediately. The four who were rescued suffered no major injuries, the spokesman said. Its customary in Japan for some government officials to speak to the media on condition of anonymity. The two Americans were taken to U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa at Camp Foster, where they were medically cleared and released, the 18th Wing statement said. The search is expected to continue Tuesday, Johnson said. CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea A nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier and its strike group kicked off four days of drills with South Korean warships on Monday, one day after North Korea test-fired another ballistic missile. The joint training is centered on anti-surface warfare and strategic maneuvers, South Koreas Ministry of National Defense said in a news release Monday. The goal of the exercise, which includes more than 20 ships from both countries, is to prepare for North Korean provocations with an aim to improve capabilities of the U.S. and South Korea, the ministry said. The [South Korean] and U.S. navies are going to display their power and determination through this exercise, Rear Adm. Michael Buzz Donnelly, commander of Carrier Strike Group 5 and Task Force 70, said in the release. The [South Korean]-U.S. alliance is the strongest alliance in the world, and we are getting stronger through regular exercises and the close friendly relations. The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, which includes the destroyers USS Barry and Benfold and the guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville, arrived on South Koreas southern coast for a port call on Friday. The visit was the USS Ronald Reagans first in Busan since 2017. The [South Korea] and U.S. alliance has mutually strived to promote peace and stability on the peninsula for the last 70 years, South Korean navy Adm. Kim Kyung Cheol said during a press conference aboard the Ronald Reagan on Friday. The [South Korean] and U.S. navies will conduct a variety of activities to bolster the navies friendship. Donnelly stressed that the port call and military drills were scheduled in advance and that he would leave leave the messaging to the diplomats. Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup and U.S. Forces Korea commander Army Gen. Paul LaCamera visited the Ronald Reagan on Saturday. Lee echoed the carriers motto, peace through strength, and said it was in line with South Koreas stance toward "North Korean provocations and protecting peace. The joint exercise began one day after North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile from its northwestern border toward the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan. The weapon was estimated to have flown 372 miles at a peak altitude of 37 miles with speeds of up Mach 5, South Koreas military said on Sunday. North Korea has carried out 18 rounds of missile tests so far this year, a record, and is suspected by U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials of having prepared for a nuclear test. North Koreas state-run media routinely rails against joint exercises between the U.S. and South Korea and accuses the allies of conspiring to launch a military campaign to overthrow the communist regime. Pyongyang on Sept. 8 reaffirmed its intent to produce and, if necessary, use nuclear weapons against adversaries if threatened, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Parade by disciplined services hails national day in HK EditorWang Xinjuan Time2022-09-26 15:40:18 Hong Kong's Disciplined Services practice Chinese-style foot drill on Saturday during a grand parade in the special administrative region. The parade, organized by the Security Bureau of the SAR government, was held to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. [Photo by Edmond Tang/China Daily] The Security Bureau led the disciplined services, auxiliary services and nine youth groups to hold the "Together We Prosper" grand parade in Hong Kong on Saturday. Speaking at the ceremony, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said that colleagues from the disciplined services are at the forefront of maintaining law and order. "They protect the lives and property of Hong Kong citizens with selfless dedication and work tirelessly to prevent and suppress acts endangering national security," he said. He also praised the disciplined services and auxiliary services for their commitment to epidemic prevention work, and pointed out that they are the most steadfast of Hong Kong's anti-epidemic workers. YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan Vice President Kamala Harris landed at the home of U.S. Forces Japan in Tokyo on Monday, kicking off a four-day visit to the country in which shell pay her respects to its slain former prime minister and discuss an uptick in regional tensions with the current leader. Harris is leading a delegation of current and former U.S. officials that includes U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and four others who once held his post: Sen. Bill Hagerty, U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, John Roos and Thomas Schieffer. Theyll represent the United States on Tuesday at a controversial state funeral for slain former leader Shinzo Abe at the Budokan in Tokyo. He was gunned down July 8 while speaking at a political event in Nara. Harris met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday evening at Akasaka Palace. The pair were expected to discuss a range of regional and global issues including the importance of preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, according to comments by a senior Biden administration official that were posted to the White House website on Friday. The vice president told Kishida that the alliance between Japan and the United States is a cornerstone of what we believe is integral to peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region," according to The Associated Press. Kishida said Abe "poured his heart and soul" into strengthening the countries ties, and that he felt it was his duty to continue those aspirations, the agency reported. While in Tokyo, Harris will hold discussions with the South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, according to the White House. The vice president is also slated to visit Yokosuka Naval Base, home of the U.S. 7th Fleet south of Tokyo, to greet service members and tour a destroyer, the White House official said. She will meet with commanders and sailors of our forward-deployed naval forces, and she will then deliver remarks, the official said. There are more than 50,000 U.S. troops serving in Japan. Regional tension spiked Aug. 3 when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan while leading a congressional delegation to Asia that included stops in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. The Taipei visit prompted China, which sees the democratic island as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland, possibly by force, to stage live-fire drills that encircled Taiwan. President Joe Biden said in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview aired Sept. 18 that U.S. troops would defend the island if China invaded, although the White House later walked back those comments. It did the same after the president made a similar statement while visiting Japan in May. Harris is slated to travel to South Korea on Thursday and meet with newly elected President Yoon Suk Yeol, according to the Biden administration official. During that visit, Harris will underscore the strength of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and discuss the threat posed by North Korea; the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait; and the U.S. and South Koreas growing economic and technology partnership, the official said. That meeting is slated for less than a week after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile and just days after the U.S. and South Korea kicked off joint naval drills near the peninsula that involve the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. That exercise is designed to prepare for North Korean provocations, South Koreas Ministry of National Defense said Monday. In Tokyo, Harris and Kishida will likely tout the strengths of their alliance and supply chain resilience, according to James Brown, an international affairs expert at Temple Universitys Japan campus. However, the U.S. delegation to Abes $1.8 million state funeral, which also includes a former deputy secretary of state and a former Joint Chiefs chairman, seems underwhelming, he told Stars and Stripes in an email Monday. While other current and former leaders are attending, neither Obama nor Trump is making the trip, he said of the former presidents. This is despite Abe's supposedly close relationship with Trump. Abe even nominated Trump for a Nobel peace prize. Harris trip is sort of last minute, and it will be difficult for her to line up meaningful sidebar meetings, according to Brad Glosserman, deputy director and visiting professor at the Center for Rule-Making Strategies at Tama University in Tokyo. Expect a lot of handshaking and casual get-togethers, he said in an email Monday. NAPLES, Italy Bullets and ordnance headed to U.S. service members in Europe and Africa now cross a 16th-century Italian waterway that has been transformed by a recently completed $42 million project. A swing rail bridge over the Navicelli canal near the port of Livorno allows the U.S. military to better connect the Armys Pisa Ammunition Storage Area at Camp Darby to European rail lines, said Col. Matthew Gomlak, commanding officer of U.S. Army Garrison Italy. This project absolutely improves the capability of the Department of Defense and of the European command to put things in theater faster and more effectively, Gomlak said. So soldiers that need things, ammunition in particular, get it faster. The Navy oversaw engineering and construction on the project, which was built for an Army facility and funded by the Air Force, Gomlak said. The nearly 220-foot bridge and separate canal dock renovations improve access for small, shallow draft vessels, said Navy Capt. Joe Harder, commanding officer of the regions Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command. Nearly three years were spent working through environmental requirements to not only minimize impact but also improve an Italian nature preserve in the ammunition storage area, Harder said. That included planting 9,500 trees, creating four wetland areas and stopping construction for three months in the spring to avoid disturbing birds and other animals, he said. The project, which included construction of two railheads that allow for secure, safe unloading of rail cars, used about 2,425 tons of steel, Harder said. Ukraine is one of the largest producers of steel products in Europe, but its supply capabilities were eviscerated by the full-scale invasion by Russia in late February, he said. As their capability was taken out of the market, the demand stayed the same, Harder said. So the cost went through the roof. Built between 1563 and 1575, the hand-dug canal was funded by the Medici family of Florence to connect the port with Pisa, according to Gomlack. Use of the canal to move ammunition and other supplies onto the Italian railway system is a nod to the waterways past, he said. TALLINN, Estonia Long lines of cars on roads snaking to Russias border crossings with Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, and similar queues at airports. Angry demonstrations not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg but in the remote far north province of Yakutia and in the southern region of Dagestan, with women chasing a police officer and shouting, No to war! A gunman who opened fire in an enlistment office in a Siberian city and gravely wounded the military commandant, saying, We will all go home now. Five days after President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization to call up hundreds of thousands of reservists to fight in Ukraine, the move has triggered outraged protests, a fearful exodus and acts of violence across the vast country. Panic. All the people I know are in panic, said David, a Russian who gave only his first name out of fear of reprisals, in an interview with The Associated Press at a border crossing with Georgia. We are running from the regime that kills people. While the Kremlin had wanted to promote its orchestrated referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine as a joyful event, with those regions expected to join Russia in a move similar to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, it instead is dealing with instability and chaos at home. State-run rallies were held in Moscow and other cities celebrating the referendums even before the the conclusion of several days of balloting that has been denounced as pre-ordained, phony and illegitimate by Kyiv and the West. In his address on Wednesday announcing the mobilization, Putin said the Kremlin would support the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in their push to be incorporated into Russia. But the mood in Russia has been anything but festive. Fears are running high that Moscow might close the borders to men of fighting age after the referendums in Ukraine end, prompting long lines of cars at Russia's frontiers. Telegram chats dedicated to some of these crossings swelled with thousands of new users. The lines apparently persisted Monday. The online service Yandex Maps showed a 18-kilometer traffic jam on a road in Russias region of North Ossetia that leads up to the border with Georgia, and the regional branch of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, deployed an armored vehicle to the crossing. Officials told Russias RBC news site that the action came just in case the reservists want to break through the (border) checkpoint and leave the country without completing any border formalities, promising not to restrict any exits. Call-up notices are being served to everyone. Nobody knows who will receive one tomorrow and therefore we decided with friends for the time being to rest in a beautiful country, said Roman Isif, a Russian who crossed into Larsi, Georgia, in an interview with AP. Long queues and crowds were reported Sunday in at least two of four Moscow airports. Tickets to destinations still available to Russians after the European Union halted all direct flights such as Turkey, Armenia, Serbia and Dubai have been sold out for days, despite exorbitant prices. Russian media including state-run outlets reported Monday that border guards have started turning men away at the border, citing mobilization law. It wasn't immediately clear how widespread the practice was. Although state television painted a rosy picture of the mobilization drive, with Russia 1 TV on Sunday showing crowds of eager men lining up to enlist in almost every region, the reality was different. Enlistment offices and other administrative buildings have been set on fire since the start of the call-up. Although such incidents, usually involving Molotov cocktails, have been common during the 7-month-old invasion, they have grown in number and frequency after Putin's speech. Russian independent news outlets counted at least 17 such incidents in recent days, on top of 37 before the mobilization was announced. A man walked into the enlistment office in the Siberian city of Ust-Ilimsk and opened fire, shooting the military commandant at close range. Russian media reported the man, identified as Ruslan Zinin, 25, was upset that his best friend who didnt have any combat experience was called up. Authorities have said such experience would be the main criteria for the mobilization. Zinin, who was arrested, reportedly said, No one will go fighting, and We will all go home now. His victim was hospitalized in intensive care in an extremely grave condition, the reports said. Also on Monday, a man at a bus station in Ryazan, a city about 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow, reportedly doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire, shouting he didn't want to take part in Russia's special military operation in Ukraine. He reportedly sustained minor injuries and was detained by police. As troubling as these incidents are, it is the spread of protests to far-flung strongholds of Putin's base of support that could be more concerning for the Kremlin, with women confronting authorities about taking our sons. Although the mobilization was said to total about 300,000 men, some media reports claim the authorities plan to muster more than 1 million, which Moscow denied. Even though initial demonstrations against the mobilization were brutally suppressed by police, with hundreds detained shortly after it was announced, more have broken out in various regions. Over the weekend, women rallied against the call-up in the remote province of Yakutia in Russias far north. In Mahachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim province of Dagestan, a crowd of women in headscarves gathered Sunday, chanting No to war. Some of them chased a police officer away from the protest, while others stood in front of a police car, preventing it from moving and demanding the release of detained protesters inside. Protests in Dagestan continued Monday, with demonstrators clashing with police. Outrage also spilled into the streets of another North Caucasus region, Kabardino-Balkaria. Video showed a crowd of women surrounding a man in a suit, identified by the media as a local official, with one screaming: Do you know where you're sending him? an apparent reference to someone close to her being mobilized. Dagestan, as well as the Siberian region of Buryatia, are among several regions where there are complaints that a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities have been deployed to fight and have died in Ukraine. For our state, we are not its citizens, but cannon fodder in this war. Just a resource," said Pavel, a 40-year-old resident of Buryatia who fled to Mongolia last week to avoid getting called up. He spoke to AP on condition that his last name not be used, fearing retribution. "Siberia and the Far East are being actively sold timber, minerals, land leased for 50 years. And it turns out that people living here are also processed as a resource, he added. Putin is risking a lot by announcing mobilization, hes losing support, hes creating a pre-revolutionary situation protests, arson incidents at enlistment offices, political analyst Abbas Gallyamov told AP. Given the atmosphere of instability and Russia's recent battlefield setbacks, the referendums in Ukraine are unlikely to have any influence on public opinion, he said. No one needs these referendums not the Russian public, not even the patriots anymore, Gallyamov added. aid. Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, pointed out that polls indicate about half the Russian people unconditionally support the war, with about a third whose backing comes with caveats. The latter constitutes a reservoir of doubt and discontent, Kolesnikov told AP. It is already clear that the mobilization is not partial, and if this becomes more and more obvious, then the mood may begin to change. Putin is taking a big risk. Michael Kohn in Bend, Oregon, contributed. KYIV, Ukraine A young man shot a Russian military officer at close range at an enlistment office Monday, an unusually bold attack reflecting resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to mobilize hundreds of thousands of more men to wage war on Ukraine. The shooting comes after scattered arson attacks on enlistment offices and protests in Russian cities against the military call-up that have resulted in at least 2,000 arrests. Russia is seeking to bolster its military as its Ukraine offensive has bogged down. In the attack in the Siberian city of Ust-Ilimsk, 25-year-old resident Ruslan Zinin walked into the enlistment office saying no one will go to fight and we will all go home now," according to local media. Zinin was arrested and officials vowed tough punishment. Authorities said the military commandant was in intensive care. A witness quoted by a local news site said Zinin was in a roomful of people called up to fight and troops from his region were heading to military bases on Tuesday. Protests also flared up in Dagestan, one of Russias poorer regions in the North Caucasus. Local media reported that several hundred demonstrators took to the streets Tuesday in its capital, Makhachkala. Videos circulated online showing dozens of protesters tussling with the police sent to disperse them. Demonstrations also continued in another of Russias North Caucasus republics, Kabardino-Balkaria, where videos on social media showed a local official attempting to address a crowd of women. Concerns are growing that Russia may seek to escalate the conflict including potentially using nuclear weapons once it completes what Ukraine and the West see as illegal referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine. The voting, in which residents are asked whether they want their regions to become part of Russia, began last week and ends Tuesday, under conditions that are anything but free or fair. Tens of thousands of residents had already fled the regions amid months of fighting, and images shared by those who remained showed armed Russian troops going door-to-door to pressure Ukrainians into voting. Every night and day there is inevitable shelling in the Donbas, under the roar of which people are forced to vote for Russian peace," Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kirilenko said Monday. Russia is widely expected to declare the results in its favor, a step that could see Moscow annex the four regions and then defend them as its own territory. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday no date has been set for recognizing the regions as part of Russia but it could be just days away. Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said Russia would pay a high, if unspecified, price if it made good on veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively, he told NBC. Elsewhere, the British government on Monday slapped sanctions on 92 businesses and individuals it says are involved with organizing the referendums in occupied Ukraine. U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called the votes on joining Russia sham referendums held at the barrel of a gun. He said they follow a clear pattern of violence, intimidation, torture and forced deportations. The White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre likewise said Monday the U.S. will never recognize the four regions as part of Russia, and threatened Moscow with swift and severe economic costs. Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, meanwhile, held an unannounced meeting Monday in the southern Russian city of Sochi and claimed they were ready to cooperate with the West if they treat us with respect, Putin said. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday that Putin had told Turkeys president last week that Moscow was ready to resume negotiations with Ukraine but had new conditions for a cease-fire. The Kremlin last week announced a partial mobilization its first since World War II to add at least 300,000 troops to its forces in Ukraine. The move, a sharp shift from Putins previous efforts to portray the war as a limited military operation, proved unpopular at home. Thousands of Russian men of fighting age have flocked to airports and Russia's land border crossings to avoid being called up. Protests erupted across the country, and Russian media reported an increasing number of arson attacks on military enlistment offices. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday once again decried the Russian mobilization as nothing more than an attempt to provide commanders on the ground with a constant stream of cannon fodder. In his nightly televised address, Zelenskyy referenced ongoing Russian attempts to punch through Ukrainian defense lines in the eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, a key target of Moscows military campaign. Despite the obvious senselessness of the war for Russia and the occupiers loss of initiative, the Russian military command still drives (troops) to their deaths, Zelenskyy said in his nightly televised address. The Ukrainian military on Monday said in its regular Facebook update that Moscow was focusing on holding occupied territories and attempts to complete its occupation of the Donetsk region, one of two that make up the Donbas. It added that Ukrainian troops continued holding Russian troops at bay along the frontline there. Meanwhile, the first batches of new Russian troops mobilized by Moscow have begun to arrive at military bases, the British Defense Ministry said Monday, adding that tens of thousands had been called up so far. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday on Facebook that the Ukrainian military is pushing efforts to take back the entire territory of Ukraine, and has drawn up plans to counter new types of weapons used by Russia. He did not elaborate. An overnight drone strike near the Ukrainian port of Odesa sparked a massive fire and explosion, the military said Monday. It was the latest drone attack on the key southern city in recent days, and hit a military installation, setting off ammunition. Firefighters struggled to contain the blaze. New Russian shelling struck near the Zaporozhzhia nuclear power plant, according to Zelenskyy's office. Cities near the plant were fired on nine times by rocket launchers and heavy artillery. Local Ukrainian officials said Monday evening that the strikes had wounded three civilians in the town of Marhanets, across the Dnieper river from the plant. Russia also kept pummeling Ukrainian-held territory in the countrys east, parts of which have seen ramped-up shelling and missile strikes since Ukraines ongoing counteroffensive made sweeping gains there this month. At least seven civilians, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed Monday in a rocket attack on the city of Pervomayskiy in the northeastern Kharkiv region, local officials reported. Further south, Ukrainian officials reported that a Russian missile on Monday evening destroyed a civilian airport in the eastern city of Kryvyi Rih, President Zelenskyys birthplace. The regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko said that while there had been no casualties, the airport had been knocked out of commission. In Ukraines industrial heartland of Donbas, four civilians were wounded on Monday after a Russian strike slammed into apartment blocks in the city of Kramatorsk, its mayor said on social media. Kramatorsk is one of two largest Ukrainian-held cities remaining in the Donbas, and home to the headquarters of Ukrainian troops there. In the town of Izium in eastern Ukraine, which Russian forces fled this month after a Ukrainian counteroffensive, Margaryta Tkachenko is still reeling from the battle that destroyed her home and left her family close to starvation with no gas, electricity, running water or internet. I cant predict what will happen next. Winter is the most frightening. We have no wood. How will we heat? she asked. Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, Lori Hinnant in Izium, Ukraine, Joanna Kozlowska in London and Yesica Fisch in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, contributed to this report. DOHA, Qatar Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric who was seen as the spiritual leader of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, died Monday at the age of 96, according to his official website. He died in the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar, where he had been living in exile following the military's overthrow of a Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt in 2013. Al-Qaradawi had been tried and sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt. For many years while living in exile, he had popular talk show on Qatar's Al-Jazeera network and often weighed in on controversial political topics. He supported suicide bombings and other attacks by Palestinians against Israel and also voiced support for the Iraqi insurgency that erupted after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. But he also backed the Muslim Brotherhood's embrace of democratic elections and was a staunch critic of more radical groups, like Islamic State. He had strongly criticized the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, calling on all Muslim nations at the time to prepare to fight the Americans there "if the Iraqis fail to drive them out." "By opening our ports, our airports and our land, we are participating in the war," al-Qaradawi said in a pointed critique of U.S.-allied Arab governments. "We will be cursed by history because we have helped the Americans." Qatar, which hosted him for decades, also hosts American troops and now serves as the forward headquarters of the U.S. military's Central Command. The Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt nearly a century ago and has branches across the region, played a major role in the 2011 uprisings that rocked the Middle East and rose to power in Egypt's first democratic elections after the overthrow of long-ruling autocrat Hosni Mubarak. But their year-long rule proved extremely divisive, and the military removed the Brotherhood from power in 2013 amid mass protests against them. Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates included al-Qaradawi on a list of dozens of organizations and individuals that they sanctioned for alleged terrorism in 2017 as part of a diplomatic dispute with Qatar, which denied the allegations. Krauss reported from in Ottawa, Ontario. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard on Monday unleashed a wave of drone strikes and artillery, targeting what Tehran says are bases of Iranian Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, a semiofficial news agency reported. It was the second such cross-border assault since the weekend, at a time when Iran is convulsing with protests over the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who was been detained by the nation's morality police. On Saturday, the Guard said it targeted bases and training camps of Kurdish separatist groups in northern Iraq, claiming it inflicted serious damage. Protests over the death of Mahsa Amini have spread across at least 46 cities, towns and villages. Iranian state TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the protests began Sept. 17. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with more than 1,200 demonstrators arrested. In Monday's report, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said the Guard's attacks were in response for the support that the separatists have allegedly provided for the unrest inside Iran, as well as their attempts to smuggle in weapons. Last year, the Guard similarly attacked what it called bases of "terrorist groups" in northern Iraq. There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi government. The two neighboring countries have close political and military ties, and Tehran had provided extensive military support for Baghdad, during its yearslong war against the extremist Islamic State group. The German foreign ministry said Monday it has summoned Iran's ambassador following the protests in Iran and especially regarding the brutal actions of police there. A spokesman for German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters in Berlin that there were consultations within the European Union as well on how to respond to the regime's brutal reaction to the protests. (Tribune News Service) Masooda Qazi held her 8-year-old sons hand tightly as she frantically tried to convey to a group of Dutch soldiers that she was an employee of the U.S. Embassy and was promised transport out of Kabul as it fell to the Taliban last year. The crowd around Qazi was full of people similarly desperate to escape, and it was growing agitated. People pushed forward outside a security gate near the airport, erasing any space to move. Her son Habib began to panic. I cant breathe anymore, he said to his father, Hamid ul Rahman Qazi, who had been holding the couples younger son Hasib, 4 above the crowd on his shoulders for hours. We need to go back, Hamid told his wife. No. Stay, she said. We will get success. More than a year later, the young family has resettled in the U.S. after escaping Afghanistan on a Dutch military plane, then waiting in a Dutch refugee camp for 10 months before finally receiving special U.S. immigrant visas. They arrived in San Diego in June, Masooda had a baby girl in July, and they moved into their own apartment in August with the help of a refugee assistance program. After so much turmoil and trauma, the young couple who were successful lawyers in Afghanistan said they finally feel safe. But their quest for success isnt over. With help from others in the legal field in California including judges, lawyers, law clerks and law professors they hope to find their way back into their profession, which not only brought them together in Kabul but also provided them work they loved and a happy life before it all collapsed. In that way, they are not alone. More than 85,000 Afghan nationals have journeyed to the U.S. since the fall of Kabul, many through similar airport evacuations that same harrowing week in August 2021 an effort the Biden administration dubbed Operation Allies Welcome. Many fled not only their country, homes, friends and loved ones but also their established careers. Those who have arrived on special immigrant visas such as the Qazis were largely admitted on the basis that they or one of their immediate family members took significant risks to support [ U.S.] military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Many had held coveted positions in government agencies and international nonprofits. And some, like the Qazis, were deeply involved in building the former Afghan governments legal and judicial systems. They fought to ensure the rule of law in court, worked as or helped train prosecutors and judges, and drafted legislation to root out corruption and better protect the rights of women. Now in the U.S., those same professionals desperately need and want jobs, with some resettlement programs providing housing for only a few months. But the hurdles to reentering their old fields are substantial. Beyond the challenges of working in a new language, those in professions that require advanced degrees or other qualifications such as lawyers face even greater barriers. Masooda and Hamid said they understand all that, but they are not deterred. After all, they had fought their way to the top of their field once before in Kabul, they told The Times in a recent interview, where barriers especially for a woman were also imposing. Always Masooda is saying, We can do it again, Hamid said. And Im sure we can. Life in Kabul Before Kabul fell, the Qazis were living lives they had dreamed of from a young age. Masooda worked as a security investigator for the U.S. Embassy in the capital, where she interviewed and conducted background checks on embassy employees; gathered and vetted local intelligence about insurgents and the Taliban; investigated corruption, counterintelligence and harassment allegations within the embassy; and helped train embassy staff and government officials. Hamid, who had worked for the U.S. Embassy, was working as a prosecutor in Afghanistans Counter-Narcotics Justice Center, where he investigated and litigated complex drug cases some of which were referred from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Masooda, 35, was raised outside Kabul by parents who bucked tradition by sending their daughters to school beyond their primary years, despite the criticism of neighbors and friends. The Taliban halted her and her sisters education in 1995, during a previous stint in power, but they returned to school in 2001 and took extra courses to catch up with their male peers and graduate from high school, she said. Because it was her dream to work for womens equality in her country, Masooda continued her studies in law and scored high enough on a national test to win acceptance into the competitive law program at Kabul University. It was there that she met Hamid, now 36 whose dream was also to practice law, following in the footsteps of his father, who was a Kabul University law professor. Masooda and Hamid enrolled in night courses so they could work and support their families during the day. Both were competitive students, which they recall with laughter when they talk about how they met. I had feelings for her, and I couldnt mention it at first, Hamid said. But one day we had an exam, and at the end of the exam she [asked] me, Did you answer all your questions? Masooda was ranked top in the class at the time, and Hamid third. Her question was a playful tease from a rival scholar. I said, Yes, I got all my questions, Hamid recalled with a laugh. After that, I got courage to tell her my feelings. After courting through much of law school, the couple married. They started their family just as they started their careers. She was not relegated to the home, and he did not expect her to be. They excelled. Before being hired by the U.S. Embassy, Masooda worked in many local and international agencies, including the Independent Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution of Afghanistan, the Ministry of Womens Affairs and the European Union. She was also a legal advisor to the Danish Embassy and a legal translator and interpreter for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. To maintain her bar license, Masooda also had to practice law in court, she said, and she did so working domestic violence cases, civil contract disputes and corruption cases. Before becoming a counter-narcotics prosecutor, where he was repeatedly promoted and elevated to work appellate cases, Hamid worked as a rule of law assistant at the U.S. Embassy, where his duties included translating laws and other legal documents and providing legal support to embassy staff. Before the U.S. withdrawal, their lives, Masooda said, were perfect. They were both fulfilled at work. Their boys were thriving. Even while renting a comfortable, two-bedroom apartment, they had enough to support Masoodas parents financially and save for the future. Then, with devastating speed, it all came apart. Getting out In April 2021, President Biden announced U.S. forces would fully withdraw from Afghanistan by that September. In July, U.S. Central Command reported that about 90% of the withdrawal had been completed. Still, many remained in jeopardy, including Afghan nationals who had worked for the U.S. and stayed in Kabul. When the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban swept into the nations capital on Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021, many were caught off guard. The citys capture came much sooner than many in the U.S. government and elsewhere had predicted. Masooda had been at work just the day before, where she said she was told by embassy officials that they were still working on an evacuation plan for all of the staff. She tried to withdraw money, but bank officials told her that they were under orders to not distribute funds. She has been unable to access the couples considerable savings ever since. Hamid was at work the day, as the Taliban entered the city, shredding documents that contained sensitive information, including the personal information of prosecutors and staff. Thankfully, he said, he managed to leave just before the Taliban opened the nearby prisons and released criminals whom Hamid had prosecuted and had reason to fear. For days after, the couple and their family hid in their apartment with curtains drawn and lights off. The embassy had told Masooda to wait for a message instructing her to get to the airport. And so they waited. Then, on Aug. 18, she received documentation from the embassy that was meant to get her and her immediate family into the airport for evacuation. Her Afghan supervisor told her to not wait any longer. Try your luck, she recalled the supervisor telling her. About 2 a.m., they tried to get to the airport but failed. Again and again, they set off but couldnt make it, Masooda said. Finally, on Aug. 23, the family headed out once more, via taxi, with a single backpack holding food, a cellphone charger and a backup battery. When they reached the gate with the Dutch soldiers, it was early morning and a nightmare. Frantic people were everywhere. The Taliban was shooting in the streets. The couples sons were terrified, Masooda said, telling their parents they wanted to go home, or to their grandparents house. They were in a big trauma, she said. Finally, as the crowd continued to push in around them, Habib passed out. He was unresponsive. As his terrified parents pulled off the coat he was wearing and tried to put water on his face to wake him up, the crowd backed up just enough for the Dutch soldiers to let them through the gate. Over the next 24 hours, the family wandered the airport, unsure where to go. Their backpack held some biscuits and juice, a bit of sausage and some French fries. They shared it with other children whose families had no food at all. Finally, they were offered seats on a Dutch military plane bound for the Netherlands and decided to take them. Masooda thought they would maybe be in the Netherlands for a few hours at most, before connecting to the U.S. on another flight. Instead, they were there for 10 months. With the promise of U.S. visas, the family was segregated from other immigrant families by Dutch officials. Their kids were not allowed to go to school with the other immigrant children. They lived in two rooms with one bathroom in a former prison, cut off from the wider world as they awaited U.S. visas delayed by massive bottlenecks in the U.S. immigration system. We had nothing, Masooda said of their time there, but we were happy to be safe. A future in the U.S. The Qazis landed in the U.S. on June 14, choosing San Diego in part because Masooda has three sisters there two of them now U.S. citizens. One picked the family up from the airport. They stayed with her for two months, until they got their own apartment in El Cajon through the help of a local refugee assistance program called Helping Empower Community Refugees. It was also through that organization that the Qazis found their first link back to the legal world. Masooda found herself talking one day to Janet Koenig, a group volunteer who asked about her background. When Masooda said she was a lawyer, Koenig told her she had to meet a woman named Mytili Bala. Bala is an appellate attorney who works for Justice William Dato of Californias 4th District Court of Appeal. She serves as president of the South Asian Bar Assn. of San Diego, and in recent months she has become a leading advocate for Afghan lawyers in the San Diego region. Bala had convinced her bar group to launch a program supporting Afghan attorneys after reading about similar efforts by the International Assn. of Women Judges. They began reaching out to their legal networks and asking for volunteers to run training sessions for Afghan lawyers on aspects of American law, or help them in the job hunt by editing resumes, running mock interviews and writing recommendation letters. Since its start, the group has assisted about two dozen Afghan attorneys, Bala said, including Masooda and Hamid who proved quick studies. Among the volunteers was Max Crema, then a law clerk for U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Margaret McKeown, who taught a course for Masooda, Hamid and a couple of others on constitutional principles, the structure of U.S. courts, the civil litigation process, legal research skills and other areas of law. Crema, 31, praised the Qazis as dedicated public servants who had the misfortune of outliving their government and whom the U.S. is lucky to have. They have keen legal minds and are able to grasp esoteric procedural issues quickly. They are friendly, engaged and a delight to have in class, he said. They are fascinated by our constitutional system and often offer interesting insights using their knowledge of foreign legal systems. Masooda and Hamid said they have loved participating in the courses and are grateful to all the American legal professionals helping them. They are both on the job hunt now, looking for entry-level legal positions at law firms, government agencies and nonprofits. Of course we worked in much higher positions in Afghanistan, Masooda said. But my idea is that now we need to start step by step. Their boys, now 10 and 5, are thriving once more, rapidly improving their English skills and meeting new friends at school. Gone are the nightmares that haunted them for months after leaving Kabul. As for their 2-month-old daughter, Dewa, whose name means light and who, through birthright, is an American citizen, Masooda said she has only the highest hopes. She finds joy in knowing her daughter will be free to study and grow into an educated woman, who one day might be empowered to work, just like her mother, for the betterment of all Afghan women and girls. I will tell her the story of what was going on in Afghanistan, she said, and I hope she will have the feeling to help. 2022 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com . ATLANTA Outraged by false allegations of fraud against a Georgia elections employee in 2020, Amanda Rouser made a vow as she listened to the woman testify before Congress in June about the racist threats and harassment she faced. "I said that day to myself, 'I'm going to go work in the polls, and I'm going to see what they're going to do to me,' " Rouser, who like the targeted employee is Black, recalled after stopping by a recruiting station for poll workers at Atlanta City Hall on a recent afternoon. "Try me, because I'm not scared of people." About 40 miles north a day later, claims of fraud also brought Carolyn Barnes to a recruiting event for prospective poll workers, but with a different motivation. "I believe that we had a fraudulent election in 2020 because of the mail-in ballots, the advanced voting," Barnes, 52, said after applying to work the polls for the first time in Forsyth County. "I truly believe that the more we flood the system with honest people who are trying to help out, it will straighten it out." Barnes, who declined to give her party affiliation, said she wants to use her position as a poll worker to share her observations about "the gaps" in election security and "where stuff could happen afterwards." Nearly two years after the last presidential election, there has been no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines. Numerous reviews in the battleground states where former President Donald Trump disputed his loss to President Joe Biden have affirmed the results, courts have rejected dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies, and even Trump's own Department of Justice concluded the results were accurate. Nevertheless, the false claims about the the 2020 presidential contest by the former president and his supporters are spurring new interest in working the polls in Georgia and elsewhere for the upcoming midterm elections, according to interviews with election officials, experts and prospective poll workers. Like Rouser, some aim to shore up a critical part of their state's election system amid the lies and misinformation about voting and ballot-counting. But the false claims and conspiracy theories also have taken hold among a wide swath of conservative voters, propelling some to sign up to help administer elections for the first time. The possibility they will play a crucial role at polling places is a new worry this election cycle, said Sean Morales-Doyle, an election security expert at The Brennan Center for Justice. "I think it's a problem that there may be people who are running our elections that buy into those conspiracy theories and so are approaching their role as fighting back against rampant fraud," he said. But he also cautioned that there are numerous safeguards to prevent a single poll worker from disrupting voting or trying to manipulate the results. The Associated Press talked to roughly two dozen prospective poll workers in September during three recruiting events in two Georgia counties Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta and where more than 70 percent of voters cast a ballot for Biden, and Forsyth County north of Atlanta, where support for Trump topped 65 percent. About half said the 2020 election was a factor in their decision to try to become a poll worker. "We don't want Donald Trump bullying people," said Priscilla Ficklin, a Democrat, while taking an application at Atlanta City Hall to be a Fulton County poll worker. "I'm going to stand up for the people who are afraid." Carlette Dryden said she showed up to vote in Forsyth County in 2020 only to be told that she had already cast a mail-in ballot. She said elections officials let her cast a ballot later, but she suspects someone fraudulently voted in her name and believes her experience reflects broader problems with the vote across the country. Still, she said her role was not to police voters or root out fraud. "What I'm signing up to do is to help others that are coming through here that may need assistance or questions answered," she said. Georgia was a focus of Trump's attempts to undo his 2020 election defeat to Biden. He pressured the state's Republican secretary of state in a January 2021 phone call to "find" enough votes to overturn Biden's victory in the state and seized on surveillance footage to accuse the Black elections worker, Wandrea Moss, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, of pulling out suitcases of fraudulent votes in Fulton County. The allegation was quickly knocked down, but still spread widely through conservative media. Moss told the House Jan. 6 committee that she received death threats and racist messages. At a farmer's market in the politically mixed suburb of Alpharetta north of Atlanta, Deborah Eves said she was concerned about being harassed for working at a voting site but still felt compelled to sign up. A substitute teacher and Democrat, Eves visited a recruiting booth set up by Fulton County officials next to stands selling single origin coffee, honey and empanadas. "I feel like our government is 'we the people, and 'we the people' need to step up and do things like poll working so that we can show that nobody's cheating, nobody's trying to do the wrong thing here," she said. Allison Saunders, who worked at a voting site for the first time during the state's May primary, said she believes Moss and Freeman were targeted because they are Black. Saunders, a Democrat, was visiting the farmer's market with her son. "More people that look like me need to step up and do our part," said Saunders, who is white. "I think it's more important to do your civic duty than to be afraid." Threats after the 2020 election contributed to an exodus of full-time elections officials around the country. Recruiters say they have not seen a similar drop in people who have previously done poll work temporary jobs open to local residents during election season. But some larger counties around the country have reported that they are struggling to fill those positions. Working the polls has long been viewed as an apolitical civic duty. For first-time workers, it generally involves setting up voting machines, greeting voters, checking that they are registered and answering questions about the voting process. Elections staff in the U.S. generally do not vet the political views of prospective poll workers deeply, although most states have requirements that seek to have a mix of Democratic and Republican poll workers at each voting location. Forsyth County's elections director, Mandi Smith, said she was not worried about having people who believe the last presidential election was fraudulent serve as poll workers. The county provides training that emphasizes the positions are nonpartisan and that workers must follow certain rules. "It's a very team-driven process, as well, in the sense that there are multiple poll workers there and you are generally not working alone," she said. Ginger Aldrich, who attended the county's recruiting event, said she knows people who believe the last election was stolen from Trump. Their views made her curious about what she described as the "mysterious" aspects of the voting process, such as where ballots go after they leave the voting site. "There's going to be some people that are unscrupulous, and they are going to spend all this time figuring out how to beat the system," said Aldrich, who is retired. While she believes there is fraud in elections, she said she was willing to use her experience as a poll worker to try to convince people that there were no problems in her county with the midterm elections. SAN DIEGO The fugitive defense contractor nicknamed "Fat Leonard" who orchestrated a huge bribery scheme involving dozens of U.S. Navy officers, has requested asylum in Venezuela, a law enforcement official said Monday, nearly a week after he was captured in the South American country. Leonard Glenn Francis slipped away from house arrest in San Diego on Sept. 4, only weeks before he was to be sentenced. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the press about the closed proceedings, did not provide any additional details about the Malaysian businessman's moves. By law the Venezuelan government must consider the asylum request. Francis owned Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, that supplied food, water and fuel to vessels for decades. He has acknowledged overbilling the U.S. Navy by $35 million with the help of dozens of U.S. naval officers whom he plied with prostitutes, Kobe beef, cigars and other bribes so they would direct their ships to ports Francis controlled in the Pacific in Southeast Asia. Francis, known for his wide girth and big personality, pleaded guilty in 2015 and faced up to 25 years in prison. While awaiting sentencing, he was given home confinement in San Diego to receive medical care as he cooperated with the prosecution, which led to the convictions of 33 of 34 defendants. U.S. and Venezuelan officials said that Francis cut off his ankle monitor, fled to Mexico and then made his way to Cuba before turning up in Venezuela. He was arrested there Tuesday before he boarded a flight at the Simon Bolivar International Airport outside Caracas. Venezuelan officials have said he intended to reach Russia. Venezuela and the United States have an extradition agreement, though the Biden administration doesn't officially recognize President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government, has no embassy in Venezuela and has imposed crushing sanctions on the country that have further embittered relations. U.S. authorities have 30 days to formally request his extradition. In an email, a Department of Justice spokesperson has said that the agency does not comment on extradition-related matters. The U.S. attorney's office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about Francis' request for asylum in Venezuela. Goodman reported from Miami. WASHINGTON More than $12 billion in Ukraine-related aid will be included as part of stopgap spending bill that would fund the federal government into mid-December, a person familiar with the legislation said Monday. The funding package, which Congress is set to consider this week, will also provide disaster assistance, including for Jackson, Mississippi, where improvements are needed for the city's water treatment system after its main facility malfunctioned in late August, leaving many stranded without clean water. Also in the package is money to help households afford winter heating and funding to assist Afghans in resettling in the U.S. And it will reauthorize user fees that the Food and Drug Administration relies on to fund some of the agency's most critical safety programs, such as product safety reviews. The text of the bill could be released as soon as Monday ahead of a procedural vote in the Senate on Tuesday evening. The details were provided by a person who was not authorized to discuss the legislation publicly and was granted anonymity. Both chambers of Congress must approve legislation by the end of Friday, which is the end of the fiscal year, to prevent a partial government shutdown. It represents the last bit of unfinished business for lawmakers before the midterm elections in November. Both sides are eager to wrap up and spend time on the campaign trail rather than in Washington, lowering the risk of a federal stoppage. The Biden administration has requested that billions of dollars in emergency funding be attached to the package, including for Ukraine, COVID-19 and other priorities. Senators from both parties have been largely supportive of providing Ukraine with more military assistance. The White House request for the spending bill included $11.7 billion for security and economic assistance for Ukraine, on top of some $53 billion Congress had already approved through two previous bills. I think we're going to be good in supporting Ukraine," Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said when discussing the measure recently. But Republican senators have balked at Biden's request for the COVID funding, calling it unnecessary. One factor that could complicate passage of the funding bill is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's promise to include a proposal that would streamline permitting for energy projects. The plan is a top priority for West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, but other Democrats, particularly in the House, say the issue should be dealt with separately. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has also been critical, calling the permitting measure a reform-in-name-only plan." Ahead of Tuesday's procedural vote, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called on the Senate to attach permitting legislation to the stopgap spending bill, saying Manchin's bill isn't perfect, but it would strengthen energy security in the U.S. and lower costs for consumers and businesses. Now, there is an opportunity to make more progress, and Congress should take it," said Neil Bradley, the business lobbying group's executive vice president and chief policy officer. Senators on both sides of the political aisle voiced confidence last week that Congress would avoid a shutdown. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday the Biden administration hoped that would be the case, calling on Congress to pass the legislation. We encourage Congress to get it done, she said. Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report. ATLANTA Florida activated some 5,000 National Guard troops and military installations in Florida ordered some evacuations Monday as the state prepared for Hurricane Ians arrival by midweek. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered the 5,000 troops to state active-duty, sending them to stage in armories across the state and prepare to rapidly respond to the hurricane after it makes landfall. The National Hurricane Center reported Hurricane Ian was a quickly intensifying Category 2 storm as of 5 p.m. Monday as it neared western Cuba, where it was expected to make landfall early Tuesday potentially as a Category 3 storm. The Hurricane Center warned Ian could grow to a Category 3 or 4 storm with winds reaching 111 to 129 mph or 130 to 156 mph, respectively before reaching Florida on Wednesday or Thursday. That would make it the first major hurricane to hit the state since Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle in 2018 as a Category 5 storm. Michael blamed for 74 deaths and damages in the region worth some $25 billion leveled Tyndall Air Force Base, which has since spent almost $5 billion on ongoing efforts to rebuild the base near Panama City. Among the Guard troops activated ahead of Ians arrival were five route-clearance teams and aviation units, according to DeSantis office. Guard officials said they would ready high-wheeled vehicles, helicopters, boats, generators and more for the anticipated response. Another 2,000 National Guard troops from Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina also were prepared to activate to assist in the response, according to DeSantis office. Meanwhile, officials at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa and Naval Station Key West ordered at least partial evacuations of their bases Monday. Officials at other west Florida bases including Tyndall, Eglin Air Force Base and Naval Air Station Pensacola used social media to remind service members, families and other employees to prepare ahead of the storm, but they had not issued evacuation orders or installation closures as of Monday evening. MacDills commander, Col. Adam Bingham, on Monday ordered all military and civilian residents of portions of Hillsborough, Manatee and Pinellas counties in local evacuation Zone A to evacuate the area by Tuesday afternoon. Zone A largely covers coastal areas near Tampa, including MacDill Air Force Base housing, officials said. Pasco County residents in Zone A were ordered to begin evacuating Tuesday, base officials said. Bingham expected to close the base to nonessential personnel beginning Tuesday afternoon, according to base officials. Hurricane models showed Tampa was near the center of Ians projected path as of Monday evening, according to the National Hurricane Center. While the storm was expected to pass well west of Key West, leaders at the naval station there ordered the small base closed to nonessential personnel on Tuesday as the National Weather Service anticipated tropical storm-strength winds and 4-6 inches of rain. Installation leaders ordered residents of NAS Key Wests RV park and marina to evacuate Monday afternoon, according to social media posts. The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning Monday evening for areas of Florida stretching from the Anclote River about 10 miles north of central Tampa to Englewood, about 100 miles south. A warning indicates hurricane conditions are expected in the area within 24 to 36 hours, according to the Hurricane Center. The center warned Ian could dump up to 20 inches of rain on some areas of central west Florida in the coming days and 4-8 inches across other parts of the Florida peninsula. It predicted up to eight inches of rain in the Florida Keys. It also warned the storm could bring heavy rainfall across inland northern Florida, eastern portions of the Florida Panhandle and other areas in the southeast United States. It warned of widespread considerable flash and urban flooding and prolonged significant river flooding across central and northern Florida, southern Georgia and coastal South Carolina through the end of the week. (Tribune News Service) NASA researchers and possibly astronauts will visit Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as they prepare to return to the moon. Richard Arnold, director of the Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson, said NASA researchers will visit his lab as early as Tuesday to begin work exploring the effects of disorientation and other physical demands on pilots and astronauts. The agreement signed just 10 days ago is with the NASA Johnson Research Centers human research program, to explore the effects of acceleration and motion, primarily involving gravity and g-force transitions, Arnold said. Some of the work will involve the Kraken, the six-axis of motion disorientation device at the Captain Ashton Graybiel Acceleration Research Facility at Wright-Patterson. The $19 million GL-6000 Disorientation Research Device known as the Kraken was unveiled in 2016. Rather than the normal 1G that we all experience on Earth, pilots and astronauts face keen physiological challenges as their vehicles push to escape gravity. The research will also look at the imperative to control vehicles, like the new lunar lander, during those stresses. Were very excited to be involved in our small way in working with NASA on those efforts, Arnold said in an interview Monday. The Kraken is distinct from the RAC, or Research Altitude Chambers, owned by the Air Force Research Laboratory near the Naval Medical Research Unit on the base. The RAC was first unveiled in the spring of 2021, giving Air Force and private-sector researchers insights into the stresses of high altitude, strong acceleration or disorientation. This is involving our big device, which is the Kraken, Arnold said. Its quite the wild ride. At the Ohio Space Forum in May, retired Army Col. and current NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock first publicly said astronauts may train on an AFRL disorientation room or disorientation device. He specifically called out AFRL in his public remarks, but it wasnt immediately clear what device he was referring to. Arnold said Monday that astronauts may eventually visit the base as part of the work. Right now, the agreement we have is strictly a research collaboration agreement, he said, adding, I suspect they will be involved going forward. The NASA Artemis timeline is constantly shifting. The plan was to launch Artemis I an uncrewed mission to the moon and back this summer. That effort has been pushed back after NASA experienced problems getting rocket engines to the correct operating temperatures in previous launch attempts in late August and early September. The next Artemis 1 launch attempt is slated for no earlier than Oct. 2. Following Artemis I, NASAs plan was to launch Artemis II, a crewed flight, around the moon and back, in 2024, NASA Glenn public affairs officer Jimi Russell told the Dayton Daily News in May. That will be followed by the hoped-for moon landing in early 2025 with Artemis III Americas first since December 1972. The Artemis program has been involved with the discussions as well, Arnold told the Dayton Daily News. Theres broader interest potentially from the Artemis program in training applications. He added: This has been discussed, but not confirmed. (c)2022 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Visit at www.daytondailynews.com WASHINGTON Two key members of the Senate Armed Service Committee expressed support Monday for designating Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, a label rejected by the White House but pushed by Ukraine. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said there is strong recognition in the Senate and the House that Moscow belongs on the state sponsor of terrorism list, which now includes Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Syria. The designation would allow for broader sanctions to be imposed on Russia and further isolate the country from the West. All we have to do is look at the scenes from Bucha and Izium, where theyve uncovered torture chambers, mass graves, Shaheen said during an event hosted by the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. I believe, sadly, that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin has been sponsoring terrorism, [using] rape as a weapon of war against the women of Ukraine. The White House has so far resisted calls from lawmakers to add Russia to the state sponsor of terrorism list, arguing it would do more harm than good and possibly hinder humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. Only the Secretary of State has the power to make the designation, though Congress has taken steps attempting to include Russia in the list. A group of House lawmakers introduced a bill in July seeking to slap the terrorism-sponsor label on Russia, pointing to its long record of targeting civilians in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine as well as supporting and financing terrorist regimes. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate earlier this month. In July, the upper chamber unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make the designation. Moscow has warned the move would rupture its already icy relationship with the United States. Shaheen on Monday acknowledged the White Houses concerns and agreed that lines of communication should remain open with Russia but said Putin needed to be held accountable for war crimes. A state sponsor of terrorism designation would open Russias government to lawsuits and other civil claims from the families of victims. Tillis echoed that sentiment, noting the Kremlins killing, raping and terrorizing extends to Africa, where the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group has sowed violence. The administration does have to walk a fine line when you're talking about a nuclear power and you're trying to deescalate the situation, Tillis said. But I do believe that there is a strong recognition by members of Congress, in both the House and the Senate, that they are a state sponsor of terror and they should be held accountable in the same way that any other organization has been designated as such. The two senators, who are chairpersons of the Senates NATO Observer Group, emphasized their staunch support for Ukraines defense against Russias invasion and said they will continue to advocate for more weapon shipments as winter, and a potential stalemate, nears. They did not take a definitive position on sending the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, that the Ukrainians are requesting for the battlefield, though the senators said they are arguing with President Joe Bidens administration to do everything possible for Ukraine. Tillis said Ukrainian forces have demonstrated they are quick studies and good stewards of the resources sent to them but more sophisticated weapons come with logistical and resupply questions that need to be answered before the U.S. can commit them to the front lines. Shaheen added the U.S. also needs to balance Ukraines needs with our own needs for the defense of the United States. The two senators on Monday announced new legislation to establish a critical munitions acquisitions fund to better manage industry production lines and keep U.S. military stocks from depleting during future conflicts. The bill will be filed this week as an amendment to the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which sets spending priorities for the Pentagon, the senators said. PHOENIX Long before he assembled one of the largest far-right anti-government militia groups in U.S. history, before his Oath Keepers stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes was a promising Yale Law School graduate. He secured a clerkship on the Arizona Supreme Court, in part thanks to his unusual life story: a stint as an Army paratrooper cut short by a training accident, followed by marriage, college and an Ivy League law degree. The clerkship was one more rung up from a hardscrabble beginning. But rather than fitting in, Rhodes came across as angry and aggrieved. He railed to colleagues about how the Patriot Act, which gave the government greater surveillance powers after the Sept. 11 attacks, would erase civil liberties. He referred to Vice President Dick Cheney as a fascist for supporting the Bush administration's use of "enemy combatant" status to indefinitely detain prisoners. "He saw this titanic struggle between people like him who wanted individual liberty and the government that would try to take away that liberty," said Matt Parry, who worked with Rhodes as a clerk for Arizona Supreme Court Justice Mike Ryan. Rhodes alienated his moderate Republican boss and eventually left the steppingstone job. Since then he has ordered his life around a thirst for greatness and deep distrust of government. He turned to forming a group rooted in anti-government sentiment, and his message resonated. He gained followers as he went down an increasingly extremist path that would lead to armed standoffs, including with federal authorities at Nevada's Bundy Ranch. It culminated last year, prosecutors say, with Rhodes engineering a plot to violently stop Democrat Joe Biden from becoming president. Rhodes, 57, will be back in court Tuesday, but not as a lawyer. He and four others tied to the Oath Keepers are being tried on charges of seditious conspiracy, the most serious criminal allegation leveled by the Justice Department in its far-reaching prosecution of rioters who attacked the Capitol. Rhodes, Jessica Watkins, Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson and Kelly Meggs are the first Jan. 6 defendants to stand trial under a rarely used, Civil War-era law against attempting to overthrow the government or, in this case, block the transfer of presidential power. The trial will put a spotlight on the secretive group Rhodes founded in 2009 that has grown to include thousands of claimed members and loosely organized chapters across the country, according to Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim deputy director of research with the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. For Rhodes, it will be a position at odds with the role of greatness that he has long envisioned for himself, said his estranged wife, Tasha Adams. "He was going to achieve something amazing," Adams said. "He didn't know what it was, but he was going to achieve something incredible and earth shattering." Rhodes was born in Fresno, Calif. He shuttled between there and Nevada, sometimes living with his mother and other times with grandparents who were migrant farm workers, part of a multicultural extended family that included Mexican and Filipino relatives. His mother was a minister who had her own radio show in Las Vegas and went by the name Dusty Buckle, Adams said. Rhodes joined the Army fresh out of high school and served nearly three years before he was honorably discharged in January 1986 after breaking his back in a parachuting accident. He recovered and was working as a valet in Las Vegas when he met Adams in 1991. He was 25, she was 18. He had a sense of adventure that was attractive to a young woman brought up in a middle-class, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints family. A few months after the couple started dating, Rhodes accidentally dropped a gun and shot out his eye. He now wears an eye patch. Adams' family had set aside money for her to go to college, but after their wedding Rhodes decided he should be the first to attend school. He told her she would need to quit her job teaching ballroom and country dancing and instead support them both by working full time as a stripper so he could focus on doing an excellent job in school, according to Adams. They married, but she found stripping degrading and it clashed with her conservative Mormon upbringing, she said. "Every night the drive was just so bad. I would just throw up every single night before I went in, it was just so awful," Adams said. Rhodes would pressure her to go further, increase her exposure or contact with men to make more money, she said. "It was never enough ... I felt like I had given up my soul." She quit when she got pregnant with their first child, and the couple moved back in with her family. They worried about her but didn't want to push too far for fear of losing her altogether. By then, Rhodes was the center of her orbit. Rhodes' lawyer declined to make him available for an interview and Rhodes declined to answer a list of questions sent by The Associated Press. After finishing college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Rhodes went to work in Washington as a staffer for Ron Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican congressman, and later attended Yale, with stints in between as an artist and sculptor. Paul did not respond to a request for comment. Rhodes' college transcripts earned him entry to several top schools, Adams said. While at Yale, Adams took care of their growing family in a small apartment while he distinguished himself with an award for a paper arguing that the George W. Bush administration's use of enemy combatant status to hold people suspected of supporting terrorism indefinitely without charge was unconstitutional. After the Arizona clerkship, the family bounced to Montana and back to Nevada, where he worked on Paul's presidential campaign in 2008. That's when Rhodes also began to formulate his idea of starting the Oath Keepers. He put a short video and blog post on Blogspot and "it went viral overnight," Adams said. Rhodes was interviewed by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, but also more mainstream media figures such as Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly. He formally launched the Oath Keepers in Lexington, Mass., on April 19, 2009, where the first shot in the American Revolution was fired. "We know that if a day should come in this country when a full-blown dictatorship would come or tyranny, from the left or from the right, we know that it can only happen if those men, our brothers in arms, go along and comply with unconstitutional, unlawful orders," Rhodes said in his Lexington speech, which didn't garner any news coverage. The group's stated goal was to get past and present members of the military, first responders and police officers to honor the promise they made to defend the Constitution against enemies. The Oath Keepers issued a list of orders that its members wouldn't obey, such as disarming citizens, carrying out warrantless searches and detaining Americans as enemy combatants in violation of their right to jury trials. Rhodes was a compelling speaker and especially in the early years framed the group as "just a pro-Constitution group made up of patriots," said Sam Jackson, author of the book "Oath Keepers" about the group. With that benign-sounding framing and his political connections, Rhodes harnessed the growing power of social media to fuel the Oath Keepers' growth during the presidency of Barack Obama. Membership rolls leaked last year included some 38,000 names, though many people on the list have said they are no longer members or were never active participants. One expert last year estimated membership to be a few thousand. The internal dialogue was much darker and more violent about what members perceived as imminent threats, especially to the Second Amendment, and the idea that members should be prepared to fight back and recruit their neighbors to fight back, too. "Time and time again, Oath Keepers lays the groundwork for individuals to decide for themselves, violent or otherwise criminal activity is warranted," said Jackson, an assistant professor at the University at Albany. A membership fee was a requirement to access the website, where people could join discussion forums, read Rhodes' writing and hear pitches to join militaristic trainings. Members willing to go armed to a standoff numbered in the low dozens, though, said Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the group. Showdowns with the government began in 2011 in the small western Arizona desert town of Quartzsite, where local government was in turmoil as officials feuded among themselves, the police chief was accused of misconduct and several police employees had been suspended. A couple years later, Rhodes started calling on members to form "community preparedness teams," which included military-style training. The Oath Keepers also showed up at a watershed event in anti-government circles: the standoff with federal agents at Nevada's Bundy Ranch in 2014. Later that year, members stationed themselves along rooftops in Ferguson, Mo., armed with AR-15-style weapons, to protect businesses from rioting after a grand jury declined to charge a police officer in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The following year Oath Keepers guarded a southern Oregon gold mine whose mining claim owners were in a dispute with the government. Still, Rhodes was never arrested. As the Oath Keepers escalated their public profile and confrontations with the government, Rhodes was leaving behind some of those he once championed. Jennifer Esposito hired him as her lawyer after the group's early outing in Quartzsite, but he missed a hearing in her case because he was at the Bundy Ranch standoff. A judge kicked Rhodes off the case, and no lawyer would represent her. She has no hard feelings, but Michael Roth, also represented by Rhodes in Quartzsite lawsuits, is less forgiving. He compared Rhodes's handling of his case to a doctor walking out of an operating room in the middle of surgery. "He clearly just used us for publicity to gain membership in the Oath Keepers," Roth said. The neglect culminated in a disbarment case eventually brought against Rhodes. He ignored the allegations, missed a hearing and wasn't even represented by a lawyer. The commission examining the case in 2015 found his conduct as an attorney wouldn't normally get someone disbarred, but his refusal to cooperate did. Meanwhile, on the national stage, Donald Trump's political star was taking off. His grievances about things such as the "deep state" aligned with the Oath Keeper's anti-government stance. Though Rhodes didn't agree with Trump on everything, the group's rhetoric began to shift. "With the election of Trump, now the Oath Keepers have an ally in the White House," Jackson said. For much of the the Oath Keepers' history, the federal government was the enemy. Gradually the enemy became left-leaning people in the United States and antifa, or anti-fascist groups, became the primary menace, he said. Rhodes wanted Oath Keepers to go to Cleveland to provide security for Trump then set to be the GOP presidential nominee at the 2016 Republican National Convention, even though no one had asked the group for protection, said Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who served on the Oath Keepers' board for about six years. "I said, 'Why are we going so we can say we protected Trump? We are not going to get anywhere near Trump,' " Mack said. "I said, 'This was crazy.' All the other board members voted with me, and Stewart was mad." That was a breaking point last straw for Mack. He wasn't the only board member to walk away as they saw the direction of the group close up, Van Tatenhove said. "Once they saw where he was going, they were a lot less comfortable," he said. But Rhodes always managed to weather the disagreements and hold onto power. "He was always going to be the start and finish of the Oath Keepers." A voracious reader and charismatic speaker, Rhodes drew people in and had a talent for molding his message to his audience and holding onto power. He warmed to the "alt-right" movement as its profile rose. Van Tatenhove knew he had to leave when in 2017 he overheard a group of Oath Keepers, in a discussion in a grocery store, denying that the Holocaust happened. In 2018, Rhodes went too far for Jim Arroyo, a former Army Ranger who serves as president of an Oath Keepers chapter in Yavapai County, Ariz. He rejected a push to send group members to the U.S.-Mexico border for an armed operation to support the U.S. Border Patrol. Arroyo said that hadn't been approved by any authority and argued that pointing a gun in the wrong direction along the border could stir an international problem. He refused to go. "That's when he pretty much didn't want anything to do with us," said Arroyo, who eventually broke away from the national Oath Keepers and hasn't had contact with Rhodes in over four years. When Biden won the 2020 election, prosecutors say, Rhodes started preparing for battle. Rhodes and the Oath Keepers spent weeks plotting to block the transfer of power, amassing weapons and setting up "quick reaction force" teams with weapons to be on standby outside the nation's capital, prosecutors say. On Jan. 6, 2021, authorities say, two teams of Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol alongside hundreds of other angry Trump supporters. Rhodes is not accused of going inside, but he was seen gathered outside the Capitol after the riot with several members who did, prosecutors have said. Defense lawyers have accused prosecutors of twisting their clients' words. They have argued that the militia group came to Washington only to provide security at events before the riot for right-wing figures such as Trump confidant Roger Stone and that there was never a plan to attack the Capitol. The case has dealt a major blow to the Oath Keepers, in part because many people associated with it want to be considered respectable in their communities, said Carroll Rivas of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Of the approximately 30 Capitol riot defendants affiliated with the Oath Keepers, nine have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the attack, including three who have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. But that doesn't mean the ideas that Rhodes promoted have faded away. "He came up with a blueprint that is going to be used in the future by people we don't even know about," Van Tatenhove said. "I think it's very important for us to pay attention." Whitehurst reported from Washington. The White Houses plan to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of American borrowers will cost roughly $400 billion over 10 years, according to a new estimate released by Congress nonpartisan scorekeeper. The scorekeeper also found that the White Houses plan to temporarily extend an existing pause on student loan payments would cost roughly $20 billion. The new estimate will fuel the debate over President Joe Bidens student debt decision, which was cheered by advocates but immediately assailed by Republican lawmakers as an inefficient waste of government spending. Biden announced in August that his administration would cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for lower- and middle-class borrowers. Supporters of student debt cancellation have argued that similar estimates in the past have overstated the policys cost to the federal government, because despite formally owing the federal government money many borrowers never pay back the loans. The CBO estimate excludes the White Houses simultaneous move to lower the monthly amount borrowers can be forced to repay as a percentage of their income from 10% to 5%. That policy is set to cost an additional $120 billion, according to estimates from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a D.C.-based think tank that has opposed Bidens policy. The president announced possibly the most expensive executive action in history without a score, and were now seeing just how expensive this policy is going to be, said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president for policy with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in an interview before the scores release. More than 40 million Americans could receive some level of student loan relief under Bidens plan. Half of those could have their debt completely canceled, according to the White House. The administration estimates that 60% of borrowers are entitled to have their debt reduced by $20,000 because they received Pell Grants, federal aid for lower-income students, as undergraduates. A recent analysis by the Census Bureau said Black and Hispanic women could benefit the most from the one-time cancellation policy. Both groups hold a disproportionate share of education debt relative to their peers. White House officials have said the typical Black borrower will see their balance cut nearly in half, and more than one in four will have their debt erased altogether, even before applying the additional $10,000 for Pell recipients. Roughly 8 million borrowers, whose income is already on file at the department, will have their loans automatically forgiven without having to apply, according to the Education Department. Everyone else will have to apply in early October, when the agency expects to release the form. GOP lawmakers and state attorneys general have said they are exploring the possibility of a lawsuit to overturn the policy before it goes into effect. One conservative group, the Job Creators Network, has said it plans to sue the administration once the Education Department guidance is released. Some economists cautioned that opponents of the policy frequently overstate its price-tag. Marshall Steinbaum, an economist at the University of Utah, said his research suggests that more than 60% of outstanding student loans have rising balances over time suggesting that many of them are not being paid off. A very large share of already outstanding student debt was not going to be repaid anyway, so Im curious how the CBO will account for the fact that most student debt was already uncollectable, said Steinbaum, who supports student debt cancellation, in an interview before the CBOs release. The Washington Posts Danielle Douglas-Gabriel contributed to this report. UNITED NATIONS Some of the West's fiercest critics made their cases in the closing hours of the U.N. General Assembly meeting of world leaders, as Syria and North Korea on Monday accused the United States and its allies of trying to impose their will on the world. Syria's top diplomat called for a U.S.-led military coalition to get out of his country, a North Korean ambassador said his nation wouldn't yield to U.N. demands to give up its nuclear weapons program, and both condemned sanctions against their countries. If the messages weren't exactly new, they carried the extra weight of a once-a-year chance to speak from the same famous podium as the leaders of other nations, including their adversaries. U.S. President Joe Biden addressed the assembly last week, making no direct mention of Syria but briefly complaining that North Korea "continues to blatantly violate U.N. sanctions" over its nuclear activities. North Korean U.N. Ambassador Kim Song retorted Monday that Biden "picked on us," and Kim shrugged off his message. "To put it clearly, we have never recognized such resolutions of the United Nations that impose pressure" because North Korea views them as U.S. aims given an international imprimatur, Kim said. "We will not recognize them in the future, either," he added. He said relations were potentially "heading into a much more dangerous phase" potentially the shakiest since World War II because of the "high-handedness and arbitrariness of some countries" that he said were trying to overwrite the international system with "Western values." Syria Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad also took aim at sanctions, which the the U.S., some other countries and the European Union have imposed on his country's government, oil industry and more. He said his country has been "economically besieged" by powers bent on getting their way and retaining their wealth. "The war against Syria, ultimately, was an attempt by the West to maintain control over the world," he said. The civil war began in 2011 with anti-government protests demanding that President Bashar Assad's government make democratic reforms, but the situation quickly escalated into fighting that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions. Amid the chaos, the Islamic State militant group took over significant parts of Syria. In 2019, the group lost the last sliver of land its fighters controlled, but its sleeper cells are still active. To Syria's frustration, hundreds of U.S. troops are stationed in the country's east to help the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to fight the militants. Mekdad said the coalition's presence contradicts international law and "should end immediately, without conditions." "Fighting terrorism does not happen through an illegitimate international coalition that violates Syria's sovereignty and destroys towns and villages," he said, arguing that battling terrorism can't work without "coordination" with Assad's government. Syria also wants compensation for $107 billion in "direct and indirect" losses in its oil and gas sector during the war, Mekdad said. The American forces and the SDF currently control much of the oil fields in eastern Syria. The U.S. didn't immediately respond to the remarks from Mekdad and Kim. They spoke on the closing day of the annual "debate" that brings presidents, monarchs, premiers and cabinet ministers to the assembly's podium. Russia's war in Ukraine has taken up much of the discussion this year, but the six days of speeches still formed a mosaic of global issues, national priorities, regional rivalries and don't-forgets. Monday was no exception. Mauritanian Foreign Minister Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug called for debt cancellation for African countries. His Canadian counterpart, Melanie Joly, told the world's women that her country would "speak up for your rights and dignity no government, no politician, no judge, no one, can take that away from you." Bhutan's foreign minister, Tandi Dorji, said he overhauled his speech after getting a letter from a 7-year-old girl in his Himalayan homeland. She worried that her small community would be flooded by melting snow and glaciers in a warming world, he said, reading from the letter. "I would request your excellency to kindly convey this small message to the world leaders and big and rich nations to help and save our tiny village from global warming," she wrote. "I am sure if we all come together, we can not only save our tiny village but also make our Earth safe for all living beings." The high-profile speeches began last week with countries that sent heads of state and government. By Monday, foreign minister- and ambassador-level speakers were taking the podium, and the colossal security cordon around the United Nations headquarters had been largely dismantled. On the final day, many speakers still spoke emphatically about how important the global organization remains in a fragmented world. "We need more of the U.N., not less," Joly said. As the last country to weigh in, Nauru took stock of a world that has been buffeted by the Ukraine war, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, all at once. But diplomat Josie-Ann Dongobir closed with hope "that this year allows us to be open to the transformation we seek." Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Ted Anthony at the United Nations contributed. Geddis Conn (54) allegedly blocked the dogs strike, began to choke the dog and then threw it to the side Geddis Conn appeared at Belfast High Court by videolink from prison on Monday. Mr Justice Huddleston told the 54-year-old given the nature of the allegations against him, he should consider himself lucky that he is getting bail. be in no doubt on that point. Conn, from Deans Road in Lurgan, spent the weekend in custody accused of attempted criminal damage to a police dog, assaulting and resisting police on September 20 this year. Prosecuting lawyer Higgins told the court how those charges arose when police tried to execute a bench warrant issued for Conn when in his absence, he was convicted in June of driving offences and disorderly behaviour at hospital. Despite officers routinely calling at addresses connected to Conn and advising his family to tell him to contact police or his solicitor, their efforts proved fruitless until last Thursday when police spotted him driving a telehandler in a field on the Coharra Road in Portadown. When Conn saw the police, he drove to the far side of the field before jumping out of the telehandler and running away, clambering over a barbed wire fence and what appeared to be an electric fence into an adjoining orchard. After a lengthy search he was found using a police dog at the base of an apple tree in the orchard and he turned to police aggressively, challenging the dog handler with clenched fists and then began to close in on the officer, said Mr Higgins. The court heard that when the officer released the dog, he managed to block the dogs first strike and then began to choke the dog with his arms and then threw it to the side. Fearing for the safety of himself and the dog, the officer used pepper spray but it had no effect and with Conn throwing punches at the officer, his dog tried to intervene but Conn tried to strangle the dog a second time. Having activity his emergency call button, other officers came to help and Conn was eventually restrained. Describing it as obviously a completely lawless picture being painted, Mr Higgins said there were numerous objections to Conn being freed on bail as he had failed to appear for his earlier appearance in June and had been actively avoiding police despite knowing they were seeking him. In addition, Conn had shown a complete disregard for the law and had used violence when police tried to execute the warrant so if he was freed, the police themselves would be at risk if they were to supervise his bail. Defence counsel Damien Halleron conceded that I cant give any excuse for Mr Conns behaviour, all I can say is that he maintains he didnt know or wasnt aware of his convictions or that the police were seeking him. He submitted that had Conn known, he would have made arrangements to have the warrant executed and would not have reached in the way he allegedly did. Mr Halleron highlighted that as a farmer and contractor, Conns family were helping to care for his 140 beef cattle which will soon need to come in from the fields, arguing that bail conditions could be put in place. Granting bail in the sum of 2,000 all with a surety, Mr Justice Huddleston ordered Conn to reside at home, to keep a curfew with an electronic tag and to report to police four times a week. In addition, Conn is also banned from being in any private vehicle other and from having or consuming alcohol. Jordan Maguire (23) allegedly intimated he had a knife and made the stab threat as he shoplifted from the store, a court heard. A robber threatened to kill a shop manager as he stole cans of cider, telling him he would stab him with a knife concealed in his pocket, it is alleged. Jordan Maguire (23) allegedly intimated he had a knife and made the stab threat as he shoplifted from the store, a court heard. The case against him was adjourned at Dublin District Court for the accused to decide how he intends to plead. Mr Maguire, of Wellmount Crescent, Finglas, is charged with theft, robbery, and threatening to kill or cause serious harm to a man at a Dublin city centre convenience store. Garda Michael Murphy said he charged the accused before the court sitting and Mr Maguire made no reply to either count after caution. He was handed copies of the charge sheets. The Director of Public Prosecutions consented to the case being dealt with in the district court, subject to the issue of jurisdiction being considered. Outlining the prosecutions case, Gda Murphy said it was alleged that the accused entered Spar on OConnell Street Upper on April 4 this year. He initially placed one can of Druid cider into his pocket and allegedly made threats against the store manager, the garda said. It was alleged he threatened to kill and stab the store manager. Mr Maguire put the can back and continued to make threats to the staff member inside the shop, it was alleged, before eventually taking two cans of cider and leaving the store. He passed all points of payment with the cans. Judge Bryan Smyth asked if there was a weapon allegedly used. Gda Murphy said no weapon was used but it was intimated. According to the prosecution, Mr Maguire had a hand in his pocket and made reference to having a knife concealed there on a number of occasions. Judge Smyth accepted jurisdiction, allowing the case to remain in the district court instead of being sent forward to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The judge ordered disclosure of prosecution evidence to the defence, to include copies of the accuseds garda interview video. The judge adjourned the case to a date in October. Sudanese national Ahmed Adudu (23) pleaded guilty to assaulting his counsel, causing him harm in the courtroom on April 21 A 23-year-old man has been sentenced to seven months in prison for punching his barrister in the face during a sitting of Galway District Court. Sudanese national, Ahmed Adudu, c/o Great Western Hostel, Frenchville Lane, Eyre Square, appeared in custody before last weeks court where he pleaded guilty to assaulting his counsel, causing him harm in the courtroom on April 21. His new defence counsel, Keith Concannon, told the court that Adudu had mental health difficulties but had responded well while receiving treatment and medication in the Central Mental Hospital in recent months. He said he had been released back into the general prison population last week and was placid now as he was continuing to take his prescribed medication. Judge Marie Keane, who was presiding on the day of the assault, remanded Adudu in custody. He was already in custody serving other sentences at the time anyway. Judge Mary Fahy remarked last week that she had heard about the barrister being assaulted in the courtroom and that he needed treatment afterwards. She noted he did not want to make a statement of complaint in relation to the assault. Mr Concannon said his client left West Sudan on his own when he was just 15 and ended up in Ireland in 2019. He said Adudu was deeply unwell following his journey and his deteriorating mental health was the driving force behind his violent behaviour. He said he had been in contact with psychiatrist Dr Benjamin OKeeffe who provided a comprehensive report for the court, and he felt Adudu was now doing well because he was on medication which had improved him. At least he appears very placid at the moment, counsel observed. Sergeant Aoife Curley, prosecuting, said Adudu had 15 previous convictions, including one for violent behaviour in a garda station, refusing to give his name and address to gardai on several occasions, and three for failing to appear in various courts. Mr Concannon said Adudu was currently serving 13 months in prison which would expire in January. He asked the judge to be lenient and not add to his clients sentence. Reading Dr OKeeffes report, Judge Fahy noted Adudu had a propensity towards violence and there was a threat of violence towards gardai mentioned in the report. She noted a nurse had been assaulted too but had chosen not to make a formal complaint against Adudu. Mr Concannon explained there was a cultural disconnect with figures of authority and he described his client was being bounced around quite a lot on his journey through Africa and all the way to Ireland. Judge Fahy said Adudu had assaulted the very people who were trying to help him and it was unacceptable that he assault anybody in the legal, medical or any other profession who were only trying to help him and, by so doing, had to be in close proximity to him. She said the victim in this case was trying to help Adudu, but he had hit out violently when he was in close proximity to him. Mr Concannon said he asked his client why he assaulted his colleague and he told him he was very unwell at the time. He claimed he heard voices in his head sometimes which told him to do these things. And that would go to explain why he did this because it was so foolish to do it in front or a roomful of people, Mr Concannon pointed out. Judge Fahy said that professional people trying to help other people are particularly vulnerable as was the case here. Mr Concannon again asked her to be lenient and make any sentence she would impose concurrent to the sentence he was currently serving. Absolutely not! Its too serious an assault in a court of law against a member of the legal profession. It has to be treated seriously, the judge said. Mr Concannon agreed the offence was serious but that prison was not the appropriate venue for someone with mental health difficulties. The judge said she was obliged to treat this type of offence in a serious manner, before sentencing Adudu to seven months in prison, which is to be served on the termination of the sentence he is currently serving. Seeking leave to appeal the sentence, Mr Concannon explained his client was an asylum seeker and would not be in a position to provide an independent surety as he was dependent on homeless services. Judge Fahy granted leave to appeal and certified for counsel under the free legal aid scheme. Its well warranted in this case because its been a complicated matter, the judge added. Man with 152 previous convictions at court with glowing reports for tackling his problems Remigijus Kvedaras (43), had 152 previous criminal convictions but came to court with glowing reports about how he had tackled his problems. Judge John Hughes gave him a three-month suspended sentence. The accused, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to public intoxication and threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour. Dublin District Court heard Kvedaras approached Pantibar on Capel Street on June 20, 2019 in an intoxicated state, with a bottle in his hand. He was refused entry and became aggressive, throwing the bottle on the ground in a violent manner at the security mans feet, where it smashed. He was arrested nearby and stated he only wanted to go into Pantibar for a drink. On May 9, 2021, he was found with blood on his hands and face, fighting with a man on the ground at Fleet Street. He was holding the man by the neck, would not let go and they shouted obscenities at each other, the court heard. Kvedaras, from Lithuania, had been in Ireland for eight years, lost a construction job and alcohol had been a vice, his lawyer said. He had made efforts to address his problem. The judge noted the Jekyll and Hyde transformation of the accused. He suspended the three months for two years on condition the accused completes an alcohol addiction course. Tony, originally from the Inchicore area of the south inner city, was found dead in a ground floor flat of Kevin Barry House on Coleraine Street near Smithfield on Monday, September 12. 26/09/2022 The horse drawn carriage bearing the remains makes its way to Mount Jerome pictured after the funeral of Tony Dempsey (28), whose decomposing remains lay undiscovered in the Kevin Barry complex on Coleraine Street in Dublins north inner city for up to 10 days. His funeral took place this morning at St Bernadette's Church, Clougher Road, Crumlin. ..Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin Colin Keegan Mourners gathered today to bid a final farewell to Tony Dempsey whose body lay in a city flat for days after he was murdered earlier this month. The 28-year-old, originally from the Inchicore area of the south inner city, was found dead in a ground floor flat of Kevin Barry House on Coleraine Street near Smithfield on Monday, September 12. Gardai believe he was beaten to death some days earlier, but that his body was concealed under a pile of clothing and a number of people continued to use the squalid flat as a drugs den for days afterwards while local residents made complaints about anti-social behaviour there. Murder victim Tony Dempsey Gardai believe Mr Dempseys body had been in the property for around a week before emergency services were alerted. The flat he was found in was being run by the Fr Peter McVerry Trusts homeless agency under its Housing First policy. It, along with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE), are conducting investigations into the circumstances of how Mr Dempsey died and how his body lay for so long where he was killed. The murder investigation is being carried out by gardai at Bridewell Garda Station who have made no arrests so far and continue to appeal for witnesses. Tony Dempsey had a troubled life which led to his interaction with crime gangs, homelessness and drug addiction. He was still grieving the death of his younger sister Chloe in March last year, and his mother Christine who died just months later in July. The 28-year-old had buried his younger sister at Mount Jerome Cemetery on March 8, 2021 a week after the young mother of two passed away. Sadly, just over two months later, tragedy would again strike with the death of Tonys mother Christine. 26/09/2022 Mourners pictured at the funeral of Tony Dempsey (28) .Photo:Collins Dublin Colin Keegan Addressing his family at the funeral mass in Saint Bernadette's church in Crumlin in Dublin today, the parish priest said the death of Tony, and the circumstances of it, is something very difficult for people to comprehend. There has been an outpouring of support and sympathy for you, and you are all very much in our thoughts and in our prayers at the very difficult time, he added. Symbols of Mr Dempseys life brought to the altar by relatives were a family photograph, a bottle of his favourite Yazoo brand milkshake drink, and a pair of his trainers. Tonys death notice says he is son of the late Christine and brother of the late Chloe, and baby brother Mikey. Sadly missed by his loving father Micheal, sisters Queenie Kendall, Ariyah- Rae and brothers Eddie and Ross, godfather Tony and grandparents Catherine and Ger, it reads. Tributes and condolences left on the rip.ie website include one from a woman who has written: Thinking of all Tony's family and friends at this sad time, may you all have the strength to get through this and get the justice Tony deserves... rest in peace Tony. A beautiful life gone way too soon. x While another mourner has written: RIP Tony, back with your beautiful sister and mam. I hope you fly high with them (sic) beautiful angels. Our exclusive pictures show Keith Johnson (45) greeting family and neighbours in Tallaght on Friday morning The final member of the conspiracy to cover up the gruesome murder of gran Patricia OConnor has been freed from prison after serving two-and-a-half years for helping to purchase the tools used to dismember and bury her remains. Our exclusive pictures show Keith Johnson (45) greeting family and neighbours in Tallaght on Friday morning just hours after he walked free from Loughan House Prison in Roscommon. Keith Johnson smiling after his release from prison We watched as Johnson enjoyed his first cigarette as a free man, before approaching him outside his home to ask if he would speak about his role in one of the macabre murders to have ever taken place in this country. But Johnson, who appeared tanned and in better health than when he entered prison, declined saying: No, I dont want to say anything. No comment. Johnson was jailed for impeding the apprehension or prosecution of 61-year-old Patricias killer, Kieran Greene, in February of 2020. The Central Criminal Court heard he assisted Greene (35) by helping him to buy hacksaws, axes and other tools which were to be used to dismember the body and conceal her remains. The late Patricia O'Connor. Johnsons release from prison on Friday means the sole person to remain behind bars in connection with the horrific murder is Patricias killer, Kieran Greene. Greene is serving life for battering retired hospital cleaner Patricia to death with a childs hurley in a sustained attack in the bathroom of the family home at Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham on May 29, 2017. He buried the grandmother- of-sevens body in a shallow grave in a cornfield in Wexford, but later dug her up, dismembered her with a hacksaw and scattered the remains in the Wicklow mountains. His seven-week trial heard Patricias body was dismembered into 15 parts that were found at nine locations over a 30km range in the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains between June 10 and 14, 2017. Kieran Greene Former deputy State pathologist Dr Michael Curtis gave evidence that Patricia OConnors head was struck a minimum of three blows with a solid implement and the cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head. The cause of the fatal attack is believed to have been linked to friction due to overcrowding in the house where Patricia had allowed daughter Louise (43) and partner Kieran to live with Louises children. Johnsons release on Friday comes just four months after Louise was freed after spending 23 months behind bars for her part in the failed effort to conceal the killing. When confronted by this newspaper on her release, she refused to explain why she sought to shield then-boyfriend Greene from justice. Keith Johnson pictured at his home Johnson was Louises former partner; together with whom she has a daughter, Stephanie, who was also jailed for impeding the Garda investigation into her grandmothers murder. After Kieran killed Patricia, Louise and Stephanie claimed she had stormed out of the house following an argument. Stephanie even dressed up as her dead grandmother leaving the house later that night, to be captured on a neighbours CCTV to bolster this claim. The plan was hatched, the court heard, with Louise, who agreed to it. Stephanie (24) was released from prison in February of 2021 after serving just eight months of her 18-month-sentence. Patricias husband, Gus OConnor Louises dad was also convicted of impeding the murder probe. He knew his wife was dead but later went to Gardai to falsely report she was missing. Gus O Connor Gus (78) was the only participant in the failed cover-up plot to admit his guilt and was the first to be freed from prison. He later inherited the murder house, as Patricias next-of-kin, and sold it for 350,000. Gus died earlier this year. Sentencing the four conspirators in February of 2020, Judge Paul McDermott described what they had done as simply appalling. The reaction and response of the four accused to the killing was dreadful, he said. Patricias body was disposed of in a very short period of time and no effort was made to obtain the assistance of the Gardai or emergency services. In a very short space of time, the efforts to conceal the crime became ever more elaborate. The remains were dismembered by Greene and found with shock and horror by unsuspecting members of the public, the judge said. The object of the exercise was to ensure that her body was never found, or if found, that the murderer was never prosecuted. Patricia had worked hard all her life for her children and grandchildren and her death had been devastating and heart-breaking for her family, the judge continued. She was a person who had a life and a future until it was ended by the murder committed by Kieran Greene. Louise OConnor The ruse Louise and Stephanie took part in was to create the impression that Patricia was a missing person. Their lies created a cover story for Greene and they maintained it even after the emergence of the horrible details of how Patricia had been disinterred and dismembered, the judge said. As Patricias daughter and granddaughter, their reactions to what was done to her were shocking and callous, a fact that was compounded by the close family connections. Louise bore a greater degree of culpability and responsibility than her daughter because of her dominant position in the household. While the dismemberment of the body was not part of the case against them, their behaviour allowed Greene to continue to take whatever steps he felt appropriate to avoid detection, Judge McDermott said. The judge noted that Louise and Stephanie had accepted the jurys verdict since their convictions but he said he was not satisfied that either of them had told the full truth of what happened that night. Patricia OConnor had been described by her son Richard as a hard-working straight talker who had opened up her home to her family and, Judge McDermott said, he was not satisfied that her personality or any tensions in the house due to overcrowding were mitigating features. Paying tribute to Patricia OConnor after the sentencing, son Richard described her as a kind, loving person; a mother, a sister and a grandmother with many years left to live that were so cruelly taken from her. injustice | Sinead OConnor says church abuse cover-up was revelation: Everything I was raised to believe was a lie However, DUP councillor Maurice Devenney fired back with claims that stalls at other events selling paraphernalia promoting the IRA with Ooh Ah up the Ra were also offensive Members of Derry City and Strabane Council have called for a change in its licensing laws to prevent the sale of offensive material, after a stall sold Parachute Regiment and UVF flags during the Apprentice Boys parade. Last month, police seized a number of items after images on social media showed the flags for sale from the stall at the junction of Clooney Terrace/Limavady Road. The matter was raised by SDLP councillor Brian Tierney during the councils health and community committee, who called the sale of the flags morally wrong. However, DUP councillor Maurice Devenney fired back with claims that stalls at other events selling paraphernalia promoting the IRA with Ooh Ah up the Ra were also offensive. Mr Tierney said the sale of the flags were designed to mark our territory and mock people, and the council should be doing what it can to stop flags being flown in the area. I understand the difficult sensitivities around that and I also want to point out that I am not raising this issue around the march, around unionist culture or anything like that, he added. It is my understanding that this committee issued a licence to stall holders who were involved in or facilitated the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in this city only recently. One of those stalls was selling Parachute Regiment flags. In my view and in the view of my constituents I have spoken to across this city and district, they find it offensive, they find it wrong and they dont want to see those types of flags or any types of flags being flown or sold around this council area. Theres a reason why this particular type of flag was brought to this particular city and sold and thats wrong and it shouldnt be allowed to happen and this council should take steps to ensure it doesnt. A council officer said its licensing team will carry out a review of criteria for determining the application of temporary licences in consultation with key stakeholders, including the PSNI. The council official also informed members the trader selling the flags was not in in breach of the terms of the licence or the legislation. Mr Devenney said the Apprentice Boys have no control over who turns up at its parade and that is down to licensing. I will say when we refer to flags and whats offensive, councillor Tierney talks about the para flag being offensive in this city, when I see paraphernalia being sold in stalls promoting the IRA and Ooh Ah up the Ra on the back of them, that is offensive to me, so those issues have to be dealt with, he continued. If we are going to deal with flags, I watched the Para flag flying in the Bogside on a bonfire where poppy wreaths were burnt. We find that very, very offensive yet nobody mentioned about those flags in the Bogside at the time. If hes anything like the person I met and he rules the country like that, therell be no problem The Belfast bombshell met the future King Charles III at the official reopening of the Grand Opera House in March when the monarch proved to be game for a laugh. For funny man John Linehan, whos been performing as May for 35 years it was the latest in a long line of royal engagements after meeting Princess Anne, Prince Philip and being presented with his MBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. And if the new monarch follows in his mothers footsteps, hell do well says John. The fruit doesnt fall far from the tree, and his mother was a good woman. If hes anything like the person I met and he rules the country like that, therell be no problem. John, whos about to celebrate 32 years as Belfasts panto queen knew the Opera House was expecting a special visitor for its re-launch earlier this year but only found out at the last minute it was the future king. Decked out as May in layers of shocking pink chiffon he reveals the then Prince was up for a bit of banter. John Linehan at home He told me I was looking well and asked if it was hard missing a years work because of the pandemic. I told him it was a nightmare for my wife whos not used to having me home over Christmas and kept telling me to go out for a drink. He was having a bit of craic and he asked, does your wife wear mens clothes at the weekend? I said, you obviously know her, says John. Im not a big one for the monarchy but he took time for everyone and you could see he loved the couple of yarns I told on the stage at the start and asked me if Id be doing any more. In his years on the showbiz circuit John also met Prince Philip, when Mays motherly ways nearly ended badly. He was working at the Ulster Motor Show with Downtown Radio and John Daly when a policeman told them the Duke of Edinburghs arrival was imminent. I asked if I could speak to him and the policeman said that was no problem, so as soon as Prince Philip came through the door I went straight over as May and asked him if he wanted something to eat. As soon as I put my hand out the policeman with him opened his coat and pulled his Uzi out. Someone took a picture over my shoulder and all you could see was my hat and Prince Philips face. He was loving it. At a meeting with Princess Anne in Belfast the pair discussed a portrait of John with an image of May in the background. She asked who was the scary one on my left shoulder and I explained that was me as well. John Linehan as May McFettridge But the most memorable royal moment was Johns visit to Buckingham Palace in 2007 when he was presented with an MBE for his charity work. Hes worked with international development charity Children in Crossfire for two decades. The rule is that the recipient of the honour can bring three guests, but John was keen that none of his nearest and dearest should be left out and asked if he could bring wife Brenda, daughters Donna and Kerry and grandson Johnny. I said to a friend of mine could you not get four guests and then I got a phone call from Buckingham Palace. This man said, I dont know who you know or what you know but you have four guests coming on the day. I explained its not about who you know or what you know, its about what you know about who you know. When John and the family arrived, he was taken aside, and an aide explained the procedure. The Queen would take his hand, speak to him, and when shed finished, she would push his hand away. She was unbelievable, a really lovely woman. She said I was getting this for the charity work I do and asked if I did that at home, so I told her I did cross-border stuff and Id also been out in Africa with Children in Crossfire, and she told me to keep up the good work. I had asked the aide before we started if I should start the conversation, says John. He said I didnt need to worry about it because shed done this before. John, 70, wholl be appearing in Cinderella this year, says he was shocked to hear of the Queens death just days after shed had meetings with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and new PM Liz Truss. It was the last thing you expected to hear. She worked right up until the end, he says. roisin.gorman@sundayworld.com Ballymena beauty Rebecca Lightbody to cash in on newfound fame as she sets up new Insta account Bake Off beauty Rebecca Rebs Lightbody is a showstopper in real life and these glamorous pictures are the proof in the pudding. Viewers are used to seeing the Ballymena baker donned in an apron and covered in flour as she battles to be Northern Irelands first winner of the hit Channel 4 series. But away from the cameras and the pressure of the famous Great British Bake Off tent, Rebs has shown she likes to enjoy an active social life by sharing a sprinkling of stunning snaps. Bake Off star Rebecca Lightbody The globe-trotting 23-year-old has posted pics on her social media of trips to far-flung places such as Turkey, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Spain and Florida as well as the city of love, Paris. Her boyfriend Jack is from Turkey and the keen cook has said she most recently started to play around with Middle Eastern ingredients in a nod to his heritage. Its all a world away from her rural roots in Co Antrim in week one of the reality show she saved herself from elimination by recreating a cake version of her remote family home. Rebs, who can Irish dance and play the tin whistle, revealed her earliest baking memory is of being a child, aged only three years old, helping her mum in the kitchen, as well as eating her grannys renowned lemon meringue pies. Rebecca Lightbody Her day job is as a tech worker but it looks like she might be hoping Bake Off will provide a platform for a career change shes set up a new social media account on Instagram called @rebsbakes. While the gorgeous dresses shown here will be the icing on the cake for Rebs fans, she faces stiff competition if she is going to impress judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood in the famous tent. Rebs, who has a degree in economics and finance from Leeds University as well as a masters in business from Ulster University, did just enough in bread week in the debut episode. Bake Off star Rebecca Lightbody Prue loved the flavour of her pina colada-flavoured showstopper, with Paul adding: It looks great and the flavours came through beautifully. Last week she took the biscuit in the signature challenge by making identical macarons modelled on her 15-year-old pet cat, Branston. The black and red Wee Branstons were filled with chocolate ganache and raspberry coulis which also won praise for how they tasted. This weeks episode of the Channel 4 show will be pizza week a dish she clearly enjoys, as she showed off a selfie of her tucking into a slice among her photos which she captioned: Pizza love story. See how Rebs fares in Week Three of the Great British Bake Off on Tuesday, Channel 4 at 8pm The former RTE journalist was emotional as he entered the hall to a standing ovation Broadcaster Charlie Bird was conferred with the Freedom of Co Wicklow today, as his beloved dog Tiger sat on his lap. He was awarded the coveted honour at a special ceremony in the Wicklow County Council buildings at 5pm today. The former RTE journalist was emotional as he entered the hall to a standing ovation, and he gave his former colleague Tommie OGorman a big hug when he spotted him in the audience. He is only the third person ever to be bestowed with the honour. Boxer Katie Taylor was given the Freedom of County Wicklow in 2011, and actor Daniel Day-Lewis was the first person to be conferred in 2009. CEO of Wicklow County Council, Brian Gleeson, said the broadcaster was given the honour in recognition of his outstanding achievements in journalism, and more recently in his campaigning for Motor Neurone Disease (MND). After being diagnosed with the condition last year, Mr Bird climbed Croagh Patrick in May with thousands of others and raised over 3m for the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association and Pieta House. The broadcaster said he was humbled to be the third person ever to receive the Freedom of County Wicklow after signing the historic scroll. Mr Bird has lost his speech due to his MND, so he used an iPad and speaker to address the crowd - which uses advanced technology to clone his voice from his old news reports. "Im so humbled to be here this evening receiving the Freedom of Wicklow and following the footsteps of two great people, Katie Taylor and Daniel-Day Lewis, he told the crowd. Over the past 18 months or so, I have had the most difficult journey, almost one year ago I finally got my dreadful diagnosis that I have a terminal illness, Motor Neuron Disease. Even in this difficult time I have had the most amazing support, which led to the Climb with Charlie project. On that lovely day on April 2, thousands of people all across Ireland and abroad came out to support Climb with Charlie. Yes, Im still pinching myself. These amazing people helped to raise a staggering almost 3.5m for two great charities, Pieta House and the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association. "So in a way, receiving this honour here this evening, the Freedom of Wicklow, is for the thousands and thousands of people that supported Climb with Charlie. Although he was born in Sandymount, Dublin, Mr Bird has lived in Wicklow for most of his life, first in Bray and he has spent the last two decades in Ashford. "For many years I have walked around with my great pal Tiger, and I have witnessed first-hand the kindness of strangers, many people stop me and ask me how am I doing, and all these encounters help to lift my spirits, he added. "I often end up crying and trying to hold my tears, but the sad reality is crying is one of the symptoms of my MND. "The support Im receiving helps me to live each day, and we all know Im not the only one with a terminal illness that struggles every day. Mr Bird was joined this evening by his wife Claire Mould, his daughters Orla and Nessa, and his five grandchildren Charlie, Hugo, Harriett, Abigail and Edward. At the end of the ceremony, the 73-year-old was given a commemorative sculpture of a bronze quill, eagle, and key, created by Wicklow-based artist and blacksmith Michael Calnan. The quill represents his work as a highly respected news correspondent and documentarian, while the eagles talon symbolises the physical and moral courage that hes shown throughout his life and career, and the bronze key represents the Freedom of the County of Wicklow. The Cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council, Cllr Tommy Annesley, thanked Mr Bird for the tireless fundraising work he has carried out over the past year. Speaking directly to the journalist, he added: It is clear the impact you have had on so many and its fitting that we bestow this honour on you today. New Zealand Chinese Language Week is a great chance to get together with friends and family, and try some delicious dumplings. International Dumpling Day is on Monday September 26, so New Zealanders are encouraged to try dumplings all week this week during New Zealand Chinese Language Week 2022, from Sunday September 25 to Saturday October 1. New Zealand Chinese Language Week Charitable Trust chair Jo Coughlan says Dumpling Day would normally be the same day as the international date, but this year is complicated because of Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Day. This years theme for the week is Sharing Our Stories, and we encourage people to get together with friends and family at any time during New Zealand Chinese Language Week to share a meal of dumplings and their stories, in recognition of the importance of hospitality to both New Zealand and Chinese cultures. Jo says the Restaurant Association is working with the Trust to encourage chefs around the country to try out a dumpling recipe in their restaurants, cafes, and eateries between September 25 to October 1. Restaurants can post a photo of their delicious-looking dumpling on social media, tag it with #NZCLW and they go into the draw to win a cash prize of $888 (triple lucky Chinese number!) plus promotions on social media," says Jo. We also ask the public to pitch in and vote for the most delicious-looking dumpling. Let us know on social media where you get your favourite dumplings. Jo says New Zealand Chinese Language Week has a serious purpose. We want to encourage more New Zealanders to give useful Chinese phrases a go, because learning another language has many personal benefits, as well as improving communication between different people. However, its also about recognising the diverse and vibrant society within New Zealand and having fun while doing that. Tauranga's ultimate R&B and hip-hop celebration is set to amplify, with a bigger venue confirmed forthe city's Juicy Fest show this summer. The Juicy Festival 2023 line-up includes some of the biggest R&B and hip-hop stars from the '90s and 2000s, including Nelly, Ne-Yo, Ja Rule, Mya, Chingy, Lloyd, Bow Wow, Xzibit, Pretty Ricky and Twista. From January 5, 2023, these artists will tour New Zealand and Australia, including Tauranga on January 6. Originally set for the Wharepai Domain, it was clear to organisers that a new venue was needed when the Bay of Plenty show sold out soon after going on sale. Now confirmed for Trustpower Baypark, promoter Glenn Meikle is looking forward to providing a bigger and better show for Tauranga's festival-goers." People from all around New Zealand flock to Tauranga over summer. Confirming this new venue means we can increase the capacity for Juicy Fest Tauranga and ensure all those visitors wanting to attend this event have more opportunity to do so," says Meikle. We're expecting Juicy Fest Tauranga to be one of the biggest shows of the tour and one of the most popular music events in Tauranga this summer. "If you've already snapped up your tickets for our Juicy Fest Tauranga show, your tickets remain valid. Anyone yet to purchase their tickets may want to get in fast to avoid missing out," he says. Those at the new venue are just as excited."Trustpower Baypark are pumped add Juicy Festival to our summer offering of concerts and events, which is on track to be one of our busiest summers yet!," says Bay Venues event operations manager Jade Bosman. Juicy Festival, or Juicy Fest as its colloquially named, is a R18 one-day festival scheduled for five shows across New Zealand this summer including Tauranga, Napier, Palmerston North, Auckland and Whangarei. The Australia leg of Juicy Fest 2023 begins on January 13. Tickets will be sold on a first-in, first-served basis and are expected to sell fast. To purchase tickets, go to www.juicyfest.co. Payment plans are available. A Bay of Plenty butcher says more business owners need to speak up about mental health after he worked every day for two years. Doug Jarvis, owner of two speciality Doug Jarvis Butchers stores in Mt Manganui and Papamoa, says he was working seven days a week because he was down eight staff . On top of that, earlier in the year Jarvis, who has been a butcher for 38 years, was tipped to breaking point after after break-ins and thefts from his stores. Its just depression and how things get on top of you, he says. And its not just me, but its so many people I speak to. The MYOB 2022 Business Monitor, a survey of more than 1000 local small to medium enterprise (SME) owners, revealed around a third (32%) had experienced a mental health condition since starting or taking over their business. RNZ's podcast The Detail dives into the state of mental health units, and the eye-watering price tags to repair its crumbling infrastructure. (First published June 14, 2021). Video: RNZ. Of those who have experienced a mental health condition, 85 per cent reported being affected by stress, while 71 per cent says they have experienced anxiety and 39 per cent have experienced depression. The repercussions of Covid-19 continues to have the biggest impact on overall wellbeing, followed by a lack of sleep, a high workload and political uncertainty. In May, Jarvis blood pressure hit dangerously high levels because of stress. It just got worse, and worse, and worse. And obviously your mental status affects your health. After Jarvis told Stuff he had not had a day off in more than two years because of a lack of staff, he had people from throughout the country send in job applications, and even had retired butchers offering to work for free, so he could have a break. His staff then came together and reshuffled their shifts to cover for Jarvis and surprised him with a holiday to Brisbane to see his son for the first time in two years. It was excellent. I really, really needed it. Its surprising how you dont realise how much you need it. Despite the significant proportion of SME owners or leaders experiencing mental health struggles, the research highlighted most SMEs are not discussing mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Photo: John Borren/SunLive. Its just depression and how things get on top of you, Doug Jarvis says. Jarvis says he has a one on one meeting with staff who may be struggling, and he talked about it a lot in the community as well. I try and be a supportive person where I can. I think its just being there making sure you can do something for these people. He says all businesses should talk about mental health in the workplace. It shouldnt be a taboo subject. Everybody should talk about it. Its just talking to that one person that could make such a difference. Just communicate with people, thats the main thing. Dont be afraid to talk. MYOB spokesperson Jo Tozer says business owners have to overcome a multitude of additional challenges on top of the usual pressures they faced, which is having a direct impact on their mental health and wellbeing. Given the current economic and employment challenges, its understandable SMEs are feeling overwhelmed, which is leading to an increase in stress and anxiety, but its important for business owners and leaders to remember theyre not alone, says Tozer. We have seen that more than half of SME owners and decision-makers opt for social time with friends and family to help improve their mental wellbeing, and with this years Mental Health Awareness Week focusing on the importance of reconnecting with the people and places that give us a boost. - Brianna Mcilraith/Stuff. Its a bizarre crime that can happen on a rural New Zealand road or as part of what remains the worlds biggest art heist. Its impersonating a police officer, it comes with a maximum penalty of 12 months imprisonment, or a $15,000 fine, and since 2011, 85 New Zealanders have been convicted for it. While a far cry from the 1990 Boston art gallery robbery involving fake cops that netted $500 million in Old Masters works, theres one thing in common with all cases a convincing front. A farm assistant and a man with a baton and handcuffs at home are among 85 people convicted of impersonating a police officer over the past 11 years. Video: Stuff. Stuff dug into the phenomenon of people impersonating police in the wake of a bizarre crime that took place on two separate April days in 2018, but was only resolved at Te Kuiti District Court this year with a sentence of community work. It centred on a farm assistant called Glenn Alan Mathias who pulled over drivers, telling them he was a police officer, before he dispensed road safety advice. Police impersonator Shannen Cox was found to have an expandable baton, handcuffs with fitting key, and a "tactical belt" after he was arrested for his second time pretending to be law enforcement. Photo: Supplied/Stuff. According to the police summary of facts, Mathias was driving his utility vehicle in Puketapu when he activated flashing blue and red lights on the dash of his vehicle. The first victim, assuming he was a police officer, pulled over and stopped. The defendant walked up to the drivers door and told her she was lucky he was not on duty, claiming she had committed an offence by having her lights on full, the summary says. After a brief conversation he turned his vehicle around and drove off. The second offence followed the same pattern, only with him telling the victim they had crossed the centre line. Traffic stops are a common entry point to the crime of police impersonation. Photo: Christel Yardley/Stuff. He was asked for his police ID, but claimed he did not have it, but says he was from the Taupo Police, the summary says. After giving some traffic safety advice he got back in his vehicle and drove off. An Official Information Act request to police means Stuff can reveal that since 2011, 85 New Zealanders have been convicted of impersonating a police officer, while 137 people in total were charged with the offence. Another New Zealander to be caught playing cops twice was Shannen Cox. In January 2019 he followed a driver on his motorbike into a parking building, approached the driver, declared himself an "authorised officer" and presented a "Land Transport badge". At his sentencing it was revealed he had a prior conviction for impersonating police in 2013. A search of his then residence also found an expandable baton, handcuffs with fitting key, and a "tactical belt". Unusually, some explanation for his offending was also offered at the time as the court heard he had been the victim of a serious road crash in 2013. He suffered a head injury which impacted some of his behaviour and "ability to function in a normal way in some regards", his sentencing judge says. "I'm told that you are particularly sensitive, possibly oversensitive when it comes to road safety concerns." Triple RSA killer William Dwane Bell, pictured in 2002 at the murder trial, used a stolen police shirt to trick his way into the building. Photo: Phil Doyle/Stuff. While there are plenty of examples of the impersonation being relatively harmless, one of New Zealands most notorious crimes, the murder of three people at an RSA by William Bell, was conducted after he tricked his way into the building while wearing a stolen police shirt. While how many people have committed this offence was easy to ascertain, why proved harder to answer. Professor Richard Wortley of the University of Waikato and NZ Institute of Security & Crime Science, says he knew of no-one who could provide an expert view on the psychology behind the offending. However, while he says it was not strictly his area of expertise, he says he believed such offending was likely motivated by a desire to exploit the power of police, to commit other crimes or fantasy fulfilment. His view, and echoes of the Mathias incident, find support in a 2012 research paper Police Impersonation: Pretences and Predators, published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice, by Associate Professor Callie Marie Renniuson and Professor Mary Dodge from the University of Colorado. Their research, which they admit is a rarity on the topic, used United States case files on police impersonation from 2002-2010 and found the most typical impersonation involves an offender driving an unmarked car who uses a spotlight or red and blue flashing lights for a pull-over. These [impersonation] incidents most often involve one victim, one offender, no witnesses, no weapon and result in no injury to the victim. Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers says police take the issue of impersonation seriously, and that the crime can sometimes be part of much more serious offending. Photo: Mark Taylor/Stuff. Their research also revealed how old the crime of police impersonation is, noting a historical account of 29 people caught impersonating law officers in London dated back to 1685. One other person who has studied police impersonation is US-based lawyer James A. Walckner, who researched the topic for his Masters thesis. He says it was cases just like Mathias that prompted his interest. What I find intriguing are the police impersonators, such as Glenn Mathias, who engage in this risky behaviour for no obvious reason. He says he believes police impersonators can be broken into three categories. Wannabe, Materialistic, and Deviant, he says. Research from the United States indicated some are drawn to impersonating police officers due to the lure of authority, and ego enhancement. Photo: Chris McKeen/Stuff. The behaviour described of Glenn Alan Mathias in the Taupo case, where the act of impersonating a police officer itself is the ultimate objective, falls within the Wannabe category. His impersonation of law enforcement was not done in furtherance of material gain or sexually deviant behaviour. Consistent among police impersonators in the Wannabe category, Mathias acted alone and had a vehicle equipped with emergency lights, he says. Walckner says that while motivation in cases where the impersonation did not appear to be part of any wider criminal enterprise were unclear, an offenders desire for power over others or sense of grandiose should be considerations. That view appears to be supported by Renniuson and Dodges research. In some instances, it is clear that the enticement of policing, the lure of authority, and ego enhancement played a role in the incident. Police impersonation is certainly taken seriously by New Zealand police, according to Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers. He says that while the offence was not common, it is a matter which Police takes very seriously. We are aware of people impersonating an officer for matters which can be very minor in nature but also for far more serious offending, he says. The public rightly expects to be able to trust that the person they are interacting with is a trained and serving Police officer who will deal with any matter appropriately, and those impersonating our staff risks undermining this trust. - Benn Bathgate/Stuff. Three people have died and two are in a critical condition after two separate crashes in Waikato while a section of SH1 has been closed by a 25-tonne chemical spill. A two-vehicle crash in Rangiriri left two dead and two in a critical condition, while a crash between a car and a tanker carrying a hazardous substance in Tirau killed one person. The crash on Rodda Road in Rangiriri, about 4:10pm on Monday, left diversions in place as police examined the scene. The road is likely to remain closed for some time. Fire and Emergency Shift Manager Josh Penefather said on arrival three people were trapped and FENZ pulled them out using rescue tools. UPDATE 5:00PM SH1 remains CLOSED with a Serious Crash Unit now on scene and is likely to remain closed until tomorrow morning due to a significant chemical spill. Continue to follow the detour in place. The next update will be provided at 7pm. ^LB https://t.co/aZ6EyYHMmQ Waka Kotahi NZTA Waikato/BoP (@WakaKotahiWaiBP) September 26, 2022 Meanwhile, the collisions on SH1 in Tirau, at Putaruru, is likely to close the road until Tuesday morning due to a significant chemical spill, Waka Kotahi NZTA said. Penefather said the crash involved a tanker carrying approximately 25 tonnes of hydrogen peroxide. The tanker has rolled and the hydrogen peroxide is leaking, he said. Fire and Emergency are still at the scene, he said, as the truck is still slowly leaking. If any members of the public feel unwell, they should call Healthline, says Pennefather. Bronwyn McGovern lives near the crash site on SH1 at Putaruru and said there were "always" crashes in the area. She earlier heard "a lot of emergency services" headed towards the site, but could not see the scene itself as she lived about half a kilometre away. Police were called to the crash about 3pm on Monday. Diversions were in place and drivers asked to avoid the area. Ryan Anderson and Andre Chumko/Stuff Hundreds of people including the prime minister, cabinet ministers and former prime ministers gathered at St Paul's Cathedral in Wellington for a state memorial service for the Queen. The hour-long ceremony on Monday afternoon began with a parade of the Queen's colours and a mihi whakatau. Bouquets of pink cherry blossoms, and white, pink and yellow lilies adorned the cathedral. The cathedral's foundation stone was laid by a young Queen Elizabeth II on 13 January 1954 on her first visit to New Zealand. Construction began the following year and the cathedral was opened in 1964. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, partner Clarke Gayford and daughter Neve were among the last to arrive. Photo: RNZ/ Krystal Gibbens. Ardern and Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro joined the procession, while Gayford and Neve entered through a side door. Photo: RNZ/ Krystal Gibbens. A karanga was performed as the processional cross and lights were carried to the front of the cathedral. People inside were quiet as the service began. Photo: RNZ/ Samuel Rillstone. Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered outside Parliament grounds to watch the service on one of eight large screens. Children used trees and the slide as vantage points to watch. Photo: RNZ/ Angus Dreaver. Photo: RNZ/ Angus Dreaver. Some people travelled from outside Wellington to attend the service, including Maggie, Anika, Flounna and other students from Our Lady of Victories School in Christchurch who flew to the capital to watch the ceremony. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver. A national minute of silence was observed at 2pm to remember the Queen and acknowledge her 70 years of service. Those inside the cathedral and the public gathered outside stood to observe the minute's silence. The Right Reverend Justin Duckworth then performed a karakia, followed by the congregation singing the national anthem. The reverends then read excerpts from the Bible and bid farewell to the Queen. Photo: RNZ/ Samuel Rillstone. The crowd remained silent as people paid their respects to the late monarch privately. Representatives of various community groups lit candles near the Queen's portrait. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern then read an extract from a souvenir book published after the Queen's first visit to New Zealand. "Today, we have gathered to acknowledge the deep connection New Zealand has had to her late majesty the Queen for more than 70 years, a connection grounded on her first visit in 1953. "As the great white ship moved slowly through the channel, crowds ran along marine parade keeping abreast of her, everyone cheering, many weeping, reluctant to give up their waving until the answering white-gloved hand could be seen no longer," she read from the book about the late queen's departure in 1954. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone. Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro then read her tribute to the Queen. She said New Zealanders saw a Queen who would always keep them in her heart following her 1953 Christmas address from Auckland following the Tangiwai disaster. The Queen carried out her duties with unwavering loyalty and care and gave us a lifetime of dedicated service, Dame Cindy said. She showed that small acts of service and generosity mattered the most, she said. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone. The New Zealand Herald of Arms Extraordinary to the King then proclaimed the late Queen's New Zealand styles and titles have now devolved to King Charles III. The congregation declared 'God Save the King'. Outside, people stood as the declaration was made. Photo: RNZ/ Angus Dreaver. The declaration signalled the end of the service. Dignitaries, MPs, former MPs and others left the service in the reverse order as when they arrived. Among them was National Party leader Christopher Luxon, former party leader Bill English, former Labour leader Helen Clark and NZ's first recipient of the Victoria Cross, Willie Apiata. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone. Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. The Taos News delivered to your Taos County address every week for a full year! We offer our lowest mail rates to zip codes in the county. Click Here to See if you Qualify. Plan includes unlimited website access and e-edition print replica online. Your auto pay plan will be conveniently renewed at the end of the subscription period. You may cancel at anytime. RJK Senior - BHPian Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dubai/Bombay Posts: 1,122 Thanked: 642 Times Re: Review: The Tata Nexon EV Quote: RJK Originally Posted by I just made my final payment for the car today. Suffice to say, there are miles to go before one can buy TATA products blindly. For my own satisfaction, I went to do a PDI of the car that was allotted to me by TATA motors, assuring that they have done me a favour by diverting someone else's car as I was making full payment. Realised upon reaching the stock yard on my own (2hrs away from where I stay) that it was just a cock and bull story. Anyway, I selected a car (even that one has scratches, some of them even catch the nail) and got assurance from stating all scratches will be removed & deeper ones will have panels repainted with exact colour match. Of special mention is a lady by the name of Anita Jadhav whos a General Manager of their Saki Naka outlet and was filling in for the Prabhadevi manager since he was away on family medical emergency. This blessed (insert a curse word of your choice) lady was so disinterested that she actually rolled her eyes at me for asking them to fix things. I had initially refused delivery but on their constant nagging I said ok, I want ceramic coating done and she gave me a look as if Im a stupid fool. She found nothing wrong with the fact they had no standard procedures to check the vehicle before handing over to the customer. Shes the epitome of how not to interact with a customer! The Tata motors (not dealer) employee was accommodating but he also said sir we have done the best we could. Sad part is that they had done nothing but he said hell do something and gave me 3D mats and mud flaps complimentary on the car when I had been insisting on ceramic coat. Finally we left after 4hrs, thoroughly disappointed-Im certain I lost a year of my life with the amount of heartburn & screamin/shouting I had to do. No one likes to be have so much acrimony on delivery day but Tata & Puneet ensured that I do. I must add my sales guy, young fella named Prashant was conveniently absent on the day of delivery and his team leader was assigned to do the delivery. Both were equally clueless and careless despite documenting everything on email. I guess theyre living out the adage of pay peanuts and get monkeys. The saddest part was my 70yrs old father was with me the entire time and had to witness this waste of time and waste his time too. In the midst he actually went to the hospital because the hospital called (hes still a practising cancer surgeon and a mighty good one at that) Usually I never drag him along for deliveries unless its one of the nicer, premium family vehicle. Anyway this mistake wont be repeated again. Coming to the car itself, after nearly 3 weeks of usage, I find the car is pretty decent and that Tata have made good progress from the time when we last bought their product in 02. Only drawback is the ride is a firm but we knew that before we bought it, so not really product fault. Only thing that I notice is that the regen doesnt work for until first 5-6kms charging the car to 100%. Do anyone of you guys also face this problem? We usually drive on regen level 3 and manage about 190-200kms on full charge. The least weve gone down to is 9% charge, our driver gets massive anxiety and insists on charging every night, even at 60% charge since the travel during the day can be unpredictable. At this point I do feel that a bigger battery pack wouldve helped but not the Max version with the leg space getting compromised. I must mention, Tata have done a marvellous job on the seats, especially the front ones - mind blowing contours and support for the upper back! The Apple car play isnt as fluid as Id liked but wont complain. The speakers audio quality is also quite decent for being stock fitment. Thats all from me for now, I intend to start a thread on the vehicle at some point Cheers Update: Got my car delivered on 4th September. Puneet motors assured delivery would be very good and they need time to paint the panels that were identified in my stockyard visit etc, which I granted. Lo and behold, on the day of delivery they bring the car out and I see that nothing had been done on the scratches, not a single blooming thing! The delivery experience was so pathetic, I wasted 4hrs there getting things fixed; in fact I had initially refused delivery because they wasted my time and had sat in my car to leave. I told them you keep the car even though I have paid in full. The standards of Tata and its dealers are so low that they found nothing wrong in the way they handled the situation, for them its perfectly alright to hand over a pre scratched car to the customer.Of special mention is a lady by the name of Anita Jadhav whos a General Manager of their Saki Naka outlet and was filling in for the Prabhadevi manager since he was away on family medical emergency. This blessed (insert a curse word of your choice) lady was so disinterested that she actually rolled her eyes at me for asking them to fix things. I had initially refused delivery but on their constant nagging I said ok, I want ceramic coating done and she gave me a look as if Im a stupid fool. She found nothing wrong with the fact they had no standard procedures to check the vehicle before handing over to the customer. Shes the epitome of how not to interact with a customer!The Tata motors (not dealer) employee was accommodating but he also said sir we have done the best we could. Sad part is that they had done nothing but he said hell do something and gave me 3D mats and mud flaps complimentary on the car when I had been insisting on ceramic coat.Finally we left after 4hrs, thoroughly disappointed-Im certain I lost a year of my life with the amount of heartburn & screamin/shouting I had to do. No one likes to be have so much acrimony on delivery day but Tata & Puneet ensured that I do. I must add my sales guy, young fella named Prashant was conveniently absent on the day of delivery and his team leader was assigned to do the delivery. Both were equally clueless and careless despite documenting everything on email. I guess theyre living out the adage of pay peanuts and get monkeys.The saddest part was my 70yrs old father was with me the entire time and had to witness this waste of time and waste his time too. In the midst he actually went to the hospital because the hospital called (hes still a practising cancer surgeon and a mighty good one at that) Usually I never drag him along for deliveries unless its one of the nicer, premium family vehicle. Anyway this mistake wont be repeated again.Coming to the car itself, after nearly 3 weeks of usage, I find the car is pretty decent and that Tata have made good progress from the time when we last bought their product in 02. Only drawback is the ride is a firm but we knew that before we bought it, so not really product fault. Only thing that I notice is that the regen doesnt work for until first 5-6kms charging the car to 100%. Do anyone of you guys also face this problem? We usually drive on regen level 3 and manage about 190-200kms on full charge. The least weve gone down to is 9% charge, our driver gets massive anxiety and insists on charging every night, even at 60% charge since the travel during the day can be unpredictable. At this point I do feel that a bigger battery pack wouldve helped but not the Max version with the leg space getting compromised.I must mention, Tata have done a marvellous job on the seats, especially the front ones - mind blowing contours and support for the upper back! The Apple car play isnt as fluid as Id liked but wont complain. The speakers audio quality is also quite decent for being stock fitment.Thats all from me for now, I intend to start a thread on the vehicle at some pointCheers Last edited by RJK : 25th September 2022 at 18:56 . In context: Does your boss think you spend all day 'working' from home in your dressing gown, taking regular breaks to stuff your face/get drunk/watch Pornhub? They aren't alone in believing that remote work makes employees less efficient. According to a new study from Microsoft, 85% of bosses are convinced that home comforts make staff less productive, and that's causing 'productivity theater.' Many studies have been carried out on working from home and how it impacts productivity. Nearly all of them show that the increased happiness felt by employees translates into more efficient staff, but it seems managers don't agree. A new study from Microsoft illustrates how the views of workers and their bosses differ significantly: 87% of staff say working from home increases productivity, but 85% of their supervisors disagree. Bosses believe the move to remote/hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive. While working from home was once a privilege enjoyed by few, the pandemic saw most of the world wave goodbye to daily commutes. With the lockdowns gone, some companies are trying to bring their staff back to pre-2020 work arrangements. Several big firms, including Tesla and Apple, are facing massive pushback over their return-to-office mandates. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the BBC that higher-level staff need to overcome the fear that employees are unproductive at home. "We have to get past what we describe as 'productivity paranoia' because all of the data we have shows that 80% plus of the individual people feel they're very productive except their management thinks that they're not productive. That means there is a real disconnect in terms of the expectations and what they feel," Nadella told the BBC. Future Forum Pulse survey Part of the problem is that managers say they no longer have the visual clues that show who is working hard, relying instead on software-based metrics. In some cases, fear of being fired has led to 'productivity theatre,' in which, for example, workers randomly move their mouse pointers to show they're online, or they join worthless Zoom meetings. Ironically, it's estimated that people waste almost an hour per day on this digital presenteeism, meaning employees are being less productive by trying to appear more productive. As part of the study, Microsoft surveyed 20,000 staff from 11 countries and analyzed trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, along with LinkedIn labor trends and Glint People Science findings. It's not just bosses who think staff perform better in the office; a survey in May showed many people believe their colleagues are not being productive at home. A lot of employees say they would rather quit their job than go back into the office and are willing to take pay cuts and lose benefits if it means staying at home. One of the few studies to claim remote work threatened productivity and innovation came last year. Somewhat surprisingly, Microsoft was the company behind the findings. Protecting Earth from giant asteroids has become among the priorities of NASA and other space agencies. (Photo : NASA/Johns Hopkins, APL/Steve Gribben) llustration of NASAs DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agencys (ASI) LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos binary system. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has now developed its so-called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft. However, unlike the technologies you see in sci-fi films, the NASA DART is described as a one-hit-wonder. This means it will be destroyed when it crashes into the Dimorphos asteroid. NASA DART Mission Interesting Engineering reported that the NASA DART spacecraft is designed to change Dimorphos' path. Experts call this technique the "kinetic impact." (Photo : Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Las Vegas Astronomical Society vice president of special events Keith Caceres uses computer software connected to his telescope to locate asteroid 2014 JO25 outside the Planetarium at the College of Southern Nevada on April 19, 2017 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Also Read: A 68-Foot-Wide Asteroid That is 10 Times Faster Than a Rifle Bullet Will Travel Toward Earth Tomorrow It will alter the asteroid's orbit by directing impact on its surface. Space experts believe a tiny deflection could efficiently change the space rock's path. However, observations are still needed to be conducted after the impact. As of writing, an investigation team is expected to check Dimorphos' orbit once DART crashes into it. Involved researchers will study the asteroid's motion around Didymos by observing its orbital period, which is when the asteroid passes in front and behind Didymos. Space.Com reported that the official launch for NASA's DART collision is scheduled on Sept. 26. But before that happens, NASA will still take some photos of the asteroid, especially since Dimorphos is the sixth space rock that can be seen up close. Efficient Global Cooperation Still Needed If ever the NASA DART mission is proven effective, more efforts are needed from NASA, ESA, and other space agencies if they want to protect Earth from potential asteroid impacts. During the recent International Astronautical Congress 2022, NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), and APL (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory) representatives outlined their plans to respond effectively to asteroid hazards. For example, ESA confirmed that it will launch a follow-up surveyor mission called Hera as early as 2024. This rocket will also reach the Didymos system around 2026. If you want to learn more about the things that NASA, ESA, and APL shared when it comes to preventing hazardous asteroid impacts, you can visit this link. Recently, NASA Artemis 1 was expected to send a cubesat that will follow an asteroid using a solar sail. We also reported that a stadium-sized asteroid flew by Earth at 20 miles per second. For more news updates about asteroids and other space objects, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Related Article: NASA's DART Mission Will Finally Smash an Asteroid Next Week This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Griffin Davis 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Apple Pay Later, which supposedly rolls out on iOS 16, is likely delayed to release on a much later date. The new payment service for iPhone users is reportedly pushed until sometime next year or in 2023. A new report from Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman explains why the Apple Pay Later feature took time before launching. (Photo : Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 14: In this photo illustration, an iPhone is used to make an Apple Pay purchase at The Post Office on July 14, 2015 in London, England. Apple Pay Later for iOS 16 According to a recent report by Engadget, the Cupertino-based tech giant introduced its new Apple Pay Later feature back in WWDC 2022. It was the same event wherein the iPhone maker teased the all-new iOS 16. And one of its features is a new buy now, pay later option. However, it is worth noting that Apple said during the WWDC event that the new Pay Later feature is arriving alongside the new iOS 16. Engadget notes in its report that the next-generation iOS has already started rolling out to iPhones. And despite that, the new buy now, pay later option has yet to see the light of day. So it looks like the Pay Later option is rolling out in the future updates of iOS 16. Engadget highlights that the website of Apple currently gives away a pretty vague timeline, saying that it rolls out "in a future update." Is Pay Later Delayed to 2023? However, Gurman got a bit more specific with his prediction. (Photo : Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 14: In this photo illustration, an iPhone is used to make an Apple Pay purchase at The Post Office on July 14, 2015 in London, England. From today iPhone and Apple Watch owners can use their device to pay for purchases at retailers who support the new mobile wallet service Apple Pay. As per the news story by Mac Rumors, the Bloomberg journalist points out that the new payment option will not be available this year. Instead, he claims that it is launching sometime in 2023. He goes on to disclose that it is likely ships to iPhone users as the iOS 16.4 comes out by next year. The latest newsletter of Gurman further adds that Apple might release it during spring. Gurman notes in his newsletter that "it's possible the feature won't arrive until iOS 16.4 in the spring." Read Also: 'Apple Pay Later' Under Development to Provide Credit Card-like Features like Monthly Installments via Sachs Why is it Delayed? While Apple has yet to actually confirm that its Pay Later service is delayed, Gurman has an explanation for why it is potentially pushed back. He says that he learned that "there have been fairly significant technical and engineering challenges." And as such, the renowned tech giant is taking some time before it releases its new payment service. But once it starts shipping to iPhones and iPad, the new Pay Later option is available straight from the built-in Wallet app of these Apple devices. Related Article: Apple's iOS 16 Showcases Latest Features, But Not All iPhone 14 Models Are Eligible for the Upgrade This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Teejay Boris 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The US Air Force is looking forward to the development of the hypersonic air-breathing missile after awarding the contract to Raytheon Technologies last week. According to the reports, it will be the newest weapon that will be added to the arsenal of one of the most powerful special forces in the world. US is Adding HACM to its Defense Stash (Photo : Raytheon Technologies) Northrop Grumman team will help with the development of this hypersonic air-breathing weapon.athing weapon. According to a report by Militaryspot.com, the US Air Force has awarded a $985,348,124 contract to Raytheon Technologies to revamp its current lineup of defense ahead of its rivals. The collaboration for the creation of HACM (Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) prototype will include the Northrop Grumman Corporation, one of the largest weapon providers. "HACM will provide our commanders with tactical flexibility to employ fighters to hold high-value, time-sensitive targets at risk while maintaining bombers for other strategic targets," U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. mentioned in a press release last Thursday, Sept. 22. The US Air Force wants to strengthen its ties to other partners so it could improve its interoperability in the process. As such, this action will give them an edge to stay competitive against the other war forces on the planet. Furthermore, the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE) has also contributed to the design of this air-breathing hypersonic missile. According to Raytheon Missiles and Defense president Wes Kremer, the company will continue to improve its service by bringing air-breathing technology development to hypersonic weapons. Since there are underlying threats that have been endangering the world, the warfighters need to deploy a more powerful set of weapons just like the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile. HACM Surpasses Traditional Missiles In another report by Interesting Engineering, HACM features a scramjet engine which allows it to travel faster than other traditional missiles. It can reach speed five times the speed of sound--similar to Mach 5 standard. Hypersonic weapons have become the newest set of armaments that top war leaders use because they can easily prevent the security systems of their opponents. According to Northrop Grumman Defense Systems president Mary Petryszyn, the US military will greatly benefit from the Hypersonic Attack Cruise. She added that their scramjet propulsion technology will be the new meta for the new age--a more capable weapon than any other existing weapons. Related Article: US Navy's Hypersonic Missile Integration To Enhance Zumwalt Class Destroyer! US Military is Developing Hot Air Balloons Hypersonic missiles are not unstoppable. Of course, it can still be countered by another high-performing weapon. According to Tech Times, the US is planning to develop hot air balloons to prevent Russia's and China's hypersonic missiles. They are not the ordinary hot air balloons that we know, but "high-altitude hot air balloons." It turns out that they can act as a surveillance that could spy an area from up to 90,000 feet. Read Also: Experts Claim Russia's Kinzhal Missile is Not Hypersonic, so Where Does it Fit in? This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joseph Henry 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Do you want to create a wonderfully cozy atmosphere in your own home during cold winter? Are you worried about the environmental and safety issues of traditional fireplaces? Then meet our R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove. It is definitively your best overall option for an electric fireplace because it's easy to use, effective, and includes desirable safety and extra features. It gives fireplaces a whole new meaning, and you will experience fire as you've never experienced before! It fits in limited space and requires no complicated assembling, venting, or chimneys. Additionally, R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stoves are comparatively affordable and more efficient than traditional fireplaces. It creates a warm and welcoming atmosphere in your room with just the touch of a button. So, without further delay, let's get started! Take Inspiration from a Cathedral: R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove is simple and elegant, and the exterior can seamlessly blend into a modern or vintage design scheme, with multiple color finishes to match your decoration. To get a perfect design for this stove, the R.W.FLAME's founder, Mr.Wang, has traveled far away to Europe to take inspiration. During his stay in Paris, he was captivated by this European world dotted with beautiful cathedrals. Rising dramatically above the cities, cathedrals and their lofty spires make for some of the most visible and recognizable landmarks. Cathedrals boast lots of beautiful architecture, with breathtaking sculptures, exquisite artwork, and stained glass windows decorating their interior, popular among both worshipers and tourists alike. Sometimes built not only centuries but millennia ago, these monumental buildings symbolize God's power and might. When he decided to add this style to his stove, a European designer's opinion coincided with his. The designer advised that the stove door could be modeled on an arched cathedral door, like a cathedral passing power and hope to its worshipers, as the stove is supposed to bring warmth and light to users during cold winter. This idea fits with the ethos of the R.W.FLAME company quite well. The combination of two minds generates an astonishing achievement in design. Look at the picture above. You'll find a touch of Parisian flair on the stove. The diamond-shaped panes, also known as Quarrels, are reminiscent of the earliest medieval windows, taking the aesthetic appeal of the Fireplace Stove to the next level. Modern and User-friendly Design: Thanks to a compact 23.5"L X 10.7"W X 24.3"H build, the R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove doesn't need much room to operate, making it more portable and suitable for different spaces. The magnetic door closes the door tightly, and the detachable foot increases stability. The installation has no extra steps except tightening the screws. Also, you don't have to take any environmental restrictions into account. A plug socket is the only thing you need to start enjoying the fire, meaning there are endless possibilities for you or your architect. R.W. FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove has buttons on the fireplace and remote control. It is a humanized design that users can control the stove from any room direction, even when lying on the bed. You can also set a timer for 1-8 hours before bed, and it will turn off automatically as you command. Also, there is no need to worry about the noise since it works quietly. As the noise is only 38db, ensuring that you are not disturbed while resting or working. It should be mentioned that the stove is thoroughly made of steel structure, making it more sturdy and durable. This type of craftsmanship has proven throughout the years that it can create a high-quality Electric Fireplace Stove that will stand the test of time. Realistic Flame Effects Compared with the traditional electric stove, R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove adopts the panoramic 3-sided view design for a better experience. The design of realistic flames and burning logs make the fireplace have a real flame effect, which creates a warm and gorgeous atmosphere for your family while enjoying the warmth. You won't be able to take your eyes off once you step into the room. It allows a lot more variety of flame style and color. With 4 flame & LED flame bed color modes, 5 flame speed modes, and 5 flame brightness levels, the flame could automatically change the flame color and brightness. While switching the different settings, the mode will be shown on the digital panel of the screen and will fade away automatically after the setup is done. This eye-catching automatic flame design makes it so authentic, just like real fire. By controlling it to produce different flame patterns, you could get a customized experience every time! Indeed, R.W.FLAME has launched an upgraded version of its electric fireplace stove, which has as many as 12 kinds of flame & LED flame bed color modes, making it more attractive and customized. The three-sided transparent glass design allows you to enjoy the realistic flame effect from any angle. And the flame effect can be individually controlled without heating since it is equipped with a flame dimmer to adjust the brightness of the flame effect. The soft flickering lights provide a source of light during cold nights and a relaxing atmosphere. Effective & Economical Heating: The advanced far-infrared heating method is adopted to make the heating more effective and faster. Fast heating takes only a few seconds, and this furnace can heat a room to nearly 400 square feet. Equipped with a variety of temperature control systems, R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove provides you with two heating methods of 500W and 1500W for both energy-saving and fast-warm purposes. The user-friendly thermostat device can automatically adjust the room temperature, allowing you to enjoy comfortable warmth. The intelligent system can adapt to your demand for heat in any weather. It is a very cost-effective option compared to other ways of staying warm. Green and Safe: R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove is environmentally friendly, a perfect alternative to a traditional fireplace, and a supplemental heat source that adds ambiance to a room. There's no need for the electric fireplace to use gas or wood to work since all it takes is an electrical outlet with a 120V power supply. Safety protection is essential, so R.W.FLAME Electric Fireplace Stove seems more reliable than traditional heaters. It has installed an overheating safety device and an effective air outlet at the bottom of the stove, which can effectively avoid hidden dangers caused by equipment overheating. It provides a pleasant warmth but no direct heat, making it safe and suitable for everyone. Even small children and pets are safe around it. The combination of fine-grade materials and master craftsmanship makes for a quality of the product that is unmatched anywhere at any price. In fact, they are so confident in the quality of their products and craftsmanship that they guarantee everything forever. You can get this electric stove for only $199, the lowest price in history. The wall-mounted fireplaces are also much cheaper than ever. The price is directly reduced, so there is no need for coupons. Warm up your place in style with the latest design of R.W. Flame. Find these on their official website. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images) FORT CARSON, CO - APRIL 28: A Javelin missile fired by soldiers with the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team heads toward a target during a live-fire training exercise on April 28, 2022 in Fort Carson, Colorado. The Javelin anti-tank missile system uses automatic infrared guidance to track targets and has the ability to use top attack to hit targets from above where armor is thinnest. The U.S. military has sent almost a third of its javelin missile supply to Ukraine which plays a vital role in it's fight against Russia. The United States Army has recently fired Javelin anti-tank missiles from seven-ton robots that can detect and track enemies, take out targets with human guidance, and patrol high-risk regions. Soldiers fired Javelins and .50-caliber machine guns from robotic vehicle prototypes at a recent Army exhibition at Fort Hood, Texas, where a series of weapons development drills also took place. "Huge Learning Opportunity" Kevin Mills, the deputy executive director of ground vehicle intelligent systems at the Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center, said in an interview with The National Interest that they just finished the second large-scale operational soldier evaluation conducted at Fort Hood, Texas. He added that they had twelve robotic platforms alongside six control vehicles, and it serves as a culmination of about four years of activity. At the same time, Mills noted that it's a "huge learning opportunity" for the Army to understand how combat robotics can help them in the future. Army weapon developers put armed robots in soldiers' hands as part of the evaluation to examine weapons, improve tactics, and hasten the development of a new class of robotic combat vehicles, or RCVs. The RCV-Light, RCV-Medium, and RCV-Heavy are the three robotic vehicle versions that the service is pushing forward with. Each robotic vehicle variation is being built for a complex, interconnected set of unmanned operations. Read also: US Air Force Receives First 'Fighter-Mounted Laser Weapon' That Can Combat Hypersonic Missiles! Robotic Vehicles The vehicles include manned-unmanned teaming operations where ground drones or robotic vehicles carry out scouting and reconnaissance missions, distribute supplies, and destroy targets autonomously when given instructions by a human. The RCV-Light, a seven-ton vehicle, has a.50-cal machine gun, a Javelin, and several armament systems. It is also made to accommodate modular payloads. A 30mm gun is fired by the RCV-Medium from a turret. For the army operational experiment, the lights and mediums were constructed as prototypes, according to Mills. The RCV-Heavy, still in the development phase, served as a stand-in for a future heavy robot outfitted with a 120mm gun in the experiment involving an M113 personnel carrier. Mills noted that robotic vehicles outfitted with weapons of greater caliber would become more prevalent in the upcoming years. "One of the unique features of robotic platforms is that, once you take the human out, they're purposely built to be robotic platforms, so they can be much smaller and still carry significant payloads and have significant middle mobility characteristics," Mills said in a statement with The National Interest. Hence, the RCV-Lights, for instance, are difficult to detect, which provides the operational benefit of moving them forward, according to Mills. Related Article: US Military's 'World's Only Reusable Spaceplane' Has Been Flying for 781 Days - New Endurance Record Achieved! This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Top US officials have acknowledged that the country has privately warned Russia of "catastrophic" repercussions if it deploys nuclear weapons in its ongoing conflict with Ukraine. As reported first by Daily Mail, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US has privately informed Russians "at very high levels" that the country "respond decisively" to any use of nuclear weapons. This comes at the heels of Vladimir Putin's threatening the West with Armageddon and accusing NATO of planning attacks on Russia. Catastrophic Effects "Any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects for, of course, the country using them, but for many others as well," Blinken said in a statement with BS News program '60 Minutes' in New York. There are growing worries that once Russia has completed what the West and Ukraine view as illegitimate referendums in regions of Ukraine under its control, it may try to intensify the conflict. The voting, which finishes on Tuesday, Sept. 27, took place after hundreds of residents had evacuated. There have been pictures of armed Russian soldiers pressuring Ukrainians to vote by going door to door, according to the Daily Mail. Russia is expected to announce the results in its favor, which may lead to the annexation of the area and give Moscow the pretext to defend it as its own territory under the Russian nuclear umbrella. The national security advisor to President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, said that Russia would face severe consequences if it followed through on its threats to deploy nuclear weapons in the battle. He claimed that Washington's message had been more explicit in private discussions with their Russian counterparts without going into further detail. Read also: Richest Man in Ukraine is Helping His Country's War Against Russia by Producing Portable Steel War Shelters Nuclear Blackmail The two countries with the most nuclear weapons in the world are Russia and the United States. Russian military doctrine supports the employment of tactical nuclear weapons to drive back an opponent. When asked about Putin's remarks during a news conference on Saturday at the UN, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just stated that Moscow's doctrine is an "open document." Putin's subliminal nuclear threat, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, maybe, in reality, add that Russian military activities against Ukrainian nuclear power stations are the first steps of Putin's nuclear blackmail. No country has ever deployed nuclear weapons in battle but the United States. More than 200,000 people died when the US bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A few days later, Imperial Japan bowed, ending World War II. Related Article: IAEF Chief Announces Mission to Ukraine After A 'Suicidal Nuclear Plant Explosion' Alarm Was Raised at Europe's Largest Nuclear Facility This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Black Friday 2022 discounts have started sprouting like mushrooms. As the massive sale is already right around the corner, online scams are also taking advantage. (Photo : by Michael Ciaglo via Getty Images ) BROOMFIELD, CO - NOVEMBER 26: A Black Friday sales sign sits inside Macys at Flatirons Crossing mall on November 26, 2021 in Broomfield, Colorado. More shoppers are expected to shop in than last year after the COVID-19 pandemic caused the quietest Black Friday in 20 years. It is worth noting that the Black Friday sale brings down prices of all sorts of products to extremely cheap levels. And as such, some folks take the opportunity to go about massive purchases like a massive OLED TV. So it means that customers are spending serious bucks during the Black Friday festivities. Thus, it would be best to avoid falling into these notorious online shopping scams scrupulously. Black Friday 2022 and Online Shopping Scams As per the report by Safe Wise, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center or the IC3 saw hundreds and thousands of online fraud complaints last year alone. To be more precise, the number of complaints in 2021 has ballooned to a staggering 847,376. And what's more, the estimated losses from these online scams account for roughly $6.9 billion. So it turns out that while most folks are getting warier online, it appears that scammers still target thousands of victims. And it is to note that the figures of the FBI still do not include the cases that have not been formally complained about. So the numbers might be higher. And now that the Black Friday 2022 sale is fast approaching, more consumers are planning to grab massive discounts online. According to a story by Tech Radar, in the eyes of the threat actors or scammers, the massive Black Friday sale is a huge opportunity for them to target more shoppers. The bulk of customers searching for the best deals online gives them a chance to get hold of their financial information. Read Also: Nintendo Switch Black Friday Deals 2022: Here's the Earliest Black Friday Sale for the Switch How to Avoid Online Black Friday Scams But to get the best bargain deal, shoppers must avoid online scams before anything else. And avoiding these online scams requires some due diligence to begin with. (Photo : by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) HOUSTON, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 26: Shoppers view merchandise through a store window during Black Friday in The Galleria mall on November 26, 2021 in Houston, Texas. A report from Forbes says consumers should take a close look at pricing and the website of the retailer. The cost of typically expensive products should still be possibly near what other retailers are selling them for. Although massive discounts are a thing during Black Friday, they should not be too far from the price of other retailers. Besides the red flag of pricing, the website should also be legit. First off, the real online shopping website is supposed to be secure. Its URL should have "https://" instead of the unsecured "http://." On top of that, it also helps to check for the contact information on the website. And the pages and text on the website should be free from misspellings and typographic errors. Related Article: Black Friday Sales Figures Come In--Here Are The Top-Selling Tech For This Year This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Teejay Boris 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A 100% electric flying ferry with zero emissions is in the works, according to designs unveiled by Artemis Technologies. The EF-24 Passenger vessel can be raised out of the water using modern hydrofoil technology so that it may navigate above the waves. The maritime design company Artemis Technologies is hailing the upcoming electric vehicle as a "game changer" for the global high-speed ferry industry. When compared to typical diesel-powered ferries, raising the hull above the water significantly reduces drag, resulting in estimated fuel cost savings of up to 85%, according to a report by itv. eFoiler Technology When the ferry is in motion, Artemis claims that its environmentally friendly eFoiler technology emits no pollutants and makes very little wake and noise. The company also said that hydrofoiling has advantages for the environment and the economy in addition to providing a smooth ride regardless of the state of the water. An offshoot of America's Cup-winning Artemis Racing team, Artemis Technologies is headquartered in Belfast. Its creator and CEO, Dr. Iain Percy, is a four-time America's Cup veteran and two-time Team GB Olympic sailing winner. In 2024, a prototype service between Belfast and the neighboring city of Bangor will be launched by the 24-meter vessels, which can accommodate 150 passengers. The first ferry constructed will be known as Zero. At a cruise speed of 25 knots, it will have a battery range of 115 nautical miles and a top speed of 38 knots. The ferry is one of several zero-emission ships being created by Artemis Technologies as part of a 60 million ($58 million) initiative to design and produce green transportation options for the maritime sector. The ferry was formally introduced to the world market on Monday, Sept. 26. Artemis also launched what it claimed as a "world first" commercially viable hydrofoil workboat earlier this year. Currently, the Artemis production facility in the city's docklands may be viewed from the outside as the Pioneer cruises above the waves in Belfast Lough, as per itv. Read also: 'Flying Hotel That Never Lands': AI Sky Cruise Ship Will Use Nuclear Energy to Fly in Luxury Just Like a Yacht and a Jet The technology involves securing hydrofoil wings to the hull using vertical struts, just like America's Cup racing yachts. The underwater wings propel the ship up and out of the water as it gains speed, similar to a jet taking off on a runway. "The EF-24 Passenger can provide an immediate green transport solution that competes economically with road and rail in places like San Francisco, New York, Venice, Istanbul, Dubai, and Singapore - anywhere around the globe that is seeking sustainable transport alternatives that balance the requirement for people to continue to move around with the need to reduce carbon emissions," Dr. Percy said in a statement. Condor Ferries and Artemis have teamed up to run the Belfast-Bangor pilot program. The ships will be fully accessible and have amenities, including charging stations, bike racks, overhead storage, and baby-changing stations. Related Article: 'Flying Car:' LEO Flight's Alpha eVTOL Hypercar Can FLY In Style This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The threats of space junk harming properties and humans have sparked action from NASA and the U.S. Congress with a new bill. As reported first by Space.com, this move is likely to be motivated by the risks posed by massive satellites, which was evident in a Russian anti-satellite (ASAT) test in November of last year when it threatened the operations of the International Space Station (ISS). A bipartisan bill filed to Congress on September 13 aims to deal with the space debris issue. US Senator Maria Cantwell, the head of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, is in charge of the Orbital Sustainability (ORBITS) Act. "This bill will jumpstart the technology development needed to remove the most dangerous junk before it knocks out a satellite, crashes into a NASA mission, or falls to the ground and hurts someone," Cantwell said in a statement regarding the legislation. If passed, the legislation would concentrate on the creation of a market for debris removal services as well as the research and demonstration of debris removal technologies. NASA-Funded Projects On September 13, NASA revealed that it had sponsored three programs aimed at addressing orbital debris. The initiatives, which are likewise in their early stages, aim to quantify the economic and societal issues brought on by space junk. The three projects are the following: 1. Adaptive Space Governance and Decision-Support using Source-Sink Evolutionary Environmental Models - This was proposed by Richard Linares and Danielle Wood of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Moriba Jah of the University of Texas-Austin. 2. An Integrated Assessment Model for Satellite Constellations and Orbital Debris - this was proposed by Akhil Rao of Middlebury College, Daniel Kaffine of the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation. 3. Communication and Space Debris: Connecting with Public Knowledges and Identities - proposed by Patrice Kohl, Sergio Alvarez, and Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida. Read also: Germany and Japan Follow the US in Abandoning Destructive Anti-Satellite Tests Can Space Junk Kill Someone? The likelihood of fatalities from falling rocket debris over the next ten years has been calculated by a recent study that was published in Nature Astronomy. The authors calculated the locations of rocket debris and other space junk when they fall back to Earth using mathematical modeling of rocket part inclinations and orbits in space and population density below them, as well as 30 years' worth of satellite data. The researchers found slight but significant harm from space junk falling back to Earth in the next ten years. However, this is more likely to occur in southern latitudes instead of northern ones. According to the study, rocket bodies are about three times more likely to crash at the latitudes of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jakarta in Indonesia, or Lagos in Nigeria than in the US's New York, Russia's Moscow, and China's Beijing. The authors also estimated the risk to human life over the following ten years due to uncontrolled rocket reentries as a "casualty expectation." According to the researchers, there is a 10% chance that rocket debris will lethally hit someone on Earth. But at the same time, they said that it is still a conservative estimate. Related Article: Japan Plans to Create a Laser Beam to Eliminate Satellite Debris in Space This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A "GTA 6" leaker residing in Oxfordshire, South East England. The City of London Police announced that the kid is involved in a recent content leak of Rockstar Games' new video game. (Photo : Screenshot from Twitter post of @WhisperMute) 'GTA 6' Leaker Arrested! Authorities Claim Teenager is Linked to Lapsus$ Hacking Group The "Grand Theft Auto VI" leaks started on Sept. 16. Many people posted the video game's content on various social media platforms. These include TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, etc. In the leaked videos, details about "GTA 6" locations, characters, as well as timeframe were revealed. 'GTA 6' Leaker Arrested! According to NME's latest report, the revealed content of "GTA 6" is among the biggest leaks in video game history. (Photo : Screenshot from YouTube/Rockstar Games Official) 'GTA 6' Leaker Arrested! Authorities Claim Teenager is Linked to Lapsus$ Hacking Group Related Article: FBI Investigates Hackers of GTA 6 and Uber, Teen Gang Leader Suspected Because of this, Londo police authorities decided to take a 17-year-old into custody. They charged the kid with two counts of breach of bail conditions.The teenager is also facing two counts of computer misuse. Since the alleged hacker is still a minor, London authorities ensured that his identity was kept a secret. "The City of London Police arrested a 17-year-old in Oxfordshire on Thursday (Sept. 22) on suspicion of hacking, as part of an investigation supported by the National Crime Agency's National Cyber Crime Unit," said the City of London. The GTA 6 leaks got me remembering how long its been since GTA V first released pic.twitter.com/h6QKdBRjA7 Tony Soprano (@TheBlueisin123) September 18, 2022 Aside from leaking "GTA 6" content, the kid is also accused of being associated with the international hacking group, Lapsus$. Was Rockstar Games Breached? Since the investigation involved an alleged member of the Lapsus$ cybercrime organization, many people believed that the systems of Rockstar Games were breached. The giant title developer also confirmed these rumors, saying that their network suffered from a serious intrusion. Forbes reported that the hacker allegedly gained access to the video game creator's internal messages on Slack, as well as early code for the new "GTA 6." Because of this, unauthorized third-party accessed and acquired confidential data from their systems. Among the essential information is the early development footage for the upcoming "GTA 6." As of press time, Rockstar Games is still working with authorities to prevent further "Grand Theft Auto" leaks. If you want to learn more about the latest content leak issues of the new "Grand Theft Auto VI," you can click here. Previously, "GTA 6" characters and Vice City locations were leaked. Meanwhile, Rockstar Games shared their disappointment after the massive "Grand Theft Auto VI" content leaks. For more news updates about "GTA 6" and other similar titles, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Related Article: Rockstar Games Turned Off Social Media Comments to Avoid 'GTA 6' Leaks Again This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Griffin Davis 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Second-generation Covid vaccines: "The more adapted and up-to-date it is, it will include parts of the virus against which we have not been immunized" This fort was built to protect New Orleans. 188 years later, it's surrendering to nature's forces. State corrections officials fired five guards at a state prison in Washington Parish this summer after an inmate death investigation revealed one officer used too much force against him and all of the officers failed to obtain medical treatment for the dying man after he vomited into a mask covering his face. Anthony Carl Smith, 55, was found unresponsive in his cell at B.B. Sixty Rayburn Correctional Center in the town of Angie on March 10, 2019, according to a medical summary from the prison. A nurse began to administer CPR and later applied a defibrillator while emergency medical services was contacted. Half an hour later, Smith was pronounced dead. State audit says Louisiana Department of Corrections failing to properly track inmate release dates The state agency that oversees Louisiana's prisons has failed to properly track inmate release dates, a just-released legislative audit says. Department of Public Safety and Corrections spokesman Ken Pastorick said Rayburn Correctional Center notified the Washington Parish Sheriffs Office immediately following Smiths death and they launched a joint investigation into the incident. On Aug. 10, after the investigation concluded, the DOC terminated Capt. Brink Hillman, Sgt. Gary King, Sgt. John Crain, Sgt. Fredrick Coker and Sgt. Dustin Rodgers. The men have appealed to the Louisiana State Civil Service and have a joint hearing set at the prison this month. Their attorney, William Arata of Bogalusa, declined to comment. Because the criminal investigation is still open with the local district attorney, Pastorick said, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections cannot comment further. While the exact circumstances surrounding Smiths death are unclear, termination letters for the five officers submitted by Rayburn Warden Robert C. Tanner detail a narrative that began with a medical emergency on the morning of Smith's death. Smith, whose maladies included diabetes, hypertension and heart problems, was serving a 30-year-sentence on forcible rape and second-degree kidnapping convictions from 2013. He had sought medical attention around 11:15 a.m. on March 10. I just want you to check on my medicine, Smith told medical personnel, according to a health care request form from the prison. I want all my meds. While in a treatment room, the disciplinary letters say, a "use of force" incident occurred when Smith threatened to spit on Crain. At this threat, Hillman ordered that a spit mask be placed on Smith. Pastorick said spit masks are used to protect corrections officers, staff and other offenders from being spit on, which may expose them to communicable diseases that may be transmitted through saliva or blood. He said DOC does not track the use of spit masks in its facilities. During the encounter, two officers saw King deliver knee strikes to Smith while they were restraining him in the treatment room. One officer said during the investigation he also saw Hillman kick Smith, though he later changed his story. The use of force reports are mentioned in the men's termination letters. Any originals created on the day of Smiths death would not be public records, Pastorick said. After the use of force, a staff nurse observed that Smith was agitated and uncooperative, according to a health care request form filed with the prison. Smith insisted there was nothing wrong with him and the nurse noted there were no signs of or symptoms of injury or neurological deficits. Following a medical staff review, the termination letters say, Smith was transported to his cell in a wheelchair. Smith was limp and unresponsive, one letter says, forcing officers to lift him from the wheelchair and place him on a bed in his cell. One officer later told investigators Smith was making grunting noises as if he was in pain as they moved him. When the officers left the cell, Smith was lying on his back, still wearing the spit mask. Rapper Kevin Gates banned from all Louisiana prisons after flashing cash during visit at Elayn Hunt Several months after a photo surfaced of a rapper flashing handfuls of $100 bills inside Elayn Hunt Correctional Center while visiting the fac According to Pastorick, once inmates wearing spit masks are back in their cells, unrestrained, and with officers at a safe distance outside the cell, the inmates are allowed to remove the spit masks themselves. Later, the officers returned to transport Smith to a new cell, according to the letters. They verbally ordered Smith to come to the bars to be restrained, but Smith was again limp. When Smith failed to respond, Hillman ordered two officers to hold Smith in place while he was restrained. Smith grunted and mumbled something, according to the letter, but still had to be lifted into a wheelchair for his transfer. Video footage reviewed during the investigation shows the officers returning to the new cell minutes later to take the required photo of Smiths face for the use of force report, a letter says. At this point, Smith was still unresponsive, though one officer reported he was breathing, grunting and mumbling. Officers had to position Smith to be handcuffed, as he did not move at their request. When the officers initially removed the spit mask, they found Smith had vomit on his face. Though they took an initial use of force report photo of Smith in this condition, the officers then wiped the vomit from Smiths face with a T-shirt and took a new picture. Investigators discovered the first picture was later deleted; Hillman admitted he deleted it because it showed the vomit. Officers then rolled Smith onto his right side and left the cell. It is unclear from reports whether they replaced the spit mask after the pictures were taken. Elayn Hunt Correctional Center cadet arrested, accused of attempting to bring drugs into prison ST. GABRIEL A corrections cadet at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center was arrested Tuesday night after investigators found in his vehicle drugs Hillman said during the investigation he turned Smith on his side out of habit, because he had dealt with inmates in the past who were intoxicated and had vomited. The autopsy and prison death report show Smith died from inhalation of gastric content. Under a microscope, food particles could be seen in his lung tissue. Dr. Roger Casama, Washington Parish Coroner, ruled his death accidental. Later that afternoon, security footage showed King never made two of his required rounds on the tier where Smith was held. When King eventually approached Smiths cell, he called Smiths name with no response, according to his termination letter. King then touched Smith on the foot with an ink pen, the letter says, but Smith still did not respond. Though King discovered Smith at 2:15 p.m., he did not return to the cell after notifying his supervisor, Hillman, until 2:32 p.m. Coker and Rodgers claimed they were concerned about Smiths health after they took the picture for the use of force report, their termination letters note, but neither called for medical assistance. Hillman, the housing unit supervisor, told two officers to change their versions of the events after they submitted detailed reports. To one, he said, "Dial it down." All the officers were fired for, among other misconduct allegations, falsifying documents or making false statements. In their appeals, each guard says inadequate training, insufficient crisis intervention procedures and a lack of support and medical staff contributed to the incident on March 10. King, Rodgers, Coker and Hillman did not respond to calls for comment on this story. Crain said Smith should never have been housed at Rayburn in the first place. Financial stability, workforce training at Louisiana Prison Enterprises questioned in new audit Prison Enterprises, the for-profit arm of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections that uses inmate labor in various business Anthony Smith was incapable of living in a max-custody unit, Crain said. He should have been at Elayn Hunt Facility for medical reasons. My professional opinion is, Anthony Smith, as an offender, should have been somewhere where medical people could observe him because he was incoherent of his own medical status. Rayburn Warden Robert C. Tanner was not available for comment because the DOC could not comment on an investigation still under review by the District Attorney. Diane Smith, Anthony Smiths sister, said her brother had faced harassment from guards earlier in his prison sentence. Smith reported to family he was beaten all the time, and his nose had been broken at least five times. Since she lives in Seattle, Diane Smith rarely had the opportunity to visit her brother, though when she did, she often found herself barred from seeing him for a variety of reasons. Each time, she said she feared her brother had been beaten and the prison was hiding his condition. She was notified of her brothers death on March 11. They stated that they found him in his cell, she said. They didnt say what happen. They informed my sister that they think he had a heart attack. The family has hired a lawyer. "Correctional staff like Hillman, King, Rodgers, Coker and Crain control every aspect of the lives of the men imprisoned at Rayburn, said Sarah Grady, a civil rights lawyer for a Chicago firm representing the family. When they fail to do their jobs adequately, it is concerning. But when they affirmatively seek to end the lives of the men under their control, it is abhorrent. Diane Smith said the results of her brothers death investigation have not been released to her. To her knowledge, the District Attorneys office has not reached out to her or her family. Chief Deputy Mike Haley with the Washington Parish Sheriffs Office said they could not comment on the investigation. It has gone to the DAs office, Haley said. The DAs office has taken it to the grand jury. Of course, grand jury proceedings are not made public. Washington Parish District Attorney, Warren Montgomery, declined to comment for this story. We hope that the district attorney's office takes swift and decisive action to hold accountable those officers who denied Anthony Smith his basic humanity and took his life," Grady said. Diane Smith, for her part, said she believes prison personnel at Rayburn mistreat those inmates who "they dont think people care about." These guards can escape disciplinary action, she said, because the inmates they are harassing seem to be forgotten. I hope they file charges against those guys, Diane Smith said. They could have saved his life. I know he was in there, but if you dont want to do that job, you shouldnt even be there. You shouldnt have to let somebody die. Three Louisiana prison guards fired following the death of an inmate earlier this year at a prison near Bogalusa have been indicted on malfeasance charges. A Washington Parish grand jury indicted former corrections officers Capt. Brink Hillman, 43; Sgt. John Crain, 25; and Sgt. Gary King, 38, on felony counts of malfeasance and obstruction of justice. Hillman, Crain, King and two other guards from B.B. Sixty Rayburn Correctional Center in the town of Angie were fired after state and local authorities conducted a joint investigation into the death of inmate Anthony Carl Smith, 55. Smith was found dead in his cell in March just hours after a request for medical attention led to a use of force incident. Malfeasance charges, under Louisiana criminal code, address failure to perform duties lawfully, while obstruction refers to interference in a criminal investigation, such as tampering with evidence. The guards were indicted Oct. 30. The men have appealed to the Louisiana State Civil Service contesting their termination, though a hearing scheduled for next week at the prison has been canceled. Representatives with the State Civil Service said the case for the five guards is on hold until the criminal process is completed. The five guards are being represented by Bogalusa attorney William Arata. A woman who answered the phone at Aratas office Wednesday afternoon said he was unavailable and had no comment for this story. Sarah Grady, the Smith family attorney, said the family is thankful that the people serving on the grand jury in Washington Parish are willing to hold these men accountable for the heinous misconduct they committed toward Anthony. But, Grady said, it's deeply disturbing that the agency responsible for protecting Smith failed to do so. Termination letters submitted by Warden Robert C. Tanner detail Smith's last morning at Rayburn, where he was being treated for a medical emergency when he threatened to spit on an officer. Five Louisiana prison guards fired after inmate's death; use of force, lack of medical treatment cited State corrections officials fired five guards at a state prison in Washington Parish this summer after an inmate death investigation revealed Hillman, supervisor for the unit, ordered Smith placed in a spit mask. Ken Pastorick, spokesman for the DOC, said spit masks are used to protect corrections officers, staff and other offenders from being spit on, which may expose them to communicable diseases that may be transmitted through saliva or blood. During the encounter, officers reported King delivered knee strikes to Smith while he was restrained. One officer also said Hillman kicked Smith, though he later denied seeing such an attack. After the incident, Smith was examined by medical staff and released. One of the termination letters says video shows Smith was limp and unresponsive as he was placed in a wheelchair and moved to different cells. At one point, Smith was left lying on his back on his bed with the spit mask still affixed to his face. When officers removed the mask to take a mandated use of force photo for an official report of the incident, they found Smith had vomited while it was still over his face. Though they took an initial photo of Smith with the vomit visible, Hillman then wiped Smiths face with a T-shirt and took a new picture. Investigators discovered that the first picture was later deleted; Hillman admitted he deleted it because it showed the vomit. The officers left Smiths cell, and Smith was found dead hours later. Washington Parish Coroner Dr. Roger Casama reported in Smiths autopsy and death report that he died from inhalation of gastric content. Under a microscope, food particles could be seen in his lung tissue. His death was ruled accidental. While all three guards facing criminal charges were fired for failing to respond to Smiths medical needs and for lying to authorities during the course of the investigation, Warden Tanner cites additional rule violations in each guards letter. Hillman, supervisor of the housing unit, was tagged with some of the more serious allegations of misconduct, including a failure to record the use of force chain of events with a body camera, lying to investigators about the photograph he deleted and pressuring two other officers to change the version of events they reported to investigators. King alone was disciplined for delivering knee strikes, in violation of the prisons use of force guidelines that forbid inmate abuse. The family of a Louisiana prison inmate who died in custody a year ago filed a federal lawsuit Monday alleging he was severely beaten while handcuffed and then denied medical attention before his death. Anthony Carl Smith, 55, was found unresponsive in his cell at the B.B. Sixty Rayburn Correctional Center in the town of Angie last March 10 a year ago Tuesday. The lawsuit says Smith had sought medical attention before he became involved in a "use of force" incident involving several corrections officers. The Washington Parish coroner ruled Smith's death an accident. Five Louisiana prison guards fired after inmate's death; use of force, lack of medical treatment cited State corrections officials fired five guards at a state prison in Washington Parish this summer after an inmate death investigation revealed In the lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, Anthony Smith's father, Richard Smith, sued the State of Louisiana, Rayburn Warden Robert Tanner and multiple current and former employees, blaming them for his son's wrongful death, among other claims. The allegations in the complaint are based primarily on medical records, termination letters for several staff members involved in the incident and media reports, according to the Smith family attorney. Ken Pastorick, spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, said in a statement Monday evening that the department declines to discuss this case, as it is in litigation. Smith was serving a 30-year-sentence for forcible rape and second-degree kidnapping at the time of his death. He had been sentenced in 2013. According to the lawsuit, Smith was diagnosed with major mental health disorders, including major depression with psychotic features. To address his mental illness, Smith was taking medication regularly medication he had not received the morning of his death when he had sought his prescription in a treatment wing of the prison. The lawsuit says Smith's request to check on his prescription led to several corrections officers "maliciously and sadistically beating" him while he was handcuffed in the treatment room. The family's lawyers said in their lawsuit that beatings are common at Rayburn. They said that not only had Smith been beaten while restrained in the past, but other prisoners had suffered the same fate, revealing a pattern of violence ignored by prison administration. Washington Parish prison guards arrested in inmate death previously faced multiple abuse lawsuits Two former corrections officers awaiting trial in the death of an inmate have been accused of abusing inmates in multiple lawsuits stretching Apart from a purported trend of violence at the prison, Smith's mental health diagnosis influenced how he was treated behind bars, the lawsuit alleges. "Prisoners suffering from psychiatric illness are at risk in the prison setting precisely because of their mental illness," the lawsuit says. "They have difficulty following rules, and, because they are mentally ill, they often interact with prison staff in a manner that is perceived as bothersome and annoying." After the beating, Smith "vomited repeatedly and became unconscious and nonresponsive." The corrections officers and nurse on scene did not provide Smith medical care following the beating, the lawsuit alleges. Instead, the corrections captain ordered that a spit mask be placed on Smith's face to prevent him from spitting at officers, but the device had the effect of "forcing him to slowly suffocate on his own vomit." Smith was later transported through the prison in a wheelchair, left in his cell and eventually pronounced dead hours later. The lawsuit claims several officers concealed evidence of their involvement in the beating by deleting a mandated post-use-of-force photograph showing vomit on Smith's face; the nurse responding to Smith's care also falsified a record of his health condition following the beating, the lawsuit says. Furthermore, the corrections officers involved "continued to discuss Mr. Smiths beating and death in the days and weeks that followed in order to cover up their unconstitutional conduct," the lawsuit says. Since Smith's death, the warden has fired five Rayburn corrections officers and a Washington Parish grand jury has indicted three on obstruction and malfeasance charges. +2 Three former Louisiana prison guards indicted on malfeasance, obstruction after inmate death Three Louisiana prison guards fired following the death of an inmate earlier this year at a prison near Bogalusa have been indicted on malfeas In addition to wrongful death, the complaint cites excessive force, failure to intervene, denial of medical care and conspiracy. The lawsuit also claims the state deprived Smith of a safe environment and discriminated against him as a disabled person. Sarah Grady, an attorney with the Chicago-based law firm Loevy & Loevy, released a statement on behalf of the Smith family Monday evening. "Anthony was a beloved son, brother, and uncle," Grady said. "We mourn his loss every day. We hope that this lawsuit can obtain some justice for Anthony and others like him who have been subject to serious abuses at Rayburn by guards who have been allowed to act with impunity." William Most, a New Orleans lawyer, is also representing the Smith family in the lawsuit. Two former corrections officers awaiting trial in the death of an inmate have been accused of abusing inmates in multiple lawsuits stretching back more than a decade, court records show. Five guards at B.B. Sixty Rayburn Correctional Center in the town of Angie were fired in August after state and local authorities conducted a joint investigation into the death of 55-year-old Anthony Carl Smith. Smith was found dead in his cell in March 2019 just hours after a request for medical attention led to a "use of force incident." His death was ruled an accident by the Washington Parish Coroner. Five Louisiana prison guards fired after inmate's death; use of force, lack of medical treatment cited State corrections officials fired five guards at a state prison in Washington Parish this summer after an inmate death investigation revealed Three of the guards involved, including Capt. Brink Hillman and Sgt. Gary King, have been indicted on malfeasance and conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice charges. Both Hillman and King have been the subjects of or mentioned in multiple prisoner lawsuits over the years alleging unnecessary use of force against inmates or claiming other forms of misconduct. Together, the lawsuits describe numerous instances of abuse, beatings and threats, often in concert with other guards at the prison. All of the lawsuits were filed by someone incarcerated at Rayburn. Ken Pastorick, spokesperson with the state Department of Public Safety and of Corrections, said in a statement that the majority of the cases brought against Hillman and King are "more than a decade old." He pointed out three of the cases were dismissed by federal judges, and one was deemed "frivolous." He added his office is unable to comment on the two most recently filed cases, which are less than six months old and remain pending. One of those recent lawsuits mentions Smith's death, implicating King and Hillman. It was filed by inmate Kyron Folse in July, four months after the incident. Folse said in his lawsuit that he overheard Hillman, King and several other officers discussing "a murder," and that witnesses at the prison had seen the officers "kill" Smith on March 10. Since Folse reported the incident, he said a guard had made "multiple threats" toward him, trying to get him to drop his complaint. "Please understand that I am currently housed at the same location where I have this suit against," he wrote. His case remains open. Other suits naming Hillman date back years. Former inmate Jamie Troquille filed a lawsuit in 2007 against then-Sgt. Hillman, along with four other guards at Rayburn. It was dismissed within months on a technical violation that Troquille had not exhausted the internal prison complaint process known as an Administrative Remedy Procedure before filing a civil suit. In his suit, Troquille claimed that, in April 2007, Hillman and three other corrections officers beat him in his cell after Troquille and another guard got into an argument. He alleges one of the officers then cuffed Troquilles wrists and ankles and made him kneel outside the cell, where Hillman and another officer punched him in the face. They then uncuffed him and left him on the floor of his cell, the lawsuit says. Troquille asked Hillman several times to report an emergency because he was vomiting blood and it hurt when (he) breathed, but Hillman refused, the lawsuit says. Troquille said he remained on the floor of his cell spitting blood in the toilet for roughly two hours, until the guard shift changed and a different officer found him. Troquille, who has since been released, would not provide comment on his case. Another suit was filed against Hillman in 2007 that claimed he had stood as lookout while another corrections officer forced an inmate to perform sex acts. The case went to trial before a federal magistrate judge, who ruled in favor of Hillman and the other guards in the suit. Inmate Keith Labat, a former lawyer convicted of theft, forgery and issuing worthless checks, filed a lawsuit in 2008, which was later dismissed. In the lawsuit, Labat alleges Hillman savagely and intentionally beat Labat while his wrists and ankles were shackled, then denied him medical treatment. The lawsuit said his injuries were only treated after Louisiana State Police dispatched two detectives and a ranking prison official to meet with him and assess his condition. When the authorities left, Hillman again restrained Labat and threw him against a wall, Labat said. He claims Hillman told him he was a dead man for reporting the beating and added, apparently referring to State Police, his cavalry will not help him because they would be killed also. Many of these incidents occurred in Sun Unit, the same tier Smith was housed in when he died, according to medical records from the day of his death. Labat has also been released since he filed his suit and, beyond confirming he had filed the complaint, was unable to provide comment for this story. In a different 2008 lawsuit, inmate Sean Walker alleges Hillman forced him to kneel in his cell while restrained by hand-cuff waist belt combination shackles, then let Walker's cellmate attack him. In addition to injuries from the beating, Walker said the attack caused him to experience dizziness, loss of consciousness and a hazy memory for some time after the incident. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed as frivolous. Walker, who has since been released, said in an interview this week that he felt he had been targeted by guards at the facility. After he filed an ARP and then later a lawsuit, Walker said guards started to call him "paper-pusher." "I think (Hillman) thought I would take it lying down," Walker said. "I felt like I was wronged, all the way down to the end." To this day, Walker said he continues to see spots in his vision "floaters" that appeared following the beating. "The floaters never leave," he said. +2 Three former Louisiana prison guards indicted on malfeasance, obstruction after inmate death Three Louisiana prison guards fired following the death of an inmate earlier this year at a prison near Bogalusa have been indicted on malfeas Lawsuits against King allege similar abuses. One inmate, Michael Clennon, claims that in November 2018 mere months before Smith's death King assaulted him while he was restrained in handcuffs. "King knocked him to his knees and then smashed his face on the concrete," the lawsuit says. Even as King beat him, the lawsuit reads, he told Clennon to "stop resisting." After Clennon requested protection from the warden, the warden said Clennon was not in any danger. The lawsuit notes King had attacked other inmates in the past for filing ARPs, and that the warden was well-acquainted with King's "dangerous nature." Clennon's lawsuit remains open. His lawyer, Donna Grodner, did not provide a comment for this story. Another lawsuit from 2008 alleges King, like Hillman, stood lookout by a supply closet in the prison while another guard raped the inmate. After the assault, the inmate emerged from the supply closet to find King "standing there staring at (him), smiling," the lawsuit says. It also says King later tracked down the inmate and warned him he had heard of other inmates "getting messed over badly" for reporting allegations of sexual assault. The lawsuit was settled in 2012, according to court records. Pastorick, the Department of Corrections spokesman, said both parties settled out of court for $1,000. Pastorick said the lawsuit sought $2.12 million and was settled "to avoid the unwarranted time and expense it would have cost to pursue the case." When contacted, King said he did not wish to provide a comment for this story. Calls to Hillman and his lawyer went unanswered. Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul speaks at a press conference held at City Hall on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022 'to discuss public safety strategies and responses to recent violent crime.' He said police intelligence suggests there are currently eight gangs operating in Baton Rouge, and to tackle the problem, the police department is 'micro-targeting' areas with high crime. He told residents of those areas to expect a heavy law enforcement presence in coming weeks. NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson, center, stands in front of John Casbon, left, with the New Orleans Police & Justice Foundation, and the new Consulting Chief of Operations Fausto Pichardo, right, during a press conference at City Hall on Thursday, September 8, 2022. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate) Australia will be in charge of the last moments of NASAs daring mission to smash into an asteroid. NASAs Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, known as DART, is due to deliberately collide with the asteroid Dimorphos which is about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza at 9.15am Australian time on Tuesday. DART is a test of NASAs planetary defence plans. The hope is that an asteroid at risk of striking the Earth could be diverted by hitting it with a spacecraft. This is an Armageddon, Deep Impact and Dont Look Up all rolled into one, said Glen Nagle, spokesman for the CSIRO-managed Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. How do you feel about being responsible for Melissas death? Melissa Caddicks brother asked the lead investigator into Caddicks multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, an inquest has heard. Isabella Allen, the lead investigator from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), told the inquest into the presumed death of Caddick that the conversation with Caddicks brother, Adam Grimley, took place in June 2021. She replied to Grimley: No, I was doing my job. Melissa Caddick during the raid by the AFP. Credit: The inquest has heard that Caddicks husband, Anthony Koletti, via his musical endeavours, has made accusations suggesting ASIC was responsible for his wifes disappearance and presumed death. The Sydney Morning Herald has previously reported that Kolettis songs allege that his wife was tortured and brutally interrogated by ASIC during the execution of the search warrants at their home. The cover art of his album Raid features the same ASICS shoes that his wife was wearing when she disappeared. Following on from a lucky aerial IKEA sighting (C8), the Sydney visit of Gus Silber of Johannesburg and daughter Rachel maintains the retail theme: I pointed out a Coles supermarket to her in Manly this week [must be staying with Rhoda Granny] and used it as an example of the Australian predilection for excessive government regulation. It is illegal in Australia, I explained, for a supermarket to sell a salad consisting of shredded cabbage with a mayonnaise and vinaigrette dressing. Really? she asked. Yes, I explained. Its Coles Law. Her eye-rolling groan could be heard all the way back in Johannesburg. Pretentious Paddington? asks local denizen John Frith. A sign spotted in the window of an up-market clothing shop in Paddington: Fashion Retail Consultant wanted. Shop assistant, maybe? Bill Nardi of Lindendale still eats gramma pies (C8): Have done so all my life, now aged 79. I grow my own grammas every year as did my father before me. My mother always made the pastry herself, but we use store-bought pastry (which is NOT the same). I cook the gramma and add sugar and lemon juice to taste. I doubt my children will continue to grow grammas its a dying art. The recent updates to movie classifications (C8) dont go far enough, reckons Colin Taylor-Evans of Lane Cove: Classify this: TL too long (sit at the end of the aisle for an unobtrusive getaway). BWB book was better (and probably cheaper than the movie ticket). OWB Original was better (buy it on DVD). TSIS This sequel is stupid (example: Cars 2). Finn McMissile sends his regards. While he waits for the cricket to start, Kersi Meher-Homji of St Ives has been crunching the rugby league numbers: The NRL preliminary finals between Parramatta and North Queensland and between Penrith and South Sydney last week were dominated by number 12. At half time, the score was 12-12 in both matches. Then Parramatta added 12 points in the second half to win 24-20. South Sydney was pointless in the second half to lose 12-32. Another coincidence: 44 points were scored in both these matches. This story is part of the VCE Study Guide. See all 8 stories . As year 12 students prepare for their VCE exams, experts are recommending some simple strategies to alleviate stress and set them up for success. The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority says its important for students to be resilient, stay engaged and take care of themselves physically, emotionally and mentally. There are ways to tackle the stress of waiting for VCE results. Credit:Marija Ercegovac Develop healthy habits Australian Psychological Society president Tamara Cavenett says its important to make time for downtime with friends and family and to develop healthy habits to keep things in perspective. WARNING: The video in this article contains vision which may be confronting to some. A Perth man is in intensive care in a Malaysian hospital after being stabbed and beaten outside a nightclub while on holiday. Luke Jeffers, 26, became involved in a brawl in the early hours of Friday in Kuala Lumpur, with the attack caught on video and making local media reports. The confronting vision showed the Australian tourist heavily outnumbered before being left on the floor in a pool of his own blood. NDIS Minister Bill Shorten has opened the door to a potential expansion of the national disability insurance scheme to support more people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is believed to affect one in 20 children. Shorten has asked the National Disability Insurance Agency, which implements the scheme, to give him advice about ADHD diagnoses in terms of eligibility for NDIS, saying neurodivergence was an area where the eligibility requirements were not always clear. NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is seeking advice on a potential expansion of the schemes eligibility. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Advocates are pushing for the neurodevelopmental disorder, which results in poor concentration and impulse control, to be added to the list of primary conditions eligible for NDIS support. There are tens of thousands of people [with ADHD] who are on the scheme who are diagnosed with autism as their primary condition, the minister told reporters in Canberra on Monday. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has urged parents to set better examples for children when engaging on social media, deploring the cesspit of disrespectful engagement led by adults on online platforms. The premier said on Monday that the responsibility of parents to model respectful behaviour was greater than ever after two years of the pandemic in which at-home learning triggered worsening student conduct. Premier Dominic Perrottet and Education Minister Sarah Mitchel meet youth advisory council members Amelia Sedwell, Billy Bofinger and former member Shahim Shabbir (right). Credit:Kate Geraghty Parents, adults in our society, have an obligation to lead and treat people with respect and the reality is, social media becomes more and more of a cesspit, which is led by adults in the main, he said. As adults we have a responsibility to lead by example. We can hardly expect our kids to respect others on social media when we dont ourselves. Jordan De Goey has rejected a contract offer from Collingwood, saying he will not sign a new deal with the behaviour clauses the club is demanding. De Goey told coach Craig McRae and football manager Graham Wright at his exit interview last week that he wanted to stay at the club but would not sign the new five-year contract offer with the existing behaviour clauses. His manager Ryan Vague reaffirmed that position with Wright on Sunday and Monday. Collingwood has changed the clauses several times in negotiations but De Goey believes the clauses Collingwood want are too broad and arbitrary. It is now with Collingwood to decide whether they can reach a compromise. A club source said the Magpies had not given up hope of re-signing De Goey but were uncertain if a deal could be reached. Tokyo: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will fly into a storm of protest in Tokyo surrounding the funeral of Shinzo Abe as other world leaders pull out of the memorial for Japans longest serving prime minister. Albanese along with former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull, John Howard and Tony Abbott will land in a febrile atmosphere in the Japanese capital where Abes $18 million state funeral has drawn growing condemnation from the Japanese public over its costs and the former prime ministers links to a controversial cult. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signs a condolence book for former prime minister Shinzo Abe at Japans embassy in Canberra in July. Credit:AAP Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that he would no longer be attending the service due to Hurricane Fiona hitting parts of eastern Canada. Former US president Barack Obama pulled out last week. Albanese, along with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will be among the highest profile attendees of the event. Albanese said Japan was an important partner for Australia as geopolitical tensions rise across Asia and the Pacific. CCP leader Xi Jinping (C) arrives with Hong Kong's incoming Chief Executive John Lee (facing L) for Lee's swearing in ceremony and to inaugurate the city's new government in Hong Kong on July 1, 2022. (Selim Chtayti/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) 30 Percent of Hong Kong Senior Officials Are CCP-Backed, Violating Conflict of Interest The new Hong Kong government has expanded its infrastructure and added many new positions since the new chief executive of Hong Kong took office in July 2022. Among 14 Senior officials appointed by Chief Executive Of Hong Kong (CE) John Lee Ka-chiu, some are in charge of mainland affairs. Others possess multiple companies and properties in mainland China. But none have responded to queries about how they avoid conflict of interest in personal gain while in public office. Whats more, at least 10 of the new senior officials have Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ties. One scholar disputes the effectiveness of the current declaration system for conflict of interest. Hong Kong Mainland Affairs Official Owns Businesses in China Among the 11 deputy directors in the information the Hong Kong government publicized, pro-CCP member Clement Woo Kin-man, deputy secretary for policies and mainland affairs, owns the most personal properties. Of the 14 properties Woo owns, 3 are in Tai Po, Hong Kong; 10 in Guangzhou, China; and one is in Malaysia. Besides the 14 properties in Asia, Woo owns two plots of land in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Woo and his wife hold multiple companies registered in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Dongguan. Woos wife claims that she is an executive director. Working in the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau entails coordinating and liaising with relevant Central Government departments, promoting joint projects between the mainland and Hong Kong, and organizing the operation of the Hong Kong government office in China. While he was in the office with the last administration, reporters questioned Woo about whether there was a conflict of interest between his job as a civil servant and the assets he and his wife own in China. Woo claimed that he had made all the necessary declarations of his assets. However, he dodged answering how he would avoid conflict of interest between personal and public affairs. According to Chapter V of the Code of the Political Appointment System, politically appointed officials must avoid causing the public to suspect that they are dishonest, unfair, or have conflicts of interest. They must also refrain from cases with actual or potential conflicts of interest. Former Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Hong Kong Baptist University Wong Wai-kwok pointed out the declaration of interests stemmed from the colonial era. The declaration was to make clear that public servants do not benefit from their official status and power. However, the professor stated that as Hong Kong stepped into the CCP era and appointed former police chief John Lee Ka-chiu as CE, the system has become a phantom. Government departments and the Independent Commission Against Corruption ignore potential corruption and conflicts, as if nothing ever happened, Wong says. Due to the lack of media coverage, Hong Kong government officials are not subject to corresponding public pressure or accountability. Among 31 Senior Officials, Nearly Half Are CCP-backed or Related Of the 52 politically appointed officials, over 30 percent are pro-Beijing party members, including Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, Alice Mak Mei-kuen, and Secretary for Financial Service and the Treasury Bureau, Christopher Hui Ching-yu. Professor Wong criticized the Hong Kong government for becoming the Chinese regime, The concept of conflict of interest no longer exists between the current administration and pro-CCP parties. Instead, everyone keeps using each other and upping their benefits. Everyone is here for show only. Jason Chuk-Hung Poon, chairman of CHINAT Monitor, a non-government and independent monitor group, has previously bashed the governments expansion and recreation. If every new chief executive expands and reconstructs his or her governance without changing its functions, then adding more positions will only reward the politically redundant puppets and burden our society. Nie Law and Ying Cheung contributed to this article. General view of the scene where protesters clashed with police outside the Islamic Centre in London, on Sept. 25, 2022. (David Parry/PA Media) 5 Police Officers Seriously Injured in Clashes Outside Iranian Embassy in UK At least five police officers were seriously injured and 12 people arrested after a violent disorder broke out near the Iranian embassy in London on Sunday, the Metropolitan Police said. Dozens of demonstrators gathered at the embassy on Sunday afternoon, as protests spread across the world following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Amini died on Sept. 16 in police custody after being detained by Irans morality police for inappropriate attire. Her death sparked several days of violent protests in Iran and protests in a number of Western cities. Mahsa Amini in a file photo. (IranWire via Reuters) While the majority of the protesters on Sunday were peaceful, the Met said, a significant group who arrived actively sought to confront officers and protestors from groups they were not in agreement with. According to the force, the disorder initially broke out in the immediate vicinity of the embassy before moving to Marble Arch and then to Maida Vale where the Islamic Centre of Englanda body founded by Ayatollah Khameneis representativewas targeted. As the police sought to protect the security of the building, the Met said, they came under attack from protesters, who threw masonry, bottles, and other projectiles at them, injuring a number of officers. At least five are in hospital with injuries including broken bones, the Met said, adding that 12 people were arrested on suspicion of violent disorder. Protesters are asked to leave the area after clashes with police outside the Kilburn Islamic Centre in London, on Sept. 25, 2022. (David Parry/PA Media) Serious Offences Footage shared online showed angry protesters shouting and pushing against officers who had formed a line in front of the embassy on Sunday afternoon. Crowds chanted Death to the Islamic Republic and waved Irans former national flag from before 1979. One particular clip shows two officers wrestling a protester to the ground who appears to have broken through the police line. Commander Karen Findlay said the police know that some people who committed serious offences have slipped the net. In the coming days, we will be using all the tools at our disposalincluding CCTV and other footageto identify those people and bring them to justice, she said. Irans foreign ministry said on Sunday it had summoned Britains ambassador Simon Shercliff in response to the hostile character of London-based Persian language media. Britains foreign ministry said it championed media freedom and condemned Irans crackdown on protesters, journalists, and internet freedom. PA Media and Reuters contributed to this report. SpaceX founder Elon Musk during a T-Mobile and SpaceX joint event, in Boca Chica Beach, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2022. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images) Ahead of Elon Musks Deposition, Judge Denies His Legal Teams Waiver Request for Twitters Privilege to Documents Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick on Friday denied Elon Musks request for a blanket waiver of Twitter Inc.s claim of attorney-client privilege as grounds for withholding documents. The judge noted in the letter issued on Friday that Twitter has asserted attorney-client privilege over 7,220 documents and that Musks legal team has challenged the legitimacy of the claims and the adequacy of Twitters privilege log. Musks team also requested the production of 2,891 discrete items, including emails for which no attorney is present on the to/from/cc/bcc line, 11 email notifications for Google document comments and emails concerning business advice. McCormick asked the parties to address these issues during the Sept. 27 argument. She also noted that she is considering the possibility of an in-camera review of sampling documents withheld, and also whether such a review should be conducted by a third party appointed by the court. Musk will be questioned under oath by Twitter on Monday and Tuesday and the deposition will extend into Wednesday, if necessary, according to a court filing. The lawsuit to enforce Musks $44 billion to buy Twitter will go for a five-day trial, beginning on Oct. 17. By Shanthi Rexaline 2022 The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Disgruntled Airbnb guests are taking to Twitter to vent about everything from cleaning fees to misleading listings. But they arent the only ones with complaints: Airbnb hosts themselves have become increasingly disillusioned with the platform and its disrespectful guests. On message boards and Facebook groups, hosts are sharing their own challenges and horror stories. One host claimed that a group of guests was unwilling to leave the property despite receiving a full refund from Airbnb. I went to the apartment to check what was going on, and I was in shock to discover that the tenants were still in the apartment, the host wrote on the website AirbnbHell. They immediately called the police on me and I was kicked out of my own apartment by a team of the policea complete shock. While these anecdotes might seem like the natural byproduct of the largely unregulated short-term rental industry, they speak to larger trends impacting hosts. A 2021 report from Bloomberg detailed how Airbnbs secretive crisis team spends millions of dollars to limit the publicity of crimes and other incidents at its listings potentially damaging to the companys reputation. And the platform recently launched anti-party technology in an effort to defray hosts frustrations with large, destructive gatherings. These issues raise the question: Is Airbnb itself the problemor are the guests? Silly String and Foul Odors In May of this year, Airbnb launched a new AirCover protection plan for guests and hosts. It promises quick reimbursement for hosts and up to $1 million in damage protection. And while many hosts consider this policy generous, it still comes with plenty of gray areas. Emily Muskin Rathner, a digital marketing professional living in Cleveland, began renting her house on Airbnb in August 2021. She says that hosting has been a pleasant and profitable enterprise overall, but a few guests have caused major problems, including a family that rented the house this June. They left the house a mess, she says. There was human feces on our laundry. They sprayed Silly String all over the place. I dont care about Silly String, but can you pick it up? It left stains, oddly. Muskin Rathner received reimbursement from Airbnb for most of her claims. But some damage, such as nail polish smeared on the bathroom tile, didnt qualify for reimbursement because she wasnt able to provide documentation for the cost of the tile. And then there was the smell. It really, really stunk. The air conditioning had been left off for a weekin June. Red Tape Everywhere The early days of short-term vacation rentals offered hosts a simple proposition: Rent your home and earn some extra money. Yet as the industry has matured, its been met with regulation efforts from local governments. Cities such as Denver and Portland, Oregon, have been cracking down on unlicensed short-term rentals, levying fines against hosts and requiring expensive permits. These policies allow local governments to collect taxes and regulate problematic behavior, but they add one more layer of complexity for hosts, many of whom have little experience in hospitality. Furthermore, many local governments place the burden of tax collection on hosts, not Airbnb. A 2022 analysis by the National League of Cities, an advocacy organization composed of city, town and village leaders, estimated that 82 percent of cities require hosts to remit taxes themselves, while only 5 percent require the platform to do so on hosts behalf. Hosts must now not only act as full-time customer service agents and hospitality experts, but also navigate local regulations and master convoluted taxation laws. Competition From Management Companies The romantic notion of home sharing as a means for homeowners to pay their mortgages has given way to management companies inserting themselves and aiming to maximize profits. And small-time hosts cant keep up with these corporate competitors. A study of short-term rentals in the U.K. found that the number of listings managed by hosts with a single property dropped from 69 percent in 2015 to 39 percent in 2019. And data from the nonprofit Inside Airbnb suggests that only 39.1 percent of properties in Los Angeles are managed by single-property hosts. These mega-hosts are able to operate at scale, maximizing efficiency on everything from pricing adjustments to cleaning staff. Single-property hosts cant keep up, or are unwilling to deal with the hassle, and are being elbowed out of the ecosystem. By Sam Kemmis of NerdWallet The Epoch Times Copyright 2022 The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided. From Our Sponsor: Why Now Is the Time to Buy Gold & Silver with Goldco. Call 855-973-0470 for your FREE Wealth Protection Kit Today! In this episode of American Thought Leaders, Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz discusses his book, The Price of Principle: Why Integrity is Worth the Consequences, and argues that unprincipled partisanship has taken over America. How dare they call themselves progressives, says Dershowitz. They are regressive. They are reactionaries. They are repressors. One of the top constitutional lawyers in the country, and a self-described liberal Democrat, Dershowitz has been excoriated by both the right and the left for defending highly unpopular public figures. People love me when I defend people they like and they hate me when I defend people they dont like, says Dershowitz. The more unpopular you are, the more likely I am to want to defend you. Dershowitz shares his thoughts on COVID-19 mandates and censorship, due process and civil liberties, as well as the rise of antisemitism in America. You see these protests against Zionism by people who have no idea what Zionism is, claims Dershowitz. Ive been a Zionist from the time I was born. All it meant is that the Jewish people, like every other people, have a right to a homeland. Note: Our team contacted Virginia Giuffre about Dershowitzs allegations against her, but we did not immediately receive a response. Subscribe to the American Thought Leaders newsletter so you never miss an episode. * Click the Save button below the video to access it later on My List. Jan Jekielek: Alan Dershowitz, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. Alan Dershowitz: Thank you so much for having me. Mr. Jekielek: Your book, The Price of Principle, comes at the right time for me. These are exactly the kinds of questions I have been kind of struggling with. Has partisanship completely taken over? In a sense, has partisanship almost become principle? Mr. Dershowitz: I would say partisanship has taken over, but its an utterly unprincipled partisanship. If you ever dare to put principle before partisanship, youre canceled. Your group wont have anything to do with you. You have to be 100 per cent partisan no matter what the principles are. Ill give you an example. Caroline Kennedys father wrote the famous book, Profiles in Courage. I showed a little bit of courage defending President Trump in his impeachment, even though Im a liberal Democrat and voted against him twice. Caroline Kennedy said if she knew that I had been invited to this dinner party, she never would have come. The public library in Chilmark, Massachusetts, a bastion of liberalism, canceled my speeches and stopped circulating my books, all because they dont like who I defended. Even though I vote the same way they vote, thats not good enough. They say that I, enabled President Trump by being one of his lawyers on behalf of the Constitution. Thats how far weve gotten. Mr. Jekielek: You say in the book that principles have actually become a weapon for partisanship. What do you mean? Mr. Dershowitz: People claim principle, but theyre using it in a partisan way. Its the opposite of principle. Its doublespeak. Today, you cannot be a principled person. If you are a principled person, youll be punished for it. Nobody wants principle. Nobody wants consistency. The Republicans are perfectly happy to say, Oh, were not going to allow Merrick Garland to get a hearing for the Supreme Court, because its eight months before the election. And then a few weeks before the election when President Trump nominates Justice Barrett, they say, Oh, thats fine. And you ask them, Whats the principle? And the principle is, Because we can. We have the votes to do it. The Democrats do the same thing. They silence people. They attack people, particularly in academia today. I just learned something last night. I was having dinner with the president of one of the city universities in New York. She said that at the City College of New York, where I went to Brooklyn College, the law school faculty has now voted unanimously to boycott Israel, and only Israel. They had as their primary speaker at graduation a guy who advocates terrorism against Israel, and doesnt believe it has a right to exist. I dont want to debate Israel here today, but if a student at that university dares to dissent from the facultys unanimous vote, theyre not going to get recommended for a job on Wall Street or for a clerkship. Thats not education. Thats propaganda. In 50 years of teaching at Harvard, I never once expressed a personal point of view in class. I taught the students how to think, not what to think. Today, classrooms are propaganda mills, and theyre our future leaders. Mr. Jekielek: You have a chapter in the book talking about systemic racism. As an assessment, are we still systemically racist? It made me think about this whole woke movement. Essentially, it is partisanship masquerading as principle, isnt it? Mr. Dershowitz: It is. Meritocracy is a dirty word. You cant use meritocracy. Thats white supremacy. There has to be racial advantage. But when theres racial advantage, theres racial disadvantage. Look at the Harvard case. Whos suing Harvard? It is Asian students, because theyre being discriminated against because of quotas for black students. That case is going up to the Supreme Court, which I think will decide it the right way. But you know what will happen? Universities will cheat. All the major universities will cheat. They will still have racial quotas, but theyll describe them as something else. Is that different from what the south did when it totally avoided the Supreme Courts decision on desegregation? The south cheated, too. They pretended that they werent segregating, when they were. Universities shouldnt be cheating and shouldnt be looking for ways to circumvent Supreme Court decisions, but I assure you they will. Mr. Jekielek: Before we continue, I have a message from one of our sponsors. For all of you with retirement savings accounts, Americas federal debt is now at $30 trillion and our policies during this pandemic are causing inflation to soar to multi-decade highs. A lot of folks are rightly worried about what this will mean for their retirement savings. You can protect your life savings with the only thing that has always held value, physical gold and silver. To get started, you can call Gold Co at 855-973-0470 for a free wealth protection kit. They have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. They guarantee highest price buybacks and they always offer free shipping. Ask how you can even get $10,000 or more in free silver. Dont wait. Call 855-973-0470. Now, thats 855-973-0470. Mr. Jekielek: Do you see these Harvard student quotas as a form of racism? Mr. Dershowitz: No, its an attempt to eliminate racism. But its a very, very awkward attempt, and it introduces new elements of racism. Its not going to work in the end. We are not a systemically racist country. Were a systemically anti-racist country. When I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, we were a systemically racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Latino country, and that changed dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s. When I graduated from Yale Law School, first in my class, editor-in-chief of the Law Review, and a potential Supreme Court law clerk, I didnt even get an interview, except for one Wall Street firm. I applied to 32 Wall Street firms. They all turned me down. That was systemic racism. That doesnt exist in America today. Today, we have sporadic racism, which the government tries very hard to overcome and sometimes overreacts. Perhaps the most significant event in transforming America in the 21st century may well be the killing of George Floyd. That changed everything in corporations, in the media, and in universities. We were right to have a reckoning about race. The killing of George Floyd was inexcusable and horrible, but this event transformed us so dramatically. The transformation was already occurring. It was already on the way, but that one event changed it so quickly and so dramatically, and the result is not equality. The result is to introduce a new kind of inequality, and an anti-meritocratic approach. Mr. Jekielek: Many people have argued that this basically allowed this illiberal movement that you describe in multiple ways in the book to come out. It was an opportunity to codify it and make it official. Mr. Dershowitz: I think thats right. Less radical people, from the communists in the 1930s and 1940s to todays woke generation look for opportunities. They find events and use them to project their narrative and to project their agenda. The thing thats so hard about it is theyre often right. Many of these are decent people, the ones who now want to impose censorship on universities. I tend to agree with a lot of their substantive points of view. I just dont agree with the means. They dont care about means. They think the ends justify the means. Their utopia is going to be achieved, and so we dont need the barriers of equal protection, due process, and free speech. Why do you need free speech if you already know The Truth with a capital T? Why do you need due process? If you already know that a man who is accused by a woman is, of course, guilty, why do we need to have a trial? You may have seen just the other day, in that case that was on the Serial podcast for many months, the prosecution agreed to release the guy who had been wrongly convicted, and had been in jail for so many years. The Left loves it when somebody they identify with is released, but they dont want to apply the same due process standards to President Trump, or to a white person who was accused of oppressing blacks. I dont like it when that happens, but Ill defend anybody who the government is after. The more unpopular you are, the more likely I am to want to defend you. Mr. Jekielek: Are you familiar with Marcuses principle of repressive tolerance? As youre speaking, this is what Im thinking about. Mr. Dershowitz: Oh, very much so. I grew up with that. He was at Brandeis University when I started at Harvard University, and he was a neo-fascist of the Left. He was one of the first academics who justified censorship, and justified repression. He said over and over again, Theres no reason to let them have their ideas expressed. We know were right. This was part of the so-called Berlin School of whatever. Its interesting, because although it grew out of anti-Nazism, it turned into its own form of fascism. So, Marcuse was kind of the godfather of the woke repressionist movement. How dare they call themselves progressives? They are regressives. They are reactionaries. They are repressors. They want to stop due process and free speech and equal protection. Mr. Jekielek: I think you meant the Frankfurt School, is that right? Mr. Dershowitz: Yes. Thats what I meant. Mr. Jekielek: There are three principles that have dominated your life. Im going to read them, because I found this very valuable. Number one; freedom of expression and conscience. Number two; due process, fundamental fairness, and the adversary system of seeking justice. I want to get into that because its very underappreciated why this is so critical. Number three; basic equality and meritocracy. You argue that these three things are fundamental. The moment you dispense with any one of them, things fall apart. Mr. Dershowitz: Yes. The one thats the most unpopular today is the adversary system. If you want to appreciate defense lawyers like me, go to Iran, go to the Soviet Union, go to Russia, go to China, or go to Cuba where people cant get defense lawyers. Dont wish for things that you dont want. People say Im such a horrible person because I defended O.J. Simpson. I defended Leona Helmsley. I defended so and so. Yes, and Im going to continue to do that, just the way John Adams defended those who were accused of the Boston Massacre, and Abraham Lincoln defended unpopular people. Clarence Darrow did. Thurgood Marshall did. Its the essence of our system, and yet its very unpopular. People love me when I defend people they like, and they hate me when I defend people they dont like. People walk up to me in the street and say, We used to like you and respect you. Now were so disappointed. I say to them, You were wrong to ever respect me or like me. I was never on your side. I was on the side of due process and justice and civil liberties. Back in the day, things came out on their side. But today, the victims of due process and civil liberties are often Republicans, conservatives, Christians, Jews, and people who are not popular with the woke generation. Mr. Jekielek: Im also going to read something which I pulled from the book. It was a powerful quote from H.L. Mencken that I hadnt been aware of, The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of ones time defending scoundrels, for it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning, if it is to be stopped at all. Wow. Mr. Dershowitz: I think of that every day when Im accused of defending Donald Trump. In many ways, Donald Trump is a scoundrel. I dont agree with him. I voted against him. If he committed a crime, I would want to see him impeached or go to prison. Im not rooting for him. But I dont want to see the laws applied against him. And now, so many civil libertarians want to expand the criminal law. Ill give you an example. Theres a statute called the Espionage Act of 1917, the most hated law by the liberals. They got Eugene V. Debs with it. They got Dr. Spock with it. They got Daniel Ellsberg. The liberals all said, Oh my god, we have to abolish that statute. Now, you have the New York Times and the liberals editorializing in favor of expanding that statute and applying it broadly to the Donald Trumps or the sedition statutes. They were used against anarchists and communists in the 1910s and 20s. Now they want to use them against people who participated in January 6th. Now Im opposed to what happened on January 6th, but Im more opposed to using sedition laws to try to get them. This was a protest that got out of hand. A violent protest that shouldnt have happened. But dont overreact by keeping people in prison for months without a trial and charging them with sedition, as some people want to do. My former colleague, Laurence Tribe, has suggested that the Attorney General of the United States should prosecute Donald Trump for attempting to murder Vice President Pence. My God, what would that do to the rule of law? There is no law of attempts that would apply to that. Tribe is making it up, but hes willing to make it up if its to get Trump. By the way, thats the title of my next book, Get Trump. It will be about how the attempt to get Trump is destroying civil liberties and human rights in America. Mr. Jekielek: You have views on the election, views on free speech, and these things come together around Trump, so well talk about that in a moment. Before we get there, I want to finish this piece. You said youre on the side of justice, but you also make this really interesting distinction. You cite Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes who says, No, Im on the side of law. Im not on the side of justice. It isnt necessarily obvious why these things are not the same. Mr. Dershowitz: Ill give you an example. Today to convict somebody, you have to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. What if he is guilty, but theres no evidence of reasonable doubt? And so you have a guilty person going free. Thats not justice. Thats the law. Thats a good law. Its better that ten guilty go free, than one innocent be wrongly convicted. Thats a good law. It emanates from the Bible, from Abrahams arguments with God over the sinners of Sodom. But its not justice, and I have produced injustice on some occasions. Yes, I have occasionally gotten guilty people off. I dont lose any sleep when I do that. Let me tell you I lose sleep when I get an innocent person convicted. Thats only happened a very, very few times in my life, but it has destroyed me, because then I say its my fault. If a guilty person is set free, thats part of our system. Its better that ten go free. But if an innocent person is convicted, I cant deal with that. Its so hard. Thats why I fight so hard against that happening. Mr. Jekielek: Its foundational that you follow the law, and you dont make exceptions. Mr. Dershowitz: Thats right. Now look, you can have lawless law. If I were living in Nazi Germany, I wouldnt follow the law. But we live in a country of law, and our legal system is a good one. It doesnt always produce the right results. Im not Socrates. I wouldnt drink the hemlock. There isnt room for civil disobedience. Ill give you a wonderful example. My grandfather was poor as a church mouse. He had no resources, and lived in a small place. On the eve of the Nazi invasion, he found out that he had 28 relatives in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He went around to every neighbor and said, You have a basement thats now a synagogue. You need a rabbi. You need a cantor. He had 28 false affidavits, and saved the lives of 28 people from Nazi Germany. It was the proudest moment in his life. If you ask me what I admire most among the wonderful things done by my family, I say its my grandfathers illegality in helping to bring in those 28 people. They are now among the most accomplished Americans. One of them was chairman of the Department of Engineering at Columbia. Another one is a major investor in medical technology. Another is a rabbi in Los Angeles. Another is a public relations person. These are great Americans, and they were brought out of the Holocaust by an illegal act. That is why I tend to be sympathetic to immigrants who will do anything to come to America to save themselves from prosecution. Mr. Jekielek: In the book, you mentioned the case of Jussie Smollett. If I recall correctly, his case was dismissed at one point. Presumably, it was dismissed on some kind of principle, even though the law definitely didnt suggest that it should be dismissed. Subsequently, it got re-litigated. Im thinking that the prosecutor dropping the charges imagined they were following some sort of principle thats greater than the law. Mr. Dershowitz: Yes, but the principle there was one that they would be embarrassed to articulate, because it was completely based on improper considerations like race. The real villain there was Don Lemon, who just recently got fired by CNN, but didnt get fired soon enough. He was a very close friend of Smollett and gave him legal advice about how to not give the phone to the police. He never disclosed it when they interviewed him on television, whereas Chris Cuomo was fired. I have a chapter in my book about CNN. CNN doctored a tape of mine, they doctored a tape. They made me say exactly the opposite of what I had said. I said that a president could be and should be impeached if he committed criminal behavior or criminal-like behavior. But they had me saying a president cant be impeached, even if he commits criminal behavior, even murder. Therefore Im like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. Thats why Im suing CNN for their unprincipled distortion of what I had to say. I strongly believe in the First Amendment, but the First Amendment doesnt give the media the right to make up defamatory stories in order to serve their partisan interests. Mr. Jekielek: When you realized that tape was doctored, what was your reaction? Mr. Dershowitz: I couldnt believe it, because I had been a guest on CNN many, many, many times. But as soon as I defended Trump, my status changed. I knew that, and thats okay. Theyre a network with an agenda. But they doctored a tape like this, and took my words out. I had used these words in my answer on the Senate floor; unlawful, illegal, corrupt, in order to define what would constitute an impeachable offense. They took out those three words, just as if they had taken scissors to snip them out, and then had commentators saying, Dershowitz says a president can do anything thats unlawful or legal or corrupt, when I had said exactly the opposite. So, I sued them. I hate to sue. I had never sued anybody in my life until I was 75 years old, and now Im involved in three lawsuits. Mr. Jekielek: You said there were three things you did that changed you from being seen as one of the top legal minds in the nation, to being some kind of pariah in certain social circles. Mr. Dershowitz: Okay. Representing Trump was number one, and that put me in the margins of academia. CNN contributed to that by distorting what I had to say. Number two was representing Jeffrey Epstein, which I did and got him a good deal. He didnt like the deal, but most people think it was too good of a deal. And the third, as the result of representing Jeffrey Epstein, I was accused by a woman named Virginia Giuffre, who I never met and never heard of, having sex with her on seven occasions, including in front of my house in a limousine in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in places that I never was during the relevant time period. Her own lawyer admitted on tape that she was, Wrong, simply wrong. Her other lawyer admitted that she was wrong. There were emails that we discovered that they tried to suppress which admitted she never knew me, and yet people believed it. But its interesting, what these different people think. The people on the liberal Left dont believe the sexual charges against me. They only attack me because of the Trump business. Others dont attack me on the Trump business, but they attack me because if Ive been accused, then I must be guilty. I wrote another book on that called Guilt by Accusation, where I clearly document how its impossible for me to have ever been in the same place where she was, under the circumstances she suggests, including, as I say, sex in a limousine in Cambridge, Massachusetts with two women. She just has a phenomenal imagination. But Ive clearly proved her to be a serial liar, and Im suing her now. Shes suing me, and it will be resolved in court. Mr. Jekielek: We live in this time where identity plays a role in ascribing guilt or innocence. In a sense, this has infected almost all areas of inquiry. Are you seeing this? Mr. Dershowitz: The ACLU is dead in the water now. They dont defend people on college campuses from being denied free speech or due process. For the most part, they have become a partisan, political organization Mr. Jekielek: Alan, I want to switch gears and go into your book, The Case for Vaccine Mandates. This is something that Ive been following very closely. Its based on the idea that the vaccines need to reduce the spread of the virus for there to be a case for mandates. Right? Mr. Dershowitz: Thats absolutely right. If you invented a new vaccine that could immediately stop all heart attacks, all cancer, and all diabetes, I would be opposed to the government requiring you to take it. I would urge you to take it, but I would not allow the government to make you take it. According to John Stuart Mill principles, the only way the government can force you to do something is to prevent harm to others. However, if there is a vaccine, even if it doesnt help you personally, if it helps to prevent the spread of a deadly disease, then as a last resort I would allow the government to compel you to take it. I own a letter written in the hand of Alexander Hamilton dictated by George Washington in which he urges his commanders to make every soldier in the American Revolutionary War get vaccinated against smallpox. Essentially, he says, Were not going to lose to the Brits, but we might lose to smallpox. But I agree with you that the key point is that the vaccine has to prevent contagion, and that burden hasnt yet been satisfied, at least with the earlier vaccines. The current new vaccine claims that it does prevent the spread. Thats a scientific fact. Now, well have to wait and see whether its borne out by the research. Mr. Jekielek: Heres a question. I can imagine the people that were very pro-mandate at the beginning would grab Alan Dershowitzs book and say, Look, Alan Dershowitz says that there is a case for mandates. Whereas, as we know, these genetic vaccines certainly didnt stop the spread, and in some cases, some of the research is now showing that theyre actually promoting viral replication, as opposed to the opposite. Heres the thing I want to get at. Early on we were told by pundits and politicians that the vaccines would stop the spread, but there was a suppression of information and a quelling of voices of scientists who were seeing through serious research that it was just the opposite. How do we deal with this sort of thing in a legal framework? Mr. Dershowitz: Its very hard, and I was completely against trying to censor. I was willing to debate Robert Kennedy, who I disagreed with. Nobody else was willing to debate him. We had a really good debate about these issues. Science is science and it should never be suppressed. I wrote a piece in March of 2020 saying, Believe science, be skeptical of scientists. Back then, in March, 2020, scientists were making two claims. Number one, they were saying that the virus is not spread by aerosol, its only spread by touching. Number two, they were saying, Dont buy masks. Masks are no good. In the second one, they were making a deliberate lie. They knew that masks were good, because the doctors were using them. They just didnt want us, the non-doctors, to hoard the masks, and so they were willing to mislead us. As to the first point, I said, Youre just demonstrably wrong. If the virus spread by touching, it would spread much more slowly. Touching is not something that induces quick spreading. Obviously, it has to be something that comes from aerosol. I was proven correct in both instances, but I was so criticized when I wrote that article. Because they said, How dare you challenge the medical establishment? Well, I did, and you did, and others did. Thats a healthy way to go. I still promote vaccination for people who choose to have it. But until its proven that it really can prevent the spread of contagion, I would be reluctant to go to the ultimate step. Government force should always be used only as a last resort, and only after all other alternatives have been tried, and only if the justification is clear. There is Supreme Court precedent allowing it, probably, but that doesnt mean its the right thing. Mr. Jekielek: We did a very thorough literature review around mask use. There are many papers now that have tried to address this both in vivo, and in vitro, so to speak. Theres a very marginal benefit for masks that arent fully sealed like the N95 versions. There are still places that enforce these kinds of mask mandates. But then on the other hand, you have Governor Ron DeSantis prohibiting municipalities from creating these vaccine or mask mandates. What are your thoughts? Mr. Dershowitz: I dont like governors telling cities what to do. Governors should have limited power. They dont make the law, they enforce the law. Were in a period of relative uncertainty. I carry around my N95 mask every day. I wear it. I put it on right. I seal it. Thank God. I want to cross my fingers I havent gotten COVID. Im 84 years old with some medical conditions, so I tried very hard to avoid that. I was at a scientific event the other night. There were about a hundred world famous scientists and I was the only one wearing a mask. So obviously, either scientists arent sure, or theyre willing to take a risk themselves in order to have better social interaction. But I continue to wear the mask. Im entitled to make that decision. Im probably not entitled to impose it on you. For example, Im sitting on an airplane and youre sitting next to me. I wear my mask. Am I entitled to tell you to put it on a mask, if youre sitting next to me? And if your mask would reduce spreading more than me wearing a mask alone, then you wearing a mask too would help reduce the spreading. I think if I ask politely, I am. Im not sure Im entitled to compel you to wear the mask. These are hard questions, and its a work in progress. I commend people who take varying points of view on this and let the debate continue. I dont want to see a singular point of view. I would like to see more people be very conservative on this, which means wear the mask, take the vaccine. When in doubt, do that. But government compulsion is not something Im in favor of. Actually, the title of my book, The Case for the Vaccine Mandate was a little misleading. It should have been, The Case for the Vaccine Mandate Under the Right Conditions as a Last Resort, but books with titles like that dont sell, so my publisher shortened the title. Mr. Jekielek: Theres another element to these vaccines, especially the genetic vaccines. Its a new technology. This is the first time its really been deployed, and certainly the first time its been deployed on this scale. One of the big concerns of people is the right to informed consent around medications. The potential harms of the vaccine, or even the known harms that have since come out through FOIAs on the Pfizer documents were largely hidden from the public. Mr. Dershowitz: Everybody should be fully advised and fully informed, even if the information hurts the narrative of the government, and even if it results in fewer people being vaccinated. Information should never be suppressed in the name of an agenda, so Im completely in favor of making sure that all the information is always released. Mr. Jekielek: You make a distinction between your personal view and the legal view. I find it very interesting that you make that distinction. What does the law have to say in a situation where information like this is withheld, and at multiple levels? It could be withheld by companies which stand to profit. It could be withheld by Big Tech. It could be withheld by media in general. You have a chapter in the book talking about media taking incredibly partisan positions or very convenient positions for whatever reasons. Where does the law stand on this and how does one deal with this, especially if it turns out there were very serious personal harms caused by withholding such information? Mr. Dershowitz: Basically, the law makes a tri-part act distinction,. Theres the government. The government should not withhold anything except material essential to national security, like the names of spies, or the location of nuclear weapons. Thats the government. Second, there are quasi-governmental organizations like the FDA that control private pharmaceutical companies, that are halfway between government and private. And then, there are purely private companies, where the government has very little control over whats disseminated, except if it is fraudulent, and even if it is fraudulent, if theyre not on the stock market and if theyre not selling certain materials. Unfortunately, just lying to the public is not a crime. In the Theranos case that was tried recently, the people who were in charge got convicted. Unfortunately, the lawyer escaped liability, in my view should have been convicted. But its really a work in progress. Just today, some courts rendered decisions about the freedom of the internet and whether the internet can make rules about censoring materials. This is probably the most interesting and difficult free speech question of the 21st century, and Im glad to be involved in it. I dont have a simple minded solution, obviously. The presumption is in favor of letting-it-out speech, then it has to be overcome by very strong arguments on the other side. Mr. Jekielek: In the typical situation where there is a novel virus, and people dont know how to deal with it, what will happen typically is doctors will go out and try to find ways to treat it based on the utility and the safety of the various drugs that they may be testing. Depending who you are, there are particularly famous or infamous drugs of that nature. But right now there are something like 20 or 30 different therapeutics that can be used for early treatment of COVID. Some of them are licensed in here in the U.S. Some of them are in other countries. Its a whole big mix. Heres my question. There was an inordinate focus on using vaccines to deal with the virus, which has its own issue, because coronaviruses mutate so much. Im not going to go into the details, but its a questionable thing whether vaccines are the optimal thing for a highly mutable virus. At the same time, people were looking at various therapeutics and found various levels of efficacy. If there is evidence of a deliberate intent to prevent therapeutics from being used against this disease, therapeutics that showed efficacy in clinical trials, how does the law deal with this? Is there some way to address this, because it would seem to be a huge problem. Mr. Dershowitz: Its a huge problem, and the law does not adequately address it, because it doesnt involve producing a product thats fraudulent. Look, we know there is some very good therapy. I know people who have been involved in the development of some of these therapeutics that work, and everybody should know about all of them and should have access to them. And believe me, if I ever got COVID, the first thing I would do is to call my friend and say, What should I take? Everybody wants the best medical care, and the government has a role to play, but it shouldnt be the role of medical dictator and medical czar. Mr. Jekielek: Lets jump to the free speech issue. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed this Federal District Court ruling that was blocking the implementation of the Texas law, HB 20. Are you familiar with this? Mr. Dershowitz: Not by name, but tell me about it. Probably, I am. Mr. Jekielek: Texas can implement this law that prevents social media networks from censoring users based on ideology, and based on their politics. That was blocked by the Federal District Court and now that block has been rescinded by the Fifth Circuit. You said this is one of the most difficult areas that we are facing right now. Please explain to me why this is so difficult. Mr. Dershowitz: Because its about private people and private companies. Big as they are, theyre claiming their First Amendment right to decide what to put on their platforms, and theyre claiming the right to censor. You know, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison would be turning over in their graves if they thought that giant private companies could do what the government cant do, and that is censor. Now, there have been some theories that have been proposed, like the theory of common carrier. Back in the day, even though they were private, train companies or telegraph companies were regulated by the law. There is a case to be made for that. There are cases on both sides of this. Theres a case to be made that Google and Facebook and Twitter and others have become common carriers, and maybe are subject to some regulation. But you dont want to give the government too much power over these companies, either. Imagine if we had a totalitarian country with a tyrant being able to control Google. You would want it to be free. So, these are such hard questions. Its the kind of thing I would spend a whole semester on if I was still back teaching at Harvard where I was for 50 years. Mr. Jekielek: When these companies are effectively almost infrastructure, very much like a phone system. they can become the tyrant. Mr. Dershowitz: Of course. Yes. Mr. Jekielek: Or both can become tyrants, which is an incredibly troubling proposition. Mr. Dershowitz: But its less troubling if each becomes a tyrant and theyre against each other. So, that at least gives the two tyrants the opportunity to fight with each other. The worst possibility is if theres only one tyrant, or if the government takes over everything. Thats why there is some concern. Look at whats going on in Russia today where the government is obviously controlling the media. Theyre not doing a particularly good job. By the way, its become much harder for governments to control the media. In China and Iran they try hard, but with the internet and with other methods of communications, things sneak out now. When I was representing dissidents in the Soviet Union back in the 1970s, they would circulate what was called samizdat. They would type a pamphlet and theyd make 10 copies. The 10th copy you probably couldnt read, because it was done with carbon paper. Then, they would distribute them. That was their method of circumventing censorship. Today of course, we have more high tech methods of doing it, and its a continuing war. Its a war with some positive consequences for free speech, because it means that there isnt one unit anywhere that controls everything, and thats the key to avoiding tyranny. Mr. Jekielek: That is a hugely valuable point. Ill read this from the courts opinion, Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say. So, thats at the Fifth Circuit now. Apparently, its going to go up the chain. Mr. Dershowitz: I think so. Thats a statement that Jefferson would probably agree with. You know, I own a letter from Thomas Jefferson when he was president, written in his own hand on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He talked about the importance of free speech, and how nothing should be censored, so long as there is the opportunity to correct errors. And of course, thats not so easy on the internet. When CNN defamed me, it went all over the world. And when I tried to say no, they edited the tape. Yes, I got page 28, or two minutes at the end of a TV show. But by that time, the damage had been done. There is a quote that has been attributed to Winston Churchill, Lies get halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its shoes on. That was before the internet. With the internet, of course, its clearer. The same thing happens with accusations. This false accusation of me became a front page story, and the conclusive proof that I couldnt have done any of the things I was alleged to have done hardly got covered. Mr. Jekielek: Absolutely. Now were getting to a case in point, and Im going to be talking about the Hunter Biden laptop censorship. So, we have elected government. And we have this unelected bureaucracy of Big Tech and legacy all telling their story. Let me lay out a couple of things which are relevant. First of all, in late 2019, the FBI collects the laptop, verifies it, knows its real, and is sitting on it for its own reasons. Later, we have Zuckerberg telling us that the FBI told Facebook to watch out for Russian disinformation just prior to the New York Post publishing on the Hunter Biden laptop. After this publication, we have five past CIA directors and other well known people in the establishment saying that this laptop has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. And this is all before the 2020 election. Now fast forward to today, where everyone agrees the Hunter Biden laptop is real, and the contents are authentic. Now, you have people like Jack Dorsey saying it was a mistake to do this censorship. What is your take here? Mr. Dershowitz: Its always a mistake to do censorship. Always let the story play out. We never know what the truth is, and what its not, particularly in the context of Russia, in the context of American elections, or in the context of partisan media. Nobody should censor any of this. I dont know what the truth is. I dont know what the answer is. There seems to be enough to raise a level of suspicion, but I want to hear all sides of the issue. I dont want to be told by big media or by the government, No, this doesnt deserve to be aired. Look, I voted for Joe Biden. I support Joe Biden. Id like to see him reelected if he runs. But I want the truth to come out about his son and the laptop. Thats more important than who gets elected. Mr. Jekielek: Okay, but lets go back a little bit. In the book and elsewhere you said the election was free and fair. Mr. Dershowitz: No, no, no. No, I didnt say that. I said the results of the election were correct. I think there were problems with the election. I think Pennsylvania acted unconstitutionally. I think there are questions about voting machines. I think there are questions about mail-in ballots. I think we have to make sure that the next elections are beyond reproach. But I have not seen any evidence that would support the conclusion that Donald Trump was elected rather than that Joe Biden was elected. So, my views are a little bit more complicated. Mr. Jekielek: Thats actually great for me to understand. But I want to sort of move all that aside, all the stuff around machines or whether the votes were cast properly or not. Lets just take all that aside. You could argue convincingly that this Hunter Biden laptop revelation was supposed to be the October surprise for the side of the Republicans. And indeed, theres been polls done on this that if people understood that this was a real thing and knew that it existed at all, in many cases they might have voted differently. Does this constitute a form of election interference? What does the law have to say about this? Or is doing stuff like this perfectly legit, where you have all these massive institutions essentially telling the same story which turns out to be false? Mr. Dershowitz: Well find out. The truth, falsity, gray somewhere in between, we dont know. But the law doesnt protect against false information that impacts an election. We know that the election of 2020 may very well have been impacted by James Comeys ill-advised statement about Hillary Clinton. Everybody always expects October surprises, and its the nature of the media. Why do we say October? Because if they do it in October, its too late to correct it in November. So, the Justice Department has a rule that we dont make public announcements on the eve of an election, because they could impact the election. The media has the opposite rule. Generally, they go out of their way to make disclosures that could impact the election. Then finally, you have the selective media. They wont make disclosures if they dont help their favorite candidate, or if they hurt their favorite candidate. So, thats what we have to be worried about, but the law doesnt really have anything to say about it, unfortunately. Mr. Jekielek: We have seen all these huge institutions effectively work in concert. We dont know exactly how it happened. We were seeing some resolution due to FOIA emails around this. But are there no remedies? Is this something that could happen again? I find this very troubling. Mr. Dershowitz: It is troubling. It could happen again. The answer has to be in the court of public opinion, where all sides have to be given an opportunity to strongly make their view, and try to persuade the public. It becomes a strong issue in a political campaign that the other side is suppressing information. But to allow the law to come in and tell the media what to do would be difficult. Of course, the government is different. The government shouldnt be selectively suppressing anything. But if all sides say, Were not going to make disclosures within months of an election, that may be fair. But they cant do it selectively. Mr. Jekielek: I understand your position on the election now, and thats good. I understand its nuanced. But this kind of activity, which has nothing to do with specific ballots, but it has everything to do with influencing public opinion, precludes people from being able to see both sides of the issue, for lack of a better term. This is the issue thats concerning to me. Mr. Dershowitz: Lets go back several years earlier when then businessman Donald Trump was trying to influence the election of Barack Obama by falsely claiming that he was not eligible for running for president. It was false on two grounds. First, he wasnt born in Kenya. He was born in Hawaii. Second, he could have been born on the moon or in Kenya or in communist China and he would still be eligible to run, because his mother was a citizen, and that makes him a natural born citizen. So, it was wrong in every regard. What should the media do with something like that? We know that a story like that might influence the outcome of the election, but its patently false. So, we dont want the government to come in and say, Heres the distinction. One story is true. One story is false. The last thing we want is the government to determine truth or falsity. My view is that all these stories ought to come out. Let the public judge them. And thats what happened with the Obama argument. It went out there. It was out in public. People saw documents, and in the end most people disbelieved it. Mr. Jekielek: Okay. And when the government appears to be putting its finger on the scale, how do we deal with that? Mr. Dershowitz: Well, then you can file lawsuits. You can bring legislation. Mr. Jekielek: Finally, please talk about this element of systemic racism that we discussed earlier. Mr. Dershowitz: Yes. Mr. Jekielek: Is the U.S. A systemically racist country? You argue no, because of these changes that we discussed earlier. But theres lots of evidence that anti-Semitism is very much on the rise in this country, both anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. What is the relationship? Some people say that Zionism itself is a huge problem. Please talk about this, because you have some very good ideas about it. Mr. Dershowitz: There was a very good program by Ken Burns on television about the role of America during the Holocaust. It was so clear that America in the 1920s and 1930s was a systemically anti-Semitic country. Jews werent allowed to work in Wall Street. They werent allowed to work in law firms. They werent allowed to live in neighborhoods, and the government stood behind it. They werent allowed to go to certain clubs. That was pure anti-Semitism, and that basically disappeared with the Second World War. Whats come up after that, largely as a result of people from the hard Left like the Berrigan brothers and Noam Chomsky and others, is that theres a new disguise for anti-Semitism, and its called anti-Zionism. I remember when one of the prominent black leaders, Stokely Carmichael, said, Zionists are selling us rotten meat in Harlem. Now, what does that mean? There are no Zionists in Harlem to speak of. They were Jewish butchers, and he didnt like them, so he called them Zionists and that protected him from attack. Now, we see arguments that Zionists have too much control over the American media. You know, The New York Times is an anti-Zionist newspaper. The Washington Post is certainly not pro-Zionist. So, Zionism becomes a euphemism for Jew. If you say Im anti-Zionist, you can get away with it, because thats political. Thats not racial. And in my mind, Zionism is a great thing. Ive been a Zionist from the time I was born. All it meant is that the Jewish people, like every other people, have a right to a homeland. Zionism is nothing to do with displacing Palestinians. You can be a strong Zionist like I am and believe in the two state solution and believe there should be a Palestinian state. If there were a word for Palestinian Zionism, I would be one of those, too. I favor a Palestinian state as long as its peaceful and non-terrorist and doesnt demand the end of Israels existence. But at universities around the world, and I speak at them all the time, you see these protests against Zionism by people who have no idea what Zionism is. And now added to that is the claim of identity politics. Jews are white and theyre wealthy, which is a myth, of course. Theyre not white. For example, with the Jews in Israel, there are many dark skinned people, black people, Ethiopian people, and people from North Africa. And Jews arent rich. Some are, but the Jewish religion isnt anywhere comparable to other religions in terms of richness. So, you have all these myths being circulated and you try to fight them. I go on campuses. I try to fight them. Ive been canceled by many campuses, partly as the result of that. Mr. Jekielek: The question is, where does this come from? Ill give you an example. I just had Nicole Levitt on the show. Shes a lawyer with one of the biggest anti-domestic abuse organizations in the country. They were basically promoting some social justice-related activities there. She emailed an article about anti-Semitism in the social justice movement, basically saying, We should cover this as well, since were talking about racism. In response, she got a ton of disapproving emails accusing her of furthering white supremacy. How does pointing out anti-Semitism in the social justice movement promotewhite supremacy? Mr. Dershowitz: It doesnt, of course. Its part of intersectionality. Every group should work together except the Jews. The Jews are white, theyre rich, and theyre supreme. For anti-Semites, Jews are hated because theyre communists, and theyre hated because theyre capitalists. Theyre hated because theyre sexually impotent and weak men. Theyre hated because theyre sexually aggressive and strong men. If you hate a group, you can come up with any ideas about them. In the history of the world, Israel, in its 70-something years of existence, has contributed more to humankind than any other country of a similar size and in a similar time period, in terms of medicine, biology, physics, and literature. You name it. Its a miracle. They renewed a language that never existed before. Theyve taken in refugees from around the world. Are they a perfect country? Of course theyre not a perfect country. But to single out Israel? You say, But Israel took over land that may have had Palestinians. Of course, Jews lived there originally. New Zealand is 10,000 times worse. Not a single person in New Zealand now, in terms of the dominant culture, had anything to do with that island. They came from England. And what did they do with the Maori? They killed them and they marginalized them. But New Zealand is now at the UN constantly berating Israel for the way it treated the Palestinians. This double standard is so rampant around the world and Im fighting against it as a point to principle. One of the reasons I wrote my book, The Price of Principle, is to also get into this issue. And of the social movements, the Womens March was headed by a virulent anti-Semite. Black Lives Matter was headed by anti-Semitic people. The Million Man March on Washington had Farrakhan as one of its sponsors. Mr. Jekielek: Alan, congratulations on your book, The Price of Principle. My final question is, are we forever condemned to be living in this partisanship that dominates our discourse, even within our families? In the book you mentioned the foundation of the family. You say, My loyalty to the family comes first, even ahead of some of these other things. But even in the family now, there is this partisanship, with people not talking to each other. Whats the way out here? Mr. Dershowitz: There is no clear way out. The pendulum tends to swing pretty widely in the United States, and less widely than in Europe. In Europe in the 1930s, there were only two choices, communism and fascism, or communism and Nazism. In the United States, we had Roosevelt, the New Deal, and compromises. We have been a nation of compromises over the years. Even in the debates leading to the Civil War tried to reach compromise. They couldnt compromise over that, though. Sometimes weve done better, and sometimes weve done worse. This trend toward the new McCarthyism on the hard Left is going to be enduring, because today its being taught to our future leaders in universities. I see it having a longer pendulum swing than many of the other things. McCarthyism in the 1950s was gone in ten years. Left wing-McCarthyism will last many years longer than that. So, Im not optimistic. Im going to end with the description of a pessimist and an optimist in Israel. In Israel, a pessimist is somebody who says, Oy vey. Things are so bad they cant get worse. The optimist says, Yes, they can. And so Im both partly a pessimist, and partly an optimist. Things can get worse. But I do believe, along with Martin Luther King, that the arc of justice moves in the right direction, but we need to help it. It doesnt just move. We need to help it. I wrote the book The Price of Principal to try to stimulate debate and discussion. Thank you for putting me on the show to give me an opportunity to speak to your audience about that. Mr. Jekielek: Alan Dershowitz, its such a pleasure to have you on the show again. Mr. Dershowitz: Thank you so much. Be well. Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining Alan Dershowitz and I on this episode of American Thought Leaders. Im your host, Jan Jekielek. Follow EpochTV on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVus Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTV Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@EpochTV Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/epochtv Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVus Gab: https://gab.com/EpochTV Telegram: https://t.me/EpochTV Anti-Trump Legal Expert Reveals Real Motives in Mar-a-Lago Case: Its a Dynamite Story Commentary Its with regret and some trepidation that I take issue on a legal matter with someone whom I like and respect as much as I do Andy McCarthy, the prominent legal affairs commentator and contributor to many publications, websites, and television programs. But like many other intelligent and otherwise convivial people I know, hes unfortunately incapable of speaking or writing rationally about Donald Trump. McCarthy has a particularly baneful influence on the discussion of Trump-related issues because he naturally brings to it the gravitas of his legal expertise and apparently authoritative articulation. But this is the same McCarthy who wrote to me five years ago that he had taken a deep dive into a lot of confidential material and concluded that Trump was guilty of serious misdeeds in his relations with the Russians. And, as with other intelligent and otherwise likable people partly propelled through each day by an almost pathological hatred of the former president, when the Russian argument evaporated without a trace, not a word of remorse, embarrassment, or even inferable acknowledgment of a mistake followed. It was briskly on to the next conjuration of Trumpian outrages and delicts. On the National Review website on Sept. 24, McCarthy fired the most unrigorous and imprecisely directed broadside that I have seen from him on this subject. He wrote that Trump was obviously guilty of an indictable offense in the document controversy that led to the FBIs ransacking of his Palm Beach home. It wasnt precisely stated what offense he committed, but it seemed to be willful noncompliance with a subpoena requiring the production of certain documents that had been wrongfully removed and about which the former president was allegedly trying to clear himself from such a charge by a defense imputed to him by McCarthy of determining in his own mind that the relevant material was declassified because he wished it so and in accordance with a doctrine of automatic declassification of certain matters that he had promulgated among his staff but of which staff members were, according to McCarthy, unaware. In fact, as McCarthy knows, declassification isnt really relevant to whatever case the Justice Department may think it has. To formulate this case against the former president is itself a reduction of the subject to absurdity. There has been no suggestion, other than by the Trump-hating media, that the former president was careless with highly confidential material that could affect U.S. national security, and the photograph issued by the Department of Justice of a range of documents marked classified, spread out on a carpet of the former presidents home, as if he had left them in that place himself, is indicative of the desperation of the DOJ to cooper together some plausible complaint from the farrago of nonsense that it has stirred up. A departing president can take copies of whatever he wants, as they were in his custody in an official capacity; he has an unlimited security clearance, and he can declassify, explicitly or otherwise, anything in his possession while hes president. McCarthys laborious and slightly pedantic assault upon his caricatures of several of the ex-presidents counsels defense arguments dont in themselves approach the necessary threshold of indicating that a crime was committed. The fact that McCarthys piece is substantially nonsense doesnt for an instant mean that it isnt interesting, useful, and timely. He delivers the customary Trump-haters ex-cathedra assertions of the emptiness of the Trump argument that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, and, as usual, even with the most distinguished of such people, he completely avoids the principal arguments that make that case. The unconstitutionality of many of the voting and vote-counting methods, particularly in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which are the basis of the Big Steal argument, is completely ignored. Instead, and despite McCarthys commendable loyalty to his former boss, Rudolph Giuliani, he busies himself ridiculing that effort with justified acerbity. The Giuliani claims werent substantiated, and even if they had been, they werent consequential. As many, myself included, have written and said publicly, Trump has himself to blame yet again for many of these problems. He foresaw and publicly warned of the dangers of ballot harvesting, but did nothing effective to prevent it, was late responding to it, and allowed his contestation of the election to be colored and discredited by what was, and as McCarthy and many others of Trumps enemies have declared, essentially just a legal trick-or-treat show. The airtight sacred oath of secrecy that the entire American national political media have spontaneously taken that 2020 was an unquestionably fair presidential election is an astounding and possibly unprecedented act of mass denial of the obvious by a huge group of well-informed people, many of them of upright character and high intelligence; perhaps someday it will be adequately explained. Everyone knows that there were potentially millions of harvested ballots that werent verified as authentically reflecting the voting preference of a real voter. And everyone knows that the judiciary at all levels refused to hear any of the cases that could have altered the election result. There were 19 of them, including the direct lawsuit of the attorney general of Texas in which he was joined by 18 other state attorneys general against the states that the plaintiff alleged had failed in their constitutional duty to ensure that national elections were conducted fairly in their states. For McCarthy to fail to present any rebuttal of the real argument over the authenticity of the 2020 presidential election result is very telling. But the most welcome revelation in McCarthys treatment of this ludicrous pseudo-legal gasconade is his sympathetic summary of the challenging strategic and executive decision that the Democratic presidential reelection campaign leaders must make. These are, first, that as prosecuting Trump might knock him out as a presidential candidate in 2024, and hes the candidate the Democrats would most like to face, should he be indicted? And, second, if he is, would it cause inconvenient emphasis on the inconsistent treatment of Trump and Hillary Clinton, who was allowed to swan through the egregious destruction of subpoenaed evidence that McCarthy tacitly acknowledges was an infinitely greater offense than anything Trump did? McCarthy must realize that this confirms what practically every serious observer has long recognized: that this is a straight political question. It was a political decision to invade the former presidents home, and is a political decision whether to lay a (likely spurious) charge. Before taking that decision, the Democratic Party strategists will presumably notice that, contrary to what McCarthy writes, the case, on anything we have seen so far, is a Swiss cheese, and proceeding with it could leave the political managers of this administration in a state of almost ineradicable disgrace. Presumably, somebody in authority might still be disposed to think of such considerations. Whatever they decide, they shouldnt imagine that, if he chooses to seek reelection, Trump will be easy for this administration to defeat whether hes charged over the Keystone Kops affair at Mar-a-Lago or not. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Tania Estudillo Hernandez, 24, was arrested and charged with crimes related to human smuggling and possession of weapons, in El Mirage, Ariz., on Sept. 23, 2022. (Maricopa County Jail) Arizona Woman Made $7.2 Million From Human Smuggling in 6 Months: Police A 24-year-old Arizona woman was arrested and charged with crimes related to a human smuggling enterprise on Sept. 23, according to the El Mirage Police Department (EMPD). The woman, Tania Estudillo Hernandez, had allegedly held or processed 80 to 100 illegal aliens per month at a residence in El Mirage over at least a six-month period, the police department stated in a Facebook post. The illegal aliens were charged as much as $15,000 each in smuggling fees, police said. At $15,000 a person, for 80 people per month over six months, that would be a total of $7.2 million. Police said the department received a report of a person being held for ransom at the El Mirage address on the morning of Sept. 23. The complainant stated in the residence there were multiple people kidnapped, including her husband, the EMPD stated. Officers stopped a vehicle leaving the residence and discovered Hernandez transporting a Guatemalan national, the report stated. EMPD learned that while conducting the traffic stop, two smugglers left the home with 10 Undocumented Immigrants, police noted. During a subsequent search warrant executed at the home, police seized a semi-automatic rifle, two handguns (one of which was reported stolen in Phoenix), and ammunition. Ledgers documenting human smuggling, and other evidence of human smuggling was seized, to include evidence that Tania Estudillo Hernandez managed and directed smuggling operations, the EMPD stated. Hernandez was booked into Maricopa County Jail on violations of kidnapping, money laundering, illegally conducting or participating in an illegal enterprise, and conspiracy, police said. El Mirage, which is located in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, is less than a three-hour drive to the U.S.Mexico border. The Tucson Border Patrol sector in Arizona leads the nation in known gotaways, who are illegal aliens who Border Patrol detects, but fails to capture. Border Patrol reported about 10,000 gotaways in the Tucson sector per month during the past several months, according to provisional Customs and Border Protection data obtained by The Epoch Times. Border agents in Arizona have apprehended more than 514,000 illegal aliens in fiscal year 2022, which ends on Sept. 30. Often, miles of border are left unpatrolled as Border Patrol agents are occupied with processing large groups of illegal border crossers. Army Doctor Says Hes Being Persecuted for Giving Exemptions to COVID-19 Vaccine A U.S. military doctor is alleging that the U.S. Army has taken a series of retaliatory actions against him in response to him granting medical waivers to the COVID-19 vaccine for some service members. Maj. Samuel Sigoloff, former director of the Raymond W. Bliss Army Health Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, has been ordered to stop seeing patients, assigned to do menial duties, given a relief for cause officer evaluation report, and risks having his license to practice medicine revoked. Sigoloffs attorney described the Armys actions as retribution for the doctor practicing medicine in a way inconsistent with the Pentagons COVID-19 vaccine policies. Medical Exemptions Not long after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austins August 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate, Sigoloff began seeing a number of patients who needed legitimate medical exemptions from the vaccine, he told The Epoch Times. But within weeks of the vaccine mandate, Sigoloff was suspended by the clinic commander, a registered nurse, at the Raymond Bliss Health Center for providing these medical exemptions, he said. All the medical exemptions he provided for service members were invalidated by this registered nurse. According to Sigoloff, each of these patients received appropriate medical evaluations, and by his estimation, it would have been more risky or harmful to administer the vaccine to these service members than it would have been for them to be unvaccinated. This goes outside a nurses authority, practicing medicine without a license, Sigoloff said. He went on to note that she isnt a doctor but more like the CEO of the hospital. Individual medical decisions are made by the patient and licensed medical provider that are in the room together, not by a registered nurse, Sigoloff said. Attorney Sean Timmons, whos representing Sigoloff, agreed, pointing out that hes the one with the professional license on the line. In a memo dated Sept. 16, 2021, and viewed by The Epoch Times, the clinics commander stated that, until further notice, the sole authority to approve temporary medical exemptions resided with the commander. This memo is a declaration that she is practicing medicine without a license, Sigoloff said. The commander also banned him from prescribing Ivermectin. A peer-reviewed study recently found that regular use of Ivermectin reduced the risk of dying from COVID-19 by 92 percent. He said receiving punishment for prescribing a controversial, yet effective treatment was also outside of her authority. As a nurse, she is not allowed to practice medicine, but here she is basically giving orders to physicians like Major Sigoloff to practice medicine in a certain way, Timmons said. Thats like my paralegal telling me how to practice law. While he welcomes a paralegals help on certain matters of the law, at the end of the day, Im the one signing the pleadings and the one filing stuff in courts. Persecuted For pointing these issues out to the Armys Criminal Investigation Division in November 2021, Sigoloff said he subsequently received negative counseling and had to write an essay about Article 94 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This pertains to mutiny and sedition and comes with a max penalty of death, he said. All this for reporting a crime. Timmons said, This was nothing more than a message to Sigoloff to cut it out or get destroyed. Sigoloff hasnt seen a patient in more than a year and has been subjected to performing only menial tasks at the clinic. I moved here in July 2021 to be the medical director, he said. And now Im being attacked from all sides, persecuted for doing the job I was selected over peers to do. Timmons said, The military has decided to start engaging in impermissible, unlawful, and despicable reprisal toward Sigoloff, questioning his suitability as a physician. The attorney alleged that a sham peer review by two other physicians looking into Sigoloffs past practices and previous assignments is currently underway. What theyre doing to him is retribution for practicing medicine in a way contrary to their plan, Timmons said. The Army is using every mechanism available to harass him. Sigoloff said hes also currently being investigated for allegedly threatening the secretary of defense after he shared a Twitter post of an image of Austin behind a syringe with concentric circles, labeling him as an Oath Breaker with a reference to Oath Keepers. While he denies the allegation that the circles are indicative of a target or any association with the Oath Keepers group, he began getting escorted from the clinic in September, and now must report to the garrison command building. The major isnt allowed into the clinic unless escorted, even if he requires personal health care. Sigoloff is set to have a Quality Assurance appeal at Fort Bliss, Texas, concerning his medical credentials in early October. He has never been stationed at Fort Bliss, and he cant find any regulation that would require or allow the change of venue, he said. The commander at the new venue wants to completely revoke his ability to practice medicine in the Army, whereas his current duty station only wanted to reduce his practice privileges. Revocation of his privilege to practice would be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank, which would generate a report to the Texas Medical Board and possibly affect his ability to practice medicine as a private citizen. Eight members of Congress in August sent a letter to Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth to request an expedited review and approval of Sigoloffs request for honorable separation from the Army. The letter states that he has been the target of retaliation and possibly illegal acts taken by his chain of command. In response to an inquiry from The Epoch Times, a public affairs officer at the Raymond W. Bliss Army Health Center said, At this time, we are unable to comment on Maj. Sigoloffs allegations due to an ongoing investigation. Sigoloff emphasized that his views dont reflect those of the Department of Defense or the Department of the Army. Department of Defense and Department of the Army officials didnt return requests for comment from The Epoch Times. A person holds a smartphone set to the opening screen of the ArriveCan app in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Giordano Ciampini) ArriveCan App Cost $19.8 Million to Develop: Federal Records Federal records show that the Liberal governments ArriveCan app cost almost $20 million to develop. The expenses were disclosed in an Inquiry of Ministry tabled in the Commons by Tory MP Chris Warkentin, asking how much money did the government spend developing the application? $19,783,494, said the Canada Border Services Agency in its response to Warkentin, according to Blacklocks Reporter. Expenses included billings by the Public Health Agency of Canada and Shared Services Canada, the IT department responsible for providing digital services to federal organizations. Launched as a voluntary app in April 2020, ArriveCan was made mandatory on Nov. 21 of that year for travellers boarding flights to Canada. In March 2021, the app was extended to include travellers arriving at land border crossings, requiring them to submit electronic proof of COVID-19 vaccination prior to arrival in Canada. Despite criticism in recent months from tourism and business sectors, border communities, and MPs of various political stripes that ArriveCan no longer makes sense to mandate, the Liberals have insisted that the app has been effective in managing the pandemic. ArriveCan obviously has been a very important tool during COVID-19 and remains important for those people that enter into Canada to identify whether they are appropriately vaccinated, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said in a press conference in late June. But increasingly, ArriveCan is also being used to facilitate and accelerate entrance into Canada through a Customs data entry, which in many cases makes it quite fast and quite efficient to enter into Canada. Wait Times In August, a coalition of chambers of commerce among Canadian border towns challenged the governments message on ArriveCan, saying that the wait times at land borders had only increased after the app was introduced. Wait times at land border crossings have lengthened by up to two hours since 2019 despite traffic being cut in half, and bridge authorities attribute this entirely to restrictions and the ArriveCAN app, said the coalition in a joint press release. The average processing time for arriving passengers at airports has increased by 400 percent. On Sept. 26, the federal government announced its ending of COVID-19 entry rules and that the use of ArriveCan will be optional come Oct. 1. The decision was made based on the latest evidence, available data, operational considerations, and the epidemiological situation, both in Canada and internationally, said a government news release. Federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre took to Twitter the same day saying that the Liberals decision was made due to pressure from several fronts. After constant pressure from Conservatives & people across Canada, Trudeau Liberals finally back down on the disastrous ArriveCAN app, unscientific vaccine mandates & forced mask-wearing, Poilievre said. None of the science changes October 1 but because of you, Trudeau has to. According to Blacklocks Reporter, the federal government also spent $20 million on another pandemic-related app called COVID Alert meant to notify smartphone users of exposure to a coronavirus carrier. The program was shut down on June 17 due to low usage among other reasons, the Liberal government said. Dr. Stephen Iacoboni is part of the baby boomer generation. Born in 1952, he came of age during the 1960s when the country was living in the bubble of the ideal American Dream. I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and I was very faithful, said Iacoboni, but there are some inherent contradictions with Christianity, and when youre young and idealistic, you dont understand that humans are imperfect, and so you blame them for things that are just part of being a frail human with faults. Iacobonis disillusionment came in the early 70s, when the societal problems festering in Americas inner cities rose to the surface with civil rights protests and anti-war movements against the Vietnam War. Anti-war demonstrators, wearing black armbands, fill the steps of the United States Capitol Building and hold hands on the day of the National Moratorium in Washington D.C., to protest against the continuing war in Vietnam, on Oct. 15, 1969. (AFP/Getty Images) I was raised to be patriotic and believed that everyone was equal; I became a young adult and [realized that] people of color dont have the same rights and [we have been] slaughtering innocent people in Southeast Asia [in the Vietnam War], Iacoboni told The Epoch Times during a phone call. The United States withdrew from Vietnam once the casualties were too much for the country to bear. In the aftermath of the lost war, Christians, who mostly held conservative views were blamed for the anti-communist policies that led to the United Statess eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War. This included the mounting casualties, traumatized veterans, and stories of brutal killings by the U.S. military upon the Vietnamese civilians. While Christians faced attack in the public forum for pushing the war agenda, modern science was spouting exciting new discoveries, framed in narratives that denied the existence of a higher being. Science of the 60s and 70s had come out and said, well, we have solved the riddle of life: the riddle of life is divisible to biochemistry, that everything that you do, every thought that you have, every emotion that you have, is based on the DNA and youre just a chemical machine. From the late 50s to 70s, discoveries in DNA molecular biology exploded. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick found that the DNAs structure was a double helical structure. Jerome Lejeune demonstrated in 1959 that diseases are genetic with a study showing that Down syndrome is attributed to being born with an extra chromosome 21 in every cell. By 1965, the first transfer RNA (tRNA) was sequenced and it was discovered that RNA sequences in sets of three corresponded to specific amino acids that link together to form proteins. I was a chemist at the time and I was young and well educated and stupid, meaning I wasnt wise. I wasnt able to see the fallacy in that argument, and the argument went all the way to saying that there is no reason to believe in the God of Abraham. Dr. Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins, 46, of Greenwich, England, stands with a model of a DNA molecule during a news conference in the New York office of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research on Oct. 18, 1962. (Anthony Camerano/AP Photo) Iacoboni was given a book in medical school that shaped his younger years and influenced many medical students of that time. The book was Chance and Necessity, written by biochemist Jacques Monod, a Nobel laureate and atheist. Monod shared the award with Francois Jacob and Andre Lwoff in 1968. The three of them proved that information carried in the DNA is translated into proteins by means of a messenger, which we now know as messenger RNA (mRNA). They also showed, using lac operon (required for the transport and metabolism of lactose) from Escherichia coli, that whether the actions of enzymes (proteins that speed up chemical reactions) were activated or suppressed was self-regulated by the DNA. Monod used this finding to solidify his argument that biomolecular actions are controlled solely by our DNA and, therefore, there was no higher entity. Despite the debunking of his argument over 30 years later by another atheist scientist with the discovery of epigenetics, Monods argument against the existence of God persisted, and the legacy of despair he left for man remained. The ancient covenant is in pieces, Monod wrote, man knows at last that he is alone in the universes unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness below; it is for him to choose. As an impressionable young adult at the time, Iacoboni took Monods arguments as fact. Disillusioned about the world, the anti-religion narrative from both politics and science made sense to him. Because Christians are hypocrites, said Iacoboni, their religion is based on a fairy tale about something that happened a long time ago, and now we have proof in science that there is no God. For Iacoboni at the time, it was easy and probably more comfortable letting go of God than believing in something the respected seniors in sciences were wholeheartedly denying. When youre 20 years old, its not that hard to let go of God because believing in God requires certain constraints. [The 70s was] the time of free love. There was birth control Everyone was looking for change. However, Iacoboni would soon find that his departure from faith in his early 20s would end up requiring a long and emotional road back to where it all began. Coming Back to Faith by Treating Cancer Patients In the first decade of the 21st Century, somewhere around 2000 to 2010, I very slowly came around [and returned to faith]. Iacobonis book The Undying Soul, published in 2010, told of his emotional journey back to faith as he treated cancer patients, documenting his very first patients while he was still a fellow, to when he became a practicing specializing oncologist. Iacoboni practiced his fellowship in MD Anderson, which remains to this day, a world-renowned university-based teaching hospital, and one of the premier cancer research facilities in the world. I belonged at Andersonphilosophically, I mean. As a young, atheist intellectual, fresh out of med school and full of hubris, I chose oncology because I wanted to prove that science and logic could triumph over anythingeven cancer, Iacoboni wrote in his book. MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, on Oct. 1, 2018. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images) However, he would soon realize, starting with the very first patient he treated at Anderson, that more often than not, modern science could not stop the cancer from leaching away his patients lives. Even worse, Iacoboni soon realized that while treating patients was difficult, he also had to face another challenge he was ill-prepared to deal with. His patients wanted more than a physician, they wanted an emotional healer and guide; they wanted him to help them face their deaths. Being an atheist, of course, I had no answers. [As the] atheist doctor dealing with patients who are largely agnostic, the dying is very hard on everybody, Iacoboni said, my patients who would not allow themselves to have faith were very, very tormented on their deathbed. This reality agonized Iacoboni. He knew something was missing and in the middle of his career began searching for answers to help his patients on the emotional journey. Things started changing for him once he started practicing in a small rural town, a place where almost all of his patients belonged to a faith. The first patient who led him on his journey back to faith was a man from Ukraine named Pavel. Pavel was a simple farmer. He tended the livestock and crops near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine. When the Chernobyl disaster happened in 1986, the radiation turned his tomatoes yellow, green beans red, and his wheat shriveled up. Yet Pavels wife and the other women ground the grains into flour for bread and they ate the strangely colored vegetables. Pavel and his family had no choice. They either ate what they planted or they starved. It was therefore not surprising that Pavel developed radiation-induced leukemia from the contaminated food he ate. Pavels local hospital in Ukraine was unequipped to treat his cancer, but he had Russian relatives in Washington. After his relatives told Pavels story at their church, the church passed it to the state and their congressman, who was Tom Foleyat the time the Speaker of the House. Foley secured compassionate dispensation and a passport for Pavel and he was then flown into Washington for treatment. Iacoboni was Pavels doctor, and though his family could provide no money for his treatment, knowing all of the sacrifices made to bring the man to his office, Iacoboni was determined to do all that he could to help Pavel. However, Pavel was already in the advanced stages and would soon be on borrowed time. His first blood test showed that he was severely anemic with his red blood cell volume at 10 percent with the normal range 38-45 percent. Yet, upon meeting the man, Iacoboni was taken aback by how happy the man was with no obvious sign of illness. At their meeting in the hospital room, Pavel jumped out of bed and shook Iacobonis hand so hard that he could feel the calluses on his palm. As Iacoboni recalled in his book: And then, slowly and ceremoniously, he bowed his head. I found myself taken aback by such formal deference. I assured him by wordand then, discovering he spoke almost no English at all, by body languagethat no bows were necessary. Pavel smiled slightly, offering me an expression that spoke as clearly and plainly as possible: this isnt about whats formal or necessary, its about appreciation And, in a word, grace. Iacoboni put Pavel on blood transfusions for the anemia and then started chemotherapy. Pavel achieved remission, but only for 9 months as the drugs slowly lost effectiveness. Soon the leukemia took over and spread all over his body. Pavels spleen grew from the normal size of a potato to a watermelon. Pavel was dying. However, throughout the 9 months Iacoboni treated Pavel, he was amazed to find that not only was Pavel not anxious about death, he was anticipating death with eagerness and wonder. Pavel was a Christian, like the many people in the town. Iacoboni has treated many Christians who, in their death, found no comfort in their faith. Pavels faith, however, served him very well. Unable to speak to me in words, he communicated through the light in his eyes, his easy smile, and his contented attitude. He interacted with everyone this way, not just me. On his own spiritual journey and while looking for answers, Iacoboni was drawn to Pavels grace and strength. Iacoboni knew his optimism and smiles were not a facade. Cancer strips away all kinds of veneers, and he has seen all sorts of patients. Even as the damage from leukemia became obvious, Pavel remained gracious and did not complain of the pain he was in. While many patients may put up a brave front and act stronger and healthier in the clinic to have Iacoboni support them in their denial of death, Pavel did not. His optimism never felt forced in any way. When his dying body sagged, and his energy began to ebb, he didnt fight it. He just let it happen, he wrote in his book. Eventually, the final days came for Pavel and Iacoboni had to hospitalize him. Even on his deathbed, Iacoboni was amazed to find that Pavel was smiling, comforting his friends and relatives. It was hard for Iacoboni to communicate with Pavel, given their language barrier, so he stayed with Pavel through the final three or four hours by the bedside trying to understand this small simple man so full of grace and strength. During that vigil I observed for the very first time in my career the rare and overwhelming beauty of a spiritually contented death, he wrote. Contrary to all the patients Iacoboni had treated during the past 15 years, Pavel chose to die naturally without sedatives. This allowed Iacoboni to stay emotionally connected to Pavel to the end. Pavel kept his eyes open, and Iacoboni watched him intently. Then in the final minutes, Pavels gaze changed, it looked unworldlya look of serenity and selflessness Iacoboni had never seen before. At first, Iacoboni thought that Pavel was becoming comatose, but his pulse was going strong and breathing unlabored. Then Pavels unworldly expression changed slightly, and just enough to startle Iacoboni with the conviction that he was being watched by another sentient entity. Someone other than Pavel the manhis ego or his persona. But whoor whatcould it be? Iacoboni asked in his book. The truth seemed to be leaping out at him, yet it was difficult for him to accept it. Iacobini stared and held his breath. He did not know how long it took him before he relaxed and finally admitted. He wrote: Yes my friend, I seeit I see your soul. In that moment of epiphany, of recognition and actualizationPavel let go. His eyes closed, his breathing stopped and the room fell still. That night, Iacoboni learned with conviction an answer to the question that was haunting him after each death of his patients. Never again would I wonder if there was something more. The Undying Soul by Stephen Iacononi. (Courtesy of Dr. Iacoboni) Pavel was the first, important piece in Iacobonis journey back to faith. Telos: How Science Proves the Existence of a Designer In 2010 Iacoboni began working his book TELOS: The Scientific Basis for a Life of Purpose. The book was finally published in 2022. He expected if he had spent all his time writing the book, Telos would have taken him 6 months, but as a practicing oncologist, it took him 10 years. While Iacoboni returned to faith emotionallyas documented in The Undying Soulhe was also researching intellectually, trying to understand why what he was taught was in complete opposition to what he was experiencing. He soon found that the science he had a firm belief in was flawed and missing key evidence for its theories, even though the theories were touted as fact. Throughout the book, he follows the theories of life from various great philosophers and scientists including Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and many more until the readers come to an understanding of the present day. Pioneers of modern science, including Monod and Bertrand Russell, all argued that life was accidental and that humans were alone in the world with no higher entity. Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; his origin, his hopes, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental co-location of atoms, wrote Russell. Though these arguments made believers of their doctrine feel liberated, it also led them to the unyielding despair Russell faced, just as many of Iacobonis early patients experienced. For, if their bodies and lives were accidental happenings, it eliminated their sense of purpose, the point of living. The infamous atheist Bertrand Russell said in a similar tone at a young age, I considered suicide, which I would have done, but for the fact that I found mathematics to be so very interesting,' Iacoboni wrote. Contrary to what he was taught, Iacoboni observed nature and noticed life to be brimming with purpose and intention. It was full of telos, meaning end or an ultimate purpose. Telos: The Scientific Basis for a Life of Purpose. (Courtesy of Dr. Iacoboni) The best example of this [purpose-driven life] in the world is the emperor penguins. They walk 60 miles on ice to get food and they fill up their stomachs and they walk 60 miles back and regurgitate the food for the chick, said Iacoboni. Why do they do that? Why doesnt this penguin say Im not walking 60 miles to feed some stupid chick. Im just gonna fill myself up and then Im gonna relax, they dont do that. Not only do emperor penguins endure this physical labor to breed their young, Iacobonis book also showed that they have an innate understanding of thermodynamics in incubation: Emperor penguins, which huddle together in an Antarctic blizzard, each one rotating in their turn from the center to the other rim of the circle and back again, sharing the cold and shielding each other in the most hostile environment on earth. Nobody trained the penguin to perform this complex maneuver or explained to them that by cooperating in this way, they would be better able to survive than if they just went it alone. The indwelling knowledge to act with such purpose was already inside them, inherent in their behavior. Their inherent drive to rear their young significantly surpasses their natural desire to survive. This understanding of their own physique, and how they should function came completely innate to them. Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in Antarctica. (National Science Foundation) Iacoboni gave many examples of these innate drives in his book. He observed how newborn giraffes within 10 minutes of birth stand up on their feet and suckle from their mother, performing a task innate to themselves. Where did this innate understanding come from? Iacoboni argued that it was designed into the organism. When we design something, we imbue it with a specific purpose and intention, and seeing that life is filled with a natural drive that surpasses survival alone, Iacoboni argued that there must be a higher designer, regardless of whether we can see this individual or not. If you walk down the beach and you find a sandcastle and nobody is around. You would have to ask yourself the question, what is this thing doing here? Did the sand, the wind, and the water make this thing? Self organized with blind forces? Or did someone with a designing intellect put it together? asked Iacoboni. Those are the only two possibilities right? And I dont think theres hardly anybody whos not impaired, who would say the sand and the wind built a sandcastle. They would say no, some dad and his kids built a sandcastle, they played and they went home. That is the same mindset Iacoboni established in the way he looks at life. Though we may not see the dad and the children building the sandcastle, we see the intellect and design in the temporary sandy construction, and in living beings, Iacoboni can see the design and intelligence too. Sharks have a structure called the Ampullae of Lorizini that no other animals have. It is a unique network of mucus-filled pores across its front and sides that allow the shark to catch prey. Most sharks have a very poor sense of sight, and they cannot swim that fast either, so what it wants is to be able to catch a prey in distress. Thats what its ampullae does; it can detect turbulence at a distance. One may, like Charles Darwin, argue that it arose out of evolution, meaning that sharks once did not have ampullae but then gained it through mutation (random change in the DNA). That may sound great in theory, but reality often tells a different story. The problem is if you have random mutations you dont go anywhere constructively. Everything is destructive, said Iacoboni, In medical fields, we know what mutations do, they kill you. In humans, mutations are the basis of genetically inherited diseases and cancer. Apart from creating drug-resistant bacteria and viruses, most mutations for animals and plants lead to disease. Further, sharks have 16,000 billion pairs of DNA, so it is also a question of chance to not only have the mutations useful, but also that there must be combinations of mutations in the appropriate area, given that the other mutations elsewhere do not kill the shark first. Even in the hypothetical scenario that the ampullae did come from mutations, it raises the question of survival for the shark without an ampullae, with poor eyesight and an average ability to swim. How would it have survived over many generations to gain the ampullae? If the shark had good eyesight and could catch prey without the ampullae, then the sharks that are living now should be both keen in sight and with ampullae, having the sharks gradually lose their eyesight contradicts the theory of survival of the fittest where the one with the most beneficial traits survive and pass on their traits. Therefore, Iacoboni argued that the other plausible reason is that it was all designed, with all the functions and purpose naturally fused into the final model of life. Organisms are about organization, Iacoboni wrote. Even the very etymology of the word organism is rooted in order, and design. Like a whirl of shiny flakes sparkling in a snow globe, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope catches an instantaneous glimpse of many hundreds of thousands of stars moving about in the globular cluster M13, one of the brightest and best-known globular clusters in the northern sky. This glittering metropolis of stars is easily found in the winter sky in the constellation Hercules and can even be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies. M13 is home to over 100 000 stars and located at a distance of 25 000 light-years. (NASA) A Call to Arms TELOS is a call to arms, said Iacoboni. It is not simply an exercise, nor a read, but rather the recognition that a higher creator exists. Faithless individuals are doomed to the same misery and chaos experienced by Monod, Russell, and other atheist scientists cited in his book. Im not interested in naming God, Im not a theologian, Iacoboni said. I only want you to believe in a supreme designer and understand that theres a greater purpose that permeates life and that you need to get in touch with if you want to have a life worth living. Cyber Security Minister Clare ONeil speaks at at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Sept. 5, 2022. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) Australian Government to Announce New Cybersecurity Protections Following Optus Data Breach The Australian government will introduce new measures to strengthen the countrys cybersecurity following a massive cyberattack on phone and internet provider Optus. The data breach, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described as a huge wake-up call, exposed the personal information of up to 9.8 million Australians, including details such as drivers licence and passport numbers. Cyber Security Minister Clare ONeil is expected to announce the new cybersecurity measures after she said that the way companies protected customer data needed to be changed. The prime minister said the new protections would allow banks and other institutions to be informed much faster when a cyberattack occurred to prevent personal data from being used. This is a huge wake-up call for the corporate sector in terms of protecting the data, he told Brisbane radio 4BC. We know in todays world there are actorssome state actors but also some criminal organisationswho want access to peoples data. New Bill to Target Cybercriminals Meanwhile, in an effort to crack down on cybercriminals, opposition home affairs spokeswoman Karen Andrews has tabled a bill to the federal parliament, which includes a new standalone offence for cyber extortion and harsher penalties. Specifically, the bill raises the jail term for cybercriminals who use ransomware to 10 years, while those targeting Australias critical infrastructure could face a maximum of 25 years. Its designed to disrupt and deter cybercriminals who engage in ransomware and cyber extortion activities targeting Australians and Australian businesses, Andrews told parliament. It hits the cybercriminals where it hurts the most, and thats in their hip pocket. These are all sensible measures that will create a greater deterrence and therefore reduce the incidence of ransomware attacks. A security guard in an Optus retail store removes a barrier for a customer in Perth, Australia, on March 27, 2020. (Paul Kane/Getty Images) In addition, the Opposition said the government had not dealt with cybersecurity properly. Liberal MP James Paterson criticised ONeils response to the news of the attack and said that Optus needed to give its customers a full explanation and a genuine apology. Its appropriate that when theres an investigation going on that they follow the Australian Federal Polices advice, but that should not be used as an excuse not to be completely upfront with the public about how this happened and whos responsible for it when those facts are known, he said. Andrews also criticised the government for making changes to national cyber security strategies. Why would you say youre getting rid of something when you dont know what youre going to replace it with? she said. Cyber criminals are coming up with new ways every day to use malware and, specifically, ransomware to do us real and long-lasting harm. Clare Ellen O'Neil Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Cyber Security at Parliament House on September 1, 2022 in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by Martin Ollman/Getty Images) Australian Home Affairs Minister Criticised Telco Giant Optus for Major Data Breach Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil has called on Australian telecommunication giant Optus to take responsibility for the recent massive data breach and provide free credit monitoring to millions of customers impacted. She noted that a security breach of this size shouldnt be expected in a large telco provider and said that it will result in fines amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in other jurisdictions. ONeil, who introduced new cyber security protections on Monday, said the government is working with the telco giant, the federal police, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the competition watchdog and the financial regulator to mitigate the breachs fallout. Optus revealed on Sep. 22 that cybercriminals have illegally accessed the personal records of 9.8 million Australians, including details such as drivers licence, passport numbers, email addresses and physical addresses. With about 40 percent of Australias population victimised, the data breach is considered one of the biggest of its kind in the countrys history. The company has alerted and apologised to customers over the incident, but the home affairs minister said it should do more. The breach is of a nature that we should not expect to see in a large telecommunications provider in this country, the minister told parliament on Monday. We expect Optus to continue to do everything they can to support their customers and former customers. One way they can do this is providing free credit monitoring to impacted customers. This will help protect those customers from identity theft, and I call on Optus to make that commitment today The most affected customers will be receiving direct communications from Optus over the coming days on how to start their subscription at no cost. Put yourself into the shoes of an Optus customer. You might be one of the member of Gilmores constituents living in Bateman Bay; you might be a pensioner whose information has been stolen. Meanwhile, Optus will also potentially face a class action filed by law firm Slater and Gordon on behalf of customers affected by the cyber attack. This is potentially the most serious privacy breach in Australian history, both in terms of the number of people affected and the nature of the information disclosed, class action senior associate Ben Zocco said. We consider that the consequences could be particularly serious for vulnerable members of society, such as domestic violence survivors, victims of stalking and other threatening behaviour, and people who are seeking or have previously sought asylum in Australia. Government to Crack Down on Cyber Hackers In a bid to ramp up cyber security requirements, the government has unveiled a new bill that will see people committing ransomware attacks and extorting victims of unauthorised access be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. Cybercriminals targeting critical infrastructure assets will face up to 25 years, while those obtaining data by unauthorised access or modification will be imprisoned for five years. Clare ONeil told parliament that the bill hits the cybercriminals where it hurts the most, and thats in their hip pocket. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the incident a huge wake-up call for the corporate sector in terms of protecting data. The Australian on Monday reported that a person claiming to have launched the cyber ransom has demanded Optus to pay $1 million in the cryptocurrency Monero within one week before selling it to the dark web. Optus if you are reading! Price for us to not sale (sic) data is 1.000.000$US! We give you 1 week to decide, the user wrote on data leak website breachForums. Buyers, price for users data 150.000$US. Price for addresses data 200.000$US. Together 300.000$US. Exclusive sale cost 1.000.000$US total. No sale will be made for 1 week until Optus reply. Australian Woman Hit by Rollercoaster When Attempting to Retrieve Dropped Phone An Australian woman is suffering from critical head and facial injuries after being hit by a rollercoaster carriage in Melbourne on Sunday. The victim, who has been identified as Shylah Rodden, 26, is believed to have stepped onto the tracks at a Melbourne Royal Show about 5.45 p.m. on Sep. 25 to pick up her dropped phone. A carriage reportedly struck the woman and carried her up to nine meters high before Rodden fell to the ground. Shocked witnesses reported hearing screams before the ride was suddenly stopped. Rodden was transported to the hospital in critical condition with broken bones. Melbourne Royal Show said the area had been cordoned off for the foreseeable future. There was a reported injury on the Rebel Coaster ride, it said in a statement, but noted that they could confirm that no one has fallen from the ride. Victoria Police said they were attending the scene to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident. Officers are working to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident, and a crime scene has been established. Sadly, the woman was then found injured on the ground. Detectives from the Yarra Crime Investigation Unit are attending the scene and will work with WorkSafe to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident. The victims father, Alan Rodden, told the Daily Mail that he was still not certain what to believe about the incident that has left his daughter in a critical condition. The injuries are horrific. Horrific. Shes brain-damaged. Its pelvic, her arms, legs, back, neck theres hardly a thing thats not broken, he told the Daily Mail. I just cant work out how the hell so much damage has been done. Even the doctors have said they havent seen anything as bad as this for a long time. A stall owner told the Herald Sun that the ride went up like normal, then there were screams, then it stopped and stayed that way for ages. Everyone was stuck in the ride for one to two hours but the screaming was so loudI think everyone must have been really scared, she said. Bus drivers in Beijing must wear wristband monitors before and during the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. (Illustration - Shutterstock) Beijing Issues Electronic Wristbands to Bus Drivers for State Security Beijings long-haul bus drivers will wear a new gadget for emotion sensing and monitoring of vital signs, with the purpose of facilitating security control in the city prior to the Partys 20th National Congress. Beijing Public Transportation Group (BPTG) issued 1,800 electronic wristbands on Sept. 21 to bus drivers who drive on freeways and who cross provincial lines. The wristbands provide real-time monitoring of the drivers vital signs and stress level as indicators of the drivers physical and mental health, and to improve public safety, the Chinese report claimed. It meets the regimes command: Minimize societal risks, prior to and during the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party that starts on Oct. 16. What it Does On June 1, Beijing municipal bus drivers on some routes in Tongzhou district and the central downtown areas started wearing the monitoring bracelets. The bracelet records body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels, exercise movement, blood pressure, and sleep; it also monitors emotional states such as depression and anxiety. It is touted as care for drivers, and a way to improve driving safety. By using science and technology to ensure public road safety, Beijing has set a good example for the rest of China, said a Communist propaganda commentator. People line up for a PCR test for COVID-19 outside a private testing site in Beijing, China, on Oct. 25, 2021. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) New Type of 24-hour Surveillance Obviously, the regime is stepping up its monitoring and controlling of the populace with these electronic wristbands. Recently, a Beijing resident exposed on Chinese social media Weibo that local community staff demanded the blogger wear the wristband after returning from a business trip in a southern city. The wristband was said to aid those in home isolation by providing body temperature to the authorities, but the blogger did not agree to put it on. On July 13, the blogger wrote: The gadget is a 24-hour monitoring system that tracks those who wear ita serious violation of privacy. The wristband was also criticized as another pandemic-born business besides the production of vaccines and PCR tests. Following the post, many Beijing residents echoed with examples of their own experiences, the Taiwan based CNA reported. In Sichuan Province, local authorities also publicized the use of the latest technical apparatus. In a March media report, the police of Chengdu City adopted the electronic wristbands and mobile GPS to monitor and control those who were under house arrest or suspects who were released on bail. Xu Jian contributed to this report. Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks during a campaign rally at Republic Square in Austin, Texas on December 04, 2021. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Beto ORourke Blames Biden for Latino Voters Rightward Shift Beto ORourke has blamed Joe Bidens actions during the 2020 election as playing a part in Latino voters rightward political shift in recent years. Candidate Biden didnt spend a dime or a day in the Rio Grande Valleyor really anywhere in Texas, for that matteronce we got down in the homestretch of the general election, ORourke said at the Texas Tribune Festival on Sept. 24. You got to be locking eyeballs with the people that you want to fight for and serve and whose votes that you want to win. The rightward shift of Hispanic and Latino voters made headlines in the 2020 election. Trump saw more support from Latino voters in 2020 than in 2016. According to Pew Research, Trump moved from 28 percent to 38 percent approval among Hispanic voters, a gain of 10 percent. Biden, meanwhile, earned 59 percent of the Hispanic voters, down from 62 percent Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received in her 2016 election. Related Coverage Latino Vote to Determine Outcome of Dozens of 2022 Midterm Races In South Texas, a historically Democratic stronghold, Hispanic votes shifted significantly. For example, Zapata County, where Clinton won by 33 percentage points in 2016, flipped to Trump in 2020. Republicans showed up with a very strong, compelling economic message, ORourke said Saturday when asked why the Hispanic voters in Texas shifted to GOP candidates. From Trump, it was literally one syllable, one word, ORourke continued. It was jobs, and he kind of offered a false choice: I can either keep you holed up in your house during this pandemic, or I can open up all places of employment and prioritize the economy. What did we have on our side? Nothing, he added. The momentum Republicans gained among Hispanics appears to be sustained in Texas so far. In a June special election, conservative Republican Mayra Flores defeated Democrat Dan Sanchez by roughly eight percentage points. Flores became only the second Republican to ever win in a Rio Grande Valley congressional district and the first Mexican-born Republican ever elected to Congress from Texas. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a press conference at the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on June 8, 2021. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images) Upcoming Governor Race ORourke, who is facing off against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in the upcoming midterm election, said he would not repeat the same errors Democrats made two years ago. I am making sure that we do not commit the same sin as some Democrats before me have committed, which is take voters of colorBlack voters and Latinofor granted, he said, adding that his Spanish language skills gave him a competitive advantage. Recent polls show the democratic candidate is falling behind Abbott, who is seeking a third term as governor. According to a poll released on Sept. 19 by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, Abbott had a lead of 9 percentage points over ORourke. But the 49-year-old shrugged off the survey results. I take these polls with a grain of salt, he said. John Haughey contributed to the report. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 20, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) Biden Administration Advances Racial Equity Agenda Across Federal Agencies News Analysis Nonprofit organizations are already training federal government staffers to implement the Biden administrations push for racial equity, as detailed in recently published documents. According to Partnering with Federal Agencies to Advance Racial Equity, a document (pdf) published by nonprofit Race Forward, the Biden administrations new race agenda is well underway. Trainings, meetings, and new policies pushing racial equityincluding potentially linking federal salaries to racial goalshave already taken place in many federal agencies. In January 2021, one of President Bidens first executive orders, On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities, directed the Federal Government to pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality. While racism has been part of American history since Columbus, racial discrimination has been illegal under federal law for 58 years. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, prohibiting unequal treatment in hiring, education, and public accommodations. Countless state and local laws also prohibit racial discrimination. So what does Bidens executive order mean by the pursuit of racial equity? According to Race Forward, the New York nonprofit training federal employees, Racial equity is a process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone. The goal of racial equity, says Race Forwards website, is to create measurable change in the lives of people of color. According to a Kamala Harris campaign video posted on Twitter on Nov. 1, 2020: Its about giving people the resources and support they need so that everyone can be on equal footing, and then compete on equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place. Sounds just like Karl Marx, wrote Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney on Twitter at the time, responding to Harriss video. A century of history has shown where that path leads. We all embrace equal opportunity, but government-enforced equality of outcomes is Marxism. In a White House press conference following the signing of Bidens executive order, Susan Rice, director of the United States Domestic Policy Council, emphasized the broad scope of this push for racial equity, calling it an unprecedented whole-of-government initiative to embed racial equity across federal policies, programs, and institutions. Every agency, said Rice, will place equity at the core of their public engagement, their policy design, and program delivery. An equity agenda at this scale has never been attempted to date, said Chiraag Bains, deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity. According to Race Forward, Bidens executive order has resulted in the development of racial equity actions plans across 90 federal agencies, with the pilot project focused on the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the implementation phase. Programs have included racial equity learning labs, designed to support staff in exploring the role of the federal government in advancing racial equity, and the creation of racial equity action plans. Its all part of Race Forwards Federal Initiative to Govern for Racial Equity, to provide strategic support, learning opportunities, frameworks, and tools for change through ongoing dialogue with federal agencies. The goal of the program is to create sustainable change for racial equity in federal government structure, policy and practice. In their resource guide (pdf), Organizing for Racial Equity Within the Federal Government, Race Forward details some of its strategies to advance this agenda. Some effective techniques are: establishing new equity-focused codes of conduct; including racial equity competencies in job descriptions; and integrating racial equity criteria into work plan expectations, and performance evaluations that are tied to promotions and merit pay increases or additional paid time off, it read. In short, Race Forward proposes connecting federal worker pay to the achievement of racial equity goals. Race Forward is not a small organization. According to its IRS filings, Race Forward had a $21 million budget in 2020, funded by several million-dollar grants from large foundations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and George Soros Open Society Foundation. These revenues place Race Forward in the top 2 percent of all charitable nonprofits in America, according to financial data from the National Council of Nonprofits. Race Forward isnt alone in receiving the support of wealthy donors. Racial justice nonprofits have benefited from a tremendous upsurge in interest from foundations. For example, in 2019 and 2020, MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated more than $12 billion to 1,257 organizations, including many anti-racism organizations. With its hefty budget and close working relationship with the Biden administration, Race Forward now seems poised to advance its long-term journey to transform agencies and the whole federal government. As stated in their publication Organizing for Racial Equity, this as a unique moment in American history. President Bidens Executive Order presents a generational opportunity to bring the full force of the federal government to the work of racial equity and justice. To realize its potential, racial equity practitioners will need to organize from within the government. Blank checks are seen on an idle press at the Philadelphia Regional Financial Center in Philadelphia, Pa., on May 8, 2009. (Matt Rourke/AP Photo) California Man Gets 4 Years in Prison for Stealing Over $5 Million in COVID Loans An Orange County man was sentenced Sept. 26 to four years in prison for fraudulently obtaining more than $5 million in COVID-19 relief loans to buy properties in Eagle Rock, Malibu, and Irvine. Reddy Budamala, 36, of Irvine, was also ordered to pay $5.15 million in restitution to the Small Business Administration, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. He will be deported to his native India once he completes his prison sentence, according to a sentencing memorandum. Budamala pleaded guilty in June to one federal count each of bank fraud and money laundering. As part of his plea agreement, he agreed to give up the real estate he obtained using the relief loans, as well as over $4.1 million in funds from his bank and investment accounts and cryptocurrency. He was arrested in February when he attempted to flee to Mexico via the San Ysidro border. His defense attorney Diane C. Bass wrote in papers filed in Los Angeles federal court that he had fallen on hard times and became desperate and was suffering from a mental breakdown when he committed the fraud. It was his intention to invest the funds, which he did, and then repay the loans but he did not get a chance to do that before being arrested, the attorney wrote. Budamala launched the scheme in 2019before the COVID-19 outbreakwhen he formed or acquired three shell companies with no operations, Hayventure LLC, Pioneer LLC, and XC International LLC, according to court papers. After the federal relief programs were set up in 2020 to address the economic fallout caused by the pandemic, Budamala submitted seven applications to the Small Business Administration for pandemic-relief loans under the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan. In the applications, Budamala told the banks handling the loans that his companies had dozens of employees and millions of dollars in revenue, and that he needed the money for payroll and business expenses. No records of those companies paying wages to any employees, and bank records for the companies reflect no significant business income or operating expenses, a Sept. 26 statement by the U.S. attorneys office read. The listed addresses of the companies were also bogus, nonexistent, or residential addresses, according to the statement. The Small Business Administration and the banks approved six of the applications and disbursed more than $5.15 million. Once Budamala received the loans, he applied to have several forgiven and claimed he had used the money for payroll while in fact, he used it to pay for personal expensesincluding purchasing a $1.2 million investment property in Eagle Rock, a $600,000 property in Malibu, and a private residence in Irvine, according to federal prosecutors. He also allocated $970,000 of the funds to whats known as the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program, which allows some foreign investors to obtain permanent residency in the United States, and deposited nearly $3 million into his personal account with TD Ameritrade, a financial asset trading platform, prosecutors said. Canada Ends Border Vaccine Rules, ArriveCan Use Requirements Ottawa is ending its pandemic border measures, including the requirement for travellers to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination upon entering Canada and mandatory masking on planes and trains, while making the use of the ArriveCan mobile app optional. Based on the data accumulated over the last few weeks, we are announcing that the government of Canada will not renew the order in council that expires on Sept. 30, and will remove all COVID-19 order requirements for all travellers entering Canada, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said at a press conference on Sept. 26. This includes the removal of all federal testing, quarantines, isolation requirements, as well as the mandatory submission of health information in ArriveCan. Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Howard Njoo (L) listens to ministers speak during a news conference announcing an end to COVID-19 requirements at the border in Ottawa on Sept. 26, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld) The press conference was held jointly with other cabinet ministers, including Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier, and Infrastructure Minister Dominic LeBlanc. The ministers said the federal government will maintain the ability to re-establish certain border measures in the future should it find it necessary to prevent the importation of new COVID-19 variants. The situation in Canada has greatly improved, but there are challenges that remain and we have to continue to be vigilant but we feel now that we can change our approach at the international borders at this time, Mendicino said. Starting Oct. 1, people will no longer be required to undergo health checks when travelling by air and rail or be subject to COVID-related quarantine or isolation requirements, or wear masks on planes and trains, and airlines will no longer need to review the vaccination status of travellers, regardless of their citizenship. Similar changes will also apply to passengers travelling by cruise ships, where passengers and crews on board will no longer be subject to vaccination requirements or testing before they board a vessel. The removal of border measures has been facilitated by a number of factors, including modelling that indicates that Canada has largely passed the peak of the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 fuelled wave, Canadas high vaccination rates, lower hospitalization and death rates, as well as the availability and use of vaccine boosters (including new bivalent formulation), rapid tests, and treatments for COVID-19, the federal government said in a statement. The federal government has been facing pressure by the Conservatives as well as those in the industry and officials in border cities to end the various border restrictions. Opponents of the restrictions have cited concerns about limitation of personal freedoms as well as damage to the business sector. After constant pressure from Conservatives & people across Canada, Trudeau Liberals finally back down on the disastrous ArriveCAN app, unscientific vaccine mandates & forced mask-wearing, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in a social media post. None of the science changes October 1 but because of you, Trudeau has to. ArriveCan Now Optional A person holds a smartphone set to the opening screen of the ArriveCan app in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Giordano Ciampini) ArriveCan was initially introduced for travellers to report their vaccination status and provide pre-departure test results to the Canada Border Services Agency. But its scope was expanded as a digitized border arrival tool, allowing people flying into Canada in certain airports to use it to fill out their customs and immigration form rather than the paper version. Since its inception, ArriveCan has been linked to mandatory health information, including vaccination status that travellers have submitted when entering Canada, Mendicino said. ArriveCan will now become voluntary for those who want to save time at airports by uploading documents in advance. The federal government first introduced the requirement for travellers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 about a year ago, and has renewed that order about every three months. The latest order will expire Sept. 30 and will not be renewed. A new poll finds a majority of Democrats dont want President Joe Biden to be the partys 2024 presidential nominee. How is the White House responding? Is the recession worsening? Signals are intensifying as a key economic gauge drops for the sixth straight month. To discuss the latest economic trends and how the federal government has responded, we hear from Congressman Dan Meuser. The Chinese ambassador to the United States is trying to lobby House lawmakers on the fentanyl crisis. It appears he wants to deflect the Chinese regimes responsibility for the flow of illicit fentanyl into the United States. Head of the House GOP foreign relations committee Rep. Michael McCaul joins us to talk about one key component of his partys commitment to America planholding the Chinese Communist Party accountable. A federal judge has dismissed a parent-led lawsuit against Attorney General Merrick Garland. The suit was over the memo he wrote when he referred to parents as a threat to schools. BUY Jan 6 DVD: The Real Story of Jan. 6 Documentary102 Minutes, Color), Promo Code [Steve] for 20% off. * Click the Save button below the video to access it later on My List. Follow CapitolReport on social media: Twitter https://twitter.com/capitolreport Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CapitolReport/ Gettr https://gettr.com/user/capitolreport Follow EpochTV on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVus Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTV Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@EpochTV Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/epochtv Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVus Gab: https://gab.com/EpochTV Telegram: https://t.me/EpochTV The Chinese medical system has seen dozens of officials terminated from their jobs due to a widespread "anti-corruption" campaign. This happens as worldwide attention has focused on the forced harvesting of human organs by the CCP. (Photo composition by The Epoch Times) CCP Cleans House as World Focus on Forced Organ Harvesting Continues 'Anti-corruption' campaign doesn't indicate an end to brutal organ harvesting Since the start of this year, the Chinese medical system has seen dozens of people terminated from their jobs amid a widespread anti-corruption campaign. The cleanup, which has affected numerous officials within government and public hospitals, is occurring at the same time that worldwide attention is turning to the regimes forced harvesting of human organs. The live harvesting of organs is beyond the moral limits of humanity, Japanese political commentator Chao Jie told The Epoch Times. The purge of officials in the health care system today can also be considered a kind of retribution. During the tenure of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin (19932003), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began its brutal persecution of the Falun Gong community, which fueled a rapid expansion of the human organ transplant industry. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that involves meditative exercises and a set of moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It expanded in popularity in China in the 1990s, with an estimated 70 million to 100 million people practicing by the end of the decade. Deeming that popularity a threat, then-leader Jiang initiated a sweeping persecution campaign against Falun Gong adherents aimed at eliminating the practice. In 2000, as part of the repression campaign, the CCP began systematically harvesting and selling organs from detained Falun Gong practitioners. The nations medical system became deeply involved in forced organ harvesting. In the years that followed, the medical system dramatically reduced the time required to find a suitable donor organ to just days or weeks. Meanwhile, in the United States, the waiting period for a voluntarily donated heart can range from 180 days to years. CCP Cleans House in Medical Industry After Xi Jinping took office in 2012, he started an anti-corruption campaign to purge rival Jiangs faction. Many medical officials associated with the Jiang faction began losing their jobs. From January through August of this year, the CCPs cleanup of medical leadership led to the dismissal of dozens of high-ranking officialsfrom central medical administration to local government medical departments. Among those dismissed was Chao Baohua, director of the Stroke Prevention and Control Committee and second inspector of the National Health Commission. He was taken away for investigation on July 29. Specific reasons for his detainment havent been announced. Wang Binquan, former director of the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, was expelled from the Party and public office on July 22. He was accused of conducting serious duty violations and accepting various bribes. Zhang Zhikuan, Party secretary and director of the Beijing Food and Drug Administration, was placed under supervisory investigation, the regime sources reported on March 27. He is suspected of serious disciplinary violations. Zhou Jin, former director of the First Hospital of Harbin Medical University, was expelled from the Party on June 23. The long list of accusations against him included trading power for money or sex and accepting huge bribes. Forced Organ Harvesting Continues to Draw Worldwide Attention Although this stepped-up anti-corruption campaign might indicate otherwise, forced organ harvesting continues, and it remains a focus of world attention. The CCPs long history of harvesting the organs of Falun Gong practitioners is well-known outside of China. An analysis in the July 28 issue of Englands Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics suggests that China violates the criteria for determining brain death before organs can be removed. Titled Cases Abusing Brain Death Definition in Organ Procurement in China, the article cites Chinese medical journals that describe organ procurement methods, and concludes that some donors were neither brain dead nor heart dead when organ harvesting was initiated. The article references one organ procurement method in which doctors induce cardiac arrest so as to perform a cardiac resection on people whose hearts are fully functional. These heart-beating donors were not heart-beating brain-dead organ donors, the article reads. This means that the condition of these donors neither met the criteria of brain death nor that of cardiac death. In other words, the donor organs may well have been procured in these cases from living human beings. A Telltale Short Waiting Period The short waiting period for organs in China is thought by many to indicate that people are being detained so their organs can be harvested on demand. Consider the example of Mu Jiangang, a teacher at Lanzhou University. On April 8, he suffered a sudden heart attack and was admitted to the hospital for emergency care. Doctors later determined he needed a heart transplant after a newly inserted heart stent failed. On May 6, Mu was transferred to Wuhan Union Hospital, one of Chinas top organ transplant facilities. He was promptly put on the waiting list for a heart transplant. Four days later, Mus heart transplant was completed. Surfeit of Organs In addition to Chinas exceptionally short waiting time for a suitable organ, some Chinese transplant patients are offered multiple organs simultaneously. In June 2020, Sun Lingling, a 24-year-old Chinese national living in Japan, was flown to Wuhan Union Hospital for a heart transplant. Within 10 days, the hospital found four suitable heart candidates. The first heart became available on June 16, but the surgeon performing the operation decided its coronary artery was unsuitable, and the heart was rejected. The second heart was received on June 19 but was also rejected because Sun was feverish that day, and the procedure had to be postponed. Two additional hearts arrived at the hospital on June 25. The surgeon selected one and rejected the other as not sufficiently strong. In response to Suns case, Dr. Torsten Trey, founder and executive director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, told The Epoch Times at that time that the ready availability of not one but four hearts for a transplant patient was beyond imagination. However, these cases are happening in China on a daily basis. Mus case was reported by the Chinese media because his colleagues were raising funds for his surgery cost. Suns story was reported as Chinese propaganda, to illustrate the regimes supposed superiority over Japan. Official media outlets carried headline stories touting Suns brief wait for a transplant, compared to the lengthy waiting period in Japan. Ellen Wan contributed to this article. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Police officers stand guard at an entrance to a court in Beijing, on Sept. 11, 2020. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters) CCP Clique Ringleaders Sentenced to Life in Prison Ahead of Party Congress Two Chinese security officials are sentenced to life in prison over corruption charges ahead of the ruling Chinese Communist Partys National Congress in mid-October. Moreover, both officials were involved in the persecution of Falun Gong and some China observers believe they will soon be brought to justice for human rights abuses. Sun Lijun, former deputy security minister, and Fu Zhenghua, former justice minister and executive deputy security minister, appeared in a Beijing court on Sept. 23. The court announced their suspended death sentences would be commuted to life in prison after two years without parole or commutation. As part of their sentencing, they were stripped of all their political rights and all personal properties were confiscated. The courts judgment also stated that Sun and Fu accepted a huge amount of bribes, the circumstances of their crimes were particularly serious, the social impact was particularly bad, and it caused particularly heavy losses to the country and the people. The CCPs top disciplinary watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said in a notice that Sun would do anything to achieve his political goals and has no moral bottom line. Chinas Public Security Ministry previously accused Sun of spreading the venomous influence of his political clique. Other four provincial-level officials who are members of Suns political clique have also received lengthy prison sentences. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is vying for an unprecedented third term at the Party congress, which starts on Oct. 16. He has been purging political opponents through an anti-corruption campaign since coming to power in 2012. Serious Crimes Its widely believed that Sun and his clique are supported by former CCP leader Jiang Zemins faction. Aside from Jiang, China affairs analyst Wang Youqun pointed out that the bigger bosses behind Sun include Meng Jianzhu, former member of the CCPs Politburo and former secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and Zeng Qinghong, former member of the Politburo and vice-chairman of China. Sun and Fu are significant members of the CCPs Blood Debt Gang that persecutes Falun Gong, led by Jiang and Zeng. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient Chinese spiritual practice consisting of simple, slow-moving meditation exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It grew in popularity during the 1990s, with 70 million to 100 million adherents in China by the end of the decade, according to official estimates at the time. Feeling threatened by its popularity, the CCP launched a systematic elimination campaign in July 1999. Since then, millions have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with hundreds of thousands tortured while incarcerated, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. Sun and Fu served as directors of the regimes 610 Office, an organization set up to persecute Falun Gong. Falun Gong adherents hold a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese Consulate to mark the 23 years of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party in Los Angeles, Calif., on July 18, 2022. (Debora Cheng/The Epoch Times) Fu also directly planned and carried out the 709 mass arrest of civil rights lawyers in China in 2015. Many persecuted lawyers represented Falun Gong adherents and defended their innocence and rights in court. The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) has issued at least five notices on Fus crimes of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, including forced live organ harvesting. Significant Meritorious Performance The court said Sun and Fu had significant meritorious performance, which is why they were spared the death penalty. However, no details were given in the verdicts. China observers believe the court spared the lives of Sun and Fu because they divulged information about the serious crimes committed by top CCP officials. Wang said that those responsible for persecuting Falun Gongincluding Jiang, Zeng, and the Blood Debt Gangwill face trial in the near future. At that time, Sun Lijun and Fu Zhenghua, who were left alive, and Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai, both previously sentenced to life in prison, will all serve as important witnesses to Zeng and Jiangs crimes of launching and leading the persecution of Falun Gong, Wang wrote in a Sept. 25 article for the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times. Piero Tozzi, senior adviser to Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), speaks at a rally to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the launch of the Chinese regimes persecution of spiritual group Falun Gong, held on the National Mall in Washington on July 21, 2022. (Lisa Fan/The Epoch Times) Current affairs commentator Li Zhengkuan expressed the same view. As Falun Gong practitioners in China and abroad spread the truth about the faith and the persecution, more and more people in the regimes political, legal, and public security systems no longer blindly follow the persecution order. Many have already stopped participating, and some are doing their best to protect Falun Gong practitioners within their power, he wrote in a Sept. 25 article for the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times. In the near future, the CCP will be subject to an international trial no less than the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis. And everyone involved will inevitably face the ultimate judgment of the human law, as well as the judgment of conscience. CDC Issues Overhaul to Mask Mandate in Hospitals and Nursing Homes The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a change to its guidance late last week and will no longer require nursing homes and hospitals to require masking in some areas. In a revision on Sept. 23, the CDC said that nursing home facilities and hospitals in a number of areas without high community transmission can choose not to require all doctors, patients, and visitors to wear masks. Its one of many changes to the CDCs COVID-19 guidance since August when the agencys leadership announced an overhaul of how it responds to pandemics. Updates were made to reflect the high levels of vaccine-and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools, the CDC said. Recent CDC data used to inform health care facilities shows that about 73 percent of counties in the United States are seeing high community transmission of COVID-19. About 26.9 percent, meanwhile, are meeting low, moderate, or substantial transmission, according to the data, indicating that facilities in those areas dont have to mandate masks. Community transmission is the metric currently recommended to guide select practices in healthcare settings to allow for earlier intervention, before there is strain on the healthcare system and to better protect the individuals seeking care in these settings, the CDC stated in its updated guidance. Early on in the pandemic, the CDC recommended everyone wear masks or respirators in health care facilities or nursing homes. Exceptions were later included visitors who choose not to wear masks if they had updated COVID-19 vaccines and were alone with the person they were visiting. Vaccination status is no longer used to inform source control, screening testing, or post-exposure recommendations, the guidance now says. Holly Harmon, a senior vice president for the American Health Care Association as well as the National Center for Assisted Living, praised the recent CDC guidance change. While our commitment to infection prevention and control continues, adapting COVID protocols means recognizing the current stage of this pandemic as well as the importance of quality of life for our nations seniors, Harmon said, reported CBS News. Overhaul In mid-August, new guidelines published by the federal agency no longer recommend staying at least six feet away from other people to reduce exposure. And the agency stated at the time that its no longer recommending unvaccinated people to quarantine after exposure. Unvaccinated people who have been in close contact with an infected person arent advised to go through a five-day quarantine period if they havent tested positive or shown symptoms. CDCs COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a persons vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection, the CDC said at the time amid additional announced changes. But notably, the CDC is still requiring non-citizen international travelers to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination before entering the United States, according to its website. The agency dropped testing for international travelers in June. The Canadian government on Monday is ending its requirements that travelers crossing the U.S.Canada border have to show proof of vaccination starting Oct. 1. A file photo of an aerial view of Toronto East and Scarborough near the 401 Highway in Ontario. The City of Markham is seen in the distance. (Shutterstock) Chinas Unofficial Police Stations in Toronto Part of Growing Transnational Repression: Report Human rights NGO says Beijing is engaging in 'long-arm policing' in dozens of countries Chinese police have set up three unofficial overseas service stations in Toronto as part of an operation that now consists of over 50 similar offices in dozens of countries, says a new investigative report. These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and show the worrying growth of transnational repression and long-arm policing by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the report said, noting that the stations have reportedly targeted not only criminals and corrupt officials but also dissidents. Titled 110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild, the report was published in September by Spain-based human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders. A first batch of 30 overseas police service stations were established in 25 cities in 21 countries in January 2022, it said. The stations, totalling 32 at the time of the reports publication, are under the jurisdiction of the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau in Fuzhou City, Fujian Provincea branch of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. They are also known as 110 overseas, named after the police emergency phone number, 110, in China. Another 22 such stations have been established in 22 cities in 17 countries under the police jurisdiction in Qingtian County, Zhejiang Province, and one can assume the list of such stations goes far beyond what can be presented here, the report said. The Globe and Mail reported on Sept. 21 that it visited three addresses in the Greater Toronto Area that are on a list of overseas Chinese police service stations published by a Chinese state media, two in Markham and one in Scarborough. All three stations are located in areas with large Chinese populations, but the Globe said no one they spoke to in the area was aware of a police service station or had heard of the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau. Of the two Markham addresses, one was a private home while the other was a mall full of small Chinese businesses and restaurants. The third property, in a business park near a highway, is owned by the Canada Toronto FuQing Business Association, a federally incorporated non-profit. A woman walks out the meeting room after a plenary session of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11, 2013. The CPPCC is a key part of the Chinese regimes united front organization. (Feng Li/Getty Images) Gloria Fung, president of Canada-Hong Kong Link, told The Epoch Times that the CCPs overseas operations had been subtle in the past but that she finds the direct establishment of overseas police stations a very rampant act of the Chinese regime. I am monitoring this issue, and how the three-levels of government in Canada view this, how our media view it, and how the communities perceive it. This is the first time that I have ever seen a foreign governments police department publicly establishing a branch here [in Canada]. I find it a very absurd and very rampant operation, Fung said. Persuaded to Return to China In addition to the 110 overseas stations, the Safeguard Defenders investigation also looked into a related campaign launched by the CCP in 2018 aimed at combating fraud and telecommunication fraud by Chinese nationals living abroad. Chinese authorities have claimed that an estimated 230,000 overseas Chinese nationals have been persuaded to return to China to face criminal charges between April 2021 and July 2022. The report said persuasion to return is a key method of the Chinese governments involuntary returns operations, which include its Fox Hunt operation and broader Sky Net campaign. The method entails either tracking down of the targets family in China in order to pressure them through means of intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment into persuading their family members to return voluntarily,' or directly approaching the target through online means or the deployment ofoften undercoveragents and/or proxies abroad to threaten and harass the target into returning voluntarily,' according to the report. Fujian Provinces Anxi County was named by Chinas State Council in 2018 as a key rectification area of the origins of criminals going overseas for fraud. Subsequently, Fujian provincial departments at all levels were instructed to carry out five measures against fraud suspects, including demolishing any property allegedly built using illicit money, banning the suspects children from studying in public schools, and suspending all medical insurance subsidies and confiscating the passports of the suspects. These actions were to be taken before any suspect was taken before a court of law, the report said. Such measures leaves legal Chinese residents abroad fully exposed to extra-legal targeting by the Chinese police, with little to none of the protection theoretically ensured under both national and international law, the report said, noting that Chinese authorities are also targeting non-suspects living abroad. Whether the targets are dissidents, corrupt officials or low-level criminals, the problem remains the same: The use of irregular methodsoften combining carrots with sticksagainst the targeted individual or their family members in China undermines any due process and the most basic rights of suspects. Nine Forbidden Countries The report said that Chinese authorities have designated nine countries as having serious fraud, telecom fraud, and web crimes and are forbidding Chinese nationals to stay in those countries without good reason. The countries include Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. However, the report noted that among suspected criminals there are also entirely innocent people simply living in the wrong country, as well as victims themselves who have been forced into such illegal acts through threats, smuggling and intimidation. One such example is a woman referred to under the pseudonym Li Qingqing, from Yuanzhuang township, Xianyou County, Fujian, who runs a restaurant in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. On March 11, Li was asked by the Yuanzhuang police to return to China, despite her insistence that she was not a suspect of any crime. [But] the police told her that according to the governments policy, Chinese citizens staying in the nine fraud-related countries are required to return unconditionally. After that, she continually received messages from the local police asking her to return, the report said. On May 5, police informed Li that she had been put on the telecom suspect list and warned that her mothers house would be cut off from power and water supplies. Her mothers house was later spray-painted with the words House of Telecom Fraud and a policy notice was posted next to the spray-painting. Lis mother was also called to her village committee and asked to persuade Li to return to China by May 31, the report said, citing a now-removed article from a Chinese-language outlet. It is unclear whether Li has returned to China. Links to United Front System The Canada Toronto FuQing Business Association (CTFQBA), which owns the property where one of the three 110 overseas stations in Toronto is located, says on its website that it was established under the guidance of a number of Chinese and Fujianese government organizations, including a municipal committee of the United Front Work Department, according to the Globe article. During a session of the Thirteenth Peoples Congress of Fujian Province this March, CTFQBA honorary president Weng Guoning praised the 110 overseas program, saying it gave him the warmth of the motherland, reported the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. This federation is also a key organization run by the United Front, according to a report titled The Party Speaks for You published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in June 2020. The Epoch Times made multiple attempts to contact CTFQBA for comment. Someone from the organization who answered a phone call didnt respond to questions. Subsequent calls were unanswered. The Safeguard Defenders report said that at first glance at least some of the associations abroad are tied to the United Front systeman agency that is seeking to co-opt and influence representative figures and groups inside and outside China, with a particular focus on religious, ethnic minority, and diaspora communities. Rapidly emerging evidence points to extensive online campaigns and the use of Overseas Police Service Stations being used in these operations on five continents, often using local Chinese Overseas Home Associations linked to the CCPs United Front Work, the report said. Overseas hometown associations, while often providing genuine services to the community, have by now become overwhelmingly co-opted by the CCPs United Front organizations, which seek to increasingly control the Chinese diaspora. A police officer stands guard before the closing session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 10, 2022. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) Chinese Police Adopt North Koreas Three Generations of Punishment Commentary A recent report by the human rights nongovernmental organization Safeguard Defenders reveals that the Chinese police have adopted North Koreas three generations of punishment, in which three generations of a political offenders family can be imprisoned or executed even without having committed a crime themselves. Similar to the concept of guilt by association, Chinese police use this form of punishment to target individuals deemed a threat to the regime. It isnt unheard of that the Chinese police use threats against a targeted individuals loved ones, including children, spouses, or even parents. For example, they use that method to get rights defenders and activists to do what they demand, especially when torture isnt enough. However, new revelations expose a greater scope and systematic approach to such behavior. According to Safeguard Defenders, when the Chinese regime wants high-profile dissenters or exiles to return to China voluntarily, it not only detains or arrests them, but also even imprisons their innocent relatives. The new report by Safeguard Defenders describes the massive increase in operations by Chinese police to persuade Chinese nationals abroad to return to China to face criminal charges. Chinese state media claim that 230,000 Chinese nationals returned through such persuasion between April 2021 and July 2022, the report states. That figure is remarkable, especially during travel restrictions, particularly to and from China. Most media reported on this data and the fact that Chinese police have established overseas police service stations. So far, 54 such stations have been uncovered in 30 countries, but the actual number could be higher. Safeguard Defenders found that in the service stations in Spain and Serbia, there are government documents revealing how these stations operate with Chinese police to track targeted individuals and assist in forcing them to return to China. Moreover, Safeguard Defenders discovered a series of police and government notices and documents showing how far local police are instructed to persuade these targeted individuals to return to China. For example, the documents reveal that authorities pressure family members by preventing them from taking out loans, suspending their medical insurance, and confiscating their passports. Of all the methods, perhaps the most Orwellian in nature is the instruction that the police can deny a childs right to an education. Police officers have even admitted that some of those sought after havent actually committed any crime but are targeted nonetheless, and the same techniques outlined above are all fair play. Its a remarkable development for a country that, for a while at least, pretended to try to develop something akin to a system of rules within its legal system. In fact, one official notice makes it illegal for Chinese nationals to live in nine forbidden countries, including places such as Turkey, Thailand, and many other Southeast Asian countries, and that they must return to China, even if they arent accused of any wrongdoing. The lawlessness within Chinese police enforcement is seemingly spreading, and instead of being limited to high-profile human rights defenders and critics, its now being used on a grander scale by local police, no matter the cost, to achieve their aim of greater control. Is this what we can expect from China under Xi Jinping during his third term, a country entirely devoid of adherence to the law and the adoption of North Korean-style guilt by association? For a country that governs through fear, guilt by association might be one of the most potent toolsand things certainly arent looking bright for the near future. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Naomi and Tyler Wheeler pose for a photo at their wedding in Charlottetown on Sept. 24, 2022 handout photo. (The Canadian Press/HO, Sarah Haberl) Couple Proceeds With Wedding Amid Chaos in PEI From Post-Tropical Storm Fiona Naomi and Tyler Wheeler have lived through a pandemic, wildfires, heat waves, minor earthquakes and most recently a post-tropical storm that laid waste to huge swaths of Atlantic Canada. As the former hurricane Fiona pounded Prince Edward Island on Saturday, devastating much of the province, the couple pledged to weather stormsand any other apocalyptic events life sends their waytogether. In front of just 16 guests, down from the 85 theyd hoped to entertain, the Wheelers professed their love for each other and exchanged rings at the Rodd Charlottetown hotel in the capital citys downtown core. The couple officially tied the knot in Halifax in 2017 in a small ceremony and decided to have a party later. We tried to schedule it three times, Naomi Wheeler said with a laugh. And then COVID kept getting in the way. Of course, a hurricane happens when we reschedule. The couple live in the brides California home town, while the groom hails from Montague, P.E.I. They wanted to have a party for Tyler Wheelers family and other friends who wouldnt be able to make it to Los Angeles. They landed in Charlottetown Wednesday when Fiona was churning its way through southern waters. But as the storm approached Canada and warnings grew stringent, their friends cancelled. The couple was disappointed but understood. They wanted their friends and family safe. There was the whole stages of grief about it, Tyler Wheeler said. Were just kind of in disbelief that this could happen. The couple then simply decided to go with the flow, said the bride. The flow is just a hurricane. The wedding was delayed by an hour-and-a-half while the officiant, Sarah Haberl, and the groom helped patch up a family members roof. The Wheelers first met as students at a 2013 party in Montreal. Later that evening, the pair recognized each other at a club where they had gone to act as wing people for friends. We were terrible wing people, said the bride. Nine years later, as Fiona raged, the couple finally celebrated their love and friendship with their closest friends in a storm-adapted ceremony they said was sprinkled with personal touches. The room was lit with 30 candles and three iPhone flashlights. The invocation and vows were read by candlelight and a headlamp, Haberl said. The ceremony included a poem, a little bit of the childhood of the couple and had some lovey-dovey things, she said. The rings the Wheelers eventually exchanged were first passed around the room so guests could offer a blessing on them. The raspberry and vanilla swirl cake was topped with fresh flowers and made by the grooms sister-in-law. One of the first songs partygoers danced to was the well-known sea shanty Barretts Privateers. We had to get a little bit of Nova Scotia in there, the groom said. Amid the celebration, the couple said there was a touch of sadness because the grooms grandparents couldnt attend. Reflecting on their ceremony and the past few whirlwind days, the bride said they didnt realize how fast and how bad things could get with the weather. But Naomi Wheeler said she also feels overwhelmed by the amount of support she got and how everyone came together. I think we embraced it. It was a lovely, lovely, cosy, intimate evening, she said. I feel very loved. By Hina Alam A 15-year-old piano player who was encouraged by his father to perform wowed crowds at an airport in Switzerland three years ago. Now hes studying to become a composer. Christian Blandford, now 19, lives in the town of Sevenoaks, in Kent, South East England, and studies film music composition at Leeds Conservatoire. He remembers feeling tired and nervous when sitting at Geneva airport in Switzerland in early 2019. However, his dad, Peter, started nudging him to play the piano for the crowds. We heard that there was a piano in the airport somewhere, Christian told The Epoch Times. Hes such a funny dad, he was just going around, like, Is there a piano here? and I was like, Dad! But we found this cafe and he got his phone out. Christian, who loves the music of composers such as Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Scriabin, was initially worried that his playing the piano would disturb the public. But his father had already begun recording. He said, Please, everyone wants to hear, and I just said Okay,' Christian said. I started playing Beethovens Moonlight Sonata then I played Rachmaninoffs Prelude in C-sharp minor. I only started learning them the year before. Christian, who was really nervous at the beginning, was very focused on what he was playing. Soon, he noticed people gathering around in the background but still wasnt aware of the magnitude until he finished his first piece. I turned around to so many people with their phones out, Christian recalled. That was a really magical moment for me, because I dont think I had much confidence at the time. Thats one of the things that helped me try to love myself more as a musician. A waiter who was stunned by Christians playing served him a nonalcoholic cocktail, on the house. Christians proud dad uploaded his footage to TikTok, where it went viral. Christian does video game programming on the side and has had a lot of online support for his work before. But nothing compared to being appreciated for his music. This was about me, my performance, and my emotions. It was very powerful and lovely I was reading all these messages, all these comments about something that was so personal to me, he said. Peter has been Christians adamant supporter. We do lots of things together hes not a musician, but that doesnt matter to me at all. Hes still interested in what Im doing, and he always wants to hear me play, Christian said. The pair share an incredible bond. I think any father whose son is close to not surviving when theyre younger, theyre always going to have a special bond, Christian said. Theyre always going to be happy that theyre alive. Before the age of 4, Christian battled cancer twice. He received treatment for clear cell sarcoma of the kidney and underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy. He now has scars, an imbalance in his left leg, and only one kidney. His family made headlines in 2019 when a bottle of 1990 Bollinger champagne that Peter had been saving to celebrate his sons five years in remission was stolen from their home. The bottle was later retrieved by police. Peter told Metro: Its a symbol of how life can turn around from a very dark period, when it looks like theres no good outcome, and actually turn out for the best. Christian took to the piano at school around the age of 6. He said he probably wasnt a very good student, but after several years of tutoring, he started learning compositions by himself and found his passion. My first composition was probably when I was 7 or 8, he told The Epoch Times. It was very much a case of improvising on the piano, harmonies, and chords it was just something that I always had going on to relax myself and have fun. One of the first performances I did was at school. I remember thinking, Oh, that was terrible, but then I remember the entire room standing up. They hadnt stood up for any of the other performances, and everyone was clapping. I think something sparked in my head. At age 15, Christian released some of his own music on the internet. Today, hes writing an album of original music, to be released soon. Christian has been on a health journey since beating cancer. A food-lover who enjoys cooking, he battled with his weight as a child. I didnt like how I looked, he said. I was quite big and it wasnt good, medically, especially with my history with cancer I just started to watch what I was eating, exercise it was really difficult, but I kept going and I did it. Christian completed his A-level exams a few years ago. He earned a spot at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama to study piano performance. But for the sake of his career, he opted to study at Leeds Conservatoire, with a bursary for additional piano lessons. He said: If there was a Netflix show that I was the composer of, that would just be outstanding. But I think youve got to look at the bigger picture and say, What makes me different from everyone else? Thats what Ive got to work hard on in the next few years, my musical identity. (Courtesy of Christian Blandford) Christian also has a piece of advice for others. As humans, we have a lot of self-doubt, he said. If you havent any ambitions, just try everything even if youre a terrible painter, but then you just start painting for fun, its a great thing to do. Just keep trying stuff! Christian continues to share his music on Instagram, and he raises money for kids and their families affected by cancer through The Christian Blandford Fund. Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter Defending the Constitution: Why the Framers Thought Ratification by Only Nine States Was Sufficient Commentary In an earlier essay in my Defending the Constitution series, I responded to the common charge that the 1787 Constitutional Convention abused its trust. The charge is that the commissioners (delegates) exceeded the scope of the convention call issued by Congress. In response, I pointed out that Congress didnt call the Constitutional Convention; Virginia did. And the scope of the commissioners power wasnt defined by Congress but by the states, which granted them sufficient authority to recommend a new Constitution. The present essay addresses a related charge. Its that the framers acted improperly when they provided that the Constitution would become effective if ratified by only nine states. The critics say that the approval of all 13 states and the Confederation Congress should have been required, because thats what the Articles of Confederation mandated. A quick answer to these charges is that even if the framers acted improperly, no harm came of it. Congress didnt object. On the contrary, it voted to send the Constitution to the states for ratification. And within three years, all 13 states had ratified the document. Thats the quick answer. But the dime-store lawyers who criticize the framers should know that there are more accurate and thorough answers, based squarely on the law of the time. Stay with me as we go through the steps. Much of what follows is material you learn during the second year of law school. And the modern law in this area is pretty much the same as it was during the Founding Era. One People The Declaration of Independence defined the United States for purposes of international law. It presented Americans to the world as one people. This one people initially operated through 13 separate state sovereignties. This is a common situation in international affairs. For many years, the German people were governed by a multitude of sovereignties, and during the Cold War, they were governed by two. Before 1870, the Italian people were divided among several different countries. The same situation still exists for the Chinese, Korean, Irish, and Arab peoples. Agency According to agency law, principals empower agents. According to 18th-century political theory, the people, as principals, conferred power on public officials as their agents. When independence was declared, the American people living in different locations granted governmental power to different sets of agentsthe officials of the several states. In 1781, the state governments terminated the Continental Congress and formally entered into the Articles of Confederation, which created the Confederation Congress. Under the Articles, the states, as agents of the people, granted limited powers to the Confederation Congress. As a result, the Confederation Congress became an agent of the states and a subagent of the people. Keep in mind that under agency law (then as now) a principal may revoke or change an agents authority at any time, and the principal may entrust all or part of that authority to other agents. The Nature of the Articles of Confederation Today, we think of a confederation as a single, although decentralized, polity. An example is the Confoederatio Helveticathe modern Swiss Confederation. But during the 18th century, a confederation was defined as a mere treaty organizationmuch like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In other words, the Articles were a treaty, and the Confederation Congress was a coordinating body analogous to NATOs North Atlantic Council. A treaty is a contract. If one party seriously breaches, the other parties may withdraw from the treaty entirely. By the time the Constitutional Convention met, several states had breached the Articles of Confederation by not complying with Congresss financial requisitions and by undercutting the 1783 treaty of peace with Great Britain. As James Madison pointed out, these breaches permitted any other state to leave the Confederation. The People Approve the Constitution Unlike the Articles, the Constitution created a government based directly on We the People. The Constitution would be ratified by the American people, rather than by the state governments. The document provided that: Ratification or rejection would come from conventions directly elected by the voters for the sole purpose of considering the Constitution. The instrument would go into effect only if the conventions of nine states approved it. Why nine? Because any combination of nine states (even the nine with the smallest populations) would comprise a majority of American citizens. In other words, even if the five most populous states refused to ratify, the remaining nine still would represent a majority of the people. (We can see this from the Constitutions initial allocation of the House of Representatives. Article I, Section 2, Clause 3.) But, you might object, what if nine small states ratified by very narrow margins, and five big states rejected the Constitution by huge margins? Wouldnt that result in ratification by a minority? This was theoretically possible but practically impossible. The framers knew the odds for ratification in Pennsylvania (the second-most populous state) were very high. If only nine states ratified, Pennsylvania would be among them and would ensure an overall majority of the American people. Also, the Constitution would be a dead letter unless Virginia (the most populous state) or New York (fourth or fifth) joined infurther ensuring a popular majority. So the framers had good reason to believe that if the Constitution did come into effect, it would do so by the will of a majority of Americas one people. Why Congressional Approval Wasnt Necessary Some people complain that the Confederation Congress wasnt asked to approve the new Constitution. But this is silly. When youre firing an agent and replacing him with a new one, you dont need the consent of the agent being fired. Even so, the Convention did send the Constitution to Congress, and without objection, that body forwarded it to the states for ratification. Apparently, the only reason Congress didnt formally vote to approve the Constitution was a technical, legal one: Some members believed the Articles granted them no power to approve a proposal of this nature. Thus, any condition that Congress approve the Constitution was legally impossible to fulfill. Lawyers would deem that condition waived. Still, Congress Did Approve In any event, Congresss vote to send the document on to the states can be considered consent through silence. We dont need to guess about that. Abraham Clark represented New Jersey in the Confederation Congress. On Feb. 4, 1789, the New Jersey Journal newspaper published a letter from him explaining his vote for the resolution sending the Constitution to the states: Notwithstanding my dislike to some parts [of the Constitution], considering the situation the United States was in, and the provision made in the Constitution for amendments, I cheerfully gave my assistance to send it to the states for their consideration, judging that New-Jersey [sic], from its local situation and circumstances, could not with propriety reject it, notwithstanding its imperfections: presuming at the same time, that the new Congress would endeavor to amend it as soon as other important business for putting the government into operation would admit. Could not with propriety reject it means, of course, it would be improper to reject it. Clarks approval may have been somewhat grudging (although Clark says it was cheerful). But it was still approval. Clarks letter doesnt tell us what other members of Congress were thinking, but it buttresses the commonsense view that by sending the Constitution to the states, Congress effectively consented to it. Indeed, the congressional journals for that day show not a single objection to the Constitution from any member of the Confederation Congress. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Facebook, Google, and Twitter logos are seen in this combination photo from Reuters files. (Reuters) EXCLUSIVE: Big Tech Officials Didnt Talk During Misinformation Meetings: CDC Official The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official who presented to Big Tech firms on alleged misinformation is claiming that none of the social media executives spoke during the meetings. Carol Crawford, a CDC official, and other government officials met multiple times with executives from Big Tech companies like Facebook to discuss how the companies could better combat misinformation, according to previously released records. To learn more, The Epoch Times asked for lists of people invited, lists of people who attended, recordings from the meetings, and all documents outlining what transpired during the meetings. Crawford told The Epoch Times in a missive that only two of the meetings, known as Be on the Lookout (BOLO), took place. I [Carol Crawford] did not take notes for meeting or record the meeting, Crawford said. The attendees were not able to talk, the slides were simply presented by me [Carol Crawford] I [Carol Crawford] do not know who attended beyond who was invited. Facebook, Google, and Twitter did not respond to requests for comment. Crawford did not respond to emailed questions. The first meeting was held on May 14, 2021. The second was held on May 28, 2021. According to a list of invited attendees obtained by The Epoch Times through its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Twitter executive Todd OBoyle, Google executive Jan Antonaros, Meta executive Carrie Adams, and Facebook executive Payton Iheme were invited to both meetings. Meta is Facebooks parent company. Antonaros, Iheme, OBoyle, and Adams did not respond to requests for comment. A general view of the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta on April 23, 2020. (Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images) Crawford was slated to be joined in the meetings by Lynn Sokler and Kate Galatas, also of the CDC, and two Census Bureau officials, Christopher Thomas Lewitzke and Jennifer Shopkorn, according to the list. The names of two invited persons were redacted. The CDC cited an exemption to FOIA law that allows agencies to redact information to protect personal privacy. The CDC said it could not confirm who actually attended the meetings. America First Legal first obtained documents showing repeated interactions between the CDC and Big Tech executives, including the CDC flagging specific posts that officials thought should be removed. Additional sets of documents later acquired by the group, which is run by former Trump administration officials, and plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Biden administration showed that the coordination included multiple other agencies, including the Census Bureau, the Food and Drug Administration, and State Department. Invite All Platforms to Join Crawford started engaging the executives to join the meetings before they happened, the previously released emails show. On May 10, 2021, she wrote to Stanley Onyimba and Antonaros, both of Google, saying that we would like to establish COVID BOLO meetings on misinformation and invite all platforms to join the meetings. She said she heard through the grapevine that a certain person would want to join, but that persons name was redacted. Crawford sent similar messages that day to Iheme and other Big Tech executives. After the meetings, Crawford shared slides of her presentations with the executives. Please do not share outside your trust and safety teams, she wrote. Other Engagements A third BOLO call was scheduled for June 18, 2021, but Crawford canceled it because of the Juneteenth holiday, according to the previously released documents. And another was scheduled for July 2021, but was also canceled. No reason was given. While only two BOLO meetings may have been held, the documents show that additional interactions took place involving the CDC and Big Tech executives. In one exchange in the summer of 2021, Crawford said that she had had a conversation with Facebook officials on misinformation and sent several paragraphs of information. She acknowledged that heart inflammation was a possible side effect of the COVID-19 vaccines and that there had been increased reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome after vaccination with Johnson & Johnsons shot. She also asserted that the claim of the spike protein in COVID-19 vaccines being dangerous or cytotoxic was false, even though some experts dont agree. Just FYI, we have a great deal of new content posted. Also, some new info on myths your misinfo folks might be interested in, Crawford wrote to Iheme and Adams in May 2021. The platforms utilized information from the CDC when setting COVID-19 misinformation policies, the records show. But in some cases, the CDC itself was a source of information. In June, for instance, a CDC official said that the COVID-19 vaccines are effective at protecting people, including children ages 6 months to 4 years, from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized, and even dying. But theres no evidence that the vaccines are effective against severe illness and death in young children, as other CDC officials have acknowledged. The clinical trials were not powered to detect efficacy against severe disease in young children, Dr. Sara Oliver, a CDC official, said during a meeting before the agency recommended the vaccines for young children. More documents are slated to be produced soon from the government in the suit, which alleges First Amendment violations from the government pressuring Big Tech to censor users. Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III has said the group did not attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Real Story of Jan. 6/Epoch TV) EXCLUSIVE: FBI Transcript Shows Rhodes Told Agents He Ordered Oath Keepers Away From Capitol on Jan. 6 The Oath Keepers not only had no plan to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III warned his members that afternoon, whatever you do, dont try to enter the Capitol, Rhodes told the FBI in an extensive interview obtained by The Epoch Times. Information from Rhodess interview with two FBI agents in Texas in May 2021 contradicts much of what is in the January 2022 indictment charging him with seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties, and two other Jan. 6 charges. Rhodes and four co-defendants will go on trial Sept. 27, accused of plotting to interfere with the counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 and preventing the peaceful transfer of power between President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison, based on threats by prosecutors to seek sentencing enhancers for alleged terrorism. In the interviewa transcript of which was obtained by The Epoch TimesRhodes repeatedly asserts the Oath Keepers had no plan to attack the Capitol and, in fact, did nothing of the sort. When he realized some Oath Keepers had gone into the Capitol, Rhodes said, he called an end to their event-security mission and ordered them all to rendezvous with him on the east side of the complex. Everyone came right there where I told them to go, not because I wanted them to go do anything else, [but] because I wanted to get them all together to keep them out of trouble, he said. I didnt want them getting involved in any of the [expletive]. Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs informed Rhodes he and other Oath Keepers went into the Capitol on a first-aid mission, Rhodes said. So when I figured out what had happened, that people had gone in on the Supreme Court side, and that some of our guys had gone in, thats when I was like, Okay, guys, lets move. Get them all together. Lets go towards the Supreme Court, Rhodes said. Just get off the Capitol grounds. Get the [expletive] out of here. Thats what we did. There was no [expletive] plan on our part to go inside that Capitol. The FBI agents who met with Rhodes in Texas served a warrant to seize his phone. Rhodes gave them the security PIN to access the phone and walked them through the content, in an apparent effort to show he had nothing to hide. He offered to turn himself in if there were ever charges in the case. Based on what we talked about, I cant see that happening, Stewart, one of the FBI agents said. When he was arrested in January 2022, a SWAT team came to his Texas home and ordered him to surrender. Rhodes and Oath Keepers general counsel Kellye SoRellewho sat in on the FBI interviewexpressed concerns that their accounts of Jan. 6 would be twisted by prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice. The conversation took place eight months before Rhodes was indicted and 16 months before SoRelle was indicted on four obstruction-related counts. Hey, let me know if you need anything else answered, Rhodes said near the end of the interview. Ill talk to you. I dont trust your bosses. Just being blunt with you. I dont. Yeah, especially the DOJ. I dont trust anyI dont trust lawyers in general. Rhodes expressed concern that content on his phone doesnt get leaked to the [expletive] media. We dont operate like that, an FBI agent told him. To which SoRelle replied: Oh whatever. The DOJ will make sure to do that. Oath Keepers Provided Security Rhodes reiterated the story he has told ever since, that the Oath Keepers went to Washington D.C. on Jan. 6 to provide security for events and escort VIPs from President Donald Trumps speech at the Ellipse to locations around the Capitol, where they were scheduled to speak at various events. Well, there were permitted events around the Capitol, Rhodes said. So there was Latinos for Trump, there was Ali Alexanders and I believe there were several other ones that were permitted around the Capitol because originally, thats where everyone was going to go. Then Trump decided to go hold his own thing on the Ellipse, which kind of sucked all the air out of those other events, he said. But none of those events were intended to be, Lets storm the Capitol. It was, Go there and protest. Rhodes said he spoke at a Latinos for Trump event near the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6. SoRellefor whom Rhodes was providing securitygot cold, so they retreated to a nearby hotel where one of the Oath Keepers was staying. Rhodes said he had no idea there was trouble at the Capitol until he received a call from Michael Whip Greene, who served as operations director for the Oath Keepers on Jan. 6. So were at the hotel and then Whip called me and said, Hey, theyre storming the Capitol. Im like, Okay. Were gonna head back that way. Where are you at? Rhodes said. And it was just me and him trying to link up. Two Oath Keepers inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Founder Stewart Rhodes said he initially had no idea Oath Keepers entered the Capitol. (U.S. DOJ/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) And it didnt even enter my head that any of my guys would be that [expletive] retarded, he said. I put a message out saying, Whatever you do, you know, dont try to enter the Capitol. Rhodes said he and SoRelle then headed to the Capitol, walking up on the east side. He said they had no idea violence had broken out on the west side, where a massive crowd had gathered. We walked on the Supreme Court side. There were no barriers or no cops saying, You cant come in here. he said. Nothing. Just a bunch of people standing on the steps. Rhodes said he used the encrypted messenger app Signal to put out the word to the Oath Keepers to meet up at a point on the Capitol perimeter, near the Supreme Court. As teams of Oath Keepers arrived, he said, he learned that some of them had entered the Capitol through the Columbus Doors atop the east steps. I was like, Lets get the [expletive] off this property, Rhodes said. Lets get out of here, you know? Lets go. That was it, man. Rhodes said Oath Keepers Florida leader Meggs then told him a group went inside the Capitol after hearing that a woman had been shot. We heard someone had been shot, so we went in to render medical aid, Rhodes quoted Meggs as saying. Now, if hed have asked me, Hey, Stewart, we think someones been shot. Should we go inside? I would have said, No. Stay. You canhe had two medics with him, you know. I was like, Hey, post outside, like at the base of the steps. You want to help someone, post outside. They can bring people to you. Rhodes said he and Greene earlier tried to reach Meggs, but could not get a phone signal. We got lax as far as command and control, he said. So here we are caught with our pants down, wanting to make sure our guys are, you know, coming to us, he said. Were trying to reach them on the [expletive] phone and theres no signal. So thats why I typed it in the chat. QRFs Not Part of a Plot Prosecutors allege that Rhodes and the Oath Keepers stockpiled a cache of firearms and ammunition at a Virginia hotel to be used by quick-reaction forces (QRFs) in the event of an attack on the Capitol. Rhodes told the FBI the QRFs would have only been used if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and called up a militia to protect the White House in the event of attacks by Antifa, which they had threatened to do. The QRFs were also put in place to throw off Antifa, which had attacked Trump supporters at D.C. events in late 2020, he said. But the QRF thing, that was mostly mind [expletive] for Antifa, Rhodes said. Now, if Trump would have called us up as militia, would I have gone? Of course. Absolutely. But I wouldnt have [expletive] gone anywhere in D.C. with any firearms, whatsoever, unless he did that. Because there was a bunch of talk in November about them storming the White House, Rhodes said. They were saying they were gonna go and lay siege to the White House. And so, I was concerned about that. They made a bunch of noise about that. Members of the Oath Keepers walk from President Donald Trumps speech to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Luke Coffee/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) Antifa does not mess with the Oath Keepers, in part because they cant know which of them might be current or retired police who are allowed to carry concealed firearms anywhere under the federal Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA), Rhodes said. Theyd never actually close on us, ever, not once, he said. None of our guys have ever drawn their weapon on them, to my knowledge. Never pepper sprayed anybody. Never hit anybody with a baton. Rhodes told the FBI agents several times the QRFs were for use only if President Trump called us up as the militia. And our big concern was Antifa, he said. My concern was Antifa was gonna go kinetic. You know, what if Antifa goes kinetic? Rhodes told the agents that Oath Keepers were no threat to the FBI or the government. Were pretty [expletive] boring, actually, he said. All we do is go protect people, and property, and events. And thats it. Thats the drill. If Rhodes was worried about what the FBI would find on his phone, he didnt act like it. After some initial back and forth as to whether providing the PIN to his phone would be considered consent to search, Rhodes told the agents where to find various types of information. I always told my guys, Were not hiding [expletive] from the U.S. government. Dont even worry about that, Rhodes said. He told agents he had not deleted content from his phone. He joked with one of them when the agent said, Im not gonna be scarred from this, am I? Im not going back and trying to delete [expletive]. No. All my dirty laundrys in there, man, Rhodes said. Youll see. All my [expletive] weird-ass [expletive]. Dont watch the videos. Unless thats your thing. Thank you for the warning, the agent said. I Like Guns Rhodes was plain-spoken about his affinity for firearms. I like guns. I buy guns and ammo all the [expletive] time, he said. So dont let your DOJ or whatever, D.C. weirdos, freak out on the fact that I like guns. So I go shooting all the time. I buy guns and ammo. Especially right now. Our [expletive] focus has beenit wasnt on you guysits been on the [expletive] (indiscernible) Antifa and the radical left. Our whole perspective is like, thats our enemies. Rhodes said he is always armed, except when he goes to Washington D.C. Ive been carrying guns for years, he said. So when I go to D.C., we leave our [expletive] in Virginia. You know? STORY AT-A-GLANCE September 12, 2022, President Biden signed the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy Specified in that order is the development of genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers, as well as genetic technologies to unlock the power of biological data using computing tools and artificial intelligence This executive order establishes a fast-tracked pipeline of mRNA shots and other gene therapies that will further the transhumanist agenda to create augmented humans and bring us into a post-human world Drug makers have clearly expected this free-for-all as they have loads of mRNA candidates in their pipelines. September 14, 2022, Pfizer initiated a Phase 3 study that will test a quadrivalent mRNA-based flu shot on 25,000 American adults Moderna began its Phase 3 mRNA flu jab trial in early June 2022. Ultimately, Moderna wants to create an annual mRNA shot that covers all of the top 10 viruses that result in hospitalizations each year September 12, 2022, President Biden signed the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy.1 Specified in that order is the development of genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers, as well as genetic technologies to unlock the power of biological data using computing tools and artificial intelligence. Additionally, obstacles for commercialization will be reduced so that innovative technologies and products can reach markets faster. What we have here is, in a nutshell, the creation of a fast-tracked mRNA pipeline. When, in June 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quietly implemented a Future Framework scheme 2 to deliver reformulated COVID boosters without additional testing, I predicted that this no testing required formula would spread beyond COVID shots. And, according to this executive order, thats exactly whats about to happen. In early September 2022, the FDA also put out medically false and misleading COVID booster campaign messages that prove weve officially entered the era of transhumanism: Its time to install that update! #UpdateYourAntibodies with a new #COVID19 booster.3 Dont be shocked! You can now #RechargeYourImmunity with an updated #COVID19 booster.4 Is This the Death Knell to Allopathic Medicine? Historically, gene therapies have had to jump through extra hoops, which is why so few exist on the market. As of 2021, there were 20 gene therapies commercially available.5 The worlds first gene therapy trial didnt begin until 1990, so this is still a very new field. The entire gene therapy field actually collapsed overnight in 1999, when a teenage trial participant died from side effects. An FDA investigation concluded research had moved too fast and that safety had not been put first.6 Progress, thanks to increased caution, slowed from there on. Such caution is now being thrown to the wind, and its not difficult to predict there will be disastrous ramifications. Millions will die from poorly tested gene therapies and, eventually, medical research and allopathic medicine will both cease to exist, as survivors vow to have nothing to do with that murderous cabal ever again. The only way they might be able to keep going is if they are in control of peoples brain function and/or able to force drugs under threat of death, or worse neither of which is impossible at this point, shockingly enough. In the meantime, were looking at a cornucopia of mRNA shots coming our way. mRNA Flu Shots Are in the Works Not surprisingly, mRNA flu shots are in the works.7 While we probably wont see mRNA flu shots during the 2022/2023 winter season, theres every reason to expect theyll be rolled out next year. September 14, 2022, Pfizer initiated a Phase 3 study, which will test a quadrivalent mRNA-based flu shot on 25,000 American adults.8 Pfizer is also exploring mRNA technology that uses self-amplifying RNA (saRNA), for potential use in the future.9 Moderna began its Phase 3 mRNA flu jab trial in early June 2022.10 Its also working on mRNA shots for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV), which is in the herpes family, as well as a SARS-CoV-2-influenza combination shot. Ultimately, Moderna wants to create an annual mRNA shot that covers all of the top 10 viruses that result in hospitalizations each year.11 Its current flu jab candidate, mRNA-1010, encodes for the hemagglutinin (HA) glycoproteins of four different influenza strains, including influenza A/H1N1, A/H3N2, influenza B/Yamagata and B/Victoria. According to Moderna:12 HA is a major influenza surface glycoprotein that is considered an important target to generate broad protection against influenza and is the primary target of currently available influenza vaccines. The Transhumanist Agenda Over the past three years, Ive written several articles exploring the transhumanist agenda, which all these mRNA shots and genetic technologies are part and parcel of. Basically, the goal of the transhumanist movement is to transcend biology through technology, and to meld human biology with technology and artificial intelligence. In September 2020, I posted a video with Dr. Carrie Madej (above), in which she suggested we were standing at the crossroads of transhumanism, thanks to the fast approaching release of mRNA COVID-19 shots. One reason why its important to know whether synthetic RNA creates permanent changes in the genome is because synthetic genes are patented. If they cause permanent changes, humans will contain patented genes, and that brings up very serious questions, seeing how patents have owners, and owners have patent rights. Since these shots are designed to manipulate your biology, they have the potential to also alter the biology of the entire human race. Nearly two years later, we still dont know the extent to which they might be doing that, yet more fast-tracked and untested gene therapies are on the way. One reason why its important to know for certain whether synthetic RNA ends up creating permanent changes in the genome is because synthetic genes are patented. If they cause permanent changes, humans will contain patented genes, and that brings up very serious questions, seeing how patents have owners, and owners have patent rights. US Defense Department Aims to Create Human Cyborgs The hydrogel used to preserve the mRNA can also contain nanobots to create a bioelectric interface capable of connecting to a smartphone or other interface. Novel technologies that measure biological data, such as blood sugar, are based on this. Such technologies will, of course, have immediate ramifications for our privacy. Who will collect and have access to all this data? Who will be responsible for protecting it? How will it be used? Also, if your cellphone can receive information from your body, what information can your body receive from it, or other sources? Could transmissions affect your mood? Your behavior? Your physical function? Your thoughts or memories? So far, it doesnt appear as though the COVID shots have these kinds of capabilities built in, but we do know for a fact that militaries around the world are exploring and working toward such capabilities. In fact, its an arms race in its own right. In his September 14, 2022, Substack article,13 Human Cyborgs Are Just the Beginning, Dr. Robert Malone reviewed several of those plans. Certain report titles alone tell the story, such as the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Councils report,14 Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Implications for the Future of the DOD. It doesnt leave a whole lot to the imagination, does it? According to the assessment abstract: The primary objective of this effort was to forecast and evaluate the military implications of machines that are physically integrated with the human body to augment and enhance human performance over the next 30 years. This report summarizes this assessment and findings; identifies four potential military-use cases for new technologies in this area; and assesses their impact upon the DOD organizational structure, warfighter doctrine and tactics, and interoperability with U.S. allies and civil society. Human augmentation technologies deemed technically feasible by 2050 at the latest include ocular enhancements to improve sight and situational awareness, optogenetic bodysuit to restore or improve muscular strength and control, auditory enhancements, and neural enhancement of the brain for two-way data transfers and brain-to-brain communication. Changing What It Means To Be Human In The Plan to Turn You Into a Genetically Edited Cyborg, I covered another shockingly dystopian report by the U.K. Ministry of Defense and the German Bundeswehr Office for Defense Planning, published in May 2021. That report, Human Augmentation The Dawn of a New Paradigm, a Strategic Implications Project,15 reviews the scientific goals of the U.K. and German defense ministries, and they basically mirror that of the U.S. DOD. On page 12 of the report, the concept of the human body as a platform is described, and how various parts of the human platform can be augmented. For example: Physical performance such as strength, dexterity, speed and endurance can be enhanced, as well as physical senses. One example given is gene editing for enhanced sight Psychological performance such as cognition, emotion and motivation can be influenced to activate and direct desired behavior. Examples of cognitive augmentation include improving memory, attention, alertness, creativity, understanding, decision-making, intelligence and vigilance Social performance The ability to perceive oneself as part of a group and the readiness to act as part of the team can be influenced. Communication skills, collaboration and trust are also included here They list several different ways to influence the physical, psychological and social performance of the human platform, including genetics (germ line and somatic modification), synthetic biology, invasive (internal) and noninvasive (external) brain interfaces, passive and powered exoskeletons, drugs and nano technology, neurostimulation, augmented reality technologies such as external holograms or glasses with built-in artificial intelligence, and sensory augmentation technologies such as external sensors or implants. As noted in this report, Human augmentation has the potential to change the meaning of what it means to be a human. This is precisely what Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), has stated is the goal of The Fourth Industrial Revolution.16 WEF has been at the center of global affairs for more than 40 years, and if you take the time to dive into WEFs Fourth Industrial Revolution material, you realize that its all about transhumanism. Its about the merger of man and machine. This is a dystopian future that WEF and its global allies are actively trying to implement, whether humanity at large agrees with it or not. Importantly, the Human Augmentation report readily admits that human augmentation can directly enhance behavior. And, if you think these reports are just brain fodder for geeks in uniforms, think again. The U.K. Defense and Security Accelerator (DASA) is currently, right now, accepting proposals for human augmentation technologies such as those listed above.17 Grants of 70,000 euros ($74,000), will be given to proposals that can provide proof of concept. Were Already Being Programmed to Accept Transhumanism Both the DODs Cyborg Soldier report and the British/German Human Augmentation reports discuss the fact that human augmentation will inevitably widen already existing disparities, inequalities and inequities, and therefore, efforts should be undertaken to reverse negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies.18 In other words, dont let people come to the conclusion that human cyborgs are a bad idea, because at worst that might prevent their development, and at best, itll pitch regular people against the augmented elite, making their efforts to rule the plebs more difficult. As noted by Malone, Once again, we are being played before we even know what the playing field looks like.19 Disturbingly, considering how nontransparent governments have been so far, its not inconceivable that technologies capable of influencing thoughts and behaviors would be used on populations without informing anyone, which makes the list of potential risks one takes with each new mRNA injection even longer than it already is. But we dont need to be genetically reengineered or have nanobots introduced into our brains to be at risk of outside manipulation. Thats already happening through noninvasive means. Control Capabilities Go Far Beyond Orwells 1984 Vision In a November 2019 interview with CNN,20 history professor Yuval Noah Harari, a Klaus Schwab disciple, stated that humans are already hackable, meaning the technology exists by which a company or government can know you better than you know yourself, and this knowledge can be used for both good and ill. According to Harari, the available capabilities already go far beyond Orwells 1984 authoritarian vision, and its only going to become more powerful from here. He predicted that algorithms will increasingly be used to make decisions that historically have been made by humans, either yourself or someone else, including whether or not youll be hired for a particular job, whether youll be granted a loan, what scholastic curriculum you will follow and even whom you will marry. To learn more about the larger issues of transhumanism and the race to merge man with machine and artificial intelligence, check out the Truthstream Media video below. For example, there are even ongoing attempts to upload the human mind into the cloud, ultimately creating a form of digital hive mind where everyone communicates via Wi-Fi telepathy. This, despite the fact we still do not fully understand what the mind actually is, or where its located. Final Thoughts I dont know what it will take to prevent the dystopian post-human world envisioned by Schwab and his technocratic minions, but I suspect education would be a cornerstone of such an endeavor. In order for there to be a resistance, enough people need to be aware of what the plan is, and where were actually being led with all these novel therapies and inventions. In the shorter term, its crucial to realize that the fast-tracking of genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers means theyre going to cut corners. Loads of them. Testing is basically going to be done on the population at large, just as theyve done with the COVID jabs. The results of such experimentation are relatively predictable. People will be seriously injured and many will die. So, think long and hard before you agree to take any of these forthcoming gene therapies. A crest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation inside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington on Aug. 3, 2007. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) FBI Accused of Misleading Judge in Warrant Request, Unlawfully Seizing $86 Million in Private Assets Recently unsealed court documents appear to show that the FBI misled a U.S. magistrate judge in its request for a warrant to seize assets from a privately owned safe deposit box store in Beverly Hills, California. The FBI began investigating U.S. Private Vaultsa store housing more than 1,000 private safe-deposit boxesafter its agents and local law enforcement observed suspected drug dealers and buyers in the vicinity. On March 22, 2021, FBI raided the vault, armed with a warrant by U.S. Magistrate Judge Steve Kim, which granted them the right to seize properties belonging to the firm as part of the investigation, according to a Los Angeles Times report. The agency seized $86 million worth of cash, gold, silver, expensive jewelry, and other assets. Pages 84 and 85 of the governments affidavit requesting multiple warrants contained an assurance that the federal agency would respect the rights of safety deposit box customers. Written by Andrew Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney and driving force of the investigation, that section of the affidavit makes it clear that warrants only authorize seizure of the nests of the boxes themselves, not their contents, according to the Los Angeles Times. However, by the time Kim got the warrant request, the FBI had allegedly made preparations to seize the contents inside the deposit boxes. In the summer of 2020, Matthew Moon, a high-ranking FBI agent from Los Angeles, asked Jessie Murray, chief of the FBIs asset forfeiture unit in Los Angeles, whether Murrays team was capable of handling a possible large-scale seizure of safety deposit boxes of U.S. Private Vault, the Los Angeles Times reported. Murray said yes. In late 2020 and early 2021, Murray joined a conference call to plan the seizure operation. A memo was issued by FBI agent Lynne Zellhart to fellow agents describing the procedures for carrying out the raid. The memo, which was approved by Moon, asked agents to assign ID numbers to all cash found inside the deposit boxes to be catalogued in the Consolidated Asset Tracking System, which the agency uses to organize forfeitures. Losing Assets In the warrant, Kim explicitly wrote that he did not authorize a criminal search or seizure of the contents of the safety deposit boxes. However, the FBI violated the judges instruction by seizing safety deposit boxes. In order to seize assets according to U.S. forfeiture laws, the government must have evidence to prove that these assets were either the result of criminal activity or used to fund such activities. Kim had also asked agents to identify owners of the deposit boxes and notify them that they could claim back their property, the Los Angeles Times reported. After the seizure, the FBI posted a notice on the stores window asking customers whose boxes were taken by the agency to step forward and claim it. However, once they did, they were subject to investigations, and the agency proceeded to look into their state tax returns and bank records. Box holders whose property was seized have filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that their constitutional rights were violated by the FBI. An 80-year-old woman identified in court documents as Linda R. lost 40 gold coins worth an estimated $75,000, which is believed to make up a significant portion of her life savings, Reason reported. Linda kept her retirement savings in the safety deposit vault as she did not trust the banking system. In an interview with Reason in October 2021, Benjamin Gluck, a California attorney representing Linda, slammed the government for seizing his clients savings. It was improper that the government seized these possessions in the first place, unconscionable that they are using them as hostages to pressure owners to divulge private information, and outrageous that they apparently treated the possessions so carelessly that they seem to have lost at least some of them, Gluck said. Response From FBI In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, the FBI National Press Office said that the agents executed the search warrant based on evidence outlined in the affidavit and an indictment already filed against the company, and at no time was a magistrate misled as to the probable cause used to obtain the warrant. The FBI established and widely publicized a simple procedure for customers to have items returned and, to date, has returned tens of millions of dollars to boxholders. All of the items recovered during the search were safeguarded in government custody as the case progressed. This continuing criminal investigation related to a company that admitted it conspired with its customers to launder money has resulted in the companys conviction. FBI Responds to Reports That SWAT Team Was Used to Arrest Pro-Life Activist in Front of Children The FBI responded on Sept. 26 to media reports and claims that it sent a SWAT team to raid the Pennsylvania home of pro-life activist Mark Houck. There are inaccurate claims being made regarding the arrest of Mark Houck. No SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved, the FBI Philadelphia office told The Epoch Times. FBI agents knocked on Mr. Houcks front door, identified themselves as FBI agents, and asked him to exit the residence. He did so and was taken into custody without incident pursuant to an indictment. However, when reached for comment, the bureau didnt directly address claims made by Houcks wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, that agents had their guns drawn and pointed them at her and Mark Houck. While its the FBIs standard practice not to discuss such operational specifics, we can say that the number of personnel and vehicles widely reported as being on scene Friday is an overstatement, and the tactics used by FBI personnel were professional, in line with standard practices, and intended to ensure the safety of everyone present in and outside the residence, the statement reads. The FBI also didnt address an allegation that their children could see the arrest and were all just screaming while the arrest was being carried out. The bureaus Sept. 26 comment to The Epoch Times also appears to be a boilerplate FBI statement that was sent to other media outlets about Houcks arrest. The agents had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house, Ryan-Marie Houck told LifeSite News. Our staircase is open, so [the kids] were all at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down, she said. The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic. In an interview with the Catholic News Agency, Ryan-Marie said agents allegedly told them they were going to break down the door if they didnt open it. They had about five guns pointed at my husband, myself, and basically at my kids, she said, noting that upward of 25 agents were involved in the raid. The FBI didnt comment on the number of agents that were used in the arrest. An unnamed FBI source told Fox News that there were possibly 15 to 20 agents, denying that 25 were there. The individual also said the agents who arrived at the door had guns out already and firearms were never pointed at Houck, his wife, or his children, and the guns were lowered and holstered once he was arrested. Another unnamed law enforcement official told Fox News that agents never entered the house. The Epoch Times couldnt independently verify either claim. Criticism Republican officials, including Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, decried the raid and accused the FBI of targeting ordinary citizens for political reasons. The FBI has faced significant backlash from whistleblowers and Republican officials in recent days for what they say is increasing political bias among the bureaus leadership. The continued weaponization of the FBI and persecution by Joe Bidens DOJ against ordinary Americans is an outrage, Mastriano said in a statement. As of Sept. 26, a GiveSendGo fundraiser for Houcks family raised nearly $200,000. The fundraiser alleged that with Houcks arrest, the Biden administration, Planned Parenthood, and its pro-abortion allies want to send a message of fear to the pro-life community of Pennsylvania. Charges U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero said on Sept. 23 that Houck was charged by indictment with a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. She alleged that Houck assaulted a 72-year-old man near a Planned Parenthood center in Philadelphia in October 2021. The FACE Act, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate, and interfere with anyone because that person is a provider of reproductive health care. According to the DOJ, the alleged victim, B.L., was attempting to escort two patients from the Planned Parenthood clinic when Houck forcefully shoved the individual to the ground. On the same day, Houck verbally confronted B.L. and again forcefully shoved the person to the ground near the Planned Parenthood center. That incident caused injuries to B.L. that required medical attention, the DOJ stated without elaborating. Brian Middleton, a spokesperson for Houcks family, disputed those allegations, saying that he was defending his 12-year-old son from B.L.s harassment. The family is now attempting to produce a video of the incident. The man fell to the ground when Houck pushed him away, Middleton said, disputing prosecutors claims that he shoved the abortion escort. Both city police and the district attorneys office declined to file charges against Houck over the incident, the family spokesperson told Catholic News Agency. B.L. also filed a private criminal complaint against Houck, but Middleton said it was dropped when B.L. didnt show up in court on multiple occasions. Houcks attorney, Thomas More Society Vice President and senior counsel Peter Breen, told LifeSiteNews that Houck also agreed to turn himself in voluntarily several months ago. Rather than accepting Mark Houcks offer to appear voluntarily, the Biden Department of Justice chose to make an unnecessary show of potentially deadly force, sending 20 heavily armed federal agents to the Houck residence at dawn this past Friday, Breen said. In threatening form, after nearly breaking down the familys front door, at least five agents pointed guns at Marks head and arrested him in front of his wife and seven young children, who were terrified that their husband and father would be shot dead before their eyes. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks about a significant firearms trafficking enforcement action during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, on April 1, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) Federal Judge Dismisses Parents Lawsuit Against Attorney General for Memo Describing Them as Threats A lawsuit filed by parents against Attorney General Merrick Garland for a memo he wrote, which characterized parents protesting against school district policies as a threat, has been dismissed by a federal judge. In the memo (pdf) issued by Garland on Oct. 4, 2021, he stated that there had been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff. The Department of Justice (DOJ) would use its authority and resources to discourage such threats, identify them, and prosecute people, it said. The memo was written in response to a letter sent by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to the DOJ on Sept. 29, 2021, which described parental opposition to school policies like teaching critical race theory or imposing COVID-19 restrictions as being akin to domestic terrorism and warned that the countrys public schools and education leaders are under immediate threat. On Oct. 19, 2021, Saline Parents, an association of parents in Saline, Michiganalong with six individual parents from either Saline, Michigan, or Loudon County, Virginiafiled a lawsuit against Merrick. It claimed that the attorney general adopted an unlawful policy to use the resources of federal law enforcement to silence parents and other private citizens who object and oppose policies of the progressive Left that are being implemented in public school districts. The parents alleged that the attorney generals policy labels them as domestic terrorists as well as criminalizes their speech. However, District Judge Dabney Friedrich, appointed by former President Donald Trump, dismissed the claims. The alleged AG Policy is not regulatory, proscriptive, or compulsory in nature because it does not impose any regulations, requirements, or enforcement actions on individuals, the judge wrote in the Sept. 23 order (pdf). None of the documents that the plaintiffs allege establish the policy create an imminent threat of future legal actions against anyone, much less the plaintiffs, she wrote. Targeting Parents In a House Judiciary Committee hearing in October 2021, Garland denied allegations that his agency would label protesting parents as domestic terrorists. The Justice Department supports and defends the First Amendment rights of parents to complain as vociferously as they wish about their childrens education, he said. The attorney general also suggested that Republicans were mischaracterizing his memorandum. In a letter to Garland in May 2022, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Johnson (R-La.) revealed that they received information from FBI whistleblowers that the agency was investigating parents (pdf). We have learned from brave whistleblowers that the FBI has opened investigations with the EDUOFFICIALS threat tag in almost every region of the country and relating to all types of educational settings, the lawmakers wrote. The information we have received shows how, as a direct result of your directive, federal law enforcement is using counterterrorism resources to investigate protected First Amendment activity. This is contradictory to Garlands testimony that the DOJ or its components were not using counterterrorism statutes or resources to target parents, the letter stated. US servicemembers gather for a group photo in Times Square, as part of 'Fleet Week' celebrations in New York on May 25, 2022.(ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images) Federal Judge Grants Marines Class Action Status in Challenge to COVID Vaccine Requirement A federal judge has granted class action status for U.S. Marines in their fight against Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austins COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The ruling is another blow to the Biden administration and consistent with other court rulings that have found military branches are violating federal law. Judge Steven Merryday of the U.S. District Court Middle District of Florida Tampa Division granted a classwide preliminary injunction for Marines serving in active and reserve duty who were denied religious accommodation requests from taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Merryday preliminarily enjoined the Department of Defense from enforcing against a member of the class any order, requirement, or rule to accept COVID-19 vaccination, from separating or discharging from the Marine Corps a member of the class who declines COVID-19 vaccination, and from retaliating against a member of the class for the members asserting statutory rights under RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act]. He defined the class as all persons on active duty or in the ready reserve (1) who serve under the command of the Marine Corps, (2) who were affirmed by a chaplain as harboring a sincere religious objection, (3) who timely submitted an initial request for a religious accommodation, (4) who were denied the initial request, (5) who timely appealed the denial of the initial request, and (6) who were denied or will be denied after appeal. According to federal data, 3,733 Marines requested religious accommodations and only 11, 0.295 percent, were granted among those who were already retiring. In response, Merryday asked, Is it more likely than not in nearly all 3,733 cases that no reasonable accommodation was available? He said, the record reveals the substantial likelihood of a systemic failure by the Marine Corps to discharge the obligations established by RFRA. Granting the class wide preliminary injunction was warranted to preserve the status quo, to permit the full development of the record without prejudice to the plaintiffs, and to permit both a trial and a detailed, fact-based resolution of the controlling issues of fact and law. He, like the DOD-OIG, argue those in the military must comply with RFRA. RFRA includes everyone from the President to a park ranger, Merryday said; from the Chief Justice of the United States to a probation officer, from the Speaker of the House to a members district office staffer, from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to a military recruiter even if they dont like it and even if they dont agree with it. The Free Exercise Clause and RFRA are the law of the land. The Marine Corps granted religious accommodations only to the rare applicant both eligible to, and electing to, retire, Merryday said. In the instance of all other applicants, the Marine Corps in denying each appeal relies on an almost identical letter, a template, a form rejection. In denying the appeals, the letter invariably finds even if the chaplain affirms the sincerity of the religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine that the COVID-19 vaccination requirement imposes no substantial burden on the applicants Free Exercise. The Marine Corps and other branches have argued federal courts dont have jurisdiction over military matters and their command discretion isnt curtailed by the RFRA. Theyve asserted, The Supreme Court has made clear: Judges are not given the task of running the Army, citing a 1953 case, Orloff v. Willoughby, for example. But federal judges in multiple states have disagreed, including Merryday, arguing the 1953 case was 40 years before Congress enacted RFRA. Merryday said district courts were selected by Congress and enacted in RFRA to resolve a dispute under RFRA (in other words, Congress and the President, not the district court, chose the district court as the proper forum for service members to assert the RFRA claim asserted in this action.) Although certainly not given the task of running the Army, the courts in the narrow instance of RFRA are assigned to, and entrusted to, ensure that those who run the Marine Corps (and the military in general and every other component of the federal government) conform their actions to the governing law, to RFRA, to which the admirals and the generals and the commandants are unquestionably subordinate just like the President, the Speaker of the House, the Chief Justice, and every other person in the federal government, he said. Merryday also addressed the fact that plaintiffs were given only two days notice to be discharged, ordered to move, and fined $100 daily rent if they stayed in military housing. He said this suggests retribution and retaliation, the existence of which detracts from the Marine Corpss claim elsewhere in this action to good faith treatment of a religious objector. The mandate forced religious objectors to choose between betraying a sincere religious conviction and suffering court martial or separation from the military and, likely, visiting adverse consequences on the Marines family (such as the abrupt eviction from military housing and disenrollment from military schools), he added. Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) speaks at a press conference at the party electoral headquarters overnight in Rome, Italy, on Sept. 26, 2022. The snap election was triggered by the resignation of Prime Minister Mario Draghi in July, following the collapse of his big-tent coalition of leftist, right-wing, and centrist parties. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images) Giorgia Meloni and Common Sense Commentary Toward the beginning of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell has his unhappy protagonist Winston Smith jot down what he describes as an axiom. Freedom, he writes, is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. That seemingly simple, in reality, deep, observation is akin to Bishop Butlers bijou that everything is what it is, and not another thing. How much mischief could have been avoided if people, especially people in power, were to take such commonsense wisdom to heart? Italys new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, seems to be a rare member of the genus homo politicus in embracing such commonsensical positions. In a speech three years ago at the World Congress of Families, she listed Orwellian by quoting not him, but G.K. Chesterton. Fires will be kindled, she quoted, to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in the summer. Chestertons wise words come from the end of his book Heretics (1905). The great march of mental destruction will go on, he writes. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. Meloni, founder and head of Italys Brothers of Italy party, is a euroskeptic. This makes her a heretic. She objects to the effort of the people in charge of Project Europe to turn her into a perfect consumer, a consumer slave. This makes her a pariah. Meloni refuses to be treated as a cipher, a number. This makes her a threat. She proudly defines herself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. This makes her a fascist. That, anyway, is what the major news networks want you to believe. On the eve of her stunning election victoryin 2018, the Brothers of Italy won only 4.5 percent of the voteCBS indulged in a hysterical (I dont mean funny) bit of rhetorical overkill. Voters in Italy appear poised to elect a far-right prime minister, CBS informed viewers. Thats not all. According to CBS, Meloni leads a neo-fascist movement, reminiscent of Benito Mussolinis own political party. Mussolini, eh? Oh, yes. This woman wants to reclaim her own identity as an individual, to champion the two-plus-two-make-four reality that shes Italian, not a global citizen, a Christian, not a consumer slave, a mother, not parent No. 1, and a woman, not a gender. All this makes her, if CBS is to be believed, the exponent of a political philosophy that has roots in neo-fascism. Many fear, intoned a bobblehead called Chris Livesay, that a particularly ugly bit of history could soon repeat itself, as Meloni is poised to lead the most hard-right government since World War II. Many? It wasnt only CBS, of course. CNN was right there on the case, telling us that Melonis victory ushered in Italys most far-right prime minister since Mussolini, underscoring Italys longstanding rejection of mainstream politics, i.e., the politics CNN supports. And then there was the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who, just before Melonis victory, warned that the EU had tools it could use to punish Italy should it vote the wrong way. Such tools, she added, were already being deployed against Hungary and Poland. What were seeing here is a European version of the tactic deployed by the Biden administration against Donald Trump and his supporters. At his speech in Philadelphia earlier this month, President Joe Biden insisted that Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. A week earlier, at a speech in Maryland, Biden explained that the problem was not just Trump, its the entire philosophy that underpins the semi-fascism of the MAGA agenda. But what is that MAGA (or, even scarier, ultra-MAGA) agenda were supposed to recoil from? Its a commonsense agenda that stresses policies that encourage American prosperity, American security, and American freedom. Its an agenda that recognizes that borders are borders, that cheap, abundant energy is a prerequisite of economic prosperity, and that the rule of law must be administered impartially if the coercive power of the state is not to descend into tyranny. It also recognizes that the human race is divided into two sexes, and only two, that race is not determinative of character, and that national sovereignty and private property are necessary to the preservation of individual liberty. In his great essay Politics and the English Language, Orwell noted that the term fascist had degenerated into a cognitively empty negative epithet that was little more than a term of abuse. You dont like something. Therefore its fascist. Its certainly odd that one has to work overtime to defend Melonis assertion of her identity as an Italian, a Christian, a woman, and a mother. Everything is what it is and not another thing. But then, we really do live in a time when the assertion that two plus two make four is disparaged as an example of white supremacy. Who knows what tort will be invented to counter the claim that leaves in the summer are green. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Members of the Oath Keepers walk from President Donald Trump's speech to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Luke Coffee/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) Government Disclosed Jan. 6 Activities of 5 Confidential FBI Sources: Defense Lawyer The U.S. government has acknowledged for the first time that five FBI confidential informants were involved with the Oath Keepers on Jan. 6, 2021, but prosecutors failed to disclose that none of the sources provided evidence of guilt, a defense lawyer said on Sept. 26. FBI officials have repeatedly declined in congressional hearings to say whether there were agents or confidential human sources (CHS) in the crowd when the U.S. Capitol was breached on Jan. 6. But in pretrial communications in the Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case, prosecutors disclosed that there were five sources informing on the Oath Keepers, David Fischer, who is representing defendant Thomas Caldwell, said in the new filing. What the Government knewbut only recently disclosed to the Defendantswas that none of the CHSes provided evidence of guilt on the part of the Oath Keepers as an organization, or the individual Defendants in this case, Fischer said. He said the fact was confirmed by the government telling defense lawyers that only one of the informants will take the stand during the Sept. 27 trial of former Oath Keepers leader Elmer Stewart Rhodes III and four others, including Caldwell. Top FBI officials have declined to answer questions on how many, if any, informants were at the Capitol around the time of the breach. I cant answer that, Jill Sanborn, the FBI assistant director for national security, told Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during one hearing. But prosecutors in a recent motion disclosed that multiple sources have been involved in the investigation into the Oath Keepers, a group comprised of former and current members of the military, law enforcement, and first responders. At trial, the government or defense may call to testify certain CHSes who were either involved in the investigation that led to prosecution of the defendants, or who became CHSes subsequent to the initiation of the instant investigation, prosecutors said in the motion, which asked U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee overseeing the case, to impose a protective order. Prosecutors want defense lawyers barred from asking any questions seeking personal identifying information from any informant witnesses, including their date of birth; any questions about the witnesses participation in investigations outside of the probe in question; and any questions about training in the FBIs CHS program. The protections requested herein, while minimally restrictive, would ensure the integrity of any ongoing investigations and would reduce the security threat posed to any testifying CHSes, prosecutors said in the filing, which has not yet drawn a ruling from Mehta. Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, speaks during a rally in Washington on June 25, 2017. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo) Rhodes Plan Prosecutors contend that Rhodes and his co-defendants engaged in a seditious conspiracy to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 and prevent the counting of Electoral College votes for the 2020 presidential election. The federal indictment charges the Oath Keepers with stockpiling firearms in a Virginia hotel for use by quick-reaction forces to attack the Capitol. Rhodes has said the weapons were legal and for use only if President Donald Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and raised a militia to guard against Antifa. None of the informants, however, reported the existence of a Rhodes Plan and all of the sources have denied knowing any information about it when questioned by FBI handlers after Jan. 6, 2021, Fischer said, citing disclosures by the government to defense lawyers. The potential testimony of these CHSes, along with the corroborating testimony of their FBI handlers, will establish either 1) that the Rhodes Plan was so secret that even members of Oath Keeper leadership who interacted regularly with Defendant Rhodes and others alleged to have been involved were kept in the dark both before and after January 6, or 2) that there never was any such Rhodes Plan,' the defense lawyer said. The defendants are entitled to examine the totality of the Governments investigation and prosecution for the purposes of undermining the jurys confidence in the work done and the conclusions reached by the agents and prosecutors over the course of the past 20 months, Fischer added. The FBI chose to ignore the exculpatory information and has, with prosecutors, reverse-engineered the existence of such a plan through selective use of evidence it has cherry-picked out of context, while ignoring all evidence to the contrary, the filing states. The FBI has declined to comment on court cases, referring requests for comment to the Department of Justice, which has said it doesnt comment on ongoing cases. Mehta recently granted a different motion, which asked to withhold certain information on civilian witnesses, after he reviewed the information behind closed doors. The judge said the information wasnt relevant to the trial. The FBI chooses to use CHSes knowing that the sources might be cross-examined by defense lawyers in criminal cases and defendants want to probe relevant information, such as the reliability and accuracy of information that originated with a CHS, Caldwells lawyer said. The Defendants, moreover, do not intend to elicit testimony from a CHS for the sole purpose of exposing the CHS to possible retribution or otherwise place his or her safety at risk. However, given the physical proximity of certain CHSes to the Defendants, cooperators, and unindicted co-conspirators in this case, it is unrealistic to seek to prevent the geographic location of a testifying CHS from becoming known as a result of testifying in this case, Fischer added. The piece in the government motion on preventing questions on the FBI CHS program also runs counter to the Supreme Courts ruling in Kyles v. Whitley, according to the defense. Lawyers want Mehta to reject that and all other portions of the governments motion. Zachary Stieber Reporter Follow Zachary Stieber covers U.S. and world news. He is based in Maryland. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida talk during the U.S.-Japan bilateral meeting at the Akasaka Palace state guest house in Tokyo on Sept. 26, 2022. (David Mareuil/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) Harris and Kishida Affirm Ironclad Commitment to Counter CCP Aggression in Taiwan Strait During a Sept. 26 meeting between U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, the two leaders affirmed their nations support for one another and condemned Chinese communist aggression in the Taiwan Strait. The Vice President underscored that the U.S.Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, and they discussed efforts to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific, the White House said in a statement. Harris is in Japan this week to lead the U.S. delegation for the state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July. Abe was widely regarded as one of the foremost champions of the U.S.Japan alliance. He was hailed as a defender of democracy for his efforts to design and implement the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Japan, the United States, Australia, and Indiacolloquially referred to as the Quad. The Vice President praised former Prime Minister Abe as a champion of the U.S.Japan Alliance and a free and open Indo-Pacific, and affirmed the United States commitment to continue building on that legacy, the White House statement reads. The White House statement noted that Harris affirmed the U.S. ironclad commitment to maintain Japans national defense and to counter Chinas aggressive and irresponsible provocations in the Taiwan Strait. Harris to Lead Regional Mission Harriss visit to Japan comes a week after President Joe Biden said the United States would militarily defend Taiwan from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state. The statement outraged the CCP, which maintains a One China principle that alleges that Taiwan is a breakaway province of China. The regime has vowed to unite the island with the mainland by any means necessary, and it has repeatedly threatened to use military force to achieve this goal. Taiwan is a self-governing democracy and has never been controlled by the CCP. The United States maintains a One China policy, which formally recognizes but doesnt endorse the CCPs One China principle. Despite having no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, the United States is legally bound to provide the island nation with the arms necessary to defend itself. Although the CCP may claim that Bidens statement was controversial, Japan has long committed its troops to the defense of Taiwan from a CCP invasion and is working to place special units on an island near Taiwan for that eventuality. Japans Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine and a U.S. Navy destroyer are pictured in their first joint anti-submarine drill in the South China Sea on Nov. 16, 2021. (The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force) White House aides said Harris would work to build a unified approach with Japan to counter the CCPs challenges in the region. Taiwan Conflict Would Be Devastating The HarrisKishida meeting also comes just days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his CCP counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of a U.N. summit in New York. The Secretary made crystal clear that, in accordance with our long-standing one-China policy, which again has not changed, the maintenance of peace and stability across the Strait is absolutely, vitally important, a White House official said of the meeting. Blinken expanded on the issue during a Sep. 25 interview on 60 Minutes. China has acted increasingly aggressively when it comes to Taiwan, Blinken said, according to CBS News. That poses a threat to peace and stability in the entire region. He also said a conflict between the CCP and Taiwan would be devastating and have global ramifications because of the two nations vital importance to the global economy, particularly in the production of semiconductor chips. To that end, Blinken said the United States was reacting to the CCPs unilateral effort to change the status quo regarding Taiwan, something that both nations have pledged to not do. We had a conversation about our different approaches to Taiwan, and I reiterated what the president has said, and what hes said clearly and consistently, Blinken said. Our continued adherence to the One China Policy, our determination that the differences [between the CCP and Taiwan] be resolved peacefully, our insistence that peace and stability be maintained in the Taiwan Straits, and our deep concern that China was taking actions to try to change that status quo. Thats what the issue is. A man in Hong Kong sets up his camera as he looks across Deep Bay toward the Shenzhen skyline on Sept. 12, 2018. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images) Hong Kong Pushes Youth to Venture into the Greater Bay Area Despite Shaky Future The Hong Kong government is still actively encouraging Hong Kong youth to seize the opportunities in the Greater Bay Area. However, Hongkongers and imported talent continue their exodus from the political uncertainty and the CCP-like Hong Kong governance. People are also fleeing the city due to the overly strict pandemic policies. The Greater Bay Area encompasses Hong Kong, Macau, and nine municipalities of Guangdong Province. It is intended to be economically integrated and develop into an international business center. But Hong Kong is gradually losing status in the world market, which impacts the Greater Bay Area. While the Hong Kong government continues to deny the tidal migration of people out of the city, officials have claimed that the government will snatch back talent from the international community. Meanwhile, Hong Kongs global status continues to descend. The regimes policies chain Hong Kong to obey the Central governments orders and prevent Hong Kong from affecting the security of the mainland regime. The CCPs compass for Hong Kong is to ensure that the Hong Kong authorities obey and to prevent Hong Kong from influencing the Beijing governments power in mainland China. Chief Executive of Hong Kong John Lee Ka-chiu recently attended the 3rd Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Award Ceremony. In his speech, Lee said he would continue to support Hong Kong youth to develop themselves in the Greater Bay Area. As Hong Kong continues to fixate on its fallacy of the Greater Bay Area, capable professionals continue to leave. Independent scholar Ng Kai-yu, pointed out that the Hong Kong government sees the economic integration between China and Hong Kong and cultivating patriotism in young people as far more critical than building Hong Kong. The government is still trying to convince Hongkongers to advance in the Greater Bay Area even though citizens have been leaving [for other countries]. Ng also stated that it would be a precarious for young Hongkongers to become entrepreneurs in the Greater Bay Area during Chinas economic downturn, as they lack business and personal networks. Hong Kongs International Status Is Nose-Diving Hong Kongs international position is nose-diving, including its once high-flying financial and freight industries. Hong Kong was once recognized as a member of Nylonkong, that is, the global network of New York, London, and Hong Kong, that forms the worlds three major international financial hubs. However, that is changing, with Singapore gradually replacing Hong Kong. On Sept. 22, 2022, British Group Z/Yen and China (Shenzhen) Comprehensive Development Research Institute jointly published the Global Financial Center Index. The report listed Hong Kongs overall ranking at 4th place worldwide. It had dropped a class since the last report. Singapore, however, moved into 3rd place. Singapore Forging Ahead of Hong Kong Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said at an aviation conference in Doha that the mainlands ultra-strict COVID-19 prevention policy, Dynamic Zero, had devastated Hong Kong. The former British colony has lost its status as a global aviation hub. Hong Kong International Airport was an international hub before the pandemic. But from April to June 2022, The Hong Kong Airport only handled 591,000 passengers, compared with 7.3 million passengers at Singapores Changi Airport during the same period. Hong Kong Lost Most of its Freight Business to Singapore and Shanghai As for the freight industry, Lee Ka-di, chairman of Hong Kong Container Depot and Repairer Association Limited, said, Container storage fees in Hong Kong are higher than the fees in Shenzhen and Singapore. With more advanced port facilities, about 80 percent of my shipping clients have moved their business headquarters away from Hong Kong to Singapore or Shanghai. Commentator and professor at the Department of Social Sciences of the Education University of Hong Kong, Ng Hoi-yu, concluded that the Hong Kong government has to obey Beijings policies. Ng says The CCPs attempt to tighten the economic integration between China and Hong Kong and encouraging Hongkongers to advance in mainland China are some of the few tactics the regime used to achieve their main mission. Everything else is secondary. The premise of Hong Kong to embrace the world in the international community would be to serve the regimes interests: things such as pumping in foreign capital to facilitate and move Chinese funds. However, the Professor said, When the China-West relations deteriorate and the economic development shrinks, Hong Kong will inevitably have to follow the mainland. It has to reduce economic and trade exchanges with foreign countries. Ng pointed out that although Hong Kong remains the primary window for China to trade with the west, Hong Kongs international position is no longer what it used to be. A lobster boat grounded on the rocks at the wharf in Stanley Bridge, P.E.I. on Sunday September 25, 2022. After hammering Atlantic Canada, post-tropical storm Fiona has moved inland in southeastern Quebec, with Environment Canada saying the storm will continue to weaken as it tracks across southeastern Labrador and over the Labrador Sea. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Brian McInnis) Fiona Sets Records in Atlantic Canada, Damage Still Being Assessed While the entire impact of post-tropical storm Fiona will take some time to assess, it is already known to have broken some records. According to the Canadian Hurricane Centre (CHC), Fiona set records for the lowest recorded barometric pressure in Canadian history at 932.7 millibars. The number was reported early on Sept. 25 with CHC noting they were still analyzing the data for accuracy. On Sept. 24, Emergency Health Services in Nova Scotia recorded its highest one-day call volume, according to a news release. A state of emergency was declared in the early morning of Sept. 24. Over 200 people in Cape Breton were evacuated due to fallen trees and property damage. On the afternoon of Sept. 24, the Weather Network reported that there were almost 400,000 customers in Nova Scotia without power, around 80,000 in PEI, around 40,000 in New Brunswick and about 3,000 in Newfoundland. On the morning of Sept. 26, there were around 180,000 customers in Nova Scotia still without power, about 75,000 in P.E.I., about 8,000 in New Brunswick, and less than 1,000 in Newfoundland. Further, large waves and storm surge contributed to record-setting water levels. At Escuminac, New Brunswick, a level of 2.82 metres was recorded, higher than the previous record of 2.47 metres. In Port aux Basques, water levels reached 2.75 metres, breaking a previous high of 2.71 metres, according to the CHC. The highest waves recorded through buoy and satellite detection systems averaged 12 to 15 metres, with peaks as high as 30 metres. This, combined with storm surge, resulted in devastating flooding conditions, especially along the coastlines of southwestern Newfoundland, eastern and northern Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Northumberland and Gulf coastlines, east coast of New Brunswick, and Iles-de-la-Madeleine, according to the CHC. The highest winds recorded were in Arisaig, Nova Scotia, (179 kilometres per hour), Wreckhouse, Newfoundland (177 km/h) and Grand Etang, Nova Scotia (167 km/h). Nova Scotia had the most significant share of rainfall. The highest level of precipitation was recorded in Osborne Head at 192 millimetres, but there were also unofficial reports of 200 mm of rain near Antigonish. First Impact According to the CHC, on Sept. 18, after levelling up in the Atlantic Ocean, Fiona became classified as a category 1 hurricane as it passed through the Caribbean, becoming a category 4 after clearing the region. On Sept. 23, as Fiona was about to hit Nova Scotia, its wind levels lowered but then re-intensified between Sable Island and Nova Scotia, where hurricane-level winds were experienced over parts of the Maritimes and eastern Quebec. Fiona hit land with category 2 hurricane winds near Whitehead, 28 km southwest of Canso, Nova Scotia, in the early morning on Sept. 24, according to the CHC. Recovery Efforts The federal government has sent the Canadian Armed Forces to help assess the hurricanes impact, remove debris, and restore transportation routes. Federal Defence Minister Anita Anand said Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. would each be getting about 100 troops, with some already deployed. On Sept. 25, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said what is needed most is food and shelter for those who had to evacuate. The federal government has agreed to match donations to the Canadian Red Cross and is working with the provinces to determine the amount of financial support needed for each region. New Brunswick has already announced a disaster financial assistance program. Blair said the priority is restoring all the power and ensuring roads are clear to send in supplies. The Canadian Press contributed to this report. Hula dancers and members of the Hawaii All State Marching Band perform in June 13, 2016. (Marco Garcia/Getty Images for Macy's) Illogical for Beijing to Compare Its Claim to Taiwan to HawaiiUS Union: Historian Its illogical for the regime in Beijing to equate a possible communist takeover of Taiwan with Hawaiis historical union with the United States because the Hawaiian people voted for U.S. statehood, according to Miles Yu, director of the China Center at Hudson Institute. Yu, an American historian who previously served as senior China policy and planning adviser to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, made the remarks during an interview with VOA on Sept. 24. He was responding to a speech by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the Asia Society on Sept. 23, when Wang said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was resisting Taiwans independence in the same way that the United States would oppose secession by Hawaii. Just as the United States will not allow Hawaii to be split away, China has the right to uphold the unification of the country as Taiwan is part of China, said Wang. He described the self-ruled islands separation as a highly destructive and dangerous gray rhino that must be stopped, attributing the expansion of Taiwans defense forces to U.S. interference and connivance. As things stand, the Taiwan question is growing into the biggest risk in ChinaU.S. relations, Wang added. Should it be mishandled, it is most likely to devastate our bilateral relations. Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state in August 1959 after citizens of the cluster of islands voted in a referendum to accept the Hawaii Admission Act, which was signed into law by then-President Dwight Eisenhower. The people of Taiwan have never applied to join the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), and the PRC has never exercised any management and sovereign control over the existing territory of Taiwan since its establishment in 1949, Yu said. Miles Yu, former senior China policy adviser to former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in Annapolis, Md. (Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times) The CCP claims that Taiwan is a breakaway province that must be united with the mainland, and vows to use military force to achieve this goal. Taiwan has been a self-governing democracy since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949 and has never been controlled by the CCP. Formally, the United States recognizes, but doesnt endorse, the CCPs position, and has agreed that it shouldnt attempt to unilaterally change the status quo, as it likewise expects of Beijing. Regimes Lies of Win-Win Cooperation In his speech, Wang said that ChinaU.S. relations can only improve if Washington adheres to the CCPs three principlesmutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. However, the challenge is that what constitutes a win in terms of the values of Chinas socialist state versus the United States democracy are fundamentally at odds, leading each side to accuse the other of aggression. Yu said that its been the CCPs aggressive behavior that is undermining peace in the Pacific, and that the Chinese regime conveniently continues to ignore the fact that its system of governance remains unattractive to the Taiwanese people. Wang said that China wishes for cooperation with the United States to be driven by win-win outcomes, because the countries have a lot to offer each other. But the CCPs aggression in the region in the past few years suggests it only has to be a win for the communist regime, Yu said. He dismissed the CCPs serenades for peace and cooperation as being deception and meaningless. China is a country that undermines peace, as it has done in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and other regions for more than a decade under the lie of win-win [cooperation]. China has taken advantage of the world, including the United States. Yu said the U.S. government views relations with China from a realistic perspective as they recognize the strategic intention of the CCP, citing the regimes inhumane treatment of the Uyghur minority, unfair trade practices, and regional security. Beijing regards U.S. criticism of Chinas actions in all aspects as disrespect to China, so what Wang Yi mentioned is that the U.S. must first respect China. Otherwise, there will be no trust, Yu said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Wang on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 23 and underlined the United Statess priority for the maintenance of peace and stability on the issue of Taiwan. China began its largest military drills surrounding Taiwan in August following a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Andrew Thornebrooke contributed to this report. Indigenous Families to Be Given Additional Hours of Free Childcare Indigenous children will be eligible for an additional 36 hours of subsidised child care a fortnight under new government reforms announced by the Australian government. As part of the federal government Plan for Cheaper Child Care, the program provides Indigenous children 12 additional hours on top the current allocation of 24 hours a fortnight, which the government estimates will benefit around 6,600 First Nations families. Currently, the government estimates only 4.3 percent of Indigenous children are accessing early childhood education despite making up 6.1 percent of the population of children aged zero to five years. The additional hours are expected to come into place from July 2023. Education Minister Jason Clare said in a joint media release with the Minister for Early Childhood Education Anne Aly, and the Indigenous Minister Linda Burney on Monday, that for the first time, the Closing the Gap target for school readiness went backwards in 2021. We have got to turn this around and a big part of that is getting rid of the roadblocks stopping them from going to early childhood education and care, Clare said. Aly said that the measure would not only ease the cost of living pressures on families but also provide benefits for First Nation children during their formative years. Its essential all governments work together and in partnership with First Nation people if were to Close the Gap and improve outcomes in early childhood education, she said. Meanwhile, Burney said that getting Indigenous children into early education will benefit them for the rest of their lives. This is a practical measure directed to closing the gap in an area where we are going backwards, she said. It will make a difference to Indigenous children across the country. Federal Government To Invest More than $10 million in Policy Partnership for Early Childhood Care The federal government will also invest $10.2 million (US$6.65 million) to establish the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy Partnership between the Australian and state and territory governments and Indigenous representatives. The partnership will be co-chaired by SNAICCNational Voice for Our Children, an advocacy group that has been working to advocate for indigenous children since 1981. SNAICC has been vocal in placing pressure on the Albanese government to address the school readiness of Indigenous children since the Closing the Gap report delivered its annual findings in August. SNAICC CEO Catherine Liddle said in media statement in August that the latest closing the gap data from the Productivity Commission showed a concerning decline in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children assessed as being developmentally on track and ready for school. With the federal government making early years reform a priority, any changes must take into account the unique needs and barriers that face Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families, Liddle said. She called on the federal government to reinstate funding for the Aboriginal Child and Family Centres (ACFCs). Reinstating the funding would be a start and demonstrate the new government is serious about backing Aboriginal-led solutions, she said. The trading symbol for BlackRock is displayed at the closing bell of the Dow Industrial Average at the New York Stock Exchange in New York on July 14, 2017. (Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images) Indigenous Leader Pans Woke Corporations for Supporting Change to Australias Constitution Indigenous leader Warren Mundine has criticised Australias business community for throwing support behind changing the countrys Constitution to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Mundine also said he spoke with many business leaders who admitted they had little understanding of the impact of the Voice. Whats happening in the background is in the business community; a lot of people are telling me theyre under enormous pressure to support the Voice, he told The Epoch Times. This is a bizarre situation where youve got the corporate world running their own campaigneffectively spending a lot of moneyand when I go out into the Aboriginal community, I find it hard to find people who actually support or understand it. Mundine said the Voice was receiving support from woke corporations, inner-city elites, Indigenous academics and politiciansdespite the fact Aboriginal communities were opposed to the constitutional change. Ive had many conversations with business people, and not one of them can explain to me: How its going to work? How its going to benefit Aboriginal people? And how are people going to be better off with it? Not one person. An array of Australias largest corporations have announced their support of legislating a permanent Voice into the Constitution, essentially an advisory body supposed to make representations to the Parliament on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Mining giant BHP has previously endorsed passing the Voice, along with National Australia Bank, biotech firm Commonwealth Serum Labs, and property giant Lendlease. Activist Corporations Come Under the Spotlight Mundines criticism comes as listed companies in the United States have come under pressure for embracing virtue signalling and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) causesincluding climate change and gender equality policies. Notably, major investment firms BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, who own substantial holdings in the largest publicly listed companies across the developed world, are using this leverage to compel executive boards to embrace policies like more gender quotas in management positions. While business leaders in Australia have been more muted in their response to the ESG trend, in the United States, Red States have begun overtly putting pressure on investment funds. In fact, in mid-August, 19 attorney-generals issued a please explain to the worlds largest asset manager BlackRock that its pursuit of net-zero was potentially putting it in breach of its fiduciary duty to shareholders. Indigenous Leaders Still Not Convinced Meanwhile, in Australia, while the campaign for the Voice has ramped up, critics have expressed concern over the lack of detail of what the Voice entails, whether it will remain just an advisory body and whether it will enshrine discrimination into the Constitution. I have always maintained that the commonalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people far outweigh any differences. Any program that goes against this premise, I believe, will not help those Aboriginal people who most need help, wrote Anthony Dillon, a regular commentator on Indigenous affairs and a researcher at the Australian Catholic University, in an op-ed in The Epoch Times. Newly elected Indigenous Senator Jacinta Price of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory said the Voice did little to address real issues confronting Aboriginal families, including domestic violence. It would be far more dignifying if we were recognised and respected as individuals in our own right who are not simply defined by our racial heritage but by the content of our character, she told Parliament in late July. We cannot support legislation that fails to acknowledge the true causes of why Indigenous Australians are marginalised or false narratives that suggest racism is the cause when it has been proven over and again that this is not the case. People stand next to a poster of Enrico Letta, secretary of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), at party headquarters during the snap election in Rome, Italy, on Sept. 25, 2022. (Remo Casilli/Reuters) Italys Center-Left Democratic Party Concedes Election Defeat Italys main center-left group, the Democratic Party (PD), conceded defeat early Monday in a national election and said it would be the largest opposition force in the next parliament. This is a sad evening for the country, Debora Serracchiani, a senior PD lawmaker, told reporters in the partys first official comment on the result. (The right) has the majority in parliament, but not in the country, she claimed. Provisional results showed that an alliance of right-wing parties led by Giorgia Melonis Brothers of Italy party had won around 43 percent of the vote and was on course for a clear majority in parliament and control of both houses of parliament. Meloni is set to become Italys first female prime minister. Head of Fratelli dItalia (Brothers of Italy) party, Giorgia Meloni waves from the stage during a united rally of the League (Lega) party, the Brothers of Italy party and the Forza Italia (FI) party for a protest against the government in Piazza del Popolo in Rome, Italy, on July 4, 2020. (Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images) At 45 years of age, she has pledged to support Western policy on Ukraine and not take undue risks with the third largest economy in the euro zone. South Africa: Government determined to see SAA grow The Department of Public Enterprises and government are committed to ensuring that South African Airways (SAA) grows and that the Strategic Equity Partnership with the Takatso Consortium is finalised. Media reports last week suggested that the national carrier is facing possible liquidation if the deal for the Takatso Consortium to purchase 51% of SAA is not completed. The carriers board chairperson Professor John Lamola moved swiftly to dispel those reports. Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan assured South Africans that the carrier is expected to continue operations for the foreseeable future. We urge all regulatory authorities to assist in having a speedy conclusion to this process. We also want to assure the loyal customers of SAA that we will do everything possible to ensure SAA grows from strength to strength. We also compliment the executive chair, Prof Lamola, board, and staff for the formidable work they have done to grow the SAA presence in the market and providing a much-needed service to the traveling public given the shortage of capacity, Gordhan said. The department said the transaction for the consortium to stake its claim in the carrier is now in the hands of relevant regulators including the Competition Commission, Competition Tribunal and respective aviation authorities for approval. [On Friday], SAA celebrated one-year of service since taking to the skies after a successful business rescue process. The business rescue process has resulted in the emergence of a competitive, sustainable and technologically agile airline that is gradually regaining its market share and continues to offer best service to its customers. The re-emergence of SAA ensures that the national airline continues to play a critical role in the aviation industry and economy at large by providing air transportation connectivity services for both passengers and cargo, facilitating trade and investment, tourism and promoting job creation, the department said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A military convoy of South Africa National Defence Forces (SANDF) rides along a dirt road in the Maringanha district in Pemba on August 5, 2021. - The Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc is rallying behind neighbouring Mozambique, sending troops to battle jihadists wreaking havoc in the gas-rich north and posing a threat to other countries. (Alfredo Zuniga/AFP via Getty Images) Jihadists in Mozambique Far From a Spent Force: Intelligence Report JOHANNESBURGRadical, anti-West religious leaders across East Africa continue to win recruits for extremist entities supported by the terror group ISISs international network, negating gains made by a regional peacekeeping force, according to new intelligence into a jihadist insurgency in Mozambique. A study indicates that hardened terrorists from across Africa enjoy almost unfettered access to the resource-rich southeastern African country, because of porous borders and a coastline thats largely unpoliced. This, even as thousands of troops from the region, plus Rwanda, claim notable victories over the insurgents, killing and capturing many, but driving them into previously peaceful areas where theyve set up new bases. Soldiers from some of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc and Rwanda, have deployed in northern Mozambique since July 2021, to oppose militants who call themselves Ahlu-Sunnah wal Jamaah (ASWJ), or true followers of the Prophet Muhammad and the people who will be saved on the Day of Judgment. The insurgency flared in October 2017, when ASWJ fighters attacked villages and towns in Cabo Delgado province; men were beheaded and women were raped. ASWJ declared the government in Maputo its enemies and called for Sharia law to be implemented in northern Mozambique. That area has much more in common with Muslim-dominated southern Tanzania than it ever has with the predominantly Christian southern parts of Mozambique, local historian Yussuf Adam told The Epoch Times. The people of Mozambique, and specifically in the north, are some of the poorest in the world, according to the United Nations Human Development Index, the latest of which ranks the country No. 181 out of 189 in terms of development. Tensions had been building in Cabo Delgado since 2010, when a massive natural gas field was found off the regions coast. Some of the worlds largest energy companies, including Frances TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil in the United States, signed multibillion-dollar contracts with Maputo for oil and gas exploration and production. The Mozambican government promised the projects would ignite development and better lives for all in northern Mozambique, but nothing came of itsowing the seeds of discontent and providing fertile ground for insurrection, Adam says. The potential for violence rose substantially in early 2017, when state police arrested more than 3,000 people in Cabo Delgado during a crackdown on illegal mining. Locals had been pursuing the activity almost unabated since the 1990s. But when they began to unearth gem-quality rubies, officials stepped in to award mining contracts to international conglomerates. Enter ASWJ, backed by ISIS. The conflict has claimed the lives of at least 4,000 people, while displacing an additional 800,000, human rights monitors say. Now, using a network of on-the-ground informants including intelligence officers, police, army commanders, former and current ASWJ fighters, and local inhabitants and community leaders, Mozambiques Judicial Training Institute and South Africas Institute of Security Studies (ISS) have completed the most comprehensive study yet conducted into the insurgency. Kenyan cleric Aboud Rogo Mohammed played a key part in fomenting extremist ideology and opening the door for ASWJ to recruit and radicalize men across northern Mozambique, according to Maputo-based security analyst Borges Nhamirre, who is one of the authors of the report. Mohammed, accused by the CIA and others of helping to organize al-Qaeda attacks in East Africa, including the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998, was shot dead by Kenyan security forces in 2012. Rogos messages, including encouraging jihad, live on, Nhamirre told The Epoch Times. Rogo visited towns in northern Mozambique, including Mocimboa de Praia in Cabo Delgado, throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s. He praised al-Shabaab in Somalia and said it was good for young Muslim men to become martyrs. Nhamirre says clerics preaching extremist ideology continue to access northern Mozambique. They come from Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya; theyre free to come and go as they please; there are hardly any patrols of borders as the fighting rages on. Meanwhile, another phase of the conflict had been reached, Martin Ewi, Africa director of the European Union-funded ENACT program to combat transnational organized crime, told The Epoch Times. As Mozambican, South African, and Rwandan troops have attacked terrorist bases in Cabo Delgado, the extremists have targeted neighboring Nampula province, he said. Nampula was always at high risk of being attacked because its a recruitment hotbed for the insurgents, Nhamirre said. We need to see if governments going to manage to stop the attacks. But also, we must consider that this might be the strategic move by the group to disperse the forces on the ground so that they can continue operating in northern Cabo Delgado. The risk that their expansion might continue is always there. Adam, who teaches at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, and recently spent months in northern Mozambique facilitating the latest research, said the region was nowhere close to peace. There are pockets of normalization but insecuritys there and its very difficult in this situation to create peace. Whats happening in Nampula at the moment is big groups of people running away from areas where war has erupted. He added it was a big mistake to conclude that the jihadists were almost defeated just because their recent attacks had been smaller and simpler. I hear some analysts and even military people saying, The insurgents previously attacked with 400, 300 fighters; now they attack with 20. For me, this says nothing about the current strength or weakness of ASWJ, because it is a guerrilla group. Its the nature of guerrilla warfare to sometimes attack in big groups, and to sometimes attack in much smaller groups. Nhamirre says jihadists from across East and Central Africa continue to join the battle in Mozambique. In jail, we have Tanzanian, Ugandan, Kenyan, and Congolese fighters saying they fight for Islamic State. They help recruit young Mozambicans and take them to ISIS bases in Congo and Tanzania to be trained. An important figure driving violence in northern Mozambique at the moment is field commander Ibn Omar, also known as Bonomade Machude Omar and Abu Sulayfa Muhammad, Ewi said. In early August, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken branded Omar a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Blinken described him as leading the Military and External Affairs Departments for ISIS-Mozambique and serving as senior commander and lead coordinator for all attacks conducted by the group in northern Mozambique. Ewi said evidence shows that Omar and Abu Yasir Hassan, who Blinken named as leader of IS-Mozambique, led the March 2021 attack on the town of Palma, when dozens of people were murdered, some by beheading. The incident caused Total to suspend its gas project off the coast, and sparked the entrance of the regional and Rwandan force. Nhamirre said Omar is a key operator moving between countries for ISIS. These terrorists obviously have regional, maybe even international, support; otherwise, they would have faded a long time ago. Theres a lot of intelligence talk at the moment of them having helpers in South Africa, where communications and banking systems are very sophisticated and support for IS and other groups are believed to be increasing. In his statement in August, Blinken indicated Washingtons commitment to disrupting the financing methods of ISIS-Mozambique limiting their abilities to conduct further attacks against civilians and supporting our partners in efforts to disrupt terrorism finance. He said the United States would degrade the capacity of terror organizations in West, East, and Southern Africa. But several intelligence analysts in Southern Africa told The Epoch Times that ASWJ so far isnt following any formal ways of channeling funds, and seems to be financing itself by means of local donations and, to a limited degree, by smuggling narcotics and selling them in South Africa. The joint ISSJudicial Training Institute report found that the illicit economy, donations, and raids on local sources such as banks are the major sources of (ASWJ) financing. It asserts that insurgents stole at least US$1 million from banks and businesses during their attack on Palma alone. Adam said hed heard of contacts between representatives of the Mozambican government and ASWJ leaders in recent months, but officials in Maputo wouldnt confirm or deny that to The Epoch Times. Events in the past have shown us that meetings are happening between the opposing sides, Adam said. The road to talks to bring peace has been open for two years, since those two Brazilian nuns were abducted. ASWJ fighters seized the Catholic nuns during their siege on the port of Mocimboa de Praia in August 2020, before releasing them a month later unharmed. Details of how their freedom was secured remain unknown, with the Catholic Church declining to confirm or deny payment of a ransom. John Robson: Gap Between Social Justice Warrior and Warrior Sums Up Canadian Militarys Recruiting Crisis Commentary It doesnt seem so long ago that you could say social justice bears the same relationship to justice as social worker does to worker, and warn that integrating female soldiers into front-line combat would devastate military effectiveness. Nowadays such things are taboo. But the Canadian militarys recruiting crisis suggests a lingering gap between social justice warrior and warrior. Defence is the first duty of government. Without it nothing else matters, not even civil liberties, because of the old rule that there will be an army in your country, so it better be yours. And Canadas armed forces are far too small. Historic regiments are mothballed, the reserves starved, our ships rust and catch fire, our fighter planes are geriatric, and we cannot field, well, a force. Which was all fun and games until it turned out the world was still dangerous despite decades of vapid rhetoric about peace, we were neither an energy nor a moral superpower, and Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were immune to our frown beams. Even the current administration, not exactly one for military or reality matters, set out five years ago to boost the depleted ranks by thousands. Alas, their deliverology guru scuttled back to academia leaving behind only mandate letters listing hundreds of top priorities and this one, like most, proved a will-o-the-wisp. Some insist the problem isnt that the military had a sex-change operation, its that it still needs one. The National Post quoted Brig.-Gen. Krista Brodie, in charge of recruitment and training, that We were just starting to gain momentum when the pandemic hit and, in a display of valour that would have awed the men at Vimy, they closed recruiting centres because of a germ. She concedes We are without a doubt in an applicant crisis right now. But she blames a cultural reckoning about lack of diversity, those darn uniforms and stuff, before claiming, I dont think weve got a good answer anywhere. Sure you did. You just didnt like it. As Kevin Myers could write back in 1995, The IRA is the Irish Republican Army, not a thousand Danish manicurists called Karen. And in that spirit Id suggest that our military no longer appeals to its core demographic, brave, devoted manly souls willing to kill and die to defend hearth and home. Instead, Brodie babbles, suitable candidates are those that first and foremost reflect the values of the Canadian Armed Forces. A.k.a those of official Ottawa social justice warriors who despise Western civilization as much as they love identity politics. Ottawas senior recruiter Petty Officer Andrew Clark soft-pedalled it: Were selling the benefits of being in the Canadian Armed Forces. The pension, the medical, the dental, the education piece, continuing education, as well as a pretty interesting career where you get to travel around the world, potentially, and get paid to do it. Ah yes. Travel around the world. Visit lovely Juno Beach and, um, Taiwan? I wonder whether the brass in their new relaxed unisex uniforms, or politicians and DND bureaucrats, read the memoirs of actual soldiers to see what motivated them. Probably not, since to the woke, history is a nightmare from which they are trying to awaken. As the National Post added, Recruiters are given targets to meet, with minimum targets for female recruits and maximums for men. There is also a high-level push for what the military still refers to as visible minorities and Indigenous people. Diversity is what were after, Clark says. Im all for the military welcoming recruits of all sorts. As a fellow pundit recently observed, Canada has been defended by Canadians & people who were born elsewhere through two World Wars. And while many of those were British-born and more recent immigrants generally arent, enlistment is a powerful sign of devotion to the civilization to which one has chosen to belong. One wonders, parenthetically, whether in this Brave New Military a soldier could wear giant prosthetic breasts as part of our commitment to making the battlefield a safe space. But the military isnt about diversity. Its about unit cohesion. (Hence the American militarys Army of One campaign flopped miserably.) As for sexual harassment, those who assumed high-ranking men and subordinate women could cooperate closely for long stressful hours and nothing would happen that cut across normal disciplinary lines were defying biology in ways youd expect from a culture that insists there are no differences between men and the non-existent women they inherently oppress. But if we again experience full-scale combat of the sort witnessed from World War I through Korea and now Ukraine, with women blown horribly to bits beside male comrades, it will shatter the morale of our small, hapless force. Still, being conquered by evil regimes is a small price to pay for going down with all virtue-signals flying. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Members of the local electoral commission gather at a polling station ahead of the planned referendum on the joining of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic to Russia, in Donetsk on Sept. 22, 2022. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters) Kazakhstan Refuses to Recognize Russias Referendums in Occupied Ukrainian Territories Kazakhstan has stated that it will not recognize Kremlin-organized referendums in four occupied regions in Ukraine aimed at annexing territory to Russia, despite being a close ally of Russia. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aibek Smadiyarov said Monday that Kazakhstans stance on the referendum is consistent with the principles of territorial integrity of states, their sovereign equivalence and peaceful coexistence. We reconfirm our readiness to provide all possible assistance to the establishments of a political dialogue, he said. At the same time, our country believes that maintaining stability at either regional or global level is the most important goal. The referendums in four eastern Ukrainian regions, aimed at annexing territory Russia has taken by force since its invasion in February, continued for a fourth day on Sept. 26. The Russian parliament could move to formalize the annexation within days. By incorporating the areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia into Russia, Moscow could portray attacks to retake them as an attack on Russia itself, a warning to Ukraine and its Western allies. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed the referendums as a sham designed to justify an escalation of the war and a mobilization drive by Moscow after recent battlefield losses. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has repeatedly called for the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict in line with the United Nations charter. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 24, 2019. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) Tokayev said in June that Kazakhstan will not recognize the self-proclaimed rebel republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Anadolu Agency reported. The two regions were held by Russian-backed separatists seeking to secede from Ukraine. If the right to self-determination is put into practice all over the world, then there will be over 600 countries instead of the 193 states that are currently members of the United Nations. Of course, that would be chaos, Tokayev said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Tokayev stated that Kazakhstan does not recognize Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia, or Abkhazia for this reason, and that the same principle will apply to quasi-state territories such as Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia acknowledged Luhansk and Donetsk as independent nations from the outset of its invasion in February, and it now claims that securing their territory is the primary objective of its special military operation. Jack Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report. Protesters stand outside of Oakville Trafalgar High School, demonstrating against a teacher wearing large prosthetic breasts in class, on Sept. 23, 2022. (The Epoch Times/Peter Wilson) Kids Should Have a Safe Environment: Students, Others Join Protest of Ontario Teacher Wearing Large Prosthetic Breasts to Class Students from the Toronto-area Oakville Trafalgar High School (OTHS) and local residents joined a protest on Sept. 23 against an OTHS teacher wearing large prosthetic breasts to class. The Epoch Times spoke to a number of demonstrators and students at the protest, who all expressed concern about the Halton District School Boards (HDSB) decision to defend the teachers actions. Kids should have a safe environment to learn free of ridiculous distractions, said Dave Kvesic, a South Burlington, Ont., father of three children who all attend HDSB schools. Kvesic said the protest was not about transphobia or being anti-gay but that it was just about my kids. And Im advocating for all kids, he said. A local mother and her child protest outside Oakville Trafalgar High School on Sept. 23. against a teacher wearing large prosthetic breasts to class. (The Epoch Times/Peter Wilson) The Toronto Sun reported on Sept. 17 that the teacher is transgender and identified as a male before transitioning. The teacher now identifies as a woman and goes by a female name. Videos and pictures of the teacher wearing large prosthetics in class first surfaced on Twitter in mid-September and gained international attention almost immediately. HDSB chair Margo Shuttleworth told The Epoch Times on Sept. 19 that the board supports the teacher as prescribed by the Ontario Charter of Human Rights, and the HDSB communications department said in an email that the board is committed to establishing and maintaining a safe, caring, inclusive, equitable and welcoming learning and working environment for all students and staff. Student Reaction In a Sept. 17 article, the Toronto Sun reported that Shuttleworth said the teacher is extremely effective and that all the kids really love being in the class. At the protest, several OTHS students said this is not the case. The students requested their last names be withheld for privacy. The teachers creeping me out, said a Grade 9 student named Aziz. Its getting weirder every time I see her it does not feel right. Another ninth-grader named Roman said, As students in the school, we can confirm that all the students dont love her. Every time someone sees her, we just kind of feel uncomfortable, he said. Sachin, also a Grade 9 student, said hes pretty weirded out by the situation and called it disturbing. The whole world knows about the teacher now. Its crazy, he said. Jay Dacosta, a local resident attending the protest, said he was there because he wanted to support the OTHS students. We need to back them up. Theyre looking towards the adults because theres a problem here, otherwise, all these videos wouldnt have been [posted] online, he said. Theres certainly something really wrong about this, he added. And I think us, as adults, its our job to stand up and to protest about it. This is not normal. Dacosta said he once saw the teacher while driving through Oakville and was so taken aback that he almost crashed his car. It was enough for me to be completely distracted and almost crash my car, he said. How would it be to learn anything from this person? Chantelle Larochelle, a Burlington, Ont., mother at the protest, said theres a double standard at OTHS between how students and the teacher are expected to dress for school. Chantelle Larochelle, a Burlington, Ont., mother, said the OTHS is inconsistent with what it allows teachers and students to wear. (The Epoch Times/Peter Wilson) Girls arent allowed to go to prom wearing certain clothes theyre not allowed to wear skirts and shorts that dont reach a certain point on their leg because its inappropriate and distracting, Larochelle said. So how is this teacher allowed to come to school with her nipples hanging out and breasts as big as anybody has seen, she added. A second protest against the teachers actions was held on Sept. 25 outside of M.M. Robinson High School in Burlington, which included the presence of Maxime Bernier, leader of the federal Peoples Party of Canada. Bernier said in a Twitter post the same day that he called for the Oakville teachers dismissal at the rally. Big Voting Issue Kvesic said in the past he hasnt paid much attention to school board trustee elections, but that he will start now because of this issue. I havent spoken to one parent that thinks this is okay, he said. And it will absolutely impact the trustee elections, provided that people are made aware, and theres transparency around the vote. Kvesic said he also wants the HDSB to make public which trustees voted to allow the teacher into class while wearing the prosthetics. What I want, honestly, is just transparency about who voted which way on that board, so that during the election people can be informed and have the transparency of what peoples true views are, he added. Another local resident at the Sept. 23 protest named Paul, who declined to provide his last name, also said hes also going to start voting in trustee elections because of how the HSDB has handled the situation. Its a big voting issue, he said. I dont care if youre Liberal, Conservative, whatever the case may be, but I think this is an issue that most Canadians can plant a flag on and take a stand on. Teachers are supposed to be here to enrich students lives and teach them how to read and write, teach them about history, whatever the case may be, he added. Not about this, and not about bringing their sexuality to the schoolroom. Damon Thueson shows a holster at a gun concealed carry permit class put on by "USA Firearms Training" on December 19, 2015 in Provo, Utah. (George Frey/Getty Images) LAPD Facing Litigation for Suspending Concealed Carry Weapon Permits When Guy F. applied for a concealed carry weapon (CCW) license, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) told him they are not accepting applications due to a systems update. They did not have a completion date available, Guy told The Epoch Times. The San Pedro resident declined to disclose his real name because he is fearful the information will be used against him. I need to be anonymous in this because if my names attached to it, they will for sure figure out some way to reject me when they finally do accept applications, he said. The LAPD has temporarily suspended the application process for concealed carry permits while it evaluates the U.S. Supreme Courts landmark ruling in N.Y. State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The direction from the chief of police is that we wait for guidance from the city attorneys office as to the development of appropriate CCW guidelines before we start issuing the licenses, said Norma Eisenman, LAPD media relations officer. In Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated good or proper cause requirements in concealed carry gun permitting with Justice Clarence Thomas explaining that permit regimes which do not require applicants to show an atypical need for armed self-defense are acceptable. The area providing the most concern is developing a standard for what constitutes good moral character in terms of ensuring fairness and equity to all of the CCWs applicants in the process, Eisenman told The Epoch Times. However, the National Rifle Association (NRA) position is that Los Angeles city officials need to come to grips with the recognition in the Bruen decision of the right to self-defense outside the home. Suspending the concealed carry application process puts the law-abiding in an untenable situation with limited legal avenues to protect themselves and their loved ones, said Dan Reid, NRA western regional director. If city officials truly wanted to address the crime raging through downtown Los Angeles, they can start by putting violent criminals in jail and put an end to their soft-on-crime policies, like no cash bail, that have turned the city into a nightmare. Guy, for example, has been a hunter all his life and owns three pistols but, at 70 years old, he has grown increasingly concerned about crime. They have moved a ton of halfway houses into the lower part of the city that are a mile-and-a-half to two-miles away, so my wife and I dont feel safe, he said. I dont understand whats going on in California at all. While Los Angeles city attorney Mike Feuer did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) is preparing to sue to require compliance. Last week, we sent a letter to LAPD regarding these issues and informing them they are violating both the Bruen ruling and California law, said Konstadinos Moros, an attorney representing the CRPA. Different issuing authorities have different issues, but not accepting applications at all is a common one we are seeing. The San Jose Police Department and other police departments across the state have also suspended their concealed carry permit application process. A version of that letter was sent, or will soon be sent, to several police and sheriffs departments throughout the state, including some other nearby departments like Covina PD and Manhattan Beach PD, Moros told The Epoch Times. The pre-litigation letter states that delaying concealec carry permit issuance is an obstruction that constitutes open defiance of the U.S. Supreme Courts landmark ruling. If you continue to delay the issuance of concealed carry permits in violation of the law CRPA is giving notice that legal action will be taken against these violations, Moros wrote. The letter to the LAPD was addressed to Chief Michel Moore and accuses the Department of not only refusing to accept applications for processing but also having unclear processes on how to apply for permits, endless wait times, subjective requirements, and application procedures that violate applicants privacy. Then someone turns in an application, they have to actually accept the application then that applicant must undergo a background check, said Rick Travis, CRPA legislative director in Fullerton. It has to go through the Department of Justice here in the state, but for the police departments that got these letters, theyre not doing that. CRPA requested that the LAPD respond by Sept. 23 with a detailed and reasonable plan of how it intends to bring the department into compliance within 45 days. However, the LAPD has yet to respond. The department is finalizing its CCW application guidelines with the city attorneys assistance, it shouldnt be too much longer before the process is implemented and we start to process applications, Eisenman said. Given that neighboring police departments like Kern, San Bernadino, Riverside, and Orange County, have processes in place and are granting concealed carry permits, Travis believes the LAPD is picking and choosing who gets a permit. There are people in LA city government who do not believe that people should be able to have a CCW despite what the Supreme Court says, he added. Lawyers Challenging EPA Claim About Surface Water on Private Property Optimistic About SCOTUS Case Lawyers for the plaintiffs in an upcoming Supreme Court case are upbeat about their 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 case, Sackett v. EPA, is scheduled for oral argument on Oct. 3. A ruling against the EPA could limit the reach of the Clean Water Act and allow Americans to relieve pressure on the housing market by building more new houses without becoming entangled in federal bureaucracy. Property rights supporters are encouraged by the fact that in June the court curbed the regulatory reach of the EPA in climate change policy. 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. The two government agencies said they needed a federal permit and threatened more than $30,000 in daily fines. The EPA had determined years before that their parcel of land contained wetlands. The Sacketts say their 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. Even though water is not usually visible on their land, the government claims, based on aerial photography, 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 Supreme Court previously heard the Sacketts case and ruled 9-0 against the EPA in 2012, but that decision dealt only with the married couples ability to bring the case. The court found at that time that the Sacketts could move forward with a civil action under the federal Administrative Procedure Act to contest the issuance of the EPAs order over their homebuilding project. 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 the late Justice Antonin Scalia, four of the nine 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. Damien Schiff is a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a Sacramento, Calif.-based national public interest law firm that represents the couple. Schiff will be arguing the case next week before the Supreme Court. We have grounds to be optimistic, Schiff told The Epoch Times in an interview. Part of it is simply the mere fact that the court agreed to take the case, he said. I think what happened after Rapanos, which was 16 years ago, is the court thought, Well, we werent able to come up with a clear decision by a majority of the court, but lets see how things shake out. And so, over the course of the last decade and a half, youve had the agencies issuing guidance documentstheyve gone through three or four rulemakings. Youve had a lot of litigation, and after that long period, nothing has improved. People are still just as confused. You still have all the same sort of abuses of agency power that you had before Rapanos, Schiff said. I think the majority of the court must think that thats not good and that, therefore, its time to try again. The mere fact that they agreed to take up the Sacketts case, again, is an indication that at the very least they acknowledge there is a problem. And if they want to fix it, then in our view, that means that they want to fix it in the right way. Schiff noted that of the four justices that were part of the Rapanos plurality, three are still on the courtChief Justice Roberts, Justices Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. Presumably the three justices views on the issue havent changed, the attorney said. Since then, former President Donald Trump added three conservative justices to the courtJustices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The Biden administration has urged the court to adopt the nexus standard articulated by Kennedy. Maryland Officials Can Count Mail-In Ballots Before Election Day: Judge Mail-in ballots in Maryland can be counted before Election Day, a judge has ruled. Maryland Circuit Judge James Bonifant wrote in an 11-page ruling on Sept. 23 that while state law says officials cant start tabulating mail-in ballots until 8 a.m. on the Wednesday following Election Day, waiting that long would mean results couldnt be verified within 10 days after an election, as required by another law. Bonifant granted a request from the Maryland State Board of Elections, which claimed that a one-time suspension of the former law was required because of emergency circumstances. Counting of mail-in ballots after primary elections earlier this year led to delayed election certifications, and without the ability to start counting absentee ballots before Election Day, local, statewide, and federal contests might not be certified until late December or January 2023, the board said in a statement in August, as it filed a petition with the court. State Del. Dan Cox, a Republican who is running for governor, intervened in the case. He said that the states request shouldnt be granted because no emergency exists. Bonifant acknowledged that the situation was foreseen by state legislators, who approved legislation that would enable officials to count mail-in ballots before Election Day. Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, vetoed the bill. The judge said that the full extent of the difficult situation caused by so many mail-in ballots did not materialize until the primary election occurred this past summer, necessitating the ruling. This Court does not believe it is violating the State Constitution by granting the State Boards requested relief. To the contrary, the Court believes it is exercising the powers granted to it under the Constitution to decide a case between competing parties who have different views on the interpretation of the law, he concluded. Coxs campaign didnt respond to a request for comment. We are very impressed with Judge Bonifants thoughtfulness and the care that he gave this ruling. Some very interesting legal questions arose, one of his attorneys told The Baltimore Sun. Hogan, Board Support Decision Hogan, who is barred by term limits from running for reelection, said he welcomed the decision. Allowing early canvassing worked well during the pandemic, which was allowed by Hogan, the governor said, but partisan legislators dropped the ball on adopting our successful approach, making this step necessary. The board said that the decision means local officials across Maryland can start counting ballots on Oct. 1. This ruling provides election officials with additional time to canvass and tabulate these ballots to ensure that all critical election-related deadlines established by law are met. It also enables elections officials to return to a well-established process of canvassing mail-in ballots prior to Election Day, which was allowed in the 2020 General Election, the board added. State Sen. Cheryl Kagan, a Democrat who penned the measure that was vetoed by Hogan, said on Twitter she was thrilled and relieved by the well-reasoned ruling. A person holds a smartphone showing the ArriveCan app, which requires people to upload their COVID-19 vaccination status to be able to enter Canada. (Giordano Ciampini/The Canadian Press) Michael Taube: Canadas Border Restrictions Are Finally Ending, and Poilievre Deserves Some Credit Commentary Canada has been one of the worlds leading countries in terms of vaccinating its population. According to the Public Health Agencys data (up to Sept. 16), 85.41 percent of Canadians have received at least one primary dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 82.08 percent have received both primary doses. Nevertheless, Canada has been one of the slowest-moving countries in the world when it comes to removing COVID-19 restrictions. Only this week did the government finally announce that, by Sept. 30, vaccine requirements at the Canada-U.S. border will be removed and the ArriveCan app for travel will become optional. This is a positive development. Its high time that Canada joined the United States, UK, Germany, France, and other countries in removing COVID-19 vaccine requirements and restrictions and getting back to normalor the new normal, whatever that entails. At the same time, it doesnt speak well of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals that they took so long to catch up with the rest of the world. The amount of wasted time, money, and resources should also be widely condemned by Canadians. Lets use ArriveCan as an example. The Canada Border Services Agency noted in July it had spent $24.7 million to develop and maintain the app, as well as an additional $2.2 million for advertising. While some people had no issues setting up ArriveCan on their handheld devices, others experienced technical glitches and hiccups that caused confusion and clogged up phone lines. (A notable instance involved Mercedes Stephenson, Global Newss Ottawa bureau chief and host of The West Block, whose fully vaccinated mother was issued a 14-day quarantine even though she presented no symptoms at the border. The matter was eventually resolved.) Meanwhile, some older Canadians who dont use iPhones, Androids, and other technological devices had to rely on family and friends to fill out ArriveCan on their behalfor print out paper copies. Again, some experienced no issues and others faced unnecessary, time-consuming hurdles to simply get back home. Not to mention the fact that posting personal information such as photos and passport identification on the app made some Canadians feel rather uncomfortable. Theres also the fact that Trudeau, his cabinet ministers, and backbench MPs have held the government line on COVID-19 restrictions to the bitter end. Canada, which operates under the Westminster model of parliamentary government, obviously follows procedures such as party discipline, whipped votes in the House of Commons, and loyalty to a party leader and/or Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the PMs decision to ignore the fact that many Canadians were fed up with COVID-19 restrictions and wanted to regain their lost personal freedoms that other western democracies had already returned to their citizens showed an enormous amount of tone deafness on his part. Thats why, as these requirements and restrictions go by the wayside when the clock strikes midnight on Oct. 1, some of the credit with this impending change to government policy should go to Pierre Poilievre. The new Conservative leader has spoken out against Ottawas handling of COVID-19 vaccine requirements for months. He tabled a bill in June that would have prohibited vaccine mandates and helped give Canadians back control of their lives. He called the mandates unfair, unscientific bullying in a statement that month and encouraged everyone to keep protesting government attacks on our freedoms. He even tweeted in July, ArriveCan App wants to quarantine quadruple-vaxed man who has no symptoms and has not tested positive for COVID. It is time to stop forcing this app on people. Poilievre also noted the frustration that Canadians have had with Ottawa with respect to issuing passports and renewals. Whats the deal folks?, he said in a widely viewed video during his successful Conservative leadership campaign. Well, this is a waiting nation. We are asked to wait for everything as sleepy bureaucrats and government gatekeepers stand in the way of you getting the basic services to which you are entitled one of them is a passport. If it wasnt bad enough that some Canadians struggled to arrive back in the country, others couldnt leave on timeor at all! Many Canadians appreciated Poilievres candour on these issues and became increasingly furious with Trudeau. The PM and his senior advisers have publicly denied the claim by some Conservative MPs that any easing of COVID-19 restrictions would be related to Poilievres catchy soundbites and succinct analysis. In reality, the Liberals have heard Canadians loud and clear. Theyre starting to move from a slow walk to a fast sprint in our post COVID-19 world. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. The sun sets behind power lines near homes during a heat wave in Los Angeles on Sept. 6, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images) More Heat Descends on Southern California, but Cooler Conditions Ahead LOS ANGELESAnother mini-heat wave will drive up temperatures in much of Southern California on Sept. 26 and 27, before a cooling trend moves into the region by mid-week and into the weekend. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued an excessive heat warning that will be in effect until 8 p.m. Tuesday for the Santa Clarita, San Fernando, and San Gabriel valleys, where temperatures could top out at 105 degrees. An excessive heat warning will be in effect during the same hours for inland coastal areasincluding Beverly Hills, Compton, Lakewood, Norwalk, Culver City, and Downey, where highs of up to 98 degrees are anticipated. A less severe heat advisory will be in effect until 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Santa Monica Mountains, with highs possibly reaching 102 degrees. Forecasters had originally issued heat warnings through Wednesday, but said the marine level is expected to make a return earlier than expected, bringing cooler temperatures by the middle of the week. [The] heat wave will peak early this week before cooler conditions build into the region later this week into next weekend as onshore flow and marine layer low cloud coverage increase, according to the NWS. In the meantime, however, forecasters urged people to exercise caution during the heat. Sundays high in downtown Los Angeles reached 89 degrees and was expected to increase into the 90s on Monday and Tuesday. Van Nuys reached 99 on Sunday, with highs of 101 expected Monday and Tuesday and 100 expected Wednesday. It was 95 in Pasadena on Sunday, with highs of 98, 99 and 97 forecast for the next three days. Triple-digit highs were also forecast for Lancaster, Santa Clarita, and Woodland Hills on Monday and Tuesday. Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors, according to the NWS. Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances. The NWS also warned of elevated fire conditions through Wednesday due to the hot and dry weather, with the potential for large vertical plume growth. In Orange County, forecasters issued excessive heat watches that will be in place through 8 p.m. Wednesday evening for inland areas, including Santa Ana, Anaheim, Irvine and Fullerton, where temperatures could reach 98 degrees. Heat advisories, meanwhile, will be in effect through 8 p.m. Wednesday for the Santa Ana Mountains and foothills, where highs of up to 99 degrees are anticipated, and in coastal areas where the temperature could reach 92 degrees. Overnight lows are also forecast to be higher than normal for the next few days, lingering in the low-to-mid 70s in the inland areas. Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Francois-Philippe Champagne speaks to reporters at the Liberal summer caucus retreat in St. Andrews, N.B. on Sept 13, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Darren Calabrese) Industry Minister to Represent Canada at Former Japanese PMs Funeral Federal Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne will represent Canada at former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abes state funeral this week. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was scheduled to visit Japan and attend Tuesdays funeral, but cancelled those plans to oversee recovery efforts after post-tropical storm Fiona ravaged much of eastern Canada and parts of Quebec. Describing Abe as a friend and ally of Canada, Champagne says the former Japanese prime minister played an important role bringing the two countries closer together. Trudeau was slated to meet current Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as Japan prepares to take over as president of the G7 and the Liberal government finalizes its new Indo-Pacific strategy. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Champagne says he doesnt know if he will meet Kishida on behalf of Trudeau. But he says in addition to paying respects to Abe, he expects to meet Japanese officials to discuss the bilateral relationship and areas of mutual co-operation. Certainly, I think Prime Minister Kishida knows how deeply engaged we have been, certainly on the industrial, commercial and economic front, he said. And well be meeting with a number of people. I just dont know if the meeting with the prime minister will still be happening. Champagne was in Japan delivering a speech to business representatives in Tokyo when Abe was assassinated by a gunman in July. The industry minister says it was a surreal moment when he learned the former Japanese prime minister had been killed. I was literally giving a speech, Champagne said. I was like three-quarters into it and suddenly I started to see people looking at their phones. And someone came to the podium and advised me that something very tragic had happened. Abes state funeral is a sensitive topic in Japan, where such memorials are uncommon and the late leaders legacy remains disputed. Abe, a conservative nationalist in a country that embraced pacifism after the Second World War, was assassinated with a homemade firearm nearly three months ago. In a reflection of deep divisions, an elderly man reportedly set himself on fire to protest the funeral, and more demonstrations are expected in the coming days. By Lee Berthiaume Never Let a Crisis Go Commentary Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago, is understandably proud of whats likely to be his chief claim to posthumous fame and his only entry in Bartletts Familiar Quotations. Way back in 2009, when he took the job of chief of staff to President Barack Obama, the country was still reeling from the financial crisis of 2008. But what seemed a calamity to pensioners, investors, and homeowners across the land looked to him like a political opportunity. You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, he advised the president. By which it is to be presumed he meant that the market meltdown and subsequent federal bailout would afford the incoming administration an excellent excuse for loading the economy down with extra taxes and social spending, such as the Affordable Care Act, and all kinds of extra regulation, such as the Dodd-Frank Act of the following year. These things had long been on the Democratic wish list, only awaiting the golden opportunity of an economic meltdown to be turned into law. Then just last year, out of office after having left poor Chicago to the tender mercies of Lori Lightfoot, Emanuel repeated his memorable words when Joe Biden became president. This time the crisis he had in view was the coronavirus pandemic, which provided the opportunity for Bidens government, along with the Democrats in Congress, massively to increase government stimulus spending. Way back in 2009, the Democratic president could only manage to get a bit less than a trillion dollars of such spending through Congress, since it was then still thought to require congressional approval. Now, on top of the trillions approved by a party-line vote in Congress, Biden has demonstrated that his crisis-born emergency powers are supposed to extend even to the authorization of a half-trillion dollars or more of student loan reliefon the strength of nothing more than his signature on the governments credit card voucher. There would appear to be nothing to stop the federal giveaways from going on forever, or at least for as long as the crisis continues. But Emanuel needs to provide a codicil or addendum to his familiar quotation. Never let a crisis go to waste, by all means. But above all: Never let a crisis go. Biden obviously hadnt gotten the memo about this the other day when he announced on 60 Minutes that the pandemic was over. Almost immediately, administration officials rushed forward, as they previously have had to do during Bidens tenure of office, to say that the president didnt really mean it. No, no. The crisis isnt over. It cant be. There are still things, such as the student loan relief, that we need it for. Mr. Biden seems to want it both ways, harrumphed The Wall Street Journal, as if that were an unheard-of thing for a president to want. He wants to reassure Americans tired of restrictions on their way of life that the pandemic is over and they can get on with their lives. But he wants to retain the official emergency so he can continue to expand the welfare state and force states to comply. Covid cant be an emergency only when its politically useful. Want to bet? As long as the president has the media on his side, COVID-19or anything else with a halfway plausible claim to be an emergencycan continue to be an emergency when its politically useful. Which is whenever he says it is. By the same token, all kinds of things that reasonable people might see as rather crisis-ishsuch as millions of unscreened and undocumented foreigners streaming almost unhindered over our southern borderarent crises if the administration and its media allies say they arent. Vice President Kamala Harris has pronounced the border secure, after all, and thats good enough for the obliging media. Just as its not a scandal if the media say its not (you could ask Hunter Biden), so its not a crisis if the media say its not. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas must have thought he could change their minds by sending a few bus-loads of his states over-plus of immigrants to sanctuary cities in the north. Then, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida sent a plane-load of 50 to hyper-liberal Marthas Vineyard. Some hope that the virtue-signaling immigration permissivists would be shamed by having some small part of the problem they have created dumped in their own laps! Turns out its the red state governors themselves who were deemed to be the lawbreakers, not those who had shown contempt for our immigration laws. A writer for The Nation accused DeSantis of kidnapping, while the left-wing media lit up like Times Square on New Years Eve when the sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, announced an investigation of the governor, though he didnt yet know exactly what crime he might be charged with. Jeff Weaver, the former Bernie Sanders campaign manager, helped him out by writing in The Guardian about a Texas statute defining the crime of unlawful restraint, which might be invoked if the immigrants could be shown to have been deceived into volunteering for the Marthas Vineyard flight. That might have seemed a bit of a reach only a few years ago, but federal law enforcementand non-enforcementhas also found new opportunities in this extended period of crisis. Nobody but a few right-wing extremists bats an eye anymore when the legal apparatus of the country is weaponized for selective use against those whom the Democrats regard as their political enemies. So long as Democrats remain in power with the media as their allies, I think we can look forward to more and better crises to come, along with the opportunities for mischief they afford. All of which suggests that, for those of us who arent privileged to decide what is a crisis and what is not, the main crisis we have to worry about is the crisis of the Biden presidency itself. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. An experimental drug being trialled for advanced tumours has passed phase one of its Australian trial, with the second phase set to test the drugs effectiveness against the most aggressive brain cancerglioblastoma. Starting in June 2021, the first phase involved patients with glioblastoma, as well as cervical, pancreatic, colon, gastrointestinal, and uterine cancers, with the aim of testing whether the drug Auceliciclib was safe at different dosages. Prof. Shudong Wang from the University of South Australia (UniSA) told The Epoch Times via email on Monday that the drug showed an excellent safety profile even in those who are in extremely poor health due to their previous multiple lines of treatment with chemotherapies, and who are at the latest stage of disease, adding that there were also some early signs of efficacy. Phase one usually takes up to two years if there are any safety concerns with a new drug, but we didnt experience any issues with Auceliciclib, which is very encouraging, she said in a UniSA release on Friday. Professor Shudong Wang of the University of South Australia.(Supplied by UniSA) The second phase of the trial will combine Auceliciclib with the chemotherapy drug Temozolomide to treat glioblastoma patients, whose survival time is usually between 12 and 18 months after diagnosis. Despite surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, glioblastoma is an incurable cancer. One reason is due to late diagnosis where the tumour has already spread in a way that makes surgical removal very difficult, Wang said. An estimated 300,000 people worldwide were diagnosed with a primary brain tumour in 2020, with little on offer in terms of an effective treatment. Advantages of Auceliciclib Over Other Drugs Wang explained that there are very few existing drugs that can cross the blood-brain barrier. The brain does an excellent job of protecting its most vital organ from toxins and pathogens, she said. The downside is that it keeps out vital medication. Auceliciclib, however, has been shown in pre-clinical trials to successfully cross the blood-brain barrier, making it a suitable choice for brain cancer. Auceliciclib can cross the blood-brain barrier, making it an ideal choice for treating brain tumours.(decade3d/Adobe Stock) Another advantage over drugs currently in development is that Auceliciclib is more target specific, meaning it can reach cancer cells in the brain more effectively. In addition, it is less toxic. Wang told The Epoch Times that Auceliciclib targets CDK4a key enzyme protein that regulates the cell division cycle. This stops cancer cell proliferation and growth, she said. Should the drug prove successful in the clinical trial, it will also be a breakthrough for treating brain tumours metastasized from other cancers. Along with the trial for the treatment of glioblastoma, a separate trial of Auceliciclib is in progress as a monotherapy for patients with a range of advanced cancers, including lung, breast, colorectal, and ovarian. New York City to Put Up Tents to Shelter Illegal Immigrants Bused From Border With New York City still receiving busloads of foreign nationals who have illegally entered the country, Mayor Eric Adams has announced the city will set up massive tent structures to provide shelter for those individuals. Adams, in a statement, said the tents will be the first touchpoint for asylum seekers, with officials providing a litany of services for them. He added that it is not like the citys homeless crisis but instead compared it to the immigrants who came to Ellis Island on boats more than a century ago. This emergency response represents what we know must be done during this humanitarian crisis, as we continue to seek assistance from our federal and state partners to continue this work, Adams said. Like the generations that came to our city before, New York will provide the thousands now coming to our city with the foundation to build a better life. Adams previously considered sheltering those individuals on cruise ships. The move comes as Republican governors from southern border states have bused foreign nationals to New York and other so-called sanctuary cities where Democrats are in control after getting their consent. The city plans on buses to go directly to the tent communities or be directed there by the Port Authority. The new arrivals will receive information about health care, safety and their legal rights. We need to assess and address asylum seekers needs as soon as they arrive and connect them with services as quickly as possible, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks said. The relief centers will be a crucial piece of our overall response to help these asylum seekers get their necessary assistance. Those who do not or cannot find a place to stay will be allowed to stay in climate-controlled tents. Images from the citys announcement show dozens of cots lined up in rows. The city said those would be for single individuals, and other options would be made available for families. Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, called Adams plan ridiculous. While we recognize there is urgency in meeting the very real needs of asylum seeking families while our shelter system remains over-burdened, we believe that any effort to open a temporary relief camp at Orchard Beach is ridiculous and likely to cause more harm than good, especially as the fall turns into winter, Awawdeh said in a statement. This center raises serious concerns relating to access to transportation, care, and other supports that people need to get back on their feet, and to fully integrate into our city. Moreover, we fear that what was meant to be a temporary solution will become an inadequate permanent one, which will lead to long-term negative impacts on the individuals housed there, as well as becoming a stain on New York Citys reputation as a welcoming city. New York Citys Emergency Management and Health and Hospitals departments will manage the tent facilities. The first two are slated to open in the coming weeks. One will open in Orchard Beach in the Bronx. The second location has yet to be determined. Additional tent communities may be built if city officials believe theyre needed. These centers will provide services such as wellness checks and temporary shelter when individuals and families first come to the city, Department of Emergency Management (NYCEM) Commissioner Zach Iscol said. This is a true interagency effort, and we look forward to continuing this work with our partner agencies to ensure asylum seekers are receiving the resources they need after a long and difficult journey. By Steve Bittenbender Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern speaks at the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at U.N. headquarters in New York City, on Sept. 23, 2022. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) New Zealand PM Calls for Global Nuclear Disarmament, Condemns Russian Invasion New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called for a global ban on nuclear weapons and condemned Russias invasion of Ukraine in her statement to the 77th session of the United Nations (U.N.) general assembly. The only way to guarantee our people that they will be safe from the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons is for them not to exist, she said. Thats why Aotearoa New Zealand calls on all states that share this conviction to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at using nuclear weapons in the war. If there is a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and for protecting our people, we will certainly use all means available to us, Putin said, adding, Im not bluffing. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also explicitly said nuclear weapons could be used for such protection. Ardern said the blocking of progress on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by Russia represented a step backwards for the efforts of every country pushing for nuclear disarmament. While acknowledging that nuclear disarmament would be an enormous challenge at the current stage, Ardern said she would choose to take on the challenge rather than face the consequences of a failed strategy of weapons-based deterrence. We will remain a strong and passionate advocate for efforts to address the weapons of old, but also, the weapons that are new, she said. Ardern also criticised Russias campaign in Ukraine as an illegal and immoral war that was a direct attack on the international rules-based system. Putins suggestion that it could at any point deploy further weapons that it has at their disposal reveals the false narrative that they have based their invasion on, she said. Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern speaks at the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at U.N. headquarters in New York City, on Sept. 23, 2022. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) PM Backs UN Veto Changes In his remarks to the same U.N. general assembly, U.S. President Joe Biden expressed his support for increasing the veto-wielding permanent and non-permanent representatives of the U.N. Security Council. Members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States, should consistently uphold and defend the U.N. Charter and refrainrefrain from the use of the veto, except in rare, extraordinary situations, to ensure that the Council remains credible and effective, he said. However, Ardern went a step further and called for the complete abolishment of the veto powers of permanent members. These [multilateral] institutions are the ballast we need, but its a ballast that requires modernisation, fit for the tumultuous waters we all face, she said. The veto must be abolished, and permanent members must exercise their responsibility for the benefit of international peace and security, rather than the pursuit of national interest. Ardern referred to when Russia vetoed a resolution in February that demanded the Kremlin to immediately stop its invasion of Ukraine. [The U.N. Security Council] did not fulfil its mandate because of one permanent member who was willing to abuse its privileged position, she said. Expelling the Russian Ambassador Under Consideration Meanwhile, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta has indicated that the status of the Russian ambassador in New Zealand was under active consideration. She said the ambassador had not yet been expelled because of New Zealands position in keeping open diplomatic channels in order to de-escalate the situation. We have the New Zealand ambassador in Russia; we keep the diplomatic channels open in the hope that there is room for diplomacy, she told reporters. Ontario Teachers College Will Review Professional Standards in Response to Teacher Wearing Large Prosthetic Breasts in Class The Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) will review its professional standards, according to provincial Education Minister Stephen Lecce, in response to a controversial Oakville teacher who was videotaped and photographed wearing large prosthetic breasts during class. In this province, in our schools, we celebrate our differences and we also believe that there must be the highest standards of professionalism in front of our kids, Lecce told reporters during a press conference on Sept. 23. And on that basis, Ive asked the Ontario College of Teachers to review and to consider strengthening those provisions with respect to professional conduct which we think would be in the interest of all kids in Ontario, he said. The Oakville Trafalgar High School (OTHS) teacher, who was recorded wearing large prosthetic breasts with protruding nipples while demonstrating to students how to use a circular saw in shop class, is transgender and was previously known to students and faculty as a male going by a mans name, according to a Toronto Sun article published Sept. 17. Asked how the Halton District School Board (HDSB) would respond to the teachers actions, HDSB chair Margo Shuttleworth told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that they are standing behind this member of staff, as prescribed by the Ontario Charter of Human Rights. The HDSB communications department said in an email that it recognizes the rights of students, staff, parents/guardians, and community members to equitable treatment without discrimination based upon gender identity and gender expression, adding that HDSB works to create a safe, caring, inclusive, equitable ,and welcoming learning and working environment for all students and staff. The OCTs professional standards currently include five Standards of Practice, a number of ethical standards of care, trust, respect and integrity, and the Colleges Professional Learning Framework, which includes its standards for teacher professionalism. The OCTs practice standards say that teachers must treat students equitably and with respect and are sensitive to factors that influence individual student learning and also that they must recognize their shared responsibilities and their leadership roles in order to facilitate student success. On Sept. 23, a protest was held just outside Oakville Trafalgar High School at which demonstrators bemoaned the teachers actions and the trustee boards support of them. Several OTHS students at the protest told The Epoch Times that they feel uncomfortable around the teacher, with one ninth-grader named Aziz saying, The teachers creeping me out. Another student named Roman said, Every time someone sees her, we just kind of feel uncomfortable. The students remarks contradicted Shuttleworths comments to the Toronto Sun in a Sept. 17 article, in which she called the teacher extremely effective and said that all the kids really love being in the class. A second protest against the teachers actions was held in Burlington on Sept. 25 outside of M.M. Robinson High School, which was attended by Maxime Bernier, leader of the federal Peoples Party of Canada. Bernier said in a Twitter post on the same day that he called for the teachers dismissal during the protest. Chef Bruno Serato in his restaurant the Anaheim White House in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Orange County Chef Bruno Serato Serves 8 Million Meals to Hungry Local Kids Anaheim chef and humanitarian Bruno Serato is approaching a big milestoneserving 8 million meals to low-income children around Orange County. And hes helped find housing for hundreds of families and provided work training for thousands thanks to his charity, Caterinas Club. Having grown up poor himself in his native Italy, Serato learned early on to help those in need through his grandfather, a shepherd who fed the hungry during World War II. Grandpa used to give cheese and milk to poor people. I give pasta to poor people, Serato told The Epoch Times. Different food, but the same concept: helping people in need. Chef Bruno Serato in his restaurant the Anaheim White House in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Although Serato came to the United States speaking no English, with just $200 in his pocket in 1980, he is now internationally known for his humanitarian efforts. He is serving more than 5,000 meals daily through his charity, inspiring global leaders and even royalty to join his cause. It brings tears to my eyes when I see the kids happy and well-fed, he said. Its all about the kids. Founded in 2005, Caterinas Club, named in honor of Seratos mother, offers a trio of services to underserved residents, especially families with young children. In addition to free meals, the charity also offers free hospitality training for teenagers to help them get hired, and housing services to help struggling families. (Courtesy of Bruno Serato) Among many of those Serato helped with housing was a family of six who had been living in a single-room motel for 12 years. Space was so limited, he said, that the four children did their homework using the toilet as a chair or desk. I could not believe it that [the kids] went to school all this time living in a motel, he said. Having successfully funded the family with a deposit and other costs needed to secure an apartment, Serato extended these services to other motel families in need as well through the charitys program now called Welcome Home. Now he helps a new family find a home every two weeks, for a total of over 240 families housed. (Courtesy of Bruno Serato) Seratos philanthropy has resulted in many heart-warming experiences. Once a young girl approached him in tears years after he gave her the simple gift of socks. She was the sweetest little girl so grateful just for a pair of socks, Serato said. I will never forget that. Others include three brothers from a low-income family aged 6 through 9, who had been fed for years thanks to Seratos meals. On one of their birthdays, they begged their parents to let them volunteer at Seratos kitchen so they could help other children in need, rather than celebrate with a party or other traditional festivities. (Courtesy of Bruno Serato) Serato also helped a young mother and her three young children after they were locked out of their motel one rainy night. The family was short by $120. The chef secured them permanent housing through Welcome Home. When I heard they were standing in the rain alone, it broke my heart, he said. Im glad my driver was delivering them the meals or else I would not have known. Chef Bruno Serato serves meals to children at the Boys and Girls Club of Anaheim in Anaheim, Calif. (Courtesy of Bruno Serato) Looking to create a better future for low-income and at-risk youth, Serato has now also trained more than 800 teenagers in his free hospitality training program, with many graduates now working full-time in the field. One has gone on to attend one of the most prestigious culinary programs in the country, the Culinary Institute of America, while three others now work at White House Italian Steak House, Seratos Anaheim restaurant. Even the Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Orange stepped in to ensure Caterina Clubs operations continued after an electrical fire burned the restaurant down in 2017. Chef Bruno Serato stands in front of his restaurant the Anaheim White House in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Following the accident, Bishop Kevin Vann offered Serato the use of the kitchen at Christ Cathedral in Orange, allowing the organization not to miss a single day cooking meals for the children. As more people received the help they needed, support for Caterinas Club soared across the globeincluding from Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, grandson and heir to Umberto II, the last king of Italy. The prince has traveled to the United States for three years to help Serato raise money for the organization. He is one of our biggest supporters, Serato said. An undated photo of Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy (L), grandson and heir to Umberto II, the last king of Italy, and chef and philanthropist Bruno Serato. (Courtesy of Bruno Serato) Seratos work has also earned him knighthood from both the president of Italy and the prince. Other high-profile supporters include KFI Radio, 640 AM, which Serato credits with over half of the donations to his charity through the stations annual PastaThon. We would not be able to feed even half the people we do if it werent for [KFI], he said. Last year alone, the station raised more than a million dollars, a record, along with more than 115,000 pounds of pasta and sauce for childrens meals. (Courtesy of Bruno Serato) The Barilla brothers, owners of the worlds largest pasta producer, also chip in thousands of pounds of pasta and sauce yearly. Serato has given talks around the worldat the United Nations, the Vatican, in Africa, and elsewhereon how to start Caterinas Club in other communities. Hundreds of other individuals or groups have created their own Caterinas Clubs across the globe, including in the Philippines, South Africa, South America, and Europe. Chef Bruno Serato in his restaurant the Anaheim White House in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Nora Burlingame, 3, sits on the lap of her mother, Dina Burlingame, and gets a fist bump from nurse Luann Majeed after receiving her first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination at UW Medical Center-Roosevelt in Seattle, Wash., on June 21, 2022. (David Ryder/Getty Images) Pfizer, Moderna Ask US Regulators for Emergency Authorization for New Boosters for Children Pfizer and Moderna have formally asked U.S. regulators to grant emergency authorization for new COVID-19 vaccine boosters for children as young as five. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech submitted a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sept. 26, several days after Moderna submitted a request to the FDA. The FDA authorized bivalent boosters from the companies, containing components of the Wuhan virus strain and a BA.4/BA.5 spike protein, on Aug. 31the first time the formulations have been updated. BA.5 is the dominant strain in the United States at present. No human data are available for the updated boosters, including for children. Pfizer is asking the FDA to authorize the updated vaccine for children aged 5 to 11. Pfizers shot is already available to Americans 12 and older. Moderna is asking the FDA to authorize the updated booster for children aged 6 to 17. Modernas booster is available to American adults. An FDA spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. The boosters are only available for people who have already completed a primary series. The boosters replaced the old boosters, which contain only the Wuhan strain. Request for Babies, Toddlers Coming Children under five were the last age group to be allowed to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA authorized the primary series Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for children as young as six months of age in June. At the time, the companies and health officials said boosters would likely be needed, pointing to how the vaccines have increasingly waned in protection against infection and severe illness. Modernas vaccine for young children is administered in two doses. The Massachusetts-based company said that its application for emergency authorization for a third shot, or a booster, for the age group is expected to be completed later this year. Pfizers vaccine for young children comes in three doses since a two-dose regimen proved unable to generate what was deemed as a sufficient level of antibodies in some of the population. Pfizer said Monday that it has launched a phase 1/2/3 study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the updated booster for children aged 6 months to 11 years. It was not clear when the trial data would be ready. The companies have said they expect the first human data on the updated boosters to be available by the end of the year. Submissions for the updated boosters have relied upon human safety and immunogenicity data from a different formulation, a combination Wuhan-BA.1 bivalent. That shot has been cleared in other countries, but U.S. officials decided to ask the companies to replace the BA.1 spike protein with a BA.4/BA.5 one. The companies also provided data from preclinical experiments done on approximately 18 mice, which they said showed better immune system responses than with the old vaccine. Some experts have said the boosters will likely provide protection for recipients and have encouraged people to get them. But others have said it makes little sense to get the boosters, especially for some age groups. Still others are calling for a pause in the administration of the Pfizer and Moderna shots, given the waning effectiveness and the growing awareness of side effects. Only about 2 percent of Americans eligible for a booster have gotten one of the updated ones. Michelle Leopold speaks at a rally in front of City Hall in San Francisco on Aug. 21, 2022, while holding a photo of her son Trevor who was a victim of fentanyl poisoning. (Jason Blair/NTD) Phoenix Police Officers Seize More Than 1 Million Fentanyl Pills During Drug Bust Say its the largest haul of the drug in force's history A police drug bust in Phoenix netted more than 1 million fentanyl pills in what city police called the most significant fentanyl seizure in department history. On Sept. 21, Phoenix police detectives with the Special Assignments Unit executed a warrant to search a home in Avondale, Arizona, during which they found a large stash of drugs. Two men, Francisco Delgado, 26, and Jose Molina, 21, were arrested during the investigation and booked at the Maricopa County Jail on multiple drug-related charges. Detectives followed leads involving the possession of narcotic drugs for sale, the Phoenix Police Department said in a statement. Florida authorities shut down a fentanyl operation and seized an amount of fentanyl estimated to be enough to kill more than 4 million people, the Florida state attorney generals office announced on Sept. 21, 2022. (Clay County Sheriffs Office) Using advanced investigative techniques, the detectives developed sufficient information to obtain a search warrant for a home on Avondale Boulevard and Durango Street. Police also seized a vehicle belonging to one of the suspects during the search. Both men were expected to be arraigned in Maricopa County Superior Court. On Aug. 10, in another major fentanyl bust in Phoenix, police arrested Braulio de Diego, 30, of Mesa, Arizona, who was charged with trafficking approximately 150,000 fentanyl pills weighing nearly 36 pounds. The estimated street value of the seizure was more than $525,000. On May 2, Phoenix police seized 170,000 suspected fentanyl pills, guns, and other drugs while searching a vehicle in Chandler, Arizona, and arrested Marco Antonio Medina, 29, of Phoenix on drug-related charges. He faces three counts of possessing controlled substances for distribution and one count of possessing a firearm by a felon. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is considered 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin and is lethal at just two milligrams. According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, nearly 400 people have died of an opioid-related overdose in Arizona thus far in 2022. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 107,375 people had died of a drug overdose and poisonings in the 12 months ending in January. Nearly 70 percent of those deaths involved fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. During the first three quarters of fiscal year 2022, Southern California Customs and Border Patrol agents seized more than 5,000 pounds of fentanyl, about 60 percent of the 8,425 pounds of fentanyl seized throughout the United States. On Sept. 21, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Fentanyl is a clandestine killer. And Texans are victimized by Mexican cartels that produce and import it. So cartels are terrorists, Abbott said during a press conference in Midland, Texas. In response to Arizonas opioid crisis, Attorney General Mark Brnovichs office announced this month $6 million in grant funding to 11 organizations in Arizona to combat the problem. The grant funds stem from a Feb. 21 settlement with McKinsey & Co., following an investigation into the companys alleged role in helping fuel the opioid crisis, Brnovich said in a statement. Illegal immigrants from Venezuela, who boarded a bus in Texas, wait to be transported to a local church by volunteers after being dropped off outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2022. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) Public Safety Officials Interdict Human Smuggling Attempt at Texas Airport Officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) have busted a human smuggling operation that was underway at an airport located in McAllen, a border city. WESLACOA @TxDPS Special Agent & Pilot stopped a human smuggling attempt at McCreery Aviation Co. in McAllen, TX. 19 illegal immigrants (12m/7f) from Central America were being smuggled by plane to Houston, Texas DPS said in a Sept. 24 tweet. Officials received a tip about three vehicles dropping off potential illegal immigrants at the local airport. The special agent and the pilot who stopped the smuggling were working under Republican Governor Greg Abbotts Operation Lone Star border security mission. The duo ordered air traffic controllers to ground a Raytheon aircraft. While checking the plane, the special agent discovered the illegal immigrants. The failed smuggling attempt is being investigated by the Texas DPS Criminal Investigations Division as well as other federal agencies. DPS special agents had earlier intercepted an attempt to transport 50 illegal immigrants in an 18-wheeler. Two men were arrested on charges of smuggling, the agency said in a Sept. 22 tweet. Around two weeks ago, Border Patrol agents at the Rio Grande Valley Sector made 30 arrests involving smugglers who attempted to use airplanes to transport illegal immigrants. On Sept. 13, the Department of Justice announced it had disrupted a prolific human smuggling operation in Texas. The criminal organization carrying out the activities used drivers to pick up illegal immigrants near the U.S.-Mexico border to transport them to the interior of the United States. Drivers even used suitcases to hide the illegal immigrants. Migrant Influx, Transporting Aliens Out of State Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, after which he loosened and reversed several Trump-era policies restricting illegal immigration, there has been a massive influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows border agents apprehended 186,424 illegal migrants in August, up from almost 48,000 in August 2020 and 50,684 arrests made in August 2019. Meanwhile, Texas has been busing illegal immigrants to Democrat-run sanctuary cities such as Washington, D.C., New York, and even Marthas Vinyard, as a way of raising public awareness of the Biden administrations lax border policies. While Texas used to spend around $400 million a year on border security, the costs have now shot up to around $4 billion, according to the states Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Theyve been dumping people in America for a long time, a long time, Patrick told Fox News in an interview that aired on Sept. 17. And now Texas is saying, were fighting back. Were going to send them to your neighborhood and were going to keep those buses coming until finally this administration wakes up. Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden speaks during an interview in Hong Kong on Jan. 1, 2013. (The Guardian via Getty Images) Putin Grants Russian Citizenship to NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 26 granted full Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who leaked information about the U.S. agencys widespread domestic surveillance operations during the Obama administration. Snowden, 39, fled to Russia in 2013 from the United States after he posted secret files that revealed the NSAs operations. U.S. authorities have for years sought to bring Snowden back and arrest him on espionage charges. Snowden is one of about 75 foreign nationals who were granted Russian citizenship, Russian state-run media reported, citing a presidential decree issued by Putin. The decree also was published on a Russian government website. The former NSA contractor was granted permanent Russian residency in 2020. At the time, Snowden said he planned to apply for Russian citizenship and wouldnt renounce his U.S. citizenship. In 2020, a U.S. appeals court found that the program Snowden had exposed was unlawful and said that U.S. officials who had publicly defended it werent telling the truth. Will Snowden be drafted? Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state media outlet RT, wrote in a darkly humorous tone on her Telegram channel. She was referring to last weeks speech from Putin in which the Russian leader said he would partially mobilize his countrys forces amid the Ukraine conflict. But Snowdens lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the RIA news agency that his client couldnt be called up because he hadnt previously served in the Russian army. He said that Snowdens wife, Lindsay Mills, who gave birth to a son in 2020, would apply for citizenship. I Didnt Cooperate Putin, a former KGB official, publicly stated in 2017 that Snowden was wrong to leak intelligence secrets but didnt believe him to be a traitor to the United States. Since moving to Russia, Snowden rarely makes remarks on Russian domestic affairs and reportedly keeps a low profile. I didnt cooperate with the Russian intelligence servicesI havent and I wont, he told NPR in 2019. I destroyed my access to the archive. I had no material with me before I left Hong Kong, because I knew I was going to have to go through this complex multi-jurisdictional route. Snowden in 2019 told news outlets that he was willing to return to the United States if he could be guaranteed a fair trial. People look at me now and they think Im this crazy guy, Im this extremist or whatever. Some people have a misconception that [I] set out to burn down the NSA, Snowden also told NPR. But thats not what this was about. In many ways, 2013 wasnt about surveillance at all. What it was about was a violation of the Constitution. Since then, hes amassed more than 5.3 million followers on Twitter. There was no immediate reaction from Snowden on social media or elsewhere after he was granted Russian citizenship. Reuters contributed to this report. Queensland Government Announces $766 Million Wind Farm Project The Queensland government has announced $766 million in funding for a major wind farm as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk foreshadows the biggest energy announcement in the states history. Billed as Australias largest publicly-owned wind farm, the project in the South Burnett, northwest of Brisbane, will include up to 150 turbines and potentially generate enough electricity to power 230,000 homes. It will also create around 200 jobs during construction and 15 ongoing jobs when operational, Premier Palaszczuk said. Its investments like this that will ensure we deliver on our net-zero ambitions and our promise to Queenslanders to become a global renewable energy superpower. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (right) and Andrew Forrest (left) from Fortescue Future Industries talks to the media during a hydrogen announcement at Incitec Pivot on Gibson Island in Brisbane, Australia on Oct. 11, 2021. (AAP Image/Darren England) The announcement follows the state government pointing to this Wednesdays State of the State address as one to watch for a major announcement in the climate and energy space. We are now focused on what the next decade will look like and will have a lot more to say on this in this weeks CEDA State of the State address, she said. Cattle are seen in front of wind turbines at the Taralga Wind Farm in Taralga, Australia, on Aug. 31, 2015. (Mark Kolbe/Getty Images) Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick said the Tarong West wind farm project would be funded through the Queensland Renewable Energy and Hydrogen Jobs fund. Building the wind farm through the publicly-owned Stanwell Corporation means the state will have dispatch control of significant renewable generation capacity, he said. The project is about 30 kilometres southwest of Kingaroy and is in the Southern Queensland Renewable Energy Zone. Police officers keep an eye on protest trucks in Ottawa on Feb. 17, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld) RCMP Shared Blacklist of Freedom Convoy Supporters With Securities Regulators Nationwide: Email The federal police service said previously only accounts in banks, credit unions, and bitcoin wallets were targeted An RCMP blacklist of individuals who supported the Freedom Convoy was emailed to securities regulators nationwide, with the personal information of convoy sympathizers potentially being received by thousands of financial advisors, according to internal emails. Issued under the Emergency Economic Measures Order enacted by the federal government on Feb. 15, the RCMP email told investment dealers to check their client lists to determine on a continuing basis whether they are in possession or control of a property that is owned, held or controlled by a Freedom Convoy supporter, according to Blacklocks Reporter. In addition, the dealers were told to report any suspicions without delay to the RCMP. The blacklist, which contained the personal information of the identified sympathizers, was emailed to financial institutions unencrypted. The federal police service did not disclose this information at previous parliamentary hearings studying the invocation of the Emergencies Act. In his testimony before the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency (DEDC) on May 10, Deputy RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said that only the bank or credit union accounts and bitcoin wallets of convoy supporters were targeted in the measures. The widened scope of information sharing was first reported by Blacklocks Reporter on Sept. 22, saying that the RCMP had also shared the blacklist with lobby groups and financial institutions such as the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Canadian Securities Administration, and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association. The information was divulged at the request of Conservative MP Adam Chambers, who represents the riding of Simcoe North in Ontario, through an Inquiry of Ministry filed with the RCMP in June. In its response to Chambers on June 14, the RCMP said the information provided to financial entities included but was not limited to name, date of birth, addresses, associated vehicles, businesses, and phone numbers. Necessary Information The freezing of financial accounts without a court order came after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 in response to protests against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions by truckers and their supporters in Ottawa and across the country. On Feb. 22, Isabelle Jacques, assistant deputy minister of finance, told the Standing Committee on Finance that at least 206 bank accounts totalling $7.8 million were frozen under the provisions of the act. In his testimony before the DEDC in May, Duheme said as of Feb. 23, a total of 257 financial products, which included bank accounts, corporate accounts, and credit cards held in different institutions were frozen. The disclosure of 57 entities to financial institutions included individuals, owners and drivers of vehicles involved in the blockade and the identification of 170 Bitcoin wallet addresses, which were shared with the virtual asset service providers, he said. Asked by Senator Claude Carignan what information was provided to the banks, Duheme said the necessary information was sent to them. We provided the necessary information to the banks for them to determine whether or not they had to freeze the funds, he said. It was the banks that froze the funds. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema during a hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 14, 2019. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Sen. Sinema Suggests Republicans Will Take the House During a rare public appearance to discuss politics, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) suggested that she thinks Republicans will take the House in November. Sinemas comments, delivered during an address on bipartisanship hosted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to an audience at the University of Louisvilles McConnell Center, align with general predictions by contemporary observers. However, they represent a break with the optimism of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has insisted that her party will hold the lower chamber. Specifically, Sinema was asked about her continued support for the 60-vote filibuster threshold, which has been disparaged by much of her party as a relic of Jim Crow racism. But Sinema and moderate ally Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) have long objected to weakening or destroying the system, leaving Democrats in the evenly-divided Senate with no path forward to break the procedure. If you were to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster threshold, the Senate would become like the House, Sinema explained. The trouble of that is that the Housewith elections every two years, representing a smaller group of voters they really represent the passions of the moment in the political system, Sinema argued. Sinema then made an offhanded comment suggesting that Republicans will take the House in November. As you all know, control of the House changes every couple of years, Sinema said, adding, and its likely to change again in just a couple weeks. Currently, Sinemas party holds the lower chamber by a slim margin, with Pelosi able to spare only a few defections for any legislative aspiration. Though Republicans took the House in 2016, since 2018 the Democrat party has been in the majority. After years of working through the ranks of House GOP leadership, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is poised to be elected speaker next year, but only if his party performs as expected in the upcoming midterms. Sinemas comments break with the past optimism of Pelosi, who has suggested on several occasions that despite observer predictions to the contrary, she thinks her party will hold the lower chamber. Pelosis hopes have especially hinged on the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organizations, which overturned Roe v. Wade and which Democrats expect to drive turnout among some voters. But Sinemas prediction is much closer to the standard expectation among observers that Republicans will take control again after November. Right now, FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans a 71 in 100 chance of retaking the House after four years in the minority. Prospects in the Senate are more in the air, with Democrats hopeful that they will retain the upper chamber. However, it seems likely that Senate Democrats, if they retain the Senate, may face a divided government moving into the second half of President Joe Bidens first term. Socialists Poised to Complete Takeover of Los Angeles in November Commentary After Angelenos failed to gather enough signatures to put the recall of District Attorney George Gascon on the ballot in November, hes all but ensured of at least another two years in office. Also on the ballot are a number of other Gascon-like candidates, and theyre also likely to win. Had the Gascon recall made it on the ballot, his recall was almost a certainty. The issue was clear. Crime is up dramatically in Los Angeles over the past two years (vehicle thefts by 40 percent, homicides by 50 percent, armed robberies by 60 percent). Its pretty easy to see that the cause is Gascons no bail, reduced sentence, early release, equitable approach to crime fighting, where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are the victims. A recent poll showed more than two-thirds of those with an opinion supported the recall. His socialist counterpart in San Francisco, Chesa Boudin, was recalled by a similarly wide margin earlier this year. The relevant question for today is: How was Gascon elected in the first place? He was running against a black female Democrat incumbent. She wasnt exactly a throw the book at them prosecutor. But Gascon swept in, thanks to millions of dollars from far-left interests, including George Soros, and a superior ground game. Prior to Gascon, the position of L.A. district attorney was like voting on judges. If people voted on the race, they did so based primarily on name recognition or the occupation stated under the candidates name. So, it was an easy position to poach by the radical left. Those same interests are now looking for other, lower-profile positions, to steal. For instance, the position of city attorney. The city attorney prosecutes misdemeanors. Since Gascon helped to make so many crimes misdemeanors (such as all thefts less than $950), this position becomes far more important in fighting crime. The position also defends the city against lawsuits. The most significant of late have involved the out-of-control homeless situation. Both homeless advocates and business interests have sued the city for its handling of the problem. Thus, the city attorney has a very significant role in the citys response to homelessness (i.e., build permanent housing to solve the problem, or enforce no camping laws in the citys parks, beaches, and sidewalks). The city attorney also defends the city anytime the police department is sued for things such as alleged racial profiling, sexual harassment, or abuse of force. Will the city attorney take the side of the accuser or the police? Sounds like an important job, right? Yet Angelenos have no clue whos running or what they stand for. Due to the open primary system wherein the two top vote-getters advance to the November general election, both candidates are Democrats. But if you take some time to look under the hood, you find that one is a somewhat mainstream Democrat, and the other is a far-left, Bernie Sanders/George Gascon, Democratic Socialist. That candidate is Faisal Gill. Hes endorsed by the Feel the Bern Democratic Club, Minnesota leftists Rep. Ilhan Omar and Attorney General Keith Ellison, and far-left Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin (who also faced a recall effort due to the homeless crisis that many believe was created his progressive policies). Bonin says, Gill is guided by a vision of inclusivity as well as social and economic justice. Gills endorsements note that he will stand up to the Los Angeles Police Department and corporate polluters, reform misdemeanor prosecutions, and protect oppressed communities. Clearly, if he wins, his mandate wont be to defend the city and prosecute crimes to his fullest ability. It will be the exact opposite. His only experience is having been a civil rights attorney. Yet, Gill came out of nowhere to win the primary by 4.5 percent. How did he do it? No doubt the same way Gascon did, with substantial help from the far left and Bernies Democratic Socialists. One campaign reported to me that this group was seen out in force, walking the streets to get out of the vote during the primary. Ballot harvesting, in which people knock on doors and help people to fill out and turn in their ballots, is legal in California. Every registered voter is mailed a live ballot, whether requested or not, a month before the election. This gives ballot harvesters a lot of time to do their work. This means whoever has the best ground game likely wins. According to the Democratic Socialists of America website, Bernie Sanders launched a political revolution and DSA continues to build it, training our chapters to effectively support democratic socialist candidates running for local and state office while lifting up our key issues. Here are some of the radical, socialist positions of their platform: Medicare for all (also known as socialized medicine) Environmental justice Green New Deal Defunding the police and reallocating funds into communities Canceling student debt Housing as a human right Abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detention centers Prison abolition (Scary side note: These policies arent far from those of the Biden administration.) According to the campaign official, many or most of these Democratic Socialists getting out the vote were from outside the city and the state. They also support a candidate for city controller, Kenneth Mejia. Like Gill, he came out of nowhere to blow away his closest opponent, a longtime sitting Los Angeles councilman, by 16.5 points. Mejia graduated from college just 12 years ago, is a former community organizer, and is also endorsed by the Feel the Bern group. And as for the Bonin council seat, which includes virtually all of Los Angeless coastline, socialist Erin Darling also came out of nowhere to win the primary. He is endorsed by Our Revolution, Feel the Bern, LA County and Feel the Bern Democratic Club. He will be up against Traci Park in November, a normal Democrat. And that is the current state of Los Angeles, where its no longer Democrats versus Republicans, but Socialists versus Democrats, and the Socialists are winning. This includes the top race for mayor, in which community organizer and longtime Fidel Castro admirer Karen Bass beat businessman Rick Caruso by 7 percentage points in the open primary and who appears poised to sail to victory with her socialist friends in November. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 22, 2017. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) Solomons Unfairly Targeted Since Recognizing China Over Taiwan: Sogavare in UN Speech The prime minister of the Solomon Islands complained on Friday that his country had been subjected to a barrage of unwarranted and misplaced criticisms, misinformation, and intimidation since preferencing diplomatic relations with China over Taiwan in 2019. In an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Manasseh Damukana Sogavare said the Solomons had been unfairly targeted and vilified in the media. He said such treatment threatens our democracy and sovereignty. The Solomons formerly had diplomatic relations with self-governed Taiwan, but switched recognition to Beijing in 2019. Sogavare, who has been unpopular among a significant portion of islanders who protested and rioted against the decision in November last year, has since appeared to move ever closer into Chinas orbit, to the alarm of the other countries in the region concerned about Beijings increasing aggression in the South China Sea and now the South Pacific. This decision was reached through democratic processes by a democratically elected government, Sogavare said of the recognition of China. I reiterate the call for all to respect our sovereignty and democracy. Sogavare said the Solomon Islands had adopted a friends to all and enemies to none foreign policy. In implementing this policy, we will not align ourselves with any external power(s) or security architecture that targets our or any other sovereign country or threaten regional and international peace. Solomon Islands will not be coerced into choosing sides, he said. Our struggle is to develop our country. We stretch out our hand of friendship and seek genuine and honest cooperation and partnership with all. The Pacific islands region has become a new theater of geopolitical competition between China and the United States and its allies. This competition intensified this year after China signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, prompting warnings of a militarization of the region. Sogavare has since repeatedly appeared to snub the United States, heightening Washingtons concerns. Last month he skipped a planned appearance with a senior U.S. official at a World War Two commemoration. His government then did not respond to a U.S. Coast Guard vessels request to refuel and then announced he was barring all foreign navy ships from portwhile he was welcoming a U.S. Navy hospital ship on a humanitarian mission. Sogavare has been invited to take part next week in a summit that U.S. President Joe Biden will host with Pacific island leaders, through which Washington aims to show a stepped up commitment to the Pacific region. Bidens chief policy coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, Kurt Campbell, said this week he looked forward to conversations with Sogavare and said the Solomons would benefit from a variety of planned new initiatives. However, he added: Weve also been clear about what our concerns are and we would not want to see a capacity for long-range power projection. Beijing and Honiara have said there will be no Chinese military base under the security pact, although a leaked draft refers to Chinese naval ships replenishing in the strategically located archipelago. Police and members of emergency services work near the scene of a school shooting in Izhevsk, Russia, on Sept. 26, 2022. (Stringer/Reuters) Swastika-Wearing Gunman Kills 15 in Russian School Shooting MOSCOWA gunman with a swastika on his teeshirt killed 15 people, including 11 children, and wounded 24 at a school in Russia on Monday before committing suicide, investigators said. The attacker, a man in his early thirties who was named by authorities as Artem Kazantsev, killed two security guards and then opened fire on students and teachers at School Number 88 in Izhevsk, where he had once been a pupil. Russias Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, said it was looking into the perpetrators suspected neo-Nazi links. Currently investigators are conducting a search of his residence and studying the personality of the attacker, his views and surrounding milieu, the committee said in a statement. Checks are being made into his adherence to neo-fascist views and Nazi ideology. Investigators released a video showing the mans body lying in a classroom with overturned furniture and papers strewn on the bloodstained floor. He was dressed all in black, with a red swastika in a circle drawn on his teeshirt. The Investigative Committee said that of the 24 people wounded, all but two were children. Regional governor Alexander Brechalov said surgeons had carried out a number of operations. He said the attacker had been registered with a psycho-neurological treatment facility. Investigators said the man was armed with two pistols and a large supply of ammunition. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin deeply mourns the deaths. He described the incident as a terrorist act by a person who apparently belongs to a neo-fascist organization or group. He said doctors, psychologists and neurosurgeons had been sent on Putins orders to the location of the shooting in Izhevsk, about 970 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow. Russia has seen several school shootings in recent years. In May 2021, a teenage gunman killed seven children and two adults in the city of Kazan. In September last year, a student armed with a hunting rifle shot dead at least six people at a university in the Urals city of Perm. In April 2022, an armed man killed two children and a teacher at a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk region before committing suicide. In 2018, an 18-year-old student killed 20 people, mostly fellow pupils, in a mass shooting at a college in Russian-occupied Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. Technology to Allow Pre-Recorded Witness Testimony Rolled out in English Courts But victims' commissioner who welcomed it has now resigned The rollout of technology that allows witnesses and rape complainants to have their evidence pre-recorded, rather than giving it live in court, has been completed in England and Wales. The Ministry of Justice said the final 20 Crown Courts in London, Essex, Buckinghamshire, and Cambridgeshire had adopted the technology, marking the end of a national rollout. Since the technology was first introduced in August 2020 more than 3,000 witnesses have given evidence and been cross examined. The measure can only be used where there is a successful application to a judge. The Ministry of Justice says it has been designed to make sure defendants have fair trials and their lawyers are able to cross examine witnesses in order to expose any flaws in their testimonies. The Justice Secretary, Brandon Lewis, said: Were overhauling the entire response to rapeboosting support for victims so that more cases come to court and more rapists are put behind bars. Today we have delivered on our pledge to roll out pre-recorded evidence to every Crown Court in England and Wales, sparing victims of this awful crime the additional trauma of testifying under the full glare of a courtroom, he added. The government says the measure may now be extended to youth courts. At the time the technology was first introduced the Victims Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, welcomed it and said: I have long been concerned that children who complained of victimisation should not spend a long part of their childhood beset with the worry of ultimately giving an account of what happened. If they can give their evidence at an early stage, they will then be free to get on with their lives. There is also a further point that therapy is often delayed whilst a complainant is a witness. But since then the COVID-19 lockdowns and the barristers strike have led to a massive backlog of court cases, with Baird announcing her resignation as victims commissioner on Sept. 23, saying in a letter the criminal justice system is in chaos. Baird, whose term ends on Friday, wrote in the letter: This downgrading of victims interests in the governments priorities, along with the side-lining of the Victims Commissioners office and the curious recruitment process make clear to me that there is nothing to be gained for victims by my staying in post beyond the current extension. PA Media contributed to this report. The 21st-Century Protester Commentary It was some time around 2010, I think, that the nature of student protest took a new form. Young activists on campus have been with us for a long time, since the Eisenhower Era when groups started to form. They spoke and behaved quite differently from the current cohort of activists, however. Something decisive has happened to them. The alteration is easy to observe. In the old days, protesters objected to policies and realities. Students for a Democratic Society, for instance, started out as a program against racism, then it took up the universitys connection to the military-industrial complex, and soon after the Vietnam War. In the Eighties, the list of issues raised by activist groups was led by apartheid in South Africa and the plight of the Palestinians. Throughout those decades, young protesters focused mostly on the object, the injustice of this and the depredations of that, not on themselves. They wanted to make a difference in what was happening in the United States and around the world, not to gain personal rewards or relief. In the 21st century, that has changed. Students who march on the provosts office or allege that a syllabus triggered them highlight precisely the personal dimension. They come not to push a new policy or introduce new and better facts and opinions into a debate, at least not as the first order of business. Instead, they want officials to feel their pain. They want their feelings of offense or threat lifted. And, added to that, perhaps most important of all, they want the source of their pain punished, the person who uttered the offensive words or assigned the offensive book. Indeed, the maintenance of the culprit in his position only prolongs their suffering. They want the cause of it removed. We might understand it this way: The personal nature of the protestIm offended!requires a personal solution, the censure or cancellation of another person. Its easier to attach ones offense to a real offender than to an institution or policy. We need an evildoer, a villain who can be banished. If its feelings that have sparked the protest, only other and better feelings can compensate, and those other feelings can certainly include the satisfactions of vengeance. Feelings of offense run deep. They dont dissipate with a promise by the provost that a commission to study the universitys ties to slavery shall soon be formed. They want more than a few professors of color on the faculty and some counselors devoted to their special problems. Offense is personalits a personal injury. It strikes at the heart and the ego, not just the intellect. It has an element of insult. Campus activists today experience a disagreeable speaker precisely that way. A man who opposes same-sex marriage may do so because of the fundamentalist Christian teaching that he has observed for his entire life, but the LGB activist only hears a denial of her desires, her identity, her very self. His belief is her pain. For that belief to stand even as a small part of the discourse on the table is to extend the insult. For him to remain in the area is to force her to share space with a cad. She feels deeply, she has passion, she cant function with such a denier of her personhood nearby. The consequence comes down to a simple choice: he or she. Who gets to stay? Campus activism has thus raised the temperature to unbearable levels. People are at stake, jobs and livelihoods. On one side we have the angry and offended undergraduate, lots of them; on the other side, we have a solitary individual with a dissident opinion. No surprise that the former wins. Her intensity overwhelms his reasoning. She doesnt have to cite evidence or build a persuasive argument. Her emotions do the trick. She makes others uncomfortable. The atmosphere goes electric when she voices her indignation, and everyone but her allies hopes that she will settle down. Her elders learned long ago to control their expression and funnel emotions through an academic disposition. They try not to be reactive, no reflexive outbursts. They are teachers and administrators, too, which makes them instinctively supportive of students and concerned for their welfare, particularly if that student is perceived to be a member of a historically disadvantaged group. Its a paradoxical situation. The figure who stands lowest on the institutional ladder, the undergraduate, has the highest moral authority (again, if that student belongs to a victim group). The president may sit at the top, but he dreads the sight of 10 students of color organizing outside his window. The young activist has realized the power she possesses in her person, and the canniest among them knows how to put that power to good use. We have witnessed downright bizarre episodes of 19-year-olds bullying and haranguing men and women of long experience and impressive accomplishment. The obsequiousness of the latter doesnt fit with their prestige. Such occasions dont make sense to people far from the campus where authority is straightforwardly hierarchical. Once the activist turned to the personal, though, once victimhood became a position to claim, not renounce, the vindictive element was bound to enter. Many decades ago, this trend toward the personal and emotional was termed the triumph of the therapeutic. We live in an age in which truth gives way to feelings and debate bends to pacification. Battles of words/ideas end with the nuclear weapon of Im offended. Leaders craft tactics of mollifying late-adolescents whove never led anything in their lives but a group of peers in a campus sit-in, which in the present environment takes little skill and forethought. Authority is up in the air, and the most Machiavellian ones seize it. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Members of the public mourn the passing of Queen Elizabeth II with flowers and candles outside the British Consulate General in Hong Kong on Sept. 19, 2022. (Sung Pi-lung/The Epoch Times) The Death of Three Leaders Commentary Hong Kong has long been regarded as blessed (fudi), partially because political forces coexisted largely peacefully, despite occasional conflicts and struggles. This coexistence of peace and struggle is fully reflected in the death of leadersChiang Kai-shek (1975), president of the Republic of China; Mao Zedong (1976), chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and a founder of the Peoples Republic of China; and Queen Elizabeth II (2022), who had reigned Britain for 70 years and served as a symbol of colonial Hong Kong. Hongkongers express their condolences according to their political beliefs, and this is an indicator of freedom in Hong Kong. At first glance, such memorial services went calmly and uneventfully. Pro-ROC citizens attended that to President Chiang at the Chinese Culture Association, whereas the Bank of China removed all the service counters on the ground floor, converting it into an ad-hoc memorial auditorium for Chairman Mao. For the Queen, the British Consulate-General Hong Kong set up condolence books and the people lined up for hours to sign and place floral tributes in front of the Consulate. However, struggles always began from the moment the leaders died. The two rival Chinese forces represented by Chiang and Mao certainly would not miss the opportunity. When Chiang died, Hong Kongs pro-Taiwan/ROC newspaper Kung Sheung Daily News had the headline A Superstar Died on His Deathbed with All People in the World Expressing Sorrow, while the pro-communist Ta Kung Pao used the neutral word si (die) rather than the more respectful shishi (pass away) for death and reported on the same page the death of communist leader Dong Biwu in an attempt to downplay Chiangs death. When Mao died, the struggles grew more intense. Whereas Ta Kung Pao expectedly sang the praises of The Great Leader and Teacher Chairman Mao Zedong Will Never Die!, anti-communist papers used very sarcastic titles, such as The Thief Who Stole the Country Deserves to Die in Kung Sheung Daily News, He Who Died in the Mid-Autumn Still Left People Suffering from Violence in Kung Sheung Evening News, and Hahaha! Devil of Our Time Went to Hell in Kam Yeh Pao, which is most well-known even up to now. The politics of death of course is not limited to fights among different papers. When Mao died, some young people in Hong Kong took to the street and posted slogans such as Mao the bandit, died in an earthquake (it refers to the Tongshan Earthquake that took place a month beforehand), and the nation is overjoyed and Mao should be chopped into ten thousand pieces (with the same pronunciation of Long Live for Ten Thousand Years). What is still talked about nowadays is a news special on Mao by Lau Ka-kit, a famous English language teacher and then a reporter at TVB, when he commented All the people of Hong Kong cried, sparking widespread outrage among the pro-Taiwan groups that wrote to TVB accusing it of being pro-communist and Lau of raping public opinion. Protests subsided after Lau was transferred out of the news department. When the Queen died, Hong Kong was no longer a British colony, but struggles continued unabated. The day after her death coincided with the 46th anniversary of Maos death, and quite some leftists merely commemorated Maos death on Facebook. Schools named after the Queen did not pay any tribute. A veteran Cantonese opera actor was forced to apologize after praising the Queen publicly. After the Queens funeral and the end of condolence, the Hong Kong police put out candles placed outside the Consulate before the mourners left, and they even attempted to cordon off consulate territory to search for mourners on the pretext of Covid prevention. Why is it that 25 years after the end of colonial rule, there can still be politics of death surrounding the death of the Queen, who, as pro-China media say, lived completely outside the realm of Hong Kongs Generation X but attracted so many mourners from them? The reason is simple. Quote, some opinion polls were conducted in the early 1980s concerning the future of Hong Kong; in one by the Reform Club, 75 percent supported maintaining the status quo as a British colony, and only 4 percent supported its handover to China. Such polls, however, could save Hong Kong from reunifying with China. After the reunification, the situation in Hong Kong was getting worse. Those who hold a Hong Kong identity and do not want to be allegiant to either China or Taiwan are suppressed and are emotionally attached to pre-1997 Hong Kong, which became increasingly democratic in its last years as a colony, and in turn to its sovereign state Britain. The act of paying tribute to the Queen meant a rediscovery of the lost freedom of expression after the implementation of the National Security Law, and soon there amassed a sea of flowers outside the Consulate, reminiscing about the John Lennon Walls back in the 2019 anti-extradition campaign. Although leftist papers have been criticizing the Hongkongers massive remembrance as nostalgic to colonialism, it has not stopped the public from flooding to pay tribute. A friend of mine said that this is resistance through remembrance, with which I agree. Former Lingnan University professor Ip Iam-chung wrote in Ming Pao that I hope that those who placed flowers outside the Consulate would say goodbye to the Queen and also say a real goodbye to the illusion of long live the Queen with courage. To the Hongkongers, this illusion would not have happened to both Chiang and Mao, but only to the Queen. This illusion is essential in comforting the Hongkongers and will continue until Hong Kong has walked through the valley of the shadow of death. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. The US Must Respond to Putins Nuclear Threat Commentary Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 21 threatened the leading NATO countries with nuclear weapons and ordered a draft of reservists. The top three NATO countries are the United States, France, and Britain. The stakes are high for Putin, as Russias military is in retreat and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to retake areas occupied by Russia eight years ago, including Crimea and what are now the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia leased its only warm-water naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea, from Ukraine. Now with Ukrainian advances, Russias kilo-class submarines are fleeing the port. It dates to the Soviet era, so its crumbling utility is an unprecedented blow to Russian prestige. Shortly after Putins speech, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia is at war not only with Ukraine and the Ukrainian army, but with the collective West. Another Russian adviser close to Putin made a more specific nuclear threat against Britain, Ukraines most reliable ally. He said Putin is ready to launch nuclear attacks against the West, including against Great Britain. The adviser, Sergei Markov, claimed in a BBC interview that Russia was liberating Ukraine from your British-American occupation. He said Moscow would sooner use strategic nuclear weapons against the West than tactical nukes against our brothers, the Ukrainians. Ukraine is occupied by Western countries who make a proxy army from Ukrainians and its Western countries fighting against the Russian army using Ukrainian soldiers as their slaves, he said. Russia is increasing war production and mobilizing 300,000 reservists for drafting into its partial mobilization in Ukraine. The draft will likely cost Putin dearly in terms of Russian public opinion. The latest nuclear threat is in addition to Russias shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which could cause a meltdown that would blanket Ukraine and many parts of Europe with radiation. A view shows the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the course of the Ukraine-Russia conflict outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on Aug. 30, 2022. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters) Putin risks this nuclear destruction based on the lie that Russia owns Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine has long cherished its independence, with its own representation at the United Nations since the international organizations inception in 1945. Invasions of Ukraine by authoritarians, including the Soviets and Nazis, have always been illegitimate, first and foremost, because they lacked the support of Ukrainians. True sovereignty only arises from the consent and ongoing support of the governed, which Putin lacks as an unelected dictator. His electionwithout even the basics of freedom of speechis anything but democracy. Putins nuclear threats require forceful action to remove him from power. The responsibility for this falls upon the Russian people. It also falls upon other countries that might facilitate his removal and thus decrease the risk of a debilitating nuclear war in Europe and the United States that would leave a power vacuum into which China would step. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been Putins biggest supporter and failed to denounce Putins latest threat. He is, therefore, also personally responsible. Any retaliation against Russia for its actions in Ukraine should be mirrored against China for its threats against Taiwan to ensure that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does not emerge as the winner of a NATO-Russia war. We are at a turning point in world history. Will democracies cave to nuclear threats from dictators like Putin and Xi, who have every reason to follow their territorial grabs in Crimea and the South China Sea with more demands and conquests? Or will we use their current military weaknesses to roll them back, roll them up, and finally put them in prison where they belong? The world is watching our response to Putin. Beijing is watching. If we show fear and surrender Ukraine, the CCP will take that as a green light to launch similar attacks on Taiwan. Such aggression will not end until the United States, its allies, and NATO take risks and pay the costs to remove these existential threats at their source. This means providing Ukraine and Taiwan with more weapons they need to win, including better jet fighters and more powerful long-range missiles. It requires American boots on the ground in both countries and tougher sanctions on Russia, including naval interdictions of its oil tankers at sea, which, like so many pirate ships, now ply the waves with impunity to mainland China. We must make clear to Putinand his cronies around the worldthat might does not make right. Bullies and thieves are losers because we make this our overarching mission. The worlds future will not be inherited by those willing to make nuclear threats against other countries for territorial conquest that includes atrocities of torture, rape, and murder against locals. The world will instead be inherited by the countries that stand firm for their values and ensure the freedom and liberty of their people. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Young Tibetan Buddhist novice monks stand in the grasslands of their nomadic camp on the Tibetan Plateau in Madou County, Qinghai Province, China on July 24, 2015. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) Tibetan Government in Exile Says Chinese Communist Partys Draconian Zero-COVID Measures Endangering Lives The Tibetan government-in-exile has taken aim at the draconian measures used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to enforce its so-called zero-COVID policy, saying the measures are evidently causing more harm than good. In a statement issued on Sept. 26, the Tibetan government-in-exile, which is based in Dharamshala, India, said the CCPs mismanagement of the pandemic outbreak in Tibet only exposes Beijings failed COVID-policy implementation resulting in the endangerment of Tibetan lives. Tibet is considered an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. The comments from the Tibetan government-in-exile, also known as the Central Tibetan Administration, come as Chinas strict containment restrictions across Tibet have led to cries for help from people in the capital of Lhasa, where local authorities have closed off parts of the city and rolled out mass-testing for residents. Those residents who test positive for the virus are being bussed off to quarantine in makeshift hospitals or central isolation sites, including construction sites and schools, where supplies of food, water, and medicine are scarce, residents previously told The Epoch Times. We cant subsist any longer. Help the people of Tibet! Save the land of Tibet! one internet user posted on Chinas social media platforms earlier this month. The Tibetan government-in-exile said that the CCP, in an attempt to present itself as a role model in curbing the outbreak is downright disregarding the safety and security of Tibetans in need of medical assistance and COVID care evidenced by the dire lockdown conditions being reported and exposed online by a number of affected Tibetans. Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns attend a sit-in solidarity rally against the Chinese Communist Partys rule of Tibet, in the Indian capital city of New Delhi on Feb. 2, 2013. (Raveendran/AFP via Getty Images) Conditions Worse Than a Prisoner Tibetans complained about crowded quarantine facilities, food scarcity, lack of medical supplies, and unhygienic living conditions, they wrote. Some Tibetans likened the condition to being worse than a prisoner and another Tibetan was beaten up for protesting against the dire living situation under the COVID lockdown. China publicly reported the first COVID outbreak in Tibet since 2020 on Aug. 8, prompting authorities to close off parts of Lhasa and roll out mass testing to contain the virus; identified as the Omicron BA.2.76 variant. Overall, 22 individuals tested positive for COVID in Lhasa and Ngari, located in western Tibet. Within weeks, at least 3,627 people had reportedly tested positive indicating a rapid increase, the Tibetan government-in-exile wrote, noting that stringent government lockdowns were soon initiated in Lhasa, Shigatse, and Ngari following reports of positive cases from nearby areas of Nagchu, Chamdo, Lhoka, and Nyingtri. Currently, an estimated 53,076 people reside in isolation centres in the TAR alone. Meanwhile, a number of Tibetan areas outside of the TAR, including Karze and Ngaba in Kham and Amdo provinces respectively, continue to report daily COVID cases resulting in sporadic lockdowns, Chengdu being the worst-hit area in Chinas Sichuan. Meanwhile, Chinas propaganda machinery has been actively covering up the situation, they wrote. Chinese authorities claimed Mount Everest tourists brought the virus to the region. Chinas state media claimed no shortcomings in the implementation of the zero-COVID policy during the latest COVID outbreak in Tibet, the Tibetan government-in-exile wrote. When the COVID cases escalated, Chinese authorities labelled the BA.2.76 virus as a foreign import and misled the public with false claims of high-quality medical services and timely supply of essential commodities. Tibetan students react inside a police vehicle after being detained during a protest against the visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping near the ITC Grand Chola hotel in Chennai on Oct. 11, 2019. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) Mixing Infected With Those Who Are Not Infected Pointing to video footage posted online which allegedly shows Tibetans cramped into makeshift isolation sites with appalling conditions, the exiled government praised Tibetans who have risked reprisals from the Chinese authorities to show the reality of the governments zero-COVID policy measures. The spread of the virus proliferated due to officials mismanagement of mixing infected with those who are not infected, resulting in sickness at every level of society, from police to volunteers, they wrote. Following the slew of videos posted to social media, Dradul, the executive deputy mayor of Lhasa, apologized for the city governments mishandling of the outbreak in a news briefing earlier this month. The Central Tibetan Administration called on Beijing to adequately acknowledge the public criticisms made by Tibetans who have genuinely expressed their frustration at the lack of sufficient facilities and protect them from reprisals for honest opinions of the governments mismanagement. It is perceived that the mismanagement of the COVID outbreak in Tibet could be linked to the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The Zero-COVID policy, prioritized by Xi Jinping, Chinas president, is likely being used to seize and suppress the parties so-called dissenters ahead of its most significant meeting, they wrote. Yet, it is imperative that the government respects the rights of the Tibetan people under its international obligations and ensures that they are treated with respect and have access to adequate medical facilities and basic necessities under its Zero-COVID policy. Chinas state media has defended the governments zero-COVID policy approach, stating that it has historically proven to be effective. Tiny Home Village for Families Opens in Los Angeles County BALDWIN PARK, Calif.Officials celebrated the grand opening a 16-unit family bridge housing project in Los Angeles County that will cater to the needs of families with children experiencing homelessness. Serenity Homes opened Sept. 24 and is the second tiny home village in Baldwin Park, following the opening of the 25-unit Esperanza Villa in November. Its the first interim housing site in the San Gabriel Valley specifically for families, according to the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (SGVCOG). A home is pictured in Serenity Homes, a tiny home village in Baldwin Park, Calif., on Sept. 24, 2022. (Courtesy of San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust) Its located on city-owned property acquired earlier this year, and consists of sixteen 144-square-foot family modules, fully furnished with donated IKEA furniture and accessories. Each family module includes a full-size bed, twin bunk bed, dresser, lamp, mirror, portable table, shelves and storage, shoe rack, and other amenities. It is truly remarkable to be opening a second tiny home village within a year, Baldwin Park Mayor Emmanuel Estrada said. Serenity Homes will serve as a model for how cities can expand homeless services and better address the unique needs of unhoused families. I would like to commend city staff and our project partners, the SGVRHT (San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust) and SGVCOG, for their tremendous efforts and dedication to bringing this project to reality. The project is intended to provide temporary housing for about 90 days to six months before families are placed into permanent accommodations. A home is pictured in Serenity Homes, a tiny home village in Baldwin Park, Calif., on Sept. 24, 2022. (Courtesy of San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust) Residents will be offered individual on-site services such as case management and health and mental health services, three meals a day, restroom, laundry, shower trailers, and an on-site computer room to facilitate homework and job training. The site operator, City Net, will provide staffing and security 24 hours a day. The opening of Serenity Homes represents an opportunity for new beginnings for unhoused families and is a common sense pathway to achieving permanent housing solutions in the San Gabriel Valley, said Monrovia Mayor Becky Shevlin, president of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments. The SGVCOG is incredibly proud to be involved in these critical homeless housing projects in the region that are making a tremendous difference at the local level. Serenity Homes, a tiny home village in Baldwin Park, Calif., on Sept. 24, 2022. (Courtesy of San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust) Doctor Turns Against Messenger RNA COVID-19 Vaccines, Calls for Global Pause A doctor who promoted COVID-19 vaccines is now calling for health authorities around the world to pause the administration of two of the most-widely utilized COVID-19 vaccines, saying that the benefits from the vaccines may not outweigh the risks. There is more than enough evidenceI would say the evidence is overwhelmingto pause the rollout of the vaccine, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist and evidence-based medicine expert, told The Epoch Times. A paper from Malhotra detailing the evidence was published on Sept. 26. Among the citations is a recent reanalysis of the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials that concluded that vaccinated trial participants were at higher risk of serious adverse events. He called the study a smoking gun. Malhotra also pointed to the lack of reduction in mortality or severe disease in the trials, which were completed in 2020. Taking into account death rates and other figures since then, the number of people who need to be vaccinated to prevent a single COVID-19 death ranges from 93,000 for people aged 1829 to 230 for people aged 80 and older, according to an analysis of UK safety and effectiveness data by the Health Advisory & Recovery Team. The author also noted that serious side effects have been detected after the trials, such as myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation. Overall, looking at the absolute benefits and drawbacks of the vaccines, its time to halt their usage and allow authorities and other experts to closely examine the data to see if the vaccines should be used again down the road, according to Malhotra. The paper was published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance in two parts following peer review. Pfizer and Moderna didnt return requests for comment. Reversal of Opinion Malhotra received the Pfizer primary series in January 2021. He became a promoter of the vaccine, even appearing on Good Morning Britain to advise Indian film director Gurinder Chadha to get the vaccine. Chadha did so shortly after. Malhotra said he began digging into vaccine data after his father, Dr. Kailash Chand, suffered a cardiac arrest at home approximately six months after receiving Pfizers vaccine. The post-mortem showed two of Chands major arteries were severely blocked, even though Malhotra described his father as a fit person who didnt have any significant heart problems. Malhotra began reading about post-vaccination issues, including a study abstract in the journal Circulation that identified a higher risk of a heart attack following vaccination with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and a study from Nordic countries that identified a higher risk of myocarditis. While authorities have claimed that myocarditis is more common after COVID-19 than vaccination, many studies have found otherwise, at least for certain age groups. Some papers have found no increased incidence of heart inflammation for COVID-19 patients. Malhotra has come to believe that his fathers death was linked to the vaccine. Ive always approached medicine and science with uncertainties because things constantly evolve. And the information I had at the time is completely different to the information I have now, Malhotra told The Epoch Times. And in fact, it is my duty and responsibility as the information has changed to act on that information. And thats what Im doing. A doctor prepares the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Halifax, England, on July 31, 2021. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) Response to Criticism After the new paper was published, critics noted that Malhotra is a board member of the Journal of Insulin Resistance. He acknowledged the position but said the article went through an independent peer review process and that he has no financial links to the journal. The doctor encouraged people to view his publication history, which includes articles in the British Medical Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association. He said he chose to submit the paper to the insulin journal for several reasons, including it being one of the few journals that doesnt take money from the pharmaceutical industry. I dont think that theres any validity to question the integrity of the piece, he said. People can argue Ive got an intellectual bias. We all have intellectual biases, but theres certainly no financial bias for me. Paper Gains Support Leading scientists say the new paper is important. We fully believe that vaccines are one of the great discoveries in medicine that has improved life expectancy dramatically, however, mRNA genetic vaccines are different, as long-term safety evaluation is lacking but mandatory to ensure public safety, Sherif Sultan, president of the International Society of Vascular Surgery, said in a statement. Sultan also noted that the findings raise concerns regarding vaccine-induced undetected severe cardiovascular side effects and underscore the established causal relationship between vaccines and myocarditis, a frequent cause of unexpected cardiac arrest in young individuals. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Stanford, said that Malhotra makes a good case that there is considerable heterogeneity across age groups and other comorbid conditions in the expected benefits and expected side effect profiles of the vaccine and finds that while there may be a case for older people to take the vaccine because the benefits may outweigh expected harm that may not be the case for younger people. Dr. Campbell Murdoch, who advises the Royal College of General Practitioners, said the study describes multiple systemic failures in the provision of safe and effective evidence-based medicine and the situation has made it impossible for patients and the public to make an informed choice about what is best for their health and life. Some others criticized the paper, including Dr. Victoria Male, an immunologist at Imperial College London. Male wrote on Twitter that the table in the paper outlining the number of people in each age group estimated to need a vaccination to prevent a COVID-19 death is quite in favour of vaccination. Zachary Stieber Reporter Follow Zachary Stieber covers U.S. and world news. He is based in Maryland. Refugees from Ukraine regions held by Russia arrive to vote for a referendum at a polling station in Rostov-on-Don on Sept. 24, 2022. (Stringer/AFP via Getty Images) Ukraine Polls Enter 4th Day Amid Escalating Rhetoric From Russia, US Referendums being held in four Russian-held regions of Ukraine entered their fourth day on Sept. 26, amid continued denunciations by Western nations that the move represents the de facto annexation of the territories by Russia. The polling, which began on Sept. 23, will decide whether residents of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia want to remain in Ukraine or join the Russian Federation. Polling is slated to end on Sept. 27. On Sept. 25, Russias TASS news agency reported that 93 percent of ballots cast on the first day of the poll in Zaporizhzhia favored the regions integration with Russia. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily news briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Sept. 20, 2022, in Washington. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) A day earlier, TASS cited a Russian lawmaker who said that the four provinces integration into the Russian Federationshould they vote in favor of itcould be formally ratified in less than a week. Taking into account the preliminary results of the referendums, and Russias readiness to acknowledge them, accession of the territories is likely to take place as early as Sept. 30, Yaroslav Nilov was quoted as saying. Kyiv and its Western allies have vowed not to recognize the results of the referendums, which they say are being held under Russian occupation. Since the polling began, Ukrainian officials have asserted that residents of the four Russian-held regions were being coerced to vote in favor of integration with Russia. Moscow rejects claims of coercion, with Russias Central Election Commission reporting high voter turnout. Russian forces and their local allies hold roughly 60 percent of Donetsk and almost all of Luhansk. Days before launching its special military operation in Ukraine on Feb. 24, Moscow recognized both regions as independent peoples republics. Russian forces also control broad swaths of the southern Zaporizhzhia region and almost all of neighboring Kherson, including its regional capital. In 2014, Ukraines Black Sea region of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in a similar referendum. The results of that poll remain unrecognized by all but a handful of countries. Catastrophic Consequences On Sept. 25, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the U.N. General Assembly in New York that if the four regions opt to join Russia, they would receive the full protection of the Russian state. Interpreting the comment as a threat to use nuclear weapons, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that such a step would draw a decisive response from the United States. If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences, Sullivan said in televised comments. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would use all available means to protect Russian territory from perceived threats. On Sept. 21, Putin announced the partial mobilization of the Russian armed forcesa move entailing the call-up of 300,000 experienced army reservists. According to Western media reports, the call-up has led to a mass exodus from Russia by fighting-age men seeking to avoid conscription. The Kremlin, for its part, says the reports are exaggerated. A Ukrainian soldier stays under cover in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on Sept. 25, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images) Developments in the Field Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, has doubled down on promises to retake Ukrainian territory currently held by Russian forces. We will definitely liberate our entire country, from Kherson to the Luhansk region, from Crimea to the Donetsk region, he said via Telegram on Sept. 25. The government in Kyiv insists it will never accept Russian occupation of its territory, while continuing to call on its Western allies to supply it with money and arms. The first half of this month saw notable gains by Ukrainian forces, including the recapture of positions in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Russian military officials, however, dismiss the strategic importance of the counter-offensive. The roughly 1,000-kilometer (622-mile) front line has remained stable in recent days, despite intermittent reports of skirmishes, artillery exchanges, and fierce fighting near Donetsks strategic town of Bakhmut. In its daily briefing for Sept. 26, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed its forces had continued to strike positions in Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, inflicting significant losses on Ukrainian manpower and equipment. The ministry also accused Ukrainian forces of shelling areas near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is located behind Russian lines in the region of the same name. Kyiv has previously accused Russian forces of shelling the facility, which is Europes largest nuclear plant, raising concerns of potential nuclear disaster. The Epoch Times was unable to verify field reports by either side. Mediation Moves In comments to the British press on Sept. 25, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis that preserves the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine. The remark has prompted speculation that Borrell, who has consistently adopted a strong line vis-a-vis Moscow, may be softening his stance on the conflict. Scattered reports have emerged in recent days of behind-the-scenes mediation efforts by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. On Sept. 21, the two countries helped broker a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine that saw the release of 215 captured Ukrainians and 55 captured Russians and pro-Russia Ukrainians. Amid Western pressure, Ankara and Riyadhboth traditional U.S. allieshave maintained relatively good relations with Moscow. Reuters contributed to this report. A shark swims on a reef in Ailinginae Atoll in the Marshall Islands, in August 2018. (Greg Asner/Allen Coral Atlas via AP) US Should Ramp Up Western Pacific Ties to Fend Off Beijings Expansionism: Report The United States needs to ramp up diplomatic ties with the Freely Associated States (FAS) of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia to restrict Beijings expansionism in the Pacific region, according to a new report. The U.S. Institute for Peace stated that the Beijing regime sees Pacific nations as a low-investment, high-reward opportunity. China has not focused on the FAS in its influence-building efforts in the Pacific to the degree it has focused on South Pacific nations, but nonetheless is positioning itself to take advantage of any deterioration in U.S.FAS relations, the report reads. The institute also stated that Beijing was looking to project force beyond the first island chain, a line of major islands including Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. As Beijing seeks to develop a true blue water navy (one capable of operating globally), the U.S. right of strategic denial in FAS territorial seas and the forward presence enabled by U.S. defense facilities in and adjacent to FAS territories will grow more important in constraining Chinas force projection and maintaining free and open maritime corridors in the Indo-Pacific, the institute stated. The report also noted that the FAS, on the whole, was keen to avoid excessive Chinese influence in the region that would supplant traditional international partners. In contrast, the governments of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Kiribati have ramped up ties with Beijing in recent months, most notably a security pact signed in April between Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and the Chinese Communist Party. The pact would allow Chinese naval ships, weapons, and troops to be stationed in the region, ushering in potential militarisation akin to the South China Sea. Yet, governments in the FAS have had to deal with overt incidents of Beijing-linked foreign interference. In early September, the U.S. Justice Department indicted two naturalised citizens of the Marshall Islands for allegedly running a multi-year money laundering and bribery schemevia a United Nations-linked nonprofitto support the creation of a mini-state within the Pacific country. Beginning in 2016, Cary Yan and Gina Zhou allegedly paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to Marshall Islands officials, including members of the Pacific countrys legislature, in return for supporting a proposed law to create a semi-autonomous region within the Pacific nation called the Rongelap Atoll Special Administration Region. The special administration region would significantly change the laws of the Rongelap Atollwhich is made up of 61 small islandsto supposedly attract investment and tourism through lower taxes and immigration regulations. In late October 2018, Zhou is alleged to have provided a US$22,000 interest-free loan to one official, while in another instance, one official promised revenge against Marshall Islands then-President Hilda Heine for opposing the law. Idaho Victims of Pandemic Policy & Law will discuss medical-related pandemic policy, biology, treatments, and misinformation in Nampa, Idaho. A group of national experts will hold a listening event on the effects of the past two years on peoples lives, their professions, their health, their families, and a solution and path where victims can find relief and healing for injuries. The Epoch Times and its sister media, NTD, will livestream the event on this page on Sept. 26, 2022, 11:00 a.m.8:00 p.m. ET. The livestream can also be accessed at EpochTV.com and NTD.com. * Click the Save button below the video to access it later on My List. Follow EpochTV on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVus Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTV Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@EpochTV Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/epochtv Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVus Gab: https://gab.com/EpochTV Telegram: https://t.me/EpochTV The Wisconsin State Capitol, which houses both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of the Governor, in Madison. (Carol M. Highsmith via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain) Wisconsin Group to Appeal Court Loss in Challenge of Racially Discriminatory College Grant Program A conservative public interest law firm plans to appeal a court ruling tossing its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state-administered college grant program that excludes whites and Asians. Dan Lennington, deputy counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), said the group would appeal the ruling, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Sept. 26. Lennington said he was optimistic that the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling in two upcoming related cases may change the legal landscape across the nation regarding race-conscious programs at the colleges. The high court is scheduled to hear two cases challenging the constitutionality of using race in college admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina on Oct. 31, as The Epoch Times reported. We are confident that ultimately the State of Wisconsin will have to end this race-based scholarship, he said. Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge William Hue dismissed the suit on Sept. 16. The legal complaint (pdf) in Rabiebna v. Higher Educational Aids Board, was filed on April 15, 2021, in Jefferson County. WILL sued Wisconsins Higher Educational Aids Board (HEAB) in the name of several state residents, including a mixed-race family who said their son failed to qualify for the Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant. Wisconsin law states that grants from the program, which was created in 1985, may only be awarded to African American, American Indian, Hispanic, and some Southeast Asian students from Laos, Vietnam, or Cambodia. Students who are white, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, North African, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or African arent eligible for grants. This is discrimination based on race, national origin, and alienage, which is forbidden by the Wisconsin Constitution, the complaint states. Eligible students who meet the qualifications under the program may receive an award based on financial need, with a minimum grant of $250 and a maximum of $2,500. The grants are renewable for up to eight semesters or 12 quarters. Unless the Court declares the race, national origin, and alienage classifications in Minority Grant Program to be unconstitutional, unlawful, and invalid, then Plaintiffs will continue to be forced to financially support this discriminatory program, according to the complaint. America is a land of opportunity, Kiki Rabiebna, wife of one of the plaintiffs, said when the complaint was filed. Government programs must be available to everybody, not just certain racial groups. When government discriminates by race, it pits different groups against each other, said Rick Freihoefer, another plaintiff. That isnt progress. That just fans the flames of our divisions. Connie Hutchinson, executive director of HEAB, told the newspaper that as a result of the lawsuit being dismissed, students of color will still be able to be given grant monies. HEAB doles out the grants based on financial need to students enrolled at a technical college, tribal college, or nonprofit private college, she said. The University of Wisconsin System has a similar grant program. Lennington has said WILL may target that racially discriminatory program in court, as well. That release could not be found. President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to the nation's capital, Abuja, following his seven days participation in the 77th session of the high-level meetings of the UN General Assembly in New York, United States. The president had departed the country on Sunday,18th of September for the State function in US. Expectedly, the Nigerian leader who arrived in the early hours of Monday morning landed with other members of his entourage at the Presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja at about 6.25 a.m. During his stay in New York, President Buhari participated in 12 High level events, including bilateral meetings. He also attended the opening of Transforming Education Summit on Sept 19 ahead of the General Debate and attended Leaders Roundtable segment of the Summit where he delivered Nigerias statement. The president was also the first speaker, on Wednesday, to deliver Nigerias statement to the world leaders, assuring them of leaving lasting legacies and restated commitment to constitutional term. He told the global body that his administration was determined to entrench a process of free, fair, transparent and credible elections through which Nigerians would elect their leaders. The president also engaged in various bilateral talks with some world leaders on the margins of the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly. He also alerted the world leaders on the danger of escalation of the war in Ukraine, saying the conflict further justified Nigerias resolute calls for a nuclear-free world and a universal Arms Trade Treaty. Buhari said the call had become necessary to prevent global human disasters. He, therefore, demanded that world leaders must find quick means to reach consensus on the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty with related commitments by nuclear weapon states. He was also at the Nigeria International Economic Partnership Forum held on the margins of the UNGA77 in New York on Sept. 22, expressed delight that Nigerias investments in improving security were yielding fruitful results. President Buhari lauded the Nigeria military for making significant progress in the fight against insecurity and building the momentum in reducing challenges to its barest minimum. Internally displaced persons camps in various parts of Maiduguri, Borno State, northeast Nigeria, bubbled with livelihood activities just before they shut down in August 2022 as the men and women perfected new skills that would help them to feed their families when they returned to their home communities. Matured fish produced at the Malakiyari Aquaculture Training Centre, Maiduguri The UN World Food Programme worked with partners and government authorities to assist the IDPs to learn new skills in farming, aquaculture, food processing, tailoring, shoe-making, soap-making, carpentry and other activities that will enable them to generate income and rebuild their lives even as they return to their home communities. These livelihood activities, delivered by WFP and its partners to IDPs, are a major aspect of WFPs mandate of saving lives and changing lives among the vulnerable people and communities it serves in Nigeria. At the Aquaculture Training Centre in Malakyarari village, in the outskirts of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council, healthy, matured catfish bobbled up and down in tens of large fish tanks gulping food and water intermittently. The farm, managed and operated by WFP-supported beneficiaries, contained over 2,500 fish altogether, raised from seedlings to maturity by the participant-beneficiaries. Fish Tanks This is an integrated artificial Fish Farming project and Aquaculture Training Centre, said Mrs. Nana Christopher Onochie, the Christian Aid Aquaculture Programme Officer who managed the project. The participants received N17, 000 WFP cash each per month and worked 15 days monthly in the fish farm. The Aquaculture Training Centre covered a full range of activities including the following: Training of some 94 participant-beneficiaries Fish farming (from fish seedlings to maturity) Fish-feed formulation and production (with feed-pelleting machines) Fish processing (like fish-smoking, etc.) Dresses and other items produced by the IDPs. The trained participant-beneficiaries pass on their skills to others, thereby increasing the number of persons with sufficient skills to produce fish for their immediate family food needs and to generate some income by selling their surplus fish in the local markets. Dresses and other items produced by the IDPs. It was a gathering of intellectuals and passionate individuals, as the Anambra Network of the Wikimedia Usergroup Nigeria was launched in in the state. The event which held over the weekend at the Nigerian Book Foundation in Awka, Anambra State capital, attracted some top officials of Wikimedia Usergroup Nigeria, members of the Wikimedia Usergroup in Anambra State, librarians, writers and other members of the the public. The Anambra newly-inaugurated Anambra Network of the Wikimedia Usergroup Nigeria has Dr. Ngozi Perpetual Osuchukwu as the Coordinator, and Dr. Nkem Osuigwe as the Advisor/Supervisor; while Mrs. Adaora Ugoezue and Mr. Timothy Chibuike Ezenwanne are the the Assistant Coordinators respectively. Speaking at the event while inaugurating the Network, the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Nigerian Foundation and President, Wikimedia Usergroup Nigeria, Mr. Olushola Olaniyan explained that the Wikimedia Usergroup is one of the over 170 international affiliates of Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia, created for primary purpose of spreading knowledge and allowing individuals with internet to access and also contribute their knowledge and ensure that knowledge is spread across. He said the launching of the Anambra Network of the Wikimedia Usergroup was basically part of their strategies to spread the idea of Wikimedia across the different parts of the country and down to the grassroot; even as he urged the members and leadership of the newly-inaugurated Anambra Wikimedia Network to expedite actions and efforts towards promoting, popularizing and contributing to the growth of Wikipedia in Anambra State. In their separate ramarks, the Community Lead of Wikimedia Usergroup, Nigeria, Mr. Kayode Yussuf; and the Project Director, Wikimedia Usergroup Nigeria, Mr. Ayokanmi Oyeyemi, informed the leadership of the Anambra Network of the roles expected of them, advised them to ensure that they and members of the Network in the state participate actively in the different projects and activities of the Wikimedia Usergroup; while also assuring them of their unalloyed supports to help them succeed in their new roles. Responding, on behalf of the team, the Coordinator of the newly-launched Anambra Network, Dr. Ngozi Osuchukwu hailed the participants for making out time to attend the event which started with a two-day regional Train the Trainers program that also held in Awka, and also appreciated the Wikimedia Usergroup Nigeria for finding her worthy of the new position as the Coordinator of the Wikimedia Community in Anambra State. While acknowledging that every higher position comes with higher responsibilities and expectations, Dr. Osuchukwu, who has thousands of Igbo and English edits to her credit on the Wikipedia, solicited the massive support of the members of the Anambra Wikimedia Community, to enable her and her leadership perform exceedingly well in leading and piloting the affairs of the Community in Anambra State. Earlier speaking, the Advisor/Supervisor of the Anambra Wikimedia Network, Dr. Nkem Osuigwe, who recently won the Wikimedian of the Year 2022 (globally), also revealed that over 1.8 billion unique devices visit Wikipedia every month; and expressed optimism that the establishment of the Wikimedia Network in Anambra State will help in no small measure in opening up and contributing knowledge about the state to be on the global resource, so that contents about Anambra and users from the state are popularly seen on the Wikipedia and its sister projects. In their separate ramarks, the Director, Anambra State Library Board, Dr. Nkechi Udeze, and some other participants at the event, Prof. Mercy Anyaegbu, Dr. Hope Chikaodiri, and Lady V. Ezejiofor appreciated organizers of the event, congratulated the newly-inaugurated leadership the Anambra Wikimedia Network; and also aired their views and suggestions on how Wikimedia activities could be improved, to enhance more participation and contributions from Wikimedians, especially those who are new in the system. The newly-inaugurated Coordinator of the Anambra Network of Wikimedia Usergroup, Dr. Ngozi Perpetual Osuchukwu is an alumnus of Girls Secondary School, Onitsha; Federation Polytechnic, Oko; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka; and Ignatius Ajuru University, Port-harcourt, and holds ND, HND, BLIS, PGDE, MLS, and PhD in Library and Information Sciences. Dr. Osuchukwu is also a lecturer, a Certified Librarian of Nigeria (CLN), and a Development Practitioner. She is also an advocate with special interest in community information, health awareness and engagement, and social justice. She has presented and published articles, wildly, and is passionate about information services and awareness. Cannabis farmers ask for help as prices drop NAKHON PHANOM: Farmers in the province of Nakhon Phanom are asking the government to help regulate the prices of cannabis after the industry began seeing a drop in value due to an oversupply of the crop. Cannabis By Bangkok Post Monday 26 September 2022, 09:10AM A cannabis farm in Nakhon Ratchasima province. Photo: Prasit Tangprasert Jirawat Rungsri, 56, president of the Medicinal Herbs Community Enterprise of Na Kham in Sri Songkhram district, said yesterday (Sept 25) the prices dropped dramatically after the government began allowing the public to grow the plant. Before cannabis was delisted as a narcotics earlier this year, only farmers with permission from hospitals, medical centres and universities were able to grow cannabis, reports the Bangkok Post. Mr Jirawat said he started the group to grow cannabis for medical purposes in 2020 in collaboration with Tambon Na Kham Health Promotion Hospital. He said the group had 30 members growing about 30,000 cannabis plants when it first started. During the groups first harvest, members were able to earn B50,000100,000 a month selling parts of the cannabis plant, including buds, leaves and roots, he said. However, prices of cannabis have dropped sharply since. As anyone can grow cannabis today, they do not have to get permission to grow the plant, so we have more competitors who drive cannabis prices down, he said. He said the price of fresh cannabis leaves has declined from the previous B15,000 per kilogramme to B3,000. Fresh stems were priced at B10,000/kg in the past but today they are worth only B1,000, he said. He said cannabis farmers in Nakhon Phanom have asked the government to help by announcing set prices farmers and customers can follow. He said about 20 community enterprises in Nakhon Phanom plan to set up a cannabis cooperative to have more bargaining power when negotiating prices with middlemen. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Belgiums justice minister remains under police protection after four people suspected of taking part in an alleged plot to kidnap him were arrested in the Netherlands over the weekend As the world emerges from the COVID pandemic and with the virus still playing a big factor in our daily lives, getting a flu shot this year is more important than ever before. Job Title: Business Support Assistant (Finance) No Experience UN Internship Jobs Organisation: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda 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 Business Support Assistant (Finance) will support the VAT claims process and other finance unit functions including petty cash processing, payment processing and filing, financial analysis and review etc. The workload in the VAT claims process is expected to significantly increase as the WFP UGCO starts to claim the VAT paid by Cooperating Partners (CPs) under the Field Level Agreements. Uganda Revenue Authority has allowed WFP to claim VAT paid by (CPs) during the period 2019 to 2021 and the CO Finance Unit therefore expects to receive documentation and process claims for these CP VAT payments over the next three to six months. This VAT claims process will be done alongside the routine WFP 2022 claims The Intern will support the VAT claims process to ensure the compilation of relevant support documentation and timely submission of VAT Claims to URA. The Intern will also support other finance unit functions including petty cash processing, filing and payment documentation etc. The intern will be exposed to all the various finance functions to obtain a good understanding of the entire finance processes at WFP. Key Duties and Responsibilities: Support the Compilation and filing of the documentation required for the monthly Diplomatic Value Added tax (VAT) Claims to URA. This will consist of the compilation of original receipts or proof of payments and invoices for URA for verification. Support the process to compile documentation for the Cooperating Partners (CPs) 2019 to 2021 VAT claims from URA in order to make a claim for the VAT paid by the CPs under the Field Level Agreements (FLA) during this period. Perform administrative duties related to the monitoring, recording and processing of the VAT and Excise Duty refunds. Generate listings of vendor invoices approved in the Invoice Tracking System (ITS) and review them for VAT compliance before payment processing. Support other finance functions including Petty Cash and Routine Payment Processing, etc. to obtain an overall understanding of the WFP UGCO finance unit processes. This will consist of filing documents to evidence payments and review, documentation to ensure completeness of records and administrative support to the other finance unit staff. Provide administrative support to programmatic activities and events ensuring that there is sufficient accountability for the resources advanced for these activities/events. Perform other general administrative duties as assigned by the supervisor e.g., filing, maintenance of physical and electronic support documentation, facilitation and support to visiting oversight, audit, or other internal and external teams conducting official WFP activities, etc Qualifications, Skills and Experience: The ideal candidate for the United Nations UN World Food Programme (WFP) Business Support Assistant (Finance) job placement must have educational credentials from Ugandan institutions certified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Be enrolled in an undergraduate programme from a recognized university in Uganda and completed at least two years of the programme. and attended classes in the past 12 months. Be enrolled in a graduate programme from a recognized university in Uganda and have attended classes in the past 12 months. Be a recent graduate from a bachelors or masters programme from a recognized university in Uganda within the last 2years prior to the application for the internship programme. Recent graduates should have a first class or second-class degree in a relevant programme to the activities of WFP Uganda Country Office and a valid National Identity Card of Uganda. Be fluent in English (both oral and written) and medically fit to travel and work at a duty station of the internship across WFP Uganda CO. Not be immediate family member or relative of WFP employees How to Apply: All candidates who wish to join the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in the aforementioned capacity should apply online at the online portal link below. Click Here Deadline: 7th October 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 Life insurer LV has appointed former Bupa boss David Hynam as its new chief executive in a 'new era' for the 179-year-old mutual. Hynam, 51, replaces outgoing boss Mark Hartigan, who stepped down in July, seven months after trying to sell the historic insurer to private equity. His decision to stand down came as policy-holders who own the business due to its status as a mutual were preparing to stage a protest at its annual meeting later this year to oust him. David Hynam replaces Mark Hartigan, who left after trying to sell LV to private equity Hynam said his priority would be to 'deliver a true mutual culture' and 'the best possible outcomes for our members, advisers and colleagues'. His appointment follows Hartigan's resignation after his attempt to sell the mutual to Bain Capital was voted down by furious members in December last year. LV said Hynam, who has 30 years experience in retail financial services, was the ideal candidate to help the insurer 'to build a strong and sustainable future as a mutual life and pensions business'. Chairman Simon Moore said his appointment marked 'a new era' for LV. 'David brings with him a track record of hugely successful leadership in the insurance sector, while his extensive experience working with distribution partners, intermediaries and brokers, means he is a perfect fit for LV='s mutual business model', he said. 'I look forward to introducing David at our AGM in October, as his appointment marks a new era for LV=. 'At the AGM I will also give an unprecedented address directly to our members so that they are the first to hear about the steps David and I are taking to demonstrate that transparency and fairness will be at the heart of our mutual business going forward.' Hynam joined Bupa in 2014, where he led the transformation agenda for the UK business and ran the health clinic division before becoming chief executive in 2016. During his time at Bupa, he was responsible for the insurer's pandemic response in the UK, making it the first major health insurer to offer a member and customer Covid rebate. Prior to this, he was chief executive of Friends Life, before it was acquired by Aviva, and held senior roles at Axa and Barclays. Pendragon has received a fresh unsolicited takeover offer from its largest shareholder valuing the UK car dealership at around 400million. Hedin, a major player in the Swedish car market that owns 26 per cent of Pendragon, made a cash bid of 29p per share, the company confirmed today. It told investors that the board was considering the 'unsolicited, preliminary and highly conditional' bid, but stressed there was no certainty a final offer would be made. Fresh approach: Pendragon said the board was considering the bid The approach follows a previous bid by Hedin in the spring of this year, which was rejected by Pendragon's board. Hedin has been a critic of Pendragon's board in recent years, particularly on the issue of executive pay. It has until 24 October to decide if to make a firm offer or walk away. Pendragon shares rose 19.4 per cent to 27.10p in morning trade on Monday. They are 20 per cent higher since the start of the year. The Nottingham-based car retailer, which is behind brands including Evans Halshaw and Stratstone, reported record profit last year. Car dealers have seen business grow since the pandemic, with more people with savings accumulated during lockdown deciding to buy cars instead of using public transport for fear of Covid. Meanwhile, demand for used cars has soared due to a semiconductor shortage that has limited new car production, pushing prices higher. As the sector heated up, the past couple of years have seen a frenzy of corporate activity among car sellers. Pendragon itself made an approach to buy rival Lookers at the height of the pandemic in a deal that would have created the UK's largest car retail group, but talks broke down. In January, We Buy Any Car owner Constellation Automotive took a a near-20 per cent stake in Lookers after acquiring Marshall Motors in December. in June last year, car dealer Cambria Automobiles was taken private by chief executive Mark Lavery. Checking in: Julie Brown previously served as interim finance boss at GSKs main UK rival AstraZeneca Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to become the largest London-listed firm with both a female boss and finance chief after poaching an executive from Burberry. The FTSE 100 group said Julie Brown, the luxury fashion brands chief operating and financial officer, will join in April and succeed finance boss Iain Mackay, who is retiring in May. Brown has spent nearly six years at Burberry but is also a seasoned pharma industry executive, having previously served as interim finance boss at GSKs main UK rival AstraZeneca. She also worked at bandage and medical equipment maker Smith & Nephew and is a non-executive director at Swiss healthcare firm Roche, a position she will probably need to relinquish. And she has served as a member of Boris Johnsons business council. I am absolutely delighted that Julie will be joining the leadership team....[she] is a highly experienced CFO with a tremendous understanding of the biopharma sector, said GSK boss Emma Walmsley. I want to thank Iain for all hes done and for his leadership and support to our people. He has played a very significant role to help deliver the reshaping of GSK. Brown will be paid a base salary of just over 915,000 a year, with a potential bonus of the same amount and share awards of up to 1.8million. Her arrival will make GSK the largest firm on the London Stock Exchange with an all-female executive team. Other blue-chip firms with all-women leaders include NatWest, run by chief executive Alison Rose and finance boss Katie Murray, and insurer Aviva, headed by Amanda Blanc and chief financial officer Charlotte Jones. GSK recently spun out its consumer healthcare business, which makes brands such as Sensodyne toothpaste and Panadol painkillers, into a new company called Haleon which listed on the stock market in July while GSK focuses on drug and vaccine development. GSK aims to grow sales by at least 5 per cent and profits by 10 per cent over the next five years and rake in at least 33billion in annual sales by 2031. Its shares were up 0.9 per cent, or 11.8p to 1325p. A right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Melonis Brothers of Italy party looked set for a clear majority in the next parliament, exit polls said on Sunday after voting ended in an Italian national election. The polls, if confirmed, would give Italy its most right-wing government since World War Two, with Meloni expected to become the countrys first woman prime minister. An exit poll for state broadcaster RAI said the bloc of conservative parties, that also includes Matteo Salvinis League and Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia party, won between 41% and 45%, enough to guarantee control of both houses of parliament. Centre-right clearly ahead both in the lower house and the Senate! Itll be a long night but even now I want to say thanks, Salvini said on Twitter. Italys electoral law favours groups that manage to create pre-ballot pacts, giving them an outsized number of seats by comparison with their vote tally. RAI said the right-wing alliance would win between 227 and 257 of the 400 seats in the lower house of parliament, and 111-131 of the 200 Senate seats. Full results are expected by early Monday. As leader of the biggest party in the winning alliance, Meloni is the obvious choice to become prime minister, but the transfer of power is traditionally slow and it could take more than a month before the new government is sworn in. Meloni, 45, plays down her partys post-fascist roots and portrays it as a mainstream conservative group. She has pledged to support Western policy on Ukraine and not take undue risks with the third largest economy in the euro zone. However, the outcome is likely to ring alarm bells in European capitals and on financial markets, given the desire to preserve unity in dealings with Russia and concerns over Italys daunting debt mountain. RECORD LOW TURNOUT The result caps a remarkable rise for Meloni, whose party won only 4% of the vote in the last national election in 2018, but this time around was forecast to emerge as Italys largest group on around 22-26%. But it was not a ringing endorsement, with provisional data pointing to turnout of just 64.1% against 74% four years ago a record low number in a country that has historically enjoyed a high level of voter participation. Italys first autumn national election in over a century was triggered by party infighting that brought down Prime Minister Mario Draghis broad national unity government in July. Italy has a history of political instability and the next prime minister will lead the countrys 68th government since 1946 and face a host of challenges, notably soaring energy costs and growing economic headwinds. The new, slimmed-down parliament will not meet until Oct. 13, at which point the head of state will summon party leaders and decide on the shape of the new government. SOURCE: REUTERS The United States warned of catastrophic consequences if Moscow were to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, after Russias Foreign Minister said regions holding widely-criticised referendums would get full protection if annexed by Moscow. Votes in four eastern Ukrainian regions, aimed at annexing territory Russia has taken by force mostly since its invasion in February, were staged for a third day on Sunday. The Russian parliament could move to formalise the annexation within days. By incorporating the four areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia, Moscow could portray attacks to retake them as an attack on Russia itself, a warning to Kyiv and its Western allies. The Russian annexations raise the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and the NATO military alliance as Western arms are being used by Ukrainian troops. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday the United States would respond decisively to any Russian use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine and that it had spelled out to Moscow the catastrophic consequences it would face. If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively, Sullivan told NBCs Meet the Press program. The latest U.S. warning followed a thinly veiled nuclear threat made last Wednesday by President Vladimir Putin, who said Russia would use any weapons to defend its territory. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the point more directly at a news conference on Saturday after addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Asked if Russia would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend the annexed regions, he said Russian territory, including territory further enshrined in Russias constitution in the future, is under the full protection of the state. In his speech, Lavrov sought to justify Russias seven-month war in Ukraine, repeating Moscows false claims that the elected government in Kyiv was illegitimately installed and filled with neo-Nazis. He cast opposition to what Russia calls a special operation as limited to the United States and countries under its sway, although nearly three-quarters of states in the assembly voted to reprimand Russia and demand it withdraw. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed the referendums as a sham designed to justify an escalation of the war and a mobilisation drive by Moscow after recent battlefield losses. British Prime Minister Liz Truss said Britain and its allies should not heed threats from Putin, who had made what she called a strategic mistake as he had not anticipated the strength of reaction from the West. We should not be listening to his sabre-rattling and his bogus threats. Instead, what we need to do is continue to put sanctions on Russia and continue to support the Ukrainians, Truss told CNN in an interview broadcast on Sunday. Russian news agencies quoted unidentified sources as saying the two houses of the Russian parliament could debate bills to incorporate the new territories as soon as Thursday. State-run RIA Novosti said Putin could address parliament in an extraordinary joint session Friday. Russia says the referendums, hastily organised after Ukraine recaptured swathes of the northeast in a counter-offensive this month, enable people in those regions to express their view. The territory controlled by Russian forces in the four regions represents about 15% of Ukraine, about the size of Portugal. It would add to Crimea, which Russia claims to have already annexed in 2014, and which is nearly the size of Belgium. Ukrainian forces still control some territory in each of the four regions, including around 40% of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhias provincial capital. Heavy fighting is underway along the entire front, especially in northern Donetsk and in Kherson. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday his country would regain all the territory Russia had taken. We will definitely liberate our entire country from Kherson to the Luhansk region, from Crimea to the Donetsk region, he said on the Telegram messaging app. MOBILISATION CHAOS Putin on Wednesday ordered Russias first military mobilisation since World War Two. The move triggered protests across Russia and sent many men of military age fleeing. Two of Russias most senior lawmakers on Sunday addressed a string of complaints about the mobilisation, ordering regional officials to get a handle on the situation and swiftly solve the excesses that have stoked public anger. More than 2,000 people have been detained across Russia for protesting against the draft, according to independent monitoring group OVD-Info. In Russia, where all criticism of the conflict is banned, the demonstrations are among the first signs of discontent since the war began. In the southern Russian region of Dagestan, police clashed on Sunday with people opposed to the mobilisation. Public anger has appeared to be particularly strong in poor ethnic minority regions like Dagestan, a Muslim-majority region located on the shores of the Caspian Sea in the mountainous north Caucasus. SOURCE: REUTERS Voting in referendums in Ukraine aimed at annexing territory to Russia enters a fourth day on Monday, after the United States warned of catastrophic consequences if Moscow used nuclear weapons to protect any annexed regions. The votes in four eastern Ukrainian regions, which Kyiv and the West regard as a sham, saw Russian-backed officials carry ballot boxes from door to door, accompanied by security officials, said Luhansks regional governor. Serhiy Gaidai said residents names were taken down if they failed to vote correctly or refused to cast a ballot. A woman walks down the street with what looks like a karaoke microphone telling everyone to take part in the referendum, the governor added in an interview posted online. Representatives of the occupation forces are going from apartment to apartment with ballot boxes. This is a secret ballot, right? Russian forces control territory in the four regions that represents about 15% of Ukraine, or roughly the size of Portugal. It would add to Crimea, an area nearly the size of Belgium, that Russia claims to have annexed in 2014. Russias parliament could move to formalise the annexations within days. By incorporating the areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia, Moscow could portray efforts to retake them as attacks on Russia itself, a warning to Kyiv and its Western allies. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States would respond to any Russian use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine and had spelled out to Moscow the catastrophic consequences it would face. If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia, Sullivan told NBCs Meet the Press television program on Sunday. The United States will respond decisively. The latest U.S. warning followed Wednesdays thinly veiled nuclear threat by President Vladimir Putin, who said Russia would use any weapons to defend its territory. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the point more directly at a news conference on Saturday. He was speaking after a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, in which he repeated Moscows false claims to justify the invasion that the elected government in Kyiv was illegitimately installed and filled with neo-Nazis. Asked if Russia would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend annexed regions, Lavrov said Russian territory, including that further enshrined in Russias constitution in the future, was under the full protection of the state. In an interview broadcast on Sunday, British Prime Minister Liz Truss told CNN, We should not be listening to his (Putins) sabre-rattling and his bogus threats. Instead, what we need to do is continue to put sanctions on Russia and continue to support the Ukrainians. FIGHTING Heavy fighting saw more than 40 towns hit by Russian shelling, Ukraine officials said on Monday. In the 24 hours to Monday morning, Russian forces launched five missile and 12 air strikes, as well as more than 83 attacks from multiple rocket-propelled grenades, the general staff of Ukraines armed forces said. More than 40 settlements in all were affected by enemy fire, mostly in southern and southeast Ukraine. Two drones launched by Russian forces into Ukraines Odesa region hit military objects, causing a fire and setting off ammunition, Ukraines southern command said on Monday. As a result of a large-scale fire and the detonation of ammunition, the evacuation of the civilian population was organised, it said on messaging app Telegram. Preliminarily, there have been no casualties. Countering Russian attacks, Ukraines air forces launched 33 strikes, hitting 25 enemy areas, the general staff added. Reuters could not independently verify the accounts. PROTESTS IN RUSSIA OVER DRAFT On Wednesday, Putin ordered Russias first military mobilization since World War Two, unleashing protests across Russia and sending many men of military age fleeing. On Sunday, two of Russias most senior lawmakers tackled a string of mobilisation complaints, ordering regional officials to swiftly solve excesses that stoked public anger. More than 2,000 people have been detained across Russia for protests at the draft, says independent monitoring group OVD-Info. With criticism of the conflict banned, the demonstrations were among the first signs of discontent since the war began. In Russias Muslim-majority southern region of Dagestan, police clashed with protesters, leading to the detention of at least 100 people. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged the Russian protests in a Sunday video address. Keep on fighting so that your children will not be sent to their deaths all those that can be drafted by this criminal Russian mobilisation, he said. Because if you come to take away the lives of our children and I am saying this as a father we will not let you get away alive. SOURCE: REUTERS People searching for a South Carolina man missing since July say they found what appear to be human bones on Sunday Tonight is just a bit different than most other nights because we're taking just a sec to send a shout out to a few denizens of our blog community celebrating their new year. Moreover . . . We always take a pause Sunday to contemplate the big picture and where Kansas City stands in the grand scheme of things. Accordingly . . . Check this quick collection of pop culture, community news and top headlines . . . Here's TKC news gathering this evening . . . Old School Calendar Check 5 things to know about Rosh Hashanah Sunday is the start of Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Jewish New Year, which marks the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days. Kansas City Police & Politics Roundtable gives context to DOJ investigation into KCPD, more political headlines CODY: WE'RE TRACKING TROUBLE ON THE FORCE. THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE'S CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION IS NOW INVESTIGATING THE KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI POLICE DEPARTMENT. IN A LETTER SENT TO POLICE, PROSECUTORS WROTE THAT THEY ARE ACTING BASED ON INFORMATION SUGGESTING KCPD MAY BE ENGAGED IN CERTAIN EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES THAT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST BLACK OFFICERS AND APPLICANTS. Skyline Hopes To Inspire Cures Buildings glow green for mitochondrial disease awareness KANSAS CTY, Mo. - When looking out across Kansas City Saturday night, some may notice an additional color in the sky. With World Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week coming to a close Sept. 24, buildings are glowing green to show support and honor those fighting for cures and treatments. Local Native Life Lessons A Belated Lesson in the History of Indigenous People I grew up attending public schools in a small northern Illinois town - Woodstock. My teachers taught me almost nothing about the Indigenous people who once occupied that land, perhaps because they knew little or nothing about that subject. It wasn't until much later that I learned the Illini, Miami, Ho Chunk and Pottawatomie tribes considered that part of Illinois home. Kansas City Starlink Sighting See a line of lights in the sky? Those were the Starlink satellites KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) --- If you see a line of lights in the air, don't fear: It's the latest Starlink satellite launch. Over 50 satellites to help increase Internet connectivity were launched on Sept. 24. Another launch could happen on Sept. 30. You can track the satellites here: https://satellitemap.space/?constellation=oneweb Rocker Cheats The Angels??? Adam Levine history with other Victoria's Secret models analyzed amid texts Adam Levine's romances with other Victoria's Secret models have been analyzed in a viral TikTok video after the Maroon 5 frontman denied allegations that he cheated on his wife, Behati Prinsloo, who modeled for the lingerie giant. U.S. Warns Of 'Decisive' Action U.S. Warns Russia of 'Catastrophic Consequences' if It Uses Nuclear Weapons The comments by the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, illustrate how quickly the rhetoric has intensified as Russia has faltered on the battlefield in recent months. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Italia 'Il Duce' Redux??? Giorgia Meloni set to be Italy's most far-right prime minister since Mussolini -- exit poll | CNN Italy will be led by the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini, early exit polls suggest. Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party - whose origins lie in post-war fascism - were on track to win the vote in Sunday's general election, according to the Rai exit poll. Rocket Man Flexes On Veep North Korea fires second ballistic missile into sea ahead of VP Harris visit to Seoul North Korea fired a second ballistic missile into the sea on Sunday ahead of a visit from Vice President Kamala Harris to the South Korean capital. Kim Jong Un's regime fired its first missile off of its east coast on Saturday as the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier entered the region. COVID Forever Reconsidered The 'End' of COVID Is Still Far Worse Than We Imagined When is the pandemic "over"? In the early days of 2020, we envisioned it ending with the novel coronavirus going away entirely. When this became impossible, we hoped instead for elimination: If enough people got vaccinated, herd immunity might largely stop the virus from spreading. Holy Land Opts Out Of Euro War Zelenskiy says he is shocked by Israel's failure to give Ukraine weapons Sept 24 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was "in shock" at Israel's failure to give Kyiv anti-missile systems to help counter Russian attacks, according to an interview made public on Saturday. Zelenskiy has been asking for the weapons since shortly after the war started in February. World Against The Church The rise of anti-Catholic hatred shows us the future of the abortion battle Since the fall of Roe, pro-life advocates have celebrated a number of significant victories, but there have also been setbacks. Unfortunately, the Dobbs decision galvanized the militant fringe of the pro-abortion movement, and it wasn't long after the initial opinion leak that Catholic churches... Cerebral Baller Drama Debuts At the Unicorn Theatre, "Toni Stone" Spotlights an Unsung Hero of Baseball (and American) History - KC STUDIO Three centuries ago, porcelain was the focus of intense competition about European superpowers, all who raced to discover how to make this "white gold" for themselves, after falling in love with imported Asian wares. Another Look At Autumn . . . FORECAST: Quiet weather on tap for next 7-10 days Sunny skies and cooler temperatures expected today. Temperatures will top out in the mid to upper 70s with one or two spots possibly reaching 80 degrees. This evening gets a bit chilly as the low bottoms out in the upper 40s close to 50 degrees. And this is the OPEN THREAD for right now. The couple, both in their 30s, are tying the knot in December and plan to start their family next year. Ontario adults 18 and over can receive the bivalent booster if it has been at least three months from their previous dose. Live Music on Yonge, hosted by the Willowdale BIA in partnership with non-profit organization Toronto Undergraduate Jazz Festival, continues until Oct. 1. - Metro Creative photo Over the past day, the Armed Forces of Ukraine eliminated 43 Russian soldiers, 13 equipment units, and five ammunition depots in Southern Buh direction. "The situation in the operational zone in Southern Buh direction is still difficult but controlled. The enemy is looking for various options in attempts to oppose our active actions. Near Arkhanhelske, a sabotage and reconnaissance group of up to 10 people tried to check the strength of our positions. As a result of the battle, the invaders suffered losses and retreated. Along the line of potential advance of our units, the enemy places anti-personnel and anti-tank mines," the Operational Command "South" reports. In order to ensure the possibility of redeploying reserves and supplies, including from the temporarily occupied Crimea, the Russians do not stop trying to build new crossings, in particular in Kakhovka direction. A reconnaissance drone was destroyed in Beryslav district, Kherson region. In Mykolaiv region, the air defense forces stopped downed yet another Shahed-136 kamikaze drone There was no destruction or casualties. "The soldiers of the anti-aircraft missile brigade shot down a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft in Beryslav district, Kherson region. To rescue their pilot, the occupiers sent a Mi-8 helicopter which was also successfully destroyed by our anti-aircraft gunners," the Ukrainian military said. The aviation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched nine strikes on the enemy, and the missile and artillery units performed 310 fire missions. The areas of enemy weapons and equipment build-up in Beryslav district were hit, fire control of the Antonivka Bridge was strengthened, and the use of alternative traffic at the crossing in the area of Nova Kakhovka was made impossible. The confirmed losses of the Russians are: 43 soldiers, three tanks, a self-propelled howitzer, and nine armored vehicles. In addition, five ammunition depots were destroyed: in Bezimenne, Ternovi Pody, Kalynivka, and on the Kinburn Spit. As reported, the Ukrainian defenders eliminated about 56,700 Russian soldiers from February 24 to September 25. Photo credit: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ol The Russian death toll in the ongoing war in Ukraine has reached an estimated 57,200, with some 500 Russian servicemen eliminated over the past day. That's according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Ukrinform reports. Ukrainian defenders also destroyed 2,290 Russian main battle tanks (+15 on Sunday), 4,857 (+25) armored combat vehicles, 1,369 (+1) artillery systems, 330 (+2) multiple rocket launchers, 172 (+1) air defense systems, 260 (+1) warplanes, 224 (+4) helicopters, 970 (+4) UAVs, 241 cruise missiles, 15 warships / cutters, 3,711 (+10) trucks and fuel tankers, and 131 (+1) units of specializes equipment. Read also: Armed Forces of Ukraine repel enemy attacks near 13 settlements The enemy suffered the greatest losses in the Kramatorsk and Donetsk directions. The incoming data on enemy casualties is being verified. The haste with which Russia is conducting the mobilization effort suggests that many of the drafted troops will deploy to the front line in Ukraine with minimum preparation. That's according to the British defense intelligence update, Ukrinform reports. The initial tranches of men called up under Russia's partial mobilization have started arriving at military bases. Many tens of thousands of call-ups papers have already been issued. Russia will now face an administrative and logistical challenge to provide training for the troops, the intelligence update reads. Unlike most Western armies, the Russian military provides low-level, initial training to soldiers within their designated operational units rather than in dedicated training establishments, the report notes. Typically one battalion within each Russian brigade will remain in garrison if the other two deploy and can provide a cadre of instructors to train new recruits and augmentees, it is reported. However, Russia has deployed many of these third battalions to Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry says. Many of the drafted troops will not have had any military experience for some years. The lack of military trainers, and the haste with which Russia has started the mobilisation, suggests that many of the drafted troops will deploy to the front line with minimum relevant preparation. They are likely to suffer a high attrition rate, the report concludes. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky held another meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on Monday, September 26. The relevant report was published on the presidents website, according to Ukrinform. During the meeting, the military reported on the operational situation on the frontline. Decisions were made regarding the active actions of the defense forces with the aim of further de-occupation of the territory of Ukraine, the report reads. It is noted that the provision of the troops with weapons and ammunition was also analyzed. The President emphasized the importance of operational provision of high-precision weapons and everything necessary for the forces that are actively advancing. Also, those present focused on the issue of the enemy's use of new types of weapons and outlined plans to counter such means. The meeting was attended by: Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhny, Head of the Main Intelligence Directorate Kyrylo Budanov, Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrskyi, Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov, heads of security and law enforcement agencies, as well as Head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov. Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky, Commander of the West Operational Command Forces Serhiy Litvinov, Commander of the South Operational Command Forces Andriy Kovalchuk and Head of the State Border Guard Service Serhiy Deyneko joined the meeting via videoconference. iy Russian troops have launched a rocket attack against civilian infrastructure in the city of Pervomaiskyi in the Kharkiv region. Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, reported this on Telegram, according to Ukrinform. "In Pervomaiskyi, the occupiers launched a rocket attack on a civilian infrastructure facility. In addition, critical infrastructure was damaged and two private houses were completely destroyed. Information about those injured is being clarified," Syniehubov said. He urged residents of the Kharkiv region and city of Kharkiv not to ignore air raid alerts. Mykola Baksheev, the mayor of Pervomaiskyi, said in a post on Telegram that the city's water supply had been partially cut off after an enemy strike. Danish Foreign Affairs Minister Jeppe Kofod has announced the creation of a Danish-led project to investigate and document Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The relevant statement was made by The Copenhagen Post, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Right from the start of the invasion, it has been a Danish priority that those responsible for the atrocities are held accountable. I am proud that with this project we can now, from the Danish side, help to ensure that evidence is collected for the investigation. It is absolutely essential to conduct trials and ultimately get the criminals convicted, Kofod told. Denmarks Foreign Affairs Ministry is allocating DKK 8 million to the Danish civil society organisation DIGNITY, which will lead this project. The project will focus on training Ukrainian civil society players in the proper methods of collecting and storing evidence to be used in the litigation of war crimes at national and international criminal courts. An emphasis will also be placed on handling victims and witnesses delicately so as not to revive trauma. Together with our Ukrainian partners, we can make a concrete and positive difference in the midst of the horrors of war, DIGNITY Director General Rasmus Grue noted. A reminder that the Government of Denmark contributed DKK 25 million (USD 3.6 million) to protect women and girls health and rights in Ukraine and Moldova. mk During the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Staff meeting on Monday, the use of Iranian drones by the Russian Federation in the war against Ukraine was discussed. I held another meeting of the Staff today. The main focus is on the operational situation on the frontline. We heard the report by the Commander-in-Chief, commanders, head of intelligence, Minister of Defense. We discussed the use of new weapons by the occupiers, in particular, Iranian drones, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address. On September 23, the President of Ukraine requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to respond to the facts of the use of Iranian-made weapons by Russian troops. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine informed charge d'affaires ad interim of Iran in Ukraine about the decision to revoke the accreditation of the Ambassador of Iran to Ukraine and to significantly reduce the number of embassys diplomatic personnel due to the facts of the use of Iranian-made weapons by the Russian troops. ol Germany proposes that all EU member states prohibit their citizens from holding positions of top managers in Russian state-owned companies. The corresponding restriction could be introduced as part of the eighth package of sanctions, Guildhall reports with reference to Suddeutsche Zeitung. The German authorities outlined their idea in a document that was sent to other EU countries. Berlin's proposal is to ban EU citizens from the boards or supervisory boards of Russias government-owned companies. Read also: Zelensky appoints new ambassador to Germany The German authorities argue that in this way, it would be possible to hinder the Kremlin's attempts to increase political pressure on the EU member states and restrict corruption. At the same time, the ban is not expected to extend to the European-based subsidiaries of Russian companies. It should be recalled that the ex-Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schroeder, had worked as the head of the board of directors of Rosneft until he quit in May 2022. Schroeder is considered Putins friend, while his work for the Russian regime bore reputational costs for Germany. As reported earlier, the eighth package of sanctions is unlikely to include a cap on Russian oil prices. Serbia will not recognize the results of sham referendum on accession to Russia held in the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine. "[Recognition of sham referendum] would contradict our national interests and the policy of preserving territorial integrity and sovereignty, as well as the commitment to the principle of inviolability of borders," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Nikola Selakovic stated, Ukrinform reports with reference to the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As reported, the leaders of the "LPR/DPR" and collaborators in the Russian-seized territories announced "referenda on joining Russia" on September 20 and scheduled them for September 23-27. The leaders of Western countries stated that Russian sham referendum in Ukraine would be illegitimate. At the same time, Russian president Vladimir Putin said on September 21 that Russia recognized the results of the "referendum". Meanwhile, the results of a sociological survey conducted by Active Group in August 2022 show that the vast majority of respondents in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are sure that their region should be an integral part of Ukraine and their well-being and security have significantly deteriorated since the occupation. In particular, almost 73% of respondents consider the territorial claims of the Russian Federation on their region to be completely unfounded. Also, 82% of respondents in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine answered that they would not go to the referendum if the Russian Federation held it in their city. Photo credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia ol Turkey continues to make efforts to hold a meeting between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia, believing that they can make a decision about a "just peace." Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said this in Tokyo, where he arrived for the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Ukrinform reports, citing TRT Haber. "There must be a just peace, of course, especially for Ukraine. Because the lands occupied (by Russia) belong to Ukraine. Of course, actors who want the war to continue outside of these two countries also need to be convinced. As Turkey, we have not lost hope. We are increasing and continuing our efforts. Our goal is a meeting of both leaders and decision-making at the level of the leaders," Cavusoglu said. He also said that there are no winners in the war, and as soon as both sides realize this, they can return to the negotiating table. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the President's Office, earlier said that there is currently no sense in holding negotiations between Ukraine and Russia or a meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. At the same time, he added, the meeting of the presidents is possible if it is preceded by the complete withdrawal of Russian troops, and the subject of the conversation will be the "discussion of post-war life, including the scope of reparations, compensation for damages and the extradition of criminals." Ukraine and the Netherlands unanimously agree that the world should decisively react to the pseudo-referenda organized by the Russian Federation within the temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine. The relevant statement was made by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky on Twitter, commenting on his talk with Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Had a productive talk with Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte. Discussed the situation at the front & further defense support for Ukraine. Ukraine & the Netherlands are unanimous: the world should react decisively to sham referenda & increase sanctions pressure on RF. Coordinated support for Ukraines initiatives within the UN, Zelensky wrote. A reminder that, on September 20, 2022, the leaders of the so-called L/DPR and collaborators within the Russian-seized areas of the Kherson region and the Zaporizhzhia region announced referenda on joining Russia and scheduled them for September 23-27, 2022. Western leaders stressed any Russian sham referenda in Ukraine would be illegitimate. mk Thousands of Hasidic Jewish pilgrims flocked to central Ukraines Uman, where Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a revered Hasidic rabbi, is buried. Crowds mark the Jewish new year there annually, this year ignoring repeated travel warnings amid the ongoing war, according to The Times of Israel, Ukrinform reports. We are not afraid. If we come to Rabbi Nachman, he will protect us for the whole year, said Nahum Markowitz from Israel, who has been visiting the site since 1991. He added that he is already familiar with the risk of war and the wail of sirens that comes from living in Israel. Israel repeatedly warned citizens against traveling to Uman. Completely avoid travel to Ukrainian territory, including the city of Uman and its surroundings, the foreign ministry said. The volatile security situation includes the danger of aerial bombardment or missile attacks against civilian towns and territories, including in the west and center of the country. The Ukrainian embassy to Israel repeatedly urged those planning a pilgrimage to stay home, warning on Facebook that Russia has repeatedly targeted heavily populated areas and that attacks cause real danger to your lives! The Azov Regiment commanders, freed during UkraineRussia prisoner exchange last week, now stay in good conditions in Turkey. "They are in good conditions there, under the personal, let's say, guarantee of the President of Turkey. All the conditions for a safe normal life were created for them, as far as possible. And the only condition that was put forward to them as part of the prisoner exchange is a restriction and ban on returning to Ukraine while the war against the Russian Federation continues in our country," Dmytro Lubinets, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, said during the nationwide telethon, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. According to him, this condition made their release possible through the mediation of the President of Turkey and the personal assistance of the President of Ukraine. Lubinets added that he was not aware of any restrictions on the movement of freed commanders. In particular, in Turkey they meet, including, with representatives of Ukraine. When asked whether the five Azov Regiment commanders will be able to talk with Ukrainian journalists, the Ombudsman expressed the opinion that this would happen but did not outline the terms. The Commissioner also emphasized that the authorities had the task to return absolutely all captives, and public comments on certain processes in this area can sometimes hinder the next steps. He underscored that the work on the return of Ukrainian citizens from Russian captivity was ongoing. "We are constantly working towards the release of both prisoners of war and civilian captives. Our goal is to liberate absolutely everyone. This process does not stop, it is permanent. Even when we already have an exchange, we agree on the next steps," he said, adding that "some nuances we cannot and will not say publicly." At the same time, Lubinets noted that no groups of prisoners were prioritized. The authorities work towards the return of service members from Snake Island, the National Guard members captured in the Chornobyl zone, and other Ukrainian defenders. The relevant officials also deal with the release of civilian captives, some of whom were sentenced to 15, 17, 19 years in prison in the Russian Federation. As reported, more than 200 Ukrainian defenders, as well as 10 foreigners who fought on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, returned from Russian captivity within the prisoner swap on September 21. The five freed Azov Regiment commanders will stay in Turkey until the end of the full-scale war under the personal security guarantees of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ol facebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter Published September 26, 2022 MONROE, LA ULM will host the first training of the Criminal Defense Project on September 30 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The training session will be held in the Mock Trial Room located in Strauss Hall Room 148. This training is the first of many and ULM would like to invite all students, faculty and staff who may be interested in learning more about criminal defense to attend. We are pleased to participate in training public defenders and staff statewide. This project will help reduce dockets and make our court system more efficient, said Bob Noel, Lead Counsel for The Criminal Defense Project. The Criminal Defense Project is a result of the passage of Senate Bill 206, which requires the state of Louisiana to enter into contract with The University of Louisiana Monroe to provide criminal defense training for the entire state. ULM thanks State Senator Katrina Jackson for all her dedication and hard work in proposing and getting Senate Bill 206 passed. Trainers for The Criminal Defense Project will come from the disciplines of Criminal Justice, Communications, Political Science, Public Administration and Social Work. Five broad categories have been identified for training, including: Attorneys, Investigators, Management, Mitigation, and Staff. Because we do not want innocent people to be sent to prison, we need to make a good faith effort to provide an effective defense for the accused. I like to think that this program helps to ensure that this occurs, said Dr. Robert Hanser, Principal Investigator and Coordinator of ULMs Criminal Justice program. Aryan at 11, being fed cake by his Ba. Courtesy of the Sanghrajka Family In the letter below, Aryan Sanghrajka, 18, writes to his grandma (Ba), who fled Uganda in 1972 due to the forced expulsion of Asian residents (the family was originally from India). Considered part of a persecuted minority, she was able to move to the United Kingdom as part of a government resettlement programme. The stories Ba shared around the family dinner table inspired Aryan to create Forced To Flee, a youth-led NGO advocating for refugees. Aryan's letter is the first in a new series to run occasionally on the UNHCR web site that features real letters written to refugees who've profoundly affected the writers' lives. This letter has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to Aryan read the letter: UNHCR, UN Refugee Agency My Dear Ba Dear Ba, Thanks for cooking my favourite dinner after I passed my driving test, especially with the added treat of keri rus and banana bhajiya! I promise Ill take you to Sainsburys grocery whenever you need to go shopping. I can only make up for our countless trips to the Broadwalk Shopping Centre with the cousins during the holidays to choose our Diwali presents. You have always looked after and cared for all of your grandchildren ever since we were little, and Ill forever be grateful. I just wanted to let you know the impact youve had on my life. Your strength and resolve are what inspire me the most. Since coming to the United Kingdom from Uganda in 1972, you have taken care of our family through even the toughest of times. You settled in Edgware, north of London, living in a cramped house and taking the bus everyday to the shoe factory where you worked. We still live in the same neighbourhood, all these years later, just one street apart from one another. We have built a community here with roots, foundations and connections that are unshakeable, and memories that will last a lifetime. Much of it thanks to you and Dada [grandfather]. Ba, you have shown me the importance of family, caring for others, and most of all, not letting your hardships define who you are. Despite not being able to speak the language when you got here, having to understand a completely different way of life to the one you were used to and needing to search for work to be able to put food on the table, you persevered and made it become home. Because home truly is where the heart is. Aryan's grandparents at a family reunion. Seven-year-old Aryan stands close to his Ba. Courtesy of the family of Aryan Sanghrajka I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to be told that you were no longer wanted, uprooted from your own home for being who you are and that you must leave the country where you have lived and had a son with nothing but a suitcase full of clothes. Listening to our familys story, your story, had an immense effect on my life. It was a story that I had never known until I sat around your dinner table back in 2017, interviewing you for my school project. It is the reason why I am doing the work I do today. It has led me to better understand my identity and made me appreciate the importance of living life to the fullest every single day. You told the story so honestly and with conviction, making it one of strength, not sadness, and it is an evening I will never forget. Like Aryan's grandmother, tens of thousands of Asians were arbitrarily expelled from Uganda in the 1970s and became effectively stateless. This photo shows a group from Uganda landing in Europe in 1972. UNHCR/N.Schuster. Colorization by Marina Amaral Every day, families just like ours are displaced due to war, conflict, persecution and natural disaster. Not all of them are so lucky to be welcomed quickly by another country. Many travel miles on dangerous and life-threatening journeys in search of safety. Sometimes, like you, they find safety across borders, and other times they are left displaced within their own countries. Just the other day, I was emailing a family from Ukraine who got in touch with [his NGO] Forced To Flee to share their story with us so we could tell people what it is like on the ground. They had been forced to flee to Poland a mother and her one-year-old son who is just a bit older than Pups [Dad] was when you left Kampala with him. The mother, Olena, told me how they grabbed what they could in the minutes they had and left most of their belongings behind at their house a house which no longer exists. As you did, they have to start their life all over again, in a foreign country where they dont speak the language. Speaking to Olena, I could see that the experience of forcible displacement has not changed much in the 50 years since you left. Many of the barriers you faced when you arrived remain in place, and around the world, migrants and refugees are not always afforded the friendliest of welcomes. But nevertheless, you still rebuilt our family here whilst never losing touch with our culture and heritage, no matter how much it was different from the norm. I owe a lot to you, not just for instilling in me my passions, but for who I am as a person. I get my resolve, confidence, and tenacity all from you, and of course my love of sugar and a good cup of chai! For this, I want to say thank you. I will be moving out of Edgware next year to start university. But no worries, I will only be one tube ride away. In the years to come, wherever my journey takes me, I will never forget that conversation over dinner and that everything I have done since, and will do in the future, is because of you. Love, Aryan This letter is part of a series written by young people to a forcibly displaced or stateless person who has had a major impact on their lives. If you are interested in writing a letter to a refugee friend, family member, or anyone who has inspired you, share your idea with us at [email protected] The Zukunftswerkstatt (Workshop for the Future) Catholic youth center in Frankfurt, Germany As the Catholic Church in Germany continues in its attempts to evangelize and reach people, new initiatives launched by the Catholic Church such as the Workshop for the Future in Frankfurt aim to provide spiritual guidance and support for youth. By Mario Galgano The Catholic Church in Germany is in turmoil: evangelization in the country therefore comes through various projects. A Vatican News team is visiting several religious communities and charitable works in the Baltic region of Germany that provide solidarity and support for German Catholics. From 25 -30 September, the "Bonifatiuswerk" (the Boniface Charity), a charity run by the German Bishops Conference, has organized visits to the Baltic regions in Germany to visit these charities and communities. 'Workshop for the Future' in Frankfurt The first stop takes us to Frankfurt, the financial and economic heart of Germany. In 1986, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known today as Pope Francis, completed a three-month stay at the Jesuit community of Sankt Georgen. However, he could not complete the project because his Order called him to another country. Thirty years later, Jesuit Clemens Blattert founded a "place of personal meditation" at the community Sankt Georgen. As of a week ago, the "Zukunftswerkstatt" (Workshop for the Future) has a new director: 32-year-old Austrian Jesuit Sebastian Ortner. In an interview with Vatican News, the Jesuit explains what the institution consists of and what its plans are: "We offer the possibility to young people between 18 and 30 years old, to reflect on their vocation" in not only the spiritual sense but also in their everyday life. Fr. Sebastian Ortner, S.J., director of the Workshop for the Future" So far many young people have come, "and among them are also young people who need to reflect on their future in study or profession." The length of stay also varies. "The Workshop for the Future offers a spiritual place and setting that helps a person discover their relationship with God," Father Ortner continues. The project is not only supported by the Jesuits, but also by several German dioceses that recommend a stay at the institution. At the Youth Synod in 2018, the founder of the "Workshop for the Future," Father Blattert, was able to explain the project to the Synod Fathers. "And I," says director Father Ortner, "want to continue on the path of strengthening the vocation of young people. Malaysian authorities have rescued 15 victims of suspected cybercrime rackets in Cambodia, its foreign ministry said, as the government steps up efforts to help hundreds of its citizens trapped by similar operations across Southeast Asia. The rescue of the victims, who arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, comes amid raids across Cambodia this week on cybercrime compounds suspected of trafficking people into the country to work in illegal gambling and scam call centers. In a statement late Wednesday, Malaysia's foreign ministry said it had received 301 reports of people trapped by the job scam networks in Cambodia, as well as in Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. Of these, 168 people have been rescued, 34 were being held in immigration detention and 99 more were still being traced, it said. Victims of the rackets say they are lured into Cambodia by promises of high-paying jobs at casinos and hotels but were instead forced to live in compounds and defraud online users with internet romances and cryptocurrency schemes. Cambodian authorities have said they had found evidence of illegal gambling, illegal confinement and torture, prostitution, illegal weapons possession, money laundering, and human trafficking at one of the compounds. The death toll from a capsized boat off Cambodia's coast rose to three Chinese nationals on Saturday, with a further nine rescued in Vietnamese waters and eight still missing, Cambodian authorities said. The boat with 41 Chinese people on board got into difficulties off Sihanoukville on Thursday. Kheang Phearom, the spokesman for Cambodia's Preah Sihanouk provincial administration, told AFP rescue teams recovered two more bodies on Saturday, bringing the death toll to three. Eight people remain missing, he said. Cambodian authorities had rescued 21 people on Friday. Meanwhile, a Vietnamese border guard on duty at the An Thoi station in Kien Giang province told AFP that a fishing vessel had rescued nine Chinese nationals in Vietnamese waters near Phu Quoc island on Friday. The formerly sleepy fishing village of Sihanoukville in Cambodia in recent years has been transformed into a casino hub following a Chinese investment boom. There have been multiple recent reports of Chinese workers being duped into working in casinos or online scam operations in Sihanoukville and prevented from leaving. Cambodian authorities have been trying to crack down on human-smuggling and trafficking networks following widespread reports of people from other Southeast Asian countries being tricked into migrating for job opportunities billed as lucrative. The group had left China by speedboat on September 11, and a week later were transferred to a wooden boat with two Cambodian crew members in international waters, according to Cambodian authorities. That vessel began to sink after breaking down on Thursday. The two Cambodians were rescued by another vessel but the others were abandoned. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Beijing was in close contact with Cambodian officials about the incident. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led a state memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II Monday, saying her nation had "a deep connection" with the monarch. The ceremony began with a minute of silence at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in the capital, Wellington. The Cathedrals foundation stone was laid by the Queen in January 1954 on her first visit to New Zealand. Ardern read an extract from a souvenir book published after that tour, describing the departure of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh from Bluff, a town on New Zealand's South Island. "The quote describes the scene at Bluff on 30th January 1954, where the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh boarded the royal yacht Gothic at the end of their five-and-a-half-week visit," Ardern said. "Nearly an hour passed before the Gothic sailed. For most of the time the Queen and the Duke leaned over the rail on the upper decks, smiling and waving repeatedly and taking photographs of the scene onshore. A Maori party on the wharf sang songs of farewell and the Gothic's band played. But the overall sound was of cheering, swelling up again and again." Former Prime Ministers and diplomats were also in attendance at the memorial service. Commemorative events were held in other parts of New Zealand and a one-off public holiday was also observed to mark the Queens death. New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy. It is one of 15 countries with the British monarch as the head of state, although the role is largely ceremonial. Prime Minister Ardern has said there were no short- or medium-term plans to consider severing her countrys ties to the British crown, but she believes New Zealand will eventually become a republic. Although Ardern said the transition isn't urgent, she said it would probably happen during her lifetime. Queen Elizabeth II made 10 trips to New Zealand during her 70-year reign. Her last visit came during her Golden Jubilee tour in 2002. Cameroon's English-speaking separatists have for the first time acknowledged deadly clashes between splinter rebel groups. In a video circulated Saturday on social media platforms, Cameron's English-speaking fighters say they have freed several civilians abducted by rebels. The fighters presented two people who said in the video they are separatist commanders, and their weapons were seized by a rival English-speaking separatist group called the Marines. A separatist group called the Buffaloes shared another video that they said was taken in Bali, an English-speaking northwestern district, in which they claimed to have attacked another rebel group created by a self-proclaimed rebel general known as Big Number. They said Big Number fighters abducted a man and were asking for ransom. The Buffaloes that shared the video, in which they claim Big Number sent fighters to harass civilians, said the abductions, killings, maiming, raping and torture of civilians have increased. The Buffaloes said separatists cannot claim they are protecting civilians from the brutality of Cameroon's government troops, if fighters are committing gross human rights violations. Both the Cameroon government and separatist leaders have confirmed that the videos are those of rival separatist groups in Cameroon's English-speaking western regions. Some separatist groups on social media platforms are also calling for the immediate release of all abductees, including five Catholic priests, a nun and two worshippers kidnapped this month from a church on the border with Nigeria. The Catholic Church in Cameroon says the gunmen asked for $100,000 in ransom. When the separatist crisis broke out in 2016, separatists said Cameroon's central government in Yaounde was using education as an instrument of manipulation and assimilation of English speakers by the French-speaking majority. Splinter groups say the lockdowns imposed by separatists on Monday are a sign that fighters, not the central government in Yaounde, control the English-speaking regions and hurt English-speaking civilians. The splinter groups say they no longer support school closures imposed by separatists. Capo Daniel is deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of the main separatist groups in Cameroon's English-speaking western regions. He said rivalry among fighters has greatly weakened the separatists' struggle to create Ambazonia, the name they want to give their breakaway state. "The infighting between Ambazonia fighters has been a drawback in our liberation struggle. It has reduced enthusiasm from our citizens. We have seen tribalist [splinter] groups interfering with the movement of forces [fighters] of nationalist groups across areas where they [splinter groups] control. Such incidents have led to bloodshed," Daniel said. "There have been talks to reconcile differences for a better cohesion and collaboration between the various Ambazonia forces and factions." Daniel said money that civilians contributed to support separatists has dropped drastically, but he did not give figures. He said civilians complain that fighters who are claiming to be fighting to liberate English-speaking Cameroonians from domination by the French-speaking majority are instead committing grave human rights abuses on civilians. Activist Edward Nfor, a member of a coalition of civil society organizations in Cameroon, said civilians think the fight for independence of Cameroon's English-speaking regions from the French majority is losing purpose and is plunging civilians into more suffering. "Citizens are fed up, because it looks like it has become a money-making organization with abductions and asking for money," Nfor said. "We have unnecessary roadblocks, and they [fighters] collect money from passengers in vehicles like church offerings. So, I think these rival groups that are coming up now are actually, like, telling the people, 'We do the right thing. We are going to defend you.'" Nfor said his association is a neutral observer advocating for an end to the crisis so that people who have been suffering can return to their towns and villages. Rights groups have accused both Cameroon's military and anglophone separatists of killing civilians and torching their homes in the conflict. Both sides reject the accusations. The United Nations says the fighting has left at least 3,300 people dead and more than 750,000 internally displaced. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that Canada will sanction "dozens" of Iranian individuals and entities, including the morality police, as security forces in Iran continue to crack down violently on protesters. Addressing the "women who are protesting in Iran and those who support them," Trudeau said: "We are with you." Trudeau said Canadians, along with millions of people around the world, want the government of the Islamic Republic to "listen to its people, end the suppression of their freedom and rights, and allow the women and all people of Iran to continue their lives freely and to comment in peace and tranquility." In response to a question about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Trudeau said that Canada already had "one of the most severe sanctions regimes in the world" and would do more in this regard. "We have sanctioned some IRGC members, and we will continue to consider any other action we can take in relation to the sanctions," he said. In January 2020, Ukraine Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down by IRGC missiles minutes after takeoff from a Tehran airport, killing 176 people, including dozens of Canadians. Since then, the Canadian government has been pressured by several groups, including opposition conservatives, to take a tougher stance against Iran. The recent round of protests, which have been occurring in all of Irans provinces, began after Mahsa Amini died while in police custody. Amini, 22, who had traveled from Saqez to Tehran with her family, was arrested on September 13 by the Irshad patrol for wearing her hijab too loosely. She was then transferred to the Moral Security Police Center, known as Ministers' Detention Center. Hours later, she was taken by ambulance to Kasari hospital, where she died on September 16. Amini's family members allege she was beaten in the police van after her arrest, suffering several blows to the head. Police reject the allegations, saying Amini died of a heart attack. Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty labor of packing mud into molds and hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks. At 12 years old, she's been working in brick factories half her life now, and she's probably the oldest of all her co-workers. Already high, the number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fueled by the collapse of the economy after the Taliban took over the country and the world cut off financial aid just over a year ago. A recent survey by Save the Children estimated that half of Afghanistan's families have put children to work to keep food on the table as livelihoods crumbled. Nowhere is it clearer than in the many brick factories on the highway north out of the capital, Kabul. Conditions in the furnaces are tough even for adults. But in almost all of them, children as young as four or five labor alongside their families from early in the morning until dark in the heat of summer. Children do every step of the brickmaking process. They haul cannisters of water, carry the wooden brick molds full of mud to put in the sun to dry. They load and push wheelbarrows full of dried bricks to the kiln for firing, then push back wheelbarrows full of fired bricks. Everywhere they are lifting, stacking, sorting bricks. They pick through the smoldering charcoal that's been burned in the kiln for pieces that can still be used, inhaling the soot and singeing their fingers. The kids work with a determination and a grim sense of responsibility beyond their years, born out of knowing little else but their families' need. When asked about toys or play, they smile and shrug. Only a few have been to school. Nabila, the 12-year-old, has been working in brick factories since she was five or six. Like many other brick workers, her family works part of the year at a kiln near Kabul, the other part at one outside Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border. A few years ago, she got to go to school a little in Jalalabad. She'd like to go back to school but can't her family needs her work to survive, she said with a soft smile. "We can't think about anything else but work," she said. Mohabbat, a 9-year-old boy, stopped for a moment with a pained expression as he carried a load of charcoal. "My back hurts," he said. Asked what he wished for, he first asked, "What is a wish? Once it was explained, he was quiet a moment, thinking. "I wish to go to school and eat good food," he said, then added: "I wish to work well so that we can have a house." The landscape around the factories is bleak and barren, with the kilns' smokestacks pumping out black, sooty smoke. Families live in dilapidated mud houses next to furnaces, each with a corner where they make their bricks. For most, a day's meal is bread soaked in tea. Rahim has three children working with him at a brick kiln, ranging in age from 5 to 12. The kids had been in school, and Rahim, who goes by one name, said he had long resisted putting them to work. But even before the Taliban came to power, as the war went on and the economy worsened, he said he had no choice. "There's no other way," he said. "How can they study when we don't have bread to eat? Survival is more important." Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. One adult working alone can't do that amount in a day, but if the children help, they can make 1,500 bricks a day, workers said. According to surveys by Save the Children, the percentage of families saying they had a child working outside the home grew from 18% to 22% from December to June. That would suggest more than 1 million children nationwide were working. Another 22% of the children said they were asked to work on the family business or farm. The surveys covered more than 1,400 children and more than 1,400 caregivers in seven provinces. They also pointed to the swift collapse in Afghans' livelihoods. In June, 77% of the surveyed families reported they had lost half their income or more compared to a year ago, up from 61% in December. On one recent day at one of the kilns, a light rain started, and at first the kids were cheerful, thinking it would be a refreshing drizzle in the heat. Then the wind kicked up. A blast of dust hit them, coating their faces. The air turned yellow with dust. Some of the children couldn't open their eyes, but they kept working. The rain opened up into a downpour. Cubans have voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in a groundbreaking national referendum, the country's National Electoral Council announced Monday. Voters in Sundays referendum approved a new 100-page family code. The code not only allows same-sex couples to marry and adopt children but also allows surrogate pregnancies and ensures broader rights and protections for the elderly, children and women, as well as measures against gender violence. On Monday, President Miguel Diaz-Canel celebrated the measure's passage, tweeting, "Love is now the law." About 66.9% of voters approved of the family code and 33.1% voted against it. This new legislation marks a historic moment in Cuba, a communist island where gay people were persecuted and sent to work camps as recently as the 1960s and 70s. Although homosexuality was legalized in Cuba in 1979, the gay community still faced discrimination. The reform is a cumulative effort by gay rights activists in Cuba, backed by the government's support. The government promoted the law through a public relations campaign including thousands of informative meetings across the country and in official media. "Voting 'yes' is saying yes to unity, to the revolution, to socialism," the president said Thursday in a televised appeal for support. Despite the government campaign, religious leaders, including Catholic bishops, spoke out against the proposal. Cuba's growing evangelical community openly opposed the code, saying it could threaten traditional nuclear families. The measure had already been approved by Cuba's Parliament, the National Assembly, after years of debate about such reforms. Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. Iranians took to the streets for a ninth consecutive night Sunday to protest the death earlier this month of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Tehrans morality police. Other protests, being held in solidarity with Iranian women, have taken place around the globe, in such cities as Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among others. Demonstrations first erupted September 17, at the funeral of Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died a day earlier while in detention of police enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict restrictions on women's dress. She was arrested September 13 for allegedly breaking Irans strict hijab rules. Amini's family allege she was beaten in the police van after her arrest, suffering several blows to the head. Police reject the allegations, saying Amini died after being taken to a hospital because she had suffered a heart attack. Irans state television says 41 people have been killed during protests. Iran Late Sunday, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) was circulating images showing protesters on the streets of Tehran, shouting "death to the dictator," purportedly after nightfall Sunday, according to Agence France-Presse. IHR said Irans rolling internet blackouts were making it difficult to verify fatalities and protests, AFP reported. Witnesses told AFP that protests were ongoing in several locations. Video footage showed demonstrations in Tabriz and Shiraz, among other places, with women removing their headscarves and protesters shouting against the authorities. IHR also reported Sunday, according to AFP, that an umbrella of the main Iranian teachers unions were calling for teachers and students to stage the first national strike since the unrest began, boycotting classes Monday and Wednesday in support of the protests. Pro-government rallies were also held Sunday in several cities across Iran, with the main event taking place in Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, where demonstrators voiced support for mandatory hijab laws, AFP reported. The semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday that a member of the Basij, a volunteer force with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was killed by protesters late Saturday in Tehran. While the state-run IRNA news agency said another Basij member, who had been in a coma since Thursday after street clashes, died in Urmia, West Azerbaijan province Sunday. Greece A Molotov cocktail bomb was thrown against the Iranian embassy in Athens, Greek police said Sunday. Police said there was no damage caused, the Athens News Agency reported. A day earlier, about 200 people gathered at Syntagma Square in downtown Athens to denounce Iran's crackdown on protests, AFP reported. England In London on Sunday, violent street demonstrations erupted outside the Iranian embassy. Protesters, trying to break through barriers protecting Irans U.K. embassy, threw rocks at police, authorities said, according to The Associated Press. Five protesters were arrested, police said. France Police in Paris used tear gas and employed anti-riot tactics Sunday to prevent hundreds of people from marching on Tehran's embassy, AFP reporters and eyewitnesses said. About 4,000 protesters had gathered for a second day in Paris to protest the death of Amini. The demonstration began peacefully at Trocadero Square in the center of the capital, Paris. Some demonstrators chanted "Death to the Islamic Republic" and slogans against the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. One woman in the crowd also held up a sign reading in French, "I am Mahsa Amini." However, as protesters neared the Iranian embassy, police in full anti-riot armor, backed by a line of vans, blocked their path. Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters. Some information for this article came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. Hong Kong journalists' faith in the city being a free press hub has sunk to a record low, with 97% saying the reporting environment has become much worse, according to an annual survey. Jointly conducted by the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) and the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (HKPORI), the survey interviewed over 1,000 Hong Kong residents and 169 professional journalists. The press freedom rating for 2021 among journalists plunged six points to 26.2, a record low. When the survey was first launched in 2013, the rating was 42. Ninety-seven percent of the surveyed journalists said press freedom had gotten "much worse" in the past year, and 93% cited "the government" as the source of suppression. The press freedom rating among the public was 42, largely stable after the last major drop from 45 in 2018 to 41.9 in 2019. In the survey's ranking system, a larger number denotes higher faith in press freedoms. The results were released Friday, one day after HKJA chairman Ronson Chan pleaded not guilty to a charge of "obstructing a police officer" while on his way to a reporting assignment. Police say Chan refused a request to show his identification. Hong Kong has been steadily dropping down press freedom rankings since the city's 1997 handover to China. That slide has worsened dramatically since China launched a crackdown on dissent after huge and sometimes violent democracy protests three years ago. Hong Kong dropped 68 places to 148th in the annual Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) earlier this year. In RSF's first report in 2002, Hong Kong had some of the freest media in Asia, and ranked 18th worldwide. French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Washington in early December for the first state visit of President Joe Biden's tenure, an occasion marked by pomp and pageantry that is designed to celebrate relations between the United States and its closest allies. The December 1 visit, following the U.S. midterm elections and the Thanksgiving holiday, will be the second state visit for Macron, who was first elected to lead his country in May 2017 and won a second term earlier this year. Macron also had a state visit during the Trump years. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced the visit Monday, saying it will "underscore the deep and enduring relationship with France, our oldest ally." It will be the first time the White House has hosted a world leader for a state visit since the coronavirus outbreak. The invitation comes as a sign that relations between Biden and Macron have come full circle. The relationship tanked last year after the United States announced a deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia. The decision by the U.S. undermined a deal that had been in place for France to sell diesel-powered submarines to Australia. After the announcement of the deal, which was born out of a new security agreement between the U.S., Australia and Britain, France briefly recalled its ambassador to Washington, Philippe Etienne, to Paris. Biden also sought to patch thing up with France by eventually acknowledging to Macron that his administration had been "clumsy" in how it handled the issue. The Biden administration since has heaped praise on Macron for being among the most vociferous Western allies in condemning Russia's 7-month-old war in Ukraine and pressing broad sanctions on the Russian economy and officials close to President Vladimir Putin. Central to Biden's pitch for the presidency was a vow to restore America's global leadership after four years of Donald Trump's "America First" worldview. But Biden has acknowledged that Macron and other allies remain skeptical about whether he can make good on robust U.S. leadership worldwide. Biden is fond of telling the story of how, at a world leader meeting he attended soon after taking office, he declared that "America is back." He says his counterparts, starting with Macron, countered by asking, "For how long?" Macron also was the first world leader to earn a state visit under Trump, though their relationship later became fractious. The French leader had sought to cultivate a close partnership with Trump and hosted the Republican in 2017 for Bastille Day celebrations in Paris. Trump reciprocated with Macron's state visit. But the relationship soured after Trump pulled U.S. troops from Syria without coordinating with France and other NATO allies. Trump disparaged NATO. In one of their last face-to-face encounters, at a gathering of NATO leaders in London in 2019, Trump and Macron hardly hid their frustration with each other. Not long before that meeting, Macron had complained that the alliance was suffering "brain death" caused by diminished U.S. leadership under Trump. Trump snapped back after a meeting with Macron that the French leader had made "very, very nasty" and "disrespectful" comments. When Macron visited in April 2018, Trump and his wife, Melania, planned a double date with Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, America's founding president. The couples helped plant a tree on the White House lawn before they departed on a helicopter tour of monuments built in a capital city designed by French-born Pierre L'Enfant as they flew south to Mount Vernon, situated along the Potomac River. Macron was welcomed at the White House the next day with a booming 21-gun salute, his first Oval Office meeting with Trump, a joint news conference with the president and a state dinner for 150 guests in the White House State Dining Room. Scott Morrison, then the prime minister of Australia, also came on a state visit at Trump's invitation in September 2019. Trump had announced a third state visit, by Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, but it was postponed due to the pandemic and could not be held before Trump lost reelection in 2020. President Barack Obama also afforded France the honor of a state visit, in 2014. Obama and French President Francois Hollande celebrated ties between their nations by touring Monticello, the sprawling Charlottesville, Virginia, estate owned by Thomas Jefferson, the former U.S. president and famed Francophile. Jefferson was an early U.S. envoy to France. Hollande's visit was the first such recognition for France in two decades. The United States on Sunday welcomed the release in Belarus of a journalist for a U.S.-backed outlet but urged freedom for hundreds of other prisoners rounded up in a crackdown on dissent. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty had said days earlier that one of its reporters, Aleh Hruzdzilovich, was freed after nine months in prison. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States "welcomes" the release of Hruzdzilovich and several others. "While the release of these political prisoners is a step in the right direction, too many political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus," Price said in a statement. "We call for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners." The U.N. office on human rights on Friday said that nearly 1,300 people are in detention in Belarus on political grounds. Veteran strongman Alexander Lukashenko has tried to crush mass protests that erupted in 2020 after he was said to secure a sixth presidential term. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she won the election and has fled Belarus for exile in neighboring Lithuania, from which she heads the opposition. Hruzdzilovich, 63, was arrested for allegedly taking part in the protests. He denies the charges and says he was there as a reporter. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which receives funding from the U.S. Congress but is editorially independent, said that two more of its journalists, Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk, remain imprisoned in Belarus. In a July interview with AFP, Lukashenko did not deny being "authoritarian" and accused protesters of acting "against the state and their own nation." RFE/RL is a sister network of Voice of America. Iran has arrested more than 1,200 protesters, officials said Monday, in its lethal crackdown on 10 nights of unrest driven by outrage over the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of the notorious morality police. At least 41 people have been killed as Iran has heavily deployed security forces against nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of Amini, 22, following her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran's strict rules on hijab headscarves and modest clothing. Tensions grew between the Islamic republic and Western nations as Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador, a day after the European Union protested the "widespread and disproportionate use of force" and Tehran called in the British and Norwegian envoys. Protests flared again across Iran overnight as a Tehran crowd shouted "death to the dictator", calling for the end of the more than three-decade rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, in footage shared by Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. "Woman, Life, Freedom!" the crowds have chanted as female protesters have defiantly burnt their hijabs in bonfires and blazing rubbish dumpsters -- a rallying cry that has been echoed at solidarity protests worldwide, including in London and Paris at the weekend. Iranian riot police in black body armor have beaten protesters with truncheons in running street battles, and students have torn down large pictures of the supreme leader and his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, in recent video footage published by AFP. In Iran's biggest protests in almost three years, security forces have used water canon but also fired birdshot and live rounds, according to rights groups, while protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set public buildings ablaze. The IHR rights group said Sunday at least 57 protesters have been killed. The total number of officially reported arrests rose above 1,200, according to state media reports citing various officials, including about 450 in northern Mazandaran province, over 700 reported Saturday in neighboring Gilan and dozens in several other regions. 'Police on duty 24 hours' "Rioters have attacked government buildings and damaged public property," Mazandaran's chief prosecutor, Mohammad Karimi, was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA, charging that they were steered by "foreign anti-revolutionary agents". Tehran police have been deployed "24 hours a day", said the Iranian judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, thanking exhausted officers and the capital's police chief during a visit to their headquarters Sunday, in a video posted by Mizan Online. Many police officers "did not sleep last night and the nights before ... and they must be thanked," said Ejei, who earlier stressed "the need for decisive action without leniency" against the protest instigators. Several security officers have also died, according to Iranian media. Despite sweeping internet restrictions, including blocks on Instagram and WhatsApp, new videos shared widely on social media showed protests Sunday night in Tehran and cities including Yazd, Isfahan and Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw said a protest was held in Amini's home town of Saqqez "despite a heavy military presence", and there were reports a 10-year-old girl being hospitalized after she was shot in the northern town of Bukan. The Tasnim news agency published photos of about 20 "riot leaders", including several women, taken in the holy shrine city of Qom, and said the military and security forces were calling on citizens to "identify them and inform the authorities". Other reports said that students at Tehran and Al-Zahra Universities and the Sharif Institute have gone on strike, refusing to attend lessons and urging their professors to join. 'Disproportionate force' The European Union has slammed Iran, charging that "the widespread and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protestors is unjustifiable and unacceptable", in a statement by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday. He said the EU would "continue to consider all the options at its disposal ... to address the killing of Mahsa Amini" and the state response to the protests in Iran, a country already under punishing sanctions over its nuclear program. Germany on Monday said it had summoned the Iranian ambassador over the crackdown on the protests. "I can confirm that we have summoned the Iranian ambassador... and the conversation will take place this afternoon," a foreign ministry spokesman said in Berlin. Tehran, for its part, said Sunday it had summoned Britain's ambassador to protest what it called an "invitation to riots" by London-based Farsi language media, and Norway's envoy over the parliamentary speaker's "unconstructive comments" on the protests. U.S. President Joe Biden last week saluted the Iranian protesters, telling the UN General Assembly that "we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights". Pakistans military said Monday that one of its helicopters crashed in a turbulent southwestern district, killing all six soldiers on board. The helicopter went down during a flying mission in Khost, a remote town in the province of Baluchistan late on Sunday and two major-ranked officers were among the dead, an army statement said. It shared no further details, nor did it give any reason for the crash or type of aircraft. The so-called Balochistan Liberation Army insurgent group claimed in a statement it had shot down the helicopter. It said the helicopter had arrived in the area to rescue two army officers BLA militants had kidnapped in an ambush in the district. The claims could not be verified immediately from independent sources and insurgents often release exaggerated details about their activities in the region. Outlawed ethnic Baluch groups routinely plot attacks against military targets in the impoverished Pakistani province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. Early last month, six senior Pakistani military officers were killed when their helicopter crashed due to bad weather during a flood relief activity in Baluchistans Lasbela district. An army lieutenant general, a major-general and a brigadier were among those killed. Heavy monsoon rains have caused catastrophic flooding in parts of Pakistan, including Baluchistan, killing more than 1,600 people and washing away villages, roads, bridges and hundreds of thousands of homes since mid-June. Pakistani police arrested a veteran journalist for his alleged involvement in his son's beating death of his new wife at their suburban home, police said Sunday. Police officer Mohammad Faizan said Ayaz Amir, a well-known columnist and TV political analyst in Pakistan, appeared in court in the capital of Islamabad Sunday accused of aiding his son. Police were to interrogate him for his role in the death of Sara Inam, 37, who married Amir's son Shahnawaz four months ago. Inam was allegedly killed Friday by Shahnawaz at the couple's home after a row over a family issue. Shahnawaz was arrested and police say he confessed to hitting his wife repeatedly with a dumbbell and then later tried to hide her body in a bathtub. Several Pakistani journalists have been assaulted and detained by police in recent months. South African protesters angry over water shortages shut down part of the country's longest highway with rock barricades and burning tires. Police described the situation in Ventersburg in the Free State province as volatile. The rural town is a popular refueling and resting place for motorists and truckers travelling on the N1 highway, which stretches from Cape Town in the south to the Beit Bridge border post with Zimbabwe in the north. Warrant Officer Loraine Earle says the Welkom Public Order Policing Unit is on the ground monitoring the situation. She says they have spoken to some of the protesters and asked about their demands. They started this morning to protest. Its because of the water situation in town. Its now for the past few weeks that they dont have water," she said. "Members are on the scene. Theyre monitoring the situation and nobody was arrested as yet. She says they have had water problems in Ventersburg on-and-off for the past seven weeks with no water for the past three weeks. Those using the highway at Ventersburg have been advised to take alternative routes. Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Monday that he had founded the Wagner Group private military company in 2014, the first public confirmation of a link he has previously denied and sued journalists for reporting. The Wagner Group, staffed by veterans of the Russian armed forces, has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Mali, among other countries. The press service of Prigozhin's Concord catering firm posted his comments on the social network VKontakte in response to a request for comment from a Russian news site on why he had stopped denying his links to Wagner. "I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this. From that moment, on May 1, 2014, a group of patriots was born, which later came to be called the Wagner Battalion," Prigozhin said. "I am proud that I was able to defend their right to protect the interests of their country," he said in the statement. Prigozhin's Concord catering firm confirmed to Reuters that the statement was genuine. Prigozhin, known as "Putin's chef" due to his company's Kremlin catering contracts, has been sanctioned by the United States and European Union for his role in Wagner. They also accuse him of funding a troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency that Washington says tried to influence U.S. elections. Prigozhin has previously sued outlets including investigative website Bellingcat, Russian news site Meduza and now-shuttered radio station Echo of Moscow for reporting his links to Wagner. Wagner was founded in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and started providing support to pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Somalia's state media on Monday said the military has pushed al-Shabab terrorists out of large parts of the country's central area in the latest gains in a large-scale offensive. An offensive by the Somali tribal militia backed by the Somali government was launched in the Hiran region a few weeks ago against al-Shabab militants, liberating several key townships before moving on to Galgaduud and then the Bay region in the south. There has been significant progress in the liberation of 40 settlements in the Hiran region alone, with the support of the Somali government's military commandos trained by the United States. However, the actual fight is taken up by the clan-based, state-supported independent Macawisley militia as part of the popular uprising against militants. Local militia members formally linked to the southwest administration of Somalia captured four settlements on the outskirts of Baidoa in the Bay region from militants with the support of the Somali national army forces Monday, proving that the uprising against the group has now expanded to the south. State-run media reported Monday that Busley, Bulo-Jadid, Matani and Usli were among the newly liberated villages. In an appearance on a talk show hosted by a local TV station Sunday, Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, the interior minister of the Somalia government, said the Somali army and local militia tribes had defeated militants in central Somalia after liberating much of the Hiran and Galgaduud regions. He noted that 40 settlements in Hiran and six more in Galgaduud had been liberated in less than three weeks, deeming this work commendable. "Our forces seized territory from militants which stretches over 40 settlements including villages, places where fewer people live and others where more people live," he said. "These 40 settlements are located only in the Hiran region and a new operation has been launched in the Galgaduud region to liberate more territories, and you can imagine what happened yesterday and today when militants fled their dead comrades and ammunition, and so far, six villages have been liberated, and this only started yesterday." VOA has not independently verified the Somali government claims. The Somali military gains come just one day after al-Qaida-linked militants attacked a training camp, killing one soldier and wounding six others. The Somali government's campaign to regain control of the country comes at a time when the country is experiencing a raging drought, which U.N. officials warn will lead to famine within months. More than a week of protests have taken place throughout Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Taken in custody by the country's morality police for failing to properly wear a hijab, protesters now fill the streets burning headscarves in the face of authorities. As VOA's Arash Arabasadi reports, Washington is expressing support for the demonstrators. At least one soldier was killed and six others injured in Somalia on Sunday when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a military base in the west of the capital Mogadishu, a soldier and a hospital worker told Reuters. Somalia's al-Qaida-allied group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombing. The suicide bomber had disguised himself as a regular soldier and joined others as they filed into a military base early Sunday before he detonated the explosive, Captain Aden Omar, a soldier at the military base told Reuters. "We lost one soldier and several others were injured. The bomber blew up himself at a checkpoint," he said. A nurse at Madina Hospital in Mogadishu told Reuters they had received one dead soldier and six others who were wounded. Al-Shabab claimed it had killed 32 soldiers. "A Mujahid suicide bomber killed 32 apostate soldiers and injured over 40 others inside a base in Mogadishu today," Al Andalus radio station, which is affiliated with the group, said, quoting Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab's military operations spokesperson. Abu Musab said they had targeted the base because recruitment activity was being conducted there. The Islamist group frequently carries out bombings and gun attacks in Somalia and elsewhere. Al-Shabab wants to topple Somalia's central government and establish its own rule based on its own strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. U.N. investigators say Venezuela's military and civilian intelligence agencies play a key role in repressing dissent through violent means to keep President Nicolas Maduro in power. In its latest report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela says the two agencies are part of a well-coordinated structure created to retain Maduro's grip on power by keeping the civilian population in check through a policy of fear and intimidation. It says many of the brutal tactics employed by the military intelligence service, known as DGCIM (the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence) and the civilian intelligence agency, SEBIN (Bolivarian National Intelligence Service) could amount to crimes against humanity. The report documents grave human rights violations committed by both agencies, including allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearance. Chair of the Fact-finding mission, Marta Valinas said the mission has evidence proving these crimes were not committed by individuals who had no connection with these agencies. "Quite the reverse," Valinas said. "The DGCIM and SEBIN are part of machinery put in place and deployed for the execution of a government plan which aims to repress those that are perceived to be its opponents and to consolidate, thereby, its control of power. Its plan was therefore orchestrated from the highest political level." Valinas added that human rights violations by both agencies continue. The mission also focused on the situation in the mining region, particularly on the state of Bolivar in southern Venezuela. In 1916, the government established the Arco Minero del Orinoco, a National Strategic Development Zone to extend its control over the gold industry. Valinas said the militarization of the region has been progressive since then, and armed criminal groups openly control mining regions in connivance with the military and trade unionists. "Residents of the region have been caught in the crossfire of this violence for control of the gold in the mining region, said Valinas. State and non-state actors have committed crimes and human rights violations including murders, enforced disappearances, extortion, corporal punishments, and sexual and gender-based violence. The authorities have not taken sufficient measures to prevent and investigate such abuse." Venezuelas Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Hector Constant Rosales, rejected the report, calling it politicized. He accused investigators of inventing everything in the report and using unreliable sources, saying anyone familiar with what truly is going on in Venezuela will know it is fake news. Myanmars human rights situation has been on a downward spiral since the military junta mounted a coup February 1, 2021. A new report finds military attacks in ethnic regions have increased, with civilians and civilian infrastructure targeted. The U.N. human rights office reports as many as 30,000 residential buildings, schools, other civilian infrastructure, and even whole villages have been burnt to the ground. Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif says more than 2,300 people, including at least 188 children have been killed. Additionally, she says more than a million people have fled their homes and are living in precarious conditions. She says they lack food, medical care, and other basic services. The humanitarian crisis now brings fears of starvation, with the military largely denying humanitarian access, including recent orders to halt humanitarian operations in [the] northern and central Rakhine State. Over 15,607 people have been arrested with some 12,464 remaining in detention, said Al-Nashif. She says people in prison are subject to physical abuse, ill-treatment, and torture, sometimes resulting in death. She says her office has received information about 111 cases of what appears to be summary executions. She adds the death toll of people in custody is steadily rising. Al-Nashif notes the relative stability experienced in the Rakhine State since the start of the coup has proved short-lived. She says minority communities, especially Rohingya and Kaman Muslims are particularly vulnerable. My office has received reports of killings, injuries, arbitrary detention, and mass displacement of civilians resulting from clashes between the Myanmar military and the Arakan army in several townships of Rakhine and Chin State and along the border with reported cases of shelling into Bangladesh, Al-Nashif said. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh in August 2017 to escape discrimination and persecution in Myanmar. Al-Nashif says diplomatic efforts have failed to turn around this catastrophic situation. She says ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations must reinvigorate its efforts to promote a resolution to the crisis. She repeats previous calls to the military to cease violence, to impose a moratorium on executions, and to free all political prisoners. Her appeal, as in the past, has fallen on deaf ears. The U.N. Acting High Commissioner has received no response from Myanmars military leaders to her plea. A U.S. aircraft carrier and its battle group launched drills with South Korean warships off the Korean Peninsulas east coast on Monday in their first such training in five years, a day after North Korea test-fired a short-range ballistic missile in a possible response to the exercise. North Korea could conduct more tests in coming days as it views U.S.-South Korean military exercises as practice for an invasion and often reacts with displays of weapons designed to attack its rivals. The four days of drills are aimed at demonstrating the allies powerful resolve to respond to North Korean provocations and improving their ability to perform joint naval operations, the South Korean navy said in a statement. More than 20 U.S. and South Korean navy ships, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, a U.S. cruiser and South Korean and U.S. destroyers, were mobilized for the drills, according to the navy statement. It said U.S. and South Korean fighter jets and helicopters will also take part in the training. It would be the first such joint drills involving a U.S. aircraft carrier near the peninsula since 2017, when the U.S. sent three aircraft carriers including the Reagan for naval drills with South Korea in response to North Korean nuclear and missile tests. The allies had since cancelled or downsized some of their regular drills to support now-dormant talks on North Korea's nuclear program or guard against COVID-19. The North Korean missile fired on Sunday flew about 600 kilometers (370 miles) at the maximum altitude of 60 kilometers (37 miles) before falling into the waters off the North's east coast, according to South Korean estimates. Some experts say North Korea might have launched a nuclear-capable, highly maneuverable ballistic missile and that its 600 kilometer-flight had enough range to strike a southeastern South Korean port where the Reagan was previously docked. North Korea has performed a record number of missile tests this year as it steadfastly rebuffs U.S. and South Korean calls to resume the nuclear diplomacy. North Korea has said it wont return to talks unless the United States drops its hostile policies in an apparent reference to U.S.-South Korean military drills and U.S.-led economic sanctions on it. Earlier this month, North Korea adopted a new law that authorized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in some situations, a development that showed its increasingly aggressive nuclear doctrine. Some analysts say North Korea would eventually aim for arms control negotiations with the United States to get sanctions relief and other concessions in return for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability. The United States does not take a position on Taiwans sovereignty under Washingtons One China policy, the State Department said Monday. The remarks came days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in New York on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly where Blinken told Wang Washingtons One China policy has not changed. While Washington has not agreed to take any position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan, Mondays statement from the State Department is a rare public comment. We don't take a position on sovereignty, but the policy that has been at the crux of our approach to Taiwan since 1979 remains in effect today, said State Department spokesperson Ned Price during Mondays briefing. He was asked if Taiwan is part of China under Washingtons One China policy. What we want to see preserved is the status quo, precisely because the status quo since 1979, more than 40 years now, has undergirded peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We want to see that continue. Unfortunately, I don't believe the same could be said of the PRC, which has become only more coercive and intimidating in its actions and its maneuvers across the Taiwan Strait, said Price. The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) claims sovereignty over Taiwan. The U.S. acknowledges but does not endorse PRCs position. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one & the same China. Taiwan is part of Chinas territory. Chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity has never been split. This is the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and one China is at the heart of this status quo, a spokesperson from Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a tweet. For decades, the U.S. has been clear that its decision to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1979 rested on the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means, as stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act. The U.S. also does not support Taiwan independence. Senior American officials have said Washingtons One China policy is distinct from Beijings One China principle. The U.S. said it remains committed to its long-standing, bipartisan One China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances. Chinese officials have rejected the Taiwan Relations Act, calling the U.S. law governing its relations with Taiwan "illegal and invalid." On August 31, 2020, then-Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell told an audience at a Washington think tank that the United States has not agreed to take any position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan and it is important to review history because Beijing has a habit of distorting it. The U.S. Department of Commerce Monday cited a fourth Iranian cargo plane for flying into Russia, adding it to a list of planes believed to be in violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia. The U.S. Department of Commerce said in a statement that the cargo plane belongs to Saha Airlines, which is owned by the Iranian Air Force. On Sept. 19, the department added three other Iranian cargo planes to a list of those in apparent violation of U.S. export controls, Reuters reported. The fourth cargo plane flew to Russia without permission from the Department of Commerce, its statement said. Last Monday, we announced that three Iranian cargo planes have been backfilling items to Russia in an attempt to circumvent our hard-hitting export controls, Matthew Axelrod, assistant secretary of commerce for export enforcement, said in a statement. Today, weve identified a fourth Iranian cargo plane that has flown to Russia in violation of our controls, this one under the control of the Iranian Air Force. Given Irans support for Russias war machine, including the recent provisioning of unmanned aerial vehicles, we are alerting the global aviation community that support for such aircraft violates our controls and is subject to enforcement action. According to reports, Iran has sent hundreds of drones to help Russia in its war with Ukraine. Iranian authorities have officially denied these reports. But the Kayhan newspaper, which is close to the leader of the Islamic Republic, confirmed Saturday that "hundreds of Iranian combat drones" have been exported to Russia. Some information for this article came from Reuters. The war in Ukraine has created millions of child refugees. And many of Ukraines 100- thousand plus children in the nations system of orphanages have also been displaced. A group of US scientists is trying to help, as Ksenia Turkova reports. Camera: Alexey Zonov U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has made it clear publicly and privately to Russia to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict following Russian President Vladimir Putins statement that he would use any means to defend Russia. Its very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific, and weve made that very clear, Blinken told CBS Newss 60 Minutes show in an interview broadcast late Sunday. Blinken said using nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects for, of course, the country using them, but for many others as well. The U.S. response came after Putin signaled the possibility of a nuclear attack last week as he called up 300,000 military reservists to help Russia fight in its seven-month invasion of Ukraine. The troop augmentation came after Russian battlefield setbacks, with Kyivs forces recapturing large swaths of territory in northeast Ukraine that Russia had seized in the early weeks of the war. Britains defense ministry said Monday that the first of the call-ups had started to arrive at military bases, but that Russia faces administrative and logistical challenges in training those troops. Many of the drafted troops will not have had any military experience for some years, the ministry said. The lack of military trainers, and the haste with which Russia has started the mobilization, suggests that many of the drafted troops will deploy to the front line with minimal relevant preparation. They are likely to suffer a high attrition rate. Protests against call-up Widespread protests against Putins troop call-up have erupted in Russia, with police arresting hundreds of demonstrators participating in street protests in Moscow and elsewhere. In Russias Siberia region Monday, a 25-year-old man shot a military commandant at an enlistment center, the local governor said. Many men opposed to Putins war or fearful of being killed in the battlefront have abruptly fled Russia on flights to other countries, while others have joined long queues of cars on land routes headed to the Russian borders with Finland, Georgia and other countries. Russia is in the midst of staging five days of disputed referenda in four regions of Ukraine it either fully or partially controls, votes where it assumes the local residents will support Russian annexation, which would give Moscow a pretext to defend the newly claimed territory. In some instances, Russian soldiers have been going door to door to order Ukrainians to vote at gunpoint. But Ukraine, the U.S. and other Western allies are calling the referenda sham votes and of no legal consequence. Any Russian annexation of Ukrainian land would not be globally recognized. These so-called elections are a sham, period, Blinken told CBS. They go in, they put in puppet governments, local governments, and then they proceed with a vote, which theyll manipulate in any event in order to try to declare the territory Russian territory. It is not. It will never be recognized as such. And the Ukrainians have every right to take it back. Fears are running high that Moscow may close the borders to men of fighting age after the referendums in Ukraine end to stem the mass exodus. Nuclear saber-rattling A State Department official said Putin gave the U.S. and its allies a gift last week by engaging in nuclear saber-rattling, calling for a troop mobilization and announcing the referenda while the U.S. was at the United Nations talking about sovereignty and international peace and security. The official said Russia couldnt have timed it better to put a spotlight on the grave offenses that Russia is committing to Ukraine and the international order. At a commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday that nuclear weapons do not offer security, just carnage and chaos and said eliminating them would be the greatest gift humanity could offer future generations. Let me be clear: The era of nuclear blackmail must end, Guterres said. The idea that any country could fight and win a nuclear war is deranged. Any use of a nuclear weapon would incite a humanitarian Armageddon. We need to step back. In an interview aired Sunday on CBS Newss Face the Nation show, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainians who refuse to vote in the referenda face significant retribution from Russian forces. Russians can turn off their electricity and wont give them an opportunity to live a normal human life, Zelenskyy said. They force people, they throw them in prisons. They force them to come to these pseudo-referenda. And also, they also announced mobilization [of 300,000 reservists.] Theyre forcing people to fight, people from the temporarily occupied territories. But Zelenskyy said, There is no support in the society for this referendum. The Ukrainian leader said the referenda are a very dangerous signal from Putin that he does not intend to end the war. He knows that hes losing the war, Zelenskyy said. In the battlefield, Ukraine has seized the initiative. He cannot explain to his society why, and he is looking for answers to these questions. With the West and Ukraine saying the voting is almost assuredly preordained to favor Russian annexation, Zelenskyy said Moscow will then say, Now, its the West who attacks Russia. Now, the West attacks our territories. We have to let the society join Russia, the society that wanted to be with Russia. Zelenskyy said a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine could be a reality. He wants to scare the whole world. These are the first steps of his nuclear blackmail. I dont think he's bluffing. But Zelenskyy added, I think the world is deterring it and containing this threat. We need to keep putting pressure on him and not allow him to continue. He concluded, I think that the military strategy of military and political leadership of Russia has not changed: its occupation of our country. And of course, they want to destabilize our country from inside. He said Ukrainians are united against Putin, even more united now than ever, over the 31 years of our independence from the Soviet Union. So, he does everything possible to destabilize our country to make sure were weaker. And for that he wants to divide us of course, Im one of the targets, of course, it goes without saying, Zelenskyy said. Its not because of my personality, just because... because the president is a leader of their country. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Livetalk: We are talking about CCC protests and counter-protests by Zanu PF "friends" in New York outside the venue of the U.N General Assembly. A councilor and another member of Zimbabwes opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), were severely assaulted today by suspected Zanu PF activists in the politically-volatile Masvingo region. A Form 2 student was also beaten up when Zanu PF activists attacked Bernard Chimwango and his colleague, Pangton Guvava, who were conducting a voter registration exercise while wearing party regalia. They were attacked at Guvavas house in Mpandawana Growth Point. Chimwango said they made a police report but indications are that the assailants wont be brought to justice as they are Zanu PF activists. I sustained serious injuries during the assault but I dont think the perpetrators will be arrested. Regional police spokesperson, Kudakwashe Dehwa, said they have not yet received any report about a case of assault involving the three. Ophias Murambiwa, a senior local member of the ruling party, said Zanu PF is not causing any form of violence in the province. There has been an upsurge in the number of cases of politically-motivated violence ahead of the 2023 general elections. South African police in Limpopo Province say they have launched a manhunt for people suspected to have burnt beyond recognition three Zimbabweans suspected to have stolen solar panels and electric cables. This latest killing of Zimbabweans has prompted Harare to dispatch a team of diplomats to investigate. In an exclusive interview with VOA Zimbabwe Service, Limpopo Provincial spokesperson, Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo confirmed the incident which happened September 16th, calling it mob justice. Brigadier Mojapelo said, Police have launched a manhunt for the suspects responsible for the brutal murder of yet to be identified men," adding that "the preliminary investigations that we conducted at the scene indicated that this could be Zimbabweans. They were burnt beyond recognition and thats why we are still investigating their positive identities. Responding to the incident, the Zimbabwean ministry of foreign affairs said it was distressed with sad reports of the death of our three nationals in South Africa. The statement further states, We have since dispatched a Consular team to Makhado, Limpopo Province. The team managed to visit Waterval Police Station upon arrival, the Police Officers who were on the evening shift are said to have confirmed the following: 3 male Zimbabwean nationals were burnt beyond recognition in Tshavhani Village in Elim after being accused of stealing solar panels and electricity cables. The consular team said police had assured them that they would deploy a team to monitor and assess the situation in the community with a view to ensure that there are no further disturbances. There are reports that more than 200 Zimbabweans in the area have gone into hiding fearing attacks. The latest incident brings to six Zimbabweans killed in the Limpopo province in the past three months. In June, three Zimbabweans identified as Arthur Moyo, Sipho Sibanda and Sadam Ncube and a South African Themba Makhubele were brutally murdered and their bodies set alight. Brigadier Mojapelo said the four were accused by the community members of robbing a businessman and gunning him down. Nadia Bolz-Weber is an ELCA ordained pastor and the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado, a community for all, especially maybe those whove been made to feel they arent welcome at the table. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People (Convergent, 2015). Funeral Announcements A daily list of current funeral annoucements as heard on KXRA 1490 AM/100.3 FM News Updates The daily news, sports, and events delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria. Sports Update This current sports headlines delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria. Upcoming Events This email is the events of the area delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria. Breaking News The big news. Sent only as it happens. Letta assumes responsibility for PD electoral defeat. Enrico Letta on Monday announced his intention to stand down as leader of Italy's centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) after his party's defeat in the nation's general election. Staging a news conference on his own, Letta told reporters that he would remain at the helm of the PD until the next party congress which would be held soon. Letta said the congress would see the PD take stock of its direction and its election result - less than 20 per cent - and confirmed that he would not be putting his name forward as a leadership candidate. The PD leader assumed responsibility for losing to the right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni which, according to provisional results, has obtained about 44 per cent of the vote. Letta also took aim at Giuseppe Conte, leader of the populist MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S), blaming him for bringing down the government of Mario Draghi. Describing the right-wing victory as a "sad day, for Italy and for Europe", Letta acknowledged that Italian voters have made a "clear choice". Photo credit: M. Cantile / Shutterstock.com. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Do Kwon is not on the run. We know that because the cryptocurrency founder said so. Singapore authorities announced that hes no longer in their country, a South Korean court issued a warrant for his arrest, and Interpol put out a Red Notice. But that doesnt mean hes ready to reveal his whereabouts, or his legal strategy to fight the charges. Kwons outfit is called Terraform Labs. Its one of dozens of blockchain startups built to reinvent the global financial system and challenge the fiat-based structure which has central banks at its core. Its spin on the theme was to build a stablecoin on top of its Terra blockchain. Instead of being backed by holdings of a fiat currency like the more-famous Tether which claims to hold one US dollar for each Tether minted TerraUSD achieves price-stability via an elastic money supply. In its White Paper, the stablecoins instigators note that the extreme volatility of Bitcoins price is Terras raison detre. Advertisement At the core of how the Terra Protocol solves these issues is the idea that a cryptocurrency with an elastic monetary policy would maintain a stable price, retaining all the censorship resistance of Bitcoin, and making it viable for use in everyday transactions. Theres just one, slight, $60 billion problem. The algorithm didnt work. The peg didnt hold. TerraUSDs price collapsed, as did that of the associated Luna token. And holders of these tokens got wiped out. That was in May, and now Kwon is on the lam. Except, he says hes not. And he also says its nobodys business where he is, unless youre a friend, plan to meet, or are playing a location-based game (that last one is a joke, we think). Running a bad business isnt against the law. Losing $60 billion of customers money in itself is also not a crime. But authorities in Seoul are convinced he did something wrong, and seek to charge Kwon and five others for breaches of capital markets laws. Advertisement Having failed to get him to front up, South Korea went one further and asked Interpol to help, which they did, requesting law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action. This international game of cat and mouse isnt a good look for Kwon, or crypto executives anywhere. For more than a decade, proponents have fought to shake off cryptocurrencys image as a frontier for criminals, digital blackmailers, drug lords and international arms smugglers. Yet every time the head of a cryptocurrency outfit legitimate or not drags their feet on explaining what happened to their collapsed business, or fails to outline a legal defense to any criminal charges, theyre giving fodder to the naysayers. They are decentralized Ponzi schemes, Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., told Congress last week. Its not helpful to Kwons cause, or that of cryptocurrencies more broadly, that his refusal to give his whereabouts comes just as a poster child for the old-school, central-bank run fiat system points fingers at an entire industry. Advertisement To be fair to Kwon, hes not alone. Numerous other trailblazers have faced allegations and prosecution. Some were outright scoundrels, some sailed too close to the wind, and others were victims of regulators inability to keep up with changing times. And it remains an ongoing debate which of these categories some of the more high-profile cases belong. Tether and its affiliated exchange, Bitfinex, last year settled charges that the stablecoin wasnt fully-backed, as it had claimed, and that it had engaged in illegal commodity transactions. In another case, an employee of a different exchange was charged with insider trading. Theres plenty of illegal actions and weird shenanigans going on in the crypto universe to give ammunition to the detractors. The life and death of Gerald Cotten, founder of exchange QuadrigaCX, went from a tragic tale to a conspiracy theorists dream. Following his sudden death in India at age 30, it was revealed that Cotten had various aliases and had siphoned C$250 million ($183 million) out of the exchange into wallets whose passwords had been lost. Advertisement But crypto skeptics sometimes conveniently forget that infamous Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff didnt need new-fangled tools to bilk investors of $65 billion. And the Enron and WorldCom frauds were committed before Bitcoin was even invented. Cryptocurrency is a new technology that attracts new business models and plenty of opportunists. Thats just how new industries work. The oil boom of the late 19th century saw hundreds of wells sunk and dozens of schemes collapse, wiping out innumerable investors. Yet history negates the early claim that oil, as a commodity, and the industry that followed, are a total scam. Indeed, many at the time felt that the liquid dripping from underground coal seams was not enough to sustain a business.(1) In fact, the break-up of John D. Rockefellers Standard Oil neither crushed the company nor ended this new energy boom. After facing angry legislators and losing court battles in the early 20th century, the business bounced back and rewrote history. Advertisement Cryptocurrencies have the same potential as oil to upend old industries and indelibly change the world. But to get there, the crypto barons need to face the music and show the world theyve nothing to hide. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Coinbases End of Story Is Just the Beginning: Lionel Laurent Doge May Be a Hustle, But Its the Peoples Hustle: Tim Culpan Colonial Hackers Broke the Fundamental Bitcoin Rule: Tim Culpan (1) Daniel Yergins The Prize details early misgivings in great color. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology in Asia. Previously, he was a technology reporter for Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share The business world is in thrall to six letters or, more accurately, to two groups of three letters ESG and DEI. These stand, respectively, for environmental, social and governance and diversity, equity and inclusion. Taken together, they constitute the ruling business ideology of our age. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Both ESG and DEI have generated massive industries. Investment giants, notably BlackRock Inc., State Street Corp. and Vanguard Group Inc., claim that more than a third of their assets, or $35 trillion, are monitored through one ESG lens or other. Every Fortune 100 company and most Fortune 500 companies have adopted DEI programs. Walmart has committed $100 million to its Center for Racial Equity. Many human resource departments are evangelists for DEI in part because it turns an unglamorous activity (paying salaries and the rest) into a crusade for social justice. But do these letters really fit together logically? Or are they muddlings of buzzwords that are either ineffective or even counterproductive? The evidence increasingly suggests the latter. Both ESG and DEI bundle together different things that range from the admirable to the questionable. This bundling not only risks setting conflicting, fuzzy or even questionable goals for companies. It also distracts from the mission that initially set the buzzwords afloat preventing the world from overheating in the first case and tapping a wider range of talent in the second. Advertisement Few people would disagree that companies need to play a role in tackling global warming either through voluntary action or compulsory legislation. But adding G and S to the formula is counterproductive. Elon Musk is cavalier about corporate governance, but Tesla is one of the worlds most effective green champions. Closing coal mines in Appalachia is good for the planet but leaves in its wake a trail of hollowed-out towns and human wreckage. Corporate social responsibility surely means something different for a start-up where everyone is working 60 hours a week in order to survive than for an established company in a mature market. The apostles of ESG are as guilty of overselling their product as they are of intellectual sloppiness. The ghastly phrase win-win that is endemic in the industry obscures the huge costs of adjusting to climate change. But is it win-win for investors when, according to an analysis by Morningstar, sustainable funds charge on average annual fees that are almost 50% higher those of traditional funds? And is it win-win for the planet when companies can game the system by selling a polluting plant to another company that is happy to be judged as a sin stock? ESG advocates claim that ESG portfolios provide superior risk-adjusted returns to traditional portfolios, returns that reflect the superior business performance of ESG companies. But a 2021 literature review of more than 1,100 peer reviewed studies and 27 published meta-analyses determined that the risk-adjusted financial performance of ESG investing was indistinguishable from conventional investing. Another study of American mutual funds between 2010 and 2018 found that companies in ESG investment portfolios violated more labor laws, paid more fines and had higher carbon emissions than those in non-ESG portfolios sold by the same institution. Advertisement ESG didnt even provide a reliable template for how to deal with an obvious evil such as Putins invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA Law School points out that European corporations with major operations in Russia prior to Putins invasion of Ukraine typically had higher ESG ratings than those who were not operating in Russia. Unrealistic expectations invite a backlash just as certainly as contradictory aims entail strategic confusion. DEI is a little better than ESG in that it bundles two obviously admirable things (diversity and inclusion) with one much more questionable one (equity). Diversity is a good thing from both a business and a social point of view because it discovers new sources of talent while at the same time strengthening the links between companies and the wider society. Inclusion is a logical extension of diversity: Employees will work better if they feel welcomed, and companies need to work harder to welcome people who are new to the corporate world. The problem with the formula lies with the all-important word equity. When it comes to equality, liberal capitalism is built on two great principles: procedural justice (equality of treatment before the law) and equality of opportunity. Liberal capitalists celebrate the fact that Jeff Bezos is filthy rich for a mixture of first principles (people should be free to exercise their talents) and utilitarianism (Amazon.com Inc. improves the general welfare by providing better services at better prices). But equity tries to substitute fairness for equality of opportunity. Advocates of equity argue that different ethnic groups should start off with roughly the same resources. But others go further: Advocates of social justice argue that high degrees of inequality of result are inherently unfair while some supporters of critical race theory argue that capitalism is inherently unjust. In order to truly be antiracist, says Ibram X. Kendi, a leading guru of the social justice movement, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist. Advertisement This emphasis on equity drives the DEI formula in an increasingly radical direction. The Coca-Cola Co. had to apologize for including on its company training platform an external LinkedIn presentation on confronting racism that urged viewers, Try to be less white. (To be less white is to be less oppressive might indeed ring oddly from a fizzy-drink maker whose products have fueled the epidemic of diabetes in Black America.) Bank of America Corp. supported a Racial Equity 21-Day Challenge for its employees which argued that the United States is a system of white supremacy. Walmart Inc. has told workers that they are guilty of internalized racial superiority. Lockheed Martin has prodded executives to deconstruct their white male privilege. Alan Jope, the CEO of Unilever, has talked about the immutable laws of intersectionality, blind to the ideas origins in the most radical corners of academia. The DEI industry also suffers from the same problem as the ESG industry: overselling its products. The industry blithely argues that diversity produces higher levels of creativity and innovation, through a sort of multicultural magic. It forgets to add that getting the best out of diversity requires good management. Roy Chua of Harvard Business School has demonstrated that getting people from different cultural backgrounds to cooperate is fraught with difficulties, ranging from intercultural anxiety to outright conflict. Chua notes that what he calls ambient cultural disharmony can be more marked in people who regard themselves as open-minded than in more conservative types who expect problems. David Livermore, the author of Driven by Difference: How Great Companies Fuel Innovation Through Diversity, points out that diverse teams have a higher variance in their performance than homogenous teams: They are more likely to produce creative ideas but they are also more likely to fail completely. Celebration of diversity needs to be linked to hard work and clear thinking. The result of this combination of social justice radicalism and overpromising is that DEI programs are ineffective, or worse. Studies of anti-bias training dating back to the 1930s show that at best such training produces short-term benefits that quickly dissipate, multicultural sugar rushes as it were, and at worse they are counterproductive. Anti-bias training frequently activates stereotypes (try not thinking about elephants). Diversity training that vilifies whites produces resentment among whites, particularly when compared with diversity training that celebrates color blindness. The clunking machinery of DEI the training videos, workshops and roleplaying exercises also offends workers sense of autonomy and self-respect. Tomorrow, I have to go to a diversity-training workshop, Livermore heard one man say to another in the gym. Oh God! came the reply. Thats right up there with getting a root canal. Advertisement Weaponizing the Backlash Having been protected from criticism by their aura of righteousness, both DEI and particularly ESG are finally being subjected to searching criticism. An excellent special report in The Economist, by Henry Tricks, argues that ESG risks setting conflicting goals for firms, fleecing savers and distracting from the vital task of tackling climate change. It is an unholy mess that needs to be ruthlessly streamlined. Even some supporters of the idea argue that it may be time for a new label. Some firms, including Netflix Inc., have laid off DEI bureaucrats and activists. Vivek Ramaswamy, a former pharmaceutical entrepreneur, has not only written a book denouncing the ESG-DEI nexus, Woke, Inc.: Inside the Social Justice Scam, but also put his money where his mouth is by founding Strive Asset Management, an investment firm which promises to restore the primacy of excellence over politics. Predictably, some politicians are weaponizing the backlash. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and a leading contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024, wants to be the Teddy Roosevelt of our age, taking on the malefactors of great wokeness. So far, he has passed the Stop W.O.K.E. (the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act, which attempts to prohibit companies from promoting critical race theory, clashed with Disney over its diversity policy, and criticized ESG funds for their poor returns. Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who has unearthed innumerable eye-catching examples of diversity policies, wants conservatives to send a clear message to companies: declare neutrality in the culture wars or we will make you pay a price in the marketplace. If the GOP retakes the majority in the upcoming midterm elections, it reportedly plans to investigate the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its increasing ESG advocacy. Advertisement The problem with the charge of wokery is that it suffers from the same problem as ESG and DEI bundling lots of different things together, this time in the cause of vilification rather than promotion. Woke warriors are wrong to argue, or imply, that western capitalism is uniquely responsible for slavery or colonialism or a combination of the two. Both slavery and colonialism have been endemic in pre-modern societies. The worlds greatest capitalist powers first Britain and then America were responsible for abolishing the slave trade and the practice of slavery. At the same time, they are right to argue that slavery and colonialism have left a terrible and enduring legacy behind them. The average African-American family only has an eighth of the wealth of the average White American family. Some of Americas biggest companies, such as Aetna Inc., Bank of America and Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo & Co.), profited from slavery. Conservatives, in particular, need to make sure that, in their irritation with the most outlandish forms of wokery such as no-platforming gender-critical feminists, they dont end up turning a blind eye to structural injustices. The best way to avoid a counterproductive impasse is to engage in a general unbundling. Advocates of ESG need to focus on tackling global warming. The best way to do this is to engage in collective action via carbon taxes rather than corporate agitation. Advocates of DEI need to concentrate on promoting historically disadvantaged groups particularly the descendants of slaves in the United States rather than engaging in militant cultural re-education. The best way to do this is to build ladders of opportunity that try to make a reality of the idea of equality of opportunity. Both the environment and diversity are far too important to become victims of the culture wars between a bloated ESG-DEI bureaucracy, on the one hand, and anti-woke crusaders, on the other. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Advertisement Larry Pages Flying Car Failure Is a Lesson for Us All: Parmy Olson Millenials and Gen Z Are Fed Up with ESG: Tanja Hester Buyout Barons Need to Keep Diversity in the Spreadsheet: Chris Hughes 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. A former writer at the Economist, he is author, most recently, of The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share When a Tesla Inc. battery caught fire at an energy storage facility that helps power California last week, critics were quick to pounce. Michael Burry of The Big Short fame, who called the mid-2000s housing collapse correctly, hit out at the EV maker. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Blaming Elon Musks firm for a bad battery misses the point, however. Instead, we need to ask whether lithium-ion powerpacks typically used in consumer electronics and electric vehicles should be used for such energy storage at all. Just because these work well on a small scale doesnt mean theyre appropriate for large set-ups. These big, stationary batteries are used to store energy from renewable and other sources, for use when demand is peaking and importantly, for grid stability. With a power crisis looming, these packs are being used more frequently. In California, for instance, they now contribute 60 times more to peak capacity than five years ago, which is more than nuclear and wind. In the US, installations tripled last year, while they are on the rise globally, too. Advertisement This isnt the first incident, either. Across the world, grid-scale batteries are combusting because of issues like overheating and manufacturing defects. There have been several such fires in South Korea, along with one at an RV park in Rio Dell, in China and in rural Australia, among others. The common thread is that these are mostly lithium-ion chemistry, now the most prevalent type in energy storage systems. The large-scale use comes with significant risks, although most modern power systems choose this formulation because it boasts higher energy density, as well as greater charging and discharging efficiency. However, lithium-ion batteries have a volatile, flammable electrolyte. So, while there are safeguards to avoid fires, all the combustible ingredients are still there. Flames can accelerate through chain reactions, known as thermal runaway. Big batteries are made up of several cells packed together. Current is constantly flowing inside, which generates heat. If there are no barriers between the components, a failure in one part quickly cascades through. While elaborate (and critical) equipment for cooling the system is put in place, it draws on the energy of the actual powerpack and reduces its output. In addition, when charged, a coat of lithium metal can form on the surface and dendrites, or needle-like structures can grow, and lead to short-circuits. Advertisement There are other considerations, too. For instance, in its review of battery failures in 2019 and 2012, the Arizona State Commission pointed to reports of fires with 10 feet to 15 feet flame lengths that grew into 50 feet to 75 feet flame lengths appearing to be fed by flammable liquids coming from the cabinets. After one incident, it took nearly three months to discharge the stranded energy. This isnt just a call to remember safety or alarmism over fires. The danger in the widespread use of this technology is real. The worlds foremost battery producer, China, last year put in motion a plan to stop the use of certain types of lithium-ion-based storage systems after incidents, including one related to Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Earlier this year, the countrys National Energy Administration released a paper on safety of electricity generation, calling for a ban on some formulations of mid-to-large powerpacks. There are viable alternatives. However, policy makers and firms seem to have prematurely decided that lithium-ion is the one when it comes to this crucial technology. They should instead analyze the data and risks as more capacity comes online. Safety standards and testing methods are changing. No one wants to be the first mover on other types of grid-scale batteries that are capital-intensive and havent yet been widely used. Advertisement Sure, some of the options are very large or not as efficient, or require additional support systems that make them a bit more expensive. However, the margin on these comparative metrics is small enough that we can put safety front and center, especially as usage rises. This doesnt mean a retreat to older types; the chemistries are also improving, meaning manufacturers are working to raise energy density for these formulations. Vanadium redox batteries, for instance, have a low levelized cost, are scalable, dont degrade and there is no risk of combustion. These powerpacks use recycled metal from petroleum waste and can be charged and discharged without wearing out. Then there are liquid metal batteries invented by MITs Donald Sadoway, made from molten materials(1). The Bill Gates-backed technology operates at high temperatures and doesnt use combustible materials, so there is no fire risk. Several others including those made using organic compounds are also in the works. The cell-level cost of these is far lower than lithium ion. These batteries are a crucial part of the energy transition. But the disruptive technology can be hard to digest, and investors are often too focused on headline factors like density, life cycle or the kilowatt-hour at the expense of serious safety concerns. Advertisement With lithium prices hitting records, there isnt enough of the metal to power the future, anyway. Systems will need to diversify, so its time to look for technologies that we can all live with without the looming risk of fire, exorbitant costs or blackouts. More From Bloomberg Opinion: How Chinas Car Batteries Conquered the World: Anjani Trivedi No One Seems to Care That EVs Are Catching Fire: Anjani Trivedi These Are the Batteries We Really Need: Anjani Trivedi Want more from Bloomberg Opinion? {OPIN }. (1) Metals and salts This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Anjani Trivedi is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies in Asia. Previously, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article The 40 billion ($43 billion) plan announced in the first days of Liz Trusss government to bolster energy traders remains a black box. Who benefits, at what cost and under what conditions is a mystery the Treasury and the Bank of England have yet to explain with three weeks to go until the fund is formally launched. The Energy Markets Financing Scheme isnt getting much attention because its been overshadowed by the energy bailouts for households and businesses, which may end costing as much as 160 billion over the next two years. Its also far more technical than the easily understood freeze on energy bills for families, further discouraging attention.But it deserves close scrutiny. Properly designed, its the right policy, and may end costing a fraction of the 40 billion headline amount. But if badly implemented, it could end channeling billions of taxpayer money to speculators. To understand the scheme devised by Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng, one has to delve into the bowels of the energy market. There, utilities hedge, or lock in, the price of the electricity they charge. By selling forward, they can have taken a position that loses money if prices rise. When that occurs, exchanges such as the Intercontinental Exchange and the European Energy Exchange, demand payments or margin calls to cover potential losses. Ultimately when the forward contracts mature, the utilities are fine: losses in financial markets are matched by equal gains from their actual sales. But as they wait for the contracts to mature as long as several months, or even two years they need cash to face the margin calls. Lots of cash.With gas and electricity prices in Europe gyrating wildly, at times as much as 25% in a single day, the margin calls can be brutal. For example, when Wien Energie, a municipal utility in Vienna, asked the Austrian government for a bailout, it disclosed it had faced a margin call of 1.75 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in a single day.Ultimately, the size of the margin calls may overwhelm a company. The new scheme is a backstop source of additional liquidity to energy firms in otherwise sound financial health to meet extraordinary variation margin calls, the UK Treasury said.Who are those energy companies? Thats the key question the UK Treasury hasnt answered. When the scheme was announced in early September, it said it would help companies that have a UK presence and play a significant role in UK electricity and gas markets. On Friday, it tweaked its aim, saying it will help those making a material contribution to the liquidity of UK energy markets. Pressed on the matter, the Treasury said it was still working on the eligibility criteria.The key word in the new statement is liquidity. Because the biggest liquidity providers in British and continental European energy markets arent the utilities that sell electricity to households and businesses, but big banks, commodity traders and hedge funds.Until now, most European governments have focused on providing liquidity for margin calls to utilities. The British scheme, however, could open the public wallet to many others, including banks in the City of London like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, hedge fund speculators in Mayfair and commodity traders like Vitol Group and Glencore Plc. London should follow the Europeans narrow focus: limit help to firms that produce or consume electricity and natural gas. The support should be tied to physical flows of energy and actual fixed assets, like gas-fired plants, wind farms or nuclear power stations located in the UK, rather than simply to liquidity provision. It should focus on companies that pay most of their taxes in the UK, too, leaving to others to help outfits incorporated in low-tax jurisdictions or tax havens. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Giorgia Melonis triumph as the first woman to lead a winning party in the macho world of Italian politics is not a moment to celebrate, for she has brought the far right into the European mainstream, precisely a century after her Fascist forebear Benito Mussolini seized power. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight It could take until the middle of next month to know the exact composition of the new Italian government. But polls on Sunday night crowned Meloni a clear winner. Italys new government is set to be a coalition led by Melonis Brothers of Italy party, joined by the anti-immigrant League and Putin sympathizer Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia. Whats also certain is she has fractured an entente in European politics bringing a party with its roots in neo-fascism into power for the first time since World War II at the helm of a founding country of the EU at that. Following the ascent of Swedens far-right Democrats this month as kingmakers in their governing coalition, the question is where could the next domino fall? Advertisement Southern Europe is ripe for the political disruption Meloni represents. The far-right Vox, Spains third-largest political party, entered a regional government for the first time in March, and Meloni said last week she hoped her success will pave the way for it to gain greater power. In Portugal, the right-wing Chega (Enough) party took 12 seats in January elections this year, up from just 1 seat in 2019. Divisive leaders are gaining traction amid the challenges posed by immigration, rising poverty, falling birthrates, the climate emergency, deindustrialization and youth unemployment. It would unite discontent in southern Europe with the EUs eastern flank. Meloni, who has been the head of the umbrella group European Conservatives and Reformists Party since 2020, has supported Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban and voted against a motion in the European Parliament declaring Hungary to be an electoral autocracy. Advertisement Broadly, her victory also risks having a destabilizing effect on the heart of Europe: France. In Paris, Emmanuel Macron lost his parliamentary majority earlier this year. Bringing extreme politics into the mainstream lends itself to Marine Le Pen and her national front, and also Jean-Luc Melenchons extreme-left party Nupes (Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale). French far-right politician Eric Zemmour seized on Melonis win to claim her strategy of uniting parties on the right could be a winning one for France, too. The good news for her antagonists is that she may have a tougher time spreading her influence at home than abroad. For one, the nations well-established institutions have historically provided ballast against political extremism, from the mafia attacks of the 1980s and 1990s to the rise of Berlusconi. Daniele Franco, current finance minister, Fabio Pannetta, who sits on the executive board of the European Central Bank, and Domenico Siniscalco, a former finance minister who has been vice chairman of Morgan Stanley International for more than a decade are all on the roster of potential candidates for finance minister under Meloni being considered by the Qurinial Palace, according to insiders. (President Sergio Mattarella has to approve the composition of the coalition). Advertisement Meloni is facing what is often called the glass cliff: When a woman finally gets significant power, its at a time of serious crisis when the risk of failure is the highest. For one, Meloni faces a worsening economy. Growth is forecast to slow to 0.4% from 3.3% in 2022, according to average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Her government will have limited room for maneuver because as it has to hit targets agreed with Brussels to get the full 260-billion euros of disbursements in post-pandemic funding flowing into Italys economy. Shell also be juggling unreliable political bedfellows and an electorate that has kicked out one government after another over the past 20 years. Meloni will lead Italys 68th government since 1946. In reporting up and down the country this week, from Rome, through Florence and Bologna to Milan, I repeatedly heard the same phrase in support of Meloni: all the other politicians have failed us, so we may as well give her a go. The reasons for the long odds on a long-lasting government are already there. Her far-right coalition partners, Matteo Salvini of the League and Berlusconi, have yet to present a united front even on the campaign trail. A weak showing by Salvinis League, which polls indicate received about 9% of votes collapsing from 30% in 2018, may strengthen Melonis hand and reduce the chance of coalition instability. Advertisement It doesnt help Meloni that she has an untested team made up mostly of family and friends, including her brother-in-law. Her win has also come on the lowest voter turnout for an Italian election since World War II. While Meloni has promised tax cuts which could be a hard sell in Brussels considering the nations 150% debt ratio she has made clear she wants to focus on cultural issues. Her campaign has focused on slamming migration, what she calls the LGBTQ+ lobby and defense of what she calls the natural family.Meloni has also borrowed from the extremists and nativists from Orban to Tucker Carlson who accuse George Soros of promoting the ethnic substitution of (white) Italians. But with the economic outlook worsening, Melonis message may have limited reach at home. The greater risk is how far abroad she can spread it. Advertisement More From Bloomberg Opinion: Feminist or Not, Giorgia Meloni Has a Duty to Women: Maria Tadeo Orban Wants No Mixed-Race Europe. Ready, CPAC?: Andreas Kluth ECB Hawks, Beware of What You Wish For: Marcus Ashworth This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Promising a return to a Norman Rockwell-esque past where everyone had great jobs, financial stability and a shot at the American dream makes for great politics but terrible economic policies. The current and last US presidents, perhaps recalling an economy from their glory years, are both guilty of this. Donald Trump ran on the explicit promise to Make America Great Again by reducing dependence on international trade and re-shoring manufacturing. Joe Biden also lets nostalgia guide his economic policies, which attempt to bring back the glory days of unions while restoring an economy based in manufacturing. The economy, though, has evolved, and policies that might have worked during the heydays of our most recent presidents would have little impact now. The simple fact is that the US economy is no longer dominated by manufacturing, giving way to services. The way forward means policies that lead to a more dynamic economy by making it less burdensome to start a business, allowing for different kinds of work, offering education to workers of all ages and new models of unionization that provide independent workers insurance but still let them negotiate their own wages and hours. We tend to idealize the economy of the past because there was more unionized manufacturing employment that provided good, stable jobs that did not require a college degree. This was in part because, after World War II, the capital stock in other countries was destroyed, meaning American manufacturing could dominate and earn a large premium it shared with its workers. But the rest of the world caught up, the global economy became more competitive and upended trade, advances in technology led to efficiencies, and the premium shrunk. In 1970, manufacturing accounted for about 25% of nominal US gross domestic product but had fallen to just 11% in 2020. Advertisement It may be tempting to fight these forces, especially trade and technology, and the change they bring, but doing so serves neither workers nor consumers. For consumers, it only means higher prices. And while shielding workers from global trade may benefit them in the short run, it makes them less competitive and unable to work with new technology in the long run. Both presidents attempted to revive manufacturing and related jobs by using subsidies and credits. Trumps ill-fated attempt to build a factory for Foxconn (the maker of the iPhone) in Wisconsin at great taxpayer expense proved this approach was shortsighted. Some 13,000 manufacturing jobs were promised in Wisconsin, but only 3,000 materialized, most of which went to engineers and programmers, not those left behind by trade and technology. This was not just a failure of execution; most American workers lack the skills and are too expensive to make the inputs Foxconn needs. This is also why the prospects for Bidens Chips Act, which aims to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing, look equally dim and more expensive. Such efforts to revive the countrys manufacturing past do not work because they do not address the root cause of manufacturings decline. To be clear, American workers do have a future in making things, but what it will look like cant be predicted and government-directed, and it most definitely wont resemble the manufacturing industry of the past. Thats because American labor is more expensive and better educated than ever, and the countrys comparative advantage is now in services and in more high-skilled manufacturing. A better use of resources is to reduce the barriers to entrepreneurship, invest in skills training for Americans of all ages, and let the market determine the future of what gets made in America. Economists estimated that if the money spent on the Foxconn debacle were in the hands of entrepreneurs, 90,000 jobs would have been created instead of 3,000. Advertisement For most of the post-war era, there were big advantages to building what economists call firm-specific capital, which is knowledge of how things are done at a particular company. If you worked at Ford Motor Co., it was knowledge of how cars are made at Ford, and if you worked as an office administrator, you knew how to format documents in a way that was unique for your employer. But technology has made work more similar across companies: Everyone uses Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Technology also means firms can better track worker productivity. These trends mean there is less value in firm-specific capital and more in individual capital. In other words, there are bigger gains to be had building your own skill set and being a star employee. When there was more value in firm-specific capital, there was also a bigger return on union membership. Workers had less power since much of their value was tied to one employer, whereas now there is a high return to changing jobs. Unions worked by having all employees band together for similar pay and benefits in exchange for more security, meaning that highly productive employees subsidized less productive ones. When there were fewer gains to being an above-average worker, the extra stability was worth it. Now this is less true, which is one reason why many union drives are failing. In 1983, more than 20% of workers were members of a trade union. In 2021 it was just 10.3%, and most of them worked for the government. These days, there are also more gains to being a contract worker than one tied to a single employer. Many workers value flexibility, especially after they experienced remote work during the pandemic. Yet the current administration is also fighting this trend, pushing to classify gig workers as employees in another attempt to make jobs more like they used to be. Advertisement In fairness, Trump and Biden both attempted to address real problems in a transitioning economy that works for the well-educated or skilled but leaves many others behind. Trade and technology destroyed the way of life for many, but the solution is not a return to the unionized manufacturing past. Giving all types of workers the chance to thrive will take some experimentation in policy and markets. This requires creativity and leadership that is open to the future, rather than set on trying to bring back the past. 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 covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is 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. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share HPV vaccinations among teens in the US dropped precipitously during the early pandemic, a disappointing reversal for shots that can prevent more than 33,000 cases of cancer each year. Worse, efforts to get vaccinations back on track could be stymied by legal challenges. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight We cant let a decade worth of slow and steady progress in HPV vaccinations be lost. Getting the US public to accept the HPV vaccine as a safe and effective part of routine health care has been a decade-long slog. That effort involved allaying (unfounded) beliefs that these shots, by preventing HPV, could encourage sexual activity among teens. Thats because the virus excels at spreading through skin-to-skin contact so much so that nearly everyone is exposed, perhaps more than once, during their lifetime. And while the immune system can get rid of the infection most of the time, certain strains can stick around for years, kicking off a process that morphs otherwise healthy cells into cancerous ones. Advertisement So theres no doubt about the benefit of these shots: The HPV vaccine can nearly eliminate cases of cervical cancer, and have a profound impact on many others, including anal, penile, vaginal, vulvar and certain head and neck cancers. These vaccines also save the health-care system money. A recent study commissioned by St. Judes Childrens Research Hospital found that preventing cancers by increasing the rate of completed HPV vaccinations could lower national direct health-care spending by more than $26 million. Those are among the reasons HPV vaccination is now the norm for adolescents in many parts of the US. From 2016 to 2021, the percentage of teens receiving their first shot in the vaccine series leaped from roughly 60% to nearly 77%. And the gap between vaccination rates among girls, the initial targets of these shots in 2006, and boys, for whom it was recommended by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011, is finally starting to close. Advertisement The pandemic has threatened to upend that progress. Disruptions to routine doctor visits and shifting priorities during appointments meant that about 1 million doses were missed in 2020. Data from CDCs annual survey of teen vaccinations suggests at least a partial recovery in 2021, but we wont have complete data until next year. The missed doses also coincide with an increasingly hostile climate for preventive health-care services that fall under the broad umbrella of reproductive or sexual health. That politicization of routine health care could erode access to and acceptance of HPV vaccines. In the wake of the Supreme Courts ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which resulted in the overturning of the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade, access to many other therapies and preventive services, including HPV vaccination, could be at risk. Reproductive health experts worry that states with the most draconian laws around abortion might next try to limit access to FDA-approved medicines or vaccines that have long been viewed by conservative groups as controversial. For example, Texas lawmakers earlier this year tried to ban gender-affirming care for teens, and more states are trying to make it harder to access hormonal therapies. Advertisement And even if individual states dont take up such causes, private insurers might. That risk to the HPV vaccine was made clear earlier this month by a decision in a lawsuit brought against the US government by a Christian employer, Braidwood Management. The company said the Affordable Care Act required it to cover certain kinds of preventive care that violated its religious beliefs, and a Texas judge agreed in part, at least. The ruling said that Braidwood did not have to offer health insurance that covered PrEP, medicine taken to prevent transmission of HIV. But the original suit wasnt only focused on PrEP. It also called out coverage of contraceptives, HPV vaccination, and screening and counseling for sexually transmitted infections. And even though the suit ultimately didnt impact coverage of the HPV vaccines, the decision doesnt insulate them from future challenges, says Andrew Twinamatsiko, associate director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at the ONeill Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. The Texas ruling makes other preventive services vulnerable to religious challenges, however spurious. These types of legal challenges to preventive care are occurring in states where HPV vaccination rates are already among the lowest in the country. In Texas, for example, only 51% of teens were up to date on their HPV vaccination in 2021. Advertisement Mississippi, which brought the Dobbs case to the Supreme Court, ranks last in the country for HPV vaccinations among teens just 33% of teens there have been fully vaccinated against the virus. A recent survey of providers there revealed many reasons for the shortfall, from anti-vaccination views, to the connotation of HPV with sexual activity, to the way providers were talking to parents about the vaccine offering it as an option rather than recommending it as normal care, for example. People working in reproductive and sexual health are bracing themselves for more legal challenges, which if upheld could make HPV vaccines less affordable to some families. Just as important, they could upend the notion that these shots are a routine part of health care. We should feel positively and optimistically about the progress thats been made and not allow this reframing of HPV vaccination as this weird fringe thing, says Melissa Gilkey, a professor at University of North Carolinas Gillings School of Global Public Health. Advertisement Fortunately, there are some states showing how to get it right. Rhode Island stands out as having the highest HPV vaccination rate in the country in 2021. Thats not surprising given the state is among the few to mandate the shots. Starting in 2015, children there have been required to begin the series before entering seventh grade. Mandates probably arent going to be the answer for every state, but places where it is politically feasible (and where it wont draw negative attention to these shots) should be considering them. And the St. Judes report also suggested a side avenue for improving HPV vaccination: improving meningococcal vaccination, which is typically also offered when a child turns 11. That vaccine is mandated in many, but not all states, and the report found that people who get one often get the other. Health-care workers should be trained to strongly recommend both, the researchers said. But helping the HPV vaccine regain its momentum will be difficult if not impossible if the courts dont continue to recognize these cancer preventions as fundamental health care. It would be simply shameful to go backwards with a vaccine that could spare so many people from cancer. Advertisement More From Bloomberg Opinion: Who Is Still Dying From Covid? The CDC Cant Answer That: Faye Flam Breakthrough Malaria Shot Needs More Funding to Succeed: Lisa Jarvis Dont Want Later Abortions? Make Early Ones More Accessible: Sarah Green Carmichael This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Be indispensable. This commonly given career advice is hard to argue with. No doubt it sounds appealing these days, with a softening economy and layoffs once again dominating the business news. Its advice Ive tried to follow for much of my own working life. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight But the idea is deeply flawed. Yes, being indispensable ought to be insurance against getting fired, and getting fired is horrible. Anyone who has been through even a single round of layoffs knows the anxiety it causes, the Hunger Games-ish feeling of needing to out-compete ones friends and colleagues. Indispensability seems like the best armor but that armor can become a cage. Sometimes an effort to be indispensable turns an employee into a one-person bottleneck. But if theyre the single point of failure for a project, or the only person who knows how the system works, or the one employee the client is willing to talk to, it can be near impossible for them to leave whether thats taking time off for vacation or advancing to a bigger job. Advertisement A boss might reluctantly think, Janice has really earned a promotion, but wed need to hire two people to replace her, or Its not fair to keep sending Paul to deal with the angriest customers, but hes the only one who can talk them down. These employees are so valuable in their current jobs that promoting them would create an immediate problem for their managers. In a 2020 survey by LinkedIn, talent professionals said the biggest barrier to internal recruiting was bosses wanting to hold on to their best people. This might not be a problem if those employees are happy, but because so many organizations require a promotion in order to get a raise, indispensable people can quickly become underpaid. Say Janice were given the opportunity to move into management maybe she could teach more employees to be as productive as she is, maybe shed create 12 mini-Janices. With Pauls hard-won knowledge of customer needs, perhaps hed be better off in a new role, helping to redesign the product so it doesnt make people so angry. Advertisement But their indispensability and managements shortsightedness keeps them and the whole organization on the hamster wheel. This failure to promote people out of individual roles to that first rung of management is sometimes called a sticky floor, and it especially hurts women and people of color, stunting their careers before they ever have a chance to run into a glass ceiling. In organizations that lean too heavily on indispensability, valuable people become incentivized to leave to get recognition. A 2022 McKinsey study found that more than 80% of role moves involved someone switching employers; internal promotions remain rare. Most job changes they studied also involved people taking on substantially new skills, indicating that they had abilities their old employer had overlooked. When these crucial employees eventually depart, sometimes thats the first time bosses and colleagues realize the true extent of all the work they handled. It can take months for the team to recover. A paper by MIT economist Simon Jager and IAB economist Jorg Heining (called How Substitutable Are Workers? Evidence from Worker Deaths) concluded that when departed workers can be readily replaced, wages rise as their colleagues quickly pick up the slack. When workers are harder to replace, it has a negative effect that hurts wages for those left behind. Advertisement Instead of aspiring to be indispensable, workers and companies should recognize that its better for everyone if employees are skilled and valuable but interchangeable. This would mean an employee can leave for vacation with minimal fuss, knowing that her colleagues will handle anything that comes up while shes out. When workers can easily substitute for each other, their hours can be more predictable and also more flexible. Interchangeability can even help close the wage gap between men and women: A study of pharmacists by Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz found that increased substitutability among pharmacists thanks to uniform training, computerized customer data and the rise of national chains has brought the profession some of the highest hourly pay and one of the lowest gender-pay gaps. In an organization with skilled, substitutable employees, managers can redistribute work seamlessly when they realize that one person has taken on too much, or that another doesnt have enough to do. Its not a disaster if someone retires or quits. Customers arent upset if they dont get to talk to a particular person. And when employees fill in for each other, fraud has fewer places to hide; thats one reason some big banks make vacations mandatory. Advertisement If indispensability is so costly, why do we valorize it? Emotionally, it feels gratifying to be needed. And being indispensable might seem like good insurance against getting laid off. But as weve seen, that career insurance comes at a high premium. Nor is it foolproof consider the layoffs rippling through top consulting and law firms over the past few weeks. Did any of those recently fired professionals consider themselves substitutable when they were pulling yet another 80-hour week? More likely, they thought their efforts were uniquely essential. Fungibility gets a bad rap. We associate it with being lower-value, with being a cog in a larger machine. But there are a lot of highly skilled, highly paid jobs where workers can step into one anothers shoes: pilots, tax accountants, software developers. Health care is full of examples. If you need surgery, do you forgo pain medication until your preferred anesthesiologist is available? In most sectors, indispensability is a habit, not a law of physics. Take editing, a profession Ive been in for almost 20 years. Ive worked at places where editors substitute for one another, filling in when one is out on vacation, and at places where editors do not. Although it somewhat hurts my ego to admit it, the copy turns out just as well when we stand in for each other. Advertisement Indispensability isnt only costly, its unnecessary. There are many other ways to impress ones boss. Be diligent, meticulous, efficient, respectful, cheerful. Exceed expectations. Minimize errors. Take initiative. Figure out what your bosss priorities are and make them your own. And let that be enough. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X All Basically Agree on WFH: Chris Hughes How to Win the Hybrid Workplace Revolution: Adrian Wooldridge Four-Day Workweeks Can Burn You Out: Sarah Green Carmichael This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Sarah Green Carmichael is a Bloomberg Opinion editor. Previously, she was managing editor of ideas and commentary at Barrons and an executive editor at Harvard Business Review, where she hosted HBR IdeaCast. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share BELGRADE, Serbia Serbia has signed an agreement with Russia for mutual consultations on foreign policy matters, the Balkan countrys media reported Saturday. Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Nikola Selakovic signed the agreement Friday along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, where most Western delegations shunned Russias top diplomat over the countrys invasion of Ukraine. The consultation plan covered by the agreement is expected to last for two years, Serbias foreign ministry said in a Friday statement. Serbia officially is a candidate for European Union membership, but the government maintains relations with Russia. Although Serbia said it supports Ukraines territorial integrity, the government has repeatedly refused to join Western sanctions against its Slavic allies in Moscow. Aligning foreign policies with the EU is one of the main pre-conditions for joining the 27-nation bloc, but Serbia has increasingly defied calls to do so. Advertisement Media in Serbia and Russia said Serbias populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, met Lavrov in New York and the two emphasized the joint focus on further dynamic development of Russian-Serbian relations. Officials from Serbias pro-Western opposition said the signing of the latest deal with Russia is a sign that Vucic, a former ultranationalist, has given up on the Balkan country joining the EU and is bringing it closer into Moscows fold. The centrist SSP opposition party said it is incredible that at a time when most of the world is apprehensively watching Moscows actions, Serbia signed an agreement to consult with a country that directly violates the U.N. Charter and intends to annex the (Ukrainian) territory. Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin, Vucics informal spokesperson, said in a statement that expanding cooperation with Russia is not a matter of respecting the past but a responsible decision facing the future. Serbia is important for Russia as a way to destabilize the Balkans and potentially shift part of the worlds attention from the war in Ukraine. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share QUETTA, Pakistan A Pakistani army helicopter crashed during an overnight mission in the countrys southwest, killing all six military personnel who were on board, including both pilots, the military said Monday. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight The crash took place in the district of Hernai, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. It was not immediately clear what mission the helicopter was on, and the army provided no further details. Local authorities said an investigation was underway to determine what caused the crash. The latest incident comes weeks after a helicopter carrying a regional commander and five other soldiers crashed in Baluchistan during a flood-related operation because of a technical fault, killing everyone on board. Since mid-June, when unprecedented heavy rains and flooding gripped Pakistan, the military has been engaged in relief and rescue efforts across the country struggling with the deluge that has killed more than 1,600 people. Advertisement The crash came days after insurgents abducted two security personnel in the region. Troops have since been trying to find and rescue the men, according to two security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media. In July, insurgents killed an army officer and his friend after abducting them from the town of Ziarat in Baluchistan. The outlawed Baluchistan Liberation Army, designated a terrorist group by the United States in 2019, claimed the killings at the time. Officials say the group has been behind most of the attacks on security forces in Baluchistan. For the past two decades, Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency by the Baluchistan Liberation Army and other separatist groups demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. The government says it has quelled the insurgency, but violence in the province has persisted. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share CAIRO Militia infighting that erupted over the weekend in western Libya and killed at least five people, including a 10-year-old girl, continued Monday, authorities said. It was the latest round of violence to rock the North African nation mired in decadelong chaos. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight The fighting broke out Sunday between rival militias in the western town of Zawiya, where armed groups like in many other towns and cities in oil-rich Libya are competing for influence. Along with the five who were killed, at least 13 other civilians were wounded in the clashes, the Health Ministrys emergency services said. The fighting trapped dozens of families living in the area for many hours, said Malek Merset, a spokesman for the emergency services. He said emergency services were still trying to evacuate trapped civilians. Advertisement Local media reported that one militia fired at a member of its rivals, wounding a militiaman who was taken to hospital. Footage circulating online shows heavy fire lighting up the sky at night. The clashes caused widespread panic among residents, and many government facilities and businesses in the town closed down. By midday Monday, the Libyan Red Crescent announced a cease-fire, without offering further details. In a statement following the cease-fire, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya condemned the militias use of heavy artillery in densely populated neighborhoods and called for the unconditional protection of civilians. Violence has regularly escalated between militias in western Libya. In August, clashes in the capital of Tripoli killed more than 30 people one of the deadliest bouts of fighting in Libya in many months. Advertisement Libya was plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The oil-rich county has now for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments. In Tripoli, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah has refused to step down after Libya failed to hold elections last year. His rival, Prime Minister Fathy Bashagha, operates from the eastern city of Benghazi after failed efforts to install his government in the capital. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share CAIRO Sudanese medical officials warned Monday that more than 1,500 unidentified bodies piled up in several of the countrys morgues could lead to an outbreak of disease, amid accusations the government is covering up their causes of death. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight Among the deceased are believed to be pro-democracy protesters, who activists say were killed by government forces in their crackdown on demonstrations. They believe the failure to conduct proper autopsies is an attempt to conceal evidence of those killings. Mahjoub Babaker, a forensic medicine and toxicology consultant for the countrys autopsy body, expressed concerns because of the proximity of one of the morgues to a market, saying the bodies could spread a plague among local residents. At a press conference Monday, he and three other officials argued against the need to carry out independent autopsies, saying instead that there should be a mass burial of the bodies for public safety reasons. They announced a postponement of any autopsies in order to discuss matters with the deceased individuals families. Advertisement Reports of the backlog of bodies awaiting autopsy first emerged in May, with a news video released earlier this month showing piles of corpses and limbs kept in a building that appeared to have no refrigeration. Then, the countrys top public prosecutor authorized the mass burial of the bodies last month without an autopsy. It came as the country faced an ongoing crackdown on anti-military protests after a military coup last year. In October, Sudans short-lived democratic transition was upended when the countrys leading general, Abdel-Fattah Burhan, deposed the government and locked up hundreds of officials and activists. Pro-democracy groups and families of missing protesters have said the failure to conduct proper autopsies is an attempt to conceal evidence of the killing of hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators by Sudanese armed forces following the 2019 popular uprising that ousted long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir. In June 2019, the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful armed paramilitary group, opened fire on a group of sit-in protesters in Khartoum, killing more than 100 people. Advertisement The prosecutors decision in May has sparked several demonstrations outside the morgues from pro-democracy groups. On Sunday, the Sudanese Doctors Committee, which has tracked protester deaths and injuries since the coup, held a protest outside the prosecutors headquarters. In a statement, the group, called for all burials to be stopped until a team of international, independent and reliable forensic medicine is retrieved, protecting the rights of the missing and their relatives, and seeking to reach the truth and achieve justice. GiftOutline Gift Article Australias largest fresh produce grower, Costa Group, has been hammered on the sharemarket after announcing the sudden departure of its chief executive Sean Hallahan, who will step down from his position immediately. Hallahan had been a senior executive at Costa for five years, and has only been in the chief executive officer role for 18 months after being appointed in March 2021. Avocado and fresh produce grower Costa Group has announced the sudden resignation of its chief executive. Credit:iStock Reaching my decision has been a process and there are several things that have gone into my decision, he said in a statement. It has been an intense couple of years in agriculture made even more challenging with the overlay of the COVID-19 pandemic. Costas share price closed Mondays session down 14.2 per cent to $2.18. Like The Dry, the book opens with an abandoned child and a mystery: six-week-old Zoe Gillespie is discovered cocooned in her bassinet in the pram bay of the Marralee Valley Annual Food and Wine Fair while her mother, Kim, has gone missing presumed drowned. There will, nevertheless, be many reported sightings of Kim on that fateful night. While Falk also appeared in Harpers second book, Force of Nature, set in the fictional Giralang Ranges, Exiles marks a return to the regional landscape and narrative terrain that characterised The Dry, without, thank goodness, the murderous drought. Exiles, Jane Harpers fifth crime novel, is dedicated to the readers, who make these books what they are. Its an intriguing statement suggesting that the author certainly has her audience in mind as she writes. And with this book, Harper may well have given her legions of readers exactly what they have been waiting for: a beautifully observed crime novel about regional life featuring the reticent and endearing federal policeman, Aaron Falk, whom we first met in Harpers hugely successful first crime novel, The Dry. Credit: One year later, and Falk is on his way back to Marralee in South Australia in a second attempt to stage the christening of his soon-to-be godson, Henry Aaron Raco. Henry is the youngest child of Falks policeman friend whom he met some five years earlier in Kiewarra, the small-town setting for The Dry. Harper neatly stitches the backstory of The Dry into the present, with some updates about the characters we met that helps establish the continuity of Falks fictional world. While the first christening was abandoned because of Kims disappearance, given she was the former partner of Racos brother Charlie, with whom she also had a daughter, there is a determination that the second will go ahead. It will, however, be preceded by an appeal at the annual fair initiated by Kims 17-year-old daughter Zara, who cant accept either that her mother would simply abandon her family or that she would have drowned herself in the local reservoir. Suicide is the go-to solution, although the body has never been found. While the mystery of Kims disappearance might be the narrative hook on which this crime novel hangs, what renders it so engaging is Harpers keen observation of people and place captured in swift glimpses. Meeting his godson after a year, the toddler fixes Falk with a glassy accusing gaze, while his little sister Eva shyly slides a glittery hairclip into Falks hand. This is what small children do. Falk is clearly touched by this young family and their kindness as he contemplates an alternative country lifestyle on Charlies vineyard miles away from his workaholic existence in Melbourne. Harper enables these comparisons through a series of flashbacks. They include the occasion when Falk first encounters Gemma Tozer, the director of the Marralee Valley Annual Food and Wine Festival, in a Melbourne bar while they are both waiting for Raco. Falk is one year out of another failed relationship with a woman who like him, always put her work first, though the damage appears to have been minimal, the gaps had closed over as though they had never been there. Ouch. While this cramped his style as an actor, he decided it was worth it, feeling obliged to do what he could to reverse the unwritten rule that black people on screen should be condemned to roles as servants and clowns. Sidney Poitier had a saintly air about him. The first black actor to become a big box-office star, he made sure the characters he played came thoroughly equipped with courage, dignity and moral strength. Inevitably, it caused Malcolm X and the Black Power movement of the 1960s to write him off for being too good to be true, while The New York Times weighed in with a piece coming down on him for portraying one-dimensional, antiseptic heroes fulfilling a white liberals fantasy. He recalls these slurs in Sidney, Reginald Hudlins fond and engaging account of his remarkable life. And typically, he sounds rueful rather than justifiably furious. After all, around this time, he and his best friend and fellow actor Harry Belafonte were risking their lives for the civil rights cause. Having agreed to carry money to the activists in Mississippi, they flew in one night in 1964, expecting to be met by federal marshals, since there had been death threats. Instead, it fell to local activists to protect them from Ku Klux Klansmen, who tried to run them off the road during a hair-raising drive from the airport Anchoring the film is a lengthy interview Poitier gave during his retirement, but Hudlin has come up with a wealth of archival photographs and footage taking us right back to his childhood on Cat Island in the Bahamas, where he was born in 1927. The island lacked electricity and running water and Poitier was 10 before he saw a car for the first time. His introduction to racial prejudice came a little later, prompting his move to New York, where he found a haven in Harlem. Former surfing star Chris Davidson has died after an alleged one-punch assault outside a pub on the NSW mid-north coast. Davidson had allegedly been punched in the face and fell to the ground hitting his head, knocking the 45-year-old unconscious, police said. Former surfing champion Chris Davidson died after an alleged one-punch assault outside a pub in NSW mid-north coast. Credit:Instagram Grant Coleman, 42, has been charged with assault causing death. He is the brother of Waratahs coach Darren Coleman, who had driven to the mid-north coast on Sunday to support his family. Emergency services were called to Sportsmans Way in South West Rocks just after 11pm on Saturday. There are no cheap seats at an AFL grand final, but just look at the spot $4.5 billion buys you. Seven boss Kerry Stokes and News Corp co-chair Lachlan Murdoch got prime position either side of AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan to watch the game, after Stokes Channel Seven and the Murdochs Foxtel recently agreed to pay the big bucks in return for seven years of AFL TV rights. Kerry Stokes, Gillon McLachlan and Lachlan Murdoch at the AFL Grand Final on Saturday. Credit: CBD does feel, though, that Sevens commentary team could have been a teeny bit more gracious to Murdoch. When the cameras picked up the trio, the men behind the microphones gushed about their own boss, Stokes, while if Murdoch jnr got a mention at all, it was decidedly muted. Maybe they were afraid of legal action from the increasingly litigious heir apparent. Were back. Despite a little criticism, the Australian Republic Movement (ARM) is certain we were right to make no comment during the mourning period after the death of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II. In the face of the record tidal wave of high emotion and grief sweeping across the nation, the idea that we should stand on the shore waving the ARM flag to try and turn it or divert it, was as absurd as it would have been jarring and counter-productive. As to the three polls taken in the very depths of that mourning period showing a drop in support for the idea of an Australian republic, I am both amazed and heartened that on average, it was less than five per cent. In our strong view the significance of such polling at such a time is closer to zero per cent. Australian Republican Movement chair Peter FitzSimons launches the new Australian republic model in January. Credit:Kate Geraghty The charge that the ARM is not diverse enough? I will take that from those with a background of pushing diversity on all fronts, and we are addressing it. (Big news to come shortly.) But Ill be damned if Ill take it from critics with a track record of fawning and cooing to all of the English royal family bar its one actually diverse member, who they incessantly criticise for everything: Meghan. Youre the ones who value diversity? The Resolve Political Monitor surveyed 3618 eligible voters in two stages, one in August and one in September, during a period of widespread media debate on the government proposal. The second track was held from September 14 to 18, when national news was dominated by the death of Queen Elizabeth and there was debate over a referendum on becoming a republic. Asked which issue should take priority, 45 per cent of voters named the Indigenous Voice and 27 per cent named the republic, while 28 per cent were undecided. The stronger support for the Voice matches the priority Albanese has set out in remarks since the death of the Queen. Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said on Sunday the Voice would not weigh in on taxation or defence but would stick to issues that directly affected Aboriginal people. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused the government on Friday of making a lot of this up on the run but Burney said this was nonsense because the government was working through the process. Albanese aired his plan for the Voice at the Garma Festival in the Northern Territory at the end of July when he said the referendum would ask approval to set up a body to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. He said the amendment would say: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to parliament and the executive government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The next sentence in the amendment would be: The parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. The central questions in the Resolve Political Monitor put the prime ministers precise wording to all respondents, in the first published survey of his specific proposal. The use of two survey tracks over two months produced a higher survey sample to provide more confidence in the estimates for majorities in each state. The margin of error for the national results was 1.6 per cent and ranged in size for each state, with a margin of error of 2.9 per cent for NSW and 8.9 per cent for Tasmania. In each state, the majority support for the Voice was greater than the margin of error. Loading A challenging campaign lies ahead for advocates of the Voice when Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is questioning Labors process and a leading figure within the Coalition, Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, does not support the change. With the Greens arguing for a treaty with First Australians as a priority, Victorian Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has described the Voice as a waste of money and is seeking negotiation with the government on the potential amendment. A key issue in dispute is the scope of the Voice to shape federal laws on all issues or only specific laws about First Australians, along with a dispute over whether the Voice should have a say on executive decisions or only on draft legislation in parliament. On this question, 24 per cent said the Voice should only be about issues relating to Indigenous Australians, 26 per cent said it should be about all issues and policy areas, 22 per cent said they did not support a Voice at all and 27 per cent were undecided. (This adds up to 99 due to rounding.) Voters appear to have a high awareness of the campaign for Indigenous recognition in the Constitution, with 85 per cent saying they were definitely aware or knew at least some detail. Asked about their awareness of the Indigenous Voice, 75 per cent said they were aware of the campaign for the change and 65 per cent said they were aware of the idea for a referendum to enshrine the Voice in the Constitution. Australians were divided on what the change could achieve, with 27 per cent saying it would deliver practical outcomes as well as symbolic recognition but 15 per cent saying it would be symbolic only and 17 per cent saying it would not achieve either symbolic or practical benefits. He was quite an influential person. He stepped up Japans presence on the international stage and helped the economy through Abenomics. But even Niwa finds it difficult to justify the links with the Unification Church. Of course, its quite important to cut off the relationship with an organisation that damages other people, he says. Tetsuya Yamagami, accused of killing Shinzo Abe, is escorted by police in Nara. Credit:Japan News-Yomiuri Even Abes harshest critics say Yamagamis actions were abhorrent. But Yamagami and his family were damaged by a church that has spent decades building its empire in Japan. The Yamagami family home in the comfortable middle-class suburb of Hiramatsu was once surrounded by streets filled with manicured hedges and roses. By the time Yamagami shot Abe in July, he was living in an 18-square metre flat not far from Yamato-Saidaiji station, where he built homemade guns and bombs after midnight. The first his neighbours heard of him was when police barged into his room, leaving behind dents on the door that are visible today. It was a shocking thing, said one neighbour, who asked not to be identified. A series of dents can be seen on the front door of where assassin Tetsuya Yamagami used to live in Nara, Japan. Credit: Yamagamis family is typical of victims of the Unification Church. His mother donated more than a million dollars to the church from insurance payouts and land sales for the promise of salvation. That left her family in poverty and her son unable to afford to go to university. He then descended further into mental illness after the suicide of his older brother. Tokyo lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi, who has been following the church for 35 years, has found more than 34,537 victims in Japan so far who have donated the equivalent of more than $1.3 billion. Eighty per cent of them are older wealthy or middle-income women, a generation that has retained traditional gender roles. Targeted by the church during the day when their husbands are at work, they have handed over fortunes to a church with its headquarters in South Korea that warns they and their families face eternal damnation if they dont pay for Japans sins. The church had a compelling message to sell Japan committed war crimes during its occupation of Korea and World War II. Its congregation now had to atone through donations. It found a gap in Japan a country with a dwindling number of devout religious followers where the local saying goes Japanese are born Shinto, married Christian, die Buddhist. Japan is the South Korean churchs largest market and biggest source of income. Loading For the believers in Japan it is like the gods ask them for money, so they have to do it, says Yamaguchi. They say if you dont have the key to open the door of the cage then your families will suffer. They thought they were doing the right thing. Then they ask their families and their friends to do it. When they find out it is just a lie, they have breakdowns. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age this week visited the church in Nara where Yamagami practised his shooting, but its doors were closed. In a sign that the commercial fallout from the assassination may be more significant than the political, the Unification Church is abandoning the premises. Inside a yellow poster says, the mother of peace will wipe out the tears of human beings. But fewer humans are coming here now. One neighbour who lives next to one of its larger churches says only two to three people visit every few days. Tokyo lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi, a member of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales. Credit:Viola Kam They have stopped gaining followers, says Yamaguchi. But they still need money to finance their mass weddings in Korea and hundreds of premises around Japan. They are asking the Japanese church to give them more money, says Yamaguchi. Loading The church has denied any wrongdoing. Hideyuki Teshigawara, a church executive, said on Thursday that the church would now take into consideration the financial situation of followers and ensure that donations are not excessive. Rome: Italian voters rewarded Giorgia Melonis eurosceptic party with neo-fascist roots, propelling the country toward what likely would be its first far-right-led government since World War II, based on partial results on Monday from parliamentary elections. In a victory speech, far-right Italian leader Giorgia Meloni struck a moderate tone after projections based on votes counted from some two-thirds of polling stations showed her Brothers of Italy party ahead of other contenders in Sundays balloting. Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, reacts at the partys general election night event in Rome, Italy, on Monday, September 26. Credit:Bloomberg If we are called to govern this nation, we will do it for everyone, we will do it for all Italians and we will do it with the aim of uniting the people [of this country], Meloni said at her partys Rome headquarters. Italy chose us, she said. We will not betray [the country] as we never have. Vladimir Putin is fighting a war on two fronts. The one on our TV screens is an old-style shooting war of the kind we never thought we would see in Europe again, against the people of Ukraine. Its weapons are bullets and missiles. Its objective is the most ancient of all war aims: territorial conquest. Despite the encouraging recent military success of Ukrainian forces in the north-east, the massive disparity in force numbers makes recent predictions of Russias defeat premature. The other is a more modern form of warfare an economic war against the other nations of Europe. Its weapon is energy, in particular gas. Its objective is not conquest but disruption. In the coming northern winter, as he tries to blast the people of Ukraine into submission, Putin will attempt to freeze the people of wider Europe into acquiescence. Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging an economic war against the nations of Europe. Credit:Kremlin via AP Just as we overestimated Russias military capability Western intelligence anticipated a quick and dirty war in which Ukrainian arms would be swiftly overwhelmed we must not make the mistake of underestimating the impact of massive energy shortages across Europe, as temperatures plummet and the demand for heating drives energy costs sharply upwards. So far, most of the discussion of the economic dimension of the Ukraine war has focused on sanctions against Russia. Although the West has imposed sweeping economic sanctions including Magnitsky-style sanctions which personally target the Putin high command and oligarchs close to him so far, they have failed to blunt Russias will. Their impact was weakened because European nations dependent upon Russian gas kept pouring money into Putins coffers. KUTZTOWN, Pa. NASA's spacecraft, known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, got closer Monday afternoon to its intended target, an asteroid that it will be crashing into with the goal of altering its orbit. "We don't currently have any known asteroids that will impact Earth, at least in any of our lifetimes," said Phillip Reed, an astronomy and physics professor at Kutztown University. He said it is estimated that there are about 25,000 asteroids out there. DART is being done in case an asteroid one day poses a threat to Earth. "This asteroid that they're going after is a binary asteroid, so it's got a large asteroid that's about half a mile in size, and then it has a smaller moon," Reed said. "The asteroid has its own moon that's about the size of I don't know, 500 feet." The plan is for DART to slam into the asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour, which scientists said they expect will carve out a crater. They said it could take days or weeks to determine how much the asteroid's path has changed. DART was launched last November and is said to be the size of a vending machine. "I am hoping that people don't get scared that there's an asteroid coming that we have to deflect," Reed said. "That's not the case. This is just a test to see the effect of impacting an asteroid with a human-made satellite." NASA said DART is expected to crash into the asteroid at 7:14 p.m. Monday. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Allentown police are investigating a deadly Sunday afternoon shooting in the area of Stevens Park. The shooting happened around 2:50 p.m. in the area of 6th and Tilghman streets. Police said a male was found dead at the scene. Authorities have yet to release his name or age. Police did not specify if any suspects have been identified. The shooting has left neighbors stunned. "My husband and I were just watching something and we heard one shot and usually it's motorcycles backfiring," said neighbor Megan Silver. Silver said she and her husband were sitting in the living room of their Allentown home near Stevens Park when they heard two more gunshots. "We heard a shout right afterwards. I want to say about five minutes later we heard ambulances pull up," said Silver. Police taped off several streets in the area of the park, and a couple forensic vehicles could be seen. Footage from above showed multiple officers standing in the park. "It's scary because I know a lot of young kids live around here. There's a lot of big families," said Silver. Julio Cruz was walking home when he said he saw police activity, what he tells us he thought was a traffic stop. "I'm just caught off guard because it's usually pretty quiet around here, you know the loudest thing you hear is kids screaming, not anything of a shooting," said Cruz. It is an area where Silver said she often takes her daughter outside. "I don't know if it happened in the park or close to it, but it happened close enough that if I was out with my baby at that time, I probably would've seen something," said Silver. The Allentown Police Department is asking anyone with information to call Detectives at 610-437-7721 or the Police Desk at 610-437-7753 (ext 1). Additionally,anonymous text tips can be sent via the Tip411 App available on the Allentown Police Facebook Page. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A vigil took place Monday in Stevens Park in Allentown, the scene of a deadly shooting on Sunday. The victim was 15-year-old Treyshawn Tracy, who was shot and killed in broad daylight. His family did not want to speak with us yet, but we spoke with Jean Garcia with the organization Promise Neighborhoods, who is working with them. Tracy was a student at William Allen High School. "Treyshawn was a great kid. A lot of people loved him. Families here are grieving and mourning. Community members, school, friends, teachers. He was an amazing kid," said Garcia. People we met in the park Monday left candles burning to remember how amazing he was. "I lit it for the family and friends just to pay my respects. He was just a kid, this has to stop," said Crystal Cruz, who said she lives near the park with kids of her own, and worries about their safety. For Garcia, finding an answer to the violence is frustrating. She's been doing this work for years, and she feels the city still isn't safe. "There has to be some sort of responsibility from the city here. When a child is murdered in a city park in broad daylight, who do we talk to?" said Garcia. For now, Garcia said the neighborhood has to work on a solution to keep their children safe moving forward. "What happens at this park? Somebody has to answer for that. What is not being done here? What is being done here? What efforts are being put into keeping the children safe here?" said Garcia. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A man who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting another man on July 4, 2020 has learned his fate. Kenith Otero-Ruiz has been sentenced to 24-50 years in prison, said the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office. His sentence included a string of other crimes, including burglary, theft and fleeing police. In May, Otero-Ruiz admitted to shooting and killing Jose Melendez, 26, at Trout Creek Park in Allentown after the two got into a wreck. He was arrested in Puerto Rico after fleeing the scene. BETHLEHEM TWP., Pa. - St. Luke's University Health Network has opened a new emergency room in Northampton County. The new emergency room opened at the networks Anderson Campus just off Route 33 at 1872 St. Lukes Boulevard in Bethlehem Township, according to a news release from St. Luke's. The new emergency department, which faces Freemansburg Avenue, includes a Level II Adult Trauma Center and has increased capacity from 31 to 45 beds, allowing more patients to be seen and treated quickly, St. Luke's said. The health network says the waiting area was designed for comfort and safety, incorporating ideas for improvement that were identified during the COVID-19 pandemic. The three-bed trauma bay has dedicated radiology services, including an integrated built-in x-ray arm that extends over all three bays and is immediately adjacent to the GE CT scanner, which St. Luke's says decreases the time needed for testing, diagnostics and results. St. Lukes Andersons Emergency Department has steadily experienced an increase in patients due to changes in the health care landscape, according to the news release. People who delayed care during the pandemic are now experiencing complications from serious chronic conditions. "In addition, as the region has grown, roadway traumas have increased, behavioral health needs have escalated, and our aging population requires a higher level of care," the health network said. This enhanced and enlarged emergency department will allow us to accommodate the robust patient volume we experience at St. Lukes Anderson in a much more efficient manner, says John B. Wilson, Chief of Emergency Medicine, St. Lukes Anderson Campus. Due to overwhelming demand, the original emergency department quickly outgrew its space, so additional beds were added in 2013. Now we have moved into an even larger, brand-new space to continue meeting that demand. Says Ed Nawrocki, President, St. Lukes Anderson Campus, St. Lukes is committed to providing access to high quality health care. We will continue to enhance our facilities, train and recruit the best physicians and clinical staff and incorporate state-of-the-art technology to meet the ever-changing needs of families in the communities we serve. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A "potential threat of gun violence" directed towards Allentown's South Mountain Middle School for Monday was found to be not credible, according to city police. Authorities were made aware of the "potential threat" on Sunday, according to a news release from the police department. "The Allentown Police Department immediately initiated an investigation into the threat and found that it was not credible," the news release stated. "There will be increased security measures in place to provide additional presence in the school." Students are reminded that they can provide tips to the Allentown School Districts Anonymous Tip line at 1-844-SAFE2SAY or www.safe2saypa.org. Additionally, information may be provided at the Allentown Police Department Tip-411 website. BANGOR, Pa. - Congresswoman Susan Wild is taking steps to help combat a medical worker shortage in the Lehigh Valley. She presented Suburban EMS in Bangor with a check for more than $230,000 Monday. It's to help with the group's program for new emergency medical technicians. The program offers eight weeks of accelerated paramedic training in skills like providing CPR and first aid, and responding to natural disasters. Wild also took a tour of the training facility. She says the program helps address the shortage in the medical industry. "Anybody who has ever called 911 and needs medical help knows just how much we need to have our EMS workers and a shortage is just unacceptable," said Wild, (D)-District 7. The program was made possible by a Community Project Funding Grant. Students are also paid hourly as full-time employees with benefits. Services have been set to remember a Schuylkill County man killed in a motorcycle crash in Delaware last week. SrA Kohl Reed, 22, of the U.S. Air Force, died Sunday, Sept. 18 after his motorcycle crashed with an SUV on Route 1 in Kent County, said Delaware State Police. Reed, of the Shenandoah area, was assigned to the Dover Air Force Base, his obituary says. Services include a viewing Tuesday morning in Shenandoah, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial, then interment with military honors in Annville. NORRISTOWN, Pa. - A jury convicted two men of fatally shooting a woman in her car in Montgomery County in 2020. Chong Ling Dan and Ricky Vance were found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in the death of Ebony Pack in Lansdale, said the county district attorney's office. Pack, 30, was shot and killed while stopped at a red light on her drive home from work on Nov. 28, 2020, authorities said. Cell phone records and the vehicle used to commit the shooting all link Dan, Vance and a third man, Terrance Marche, who is believed to be the gunman. Marche is still at large, and authorities believe he fled to Honduras. Investigators had said Dan was jealous of Pack because she was his ex-girlfriend's new love interest. The arrest of a pro-life activist from Upper Bucks County for allegedly assaulting a Planned Parenthood volunteer escort is coming under scrutiny. Mark Houck, 48, of Kintnersville, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday. Federal prosecutors allege he assaulted a 72-year-old reproductive health care clinic escort in Philadelphia twice during separate incidents on October 13, 2021. Houck is founder of the Catholic lay ministry, The King's Men. An online post by the ministry argues Houck was only protecting his son. The post says Houck was praying outside the clinic when he "pushed away" a male escort who wouldn't stop yelling at his son. Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano issued a statement blaming Houck's arrest on what he calls a "weaponization of the FBI." Mastriano alleges a SWAT team raided Houck's home. A statement from the FBI said no SWAT members were involved and there was no raid. The FBI says agents knocked on his door, identified themselves and took him into custody without incident. A statement from the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case said "assault is always a serious offense," including under the federal law that protects victims who are targeted because of their association with a reproductive health care clinic. If convicted, Houck could face up to 11 years in prison. An online fund drive for the Houck family has raised more than six figures. MILFORD TWP., Pa. - State police in Bucks County are asking for the public's help in a catalytic converter theft in a restaurant parking lot. It happened around 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 10 at Faraco's Pizzeria on Route 663 in Milford Township, near the Pennsylvania Turnpike, police said. A black Range Rover pulled into the parking lot and parked next to another vehicle. Someone inside the Range Rover then got out, stole the catalytic converter from the parked car, and took off, police said. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 215-249-9191 or contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers. ?? El Ministerio de Salud informa que 1897 personas han sido dadas de alta por #ViruelaDelMono y se han detectado 41 casos nuevos. Todos vienen recibiendo asistencia medica y se viene realizando seguimiento a sus contactos. pic.twitter.com/kx7ABPJ3WG PHILLIPSBURG, N.J. - New Jersey has the strictest bag ban in the country. "You do a really big and important bill like this, you try to get everything right the first time," said state Sen. Bob Smith, who was a co-sponsor of the bill. "But there is a glitch. It's a small one, but we're going to fix it very soon." People who order groceries for delivery are ending up with stockpiles of reusable bags. As of now, they have to buy more reusable bags with every purchase, and can't give them back to the store. "I'm hoping by the end of the year to have the fix," said Smith. On October 6, the state Senate Environment and Energy Committee is holding a hearing to get feedback from the public and to put together an amendment to address the issue. Smith says option one is let the bags be returned to stores for sanitation. "These bags cost somewhere between 50 cents and $1, and it may cost only 10 cents to sanitize them," said Smith. Two is use paper bags for only home delivery, as grocers figure out a more sustainable solution. "We also now have paper bags that have more than 40% recycled content," said Smith. "So, if you said for a short period of time, like five years, we would allow paper bags to be used, it would still be thematic of the bill, which is namely to reduce waste." The third possibility is the Costco model, meaning using empty store boxes for home deliveries. "The fourth option is to give the customer the option of saying, 'I don't want them in a container,'" said Smith. Since the ban went into effect in May, many agree they see fewer plastic bags flying in the wind, clogging storm drains or down at the beach. The goal was to reduce plastics in the environment, and Smith says it's working. "I think it's great," said Kelly Ellis of Lopatcong Township. "I could actually fit more into the bags that I purchased and keep my food cold." "I would reuse the plastic bags for garbage can liners or cleaning up after pets or keeping something dry," said Dennis Kane of Bloomsbury. "Now, I have to go find other things to use for that." "It doesn't bother me too much either way," said Ron Rush of Harmony Township. "I've been using reusable for years." The state Department of Environmental Protection is encouraging residents who have extra, clean reusable bags to donate them to food banks and pantries. "The Department is actively looking into methods and technologies that promote the reusability of reusable carryout bags, and is also consulting with the Plastics Advisory Council on this topic," the state Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement. TORONTO (AP) Hundreds of thousands of people in Atlantic Canada remained without power Sunday and officials said they found the body of a woman swept into the sea after former Hurricane Fiona washed away houses, stripped off roofs and blocked roads across the countrys Atlantic provinces. After surging north from the Caribbean, Fiona came ashore before dawn Saturday as a post-tropical cyclone, battering Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Quebec with hurricane-strength winds, rains and waves. Defense Minister Anita Anand said troops would help remove fallen trees, restore transportation links and do whatever else is required for as long as it takes. Fiona was blamed for at least five deaths in the Caribbean, and one death in Canada. Authorities found the body of a 73-year-old woman in the water who was missing in Channel-Port Aux Basques, a town on the southern coast of Newfoundland. Police said the woman was inside her residence moments before a wave struck the home Saturday morning, tearing away a portion of the basement. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a release on social media that with assistance from the Canadian Coast Guard, as other rescue teams her body woman was recovered late Sunday afternoon. Living in coastal communities we know what can happen and tragically the sea has taken another from us, said Gudie Hutchings, the Member of Parliament from Newfoundland. As of Sunday evening, more than 211,000 Nova Scotia Power customers and over 81,000 Maritime Electric customers in the province of Prince Edward Island about 95% of the total remained in the dark. So were more than 20,600 homes and businesses in New Brunswick. More than 415,000 Nova Scotia Power customers about 80% in the province of almost 1 million people had been affected by outages Saturday. Utility companies say it could be days before the lights are back on for everyone. Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Amanda McDougall said Sunday that over 200 people were in temporary shelters. Over 70 roads were completely inaccessible in her region. She said she couldnt count the number of homes damaged in her own neighborhood. She said it was critical for the military to arrive and help clear debris, noting that the road to the airport is inaccessible and the tower has significant damage. McDougall said it is amazing there are no injuries in her community. People listened to the warnings and did what they were supposed to do and this was the result, she said Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King said that over 100 military personnel would arrive Sunday to assist in recovery efforts. Schools will be closed Monday and Tuesday. He said many bridges are destroyed. The magnitude and severity of the damage is beyond anything that weve seen in our provinces history, King said, and that it would take a herculean effort by thousands of people to recover over the coming days and weeks. Kim Griffin, a spokeswoman for Prince Edward Islands electricity provider, said it would likely take many days to restore power across the island. The sense on the street is one of shock and awe over the magnitude of the storm, said Sean Casey, a member of parliament who represents Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. He added that locals are also determined to mount a recovery effort. A long line quickly formed after the first gas station opened in his community on Sunday afternoon. Everywhere you go around town you hear generators and chain saws, Casey said. Bill Blair, minister of emergency preparedness, said the federal government would also send approximately 100 military personnel to Newfoundland and Labrador as it shifts to recover from the storm. Entire structures were washed into the sea as raging surf pounded Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland. This is not a one-day situation where we can all go back to normal, Mayor Brian Button said on social media. Unfortunately, this is going to take days, it could take weeks, it could take months in some cases." Much of the town of 4,000 had been evacuated and Button said asked for patience as officials identify where and when people can safely go home. He noted that some residents are showing up at barricades angry and wanting to return. In Puerto Rico, too, officials were still struggling to grasp the scope of damage and to repair the devastation caused when Fiona hit the U.S. territory a week ago. As of Sunday, about 45% of Puerto Ricos 1.47 million power customers remained in the dark, and 20% of 1.3 million water customers had no service as workers struggled to reach submerged power substations and fix downed lines. Gas stations, grocery stores and other businesses had temporarily shut down due to lack of fuel for generators: The National Guard first dispatched fuel to hospitals and other critical infrastructure. Were starting from scratch, said Carmen Rivera as she and her wife mopped up water and threw away their damaged appliances, adding to piles of rotting furniture and soggy mattresses lining their street in Toa Baja, which had flooded. Officials across Eastern Canada also were assessing the scope of damage caused by the storm, which had moved inland over southeastern Quebec. Mike Savage, mayor of Halifax, said the roof of an apartment building collapsed in Nova Scotia's biggest city and officials had moved 100 people to an evacuation center. He said no one was seriously hurt. The Canadian Hurricane Centre tweeted that Fiona had the lowest pressure a key sign of storm strength ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada. Were getting more severe storms more frequently, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said more resilient infrastructure is needed to withstand extreme weather events. Associated Press writers Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed to this report. HAVANA (AP) Hurricane Ian was growing stronger as it barreled toward Cuba on a track to hit Floridas west coast as a major hurricane as early as Wednesday. Ian was forecast to hit the western tip of Cuba as a major hurricane and then become an even stronger Category 4 with top winds of 140 mph (225 km/h) over warm Gulf of Mexico waters before striking Florida. As of Monday, Tampa and St. Petersburg appeared to be the among the most likely targets for their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921. Please treat this storm seriously. Its the real deal. This is not a drill, Hillsborough County Emergency Management Director Timothy Dudley said at a news conference on storm preparations in Tampa. Authorities in Cuba were evacuating 50,000 people in Pinar del Rio province, sent in medical and emergency personnel, and took steps to protect food and other crops in warehouses, according to state media. Cuba is expecting extreme hurricane-force winds, also life-threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall, U.S. National Hurricane Center senior specialist Daniel Brown told The Associated Press. The hurricane center predicted areas of Cubas western coast could see as much as 14 feet (4.3 meters) of storm surge Monday night or early Tuesday. In Havana, fishermen were taking their boats out of the water along the famous Malecon, the seaside boardwalk, and city workers were unclogging storm drains ahead of the expected rain. Havana resident Adyz Ladron, 35, said the potential for rising water from the storm worries him. "I am very scared because my house gets completely flooded, with water up to here, he said, pointing to his chest. In Havanas El Fanguito, a poor neighborhood near the Almendares River, residents were packing up what they could to leave their homes, many of which show damage from previous storms. I hope we escape this one because it would be the end of us. We already have so little, health worker Abel Rodrigues, 54, said. On Monday afternoon, Ian was moving northwest at 13 mph (20 km/h), about 155 miles (250 kilometers) southeast of the western tip of Cuba, with top sustained winds increasing to 100 mph (155 km/h). The center of the hurricane passed to the west of the Cayman Islands, but no major damage was reported there Monday, and residents were going back into the streets as the winds died down. We seem to have dodged the bullet Grand Cayman resident Gary Hollins said. I am a happy camper. Ian won't linger over Cuba but will slow down over the Gulf of Mexico, growing wider and stronger, "which will have the potential to produce significant wind and storm surge impacts along the west coast of Florida, the hurricane center said. A surge of up to 10 feet (3 meters) of ocean water and 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain was predicted across the Tampa Bay area, with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) inches in isolated areas. That's enough water to inundate coastal communities. As many as 300,000 people may be evacuated from low-lying areas in Hillsborough County alone, county administrator Bonnie Wise said. Some of those evacuations were beginning Monday afternoon in the most vulnerable areas, with schools and other locations opening as shelters. We must do everything we can to protect our residents. Time is of the essence, Wise said. Floridians lined up for hours in Tampa to collect bags of sand and cleared store shelves of bottled water. Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a statewide emergency and warned that Ian could lash large areas of the state, knocking out power and interrupting fuel supplies as it swirls northward off the states Gulf Coast. You have a significant storm that may end up being a Category 4 hurricane," DeSantis said at a news conference. "Thats going to cause a huge amount of storm surge. Youre going to have flood events. Youre going to have a lot of different impacts. DeSantis said the state has suspended tolls around the Tampa Bay area and mobilized 5,000 Florida state national guard troops, with another 2,000 on standby in neighboring states. President Joe Biden also declared an emergency, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief and provide assistance to protect lives and property. The president postponed a scheduled Tuesday trip to Florida because of the storm. Playing it safe, NASA planned to slowly roll its moon rocket from the launch pad to its Kennedy Space Center hangar, adding weeks of delay to the test flight. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced Monday night that the football team was relocating football operations to the Miami area in preparation for next weekends game against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Buccaneers said the team will leave Tampa on Tuesday and relocate in Miami-Dade County. The Buccaneers are expected to practice at the Miami Dolphins training complex in Miami Gardens, Florida, starting on Wednesday and continue through this weeks preparations, if necessary. Flash flooding was predicted for much of the Florida peninsula, and heavy rainfall was possible for the southeast United States later this week. With tropical storm force winds extending 115 miles (185 kilometers) from Ian's center, watches covered the Florida Keys to Lake Okeechobee. Bob Gualtieri, sheriff of Pinellas County, Florida, which includes St. Petersburg, said in a briefing that although no one will be forced to leave, mandatory evacuation orders are expected to begin Tuesday. What it means is, were not going to come help you. If you dont do it, youre on your own, Gualtieri said. Zones to be evacuated include all along Tampa Bay and the rivers that feed it. St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch urged residents not to ignore any evacuation orders. This is a very real threat that this storm poses to our community, Welch said. The hurricane center has advised Floridians to have survival plans in place and monitor updates of the storms evolving path. Associated Press contributors include Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida; Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Florida; and Julie Walker in New York. Allentown, PA (18103) Today Mostly cloudy, still cool, and breezy. We can't entirely rule out a stray shower, but pretty much all of that rain should remain south of the area. . Tonight Cloudy. We can't entirely rule out a stray shower late. There will likely be a little bit more rain, certainly late, to the south. The percentage of female physicians is up some 5% from a decade ago, and with more women than men now enrolling in medical school, the rate will continue to rise. September is Women in Medicine Month, a time to recognize the care, expertise and efforts of female health care workers. While just 28.2% physicians were women in 2007, per the AAMCs Physician Specialty Data Reports, the Kaiser Family Foundation puts the current rate at 37%. In Wisconsin, there are around 6,500 women practicing medicine, making up 35% of the states physician workforce, Becker Hospital Review reports. State percentages range from 44% in Rhode Island to 26% in Idaho. The gender gap in most states is sizeable, but according to the American Medical Association, 53.7% of students enrolled in a 2019-2020 MD program were female. At Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, family medicine residencies are largely balanced between the sexes, a stark difference from when Dr. Karen Cowen was in medical school. Cowen, family medicine practitioner and faculty member with Mayos Family Residency Program, attended UW-Madison around 40 years ago, with a class that was just 25% female. In her residency, she was the sole woman out of six. Dr. Kristina Schlecht, another family medicine practitioner and faculty member with Mayos Family Residency Program, attended medical school at the University of North Dakota, where photos featuring previous graduating classes adorned the walls. I can remember looking at some of those classes with one woman out of 40, 50, 60 medical students, Schlecht says. There would be that one woman standing in that group, and you always sort of felt that admiration for them of having gone through that and blazing that trail for you. I fully salute those women who, 50 years ahead of me, were the ones that were taking on that challenge. In Schlechts program, in the early 1990s, 51% of students were female, a rarity at the time, though only around 10-15% of the attending physicians were women. I had some awesome women who taught me and took me under their wings and wanted me very much to succeed, Schlecht says. There were, however, times when Schlecht and other female residents faced prejudice or misconduct. When she was a resident, one male attending physician treated female students very, very differently than their male peers, Schlecht says. Others were even more egregious. I do know colleagues that were touched inappropriately, that things were said inappropriately, Schlecht says. I myself was somebody who has faced sexual harassment from another physician. I think things are changing for the better, but it has not always been an easy field to be a woman in. When Dr. Nandita Ganne, family medicine resident at Mayo, was in medical school in Kansas, there was no noticeable class disparity among the sexes, but as with Schlecht when it came to rotations the majority of those leading were men. You look at the older generations of doctors, and at rural facilities all my precepting doctors were male where I trained, Ganne says. So when I did find female preceptors, that was really nice to be able to talk to them about what their practice looks like, what their life outside that look likes, because that was something I could use to model my life after. In Mayos family residency program, she has found further inspiration, noting, Its wonderful to have mentors to look up to. Schlecht hopes younger generations will consider a medical profession, saying, I just want them to see the possibilities. I dont want them to feel that they are held back. While women currently dominate in the specialties of pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, child and adolescent psychiatry and neonatal-perinatal medicine, just 22% of general surgeons are female, and among specialties like urology and orthopedic surgery the number is under 10%. Beyond patient care, Schlecht encourages women to consider hospital administration, research and more. Says Schlecht, I want them to feel that there are no doors that are closed to them. YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The meeting between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and French President Emmanuel Macron took place at the Elysee Palace. After the welcoming ceremony, before starting the meeting, the leaders of the two countries made statements for the press, the Prime Ministers Office reported. In his speech, the French President particularly said, Ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy to receive today the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Mr. Nikol Pashinyan. In recent days, we have talked many times on the phone, because Armenia is again suffering from the armed clashes of September 13 and 14, and the situation is really critical. Large-scale military operations took place on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, causing many casualties. The territory of Armenia was targeted, civil infrastructures were destroyed. In the face of this unacceptable situation, France has assumed its commitments. France, holding the presidency of the UN Security Council, convened a meeting of the Security Council, where the situation was discussed twice, on September 14 and 15. The Council members demanded a speedy cessation of hostilities and respect for the ceasefire. Taking into account that there are occupied positions, France demanded that the Azerbaijani forces return to their initial positions. I told President Aliyev on September 14 that the fact that the border is not demarcated cannot justify any advance into the territory of the other country. In addition, I have clearly stated since September 13 that France is convinced that the use of force cannot be a solution for either Armenia or Azerbaijan and it is necessary to resume the dialogue immediately. All unresolved issues, which are numerous, should be resolved exclusively through negotiations. The negotiations are held in different formats, particularly under the auspices of the EU, and they should be resumed. I do not forget that exactly two years ago, on September 27, 2020, a terrible war began, which became deadly for the region. It led to a de facto new situation with an expanded Russian military presence in the region. And I strongly condemn what happened in recent days and call for peace and resumption of negotiations. I would like to salute the courage of Prime Minister Pashinyan, who proposed a new approach for the future of the region. President Aliyev, with whom I will talk in the next few hours, says that he also wants to end instability in the region and find solutions. But it is impossible to build peace under the threat of force. To that end, France will do everything, will pursue its goal, which is a stable, safe and prosperous South Caucasus. In a few minutes, Prime Minister Pashinyan and I will discuss the situation on the ground, as well as how to strengthen the ceasefire to avoid a new escalation and resume negotiations. We will also touch upon a number of issues to see how France, together with the European Union and other partners, can contribute to sustainable peace. I am talking about the delimitation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, we also talked about it in Brussels. We will also discuss the actions of the UN and the OSCE. I know that the Prime Minister had important meetings in New York within the framework of the UN General Assembly. We can talk about that too. We will also refer to a very important issue: the issue of normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey. This is a difficult but very necessary process and you know that France also has assumed commitments over this issue. This process is extremely important for the region. Finally, we will also discuss issues of bilateral relations. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, for coming to Paris after your visit to New York so that we could talk and discuss issues. Once again, I emphasize France's commitment to achieving peace and stability for your country and the entire region. I salute your sense of responsibility and your position to do everything to establish peace. I want your country to have tranquil and peaceful borders. Thank you. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, Honorable President of the French Republic, dear Emmanuel, First of all, I want to thank you for this invitation and the warm welcome. Meetings like this provide an opportunity to make the unique relations between France and Armenia even more effective. I think today, as you mentioned, we will focus more on international and regional security issues. France holds the presidency of the UN Security Council, and also with the support of France and personally President Macron, the issue of Azerbaijan's another aggression against Armenia was included in its agenda. An earnest discussion took place, and the issue remains on the agenda of the Security Council. As a result of the aggressions of May 12, 2021 and September 13, 2022, Azerbaijan has occupied the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia. I referred to that topic in detail in my speech at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly. I would like to emphasize that our position is unequivocal: the Azerbaijani armed forces must withdraw from the sovereign territory of Armenia, and I want to thank France, personally President Macron, for recording this position. I would like to draw the attention of our international partners, and also yours, Honorable Mr. President, to the following fact. the speculations that there is no precise border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, because the border is not demarcated and delimited, have nothing to do with reality. The administrative borders between Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan became state borders in the first months of independence of the two countries, since both Armenia and Azerbaijan signed and ratified the December 8, 1991 Agreement on Establishing Commonwealth of Independent States. Moreover, both countries are members of the CIS until now. I want to emphasize that it is an integral part of this agreement that the administrative borders, the existing borders basically become state borders and the countries that joined the agreement recognize these borders. This means that the actions of Azerbaijan cannot be assessed in any way other than deliberate aggression. As a result of the Azerbaijani occupation, the situation in our region remains tense. I think that sending an international observation mission to the regions affected by the Azerbaijani occupation and the border zone will help the international community to receive direct and not mediated information, and will also become an important factor in stabilizing the situation. I am convinced that the UN Security Council should also keep the issue in the focus, and I expect the support of the country holding the presidency on this matter. Coming to long-term solutions, I think it is necessary to sign the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty with the mutual recognition of the borders reaffirmed by the agreement of December 8, 1991. Armenia is ready for the opening of communications in the region and the construction of new communications, in accordance with the national legislation of the countries through which they pass. As for long-term solutions, I think it is necessary to sign the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty with the mutual recognition of the borders reaffirmed by the agreement of December 8, 1991. Armenia is ready for the opening of communications and the construction of new communication routes in the region, in accordance with the national legislations of the countries through which they pass. We also attach importance to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, which will guarantee the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. I think the start of Azerbaijan-Nagorno Karabakh discussions can be useful. In this context, I must emphasize the role of France as an OSCE Co-chair country. Honorable Mr. President, dear journalists, colleagues, Thank you. Its getting late, and Duluth, Minnesota is still miles off. Aboard the Duluth South Shore and Atlantic Railway, a passenger is getting sleepy. The passenger boarded in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and now, through the upper reaches of Wisconsin, is retiring to a sleeping car. The year is 1902. The sleeping car is called the Duluth. The car is of all wood construction, with varnished mahogany interior, fine marquetry throughout. There are stained-glass windows. There is green upholstery. The car has more than a sleeping section. It has a stateroom, a mens smoking room, and lavatories for the ladies and the gentlemen. The passenger sleeps comfortably. More than a century later, the Duluth slumbers at North Freedoms Mid-Continent Railway Museum. For more than 81 years, after ending its service in the 1930s, it was a familys summer cottage along the shores of Lake Superior. In 2015, the owners, Bob and Beth Krasche, offered to donate it to the museum. The museum board accepted their offer. It was trucked to North Freedom and arrived in the fall of 2016. Since, efforts have been made to restore the Duluth sleeping car to its former glory when it operated on the Duluth South Shore and Atlantic Railway, when that passenger snoozed soundly as the world chugged by outside the stained-glass windows. On Oct. 1 and 2, the public will be able to explore the interiors of the Mid-Continent Railway Museums finest restorations, including the Duluth. Also in attendance will be the Krasche family, who donated the car, and the man leading the efforts to restore it, Bill Buhrmaster. I enjoy restoring the equipment to its original condition to preserve the beauty, details and history of the cars, Buhrmaster said. The 64-year-old lives in Western Springs, Illinois. He volunteers for the museum as its restoration department manager. His family has a long history on the rails. His father, Ray Buhrmaster, was an active volunteer at the museum since it started in North Freedom in 1963. The craftsmanship and attention to detail of the cars from 120 years ago is incredible, he said, and is only possible to see once we accurately restore the cars and locomotives at the museum. It is a long and arduous task. For Buhrmaster, the most challenging part of restoration work are the resources needed. Resources being, he said, time, money and people. Extensive work needs to be done on the Duluth. All the people who work on it are volunteers, people like, among others, Owen Hughes and Nancy Kaney from Reedsburg, Bob Ristow and John Crahen from Baraboo, Larry Tourdot from Mauston, and Jeff Haertlein and Scott Lane from North Freedom. To date, volunteers have spent more than 3,200 hours of their time working on the car. Money helps, too. This past spring the museum received a $15,000 grant from the John H. Emery Rail Heritage Trust to help in the restoration. This is the second grant awarded the museum from the trust. In 2018, it awarded the museum $9,000. The best part, for Buhrmaster, is seeing it all come together. Doing the research to determine exactly what the cars looked like when they were built, he said. And then working together to complete it. Hes done his research. He knows a lot. He knows the car was painted South Shore vermillion with black and gold ornamentation. He knows the berths were embellished with a design of green and gold. He knows that the deck windows were half elliptical in form, with tapered arches, inlaid with marquetry and supported by corbels. I get a lot of satisfaction knowing we are preserving history and making it available for future generations to see and experience, Buhrmaster said. While under restoration, the Duluth sleeper car sleeps, awakening each time Buhrmaster, or one of the museums dedicated volunteers, enlivens it with their tireless work. Its miles away from completion, but theyre chugging along. One person is deceased following a Sept. 22 accident in Adams County. According to a release from county Sheriff Brent York, the Sheriffs Office received a report of a two-vehicle accident at approximately 7:57 a.m. in the Town of Jackson at the intersection of County Highways G and I. A woman, 63-year-old Linda Mueller of Wauwatosa, died from her injuries in the incident. According to the initial investigation, 54-year-old John Meyer of Friendship was traveling southbound in a dump truck on Highway G. An SUV being driven westbound on Highway I by 64-year-old Mark Tikkuri of Wauwatosa did not stop at the stop sign at the highways intersection with County G and entered Meyers path. Mueller was pronounced dead on the scene by the Adams County Medical Examiners Office. The Wisconsin State Patrol Technical Response Unit is currently completing a post-crash reconstruction of the accident scene. Along with the State Patrol and Medical Examiners Office, the Adams County Sheriffs Office was assisted by the Oxford Fire Department and Marquette County EMS. As of this time, the accident remains under investigation and no more information is currently available. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is seeking to block a subpoena by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol regarding a phone call Vos had with former President Donald Trump this summer. Committee chair and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, issued the subpoena Saturday. It references a July phone call Vos, R-Rochester, had with Trump in which the former president asked Vos to take measures to change the result of the 2020 Presidential election in Wisconsin, according to the subpoena document first reported by Politico. Vos filed a lawsuit on Sunday in federal court in Milwaukee arguing the subpoena imposes an undue burden, seeks to infringe on Speaker Vos legislative immunity from civil process, lacks a lawful purpose, and was issued from an unlawful Committee, according to court documents. The lawsuit has been assigned to Chief Judge Pamela Pepper. In short, the Committee is demanding Speaker Vos appear for a deposition to answer questions irrelevant to the Committees investigation, with virtually no notice, in the closing days of his reelection campaign, merely because of the Committees public relations scheme, the lawsuit states. Vos spokesperson Angela Joyce said the deposition, which had been ordered for Monday, has since been postponed. Vos said he was surprised to receive the subpoena, adding he has no information to provide the committee regarding the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol. Given how close we are to the midterms, this subpoena seems to be more about partisan politics than actual fact-finding, Vos said. The Constitution protects these sorts of communications, and in light of the clear political nature of this request, we intend to go to court to fight for the immunity given to state leaders under these circumstances. Trump called Vos in July in another effort to have the Rochester Republican pursue decertification of the 2020 presidential election based on the former presidents false claims that the election was stolen for President Joe Biden. Its very consistent, Vos told WISN in July regarding the call. He makes his case, which I respect. He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin. I explained to him that its not allowed under the Constitution. He has a different opinion and then he put the tweet out. Thats it. Vos was referring to previous comments Trump made in which he referred to Vos as a long time professional RINO a reference to Republican in name only, a derogatory term Republicans attach to members of the party they feel arent loyal enough. Decertification cannot happen under state law or the U.S. Constitution, and Vos refusal to entertain Trumps call to overturn the election results has drawn the ire of the former president, who earlier this year endorsed Vos primary challenger Adam Steen. Vos narrowly avoided being unseated by Steen, who plans to run against the speaker as a write-in candidate in the Nov. 8 election. Trumps most recent assertion is that the Wisconsin Supreme Courts July ruling barring the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the state means any ballot dropped into a drop box in the 2020 election should be deemed illegal. The decision by the states high court applies to future elections, not past ones, including the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Biden by close to 21,000 votes. A recount, reviews and court decisions have found no evidence of widespread fraud. The U.S. House committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol earlier this year subpoenaed former state GOP chair Andrew Hitt and 8th Congressional District GOP chair Kelly Ruh for signing paperwork in late 2020 attempting to hand Wisconsins Electoral College votes to Trump. The committee subpoenaed individuals in six other states where similar documents were signed. Id like to thank the readers for all of the calls, texts and emails regarding the pet health articles. Your input is very much appreciated and encourages me to write article topics that you request information on. It has been brought to my attention that there were some inaccuracies in the August article regarding the new Urgent Veterinary Care facility in Auburn. The facility has 15-plus current employees (three doctors including Dr. Pantin, not Dr. Panting, three to four licensed veterinary technicians and support staff, some of whom are starting their LVT training). All readers are encouraged to check the website (info@urgentcare.vet), or call (315) 515-3074 for a receptionist ([888] 502-4930 for fax) to get the most up to date information on hours. The facility is closed on Mondays. It is open from 6 p.m. to midnight Tuesdays through Thursdays, 6 p.m. Fridays through 8 p.m. Saturdays, and mornings to 6 p.m. Sundays (due to recent staffing shortages it is closed overnight on Saturdays). Please check the facility's website, urgentcare.vet, for up to date information. Call ahead and speak with a receptionist. They do not make appointments, but prefer to know that you are coming (in a call ahead model) as opposed to walking in, in order to allow them to plan for your arrival and confirm they are able to take your case. They also do not refer to Veterinary Care of Ithaca, as they are closed after hours. The Veterinary Medical Center in Syracuse has also stopped taking in cases on Saturday evenings due to lack of staff. It is best to check the website and call ahead to be sure there are not any changes to the information provided. Luxating patella The patella (kneecap) is a small almond-shaped bone located between the femur (thigh bone) and the tibia (shin bone), at the knee joint. The patellar tendon attaches on the tibial crest just below the knee. The quadricep muscle, the kneecap and its tendon form the extensor mechanism. The patella normally aligns in a groove (femoral groove) within the femur, sliding up and down the front of the knee joint as your pet flexes or extends. To luxate means to dislocate or put out of joint. A luxating patella is a dislocated kneecap that moves out of the femoral groove. The result is a pet that cannot move or extend the knee properly. This can cause limping or an abnormal gait. It may also cause pain and eventually inflammation, arthritis or the tibia to rotate differently than the femur. This can also cause stress to the cranial cruciate ligament. Some pets with luxating patella will eventually damage the CCL. Luxating patella medial luxation is the most common type of patellar luxation. It is when the kneecap rides on the inner part of the knee. Medial luxation is inherited. Puppies may be born with anatomical abnormalities. Lateral luxation is more common in large or giant breed dogs. It is when the kneecap rides on the outer part of the knee. The precise cause of luxating patella has yet to be determined. Occasionally, traumatic injury can cause the condition. In non-traumatic cases, breed predisposition supports the concept that the condition is a result of congenital or developmental misalignment of the extensor mechanism. The more the kneecap is outside the femoral groove, the shallower the grove becomes. The kneecap will continue to dislocate more easily. Beside some cats, breeds especially prone to luxating patella are miniature and toy dogs: Chihuahuas, miniature and toy poodles, bichon frise, Maltese, papillon, Pomeranians, Pekingese, Yorkshire terriers, Jack Russell terriers, Boston terriers and Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Large breeds susceptible to the condition are: boxers, golden retrievers, Labrador retrievers, huskies, Akitas, malamutes, Saint Bernards, Irish wolfhounds and Great Danes. Some congenial or developmental misalignments include: abnormal confirmation of the hip joint (hip dysplasia), malformation of the femur resulting in a shallow femoral groove, abnormal angulation and torsion, malformation of the tibia, deviation of the tibial crest, tightness and atrophy of the quadricep muscles, and a patellar ligament that is too long and weak. Because there is evidence that the condition is part genetic, dogs diagnosed with patellar luxation should not be bred. Symptoms of luxating patella vary greatly with the severity of the condition. Your veterinarian can incidentally detect the condition during a routine physical examination when an unstable kneecap presents upon palpation, but a majority of the dogs affected by luxating patella suddenly carry the limb up for a few steps, resembling a skipping-like gait. Some pets may be seen momentarily, extending and/or shaking the leg prior to regaining its full use. Luxating patella is a progressive condition in duration, often becoming more frequent or eventually continual. In small dogs, some cats and young puppies with severe medial luxating patella, the rear legs appear bow-legged. A luxating patella diagnosis is essentially based on palpation during the orthopedic portion of a physical examination. X-rays, CT or CAT scans are also used for confirmation. The more frequently the kneecap dislocates out of the femoral groove, the more damage is caused to the area. Eroding cartilage and strain eventually exposes bone, leading to arthritis and pain. There is also potential for predisposing a ruptured cranial cruciate ligament in large breed dogs. The procedures used to determine and confirm a diagnosis of luxating patella are best addressed on an individual basis by the veterinarian that examined your pet. There are four grades of luxating patella diagnosis. Grade I: The kneecap can be manipulated outside of the femoral grove but returns to its normal position spontaneously. Grade II: The kneecap rides out of the femoral groove occasionally but can be replaced back into the groove with manipulation. Grade III: The kneecap rides out of the femoral groove most of the time but can be replaced in the groove with manipulation. Grade IV: The kneecap rides out of the femoral groove all the time but cannot be replaced back into the groove with manipulation. Treating luxating patella is also something best addressed on an individual basis. Since Grades II to IV are usual surgical candidates, your veterinarian surgeon may use one or more of the following procedures. Your veterinarian will suggest the best possible course of treatment for your individual pet and advice of risks. Tibial tuberosity transposition: A realignment of the insertion of the tendon between the kneecap and the tibia. Since bones heal better and faster than tendons, the bone is cut so that the tendon is attached at a better position. The tibia may be secured with pins and/or wire to balance the pull of the quadricep muscle in the opposite direction. The bone heals over a four-to-eight-week period. Recession sulcoplasty: This surgery deepens the femoral groove that the patella glides in and out of if it is too shallow. The surgeon will remove a block of cartilage and bone, the replace it in a recessed position. Healing usually takes an eight-to-10-week period. Soft tissue reconstruction: The tightening or loosening of the tissue on either side of the patella through reconstruction. Healing is usually an eight-to-10-week period. Recovery periods are on a restricted schedule. 12-14 days: Continued restrictive activity. The veterinarian will remove stitches and/or staples around this time. Weeks three to six: Continued restricted activity. Limited leash walking. No stairs, running, jumping, playing. Weeks six to eight: Most veterinarians perform a re-check exam, possibly getting new X-rays to monitor your pets progress. Weeks eight to 12: Less confinement longer walks. A couple of stairs maybe allowed. No jumping, running or playing hard. This phase can vary depending on your veterinarians evaluation results. Weeks after 12 week reevaluation: Aqua therapy may be suggested. Longer walks and light playing per your veterinarians advice. Please note that every patient is an individual and times of recovery vary for each patient, each procedure and each severity. Treating luxating patella without surgery to prevent pain and arthritis is a continuous process. 1. Normally you should focus on proper nutrition first to promote healthy connective tissue, establish building blocks for collagen synthesis, control pain and inflammation, prevent osteoarthritis, and provide antioxidants. Vitamins A, E, B1 and B6 are important in assisting to provide antioxidants, protect from osteoarthritis and inflammation, and stimulate proteoglycan and collagen synthesis. Magnesium, selenium, calcium and manganese also are important for joint health and preventing luxating patella. Important supplements such as omega-3 fatty acids, glucosamin, chondrotin, methylsulfonylmethane and bioflavonoids are often suggested to also assist in joint health and preventing luxating patella. 2. Managing your pets weight prevents excess stress and pressure creating less inflammation and faster loss of mobility. 3. Regular exercise (walking) helps to maintain your pets muscles and tendon strength, which helps support joints. Several short frequent walks are best for increasing strength and range of motion. Do not do long walks. 4. Your veterinarian and/or rehabilitation specialist can suggest appropriate physical therapy exercises to be performed on a daily basis to help prevent, limit and aid in joint health and luxating patella. 5. Holistic approaches like chiropractic, acupuncture, hydrotherapy and massages can help to support your pets structural health as well as manage luxating patella. Your pets veterinarian/surgeon is the best to advise and recommend local rehab specialist and/or the right physical therapy options for your pets individual situation and needs. Villagers sort out chili peppers in Donglang Township of Congjiang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Sept. 15, 2022. Chinese farmers' harvest festival, which coincides with the Autumn Equinox each year, falls on Sept. 23 this year. [Photo by Wu Dejun/Xinhua] CHENGDU, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) Hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers celebrated the fifth harvest festival on Friday, as the country expects a bumper harvest despite COVID-19 and extreme weather. After overcoming the impact of last year's rare autumn floods in the north, late sowing of winter wheat, the sporadic resurgences of COVID-19 cases, and severe heat and drought in some southern regions, China has seen output increases in summer grain and early rice and is expecting another bumper harvest this year. At an agri-expo park in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, one of the venues of this year's harvest festival celebration, residents from Xinjin District attended several farming-themed activities on Friday morning, such as product exhibitions, ceremonies to award "best-performing farmers," and fitness competitions. "Thanks to technological advances, I have reaped bumper tangerine harvests and witnessed an increase of annual income these years," said Tan Jing, a participant who owns a tangerine planting area of over 2,000 mu (about 133.33 hectares) in Jinlong Village of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province. Initiated in 2018, the Chinese farmers' harvest festival coincides with the autumnal equinox each year, which is one of the 24 solar terms of the Chinese lunar calendar and usually falls between Sept. 22 and 24 during the country's agricultural harvest season. China's total grain output consists of three parts early rice, summer grain, and autumn production. Autumn grain production makes up about 75 percent of the annual grain output. The country aims to achieve a grain output of more than 650 billion kg this year. Aerial photo taken on Sept. 15, 2022 shows villagers sorting out and packaging yellow peaches in Dongjiuzhai Town of Zunhua, north China's Hebei Province. [Photo by Liu Mancang/Xinhua] Villagers pick kiwi fruits in Qianliang Village of Qicun Township in Zaozhuang, east China's Shandong Province, Sept. 17, 2022. [Photo by Sun Zhongzhe/Xinhua] Aerial photo taken on Sept. 5, 2022 shows a villager drying sorghum in Shuanghe Village of Kaiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province. [Photo by Yuan Fuhong/Xinhua] Farmers harvest rice in terraced fields in Jiayi Village of Rongjiang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Sept. 22, 2022. [Photo by Yang Chengli/Xinhua] A harvester works in a field in Koudian Town of Yibin District in Luoyang, central China's Henan Province, Sept. 21, 2022. [Photo by Zhang Yixi/Xinhua] Aerial photo taken on Sept. 17, 2022 shows villagers drying rice grains in Wulong Village of Shahe Township in Ganzhou City, east China's Jiangxi Province. [Photo by Zhu Haipeng/Xinhua] Villagers harvest rice in a paddy field in Shimen Township of Longnan City, northwest China's Gansu Province, Sept. 21, 2022. [Photo by Ran Chuangchang/Xinhua] A villager shows harvested sweet potatoes in Cangtou Village of Jurong City, east China's Jiangsu Province, Sept. 22, 2022. [Photo by Zhong Xueman/Xinhua] A villager harvests sorghum in Shangjiang Village of Chun'an County in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 21, 2022. [Photo by Mao Yongfeng/Xinhua] (Source: Xinhua) Edward Snowden, seen here in 2018, applied for Russian citizenship in 2020. First North Wales patients undergo robotic assisted gynaecology surgery as part of innovative programme State-of-the-art surgical robots are now helping to treat colorectal and gynaecological cancer patients across Wales as part of the new National Robotic Assisted Surgery Programme. The National Robotic Assisted Surgery Programme was introduced by the Welsh Government to improve outcomes for cancer patients by increasing the number of patients who have access to less-invasive, minimal access surgery (MAS). MAS offers well-recognised benefits to the patients, when compared to open surgery, including reduced pain, scarring and recovery time. CMR Surgicals Versius robot enables surgeons to perform complex procedures precisely and accurately, with the surgeon operating four robotic arms from an independent, open console. Earlier this month, the first robotic cases were carried out within Gynaecology at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. Prior to the first cases taking place, the theatre team, which include surgeons, scrub nurses and Operating Department Practitioners, took part in extensive training to develop the core robotic skills needed to use the system. Consultant Gynaecological Oncologists Mr Richard Peevor and Miss Ros Jones were the first surgeons to use the robot. Mr Peevor said: We are proud to become the first surgical discipline to use robotics to treat our patients in North Wales. We will be offering this kind of surgery to women needing hysterectomies for gynaecological cancer. Robotic-surgery has many advantages compared to open surgery; benefits include less blood loss, shorter hospital stays and quicker recovery. Here in Ysbyty Gwynedd we are the Gynaecological Cancer Surgical Centre for North Wales so having the robot available to us will really strengthen the service we already have in place for our patients. Carys Hughes, from Mynytho on the Llyn Peninsula, was one of the first patients to undergo a bilateral removal of both ovaries using the robot. She said: It was quite exciting to be one of the first patients to be part of a ground breaking new service in North Wales! I felt very at ease as the procedure was explained to me very well. I felt comfortable about the procedure as there are many benefits of using the robot due to it being minimally invasive and it also promises a faster recovery. I would like to thank the team at Ysbyty Gwynedd for the care they have provided me and Im very pleased to see we now have this technology available for patients in our area. During the summer, surgeons at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board began operating on Colorectal patients using the Versius robot. One of those patients was Timothy Simms, 78, a retired lawyer from Cardiff. Mr Simms, who underwent the procedure to have a polyp from his sigmoid colon removed, at the University Hospital of Wales, said: For me it was more desirable than normal surgery. Mr Horwood explained what was involved, he was clear and concise and it sounded more attractive than the conventional surgery. I had no worries when it came to having the surgery everything had been explained to me and everything went exactly as it was supposed to. My greatest anxiety was the recovery time as at my age I cant afford to lose any time but this type of surgery is a quicker recovery so that was another plus. Its early days but Im very happy with how everything went. Professor Jared Torkington, Consultant Colorectal Surgeon, said: We are hugely excited about the start of the unique networked robotic programme in Wales, designed to improve the quality of surgery, attract and retain staff and work with the public in highlighting the importance of early presentation and existing screening programme in bowel and other cancers. v Towards the end of 2022, robotic surgery will be offered to selected Urological cancer patients at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and Cardiff and Vale Health Board will be rolling out the service within Gynaecology. CMR has supported the implementation of the programme through extensive onsite support and training, and will continue to support the programme through a collaborative partnership with NHS Wales, Welsh Government, Life Sciences Hub Wales and Moondance Cancer Initiative. Ana Raduc, General Manager, UK and Ireland at CMR Surgical, said: At CMR, we are hugely excited to be a part of this pioneering strategy, and welcome the leadership that Wales has shown in adopting an innovative approach that will deliver real benefits for the NHS, surgeons and most importantly, patients across Wales, by harnessing the power of Versius. We hope this programme will demonstrate the merits of a country-wide RAS public health programme as health systems worldwide face rising pressures and growing backlogs of elective care. Wales has led the way, and we encourage a further discussion and best practice sharing on the merits of a national surgical robotics programme with other UK nations. The attack ads from both sides in the governor's race feature dark and foreboding images. Rep. Lee Zeldin is airing new spots portraying Gov. Kathy Hochul as soft on crime complete with film of beatings and gunshots. Hochul, meanwhile, benefits from images sponsored by the Democratic State Committee that label Zeldin, a Suffolk County Republican, an "extremist" on the issue of abortion. Her own TV ads feature crazed crowds attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Zeldin's same-day vote against certifying Joe Biden's election as president all linking him to former President Donald Trump and his unpopularity across New York State. Gov. Kathy Hochul agrees to only one debate while opponent Lee Zeldin pushes for more Though a number of news organizations and other entities have proposed debates at a variety of venues before the Nov. 8 election, Gov. Kathy Hochul's campaign insisted it will participate in only one event on Oct. 25 at Pace University in New York City. As the Nov. 8 election approaches, the ads are beginning to define the battle lines with themes both camps will hammer home. For Zeldin: crime, taxes and the economy. Then more crime. For Hochul: Trump, guns and abortion. Then more Trump. State Republican Chairman Nicholas A. Langworthy dismisses all of Hochul's issues as unimportant to New Yorkers and their everyday lives. "Kathy Hochul is not talking to people about what's important to them," he said. But Hochul spokeswoman Jen Goodman noted the governor's multi-million dollar campaign, and in a statement, reiterated it's themes. "Governor Hochul is focused on getting our message out to as many New Yorkers as possible on the ground and on the airwaves," Goodman said. "From now through election day, the campaign is investing millions of dollars on ads reaching New Yorkers on TV, streaming, social, and related platforms making clear to voters how dangerously out of touch Lee Zeldin is with New York. In its latest $2 million TV purchase across the state, the Hochul campaign zeros in on the issues its emphasizing. "The ads reinforce Lee Zeldin's far-right record on January 6 and abortion," the campaign said in a release, "and they highlight Gov. Hochul's nation-leading efforts to strengthen New York's gun safety laws." The ads seek to define the Long Islander who is still introducing himself to upstate voters. In a spot titled "The Day," the ad emphasizes Zeldin's votes that Hochul considers "extreme." Her campaign seems to embrace every opportunity to highlight some form of the word "extreme." "Because Lee Zeldin is extreme and dangerous," concludes "The Day" spot featuring the rampaging Capitol crowds. Polling, opposition research and measuring voter pulses by both campaigns form the basis for the campaigns. For Hochul, the thrust is her opponent's link to Trump, who might prove popular in Texas, but not in ultra-Democratic New York. Indeed, a WNYT-TV/Survey USA poll conducted last month shows Biden beating Trump 49% to 29% among New York voters in a hypothetical presidential contest. As a sitting congressman, Zeldin also has a voting record. And of all his votes through eight years in Washington, Hochul singles out his opposition to certifying Biden's 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, and another claiming the congressman approved banning abortion, even as a result of rape or incest or to protect the health of the mother. Another lauds Hochul's response to the May 14 massacre that claimed the lives of 10 Black people. The ad features Zeneta Everhart, who works for Democratic Sen. Timothy M. Kennedy of Buffalo, and her son, Zaire, who was wounded in the Tops shooting. "Zaire means ... everything. He's my one and only. Zaire was shot through his neck, and it came out his back," Everhart says in the ad. "Gov. Hochul showed up that day. She heard us and then she went to work and passed tougher gun laws." Last week, Hochul announced security cameras will be installed in all of New York City's 6,355 subway cars and 472 subway stations. "My number one priority as governor is keeping New Yorkers safe," she said in a statement. "I am proud that we will be installing cameras on all Subway cars expanding our security capabilities, deterring crime and providing law enforcement with support." The Zeldin campaign did not respond to requests for comment, but Langworthy said the candidate's ads revolve around issues hashed out in living rooms and kitchens across New York State. While Hochul concentrates on Trump and abortion, Langworthy points to Zeldin's emphasis on crime. "Crime is a major issue both downstate and upstate. Buffalo is not as bad as Rochester, but it's still a serious issue," he said. "Nobody has really been spared from this massive crime wave across the state." As he did during his own GOP campaign for the 23rd Congressional District, Langworthy highlighted soaring energy costs that National Fuel estimates may rise by 50% this winter. He points to Zeldin proposals to allow new drilling for natural gas in the Southern Tier as a way to alleviate energy costs. The Save Our State super PAC on Friday booked a "substantial" air time purchase across upstate for a new ad. "It's all about taxes and affordability," Langworthy said, referring to the PAC's efforts led by New York City Councilmember Joseph Borelli, former Rep. John J. Faso and former state Republican Chairman Edward F. Cox. Some polls measure Zeldin as within striking distance of Hochul, but surveys from Siena and Emerson colleges show him about 15 points behind. But crime also ranks as a top concern in all surveys, and Zeldin emphasizes the issue more than any other. And though some studies dismiss any correlation between the state's new cashless bail laws and spikes in crime, Zeldin's campaign consistently raises questions. Though he has not referred to the July incident near Rochester in which he was attacked at a campaign event, Zeldin says it underscores his concern over the state's new and liberalized approach to releasing people charged with crimes. "You have a person who is saying 'You're done,' " he told Fox News a few weeks ago, recalling the attack by a man attending the Perinton event. "He is charged with a violent felony and he is instantly released back on the street because of New York's cashless bail laws." Johnstown collision witnesses urged to contact police North Wales Police are appealing for witnesses and information following a road traffic collision in Wrexham yesterday morning. At 09:50 officers received a report of a one-vehicle collision on the B5605 Wrexham Road in Johnstown involving a silver Mercedes C-Class AMG. The elderly male driver was airlifted to hospital in Stoke, where he remains with serious injuries. PC Einion Huws of the Roads Policing Unit is appealing for witnesses. He said: I am urging anybody who may have witnessed the collision, or anybody who may have been travelling in the area and who may have dash cam footage to contact us. Anybody with information is asked to contact officers at the Roads Policing Unit via the live web chat quoting reference 22000712248. Wrexhams libraries to be used as warm spaces for residents during the winter months Libraries across Wrexham will be opening their doors to provide warm spaces and offer drop-in sessions for those seeking financial advice and support. As the cost-of-living crisis continues to worsen there are fears that many residents in Wrexham will be forced to go without heating their homes over the winter months despite the cap of 2,500 for typical household usage. The discussion around having to provide warm spaces to residents was last week described as difficult to believe that we have reached this point by First Minister Mark Drakeford, who applauded efforts of community groups, local authorities and organisations for their efforts to help. Today Wrexham Council announced that libraries across Wrexham will be amongst the warm places that will be provided locally this winter. People will be able to pop in during the opening hours of the library to be warm and comfortable, say the local authority. The libraries taking part in warm places are: Brynteg Library Cefn Mawr Library Chirk Library Coedpoeth Library Gwersyllt Library Llay Library Overton Library Rhos Library Ruabon Library Wrexham Library Cllr David A Bithell, Lead Member for Housing and Climate Champion, said: The cost of living crisis has left many local people worried about staying warm at home and this is only going to worsen as we move towards the winter months. Rising energy prices are putting real pressure on families, so having community warm places in Wrexham is something to help during a very challenging time. Initially, the warm places will be our libraries, but were hoping to add more community buildings as we progress. Anyone who wants to is very welcome to come inside to be warm and comfortable in a friendly environment. These are very worrying times for many people and we hope the warm places can help to ease some of the pressure our communities are feeling. People can access support and advice from organisations on select dates at the different libraries across Wrexham. These drop in sessions will take place at the following locations: Friday, October 7, 2022 Wrexham Library, 10am 2pm Friday, October 21, 2022 Cefn Mawr Library, 10am 2pm Friday, November 4, 2022 Brynteg Library, 12pm 3pm Friday, November 18, 2022 Chirk Library, 10am 2pm Friday, December 2, 2022 Coedpoeth Library, 2pm 5pm Friday, December 16, 2022 Rhos Library, 11am 3pm Friday, January 6, 2023 Gwersyllt Library, 2pm 5pm Friday, January 20, 2023 Ruabon Library, 2pm 5pm Friday, February 3, 2023 Llay Library, 2pm 5pm Friday, February 17, 2023 Wrexham Library, 10am 2pm Caia Park Partnership is hosting a cost of living event on Wednesday, October 19, 2022, between 10am 2pm. The event takes place at The Hub, Prince Charles Road, Caia Park, Wrexham LL13 8TH. Wrexham Council is looking to extend the offer of warm places around Wrexham and is looking for community and third sector organisations to get involved in the project. If your organisation has public space with capacity for people to spend time in a comfortable environment and youd like to support the project, please email decarbonisation@wrexham.gov.uk. Wrexham Council has also issued a series of tips on how to reduce the amount of energy you use at home, including: Replacing traditional lightbulbs with LED ones. LED bulbs use about half the energy of the bigger fluorescent spiral energy-saving bulbs. So, when its time to replace your bulbs, consider LED replacements. Draught proofing your home. It can be relatively cheap and simple to draught proof your home using materials from a DIY store. You can get rolls of draught-excluding foam tubing for windows. To stop cold air getting in through your front door, consider a draught brush for the letterbox and maybe a cover for the keyhole. Filling your washing machine. Making sure you fill up the machine each time you run it will mean you have fewer loads, saving energy. Only boiling the amount of water you need. The more water you boil, the more energy you use. Only boil the water you need each time. Making sure any devices arent left on standby. The Energy Saving Trust says you can save up to 40-a-year saving by switching devices off standby. Adjusting your radiator thermostats. If you have them use them, you may not need to heat every room. Insulating your hot water cylinder. If you have a hot water cylinder thats uninsulated, it will be losing heat. This means the water inside cools down faster. Fitting a hot water jacket could save around 40 a year. Checking your boiler pressure. This tells you the pressure of the water circulating in the heating system. If this is too slow, it will make your system inefficient and using more energy to heat your home. Council tenants can also access support, advice and guidance through the Financial Inclusion Officers based in the local housing estate offices. Tenants can check they are receiving their full benefit entitlement by using the Entitled To benefits calculator. The Nest scheme offers free, impartial advice and, if you are eligible, free home efficiency improvements such as a new boiler, central heating, insulation, or solar panels. GOV.UKs Help For Households page contains useful information about the types of help and support available. Delegates opened the Labour Partys annual conference with a minutes silence for Queen Elizabeth II and a rendition of the national anthem, God Save The King, for the first time in the partys history. Both were observed without protest. The stage consisted of a giant Union Flag backdrop design behind the podium and above that an enormous video bannerspanning the width of the entire stagewith a photo of the queen reading, Queen Elizabeth II - 21 April 1926 - September 8 2022. This was the latest episode in Labour leader Sir Keir Starmers effort to prove the partys right-wing, nationalist credentials to big business. It follows two weeks, since the queens death, in which Labour MPs have been forbidden from posting anything other than their own or party tributes to the queen on social media. Previous edicts ordered shadow cabinet members to stay away from workers picket lines and for all Labour MPs to show unshakeable support for NATO. Speaking ahead of the conference, Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the Independent, I think the Queens passing reminds us all of what unites us and I think that Keir feels that very keenly. I support him in that. We are the party that set up Nato after the Second World War. The same day Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, a strong favourite to succeed Starmer as leader, told the Spectator that the private sector was one of the levers for tackling National Health Service backlogs, adding, The Labour party cant just rely on the same old hackneyed slogans on the NHS. Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed revived Tony Blairs tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime slogan in an interview with the New Statesman, adding his own, Punish, Prevent, Protect. Neither the devastating cost-of-living crisis, producing the worst fall in real incomes in generations, nor the imminent danger of war with Russia escalating toward a nuclear conflict warranted a mention. Labour is in lockstep with the Tory government on pursuing class war at home and imperialist war abroad. As Labour MPs gathered, #GeneralStrike and #GeneralElectionNow were trending on social media. Millions of workers are pressing for strike action. The mood in the country is for a showdown with an illegitimate Tory government planning an all-out assault on the working class amid the largest wave of strikes in close to four decades. Rail, post and telecoms workers have responded with disgust at Starmers overt hostility to their struggle for a living wage. That the Labour leader is still able to organise his right-wing spectacle on top of this social powder keg is due to the prostration of the Labour left, which is in a state of collapse two-and-a-half years after Jeremy Corbyn resigned as leader. Protests against Starmers policies were kept to the conference fringes, without the slightest hint of a fight against his leadership. Pro-Corbyn pressure group Momentum organises events under the title The World Transformed. At one of these, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell joined MPs Dawn Butler and John Trickett in criticising the ban on picket line attendance. But this stopped at a humble appeal to the leadership to change course. McDonnell told the audience, Weve got to say to the Labour leadership and others, dont think you can win this next general election by default just because of the unpopularity of the Tories. Corbyn expressed slight discomfort with the very, very odd singing of the national anthem, which he told the BBCs Nick Robinson Political Thinking podcast was excessively nationalist. But once again dashing the hopes of those who still look to him to form a new party, Corbyn repeated his desire to see the Labour whip restored, allowing him to sit as one of Starmers MPs. Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, and Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss arrive at Westminster Hall, in the Palace of Westminster, where the House of Commons and the House of Lords meet to express their condolences in London, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. [AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Pool] Corbyn was rewarded for his slavishness in the usual fashion, with a shadow minister briefing the Daily Mail, Only Corbyn would try to wreck Sir Keirs tribute to the late Queen. Its because Corbyn was seen as unpatriotic that we've got to build bridges with so many former traditional Labour voters who deserted us while Left-wing Jezza was wrecking our party. Corbyn and McDonnells fellow Socialist Campaign Group (SCG) member Richard Burgon chose to direct his own ire exclusively at the monarchy, attending a Labour for a Republic event to ask politely, How can we not talk about whether or not a head of state should be elected? Zarah Sultana, the SCGs main point of contact with the Enough is Enough campaign, told a World Transformed event, Not everyone in the Labour Party is clear about the class they represent. She was speaking alongside Mick Lynch, the head of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union, frontman of Enough is Enough campaign and touted as Britains real leader of the opposition. But he also gave another full-throated endorsement of a Starmer-led government, calling on Labour to show that its on the side of ordinary people in this country who are really struggling. Lynch gave Starmer license not to attend a picket line himselfIm not that naivebut suggested that he should show a way that he identifies with the struggles working people have got. We want him to win the election but we want him to do it on a basis working people can get behindhe cant cosy up to business and the Daily Mail all the time, hes got to cosy up to working class people. Unite union General Secretary Sharon Graham, marketed by the pseudo-left as the other chief working-class leader alongside Lynch, cheered the supposed increasingly clear blue water between Labour and Tories in an interview at the unions headquarters. She called on Starmer to be brave, adding, We need to be really clear what it is that we are offering as Labour. The rump of the Labour left and what passes for the left within the trade unions question Starmers class loyalties, but their own loyalties are to the bureaucracy and not the working class. All their polite criticisms and suggestions of a change in course have one aim onlyto preserve the hold of the Labour Party and the trade unions over the working class so they can continue to throttle it. The lefts craven response was underscored by Al Jazeeras release Friday of the first of a three-episode exposure of the Labour rights conspiracy against Corbyns leadership and left-wing members. Based on 500 gigabytes of leaked documents, emails, video and audio files, the investigation reveals in great detail the use of false allegations of antisemitism and homophobia against party members supportive of Corbyn, their harassment, and the protection of right-wing provocateurs. The Labour Files adds to the clear evidence of a conspiracy by the partys Blairite MPs and apparatus against the membership put forward in the Labour leaks document in early 2020. Jeremy Corbyn (left) and Sir Keir Starmer at an event during the 2019 General Election when Corbyn was party leader (Credit: AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File) However, if anyone believed that Al Jazeeras findings would be taken up as a weapon by the Corbynites, they were immediately disappointed. At a World Transformed event discussing Labours Forde Report into the Labour leaks, Corbyn did not even mention Starmers name, let alone The Labour Files, or go further than accusing the right-wing of trying to obstruct his leadership. The most he gave his audience was a promise that his book would give the full story, but only after all the legal cases Ive been dealing with had concludedIm not allowed to say anything more at the moment. He called on his supporters to go forward determined, hopeful, optimistic, in unity. The impression given by Corbyn and his allies is of a political group hermetically sealed from reality. They refer to his 2017 election manifesto as having changed the course of labour movement history and discuss the fight for a socialist alternative while sitting as members of a proudly right-wing party out for their bloodtheir friends and colleagues being gradually picked off by Starmers relentless witch-hunt. A real socialist alternative will only be built in a determined fight against the Labour Party, including its dwindling left faction. Share conditions at your workplace: Fill our the form at the bottom of this page. All submissions will be kept anonymous. Family and friends are holding funeral services this week for two young workers who were tragically killed in a massive fire at the BP-Husky oil refinery in Oregon, Ohio, on September 20. Ben, 32, and Max, 34, Morrissey were brothers, and both left behind wives and small children. Their deaths have shaken the small community, just east of Toledo, which is dominated by the refining industry. Ben and Max Morrissey with their children, Weslee, Recker and Wilde (Source: Morrissey Children's Trust Gofundme.com) BP has not explained what caused last Tuesdays fire at the refinery, where more than 580 workers process up to 160,000 barrels of crude oil each day for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, propane, asphalt and other products for the US Midwest. It took company and local fire crews four hours to put out the huge blaze, which lit up the sky around the surrounding community. The severely burned workers were first taken to Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo and then transported to a University of Michigan medical facility. By the next morning, however, they had succumbed to their injuries. According to their obituaries, posted on the Eggleston Meinert & Pavley Funeral Home website, Ben had only worked at the BP refinery for six months before his death. The obituary did not indicate how long his older brother Max had worked there. Both brothers graduated from Clay High School where they excelled in wrestling, a very popular sport in the working class community. Ben got an apprenticeship as an iron worker and worked on construction projects for several years in the New York City area, including on the Tappan Zee Bridge, before getting the job at the BP refinery in March 2022. After graduating high school, Max enlisted in the US Navy before getting at job at BP. Max is survived by his wife Darah and small sons, Wilde and Recker. Ben is survived by his wife Kaddie and small son Weslee. Both were the best dads in the world, Darah told the local news media. The obituary from the funeral home read, They had their lives tragically cut short while earning a living for their families. Both workers were members of the United Steelworkers Local 1 Chapter 346. The union local is raising donations for their surviving family members. A GoFundMe page for the Morrissey Childrens Trust has raised over $25,000 already and includes condolences from fellow workers. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officials were on site Wednesday and are beginning an investigation to determine what caused the accident. By law, OSHA has six months to complete an investigation. There are many unanswered questions about what led to the tragic deaths of the two workers, which must be investigated. Striking BP Husky workers picket in front of Oregon, Ohio refinery in 2015 [Photo: WSWS] Workers at the refinery have long complained that repeated job cuts, outsourcing, exhausting work schedules of 12 hours or more, and other cost-cutting measures by management have undermined safety. The BP refinery has a record of repeated serious and life-threatening safety violations: In 2010, OSHA cited BP North American Inc. and BP-Husky refinery in Oregon, Ohio, with 42 alleged willful violations, after repeated inspections of BP facilities following the 2005 explosion at BPs Texas City Refinery which killed 15 workers and injured 170. This include 20 alleged serious violations for exposing workers to a variety of hazards, including failure to provide adequate pressure relief for process units. OSHA has found that BP often ignored or severely delayed fixing known hazards in its refineries, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said at the time. There is no excuse for taking chances with peoples lives. BP must fix the hazards now. OSHA proposed a fine of $3,042,000. After the company challenged the fines, an administrative law judge threw out 36 of the 41 violations, downgraded their severity from willful to serious, and reduced the fine to $80,000. In 2016, BP-Husky was fined $35,632 for violations at the Oregon refinery, including five serious category violations related to the use and working condition of fire hydrants at the refinery. In March 2022, OSHA issued a serious violation and $3,874 fine when employees were exposed to methanol, OSHA records show. An unnamed source told Reuters the day of last weeks fire that leaking fumes from a crude unit may have caused the ignition in another unit at the facility. The refinery, a very old facility which originally started production in 1919, had just completed a once in five years turnaround, when production is shut down for inspection, cleaning and major maintenance and repairs. The process had reportedly been completed and production resumed. The resumption of production at a refinery requires meticulous work, involving careful monitoring of pressure and temperature levels. Was this rushed or done without trained crews? It is also the case that scheduled maintenance is often delayed or put off indefinitely in order to keep production and profits flowing. During the last strike at the Oregon facility in 2015, a BP worker told the WSWS the refinery was supposed to implement scheduled turnarounds every four years, but the last one had been in 2007, that is eight years before. We are constantly putting on band-aids, he said. Earlier this year, a BP worker at the companys facility in Whiting, Indiana, told the WSWS, They preach safety, but it is meaningless. They expect you to do your job, no matter what. During turnarounds, he said, safety just goes out the window because the managers are paid bonuses based on metrics of how far ahead of schedule they are and under budget. They get around this by holding asset team meetings where decisions are reached by consensus, and nobody is held responsible if something goes wrong. We say things need to get fixed, but they cut corners and ignore us. Our refinery is an old facility, and it always leaks, he said, pointing to the dangers for working class communities just outside the refinery fences. An electrical fire at the Whiting refinery on August 24 caused the company to temporarily close the facility located about 15 miles southeast of Chicago. Fortunately, no one was hurt. BP is also in the process of selling off its remaining 50 percent stake at the Oregon refinery to Calgary-based Cenovus, which combined with Husky in 2021. When the transaction is completed before the end of the year, the more than 580 employees at the Toledo refinery will become employees of Cenovus. If BP was already in the process of selling off its stake for $300 million, did it delay or cancel any crucial repair work? Finally, what did the United Steelworkers know about dangerous conditions and safety violations at the refinery? The USW, which has 315 members at the facility, operates joint labor-management safety committees with BP. Rank-and-file workers have long denounced these committees for doing nothing to protect their lives and health. The union and company hand pick committee members, and they are paid more and enjoy a regular eight-hour day, five days a week, with holidays off, rather than shift work, if they toe the company line. Although the revenue and profits of the oil companies have fully recovered from the pandemic-driven economic crash in 2020, BP and the other oil giants are determined to keep labor costs as low as possible. For months they have been increasing production to profit from rising prices after laying off 60,000 oil industry workers and shutting five refineries. The deadly fire in Oregon, Ohio, is only the last disaster in the global energy industry. Last week, 25,000 oil workers walked out in Argentina after a fire in a storage tank led to an explosion at the New American Oil (NAO) refinery, killing three workers in Neuquen. Earlier this month, eight workers were severely injured in an explosion at the Braya Renewable Fuels refinery in the town of Come By Chance in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Rather than wage a fight against these conditions, the USW, working with the Biden administration, blocked a strike by 30,000 refinery and petrochemical workers in February. In addition to demanding wage increases to match soaring prices, refinery workers were demanding an end to exhausting schedules and unsafe staffing levels. Workers lives are being sacrificed for corporate profit. BP tripled its profits to $12.8 billion in 2021 and spent billions in dividends and stock buybacks for its wealthy investors. Any investigation into the BP refinery fire and the deaths of the Morrissey brothers by OSHA, the company and the USW will be nothing but a whitewash. That is why workers at the refinery must elect a rank-and-file safety committee, consisting of the most militant and class-conscious workers, to investigate this tragedy in conjunction with safety experts who are committed to the working class, not the corporations. As part of its systematic efforts to bring to an end all meaningful mitigation measures against COVID-19, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quietly released new infection control guidance for health care settings on Friday evening with hardly a mention of it in the media. The taciturn announcements on late Friday nights have become standard for the CDCs disclosure of unpopular and unscientific policies. CBS Newsbroke the story on Friday evening, reporting, Outside of communities seeing high levels of COVID-19 transmission, the CDC has ended a blanket plea for Americans in hospitals and nursing homes to wear masks indoors. The change, one of many published Friday evening to the agencys guidance for COVID-19 infection control for healthcare workers, marks one of the final sets of revisions in a sweeping effort launched in August to overhaul the CDCs recommendations for the virus. The guidelines now allow health care settings located in regions with substantial or lower COVID-19 community transmission to choose not to require universal source control, meaning the use of N95 respirators or even well-fitting masks. Additionally, the guidelines are considered recommendations. Figure 1: US Community Transmission of All Counties. Source: CDC. Outside of social media networks, there has been virtually no mention of these new directives. Neither CDC Director Rochelle Walensky nor CDC Senior Scientist Greta Massetti, who introduced last months sweeping changes to the public health agencys COVID-19 guidance, has given any statements over the weekend. The bourgeois press has been silent on the issue, which it would be fair to assume they considered non-newsworthy and irrelevant. According to an anonymous source, approximately two weeks ago, during a medical department meeting at a US hospital, the chair informed the staff that the CDC would be introducing new directives to address ending guidance for universal masking in health care settings. While the CDC remained publicly silent on the matter, it informed health care systems of the forthcoming changes. The lifting of masking recommendations in hospitals took place the same week that President Biden declared, The pandemic is over. Everyone seems to be in pretty good shape. This succinctly expressed the policies being adopted by the countrys foremost public health agency, which has become an instrument of the state and no longer functions to protect the population from infectious diseases. Fridays announcement prompted a flood of opposition among scientists, workers and anti-COVID activists on social media, with many denouncing the CDC for its repeated malign efforts to dismiss the threat posed by the coronavirus and normalize death and debilitation of the population by these infections. Professor of Evolutionary Biology T. Ryan Gregory tweeted, I dont know who SARS-CoV-2 has hired as a lobbyist, but theyre fantastic! Assistant Professor of Dermatology Dr. Lisa Iannattone wrote, Re-upping this thread in response to the CDCs decision to no longer require universal masking in hospitals. The medical field kept exposing patients to contaminated hands for decades after Semmelweis discovery [the man who discovered that health care workers dirty hands were causing fever and death in inpatients]. How long will we pretend exposing them to contaminated air is ok? Health and social policy researcher at Boston University Julia Raifman noted, As the CDC makes a policy decision to no longer require masks in health care settings except in high transmission (which is too late), remember hospital associations led the way in blocking workplace safety standards in health care and more broadly. Dr. Raifman was highlighting the fact that many directors of nursing homes and administrators of health facilities, a more affluent layer of the upper middle class, have complained that if life has returned to normal, then why are they still operating as if at the height of the pandemic? In issuing their unscientific complaints, they underscored the double standard that while more than 90 percent of the country is in a low or medium COVID-19 Community Level risk, following the patently unscientific masking guidelines the CDC released in late February 2022, only 25 percent of US counties are in a substantial or lower Community Transmission level that health care settings had to abide by. Figure 2: US Community Levels of All Counties. Source: CDC. In Westmoreland, New Hampshire, Maplewood Nursing Home administrator Kathryn Kindopp recently complained to the local paper, the Keene Sentinel, that protocols for the county-run nursing home set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), based on recommendations from the CDC, are supposedly diminishing the quality of life for nursing home residents. In a carefully worded statement endorsing the CDCs changes, Senior Vice President of the American Health Care Association Holly Harmon said, While our commitment to infection prevention and control continues, adapting COVID protocols means recognizing the current stage of this pandemic as well as the importance of quality of life for our nations seniors. After more than two years, residents will get to see more of their caregivers smiling faces, and our dedicated staff will get a moment to breathe. Many health care facilities, such as the highly respected Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have already ended their pre-procedure testing for COVID-19 to ensure no further delays in performing lucrative diagnostics and surgeries. The CDCs decision was in no way meant to protect health care settings, where the most vulnerable seek medical attention and are at risk for complications with COVID-19 infections. In the coming months, health care centers will emerge as centers for the transmission of COVID-19 and the flu, as masking and other safety measures are being lifted as the winter approaches. It is worth noting a portion of the statement made by Massetti last month when she said, We know that COVID-19 is here to stay. High levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection, and the many tools that we have available to protect people from severe illness and death, have put us in a different place. It is difficult to overstate the shortsightedness and stupidity of the petty-bourgeois bureaucrats who run the CDC and the White House COVID Response Team, whose reckless policies are hastening mass infection and viral evolution. With autumn underway and temperatures cooling, epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists have warned of a looming resurgence of COVID-19 fueled by multiple new Omicron subvariants. Over the past week, weekly case counts increased by 10-30 percent week over week in France, Austria, the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as well as Australia, Israel, Taiwan and other countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) is now tracking roughly 200 Omicron subvariants, which is the most at any point in the pandemic. Many of these subvariants are causing alarm among scientists and appear increasingly likely to erode the efficacy of existing vaccines and treatments, including the latest bivalent vaccines. Among two most concerning are BA.2.75.2, BF.7 and BQ.1.1, which are descendants of BA.2 and BA.5 and have been described by some scientists as potentially the most antibody-evasive variants. In Denmark, where genomic sequencing remains fairly comprehensive, the growth of BA.2.75.2 and BF.7 is now clearly accelerating, with both roughly doubling each week. The growth advantage and evasive immune capacity of these two are part of what is called convergent evolution, whereby constantly repeated mutations develop improved survival mechanisms and maintain their growth advantages. One preprint study released last week begins by stating, Continuous evolution of Omicron has led to numerous subvariants that exhibits growth advantage over BA.5. Such rapid and simultaneous emergence of variants with enormous advantages is unprecedented. The study notes that many of the descendants of BA.2 and BA.5 are showing similar mutations which they believe will render ineffective the last remaining clinically available antibody drugs, Evusheld and bebtelovimab, meaning that millions of immunocompromised people will again have no additional protection. Meanwhile, data released by the CDC last Thursday indicated that since the fall booster campaign rollout started three weeks ago with the bivalent vaccines, only 4.4 million doses have been given, representing 1.5 percent of people eligible to receive these shots. The implication is that the winter wave will run its course through a population whose current antibody status will have waned considerably at the current rate. As the chart below demonstrates, booster uptake remains low, with most people receiving them several months ago. Figure 3: COVID Vaccine Booster Doses per Capita. Source: Our World in Data. Speaking with NBC News, Dr. Scott Roberts, infectious disease specialist at Yale, called the rollout demoralizing. He added, I would expect a much higher proportion of Americans to have gotten the booster by this point. The fact that this booster came out days before Biden said the pandemic was over is a huge mixed message. Now its going to be that much harder to convince those at risk who are on the fence to get a booster. In the week since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered two state-chartered airplanes to fly to Texas, pick up migrant asylum-seekers there, and take them to Marthas Vineyard, an island off the Massachusetts mainland, there has been mounting evidence of the illegal and unconstitutional character of this political provocation. Equally important, there are indications that the Biden administration and Democratic state legislators in Florida collaborated in what they are nowbelatedlydenouncing as a political stunt by DeSantis. The Florida governor is a candidate for reelection on November 8, and a prospective candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, and tipped off his big financial contributors about the impending operation at a fundraiser held a few days before the flight. Lawyers for the migrants filed the first of what are expected to be multiple civil suits against DeSantis and the state of Florida on Tuesday. The suit charges that the asylum-seekers had been duped by false promises of jobs and housing, and told they were going to Boston, not a vacation island with no jobs, no housing and no access to the immigration courts where they had filed their claims for refugee status. Immigrants provided refuge inside a church on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts [Photo by State Rep. Dylan Fernandes] Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the federal class action lawsuit against DeSantis, the state treasurer who disbursed the funds for the flight, and other unidentified accomplices [who] designed and executed a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme centered on exploiting this vulnerability for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial and political interests. The suit also charges that the migrant flights were unlawful because they impermissibly interfered with the detention and transportation of immigrants. The power to admit, exclude, remove, or allow to remain in the United States is reserved to the federal government under the US Constitution. Under federal law, these powers are exercised by the Department of Homeland Security through agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), not by any state governor. Some legal experts pointed out that from the standpoint of federal law, DeSantis is no different from a human trafficker or coyote, much demonized by the right-wing and fascist media for enabling migrants to cross the US-Mexico border and then travel to their chosen destinations within the United States. According to the suit, the supposed consent form signed by the migrants was not completely translated to Spanish: an entire paragraph about liability and transport was not translated at all, and language specifying that the journey would take place from Texas to Massachusetts was not translated at all either. Rachel Self, a representative of Lawyers for Civil Rights, told a press briefing that there were indications that ICE agents had worked with DeSantis operatives in facilitating the migrant flights. She said that ICE agents had processed the migrants and listed falsified addresses on the migrants paperwork, before they boarded the flights. It appeared that this included deliberate attempts to disrupt the migrants claims to asylum, giving phony addresses like a homeless shelter in Tacoma, Washington, thus requiring them to pursue their asylum cases at an immigration court in the Pacific Northwest, before putting them on a flight that took them to the opposite end of the country. According to the paperwork provided to them, the migrants are required to check in with the ICE office nearest to the fake address chosen for them by DHS, or be permanently removed from the United States, Self said. Some are required to check in as early as Monday morning. It could not be clearer that this is an attempt to have these people ordered to be removed even if they try as hard as they can to comply with the instructions provided to them, Self told reporters. Their biggest concern today is that many of them have dates to appear in San Antonio Monday morning. Tacoma, Washington Monday morning. Washington, D.C. Monday morning, Self said. Their biggest concern is compliance. Tallahassee immigration attorney Elizabeth Ricci told the Orlando Sentinel that DHS and ICE had to be involved in the migrant flights. ICE likely conspired with the governors office to pull off the stunt, Ricci said. It couldnt have been done without their direct involvement. Ricci said that by victimizing the migrants by transporting them in violation of their civil rights, DeSantis might have inadvertently given them additional grounds for seeking asylum. Victims of trafficking are eligible for U visas, she told a Florida television station, reserved for victims of a crime. If their asylum claims are denied, they could still apply for a U visa. Last Monday, Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, Texas, which includes San Antonio, announced the opening of a criminal investigation into how the operative for DeSantis, a woman who used the name Perla, recruited the 50 migrants. All were from Venezuela, recently released by immigration officials in San Antonio, and told to wait in that city for their asylum claims to be heard. In Washington, the House Homeland Security Committee sent a letter Thursday to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, asking both to open investigations into the migrant flights. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said the panel was acting on accounts that the migrants were coerced to board the flight through false information. According to press reports, the migrants were intentionally misled into believing that the flight was destined for Boston and that they would receive shelter and expedited work permits after arrival. The letter asks the DOJ whether any Federal laws were violated in the coercion and transport of the migrants. From DHS, it seeks information about the role of ICE and CBP in facilitating the flights, including any coordination in their release from federal custody and any screening that may have occurred in connection to their flight within the United States. A second lawsuit was filed Thursday night by a Democratic state senator from Miami, Jason Pizzo, seeking to bar the Florida governor from spending any more state funds on the migrant flights. DeSantis authorized a payment of $615,000 to an Oregon company to pick up the 50 migrants in Texas, fly them to Florida to establish a nominal presence in that statealthough they never actually set foot on Florida soilthen fly them on to Marthas Vineyard. The contract came to more than $12,000 for each migrant, and was presumably highly lucrative. This lawsuit is something of a double-edged sword, since Pizzo and most other Democrats in the State Senate voted to approve the budget that set aside $12 million for the program. The funds were derived from interest payments on money sent to the state by the Biden administration under last years American Rescue Plan. While the suit claims that spending the money on the migrant flights is illegal and violates the state constitution, DeSantis office had a ready reply, pointing out that Pizzo and the Democratic leadership had voted for the budget which set aside the funds for precisely that purpose. Venezuelan immigrants constitute a large portion of the Hispanic community in Florida, and their numbers have swelled under the impact of the economic collapse in their home country, precipitated by savage sanctions imposed by the US government as part of a campaign to overthrow the government of President Nicolas Maduro. There are 6.8 million Venezuelan refugees, the second largest number of displaced persons in the world, trailing only Syrians. Most are in Colombia and other Latin American and Caribbean countries, but Venezuelan migrants have now displaced those from Central America as the second-largest group of detainees crossing the US-Mexico border. Because of the US campaign against Maduro, which has included breaking diplomatic relations, the DHS cannot simply deport Venezuelans, since most have legally plausible cases for asylum. Another Democratic state senator from Miami, Annette Taddeo, who is running for a congressional seat, said she had sought to exclude from the migrant flights anyone who was fleeing what she called communist and murderous regimes. That is completely unacceptable. Despite the howling of the Republican right over the Biden administrations supposed open borders policy, the actual practice of the administration is one of intensified repression, on the scale of the Trump administration, albeit without the fascist and racist rhetoric. According to a briefing by officials on Monday, the number of removals over the past year was greater than any previous year, some 1.3 million people. A total of 2.1 million border crossers were arrested in the first 11 months of the 2022 fiscal year, which ends September 30. More than 745,000 deportation proceedings have been initiated in the fiscal year, twice as many as any previous year, except for 2019. The WSWS continues to receive statements supporting Dr David Berger, an Australian physician and dedicated zero-COVID advocate who is being threatened with deregistration by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) over his social media condemnations of the governments let it rip coronavirus policies. Since the publication of our first article on July 8, which calls on scientists, health workers and other sections of workers to come to Dr. Bergers defence, the WSWS has published twenty-one articles containing statements of support. Dr David Berger (Image: Supplied) [Photo: WSWS] Statements of support can be emailed here. Please indicate in the email how you would like to be identified in our next article. If you want to include a photo, please attach one to the email. Cristina, a childcare worker from New South Wales: I agree with Dr Berger. The way the pandemic is being portrayed is lulling us into this false sense of security that its gone. Anyone who objects and says it hasnt gone and advocates wearing PPE is going to be ostracised and made to look like some sort of outrageous person. We are coming under a lot of societal pressure. This gaslighting is going on against experts who speak out, like Dr Berger and other health professionals, teachers or anyone who questions claims that COVID is all over because weve had our third or fourth booster. Were told that elderly people are protected, that young people dont get COVID and so what are we worrying about? In my experience in the aged care sector, if there are deaths, theyre not calling it COVID-related in many cases. The gaslighting is a big thing to tackle on your own, which is what Dr Berger is experiencing. But when the Australian Medical Association is not directly supporting him then its more difficult for other doctors, nurses, allied health workers and educators, who do see the numbers of the COVID outbreak going up, to speak out. Its becoming more difficult but its important to speak the truth about what is really happening. Hex, a former chef, now social media content creator: I first noticed Dr Berger being outspoken about COVID and his tweets were gaining traction from other people I was following on Twitter. It was really clear that the government was mishandling the COVID pandemic for business reasons. Its democide. Its deliberate. Its bordering on eugenics when it comes to disabled people and people not realising or caring about things like air-filtration or mask mandates. Youre breathing in a vascular disease thats going to wreak havoc on your body. We mandate seat belts for a reason and my sons school wont even let them have peanut butter because theyre worried about peanut allergies. Hex [Photo: WSWS] What Dr Berger was saying on Twitter was very in line with the research I was reading, and it was amazing to see a doctor come out and actually say something and not be scared of losing their pay packet over it. I thought it was quite inspiring. We now understand that COVID is causing neurological disabilities, advanced progression of Alzheimers, heart attacks, strokes, brain bleeds, herniasall kinds of awful things. If most people knew this, theyd probably be more cautious. COVID may work in a similar way to something like HIV before it becomes AIDSthat it takes time. Its really scary stuff and yet people are walking around not knowing that they have severely compromised immune systems. In Australia, our health care system is becoming more and more like a business. When I caught COVID my heart rate was going incredibly fast and I needed to get an ECG. I had to pay for the ECG and the overnight hire of a heart rate monitor, which all cost over $200. Fortunately, my doctors appointment was bulk-billed but what if I couldnt pay, would I just die? These heart problems can show up weeks or months after youve caught COVID and theres a figure of 277 days where you need to be keeping an eye out for problems. Capitalism is not equipped to handle a pandemic. I dont have a lot of faith in the new Labor government at all; theyre not going to fix the problem. Antoinette, a University of Melbourne masters student: Dr Berger has clearly articulated and rightly critiqued the inability of current healthcare measures and infrastructure in many developed nations to protect their own citizens, placing frontline healthcare workers especially in danger. His commentary on the topic is sober and, while often brutally honest and strongly worded, it is also supported by credible evidence, a refreshing and increasingly precious commodity in discussions of the pandemic in recent years. Even upon reading a few of Dr Bergers articles, it becomes apparent that the justifications given by APHRA for their condemnation and censorship of his work are gross attempts to discredit him, attempting to conflate his writings with the pseudo-scientific ramblings of a conspiracy theorist. In a world with rampant misinformation, unclear public advice and government inaction, attempting to silence one of the few voices contributing positively to informing the public is simply unacceptable and must be opposed. Although candidates may change, federal and state election seasons often feature the same tired campaign gamesmanship when it comes to debates. Incumbents, no matter the party, aim to drastically limit debates with their challengers, sometimes refusing to debate at all. The newcomers, meanwhile, often go overboard, demanding an unrealistically large number of debates. Debates are by no means a perfect tool for informing voters, but they are a vital one. It's the clearest way to see how they candidates differ on issues and how they handle themselves in an unscripted, pressured environment. In the race for governor this year between Democratic incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, the pattern is playing out. Hochul will only commit to one debate, late in the campaign season, in New York City. Zeldin is calling for five or more throughout the state, and he refuses to participate in the one that Hochul says she will attend unless she agrees to do more. Hochul absolutely should do more than one debate. The journalists who would ask questions in New York City are certainly going to overlook some key issues for voters in upstate areas. The same would be true in reverse if a single debate was held upstate. That said, we also think five is unnecessarily high for a statewide race. We can't imagine there would much to learn from a fourth or fifth debate that had not already been covered. And the possibility that Zeldin's line in the sand could result in zero actual debates is a complete disservice. Both of these candidates like to position themselves as politicians who focus on results, who don't play the partisan games that most voters despise. It's time for both of them to act like grownups and direct their respective campaigns to agree to multiple debates in multiple parts of the state. We also call for the same commitment from the candidates seeking state legislative and congressional office this fall. The debate series annually produced by Cayuga Community College's telecommunications department in partnership with The Citizen has extended invitations to all of the candidates in those races within the county, and we certainly hope all of them will take part. The Citizen Editorial board includes president and director of local sales and marketing Michelle Bowers, executive editor Jeremy Boyer and managing editor Mike Dowd. Thursdays debate of candidates in the United Auto Workers (UAW) presidential election was a historic event for the working class in the US and internationally. For the first time, a rank-and-file auto worker, presidential candidate Will Lehman, was able to directly confront the union apparatus in a forum that has been viewed by more than 10,000 workers. The debate revealed two irreconcilable positions. Lehman spoke to and for hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file workers who are seeking a way forward to fight against intolerable working conditions, declining real wages and extreme exploitation that have been overseen by the UAW. All the other candidatesUAW President Ray Curry, long time bureaucrat Shawn Fain, Local 163 Shop Chairman Mark Gibson, and Brian Kellerdefended an apparatus that has overseen decades of concessions and functions as an instrument for the suppression of the class struggle. They insisted that any opposition to it is divisive and touted their experience within it. For them, the workers exist only as objects to be manipulated. (See, In historic debate, UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman calls for abolition of union bureaucracy, power to the rank and file) In the course of the debate, Lehman advanced a clear strategy for workers, not only those in the UAW, but throughout the US and internationally. First, he presented the case for the establishment of a new power structure: a network of rank-and-file committees through which the workers themselves will control their fate and unify their struggles. In response to a question from moderator Steven Greenhouse, a former reporter for the New York Times, as to how he would work with the UAW bureaucracy if he was elected, Lehman declared, I dont intend to work with any of them. My pivot the entire time has been to workers on the factory floor, forming rank-and-file committees and making the decisions ourselves. I dont intend to use the same bureaucratic methods that have sold us out for decades My turn, again, is to workers on the factory floor, to organize, because that is where all the power is. The power is not in the bureaucracy. He added, It is two very distinct layers that were talking about. And the bureaucrats here wont like that, but Im not speaking to them. Im speaking to the workers, wherever they are, whatever industry theyre in, and Im telling them: We need to reorganize society to meet human need. In response to the declaration that the organization of rank-and-file workers is divisive, Lehman replied, The only division that I am sowing is: Workers, not parasites. The theme of the social gulf separating rank-and-file workers from the bureaucracy was developed throughout the debate. Following a statement from Fain, who was posturing as a reformer, that weve had corruption in our ranks that has set the UAW back, Lehman replied, We have not had corruption in our ranks on the working shop floor. We have had zero corruption. It is the bureaucracy that has had corruption We are not the same. The workers are different from the bureaucrats, and every worker needs to understand that they should have power directly in their hands. Throughout the debate, Lehman was the only candidate who could speak to the experiences of workers themselvesthe experience of being strung out on the picket line, of being forced to accept contracts that they opposed, of working for poverty-level wages. He referred to individual workers who have died on the job or from COVID-19 after the UAW assisted the companies in reopening the plants in 2020. When Greenhouse asked what the other candidates were doing to increase the presence of women in the union leadership, Lehman spoke to the experiences of women workers, including one who had a miscarriage due to the horrible conditions on the factory floor. Second, he made a powerful call for the international unity of the working class. The workers are the ones generating all the profits, he said. If we are all organized internationally, we can shut these companies down. Responding to the nationalist rhetoric of Curry and the other candidates, Lehman said, My appeal... is to the international working class being united in rank-and-file committees and coordinating action internationally. In response to the effort of the corporations and the union to pit workers in different countries against each other, Lehman said, What the UAW likes to do is wave the American flag and say Only Made in USA, when that divides us. We need global unity to face multinational corporations, and its only going to come from workers organizing on the shop floor. Third, Lehman advanced a socialist and anti-capitalist perspective for workers throughout the world. Im a socialist, Lehman said. Im working to advance a workers agenda... Theyre all capitalists. They are all going to work under what capitalism allows Workers need workers organizations to carry out democratic control over the production of these facilities, in a manner that benefits human need, not private profit. In opposition to the madness of the capitalist system, he said, What we need is a planned economy, and we need worker control of that economy. In the course of the debate, Lehman denounced the Democrats and Republicans, opposed the massive diversion of funds toward war abroad, including the present war against Russia, which risks nuclear catastrophe, and indicted the ruling class for its response to the pandemic, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 20 million people, including one million in the United States alone. Through the campaign of Will Lehman, workers are being exposed to positions and conceptions that have been systematically excluded by the political establishment and the media. It underscores the extent to which workers have been deprived of any access to a socialist perspective, precisely because such a perspective powerfully resonates with the experiences of workers themselves. That the debate was even held was only due to the massive corruption and criminality of the UAW leadership. Following the arrest and prosecution of more than a dozen UAW executives, including two former presidents, a court-appointed Monitor oversaw a referendum on direct elections, which passed despite the opposition of the apparatus. By not publicizing the debate and the election, the UAW hopes to keep it confined to a conflict within the apparatus, with as few workers voting as possible. Despite this fact, more than 10,000 workers have watched it, with workers reporting that they viewed it on the line as they worked and have been discussing Lehmans campaign. The media, for its part, is attempting to ignore it. Outside of the World Socialist Web Site, only the Detroit News and Free Press have written on it, in cursory articles that give nothing of its real content. The New York Times has not written an article on the debate, even though its former lead labor reporter moderated the event. The publications of the pseudo-left, including Labor Notes and Jacobin, both associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, have also not reported on the debate. Labor Notes has endorsed one of the candidates, Shawn Fain, who they are trying to promote as a reformer, and they do not want workers to watch an event that exposes Fain as a longtime apparatchik. These organizations are not socialist or left-wing. They are, in fact, part of the effort to suppress the class struggle. The line-up in the debate revealed the broader relationship of political and class forces. On the one hand is the union apparatus, staffed by a substantial upper-middle class layer, which is an institution of the state and corporate management. On the other hand, the campaign of Will Lehman articulates and gives expression to a growing rank-and-file movement striving to break free from the control of the apparatus. The campaign coincides with an explosive opposition of rail workers to the efforts of the unions and the Biden administration to force through a sellout agreement and a developing strike movement among health care workers, educators, service workers and other sections of the working class. The debate was a major milestone in the campaign. It must become the basis for an intensified fight to make the campaign as widely known among workers as possible, and in the process build up the network of rank-and-file committees to organize and unify the struggles of workers in the US and throughout the world. A teenage girl was shot dead by American soldiers as they conducted live-fire drills at the Victoria military base near Baghdad International Airport on September 20. Fifteen year-old Zainab Essam Majed al-Khazali, a student, was working with her father on their family farm when a bullet struck her in the head. Her funeral procession was held the next day. Zainab Essam Majed al-Khazali The Iraqi Security Media Cell promised an investigation into the murder, which it initially described as a random shooting. However a statement given by Iraqs security forces, quoted by The Cradle, confirmed the culpability of the US military: The killing of Zainab Essam Majed coincided with the presence of training operations for the American forces the bullet that was taken out of the girls head confirms that it is from one of the weapons used by the American forces in the embassy and airport. The shooting has provoked widespread outrage, with locals demanding to know why American soldiers were holding live-fire exercises near residential areas. On September 22, Iraqi legislator Ahmed Taha al-Rubaie, from the Basra province, called upon the Baghdad government to summon the American ambassador and present her with a formal note of protest, along with taking legal measures to hold those responsible for the murder accountable. In a post on Twitter, Rubaie wrote, Even though two days have passed since the teenage girl was killed by a bullet fired during US military exercises near the Victoria base northwest of Baghdad, the US Embassy has not bothered to issue any official apology for the unjust incident. He went on, The death, which occurred as a result of the use of live rounds during military drills near residential neighborhoods, exhibits an outrageous disregard for the Iraqi blood and a blatant disrespect for the country's sovereignty. Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a Shiite militia group that is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, demanded on Twitter that the government present a detailed report to the Iraqi people, explaining this cowardly incident, and how a military base can exist on Iraqi soil in clear violation of the Iraqi constitution and sovereignty. It remains unclear whether the shooting was intentional, or the result of US troops recklessly firing off live ammunition near populated urban areas. In either case, it demonstrates the criminal indifference of the US occupiers towards the lives of the people whom they liberated. It also exposes the cynicism and hypocrisy of the leaders of the US and the other imperialist powers as they invoke concern for human rights to justify the use of militarism. US officials have not acknowledged the crime, and in fact not a single Western news outlet has reported on the murder. At the same time, they have used the occasion of the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iranand the popular protests in Iran that have ensuedto call for regime change in Iran. The New York Times and Washington Post, in sync, have both published articles by foreign policy analyst Karim Sadjadpour, who writes in the Post that the United States should champion the aspirations of the Iranian people to live in a free society at peace with the world Irans transition from theocracy to democracy may not come easily, peacefully or soon. But it is the single most important key to transforming the Middle East. On Thursday, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Iranian police and intelligence officials in response to what Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the tragic and brutal death of Amini. The stark contrast in media coverage of the two deaths, which happened days apart, reflects the fact thatfrom the standpoint of the interests of US imperialismone of them is politically useful, while the other is an inconvenience that is best ignored. Nearly two decades ago, the George W. Bush administration applied an equally cynical campaign of falsehood, on a much greater scale, to justify the unprovoked invasion of Iraq. On the one hand, Iraq was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent danger to the world. On the other, the Iraqi people needed to be liberated from the brutal Saddam Hussein regime. These were the official justifications for what in reality was a war of imperialist aggression, launched against an oppressed nation in order to secure US domination over the oil resources of the Middle East. Begun with an infamous lie, the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq was conducted with a level of brutality and criminality not seen since Hitlers bloody invasions in the early stages of the Second World War. During the initial shock and awe blitzkrieg, the practically defenseless and already impoverished country was ruthlessly pulverized with the most advanced weaponry, with the capital Baghdad turned into a raging inferno by a storm of bombs and missiles. The ground invasion that followed encountered virtually no organized opposition from the dilapidated Iraqi Army, making it more accurate to call this phase a massacre rather than a war. The number of Iraqi soldiers and civilians killed during the invasion has never been accurately assessed, but it likely numbers in the tens of thousands at the least. Less than an hours drive from the site of Zainab al-Khazalis killing is the town of Fallujah, which in 2004 became a center of an uprising of the Iraqi people against their oppressors. Determined to make an example, US forces responded by virtually obliterating the town during a months-long siege, making no distinction between civilians and combatants in what can only be described as a mass reprisal, reminiscent of the brutal collective punishment meted out by the Nazi conquerors in Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere. Just a few miles from where the teenager met her untimely end lies Abu Ghraib, the site of the infamous prison camp operated by the US military which saw the torture and murder of detainees, the majority of whom were never even suspected of belonging to any resistance group. Photographs from Abu Ghraib profoundly shocked and angered the consciences of the world, and exposed the sheer gangsterism of the US war against Iraq. The senseless killing of an innocent girl is therefore the latest in a long list of outrages. But despite all the crimes, the mass killings, the torture, the systematic looting of the country and the destruction of priceless cultural artifacts, US imperialism failed in its military aim of installing a viable puppet state in Iraq, as demonstrated by the lingering presence of US troops. The country seethes with discontent. A similar operation in Afghanistan, which saw a 20-year effort by US imperialism to maintain an installed pro-US regime, likewise ended in a debacle. Now, US imperialism, confronted with an intractable social, economic and political crisis at home, is planning even greater and more catastrophic wars. The rhetoric of human rights and defending democracy is being used by the ruling class and its media apparatus to provide a justification for the planned wars against Russia and China, which threaten humanity with the specter of nuclear annihilation. In the aftermath of statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday threatening to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, US officials have made clear they are actively discussing the possibility that the conflict will erupt into a nuclear exchange. We have communicated directly, privately at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the United States and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told moderator Margaret Brennan on the CBS interview program Face the Nation Sunday. The mushroom cloud from the worlds first test of a thermonuclear device, dubbed Ivy Mike, over Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952. (AP Photo/Los Alamos National Laboratory) And it is a matter that we have to take deadly seriously, because it is a matter of paramount seriousness, the possible use of nuclear weapons for the first time since the Second World War, he added. Later that day, the New York Times reported that US officials believe the chances of nuclear escalation are significantly higher than they were in February and March. The Financial Times added that the US and its allies are increasing nuclear vigilance and deterrence, according to five western officials who spoke under the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The FT also reported, The US had also discussed scenarios with the Ukrainians about possible nuclear use and walked through protection and safety, citing a high-level official. In his appearances on the US Sunday talk shows, Sullivan confirmed a report published in the Washington Post Thursday that US officials had sent private communications to Moscow warning Russias leadership of the grave consequences that would follow the use of a nuclear weapon. Sullivan made these threats more explicit. He told Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd the consequences would be catastrophic if Russia went down the dark road of nuclear weapons use. In response to request for clarification from Todd, Sullivan continued, If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively. Asked by Todd whether the repeated use of the term catastrophic means as bad as he could imagine, Sullivan responded, Russia understands very well what the United States would do in response to the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine because we have spelled it out for them, and I will leave it at that today. In other words, while the Russian leadership has, according to Sullivan, been informed of the consequences of the Russian use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the American people, who stand to be incinerated if the United States were to initiate a full strategic nuclear exchange, are to be left in the dark. The escalation of tensions came as Russia held referendums in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, four regions of Eastern Ukraine under its military control, for joining the Russian federation. The third day of voting was held Sunday. On Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that any regions annexed to Russia will be under the full protection of the state, implying that Russia would respond to any attacks on them with the use of nuclear weapons. The Russian parliament could potentially move to incorporate the provinces into the Russian Federation on Thursday, and Putin is tentatively planning to address parliament on Friday. In an interview with CNN, British Prime Minister Liz Truss made clear that the threat of nuclear escalation by Putin would not diminish UK involvement in the war. We should not be listening to his saber-rattling and his bogus threats. Instead, what we need to do is continue to put sanctions on Russia and continue to support the Ukrainians, Truss said. Sullivans threats were accompanied by a full court press in the US media rationalizing the potential use of nuclear weapons in the conflict. In perhaps the most egregious example, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat mused that Kyiv might be willing to accept an unusual degree of nuclear risk, even absorb a nuclear strike, for the sake of its own territorial integrity. In a battle for their very freedom, the Ukrainians want their children to look back and say that in the greatest crisis, the blood of their fathers ran strong. In a previous commentary on the World Socialist Web Site, we wrote that the strategists and propagandists of US imperialism see the people of Ukraine as cannon fodder. There is no greater confirmation than the suggestion that the people of the impoverished Eastern European country would be happy to absorb a nuclear attack potentially capable of killing millions of people. In no section of the US political establishment has the increasingly obvious reality that the conflict is rapidly threatening to escalate into a nuclear war been treated as an incentive to push toward a negotiated settlement of the war, which has already killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. Rather, the US is treating any Russian escalation of the conflict in the wake of the military debacle in northern Ukraine as an opportunity to further escalate its own involvement in the war. US officials, according to an op-ed Sunday by Times columnist David Brooks, wish to continue to supply Ukraine with weapons, maybe even including tanks and advanced fighter planes. Those systems are apparently on the table. Mass protests escalated across Haiti after weeks of resistance to the conditions of poverty and oppression millions are facing. This is combined with political opposition to Prime Minister Ariel Henry, widely perceived as a pawn of the US ruling elite, who protesters are demanding be ousted from power. In response to some of the largest demonstrations in recent years, international media outlets and imperialist governments alike are now mulling over or explicitly calling for a foreign military intervention to crack down on dissent. Demonstrators protest against fuel price hikes and to demand that Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry step down, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph] The opposition to the corrupt political establishment, intolerable social climate and decades-long imperialist oppression is being expressed in targeted attacks against critical institutions widely seen as bastions of neocolonial domination over the small island. A local bank in the coastal commune Leogane, Unibank, was one of several banks across the country which protesters attacked and partially burned. Protesters sprayed graffiti on the building reading Down with USA and Down with USA and Ariel Henry. In Jeremie, a commune in Haitis southeast region, protesters were filmed burning down and ransacking Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) facilities, while other NGOs around the country are reporting being attacked. NGOs have been the source of immense contempt by the population following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Thousands of NGOs have come to operate around 80 percent of the countrys basic public services, ostensibly enlisted to rebuild infrastructure and provide long-term employment to jobless locals. They have instead siphoned off millions in relief money that has gone totally unaccounted for while highly paid staffers have profited from the countrys misery. Other instances included large-scale arson attacks, including the burning down of barricades in Port-au-Prince after Henry slandered protesters as gangs funded by local businesses and foreign interests. The notion that the unrest in Haiti is primarily the product of gang violence rather than raging social inequality is being repeated in ruling circles. During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Wednesday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said gangs in Haiti were destroying the very building blocks of society. Guterres has joined Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader, whose government has clamored in recent weeks for the return of a UN peacekeeping force like MINUSTAH, a Brazilian-led international military occupation that was tasked with suppressing opposition in Haitis shantytowns after the overthrow of elected president and former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Perhaps the most cynical and hypocritical comments from the General Assembly came from Sebastien Carriere, Canadas ambassador to Port-au-Prince, who said the international community needs to get together and support Haiti. Carriere lauded the Haitian police, declaring that he had the utmost respect for the [police] and the work they are doing, and that what was missing in resolving the crisis was political actors getting together and also doing the best they can to come to an inclusive accord that doesnt leave anybody behind and puts the country back on the right track. Videos circulated widely on social media have refuted this disgusting flattery, clearly documenting the same Haitian police, trained and armed by the various imperialist powers, beating, maiming and gunning down protesters over the past month. In this, Canada has been a complicit actor, providing $42 million in funding for the Haitis security force this year alone. The so-called political actors cited by Carriere have been handpicked by the imperialist powers themselves, above all Henry, to form Haitis government following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. This was done through the Core Group of imperialist ambassadors operating in Haiti who saw Henry as a more auspicious figurehead for a puppet regime than interim president Claude Joseph. The unelected Henry was carefully selected due to his politically criminal history as an operative for the US government stretching back to the early 2000s, when he led the Democratic Convergence (CD) movement which played a critical role in toppling Aristide in a US-backed coup. Leading up to the coup, CD made explicit appeals to the US for an invasion and the restoration of the violent Haitian army that tortured and killed thousands in the 1990s. Henrys organization provided political cover for the CIA-trained and funded death squads and former army officers that would carry out Aristides violent overthrow. Prior to becoming prime minister, Henry served in ministerial positions under the presidencies of US lackeys Michel Martelly and Moise, the former being installed in 2011 through fraudulent elections orchestrated by Hillary Clinton, before placing Moise in power as his handpicked successor in another entirely bogus electoral process. Both Martelly and Moise were infamous for their connections to Haitis rapacious business elite and for carrying out brutal police crackdowns on protestors in Haitis shantytowns. In the waning days of his term, Martelly relied on the Haitian police and BOID (Departmental Brigade of Operations and Interventions), a paramilitary unit that was directed at crushing opposition to his rampant corruption, while Haitians starved on poverty wages and dilapidated infrastructure. Just recently a lawsuit was brought against Martelly which alleged Haitian officials and multinational corporations conspired to fix the prices of remittances and telephone calls from the United States to Haiti, diverting millions in tax funds into private hands instead of filling the governments treasury. Haitis intractable political crisis came to a head during the presidency of Moise, who gutted the federal legislature, judiciary and local governments and defied his constitutional term limit in his efforts to inaugurate a dictatorial regime. The gangs that are now violently terrorizing the nation were largely a creation of Moise. In 2018, these gang forces carried out the La Saline massacre that gruesomely killed 59 people in a neighborhood that was the scene of protests against his government. Police agent Jimmy BBQ Cherizier is a former police officer who participated directly in the assault and subsequently founded the G9 Family and Allies gang federation, employed to intimidate voters during elections and quell social unrest. Large-scale protests against Moise erupted after a criminal investigation found that Moise and his political cronies embezzled millions through a development fund, PetroCaribe program, that was subsidized by Venezuela that was intended to help low-income Haitians. The massive resistance of Haitis oppressed working class, who face super-exploitation by American apparel and other companies, has led to a propaganda offensive by foreign diplomats and strategists to scapegoat gangs and oligarchs as responsible for the uprisings. Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Councils senior director for the Western Hemisphere and a special assistant to Biden, said during an appearance Monday at the Washington D.C.-based United States Institute of Peace meeting that Haitis instability was being financed by people who have mansions in different parts of the world, and are paying for people to go into the streets. The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, a propaganda conduit for the US military and intelligence agencies, is once again trumpeting another colonial-style intervention in Haiti. The Post writers reprised their comments from an editorial last year following the assassination of Moise calling for boots on the ground or another violent military intervention. They complain about the absence of muscular action by outside actors, and argue propping up the prime minister [Henry] is a mistake. The Post editorial insists that outside some foreign expedition on the island and external force, any policy decision in Haiti is an abdication of responsibility. Aside from falsely conflating the violent carnage now being meted out by the likes of G9 and its family with the genuine expressions of popular anger against poverty and political repression, the Post editorial entirely brushes over the fact that the social disaster and gang warfare are result of actions of Henry and his predecessors who have received the full backing of Democratic and Republican administrations alike. A major US newspaper calling for the renewal of direct colonial-style domination of Haiti has frightening implications, as it recalls the two-decade-long US Marine occupation of Haiti after President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was assassinated. This ushered in more than a century of imperialist plunder that saw hundreds of thousands killed under the Duvalier dictatorships, US -backed military juntas and a 13-year-long UN military operation. American intelligence agencies and State Department officials funded death squads that murdered without restraint in Haitis slums. It is this century of imperialist domination that has cemented a legacy of abysmal economic conditions out of which the present crisis has emerged. Henry and other top government officials are also now pleading for international intervention amid the irresolvable political conflicts raging the country. Foreign Minister Jean Victor Geneus told UN delegates in New York on Saturday that Haiti was facing a multifaceted sociopolitical and economic crisis that is being exacerbated by gang terror and could only be solved with the effective support of our partners. Geneus cited Henrys own words, saying the prime minister had no desire to stay in power longer than necessary and appealed to the regimes foreign patrons to facilitate an electoral coalition. The bloody fighting between the various gang organizations is a testament to the hostility among rival sections of the Haitian ruling elite. Cherizier was enlisted by Haitis big business families to control the importation of food, fuel and other lucrative goods. A section of Haitis ruling-elite is turning to ever more violent means to produce the conditions for Henrys overthrow to consolidate control over Haitis most profitable sectors. At the General Assembly Biden issued bland platitudes, professing his intention to stand with our neighbor in Haiti as it faces political-fueled gang violence and an enormous human crisis, without making any long-term policy decision to address the crisis. Although the Biden administration has not unveiled any immediate plans for intervention, the US has maintained its criminal anti-immigrant policies that have placed Haitian migrants under conditions tantamount to torture, while continuing to deport refugees in droves without any consideration of their asylum claims. A new report from Amnesty International documents discriminatory and degrading ill treatment of Haitian asylum seekers that have accompanied the mass expulsions under the Title 42 Trump-era policy which Biden has continued. Whatever the coloration of any political regime that emerges from crisis, either the prolongation of Henrys rule or the cobbling together of a coalition including his political opponents, what is certain is that the US and world imperialism will arrange a factional alliance as grasping and corrupt as all the other governments that followed the 2004 coup. The self-serving lies about lending support to Haiti are not to ensure democracy, but to facilitate a new round of fraudulent elections like all the ones since the installation of Martelly. To end the social calamity they face, the Haitian masses must initiate an independent political struggle led by the working class, at the head of the oppressed masses and in the closest unity with their class brothers and sisters internationally. The conditions facing Haitians are far from isolated experiences, as protests and strikes against the insufferable life created by capitalism have erupted in Sri Lanka, the US and worldwide. The road forward lies in creating a unified basis for a movement of the international working class for socialism. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China has extended the exemption of purchase taxes on new energy vehicles (NEVs) by another year to the end of 2023, as part of measures to boost auto sales and the NEV industry development, according to a notice today jointly issued by China's Ministry of Finance, State Taxation Administration, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ("MIIT"). The NEVs enjoying the tax exemption will be included into catalogues issued by the MIIT and the State Taxation Administration as an approach of governmental management. BYD Tang EV; photo credit: BYD According to the Chinese policy, NEVs refer to all-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (including range-extended electric vehicles), as well as fuel cell vehicles. Prior to the latest notice release, the decision to extend NEV purchase tax exemption was approved by Chinas State Council at an executive meeting held on August 18. To support the development of the NEV industry, China began exempting NEVs from purchase tax in 2014. The policy originally expired at the end of 2017, but was firstly extended to the end of 2020. In April 2020, the government announced it would once again extend the tax exemption on NEV purchases by an additional two years to better promote the sector's development and boost auto sales. For the first eight months of this year, there were 3.97 million and 3.86 million NEVs produced and sold across China, up roughly 120% and 110% year over year, according to data by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers ("CAAM"). Editor's note: The 16th annual High Plains Book Awards recognizes regional literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. highplainsbookawards.org The Woman Writer Award honors the best book by a woman writer in any category. The book Ancestors a High Plains Book Awards finalist in the Woman Writer category offers the reader an opportunity to engage with photographs from several tribal groups, with explanatory texts, based on an exhibit from the University of Alberta Bruce Peel Special Collections. According to the curators, the central purposes are the potential for photos to carry information and memory, permit reconnection with ancestors, focus on the pride of descendants and community members, and document and preserve information for future generations. Although the authors say the focus is on people in the photographs, not the photographers, there is value in the substantial information on the photographers, contexts in which they worked, and subsequent uses made of the pictures. There are photos of individuals, families, ceremonies, social occasions, tipis and camps, clothing, headdresses, hair styles and other adornments and regalia, cradleboards, travois, and tourism-related events, powwows, fairs, and other gatherings. An important aspect of research involved comments from elders and community discussions, during which people, places, events, and details were recognized and remembered, including how significant people, gender, and political events are represented. An overriding perspective comes from the Blackfoot language, iikokan, which means story from the pictures. There is use of Indigenous language including tribal/subtribe and personal names. The authors extensive documentation puts photographs into the context of activities which supported the 19th century colonial narrative. In addition, they criticize inaccuracies in original captions, later reprints, and versions in newspaper articles that imply that Indians were vanishing. As exhibition-based, the outstanding selections and commentary are presented as individual pictures and topics, with little narrative to tie them together chronologically or thematically. The exhibit and book are inspirational university museum endeavors and will stimulate ongoing work with Indigenous topics and persons. C. Adrian Heidenreich, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, Native American Studies/Anthropology, Montana State University Billings. Adopted Crow (Apsaalooke), named Duxxiia-dee-itche (Goes to War in a Good Way) to recognize cultural advocacy and diplomacy. You are Invited October 8! Book Sale and Author Panels 11 AM 5 PM Billings Public Library Award Presentations MSU Billings Petro Theatre 7:30 PM no charge Editor's note: The 16th annual High Plains Book Awards recognizes regional literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. highplainsbookawards.org The First Book Award honors a writers first published book in any category. In Katherine Wiltenberg Todrys Black Snake: Standing Rock, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and Environmental Justice, we are given a compelling example of how communities with little access to power and resources can shape international consciousness, save their land and water and build a community. Todrys, a human rights lawyer and researcher, is a finalist in the First Book category of the High Plains Book Awards. The book is centered around the stories of four native women - LaDonna Allard, Jasilyn Charger, Lisa DeVille, and Kandi White - who lead different aspects of the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Among many concerns, the pipeline threatens the water supply for native and non-native communities. In heart rendering storytelling, we are taken on the painful but inspiring journeys of these leaders. Jasilyn began to think of herself as part of the seventh generation, a concept from a Lakota prophecy from the time of the nineteenth-century leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. After seven generations, the youth awaken and rise up. Another prophecy foretelling that a terrible black snake would enter the Lakota homeland and spread death and ruin across the earth, beginning with the water Jasilyn believed they were living in that time. The author shares complicated yet clear eyed lessons in the tactics and compromises required to challenge entrenched corporate power. While the dizzying array of government agencies and political and judicial players can be hard to follow, the author grounds the narrative through the eyes of the leadership decisions of four incredible women. In the short term, the protests were unsuccessful. The pipeline was completed, and oil is flowing through it. However, the courage, tenacity and vision of these activists may be ushering in a cultural shift that brings hope to the world. Sit with these stories and feel, as the Lakota leader Crazy Horse prophesied, a world longing for light again. Tim Sweeney is a retired LGBTQ and HIV advocate and activist. You are Invited October 8! Book Sale and Author Panels 11 AM 5 PM Billings Public Library Award Presentations MSU Billings Petro Theatre 7:30 PM no charge Sarah Krivanek Prisoner Monitoring Service Sarah Krivanek is visited in a Russian penal colony Sarah Krivanek's wellbeing remains a concern for activists and loved ones, heightened after an official saw the American woman's condition in person for the first time since she was imprisoned in Russia. Natalia Filimonova, a prisoner's rights activist working for nonprofit organization Russia Behind Bars, organized a visit from the state-run Prisoner Monitoring Service recently. She tells PEOPLE that foreign inmates do not have access to money and supplies from family and friends abroad "so they find themselves in a critical situation if their health deteriorates." "They don't have a Russian medical card and so they can't use the prison clinic," she says. "When any inmate finds themselves in a state of crisis, that's the moment we go in to see them. If we didn't do this many people would perish in prison." RELATED: 'Forgotten' American Woman Jailed in Russia with Brittney Griner Tried to Flee with U.S. Help Before Arrest Krivanek is serving a one-year, three-month sentence in connection with domestic assault charges that stemmed from a November 2021 dispute involving a Russian man named Mikhail Karavaev. She nicked him on the nose with a knife, which she claimed was after she was physically abused. After indicating in court that she was defending herself in the incident, Krivanek was released on bail. But while trying to flee Russia with the help of the U.S. Embassy on Dec. 15, 2021, Krivanek was arrested at a Moscow airport before she was able to board her U.S.-bound plane. A family member who Krivanek calls "Nanny" and who asked to be named only as Caroline tells PEOPLE, "I worry about her day and night." Caroline has been like a mother to Sarah, who she says was hospitalized for near renal failure in the U.S. "If she's not getting treatment, I'm afraid she's not going to make it," Caroline says. RELATED: Sarah Krivanek Was 'Desperate' to Leave Russia Before She Was Arrested, Says Family Member Story continues Sarah Krivanek VK Anita Martinez, a close friend of Sarah's, has repeatedly written to the State Department through the White House website, urging them to visit her. A U.S. official told her in early August the State Department is "very concerned" and "doing everything they can to ensure her well-being." But she's heard nothing more and Krivanek has yet to receive a visit from the embassy in Moscow, a four-hour drive from the colony. Viktor Boborykin, the Prisoner Monitoring Service official who visited Krivanek around Sept. 14, confirmed (via his colleague) to Russia Behind Bars that Sarah was in ill health, but gave no further details. The group works hand in hand with the Federal Penitentiary Service and is wary of any public criticism regarding conditions in prison. Russia Behind Bars also arranged a drop-off of fresh fruit and vegetables, vitamins, milk products, warm clothes and basic toiletries such as shampoo and soap through two local volunteers on Sept. 14. Krivanek had begged for the items in a prison-censored letter to a Russian contact. RELATED: Sarah Krivanek Breaks Her Silence with Letter Sent from Russian Prison: 'The Road Has Been Very Hard' The volunteers who traveled from nearby Ryazan to deliver the goods in person were not permitted in to see her. "They told us we needed proof of Covid vaccinations. But that wasn't posted as a requirement on the prison site," explains one of them, Ekaterina Vulikh. "The last three kilometers [to get to the penal colony] was just a dirt track," Vulikh says. "It's in the middle of nowhere. It's strange when you approach because you come upon this old, dilapidated set of Soviet-era buildings ringed by barbed wire. There's complete silence." Sarah Krivanek Ryazan Novaya Gazeta An online review site of Prison Colony No. 4 in the Ryzansk region describes the appalling conditions. "The food has maggots and cockroaches in it and if you open your mouth to complain you're sent to the Shizo [isolation cell]," writes Viktoria Naklonova. "In Winter the cold is unbearableIn a word, it's hell there." Yekaterina, a relative of an inmate, writes: "There is absolutely no medical help here, my relative had open ulcers on her legs and she wasn't even given a bandage." Another relative, Alexei Ivanov, said: "The only way to survive here is if you have money." Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer. Svetlana Gorbacheva, a lawyer for Krivanek who has received two distressed phone calls from her client since December, has personally sent her money. She knows that friends and family are unable to transfer funds into Russia following the war in Ukraine. "I feel so sorry for her," she says. "She desperately needs help. She's sitting waiting for someone from the Embassy to come." The Russian judicial service "asked constantly" for a representative of the U.S. Embassy to be present at her trial but "they didn't respond at all," she adds. A U.S. State Department official told PEOPLE in early August, "We take our role in assisting U.S. citizens abroad seriously and are monitoring the situation." Responding to the latest news about Krivanek's health concerns, an official tells PEOPLE that the State Department's requests for access to detainees are "consistently delayed or denied" by Russian authorities. RELATED: State Department Officials Are 'Very Concerned' About American Woman Jailed in Russia, Her Friend Says Filimonova from Russia Behind Bars was surprised that Boborykin's visit was attended by a prison guard and a priest those meetings are supposed to be private. "We stressed that it had to be a one-to-one confidential meeting so that we could get information on how she really feels, what her conditions are and what medicines she needs." She believes the guard was present because she's an American citizen. She adds that Krivanek had been in the prison system long enough to "understand the dangers of saying anything that could get her into trouble." Sarah Krivanek VK Krivanek is due to be released on Nov. 11 and then deported, but her lawyer insists that the deportation process "is to be avoided at all costs." Unlike the U.S., the Russian government does not pay deportation costs and foreigners convicted of crimes are kept in a holding cell until they can organize their own trip home. "Normally what should happen is that the Embassy makes contact with the prison administration and arranges for conditions of her release," adds her lawyer. Filimonova says she knows of foreigners who've been in a detention cell for up to a year while they try and raise funds for a flight home. Krivanek will be penniless upon her release and likely still unable to contact friends and family from her cell. "We will try and get one of our volunteer lawyers to take on this case and see if we can avoid deportation," she says. "If that isn't successful, we can help arrange her flight home." RELATED: Sarah Krivanek's Friend Writes to President Biden Begging for Him to Help the American Woman Jailed in Russia Meanwhile, Martinez says she's happy that people are finally paying attention to her dear friend. "I'm eternally grateful for the help shown by these brave Russian volunteers who've arranged for potentially life-saving supplies to be sent to Sarah," she says. "And to PEOPLE for establishing contact with them." Filimonova agrees that you have to be "a courageous person" to come to the aid of an American prisoner in Vladimir Putin's Russia. On Sept. 12, Martinez sent another letter to President Joe Biden, which she shared with PEOPLE. She begs him to show Krivanek the same attention he has given to WNBA player Brittney Griner, who is also imprisoned in Russia and is now awaiting news on the appeal of her nine-year sentence for drug possession. RELATED: How Sarah Krivanek Differs from Brittney Griner and What It Means to Be 'Wrongfully Detained' in Russia Biden recently met with Griner's family members at the White House to assure them that her case is still a top priority for the administration. Martinez has yet to hear back from the president regarding Krivanek. "Please do not let her die in a Russian prison!" she writes. "She said that she feels abandoned by the U.S. Government. Please do something to let her know that this is not the case and that she has not been forgotten. Do right by her and bring her home before it's too late." A New Mexico district attorney said in a hearing last week that her office could be close to charging up to four people in the fatal Rust shooting from last October with criminal charges relating to homicide. D.A. Mary Carmack-Altwies in a New Mexico Board of Finance meeting on Sept. 20 requested emergency funding in order to try as many as four separate jury trials. She clarified that she has yet to review a final report from the Santa Fe Sheriffs office but that we are within weeks, if not days, from receiving it. Its become apparent that we will be potentially charging between one and four people with criminal charges and each of those charges will probably include some variation of our homicide statute, Carmack-Altwies said in the meeting. The D.A. was granted $317,750 in emergency funding by the board of finance, though it was half the amount that her office had requested, which wouldve gone to paying for a dedicated attorney and support staff to try the cases. Also Read: Former KTLA Weekend Anchor Lynette Romero Left for Weekday Gig at Los Angeles Rival KNBC, Insiders Say These cases look to be too big for just my office to handle, Carmack-Altwies said. We need an almost full-time attorney and someone who is very experienced on complex cases and very experienced with litigation. The Rust case took a step forward last month when the FBI completed its forensics analysis on the bullet that killed the films cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, which has allowed the Santa Fe Sheriffs office to resume their investigation. However at the time, law enforcement officials still need access to data from Alec Baldwins cell phone, which was turned over to authorities in New York, and that results were forthcoming. A representative for the Santa Fe county Sheriffs office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on an updated timeline for the investigation. Story continues Baldwin was holding the gun that, on Oct. 21, discharged and killed Hutchins while injuring director Joel Souza on the set of the Western film Rust. Baldwin had been told the gun was cold and did not have live ammunition, but the key question of the Rust investigation has involved how live rounds found their way into the weapon. In addition to Baldwin, the films armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and assistant director Dave Halls have been of interest to Sheriff Mendoza in the case. The fatal incident has sparked numerous civil lawsuits over the working conditions on the film, as well as larger industry calls for increased safety and firearm training. Also Read: Rust Producers Get Main Claims Dismissed in Script Supervisors Lawsuit Trying to follow in the footsteps of last years best original screenplay winner Kenneth Branagh (Belfast), Focus Features is trying to position writer, director and co-producer James Gray as one of the awards seasons breakout nominees for Armageddon Time. The film is currently sitting with a respectable 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the awards team will be looking for opportunities beyond the Writers Branch. After debuting the film at the Cannes Film Festival, before making stops at Telluride and later this week at the New York Film Festival, the distributor has revealed exclusively to Variety its awards submission categories for the films actors. More from Variety Anne Hathaway, who plays the devoted mother Esther, was one of the actors who seemed to straddle the line between lead and supporting, and she will be seeking the latter. A two-time Oscar-nominee for Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Les Miserables (2012), which she won for best supporting actress, she hasnt been back to the ceremony as a nominee in the last decade. With Michelle Williams turn in The Fabelmans moving to lead actress, the studio apparently sees an opening for Hathaway in a wide-open category. As spunky grandmother Mickey Rabinowitz, four-time Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh will also compete alongside Hathaway. While not having a bulk of screen time compared to her co-stars, Feldshuhs role is full of one-line zingers and steals the movie every moment shes on screen. Armageddon Time For supporting actor, Emmy winner Jeremy Strong (HBOs Succession) as the stern father Irving, will attempt to break into a race thats stacked with multiple veterans, including his co-star Anthony Hopkins as wise and loving grandfather Aaron. Hopkins also has a one-scene wonder turn in Florian Zellers The Son opposite Hugh Jackman that could also factor into the discussion. Story continues In his feature film debut, Jaylin Webb as Pauls Black friend Johnny Davis, who undergoes a multitude of hardships, will also be presented as a supporting player. His co-star Banks Repeta, who plays the young Paul, will be the sole actor submitted for lead consideration. The coming-of-age story, which focuses on the strength of family and the pursuit of the American dream, is also seeking recognition in the technical races: production design (Happy Massee and Teri Bella), cinematography (Darius Khondji, who also shot Bardo), costume design (Madeline Weeks), film editing (Scott Morris) and original score (Christopher Spelman). Read: the latest predictions, visit Varietys Oscars Hub. Also serving as producers alongside Gray are Oscar-winner Anthony Katagas (12 Years a Slave), Marc Butan and Rodrigo Teixeira. Gray will be getting the director honor at Mill Valley and the Bill Wittliff Award for screenwriting from the Austin Film Festival. Armageddon Time will open in limited release on Oct. 28 before expanding on Nov. 4. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Giorgia Meloni is poised to become the next prime minister of Italy. With her victory will come the countrys most far-right government since Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party ruled during World War II. If exit polls are correct, Meloni will become the first female prime minister of Italy. Her Brothers of Italy party is projected to win between 22% to 26% of the vote, which would allow her to outflank Enrico Letta, the centre left politician who is her nearest rival. Brothers of Italy are expected to form a coalition government with Matteo Salvinis League and Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia. Final results are expected on Monday morning. More from Variety Meloni scored victory while running on anti-immigration policies, as well as plans to limit LGBTQ rights and restrictions to access to abortion. She has also established a brand for herself by railing against the European Union, something which should make Western countries and markets skittish. At the same time, Meloni has voiced support for Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia, but her success in office will depend on how effectively she is able to deal with the countrys escalating energy costs, a problem exacerbated by that conflict, as well as the economic uncertainty gripping the nation. Meloni prevails in Italy just months after France faced a similar choice between a far-right future and a more middle-of-the-road approach to governance. In that case, Marine Le Pen lost the French presidential election to incumbent Emmanuel Macron in April, even as she showed surprising electoral strength. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Gorillaz used their tour stop in Los Angeles not only to play a packed show at the citys Kia Forum but also to hold a special advance listening session for their new album, the provocatively titled Cracker Island, set for release on February 24, 2023. Gorillaz albums are always filled with guests, and the Damon Albarn-helmed group reeled in a grip of musical stars to join them on stage at the Forum on Friday night: Namely Beck, Tame Impala and Thundercat, who are among the features on Cracker Island along with Stevie Nicks and Bad Bunny, both of whom were on tour elsewhere (more about the latter shortly). More from Variety Beck, dressed like the best man at a wedding circa 1977, turned up once for The Valley of the Pagans from his 2020 collaboration with the group, and again for the first-ever unveiling of his song from Cracker Island, Possession Island. Tame Impalas Kevin Parker sang alongside Albarn on the already-released single, New Gold, accompanied by Bootie Brown, and Thundercat smoothly slid on stage for their rendition of the albums title track. It wasnt just about Cracker Island, however, as De La Soul bounced in for Feel Good Inc., Fatoumata Diawara graced the stage for Desole and Schoolboy Q showed up for Pac-Man, a first-time appearance for the rapper with Gorillaz. Two nights prior, Del Tha Funky Homosapien joined the group in San Francisco for Rock the House. This appearance was particularly momentous as Del sustained serious injuries in 2018 while performing Clint Eastwood during the Gorillazs set at Denmarks Roskilde Festival. That accident fractured his rib which punctured a lung, and he has not performed since. For the Kia Forum show, Del performed Rock the House and the fateful Clint Eastwood. Story continues The evening before the Los Angeles performances, a select number of music industry folks were treated to a playback of Cracker Island at Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood. A five-month-ahead advance listen is a rare treat particularly as it was followed by a Q&A with Albarn and visual artist Jamie Hewlett, plus the albums producer, eight-time Grammy winner, Greg Kurstin. The playback took place at the famed locations Studio B, which was glowing with womb-like fuchsia lighting accents. Gorillaz albums one-up their predecessors, and Cracker Island, the eighth studio album from the semi-virtual group, is no different. In addition to the aforementioned artists, the 10-song album also boasts Stevie Nicks on Oil, Bad Bunny on Tormenta and Adeleye Omotayo on Silent Running. Albarn dominated the post-listen Q&A session, fielding most of the questions. He referred to Cracker Island as the multi-platinum groups L.A. album, stating that until this album, Ive been very resistant to the considerable charms of L.A. Albarn and Hewlett were in Los Angeles meeting with Netflix they have a project in development at the streaming giant which Hewlett cracked was proceeding, at Netflix pace. In an afterhours meeting with Kurstin at this very same Studio B, Albarn and the hitmaking producer Hit it off immediately, according to Albarn and the album-making moved to the Adele/ Sia/ Beck producers studio. Cracker Island took 10 to 11 days to make, all told, said Albarn, a slight exaggeration as later he said they traveled to Jamaica to record Tormenta with Bad Bunny and admitted that New Gold was the song that took the longest, its 6/4 time signature not helping in its completion. About working with Kurstin, Albarn said it was A lot of fun. Quick. Spontaneous. Greg has one of the best studios in the world, analog, everything EQed and ready to go. Albarns responses were filled with humorous anecdotes. He said that when Bad Bunny arrived in Jamaica via private jet, obviously, he did so without his passport. The prime minister of Jamaica allowed the chart topper entry, But, Albarn laughed, [The prime minister] said, You have to do me a dubplate. Albarn also quipped that, Elton John cant follow my melodies because he cant get his head around my tonality. This was in reference to The Pink Phantom, the song John collaborated on as part of Gorillaz 2020 album project, Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez. When someone commented that Gorillaz were well ahead of their time by being arguably the first virtual group, Albarn who reminded attendees that Gorillaz had a virtual world on MySpace expressed frustration, saying, Being ahead of our time means youre not capitalizing the way other people do. He recalled Gorillaz performance at the 2006 Grammy Awards when the group opened the ceremony with their virtual members on stage. The groups dazed and disconnected 2D, Russel Hobbs and Murdoc Nicalls were joined by De La Soul for their winning song Feel Good Inc., and for a few seconds by their fourth virtual member, a dozy Noodle, on Madonnas Hung Up, who then separated from Gorillaz and segued into fresh-and-blood rendition of her song. Antiquated techniques, is what Albarn said of that early attempt at the metaverse. We were trying to have a holographic representation so we didnt have to be on stage, which wasnt possible. When asked about what songs didnt make it onto Cracker Beach, Hewlett said there was an entire albums worth of songs that are not included. Albarn added that those songs would probably end up the same place as all their other unreleased material, including his Drunk duet with Erykah Badu. Gorillaz have been on a world tour since March 2022, performing at European festivals last month. In addition to the released songs from Cracker Island, Gorillaz also perform Skinny Ape, about which Albarn said, Three [new] songs is enough. The tour continues through the end of October. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. John Oliver returned with a new episode of Last Week Tonight on HBO and HBO Max after taking a week off. The main topic of the night was Brazil and its president Jair Bolsonaro. One of Olivers concerns was the lack of care from Bolsonaro to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as the country saw an uptick during the pandemic versus the rest of the world which lowered emissions during the same time period. The president of the South American country has also received pressure to protect the Amazon as fires destroy the greenery but the politician has fired back saying its all a nefarious plot to seize Brazils jungles. More from Deadline Oliver then added that Bolsonaro directly accused Leonardo DiCaprio of funding arson in the Amazon. The comedian thought it was all absurd as he didnt think the Titanic actor would have the time to fund such a thing as he took jabs at his controversial love life. Where would Leo find the time to do that between his busy film schedule, his daily yacht f*** and having a big laugh at every tweet about his May to December love life, Oh man, the Internet got me again, Leo shouts to the richest people on the planet over a bottle of win that costs more than your rent, Oliver said. The 45-year-old actor became a trending topic on social media after it was reported he broke up with his 25-year-old girlfriend Camila. DiCaprio is now rumored to be dating model Gigi Hadid who is 27 years old. You can watch Last Week Tonights episode below. Best of Deadline Story continues Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. john-oliver_5 - Credit: PAULA L0B0 On this weeks Last Week Tonight, John Oliver began by acknowledging Mahsa Aminis death in Iran and the protests that have followed, serpentine Florida Governor Ron DeSantiss political stunt in which he (probably illegally) shipped 50 migrants to Marthas Vineyard We could spend the rest of this show talking about DeSantis and why he always looks like hes wearing a suit under his suit, Oliver said and Puerto Ricos ongoing misery brought about by natural disasters and currupt and/or incompetent officials. Then Oliver moved onto his main story about Brazils upcoming presidential election. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who for the past four years has pursued far-right policies while quite literally encouraging the relentless destruction of Amazon rainforests, is currently running well behind his challenger, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula, as he is affectionately known, was given a 12-year prison sentence in 2018 for his alleged role in a massive corruption scandal. The case against him was annulled by Brazils Supreme Court due to procedural errors, and a suddenly free Lula aimed to get his old job back. Based on polls, it looks like hes going to succeed. More from Rolling Stone Except, many Brazilians fear that Bolsonaro, who has often been described as Brazils Donald Trump, may not accept election results and will instead refuse to give up power. Hes already alleged that judges and election officials are trying to sabotage him and called into question the reliability of electronic voting machines despite the fact that they have been nothing but reliable for the past 25 years. There are only three alternatives for me, Bolsonaro recently told cheering supporters. To be arrested, to be killed, or to be victorious. And I tell those scumbags, I will never go to jail. Story continues Speaking of Trump, Bolsonaro and his administration are facing multiple investigations for wrongdoing. And, uh, also speaking of Trump, Bolsonaro made the effects of the pandemic in Brazil far worse than they had to be. He publicly mocked those concerned about Covid, sowed distrust about vaccines, and for months actively avoided the please of vaccine makers trying to get doses to Brazilians. Once vaccines were finally available, almost 100 percent of the residents of Rio de Janeiro and the capital, Brasilia, got vaccinated, which is a pretty good indication that Bolsonaro was putting in place policies opposed by a large majority of the country. Imagine that! Luckily for us, Oliver said, Trumps allies were generally limited to a shirtless man in a fur hat, a perpetually hoarse pillow baron, and some of his dumber children. But Bolsonaro has significant military support. Generally, when someone threatens democracy, its a lot easier to say, You and what army? when youre absolutely certain that person doesnt have an actual army behind them. Best of Rolling Stone Click here to read the full article. Kendrick Lamar is bringing his Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers tour to fans all over the world with a new drop of merchandise that was being sold at the shows. The items were posted on pgLang.com on Monday (September 26) and include shirts, hoodies, and a hat. Items for sale include a The Big Steppers Tour design and an Are You Happy For Me? style, which takes its cue from the Big Steppers song Savior. Last week, it was announced that Kendrick is among the musical guests confirmed for the new season of Saturday Night Live. The 48th season of NBCs sketch show begins on October 1, with Lamar kicking off the series premiere thats hosted by actor Miles Teller. Willow is booked for the following week (October 8) when actor Brendan Gleeson hosts. Then, on October 15, Megan Thee Stallion will be on duty as both host and musical guest. Lamar last appeared on Saturday Night Live in 2018 when he performed Tints with Anderson .Paak. At the beginning of the month, Lamar unveiled a six-minute short film to accompany his Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers track, We Cry Together, which tells the story of a couple going through the ups and downs of a relationship. In the video, Lamar goes through highs and lows with his partner, played by actress Taylour Paige. Directed by Jake Schreier, Dave Free, and Lamar, with cinematography by Adam Newport-Berra, the short film was shot in a single take with live vocals in March 2020. On August, K.Dot played a surprise intimate show in New Yorkand he later shared some of the footage on social media. As Line Of Best Fit reported, Lamar headed to the Dumbo House members club where he treated attendees to an impromptu show, performing alongside his touring bassist and keyboard player. The star was also spotted hanging out with the likes of Jay-Z, Beyonce, his cousin Baby Keem, and Dave Free at the venue. Visit pgLangs official website to check out Kendrick Lamars new line of merchandise. For the latest music news and exclusive features, check out uDiscover Music. uDiscover Music is operated by Universal Music Group (UMG). Some recording artists included in uDiscover Music articles are affiliated with UMG. Editor's note: The 16th annual High Plains Book Awards recognizes regional literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. highplainsbookawards.org The Creative Nonfiction Award recognizes books that present factual information on people, places or events using experiential techniques often associated with fiction, such as personal observation, narrative forms, and dramatic renderings of events. With The Holly, a 2022 High Plains Book Awards finalist in Creative Nonfiction, author Julian Rubinstein returns to Colorado from Brooklyn and approaches the reality of northeast Denvers gang violence in such a captivating, suspenseful way that it reads like a new season of The Wire. Rubinstein walks through the struggles of Terrance Roberts, a community organizer, former gang member and ex-con trying to lift up his community. In doing so, Terrance experiences pushback from every direction. Once feared and revered on the streets as Blood gang member Showbizz, Terrance has a story reminiscent of Malcolm X, who spent his early years hustling as Detroit Red. The cards were stacked against Terrance in the summer of 2013, where the book begins, when he was threatened and coerced into violence at a peace rally he organized. Such irony is not lost on Rubinstein; instead, such a tense turn of events is used to enlighten the readers on how anti-gang activism especially for a man like Terrance, who lived (and almost died) on the streets hes trying to protect is far from black and white. Rubinsteins work is intentional about connecting Terrance a third-generation Park Hill native and the other powerful characters in this true crime story (which include Terrances father and grandmother) to the Black Panther movement, the L.A. riots and the evolution of the Black Lives Matter protests. He does this through pop culture and historical references, from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy to the assassinations of rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. What Rubinstein unravels through this compelling ethnography is how little things have changed. The Holly also reveals how dangerous it is to be an anti-gang activist. Terrance lived in a war zone, and Rubinstein joined him for seven years, reporting on the streets of Park Hill where gang violence, corrupt law enforcement, city mismanagement, crooked politicians and confidential informants with their own agendas all play a part in this complicated narrative, one that sadly summarizes the root of the problem with the American experiment. The Holly is a work of courageous investigative journalism. Rubinstein dives deep and goes direct to the sources. He does this no matter the consequences, and the result is a remarkable achievement that captures so much of Americas systemic injustice. Charlie Denison is a writer, musician and editor of the Boulder Monitor. He lives with his wife in Helena. You are Invited October 8! Book Sale and Author Panels 11 AM 5 PM Billings Public Library Award Presentations MSU Billings Petro Theatre 7:30 PM no charge John Oliver is pretty sure he knows what happens to people after they die. Or, at least, hes got an idea of what happened to Queen Elizabeth II. On Sundays episode of Last Week Tonight, the HBO host implied the late monarch did not end up in the same place as Princess Diana. After a few weeks of hiatus, Oliver returned this week and of course had quite a few headlines to catch up on. Among them was President Joe Biden declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, something Oliver was baffled and pretty annoyed by. You cant just declare something and make it a reality, Oliver mocked. If I declare the queen is alive, that doesnt make it true. From there, the Last Week Tonight host took a moment to sneak in a dig at the queen, insinuating where she mightve ended up. We all know shes in the afterlife now, looking up at Diana, Oliver joked. Also Read: Colbert Jokes Calling the Pandemic Over Is the First Time That Joe Biden Has Ever Moved Too Fast (Video) The host moved right along though, getting into other headlines, including Ron DeSantiss shipping of refugees from Texas to Marthas Vineyard an idea, Oliver said, that DeSantis actually got from Fox News Tucker Carlson. Oliver also mocked DeSantis for using the image of a fake Massachusetts state flag on brochures that were given to the migrants upon their arrival. You would think Ron DeSantis mightve caught that error, given that he spent three years at Harvard Law School which is, correct me if Im wrong, in fing Massachusetts! Oliver said. You can watch Olivers full show opener in the video here. Also Read: Fallon Agrees With Trump on Bidens Seat for the Queen: Whether Funerals or Classified Docs, Location Is Everything (Video) Wenham Public Nurse Mari Beth Ting prepares a patient to receive the COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccine clinic, organized by the Greater Cape Ann Community Collaborative, at the Hamilton-Wenham Senior Center in Hamilton, Massachusetts, on Sept. 9. Ohio reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 14,536 new cases. That's down 29.3% from the previous week's tally of 20,552 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19. Ohio ranked 18th 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 0.6% from the week before, with 401,433 cases reported. With 3.51% of the country's population, Ohio had 3.62% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 17 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before. Muskingum County reported 120 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 182 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 29,533 cases and 302 deaths. Perry County reported 51 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 73 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 9,696 cases and 130 deaths. Across Ohio, cases fell in 85 counties, with the best declines in Franklin County, with 1,398 cases from 1,946 a week earlier; in Cuyahoga County, with 1,694 cases from 2,175; and in Hamilton County, with 794 cases from 1,200. a >> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases Within Ohio, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Noble County with 305 cases per 100,000 per week; Pike County with 277; and Lawrence County with 259. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week. Adding the most new cases overall were Cuyahoga County, with 1,694 cases; Franklin County, with 1,398 cases; and Hamilton County, with 794. a In Ohio, zero a people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, six people were reported dead. A total of 3,131,645 people in Ohio have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 39,767 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,070,980 people have tested positive and 1,056,416 people have died. Story continues >> Track coronavirus cases across the United States Ohio's COVID-19 hospital admissions falling USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Sept. 25. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state: Last week: 2,077 The week before that: 2,150 Four weeks ago: 2,313 Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation: Last week: 55,707 The week before that: 55,506 Four weeks ago: 64,244 Hospitals in 13 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 20 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 25 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 Zanesville Times Recorder: Muskingum County reported 120 additional COVID-19 cases this week FORT WORTH, Texas A senior NASCAR executive admitted that series officials did not see William Byron spin Denny Hamlin under caution on the frontstretch of Sundays Cup playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway. The missed call could have major implications in the playoffs even if series officials decide to penalize Byron later this week, as was hinted Sunday night. The issue occurred after Martin Truex Jr. blew a tire while leading and crashed in Turn 3 on Lap 269 of the 334-lap race. With the caution lights illuminated, Hamlin slowed. Byron hit him in retaliation for forcing him into the wall earlier. Hamlin spun across the infield grass. NASCAR did not put Hamlin back in his original spot before the contact and did not penalize Byron. When we were in the tower, we were paying more attention to the actual cause of the caution up there and dispatching our equipment, Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition said after the race. The William Byron-Denny Hamlin thing, we had no eyes on. We saw Denny go through the grass. By the time we got a replay that showed the incident well enough to do anything to it, we had gone back to green. Im not sure that that issue is completely resolved as of yet. Well be looking at that when we get back to work. Miller did not elaborate on what NASCAR could do this week. Hamlin expressed his shock on social media at Millers comments: We were on the radio yelling at them what happened. I challenged my spot. What are they doing up there then? Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) September 26, 2022 Miller explained how officials missed the Byron-Hamlin incident: The cameras and the monitors that weve got, we dedicate them mostly to officiating and seeing our safety vehicles and how to dispatch them. By the time we put all those cameras up (on the monitor in the control tower), we dont have room for all of the in-car cameras to be monitored. Story continues If we would have had immediate access to (Byron)s in-car camera, that would have helped us a lot, being able to find that quickly. Thats definitely one of the things were looking at. #NASCARs Scott Miller says officials did not see William Byron spin Denny Hamlin under caution. pic.twitter.com/1PuA2JSsk0 Dustin Long (@dustinlong) September 26, 2022 Race winner Tyler Reddick said NASCAR needs to address the situation to avoid other contact under caution in the future. In Williams situation, whether he ran him over on accident or on purpose, there should be some sort of penalty for him on that side because hes completely screwed someones race up, whether it was on purpose or not, Reddick said. I feel like there should be something done there. Im sure (NASCAR will) make some sort of a decision. Im sure there will be something theyll address this week, updates, on NASCARs side. Ill be curious to see what that is. We cant really have this where you dump someone under caution, they go to the back and you dont. That could potentially be an interesting situation in the future. Byron said he hit Hamlin to show his dissatisfaction for being forced into the wall. I felt like he ran me out of race track off of (Turn) 2 and had really hard contact with the wall, Byron said. Felt like the toe link was definitely bent, luckily not fully broken. We were able to continue. A lot of times that kind of damage is going to ruin your race, especially that hard. I totally understand running somebody close and making a little bit of contact, but that was pretty massive. On the retaliatory hit, Byron said: I didnt mean to spin him out. That definitely wasnt what I intended to do. I meant to bump him a little bit and show my displeasure and unfortunately, it happened the way it did. Obviously, when he was spinning out, I was like I didnt mean to do this, but I was definitely frustrated. Hamlin didnt see it that way. I guess we can just wreck each other under caution, Hamlin told NBC Sports Kim Coon. I tried to wreck him back. I dont think we touched. Ive got to look. I dont think we touched. Obviously he sent us through the infield under caution. Asked about having a conversation with Byron, Hamlin said: I keep hearing these guys, but Ill just add it to the list of guys when I get a chance theyre going to get it. Hamlin and crew chief Chris Gabehart both were frustrated with NASCAR not putting Hamlin back to second after the contact. Instead, NASCAR put him outside the top 15. After pitting, Hamlin restarted 19th. Byron, after pitting, restarted 10th. The man wrecks you under caution and he gets no penalty? Gabehart said on the teams radio. What are they doing? Said Hamlin after the race: I cant argue the rules with them inside the car and the team did everything they could to try to make a case but ultimately we went spinning through the infield under caution. The result is that Byron finished seventh. That puts him third in the playoff standings. Hes 17 points above the cutline going into next weekends race at Talladega. Hamlin finished 10th and is sixth in the playoff standings. Hes eight points above the cutline. #NASCARs Scott Miller on what officials will look to do to avoid missing another situation like they did when Byron spun Hamlin under caution. pic.twitter.com/tXMS8XKHld Dustin Long (@dustinlong) September 26, 2022 Read more about NASCAR What drivers said at Texas Motor Speedway Texas Cup results: Tyler Reddick wins Tyler Reddick wins Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway NASCAR says it missed William Byron spin Denny Hamlin under caution originally appeared on NBCSports.com Netflix is establishing an internal games studio in Helsinki, Finland, announcing that it will be led by former Zynga and Electronic Arts exec Marko Lastikka as studio director. This is another step in our vision to build a world-class games studio that will bring a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games with no ads and no in-app purchases to our hundreds of millions of members around the world, Amir Rahimi, Netflixs VP of game studios, wrote in a blog post announcing the studios launch. Rahimi joined Netflix in November 2021, after serving as president of games for Scopely; before that, he was SVP and GM of FoxNext. More from Variety Netflix kicked off its push into gaming last summer and now offers more than two dozen titles in its catalog. The idea is that the games, included as part its core video-streaming service, will reduce churn and boost customers value perception. The Helsinki in-house games studio will be Netflixs fourth studio, after it acquired three indie game studios: Night School Studio, known for supernatural mystery adventure title Oxenfree; Next Games, a mobile games developer also based in Helsinki, whose titles include Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales and two based on AMCs TV series The Walking Dead; and Boss Fight Entertainment (Dungeon Boss). Why is Netflix Games setting up shop in Helsinki? According to Rahimi, the city is home to some of the best game talent in the world, and noted that Helsinki also is home to Next Games. Creating a game can take years, so Im proud to see how were steadily building the foundation of our games studios in our first year, and look forward to sharing what we produce in the coming years, Rahimi wrote. Story continues At Zynga which was acquired by Take-Two Interactive earlier this year Lastikka was co-founder and GM of the Zynga Helsinki game development studio, working on FarmVille 3. Prior to joining Zynga in January 2017, he was co-founder and GM of the EA Helsinki tracktwenty game studio, responsible for the creation and live service of the SimCity BuildIt mobile game. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. WESTPORT In a field at Westport Town Farm, above the flat, grassy wetlands that lie on the banks of the Westport River, the Trustees of Reservations shared dire warnings about the future of the Southcoasts shorelines. "We know that climate change is having a profound impact on our vulnerable coastal areas and we also know that we cannot wait to act," John Judge, president and CEO of The Trustees, told a group of local public officials and representatives of the areas congressional delegation. The nonprofit Boston-based land conservation group chose the spot to issue its 2022 State of the Coast report, a 44-page document culled from publicly available environmental science data that raises alarming projections about the effects of manmade climate change on coastlines from Falmouth to Swansea. The Trustees owns and manages over 120 properties across the state, with eight in the region including Copicut Woods in Fall River and Slocums River Reserve in Dartmouth. The report outlines the threat to the region from rising sea levels and water temperatures, and their effects on the ecology and the economy. Living in a climate crisis: Some are students, activists. Some are just worried sick. A woman walks her dog along a nature trail at Westport Town Farm on Sept. 19. As the states largest private owner of coastline, the Trustees have an obligation across the state of Massachusetts," Judge said, and the only way we can do it is in partnership and collaboration with all of you. Here are six takeaways from the Trustees report: The New Bedford Hurricane Barrier in the foreground as seen in this Standard-Times file photo. Everyday hurricane barrier closures The report notes that New Bedfords hurricane barrier, built in 1966 to protect the port from storms, closed 26 times in 2019. With water levels rising, the barrier is projected to close with shocking frequency in the coming years. Closing the barrier at the same water level as is done currently would mean one to two closures a day as soon as 2050, the report states. Cynthia Dittbrenner, the Trustees director of coast and natural resources, noted that New Bedfords commercial fishing port is the nations largest by revenue. The port generated $451 million in 2019, and according to an economic impact study supports $1.8 billion in personal wages per year. Closing the hurricane barrier that often, Dittbrenner said, is not sustainable for a working port. Story continues The Trustees of Reservations Director of Coast and Natural Resources Cynthia Dittbrenner speaks at Westport Town Farm to mark the release of the Trustees' State of the Coast report on Sept. 19. Heat islands: When Fall River rides heat waves, the Flint feels the worst effects with little relief Increasingly flooded roads and buildings Sea level rise is also expected to have a profound impact on flooding in low-lying areas. By 2050, in Fall River and Somerset, 1.5 miles of road and 86 buildings are expected to be affected by flooding just due to the daily tide alone, with roads like Atlantic Boulevard and Ferry Street at greatest risk. In a 10-year storm, 28 miles of roads and 1,600 buildings are predicted to be affected. A 100-year storm would flood 46 miles of roads and 2,600 buildings. State Rep. Paul Schmid, D-Westport, speaks at Westport Town Farm during the release of the Trustees of Reservations' State of the Coast report on Sept. 19. Beach erosion and flooding in Westport Westport, wedged between two branches of the Westport River and with 10 miles of shoreline, faces significant threats from climate change, according to the report. Daily tides could flood 104 buildings in town by 2050, with the area of East Beach Road and Horseneck Road most vulnerable. Beach erosion, which has already affected East Beach, is expected to get worse as sea levels rise and storms become more intense. A 100-year storm event is projected to affect nearly all of the southern Horseneck area of Westport and homes in Westport Point 19.5 miles of road and 1,026 buildings. In the next few decades, daily tides could cause infrastructure issues in the southern part of town. Within a few short years we run the risk of having almost a mile of road continually flooding, and that road is one of the only accesses to a large population base," said state Rep. Paul Schmid, a Westport resident and farmer. Environment in peril: 'Perilous Course' investigates climate crisis, finds many along East Coast left unprepared A field at Westport Town Farm overlooks the East Branch of the Westport River. Salt marshes are disappearing The Southcoasts 250 miles of shoreline includes 4,900 acres of salt marsh about a third of the shoreline. Salt marshes are naturally able to flood and drain regularly, with some areas flooding daily and higher marshes flooding a few times a month. Salt marshes provide crucial benefits including supporting wildlife that make up the aquatic food web, filtering pollution from the bay, and protecting coastal communities from storm surges and excess rainwater. But according to the Trustees report, higher sea levels are overwhelming the marshes, causing land to be lost. According to the report, 23% of the salt marshes in the region could be lost by 2050. In Dartmouth, 86% of the salt marshes could be lost to flooding or conversion to low marsh, which floods daily about 30% of the towns salt marshes could be lost completely. Westports salt marshes would fare even worse, with 48% of salt marsh acreage at risk of disappearing. Were concerned about what were leaving behind for the future generations, said Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Councilman David Weeden. And we need to all take the responsibility to do whatever we can to combat the effects that are harming our waters. Were going to move toward a 'blue economy,' but if the waters not healthy, Im not sure how that works. Trustees of Reservations President and CEO John Judge points toward the East Branch of the Westport River as he speaks about the Trustees' State of the Coast report at Westport Town Farm on Sept. 19. Bringing environmental justice to Fall River and New Bedford The Trustees report isnt just focused on beach communities and residents who live by the bay. It also focuses on environmental justice for poorer communities like Fall River and New Bedford that may experience increased flooding but dont have the resources to adapt and the residents who work in the maritime economy connected to the fishing industry. The needs of these communities should be a focus when prioritizing resources to assist with adaptation and relocation, the report reads. For too long, conservation has been the three Ws: white, well-connected and wealthy," Judge said. We really need to do a better job at making sure were reaching all communities. But also we need all hands on deck more than ever before. A trail at Westport Town Farm overlooks the East Branch of the Westport River. What hope is there for the future? The report isnt only a series of dire predictions; it also includes suggestions to stem the tide. Among the solutions noted in the report is a call to protect more coastal land, especially land where salt marshes are expected to retreat. The report also says communities need to rethink the construction of hard coastal structures like seawalls and jetties, which could contribute to erosion, and adapt infrastructure like bridges, roads and wastewater treatment facilities to meet the threat of rising water levels. "We are the generation that knows whats happening, Judge said, and we are the generation that can act on it. Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today. This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Trustees of Reservations issue stark State of the Coast report The post Roger Waters Pens Open Letter to Putin As His Concerts in Poland Are Canceled appeared first on Consequence. Aspirational expert in foreign affairs Roger Waters has written an open letter to Vladimir Putin in light of Russias war on Ukraine. But rather than asking the Russian president to withdraw, the former Pink Floyd member has instead asked Putin to promise that he wont overrun the whole of Europe. Firstly, would you like to see an end to this war?, Waters wrote to Putin on Facebook. If you were to reply and say, Yes please. That would immediately make things a lot easier. If you were to come out and say, Also the Russian Federation has no further territorial interest beyond the security of the Russian speaking populations of The Crimea, Donetsk and Lubansk. That would help too. I say this because, I know some people who think you want to overrun the whole of Europe, starting with Poland and the rest of the Baltic states. If you do, fuck you, and we might as well all stop playing the desperately dangerous game of nuclear chicken that the hawks on both sides of the Atlantic seem so comfortable with, and have at it. The musician went on: The problem is, I have kids and grandkids, and so do most of my brothers and sisters all over the world and none of us would relish that outcome. So, please Mr Putin indulge me, and make us that assurance. Waters letter to Putin arrives on the heels of news that hed no longer be performing the two concerts he had scheduled in Krakow, Poland, on his This Is Not a Drill Tour. Though a representative for the venue said Waters management decided to withdrawwithout giving any reason (via NBC News), its safe to assume the cancelations are due to the backlash Waters has received over questionable statements hes made at Ukraines expense, especially considering Krakow officials might name Waters a persona non grata. Story continues During an August interview with CNN, Waters labeled President Joe Biden a war criminal for providing funding and support to the people of Ukraine: That is a huge crime, he said. Why wont the United States of America encourage [Volodymyr] Zelensky to negotiate, obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war? When CNNs Michael Smerconish pointed out that Waters was blaming the party who got invaded, Waters went on: This war is basically about the action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border, which they promised they wouldnt do when [Mikhail] Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal of the USSR from the whole of Eastern Europe. Then, earlier this month, Waters doubled down by writing an open letter to the countrys first lady, Olena Zelenska, suggesting she try to convince her husband to compromise and come to a ceasefire with Russia: Sadly, your old man agreed to those totalitarian, anti-democratic dismissals of the will of the Ukrainian people, and the forces of extreme nationalism that had lurked, malevolent, in the shadows, have, since then, ruled the Ukraine, Waters wrote on Facebook. They have, also since then, crossed any number of red lines that had been set out quite clearly over a number of years by your neighbors the Russian Federation and in consequence they, the extreme nationalists, have set your country on the path to this disastrous war. Read Waters letter to Putin in full below. Meanwhile, Waters ex-bandmates David Gilmour and Nick Mason re-emerged back in April with a protest song benefitting Ukraine their first new music as Pink Floyd in 28 years further expanding the long-running rift between them and Waters. Waters This Is Not a Drill Tour runs through mid-October; so long as youre not in Poland, tickets are available at Ticketmaster. Roger Waters Pens Open Letter to Putin As His Concerts in Poland Are Canceled Abby Jones Popular Posts Subscribe to Consequences email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox. A team of architects designed a narrow, 13-foot-wide home that's big enough for a family of 4 and has a full-length glass wall check it out The exterior of the house. ODDO Architects Narrow houses are a common sight in the densely populated city of Hanoi, Vietnam. Vietnam-based ODDO Architects designed a family home that's only 13 feet wide. One entire wall is made out of glass, flooding the home in natural light. Tall, narrow houses are a common sight in Hanoi, Vietnam. The exterior of the house. ODDO Architects Just ask Vietnam-based ODDO Architects, who designed a five-story home that's just 13 feet wide. What it lacks in width, the house, known as TH House, makes up for in depth: The house measures just over 19 feet deep, Marek Obtulovic, an architect at ODDO Architects, told Insider. Given the physical limitations of the lot, the firm decided to build upwards so everyone in the family of four including the two young children gets their own private space, Obtulovic said. The main entrance from the street leads right to the kitchen and dining area on the first floor, he said. The living room is on the third floor, nestled between the master bedroom on the second and the children's room on the fourth. There's an altar room on the highest floor. Narrow homes have become a defining feature of Vietnam's urban landscape thanks to a mix of high population density and expensive land prices. Hanoi is a densely-populated city in Vietnam. ODDO Architects Over the years, people have reduced the width of their houses to take up less street front, choosing to build inwards and upwards instead. In the case of the TH House, the main entrance is on a four-foot-wide alley. The distance between the houses is very small, and that itself makes construction difficult, Obtulovic said. One of the living areas of the house. The view from the window is that of a neighboring house that's 4 feet away. ODDO Architects "It's very cramped conditions, very tiny even for Hanoi," Obtulovic said. "I think the biggest challenge was regarding construction and logistics because it's very complicated to bring materials into the site." The team had to use small vehicles, like tuk-tuks the three-wheeled vehicles ubiquitous across Southeast Asian countries to bring in construction materials. "Even when building the house, because there's little space, you cannot leave anything in the alley or you would block the way," he added. "We had to make concrete onsite because the main street is too far away and you cannot stretch a pipe that far for pumping." Story continues Despite the cramped conditions of the land, natural light floods the interiors of the house thanks to skylights and a full-length glass wall. The children's bedroom. The ceiling heights vary. ODDO Architects The two-story house that was previously on the site was dark and felt cramped. That motivated the architects to redesign the space to maximize sunlight, Obtulovic said. The ceiling heights also vary across the floors, giving the illusion of a larger space and helping improve ventilation, he added. The architects also managed to bring greenery into the space. Every bit of available space was carefully utilized. ODDO Architects "Even though it's a small place in a crowded city, you are still surrounded by greenery," Obtulovic said. The types of plants are chosen and placed according to the lighting conditions in different spots in the house, and they're all connected to an automatic irrigation system, he said. The designers had to be innovative with furniture placement and storage spaces to make use of the tight interiors. The architects integrated space-saving furniture designs as well as greenery into the rooms. ODDO Architects "Because it's a really tiny space, we had to think carefully about where we want to put everything," Obtulovic said. "In the kids' room, the tables are integrated into the cabinet, so you can take it out when you need it but shift it back if you want to have space to play." Even the pipes had to be carefully placed in the walls so they don't take up any additional space, he said. Despite construction challenges, the team managed to build the house in six months, which Obtulovic said is a standard amount of time for a project of this scale. The combined kitchen and dining area. ODDO Architects "The big advantage was that the client is also a builder, he has done some projects with us already. This was a house for him and his family," Obtulovic said. Obtulovic says the best part of the project is seeing how things come together. The exterior of the house. ODDO Architects "It's always exciting to see the transformation. During construction, everything is raw and the house seems very small. But once we're done, the natural light will completely change the quality of the space," Obtulovic said. Having completed the TH House project last year, the company is now working on other narrow house designs, he said. "It's like an experiment for us, to try to show people that if you have a good design, living conditions can be remarkably improved even if you have land constraints," he added. Read the original article on Insider The United Kingdom (U.K.) on Monday announced 92 sanctions targeting Russian officials and agencies in response to Moscow carrying out referendum votes in occupied Ukrainian territory that the U.S. and allies are preemptively rejecting. The U.K. sanctions mark one of the first concrete moves by a government allied with Ukraine to impose costs on the Kremlin for carrying out the referendums. The U.S. and allies are warning the referendums which are asking occupied citizens whether they want to officially join with Russia are a step by Russian President Vladimir Putin to escalate further his war in Ukraine, harking back to the referendum carried out in Ukraines Crimean Peninsula in 2014 that Russia used to annex the territory. Sham referendums held at the barrel of a gun cannot be free or fair and we will never recognise their results, U.K. Foreign Minister James Cleverly said in a statement. They follow a clear pattern of violence, intimidation, torture, and forced deportations in the areas of Ukraine Russia has seized, he added. The U.K. sanctions targeted top Russian officials that it says are enforcing the illegal votes in four regions of Ukraine; IMA consulting, which the U.K. describes as Putins favorite PR Agency; and the security documents company known as Goznak, which the U.K. said has a monopoly on the production of tens of millions of state documents including expedited passports in the temporarily controlled territories. Individual sanctions target pro-Russian government officials in the occupied territories of Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk and four Russian oligarchs the U.K. government says have a combined global net worth estimated at 6.3 billion ($6.7 billion). Todays sanctions will target those behind these sham votes, as well as the individuals that continue to prop up the Russian regimes war of aggression. We stand with the Ukrainian people and our support will continue as long as it takes to restore their sovereignty, Cleverly said. Story continues White House spokesperson Karine Jean Pierre on Monday said the U.S. will announce new actions in the coming days related to the Russias actions on the referendum. We are prepared to impose additional swift, and severe economic costs on Russia, along with our allies and partners in response to these actions that were seeing currently, if they move forward with annexation, she said during a briefing at the White House. We stand with our partners around the world in rejecting whatever fabricated outcomes Russia announces. And you will hear more from us in the coming days on this. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the United Nations Security Council last week, called on all members to reject any referendum results published by Russia from the occupied Ukrainian territories. As with Crimea, its imperative that every member of this council and, for that matter, every member of the United Nations reject the sham referenda and unequivocally declare that all Ukrainian territory is and will remain part of Ukraine, and no Russian claim to annex territory can take away Ukraines right to defend its own land, he said. Updated at 3:06 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Within Montanas complicated and controversial stew of disagreements over elk management and hunting access, a few areas of commonality have recently emerged from separate groups contemplating the issues. Some of the areas where there is overlap include: investing in improvements to wildlife habitat on public lands; boosting payments to landowners who provide public hunting access; and increasing education for hunters. The three groups who recently released suggested remedies include two Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks working groups the Private Land/Public Wildlife Advisory Committee and the Elk Management Citizen Advisory Group and the Montana Citizens Elk Management Coalition, which is independent of FWP. There is no single silver-bullet fix, the Coalition wrote in its 16-page report released last week. Rather, a wide-ranging toolbox of programs and options are needed to encourage solution-oriented groups and individuals to work at the local level. Many of the proposals from the groups require legislative approval. Hot topics Finding consensus on elk management and hunting issues in Montana has hit a fevered pitch since Gov. Greg Gianfortes appointment of FWP chief Hank Worsech and all but one Fish and Wildlife Commission member. The changes have left some state hunters concerned their voices are being ignored, while others are worried about a fundamental shift in the ideology guiding wildlife management in Montana that favors private landowners. Adding to the anxiety is a lawsuit filed by United Property Owners of Montana that seeks to have wildlife policy directed by the Legislature, not the commission. The group has also asked the judge in Fergus County to order FWP to reduce elk populations by 50,000 in areas where they are over state management objectives. The objectives were set by landowner tolerance. The lawsuit was followed by the formation of yet another group, the Montana Public Trust Coalition, which is seeking to have legislative candidates sign a pledge to protect and defend Montanas Constitution, particularly our right to hunt and fish and our right to a clean and healthful environment. The pledge goes on to ask candidates to reject any effort to reduce (in terms of value) public lands or turn our public waters, fish and wildlife into private property. Members of the coalition include former governors Steve Bullock and Marc Racicot, along with 11 former Fish and Wildlife Commissioners and 10 Montana Outdoor Hall of Fame members. Education Out of the strident calls for wildlife management changes, only a few areas of agreement have emerged, one of which is hunter education. PL/PW is proposing to update the Hunter-Landowner Stewardship Course to improve training for hunters wanting to access private lands. The Elk Management group suggested a master hunter program to improve hunter quality and with certification possibilities (as) a potential way for program graduates to access private land to hunt. Craig Jourdonnais, a former FWP wildlife biologist and current big game researcher for the MPG Ranch in the Bitterroot Valley, was a panelist at the Citizens Elk Coalition gathering. The ranch allows free public hunting chaperoned by ranch employees. Craig has noticed that hunters are needing a significant amount of help, the coalitions report noted, prompting him to recommended advanced courses for hunters. Habitat Jourdonnais was also one of the presenters to call for landscape scale habitat improvement on public land. FWPs elk advisory group worded its recommendation as managing elk where they are not. The group specifically called for habitat improvement projects in northwest Montana to restore elk populations where theyve declined. However, the group also goes on to advocate for increased predator hunting and trapping, including aerial shooting of wolves. Montana loosened restrictions on wolf hunting and trapping last year, igniting a public outcry from some wildlife groups and calls for relisting the animals as an endangered species to halt state wildlife management. The calls gained national attention because a large portion of the wolves killed were part-time residents of Yellowstone National Park. Payments Lastly, the citizens' coalition and PL/PW proposed increasing payments to landowners who allow public hunters access through FWPs Block Management Program. PL/PW suggested the annual payment cap for participants be raised from $25,000 per landowner each year along with the daily payment, which is currently $13 each hunter day. Since 1996 the number of Block Management participants has grown from 882 landowners enrolling more than 5.82 million private acres to 1,308 people enrolling 5.93 million acres. In that time span, the cost of the payments to landowners has risen from $2.75 million to $7.6 million. Also over that period, hunter use of the program has climbed from around 400,000 hunter days to about 600,000. The elk advisory group and PL/PW also called for more people to help landowners with the Block Management Program. The elk advisory group suggested the creation of a liaison to help improve relationships between the department, hunters and traditional and nontraditional landowners. PL/PW proposed additions to FWP access and enforcement staff to compensate for the increased number of recreationists. Interest The discord between hunters and landowners may ring hollow to some Montanans. Only about 23% of state residents purchased a hunting license four years ago. In comparison, its estimated only about 4% of state residents are involved in agriculture. Yet a 2022 Voter Survey on Public Lands, commissioned by the University of Montanas Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone Initiative, is the latest to report residents high interest in Montanas wildlife and lands. Montanans have always self-identified as conservationists, but now they are experiencing a risk they haven't seen before in the form of growth and development, said Dave Metz, president of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3), one of the pollsters. The data shows this is contributing to remarkable consensus, in both rural and urban areas, around proposals to protect the states water, wildlife and land. CORRECTION: Ukraine has not yet received the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS). A previous version of this story contained incorrect information on the delivery of the system due to errors in the CBS transcript of its interview with Zelensky. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is thanking the United States for the advanced air defense systems it has sent to his country to aid in its war with Russia, but he also is pressing for more, according to an interview aired Sunday. Zelensky on CBSs Face the Nation thanked Washington for the shipments of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and other multiple launch rocket systems that give us an ability to conduct our offensive. He added that his troops absolutely need the United States to show leadership and give Ukraine the air defense systems it continues to ask for. Kyiv is still waiting on National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), a weapon Kyiv has long requested and was recently promised by Washington. The Biden administration approved the shipment of six NASAMSs late last month as part of a nearly $3 billion lethal aid package to bolster Kyiv as it battles the Kremlin invasion. Believe me, its not even nearly enough to cover the civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, universities, homes of Ukrainians, Zelensky said, according to a full transcript of the interview. NASAMS, a medium-range air defense system, is a Norwegian and U.S.- designed weapon meant to identify and take out aircraft, cruise missiles and drones. The systems, which are used to protect the airspace around the White House are typically used to protect major assets or civilian populations. These are proven systems that will make a real difference in the battlefield, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said Aug. 31 in announcing the NASAMS shipments. Story continues The NASAMS delivery which the Pentagon has said is still about two months away is expected to help Ukraine maintain major gains in a counteroffensive begun earlier this month. Kyiv has managed to take back huge swaths of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region and in the south. But Zelensky called for even more weapons, including tanks, artillery and more air defense systems, as well as financial assistance to keep the pace of his military going with winter fast approaching. This story was updated at 11:55 a.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Hurricane Ian rapidly intensifies as it hurtles toward Cuba and Florida. Fannie Mae has a plan to boost renters' credit scores. And California will soon have a new end-of-life burial option: human composting. Hello! It's Laura Davis. It's Monday. Here's all the news you need to know. But first, look up! Stargazers across the globe will get a great view of Jupiter come Monday night weather permitting! It's the first time the solar system's largest planet has been this close to Earth in 59 years. Here's how to see it. The Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here. What's the weather up to in your neck of the woods? Check your local forecast here. Floridians in Hurricane Ian's path prep as massive storm intensifies The first evacuation orders along Florida's west coast went into effect Monday and residents across the state prepared to hunker down as a rapidly-intensifying Hurricane Ian hurtled toward Cuba and the U.S. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said more evacuations are expected. Hurricane-force winds extend up to 35 miles from the storm's center, and tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 115 miles, the National Hurricane Center said. "Floridians up and down the Gulf Coast should feel the impacts of this," DeSantis said. "This is a really, really big hurricane at this point." As soon as late Monday, Ian was forecast to strengthen into a major hurricane Category 3 or greater and could ultimately reach Category 4, which means sustained winds from 130 mph to 156 mph, AccuWeather said. If you're in the cone: What to have at home for emergencies. Hurricane Ian's forecast calls for 'rapid intensification.' What does that mean? Shoppers at the Costco store in Altamonte Springs, Fla. grab bottles of water from the last pallet in stock on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022, as Central Floridians prepare for the impact of Hurricane Ian. Fannie Mae's plan to stimulate renters' credit scores When it comes to credit scores, homeowners have some advantages over renters but Fannie Mae wants to even out the playing field. Here's the deal: Mortgage payments are reported to credit bureaus, but rental payments usually aren't. This hampers renters' ability to build credit history. Here's where Fannie Mae comes in: The mortgage giant plans to partner with three firms that serve as intermediaries between landlords and credit bureaus to report on-time rental payments, helping renters build their credit. Only positive payments of renters will be reported and renters can opt out at any time. Learn more about Fannie Mae's plan, shared exclusively with USA TODAY. Story continues What everyone's talking about The Short List is free, but several stories we link to are subscriber-only. Consider supporting our journalism and become a USA TODAY digital subscriber today. Putin grants Edward Snowden Russian citizenship Former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden, a fugitive from American authorities who has been living in Russia since 2013, was one of 75 foreign nationals granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin on Monday at a time of high tension between the countries because of the war in Ukraine. Snowden remains wanted in the U.S. after leaking classified documents detailing government surveillance programs. He received permanent Russian residency in 2020. At the time, Snowden said he would retain his American citizenship and hoped one day to return to the U.S. He has denied sharing information with Russian intelligence agents. Gunman identified in Russia school shooting that left 15 dead, 24 wounded. Other developments: Man shoots commandant at Russian enlistment office; voting continues in "sham" referendums. Monday's updates. A monument to those who died during the Second World War against the backdrop of a building destroyed during the occupation by Russian troops, in the village of Prudianka, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Human composting: How does it work? Starting in 2027, Californians will have a new end-of-life burial option: human composting. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Sunday that creates a state regulatory process for natural organic reduction, or transforming human remains into soil. Here's what you need to know. California is the fifth state to legalize human composting, on the heels of Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Vermont. The human composting process varies slightly based on the funeral home, but typically a person's body after death is placed in an insulated vessel packed with organic material to help the decomposing process. Advocates say the process is a more environmentally friendly option than casket burials and cremation. And while it may seem novel, experts say its not dissimilar from many cultures traditional practices of returning a body to the ground. Katrina Spade, the founder and CEO of Recompose, shows a sample of the compost material left from the decomposition of a cow, using a combination of wood chips, alfalfa and straw. Real quick NASA spacecraft to collide with an asteroid on purpose After a 10-month journey, NASA will deliberately crash a small, fast-moving spacecraft into an asteroid 7 million miles away Monday evening in hope of changing its orbit the first test of a planetary defense system to deflect asteroids and other objects that could threaten Earth. The 1,260-pound vending-machine-sized craft is called DART, for Double Asteroid Redirection Test. The impact, which will destroy the spacecraft traveling at 14,760 mph, is predicted to occur at 7:14 p.m. EDT Monday. Regardless of the outcome, the mission will give astronomers and scientists important data on the response if an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. Here's how they plan to do it. DART will be moving at about 4.1 miles per second when it hits the asteroid. It's designed to navigate itself and target the smaller asteroid during the last 50 minutes of flight. A break from the news Laura L. Davis is an Audience Editor at USA TODAY. Send her an email at laura@usatoday.com or follow along with her adventures and misadventures on Twitter. Support quality journalism like this? Subscribe to USA TODAY here. This is a compilation of stories from across the USA TODAY Network. Want this news roundup in your inbox every night? Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hurricane Ian, credit scores, Edward Snowden, human composting. It's Monday's news. Happy Monday, OnPolitics readers! Without being a candidate for any federal office, former President Donald Trump is trying to reshape the Republican Party into a movement focused on devotion to him rather than to ideological principles. At the top of the agenda for the former president is enlisting loyalists to help him settle his grievances over his loss in the 2020 presidential race. Trumps vehicle for this is a fundraising machine called Save America. Started just after he lost the 2020 election and at the height of his efforts to overturn the results, the PACs surrogates routinely send out misinformation including conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the FBI's search of Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, to rake in donations from the public. It operates like a veritable slush fund, paying for personal expenses like luxurious hotels and even a fashion designer. Stay in the conversation on politics: Sign up for the OnPolitics newsletter The money given directly to the candidates by Save America usually $5,000 each is a lever that the former president can pull on to encourage loyalty and exert influence. Save America has backed 28 candidates for state office in nine states. In three of those states, Save America has backed candidates for state legislature, a level virtually unheard of for a PAC of a former high-ranking federal official. At the federal level, Save America has backed candidates for 131 seats in the House and 18 seats in the Senate. The vast majority are election deniers. And theyve been largely successful. Two-thirds of Save America candidates running at the state level won their primaries, including all of them in Arizona and Texas. All but a handful of the PACs federal candidates have advanced from their primaries and will be on the ballot Nov. 8. For a breakdown of PAC-supported campaigns by state, check out this interactive map at the bottom of the story. It's Amy with today's top stories out of Washington. Story continues Real Quick: Stories you'll want to read White House switchboard called Jan. 6 rioter : Denver Riggleman, a former U.S. House of Representatives member from Virginia and senior technical adviser to the House panel investigating the Capitol attack, said he knows who received the call, but not who placed it. "A situation that could certainly backfire" : Across Russia, demonstrators spilled into the streets this week in the countrys first nationwide anti-war protests since Russian troops invaded Ukraine back in February. 2022 Arizona race focuses on 2020: Republican Mark Finchem is one of the most outspoken 2020 election deniers running for the position of secretary of state this year. He's vying to oversee a pivotal state's voting process during the next presidential contest. Italy's historic election: A party with neo-fascist roots, the Brothers of Italy, won the most votes in Italy's national elections, looking set to deliver the country's first far-right-led government since World War II and make its leader, Giorgia Meloni, Italy's first woman prime minister, near-final results showed Monday. Is Biden doing enough at the border? Border agents in El Paso appeared to be shifting resources already in hand food and gear from a processing center to the borderline to stave off yet another humanitarian crisis, which comes at a critical point for the Biden White House weeks away from the midterms. What's next On Politics: The next hearing for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol resumes Wednesday. Check back at USATODAY.com tomorrow and Wednesday as the news develops. -- Amy This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Donald Trump's Save America PAC is influencing the 2022 midterms Californians will soon have a new end-of-life burial option: human composting. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law Sunday that creates a state regulatory process for natural organic reduction, or transforming human remains into soil. The law will go into effect in 2027. California is the fifth state to legalize human composting, on the heels of Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Vermont. Advocates say the process is a more environmentally friendly option than casket burials and cremation, and despite the seemingly novel burial method, experts say its not dissimilar from many cultures traditional practices of returning a body to the ground. What is human composting and how does it work? The human composting process varies slightly based on the funeral home, but typically a person's body after death is placed in an insulated vessel packed with organic material to help the decomposing process. The Natural Funeral, the lone funeral home in Colorado that offers in-house human composting, uses a 7-foot long insulated wooden box filled with wood chips and straw. It has two large spool wheels on either end, allowing it to be rolled across the floor and providing the oxygenation, agitation and absorption required for a body to compost. After about three months, the vessel is opened and soil is filtered for medical devices and large bones. Those remaining bones are pulverized and returned to the vessel for another three months of composting. Teeth are removed to prevent contamination from mercury in fillings. Recompose, a Seattle-based human composting company that's expanding in Colorado, uses a similar process: the company collaborated with Washington State University in 2018, setting up a pilot project with human donors to make sure the human composting process was safe and effective. The vessel must reach 131 degrees Fahrenheit for 72 continuous hours to kill any bacteria and pathogens. The high temperature occurs naturally during the breakdown of the body in an enclosed box. Story continues The entire human composting process typically takes several months. After the body is fully composted, family members can choose to take the soil home or have it returned to the earth by the funeral home. MORE IN CALIFORNIA: Flurry of climate legislation advances, including drilling restrictions and clean energy goals High environmental price tag for typical burial arrangements Historically, most Americans have had the choice between two end-of-life options: casket burials and cremations. But caskets can be expensive, and both options have detrimental environmental impacts, said Kristina Spade, founder and CEO of Recompose, which argued in support of the California bill. The national median cost of an adult funeral with a viewing and burial is about $7,800, according to the National Funeral Directors Association the casket itself averages $2,500. Average cremation prices hover around $7,000, the same price Recompose charges. The greenhouse gas emissions of manufacturing and transporting one standard coffin and tombstone is equal to the carbon footprint of a car traveling nearly 2,500 miles, according to research by the city of Paris' funeral services in 2017. Cremation produces a carbon footprint equal to a car traveling almost 700 miles and releases pollutants into the air, like nitrogen dioxide and mercury, the research found. Human composting avoids those harmful impacts and also, by sequestering carbon into the soil during the process, it has a positive benefit to the planet, Spade said. In total, about a metric ton of carbon is saved by choosing human composting over other options, she said. Recompose, a Seattle-based company, demonstrates the human composting process. Over 30 days, the body and plant material form nutrient-dense soil. A shift toward eco-friendly burials More people are moving away from typical burial methods, according to data from the National Funeral Directors Association. Cremation recently passed casket burials as the most popular option for final disposition: it was used in 57.5% of deaths in 2021, versus a 36.6% burial rate, the association said. And a 2022 report from the association says over 60% of people would be interested in exploring green funeral options because of their potential environmental benefits, cost savings or for some other reason a 5% increase from 2021. And over half of survey respondents said theyve attended a funeral at a non-traditional location. David Heckel, who helps families plan ahead for end-of-life arrangements at the Natural Funeral in Colorado, said most people who choose human composting do so for environmental stewardship. "Most people who are coming to us who have had a death in their family, and are choosing this, are doing so because their lived values of environmentalism and care for the earth are important to them," Heckel said. "So they are choosing this as a way to give back to the earth and to be more environmentally earth friendly." The funeral home has started over 30 composting processes since it became legal in Colorado a year ago, and Heckel said he's seen more and more people interested in the option. He compared the process, which takes several months, to a "long goodbye." "It makes the transition to life without a loved one a little more gradual and maybe a little easier for some folks in that regard," Heckel said. "Because you know that there's something else to come still when the soil is ready, perhaps." FOOD COMPOSTING: A guide to composting when you live in an apartment A new method with traditional roots While human composting may be morally aligned with environmentalists, the new method doesnt reflect everyones values. The California Catholic Conference, which represents the Catholic church, opposed the California bill, denouncing it as an undignified way to treat the body. The process, the conference wrote, reduces the human body to simply a disposable commodity. The practice of respectfully burying the bodies or the honoring the ashes of the deceased comports with the virtually universal norm of reverence and care towards the deceased." In this Friday, April 19, 2019, photo Katrina Spade, the founder and CEO of Recompose, displays a sample of the compost material left from the decomposition of a cow, using a combination of wood chips, alfalfa and straw, as she poses in a cemetery in Seattle. Washington is set to become the first state to allow the burial alternative known as "natural organic reduction," that turns a body into soil in a matter of weeks. But despite being newly legalized, the concept of human composting is not new, and the practice of returning a body to the earth after death is a long-held tradition in many cultures. Traditional Jewish law says a body should be returned to the earth as soon as possible. Embalming isnt allowed and the body is buried in a casket made fully of wood, with holes drilled in the bottom to quicken the decomposition process. And Buddhist Tibetans practice sky burials, where a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose or be eaten by animals. Lots of people like the idea of returning to nature, said Jillian Tullis, a professor of communication at the University of San Diego who studies death and dying. So in some ways, if you want to call something traditional, going back to the dirt you don't get more traditional than that. Over 1,000 people have signed up in advance to be composted when they die through Recompose, Spade said. The company plans to expand in California soon. I think for a lot of people, it struck a chord where it suddenly brought meaning back to the end of life and to the death care process, Spade said. The idea of being able to grow a tree with the person that you love so much, the idea of being able to return to nature after you die and to somehow connect back to the natural ecosystem that has a pull for people, and that is why we're seeing a rise in interest for new options. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California legalizes human composting after death: How does it work? Photo: Angela L. Pagan National Hispanic Heritage month is a fantastic time to learn about and celebrate the cultures of Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America that have brought some of our favorite sips and bites to the U.S., but the appreciation doesnt have to end on October 15. Sure some brands might do a taco special or add a spicy twist to a product, but that doesnt really do justice to the many different cultures that make up Hispanic heritage. These Latinx-owned food and drink brands serve up cultura and flavor year-round. Whether youre looking for ethically sourced alcohol, a sweet treat, a spicy condiment, or something bubbly and fruity, each of these companies is owned by someone proud to share their unique culture through something delicious. Read more Perfy Photo: Perfy Although Jarritos will always hold a special place in the heart of many Latinos, the high sugar content might not suit everyone. For that reason, Vasa Martinez chose to create a low-sugar soda with nostalgic flavors meant to bring to mind memories of Sunkist, Hawaiian Punch, and even the Mandarin flavor of Jarritos. Each can of Perfy only contains between three to four grams of sugar and is flavored using fruit juice, a blend of Stevia, monk fruit, and allulose as well as some sea salt. A 12-pack of cans costs $35.99 and can be shipped straight to your door. Chuza Photo: Chuza Chuza is a snack brand created by Mexican immigrant Danny Schwarz with the hope of bringing authentic Mexican flavors and cultural traditions to the U.S. through food. Similar to another beloved spice blend, Chuza provides a mixture of spice and citrus tang to whatever you pour it on. In addition to a spice you can rim your margaritas with, the brand also sells dried apricots, mango, pineapple, cranberry, and others coated in the blend. Each bag ranges from $4.99 to $7.99 or you can get a spicy bundle with a bottle of the spice blend for $35.99. Story continues Pisqueya Photo: Pisqueya Pisqueya is a hot sauce brand created by Maritza Abreu, a New York native with Dominican heritage. Abreu started Pisqueya to provide more representation for Dominican culture in the global food market. Pisqueyas line of hot sauces come from a family recipe which serves as the basis for the three flavors: smoky hot, spicy sweet, and medium buzz. All three can be purchased in a bundle for $25.99 along with a new adobo seasoning. Tia Lupita Foods Photo: Tia Lupita Foods Another hot sauce company bringing a taste of family, home, and cultura is Tia Lupita Foods. The creator, Hector Saldivar, named the brand after his mother, affectionately known as Tia Lupita. Her original recipe is what inspired the hot sauce brand which has since expanded its offerings into tortilla chips and salsas as well. A single bottle sells for $6.99 but you can also buy three, four, or 12- bottle packs. Mayawell Photo: Mayawell Mayawell is a soda brand made from sustainably-sourced agave and founded Vicente Reyes of Oaxaca, Mexico. In addition to utilizing a plant that is native to Mexico as a sweetener, 2% of the profits made from each sale of these sodas is given to a non-profit which works to support indigenous Mexican communities and aid in reforestation in the region. The sodas include flavors like pineapple mango, pear lime, strawberry ginger, and raspberry cucumber, as well as others. Somos Photo: Somos Somos is a food brand started by three friends looking to bring authentic Mexican cooking into the ready-to-eat category. Somos sells burrito bowl kits, salsas, and microwavable ready-to-eat dishes based on traditional Mexican plates such as Cauliflower tinga and picadillos, or Peacadillos as they spell it because theyre made using pea protein. Somos products can be found online on Amazon, Kroger, and through Hungryroot, as well as in some grocery stores. Don Q Photo: lev radin (Shutterstock) Available in the U.S. as of 2006, Don Q is a Puerto Rican rum brand with a history going as far back as the 1860s. Don Q rum is named after Don Quixote, a literary character from a novel originally published in the 1600s. The brand offers its rum in gold, cristal, and 151 degrees, which has notes of vanilla, as well as a variety of flavors such as Pina (pineapple), coco (coconut), limon (lime), and pasion (passion fruit). Flor de Maria Photo: Flor De Maria Flor de Maria is a chocolate CBD brand created by William Zitser. Zitser, who is from Venezuela, uses a combination of chocolate sourced Venezuela, El Salvador, as well as other Latin American countries like Ecuador. That chocolate is combined with CBD sourced in New York. Each chocolate bar contains 120mg of CBD and flavors include hibiscus, dark chocolate, and ghost pepper caramel. Angelas Bakery Photo: Angelas Bakery Angelas Bakery is based in Brooklyn and was founded by Angela Rosario of the Dominican Republic. Her daughter, Rosangela is the current owner and CEO of the brand. Although the bakery itself is in Brooklyn, Angelas bakery sells its Dominican Cake Mixes nationwide. The cake mixes are based on a traditional type of Dominican cake called Bizcocho which has a moist, light texture. The cake mixes can be found on Amazon and in some Walmart locations. Fillos Image: Fillos Created by Cuban brothers Daniel and Antonio Caballero, Fillos is a brand that aims to keep traditions fresh by reimagining authentic food in new formats. For example, the brand offers walking tamales which puts a traditional food in a pouch and makes them suitable for on-the go eating. Fillos also offers Cuban Black Beans Sofrito and other sofrito varieties in a simple pouch for easy heating. You can find the products on Amazon and directly via the website. No matter what time of year it is, jumping in the car for a road trip can make for some of the most memorable travel moments. But if you've got a canine companion, choosing to take a long drive can be one of the best ways to get on a vacation with your furry friend. After all, the ease of jumping into your own vehicle is a leg upor fouron taking any other kind of getaway with your pup that involves boarding a train or plane. Having the freedom to chart your own course, make your own schedule, and pull over for a game of catch whenever you want arguably makes it the easiest way to travel together. Read on to see which road trips in the U.S. experts say are the best to take with your dog. READ THIS NEXT: The 9 Best Road Trips in the U.S. to See Fall Foliage. 1 Oregon Coast Highway 101 (Oregon) Whether it's built by habit or happens by luck, humans tend to have a lot in common with their pets. Fortunately, this can be a huge help when selecting travel destinations. "There are few things in this world that bring such mutual, primal joy to humans and canines alike as the ocean," Adam Marland, travel writer and photographer for We Dream of Travel, tells Best Life. "There is something about having your feet (or paws!) in the sand and tasting that salty air that just makes you feel alive." "Highway 101 traces the Oregon coast from border to border, providing jaw-dropping scenery adorned with monolithic sea stacks, tide pools, unspoiled wilderness, and plenty of assorted natural wonders," he says. "What's more, nearly the entire coastline offers state or local parks with camping and facilities, making it the perfect place to road trip without an itinerary." And there's no reason your pet can't enjoy themselves, too. "Dogs are allowed anywhere on the beach, so you never have to worry about bringing your faithful companion along for a walk," Marland adds. 2 The Beartooth Highway (Montana) Stunning mountain vistas and wide open spaces can work wonders on the human psyche. But according to experts, it can be just as enlightening for your dog to enjoy the same settings along with you during a road trip. That's where a drive through Montana can come in handy. Story continues "The Beartooth Highway, which runs 68 miles between Cooke City and Red Lodge in Montana, travels through some of the country's most breathtaking scenery," Erin Mastopietro, owner and founder of Dope Dog, tells Best Life. "Twenty peaks that reach above 12,000 feet are passed along this road, one of the highest in the lower 48 states." READ THIS NEXT: The 10 Best Weekend Trips You Need to Take This Year. 3 Lake Tahoe (California) Sometimes, taking a trip with your pet is as much about getting them into nature as it is about finding a place that welcomes them into top-notch human establishments, as well. Lake Tahoe provides the perfect blend of an outdoor getaway with plenty of town-based activities that both of you can enjoy. "Just a 90-minute drive from Sacramento and a 3.5-hour drive from San Francisco, Lake Tahoe is located in the Sierra Nevada and makes the perfect Northern California road trip to take with your dog," Gigi Chow, co-owner and operator of dog travel website Wet Nose Escapades, tells Best Life. "With an abundance of outdoor adventures and gorgeous scenery, it's also a fantastic dog-friendly destination." "From dog parks to dog-friendly shopping areas (like The Shops at Heavenly Village) to dog-friendly live music venues, you'll never fall short of fun activities to do with your pet. Although you can't bring your dog inside the casinos here, there are plenty of eateries and breweries with dog-friendly seating," she says. "There are also perfect scenic hikes for you and your dogincluding Lake of the Sky Trail, Mt. Tallac, Tahoe Rim Trailand beaches where canines are allowed, like Kiva Beach, Thomas F. Regan Memorial City Beach, North Zephyr Cove Beach, Fallen Leaf Lake. You can even kayak with your dog around the beautiful blue water." 4 Seattle and the San Juan Islands (Washington) The Pacific Northwest is a paradise for outdoor lovers, no matter what species they happen to be. And in Washington State, one day trip popular with humans is sure to be a hit for any canine copilots. "A road trip that combines Seattle and the San Juan Islands is a great choice to take with your four-legged friend," Larry Snider, vice president of operations of Casago Vacation Rentals, tells Best Life. "From Seattle, you'll drive about 80 miles to Anacortes, Washington, where ferries depart for the San Juan islands. There are lovely parks to explore here before you even board the ferry. Then, hop on the ferry (with your car!) and head to Orcas Island. Dogs ride free on the ferry and will have a blast with this new experience. Once there, you can hike, swim, and adventure around." For more travel advice delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. 5 Lake Coeur d'Alene (Idaho) Idaho offers plenty of wide-open spaces that make for epic drives. But if you're looking to break up the landscape, one natural landmark makes for a beautiful dog-friendly destination. "One of the best road trips to take with your furry friend is through Idaho's Lake Coeur d'Alene," Nick Mueller, travel expert and director of operations of HawaiianIslands.com, tells Best Life. "The beautiful body of water unfolds over 26 miles with more than 135 miles of shoreline. You can take scenic boat tours and hike on pet-friendly trails during your time here. It's a gorgeous way to spend time with your pup!" 6 Denver to Grand Canyon National Park (Colorado and Arizona) Seeing the Grand Canyon tops many peoples' bucket lists for a reason: The epic views and sprawling grandeur are breathtaking. But if dogs could make bucket lists of their own, experts say they'd probably put it on theirs, too. "Which outdoorsy dog wouldn't want to accompany you to the Grand Canyon?" says Jenny Ly, travel blogger and founder of Go Wanderly. "You'll see several national forests along the steep road. Go to Colorado's White River National Forest to explore the Flat Tops Wilderness, where your dog is free to roam. Alternately, travel south through the Rio Grande and San Juan National Forests, stopping for a stroll. Keep your dog on a leash and stay on the South and North rim pet-friendly trails when visiting the Grand Canyon to ensure you follow all park regulations." READ THIS NEXT: The 7 Best U.S. National Parks to Visit With Your Dog. 7 Niagara Falls (New York) There are plenty of perks for people who want to visit Niagara Falls. Besides the genuinely breathtaking natural wonder, there's also plenty to see and do in the surrounding area on both the Canadian and American sides of the border. And if you happen to bring your dog along as you finally check seeing the Falls off your to-do list, there's a good chance they'll enjoy themselves as well. "A road trip to Niagara Falls should be on every dog owner's list," Sherry Arkfeld, author of Digital Nomad and a Dog, tells Best Life. "The state park is very dog friendly and a great place for dogs to explore. There are many restaurants nearby that allow dogs on the patios. My dog didn't appreciate the waterfalls too much, but she sure did enjoy the park. You can also walk over to Goat Island and Three Sisters Island for more views for you and more things for your dog to sniff." 8 St. George and Moab (Utah) If you want to get the most out of enjoying the outdoors with your pet, it's best to consider the places where they'll be welcome. Fortunately, Utah's vast wilderness provides plenty of opportunities to stop and enjoy the sights with your dog. "I highly recommend a road trip with your dog to/from St. George and Moab, Utah," Whitney Woolstenhulme, founder of dog grooming website DoodleDoods, tells Best Life. "Nearly the whole geographical area between these two locations is comprised of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, which is public space that can be used for all kinds of dog-friendly recreational activities. For example, you can dry camp in a tent or RV for free, explore a variety of beautiful terrain, including slot canyons, you can use your ATVs or mountain bikes, and go rock climbing. And of course, you can legally let the dogs run wild and free to their heart's content." Just make sure you pick the right season for your drive. "The best time to embark on such a road trip is in spring or fall when daytime temperatures are bearable, and it's not terribly cold at night," she suggests. As the hurricane moves out of Florida, airports and theme parks are assessing the impact of the storm and beginning to reopen. Courtesy of Bloomberg / Getty Contributor As Hurricane Ian left Floridans without power and disrupted travel plans the storm heads north toward the Carolinas and is expected to make landfall again as a Category 1 hurricane. The Charleston airport was forced to close on Sept. 30 after high winds came through the area, the airport is expected to reopen Oct. 1, according to a tweet. Tampa and Orlando airports have officially reopened and flights have resumed, although passengers should check with their airline, according to twitter accounts for each respective airport. Southwest Florida airport still remains closed to the public, including rental car companies, according to a statement released online. Several airlines issued storm waivers for this week, including Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue, and Spirit Airlines for flights to airports across the state for travel through at least Oct. 3. Courtesy of Bloomberg / Getty Contributor As of Sept. 30, Disney had reopened its park along with Disney Springs with a few exceptions. "Copper Creek Cabins at Disneys Wilderness Lodge and the Bungalows at Disneys Polynesian Village Resort are temporarily closed through Sept. 30 due to the weather. Treehouse Villas at Disneys Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa will be closed until Monday, Oct. 3. Disneys Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground will remain temporarily closed at this time," according to a statement shared with Travel + Leisure. Many cruises sailing through the Western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico have also been affected by the storm. The Norwegian Sky has a rerouted itinerary due to potential impacts from Hurricane Ian, along with MSC Seashore, The Carnival Ecstasy, and Carnival Glory, according to CNN. A Carnival Paradise sailing leaving from Tampa on Thursday has been canceled and will extend its current sailing while the port of Tampa remains closed. The Carnival Liberty scheduled to depart from Port Carnaval has also been canceled and sailings from Mobile, Ala., Miami, and New Orleans will have rerouted itineraries, CBS News reported. Hurricane Ian is the latest storm to come out of the Atlantic after Hurricane Fiona swept through just a week ago, causing severe damage to Puerto Rico and affecting other Caribbean islands. Butter boards are the latest viral food trend taking TikTok by storm. The creamy creations, boasting large wooden boards slathered in rich, often-flavored butters, perfect for dipping crusty pieces of bread, have been touted as a charcuterie board replacement. And, to be fair, they look and sound delicious. There's just one issue with the new trend: a butter shortage in the United States that's likely to get worse before it gets better. While the idea for the buttery excess, pioneered by chef Joshua McFadden and popularized by food influencer Justine Doiron, was born well before the shortage, the trend could now be contributing to the empty butter shelves at local grocery stores. RELATED: The Most Dangerous TikTok Food Trends You Should Never Try Although your TikTok "For you" page may be full of folks making butter boards, butter is currently the most expensive it's been since 2017. Butter prices reached upwards of $4.77 per unit in August, according to The Wall Street Journal. That's because the U.S. has the lowest amount of butter in storage facilities in that same five-year period. Only eggs have seen a similar price increase trajectory, according to the newspaper. The shortage has led to a 24.6% increase in butter prices in the last 12 months, which could spell disaster for butter board fans and holiday bakers alike. The reasons for the shortage are complex. It was sparked in part by issues plaguing milk production, which instead of seeing its typical year-over-year growth, saw a decrease amid various cost struggles dairy farmers have faced, including a decrease in the number of dairy cows. To make matters worse, WSJ explains that butter is low on the milk-product food chain, meaning that milk is typically sold to bottlers first, followed by ice cream and cheese companies, and, lastly, butter makers. Another huge factor in the butter shortage is the labor shortage. If you've been just about anywhere recently, there's a good chance you've seen signs advertising job vacancies. According to WSJ, processing facilities that churn out butter have been dealing with similar staffing shortages to the rest of the post-pandemic world. This means that while simply ramping up production might help meet some of America's butter needs, this isn't necessarily a viable solution. Story continues Couple all of that with an increased demand, fueled by food trends, holiday necessity, and, of course, the fact that butter makes everything better, and you've got a recipe for disaster. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), there is some real concern among suppliers in parts of the country about being able to meet the demand of orders from retailers. Likewise, some in the industry fear quite the opposite, worrying that sky-high prices may cause consumers to turn away from butter, opting for alternatives instead. For this reason, producing more butter is a risk. Eat this, not that Sign up for our newsletter! In an effort to combat rising prices, and the hesitancy from shoppers to buy products that are significantly marked up, grocers are likely to want to offer over-the-top deals to entice scarcity-minded buyers. Marshall Reece, of the Associated Milk Producers Inc. (AMPI), warned against that in an interview with WSJ. He revealed that AMPI's butter production is down between 5% and 10% this year as compared to before the pandemic. "You can't have a fire sale on butter, we won't be able to supply you," Reece said. The best way to combat such shortages is to turn to alternatives when possible or skip the butter altogether. Yes, that means you might have to hold off on whipping up a butter board for now. Reach for plant butters or margarine when possible. Opt for butter-free desserts, or turn to replacements like coconut oil. You can also do your part to extend the life of the butter you do have by freezing it. Frozen butter is good for several months to a full year. This too shall pass, and you'll be back to enjoying butter on all your favorite dishes soon enough. "Reservation Dogs" star Devery Jacobs opened up about Indigenous representation in the latest issue of Elle Canada. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for AFI) Devery Jacobs is opening up about Indigenous representation, and finding joy in collaborating with her community. Earlier this month, the 29-year-old Kanienkeha:ka actor and filmmaker was featured on the front cover of Elle Canada, paired with an interview in which the "Reservation Dogs" star opens up about Indigenous representation in the film industry. Jacobs proudly took to Instagram on Friday to share a snap of herself picking up a copy of Elle Canada's September issue with her photo on the front, in which she poses in an outfit designed by Vivienne Westwood, Loewe and Modern Weaving. "Finally picked up my copy of @ellecanada," she captioned the photo for her more than 220,000 followers. Jacobs is one of the lead actors on the FX dramedy series "Reservation Dogs" which aired its first season in 2021. The show is set on an Oklahoma reserve, with an almost entirely Indigenous cast and crew. Jacobs explained that it was incredibly important to touch on real-life Indigenous issues, including suicide, which she also elaborated on even further in a personal essay for Time. All native folks have been touched in some way by suicide, so I think there was so much more to the story behind the scenes, she told Elle Canada. The Canadian actress and Indigenous advocate recently joined another Indigenous-focused project, this time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a role in the upcoming Disney+ series, "Echo," set to air in 2023. She will be joining two familiar faces from "Reservation Dogs" Zahn McClarnon and director Sydney Freeland. "To be able to collaborate again with another queer Indigenous person Sydney being trans and Navajo is so awesome, Jacobs said. She also added that outside of her professional life, it's comforting to connect with other Indigenous women in her field. She recently had dinner with Lakota Sioux actor Amber Midthunder, the first female Indigenous action hero, known for her role in "Prey." Story continues [We were] talking about how [roles are] so scarce for native artists, which ends up forming a crab-in-the-bucket [mentality] where [you think] If Im not cast, its going to be this other person, and theres only room for one, Jacobs recalled. But thats just not true right now. She continued: I turned to her and said, Its my hope that we can be old Totas [grandmothers in Kanienkeha:ka] in the industry and that we can look back at the things we were able to do together and feel like we have left it in a better place than when we first came into it. Jacobs admitted that seeing Indigenous stories garner mainstream success "is something I never imagined could happen. "Going from fighting to have Indigenous stories be seen to enjoying the overwhelming success of season one of Rez Dogs feels like whiplash," she said. [Im] used to screaming into a void and people not caring about Indigenous stories, so for this to suddenly take off All of the rezzy-isms that I was shamed for are now being celebrated and universally respected as cool, which I always knew [they were] but the industry didnt know yet. Its all happening at once. Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. By Tom Polansek CHICAGO (Reuters) - The world is heading toward the tightest grain inventories in years despite the resumption of exports from Ukraine, as the shipments are too few and harvests from other major crop producers are smaller than initially expected, according to grain supply and crop forecast data. Poor weather in key agricultural regions from the United States to France and China is shrinking grain harvests and cutting inventories, heightening the risk of famine in some of the world's poorest nations. Importers, food manufacturers and livestock producers had hoped crop availability would improve after war-torn Ukraine resumed shipments from Black Sea ports this summer and U.S. farmers planted large crops. But the United States, the world's top corn producer, is now expected to harvest its smallest corn crop in three years. Drought also punished European harvests and is threatening South America's upcoming planting season. By the end of the 2022/23 crop year, the world's buffer stocks of corn will be enough for just 80 days' worth of consumption, down 28% from five years ago and the lowest level since 2010/11, according to figures compiled for Reuters by the International Grains Council, an intergovernmental organization. That would be fewer days of corn stocks than the world had in 2012, when the last global food crisis spurred riots. Policymakers are worried. The World Bank has earmarked $30 billion to help offset food shortages worsened by war, and U.S. President Joe Biden last week announced nearly $3 billion in additional funding to combat global food insecurity. Half a million Somali children face hunger in the worst famine anywhere this century, according to the United Nations, as a severe drought grips the Horn of Africa. Thousands of miles away in the United States, South Dakota corn grower Mark Gross expects to harvest as few as 20 bushels per acre on some fields this autumn, down more than 80% from the local average last year, after drought and fierce winds ravaged his land. Story continues Gross said the weather remained too dry in the spring and then two derecho windstorms brought destructive 100-mile-per-hour (160 kph) gusts across fields in Hutchinson County and southeastern parts of the state. "It's lining up to be like 2012," Gross said. "No one wants to admit it, but it's true." Tight grain supplies reflect the impact of climate change on crop production as well as growing global demand for livestock that feed on corn, eating away at stockpiles. Inventories of all harvested grain on hand globally will reach an eight-year low at the end of this crop year, the International Grains Council said on Thursday. More poor weather could further reduce global inventories, particularly if the current dry weather in South America continues into the main planting season, as the crop cycle shifts to the southern hemisphere. Crop forecasts in Argentina, the world's No. 3 corn exporter, are already being scaled back due to dry weather. Graphic: World corn supply slumps to 12-year-low https://graphics.reuters.com/GRAINS-FORECAST/jnvwemqoovw/chart.png 'VERY LITTLE WATER' In the Mayenne region in northwestern France, the European Union's top grain-producing country, farmer Dominique Defay, said some corn plants have few ears and he is bracing for a crop 35% below his average. He had been hoping for at least 135 bushels per acre, near the low-end of his five-year average. He may get only about 90 bushels after France suffered its worst recorded drought since 1958. "These are crops that have had very little water," Defay said. On average less than 1 cm of rain fell across France in July. River tributaries dried up as successive heatwaves and wildfires devastated the countryside. EU production is expected to hit a 15-year low, a decline that will push the bloc to increase 2022/23 imports from Ukraine by about 30% from the previous year to 10.4 million tonnes, consultancy Strategie Grains said. Bigger European import demand means less for places like the drought-stricken Horn of Africa. Ukraine's exports of corn and wheat have risen since a U.N.-brokered deal with Russia allowed shipments to restart from ports that had been blockaded since the war started. But it remains to be seen how much Ukraine can export, especially if the war drags on. "It's sort of a false hope that Ukraine is going to bridge the current gap in supply and demand," said Gary Blumenthal, head of Washington-based agricultural consultancy World Perspectives. Ukraine is expected to harvest 25 to 27 million tonnes of corn in 2022, down from 42.1 million tonnes in 2021, following Russia's invasion, according to official estimates. Sanctions related to the war mean Russia has also struggled to export what is expected to be a record-large wheat crop. Shipments of wheat and other agricultural products from Ukraine have been a fraction of pre-war levels, said Kevin Hack, a global vice president for ingredients supplier Univar Solutions. "The supply that's coming from that area can be cut off at a moment's notice," he said. SOUTH AMERICAN HOPES Farmers in China meanwhile, have grappled with dryness, threatening crops, while India has limited rice exports due to poor weather. Agricultural lender Rabobank said the next U.S. wheat crop is also at risk and will be planted in dust this autumn unless rains fall. That is "a recipe for another tough crop production year and strong support for prices," Rabobank said. A ratio that factors in U.S. wheat inventories compared to usage and that reflects stockpile levels is expected to drop to a nine-year low in 2022/23, according to Reuters calculations of government data. The same ratio is also predicted to hit a nine-year low for U.S. soybeans. "We end up, on the balance sheets, finding that it will be another year where global consumption exceeds global production," said Dan Basse, president of consultancy AgResource. Importers are setting their sights on South America, where Brazilian farmers are expected to produce record corn and soybean crops in 2023, according to analysts and the government. Farmers hope for better weather for soy plantings that are under way, after dryness spoiled part of last season's harvest. In Argentina, though, the Rosario Grains Exchange predicts plantings that just began for the 2022/2023 corn crop will fall 7% from last season to 8 million hectares (20 million acres) due to a familiar problem - drought. The Argentine government has also capped export of the crop, which will be planted in coming weeks, at an initial 10 million tonnes, compared to 36 million tonnes in the 2021/22 corn season. "If this were a race, farmers are starting in last position with trouble in their engine," Cristian Russo, the exchange's head agronomist, told Reuters. "The situation is extremely complex, the most complex season we've had this century so far." (Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago, Gus Trompiz in Paris, P.J. Huffstutter in Bloomington, Illinois, and Maximilian Heath in Buenos Aires. Additional reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago, editing by Caroline Stauffer and Ross Colvin) Mandan police are following up on responses to their call for public help in tracing the movements of a man who was found slain Friday near the trolley bridge. We have received information from numerous persons that is allowing us to get a clearer picture of Kevin Greybulls daily routine, Deputy Chief Lori Flaten said. Greybull, 65, was homeless and spent time in Bismarck and Mandan, authorities said. Officers about 7 p.m. responded to a call of an unresponsive man in the 1900 block of Third Street Southeast near the trolley bridge, and found Greybull's body. They're treating the death as a homicide but have not commented on the manner in which Greybull died. Greybull was frequently seen in the area of the Sitting Bull Bridge over the Heart River on Sixth Avenue Southeast in Mandan, and was known to spend time in the area of the trolley bridge. Police as of midday Monday had not identified a suspect in Greybulls death. Authorities plan to conduct an autopsy on Tuesday. Greybull was last seen around 7:15 p.m. Thursday in the area of the 700 block of Third Street Southeast in Mandan. He was wearing an orange Philadelphia Flyers shirt, khaki pants and gray shoes. People with information about Greybull or his movements can contact Mandan police at 701-667-3250. The homicide was the second reported in the metro area on Friday. A teenage boy who is a suspect in a fatal Friday shooting at a Bismarck motel had not yet been transported back to North Dakota as of early Monday afternoon, according to Bismarck Police Lt. Luke Gardiner. The 16-year-old from Bismarck was arrested in Warren, Minnesota, Friday morning. Officials have not released his name due to his age. Police identified the person who was shot and killed as Maurice Thunder Shield, 28, of McLaughlin, South Dakota. Gardiner previously said the suspect and Thunder Shield knew one another. Authorities have not released information related to the circumstances that led to the shooting, a possible motive or specific evidence, citing potential hindrance of prosecution. A federal jury on Monday convicted a former Chicago graduate student of spying for the Chinese government by gathering information on scientists and engineers in the U.S. with valuable knowledge about aerospace technology, artificial intelligence, and even aircraft carriers. After a two-week trial, the jury convicted Ji Chaoqun, 31, of conspiracy to act as an agent of Chinas Ministry of State Security without notifying the U.S. attorney general, acting as a spy in the U.S., and lying on a government form about his contacts with foreign agencies. The jury, which deliberated about six hours over two days, acquitted Ji of two other wire fraud counts alleging he lied to the U.S. Army when he applied to become a reservist in 2016. Ji, who has been in custody since his arrest four years ago, kept his hands folded on the defense table and appeared to have no reaction as he listened to the verdict on headphones through a Chinese interpreter. The more serious spying count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and when hes done serving his time, Ji will face deportation. U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman set sentencing for Jan. 17. After the verdict, Jis lead attorney, Damon Cheronis, said in a statement they were pleased that the jury returned not guilty verdicts on both wire fraud counts. It was a complicated case and luckily we live in a country where a jury gets to decide these issues, Cheronis wrote in an email to the Tribune. While we are obviously disappointed with the remaining counts, we respect the jury process and the hard work they put into deciding this case. Jis case was profiled in the Tribune in 2019 as a symbol of a growing area of worry for U.S. authorities: A sophisticated and far-flung mission by the Chinese government to have spies and foreign agents steal ideas and technology from firms and defense contractors across the country. The charges against Ji were part of a wider national security investigation that also led to the arrest and unprecedented extradition of his handler, Xu Yangjun, a senior intelligence officer in Chinas main spy agency. Story continues Xu, the first Chinese spy ever brought to the U.S. to face criminal prosecution, was convicted in federal court in Cincinnati last November of trying to steal trade secrets from military contractor GE Aviation. He is scheduled to be sentenced later this year. The charges against Ji alleged that he was targeted by agents with the MSS in China shortly before coming to Chicago in 2013 to study electrical engineering at IIT, a small private school just east of the Dan Ryan Expressway that had forged educational ties with Chinese universities and colleges. After traveling back to China during the winter break, Ji was wined and dined by MSS handlers and eventually given a top secret contract where he swore an oath of allegiance to the agencys cause, agreeing to devote the rest of my life to state security, according to prosecutors. A photo snapped surreptitiously by Ji of the contract was later found on his cellphone, though it was unsigned. Ji also took photos of $6,000 in cash given to him by the MSS for living expenses in the U.S., prosecutors said. Five days later, Ji returned to Chicago and immediately reached out to a friend who was studying aeronautics and aviation at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas said in his closing argument to the jury last week. Ji sent the friend photos of the contract and cash and offered to share some of his operational expenses with him if he helped him track down leads for the MSS, Jonas said. Jonas told jurors that sending his friend the photos was maybe not the brightest thing for Ji to do, but it didnt make him any less of a spy. Theres no requirement that you find that he be James Bond, Jonas said. Ultimately, Ji was able to gather background reports on eight U.S. citizens, all born in Taiwan or China, with careers in science and technology industry, including several who specialized in the aerospace field. Seven worked for U.S. defense contractors, according to prosecutors. Ji sent the reports which were publicly available for purchase back to his handlers in a zipped attachment that was falsely labeled as sets of midterm exam questions, according to Jonas. Ji graduated from IIT in 2015, and the following year, enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve through a program to recruit foreigners who have skills considered vital to the national interest. Prosecutors alleged Ji concealed during his Army background check that he had been in contact with the intelligence officers, but the jury found him not guilty on both of those counts. The jury convicted him, however, of giving false answers on a government background form that asked if hed ever had any contact with foreign intelligence agencies, including MSS. In his closing argument Friday, Cheronis noted that Ji was never accused of stealing any government secrets, just gathering background that anyone wanting to research a neighbor or potential date could pay for on the internet. He also portrayed Ji as an unwitting pawn in a much larger game of international espionage, one played with equal aplomb by the same U.S. government that was now pointing fingers. Cheronis said the system is designed to exploit idealistic young college students like Ji, kids who have enough trouble figuring out what theyre going to do with their lives. He pointed to the testimony of prosecution expert James Olson, the former chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, who walked the jury through what Olson referred to as the Great Game of spying. Olson called it eight-dimensional chess and acknowledged that men like him were experts in exploiting the dark side of human nature. Cheronis said Olson talked about older, more experienced players preying on college kids like he was talking about a fish. (Ji) is actually a human being. But hes a trophy for guys like Olson, Cheronis said. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty ROMEItalians overwhelmingly voted to give power to the most far-right government since Benito Mussolini was thrown out of power and hung from a gas station girder after World War II with the clear victory of Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy partyalong with coalition partners Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi. Lega leader Matteo Salvini sports a Donald Trump mask. Alessandro Bremec/Getty Meloni now looks set to become the first female leader of one of the biggest economies in the world and told a crowd of supporters at her final campaign rally in Romes Piazza del Popolo that the world was wrong to be afraid of her after widespread condemnation of her alt-right politics heading up to the vote. What are they afraid of? she yelled as the crowd chanted: Giorgia! Giorgia! Giorgia! Plenty, the answer should have been. She hates immigrants and, it often seems, women. She has campaigned against reproductive rights like abortion and LGBTQ rights, lauding instead the traditional family even though she is an unmarried mother and daughter of a single mom. Meloni is very much a creation of one of her biggest supporters, Steve Bannon, who traveled to Rome during the last election campaign in 2018 and headlined her ultra-conservative party conferences. He also made sure she was a speaker at CPAC, where in 2022 she echoed some of the worlds most extreme leaders, including Viktor Orban of Hungary, whoM she considers a close friend and ally in Europe. Inside Steve Bannons Alt-Right Circus: A Trip to Rome to Rally Like-Minded Thinkers Meloni cut her political chops as a member of the fascist Italian Social Movement, formed by Mussolini supporters after his deposition and death. She was the youngest vice president of the group before it dissolved after a government decree that fascist parties were banned. She later joined the National Alliance, which grew from the ashes of the previous party, and rose in the ranks until she created her own party, called Brothers of Italy, which boasts a tri-color flamea not-so-subtle reference to fascism and supporters of Mussolinis undying power. Story continues She was appointed as a youth minister in one of Silvio Berlusconis early governments, and quietly built up a base. Her party includes not one, but two of Mussolinis great granddaughters and she does not hide policies that make her popular among populists. Italian Leader Goes Full Fascist on Persecuting Roma People And even though she is set to become patriarchal Italys first female leadera feat not yet achieved in the U.S.she is no friend to women. She has hinted that she will clamp down on abortion rights. The two regions in Italy that her party controls have restricted legal abortion to less than nine weeksthe national law. She has also threatened to re-examine same-sex union legislation passed in Italy in 2016, a call all of her coalition party members embrace. Silvio Berlusconi with Vladamir Putin in Italy. Sasha Mordovets/Getty At her side during her last campaign rally stood Berlusconione of Vladimir Putins BFFsand Salviniwho is on trial for kidnapping for blocking a migrant ship from docking in Italy while he served as Interior Minister during the last government. While Meloni has said she supports continuing sanctions against Russia, her partners have called for softening them to help the Italian economy, which had deep relations with Russia before the war. Her partys victory is now followed by the usual Italian bureaucracy. The newly elected parliament will reconvene on Oct. 13 and Italian President Sergio Mattarella will meet all parties which achieved more than 3 percent of the vote. Only then will he sign off officially on what seems, at least for now, an uncertain fate. Non tradiremo la vostra fiducia. Siamo #pronti a risollevare lItalia GRAZIE! pic.twitter.com/DabIIuhORK Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) September 26, 2022 Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Christies has chosen one incredible gem to lead its coming Luxury Week. The Fortune Pink, which will go under the gavel at the Magnificent Jewels sale at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva on November 8, weighs just shy of 19 carats and is the largest pear-shaped fancy vivid-pink diamond ever to be offered at auction. With a high estimate of $35 million, it could also be one of the most expensive stones in auction history. More from Robb Report The Fortune Pink apparently carries some good juju, too. The auction house has pointed out that the diamonds exact weight of 18.18 carats literally translates to definite prosperity in Asia, where 18 is considered a lucky number. With its auspicious weight of 18.18 carats, this exceptional pink diamond of phenomenal color will certainly bring good fortune to its new owner, Christies international head of jewelry Rahul Kadakia said in a statement. Since the closure of Western Australias Argyle Mine in 2020, which was the source of more than 90 percent of the worlds pink diamonds, the demand for the rarefied rose-colored gems has grown exponentially in the face of a rapidly dwindling supply. Still, Christies has brought a number of humdingers to market. To date, the largest vivid-pink diamond sold at the auction house was the Winston Pink Legacy. This rare 18.96-carat rock realized a record-breaking $50 million back in 2018. It also set a world record price per carat ($2.65 million) for a pink diamond sold at auction. Other notable sales include the 14.93-carat Pink Promise, which achieved $32.16 million ($2.15 million per carat), and the 15.81-carat Sakura, which hammered for $29.29 million ($1.82 million per carat). Story continues The Fortune Pink will be on display at Christies New York for a week from October 3, before touring Shanghai (October 10 to 13), Taiwan (October 21 to 23) and Singapore (October 28 to 30). The diamond will then head to Christies Luxury Week at the Four Seasons in Geneva from November 2 to 8. Heres hoping it brings you some good fortune with your bidding, too. Best of Robb Report Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Photo credit: Netflix "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below." Regardless of how you feel about Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Ryan Murphy's Netflix series has surely renewed interest in the lives and experiences of Dahmer's victims. Most of them were gay and people of color, the dignity of their lives desecrated by both societal neglect and Dahmer's brutality. One of Monster's most heart-wrenching episodes is its sixth, which tries its best to portray the short life of Tony Hughes, one of Dahmer's 11 of 17 victims who were Black. We are introduced to Hughes when he is born. Shortly after his birth, his mother receives news that antibiotics have been given to her son has caused him to have permanent hearing loss. For the first third of the episode, we focus on Hughes's life, learning about who he was before his fateful encounter with Dahmer. Although Monster pays painstaking homage to Hughes in a dramatic adaptation of his experience, what do we really know about Hughes? Who Was Tony Hughes? Hughes was born on August 26, 1959, according to FBI files, hailing from Madison, Wisconsin. He became deaf shortly after he was born, due to medication he received as a baby. He was also known to be mute. Hughes's mother, Shirley, described him as "outgoing and "happy," a man who made fast friends of anyone. While attending college in Madison, Hughes even aspired to be a model. Hughes reportedly met Dahmer at a gay club. Contradicting Dahmer's own account, witnesses recounted that Hughes and Dahmer knew each other for a year or more before Hughes was murdered. Hughes had been last seen on May 24, 1991 at the 219 Club in Milwaukee. Shirley Hughes told The Associated Press that she was unable to contact her son or the friend he had in Milwaukee, only knowing the first name of his friend: Jeffrey. One night, Dahmer reportedly took Hughes back to his apartment, drugged Hughes and dismembered his body, keeping his skull. According to FBI files, Hughes was identified by his dental records, and his skull and vertebrae were recovered. Story continues Before Hughes was found and identified, however, his sister, Barbara Hughes-Holt, also spoke to The Associated Press in 1991, when human remains had been found in Jeffrey Dahmer's Milwaukee apartment. "Its scary," said Hughes-Holt. "Just fearing that one of those bodies could be my brother is real scary." She recalled that Hughes family members were waiting by the phone after remains were discovered, anticipating that he may be found amongst them. According to reporting at the time of the trial, Shirley Hughes sat at Dahmer's trial, every single day with the grieving families of the other victims. They were all part of a local support group run by a nonprofit agency, Career Youth Development Inc., for families of those who lose loved ones to violence. She said of her son's murder, "when it first happened, I thought I would lose my mind." After her son's death, Shirly admirably began to focus her efforts on helping other grieving families. Although we only have scraps of evidence and accounts to piece together the life of Tony Hughes, he will continue to be remembered and honored by the people who loved him. You Might Also Like (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, nine years after he exposed the scale of secret surveillance operations by the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden, 39, fled the United States and was given asylum in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013 that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA, where he worked. U.S. authorities have for years wanted him returned to the United States to face a criminal trial on espionage charges. Snowden's name appeared without Kremlin comment in a Putin decree conferring citizenship on 72 foreign-born individuals. Snowden later issued a message, essentially an updated version of a November 2020 tweet, saying he wanted his family to remain together and asking for privacy. "After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our SONS," the tweet read. "After two years of waiting and nearly ten years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family. I pray for privacy for them - and for us all." The new tweet made no reference to the Kremlin leader's decree, but it was attached to a 2020 Twitter thread in which Snowden said he and his family were applying for dual U.S.-Russian citizenship. The news prompted some Russians to jokingly ask whether Snowden would be called up for military service, five days after Putin announced Russia's first public mobilization since World War Two to shore up its faltering invasion of Ukraine. "Will Snowden be drafted?" Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state media outlet RT and a vocal Putin supporter, wrote with dark humour on her Telegram channel. Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told RIA news agency that his client could not be called up because he had not previously served in the Russian army. He said that Snowden's wife Lindsay Mills, who gave birth to a son in 2020, would also apply for citizenship. Story continues U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said he was unaware of any change to Snowden's status as a U.S. citizen. "I am familiar with the fact that he has in some ways denounced his American citizenship. I don't know that he's renounced it," Price said in a press briefing. Russia granted Snowden permanent residency rights in 2020, paving the way for him to obtain Russian citizenship. That year a U.S. appeals court found the program Snowden had exposed was unlawful and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth. Putin, a former Russian spy chief, said in 2017 that Snowden, who keeps a low profile while living in Russia, was wrong to leak U.S. secrets but was not a traitor. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan, Grant McCool and Rosalba O'Brien) Fifth-grade students in Fairfield Elementary School play during recess on the first day of school Sept. 6 in Eugene, Oregon. Students can now play with different classes during recess, a loosening of COVID protocols. New coronavirus cases increased 3.5% in North Carolina in the week ending Sunday as the state added 21,189 cases. The previous week had 20,480 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19. North Carolina ranked third 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 7.7% from the week before, with 436,694 cases reported. With 3.15% of the country's population, North Carolina had 4.85% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 24 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before. Randolph County reported 273 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 189 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 40,401 cases and 475 deaths. Within North Carolina, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Yadkin County with 552 cases per 100,000 per week; Graham County with 486; and Caldwell County with 367. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week. Adding the most new cases overall were Wake County, with 2,150 cases; Mecklenburg County, with 1,974 cases; and Guilford County, with 1,022. Weekly case counts rose in 60 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Wake, Johnston and Randolph counties. a >> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases Across North Carolina, cases fell in 39 counties, with the best declines in Gaston County, with 385 cases from 516 a week earlier; in Cleveland County, with 216 cases from 306; and in Orange County, with 223 cases from 302. a In North Carolina, 49 a people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 30 people were reported dead. A total of 3,162,491 people in North Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 26,414 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 95,658,236 people have tested positive and 1,053,419 people have died. Story continues >> Track coronavirus cases across the United States North Carolina's COVID-19 hospital admissions staying flat USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Sept. 18. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state: Last week: 2,698 The week before that: 2,747 Four weeks ago: 2,591 Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation: Last week: 57,618 The week before that: 58,248 Four weeks ago: 66,210 Hospitals in 15 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 14 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 22 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 The Courier-Tribune: Randolph County reported 273 additional COVID-19 cases this week The Land of Smiles is eager and excited to welcome travelers to experience all the beloved destinations across Thailand just as easily as they used to. SOPA Images/Getty Contributor Tourists walking around Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand will drop the last of its remaining pandemic-related travel rules this week as the country ends its nationwide COVID-19 Emergency Decree. Starting Oct. 1, the Southeast Asian country will no longer require travelers to show proof of vaccination or proof of a negative test to enter, the Tourism Authority of Thailand confirmed toTravel + Leisure. The decision comes as Thailand reclassifies COVID-19 from a dangerous communicable disease to a communicable disease under surveillance. The new rules further simplifies the ability for all to experience the vibrant culture, cuisine and natural beauty of Amazing Thailand. Were hopeful that easing the arrival process will encourage travelers to plan their visits, resulting in a resurgence to Thailands tourism, Santi Sawangcharoen, the director of the TAT New York office and acting director of the TAT Toronto office, said in a statement provided to T+L. The Land of Smiles is eager and excited to welcome travelers to experience all the beloved destinations across Thailand just as easily as they used to. In addition to dropping pandemic-era restrictions, Thailand will also extend the time visa-exempt travelers can stay in the country from 30 days to 45 days. Travelers from the United States do not require a visa to enter, according to the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Thailand. The new visa rules will be in effect from Oct. 1 through March 31, 2023, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Thailand first started welcoming international tourists in July 2021 as part of a Phuket Sandbox program before eventually expanding travel and then once again tightening border restrictions amid the emergence of the omicron variant. Earlier this year, the country brought back a "Test & Go Thailand Pass" program, allowing vaccinated international visitors to travel to any part of the country and skip quarantine. Currently, travelers must show either proof of vaccination or proof of a negative test taken within 72 hours of traveling to enter the country. Thailand is the latest country to lift restrictions. In July, Australia lifted all remaining pandemic-era rules and nearby New Zealand followed earlier this month. In October, Japan also plans to begin welcoming independent travelers again, while Hong Kong just relaxed travel rules, eliminating its mandatory 3-day hotel quarantine. Former President Donald Trump has reportedly admitted taking his letters with Kim Jong Un and other tremendous stuff when he left the White House on Jan. 20, 2021. Journalist Maggie Haberman revealed that the twice-impeached president took letters from the North Korean dictator when he jetted to Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Florida, resort, on the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated. Most of it is in the archives, but the Kim Jong-un letters we have incredible things, he told Haberman, according to an article she penned in The Atlantic promoting her forthcoming book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. The interview with Trump was conducted before the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, which turned up some 10,000 government documents and more than 100 classified documents. Despite improperly making off with the cache of documents, Trump insisted to Haberman that he didnt really remove anything important. Nothing of great urgency, no, he told Haberman, who usually writes for The New York Times. Federal prosecutors are investigating possible violations of the Espionage Act, mishandling classified documents and obstruction of justice in the Mar-a-Lago document search. Although Trump scored a temporary victory by having a special master appointed to review the seized documents, Raymond Dearie, the veteran federal judge appointed as special master, said Trumps team was trying to have its cake and eat it too, and that he was inclined to regard the records the way the government does: classified. Dearie followed up with his own order, giving the Justice Department until Monday to submit an affidavit asserting that the FBIs detailed inventory of items taken in the search is accurate. Trumps team will have until Sept. 30 to identify errors or mistakes in the inventory. Trial starts Monday for a Bismarck woman facing conspiracy charges for murder, arson and tampering with evidence in the 2019 death of her husband in a case authorities allege involves a love triangle and an insurance policy. Nikkisue Entzel, 41, and a Canadian man, Earl Howard, 43, were accused in early 2020 of plotting the death of Chad Entzel, 42, and attempting to cover it up. Emergency workers found Chad Entzel's body when they responded to a call of a house fire in northeast Bismarck on Jan. 2, 2020. He died of gunshot wounds, an autopsy showed. Howard about a year ago pleaded guilty to four felonies. South Central District Judge Douglas Douglas Bahr sentenced him to 50 years in prison with 25 years suspended on the most serious charge of murder conspiracy. Howard will have to serve about 21 years before he's eligible for parole. He is on the prosecutions witness list for Nikkisue Entzels trial. Burleigh County Deputy Sheriff Brian Thompson testified during a hearing early in the case that Nikkisue Entzel and Howard were in a romantic relationship, verified by video and photos provided to law enforcement. Nikkisue Entzel took out a $26,000 renter's insurance policy in the days before Chad Entzel's death, and she tried to collect on the policy soon after he died, the deputy maintained. Prosecutors said Nikkisue Entzel told law enforcement Howard shot her husband, but that an evaluation of the firearm didnt conclude who pulled the trigger. Bahr last May dismissed a murder charge against Howard at the request of Burleigh County States Attorney Julie Lawyer. Nikkisue Entzel was arrested Jan. 7, 2020. Authorities the next day issued an arrest warrant for Howard, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. He turned himself in the following day on the Blue Water Bridge connecting Port Huron, Michigan, with Ontario, Canada. Bahr in May 2021 granted Nikkisue Entzel's attorney Justin Balzer and Howard's attorney Philip Becher more time to prepare for trial when significant new evidence was presented to them. The trial was reset for Oct. 25, 2021, and was to be held in the House chambers of the state Capitol to allow more room for social distancing amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Entzel's trial was delayed until February 2022 after Howards guilty plea in October 2021. Balzer in February withdrew as Nikkisue Entzels defense attorney, telling Bahr there was a breakdown in the attorney/client relationship at this point, which I believe leaves me no option but to withdraw. He told Bahr it was something he wouldnt do unless he felt it was absolutely necessary. Bismarck attorney Thomas Glass took over the case. Bahr at a Sept. 12 pretrial hearing said he would consider any plea agreement reached fewer than 10 days before the trial but told attorneys it would not be a binding agreement. He added that a plea agreement would not erase the trial dates from the calendar, thereby assuring that the trial would go on if either party backed out of the agreement. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Parag Agrawal canceled an interview with Elon Musk's lawyer the day before it was set to take place. The CEO has yet to reschedule, although the interview is expected to happen. Musk is expected to be interviewed later this week as part of the ongoing lawsuit. Twitter's Parag Agrawal canceled on short notice a scheduled deposition as part of his company's lawsuit against Elon Musk, frustrating the billionaire's legal team, people familiar with the case told Insider. The Twitter CEO was set to be interviewed for 10 hours in San Francisco on Monday in a deposition scheduled to start at 9 am local time. Agrawal was to be questioned at length by Musk's New York-based lawyer Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. On Sunday, lawyers for Twitter emailed Musk's side to cancel Agrawal's deposition, citing "personal reasons." The deposition is expected to be rescheduled, but a new date is yet to be decided, the people familiar with the case said. The sudden rescheduling and alleged "no show" of Agrawal created a swirl of speculation that Twitter and Musk were possibly engaging in talks about an out of court settlement. While some of the depositions so far in the $44 billion legal battle have been done virtually or over video conference, like that of former CEO Jack Dorsey, Musk's side is said to have demanded that Agrawal be interviewed in person. The lawsuit is Twitter's attempt to force Musk to acquire the company on the terms he agreed to in April, with Musk accusing Twitter of fraud largely based on his allegation that it misled the public about how many authentic user accounts it has. A five-day trial is still set to take place the week of October 17. Meanwhile, Musk is still set to be deposed sometime this week, one of the people familiar said, although it is also being rescheduled. His interview will also happen in person, but likely no longer in Delaware, where it was initially set to take place. One of his closest associates, Jared Birchall, was deposed last week in New York. Another, Antonia Gracias, is set to be deposed on Tuesday in Chicago. Are you a Twitter employee or someone with insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at khays@insider.com, on secure messaging app Signal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out using a non-work device. Read the original article on Business Insider Servicemen stand in front of a tank during the 'Vostok-2022' military exercises at the Sergeevskyi training ground outside the city of Ussuriysk on the Russian Far East on September 6, 2022. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images Russia has called up 300,000 reservists to be drafted to Ukraine. A former US Army general said this was a sign of weakness, suggesting they will lack proper training. Mark Hertling said he had witnessed how the Russian army is "poorly led and poorly trained." A former US Army general said that Russia's announced mobilization of 300,000 reservists was a "jaw-dropping" sign of weakness. Mark Hertling, who commanded the US Army Europe, explained in a Twitter thread that he has personally witnessed how the Russian army is "poorly led and poorly trained." The poor training, coupled with the decision to draft in recruits with little experience, is likely to spell disaster for Russia, he said. "Mobilizing 300k "reservists" (after failing with depleted conventional forces, rag-tag militias.. recruiting prisoners & using paramilitaries like the Wagner group) will be extremely difficult," Hertling said. "And placing "newbies" on a front line that has been mauled, has low morale & who don't want to be portends more [Russian] disaster." Putin announced on Wednesday the partial mobilization of the country's military reservists, with Russian officials stating that 300,000 reservists will be drafted immediately. Only those with combat experience will be called up, and students and current conscripts will not be included, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Since the announcement was made, reports have emerged about Russians trying to flee to avoid deployment, and plane tickets out of country selling out. Insider reported that recruits being drafted this week were totally unsuitable and included a 63-year-old man with diabetes. Horrible leadership by "drill sergeants" Hertling, who for a time also commanded all basic and advanced soldier training for the US Army, said that during two visits to Russia he found the army's training to be "awful." He compared Russia's army training with the US', which typically involves new soldiers getting 10 weeks of basic training across several sites from "very professional drill sergeants," and many going on to get more specialized training. Story continues The former general cited a Moscow Times article from July, six months into the invasion of Ukraine, which said that soldiers were being sent to the front line with minimal basic training. Sergei Krivenko, the director of the human rights group Citizen. Army. Law. told the outlet: "I've been regularly approached by parents whose children signed a [military] contract and ended up in Ukraine just a week later." The article also quoted one Russian soldier who said he received just five days of training before being sent to combat in Ukraine. Hertling said when he visited Russia, he noted that Russian army training faced many issues, including "horrible leadership by drill sergeants," and cited an article about hazing. He said that officers told him theirs was a "one year" force, with some, often the poorest, volunteering or being elected for leadership roles. By comparison, Hertling said that Ukraine's army more closely follows the US model after having received training from US personnel in both individual and unit training techniques since 2014. The issue of Russian army training, according to Hertling, starts "in basic training, and doesn't get better during the [Russian] soldier's time in uniform." Insider reached out to Hertling for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider Iran says it has summoned the British and Norwegian ambassadors as protests over the death of a young woman in police custody continue to rock the country. Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said it had summoned Simon Shercliff, the U.K.'s ambassador to Iran, on Saturday and protested the hosting of London-based Farsi language media outlets that are critical of the regime. The ministry alleged that the news outlets have provoked disturbances and considers its reporting to be interference in Iran's internal affairs and acts against its sovereignty. The state-run IRNA news agency also reported that the ministry has summoned Norway's ambassador to Iran and strongly protested recent remarks by the president of the Norwegian parliament, Masud Gharahkhani. PROTESTORS CLASH WITH REVOLUTIONARY GUARD IN NORTHERN IRAN, TORCH IRGC BASE: REPORTS Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in police custody after she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran earlier this month for allegedly wearing her Islamic headscarf too loosely. The police said she died of a heart attack and was not mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account. Her death has launched unrest across Iran's provinces and the capital of Tehran. As of Sunday, protests over her death have spread across at least 46 cities, towns and villages in Iran. State TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the protests began on Sept. 17. A member of the Basij, a volunteer force with Iran's Guards, was killed by protesters Saturday night in Tehran, semi-official Fars news agency reported. Another Basij member, who was in a coma since Thursday after street clashes, died in Urmia, West Azerbaijan province on Sunday, IRNA reported. Amini's death has sparked sharp condemnation from Western countries and the United Nations, as well as protests in solidarity abroad. On Sunday, violent street demonstrations erupted outside the Iranian embassy in London, with rocks thrown at police and five protesters arrested. A number of police officers were injured in the skirmishes though none seriously. Pro-government rallies were also held on Sunday in several cities across Iran. Thousands attended a rally in the capital's Enghelab, or Revolution Square, waving Iranian flags. Some officials, including cabinet spokesman, Ali Bahadori Jahromi, attended the rally in Tehran. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes was charged with seditious conspiracy in the January 6 investigation. Photo by Philip Pacheco/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Attorneys for a group of Oath Keepers are asking for a change of venue in their federal sedition trial for the Jan. 6 attack. The group of Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, argued that they cannot receive a fair trial in DC. Attorneys for the group decried the "incessant negative publicity regarding J6 defendants." Members of The Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group, are requesting a venue change before their upcoming federal seditious conspiracy trial related to the January 6 riot claiming they can not get an impartial jury in Washington, DC. The defendants including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, Thomas Caldwell, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, and Jessica Watkins said in a court filing on Friday that they "are merely seeking to avoid an Appeal issue" referring to challenging the verdict in court and "prevent the argument of local prejudice." "Most recently, the 'Oath Keepers' have been all over the news," attorneys said in the court filing obtained by Insider, decrying the "incessant negative publicity regarding J6 defendants." Jury selection is due to begin on September 27 for the trial, which is scheduled for late November. In the court filing, lawyers for the January 6 defendants said they have "sworn written responses to questionnaires admitting to a majority holding prejudgment bias." "(January 6) trials before juries have resulted in unanimous jury verdicts promptly returned," the filing said. "The defendants' argument, which time has only supported, is that no J6 defendant has been acquitted on any count, much less any case by a jury, to date, in the District of Columbia." Per the court filing, the attorneys suggested the case be moved to US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia "for the convenience of the government and the court." Attorneys for the defendants also argued that media coverage of the January 6 riot at the Capitol and the House Select Committee investigating the attack would prevent a fair trial. Story continues The House committee recently released audio recordings from a walkie-talkie app that the Oath Keepers used while inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021. January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) September 15, 2022 "The Zello recording portions that the court ruled inadmissible in this case were now highly publicized by Congress's J6 Committee (after the Court expressed skepticism of admissibility), which the Committee specifically claimed was a recording of the Oath Keepers showing their intent," attorneys for the defendants said in the court filing. "That Congress would publicize a recording that the Court signaled would be inadmissible in part, is shocking." Attorneys for the defendants did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Saturday. A total of 919 people have been arrested and criminally charged in connection with the Capitol riot, and 396 of them have pleaded guilty thus far. Read the original article on Business Insider Michigan Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon. AP Photo/Paul Sancya Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon mocked the kidnapping plot against Gov. Whitmer. "Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom," Dixon said. Two men were convicted in the plot, in which they sought to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation home. Michigan Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon on Friday mocked the kidnapping plot against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, her opponent in the November general election. During two campaign events, Dixon made light of the high-profile 2020 domestic terrorism plot, which was widely seen as a harbinger of the increased threat of political violence in the United States. Two men have been convicted in the plot, in which they sought to kidnap the governor from her vacation home. Prosecutors said that the men had eyed destroying a bridge in order to cripple the governor's security detail and any responding police officers. "The sad thing is Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you are ready to talk. For someone so worried about getting kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom," Dixon said at a campaign appearance in Troy, Mich., a suburb of Detroit. Her comments elicited an audible applause from many of the attendees. At a rally in Muskegon, a city in western Michigan, Dixon poked at an appearance that Whitmer made with President Joe Biden, who recently visited state and toured the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Once again, Dixon referenced the 2020 kidnapping plot to lob an attack at her opponent. "The look on her face was like, 'Oh, my gosh, this is happening. I'd rather be kidnapped by the FBI,'" she said at the event. Dixon then stated that her previous comments were not a joke. "If you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you," the Republican candidate said. Per CNN, she later said: "I think when you're being attacked everyday, you have to have a little levity in things we can still have fun." Story continues Democrats immediately criticized Dixon over her comments. Maeve Coyle, a spokeswoman for Whitmer's campaign, said in a statement that the governor "has faced serious threats to her safety and her life" and said that Dixon's statements made her "unfit" to become a public servant. "Threats of violence whether to Governor Whitmer or to candidates and elected officials on the other side of the aisle are no laughing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it's a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office," she said. Insider contacted Dixon's campaign office for comment, but didn't immediately receive a reply Saturday. Democratic Governors Association spokesman Sam Newton blasted Dixon's statements as "dangerous." "Tudor Dixon's comments are dangerous, an insult to law enforcement who keep us safe, and utterly disqualifying for the role of Michigan governor," he said. Whitmer, who was easily elected governor in 2018, has since been widely criticized by conservatives for enacting a range of COVID-19 restrictions, with the Republican-controlled state legislature suing her over her extensions of emergency powers during the pandemic. However, as the 2022 election approached, Republicans fumbled in their gubernatorial nomination process, as several candidates including onetime frontrunner James Craig were removed from the ballot over forged petition signatures. Dixon won the August GOP primary after receiving a late endorsement from former President Donald Trump, but she is currently trailing Whitmer in most public polling. In a newly-released EPIC-MRA poll, Whitmer led Dixon by 16-percentage points (55%-39%). Trump is set to appear alongside Dixon at an Oct. 1 rally in Macomb County, a populous suburban jurisdiction outside Detroit. Read the original article on Business Insider The innovation office of the U.S. military is introducing an effort to assess cryptocurrency threats to national security and law enforcement, aiding authorities in preventing illegal uses of digital assets. The program underway here involves mapping out the cryptocurrency universe in some detail, DARPA program manager Mark Flood told The Washington Post. He continued: We just need to acknowledge that the financial sector may be a component of modern warfare going forward, and anything we can do to reinforce and protect the U.S. financial sector and our allies financial sectors is beneficial. Flood referenced digital attacks by countries including North Korea and Russia, which launched attacks on the Ukrainian financial industry before it invaded Ukraine earlier this year. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) told the Post that it had hired crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital to work on its launch of the analysis project, which will take place over the span of a year. Inca Digital will provide DARPA with specialized instruments to provide a more in-depth assessment of crypto markets. The Hill has reached out to DARPA and Inca Digital for comment on the project. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. More than half of Pennsylvania voters will either definitely or probably vote for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro, according to a new Monmouth University poll released Friday. Thirty-three percent of voters said that they will definitely vote for Shapiro, compared to 21 percent for his Republican opponent, Doug Mastriano, while 21 percent said they will probably vote for Shapiro, compared to 15 percent for Mastriano. The poll found that nearly half (45 percent) of voters say that they will definitely not vote for Mastriano, while almost a third (28 percent) say that they will definitely not vote for Shapiro. Shapiros personal rating is generally positive, according to the survey, while Mastrianos is more negative. Fifty-five percent of Pennsylvanians surveyed said that they had favorable views of Shapiro, compared to 33 percent who said their views were unfavorable. Conversely, 36 percent of respondents find Mastriano favorable while 48 percent view him unfavorably. Eight percent of those surveyed said that they viewed both candidates favorably, and 9 percent said that they had unfavorable views toward both. Shapiro has more support from his own party, with 66 percent saying that they are definitely prepared to support him, while Mastriano has less, with only 47 percent expressing certainty that they will vote for him. Two percent of Democrats say that they definitely will not vote for Shapiro, compared to 13 percent of Republicans who will not vote for Mastriano. The poll was conducted from Sept. 8 to 12 and surveyed a total of 605 Pennsylvania voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Medical deserts could soon expand in upstate New York as dozens of hospitals face budget deficits linked to declining patient revenues and skyrocketing labor costs, a new survey found. About 50 hospitals warned that health care service cuts will unfold in the coming year unless their finances improve or government relief is provided, according to the Iroquois Healthcare Association survey. Among the findings: Nearly 90% of the hospitals reported negative or razor-thin operating margins, leaving them on track to end 2022 with millions of dollars in operating losses. Of those hospitals, about 30 sites faced potential losses of at least 2%. Potential losses exceeded 10% for about 10 hospitals, as staffing shortages in part fueled operating struggles and budget deficits. The hospitals spending on contingent staffing, such as travel nurses, has spiked about 50% from last year. By the end of 2022, the group's 52 overall hospitals are projected to spend more than $1.2 billion on contingent staffing. In my 30 years doing this, Ive never seen the financial condition of our hospital members worse than it has been for the last six months, said Gary Fitzgerald, president and CEO of the trade group representing hospitals serving 32 counties spanning much of upstate. If nothing happens, at this point next year we will see some service reductions, he added, and some hospitals have already reduced services. The mix of staffing shortages and budget deficits, Fitzgerald noted, have forced some upstate hospitals to cut back on everything from outpatient surgeries to maternity wards this year. And the pressure to reduce services particularly in rural communities has only grown more severe amid supply chain issues and historic inflation. Carl Pepe, pharmacist staff, measures out the exact vaccination dosage moments before its use during a COVID-19 vaccine clinic held at Unity Hospital in Greece on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. What about COVID bailouts for hospitals? The fiscal crisis threatening upstate hospitals is unfolding despite billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded pandemic bailouts that flowed to hospitals in New York since 2020. Story continues Read the investigation here: As COVID raged in New York hospitals, executives pocketed $73M in bonuses One reason is that federal rules funneled much of the $178 billion in pandemic aid nationally to large hospitals and health systems, which wield outsized political power through lobbying and general economic clout. In other words, the federal government bailed out rich hospitals many of which held large cash reserves and other investments and provided less aid to smaller community and rural hospitals that needed the money. Meanwhile, top executives at many of those large health systems in New York reaped the biggest shares of $73 million in bonuses paid out at hospitals in the state in 2020, the USA TODAY Network reported. Addressing the inequality in hospital pandemic aid and bonuses, Fitzgerald said: Its a constant battle between large and small hospitals and rural and urban. What solutions could help boost smaller hospitals? With recession risks looming large over the next year, politically charged debates over providing further government aid or funding to hospitals could get complicated, despite the fact more than 1,400 communities are designated as medically underserved areas. One way state lawmakers may attempt to provide relief is by increasing reimbursement rates for Medicaid, the jointly funded local, state, and federal health program for low-income and disabled people. Health care cost: NY physician groups merge, feds wary of potential cost increases for patients New York raised the Medicaid rate by 1% during the current state budget, but health care leaders asserted that fell short of covering the rising costs of care at hospitals and nursing homes. Many upstate hospitals that serve aging populations also benefit from increased reimbursement rates for Medicare, the federal program for elderly and disabled Americans. Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton is one of the regional hospitals testing and treating patients with COVID-19. Fitzgerald suggested upstate hospitals are also considering asking lawmakers to raise taxes on marijuana, alcohol, or cigarettes to direct more money to hospitals providing care to those harmed by the products. Tax raises would be a tough sell, however, due to the fact New York already has some of the highest so-called sin taxes in the nation. Further, any push for another round of emergency federal bailouts for hospitals would face hurdles based on criticism of the inequity and bonuses linked to early pandemic aid. Advocates asserted any relief funding should include bans on executive bonuses, acquisitions, and other spending unrelated to patient care. Much of the debate will follow the election on Nov. 8, as health care leaders ramp up lobbying efforts in Albany and Washington, D.C. The next state budget process will begin in January, with a goal of finalizing it by April. This article originally appeared on New York State Team: Service cuts possible at upstate NY hospitals as costs climb The male half of a South Carolina couple reported missing on Saturday has been found... and arrested for his girlfriend's murder. William "Todd" Cagle, 48, was arrested on Tuesday in Denver, according to jail records reviewed by Oxygen.com. The U.S. Marshals apprehended him outside his hotel in downtown Denver on felony warrants for murder and possession of a firearm by a previously convicted felon, according to a press release from the Laurens County Sheriff's Office and one from the Marshals. Cagle and his girlfriend, Terry Chermak, 49, were reported missing in Greenville on Saturday by her sister, according to the Columbia, South Carolina newspaper The State, though they both lived 35 miles southeast in Laurens. Neither had been seen since Sept. 9, though Chermak's boss reportedly had received a text from her phone stating she had Covid. Her vehicle, a gray 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander SUV, was also missing. RELATED: Authorities Identify Suspect In Deaths Of Two North Carolina Teens Cagle's phone had reportedly last pinged in North Carolina around 8:20 p.m. on Saturday night, while Chermak's phone had last pinged around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday in Fort Walton Beach, Florida 500 miles from Laurens, on the coast of the western part of the state's panhandle, according to the paper. Chermak's adult son lives just 20 minutes west of Fort Walton, but wrote on Facebook that he hadn't seen her. A police handout of William Cagle (Todd) William Cagle (Todd) Photo: Laurens County Sheriff's Office Chermak's sister said they'd found her dog in the backyard of her Laurens home, and their father was caring for the animal, according to The State. By Tuesday, however, the Greenville police, who had been investigating the missing persons report, turned the case over to the Laurens County Sheriff's Office, according to Greenville NBC affiliate WYFF, as investigators had determined the couple had last been seen in Laurens, according to The State. The sheriff's office went to Chermak's home at 9:20 a.m. on Tuesday and discovered a body. The coroner's office confirmed to WYFF on Wednesday that it was Chermak's body, and she had sustained a single gunshot wound. Her official cause of death has yet to be released. Story continues Cagle was arrested in Denver at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Police have not specified a motive or time of death in the case. It's unclear if Cagle has obtained legal representation in Colorado or when he might be extradited to South Carolina. Willa Blanc featured in Snapped Court records reviewed by Oxygen.com reflect that he pleaded guilty in January 2007 to two offenses in Greenville committed on the same day in October 2005: assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, and obtaining under false pretenses a signature or property with a value of more than $1,000. WYFF reported that the battery conviction was for a domestic violence assault. He also pleaded guilty in 2021 to a Christmas 2020 open container violation in Laurens County. He was further subject to three debt collection actions two by debt collectors and one by a direct lender in 2019, 2021 and 2022, respectively, for a total of $37,633. Cagle had previously been married, and court records show that the couple's home went into foreclosure and his wife filed for divorce in 2004. Both the foreclosure and the divorce were granted in March 2005. On Tuesday evening, Terry Chermak's sister, Linda Bryant, posted a link without comment on her Facebook profile to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. AUSTIN Construction is underway on a 74-story tower in downtown Austin that, once completed, will become the tallest building not only in Austin but in all of Texas, its developers say. Development partners Lincoln Property Company and Kairoi Residential said they have broken ground on the mixed-use tower, planned to be 1,022 feet tall. The tower joins downtown Austin's ongoing high-rise building boom, which is reshaping the city's skyline. For perspective, at just over 1,774 feet, One World Trade Center in New York is the tallest building in the nation followed by Central Park Tower in New York standing at 1,550 feet. Nearby, and much lower on the list of tallest buildings in the U.S. ranked by World Atlas, stands the Bank of America Tower at 1,200 feet. Developers on Tuesday revealed other new details about the Austin project, including its name, its scheduled opening date and a new equity partner in it. The developers named the tower Waterline. It will be builton Red River Street on 3.3 acres in downtown's Rainey Street area. The high-rise, which will overlook Lady Bird Lake, is planned to open in late 2026. Soaring to 1,022 feet, Waterline will become the tallest tower in Texas when it opens in 2026. The The mixed-use high-rise in downtown Austin will have hotel rooms, office space and apartment units. It's height will eclipse what is currently the tallest building in the Lone Star State, the 75-story JPMorgan Chase Tower (formerly Texas Commerce Tower) that soars 1,002 feet into the air in downtown Houston. The current tallest tower in Austin is the Independent, a 58-story residential skyscraper nicknamed the Jenga Tower for its offset design. The Independent is about 690 feet tall. One of Canadas largest pension investment managers, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board commonly known as PSP Investments is the main equity partner in the new Waterline tower, Lincoln and Kairo said. An artists rendering shows one of two planned pedestrian bridges over Waller Creek. The bridges are part of the Waterline project. Waterline will be the tallest tower in Austin, and in all of Texas, when it opens in four years. Waterline marks a new milestone for downtown not only because of its height but also because of the positive impact this project will have on improving connectivity, enhancing public amenities, and attracting more people to this beautiful area of downtown, Seth Johnston, Lincoln's senior vice president in Austin, said in the release. Story continues As previously announced, Lincoln and Kairoi's project will have 352 apartments, 700,000 square feet of office space and a 251-room 1 Hotel Austin. The 1 Hotel will be the first in Texas from global hospitality company SH Hotel Resorts for its luxury 1 Hotel brand, which emphasizes sustainability features. What is the most expensive Pokemon card?: Logan Paul world record and 14 other rare Pokeman cards Florida alligator attack: Nearly 8-foot alligator attacks 77-year-old woman in gated southwest Florida community Sculptural columns will lift the Waterline towers base 30 feet above the street, creating a two-story canopy that will feature restaurant, retail and public spaces. Michael Lynd Jr., CEO of Kairoi Residential, said Waterline will be "Austin's next iconic project." The tower is being designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, an architectural firm whose portfolio includes the 55 Hudson Yards and One Vanderbilt towers in New York. As part of Waterline, two pedestrian bridges will be added over Waller Creek from the west, along with three public pedestrian and bike access points to the Waterloo Greenway from the east. The developers said they will contribute $1 million to fund improvements to the Waterloo Greenway, a 1.5-mile trail that connects the University of Texas at Austin's campus to Lady Bird Lake. Waterline's ground floor will have 24,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space overlooking Waller Creek and the Waterloo Greenway. The hotel will occupy the next 13 floors, with a ballroom and meeting spaces on the 14th floor and a rooftop pool with food and beverage service on the 16th floor. The office space will occupy 27 floors, and the residences will be on the upper 33 floors. The 41st floor will have two pools, along with a lounge, bar, kitchen, and co-working space. The developers said May of 2025 is the targeted date for improvements to begin for office tenants' spaces. The schedule calls for the tower to "top out," or reach its highest level of construction, in August of 2025. The timeline lists the fall of 2026 for the hotel and apartment units to open. Lincoln and Kairoi have not released the project's anticipated cost. A filing last year with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation listed the estimated cost at $520 million. The tower is being designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox a global architecture firm with a portfolio that includes the 55 Hudson Yards and One Vanderbilt towers in New York City. Joining Kohn Pedersen Fox on the larger Waterline design team are HKS Architects, the architect of record; TBG Partners | Nudge Design (landscape architect); Michael Hsu (interior designer, office); Studio MAI (interior designer, hotel and residential); Brockette Davis Drake (structural engineer); WGI Group (civil engineer); Alvine (MEP engineer) and DPR in the role of general contractor. Contributing: Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Tallest building in Texas to be 74-story tower in Austin - Waterline Administrators closed secondary schools in a Minnesota school district Monday after receiving online threats following a shooting during a homecoming game last week. The Richfield School District said unspecified online threats were made early in the morning leading to the closure of the middle and high school, South Education Center and Richfield College Experience Program. The district did not disclose the nature of the threats or where they may have originated. On Friday, two people, ages 18 and 21, were wounded by gunfire outside the football field where Richfield High School was playing its homecoming game. Two teens have been taken into custody for the shooting. Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty If a guy told you hes going to punch you in the face, and he told his buddies to punch other people in the face, and then he warned everyone else that they were going to start punching people in the face, and they ultimately did punch many people in the faceyoud probably take their word for it if they threatened to do it again, right? Thats what Donald Trump and his MAGA militias are doing right now. Its Not a HoaxTrumps Very Fine People in Charlottesville Did Not Exist The ex-presidentstill unwilling to admit he lost an election that was at least as fair as the one he won four years earliermight yet face the first meaningful legal consequences of his decades-long career of naked corruption. Id still bet on him slithering out of accountability, again, but its possible that his asinine pilfering of highly classified documents as a private citizen, and then refusing to give them back to the federal government after months of promising he would, could be Trumps Waterloo. The guy who made a million Lock Her Up chants bloom during the 2016 campaign (over Hillary Clintons use of a private email server, with which she shared some classified material) now says law enforcement holding him accountable for high crimes would be nothing less than a politically motivated banana republic-style prosecution of an ex-president. And, were he to be prosecuted for essentially stealing state secrets, Trump predicted wed see problems in this country the likes of which perhaps weve never seen before, adding, I dont think the people of the United States would stand for it. (Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trumps more prominent on-again, off-again sycophants, also warned that a Trump indictment could lead to riots in the streets.) But, these are merely warningspredictions of what could happentheyre not incitements to violence, right? If only there was some past behavior we could draw upon to make the appropriate determination. Story continues You could break Google by trying to do a basic search on all the times Trump has encouraged his supporters to act violentlywhether it be MAGA rally attendees sucker-punching protesters, cops abusing detained people, or eager foot soldiers in his coup attempt. But to cite just one examplespecifically because its in the context of Trump issuing a warning, ostensibly meant to prepare the public for the consequences of someone doing something he doesnt likelets go back to Nov. 2, 2020: the day before the election. Trump, the sitting president, tweeted that the U.S. Supreme Courts decision to allow Pennsylvania to receive absentee ballots for three days after Election Day (a common practice in many states)would induce violence in the streets. Was this a warning? Or was it a threat? Trump appeared to make his intentions clear when he added, Something must be done! and called the Supreme Courts decision dangerous. Lest the meaning be lost on anyone still dense enough to think Trumps just talking shit and shouldnt be taken literally, he added, And I mean physically dangerous. The Banned OK Groomer Guy James Lindsay Is Not a Free-Speech Martyr A couple months later, at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, we learned once and for all that Trump should be taken seriously AND literally. When he warns of violence, hes implicitly activating that part of the MAGA base, and they take him literally. Thats whywith scores of GOP candidates for U.S. Senate, governorships, and state election offices refusing to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and indicating they wont abide by any unfavorable results in the 2022 electionTrump and his allies warnings cannot be waved off (AGAIN) as harmless trolling. During Trumps rise to power in 2015 and 2016, I was explicitly told by my editor at a right-leaning news outlet to not cover violence at Trump ralliesunder the specious logic that such incidents were just a liberal media-hyped sideshow distracting us from the real issues. Subsequent events proved the witless folly of such naivete, and vindicated those of us who took the man seriously and literally, and also observed the violent fervor of many of his supporters for what it was. After seven years of this guy fomenting violence and creating previously unthinkable situations (the open embrace of far-right conspiracy movements and paramilitary organizations, the storming of the Capitol, the destruction of the tradition of peaceful transfer of powerI could go on), youd simply be a fool to not think Trump-incited political violence isnt going to happen again. Your Grandkids Will Care About the Jan. 6 Hearings, Even if You Dont Thats why Republicans and right-leaning commentators with a shred of integrity should respond forcefully and resolutely to such warnings that they wont be a party to fascistic blackmail. At some point, you cant (in good conscience) sit on your hands and blame the libs for making you anti-anti-Trump. Its OK to be a pro-democracy conservative. This a perfect chance for the non-fascistic right to, at last, put some meaningful daylight between itself and the unhinged loser who would sooner scorch the Earth than concede defeat. This is a moment to, with a clear voice, declare all political violence morally unacceptablenot just when its BLM or antifa. And its an opportunity to defy a movement that stands for nothing but the defense of its cult of personality, and has literal blueprints for how to conduct street violence in service of the dear leader. Non-MAGA conservatives, libertarians, and right-leaning independents: If youre a patriothell, if you simply believe in the rule of lawdo the right thing. Stand up and be counted. Because theyre going to do it again. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for the global elimination of nuclear weapons to prevent humanitarian Armageddon as international tensions heighten over Russias war in Ukraine. The Cold War brought humanity within minutes of annihilation. Now, decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we can hear once again the rattling of nuclear sabres, Guterres said in remarks to the U.N. Let me be clear. The era of nuclear blackmail must end. The idea that any country could fight and win a nuclear war is deranged. Any use of a nuclear weapon would incite a humanitarian Armageddon. We need to step back. The U.N. chief was speaking to mark the organizations International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, which has been observed since 2013. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week threatened that he would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia, and the U.S. warned of catastrophic consequences if Moscow does so. Tensions are also high at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the largest such plant in Europe, where Ukrainians are operating the facilities under Russian military occupation and as nearby fighting endangers the plants infrastructure and power. Nuclear weapons are the most destructive power ever created. They offer no security just carnage and chaos. Their elimination would be the greatest gift we could bestow on future generations, Guterres said. Despite the U.N.s long-running efforts to push the international community toward the nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, the agency reports that nearly 13,000 such weapons remain in arsenals worldwide. Guterres said countries in the U.N. are growing frustrated with the slow pace of disarmament and becoming more concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of even a single nuclear weapon, let alone a regional or global nuclear war. The U.N. leader said on Twitter that nuclear disarmament is not a utopian dream and urged countries to work toward treaties and arms control efforts. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. BEIRUT (AP) U.S.-backed Syrian fighters said Saturday they have concluded a 24-day sweep at a sprawling camp in northeast Syria housing tens of thousands of women and children linked to the Islamic State group. Dozens of extremists were detained and weapons were confiscated in the operation at al-Hol camp, which began on Aug. 25, the U.S.-backed forces said. The U.S.-backed force said two of its fighters were killed in clashes with extremists inside the camp during the operation. IS sleeper cells preparing a new generation of militants boys and girls being fed extremist ideology to eventually try and set up a second so-called Islamic State caliphate were also uncovered, the statement by the Internal Security Forces said. It added that the operation was assisted by the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as well as members of the U.S.-led coalition. The operation at al-Hol in the northeastern province of Hassakeh also led to the release of two Yazidi girls taken from Iraq as sex slaves years ago and four non-Yazidi women, who had been chained and subjected to torture. The operation was launched following the increasing crimes of killing and torture committed by ISIS cells against the camp residents, said the statement from the U.S.-backed forces, using another acronym for the Islamic State group. It added that since the beginning of the year, the extremists have killed 44 camp residents and humanitarian workers. The statement also said that 226 people, including 36 women, were detained in al-Hol widely seen as a breeding ground for the IS. Some 50,000 Syrians and Iraqis are crowded into tents in the fenced-in camp. Nearly 20,000 of them are children; most of the rest are women, wives and widows of IS fighters. In a separate, heavily guarded section of the camp known as the annex are an additional 2,000 women from 57 other countries they are considered the most die-hard IS supporters along with their children, numbering about 8,000. Story continues ISIS has depended mainly on women and children, as real resources related directly to the ISIS leaders, to maintain the ISIS extremist ideology and spread it in the camp, the statement said. The camp was initially used to house the families of IS fighters in late 2018 as U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces recaptured territory in eastern Syria from the militants. In March 2019, they seized the last IS-held villages, ending the caliphate that the group had declared over large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The United States and other nations have struggled to repatriate the families, but have had only very limited success. Che Adams believes Scotland are in fine fettle ahead of the final game in their Ukraine trilogy in Krakow on Tuesday night. Ukraine dashed Scottish hopes of reaching the 2022 World Cup in Qatar when they won 3-1 in the play-off semi-final at Hampden Park in June. The roles were reversed last Wednesday night when Steve Clarkes men emerged as 3-0 winners in their Nations League clash at the national stadium. Scotlands 2-1 win over Republic of Ireland at Hampden on Saturday took them back top of Group B1 by two points over Ukraine and a draw in their final fixture will secure promotion to League A. Adams, who will shrug off a virus which has affected the camp, is confident of a positive outcome. He said: We have had a good two games in this campaign, we just have to end it well and get over the line In the summer, we let them off the hook really. We made up for it in the game the other night at home. It wasnt good enough in the summer and it was up to us to put it right at Hampden and we surely did that. It is going to be another tough one but one we are looking forward to it, the boys are raring to go and hopefully we can get it over the line. Clarke revealed Adams and fellow striker Lyndon Dykes had been affected by a virus although both would be on the plane to Poland. The Southampton forward said: I feel great, feeling better. It is one of those ones where we have to get through it and put in a massive performance tomorrow. I am tough, I can play. If it was any worse then maybe I couldnt but Im fit and ready to go for tomorrow. SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A documentary film about the international peacebuilding efforts for Mindanao in the Philippines was released and screened in the Philippines - one of the world's long-term conflicts sparked by violence that left over 120,000 deaths and millions of displaced persons since the 1960s. Documentary on International Cooperation for Peace in Mindanao Premieres in the Philippines In celebration of National Peace Consciousness Month, a peace documentary titled "Great Legacy" premiered in a cinema in Davao City on the 6th of September, 2022. Around 500 representatives from the government, education sector, media, civil society leaders, religious leaders across the country and peace advocates from Mindanao attended. The documentary was produced by SMV Media Group, a broadcast company based in Seoul of South Korea, in collaboration with Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) - an international non-profit organization affiliated with the UN ECOSOC advocating for global peace. The film showcased HWPL and actors who engaged in peace-related activities in Mindanao. Davao City Mayor Baste Duterte congratulated saying, "By showing people documentaries and films on peace, we may encourage more individuals to be one with us in our peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts for our communities." HWPL's peace movement in the Philippines started when HWPL Chairman Man-hee Lee, a Korean war veteran and peace activist, visited Mindanao several times from 2013 onwards. He mediated a civilian peace agreement signed by Archbishop Emeritus Fernando Capalla and then Maguindanao Governor Esmael "Toto" G. Mangudadatu on the 14th of January, 2014, in General Santos City. Before the audience of 300 people - including politicians, university professors, religious leaders, and students, the representatives on that day promised to cooperate in ceasing the conflict and building peace, especially in the Mindanao region which has long suffered the aftereffects of war. This agreement became the starting point of HWPL in raising public awareness about peace not only in Mindanao but throughout the Philippines, based on the universal principles of mutual understanding, respect, and harmony. HWPL's peace initiatives include law enactment for peace, interfaith dialogues, peace education, and youth and women empowerment, which has brought leaders in different countries to support peace in Mindanao. Story continues In the film, Martin Lee Hojian, former chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, praised HWPL led by Chairman Lee and the Filipino people who had a keen passion for peace. Also, Nabil Tirmage, Asia Pacific Broadcasting Development Organization program manager, said that the civil peace agreement in 2014 is an "amazing case of realization of peace that the world should study". The conflict in Mindanao has been a major variable not only in Southeast Asia, but throughout the world. The establishment of peace in Mindanao was a global task and required constructive intervention from the international community. In particular, it will be possible to understand through this documentary film - that the efforts of the private sector, like HWPL in Mindanao, are the foundation for peace to settle down and become sustainable. SMV Media Group announced that the documentary film will be accessible through various channels in different countries including broadcasting stations and multiplex theatres. SOURCE Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) The claim: The Supreme Court voted to ban condoms Amid the fallout after the Supreme Courts ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that established the constitutional right to abortion in 1973, social media users have been speculating about what reproductive rights may be next to go. A Sept. 18 Instagram post claims the nation's highest court has already made another significant move. Supreme Court just voted to ban condoms, reads the post, which features an image of a condom. The post received more than 150 likes in one day. But the claim is baseless. The Supreme Court did not vote to ban condoms. The court is on recess until October, and none of its opinions from the previous term banned condoms. Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the claim for comment. Security fencing around the U.S. Supreme Court is shown removed on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark Sherman) ORG XMIT: WX101 The Supreme Court is on recess, did not ban condoms in previous term The post claims the Supreme Court just voted to ban condoms. But the court has been on recess since June 30, according to a press release from the court. The courts website says it will not begin a new term until the first week of October. A Ballotpedia webpage of all the courts opinions from the 2021-2022 term makes no mention of any decision that bans condoms. There is also nothing on the Supreme Court's website about such a ruling. Although condoms are still accessible, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said in his solo concurrence backing the courts reversal of Roe vs. Wade that the court should reconsider earlier rulings like Griswold v. Connecticut, which barred states from banning contraceptives. Fact check: False claim about Chief Justice John Roberts circulates online Federal protection remains, but there are currently some limitations to accessing contraceptives in some states. In six states, pharmacists can deny refilling birth control prescriptions for religious reasons, USA TODAY reported. Pharmacists in those states do not have to refer patients to an alternative provider. In another seven states, pharmacists may deny prescriptions but must refer patients to another pharmacy, USA TODAY also reported. Story continues Our rating: False Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that the Supreme Court voted to ban condoms. The court is in recess until a new term begins in October. No rulings from the courts previous terms banned condoms. 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: False claim that Supreme Court voted to ban condoms The claim: Eating seedless watermelons treated with colchicine can cause cancer, infertility and more Social media users are warning against the purported dangers of seedless watermelon. "Eating seedless watermelon treated with colchicine can cause cancers, severe liver and kidney issues and infertility and birth defects," reads the caption of a Sept. 7 Instagram post. "Eat ONLY BLACK seeded watermelon." The post features a screenshot of a Google search result explaining that seedless watermelons are bred with the use of the chemical colchicine, which came from a North Carolina State University page. Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks The post garnered more than 600 likes in its first week. The same user posted the claim on Facebook, where it garnered more than 100 shares in its first week. The claim is false. Experts say there are no known safety risks associated with eating seedless watermelons. And the watermelon sold in stores are many generations removed from anything that was directly treated with colchicine. USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment. Chemical not used directly on watermelons bought in stores Seedless watermelon plants can be created by crossing a normal watermelon with one that has been treated with the chemical colchicine, according to the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. The chemical doubles the chromosomes in the watermelon and helps produce a plant that, when pollinated, develops seedless watermelons. But that's only the first step in a lengthy process. "The seedless watermelons we eat never received the colchicine treatment as they are many generations later than the initial seedless watermelon," Dr. Brian Leyland-Jones, chief medical officer for the National Foundation for Cancer Research, said in an email. And not all seedless watermelons are created using colchicine. Rebecca Wente-Naylor, a breeding trial specialist with Syngenta Vegetable Seeds, said the company uses traditional breeding techniques rather than colchicine to develop male and female lines separately. Story continues "On average, it takes six to eight years to produce a seedless watermelon," Wente-Naylor said in an email. This factors in 10 generations to produce the female parent, six generations to produce the male parent, and another five to eight generations of advanced testing in several environments." Colchicine is FDA-approved Officials say there is no evidence of health concerns with seedless watermelon. "The FDA is not aware of any safety issues with commercially-bred seedless watermelon," an FDA spokesperson told USA TODAY. Colchicine is also a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for acute gout flares. Fact check: Experts say rubbing orange peels on teeth does more harm than good Leyland-Jones said the cancer foundation has not observed any link between seedless watermelons and cancer. He said the opposite is actually true. "Watermelon, seedless with white seeds or with black seeds, is a healthy fruit containing the carotenoid, lycopene," he told USA TODAY. "In our body, lycopene deactivates reactive oxygen or free radicals, which play a significant role in initiating the malignant transformation of cells." Lycopene is an antioxidant and "anti-cancer nutrient," and antioxidants can help prevent illnesses like diabetes and heart disease, according to the National Foundation for Cancer Research. Our rating: False Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that eating seedless watermelons treated with colchicine can cause cancer, liver and kidney disease, infertility and birth defects. Experts from the FDA and the National Foundation for Cancer Research said seedless watermelons are safe to eat. 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: False claim that eating seedless watermelon causes cancer Araguaia Nickel Project approved as a Strategic Minerals Project by the Brazilian Government LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Horizonte Minerals Plc (AIM:HZM)(TSX:HZM), a nickel company with two Tier 1 assets in Brazil, is pleased to announce that its 100% owned Araguaia Nickel Project, currently in development, has been approved as a Strategic Minerals Project by the Brazilian Federal Government. This approval will ensure that the Araguaia Nickel Project is treated on a priority basis by the various Government agencies engaged in the construction and operation of the mine, through the support of an Inter-ministerial committee. Jeremy Martin, CEO of Horizonte Minerals, commented: "The selection of the Araguaia Nickel Project as a Strategic Minerals Project further demonstrates the global importance of nickel as a critical metal of the future as well as the project's strategic importance to Brazil. We recognise the positive steps the Brazilian Government are taking to help expedite these strategically important projects and we look forward to working closely with them as we advance Araguaia towards production." Further Details The Strategic Minerals Policy is aimed at prioritising the development of mineral projects that are deemed strategic to Brazil's growth and forms part of the Investment Partnership Programme (PPI - Programa de Parcerias de Investimento), a government body dedicated to expanding and accelerating the implementation of projects with the participation of the private sector in Brazil. Projects are selected on a case-by-case basis by the Inter-ministerial Committee for the Analysis of Strategic Mineral Projects ("CTAPME"), formed by representatives from PPI, as well as other governmental agencies such as the Ministry of Mines and Energy; the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations; the Institutional Security Office and the Special Secretariat for Strategic Affairs of the Presidency of the Republic. Story continues Araguaia's selection as a strategic project under the Policy will facilitate the necessary interaction amongst different regulatory entities so as to minimise risks and help Horizonte continue its progress towards production, for the benefit of all stakeholders. For further information, visit www.horizonteminerals.com or contact: Horizonte Minerals plc Jeremy Martin (CEO) Simon Retter (CFO) info@horizonteminerals.com +44 (0) 203 356 2901 Peel Hunt LLP (Nominated Adviser & Joint Broker) Ross Allister David McKeown +44 (0)20 7418 8900 BMO (Joint Broker) Thomas Rider Pascal Lussier Duquette Andrew Cameron +44 (0) 20 7236 1010 Tavistock (Financial PR) Emily Moss Cath Drummond +44 (0) 20 7920 3150 ABOUT HORIZONTE MINERALS Horizonte Minerals plc (AIM & TSX: HZM) is developing two 100%-owned, Tier 1 projects in Para state, Brazil - the Araguaia Nickel Project and the Vermelho Nickel-Cobalt Project. Both projects are large scale, high-grade, low-cost, low-carbon and scalable. Araguaia is fully funded and in construction. The project will produce 29,000 tonnes of nickel per year to supply the stainless steel market. Vermelho is at feasibility study stage and will produce 25,000 tonnes of nickel and 1,250 tonnes of cobalt to supply the EV battery market. Horizonte's combined near-term production profile of over 50,000 tonnes of nickel per year positions the Company as a globally significant nickel producer. Horizonte is developing a new nickel district in Brazil that will benefit from established infrastructure, including hydroelectric power available in the Carajas Mining District. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION Except for statements of historical fact relating to the Company, certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, the ability of the Company to complete the acquisition of equipment as described herein, statements with respect to the potential of the Company's current or future property mineral projects; the ability of the Company to complete a positive feasibility study regarding the second RKEF line at Araguaia on time, or at all, the success of exploration and mining activities; cost and timing of future exploration, production and development; the costs and timing for delivery of the equipment to be purchased as described herein, the estimation of mineral resources and reserves and the ability of the Company to achieve its goals in respect of growing its mineral resources; the realization of mineral resource and reserve estimates and achieving production in accordance with the Company's potential production profile or at all. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is based on the reasonable 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, and are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to risks related to: the inability of the Company to complete the acquisition of equipment contemplated herein, on time or at all, the ability of the Company to complete a positive feasibility study regarding the implementation of a second RKEF line at Araguaia on the timeline contemplated or at all, exploration and mining risks, competition from competitors with greater capital; the Company's lack of experience with respect to development-stage mining operations; fluctuations in metal prices; uninsured risks; environmental and other regulatory requirements; exploration, mining and other licences; the Company's future payment obligations; potential disputes with respect to the Company's title to, and the area of, its mining concessions; the Company's dependence on its ability to obtain sufficient financing in the future; the Company's dependence on its relationships with third parties; the Company's joint ventures; the potential of currency fluctuations and political or economic instability in countries in which the Company operates; currency exchange fluctuations; the Company's ability to manage its growth effectively; the trading market for the ordinary shares of the Company; uncertainty with respect to the Company's plans to continue to develop its operations and new projects; the Company's dependence on key personnel; possible conflicts of interest of directors and officers of the Company, and various risks associated with the legal and regulatory framework within which the Company operates, together with the risks identified and disclosed in the Company's disclosure record available on the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, including without limitation, the annual information form of the Company for the year ended December 31, 2021, the Araguaia Report and the Vermelho Report. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com. SOURCE: Horizonte Minerals PLC View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/717393/Horizonte-Minerals-PLC-Announces-Araguaia-Approved-as-Strategic-Minerals-Project The Jail Kwon Token (JKWON) has recently appeared on a billboard near the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and also on the side of the Samsung Tower in Seoul, South Korea. The JKWON is a new digital asset that aims to provide an innovative solution to the problems traders and investors face in the cryptocurrency market. Las Vegas, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - Jail Kwon (JKWON) recently appeared on a billboard outside the MGM Grand Las Vegas. The Las Vegas billboard will be featured for one week followed by the first billboard in South Korea in the past. Jail Kwon has also recently been featured on several popular media outlets including WSJ, Coindesk, Benzinga, Cryptobriefing and Investment.com. JAIL KWON Billboard To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/9100/138306_cf33f520a418bb6d_001full.jpg The Jail Kwon Token is a digital currency developed in response to the growing need for transparent and secure trading in the digital age. The 24-hour trading volume of Jail Kwon is around $27,000. JKWON is listed on the following exchanges: Pancake Swap and AzBit Exchange. Jail Kwon's success this week is a testament to the strong team they have assembled and the vision they have been able to execute. What makes the Jail Kwon unique is that the founders aim to build a more transparent community with a community of like-minded individuals who share the same passion for crypto trading as the founders themselves. About Jail Kwon: The Jail Kwon Token is a new digital asset that aims to provide an innovative solution to the problems traders and investors face in the cryptocurrency market. They believe there would have been fewer losses if people knew how algorithmic stablecoins operated. If consumers knew how to terminate smart contract sessions, phishing and NFT frauds would decrease. The Jail Kwon Token's development team is led by two experienced and passionate cryptocurrency developers. The Jail Kwon Token's development roadmap is based on 4 phases, phase 1 - development of the platform; phase 2 - integration of fiat currencies into the venue; phase 3 - integration of the blockchain and smart contracts with the fiat currencies within the forum; phase 4 - development of a mobile application that enables users to trade on the go. Media Contact: Company: Jail Kwon Person: Robert Piget Email: admin@jailkwon.xyz Website: https://jailkwon.xyz To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138306 TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has decided to ban exports of chemical weapons-related goods to Russia in an additional sanction against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, and is "deeply concerned" about the possible use of nuclear weapons, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Monday. Japan also added 21 Russian organisations such as science labs as the target of existing export bans, according to a government statement released after Monday's cabinet meeting, which formally approved the new sanction measures announced by the foreign minister at a Group of Seven meeting last week. "Japan is deeply concerned about the possibility of nuclear weapons used during Russia's invasion of Ukraine," Matsuno also said in a media briefing, adding Japan will continue to work with the international society in supporting Ukraine and sanctioning Russia. (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Kim Coghill) The latest North Dakota coronavirus news: border rules, food aid and more. Border rules Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has signed off on Canada dropping the vaccine requirement for people entering the country at the end of September, an official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. Canada, like the U.S., requires foreign nationals to be vaccinated when entering the country. No change in the mandate is expected in the U.S. in the near term. Unvaccinated foreign travelers who are allowed to enter Canada are currently subject to mandatory arrival tests and a 14-day quarantine. The official said that Trudeau has agreed to let a Cabinet order enforcing mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements at the border expire Sept. 30. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Trudeaus Liberal government is still deciding whether to maintain the requirement for passengers to wear face masks on trains and airplanes. Mobile food pantry Trucks carrying fresh vegetables, bakery items and boxed goods will make stops in northwestern North Dakota this week. Food through the Great Plains Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry is available at no cost to those in need. Scheduled stops are (all times are local): Tuesday Williston, New Hope Church parking lot, 721 26th St. W, 4:30-6 p.m. Wednesday Trenton, Trenton Food Distribution Office, 10 a.m. 5 p.m. Grenora, 1 Main St., 11 a.m. 12 p.m. For more information, go to https://bit.ly/3lkvv80. Testing and vaccines A comprehensive list of free public COVID-19 testing offered in North Dakota can be found at health.nd.gov/covidtesting. That site also lists where free at-home test kits are being offered. People can go to https://www.ndvax.orgor https://bit.ly/3N3IMxb or call 866-207-2880 to see where COVID-19 vaccine is available near them. County-level COVID-19 risks determined by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can be found at https://bit.ly/3Clifrq. Guidance and resources for businesses are at https://bit.ly/3w0DpKj. General information is at https://www.health.nd.gov/diseases-conditions/coronavirus and https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html. HBO When we last heard from John Oliver, the British comic (who has American citizenship) stopped by Seth Meyers show to poke fun at the U.K.s 10 days in forced mourning for late monarch Queen Elizabeth IIsomething hed also done on his Emmy-winning HBO series Last Week Tonight, with some digs at King Charles III and Prime Minister Liz Truss for good measure. After a week off, Oliver returned to Last Week Tonight desk on Sunday and kicked things off by taking a few shots at Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine for his embarrassing but overblown sexting scandal, saying, We also learned that Adam Levine is as bad at sexting as he is at coming up with meaningful tattoos. Oliver saved more ire for President Joe Biden over his recent declaration that the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Which isnt just irresponsibleits complete bullshit, exclaimed Oliver. You cant just declare something and make it a reality. If I declared, The queen is alive, that doesnt make it true. We all know shes in the afterlife right now looking up at Diana. Then Oliver shifted things to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, an odious, opportunistic man who recently sent two planes filled with around 50 migrants to Marthas Vineyard, using helpless peopleincluding a number of small childrenas political pawns prior to the midterm elections. If this seems like a stunt made for Fox News, you are absolutely right. But it also may have been made by Fox News, Oliver explained. Because just two months ago, Tucker Carlson did a segment pointing out the whiteness of Marthas Vineyard, and he had this fun proposal. He then threw to a segment where Carlson said of Marthas Vineyard on his Fox News show, They are begging for more diversity. Why not send migrants therein huge numbers? Lets start with 300,000 and move up from there. Did the Dont Worry Darling Twist Ending Rip Off Black Mirror? It seems DeSantis just took that idea and ran with it. So, I guess it is true what they say: Good artists borrow, great artists steal, and racist governors get their ideas yelled at them by the human equivalent of the boat shoe found at the scene of a hazing death, joked Oliver. Story continues Oliver continued: This stunt was both grim and deeply cynicalespecially given that the migrants were reportedly lured there with empty promises of jobs and housing, and even handed brochures listing government assistance that they were not eligible for. And, as Oliver pointed out, the fake brochures that DeSantis team cooked up and misled the migrants with even included a fake Massachusetts state flag that a random person had made online because the current one blows. Nothing says, Im against illegal immigration and human trafficking, quite like making fake documents to smuggle people across a border, cracked Oliver. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. ITV has confirmed that one of the longstanding stars of Im a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! is leaving the series after two decades. Bob McCarron, the Australian medic known to fans of the reality show as Medic Bob, will not feature in Im a Celebritys forthcoming 22nd series. For the past two years, the series has been filmed in Gwrych Castle in Wales. However, for its next competition, Im a Celebrity is returning to its usual filming location of the Australian jungle. The Sun first reported that Medic Bob would be absent from the new series of Im a Celeb, with the presenter reportedly too busy to feature. A spokesperson for ITV said: Bob will always be a friend to the show. We wish him all the very best and thank him for his hard work. As well as his role on the UK edition of Im a Celeb, Medic Bob has taken on a number of other jobs in recent years. These include a similar medic role on the German version of the ITV series. He is also fronting his own Australia-based travel series. It is believed that he will continue to star in the German series despite his departure from Im a Celeb UK. Its Mitch McConnell versus Joe Manchin yet again. McConnell is urging Senate Republicans to vote no on advancing Manchins permitting reform legislation as part of a government funding package, according to three people familiar with the effort. It's an ominous development that puts the West Virginia Democrats legislation in peril as he works behind the scenes to drum up support. The GOP leader is whipping his members to vote against advancing an effort on Tuesday that would eventually combine a short-term government funding package with the energy permitting legislation. Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hope to tie the two pieces of legislation and send them over to the House, allowing Manchins legislation to ride along the must-pass legislation. Government funding runs out Friday at midnight. Republicans may have other plans. Manchin needs probably a dozen of the 50 GOP senators to back his effort, due in part to potential opposition from a handful of Democratic senators. That means McConnell can only afford a handful of defections if he intends to block Democrats efforts to pass the two bills together this week. If the two are separated, Manchin's chances of clearing his permitting bill on its own are slim. McConnell has at times collaborated with Democrats on bipartisan legislation this term, a surprising development after his reputation for stopping former President Barack Obamas agenda. He's also praised Manchin for stopping a larger spending bill last year and standing against changing the filibuster. He sees no need to help Manchin, however, after the Democratic centrist signed off on the party's tax, climate and health care bill over the summer. The permitting reform piece did not fit in Democrats party-line legislation, so Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to bring it to a vote later as a condition of Manchin's support for the broader bill. Most importantly, it now needs 60 votes to advance past the first procedural hurdle on Tuesday. That's hard to get if McConnell opposes it. Story continues McConnell said last week Manchin and other Democrats should get on board with Sen. Shelley Moore Capitos (R-W.Va.) version of permitting legislation or else it would appear the senior senator from West Virginia traded his vote on a massive liberal boondoggle in exchange for nothing. McConnell and other Republicans say that Manchins bill is not strong enough to actually move the Biden administration on permitting. Capitos bill would bypass some environmental regulations and does not focus on clean energy projects like Manchin's does. On Monday, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said Manchins bill still looks deficient to me. If [Manchins] Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 was the horrific bill Leader McConnell claims it is, he wouldn't have to work so hard to whip his conference against it, said a Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. Manchin has said he believes this is the best chance to pass an effort Republicans have talked about for years, but did not execute when they had unified control of government. McConnell usually prevails once he begins leaning on his members to block something particularly if it might help Manchin get reelected in 2024, should he run for another term. Manchin said on Sunday, however, that he thinks he still might be able to put the votes together. We try to take everyone's input on this and my Republican friends' input is in this piece of legislation, he said on "Fox News Sunday." I'm very optimistic that we have the opportunity, they realize this opportunity. Manchin enjoys close relationships with many Senate Republicans, though some of them have been loudly complaining about his vote for Democrats party-line package. McConnell labored to oust Manchin in 2018 in deep-red West Virginia, but Manchin won reelection. Since, Republicans have unsuccessfully sought to get Manchin to join their conference, though the moderate has declined and maintained his affiliation with the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, a growing chorus of Senate liberals is pushing Schumer to separate the energy permitting package from the stopgap spending bill, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said hell reject the temporary funding patch outright if the permitting provisions are included. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is another vote senators are watching. He argues that he was never consulted on Manchins Mountain Valley Pipeline, more than 100 miles of which would run through his own state. Kaine stopped short of saying he would reject the government funding bill if it includes Manchins package, however. All I have said is, I am deeply opposed to the MVP provision, and frankly I think it would open a door that we do not want to open, Kaine said on Thursday. Im not a threat-style person. Let me tell you where I am. Let me tell you what I think about this. Can we solve it? The stopgap spending bill, which would keep the government open through mid-December, will likely include at least $12 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine, money for the water crisis in Jackson, Miss., cash for resettling Afghan refugees, heating assistance for low-income families and a five-year reauthorization of the FDAs user fee programs. Josh Siegel contributed to this report. I cant do it anymore. For years, Ive stood up for Mike Tomlin as hes taken broadsides from all corners of the Steelers fan base. Ive pointed out how lucky fans are to cheer for a consistently relevant, competitive team, and how Tomlin has deserved more credit for that than hes ever received, all while shouldering far more blame than hes deserved. More:Mueller: Preach patience? If Trubisky falters again, it's time for a change Sure, there have been times where he has obviously deserved criticism for in-game decisions, or for a less-than-advisable quote; who could forget his chestnut about seeing the Patriots again in the 2017 playoffs? On balance, though, hes been very successful, and Ive tried whenever possible to point that out, to give him the benefit of the doubt. That ends now. Tomlin looks worse right now than he ever has as Steelers head coach, and theres nowhere else to point the finger. Hes as unchallenged as hes ever been since taking over the job in 2007, and he has so far used that autonomy to push mostly wrong buttons. Asked after a frustrating 29-17 loss to the Browns about whether he would use the 10 days off created by a Thursday game to consider making changes at offensive coordinator or quarterback, Tomlin said, The answer to that question is definitively no. Why so definitive? Why so defiant? What games has he been watching? Mitch Trubisky still doesnt make enough high-end throws, still doesnt see enough open receivers. He played 30 solid minutes, then fell off a cliff, along with the rest of the offense. For the umpteenth time, this is who he is. Matt Canada didnt scheme up enough open receivers. Trubisky misses some, yes, but many of his completions were highly contested. Thats the mark of a bad schemer. Canadas precepts do not work well enough or often enough at this level. For the umpteenth time, this is who he is. Tomlin, the man with the power to make whatever changes he sees fit, seems to be one of the only people left in town who doesnt want to make any. Hes still trying to do it his way this year, despite a significant body of evidence that that strategy will not work. Story continues His way, just so were clear, means the Steelers playing stout defense, the offense not turning the ball over, and the team winning close games by being better in big moments and on possession downs, to use a favorite Tomlin term. For a moment, lets put aside the fact that this way of doing business in the NFL is outdated in 2022, and not a particularly great plan. Lets take the strategy at face value and see how its going. The Steelers have converted just 29.4 percent of their drives into points, 24th in the NFL. They average just 24.3 yards per drive, third-worst in the league. Their average drive lasts just 2:15, better than only Carolina thus far. Its hard for a defense to be consistently great when its on the field for a ton of time and a ton of plays. The offense is absolutely not holding up its end of the bargain not even close. On those vaunted possession downs, things are just as bad, maybe worse. The Steelers are 13-for-39 on third downs this year, and that includes going 8-for-15 against New England in Week 2. Otherwise, theyre an unfathomably bad 5-for-24. The team has gone three-and-out on 32 percent of their drives. Also, despite Tomlins oft-stated determination to not live in his fears, they are the only team in the NFL that has not gone for it yet on fourth down. To put it bluntly, the offense has been a massive failure, and but for a missed extra point in Week 1, the team would be 0-3 and one loss away from matching the 2013 team for the worst start of Tomlins career. Im not sure what more Tomlin needs to see to realize Trubisky isnt the right guy for the job, and that Kenny Pickett should take over, but whatever it is, he hasnt seen it yet. Perhaps a 1-7 start, which looks plenty plausible at this point, would change his opinion on the matter. That said, maybe nothing will. This is the first time in Tomlins entire tenure with the team that he has stood alone, unchallenged, as the central figure within the franchise. As a young, first-time head coach with a defensive background, he had to defer to Dick LeBeau. Even after LeBeau left, Ben Roethlisberger was always around, and in any prominent coach-quarterback tandem, the quarterback will always be inherently more important. And of course, Kevin Colbert, Tomlins close friend, was around for all of this. LeBeau got all the credit for the 2008 defense, and Roethlisberger was cited, particularly locally, as the engine of the teams overall success. I cant imagine that was fun for Tomlin, from an ego perspective, which might explain his current stubbornness. He wants to prove that his way is going to work. With Roethlisberger and Colbert having retired, Tomlin has all the power. No one has anywhere near his level of influence on the teams philosophy and performance. More:Mueller: Conservative offensive approach already an issue for Steelers Through three games, his philosophy looks out of touch with the reality of the modern NFL, and his teams performance has been woeful. One person above all has to wear these early, ugly failures. His name is Mike Tomlin. This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Mueller: Tomlin, not Trubisky or Canada, deserve most blame for Steelers' rotten start The Republic of Ireland will bring down the curtain on another difficult Nations League campaign when they welcome Armenia to the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday evening. Stephen Kennys men lie in third place in their group and need a positive result if they are to avoid relegation to League C. Here, the PA news agency takes a look at some of the talking points surrounding the game. The R word Scotland back on top Matchday 6 decider vs Ukraine #NationsLeague pic.twitter.com/J4VKT02PGU UEFA Nations League (@EURO2024) September 24, 2022 Kenny set out on his second Nations League adventure targeting top spot in Group B1 and the Euro 2024 play-off berth it would have secured. Defeat in their opening two games in Armenia and at home to Ukraine put paid to that ambition, and although victory over Scotland and a point in the return against the Ukrainians suggested there may be better to come, Saturdays 2-1 defeat in Glasgow means relegation is a possibility they will kick off a point ahead of Armenia heading into the final round of fixtures. Kenny under the cosh Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny finds himself under pressure once again (Niall Carson/PA) Kennys appointment as Mick McCarthys successor did not meet universal approval and while he has blooded a new generation of senior international players and adopted a more progressive approach than some of his predecessors, the improvement he is confident his side has made has not necessarily been reflected by results. His 27 matches to date have yielded just six wins and only three in 20 competitive outings, and that is a stick with which his critics continue to beat him ahead of a game he cannot afford to lose. Tried and tested Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny (left) left skipper Seamus Coleman (right) out of the starting XI in Scotland (John Walton/PA) The Ireland boss insisted before the trip to Hampden Park that he would not be afraid to leave out senior men Seamus Coleman and Shane Duffy because of their lack of club football, and he was as good as his word with neither man making the starting XI in Glasgow. Both skipper Coleman and central defender Duffy have produced time and again for their country over the years and it would be no surprise if Kenny turned to his old dependables in the Republics hour of need. Story continues Leading from the front It's end to end now! An absolutely golden opportunity for Troy Parrott to restore the Republic of Ireland's lead, but he couldn't take it #SCOROI pic.twitter.com/nQIpkUfjvt Premier Sports (@PremierSportsTV) September 24, 2022 There was a moment in the Scotland game when, with Jack Hendry having cancelled out John Egans opener, Troy Parrott found himself through on goal with a chance to restore Irelands lead, but could not find a way past keeper Craig Gordon. Parrott, along with Callum Robinson, Chiedozie Ogbene and Michael Obafemi, are among a pool of strikers who have all scored for their country under Kenny, but the fact remains that only Robinson, with six, has found the back of the net more often during his reign than four-goal defender Duffy. Yips in Yerevan The seeds of Irelands current predicament were sown in Yerevans Republic Stadium on June 4, when Eduard Spertsyans long-range strike handed the hosts a famous 1-0 victory. The visitors huffed and puffed on the night before running out of steam in sweltering temperatures, and they will need to be significantly better in Dublin if they are to avenge that defeat and end the campaign on a positive note. Fortune Business Insights The global ride sharing market size is expected to worth around USD 242.73 billion by 2028 from valued at USD 84.30 billion in 2021 and anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 16.3% from 2021 to 2028. Pune, India, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global ride sharing market size was USD 76.48 billion in 2020. The market is projected to grow from USD 84.30 billion 2021 to USD 242.73 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 16.3% during the 2021-2028 period. This vital information is presented by Fortune Business Insights, in its report, titled, Ride Sharing Market, 2021-2028. Factors, such as the lack of proper public transport systems in the developing nations is expected to entice key players to invest heavily in those regions, thus aiding market growth. Stringent emission regulations to accelerate favorable business outcomes during forecast period. Heavy demand for electric vehicles to lighten sales opportunities. Request Sample Global Ride Sharing Market Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/ride-sharing-market-103336 Industry Development May 2021: Bolt Technology OU launched a car-sharing service in Estonia. The company also announced its plans to invest EUR 20 million in launching Bolt Drive. Report Scope & Segmentation: Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2021-2028 Forecast Period 2021 to 2028 CAGR 9.5% 2028 Value Projection USD 242.73 Billion Base Year 2020 Market Size in 2020 USD 76.48 Billion Historical Data for 2017-2019 No. of Pages 200 Segments covered By Type, By Commute Type, By Application Type Growth Drivers Rising Development of Electric Cars to Aid Expansion in North America Surge in Micro-mobility to Boost Growth Regional Insights Rising Development of Electric Cars to Aid Expansion in North America The market in North America stood at USD 35.02 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow rapidly during the forecast period owing to the enormous demand for electric cars in countries such as Canada, the US, and Mexico. The increasing technological advancement in ride services will create vast scope for the market. For instance, Lyft, an American ride sharing company, became the first to introduce green mode, which provides electric car ride share to its customers. The Green City Initiative will help to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Europe is expected to witness a substantial growth rate during the forecast period due to the flourishing automotive industry in the region. Also, the rising partnerships between service providers and the government to promote ride sharing services will aid the expansion of the market in Europe. Story continues Click here to get the short-term and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on this Market. Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/ride-sharing-market-103336 Market Drivers Surge in Micro-mobility to Boost Growth The growing demand for micro-mobility consisting of light vehicles such as mopeds, bikes, scooters, and longboards will have a tremendous impact on market growth. The growing knowledge about shared micro-mobility among commuters will simultaneously generate market revenue owing to the necessity for hassle-free ride options. Moreover, the growing traffic congestions in metro cities have led to numerous problems for daily commuters, besides offering vast opportunities for ride sharing. For instance, Volkswagen Group has started the promotion of micro-mobility with the introduction of Cityskater and Streetmate electric scooters in Geneva as a part of their electric mobility plan. Similarly, Daimler and BMW have collaborated to offer scooters on rent in more than 6 cities in Europe. Also, the growing carbon emissions have created major concerns regarding environmental change, which will consequently increase the requirement for sharing rides and boost ride sharing market growth in the forthcoming years. Ask For Customization: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/ride-sharing-market-103336 Segmentation By Type E-Hailing Station-Based By Commute Type Intercity Long Distance Corporate By Application Type iOS Android Others Competitive Landscape: Product Launches and Expansion Strategies to Incite Business Development With significant market participants such as Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft, Inc., Didi Chuxing Technology Co., Bolt Technology OU, Gett, and GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd., the industry is extremely competitive and fragmented. To acquire traction in the industry, these market competitors used new product releases and expansion. COVID-19 Impact: Weakened Cab Services During Coronavirus The automotive and travel industry has witnessed a steep downfall in the number of consumers and commuters due to the novel coronavirus. The new policies and norms imposed by the government to support social distancing and hygiene protocols will pose a new challenge for the market. The panic and fear among people regarding the spread of infection during traveling can further thwart the development of the market amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The avoidance of cab services during the pandemic will directly affect and create new obstacles for the expansion of the market. Quick Buy Ride Sharing Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/103336 Companies Profiled in the Ride Sharing Market Research Report: Uber Technologies Inc. (San Francisco, California, U.S.) Didi Chuxing Technology Co. (Beijing, China) Gett (Tel Aviv, Israel) ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Bengaluru, India) GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) Bolt Technology OU (Tallinn, Estonia) Careem (Dubai, UAE) Maxi Mobility S.L. (Madrid, Spain) car2go NA, LLC (Stuttgart, Germany) Table of Content: Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions Executive Summary Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Key Insights Key Industry Developments - Merger, Acquisitions, and Partnerships Porters Five Forces Analysis SWOT Analysis Technological Developments Value Chain Analysis Impact of COVID-19 on Ride Sharing Market Global Ride Sharing Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Type E-Hailing Station-Based Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Commute Type Intercity Long Distance Corporate Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Application Type iOS Android Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific Rest of The World North America Ride Sharing Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Type E-Hailing Station-Based Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Commute Type Intercity Long Distance Corporate Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Application Type iOS Android Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Country United States By Type By Commute Type By Application Type Canada By Type By Commute Type By Application Type Mexico By Type By Commute Type By Application Type Continued Have Any Query? Ask Our Experts: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/ride-sharing-market-103336 About Us: Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them to address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in. Contact Us: Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd. US: +1 424 253 0390 UK: +44 2071 939123 APAC: +91 744 740 1245 Email: sales@fortunebusinessinsights.com Sep. 25Golovin Storm GOLOVIN Nothing looks quite right in the low part of Golovin. Not the homes, not the land or roads, and not the water still pooled up like brackish ponds in people's yards. When the floodwaters finally receded from last weekend's powerful storm, it left this village of 150 choked by debris: mud and muck mixed with spilled diesel and sewage, driftwood and stumps, building material stripped off homes by the wind or dashed to pieces by days of pounding waves. And sand. Sand is now everywhere. Sand shorn from the coastline and redeposited in the worst of places: inside houses, burying outbuildings, choking the engines of idled snowmachines and four-wheelers buried to their handlebars. Sand drifted everywhere like blizzard snow that will never in a million years melt. Golovin Storm Even in the best of cases, things won't be fixed back up for a long time. Golovin was hurt more than any other place in the region by the remnants of typhoon Merbok as it swirled up through Bering Sea. Houses moved hundreds of feet from their perches. Subsistence equipment disappeared or was destroyed. Shipping containers, boats and old fuel tanks were jostled around and remain stuck where they shouldn't be, tipped at odd angles. Family camps and cabins were obliterated. [Biden approves Western Alaska disaster request as FEMA arrives to assess storm damage] Of Golovin's 64 homes, 22 were badly damaged, seven of them likely not salvageable, according to a local damage assessment last week. Others that endured structurally are ruined on the inside, with every meaningful possession contaminated by floodwater. Golovin Storm "It's not livable right now," said Celeste Menadelook, describing her family's home. A new mother, Manadelook and her husband are sleeping in her small office at the town's tribal building with their 4-month-old daughter while their house is torn down to the studs, its flooring, insulation and drywall ripped out and hauled to the dump. Gone too are items that can't be replaced, from a laptop full of family photos to handmade fur hats and mitts for winter. Story continues "My parki that my aana made. Things that were passed down. Our appliances. Everything has to go. Our washer, dryer, refrigerator, our bedding, our cabinets, our couches. Everything has to go because it smells like sewer in the house," Manadelook said. Golovin Storm Supplies are flowing to Golovin in an effort to help. Charity is pouring in. Manadelook soothed her infant Wednesday beside folding tables laden with donations that kept arriving throughout the day. In the days and weeks ahead, charity and relief will keep arriving to Golovin and other Western Alaska communities contending with widespread wreckage. While that aid blunts some of the immediate hardship, it is no replacement for all that is lost, residents say. Especially with the clock ticking on winter's arrival. 'Other people care' Donny Olson, state senator for the region and Golovin resident, looked like he'd been on the losing end of a bar fight, sporting a gnarly black eye as he rushed around repairing electrical wiring in the airplane hangar attached to his house. "What happened was this," Olson said, standing by a doorway in his home, the first floor of which had been thoroughly buried under sand. Golovin Storm As he raced to protect the house from the storm surge's rising water, he darted outside, timing his sprint to evade the rolling waves. "I withstood the wave, but I wasn't ready for the back," Olson said. "When it hit the wall it came right back on me and threw me into one of these four-by-fours." [Hooper Bay families displaced by flooding search for a permanent solution] Somehow, he still managed to get four young children evacuated from the property and up the hill to the tribal building as the storm water rose. It was one of several dramatic rescues, including an elder who was moved out of his home to safety in the bucket of a front-end loader. The cleanup work at the Olson house, like many, is immense. Eight volunteers came by to help shovel out all the sand. With the school closed for a week during recovery, local teachers were chipping in like a roving labor corps, with work crews sent in by the school district to repair teacher housing, which was also damaged. Olson and his wife, Willow, got a hand piling up all the saturated possessions from their first floor out in the airplane hangar, and were waiting to see what could maybe be saved. Golovin Storm "The city has opened the washeteria for use, so I'm gonna start hauling stuff over there," Willow said. She estimated they had about 50 loads worth, though most of it is probably a lost cause. Willow Olson was one of the many Bush residents who shared dramatic photos of the storm and its havoc to social media in real time when there was power and network coverage to do so. The images helped draw attention from all over the state and beyond to just how intense the storm was. And in its aftermath that awareness, according to Olson, has helped conjure an array of support, from messages of solidarity to tangibles like food, supplies, labor. "That has helped because it lets me know that other people care. They're listening and they're trying to respond in whatever way possible," she said. Golovin Storm By midweek, those contributions were accumulating and more manpower was materializing. Inside the tribal hall was a running list on a whiteboard of who had sent food and goods, organizations like the Bering Strait School District and Ryan Air, alongside the partial names of charitable individuals: "Anahma," "Barb A," "Delaney J," "Kenai Guy." There were big boxes full of pre-assembled sandwiches sent by the World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit that decamped to Nome after the storm subsided. Cases of shelf-stable staples like breakfast cereal, cans of tuna, mac and cheese, granola bars, and canned soup were piled beside lumpy sacks of oranges, apples, and several cantaloupes donated by a mining company in the region. An unknown donor had left two jars of silver salmon and a can of seal oil by the back door. Hot bowls of spaghetti and moose soup were consumed, the coffee pot never empty. Community members were breaking down the piles and reassembling them into boxes for families to take home. More supplies like bottled water and clothing were accumulating in the sanctuary of the Covenant Church in the lower part of town. [Here are some ways to help communities ravaged by storms in Western Alaska] 'This house don't belong here' The state sent 130 personnel out to Nome and Bethel to assist with recovery, members of the Alaska National Guard and other quasi-military units working as a joint task force under the banner of Operation Merbok Response would disperse from the hubs to impacted villages. Three members of the Alaska State Defense Force were camped out in the tribal hall asking Golovin Mayor Charlie Brown what kinds of supplies and manpower would be the biggest help, and promising to send out good workers with "strong backs, weak minds" who could take orders on the grunt work ahead without giving sass or unwanted creative input. Brown was highly sought after Wednesday, peppered with questions and requests by visitors. Members of the Red Cross asked him to show them damaged homes so they could begin making assessments. A man from Bering Straits Native Corp. requested a tour of town to find out what building materials people most need. By Thursday, the corporation had managed to ship out a whole box truck filled with 10,000 pounds of essential supplies: generators, shop vacs, Tyvek suits and gloves. A small team from Norton Sound Health Corp. came in on a chartered plane from Nome with 40 pizzas, and listened to residents describe the conditions of their property before dispensing advice for disinfecting what might be saved. "I'm at a loss for words," said Norton Sound Health Corp. head Angie Gorn. "It's hard to know what to say." A sturdily built man with a calm demeanor, Brown showed the Red Cross team a dilapidated home that a young man had recently begun trying to fix up and make habitable. It had floated 200 feet from its parcel. "This house don't belong here," Brown said. Another small house was unmoored and came to rest in the middle of an intersection, prompting four-wheelers and trucks to circumvent it like a poorly planned roundabout. Golovin Storm The day was chilly, and Brown told the visitors most of the heaters used to warm homes are completely shot. "There's a lotta those that need to be replaced," he said. Down by the shore, the storm waves tore deep gashes into the land, chewing open the protective banks that buffer homes from the sea. Shreds of fishing nets tangled up in tree stumps like seaweed. All along the coastline were big smooth stones churned out of the seafloor and sprinkled on a beach that now extends much farther into town than it used to. In spite of all that's happened, no one in Golovin mentioned leaving. There was no talk of pulling up stakes and moving to Nome or Anchorage. Everyone talked about what will come next as a process of restoration, not departure or abandon. 'It came in pretty fast' Jack Brown is the oldest man in Golovin. He's seen the country change in his nearly 80 years, remembers that in 1955 "the first moose was caught. Now they're everywhere." Golovin Storm But the storm that slammed into the west coast of Alaska last week was without an equal at least not in living memory here. "They were never this bad. We never had storms here in the '50s," Brown said, stroking his white billy-goat's beard and glancing out the window toward the surf. Brown lives in a condemned house with a faulty foundation that shudders in the wind, but is thankfully well enough up the town's main hill he was spared the worst of the storm's wrath. It's the old side of the village that suffered, the low part of town that rambles down into a pointy spit poking into Golovin Bay like a finger jabbing at a balloon. Brown didn't leave his quaking home during the storm, because the danger wasn't from the wind but the water. "Didn't wanna go. Didn't see a need to, since I wasn't gonna be run over by water," he said. "It came in pretty fast." Golovin Storm At some point as Golovin was flooding, utility workers cut the power to prevent further damage to the electrical system. A few homes and buildings ran generators to keep lights on, but between the power loss and floodwaters seeping into buildings, many if not most of the town's refrigerators and freezers failed. Beside the small store was a cockeyed shipping container meant for cold storage. Inside, mounds of wetted cardboard boxes were gradually collapsing in on themselves as frozen food thawed and spoiled, the whole container smelling like open-air fish market. The scale of food lost is enormous. And not just any food. Though its population is small, Golovin is a strong subsistence community, accounting for roughly 55 tons of wild food harvested from the land annually, according to Sean McKnight, transportation director for Kawerak, the regional nonprofit covering this part of the state. Golovin Storm And the timing of the storm couldn't be worse for food security. Families had just wrapped up the most productive periods for putting up food, filling caches, freezers, and pantries to get through the lean winter months. "There was three freezers out in the shop that were damaged, tipped over," said Ruth Peterson, an elder born and raised in Golovin. Her multi-generational family lost almost all of the year's subsistence take: "Moose, beluga, fish, dried fish, berries." "It takes a lot to process all that," she added. Most Americans and disaster-relief organizations view a fridge failure as an unfortunate inconvenience that amounts to a few hundred dollars of wasted groceries. In the Bush, this is not the case. Rural subsistence freezers are not analogues to an ice chest packed with bulk beef and chicken thighs from Costco. Instead, they are a cross between a larder and a checking account, an assurance you can eat well and not go broke trying to buy protein at the store. Relief money can purchase frozen steaks or boxes of fish sticks, but gone is the connection with the animal and the land that was built hunting, harvesting, butchering, drying, storing, sharing, planning for holiday feasts and wintertime soups, gone is the empowerment and pride of providing. "That's what our ancestors taught us: to gather and subsist, put away food," Peterson said. "That's what we grew up on." To lose whole freezers is to lose all the work that went into filling them, the friendships nurtured by bored chit chat in a bird blind, the lessons imparted to youngsters learning to pick fish from a salmon net. Families in Golovin and all over the recovering coast are grappling with what they'll eat and feed to their children now that spoilage has purged their pantries. "We threw it to the dump before it got stink," Peterson said. 'Devastating' Food insecurity extends beyond just this looming winter. The storm flooded, flattened, and carried off most people in Golovin's subsistence camps, and with them went much of the means for self-sufficiently getting food from the land. "One thing that's affected just about everybody in the village is camps being destroyed. Fish racks, cabins, their subsistence equipment if it wasn't in town, it was out there," said Sierra Smyth, who lives in Golovin and works as an aid to Sen. Olson. "It's devastating. People work for years. Those camps are generation-to-generation between families," Smyth said. Golovin Storm That was where Donna Katchatag's mind went when she awoke to no power in her home Saturday morning. "Our first thought was our cabin," said the mother of four. Hers was one of 10 family camps obliterated in an area called Kitchaviq, about a 30-minute four-wheeler ride outside of town. There was a dilapidated old cabin on her family's land that in recent years she and her husband, a skilled carpenter, gradually replaced with a new structure, raised 6 feet off the ground on posts and big enough to sleep up to 12 when friends from Unalakleet or Elim came to visit. On the second day after the storm, when it was finally clear enough to see into the distance they spotted the building, still intact, but carried far away from where it was built. "It took the posts with it," Katchatag said. "We're kinda relieved it's not smashed." They could even make out some building scraps and a chainsaw they'd left on the porch still sitting there, but had not yet made it out to inspect the inside. Katchatag was a frenetic flurry of activity Wednesday, moving supplies around the tribal hall, tidying up the kitchen, getting food ready, whatever task there was that might need doing. "It's like a distraction," she said, pausing briefly. "I had a good cry about our camp. ... It was like a release." On her phone she had pictures of the cabin in various states of construction and the family life that took place there. Collecting greens by the beach. A log food cache for storing dried salmon that's now gone. In one video her husband stands in hip waders casting for silvers in a steam while her kids play on the bank, a faint rainbow behind them all. "What we lose up there, that's our source, where we go to produce, to gather. (It has) a lot of value. Not only sentimental, but where we go to thrive," Katchatag said. Golovin Storm The donated pizzas, cantaloupes, bottled water and baby formula pouring in to Golovin and comparably wracked towns are helping alleviate immediate needs. But cleanup and rebuilding will take sustained support, some of it monetary, and not all of it glamorous, if communities are ever going to approach recovery. "Brooms and mops, vacuums for those homes, because what they're using is gonna need to be thrown away," Katchatag said of what would help residents muck out the spilled fuel, silt, sewage, sand and trash from their properties. Soon they'll need plywood, lumber, insulation, and some understanding from the government aid apparatus that a second freezer isn't a luxury in a place like Golovin, and a new boat motor not a recreational toy, but a piece of critical equipment for providing for one's self and community. "It feels really good to receive that," Katchatag said of the donations filling up the tribal hall and church. "But where we go to gather, we're wondering what to do. What we should do? Try to build it back stronger? Or relocate? Those are tough questions." Hurricane Ian Satellite NOAA Emergency aid from Texas is arriving in Florida as the Sunshine State braces for Hurricane Ian to make landfall this week. American Red Cross Texas Gulf Coast Region is providing on-the-ground personnel and resources ahead of Ian's predicted impact, KHOU reports. The non-profit relief group is also coordinating with local officials and emergency management to assist those affected. "Potentially, assisted living facilities, nursing homes...maybe even hospitals might be in harm's way," Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie told KHOU. Thank you @KHOU for your coverage! We know that alleviating suffering is a worldwide effort and we go where we are needed. We'll be posting updates throughout the week from Florida as we prepare for #HurricaneIan https://t.co/iqGi3u7ygu American Red Cross TX Gulf Coast (@RedCrossTXGC) September 26, 2022 Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency in Florida and urged residents to prepare for the potential of life-threatening rainfall, high winds, and rising seas. "We're going to keep monitoring the track of this storm. But it really is important to stress the degree of uncertainty that still exists," DeSantis said at a news conference Sunday, warning of "pretty broad impacts throughout the state." Current models predict that Hurricane Ian will make landfall on Florida's west coast or panhandle Thursday or Friday. The storm could ultimately reach Category 4 status, with sustained winds between 130 mph and 156 mph. "Regardless of Ian's exact track and intensity, there is a risk of a life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds, and heavy rainfall along the west coast of Florida and the Florida Panhandle by the middle of this week," a representative for the National Hurricane Center told NPR Monday. Mandatory evacuation orders are currently in place for parts of Tampa. More mandatory evacuation orders are expected as Ian gets closer. This is a developing story. A Mandan-based nonprofit entity has finished converting a former nursing home and senior living campus into 120 units of affordable housing, a project that cost $16.5 million. Lewis and Clark Development Group, a collaboration of three nonprofits, renovated the property previously owned by Ruth Meiers Hospitality House. Ruth Meiers acquired the property in 2013 and began renovations, but the nonprofit abruptly ceased operations in 2019. LCD Group bought the property in November 2020 from Choice Bank, which had foreclosure after Ruth Meiers shuttered. LCD Group began renovation work in December 2020. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Boulevard Avenue Apartments was held Monday at 1100 E. Boulevard Ave. There is a significant demand for affordable housing in the Bismarck-Mandan area, particularly rental housing for lower-wage workers, LCD Group Executive Director Brent Ekstrom said in a statement. Lewis & Clark Development Group, like our predecessors, recognized how this property could help the community address that need and Im happy that we are finally at the finish line." The Boulevard Avenue Apartments consist of a main, three-story building connected via a walkway to a smaller two-story building referred to as the Porter Building. The project included apartment renovations, construction of new apartment units, new front entrances and improved common areas. Rental rates start at $615 for an efficiency, $729 for a one-bedroom, $895 for a two-bedroom and $1,028 for a three-bedroom unit. The North Dakota Housing Finance Agency provided $8.6 million in construction financing through housing bonds, in addition to other project funding. LCD Group also assumed a $4.9 million Housing Finance Agency loan given to Ruth Meiers. The project also received other local, state and federal financial help, including a $6.1 million loan insured by the government-sponsored Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., better known as Freddie Mac. New construction isnt always the answer, especially when there are existing housing units that can be revitalized, bringing new life to a neighborhood and providing the tenants with ready access to established services, North Dakota Housing Finance Agency Executive Director Dave Flohr said in a statement. For more information on Boulevard Avenue Apartments, call Syringa Property Management at 701-471-3233 or go to https://boulevardavenueapts.com. LCD Group is a collaboration of the Lewis & Clark Regional Development Council, Lewis & Clark Certified Development Co. and CommunityWorks North Dakota. Green buildings get a boost in WA, but policy and demand still lag If you are sending a Letter To the Editor, please be sure to follow these rules: Letters have a firm 200-word limit and will be edited for grammar, clarity and accuracy. The person who signs the letter must be the author. Anonymous letters will not be considered. Letters must address the editor, not a third party. We will not print form letters, libelous letters, business promotions or personal disputes, poetry, open letters, letters espousing religious views without reference to a current issue, or letters considered in poor taste. Letters reflect the opinion of the writer. The Yakima Herald-Republic cannot verify the accuracy of all statements made in letters. Writers are limited to one published letter per calendar month. And with that, Election '23 went off-road and we are now in the jungle, careful you don't step on the tiger's tail. This of course, is dog whistle politics, heard by those whose ears are attuned to the peculiar frequency of Might is Right. It evokes historical accounts of the Munich Beer Hall putsch or Trump's failed assault on Capitol Hill where a man dressed as a giant squirrel tried to convince the world that the Democrats had stolen the 2020 US election by...dressing as a furry creature. Uncle Jaro, petrified of the current polling stats, is prepping his supporters for an election victory by non-democratic means and just as he did in October 2020, attempting to goad the country into civil war. Talk to journalists who covered the Belarussian election over two years ago and they will tell you about the presence of Lukashenko's "corps", his "army" who ensured that Europe's longest sitting ruler maintained his grip on power despite only having 25 proc. support of the Belarussian population. For those of you who've had the pleasure of attending a PiS rally, you'll appreciate that those large, muscled men in paramilitary outfits are not there for decoration. They are vital cogs in the machinery of power, equally as important as the bed-hopping capos at Ordu Iuris. Poland has a sovereign army already and Jaro's call for a quasi-military force to do his bidding makes me think how readily Putin relies on paid mercenaries such as the Wagner Group. More, it reinforces the notion that a bloody, savage internal rupture is his final fantasy, the only monument he wants to leave as a testimony to a life untouched by glamour or inspiration. Uncle Jaro's rush towards violence feels like a massive compensation, after all he was the one who famously slept late when the true Street-fighting men, Michnik, Walesa et al, went out to oppose Martial Law. Ah, if only alarm clocks had been invented back in 1981. If only Jaro didn't require eighteen hours of sleep a day in order to function like something resembling a human being. Frankly though, what did we expect from a man whose big brothers in Budapest and Moscow have been enthroned for 12 and 23 years respectively? Not for Jaro and PiS to go gently into the night, not when they have so much catching up to do, and yet in his scramble to retain power, he has shown his hand a little too early. As with Poland's contentious Presidential election in 2020, the opposition must expect and plan to counter the dark arts employed by PiS's not least their inherent talent for massaging the numbers, what is generally considered to be Phase 1 of Jaro's double-lock system. REKLAMA The New York Times reported that "some of the most troubling reports came from overseas, where a record 520,000 people had registered to vote before the Presidential election but only 415,951 ballots were counted. Complaints filed with the court charge that the Polish Foreign Ministry worked to suppress the number of voters." Phase 2, signposted by The Chairman on his current conscription tour of the Polish heartlands as he call for an army "who will watch the whole time and have the determination to defy," If we take such political-speak and put it in Google-translate, what emerges is "from my cold, dead hands". Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. *** Every day, 400 journalists at Gazeta Wyborcza write verified, fact-checked stories about Polish politics and society, keeping a critical eye on the ruling camps persistent assault on democratic values and the rule of law; the growing cultural tension between religious fundamentalism and human rights; and the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine. Our journalists are on the front lines in 32 Polish cities, reporting from the streets, hospitals, and courtrooms about issues that move public opinion. REKLAMA We decided to make our service available to everyone free of charge in order to provide access to high quality journalism for expats and English speakers interested in Polish affairs. The access to information should be equal for all. Federal authorities have renamed several sites in North Dakota containing the Native slur "squaw," but perhaps the most prominent place in the state containing the word is undergoing further review. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names this month voted on final replacement names for nearly 650 geographic features containing the slur in their names. U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland last year declared the word to be derogatory and established a 13-member Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force. Replacement names for North Dakota sites include: Sakakawea Creek, near Mandaree Tepee Creek, near Regent Long Creek, in/around Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit Sakakawea Bay, on Lake Sakakawea Mitigomizh Neyaashi, on Lake Metigoshe I feel a deep obligation to use my platform to ensure that our public lands and waters are accessible and welcoming. That starts with removing racist and derogatory names that have graced federal locations for far too long, Haaland said in a statement. I am grateful to the members of the Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force and the Board on Geographic Names for their efforts to prioritize this important work. Together, we are showing why representation matters and charting a path for an inclusive America. Squaw Gap, a tiny community in McKenzie County, is one of seven unincorporated, populated places undergoing additional review by the board. The site is little more than a community hall and old schoolhouse. The board "will seek out additional review from the local communities and stakeholders before making a final determination" as to renaming those sites, according to Interior. A task force map earlier this year included candidate replacement names for Squaw Gap of Spring Creek, One-O-One Creek, Phillip Draw, West Fork Badlands Draw and Phillip Spring. Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation Tribal Chairman Mark Fox has welcomed the renaming efforts. "It really causes serious and strong emotions and resistance to that term," he previously said of the slur. Keene-area farmer/rancher Kathy Skarda, who grew up in Squaw Gap, has said she doesn't think the name was "ever meant to be derogatory toward anybody or any ethnicity." The community's name "notes a local rock formation said to resemble an Indian squaw carrying a papoose, and its location in a gap in a hill," according to "North Dakota Place Names" by Douglas A. Wick. Squaw Gap acquired telephone service in 1971, "one of the last regions in the country" to do so, the book said. YORK York Public Schools agriculture teacher, Jason Hirschfeld was awarded the 2022 Agriculture, Food and Natural Resource Richard Katt CTE Educator of the Year award and was the overall Richard Katt CTE Educator of the Year Award winner. In order to be nominated for the award, the educators had to meet the following criteria: innovative classroom practices, philosophy of teaching in career and technical education, service to the teaching profession, mentoring experiences, personal and professional growth, and letters of recommendation. For 18 years of serving in agriculture education, Hirschfeld has demonstrated what it means to be a dedicated educator who serves in the classroom, school, community and the state of Nebraska. Hirschfeld said his main focus has always been agriculture, even though his original plan was to go into the animal science program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. When attending a National FFA Convention as a representative of the National Pork Producer Council, Hirschfeld said he was immediately drawn to the organization of Future Farmers of America (FFA). Hirschfeld said, I was blown away with the opportunities that kids had and this youth organization that focused on agriculture. After attending the convention, Hirschfeld began taking classes in ag education and served as an intern for Richard Katt at the Department of Education. He also helped organize the Nebraska FFA Convention and leadership camps for the Nebraska State FFA officer team. While still in college, Hirschfeld said he received a couple job offers. He began his first teaching job at Centennial High School two days after he graduated. During his seven years at Centennial, Hirschfield grew their FFA program from 19 kids to about 100 kids. After Centennial, Hirschfield worked for Cargill as a territorial and national member for five years. Now, hes teaching at York Public Schools where hes built one of the most successful agricultural programs in the state. Teaching was a great career choice. Id like to say teaching found me, I didnt find teaching, said Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld said he believes that FFA is the cornerstone of service to the community and the development of leadership for individuals. His ag courses tied with FFA have given students a hand-on experience in agriculture. Josie Lee, a 2015 YHS graduate said, Learning and working in animal science at YHS really helped to inspire me towards wanting to go into agricultural education. Getting to work with all of the different species of animals as well as collaborating with classmates and members of the Vet Science CDE team made me realize that teaching was a viable option for me. Another graduate, Dalton Obermier said, Through the FFA and Ag Ed programs offered at York, I developed a variety of both professional and personal skills that have paid off huge dividends for me in college and set me up with opportunities I wouldnt have been exposed to anywhere else. No matter where my professional career takes me, I will always be able to thank Jason Hirschfeld for being the best mentor an agriculture loving student like me could ask for. The York animal lab featuring over 100 species of animals has set the bar high for other schools to follow. Hirschfelds goal for this is provide students the opportunity to touch, feel, hear and smell animals and have an understanding of the farm production process. Hirschfeld said, I always had a concern when I was traveling the country for Cargill and noticed how people dont know where their food comes from. My dad and I had a conversation about how we really need to teach kids how their food goes from farm to fork, and the animal lab is one way we can expose kids to the full production of animals. Even having those soft, cuddly animals are a great invitation and recruitment tool to get kids to take animal science. For the 2022-23 school year, there are 170 students signed up for animal science, 95 students signed for intro to ag, 76 for welding, 70 for structural systems and woods, and 43 for horticulture. In the middle school, there are 303 students in industrial tech courses. Hirschfeld said the students are loving the hands on-experiences. This is my way of teaching agriculture and ag concepts. I want to expose my students to taste, touch, see, and smell as many things related to agriculture as I can. I dont expect everyone to go into agriculture, but I hope to expose them enough to have respect for agriculture and connect them to our community because agriculture is an agriculture based community. Along with experiences in the animal lab, students have the opportunity to grow, market, and sell produce and flora in their FFA greenhouse. They learn about landscape designing, plant production, biotechnology and more. Hirschfeld said his main objectives the Yorks ag program are to: give students a good experience, expose them to new things, and foster a passion for an agricultural-related career path. He hopes to expose students for all walks of life and academic ability. Hirschfeld also offers several dual credit college courses and he implemented the Agronomy Academy and local internships at local ag businesses. Hirschfeld would like to give thanks to school and the community of York for being supportive through their fundraisers, events and events. The York FFA has held multiple community events such as their annual blood drive, summer ag educational programs, hosting the petting zoo at the York County Fair and the Harvest Moon Gala. Coming up, the York FFA Chapter will host a 5K Carve Out Cancer Run and Walk and all of the proceeds will go towards breast cancer research. All these activities is Hirschfelds way of getting students involved with making positive impact and build relations within the community. He also gives a thank you to Rachelle Staehr who works alongside Hirschfeld and has become a great addition in the ag program. Besides teaching at the York Public Schools, Hirschfeld serves as an adjunct for SCC, serves as the Swine Superintendent at the Nebraska State Fair, mentors UNL Student Teachers, and serves on the Ag Advisory Board at Concordia University. He also advises Skills USA. Altogether, Hirschfeld advises 200 students. Hirschfeld said if hes known for anything, he want to be known for doing what is best the kids, and not only for our kids, but our community. What feels like a David and Goliath type scenario to some can seem like the best opportunity under the sun for others. This nothing new under the sun story is about a potential solar project being discussed in the McCool Junction area. Its also a case study about communication in rural areas, the sometimes agville unresponsiveness that can arise and everything in between. The in between is where the chasm of problems and solutions exist. I care about the people involved on both sides of this debate and one of my friends is caught in the middle in her professional position. Shes not complaining. However, we did have a constructive visit the other day and I told her I was going to write about it. Because I am a communications professional and puzzles like these are what drove me to pursue writing countless stories addressing a multitude of scenarios everything from corporate ag, to underdog ag, and all the diversity in-between. So, lets start with those diverse lenses. I have a farmer friend in another state, that happens to be a Native American, or Indigenous farmer. He was celebrating on his farm the other day because he was putting in a solar-powered water system in one of his fields. I thought, How cool is that? I also thought, How cool is that? when I visited a farmer and rancher friend I know in Nebraska who has his own small solar company, installing all sorts of solar contraptions for his neighbors and friends. Thats right, solar is everywhere and has been a long time, all the way back to when God made the sun. In agriculture, you can find solar technology running cattle waterers and moving pivots. Theres even solar technology attached to some windmills. We all know solar can be installed on homes too. Again, really cool. Back to McCool. We have the solar Davids of the world and their small businesses putting solar up here and there and then we have the Goliaths of the world rolling into town. A lot of times the old, belligerent guard has their minds made up about the new guys and gals far before they get there. Then communication shuts down. I get it. I have shut down before. But I have also experienced the joy and success that can come when we rise above our opinions for a moment and learn. Especially when were elected to do so. Thats why not returning calls or not answering emails, just isnt acceptable when constituents have questions. Then theres the awkward, immature stuff of being at events and people not waving at one another anymore. So yes, theres this opportunity in McCool and when I researched it at first glance, I saw a few private landowners on a video, very able to communicate what they thought the benefits of the project were. They have land they own and want to do something with it. On the other side of the coin are some questions, and a lot of those have to do with fear and change. I understand. I have questions too. I love the livestock grazing idea the solar project proposes. I also think its brilliant to add pollinator habitats to the mix. But I also know, livestock especially, take management. How will the materials used hold up? How do the panels hold up to hail? How bought into the community are corporate owners? All of these questions have answers. Thoughtful answers are far different than slinging shallow opinions around and bullying people. Corn has more than its fair share of defenders and one project like this isnt going to impact corns hold on commodity agriculture. Ask my Indigenous farmer friend how it feels to have a multitude of genetic variations of thousands of years of corn varieties pushed out for a very few. More importantly, ask him when its your entire culture being pushed out. Who was the Goliath in that story? Last I checked, the total area of farmland in the United States is around 895 million acres. At issue with this solar project is around 2,500 acres as of the writing of this article. What I know for sure: I have years of professional research by a multitude of people to support we are maximizing very few of the cropland and urban acres to their fullest for intensive food production and to benefit the overall health of humans, plants, animals and all natural resources. That means theres opportunity everywhere. Therein lies the hope through cooperation. I love McCool because they fight for what they believe in. They fought to keep their school open and its going strong. McCool is a community rich with creativity and some really amazing people I admire. A community enriched with this much talent is lucky! Our ancestors were changers. We would still be living in sod houses if they hadnt been. Solar is here to stay and corn isnt going away either. But, the civil discourse needed to make opportunities successful is a sorely untapped rural resource. Lets change that! Whatever the outcome of the issue at hand, I know the sun will still shine brightly down on McCool. Its also a reminder for all of us to work together to make all of rural resilient, growing and changing for the better for many more years to come under the sun we all share. The Indian market has lately witnessed a host of launches in the entry-spec neo-retro motorcycle segment. Recently we saw entries from TVS and Royal Enfield, now the Japanese brand Kawasaki has launched the W175 motorcycle in India at an ex-showroom price of Rs 1.47 lakh. However, these prices are introductory and will only be applicable for the first batch of buyers. The Kawasaki W175 will retail in two trims - Standard variant, priced at 1,47 lakh (ex-showroom), whereas the Special Edition variant will cost Rs. 1,49 lakh (ex-showroom). For now, the company has started accepting orders, but deliveries will begin by December this year. The standard variant has an Ebony colour which gives a black dynamic appearance while Special Edition comes with Candy Persimmon Red as a base colour and W 3D emblem crowned on the fuel tank reminds you of the famous Kawasaki W1, the Pioneer of W series and the timeless beauty. The W175 is designed as an authentic retro model for the Indian market. Powered by a 177-cc engine producing a power output of 13 PS at 7000 RPM and torque output of 13.3 Nm at 6000 RPM for a high-performance ride. A 5-speed transmission and an engine balancer. Befitting a retro model, the W175 features 17- inch spoke wheels at the front and rear. Also read - 2022 Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara Hybrid LAUNCHED in India, prices start at Rs 10.45 lakh It features a semi double-cradle frame, while the braking setup comprises a 270 mm disc on the front, along with single-channel ABS. The rear end, on the other hand, gets a drum brake setup. Being a complete Make in India Project, the Kawasaki W175 is a step towards making Kawasaki India self-reliant. Also, the design and development process are performed by India Kawasaki Motors R&D technical centre, in Pune, Maharashtra. A Delhi-bound Air India aircraft was forced to land at the Kannur International Airport on September 26 (Monday) due to a bird-hit soon after take-off. The flight originated from Kozhikode and landed at Kannur Airport before flying to its end destination at the Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. However, soon after the take off, a bird hit forced the pilots to make an emergency landing in Kannur. The flight was carrying 135 passengers, 85 from Kozhikode and 50 from Kannur. All of them are reported safe and lodged in hotels in Kannur while the Tata owned airline is making alternate travelling arrangements. The aircraft is expected to leave for the national capital, after repairs, by afternoon on September 27. An Air India official at the airport said that of the total 135 passengers, some had cancelled their tickets and took an Indigo flight, while some others had re-scheduled their travel leaving around 85 persons who were accommodated in hotels in Kannur. "Of the 85, 24 were foreign bound passengers and they were sent to their respective destinations in Dubai and Bahrain on Air India Express flights yesterday and this morning. "Now 61 domestic passengers are presently here and they would be sent to Delhi on the same plane once it is repaired," the official said. The official also said that seven engineers arrived here from Delhi and they are presently examining and repairing the aircraft's engines which had remains of the birds which hit it. After the repair work is completed, they will carry out engine run-ups to ascertain if the aircraft was flight worthy and if all goes well, the flight is tentatively scheduled to take-off at 1:30pm, he said. "It could also be later than that," he added. The airport SHO also confirmed these developments and told PTI that the flight will take off only after it is certified fit to fly. The flight with 135 passengers had originated from Kozhikode and landed in the Kannur airport before flying to Delhi. (With inputs from PTI) As per the data on flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the air traffic over the Chinese Airspace has normalize following reports of empty sky over China. As per multiple reports, China started mass cancellations of flights for unknown reasons. The data was validated by the flight tracking websites, as only limited flights were flying over China. Later, reports suggested that there was a coup staged in China and Chinese President Xi Jinping was placed under a house alert. However, China later refuted the claims of any coup in the country. On September 21, based on the report on The Epoch Times, Flight Master stated that 9,583 flights were cancelled nationwide, almost 60 percent of the total scheduled flights on the day. It is to be noted that Flight Master serves as a source of information on flight, ticketing, and travel services in the country. Moreover, the reports said that some of the air transport hubs in China had a cancellation report of over 50 percent. The reports of The Epoch Times said Beijing Capital International Airport cancelled 622 flights, resulting in a 60% cancellation rate. In addition, 652 flights were cancelled at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, with a 54 percent cancellation rate. Similarly, 542 flights at Shenzhen Baoan Airport were cancelled, accounting for 51% of total flights. Three of the Chinese airports, namely Guiyang Longdongbao, Lhasa Gongga, and Chengdu Tianfu, had a high cancellation rate in Western provinces. Guiyang Longdongbao had 539 flights cancelled, with a 99 percent cancellation rate. While at Lhasa Gongga 157 flights were cancelled, with a 98 percent cancellation rate. Similarly, 752 flights were cancelled at Chengdu Tianfu airport, for an 87 percent cancellation rate. Similar cancellations were noticed at other airports in the country. On the website of China's top aviation body, there is no official explanation. However, Netease, a major Chinese news portal, reported yesterday that the cancellations were primarily due to recent COVID-19 flare-ups in multiple Chinese provinces. The much-awaited Navi Mumbai international airport will become operational in 2024, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis stated recently. The Minister further laid emphasis on bringing back the industrial culture. He was addressing the Maratha Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA). Fadnavis stated that the "industrial culture" of Maharashtra will be back on track soon. Fadnavis highlighted important projects like Pune Metro, EV transportation, etc., and said the ring road will prove to be the growth engine for the Pune region. He focused on how every stakeholder has to unite to bring Maharashtra on top again. "Every stakeholder has to unite and work hard to make Maharashtra number one again," Fadnavis said. He said the government has acknowledged the urgent need for the Purandar airport in the Pune district and that the government is taking efforts for the same. He also said the government is planning a logistics hub at Purandar along with the airport. There is a need to connect the Navi Mumbai and Purandar airports. "Maharashtra's economy should reach USD one trillion if India has to achieve the USD 5 trillion target," the Deputy CM said. He stressed the importance of the Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA) and Mumbai Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) for infrastructure and said Maharashtra is the startup capital of India. Also read: Delhi-bound Air India flight makes emergency landing in Kannur after bird-hit "15,000 out of 18,000 startups are from Maharashtra besides 25 out of 100 unicorns. We want to ease connectivity and approach all MIDCs. We should bring more investment in the fintech sector," he added. (With inputs from PTI) New Delhi: Gold prices saw a slight decline on the first day of Navratri 2022. The prices of the yellow metal is trading below Rs 50,000 on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX). Gold is trading at a level of Rs 49388 per 10 grams on MCX while on the commodity platform, Silver is trading at the level of Rs 55567 per KG. The price of 22 carat of gold is trading at Rs 46,000 per 10 grams. Meanwhile the price of 24 carat of gold was also trading lower. The price of 24 carat of gold stood at Rs 50,200. Here are the indicative price of 22 Carat Gold Today, 26 September 2022 (except GST, TCS, and other levies) Chennai : Rs 46,510 Mumbai : Rs 46,000 Delhi : Rs 46,150 Kolkata : Rs 46,000 Bangalore : Rs 46,050 Hyderabad : Rs 46,000 Kerala : Rs 46,000 Ahmedabad : Rs 46,050 Jaipur : Rs 46,150 Lucknow : Rs 46,150 Patna : Rs 46,030 Chandigarh : Rs 46,150 Bhubaneswar : Rs 46,000 Gold price in the national capital fell by Rs 139 to Rs 50,326 per 10 grams on Friday amid a fall in international precious metal prices, PTI report said. In the previous trade, the yellow metal had finished at Rs 50,465 per 10 grams. Silver also fell sharply by Rs 363 to Rs 58,366 per kilogram from Rs 58,729 per kg in the previous trade. (Disclaimer: The prices are just indicative collected from various sources. You must collate the price with your jeweller before investing/purchasing.) Moonlighting or the act of working for two companies secretly has been the talk of the town recently and even business honchos have not refrained from expressing their opinions on this. Be it Wipro or Infosys, they have termed it unethical and cheating. Wipro even went a step ahead as it fired around 300 employees for working for competitors secretly. Infosys has also sent a letter to its employees in which it said that an employee is not allowed to take any full-time or part-time work or engage in any form of business activity without the company's consent and any violation may lead to disciplinary action or termination. Many people took to social media platforms to express their opinions on the hot topic and some even went on to compare the IT firms with Swiggy's work culture. It may be recalled that Swiggy has allowed its employees to work for others after office hours. Also Read: Did your SIM stop working? Know how your simple mistake helps scammers siphon off money from your bank account using SIM Swap Reacting to this, RPG Enterprises Chairman Harsh Goenka said that Wipro cannot be compared with Swiggy. He backed Wipro over its stand on moonlighting. "Moonlighting: Wipro vs Swiggy - they just cant be compared. Wipro deals with Fortune 500 clients for whom data secrecy is sacrosanct. If the customer finds even a remote chance of data compromise, it will not be tolerated," he said on Twitter. Moonlighting: Wipro vs Swiggy - they just cant be compared. Wipro deals with Fortune 500 clients for whom data secrecy is sacrosanct. If the customer finds even a remote chance of data compromise, it will not be tolerated. Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) September 24, 2022 He also tagged Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji in the tweet thread. Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has backed moonlighting. However, he warned employees against any violation of the contract that they sign when joining a company. New Delhi: There was an onslaught of the Corona epidemic for 2 years. The two years of the outbreak have disturbed people mentally, financially and physically. Many people gained weight during the corona period. But online broking firm Zerodha has taken a new initiative to reduce the increased weight. Wondering to know about the initiative taken by the firm? Here are the details of the initiative. (Also Read: Unbelievable! 9-year-old Indian girl developed An iOS App, Tim Cook sends mail to express his congratulations) Nithin Kamath, co-founder and CEO of Zerodha has launched a fitness challenge for its employees. Under the fitness challenge, employees will get a lucky draw of up to Rs 10 lakh and a month's salary as a bonus. Nitin Kamat posted about the programme on his Facebook page. (Also Read: Using public computer? UIDAI warns Aadhar users not to do THIS otherwise be ready to...) Nitin Kamath has asked his employees to set a daily activity goal. Whoever achieves a 90 per cent share of this daily activity goal next year, will be given a 1-month salary as a bonus, Kamath added. Apart from this, a lucky draw of Rs 10 lakh will be given to any one employee. This lucky draw will act as a motivation kicker. Nitin Kamath also said that this is an optional program. Under this program, the employee will have to burn at least 350 active calories every day. Giving a fitness challenge to his employees, Nitin Kamath said that on the fitness tracker, he has given a challenge to his employees to set a daily goal. He said that most of us are in work from home. The habit of sitting and smoking is increasing continuously. Therefore, this is being done to activate the team. Nitin Kamath posted that he has set a target of reducing 1000 calories every day in September this year. He continued that my weight has increased during Corona. I made fitness goals and reduced my weight. Even before this, Nitin Kamath had given a fitness challenge. Last year, Kamath started the 12-month get-healthy goal program. Zerodha was founded by the Kamat brothers in the year 2010. It is a financial services company, which provides a platform for trading stocks and trading in mutual funds in the stock market. New Delhi: After a busy week at the United Nations General Assembly, actor, producer and philanthropist Priyanka Chopra Jonas, along with her director Anthony Russo, got candid about her upcoming sci-fi espionage series Citadel at a panel discussion on Inside TV's Best Big Bet at the recently-concluded Fast Company Innovation Festival, held in New York City. Dressed in a royal blue Yuzefi pant suit, Priyanka explained what really drew her to this global action franchise that demanded months of her time and that led her to learn and speak six languages. You dont have to watch the American show to understand; [the local language series] stands alone, she said. But if you watch all the other shows, theyre all connectedand thats never been done on television. Its such an interesting experiment, especially for a streamer like Amazon that caters to audiences across the world. To be able to offer a show which cross-pollinates audiences and languages is just so exciting to me. So it was innovative, and thats what I loved about it, said the actor who is already looking forward to the local spinoffs that will be made for India, Italy, Spain and Mexico markets. Chopra Jonas, was an obvious choice to headline the show for Amazon Studios. When she brought up Priyanka, it was like a light bulb went off,director Russo said. It was so intelligent and so smart because Priyanka represents the essence of what were trying to do with the show. The fact that shes done such amazing work in India [and] internationally. She has this sort of dual identitya foot in both worlds, she added. Set in the near future, the storyline centres on a global spy organization called Citadel that Russo describes. Chopra Jonas plays one of the top agents at Citadel, alongside Richard Madden of the Game of Thrones fame. This agency ends up coming in conflict with a new rival agency that has been developed by the worlds elite to sort of protect their self-interests, added Russo. So its a global struggle between these two competing points of view about what humanity should be. There is little indication that an 18-year-old who died after being struck by an SUV in North Dakota was a political extremist like the driver claimed. Investigators say none of the witnesses they have interviewed support the idea that there was a political argument before authorities say Shannon Brandt struck Cayler Ellingson with his vehicle on Sept. 18 in McHenry, and a family friend who knew the teen said he wasn't active in politics. Court documents said Brandt told a 911 dispatcher that he felt threatened after having a political argument with Ellingson, and that he believed the teen was part of a Republican extremist group. North Dakota Highway Patrol Capt. Bryan Niewind said Friday that authorities have talked to dozens of witnesses and plan to talk to more as they try to get a better picture of exactly what happened before the crash. I cant get into details about what the witnesses are describing to us. But what I can tell you is that this is not political in nature at all, he said, adding: There is no evidence to support Brandts claim on the 911 call that Mr. Ellingson was a Republican extremist. There is no evidence to support that all through our continued investigation. He also said there is no evidence to support Brandts claim that Ellingson was calling others to come hurt Brandt. Brandt has been charged with criminal vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal crash. Niewind said there is the potential that those charges could change as the investigation continues. Officials have also said that a breath test showed that Brandt's blood alcohol content was above the legal limit to drive when he was arrested. Brandt hasnt responded to messages since he was freed on bond, and no one answered Sunday at a phone number listed for him. Online records do not list an attorney for him, and a message left with the court to see if he has an attorney was not returned. Ellingson's family members, who are planning to hold his funeral on Monday, have declined to discuss his death. Justin McDonald, owner of Buck-Its Bar & Grill in New Rockford, said he knows the Ellingson family well, and that Caylers grandmother worked at the bar for about six years. He said Ellingson enjoyed autocross racing, hunting and being at the family cabin at Lake Juanita when he wasnt studying to be an ultrasound technician. McDonald said there was absolutely nothing political in him that I've ever seen, so he doubts Brandt's claim that there was a political argument. This is absurd because Cayler lives in a town with less than 40 people in it. Theres no Republican, whatever, things going on here," McDonald said. "This is a community where our number one goal usually for the month is: Whos down and out, now, lets help them out. McHenry is about 150 miles northeast of Bismarck. Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Police continued its crackdown against the Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) cadres on Monday over the alleged Molotov cocktail attacks. This comes a day after Director General of Police (DGP) C Sylendrakumar directed the district police chiefs and commissioners to take stringent action against those disrupting the peace. The police have commenced the crackdown after incidents of motorbike-borne suspects throwing petrol and kerosene-laden burning bottles at the residences/ shops, offices of the RSS, BJP workers and their local leaders after the NIA arrest of the PFI leaders and cadres on September 22. The police on Sunday arrested several persons, including Syed Ali (42) who is the SDPI, Salem district president in connection with the attack on the residence of RSS Salem town functionary, VK Rajan, with a petrol bomb. The police took action following CCTV visuals of the accused hurling a burning kerosene-filled bottle at the Rajan's residence at 1.40 am on Sunday. K Khadeer Hussain, ward president of SDPI in Salem was the other arrested in the case. Both were presented before the magistrate and remanded to judicial custody. Also read: He should be ashamed: Sushil Modi slams Digvijaya Singh for comparing PFI with RSS In Erode also police arrested four SDPI functionaries in a Molotov cocktail attack on the furniture shop of an RSS worker, V Dakshinamoorthy. The arrested are Sadam Hussain, Khalil Rahman, A. Jaffar, and A. Ashik. The DGP has also warned of serious consequences against the perpetrators of violence and that stringent action would be taken against them, including invoking the National Security Act (NSA). Also read: PFI encouraged vulnerable youth to join LeT, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, says NIA remand report The Tamil Nadu Police were conducting raids at several residences of people affiliated with the PFI and SDPI after the DGP`s directive to the SPs and Commissioners. The Molotov cocktail attacks which commenced from Coimbatore have now spread to Erode, Salem, Ramanathapuram, Dindigul, Kanniyakumari and some parts of Chennai, including Tambaram. The police have been instructed to take stringent action against those involved in the violence. The state intelligence was also providing proper inputs on the perpetrators of violence and District Superintendents and Commissioners of police have been given instructions to arrest local leaders as well as district-wise leaders of both the organisations if found that they were part of conspiracies in these Molotov cocktail attacks. Meanwhile, BJP state president K. Annamalai said that the Tamil Nadu Police`s hands were tied for the past 15 months and that it was at its peak. He said that the party will not be cowed down by the cowardly acts of Molotov cocktail attacks. The BJP state president also said that the party has constituted four fact-finding teams to report on the damage caused to the residences/ shops and offices of party workers and that a report would be submitted to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah after getting the feedback from the committees. Meanwhile, ANI added that the Delhi police denied permission to SDPI to hold a dharna at Jantar Mantar on Monday, in order to maintain communal harmony and security, law and order arrangements in the jurisdiction of the New Delhi district. New Delhi: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who was a top favourite to take over the reins of the Congress party after the presidential election, is now reportedly out of the race over allegations of ''orchestrating'' the political crisis in the state. According to party sources, interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is reportedly ''upset'' with the current political crisis in Rajasthan and has sought a detailed written report from party observers - Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken. Senior Congress leaders including Mukul Wasnik, Mallikarjun Kharge, Digvijaya Singh, KC Venugopal are now expected to enter the fray with chances of Gehlot looking very grim in the wake of Rajasthan political drama by his loyalists, said top party sources. Two Congress observers - Kharge and Ajay Maken - briefed president Sonia Gandhi on Monday regarding the developments in Rajasthan and will submit a written report about the crisis in the party's state unit by tonight or tomorrow. #RajasthanPoliticalCrisis | Mallikarjun Kharge & I briefed, in detail, the Congress chief about our meetings in Rajasthan. She asked us for a written report. We'll give it to her by tonight or tomorrow: AICC Observer Ajay Maken, after meeting Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi pic.twitter.com/3SepW92C1P ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 Talking to reporters after a nearly hour-long meeting with Gandhi, AICC in-charge for Rajasthan Ajay Maken said they apprised the party president of the developments in the state after which she sought a detailed report on it. He said it was "unfortunate" that the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) could not be held and termed the move of pro-Gehlot loyalist MLAs and ministers as "indiscipline". Maken added that the CLP meet was kept after Gehlot's consent and the place and time were set as per his request. He said the MLAs and ministers loyal to Chief minister Gehlot cannot pose conditions to the party leadership as they amount to a "conflict of interest". #RajasthanPoliticalCrisis | 102 Gehlot loyalists had told us that someone among them must be made CM. We told them that their opinion would be presented before party chief & that no conditions are attached to resolutions passed; party chief decides after consultations: Ajay Maken pic.twitter.com/EnNesPJ6ti ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 "Kharge Ji and I have apprised the Congress president of the CLP meeting in Rajasthan. The Congress President has sought a written report on the entire chronology, which we will submit by late night or tomorrow," Maken said. Maken said the Congress president had asked the observers to meet all MLAs separately. "Some representatives of MLAs, ministers came and put forth three demands. Their condition is that the CLP leader be elected after October 19 and any decision should be taken after that... This cannot happen as those who are moving the resolution after October 19 would themselves take the decision and this would amount to a conflict of interest," he said. "It is unfortunate that after all this, the CLP meeting could not take place. When the CLP official meeting is kept, no parallel meeting should take place and it primarily amounts to indiscipline," he added. Earlier in the day, Maken said three members from the Gehlot camp had met them with three proposals, which they did not accept as it raised a conflict of interest. Maken told the media persons that Shanti Dhariwal, CP Joshi and Pratap Khachriyawas, representing the Gehlot group, visited him on Sunday night with three proposals and had said a strict no for Sachin pilot as the new CM. "In their first proposal, they said if you want to pass a resolution that the Congress high command should be allowed to take a final decision, then pass it after October 19. "We told them that this raises conflict of interest, as if Gehlot is elected as the Congress president then this proposal will empower him further after October 19 and there can be no bigger conflict of interest than this. "Secondly, when we told them that we wanted to talk to each of them in person, they said `we will talk in groups. We categorically told them that this has been the Congress practice to take feedback from each leader and we will do the same, but they insisted on coming in groups and further insisted that `you will have to publicly announce this." "Thirdly, they said that the CM should be picked from the 102 MLAs who were loyal during the rebellion, and not from the Pilot group. The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, which was called on Sunday at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot`s residence, was cancelled as more than 90 Congress MLAs loyal to Gehlot threatened to resign, while demanding that the new CM face be picked from their group. The predictions of Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga are often discussed and one of her predictions about India has raised the concern of the people. According to the prediction of Baba Vanga, a serious crisis is going to come in India this year, which may lead to a famine-like situation in the country. Let us inform you that Baba made many predictions for 2022 years ago, out of which 2 predictions have come true so far. Who is Baba Vanga? Baba Vanga was born in Bulgaria in the year 1911 and is famous for her predictions. Baba Vanga lost both her eyes in an accident at the age of just 12 and could not see. Even though Baba Vanga could not see with her own eyes, she had a special power by which she could see the future. It is claimed that God had given her divine vision and because of this she lost her eyesight. Prediction of Baba Vanga for India According to the report, Baba Vanga had predicted the terror of locusts in India and said that it could lead to a situation of starvation. Baba Vanga said that in the year 2022, there will be a fall in the temperature around the world, due to which the outbreak of locusts will increase. This swarm of locusts will attack India and destroy the crops. This will lead to famine conditions in the country and may lead to severe starvation. Six predictions for 2022 Baba Vanga had made 6 predictions for the year 2022, in which, apart from the arrival of a new deadly virus from Siberia, she also predicted alien attacks, locust invasions, floods in some countries and drought in some countries. And an increase in virtual reality was predicted. Two Predictions Come True Apart from Australia, Baba Vanga had predicted floods in some Asian countries, which have come true. Flooding has increased the problem in Australia, while the situation is getting worse due to the floods in Pakistan. Apart from this, Baba Vanga's prediction of water scarcity in many cities has also come true. Apart from Portugal, many cities in Italy have been suffering from the problem of drought this year. Many Predictions Didn't Come True However, it is not that whatever Baba Vanga said all turned out to be true. She claimed that there would be a major war in Europe in the year 2016, which would end the entire continent forever. She also made a prediction that from the year 2010 to 2014, there would be a fierce nuclear war in the world, due to which a large part of the world would be wiped out. Her prediction also could not prove to be true. (Disclaimer: This story is based on general assumptions. Zee News does not confirm it.) Etah: BJP leader Dinesh Sharma on Sunday said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will not even be able to win a village pradhan election in Uttar Pradesh. Sharma's comments on Kumar came close on the heels of the JD(U) leader denying the possibility of contesting the 2024 general elections from Phulpur, even as the party's Uttar Pradesh unit remained hopeful that he would reconsider the decision to send a larger message of Opposition unity against the BJP. Replying to a question on the JD(U) Uttar Pradesh unit asking Kumar to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Phulpur, the BJP leader said, "Nitish Kumar should first contest 'pradhani' elections (for the post of village pradhan in UP). He will have to forfeit his deposits. Nitish Kumar has lost his 'aadhaar' (base) in Bihar, and if he is coming to Uttar Pradesh to search for his base, this dream of his is 'niraadhaar' (baseless)." Dismissing speculation over his candidature in the Lok Sabha elections from the Phulpur constituency of Uttar Pradesh, Kumar said on September 20 that he was only interested in uniting opposition parties ahead of the parliamentary polls. Digvijaya Singh does not have right 'mental state': BJP slams Congress leader for likening RSS to PFI The former Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister, who was in Etah to attend the birth anniversary celebrations of party idol Deendayal Upadhyay, also attacked senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh for likening the RSS to the PFI. Asked by reporters about Digvijaya Singh's remark, Sharma said the Congress leader does not have the right "mental state". "My sympathies are with Digvijaya Singh-ji, and the reason is that his mental state at this point of time is disorganised. And he is not facing mental disorder from today ... He does not know the meaning of 'rashtraprem' and 'rashtradroh'. RSS is an organisation of people who love the nation and are dedicated to the nation," he said. "There can be no comparison between the RSS and the PFI," Sharma asserted, adding the PFI is a divisive organisation. "It divided the society and the country. A number of people who have been caught for making plans to spread terror have links with the PFI," he said. Singh had on Saturday said action should be taken against those who spread hatred, violence and religious frenzy. Apparently referring to the PFI, he said, "If action is taken against them, then why no action has been taken against the Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad?" Those who spread hatred or religious frenzy are the two sides of the same coin and complement each other, Singh had said. Later, addressing a programme in Aligarh to mark the birth anniversary of Deendayal Upadhyay, Sharma said, "The principles of Deendayal-ji show the path during tough times. Today, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his dreams are being fulfilled and a 'mahaan Bharat' (great India) is being built." "The sapling planted by Deendayal-ji has become a banyan tree in the form of the BJP. He used to say that the Jana Sangh was an organisation different from other political parties, and its first duty was to serve the nation," he added. Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has dismissed as baseless the allegations by activists that he along with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev broke wildlife protection law by entering the Kaziranga National Park for a night safari. Sarma on Sunday also said that there is no law that people cannot visit the park at night. Two activists have filed a police complaint against Sarma, Vasudev, and state tourism minister Jayanta Malla Baruah claiming they violated the Wildlife Protection Act, of 1972 when they entered the national park beyond the scheduled visit time on Saturday. The activist alleged that the Act bans safari tours inside the national park after a scheduled time to protect the animals and keep their habitat relatively untouched. Videos circulated on social media and local channels showed Vasudev driving an open safari SUV along with Sarma and Baruah."There is no violation. According to wildlife law, the warden can give permission to enter a protected area even at night. No law stops people from entering at night. Yesterday, we had the formal opening of the park for this season and now Sadhguru and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar have arrived. Also Read: Sadhguru, Assam CM face police complaint over jeep safari after dusk at Kaziranga national park - Details inside Since they have lakhs of followers, this time we expect the tourist season will be very good for Kaziranga," Sarma told reporters on Sunday night. Activists Soneswar Narah and Prabin Pegu, who filed the complaint with the Golaghat district police, said action should be taken against them under the Wildlife Protection Act. Meanwhile, in a move to draw a roadmap for holistic development of the state and to create a blueprint for expediting its growth as well as making it a model in all sectors, Assam Chief Minister along with Sadhguru Vasudev held deliberations with cabinet ministers, senior bureaucrats of the state, bureaucrats from other states, functionaries from Prime Minister`s Economic Advisory Council at Kaziranga on Saturday. Sarma and Vasudev on Saturday inaugurated the three-day Chintan Shivir at Kaziranga. Later, Chief Minister Sarma unveiled three rhino statues at Mihimukh in Kaziranga along with Vasudev. These rhino statues have been created using the ashes collected from burning rhino horns. It may be noted that on September 22, last year, the Assam government made history when a stockpile of 2479 rhino horns were consigned to flames to send across a strong message to the poachers and illegal horn traders that rhino horns have no medicinal value. The rhino statues thus created are an attempt to immortalize the efforts and dedication of those who selflessly protect Assam`s pride, the great one-horned rhinoceros. On Saturday, the Assam Chief Minister along with Sadhguru Vasudev also opened the Kaziranga National Park for tourists for this season. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on a plea moved by Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain against the transfer of proceedings in the money laundering case against him to a new judge. Seeking the probe agency`s reply in the matter, Justice Yogesh Khanna listed the further hearing for September 28. Earlier, the proceedings of Jain`s case were heard in a special court where Special Judge Geetanjali Goel was dealing with the matter. However, following the ED`s "apprehension of bias" against the Special Judge in deciding the matter, it was transferred to the Special Court of Judge Vikas Dhull. Satyendar Jain had approached the High Court against the new development. Also read: Satyendar Jain Money Laundering case: SC directs sessions court to hear ED plea on Sept 22 During the course of the hearing, Jain`s counsel argued that there was urgency in the matter and even the apex court had asked that his bail plea be decided in 14 days."The district judge did not consider the issues that were to be considered. It sends a wrong message," Jain`s counsel Senior advocate N. Hariharan argued. On September 19, Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta stayed the proceedings of the bail hearing before special judge Geetanjali Goel and issued notice to Jain and other co-accused in the case. Jain, whose bail has been denied in various hearings since his arrest in the PMLA case on May 30, is presently lodged in Tihar jail. As per the earlier submissions of the ED, Jain was in de-facto control of shell companies used for alleged money laundering, and the co-accused persons Ankush Jain and Vaibhav Jain were just dummies. The ED had raised certain contentions in connection with the bail arguments being heard by the special judge. New Delhi: Former Congress party leader Ghulam Nabi announced the name of his new party - 'Democratic Azad Party' on Monday (September 26) in a press conference in Jammu and Kashmir. Azad who was a very senior leader of the Indian National Congress resigned from the grand old party on August 26. Azad also unveiled the official flag of 'Democratic Azad Party' which is a tri-coloured flag with blue, white and mustard color stripes. According to former Congress Veteran the blue colour in the party flag depicts "freedom, open space, imagination and limits from the depths of the ocean to the heights of the sky." The white colour stands for peace and the mustard indicates "creativity and unity in diversity." Jammu | Ghulam Nabi Azad unveils the flag of his new 'Democratic Azad Party' Says, "Mustard colour indicates creativity & unity in diversity, white indicates peace & blue indicates freedom, open space, imagination & limits from the depths of the ocean to the heights of the sky." pic.twitter.com/35CPshU3sL ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 Earlier, Congress' former Jammu and Kashmir Chief, Azad, in his first public meeting in Jammu after quitting Congress, had announced to launch of his own political outfit that will focus on the restoration of full statehood. He had said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir will decide the party's name and flag. At the rally after breaking away from his five-decade-long association with the Congress party Azad told ANI, "My party will focus on the restoration of full statehood, right to land, and employment to native domicile,". Azad said that the first unit of his political outfit would be formed in Jammu and Kashmir in view of impending assembly polls. "My party will focus on the restoration of full statehood, right to land, and employment to native domicile," he added. He lashed out at Congress and said that people are trying to defame us (me and my supporters who left the party) but their reach is limited to computer tweets. Criticising the party, Azad told ANI, "Congress was made by us by our blood, not by computers, not by Twitter. People are trying to defame us but their reach is limited to computers and tweets. That is the reason Congress is nowhere to be seen on the ground." New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah is in Gujarat on Monday to participate in a host of programmes including a farmers' conference in Ahmedabad. On day 1 of his two-day visit, the Union Home minister inaugurated the Bhadaj Bridge in Ahmedabad in presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel. "Amit Shah will stay in Gujarat on September 26 and 27 where he will take part in a host of programmes," according to a government communique. He will also attend a farmers' conference at Bavla in the Ahmedabad district. After inaugurating the overbridge on SP Ring Road, he will also unveil a primary health centre at Sanand and an office of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurates Bhadaj Bridge in Ahmedabad Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel also present. pic.twitter.com/Zj79DnYBlW ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 Farmers from Amit Shah's Gandhinagar parliamentary constituency are organising the "Rin Sweekar Sammelan" (gratitude acceptance conference) to express gratitude for providing irrigation facilities in 164 villages, the release said. It further said, "Farmers had been demanding irrigation water supply for a long time. Shah, as the parliamentarian, recommended a permanent solution to the problems of these farmers after which the Gujarat government included 164 villages under the Fatewadi-Kharikat irrigation project." Notably, top leaders of the BJP are busy inaugurating several development projects for Gujarat where assembly elections are slated by the end of the year. Amit Shah to address public rallies in Jammu and Kashmir The Union Home Minister will also be visiting Jammu and Kashmir from September 30 to October 2, said BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh in here on Sunday. Since the abrogation of Article 370, this will be Amit Shah`s second visit to the Union Territory. Last year in October, he visited Kashmir in the wake of rising attacks on minority community members by the terrorists in the Valley. During his visit, Amit Shah will meet the intellectuals and prominent personalities and will address two public meetings on October 1 in Rajouri and will also address another rally in Baramullah on October 2. "Amit Shah will visit different areas in this visit and this is a special occasion just like a festival as he was the key person to finish the controversial Articles 370 and 35(a) and broke the shackles of Jammu and Kashmir residents to free them from long bondage. SCs, women, Gujjars-Bakkarwals and other communities were empowered after being neglected for 70 years," said Chugh. Chugh said that Rajouri and Baramullah areas have been neglected for all these years, hence Amit Shah has decided to visit these areas and address the rallies there, adding "BJP has tried to politically empower all who were denied due space for 70 years," said Chugh. The BJP leader further said that the Central government led by PM Narendra Modi has ensured the development of Jammu and Kashmir constantly despite COVID-19 and other difficulties." In his address, BJP leader Ravinder Raina, however, said that people from Rajouri, Poonch, Mendhar, Surakote, Matargote, Rajouri, Thanamandi, Darhal, Budhal, Nowshera, Sunderbani, Kalakote, Dhangri, Doongi and other border areas will be able to listen to Amit Shah at Bus Stand Ground in Rajouri. Raina said, "In Baramullah of North Kashmir, people from Baramullah District, Kupwara District and Bandipora District including areas of Gurez, Bandipora, Karnah, Kandhal, Kithwal, Trigam, Uri, Rafiabad, Handwara, Langate will participate in mega rallies of Amit Shah," adding "The residents of border areas were raising demand for the rallies of Amit Shah and he affirmatively responded to our request for both the rallies." Last year, Amit Shah was on a three-day visit to the union territory for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. (With ANI Inputs) 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. (Brand Desk Content) Washington: India matters in the world today and its voice counts because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday. Referring to the series of meetings he had with the world leaders in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Jaishankar said he can say this based on the feedback from these meetings. The voice of India matters and is being taken seriously on the world stage because of the leadership and policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaishankar said at an interactive dialogue with the Indian-American community organized by the US India Friendship Council and Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS). "Today our opinions count, our views matter and have actually today the ability to shape the big issues of our time. I think, these are main takeaways from a very, very intensive set of interactions over the last six days," he said about his New York meetings. An intense week of diplomacy at the #UNGA High level week. India stands tall. #Diplomacydelivers. pic.twitter.com/9fDlljXvTa Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) September 26, 2022 Responding to a question on Ukraine, Jaishankar said today the nature of the world is such that a big conflict by definition causes enormous ripples across the world. "People across the world are paying the cost of fuel and food". "I think this conflict has different facets and perhaps some of those, maybe addressed (earlier)," he said. Indian-Americans from various parts of the country as far as Los Angeles and Houston flew in to attend the event. The External Affairs Minister arrived in the American capital from New York, where he attended the annual General Assembly of the United Nations, for a four-day official visit. During his stay here he is expected to meet the Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. He is also likely to have interactions with the members of the corporate sector and the think-tank community. "During my professional lifetime, as a diplomat, perhaps the biggest change that I saw, and I was privileged to be part of, was a change in the relationship between India and America," he said. The minister described Indian-Americans as the living bridge between the two countries as the one responsible for this change. The role of the Indian-American community in strengthening this relationship is something which "I can never say enough about," he said. "India, America relationship has changed because of Indian-Americans. It did not change only because of government policies," Jaishankar said. Eminent Indian-American community leader Dr Bharat Barai applauded Jaishankar for his "deep understanding, deep analysis and very intelligent very analyze, interpretation, and the complexities of foreign policy.? Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale, in-charge, the foreign affairs department of the ruling BJP, applauded the minister for the clarity with which he has been articulating India's views and positions to the global community. Kashmiri columnist and political commentator Sunanda Vashisht described Jaishankar as a "rock star" foreign minister of India. Some influential North Dakota Republican lawmakers on Monday publicized their plan for property tax relief -- a proposal that could compete next year against income tax relief championed by Gov. Doug Burgum. Sen. Don Schaible, R-Mott, and fellow Republicans detailed their plan to use $340 million of earnings from the state's Legacy Fund oil tax savings in the 2023-25 budget cycle for the state to take over more of the cost of K-12 education -- increasing the state share from 72% to 85%. The proposal would reduce property taxpayers' bill by 25%, Schaible said. Bond issues, which are approved by voters, would not be affected. The plan has no new money for schools. K-12 funding is derived from state and local contributions. The plan also would freeze property valuations for two years, slowing down future increases, Schaible said. School boards would assess only by dollars, which Schaible said would eliminate discussion of mills, or the tax rate used to calculate property taxes. Mills can be "confusing and hard to understand," he said. Assessing by dollars would improve public discussions around planning and setting budgets, he said. The proposal mirrors a move by the 2013 Legislature to reduce property taxes through additional state K-12 funding -- what Rep. Mike Nathe, R-Bismarck, called "a proven and tried method." The 2013 legislation resulted in a 20%-25% property tax reduction statewide, according to Nathe, a budget writer. Tax relief is set to be major issue in the 2023 Legislature, which convenes in January. General fund revenues have exceeded the Legislature's forecast by 18%, or $452 million. Oil tax revenue has surged 56% over projections, or more than $1.25 billion. The Legacy Fund has generated more than $568 million of earnings in the 2021-23 budget cycle. "We're in a great shape financially to have these discussions," Nathe said. The governor, Tax Commissioner Brian Kroshus and Republican lawmakers last month unveiled their state income tax relief plan, which proposes eliminating state income taxes for lower-earning North Dakotans while shrinking them for higher earners to a small flat tax, which Burgum said would save taxpayers about $250 million annually. Nathe said much is up for debate in the Legislature regarding tax relief, calling the property tax plan "starting points for us right now." Schaible said the property tax relief plan "is one option" but "is more relevant, more personal and a better choice for" tax relief." A bill is not yet available. Sen. Mark Weber, R-Casselton, said, "When you talk to people on the street, virtually nobody complains about their state income tax ... That is not what is on people's minds. They're asking for property tax relief." Burgum in response to the plan touted Monday said in a statement: "Thanks to conservative fiscal management and a robust economy, North Dakota is fortunate to be in a strong financial position that allows for consideration of multiple tax relief proposals. We look forward to continuing to work with the Legislature on a package that provides tax relief for all North Dakotans by truly cutting taxes and reducing the amount of tax revenue that government collects." Sen. Tracy Potter, D-Bismarck, also has touted a property tax relief proposal, but he must win election in November to advance his plan. Democrats are a small minority in the Legislature. The Delhi High Court has withdrawn its virtual stay from the trial in the IRCTC hotel scam involving former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and 11 other accused. The High Court has allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to initiate arguments on framing of charges against the accused in the trial court. A special CBI court had taken cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the CBI against Lalu Prasad Yadav and others in July 2018. But the debate on framing of charges did not start. In February 2019, an accused filed a petition in the Delhi High Court challenging the special court's decision to take cognizance of the chargesheet. Taking cognizance of the petition, the High Court exempted accused Vinod Kumar Asthana from appearing before the trial court. Two other accused had also filed similar applications before the trial court.These developments kind of stalled the trial and till date there has been no debate on the framing of charges. Let us tell you that the CBI registered a case against Lalu Prasad Yadav and others in July 2017. The agency filed its chargesheet in April 2018 after a nearly year-long investigation. Following the February 2019 order of the Delhi High Court, the CBI had filed a status report in response to Asthana's plea in March 2020. The CBI in its report said that it had sought sanction of prosecution against one of the accused in July 2018. The then Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and four other government employees were found abusing their official position. Since he was not in service at the time of filing the charge sheet, sanction to prosecute him was not required under the provisions of the erstwhile Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. In the CBI report, regarding Rabri Devi, Tejashwi Yadav and other accused, it was said that sanctions to prosecute them had not been considered necessary. The CBI had sought legal opinion from the Attorney General in March 2020 to support its stand that prosecution sanction was not required against the accused. The agency said there was no need to seek approval. Despite this, the competent authority in June 2020 approved the prosecution of Asthana and other government employees involved in the case to avoid delay in the trial. New Delhi: The CPI(M) has lashed out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, alleging that she has "softened" her stand against the BJP, RSS and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an attempt to "salvage the corrupt-criminal syndicate the TMC has become." The latest editorial of the party mouthpiece People's Democracy has quoted Banerjee's statements at press conferences and said that she "has been making some new discoveries recently". "Finding virtue in the RSS and in Narendra Modi signals desperation on the part of the TMC supremo to somehow salvage the corrupt-criminal syndicate the TMC has become. "However, such dalliance with the Sangh-BJP combine should not come as a surprise. The rise of the Trinamool Congress as an anti-Communist force in West Bengal is a record punctuated by alliances with the BJP including Mamata Banerjee being a cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government," it said. The Left party's attack on the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief comes as it is seeking to reclaim the political turf it lost to the BJP in West Bengal where the saffron party has emerged as the principal opposition. The editorial goes on to quote Banerjee as saying at a press conference that the RSS "'was not that bad". "Following this, she has made another discovery - she does not believe Prime Minister Narendra Modi is behind the misuse of central agencies such as the CBI and the enforcement directorate,"the editorial said. The editorial quoted her as saying in the legislative assembly, "You are possibly not aware that these agencies are no longer under the prime minister's office (PMO). They are now controlled by the union home ministry". It pointed out that officially the CBI is under the department of personnel and training under the PMO. "She has, thus, exonerated the prime minister by misstating the fact," the editorial said. Terming her stand "placatory", the Left party said that these remarks from Banerjee have come after a "concrete political step" taken by the TMC leader to help the BJP during the vice-presidential election. "When the opposition decided to put up a common candidate for the vice-presidential election, the TMC decided to abstain. "The lame excuse given was that they were not properly consulted. That the BJP's candidate was the then governor of West Bengal, Jagdeep Dhankar, made this decision to abstain highly unusual. "Why did Mamata Banerjee decide not to support an Opposition candidate against a man who had tormented her and her government for a full three years is something even her supporters cannot explain," the party said in the editorial. It said that Banerjee's "sudden softness" for the RSS and the prime minister probably stems from the "serious predicament" that the TMC government finds itself in. "The Partha Chatterjee affair which exposed the sordid corruption in the government has caused widespread revulsion and anger among the public. What has been long suspected or known has now come out starkly before the people. "More skeletons are tumbling out of the TMC cupboard. Mamata Banerjee feels imperiled by the ongoing ED investigations into the coal mining scam in which her nephew and political heir Abhishek Banerjee and his family members are being interrogated," it claimed. New Delhi: Rajasthan cabinet minister Shanti Dhariwal on Monday (September 26) said MLAs will not tolerate a traitor being rewarded. Dhariwal's scathing comments came after following the buzz of the selection of Sachin Pilot for the CM post as CM Ashok Gehlot has declared to contest elections for the Congress President post. Talking to ANI Dhariwal said, "Congress general secretary himself has canvassed such a mission to make such people (referring to Sachin Pilot) who betrayed the party and because of this that lead to rebel by MLAs as it insight their feelings." #WATCH | "MLAs of Rajasthan will not sit through & tolerate traitors being rewarded," says State Cabinet Minister Shanti Dhariwal pic.twitter.com/jnFXuHEzjV ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 Dhariwal said all the MLAs have told him a loyal congress member from those 102 people should be selected for the CM post who stands for the party in thick and thin. "Any of those 102 MLAs selected by Sonia Gandhi for CM post will be accepted by all." "MLAs of Rajasthan will not sit through and tolerate traitors being rewarded," Dhariwal added. New Delhi: In a bid to forge a united anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and other prominent Opposition leaders on Sunday (September 25, 2022) attended a mega rally organised by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana's Fatehabad. At the rally, the political bigwigs attacked the saffron party, accusing it of trying to create "Hindu-Muslim disturbances" to benefit politically and making false claims and promises. "If all non-BJP parties unite, which must include our friends from Congress, then we can get rid of those working to destroy the country," Nitish Kumar said at the rally organised to mark former deputy prime minister Devi Lal's birth anniversary. Nitish Kumar, whose JD(U) snapped ties with the BJP last month, also said that there is "no question of a Third Front" and there should be one "main front" to defeat the BJP in the 2024 general elections. He also urged leaders on the dais, including some with a strong anti-Congress history, to work for a larger unity and said this "main front of opposition" will ensure that the BJP loses badly in the 2024 polls. There is no real Hindu-Muslim conflict in society, Nitish Kumar said in his address, adding that some mischief-makers are present everywhere. A large number of Muslims chose to remain in India after the Partition in 1947, the JD(U) supremo added. Besides Nitish, his party colleague KC Tyagi, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, INLD president OP Chautala, and Shiromani Akali Dal's Sukhbir Singh Badal, were among the regional bigwigs who attended the rally. (INLD chief OP Chautala, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal and others attending the rally in Haryana) Opposition parties are 'corrupt', family-based: BJP's JP Nadda on INLD rally Hitting out at the Opposition leaders who attended the INLD rally, BJP chief JP Nadda targeted them by alleging that they were all "corrupt" and "family parties". "Today in Haryana, there is a meeting of opposition leaders. They have all gathered together to celebrate Devi Lal's birth anniversary. Two things are common to them. One, they all are family parties and two, all are fully neck deep in corruption. Some of them are out on bail and others are accused in cases," Nadda said while speaking at the inauguration of BJP district office in Kerala's Kottayam. "So you can see the kind of challenge the BJP is facing," he added. Nadda further said that BJP was the only national party in the country as other national parties have "shrunk". "There is no other national party left except us. All other national parties have been reduced to state and regional parties. They have shrunk. Hon. BJP National President Shri @JPNadda Ji inaugurated a BJP District Office in Nagambadam, Kerala & also addressed a public meeting. BJP State President Shri @surendranbjp , and other senior leaders were also present. pic.twitter.com/1W5ZLwUHyG Office of JP Nadda (@OfficeofJPNadda) September 25, 2022 "Even the Indian National Congress is no longer a national party. It is not even an Indian party anymore. It has become a bhai-behen, brothers and sisters, party," he said. Giving examples of family or dynastic parties in various states, Nadda said, "In Jammu and Kashmir we have PDP and National Conference, in Punjab we have Shiromani Akali Dal controlled by the Badal family, in Haryana, we have the Chautala family party, in Uttar Pradesh, we have Samajwadi Party controlled by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav family.... In Jharkhand, we have Jharkhand Mukti Morcha which is a dynastic party, in West Bengal, there is Trinamool Congress Party, in Odisha we have the Biju Janata Dal controlled by the Patnaik family, in Andhra Pradesh we have YSR Party, in Telangana, there is Chandrashekhar Rao family party -- all these are purely family-based parties where there is no scope for democracy." The BJP is fighting to save democracy from these "dynasty-based, highly corrupt" parties, he added. (With agency inputs) Recently, the ED filed a 172-count charge sheet against Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee in the SSC recruitment corruption case. Explosive information has emerged from that charge sheet. From Arpita wanting to be a mother to the couple's trip to Goa, Thailand, everything is covered in this charge sheet. Along with the charge sheet, the Enforcement Directorate has also submitted 14640 pages of documents to the court. In the same chargesheet, the ED claimed that Partha bought a bungalow in Thailand. Half ownership of that house is in the name of Arpita. Investigators believe properties in Thailand were also purchased in the name of APA Utility Services. According to sources, APA utility services is a firm wherein Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee were partners. According to sources, it has been found that Partha-Arpita had visited Phuket in Thailand in 2014-15. Partha was invited by an organization called HR Association. Partha went there. His companion was Arpita. It is even claimed in this charge sheet that the couple also went to Goa together. Meanwhile, the ED has seized the property of Partha Chatterjee and Arpita Mukherjee worth Rs 103 crore in teacher recruitment corruption. Investigators claimed that around Rs 49.80 crore in cash and Rs 5 crore in gold were recovered from Arpita's two flats. Besides, a total of 40 properties in the state have been found in the name of Partha and Arpita. The total value of which is 40.33 crore rupees. 7.89 crore was found in 35 bank accounts of Arpita and Partha. In all, the investigators seized property worth 103 crore rupees approx. It is to be noted that on the afternoon of July 22, the first lot of money was recovered from Arpita's flat in Tollygunge. After that, the ED arrested Partha and Arpita. New Delhi: The Congress in Rajasthan plunged into a crisis on Sunday (September 25, 2022) as several MLAs, who are loyal to Ashok Gehlot, submitted their resignations over a possible move to appoint Sachin Pilot as the next state chief minister. The development came amid a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, which was called to discuss the leadership of the government going forward if Gehlot is elected as the new party president in the election scheduled next month. While over 90 MLAs visited Speaker CP Joshi's home after a long meeting at minister Shanti Dhariwal's residence, Congress observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken kept waiting for them to arrive for the CLP meet. Ministers Dhariwal, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Mahesh Joshi, along with Gehlot's advisor Sanyam Lodha, however, met the AICC observers later. Ashok Gehlot loyalists' three demands before Congress 1. The Ashok Gehlot loyalists wanted the call on the next Rajasthan chief minister to take place after the Congress presidential poll, which is scheduled to get over by October 19. 2. As the Congress observers were trying to persuade Gehlot loyalists to meet them one by one, they said they instead wanted to meet them in the group. 3. The legislators also stressed that Ashok Gehlot should have a say in picking the new Rajasthan chief minister and that the new CM should be someone who stood by the veteran leader during the rebellion by Sachin Pilot supporters in 2020. It is noteworthy that Gehlot and Sachi Pilot were at loggerheads over the chief minister's post after the Congress won the Assembly elections in December 2018. The high command had then chosen Gehlot as the chief minister while Pilot was made his deputy. Later in July 2020, Pilot along with 18 party MLAs had rebelled against Gehlot's leadership. Here's what Congress observers told Ashok Gehlot loyalists 1. To the first demand, the Congress observers told the Ashok Gehlot loyalists that announcing the implementation of the resolution of handing over the responsibility to appoint CM to Congress President after October 19 will be a "conflict of interest". 2. On the second condition that the legislators wanted to come in groups instead of having one-on-one talks, the Congress observers made it clear that this "isn't how it works". 3. On the third demand that the new Rajasthan CM should be from the 102 MLAs who are loyal to Ashok Gehlot, and not Sachin Pilot or from his group, the Congress observers said that their "sentiments will be conveyed to party's interim chief Sonia Gandhi. Cong MLAs Pratap Khachariyawas, S Dhariwal & CP Joshi met us, kept 3 demands. One was to announce the implementation of resolution of handing over the responsibility (to appoint CM) to Congress President after Oct 19; we said it'll be a conflict of interest: AICC observer A Maken pic.twitter.com/ZjLDBFejtb September 26, 2022 Third condition was that the CM should be from the 102 MLAs who are loyal to CM Ashok Gehlot, not Sachin Pilot or his group. We said that their exact sentiments will be conveyed to Cong chief, who will take the decision after talking to CM Ashok Gehlot & everyone else: Ajay Maken pic.twitter.com/KNExjUL73R ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2022 (With agency inputs) Congress, and perhaps the Gandhis, witnessed entirely unexpected scenes in the last 24 hours - a time when it appeared that everything would fall in place in the party struggling to keep its organisation together. The Gandhis, a family that has held the reins of the Congress party for decades now, have a record of choosing their staunch loyalists for the significant party positions, state heads and Chief Ministers' post. For the first time this year, the family decided that the party would have a non-Gandhi family president - a development that many saw impossible until a few months ago. After much discussion, deliberations and dilemma, the family zeroed in on one name - their senior advisor and head of the Rajasthan Government - Ashok Gehlot - a man who ranks high among the family's loyalists. It goes without saying that the Gandhis expected Gehlot to be a rubber-stamp President, a leader who will do everything on the family's will, and in whose hands the party 'stays safe' (Remember? Sonia Gandhi's famous statement at the time of picking Dr Manmohan Singh for Prime Minister"). To trust someone for Congress president's chair, was perhaps, the riskiest decision to make for the Gandhis in two decades - last was when the Gandhis chose Manmohan Singh for the Prime Minister. The things, even before they could have started as the Gandhis planned, went completely haywire on Sunday - the day when Gandhis were supposed to announce former Rajasthan Dy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot's name as the Gehlot's successor for the state's top job. Ashok Gehlot's serious move - to go against Gandhis' Sachin Pilot decision in Rajasthan Acting like a super-shrewd politician, Gehlot, the Congress' president in waiting, made a serious move - not to go with Gandhis' decision of picking Pilot as Rajasthan Chief Minister. Gehlot and Pilot's power tussle - where the latter even made an unsuccessful attempt to topple the former's government once - is known to every single person in the party. However, another thing that is known to everyone, is that the Gandhis see Pilot --- a leader who has considerable clout among Rajasthan's dominant Gujar community --- as the top choice for state's Chief Minister. Gandhis were sure of one thing - that Gehlot will have to leave the Chief Minister's post as he will be elevated to the party President's chair. Here, the family seem to have pre-assumed one thing - that this transition will be smooth, with both Gehlot and Pilot both getting plum seats. However, Gehlot had something else in mind - he either wanted to keep the power in his own hands or to install someone who is close to him. To say the least, a party leader from his camp of 80 MLAs, and not Pilot's, for sure. Gehlot, it appeared, had made this condition clear in front of Gandhis, but wasn't open to outrightly opposing them for obvious reasons. Acting like a super-shrewd politician, Gehlot, who is saying that "it's the MLAs' wish", has gone completely against Pilot's appointment as the Chief Minister. All his MLAs, so disgruntled, have submitted their resignations to the Assembly Speaker CP Joshi - making it impossible for Pilot, or anyone from his 20 loyalist MLAs, to become the Chief Minister. If Pilot doesn't become the Chief Minister, it's not the Pilot who loses - it's the Gandhis who have to act according to Gehlot's will - even before he becomes the party President - the exact opposite how it was supposed to happen. DISCLAIMER: Author Is Solely Responsible For View Expressed In The Article. New Delhi: PCCF & HoFF, Assam & Chief Wildlife Warden MK Yadava defended spiritual leader Sadhguru and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma against allegations of the two public figures violating wildlife protection laws during their jeep safari after dusk in the Kaziranga National Park (KNP). 'Hidden agenda to defame Kaziranga National Park' In a statement to ANI, MK Yadava claimed that people are making allegations without any factual basis. He said, "There's a hidden agenda behind this to defame Kaziranga National Park & people making these statements aren't aware of actual facts & haven't even tried to know the facts." For the unversed, a police complaint was filed on Sunday against Assam CM and Sadhguru for their alleged jeep safari in the national park after dusk. The complaint was filed at the Bokakhat Police Station in Golaghat district by people living in villages on the fringe of the national park, a senior officer said. His blessings are special. His teachings, extraordinary. Revered @SadhguruJV, in whose presence Kaziranga National Park opened today for tourists, has a special message to save precious Rhinos. And indeed he enjoyed the Jeep Safari. Tourism Min Shri @jayanta_malla accompanied. pic.twitter.com/0donjtW9Vy Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) September 24, 2022 Yadava, in the CM's defense further said, "Last year on September 22nd, our CM Himanta Biswa Sarma took one of the toughest stand by burning 2,479 rhino horns to show the world community that these horns do not have any value." "The ash collected from these horns, it was decided that we shall commemorate it, this event was a memorial to staff & frontline people on the fringe of forest who've given their lives for safety of rhinos & this entire memorial will be dedicated to them by CM." "We have started an enquiry into the issue. As the KNP falls under the forest department, we have asked for a status report on the allegations from the divisional forest officer of the park," a police official told PTI. Residents of nearby villages allege jeep's headlights were blazing after dusk In the complaint by Soneswar Narah and Prabin Pegu, residents of Morongiyal and Balijan Adarsh model villages near the park, it has been alleged that the jeep safari with the vehicle's headlights blazing after dusk was "in violation of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972". Complainants demand arrest or public apology They have demanded the immediate arrest of Sadhguru Jagdish 'Jaggi' Vasudev, Sarma, state Tourism Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah, and others, who were part of the jeep safari. Else, they wanted a public apology from the alleged violators as per law. The issue has also been raised on social media by people. Environment activist Rohit Choudhury wrote on Twitter, "Evening safari after sunset in @kaziranga_ ..!! Is this not Violation of Section 27 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act,1972..?? Just asking...This is the outcome of a flop Chief Wildlife Warden @assamforest & flop Director @kaziranga_ @ntca_india @SPYadavIFS @moefcc." (With PTI inputs) The All India Fair Price Shop Dealers Federation wrote to the Center seeking permission to sell liquor in ration shops. The letter was sent to Sudhanshu Pandey, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Food and Supplies, on September 20. The letter was issued by the All India Fair Price Shop Dealers Federation. In order to consider their demands rationally, the general secretary of the organization, Biswambhar Basu, has sent a copy of the letter to Union Food Minister Piyush Goyal, Union Finance Secretary, Union Revenue Secretary, Union Minister of State for Consumer Protection and Food Ministry and Food Commissioners and Food Secretaries of all states. Ration dealers claim that the central government should take necessary steps and decisions to save the country's ration shops. The state governments should also come forward. Therefore, they have applied to the central government to sell licensed liquor from ration shops. According to the information provided by the All India Fair Price Dealers Federation, the number of ration shops approved by the government in the country is five lakh 37 thousand 868. About two and a half crore people are directly linked with these shops. And indirectly, more than five and a half million people are dependent. The dealers claim that the ration dealers are not seeing profit in the way the ration system is running in the current infrastructure. They have to think of alternative ways to keep the ration shops alive. Therefore, they have informed the central government about the sale of alcohol in the form of a proposal. Ration dealers hope that the central and state governments will take timely decisions considering the current situation. Biswambhar Basu, general secretary of the All India Fair Price Shop Dealers Federation, said, "There are two to four employees in each ration shop. There are 3-4 more members in the family of owners and employees. It is estimated that more than five crore people depend on ration shops for their livelihood. So central and state governments should keep ration shops alive. We have made such a proposal to the central government to keep the owners and workers alive by keeping the ration shops alive." Today Basu reaches Delhi for a 3-day meeting with the Food Department. While speaking to Zee News English from Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, he said, "There are a lot of things to discuss. Among these, the liquor license is one of the agenda. This will help us to survive. Therefore, I urge the government to save Ration shops. I truly believe that the government will consider our demands." Tokyo: Hours ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s visit to Japan to attend ex-PM Shinzo Abe`s state funeral, foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said this trip is an opportunity for PM Modi to honour the memory of his dear friend and the champion of the India-Japan ties. Addressing a special briefing on Prime Minister`s visit to Japan on Monday, Foreign Secretary said Prime Minister be leaving in a few hours for Japan to attend the state funeral of Abe. "During this visit, the PM will attend the state funeral ceremony at Budokan," he said. During this visit, Kwatra said Prime Minister will also meet his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida and Abe`s wife. Representatives from over 100 countries including more than 20 heads of state and heads of government are expected to participate in the state funeral tomorrow," Kwatra said. "This visit by PM Modi is an opportunity for him to honour the memory of former Abe, who he considered a dear friend and a great champion of the India-Japan relationship," he said. The foreign secretary said, "Abe made significant contributions to deepening India-Japan relations, turning a primarily economic relationship into a broad, comprehensive, and strategic partnership, making it pivotal for the two countries and the region`s security." His famous "Confluence of Two Seas" speech in the Indian Parliament in 2007 laid the ground for the emergence of the Indo-Pacific region as a contemporary political, strategic, and economic reality. Abe`s contribution to India-Japan relations was recognized by the conferment upon him of the prestigious Padma Vibhushan in 2021," Kwatra said. This visit of PM Modi to Japan comes after Kishida`s visit to India for the India-Japan Summit meeting in March, and PM Modi`s visit to Japan for the Quad Leaders` Summit in May this year. These meetings underscored the two leaders` commitment towards deepening India-Japan ties, particularly in shaping a post-pandemic regional and global order. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the India-Japan diplomatic relationship. Kwatra said today, Japan is one of the most trusted and valued strategic partners of India. "The two sides are committed to strengthening bilateral partnership on key areas of Trade & Investment, Defence and Security, Climate Change, Health Security, Infrastructure, Digital, Industrial Development, Energy, Critical and Emerging Technologies, and Human Resources, among others," the foreign secretary said. "There is deep convergence in our visions of the Indo-Pacific region and there is close cooperation between our countries on issues of international importance," he added. Minnesota artist Joseph Hautman won this year's Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest with a painting of three tundra swans flying over a wetland. The announcement was made over the weekend from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters in Virginia because the contest that was to be held in Bismarck was switched to a livestream event due to an elevated coronavirus transmission risk in Burleigh County. Copies of the contest entries were still displayed at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum on the state Capitol grounds, which had been set to host the event. Hautmans acrylic painting will be made into the 2023-24 Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, commonly known as a Duck Stamp, which will go on sale next June. Waterfowl hunters 16 and older are required to buy the stamp before hunting, and members of the general public can buy it to support wildlife conservation efforts. The stamp also serves as free admission to any national wildlife refuge that charges an entry fee. They are not postage stamps. The stamp sells for $25 and raises about $40 million annually to help conservation efforts that boost wetland habitat in the National Wildlife Refuge System. Since the duck stamp was established in 1934, it has raised more than $1.1 billion to conserve more than 6 million acres of habitat. Fish and Wildlife partners with a sponsoring organization to coordinate the annual contest and a number of associated events. The federal agency this year chose Prairie Pothole Joint Venture, a conservation organization that covers parts of the Dakotas, Montana, Minnesota and Iowa. While the in-person contest planned for the Heritage Center was called off, other local events associated with the contest went on as planned. Contest details There were 187 entries in this year's contest, with 54 making it to the final round of judging. Eligible species were the tundra (whistling) swan, mottled duck, American green-winged teal, American wigeon and Barrows goldeneye. The win was the sixth for Hautman, who is from Plymouth, Minnesota. Frank Mittelstadt of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, placed second with his acrylic painting of tundra swans, and Robert Hautman of Delano, Minnesota, took third place with his acrylic painting of an American wigeon. A gallery of entries can be found at https://bit.ly/3SjuSuu. I am always impressed with the caliber of the art submitted, and each and every entry reminds us of the beauty of the natural world the Duck Stamp is designed to protect," Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said in a statement. "I encourage everyone to buy a Duck Stamp as it makes a real impact in conserving wetlands habitats for waterfowl and many other wildlife species. Bagalkot: Karnataka BJP`s state unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel has surprised political circles by stating that opposition leader Siddaramaiah will be sent to jail in the de-notification of the government land case. Talking to reporters on Monday, Kateel stated that "we will probe the Arkavathy de-notification scandal which took place during Siddaramaiah`s tenure. Through the Lokayukta as many as 52 cases will come out in connection with the scandal and those who are involved in the scandal would be sent to jail." "Former CM Siddaramaiah will also land in jail," he underlined. "During his tenure, the Congress government was involved in widespread corruption. Not only the Arkavathy land scandal, there are illegalities in the purchase of pillows, beds. Why have the scandals of the Congress party not been investigated?" Kateel questioned. The documents relating to the scandals that took place during the tenure of Siddaramaiah have been concealed. "We have to struggle a lot to dig them out," he stressed. He asked Siddaramaiah why did he close down the Lokayukta during his tenure as the CM? Siddaramaiah ruled with the support of the sand mafia and drug mafia. After B S Yediyurappa became the CM, the drug mafia was confronted and reputed personalities were put behind bars, he added. He stated that records are being gathered in connection with the banning of the Popular Front of India (PFI) and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). He blamed Siddaramaiah for the growth of the SDPI and the PFI in the state. "He had taken back cases against the SDPI and PFI workers accused of serious crimes. If they had been put in jail, the situation would have been different in Karnataka," Kateel said. Siddaramaiah is directly responsible for the spread of terror activities in the state, he alleged. Siddaramaiah and the Congress party have launched an offensive against the ruling BJP especially Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai through the PayCM poster campaign. Siddaramaiah recently said that he has studied law and knows that no legal action can be taken against him. New Delhi: A Sikh student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte was allegedly detained on the campus for wearing Kirpan, one of the integral parts of five Sikh Kakars, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa claimed, sharing a video of the incident. The BJP leader shared a video in which it was shown that the US police tried to take the Kirpan from the Sikh youth and later detained him when he resisted. I wasnt going to post this, but I dont think I will receive any support from @unccharlotte . I was told someone called 911 and reported me, and I got cuffed for resisting because I refused to let the officer take my kirpan out of the miyaan. @CLTNinerNews pic.twitter.com/Vk9b0Tspvm September 23, 2022 "Despite numerous global campaigns to create awareness about Sikh Kakaars, it's disheartening to see the Campus Police at University of North Carolina detain a Sikh youth for his Kirpan. I condemn the discriminatory attitude of University authorities towards Sikh students," Sirsa tweeted. He condemned the incident and demanded an apology from the Campus police and University Administration that detained the youth. "We demand an apology from Campus Police and Univ Admn at @unccharlotte that detained a Sikh youth for his Kirpan, a quintessential part of Sikh Kakars. We are in constant touch with @IndianEmbassyUS and @MEAIndia to ensure the Amritdhari student is released with due respect," Sirsa, a former legislator, said in a tweet. "I must appreciate the Sikh student who explained the significance of Kirpan with such faith. We demand an apology from @unccharlotte admn on this racial attitude. I also urge @DrSJaishankar Ji to address the issue of discrimination faced by Sikh students at global level," he added. The video was initially shared by the student, who posted it on Twitter saying that the police handcuffed him for resisting letting the officer take his Kirpan out of the miyaan. "I wasn't going to post this, but I don't think I will receive any support from @unccharlotte. I was told someone called 911 and reported me, and I got cuffed for "resisting" because I refused to let the officer take my kirpan out of the miyaan." The Kirpan is an integral part of the Sikh religion and Article 25 of the Indian Constitution allows the wearing and carrying of kirpans by Sikh persons. It is one of the five Kakars. According to the World Sikh Organization of Canada, Kirpan is an article of faith that plays a role in the Sikh religion. The kirpan is worn by initiated (Amritdhari) Sikhs, both men and women, and is one of five articles of faith, often called the 5Ks; Kesh, Kangha, Kara, Kachhera, Kirpan. Sikhs wear them as a reminder of their commitment to the tenets of their faith, including justice, charity, morality, humility, and equality. Mandated to be worn always, it is an integral part of the Khalsa Sikh's person, and not wearing the kirpan at any time, day or night, constitutes a grievous transgression for a Khalsa Sikh. Thiruvananthapuram: Senior Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has said that the Gandhi family has no issues with him contesting for the party president`s post. The Thiruvananthapuram MP made a quick visit to Rahul Gandhi soon after his morning session of the Bharat Jodo yatra ended at Pattambi in the Palakkad district. "I came and met Rahul Gandhi. I spoke to the three people in the Gandhi family and they have no issue with contesting it. I am yet to make a decision and have been getting reactions from across the country, he said. Asked if he expects backing from the Congress leaders in Kerala, with a smile, he said, "Yes, surely, but not all would support and my support will increase after the nomination is filed." It may be recalled that a section of Kerala Congress leaders is reportedly not happy with Tharoor's move to contest the presidential election. Instead, they want Rahul Gandhi to take charge as Congress president. Earlier today, Tharoor joined Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Tharoor reached Pattambi, Palakkad in Kerala for the padayatra. As the date for filing nomination is approaching, Tharoor confirmed that he will be contesting the elections and said that he has spoken to Rahul Gandhi over a call and he has their support, referring to Rahul, Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi. Tharoor is likely to file his nomination on Friday, the last day of filing nominations. It is likely to be a contest between Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for the Congress presidential post as the window for filing the nomination papers began on September 24. Candidates can file their nominations by September 30. (With Agency inputs) UPSSSC Forest Guard Recruitment 2022: The Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UPSSSC) has invited candidates to apply for the posts of Forest Guard. The Commission's official website is upsssc.gov.in, where interested candidates can submit their applications. Beginning on October 17, 2022, registration will take place. The application form must be submitted by November 6 in order to be considered. The UP Forest Department will fill all 701 open positions. Candidates who have passed PET 2021 may submit an application. UPSSSC Forest Guard Recruitment 2022: Important Dates Opening Date for Online Application: 17 October 2022. Last Date for Submission of Application: 06 November 2022 UPSSSC Forest Guard Jobs 2022: Vacancy Details Forest Guard: 701 posts UPSSSC Forest Guard Vacancies 2022: Eligibility Criteria Education Requirements: Candidates interested in applying for the aforementioned positions should review the notification shared below to learn more about the required education as well as the selection process. UPSSSC Forest Guard Jobs 2022: Age Limit Candidates must fall within the age range of 21 to 40 years of age in order to apply for the positions. UPSSSC Forest Guard Vacancies 2022: Heres how to apply Visit the official website of the Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission at upsssc.gov.in Click on the registration link for the forest guard post. Fill in the application form, Upload the necessary documents. Pay the application fee. Submit the form and take a printout of it for future reference. UPSSSC Forest Guard Jobs 2022: Application Fees The application cost for eligible candidates is Rs 25, which must be paid. New Delhi: Germany on Monday became the latest country to endorse Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s remarks to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the ongoing Ukraine conflict. German envoy to India, Philipp Ackermann said PM Modi`s remark about "this not being the era of war" to Putin was very well put. "With mobilization and threat of nuclear weapons, the situation has changed. We are seeing a land grab of the crudest nature and now a sham referendum. Russia has not achieved what it wanted," Ackermann tweeted while severely criticising Russia. Ambassador Ackermann said Russia is violating international law in Ukraine and added that "if your borders can`t be safe, you should be concerned." "What Russia is doing in Ukraine is a breath-taking violation of international law. If your borders can`t be safe, you should be concerned. Germany is and will be seen a lot more in the Indo-Pacific region because we share the same approach to international law with India," the envoy said. Citing the impact of the Ukraine conflict on Russia-Germany trade, Ackermann said his country has strong business ties with China but it`s not good to be dependent on any country. "We have strong business ties with China but as we have seen with Russia, it`s not good to be dependent on any country. Diversification is important," he said. Prime Minister Modi was hailed last week at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for his message to Russian President Putin on the Ukraine conflict, by the US and France at the UNGA. On the sidelines of the SCO summit in Samarkand on September 16, PM Modi said "today`s era isn`t of war" while emphasising the need to find ways to address the problems of food, fuel security and fertilizers. France President Emmanuel Macron welcomed PM Modi`s statement to Putin on Ukraine. "Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India was right when he said the time is not for war. It is not for revenge against the West, or for opposing the West against the east. It is the time for a collective time for our sovereign equal states. To cope together with challenges we face," Macron had said. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated what PM Modi said was a statement of principle on behalf of what he believes is right and just. He said these remarks were very much welcomed by the United States. Apart from the UNGA, PM Modi`s statement became popular and was praised by international media. American network CNN praised PM Modi`s hold on world politics and reported, "Indian leader Narendra Modi tells Putin: Now is not the time for war." While another US publication The Washington Post`s headline was "Modi rebukes Putin over the war in Ukraine". "India`s Leader Tells Putin That Now Is Not an Era for War," The New York Times said in its headline. Mumbai: If reports are to be believed, Hollywood stars Gerard Butler and Judi Dench may attend the wedding reception of Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal. Ali has shared screen space with Judi Dench in the international film `Victoria and Abdul`, while Gerard Butler worked with Ali in the upcoming Hollywood film Kandahar. Richa and Ali`s wedding festivities will begin on September 30. There are likely to be three pre-wedding functions - Cocktail, Sangeet, and Mehendi. All three functions, as revealed by our source, are likely to be held in New Delhi. The D-day will be held in Mumbai on October 4. Although the outfit Richa is going to be wearing for her wedding isn`t known to us yet, the jewellery has been picked from Bikaner. For the Delhi functions, the actress` jewellery is being custom-made by a 175 old jeweller family from Bikaner. The Khajanchi family are a revered family of jewellers who are known for their statement heirloom pieces and they will be designing signature pieces for Richa. Recently, Richa took to social media to confirm her October wedding with Ali in the sweetest way possible. She tweeted an image that read, New Life, Loading. Richa captioned it, "can`t wait for October." As soon as Richa shared the post, fans chimed in the comment section to congratulate the couple. Read the tweet The duo was initially meant to be wedded in April 2020, but owing to covid restrictions and lockdowns, the wedding was positioned twice over. Richa and Ali first met on the sets of `Fukrey` in 2012 and soon fell in love. On the work front, they will be teaming up together for Furkey 3. Richa Chadha will next be seen in Anubhav Sinhas Abhi Toh Party Shuru Hui Hai. Ali Fazal, on the other hand, will be seen in Vishal Bhardwajs upcoming spy thriller film Khufiya. Apart from this, he also has American film Kandahar in his kitty. New Delhi: Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the world, and is all set to grow into number one cause, growing in epidemic proportions worldwide. Alarmingly, cancer doesnt just affect the patients. It affects the whole family that gets financially and emotionally drained by the treatment. But sometimes, personal losses can be transformed into universal gains. It took a woman like designer Maheka Mirpuri to see the 'Can' in Cancer and ensure that cancer remains a chapter and not the whole life of patients and their families! Maheka realized the pain and the huge financial strain while holding the hands of both her father and brother-in-law who lost their battle to cancer in just a span of one year. This set her thinking and the seeds of MCan were sown. Maheka walked into the Tata Hospital one morning and offered her helping hand. MCan by Maheka Mirpuri was thus born in 2013. It helps provide financial assistance to the underprivileged towards cure for cancer as a whole and Head & Neck cancer in particular for the last 10 years now. Head and Neck cancer are the commonest cancer in the country constituting onethird of all cancers with the highest incidence in the low socio-economic strata. With the pandemic, a lot of patients have been unable to travel for followups, tumours have not been removed, situations have worsened and thus it increases the need for MCan funds. They have now started outreach where the treatment reaches the patient instead of vice versa. MCan funds primarily help get voice boxes for the poor who have lost their voice post operation. Since most patients are illiterate in these strata, the only communication is through their voice. MCan hosts an annual fundraiser to help raise funds for the less privileged patients fighting head & neck cancer at Tata Memorial Hospital, but also raises awareness about a disease that can surface at any time. Maheka has earlier taken talented artists from across the nation on MCans stage, from Rachel Varghese and Talat Aziz to Boman Irani. This year, to mark the ten-year journey of giving back, Maheka and Tata Memorial hospital have once again united to offer the most effective support possible to cancer patients through the MCan initiative. Maheka says, We strive for a bond that strengthens the morale of the struggling families of the cancer patients, and to aid them in whatever way we can. This years MCan auction will see brands jostling with art and passion. And what is more, Karan Johar has graciously consented to be our effervescent host. You have to switch on the support mode and ensure that you give without remembering. For not only does giving liberate the soul of the giver, but the fact is that you actually become richer by giving. Karan Johar said, Maheka Mirpuri took the Can from Cancer and created MCan to aid Tata Memorial Hospital. As we celebrate ten years of giving, MCan has raised over 8 crore for the Tata Hospital that primarily goes for voice boxes to give voice to the poor who would be voiceless otherwise. Remember, Cancer may have started the fight, but together We Can end it for those affected and their families, turning patients into survivors beating all odds. Let us open our hearts and purses and save lives. This year, I am Hosting the MCan Foundation's charity initiative... Join me on October 5 at the Taj, celebrate over a decade of giving back with Maheka and Tata Memorial Hospital and be the change. MCan because WeCan. Be there. The Tata Memorial Hospital, one of the biggest cancer centres in the world, registers more than 43,000 new cancer patients every year, with 63% being given highly subsidized treatment. New Delhi: Katrina Kaif is one such actress who never fails to amaze her fans, be it her dancing skills, acting or pictures on social media. Now, an old video of her dancing on Arabic Kuthu song with school children in Tamil Nadu has gone viral. The video was shared by a fan page on Twitter and soon it went viral all-over social media. The actress had paid a visit to the Mountain View School in Madurai, Tamil Nadu where she interacted with fans, students and teachers. Katrina Kaif's viral video with school kids Similar to this, another video from the same event went viral too in which she could be seen dancing on stage with the staff of the school. Katrina Kaif's video dancing with the school staff Katrina truly won the hearts of her fans with the videos. Admirers of the actress could not keep calm and went into the comments section to shower their love on her performance. The real lady superstar of India, wrote one user. They are so happy with her. I too want to be a part of them, added another user. Meanwhile, on the work front, Katrina will be next seen in the upcoming horror comedy film `Phone Bhoot` alongside Siddhant Chaturvedi and Ishaan Khatter in lead roles, which is slated to release on November 4, 2022. Apart from this she also has an action thriller film `Tiger 3` alongside Salman Khan, which is all set to hit the theatres on April 23, 2023. Apart from these, she will also be starring in Farhan Akhtar directorial Jee Le Zaraa alongside Alia Bhatt and Priyanka Chopra. New Delhi: Famous comedian Raju Srivastava passed away on September 21, 2022 leaving family, friends and fans grieving. He was undergoing treatment for heart attack in New Delhis All India Insititute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) since August 10, however, he could not be saved. He was 58 years old. The late comedians family organized a prayer meeting in Mumbai in his memory which was attended by several noted celebrities from the industry including Kapil Sharma, Bharti Singh, Johnny Lever, Kay Kay Menon, Ehsaan Qureshi and Sunil Pal among others. Now a video from the prayer meet has emerged on social media in which his wife can be seen crying inconsolably when she is asked to say a few words about him. "Kya bolu. Kuch bolne ko ab raha he nahi. Meri toh zindagi chali gayi. Sab logo ne bahut prathnaye ki, doctors ne bhi bahut koshish ki. Hum sab ne bahut koshish ki. Lekin. Unhone hum sabko bahut hasaya. Upar jaakar bhi sabko hasa rahe honge. Khush rahe, shanti se rahe. Bahut bahut dhanyawad." (There is nothing left to say. My life has ended now. Everyone prayed for him, doctors also tried their best, we all tried our best. He made us all laugh and I am sure in heaven too he is making everyone laugh. Rest in peace. Thank you! His friends have supported us a lot), she can be heard saying in the video clip shared by Instant Bollywood. Watch the video here- Earlier, his daughter Antara had spoken with E-Times in which she revealed that he did not speak anything during his time at the hospital. She had also said that after this prayer meeting, they will go to his home in Kanpur and do a puja there. We will be back in Delhi soon. A lot of rituals are in the offing. Kanpur was Dad's home. So, we have to do puja there too, she told E-Times. Raju Srivastava was cremated in the presence of friends and family at Nigambodh Ghat, New Delhi on September 22, 2022. His last rites were performed by son Ayushmaan. The late comedian rose to fame with Great Indian Laughter Challenge in the year 2005. Since then, he had a flourishing career in the film and television industry. Over the course of three decades, he featured in Hindi films such as Maine Pyar Kiya, Baazigar, the remake of Bombay to Goa and Aamdani Atthani Kharcha Rupaiya. After his death, fellow comedian Ahsaan Qureshi revealed in an interview that Raju wanted to work on the sequel of Bombay to Goa with all his fellow comedians. New Delhi: Global star Priyanka Chopra Jonas hosted the Global Citizen Festival at Central Park in New York on Saturday. Many pictures and videos from the event are going viral on social media. The sweetest part was when she was introduced by the Jonas Brothers on the stage. As the actress entered the stage, she kissed her hubby on the lips and it has now taken over the internet. After Jonas Brothers performed on the stage of the Global Citizen Festival, Joe Jonas called Priyanka on the stage, but Nick added to the introduction, "And I have the honour of calling her my wife. So please welcome Priyanka Chopra Jonas." Priyanka joined them on stage and kissed Nick, then she went on and hugged both her brothers-in-law. The crowd went crazy and cheered up for the couple. Priyanka then added, "I'll see you guys for dinner okay." The Jonas Brothers performed many of their popular songs at the event. Miss Universe Harnaaz Sandhu also attended the Global Citizen Festival, where she met her inspiration PeeCee. She also shared a picture on Instagram and wrote, "I couldn't have asked for us to meet in any other way. Thanks @priyankachopra for your kindness at @glblctzn you killed it!" On the professional front, Priyanka has many projects in her pipeline. She is currently working on the Hollywood film 'Ending Things' along with Anthony Mackie. She will also be seen in 'It's All Coming Back.' Talking about Bollywood, PeeCee will feature in Farhan Akhtar's 'Jee Le Zaraa' alongside Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif. America needs more immigrants, but we seem determined to shoot ourselves in the foot. Before addressing that self-sabotage, permit a small digression. In the 1980s, Venezuela was the wealthiest country in Latin America. Sitting on about 18% of the world's proven oil reserves, Venezuelans enjoyed higher living standards than their neighbors and seemed to have a stable democracy. Looks were deceiving. When the price of oil plummeted in the 1990s, the country was plunged into instability. In 1999, they elected a charismatic military officer, Hugo Chavez, who promised to redistribute the nation's wealth and proceeded to befriend Fidel Castro and destroy the nation's economy. He nationalized companies and farms, crushed labor unions, put opponents in prison and seized the assets of foreign oil contractors. Chavez succumbed to cancer in 2013, but by then Venezuela was a basket case. Today, 1 in 3 Venezuelans doesn't get enough to eat, malnutrition among poor children is rife, and more than 75% of Venezuelans live in extreme poverty. It is the most abrupt collapse of a thriving nation not at war on record and a cautionary tale about what can happen when people make bad political choices. Most of the 50 immigrants Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped on Martha's Vineyard were Venezuelans who had made an arduous 2,000-mile journey. "No one leaves home," wrote poet Warsan Shire, "unless home is the mouth of a shark." Many on the right portray illegal immigrants as criminals who are "breaking into our house" and deserve to be treated as such. Under U.S. statutes, if a migrant comes into this country, turns himself in to a border guard or other authority and asks for political asylum, he is entitled to a hearing. Asylum seekers are not "illegal" immigrants. DeSantis didn't see suffering human beings. He saw props. He saw Fox News coverage. (Fox, unlike the governor of Massachusetts, was tipped off in advance.) And he saw the chance to show the GOP base what a jerk he could be. The DeSantis justifiers object that border states are being flooded with illegals and that it's unjust that red states are bearing all of the burden. But the border states are not handling it alone. The federal government has spent roughly $333 billion on border security and immigration enforcement in the past 19 years, with much of it targeted on the southern border. As for the burden of immigration, it's debatable that immigrants represent a burden at all. Many studies show that they pay more in taxes than they cost in social services and they are more likely to work, start business and seek patents than the native-born (and less likely to commit crimes). Those who believe the propaganda that immigration is destroying America should ponder our neighbor to the north. Is Canada a hellscape? The proportion of foreign-born there is 21%, compared to the American average of 13.7%. In truth, the vast majority of would-be immigrants have done absolutely nothing wrong. It is our own laws that are the problem. We desperately need workers, yet the wait for legal immigration options is years long. People ask, "Why can't illegal immigrants wait in line?" But there is no line. We resolutely decline to accept guest workers in large numbers, who could fill jobs and return home (without affecting voting patterns, by the way). And so the only way to gain entry is to put feet on American soil and ask for asylum. Clearly, not all of those pleading for asylum meet the criteria (a well-founded fear of persecution), but the system is short of courts and judges and wait times for hearings are very long. Some never show up for their hearings. And so the word has gone out around the world that if you can manage to get to the United States and present yourself to a border guard, you have at least a shot of remaining in the country either because your asylum claim will be granted or you will melt into the country and avoid deportation. We are fortunate that so many hardworking people want to come here. If we had our act together, we would reform our laws to take many more legal immigrants (who would begin the application process in their home countries) and hire more immigration judges to hear asylum claims while clarifying that only severe cases will be eligible for that status (not economic migrants). We are an aging population with a declining birth rate. Our national spirit needs the infusion of energy and dynamism that immigrants provide. And we will be thanked and strengthened by people whose lives we save. New Delhi: 7th Pay Commission latest update: Newer updates regarding the payment of 18 months-pending Dearness allowance (DA) arrears is doing the rounds in the media once again. As per fresh reports, the Central government employees should not lose hope on getting the outstanding DA arrears in their account of the last 18 months i.e, from January 2020 to June 2021. As per media reports, Secretary (Staff Side) of the National Council, Shiv Gopal Mishra had sent a letter to the Cabinet Secretary and the President of the National Council On 18 August 2022. The letter mentioned issues of the DA arrears of the employees. It is widely expected that this issue can be discussed with the Cabinet Secretary in upcoming meeting in the month of November. However, nothing has been given officially confirmed by the government regarding this. The Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief of Central government employees and pensioners were restored to 31% from 17% from October 2021, however the arrears have not been deposited as yet. According to the annual report of the Department of Expenditure, there are a total of 48 lakh central employees in the country and about 60 lakh pensioners. New Delhi: The daily app quiz from Amazon is back in action. The quiz will be found in the Funzone section of the e-commerce app. The winner will get Rs 2500 Amazon Pay Balance. If you are interested to play the quiz, you can play it in the Funzone section of the app. Questions type Five questions, usually based on general knowledge and current events, make up Amazon's daily quiz. How can you win? For a contestant to be eligible for the quiz reward, they must properly answer each question. There are four options for each quiz question. Participants in the quiz are required to select one accurate response from these choices. Once all questions have been correctly answered, participants will enter a drawing to determine the quiz's winners. Here are all the five questions and its answer for September 26, 2022: 1. The reigning monarch of the UK, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, will be known by what name? Answer: King Charles III 2. Who recently won the 2022 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix? Answer: Max Verstappen 3. The movie 'Tejas' is about women entering combat roles in the Indian Airforce stars which actress in the lead role? Answer: Kangana Ranaut 4. Name this political entity? Answer: Palestinian National Initiative 5. Which river, the second longest in Europe after the Volga, is shown in this picture? Answer: Danube How to play? - Open the Amazon app. - Click on the search bar. - Search Funzone. - Click on the daily quiz option available at the bottom of the Funzone. New Delhi: Apple CEO Tim Cook recently praises a 9-year-old Indian girl who presently resides in Dubai for developing an iOS app for iPhones. Hana Muhammad Rafeeq, a 9-year-old, claimed to be the youngest iOS developer in her initial letter to Cook. She claimed to be the creator of the "Hanas" storytelling app, which lets parents record stories. The CEO of Apple reportedly paid her compliments in his email reply to her after she described her software and other achievements in the email. The free iOS app from Hana has kid-friendly tales. After realising how few parents have the time to read to their children, she was inspired to develop the app. Hanna was only 8 years when the app was developed. (Also Read: Using public computer? UIDAI warns Aadhar users not to do THIS otherwise be ready to...) Hana claimed in an email that she was introduced to coding for the first time when she was five years old, making her the youngest person in history to have done so. She wrote over 10,000 lines of code for this software. (Also Read: Post Office Scheme: Here's HOW to get more than Rs 10 lakh in just 3 years) Her app does not contain any pre-made third-party libraries, classes, or codes. She had said that a little preview would be appreciated. Additionally, she included links to her YouTube videos. Hana was dozing off when Mohammed Rafeeq, Hana's father, first saw the email. He claimed that he had awakened her to break the news to her. She immediately sat up and hurried to the bathroom. It typically takes some time to wake her awake, but not this time. Tim Cook sent her an email to express his congratulations on all of her remarkable accomplishments at such a young age. He also said that if she persisted, she would eventually do great things. Hana asserts that 10,000 lines of code were required to construct the storytelling app that allows parents to record stories for their children in their voices. She watched a documentary that inspired her. For their children to listen to as they fall asleep, parents can record stories. Tehran: Fifth Iranian paramilitary volunteer group member died on Sunday in a clash with the anti- Hijab protesters as the country`s President Ebrahim Raisi pledged to deal "decisively" with the demonstrators who came to the streets to protest against the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody. The Member of the paramilitary volunteer group, Basij, was injured on Thursday in Urmia city in northwest Iran during a clash with "rioters and thugs", Iranian state news agency IRNA said. The protest was sparked after the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after her arrest for allegedly failing to comply with Iran`s strict rules on women`s dress by wearing an "improper hijab". Hundreds of protests were organized around the country. Iranian women were seen burning their hijabs and chopping their hair to mark their protest over Amini`s death and against mandatory veiling. At least 41 people have been killed during the Iran protests, Al Jazeera reported citing state television. Earlier, the Iranian President pledged to deal "decisively" with the protests that have swept the country since the death of a woman who was detained by the Iranian morality police. Raisi`s comments on Saturday came as protesters took to the streets for a ninth consecutive night. Iranian President on Saturday spoke to a relative of the Basij paramilitary member who had been killed while taking part in a crackdown in the northeastern city of Mashhad. Also read: Iran restricts internet until calm is restored amid Anti-Hijab protests over Mahsa Amini's death The President is quoted as saying that Iran must "deal decisively with those who oppose the country`s security and tranquillity," according to Al Jazeera citing State media. The President stressed "the necessity to distinguish between protest and disturbing public order and security, and called the events ... a riot," state media reported. As per Al Jazeera, Mahsa Amini, 22, was on a visit to Tehran with her family when she was detained by the specialist police unit. During detention after some time, she suffered a heart attack and was immediately taken to hospital with the cooperation of the emergency services."Unfortunately, she died and her body was transferred to the medical examiner`s office," state television said on Friday, reported Al Jazeera. Also read: Iranian govt fails to suppress Anti-Hijab protests, unrest spreads in more cities The announcement came a day after Tehran police confirmed Amini had been detained with other women for "instruction" about the rules. Following the death of Mahsa Amini, several women protesters cut their hair and burnt hijabs to protest against the mandatory veiling of women. Amini fell into a coma at the detention centre and died in hospital on September 16. Iranian authorities said she died of a heart attack, and claimed her death was from natural causes. However, some reports suggested that Amini`s death resulted from alleged torture and ill-treatment, the experts said. Amini`s death comes amid growing controversy both inside and outside Iran over the conduct of the morality police, known formally as the Gasht-e Ershad (Guidance Patrol). The mandatory dress code, which applies to all nationalities and religions, not just Iranian Muslims, requires women to conceal their hair and neck with a headscarf, reported Al Jazeera. Her death has now become a symbol of the violent oppression women have faced in Iran for decades. Over the decades, women have increasingly pushed back, particularly in the big cities, wearing their headscarves far back on their heads to reveal their hair. China Coup Rumours and Xi Jinping's house arrest: What happens in China, stays in China - and the world never gets to know about what's happening inside the big buildings of Beijing, that affects the planet each and every second in one way or another. Be it Covid - that many say originated from a laboratory in Wuhan or secret tests of nuclear weapons or providing aid to nations like North Korea - what's decided in Beijing, the world never gets to know. This time around, massive rumours of political turmoil in the Communist nation are making rounds on social media. The rumours have been started - and are being corroborated by the Chinese nationals themselves. A large number of Twitteratis, who are active social media users, believe that Chinese president Xi Jinping is in some sort of political trouble. According to them, everything is NOT okay between the country's army and the ruling Communist Party of China. Some even say that a senior military commander, Li Qiaoming, may soon succeed Xi Jinping as the president of the country. However, there has been no official comment on such rumours - either to deny or to confirm them - has been made so far from China's side. Xi Jinping 'Goes Missing' The biggest question is - why hasn't there been an official comment from China's foreign or the interior ministry on such speculations? The other big question is - where Xi Jinping. It has been days since he had made his last public appearance. Last but not least - why have 9,000 flights had been cancelled by Chinese authorities in a very short span of time? Here's a closer look at the China coup rumours Social media is abuzz with the rumours of Chinese President Xi Jinping being put under house arrest, and a possible coup taking place in the country, a week after two of its former minister were sentenced for corruption - a highly controversial decision in nation's history. An unprecedented military movement was seen towards Xi Jinping's residence in Beijing. Military vehicles were seen making a movement close to Xi's residence. A few puported videos of such movements have also gone viral on social media. However, their is no official confirmation on the same. A number of social media users from China said that a coup was almost confirmed as the country, without giving any specific reason, cancelled over 9,000 domestic flights. Some even said that military chief General Li Qiaoming is set to become next President. "PLA military vehicles heading to #Beijing on Sep 22. Starting from Huanlai County near Beijing & ending in Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, entire procession as long as 80 KM. Meanwhile, rumor has it that #XiJinping was under arrest after #CCP seniors removed him as head of PLA," a Twitter user who goes by the name Jennifer Zeng said. "Something big is happening in China.. maybe a coup. 6000 flights have been canceled and there is big military movement going on," a social media user who goes by the name of Steve Smith said. Cubans voted in a landmark referendum on Sunday, 25th September to decide whether to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption, allow surrogate pregnancies and give better rights to non-biological parents. Almost 6 million Cubans (around 69% of eligible voters) voted in the referendum, according to electoral officials. Over 8 million Cubans over the age of 16 were eligible to vote "yes" or "no" for the proposal, which is supported by the communist government but criticized by Catholic and evangelical church leaders, reported DW News. More than 79,000 neighbourhood meetings were held earlier this year to debate the proposal, which is backed by the communist government. Church leaders have expressed opposition to the idea. The final week of campaigning saw the government flood TV, radio and social media with pro-equality messages, along with glitzy billboards, public rallies and tweets from President Miguel Diaz-Canel urging Cubans to vote yes "in favour of democracy" as reported. The official attitude toward homosexuality has changed significantly over the past 20 years after decades of persecution. In 2019, the government sought to include same-sex marriage in the country's new constitution but backed down after criticism from the Church. The Conference of Bishops has once again come out against the current proposal. Political scientist Rafael Hernandez said the referendum on same-sex marriage is the "most important human rights legislation" in Cuba since the 1959 revolution. However, the current economic unrest may overshadow Cuba's historic vote. Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in 30 years due to a collapse in international tourism and ongoing US sanctions. ROME: Giorgia Meloni looks set to become Italy's first woman prime minister at the head of its most right-wing government since World War Two after leading a conservative alliance to triumph at Sunday's election. Provisional results showed the rightist bloc should have a strong majority in both houses of parliament, potentially giving Italy a rare chance of political stability after years of upheaval and fragile coalitions. However, Meloni and her allies face a daunting list of challenges, including soaring energy prices, the war in Ukraine and a renewed slowdown in the euro zone's third-largest economy. "We must remember that we are not at the endpoint, we are at the starting point. It is from tomorrow that we must prove our worth," the 45-year-old Meloni told cheering supporters of her nationalist Brothers of Italy party early Monday morning. Non tradiremo la vostra fiducia. Siamo #pronti a risollevare lItalia GRAZIE! pic.twitter.com/DabIIuhORK Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) September 26, 2022 Meloni plays down her party's post-fascist roots and portrays it as a mainstream group like Britain's Conservatives. She has pledged to back Western policy on Ukraine and not take risks with Italy's fragile finances. European capitals and financial markets will carefully scrutinize her early moves, given her eurosceptic past and her allies' ambivalent position on Russia. In her victory speech, Meloni struck a conciliatory tone. "If we are called on to govern this nation we will do it for all the Italians, with the aim of uniting the people and focusing on what unites us rather than what divides us," she said. "This is a time for being responsible." Meloni will take over from Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, who pushed Rome to the centre of EU policy-making during his 18-month stint in office, forging close ties with Paris and Berlin. New York: At the ongoing United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session India has been winning praise from several developing and developed nations both for its economic and foreign policy. Some of the most powerful voices, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and French President Emmanuel Macron have referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's India in a positive light, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also acknowledged the key role India can play in the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Also Read: Russia-Ukraine war: India is on the side of peace and will remain firmly there, Jaishankar tells UNGA Countries like France, Jamaica, and Portugal also heaped praise on India. While referring to PM Modi`s earlier remarks to Russian President Vladimir Putin, France`s Macron was the first one to praise India, saying Narendra Modi, was right about the time being not right for war. "It is not for revenge against the West or for opposing the West against the east. It is the time for a collective time for our sovereign equal states. To cope together with challenges, we face," Macron said while referring to the conversation between PM Modi and Putin during the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Samarkand. UN chief Guterres, in his message to a special `India@75` event on showcasing the `India-UN Partnership in Action`, underlined that as home to the largest youth generation in history, India will be decisive in the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "Looking ahead, India, home to the largest youth generation in history will be decisive in the success of the Sustainable Development Goals, and reiterating Prime Minister Modi - as you reform, the world transforms," Guterres said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov "explicitly` backed India for a permanent seat, straight 60 minutes after he met up with his Indian counterpart. Addressing the UNGA session, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said that the country sees India as a "key international actor" and a "worthy candidate for permanent membership within the Council." Another high-level delegate to praise India was Jamaica Foreign Minister Kamina J Smith, who expressed gratitude towards India for its assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith said that Kingston is grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government, and its people for the vaccines during the pandemic. Addressing a high-level UN General Assembly session here, the Foreign Minister said that India is a reliable partner. "From the very onset, India was a reliable partner whose assistance was critical to our pandemic response. India embraced a holistic and outward-looking vaccine diplomacy strategy. Jamaica was able to secure its first life-saving vaccines from India," she said in New York. Guyana Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd also hailed India in UNGA. "Small countries like Guyana would have benefitted immensely from India`s growth trajectory as it has always been an economy that focuses on human development, putting humans ahead of any other form of development," he said. On Thursday, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa called for UNSC reform that should include representation of India, Brazil, and Africa continent at the UN Security Council. Addressing the General Assembly, Costa advocated for a Security Council that incorporates a comprehensive view of security and gives fair representation to small countries. Speaking on the long-pending issues of UN reforms, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that there has been a "shift" on the issue of UN reforms among the international community that was seen this week. "In respect of UN reform, every General Assembly (session) you revisit that issue, but this time something has shifted. You can see that, you can sense that," Jaishankar told reporters on Saturday as he wrapped up the New York leg of his visit to the US with his address to the UNGA high-level session. Jaishankar said it is not that only he has sensed a shift on the issue of UN reforms. "I think everybody sensed a shift and it`s something which others actually brought up with me". Islamabad: PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry has claimed that 100 hours-long conversations of Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have been put up for sale on the dark web for $3.5 million (around Rs 28 crore) and criticised security agencies for overlooking the "sensitive" matter of audio leaks, media reports said. Expressing shock over purported leaked audio clips of government officials, he said: "Even the office of the prime minister of the nuclear-armed country is not safe," Express Tribune reported. Commenting on one of the leaked audio clips featuring a conversation between the Premier and a government official, Fawad said the conversation showed that decisions were being made in London. "(In the audio clip) Maryam Nawaz is demanding Shehbaz Sharif to clear the way for her son-in-law`s machinery import from India," he remarked. 2) (transshipment ) ( ) () pic.twitter.com/sMzhhZD4Mx Azhar Mashwani (@MashwaniAzhar) September 24, 2022 Chaudhry criticised the country`s security agencies, saying: "They would have cared about this sensitive matter if they had got time from political matters." He also expressed surprise over the silence of the government officials on the matter, Express Tribune reported. Another PTI leader Mirza Shahzad Akbar said the audio leak scandal was not a hacking but definitely an inside job, aimed at influencing the government`s decision-making ahead of crucial appointments. "First it`s not a hack into the system (and) hacker (and) dark web seems cover story, our systems are based on analogue and not digital, in fact, that`s one way of Pak cyber security," he said while sharing his sources-based information on the matter. Akbar, who served as PM`s aide on accountability during PTI`s tenure in power, added that the timing of the leak was important "as it`s just before the crucial appointment, target seems clearly to influence the decision, which way though only time will tell!". Pakistan Information and Broadcasting Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb on Sunday said the audio leak has proved that neither an illegal act was committed nor any undue advantage was given to anyone. In a statement, she claimed that the power plant was imported from India under a policy and law formulated during Imran Khan`s tenure, Samaa TV reported. "There is a high court order on installation of grid station on 18 July 2022," she said while clarifying the two issues discussed in the audio leak of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Samaa TV reported. An alleged telephonic conversation of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif with a Prime Minister House`s official is making rounds on social media in which the latter could be heard talking with the Prime Minister regarding Maryam Nawaz`s alleged influence in government affairs. In the audio tape, the government official is talking with PM Shehbaz Sharif about importing a power plant from India on behalf of the son-in-law of Maryam Nawaz Sharif. During the conversation, the PM House official could be heard advising the premier to not import a plant from India as the step will harm the reputation of government. "The problem is that that matter will first go to AC and then to the cabinet and importing machinery from India on the instructions of the Prime Minister won`t be easy as it can become an issue," the official could be heard replying to PM, Samaa TV reported. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday said that Maryam Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif`s audio leaks prove that the Sharif family can illegally import machinery from India for their personal benefit, Samaa TV reported. About the alleged audio leak, he said that Maryam wanted to illegally import machinery from India for her son-in-law`s factory. He added that Pakistan cut off all trade ties with India after it abolished Kashmiris` right to self-determination and violated the UN charter. But, this government is trying to restore ties with India, they are ready to neglect the struggle of Kashmiris for their personal benefit, he added, Samaa TV reported. Imran Khan said that the audio leak proves that the Sharif family`s only purpose is to hoard money and nothing else, adding that 60 per cent of the federal cabinet was facing corruption charges and that it had derailed the accountability process by amending the NAB laws. We all know the adage "history is written by the victors." Without a healthy dose of skepticism, taking the historical record at face value is a recipe for misinformation. With their series Ancient Civilizations, the Gaia network investigates the strangest mysteries lurking amid the ruins and weathered relicsand urges us to reevaluate our perspective on ancient civilizations. Sites like Gobekli Tepe, the Tellem burial caves of the Dogon tribe in Mali, and, of course, the pyramids and temples of Egypt each possess puzzling secrets that indicate the existence of ancient cultures with an understanding of science and astronomy that challenge our perception of the knowledge available in those eras. I got a chance to sit down with two researchers from Gaia's Ancient Civilizations, authors Matt LaCroix and Kaedrich Olsen, to discuss what makes these sites compelling, why we should probe deeper into their origins, and what evidence supports their claims. BOING BOING: Throughout the Ancient Civilizations program, the phrases prediluvian and antediluvian pop up quite often. Can you explain why these phrases are so important? Kaedrich Olsen: Yeah, Prediluvian and antediluvian are actually the same thing. They're just different ways of saying it. "Ante" being like the front. You know, the anterior chain of the body. So, antediluvian, prediluvian, they're synonymous. And what we're referring to there is, at some point in history, all of these cultures talk about a worldwide flood or a flood that happened. And we are starting to uncover more evidence to show that this did indeed happen, outside of ideological or biblical references or anything, that there's definitely some evidence of that. And we are exploring the cultures and civilizations that would have existed before this massive deluge came in. Matt LaCroix: That was nicely said, Kaedrich. But specifically, the time period has been associated with a specific point in our history that's been identified and generally agreed upon by many, many different groups that are in these studies. And that time period is known as the Younger Dryas period of Earth's history, which was somewhere between ten and a half and about twelve and a half[to] 12,800 years ago. So ten and a half to 13,000 years was this period identified from ice cores and geologic evidence as being this volatile time in Earth's history. BOING BOING: What caused this volatility? ML: Those sources are something that we debate and discuss in the series. But regardless of what caused them, it's basically a period of great Earth upheaval and disasters that affected huge areas of the globe. And commonly, the idea is that something shifted tectonic plates, or there was a cosmic impact, that, at one point during that, [caused] a massive rise of both ocean levels, but also maybe tsunamis that traveled around and completely destroyed and wiped out cultures. And that is generally considered the great flood or great deluge, which is what is called this diluvian period of history. Prediluvian is anything before about 12,000 years ago. That existed and was wiped out and disappeared. BOING BOING: The series speaks about several relics that have survived to the present that could have roots in prediluvian history. If sites like the Temple of Edfu in Egypt or Gobekli Tepe are older than the historical record indicates- and they allude to an advanced ancient civilization- why has history turned a blind eye to this? Why isn't this a commonly accepted theory? KO: That's one of the things Matt and I talk about all the time. You know, like, "Why are these things not more public record? Why are they not out there?" And one of the things that we keep coming across is that there is the established norm, which is fine. The established norm of scientific precedent has set whatever things into motion. And it's our finding that people have based their careers on these scientific precedents. You know, they feed their families with it; they take care of their homes with it; and now comes along somebody who finds like Gobekli Tepe, for example, looks at it and goes, "Oh, oh, oh, this is older than we thought it was." [The established scientist] buries it, hides it, and says, "Nope, I'm not ruining My career because this goes against the established norms." and then later on, decades later, somebody comes across it and goes, "Wait a minute, why are we talking about this? What's going on here?" ML: I actually go a little bit deeper in my personal opinion looking at it. When you see something like the Roman Empire and how they started to alter history and destroy certain libraries around the world, and [how] they were fighting for this established viewpoint/narrative of both religious background studies, as well as scientific and historical information. It seems to be something that started there in an organized way. Where they said, "Okay, we're going to teach this certain perspective, and this is what's going to be established because of Christianity." So, it gets into some religious connotations on how the Bible talks about how everything was created, let's say, like five or six thousand years ago. We find that civil human civilizations are considered to have emerged out of being nomadic five and a half to six thousand years ago. I think it's more of a Christian origin on how [those historical alterations] got started. KO: And that is one of the things we came across in our research [are] those people who were geologists and archaeologists [setting out] with the specific intent, to prove the Bible correct. And so, that's one of the things that we do in our research; we don't try to go with any sort of predetermined conclusion. We try to get the data, we try to get the information, and put the pieces together and go, "Oh, here's the better questions to ask." I try to emphasize all the time [that] we're not answering anything. We're trying to find better questions. And we put the data together to come up with like a, "Oh, What does this mean? Oh, what is that? uncover, what's going on here?" So that we don't give answers. We don't say, "This is definitively what happened." We want to go, "Could this be what happened? And if so what does that mean? And what does that mean for us?" BOING BOING: For the sake of argument, let's suppose the data you're accruing is correct. What piece of undeniable evidence do you think would cause people to take this work seriously? Or does that evidence already exist, in your opinion? ML: There's actually quite a few [pieces of evidence]. You call them, like, "smoking gun evidence areas," right? Like, these things you present and say, "Hey, look, Gobekli Tepe is astronomically perfect [at] tracking the cosmos, and yet it's double as old as civilization supposed to be. How could they have known about the cosmos if they were primitive?" Or, like, how did the Dogon tribe of Mali [in] West Africa, that had Egyptian information, how could they have known about a star before it was even discovered with telescopes? Before[telescopes] were even invented? How could civilizations [have] constructed these giant megalithic stones in perfection using granite, and yet civilizations less than 6,000 years old were only supposed to have achieved the Bronze Age tools at that time period? Which means that bronze tools never could've manipulated granite because granite is a harder material, so it's impossible. It's like taking a piece of plastic and trying to carve a rock. It doesn't do anything. KO: I think probably the biggest question is, "How is this relevant to me today?" And, it's like what Matt was saying, once upon a time, if they had these tools that we don't have today, they have this knowledge that we don't have today; what would our world be like if we could reclaim that knowledge? What if we could reclaim those techniques? What would we be doing now if that chain of knowledge was unbroken? So how is that relevant to me today? Like, who are we? Who have we always been, and what can we do to recover those ancient ways? BOING BOING: When I hear stories like this and stuff from "Ancient Aliens," my mind always goes to Occam's razor, in that the most straightforward answer is probably the best. All of the theories and questions posed in the series are very elaborate compared to the historical record. Why do you feel Occam's razor gives your ideas an edge, as opposed to just shredding right through them? KO: Yeah, we try to avoid[alien intervention], but we do agree with Occam's razor. Go to the simplest answer. What if there was a common knowledge? What if there was a civilization around for a lot longer than we thought of, and they had come up to these realizations? [What if] they came to this understanding, and they had some means, I don't know, learning it? So, the simplest answer is they knew. We don't know how they [knew]; that's the big question, "how did they know?" But the simplest answer is they knew, and they were able to use that. But I don't know how they knew. We're still looking for that one. ML: And it's not really about having this cool story that we're trying to fit things to. And I think that perspective sometimes gets stuck in people's eyes. Like you said, "Oh, it's aliens." It's this idea that if something doesn't exactly match our understanding, then it has to be part of this narrative that people seem to sometimes get frustrated over because they've heard it too many times, and then they reject it. It's almost like they don't want to hear it anymore because they haven't accepted it as being possible. And so [they think] we're just formulating things around that to match that. But really, it's the complete opposite. BOING BOING: So what would you say to someone who is 100% skeptical of everything you're talking about? What do you talk about in the series that would cause even the staunchest skeptic to take a second look? ML: I would say look at how we extensively talk about dating geologically, looking at ice core samples from Antarctica and Greenland, giving specific dates for when there was a distinctive thing we can see, looking at a 20,000-year history of this event that exactly matches the description that Plato gives of when these civilizations were destroyed, like Atlantis. And [how] the Sumerian king list, specifically states a period of a great flood, and the different dating and time periods of when the kings ruled, that all matches up. I would tell people to look at the data and keep an open mind [to notice] if what they're seeing matches the narrative we're taught. Like, for instance, these megalithic stones that are built with such precision that it would have been impossible for a primitive civilization to be able to build them. [Or] how precisely they were able to use the materials they built them with. [Or] how they would sometimes carry stones hundreds and hundreds of miles, multi-ton stones, to build these[structures also doesn't] fit the narrative. So, look at this with fresh eyes and just see for a minute if that makes sense. Having an alternative view based on the evidence, just see if that makes sense logically. KO: This is kind of funny. You may have never found a bigger skeptic on the worldwide flood than me. Because, looking around, sure there are documentations of regional floods. And when we're looking at some of these prehistoric societies- shall we use that term-when their world flooded, that was their whole world flooded. And when we, in our 21st century, go back and read the documents and we say, "Oh, the world flooded," we tend to project our concept of what the world means to them when they just meant their region. And so I was going, "No, there's no worldwide flood, never happened, not at all." Then as we're digging into the data [and], we're digging into the studies, we're finding that the floor of the ocean suggests that there wasn't as much water then. We're digging in deeper. And so as we start uncovering this evidence, actual evidence from the geological record and from archaeoastronomers, we're going into this, and I suddenly went, "Oh, I need to rethink what I thought I knew about things." You can check out the Ancient Civilizations series on the Gaia network. Moscow: A gunman killed 13 people, including seven children, and wounded 21 other people in a school in central Russia on Monday, authorities said. Russia's Investigative Committee said the shooting took place in a school in Izhevsk, a city about 960 kilometres (600 miles) east of Moscow in the Udmurtia region. Those wounded were 14 children and 7 adults, the Committee said. Governor of Udmurtia Alexander Brechalov said in a video statement that the gunman shot himself. The school educated children between grades 1 and 11. It has been evacuated and the area around it has been fenced off, the governor said. Izhevsk, a city of 640,000, is located west of the Ural mountains in central Russia. Local sources citing the authorities said that the death toll is likely to go up. A local MP said that "the gunman was armed with two non-lethal pistols that had been altered to fire live ordnance". The school administration said students and teachers had been evacuated. Russian media have posted videos which appear to show panic inside the building where the shooting took place, reported the BBC. Some footage shows blood on a classroom floor and a bullet hole in a window, with children crouching down underneath desks. The head of the region has announced a mourning period until Thursday. In May last year, a school shooting occurred in Kazan, Tatarstan, which claimed the lives of seven students and two teachers. The 19-year-old shooter was identified as a former student. Tokyo: A rare state funeral for Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who was assassinated in July, has split Japan. The hawkish Abe was one of the nation's most divisive postwar leaders, but it is the ruling party's cozy ties with the ultra-conservative Unification Church that has fired up much of the opposition to the funeral. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is battling a near-continuous political fallout from his handling of both the links to the church among his party's lawmakers and the state funeral he says Abe deserves. A look at some of the reasons why the state funeral on Tuesday is causing so much anger: WHO GETS A STATE FUNERAL IN JAPAN? The tradition has roots in a ceremony performed by the emperor to honour those who made exceptional contributions to the country. The emperor before World War II was revered as a god, and public mourning for those honored with state funerals was compulsory. Most state funerals were for members of the imperial family, but political and military leaders were also honored, including Isoroku Yamamoto, who commanded Japan's Pearl Harbour attack and died in 1943. The state funeral law was scrapped after the war. Japan's only other state funeral for a political leader since then was held in 1967 for Shigeru Yoshida, who signed the San Francisco Treaty ending the US occupation of Japan and restoring ties with the Allies. Because of criticism that the Yoshida funeral was held without any legal basis, subsequent governments scaled down such events. "A state funeral contradicts the spirit of democracy," said Junichi Miyama, a historian at Chuo University. WHY IS ABE GETTING A STATE FUNERAL? Kishida says Abe deserves a state funeral because he was the longest-serving leader in Japan's modern political history and for his diplomatic, security and economic policies that elevated Japan's international profile. Kishida, noting Abe's assassination during an election campaign, says Japan must show its determination never to bow to "violence against democracy". Political watchers say holding a state funeral for Abe is Kishida's attempt to please ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers belonging to Abe's conservative political faction so as to buttress his own grip on power. Koichi Nakano, international politics professor at Sophia University, says the funeral is an attempt to whitewash Abe's legacy and to cover up scandals linked to the Unification Church. The church is accused of inappropriate recruitment and business tactics but denies the charges. WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL? Opponents say it's undemocratic, citing a lack of a clear legal basis and the unilateral decision by the Kishida Cabinet to hold the funeral. Abe's opponents recall his attempts to whitewash Japan's wartime atrocities, his push for more military spending, his reactionary view of gender roles and a leadership seen as autocratic and supportive of cronyism. Protests of the funeral have increased as more details emerged about Abe's and LDP lawmakers' connection to the Unification Church. The South Korea-based church has built close ties with LDP lawmakers over shared interests in conservative causes. Abe's assassin reportedly was enraged about ties between Abe, his party and the church, which he said his mother had given all the family's money to. Abe, whose grandfather and former leader Nobusuke Kishi helped the church to take root in Japan, is now seen as a key figure in the scandal. Opponents say holding a state funeral for Abe is equivalent to an endorsement of party ties to the Unification Church. A group of lawyers filed a lawsuit trying to stop the funeral, but it was reportedly dismissed Monday. And an elderly man had set himself on fire near the prime minister's office in an apparent protest of the funeral. WHAT'S THE COST? About 1.7 billion yen ($11.8 million) is needed for the venue, security, transportation and accommodation for the guests, the government said. Opponents say tax money should be spent on more meaningful causes, such as to address widening economic disparities caused by Abe's policies. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR KISHIDA? Kishida, who took office a year ago, had enjoyed stable public support, with his July election victory seemingly securing him a way to rule for up to three years. But his support ratings have since plunged over his handling of the state funeral and his governing party's links to the South Korean church. An LDP survey found nearly half of its lawmakers had ties to the church. Kishida has pledged to all ties, but many Japanese want a further explanation of how the church may have influenced party policies. WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE FUNERAL? Guests will gather hours ahead of the funeral at the Budokan martial arts arena in downtown Tokyo for security checks, which have been tightened after Abe's assassination. No food or drinks are allowed inside, and use of personal computers or cameras are limited to media. About 1,000 Japanese troops will line the streets around the venue. The ceremony will start with a 19-volley salute, as in Yoshida's funeral. Government, parliamentary and judicial representatives, including Kishida, will make condolence speeches, followed by Abe's widow, Akie Abe. Outside the arena, a table for flowers will be set up for the public. The government says the funeral is not meant to force anyone to honor Abe. But most of the nation's 47 prefectural governments will fly the flag at half-mast and observe a moment of silence, which could put pressure on public schools. Residents and offices near the venue will be affected by traffic controls and security checkpoints, and classes will be canceled at some neighborhood schools. Opponents will hold rallies around the country. WHO WILL ATTEND SHINZO ABE'S FUNERAL? US Vice President Kamala Harris as well as the leaders from Australia, India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore will be there. Kishida says the event will provide an opportunity for him to engage in "funeral diplomacy". The government said last week 4,300 attendants, including foreign dignitaries, Japanese lawmakers, municipal leaders and representatives from business, cultural and other areas, are attending - fewer than the 6,000 invited. Many opposition members, including the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party, are boycotting the funeral. Washington: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has raised questions over the "merits" of the US-Pakistan relationship and said that Washington's ties with Islamabad have not served the "American interest". "It`s a relationship that has neither ended up serving Pakistan well nor serving the American interests," Jaishankar said at an event organized by the Indian American community in Washington on Sunday. Also Read: 'Key international actor': India wins global praise at UNGA for foreign, economic policy The remarks were made when the Indian minister was questioned by the audience on US action on F-16 fighter jets with Pakistan. Just weeks ago, for the first time since 2018, US State Department approved a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to the Government of Pakistan for the sustainability of the Pakistan Air Force F-16 fleet and equipment at the cost of USD 450 million. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh promptly conveyed to US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin India`s concerns over Washington`s decision to provide a sustenance package for Pakistan`s F-16 fleet."It`s really for the United States today to reflect on the merits of this relationship and what they get by it," Jaishankar asserted. "For someone to say I am doing this because it is all counter-terrorism content and so when you are talking of an aircraft like a capability of an F-16 where everybody knows, you know where they are deployed and their use. You are not fooling anybody by saying these things," Jaishankar noted. "If I were to speak to an American policy-maker, I would really make the case (that) look what you are doing," Jaishankar strongly asserted. Jaishankar on Saturday concluded the high-level United Nations General Assembly debate in New York and is scheduled to spend the next three days in Washington. The minister is scheduled to meet with his American counterpart Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and other top officials of the Biden administration. Jerry Hsu is a professional skateboarder. It is lore that Taiwanese-American skater phenom Jerry Hsu is best-known for his part in Emerica's 2010 release Stay Gold , where he skates switch for the entire video. Skating switch essentially means leading with your non-dominant foot, while doing the same tricks. Changing your stance is not necessarily skating backward, but adjusting your weight and forward momentum to appear as if you are going "forward". Prior to filming, Hsu had sustained a serious injury to his knees and ankles, limiting his range and pop so, he switched it up, an almost mirror-image, a bit like a film negative printed backward. As reported recently in GQ Magazine , "Hsu's greatest contribution to skateboarding may be something a little more abstract: he made highly-technical street skating appear effortless. Style is everything in skateboarding, and Hsu proved that it didn't have to be sacrificed in order to do mind-bogglingly difficult stuff." Jerry Hsu is a professional photographer. He can both be that mind-boggling body doing the difficult stuff, and capture the styles of other people, animals, and stills of people doing their own, every day, mind-boggling stuff. As Hero Magazine explains, "Jerry Hsu began his blog, NAZI GOLD, in 2009. A curated feed of cell phone photos combined with classic photography and film to spotlight Hsu's sharp-wit and flair for capturing life's ironies and absurdities: from polemic religious slogans to fish guts and dogs hanging out of cars. Now, these images have been collated into a new book by Hsu titled, The Beautiful Flower Is the Worldtaken from a mistranslated tee he spotted in China." He recently shot the images for an Los Angeles Times Magazine food story, "Fly fishing for 'sewer salmon' in the LA River." Jerry Hsu is a business owner and designer. In 2019, unsponsoredby choicefor the first time since his early teens, Hsu created Sci-Fi Fantasy , his skater-owned artistic outlet. "I was interested in not being sponsored. I've been sponsored all my life, I've been a pro skater for like 20 years, since I was 16, so I got kinda burnt That was hard because all my incomehalf by choice and half not by choicejust evaporated. But luckily I had started Sci-Fi already, so it was filling the gap that skating was providing income-wise. And now I'm just free to do all my creative stuff and I don't need to worry about skating. But I'm still skating. I just have more choices now. I get to do what I want." Sci-Fi Fantasy gear has been spotted on Zendaya, who plays Rue Bennett on the hit Netflix show, Euphoria. Kat Danabassis, to whom Hsu is married, came up with the name and finalized the logo. Danabassis works as assistant to Heidi Bevins, the designer behind Euphoria's style. Hsu explains his approach: "I am a huge fan of the sci-fi fi fantasy genre, but I don't want to make the company too on the nose and kinda of restricting. So, I base the designs on very clean, basic graphic design. I also dabble in corporate graphic design. My parents were computer engineers, so electronics catalogs would always come to the house, and I kinda grew up around that sort of Silicon Valley design. I use a lot of that as a source." Check out the first official skate team video here, featuring Ryan Lay and Arin. Skate style, photography, and streetwear collabs come together in Hsu's latest project with iconic 1980s brand Jimmy'z and London-based Palace Skateboards . Hsu brings his rad photographer skills shooting the images for the release of this un-anticipated but right-on collaboration. Jimmy'z was founded in 1984 by artist and surfer Jim Ganzer. This is around the same time that Sean Stussy was scribbling his name on T-shirts and hats, and selling them out of his trunk. A who's who of skateboarders rode for the brand, perhaps most well-known for the attached velcro belt that functioned as a closure for their pants and shorts. Ganzer was super connected with the Hollywood art scene. According to this interview, the phrase used by Jeff Bridges in The Big Labowski, "The Dude abides," was actually a saying Ganzer created. He and Bridges were friends. As a result, like SciFi Fantasy, Jimmy'z was worn not only by the gnarliest and most stylish skateboarders, but by Hollywood's biggest stars, including Jack Nicholson. The brand was sold to Aeropostale and was never the same. In 2011, the brand was purchased back and revived by Black Harrington. You can now order online. There is also an Instagram page with images of classic t-shirts and advertising. Take a ride back in time. As Hypebeast reports, "Lev Tanju is the founder of London-based Palace Skateboards. Born and raised in London, Tanju initially began designing skateboard graphics, before founding Palace Skateboards in 2010 primarily as a way to fund his skateboarding lifestyle. Bringing a decidedly British aesthetic to a culture dominated largely by the American West Coast, Tanju's label saw a meteoric rise within the skateboarding world" Axel C. Cox, 23, burned a cross in his own front yard and directed racist threats at black neighbors. He was last week indicted on charges of criminal interference with the right to fair housing and using fire to commit a federal felony, things he doubtlessly thought were covered under the aegis of free speech. The housing rights charge comes with a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison, while the arson charge is a minimum of 10 years in prison, consecutive to any other sentence, and a fine of up to $250,000 for each charge. He is being held without bond. Here's the Department of Justice's press release. The indictment alleges that on Dec. 3, 2020, Cox threatened, intimidated and interfered with a Black family's enjoyment of their housing rights. According to the indictment, Cox burned a cross in his front yard, and used threatening and racially derogatory remarks toward his Black neighbors. Cox allegedly chose to burn the cross because of the victims' race. Trial's set for November. The Guardian reports that Buckingham Palace is demanding UK broadcasters remove clips of recent royal footage, including almost all their coverage of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and memorial. The BBC, ITV and Sky News have been given until Monday to produce a 60-minute compilation of clips they would like to keep from ceremonial events held across the 10 days of mourning for the Queen. The royal household will then consider whether to veto any proposed inclusions. Once the process is complete, the vast majority of other footage from ceremonial events will then be taken out of circulation. Any news outlets wishing to use unapproved pieces of footage would have to apply to the royal family on a case-by-case basis, even for material that has already been broadcast to tens of millions of people. "It's completely illogical and doesn't make sense," said one journalist with knowledge of the negotiations. "We're furious that they're trying to restrict how people can relive sombre but important historic events." The clips are everywhere and the only possible outcome is more people seeing them. It isn't clear from The Guardian's story how the palace intends to enforce this or why UK media is bound to comply. Not does it say what happens if the UK media outlets refuse to comply. Sources cry censorship, but from the coverage it appears the only punishment for not complying is displeasure. If that's it, the real dynamic here is that they're all access journalists dependent on the palace for content, wriggling on the hooks of their own unwritten NDAs. Let's hear more about this WhatsApp group where palace flacks give major broadcasters their marching orders. From the clip above, it looks like Netflix's Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story released last Wednesday did an amazing job recreating a scene from the serial killer's trial in which Rita Isbell, sister of 19-year-old victim Errol Lindsey, gave her emotional victim impact statement. But it sounds like Netflix did a piss-poor job of showing respect to the families of Dahmer's victims during the making of the show. Isbell says the show's creators were wrong, not necessarily in their telling of the story, but in how they never reached out to her and never compensated her family, even though they wrote her into the script. "I was never contacted about the show. I feel like Netflix should've asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn't ask me anything. They just did it," she told Insider. "I could even understand it if they gave some of the money to the victims' children. Not necessarily their families. I mean, I'm old. I'm very, very comfortable," she said. "But the victims have children and grandchildren. If the show benefited them in some way, it wouldn't feel so harsh and careless." Watching part of Monster the scene in which she was portrayed in the courtroom (by actor DaShawn Barnes) stirred up old, hurt emotions, but it also made her realize she can talk about the tragedy now without the anger she had in 1992. "It's sad that they're just making money off of this tragedy. That's just greed," she said. "The episode with me was the only part I saw. I didn't watch the whole show. I don't need to watch it. I lived it. I know exactly what happened." Isbell's cousin, Eric Perry, echoed her sentiments. "I'm not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge rn, but if you're actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell's) are pissed about this show," he tweeted on Thursday. "Like recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD. WIIIIIILD" he also said. From Los Angeles Times: In another pair of tweets shared Thursday evening, Perry said that the creative teams behind true crime projects "don't notify families when they do this," since it's "all public record." "My family found out when everyone else did," he said. "So when they say they're doing this 'with respect to the victims' or 'honoring the dignity of the families,' no one contacts them," he continued. "My cousins wake up every few months at this point with a bunch of calls and messages and they know there's another Dahmer show. It's cruel." I'm not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge rn, but if you're actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell's) are pissed about this show. It's retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need? https://t.co/CRQjXWAvjx eric. (@ericthulhu) September 22, 2022 There is no question Mark Meadows was texting with election conspiracy fanboi Phil Waldron and being kept appraised of his efforts to steal the election in Arizona. Who may never know precisely who called one of the rebels during their attack on the US Capitol from the White House, but we know the 9-second phone call was placed and answered. CNN: Phil Waldron, an early proponent of various election-related conspiracy theories, texted Meadows on December 23 that an Arizona judge had dismissed a lawsuit filed by friendly GOP lawmakers there. The suit demanded state election officials hand over voting machines and other election equipment, as part of the hunt for evidence to support Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud. In relaying the news to Meadows, Waldron said the decision would allow opponents to engage in "delay tactics" preventing Waldron and his associates from immediately accessing machines. Waldron also characterized Arizona as "our lead domino we were counting on to start the cascade," referring to similar efforts in other states like Georgia. "Pathetic," Meadows responded. The messages, which have not been previously reported, shed new light on how Waldron's reach extended into the highest levels of the White House and the extent to which Meadows was kept abreast of plans for accessing voting machines, a topic sources tell CNN, and court documents suggest, is of particular interest to state and federal prosecutors probing efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It was one of his first major investments in Buffalo, but developer Nick Sinatra has sold the Fenton Village Apartments to Symphony Property Management for $7.3 million as he focuses his attention and resources on other projects. Sinatra, through a limited-liability company, sold the 33-unit complex at 935-945 W. Ferry St., between Main Street and Linwood Avenue, to the Buffalo-based firm owned by Timothy LeBoeuf. The deal includes six properties the two on West Ferry, as well as 1514, 1516, 1524 and 1526 Main. Sign up for the Buffalo Next free newsletter The News' Buffalo Next team covers the changing Buffalo Niagara economy. Get the news in your inbox 5 days a week. Sinatra had purchased the onetime hotel-turned-apartment building in 2011 for $700,000. Sinatra viewed his $5 million rehabilitation of the Fenton as a hallmark project for Sinatra & Co. Real Estate, converting a dilapidated, boarded-up site into apartments and commercial space. Fenton now features one- and two-bedroom apartments that rent for $1,300 to $1,600 per month. ated with this sale." Symphony owns 2,000 apartments and 150,000 square feet of commercial space. Its holdings include Fireside, Coventry, Brookhaven and Park Lane luxury apartments, Park Place Collegiate Apartments, the Red Jacket affordable housing, Linwood and Park Lane South senior apartments, two senior and disabled communities, and commercial space in Buffalo, Amherst and Orchard Park. Sinatra, meanwhile, has expanded significantly to include office, retail, commercial and residential properties in Western and Upstate New York, Chicago, Indiana and Florida, with more than 5,000 apartments and nearly 1 million square feet of commercial real estate locally. His $550 million portfolio includes the Phoenix Brewery, Spaulding Building, Mid-City Apartments, Ingleside Apartments and Market Arcade in Buffalo. Currently, he is partnering with Ellicott Development Co. on a $150 million venture to transform the former Women's & Children's Hospital of Buffalo campus into the Elmwood Crossing redevelopment. A former NFTA bus driver admitted in court Monday that she fraudulently obtained $30,213 in workers compensation benefits by misrepresenting the extent of her injuries. Antoinette Laney, 53, of Kenmore, pleaded guilty to a felony grand larceny charge in Erie County Court, District Attorney John Flynn announced. The defendant claimed from 2018 to 2020 that she was unable to drive a Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority bus due to a right knee injury suffered in 2017, but later said she had a lower back and left knee injury, according to county prosecutors. An investigation by the state Inspector General's Office revealed she worked as a personal shopper and grocery delivery driver through Instacart while collecting money through workers compensation. Laney agreed as part of her plea to pay full restitution to the NFTA. She faces a maximum of 4 years in prison when she is sentenced Dec. 19. She was released from custody on her own recognizance until then. A Rochester teenager who wounded another teen in a drive-by shooting in Amherst pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder on Thursday in Erie County Court. According to the Erie County District Attorney's Office, the 18-year-old man also pleaded guilty to first-degree assault. Prosecutors said the defendant was 17 on July 26, 2021, when he was a passenger in a vehicle that passed by another male teenager who was walking on Fairgreen Avenue in Amherst. He used a rifle to shoot the teenager. The driver, Jeremiah Johnson, 20, of Amherst, who was later charged as an accomplice in the shooting, allegedly drove the gunman from the scene. The 17-year-old victim was taken to Erie County Medical Center where he underwent surgery for serious physical injuries, including paralysis. He continues to receive treatment, prosecutors said. The Rochester shooter, who was not named by prosecutors, faces a maximum of 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 7. He remains held without bail. Meanwhile, Johnson is awaiting trial on charges of second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault. Johnson is scheduled to return to court on Friday, Sept. 30 for motions. DOVER, Del. (AP) A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against Democratic Gov. John Carney over Delaware's requirement for political balance on its courts. Fridays ruling is the latest in a long-running legal battle over a major-party provision in Delawares constitution under which judicial appointments to the states three highest courts are split between Republicans and Democrats. The Supreme Court, Court of Chancery and Superior Court are subject to a separate bare majority provision that also applies to Family Court and the Court of Common Pleas. That provision says no more than a bare majority of judges on those courts can be affiliated with a single political party. The result of the major-party provision is that any person not affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic Party is unable serve on the Supreme Court, Superior Court or Court of Chancery. Wilmington lawyer James Adams, a former Democrat who is now an unaffiliated voter, claims that the provision violates his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by barring him from being considered for a judgeship on the Superior Court, a position for which he has twice applied and been rejected. Judge Maryellen Noreika ruled Friday that Adams had legal standing to challenge the major-party provision and denied the governor's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Adams in 2020 on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court said he did not have standing to bring a prior challenge because he had never applied for a judgeship or demonstrated that he was able and ready to apply for one. The Supreme Court instead suggested that a lawsuit Adams filed in 2017 involved an abstract, generalized grievance instead of an actual desire to become a judge. The justices also noted that before filing that lawsuit, Adams had switched his party affiliation to unaffiliated and his bar membership status from emeritus to active. The Supreme Court ruling came after a federal appeals court upheld a 2018 district judges determination that the major-party provision violates the First Amendment by restricting government employment based on political affiliation. Unlike his first lawsuit, the current complaint includes details of Adams preparation and readiness to apply for a judgeship. It also notes that he has applied unsuccessfully several times since 2017 for spots on the Superior Court or the Court of Common Pleas. Lawyers for Carney nevertheless maintained that Adams still lacked standing, has not been injured and is not sincerely interested in becoming a judge. They also argued that he is prohibited from establishing standing in the present case because the Supreme Court determined that he did not have standing in the earlier case. Noreika rejected that argument, noting Friday that the current lawsuit includes new facts that were not present in 2017. Ultimately, the record before the court suggests that plaintiffs interest in becoming a judge has developed into something tangible and sincere, Noreika wrote. As a politically unaffiliated voter interested in becoming a judge, plaintiff is barred from certain judgeships by virtue of the major political party provision and he is, therefore, injured by that provision. The U.S. record on protecting our children is abysmal. We try them as adults. Child marriage is still happening. So is corporal punishment and child labor. The United States is the only United Nations member country that has not ratified the international treaty on childrens rights. Most people might think this isnt such a big deal because our country is good to children. But it turns out we arent, and our state laws dont help. A new Human Rights Watch report card grades all 50 states on their laws related to child marriage, child labor, juvenile justice and corporal punishment. We gave 20 states a failing F grade, and 26 (including New York) a D. Not a single state received a A or even a B. New Jersey, Ohio, Iowa and Minnesota were the only states to receive a C grade. Mississippi, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Georgia and Washington came out at the bottom of our ranking. Forty-three states still allow child marriage, with more than a quarter-million children, some as young as 10, married in the United States between 2000 and 2018. No state prohibits violence in disciplining children. Approximately 160,000 children are subjected to corporal punishment in schools each year, despite extensive research finding that paddling children is ineffective in correcting their behavior, conversely resulting in increased child aggression. Weak child labor laws allow children as young as 12 to work 50 or 60 hours a week in agriculture, the most dangerous industry in the United States for child workers. Half of all states allow children under 18 to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and more than 50,000 children are tried in adult courts each year, often resulting in extreme and punitive prison sentences and higher recidivism rates. All of these practices violate international standards, and several disproportionately affect children of color and children with disabilities. For example, 62% of those serving sentences of life without parole for offenses committed as children are Black, even though they make up only 14% of the total youth population in the United States. In some school districts, children with disabilities are more than five times as likely to experience violent punishment than other children. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, the primary international treaty on the rights of children, was adopted by the United Nations in 1989. It addresses childrens rights to education, to health, to an adequate standard of living, to freedom of expression, protection from violence and exploitation and a broad array of other rights. Our failure to ratify the Convention and live up to its principles not only harms our children, but also undermines our influence globally as a leader on human rights. Some states have taken recent action to improve their protection of children. Massachusetts banned child marriage this year and Maryland improved its juvenile justice laws, raising their rankings on our scorecard. To do right by its children, the United States should ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. At the state level, policymakers should take a hard look at the report card for their state and take action to improve legal protections for children. Neither state nor federal policymakers should tolerate laws that put children at risk. Jo Becker is the childrens rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. Callie King-Guffey, a 2022 graduate from the Harvard Kennedy School, assessed state laws for Human Rights Watchs new U.S. child rights scorecard. This column was produced by Progressive Perspectives, which is run by The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service Over 120,000 merchants in South Korea can now accept various mobile payment methods, as travel across Asia continues to rebound SEOUL, September 26, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Leading mobile payment providers across Asia announced today an integration of Alipay+ cross-border digital payment solutions in South Korea in an effort to jointly promote cashless travel in the country. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005072/en/ Users of leading Asian e-wallets including AlipayHK, GCash (the Philippines), Touch n Go (Malaysia), and TrueMoney (Thailand) are able to pay at over 120,000 merchants using their local mobile payment apps when traveling in South Korea. (Photo: Business Wire) Users of e-wallets including AlipayHK, GCash (the Philippines), Touch n Go eWallet (Malaysia), and TrueMoney (Thailand) are able to pay at over 120,000 merchants using their local mobile payment apps when traveling in South Korea. The collaboration marks the first time for leading mobile payment providers from Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to extend the availability of their services in South Korea through Alipay+. The initial phase of the merchant roll-out covers major tourist activities including payments for taxi, duty free shops, convenience stores, and food and beverage chains. Introduced by Ant Group, Alipay+ is a suite of global cross-border digital payments and marketing solutions designed to enable businesses to process a wide range of mobile payment methods and better serve regional and global consumers through simple technical adaption. Commenting on the collaboration, Danny Chung, General Manager of Ant Group Korea, Australia and New Zealand, said: "It is our pleasure to connect merchants in Korea with a variety of mobile payment methods, enabling Asian tourists to pay with convenience and simplicity in Korea using their preferred home e-wallets." As the theme of this years World Tourism Day is Rethinking Tourism, Alipay+ has been striving to achieve the same goal by supporting a cashless and smart travel experience. Through innovation and digitalization, we hope Alipay+ can play its role in the transformation of tourism towards a crucial pillar of development." Story continues The partnership between Alipay+ and Asias e-wallet leaders comes as international travel across Asia continues to rebound. In early September, South Korea lifted the requirement for pre-travel Covid-19 tests for inbound travelers, following a decision to remove all quarantine requirements for foreign arrivals regardless of vaccination status. "With South Korea being one of the most popular destinations of Filipinos, we are delighted that our customers will be able to maximize their GCash app during their travels. This collaboration with Alipay+ provides our users the convenience they need to easily transact and manage their expenses with GCash," said Martha Sazon, President and CEO Mynt, which operates GCash, "This innovative partnership aligns with our vision of financial inclusion and is a huge step towards building a cashless ecosystem, worldwide." Venetia Lee, General Manager, AlipayHK and Alipay Greater China International Business, Ant Group, said, "It is our pleasure to announce the connection to South Korea, a popular tourist destination for Hong Kong people. AlipayHK aims to provide our users with one-stop lifestyle services, including not only local but also cross-border payments for those who love traveling. With AlipayHK already being accepted by the vast majority of merchants in Japan, Chinese mainland and Macao through Alipay+, we expect our service to expand to more destinations, enabling AlipayHK users to travel everywhere with one app using their own e-wallet." Mr. Koravut Pavitpok, Head of Commercial of TrueMoney Co., Ltd. said, "South Korea has long been one of the top tourist destinations among Thais for its fascinating history, a wonderful culture and amazing food. Before the pandemic, more than half of a million of Thais travel to the country each year. And since the borders re-opened, Thai tourists have become the second highest visitors to South Korea. As international travel is on the up again, our partnership with Alipay+ has allowed TrueMoney Wallet to expand our service territory and provide more convenient and safer cross-border cashless payment to our users." South Koreas long-term popularity as a destination for travel, shopping, and k-pop makes it a top choice for international tourists as travel in Asia revitalizes. According to statistics by Korea Tourism Organization, over 800,000 foreign tourists visited South Korea during the first half of this year, representing an increase of 92.8% compared to the same period last year. Tourists from ASEAN countries, including the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia, topped the inbound arrivals to South Korea, accounting for 30.3% of the total. As the usage of mobile payments by international travelers and the number of travelers from Southeast Asia continues to rise, the retail industry in Korea is adopting various mobile payment methods particularly through partnership with Alipay+. For instance, Lotte Duty Free and convenient store brand GS25 have signed partnership agreements with Alipay+ to make shopping experience more convenient for international consumers. About Alipay+ Alipay+ offers unified global mobile payment and marketing solutions that connect merchants with multiple e-wallets and payment methods from different countries and regions by collaborating with global partners. Consumers can conveniently use their preferred local payment methods while transacting seamlessly in a different market and be able to enjoy marketing offers by the merchants through Alipay+. Alipay+ is developed by Ant Group, the owner and operator of Alipay, one of the worlds leading digital open platforms. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220925005072/en/ Contacts Media Sarah Dai Ant Group E: sarah.dai@antgroup.com (Bloomberg) -- PT Garuda Indonesia filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of New York court, as the debt-laden carrier tries to secure its future profitability. Most Read from Bloomberg The document is dated Sept. 23. The submission comes as the airline, having completed a court-supervised debt restructuring in Indonesia to halve reduce its debt load, tries to capitalize on the rebound in international travel. Non-U.S. companies commonly file for Chapter 15 bankruptcy to ensure they wont be sued by creditors in the U.S. or have assets seized there. Garudas total debt now amounts to roughly $5.1 billion, President Director Irfan Setiaputra told parliament in Jakarta on Monday. Reviving the national airline is a top priority for the Indonesian government, because the country relies on air transport for connectivity and to support its tourism industry. The airline could post net income of around $400 million next year and gradually increases its earnings to $647 million in 2026, according to a projection by Indonesias finance ministry this month. (Adds detail throughout) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Christmas market in Mainz, Germany. Andreas Arnold/picture alliance via Getty Images Christmas lights in Germany should be turned off to cut energy use this winter, per an environmental association. The director said there should be one lit-up Christmas tree for each community. Russia's crackdown on gas supplies to Europe has led to energy-saving measures on the continent. Germans should turn off their Christmas lights this winter to save energy as Russia clamps down on gas flows to Europe, according to non-profit environmental organization, Deutsche Umwelthilfe. German newspaper Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RDN) first reported the news. Christmas lights in houses, apartments, and cities should be unplugged this year, Deutsche Umwelthilfe's Federal Managing Director Jurgen Resch told Insider in a statement. The suggestion was not only in light of the energy shortage following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but also for climate protection reasons, Resch said. "One solution could be the reduction of Christmas lighting to one illuminated tree per community," Resch said. The private lighting sector alone consumes more than 600 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year, which is as much as a medium-sized city with 400,000 inhabitants uses in one year, Resch said. This Christmas could end up being very special if people make conscious decisions to give up certain things, save energy, and show solidarity, Resch told Insider. Germany isn't the only country that may go dark this festive season. Austria is expected to delay the lights turning on at its Christmas markets in its capital, Vienna, per Bloomberg. The measures come as Russia cuts gas supplies to Europe through the Nord Stream pipeline in retaliation against Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine. The resulting energy crisis has forced European governments, banks, and other businesses to try to reduce power consumption ahead of winter. Italians were urged to cook their pasta with the stove turned off to reduce energy bills, while Finland has told people to spend less time in saunas and showers to conserve power. German bakeries switched their lights off in protest of surging bills at the same time as Britons were chucking out $29,000 vintage stoves to combat sky-high energy costs, per Bloomberg. How are you being impacted by rising energy costs? Has the energy crisis affected your business? Get in touch with this reporter via email kduffy@insider.com or Twitter DM. Read the original article on Business Insider TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - More than 500 newsrooms and media support organisations around the world will unite in a global campaign on September 28 to show the value of fact-based journalism. The Canadian Journalism Foundation Logo (CNW Group/Canadian Journalism Foundation) World News Day will be commemorated across six continents, among newsrooms of all sizes from the Financial Times (worldwide), The Globe and Mail (Canada), and The Straits Times (Singapore) in the northern hemisphere, to LA NACION (Argentina), News24 (South Africa), and Stuff (New Zealand) in the south. The campaign will see global newsrooms carry print and digital adverts and use their social media channels, newsletters and other platforms to highlight the critical message that journalism matters and is worth supporting, promoting and defending. World News Day is the focus of a 90-minute live-streamed in-person event from The World News Media Congress in Zaragoza, Spain, at 3:00 p.m. CET/9:00 a.m. EDT on September 28. Vivian Schiller, Executive Director of Aspen Digital, The Aspen Institute, will chair proceedings which will feature the following speakers: David Walmsley, Editor-in-Chief, The Globe and Mail . Warren Fernandez, Editor-in-Chief, The Straits Times . Alessandra Galloni, Editor-in-Chief, Reuters. Kathy English, Chair, The Canadian Journalism Foundation. Shirish Kulkarni, Journalist, Community Organiser, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Phoebe Connelly, Director of Next Generation Audiences, The Washington Post. The public can view the session on the verified World News Day YouTube channel . The World News Day campaign is organised by The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) and WAN-IFRA's World Editors Forum. It is sponsored by Google News Initiative. "On World News Day we will showcase some of the best journalism that our industry has to offer it is not just about one day it's about the work that professional newsrooms do all year round," says Warren Fernandez, Editor-in-Chief of the Straits Times, Singapore, and President of the World Editors Forum. "World News Day is about drawing inspiration and renewing our commitment to purposeful journalism." Story continues "As we mark World News Day, the challenge to all newsrooms going forward is to do more to show journalism's value to young and underserved audiences," says Kathy English, Chair of The Canadian Journalism Foundation. "To build and gain trust with the public, we must first reach them by representing their voices and experiences." Cision is the exclusive distribution partner of the CJF. About World News Day: World News Day is a global news industry campaign to draw attention to the value of journalism and the difference it makes in the lives of individuals, communities and beyond. It was initiated as an industry campaign in 2018 by David Walmsely, then Chair of the Canadian Journalism Foundation. About The Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF): Established in 1990, The Canadian Journalism Foundation promotes, celebrates, and facilitates excellence in journalism. The foundation runs a prestigious annual awards and fellowships program featuring an industry gala where news leaders, journalists and corporate Canada gather to celebrate outstanding journalistic achievement and the value of professional journalism. Through monthly J-Talks, a public speakers' series, the CJF facilitates dialogue among journalists, business people, academics and students about the role of the media in Canadian society and its ongoing challenges in the digital era. The foundation also fosters opportunities for journalism education, training and research. About the World Editors Forum: The World Editors Forum is the leading global network for editors of news organisations within WAN-IFRA. About WAN-IFRA: WAN-IFRA is the global organisation of the world's press, comprising 3,000 news publishers and technology companies and 60 national publishers' associations representing 18,000 publications in 120 countries. With a mission to protect the rights of journalists and publishers around the world to operate independent media, WAN-IFRA provides its members with expertise and services to innovate and prosper in a digital world and perform their crucial role in society. About the 73rd World News Media Congress (WNMC) : Taking place from 28th-30th September 2022 in Zaragoza, Spain, the Congress is organised by WAN-IFRA in collaboration with the Henneo publishing group, the Government of Aragon , and Zaragoza Turismo . WNMC is the leading annual event for media leaders, bringing together 1,000 editors and media executives to discuss challenges and opportunities for the global news media industry. The programme includes a focus on World News Day. SOURCE Canadian Journalism Foundation Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2022/26/c6605.html TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - Intact Financial Corporation (TSX: IFC), and its affiliated brands including belairdirect, Intact Insurance, Johnson Insurance and Anthony Insurance, is announcing support for the communities affected by hurricane Fiona in the Atlantic provinces and eastern Quebec with a $150,000 donation to the Canadian Red Cross. "Our thoughts are with the people impacted by hurricane Fiona. We are here to support them in this difficult time. Our teams are on the ground, working 24/7 to answer our clients and help them move forward. We have also reached out to governments to offer our help and update them on our approach so far," said Louis Gagnon, Chief Executive Officer, Intact Financial Corporation's Canadian operations. The Intact Foundation will also match employee donations through its employee matching gift program to any Canadian Registered Charity providing relief efforts. About Intact Financial Corporation Intact Financial Corporation (TSX: IFC) is the largest provider of property and casualty (P&C) insurance in Canada, a leading provider of global specialty insurance, and, with RSA, a leader in the U.K. and Ireland. Our business has grown organically and through acquisitions to over $20 billion of total annual premiums. In Canada, Intact distributes insurance under the Intact Insurance brand through a wide network of brokers, including its wholly-owned subsidiary BrokerLink, and directly to consumers through belairdirect. Intact also provides affinity insurance solutions through the Johnson Affinity Groups. In the US, Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions provides a range of specialty insurance products and services through independent agencies, regional and national brokers, and wholesalers and managing general agencies. Outside of North America, the Company provides personal, commercial and specialty insurance solutions across the U.K., Ireland, and Europe through the RSA brands. SOURCE Intact Financial Corporation Cision View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2022/26/c6119.html Chris Davidson famously beat world champion Kelly Slater as a wildcard entrant in 1996 Former Australian surfing star Chris Davidson has died after being punched outside a pub north of Sydney. The 45-year-old was hit in the face and fell, striking his head on the pavement, police said. He was treated at the scene but died in hospital a short time later. A man, 42, has been arrested and charged with assault causing death. Mr Davidson grew up in Sydney and competed on the world surfing tour in 2010 and 2011. He shot to fame as a 19-year-old after he was granted a wildcard entry into the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, Australia, in 1996. There, he beat reigning world champion Kelly Slater in two consecutive heats. Mr Slater was among those who paid tribute to Mr Davidson after his death. "Had many a good battle with this guy. One of the most naturally talented surfers I ever knew," the 11-time world champion wrote on Instagram. Surfing New South Wales executive director Mark Windon said Mr Davidson was "one of the most stylish surfers" Australia had ever produced. "He was an absolute prodigious talent and as flamboyant as he was in the water," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "[He] was a larger-than-life character, and for his life to finish that way is really sad." Police have not released further details about the incident in South West Rocks, a small coastal town. The 42-year-old man was refused bail on Monday and will next face a court in November, local media said. (Bloomberg) -- Cyprus is wary of getting drawn into a potential conflict between Greece and Turkey as rhetoric between the countries intensifies, Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said. Most Read from Bloomberg We fear that any conflict in the Aegean Sea will affect us directly because well be used as the weakest point in the whole story, Kasoulides said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg TV. Ahead of elections next year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up criticism of what Ankara claims is a growing Greek military buildup on Aegean islands, known as the Dodecanese, close to the Turkish coast, as well as Western military support of Athens. On Monday, the Turkish leader vowed to use whatever means necessary to defend Turkeys interests in its dispute with Greece, and the countrys foreign ministry summoned the Greek ambassador. Listening to Mr. Erdogan pretending that he is under threat from Greece I would qualify it as preposterous and ludicrous, Kasoulides said. It is he who threatens, he who has a revisionism policy. Cyprus -- less than half the size of New Jersey -- was effectively partitioned in 1963 when fighting erupted between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. It was fully divided in 1974 after Turkey intervened, capturing the northern third of the island, following a coup by supporters backed by the Greek military junta then ruling in Athens. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is still recognized only by Turkey. While the Republic of Cyprus, which is a member of the European Union, officially has sovereignty over the entire island, it is only able to govern in the south. Unification efforts have stalled. Story continues Tensions escalated in 2020 as Turkey started searching for oil and gas in contested waters of the eastern Mediterranean. The region has yielded substantial natural gas discoveries in recent years for Israel, Egypt and Cyprus. Russias war in Ukraine has increased the stakes and created additional strains. The US lifted defense trade restrictions on Cyprus for the fiscal year 2023. Turkey criticized the move, warning that it may lead to an arms race on the island. The lifting of the restrictions comes with conditions including a ban on Russian ships refueling in Cypriot ports. The EUs sanctions also raise concerns about historically close ties to Moscow. Our relations with Russia have changed, but I hope not forever, Kasoulides said. Our positions could not be other than allying with our partners in the EU and US. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Bank of Nova Scotias surprise pick of a CEO from outside its executive ranks is sparking a debate over whether major changes will result at Canadas third-largest lender, whose shares have underperformed those of rivals for a decade. Most Read from Bloomberg Scotiabank said on Monday that its next chief executive officer will be Scott Thomson, head of Finning International Inc., a Vancouver-based company that sells, finances and services Caterpillar Inc. equipment. While Thomson isnt a total stranger to the bank or its industry -- he spent time as a vice president at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and has been on Scotiabanks board since 2016 -- his selection for the top job is a rarity among Canadian lenders, who typically groom executives internally for decades before handing them the reins. The current heads of Canadas five other largest banks had spent much of their careers at their firms before taking the helm. That unconventional pick has analysts questioning whether Thomsons ascension portends a broad shakeup at Scotiabank. The lenders presence in Latin America sets Scotiabank apart from its Canadian peers, but is often blamed for its shares underperformance. We have to assume that change will be coming, Paul Holden, an analyst at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said in a note to clients. Thomson was an agent for change when he joined Finning as CEO, and we assume the same will be true when he becomes Scotias CEO. Thomson, 52, will step down from Finning on Nov. 15, become Scotiabanks president on Dec. 1 and take over as CEO on Feb. 1. It is not obvious what changes will be made, Holden wrote, adding that because Thomson wont become CEO for several months, there will be some uncertainty in the near term. Story continues That potential uncertainty is weighing on Scotiabanks shares, which were down 2.9% as of 2:24 p.m. in Toronto, the worst performance in the eight-company S&P/TSX Commercial Banks Index. Over the past decade, Scotiabank is up 24%, the smallest gain among Canadas six largest banks. Thomsons career has run the gamut of important-to-Canada industries, including executive positions with BCE Inc.s Bell Canada, one of the countrys big telecommunications firms, and a stint as chief financial officer of oil-and-gas producer Talisman Energy Inc. He became CEO of Finning, which services the countrys sizable mining industry, in 2013, and was credited with improving earnings by cutting costs, speeding up the supply chain and improving the companys technology. Finning generates almost a third of its revenue in South America, while Scotiabank reaps about 20% of its earnings from its Latin America-focused international division. That familiarity with one of Scotiabanks key markets suggests that the transition from current CEO Brian Porter, 64, will be smooth, according to Barclays Plc analyst John Aiken said. Revamping Scotiabanks Latin America unit was a centerpiece of Porters tenure as CEO and its a division he has repeatedly said the bank is committed to. The move leads us to believe that there should not be an immediate shift in Scotias strategy as Mr. Thomson has been involved in developing it at the board level, Aiken said in a note to clients. Further, we believe that his experience in Latin America is a positive and was likely a component that attracted the search committee. Theres also a possibility that Scotiabank was looking for someone in the middle -- an executive who combines familiarity and a fresh perspective, said Anish Chopra, a partner at Toronto-based Portfolio Management Corp. While Thomsons presence on the board gives him some experience with Scotiabanks issues, he hasnt previously run a financial institution, Chopra said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Television. The Bank of Nova Scotia may have wanted an outside view of their operations, Chopra said. And when youre looking for an outside view, you need to go to an outsider whos got some level of knowledge and interest in the bank. (Updates with share performance in first, fourth paragraphs, stock price in eighth.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Sun Life logo. (CNW Group/Sun Life Financial Inc.) TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - Sun Life announced today that it is donating $100,000 to the Canadian Red Cross, to support Hurricane Fiona relief efforts in Eastern Canada. "The situation in Eastern Canada is devastating and we are here for our Clients, advisors, employees, and neighbours in our communities impacted by Hurricane Fiona," said Kevin Strain, President and CEO of Sun Life. "Our thoughts are with everyone in the affected areas of Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec, and our donation will help those who are in need of immediate aid." This contribution will allow the Canadian Red Cross to respond to relief, recovery, resiliency, and risk reduction activities at the individual and community levels. Sun Life is also providing employees with an opportunity to support Hurricane Fiona relief efforts through its employee giving program. Employees based in Canada and the United States who make a personal donation will have their contribution matched by Sun Life, up to a specified amount. Canadians wishing to help are encouraged to donate to the Hurricane Fiona in Canada Appeal at www.redcross.ca or by calling 1-800-418-1111. The Government of Canada is matching any donations Canadians and corporations make to the Red Cross Hurricane Fiona in Canada Appeal over the next 28 days. About Sun Life Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing asset management, wealth, insurance and health solutions to individual and institutional Clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of June 30, 2022, Sun Life had total assets under management of $1.26 trillion. For more information, please visit www.sunlife.com. Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF. Story continues Note to editors: All figures in Canadian dollars Media Relations Contact: Stephanie Swinamer Director, Corporate Communications T: 416-986-5054 SOURCE Sun Life Financial Inc. Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2022/26/c9039.html A 25-year-old Middleton man originally charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl from Milwaukee last year pleaded guilty Monday to felony sex assault and victim intimidation as part of a plea agreement that will see prosecutors ask for no more than 15 years in prison. Andrew M. Stoltz also pleaded guilty to third-degree sex assault in a separate case involving a different victim, and under the agreement had charges of causing a child to view explicit material and criminal damage to property dismissed, although Dane County Circuit Judge David Conway can consider them during sentencing on Jan. 6. According to the criminal complaint in what had been the kidnapping case, the girl told a forensic interviewer that she met Stoltz online on July 4, 2021, and after about a week or two of contact, he said he wanted to meet her. When she told him no, he began berating her until she agreed and the two talked at a park in Whitefish Bay on July 28, she said, and she later went to stay with him after he threatened to cut off her family's fingertips as she watched. During the more than two weeks he used threats and intimidation to keep her at his Middleton home, Stoltz raped her repeatedly, she told investigators. Police in Milwaukee eventually used location data from Snapchat to narrow down the girl's location to an area in the 3300 block of High Road. In the case involving the other victim, prosecutors said that on Feb. 12, 2021, Stoltz sexually assaulted a woman while she was drunk and passed out at her Madison apartment. The crimes Stoltz pleaded guilty to come with a total of up to 70 years in prison, but assistant district attorney Colleen Lennon on Monday said the state would ask that he be sentenced to no more than 15 years in prison. Stoltz has a criminal record in Wisconsin that goes back to 2017 and includes a felony convictions for throwing a bodily fluid at a public safety worker or prosecutor and injuring someone or damaging property while fleeing police. He said in court Monday that he was being treated for mental health problems but did not specify them. For a second year in a row, Wisconsin residents will likely spend hundreds of dollars more to heat their homes thanks to skyrocketing fuel prices. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association estimates it will cost more than $1,200 to heat an average home this winter, an increase of more than 17% compared to last winter. This marks the second straight year of double-digit increases, with NEADA expecting the average heating bill this winter will be more than 35% higher than just two years ago. Natural gas, the most common home heating fuel in Wisconsin, will see the biggest increase, though it remains the cheapest source of heat. NEADA estimates it will cost about $950 to heat an average American home this year with gas an increase of nearly $380 compared to two winters ago. WEC Energy Group estimates the average household will spend an additional $120 to $180 on heating this season, assuming normal weather conditions. Madison Gas and Electric and Xcel Energy project increases of up to $200. Alliant Energy has not released bill projections. Ade Allen, a gas market analyst with Rystad Energy, said sweltering summer temperatures created rising demand for gas even as U.S. producers were exporting more gas in response to Europes gas shortage. With supply lagging and storage levels below average, Allen said high prices are likely to stick around for the winter, though mild weather could soften demand. Unlike the equipment monopoly utilities use to deliver energy, fuel is an unregulated pass-through charge. Utilities dont earn a profit on the gas they sell or burn to generate electricity, but when the price goes up, those costs are passed on to customers. We cant control the commodity price of natural gas, said Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, which is focused on limiting electricity rates. But it is distressing that its at these elevated levels. Financial help is available from Wisconsins Home Energy Assistance Program (WHEAP) for households earning less than 60% of the state median, which works out to just under $52,000 for a family of three. Help is also available from the nonprofit Keep Wisconsin Warm/Cool Fund. Still, NEADA executive director Mark Wolfe worries the additional $22 billion Americans will spend on heating this winter will hit low-income households the hardest, putting them at increased risk of falling behind on their utility bills. NEADA has asked leaders in Congress to authorize an additional $5 billion for energy assistance. While fuel costs arent in their control, customers can take steps to cut their heating costs and make their homes more comfortable. Its not the windows, said Chad Laibly, a senior technical advisor for Focus on Energy, Wisconsins ratepayer-funded energy efficiency program. Its air sealing the attic and the basement. Thats where your money goes. Focus on Energy offers rebates of up to $1,250 on the cost of insulation and sealing, with additional incentives for those who earn less than 80% of the median income, which works out to about $80,000 a year for a family of four. Laibly also recommends some simple improvements that dont require a contractor, such as upgrading dryer vents to stop cold air from entering the basement or simply turning off the coffee pot once its done brewing. Thats a huge draw. When my coffees done I flip the switch, Laibly said. It dropped my bill right away. (RNS) Don Hinkle, a longtime Southern Baptist newspaper editor known for his conservative politics and colorful bowties, has died at age 68. With great sorrow we learned that Don Hinkle, founding editor of the Missouri Baptist Conventions Pathway newspaper, has gone to be home with the Lord Jesus, the Missouri Baptist news journal announced on social media Thursday (Sept. 22). He will be missed. Shannon Baker, president of the Association of State Baptist Papers, in an email, called Hinkle such an asset to Southern Baptists, and said, I will certainly miss his expressive conversations and intellect as well as his genuine kindness to me. For two decades, Hinkle was editor of The Pathway, the official publication of the Missouri Baptist Convention, founded in 2002 amid a feud between conservatives and moderates in the state. Conservative leaders hired Hinkle, a former newspaper editor turned seminarian and Christian journalist, to lead the new publicationmeant to rival Word&Way, a longtime Missouri Baptist publication. RELATED: Every Way That Ive Served Southern Baptists, It Has Left Scars: Bart Barber Elected SBC President, Accepts Challenges That Lie Ahead Hinkle had recently announced plans to step down at the end of the year to focus on public policy work for the state convention. Whenever we would visit we would talk about everything from Jesus, politics, sports, bowties and the state of journalism amongst other things, said the Rev. Jon Nelson, president of the Missouri Baptist Convention, in an email. But Nelson remembered Hinkle chiefly as someone who cared deeply about the conventions churches. In announcing his own retirement, according to a Pathway report, Hinkle said, It has been a privilege to serve as editor of your state newspaper. It doesnt belong to me. It doesnt belong to anyone here in this building. It belongs to you. It belongs to the churches of the Missouri Baptist Convention. Born September 14, 1954, Hinkle grew up in Springfield, Tennessee, outside Nashville. He went to work in 1975 at his hometown radio station, then as a reporter and editor in the Air Force for 10 years before working at several metropolitan newspapers, including the Tennessean in Nashville. Before becoming editor of The Pathway, he was the editor of the Columbia Journal, south of Nashville, and a national correspondent for Baptist Press, the SBCs official news outlet. He earned masters degrees in Christian education and theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, according to his online biography. The early years as editor of The Pathway were difficult, as the state convention was involved in a long-running legal battle over control of a major conference center, Word&Way, a Baptist foundation, and other entities. Those lawsuits and controversy in the Missouri convention led to staff restructuring and leadership turnover, Hinkle recalled in reflecting on his 20 years as editor. There were many nights I went home, shedding tears in frustration. It felt like the MBC was on the brink, Hinkle wrote. RELATED: SBC Should Be Known for Love, Firm Convictions, Barber Says The Pathway eventually grew to about 30,000 in circulation, Hinkle added. Hinkle was no stranger to controversy. In 1997, he wrote Embattled Banner, a defense of the Confederate battle flag as a Christian symbol. More recently, he warned of the dangers of critical race theory in the Southern Baptist Convention and criticized the SBCs Nashville-based Executive Committee for hiring a law firm that was LGBT affirming and for waiving attorney-client privilege in an abuse investigation. Warren Buffett will help light up Mahoney State Park next month. So will Oprah, Drake, JLo and 4,000 other glowing pumpkins fake and faux that will make up the parks first Jack O' Lantern World Halloween display. Traditional jack-o-lanterns. Influential women jack-o-lanterns. Famous figures jack-o-lanterns. A 45-foot dragon, a 15-foot unicorn, a U.S. flag all made from jack-o-lanterns. Youre going to see things that you would have thought people would have never put together using pumpkins, said Peter Starykowicz, whose company is staging the monthlong event. Its something that is really unique. His Illinois-based business, All Community Events, hosts races and runs and other holiday displays, like Santas Rock N Lights exhibit in Papillion. But it jumped into the jack-o-lantern business last year, hosting a show in Lake Zurich, Illinois. It was a hit. People just came out and they saw something they never expected, something like theyve never seen before. And it was an incredible experience. This year, the company expanded to four displays in four states. And that takes an army of more than 50 artisan carvers, carpenters, architects, designers and event planners who have been working for months. Some of the jack-o-lanterns are so intricate they took 20 hours to carve, Starykowicz said. For someone who's never been to something like this, its almost hard to explain, because they've never seen anything like this. At Mahoney State Park, off Interstate 80 near Ashland, guests will see 17 separate displays along a three-quarter-mile paved walking path. From one point, theyll be able to see 1,000 jack-o-lanterns at once, he said. The show runs from Sept. 30 to Oct. 30. Tickets are required and range in price from $14 to $16 for children 3 to 12, and $20 to $24 for those 13 or older. To buy tickets, and for more information, go to: thejackolanternworld.com/Omaha. But Mahoney isnt the only state park or recreation area celebrating Halloween this year: Indian Cave: Haunted Hollow, Oct. 7-8, 14-15 and 21-22 Haunted hayrack rides, trick-or-treating, outdoor movies, scavenger hunt, pumpkin rolling, craft market and campsite-decorating contest. Ponca: Hallowfest, Oct. 8, 15 Activities include crafts, a pumpkin-rolling contest, pumpkin-carving contest, haunted drive and campground-decorating contest. Details: Call the park at 402-755-2284. Johnson Lake: Halloween Haunt, Oct. 8 Pumpkin painting from 1-3 p.m. at Area C Campsite; decoration judging will begin at 6 p.m. at the main campground, with prizes going to the top three finishers. Trunk or treating will take place from 3-5 p.m. in the boat parking area. Calamus: Pumpkin Carvers Event, Oct. 15 9:30 a.m.-10 p.m. event will include pumpkin carving, games with prizes, a downhill pumpkin-rolling derby, food, campsite decorating, trick-or-treating and lighted pumpkin displays. Branched Oak: Spooktacular, Oct. 15 Middle Oak Creek Campground will host a pumpkin-rolling contest, pumpkin carving, costume contest, campsite decorating, trick-or-treating, haunted trail and haunted hayrack ride. Fremont Lakes: Oct. 15 Campers decorate campsites in a Halloween theme; children trick-or-treat from 5-7 p.m. during decoration judging. Details: 402-727-2922. Ash Hollow: Halloween in the Hollow, Oct. 22 2-6 p.m. (mountain time) event includes games, smores, pumpkin picking and decorating, a scavenger hunt, hayrack rides and a costume contest, which begins at 4:30 p.m. 5 p.m., Trunk or Treat sponsored by conservation officers, area emergency medical services and law enforcement, with their vehicles available to view. Wildcat Hills: Howl in the Hills hike, Oct. 22 This half-mile nighttime hike begins at 7 p.m. (mountain time). Hikers should bring a flashlight and hiking shoes. Register by Oct. 6 by calling 308-436-3777. Red Willow: Camp and Treat, Oct. 28-30 Campsite decorating, kids pumpkin-carving contest and trick-or-treating. Campers who bring treats for kids get reduced camping rates. OMAHA -- The Archdiocese of Omaha is not alone in attempting to tackle the gender identity issue in its schools, or in getting blowback for it. Other bishops across the country in Springfield, Illinois; Arlington, Virginia; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and in the state of Minnesota, to name a few have penned similar policies anchored in church teaching to guide their schools and parishes. Like in Omaha, those policies were criticized but also praised by Catholics glad to see their church leaders affirm Catholic teaching. The disputes come as a divided America wrestles to establish the right path forward on a highly emotional issue that both sides say can have life-altering consequences for children and families. John Grabowski, a Catholic theologian with Catholic University of America in Washington, said the challenge for church leaders writing these policies is to embrace church teaching while also welcoming people who are experiencing gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is widely described as a feeling of mismatch between ones biological sex and the gender with which one identifies, which can cause the person distress or discomfort. The church has to be true to what scripture gives us, and what we believe about the human person, said Grabowski, author of the book Unraveling Gender: The Battle Over Sexual Difference. But we have to present it in a way that can be heard as an invitation to love, an invitation to healing, not we dont want you. That is not just a tall task but an impossible one in the eyes of Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director for DignityUSA, an organization that supports the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex people in the church and society. She is a married lesbian Catholic with two adopted children, one who is transgender. How do you feel at all at home in a church that recognizes you only as a sinner, as deeply flawed, only as the technical term is objectively disordered, as a threat to the family, Duddy-Burke said. She said that church teachings need to be drastically changed and that the LGBTQIA community and families need to be in the forefront of what is deemed an acceptable teaching. The Archdiocese of Omaha policies, originally intended to take effect Jan. 1, covered the use of pronouns, dress codes and participation in sports, saying those should be determined by biological sex at birth. They also banned gender-affirming psychotherapy, use of hormone medications and surgery, all things that run counter to Catholic tenets on human sexuality. The policies said that students, parents and volunteers who did not abide by church teaching could be dismissed from school or lose their jobs. Omaha Archbishop George Lucas delayed implementation after some critics, among them Catholics, objected. Several religious-order high schools including Creighton Prep, Mercy, Marian and Duchesne said they would not adopt the policies, citing a different governance structure from archdiocesan schools that they said allows them to make their own rules. Lucas wrote that the archdiocese plans to share a revised policy by the end of the calendar year for inclusion in handbooks for the 2023-24 school year. The revised policy, taking account of feedback, will be more clearly focused and will not compromise the teachings of Jesus Christ and the church, Lucas wrote. Deacon Tim McNeil, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Omaha, said the initial policies were based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as statements from popes and the Vaticans education arm. The Catholic Diocese of Lincoln does not have a written policy specifically addressing gender identity in schools, according to Dennis Kellogg, director of communications for the diocese. Kellogg said the diocese follows guidance from long-held church teachings, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, other church documents and sacred scripture. Last winter, Bishop James Conley addressed gender in a column urging people to oppose a City of Lincoln ordinance adding sexual orientation and gender identity to a list of protected classes. He wrote that children are especially harmed when they are told that they can change their sex, further, when they are given hormones that will affect their development and possibly render them infertile as adults. Yet, he wrote, people who are confused about their gender and identity deserve mercy and compassion. He wrote that mercy without truth is a false kind of mercy, a mere sentimentalism. And truth without mercy is a cold and cruel dictate that does not recognize the struggles and weaknesses of our fallen humanity. The emergence of gender identity policies at the diocese level can be traced to a perceived lack of direction from the upper echelons of the Catholic Church, according to Grabowski, a professor of moral theology and ethics who has served as a theological adviser to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Pope Francis appointed him in 2015 to serve as an expert at the Synod of Bishops on the Family. In 2009, he and his wife were appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Council for the Family. Grabowski said the U.S. bishops had prepared an instruction about four or five years ago on how to deal with gender identity in Catholic parishes, schools and institutions. Grabowski was an adviser to the bishops working on the instruction, which he described as very detailed and very charitable. But the bishops heard that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome was working on its own document. The bishops didnt want to get out ahead of the Vatican, so they put theirs on the shelf. Then the Vatican ended up not moving forward on its document, which left a vacuum on how to implement church teaching more concretely, he said. So now what you have are individual bishops who see this problem in their Catholic hospitals and their Catholic schools, and are saying, Well, if we as a conference cant say something, and if the Vatican isnt going to say something more on this right now, then were going to have to try to give some policy guidance for the Catholic institutions in our diocese, he said. Grabowski said gender identity has been addressed by Popes Francis and Benedict and explained in a 2019 document issued by the Vaticans education arm, the Congregation for Catholic Education. The church has delivered a very strong no to the assertion that gender is a personal choice, he said. Theres some room, however, for prudential judgment in how church teaching is applied and implemented in a Catholic institution, he said. One of Pope Benedicts clearest statements on gender was in his final Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, the Roman Curia, in 2012, Grabowski said. Benedict said that gender ideology calls into question the very notion of being of what being human really means. In a 2016 document, Pope Francis spoke of various forms of an ideology of gender that denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family. This ideology, he wrote, leads to educational programs and legislation that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female. Consequently, Francis wrote, human identity becomes the choice of the individual, one which can also change over time. Francis emphasized that biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated. In 2019, the Congregation for Catholic Education explained church teaching in a document aimed at educators. The document, Male and Female He Created Them, carries some weight, but not the same weight as a papal exhortation or encyclical, Grabowski said. It affirmed what the popes said. Biological and medical science, it said, shows that dimorphism division into distinct male and female forms can be demonstrated by fields such as genetics, endocrinology and neurology. Male cells differ from the moment of conception from female cells, it said. But the document left room for medical professionals to intervene when a persons sex is not clearly defined. In such situations, parents cannot make an arbitrary choice on the issue, let alone society, it said. Instead, medical science should act with purely therapeutic ends, and intervene in the least invasive fashion, on the basis of objective parameters and with a view to establishing the persons constitutive identity. Grabowski said the science is on the churchs side. He said the church has to come up with a way to accompany people who are struggling but do it in a way that doesnt disrupt the identity and reality of the school or the parish as a whole. The people who are struggling with their identity are looking for love and acceptance and should be offered more than just a surgical quick fix, he said. We need to help them find that wholeness and healing elsewhere, through appropriate psychological intervention and through friendship and welcome and acceptance within the Christian community, he said. Duddy-Burke, who describes herself as Catholic to my core, says the church has it wrong. I love the churchs liturgy. I love the sacraments, I love the good that it does in the world, and I am pained every single day by the amount of trauma it is inflicting on my people. And we need to hold the entire church accountable and press for changes. Policies that require kids to be identified by their biological sex at birth are incredibly dangerous to people with gender identity issues because they suppress their identity, she said. She said shes worked with adults who recognized as children they were in the wrong body but spent decades trying to live according to the gender they were born into rather that the gender they believed themselves to be. And much of that was because of their religion, she said. Much of that was trying to pray the otherness away for many years, and it just didnt work. The Vaticans view on gender is simplistic and outdated, she said. Depicting gender dysphoria as something people can turn on and off at a whim, and make it a choice, is dismissive of what is widely understood to be a reality of the human condition for some people, she said. Polling by the Pew Research Center earlier this year showed Americans are divided about the fluidity of gender, but the percentage who believe gender is determined by ones sex at birth has grown in recent years. Six in 10 U.S. adults polled said that whether a person is a man or a woman is determined by their sex at birth. That was up from 56% one year ago and 54% in 2017, the survey said. Among Catholics in the U.S., 62% said a persons gender cannot differ from sex at birth. That number was up from 52% a year earlier and 51% in 2017. The survey found that 37% of U.S. Catholics believe society has gone too far in its acceptance of transgender individuals up from 27% in 2017. In contrast, a solid majority of atheists and agnostics responded that whether a person is a man or a woman can be different from their sex at birth. Duddy-Burke said theres a contradiction when Pope Francis calls on church members to accompany all people a word the church uses for welcoming and helping but he doesnt change church teaching. Its really hard to know how these things can coexist welcoming and affirming people without characterizing us as greater sinners, or as incomplete human beings or flawed human beings, in denying us full range of access to the church sacraments, Duddy-Burke said. Duddy-Burke said shes glad Archbishop Lucas plans to revise the policies. I appreciate the fact that he has heard the cries of the community, and I really hope that he enters into genuine and productive dialogue with people, she said. I always think that thats a really important part of the process and left out too often. Many agree that the most impressive way to arrive in St. Augustine is by crossing the Intracoastal Waterway on the Bridge of Lions. Brazilian Police Raid Six Crypto Exchanges in International Money Laundering Ring Bust Police and tax officers in Brazil have launched a major operation that has seen them raid six domestic crypto exchanges. They believe the platforms may be implicated in a massive international crime and money laundering ring. In a joint announcement, the Special Department of Federal Revenue of Brazil (known locally as the Receita Federal, or the federal revenue service agency) and the Federal Police Force, stated that the raids took place as part of what they are calling Operation Colossus. Officers explained that they believe some $380 million worth of dirty money has been laundered through domestic crypto trading platforms and that a single criminal organization is behind this. They wrote: The operation will combat a criminal organization dedicated to money laundering that has used an intricate system of remittances. [The organization] has sent illicit resources abroad via the purchase and sale of cryptoassets. The agencies stated that the organization had made use of a network of shell companies and passed funds through transit accounts before purchasing cryptoassets. They claimed that the money comprised embezzled funds, drug trafficking profits, laundered money, and the revenues of various crimes against the national financial system. A total of 158 officers were dispatches to addresses in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Santa Catarina. Crypto Exchanges Raided The media outlet Metropoles reported that the Criminal Court of Sao Paulo had issued 101 court orders pertaining to the case, as well as two arrest warrants, and 37 search-and-seize warrants. Twenty two of these were issued to individuals and 15 to companies. Six of these search warrants were issued to crypto exchanges, although the identity of the trading platforms has not been revealed. A further four financial institutions that have Central Bank-issued licences for operating in the foreign exchange market have also been searched, as well as three accountancy firms. The media outlet added that the rings operators were allegedly responsible for purchasing large amounts of cryptoassets abroad, in countries such as the United States, Singapore, and Hong Kong and then selling these tokens on the Brazilian black market. The agencies added that they believed the crime ring may have been active for up to four years prior to the launch of Operation Colossus. The development comes as talk about crypto regulation begins to intensify in Brazil with regulators now vying for more control over the sector. An 18-year-old girl from Carlisle is dead after a fatal pedestrian crash at Wildwood Park in New Jersey Saturday evening, Wildwood Police Department reported. Lindsay Weakland, a pedestrian, was pronounced dead at the scene after a vehicle struck another vehicle before striking two pedestrians about 9:35 p.m. Saturday. Weakland is a 2022 graduate of Cumberland Valley High School. Police did not say what happened to the other pedestrian, but added that a passenger in the struck vehicle, Timothy Ogden, 34, of Clayton, New Jersey, died at a hospital from injuries suffered in the crash. The Press of Atlantic City said police were called to a multiple-car crash at Burk and Atlantic avenues at 9:36 p.m. Saturday, with injuries to pedestrians. The driver accused of being at fault attempted to flee but was quickly apprehended, police said. Gerald J. White, 37, of Pittsburgh, faces two counts of death by automobile, two counts of assault by auto, along with charges of leaving the scene of an accident, eluding and violation of laws to protect public safety, officials said. On Sunday, he remained in Cape May County jail pending court proceedings, Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sutherland and Wildwood Police Chief Robert Regalbuto said in a statement. Officials connected the crash with a car rally, which local officials say took place without any municipal approvals and despite concerns expressed by police and the Wildwood government. Officials struggled to contain the pop-up car rally, with chaotic scenes unfolding throughout the area with people lining the sidewalks cheering impromptu drag races. Sutherland said the impact of the event disrupted other communities, and he laid blame on the organizers. Sutherland released a statement regarding ongoing issues in the area over car rallies and careless driving. "Make no mistake that the tragic and dangerous events over the last several days in Wildwood, Rio Grande, Seaville and surrounding communities are a direct result of organizers of a pop-up car rally self-identified as H20i or H2022," he said. "Directing hundreds if not thousands of people driving high-performance vehicles to an area without any planning, staging or permitting created the chaos that led to these deaths and injuries. Anyone thinking of engaging in organizing any type of similar pop-up event is forewarned that there will be a swift and appropriate law enforcement and legal response." The Associated Press said NJ.com reported that videos on social media showed modified vehicles revving engines and speeding off to cheers from crowds gathered on the streets. WCAU-TV said social media posts showed people hanging out of cars as drivers spun in circles, and also showed burnouts, drifting and crashes. NJ Advance Media reported three damaged vehicles at the scene of one accident where a car struck a building. The cars were outrageous, speeding up and down the streets, the noise was unbelievable, Angel Fioravanti told the station. It was scary because I saw people trying to walk off the sidewalk onto the street, and cars were ... weaving in and out of the traffic, revving their engines, the noise was atrocious. It really was. The Wildwood Board of Commissioners said in a social media post that the mayor had sought additional support from the governor, and state police and other police departments from as far away as Atlantic City were responding. Every available police officer and fire patrol was called in, and despite being grossly outmanned, are doing a great job as dispatch works extremely hard to keep up with the calls," the board said, asking people to stay indoors. There were other serious crashes, including one on Saturday night involving a low-speed vehicle in which the driver was injured. That took place on Rio Grande Avenue. Multiple videos of that crash were posted late Saturday on several platforms. On social media, one video shows a car losing control after taking off at a high rate of speed at a traffic light. Another video taken from a different angle shows a vehicle losing control after speeding off a light and clipping another car, then spinning into another lane. A large crowd lines the street. Some seem upset by the crash, while others almost appear to be cheering. Wildwood police took the unusual step of detouring roads and warning drivers to avoid Pacific, Atlantic and Ocean avenues Saturday. These roads have significant traffic backups and other issues related to the unsanctioned H2oi event. Several roads have been detoured, an announcement read Saturday afternoon. At 9:30 p.m., police announced the George Redding Bridge, the primary route into town, had been closed, also citing the event. Police throughout the island had their hands full and looked to the Cape May County Sheriffs Department and other jurisdictions for support. North Wildwood police said all days off for officers were canceled as reports came in about pop-up meets in the parking lot of the Acme. The North Wildwood Police has a zero tolerance policy in place in reference to disorderly conduct and reckless driving for this weekend, reads the Saturday statement. We hope everyone has a good time at the Fall Classic Car Show in Wildwood and the Irish Fall Festival here but we will not tolerate the nonsense. Other posted videos show hundreds of people in the street, defying a police siren and an officers orders to clear the way for his vehicle. The Wolf administration Monday warned residents to protect themselves against mosquito and tick-borne illnesses as fall weather lures people outdoors. The administration said that so far this year, there have been 14 human West Nile Virus cases, including two deaths one in Franklin County and another in Philadelphia County. Autumn is a wonderful season to spend time outdoors and participate in many activities, such as hiking and observing the fall foliage, but we want to make sure people protect themselves when they are outside, acting Secretary of Health and Physician General Dr. Denise Johnson said. Both ticks and mosquitoes carry a number of serious diseases. It only takes a few minutes to prepare and protect yourself from these diseases. State officials encourage residents to cover their exposed skin, wear light-colored clothing to better detect insects, tuck their pants into their socks in possible tick areas and used insect repellent approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. To reduce the risk of mosquito-borne illnesses, residents should target standing and stagnant water sources, such as those in urban catch basins, clogged gutters, discarded tires, poorly maintained swimming pools, flowerpots and other containers that hold water. The administration said mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus are most active at dawn and dusk. The Department of Environmental Protection's Vector Management Program will continue mosquito surveillance until the first frost of fall. Officials said mosquito numbers will diminish with cooler temperatures, and a frost will end mosquito activity season. Tick surveillance will continue throughout the fall and winter on warm days above 40 degrees. Ticks typically thrive in tall grass, brush and wooded areas, but deer ticks can live in any habitat and have been found in every county in the state. Those who have been outdoors should check for ticks, shower and put clothing and gear in the dryer on high to kill any ticks. Areas where residents should check for ticks are under the arms, in and around the ears, inside the belly button, back of the knees, in and around the hair, between the legs and around the waist. Symptoms of Lyme disease can include a bullseye rash, fever, chills, headache, fatigue, muscle and joint aches and swollen lymph nodes. Those with symptoms should talk to a doctor as soon as possible. Mitch McConnell and Kyrsten Sinema U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a bisexual Democrat whos proved a disappointment to many members of her party, is now touting her friendship with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a Republican whos helped block much progressive legislation. Sinema gave a speech Monday at the University of Louisvilles McConnell Center, which is named for the minority leader, who is the senior senator from Kentucky. In todays partisan Washington, it might shock some that a Democratic senator would consider the Republican leader of the Senate her friend. But back home in Arizona, we dont view life through a partisan lens, Sinema said, according to Insider. McConnell praised Sinema effusively in introducing her. Ive only known Kyrsten for four years, but she is, in my view and Ive told her this the most effective first-term senator Ive seen in my time in the Senate, he said. She is, today, what we have too few of in the Democratic Party: a genuine moderate and a dealmaker. Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a fellow Democrat, have been key opponents of ending the filibuster a process in the Senate in which it takes 60 votes to end debate on a bill and move to a vote on the bill itself. Thats been a barrier to voting rights legislation, the Equality Act, and more. The Senate has a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats (including the two independents who caucus with them) with Vice President Kamala Harris having the power to break a tie, so if only a simple majority were required, many bills supported by Democrats would get through. The House of Representatives has no filibuster rule. In introducing Sinema, McConnell mentioned that she and Manchin had voted against scrapping the filibuster in January so that a voting rights bill could pass. That was not fashionable in the Democratic Party in the last year and a half, he said. It took one hell of a lot of guts for Kyrsten Sinema to stand up and say, Im not gonna break the institution in order to achieve a short-term goal. Story continues Both Sinema and McConnell defended maintaining the filibuster. The Senate was designed to be a place that moves more slowly, to cool down those passions, to think more strategically and long-term about the legislation before us, she said. And most importantly, it was designed to require comity, to require people to compromise and work together so the legislation we pass represents the viewpoints of a broad spectrum of the country, not just the passion of the moment. Sinema has mentioned in the past that while an end to the filibuster would benefit the Democrats now, it would benefit the Republicans if they had a majority. McConnell noted this as well, saying he felt much pressure from Donald Trump to end the filibuster when Trump was president. The Republicans held a slim majority in the Senate during Trumps presidency. Sinemas actions in office have turned many in her party against her. Shes not up for reelection until 2024, but there is talk of mounting a primary challenge. A recent AARP poll found that majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents in Arizona disapprove of her performance. When respondents were broken down by other demographics age, race, gender, etc. Sinema polled unfavorably with almost every category as well. To an extent that seems without precedent, Arizonans of every race, creed, gender, and political persuasion dont like Kyrsten Sinema at basically the exact same rate, Slate contributor Dan Kois noted. His colleague Christina Cauterucci, in January, highlighted a rumor that Sinema was attempting to set herself up for a run for president in 2024 as a straight-down-the-middle candidate, Kois added. If this happens, these poll numbers suggest that she may, indeed, be the one candidate who can truly unite America. Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary announced on Thursday the sanctuary has welcomed a new tiger, a 12-year-old female tiger named Shakira, who was brought home on Wednesday night. Shakira had previously lived at the Wright Park Zoo in Dodge City, Kansas, which is temporarily closing for renovations and transitioning to keeping only native species. According to Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary's Facebook page, Crown was contacted by Big Cat Sanctuary Alliance about a month ago and informed Shakira needed a new home. It was a long and tiring two days for the team, but we are so excited to have Shakira here and cant wait to give her the best life possible, said Operations Manager John Madigan. The trip to get Shakira to her new home took about two days and travel over 1,300 miles. Madigan said he is thankful to sanctuary supporters for making their work possible. According to World Wildlife Fund, there are about twice as many tigers living in captivity than are living in the wild, with less than 4,000 living in native habitat. Crown Ridge officials stated Shakira will remain quarantined for the next few weeks to allow her to settle in and get to know her new keepers, before before she is able to enter the full yard with the other cats. While she may not be in full view all the time, visitors may be able to sneak a peek at her. Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary also has many events coming up, with proceeds benefiting the sanctuary. At some of the events, guest will have a chance to take tours and see the tigers enjoy enrichment activities, unique things and treats the sanctuary provides the tigers to improve their quality of life and keep from getting bored. The first event is a trivia night set for Oct. 1, with doors opening at 5 p.m. and trivia beginning at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 per person, and reservations are required. During the 10 rounds of trivia, guests can also participate in the silent auction, a 50/50, and various other games during the duration of the event. Drinks such as soda, water, and alcoholic beverages will be on hand, but trivia night organizers said guests are welcome to bring their own food and drink to the venue. The top three tables will receive prizes. The first place table will receive VIP tour tickets, second place will receive early-bird tour tickets, and third place will receive general tour tickets. In order to sign up for the event, trivia players can call either 573-883-9909 or email info@crown-ridge.com. During Roarfest on Oct. 29, visitors will get to see the big cats enjoy special Halloween treats and activities, including pumpkins. Guest may be able to see Shakira out in the yard at this point, said Madigan, but it depends on how well she adjusts to her new home. Those in attendance who wear costumes will get a bag of candy. Pumpkins will be available to paint, along with a donation of any amount per pumpkin. Pumpkins can either be taken home or left for the tigers to play with. Admission is $10 per person with no reservations required. The tour starts at 10 a.m. The last event is in November, and is Turkey for Tigers. Set for Nov. 26 at 10 a.m., it lets visitors watch the big cats enjoy eating their own holiday turkeys, as well as engage in other tiger activities. No reservations are required, and the price is $10 per person with kids under the age of 3 getting in for free. All proceeds from the events will go towards the care of animals. Located at 19620 Crown Ridge Rd. outside of Ste. Genevieve, the sanctuarys mission is to provide lifelong sanctuary to wild cats who had been either abused, neglected, or unwanted, and to inspire change to end the captive wildlife crisis. Anyone wanting to keep up with the sanctuary can find updates at crownridgetigers.com or on Facebook under Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) A doctor admitted in federal court on Wednesday that he certified products and tests for thousands of Medicare and Medicaid patients in Missouri whom he never met. Oluwatobi Alabi Yerokun, 36, of Washington D.C., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to make false statements related to health care matters. Yerokun certified unnecessary medical products and genetic tests for more than 2,000 Medicare and Medicaid patients in Missouri, U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore said in a news release. Working as a telemedicine provider, Yerokun signed forms and certified that durable medical equipment or genetic tests were medically necessary. Yerokun had no doctor-patient relationship with any of the beneficiaries. Those orders were used to submit claims to Medicare and Medicaid, which paid submitted by the durable medical equipment companies and testing laboratories, prosecutors said. He ordered durable medical equipment and genetic tests for 2,184 Medicare beneficiaries between March 2019 and April 2021 and was paid a total of $44,860. The scheme caused Medicare to pay companies almost $3.1 million and Medicaid to pay companies almost $525,000. Yerokun faces up to five years in federal prison. His sentencing date has not been scheduled. Rep. Pollitt, R-Sedalia, discusses a package of tax incentives for rural projects he was sponsoring during floor action Wednesday during the special legislative session (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications). Passing a package of tax credits for rural economic projects should have been the easy part of Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons special session agenda. A bill with everything he requested passed with big bipartisan majorities during the regular session, the only opposition coming from conservative Republicans who dislike tax credits generally. But when the bill came up Wednesday in the Missouri House, it received just one vote more than constitutionally required to pass. And just to get it to that vote, House Speaker Rob Vescovo had to add three new supporters at the last minute, including the bills sponsor, to a crucial committee. The special session is about half way through its work. The House will work on tax cut bills this week and the Senate will resume action next Monday. With the November election only six weeks away, Republicans need to pass both bills to show core constituencies they can deliver. The close margin on the rural incentives bill shows how tactical missteps and factional fighting could upset those plans. Trouble for the rural incentives bill began when the House GOP leadership shut off debate Wednesday morning as several Democratic members stood waiting to offer amendments. In response, 25 Democrats voted present on the ensuing vote. That signaled that the bipartisan support the bill once enjoyed was evaporating. The final vote would be tight, leadership realized, because of the GOP members opposed to all tax credits. And it meant that before that final vote in the afternoon, there was potential trouble in the House Fiscal Review Committee, which had to approve its $40 million price tag . Democratic opposition and two absent Republicans meant it could be defeated, Republican Rep.Doug Richey, the committees vice chairman, said in an interview. Looking at the head count there and the way the votes were calculated, I would say probably so, Richey, R-Excelsior Springs, when asked if the bill would have failed without intervention by Vescovo. (Committee Chairman) Travis (Fitzwater) and I would have been the only yes votes, and there would have been three no votes, with those who were present. Republican state Rep. Sara Walsh of Ashland voted against the bill in the morning session and was expected to oppose it in the fiscal review committee as well. The two Democrats, Reps. Donna Baringer of St. Louis and Betsy Fogle of Springfield, voted for the bill in the morning session but werent ready to back it in the committee hearing. There was a lot of frustration and a lot of surprise, and disappointment that the process rolled out the way that it did, Fogle said of debate being cut off before Democrats could offer their amendments. Fogle was talking to Fitzwater about the upcoming vote when state Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, arrived and told them he had just been added to the committee. Fitzwater was unaware of it and left the conversation to figure out what was going on, Fogle said. Fitzwater could not be reached for comment. Vescovo replaced state Rep. Jason Chipman, who was absent, and increased the size of the committee by two Republicans, which meant Democrats had another seat and that was Merideth. The Republicans added to the committee were Rep. Brad Pollitt, sponsor of the bill, along with Reps. Don Rone and Rick Francis, chairman and vice-chairman of the House Agriculture Policy Committee. Pollitt said he wasnt aware the bill faced defeat in the committee when he was told to report to the meeting. There were people absent that were on fiscal review, and someone from the speakers office came and said go to fiscal review, Pollitt said. Rone said he was asked to sit in place of an absent member and he agreed. There is one boss up there and thats the speaker, Rone said. When the committee vote finally came, it was 5-2-2, with Merideth and Walsh opposed. Fogle and Baringer voted present. What you saw right before fiscal review was called to order was the speaker expanding fiscal review to add members who he knew would support it, Fogle said. It is in the rules, but not something I have seen done. Richey opposed the bill during the morning floor vote but said the fiscal review committee was not the place for one of two bills being considered in the special session to be defeated. Obviously, in the special, you are not going to have a bill that is that significant die, Richey said, noting he became aware of the expanded committee when the meeting began. I wasnt in those conversations. Bipartisan breakdown Parson asked lawmakers for a simple fix to a bill he vetoed. Instead of a two-year sunset on the tax credits and other incentives, Parson wanted the programs in place for six years. In the regular session, thats how the bill started. All the elements in the special session bill were in the regular session version, along with a six-year sunset, when the House passed it 120-30 on Jan. 27. Every Democrat present that day supported it. It had bipartisan support because the bill included Democratic-sponsored ideas, including incentives for urban farming and specialty crops, as well as tax credits to promote biofuels and small producers. One provision expands a program to give bankers tax credits for waiving interest on the first year of farm loans to producers who have less than $500,000 in market sales. The current program is capped at $250,000 in sales. Large commodity producers, growing corn, soybeans, cotton or rice, are likely to have more in sales than that cap. A farmer with 1,000 acres can receive more than $1 million at current prices and predicted yields for corn and cotton, and almost $700,000 for soybeans. This is designed for the young people that are wanting to get started farming, 250 to 300 acres, and they need the help getting started, said Rone, of Portageville. All the farmers around here are getting older. In the run-up to the special session, attention focused on Parsons push for an income tax cut. Legislative leaders worked out a plan to pass the tax cut bill first in the Missouri Senate, where members have the greatest opportunity to delay bills and where the now-defunct conservative caucus had used the rules for that purpose repeatedly in the regular session. The Senate tax debate, however, went smoothly, though not without the use of some parliamentary maneuvering to limit amendments. And the Senate voted on a bill with the rural incentives, passing it with a bipartisan majority of 26-4. And the House debate on rural incentives seemed to be a model for bipartisanship as well until debate was shut off. Rone and Pollitt discussed the bill at length with Democratic members to highlight the provisions that both parties had supported in the past. Last weeks debate was the sixth time we have talked about this ag bll in the last year, Pollitt said. The two amendments Democrats had prepared were intended to inject the issue of foreign ownership of Missouri farmland into the debate and to prohibit state elected officials from benefiting from the tax credits. The political amendments were unlikely to pass, and their immediate targets were Attorney General Eric Schmitt, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, and Parson. In the GOP primary, opponents attacked Schmitts 2013 votes as a state senator to lift the ban on foreign ownership of farmland. The bill legalized the sale of Smithfield Foods Premium Standard Farm hog operation in north Missouri to a Chinese conglomerate. Democratic Senate candidate Trudy Busch Valentine has kept up the criticism as she campaigns against Schmitt. Parson raises cattle on 47 acres in Polk County. Democrats had identified three areas of the bill where Parson could potentially benefit, Meredith said. He could be eligible for interest waivers on loans for his farm from two programs and the bill has a sales tax exemption for the purchase of utility vehicles used for farming purposes. Merediths amendment would have prohibited state elected officials eligible to receive a pension from benefit from the programs. Pollitt said it was absurd that any portion of the bill was designed for Parsons benefit. I did not have one individual entity talk to me about tax credits for their personal gain, Pollitt said. The amendment about foreign ownership would have barred any entity owned by foreign interests from participating in the incentive programs. Rone, who is term-limited, said he agrees with efforts to limit foreign ownership of farmland but hasnt been able to get a bill moving because of lobbying opposition. One idea he had was to apply the 1% limit to each county, which would force the sale of Premium Standard Farms. Somebody needs to start the process and get that done, Rone said. It was the act of shutting off debate that angered Democrats, Fogle said. They knew they were unlikely to get their amendments passed. We were up there for the singular reason for producing an ag bill and we were given zero opportunity to discuss this bill, she said. A process was not followed in a way that was fair to the minority party. On the morning vote, where a simple majority was needed to move the bill ahead, 13 Democrats voted for the bill. Only 27 members voted no, so the result was not in doubt. But when the afternoon vote came, which required 82 votes under the constitution, the bill needed help. Only five Democrats voted for it, six Republicans who voted against it in the morning changed their votes and it received 83 votes. You saw yesterday that people hit their limit on how much they are willing to take before people stand up and do something about it, Fogle said. At some point we have to stand up and say you have gone too far, we deserve our amendments to be heard. Richey was one of the members who changed his vote. He had never voted in favor of tax credits for economic incentives, he said. Credits that help agriculture are less onerous than some others, Richey said. To unravel that tangled web, you are not going to do it on that bill, he said. I decided I would make sure it didnt die. Missouri House Speaker Rob Vescovo, R-Arnold, is asking federal prosecutors to get involved in the investigation of Agape Boarding School (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications). Missouris highest ranking legislator is asking federal prosecutors to intervene and shut down Agape Boarding School, alleging undeniable corruption and inaction by local officials who he says could do the right thing and have consistently chosen not to. House Speaker Rob Vescovo, R-Arnold, made his request last Wednesday in a letter to Teresa Moore, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. The Independent obtained the letter through a request under Missouris open records laws. Stockton-based Agape is a Christian reform school which has faced mounting allegations of physical and sexual abuse by former students. In recent weeks, the state Department of Social Services and the attorney generals office have sought to have the school shut down, claiming a systemic pattern of abuse at the school, which they allege poses immediate health or safety concerns to current students. The case has drawn out over weeks and is currently on pause after the state won a motion to stay the proceedings Friday, arguing they received new information that could change their claims and proposed remedies in the case. As evidence the federal government should intervene, Vescovo pointed to recent reports of a minor being forcibly taken across state lines to the school by a transport company that employs Cedar County Sheriffs Deputies, and referred to a broader pattern of children being transported to the school and then subject to abuse. It is appropriate for federal investigation and prosecution to take the next important steps to put an end to what amounts to child trafficking, Vescovo wrote. The legislature has gone to exhaustive lengths, Vescovo wrote, to address abuse allegations against Agape, but nonetheless, putting a stop to the heinous acts that continue to take place at Agape has remained an unobtainable goal. For one, Vescovo wrote, progress was stymied by the inaction of the local prosecutor. Last year, Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither pursued only a fraction of the 65 criminal counts recommended by Attorney General Eric Schmitt against 22 Agape staff members. The Kansas City Star has investigated ties between Agape and Cedar County law enforcement, including sheriffs deputies who worked at Agape. Gaithers inaction, Vescovo wrote to the U.S. attorney, raises serious concerns about the undeniable corruption that is taking place at the local level. The prosecutor is just one more in a long line of local officials who have either turned a blind eye to, or helped to cover up, the criminal actions of the staff at Agape, Vescovo added. Gaither declined to comment, saying he hadnt seen Vescovos letter. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorneys office declined to comment and said the Department of Justice cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation until charges are publicly filed. Vescovo also called out Cedar County Circuit Judge David Munton, who is currently presiding over the states case against Agape. Vescovo alleges Munton has refused to shut the school down despite the overwhelming evidence that abuse has occurred there frequently and continues to occur today. Munton could not be reached Friday for comment. The inaction of local officials Vescovo wrote, has helped perpetuate a culture of abuse at Agape, and contributed to a larger, darker network that has served to traffic children to other schools in Missouri and across state lines. Agapes attorney, John Schultz, said the allegations in Vescovos letter against Agape are false. Those boys are watched 24/7 by multiple adults, Schultz said. For some lawmaker to make those claims, that borders on slanderous. Those are outrageous comments that have no basis in fact or truth. A spokesperson for the attorney general, reached Friday, declined to comment on Vescovos letter. Vescovo wrote that despite the states best effortsfederal assistance is necessary to protect the health and well-being of the many children who still attend the school, and to seek justice for the many more who have suffered unspeakable abuse there. For too long this school has found a way to remain open by exploiting loopholes at the state level and cultivating relationships at the local level, he added. A law passed by the legislature that went into effect last year granted the attorney generals office and Department of Social Services, as well as county prosecuting or circuit attorneys, the authority to seek injunctive relief to cease the operation of a residential care facility, and provide for appropriate removal of children in certain instances. In one provision, the state can act in the instance of immediate health or safety concern for the children there. Earlier this month, the state filed for injunction at Agape. Munton originally ordered the school shut down but shortly thereafter put his order on pause and decided to hold a hearing because the staff member the state alleged of abuse had already been terminated. Since the initial delay, the state has attempted to file two additional amended petitions alleging more widespread abuse, including from current students. The next hearing was originally scheduled for Monday morning but was delayed indefinitely on Friday. The attorney generals office requested that the hearing be put on hold to review new information it has received. That information included updated census details on Agapes student body and staff, including that at least 12 staff members listed on the previous census would no longer be working there by Monday and that the schools format will transition to five group homes Tuesday, away from a boarding school type-facility. The information was allegedly related from Agapes director to a Department of Social Services staff member. Separately, the state learned that two individuals currently listed on the Agape employee list had incorporated a new license-exempt residential facility, called Stone of Help, described as a Home for Troubled Youth with an address on the Agape property and adjacent to the current Agape Boarding School, the motion states. The state will not allow Agape to escape accountability or continue to present an immediate health and safety concern to children through corporate shell games while employing the same people and methods that originally led the State to bring this action to protect children, the state wrote. Schultz told the state, about Stone of Help, that it was the first [he] heard of it, according to the motion, and he provided no further information specific to that development in an interview Friday. The state continues to make reckless statements to the press but when it comes to proving their case in court they cannot do it, he said. Schultz speculated that the reason the state stayed their order was because they were not ready to prevail on Monday on the first amended petition. Missouri Childrens Division staff will continue to have 24/7 access to the facility, a spokesperson for the Attorney General confirmed Friday. Prince Michel Vineyard & Winery has been, quite literally, crushing it for the past 40 years, and its about time they celebrate. The woman-led winery and vineyard in Leon, Virginia, will hold its MAD Jazz Fest and 40th Anniversary Celebration, in partnership with Daily Progress, on Oct. 22, 2022, from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m., at Prince Michel Vineyard and Winery, at 154 Winery Lane. Jazz saxophonist Tim Warfield will headline. Chelsea Reed and the Fair Weather Five, Clarence Ward III and more will also perform. Dave Rogers of NBC29 News will host, with honored guests and dignitaries including Teresa Maley, a popular Madison County childrens book author. Local artisan vendors and food will also be on hand. Prince Michel will auction off two of their library wines, with the proceeds benefiting Madison County's Free Clinic. Tickets can be purchased at madjazzva.com. The $20 Cheers Ticket includes a glass of wine and a commemorative wine glass. The $75 VIP Ticket includes premium parking, a boxed charcuterie meal, one bottle of wine with a private jazz label and wine glass, and access to the VIP lounge, patio and tent next to the jazz stage. Private performances will be given in the lounge area. For every Cheers Ticket sold, $5 will be donated to the University of Virginias Breast Care Center in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Lydia Hansen, human resources manager at Prince Michel, said the event is a way to celebrate the community that supported the winery and vineyard through the pandemic. A lot of people were getting wine shipped to them, but the local community would come out for drive-through wine and for our wine slushies, she said. It was just phenomenal to have that many people come out to support us. Prince Michel was one of the first in the region to produce fruit-forward wines like peach, raspberry, blackberry and apple. They also produce an incredibly popular chocolate wine. We tend to be very innovative the first on the cusp to do things, says Kristin Swanson Easter, the owner since 2005. Were such a young industry compared to the West Coast and Europe. Prince Michel also offers chardonnay, viognier, Petit Manseng, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc all of which will be available at the festival. Tap29 Brewery and Pub, which opened at Prince Michel in 2019, will be serving craft beer. Prince Michel Vineyard & Winery was founded in 1982 by Jean and Sylviane LeDucq, who owned a laundry business in France during WWII, laundering uniforms for the French resistance and U.S. soldiers. After expanding to the United States in the early 1980s, the LeDucqs opened Prince Michel one of six wineries in the Commonwealth of Virginia at the time. They thought so much of Virginia, and the grapes here, and trusted that they could make such high-quality wine, said Brad Hansen, winemaker, brewmaster and general manager at Prince Michel. For more information, visit princemichel.com. 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. One person is dead after a single-engine plane crashed Sept. 22 in the mountainous eastern reaches of Linn County. Hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail said they heard the drone of an airplane and a loud crash, then smelled fuel but could not see an airplane, according to a Linn County Sheriffs Office news release. The U.S. Air Force Rescue Coordination Center called Linn County dispatchers a couple of hours later to report an aircraft had disappeared from radar over the Mount Jefferson Wilderness Area. Coordination Center later reported that a 1996 Piper PA-28 Cherokee based out of Llano, California was missing after it never landed at its destination. A Life Flight Network helicopter flew over the wilderness around 7 p.m., according to flight records. County search and rescue crews were activated, according to the release. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter spotted the crash while searching the next morning, Sept. 23, east of Marion Lake close to where the Pacific Crest Trail overlaps Linn Countys border with Deschutes County. The sheriffs office did not release the name of the pilot and did not specify whether the pilot was the airplanes only occupant. Rescuers believe the pilot could not have survived the crash, according to the release. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash. Saadia McConville was just 4 years old when she arrived at the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence center in Corvallis in 1984. She doesnt remember much. She knows she felt safe, which was important considering the circumstances. Her parents were at the center of what would become a landmark case in Benton County and beyond: one of the first successfully prosecuted marital rape cases in the country. Now, at age 42, shes coming back to the place she sought refuge as a child. I dont think its hyperbolic to say that I dont know if wed be alive if we didnt have that shelter, McConville said. Shell be returning to Corvallis to give the keynote presentation at the CARDV Safe Families Benefit at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4. To RSVP to the virtual event or to donate, go to www.cardv.org/events/sfb. CARDV Executive Director Kate Caldwell said the goal of the event is to raise $80,000 which will help ensure the agency's services which include a 24-hour crisis hotline (541-754-0110), legal advocacy, confidential shelters, support groups and more continue to be free. From Pakistan to America McConvilles father, Zafarullah Hafeez Siddiqui, and her mother were graduate students at Oregon State University. McConville was born in Pakistan but traveled as an infant with her parents to Corvallis in 1980. Her mother, whose identity is shielded here, has a different last name. McConville said her parents had a semi-arranged marriage, although her mom didnt really want to get married. But when her father spoke of his dreams of traveling to America to study, McConvilles mother couldnt pass on the opportunity. My mom was really excited about (going to America) because Pakistan is a very patriarchal culture, McConville said. She had grown up idolizing Western culture, and she really just wanted that experience and that kind of a life. It was far from a perfect marriage. McConville said her father was abusive to her mother, but her mother was willing to take it as long as he didnt hurt their daughter. One day her mother came home and saw Siddiqui had hit McConville. That was the turning point. Her mom connected with a local church that had a program for foreign exchange students, and she met a couple who became parental figures to her and McConville. While Siddiqui returned to Pakistan to get some more money, the couple helped her find a divorce attorney and get a restraining order. Upon returning to Corvallis, Siddiqui lived estranged from his family for a while. The couple came from a Muslim culture in which a woman divorcing her husband was considered inappropriate. It could even be seen as shameful. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Corvallis Gazette-Times. Crimes committed The pending divorce and consequential shame overtook Siddiqui. McConville said her mom woke up one night with a gun pointed at her. Siddiqui then raped his wife multiple times and threatened to kill her and their daughters, according to McConville. After surviving the night, McConvilles mother reportedly wrote a note asking for help on a scrap of paper, hid it in her shoe and later slid it in the neighbors mailbox. The neighbor called the police, who arrested Siddiqui. I remember visiting him in jail. I have very distinct memories of what that jail was like, and it was just so gray and suppressing and scary, McConville said. I went back in July just a couple months ago, and it looks exactly the same. A trial ensues In 1984, a Benton County Circuit Court jury found Siddiqui guilty of raping his wife. The conviction culminated a high-profile trial that put the Muslim religion and Western culture and beliefs at the forefront. Pete Sandrock was Benton County District Attorney at the time. It was certainly noteworthy to me and to my office, but I think that it was noteworthy in the longer arc of spousal rape as a crime because it really was one of the first trials in Oregon, and certainly one of the first convictions at trial in the nation, Sandrock said. There had been some others, but very few, and one of the things that made this case especially noteworthy is that this was a Muslim immigrant family, he added. Corvallis Gazette-Times articles written about the 1984 trial reported that Siddiqui sat with a copy of the Koran on the table in front of him during the trial. The defense referred to the crimes as an intercultural conflict and said the problems arose from the victims desire to create her own identity and break away from the traditional pillars of the Muslim faith. In the end, the jury found Siddiqui guilty. Just hours after he was convicted, Siddiqui hanged himself in his cell at the Benton County Jail. Despite Siddiqui never making it to prison, the conviction still marked the beginning of a shift in the perception of marital rape. Everybody involved in the case recognized that it was important in the development of the law and the ability to proceed in cases like this, Sandrock said. I don't want to claim something that's not our due. We were certainly leaders in this, but we weren't the only ones. Marital rape laws took time Marital rape is illegal nationwide today, but that wasn't always the case. Until the 1970s, marriage was a legal defense for rape. At the time of the case, marital rape was still a hotly discussed topic. It wasn't made illegal in all 50 states until 1993. Oregon, in particular, was a state that put spousal rape in the legal spotlight. In the 1978 Marion County court case Oregon v. Rideout, John Rideout became the first man in the country to be charged with raping his wife while living with her. Although he was acquitted, the case kickstarted the conversation. Sandrock said Oregon was fairly progressive when it came to marital rape legislation. Her time at CARDV Although she was quite young, McConville remembers the way she felt at CARDV. She moved there after her father was arrested because of fears that Siddiqui or his friends would try to finish the job and kill her and her mother. I think (the shelter) did a really good job of making sure that the kids felt like it was more of an adventure, rather than like you're hiding for your life, she said. I was 4, so I don't really have clear memories, but I felt safe. She remembers the children's playroom and racks of clothes from which to choose. It was like a slumber party, she said. But because of the threats on their lives, McConville said her mother and she were on strict lockdown. There were even discussions of sending them into the underground, where they would be sent to a new place with new identities. It was something that I remember very clearly we were going to do, she said. I remember that I wanted my name to be Kelly. Despite not making that drastic move, it was a time of great upheaval and trauma. McConville's mother told her bits and pieces of what happened over the years, but she didnt like to discuss it. The two dont talk much anymore, despite McConville actively working on a book about the experience. Sharing her story Around five or six years ago, McConville decided she wanted to try writing about what happened. She started with a chapter and a friend put her in contact with a literary agent, who said it was publishable. But she wasnt quite ready to tell the full story. I didn't talk about it for the longest time. I was really embarrassed about it, she said. I thought that you're a certain type of a person if you do end up in a situation like that. "It took until I was well into adulthood to finally understand that it's not my fault. It's not my mom's fault. And there's actually power in talking about it and hopefully challenging some of these systems and making them in theory work better. "But it just feels like it's such an uphill battle. After working on part of the book, McConville hit a wall and didnt really know where to go from there. She returned to Oregon to research more about what happened in 1984. She redirected her writing, sharing her experience of discovery, about the case and her time at the shelter. The fact that we ended up somewhere that had a domestic violence shelter considering it was a relatively small town is fortunate. "And then that we also ended up somewhere where we had a D.A. who was really progressive and sought out the rape as the crime that it is pushed for it be prosecuted as a felony and not as a sexual assault, she said. A successful life McConville said shes glad CARDV exists, but in a way, she wishes it didnt have to. Domestic violence has been a part of her life, but the shelter provided safety at a time she needed it. Today, McConville runs a communication consultancy where she works with anti-poverty and economic justice organizations. She works on crafting different policies and content for the organizations, specifically focusing on the intersection of economic, racial and gender justice. Before that, she worked in advocacy for immigrant rights and as a journalist. She currently lives in New York. Had CARDV not existed, McConville can't fathom what wouldve happened to her and her mother. I think that's the shame of it (the shelter is) doing this hugely important work, and it's just so sad that they don't ever get to see how they helped people and how important that is, she said. The Albany Democrat-Herald and Corvallis Gazette-Times has been blessed with a plethora of amazing photographers over the years. This summer, another name was added to that list. Logan Hannigan-Downs interned with Mid-Valley Media for 10 weeks and proved that he's a future star in the world of photojournalism. While he's on to bigger and better things, this is a homegrown success story. Hannigan-Downs attended elementary and middle school in Corvallis before graduating from Philomath High School in 2020. After a year of studies at Linn-Benton Community College, he joined our staff. And now he has a full-time gig as a staff photographer for the Bryan College Station Eagle, a fellow Lee Enterprises newspaper that covers, among other things, Texas A&M University. Here's a look at some of Hannigan-Downs' best photos, with behind-the-scenes information about how the images developed and more. Oregon has begun in earnest seeking federal grants from the $1 trillion public works spending plan that Congress approved and President Joe Biden signed last year. The 14 grant applications that lawmakers on the Emergency Board cleared on Friday, Sept. 23, range from $200,000 to $750 million. The total this round was for $920 million, most of it for the proposed new Interstate 5 bridge and the Rose Quarter widening at I-5 and I-84 in Portland. Other agencies submitted a total of 11 applications to share almost $70 million, and they drew no opposition. Agencies would have to return to the E-Board, or the Legislature if it is in session, for spending authority if any federal grant is approved. The board, which consists of 20 members who decide budget matters between sessions, did approve an initial round of nine applications by state agencies back on June 3. Seven of those came from the Oregon Department of Transportation, including $18 million for the Outer Powell Boulevard project to improve safety between 99th and 174th avenues in Portland. Six of the ODOT requests totaled $261 million; the seventh was for new ODOT positions for the expanded work made possible by the 2021 law. The two applications by other agencies totaled $72 million. For this round, ODOT submitted three new applications totaling $851 million, which drew a handful of opposing votes from minority Republicans. The largest application, at $750 million, is for construction of a new bridge across the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver, Washington, that awaits completion of a supplemental environmental impact statement. Federal law requires that step before construction, the start of which is envisioned in 2025. Project financing is not yet lined up, although contributions from Oregon and Washington are expected to be at least $1 billion for each state, plus a bond issue repaid through tolls, in addition to federal aid. A report from the Legislative Fiscal Office, which does the budget work for lawmakers, shed light on why ODOT made the request to its federal counterpart now. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Corvallis Gazette-Times. "An early application for this competitive grant helps ODOT to hone its application and signal to federal partners that the project is proceeding," it said. Though no specific federal source was identified for the applications, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act the 2021 law that approves federal spending on public works over the next six years provides money for large bridge projects. It also sets aside $100 billion for the U.S. secretary of transportation to award for large competitive projects. ODOT is also seeking $1 million from the spending plan for bridge planning, specifically for potential ground improvements on Hayden Island against liquefaction that an earthquake could trigger. It also is applying for $100 million for a portion of the Rose Quarter project that would reconnect the Albina neighborhood. The money would be drawn from a national total of $1 billion available for such reconnections under the spending plan. About a year ago, the Oregon Transportation Commission approved a modified version of the project whose cost could top $1 billion, depending on whether a proposed cover over part of it will support three- or six-story buildings. The project also involves reconnecting some streets in a predominantly Black neighborhood that was split in the early 1960s, when I-5 was built through North Portland. All three ODOT requests were approved over the objections of most Republican members. Rep. Greg Smith of Heppner was absent from the meeting. Rep. Duane Stark of Grants Pass voted no on the Rose Quarter request, but was absent on the other votes. Sen. Bill Hansell of Athena voted for the bridge planning request, but against the other requests. The requests from other agencies, approved without dissent: Higher Education Coordinating Commission, $5 million with the Oregon Conservation Corps for projects under the America the Beautiful Challenge, grants for which will be administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Federation. Among the uses: Restore ecosystems, reconnect wildlife corridors, improve resilience of ecosystems, expand access to the outdoors. Five state agencies are seeking grants under this program. Oregon Health Authority: $23.7 million for its revolving loan fund for improvement of drinking water. Department of Forestry: $5 million for America the Beautiful Challenge. Department of Environmental Quality: $5.5 million over five years for property reuse and redevelopment in communities affected by past pollution. Department of Agriculture: $4.3 million for America the Beautiful Challenge. Department of Water Resources: $1 million for its program for potential high-hazard dams. Department of Water Resources: $200,000 for its dam safety program. Department of Parks and Recreation: $350,000 for America the Beautiful Challenge. Department of Fish and Wildlife: $14.9 million for America the Beautiful Challenge. Department of Fish and Wildlife: $8.5 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for restoration of fish passage through the Wallowa Basin and the North Fork of the Klaskanine River. Department of Fish and Wildlife: $1 million from the Forest Service's Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program for a fish passage project in the Illinois River basin. Related stories: The so-called Ministry of Foreign Affairs of occupied Abkhazia responded to the protest held by the activists near the Enguri bridge and assessed it as "another provocation".In the statement released by the de facto ministry, it is noted that "such actions are aimed at destabilizing the situation in the border zone"."Despite the statements of the high officials of Georgia that Georgia wants to resolve the existing contradictions in a peaceful way, in practice Georgia takes various steps that can undermine the foundations of security in our region.According to the available information, the US Embassy and USAID instructed Georgian public activists to activate the issue of the return of refugees to Abkhazia. The provocations stimulated by the American curators cause an extremely negative reaction in the Abkhazian society and pose a direct threat to peace and stability in the region," the statement reads.The rally was held on September 24 near the Enguri bridge, Samegrelo-Abkhazia administrative border. The participants brought the flags of Georgia, the European Union and Ukraine, a banner with the inscription "Abkhazia is Georgia" and once again protested the Russian occupation.According to the source of the Meduza publication, the Kremlin wants not only to mobilize Russians, but it is also considering the possibility of mobilizing the residents of so-called South Ossetia and Abkhazia. According to the publication, the source is a person close to the administration of the President of Russia.According to the source, there is a possibility that several thousand people are forcibly drafted from Abkhazia and the so-called South Ossetia.On September 21, Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization in Russia. The decision was followed by protests in several Russian cities, including Moscow. Partial mobilization refers to the enlistment of military personnel who have already undergone some military training.After partial mobilization was announced in Russia, Russian citizens began to massively leave the country, including in the direction of Georgia. In the past few days, footage from the North Caucasus was circulated, which shows the rows of Russian citizens crossing to Georgia. BBC writes, based on a local correspondent, that there is a 10-kilometer line of cars on the Georgian-Russian border. Your morning rundown of the latest news from overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Local emergency management officials are asking residents to monitor the movements of Hurricane Ian and be prepared as the storm strengthens and moves closer to Florida this week. The storms path has proved to be unpredictable for forecasters, more so than usual. The National Weather Service in Tallahassee, which covers the Wiregrass, stated there is currently high uncertainty on the storms three- to five-day track. This has been in their eyes one of the most unpredictable and hard to forecast storms theyve seen, Houston County Emergency Management Director Chris Judah said Monday during an update to county commissioners. While the storms impact for the Wiregrass is still very uncertain as far as winds and rain go, Houston County will likely see residents from Florida fleeing the path of Hurricane Ian, Judah said. Our biggest concern here in the Wiregrass and Houston County area well have an influx of people; our traffic load and count will be high; our hotels, our resources, restaurants, things of that nature are going to be filled up quickly, Judah said. Judah said emergency management has been working closely with Wiregrass 2-1-1 and Visit Dothan to get information out about available space and resources for evacuees. Because the track is so uncertain, the National Weather Service cautioned residents on focusing too much on the storms projection cone seen in forecast graphics. Impacts from the storm could be felt well outside any projected path as Hurricane Ian is a large storm, and the storm could shift west or east as it approaches Floridas Gulf Coast. Wind and rainfall could impact the Wiregrass as early as late Wednesday. Based on the latest track, rainfall amounts could reach 2 inches in Dothan and anywhere from 3 to 6 inches in places to the east in Georgia and Florida. How much wind and rainfall is seen locally will ultimately depend on the storms path. Ian was expected to rapidly intensify into a major hurricane and reach its peak intensification over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center. Moving north-northwest, Hurricane Ian is expected to gradually turn north and remain a major hurricane as it passes the west-central Florida coast on Wednesday and Thursday. The storms forward speed is expected to slow down, which could prolong the impacts on Floridas west coast. A major hurricane is defined as having sustained winds of greater than 110 mph. Judah encouraged residents to help any evacuees if they can. Theyre leaving their homes, he said. Lets be as nice as we can, help them as much as we can, get them where they need to go. Dothan police have charged two Wiregrass women with hindering prosecution by aiding one of two suspects still wanted in a double murder. In July, the Dothan Police Department began working a double murder investigation along with the Holmes County Sheriffs Department in Florida. During the investigation, five individuals were identified as suspects. Two of those suspects: 32-year-old Devante Williams and 31-year-old MacAuthur Hawkins, both of Dothan, are still being sought by the Dothan Police Department and the U.S. Marshals. Williams and Hawkins are wanted for one count of capital murder, one count of kidnapping first degree and one count of abuse of a corpse. In recent days, investigators identified two females who have been hindering the apprehension of Devante Williams by providing him with housing and vehicles, according to the police department. Quantasia Johnson, 27, of Dothan and Cathleen Harvis, 26, of Enterprise have each been charged with one count of hindering prosecution first degree. Each one has a $15,000 bond. The double murder investigation began with the disappearance of Damien Bell and Shauna Terry, who were reported missing in Dothan by family members on July 11 and were last seen or heard from on July 8. Dothan and Holmes County investigators found two bodies in Holmes County in late July believed to be Bell and Terry. Of the five suspects, Dothan police first arrested Sheena Marie Thurman, 35, of Bonifay on July 28 and charged her with one count of murder. About a week later, police apprehended and charged David Allen Bastian, 37, of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, with one count of capital murder, one count of kidnapping first degree, and one count of abuse of a corpse. Joshua Deavours Parks, 36, was taken into custody a few days after Bastian and charged with capital murder, abuse of a corpse, and kidnapping first degree. Anyone with information related to the whereabouts of Devante Williams or MacAuthur Hawkins are asked to contact the Dothan Police Department at 334-615-3000. If you would like to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 334-793-7000. The Dothan Police Department will guard and protect the identities of all those who wish to help in an anonymous capacity. A reward may be offered for any information that leads to the apprehension of either of these two individuals. UK manufacturers battle with the City to attract digital skills UK manufacturers are having to compete with the financial sector and other high-paying parts of the economy to recruit the data specialists that they need to drive the move to digitalisation. A new survey by the British manufacturers group Make UK and the accountancy firm Sage reveals that more than a quarter (27%) of UK manufacturers say that they now need data analysts to help them make the transition to the digital era. According to the report, 2030 Skills: Closing the Gap, companies are now desperate to recruit the best qualified technical engineers and data experts to ensure that new automation projects are as successful as possible. It estimates that there are currently 95,000 manufacturing vacancies, costing the UK economy 7.7bn a year a 21m daily loss to GDP. Half of British manufacturers say that they cannot find the talent their businesses need locally, and 62% fear that they will not find it easy to find the skills they need in the run-up to 2030. Automation, digitalisation and environmental sustainability are top priorities for investment among manufacturers, with 58% of companies planning to recruit engineering technicians while 61% want to hire production and process engineers. Half of the manufacturers report that offering flexible working has helped them to recruit and retain workers and almost all (90%) now offer flexible arrangements to non-production staff. However, more than a quarter are sticking to rigid shift patterns for their production staff. The report calls for a Training Investment Allowance which, it says, would boost skills creation with a tax rebate on the costs of upskilling existing employees. It says manufacturers want tax relief on investing in training in ways that are easy to understand and implement. Government should also look to urgently create an Employer Training Fund, funded by a portion of unspent Apprenticeship Levy funds, to support the upskilling and retraining of existing employees in critical skills as well as providing support to bring through the next generation of talent through routes such as T Levels for manufacturers to train up straight from school, suggests Make UK CEO, Stephen Phipson. This would also be the time to introduce apprenticeship incentives for areas of skills shortages, where targeted incentive payments are made available for apprenticeship courses (standards) in those skills areas where supply is most scarce. The Make UK/Safe report says that manufacturers are competing with City banks to attract digitally skilled employees To address the issue of labour shortages which is now at critical point, he adds, Government must ensure that the revised Shortage Occupation List is in place as soon as possible to plug the huge skills gap in data and digital technicians which are simply not available to employers from the domestic labour force." According to Paul Struthers, managing director of Sage in the UK and Ireland, the digital transformation has created a need for more specialist, digital skills, required to maximise the benefits of technology. With labour shortages on the rise, urgent reform of the Apprenticeship Levy is required so that manufacturers can access and nurture the talent they need to remain successful and continue to grow. Make UK: Twitter LinkedIn Hong Kong: Uni direct admissions to open The Education Bureau announced today that applications will open for the second cohort of the School Nominations Direct Admission Scheme in October to provide an additional pathway to university for students with exceptional talent. The bureau noted that the scheme recognises the outstanding talent of students in specific disciplines that may not be fully assessed by the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination. The scheme will be open for application by local Secondary 6 students who will be taking the 2023 HKDSE and commencing their undergraduate studies in September 2023. Its nomination period will run from October 6 to December 7. Each local secondary school can nominate two students with exceptional talent and interests in specific disciplines or areas and each nominee can apply for admission to one of the over 200 designated University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded undergraduate programmes participating in the scheme. The eight UGC-funded universities have set admission criteria that are not based on HKDSE Examination results for individual programmes. Participating universities will arrange interviews for all students nominated and make firm offers to successful students prior to the release of the 2023 HKDSE Examination results. This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Trade between Vietnam and Cambodia reached a record US$7.7 billion in the first eight months of the year. Vietnams exports rose by 32% year-on-year to $4.1 billion, as the country turned last years deficit into a surplus, according to its customs department. The biggest item was iron and steel, accounting for 17% of the total, followed by garment and fuel. Vietnams imports from Cambodia went up marginally to $3.6 billion, with rubber and cashew being the main items. As a result, last years deficit of $0.4 billion turned into a surplus of $0.5 billion. Cambodia is Vietnams third largest trading partner in Southeast Asia behind Thailand and Singapore. September marks the second anniversary of the Abraham Accords under which Israel signed normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed shortly by Morocco. These historic accords have been transformational for Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco, declared Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They have led to new forms of cooperation and regional integration in the Middle East and beyond, including the historic Negev Forum, which brought us together with Israel and its neighbors. In a recent editorial in the Jerusalem Post, United Arab Emirates, or UAE, minister of state for foreign trade Thani Al Zeyoudi wrote, that the signing of the Abraham Accords signaled not simply the end of 48 years of hostility and distrust but the beginning of a new political and economic era for our region. Since the signing of the accords, the value of bilateral trade between United Arab Emirates and Israel has exceeded $3 billion, while trade in the first half of 2022 has now outstripped the $1.3 billion recorded in the whole of 2021, according to foreign trade minister Zeyoudi. The accords have also brought about unique joint agreements aimed at solving the challenges facing the broader Middle East such as water shortages and renewable energy. A case in point is the recent three-way agreement between Israel, UAE, and Jordan, which will finance a solar energy effort. Avi Hasson, CEO of Start-Up Nation Central, a non-profit organization that promotes Israeli innovation around the world, said the Abraham Accords have unleashed great opportunity and potential for our region. He added, We have shifted the dialogue from defense and security to innovation and collaboration. According to Mr. Hasson, trade and investment between Israel and the countries that signed the Abraham Accords will double in 2023 with innovation and technology as key components. We are committed to advancing and expanding upon these agreements between Israel and Arab and Muslim-majority countries to enhance regional security, prosperity, and peace, declared Secretary Blinken. The United States looks forward to helping strengthen and deepen these partnerships in the years to come. The United States is designating Liberian government officials Nathaniel McGill, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs and Chief of Staff to President George Weah; Sayma Syrenius Cephus, the Solicitor General and Chief Prosecutor of Liberia; and Bill Twehway, the Managing Director of the National Port Authority, for their involvement in ongoing public corruption in Liberia. McGill has used his position to undermine the integrity and independence of Liberias democratic institutions and subvert government priorities for personal gain. Cephus has developed close relationships with suspects of criminal investigations and has received bribes from individuals in exchange for arranging for their cases to be dropped. Twehway has used his position at the National Port Authority to corruptly advance his own personal wealth and political agenda. All three are being designated pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world. Through their corruption these officials have undermined democracy in Liberia for their own personal benefit, said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson. Treasurys designations. . . demonstrate that the United States remains committed to holding corrupt actors accountable and to the continued support of the Liberian people. Corruption has long undermined Liberias democracy and its economy, robbing the Liberian people of funds for public services, empowering illicit actors, degrading the business environment, and damaging the rule of law and effective governance in the country. Corruption also contributes to diminished confidence in government and public perception of impunity for those with power. These designations reaffirm the commitment of the United States to hold corrupt actors accountable. The United States stands with the people of Liberia in support of democracy and the rule of law and will continue to promote accountability for corrupt actors, regardless of their position or political affiliation. The United States believes that stolen cultural heritage artifacts should be returned to their countries of origin. Recently, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Lee Satterfield met with Cambodias Ambassador to the United States Keo Chhea in New York for a repatriation ceremony for 30 pieces of Cambodian artifacts of cultural and religious significance. During the Cambodian civil conflicts of late 20th century, statues and other artifacts were stolen from Cambodia and sold on the international art market through an organized looting network. Local teams of criminals stole the statues and transported them to the Cambodia-Thailand border, where brokers would in turn transport them to dealers in Thailand. These dealers would sell the artifacts to local or international customers, who would retain the pieces or sell them on the international art market. An antiquities dealer sold the 30-piece collection to its present owner with false documents intended to hide the fact that the artifacts had been looted. The collector voluntarily relinquished possession of the antiquities, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York. The 10th century Skanda on a Peacock and several other significant statues were stolen from the Prasat Krachap temple around 1997 by a former member of the Khmer Rouge. Skanda on a Peacock depicts the Hindu god of war, Skanda, riding a peacock. The body and tail of the peacock are decorated with intricate engraved patterns. Khmer cultural experts believe that the face of Skanda on the statue may in fact be the likeness of a royal family member. On a recent visit to Cambodia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken promoted the bilateral and people-to-people relationships between the United States and Cambodia. He emphasized that the United States is committed to preserving the cultural heritage and related property of peoples in Cambodia and around the world. One of the things Im very proud of, declared Secretary Blinken, is that weve been returning cultural heritage artifacts that were stolen from Cambodia and making sure that theyre returned, something I feel very strongly about. Demonstrators in Las Vegas protest the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion in June. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis) Policy, politics and progressive commentary Nevadas top Republican candidates, some endorsed by national pro-life forces, are eschewing a chance to potentially slash the 24-week limit on terminating pregnancies in Nevada by nine weeks, a position that could confound pro-choice voters energized by the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the prospect of a Republican-controlled Congress. I think it will harm anyone that wants to get pro-life votes, says anti-abortion activist Janine Hansen, an Independent American who says shed personally prefer state to federal action. She says some pro-choice voters would rather stay home than cast a ballot for a candidate who waffles on abortion. For a lot of people, that is the issue. Republican Sen. Lindsey Grahams proposed federal ban of abortion after 15 weeks, introduced earlier this month, is dividing Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail. Campaign publicist Lisa Mayo DeRiso, who primarily represents Republicans, says candidates who reject the 15-week national ban are very smart. Republicans want limited government. We dont want a big federal ban. We want state law to take precedence. They are appealing to Libertarian, nonpartisan, and Independent voters. Those are limited government activists. The right to choose an abortion has been settled law in Nevada for 30 years, rendering the issue little more than a sideshow in most elections. But its never retreated from the political stage. It has been weaponized by opponents and used as a litmus test to gain support, but Its codification 30 years ago permitted the states pro-choice majority to set the issue aside and elect pro-life Democratic Gov. Bob Miller and pro-life U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, also a Democrat. In the same vein, former Gov. Brian Sandoval was at ease as a pro-choice Republicans. But as so-called personhood initiatives and other pro-life efforts emerged, voters became more attuned to abortion politics. In 2005, a sloppy answer from Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Jim Gibson on Face to Face with Jon Ralston, a cable TV program in Las Vegas, about what he would do if Roe v. Wade were overturned, was publicized throughout the state and may have cost Gibson, a Mormon, the primary to Dina Titus the following year. Gibson is currently chair of the Clark County Commission. Now, with the Supreme Courts disposal of half a century of federal precedent and a surfeit of forced pregnancy initiatives floating at state and national levels, abortion has the spotlight. That is an issue that doesnt need to be in politics, Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo told reporters earlier this month, when asked about the ban. Lombardo said he will fight the ban and uphold Nevada law permitting abortion until 24 weeks. Its the vote of the people within the state of Nevada, and I will support that. Lombardo, who leads Sisolak by 1.5 percentage points, according to polling from Real Clear Politics, is not the only Republican candidate seeking cover under the settled law umbrella. He is joined by U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt, who is in a tight battle with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Nevadas Hispanic voters, many of whom are conservative, could decide the Senate race. Cortez Masto, a Latina, surrounded herself with Hispanic women at a news conference just after the Supreme Court repealed Roe. Laxalt, who referred to the fifty years of abortion precedent under Roe v Wade as a joke, has refused to directly answer questions about the proposed federal ban. Lombardo and Laxalt are endorsed by the National Right To Life Committee, which supported Grahams ban and appeared at the news conference announcing it. NRLCs president Carol Tobias commended Graham on behalf of unborn children and their mothers, saying the legislation. would prevent cruel and painful abortions from being performed on innocent children. Laxalts and Lombardos opposition to the ban not only put them at odds with NRLC but also in the position of supporting a state law that allows abortion up to 9 weeks later than the proposed federal ban. An anti-abortion activist who asked not to be named for fear of professional retribution said of the 15-week ban that she would be for it, from a practical policy perspective, adding it would give women more of a runway to understand their situation and provide them with resources to understand their options than an outright ban favored by hardcore anti-abortion factions. National Right to Life supports pro-life candidates and understands that pro-life candidates we support may have varying views on the best way to protect unborn children. Statement from National Right to Life Committee This is a canard, says Melissa Clement, executive director of Nevada Right to Life. You and I both know there are not the votes in the House and there are not the votes in the Senate. And there isnt a president that is going to do anything but veto a ban. Hansen, Clements longtime ally in the anti-abortion effort, says although she supports states rights and opposes Grahams proposal, it is a perfectly appropriate compromise, especially in a state like Nevada, where existing law is unlikely to be undone by a vote of the people. Pro-life lens Lombardo, a Catholic who opposes abortion, struck a decidedly pro-life tone during the Republican primary. Asked during a televised debate whether hed support restrictions on morning after pills, waiting periods before ending a pregnancy and parental notification laws, Lombardo responded Yes, absolutely, and noted that if elected, he would view everything via a pro-life lens. He has since backed off. I support the existing laws that are in the state of Nevada, Lombardo says in a misleading ad that attempts to make his campaign spokespersons assertion that he wont change abortion law appear to be the conclusion of news media. NRLC is advocating for legislation that would outlaw morning after pills like mifepristone and misoprostol, which are used in more than half of all abortions. National Right to Life supports pro-life candidates and understands that pro-life candidates we support may have varying views on the best way to protect unborn children, NRLC said in a statement to the Current. After the Dobbs ruling, Lombardo said that if elected, he would repeal Gov. Steve Sisolaks executive order protecting people who seek abortion care in Nevada. He has also backed off that position. Lombardos evolution on abortion is detailed in broadcast ads, but DeRiso says viewing options, including ad-free services, have changed the way voters watch TV, rendering ads less impactful. If abortion is your hill to die for, on either side, youre going to really be paying attention to those ads and they may determine how you vote. But if thats not what youre worried about, if youre worried about your kids education, and prices and all the other things families are dealing with, no, I dont think thats on your radar, Abortion, she says, is low priority for most voters. While Lombardo says he supports the existing laws of the state, if elected, hed have the platform to support a referendum limiting abortion rights, as well as impose restrictions on access. He has said he supports a 13-week ban at the state level. Laxalt has refused to take questions about abortion, but wrote an op-ed in the Reno Gazette-Journal supporting a state referendum limiting abortion to 13 weeks.I also believe that most Nevadans agree with that position, Laxalt wrote. The law in Nevada was settled by voters decades ago and isnt going to change, Laxalts campaign spokesman Brian Freimuth said in a statement to news media. Republican House candidates April Becker and Mark Robertson oppose the proposed federal ban at 15 weeks. Given the recent Supreme Court decision returning the issue of abortion regulation to the states, I do not believe it is constitutional for abortion policy to be determined at the national level; therefore, I would oppose Senator Grahams legislation, Becker, the Republican challenging Susie Lee in congressional district 3, said in a statement. The right to Life is not granted by humans, but rather is an endowment by our Creator, says CD 1 Republican candidate Mark Robertsons website. Aborting an unborn life is an affront to the Creator. But not enough of an affront to support a federal ban at 15 weeks. The people of Nevada have spoken, Robertson said when Graham introduced the measure. I will oppose any bill in Congress that takes power from the People and gives it to the Federal government. The sleeping giant More than half of voters said the Dobbs ruling is more likely to cause them to cast ballots in the midterm elections, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. A majority said they opposed bans at 15 weeks of gestation. For the last 30 years, far more Americans have supported first trimester abortion (about 60%) than second trimester (about 25%), according to Gallup. That waning support for later procedures is shaping the 13- and 15-week bans being floated by Republicans. But will those bans satisfy the segment of the conservative base that views every abortion as murder? Days before the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs ruing, NRLC issued model state legislation that would outlaw abortion except when necessary to prevent the death of the mother. Now, with a majority of Americans disapproving the Courts ruling and politicians walking back more stringent pro-life positions, NRLC is lowering its standards, writing in a statement it supports both state and federal bills protecting unborn children capable of feeling pain at 15 weeks from excruciating dismemberment abortions. A Fox News poll conducted in late April, before the Dobbs decision, asked respondents about a law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in the case of medical emergency would you favor or oppose that in your state? More than half (54%) favored such a law and 41% opposed it. Clement of Nevada Right to Life seems disinterested in compromise, unless it includes not only a time limit but parental notification provisions, as well. We have nine-year olds getting abortions without their parents knowledge, she says. The question is never do you support legalized abortion for all nine months, at any age without parental consent. Authorities say they are investigating how a convicted bombmaker was able to easily escape from a Nevada prison without anyone noticing for four days. A tip led to his capture at a transit center in Las Vegas Wednesday night. State corrections officials didnt realize until Tuesday that Porfirio Duarte-Herrera had escaped last Friday from the prison where he was serving a life sentence for a deadly 2007 explosion outside a Las Vegas resort. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo joined federal authorities at a news conference Thursday to confirm the arrest. Lombardo is a Republican who is trying to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak. Lombardo implored Sisolak to make good on his pledge to conduct a thorough investigation. SALT LAKE CITY -- The University of Utah congratulates the more than 8,000 graduates who make up the Class of 2022 during an in-person commencement ceremony after two years of virtual celebrations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "The Class of 2022 is filled with so many amazing students, with unique and remarkable stories. Among our recent graduates we have a decorated student veteran of the year, an Olympic skier and a Rhodes Scholar -- the first at the U in 20 years," said Taylor Randall, president of the University of Utah. Local graduates included: -- Daisy Uribe of Elko, Bachelor of Science in Biology with an emphasis in Anatomy and Physiology -- Jordan Pollard of Elko, Bachelor of Science in Biology -- Saul Mendoza of West Wendover, Bachelor of Science in Communication with an emphasis in Strategic Communication -- Kaprice Rowland of Elko, Bachelor of Science in Health, Society and Policy -- Joshua Jonas of Elko, Bachelor of Science in Philosophy -- Isabella Pacini of Spring Creek, Bachelor of Science in Political Science with an emphasis in International Politics; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies -- Alifia Jakamartana of Elko, Bachelor of Science degree in Biology -- Tyler Chamberlain of Salt Lake City, Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering The University of Utah, located in Salt Lake City in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains, is the flagship institution of higher learning in Utah. Founded in 1850, it serves over 32,000 students from across the U.S. and the world. China spearheaded and published the world's first international standard on stem cell research on Saturday, signaling that the country has become a globally recognized front-runner in this cutting-edge field that may revolutionize medicine, experts said. The document, named ISO 24603, lists the various requirements and regulations for cultivating and using human and mouse pluripotent stem cells. It is also the first stem cell related standard for the International Organization for Standardization. Pluripotent stem cells have the ability to differentiate into any cell types that make up the body. They are typically found during the earliest stages of cell division after fertilization. As a result, scientists are trying to harness the regenerative potential of stem cells to treat many challenging medical conditions, such as spinal cord injuries, leukemia, Type 1 diabetes, heart diseases, stroke, burns, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, according to the Mayo Clinic. However, stem cell therapy can be controversial due to it being poorly regulated, with unscrupulous providers hyping the technology and drawing patients seeking cures to illegal and potentially harmful treatments. Chen Yeguang, the president of the Chinese Society for Cell Biology, said stem cell and regenerative medicine is a rapidly developing field, and it is essential to build consensus and establish some ground rules for research and the industry. "ISO 24603 will play an extremely important role in setting standards for the whole industry and public health," he said. George Dagher, convener of the ISO/TC276/WG2 committee, the organization responsible for reviewing biobanks and bio resource related standards, said ISO 24603 is based on expert consensus from ISO countries, and it represents a crucial and necessary step for expanding stem cell research. Founded in 1947, the International Organization for Standardization developed and published standards in many technical fields. Its headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland, and it has 167 member states as of this year. Ji Weizhi, a noted biologist and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said China spearheading and publishing the new international standard signals that the country has become one of the global front-runners in the field, especially in basic sciences and some technologies. Wang Songling, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, called the new standard a milestone and said it represented China's contribution to global stem cell research. Zheng Jian, deputy director of the Department of Basic Research of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said the standard not only provides crucial instructions to guide and support the development of the stem cell industry, but also showcased China's increased international recognition in stem cell research. "It has injected positive energy into China's science, technology, and innovation in life and health sciences," he said. VinES of Vingroup has decided to inject more than VND6.3 trillion into another LFP battery factory in Vung Ang economic zone in Ha Tinh province, central Vietnam. VinES investment plan has been approved by the Ha Tinh Economic Zone Management Board. The factory will be built on an area of more than 14ha in Vung Ang economic zone. The project will have a total investment capital of VND6,329 billion, including VND2,405 billion sourced from VinES and the remainder from stakeholders. The facility is designed to produce approximately 30 million LFP rechargeable battery cells mainly used for electric cars batteries and energy storage systems (ESS). The production line is expected to churn out first commercial products in the third quarter of 2024. In December 2021, Vingroup broke ground for the first VinES Battery Factory in Vung Ang Economic Zone. In the first phase, the factory is being on an area of 8ha with a total investment of VND4,000 billion. The factory is designed to supply LFP batteries to electric cars and electric buses of VinFast. Three Vietnamese airlines named among worlds best air services Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, and Bamboo Airways have been honoured in different categories by Skytrax, a UK-based site which ranks airlines and airports, reported the Voice of Vietnam. Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, and Bamboo Airways are honoured in different categories by Skytrax (Photo: aivivu.com) Vietnam Airlines ranked 48th among the top 100 best airlines, as compiled by Skytrax. Meanwhile, Bamboo Airways finished second in the Best Regional Airline in Asia category, and 15th in in the World's Best Regional Airline category. Vietjet Air was named as the Best Low-Cost Airline in Vietnam. Elsewhere, the world's top 20 airlines in 2022 included Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, ANA (All Nippon Airways), Qantas Airways, Japan Airlines,Turkish Airlines, Air France, Korean Air, and Swiss International Air Lines. Skytrax has conducted more than 14 million customer surveys in over 100 countries from September 2021 to August 2022 in order to find out the world's favourite airline. The awards ceremony was held at Langham hotel in London, the UK, on September 23. Typhoon Noru heads toward central Vietnam Central provinces of Vietnam are expected to endure a big spell of rain in a couple of days as typhoon Noru is moving fast toward the central region, reported the Voice of Vietnam according to the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting. Fishermen in Phu Yen Province bring fishing boats onshore to avoid typhoon Noru. (Photo: thethaovanhoa.vn) At 13.00 on September 24, Noru was swirling around the area about 660km east of the Philippines Luzon island, packing winds of 113kph near its centre. In the next 24 hours, the typhoon is forecast to move west at a speed of 20kph and is likely to gain strength. On September 26, the typhoon is anticipated to move into the East Sea and head for the central coast of Vietnam. The typhoon is likely to further strengthen with winds gusting approximately 150kph near its eye on September 27 before pounding the central coast of Vietnam the following day. It will dump heavy rain on localities along the central coast from Thanh Hoa to Quang Binh. Weather experts warned about possible severe flooding in low-lying areas, and possible landslides and flashfloods in mountainous areas. Huge potential for luxury real estate in Vietnam The branded residence market is gaining a stronger foothold in the Vietnamese market with potential to further develop, shaping the lifestyle of the countrys elite, reported Vietnam News Agency according to experts. Illustrative image (Source: Vinhomesland.vn) Duong Thuy Dung, Senior Director of CBRE Vietnam, noted that the first branded residence projects were developed 20 years ago in association with hotel management brands and motivated by the existing tourism market. However, the situation is gradually changing as the business class, merchants and billionaires thrive in both quantity and quality, leading to increasing demand for luxury products. Recognising these opportunities, luxury brands have joined the fray that led to the birth of branded residences. Worldwide, the supply of lifestyle luxury real estate accounts for about 15-20% of the total luxury real estate, she said. She noted that in Vietnam, branded residence projects only appeared in 2021, but according to CBRE's statistics, this model has overwhelmed the world real estate market with a proportion of over 60%. Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Wealth-X, an US organisation specialising in wealth research, the number of rich people with net assets from 1-30 million USD in Vietnam is forecast to grow about 10.1% in the 2018 - 2023 period, putting Vietnam in the top five countries with the fastest growth rate in the world. In 2021, Vietnam saw the first luxury real estate projects in the ultra-luxury segment selling for over 12,000 USD per sq.m. The Grand Marina Saigon and The Grand Hanoi have an average price of 14,700 USD and 25,000 USD per sq.m, respectively, with 70% of the apartments sold. According to Dung, lifestyle branded real estate is not only seen as an asset but also a measure of the owner's class. The appeal of lifestyle branded residences comes from connectivity with luxury brands and sustainable value. This type meets the needs of the elite - those who have the need to affirm their class and own branded items, and are interested in lifestyle and living experience. CBRE forecasts that the trend of this type of real estate will develop strongly, especially in Vietnam, driven by the growth of the super-rich and the development of the luxury goods market./. Vietnam's products sold at the Humanitarian Newspaper Festival in France (Photo: baoquocte.vn) Products such as conical hats, brocade bags, five-color rings, cloth fans etc. with Vietnamese brands attracted interest and were bought by international friends. On the occasion of Lao Ambassador to France Kham-Inh Khitchadeth visiting the booth, the representative of UEVF presented the shirt "I love Vietnam" to him. Ambassador Kham-Inh Khitchadeth thanked and expressed his wish that UEVF will always be a solid support for the youth and student community in France. In addition, UEVF also helped the Vietnam Cultural Center in France distribute leaflets promoting Vietnamese culture and tourism, advise and answer questions related to the country and people of Vietnam for international friends. The young people also helped overseas Vietnamese to sell their favorite Vietnamese dishes. The annual festival is a big event attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees./. Activists to Hold Protest in Front of the Home of Washington, D.C.'s Mayor Calling for an End to Abortion Violence in Our Nation's Capital NEWS PROVIDED BY Christian Defense Coalition Sept. 26, 2022 WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2022 /Standard Newswire/ -- Activists to hold a protest in front of the home of Washington, D.C.'s Mayor calling for an end to abortion violence in our nation's capital. Leaders will be showing on a large LED screen, graphic videos and images of 5 late-term aborted children who were killed in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. The pro-life and anti-violence advocates will also be demanding Mayor Muriel Bowser order autopsies to be conducted on the 5 late-term aborted children who still remain in the Washington, D.C. morgue. The coalition said they would pay for the full expenses incurred by the DC Medical Examiner's office for any autopsies performed. The protest will take place on Monday, September 26 at 7:00 PM. Mayor Bowser's address is 7927 Orchid St. NW Washington, D.C. 20012. The Christian Defense Coalition has secured a permit from the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to hold this peaceful protest. Mark Harrington, President of Created Equal, states; "In third world countries, they throw abandoned babies in mass graves and landfills. In America, we are much more sophisticated but just as barbaric. We kill babies by 'doctors' in 'surgical centers,' and keep them locked in freezers for months. "Mayor Bowser needs to take immediate action and complete a thorough autopsy and investigate these potential violations of federal law. This violence against innocent children has no place in our nation. These children deserve justice." "As a human rights and anti-violence advocate for over 45 years, America must reject violence within our society. We must especially stand against violence when it is directed toward innocent children and marginalized communities. Today in Washington, D.C., abortion is allowed for the full 9 months of pregnancy. "This would include viable preborn children. "We are coming to Mayor Bowser's house to show her, visually and graphically, what abortion violence really looks like, especially against 8-month-old babies in their mother's womb. We are calling upon the Mayor to end this senseless violence against innocent human life, and start implementing programs in our nation's capital to help reduce human suffering and injustice apart from the violence of abortion. "We will also be demanding that Mayor Bowser direct the D.C. Medical Examiner to conduct autopsies on 5 late-term abortion children who still remain in the city morgue. It appears federal law may have been broken in performing these abortions." Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, comments; For more information or interviews call Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741 SOURCE Christian Defense Coalition CONTACT: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741 BEIJING, Sept. 23 (Guangming Online)--On September 20, 2022 local time, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi chaired the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative (GDI) held in New York. As the sponsor of the GDI and the largest developing country in the world, the Chinese side announced seven additional measures to implement the 2030 Agenda, which includes making available globally the data acquired by the Sustainable Development Science Satellite (SDGSAT-1) launched by China in November last year to assist countries in sustainable development research and decision-making. To facilitate its data sharing, the "SDGSAT-1 Open Science Program" (www.sdgsat.ac.cn) was launched this September. At the meeting, the Chinese side released the Report on Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals (2022), which covers 42 typical research cases focusing on seven SDGs and involving 31 sets of data products, 21 method models and 33 decision support information. According to the report, nearly half of the 56 environmental SDG indicators of China have been achieved ahead of schedule. It is the fourth straight year since 2019 that China releases the Report series, providing scientific evidences for quantitative and systematic evaluating the implementation of SDGs at the Chinese, regional and global scales. On behalf of the Chinese government, Wang Yi presented to the UN six sets of data products for global sustainable development, including data products on global arable land and forest coverage, so as to provide data support for all countries to better achieve food security, ecological conservation on land, and other sustainable development goals. The above-mentioned research is conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) along with the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS) which was established in September 2021 to facilitate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Editor: Zhang Zhou The 2022 College Formula Racing Competition, guided by the China Association for Science and Technology and hosted by the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineering, was successfully concluded in east China's Anhui Province. A total of 105 teams with more than 2600 college students participated in the competition. Photo taken on Sept. 21 shows vehicles under pre-race overhaul. (Chen Jiale/Guangming Picture) The 2022 College Formula Racing Competition, guided by the China Association for Science and Technology and hosted by the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineering, was successfully concluded in east China's Anhui Province. A total of 105 teams with more than 2600 college students participated in the competition.Photo taken on Sept. 21 shows cars racing at the final competition. (Chen Jiale/Guangming Picture) The 2022 College Formula Racing Competition, guided by the China Association for Science and Technology and hosted by the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineering, was successfully concluded in east China's Anhui Province. A total of 105 teams with more than 2600 college students participated in the competition.Photo taken on Sept. 21 shows participants posing for pictures. (Chen Jiale/Guangming Picture) Editor: WXL BEIJING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- A total of 2,296 delegates were elected to attend the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), according to an official statement released Sunday. Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's, GMW.cn makes no representations as to accuracy, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the creation of Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV to invest in Ukraine and support Ukrainian visionary entrepreneurs. In his video message, the head of state noted that Ukraine's struggle for its freedom is not only at the forefront, the resilience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces allows other fronts to hold on, especially the economic one. "And this is a very good signal for the economic front that such respectable investment players support our state ... I am grateful to the investors of Horizon Capital Growth Fund IV for their attention to Ukraine. And for understanding that it is better to invest in our people, in the ideas and companies of Ukrainians now - at the time when investments mean that you are joining our victory. And we are sure of it," Zelensky said. According to the president, the first and most important thing that Ukraine can bring to global economic relations is stability, in particular, through its agricultural sector, production potential, mechanical engineering, raw materials and gas sectors, mining, clean green energy sector, which has the largest potential for growth in the region. "All these are enormous opportunities to guarantee stability for Europe and all macro-regions nearby, for each partner - food, economic, energy and social ... You will not find such opportunities anywhere in the world that Ukraine has: people, geography, access to markets, resources, production culture and the constant search for new effective solutions in order to withstand the confrontation with Russia," he said. "All these are chances. Chances, in particular, for investors to increase their opportunities," Zelensky added. Nova Poshta is starting preparations for the high season of sales for the New Year and is inviting carriers with trucks to cooperate, predicting a 35-40% increase in shipments this year compared to summer, the company's press service reported on Monday. "This is not a temporary partnership. All new partners continue to work with us on a permanent basis. We invite drivers with their own trucks and companies with a fleet of vehicles to ensure maximum delivery speed and uninterrupted operation of the logistics network throughout the country, even in the newly de-occupied regions," said the director of transport logistics of Nova Poshta Dmytro Tsymbarevych. He also added that Nova Poshta gives an advantage to Ukrainian companies in order to support the economy together. The company said that from October to the New Year, the high season begins. This period accounts for the largest number of purchases from Ukrainian online stores and from abroad. According to Nova Poshta, in previous years, during this period, the volume of shipments grew by about 50-60% compared to the summer months. This year, growth is expected at the level of 35-40%. According to the report, more trucks are needed in 15 regional centers and cities, in particular in Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Uman, Kryvy Rih, Kropyvnytsky, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Zaporizhia, Kremenchuk, Zhytomyr, and Vinnytsia. To become a carrier of Nova Poshta, you need to have a registered company or be an entrepreneur, a truck of the Euro 5 standard with an all-metal box and equipped with a tail lift. Priority is given to vehicles with a carrying capacity from 3 tonnes to 20 tonnes. Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna said that about 1.5 million Ukrainians deported to Russia cannot return to Ukraine, the government portal reported on its website. "About 1.5 million citizens, most of whom are women and children, are on the territory of the Russian Federation without the opportunity to return home, and their relatives are trying to establish contact with them," Stefanishyna said on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly. According to her, "it is important to use all available international instruments for the protection of fundamental human rights and to redouble our joint efforts to prevent the violent exploitation of Ukrainian citizens." President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky does not consider Russian leader Vladimir Putin's threat in his address to the Russian people a bluff, Western media report. "Maybe yesterday it was a bluff. Now, it could be a reality. He wants to scare the whole world. These are the first steps of his nuclear blackmail. I don't think he's bluffing. I think the world is deterring it and containing this threat," Zelensky said in an interview with CBS on Sunday. He also urged the USA and European allies to continue imposing sanctions on Putin and recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. "I understand there will be implications. These implications will make diplomatic negotiations impossible," Zelensky said. "However, they are terrorists, and we cannot let them do it out of fear. They will not surrender. We need to keep applying pressure." In addition, Zelensky said it was important for Ukraine to continue to receive high mobile artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), artillery and air defense systems. "We need the security in order to attract our Ukrainians to come back home. If it's safe, they will come, settle, work here and will pay taxes and then we won't have a deficit of $5 billion in our budget. So it will be a positive for everybody," Zelensky said. At the same time, the head of the Ukrainian state expects Russian attacks on Ukrainian power grids in the coming winter months. "But we are not afraid of that," he said. "We will fight, and we will not surrender. It's very important that they won't force other countries, United States of America and Europe to suffer. Now we suffer. We fight and we give our lives for the future of democracy and of the open world." Zelensky added that in order to destabilize Ukraine, he, as the leader of the state, is the primary goal for the Russian Federation. As reported, on September 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the "wind rose" could turn in the direction of those who are trying to "blackmail" Russia with nuclear weapons, noting that "this is not a bluff." President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine's tasks cannot change regardless of what may happen this week in Russia. Fierce fighting takes place in many sections of the front with a total length of more than 2,000 kilometers. This is Donetsk region, this is our Kharkiv region, Kherson region, as well as Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia regions, he said in his video address Sunday evening. We have positive results in several directions. And no matter what happens this week in Russia, no matter what steps the terrorist state plans - political or military - the tasks of our state, the tasks of Ukraine, cannot change: we are fighting for life and freedom for all Ukrainians, he said. The Russian occupiers fired on Mykolaiv in the morning, hit the industrial zone, windows, roof and doors in buildings were damaged, a warehouse was partially destroyed, mayor of the city Oleksandr Senkevych said. "Today Mykolaiv was shelled at about 05:00 in the morning. According to preliminary information, missile strikes were carried out on an industrial zone in the vicinity of the city. Windows, a roof and doors in buildings were damaged there, a warehouse was partially destroyed," he wrote on the Telegram channel. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the United States expressed concern to Russia over the threats of using nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine. "We're focused on making sure that we're all acting responsibly, especially when it comes to this kind of loose rhetoric," Blinken said. "We have been very clear with the Russians publicly and, as well as, privately to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons." He confirmed that the United States had contacted the Kremlin about these threats of nuclear war. "It's very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. And we've made that very clear," he said. Blinken declined to share details of how the USA would react to the use of nuclear weapons. However, he said the administration has a plan. "President Biden has been determined that as we're doing everything we can to help the Ukrainians defend themselves, as we're doing everything we can to rally other countries to put pressure on Russia, we're also determined that this war not expand, not get broader," Blinken explained. Blinken said he had seen very clear evidence of war crimes first-hand when he visited Ukraine a couple of weeks ago. "One of the places I visited was a city called Irpin," Blinken said. "And I saw residential buildings, building block after building block, totally bombed out. Wherever the Russian tide recedes, what's left in its wake is very clear evidence of atrocities and war crimes," the state secretary said. "We're doing everything we can to support those who are trying to compile the evidence. And to investigate. And ultimately, to prosecute those responsible," Blinken said. The broadcaster notes that last Thursday, when the atrocities in Ukraine were laid out before the UN Security Council, the Russian Foreign Minister said that they were staged and said that Russia had become a victim. "This is 'Alice in Wonderland.' It's the world upside down. Up is down, white is black-- truth is false," Blinken said. "All of these words, all of these words ring totally hollow to every member on the Security Council So this spewing of words is not having an effect. Blinken said that the "elections" on the annexation of the territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation are a fiction and will never be recognized. He also said that there are currently no meaningful negotiations with Russia on ending the war in Ukraine. "There are no talks because Russia has not demonstrated any willingness in this moment to engage in meaningful discussions," Blinken said. "If and when that changes, we will do everything we can to support a diplomatic process," he said. For Blinken, Putin's war in Ukraine has failed. "What he said very clearly from the start is, his objective was to erase Ukraine's identity as an independent country, that has already failed," Blinken said. "Ukrainians are fighting for their own land. They're fighting for their own country. The Russians are not. And these Russian soldiers who are being thrown into this conflict, often not knowing where they're going or what they're doing-- this is not something that they want to be fighting for. The Ukrainians are fighting for their own future. They're fighting for their own land. They're fighting for their own lives." By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Azerbaijan and Spain have discussed the possibility of holding a business forum, Azernews reports. The discussion took place during a meeting between the representatives of Azerbaijan's Export and Investment Promotion Agency (AZPROMO) and Charge d'affaires ad interim of the Spanish Embassy Patricia Sanchez. During the meeting, AZPROMO'S Adviser Zohrab Qadirov provided information on the favorable business and investment environment, as well as projects implemented in Azerbaijan. Diplomatic relations between the two states were established on February 11, 1992. At the end of 2005, Azerbaijan opened its embassy in Madrid, and a diplomatic mission of Spain in Baku has been operating since 2014. During the period from 2010 to 2020, Azerbaijan and Spain signed various cooperation agreements, including memorandums of cooperation in the fields of sports, culture, education, science, information, and communication; an agreement on the cancellation of a short-term visa regime for citizens holding diplomatic passports; convention for the avoidance of double taxation; as well as memorandums of understanding between the diplomatic academies and the foreign ministries of the two countries. Additionally, in 2021, the Azerbaijani-Spanish trade turnover amounted to $645.8 million. Several thousand Ukrainians are still being held captive by Russian occupiers, including civilians, Deputy Prime Minister for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereschuk said. "We are talking about 2,500 prisoners. People remain in captivity, and worst of all, civilians remain there. For several exchanges in a row, civilians have not been released. It is necessary to ask questions point-blank and demand to release civilians. Civilians should be returned, not exchanged. And there are a lot of women among them," Vereschuk said in an interview with BBC Ukraine published on Sunday. She stressed that a lot of women remain among the prisoners, they are being tortured. "If we consider that 131 women came out of Azovstal, then imagine how many women are in captivity. Only a few were returned. Women need to be rescued, they behave terribly with them. They mock, they beat our women, they torture our women. The world should not silently watch and observe when our women are killed in prison," the Deputy Prime Minister said. According to Vereschuk, thanks to the Polish Klymentiy Sheptytsky, all Ukrainian women released from captivity will receive UAH 80,000. Adviser to US President on mobilization in Russia: We continue to see our obligation being providing Ukraine all that it needs to be able to effectively defend itself Jake Sullivan, the U.S. President's national security adviser, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent conscription of reservists into the army and referendums held in the occupied regions of Ukraine will not be an obstacle to further U.S. assistance to Ukraine. "What Putin has done is not exactly a sign of strength or confidence, frankly, it's a sign that they're struggling badly on the Russian side And we're going to help the Ukrainians be able to take advantage of the gains they've made, and to continue to push back against the Russian forces that are brutally occupying portions of their country," Sullivan said in an interview with Face the Nation on the CBS TV channel on Sunday. He noted the "low morale" of Russian soldiers, that the Russian Federation is "disorganized and losing territory, to a capable Ukrainian force," and there is "a huge amount of infighting among the Russian military leadership." At the same time, Sullivan noted that the Russian Federation "remains a dangerous foe and is capable of great brutality," as evidenced by the mass graves found in Izium of Kharkiv region. The adviser to the U.S. president promised that Ukraine would receive more artillery, air defense systems and tanks, noted that the USA provided Ukraine with weapons worth more than $15 billion and facilitated the transfer of tanks to Ukraine by NATO allies. "We continue to see our obligation being providing Ukraine all that it needs to be able to effectively defend itself and defend its country and defend its freedom," Sullivan said. Released defenders of Azovstal undergoing medical examinations in Turkey, will soon be able to see their relatives Defenders of the Mariupol Azovstal plant, released from Russian captivity, are currently in Turkey, where they are undergoing medical examinations, head of the Presidents Office of Ukraine Andriy Yermak said. "Today we managed to personally talk to the commanders from Azovstal released from captivity, who are in Turkey now. During a conversation with each of our heroes, I learned about their health. Everyone is in a fighting mood. The guys are undergoing medical examinations, a thorough check of their condition is underway. According to the results of medical tests, an in-depth examination was carried out by a therapist and a surgeon," Yermak wrote on Telegram on Sunday. According to him, head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Rustem Umerov, on behalf of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, arrived in Turkey, where he checked the conditions in which the liberated Ukrainian military are being held. "As Rustem told me, the living conditions of the guys are comfortable. It is very important for us that Ukrainian heroes have everything they need. I asked Mr. Umerov to check this especially carefully," the head of the President's Office wrote. He also said that Umerov coordinates work with all bodies responsible for the safety of our citizens. "Soon they will be able to see their families," Yermak added. As reported, 215 people were released from Russian captivity on Wednesday, 44 of them are officers. Members the National Guard of Ukraine, Ground Forces, Territorial Defense units, police, SBU officers, civil servants of transport, Customs Service are among the released 108 soldiers of the Azov battalion and other formations. Russias mobilization not to affect course of conflict in 2022, may not have very dramatic impact on Russias ability to sustain its current level of effort into 2023 ISW The mobilization of the Russian population, which has been recently announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, will not affect the course of the war in Ukraine in the current 2022, and probably will not have a significant impact on the ability of the Russian Federation to conduct it in the next, 2023, according to a report by analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). According to analysts, this is due to the presence of "fundamental structural challenges" in the Russian Federation, which the Russian leadership is unlikely to be able to overcome in the coming months, and possibly years. The Institute notes that the actions of Russian President Putin indicate that he is far more concerned with rushing bodies to the battlefield than with addressing these fundamental flaws. In addition, it is clarified that the mobilization will allow the Russian Federation to create additional forces, but this will happen ineffectively and with large internal social and political costs. The forces generated by this partial mobilization, critically, are very unlikely to add substantially to the Russian militarys net combat power in 2022. Putin will have to fix basic flaws in the Russian military personnel and equipment systems if mobilization is to have any significant impact even in the longer term, experts say. They note that the Russian army has not created conditions for effective large-scale mobilization since at least 2008 and has not created reserve forces necessary for sudden mobilization intended for immediate impact on the battlefield. There are no rapid solutions to these problems, the Institute notes. They add that the Russian military tried to switch to a fully professional contract army in the conditions of the 2008 financial crisis, but were never able to fully implement the transition, which led to the creation of a hybrid model in which conscripts and professional soldiers mixed. At the same time, the reduction of the mandatory service life from two years to one year made the Russian reserves less combat-ready. Russia will mobilize reservists for this conflict. The process will be ugly, the quality of the reservists poor, and their motivation to fight likely even worse. But the systems are sufficiently in place to allow military commissars and other Russian officials to find people and send them to training units and thence to war, the ISW said. The Institute clarifies that the poor quality of the voluntary reserve units created by the efforts of the BARS and volunteer battalions is probably already a reliable indicator of the net increase in combat power Russia can expect to generate in this way. This mobilization will not affect the course of the conflict in 2022 and may not have a very dramatic impact on Russias ability to sustain its current level of effort into 2023. The problems undermining Putins effort to mobilize his people to fight, finally, are so deep and fundamental that he cannot likely fix them in the coming months and possibly for years. Putin is likely coming up against the hard limits of Russias ability to fight a large-scale war, the Institute concluded. Kyiv joins the Pact of Free Cities. The signing ceremony took place during the Pact summit in Prague, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. "Your support and assistance is very important for us today, and our effective cooperation is important. I thank my European colleagues whose cities have granted asylum to Ukrainian refugees. Thank you for the help you sent to Kyiv, and for being determined to help us in recovery. Kyiv's accession to the Pact of Free Cities is another opportunity for joint and effective overcoming of the challenges facing Ukraine and the civilized democratic world today," Klitschko's press service quoted him as saying. The Free Cities Pact is an open urban alliance launched in 2019 by the mayors of Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Bratislava. European cities cooperate in defending democracy, fighting corruption and populism, protecting local self-government and building effective interaction with national governments. They also implement joint initiatives and projects adapted to the needs of individual cities. During the summit of the Pact of Free Cities in Prague, Klitschko met with the mayors of Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Athens and Vilnius. Klitschko will also meet with the Vice-President of the European Commission. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has held a regular Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Headquarters meeting on Monday. The participants heard information about the operational situation on the frontline, the presidential press service reported. Decisions were made regarding the active actions of the defense forces with the aim of further de-occupation of the territory of Ukraine, the message reads. It notes that the provision of the troops with weapons and ammunition was also analyzed. The President emphasized the importance of operational provision of high-precision weapons and everything necessary for the forces that are actively advancing. During the meeting, the participants separately focused on the issue of the enemy's use of new types of weapons and outlined plans to counter such means, the Presidents Office said. The meeting was attended by: Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny, Head of the Main Intelligence Agency Kyrylo Budanov, Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrsky, Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov, heads of security and law enforcement agencies, as well as Head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov, the press service informed. Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky, Commander of the West Operational Command Forces Serhiy Litvinov, Commander of the South Operational Command Forces Andriy Kovalchuk and Head of the State Border Guard Service Serhiy Deyneko joined the meeting via videoconference, the Presidents Office said. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has held a regular meeting of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Headquarters on Monday. The participants heard information about the operational situation on the frontline, the presidential press service reported. Decisions were made regarding the active actions of the defense forces with the aim of further de-occupation of the territory of Ukraine, the message reads. It notes that the provision of the troops with weapons and ammunition was also analyzed. The President emphasized the importance of operational provision of high-precision weapons and everything necessary for the forces that are actively advancing. During the meeting, the participants separately focused on the issue of the enemy's use of new types of weapons and outlined plans to counter such means, the Presidents Office said. The meeting was attended by: Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny, Head of the Main Intelligence Agency Kyrylo Budanov, Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrsky, Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov, heads of security and law enforcement agencies, as well as Head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov, the press service informed. Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky, Commander of the West Operational Command Forces Serhiy Litvinov, Commander of the South Operational Command Forces Andriy Kovalchuk and Head of the State Border Guard Service Serhiy Deyneko joined the meeting via videoconference, the Presidents Office said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has launched negotiations on the creation of a nuclear safety zone at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (NPP), head of the agency Rafael Grossi says. "Kicked off IAEAGC week meeting with US Under Secretary for Arms Control Bonnie Jenkins. Urgent establishment of Nuclear Safety and Security Protection Zone at Zaporizhia NPP in focus. Work to keep Ukraine's nuclear sites safe and secure remains priority and US support is highly appreciated," he said on Twitter. Earlier, the International Atomic Energy Agency published a report on the results of the mission to ZNPP. It said, in particular, about the need to "immediately take intermediate measures to avoid a nuclear incident that could occur due to hostilities." "The issue can be resolved by immediately creating a safety zone," the authors pointed out. The IAEA expressed its readiness to immediately begin consultations on the urgent establishment of such a safety zone. The United States will provide Ukraine with an additional $457.5 million in civilian security assistance, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said. "The United States will provide an additional $457.5 million in civilian security assistance to save lives and bolster the capacity of our Ukrainian law enforcement and criminal justice partners. We share their commitment to a democratic, independent, and sovereign Ukraine," he said on Twitter on Monday. Death toll from Russian missile attack on Pervomaiske rises to seven emergency service Seven people were killed as a result of a missile attack by the Russian occupation forces on the town of Pervomaiske in Kharkiv region on Monday, the press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine has said. "As a result of the strike on the private housing district in Pervomaiske at around 13:30, seven people, including a 15-year-old child, were killed," it said. Private houses were destroyed by the strike and a fire broke out in a summer kitchen 20 square meters in area. The rescue operations continue. By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Azerbaijan and Switzerland have discussed access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses and the countries' experience in this area, Azernews reports. The discussion took place during a meeting between Azerbaijan's Small and Medium Business Development Agency Board Chairman Orkhan Mammadov and Head of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) Departments on the South Caucasus and other countries Seraina Sigron. The meeting took place within the framework of Orkhan Mammadov's visit to Geneva. Moreover, Orkhan Mammadov also met with Geneva Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services (CCIG) Director Natalie Hardin. During the meeting, the parties exchanged views on Swiss experience in the sector of SMBs support and the opportunities for cooperation in the area. As part of the visit to Geneva, a roundtable on the topic Azerbaijan 2022: a source of energy and a logistics center for Europe and Asia was held, during which Azerbaijans Small and Medium Business Development Agency (SMBDA), Switzerland-Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South Caucasus Joint Chamber of Commerce (JCC), and Swiss Alternative Financing have signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on January 21, 1992. Azerbaijan and Switzerland cooperate in various economic sectors. There is mutually beneficial cooperation between Baku and Bern in the non-oil sector. In addition, Baku will host a meeting of the Commission on Trade and Economic relations between Switzerland and Azerbaijan in 2022. The trade turnover between the two nations amounted to $457.2m in 2021, with exports accounting for $272.5m and imports for $184.7m. Ukraine has the right to defend its territory, wants to restore peace and needs its partners' support for this, in particular, in the form of modern weapons. Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podoliak said this in an interview with the German news agency Tagesschau.de., according to the press service of the President's service. "If we are going to intensively break through the defense line of the Russian army, the next steps will be the return of territories and the elimination of the Russian armed forces. We need a certain amount of armored vehicles, tanks for this. But these should not be ineffective Soviet tanks not T-55, not T-64, not even T-72. That's why we say to our partners, Germany in particular: if you want to take the lead, if you want us to have fewer casualties, and if you want this war to end soon, then give us Leopard 2," he said. Italy is ready to enhance bilateral cooperation with Egypt in energy security, Mediterranean and Middle East stability, human rights, and religious freedom, new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stressed on Sunday. Egypt seeks to leverage its long coasts and beaches along the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly instructed the government on Thursday to study a prepared plan by the end of the month to promote yacht tourism. The strategy was prepared in line with directives from President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Madbouly in order to leverage the countrys long coasts and beaches along the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea, a statement released following a cabinet meeting earlier today said. The Egyptian government was ordered to start implementing this strategy once the study is completed, according to the statement. Tourism Minister Khaled El-Anani said that Egypt has 2,400 kilometres of coasts and beaches, which feature numerous tourist resorts. He stressed the economic importance of yacht tourism, which brings in substantial revenues through transit and docking fees, taxes, fuel sales and maintenance fees. El-Anani said the average spending of yacht tourists could be 94% higher than other travelers. He put the value of yacht tourism in the Mediterranean region at about 300 billion dollars annually. Yacht tourism also helps create jobs, directly and indirectly, in the travel and service sectors, especially for youth. Meanwhile, Transport minister Kamel El-Wazir said the governments strategy should include a unified pricing policy and discounts to attract ships and yachts. He also stressed the importance of upgrading the efficiency of tourist ports and establishing a yacht marina. A marketing plan is also needed to promote yacht tourism in Egypt, El-Wazir told the cabinet. El-Wazir also announced that an electronic portal would be launched to make procedures and the issuance of permits and unified bills easier for bodies concerned with yacht tourism. On Sunday, Head of Maritime Transport Sector Major General Reda Ismail said Egypt is launching a digital platform to promote yacht tourism in the country, in a move aimed at facilitating procedures and the obtaining of security permits through a single website. Egypts geographical position makes it advantageous for yacht tourism as it overlooks the Mediterranean Sea with a coastline of 995 kilometres and the Red Sea with a coastline of 1,941 kilometres, as well as the Nile River, which runs the length of the country. A national plan has been implemented to raise the efficiency of ports and marinas in Egypt as well as to ensure the construction of new ports. Search Keywords: Short link: Prime Minister Mario Draghi's resignation Thursday opens the door to a new period of political uncertainty in Italy, Europe's third-largest economy. Here is what could happen next: Are early elections guaranteed? The possibility of Draghi staying in his post at the request of President Sergio Mattarella until early next year -- when general elections were originally scheduled -- is highly unlikely after the implosion of the premier's broad coalition. "It seems very clear to me that the conditions are no longer met to have a new government," Gaetano Azzariti, a constitutional law professor at Rome's La Sapienza University in Rome, told AFP. Although the president has broad powers in constitutional crises, it is still parliament which ultimately decides who governs. And on Wednesday, "the answer of the parliament was very clear", said Azzariti. If Mattarella chooses to dissolve parliament, which would trigger new elections, he could then ask Draghi to manage affairs until the vote. When could elections take place? Elections must be held within 70 days of the dissolution of parliament. But the situation is complicated by the budget, which must be presented to parliament before October 15. If Mattarella dissolves parliament Thursday or in the next few days, the elections, which are held on Sundays, could be September 18 or 25. To avoid an election campaign in the traditional vacation month of August, when most Italians are at the beach, Mattarella could delay dissolving parliament so that a vote could be held October 2. Parliament must then meet within 20 days of the vote being held. Who is favourite in the event of early elections? The obvious favourite is Italy's right-leaning coalition, which unites Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and the far right represented by the anti-immigration League, led by Matteo Salvini, and the post-fascist Brothers of Italy. The latter party, led by Giorgia Meloni, is in top place in voter intention polls, with nearly 24 percent, ahead of the Democratic Party at 22 percent and the League at 14 percent, according to a poll by the SWG institute carried out on July 18, three days before Draghi's resignation. Forza Italia is currently expected to reap about seven percent of the vote and the populist Five Star Movement 11 percent. Italy's current electoral law, a complex mix of proportional voting and first past the post, is "a great advantage for the centre-right," Azzariti said. The rightist coalition starts with an advantage. Having already decided to present a common candidate, "it is clear that it is the centre-right that will win", he said, despite differences within that coalition and tensions between Meloni and Salvini. Moreover, the failure of Forza Italia to support Draghi in a confidence vote has disillusioned some of its own parliamentarians. Two Forza Italia members of Draghi's cabinet decided to leave their party Thursday. Search Keywords: Short link: President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has affirmed Egypts belief in the significance of the medias strategic role in supporting countries efforts to achieve stability and development by addressing national issues and raising public awareness. El-Sisi made the remarks during his meeting on Wednesday with Arab information ministers at Al-Ittihadiya presidential palace in Cairo. The president said there are common concerns and challenges experienced by the Arab world, which he said requires the Arab media to be united in order to face these challenges. He also urged raising various fact-supported issues in the media in a thorough and objective way, presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said. El-Sisi stressed that the message of religions is focused on construction, peace and development, which he said will only be achieved by ensuring political and moral security and stability for peoples. Meanwhile, the Arab ministers praised the tangible achievements made in Egypt under President El-Sisi's leadership at the political, development, economic and social levels. Egypt provides a model to follow as regards development, prosperity and its future vision for achieving sustainable development, they said. The ministers also highlighted Cairos key role in preserving the security and stability of the entire Arab world. Search Keywords: Short link: French police on Sunday used tear gas and employed anti-riot tactics to prevent hundreds of people protesting in Paris from marching on Tehran's embassy, AFP reporters and eyewitnesses said. The protesters had gathered for the second day running to express outrage at the death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest by Iran's morality police last week, and to show solidarity with the protests that have erupted in Iran. The protest had began peacefully at Trocadero Square. Some demonstrators chanted "Death to the Islamic Republic" and slogans against supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But police in full anti-riot armour, backed by a line of vans blocked the path of the protesters as they sought to approach the Iranian embassy a short distance away. Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters. "I don't feel good, it was catastrophic," said one protester, who asked not to be named, recovering from the effects of the tear gas. The use of tear gas angered activists already upset by President Emmanuel Macron's talks and public handshake with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week. "Police used tear gas to disperse Iranian protesters in Paris in an effort to protect the Islamic Republic embassy. Meanwhile, @EmmanuelMacron shook hands with the murderous president of Iran," tweeted the US-based Iranian women's rights activist Masih Alinejad. London demo Protesters also repeated the viral Persian chants used by protesters inside Iran such as "zan, zendegi, azadi!" (woman, life, freedom!) and also its Kurdish equivalent "jin, jiyan, azadi!" Amini, also known as Jhina Amini, was Kurdish. "In view of what is happening, we Iranians are fully mobilised," said Nina, a Paris-based French Iranian who asked that her last name was not given. "We must react given that we are far from our homeland, our country. "It's really time we all come together so we can really speak up so the whole world can really hear our voice," she added. Similarly tense scenes took place in London, where images posted on social media showed protesters seeking to break through police security barriers outside the Iranian embassy there. "Further police resources were brought in to support those on the ground after protesters attempted to breach police lines and had thrown missiles at officers," London police said in a statement. Police made five arrests were made and several officers received minor injuries, it added. Search Keywords: Short link: Iranians took to the streets for a tenth consecutive night Sunday, defying a warning from the judiciary, to protest the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. At least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the Islamic republic's security forces, according to an official toll, although other sources say the real figure is higher. Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) on Sunday evening said the death toll was at least 57, but noted that ongoing internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities in a context where the women-led protests have spread to scores of cities. Echoing an earlier warning by President Ebrahim Raisi, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei on Sunday "emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency" against the core instigators of the "riots", the judiciary's Mizan Online website said. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested amid the mostly night-time demonstrations since unrest first broke out after Amini's death on September 16. Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jhina, was detained three days before that for allegedly breaching rules mandating tightly-fitted hijab head coverings and which ban, among other things, ripped jeans and brightly coloured clothes. Images circulated by IHR showed protesters on the streets of Tehran, shouting "death to the dictator", purportedly after nightfall on Sunday. Witnesses told AFP that protests were ongoing in several locations. Video footage showed demonstrations in Tabriz and Shiraz, among other places, with women removing their headscarves and protesters shouting against the authorities. 'Rolling Blackouts' Iran's largest protests in almost three years have seen security forces fire live rounds and bird shot, rights groups charge, while protesters have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set ablaze state buildings. Some women protesters have burnt their hijabs in the rallies and cut off their hair, some dancing near large bonfires to the applause of crowds that have chanted "zan, zendegi, azadi" or "woman, life, freedom". Video of demonstrations on Saturday, verified by AFP, showed students ripping down a picture of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside a university in the northern province of Mazandaran. Web monitor NetBlocks noted "rolling blackouts" and "widespread internet platform restrictions" on Sunday, with WhatsApp, Instagram and Skype having already been blocked. This followed older bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. Protests abroad have been held in solidarity with Iranian women in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among other cities. Foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Amir-Abdollahian criticised "the US interventionist approach in the affairs of Iran... including its provocative actions in supporting the rioters". Pro-government Rally Iran has also organised large rallies in defence of the hijab and conservative values. Pro-government rallies were held Sunday, with the main event taking place in Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, where demonstrators voiced support for mandatory hijab laws. "Martyrs died so that this hijab will be on our head," said demonstrator Nafiseh, 28, adding that she was opposed to making the wearing of the hijab voluntary. Another demonstrator, 21-year-old student Atyieh, called for "strong action against the people who are leading" the protests. The main reformist group inside Iran, the Union of Islamic Iran People's Party, however, has called for the repeal of the mandatory dress code. IHR reported on Sunday that an umbrella of Iranian teachers' unions were calling on teachers and students to boycott classes on Monday and Wednesday in support of the protests. Iranian authorities have yet to state the cause of death of Amini, who activists say died as a result of a blow to the head. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has said Amini was not beaten and that "we must wait for the final opinion of the medical examiner". Search Keywords: Short link: Climate activists protested in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa on Friday ahead of a climate summit in the city next month. Kinshasa is due to host the pre-COP27 talks in October, before the main summit begins in Egypt in November. But the pre-COP27 meeting comes after the DRC put 27 oil and gas blocks up for auction in July, ignoring warnings from environmentalists that drilling in peatlands and forests could release huge volumes of carbon dioxide. On Friday, about 200 protesters marched in Kinshasa toting banners bearing slogans such as "No to new fossil fuels". Rose Mathe, a 22-year-old climate activist, said developing the oil and gas blocks contradicted the government's push to brand the DRC as a "solution country" for climate change. "The world is transitioning towards 100-percent renewable energy," she said, adding that drilling for oil is environmentally destructive. Roughly the size of western Europe, the DRC enjoys vast mineral riches, including huge reserves of cobalt and lithium that are critical for battery production. Peatlands in the Congo Basin also store around 30 billion tonnes of carbon, according to a 2016 Nature study. The figure is roughly equivalent to three years' of global emissions. Patient Muamba, a campaigner for Greenpeace Africa who attended the protest, told AFP petrol has no future. "We're asking the government cancel these offers," he said, referring to the oil and gas auction. The DRC's government has argued that drilling will be conducted using methods that minimise harm to the environment. It has also stressed that exploiting oil and gas will help diversify the mining-reliant economy. About three-quarters of the DRC's population of 90 million people lives on under $1.9 a day, according to World Bank figures. Search Keywords: Short link: Twelve preparatory schools in three governorates in Egypt will offer Chinese as an option for a second language in the upcoming 2022/2023 academic year, Mohamed Megahed, deputy minister of education and technical education, said. Megahed made his remarks on Sunday during the kick-off of the pilot project for teaching Chinese in Egyptian schools, which includes a training programme tailored for Chinese teachers who are scheduled to teach the language in the twelve selected schools. The project is the result of a memorandum of understanding signed with China in 2020 to teach Chinese as an optional second language. The programme was initially scheduled to begin in the academic year 2023/2024. However, both sides have been keen on speeding up the measure and, as a result, pushed the process forward by one year, Megahed said in a statement issued following the opening ceremony. The training programme is being held at the Confucius Institute located in Cairo University. After the end of the training programme, the teachers will begin teaching the Chinese language in twelve schools located in Cairo, Giza and Menoufiya, the statement added. French, German, Spanish and Italian is already offered as a second foreign language in public preparatory education in Egypt. The second foreign languages are taught in earlier stages in private and international schools nationwide. The Egyptian education ministry is currently in the process of printing the first textbook for Chinese language instruction in middle schools, Megahed noted, adding that he had directed the ministry to develop curricula through which Egyptian students can learn about the Chinese language in an attractive and continuous manner. He said "a lot of efforts have been made during the past few months so that the ministry can issue a textbook for students who are studying Chinese for the first time." Chinese language has been taught in Egyptian universities since 2004. A total of 16 universities in Egypt have either established Chinese language departments or teach the Chinese language within their curriculums. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt condemned the repeated violations by Israeli extremists at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque in full view of the Israeli occupation forces, the foreign ministry stated on Monday. The ministry stressed that the continuation of these violations and Israeli attempts to change the legal and historical status quo of Jerusalem is a flagrant violation of international law, and a dangerous escalation that undermines efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian cause and reach a two-state solution. Moreover, it warned of the extreme danger of continuing the provocative practices in the vicinity of the Islamic holy site. On Sunday, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian sources said, with Israeli occupation forces saying they fired on "armed suspects" during a routine patrol. Israeli forces claimed that "hits were identified" after occupation forces fired towards what they called "armed suspects driving in a vehicle and a motorcycle" near Nablus in the northern West Bank, an area that has seen near daily violence in recent months. The Palestinian health ministry named the man killed as Saed Al-Koni. Al-Koni's death was the second in the Nablus area in the past two days. On Saturday, a Palestinian driver was killed by Israeli forces after an alleged "attempted ramming attack," which Palestinians said was a traffic accident. Israeli forces have faced criticism over their frequent use of lethal force in response to perceived threats. Since March, Israel has launched hundreds of raids in the northern West Bank, including Nablus and nearby Jenin, in pursuit of individuals it accuses of involvement in deadly attacks targeting Israelis. The raids have sparked clashes that have killed dozens of Palestinians, including fighters Search Keywords: Short link: By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad The entire territory of Azerbaijan will have high-speed broadband internet by 2024, Digital Development and Transport Minister Rashad Nabiyev said, Azernews reports. He made the remarks at the ministerial roundtable on Building a better digital future for all, before the next International Telecommunication Union Conference, which will be held in Bucharest, Romania from September 26 to October 14. Speaking at the event, the minister noted that favorable conditions for public-private partnerships have been created in Azerbaijan to develop the appropriate infrastructure for digital transformation in remote areas of the country. Thanks to ongoing projects, its planned to provide the entire territory of the country with high-speed broadband internet by 2024, he said. He added that special attention is also paid to the development of efficient mobile internet networks and mobile communications. The event was attended by representatives from about 40 countries, including Azerbaijan, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a specialized UN agency for information and communications technologies (ICT), with which Azerbaijan closely cooperates. Founded in 1865 to facilitate international connectivity in communications networks, the union allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develops the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strives to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide. Minister of Education Reda Hegazy announced on Sunday that short essay questions will be reinstated in the Thanaweya Amma exams, as part of the state's recent efforts to promote learning through comprehension over memorisation. The exam, which has been based on Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) for the last two academic years, will now include short essay questions, the recently-appointed education minister told a virtual meeting with directors of the county's educational directorates. Short essays will comprise no higher than 15 percent of the tests total score depending on the subject, Hegazy explained. The ministry will train 5,000 teachers on the new system, according to a ministry statement. The Thanaweya Amma (or high school grade 12) exams are critical for students and parents alike since they determine university prospects based on the grades obtained. Over the past two years, the education ministry has introduced a series of changes to these exams, scratching long essay and short answer questions while using more MCQs. The new exams, which are answered through bubble sheets and on-screen marking, are part of the state's effort to replace the decades-old system based on memorisation with a modern system based on the comprehension of academic material. The introduction of the new exam system in 2019 resulted in less students passing the Thanaweya Amma exams, with the pass rate declining from 81.5 percent in the 2019-2020 academic year to 75 percent in 2021-2022. The decision is the second major move by the newly-appointed minister to revamp the education system after he modified the fourth grade curriculum for the 2022/2023 school year due to complaints from many parents. Hegazy, who took office in August, has stressed that his ministry will press ahead with the state's plan to overhaul the education system, though he added that there will possibly be a change in the implementation mechanisms. The new education system is expected to be fully implemented by 2030. Search Keywords: Short link: Authorities in a northern Iran province have arrested 450 people during more than 10 days of protests following a young Kurdish woman's death in morality policy custody, state media reported Monday. Hundreds of demonstrators, reformist activists and journalists have been arrested during the mostly night-time demonstrations across the country since unrest first broke out after Mahsa Amini's death was announced on September 16. Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jhina, was detained three days before that in Tehran for allegedly breaching rules mandating hijab head coverings and modest dress. "During the troubles of the past days, 450 rioters have been arrested in Mazandaran," the northern province's chief prosecutor, Mohammad Karimi, was quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA. They "have attacked government buildings and damaged public property in several parts of Mazandaran", he added. Local media reported that protesters were shouting anti-regime slogans, and Karimi said they were led by "foreign anti-revolutionary agents". On Saturday, authorities in the neighbouring Guilan province announced the arrest of 739 people, including 60 women. Iran's judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, on Sunday "emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency" against the core instigators of the "riots", the judiciary's Mizan Online website said. At least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the Islamic republic's security forces, according to an official toll. Photos published Monday by the Tasnim news agency showed protesters in Qom, a holy Shiite city about 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of the capital Tehran. Security forces have released these images of "lead instigators", Tasnim reported, asking residents to "identify them and inform the authorities". Search Keywords: Short link: Iraq's parliament, at the centre of a months-long political paralysis, is to convene Wednesday for the first time since deadly unrest in August and a sit-in protest by supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr. Parliament said in a brief statement on Monday that votes on the resignation of the assembly's speaker, Mohammed al-Halbussi, and the appointment of a first deputy speaker would top the agenda. The move is being seen by analysts as a vote of confidence in Halbussi. The speaker "is not planning to resign but by allowing a potential vote of confidence to go ahead he is expecting his coalition partners to back him strongly", Sajad Jiyad, a fellow at the Century International think-tank, told AFP. He said the aim was to "end any further attempts to unseat him. "This will cement his position as political leader of Iraq's Sunnis and put pressure on" Shia and Kurdish parties to form a government, Jiyad added. Iraq's deeply divided political factions have failed to form a new government since inconclusive elections last October, and the last session of parliament dates back to July 23. Later in July, Sadr's supporters stormed the assembly and staged a month-long sit-in on its grounds. Tensions boiled over into clashes on August 29 between the Sadrists, rival Iran-backed factions and the army in which more than 30 demonstrators were killed. The violence followed months of disagreements between Sadr and his rivals within Iraq's majority Shia camp, as the impasse has left the country without a new government, prime minister or president since the elections almost a year ago. Iraq's standoff pits Sadr against the Iran-backed Coordination Framework, which includes lawmakers from the party of his longtime foe, ex-prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. Sadr wants snap elections and the dissolution of parliament but the rival Shia bloc wants a new head of government appointed before any new polls are held. Sadr's bloc emerged from the 2021 elections as the biggest in the legislature, with 73 seats, but far short of a majority. Search Keywords: Short link: Denmark's maritime authority said Monday that a gas leak had been observed in a pipeline leading from Russia to Europe underneath the Baltic Sea and that there is a danger to ship traffic. The operator of Nord Stream 2 confirmed that a leak in the pipeline had been detected southeast of the Danish island Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. The pipeline runs 1,230 kilometers (764 miles) from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. It is completed and filled with gas, but gas has never been imported through it, dpa reported. The cause of the detected leak wasn't immediately clear. The Danish energy agency said in a statement that the country's maritime authority has issued a navigation warning and established a five-nautical mile prohibition zone around the pipeline ``as it is dangerous for ship traffic.'' The relevant authorities are currently coordinating the effort, and the Danish energy agency added that ``outside the exclusion zone, there are no security risks associated with the leak.'' The incident is not expected to have consequences for the security of the supply of Danish gas, the country's energy agency said. A spokesman for the operator of Nord Stream 2 said a loss of pressure was detected in a tube early Monday, and the responsible marine authorities in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia were immediately informed, dpa reported. While the pressure inside the pipeline is normally 105 bar, it is now only 7 bar on the German side, spokesman Ulrich Lissek said. He fears that the pipeline, filled with 177 million cubic meters of gas, could run dry in the coming days, dpa reported. It wasn't immediately clear what consequences would follow from that, but a German environmental group said that the leaking gas isn't toxic. Deutsche Umwelthilfe pointed out that natural gas is methane, which partially dissolves in water and is not toxic. The deeper the gas is released in the sea, the higher the proportion that dissolves in the water, the group said, according to dpa. Even in the event of an underwater explosion, there would only be local effects, Deutsche Umwelthilfe said. The German economy ministry said it had been informed about the suspected site in Danish territorial waters and was in touch with the authorities in Germany and Denmark. The pipeline was already complete when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspended the certification of Nord Stream 2 on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, after Russia formally recognized two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. Germany has been heavily reliant on natural gas supplies from Russia, but since Moscow launched its war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, Berlin has been trying to look for other sources of energy. The leak comes a day before the inauguration of a new pipeline, Baltic Pipe, which will bring Norwegian gas through Denmark to Poland. The Norwegian gas is meant to have an important role in replacing Russian gas. Search Keywords: Short link: World Contraception Day, which falls on 26 September, was marked in Cairo on Sunday with the launching of a new initiative dubbed Act with Her that aims to advance the health of Egyptian women in order to empower them. The event was organised in cooperation with Organons global healthcare company which focuses on research and innovations that address women's unmet healthcare needs. The company has implemented several programs to advance women's health in the region in recent years. These programs included a training program in Egypt in collaboration with four of the country's top medical schools at Ain Shams, Cairo, Al-Azhar and Alexandria universities that educated 200 medical professionals in the latest family planning techniques and safe methods to insert and remove long-acting contraceptive options. A host of experts from various women's health fields who attended the launch of the initiative discussed ways for stakeholders to identify both womens healthcare needs and also challenges that impede their access to necessary medical services. Panelists shed light on various ways to raise awareness of family planning options and minimise existing barriers to access contraception. They also discussed various strategies to assist women in making informed decisions about their reproductive health. MD Ayman Abul-Nour, the head of the Gynecology Department at Ain Shams University, stressed during the discussion that the new initiative is crucial for changing the narrative about family planning. When women have control over the timing of their pregnancy, they are more likely to attain higher education and better health outcomes, he said. Meanwhile, MD Rania Elwani, a gynecology consultant and former Egyptian swimming champion, affirmed that women should under-go regular checkups and initiate the right conversation with their doctors. MD Hisham Stait, the deputy head of the Egyptian Authority for Unified Procurement (UPA), noted that supporting womens right to choose the timing of their pregnancies leads to economic and educational empowerment as well as health equity. According to recent surveys on women's health, roughly 20.5 percent of pregnancies in 2021 were unplanned. Egypt spends over EGP 100 million (approximately $5.2 million) to offer family planning methods for free or at reduced prices as the country seeks to lower its rate of population growth. In February of this year, the country's population hit 103 million, with females comprising 47.5 million. The fertility rate per woman in Egypt declined in 2021 to 2.8, a 20 percent drop from the 3.5 births per woman figure in the last survey conducted in 2014, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS). MD Amal Abdel-Hayy, the head of the Directorate of Motherhood and Childhood at the Ministry of Health and Population, reviewed at the event government efforts in supporting women during pregnancy. Finally, Laila Baker, the regional director for Arab States in UNFPA, the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health, highlighted the need for greater collaboration among stakeholders to deliver the impact needed to prioritise womens healthcare in the country and the region. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt plans to establish its first green yacht marina powered by renewable energy and extended over an area of 25,000 square metres to accommodate 65 yachts, a cabinet statement read on Sunday. The marina, to be built in Ismailia on the Suez Canal, will include a hotel and trading zone, said Osama Rabie, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), reviewing the SCA's efforts to enhance yacht tourism in a meeting with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. The planned marina is the latest in a series of steps the country has taken to reduce carbon emissions, promote the use of renewable energy sources, and use alternative energy forms, including green hydrogen. The steps, which are part of its National Climate Strategy 2050 announced by the government in May, include plans to establish an integrated national network in Egypt to produce and distribute green energy and clean fuels for ships based on new and renewable energy sources. The SCA uses automated procedures for the entry and exit of tourist yachts to marinas along the course of the canal in Port Said, Ismailia and Suez, Rabie added. He said that efforts are underway to set up an 850-metre-long tourist walkway and a yacht marina for 75 yachts in Port Said, according to the statement. The SCA also plans to expand the capacity of the existing Ismailia marina to 60 yachts instead of 12, he pointed out. Earlier this month, Egypt launched its first online platform to maximise yacht tourism in Egypt by facilitating the regulation of the entry of yacht trips. The new online platform acts as a one-stop shop for yacht owners who can now submit the necessary data and documents to apply for entry, pay fixed fees on all state-owned berths, passenger terminals and tourist ports, and receive invoices within three days of application. The platform also allows yacht owners to choose between mooring at public commercial ports or at private marinas. These efforts are part of a revcently developed plan to leverage the countrys unique strategic location and long coastal lines. A national scheme has been implemented since August 2021 to raise the efficiency of existing ports and marinas and to construct new ones in areas important to tourism. Egypts unique position, with waterways linking three continents -- Asia and Africa to Europe -- provides the country with a great potential to boost yacht tourism. The country enjoys 995 kilometres of coastline on the Mediterranean Sea south of Europe, 1,941 kilometres on the Red Sea opposite Saudi Arabia; 72 kilometres on the international waterway of the Suez Canal; in addition to the Nile River that passes across ancient Egypt's landmarks and monuments in Upper Egypt. Madoulby said during the meeting that President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi directed the government to work for maximizing yacht tourism in Egypt and implement an integrated strategy for building international marinas and berths along the country's coastal line. The prime minister stressed that the government is ready to provide support, including introducing more facilities, in order to promote yacht tourism and increase the incoming tourism, the statement pointed out. Search Keywords: Short link: The call-up came as Russian forces suffered significant losses of occupied territories in Ukraine's east owing to a counteroffensive launched by the Ukrainian military. Images on Russian media have shown scenes of police using force against demonstrators, and eyewitnesses have said that the number of protesters have diminished since the first rallies. Many young men detained during the protests have reportedly been summoned to register for military service. Russian police have been mobilized in cities where protests were called for by the opposition group Vesna and supporters of opposition politician Alexey Navalny. The demonstrations erupted within hours after President Vladimir Putin on September 21 announced the partial military mobilization, which is intended to buttress Russian military forces fighting in Ukraine. The human rights group, which monitors political arrests and detentions in Russia, said that some of those detained in the crackdown on dissent following this week's military call-up were minors. Nearly 800 people have been detained in Russia as protests against the country's partial military mobilization continue in cities across the country. As of Sunday, at least 796 people had been detained in 33 cities, with almost half of the total reported in the capital, Moscow, according to OVD-Info. Putin followed up on his mobilization order on Sept. 24 by imposing harsher penalties against Russians who willingly surrendered to Ukrainian forces or refused orders to mobilize. Russian officials have said that up to 300,000 reserve forces will be called up and that only those with relevant combat and service experience will be drafted to fight. However, Russian media reports have surfaced that men who have never been in the military or who are past draft age are being called up, and foreign media have reported that the real goal is to mobilize more than 1 million soldiers, which the Kremlin denies. Western officials say that Russia has suffered 70,000 to 80,000 casualties, accounting for both deaths and injuries, since it launched its unprovoked war in Ukraine in February. The mobilization to replenish those losses has seen men across Russia sent to register, reports of Russian citizens attempting to flee the country, and even rare complaints by pro-Kremlin voices. Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of the state-backed media outlet RT, wrote on her Telegram channel on Sept. 24 that while it had been announced that only people up to the age of 35 would be recruited, "summonses are going to 40-year-olds." "They're infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite," Simonyan said of the authorities behind the draft. The same day, the head of the president's Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, called on Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to put a halt to the manner with which many draft boards in the country were proceeding. On Sept. 25, two of Russia's most senior lawmakers weighed in on the growing controversy. In a Telegram post, Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of the Federation Council, said that she was aware of reports that men who should be ineligible for the draft are being called up. "Such excesses are absolutely unacceptable. And, I consider it absolutely right that they are triggering a sharp reaction in society," she wrote. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, wrote in a separate post that "complaints are being received." "If a mistake is made, it is necessary to correct it," he said. "Authorities at every level should understand their responsibilities." By annexing the four areas into Russia, Western officials fear Moscow could portray Ukrainian military operations to retake them as an attack on Russia itself, potentially even using that to justify a nuclear response. Ukraine says it will never accept Russian control of any of its territory and has requested that the UN Security Council meet Tuesday to discuss the escalation. The referenda were quickly organized after Ukraine recaptured large swaths of the northeastern part of the country in a counteroffensive earlier this month. Kyiv and Western nations warn that the referenda are aimed at annexing the occupied areas and denounce them as a violation of international law. "As was said by President Putin, we will unconditionally respect the results of these democratic processes," Lavrov said. Voting began Friday and will run through Tuesday in the provinces of Luhansk, Kherson and the partially Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. Polls also opened in Russia, where refugees and other residents from those areas could vote. In Ukraine, some local officials said voters were being intimidated and threatened. "The hysteria which we have seen is very telling," Sergey Lavrov told a news conference at the United Nations on Saturday, after he addressed the General Assembly's annual meeting. Russia's foreign minister has dismissed Ukrainian and Western condemnation of what they say are sham referenda in four regions of Ukraine. Calls for Peace At the United Nations, Russia's strategic partners urged an end to the conflict, which has exacerbated global food, fuel and financial crises. China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, said Beijing does not want to see the crisis "spilling over" and called for talks. "The fundamental solution is to address the legitimate security concerns of all parties and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture," he said. India's foreign minister said his country respects the UN Charter and sees dialogue and diplomacy as the "only way out." "It is therefore in our collective interest to work constructively, both within the United Nations and outside, in finding an early resolution to this conflict," Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said. Asked about engaging with the U.S. or Europeans, Russia's Lavrov says his government is not opposed to it. "We aren't saying no to contacts," he said, adding that "it is always better to talk than not to talk." But he emphasized that in the present situation, Russia would not take the first step. Mass Crimes The head of a UN commission of inquiry said Friday that war crimes including rape, torture and the confinement of children have been committed in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. "Based on the evidence gathered by the commission, it has concluded that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine," commission head Erik Mose told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. He did not specify who was to blame, but the commission has focused on areas previously occupied by Russian forces, such as Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy. Investigators from the commission, created by the rights council in March, visited 27 places and interviewed more than 150 victims and witnesses. In New York, the Russian foreign minister has said mass graves at Bucha were staged and claimed Saturday that Kyiv had denied access to foreign reporters to alleged new graves found in the city of Izium. But VOA's Myroslava Gongadze is in Izium, where she reported from a mass graveyard that more than 400 bodies were unearthed, many found with their hands tied behind their backs, ropes around their necks, broken bones and gunshot wounds. Mobilization Fallout Meanwhile, an independent Russian human rights group says more than 1,000 people were detained across the country at demonstrations Saturday for protesting President Vladimir Putin's order calling up 300,000 military reservists to fight in Ukraine. It is Russia's first military call-up since World War II. The independent OVD-Info protest monitoring group said it was aware of detentions in 32 different cities, from St. Petersburg to Siberia. Unsanctioned rallies are illegal under Russian law, which also forbids any activity considered to defame the armed forces. Footage from the some of the protests showed Russian officers carrying men and leading women to police vans. Tourists have returned to Korea's shopping districts after the coronavirus pandemic, driven by the weak Korean won. In August some 335,058 foreigners visited Korea, and although that is still just one-fifth of the number in August 2019, it is up four times from January this year. Duty-free shops have been among the main beneficiaries. Shilla Duty Free saw foreign customer numbers rise from 2,000 in July to 3,000 in August and September thanks to an increase in visitors from Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. Lotte Duty Free said customers from Southeast Asia increased from just 20 in February to 1,220 last month. Hotel occupancy is rising apace. At Lotte Hotel the foreign occupancy rate, which stood at 80 percent before the pandemic, dropped to 20 percent in 2021 but recovered to the 60 percent level this month. At Hotel Shilla occupancy recovered to some 20 percent in August after plunging to just three percent in 2021. Koreans are getting excited to travel again as Japan eases draconian travel restrictions next month. Japan last week announced that it will lift coronavirus restrictions on Oct. 11 to revive the tourism industry. That means foreign visitors can once again stay for up to 90 days visa-free while the daily limit on visitors and ban on independent travelers will be lifted. Until then, the island country caps daily visitor numbers at 50,000 and only allows in guided tour groups with visas. By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad A delegation from Uzbekistan's Innovative Development Ministry visited Azerbaijan, Azernews reports. The visit, aimed at familiarization and short-term experience exchange, took place within the framework of a memorandum of understanding, signed between Azerbaijan's Digital Development and Transport Ministry and Uzbekistan's Innovative Development Ministry. Uzbek experts visited the office of Azerbaijan's Digital Development and Transport Ministry and its subordinate agencies from September 15 to 22. During the familiarization with Azercosmos Main Ground Satellite Control Center, the delegation was provided with detailed information on Azerbaijans telecommunications and Earth observation satellites, as well as promising projects in the space sector. Moreover, the Uzbek experts also visited the Innovation and Digital Development Agency, where they were informed in detail about Azerbaijans innovation ecosystem, including startup support mechanisms. Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan were established on October 2, 1995. The embassy of Azerbaijan in Uzbekistan was established in August 1996, while the embassy of Uzbekistan in Azerbaijan was opened in July 1998. The friendly relations between the two countries are based on shared values ??and historical ties, as well as a number of joint statements and agreements signed during bilateral visits and meetings. The volume of trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan amounted to $111.9 million in 2021. North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile into the East Sea on Sunday, ahead of joint maneuvers by South Korea and the U.S. in the same waters for the first time in five years. It was the regime's first missile launch since it committed itself to preemptive use of nuclear weapons on Sept. 8. The Joint Chiefs of Staff here on Sunday said the missile was fired from Taechon, North Pyongan Province at 6:53 a.m. and flew about 600 at an altitude of 60 and a speed of Mach 5. It seems to have been fired from a mobile launcher. Military authorities speculate that it was a version of the KN-23 Iskander missile, which is hard to intercept as it conducts glide and pull-up maneuvers after it is fired. The presidential office here denounced the launch as "a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions and a provocative act heightening tension on the Korean Peninsula and in the region." South Korea and the U.S. are staging a joint maritime drills in the East Sea from Monday until Thursday mobilizing the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan that arrived at Busan last Friday. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is scheduled to spend the next few days with lawyers for Twitter, answering questions ahead of an October trial that will determine whether he must carry through with his $44 billion agreement to acquire the social platform after attempting to back out of the deal. The deposition, planned for Monday, Tuesday and a possible extension on Wednesday, will not be public. As of Sunday evening, it was not clear whether Musk will appear in person or by video. The trial is set to begin Oct. 17 in Delaware Chancery Court, where it's scheduled to last just five days. By Satoshi Iizuka, KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2022 - 18:30 | All, Japan A state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was held in Tokyo on Tuesday despite strong opposition to the controversial ceremony for the country's longest-serving leader, with more than 4,000 mourners attending the rare event amid tight security. Ahead of the state-funded event, the first of its kind for a former premier in 55 years, calls for its cancellation had grown. Critics say it lacks a legal basis, citing Abe's complicated political legacy for their opposition. Abe built his profile overseas by emphasizing foreign and security policy while forging personal ties with world leaders such as former U.S. President Donald Trump. At home, however, opinion on his legacy is divided based on allegations he abused his power for personal gain. The state funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is held at the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo on Sept. 27, 2022. Abe was fatally shot during upper house election campaigning in Nara, western Japan, in July. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo During the postwar period, Japan had only hosted a state funeral for a former premier once. The honor was given in 1967 to former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who led the country's recovery from World War II. A private funeral for Abe was held four days after he was fatally shot during an election campaign speech on July 8 in the western city of Nara by a lone gunman. His remains were cremated. The National Police Agency has mobilized up to 20,000 officers to enforce strict security in the capital, particularly around the Nippon Budokan hall where the ceremony was held. At a park near the venue, meanwhile, large numbers of people gathered to lay flowers from early in the morning. Opponents of the funeral have repeatedly held rallies in front of the prime minister's office, parliament building and elsewhere and filed lawsuits demanding that the event be scrapped. Earlier this month, a man set himself on fire on a street near the prime minister's office, police said, apparently intending to commit suicide in protest against the planned state funeral. The funeral is set to cost taxpayers more than 1.6 billion yen ($11 million). During the service that started around 2 p.m., Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his predecessor Yoshihide Suga gave memorial addresses. In a speech after video footage of Abe's life was played in the venue, Kishida offered condolences, expressing his "most profound regret" about the circumstances of his death. The prime minister recognized the former leader's achievements in "markedly" strengthening Japan-U.S. ties, proposing a security framework involving the two countries plus Australia and India called the "Quad," and promoting a "free and open Indo-Pacific." Kishida, who was elected to parliament in the same year as Abe, also promised to carry on Abe's mission of bringing about the return of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, saying he will "do everything in my power" to realize the goal. On behalf of Abe's friends, his immediate successor Suga, known as the former leader's right-hand man, expressed appreciation for Abe's "belief and resolve" to ensure Japan's security. Suga, who supported Abe for over seven years as chief Cabinet secretary, said he persuaded Abe to stage his comeback as Japan's leader in 2012. Abe's widow, Akie, and his younger brother, former Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, calmly observed the service in the front row, sometimes wiping away tears. Previous prime ministers, including Yoshiro Mori and Junichiro Koizumi, were among the attendees. Japan's Crown Prince Fumihito and six other imperial family members also participated in the event. Among the more than 700 foreign guests are U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach. All the guests, who were required by the Japanese government to wear protective face masks to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, laid flowers on a table below Abe's portrait. A car carrying Abe's cremated remains arrived at the venue from his family home after stopping by the Defense Ministry, which was upgraded from an agency in 2007 during his first stint as premier that lasted for around one year from 2006. Abe, who became prime minister again from 2012 to 2020, made efforts to revise Japan's war-renouncing Constitution to clarify the legal status of the Self-Defense Forces, a goal that he was unable to achieve. With the funeral splitting public opinion, some opposition parties boycotted the service. But Yoshihiko Noda, an opposition lawmaker who was Abe's immediate predecessor in his second term as prime minister, joined the state funeral. Opposition lawmakers have argued there is no legal basis for staging a state funeral for a former prime minister, while questions have also arisen about how much the event will ultimately cost. Funerals for past premiers after Yoshida were mainly held jointly by the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power almost continuously since its establishment in 1955. The funeral expenses were shared between them. Kazuo Shii, leader of the opposition Japanese Communist Party, lambasted the Kishida administration, telling reporters later Tuesday, "We can never overlook the problem of pushing ahead with the unconstitutional state funeral." Kishida cited Abe's longevity in office -- over eight years in total -- as one of the reasons for holding the state funeral. But political experts say his legacy is contentious, especially in light of a series of favoritism allegations and other scandals that came to light when he was in power. Dubious ties between the Unification Church, a religious group often labeled as a cult, and the LDP that Abe headed have also affected public support for the funeral. Abe's attacker, Tetsuya Yamagami, reportedly said he harbored a grudge against the organization and targeted Abe for his perceived ties to it. In 2021, Abe appeared in a video message aired at an event held by a Unification Church-affiliated group. Chronology of major events related to former Prime Minister Abe The following is a chronology of major events in the political career of Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe whose state funeral was held on Tuesday. July 18, 1993 -- Elected to House of Representatives. Sept. 21, 2003 -- Becomes secretary general of Liberal Democratic Party. Oct. 31, 2005 -- Becomes chief Cabinet secretary. Sept. 26, 2006 -- Appointed as Japan's prime minister. Sept. 12, 2007 -- Announces intention to resign as prime minister due to health problems. Dec. 26, 2012 -- Retakes post of prime minister. Dec. 26, 2013 -- Visits war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, triggering backlash from Japan's neighbors. Sept. 19, 2015 -- Japan enacts security legislation aimed at expanding scope of Self-Defense Forces' operations overseas. May 3, 2017 -- Unveils plan to seek amendment of Japan's pacifist Constitution. Aug. 24, 2020 -- Becomes Japan's longest-serving prime minister in terms of consecutive days in office. Aug. 28 -- Announces resignation as prime minister due to flare-up of his disease. July 8, 2022 -- Dies after being attacked by gunman during election campaign in Nara Prefecture. Sept. 27 -- Mourned at state funeral in Tokyo. KYODO NEWS - Sep 27, 2022 - 15:39 | All, Japan, World A Japanese diplomat was detained by Russia's Federal Security Service and accused of engaging in espionage after he obtained classified information in exchange for a payment, the spy agency said Monday, an allegation flatly denied by Tokyo. Tatsunori Motoki, a consul at the Japanese Consulate General in Vladivostok, was declared persona non grata, in a rare move against Japanese diplomats in Russia, and has been ordered to leave the country within 48 hours following his detention. He was released after being held for a few hours, the Japanese government said Tuesday. In Tokyo, the Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador Mikhail Galuzin on Tuesday to lodge a protest. Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that detaining and interrogating a consul is a "clear violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations" as well as of a consular treaty between Japan and Russia. Hayashi said Russia's action was "totally unacceptable" as the consul had not committed an illegal act and he had been treated "coercively" by Russian authorities during his detention, including being blindfolded and physically restrained. The ministry demanded that Moscow make a formal apology and ensure a similar incident does not happen again, Hayashi said, adding the government needs to take appropriate measures against Russia. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference that the diplomat had no health problems and would leave Russia by Wednesday. The incident occurred amid a cascade of economic sanctions imposed on Russia by Japan and Western nations over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine since late February. The FSB said Motoki received classified information on cooperation between Russia and Asia-Pacific countries as well as on the impact of Western sanctions on Russia's Far East region. He is accused of paying for the information. Local media released footage of the consul receiving documents at what appears to be an eatery and of him admitting to the accusations during FSB questioning. In the wake of the economic sanctions, relations between Japan and Russia have soured. Designating Japan as an "unfriendly" country, Moscow has banned the entry of more than 400 Japanese lawmakers including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Hayashi. In late March, Russia unilaterally announced it would suspend territorial talks with Japan over four disputed islands called the Northern Territories by Japan and the Southern Kurils by Russia, which Tokyo claims the Soviet Union illegally seized soon after Japan's surrender in World War II in August 1945. The territorial dispute has prevented the two countries from concluding a postwar peace treaty. In April, Russia's Foreign Ministry said it would expel eight Japanese diplomats, apparently in retaliation for an earlier decision by Japan to expel Russian diplomats. KYODO NEWS - Sep 26, 2022 - 23:36 | Japan, All Police on Monday continued searching for a 7-year-old girl who went missing after she left her home in an eastern Japan city to go to a nearby park four days ago. The family of Saya Minami, a first grader residing in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, on the same day released a message, pleading for the girl to come home. Saya was supposed to go to the park with her mother but left the house on her own around 11:30 a.m. Friday, with her mother following after her around five minutes later, the police said, adding that by then, the girl was nowhere to be found. Later Friday, the kick scooter Saya had with her was found at another park in neighboring Nagareyama city in Chiba, the police said. Her shoes and socks were then found the next morning on the banks of the Edo River, about 300 meters from the same park, according to the police, who also conducted a search in the water and by helicopter. KYODO NEWS - Sep 26, 2022 - 12:34 | All, Japan, Coronavirus Japan began Monday to simplify its coronavirus reporting system by targeting elderly and high-risk people in a bid to reduce the administrative burden on hospitals and local health centers. The new system will not require medical facilities to report details such as names and addresses of younger people with milder symptoms that have made up around 80 percent of the country's COVID-19 cases since the Omicron strain drove numbers sharply higher and stretched the medical system thin. The government will continue to oblige health facilities to report the number of people who test positive for the virus each day by age group in an attempt to monitor the spread of COVID-19. The measure, which places focus on the provision of appropriate medical care to the elderly and others at risk of developing severe symptoms, reflects the government's policy shift as it moves to transition the nation toward living with the coronavirus. Health minister Katsunobu Kato said that some municipalities which introduced the system prior to Monday have expressed concerns about being unable to contact those not included in the reporting, saying it prevents them from responding swiftly to such patients when their symptoms become serious. "We would like to keep in close contact with local governments and respond with improvements when issues come up," Kato told a press conference on Monday. Subject to the new reporting system are people aged 65 or older, those who require hospitalization, as well as pregnant women and high-risk patients who may require medicine or a supply of oxygen. The new reporting system has already been adopted by nine prefectures as an emergency measure. It was expanded to cover the entire country after health follow-up centers were set up by prefectural governments for younger COVID patients with mild symptoms. Regardless of whether a positive case is reported to authorities, infected people are able to request a stay at designated accommodation facilities or to receive food deliveries. The government will continue to ask them to refrain from going out, and for close contacts to isolate for a period of time. The move also follows calls from some medical and other experts to downgrade the classification of the coronavirus to a level similar to seasonal flu and take a more flexible approach in the battle to stem the spread of the virus while balancing socioeconomic activities. On Sunday, Japan posted 46,788 new coronavirus cases, down approximately 17,000 compared to a week earlier, according to local government reporting. Related coverage: Coronavirus pandemic latest: Sept. 26, 2022 Japan to remove daily entry cap on Oct. 11 Japan to launch domestic travel subsidy program on Oct. 11 Enterprises must handle breaches of labor disciplines for employee's non-compliance. So, what are the most efficient ways for enterprises? 1. Notes before handling breaches of labor discipline In accordance with Article 122, Labor Code 2019, the handling of a breach of labor discipline is prescribed as follows: The handling of a breach of labor discipline is prescribed as follows It is prohibited to impose more than one form of labor discipline on a single act of breaching labor discipline. For the employee who simultaneously commits more than one act of breaching labor discipline, the highest form of discipline corresponding to the most serious act of breach shall be applied. No labor discipline will be imposed on the employee who is: Taking sickness or convalescence leave, or leave with the employers consent; Kept in custody or temporary detention; Awaiting results of investigation and verification and conclusion of a competent agency for his/her act of breach specified in Clause 1 or 2, Article 125 of this Code; Pregnant, or on maternity leave or raising a child under 12 months old. No labor discipline will be imposed on the employee who breaches labor discipline while suffering a mental disease or another disease that deprives him/her of the ability to perceive or control his/her acts. 2. Order and procedures for handling breaches of labor discipline Step 1: Confirm the breaches of labor discipline In accordance with Claus 1, Article 70, Decree No. 145/2020/ND-CP, the confirmation of breaches of labor discipline is as follows: If detecting an employee committing a breach of labor discipline at the time the breach is committed: the employer shall make a written record of the breach and notify thereof to the grassroots-level employees representative organization of which such employee is a member or the at-law representative of the employee, in case he/she is under full 15 years. In case the employer detects a breach of labor discipline after it is committed: Collect evidence to prove the employees fault. Step 2: Hold a meeting about the handling of the breach of labor discipline * The implementation time: Within the statute of limitations for handling a breach of labor discipline * Preparation of the meeting: - Notify the contents, time and place of the meeting, full name of the employee subject to the handling of the breach: + The grassroots-level employees representative organization of which such employee is a member + The employee having breach of labor discipline + The at-law representative of the employee if he/she is under full 15 years. - Term of notification: At least 5 working days before the meeting is held. - The compulsory attendances at the meeting shall confirm their attendance with the employer. Or the employer and employee shall reach agreement on the change of the meetings place and time; * Hold the meeting: - Check the attendants of the meeting: The meeting for handling a breach of labor discipline is hold when having all the compulsory attendances or compulsory attendances at the meeting fails to confirm his/her attendance or is absent. - In the meeting: + The employer can prove the fault of the employee; + The grassroots-level employees representative organization of which the concerned employee is a member must participate in handling the breach + The employee must be present and may defend himself/herself or ask a lawyer or the employees representative organization to defend him/her; if the employee is under full 15 years old, he/she shall be accompanied by his/her at-law representative; + The handling of the breach shall be recorded in a minute, approved before the end of the meeting + The minute must bear the signatures of the attendances. In case an attendance refuses to sign the minutes, the minutes' maker shall clearly record the full name of such attendance and reason(s), if any, for his/her refusal. Tips for enterprises to handle breaches of labor discipline (Illustration) Step 3: Issuing the decision of handling breaches of labor discipline Within the statute of limitations for handling a breach of labor discipline, persons competent to handle breaches of labor discipline as prescribed in Point i, Clause 2, Article 69, Decree No. 145/2020/ND-CP as follows: A person entering into a labor contract on the employers side may be + A person competent to sign the labor contracts; + Appointed person to have authority to handle breaches of labor discipline Step 4: Notify publicly the decision on handling breaches of labor discipline + The decisions on handling breaches of labor discipline are publicly announced. Within the statute of limitations for handling a breach of labor discipline a person competent to handle breaches of labor discipline shall issue a decision on handling of breaches of labor discipline and send it to the compulsory attendances: the grassroots-level employees representative organization and if the employee is under full 15 years old, he/she shall be accompanied by his/her at-law representative. Therefore, enterprises must make the right process and procedure for handling breaches of labor discipline for legal acts and avoiding appeals. by Naim-Ul-Karim DHAKA, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- In an apparent bid to ease pressure on foreign exchange reserves and end volatility in the forex market, the central bank of Bangladesh has ordered the selling of extra U.S. dollars in the possession of individuals by the end of this month, an official said on Thursday. Legal action will be taken if someone is found in possession of more greenbacks than the permissible limit after Sept. 30, said the official, quoting a Bangladesh Bank (BB) order issued on Wednesday. The official who did not like to be named said, "We'll seek legal measures against people who fail to sell their extra U.S. dollars before the deadline." In accordance with the law, the official said, when returning from abroad a Bangladeshi national could possess a maximum of 10,000 U.S. dollars or an amount equivalent in other currencies. BB spokesperson Md Serajul Islam told journalists that all the financial institutions in the country will come under scrutiny on the U.S. dollar issue. Also, he said legal action will be taken if any irregularities are found. Apart from this, BB reportedly has been asking banks in the country to provide information on U.S. dollar related operations including the exchange profit. BB has recently intensified its monitoring and is checking some banks over excessive profits from U.S. dollar manipulation. As part of a punitive measure, BB last month removed the treasury heads of six banks. Owing to volatility in the country's foreign exchange market, the U.S. dollar reached an all-time high against the Bangladeshi taka last month, soaring to 115 taka for the first time in the country's curb market trading history. Due in part to higher import bills and the taka's weakness driven by the U.S. dollar's broad surge in recent months, Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves in July fell below 40 billion U.S. dollars for the first time in two years. By the end of August this year, Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves stood at 39.05 billion U.S. dollars, the latest central bank data showed. As BB is set to make a routine payment worth 1.73 billion U.S. dollars to the ACU (Asian Clearing Union), officials said the country's foreign exchange reserves look set to slip below 38 billion U.S. dollars later this month. The Bangladeshi government has recently said it is contemplating taking loans from the International Monetary Fund as precautionary measures. Ahmad Kaikaus, principal secretary to the Bangladeshi prime minister, said the government does not seek a bailout, but is thinking of taking pragmatic measures in advance to address uncertainties ahead due to the adverse impacts of continuation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. BUDAPEST, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Hungary will have enough gas this winter to supply its households and economy, Tamas Menczer, state secretary of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has said. "Gas is flowing to Hungary, where people will be able to heat (their homes) during the cold (winter months), and the Hungarian industry and economy will remain functional," Menczer told the public television channel M1 on Monday. He said the deal with Russian Gazprom, which had been brokered by Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, provides an additional 5.8 million cubic meters of natural gas per day for Hungary in September and October. While improving energy security in Hungary, the deal with Gazprom also marks a deviation from the strategy currently implemented by the European Union (EU), which has been seeking to rid itself of Russian gas dependence as soon as possible. Szijjarto made a surprise visit to Moscow in July to discuss the purchase of an additional 700 million cubic meters of natural gas. According to Menczer, about half of Europe's annual gas consumption of 400 billion cubic meters traditionally comes from Russia. "Therefore, whoever says that Russian gas can be replaced in the short term is simply not telling the truth," he said. Speaking about the EU's plans to cap gas prices, he said the Hungarian government will scrutinize them to see if they are compatible with Hungarian interests. Faced with rising energy prices, the Hungarian government has been forced to cancel the earlier general price caps for electricity and gas. A partial price cap has been retained for households, covering the "average" amount of energy consumption. Companies and households consuming above the government-defined average must pay market prices from August. Last week, local press were quoting hotel and restaurant owners, small businesses and local governments warning about looming crises in the upcoming heating season due to the elevated energy prices. Local residents participate in the Chinese Immersion Day activities in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, Sept. 25, 2022. (Photo by Walter/Xinhua) WELLINGTON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Immersion Day was held in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Sunday, with the local libraries receiving donations of popular Chinese books. The Chinese Consulate General in Christchurch gave popular children's books in Chinese and those about modern China to the central city library, as part of the nationwide celebration of the New Zealand Chinese Language Week which started on Sunday. "Last time when I visited the library, I was told that Chinese books are very popular and new books are often checked out as soon as they hit the shelves," Consul General He Ying told the donation ceremony. The donated books this year include children's favorite idiom stories, traditional culture and drawing books, as well as books on modern China, according to He, who said the books are expected to help fellow Chinese understand the latest development of China and help Kiwis learn and understand more about the East Asian country. Carolyn Robertson, libraries and information manager for Christchurch City Council, said the donated books were wonderful gifts for the community to enjoy, adding that the city libraries need diverse language books as part of a wide range of books offered. On the Chinese Immersion Day, an extravaganza of traditional Chinese music and Lion Dance was staged, followed by various Chinese language and culture activities, such as calligraphy, paper cutting, Chinese knots making, Chinese painting, tea art, fun language workshops and games. Consul General He said the Chinese language, which is extensive and profound, has a far-reaching influence. New Zealand has more than 260,000 people with a Chinese origin, who make the Chinese language an important part of New Zealand multicultural society. Local children participate in the Chinese Immersion Day activities in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, Sept. 25, 2022. (Photo by Walter/Xinhua) By Trend Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company (ASCO) CJSC has made two new appointments to the board, the company told Trend. Following the changes, Zaur Naghiyev and Tariyel Mirzoyev have been appointed to the posts of deputy chairmen of ASCO. Naghiyev was appointed Deputy Chairman for Legal Affairs, Human Resources and International Relations, while Mirzoyev was Deputy Chairman for Strategic Development and Investment Projects. The ASCO Management Board is chaired by Rauf Valiyev. Relocated residents take a shuttle bus back home from an agricultural demonstration zone in Xifang Village of Linyou County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 5, 2022. (Xinhua/Zhang Bowen) XI'AN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Born and raised in the deep mountains, Zhang Liping, a 39-year-old woman troubled by poverty for years, never expected that she would one day move to a comfortable residence and live a better-off life. Zhang's hometown, Linyou County in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, is a mountainous region on the Loess Plateau. Inconvenient transportation and a lack of arable land once hindered the economic development of the small county with a population of 71,000. By 2020, China had fully completed its poverty-alleviation relocation programs for the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), with more than 9.6 million people involved having moved into new homes and shaken off poverty. Nearly 14,000 residents in Linyou County, including Zhang, benefited from the program and bid farewell to their shabby houses in the mountains. "Thanks to government subsidies, it cost only 7,500 yuan (about 1,070 U.S. dollars) for my family of three to move to the new residence in the summer of 2019," said Zhang. Providing follow-up support for relocated residents is of paramount importance. In the Nanfang resettlement community where Zhang lives, schools, hospitals and workshops are available for newcomers. Zhang works in a workshop on the top floor of a three-story building in the community, knitting car seat cushions with another 20 colleagues. "I was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus in 2009 with mobility issues and my husband was then the only breadwinner in the family," Zhang said. "I feel content to have such a job and earn about 2,500 yuan per month," added Zhang, who can now easily juggle her job and her child's needs. Currently, the county has eight community factories with a total of over 500 employees and one-third of them are relocated residents or people lifted out of poverty. Data from the National Rural Revitalization Administration shows that a total of 4.59 million people relocated from inhospitable areas and lifted out of poverty were employed in the first half of 2022. At least one person in a relocated family with labor ability has secured a job. Efforts have also been made to develop featured industries and improve infrastructure to create job opportunities and extra income for locals in barren mountains. In the past, villagers in Linyou often endured bad harvests due to barren land and a lack of rainfall. But in the eyes of Wang Xiding, such an environment coincided with the requirements of the agrivoltaics industry. Along the road twisting up the mountainside in the Jiuchenggong Township, Linyou County, an agrivoltaics park covering an area of 1,210 mu (about 80.7 hectares) was built on the slope in 2016. Solar panels are placed on greenhouses that shelter crops of peppers, corn and grapes ready for harvest. "With an average altitude of 1,250 meters and abundant sunlight, it is an ideal place to develop an agrivoltaics project to earn extra income for locals," said Wang, general manager of the park's operator, adding that an average of 24 million kWh of electricity is generated per year. At the end of 2020, the county was linked with expressways, making it convenient for good transportation. Moreover, free buses running between the industrial park and resettlement communities are available for residents. "There is much more to look forward to in life," Zhang said. Children play games with their teacher at a kindergarten in a relocation community in Linyou County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Sept. 5, 2022. (Xinhua/Zhang Bowen) Aerial photo taken on Sept. 6, 2022 shows a photovoltaic agricultural demonstration zone in Fengyuan Village of Linyou County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (Xinhua/Zhang Bowen) Iriana Pupo, a TV director and filmmaker from the Havana district of El Vedado, watches a Chinese documentary in Spanish in Havana, Cuba, Sept. 22, 2022. (Photo by Joaquin Hernandez/Xinhua) by Yosley Carrero HAVANA, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Cuba's Multivision TV channel was scheduled to broadcast at noon on Monday and Thursday the documentaries of the China Global Television Network (CGTN) ahead of the 62nd anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations. Organized by the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, the documentaries will be aired throughout September, till the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. "The documentaries cover a wide variety of topics from science and culture to technology and agriculture," Multivision director Yanet Valdes said, noting that "Harbin," "Daqing," "Tianjing 1" and "Tianjing 2" are among documentary titles. Cuban TV programming specialist Yoel Lugones said that Chinese documentaries and programs continue to gain popularity among young audiences. "Since its foundation, Multivision has been broadcasting videos on China, which has very much contributed to the increase of our knowledge about the Chinese people," he said. In the eyes of Iriana Pupo, a 53-year-old TV director and filmmaker from the Havana district of El Vedado, those Chinese documentaries provide a full picture of the Chinese Society. "I like the documentaries because of their inspiring stories, amazing photography and artistic values," she said. "In addition, this is a way to know more about Chinese culture and traditions." Meanwhile, 22-year-old university student Damian Napoles said that the Chinese documentaries show the impressive development secured by the Chinese people over the past decades. "Thanks to these documentaries, I have learned about farming and state-of-the-art techniques in agriculture," he said. "I study Agricultural Sciences. When it comes to scientific development, China is a global reference." Technicians of Cuba's Multivision TV channel prepares to play a Chinese documentary at a studio in Havana, Cuba, Sept. 22, 2022. (Photo by Joaquin Hernandez/Xinhua) A technician of Cuba's Multivision TV channel prepares to play a Chinese documentary at a studio in Havana, Cuba, Sept. 22, 2022. (Photo by Joaquin Hernandez/Xinhua) TEHRAN, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Ali Salehi, chief prosecutor of Tehran, said on Sunday his office has filed criminal charges against 14 individuals for involvement in the assassination of the country's high-ranking nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The prosecutor said the individuals have been accused of "corruption on earth," intelligence and espionage cooperation with Israel, collusion with the aim of compromising Iran's security, and acting against national security, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "Corruption on earth" is a term Iranian authorities use to refer to a broad range of offenses, including those related to Islamic values. Fakhrizadeh, who was the head of the Iranian Defense Ministry's Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, died from severe injuries in a hospital on Nov. 27, 2020 following an armed attack on his car in Absard district, 60 km northeast of Iran's capital Tehran. Iran has accused Israel of being behind the assassination. Residents wade through a flooded road in Bulacan Province, the Philippines, Sept. 26, 2022. Super typhoon Noru slammed Luzon island in the Philippines with heavy rainfall and winds since Sunday afternoon, leaving five people dead, as it blew away from the Southeast Asian country on Monday. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali) MANILA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Super typhoon Noru slammed Luzon island in the Philippines with heavy rainfall and winds since Sunday afternoon, leaving five people dead, as it blew away from the Southeast Asian country on Monday. Bulacan province Governor Daniel Fernando said Monday morning that a flash flood washed away five rescuers who were conducting rescue operations in San Miguel town, north of Manila. Some parts of the town are still under muddy water. The national disaster agency has yet to report the incident. The state weather agency downgraded Noru to a typhoon hours after its landfall late Sunday afternoon. The bureau said Noru maintained its strength on Monday morning, moving west northward at 30 km per hour, packing 140 km per hour winds and gusts of up to 170 km per hour. On Monday, Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos conducted an aerial inspection of three provinces north of Manila hit by the cyclone. He is also expected to visit Quezon province, where Noru made landfall on Sunday afternoon, to check on the damage. "The whole range of assistance is prepared and ready to go," he told a news conference. Noru is the 11th and the most powerful cyclone to enter the Philippines this year. The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries globally, mainly due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire and Pacific typhoon belt. On average, the archipelagic country experiences 20 typhoons yearly, some of which are intense and destructive. Residents wade through a flooded road in Bulacan Province, the Philippines, Sept. 26, 2022. Super typhoon Noru slammed Luzon island in the Philippines with heavy rainfall and winds since Sunday afternoon, leaving five people dead, as it blew away from the Southeast Asian country on Monday. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali) Aerial photo shows flooded area affected by super typhoon Noru in Bulacan Province, the Philippines, Sept. 26, 2022. Super typhoon Noru slammed Luzon island in the Philippines with heavy rainfall and winds since Sunday afternoon, leaving five people dead, as it blew away from the Southeast Asian country on Monday. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali) Aerial photo shows flooded area affected by super typhoon Noru in Bulacan Province, the Philippines, Sept. 26, 2022. Super typhoon Noru slammed Luzon island in the Philippines with heavy rainfall and winds since Sunday afternoon, leaving five people dead, as it blew away from the Southeast Asian country on Monday. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali) Aerial photo shows flooded area affected by super typhoon Noru in Bulacan Province, the Philippines, Sept. 26, 2022. Super typhoon Noru slammed Luzon island in the Philippines with heavy rainfall and winds since Sunday afternoon, leaving five people dead, as it blew away from the Southeast Asian country on Monday. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali) A man pushes his motorcycle with a child on board through a flooded road in Bulacan Province, the Philippines, Sept. 26, 2022. Super typhoon Noru slammed Luzon island in the Philippines with heavy rainfall and winds since Sunday afternoon, leaving five people dead, as it blew away from the Southeast Asian country on Monday. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali) NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of cattle due to the lumpy skin disease in India has doubled over the past three weeks, taking the total to nearly 100,000, confirmed a government official to Xinhua on Monday. "The cumulative number of cattle deaths caused by lumpy skin disease has gone up to 97,435 as on Sept. 23, almost double from the 49,682 deaths recorded about three weeks ago," said the government official. Junior Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Sanjeev Kumar Balyan on Aug. 30 said that the disease had affected 1.12 million cattle, including 49,682 deaths, across the country. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, the disease now has spread across 251 districts in 15 states, affecting over 2 million animals. The number of cattle "susceptible" to the disease in these states stand at around 36 million, reported The Indian Express. The ministry's data showed that the number of cattle affected by the disease stood at 2 million, and out of these 1.27 million animals had recovered. A maximum number of affected animals have been reported from the state of Rajasthan, followed by Gujarat where the disease first originated. The most deaths caused by the disease have also been reported from Rajasthan, where nearly 64,311 animals have died so far. This is followed by 17,721 cattle deaths in Punjab. As many as 16 million cattle have been vaccinated against the disease till Sept. 23, said the government data. KIGALI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would spur trade and investment cooperation between Africa and China after easing connectivity and transportation challenges, a Rwandan legislator said. In a recent interview in the capital city Kigali, Emmanuel Bugingo, the chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Security in the Chamber of Deputies, said the BRI will bridge the infrastructure gap in Rwanda, thereby connecting the country to Africa and the rest of the world. "For a country like Rwanda, which joined the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018, and (for) Africa in general, the BRI is a welcome initiative and opportunity that will boost access to the coast by landlocked countries while catalyzing economic development, regional integration and connecting the entire continent," he told Xinhua. China and Africa's economic and trade cooperation over the past decades is well reflected in the agriculture sector. Last year, African agricultural exports to China increased by 18.2 percent year-on-year, according to data revealed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Bugingo said the BRI would increase connectivity, whereby transportation will be more convenient, "resulting in the growth of trade and investment between Africa and China." Rwanda appreciates China's contribution to building infrastructure in Rwanda and Africa in general, he said. On the cooperation between Rwanda and China, Bugingo said it is based on shared values, mutual respect and common interests, adding that the bilateral ties are likely to flourish further, allowing both countries to "realize common development through win-win cooperation." Responding to the question of how future relations between the two countries could play out, Bugingo said, "the Sino-Rwanda relationship is built on a solid foundation of mutual trust." "The cooperation between Rwanda and China has great potential and vast prospects. I am confident to assert that the relationship between Rwanda and China will remain steady in the foreseeable future," he said. He expressed his hopes for more products from Rwanda entering the Chinese market and collaborative engagement with Chinese enterprises, in the form of direct investment in infrastructure, ICT, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, energy and export-oriented sectors. Citing roads, hospitals, and hydropower stations constructed in Rwanda with China's support, Bugingo noted that such infrastructure development has yielded great benefits to the people of Rwanda. China has become Rwanda's biggest trading partner and project contractor, and one of the major sources of foreign investments. "Chinese companies have been investing in Rwanda in different sectors. Through different exchanges and areas of cooperation, Rwanda looks forward to building more partnerships and gaining from China's enormous experience and expertise in many fields," said Bugingo. Bugingo also noted that the cooperation between Rwanda and China in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic made bilateral ties even closer and stronger. He also commended China's approach to partnering with different African countries which he said is "based on mutual respect." "This is very interesting because they respond to the expectations of the people rather than imposing something the way some partners may want to do," he said. An employee works at a coffee processing plant in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Oct. 21, 2021. The increasing number of consumers and growing popularity of Ethiopia's coffee among the Chinese people is propelling Ethiopia's coffee export market, officials and coffee exporters said. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde) ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The increasing number of consumers and growing popularity of Ethiopia's coffee among the Chinese people is propelling Ethiopia's coffee export market, officials and coffee exporters said. "Currently, the youth in China are really fond of Ethiopian coffee and we are witnessing growing coffee market share in China and other parts of Asia," Adugna Debela, director general of the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority (ECTA), said in a recent interview with Xinhua. Figures from ECTA showed that Ethiopia exported 11,935.65 metric tons of coffee to China during the last Ethiopian fiscal year which ended on July 7, earning 65.31 million U.S. dollars, up by 84 percent year on year. The increase has made China the seventh major importer of Ethiopian coffee last fiscal year (July 8, 2021-July 7, 2022), up from 33rd in the previous fiscal year (July 8, 2020-July 7, 2021) Ethiopia obtained a record 1.4 billion U.S. dollars from exporting over 300,000 metric tons of coffee last Ethiopian fiscal year. The top five export destinations were Germany, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Belgium and Japan. Debela argued that China would be one of the main destinations for Ethiopian coffee due to its population size and the growing coffee drinking habits among the people. "Very recently, countries like China, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates are coming to the front line, after consumers in those countries tested and proved that Ethiopian coffee is an organic one," Debela said. Amid the growing demand for Ethiopian coffee in the Chinese coffee market, a growing number of Ethiopian coffee growers and exporters are vying to penetrate the emerging Chinese coffee market. Israel Degefa, Chief Executive Officer of Kerchanshe Trading, the largest producer and exporter of coffee in Ethiopia, shares the idea of the director general and anticipates "China would be one of the main destinations for Ethiopian coffee in the near future." "In general, the Chinese market is growing every year and we are tripling our export to China both in volume of coffee and value. The demand is high and we are preparing to grow more coffee to feed the Chinese market," Degefa said. Ethiopia, which is known as the origin of Arabica coffee, is recognized worldwide for its rich coffee quality, variety of flavors and aroma, making the demand for the commodity increase globally. For Degefa, the rising demand for Ethiopian coffee in China has to do with a cultural shift. "I think there is a cultural shift among the Chinese people. The Chinese new generation is adapting to drink tea and coffee concurrently," Degefa said. Temesgen Cherkos, export manager of Hadeed Trading Private Limited Company, said his company is making increasing shipments of coffee to China, attributing the rise in the volume of coffee export to growing coffee drinking habits in China. "We have been sending coffee to China for two years now. We exported a small volume of coffee the previous year but this year, after we got registered in China, we are exporting an increasing volume of coffee to China. At least we make shipments of 10 containers of coffee to China every month," he said. There are about 5 million coffee growers in Ethiopia and more than 25 million people in the country depend on coffee production and processing for their livelihood. Also coffee accounts for up to 30 percent of Ethiopia's export revenue, according to ECTA. However, figures from the ECTA show that only 12 percent of Ethiopian coffee export commands the highest price in the international coffee market due to lack of using modern technology and the best variety of species in the production and processing of coffee. According to ECTA, coffee Arabica is highly vulnerable to changing climatic conditions, especially the desert weather which is posing a potential threat to coffee production. Employees work with coffee beans at a coffee processing plant in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Oct. 21, 2021. The increasing number of consumers and growing popularity of Ethiopia's coffee among the Chinese people is propelling Ethiopia's coffee export market, officials and coffee exporters said. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde) JAKARTA, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- One policeman was seriously wounded when a package containing black powders for firecrackers exploded in the compound of a police dormitory in Indonesia's Central Java province on Sunday, Central Java Police Chief Inspector General Ahmad Luthfi said. Luthfi said that the incident occurring at the dormitory located in Sukoharjo district of the province is not linked with terrorism, adding that it came as a result of the negligence of the injured policeman. "There is no relation with terrorism," Luthfi told a press conference. He said that there were two boxes in the package, and one of them exploded when the injured policeman tried to burn or destroy them. The black powders for firecrackers were seized in a police operation in 2021. Luthfi said that an investigation will be launched on the presence of the package in the police dormitory compound. BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China has achieved initial success in new infrastructure construction, which has greatly facilitated the country's social and economic development over the past decade, officials said Monday. Zhang Zhihua, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission, said China has quickened its steps in upgrading information infrastructure as well as advancing infrastructure integration and innovation. The length of China's optical fiber network has increased 2.7 times over the past decade, and the number of data center racks has topped 5.9 million, Zhang told a press conference. Smart devices are being integrated into various industries and businesses such as transport, energy supply, and industrial production, as well as facilities concerning people's wellbeing like e-commerce, telemedicine, and online education, he said. In terms of innovation, Zhang said up to 32 of China's planned 77 major national science and technology infrastructure projects have been put into operation, while centers on engineering research, enterprise technology, and industrial innovation are being set up across the country. Song Wen, an official with the National Energy Administration, revealed that with the energy sector seeking a faster shift to digital, internet-based, and smart-tech models, progress has been made in fields such as smart grid, mining, and power generation, as well as energy storage. The coverage rate of China's power distribution automation system has exceeded 90 percent by 2021, and the country has seen the completion of over 800 smart mining sites and a number of "5G plus" smart thermal power plants, according to Song. Zhang said new infrastructure has greatly empowered China's economic and social development by offering sustained support to new technology exploration, effectively backing the development of the digital economy and fully facilitating the improvement of people's wellbeing. "While each round of scientific and technological revolution introduces new infrastructure, each round of infrastructure construction would bring in an upgrade in economic transformation," he said. Firefighters prepare to put out a fire at an outlet mall in Daejeon, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2022. A fire broke out at an outlet mall in the South Korean central city of Daejeon on Monday, leaving two people dead, one seriously injured and four others missing, according to Yonhap news agency. (NEWSIS via Xinhua) SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A fire broke out at an outlet mall in the South Korean central city of Daejeon on Monday, leaving two people dead, one seriously injured and four others missing, according to Yonhap news agency. The fire began around 7:45 a.m. local time from an outlet store in Daejeon, some 160 km south of the capital Seoul. Two men in their 50s and 30s each were sent to a nearby hospital after suffering serious injuries, but they were later pronounced dead. One man in his 40s was under treatment at a hospital after sustaining serious injuries. A search operation was underway for the four who remained unaccounted for. The fire authorities dispatched over 120 personnel and various firefighting equipment, but they had difficulty in the search operations due to heavy smoke coming from burning paper boxes in the underground cargo-handling area. Over 100 people, mostly those at nearby buildings, evacuated. No customer was around the outlet store as the fire broke out before business hours. Firefighters try to put out a fire at an outlet mall in Daejeon, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2022. A fire broke out at an outlet mall in the South Korean central city of Daejeon on Monday, leaving two people dead, one seriously injured and four others missing, according to Yonhap news agency. (NEWSIS via Xinhua) Firefighters work at an entrance of an outlet mall where smoke rises in Daejeon, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2022. A fire broke out at an outlet mall in the South Korean central city of Daejeon on Monday, leaving two people dead, one seriously injured and four others missing, according to Yonhap news agency. (NEWSIS via Xinhua) By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijan is one of the oldest centers of carpet weaving in the world. The art of carpet weaving, which is the national-cultural asset of the country, and has become a symbol of the Azerbaijani people, is distinctive owing to its high creativity and technical proficiency, including its unique ornaments. With its antiquity, unique design, and superior craftsmanship, the renowned Sheikh Safi carpet is, undoubtedly, one of the best examples of global carpet art. The legendary carpet - a unique piece of art that the Azerbaijani people gifted to the world's cultural heritage - was woven in 1539. According to historians, the idea of creating the carpet belonged to Tahmasib I, the son of Shah Ismail Khatai, who founded the Safavid dynasty, to honor his grandfather Abu Ishaq Ardabili. Experts claim that carpet weaving occurred in the same area and time period as the construction of mosques and tomb complexes. The calligraphy and miniatures on the mausoleum's dome and the patterns on the medallion in the center of the carpet are identical. It has already been established that the carpet was woven by Tabriz craftsman, Maqsud Kasheni, who spent two years before finishing it in 1539. The carpet stands out for its vibrant coloring, a wide range of tones, and exceptional fineness. The master craftsman, who embroidered Iranian poet Hafiz's verses, also mentioned his name on the carpet: "The work by the slave of the holy land, Maqsud Kasheni, 946". The master artisan had no idea that the carpet would one day be referred to as "the eighth wonder of the world". The textile exhibit has a total size of 56.12 square meters and is regarded as an art miracle by specialists. One million loops were used to weave the carpet. This wonderful example of craftsmanship has been exhibited as the Ardabil Carpet at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London. The name Sheikh Safi was given to the carpet by Azerbaijani visual artist Latif Karimov. Due to a lack of care for cultural heritage, the carpet that had long graced the Sheikh Safi compound was sold at auction in London in 1893. The Victoria and Albert Museum was able to purchase it for 25,000 pounds thanks to a donation from the British people. The refusal of rich locals to set aside finances for the restoration of the Sheikh Safi complex, which was devastated by the earthquake in Ardabil, was the cause of this apathy. As a result of the locals' disregard for the religious-architectural structure, which was the symbol of the city, the complex's staff was compelled to hold an auction in order to raise money for repairs. At that time, English carpet trader Ziegler and Co. branches from Manchester were expanding their business in Tabriz. There was a rumor that a company employee had been curious about the carpet's price. After visiting Ardabil in 1843, traveler U. R. Holmes wrote in Tales from the Caspian Coast: "I have never seen a carpet like the one on the floor in the Safavid mosque-tomb." However, in 1891, the carpet vanished from the tomb. Among the things sold was a pair of carpets that were put on the mosque's floor. They were initially bought by Ziegler and Co., and later one of them was sold to the museum through an auction in London. Along with the Sheikh Safi carpet, the gold-plated sword of the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasib I, as well as Safavid miniatures and pottery are displayed among the most valuable items of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Unfortunately, they were all given credit as Iranian artifacts. French scholar Bruno Guigue is pictured at his home in France's overseas island La Reunion, Sept. 23, 2022. (Xinhua) PARIS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's foreign policy is based on cooperation and not confrontation, reciprocity and not rivalry at all costs, a French international affairs expert has said. "China, for its part, has a natural propensity for multilateralism," said Bruno Guigue, who worked at the French Interior Ministry from 1990 to 2008, in a recent written interview with Xinhua. Lauding China's efforts to uphold multilateralism, he said that China has been promoting peaceful cooperation with other countries. The features of China's cooperation "always include respect for the sovereign decisions of each partner. It does not intervene in the internal affairs of its partners," said Guigue, who has devoted his time to teaching philosophy and researches in international politics. Speaking of the importance of multilateralism under current global situation, Guigue said that multilateralism remains the "lifeline" of the world riddled with uncertainties. "International cooperation only bears fruit if the main powers apply the principles defined by the Charter of the United Nations and do not seek to impose their hegemony," he said. Guigue warned of the "false multilateralism" imposed by the United States through its irresponsible involvement in other countries' internal affairs. Aligning with the United States in its promotion of the "false multilateralism" is against Europe's own interests, he said. "The vocation of Europe is to be a bridge between the West and Asia, a zone of economic and cultural exchanges, a pole of innovation which communicates with the rest of the world and contributes to its development," Guigue explained. "Europe must free itself from the tutelage of the United States. It must break with Atlanticism," he stressed. He said France and China share the similar views on multilateralism, calling on the two countries to further work together to promote multilateralism. "By joining their efforts, France and China can bring about a safer and fairer world," Guigue said. Guigue pointed out that China has a long history of peace-loving and refraining from interfering in others' internal affairs, which is evident in the ancient Chinese philosophy. "What characterizes the Chinese thought is the representation of a plural world and a composite humanity, of which no power is entitled to claim hegemonic leadership. It is this conception of unity in diversity that founds an inclusive, and not exclusive, universalism," he explained. Along with French writer Maxime Vivas and other scholars, Guigue co-authored a book, titled "La Chine sans oeilleres" (China without blinders), to show a real China to the Western public. Giorgia Meloni (C), leader of the Brothers of Italy party, arrives at a polling station in Rome, Italy, Sept. 25, 2022. (Xinhua/Jin Mamengni) ROME, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- A right-wing coalition is projected to win the elections held to renew the parliament in Italy on Sunday, showed projections based on partial results. The nationalist Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, was the most voted party garnering 24.7 percent of the vote, according to projections provided by Consorzio Opinio Italia pollster and published by state TV Rai News 24. If confirmed, Meloni would most likely become the first woman to serve as the country's prime minister in the most right-wing government Italy has had in some 70 years. Meloni's two coalition allies -- Matteo Salvini's League party and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia -- would win 8.7 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Center-left Democratic Party (PD) led by former Prime Minister Enrico Letta -- the main force in the center-left alliance -- was projected as the second most-voted party with 19 percent of the vote. The Brothers of Italy and the PD were the leading forces within the main contenders in the campaign, namely a right-wing coalition and a center-left alliance, respectively. Populist Five Star Movement (M5S), which has run alone in the campaign, would gain around 16.7 percent, while a smaller centrist force made of two parties -- Azione and Italia Viva -- would secure about 7.3 percent of the vote. Matteo Salvini's League party and Forza Italia party -- both allies of the Brothers of Italy -- followed with 8.5 percent to 12.5 percent and 6 percent to 8 percent respectively. In light of partial data available, Rai News 24 reported that the right-wing alliance would control both houses of the next parliament, garnering 227-257 of the 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, or the lower house, and 111-131 of the Senate's 200 seats. Snap elections were called after a national unity government, led for 17 months by Mario Draghi, collapsed in July after the center-right parties and the M5S withdrew their support. A main commitment of Draghi's cabinet was to put in place key reforms contained in the national resilience and recovery plan as agreed with the EU in order to receive some 200 billion euros (193.9 billion U.S. dollars) by 2026, as part of the EU post-COVID recovery plan. This would remain a key task for the next government, as the funds were being disbursed in tranches according to a specific reform implementation timetable. Over 50 million citizens, including some 4.7 million living abroad, were eligible to cast their ballots on Sunday to choose the 400 deputies and 200 senators that will form the two houses of the next parliament. For the first time ever, as a result of a recent constitutional reform, 18-year-olds in the country will be allowed to vote to elect the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. This applies to almost 2.7 million young citizens who have just come of age, said the Italian Interior Ministry. Vote counting began soon after the closure of all polling stations on Sunday, but final results will not come out until early or mid Monday. Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, delivers a speech in Rome, Italy, Sept. 26, 2022. A right-wing coalition is projected to win the elections held to renew the parliament in Italy on Sunday, showed projections based on partial results. (Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua) GUANGZHOU, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Coffee cheesecake, tomato chicken salad or a cup of homemade latte, Mattia Romeo shares what he makes every day on China's microblogging giant Weibo, where he has more than 500,000 followers. Romeo comes from Milan, Italy, and has been living in China for almost 16 years. Over the years, he worked for an Italian restaurant, worked as a local TV host, and is now a celebrity on Chinese social media. He lived in Chinatown in Milan when he was a child and often went deep into the streets and alleys there to explore the daily lives of Chinese people. Chinese characters have deeply captured Romeo's heart since then. In 2001, Romeo began to learn Chinese by himself and in 2006, he made up his mind to visit China and explore authentic Chinese culture. Instead of applying for a travel visa, he decided to find a job in China and stay there for a longer time. At the very beginning, he worked for a Sino-Italy joint venture in Zhaoqing City, south China's Guangdong Province. As the only employee who could speak both Chinese and Italian, Romeo played an important role in communication between the two sides. However, Romeo lost his job as the company closed 6 months later due to poor management. After that, Romeo made multiple attempts to succeed in different jobs, but his efforts ended in failure. He then went to Guangzhou, a city neighboring Zhaoqing, and also the capital city of Guangdong, and worked in an Italian restaurant there in 2006. At that time, due to the underdeveloped internet, he wrote down the names and contact information of customers in a notebook, and kept in touch with them by sending text messages and emails. As a consequence, he ended up making many Chinese friends. Romeo said that he enjoyed helping Chinese friends understand the authentic Italian food culture. The restaurant's big success in business attracted local media attention, which gave Romeo the chance to start his television career. "Discovering Guangzhou" was the first TV program he hosted. In this program, Romeo spoke English and gave advice to foreigners on how to explore the city. As the program gained popularity, his sense of accomplishment grew and he decided to focus more on people-to-people cultural exchanges. Driven by passion, Romeo worked hard in this field, which earned him more exposure in major media and more appearances on television. In 2010, he participated in the "Chinese World Carnival: Chinese-speaking Foreign Moderator Contest" and won the competition. Romeo also participated in several programs like "A Bright World" by Jiangsu TV, where a panel of foreigners living in China held discussions in Mandarin on various topics and issues. Busy as he was, Romeo still enjoyed himself in his spare time. "You can find a restaurant at 2 a.m. or eat some street food, or drink a beer," Romeo said. He was impressed by the down-to-earth atmosphere of Guangzhou. "People's lives here are very slow-paced," Romeo said. He is fond of Cantonese cuisine, which is cooked in a non-greasy and healthy way, "if foreigners come to visit Guangzhou, they shall taste shrimp dumplings and boat porridge." What impresses the Italian even more is the great change that has taken place in the city in the past decade. Tianhe District, the populous central business district of Guangzhou, where he lives now, was still a large construction site and high-rise buildings could barely be seen back in 2006. Romeo said that he had witnessed the country's rapid urbanization, but he was most pleased that more and more historical buildings were being protected and turned into coffee shops and clothing stores, which are popular among young Chinese. "When I first visited Yongqingfang, an old part of the city, ten years ago, what I saw were dilapidated houses, some of which had collapsed, and there were basically no shops and young visitors," Romeo said. But it had become a must-go place now, where people can visit Bruce Lee's ancestral home, beautiful bookstores, and many coffee shops, and experience local traditional cultural activities like printing, ceramics, tea art and more, he said. Also, as China's technology developed rapidly, Romeo found life has become more and more convenient. In 2006, when people took the subway, they had to buy a coin-sized ticket or use a subway card. But now, with the popularity of mobile payment in China, people can scan the code on their mobile phone to enter the station in less than 5 seconds. In the past decade, the mileage of Guangzhou Metro has increased from 236 km to 621 km, and will reach 2,000 km by 2035, while the maximum running speed of subway trains has climbed to 160 km per hour. "Certainly, I am a witness to the rapid changes in Guangzhou, and now, as a social media influencer, what I am doing is recording them by writing or filming, which helps more people know about the development of the city and the Chinese society," Romeo said. Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi speaks during the unveiling of solar street lights at Khuis village, Kgalagadi District, Botswana, Dec. 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Motlalepula) Experts and policymakers in Botswana have expressed hope that the China-Africa linkage in the use of solar energy technologies will spur the southern African country's transition from overreliance on coal for electricity generation. GABORONE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Experts and policymakers in Botswana have expressed hope that the China-Africa linkage in the use of solar energy technologies will spur the southern African country's transition from overreliance on coal for electricity generation. Botswana has embarked on an ambitious journey of transitioning from overreliance on coal for electricity generation toward increasing the share of renewable energies, said Lefoko Moagi, Botswana's Minister of Minerals and Energy, told Xinhua in a recent telephone interview. Moagi, who late last month attended the International Solar Alliance (ISA)'s fourth Regional Committee Meeting in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, said Botswana's quest for solar energy development could be realized through China's potential and involvement. "Users of solar energy technology in Botswana should be working closely with manufacturers of the technology in China," said Moagi, adding that he learnt a lot from the ISA meeting which brought together African energy ministers to discuss ways of bringing long-term solutions to energy shortages in Africa using solar energy resources. Solar panels at Botswana's first Photovoltaic solar power plant which was commissioned in Gaborone, capital of Botswana, Aug. 27, 2012. (Xinhua/Sharon Tshipa) Botswana generates its electricity from coal and it is doing everything within its power to move toward increasing the share of renewable energies. Moagi said the country's power utility Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) recently rolled out two solar projects with different private players - a 3MW in the northeastern Botswana and a 1MW in the northwestern village of Shakawe - for them to generate and feed into national grid. Gabaake Gabaake, an executive director at Tlou Energy Limited, an independent provider of clean energy in Botswana, told Xinhua on Friday in a separate interview that making use of Chinese technology and manpower to develop renewable energy resources would spur Botswana's transition from carbon emissions. "We need private sector that will focus on manufacturing solar pumps and other productive use applications. And the Chinese are the only with the expertise," said Gabaake, saying Botswana can make strides through a linkage between her and China. In partnership with some private players, President Mokgweetsi Masisi recently announced that Botswana is planning to build a solar power plant that will produce 25 gigawatts of electricity. Late last year, Masisi also pronounced that Botswana is aiming to deliver small-scale digester plants to reduce greenhouse emissions by 1.65 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by next year in order to attain reduction of national carbon emissions to 15 percent by 2030. NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Ten people, including eight women and two children, died and nearly 37 others were injured when a vehicle fell into a pond in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Monday, a local police officer said. The mishap occurred in the state capital Lucknow when the driver lost control over the vehicle, the police officer told Xinhua over phone. Some 47 people were onboard the vehicle when the accident took place. The injured were admitted to a hospital. The victims were going to a temple to offer prayers for a newborn when they met with the unfortunate crash, said the police officer. AMMAN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Jordan has stepped up efforts in combatting water thefts and improving supply infrastructure, as water reserves at its dams are nosediving, and public grudge against repeated outages are fuming. "The ministry is exerting its utmost efforts to provide water to residents across the country, working on addressing all concerns, including dismantling illegally-laid water pipes, and improving the water supply system," an official at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation told Xinhua on Sunday. The official, who preferred to be anonymous, revealed that repeated water thefts and attacks on water pipelines are the major factors behind disrupted water supplies in some regions. The official confirmed to Xinhua of recent media reports that dams across Jordan, which have a total capacity of 280 million cubic meters, are only 15 percent full at the moment, which is "alarming." President of the Jordan Environment Union Omar Shoshan said climate change also impacted the precipitation in the rainy season in Jordan, contributing to the scarcity. "Jordan has been witnessing erratic rainfall over the past years, and the precipitation rate is becoming lower and lower every year," Shoshan told Xinhua, admitting "we certainly need to work on improving the utilization of water resources and reducing the waste." Meanwhile, UNICEF said in its new report on water-stressed Jordan that numerous factors have exacerbated the pressure on the kingdom's limited water resources, including demographics, urbanization, and climate change. The study noted that Jordan's agricultural sector, although contributed about 5 percent to the country's gross domestic product, consumed more than half of its freshwater resources. According to the water ministry's official, a major water desalination project is hopeful of alleviating Jordan's draught by producing about 300 million cubic meters of potable water from the Red Sea per year. The project is expected to come into operation in 2027, the official noted. "We can not just rely on the mega water project to address water shortages. We also need to reduce the waste of water in irrigation and daily usage as well as prevent water-related offenses," Khaleel Diab, a resident of the Jabal Al-Taj area in the kingdom's capital Amman, told Xinhua. Photo taken on Sept. 6, 2022 shows the city view of Vladivostok, Russia. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Xinhua) The Russian Foreign Ministry has lodged a strong protest to the Japanese side. MOSCOW, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Japanese diplomat based in Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok is being expelled after being detained for espionage, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Monday. A consul of the Consulate General of Japan in Vladivostok was "detained red-handed while receiving, for a money reward, information of limited distribution about the current aspects of Russia's cooperation with one of the Asia-Pacific countries, including the impact of Western sanctions on the economic situation in (Russia's) Primorsky Territory," an FSB statement read. The Minister Counselor of the Japanese Embassy in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday and was informed that the consul in question must leave Russia within 48 hours for activities incompatible with the status of a consular officer and detrimental to Russia's security interests, the ministry said in a statement. The Russian Foreign Ministry has lodged a strong protest over the incident to the Japanese side. Lilian Uwintwali, the chief executive of Mahwi Tech, receives an award for her innovation at the Women Agripreneur of the Year Awards 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda, Sept. 7, 2022. (Ministry of Agriculture Rwanda/Handout via Xinhua) KIGALI, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda's Lilian Uwintwali, the brain behind Mahwi Tech, an Agritech firm, is aspiring to digitize agriculture in Africa. Through a platform dubbed MLIMA digital marketplace, the firm has helped address demand and supply chain gaps of agriculture commodities in Rwanda using digital technologies to contribute to food systems security. "The firm currently serves 20,000 small holder farmers, providing access to high end markets and financing via MLIMA digital marketplace and the plan is to expand to other countries on the continent," Uwintwali, the chief executive of Mahwi Tech firm, told Xinhua. More than 60 farmers' cooperatives work with the MLIMA cooperative management system to digitize their operations and keep digital records of their finances, production, sales, stock and a database of all their member profiles and farm records. "When farmers have access to market information, they are able to access high end markets where they are not taken advantage of by middlemen who give them low prices for their products. So, they get big buyers who offer good prices," Uwintwali said. "Consequently, farmers' lives improve in terms of income generation, they are able to pay school fees for their children and enjoy improved welfare." The technology rolled out in 2013, according to Uwintwali, has undergone upgrades over the years. It was developed after conducting research on cooperatives in about 15 districts of the country on the kind of problems farmers faced and what the role of technology would play in addressing the issue. The research revealed that farmers were selling their produce to middlemen who were cheating them in the process. "So, in essence the cooperatives were not getting value from their production, but they could persist despite working in losses just for the sake of survival. At the moment things are improving, when you talk to famers you can notice the difference after farmers' incomes and sales increased," she said, adding that the technology they built was informed by research. The work model involved working hand in hand with farmers so that they provide input onto the features that were upgraded in the system. The developers also ensured it is really technology that is friendly to farmers. Uwintwali was among the four African women agripreneurs who emerged as the winners of 85,000 U.S. dollars grant during the Women Agripreneur of the Year Awards 2022 in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda earlier this month. The annual grants from Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) recognize women agripreneurs from across the continent who have excelled in different segments of the agricultural value chain and shown remarkable innovation in their businesses. Responding to the question about her motivation, Uwintwali said she always had a passion to develop the rural community as the heart of the country's development. "I have always been passionate about development, especially of the rural community. As a young child growing up, I always thought that Africa deserves better, Africa can feed itself but you always find that to date we are dependent on the western world, yet they have limited resources compared to Africa," she said. "If the rural community is empowered, and you build their capacity and develop them, these are the people who can do wonders. I have always aspired to do something not only different but something big to change the community, especially the rural community." The Agritech firm has a team of 10 employees five of whom are permanent staff. It aims to expand across the continent, especially in countries which have shown interest. "In terms of market we are planning to expand to other countries after seeing the success of the technology in Rwanda. I felt very excited about the award, and I hope it will open our doors to expand easily to other markets with the partnership we have," said Uwintwali. The platform currently focuses on maize and beans, but the plan is to expand to vegetables. In terms of products rather than just providing market information, the company wants farmers to be able to trade and receive money at the convenience of their mobile phones through mobile payment. The uniqueness of the technology is that it is customized for small holder farmers unlike any other marketplace, taking into consideration the needs of the farmers and with simple technology to understand. Uwintwali noted that youth engagement in agriculture is a challenge, but the company is working with other partners to address the issue. Noting that the agriculture sector has a lot of opportunities, she thinks that in order to advance agriculture in a digital way there is a need to engage young people who are tech savvy, that have the skills to use the technology. Educating older farmers from scratch, to make them understand is quite a challenge because of their age and their interest level, she said. Uwintwali stressed that there is a lot one can do in agriculture such as branding, production, value addition, processing, logistics or technology. "It is amazing. Getting involved in agriculture does not mean going to the farm," she said. She advised young women to dare taking up tech courses and other careers which have always been dominated by men. "The future belongs to those who are tech savvy," she said. TRIPOLI, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Violent clashes erupted on Sunday between two armed groups in the western Libyan city of Zawiya, some 45 km west of the capital Tripoli, local TV channel Libya Al-Ahrar TV reported. Several people were killed or injured in the clashes, during which medium and heavy weaponry were used, according to the report. The Libyan Red Crescent Society called for an immediate stop to the clashes so that civilians trapped in areas near the clashes could be evacuated to safety. So far, no official government statement was issued regarding the clashes. The lastest conflict came after violent clashes in Tripoli between armed groups in late August, during which more than 20 people were killed and more than 140 people injured. Libya has been suffering political instability and chaos ever since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011. SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A fire broke out at an outlet mall in the South Korea's central city of Daejeon on Monday, leaving seven people dead and another seriously injured, according to Yonhap news agency. The blaze began at around 7:45 a.m. local time from the underground cargo-handling area in the first-basement parking lot of an outlet store in Daejeon, some 160 km south of the capital Seoul. Among the eight employees working at the basement parking area when the fire broke out, seven were killed and one was seriously wounded. Over 100 people, mostly those at nearby buildings, were evacuated. No customer was around the outlet as the incident occurred before business hours. The fire authorities dispatched over 120 personnel and various firefighting equipment, but they had difficulty in the search operations due to heavy smoke coming from burning cardboard boxes in the cargo-handling area. The flame was completely extinguished at about 3:02 p.m. local time. By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova An international poetry project "Greetings to Shusha" has been presented at the Union of Azerbaijani Writers, Azernews reports, citing Azertac. Initiated by the Natavan poetry club, the project unites 44 well-known writers and poets from 30 countries, who will recite poems about Shusha, the cradle of the Azerbaijani culture. Eight poets will represent Azerbaijan at the project co-organized jointly by the Culture Ministry, the Union of Azerbaijani Writers, and Space TV Channel. Speaking at the project presentation, the secretary of the Azerbaijani Union of Writers, poet-publicist Salim Babullaoglu, provided insight into the project. Every day a poem by a foreign writer will be broadcast on Space TV starting from September 27 until November 8, a day which entered history as Azerbaijan's victory in the Second Karabakh War. Chairman of Union of Writers, People's Writer Anar noted that the Union has always been at the center of events since the beginning of the Karabakh War. He said that the Writers' Union will continue its work on conveying Azerbaijan's fair position to the international community. The first secretary of the Azerbaijani Union of Writers, People's Writer Chingiz Abdullayev, pointed out that the writings of poets and writers remain in history forever. Head of Space TV Mushfiq Hatamov said that the poetry project will take a special place in informing the world about Azerbaijan's righteous case. He pointed out that telling the truths in the language of poets from different countries will once again prove to the whole world that Karabakh is Azerbaijan. In his speech, the head of the Culture Ministry Book Industry Department, Akif Marifli, touched upon the Culture Ministry's work done after the liberation of Azerbaijan's territories from the Armenian occupation. "We are trying to convey the truths of Karabakh through the language of culture. This project will help to form the right image of Karabakh in the minds of the peoples of the world," he concluded. The poetry project, to be held within the Year of Shusha, will last until November 8. Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Chen Hai (1st R) gives the certificate to a student during the awarding ceremony of the China-Myanmar friendship awards in Yangon, Myanmar, Sept. 26, 2022. (Photo by Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua) YANGON, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A total of 55 Myanmar students were awarded Monday the China-Myanmar friendship awards in recognition of their outstanding academic performance. Addressing the ceremony held at the National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon, Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Chen Hai said that it is the first batch of China-Myanmar friendship outstanding awards to Myanmar's students majoring arts and culture. "It is hoped that the students, by making continuous efforts for getting better results, will become great strengths for promoting Myanmar's cultural development and inheriting China-Myanmar 'Paukphaw' friendship," he said. Union Minister for Religious Affairs and Culture U Ko Ko expressed gratitude to China for presenting the China-Myanmar friendship awards to Myanmar's outstanding students. Today's Myanmar-China friendship awards show supports for the development of Myanmar's culture and arts sector, and it will help strengthen the existing Myanmar-China relations, he said. The award winners included 25 students from the National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon, 15 students from the National University of Arts and Culture, Mandalay, 10 students from State High School of Arts, Yangon, and five from State High School of Arts, Mandalay respectively, according to Kay Thi Htwe, rector of the National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon. The winners of the awards were selected by their related departments' heads, Kay Thi Htwe added. KATHMANDU, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least 15 climbers were injured on Monday after an avalanche hit the base camp of Mt. Manaslu in Nepal, the Department of Tourism said. Most of the injured are climbing guides as they were swept away when the avalanche struck at 11:30 a.m. local time, said Yubraj Khatiwada, director of the department's mountaineering section. "Five of the 15 climbers injured in the avalanche are in serious condition," he told Xinhua. "Three helicopters are in standby but the airlift hasn't been possible due to bad weather." Though there were over 40 foreign climbers at the time, they were left unaffected as they were stationed inside the base camp of Mt. Manaslu, the world's eighth tallest peak at 8,163 meters, the director added. As many as 404 climbers from 38 teams have got permits to summit the peak in the autumn season, according to the department. SYDNEY, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Researchers from Australia's University of Queensland (UQ) found that metal compounds may be the answer to combating drug-resistant fungal infections. A research team led by associate professor Mark Blaskovich and Dr. Alysha Elliott from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience found one in five of the metal compounds they analyzed have displayed anti-fungal properties, according to the research revealed on Monday. "Fungal infections cause an estimated 1.5 million deaths a year and are especially dangerous for people who are immunocompromised, such as chemotherapy and transplant patients," Blaskovich said. "There are only 10 antifungal drugs in various phases of clinical development at the moment and not all of them will pass trials to make it to patients, so we urgently need more options." The research team had previously shown metal compounds like the platinum-containing anti-cancer agent cisplatin has anti-bacterial properties, so carried out the first large-scale screening to investigate their anti-fungal potential. "We found 21 percent of the metal compounds screened showed anti-fungal activity - compared to only 1 percent of the 300,000 non-metal compounds screened previously," Blaskovich said. Many of the metal compounds have so far been shown to have low toxicity levels, with Blaskovich telling Xinhua that not only have a number of them been shown to have low toxicity to human cells in a test tube but also that one of them has even been used to successfully treat an infection in moth larvae with no short-term toxic effects. Regarding how these compounds may be used, Blaskovich further explained to Xinhua that "the idea would be to use the metal-containing compounds on their own, just like an existing antibiotic, but these would be a completely new antibiotic class that would, ideally, be active against microorganisms that had developed resistance to the current antibiotic." He added that it is most likely that initially they will be dosed intravenously at first, but down the line, there may be the possibility of them being administered orally. The research was published in the journal JACS Au. STOCKHOLM, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Andreas Norlen was reelected on Monday as the speaker of the Swedish parliament. The speaker of the parliament is second only to the King in terms of formal rank. Norlen, who comes from the Moderate party, had been nominated by the opposition blue block that narrowly won the election on Sept. 11. "I would like to thank the parties that acted differently than they usually do in speaker elections," local media quoted Norlen as saying, referring to both blocs' support for his nomination. Gunilla Carlsson, a member of parliament for the Social Democratic Party, said that they supported Norlen's election as he was "a speaker who can unite and not divide." Norlen, a member of parliament since 2006 and during 2014-2018 chairman of the Committee on the Constitution, was first elected speaker following the 2018 election. Then, it took 134 days to form a new government following the 2018 election, but Norlen has said that this year's process will probably be faster. Earlier this month, the opposition blue bloc consisting of the Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats, the Liberal Party and the Sweden Democrats, had won 176 of the 349 seats in parliament. The red bloc that supported the current government, consisting of the Social Democratic Party, the Left Party, the Green Party, and the Centre Party, won 173 seats. MOSCOW, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least six people were killed and 20 others injured in a shooting at a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk, TASS news agency reported on Monday. USA: Since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police, protests have spread to nearly all of Iran's 31 provinces and urban cities. On September 13, Amini was arrested in a Tehran metro station by a morality police (Gasht-e Ershad) patrol, allegedly for violating the Islamic Republic's strict dress code. She was taken to the hospital after the arrest, went into a coma, and died three days later. Iranian officials claim she died of a heart attack. Her family claims she had no prior heart conditions. Her death has sparked outrage in a country rife with resentment over a long list of grievances and socioeconomic concerns. Iranian women, fed up with the morality police's harsh tactics, have been posting videos online of themselves cutting locks of hair in support of Amini. Protesters in the streets have chanted "Death to the moral police" and "Women, life, freedom." Female demonstrators can be seen taking off their headscarves, burning them, and dancing in the streets in acts of defiance. State police have been attacking protesters with tear gas, while members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been beating them. So far, at least 41 people have died. 'Won't tolerate Hijab protests,' woman journalist arrested for reporting Mahsa's death The internet has been cut off in Tehran. I haven't been able to contact family members, but they occasionally get a message through," an Iranian man who fled to the United States during the Islamic Revolution told Arab News. "We are hopeful that the government will offer concessions this time," Mehdi, who did not want to give his full name, added. It was the largest protest since the revolution. We are proud of what is going on in Iran." Karim Sajdadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described the anti-Amin protests as "led by the nation's granddaughters against the grandfathers who have ruled their country for over four decades" in The Washington Post. Sharia laws in the country have required women to wear headscarves and loose clothing in public since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Those who violate the code face fines or imprisonment. The Iranian government's campaign to force women to dress modestly and to prohibit the wearing of mandatory clothing "incorrectly" began shortly after the revolution, which ended an era of unrestricted sartorial freedom for women under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During the Shah's reign, his wife Farah, who frequently dressed in Western attire, was held up as a model of a modern woman. Women were not allowed to show their arms in public by 1981. Iran's parliament decided in 1983 that women who did not cover their hair in public would face 74 lashes. It has recently been amended to include a prison sentence of up to 60 days. Restrictions continued to evolve, and the extent to which the female dress code was enforced has varied since 1979, depending on which president was in office. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran's ultraconservative mayor, was elected president in 2005, the Gasht-e Ershad was formed to enforce dress codes. Ebrahim Raisi: Nation must take decisive action in response to protests over custody deaths The restrictions were eased slightly during Hassan Rouhani's presidency, who was regarded as a relative moderate. After Rouhani accused the morality police of being aggressive, the force's commander announced in 2017 that women who violated the modesty code would no longer be arrested. However, President Ebrahim Raisi's rule appears to have emboldened the morality police once more. Raisi signed a decree in August to tighten enforcement of rules requiring women to wear hijabs in public at all times. Raisi attempted to deflect blame for the Iranian protests last week by pointing to Canada's treatment of indigenous people and accusing the West of applying double standards when it comes to human rights. Meanwhile, Raisi's government is seeking some kind of assurance that the lifting of severe sanctions and resumed business activities by Western firms will not be jeopardised if a future US president withdraws from the 2015 nuclear deal. Iranian officials also dispute the International Atomic Energy Agency's concerns about illicit nuclear material discovered at three sites and want the IAEA investigation to be concluded. Regardless, anti-government protests in Iran are nothing new. The Green Movement protested election results that were deemed fraudulent in 2009. In 2019, there were protests over rising fuel prices and deteriorating living conditions and basic necessities. The protests this year are unique in that they are feminist in nature. According to Firuzeh Mahmoudi, executive director of the human rights NGO United for Iran, it is unprecedented in the country to see women removing their hijabs in mass, burning police cars, and tearing down images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the country's supreme leader). Men chanting "We'll support our sisters and women, life, liberty" is also unprecedented. "Iranian women are actively participating in public discourse and exercising their civil rights through social media, mobile apps, blogs, and websites," Mahmoudi said. "Fortunately for the growing movements for women's rights, the patriarchal and misogynistic government has not yet figured out how to completely censor and control the internet." Masih Alinejad, an Iranian political activist living in exile in America since 2009, stated that she has received numerous messages from Iranian women. They've been venting to her about their frustrations, showing her videos of the protests, and saying their final goodbyes to their parents. UN calls for an investigation over Iran restricts internet access as the Mahsa Amini protest deaths rises Alinejad stated that she can feel their rage through their messages and that the hijab is a way for the government to control women and thus society, adding that "their hair and their identity have been taken hostage." Several Iranian male celebrities have also expressed support for the protests and women. Toomaj Salehi, a dissident rapper arrested earlier this year for his lyrics about regime change and social and political issues, posted a video of himself walking through the streets with the caption, "My tears don't dry, it's blood, it's anger." The end is near, and history is repeating itself. Be afraid of us, step back, and realise you're done." The film industry, for its part, issued a statement on Saturday urging the military to lay down their weapons and "return to the arms of the nation." A number of well-known actresses have removed their hijab in support of the movement and protests. Iran's culture minister, Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili, stated that actresses who expressed their support online and removed their hijabs will no longer be able to pursue their careers. "To understand Iran's protests, it's striking to juxtapose images of the young, modern women killed in Iran over the last week (Mahsa Amini, Ghazale Chelavi, Hanane Kia, Mahsa Mogoi) with images of the country's ruling elite, virtually all deeply traditional, geriatric men," Sajdadpour said in a tweet on Saturday. Iranian authorities have disrupted WhatsApp and Instagram services by shutting down mobile internet connections. On the Iranian state news agency ISNA, Issa Zarepour, the minister of communications, justified the act as "national security" and stated that it was unclear how long the blocks on social media platforms and WhatsApp would remain in place, as they were implemented for "security purposes and discussions related to recent events." However, Mahsa Alimardani, an Oxford Internet Institute academic who studies Iran's internet shutdowns and controls, claims that the authorities are targeting these platforms because they are "lifelines for information and communication that keeps the protests alive." The hashtag #MahsaAmini in Farsi has received well over 30 million tweets. "Everyone in Iran knows that the authorities will crack down hard on the protesters and kill them," Mehdi, an Iranian living in the United States, told Arab News. "It's practically target practise for them." It gives me goose bumps to see how the women there are standing up to the ruthless and vicious regime that has never shied away from genocide to maintain their power. It takes a lot of guts to do what they're doing." "The flame has been ignited, and we are not the type of people who back out," he said, looking forward to the future with optimism. washington: The end goal was made crystal clear by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a virtual address to the U.N. General Assembly last week. Rejecting making concessions to the Kremlin, he urged the international community to punish Russia for its invasion of his nation and the alleged atrocities its forces are alleged to have committed since, and he requested military assistance to help "return the Ukrainian flag to the entire territory." Zelensky predicted that "Russia will be compelled to put an end to this war, the war it started." "I disqualify the possibility of a different basis for the settlement." After finishing his remarks, the Ukrainian president received a rare standing ovation, demonstrating the support the world has for his cause. Ukrainian officials had reason to feel encouraged after diplomats repeatedly scolded Russia at the UN, despite Kyiv's frustration with the "nonaligned" world's ambivalence. Many of these nations have maintained friendly relations with Moscow as the war raged. The unease with Moscow increased after it ordered the partial mobilisation of some 300,000 additional Russian troops and approved illegal, sham "referendums" in regions of Ukraine under its control last week. Pakistan arms Ukraine against Russia, Putin threatens Shehbaz Sharif Even more so-called "neutral" nations expressed their opposition to a Russian military campaign that is widely believed to be in violation of international law and U.N. Charter principles. "The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected," insisted Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, his Indian counterpart, issued a caution against "egregious attacks committed in broad daylight" going "unpunished." But even as Russia's standing abroad continues to deteriorate, Ukraine may have cause to be concerned about changes in the democracies of the West. Since the rise in energy prices and long-standing mistrust of the liberal establishment in Brussels and Washington, analysts have been concerned about the West's ability to defend Ukraine. Now that we are approaching the eighth month of the conflict, that resolve has largely held. However, polls indicate waning support for Ukraine among some voters, not the least because of domestic economic difficulties. Midst pressures on MENA security, Saudi FM requests international assistance Political groups that have historically been Russia-friendly and Euroskeptic are currently experiencing a mini-surge in popularity. The far right has assumed the role of kingmaker in Sweden's ongoing coalition negotiations. A coalition of right-wing parties led by the extreme right Brothers of Italy and the charismatic politician Giorgia Meloni was also likely elected by Italian voters on Sunday. In recent months, Meloni herself has supported Kiev rhetorically, but important allies have been open about their support for the Kremlin. The leader of the nativist League, Matteo Salvini, has questioned the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia. This month, Silvio Berlusconi, a former Italian prime minister, appeared on Italian television to defend his longtime ally Putin. Putin was prodded to create this special operation by the Russian people, his party, and his ministers, according to Berlusconi. "The troops were supposed to enter, arrive in Kyiv within a week, oust Zelensky's administration, and then withdraw. Instead, they encountered resistance, which was then fueled by western weapons of every description. As Ukraine concerns grow, global opinion is shifting against Russia Enrico Letta, a challenger on the center-left, responded harshly, saying, "Those comments demonstrate that in some aspects of our electoral system, on the right but not only, there are those who, in essence, say: "Let's stop this war, let's give Putin what he wants." That is unacceptable to me. Favorable opinions of Russia and Putin have declined sharply among Europes populists following Russias military invasion of Ukraine, especially among right-wing populists in Italy. 1/4https://t.co/vxTnds4jan pic.twitter.com/m3urQSE8Ha Pew Research Global (@pewglobal) September 23, 2022 Undoubtedly, surveys conducted in Europe after the invasion on February 24 show a sharp decline in support for Russia and Putin among right-wing populist parties, particularly in Italy. However, as a recent Pew survey pointed out, these right-wing parties continue to have significantly more favourable views of the Russian government than the general population in their societies. Such sentiments served as the motivation behind a contentious planned "fact-finding" trip by politicians from the far-right AfD party of Germany to Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine. The trip was cancelled last week only as a result of a fierce backlash against the idea of elected German officials directly supporting Putin's propaganda apparatus. Both Ukrainians and Western strategists worry that as the conflict rages on, public doubt about the cost of the sanctions against Russia, which have caused energy prices in Europe to soar, and the sizeable financial outlay to support Kyiv may grow. The possibility of growing indifference exists as well. According to a recent Pew survey, Americans are less worried about the possibility of a Ukrainian victory than they were in the spring, and a sizable majority now think that the assistance they are providing to Ukraine is adequate. Given the tens of billions of dollars in funding the Biden administration has already provided, this is not surprising. Additionally, Pew discovered that American Republicans are more likely to think their government is giving Ukraine too much than not enough money. The upcoming midterm elections are being impacted by disapproval of the war's costs, and a portion of the Republican base, supported by former president Donald Trump and nurtured by infamously pro-Putin Fox News host Tucker Carlson, has long harboured sympathy for Putin's Russia. J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican's nominee for the Senate, stated this month, "I think we're at the point where we've given enough money in Ukraine." I genuinely do. According to experts, the most recent round of funding for Ukraine approved by Congress may be the last to go through the American legislature without any problems. "At this point, it would be oversimplified to claim that one issue is more important than another. The American Enterprise Institute's right-of-center defence expert Mackenzie Eaglen told Politico that voters are speaking out against conservative members of Congress. Rather than the other way around, "this is really driven from the grassroots to Washington" Meanwhile, Democrats are taking positions that are unusually hawkish when compared to their domestic rivals. According to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), "The Ukrainians are making serious progress and are likely to continue making progress into next year." "If Republicans take control of the House and rumours spread that they've stopped funding Ukraine, that could have disastrous effects on Ukrainian morale and their capacity to continue the fight." The International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) Council observes World Environmental Day on September 26 every year to raise public awareness of various environmental health challenges. The first IFEH meeting and Environmental Health Youth Summit were held in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, in 2011, which marked the beginning of the observance of World Environment Health Day. The International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) is a global organisation that advocates for the importance of environmental health and offers national organisations working for the same cause a single global platform. IFEH has been actively working for more than 32 years to improve the health problems that continually endanger human well-being and to advance the study of environmental health. What's significant about Environmental Health Day? Environmental health is regarded as health problems that exist outside of the body and environmental elements that could endanger human health by causing illness and disease. Numerous environmental problems, such as pollution, the greenhouse effect, climate change, urbanisation, etc., are lowering the standard of the environment, including the air, water, food, and other resources necessary for daily survival. The general people have to be informed about ways to reduce environmental health concerns and precautions to prevent infections. Many public and private organisations are making great efforts to increase food safety, cleanliness, access to clean water, and indoor and outdoor air quality so that their populations can live healthier lives. The primary purposes of international environmental health day are to recognise the efforts of these organisations and to serve as a focal point for their work. Every year, different themes are used to commemorate World Environmental Health Day, such as "Indoor & Outdoor Air Quality" in 2017 to combat air pollution. Activities for World Environmental Health Day: IFEH organises a variety of events around the world to commemorate World Environmental Health Day in collaboration with other national organisations. For the benefit of the general public, health screenings and awareness initiatives are organised. The organisation of conferences and workshops on environmental challenges and the potential controls required for them is common in colleges and universities. Students are educated through school activities like the planting of seedlings by students, speeches on the theme of World Environmental Health Day, and other events. Ex-husband enters house by breaking the wall, and then... South Korea fears that North Korea may test a ballistic missile from a submarine UAE's first metaverse project 2117 launches inspired by the vision of Dubai's ruler Lithuania transfers 50 M113 APCs to Ukraine 26 September, 09:26 PM M113 in Lithuania (Photo:Ministry of Defense of Lithuania) Lithuania has transferred 50 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) M113 to Ukraine, Lithuanian news agency Delfi quoted Minister of National Defence Arvydas Anusauskas as saying on Sept. 26. According to the minister, the armoured vehicles arrived in Ukraine three days ago. Anusauskas said Lithuania would continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine. He noted that Vilnius was discussing all supplies of military equipment or other weapons with its NATO allies. Our army is a NATO army, its combat capability is also important for our allies, Anusauskas said. Video of day As a result, every discussion, if it concerns the reduction of potential, supplies, has to be discussed with the allies, (about) how to compensate. There are many issues that cannot be resolved very quickly. Read also: Lithuania to send kamikaze drones to Ukraine this autumn Earlier on Sept. 16, Lithuanias Ministry of Defense announced it would supply M113 APCs to Ukraine. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News Moldova may revoke citizenship of those fighting for Russia in Ukraine, says President Sandu 26 September, 04:58 PM Maia Sandu (Photo:REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs) Moldova may revoke the citizenship of Moldovans who join the Russian army to fight against Ukraine, the local media outlet NewsMaker quoted Moldovan President Maia Sandu as saying at the Supreme Security Councilon Sept. 26. According to Sandu, Moldova should not allow its citizens to fight on the side of an aggressor. Read also: Moldova accuses Russia of making false claims to destabilize situation in country Were considering the option of revoking Moldovan citizenship from residents of the country with Russian passports who fight on the side of the aggressor, she said. In addition, the authorities also plans to increase the punishment for Moldovan citizens who do not have Russian citizenship and who fight on the side of the aggressor in Ukraine. Video of day According to Sandu, she asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to start negotiations with the Russian side to prevent cases of mobilization of Moldovan citizens living on the territory of Russia. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin early on Sept. 21 declared a partial mobilization in Russia and his readiness to use nuclear weapons in the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. Later, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that 300,000 reservists would be called up during the partial mobilization. He estimated Russias mobilization resource at almost 25 million people. Meanwhile, Kremlin proxies in occupied Donbas statelets announced on Sept. 20 that they would hold referendums on joining Russia. The occupation administrations stated that the sham plebiscite will be held Sept. 23-27. Kremlin-controlled puppet "authorities" in Kherson and Zaporizhzhya oblasts also announced plans to hold referendums on uniting with Russia on the same dates. The statements were made shortly after a rapid counter-offensive by the defenders of Ukraine: on Sept. 14, the Ministry of Defense reported that since Sept. 6 (in the space of one week), the Armed Forces of Ukraine had liberated 388 settlements and about 8,500 square kilometers of territory in Kharkiv Oblast alone. Andriy Yermak, the chief-of-staff of the Presidents Office of Ukraine, said Russias blackmail regarding the holding of referendums in the temporarily occupied territories was due to its fear of defeat. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba emphasized that sham referendums that Russia is trying to organize in the occupied territories were irrelevant to the situation. Meanwhile, the Russian State Duma the Kremlins rubber-stamp parliament on Sept. 20 rushed through votes introducing the concepts ofmobilization, martial law, and armed conflict into Russias Criminal Code. Now in Russia, desertion, absence from service and voluntary surrender will be punished more severely. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov on the occasion of the Independence Day of Turkmenistan, Azernews reports. Dear Serdar Gurbangulyevich, On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I convey to you and through you to all your people the sincerest congratulations on the occasion of the national holiday of Turkmenistan Independence Day. We are delighted that fraternal Turkmenistan today follows the path of sustainable and dynamic development, achieving great success in the political, economic, social and other spheres. The will of our peoples, who are connected with each other by common moral values, religious and cultural roots and live in conditions of good neighborliness and mutual understanding throughout history, forms the basis of Azerbaijani-Turkmen relations. It is gratifying that our bilateral and multilateral relations over the past 30 years have developed on an upward trend and reached the current level of strategic partnership. We attach particular importance to the comprehensive development of our ties. I am sure that we will use the available opportunities to achieve further deepening of friendly relations between our countries, as well as effective cooperation both bilaterally and multilaterally. On this significant day, I wish you good health, happiness and success in your endeavors, and the brotherly people of Turkmenistan peace and prosperity. Sincerely, Ilham Aliyev President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku, 24 September 2022 Training exercises using HIMARS to be held in Latvia 26 September, 04:49 PM HIMARS will be delivered for training exercises in Latvia on September 26 (Photo:defense.gov) HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems will be delivered to Latvia for training exercises, the Ministry of Defense of Latvia has stated, according to a Sept. 25 report by Latvian news website Delfie. The HIMARS will be delivered using MC-130J Commando II aircraft of the U.S. Special Operations Forces in Europe. The training exercises are being held at the request of the Latvian National Armed Forces (NAF). The purpose of the exercises is to demonstrate the possibilities of cooperation between the Latvian NAF and the U.S. Armed Forces. The military will also be taught how to detect, identify and evaluate targets. Video of day Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks, Commander of the National Armed Forces Lieutenant General Leonid Kalnins, and U.S. Ambassador to Latvia James Carville will oversee the delivery, deployment and simulated firing of the HIMARS at Spilve Airfield. Upon arrival in Liepaja, the HIMARS systems will be moved to the Skede military training ground in the Vergales parish of the South Kurzeme region to fire training missiles at a target in the Latvian economic zone of the Baltic Sea. The exercises using HIMARS are being held in Latvia for the first time since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine and threats from the Kremlin to use nuclear weapons. In July, Latvia announced its intention to introduce general military service in the country and drew up a plan for introducing innovations. Riga supports Kyiv in the fight against Russian invaders, providing military and financial assistance. The United States has already provided the HIMARS Multiple Launch Rocket Systems to the Ukrainian army. Ukraine has used it to strike at Russian ammunition depots in the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied by invading Russian forces. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News Ukrainian-Iranian relations deteriorate, Russia conducts ethnic cleansing of its own minorities, and what happens when Russia collapses 26 September, 03:22 PM Romeo Kokriatski Managing Editor, New Voice of Ukraine Monday, September 26th, 2022 Weekend Catch-up Edition: Presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, on Twitter, said that "after years of sanctions, isolation, an abominable reputation Irans elite still has not realized how to rise from the bottom of civilization. The Iranian ambassador in Kyiv has been stripped of accreditation, and Ukraine has ordered Iran to reduce their embassy staff. In turn, Irans Foreign Ministry stated that they regret the deterioration in relations. Russias first use of an Iranian drone in the full-scale war was reported on Sept. 13. The Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down a Shahed-136 in Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast. Video of day As much as 90% of mobilization notices in Russia-occupied Crimea have been issued to Crimean Tatars in what can be described as an act of genocide, Ukrainian NGO CrimeaSOS said in a message on its website on Sept. 23. At the same time, the Kremlin is indiscriminately scouring the Republic of Buryatia, in the Russian Far East, for people to call up to fight in Ukraine. According to the human rights watchdog organization Free Buryatia, seniors, handicapped people, and those recovering from medical procedures are being drafted regardless of their circumstances. Military commissars go door-to-door calling people up, sometimes at night. Ukraine considers this to be ethnic cleansing, the Presidents office said. Meanwhile, the Russian vassal state of Chechnya has declared that it will not hold a mobilization drive as its ruling warlord claims that they have surpassed the target for conscripts. However, fighting is still fierce, a military spokesperson said: Fire is coming from one side and the other. But the enemy is still yielding. Gradually, we are securing the territory for ourselves. It strains them, accordingly, there are fewer or more attacks depending on the amount of ammunition we hit during the night. Former Azov Commander Andriy Biletsky revealed that none of the released Azov fighters wounds were treated in captivity, meaning that they will all need to undergo lengthy rehabilitation and recovery processes. He added that despite the difficult situation the 108 Azov Regiment went through, most are looking forward to returning to the front. In a Telegram post, Mykolaiv governor Vitaliy Kim posted a picture of the IFV, a Tigr (Tiger), saying that despite it having undergone inexpert battlefield repairs, it was still fit for service after some maintenance. Kim stated that this particular Tigr was sold for $5,000, and listed out a variety of prices for other military gear. He encouraged Russian soldiers in the region to take the deal. Deputy Russian Defense Minister Dmitriy Bulgakov has been replaced with Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Mizintsev is known to have commanded Russian forces in Syria, and was responsible for overseeing the slaughter of Mariupol. He is believed to hold Putins favor at the moment. Her three-day visit included the launch of a new charity foundation for Ukraine at the Metropolitan Opera, attended by luminaries such as Hillary Clinton, took part in the General Assembly itself, and met with both UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and new UK Prime Minister Liz Truss. Yandex, Russias largest internet services company, made famous by their Yandex search engine, saw its Finnish divisions accounts frozen by the Finnish government, which also seized the Finnish assets of billionaire oligarch brothers Boris and Arkady Rotenberg. In total, $500 billion in Russian assets have been seized, arrested, or frozen worldwide, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal noted. The proposed legislation would merge the current owner, MAHISTRALNI GAZOPROVODY UKRAINY (MGU), with the operator itself (GTSO), simplifying the bureaucratic structure of the gas transmission systems operation. However, MGUs supervisory board is envisioned to remain following the merger, the bills authors state. Maxim Krakovsky, a Kyiv resident and a volunteer with the NGO Enjoying Life, was one of the first to arrive in liberated Izyum with food and other necessities. Krakovsky spoke to NV about what he saw and heard in Izyum. NV speaks to Anton Muraveinyk, the chief analyst of the Come Back Alive Foundation, about one of the wars biggest questions: what happens if or when Putins regime collapses? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News Description Temple Sinai of Massapequa will be hosting High Holiday services in person and by Zoom (hybrid). Rabbi Janise Poticha offers a warm, thoughtful service which combines tradition and spirituality with friendship and heart. Services will be held on the following High Holy Days. 9/25 at 8:00 pm - Erev Rosh Hashanah Seder (Zoom) 9/26 at 10:00 am - Rosh Hashanah (in person at Temple and via Zoom) 12:45 pm - Tashlich at Breezy Point Park, the south end of Clocks Blvd. (park in Temple parking lot) 2:00 pm - Rosh Hashanah Family/ Childrens Service (in person at Temple and via Zoom) 9/30 at 7:30 pm - Shabbat Tshuvah Service (in person) 10/4 at 8:00 pm - Kol Nidre (in person at Temple and via Zoom) 10/5 at 10:00 am - Yom Kippur Morning Worship (in person at Temple and via Zoom) 1:30 pm - Family/ Childrens Service (in person at Temple and via Zoom) 3:45 pm - Afternoon Service: Mincha (healing service), Yizkor, Neliah, Havdalah (in person and via Zoom) Beyond the High Holidays, Temple Sinai offers Friday night services nearly every week at 7:30. Most services are in the sanctuary and streamed by Zoom. For information about High Holy Day tickets, and/or the Zoom link, please contact asharotstein@gmail.com. For information about the Temple, see website - https://templesinaimassapequa.org/ or (516) 795-5015. Remember to like / follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/templesinaimassapequa DAYTON, Ohio, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, AES Ohio, a subsidiary of The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES), filed its latest Electric Security Plan (ESP) with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO). The company's ESP is a comprehensive plan to enhance and upgrade its network and improve service reliability, provide greater safeguards for price stability and continue investments in local economic development. AES Ohio intends to increase investments in the distribution infrastructure and deploy a proactive vegetation management program. "We understand, first and foremost, our customers want reliable service while maintaining affordable rates," said AES Ohio President and Chief Executive Officer Kristina Lund. "With the lowest distribution rates in Ohio, this plan provides a mechanism to strengthen reliability well into the future and protect our customers from volatile market-driven cost impacts." If approved as proposed, the initial impact for an AES Ohio residential customer using 750 kilowatt hours per month would be less than $1.00. Beyond the various requirements of the ESP, AES Ohio is proposing new and innovative programs to help customers save money while meeting their ever-changing energy needs driven by new smart technologies. The plan has energy efficiency programs for residential and low-income customers, which include ways to save by utilizing smart thermostat technology. Lastly, the plan includes new pricing incentives to promote the growth and expansion of companies in the region, helping to foster a strong local job market. "AES Ohio remains committed to providing reliable energy at competitive prices, while investing and supporting the communities where we live and work," Lund said. "This plan is thoughtfully designed to best serve our customers, reaffirms our commitment to the community and accelerates the future of energy." About AES Ohio AES Ohio is the principal subsidiary of DPL Inc. (DPL), a regional energy provider and an AES company. AES Ohio, a regulated electric utility, provides service to over 527,000 customers in West Central Ohio. During its long history, AES Ohio has served its customers with the lowest distribution rate in Ohio among investor-owned utilities. Connect with AES Ohio on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Learn more about how AES Ohio is accelerating the future of energy, visit aes-ohio.com/hellofuture. Story continues About AES The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES) is a Fortune 500 global energy company accelerating the future of energy. Together with our many stakeholders, we're improving lives by delivering the greener, smarter energy solutions the world needs. Our diverse workforce is committed to continuous innovation and operational excellence, while partnering with our customers on their strategic energy transitions and continuing to meet their energy needs today. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements include declarations regarding management's intents, beliefs and current expectations and typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate," "potential," "expect," "forecast," "target," "will," "intend," "believe," "project," "estimate," "plan," "seek" and similar words. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements with respect to infrastructure improvements, strategic objectives, business prospects, management's expectations, and AES Ohio's proposed Electric Security Plan and its effects, including those on AES Ohio's financial performance and condition. Forward-looking statements are not intended to be a guarantee of future results, but instead constitute AES Ohio's current expectations based on reasonable assumptions. Forecasted financial information is based on certain material assumptions. These assumptions include, but are not limited to, timing of events, accurate projections of market conditions and regulatory rates, future interest rates, commodity prices, and continued operating performance and electricity volume at distribution companies, as well as achievements of planned productivity improvements and growth investments at expected rates of return. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in our forward-looking statements due to risks, uncertainties and other factors. Important factors that could affect actual results are discussed in DPL's and AES Ohio's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including, but not limited to, the risks discussed under Item 1A: "Risk Factors" and Item 7: "Management's Discussion & Analysis" in DPL's and AES Ohio's Annual Report on Form 10-K and in subsequent reports filed with the SEC. Readers are encouraged to read DPL's and AES Ohio's filings to learn more about the risk factors associated with DPL's and AES Ohio's businesses. DPL and AES Ohio undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Any security holder who desires copies of DPL's and AES Ohio's periodic reports filed with the SEC may obtain copies (excluding Exhibits) without charge by addressing a request to the Office of the Corporate Secretary, DPL Inc., 1065 Woodman Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45432. Exhibits also may be requested, but a charge equal to the reproduction cost thereof will be made. Copies of the periodic reports may also be obtained by visiting AES Ohio's website at aes-ohio.com/sec-filings. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aes-ohio-files-electric-security-plan-to-improve-reliability-customer-price-protection-and-future-economic-growth-301633488.html SOURCE AES CORP. The U.S is projected to account for 14.8% in the global automotive fabrics market while China automotive fabrics market is expected to grow at 4.2% CAGR between 2022 and 2032. Sales of Woven Car Seat Cushion Materials to Grow at a Steady Pace by 2032 NEWARK, Del., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global automotive fabrics market is anticipated to witness a stagnant growth of 3.6% CAGR over the projection period from 2022 to 2032. The market is predicted to reach a valuation of US$ 35,775.63 Mn in 2022 and will surpass US$ 50,954.8 Mn in revenue by the end of 2032. FMI_Logo Throughout the historical period from 2017 to 2021, regional governments across developed regions such as Europe and North America, have strengthened their grip over vehicle manufacturers with several mandatory vehicle safety measures. These regulations have escalated the demand for automotive fabrics in tires and airbags with subtle growth rates. In addition to that, the surging disposable income of the majority of populations across several developing economies such as India and China have elevated vehicle fleets across the globe over the last few years. This factor is projected to benefit the automotive fabrics market players. Deployment of strict vehicle safety measures is expected to be adopted in numerous developing nations, which is predicted to offer robust growth opportunities to key players operating in the global automotive fabrics market over the forthcoming years from 2022-2032. Request a Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4277 Key Takeaways According to FMI's evaluation, the automotive fabrics market is predicted to surge at a fast pace due to its increasing use of airbags. The automotive fabrics market is expected to be led by the airbags segment on the basis of application. Growth is majorly attributed to the rising demand for advanced automotive safety equipment. The surging implementation of stringent safety regulations for the use of airbags in automobiles is yet another factor expected to push the demand for automotive fabrics globally. The expansion of the automotive industry is at a high pace which will help in the outreach of the automotive fabrics market throughout the forecast period. The demand for airbag fabric is propelling due to the rising need for vehicles and vice versa. Demand for airbag fabrics is majorly being propelled by multiple factors such as increasing production of automobiles due to rising disposable income, surging setup of airbags per car, the introduction of more rigorous safety standards, and urgent need for low-cost fabrics in emerging economies. Widespread adoption of environment-friendly automotive fabric materials including polyester, which is considered to be one of the most cost-effective and recyclable fabrics, is projected to drive the global automotive fabrics market in the next decade. Non-woven fabrics are witnessing rising demand due to their widespread usage for vehicle carpets and floor coverings is another vital factor that would augur well for the global market. Recycled polyethylene terephthalate is utilized to create non-woven automotive carpets, which helps in promoting sustainability and resource efficiency, while simultaneously decreasing the environmental pollution. During the forecast period, this factor is anticipated to boost the demand for non-woven fabrics and propel revenue growth in the automotive fabrics market. Demand for fabrics across the globe has seen significant growth as several automotive manufacturers are increasing at a rapid pace and witnessing consistent growth in terms of vehicle sales. Furthermore, the implementation of stringent regulations associated with vehicle safety standards by regional governments is anticipated to bode well for the automotive fabrics market in the next decade. Story continues Browse Full Report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/automotive-fabric-market Competitive Landscape Key manufacturers of automotive fabrics are rapidly engaging in the expansion of their geographic and market presence in order to efficiently cater to the ever-increasing demand for the product. Prominent manufacturers in the market are focusing on the expansion of their geographic presence through acquisitions and mergers of regional small or medium-level players to remain dominant in the automotive fabrics market. In addition to that, various other key manufacturers are concentrating on collaborations and mergers to get an edge over the market. More Insights into the Automotive Fabrics Market The U.S. is expected to dominate the global automotive fabrics market by accounting for the largest consumers in the global landscape. The growth is attributed to high disposable income and the rising per capita expenditure of Americans would create a surging demand for automobiles across the country. As per FMI analysis, the U.S. is projected to share about 14.8% of the global automotive fabric market share. Automotive Fabrics Market Outlook by Category By Product Type: Woven Fabric Non woven Fabric Knitted Fabric By Sales Channel: OEM Aftermarket By Application: Airbags Floor Covering Belts & Hoses Tires Car Roof Safety-Belts Pre-Assembled Interior Component (PRIC) Upholstery Others By Vehicle Type: Compact Passenger Cars Mid-Sized Passenger Cars Premium Passenger Cars Luxury Passenger Cars Light Commercial Vehicles Heavy Commercial Vehicles By Region: North America Latin America Europe East Asia South Asia Pacific MEA Request For Customization@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-4277 Table of Content 1. Executive Summary 1.1. Global Market Outlook 1.2. Demand Side Trends 1.3. Supply Side Trends 1.4. Analysis and Recommendations 2. Market Overview 2.1. Market Coverage / Taxonomy 2.2. Market Definition / Scope / Limitations 3. Key Market Trends 3.1. Key Trends Impacting the Market 3.2. Product Innovation / Development Trends 4. Key Success Factors 4.1. Product Adoption / Usage Analysis 4.2. Product USPs / Features 4.3. Strategic Promotional Strategies 5. Global Automotive Fabrics Market Demand Analysis 2017-2021 and Forecast, 2022-2032 5.1. Historical Market Volume (Tons) Analysis, 2017-2021 5.2. Current and Future Market Volume (Tons) Projections, 2022-2032 5.3. Y-o-Y Growth Trend Analysis Have a Look at Latest Related Reports of Chemicals & Materials Domain Coated Fabrics Market : Coated fabrics market to grow at 5.1 % CAGR through 2031. Global coated fabrics market is set to be valued at US$ 19,976.7 Mn in 2021.Coated fabrics are woven or non-woven cloth with a specialized coating that's applied to the surface of the material, or saturated into the material's bulk. Advanced Automotive Materials Market : The fundamental function of advanced automotive materials is to reduce the weight of a vehicle. These materials finds use in a number of automobile applications, including interior, exterior, structure, and powertrain, among others. Advanced automotive materials reduces the overall weight of the vehicle, increasing the efficiency and thereby reducing the overall fuel consumption. Polymer Coated Fabrics Market : The polymer-coated fabrics market is valued at US$ 19 Billion in 2021. The market is likely to grow at a y-o-y of 5% through 2022, reaching US$ 20 Billion. Coated Fabrics for Defense Market : This market is estimated to create higher incremental $ opportunity than other categories. Among the different application areas of coated fabrics for defense, demand from the aviation industry is expected to surge in the coming years. Pavement Overlay Fabrics Market : Pavement overlay fabrics are the classes of fabrics that are getting adopted in large scale for the maintenance of asphalt pavements. There are numerous factors that challenge the pavement integrity such as age, challenging climatic conditions, oxidation and traffic, among others. These factors reduce asphalt pavement to cracks & potholes. ABOUT FUTURE MARKET INSIGHTS, INC. Future Market Insights, Inc. is an ESOMAR-certified business consulting & market research firm, a member of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce and is headquartered in Delaware, USA. A recipient of Clutch Leaders Award 2022 on account of high client score (4.9/5), we have been collaborating with global enterprises in their business transformation journey and helping them deliver on their business ambitions. 80% of the largest Forbes 1000 enterprises are our clients. We serve global clients across all leading & niche market segments across all major industries. Now avail flexible Research Subscriptions, and access Research multi-format through downloadable data books, infographics, charts, and interactive playbook for data visualization and full reports through MarketNgage, the market intelligence engine from Future Market Insights. Contact: Future Market Insights Inc. Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive, Suite 401, Newark, Delaware - 19713, USA T: +1-845-579-5705 For Sales Enquiries: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Browse latest Market Reports: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1197648/FMI_Logo.jpg Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/automotive-fabrics-market-to-accumulate-us-50-954-8-mn-revenue-by-the-end-of-2032-due-to-surging-demand-for-advanced-airbag-fabrics--future-market-insights-inc-301632915.html SOURCE Future Market Insights, Inc. Blue Mountain Community Management Nona Pitinio (L); Carrie McGonagle (C); Kiley Cook (R) BEAVERTON, Ore., Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blue Mountain Community Management (BMCM), an Associa company and leading provider of community management services throughout Portland, Seattle, and Salem, is pleased to announce that Kiley Cook and Winona Nona Patinio have earned the Certified Manager of Community Associations (CMCA) designation from the Community Association Managers International Certification Board (CAMICB). At the same time, Carrie McGonagle, CMCA, earned her Association Management Specialist (AMS) certification from Community Associations Institute (CAI). The CMCA is the only international certification program designed exclusively for managers of homeowner and condominium associations and cooperatives. It recognizes individuals who demonstrate the fundamental knowledge required to effectively manage community associations. The AMS certification is recommended for those managers who desire to enhance their career opportunities by increasing their industry knowledge and expertise. Established by CAI in 1995, CAMICB is the professional accreditation body for more than 20,000 community association managers worldwide. Cook joined BMCM in 2021 and currently works as a community association manager. Patinio joined the company in 2019 and currently works as an executive director of community management. McGonagle joined BMCA in 2011 and currently serves as the companys senior vice president of operations. We are extremely proud of these team members accomplishments, said Caren Carrero, CMCA, PCAM, Blue Mountain Community Management president. Along with providing team members an enhanced ability to anticipate and meet the needs of our clients, these industry designations represent a tremendous step forward in their professional careers. About Associa With more than 225 branch offices across North America, Associa is building the future of community for nearly five million residents worldwide. Our 11,000+ team members lead the industry with unrivaled education, expertise, and trailblazing innovation. For more than 43 years, Associa has brought positive impact and meaningful value to communities. To learn more, visit www.associaonline.com. Story continues Stay Connected Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/associa Subscribe to the Blog: https://hub.associaonline.com/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/associa Join us on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/associa Attachment CONTACT: Tom Womack Associa 214-272-4107 tom.womack@associaonline.com TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - CIBC announced today it is donating $250,000 to support disaster relief efforts in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec's Magdalen Islands, following the devastation of Hurricane Fiona, which has displaced and left hundreds of thousands without electricity and impacted critical infrastructure. CIBC Logo (CNW Group/CIBC) "The destruction caused by Hurricane Fiona this past weekend is unprecedented and has left hundreds of thousands of our fellow Canadians in urgent need of support," said Laura Dottori-Attanasio, Group Head, Personal and Business Banking, CIBC. "We stand with the communities of Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec as they work through these difficult circumstances, and join our clients and team members in supporting immediate recovery efforts." The donation includes $150,000 to the Canadian Red Cross in response to their appeal, and $100,000 for immediate distribution to local charities to directly support impacted communities as they begin their rebuilding efforts. In addition, CIBC is making available financial relief, advice, and support to affected clients across Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec including the following: Re-amortizing mortgages to lower payments Special payment arrangements and deferrals on loans and lines of credit Conversion of Aventura points into cash payment for applicable credit cards Debt consolidation for more manageable payments CIBC is encouraging all clients impacted by these recent events and in need of flexible financial arrangements to call 1-888-997-0929 to speak with a CIBC team member. CIBC invites Canadians to help those in need by donating to the Canadian Red Cross. Monies raised will enable them to provide critical emergency assistance in response to this disaster, as well as related and future disasters. CIBC is also accepting public donations to the CIBC Foundation Atlantic Canada Relief Fund, which will help support multiple local organizations with providing relief, recovery and resiliency activities across Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec. Story continues About CIBC CIBC is a leading North American financial institution with 13 million personal banking, business, public sector and institutional clients. Through the CIBC Foundation and the genuinely caring culture of Team CIBC, we are committed to helping people and our communities make their ambitions a reality. Learn more about our community impact. Ongoing news releases and more information about CIBC can be found at https://www.cibc.com/en/about-cibc/media-centre.html. SOURCE CIBC Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2022/26/c1278.html Industry Research This report studies the Coconut Water Drinks market, covering market size for segment by type (Mixed Coconut Water, Pure Coconut Water, etc.), by application (Online Sales, Offline Sales, etc.), by sales channel (Direct Channel, Distribution Channel), by player (VITA COCO, Pepsico (ONE), Coca-Cola (Zico), Green Coco Europe, Taste Nirvana, etc.) and by region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America and Middle East & Africa). Pune, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Coconut Water Drinks Market 2016-2030 report discovers comprehensive insights on key manufacturers with share information, market size and projection, key dynamics, growth factors, and new company profiles. The report provides detailed information about the market overview, prevalent trends, demand, and recent developments impacting the market growth in the coming years. Coconut Water Drinks Market opportunities analysis, strategic growth analysis, product launches, marketplace expanding, and technological innovations are also highlighted. The report uncovers Coconut Water Drinks market size, potential growth, trends and expansion strategies followed by top prominent players. Get a Sample PDF of the report @ https://www.industryresearch.biz/enquiry/request-sample/20980185 This report provides detailed historical analysis of global market for Coconut Water Drinks from 2016-2021, and provides extensive market forecasts from 2022-2030 by region/country and subsectors. It covers the sales/revenue/value, gross margin, historical growth and future perspectives in the Coconut Water Drinks market. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 is also concerned. Since outbreak in December 2019, the COVID-19 virus has spread to all around the world and caused huge losses of lives and economy, and the global manufacturing, tourism and financial markets have been hit hard, while the online market/industry increase. Fortunately, with the development of vaccine and other effort by global governments and organizations, the negative impact of COVID-19 is expected to subside and the global economy is expected to recover. This research covers COVID-19 impacts on the upstream, midstream and downstream industries. Moreover, this research provides an in-depth market evaluation by highlighting information on various aspects covering market dynamics like drivers, barriers, opportunities, threats, and industry news & trends. In the end, this report also provides in-depth analysis and professional advices on how to face the post COIVD-19 period. The research methodology used to estimate and forecast this market begins by capturing the revenues of the key players and their shares in the market. Various secondary sources such as press releases, annual reports, non-profit organizations, industry associations, governmental agencies and customs data, have been used to identify and collect information useful for this extensive commercial study of the market. Calculations based on this led to the overall market size. After arriving at the overall market size, the total market has been split into several segments and subsegments, which have then been verified through primary research by conducting extensive interviews with industry experts such as CEOs, VPs, directors, and executives. The data triangulation and market breakdown procedures have been employed to complete the overall market engineering process and arrive at the exact statistics for all segments and subsegments. Story continues Get A Sample Copy Of The Coconut Water Drinks Market Report 2016-2030 Coconut Water Drinks Market Top Manufacturers Analysis : The report covers extensive analysis of the key market players along with their business overview, expansion plans, and strategies. Top Key Players covered in the report are: VITA COCO Pepsico (ONE) Coca-Cola (Zico) Green Coco Europe Taste Nirvana C2O Pure Coconut Water Tradecons GmbH UFC Coconut Water Edward & Sons Maverick Brands Amy & Brian CHI Coconut Water Grupo Serigy Sococo PECU Koh Coconut CocoJal Naked Juice Goya Foods Harvest Bay The report focuses on the Coconut Water Drinks market size, segment size (mainly covering product type, application, and geography), competitor landscape, recent status, and development trends. Furthermore, the report provides detailed cost analysis, supply chain. Technological innovation and advancement will further optimize the performance of the product, making it more widely used in downstream applications. Moreover, Consumer behavior analysis and market dynamics (drivers, restraints, opportunities) provides crucial information for knowing the Coconut Water Drinks market. Based On Product Types, the Coconut Water Drinks market from 2016 to 2030 is primarily split into: Mixed Coconut Water Pure Coconut Water Based On Applications, the Coconut Water Drinks market from 2016 to 2030 covers: Online Sales Offline Sales Enquire before purchasing this report - https://www.industryresearch.biz/enquiry/pre-order-enquiry/20980185 Geographically, the report includes research on production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate, and forecast (2016 -2030) of the following regions: North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) South America (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia etc.) Middle East & Africa (South Africa, UAE and Saudi Arabia etc.) Major Highlights of Coconut Water Drinks Market Report: Define and discuss the growth of the global Coconut Water Drinks market Analyze the various segments and dynamics of the Coconut Water Drinks market To identify and make suitable business plans according to industry and economic shifts. The key objective of presenting an in-depth research study on the global Coconut Water Drinks market is to conduct an extensive analysis and Coconut Water Drinks performance. The report highlights the latest trends, market drivers, and investment avenues for the new entrants and the market players looking for market expansion. It is helpful to combine relevant facts and offers a wealth of information and analysis on the global Coconut Water Drinks market. This report assesses the performance and profit potential of the global Coconut Water Drinks market. Different variables are used to analyze attractiveness and strengths. TO KNOW HOW COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND RUSSIA UKRAINE WAR WILL IMPACT THIS MARKET - REQUEST SAMPLE What ideas and concepts are covered in the report? The assessments accounted by all the zones and the market share registered by each region are mentioned in the report. The study sums up the product consumption growth rate in the applicable regions along with their consumption market share. Data regarding the Coconut Water Drinks Industry market consumption rate of all the provinces, based on applicable regions and product types is inculcated in the report. Region-based analysis of the Coconut Water Drinks Industry market: The Coconut Water Drinks Industry market, with regards to the provincial scope, is segmented into USA, Europe, Japan, China, India, South East Asia and more. The report also includes information regarding the products use throughout the topographies. Some of the key questions answered in this report: Which are the five top players of the Coconut Water Drinks market? How will the Coconut Water Drinks market change in the upcoming years? Which product and application will take a share of the Coconut Water Drinks market? What are the drivers and restraints of the Coconut Water Drinks market? Which regional market will show the highest growth? What will be the CAGR and size of the Coconut Water Drinks market throughout the forecast period? What is the current market size, what will the market size be in 2030 and what will the growth rate be? What are the challenges to grow in the market? What are the market opportunities and challenges faced by the key vendors? Who are the major competitors and what is their strategy? What are the barriers to entry for new players in the market? Purchase this report (Price 2500 USD for a single-user license) - https://www.industryresearch.biz/purchase/20980185 With tables and figures helping analyze worldwide Global Coconut Water Drinks market trends, this research provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market. Detailed TOC of Coconut Water Drinks Market Forecast Report 2016-2030: Chapter 1 Coconut Water Drinks Market Overview 1.1 Coconut Water Drinks Definition 1.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Status and Outlook (2016-2030) 1.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Region (2016-2030) 1.4 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Type (2016-2030) 1.5 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Application (2016-2030) 1.6 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size Comparison by Sales Channel (2016-2030) 1.7 Coconut Water Drinks Market Dynamics (COVID-19 Impacts) 1.7.1 Market Drivers/Opportunities 1.7.2 Market Challenges/Risks 1.7.3 Market News (Mergers/Acquisitions/Expansion) 1.7.4 COVID-19 Impacts 1.7.5 Post-Strategies of COVID-19 Chapter 2 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Player 2.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Sales and Market Share by Player (2019-2021) 2.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Player (2019-2021) 2.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Average Price by Player (2019-2021) 2.4 Players Competition Situation & Trends 2.5 Conclusion of Segment by Player Chapter 3 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Type 3.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market by Type 3.1.1 Mixed Coconut Water 3.1.2 Pure Coconut Water 3.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Sales and Market Share by Type (2016-2021) 3.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Type (2016-2021) 3.4 Global Coconut Water Drinks Average Price by Type (2016-2021) 3.5 Leading Players of Coconut Water Drinks by Type in 2021 3.6 Conclusion of Segment by Type Chapter 4 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Application 4.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market by Application 4.1.1 Online Sales 4.1.2 Offline Sales 4.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Application (2016-2021) 4.3 Leading Consumers of Coconut Water Drinks by Application in 2021 4.4 Conclusion of Segment by Application Chapter 5 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Sales Channel 5.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market by Sales Channel 5.1.1 Direct Channel 5.1.2 Distribution Channel 5.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Sales Channel (2016-2021) 5.3 Leading Distributors/Dealers of Coconut Water Drinks by Sales Channel in 2021 5.4 Conclusion of Segment by Sales Channel Chapter 6 Coconut Water Drinks Market Segment Analysis by Region 6.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR by Region (2016-2030) 6.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Sales and Market Share by Region (2016-2021) 6.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Revenue and Market Share by Region (2016-2021) 6.4 North America 6.4.1 North America Market by Country 6.4.2 North America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.4.3 North America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.4.4 United States 6.4.5 Canada 6.4.6 Mexico 6.5 Europe 6.5.1 Europe Market by Country 6.5.2 Europe Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.5.3 Europe Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.5.4 Germany 6.5.5 UK 6.5.6 France 6.5.7 Italy 6.5.8 Russia 6.5.9 Spain 6.6 Asia-Pacific 6.6.1 Asia-Pacific Market by Country 6.6.2 Asia-Pacific Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.6.3 Asia-Pacific Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.6.4 China 6.6.5 Japan 6.6.6 Korea 6.6.7 India 6.6.8 Southeast Asia 6.6.9 Australia 6.7 South America 6.7.1 South America Market by Country 6.7.2 South America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.7.3 South America Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.7.4 Brazil 6.7.5 Argentina 6.7.6 Colombia 6.8 Middle East & Africa 6.8.1 Middle East & Africa Market by Country 6.8.2 Middle East & Africa Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Type 6.8.3 Middle East & Africa Coconut Water Drinks Market Share by Application 6.8.4 UAE 6.8.5 Saudi Arabia 6.8.6 South Africa 6.9 Conclusion of Segment by Region Chapter 7 Profile of Leading Coconut Water Drinks Players 7.1 VITA COCO 7.1.1 Company Snapshot 7.1.2 Product/Service Offered 7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share) 7.2 Pepsico (ONE) 7.3 Coca-Cola (Zico) 7.4 Green Coco Europe 7.5 Taste Nirvana 7.6 C2O Pure Coconut Water 7.7 Tradecons GmbH 7.8 UFC Coconut Water 7.9 Edward & Sons 7.10 Maverick Brands 7.11 Amy & Brian 7.12 CHI Coconut Water 7.13 Grupo Serigy 7.14 Sococo 7.15 PECU 7.16 Koh Coconut 7.17 CocoJal 7.18 Naked Juice 7.19 Goya Foods 7.20 Harvest Bay Chapter 8 Upstream and Downstream Analysis of Coconut Water Drinks 8.1 Industrial Chain of Coconut Water Drinks 8.2 Upstream of Coconut Water Drinks 8.3 Downstream of Coconut Water Drinks Chapter 9 Development Trend of Coconut Water Drinks (2022-2030) 9.1 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size (Sales and Revenue) Forecast (2022-2030) 9.2 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Region (2022-2030) 9.3 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Type (2022-2030) 9.4 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Application (2022-2030) 9.5 Global Coconut Water Drinks Market Size and CAGR Forecast by Sales Channel (2022-2030) Chapter 10 Appendix 10.1 Research Methodology 10.2 Data Sources 10.3 Disclaimer 10.4 Analysts Certification Detailed TOC of Global Coconut Water Drinks Market @ https://www.industryresearch.biz/TOC/20980185 About Us: Market is changing rapidly with the ongoing expansion of the industry. Advancement in technology has provided todays businesses with multifaceted advantages resulting in daily economic shifts. Thus, it is very important for a company to comprehend the patterns of the market movements in order to strategize better. An efficient strategy offers the companies a head start in planning and an edge over the competitors. Industry Research is a credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs. CONTACT: Industry Research Biz Phone: US +1 424 253 0807 UK +44 203 239 8187 Email: sales@industryresearch.biz Web: https://www.industryresearch.biz DUBAI, UAE, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ -- Dubai Investment Fund (DIF) today announced the appointment of Maegan Vang, Patricia Olsen and Mark Otto as Executive Directors of Regional Operations, effective October 2022. (PRNewsfoto/Dubai Investment FUND (DIF)) Maegan Vang is an accomplished Finance Director with a strong background in project management, bringing in 15 years' experience to DIF. She will oversee development and execution of the firm's long-term business strategy in New Zealand. Ms Wang will work closely with colleagues, clients, partners, and regulators alike while representing the firm's New Zealand capabilities to DIF's global client base. Patricia Olsen will lead DIF's office in Czech Republic and investment management efforts in European economies for DIF 's current flagship Global Renewable Power strategy program in Europe. Mark Otto will lead the Cyprus office, which is now DIF's newest operation. He has a solid track record in the financial market, including more than 10 years' experience as an investment manager. Commenting on the appointment, Amir Shams, CEO of DIF, said, "New Zealand, Czech Republic and Cyprus is a strategic priority for us and we remain very engaged in pursuing our long-term strategy in this key markets. The appointment of Maegan Vang, Patricia Olsen and Mark Otto underscores our commitment to leverage DIF's experience and expertise to be part of a solution in asset management industry in these regions." DIF's expansion to new offices in other countries will not only provide the company with more business opportunities, but will also contribute to a more stable and secure global economy through internationalization and diversification. About Dubai Investment Fund (DIF) Established in 2001, the Dubai Investment Fund (DIF) is one of the world's largest independent investment and asset management companies founded to effectively manage financial resources through diversification into new asset classes. DIF engages in private equity, investment and asset management for 7,300+ private and institutional investors in 61 countries with $320+ billion in assets under management. The DIF's structure is designed to operate at the highest levels of global investment. As a world-class investor and asset manager, DIF adheres to the strictest financial and commercial disciplines and has extensive experience investing in a range of economic sectors and various asset classes in all major global markets. Story continues For additional information on DIF, please visit www.dif.ae Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1906302/Dubai_Investment_FUND_Logo.jpg Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dubai-investment-fund-dif-appoints-new-executive-directors-of-regional-operations-301632011.html SOURCE Dubai Investment FUND (DIF) Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2022/26/c9146.html South Africa: Phaahla to outline plans to exempt hospitals from load shedding Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla, will this week outline a comprehensive report on the impact of load shedding and measures to be taken by health facilities as the country moved to higher stages of power cuts in recent weeks. This comes after the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) called on hospitals and clinics to be exempted from the load shedding schedules. Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla has been concerned for some time with this matter of load shedding with the hope that it improves, but it has gotten worse to higher levels of 5 and 6 as it impacts on the provision of healthcare services across the country, the statement read on Monday. Minister, according to the department, has since ordered the Director-General, working with provincial heads of the department to finalise the assessment of the impact already in the past week. In the meantime, the department said the Minister is engaging with the relevant authorities and entities including Public Enterprises Minister, Eskom and municipalities about the processes to be followed to exempt health facilities from load shedding. In addition, the Minister has been working on alternative additional sources over above the generators, which are not meant for prolonged outages to seek additional supply of power to be considered for installation in the health facilities to complement the generators as part of the energy mix. The Minister is expected to hold a media briefing on Friday, 30 September 2022, where he would outline the interventions that will be taken. Delivering his Heritage Day message, President Ramaphosa said in the recent two weeks, the country has been seeing a rise in load shedding, which is disrupting lives and the economy and causing havoc from the social and health point of view. However, he told citizens that government was dealing with the crisis head-on. Last week, the President cut short his overseas trip short to return home to deal with the Eskom power crisis Even as we face these challenges as South Africans as we have done in the past. We have persevered and I ask once again, let us persevere, he said on Saturday. The challenge is being addressed. It's a complex one and we will be speaking soon about the various measures that we are taking to make sure that we address this challenge. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijani Defense Minister Col-Gen Zakir Hasanov and his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar have discussed Armenias recent border provocations, as well as military cooperation, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. In a telephone conversation held on September 24, Hasanov detailed the operational situation that has emerged after the Azerbaijan army's resolute steps in response to the recent provocations committed by Armenian military formations, as well as the work for the modernization of the army. Akar, for his part, emphasized that Turkiye stands by Azerbaijan as it has always done. During the phone call, the sides also exchanged views on the prospects of the Azerbaijani-Turkish military cooperation. Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stressed that Armenia must sign a peace agreement proposed by Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing the Turkish media. Cavusoglu made the remarks at a meeting with the Turkish community at the Consulate General of Turkiye in Los Angeles, USA. For permanent peace and stability in the South Caucasus, the comprehensive peace agreement proposed by Azerbaijan should be signed between Baku and Yerevan as soon as possible. We support this process, Cavusoglu emphasized. Armenia needs peace and regional cooperation, Cavusoglu said underlining that Turkiye has appointed a special representative to normalize relations with Armenia. However, due to the pressure on Armenia, they have not yet been able to take bold steps, he added. Furthermore, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has dismissed the information circulated in Armenian social media concerning the supposed shelling of the Basarkechar [Gegharkunik] region by the Azerbaijani army for provocative reasons, as well as the injury of Azerbaijani personnel on combat duty as a result of the Armenian military retaliation, Azernews reports. This is the next provocative information spread by Armenia, the ministry wrote on its social media accounts. "We categorically deny this information. The Azerbaijani army personnel was not wounded and there are no losses among the military equipment," the ministry stressed. To recap, Armenia periodically shells Azerbaijani military positions on liberated territories. Units of the Armenian armed forces carried out large-scale provocations along the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border in Dashkasan, Kalbajar, and Lachin directions on the night of September 12 leading to 13. The Armenian sabotage groups mined land and supply roads linking the positions of the Azerbaijani army units in different directions, taking advantage of the area's steep topography and existing ravine gaps. The clashes between the sides ensued as a result of the urgent efforts made by the Azerbaijani armed forces to quell these activities. As a result, 79 armed forces personnel were killed, the ministry detailed. So far, the Armenian government reported 207 losses among its own military personnel. Moreover, 293 soldiers and three civilians were wounded, and 20 soldiers were taken as prisoners. One-time credit helps customers cover the cost of preparing their home for an electric vehicle charger. National Drive Electric Week (NDEW) is Sept. 23 Oct. 2. CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) is helping defray the cost of electrical upgrades for customers in North Carolina who want to install electric vehicle (EV) chargers at their home or business. The company's Charger Prep Credit program helps cover the cost of EV charging infrastructure by providing a credit for residential or commercial customers in the state who install Level 2 or higher-powered chargers. The one-time credit provided by Duke Energy to cover electrical upgrades for EV charging infrastructure is up to $1,133 per household. "EVs and zero-carbon transportation should be accessible to everyone, so Duke Energy is helping remove financial barriers to EVs for our North Carolina customers and simplifying the process to go electric," said Stephen De May, Duke Energy's North Carolina president. "Steps like this, in addition to key grid infrastructure investments we're making in support of EVs, will support North Carolina's Clean Transportation Plan and help meet state emissions reduction goals." As part of the Charger Prep Credit program, residential and non-residential customers can choose their own contractor to perform the improvements in their home or business to prepare for an EV charger. Residential customers also have the option to use a Duke Energy-approved contractor. Customers who have already had the preparation work completed may also be eligible to receive a credit if the work was completed within the last 120 days of their final invoice or approved permit. Upgrades covered by the credit include the installation of wiring and other upgrades that support EV charging such as new electric plug-in outlets for a garage or other electrical wiring improvements but would exclude the cost of the charging station hardware and software (if needed). Non-residential customers' credit amounts vary and are based on several factors including charger type, total kW and whether service upgrades are needed. Story continues Knowledge is power: what to know about EV charging EV chargers come in three different levels Level 1, Level 2 and DC Fast (DCFC). While EVs can be charged with regular household outlets (Level 1) for the typical daily commute, many EV drivers choose to install a faster 220- to 240-volt (Level 2) outlet. A qualified electrician can assess whether an electrical panel has capacity for a Level 2 charger and if upgrades are needed. Most businesses or commercial entities choose to install either Level 2 or DCFC chargers. There are ranges of power output for both Level 2 and DCFC. The higher the level of charging, the faster the speed of the charging process. As customers make plans to prepare their home or business for an electric charger, they should take several factors into consideration. Chargers over 40 amps need to be hardwired and cannot use a dryer plug. Customers should also check with their vehicle manufacturer to ensure that they choose the correct charger for their vehicle's battery. A charged path forward The week of Sept. 23 Oct. 2 marks National Drive Electric Week (NDEW), a nationwide celebration to raise awareness of the many benefits of all-electric and plug-in hybrid cars, trucks, motorcycles and more. Coordinated by Plug In America and supported by the National Electric Highway Coalition (NEHC), NDEW educates consumers about the benefits of EVs and offers in-person across the country related to transportation electrification. "Duke Energy is investing in an electric future, a modernized power grid, and delivering innovative and reliable energy solutions for our customers as we support the growing U.S. adoption of EVs," said Cory Gordon, Duke Energy's director of transportation electrification. "We will continue to work with stakeholders and other interested parties to actively pursue near-term programs that benefit all Duke Energy customers and make a meaningful environmental impact." Duke Energy Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America's largest energy holding companies. Its electric utilities serve 8.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 50,000 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 28,000 people. Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy transition to achieve its goals of net-zero methane emissions from its natural gas business and at least a 50% carbon reduction from electric generation by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The 2050 net-zero goals also include Scope 2 and certain Scope 3 emissions. In addition, the company is investing in major electric grid enhancements and energy storage, and exploring zero-emission power generation technologies such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear. Duke Energy was named to Fortune's 2022 "World's Most Admired Companies" list and Forbes' "America's Best Employers" list. More information is available at duke-energy.com . The Duke Energy News Center contains news releases, fact sheets, photos and videos. Duke Energy's illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter , LinkedIn , Instagram and Facebook . Duke Energy media contact: Logan Kureczka 800.559.3853 Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/duke-energys-north-carolina-charger-prep-credit-program-reduces-cost-to-install-ev-chargers-in-homes-businesses-301633358.html SOURCE Duke Energy BANGALORE, India, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Electric Heat Tracing Market is Segmented by Type ( Self-Regulating , constant wattage , mineral-insulated , skin effect ), by Application (Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Commercial, Residential, Power & Energy, Food & Beverages, Water & Wastewater Management): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2028. It is published in Valuates Reports under the Energy & Utilities Category. Valuates Reports Logo The global Electric Heat Tracing market size is projected to reach USD 3256.6 Million by 2028, from USD 2703.4 Million in 2021, at a CAGR of 2.7% during 2022-2028. Major factors driving the growth of the electric heat tracing market are: This Electric Heat Tracing market expansion can be attributable to the rising demand for electric heat tracing systems that are energy-efficient, their low maintenance costs, and their widespread adoption over conventional systems. Get Your Sample Today: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Auto-39L1545/Global_Electric_Heat_Tracing Inquire for Chapter Cost: https://reports.valuates.com/request/chaptercost/QYRE-Auto-39L1545/Global_Electric_Heat_Tracing TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF ELECTRIC HEAT TRACING MARKET: The primary drivers of the heat tracing market expansion are the end-user industries for heat tracing systems, which include the oil and gas, electricity and energy, chemicals, food and beverage, oil and gas, refineries, and petrochemical industries. The upstream, midstream, and downstream components of oil and gas production, as well as applications for processing, storage, and distribution that must be maintained at a specific temperature for optimum performance, are just a few of the major industries where electric heat tracing systems are used. Similar to this, high temperatures were employed to bring oil and natural gas to the surface during their initial extraction from the ground. The need for heat tracing equipment is likely to expand in the next years due to the increase in exploration and production operations in the oil & gas industry, as the industry recovers from the economic slump. Story continues Companies that explore oil and gas look for highly sophisticated, environmentally sustainable solutions. Strong winds and the extremely low ambient air temperature in the Arctic polar area cause snow and ice, which necessitates special operational heat tracing systems for pipelines delivering oil and gas. Furthermore, the low maintenance costs associated with electric heat tracing systems are expected to drive the Electric Heat Tracing market. Electric heating elements flow in direct physical contact with one another along a pipe's length in electric heat tracing. The fluid in the pipe is kept in a liquid state by the heating components, which maintain a high internal temperature. Plants without access to steam can use this method, which may need a lower initial expenditure than setting up a boiler system. Compared to steam heat tracing systems, electric heat systems offer a wider range of temperature options, require less maintenance, and can be monitored remotely. Electric heat tracing systems use energy well and are comparatively simple to install. Electric heat tracing simply has two expenses: control systems and electricity. Electric heat tracing systems are primarily used to minimize heat loss, vessel, tank, and pipe freezing, and to maintain process temperature as needed. Electric panels and heat cables are used in an electric heat tracing system to generate heat. Therefore, following installation, the heating cables should not cross over, overlap, or touch one other as this could cause overheating. Even one of these cables' broken sections from overheating might bring down the entire system. Therefore, when the design has been prepared, particular consideration must be given to the installation stage. Browse The Table Of Contents And List Of Figures At: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-39L1545/global-electric-heat-tracing ELECTRIC HEAT TRACING MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS: In order to be more energy-efficient than other types of cables, self-regulating heating cables boost power as the temperature falls and decrease power as the temperature rises. One of the key reasons these systems are preferred for many applications is that they have a long lifespan and require little maintenance. So, the market for electric heat tracing systems is anticipated to grow as a result of self-regulating cables. Based on application, the oil and gas segment is expected to be the most lucrative. Electric heat tracing is used in the oil and gas sector for a number of purposes, including freeze protection, viscosity control, temperature maintenance, etc. The heat tracing maintains the fluid's temperature or viscosity while preventing the separation of its components or the condensation of gases. Therefore, in the oil and gas business, heat tracing is used to keep the process temperature within the required ranges while preventing the pipelines, vessels, and tanks from freezing in the cold zone. North America will experience tremendous growth during the prediction period. Since the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa are warmer regions than North America, there is a growing need for electric heat tracing to keep pipelines and vessels from freezing. In these nations, electric heat tracing is becoming more and more popular for uses including freeze prevention, roof and gutter de-icing, and floor heating. The US is anticipated to contribute significantly to the North American market for electric heat tracing. Major players' presence in the US is anticipated to fuel this market's expansion for electric heat tracing. Get Regional Data: https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/QYRE-Auto-39L1545/Global_Electric_Heat_Tracing Key Companies: Pentair Thermon Bartec Chromalox Emerson Danfoss Eltherm Briskheat Parker-Hannifin Warmup. Buy Now for Single User + Covid-19 Impact : https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode= QYRE-Auto-39L1545&lic=single-user SUBSCRIPTION We have introduced a tailor-made subscription for our customers. Please leave a note in the Comment Section to know about our subscription plans. SIMILAR REPORTS: - Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Electric Heating Cable market size is estimated to be worth USD 2522.9 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 3342.5 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 4.8% during the review period. - Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Heat Pumps market size is estimated to be worth USD 8577.8 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 11760 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 5.4% during the review period. - The HVAC pumps market size was valued at USD 31,560.5 million in 2021, and is projected to reach USD 55,457.0 million by 2031, registering a CAGR of 5.7% from 2022 to 2031. - Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Heat Exchanger market size is estimated to be worth USD 16140 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 22630 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 5.8% during the review period. - In 2020, the global District Heating and Cooling market size was USD 186770 million and it is expected to reach USD 365480 million by the end of 2027, with a CAGR of 10.1% during the forecast period 2021-2027. - Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Geothermal Heat Pump market size is estimated to be worth USD 4480.2 Million in 2021 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 4480.2 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 9.6% during the review period. - Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Skin-Effect Heat-Tracing Cables market size is estimated to be worth USD 214 Million in 2021 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 214 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 2.4% during the review period. - Global Self Regulating Trace Heating Cable Market Insights, Forecast to 2028 - Global Constant Wattage Electric Heating Cable Market Research Report 2022 - Global Mineral Insulated Band Heaters Market Insights, Forecast to 2028 - Global Heat Treated Wooden Pallets Market Insights and Forecast to 2028 - Global Electric Condensate Pump Market Insights and Forecast to 2028 - Global Pipe Tracing Systems Market Research Report 2022 - The global Industry 4.0 market size is projected to reach USD 280150 Million by 2028, from USD 107250 Million in 2021, at a CAGR of 14.4% during 2022-2028. - The global Factory Automation market size is expected to reach USD 368,372.4 Million in 2025, from USD 190,882.2 Million in 2017 growing at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2018 to 2025. - The global Industrial Services market size is projected to reach USD 32300 million by 2027, from USD 28360 million in 2020, at a CAGR of 4.4% during 2021-2027. - The global Industrial Controls and Factory Automation market size is projected to reach USD 208150 million by 2027, from USD 128090 million in 2020, at a CAGR of 7.2% during 2021-2027. - Global Industrial Management and Maintenance Service Market Research Report 2022 Click here to see related reports on Electric Heat Tracing Market ABOUT US: Valuates offers in-depth market insights into various industries. Our extensive report repository is constantly updated to meet your changing industry analysis needs. Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. With our customization in place, you can request for any particular information from a report that meets your market analysis needs. To achieve a consistent view of the market, data is gathered from various primary and secondary sources, at each step, data triangulation methodologies are applied to reduce deviance and find a consistent view of the market. Each sample we share contains a detailed research methodology employed to generate the report. Please also reach our sales team to get the complete list of our data sources. CONTACT US: Valuates Reports sales@valuates.com For U.S. Toll-Free Call 1-(315)-215-3225 For IST Call +91-8040957137 WhatsApp: +91-9945648335 Website: https://reports.valuates.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/valuatesreports LinkedIn - https://in.linkedin.com/company/valuatesreports Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/electric-heat-tracing-market-to-grow-usd-3256-6-million-by-2028-at-a-cagr-of-2-7--valuates-reports-301633016.html SOURCE Valuates Reports BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Encompass Health Corp. (NYSE: EHC) today announced it plans to build Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Wildwood, a freestanding, 50-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital in The Villages, Florida. The hospital will be located south of the Meggison Avenue and Warm Springs intersection. Complementing local acute care services, the future hospital will serve patients recovering from debilitating illnesses and injuries, including strokes and other neurological disorders, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, amputations and complex orthopedic conditions. In addition to 24hour nursing care, this hospital will offer physical, occupational and speech therapies to restore functional ability and quality of life. Care will be provided by highly specialized nurses, therapists and physicians. The hospital will feature all private patient rooms, a spacious therapy gym with advanced rehabilitation technologies and an activities of daily living suite, cafeteria, dining room, pharmacy and therapy courtyard. "We are excited to expand and grow our presence in central Florida, as we identified this as an underserved area for inpatient rehabilitation services," said Lori Bedard, president of Encompass Health's Southeast region. "We hope to bring significant value to this community by developing a new hospital focused on high-quality clinical outcomes and cost-effective, individualized care, which allows patients to receive rehabilitation closer to home." Encompass Health currently has 19 inpatient rehabilitation hospitals in Florida and has announced plans to open an additional five hospitals in the state over the next three years, including Clermont, Kissimmee, Ft. Myers, Lake Worth and Palm Beach Gardens. About Encompass Health Encompass Health (NYSE: EHC) is the largest owner and operator of rehabilitation hospitals in the United States. With a national footprint that includes 153 hospitals in 36 states and Puerto Rico, the Company provides high-quality, compassionate rehabilitative care for patients recovering from a major injury or illness, using advanced technology and innovative treatments to maximize recovery. Encompass Health is ranked as one of Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For and Modern Healthcare's Best Places to Work in Healthcare. For more information, visit encompasshealth.com, or follow us on our newsroom, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Story continues Forward-Looking Statements Statements contained in this press release which are not historical facts, such as those relating to the likelihood, timing and effects of the completion of this hospital project, are forward-looking statements. In addition, Encompass Health may from time to time make forward-looking public statements concerning the matters described herein. All such estimates, projections, and forward-looking information speak only as of the date hereof, and Encompass Health undertakes no duty to publicly update or revise such forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily estimates based upon current information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Encompass Health's actual results or events may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors. While it is impossible to identify all such factors, factors which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated include, but are not limited to, the regulatory review and approval process, any adverse outcome of various lawsuits, claims, and legal or regulatory proceedings that may be brought by or against the Company; the possibility this project will experience unexpected delays; the ability to successfully complete this project consistent with Encompass Health's growth strategy, including realization of anticipated revenues and avoidance of unforeseen exposure to liabilities; disease outbreaks, including the speed, depth, geographic reach and duration of the spread; the actions to be taken by Encompass Health in response to disease outbreaks; changes in the regulation of the healthcare industry at either or both of the federal and state levels; competitive pressures in the healthcare industry and Encompass Health's response thereto; the hospital's ability to maintain proper local, state and federal licensing; potential disruptions, breaches, or other incidents affecting the proper operation, availability, or security of Encompass Health's information systems; Encompass Health's ability to attract and retain nurses, therapists, and other healthcare professionals in a highly competitive environment with often severe staffing shortages and the impact on Encompass Health's labor expenses from potential union activity and staffing shortages; changes, delays in (including in connection with resolution of Medicare payment reviews or appeals), or suspension of reimbursement for Encompass Health's services by governmental or private payors; general conditions in the economy and capital markets; and other factors which may be identified from time to time in Encompass Health's SEC filings and other public announcements, including Encompass Health's Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2021 and Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2022 and June 30, 2022. Media contact: Casey Winger | 205-970-5912 casey.winger@encompasshealth.com Investor Relations contact: Mark Miller | 205-970-5860 mark.miller@encompasshealth.com Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/encompass-health-announces-plans-to-build-a-50-bed-inpatient-rehabilitation-hospital-in-the-villages-florida-301632706.html SOURCE Encompass Health Corp. Quartz Kitchens London, United Kingdom, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Females-bucking-the-trend-in-the-construction-industry Women now make up around 37 percent of those taking up employment within the construction industry directly from Higher Education in the UK, according to an encouraging statistic published by website Go Construct. As with many gender-stereotyped roles, historic attitudes have often discouraged women from choosing a career path in construction. However this upward trend provides evidence that misconceptions about construction are gradually changing, leading to improvements in workplace diversity as more women choose to pursue a career in the sector. The breadth of talent and resources that women can bring to the industry could play a key part in ensuring that our built environment is able to better reflect society as a whole, and with real opportunities for career progression it is an industry worth considering for many women. While this statistic is indeed a hugely positive sign, it is clear that more work needs to be done in terms of reducing the gender gap across the industry as a whole. Despite making up over half of the UK population, just 14 per cent of those employed in our construction industry are women, with only 3.9 percent of the UKs 1.5 million self-employed female entrepreneurs operating within the industry. While the previous ten-year period has seen an uptick in the number of women moving into other traditionally male-dominated sectors such as manufacturing, defence and vehicle repair - as well as the scientific and technical sectors - a 2021 report from Digital PR agency Reeboot found that construction was still the lowest ranking UK industry in terms of female recruitment. Additionally, a Randstad report published in 2020 revealed that almost three quarters of 4,200 female UK construction industry workers polled had faced incidences of gender discrimination in the workplace. However, for some female entrepreneurs, being women in a traditionally male-dominated industry has proved to be far from an obstacle. In fact, rather than viewing the lack of female presence as a hinderance, focus on individual presence and qualities has led many female led SMEs to thrive within the industry. Story continues Entrepreneur Jas Kaur Saimbhi, Co-owner of London based quartz worktops broker Quartz Kitchens, has said: Being a successful female-led company has certainly differentiated us from our competitors. Our clients range from residential home owners, BTL Landlords, all the way through to Commercials and Corporates. Our unique personable approach in really taking time to understand our customers has led us to not only happy clients, but exponential growth off the back of recommendations and word of mouth. My business partner Sonia and I both have a keen eye for detail, as well as a real passion for style, fashion and interior design. We see building our business almost as building a community, offering consultations, advice and providing insights on the latest trends within the industry. We offer visual insights of our quartz kitchen worktops through our Instagram platform, which is fast growing, as well as top tips through our online blog. While some women may find entering a heavily male dominated industry rather daunting, Jas and Sonia view this as a rather exciting opportunity. At a time when people were spending more of their days at home than ever due to the pandemic and remote working, they spotted an ideal opportunity and launched their business in 2021. Sonia Bharadwa, Co-owner of Quartz Kitchens, said: While some may think its risky to start a business at such an uncertain time, we believed in our products, proposition and our passion in what we do to bring our new venture to life. Many residents are now choosing to invest in their home environment, creating more attractive, comfortable and practical spaces in which to spend their time. We were in the right place at the right time and are delighted with how it is going so far. The business has gone from strength to strength, attracting clients from across the residential, industrial and commercial sectors and gaining an impressive 5 out of 5 rating on Google based on positive customer feedback. In just a short space of time, Jas and Sonia have built a large portfolio of clients, as well as creating links with many interior designers, architects and builders, many of whom have become repeat clients. Jas added: We are so glad we took the opportunity to launch our business when we did. We love working with each other, and there is no better feeling than hearing from happy customers and seeing all of their kitchen construction projects come to life. Wed definitely encourage any women who are considering starting a business within the construction industry as a whole to take the plunge and go for it. ENDS Issued by: Jas Kaur Saimbhi Telephone: 02080 682047 Email: info@quartzkitchen.co.uk Issued: September 2022 Editors Notes Quartz Kitchens operates across the UK in London, Surrey, Middlesex, Berkshire and Essex, working with industry leading wholesalers and retailers in the stone industry to ensure it sources the best quality kitchen worktops at unbeatable prices. Specialising in quartz, marble, granite and porcelain work surfaces, all projects are protected by a minimum 5-year warranty (subject to T&Cs), with an 18-month workmanship warranty with all projects. The team doesnt just match quotes if you find a cheaper official quote for the installation, Quartz Kitchens will beat this for you by 5 per cent (subject to T&Cs), with a typical, straightforward project taking just 5 working days to deliver. You can read reviews from Quartz Kitchens satisfied customers here. For more information on Quartz Kitchens and its suppliers, or if youd like to request a quote or book a visit to its Brentford showroom, visit https://quartzkitchen.co.uk/. The website also offers in-depth, helpful advice on choosing the right type of work surface to suit your needs. You can keep up to date with whats new at Quartz Kitchens by following them on Instagram @quartz_kitchens and Facebook @quartzkitchen21. For the original news story, please visit https://www.prdistribution.com/news/females-bucking-the-trend-in-the-construction-industry/9313382 CONTACT: Full Name : Jas Kaur Saimbhi Company : Quartz Kitchens Phone Number : 02080 682047 Website : https://www.quartzkitchen.co.uk NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The " Gas Engine Market in North America by End-user, Application, and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 " report has been added to Technavio's offering. With ISO 9001:2015 certification, Technavio is proudly partnering with more than 100 Fortune 500 companies for over 16 years. The potential growth difference for the gas engine market between 2021 and 2026 is USD 468.61 million. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Gas Engine Market in North America 2022-2026 Factors such as the increase in business activities, and the development of modernized public and private infrastructure have significantly contributed to the growth of the commercial sector in North America. Similarly, the residential sector has been witnessing steady growth over the years with increasing disposable income, an increase in lending activities, and the recovery of the housing market in the region. The growth of these sectors has subsequently increased the dependence on third-party power suppliers to avoid power cuts during critical times. Many such factors are expected to create significant growth opportunities for vendors operating in the market. Download PDF Report Sample Key Market Dynamics: Market Driver Market Challenges The increasing demand for efficient heat and power generation in North America and the abundant availability of natural gas in North America are some of the key market drivers. However, the presence of close substitutes will challenge market growth. The gas engine market report is segmented by application (power generation, co-generation, and others), end-user (power, industrial, residential, and commercial), and geographic (North America). By application, the market will observe significant growth in the power-generating segment during the forecast period. The segment is driven by the increasing demand for gas engines for power generation or standby power systems by various end-users, including power plant operators (utilities), industrial, commercial, and residential end-users. Story continues Similarly, the power industry will emerge as the prime end-users for gas engines in North America over the forecast period. The replacement of a significant number of coal-fired power plants with natural gas-fired power plants is fostering the growth of the segment. Also, the abundant availability and low prices of natural gas are contributing to the growth of the segment. Identify potential segments to invest in over the forecast period. Request Sample PDF Report Some Companies Mentioned with their Offerings Caterpillar Inc.: The company offers gas engines such as G12CM34 gas engines. China National Petroleum Corp.: The company offers oilfield services, petroleum engineering and construction, equipment manufacturing, financial services, and new energy development. Cummins Inc.: The company offers gas engines such as Cummins X15N engines. Fairbanks Morse LLC: The company offers engines, power systems, and control solutions for marine vessels along with related parts and services. INNIO Jenbacher GmbH and Co. OG: The company offers gas engines such as J208 and J920 FleXtra gas engines. China Yuchai International Ltd. DEUTZ AG HD Hyundai Co.Ltd. IHI Corp. JFE Engineering Corp. Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. Kohler Co. Liebherr International AG MAN Energy Solutions SE Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. R Schmitt Enertec GmbH Rolls Royce Holdings Plc Siemens AG Westport Fuel Systems Inc. Yanmar Holdings Co. Ltd. Related Reports: Gas Engine Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of almost 5.6% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 468.61 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 4.98 Regional analysis North America Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Caterpillar Inc., China National Petroleum Corp., China Yuchai International Ltd., Cummins Inc., DEUTZ AG, Fairbanks Morse LLC, HD Hyundai Co.Ltd., IHI Corp., INNIO Jenbacher GmbH and Co. OG, JFE Engineering Corp., Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., Kohler Co., Liebherr International AG, MAN Energy Solutions SE, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., R Schmitt Enertec GmbH, Rolls Royce Holdings Plc, Siemens AG, Westport Fuel Systems Inc., and Yanmar Holdings Co. Ltd. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and 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. Table of contents: 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers 4.4 Threat of new entrants 4.5 Threat of substitutes 4.6 Threat of rivalry 4.7 Market condition 5 Market Segmentation by Application 5.1 Market segments 5.2 Comparison by Application 5.3 Power generation - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.4 Co-generation - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.5 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.6 Market opportunity by Application 6 Market Segmentation by End-user 6.1 Market segments 6.2 Comparison by End-user 6.3 Power - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 6.4 Industrial - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 6.5 Residential - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 6.6 Commercial - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 6.7 Market opportunity by End-user 7 Customer Landscape 7.1 Customer landscape overview 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape 9.3 Landscape disruption 9.4 Industry risks 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors 10.3 Caterpillar Inc. 10.4 Cummins Inc. 10.5 HD Hyundai Co.Ltd. 10.6 INNIO Jenbacher GmbH and Co. OG 10.7 Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. 10.8 Liebherr International AG 10.9 MAN Energy Solutions SE 10.10 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. 10.11 Siemens AG 10.12 Yanmar Holdings Co. Ltd. 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology 11.5 List of abbreviations 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 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:media@technavio.com Website: www.technavio.com/ Gas Engine Market in North America 2022-2026 Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gas-engine-market-in-north-america-usd-468-61-mn-incremental-growth-expected-between-2021-and-2026--301632035.html SOURCE Technavio BlueWeave Consulting and Research Pvt Ltd Geographically, the Global Construction Equipment Market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Due to huge investments in construction projects in developing nations such as India and Indonesia, Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest construction equipment market by 2027. Simultaneously, other countries in the region, such as China and Japan, are executing several new development projects to boost the country's infrastructure. Furthermore, numerous multinational construction equipment OEMs have a presence in the region. As a result of the region's significant increase in building activities, Asia is expected to have the biggest market share of the construction equipment market throughout the forecast period. New Delhi, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Construction Equipment Market is flourishing owing to rapid urbanization, increasing infrastructure construction in developing countries, and population growth as well as urban migration all contribute to market expansion. A recent study conducted by the strategic consulting and market research firm, BlueWeave Consulting, revealed that the Global Construction Equipment Market was worth USD 171.4 billion in the year 2021. The market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.30%, earning revenues of around USD 245.3 billion by the end of 2028. The Global Construction Equipment Market is booming because of the increase in government spending on infrastructure development, rising demand for smart city projects that call for a lot of construction equipment, and newly formed emission regulations to kickstart advancements in OHV engine & exhaust technologies. The need for construction equipment has significantly expanded as a result of modernization and technological advancements in highly regulated industries, such as the military and railroad operations. The several types of construction equipment include those used for hoisting, excavation, hauling, grading, paving, drilling, and pile driving. However, supply chain and inventory issues, combined with semiconductor shortages, are anticipated to stymie industry expansion in the coming years. Equipment Rentals might Generate Excellent Opportunities Individual firms and heavy construction equipment manufacturers have turned to equipment rental to meet the rising demand for heavy equipment in the construction industry. Renting construction equipment has various advantages, including the fact that the equipment is well-maintained and reliable, that no capital investment is required, and that no service or maintenance fees are incurred. Furthermore, businesses can test and assess new heavy construction equipment types before making a purchase decision. Manufacturers can profit from the power and precision of cutting-edge technology while also saving money. Because they are subjected to regular maintenance checks, these pieces of equipment require no maintenance, and rental companies include maintenance in their contracts. As a result, the Global Construction Equipment Market is predicted to develop at a significant rate during the forecast period (2022-2028). Request for Sample Report @ https://www.blueweaveconsulting.com/report/construction-equipment-market/report-sample Industrialization and Rapid Urbanization Fuel Market Expansion Rapid urbanization and industrialization, particularly in developing nations, promote economic growth, job opportunities, and national development. Designing energy-efficient structures for a sustainable future also bring about socioeconomic and environmental transformations. For instance, the Sardar Patel National Urban Housing Mission, the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, the Clean India Mission, the National Urban Information System, and the National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana are all driving forces behind urbanization in India. Due to the modern technical technology used for fuel injection and engine cooling, the usage of heavy construction equipment is essential to the urbanization and industrialization of society. High digging strength, dump heights, dump depths, engine horsepower, ground clearance, and other variables are also crucial when choosing heavy construction machinery. This results in offering lucrative opportunities for the Global Construction Equipment Market during the forecast period (2022-2028). Challenge: Regulations and Rules Governing International Trade Construction equipment manufacturing, import, and export laws and regulations vary by nation. Different import taxes are levied by nations to prevent unfair trade practices and benefit domestic producers. Governments typically sign bilateral trade agreements to lower tariffs and obstacles to a free trade zone or single market. Although this can be advantageous, it might also result in more foreign competition. The impact of foreign affairs on trade is greater. Commerce agreements may be stopped in the event of conflicts with other nations, or the worst-case scenario, restrictions may be imposed, limiting trade entirely. Consequently, the effects of international trade policies and restrictions result in variables that prevent sales. Please Visit the Press Release: https://www.blueweaveconsulting.com/press-release/global-construction-equipment-market-to-grow-at-a-cagr-of-5-30-during-forecast-period Segmental Coverage Global Construction Equipment Market By Application Based on application, the Global Construction Equipment Market is segmented into Commercial, Residential, and Infrastructure. Due to growing industrialization and foreign direct investments (FDI) for various global manufacturing facilities in developing countries, the industrial application segment is predicted to experience steady expansion shortly. Commercial infrastructure development in both developed and emerging nations is probably going to show a sizable global market. The market is anticipated to increase steadily for applications in the residential sector due to the rapid population growth in Asian and African nations. All these factors boost the growth of the Global Construction Equipment Market during the forecast period (2022-2028). Impact of COVID-19 on Global Construction Equipment Market The COVID-19 outbreak had a significant impact on construction activity in 2020. Construction activity quickly decreased as a result of the brief lockout brought on by the COVID-19 virus's quick proliferation. The OEMs observed problems in the supply chain and brief dealer store closures that precluded new sales. However, demand for construction equipment dramatically increased in 2021 as construction for both ongoing and new projects resumed. Lower housing costs contributed to rising residential area demand, which raised equipment demand. The market is also unstable because of increased COVID-19 infections brought on by the new variety of Omicron, high steel and aluminum prices, and a lack of semiconductors. Competitive Landscape The leading market players in the Global Construction Equipment Market are Caterpillar, CNH Industrial N.V., Doosan Corporation, Escorts Limited, Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., Hyundai Construction Equipment Co., Ltd., J C Bamford Excavators Ltd., Deere & Company., Kobelco Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., Komatsu Ltd., Liebherr-International AG, Manitou BF, Hidromek, Sany Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd., Terex Corporation, Volvo AB, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd, and other prominent players. The Global Construction Equipment Market is highly fragmented with the presence of several manufacturing companies in the country. The market leaders retain their supremacy by spending on research and development, incorporating cutting-edge technology into their goods, and releasing upgraded items for customers. Various tactics, including strategic alliances, agreements, mergers, and partnerships, are used. Dont miss the business opportunity in the Global Construction Equipment Market. Consult our analysts to gain crucial insights and facilitate your business growth. The in-depth analysis of the report provides information about growth potential, upcoming trends, and statistics of the Global Construction Equipment Market. It also highlights the factors driving forecasts of total market size. The report promises to provide recent technology trends in the Global Construction Equipment Market and industry insights to help decision-makers make sound strategic decisions. Furthermore, the report also analyzes the growth drivers, challenges, and competitive dynamics of the market. Recent Development In June 2022, Liebherr Australia and Fortescue (Australia) partnered to develop mining haul trucks to add zero-emission power system technologies. The partnership will draw from Liebherr's industry-leading equipment and technology and FFI's expertise in green technologies to deliver zero-emission mining equipment. Scope of the Report Attributes Details Years Considered Historical data 2018-2021 Base Year 2021 Forecast 2022 2028 Facts Covered Revenue in USD Billion Product Service/Segmentation By Equipment, By Application, By Propulsion Type, By Emission Regulation, By Power Output, By Engine Capacity, By Region. Key Players Caterpillar, CNH Industrial N.V., Doosan Corporation, Escorts Limited, Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., Hyundai Construction Equipment Co., Ltd., J C Bamford Excavators Ltd., Deere & Company., Kobelco Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., Komatsu Ltd., Liebherr-International AG, Manitou BF, Hidromek, Sany Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd., Terex Corporation, Volvo AB, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co., Ltd, and other prominent players. By Equipment Earthmoving Equipment Loaders Excavators Backhoe Loaders Compactors Others Material Handling Equipment Cranes Industrial Trucks Road Rollers Others Heavy Construction Equipment Concrete Pumps Crushers Transit Mixers Asphalt Pavers Batching Plants Others Others By Application Commercial Residential Infrastructure By Propulsion Type Diesel CNG/LNG/RNG By Emission Regulation Stage II Stage III Stage III A Stage IV Stage V Stage VI Tier 4 Tier 5 By Power Output <100 HP 101200 HP 201400 HP >400 HP By Engine Capacity <5L 5L-10L >10L By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific Latin America Middle East and Africa Please Find Below Some Related Report: About Us BlueWeave Consulting provides comprehensive Market Intelligence (MI) Solutions to businesses regarding various products and services online and offline. We offer all-inclusive market research reports by analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data to boost the performance of your business solutions. BWC has built its reputation from the scratch by delivering quality inputs and nourishing long-lasting relationships with its clients. We are one of the promising digital MI solutions companies providing agile assistance to make your business endeavors successful. Contact Us: BlueWeave Consulting & Research Pvt. Ltd +1 866 658 6826 | +1 425 320 4776 | +44 1865 60 0662 info@blueweaveconsulting.com https://www.blueweaveconsulting.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/blueweaveconsulting/ Mobis Ventures Silicon Valley (MVSV) invites startup officials and investors to the 1 st Mobis Mobility Day in Silicon Valley. To introduce the company's software-centric future R&D strategies in order to expand its global investment network. Anticipates continued cooperation and investment in global startups featuring cutting-edge mobility technologies, including UAM and robotics. SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Mobis (KRX 012330) announced that it will be hosting the 1st Mobis Mobility Day in Silicon Valley on 29. More than 80 startup officials and investors in the future mobility industry will be in attendance to hear about Hyundai Mobis' future technology and investment strategy, as well as global trends. Hyundai Mobis CI (PRNewsfoto/Hyundai Mobis) The 1st Mobis Mobility Day is designed to actively secure the technology partners as the company discovers innovative future mobility technologies and promotes new growth businesses, such as UAM and robotics. Finding partners for future mobility, namely the mobility alliance, is essential in securing a competitive edge in the transition of global automobile industry. Silicon Valley is the ideal place to form strategic alliances as it is where capital, talent, and technology come together. Accordingly, Hyundai Mobis will be explaining to its potential partners about the company's future growth, as characterized by the business transformation into a software and platform-centric global technology giant. Hyundai Mobis hopes to emphasize how its growth strategies and R&D initiatives are closely related to investment in highly promising global technology companies. Mobis Ventures Silicon Valley (MVSV) will host the event to deliver these messages even more effectively. MVSV is one of Hyundai Mobis' global open innovation hubs, founded in 2018 with the mission of discovering and investing in startups with future mobility technologies. MVSV has made major strategic investments in highly promising tech companies, including Velodyne (2019), a developer of LIDAR technology for autonomous driving, Envisics (2020), a British AR HUD innovator, and Zendar (2021), a maker of high-resolution imaging RADAR technology. Hyundai Mobis also has a global open innovation hub in Shenzhen, China. Story continues "We are looking forward to working with global partners to develop innovative technologies that will change the future. We will continue to actively communicate with startups and investors by expanding our network through our global open innovation hubs," explained Kim Young-bin, Head of Planning at Hyundai Mobis. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hyundai-mobis-to-host-an-investment-seminar-in-silicon-valley-to-build-a-future-mobility-alliance-301632886.html SOURCE Hyundai Mobis The New York Times FORT MYERS, Fla. As Hurricane Ian charged toward the western coast of Florida this week, the warnings from forecasters were growing more urgent. Life-threatening storm surge threatened to deluge the region from Tampa all the way to Fort Myers. But while officials along much of that coastline responded with orders to evacuate Monday, emergency managers in Lee County held off, pondering during the day whether to tell people to flee, but then deciding to see how the forecast evolved overnight. Th TOKYO, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The 10-year Japan government bond (JGB) yield rose back close to the Bank of Japan's ceiling on Monday, after falling to a more than three-week low in the previous session following the central bank's decision to keep its ultra-low policy unchanged. The 10-year government bond yields rose to 0.245%, hovering close to the BOJ's upper limit of 0.25%. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields rose to a 12-year peak on Friday and two-year yields rose to their highest since 2007, as investors fretted that central banks globally will keep tightening monetary policy to tackle soaring inflation. The 10-year JGB yields fell to their lowest in more than three weeks on Thursday, after the BOJ affirmed its commitment to ultra-low interest rates, forcing traders to reverse bets on a policy change. Japan's financial markets were closed on Friday for a local holiday. Yields on nine-year bonds maturing in September 2031, rose to as high as 0.292% on Monday, according to Tradeweb Markets, and were last at 0.288%, suggesting a pressure for a sell-off. The nine-year bonds had become the target of speculators trying to test the BOJ's resolve to pin down interest rates. The market so far has not responded to the BOJ offer earlier in the day to buy 550 billion yen ($3.82 billion) of bonds maturing in 5-10 years in its regular bond buying, an increase from 500 billion yen it had originally scheduled. ($1 = 143.8800 yen) (Reporting by Junko Fujita and the Tokyo markets team; Editing by Rashmi Aich) * IDB directors recommend firing Claver-Carone * Wave of indigenous women run for Brazil's Congress * Former Brazilian president steps back from election debate * Argentine oil workers strike after deadly refinery blast Sept 22 (Reuters) - The latest in Latin American politics today: Evo Morales takes swipe at Gabriel Boric over sea access Former Bolivian President Evo Morales on Thursday addressed the president of neighboring Chile, Gabriel Boric, over his position on a restoration of sea access for Bolivia. Bolivia lost access to the Pacific Ocean in 1884 following a war with Chile. After Boric condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the violation of its neighbor's sovereignty at the United Nations this week, Morales tweeted: "I have confidence that you will assume the same position in relation to the 1879 invasion and reaffirm your proposal of #SeaForBolivia." Boric has in the past expressed openness to restoring sea access for Bolivia, but walked back the position after taking office in March. The two countries have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1978. IDB directors vote to recommend firing Claver-Carone WASHINGTON - The Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) board of directors voted unanimously to recommend the removal of President Mauricio Claver-Carone following an independent ethics investigation, two sources familiar with the vote said. The IDB's governing board will make a final decision within the next week on the removal of the president of Latin America's largest development bank, the sources said. Claver-Carone met earlier Thursday with the bank's 14 directors to discuss an investigation by law firm Davis Polk that found evidence to support whistleblower allegations that he had an intimate relationship with a subordinate. Indigenous women eye Brazil's Congress in Bolsonaro backlash SAO PAULO - A record number of 60 indigenous leaders, including 31 women, is running for federal office in Brazil's election next month, in a backlash against the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro. Story continues Many say their main objective is to unwind the policies of Bolsonaro, who has stopped designating any new indigenous territory and pushed for mining and industrial farming on existing reservations, emboldening violent land grabs and illegal miners. Meanwhile, of over 30 transgender candidates running for office, researchers say 80% have received threats or been intimidated this election cycle. Brazilian ex-president makes what could be last voter pitch Brazil's influential former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who served two terms between 1995 and 2002, said in a tweet he would step back from political debate due to his age, but offered final thoughts on the coming Oct. 2 presidential vote. "I'm old and though I don't have any serious health problems, I no longer have the energy to actively participate in the pre-election political debate," he tweeted, adding that he asks voters to back whoever is "committed to fighting poverty and inequality... and the strengthening of institutions," among other largely liberal causes. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had in May published a photo of the two former presidents fist-bumping in masks, a move seen to bring Brazil's left and center closer to uniting against Bolsonaro, who is trailing Lula in the polls. Argentine oil workers strike after deadly refinery blast BUENOS AIRES - Argentina's largest oil union said it launched an indefinite strike on Thursday to demand greater safety measures after an explosion at a refinery in the western province of Neuquen killed three people. Neuquen officials said the cause of the fire, which broke out at dawn in a storage tank at the New American Oil refinery, is still under investigation. The Private Oil and Gas Union of Rio Negro, Neuquen and La Pampa covers some 25,000 workers and activities at Vaca Muerta, the world's second-largest shale gas reserve. (Compiled by Sarah Morland; Editing by Jonathan Oatis; Editing by Sam Holmes) By Trend After the second Karabakh war, Azerbaijan began large-scale construction work on all previously occupied territories and started the implementation of major projects as soon as possible, however, one of the most serious threats to the rapid, consistent and safe conduct of these works is the placement of 100 and 1,000 of mines by Armenians on the territories of Azerbaijan. Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament's (Milli Majlis) Committee on Legal Policy and State Building Nizami Safarov told Trend. After the end of the war and various armed conflicts, eliminating their consequences and the dangers they create became one of the most important tasks. However, it's a pity that Armenia, as always, behaves irresponsibly in this important issue contrary to international law," he stated. It should be noted that in response to a serious humanitarian crisis resulting from the large-scale deployment of landmines, on October 10, 1980, the UN adopted the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which prohibits or restricts the use of certain conventional weapons and may be deemed to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects (including Protocols No. I, II and III), and on September 18, 1997, in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction was adopted. Safarov said that although Armenia hasn't signed or ratified these conventions, even states that are not parties to these important agreements must strictly comply with their provisions, guided by the fact that both of these conventions are based on international law. According to him, it would be naive to expect compliance with international legal norms on the part of Armenia, which is pursuing an aggressive policy, making territorial claims against neighboring states, committing ethnic cleansing, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. "The distinction between civilians and combatants is also reflected in the Ottawa Convention and is included in the preamble, which is an integral part of this document. Also part 2 of article 3 of Protocol II 'On the prohibition or restriction of mines, booby-traps and other devices' to the Convention 1980, prohibited the use of weapons that don't distinguish between civilians and legitimate military targets and may result in accidental death or injury," Safarov added. He noted that one of the unacceptable facts is that the mines planted by the Armenians on liberated territories of Azerbaijan continue to claim lives, despite the end of the war. To date, despite the total clearance of 49,395 hectares of land, and the detection and clearance of mines and unexploded ordnance, more than 240 civilians and military personnel have died or been injured from mine explosions. As is known, as part of operation 'Revenge', some military posts in Kalbajar and Lachin directions were taken under the control of the Azerbaijani army, and more than 900 anti-personnel mines, produced by Armenia in 2021, were found in only one area. This fact once again indicates that Armenia continues to plant mines illegally. However Armenia must never forget that the powerful state Azerbaijan which forced the neighboring country to sign the act of surrender, will overcome the threat of mines and turn its liberated territories into a prosperous land," Safarov said. WILMINGTON, DE / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Sardis is a layer 1 blockchain ecosystem that is launching the world's first Crypto-based FOREX for fiat currencies and derivatives trading platform. The app takes only three seconds for a transaction to be finalized, with crypto security and flexibility. Users can convert their crypto assets to real-world currency at any time. SARDIS, Monday, September 26, 2022, Press release picture The Sardis ecosystem includes a social payments app, FOREX, and a derivatives market with global almost instant money transfers for all major FIAT currencies. With these aspects, Sardis is a first in the industry in terms of layer 1/web 3 projects. Sardis Network (Sardis) is an energy-saving and incredibly efficient multi-chain crypto ecosystem that aims of expanding the crypto landscape in new ways. The network scales horizontally with every function and asset running on its own blockchain, compatible with smart contracts and high-performance transactions. Sardis aims to solve daily-life payments and international fund transfers through a social payment application. How Does it Work? Sardis is a horizontally scaled blockchain-based fintech ecosystem. It is linked by a two-scale hPOS chain with smart contract features. The whole process takes no more than three seconds. Forex Dedicated Sardis stablecoin blockchains will be created for each major FIAT currency. This means that USD Sardis stablecoin will have its own blockchain as well as EUR, GBP, RUB, AED, TRY, and so on. When a certain stablecoin is minted, Sardis will open an escrow account with a cooperating bank in the country of origin where the FIAT currency is located to maintain a 1:1 ratio between the stablecoin and the FIAT at which it is pegged. Sardis Stablecoin Exchange provides real-time P2P FX service based on blockchain. This will provide unlimited horizontal scaling supporting potentially millions of transactions every second. Each wallet account in these stablecoin blockchains will have its own private ledger blockchain. Thus, a transaction between two parties will almost instantly write the corresponding plus to the receiving account, while the sending account will be a minus. Key Facts About The Platform Supports Multiple Currencies (US Dollars, Euros, Yen, etc.).In addition, the Forex trading platform allows users to keep their money in the currency of their choice, to make gains or stop losses by switching between different currencies. Story continues Trading Without Account Number Users can easily transfer funds without the recipient's account number. Transfer to a mobile phone number or an e-mail address can be finalized in seconds using the Sardis mobile phone application. In addition, the platform will allow users to switch between multiple wallets and exchange cryptocurrencies among themselves. Currently, anyone can join Sardis's beta testing and subsequent phases for free. Technical Specifications KYC regulations are a crucial component of the Sardis Network to ensure the security of the network and assets. The platform supports the flexibility of the Ethereum Virtual Machine and smart contracts, allowing developers to reduce development and migration costs. Also, Sardis uses a Meta-transaction function for gas fee discounts. It reduces the cost of developers and users on the chain. Apart from that, the app also performs cross-chain asset transfers to optimize the users' experience. Native Token SRDS SRDS will be used to pay expenses on both the Forex platform and the Social Payment App. SRDS holders allocate their money to validators running nodes for network functionality. SRDS will be used not only for dApps, NFTs, and smart contract fees but also as rewards for validators and delegators who stake their coins. With a massive interest from venture capital firms, Sardis successfully completed the Pre-Sale phase of fundraising in less than 24 hours and started offering only a limited amount of SRDS coins through Private and Public sales. Media Contact Website: https://mysardis.com/ Name: Javid Ganbarli Email: info@mysardis.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/mysardis/status/1574188338147479552?s=20&t=_aTttQPVID3-v-uWdGt4Bw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sardis-financial-technologies-inc/ SOURCE: SARDIS View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/717489/Layer-1-Project-SARDIS-Launches-the-First-Crypto-Based-Forex-System Companies Covered in Microwave Devices Market are Analog Devices Inc. (U.S.), Communications & Power Industries LLC (U.S.), General Dynamics Corporation (U.S.), Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (U.S.), L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), MACOM Technology Solutions Inc. (U.S.), Microsemi Corporation (U.S), Microwave Technology, Inc. (U.K.), Qorvo Inc. (U.S.), Richardson Electronics, Ltd. (U.S.), Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (U.S.), Thales Group (France), TMD Technologies Ltd (U.K.), Toshiba Corporation (Japan), Cytec Corporation (U.S.) and Other key players Pune, India, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global microwave devices market size was USD 5.85 billion in 2021. The market size is expected to rise from USD 6.09 billion in 2022 to USD 9.88 billion by 2029 at a CAGR of 7.15% during the forecast period. As per the report, the market is expected to rise during the forecast period owing to the rising demand for medical instruments equipped with microwave devices. Fortune Business Insights shares this information in a report titled, "Microwave Devices Market, 2022-2029". COVID-19 Impact: Supply Chain Disruptions Amid Pandemic Hindered Market Growth The outbreak of COVID-19 created a negative impact on the microwave devices market growth due to disruptions in the supply chain and revised import/export policies. Also, government imposed strict restrictions on transportation and travel activities hampered the supply of essential raw materials and affected the production and manufacturing rate of the leading companies. Furthermore, the companies started recovering due to the increasing demand for microwave solutions. Get Sample PDF Brochure: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/sample/microwave-devices-market-103542 List of Key Players Profiled in the Report: Analog Devices Inc. (U.S.) Communications & Power Industries LLC (U.S.) General Dynamics Corporation (U.S.) Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (U.S.) L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (U.S.) MACOM Technology Solutions Inc. (U.S.) Microsemi Corporation (U.S) Microwave Technology, Inc. (U.K.) Qorvo Inc. (U.S.) Richardson Electronics, Ltd. (U.S.) Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (U.S.) Thales Group (France) TMD Technologies Ltd (U.K.) Toshiba Corporation (Japan) Cytec Corporation (U.S.) Story continues Report Scope & Segmentation: Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2022-2029 Forecast CAGR 7.15% 2029 Value Projection USD 9.88 Billion Base Year 2021 Microwave Devices Market Size in 2021 USD 5.85 Billion in 2021 Historical Data 2018-2020 No. of Pages 230 Segments Covered By Type Analysis, By Frequency Analysis, By End-use Industry Analysis Microwave Devices Market Growth Drivers Increasing Demand for Improved Communication Services to Bolster Market Growth Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report with TOC: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/microwave-devices-market-103542 Russia-Ukraine War Impact: The Russia-Ukraine war crisis-affected the avionics and electronic industry globally. The closure of national borders affected the supply of essential electronic and semiconductor devices required by the aviation sector. Also, Ukraine is the largest provider of noble gas neon and semiconductor-grade neon tube. The war crisis affected the supply chain of these gases from Ukraine to other countries. Segments: Active Segment to Lead the Market Due to Rising Demand from Networking & Telecom Services By type, the market is bifurcated into active and passive. The active segment is expected to hold a dominant share in the global market due to increasing demand for these devices in telecom and networking services. Increasing Adoption of Ku-Band to Drive the Segment Growth Based on frequency, the market is divided into Ku-Band, Ka-Band, S-Band, C-Band, X-Band, L-Band, and others. The Ku-Band segment leads the market share due to its rising space and defense application adoption during the forecast period. Rising Demand for Telecommunication Services to Bolster Segmental Growth On the basis of the end-use industry, the market is segmented into telecommunication, space, defense, industrial, healthcare, and others. The increasing demand for telecommunication services is expected to fuel segmental growth. Finally, by geography, the market is categorized into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Inquire Before Buying This Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/queries/microwave-devices-market-103542 Detailed Table of Content: Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions Executive Summary Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Key Insights Key Industry Developments Key Contracts & Agreements, Mergers, Acquisitions and Partnerships Latest technological Advancements Porters Five Forces Analysis Supply Chain Analysis Quantitative Insights-Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Microwave Devices Market Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Microwave Devices Market Steps Taken by Industry/Companies/Government to Overcome the Impact Key Development in the industry in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic Potential Opportunities due to COVID-19 Outbreak TOC Continued! Report Coverage: The report provides completely analyzed data regarding recent developments and trends in the market, including the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Also, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine ware crisis is discussed further in this report. Drivers and restraints affecting the global market growth during the forecast period are highlighted further along with the regional insights on segmented market areas. A list of key market players is mentioned further in this report. Drivers & Restraints: Increasing Demand for Improved Communication Services to Bolster Market Growth The market is expected to witness rapid growth during the projected period due to increasing demand for 5G network services in various industries. Also, the rising demand for medical instruments equipped with microwave devices is expected to fuel the market growth in the coming years. Furthermore, the increasing need for enhanced communication services is anticipated to drive the global market. However, the high risk of communication jamming may hamper the market growth in the coming years. Regional Insights: North America Dominates Global Market Share Due to Rising Adoption of Advanced Communication Services North America dominated the global microwave devices market share in 2021. The regional market stood at USD 1.95 billion in 2021. This is attributed to the increasing adoption of advanced communication systems in aviation, defense, commercial, and industrial sectors. Europe is expected to grow at a substantial CAGR during the forecast period due to increasing semiconductor production and its utilization in healthcare, automotive, and manufacturing industries in the U.K., Germany, and France. Speak to Our Expert: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/microwave-devices-market-103542 Competitive Landscape: New Product Launch Allow Companies to Propel Growth The key players focus on implementing several strategies to improve their business performance. These strategies include forming strategic alliances, collaborations, and partnerships. Also, introducing new products and getting recognized for these launches allow key players to enhance their brand value globally. Key Industry Development: May 2021: Samsung awarded Qorvo the Best Quality Award in the Mobile Communications Business Division. The award recognizes Qorvo's continuous quality improvement on projects for Samsung Galaxy 21 platform. Read Related News: Satellite Communication Market Size to Hit USD 46.50 Billion by 2028 | With 9.07% CAGR Tactical Data Link Market to Hit USD 11.70 Billion by 2029 | Growing International Security Threats & Cross-border Issues to Fuel Market Growth Optical Communication Systems and Networking Market to Worth USD 32.94 Billion by 2029 | Optical Communication Systems and Networking Industry Exhibiting a CAGR of 7.09% (2022-2029) 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. Address: Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd. 9th Floor, Icon Tower, Baner Mahalunge Road, Baner, Pune-411045, Maharashtra, India. Phone: US: +1 424 253 0390 UK: +44 2071 939123 APAC: +91 744 740 1245 Email: sales@fortunebusinessinsights.com LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Middlefield Canadian Income PCC Net Asset Value Middlefield Canadian Income PCC Middlefield Canadian Income - GBP PC (a protected cell company incorporated in Jersey with registration number 93546) Legal Entity Identifier: 2138007ENW3JEJXC8658 Net Asset Value As at the close of business on 23 September 2022 the estimated unaudited Net Asset Value per share was 140.47 pence (including accrued income). Investments in the Company's portfolio have been valued on a closing price basis. Enquiries: JTC Fund Solutions (Jersey) Limited 01534 700 000 SATO Oyj Press release 26 September 2022 at 10:45 am Miikka Karjaluoto, MSc (Econ & Bus Admin), aged 48, has been appointed Director, Business Development at SATO Corporation Working at SATO since 2009, Karjaluoto most recently served as Director, Tampere region, which post he held since 2016. Director, Business Development is responsible for managing and coordinating all development efforts at SATO. It is a new post at SATO. Miikka Karjaluoto reports to President and CEO Antti Aarnio. It is our desire to reinforce our business development efforts and ensure an ever improving customer experience. Miikka Karjaluoto is a SATO veteran with solid expertise in our core business as well as a strong track record in developing different housing concepts and creating operating models. He was involved in the development of the SATO StudioHome and FlexHome concepts, among others, and has also been responsible for building up our customer service function, SATO President and CEO Antti Aarnio says. I am very excited about my new role with SATO. My priority is to ensure that going forward, SATO continues to hold its standing as forerunner in rental housing. We seek to enhance the efficiency of our operating models through development and achieve ongoing improvement in the customer experience we provide. We also look forward to exploring and locating new business opportunities, says Miikka Karjaluoto, Director, Business Development at SATO. Miikka Karjaluoto will take up his new post once his replacement as Director, Tampere region has been recruited and taken up that post. CV Miikka Karjaluoto b. 1974, education: MSc (Econ & Bus Admin) With SATO since 2009 Key work experience: SATO Corporation Regional Director 20162022 Investment Manager 20112016 Customer Service Manager 20102011 Business Development Manager 20092010 TeliaSonera Finland, 19992009, multiple posts, most recently Senior Business Controller For more information please contact: SATO Corporation, Antti Aarnio, President and CEO, phone +358 201 344 200 antti.aarnio@sato.fi SATO Corporation, Miikka Karjaluoto, Director, Business Development, phone +358 201 344 068 miikka.karjaluoto@sato.fi SATO Corporation is an expert in sustainable rental housing and one of Finlands largest rental housing providers. SATO owns around 25,000 rental homes in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Tampere and Turku. SATO aims to provide an excellent customer experience and a comprehensive range of urban rental housing alternatives with good access to public transport and services. We promote sustainable development and work in open interaction with our stakeholders. SATO invests profitably, sustainably and with a long-term view. We increase the value of our assets through investments, divestments and repairs. In 2021, SATO Groups net sales totalled EUR 298.3 million, operating profit EUR 304.5 million and profit before taxes EUR 259.4 million. The value of SATOs investment properties is around EUR 5 billion. www.sato.fi Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. All NCLH Shareholders, Retail or Institutional, are Invited to Submit Questions for Management MIAMI, Sept. 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: NCLH) (together with NCL Corporation Ltd., Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings or the Company) announced today its new shareholder Q&A and engagement platform is now open for questions ahead of its investor & analyst event being held on Thursday, October 6th at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. Starting today, all NCLH shareholders can submit and upvote questions by visiting: NCLH Investor Event Q&A link. The Q&A platform will remain open until October 4, at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Management will address a selection of top ranked, appropriate, questions relating to business and financial results or strategic priorities during the upcoming event. Attendance at the live investor event is by invitation only. The event will be simultaneously live streamed to all interested parties via the Companys Investor Relations website https://www.nclhltd.com/investors. A replay of the event, including the related slide presentations, will be available here on the Companys website for 30 days following the event. About Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: NCLH) is a leading global cruise company which operates the Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises brands. With a combined fleet of 29 ships with nearly 62,000 berths, these brands offer itineraries to approximately 500 destinations worldwide. The Company has eight additional ships scheduled for delivery through 2027, comprising approximately 20,000 berths. Investor Relations and Media Contacts Jessica John (305) 468-2339 InvestorRelations@nclcorp.com Company appoints Bets Lillo, an expert in areas of sustainability and supply chain to help lead and advise on the company's vision for growth DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- River Logic, a provider of advanced network optimization and decision support technology, today announced the appointment of Bets Lillo to its Board of Directors. As an active advisor for technology companies across cybersecurity, telecommunications and flexible circuit businesses, Lillo guides a range of companies to deliver sustainable, resilient, and transformative capabilities. Bets Lillo, River Logic "Bets impressed us with her deep knowledge and extensive supply chain and sustainability expertise," said Kevin Howe, River Logic's Chairman & CEO. "Her leadership abilities and experience will be invaluable as we accelerate our expansion and continue to evolve our technology solutions globally. We are excited to have Bets on our Board and look forward to working closely with her." In the fall of 2021, Bets Lillo joined the top-rated business school at Texas Christian University as an Executive in Residence, teaching courses in supply chain and global business. Her distinguished corporate career includes domestic and international leadership roles spanning technology, operations, M&A and finance at IBM, AT&T, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie. "River Logic's value chain optimization technology is a game-changer for integrating financial and operational data," said Lillo. "River Logic affords companies resilience without over-buying inventory and delivers on the promise of supply chain technology amidst scarce digital talent." An NACD certified corporate director and member of the organization's climate cohort, Bets is a sought-after speaker on the topics of sustainability, ESG and supply chain at the board level. Bets' community engagement includes board director service with the World Affairs Council of Dallas Fort Worth and the Dallas Chapter of the International Women's Forum. Bets served as the National Board Director Committee Chair for the Private Directors Association and a member of its Technology Governance Committee during the organization's meteoric growth from four to 19 chapters and has been a member of Purdue University's Biomedical Engineering Advisory Board for over a decade. Story continues About River Logic Technology from Texas-based River Logic creates the confidence leaders need to solve complex planning problems across the enterprise. Purpose-built for business users, their platform enables end-to-end business optimization via advanced analytics and a revolutionary cloud experience that offers rapid scenario collaboration, data management, workflows, BI reporting, scalability and more. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/river-logic-announces-new-appointment-to-board-of-directors-301633232.html SOURCE River Logic, Inc. TORONTO, ON and NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2022 / Sekur Private Data Ltd. (OTCQX: SWISF) (CSE: SKUR) (FRA: GDT0) ("Sekur" or the "Company"), the leader in Swiss hosted secure communications and secure data management, is pleased announce that is has surpassed its paid users target for 2022, as indicated in the FRC Fundamental Research Report dated Sept 2022. The Company is continuing to push its consumer sales, as it is experiencing strong momentum in sales and is working on its SMB and Enterprise users' targets, with its SEO and targeted marketing strategy, starting Q1 2023. Sekur also plans to launch several solutions in Q4 2022 and all of 2023, such as SekurShare, SekurPassword, SekurVPN, SekurVoice and SekurPro. These solutions are planned for consumers, SMBs, enterprises and governmental organizations, and are expected to increase the Company's sales and ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). Alain Ghiai, CEO of Sekur Private Data said: "We are excited have exceeded our paid users' target for 2022. Despite recessionary talks, we have seen a robust growth in our users' base and our sales and expect this growth to continue. People will need privacy and security and send emails, even during recessions. We continue to expand Sekur into the enterprise sector with new features such as mass onboarding and archiving features. Our company is getting recognition and we feel the momentum becoming stronger every quarter. As we are not connected to any Big Tech platform, we can offer a truly independent, private and secure means of communications without any data mining or location mining, through our proprietary technology and our secure servers based in Switzerland. We look forward in continuing to offer true data privacy to all individuals and their businesses and protect their intellectual property, and their privacy, from data miners and malicious hackers." SekurMessenger also comes with a proprietary feature and technology called "Chat-By-Invite". This feature allows a SekurMessenger user ("SM user") invite a non-SM user, or a group of non-SM users, to chat in a fully private and secure way, without the recipient ever having to register to SekurMessenger or download the app. At the end of the chat, the initiator of the conversation can remotely terminate the conversation and all traces of the conversation are deleted from all users, including the recipient. This unique feature is now fully deployed and functional on all iOS and Android devices and web platforms. The target sectors are numerous, including but not limited to real estate, legal, finance, insurance, medical, government, energy, manufacturing, trade and pharmaceutical sectors. The invite can be sent via Email or SMS. As of now, Sekur has enabled invites in 61 countries, and will add more countries as Sekur expands globally. The countries activated currently are: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Csech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Vatican City. SekurMessenger also eliminates many of the privacy and security risks by not only not requiring a phone number, which would divulge a user's phone device ID, but also by not social engineering a user's phone or computer contact list and infecting the contacts by default as well, eliminating a huge loophole in security and privacy. SekurMessenger issues each user a username and a Sekur number. The Sekur number is the contact ID a user would disclose in order for other Sekur users to be added. The service comes with a self-destruct timer and other features as well, including Sekur's proprietary VirtualVaults and HeliX technologies with all data stored in Swiss hosted encrypted servers. Sekur, which includes SekurMessenger and SekurMail, is part of a bundle of email, messaging and file transfer into one application, includes the Company's latest SekurMail technology, which includes proprietary anti-phishing and privacy feature called SekurSend. SekurSend lets a user send an email to any other recipient, whether they have Sekur or not, in full privacy and security as the email never leaves Sekur 's encrypted email servers based in Switzerland. The recipient can then click on the notification and reply in the same manner using SekurReply, without the recipient having to register for a Sekur account. The sender can also decide to protect any email sent by adding a password to open it, a read-limit and a self-destruct timer as well. Sending an email with the SekurSend feature allows the senders and recipients to add limitless size attachments to the emails without crowding the recipients' email box. This also eliminates BEC attacks for businesses and email phishing attacks. Additionally, SekurMail includes full control of email delivery, automatic data export for large Enterprises and an automatic Data Loss Prevention technology ("DLP") with real time continuous archiving. Recent data breaches in messaging applications have created a certain urgency for businesses and data privacy advocates to protect their communications form cyber-attacks and identity theft via mobile and desktop devices. Sekur's Data privacy solutions are all hosted in Switzerland, protecting users' data from any outside data intrusion requests. In Switzerland, the right to privacy is guaranteed in article 13 of the Swiss Federal Constitution. The Federal Act on Data Protection ("FADP") of 19 June 1992 (in force since 1993) has set up a strict protection of privacy by prohibiting virtually any processing of personal data which is not expressly authorized by the data subjects. The protection is subject to the authority of the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. Under Swiss federal law, it is a crime to publish information based on leaked "secret official discussions." In 2010 the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland found that IP addresses are personal information and that under Swiss privacy laws they may not be used to track Internet usage without the knowledge of the individuals involved. About Sekur Private Data Ltd. Sekur Private Data Ltd. is a Cybersecurity and Internet privacy provider of Swiss hosted solutions for secure communications and secure data management. The Company distributes a suite of secure cloud-based storage, disaster recovery, document management, encrypted e-mails, and secure communication tools. Sekur Private Data Ltd. sells its products through its websites www.sekur.com and www.sekursuite.com, and approved distributors, and telecommunications companies worldwide. Sekur Private Data Ltd. serves consumers, businesses and governments worldwide. On behalf of Management SEKUR PRIVATE DATA LTD. Alain Ghiai President and Chief Executive Officer +1.416.644.8690 corporate@sekurprivatedata.com For more information, please contact Sekur Private Data at corporate@sekurprivatedata.com or visit us at https://www.sekurprivatedata.com For more information on Sekur visit us at: https://www.sekur.com . Forward Looking Information This news release contains certain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws ("forward-looking statements"). All statements other than statements of present or historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "achieve", "could", "believe", "plan", "intend", "objective", "continuous", "ongoing", "estimate", "outlook", "expect", "project" and similar words, including negatives thereof, suggesting future outcomes or that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations; they are not guaranteeing future performance. Sekur 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 Sekur's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the future of the Company's business; the success of marketing and sales efforts of the Company; the projections prepared in house and projections delivered by channel partners; the Company's ability to complete the necessary software updates; increases in sales as a result of investments software development technology; consumer interest in the Products; future sales plans and strategies; reliance on large channel partners and expectations of renewals to ongoing agreements with these partners; anticipated events and trends; the economy and other future conditions; and other risks and uncertainties, including those described in Sekur's prospectus dated May 8, 2019 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available on www.sedar.com. 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, Sekur undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information. SOURCE: Sekur Private Data Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/717333/Sekur-Private-Data-Surpasses-2022-Users-Target--Sees-No-Recession-in-Sight-for-its-Sekur-Privacy-Communications-Solutions Beijing, China--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2022) - Terminus Group, the global smart services and AIoT solutions provider, has officially announced the appointment of Dr. Hua Xiansheng (Aaron Hua) as the company's new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). A fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Dr. Hua is also a distinguished scientist and member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Terminus Group officially appoints Dr. Hua Xiansheng as the companys CTO To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8457/138054_picture1.jpg Dr. Hua will be responsible for planning the research and development (R&D) of the Group's next generation and innovative technologies, implementing strategy of product and technology development, and promoting the commercialization and application in key areas such as urban digitalization and sustainability. Before joining Terminus Group, Dr. Hua has appeared on the list of Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review. Additionally, Dr. Hua has served as the director of the City Brain Lab, AI Center of Damo Academy, the vice-president and senior researcher of Alibaba Group, and was responsible for technology research and development and application in the field of visual intelligent computing on the cloud. In this latter role, Dr. Hua and his team promoted several provincial and municipal-level implementations of national projects in Hangzhou, Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, among others. Commenting on his appointment, Dr. Hua said: "I feel very honored to join Terminus to further develop the companys commercialization of innovative technology. At present, we are going through the third stage of an in-depth development of AIoT technology. In the first two stages, we achieved deep integration of machine learning and industry scenarios, which highlighted that all industries will be affected by technology. However, the core value of technology still needs to go deep into the industry to solve practical problems. Story continues In the third stage, we should promote more industry practitioners to join in, combine the capabilities of AIoT technology and product experts, and solve real-world problems in a creative way. This requires us to better develop AIoT's capabilities, to make technology more platformizational and introduce systematization, as well as to promote the implementation and reform of AIoT together with industry experts. According to Dr. Hua, one of the key reasons for joining Terminus Group is that the company is putting the capabilities of the third stage of technology development into practice, creating real and irreplaceable value for many industries, and making AIoT truly realize large-scale landing. Dr. Huas reputation in the academic field is also highly regarded, having published more than 300 papers in international mainstream conferences and journals. Individually, he has more than 100 authorized patents, and he has served as the deputy editor of several academic journals. Dr. Hua has also served as chairman of the program committee of top academic conferences such as ACM Multimedia and IEEE ICME, and won the best paper awards in many international conferences and journals. Dr. Huas record for commercialization of scientific research is also one of his key achievements, with a particular focus on large-scale AI analysis, identification, search and mining and AI system research and development. Indeed, his research and development achievements have been widely applied across smart city development, industrial manufacturing, medical health, agricultural science and technology, Internet media, and other fields. Following his graduation from Peking University, Dr. Hua worked in Microsoft Research Asia, Microsoft Bing and Microsoft Research, and was engaged in the research and development of multimedia, computer vision and machine learning. While working at Microsoft, Dr. Hua promoted the development of automatic movie and video search, and achieved a number of technological breakthroughs, which today remain widely used across Microsoft product lines. Welcoming Dr. Hua to the company, Victor AI, Founder and CEO of Terminus Group, said: "We are very happy to have such an insightful and acclaimed person, like Dr. Hua, joining us at Terminus Group. Dr. Hua arrives with a wealth of experience in scientific research and technology implementation, which will undoubtedly help the company lay a solid foundation for the further breakthroughs and large-scale implementation of science and technology. Since its founding, Terminus Group has been determined to develop unique products and the application and development of AIoT technology. Bringing the right people on board who can help Terminus Group achieve its strategic upgrade to turn its technology and landing experiences to platform-based applications, to meet changing market environment and demand." Dr. Hua joins other IEEE fellows Dr. Ling Shao and Dr. Yang Yang, who also recently joined Terminus Group and are respectively responsible for the company's technology research and development in the direction of AI and IoT with mature technology research and development and business implementation experience teams. Kratos Fan 001-626-4568311 fan.lvwei@tslsmart.com United States www.terminusgroup.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/138054 TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ - The Toronto Star is proud to be a partner for a new season of The Manjit Minhas Podcast, scheduled to launch on Monday, Sept. 26, on the Toronto Star Podcast Network. Season 3 will feature 12 original episodes and is produced by Mixxable, a podcast network owned by Influicity. The show has been a Top 10 podcast in the business category, featuring Minhas interviewing notable Canadian guests from the world of business and entrepreneurship, such as Andrew Chau of Neo Financial, Joanna Griffiths of Knix and Michele Romanow of Clearco. "We are excited to have Manjit's podcast hosted on our network," says Anne Marie Owens, Editor in Chief of the Toronto Star. "She is an accomplished leader in the business community in Canada and this show builds on our existing strength in the business podcast space, with Millennial Money and Responsible Investing. Manjit Minhas is a renowned Canadian entrepreneur and stars in CBC's acclaimed show Dragons' Den, which she joined in season 11. The Calgary native brings over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience to the table, having started her business, Minhas Breweries, with her brother Ravinder Minhas in 1999. "We are thrilled to be bringing Manjit Minhas back to the podcast airwaves and excited to be doing it with the Toronto Star," says Influicity CEO Jon Davids. "Manjit has such a unique perspective on entrepreneurship, and we've seen her develop new connections with the audience over the last two seasons. The Toronto Star will elevate her reach and impact in a whole new way." The Manjit Minhas Podcast will be available on all major podcast platforms including Thestar.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. About The Toronto Star The Toronto Star is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in Canada, with more than 5.0 million readers every week in print and online (thestar.com). Founded in 1892, the Toronto Star is the winner of more than 140 National Newspaper Awards, the most prestigious newspaper prize in Canada. It is known for its investigative reporting, insightful opinion writing and comprehensive coverage of local, national and international news. It has also been making a difference in the lives of children for more than 100 years through the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund and the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund. Story continues About Influicity Influicity is a media company working across podcast, influencer, and paid media platforms. Through its podcast network Mixxable.com, the company has grown to become a leading podcast producer with shows such as Touchbistro's RestoTalk and BMO's Smarter Investing. SOURCE Toronto Star Cision View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2022/26/c8243.html Deal marks first time the two global brands have collaborated BEIJING, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Music Group for Brands (UMGB China), the global brand partnerships division of Universal Music Group (UMG), today announced that it has signed an agreement with leading carmaker Shanghai General Motors Buick (Buick) for a first-of-its-kind collaboration that will see the companies launch a new original musical project inspired by the carmaker, titled "Guang Zhi Suo Xiang (Where Light Lives)". The song has been released globally on Republic Records China. The iconic automobile brand officially debuted the song during its "2022 Buick Owners Day" event in late August, with the highly anticipated music video released on September 5th, performed by Buick's newly announced "Friend of Buick Brand", renowned Chinese musical performer Liu Lingfei (Liam Liu). (Left: Liu Lingfei [Liam Liu], Right: Aaron Wang - Chief Financial Officer and Head of Brand Partnerships for UMG Greater China) The song, entitled "Guang Zhi Suo Xiang (Where Light Lives)", is dedicated to Buick drivers for the "2022 Buick Owners Day", the annual celebration gala for Buick in China. The song and its accompanying music video are crafted to depict Buick owners' lives and deepen their pride of Buick ownership. The song's performer, Liu Lingfei, is a leading actor in Chinese musical theater, who has starred in dozens of musicals, such as the original Chinese musical "White Night" and "The Lost World", as well as the Broadway musical "Cats" and "The Changeling Doctor". (Liu Lingfei [Liam Liu], Friend of Buick Brand) Aaron Wang, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Brand Partnerships for UMG Greater China, said, "Buick and UMGB China are both dedicated to building a stage for outstanding music performance that can resonate with people. The co-creation of the theme song explores the possibility of harnessing music as a powerful medium to connect with targeted audiences. We are thrilled to help Buick infuse their brand concept through music, and to create culturally relevant and artist-driven content that will resonate with current and future Buick owners in China." Story continues The collaboration involves a full spectrum of integrated marketing, from the customization of the music release, artist endorsement, creative visuals, online and offline events, to a series of publicity stunts, as well as the vinyl production of the song. ### Notes to Editors: Please click here to access more content assets. ### About Universal Music Group for Brands Leveraging the power of music and culture to accelerate business, UMG for Brands offers a unique global approach to making brands culturally relevant and brand marketing, with teams across 74 global markets. Whether a brand is looking to shift perception, reach a new generation, boost sales or build loyalty; UMG for Brands helps define a brand's authentic voice in culture. Recent CLIO and Cannes Lions wins are a testament of the true synergy that can be achieved between culturally relevant artists and brands. (PRNewsfoto/Universal Music Group for Brands UMGB China) SOURCE Universal Music Group for Brands UMGB China By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has discussed regional security, as well as multifaceted cooperation with his counterparts on the margins of the 77th UN General Assembly in New York, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. Slovenia During a meeting with his Slovenian counterpart Tanja Fajon in New York, Bayramov stressed the importance of the two nations' political and economic cooperation, emphasizing the need to explore the potential for growing partnerships in economic, investment, tourism, and other sectors. The minister briefed the opposite side on the history of Armenia's aggression towards Azerbaijan, its provocations in the post-conflict period, and the large-scale mine threats in the region. Noting that Azerbaijan and Slovenia have good relations, Fajon expressed a desire in developing cooperation in the economic and energy sectors. She emphasized the need for expanding Slovenia's cooperation with Azerbaijan in the demining field as well. Albania Bayramov and his Albanian colleague Olta Xhacka met in New York to discuss the present state and prospects of bilateral ties between Azerbaijan and Albania, as well as regional issues. Bayramov expressed pleasure with the advancement of the Azerbaijan-Albania bilateral ties in a variety of spheres. The significance of high-level political engagement and interactions between the two nations for increasing bilateral cooperation was emphasized. Bayramov underlined the importance of the Southern Gas Corridor, adding that cooperation in the energy field is one of the main directions of Azerbaijan-Albania relations. Furthermore, the Azerbaijani top diplomat informed the opposing party of Armenia's recent provocation, noting that it was a flagrant violation of the trilateral statements, as well as the agreements reached by the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders under the auspices of European Union Council President Charles Michel, undermining the EU's mediation efforts. In reply, the Albanian minister stated that his nation is interested in expanding the relations with Azerbaijan. She expressed pleasure with the Azerbaijani-Albanian cooperation within international institutions, emphasizing that it is critical to maintaining dialogue on international and regional problems of mutual importance. The meeting also discussed the opportunities for extending cooperation in economic, trade, energy, investment, tourism, and other spheres, as well as the further development of political relations between the two nations. Andorra During his visit to New York, Bayramov met with Andorran Foreign Minister Maria Ubach i Font to discuss the future of bilateral ties. Bayramov said that diplomatic relations between the two nations are flourishing, adding that Azerbaijan is interested in cooperating with Andorra in a variety of fields, including tourism and education. During the meeting, the minister informed the other party about the post-conflict situation in the South Caucasus. Font expressed her satisfaction with Azerbaijan-Andorra relations, calling for the expansion of cooperation within the relevant forums at a number of international organizations. The minister stressed that Andorran companies are keen on cooperating with Azerbaijan due to the country's favorable business environment. SAN ANTONIO, September 26, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO, "Valero") reduced its debt by approximately $1.25 billion in September through its previously announced tender offers for various series of Valeros senior notes, which Valero funded with cash on hand. This transaction, combined with debt reduction and refinancing transactions completed in the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022, collectively reduced Valeros debt by approximately $3.6 billion. About Valero Valero Energy Corporation, through its subsidiaries (collectively, "Valero"), is an international manufacturer and marketer of petroleum-based and low-carbon liquid transportation fuels and petrochemical products, and sells its products primarily in the United States ("U.S."), Canada, the United Kingdom ("U.K."), Ireland and Latin America. Valero owns 15 petroleum refineries located in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.2 million barrels per day. Valero is a joint venture member in Diamond Green Diesel Holdings LLC, which owns a renewable diesel plant in Norco, Louisiana with a production capacity of 700 million gallons per year, and Valero owns 12 ethanol plants located in the Mid-Continent region of the U.S. with a combined production capacity of approximately 1.6 billion gallons per year. Valero manages its operations through its Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol segments. Please visit www.investorvalero.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220926005797/en/ Contacts Investors: Homer Bhullar, Vice President Investor Relations and Finance, 210-345-1982 Eric Herbort, Director Investor Relations, 210-345-3331 Gautam Srivastava, Senior Manager Investor Relations, 210-345-3992 Media: Lillian Riojas, Executive Director Media Relations and Communications, 210-345-5002 Sure, realistic fiction is great, but nothing sparks the imagination like speculative fiction, which is basically the umbrella term that covers anything outside of our own world. This includes science fiction, horror, the supernatural and fantasy, within which are many subgenres such as alternate history or dystopian fiction (a personal fave). Speculative fiction asks the question What if? What if an asteroid split the moon in two? What if ghosts were real? The possibilities are only limited by the authors and readers imaginations. You may be familiar with authors of speculative fiction such as Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, or more contemporary authors such as Stephen King and Margaret Atwood. But there exists a whole world of authors from different cultures and countries that weave their unique experiences, traditions and imaginations into answering that alluring question What if? For National Hispanic Heritage Month, Id like to highlight some horror, science fiction and fantasy written by Hispanic authors: The Hacienda by Isabel Canas. In this novel of supernatural suspense, Beatrizs father is executed and her home destroyed during the overthrow of the Mexican government. In search of security, Beatriz allows herself to be seduced by the dashing Don Rodolfo Solorzano, despite rumors of what happened to his first wife, in order to have a home in his countryside estate. But when Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, things get strange in the Hacienda San Isidro. Beatriz feels invisible eyes watching her, and Rudolfos sister, Juana, refuses to enter the house at night. Beatrizs sleep is disturbed by strange visions and voices. And what really happened to the first Dona Solorzano? Desperate, Beatriz turns to young priest Padre Andres for help. It is Andres skills as a witch that are needed to combat the evil presence haunting the hacienda. Five Midnights by Ann Davila Cardinal. Visiting her fathers family in Puerto Rico for the summer, Lupes love of true crime becomes all too real when she visits one of several crime scenes overseen by her police-chief uncle. When Lupe discovers that someone (or something) is going after a group of estranged friends who called themselves los cangrejos and that her cousin was also a cangrejo, it becomes personal. Lupe pairs up with another cangrejo and recovering addict Javier to try to save her cousin before its too late. Delving into the world of addiction and gang-related drug crimes, while simultaneously illuminating the spirit of Puerto Rico, Cardinals debut is an intriguing tale of horror. Reclaim the Stars: 17 Tales Across Realms and Space, edited by Zoraida Cordova. This anthology by a variety of science fiction and fantasy authors from across the Latin American diaspora invites you to stretch your imagination further than you ever thought possible. Organized into three broad categories, each story is its own gem, tackling outer space, Shakespearean blood feuds and doomed lovers, social justice and beyond. Carefully curated by editor Cordova, this exciting anthology stands out. The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias. Southern noir meets genre-bending storytelling in this dark thriller by the award-winning Iglesias. Desperately in debt from his young daughters illness and with his marriage collapsing, Mario reluctantly takes a job hijacking a cartels cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. With an old friend and a cartel insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on a mission that could either leave him $200,000 richer or dead. As the trio makes its way through Texas, across the border and back, hidden motivations emerge alongside inexplicable, chilling encounters. Even if Mario makes it back alive, he will never be the same. The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia MorenoGarcia. In this reimagining of the classic H.G. Wells story, young Carlota Moreau lives on a remote Mexico estate along with her father, the eccentric Dr. Moreau, his assistant Montgomery Laughton, and their experiments. Known as hybrids, these experiments are part-human, part-animal monstrosities, designed to blindly obey their creator. The project is financed by the wealthy Lizalde family, and, when the heedless but charming patrons son Eduardo Lizalde shows up unannounced, the estates balance is overturned. His arrival ignites both Carlotas questions about her fathers many secrets as well as unrealized passion. Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin . Kentukis, or little eyes, have pervaded the world. Little plush toys with cameras for eyes and wheels for feet, theyre connected to an anonymous global server and are everywhere, from homes in Hong Kong, shops in Vancouver, schools in Tel Aviv, and bedrooms in Ohio. Some kentukis can serve as cute pets, even with a stranger watching from behind their eyes. Or, you might be the kentuki, a voyeur in someone elses life where you control the creatures actions. Kentukis have helped save lives, uncovered illicit love affairs, provided new virtual families and fostered vicarious experiences around the globe. There is beauty in the possibilities of connection created by kentukis, but what happens when things go awry? Visit librarypoint.org/hispanic-heritage/ to explore more books, films and resources in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. While first-responders assured the Fredericksburg community theyre doing everything they can to protect students from todays threatsranging from the possibility of an active shooter to a fake report of a bomb in the schoolanother speaker encouraged the audience to embrace laughter as good medicine, both to live longer and to increase brain power. And as comments from parents illustrated, the first Family Academy presented by the Fredericksburg City Public Schools Saturday at James Monroe High School couldnt have been more timely. On four consecutive days in the past two weeks, James Monroe has been evacuated after someone called in a threat that turned out to be false. The FBI calls the action swatting because it involves a call to 911 that draws a massive response from law enforcement, usually a SWAT team. The hoax has been around at least since 2008, according to the FBI website, but its been disturbingly popular this month. On one day aloneMonday, Sept. 19at least 11 school systems across Virginia reported lockdowns from shooters or bombs, including Fredericksburg, Charlottesville and the counties of Culpeper and Fauquier, Arlington and Loudoun. Raygan DeCarlo, a mother of six, asked those gathered Saturday for some answers. Im hearing from the kids theres a bomb threat, that a bomb, that there was smoke. I dont know whats true because the schools not telling us anything, nothing, she said during a question-and-answer portion of the safety forum. We have no idea from the school or from the police why the school is being evacuated. Her voice cracked from both nervousness and concern as she continued: You guys are telling us theres police dogs going through our schools. The parents have a right to know why, dont we? Her emotional pleas, which included a desire to help in any way she could, illustrated some of the ongoing issues schools are facing. Whether swatting is yet another fallout from COVID-19 isnt clear, said Dr. Matt Eberhardt, deputy superintendent for Fredericksburg schools. I do know were seeing more emotional needs than weve ever seen before, he told about 45 people gathered in the school auditorium. One positive aspect of the pandemic was increased interest from the community in connecting with schools and thats why Fredericksburg planned its first of several Family Academy events, said Superintendent Marci Catlett. Saturdays program included Marcia Tate, a renowned educational consultant, author and speaker who encouraged audience members to get up, introduce themselves and talk with someonepreferably a person they didnt knowabout the questions she posed to them. And to have a good time while doing it. She held herself up as an example of the beneficial power of laughter, which research has shown boosts the immune system by increasing the production of antibodies that prevent infection. I not only teach this, I practice this, she said, animatedly walking the aisles, telling the audience shes 71 next week. She said thats the only way she could have worked as an educator and consultant for 49 years because she didnt start when she was 6. However, that is when she decided to become a teacher. She lined up all her dolls and instructed them for hours. I didnt have a single behavioral problem, she said. Tate also recognized that brains are wired differently these days than 40 years ago as a result of changing times, ranging from different family structures to more exposure to violence. She said children are coming to school angry because no one in their lives is talking, reading or singing to them at early ages and getting their brains ready for learning. If you dont get anything else out of this seminar, please go home and rock, hold and love these babies, Tate said. More information about her message, which focuses on preparing children for success in school and life, is available at her website, drmarciatate.com. Before Tates session, representatives from Fredericksburg Police, the Sheriffs Office, Fire and Rescue and the schools presented detailed information about efforts to avoid the pretty horrific events in Texas that have us all concerned, Eberhardt said. In May, a teenager entered an elementary school in Uvalde, killed 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 others. Fredericksburg officials had active shooter plans in place before that event, the officials said, but met in earnest in recent months to updateand upgradethem. As a result, every school employee has received crisis and emergency management training. All plans have been approved by law enforcement and emergency services, Eberhardt said. If we look at some of the things in Texas and other places, I want to assure everyone that law enforcement has open access to our buildings, he continued. We have made badges readily available for them, we have put keys in the hands of officers and vehicles so there should never be an issue that someone cannot get into one of our buildings. The school system has used state grants to create digital maps of schools that show emergency exits, alarms, cameras and fire extinguishers that are accessible by the 911 center. Should an emergency call be placed from a school, it wont just say the phone call came from Hugh Mercer, it will actually say it came from Hugh Mercer, Room 118, Eberhardt said. Fredericksburg plans to use another state grant to purchase radios that connect the school system with the police department, he said. Another lesson learned from Uvalde is the need for police to be able to access locked doors in schools and Police Chief Brian Layton said his department is purchasing breaching kitswith items like axes, cutting tools and pry barsfor every school. Some department vehicles currently have the kits, but for safety, Layton wants them in every school. Sheriffs Capt. Scott Foster said he hoped those gathered would take one message from the meeting, that were all here for the same mission, to support schools and the community. During questions from the audience, parents voiced concerns that were exactly opposite from issues raised more than two years ago when protesters across the nation suggested defunding the police or removing all resource officers from schools. Local parents wanted to know how many more school resource officers Fredericksburg could put in place and if items, such as metal detectors, could be used at school entrances. DeCarlo and another mother, Melissa Battiste, said after the session that while they appreciate the concerted efforts of first-responders, theyre practically begging them to keep parents in the loop as much as possible. They described the alarm they felt recently when their kids called thembefore the school system sent out any alertsto say James Monroe had been evacuated and students were told to get out and leave their phones, purses or backpacks behind, if necessary. It is very scary, DeCarlo said. Charges are pending against a woman involved in a fatal crash in Westmoreland County last week, Virginia State Police said. The crash occurred about 4:15 p.m. Thursday at the intersection of Oldhams and Sandy Point roads, Sgt. Jessica Shehan said. Shehan said a 2004 Ford Expedition had turned onto Sandy Point Road without yielding when it was struck by a 1991 Mack CH613 tractor-trailer. The Ford driver, 23-year-old Gabrielle M. Campbell of Williamsburg, was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. Her front-seat passenger, 26-year-old Keywon Marquee Gaskins of Westmoreland, was ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene. Shehan said both Gaskins and Campbell were wearing seat belts. Timothy M. Johnson Jr., 35, of Farnham, the tractor-trailer driver, was flown to a hospital to be treated for serious injuries, police said. Charges are pending against Campbell, Shehan said. A state police crash reconstruction team is investigating the crash. The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing Tuesday night to address ordinances concerning a proposed waterpark resort. The public hearing will address Kalahari Resorts & Conventions interest in obtaining a loan through a Virginia tourism program that requires the state and county to help cover the costs with tax revenue earned by the resort. The meeting, which starts at 6 p.m., will be held at the Holbert Building. In July, supervisors approved rezoning nearly 135 acres between U.S. 1 and Interstate 95 from agricultural to planned development commercial so Kalahari can build the resort. The property is in an area designated for growth, aimed at tourism, near the southernmost I95 interchange in the county. Plans for the Wisconsin-based companys resort call for more than 1.38 million square feet of commercial space, a 267,429 square-foot indoor water park, a 10-acre outdoor water park, a 900-room hotel and a 156,278 square-foot convention center. In an effort to draw Kalahari to Spotsylvania, the overall agreement includes big tax breaks on revenue generated through the resort over 20 years, amounting to an estimated $185 million in savings for the resort. The water park also is expected to inject millions into the countys coffers. According to the countys summary for the public hearing, Kalahari will invest more than $500 million to build the park, along with creating more than $500 million in new jobs. Kalahari is seeking the loan through the states Tourism Development Financing Program to help cover 30% of the project cost, the minimum required through the program. In the agreement, the county and state would join with Kalahari on the gap loan. The countys estimated cost for its contribution would amount to $74.8 million over 20 years. According to the countys summary for the meeting, the countys exposure would be limited to an amount equivalent to the 2% sales and use tax derived solely from the Kalahari project until debt service on the gap financing is complete. The ordinance being considered would adopt the Spotsylvania County Tourism Comprehensive Marketing plan, which determines that the Kalahari project meets a deficiency specifically the need to increase the number of visitors, the duration of the stays of visitors, and the number of quality new attractions and hotels in Spotsylvanias inventory. The other ordinance related to Kalahari calls for the supervisors to acknowledge that the project will address the tourism deficiency and allows the county administrator to enter into the agreement. Water and sewer bonds The board also is slated to hold a public hearing Tuesday regarding the allocation of up to $69.2 million in bond funds for water and sewer infrastructure projects. The funds would be used to improve and expand the countys water and sewer system. The board will have to adjust the budget to incorporate the water and sewer funding, which will require a future public hearing. The county has three wastewater treatment plants, two water plants and three reservoirs, along with 47 pump stations, seven water tanks and more than 1,200 miles of pipes. The bond funds would provide funding for a range of projects, including $22.6 million for the Massaponax wastewater treatment plant expansion and $6 million for Thornburg wastewater treatment plant upgrades. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin visited Stafford County on Monday afternoon to tour a virtual learning laboratory and donate more than $40,000 of his salary to the local nonprofit thats helping high school students earn a degree and pursue a career in the information technology field after graduation. At the end of the day, this is about talent and this is about aspirations and this is about community and this is about vision and this is about commitment, Youngkin said. Most importantly, this is about believing. Believing in each other and believing that together, we can in fact do more. Youngkin, who was accompanied by first lady Suzanne Youngkin, delivered his remarks at GCubed, a North Stafford-based government contracting agency that specializes in IT and cybersecurity. The governor said GCubeds nonprofitG Community Servicesimproves lives and strengthens communities and is an inspiration in the Fredericksburg region. The fact that youre able to work together in order to bring science and technology and engineering and arts and math together with students who have a passion, Youngkin said. That passion is what translates into both learning and opportunity. Vernon Green, president of GCubed, said he formed the nonprofit about eight years ago. Since then, he has partnered with Stafford County Public Schools and Germanna Community College to provide the Cyber-4+ program in all five Stafford high schools. Green said Youngkins donation of $43,700 about one third of the governors quarterly salarywill help his nonprofit expand its reach to twice as many schools in the greater Washington area. It allows students to graduate high school with an associate degree, their high school diploma and four (IT) certifications, Green said. Its a whole new curriculum which includes taking college-level classes to accomplish that cybersecurity associates degrees. Green said the Cyber 4+ pilot program has 20 students enrolled who will take summer courses at Germanna Community College in addition to their work in high school. Mountain View High School senior Logan Stumpf said he first heard about the program through his advanced programming teacher. Today, hes learning C#, a programming language thats used in the development of computer games. Theyve given me access to stuff I never would have had access to, Stumpf said. Were literally learning what I want to do as a job. Joshua Armah, also a senior at Mountain View High School, said he learned about the Cyber 4+ program the same time Stumpf did, but his interests lie in advanced computer information systems. We can take those skills that we learned in school and apply them here, Armah said. Were able to expand our knowledge and will apply what we learned to the workplace. Stafford Superintendent Thomas Taylor said the partnership with G Community Services benefits everyone in the community in terms of preparing a local workforce for the regions current cybersecurity community, and for other businesses and industries that may come to Stafford. We need partners, Taylor said. We need good friends, we need good neighbors and we need folks who are willing to step up and work with us to help us formulate the direction that we need to go. The nonprofit also offers assistance to veterans who are transitioning from the military to the civilian workforce. Green said Project Destiny allows active-duty military to prepare for civilian employment by joining a company as an intern. They still collect their military pay, but they get to intern at a company to prepare themselves to go into the civilian workforce, Green said. Youngkin, a multimillionaire who pledged to donate his state salary if he won the governorship, gave away the first chunk of his paycheck to the Virginia Law Enforcement Assistance Program in April. That group provides counseling to emergency responders. Green said news of the governors Monday visit came late last week after he had a conversation with Taylor about the Cyber 4 program. Green said about one hour after that call, Green was notified the governor would be in town Monday to learn more and make a donation. I love that hes putting his money where his mouth is in supporting good initiatives here in Virginia, Green said. We dont look for the accolades, but when they come, its a great honor and a privilege. Youngkin was in Stafford earlier this month to participate in the ceremonial signing of two bills that will eventually give military retirees a tax break of up to $40,000 of their annual retirement pay each year. The progressive deduction begins in tax year 2022 with a $10,000 deduction. A new wave of concern has spread across the United States over multi-colored "rainbow fentanyl" pills, powders and blocks -- that look similar to candy or sidewalk chalk -- being sold and used in several states, and potentially posing a threat to young people. But parents of young children should not overly panic, and the emergence of this new product is one small part of the larger ongoing opioid crisis. Rainbow fentanyl comes in bright colors and can be used in the form of pills or powder that contain illicit fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, making them extremely addictive and potentially deadly if someone overdoses while trying to achieve a high off of the drugs. This multi-colored fentanyl may appeal to young people or fool them into thinking it's safe, but experts say illicit fentanyl has been hiding in what appears to be other products for a long time, and fentanyl is fentanyl -- it's all dangerous, rainbow or not. "Colored fentanyl pills have been around for a few years. Typically, they've been blue pills labeled 'M30' to counterfeit oxycodone, which is a much weaker opioid," Joseph Palamar, an associate professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health, who has studied trends in illicit fentanyl, said in an email to CNN. Keep scrolling to see the 8 most commonly misused prescription drugs in the US "I think the big difference people are concerned about is with regard to accidental ingestion. People are worried that their kids will take one of these pills thinking they're another drug or even thinking they're some sort of candy," Palamar said. "I don't think the color of the pills greatly increases danger to people who don't use fentanyl, but there is always a possibility of someone who uses fentanyl leaving their pills around in the reach of children." He added, "We need to keep in mind that these pills cost money so people aren't going to be throwing them on the ground for kids to find. I don't think people will be giving these pills out as Halloween candy." Where rainbow fentanyl warning originated The US Drug Enforcement Administration released a warning in August advising the public of this "alarming emerging trend" of "colorful fentanyl available across the United States." At the time, the agency said that it and its law enforcement partners seized the brightly colored fentanyl and fentanyl pills across 18 states. Fentanyl remains the deadliest drug threat facing the nation, according to the DEA. But the DEA did not specify in its announcement whether rainbow fentanyl had led to overdoses or deaths among young people. "Rainbow fentanyl -- fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes -- is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in the August announcement. Since then, some colleges and universities are cautioning students about the presence and dangers of rainbow fentanyl, and the California Department of Public Health has alerted K-12 school administrators in the state about rainbow fentanyl being "a new trend." At Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora, physicians have been seeing more fentanyl exposures among both young children and adolescents, Dr. Sam Wang, the hospital's pediatric toxicologist, told CNN on Friday. While he and his colleagues are aware of rainbow fentanyl warnings, he hasn't heard any patients or parents mention it. After all, the bottom line, he said, is that fentanyl is fentanyl, whether it comes in the form of rainbow-colored pills or simply a white powder. "It's just coming out in a different form to potentially be more attractive, more quote unquote 'fun' to use because it looks potentially fun to take," said Wang, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. And when young people use illicit drugs, they sometimes don't know what they really contain, or how dangerous those substances might be. When it comes to rainbow fentanyl, "the fentanyl itself is going to be the same issue as the counterfeit pharmaceutical fentanyl. We don't know how much is in it -- it can vary. We don't know the type of fentanyl," Wang said. "And so those concerns transmit, still, over to this product. It's just now this looks like it has a potential danger for young children and then also, it's going to be more attractive for people to use and have consequences from that." The rise of fentanyl The United States has been facing an opioid overdose epidemic -- and waves of opioid overdose deaths -- for decades, starting with a rise in prescription opioid overdose deaths in the early 2000s, followed by a rise in heroin overdose deaths beginning in 2010 and, most recently, a rise in synthetic opioid overdose deaths that started in 2013, fueled by potent fentanyl. Pharmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic opioid intended to help patients, such as those with cancer, manage severe pain. It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and typically prescribed in the form of skin patches or lozenges. But most recent cases of fentanyl-related harm, overdose, and death in the United States are linked to illegally made fentanyl, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest data suggest that annual drug overdose deaths have jumped 44% from before the Covid-19 pandemic. There were about 76,000 deaths reported in the 12-month period ending March 2020. The CDC's latest provisional data show that more than 109,000 people in the United States died of a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending March 2022. Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, were involved in more than two-thirds of overdose deaths in the year ending March 2022. Deaths involving synthetic opioids increased by a staggering 80% over the past two years, CDC data shows. Rainbow fentanyl has been receiving attention due to the bright colors of the products, but the illicit fentanyl that the products contain represents a continuation of the ongoing opioid epidemic. The only difference between rainbow fentanyl and the fentanyl products of the past appears to be the coloring. "The reason it's colored is just to differentiate products. If we had a regulated market, they would be differentiated in different ways -- we do not. It has nothing to do with marketing to kids at all, period, whatsoever," said Maya Doe Simkins, co-founder of the Opioid Safety and Naloxone Network and co-director of Remedy Alliance, a collection of harm reduction groups that work to make naloxone more accessible. Simkins likened the different colors of rainbow fentanyl to how people used food coloring in heroin in the past, and she said the colors are sometimes used to differentiate batches. "It's just a differentiation between your product, my product or this batch and the next batch," she said. Increasing fentanyl seizures Illicit fentanyl has long been hiding in drugs, and its presence appears to be on the rise. A study, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence in May, found that the number of fentanyl-containing powder and pills seized by law enforcement in the United States rose between 2018 and 2021. The weight of powder fentanyl seizures increased from 298.2 kilograms in 2018 to 2,416 kilograms in 2021, and the number of pills seized increased from 42,202 in 2018 to 2,089,186 in 2021, according to the study, of which Palamar was the lead author. "We found that not only has fentanyl seizures been increasing, but the proportion of pills seized to overall fentanyl seizures has been increasing. The proportion of pill seizures increased from 14% in early 2018 to 29% in late 2021," Palamar wrote in his email to CNN. "We don't have information regarding what these seized pills were purported to be, but we think many were disguised as oxycodone or even Xanax," he wrote. "Seizures of these counterfeit pills have been increasing at a rapid rate, suggesting increasing availability, and availability is going to continue to increase." With this increase, counterfeit pills have been more difficult to identify, but Palamar said that people can use test strips to detect traces of illicit fentanyl if they have concerns. "People can purchase fentanyl test strips for as little as a dollar. Most of these strips are meant for urine testing but they can detect the presence of fentanyl if used correctly," Palamar wrote. "I highly recommend that anyone who plans to use an illegally purchased pill or an illegal powder like cocaine test the drug before using," he added. "There are also hundreds of newer fentanyl analogs and other opioids that can be very dangerous that test strips can't detect. I do worry that test strips will give some people a false sense of security, but they're something." Emily Brewer is a small-business owner and lifelong Isle of Wight County resident. She is also a state delegate but she doesnt have an internet connection at home. So Brewer, R-Suffolk, carries a portable Wi-Fi device with her pretty much everywhere. It suffices for when she needs to check email from her home, but she recalled how the increased need for virtual meetings amid the earlier days of the COVID-19 pandemic meant she had to spend long hours in the office at her wine shop in Suffolk in order to participate. I actually had to pretty much conduct the entire General Assembly session from the office of my business because I couldn't do it at my home, she said. According to 2020 census data, somewhere between 12% and 20% of homes lack broadband access - one of those Brewers. Neighboring counties, Southampton and Isle of Wight range between 20% and 24% of households lacking access the percentages climb higher in Southside and Southwest Virginia where more up to or more than 30% of households do not have internet. The idea of expanding broadband in rural areas is something Brewer is passionate about and she cites the intersectionality of benefits, such as remote work, telehealth, economic development and education. Brewer noted how the pandemic brought the issue of lack of access more to the forefront. With children trying to learn online in areas that didn't have internet, there was a vast difference, Brewer said. I think that everybody else finally understands that this is, you know, not a luxury. It's a necessity. Brewer and Del. David Reid, D-Loudoun, are among state legislators to advocate for funding to help rural localities build out broadband fiber. Reid points to investments in the state budget in recent years towards the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative as an example of something that has helped rural areas catch up. The program, which was first created in 2017, has offered grant opportunities for localities and cooperatives seeking to expand broadband access. Its something Reid said that Virginia should continue to invest in. Federal funds The U.S. Treasury announced in June that Virginia would get $220 million in federal grants to help build out broadband networks across the state. The department said Virginia would be one of the first states to receive grants from a $10 billion capital projects fund created in the American Rescue Plan Act that President Joe Biden signed into law last year. The grants will allow Virginia to expand high-speed internet service to almost 78,000 homes and businesses, about 28% of the users still lacking broadband access in the state. Virginia officials had anticipated the grants when then-Gov. Ralph Northam proposed to use more than $700 million to expand broadband networks, including about $500 million from the $4.3 billion the state received from the American Rescue Plan. The General Assembly approved the allocation of the ARPA funds in an August 2021 special session. Separately, the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that Biden signed in November is expected to provide at least $100 million for accelerating Virginia's efforts to achieve universal broadband access. Brewer noted how earlier this summer Suffolk, Isle of Wight and Southampton counties celebrated groundbreaking on a broadband project after teaming up on a $35 million grant application. The best thing for localities to really be able to do is partner together because it makes their grant applications stronger, Brewer said. The scope of the project is larger and more worthwhile. We're able to connect more. Electric cooperatives have been part of the solution, too. With rural areas having fewer homes in need of fiber per mile than more dense, urban or suburban areas, the cost to build out infrastructure often doesnt yield a high enough return on investment for utility companies to justify. But electric cooperatives are member-owned and function like a nonprofit meaning the money earned is largely invested back into the organization. In this case, its providing electricity and internet to area residents. We're not just cherry picking the highly populated areas, we're taking it to everybody and leaving nobody unserved, said Casey Logan, CEO of RURALBAND, a cooperative that serves areas south of Petersburg. RURALBAND is part of the Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware Association of Broadband Cooperatives. In Virginia, cooperatives participating in the coalition have connected about 30,000 homes since 2017 and plan to connect an additional 200,000 within the next three to five years. However, as cooperatives focus on expanding access in the rural areas around the state, a disparity remains in urban areas. There might be fiber in the street, but the housing complex that's right there, the individuals can't actually afford it, Reid said. Suburbs of Richmond and Petersburg have more connected households than residents in the cities. Almost 30% of Petersburgs 13,231 households do not have broadband internet access while 22% of Richmonds 91,000 households lack access. The problem here, Reid said, is income levels. Thats where he points to the Affordable Connectivity Program that is offered through the Federal Communications Commission. It offers qualifying residents up to $30 per month toward their internet service bills. As for ongoing efforts to keep momentum on expanding access, Reid and Brewer noted the continued need for local governments and cooperatives to coordinate on grant applications and for the states government to continue its investments into those opportunities. Reid added that he will be mindful of future challenges such as ongoing supply chain issues and rising construction or equipment costs that have occurred in recent years. But he and his colleagues are all ears, he said. While participating in a panel this month during the Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware Association of Broadband Cooperatives second annual fiber expo, he explained how listening to constituents helps him and his colleagues draft legislation. I would encourage you to use the information that you have about us send us your ideas, send us your suggestions, Reid said. As winter approaches, the gas issue starts to further puzzle Europe. Sanctions imposed on Russian energy imports in connection with the war in Ukraine have further increased the EU's need for Azerbaijani gas. Considering the statements of a number of large countries-exporters on the impossibility of aiding Europe with gas supplies, the importance of Azerbaijan as a provider of Europe's collective energy security vastly increases. This became possible thanks to the thoughtful foreign policy and successful energy strategy of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The head of states principled approach to the system of international relations, his strategic vision, and his balanced political course have turned Azerbaijan into one of the most reliable energy partners of Europe. The contemporary world energy map does not have only economic importance but is also of great value in terms of influencing the formation of new political configurations. Satisfaction with modern economic requirements is closely connected with the rapid development of the industry. Therefore, no matter how much talk there is about alternative energy sources, world countries are still facing a serious need for oil and gas. This reality encourages large energy consumers, in particular, European countries, to establish mutually effective and long-term partnerships with energy producers. In this sense, Azerbaijan, with about 70% of its territory containing oil and gas reserves, holds a unique position. The development of partnering relations with the European Union is one of the main priorities of Azerbaijan's foreign policy. The EU remains Azerbaijan's main trading partner. Our country accounts for 2/3 of the trade turnover between the countries of the South Caucasus and the EU. Among the EU countries, Azerbaijan's largest trading partners are Italy ($1.445 billion or 30.5%), Germany ($768.7 million or 16.25%), and Britain ($449.71 million or 9.5%). The EU mainly exports machinery and transport equipment to Azerbaijan, while the key share of Azerbaijan's exports to the EU is oil and gas products. Currently, a third of the EU member states consider Azerbaijan as their strategic partner, which is no small achievement for a country that is not part of the European Union. At the same time, it creates additional opportunities for wider cooperation. It is no coincidence that today Azerbaijan is considered one of the most reliable suppliers of energy resources to Europe. The existence of a long-term, predictable and trusting relationship of cooperation in the field of energy between Azerbaijan and the EU is of great importance not only for the region but also in a more global sense. "The partnership between the European Union and Azerbaijan is not cooperation based mainly on financial support. On the contrary, it is a partnership based on the desire to work together, innovation, technological exchange, and economic cooperation," EU Council President Charles Michel said during last year's joint press conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku. On July 18, President Ilham Aliyev and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen signed a Memorandum of Understanding on strategic partnership in the energy sector. In his speech at the signing ceremony, President Ilham Aliyev noted that the energy projects, launched by Azerbaijan and supported by the EU, are completely changing the energy map of Europe. "We started with oil production. Then we moved on to gas production. We laid an oil pipeline connecting the Caspian Sea with the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Of course, the 3,500-kilometer Southern Gas Corridor integrated pipeline systems, thanks to which our natural gas is delivered to the European continent. Southern Gas Corridor is operating at full capacity for less than two years. All segments are being exploited. We already see the benefits of this cooperation. Energy security issues are more important than ever today. Long-term, predictable, and very reliable cooperation between Azerbaijan and the European Union is, of course, a great achievement," the head of state noted. The signed Memorandum once again confirms the trend toward deepening strategic relations between the EU and Azerbaijan. Interconnector IGB Greece-Bulgaria, which will be put into operation in October this year, will allow at least four European countries to become buyers of Azerbaijani gas. After the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Azerbaijan increased the export of blue fuel to the EU countries. In January-August 2022, Azerbaijan exported 7.3 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe, which means an increase of 23% compared to the same period last year. The liberation of Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur is of great importance in increasing the potential of Azerbaijan as an exporter of energy resources. Today, many international think tanks and representatives of civil society are amazed at the rapid pace of restoration work in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan, which, no doubt, fills every Azerbaijani with a great sense of pride. After signing the memorandum with the EU, President Ilham Aliyev, speaking to the press, said that Azerbaijan has great potential in the field of renewable energy production, and the European Union highly appreciates this. "We have already begun the process of investing in wind and solar energy. We have already carried out a preliminary assessment of our potential. I can say that the potential of solar and wind energy in the liberated territories of Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur is 9,200 megawatts. And the potential of wind energy in the Caspian is 157 gigawatts. In other words, we have gigantic resources. In addition, of course, we have new gas sources that we will use in the coming years. In this way, we will increase gas production. By using renewable energy, we will provide more gas for export. This is an excellent situation created thanks to our efforts and supported by the European Union," the head of state said. It is gratifying that Azerbaijan, which the EU views as an important regional power in terms of the energy security of the old continent, is improving its international reputation as a reliable partner supporting global initiatives. As the development of events shows, the day is not far off when Azerbaijan and the EU will conclude a new comprehensive agreement on strategic partnership. Thus, the energy factor continues to hold an important place in Azerbaijan's foreign policy. As a result of the far-sighted policy of President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan is now able to ensure its own energy security, as well as play a leading role in the energy security of some other countries. Azerbaijan's approach is that energy resources should unite countries and peoples, not divide them. Energy resources should serve regional and international cooperation, not fuel conflicts. The interests of suppliers, transit countries, and consumers must coincide, be predictable and lead to mutual benefit. This is an energy philosophy, which is a reflection of Azerbaijan's successful foreign policy and our growing authority in the world community. Before attending a California air show in 1974, Charles Dewey Reinhard had never seen a hot air balloon before. Two years and a full-fledged balloon fascination later, in 1976, he founded the Colorado Springs Balloon Classic and thus "launched one of the longest, most iconic traditions in the city of Colorado Springs, Mayor John Suthers said during an award ceremony Monday. Suthers presented Reinhard, 92, with the Spirit of the Springs Celebration Award, given annually to honor "the outstanding achievement of an individual or organization" in the city. Since Reinhard's first balloon event drew roughly 100 spectators nearly half a century ago, the event had garnered so much acclaim that in 2015 it rebranded as Labor Day Lift Off, one of the nations largest, free balloon festivals. The record-breaking 200,000 spectators that attended this year's balloon extravaganza from Sept. 3-5 at Memorial Park have Reinhard to thank for the awe-inspiring morning liftoffs, evening balloon glows and everything in between. We are incredibly fortunate that (Reinhard) chose to share his passion for ballooning for the benefit of Colorado Springs residents and visitors, Suthers said. Reinhard, a Navy veteran and lifetime Colorado Springs businessman, said he returned to work the Monday after that fateful airshow and immediately scoured the Front Range for a hot air balloon. Though he grew up flying aircraft and gliders, he didn't learn to pilot a giant balloon until years later when an Air Force Academy cadet showed him the ropes. From there, Reinhard went on to found the Ballooning Society of Pikes Peak and was inducted into the United States Ballooning Hall of Fame in 2011. (Balloons are) the only kind of aircraft you can go flying over and pick up wildflowers out of your basket, or go up to 10 or 12,000 feet in Aspen and pick pine cones out of the top of pine trees, or dip down in Prospect Lake or the Atlantic Ocean, the balloonist said. A "dip down" into that mighty ocean would be an understatement regarding Reinhard's ambitions in 1977, when he became the 16th man to attempt a balloon ride across the Atlantic, a feat so preposterous that CBS deemed the mission the "Impossible Dream." According to a previous Gazette feature on Reinhard, the journey lasted 47 hours before a storm befell the "Eagle," his gas balloon. But he later pressed on in his international ventures, representing the U.S. in challenges like the Gordon Bennett Cup. In the decades since, Reinhard hurdled the peaks of the Alps and Colorado's Front Range along telephone poles, trees and more often with his family chasing him down from the ground. Sometimes, while flying gas balloons, a pilot might be in the sky for two or three days at a time with no idea of where the balloon might land. "Every time you land a balloon, youre trespassing, so you have to have some social skills at times," Reinhard said, adding that he "always carried money to pay farmers for damaged crops. But rarely were residents miffed to see the great colorful thing rising from their fields, Reinhard said. "Balloons are happy things." That joy has been shared with thousands of people since founding the Colorado Springs balloon festival. Reinhard said he had three goals in mind when pioneering the Springs' own festival to rival that of Albuquerque's: have the highest quality balloon event in the nation, keep the admission to the festivities free and "promote aviation in general." Based on the reactions he sees each year as the balloons rise during the Labor Day Lift Off, Reinhard said he believes he's done that. After all the hard work that goes into these things," Reinhard said, 'its just a special reward seeing the smiles on everyones faces. September is National Preparedness Month. The American Red Cross is urging all of us to prepare for emergencies right now and to have a plan, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn introduced legislation aimed at allowing schools more flexibility to combat the fentanyl crisis by allocating federal COVID-19 relief funds for the purchase of drug overdose-reversing medicines, the congressman's office announced Monday. House Resolution 8968, called the Protecting Kids from Fentanyl Act, would allow schools to divert dollars from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds to buy naloxone and other "life-saving opioid antagonists," or medicines that can reverse the effects of an overdose, as well as provide related training and education for students and staff. In 2020 and 2021, Congress allocated approximately $205 billion in federal K-12 spending through the ESSER funds among three COVID-19 relief packages, designed to "address the impact that COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, on elementary and secondary schools across the nation," according to the U.S. Department of Education. Lamborn's bill, also sponsored by U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat representing Colorado's 2nd Congressional District, would allow schools nationwide to divert some of those pandemic relief funds to purchase naloxone; provide training to school nurses, teachers, administrators and resource officers on how to administer the medicines; and, supply students with fentanyl awareness materials and classes. The two lawmakers are pushing the proposal amidst Colorado's fentanyl crisis, which has been spiraling out of control in the last few years, with fatal overdoses tied to fentanyl steadily rising for several years before exploding in 2020. They reached their highest point, both in Colorado and nationwide, in 2021, when 907 Coloradans fatally overdosed after ingesting fentanyl, a 66% increase from 2020 and quadruple the total from 2019. Officials, both from law enforcement and from organizations that work directly with drug users, say fentanyl pills are widely and cheaply available. They've largely replaced heroin as the primary opioid on the illicit market, and fentanyl powder is increasingly found mixed into other drugs, like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine often without the user's knowledge. The bill comes in light of increasing concern over teenagers' access to the potent drug due to its resemblance to legitimate opioid tablets, such as those for oxycodone, and other prescription drugs through pill form, according to Cassandra Sebastian, the communications director for Lamborn's office. "The fact that children are dying from fentanyl overdoses in schools around the country is absolutely unacceptable," Lamborn said in a news release. "This legislation will ensure that schools have the prevention tools and education necessary to protect our most vulnerable population from the growing fentanyl epidemic." Lamborn has participated in two roundtable and town hall discussions in Colorado Springs recently, the latter geared toward communicating the danger fentanyl and fentanyl-laced products to children, who Lamborn said are able to buy the drug as cheaply as $5. Sebastian said Lamborn left those discussions which also included local law enforcement leaders, health care leaders and county officials such as the coroner, knowing that "the weak spot right now in our community is our kids going back to school." Last year, the El Paso County Coroner's Office identified 101 fentanyl-related deaths. While current data on this year's fentanyl-related death tally is not immediately available, Coroner Dr. Leon Kelly said El Paso County reported 61 deaths in the first half of the year, putting it on pace for 122 deaths by year-end. This would likely make it the No. 1 drug-related cause of death in the county for the first time in modern history, Kelly said, surpassing methamphetamine. The intricacy and speed of communication via social media is raising concern over fentanyl's prevalence in teenage circles and in the hallways. A slide shared by 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen during the town hall included many of the slang terms and emojis youth may use to stealthily find and use fentanyl. Phrases like "Blues," "dance fever" and "jackpot apache" were listed, and emojis of pills and rocket ships were also shown to signify someone looking for fake prescription drugs. Matt Riviere, a father and proponent of the bill, became an advocate against fentanyl after he lost two sons to the drug in one night. This bill gives them a voice, he said. "I knew nothing about this drug before my boys passed away. My desire is to educate and make these kids aware of what this drug is doing to our country," Riviere said. "I look at it that way, really, just overall a chance to save lives and get these kids to think twice the next time they're offered something or go to a party." Fentanyl is the No. 1 cause of death for Americans ages 18-45, Families Against Fentanyl, a nonprofit, reported. A person's body size, tolerance and past usage influence the drug's lethality. More than three quarters of all teen overdose deaths in 2021 involved fentanyl, according to the press release. Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Azerbaijani president endorses rules for maintaining media registry 26 September 2022 [15:59] - President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has approved the "rules for maintaining media registry". to be updated Views: 599 FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden has an ice cream as he greets the US troops during his visit to the Air Operations Center at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, May 22, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov The Azerbaijani Army Commando Initial Courses have conducted a graduation ceremony under the training plan for 2022, Azernews reports, citing the Defense Ministry. Following the official formalities, Maj-Gen Vasif Kazimov conveyed the military leaderships congratulations to the personnel and wished the servicemen success in their future endeavors. Certificates and berets were presented to personnel, who completed the training. Finally, the military troops marched by the podium. Activities are underway to improve the combat capabilities of both troops and military units, the ministry stressed. On June 26, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended the opening ceremony of a new commando military unit as part of his visit to Kalbajar District. This was the second commando military unit commissioned in the liberated regions, following the one founded in Hadrut on December 24, 2021. Earlier, Aliyev noted that Azerbaijan would create many commando brigades across the country. President Aliyev described the creation of the commando brigade unit in Hadrut as a significant event of strategic importance. Experts described the creation of commando brigades in Azerbaijan as a new stage in the national army building. It was also assessed as a clear message for supporters of revanchist ideas in Armenia. Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani army is going to hold a number of events on the occasion of Remembrance Day on September 27, the ministry said in a separate report. Under the approved plan, the ministry's leadership along with other servicemen will pay respect to the memory of the 44-war (2020) martyrs (shahids) by visiting the Alley of Honor and the Alleys of Martyrs, as well as the graves of the martyrs. Documentaries, films, images, and book exhibitions related to the 44-day Patriotic War will be displayed for troops as part of the commemoration events. The events will focus on the historical importance of the valiant Azerbaijan army's magnificent triumph, the bravery and heroism of the war participants, and the martyrs' immortal remembrance. The military personnel will also pay visits to the martyrs' families and servicemen who were injured in the war, the ministry said. FILE PHOTO: Security guards stand at the gates of what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Huocheng County in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China September 3, 2018.REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo A state audit concluded Robin Nicetas child-protective work for the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services failed to follow state regulations and had deficient investigative practices. The audit recommended further investigation into the countys oversight and supervision of its child-protective staff. Seven complaints about Nicetas performance and conduct have been referred for additional criminal investigation, according to the audit summary, which was detailed by the states executive director of human services, Michelle Barnes, in a letter to Cheryl Ternes, director of the Arapahoe County Human Services Department. In addition, the state auditors found Niceta made minimal or no recorded efforts to contact non-custodial parents or those alleged to have abused or neglected a child. Nicetas child-protective recommendations also lacked clear reasoning and is not necessarily supported by documentation, according to the audit. The audit did not identify any additional unresolved child safety concerns as a result of the review, according to a summary of the findings provided Monday afternoon to Ternes. Barnes agency conducted the audit. Barnes released the audits findings to the public days after parents filed an amended class-action federal lawsuit seeking $50 million in damages for alleged constitutional violations by the countys child-protective staff. County officials said they will add additional oversight measures to address supervision failures the state audit identified. In light of these findings, and consistent with statewide recommendations to all counties, we will add measures that help mitigate the likelihood of bad actors infiltrating our systems in the future, said Luc Hatlestad, a spokesman for Arapahoe County. We will also add new quality assurance professionals to help guide these practice improvements. The Colorado Department of Human Services launched the audit into Nicetas child-protective work after police arrested Niceta for allegedly falsely reporting that an Aurora councilwoman had sexually abused her child. Prosecutors say Niceta made the anonymous hotline complaint as revenge for Councilwoman Danielle Jurinskys outspoken criticism of the Aurora police chief at the time, Vanessa Wilson, who then was Nicetas romantic partner. Niceta and Wilson, who was fired as police chief in April, have since broken up. The audit determined that Niceta had conducted 196 intake assessments or investigations and 73 child permanency cases during her five-year tenure with the county. Of those, 13 had to be sent to another county for re-assessment because it could not be determined if the original safety concerns identified by Niceta had been mitigated, according to Barnes letter detailing the auditing findings. At least 26 individuals have come forward seeking class-action designation for a federal lawsuit filed by Jurinsky against the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services. They contend they were harmed through false testimony and fraudulent evidence from Niceta and other Arapahoe County child-protective workers. Arapahoe County officials say they believe the lawsuit is without merit. Fortunately, no additional instances of false reporting against a third party by this former employee have been found, said Hatlestad, the county spokesperson. Nor has anything been found that would support the allegations of widespread overzealous and false pursuance of child abuse allegations contained in the recently filed class action lawsuit. Jurinsky, in an interview, said the auditors with the Colorado Department of Human Services failed to adequately investigate the allegations in the lawsuit. She said she and other plaintiffs seeking designation as class-action status had not been contacted by those conducting the probe for the state. A separate lawsuit has been filed by a couple who contend Nicetas false fabrication of evidence resulted in the removal of their 14-year-old daughter, who is Muslim. They contend the girl, who is deaf, was wrongfully removed due to cultural assumptions. Jurinsky is separately suing Niceta for defamation. The audit found concerns related to the conduct performed by the social caseworker, as well as the supervision and oversight of the social caseworkers performance, Barnes informed Ternes in her letter detailing the findings. CDHS found an inadequacy of effort and thoroughness in assessments to which the social caseworker and the supervisor were assigned. CDHS also had concerns with social caseworkers failure to perform work in accordance with the Colorado Code of Regulations. Problems the auditors found included minimal or no documented efforts to contact additional family members or additional witnesses while conducting child-protective investigations. The auditors also identified failures in record-keeping and deficiencies in cross-reporting to law enforcement. Barnes told Ternes that state officials will meet with her to discuss next steps and discuss the recommendation for an additional layer of review or audit to more broadly and deeply assess case practice and supervision. As Colorado Springs voters weigh whether to legalize recreational marijuana sales, proponents are stressing the potential to collect millions in new city tax revenue and opponents have highlighted high costs it could drive for the city. Voters will consider two recreational marijuana questions in November. One that would only allow the existing 115 medical shops to transition to recreational sales if the owners choose and a second one that would impose a 5% special tax on recreational marijuana sales. If the tax question passes the revenue would be dedicated to public safety, veterans services and mental health programs. Local proponents backing the question with the Your Choice Colorado Springs campaign say the city has missed out on $150 million in potential tax revenue because residents are buying recreational marijuana in other communities like Pueblo, Manitou Springs and Denver. While opponents, such as Mayor John Suthers, say marijuana revenues will not cover its associated costs and legalization has not forced out the black market as the industry promised when recreational marijuana possession was legalized, among other arguments. After legalizing recreational marijuana sales in 2014, Denver started tracking marijuana tax revenue, costs, crime and numerous other data points that can help show the effects of legalization. Denver officials heard numerous predictions about the impacts of legalization as well, such as how youth use would sky rocket, said Molly Duplechian, Denver Excise and Licenses executive director. She is considered Denver's head marijuana regulator. "In Denver what we saw is that none of those extreme predictions were achieved," she said. Denver collected about $72.4 million in marijuana revenues last year including taxes on recreational and medical marijuana and licensing fees from about 440 shops. The city's revenues have steadily risen from about $24 million in 2014. Denver is an appropriate comparison for Colorado Springs with a similar population. But Colorado Springs probably will have a smaller industry even if the questions pass because the city has capped the number marijuana shops in town at 115. If a license is relinquished for any reason, it cannot be reissued. Last year Denver spent about $8.8 million on marijuana education, enforcement and regulation. The enforcement includes 10 police officers including folks who work on licensing issues and cracking down on the black market, she said. Total marijuana offenses have steadily declined, the city's data shows, from 788 cases in 2014 to 307 last year. The city's 5.5% special sales tax on recreational marijuana has been a key piece of what the city got right early on, she said. "I think that is been very important to us being able to build regulatory and enforcement efforts," she said. While Denver's metrics show clear benefits to city initiatives, Luke Niforatos, executive vice president to Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said the costs are likely not all inclusive. A 2017 analysis released by the The Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University found that social costs of marijuana are likely $4.50 for every $1 in tax revenue. The study factored in health costs such as hospitalizations, lost productivity and enforcement such as traffic stops among others. Marijuana youth use Denver has focused on funding city priorities, such as marijuana education, services for the homeless, the opioid crisis and city facilities. To combat youth use, the city has spent $24 million since the tax passed on marijuana education programs, including curriculum for afterschool programs about marijuana use and an awareness campaign. "We are just giving them the facts and how (marijuana) can be damaging for them to use it before their brain is fully developed," Duplechian said. The Healthy Kids Colorado Survey shows that 11% of students in Denver County used marijuana within the last 30 days last year, down from 25% in 2019. The reasons for this drop aren't completely clear. The pandemic's disruption of classes could have played a role, as well as greater awareness about the dangers, people involved in marijuana policy said. Data is not available for marijuana use among students in El Paso County last year because not enough youth participated. The city also required shops to give schools and day cares a 1,000-foot buffer and and limited the signage shops are allowed to have to help reduce the exposure youth have to the shops, Duplechian said. When youth see a high density of shops selling substances such as marijuana and alcohol it can decrease the harm they associate with that substance. One Chance to Grow Up Executive Director Henny Lasley said Denver has done a better job with regulations to protect kids than other cities, but more steps particularly on the state level are needed. For example, she would like to see even greater limits on high potency marijuana that would build on recent legislation that limited the number of grams of marijuana concentrate patients can buy and started requiring shops to provide educational materials about the effects of concentrates. She noted many parents do not realize the THC levels in current products are so much higher than the products common in the 1970s or '80s. Niforatos would like to see a cap on the total percentage of THC products can have in them to protect public health. Black market trends Denver saw a large increase in black market marijuana in early years after legalization, but it has fallen in recent years, a 2021 city report showed. The total number of pounds of illegal marijuana processed by Denver police are down from 9,500 in 2014 to about 4,300 last year. Strict enforcement has helped reign in the illicit market and send a message that it would not be tolerated, Duplechian said. The city also passed new rules for stores that require cash and products to be securely stored overnight to help combat marijuana shop burglaries. The hope is that even if people get into the stores they won't be able to take any product. Duplechian recommends that other communities considering legalizing recreational marijuana collect baseline data, such as including crime and black market trends, ahead of shops opening so policy makers can make good decisions going forward. "Everyone is going to ask what the baseline is," she said. This story has been updated to correct Henny Lasley's name and to clarify the limits on marijuana concentrate sales apply to the recreational and medical marijuana markets. It has also been updated to clarify reasons youth use may have dropped in Denver. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli Azerbaijanis in New York arranged an information campaign against military provocations and the aggressive policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani State Committee on Work with Diaspora said. During the campaign, a car with an LED screen, which displayed Azerbaijani realities, moved around the Manhattan district, the historical center of the metropolis. The screen displayed slogans, such as Azerbaijan wants peace, Armenia wants war!, Armenia distorts facts, deceives international community!, Armenian mines are war crimes!, Armenia destroyed the cultural heritage of Azerbaijan in Armenia!, Armenian mines kill civilian population and images covering these topics. The campaign, which aimed to draw the attention of the urban public to the military provocations of Armenia, was organized by the Azerbaijani Women of America Association, and Azerbaijani Cultural Center in New York City, which are member organizations of the Azerbaijanis Coordination Council in America. To recap, units of the Armenian armed forces carried out large-scale provocations along the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border in the Dashkasan, Kalbajar, and Lachin directions on the night of September 12 leading to 13. The Armenian sabotage groups mined land and supply roads linking the positions of the Azerbaijani army units in different directions, taking advantage of the area's steep topography and existing ravine gaps. The clashes between the sides ensued as a result of the urgent efforts made by the Azerbaijani armed forces to quell these activities. As a result, 79 armed forces personnel were killed, the ministry detailed. So far, the Armenian government reported 207 losses among its own military personnel. Moreover, 293 soldiers and three civilians were wounded, and 20 soldiers were taken as prisoners. By the official count, COVID-19 cases have dropped about 70% over the last month in the Dan River Region, according to figures from the Virginia Department of Health. Danville is averaging about nine new COVID-19 reports a day, down from about 30 at the end of August. The number is slightly higher in the county with a dozen new cases reported daily, also down from an average of 30 a month ago. Those numbers only represent results sent to the health department and dont reflect at-home testing. The trend follows a similar path across the commonwealth. In fact, last week, daily cases dropped below 20 per 100,000, marking the lowest point since April 25, according to the University of Virginias Biocomplexity Institute. The 100,000 scale is used to put all localities on equal footing. Hospitalizations have also dropped by about 20%, UVa reported in a Friday update. The Pittsylvania-Danville Health District joins 23 others in a declining trajectory. However, neighboring Halifax County part of the Southside Health District is in a slow growth trajectory, meaning cases are rising, but not at a level to be considered a surge. Perhaps a larger sign of the times comes with the community levels. There are only 11 localities in the state on the high end, a designation that carries the recommendation of wearing masks in public spaces. That marks the fewest since May, UVa reported. Danville, along with 68 other areas, is in the medium community level, and Pittsylvania County is in the lowest tier of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions categories. For the medium level, residents at a high-risk of illness are advised to wear face coverings in public, state and federal health agencies recommend. Models suggest the possibility of another major surge in December, researchers at UVa said in Fridays report. Virginians could stop this surge in its tracks if they get their boosters along with their annual flu shots. Modules show a boost with boosters could prevent up to 160,000 cases and up to 7,000 hospitalizations by March. The potential winter surge comes as no surprise, mirroring trends from last year. As colder air moves in, more people gather indoors. Holiday travel also play a factor in added cases. There is a good chance well see the same this year, researchers wrote. There is also the possibility that a new variant will arise to drive cases even higher. However, the surge predicted from UVa dwarfs in comparison with the record-breaking caseloads of last winter. In the worst possible case, statewide infections would peak at 7,200 daily cases in mid-December before declining. With models expecting growth to begin again in a few weeks, now is an excellent time to schedule your booster shot, scientists wrote in UVas report. Bivalent vaccines are available at your local pharmacy, and it is safe to get one at the same time as your annual flu shot. RALEIGH On November 6, 2018, the people of North Carolina voted to amend their state constitution. By a 57% to 43% margin, they added a provision to protect the right to hunt and fish. By the same percentages, they also modified a section about the states income tax, setting the highest possible rate at 7% instead of the prior 10%. North Carolinians also voted to protect the rights of crime victims (62%) and require a photo ID to cast a ballot (55%). Alas, Democratic activists loudly proclaiming their commitment to democracy refused to accept the results. They hated the tax cap and photo ID provision, in particular. So, they resolved to overturn the will of the people. Strong words. But they describe the situation accurately. The facts arent in dispute. North Carolina voters approved the two amendments by healthy margins. Not every eligible voter participated in the 2018 election, of course, but its turnout was higher than normal for a midterm and surveys show that the 2018 electorate accurately reflected broader public opinion on capping the income tax and requiring photo IDs to vote. Moreover, there werent just four amendments on the ballot that year. There were six. Voters turned down two other amendments that would have reformed North Carolinas board of elections and the selection process for state judges. In other words, voters didnt reflexively approve every proposed change. They actively chose among several alternatives. This was the purest form of democracy there is, settling issues by a direct vote of the people. Democratic activists didnt like how the people voted on the tax cap and photo ID. So they sued. Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court didnt like how the people voted, either. So they sided with the plaintiffs and, in effect, threw out the two amendments (though the final shoe, a trial court determination, likely wont drop until after the 2022 election). In an August 19 decision written by Anita Earls and affirmed by justices Michael Morgan, Robin Hudson, and Sam Ervin IV, the four justices argued that because of a prior decision invalidating some of the electoral districts from which state lawmakers were elected, those lawmakers lacked the legitimate authority to hold the referendum in the first place. In their decision, the Democratic justices didnt just buy the plaintiffs claim that prior gerrymandering made the General Assembly an illegally constituted body. They also bought the preposterous claim that capping the income tax and requiring photo IDs to vote are forms of racial discrimination (because minorities are disproportionately less likely to earn high incomes and disproportionally more likely to lack an ID). The justices needed to do this to address a thorny problem: if the General Assembly were truly an illegally constituted body, wouldnt any state budget or law it enacted be illegal? Couldnt any aggrieved party sue for relief, such as someone convicted of a crime under a statute enacted by such a legislature? Yep so the Democrats invented a new category to serve their needs. Even if some of its members were elected in districts subsequently declared illegal, the General Assembly remains the de facto legislature when it comes to passing laws and appropriating funds. Thats established law. The justices accepted it. Then they carved out an exception for 1) amending the constitution with 2) provisions the justices consider to be discriminatory. Theres an argument here, but its a transparently bad one. If prior gerrymandering truly calls into question whether the legislature truly represents the will of the people, theres at least one form of legislative action that already has a built-in remedy: putting constitutional amendments (or bond issuances) on the ballot! If the people of North Carolina dont like them, they can vote them down as they did to two of the six amendments of 2018. Although the Democratic justices are trying desperately to pretend otherwise, they have decided to reject an unambiguously democratic vote of the people because the justices dont agree with it. Two people were hospitalized after being stabbed at a county fair in North Carolina, officials said. The 19-year-old and 17-year-old were stabbed around 8:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Pitt County Fair in Greenville, the Pitt County Sheriffs Office said in a news release. Reports say they were attacked by a group of 6-10 males, according to the sheriffs office. Off-duty deputies in the area responded, and the two victims were rushed to a hospital, the sheriffs office said. The sheriffs office did not have information on their conditions as of the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 25. Fair organizer Ken Ross told local outlet WITN that the fair was closed immediately after the incident, which the TV station reports he called a minor altercation. Deputies also received reports of several fights and shots fired at the fairgrounds, according to the sheriffs office, but the reports were unfounded. The sheriffs office said its investigating the stabbings and asks that anyone with information call CrimeStoppers at 252-758-7777 or go to www.crimestopper.org. Sept. 25 is the last day of the Pitt County Fair, which opened Sept. 20, according to its website. In 2021, the fair was shut down early for the day on Saturday, Sept. 25, because of multiple altercations, WNCT reported at the time. No one was injured but officials said three teens were detained and a handgun was confiscated from one of them. Greenville is about 85 miles east of Raleigh. Is a doctor licensed in Idaho or Washington qualified to treat patients in Montana? Almost certainly. Then why does it take 3-4 months for an out-of-state doctor to get licensed to treat patients in Montana? Its no secret that Montana has severe healthcare shortages. In fact, our entire state is designated by the federal government as medically underserved. We simply need access to as many doctors, nurses, PAs etc. as we can get. Yet, Montanas licensure requirements for out-of-state healthcare professionals pose one of the biggest barriers to expanding healthcare access in Montana. Theres nothing preventing Montana patients from traversing state boundaries to seek out healthcare from doctors in other states. Many health plans even encourage this. But if that out-of-state doctor wants to follow up with their Montana patient on a video call, they must become licensed to practice here. Many doctors will be the first to admit they dont have the time or resources to become licensed in every state their patients might reside in besides, theyve already demonstrated the qualifications for licensure in their own state. Vendors that assist doctors with licensure in Montana estimate that the entire process realistically takes 3-4 months to complete. Thats a lot of red tape to jump through for an out-of-state specialist who may treat just a handful of Montana patients. Many will simply opt-out. Thus, licensure red tape can turn what could be quick and easy follow ups for Montana patients via telehealth into multiple long road trips to see their doctor in another state. Thankfully, Montana already has a proven policy remedy to address this problem. During COVID, Montana made the the rapid licensure, renewal of licensure, or reactivation of licensure a top priority to quickly expand our healthcare workforce. Montana saw that the complex, time-consuming and expensive state licensing regulations were one of the biggest barriers to allowing out-of-state healthcare workers to practice in Montana. Emergency regulatory flexibilities allowed a streamlined process for medical professionals to become licensed to practice as long as they could prove they had a license in good standing in another state. Nearly 2,500 medical professionals received a temporary license under this streamlined system, with many practicing virtually. This is a big deal given that some studies estimate Montana has a shortage of around 900 doctors. The expiration of emergency orders means that those 2,500 licenses are now terminated, requiring out-of-state providers to go through the burdensome and costly professional licensing process to continue practicing in Montana. To preserve access to healthcare, the pandemic model of universal licensure recognition is something Montana leaders should make permanent. If the rapid licensure, renewal of licensure, or reactivation of licensure helped expand healthcare access during the pandemic, why not continue to make this a top priority? Universal licensure reforms even have a potential to be a bipartisan affair. The last update to Montanas out-of-state licensing standards came in 2019 thanks to Democrat Representative Katie Sullivan, which moved Montana closer to full universal licensure. This shows red tape relief doesnt just have to be a right-of-center priority. We already know that Governor Gianforte plans to bring sweeping licensure reforms forward in 2023, marching Montana closer to full universal licensure by strengthening the departments ability to recognize licenses issued in another state when those licensing requirements are substantially equal to Montana's requirements. Universal Licensure Recognition could be one idea to boost healthcare access that both Democrats and Republicans can champion together, for the good of Montana patients. In October, the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) will decide on NorthWestern Energys (NWE) requested "interim" energy rates, prices to pay during the months of the Rate Case, to be decided Spring 2023. PSC will review plenty of material per the Utilitys request 2,000-odd pages of nuanced rate design, which grasps at the complexity of global energy markets, Montanas grid, and customer behaviors around energy-use. Rate designs aim to maintain reliable power, fairly compensate the Utility, and keep power prices reasonable. The work ahead of PSC is impressive, but the scope of their deliberation still needs to account for Montanas housing situation. The housing crisis continues to affect more households, and especially those that are low-income, BIPOC, and multi-generational. This summer, Gov. Gianforte recognized attainable housing to be an enormous challenge. The problem of too little affordable housing remains urgent, and yet it overshadows another deep disparity: quality of housing. Quality of housing affects both energy-use and human health. Pathways between the three create interplay, cause mutual influence, and can soar or spiral depending on household wealth. Their dynamics, which culminate to either preserve or unfasten health, have even greater importance as climate change impacts the ways we need energy. Age of the home, its residents occupation, rural or urban location, insulation, tightness of construction, caliber ventilation, windows, heating/cooling apparatuses and things like refrigerators all comprise housing quality. Often, home retrofits or efficient equipment are expenses left to the household. For example, Dan Rogers from the Missoula Electric Cooperative explained that on average, of ten houses built, nine will be under-insulated. As ability to afford improvements varies unequally, so would NWEs prices disproportionately fall on Montanans. If a house is 100% efficient, every $1 spent on energy to heat the home, cool it, or cook, etc., is exactly equal to $1 of energy (its true, yet fleeting rate). Low-quality and aging structures waste energy, so when their households pay NWE a dollar, they receive a smaller fraction of its value in energy in heat or cooled air, for instance. The price of a dollar of energy amounts to a higher cost and creates a heavy energy burden. A high energy burden cuts into household means for necessities like food and healthcare and contributes to hardship, risks to health, and precarity. A 2020 study found 21% of Montana households to already be energy burdened. Since the study, impacts from COVID-19, housing market consolidation, and radical market fluctuations, all continue to pressure Montana households. A 2021 assessment offered Montanans the chance to describe where they were feeling the pressure most. Even prior to Ukraines cascading effects on the economy, over 40% of people said their greatest need was assistance making housing-related payments. Lacking quantity is not the only driver of housing affordability. Low-quality housing, which impact housing related costs like energy, also fuels the crisis. One pressures from the top, the other from the bottom. This pinching together squeezes Montanans household security. The inefficiencies also strain NWEs grid. If extreme, peak times of energy demand can jeopardize the poles and wires that stitch it together. Utilities use rate designs, with pricing incentives or disincentives, to attempt to influence demand via customer behavior. However, these rate designs are failing to influence customers whose energy consumption matters most. Rate designs fail with unique groups for different reasons. Often, customers able to afford efficiency retrofits or things like rebates arent troubled by cost disincentives. High-income households still consume exorbitant energy compared to median income. After the median-income dip, energy consumption spikes again in low-income households, making a U-shaped curve across income-stratified users. However, where lower-income households face barriers to home improvements and live in disinvested neighborhoods, drivers of consumption for high-income households are their members' behaviors. Rather than relying on an undemonstrated rate design to manage peak demand and prices, the PSC should encourage NWE to pursue programming tagged for households with barriers to energy efficiency, which would dually protect NWEs grid and Montanans housing affordability. Home improvements to increase energy performance provide opportunity to invest in a customer group who make up already modest energy users and to secure Montanas energy future. He was listed in stable condition on Sunday. Anthony Christian Demetrio, 22, was flown to a Charlotte hospital on Saturday after a motorcycle wreck. Demetrio is from Indian Land, South Carolina, Hickory Police Department Media and Community Services Coordinator Kristen Hart said via email. The crash occurred shortly before 4:15 p.m. on the U.S. 70 off ramp connecting to U.S. 321. Demetrio was the only person injured in the crash, Hart said. Hickory police are continuing to investigate the wreck. No charges have been filed as of Monday morning, Hart said. HICKORY The community is invited to attend the Sabre Society of North Carolinas public fundraising launch for the new Hickory Aviation Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 5:30 p.m. at the Drendel Auditorium on the SALT Block (243 Third Ave., NE, Hickory). The Elevate-themed event will present information about a groundbreaking new facility at the Hickory Regional Airport and include remarks by former Mayor Jeff Cline, CommScope founder Frank Drendel, David R. Moore II of McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture, Randall Burns of Catawba Valley Community College, and Hickory Aviation Museum Board Chairman John Cowan. The special guest speaker of the event will be retired U.S. Navy Commander Frank Weisser, a two-time Blue Angels solo pilot and one of the fighter pilots featured in the recent blockbuster film "Top Gun: Maverick." The city of Hickory is partnering with the Sabre Society of North Carolina/Hickory Aviation Museum and Catawba Valley Community College to construct a building to house the museum's vintage military aircraft, preserve aviation history, and provide STEM education and workforce development opportunities to the Hickory region. The expanded Hickory Aviation Museum will feature a hangar to preserve and display aircraft and will also serve as the site of CVCC's Workforce Innovation Center, a regional educational campus with flexible use space providing high-tech equipment, classrooms, and virtual simulators for training. The museum and educational center will be co-located in a new state-of-the-art building at Hickory Regional Airport, just off Runway 6/24 in Catawba and Burke counties. Construction design of the $22 million endeavor is currently underway with McMillan Pazdan Smith as the architect. This innovative project will be funded by a $15 million allocation from the North Carolina State Legislature for CVCCs Workforce Innovation Center and by public and private donations for Hickory Aviation Museum. To date, the Sabre Society of North Carolina has raised over $4.4 million of the $7 million goal for the project and continues to pursue additional funding. Visit www.elevatehky.com after the launch event for more information about this project and how to support the Hickory Aviation Museum by making a tax-deductible contribution. By Trend 'Memorial day' is a very important page in the modern history of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani Ombudsman Sabina Aliyeva told Trend. She noted that the announcement of September 27 as 'Memorial Day' has a special meaning. The victory in second Karabakh war, which united the entire Azerbaijani people into a unified force led to the creation of opportunities for establishment of peace and development of the entire region. The reason for this victory was Azerbaijani Armed Forces under the leadership of the Victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief President of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, who showed great heroism in battles. Conditions were created for the return of Azerbaijani internally displaced persons to their native lands, for which they yearned for many years, and today the country is experiencing the joy of the 'Great Return'. "May Allah rest the souls of Azerbaijani martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the name of restoring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, I wish their families patience. Azerbaijan will always be proud of its martyrs, Azerbaijani people will always honor their memory. I also want to honor the memories of civilians that became martyrs as a result of grave crimes, committed by Armenia, including the memory of children who died. Armenia must answer for these crimes, committed against the civilian population, for the violation of the requirements of the IV Geneva Convention," Aliyeva said. She stressed that it's a moral duty for the entire Azerbaijan to take care of the families of martyrs, as well as heroic veterans of Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva pay special attention to caring for the families of martyrs and veterans, which is an important task for state structures. "After the end of the second Karabakh war, Azerbaijan also expanded its activities in this direction, created a new sector related to the protection of the rights of families of martyrs and war veterans. Azerbaijan pays special attention to their appeals. Actions are being taken in the regions to provide medical and psychological assistance to family members of martyrs and war veterans, to provide them with support," she added. Moreover, Azerbaijani ombudsman emphasized that from the moment of gaining independence to the present day, Azerbaijan has been suffering from the policy of aggression and ethnic hatred of Armenia. Armenia has committed many international crimes against Azerbaijan, such as military aggression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, environmental crimes, destruction and desecration of historical, religious, cultural monuments, mining of territories, the use of mercenaries, attacks on civilians using prohibited weapons. "At the same time, during the occupation, a policy of illegal resettlement was carried out in the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan, Armenians from Armenia, as well as from Lebanon and Syria were illegally settled in houses belonging to Azerbaijanis. When, in accordance with the trilateral statement dated November 10, 2020, Armenians left Azerbaijani occupied lands, and also recently, when they left Lachin villages of Zabukh and Sus, Azerbaijan witnessed manifestations of hatred policy by Armenia. Among them - damage to flora and fauna, arson and desecration of houses," Aliyeva stated. "Azerbaijan, even in the period after the cease of fire, suffered losses as a result of mine explosions, laid by Armenian troops. Each of these crimes is a violation of human rights and freedoms. Numerous fundamental rights of the Azerbaijani people have been violated, and the requirements of international law are not being observed. Azerbaijani government continues to work to inform the world community about these facts, to bring Armenia to justice for its crimes," she said. Aliyeva reminded that Ombudsman's office made several statements in connection with Armenian provocation. "The fact that the Armenian Armed Forces constantly carry out provocations against Azerbaijan in the post-war period causes serious concern. During the suppression of a large-scale Armenian provocation undertaken on the night of September 12 in the Dashkasan, Kalbajar, Lachin, Zangilan directions, Azerbaijani servicemen became martyrs, there were also wounded. At the same time, two of Azerbaijani civilians were wounded," she said. Azerbaijan appealed to relevant international organizations diplomatic representatives in connection with the large-scale provocation committed by Armenia. The country also appealed to world community to respond harshly to the actions of Armenia that threaten the establishment of fear and sustainable peace in the region. According to Aliyeva, the attack of Armenia created a serious threat to lives and well being of people and violated many fundamental rights. Fist of all, these actions are evidence of disrespect for international legal norms, as well as the requirements of trilateral statements signed by Armenian PM. In addition, Azerbaijan has repeatedly addressed the international community in connection with the issue of Armenia's failure to provide accurate maps of minefields. The mine threat delays the process of returning Azerbaijani citizens to their native lands liberated from occupation, and also leads to the death and disability of people. However, during this time, the Armenian Armed Forces repeatedly made new attempts to mine these territories. "Azerbaijan believes that ethnic hatred towards Azerbaijan is behind this policy in general. The attacks of the Armenian communities on Azerbaijani diplomatic missions abroad under the guise of 'peaceful actions', the sounding of various slogans and attempts to commit acts of vandalism is the evidence of this. Azerbaijan expressed its opinion to the international community in connection with these attacks, and also called on the countries in which country's diplomatic missions are located to ensure the safety of embassies and diplomats. Such attacks must be prevented in accordance with the obligations assumed by host states under international law," she added. Aliyeva stressed the importance of international support to Azerbaijan, saying that Armenia's hostilities should be strongly condemned at the time when Azerbaijan starts the process of 'Great return' and implements comprehensive construction work on the territories destroyed during the occupation. "Thus, after second Karabakh war very important opportunities appeared for establishing peace in the region. It was also beneficial for the Armenian side, its people. However, it's very unfortunate that Armenia not only neglected peaceful initiatives, but also demonstrated its destructive intentions through numerous provocations," she stated. "Although Azerbaijani people suffered for about 30 years from the consequences of the occupation policy of Armenia, no decisive measures were taken against it at the international level. New reality has emerged in the region, the relevant international structures, having demonstrated a fair approach, should condemn the provocations of Armenia that threaten the lives of people, and contribute to the process of establishment of peace in the South Caucasus region. The structure of ombudsman institution will continue to make the necessary contribution in this direction, which is a priority in its activities," Aliyeva said. Azerbaijani Ombudsman expressed hope that leadership of Armenia will draw lessons from recent events and make efforts towards peace and coexistence, and the international community will support Azerbaijan in its peace efforts. The town of Long View is on the search for a new manager to step in after its current manager retires at the end of the year. David Draughn, a native of Valdese, will retire Dec. 30 after nearly 19 years with the town for a combined 30 years working in local government in the state. Draughn started with the town of Long View in 2003 as the public works director and remained in that role until the council appointed him town administrator in early 2016. Before joining the town of Long View, Draughn served as city manager in the towns of Belhaven and Tryon, as well as the assistant county manager of Polk County. Its been a rewarding career overall, Draughn said. He said there have been lots of challenges and a lot of changes in his 30-year career in local government. But the key for me has been working collaboratively with elected officials, and particularly your staff that I work hand in hand with, in particularly here theyve been just fantastic, Draughn said. And I think the towns in good position going forward for things are probably coming. And I guess thats about all you can do. One of the biggest changes to local government has been technology, Draughn said. Technology is something that has affected everybodys job, he said, recalling the first fax machine that came to town hall and having AT&T phone cards and what a big deal that was. He didnt have a computer until 1997, Draughn said. Now the world revolves around computers, emails, cellphones and social media, he said. As for the future, Draughn said he doesnt have any plans yet. I just kind of want to decompress and disconnect from this a little bit, and then well see whats next, Draughn said. I really want to thank the people of Long View, but particularly the elected officials and my staff, for all the support weve had while weve been here, and weve got a lot of good things going, he added. And wish them nothing but the best. The town has contracted with the Western Piedmont Council of Governments to help with the search. Anthony Starr, executive director of WPCOG, said the search process is in the early stages and his organization has been accepting applications. Starr said he anticipates the town council will review the applicants in early October and then schedule the initial interviews for some time in mid-October. He said he anticipates an announcement and appointment of the new town manager by the council to occur in mid to late November, with a new manager starting at the beginning of January. The job ad was posted on the North Carolina League of Municipalities website. The ad said the town is seeking an energetic, results-oriented, forward-thinking candidate for the position. The yearly salary range for the job was listed as between $100,000 to $123,000, depending on qualifications, with a full benefits package. The job ad touts the assets and location of the town and its proximity to larger cities and its quality of life. The ad says the town manager is responsible for the towns day-to-day operations and a total budget of more than $6 million, as well as overseeing its 43 full-time employees, volunteer firefighters and reserve police officers. The town manager must be able to relate well to the community and staff and partner with the council to carry out the strategic priorities of the community, the job ad says. Future initiatives include economic development, main street planning, utility extensions and neighborhood redevelopment. The position requires any combination of education and experience equivalent to graduation with a bachelors degree or masters degree (preferred) in public administration or related field and three to five years of local government manager or department head experience. King battled against his own health from the time of his November 1852 election as Franklin Pierce's vice president, to his oath of office in March 1853. A persistent and violent cough left him emaciated and weak, prompting an early resignation in December 1852 from his Senate seat in the hopes that warmer weather would aid his recovery. He set out for Cuba, and by early February reached Havana, where he remained ill with tuberculosis. It didn't take long for King, then 67, to realize he was too sick to make it back to Washington, D.C. in time to accept the vice presidency. By the time King was to be sworn in, it literally required an Act of Congress for him to enter into office. Advertisement Thus, for the first and so far only time in U.S. history, Congress passed legislation allowing the VP-elect to be sworn in outside of the country. On March 24, 1853, King took his oath of office near Matanzas, Cuba, a seaport town 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of Havana. He was too ailing to stand without help, but he was able to repeat the oath and become America's 13th vice president. Within a month, desperate to return to the United States, King set sail for Alabama and died April 18, 1853, the day after he returned to his Southern estate. He never presided over a session of Congress as vice president though in an odd twist of fate, he had acted as President pro tempore of the Senate in 1850, when Zachary Taylor died and then-VP Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency. Following King's death, the nation went nearly four years without a vice president until March 1857, when John C. Breckenridge filled the position, serving alongside none other than President James Buchanan, King's longtime friend and companion. Now That's Interesting William Rufus DeVane King became a leader in the community that grew up around his Alabama estate. Although the area had gone by several names, King was instrumental in naming the city Selma after his favorite poem "The Songs of Selma," from James Macpherson's "Ossian" epic poem cycle. Advertisement Originally Published: Jul 7, 2017 Iranian government sponsored cybercriminals are actively using known software vulnerabilities to attack critical infrastructure targets in Australia, government authorities have warned in urging businesses to close long-known security holes in their systems. The warning issued by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) in conjunction with the US FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), and UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) among others highlighted an ongoing campaign against Western targets that has been followed closely by national cyber authorities since May 2021. Cybercrime groups affiliated with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) but working under the auspices of Iranian companies including Najee Technology Hooshmand Fater LLC and Afkar System Yazd Company are targeting a range of known vulnerabilities in software including security vendor Fortinets Fortinet OS, Microsoft Exchange, and VMware Horizon Log4j weaknesses, the authorities concluded. Rather than choosing victims for political or other motives, the ACSC and partners have concluded that the cyber criminals are trawling through Western businesses looking for companies that have not yet patched the vulnerabilities leaving soft spots that are ripe for exploitation by ransomware and extortion operations. The criminal groups are exploiting known vulnerabilities on unprotected networks, the ACSC advised, rather than targeting specific targeted entities or sectors. After gaining access to a network, the actors likely determine a course of action based on their perceived value of the data.... they may sell the data or use the exfiltrated data in extortion operations.... to pressure targeted entities to pay ransom demands. Ongoing scrutiny of the Iranian cyber criminals activities has helped government security specialists develop a detailed understanding of the techniques they are using, leading them to encourage businesses to prioritise fixes including patching vulnerabilities and prioritising known exploits; enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA); and making offline backups of data. The latest alert serves as a direct reminder that threat actors of all types, from average cybercriminals to government-sponsored APT groups, continue to exploit legacy vulnerabilities to gain access into organisations despite the availability of patches for months or years, said Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer with security firm Tenable. This underscores the need for organisations to be more diligent about identifying vulnerable assets within their networks and applying available patches in a timely manner. Caught in the crossfire or targets themselves? With most companies expecting to suffer cybercriminal compromise and nation state-backed groups from China, Russia, Iran and elsewhere regularly caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar, complacency long ago stopped being an acceptable cyber security strategy for businesses whose increasing online exposure has opened them up to attack from anywhere in the world. Security firm Crowdstrike, for one, has long tracked the activities of nation-state groups and has documented campaigns against Australian targets by threat actors based in North Korea, Eastern Europe, India, Russia, and elsewhere. And while many of those groups are simply eager to amass financial rewards, their growing attention on critical infrastructure raises the spectre of disruptive and potentially crippling cyberattacks that could cause widespread societal damage. The escalation of attacks by groups from Iran which was a decade ago targeted by the Stuxnet critical infrastructure industrial malware has been an ongoing trend, CISA has reported, with the IRGC working with private-sector contractors or its own specialists on a range of cyber campaigns. The country has exercised its increasingly sophisticated cyber capabilities to suppress certain social and political activity, and to harm regional and international adversaries, CISAs assessment said, noting that Iranian nation-state groups continue to engage in conventional offensive cyber activities ranging from website defacement, spearphishing, DDoS, and theft of personally identifiable information, to more advanced activities. These include destructive malware, manipulation of social media, and, CISA warned, potentially cyberattacks intended to cause physical consequences. Those consequences, Gartner last year warned, could include human fatalities by 2025 as malicious cyber criminals manipulate safety systems built into industrial operational technology (OT) systems. Just as conventional businesses should act to patch potentially exploitable vulnerabilities as soon as possible, Gartner has advised companies with OT systems to ensure they implement 10 critical security controls to reduce their potential exposure to nation-state and other attacks. Optus is under fire for the massive breach. Photo: Shutterstock Just minutes after Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil chastised Optus in parliament for a massive breach which saw the personal details of 9.8 million Australians stolen and calling on the telco to provide free credit monitoring, Optus has come to the party. In question time on Monday afternoon, ONeil said responsibility for the breach fell fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Australias second-largest telco. Responsibility for the security breach rests with Optus and I want to note that the breach is of a nature that we should not expect to see in a large telecommunications provider in this country, ONeil said. We expect Optus to continue to do everything they can to support their customers and former customers. One way they can do this is providing free credit monitoring to impacted customers. About half an hour later, Optus issued a press release, offering the most affected current and former customers whose information was compromised because of a cyberattack, the option to take up a 12-month subscription to Equifax Protect at no cost. Optus said these most affected customers will be contacted in the coming days with details on how to start their subscription to the credit monitoring and identity protection service. Please note that no communications from Optus relating to this incident will include any links as we recognise there are criminals who will be using this incident to conduct phishing scams, Optus said. Some Optus customers are still to be notified about the breach. ONeil added that a very substantial reform task will emerge from a breach of the scale and size and there is a number of policy issues that I think the public will soon become quite aware of. One significant question is whether the cyber security requirements we place on large telecommunications providers in this country are fit for purpose. I also noted that in other jurisdictions, a data breach of this size will result in fines amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. The letter sent to Optus customers. Photo: Supplied AFP closes in The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said it is working with overseas law enforcement to identify the hackers behind the Optus breach as part of its newly formed Operation Hurricane. The AFP said it is aware of reports the stolen data has been placed up for sale but declined to disclose the information it had obtained since the breach was reported on 22 September. We are aware of reports of stolen data being sold on the dark web and that is why the AFP is monitoring the dark web using a range of specialist capabilities, said Assistant Commissioner Cyber Command Justine Gough. Criminals, who use pseudonyms and anonymising technology, cant see us but I can tell you that we can see them. A key focus, which we have had success in the past, is to identify those criminals. It is an offence to sell or buy stolen identification credentials, with penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment. Our presence and focus extends outside Australian borders, and AFP specialised cyber investigators are permanently based in the United Kingdom, United States, Europe and Africa. We will use all our technical capabilities and tools to protect the public from cybercrime but we also need the public to be extra vigilant. Class action Law firm Gordon and Slater has moved quickly to investigate a possible class action by present and past customers against Optus. This is potentially the most serious privacy breach in Australian history, both in terms of the number of affected people and the nature of the information disclosed, Class Actions senior associate Ben Zocco said. We consider that the consequences could be particularly serious for vulnerable members of society, such as domestic violence survivors, victims of stalking and other threatening behaviour, and people who are seeking or have previously sought asylum in Australia. Given the type of information that has been reportedly disclosed, these people cant simply heed Optus advice to be on the look-out for scam emails and text messages. Very real risks are created by the disclosure. Interested Optus customers can register their expression of interest here. Unrest continues Cyber professionals and researchers across Australia continue to voice their concerns over the Optus breach. Given the sensitive information required by telcos for a customer to open an account, this breach should send a collective shiver down the spine not just of every Optus customer, but every business tasked with protecting important customer data, Adapt Senior Director of Strategic Research Matt Boon said. "While it's still too soon to understand the full impact of this breach, this is without a doubt one of the most significant cyber-attacks Australians have ever seen. Over a third of the population is nervously watching and waiting to see if they've been affected. Boon criticised Optus advice to customers to increase their vigilance, saying it was simply not good enough, as it isnt their responsibility to fix. He said Optus should engage in a rapid, in-depth assessment of exactly who was affected and to what extent; an information campaign specifying, to each customer, the type of data that has been affected; advise unaffected customers so they can stop worrying; and post-breach, rapidly bolster cyber defences. StickmanCyber CEO Ajay Unni said it was extremely sad to see Australia under attack from cybercriminals who are finding success in exploiting vulnerabilities to gain unauthorised access to businesses and critical infrastructure. People, he said, will always be the weakest link in cyber security. "The findings of the Australian Cyber Security Centres investigation into Optuss data breach will reveal the true nature of the attack whether it was the work of cybercriminals or a state-sponsored attack. "Telcos like Optus carry large amounts of information about their customers such as call patterns, incoming/outgoing phone numbers, data/internet usage and other forms of personal information that can be easily exploited. "The data exposed can now be maliciously used to create fake identities or as a launchpad to further target users individually through spear-phishing campaigns. These campaigns will now be even more effective as cyber criminals have access to more information than just an email address. Phillip Ivancic, APAC head of Solutions Strategy, at security testing software company Synopsys commended the hardworking Optus IT Security teams for their swift actions. The fact their CEO, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, was able to provide initial details and a public statement seemingly within hours on a national public holiday means that Optus must have a well-established, and well-practised, Incident Response Plan, he said. The early reports indicate that the breach was picked up as a part of their continuous assessment framework another example of important and multi-layered defences. Advice from AFP For cyber safety tips, visit: https://www.cyber.gov.au/acsc/individuals-and-families Those who believe they have fallen victim to cybercrime should immediately contact ReportCyber on: https://www.cyber.gov.au/acsc/report If you are concerned that your identity has been compromised, contact the national identity and cyber support service IDCARE: https://www.idcare.org/ CHARLESTON A former Mattoon daycare operator has been sentenced to six years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for shaking a baby in her care. Carmen Petak, 51, was found guilty on one count of battering a child during a six-day trial in July. The same jury found her innocent of a second charge of battering a child. The count upon which she was convicted stemmed from a Jan. 23, 2020, incident during which authorities say she shook a child in her care after being unable to soothe him. At the time of Petak's arrest, authorities said the mother of the 6-month-old boy picked him up early from the daycare after hearing he was sick and she then took him to Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center. The child was later transferred to St. Louis Children's Hospital. Sarah Bush Lincoln medical staff contacted the police due to the child's symptoms of vomiting and lethargy and the absence of visible outside trauma being indicative of brain bleed caused by "shaken baby" type injuries, authorities said. St. Louis staff later determined that the infant was suffering from brain bruising and a bilateral retinal hemorrhage that would cause symptoms to occur within an hour of him being shaken. The charged carried with it six to 30 years in prison. Petak, a former Illinois State Police trooper and a Mattoon auxiliary officer before that, was sentenced Friday. Petak's attorney, Anthony Bruno, said Petak was aware of the risks of a jury trial. "While we respect the jury's decision, we disagree with it," said Bruno, who requested the minimum sentence of six years be imposed. "We take the position that Carmen is innocent." Bruno said there was a lesson in the jury's finding. "A famous trial lawyer once observed that some crimes are just so heinous, that even innocence isn't an excuse," Bruno said. "And I think that the lesson to be taken away from this trial is that one should never speak to the police." Coles County State's Attorney Jesse Danley said his office requested Petak be sentenced to 12 years in prison, but understood the judge's decision to go with a lesser sentence. "It was a tough case for everyone involved. But at the end of the day, a five month old child was shaken and there was scientific medical evidence that supported that," Danley said, "and we presented that case to a jury, no embellishments, no exaggeration, just scientific evidence." Bruno made a motion for a new trial ahead of the sentencing, but it was ultimately denied. Following the sentencing, Petak filed a notice of appeal for the case. Along with other evidence presented by Danley and First Assistant State's Attorney Jenifer Shiavone, the state presented a letter from the victim's mother about the impacts of the battery. The letter asked that the judge consider how much worse the situation could have been. "I cannot harbor hate in my heart toward the abuser, for the weight is too much to bear. I wake up every morning to a smiling, silly boy who is happy, healthy, and growing," the letter reads. "However, this is not always the case. Please do not forget the possibilities of what the case could've been." Petak's attorney presented 30 letters speaking on Petak's behalf, requesting leniency in her sentencing. "Prison is meant to protect the innocent from those who threaten us and our society. Prison is meant to rehabilitate the pariahs who dare to go against our nation's laws," Petak's sister, Courtney Cox, said. "Your Honor, my sister Carmen is not a threat to society." After serving her prison sentence, Petak will be on mandatory supervised release for three years and is required to pay a $500 fine. Q: Is it too early to register to vote in the 2022 General Election? CW Answer: In North Carolina, the deadline to register to vote is 25 days before the date of an election. The 2022 General Election will be held on Nov. 8, meaning the regular deadline to register to participate in this years election will be Oct. 14. After that, voters can still take advantage of same-day registration by registering and voting in person at a One-Stop Early Voting Site. According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections website (ncsbe.gov), voters who wish to use same-day registration must show proof of their residence by presenting any of the following documents containing their current name and address: North Carolina drivers license. Other photo identification issued by a government agency that includes the voters current name and address. A copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document showing the voters name and address. A current college/university photo identification card paired with proof of campus habitation. Voters should be mindful that the county board of elections will verify the voters information within two business days of same-day registration and voting. This process will include verifying the voters address by mail. One-Stop Early Voting sites for the North Carolina General Election open on October 20 and will continue through November 5. The full schedule of early voting dates, times, and locations can be found on the Forsyth County Board of Elections website at forsyth.cc/Elections/one_stop.aspx. Another important date to keep in mind is the deadline to request an absentee by-mail ballot. Voters who wish to vote by mail, must submit a Statewide Absentee By-Mail Ballot Request Form no later than 5 p.m. Nov. 1. Forms can be found online at forsyth.cc/Elections/absentee_voting.aspx, along with a link to submit the request online. Once the form is complete, it can be hand delivered or mailed to: Forsyth County Board of Elections Forsyth County Government Center 201 N. Chestnut Street Winston-Salem, NC 27101-4120 Keep in mind that forms mailed to the Board of Elections must be received in the Board of Elections office before the Nov. 1 deadline. Forms received by mail after 5 p.m. Nov. 1 will not be accepted. Once the Forsyth County Board of Elections receives the request for an absentee ballot, they will return a ballot to the voter by mail. The voter must complete the ballot and return it to the Forsyth County Board of Elections office in person or by mail before 5 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 8. For more information about absentee voting contact the Forsyth County Board of Elections at absentee@forsyth.cc. Q: I thought that hurricane season was almost over. Do I need to be concerned about more potential storms? DW Answer: According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 each year, with the majority of storms taking place between mid-August and late October. Even if the center of a hurricane is not predicted to make landfall in our local area, it is still important to be prepared for emergencies that can arise from heavy wind and rain that may extend far beyond the center of the storm. These severe weather conditions can often cause power outages and flooding that may create dangerous and stressful situations for those who are not prepared. The first step in getting prepared is to create a plan. Become familiar with emergency plans that already exist in your community. A good place to start is your countys Emergency Management Department. In Forsyth County, emergency and weather alerts can be found on cityofws.org. Determine your evacuation route, or your communitys procedure for evacuating people who are without private transportation to either a shelter or out of the danger area. If you receive home care, speak with your care manager about their emergency plan. If you live in a senior community, become familiar with their disaster plans. Then, talk with family and friends about your plan and discuss options, especially if you may need transportation to a safe place. Let them know your needs and ask them if they would be willing to help. Share your plan for each contingency. Designate one or two primary contact persons to coordinate information with the rest of your support circle. Keep a written list of your key contacts with you. Talking with your support team will help you determine a plan that is right for you, and everyone will better understand how they can help. Another vital part of being prepared for hurricanes is to have an emergency kit with necessary supplies to stay safe. The American Red Cross recommends packing two separate kits. The first, a stay-at-home kit includes at least two weeks worth of non-perishable food and water for each person in the home, a battery-powered rechargeable radio or hand-crank charger with a USB port, a cellphone and charger, a flashlight with extra batteries, a first aid kit, toilet paper, moist towelettes, blanket, pet supplies, and cleaning supplies. The second kit is an evacuation kit, which is considered a 3 day go-bag of supplies you would need if you must leave your home. Like packing for a weekend trip, pack a set of clothes, cash, photocopies of important papers and IDs, prescription medication, and specialty items for pets. Dont forget to include protective items such as hand sanitizer, face coverings, soap, and disinfectants. If you own a car, gather emergency items for your vehicle, including jumper cables, flashlight, maps, first-aid kit, emergency flares, and bottled water. Many of these items may already be in your home. Take time to see that they are in working order. Finally, stay informed. Relief organizations like the Red Cross may open shelters if many people are impacted or the emergency is expected to last several days. Go to a shelter if your area is without power, floodwater is rising, your home has severe damage, or you are directed by officials. Keep your primary contacts aware of your location. Once the storm has passed let your contacts know that you are safe. If you have lost power, disconnect your electronics and major appliances to avoid damage by a power surge when power is restored. Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible. When the cleanup begins, beware of high- pressure sales, unsolicited requests for financial information, and services provided with no contract. For more information about preparing for hurricanes in our area please visit cityofws.org/3188/Hurricane-Preparedness or ReadyForsyth.org. You can wash your vehicle in the rain, but should you? Thats the dilemma I faced on a soggy Sunday afternoon. It had been a while since I took hose, soap and sponge to my old pickup truck. In that time, it collected road dust, tree sap and a few splotches I could not identify. My significant other mentioned a few times the increasingly grungy nature of my ride. These were subtle hints like, Maybe you should wash your truck or I dont think I have ever seen a dirtier vehicle or You could not pay me to be seen in that thing. Now you wait a goldurn minute, I finally said, letting her know who wears the pants in this relationship. This is an 18-year-old truck made for hard work and rambunctious play, not some shiny toy for a drugstore cowboy who gets his Calvin Kleins in a knot when something scratches the bed. Why, in the last year Ive hauled a load of mulch, a propane tank, a...uh, well, thats about it. That said, I will wash my truck when I get good and darn well ready. That night, as I tossed and turned on the couch, I figured I was good and darn well ready. But then it rained. And it rained the next day and the next. I kept putting it off until the truck needed to go into the shop, not because it was dirty but because of engine problems. Im not mechanically inclined, but even I knew when a vehicle idles like an off-balance washing machine on spin cycle and the engine light flashes like slot machine jackpot, the vehicle needs a trip to the shop. To be honest, I didnt want the fellows at the shop seeing how dirty my truck was at that point. I imagined they would shake their heads, and one would tip back his cap and say, When do you think hell get good and darn well ready to wash this thing? Because it was apparently the monsoon season, it continued to rain right through the day before the trip to the shop. Since I had already proven I wear the pants, I pulled on a pair I didnt mind getting wet and told my significant other, Im going out to wash the truck. Its raining, she said. The neighbors are going to think youre on drugs. I am on drugs, I said. I chased down my statin with a beta blocker and half a bottle of Maalox. Im bouncing off the freakin walls. First, though, I needed to consult the all-knowing, all-seeing internet to find out if washing a vehicle in the rain is a good idea. The answer? YES! In my own personal (and a bit crazy) opinion is that one of the best times to wash your car is actually WHEN it is raining, writes the author of an article on DriveDetailed. As far as Im concerned there are no REAL negatives of washing your car in the rain. He notes the positives as saving time and water on pre-rinse and helping to wash off shampoo. Wait a minute NO! The website CarwashCountry says, In general, its not a good idea to actually wash your car in the rain if you are concerned with water spots. Then there is pollution in some parts of the country. Substances left behind by acid rain can etch into the clear coat of your car over time and make it harder to restore later on, says the author. Plus, the neighbors will think youre on drugs. After much conflicting information on the internet, I hitched up the pants I wear in the relationship, went outside in the rain and washed that truck. You know why? Because I was good and darn well ready. And the couch is uncomfortable. John Fetterman, aspiring to be junior U.S. senator of Pennsylvania, recently held a rally in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Its a shame that Fetterman didnt ask for my opinion about what really matters. He seems to be taking his orders from the sort of political operatives who dont understand that making abortion up until the moment of birth your campaign slogan is not a great approach for winning decent hearts and discerning minds. According to the Fetterman campaign, access to abortion is the only thing that seems to motivate intelligent females these days. Not the economy. Not toxic educational theories shoved down the throats of children. Not harassment at school board meetings. Not the debacle in Afghanistan. Not even COVID. The rally was designed to gin up anger among his pink-shirted followers, women who still parrot the 70s slogan of my body, my choice (except of course when we are talking about mandatory vaccines and masks). And there did appear to be a large number of these ladies, squeezed into a rather restrictive space in suburban Montgomery County, all there to support a man who has literally supported abortion without restrictions. As a woman who has spent more than five decades living, studying and working in suburbs like Montgomery County, I understand that there are many women who do not share my pro-life views. Id venture to say that a majority of even my closest friends support some form of legalized abortion, and were disturbed when the Dobbs ruling overturned the eminently unconstitutional decision in Roe. At recent social gatherings weve made sure to steer clear of that topic, to avoid food ending up anywhere except on plates and in mouths. But I can also state with absolute certainty that no one appreciates the pandering of Fetterman and the people who follow him like some abortion messiah. These women exist, and they are loud, and they have the ear of the mainstream media, but they are not representative of the majority of Pennsylvania females. I recently posted on social media a photo in front of City Hall, wherein I stated: We live in Philadelphia too, John Fetterman. We, the women who you cannot dazzle with your promises of sexual freedom, earned on the backs of future generations of children. Were not stupid. Were not oppressed. Were not misogynists (as if). We see through you. And we vote. We do. #Life. Between Facebook and Twitter, that post has gotten over 400 likes and 50 shares. While that might not match a Kardashian or AOC in its level of influence, its one of the biggest reactions Ive ever gotten on a political post in the past decade. That suggests how disconnected Fetterman, and Democrats in general, are to the zeitgeist of Pennsylvania women. We are not the sort of people who blindly fall in line behind a man who promises abortion on demand and without apology. We do not generally fall for the scare tactics of political operatives who warn that if Mehmet Oz, or for that matter any other GOP candidate is elected in the fall, we will be forced to scrounge around for birth control on the black market. We are not so naive as to believe that Democrats see abortion as anything other than a way to demonize the other side, and win an election. I know some folks who were thrilled when the Dobbs decision came down this June, and not because they oppose abortion. Theyve told me in confidence that this was exactly what they needed to energize Democrats for the midterms. They know that Joe Biden is an albatross for his party, and if they can scare women into believing that the United States will be changing its name to the United States of Gilead come November, theyll score at the polls. My response is that women are a lot smarter than that. Of course, you will get the outliers like those pink-shirted darlings at the Fetterman rally in Montco, tricked into believing that their Handmaid capes were ready for pick up in a warehouse owned by Dr. Oz and the GOP. You will get the women who think that their worth and value depends on being able to become unpregnant without restriction. They exist. But Pennsylvania women are far less gullible than what the Fetterman campaign perceives us to be. And as I said, even in the suburbs, we vote. A woman who had been incarcerated at Lincoln's community corrections facility is now considered an escapee after she left the low-security prison for a church visit Sunday morning and didn't return, according to authorities. Krista Foley, 33, had been incarcerated since October 2021 and was serving a three-year sentence on a weapons charge out of Douglas County, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said in a news release. Foley had a tentative release date of Aug. 28, 2024, but is now at large. Inmates at the Community Corrections Center-Lincoln are, with pre-approval, allowed to participate in off-site work opportunities or attend school or religious services without direct supervision. Foley was on such a trip when she absconded Sunday, according to authorities. Foley is a 145-pound, 5-foot-1-inch white woman who has brown hair and brown eyes. The corrections department asked anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts to contact local authorities or the Nebraska State Patrol. A 21-year-old Texas man is jailed in Lincoln after police allege he filmed sex acts with a 17-year-old girl and later sent them to at least one of the girl's classmates after their relationship ended, according to court filings. Jose L. Martinez, of Laredo, met the girl through social media in 2021, when he was 20, and the two began a long-distance relationship, Lincoln Police Investigator Ben Pflanz said in the affidavit for Martinez's arrest. In early 2022, Martinez visited Lincoln and filmed sex acts with the girl at a local motel, Pflanz alleged in the affidavit. The Texas man compiled hundreds of nude photos and videos of the teen, Pflanz said. Then, after the teen broke up with Martinez in April, he refused to delete the photos and threatened to "expose" her, even after the girl pointed out she was 17 when the images were taken, according to the affidavit. Martinez used multiple email accounts and phone numbers to communicate with the girl and eventually sent an image he had taken in the motel to one of the girl's classmates, Pflanz said. A Lancaster County judge in August signed a warrant for Martinez's arrest, charging him with visually depicting sexually explicit conduct. Martinez was booked into Lancaster County Jail on Friday. By Trend As many as 308 people have been infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past 24 hours in Iran, reads the statement of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran, Trend reports. In addition, 8 people have died from the coronavirus over the past day. At the same time, the condition of 172 people remains critical. So far, more than 54 million tests have been conducted in Iran for the diagnosis of coronavirus. In total, about 155 million doses of vaccines have been used in Iran so far. A total of 65 million doses have been used in the first stage, 58.4 million doses - in the second stage, and 31.1 million doses in the third stage. Iran continues to monitor the coronavirus situation in the country. According to recent reports from Iranian officials, over 7.54 million people have been infected, and 144,402 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 7.32 million people have reportedly recovered from the disease. The country continues to apply strict measures to contain the further spread of the virus. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease. The Islamic Republic announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19. The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019. FREMONT The Dodge County Sheriff's Office has identified the man whose body was found on the side of a highway near Fremont. Yashua Martinez, 27, of La Vista was found dead by construction crews near U.S. 275 south of Morningside Road on Thursday, according to a news release from the Sheriff's Office. U.S. 275 at Morningside Road was closed for about seven hours Thursday as officials investigated. The Sheriff's Office was assisted by the Fremont Police Department, the Nebraska State Patrol and the Douglas County Crime Lab. RACINE At Tuesdays meeting of the Racine City Council, one councilman claimed the Racine City Public Health Department was supported primarily by grants; another alleged the city could save money by consolidating health departments. However, the claims made by both of the two alderman did not hold up under scrutiny. What if RCPHD was dissolved? The discussion began when Alderman Jeffrey Peterson said he supported consolidating health department services with the county and allowing the Racine County Public Health Division to manage matters for the entire county. He presented the proposal as a cost-savings potential of $3 million and said 70 of the states 72 counties have health departments managed by the county for the whole county; though, there are at least three cities with their own health departments: Appleton, Racine and Milwaukee. As an example, Peterson pointed to the 911 dispatch center, which has been operated by Racine County since 2011, and said he wanted to see something similar for the health department so they could take $3 million off the books. However, state law does not allow municipalities to dump services on another municipality without making payment. While it is true the county manages emergency dispatching, the City of Racine and area municipalities may payments for that service. If the county were to take over the duties of the citys health department, the levy funds for the health department would simply go to the county rather than the city So while it is possible to create a county-wide health department, and the council might even see the benefits to consolidating services, it will not eliminate the cost from the budget. How RCPHD is funded In response to Petersons remarks, Alderman Terry McCarthy said the Racine Health Department is supported almost entirely by grants, and he broadly suggested the taxpayers would save very little by eliminating the service. While the health department is the recipient of grants, more so during the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 57.5% of its funding comes from the tax levy. According to the figures shown in the citys 2021 audit, the health departments funding sources are: Approximately $2.4 million tax levy. Approximately $373,000 other revenues, such as charges for services. Approximately $1.4 million in grants. Approximately $4,173,000 total. In actuality, only about one-third of the citys health department is funded with grants. Another entry in the category of unprecedented weather extremes comes from the tropical Atlantic basin where, last week, Hurricane Fiona wrought devastation to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, still reeling from its assault by Hurricane Maria eerily precisely five years earlier. Fiona dropped upwards of 30 inches of rain on the south shores of Puerto Rico before heading north into the Atlantic, where it systematically strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of more than 130 mph. As Fiona was strengthening, the weather here in southern Wisconsin underwent a welcome change from the extreme humidity of Monday and Tuesday to the much drier, fall-like conditions of the late part of the week. This change was afforded by the passage of a fairly strong autumn cold front on the first full day of fall. That same cold front was part of a larger extratropical weather system over eastern North America that was heading eastward to a rendezvous with Fiona as she left the tropics. Embedded within the extratropical storm was a feature known as a tropopause fold. Such features were first observed only in the mid-1950s and, for a long while thereafter, were thought to be very unusual features, bordering on curiosities. Subsequent work has shown that these folds are ubiquitous features of the mid-latitude flow and, in fact, account for the creation of some of the ingredients needed for the development of all extratropical weather systems. The fold associated with the storm that cooled us off by Wednesday was unusually strong for this time of year. When it encroached on Fiona north of Bermuda, the combination led to a dramatic reinvigoration of Fiona, as an extratropical cyclone, that slammed into Nova Scotia on Saturday, recording the lowest sea-level pressure ever observed in Canada. So, for two weeks in a row, the atmosphere has served up remarkable examples of the havoc that can result from vigorous interaction between the tropics and the extratropics. CHICAGO A 3-year-old boy who was allegedly pushed into Lake Michigan in Chicago by his aunt last week has died, officials said. Josiah Brown, who had been in grave condition and was not expected to survive since he was pulled from the lake last Monday, was pronounced dead shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. The boy's aunt was charged last week with attempted murder. The Cook County State's Attorney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the charges against Victoria Moreno would be upgraded because the boy died. The 34-year-old Moreno, a resident of nearby Des Plaines, who was also charged with aggravated battery of a child under the age of 13 causing permanent disability, remains in Cook County Jail after a judge last week ordered that she be held without bond. During last week's bond hearing, prosecutors said that Moreno was at Navy Pier in Chicago when she allegedly pushed the boy into the lake, and then stood by as he sank. Divers found him at the lake bottom about a half hour later. SPRINGFIELD, ILL Beginning Jan. 1, cash bail will be abolished in Illinois. The measure that will eliminate it has been on the books since early 2021, giving the justice system two years to plan for the major overhaul of the states pretrial detention system. Its also given time for the measure to become politicized to a point where the reality of the law has become indistinguishable from the political rhetoric surrounding it. As Ive said many times, what we want to make sure doesnt happen is that someone whos wealthy and commits a terrible violent crime it could be, by the way, a wealthy drug dealer doesnt have an easy time getting bail compared to somebody who maybe commits shoplifting and for a couple of hundred dollars is stuck in jail, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference in August. But opponents and advocates of the reform agree that, beyond simply ending cash bail, the law seeks to reduce the number of people incarcerated before a guilty verdict by limiting the circumstances in which a judge can order pretrial detention. Republicans and states attorneys have continued to fight for changes to the law, up to a full repeal, arguing that while the intent may be to empower judges to detain more dangerous individuals, the bill as written is too limiting. A nonpartisan task force formed under the Supreme Court, meanwhile, is working to assist with implementation in the justice system ahead of Jan. 1 and has identified unclear or contradictory sections of the bill that lawmakers should reconsider before Jan. 1. It is frustrating because many aspects of the statute are not clear, retired Judge Robbin Stuckert, who chairs the Pretrial Implementation Task Force, said at a July town hall meeting. They may be vague, gray areas. And again, we are charged by the Supreme Court to assist with implementation. The laws sponsors in the General Assembly said they are working with the task force on legislation clarifying some of those matters particularly when it comes to detainable offenses for potential passage this fall. Pretrial detention The provision to end cash bail, known as the Pretrial Fairness Act, was included in the SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform passed in a January 2021 lame duck session. Short for Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today, the SAFE-T Act was a broad-ranging initiative backed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus in the wake of a nationwide reckoning with racism in the criminal justice system following the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. It was passed by the Senate just before 5 a.m. after an all-day session on Jan. 13, 2021, then cleared the House hours later. Pritzker signed it a month later. It has been amended twice, addressing law enforcement concerns about use of force standards, clarifying some pretrial matters and changing language about police body cameras. But provisions regarding cash bail have not been amended since the bills 2021 passage. The goal of the Pretrial Fairness Act was clear: to move away from the existing wealth-based system of pretrial detention in favor of one based on an offenders level of risk of reoffending or fleeing prosecution. Keith Grant, a Lake County public defender and Pretrial Implementation Task Force member, said that citing and releasing people committing less serious offenses provides better outcomes, saves taxpayer money and frees officers to remain on the beat. We find that when defendants are detained even for as little as, research shows, three days, they can become destabilized to the point of lacking all of the social netting resources that they would have otherwise had, Grant said. Keeping people in custody when they dont need to be actually creates a risk of harm to the community. The Loyola University of Chicagos Center for Criminal Justice Research analyzed Illinois State Police data that showed that from 2020 to 2021, individuals jailed pretrial in Illinois spent an average of 34 days incarcerated. The report predicted the numbers would decrease under the PFA for those committing lesser offenses while likely increasing for those held on more serious offenses because they cant free themselves on bail. The report further analyzed U.S. Department of Justice data which showed that in 2019, 50% of jail detainees in Illinois were Black compared to 15% of the population at large; 33% were white compared to 76% of the population; and 14% were Hispanic compared to 18% of the population. The racial disparity numbers were driven by Illinois three largest counties. Of those detained, 82% were being held on felony charges and 89% were being held pretrial. The new law abolishes cash bail and provides for a presumption in favor of release for misdemeanors, traffic offenses and other petty offenses, provided a defendant is not deemed a risk to the community by the arresting officer. Kane County Chief Judge Clint Hull, a task force member, said at a July town hall that the arresting officers will maintain similar discretion as they are afforded under current law. Do they pose an obvious threat to the community or any person or are they a risk to their own safety? he said. In both situations, if they are, the police despite the fact that this isnt the most serious offense (do) have the discretion to bring that person in to try to make sure that they can identify and address that issue. In most cases, individuals committing misdemeanors or petty offenses will receive a citation from law enforcement and a court date within 21 days. Pretrial hearings After the initial arrest, as under current law, judges will determine whether detention continues. Under current law, bail hearings typically occur within 72 hours of arrest and last less than five minutes. Prosecutors detail the defendants charges and may recommend a bail amount. The judge then decides the conditions of their release, including how much money, if any, the defendant must post before their release from custody. Under the PFA, the hearings will be more intensive. Defendants are given a right to legal representation and prosecutors can detail their reasons for continued detention. One of the primary goals of the law is to make sure that were having in-depth, detailed hearings when were taking away someones freedom, said Sarah Staudt, an advocate with the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, which worked with lawmakers on the bill. Prosecutors wishing to keep an individual detained would petition the court for pretrial detention. Upon petition, the law requires an immediate detention hearing which could coincide with the defendants first appearance in court. If a continuance is requested and granted, the court would have 48 hours in serious felony cases to hold such a hearing. The court would have the authority to detain an individual pending a continuance. For pretrial detention to be ordered, the state must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant committed the crime, poses a specific threat to a person or persons and that no other pretrial conditions can mitigate the defendants risk to that person or persons. Its a heightened standard that prosecutors have warned may be too difficult to meet within the short timeline, but advocates say is necessary to protect a constitutional presumption of innocence. For lesser offenses, the court would have 24 hours to conduct the same procedure. The PFA makes no exception for holidays or weekends. Limits to detention States attorneys have been the most vocal critics of the law as written, arguing that it leaves too little leeway for judges to detain dangerous individuals in certain circumstances. Among them is Republican DuPage County States Attorney Bob Berlin, who said he was not opposed to ending cash bail in principle. I want to stress, this is very fixable, Berlin said. Im not one of the people out there saying Oh, repeal repeal, just get rid of it. We can fix this. And we can fix it before January 1. John Curran an implementation task force member, GOP state senator and former assistant Cook County states attorney said he also didnt oppose ending cash bail, but he saw several shortcomings with the system replacing it. He, Berlin and other states attorneys have called on Illinois to emulate a system put in place in New Jersey in 2017, which eliminates cash bail but gives greater discretionary authority to judges to impose pretrial detention than does Illinois law. The first big difference is New Jersey doesnt limit the number of offenses that are detainable, Berlin said in an interview. New Jersey allows judges to detain in any criminal offense, which would include misdemeanors. We believe that judges are in the best position to make decisions about who should be detained or not. While the PFA does not create categories of offenses that are non-detainable under every circumstance, it does, as written, create circumstances in which a judge would have no statutory authority to detain a defendant that doesnt have a prior record or present a risk of fleeing prosecution. Another Loyola University study estimated that a judge would not have been able to detain the defendant in 56% of arrests that occurred statewide in 2020 and 2021 had the PFA been in place. From 2020 to 2021, according to the research, 193,387 people were admitted into jails statewide each year, with 90% held for some length pretrial. Due to varying lengths of pretrial detention, the report estimated there were between 13,827 to 15,994 people being held pretrial daily. Once the PFA is implemented, between 44,000 and 70,000 individuals per year will be eligible for initial detention, the report estimated. About 70% of those would be in relation to domestic violence or violations of order of protections, according to the study, which is one reason the SAFE-T Act had support from anti-domestic violence groups. If post-COVID trends continue, the report reads, that means somewhere between 89,000 and 115,000 individuals per year could not be initially detained under the PFA once the law goes into effect on January 1, 2023. Detention standards Currans and Berlins concern lies in the language beginning on page 370 of the 764-page SAFE-T Act which lays out the specific circumstances in which a judge can order pretrial detention. The language allows a judge to deny pretrial release if a defendant is a danger to an individual or the community and is accused of non-probational offenses such as first-degree murder, as well as aggravated arson, residential burglary, stalking, domestic battery, certain gun offenses and several specified sex offenses. While misdemeanors and other low-level offenses are generally non-detainable under the new law, all charges become detainable if the defendant is already on pretrial release, probation or parole. The language also allows detention for individuals charged with a forcible felony for which a sentence of imprisonment, without probation, periodic imprisonment or conditional discharge, is required by law upon conviction. The task force has noted that language specifically excludes offenses for which a defendant is eligible for probation. Berlin said that means, under the law as written, judges cannot order pretrial detention of an individual accused of second-degree murder, drug trafficking, arson, robbery, aggravated battery, threatening a public official and other probational offenses unless prosecutors prove they are a risk for willful flight from prosecution. The willful flight standard, unlike the dangerousness provision, can be applied to anyone committing a crime greater than a Class 4 felony which includes many property crimes and offenses such as aggravated DUI and driving on a revoked license who is deemed by a judge as planning or attempting to intentionally evade prosecution by concealing oneself. But because the law states that past non-appearances in court are not evidence of future intent to avoid prosecution, Berlin said it will be difficult to prove. I mean, youve gotta show that theyve got a ticket to get out of town, Berlin said. Advocates, on the other hand, say the differentiation between the willful flight and dangerousness standards was intentional, although further changes may be forthcoming. If someones going to cooperate with the prosecution in a nonviolent case, we dont want a situation where theyre being detained, Staudt said. Sen. Robert Peters, a Democrat and Senate co-sponsor of the law, said hes open to discussions about amending the bills willful flight standards and detainable offense language based on the Pretrial Implementation Task Forces recommendations. Anytime you take human life and youre saying Im going to take away their freedom, that should be somewhat of a higher standard, he said. What I again will say is that Im willing to have conversations about the practices of this. Rep. Justin Slaughter, a Chicago Democrat and the laws House sponsor, said language regarding detainable offenses in the existing bill is misleading and unclarified, and his plan is to address it in follow-up legislation this fall. We will have a system that prioritizes public safety, and we will have a system (in which) theres no such thing as a non-detainable person, Slaughter said when asked about the goal of follow-up legislation at a Thursday news conference. He declined to go into specifics due to ongoing discussions. Curran, who said hes been pushing for such changes since January 2021, noted another section of the bill states that at each subsequent appearance in court, a judge must find that continued detention of a defendant is necessary to avoid the specific, real and present threat to any person or of willful flight from prosecution to continue detention of the defendant. Curran said that will make it more difficult to detain an individual after their first appearance by leaving out a community safety standard thats included elsewhere in the bill. The task force identified the language as problematic, and advocates have said standardizing the language throughout the bill will be a goal of follow-up legislation. Other concerns Another problem, the task force and others have noted, is that the statute does not address what happens to those already held in lieu of bail when the calendar hits Jan. 1. There is nothing in the law that requires those suspected of crimes be let out of prison when it goes into effect, Pritzkers spokesperson, Jordan Abudayyeh, said in a statement, suggesting that jurisdictions begin considering what happens to those individuals and scheduling hearings. Stuckert, however, said the laws silence on the matter leaves it to interpretation in court. Every meeting that I go to the first thing they say to me, What happens Jan. 1? and I say, I dont know, she said. For Berlin, the response is to be determined, with his county considering holding hearings for affected individuals in the final months of 2022 while awaiting potential clarity from lawmakers. As well, only 34 of Illinois 102 counties currently have pretrial service offices, which play a major role in preparing pretrial investigations for release condition and detention hearings and ensuring individuals appear in court. The Illinois Supreme Court, in August 2021, established an Office of Statewide Pretrial Services, a sprawling new entity that will provide pretrial services in at least 68 counties. Its working to hire the necessary staff for statewide implementation. The task force also heard concerns that the tight deadlines laid out in the new law will create difficulties for small, rural counties, where court is not in session daily, jails are miles away and attorneys are in short supply. Follow-up bill Thus far, the implementation task force has been creating guidance documents that include flow charts for how defendants should be treated throughout the pretrial process as well as considerations for jurisdictions creating new policies ahead of Jan. 1. We have no idea what will happen in veto session (when lawmakers next return to the Capitol), she said in an interview. But were prepared to do whatever we can to prepare all justice system partners for any changes that may come to fruition in a (follow-up bill). Slaughter said lawmakers are working with the task force to address concerns. Hes currently sponsoring House Bill 5537, a 219-page bill that, among other changes, seeks to standardize the detention language. It was filed in January, has no cosponsors and likely does not represent a final bill. While court officials like Berlin have engaged lawmakers regarding potential changes, several others have raised broader alarms and pushed for a full repeal an outcome unlikely with Democrats in control of the General Assembly and governors office at least through the PFAs effective date. At a news conference with county sheriffs earlier this month, GOP governor candidate and state Sen. Darren Bailey pushed for a full repeal and didnt offer alternative amendments hed work to implement. He said he believed repeal would be possible because he believed the Pretrial Fairness Act was tied to unspecified property tax increases. At a Sept. 14 news conference, Pritzker reiterated he supports the new law but didnt say when changes would happen or to what extent they are necessary. Are there changes or adjustments that need to be made? Of course, he said. And there have been adjustments made and there will continue to be. Laws are not immutable. 1. Yes. All council members should get a good idea of whats at stake for Fort Hoods future. 2. Yes. Sending a large delegation shows the citys commitment to the Army post. 3. No. Its a waste of taxpayer money. Sending a smaller group would be more efficient. 4. No. Harker Heights and Copperas Cove arent sending anyone. The trip is unnecessary. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say what the value is, before knowing how the conference turns out. Vote View Results By Trend The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $50-million project to improve the development of Kyrgyz economy, Trend reports citing the ADB's press service. Within the framework of this project, which consists of a $25 million grant and a $25 million concessional loan, the ADB will assist Kyrgyzstan in becoming more resilient to external shocks. "This program will help create an enabling environment for expanding the product and export base of Kyrgyzstans economy. The reforms will improve economic opportunities through boosting trade, access to finance, and facilitating the growth of export-oriented businesses," ADB's Public Management Specialist Bobir Gafurov said. In addition, he also underlined that this project will support efforts to strengthen fiscal management and the social protection system. Notably, since 1994 the Asian Development Bank has allocated more than $1.3 billion for the implementation of development projects in Kyrgyzstan BANGKOK A Chinese scientific ship bristling with surveillance equipment docked in a Sri Lankan port. Hundreds of fishing boats anchored for months at a time among disputed islands. And ocean-going ferries, built to be capable of carrying heavy vehicles and large loads of people. All are ostensibly civilian ships, but experts and uneasy regional governments say they are part of a Chinese civil-military fusion strategy, little concealed by Beijing, that enhances its maritime capabilities. China's navy is already the world's largest by ship count, and has been rapidly building new warships as part of a wider military expansion. It launched its first domestically designed and built aircraft carrier in June, and at least five new destroyers are on the way soon. The buildup comes as Beijing attempts to exert broader influence in the region. It is increasing its military activities around the self-governing island of Taiwan, seeking new security agreements with Pacific islands and building artificial islands in disputed waters in the South China Sea, which the U.S. and its allies have challenged. The civilian vessels do more than just augment the raw numbers of ships, performing tasks that would be difficult for the military. In the South China Sea's Spratly Islands, for example, China pays commercial trawlers more than they can make by fishing simply to drop anchor for a minimum of 280 days a year to support Beijing's claim to the disputed archipelago, said Gregory Poling, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. China has been using civilian fishing trawlers for military purposes for decades, but significantly increased the numbers recently with the creation of a "Spratly Backbone Fleet" out of a government subsidy program begun under President Xi Jinping, which helps cover building new vessels, among other things. Those ships "largely appeared almost overnight" after China constructed port infrastructure a few years ago on the artificial islands it built in the Spratlys that could be used for resupply, Poling said. Now there are about 300 to 400 vessels deployed there at any given time, he said. The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and others also have claims to the Spratly Islands, which sit in a productive fishing area and important shipping lane, and are thought to hold untapped reserves of natural gas and oil. But the Chinese ships deter other trawlers from fishing in the area, and have been slowly displacing them from the grounds, with little that governments can do, said Jay Batongbacal, who heads the University of the Philippines' Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea. "Because they are ostensibly civilian fishing vessels, navies' ships are unable to deal with them lest China accuse the Philippines of provoking an incident and using force against civilians," he said. In addition to about 800 to 1,000 commercial fishing boats in the Spratly fleet, China has approximately 200 other vessels as part of a professional maritime militia, according to a November study co-authored by Poling based on an analysis of official Chinese reports, satellite imagery and other sources. The professional militia is better equipped, with trained crews and under direct state control, and is used for more aggressive operations such as harassing foreign oil and gas operations, Poling said. In a conflict, China's use of civilian vessels would complicate the rules of engagement, he said. China also has been deploying civilian research vessels for military-related tasks in areas where its navy would be unable to operate without provoking a response, said Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst with the defense intelligence company Janes. The autonomously piloted Zhu Hai Yun is believed to be one such ship, capable of launching airborne, surface and underwater drones "to carry out marine scientific research," according to the Chinese state-run Global Times. The ship, which completed its first autonomous sea trial in June, could also create military maps of the South China Sea floor, including important submarine lanes around Taiwan, Rahmat said. "China has been increasing its submarine deterrent patrols, and in order to ensure it can do this it needs to map the underwater terrain," he said. China's methods drew the ire of India last month when it sought to dock the Yuan Wang 5 in Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port, not far from India's southeast coast, for refueling at a time that New Delhi was preparing to test a new missile. The vessel is equipped with sensors that can be used to track satellites, but the same equipment can be used to gather data on a missile launch. Sri Lanka initially declined to allow the ship to dock over India's concerns. But China operates the Hambantota Port, having been granted a 99-year lease on the facility built with Chinese money after Sri Lanka defaulted on loans in 2017. After high-level consultations with Beijing, Sri Lankan authorities allowed the Yuan Wang 5 to dock from Aug. 16 to Aug. 22. On Aug. 23, India successfully tested its new surface-to-air missile designed to defend a ship from close-range aerial threats. "I suspect the launch was delayed until the Chinese spy ship was gone," Rahmat said. TOKYO The Japanese leader who normalized relations with China 50 years ago feared for his life when he flew to Beijing for the high-stakes negotiations at the height of the Cold War, according to his daughter, a former Japanese foreign minister. Kakuei Tanaka's mission to normalize relations with China just two months after taking office was a huge gamble, his daughter, Makiko Tanaka, said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the 50th anniversary Thursday of the historic communique that Tanaka signed with his counterpart, Zhou Enlai. The then-prime minister told his daughter before his departure that he would resign if his mission failed, recalled Makiko Tanaka, who served as foreign minister and in other key posts from 1993 to 2012. Opposition was so fierce in Japan, she said, that some ruling party hawks came to their home the day before the trip to try to stop him from leaving. He told his daughter that he feared being poisoned in China, which was a largely closed country in 1972. Earlier that same year, U.S. President Richard Nixon made his visit to communist China that would transform Chinas position in the world. His trip led to the U.S. establishing diplomatic relations with China in 1979 and the parallel severing of formal ties with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own. Much has changed, too, in the China-Japan relationship over the past half-century. The neighbors enjoy deep business and cultural ties. Japan has given China more than $25 billion in development aid over the years, and China is Japans biggest trade partner. But the underlying tension that marked Tanaka's diplomatic foray remains. China, a relative backwater then, is now the worlds No. 2 economy and a growing military power. Tensions surround Beijing's rivalry with Washington and its increasingly assertive activity in the region, especially around Taiwan. Japan considers China a security threat and is particularly worried about Chinese naval activity around Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that Beijing also claims. Top-level visits have stalled in recent years, and Japan has been steadily building its military, largely in response to China. Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas government has pledged to further reinforce military power and to nearly double its spending over the next five to 10 years. Japans alliance with the United States is a lynchpin of our diplomacy, but we should not isolate China, Makiko Tanaka said. She raised worries about U.S.-led groupings of like-minded democracies, including Japan, as a counter to China, and cautioned against pushing Beijing toward closer ties with Russia. We are just banding together and being confrontational toward China, said Tanaka, who was foreign minister in 2001-2002 under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. She criticized U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visit to Taipei in August for escalating tensions. When Kakuei Tanaka, who died in 1993, made his trip, memories were fresh in Beijing of Japanese brutality during the first half of the 20th century. There was also opposition from anti-communist lawmakers in Tokyo. Makiko Tanaka accompanied her father on many foreign trips, but he refused to take her to Beijing because of safety worries. The main sticking points in 1972 were Japans apology for wartime aggression and differences over Taiwan issues that strain relations today. Kakuei Tanaka, however, was determined to make amends with China and change the state of the relationship with a country he saw as a growing power, his daughter said. He believed energetic diplomacy was the only way his resource-poor country could rise from the devastation of the war and survive global competition. Makiko quoted her father as saying that leaving the China issue dangling is not good for Japans future. She said her father was ready to lower his head and apologize to China (over Japan's wartime atrocities) to create a win-win relationship for Japans major benefit. Contrary to his worries, Tanaka was treated in China with extreme hospitality. His biggest relief centered on Zhous pledge to waive Chinas right to seek war compensation, which he said saved Japan from going bankrupt. Makiko Tanaka says the waiver was in exchange for Japans pledge to sever formal ties with Taiwan. The East China Sea islands dispute was not part of the 1972 communique. Kakuei Tanaka raised the issue but Zhou said he did not want to discuss it, according to diplomatic records released by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. In response to Chinese concerns, the Japanese side strengthened an apology over Japans wartime aggression in the communique. Makiko Tanaka said an improvement in the current political relationship between Beijing and Tokyo is hopeless, but she is pushing for deeper ties in the private sector. She has been invited to speak at Qinghua University in Beijing, and she is planning to invite a Chinese delegation to visit her fathers tomb in his hometown of Niigata later this year. If business, scientists and cultural exchanges were prompted more, there would be a sense of closeness between the countries, Tanaka said. Diplomacy is about people, and whether you can develop personal relations and talk when needed, but politicians who can do this are rare. BOSTON Eight years after the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went viral across social media and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for research, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, company is on the brink of a major breakthrough for ALS patients. Amylyx Pharmaceuticals should receive word in the coming week from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on whether the feds will approve the local firms drug treatment for the relentlessly progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS. AMX0035, which already was approved in Canada, is the first treatment funded by ALS Ice Bucket Challenge donations thats being considered for approval by the FDA. If not for the Ice Bucket Challenge, we wouldnt be here, said Justin Klee, co-CEO and co-founder of Amylyx. If approved by the FDA, Amylyxs drug would be a significant development for the ALS community, which has few treatment options. About 30,000 people in the U.S. have ALS, according to estimates. The companys drug in trials showed that it can slow the diseases progression and help patients survive longer. Its the first time weve seen a benefit on both function and survival in the same drug in the same trial, which is I think why people are really excited, Klee said. Data from the companys trial of AMX0035 showed that the drug slowed down disease progression by at least 25%, and increased lifespan by several months. Our trial showed a statistically significant slowing in the rate of disease progression, said Josh Cohen, co-CEO and co-founder of Amylyx. People progressed about 25% slower when they were on the drug as compared to placebo. We also saw that people who were on the drug survived longer than those who were taking the placebo, as well, he added. We saw a benefit on both function and survival. Cohen emphasized that their drug is not a cure. ALS is still not a disease anybody would ever want to get, even with this drug, but what it does is it makes the disease a little bit slower and kind of gives people more time to be functional and ideally more time to survive, as well, he said. A decade ago, when Cohen and Klee were recent college graduates launching the company, they were struggling to receive financial investments in the firm. Then local ALS patient Pete Frates, along with ALS patient Pat Quinn and their families started the Ice Bucket Challenge. And all of a sudden, there was funding in ALS, where previously there had been very little, Klee said. Some of that funding went to grants, and Amylyx received a $3 million grant. With that, the company was able to raise significant funding. Now all these years later, it looks like this might actually be a treatment for people with ALS, and a really important one, Klee said. The company also has a personal connection to the Frates family. Frates cousin Jim is Amylyxs CFO. He said it has been incredibly moving being part of the company helping to treat ALS. The people living with ALS, their caregivers and all the doctors and researchers in the field are just so inspiring, he said. The dignity and determination they show every day really inspires all of us at Amylyx to do our best to deliver for them. Our data has been published in NEJM and Muscle and Nerve and other peer-reviewed medical journals but what people care about is more time, Frates added. Hopefully, we can bring more time for them with their families and we will use that time to work hard to find a cure. An FDA advisory committee the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee this month voted 72 that the available evidence of effectiveness is sufficient to support approval of AMX0035 for the treatment of ALS. The FDA is expected to make a decision on AMX0035 by Thursday. WASHINGTON Members of Congress have officially objected to the results in four of the last six presidential elections, a partisan practice that has been legal for over a century but became much more fraught after a violent mob of then-President Donald Trump's supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol last year. In an effort to prevent another Jan. 6, 2021, bills moving through the House and the Senate would make it harder to lodge those objections when Congress counts the electoral votes in a joint session after every presidential election. The move to curtail the objections is part of a larger effort to overhaul the 1800s-era Electoral Count Act and safeguard the integrity of the vote after Trump tried to persuade his Republican allies in Congress to vote against Democrat Joe Biden's victory and overturn his 2020 defeat. Under current law, only one member of the House and one member of the Senate has to challenge a state's results to trigger votes on that state's electors in each chamber. If a simple majority in each chamber votes to sustain the objection, that state's votes can be thrown out. The House and Senate bills would each raise that threshold substantially, with the House bill requiring a third of each chamber to object and the Senate bill requiring a fifth of each chamber to object. The House legislation, passed last week, would also lay out new requirements for the grounds for an objection. "It is just too easy to trigger an objection when it only requires one person in each chamber," says Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican co-sponsor of the Senate version. Eleven GOP senators have signed on to the legislation, which is up for a vote in a Senate committee on Tuesday. If the bills are consolidated into one measure that becomes law, it will do away with a tradition that has become increasingly popular as Congress has become more polarized. Democrats have objected the last three times that Republicans were elected twice against George W. Bush and once against Trump but in each of those cases the Democratic candidate had already conceded the election. The stakes were raised considerably in 2021, when Trump and his allies were actively trying to thwart Biden's win, with a strategy to throw out Biden electors in Congress and the support of a violent mob that broke into the Capitol, interrupted the joint session and threatened the lives of lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence. House Administration Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren of California, the Democratic sponsor of the House bill with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said the bill would protect the voters' will from "frivolous" objections and more sinister efforts. "If you want to object to the vote, you better have your colleagues and the Constitution on your side," Lofgren said just before the bill passed. At the 2021 joint session, two GOP senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri joined a larger group of House Republicans in objecting to Biden's electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania, two swing states that Trump had won in the 2016 election but lost in 2020. Both the House and the Senate voted to certify Biden's win in those states in the hours after the rioters had injured police officers, rampaged through the Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives. But eight senators and almost 140 members of the House voted to sustain the objections. Congress had only held such votes twice since the enactment of the Electoral Count Act 135 years ago. In 1969, two Democratic senators joined a member of the House to object to the vote of one elector in North Carolina during the certification of Republican Richard Nixon's victory. In 2004, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, objected to President George W. Bush's electors in Ohio over what they said were voting irregularities. In both cases, the House and the Senate rejected the objections. In several other instances, members of the House have lodged objections without the support of a senator. In 2000, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus objected to Bush's electors in Florida after the Supreme Court had forced a halt to vote-counting in that state and decided the election. Vice President Al Gore, whom Bush had defeated, gaveled the objections down as he presided over the session. In 2016, several Democrats stood and objected to Trump's win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, but no senator joined, and Vice President Joe Biden dismissed them. Like Gore, Clinton had already conceded defeat. Members on both sides of the Capitol have been working on the revisions to the Electoral Count Act since the 2021 insurrection, saying the law's vague language was not robust enough protection against Trump's overt attempts to subvert the will of the people. The bills would also clarify that the vice president's role is solely ceremonial and try to prevent states from creating slates of illegitimate electors, as Trump's allies tried to do. The House bill is more expansive than the Senate bill, and the two sides will eventually have to resolve their differences into a single measure. That includes the House language with new grounds for any objection, which would restrict the process even further. House Republicans argued against the legislation by saying it was a political attack on Trump, noting the frequent Democratic objections over the years. It only received nine Republican votes, all from members who are not returning to the House next year. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., responded that if lawmakers believed there had been too many objections in the past, "you should absolutely be supporting this legislation." Hawley, who was photographed raising a fist to pro-Trump protesters outside the Capitol ahead of last year's joint session, said in an interview that he is "skeptical" of the effort to change a law that has been in place for so many years. "My concern is that it's going to look like to Republican voters that Democrats can object as much as often as they want," the Missouri Republican said, noting the objections in 2000, 2004 and 2016. "As soon as Republicans do, they change the law." Still, 11 Republican senators have signed on to the Senate bill, enough to break a filibuster and pass the bill in the 50-50 Senate. AMALIA, N.M. Biologist Bryan Bakevich unscrewed the top of a plastic bucket and removed a Rio Grande cutthroat trout that squirmed from his grasp and plopped onto the grassy bank of Middle Ponil Creek. He wants to go home, Bakevich said, easing the fish into the chilly, narrow stream the final stop on a three-month, 750-mile odyssey for this cutthroat and 107 others plucked in June from another stream in mountainous northern New Mexico. The state's largest wildfire on record had roared perilously close to their previous home, torching trees and undergrowth on nearby slopes. Summer monsoon season was approaching, and heavy rains could sweep ashy muck into the creek, clogging fish gills and smothering gravel bottoms where they feed and spawn. State and federal crews rushed to the rescue, using electrofishing gear to stun and net as many cutthroat as possible. They were trucked south to Las Cruces and kept in tanks at New Mexico State University until Middle Ponil Creek was readied to host them. Today, wildlife agencies in the southwestern U.S. consider missions like this essential as climate change brings more frequent and hotter wildfires, fueled by prolonged drought and tree-killing bug infestations. Particularly vulnerable are Rio Grande cutthroat trout and gila trout rare species found mostly in small, high-elevation streams. With every fire, more of their populations are being affected," said Jill Wick, native fish program manager for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Their habitat is often gone, washed out of the creek. There's no place they can hide and cool off. Their food is decimated as well." The danger is rising elsewhere. Tens of thousands of salmon, trout and other fish perished in August when a flash flood swept through a burn area in Northern California, sending a sludge plume into the Klamath River. Trout numbers fell up to 80% in sections of Colorados Cache la Poudre River after floods and mudslides in summer 2021, a survey found. The biggest wildfire in state history had burned 326 square miles in that area the previous year. Location matters Fire isn't always bad for fish. Many species evolved to benefit from the patchiness and diversity wildfire brings to landscapes and waterways, said Dan Isaak, a U.S. Forest Service fisheries scientist in Idaho. The one-two punch of fire and torrential rains is less common in northern regions. Ash tends to stay put through winter snows and seep into the ground or trickle into streams during spring thaws. It delivers nutrients for algae eaten by insects that become fish food. Burned trees topple into streams, creating pools and riffles for feeding and spawning. But farther south, ever-larger fires incinerate so much foliage holding soil in place that heavy debris flows cause oversized algae blooms that can suffocate fish. Their health also depends on surrounding features such as slope steepness, plant life and soil types, said Christopher Clare, a habitat protection biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. And, Clare said, climate change is heating streams, a problem worsened when fire robs banks of shade trees. Rebecca Flitcroft, a U.S. Forest Service fish biologist in Corvallis, Oregon, has modeled danger that fire poses to spring Chinook salmon and bull trout in Washingtons Wenatchee River system feeding the Columbia River. While both species are imperiled, results suggest the trout are worse off because they occupy isolated, cold headwaters. Fire intensity there is higher than in lower portions of river systems preferred by Chinook for easier access to the Pacific, Flitcroft said. Man-made changes to waterways and landscapes make it harder for fish to survive during and after fires, she said. Water diversions have shrunk habitat. Low levels caused by drought, plus culverts, roads and dams, prevent fish from fleeing to cooler spots. Were at a critical place right now with very intense fires, compounded with highly disturbed systems that dont allow for connectivity and movement, Flitcroft said. Cutthroats in trouble The Rio Grande cutthroat, New Mexicos state fish, has long been going downhill. Drought and dams have disrupted its habitat. Nonnative brown and brook trout, stocked for sport angling, compete for food. Introduced rainbow trout interbreed with the cutthroat, diluting its genetics. Named after the reddish slashes beneath its lower jaw, the colorful cutthroat occupies about 12% of its historical range in New Mexico and Colorado, according to a 2019 study that predicted continued decline. New Mexico had 92 Rio Grande cutthroat populations at the beginning of this year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2014 rejected a petition to place the cutthroat on the federal endangered list but was overruled by a federal judge and is reconsidering. The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity sued for the designation, saying the trout was barely hanging on." But a listing could bring land-use restrictions that many would find unpopular, said Toner Mitchell, New Mexico water and habitat coordinator for Trout Unlimited. There's a risk of demonizing or villainizing the Rio Grande cutthroat, Mitchell said. Teams have rescued cutthroat and gila trout from New Mexico streams more than two dozen times since the late 1980s. Before these mega-fires, it might be one or two populations in trouble at one time, Wick said. Now, it's two or three times as many." HARRISBURG, Pa. Former President Donald Trump and his allies seized on the drawn-out processing and counting in Pennsylvania during the 2020 election to fuel his false claims that fraud cost him victory in the battleground state. Election officials worry that a replay could be on the horizon for November's midterm elections, with high-stakes races on the state's ballot for governor and U.S. Senate. And it's not just Pennsylvania. Michigan and Wisconsin are other crucial swing states that allow no-excuse mail-in ballots but give local election offices no time before Election Day to process them. Election workers' inability to do that work ahead of time means many of the mailed ballots may not get counted on Election Day, delaying results in tight races and leaving a gaping hole for misinformation and lies to flood the public space. That time between the polls closing on election night and the last vote being counted is really being exploited by people who want to undermine confidence in the process, said Al Schmidt, a Philadelphia election commissioner during the 2020 presidential election who is now president and CEO of the good-government group Committee of Seventy. The first step in processing mailed ballots, or pre-canvassing, is a routine but crucial administrative task that allows election workers to verify voters signatures and addresses, or spot problems that could be fixed by voters. Once ballots are deemed valid, they are removed from their envelopes another time-consuming task so they are ready to be counted on Election Day. Not in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, vote-count outliers. Thirty-eight other states including Republican-controlled ones such as Florida, Georgia and Texas allow mailed ballots to be processed before Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, even brags about producing results on election night a pointed criticism he made during a recent stop in Pennsylvania. For the three critical battleground states, such objections fall flat. Efforts since 2020 to give local election workers more time before Election Day to process mailed ballots have died in Republican-controlled legislatures. Instead, Republicans in those states have sought to tighten restrictions on voting by mail provisions vetoed by Democratic governors. Counting the ballots should be driven by security, not speed, Wisconsin state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Republican, said earlier this year as lawmakers were considering legislation on the issue. Why would we want to give bad actors the chance to see ballots prior to Election Day? Republicans helped kill a bipartisan bill that would have allowed more time for processing mailed ballots in Wisconsin amid claims that it would give partisans more time to cheat or leak vote counts early another unfounded conspiracy theory promoted as a way to explain Trump's loss. Like Pennsylvania, election workers in Michigan and Wisconsin must wait until Election Day to start the pre-canvassing of mailed ballots. For now, in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, requests for absentee ballots are running below 2020's rate, relieving some of the burden on local election offices. Still, Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said it's "a total guess when counting will finish in Wisconsins most populous county. She hopes it will wrap up by 11 p.m. on election night. A late rush of dropped-off ballots as happened in 2020 isn't expected this year, she said, because courts banned the use of drop boxes. In Michigan in 2020, lawmakers agreed to give clerks in more populous cities and towns 10 hours on the day before Election Day to process mailed ballots. Clerks unsuccessfully sought a similar provision for this year. The Michigan Secretary of State's office said it was too early to estimate how many absentee ballots might be cast or how long it will take to process them. The Republicans who control the Pennsylvania Legislature have refused to allow early processing of mailed ballots unless it comes packaged with provisions Democrats dont want, such as banning drop boxes and expanding voter identification requirements. County election officials say they are grateful the state approved $45 million in election administration grants to help them buy ballot processing equipment and pay for workers to help. But they still face the work of processing well over 1 million mailed ballots just as they are running the November election. A number of them do not expect to finish processing mailed ballots until at least the day after the election even after working through the night. The Pennsylvania House Republicans' lead lawmaker on election legislation said allowing counties to process ballots before Election Day must be combined with election integrity measures. Once a ballot is opened, you remove the outside envelope from the ballot, you remove any ability to question anything in that election system, said Republican state Rep. Seth Grove. So you have to guard the front end of it a lot better. Those who advocate for earlier processing say observers can watch the pre-canvassing of mailed ballots, increasing transparency, and note that it is allowed by many other states. If people want to observe the process, said Lee Soltysiak, the chief operating officer of Montgomery County in Pennsylvania, theyre more likely to do it at 3 p.m. and not 3 a.m. All three states flipped to support Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and are still being buffeted by conspiracy theories about Trumps loss. LOOMIS First State Bank has announced that it will expand into Axtell through the acquisition of Farmers and Merchants Bank, pending regulatory approval. First State Bank, with locations in Loomis, Alma and Bertrand, has long been interested in establishing a location in the Axtell area. With more than 130 years of service to the local area, the bank is excited to provide additional convenience for its customers and support for the broader community. We are pleased to join the Axtell community and look forward to serving the financial needs of Farmers and Merchants customers, said Dave Dannehl, president of First State Bank. We have always had a good working relationship with Farmers and Merchants and believe that the relationships we have developed over the years will pave the way for an excellent partnership that will benefit both communities. Farmers and Merchants Bank President Jeff England said, We are excited to be a part of the First State Bank family and believe our customers will appreciate the additional services that will come from this merger. Farmers and Merchants Bank was chartered on April 9, 1907, by seven Axtell businessmen. The group included Dr. John D. England, who served as the banks first president until 1946. Since its inception, Farmers and Merchants Bank has had four generations of England family members serve as presidents. Dannehl said that the Axtell bank will be rebranded as First State Bank prior to the end of 2022, and he also said that banking will be business as usual for customers of Farmers and Merchants until that time. First State Bank opened in 1886 and was initially located inside a Loomis hardware store. By 1938, assets at First State Bank were the largest for a bank in any town in Nebraska with a population of 1,000 or less. In 1952, First State Bank was purchased by the Lauritzen family, which began 70 years of dependable family ownership. First State Bank, with assets of $200 million, benefits from being a part of one of the largest private family-owned banking companies in the United States while maintaining its local management and community ties. The Lauritzen banks and affiliates have approximately $30 billion in managed assets and more than 4,000 employee associates. Primary banking offices are located in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois and Texas. Additional information about First State Bank can be found on its website: fsbloomis.com. Story King County Executive Dow Constantine and a regional coalition of leaders today announced a plan to address the behavioral health crisis by creating a countywide network of five crisis care centers, investing in the recruitment and retention of the community behavioral health workforce, and restoring the number of residential treatment beds in the region. The plan would be funded by a nine-year property tax levy to treat immediate crisis and support long-term recovery and wellbeing, and if approved by the King County Council will be submitted to voters for approval in April 2023. We must do more to deliver the behavioral health care people need, when they need it, especially in a moment of crisis. Today, we are telling the thousands of King County residents in behavioral health crisis, their families, and our communities - help is on the way, said Executive Dow Constantine. The behavioral health system in this state has long been underfunded and underappreciated. The pandemic added further stress, and need is increasing even as we lose both treatment beds and qualified workers. Now, we can chart a path forward as a region to create places where people can receive the effective care they need and begin their journey to recovery. This is an opportunity to make the generational investment our region needs. The proposal is estimated to cost the owner of a median-value home about $121 in 2024. The levy would continue through 2032, generating a total of $1.25 billion to stabilize and strengthen King Countys behavioral health crisis care system. Informed by a broad-based coalition of local governments, behavioral health workers and providers, emergency responders, and businesses, the behavioral health crisis response plan developed by Executive Constantine will do four things: Create five new regional crisis care centers: Distributed geographically across the county, the centers will provide walk-in access and the potential for short-term stays to help people stabilize, depending on needs, with one center specifically serving youth. Preserve and restore the dramatic loss of residential treatment beds: In 2018, 355 beds providing community-based residential care for people with mental health residential needs existed in King County. Today, only 244 of these beds are available. Grow the behavioral health workforce pipeline: The proposal will create career pathways through apprenticeship programming and access to higher education, credentialing, training, and wrap-around supports. It will also invest in equitable wages for the workforce at crisis care centers. Provide immediate services while centers are being constructed: The proposal will also use initial proceeds to quickly create mobile or site-based crisis behavioral health services that can operate until the first crisis care centers open. This bridge strategy will complement recent state and federally-funded-mobile crisis teams. Building healthy communities requires investing in individualized, comprehensive, and sustained behavioral health care. Our residents in crisis and the most vulnerable deserve nothing less," said Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell. "The time is now to reestablish proven behavioral health solutions and reverse the trend of negative health outcomes. Together, we can show progress for our communities and provide stability, resources, and expanded access to care for those in need. Currently, King County is without a walk-in behavioral health urgent care facility. Only one 46-bed behavioral health crisis facility is in operation for the entire county. The regions only voluntary crisis facility resource, DESCs Crisis Solutions Center in Seattle requires a referral from a first responder, hospital, designated crisis responder, or mobile response team due to its limited capacity. For many years now, law enforcement has been the primary responder for people in behavioral health crisis. Im excited that the proposed behavioral health levy will bring urgently needed resources to work alongside first responders," said King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall. "A well-resourced and well-functioning behavioral health system is a vital component of an effective public safety system. When there are more places for people to go to receive timely, life-saving care from mental health professionals, and we have expanded behavioral health outreach, we will begin to address the unmet behavioral health needs in our communities. At the same time, we can increase the effectiveness of law enforcement, allowing officers to respond to higher priority public safety incidents. Many people cycle through a revolving door of emergency rooms, jails, and homelessness because other options do not exist. In King County, case managers identify people who need a behavioral health supportive housing unit or a psychiatric residential treatment bed and find that providers reach capacity by mid-month. As of July 2022, people wait an average of 44 days for a mental health residential bed. As I have stated before, our ability to respond to behavioral health crisis events is itself in crisis, said Michelle McDaniel, CEO of Crisis Connections. It is imperative that King County invests in the connection of a system where community members have a place to call, there are places for people to go to access care, and someone who can respond no matter the circumstance. King County is acting with the urgency this moment requires, and I look forward to working closely with the Executive and the coalition to ensure people get the care they need when they need it. In recent years the number of residential treatment beds is in steady decline. King County recently purchased Cascade Hall in North Seattle, preserving 64 beds or approximately 25 percent of King Countys remaining mental health residential treatment beds. "Behavioral health care is built upon inadequate wages. People in this fieldincluding people with bachelors and Masters degreesregularly find themselves working to enroll clients in housing and food subsidy programs that they themselves qualify for. Choosing to do work we care about should not mean sacrificing a living, thriving wage," said Kristen Badin, Crisis Counselor, SEIU 1199NW. "In this proposal King County is making a commitment to begin to change that. By committing that these centers will open with wages that recruit and retain workers, rather than the low wages that exist in the field today, we are righting a wrong." In North King County, the Cities of Bothell, Kenmore, Kirkland, Shoreline, and Lake Forest Park are in the process of developing a place for more crisis stabilization beds for north King County residents. Executive Constantines 2023-2024 Biennial Budget to be announced tomorrow invests up to $11.5 million in the project already underway, including a $10 million state capital grant, for the countys first crisis care center. This proposal expands upon the work we have been doing in North King County and opens doors across the entire region to more compassionate, effective behavioral health care. said Kirkland Mayor Penny Sweet. Having somewhere to go is a critical missing piece of the behavioral health continuum of care, and it is a priority of our North King County city coalition to secure funding to build out and operate a future facility. The health and well-being of our communities are at the center of our regions safety and security. I am grateful for the County and our City partners of Bothell, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, and Shoreline in helping realize these critical investments." King County will continue to partner with state agencies and state legislators to address key priorities in the behavioral health crisis response system. This partnership at the state and local level is essential to increase foundational Medicaid funding as well as capital and crisis services investments that match the communitys needs. King Countys robust community-based behavioral health provider network will also play a lead role in designing and operating the facilities this levy will make possible. The County Council is expected to vote by February on whether to put the proposal on the April 2023 ballot. Additional behavioral health investments will be announced as part of the Executives 2023-2024 Biennial Budget, set to be sent to the King County Council on September 27. Relevant links Quotes We must do more to deliver the behavioral health care people need, when they need it, especially in a moment of crisis. Today, we are telling the thousands of King County residents in behavioral health crisis, their families, and our communities - help is on the way. The behavioral health system in this state has long been underfunded and underappreciated. The pandemic added further stress, and need is increasing even as we lose both treatment beds and qualified workers. Now, we can chart a path forward as a region to create places where people can receive the effective care they need and begin their journey to recovery. This is an opportunity to make the generational investment our region needs. Dow Constantine, King County Executive Building healthy communities requires investing in individualized, comprehensive, and sustained behavioral health care. Our residents in crisis and the most vulnerable deserve nothing less. The time is now to reestablish proven behavioral health solutions and reverse the trend of negative health outcomes. Together, we can show progress for our communities and provide stability, resources, and expanded access to care for those in need. Mayor Bruce Harrell, City of Seattle For many years now, law enforcement has been the primary responder for people in behavioral health crisis. Im excited that the proposed behavioral health levy will bring urgently needed resources to work alongside first responders. A well-resourced and well-functioning behavioral health system is a vital component of an effective public safety system. When there are more places for people to go to receive timely, life-saving care from mental health professionals, and we have expanded behavioral health outreach, we will begin to address the unmet behavioral health needs in our communities. At the same time, we can increase the effectiveness of law enforcement, allowing officers to respond to higher priority public safety incidents. King County Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall As I have stated before, our ability to respond to behavioral health crisis events is itself in crisis. It is imperative that King County invests in the connection of a system where community members have a place to call, there are places for people to go to access care, and someone who can respond no matter the circumstance. King County is acting with the urgency this moment requires, and I look forward to working closely with the Executive and the coalition to ensure people get the care they need when they need it. Michelle McDaniel, CEO of Crisis Connections Behavioral health care is built upon inadequate wages. People in this fieldincluding people with bachelors and Masters degreesregularly find themselves working to enroll clients in housing and food subsidy programs that they themselves qualify for. Choosing to do work we care about should not mean sacrificing a living, thriving wage. In this proposal King County is making a commitment to begin to change that. By committing that these centers will open with wages that recruit and retain workers, rather than the low wages that exist in the field today, we are righting a wrong. Kristen Badin, Crisis Counselor, SEIU 1199NW This proposal expands upon the work we have been doing in North King County and opens doors across the entire region to more compassionate, effective behavioral health care. Having somewhere to go is a critical missing piece of the behavioral health continuum of care, and it is a priority of our North King County city coalition to secure funding to build out and operate a future facility. The health and well-being of our communities are at the center of our regions safety and security. I am grateful for the County and our City partners of Bothell, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, and Shoreline in helping realize these critical investments. Mayor Penny Sweet, City of Kirkland With only one behavioral health crisis facility and no walk-in urgent care behavioral health facility, our region does not have the clinics or care teams to meet the growing behavioral health crisis in our community. Workers, residents, first responders and businesses owners see this crisis playing out daily on our streets. This proposal is good for the health of our community and our local economy. This proposal is our chance to build the care facilities we need, invest in essential workers, get to people in need faster and get them into care - instead of the revolving door at a hospital or jail. Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, City of Seattle Today we have the opportunity to build on the recent investments the state legislature has made to improve and expand behavioral health services, stabilize our provider network devastated by the pandemic, and support the vital people who care for our neighbors in crisis. It sends an important signal to people across King County that when any of us face challenges with mental health and substance use and most need help, our community will be there to respond and assist. Rep. Nicole Macri, D-Seattle We are severely underserved in regards to access to behavioral health in our region and even throughout our state. This crisis is well known and has been amplified by the pandemic. If we want to truly have healthy communities we must improve access, improve staffing and training of professionals and meet people where they are. These crisis centers will be a very good start to this effort. Mayor Nancy Backus, City of Auburn For more information, contact: Chase Gallagher, Executive Office, 206-263-8537 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Beyond what they learn academically in kindergarten, students learn everyday routines: how to take care of class materials and how to be kind to their peers, according to Golden Empire Elementary School kindergarten teacher Carla Randazzo. While developing those skills became more difficult for students going to school online during the pandemic, occasionally, a student entering first grade at Golden Empire didn't attend kindergarten at all, Randazzo said. Nearly two-thirds of students at the Sacramento school are English learners. "Those kids just start out having to climb uphill, she said. They need a lot of support to be successful. Randazzo always thought it was peculiar that kindergarten is not mandatory in California. For now, though, California won't join 20 other states with mandatory kindergarten. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, vetoed legislation Sunday night that would have required children to attend kindergarten whether through homeschooling, public or private school before entering first grade at a public school. As he has with other recent legislative vetoes, Newsom cited the costs associated with providing mandatory kindergarten, about $268 million annually, which he said was not accounted for in the California budget. Newsom has supported similar legislation in the past. Last year, he signed a package of education bills, including one transitioning the state to universal pre-K starting in the 2025-26 school year. But the state's Department of Finance opposed the mandatory kindergarten bill, stating it would strain funds by adding up to 20,000 new public school students. Proponents of mandatory kindergarten say it could help close the academic opportunity gap for low-income students and students of color, as well as help children develop important social skills before the 1st grade. The bill was introduced after K-12 attendance rates dropped during the pandemic and some students struggled with online learning. Kindergarten enrollment in California dropped nearly 12% in the 2020-21 academic year compared to the previous year, according to the state Department of Education. Nationwide, public school enrollment dropped by 3 percent in 2020-21 compared to the previous school year, with preschool and kindergarten enrollment dropping at higher rates, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Samantha Fee, of Citrus Heights, said her 7-year-old son could solve practically any math equation during the 2020-21 school year, while he attended kindergarten online. But by the end of the school year, he still couldnt read and didnt know all his letters. She said the family made the difficult decision to have her son, who attends Golden Empire, repeat kindergarten to prepare him for first grade. They learn a lot in that first year how to sit at their desks, and how to raise their hand and all that theyre expected to know in the first grade, Fee said. Without kindergarten, they dont have that. Research from the Economic Policy Institute shows that disparities in academic opportunity begin as early as kindergarten. Children who develop their social and emotional skills by the time they reach kindergarten age can be more likely to go to college, according to a 2015 study by the American Public Health Association. The pandemic led to a startling drop in K-12 enrollment, raising concerns about a widening opportunity gap, said Jessica Lall, president and CEO of the Central City Association of Los Angeles. While the legislation to make kindergarten mandatory passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the Legislature, Sen. Brian Jones of San Diego County opposed it, saying the state should focus instead on education reform. Newsom also vetoed separate legislation that would have required every school with kindergarten to offer at least one full-day class option, saying it will create one-time and ongoing costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars," noting that the 2022-23 budget included $4 billion in funding for expanded learning opportunities. Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Sophie Austin on Twitter. South Africa: Fostering SA, US trade relations KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has held a high-level strategic engagement with South African Consul General in New York, Dr Motumisi Tawana. The meeting discussed the unlocking of economic opportunities and leveraging on existing trade ties South Africa has with United States. Joined by Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs MEC, Siboniso Duma, Dube-Ncube held constructive discussions with the Consul General on interventions earmarked to accelerate economic growth and the development of KwaZulu-Natal through employment creation, sustainable development and empowerment initiatives to support entrepreneurs. During the meeting, held at the office of the South African Consul General in New York on Friday, the Premier said the South African Embassy in the US has previously held a meeting with business people and investors to showcase the KwaZulu-Natal Investment Book, and reinforce the provinces position as an attractive business, investment, and tourism destination. Our visit is a continuation of the provincial governments approach of engaging with the international business community while leveraging on the good relations and partnerships that the South African Consulate-General has with US-based businesses and investors. The key areas we are focusing on include trade, commerce, education (student exchange programmes), agriculture, health, information technology, energy generation, and arts and culture, Dube-Ncube said. Dr Tawana reassured Premier Dube-Ncube that his office will facilitate linkages between KwaZulu-Natal and US-based investors and businesses, in line with their mandate to promote South Africas interests, trade relations and foster relations within the consulates area of jurisdiction. The Premier and MEC also interacted with Ambassador Professor Anil Sooklal, Ambassador at Large for Asia and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), to discuss the provincial governments participation next year when South Africa hosts the BRICS 2023 Summit. South Africa, as the incoming BRICS Chair for 2023, hosted BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Relations Meeting, in New York, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77) taking place at the United Nations headquarters from 20-27 September 2022, under the theme A watershed moment: Unlocking transformative solutions to interlocking challenges. Dube-Ncube led the provincial government delegation joining leading states, regions and other sub-nationals at the annual Under2 Coalition General Assembly held from 19-25 September 2022. -SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. By Trend Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan Jeenbek Kulubaev met with his Maldivian counterpart Abdullah Shahid on September 23, Trend reports citing the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry's press service. During the meeting on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Kulubaev and Shahid signed an agreement on the establishment of a visa-free regime between Kyrgyzstan and Maldives. According to the agreement, citizens of Kyrgyzstan and Maldives who hold general civil passports as well as diplomatic, service, and official passports are exempt from visa requirements for entry, exit, transit, and temporary stays of up to 30 days in the territory of both states. Meanwhile, Shahid noted that the signing of this agreement will facilitate business and investment opportunities between Maldives and Kyrgyzstan. UW-La Crosse has received a five-year, $1.5 million grant to continue a program helping underserved and/or underrepresented students realize their potential in graduate school and beyond. The U.S. Department of Education grant extends funding for the universitys McNair Scholars Program that provides eligible students with academic, personal and financial support as they prepare for graduate school. UW-L has offered the program named for African American scientist Ronald McNair, killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 since 2009. The grant will extend the program for up to 28 students annually on campus through September 2028. Shelly Lesher chairs the UW-L Physics Department and serves as the program director. In the renewal, they noted the strength of UW-Ls commitment to the program, she said. They were impressed with the high quality of faculty and staff committed to making the program a success. Lesher says the national grants are highly competitive. There are only 187 McNair Scholars Programs in the country. McNair scholars must be low-income, first-generation college students and/or members of a traditionally underrepresented group in graduate education, such as African American, Latinx, Native American or Pacific Islander. The program introduces students to research and scholarly activity, provides community and teaches them the skills to tackle graduate school. Since launching in 2009, UW-Ls McNair Program has mentored 141 scholars 110 of whom have gone on to graduate studies. Among them, these scholars have earned 74 graduate degrees. In addition to research and mentorship opportunities, the program offers a tight-knit community for scholars to connect and learn from one another. It is particularly impactful for first-generation students and those from diverse backgrounds, who often face challenges adjusting to college. It also helps scholars with graduate school applications, college visits, preparing and paying for the GRE, and more. Together, these resources and opportunities are critical to helping scholars break through in fields where theyre historically underrepresented. Lesher, who has directed the UW-L program since September 2021, says it remains strong with dedicated staff and faculty. She says changes since the pandemic include more conscious efforts in incorporating the mental well-being of students. As we begin the new year, I look forward to catching up with our returning scholars and hearing about their summer research and searching for our next class of scholars, she says. The McNair Scholars Program is now in the Diversity & Inclusion Division, aligning with another TRIO program Student Support Services. Lesher hopes the move will ease confusion that the program is only for science majors, precipitated when it was affiliated with the College of Science and Health. The program is for all majors which can lead to a doctoral degree, explains Lesher. With the McNair Scholars Program being more centrally located I hope more members of our community will feel included. In addition to alignment with another TRIO program and a central location, McNair Scholars participants will benefit from collaboration with the many Diversity and Inclusion initiatives, events and programs that foster community among students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. The McNair Scholars Program is extremely successful, and we are very excited to be working with Dr. Lesher and Program Coordinator Megan Gosse as part of our Diversity and Inclusion Team, says Interim Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion Dina Zavala. Find out more about the program at: www.UW-Lax.edu/mcnair-scholars. A residential fire Sunday in La Crosse Sunday took the life of two pets. According to the La Crosse Fire Department, crews responded shortly after 7 p.m. to a structure fire at 2218 Loomis St. Upon arrival, fire crews found smoke coming from the first floor of the home. The two occupants of the house had evacuated before police arrived, but two dogs belonging to the residents couldnt be saved. Fire department investigators determined that the blaze started in the kitchen and was ignited by an electrical source. Firefighters were able to keep the fire from spreading to any other area of the house. The structure sustained moderate fire and heavy smoke damage. Eighteen firefighters responded to the scene within four minutes of the call. The Red Cross is providing housing assistance for the two residents displaced by the fire. A horse in Monroe County has tested positive for West Nile virus. The Monroe County Health Department confirmed the diagnosis on Friday. The presence of a horse with WNV confirms that there are mosquitoes in the area infected with WNV that can transmit the virus to people and other animals, the department said in a Monday press release. West Nile virus is transmitted to humans, horses, birds and other animals through the bite of an infected mosquito. Mosquitoes acquire the virus by feeding on infected birds. The virus is not spread from person to person, animal to animal or animal to person. The health department said 80% of people infected by West Nile virus dont get sick. Those who do become ill usually experience mild symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle ache, rash and fatigue. However, a small number of people who become infected with the virus get seriously ill with symptoms that include high fever, muscle weakness, stiff neck, disorientation, tremors, confusion, paralysis and coma. Seriously ill people comprise fewer than 1% percent of cases. The health department recommends that horse owners contact their veterinarian to vaccinate their animals. In addition to vaccination, horse owners can protect their horses by removing standing water and keeping animals inside from dusk to dawn. The state Department of Health Services has monitored the spread of West Nile virus since 2001. An average of 20 human cases were reported in Wisconsin each year from 2018-21. Most people with the virus report becoming ill in August and September. U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) has been honored in Washington as a Medicare Advantage Champion for his strong advocacy on behalf of seniors access to quality, affordable health coverage options. Presented by Better Medicare Alliance (BMA), the nations leading research and advocacy organization supporting Medicare Advantage, the award recognizes lawmakers who have worked in a bipartisan fashion to strengthen and protect Medicare Advantage, the public-private partnership within Medicare. More than 29 million seniors and Americans with disabilities nationwide choose to get their health coverage through a Medicare Advantage plan including more than 55,000 Medicare beneficiaries in Wisconsins Third Congressional District. Wisconsin seniors deserve to know who is standing up for their health care needs in Washington. On behalf of our nearly 600,000 grassroots advocates nationwide, were proud to honor Representative Ron Kind with our Medicare Advantage Champion award for doing exactly that, said Mary Beth Donahue, president and CEO of Better Medicare Alliance. Like each of this years awardees, Representative Kind has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to protect and strengthen the high-quality, affordable, coordinated care offered by Medicare Advantage. With Medicare Advantage beneficiaries reporting a 94% satisfaction rate and saving nearly $2,000 in health care expenses per year, we look forward to continuing to work alongside leaders like Representative Kind to protect seniors health and financial wellbeing by protecting Medicare Advantage. The Medicare Advantage Champion award is Better Medicare Alliance's highest honor, presented annually to members of Congress who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to protecting seniors' Medicare Advantage coverage. This year the award was presented to nine members of the Senate and 32 members of the House. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) is the only other Wisconsin recipient. To learn more about Better Medicare Alliance, visit BetterMedicareAlliance.org. More areas of Downtown Lake Geneva could be featured on camera in the future. City officials are considering installing additional livestream cameras in the Downtown area. A livestream camera has been installed near the Driehaus Family Plaza, located in front of the Riviera building. Footage from the camera can be viewed by visiting the citys website, www.cityoflakegeneva.gov. The city received a $8,955 grant from the Lake Geneva Tourism Commission in September 2021 to purchase and install the camera. Members of the Lake Geneva City Council approved, June 13, to install additional livestream cameras within the Downtown area with funding coming from the tourism commission. City Administrator presented possible areas to install additional cameras during the Sept. 12 tourism commission meeting, including near the west end pier, Riviera Beach gazebo and the city boat launch on Wrigley Drive. We are still getting some prices, but these are the locations weve scouted and feel will best serve what the city wants to accomplish, Nord said. The purpose of the cameras is for security reasons and to help promote the City of Lake Geneva to tourists. Nord said, if installed, the camera near Riviera Beach would focus on Geneva Lake and not the beach itself. At the beach, I promise were not going to point it at anybody specifically, Nord said. Its more out toward the water and capturing those two piers where people dive off of or just even a panoramic view looking out at the lake. Its more the idea of having a view of the boats and the terrain further out in the distance. Tourism commission member Zakia Pirzada proposed that a camera be installed in Flat Iron Park, because it has views of the lake and boat launch area. That is the perfect place to show our lake, the water, boats, sunset, everything. Can we do that, because thats city property?, Pirzada said. Its our favorite location with the sunset and water. I love the location if we can do that. Tourism commission chairperson Brian Waspi said, You could have Andy Gump hold it, referring to the Andy Gump statue in Flat Iron Park. Nord said city staff has considered installing a camera in Flat Iron Park and having it face the boat launch area. I think thats one of the locations they were contemplating, looking towards the boat launch, Nord said. Tourism commission member Linda Moritz asked if there are any potential liability issues with the city installing the cameras. Nord said he has talked with City Attorney Dan Draper and other communities and has been advised that there should be no liability issues. Ive called other communities both in Wisconsin and outside of the state, and they were like, Youre in a public place. The expectation is there is no privacy, Nord said. Based on a few things weve seen since going live, apparently the word is not out 100% yet. Nord said the livestream camera near the Driehaus Family Plaza has captured criminal activity and has been used to help find lost items. In fact, it has been used a few times already for somebody who lost something, and we were able to go back into the camera and find out exactly when that item got lost or removed, Nord said. Its come in handy. Nord said he will present a proposal for installing the additional livestream cameras during a future tourism commission meeting. As soon as we get prices for these items, we will be coming back to the commission to at least consider it, Nord said. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli A foreign citizen calling for murdering judges in the Ganja case has been detained, Azernews reports, citing Azerbaijani State Security Service. According to the service, as a result of comprehensive operational and investigative measures into the criminal case, initiated under Article 214-2 (open calls for terrorism) of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code, it was established that a foreign citizen, Muhandis Bayramov, has made a post on Facebook with photos of judges, who had sentenced people in connection with the riots in the city of Ganja, calling for their murder. Bayramov was put on the wanted list. As a result of the measures taken by the State Security Service, he was detained and arrested, and the investigation of the criminal case against him was completed and sent to the court for consideration. On July 10, 2018, a group of religious radicals committed acts of violence aimed at disrupting public order, accompanied by riots, armed resistance to government officials, inflicting bodily injuries of varying severity on them, and deliberately killing two police officers. In connection with the information received by the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan into this case, an appropriate investigation was carried out by the State Security Service. At a health center in Zimbabwe, a large group of women holding babies hurried to take their places on wooden seats. Separately, a health worker took a different group of worried mothers and their children through a back door and into another room, quickly closing the door behind them. The women were all at the Mbare Polyclinic in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. They came to have their children vaccinated against measles during a deadly outbreak in the southern African country. But the women in the back room were getting their children vaccinated in secret because their religion bans them from using modern medicines. Healthcare worker Lewis Foya said, the measles outbreak saw children dying so they are now coming secretly and we are helping them. More than 700 children have died from measles in Zimbabwe in an outbreak that began in April. Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said many were unvaccinated because of religious reasons. The government has announced a vaccination drive but, as with COVID-19, some religious groups are strongly opposed to vaccines and have worked against the campaign. Apostolic churches are among those that opposed modern medicine in Zimbabwe. Followers believe in prayer, holy water and other measures to treat disease or cure illnesses. Foya said the male leadership of the church means women have "no power to openly say no" to instructions. Children are then in danger. The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, estimates that Apostolic churches have around 2.5 million followers in a country of 15 million. Some permit members to seek health care. Many still resist it. A group of Apostolic church members who are open to modern medicine has been trying to bring change. They advise women to go against church rules if it means helping their children. Debra Mpofu is a member of the Apostolic Women Empowerment Trust. She said, "We encourage women to get their children vaccinated, maybe at night. It's really necessary for the women to protect their children. At the Mbare health center, one mother said people had learned from the misunderstanding about vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The mother, Winnet Musiyarira, said, "A lot of people were misinformed during that COVID-19 period a lot of people lost their lives. So when I heard about measles I just said I have to take my kids to hospital and get them vaccinated." Mpofu of the Apostolic trust said some church groups would permit them to talk with their members and share information on vaccination. One church leader, James Katsande, also agreed to let his followers take their children to seek medical care. But there was a condition: They should come to the church's leaders for blessings before going to a health center. Worldwide, the World Health Organization and UNICEF reported a 79 percent increase in measles in the first two months of 2022. The organizations warned that large outbreaks were possible. They said children and pregnant women are most at risk of severe disease from measles. But a vaccine prevents it easily. Im Jill Robbins. Farai Mutsaka reported on this story for the Associated Press. Jill Robbins adapted it for Learning English. ________________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story Apostolic adj. belonging or relating to the early followers of Christ and to their teaching church n. religious center encourage v. to give someone the courage or confidence (to do something) kids n. (informal) children blessing n. a prayer asking God to look kindly upon the people who are present or the event that is taking place. ________________________________________________________________________ What do you think of the difficulty some mothers have in getting vaccinations for their children? We want to hear from you. We have a new comment system. Here is how it works: Write your comment in the box. Under the box, you can see four images for social media accounts. They are for Disqus, Facebook, Twitter and Google. Click on one image and a box appears. Enter the login for your social media account. Or you may create one on the Disqus system. It is a blue circle with D on it. It is free. Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Job listings from Elon Musks Texas-based Tesla company show that Tesla plans to deploy thousands of human-like, or humanoid, robots within its factories. The robots are being called Tesla Bot or Optimus. Musk says the number of Tesla Bots could one day reach millions around the world. Musk said at a TED Talk that robots could be used in homes, do household work, and care for older people. They could even become a friend or adult partner. Musk also said the robot business may be bigger than Teslas car business. Musk has been marketing Tesla as a company that does much more than just make self-driving vehicles. At its AI Day on September 30, Musk said Tesla will show an early kind of robot from its project Optimus. The name for the project comes from a film series about robots called Transformers. Musk said production on the robots could start next year. Robot experts, investors and researchers spoke with Reuters about the robot news. They said Tesla faces doubt among the public that the high cost of general purpose robots would be worth it. Tesla already has hundreds of robots working in its production of its cars. Problems robots face Humanoid robots have been in development for many years by car companies Honda and Hyundais Boston Dynamics. One problem with humanoid robots is that they have trouble with unpredictable situations. Shaun Azimi is the lead of NASAs Dexterous Robotics Team. He told Reuters, Self-driving cars weren't really proved to be as easy as anyone thought. And it's the same way with humanoid robots to some extent. He added, If something unexpected happens, being flexible and robust to those kinds of changes is very difficult. At an Autonomy event in 2019, Musk promised 1 million self-driving taxi cars by 2020. Tesla has not yet produced any self-driving taxis. Experts say that even if Musks robots show simple abilities, it will be hard for him to show the public that robots are as able as humans. Nancy Cooke is a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University. She said that in order for Tesla to succeed, it will need to show robots doing several unplanned actions. She said, If he just gets the robot to walk around, or he gets the robots to dance, that's already been done. That's not that impressive. Tesla did not answer Reuters request for comments. Optimus plans At first, Musk said Optimus will be used to perform boring or dangerous jobs, including moving parts around factories. Musk has said that humanoid robots do not have enough intelligence to operate in the real world without being clearly told what to do. But he said Tesla can use its knowledge in AI and important robotic parts to develop and mass-produce smart, less costly, humanoid robots. Tesla plans to employ many new people to work on humanoid robots. There are about 20 job listings related to the Tesla Bot, including jobs for designing important robot parts. Humanoid robots criticism Musk and his company have had their own problems with robots. In 2018, Musk found a robot had difficulties dealing with material that human hands could easily work with. He said the costs of having someone keep up the robots was much higher than just having a human put the product together. Gene Munster is a partner at the capital firm Loup Ventures, which holds Tesla stocks. He said, Investors are not excited about Optimus. He added that there is a low possibility that the product will work on a larger scale. And, he said, humanoid robots are much more difficult to make than self-driving cars. Im Gregory Stachel. Hyunjoo Jin reported this story for Reuters. Gregory Stachel adapted it for VOA Learning English. ________________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story artificial intelligence (AI) n. the development of computer systems with the ability to perform work that normally requires human intelligence flexible adj. willing to change or to try different things robust adj. successful or impressive and not likely to fail or weaken taxi n. a car that carries passengers to a place for an amount of money that is based on the distance traveled impressive adj. deserving attention, admiration, or respect boring adj. dull and uninteresting scale n. the size required to solve a problem distract v. to cause (someone) to stop thinking about or paying attention to someone or something and to think about or pay attention to someone or something else instead excited adj. very enthusiastic and eager about something ______________________________________________________________________ What do you think of humanoid robots? We want to hear from you. We have a new comment system. Here is how it works: Write your comment in the box. Under the box, you can see four images for social media accounts. They are for Disqus, Facebook, Twitter and Google. Click on one image and a box appears. Enter the login for your social media account. Or you may create one on the Disqus system. It is the blue circle with D on it. It is free. Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here. Researchers say a spacecraft on Mars has recorded vibrations and sounds of space rocks hitting the planet. The activity was picked up by a seismometer, an instrument that measures ground noises and shaking linked to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and explosions. The seismometer sits on the surface of Mars. It is connected to the InSight lander, which is operated by the American space agency NASA. Scientists recently announced the instrument had discovered seismic waves from four different space rocks that crashed into Mars in 2020 and 2021. The first of the four confirmed meteoroids entered Mars atmosphere on September 5, 2021, NASA said in a statement. Meteoroid is the term used for a space rock before it hits the ground. Once the rock or parts of it hit the surface, they are called meteorites. The first rock to enter the atmosphere exploded into at least three pieces. Each of the pieces left craters on the surface. Researchers then estimated where the craters were. NASA even released recordings of what the meteoroid strikes sounded like. Later, the team used NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to confirm the crater positions. The orbiters imaging instruments found three darkened spots on the surface. InSights seismometer has already discovered numerous marsquakes on the Red Planet. A marsquake is a seismic event on Mars that is similar to earthquakes that happen on Earth. But NASA said this was the first time scientists were able to confirm that these kinds of seismic and sound waves were linked to space rock strikes. The discovery also marks the first time that such seismic activity from strikes, also called impacts, has been measured on Mars. Researchers recently published details on their findings in a paper in the publication Nature Geoscience. Ingrid Daubar is a specialist on Mars impacts at Brown University in Rhode Island. She was a co-writer of the paper. Daubar said in a statement, After three years of InSight waiting to detect an impact, those craters looked beautiful. NASA said the team used earlier data to also confirm three other impacts. One happened in May 2020, another in February 2021 and a third in August 2021. Researchers have wondered why they have not detected more meteoroid strikes on Mars. After all, the planet sits next to the solar systems main asteroid belt, which produces a large number of flying space rocks. In addition, the Mars atmosphere is just one percent as thick as Earths, meaning more meteoroids can pass through it without being destroyed. Daubar said that on Mars, hundreds of impact craters are forming somewhere on the planet's surface every year." But NASA scientists say InSight lander's seismometer may have been missing impacts because of interfering noise from the Martian wind or seasonal changes in the atmosphere. The researchers believe the new findings could lead to many new impact discoveries based on InSight's existing data that goes back to 2018, when the lander arrived on Mars. Scientists say the study of seismic activity on Mars can help them better understand the materials contained below the planets surface. Impacts are the clocks of the solar system, said Raphael Garcia, a lead writer of the paper and a scientist at Frances Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space in Toulouse. We need to know the impact rate today to estimate the age of different surfaces, he said in a statement. Garcia added that the same kind of instrument might also be used to make similar measurements on the moon. He said two French-built seismometers are expected to be included in a NASA lunar science mission that could launch in 2025. Im Bryan Lynn. Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from NASA, The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Quiz - NASA Spacecraft Records Sounds of Space Rocks Hitting Mars Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz ___________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story vibrate v. to shake with small, quick movements crater n. a big hole in the ground created by the force of an object detect v. to find or discover asteroid belt n. the area of interplanetary space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in which most asteroids are found _______________________________________________________________________ What do you think of this story? We want to hear from you. We have a new comment system. Here is how it works: 1. Write your comment in the box. 2. Under the box, you can see four images for social media accounts. They are for Disqus, Facebook, Twitter and Google. 3. Click on one image and a box appears. Enter the login for your social media account. Or you may create one on the Disqus system. It is the blue circle with D on it. It is free. Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here. NORTH PLATTE Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol arrested multiple drivers this weekend after pursuits on opposite ends of the state. Saturday evening, NSP received a report of a Dodge Challenger traveling well over 100 miles per hour in a reckless manner on Interstate 80 in Dawson County. A trooper was able to locate the Challenger in Lincoln County and clocked the vehicle at 132 miles per hour. Because of heavy traffic, the trooper did not pursue and notified another trooper further to the west. The other trooper was able to locate the vehicle and attempted a traffic stop at the westbound rest area near Sutherland. The vehicle then fled, traveling the wrong way on the rest area entry ramp and reentering I-80 westbound. The trooper initiated a pursuit. A short time later, another trooper successfully deployed stop sticks, bringing the suspect vehicle to a stop. The driver, Aaron Abel, 43, of Greenville, Iowa, was taken into custody without further incident. Abel was lodged in Lincoln County Jail for flight to avoid arrest, willful reckless driving, and several traffic violations. Early Sunday morning in Omaha, a trooper observed an Infiniti G37 traveling at 123 miles per hour on Interstate 80. The vehicle exited at 72nd Street and the trooper attempted a traffic stop. The driver refused to yield and fled southbound. The trooper initiated a pursuit. The vehicle eventually came to a stop at 84th and L streets, but the driver refused repeated commands from the trooper to exit the vehicle. The vehicle then fled southbound on 84th Street before eventually entering an apartment complex and coming to a stop. The driver, Anthony Ceja Ventura, 20, of Omaha, was taken into custody without further incident. Ceja Ventura was arrested for flight to avoid arrest, willful reckless driving, driving under the influence of alcohol, and traffic violations. He was lodged in Douglas County Jail. Scottish company Cigrek Capital has launched its fully-regulated, Dubai solution for managers of digital assets strategies seeking distribution to institutional and HNW investors in the Gulf region. Cigrek expects the first strategies under the new umbrella will launch to investors in Q4 of this year. The launch complements Cigreks existing regulated EU platform which is in the process of onboarding its first managers interested in European distribution avenues. Appetite for digital assets The Dubai platform has been designed to meet the appetite for digital assets strategies among the community of HNW investors and family offices in the UAE. Fund managers will become advisers to the cells, which sit under a fully regulated umbrella in Dubai. The launch addresses the need investors in the Gulf region have for a local, regulated solution which ticks many of the due diligence boxes they require. Cigrek will also assist with distribution including initial seed commitments for the individual strategies under the umbrella. New managers will need to demonstrate their investment credentials including a certified track record for the strategy they are pursuing. Enormous interest Laura Barscevska, Managing Director with Cigrek Capital, said: There is already enormous interest for digital assets investment within Dubai, which is fast-becoming one of the leading global hubs in terms of local knowledge and interest in the market. The new platform is designed to match leading investment talent in the digital universe with wealthy investors in the Gulf who want more exposure to this asset class. Cigrek Capital is already in discussions with several established digital asset fund managers with a view to launching its first strategies under the new Dubai structure. Many of these already have existing non-fully regulated funds but have found that this may not always be suitable for an asset raise. Working with Cigrek, managers have the option to pursue distribution in the UAE or Europe, or both. Our Dubai investment platform has been established to meet the real appetite for a locally-regulated platform which will allow investors to allocate to some of the best cryptocurrency management talent out there, Barscevska added. We are already in discussions with some pioneering fund managers in this space which we will be bringing to the Gulf market in due course.-- TradeArabia News Service After dropping each day for over three straight months, gas prices are back on the rise with Wisconsin motorists feeling the increase more than other parts of the country. AAA reported Monday that the national average pump price has increased by five cents to $3.72 per gallon when compared to the price a week ago. In Wisconsin, however, the average price has jumped by 35 cents to $3.76 per gallon, which puts Wisconsin among 10 states to see the largest weekly increases in the country. Nick Jarmusz, director of public affairs for AAA, said the increases are primarily the result of a deadly fire that killed two people on Sept. 20 at a BP refinery near Toledo, Ohio. The facility remains offline but when its operational it has the ability to process about 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Jarmusz said the facility could be back in operation in a week or two, which means the price hikes could be temporary. With that refinery taken offline gas retailers in Wisconsin have to source their gas elsewhere, including at refineries that are farther away, Jarmusz said. The increased distribution costs are being passed on to the consumer. But low domestic demand as fewer drivers fuel up and much lower oil prices have helped to blunt some of the impact. On Friday, the price of oil slipped below $80 a barrel for the first time since January, primarily due to fears of a recession-led global economic slowdown. Meanwhile, Hurricane Ian, which is moving toward the Gulf of Mexico, could also disrupt oil production and large coastal refineries. According to data from the Energy Information Administration, gas demand decreased from 8.49 million barrels per day to 8.32 million barrels per day last week. The EIA also reported that total domestic gasoline stocks increased by 1.6 million barrels to 214.6 million barrels. Although gasoline demand has decreased, tight supply and fluctuating oil prices have increased the national average price, Jarmusz said. Around Wisconsin, the average price per gallon in Appleton on Monday was $3.76 per gallon compared to $3.25 per gallon a week earlier. In Eau Claire, the price jumped to $3.75 from $3.40; to $3.81 from $3.35 in Green Bay and to $3.69 from $3.28 in Janesville and Beloit. In Madison, where the average price rose to $3.75 from $3.31 per gallon, the Capitol Petro on Mineral Point Road on Monday was selling regular for $3.78 per gallon. The BP on South Fish Hatchery Road was at $3.89 per gallon and, a few blocks away, the two Kwik Trips near the Beltline and the Kellys Market on South Gammon Road were all at $3.99 per gallon. At the West Side Woodmans Market, regular gas was being sold for $3.89 per gallon, an increase of 70 cents compared to Sept. 16, when it was being sold for $3.19 per gallon. Its been a significant jump and its startling, especially after that unprecedented run of decreases, Jarmusz said. But this should be temporary. Lan Samantha Chang, director of the Iowa Writers Workshop, wrote her latest novel in conversation with a classic she has long loved: Fyodor Dostoyevskys The Brothers Karamazov. Her book, The Family Chao, centers around an Asian American restaurant family in the fictional town of Haven, Wis. When the tyrannical head of the family is found in the restaurant freezer, the Chaos, and their intense family dynamics, are forced into the spotlight. Chang will discuss her book next month during the Wisconsin Book Festival. Q: Can you start by telling us about the book? A: I think of The Family Chao as both a literary caper and a restaurant succession drama. Its about an Asian American restaurant family living in a small city in Wisconsin. Theres a tyrannical but charismatic restaurant owner, Leo Chao, his wife Winnie, and their three sons. Each of the sons has adapted to immigrant life in America in a different way. Theyve also had to adapt to growing up with Leo as their father. As in The Brothers Karamazov, the primary conflict is between Leo and the oldest son, whose name is Dagou. In my novel, Dagou, having failed to make it on the East Coast, returns home. He wants to be made partner in the restaurant and his father refuses him. Q: And amid that drama, the father dies? A: The morning after an eventful and raucous Christmas party, Leo is found dead in the freezer. Thats exactly the middle of the book. In the second half of the book, theres the exploration of the circumstances surrounding his death and the questions surrounding Leos death. It becomes clear that the death is deliberate. Q: Among these main, male characters, theres also the mother, correct? A: Yes. When I started writing this project way back in 2005, the gist of the story was very different. It was about an unhappy marriage involving characters similar to Leo and Winnie. In the early version, Winnie allows Leo to become interested in another woman so that she can be alone. In The Family Chao, Winnie becomes so frustrated with her marriage that when her youngest son leaves for college, she departs the household and goes to live in a Buddhist nunnery. Shes just tired of the drama. She wants tranquility. Q: The book takes place in a small town in Wisconsin. What is your connection to Wisconsin? A: I was born and raised in Appleton and I lived there until I was 18. I can remember being one of the only Asian kids in town. I think its a common experience for many Asian Americans. Employment of some kind brings the family to a part of the U.S. where they are culturally isolated. This experience is imprinted on me, is to some extent the basis of my identity. Q: Your book is split into two parts, much like The Brothers Karamazov. A: Yes. In the first half of the book, readers learn about the complex family dynamics that bring the Chaos to the point of the Christmas party. In the second half, the family drama becomes public. The second half of the book explores some of the tropes through which Asian Americans can often be seen in the media, particularly in the courtroom scenes. Q: The premise sounds very serious, but I understand there is humor, too. Why was that important to include? A: Humor was always a part of this project. For example, I find Leo Chaos lack of political correctness funny. Not all the readers feel that way. I think that its important to be able to see (situations) from all angles. As an Asian American, if I didnt laugh, I think I would be a pretty grim person. I wanted to give all readers a chance to participate in this experience. Some readers have approached me saying, I was afraid to laugh. I tried to make it clear in the book that readers have permission to think its funny. Q: I understand you had the idea for The Family Chao for a long time before coming back and finishing the novel. How did the book finally come about? A: As I said, I started writing in 2005, but I wasnt sure about the project. I wrote 100 pages about an Asian American family living somewhere in the Midwest. The mother was Winnie. She was frustrated with her husband, but had not yet discovered the Buddhist nunnery. I loved the voice of the project; it was much funnier than what I had been writing. But I let it sit for many years. I wrote another novel during that time, published in 2010. Things were busy at home and school, but I was reading The Brothers Karamazov. I held informal classes at the Iowa Writers Workshop, in which I encouraged graduate students to read the novel over Thanksgiving break. Wed meet and discuss it for hours. In 2013, it occurred to me that the present-tense narrative voice I was interested in actually worked well with the structure of The Brothers Karamazov. In that book, time unfolds incredibly slowly for about 500 pages. Hundreds of pages are devoted to the events of a few days. I thought I would like to try to use the present-tense voice work with the idea of three sons and their father, but they would have to be Chinese American. It was a real pleasure, a lot of fun to write. Q: The Family Chao came out in February. Has anything that happened at your events surprised you? A: After almost every event, I hear, I, too, was the only person of my background in my town. Maybe theyre from the only Asian family, or perhaps the only family from Russia. They all had that experience of feeling sort of invisible in the way that the Chaos were invisible in the first half of the book. Almost every time I give a reading, someone like that comes up to me. I feel we have something in common immediately. Q: Youve talked about how important the book The Brothers Karamazov has been to you, and how it influenced The Family Chao. Did you take a break from reading the novel while writing yours? A: When I decided to write in conversation with that book, I had to stop reading it. Its such a great work, it would have just overwhelmed my efforts and Id have felt inadequate to the task. I stopped reading it for six years. When The Family Chao came out last spring, I decided to read The Brothers Karamazov again. It was fascinating and surprising to be reminded of elements that I had not remembered were in that book, elements that made it into my book and became themes. An example is the way my characters secret lives are conducted in back alleys. Living in Iowa City, Ive been interested in the alley system. The alleys were originally built for trash pickup, ice deliveries and other less front-facing activities. I realized the back way is delineated in The Brother Karamazov. Also, both books contain dogs. My novel has the French bulldog, Alf. Hes a significant character. He doesnt often appear, but he becomes very important. I had forgotten there is also a dog in the second half of The Brothers Karamazov. Q: Do you feel a lot of pressure, as director of the Iowa Writers Workshop, to write a fantastic novel? A: The first book I wrote as director was about a poet who went through a program like the Workshop. It was inspired by many observations about writing and writers in the 15 years before I became director. I found the subject slightly embarrassing; in order to begin writing, I had to tell myself the novel would never see the light of day. Ultimately, I had to break through the embarrassment and learn to live with peoples reactions to the novel. I do think theres a kind of pressure on me. The only way to get work done at all is to ignore this pressure by setting myself an impossible task. When I was writing this book, I focused on the real challenge of trying to write in conversation with a book I adore so much. I had to stop thinking about the Workshop. But the Workshop is also a great plus for my work. I have noticed while teaching that theres a certain real excitement in reading the work of my students, and a kind of jolt in the work when the writer is writing as if theyre discovering how to say what they have to say for the first time. There can be a moment when they start to really feel the permission to move forward. They find their voice. Being surrounded by people who were in that process made me value the process in my own book. I felt inspired to come up with something new. (The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) Its been roughly eight years since white-nose syndrome (WNS) was first documented decimating bat populations in upstate New York. The disease is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans which colonizes hibernating bats muzzles, ears and wings. Its believed to kill by damaging the wing tissues that normally allow bats to regulate water loss during hibernation. The fungus also repeatedly wakes bats from hibernation, causing them to burn crucial fat reserves, leading to dehydration, emaciation and exposure. Since WNS arrived in North America, tens of millions of dollars and countless hours have been dedicated to trying to understand this disease, quantify the impact its having on bat populations and develop ways to curtail the devastation. Successfully combating the disease has been difficult, but our group has been exploring some new techniques that control the fungus using naturally occurring soil microbes. A spreading scourge P. destructans is a fungus with a long evolutionary lineage in soil. It can generate tremendous amounts of nearly indestructible spores called conidia. These spores, capable of living in conditions where actively growing fungus couldnt, ensure that P. destructans can survive, and even potentially thrive, in host-free environments including cave soils in the heat of the summer or previously decimated hibernacula, the sites where bats hibernate for the winter. Every year P. destructans has extended its foothold in North America, killing millions of bats and eliminating the tremendous ecosystem services they provide. For instance, bats consume so many agricultural pest insects that healthy bat populations allow farmers to use less pesticide on crops. Numbers for several hibernating bat species have now declined significantly enough to warrant consideration for protected status under the US Federal Endangered Species Act. The potential listings could have big financial consequences for North American industries including mineral extraction, forestry management and infrastructure development since they would need to avoid disturbing the listed species. Human role in WNS Theres an undercurrent of responsibility in the bat conservation community. Many now believe P. destructans was introduced into North America by human activities in particular, recreational cavers from abroad using gear here that harbored European soil and spores. This hypothesis is supported by the tremendous genetic diversity of P. destructans samples taken from WNS-positive hibernacula in Europe compared to the very low genetic diversity among samples from far-flung regions in the US. The fungus has existed in Europe long enough to develop distinct differences in the versions that live in regions such as Germany versus Spain. Versions isolated in New York, Missouri and Georgia are essentially identical, pointing to a single introduction of the fungus into the US. Additionally, European bats manifest WNS symptoms, such as fungal growth on their muzzles and wings, but for currently unknown reasons they dont die from WNS at the high rates their North American counterparts do. For bat conservationists, this evidence underscores the role of people in facilitating, and now managing, this ecological disaster. How to fight back Developing and implementing control strategies for WNS presents unparalleled challenges in the field of microbial control. The very nature of bats and the hibernacula where they over-winter introduce seemingly insurmountable hurdles to traditional disease management strategies. Harsh conditions and challenging access, along with hibernating bats sensitivity to disturbance, cause problems. And researchers must constantly consider the potential for collateral damage from control agents on native flora and fauna. Were looking to microbes and the naturally-occurring anti-fungal volatile organic compounds (VOCs) they produce as potential biological control agents of WNS. Heres the idea: these bacteria and fungi co-evolved in their soil habitat, interacting and competing for resources and space. In this evolutionary jostling for supremacy, microorganisms develop traits that increase the fitness of one by exploiting a weakness in its competitor. Our goal is to harness these natural antagonisms interactions in which one community member (bacteria) exerts a negative effect on another (fungus) but may not necessarily kill it in the fight against WNS. Researchers know soils exist that have disease-suppressive properties and are fungistatic that is, they keep pathogenic fungi from growing and causing disease, but dont kill them outright. We hypothesized that these soils could harbor numerous microbial antagonists of P. destructans. And in fact thats just what we found. Bacterially-produced VOCs associated with fungistatic soilsdid act as antagonists against P. destructans. We also found that a soil-associated bacterium, Rhodococcus rhodochrous, can be induced to have tremendous contact-independent antagonism towards P. destructans in the lab it doesnt need to touch the fungus or the bats in order to prevent or reduce WNS. Now were conducting field trials at hibernacula to explore a potential application method for these microbial controls. Were also investigating the potential of this treatment in areas currently at different points in the disease cycle. One site in Missouri is in its first two years after WNS introduction, others in Kentucky have long-term declines. WNS is here to stay. Its a new part of the North American biosphere and a cave resident that bat species here must adapt to. No matter how powerful the tools we develop to combat this disease, they will never be enough. Ultimately it must be the goal of disease management efforts to curtail the tremendous population losses so that enough bats are able to reproduce to stabilize population numbers. We hope across many generations bats can develop the ability to exist, like their European counterparts, in a WNS world. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/new-ammunition-in-the-battle-to-save-north-american-bats-from-white-nose-syndrome-34469. Two Iranians living in Madison are cautious but hopeful that demonstrations now roiling Iran over the death of a woman in police custody will lead to changes in the Islamic country known for its strict limits on womens freedom and antipathy toward America. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman from northwest Iran, died Sept. 16, three days after being taken into custody in Tehran for violating Irans strict dress code. The morality police arrested her for alleged improper wearing of her hijab, which was a sort of nonsense accusation, said Soroush Aslani, one of the organizers of a gathering Sunday in Madison to honor Amini. But also even by Iran standards, her hijab was pretty mainstream; she had just a small piece of her hair out. That Amini was arrested and beaten while in custody rightly outraged people throughout Iran, Aslani said. This was something that resonated with many people across the country from different ages, generations, socioeconomic backgrounds, religious or nonreligious, he said. He said people in Iran are asking for the prosecution of the officers who killed Amini, but the reaction of the Iranian government was to use more violence to stop the protests. As a result, he said, at least 55 people have been killed in the streets, with a lot more injured. The government has also limited internet access so activists cant share news about the protests. Shiva Bidar, a native of Iran who stepped down in 2021 after serving for 12 years on Madisons City Council, said the demonstrations in Iran over Aminis death feel different from past protests. People all over Iran have related to the murder of Mahsa Amini because everyone has a sister, a daughter, a niece, a cousin and what happened to Mahsa could happen to anyone. Mahsa is every Iranians sister or daughter. Aslani similarly saw some reason to be hopeful about change. We cannot evaluate the outcome of a protest just based on what happens five days or one month after that, he said. This is a series of struggles and efforts to pursue human rights but definitely we are making progress. Aslani said that those calling for womens rights and freedoms in the streets of Iran today are different from the people who showed up 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or even two years ago. Gradually people are pushing the boundaries and trying to pursue their legitimate liberties, he said. Added Bidar, People wouldnt be putting their lives at risk if they didnt have hope that it will make a difference. Bidar, who held a sign during Sundays event that said Women Life Freedom, a slogan of the movement that is being used at rallies in Iran and on social media, said that Aminis brother pleaded with police not to take her because they were from out of town, but police didnt care. That feeling of helplessness is what Iranians have felt for 40-plus years, she said. That feeling he had is what the people of Iran have been feeling for 40-plus years. Every time a person has been murdered by the regime and every time a wrong was done by the regime and we couldnt do anything. People have had enough of feeling helpless. In her speech Sunday at the event that drew about 120 people, Bidar said, In Iran, every social media post, every hashtag, every government site is being controlled, blocked by the regime. In the face of a brutal regime, every person supporting this fight for freedom, every news coverage, every march outside of Iran, is hope for the people marching and fighting in Iran. Aslani, who was born in Iran and lived there until he came to the United States for graduate school, said the gathering in Madison was to show solidarity with the Iranian people and let them know that Americans care about womens rights and human rights. And we wanted to be the voice of people who didnt have sufficient voice on this matter to the world, he said. WASHINGTON (AP) French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Washington in early December for the first state visit of President Joe Biden's tenure, an occasion marked by pomp and pageantry that is designed to celebrate relations between the United States and its closest allies. The Dec. 1 visit, following the U.S. midterm elections and the Thanksgiving holiday, will be the second state visit for Macron, who was first elected to lead his country in May 2017 and won a second term earlier this year. Macron also had a state visit during the Trump years. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced the visit Monday, saying it will underscore the deep and enduring relationship with France, our oldest ally. It will be the first time the White House has hosted a world leader for a state visit since the coronavirus outbreak. The invitation comes as a sign that relations between Biden and Macron have come full circle. The relationship tanked last year after the United States announced a deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia. The decision by the U.S. undermined a deal that had been in place for France to sell diesel-powered submarines to Australia. After the announcement of the deal, which was born out of a new security agreement between the U.S., Australia and Britain, France briefly recalled its ambassador to Washington, Philippe Etienne, to Paris. Biden also sought to patch thing up with France by eventually acknowledging to Macron that his administration had been clumsy in how it handled the issue. The Biden administration since has heaped praise on Macron for being among the most vociferous Western allies in condemning Russia's 7-month-old war in Ukraine and pressing broad sanctions on the Russian economy and officials close to President Vladimir Putin. Central to Bidens pitch for the presidency was a vow to restore America's global leadership after four years of Donald Trumps America First worldview. But Biden has acknowledged that Macron and other allies remain skeptical about whether he can make good on robust U.S. leadership worldwide. Biden is fond of telling the story of how, at a world leader meeting he attended soon after taking office, he declared that America is back. He says his counterparts, starting with Macron, countered by asking, "For how long? Macron also was the first world leader to earn a state visit under Trump, though their relationship later became fractious. The French leader had sought to cultivate a close partnership with Trump and hosted the Republican in 2017 for Bastille Day celebrations in Paris. Trump reciprocated with Macron's state visit. But the relationship soured after Trump pulled U.S. troops from Syria without coordinating with France and other NATO allies. Trump disparaged NATO. In one of their last face-to-face encounters, at a gathering of NATO leaders in London in 2019, Trump and Macron hardly hid their frustration with each other. Not long before that meeting, Macron had complained that the alliance was suffering brain death caused by diminished U.S. leadership under Trump. Trump snapped back after a meeting with Macron that the French leader had made very, very nasty and disrespectful comments. When Macron visited in April 2018, Trump and his wife, Melania, planned a double date with Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, Americas founding president. The couples helped plant a tree on the White House lawn before they departed on a helicopter tour of monuments built in a capital city designed by French-born Pierre LEnfant as they flew south to Mount Vernon, situated along the Potomac River. Macron was welcomed at the White House the next day with a booming 21-gun salute, his first Oval Office meeting with Trump, a joint news conference with the president and a state dinner for 150 guests in the White House State Dining Room. Scott Morrison, then the prime minister of Australia, also came on a state visit at Trump's invitation in September 2019. Trump had announced a third state visit, by Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, but it was postponed due to the pandemic and could not be held before Trump lost reelection in 2020. President Barack Obama also afforded France the honor of a state visit, in 2014. Obama and French President Francois Hollande celebrated ties between their nations by touring Monticello, the sprawling Charlottesville, Virginia, estate owned by Thomas Jefferson, the former U.S. president and famed Francophile. Jefferson was an early U.S. envoy to France. Hollandes visit was the first such recognition for France in two decades. But it proved a bit of a diplomatic challenge as he traveled without a female companion following a very public breakup with longtime partner Valerie Trierweiler. Holland and Trierweiler were a couple when the White House extended the invitation, but the relationship ended after a gossip magazine revealed a secret tryst between Hollande and a French actress. The last-minute change of plans Hollande coming solo caused heartburn for U.S. officials planning the diplomatic event. The Obamas tried to put the issue to rest by seating Hollande between them at a state dinner for 350 invited guests in a heated pavilion on the White House South Lawn on a frigid February night. ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkey on Monday summoned the Greek ambassador to protest the alleged deployment of dozens of U.S.-made armored vehicles to Greek islands which Ankara says should remain demilitarized in line with international treaties. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned, meanwhile, that Turkey wouldn't hold back on defending its rights and interests against Greece. Turkish media on Sunday published aerial images that they said showed the deployment of armored vehicles by Greece to the Aegean islands of Samos and Lesbos, heightening tensions between the two NATO countries that have a history of rivalry. Turkish officials say the deployment is in violation of the islands' nonmilitary status according to international law. Turkish officials summoned Greek Ambassador Christodoulos Lazaris to the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Monday, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. It said Turkey also filed a protest with Washington, but didn't provide details. Erdogan accused Greece of engaging in acts of provocation against Turkey. We will not fail to defend our countrys rights and interests against Greece by using all the means at our disposal, when necessary, Erdogan said following a Cabinet meeting. Turkey and Greece have decades-old disputes over an array of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and disputes over the airspace there. The disputes have brought them to the brink of war three times in the last half-century. Tensions flared in 2020 over exploratory drilling rights in areas of the Mediterranean Sea where Greece and Cyprus claim exclusive economic zones leading to a naval standoff. More recently, Turkey has accused Greece of violating international agreements by militarizing islands in the Aegean Sea. It has also accused Greek surface-to-air missiles of locking on to Turkish F-16 fighter jets carrying out a reconnaissance mission in international airspace an accusation Greece has rejected. Athens says it needs to defend the islands many of which lie close to Turkeys coast against a potential attack from Turkey. A Greek government official told The Associated Press that Greece fully respects its international obligations, adding that the Greek ambassador told his interlocuters that Greece is not the country that is threatening its neighbor with war or assembling a large landing force on its coastline as Turkey has done. The official added that Turkey continues to violate Greeces sovereignty with its continuous violations of its airspace and overflights of Greek territory. The official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly to the news media, made the remarks on condition of anonymity. Turkish media reports quoted security officials as saying 23 of the armored vehicles were sent to Lesbos and 18 others were sent to Samos. Meanwhile, Greek authorities said a six-year-old migration agreement between Turkey and the European Union remains in effect despite an escalating dispute between the two neighbors over the treatment of refugees. Notis Mitarachi, the migration affairs minister, said Greece will continue to observe the 2016 deal that allows it to send back most migrants travelling illegally from nearby Turkey. It is clear that for those coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, that Turkey is a safe country, Mitarachi said. Unfortunately, smugglers are still selling tickets to people from those countries. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Erdogan last week accused Greece of committing crimes against humanity by carrying out potentially deadly expulsions of migrants travelling from the Turkish mainland to nearby Greek islands. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described the claims as absurd, charging Turkey with weaponizing migration to apply political pressure on Greece and other European countries. Derek Gatopoulos reported from Athens, Greece. Malis prime minister lashed out Saturday at former colonizer France, the U.N. secretary-general and many people in between, saying that the tumultuous country had been stabbed in the back" by the French military withdrawal. In the same remarks, Abdoulaye Maiga praised the exemplary and fruitful cooperation between Mali and Russia. Maiga was directly criticizing U.N. Secretary-General Secretary-General Antonio Guterres by the fourth sentence of his speech to the General Assembly. And he slammed what he called Frances unilateral decision to relocate its remaining troops to neighboring Niger amid deteriorating relations with Mali's two-time coup leader, Col. Assimi Goita. While it was Goita and his allies who overthrew a democratically elected president by military force two years ago, Mali's prime minister repeatedly referred to a French junta throughout his speech Saturday. Move on from the colonial past and hear the anger, the frustration, the rejection that is coming up from the African cities and countryside, and understand that this movement is inexorable, Maiga said. Your intimidations and subversive actions have only swelled the ranks of Africans concerned with preserving their dignity. France intervened militarily in 2013, leading an effort to oust Islamic extremists from control of the northern Malian towns they had overtaken. Over the past nine years, France had continued its presence in a bid to stabilize the country amid repeated attacks by insurgents. The French departure has raised new concerns about whether those militants will again regain territory with security responsibilities now falling to the Malian military and U.N. peacekeepers. Maiga insisted Saturday that terrorist groups have been severely weakened since the August 2020 coup d'etat even though militants over the summer attacked the countrys largest military base, just 15 kilometers (9 miles) outside the capital, Bamako. In a more than 30-minute speech, he referenced everything from Victor Hugo to the Rwandan genocide. Maiga repeated unfounded claims that France colluded with Islamic extremists and spoke of nefarious elements with hidden agendas. At one point he even called into question the nationality of Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum, whom he called a foreigner who claims to be from Niger. We know that the people of Niger, brothers of Mali, are distinguished by very rich societal, cultural and religious values, Maiga said. Bazoum is not a Nigerien. The Malian prime minister offered a grim assessment of the U.N. peacekeeping mission known as MINUSMA, while openly praising the influence of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group who have been accused of carrying out human rights abuses. We must recognize that nearly 10 years after its establishment, the objectives for which MINUSMA was deployed in Mali have not been achieved, Maiga said. This is despite numerous Security Council resolutions. The Malian prime minister had particularly sharp words as well for Guterres, criticizing his recent comments on the standoff between Mali and Ivory Coast over 46 detained Ivorian soldiers. Maiga reiterated claims before the U.N. General Assembly Saturday that the soldiers were sent to Mali as mercenaries, which the Ivorian government has vigorously denied. Ivory Coast says the soldiers were to provide security for a company contracted by the United Nations, but Maiga maintained that there is no link between the 46 and the United Nations. On Saturday, he said that soldiers had arrived in Bamako with weapons, indicating on their paperwork that they were painters and masons. Instead, he said, they came with the evil intention of destabilizing the country. Three female Ivorian soldiers already have been released as a humanitarian gesture, but there have been no updates about the others. Since friendship is based on sincerity, I would like to express my deep disagreement with your recent media appearance, in which you took a position and expressed yourself on the case of the 46 Ivorian mercenaries," he said in comments aimed at Guterres. The nature of the offenses in the case does not fall within the remit of the secretary-general of the United Nations," he added. Maiga, a government spokesman, was dispatched to New York to address the U.N. General Assembly instead of Goita. The coup leader instead attended celebrations Friday in Bamako marking Mali's independence from France in 1960. Also in attendance at that event was the junta leader who seized power in Guinea a little over a year after Mali's coup d'etat. A third West African country, Burkina Faso, underwent a military coup in January, deepening fears that democracy is backsliding in the region amid mounting violence from Islamic extremists. For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly Talking with teachers about the beginning of the school year has me feeling optimistic. Everyone I talk to reports their students are energized, eager and motivated. This is a welcome change from the way students have been feeling for the past couple of years. This is partly due to simple relief as pandemic restrictions ease, but it is also a testament to the resiliency of youth. Most young people are inclined toward exuberance. It is good to see their natural enthusiasm returning. But I worry that the next few months may dim that enthusiasm. After all, they will be spending time in the company of adults tasked with directing their attention, and too many adults now are preoccupied with all that is wrong with the world. The other day a father told me that his 9-year-old son learned in school that life expectancy was declining for the first time in history. There are two problems with this: It is false, and it places an unnecessary burden on the child. The statistics show a decline in life expectancy in the United States from 79 years in 2019 to 77 years in 2021. That is the steepest decline in the past 100 years. It is also the sort of thing that happens during pandemics. The expected lifespan dropped from 54 to 47 years in 1918 due to the Spanish flu, but by 1925 it had risen to 58 years. Life expectancy sometimes goes down for a short period of time, but overall it continues to rise. Why arent we teaching our children that? To tell kids only the bad news and not to put that news in the context of the good things happening in the world is to place a tremendous burden on them. It creates the impression that things are getting worse and worse. Thats a terrible thing to do to a child who is coming of age now. In a widely known Bob Newhart skit, a therapist specializes in five-minute sessions. When a patient begins to describe how her behavior is causing distress, he shouts, Stop it! Thats what I want to say to adults who think they must continually give our youth a dose of so-called realism. Stop it. Stop telling kids that elections are rigged. Stop telling kids the Supreme Court is taking away their rights. Stop telling kids their schools are failing. Stop telling kids the world will end if we dont stop a pipeline or get our candidate elected. For too many young people, the message they take away is that the troubles they face are insurmountable. Instead, we need to be intentional about teaching young people how to participate meaningfully in their communities: how to think independently, work collaboratively and communicate clearly. We need to teach them how to be citizens instead of victims. Our kids dont need realism. They need a path forward. They need practical instruction in how to make things work. Most of all, they need hope. The problem with realism is that it isnt real. It is a projection of our fears onto others. It not only paints an inaccurate picture, it induces apathy and despair. It makes many young people less motivated to effectively address the problems they will encounter. Evidence of our tendency to exaggerate whats wrong with the world can be seen in Gallups annual State of the Nation report. What stands out is that 69% of Americans are very or somewhat satisfied with their overall quality of life, yet their satisfaction with every specific aspect of life and every government policy is considerably lower. How can most people be satisfied with their lives and yet think that everyone and everything around them is terrible? We have become a nation of whiners, blamers and complainers. (And yes, I know. Im complaining about it.) Young people are hearing two messages over and over again from the most vocal among us: Things are getting worse, and it is because our institutions are broken. Both messages are pernicious falsehoods. The world is getting better in most significant respects because our institutions are doing what they are designed to do. Our schools and universities, health care organizations, research centers, industries and governments are effectively increasing prosperity, health, education and equality. Not only is life expectancy way up, but extreme poverty has declined dramatically, literacy has vastly increased, major diseases have been eliminated or greatly reduced, infant mortality is down, and violent death has been declining steadily. Sure, young people face significant challenges posed by climate change, water shortages, the uncertainties of artificial intelligence and an ongoing nuclear threat. The question is: How do we best prepare them to face those challenges? It is not by repeatedly complaining about how bad things are. Human beings are extraordinarily good at fixing problems when we work together. The truth is that the best time to be alive is now. The best time is always now. Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing (Momra) has signed an agreement worth more than SR40 billion ($10.6 billion) for the development of infrastructure in 11 cities across the kingdom, reported the Saudi Press Agency. The deal will provide over 150,000 residential units of various size and design in addition to 54 million sq m green and open spaces as well as other key public facilities, road networks and public transport. The agreement also included financing and developing a project portfolio between Momra and the National Housing Company (NHC), stated the SPA report. The kingdom's largest real estate developer NHC is currently working with a range of real estate developers on comprehensive infrastructure projects, as well as delivering key amenities in residential communities, it added. PAUL The Burley Senior Center and Minidoka County Senior Center each received donations of $1,250 from Mini-Cassia Amalgamated Sugar employees for the centers Meals on Wheels programs. With such a large-scale, industrial operation, employee safety must always remain a major focus, Amalgamated Sugar Mini-Cassia Plant Manager Stan Case said. It was a team effort to achieve this safety milestone, and were proud to celebrate by giving back to two organizations that do so much good in our community. The group gathered on Aug. 24 at the factory for the presentation, according to a press release. The donations were made as part of the Amalgamated Sugars Presidents Safety Award. The program was implemented by the company to reward a factorys safety milestones by making impactful contributions to organizations in the community. Since the start of the safety award, this was the Cassia factorys second time to achieved 250,000 consecutive work hours without a recordable injury. The employees decided to divide their $2,500 contribution between the two senior centers that help homebound seniors with affordable meals. Working in a safe manner and keeping fellow employees safe has become part of the factorys culture. You can see just how much safety has become a priority on the factory floor by the growth of our Safety Committee, BCTGM Mini-Cassia Local 282G Union President Craig Lindsay said. A few years ago, we had six or eight employees, and now we fill the conference room. The Meals on Wheels programs in both counties receive some grant funding and rely heavily on community support. These critical food assistance programs always need monetary donations and volunteer drivers to help deliver meals. Through these organizations efforts, thousands of meals are provided to area seniors each month. Amalgamated Sugar Company produces sugar, animal feed products, and betaine from the sugar beets grown by its more than 700 cooperative members. Sugar beets are grown on approximately 180,000 acres in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The company is the second-largest producer of sugar from sugar beets in the country. All schools in the city of Martinsville, Henry and Patrick counties have been accredited this year by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE),but the state superintendent says the ratings may be unreliable. After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the 2022-23 accreditation standards were released on Thursday, showing only a three-point drop statewide compared with pre-pandemic performance, causing State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow to doubt the results. These ratings call into question the effectiveness of our accreditation standards in identifying schools where students are struggling to achieve grade-level proficiency, Balow said in Thursdays release. The number and percentage of schools earning accreditation is almost as high as three years ago, despite significant declines in achievement on Standards of Learning tests in reading, math and scienceespecially among minority and economically disadvantaged students. Accreditation is one of the primary drivers of state interventions and local efforts to improve outcomes for students, and frankly, the school ratings we are releasing today fail to capture the extent of the crisis facing our schools and students. Those cautionary words appeared to be lost on Martinsville City Public Schools, who issued a glowing release on Friday. The Virginia Department of Education has once again reaffirmed that students in Martinsville City Public Schools continue to receive an educational experience of the highest quality, the release said. All Martinsville schools have been fully accredited since 2018. There were no accreditation ratings released during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, due to the pandemic, so the VDOE effectively waived accreditation for all public schools during the past two school years. Although all schools in the Henry County district were accredited, Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School was accredited with conditions. Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School is accredited with conditions because one of their indicators was rated at Level 3, wrote Director of Communications Monica Hatchett. Any time a school has one or more indicators at a Level 3, they receive an overall status of Accredited with Conditions. Fieldale-Collinsville will undergo an academic review to ensure that all elements of instruction, assessment, and instructional leadership are aligned to the desired outcome, Hatchett wrote. The past two years in education have been among some of the toughest years students have ever faced, said Lisa Millner, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, by email. In Henry County Public Schools, we are proud of how resilient our students, teachers, and entire school families have been during this challenging time. Patrick County Superintendent Jason Wood said Patrick County Public Schools ranked seventh in the state this year, the highest ranking for his school district since 2010. Patrick County Public Schools is very proud of the accomplishments of our students and staff, Wood wrote. We understand how important it is to focus on student learning and growth, and we are so pleased with the performance of our schools when we examine the combined pass rate that includes student growth. Across the state, 89% of schools were accredited this year, down from 92% in the 2019-20 school year. Schools accredited with conditions were at 10%, up from 7% over the same period. The remaining 1% of public schools in the state were divided between new schools and schools in an alternative accreditation plan. The school quality indicator data and the overall school ratings are skewed by several factors that obscure the impact of the pandemic and school closures, Balow said in the release. For example, in English, lower expectations on the reading tests introduced in 2020-21 and how growth is factored into accreditation resulted in more schools achieving at Level 1 in English than before the pandemic. This masks the catastrophic learning losses experienced by our most vulnerable students. Millner said Henry County Schools understood Balows concerns. We have also been very cautious when comparing this years data to last years data because we realize many of our students were not assessed at all last year, Millner wrote. Others elected to take the Remote Assessment ... offered to students who remained virtual due to COVID concerns. The results of those assessments were not included in the final division data. Martinsville Superintendent Dr. Zeb Talley said his school district was basking in an atmosphere of excellence. Our students continue to excel in all phases of their education experiences for consecutive years, Talley said in a release. This is the result of hard work from students, families, teachers, administrators, support staff, school board members, and community leaders. Students at Martinsville City Public Schools are receiving a first-class education. In Patrick County this year, the school system has been drilling down on making up for lost learning. Our instructional focus this year includes implementing a new curriculum based on the science of reading to address unfinished learning from the pandemic, Wood wrote. We continue to offer specialized remediation opportunities, both during and after school, to address gaps in all areas. For Balow, one of the most meaningful statistics is the number of students who failed a Standards of Learning (SOL) test, but improved. Statewide, prior to the pandemic that number was about 20,000 and is now at 61,000 in reading and for math the number has grown from 20,000 to 88,000. Teachers and principals are working hard, and this is reflected in the growth we are seeking, Balow said in the release. And in commending them for their efforts, I encourage educators in every schoolregardless of accreditation ratingto look deeply into their data and chart sure paths to recovery and grade-level proficiency for all of their students. On Thursday, the leader of the North Carolina Democratic Party visited Marion and met with local party leaders and Democratic candidates for office. Bobbie Richardson, chairwoman of the statewide Democratic Party, stopped by the McDowell County Democratic Community Center in downtown Marion on Thursday to thank leaders, candidates and volunteers for all their hard work, according to a news release. It is a great honor to visit McDowell County today and speak with our local Democratic leaders about what we can do together to empower voters to cast their ballots this November, she said. Were less than 50 days out from Election Day, and North Carolina is at a crossroads. The power is now in the hands of McDowell voters and voters across North Carolina to decide the direction of our states future. Do we want to move boldly in the direction of a more equitable, just future or we will allow ourselves to be dragged back into the past by complacency and regressive politics? Its all on the line. Your vote matters now more than ever. She met with Michelle Price, chairwoman of the McDowell County Democratic Party, and Council Member Billy Martin, who is running for the N.C. Senate; Robert Cordle, who is running for the N.C. House of Representatives, and other leaders of the local party. As our children grow into the next generation of leaders across North Carolina, I want to be able to tell them that we as North Carolina Democrats fought for them to have access to strong, fully-funded public schools, said Richardson. I want to be able to tell them that we fought to ensure that they are never without access to quality, affordable medical care when they are in a crisis. I want to be able to tell them that they will be happy and safe in the North Carolina that our generation of Democratic leaders has fostered. To do that, we must take action, and whatever form of action that energy takes, make sure that at the very least that action is to vote for our Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. North Carolina is counting on you. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 80, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea with an iron fist for 43 years and whose candidacy remained so far uncertain, will seek a new term in the presidential election in November, said the vice president on Twitter. Because of his charisma, his leadership and his political experience (), the ruling party unanimously elected the militant brother Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo as the candidate who will represent the party in the presidential elections on November 20, wrote on Twitter the vice-president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, nicknamed Teodorin, son of the incumbent president. Mr. Obiang, head of Equatorial Guinea since 1979, holds the world record for longevity in power of living heads of state, excluding monarchies. The only issue at stake in the election was the nomination of the candidate of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), which holds 99 of the 100 seats in the outgoing lower house and all 70 seats in the Senate. The hypothesis that Teodorin, long considered his fathers successor, would take over from him had gained momentum because of his omnipresence on the political scene for the past two years. The all-powerful and feared vice-president in charge of defense, publicly assumed jet-setter and sentenced in 2021 to three years of suspended prison in France within the framework of the business known as ill-gotten gains, had finally not been designated candidate to the general surprise. The Equato-Guineans but also observers and diplomats pointed to a power struggle between Teodorin and some caciques of the regime, reluctant to see the son take the reins of this small but oil rich Central African country. Some 123,000 voters in Sao Tome and Principe cast their ballots Sunday in legislative, local and regional elections, with voters in the diaspora electing two deputies for Europe and Africa for the first time. On the two islands that make up the country, there were 309 polling stations for 123,301 voters. In total, 11 parties and movements, including a coalition, are running for the 55 seats in the National Assembly of Sao Tome and Principe, but the dispute for the next leadership of the government is essentially between the Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe/Social Democratic Party (MLSTP/PSD, in power), led by the current Prime Minister, Jorge Bom Jesus, and Independent Democratic Action (ADI, opposition), led by former Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada. Jorge Bom Jesus heads the current government in coalition with three other forces the Democratic Convergence Party (PCD), the Union for Democracy and Development (UDD) and the Democratic Movement for Change (MDFM). The Independent Citizens Movement also known as the movement of Caue, a district in the south of the country, of brothers Antonio and Nino Monteiro, is now running in coalition with the Party of National Unity (PUN), from the Autonomous Region of Principe, and wants to increase the number of deputies, after having debuted in parliament in 2018 with two elected members. The PCD did not advance for these elections, being integrated in the Basta movement, which includes figures such as the president of the National Assembly, Delfim Neves (PCD), the former foreign minister of Patrice Trovoada, Salvador dos Ramos, and the former secretary general of ADI, Levy Nazare. Morocco will train Malian Imams, Morchidines and Morchidates (religious preachers) under a Memorandum of understanding signed last week in Rabat. The MoU was signed by Minister of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, Ahmed Toufiq and his Malian counterpart Mahamadou Kone. Under the agreement, a total of 300 Imams, Morchidines and Morchidates will attend courses at the Mohammed VI Institute for the Training of Imams, Morchidines and Morchidates. The 300 beneficiaries will be divided into five groups. Each group will undergo a two-year training session. Accommodation will be provided by the Moroccan side. This MoU aims to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood between the two brotherly peoples and consolidate the values of cooperation between the two parties in Islamic affairs, given the fundamental role of the training of Imams in promoting the values of moderation and tolerance. Mali was the first country to benefit from the training of Imams, Morchidines and Morchidates, Ahmed Toufiq stated during the signing ceremony, recalling the bilateral agreement on the training of 500 Malian Imams, inked in 2013 in Bamako. For his part, Kone expressed his deep gratitude and sincere thanks to King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, for his constant and sustained efforts in favor of the Malian people. Morocco has played a considerable role in the training of Imams in Mali, he noted, highlighting the positive impact of such training sessions on the Malian people. Graphical abstract. Credit: Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cgh.2022.08.022 A polyp is a small growth of tissue in the colon that can evolve into colorectal cancer. Patients with polyps have a higher risk of evolving cancer in the future. "Using Artificial intelligence (AI) during colonoscopy, endoscopic examination with a camera, can be useful to detect pre-cancerous polyps," says Yuichi Mori, doctor and associate professor from the Clinical Effectiveness Research group at the University of Oslo. The AI-tool used during colonoscopy builds upon the same technology as facial recognition on cellphones. By marking the polyps in red or green boxes, the tool assists doctors during colonoscopy, helping them to see polyps they otherwise could have missed. "The technology is useful when the polyps are small or possibly hard to detect," Mori says. More patients are recommended control-colonoscopy every three years A possible flaw with the new technology is that doctors detect more small, non-dangerous polyps using the tool, which then have to be removed. Even if the removal of small polyps does not have any larger side effects, one in a thousand will experience bleeding or a smaller rupture in the colon during removal. Mori and co-researchers have compared results after colorectal cancer screening, with and without the use of AI. Around 5,800 patients were included in the study. "Using AI-tools during colonoscopy resulted in a rise of patients with polyps being recommended screening every three years of 20% in Europe," says Mori. Usually patients are recommended controls every 10 years. The research was published as "Impact of artificial intelligence on colonoscopy surveillance after polyp removal: A pooled analysis of randomized trials" in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. More screening can lead to over-diagnosis Because the patients have to go through more screenings, using AI during colonoscopy can result in over-diagnosis, strain on the patients, and higher financial costs for the health services. Some patients also find colonoscopy uncomfortable. Taking laxatives and drinking two to three liters of clear liquid before the exam can be hard. "We do not know if more colonoscopies will lead to a lower risk of contracting colorectal cancer over time, or if it will just increase the financial strain on the hospitals. This requires longitudinal clinical effectiveness studies, and studies of the financial costs of using AI during colonoscopies," Mori says. Lower costs when using artificial intelligence during screening Mori and his co-researchers have, in another new article, studied if using AI during colorectal cancer screening actually leads to higher financial costs for the health services. The study shows that using AI-tools during colorectal cancer screening in the U.S., reduced the costs by 57 dollars per person. "Using AI during screening can prevent around 7,200 cases of colorectal cancer and around 2,000 related deaths on the American population level. This will save society costs of 290 million dollars per year in the long run. The study is based on modeling, and we do not yet know if the estimates are correct. To be able to know, we will need large-scale clinical studies," Mori says. The research was published as "Cost-effectiveness of artificial intelligence for screening colonoscopy: a modeling study" in The Lancet Digital Health. Mori is now working on the research project OperA, a portfolio of large-scale clinical studies of long-term effects of using AI during screening. "The goal is to change the standard of treatment by establishing reliable clinical evidence, and in the long run improving the outcome for the patients, for instance when detecting colorectal cancer. The OperA-project will find the answer to these important questions," Mori says. New colorectal cancer screening-program in Norway Norway has recently introduced a national screening-program for detecting colorectal cancer. 55-year-old men and women will be offered screening through colonoscopy or fecal samples this fall. "I am happy Norway is now introducing a colorectal cancer screening-program, and I hope it will contribute to reducing cancer," Mori says. "We do not yet know if AI can contribute to making a difference during screening, but I hope it will be utilized when it can be useful." Explore further AI reduces miss rate of precancerous polyps in colorectal cancer screening More information: Yuichi Mori et al, Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Colonoscopy Surveillance After Polyp Removal: A Pooled Analysis of Randomized Trials, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology (2022). Yuichi Mori et al, Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Colonoscopy Surveillance After Polyp Removal: A Pooled Analysis of Randomized Trials,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cgh.2022.08.022 Miguel Areia et al, Cost-effectiveness of artificial intelligence for screening colonoscopy: a modelling study, The Lancet Digital Health (2022). DOI: 10.1016/S2589-7500(22)00042-5 Journal information: Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eased its universal masking recommendation for nursing homes and hospitals, unless those health care institutions are in areas seeing high levels of COVID-19 transmission. The change is part of updated guidelines published by the CDC on Friday. Still, due to high COVID rates only about a quarter of U.S. counties now fall under the new guidance, which would allow doctors, patients and visitors to dispense with masks, CBS News reported. Earlier in the pandemic, everyone was asked to wear well-fitting masks or respirators in health care settings. Later, exceptions included that visitors could "choose not to wear source control" if they had updated vaccines and were alone together with those they were visiting, CBS News reported. Another exception allowed staff who were up to date on vaccines to unmask when not with patients. With the latest guidance, "updates were made to reflect the high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools," the CDC's new guidance states. Now, masking "remains recommended" during an outbreak among patients or "when caring for patients who are moderately to severely immunocompromised." The CDC has been revising guidance since August, as the numbers of people hospitalized and nursing home infections have been slowing. While only 3.5% of Americans live in communities with what are considered by the CDC to be high levels based on hospitalization rates, healthcare settings must still adhere to earlier "community transmission" guidelines, which include measures for reported cases and test positivity. Using that benchmark, about 73% of U.S. counties are still high-risk, CBS News reported. "Community transmission is the metric currently recommended to guide select practices in healthcare settings to allow for earlier intervention, before there is strain on the healthcare system and to better protect the individuals seeking care in these settings," the CDC said in its updated guidance. Though some restrictions were loosened on Friday, others were strengthened. This includes guidance that people who had a previous COVID infection didn't need to test for the virus if exposed within 90 days of that previous infection. Now guidance says testing "should be considered for those who have recovered in the prior 31-90 days." Emerging evidence suggests people can be reinfected with Omicron variants, even multiple times within a three-month period. "Our findings indicate that the time between confirmed primary infections and reinfections with different Omicron subvariants is frequently shorter than the 90-day definition of reinfections used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," wrote the authors of a French study published last week. Holly Harmon, a senior vice president for the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, welcomed the masking changes. "While our commitment to infection prevention and control continues, adapting COVID protocols means recognizing the current stage of this pandemic as well as the importance of quality of life for our nation's seniors," Harmon told CBS News. "After more than two years, residents will get to see more of their caregivers' smiling faces, and our dedicated staff will get a moment to breathe," Harmon said. Explore further CDC stops tracking COVID cases on cruise ships More information: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19 Copyright 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Patients with chronic heart failure who received collaborative, home-based palliative care were less likely to die in hospital and more likely to die at home than people who received usual care, according to new research in Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). In Ontario between 2010 and 2015, 75% of people with heart failure died in hospital despite the majority preferring an out-of-hospital death. The current CMAJ study included 245 people in Ontario with chronic heart failure between 2013 and 2019 who were enrolled in the collaborative care model and 1172 who received usual care. The mean age was 88 years, and 55% were female. The collaborative model, which involved primary care providers, cardiologists and palliative care specialists, was associated with fewer visits to the emergency department, fewer admissions to hospital and intensive care near the end of life, and a lower likelihood of dying in hospital (41% v. 78%) than usual care. The model emphasized advance care planning; home-based management of heart failure; standardized protocols for clinical care; education of patients, families and clinicians; and collaboration between health care professionals. "The implementation and scalability of this model does not require major restructuring for providers," says Dr. Kieran Quinn, a palliative care physician with Sinai Health and the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. "However, scalability does require increased awareness on the part of all providers of the potential to provide integrated palliative and heart failure care." "This model coincided with a regional cultural shift among palliative care physicians, cardiologists and other health care providers, and people living with heart failure and their family caregivers," says Dr. Sarina Isenberg, Bruyere Chair in Mixed Methods Palliative Care Research at Bruyere Research Institute and the University of Ottawa. "The clinical leads of the model worked tirelessly to affect these changes in skills, behaviours and attitudes, and champions are needed to expand to other regions." A related editorial calls for widespread adoption of this model to help patients with a variety of diseases who live in the community as well as people in long-term care facilities who might benefit. "My hope is that Quinn and colleagues will widely share the details of their care pathways and training modules, and that practitioners and health care managers in regions across the country will see the benefits of providing high-quality collaborative palliative care at home for patients with severe heart disease (and other diseases)," writes Dr. Andreas Laupacis, deputy editor, CMAJ. "It's time to make this happen." He suggests changed funding models to include postdischarge care, in which hospitals share funding with community partners who would coordinate and deliver care. The study was conducted by researchers from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Bruyere Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa; University of Toronto, ICES and Sinai Health, Toronto, Ontario; Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Explore further Integrated palliative care in ambulatory settings does not relieve symptom burden but improves health care use More information: Regional collaborative home-based palliative care and health care outcomes among adults with heart failure, Canadian Medical Association Journal (2022). Regional collaborative home-based palliative care and health care outcomes among adults with heart failure,(2022). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.220784 Andreas Laupacis, Home-based palliative care in Canada: time for this to be an option for everyone, Canadian Medical Association Journal (2022). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.221332 Journal information: Canadian Medical Association Journal Arabian Pipes Company has announced that it has been awarded a SR155 million ($41.2 million) contract by Saudi oil giant Aramco to supply steel pipes for one of its key projects in the kingdom. Arabian Pipes is a leading manufacturer of welded steel pipes for oil and gas sector as well as for structural and commercial utilisation with sizes range from 6 to 48 inch. It owns and operates two factories in the kingdom that has a total average capacity to 460,000 tonne per year. The first plant in Riyadh manufacturing ERW pipes has a 160,000 tonne per year capacity, while the second in Jubail industrial city manufacturing LSAW pipes has an average capacity of 300,000 tonne per year. As per the deal, the entire supply of pipes will be completed within 15 months, said Arabian Pipes Company in its filing to Saudi bourse Tadawul. Arabian Pipes currently has number of projects with total value of more than SR800 million, which will support the company's continuity during the coming period, it added.-TradeArabia News Service Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A cohort study of adults undergoing a colonoscopy after a positive fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) result suggest that endoscopists performing colonoscopy in FIT-based screening programs should aim for markedly higher ADRs compared with programs that use colonoscopy as the primary screening intervention. The study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Screening reduces colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence and mortality by early detection and removal of colorectal cancers and polyps. One of the quality indicators for colonoscopies is the ADR, which proportion of colonoscopies in which at least one adenoma is detected. ADR is often associated with inverse post-colonoscopy CRC (PCCRC) risk, and many professional societies recommended endoscopists have an ADR of at least 25 percent. FIT-based screening programs have also become common worldwide. Participants with a positive FIT result have a high prevalence of adenomas, leading to high ADRs for endoscopists performing colonoscopies in this setting. However, it is unknown whether the association between the ADR and PCCRC is also present in colonoscopies performed after a positive FIT result. Researchers from Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, conducted a population-based cohort study of 362 endoscopists who performed 116,360 colonoscopies with a median ADR of 67%. In 426 participants diagnosed with PCCRCs, 49% were classified as interval cancer and 51% were classified as noninterval cancer. The authors found that higher ADR was associated with lower PCCRC incidence, and that colonoscopy in FIT-positive persons demands a markedly higher ADR target than primary colonoscopy. They report that for an endoscopist with an ADR of 60%, the cumulative incidence of interval PCCRC for colonsoscopies performed in response to positive FIT was almost 2 times higher than that of endoscopists with an ADR of 70%. This risk was even higher for endoscopists with ADRs less than 60%, with the expected number of patients diagnosed with interval PCCRC in 5 years was approximately 2 for endoscopists with an ADR of 70%, compared with almost 3.5 for ADRs of 60%, and more than 4.5 for ADRs of 55%. According to the authors, their findings support the use of ADR, with different targets, as an important quality indicator for endoscopists in FIT-based as well as primary colonoscopy screening programs. An accompanying editorial from Kaiser Permanent, Oakland, California argues that this study provides an excellent framework for evaluating concepts regarding effective quality metrics and how these can illustrate pathways for meaningful metrics for the care of other cancers and disorders. He highlights that studies evaluating quality metrics must be trustworthy, important, strategic, relevant, actionable, simple, gaming-resistant, and owned. He also adds that questions concerning goals, plans for implementation of interventions, and the application of goals while maintaining simplicity must be considered in metric development. Explore further Study compares colonoscopy polyp detection rates and endoscopist characteristics More information: Adenoma Detection Rate and Risk for Interval Postcolonoscopy Colorectal Cancer in Fecal Immunochemical TestBased Screening, Annals of Internal Medicine (2022). Adenoma Detection Rate and Risk for Interval Postcolonoscopy Colorectal Cancer in Fecal Immunochemical TestBased Screening,(2022). DOI: 10.7326/M22-0301 Developing Meaningful Health Care Quality Metrics: An Example From Colonoscopy and Adenoma Detection, Annals of Internal Medicine (2022). 10.7326/M22-2646. www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-2646 Journal information: Annals of Internal Medicine Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain A recent study in Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN) provides an estimate of the proportion of working-aged kidney transplant recipients who are employed in the Netherlands and identifies characteristics that are associated with lower work functioning. For many adults, work is an important aspect of life, providing not only income but also purpose, structure, social contacts, and other contributors to quality of life. Employment figures of stable kidney transplant recipients in Europe are inconsistent, and little is known about work functioningthe ability of a person to meet work demandsamong employed kidney transplant recipients. To investigate, Tim J. Knobbe, MD (University Medical Center Groningen) and his colleagues analyzed data from the ongoing TransplantLines Biobank and Cohort Study in the Netherlands and from community-dwelling employed adults in the country. The analysis included 668 kidney transplant recipients (59% male) at a median of 3 years after transplantation, 246 potential kidney donors (43% male), and 553 community-dwelling adults (70% male), all of working age. The proportion of employed kidney transplant recipients was lower than potential kidney donors (56% vs. 79%). If employed, work functioning score of kidney transplant recipients was slightly lower compared with employed potential kidney donors, yet higher compared with community-dwelling employed adults. Lower educational level, having a kidney from a deceased donor, presence of tingling or numbness of hands or feet, presence of concentration/memory problems, presence of anxiety, and presence of severe fatigue were associated with lower work functioning among kidney transplant recipients. Additional analyses showed that work functioning scores were lower before transplantation than at 12 months after transplantation. The findings indicate that despite side-effects of immunosuppressive therapy and a high prevalence of fatigue, employed stable kidney transplant recipients often function well at work. "This study is a clear message to employers that kidney transplant recipients can function very well at work, which can help to reduce any stigma regarding work and work functioning after kidney transplantation," said Knobbe. "In addition, these results may help to guide caregivers and patients with kidney failure on what to expect of life after kidney transplantation." An accompanying Patient Voice article notes that "education about renal replacement therapy can help patients and employers work as a team, design a retraining option, and allow the transition to a less physically demanding job." Additional study authors include Daan Kremer, MD, Femke I. Abma, Ph.D., Coby Annema, Ph.D., Stefan P. Berger, MD, Ph.D., Gerjan J. Navis, MD, Ph.D., Sijrike F. van der Mei, Ph.D., Ute Bultmann, Ph.D., Annemieke Visser, Ph.D., and Stephan J.L. Bakker, MD, Ph.D. Explore further Is it really healthy to restrict protein intake for kidney transplant recipients? More information: Tim J. Knobbe et al, Employment Status and Work Functioning among Kidney Transplant Recipients, Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (2022). Tim J. Knobbe et al, Employment Status and Work Functioning among Kidney Transplant Recipients,(2022). DOI: 10.2215/CJN.05560522 Dialysis, Transplantation, and Work: Honoring Original Intent, Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (2022). DOI: 10.2215/CJN.09840822 Journal information: Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology Blood glucose monitoring. Credit: Wikipedia One-third of 986 patients achieved long-term self-care of their type 2 diabetes after building trusting relationships with community health workers (promotores in Spanish) over 12 weeks, according to a newly published study by faculty of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio). Participants' health was monitored over a four-year period. Patients were recruited to the study prior to the COVID-19 pandemic from a primary care practice at University Health's Robert B. Green Campus in San Antonio and through physician referrals. "Patients have many reasons to distrust the health care system," said Carolina Gonzalez Schlenker, MD, MPH, second author of the peer-reviewed study published Sept. 26 in Annals of Family Medicine. "So, you plug in a trust builder, a promotor or promotora, who becomes a bridge between what makes sense in primary care and what makes sense to the patient." Schlenker, who coordinated the promotores' time and efforts, is an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Health San Antonio's Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine. "The intervention was only 12 weeks long and yet the effect was apparent four years later," said study senior author Carlos Roberto Jaen, MD, Ph.D., professor and chairman of family and community medicine in the Long School of Medicine and with University Health. Jaen is a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Results Among the participants, 320 (32.4%) achieved a behavioral marker or definition of success that the researchers called "self-care generativity." "The patient in this classification plans self-care and progresses through milestones such as lowering the hemoglobin A1C, a blood test that measures average blood sugar levels over the past three months," said study first author Robert L. Ferrer, MD, MPH, professor of family and community medicine at UT Health San Antonio. Ferrer is an expert on social determinants of health status in Hispanic populations. Meanwhile, 399 participants (40.5%) progressed to a stage called "stabilization" in which the patient and community health worker address obstacles to self-care together. "However, the patient in this group has stopped short of making the transition to self-care and continues to need help with problem-solving," Jaen said. Finally, 267 participants (27.1%) remained in "outreach." They agreed to meet face-to-face with a community health worker but did not advance toward creating an alliance of care. "They make a plan with the promotores, but it falls through," Schlenker said. "We never really do the intervention, and then they come back years later, and maybe they need an amputation." Those who advanced to "self-care generativity" had sustained A1C reductions and fewer hospitalizations and emergency room visits than the other two groups. "This is an important finding," Jaen said. Knocking on doors Physicians in busy practices require more information about patients than they can obtain in a 15-minute appointment, Schlenker said. This includes understanding life circumstances that hinder the patients from following what they are supposed to do for their type 2 diabetes. "It's just a difficult situation where the doctor is, like, 'I need more information and more time, and I don't have it. And I care about this human being,'" Schlenker said. "So, they send me a patient, I assign a promotor or a promotora, and they go and knock at the patient's door, and they say, 'I'm coming here because the doctor cares about you. We want to understand you.' And they do this authentically, and the patient feels the authenticity of the caring but also, the visit is not under the tick-tock of an accountant. Trust-building can't be billed by the hour," Schlenker said. During the study period (2013-2017), the team employed an average of 10 promotores to provide the intervention, Schlenker said. The trust-building exercise is called Nosotros, which is Spanish for "we." Promotores and patients answer four questions together: What do we want? Why do we want it? What do we do? What do we get? As patients let their walls come down, the goal is shared. A team is formed. "We build a nosotros, a we, that didn't exist before," Schlenker said. The study findings are intriguing because few if any interventions utilizing promotores in primary care practices' outreach have been studied over four years, Jaen said. Most studies leveraging community health workers in chronic disease management have followed participants' status for six to 12 months, he said. With funding, the Nosotros model could be replicated across settings. "During the drive to vaccinate the public against COVID-19, trust forged with promotores could have dispelled disinformation and distrust among groups such as the Hispanic population of San Antonio who historically have not been taken into account," Ferrer noted. A key concern was the stabilization group, that despite repeated one-on-one interactions with community health workers, did not advance to self-care. "We see these participants really trying, and our hearts sink, witnessing how they deteriorate with their diabetes," Schlenker said. "That is the alarming thing." More information: Community Health Workers as Trust Builders and Healers: A Cohort Study in Primary Care, The Annals of Family Medicine (2022). Journal information: Annals of Family Medicine Community Health Workers as Trust Builders and Healers: A Cohort Study in Primary Care,(2022). DOI: 10.1370/afm.2848 Training recommendations for CHWs to address mental health needs in underserved communities. Credit: Frontiers in Public Health (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.928575 As the immigrant population in the U.S. grows, so does the need for mental health care in the communities where they livea problem spotlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. A new study from Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio finds health care workers need better training on communication, mental health and culture to support immigrant mental health needs. "Mind the gap: Identifying training needs of community health workers to address mental health in U.S. Latino communities during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic" appears in the latest edition of Frontiers in Public Health. The researchers examined survey data collected from focus groups of health care workers in historically underserved areas near the U.S.-Mexico border. "From our data collected and analyzed, it was abundantly clear that mental health issues were especially prevalent amid these medically underserved communities during the pandemic, and yet, community health care workers felt unequipped to fully address the needs of their patients," said Luz Garcini, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Rice and the study's lead author. Specifically, workers expressed the need for additional training to support them with communication, identifying mental illness symptoms, handling trauma, promoting self-care and stress reduction, and practicing cultural awareness and sensitivity. "The tasks performed by community health workers require a unique skill set and a significant emotional investment," the authors wrote. "Mental health training is required for them to effectively carry out their work and maintain their own well-being. It is time to invest in the mental health training and support for these essential workers to ultimately further health equity and to protect the mental health of the most vulnerable during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic." Garcini hopes future work will continue to identify and implement ways to address training needs. "Only then will we be able to best serve the complex health needs of historically marginalized communities," she said. Explore further Caring for those who care: Support needed for workers in nursing homes More information: Luz M. Garcini et al, Mind the gap: Identifying training needs of community health workers to address mental health in U.S. Latino communities during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, Frontiers in Public Health (2022). Journal information: Frontiers in Public Health Luz M. Garcini et al, Mind the gap: Identifying training needs of community health workers to address mental health in U.S. Latino communities during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic,(2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.928575 The study looked at mortality data in 10 federally defined climatic zones for Washington state, shown here, from 1980 to 2018. Heat-related mortality risks were higher in four climate zones: the Puget Sound lowlands (fuchsia); east slope Cascades (mossy green); the Northeast Olympic San Juan (sea green); and Northeastern (teal). Credit: Logan Arnold et al, Atmosphere (2022). DOI: 10.3390/atmos13091392 Heat-related deaths are an issue across Washington state, and they occur even in regions that typically have milder climates, according to a University of Washington study published Aug. 30 in the journal Atmosphere. This is the most extensive study yet of heat-related mortality in Washington state, and the first to look beyond the major population centers to include rural areas. Statewide, the odds of dying were on average 8% higher in recent decades on days when the combination of temperature and humidity, known as the humidex, was in the top 1% of recorded values at that location, compared to a day with a mid-range value for humidex. "This study shows that heat-related mortality, even in a temperate area like Washington state, is a current environmental public health problem," said lead author Logan Arnold, who did the work as a UW master's student in quantitative ecology and resource management. "It's not a future public health problem that will exist in a warming climateit's something that we are already experiencing now." Although heat stroke is sometimes listed as the official cause of death, other conditions exacerbated by heat are often the immediate focus. Researchers used statistical methods to uncover "hidden" deaths that may have listed something else, like illness or a chronic disease, as the primary cause. "This research adds to existing evidence that the burden of heat-health impacts resides in the effect on underlying health conditions," said senior author Tania Busch Isaksen, a UW associate teaching professor in environmental and occupational health sciences and co-director for the UW's Collaborative on Extreme Event Resilience. "For example, we see an increase in diabetic and cardiovascular-related mortality associated with extreme heat days. Physiologically it is harder for people with underlying health conditions to thermoregulate, but it is also likely that medications play a role in the body's ability to dissipate heat." The study analyzed deaths from 1980 to 2018 recorded by the Washington State Department of Health. The authors included only non-traumatic deaths in the months of May through September and separated them into 10 federally defined climatic zones. Exposure to heat on the day of death was determined based on home address and the humidex on that date. Results support what previous studies in King County have shown: Heat does lead to more deaths, even in places with milder climates. The mortality rate on days with humidex in the top 1% of historical values was significantly higher for four climate zones: the Puget Sound lowlands, which includes Seattle and other major cities; the east slope Cascades, circling Puget Sound but farther inland; Northeastern, which borders Canada and Idaho and includes the city of Spokane; and the Northeast Olympic San Juan, which includes all the San Juan Islands, Port Townsend and a coastal stretch of the Olympic Peninsula. These graphs show how mortality odds change with increasing humidex for each of the 10 Washington climate zones. Four climate zones (highlighted) had statistically significant higher odds of mortality with increasing humidex. Other climate zones didn't necessarily lack risk, but lacked enough data to produce a statistically certain trend. Credit: Logan Arnold et al, Atmosphere (2022). DOI: 10.3390/atmos13091392 Although the total number of deaths in the Northeast Olympic San Juans zone was lower than in the other three regions, that region had an especially sharp increase with rising humidex. "Place really matters. You can't just apply what we've seen from other parts of the U.S. to what's happening here," Busch Isaksen said. "That's why local research is critically important to understanding environmental risks." The other climate zones didn't necessarily lack risk, but didn't have enough mortality data to obtain a statistically certain trend. The high increase in mortality in places with more moderate climates, the authors suggest, could be because these areas are less prepared for heat, meaning they are less physically adjusted to heat and have fewer protective behaviors; or have less adaptative infrastructure like air conditioning or access to cooling centers. The study took place before the record-breaking Pacific Northwest heat wave of 2021. But in addition to looking at historic data, the authors considered projections for future climates in 2030, 2050 and 2080. Three zones (all previous zones except the Northeast) had statistically significant increases in heat mortality. Averaged across those three regions, heat-related deaths were about one-third higher in 2030, more than double in 2050 and six times higher in conditions projected for 2080. Although the study didn't consider preparedness measures, the results could inform planning efforts across the state. "If you don't know that your region is affected by extreme heatif you think it's just an Arizona or Texas problemthen you won't be prepared for it," Busch Isaksen said. "The value of this study is that it empowers local environmental public health organizations with risk information specific to susceptible populations within their region so that they can use their limited funding to target heat exposure reduction strategies before the next extreme heat event occurs." An additional co-author is Mark Scheuerell, a UW associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. Arnold is now a data analyst at West Virginia University, studying ways to improve children's access to mental health services. Explore further Extreme heat tied to higher all-cause mortality More information: Logan Arnold et al, Mortality Associated with Extreme Heat in Washington State: The Historical and Projected Public Health Burden, Atmosphere (2022). Logan Arnold et al, Mortality Associated with Extreme Heat in Washington State: The Historical and Projected Public Health Burden,(2022). DOI: 10.3390/atmos13091392 Bicycle after crash. Credit: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs From 2019 to 2020, more than 11,000 people who had been using drugs were treated in U.S. emergency departments for injuries that occurred while riding a bicycle, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. "When these patients present to the emergency department, it becomes important not only to treat the injuries but also to refer patients to drug treatment in an effort to intervene and prevent further negative events related to drug use," says the report's lead author Bart Hammig, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Public Health Program at the University of Arkansas. Further, among these patients, typical injury-prevention measures such as helmet wearing and improved bike lanes may not be enough to reduce these incidents, as it is "unlikely that the person was riding the bike for exercise," according to the study's authors. Such bicyclists may instead be riding because of circumstances related to a substance use disorder, such as homelessness, license revocation from a previous driving-while-intoxicated conviction or financial instabilityall of which may limit the ability to drive a car for transportation. "This is an often overlooked and ignored population when discussing bicycle injuries," Hammig says, "but one that stakeholders such as emergency department personnel, drug treatment centers and transportation officials need to consider when trying to prevent future injuries." According to Hammig and his co-author, Robert Davis, Ph.D., bicycle crash victims who are intoxicated often have more serious injuries than others. In the study, the reported injuries included fractures (22%) and internal organ injuries (19%), and nearly a third of patients had to be admitted to the hospital. Few injuries (1%) were concussions, but 8% of crashes resulted from drug poisonings. Because the data were recorded at the hospital, victims who died at the scene were not included. A disproportionate percentage of the patients were men (86.4%). The most common drugs found in the system of crash victims were methamphetamine (36.4%), cannabis (30.7%) and opioids (18.5%), and nearly a quarter of patients also had alcohol in their system. To conduct their research, Hammig and Davis reviewed 20192020 data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a hospital-based database. Statistics from the system's nationally representative sample of U.S. hospitals allow for estimation of the number of incidents countrywide. In this study, the researchers extracted all data for bicycle injuries related to the use of psychoactive drugs (independent of alcohol) during the study period. They estimated there were 11,314 such injuries2.6% of the overall estimated 480,286 bicycle injuries in that study period. Hammig and Davis note that, because a variety of circumstances contribute to drug-related bicycle crashesoften overlapping and interacting factorsprevention will be difficult. However, they note that further surveillance, data collection and study will help elucidate additional ways to prevent such injuries. Explore further 12 safety tips to reduce ATV injury More information: Hammig, B., & Davis, R., Bicycle injuries associated with drug use in the United States, 20192020. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (2022). Journal information: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs Hammig, B., & Davis, R., Bicycle injuries associated with drug use in the United States, 20192020.(2022). DOI: 10.15288/jsad.21-00404 Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A mortality prediction model for older adults with dementia may help clinicians frame discussions with patients and their families relating to end-of-life care, such as at-home support and nursing homes. Additionally, the model may help physicians determine if the patients should continue with routine cancer screening or discontinue medications, like insulin for those with type 2 diabetesinterventions that may harm more than help. In their study, publishing in JAMA Internal Medicine on Sept. 26, 2022, researchers led by UC San Francisco followed 4,267 participants with probable dementia, who were not residents of nursing homes, in which 81% of them had died by the end of the follow-up period. A prediction model was developed based on an individual's age, sex, body mass index, chronic conditions, smoking status, ability to walk several blocks and engage in vigorous activity. They also included ability to perform activities of daily living, such as attending to personal care, eating and getting in and out of bed, as well as instrumental activities of daily living, like meal preparation, grocery shopping, managing medications and money. The model proved accurate in determining who lived and who died over a period of up to 10 years in approximately 75% of cases. The participants, whose average age was 82 and of whom 12% were Black and 69% were female, had been enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative survey of adults over 50. Their diagnosis of probable dementia was determined by a high accuracy algorithm. Findings were validated in a separate group of individuals enrolled in the National Health and Aging Trends Study. Model may prompt conversations about financial resources, treatment preferences The prediction model can help guide discussions about what financial resources are needed to support the individual with dementia, said first author W. James Deardorff, MD, a geriatrician at UCSF and the San Francisco VA Health Care System. "An estimate of an individual's prognosis can be an important factor in financial planning for families, particularly as many people with dementia need increased support at home and are ultimately admitted to nursing homes," he said, noting that prior studies have shown the average survival time from time of diagnosis as between three to 12 years. "Additionally, individuals with limited life expectancy may wish to focus on quality of life and being comfortable, rather than trying to live as long as possible. This may lead them to forego certain interventions, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the event of a cardiac arrest. Information about an individual's prognosis can help inform conversations about certain medical treatment preferences," he said. Among the factors linked with mortality are older age, male sex, body mass index below 18.5, former or current smoking status, chronic diseases, difficulties walking several blocks, and performing activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living. Colonoscopies, insulin may no longer make sense Of note, the authors suggest that the model may help guide discussions between physicians and patients and their families about cancer screening, which may flag slower-growing malignancies that might not be life-threatening for 10 to 15 years. "For individuals with limited life expectancy, cancer screening, such as colonoscopy, may cause more harmsuch as pain, bleedingwithout living long enough to experience a mortality benefit," said Deardorff. Patients who also have type 2 diabetes may be advised to reduce or discontinue insulin, said senior author Sei Lee, MD, professor in the Division of Geriatrics at UCSF and senior scholar for the San Francisco VA Quality Scholars fellowship. "In younger patients, tight glycemic control reduces the risk of vision loss and kidney failure 10 years down the road. But in older patients these benefits may not be realized, and the risks of low sugars resulting from too much insulin can be very serious." In conjunction with the mortality prediction model, the researchers have designed an individualized mortality risk calculator for patients with dementia, available online at ePrognosis. Other mortality calculators and risk-versus-benefit cancer screening calculators are available, together with videos to assist physicians in their conversations with patients about life expectancy and goals of care. Explore further Solo seniors with social support are less likely to need nursing home care More information: W. James Deardorff et al, Development and External Validation of a Mortality Prediction Model for Community-Dwelling Older Adults With Dementia, JAMA Internal Medicine (2022). Journal information: JAMA Internal Medicine W. James Deardorff et al, Development and External Validation of a Mortality Prediction Model for Community-Dwelling Older Adults With Dementia,(2022). DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.4326 Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Long-term memories rely on both the repetition of events and an intricate neurological learning process in making these memories last, shows a new study by a team of neuroscientists. Its findings provide a more detailed understanding of how these types of memories are formed as well as insights into what may disrupt their creation. "Repetition is a well-documented trigger for memory formationthe more times something is repeated, the better it is remembered," explains New York University's Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "However, the brain's machinery is more complicated than that. Our research shows that the effects of individual repeated events interact in more nuanced ways and have distinct roles in working to form long-term memoriesneurons can sense not just repetition, but also the order of repeated experiences and can use that information to discriminate between different patterns of these events in building memories." "For example, neurons can tell the difference between two events in escalating order of intensity and those same two events in the opposite order, forming a memory only if the intensity increases over time," he adds. The researchers, who also included Thomas Carew, a professor in NYU's Center for Neural Science, and Tasnim Tabassum, an NYU researcher, sought to better understand what lies behind a well-documented neurological processspecifically, that repeated events induce long-term memory where individual events fail to do so. What has been unclear is how repeated events interact with one another to form a memory. To explore this question, the scientists studied Aplysia californica, the California sea slug. Aplysia is a model organism for this type of research because its simple memories are well understood at the molecular and cellular level. Neurons that control them can be isolated and studied in a Petri dish, as the study's authors did here, reproducing all the essential components of memory formation. The researchers "trained" these neurons by applying repeated chemical pulses that replicated Aplysia's responses to stimuli, such as mild electric shocks, typically used in experiments. They then monitored the long-term strengthening of connections between the neurons, thereby mimicking and then observing the formation of a long-term memory. "Two-trial learning is a technique in which Aplysia, or even isolated Aplysia neurons, can be made to form a long-term memory after two experiences," explains Kukushkin, a researcher at NYU's Center for Neural Science and a clinical assistant professor in Liberal Studies at NYU. "Single trials have no effect, but two trials, if they are appropriately spaced in time, do." As part of these experiments, the researchers specifically examined the resulting activity of the protein ERK, which is required for memory. Previously, scientists had thought that ERK activation should build up during the learning process. But in the PNAS study, the researchers found a more complicated dynamic: a "tug of war" between molecules that activate ERK (and therefore favor memory) and those that deactivate it (and therefore oppose memory). After only a single trial, they note, the deactivating side of the "tug of war" prevailed and ERK activity was arrested, preventing memory formation. By contrast, a second trial was required to prevent the decrease in ERK activity, thereby allowing memories to take hold. The scientists used different variations of the training procedurealterations that differentially affected memory depending on the pattern of stimulation. They modified the "intensity" of individual training events by varying the concentration of chemicals used to mimic electric shocks. When the two-trial training included events of different intensity, only the "weak-strong" pattern of training produced long-term memory, whereas the inverse, "strong-weak" sequence, failed to do so. In other words, the same combination of trials only had an effect if it increased in intensity, but not if it decreased in intensity, over time. This might represent an evolutionary adaptation to prioritize memory of escalating stimuli, the scientists suggestas they point out, events that escalate in intensity have more predictive power than those that decrease in intensity. "Long-term memory formation, then, depends on which of the two competing sides of the ERK tug of war wins over time," explains Kukushkin. "But perhaps more significantly, the work demonstrates that effects of repeated events do not simply accumulate. In fact, they have distinct roles, such as to initiate and confirm the commitment of information to long-term memory. Neurons can sense not just repetition, but the order of stimuli, and they use that information to discriminate between different patterns of experience." Explore further New research points to a connection between food comas and long-term memories More information: Precise timing of ERK phosphorylation/dephosphorylation determines the outcome of trial repetition during long-term memory formation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Precise timing of ERK phosphorylation/dephosphorylation determines the outcome of trial repetition during long-term memory formation,(2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2210478119 Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain People hospitalized for COVID-19 were more likely to have heart failure after their discharge than those hospitalized for another reason, a Duke University study published this month found. The study's findings, published in Nature Communications, support a growing body of research that suggests some people infected with COVID-19 go on to develop long-term heart problems. Using health records of more than 580,000 patients admitted to U.S. hospitals, Duke researchers tracked how often those who had COVID went to the hospital for heart issues in the year after their discharge. They found the COVID group was 45% more likely to be diagnosed with heart failure when compared to patients hospitalized with something other than COVID. Duke's study is the first to look at this question in a large, racially diverse population, said Dr. Marat Fudim, a Duke cardiologist and author on the paper. A paper published in February found a similar link between cardiovascular disease, including heart failure, and COVID hospitalization in US Veterans Affairs hospital patients. Fudim said that heart disease might in time be revealed to be a complication for those who had a milder COVID-19 infection. "I think the next few years, we will uncover the true burden of long COVID," he said. "This article just tells us the worst of the worst." An imperfect study Fudim is the first to admit that his study has limitations. He and other researchers used a data set from past hospitalizations and retrospectively ran an analysis. Which means that they can't say that COVID-19 causes heart failureonly that it's associated. Randomized, controlled experiments are the gold standard in scientific research because researchers randomly assign participants to the groups they're comparing, making each group as similar as possible. But randomly assigning a group of people to contract COVID-19 isn't ethical or feasible. Right now, Fudim's study design is the best way scientists have to study the long-term impacts of COVID-19, said Dr. Ziyad Al- Aly, an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis who authored the paper on VA hospitals. "The truth is there is never, ever going to be a randomized study for COVID," he said. Not everyone is convinced the findings point to a severe side effect from COVID. There may be too many other factors that could explain the link between a COVID hospitalization and heart failure, said Dr. Christopher Kelly, UNC cardiologist. For example, people who were hospitalized with COVID-19 likely had pre-existing health conditions that could also explain why they went on to develop heart failure, Kelly said. Those hospitalized for a non-COVID problem don't necessarily have those same chronic health problems if they were in the hospital for a minor procedure like gallbladder surgery, he said. The Duke researchers statistically adjusted for a number of health problems that could go on to cause heart failure like obesity, diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease. Still, Kelly said there's no way to perfectly adjust for the differences between the groups. Al-Aly said the Duke researchers could have made the study design slightly better by comparing the hospitalized COVID-19 patients to those hospitalized for an infection, who are more likely to have a similar set of preexisting health problems. "There are tons of ways that you can explain the data that don't involve blaming COVID for them developing heart failure later," Kelly said. "There are differences that are unmeasurable and there are differences that you haven't thought about." Explore further Study finds connection between COVID and new-onset AFib More information: Husam M. Salah et al, Post-recovery COVID-19 and incident heart failure in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) study, Nature Communications (2022). Journal information: Nature Communications Husam M. Salah et al, Post-recovery COVID-19 and incident heart failure in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) study,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31834-y 2022 The Charlotte Observer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Penspen, a leading global energy services firm, is demonstrating its continuing commitment to the UAE with a tailored scheme to develop the next generation of engineers. Penspen, which recently announced it had been awarded nearly 30 global contracts in the second quarter of 2022, says its proven expertise in delivering asset solutions at every project stage is providing energy companies with the technical knowledge to meet multiple challenges across the globe, and it is ensuring these skills are passed on to future generations with its Emirati Graduate Programme. The scheme is specifically designed for graduates in the UAE and is delivered in partnership with Khalifa University, with the aim to help future engineers develop the technical competency and real world experience required to succeed in their fields. Investing in the region Neale Carter, Penspen Executive Vice President for the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific Regions, said: We are committed to investing in the Middle East both in terms of projects and people. The region is rich with engineering talent, and we are dedicated to helping graduates fulfill their potential as we all work towards improving access to safe, secure and clean energy supplies for the communities in which we work. Since launching in 2020, 30 people have successfully completed the Emirati Graduate Programme, with more than 20 securing full-time positions with a major NOC and other locally based energy sector companies, and one employed as a graduate engineer in the Penspen Engineering team in Abu Dhabi. Carter added: We have established strong relationships with clients across the Middle East, and we will continue to deliver value through the local talent and knowledge we have with our graduates. Strongest base The programme provides graduates with the opportunity to start their careers from the strongest base possible, working alongside those with a deep knowledge of engineering, ensuring that Penspen knowledge and experience built up over many decades is fused with exciting new ideas. We look forward to bringing this powerful combination to our clients as well as continuing to support the development of expertise in the UAE for the benefit of the people and the country.-- TradeArabia News Service MONDAY, Sept. 26, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eased its universal masking recommendation for nursing homes and hospitals, unless those health care institutions are in areas seeing high levels of COVID-19 transmission. The change is part of updated guidelines published by the CDC on Friday. Still, due to high COVID rates only about a quarter of U.S. counties now fall under the new guidance, which would allow doctors, patients and visitors to dispense with masks, CBS News reported. Earlier in the pandemic, everyone was asked to wear well-fitting masks or respirators in health care settings. Later, exceptions included that visitors could choose not to wear source control" if they had updated vaccines and were alone together with those they were visiting, CBS News reported. Another exception allowed staff who were up to date on vaccines to unmask when not with patients. With the latest guidance, "updates were made to reflect the high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools," the CDC's new guidance states. Now, masking remains recommended during an outbreak among patients or "when caring for patients who are moderately to severely immunocompromised." The CDC has been revising guidance since August, as the numbers of people hospitalized and nursing home infections have been slowing. While only 3.5% of Americans live in communities with what are considered by the CDC to be high levels based on hospitalization rates, healthcare settings must still adhere to earlier "community transmission" guidelines, which include measures for reported cases and test positivity. Using that benchmark, about 73% of U.S. counties are still high-risk, CBS News reported. "Community transmission is the metric currently recommended to guide select practices in healthcare settings to allow for earlier intervention, before there is strain on the healthcare system and to better protect the individuals seeking care in these settings," the CDC said in its updated guidance. Though some restrictions were loosened on Friday, others were strengthened. This includes guidance that people who had a previous COVID infection didnt need to test for the virus if exposed within 90 days of that previous infection. Now guidance says testing "should be considered for those who have recovered in the prior 31-90 days." Emerging evidence suggests people can be reinfected with Omicron variants, even multiple times within a three-month period. "Our findings indicate that the time between confirmed primary infections and reinfections with different Omicron subvariants is frequently shorter than the 90-day definition of reinfections used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," wrote the authors of a French study published last week. Holly Harmon, a senior vice president for the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, welcomed the masking changes. "While our commitment to infection prevention and control continues, adapting COVID protocols means recognizing the current stage of this pandemic as well as the importance of quality of life for our nation's seniors," Harmon told CBS News. "After more than two years, residents will get to see more of their caregivers' smiling faces, and our dedicated staff will get a moment to breathe," Harmon said. More information The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19. SOURCE: CBS News Rebecca Morley started pursuing health care inclusivity in Missoula, but shes grown to take on a worldwide focus. When I look at health equity, I think of everybody, said Morley, a 2022 Global Golisano Health Leadership Award winner representing North America and the Caribbean. The awards are the highest honor given out by the Special Olympics to health partners who advance access to health care, fitness and wellness programs for people with intellectual disabilities. Morley was one of seven recipients of the award this year, alongside awardees representing Chile, Ukraine, Senegal, Japan, Macau and Lebanon. The Golisano winners were honored on Sept. 19 at the New York Public Library in the company of dignitaries including the directors of the Red Cross and the World Health Organization. It was fabulous, said Morley. It was quite the group. Also in attendance were global athletes from the Special Olympics International Team. It was inspiring to meet them, Morley said. She has long been inspired by the accomplishments of individuals with various disabilities. She first became interested in helping this population because of her son, who has some special needs. I saw the struggle, Morley recalled. Morleys son lives independently and works a steady job, but she has seen many outcomes that arent quite so rosy. Witnessing the challenges facing her sons peers inspired Morley to advocate for people with special needs. Its not easy, she pointed out. Trying to get connected to those services is horrendous. Morley, who worked for the Missoula City-County Health Department, got connected to Special Olympics by a supervisor. She took on the role of Clinical Director for Health Promotion, a volunteer position she has held for more than 12 years. It was just something I felt was really important, Morley said. As a Clinical Director for Health Promotion, Morley seeks to achieve health equity, an outcome in which people have access to health care regardless of ability, race, gender, sexual orientation or any other category. Health equity, she said, has become very, very important in public health. In the role, Morley has helped people with special needs go grocery shopping and pick out healthy foods. Then she would take participants to a nearby park where they could enjoy their purchases. I think they were really attentive, she remembered. They wanted to be healthier. Another responsibility she took on was training nurses and other health care providers to work productively and compassionately with people who have disabilities. Morley said she took up a lot of little things over the years. I always had a heart for it because I had a child who had some special needs, she said. She encouraged other members of the community to try out volunteering with Special Olympics. She said there is a need for people with medical backgrounds as well as other experiences. Special Olympics provides training and depends upon volunteers like Morley to run its programming. Theres all kinds of things you can do to volunteer, said Morley. They (the athletes) give you so much more than you give them, really. The massive Moose fire near Salmon, Idaho, was caused by an unattended campfire that escaped a rock fire ring. The megafire has scorched more than 130,000 acres so far and three people have died during firefighting efforts. An announcement of the cause Monday from the Salmon-Challis National Forest confirmed what area residents had been saying since the fire ignited July 17: the blaze was caused by an unattended campfire near the confluence of Moose Creek and the main Salmon River, west of North Fork. Forest Service officials had announced on July 30 that the fire was human-caused, but said at the time that the specific cause remained under investigation. That specific cause, according to Monday's announcement, was "an unextinguished and unattended campfire, which spread to adjacent vegetation." That occurred "on a small flat commonly used as a dispersed camping area, across from the Moose Creek drainage, between Salmon River Road and the Main Salmon River, approximately 5.6 miles west of North Fork." The fire started around 4 p.m. and rapidly exploded across hundreds of acres in the first few hours, and tens of thousands of acres in a matter of days. Investigators believe that the fire may have been left over from the previous night, July 16, and are seeking information from the public to help identify people who were present at the site during that time. Tips can be emailed to SM.FS.2022MooseTip@usda.gov. Officials urged tipsters to "please include detailed information and contact details if youre willing to speak with an investigator." U.S. Forest Service special agents, USFS law enforcement officers and local law enforcement are continuing their joint investigation. Two pilots and one firefighter have died during firefighting efforts on the Moose fire. On July 21, two pilots of a twin-rotor CH-47D "Chinook" helicopter operated by Alaska-basked ROTAK Helicopter Services died when the helicopter crashed into the Salmon River adjacent to the Indianola Guard Station. Thomas Hayes, 41, of Post Falls, Idaho, and Jared Bird, 36, of Anchorage, Alaska, were extricated from the wreckage and transported to medical facilities, but both pilots the sole occupants of the aircraft died from injuries sustained in the crash. Video posted to social media on Aug. 12 showed the helicopter hovering above the river carrying a "bambi bucket" used to scoop and drop water on fires. The helicopter abruptly began spinning out of control and plunged into the river near the southern bank, across from Salmon River Road. The video was removed hours later. On Sept. 20, a contracted firefighter with North Reforestation Inc. "suffered a medical emergency" in the early morning and died. Forest Service officials announced the death on Sept. 22. The veteran firefighter, Gerardo Rincon, 48, of Independence, Oregon, was the crew boss of a Type-II crew assigned to the Moose fire. He had worked as a wildland firefighter for 28 years. As of Monday morning, the Moose fire had burned 130,110 acres substantially beyond the National Interagency Fire Center's 100,000-acre threshold for being classified as a "megafire." The fire was 51% contained with 569 personnel assigned, down from a peak of more than 1,000 personnel. It was the second-largest active fire in the U.S. on Monday, behind the 157,717-acre Double Creek fire in Oregon. The Moose fire was the largest active fire in the Lower 48 for a time in early August and was at one point the number-one priority for air resources in the nation. Fire growth earlier this month led to the evacuation of outlying areas of Salmon, as well as settlements and mines in the mountains west of the town. Those evacuations have since been lifted. The University of Montana saw a slight dip in overall enrollment this fall despite welcoming its largest freshman class in six years. Decreased enrollment at Missoula College and online partnership programs for physical therapy largely drove the 1.5% reduction in overall enrollment compared to last fall. Last year, UM enrollment grew for the first time in nearly a decade, bringing it to 10,106 total students. This year, there are 9,955 total students enrolled at the University of Montana, which includes undergraduates, graduate students, the law school and students at Missoula College. UM continues to show a strong enrollment trajectory, said UM President Seth Bodnar. With the number of first-year students increasing, the improved retention rate among our students since 2018 and continued growth on our main campus, UM is now firmly in a cycle of growth. This years freshman class consists of 1,351 people, a 6% increase from fall 2021. Additionally, there are 74 first-year students who enrolled at the university with fewer than 30 college credits they earned through dual-enrollment courses in high school, bringing the total number of first-year students on campus to 1,425. Within the large freshman class, the main campus saw an 8.4% increase of resident students compared to last fall, and a slight boost of students attending from out of state. Despite the overall drop in enrollment, there are 8,094 students enrolled at the main campus slightly more than last falls 8,074. The main campus saw growth among veteran students, students with disabilities and Native Americans. However, there were decreases among first-generation students and students who receive federal student aid, or Pell Grants. There was a decline of 2.3% of students enrolled at Missoula College from last fall, bringing its enrollment to 1,215. However, there are 192 students participating in dual-enrollment credit opportunities, which is up 35% from the previous year. Students participating in short-term academic programs through Missoula College are not currently reflected in the universitys census. This year, there are 758 students enrolled in classes through AccelerateMT, which provides training for the highest-demand skills through a variety of partnerships with local businesses in Montana. AccelerateMT's proven track record of providing rapid training to meet key workforce needs made them an ideal partner as we seek to strengthen Montanas pipeline of skilled workers, said Laurie Esau, commissioner of the Montana Department of Labor & Industry. The success we see today will help ensure a robust Montana workforce for years to come. Though the program has course offerings online and at various campuses across the state, AccelerateMT is housed within Missoula College. If those students were reflected in both the university and Missoula Colleges enrollment it would bring their respective total enrollments to 10,713 and 1,973. An 18% decrease in participation in the Rehab Essentials online physical therapy partnership program also pushed down the universitys overall enrollment. Since 2008, the university has partnered with Rehab Essentials for physical therapists across the world who seek a mid-career graduate degree. As the pool of physical therapists wishing to bridge to a doctoral degree naturally declines, the number of enrolled students in this program was expected to decrease, said Reed Humphrey, dean of the UM College of Health. A similar academic partnership is expected to launch soon for occupational therapists, which Humphrey anticipates will increase enrollment in the future. Retention at the university held steady at 74%. Since Bodnar started as UMs president in 2018, student retention has risen 6%. Additionally, the universitys fall tuition revenue is up nearly $40 million and is 12.4% higher than the same period in 2021. UM is on sound financial footing, said Paul Lasiter, the universitys vice president for operations and finance. We are well positioned to continue making critical investments in our students and our campus infrastructure for years to come. Montana's other flagship university also reported a slight dip in its overall enrollment from last fall and also has a sizable freshman class, according to reporting from the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Montana State University's total enrollment is at 16,688 this fall, with 3,752 first-time college students. The Historic Morganton Festival Inc and the Morganton Festival Scholarship Pageant Committee celebrated the crowning of the 2022 Morganton Festival Royalty during the fourth annual Morganton Festival Scholarship Pageant on Aug. 24 at CoMMA. The event took place before the festival so the new queens could attend and spread awareness for their individual service platforms. The Morganton Festival Scholarship Pageant is open to any young lady, ages 7-25, who resides in North Carolina. The pageant celebrates strong, committed young women willing to represent the community as a goodwill ambassador and become a role model of today while strengthening Morganton for tomorrow. The Morganton Festival Queens not only work to promote the Historic Morganton Festival and the Morganton community throughout the year, but they also spend time working on their personal community service platforms and embracing the spirit of giving back to the community. Each Junior, Teen, and Miss contestants participated in a personal interview with a panel of judges. This was an opportunity for contestants to share their service platform, as well as for judges to get to know each participant. Tiny Miss contestants participated in a Get to Know You on-stage question time with the 2021 Miss Morganton during the competition. Contestants also competed in a casual wear competition, talent competition, party wear/evening wear competition and on-stage question competition. The Morganton Festival Scholarship Pageant awarded a total of $4,440 in scholarships during the award ceremony. The following contestants were crowned winners: Miss Morganton: Lani Reece Teen Miss Morganton: Meea Westerfield Junior Miss Morganton: Gianah Rometti Tiny Miss Morganton: Rebekah Felts Ambassador Queen: Kimber Wilson Pageant organizers announced that this years pageant became an official preliminary to the Miss North Carolina Pageant, therefore the Teen Miss Morganton and Miss Morganton will travel to High Point in June to compete at the Miss North Carolina and Miss North Carolinas Outstanding Teen pageants. An official crowning ceremony will take place in October, where the current queens will be crowned with their new titles for the Miss North Carolina pageant. For more information, follow the Morganton Festival Scholarship Pageant and Queens Facebook page. Those interested in becoming a Morganton Festival Scholarship Pageant sponsor should contact the Morganton committee at www.morgantonfest.org/miss-morganton. Three stream restoration projects in Burke County are getting some help from the state. The North Carolina Land and Water Fund awarded grants last week totaling $70.3 million, providing funds for 117 projects that will protect North Carolinas land and water from the mountains to the coast, Gov. Roy Cooper announced. The funds will protect 27,157 acres, including 20,998 acres that will eventually be open to the public for hiking, hunting, boating, birding and other recreational uses. Funds were also granted for 37 projects to restore or enhance more than 36 miles of streams, rivers, lakes and estuaries and to restore more than 8,000 acres of drained wetlands. Funds were awarded for four projects designed to evaluate innovative techniques for managing stormwater. In addition, eight planning projects were funded to identify key water quality and conservation opportunities in mountain, piedmont and coastal watersheds. Grants awarded will help protect 166 types of rare plants, animals and natural communities. Conservation projects will benefit 55 Endangered or Threatened plants and animals. Neuse River Waterdog, which was added to the Federally Threatened list in 2021, and Hickory Nut Gorge Green Salamander, an animal species first discovered in 2020, are among the species endemic to North Carolina that will benefit from these awards. More than $35 million in grants will go to rural and economically distressed counties. Three of the projects are in Burke County, including: $424,744 to the city of Morganton for its Bethel Park phase II project. The project aims to increase stream capacity by building out creek banks to alleviate flooding, something the park is notorious for after periods of heavy rain in the city. Some of that build out is expected to cause some amenities to be relocated, and the city has considered adding additional amenities like shade areas, picnic shelters and workout stations. On Sept. 16, The News Herald reported the city received a $500,000 grant from the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund for phases I and II of its creek restoration project at Bethel Park. The News Herald also reported the city previously received a $500,000 grant from the N.C. Land and Water Fund for the restoration, plus $409,107 in matching funds that have been budgeted and $278,203 for in-kind work city employees will perform to assist with the first phase of renovations. $765,689 to Foothills Conservancy of NC for Prospect Ridge at Henry Fork River Unnamed Tributary. Prospect Ridge is south of Interstate 40 near NC 18. An Inventory of Significant Natural Areas of Burke County from the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources said Prospect Ridge could be a significant natural area. In March, Foothills Conservancy of NC released its conservation and recreation access plan for both Henry Fork and Jacob Fork rivers. Henry Fork River is expected to be included in The Wilderness Gateway State Trail that will connect area counties, including Burke, Rutherford and McDowell counties. $11,080 to Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation for beaver dam analogs as part of restoration of Canoe Creek Unnamed Tributary. It is part of the organizations Northern Catawba Basin Protection and Restoration Plan. The Catawba Riverkeeper plan says it is a pilot restoration project using beaver dam analogs on a small stream. If successful it would be a cheap alternative to natural channel design for small streams near heavy agricultural areas. The organization says potential benefits could be improved water quality, reduced sedimentation and floodplain reconnection. The organization says Canoe Creek suffers from severely incised banks and severe bank erosion. The organization says Canoe Creek suffers from severely incised banks and severe bank erosion. Butte police reports BB gun used Johnathan Gerald Lawson, 23, of Butte was arrested Friday morning at the offices of Adult Probation & Parole for the felony offenses of assault with a weapon and parole violation. Lawson allegedly shot a 13-year-old girl in the neck with a BB gun. Texas warrant Late Sunday morning, an officer was checking on a vehicle in an alley in the 1800 block of Wilson Avenue. Inside was Genevieve Nichole Sam, 30, of Butte, who had a felony warrant out for her arrest out of Texas. She was taken to jail. Illegal texts Nathan Val Chelini, 41, of Butte allegedly sent some text messages to a person he was not supposed to. Therefore, he was arrested early Saturday afternoon for the misdemeanor offense of violating a protection order. Stopped at courthouse Early Saturday morning, an officer stopped a car in front of the courthouse for not having taillights illuminated. The driver was Thomas Manuel Reighard, 47, of Butte, who had a felony warrant out for his arrest for criminal contempt. He was also cited for no liability insurance in effect. Gunshots heard This past weekend, residents living in the 600 block of South Idaho Street, and the 3000 block of Hill Avenue, all heard what sounded like gunshots. Police checked out both locations, but could not find anything. Parole violation Kyler Reed Shinnaberry, 23, of Butte was arrested late Friday night in the 400 block of Elkhorn Lane for felony parole violation. Erratic driver Just after midnight Friday, a call came in about an erratic driver in a white Ford Ranger on Rowe Road reportedly swerving all over the road. It was also reported he was going 10 miles per hour, rather than the recommended 35 mph. Scott Anthony Lamb, 63, of Butte was stopped by an officer in the 3500 block of Gaylord Avenue and appeared to be intoxicated. He allegedly failed sobriety tests and was jailed for felony driving under the influence, fourth or subsequent offense. Harassing security Late Thursday night, Michael William Mallo Jr., 33, of Butte reportedly tried to enter St. James Healthcare and was harassing security personnel. Mallo was arrested for the felony offenses of probation violation and violation of protection order. MHP arrests A trooper with the Montana Highway Patrol arrested Jamel Duwayne Barnes, 29, of Butte just after 1 a.m. Saturday for misdemeanor driving under the influence (first offense). Steve Vance Butler Jr., 45, of Butte was arrested late Sunday afternoon at Nissler Junction for the misdemeanor offenses of resisting arrest, fleeing from police, obstructing a peace officer, reckless driving and highway speed restrictions. Aggravated DUI Late Friday night, Holly Ann Carpino, 40, of Butte was arrested for careless driving and aggravated driving under the influence. Carpino allegedly struck an ice machine at the Thriftway, 1900 S. Montana St. A Breathalyzer test was administered and showed that she was reportedly twice over the legal limit. Speeding on Grand Late Thursday morning, Jason Bailey Gargus, 21, of Butte was driving an SUV and reportedly speeding on Grand Avenue. He was allegedly clocked at 67 miles per hour and was jailed for misdemeanor reckless driving. More crimes A tan Suburban was stolen in Rocker. A license plate was stolen from a vehicle parked on Fleecer Road. Another license plate was taken from a car parked in the 3200 block of Harrison Avenue. A cell phone was taken from a patron at the Party Palace, 1 W. Park St. A motorhome was stolen while parked in the 1700 block of Longfellow Street. A windshield was broken on a vehicle parked in the 600 block of West Park Street. A 2010 Hyundai Sonata was stolen from the 800 block of Utah Avenue. A window was broken at a West Broadway Street business. A cell phone was stolen from Verizon at 3103 Harrison Ave. Mail was taken from a mailbox on Saddle Rock Road. A Keystone camp trailer was stolen from the 3500 block of Albany Avenue. A cooler was taken from a building located on Terra Verde Drive. Vehicles parked inside were also rummaged through. Two female inmates got into a fight at the Butte Detention Center. BOZEMAN As fall approaches and bear activity increases, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks staff in southwest Montana have recently responded to many reports of bear conflicts. These conflicts stem from a mix of human safety concerns, habituated bear behavior, unsecured attractants and other issues. On Sept. 20, FWP bear specialists captured an adult female grizzly bear on private land in the Gardiner Basin. In the weeks prior to the capture, the bear had broken into a fenced compound, frequented a home that had no unsecured attractants or natural foods, and killed chickens secured by electric fencing. The bear was largely undeterred by hazing efforts, which included rubber bullets, paintballs, electric fencing and noise-making devices. The bear also had been captured and relocated twice in prior years because of similar conflicts. Due to the recent conflicts and the bears history, and in consultation with the U.S. Fish Wildlife Service (USFWS), FWP euthanized the bear on Sept. 21. The female grizzly was accompanied by a small cub, which was captured on Sept. 21. The cub will be transferred to a zoo in the coming weeks. Montanas archery hunting season overlaps with the time of year bears are more actively seeking food. Several hunters have reported encounters with grizzly bears this year. On Sept. 20, FWP received a report of an adult male grizzly bear that was shot and killed in self-defense by a group of hunters on private land west of Emigrant. The hunters were not injured. FWP and the USFWS confirmed the grizzly bear mortality and are still investigating the incident. On Sept. 14, a group of hunters reported they were charged by a grizzly bear near Rock Creek in the Tom Miner Basin. One of the hunters shot at the bear with a pistol, and the bear ran away. The U.S. Forest Service issued a temporary road closure while FWP wardens and bear specialists investigated the incident. After searching from the ground and from a helicopter, no sign of an injured bear or bear tracks were found. The area was reopened with an advisory of high bear activity. In recent weeks, FWP game wardens and bear specialists have also responded to numerous conflicts with black bears in residential areas of Bozeman, Belgrade, Big Sky, Helena and Butte. Several black bears have had to be euthanized after they gained access to garbage and other unsecured attractants, creating human safety risks and habituated bear behavior. Western Montana voters have a choice as clear as the crystalline waters of Lake McDonald, when it comes to our new District 1 congressional race. Monica Tranel unequivocally supports a woman's right to privacy, healthcare, and bodily autonomy, period. She supported Roe, which established 50 years of precedence, legislating safe and legal abortions. She knows women won't go back. Zinke says he's pro-life (forced birth) but he has been all over the map, saying one thing about exceptions for rape and incest at one event, then taking an entirely different stance at another forum down the road. It's not a good idea to take him at his word, as federal and military ethics investigators have discovered. During his time in the military, as a Navy Seal, he submitted and received reimbursements for personal travel, as he was building a home in Whitefish, which resulted in a military investigation calling him out for lapses in judgement. As Secretary of the Interior, he resigned in disgrace after 18 ethics investigations, almost keeping up with his boss, newly christened orange Jesus by Liz Cheney, after she overheard fellow Republicans addressing Trump thusly. Zinke, and almost all Republicans, are wrong on the climate emergency, too. This issue is front and center for the whole country, with an estimated 65-80 per cent of voters wanting strong climate action. Just this year Montanans suffered through raging floodwaters in Gardiner and Red Lodge, a destructive grass fire in Denton in December, a deadly 21-car pile-up on I-90 west of Hardin, caused by a violent dust storm that obliterated driving visibility in seconds, extreme drought for eastern Montana farmers and ranchers, extreme heat in July and September, and smoke-filled air from huge fires south and west of us, degrading our air quality to hazardous. While Zinke has flown all over the country on private planes, with his big-donor oil and gas friends, Monica Tranel sued, and won, a case on NorthWestern Energy rate-payers` behalf, after NWE benefited exclusively from a decades-long pre-approval plan, that insured corporate profits, and charged rate-payers before energy was even consumed, to the tune of half-a-billion dollars. Zinke's recent campaign ad features an idyllic small-town rodeo, with a folksy narrator extolling old-fashioned virtues by the good folks who love America, Montana, and their children. The narrator explains these folks' small-town values are threatened by President Biden, and the high price of gas. Nonsense! There's a clear choice in November. Monica Tranel supports women, believes climate science, defends transitioning to clean energy, and works hard at addressing our climate emergency with real policy work. Ryan Zinke takes dark-money, and dirty fossil-fuel corporate donations at every chance. Lead Bullet Zinke reintroduced lead for bullet/shot usage on wildlife refuges, after Obama`s ban. He`s never stated climate concerns or proposed policies regarding children's livable futures. Yet his smarmy ad suggests only his folks support America, Montana, and their children. Climate change denial doesn't demonstrate loving your children. Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson famously said, The good thing about science is that it`s true whether or not you believe in it. Climate scientists predicted our planet`s extreme violent weather, the droughts, huge fires, and polluted smoke-filled skies. Yet they were ignored by many otherwise concerned and caring parents. To protect their bottom line, fossil fuel corporations actively lied, dissembled and obfuscated regarding climate facts. We know this now. If you are a willfully ignorant climate-change denying person, you might not care about climate science. But your kids and your grandkids surely will. Vote for Monica Tranel's clear, clean, cold fishing stream, not Ryan Zinke's dirty, polluted, muddy pot hole. WEST LIBERTY On June 21 the West Liberty City Council unanimously approved granting $147,000 of American Rescue Plan funds to local workers who did not receive stimulus checks, but recipients of the funds are not seeing the plan moving forward. During the Sept. 20 West Liberty City Council meeting, several community members who were ineligible to receive federal stimulus checks during the COVID 19 health emergency addressed the council to request the funds be provided. The group, Escucha Mi Voz (Listen to My Voice), has demanded the city create a program like one created in Johnson County to provide funding. During the meeting, then-Mayor Katherine McCullough explained the city would not be able to provide funding in that manner because of city staffing and the complexity of mirroring the Johnson County plan. McCullough commented if it was as simple as writing a check, the program would already have been completed. Wearing my hat as treasurer of the Ministerial Association, this is what we already do help people, said the Rev. Guillermo Trevino Jr., of St. Joseph Catholic Church in West Liberty. I dont understand why an excluded workers fund would be any different. Ive offered to help the city with this. On Friday, Sept. 23, the city issued a statement saying it is continuing to work on a way to provide funding to benefit the whole community, including identifying funding specific to people who meet specific requirements of financial need. In a statement from Escucha Mi Voz, the organization believes some factions in city government are determined to take the fate of the citys $522,000 ARPA allotment off the table for public debate. The statement said the organization was concerned the funding was being held up because of intense opposition from business interests and city bureaucrats behind the scenes. The release further said, West Liberty has been gridlocked all year in a battle between reform advocates and entrenched interests around urgent issues like pandemic relief for excluded workers and the future of the citys fire department. For months, members of Escucha Mi Voz have been asking city and county governments to invest part or all of the money they received from the federal government from ARPA to aid excluded and essential workers immigrant workers who did not get stimulus who have faced health and economic impacts from the COVID-19 health crisis. So far, Johnson County and Iowa City have invested $3.5 million in a new direct assistance program, which has come under fire recently for rejecting applicants because of a lack of funding. The checks will make up about 30% of the $522,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds the city received. Half the funds had been requested. West Liberty will become the second city in Iowa to set up a direct payment program. During the Sept. 20 meeting, members of Escucha Mi Voz recommended spending the entire $522,000 on across-the-board utility relief of $500 for all 1,150 West Liberty households. McCullough resigned on Sept. 20 after publicly stating she had been kept in the dark about major decisions. Saudi Arabias national programme to combat tuberculosis has been able to reduce the rate of infections by 21% during 2022 compared to 2015, the Saudi Ministry of Health stated. The ministry added that the programme succeeded in reducing death rates by 12.3% in the same period, while successfully treating 89.5% of infected cases in 2021. Tuberculosis cases reported for this year in Saudi Arabia reached 1,622 all around the country, the disease is considered one of the deadliest globally, with more than 28,000 new cases everyday around the world, and a 14% fatality rate.-- TradeArabia News Service MUSCATINE Starting this week, construction crews are going to work on both sides of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CP) crossing, resulting in a minimum two-week road closure on Grandview Avenue from Day Street to White Street. Due to the location of where these closures are at, I dont think its going to be an inconvenience at all, City Communication Manager Kevin Jenison assured. For five days out of this two-week closure, CP will have an official flagger present at the railroad crossing in order to protect those workers who are close to the crossing. Following that, crews will spend a week completing the pavement restoration at the Day Street and White Street intersection. When asked about potential delays, Jenison said, Weather is always a key ingredient, especially at this time of year. But a majority of work thats close to the railroad crossing itself will be done this week. Because we have to have a CP flagger there and we only have that person there for five days, theres a little bit of a time crunch to get that part done. During this two-week closure, only local traffic will be allowed on Grandview Avenue from Musser Street to Day Street and from Oregon Street to White Street. Jenison added that those who need to visit businesses located on Musser to Day will also be allowed to drive through. All other residents will be detoured at either Musser or Oregon, as Grandview will still be open for regular traffic from Musser to Houser and from Oregon to Main. For south-end truck traffic specifically, these drivers will be detoured onto either Dick Drake Way to Stewart Road/Oregon Street or onto the Highway 61 Bypass. Truck traffic from the north will specifically use Oregon/Stewart and then travel to Dick Drake Way. During this construction work, Heuer Construction, Inc. will also continue working on the areas seeding and landscaping. As for the Sampson Street side of the Grandview intersection, this work is still paused because of a supply-chain issue. Once the supplies needed to complete the project are received, Muscatine Power and Water (MPW) expects the underground work on this street to take 10 days, not including the pavement restoration that will need to be done by Heuer afterward, which is expected to take another two weeks. Jenison said the city hoped to get this intersection completely finished and reopened by the end of October. Right now, theres a utility pole right in the middle of that intersection, and that has to come out so that the contractors can get in there and complete the intersection itself, he continued. But we dont know when the supplies are supposed to come in, and thats the hard part about it. Theyve been scheduled to arrive any day the past week or two, but it just keeps getting pushed back. Jenison added that MPW was aware of this issue and its team was doing its best to solve the problem and deal with the supply-chain issues. For further updates for any of these construction projects, residents can visit the Construction page on city of Muscatine website. Residents are also advised to be cautious when driving through any and all construction zones. MUSCATINE Last week, both the president and the prime minister of Palestine arrived at the United Nations in New York for a full days worth of meetings regarding the country and issues connected to it. Accompanying these two leaders and their advisers was Muscatines John Dabeet, who serves as the president of the U.S.-Palestinian Council and who has met with Palestines president many times before. It was a busy day, Dabeet recalled. It had started in the morning and lasted all the way to midnight. This was also something that we did for the first time ever. According to Dabeet, he and the other Palestinian leaders spent the day speaking with Palestinian-American leaders from both the Democratic and Republican parties. Through these meetings, they had an opportunity to talk about working harder within both parties to further and improve the Palestinian narrative. It was a unique meeting, Dabeet said. We discussed our work in the United States, as well as ways to move the Palestinian narrative forward. We also talked about our work with churches and how we need to work with them because we know that people who attended churches (in the U.S.) are usually actively in politics as well, so we want to reach out to them, too. Looking back on the trip, Dabeet expressed how grateful he felt to be a part of this series of meetings, calling them part of a vision for independence of Palestine and considering it an honor to be part of that vision. Im very humbled about this, he said. To be part of the history of Palestine. We are all called on to be a voice for those people who have been suffering for over 74 years. Dabeet said the most amazing feeling he felt during his trip was being at the United Nations during International Day of Peace, which was on Wednesday, Sept. 21. Dabeet also had the opportunity to listen to the Palestinian presidents speech on Friday. We are extremely satisfied with his speech, Dabeet said. He was very frank and very clear about the vision of the Palestinian people living in peace and freedom with their justice and dignity back and living like any other nation in the world. It is very important we remember that Palestinians have been suffering for 74 years, and the international community has a responsibility to help and solve this unbelievable and long overdue major political problem. Dabeet also had the opportunity to make a statement at the United Nations, which read: We go to the United Nations carrying our dreams, hopes, suffering and our desire to live in an independent Palestine. But some continue to insist on punishing the Palestinian people for dreaming to live in peace and dignity in their homeland. Throughout all of these meetings, Dabeet said that he as well as Palestines leaders all hope that the United Nations and the world as a whole will one day recognize Palestine as a full member of the United Nations, which was formally requested during the Presidents visit. We are totally serious about that request. Always looking ahead toward Palestines future, Dabeet added that he wanted to encourage others to do their own research as they help and try to support Palestinians in any way that they can as its leaders try to find a final solution. Construction of the controversial multi-billion rand development at the River Club in Observatory continues despite legal challenges to the development. Last week, an urgent application for an interdict was brought by the Observatory Civic Association (OCA) against the developers, Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT) for resuming work despite a court order to halt construction, pending the hearing of a contempt of court application. After hearing the application on Friday 2 September, Judge Mokgoatji Josiah Dolamo determined that the OCAs application was not urgent, and ruled in favour of the LLPT directors, who were cited as respondents in their personal capacity. This was the second time the OCA had brought an urgent application to halt work on the site. The first application, brought by the OCA and the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council (GKKITC), pending a review of the development authorisations granted by provincial and municipal authorities, was heard by Deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath in January. Goliath handed down her judgment on 18 March, which ordered LLPT to halt construction. Judge Goliath said if work were allowed to continue, there was a danger of LLPT building themselves into an impregnable position, as the development, which is to also house the new Africa headquarters for Amazon Web Services, could be essentially completed by the time a review of the development authorisations would be heard. She stated there had been insufficient meaningful consultation by the developers with indigenous Khoi and San nations who viewed the site at the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers as sacred. Heritage assessments have determined the site to be of significance as it is where Dutch settlers first displaced the Khoi from their traditional grazing lands. Judge Goliath rejected the LLPTs leave to appeal her order, but the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) subsequently granted them leave to appeal. The LLPT resumed work on the site at the end of June. LLPTs lawyers argue the appeal, which is set to be heard by a full bench of the Western Cape High Court on 11 and 12 October, nullifies the High Court order. Lawyers for the OCA, however, contend Goliaths order was interlocutory, meaning it remains in place until or unless the court rules otherwise. This dispute about the interpretation of Judge Goliaths order led to the OCA filing a contempt of court application, which was supposed to be heard on 22 August. However, the contempt of court hearing was delayed and has still not been heard. Judge Dolamo, in his ruling denying the OCAs latest application for an urgent interdict due to the delay in the contempt of court proceedings, stated it was not clear why the contempt of court application was not heard on that date. However, attorney Tim Dunn, on behalf of people claiming to be the legitimate representatives of the GKKITC, applied to intervene in proceedings on 22 August, the day of the hearing. Dunns clients claimed GKKITC Supreme High Commissioner Tauriq Jenkins, who had led the organisation in litigating against the development, had no authority to do so. An earlier attempt by Dunn to depose Jenkins on an urgent basis in July had been struck off the urgent roll by Judge Chantal Fortuin. Dunns clients seek a rescission of Goliaths judgement, claiming it was fraudulently obtained as Jenkins had no authority to litigate on behalf of the GKKITC. The rescission application is now set to be heard with the appeal before a full bench on 11 and 12 October. In a joint statement, Jenkins and OCA chair Leslie London state it was Dunns failure to then file papers by 19 August in this regard that led to the contempt of court matter not being heard on 22 August. Jenkins and London state they are disappointed he [Judge Dolamo] did not recognise this. With the contempt of court hearing being pushed back and construction continuing apace, the OCA, now acting alone due to the allegations against Jenkins, instructed attorneys Cullinan & Associates to apply for an urgent interdict to halt further work on the River Club site. Judge Dolamo, however, ruled the application was not urgent, stating any urgency in the matter was self-created by the applicant, being the OCA. As a result, he did not rule on whether Goliaths order was final or interlocutory, leaving that for the contempt of court hearings. He also allowed the GKKITC, as represented by Dunn, to withdraw from the review of the development authorisations and be cited as respondent in the matter, rather than as applicant. In a statement, the OCA said it was unclear what Judge Dolamos findings regarding the individuals who claim to represent the GKKITC means, as they did not apply for any relief related to appeal against Judge Goliaths original order. The OCA stated the contempt of court hearings were yet to take place, and the court could still find that resuming work on site had been illegal. In a statement posted on Facebook, LLPT welcomed Judge Dolamos ruling, and stated the work on site continues lawfully pending the outcome of the appeal against Judge Goliaths order to be heard on 11 and 12 October. By Steve Kretzmann, first published on GroundUp and republished under CC BY-ND 4.0. Capitec is entering the South Africas cellular space with a mobile virtual network operator, Capitec Connect. Launched in partnership with Cell C, Capitec Connect has promised to disrupt the South African prepaid market. It offers 100MB of data for R4.50, and 1GB for R45. The data never expires provided the SIM is used at least once every six months. South Africans have been complaining about the cost of data. Its expensive and complicated, said Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie. Bundle pricing, off-peak and peak rates, and the fact that your data expired are all things that make no sense. Fourie said Capitec is changing this by giving its clients access to mobile services that are simpler to understand and more affordable. It is through partnerships such as the one between Capitec and Cell C that we can make a major difference in bridging the digital divide that still exists in our country, said Cell C CEO Douglas Craigie Stevenson. Capitec noted that regulations proposed in 2017 by industry regulator Icasa and the National Consumer Commissioner advocated for data to remain valid for at least three years. These proposed regulations were later removed from the final service charter amendments and replaced with more lenient provisions. Capitec is now leading the change by addressing this issue head-on, the bank stated. It explained that a mobile virtual network operator provides cellular services to clients without owning the network infrastructure. SIMs are available to clients at all Capitec branches, and clients can get up to five SIMs linked to their profile. Once the SIM is activated, data, minutes, SMSes, and airtime can be topped up on the Capitec banking app, using *120*3279#, or internet banking. Calls are charged at 90c per minute, while SMSs are 25c each. As with data, airtime never expires provided the SIM is used once every six months. Our vision is to bring connectivity to all. We want to help create opportunity for everyone to be able to connect with access to affordable data and digital banking anywhere, anytime, Fourie said. Traditional TV is on its way out, and MultiChoice has no coherent strategy to replace the billions it makes from DStv satellite subscriptions. Bob Iger, executive chairman and former CEO of Walt Disney, said traditional TV in all its forms broadcast, cable, and satellite is marching to a distinct precipice. He said streaming TV is gaining viewers and that Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+ will continue to grow. The latest numbers from Leichtman Research Group, which tracks the broadcasting sector, back up Igers prediction that traditional TV is dying. Over the last year, top pay-TV providers in the United States recorded a net loss of 5,425,000 subscribers, significantly higher than 4,550,000 over the prior year. The trend is accelerating, and Q2 2022 was the second consecutive quarter with over 1.9 million net pay-TV losses. Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahalls painted an equally bleak picture of the pay-TV market, saying they are seeing a big increase in subscribers cutting the cord. From a peak of more than 100 million in 2015, pay TV subscriptions are now about 82.5 million, Cahall said. We estimate penetration to be around 55% of TV households, down from a peak of 81%. MultiChoices troubles have already started South Africa is far behind the United States in broadband penetration and streaming adoption, but MultiChoice is not immune to the global cord-cutting trend. MultiChoice started to experience a decline in DStv Premium subscribers seven years ago. Between 2015 and 2018, DStv Premium subscriptions declined from 2.35 million to 1.92 million. In 2018, MultiChoice changed its reporting standards, but the trend of high-end DStv subscribers dumping the service remained. Between 2018 and 2022, DStv premium subscribers declined from 1.7 million to 1.4 million. Its latest financial results also revealed a 6% decline in mid-market compact and commercial packages, which has not happened before. It means the trend of people dumping their DStv subscriptions is now moving down the value chain, which should be of great concern to MultiChoice. The cause of people increasingly cancelling their DStv service is twofold. More South Africans are accessing fast, affordable, uncapped broadband, especially in less affluent areas. More streaming products are available in South Africa, and households must pick between them based on their budgets. The bad news for MultiChoice is that the situation will only worsen in years to come. Vumatel, Openserve, and other fibre network operators are aggressively rolling out fibre across South Africa and are now targeting mid and low-income households. Mobile network operators are also offering affordable uncapped 4G and 5G data packages to people who cannot get access to fibre. Therefore, the number of South African households with broadband access that can support streaming is rapidly increasing. These households can now replace their expensive DStv service with affordable streaming options, like Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+. To compound MultiChoices problems, Amazon is expected to launch its marketplace in South Africa in February 2023, with Amazons Prime membership programme following shortly afterwards. Amazon Prime includes Prime Video with unlimited access to a large catalogue of movies, TV series, and documentaries. The tremendous benefits of Amazon Prime will encourage many South Africans to sign up for the service. They may reconsider paying hundreds of rands for DStv when they get access to Prime Video as part of their Amazon Prime subscription. MultiChoices lacklustre streaming strategy MultiChoice is doing its best to convince investors that it has an excellent digital strategy to protect against increased competition from Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+. In its latest results, MultiChoice said growth in Connected Video users on the DStv app and Showmax service is outpacing the market. Paying Showmax subscribers were up 68% year-on-year, while overall monthly online users increased by a pleasing 28% year-on-year. The company is also punting its strategy as a one-stop shop where subscribers pay one bill and get access to all streaming content. The Explora Ultra set-top box allows DStv customers to access third-party applications like Showmax, Netflix, and Amazon. However, MultiChoice does not release numbers related to its streaming products, like how many Showmax subscribers it has or revenue generated from streaming. The reason is simple. It is so insignificant that investors will realise that its streaming strategy is currently not much more than a vanity project in case it needs it later. It leaves MultiChoice in the same situation that bookstores, newspapers, and video stores faced when the Internet started to disrupt their industries. They know they must adapt, but it is nearly impossible because they made most of their money and big profits from their traditional business models. MultiChoice is faced with a situation where its premium and mid-market segments are dumping their DStv subscriptions in favour of streaming services. In turn, the decline in high-end customers is driving down the average revenue per user (ARPU). The ARPU of MultiChoices 90-day active subscribers in South Africa declined from R317 per month in March 2018 to R269 in March 2022. To stem the decline in revenue per user, MultiChoice continues to increase the price of its DStv packages. However, it makes DStv even less appealing compared to streaming alternatives. MultiChoice is now in a situation where it must decide whether it wants to become a streaming provider or sweat its satellite pay-TV service assets as much as it can. Its current strategy is to play it safe by dipping its toe into streaming without risking its own streaming products cannibalising its lucrative satellite revenue. This strategy leads to a slow deterioration of the business, which is clearly visible in its latest financial results. Canal+ buying MultiChoice MultiChoices best option, and something the company may be hoping for, is that French media company Canal+ will make an offer to buy it. Over the last three years, Canal+ increased its stake in MultiChoice to over 20% by buying shares on the open market. MultiChoice CEO Calvo Mawela said they continue to have monthly interactions with Canal+ parent Vivendi. According to Mawela, the French media company likes MultiChoice, its management, and its prospects. He added that their relationship with Canal+ is growing, and they are working together on many products, including content co-productions and sub-licensing content. The increased shareholding sparked speculation that Vivendi, through Canal+, could be looking to strike a deal with MultiChoice. The biggest prize for Vivendi is most likely MultiChoice Africa, which has around 12.8 million subscribers. Vivendi tried to acquire MultiChoice Africa in 2017, but Naspers, the parent company of MultiChoice at the time, has reportedly rejected the $1 billion offer. MultiChoice would not comment on a new deal, only saying it kept an open mind about its relationship with Canal+ and Vivendi. This article was first published by Daily Investor and is republished with permission. About 30 half-century-old Modesto Ash trees tower above a two-block stretch of Waverly Street in Napa, creating a canopy that shades the street, with sunlight glimmering through in spots, shining upon areas of rough asphalt and sidewalk slabs that jut out at odd angles. The trees in question, which community members say essentially define the neighborhoods identity, are set to be removed over a two-week period starting Monday. Thats because theyre in conflict with infrastructure, including the sidewalks, power lines, a gas main and the street itself, according to Jeff Gittings, parks and urban forestry manager for the city. Leaving the trees in place and therefore not repairing the infrastructure would present safety hazards that could lead to claims or litigation, Gittings said. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help. Subscribe today! Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register. In response to seeing city notifications about the pending removal posted on most of the trees last week, about 15 community members organized at 5:30 p.m. Friday, on short notice, for a Waverly Street neighborhood meeting. Gittings, parks and recreation director Breyana Brandt, public works director Julie Lucido and city manager Steve Potter also showed up. Potter expressed appreciation for the beauty of the trees and what theyve brought to the neighborhood, but added that from the citys perspective the removal work needs to go forward, owing to safety concerns and various legal requirements. I know having been born and raised in Napa that this tree-lined street is really the identity of the neighborhood and everybody loves it, Potter said at the meeting. So thats what makes it a challenge to me to get involved in things like this. I know historically what that means, and so sometimes I have a little bit of a conflict between what needs to be done and where my heart is at. Much of the meeting consisted of the community members asking questions to the city officials about the removal plans. The local residents expressed surprise at how swiftly the trees were going to be pulled out, and said the city hadnt communicated appropriately. As such, several of them requested the city delay the planned removal, though Potter said the city needed to move forward because it needs to work with Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s tight scheduling. The crews are lined up. We dont want to lose the ability to use them; we have a timeline set, Potter said. Elizabeth Olcott, who hosted the Waverly Street meeting, noted that the community members previously had a similar meeting with the city several years ago, with Mayor Scott Sedgley a city councilmember at the time and the city's former parks manager David Perazzo, among other city employees. Olcott said there was another system of determining whether the trees needed to come down or not that was discussed at that meeting, which gave them the impression that some of the trees could remain even if most of them needed to be removed. Local residents received a letter about the removal early this month, she said, but werent aware that it would involve taking down nearly all the trees until last week. It just feels really wrong and its just, its visceral, Olcott said. Some people have lived on this street for 20, 30, 40 years. We certainly arent going to see the rebuild; Ill be long dead before we have this kind of a tree-lined street again. Olcott also noted that, had the city met with the community a few months ago, it would have given the community members time to digest the information. Removing the trees will radically change the neighborhood, she said, and she estimated property values in the area will drop considerably. It could've been handled in a way that was much, much, much more respectful of all of us, Olcott said. Potter apologized, and said the city would take the criticism into consideration in the future and try to do more outreach. Sedgley said in a Friday interview that he recalled the 2018 meeting, and noted that the issue is very difficult, given that the mature trees are lovely and do good for carbon sequestration and cooling. But, he noted, there are few alternatives to cutting the trees down when they threaten infrastructure to the extent the Waverly Street trees do. Sadly, sometimes the trees need to come down, Sedgley said. ... I believe everybody understood that eventually the time would come. Gittings, who noted the city had been fielding calls about the tree removal all week, said most of the homes in the neighborhood were built in the 1950s and 60s, and the trees in question were also planted around that time. The Modesto Ashes have a maximum lifespan of roughly 70 years, he said, which means most of the trees are reaching the end of their natural lives. Over the last few years, the parks department has responded to a high number of limb and trail failures in the neighborhood, he said, and the citys also received numerous complaints about the condition of the street, with requests to complete the sidewalk and street repairs. Gittings said that PG&E crews will be cutting down the trees that are presenting problems to PG&E infrastructure, at their expense. That includes the overhead power lines on the south side of the street, and an underground gas main on the north side. The citys own tree crew will also likely be removing more of the trees after PG&E completes its work, Gittings noted, but having PG&E handle the bulk of the work is a financial benefit and, owing to specific training, doesnt require power in the area to be shut off while the work is carried out. Gittings said the city will be providing the community with more size-appropriate trees in the future. Theres a slight possibility some of the ash trees slated to be removed could be saved, he added, but its unlikely. If we think theres an opportunity to shave them, and if we think theres sufficient room to put back sidewalk, theres a possibility a few trees will stay. Gittings said. But more than likely, for the reasons I talked about, these trees have gotten so large in the plan area. Its more than likely if we go in and try to do any root pruning on those trees, well create an unstable tree. And thats just something for public safety were not willing to do. PG&E will also be moving the gas main starting on Oct. 24, and that should take no more than a month, according to Lucido. She noted the city cant carry out needed sidewalk and street fixes, along with Americans with Disabilities Act improvements, until the trees come down. Waverly Street lost out on the last round of paving and street work because of community resistance to the trees being removed, Gittings noted. Armenia PM: Germany is reliable partner for us World oil prices going up considerably Armenia ambassador-at-large to Klaar: We will not allow putting equality sign between war crimes victim and perpetrator Azerbaijan proposes to Armenia to reschedule border delimitation commission meeting to October Brazil to have presidential runoff Bosnia and Herzegovina presidential candidate announces his victory US National Archives says it still didnt get all documents from Trump administration Donald Trump-Kim Jong-un personal letters published Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs underscore introduction of international mechanisms for border situation control RBC: Number of cases for evading army in Russia from spring to announcement of mobilization reaches maximum in 10 years Minister: Italy will be able to survive winter with current level of gas flow, if 'catastrophic events' do not occur Russia extradites Norwegian accused of major fraud to Norway German power producer RWE to buy clean energy company for $6.8 billion Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs start meeting in Geneva Eslami: Iran's nuclear power generation capacity is scheduled to reach 10,000 megawatts Spanish MP to Ursula von der Leyen about murder of Armenian POWs: And this is your reliable partner? Armenian FM discusses video of execution of Armenian POWs with Philip Reeker Bloomberg: OPEC+ group to consider cutting oil production by more than 1 million barrels per day Delegation from Bundestag arrives in Taiwan: China protests Secretary of Armenian Security Council to go on working visit to Brussels Afghan authorities disperse women's rally in Herat Pope appeals to Vladimir Putin to 'stop this spiral of violence and death' Crown Prince of Kuwait accepts resignation of government after parliamentary elections in country Armenian FM meets with EU Special Representative Toivo Klaar in Geneva Former Ombudsman: Armenia must immediately apply to International Criminal Court Address by Alen Simonyan to National Minorities: You have been and continue to be members of our extended family Denmark declares gas leakage in damaged Nord Stream 1 pipeline stopped Ombudsman's Office about video of Armenian soldiers' shooting: We have identified the authenticity of the video Liz Truss says she should have done more to set stage for her economic plan Foreign Ministry: Armenia demands clear evaluation of blatant war crimes by Azerbaijani Armed Forces Pashinyan: Armenia will use all available international mechanisms to bring Azerbaijan to justice Latvian Prime Minister's Party wins parliamentary elections Marukyan: Azerbaijani political and military authorities must be hold accountable for this and other atrocities Armenian PM sends congratulatory message on National Minorities Day Applications to international courts will be filed tomorrow in connection with shooting of Armenian POWs Bosnia holds presidential and parliamentary elections Armenian Defense Ministry on video of execution of Armenian POWs: No doubts about authenticity Le Figaro: International media and authorities verify gruesome video of execution of Armenian POWs by Azerbaijanis Brazil's presidential and parliamentary elections begin Toivo Klaar: Another horrible video has emerged of Armenian prisoners of war apparently being executed Blinken says U.S. will help Ukraine on issue of territories Defense Ministry: As of 10 am, situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border remains unchanged At least 129 killed in stampede at football match in Indonesia EU leaders to discuss security of their critical infrastructure Lebanon says it received proposal from US for maritime border agreement with Israel Italy's Eni works with Gazprom to solve the problem of Russian gas supplies stoppage Prime Minister: There are problems in relations between OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs France can supply Ukraine with up to twelve new Caesar howitzers Over half of Britons think Liz Truss should step down as PM Kyiv's bid for accelerated NATO membership comes as surprise to Biden administration Baykar plant in Ukraine to start assembling high-altitude UAV model Bayraktar Akinci Erdogan sues German MP for calling him cesspool rat OSCE may send mission to Armenian-Azerbaijani border Erdogan doesn't rule out meeting with Pashinyan Armenian Defense Ministry urges to stop collecting food, clothing, money for servicemen Kuwait government tenders resignation following parliamentary elections Joint command and staff exercise held during CSTO military exercises in Kazakhstan Over 30 killed in Iran terrorist attack Aliyev announces plans to double Azerbaijan natural gas supply to Europe by 2027 Pashinyan: I am confident that Armenia-Cyprus cooperation will continue to be strengthened, expanded Finland, Sweden, Turkey may discuss NATO membership process this month Artsakh security council meeting to be held at parliamentary forces proposal US court orders Iran to pay $34.8M in compensation to late journalists family Armenian parliament speaker to leave for Moscow Hurricane Ian death toll exceeds 40 in Florida Armenian community stages protest ahead of Azerbaijan presidents Bulgaria visit (PHOTOS) California Governor signs bill declaring April 24 state holiday in remembrance of Armenian Genocide 2 Azerbaijanis severely injured after stepping on landmine in Karabakh FM: Artsakh will never be part of Azerbaijan Turkey does not recognize joining of 4 regions to Russia South Korea leader threatens with crushing response to North if it uses nuclear weapons Group of soldiers stage coup in Burkina Faso Biden signs law providing $12.4bn in additional aid to Ukraine Japan envoy to Armenia expresses concern about current situation after recent Azerbaijan military aggression Nicaragua severs diplomatic ties with Netherlands Armenia PM congratulates on 73rd anniversary of People's Republic of China World Bank approves additional $530M in aid to Ukraine Newspaper: Russians getting familiarized with options Armenia is discussing with the West Armenia soldier, 19, found dead in combat position Newspaper: Artsakh, Azerbaijan representatives to negotiate with each other? Italy strengthens naval surveillance and control of pipelines Russia vetoes UN Security Council draft resolution that does not recognize unification of new territories In phone conversation with Erdogan, Putin gives principled assessment of sabotage of Nord Streams First African-American woman to officially join U.S. Supreme Court Biden warns Putin that he will not get away with annexation of new territories to Russia U.S. Congress approves $12.3 billion in aid for Ukraine 'Armenian Crossroads': Pashinyan talks about difficulties in unblocking communications with Azerbaijan Pashinyan: Russian authorities must not take actions which cast doubt on sincerity of official positions Pashinyan: Next session of delimitation and demarcation working group to be held in November Nikol Pashinyan does not rule out meeting with Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Prague Blinken: U.S. will take action in UN Security Council to hold Russia accountable for referendums Defense Ministry: As of 10 pm situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border remains unchanged Pashinyan: Statement of Ministry of Defense says Russian Federation, but my statement does not say anything about Russia Israel says it will not recognize results of referendums on annexation of new territories to Russia Germany allowed arms exports to Saudi Arabia Putin speaks at rally-concert on Red Square: We know to whom we owe today Pashinyan: Nancy Pelosi's visit to Armenia is not anti-Russian Stoltenberg: Ukraine's admission to NATO requires consent of all members of alliance Pashinyan about Ter-Petrosyan's proposal: Quite wide range of people are aware of negotiation process Pashinyan: We don't close door to anyone AD Ports Groups Safeen Feeders has signed a major agreement with Invictus Investment to launch a new international dry bulk shipping service. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will purchase ships through special purpose vehicles, owned 85% by Safeen Feeders and 15% by Invictus Investment. In addition, Safeen Feeders and Invictus Investment will form a joint venture to operate the service. The joint venture will be owned 51% by Safeen Feeders and 49% by Invictus Investment. The two companies are expected to initially commit approximately AED463 million ($126 million) for the investment in the vessels. Five ships of varying sizes are expected to be deployed within six months, starting in September 2022, with additional vessels envisaged as part of future growth plans. The joint venture will serve as the carrier for Invictus dry-bulk trading business, which currently ships more than three million tonnes of commodities annually, principally wheat and complementary grains. The majority of the ships capacity will be provided to support this business. In addition, the joint venture will also extend its commercial bulk shipping services to other companies globally, with an initial focus on the Red Sea and Pacific corridors, the Indian sub-continent as well as the Black Sea region, and with the capacity to ship to anywhere in the world within international navigating limits. Under the joint venture agreement, Invictus Investment will commercially operate the vessels, and with Invictus large existing trading volumes added to the program, it is expected to generate strong returns on the investment. Invictus, which was listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) in June 2022 under the ticker INVICTUS, has leveraged its core competency in wheat trading to diversify into complementary grains, as well as cotton, groundnuts, meat, other commodities and finished goods. SAFEEN Feeders, which launched in 2020, has significantly expanded its fleet over the past two years, deploying new vessels of varying sizes and capacities for bulk and container services, boosting overall capacity to 23,400 TEUs. Capt Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, Managing Director and Group CEO, AD Ports Group, said: Under the guidance of our wise leadership, AD Ports Group continues to invest in new initiatives that stimulate economic diversification and support the recovery of international trade. "This is an important agreement for AD Ports Group as we look to expand the diverse portfolio of international dry bulk services that we provide for customers and strengthen food security in the region and around the world. Aligning SAFEEN Feeders shipping expertise with Invictus diverse sourcing network will help create a significant new operator, with global reach and a modern fleet. Amir Abdellatif, Chief Executive Officer of Invictus Investment Company, said: Invictus Investment has rapidly developed into a multi-continent operational reach to support trade of a wide variety of commodities, agro-foods, and finished goods. "This agreement with AD Ports Group ensures our commitment to investing in businesses that add synergies and value to our expanding trading business, and in building strong strategic partnerships. It is further aligned with our focus on investing in fixed assets to strengthen our logistics capacity. This will enable us to not only enhance efficiency in our operations, but will also support us as joint venture partners to grow together as a new international shipping service. -TradeArabia News Service During the last war launched by Azerbaijan against Armenia from September 13 to 15, Azerbaijani armed servicemen caused mental sufferingapart from physical sufferingsto the families of the killed Armenian servicemen. This is noted in a statement released by the Law and Justice Center Tatoyan" Foundation. The statement continues as follows: The Law and Justice Center Tatoyan" Foundation obtained evidence confirming that the Azerbaijani servicemen killed an RA serviceman, then took his photo and filmed a video, then sent the photo to his wife via WhatsApp, and then published the video and the photo on WhatsApp's "story" section. In the video they sent, there are also other Armenian servicemen who were killed in a group. The mentioned objective evidence will be given the necessary legal verification by the Foundation. This criminal act confirms the intention of the Azerbaijani armed servicemen to cause mental suffering to families of victims and Armenian society, to play with emotions. Similar cases were also recorded during 2016 April war; 2020 44-day war. The approach has not changed; these crimes have become chronic, because atrocities are encouraged by the Azerbaijani authorities, and those who commit them remain unpunished. This evidence will be properly verified, also sent to international partners: perpetrators of these crimes should be punished. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and 13 other European telecommunications providers are calling for everything possible to be done to get major technology companies to share network costs, citing the energy crisis and EU climate change goals, Reuters reports. The call comes as the European Commission prepares to get feedback from both sides before introducing a legislative proposal that could force technology companies to help pay for the rollout of 5G and fiber optic cables in the European Union's 27 countries. The sector, which invests about 50 billion euros annually in infrastructure, needs more funding and urgently, company executives said in a statement. The cost of planning and construction work is increasing. For example, fiber-optic cable prices almost doubled in the first half of 2022. Similarly, price hikes for energy and other resources are also hitting the communications sector. Timely action is needed: Europe has missed out on many of the opportunities offered by the consumer Internet. It must now quickly gain strength for the era of meta-universes, the CEO said. For this to happen and for it to be sustainable over time, we believe the largest traffic generators must make a fair contribution to the significant costs they currently incur on European networks, they said. Vodafone, Bouygues Telecom, KPN, BT Group, TIM Group, Telia Company, Fastweb and Altice Portugal also signed the statement. European telcos argue that U.S. technology firms such as Google, Meta and Netflix, owned by Alphabet, account for more than half of Internet traffic and should bear some of the cost of infrastructure upgrades. The National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) has launched an updated version of its Tamweel Al Watani lending scheme to enable a larger stake of Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) customers to benefit from the programme. While providing faster processing times, the improved Tamweel 2.0 scheme will include further relaxed terms and tailored lower cost for female-owned businesses. As part of its commitment towards empowering the SME sector at large, NBB initially launched Tamweel Al Watani in May 2021, with the aim of providing support to SMEs by helping them achieve their sustainability goals, while simultaneously improving cash flow positions across the kingdom. The elevated Tamweel 2.0 scheme is a direct result of client feedback, market development, and NBBs assessment of current economic needs in line with the kingdoms economic recovery plan. Turnaround time Through the revised initiative, local SMEs will be able to make use of shorter turnaround time. With a more facilitated application process, the bank has also included easier processing alongside less prerequisites. Small business owners will gain access to financing options, which will allow them to grow their businesses without the prerequisite tangible security requirements. Commenting on the upgraded scheme, Arif Janahi, Head of Commercial and SMEs at NBB, said: Following the success of Tamweel Al Watanis launch last year, we are pleased to be providing locally owned businesses with the opportunity to benefit from our new and improved lending scheme. SMEs are key to banks and the business environment in the kingdom, contributing significantly to our national economy. It is important that we periodically revamp our existing plans in an effort to provide seamless banking services to this vital sector, in addition to empowering female business owners. NBB is committed to supporting the SME sector while aligning with the kingdoms economic recovery plan and the Ministry of Industry and Commerces SME goals. NBB continues to enhance its offerings as part of its ongoing endeavours towards investing in its community and enriching the industries and economy where the bank operates.-- TradeArabia News Service A 12-year-old boy in India is in "critical condition" after being gang-raped and beaten, CNN reports. Delhi Police Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Sain said in a video message that the attack was carried out by three men, all minors known to the victim, including a family relative. The alleged attack occurred in the northeastern district of Silampur on Sept. 18, but was not reported until Sept. 22, according to police statements. Two of the defendants have been arrested. "The three accused are from the same community, they were neighbors," Sain said, adding that one of the men was a relative of the victim. They have not yet been charged. The boy's parents said their son is in "critical condition" after he was allegedly attacked with a cane and brutally beaten with bricks. Protests in India against high rates of sexual violence, usually against women and girls, have become commonplace in recent years. In 2012, the gang rape and murder of medical student Nirbhaya (the pseudonym given to the victim, meaning "fearless") in Delhi prompted millions of women to call for harsher punishment for those responsible. According to court documents, Nirbhaya sustained horrific injuries after being raped and attacked with iron rods. She died two weeks after the attack in a Singapore hospital. Nirbhaya's death brought attention to sexual violence in India and marked a turning point in the country with the introduction of new laws, including expedited processing of rape cases through the justice system and a revised definition of rape to include anal and oral penetration. All customs posts in Georgia have been put on a special mode of operation. The Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance in a statement today acknowledged a sharp increase in traffic to Georgia. In its official statement last week, the customs office claimed that nothing special was happening and there was no sharp increase in the number of visitors at the border. As of today, the number of customs officers has been increased at border checkpoints throughout Georgia, and all checkpoints are operating around the clock. "The procedures of customs control of trucks coming from Georgia (Kazbegi customs post via Lars customs post on the side of the Russian Federation are partially delayed," the Ministry of Finance admits, Novosti-Gruziya reports. The Georgian side is in communication with the customs of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia to prevent the disruption of international cargo turnover. On September 21, kilometers-long queues of Russian citizens wishing to travel to Georgia formed on the Georgian-Russian land border at Upper Lars. On September 21, Russia announced a partial mobilization. The West has left no stone unturned in its attempts to destabilize Iran amid the recent unrest. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said this, Press TV reports. "American and European political leaders, their news agencies and media supported by the West used the tragic incident with the death of a young woman and supported rioters and violators of the country's national security under the slogan of supporting human rights," he said. "They left no stone unturned in that regard. But they have either overlooked or downplayed the presence of millions of people in the streets and squares of the country in support of the establishment and their country and in strong opposition to chaos." People in the Iranian capital, Tehran, took to the streets to denounce the acts of vandalism and desecration of Islamic shrines by rioters last week. He also said there is no doubt that the adversaries' hybrid and psychological warfare against the Iranian people will go down in history along with hundreds of instances of their shameful failures. "For those who claim to stand up for the rights of the Iranian people, they had better abandon their false slogans and put an end to the cruel and inhumane sanctions against the Iranian people that have been applied for several decades," Kanani added. Protests erupted in several Iranian cities over the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who died in hospital days after passing out in a police station in the capital Tehran, where she and a group of others were undergoing dress code training. Despite Iranian officials' clarification of the circumstances surrounding Amini's death, violent street protests led to attacks on security personnel and vandalism of public property and shrines. Speaking Friday, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the unrest following Amini's death had nothing to do with the tragic event, saying instigators were using the issue to wreak havoc across the country. Last week, Iranian police released surveillance footage showing Amini passing out in a police station. The video refutes claims that she was beaten by police. Dubai Metaverse Assembly, from September 28 to 29, will host 300 global experts and more than 40 organisations specialised in metaverse and virtual worlds applications. Organised by Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), under the patronage of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the DFF, the assembly will be held at the Museum of the Future and AREA 2071. As one of the regions largest specalised events, the flagship event will explore the digital economy and identify how governments, businesses and communities can unlock the unlimited potential of the metaverse to create a bolder future. 30 local and international leaders More than 30 local and international leaders including international metaverse academics, designers, builders and specialists in virtual education, e-commerce, medicine, art, gaming, events, NFTs and other digital assets will speak at the two-day event. Additionally, the event will host speakers from renowned global organisations such as Meta, Binance, Mastercard, The Sandbox, Bedu, PWC, Accenture, BCG Digital Ventures, Decentraland, Mastercard among others. Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, Deputy Managing Director of Dubai Future Foundation noted that the "Dubai Metaverse Assembly", hosted in Dubai this week, serves as a global platform convening technology experts and the wider metaverse community from around the world to map out opportunities and harness the potential of this promising virtual world. He added: "The specialised event is a first for the region and a unique opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas on the best solutions, projects and industries likely to benefit from the metaverses vast potential. Through this inaugural event, we highlight the extraordinary potential of this immersive world to accelerate economic growth, drive innovation and create a fundamentally better future for humanity. Comprehensive programme More than 25 sessions, meetings, and workshops will take place across the Museum of the Future and AREA 2071 at Emirates Towers during the Dubai Metaverse Assembly. They will cover a broad gamut of topics: from building robust and scalable metaverse infrastructure to creating robust, business-friendly regulation and providing government services in the digital world. What major technology and private-sector companies should do to develop an industry that may exceed $30 trillion in 15 years will also be tackled when the worlds leading metaverse experts converge on Dubai. Ziad Traboulsi, Director, Business Engineering at Reality Labs at Meta, commented: We are excited to participate in the Dubai Metaverse Assembly and look forward to discussing the metaverse amongst a highly engaged and tech savvy audience. Although nothing beats being together in person, when it is not possible, the metaverse will get us closer, because interactions in the metaverse will feel more like those we have in our daily lives. Along with others, we are building the metaverse to be something that billions can benefit from. Realities will change Keith Jordan, Vice President of Innovation at Mastercard Labs, Mastercard, a unique lab committed to delivering high-impact, customer-centric experiences said: We look forward to welcoming leaders and futurists from across the globe as we explore the countless ways our realities will change as we enter the metaverse. Emerging worlds present limitless possibilities, and Mastercard is proud to drive the acceleration of these technologies as we support Dubais ambitions to become one of the worlds top 10 metaverse economies. Mastercard Labs will host a dedicated session on how shopping, banking and gaming are shaping the metaverse and how these will live side-by-side with the physical world. Mark Zaleski, Managing Director and Partner at BCG Digital Ventures, the worlds leading business builder with a mission to invent, launch, and scale game-changing businesses, stated: Dubai is globally recognised as a leading city of the future, and we see so much potential to unlock a wave of innovation and help businesses across the city embrace digital technology. The metaverse is at the heart of this digital transformation, and were excited by the opportunity to help businesses in Dubai leverage the virtual world to seize a competitive advantage. Im delighted to join the conversation at this inaugural Dubai Metaverse Assembly Conference. Stimulating debate Alex Chehade, Executive Director and General Manager of Binance MENA, said: I am looking forward to connect with peers, metaverse experts and enthusiasts at the Dubai Metaverse Assembly, which will provide a fantastic forum to bring the regional and international metaverse community together and stimulate the debate around virtual ecosystems. Chehade added: I am also keen to learn others points of view and share my own insights into the role that the decentralised world will play in the future of the digital economy. Regulation will substantially influence the possibilities of virtual worlds and their applications in the future, and therefore shaping stable, progressive regulatory frameworks is essential to build further trust and innovation in our industry and drive long-term growth. Chehade concluded: Binance remains committed to supporting and contributing to these objectives, and we see the Dubai Metaverse Assembly as an ideal platform to do so. Empowering creators Sebastien Borget, COO & Co-Founder of The Sandbox, an open Metaverse which launched a Dubaiverse virtual neighbourhood, said: Our vision has always been to empower local creators and allow them to benefit from their creativity and monetise their times and skills the way they want. The Sandbox is progressively becoming a digital nation without frontiers needs to bring culturally rich and immersive experiences - and we are proud Dubai leads the way into this direction. Sandeep Nailwal, Co-Founder, Polygon, the leading blockchain development platform, offering scalable, affordable, secure and sustainable blockchains for Web3 said: At Polygon we are working to realise the true potential of web3 technology for millions of users. The tools being built today will improve quality of life for people around the world while ushering in a new technological and industrial digital era. We are building a Web3 future that promotes equality amongst users, fostering self-sovereignty and free expression to meaningfully advance the human experience with blockchain technology. Abdelrahman Mohamed, Co-Founder MetaCon Global, a one-of-a-kind metaverse into reality pop culture convention, commented: While the metaverse is still in its early days and we are yet to fully unfold its potential or predict the ultimate impact it will have, we already recognise that it holds great promise to unlock the biggest opportunities yet for modern business since the creation of the internet. In short, we are looking at the metaverse and web3 redefining the way in which people work, learn, socialise, and live. And so, we are proud to be standing at the helm, alongside DFF, on this pivotal journey of discovery and learning into web3. In line with the vision of our leaders, the Dubai Metaverse Assembly is the perfect platform to foster effective public and private partnerships and real-life collaborations to address some of the most critical challenges and innovate a more sustainable future for all. Communal vision David Clark-Joseph, Vice President of Investments at Pixelynx, the music metaverse gaming platform founded by groundbreaking electronic musicians and technology visionaries, said: The Dubai Metaverse Assembly, organised by the DFF, brings together the innovators that will articulate our communal vision for the metaverse. This will be a foundational aspect of the future and together we are building that foundation. We approach this vision of the future with a focus on music and experience the potential for music to evolve in the metaverse cant be understated and Dubai can be central in these developments. Catherine Zhou, Global Head of Ventures, Digital Partnerships and Innovation, HSBC, said: The Metaverse and Web 3 technologies, such as blockchain, tokenisation and smart contracts, have the potential to transform how financial services organisations interact with customers, as well as driving the development of new products and services. The Dubai Metaverse Assembly provides an essential forum for many different types of organisations to discuss how to unleash this new era of innovation, including working with governments and regulators to make it safe for consumers. Samuel Hamilton, Creative Director of Decentraland, said: We are excited to be at the Dubai Metaverse Assembly, where we'll be representing the decentralised developers and engineers who are building the open metaverse as we speak. This event will enable all voices to be adequately represented, and we believe it will also be a great opportunity to coordinate and collaborate with international governments and organisations. We look forward to sharing what we have learned about how to build virtual worlds. Insightful plans for the future The Dubai Metaverse Assembly is the first event of its kind since Sheikh Hamdan approved the Dubai Metaverse Strategy in July. The strategy aims to add $4 billion to Dubais GDP, support 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030 and attract 1,000 companies specialising in blockchain and metaverse technologies to turn Dubai's into one of the world's top 10 metaverse economies.-- TradeArabia News Service Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin considers the Izhevsk school shooting to be a terrorist act. It was allegedly committed by a neo-Nazi, reports MK. After the incident, Russian President Vladimir Putin contacted local authorities and medics. Neurosurgeons, psychologists and emergency planes were sent to the region. "Tragic news from Izhevsk. President (Vladimir) Putin deeply grieves over the deaths of people and children at the school where a terrorist attack took place. It was committed by a person who appears to belong to a neo-fascist organization or group," Peskov said. He said the Kremlin has received all the necessary data on what happened. All social issues will be resolved. He added that it is necessary to analyze the security measures taken in schools, just as it was done after, among other things, the shooting in the Kazan gymnasium. "Unfortunately, such tragedies happen in other countries of the world as well. But this cannot be a reason for us to be complacent," Peskov said. The shooting in Izhevsk school No. 88 took place on the morning of September 26. A former student of the school, Artem Kazantsev, broke into the building and shot 13 people. Among them, seven children were killed. Another 21 people were injured, including 14 students. The attacker committed suicide. Iranian society is divided into strata with liberal views and those with closed, traditional views. The two wings have always been distinguished by contradictions, which have led to upheavals. Iranian expert Nver Davtyan told NEWS.am. According to him, such a dangerous polarization that threatens domestic stability also exists in other countries of the region. He believes that the golden mean is to find a balance between the natural needs of young people and the foundations of this society. The abrupt liberalization of such a society contains risks. On the other hand, the discontent of Iranian youth could lead to an increase in their emigration and "brain drain" from the country and create demographic problems in the future. "The external impact is there, and it is noticeable. The Iranian authorities' harsh attitude to the events is related to this. External forces seeking to weaken Iran's growing role in the region may be interested in the protests," the expert noted. Davtyan expressed confidence that a stable and strong Iran can create much more serious conditions for the stability and security of the entire region, but not everyone benefits from it. "The fact that Azerbaijan for a long time is on the way to becoming an anti-Iranian platform is a fact. Recently there was information about an attempted invasion of Iran by a terrorist group from Azerbaijan. There are forces that operate both inside and outside Iran. They include countries that are against Tehran's growing role in the region. We are talking about Azerbaijan and Turkey. All this is aimed at eliminating Iran's ability to defend its borders with its neighbor, in this case Armenia," the expert stressed. The Iranian expert advised the West to look to Azerbaijan on the issue of democracy, so that conditions for long-term peace can be created, recalling that it is Azerbaijan that threatens Armenia's democracy. "And if the problem of democracy in Azerbaijan is not talked about, Pelosi's statements about democracy in Armenia make no sense," Davtyan concluded. Russian servicemen on APCs have been spotted at the Upper Lars border checkpoint on the Russian-Georgian border. The Russian Federal Security Service confirmed this fact to RBC, noting that this was done in case people standing in line decided to break the border. "An APC is moving there, but it is not moving to set up a roadblock, it is, roughly speaking, a reserve in case the reservists want to break through the checkpoint and leave the country without the border formalities," the FSB said. The agency said that there will be no checkpoints and added that the Upper Lars checkpoint is functioning normally. The FSB stressed that no restrictions on departures of male citizens of conscription age were introduced. https://news.ru/ Since September 21, there have been long lines of Russian citizens wishing to travel to Georgia at the Georgian-Russian land border at Upper Lars. On September 21, Russia announced a partial mobilization. The Ombudsman of Armenia summarized the facts of the consequences of Azerbaijani aggression. On September 13-15, at least 7,600 people, including 1,437 children and 99 disabled people, were evacuated from Gegharkunik, Vayots Dzor and Syunik provinces. Most of the displaced people were women, children and the elderly. Gegharkunik province In Gegharkunik region one civilian was killed and 4 people were wounded. The whereabouts of another civilian, Vardenis, are unknown. Azerbaijani armed forces deliberately opened fire on a group of Armenian and foreign journalists. About 200 houses were damaged in Sotq, more than 50 of them were completely destroyed and the gas pipeline was damaged. A school building was attacked. Four houses were damaged in Kut village and a medical point was attacked. Administrative buildings of Sotk and Geghamasar communities were damaged. Vayots Dzor province One civilian was killed and two others were wounded in Jermuk. A civilian vehicle was shelled in the city, injuring one civilian. An ambulance was attacked. Three rescuers of the Armenian Emergencies Ministry were wounded. The Kechut reservoir was also attacked. Azerbaijan deliberately targeted a sanatorium where dozens of patients were treated. The tourist infrastructure of Jermuk was also hit. Gas pipes, electric wires and communication cables were also damaged. Syunik province One civilian was killed by Azerbaijani servicemen in Syunik region on September 14. Another civilian was shot in the head and died in hospital. Two ambulances were damaged. Residences were damaged as a result of UAV strikes in Geghamasar. A banqueting hall in Karashen was shelled and one residential house was seriously damaged. Five residential houses were shelled in Verishen village, one more house was damaged. A residential house was shelled in Akner village. An administrative building in Vaghatur village was destroyed. One house was damaged in Agitu community. Four houses, an administrative building and a school were damaged in Vaghatur community. Gas pipelines were damaged in Tegh and Vaghatur communities. The right to free movement of citizens was illegally restricted as a result of numerous bombardments of roads. RTHK: Russia in sporadic contact with US on nuclear issues The Kremlin refused to deny on Monday that Russia might close its borders to prevent an exodus of military-age men after President Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilisation in an effort to regain the upper hand in the war in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also confirmed that Russia was in "sporadic" contact with the United States on nuclear issues, a day after Washington warned of "catastrophic consequences" if Moscow used nuclear weapons to protect Ukrainian regions it looks set to annex. Citizens in four regions of Ukraine were voting for a fourth day on Monday in Moscow-organised referendums on joining Russia, a plan Kyiv and the West have branded a sham. They say the votes are rigged and they will not recognise the results. Asked about the possibility of border closures, Peskov told reporters: "I don't know anything about this. At the moment, no decisions have been taken on this." Multiple reports have documented how people with no military service have received draft papers - contrary to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's pledge that only those with special military skills or combat experience would do so - prompting even loyal pro-Kremlin figures to publicly express concern. Peskov acknowledged that some call-ups had been issued in error, saying mistakes were being corrected by regional governors and the ministry of defence. More than 2,000 people have been detained across Russia for protests at the draft, says independent monitoring group OVD-Info. With criticism of the conflict banned, the demonstrations were among the first signs of discontent since the war began. A 25-year-old gunman was detained after opening fire on Monday at a military draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region, the local governor said. Almost 17,000 Russians crossed the border into Finland over the weekend, Finnish authorities said, while Russian state media said the estimated wait to enter Georgia hit 48 hours at one point on Sunday, with more than 3,000 vehicles queuing. A senior lawmaker said Russian men of fighting age should not be allowed to travel abroad. "Everyone who is of conscription age should be banned from travelling abroad in the current situation," Sergei Tsekov, a member of Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, told RIA news agency. By incorporating the four Ukrainian regions - Luhansk and Donetsk in the east and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south - Moscow will be able to portray Kyiv's efforts to recapture them as attacks on Russia itself. Announcing his mobilisation drive last week, Russia's first since World War Two, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready to use nuclear weapons to defend any of its territory. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday the United States would respond "decisively" to any Russian use of nuclear weapons, without elaborating. He said Washington had privately told Moscow "exactly what that would mean". Asked about Sullivan's comments, Peskov said: "There are channels for dialogue at the proper level, but they are of a very sporadic nature. At least they allow for the exchange of some emergency messages about each other's positions." The Ukraine conflict has triggered the most serious confrontation between Moscow and Washington since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the superpowers came closest to nuclear war. (Reuters) This story has been published on: 2022-09-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The International Energy Agency (IEA) and several partners have launched a new tool to track financing costs for energy projects around the world with the aim of identifying and addressing risks that have impeded vital investment flows to emerging and developing economies. The Cost of Capital Observatory was developed by the IEA together with the World Economic Forum, ETH Zurich and Imperial College London. It will be hosted on the IEAs website and regularly updated with new data, analysis and features. The IEA website will also host an interactive Cost of Capital Dashboard to dig into data for selected countries. Despite having two-thirds of the global population, emerging and developing economies, excluding China, account for less than one-fifth of global investment in clean energy. One of the key barriers is a high cost of capital, reflecting some real and perceived risks about investment in these economies. Bringing down the cost of capital is a critical lever to attract funds, especially private capital, and policy makers use this information to ensure that investments are remunerated in a fair manner, especially when it comes to sectors or projects that need any kind of government support. However, there is a lack of transparency about the cost of capital, making it harder for investors to price risk and for policy makers to act. The new Observatory has been established to fill this gap. A high cost of capital is a roadblock for investors, and the data provided by our Observatory is essential to understand how this roadblock can be dismantled, said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. This will allow more capital to flow to clean energy, where it is urgently needed to tackle todays energy crisis and reach sustainable development goals. Bringing down the cost of capital would make a huge difference to the overall costs of energy transitions. According to new IEA estimates, reducing financing costs by 2 percentage points would bring down the investment needed to reach net zero emissions in emerging and developing economies by a cumulative $16 trillion over the period to 2050. The IEA estimates that global clean energy investment will increase by more than 10% in 2022 to reach a total of $1.4 trillion, but this is due almost entirely to advanced economies and China. Meanwhile, despite some bright spots, clean energy spending in emerging and developing economies outside China remains at 2015 levels. Many countries find themselves in a trap, with underdeveloped financial markets deterring investment, and a lack of projects preventing the establishment of reliable pricing benchmarks. IEA analysis, based on surveys of investors and experts in different countries, has shown that the cost of capital for a utility-scale solar PV plant in 2021 was between two and three times higher in key emerging economies than in advanced economies and China. As a result, financing costs accounted for around half of total levelized costs of a solar PV plant, notably higher than the 25% to 30% seen in advanced economies and China. TradeArabia News Service The European Union on Monday condemned Serbia's decision to hold foreign policy consultations with Russia, saying it raises questions at a time when Brussels is telling countries seeking to join the bloc not to continue doing business as usual with Moscow, Reuters reported. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Serbian counterpart Nikola Selakovic signed a document called the consultation plan on Friday. Selakovic said the plan includes consultations on bilateral and multilateral activities, although there is nothing in it about security policy. Serbian opposition parties have criticized the document. Serbia, which was bombed by NATO two decades ago and now aspires to join the European Union, has long struggled to find a balance between historically close ties with Russia and a desire for economic and political integration with the West. Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Monday, Peter Stano, a spokesman for the EU executive commission, noted that a new document on Russian-Serbian consultations was signed just days after Moscow announced mobilization for war in Ukraine and began voting on the annexation of territories it had seized. The agreement between Serbia and Russia was a very clear sign of their intention to strengthen their ties. And that raises serious questions, Stano said. He said the EU has made it clear to countries wishing to join the EU that relations with Russia cannot be business as usual in the current circumstances. Serbia has declared EU accession a strategic priority, which implies alignment with European policy, including on foreign policy, he added. He says they take it very seriously and are following developments.. In a statement, Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin called the memorandum signed with Russia a technical document and said EU officials do not want to allow Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to pursue an independent policy. Serbia previously refused to join sanctions against Russia. On Sunday, Selakovic said Serbia would not recognize the results of referendums in parts of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow. That would be against their national interests, a new N1 TV channel quoted him. Serbia still refuses to recognize the independence of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. The meetings of the Armenian authorities in the U.S. did not yield anything, although, they will probably say nice words and make nice promises, they will talk about democracy, human rights, and they might even promise humanitarian aid, political analyst Artur Khachikyan told NEWS.am. He called for answering the question whether the West is ready to guarantee the inviolability of Armenia's territorial integrity and the security of the Artsakh people. "I have not heard an answer to this question from the West. Nothing is said about military or financial aid, which would enable us to buy weapons," the expert stressed. Khachikyan expressed his concern that the ruling force of Armenia, being inexperienced and naive, may believe beautiful words and make a big mistake and the price will be paid by our 20-year old guys at the border. In his estimation, the biggest war since World War II has broken out in Europe, and the threat of nuclear weapons is being openly discussed, which was not the case even during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The world is divided into two parts, there is a deadly war between the West and the Russian Federation. "Therefore, the question arises: what signals are the Armenian authorities sending to Russia by traveling to the West? The dissatisfaction with Russia and the CSTO is understandable, but it must be dealt with. Are we ready for enmity with Russia? Moscow can very easily punish us for that by taking a half step back and allowing the Turks to seize Syunik. They already accuse us of unreliability there. You cannot meet with Russia's blood enemy in such a situation. Part of the Armenian society has the idea in its head that we are ready to be accepted into NATO tomorrow. If the West is ready to support and protect us from its ally Turkey, I am ready to accept that I was wrong. But they won't. They haven't even imposed sanctions on Turkey," Hachikian said. Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who denounces ethnic cleansing and speaks of human rights, went to Baku and openly said that Azerbaijan is an important partner for the EU. "The West is ready to deceive us with beautiful words, to spoil our relations with Russia, and then the Russians will punish us. The Armenian authorities think they can play this game with the West, which they do. But the countries having real leverage in the West in the form of gas, oil, and army can behave this way. We have nothing to offer them," he concluded. Speaker Knockerz | Source: facebook.com/itsthespeakerknockerz twitter.com/mymixtapez The talented Speaker Knockerz was 19 years old when he was found dead in his home; almost a decade after his passing, Twitter users pay tribute to his legacy and ponder what he could have been. Advertisement Derek McAllister, who went by the stage name, Speaker Knockerz, was still a teenager when he left a long-lasting influence on the music industry. A hip-hop artist, Speaker Knockerz was not signed to a big record label but became popular among underground rap fans. Music ran out in his family, as his brother and father were artists. After his passing, his team continued releasing his music on Youtube, garnering millions of views. Advertisement Speaker Knockerz Was a Young Hip Hop Artist Speaker Knockerz worked in the music industry as a producer and a rapper; he was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1994 but lived in South Carolina. By the time he was 13, he had a feature on Meek Mill's song "Dreamchasers." His music production had him rubbing his shoulder with other stars like Gucci Mane and 2 Chainz. However, he shot to fame for his talent in front of the mic; his hit single "Lonely" documented his personal struggles, such as falling out with his mother, which led to her kicking him out of her home and him dropping out of school. His success on YouTube stemmed From "Rico Story Trilogy"; his rapping style was described as "unique," and "Rico Story" was said to capture his impressive storytelling ability. Advertisement Speaker Knockerz Passed Away at the Age of 19 In 2014, the Richland County Coroner's office confirmed the up-and-coming rapper was found dead in his South Carolina home on a Thursday. Speaker Knockerz was found unresponsive in his garage on Two Notch Road in Columbia and declared dead. Advertisement While The Richland County Sheriff's Department was still investigating the case, no signs of foul play were discovered, and an autopsy found no sign of trauma. A Toxicology report revealed that he had overdosed on codeine syrup which led to him suffering a heart attack. Advertisement A woman on Facebook claimed to be his mother and said he was last seen in a black Camaro days before his death. She shared that it was unlike him to cut communication and not return home. She wrote: "I pray that my son is ok." The day before his death, he published a post on his Twitter page about his single, "Lonely." In 2021, XXL Magazine honored the day of Speaker Knockerz's passing by sharing a post about him; the tweet featured two pictures of the late rapper and wrote, "seven years ago, we lost Speaker Knockerz." In 2014, he shared a flyer promoting his scheduled performance at Club Ambition; the live performance was meant to take place on March 8 and would have included his hit singles "Rico Story Trilogy" and "Lonely." Advertisement Advertisement In 2021, My Mixtapez honored the anniversary of Speaker Knockerz's death as well; in the image of him that they shared, the rapper wore a white shirt and sunglasses, and they wrote: "His sound has influenced many of the rappers in this generation. Rest in paradise." Fans Remember Speaker Knockerz After His Death Even after his passing, fans honored Speaker Knockerz's legacy annually, and Twitter users paid tribute to the rapper. Fans pondered what he could have been had he stayed alive, a user writing that they could not imagine Speaker Knockerz's potential. Advertisement Advertisement His music was uploaded on Spotify and wracked in over 800 thousand monthly listeners. His "Popular releases" included "Married to the Money," "Married to the Money II," "Finesse Father," and "Rico Story Trilogy." Although Speaker Knockerz passed away at a young age, before his musical career had a chance to take off, his fans continued to celebrate and enjoy the music he left behind. He had the opportunity to work with stars in the music scene like Gucci Mane and lived in the memory of social media users. Egypt has seen an unprecedented leap in its natural gas export revenues, which have increased 13-fold over the past eight years, according to a report issued by the Cabinets Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC). Egypts natural gas and liquified natural gas (LNG) export revenues reached $8 billion in the fiscal year 2021/2022, up from $0.6 billion in 2013/2014, reported Emirates News Agency WAM, citing the report. Egypt has quadrupled its exports of LNG and natural gas over the past eight years from 1.9 million tonnes to 7.2 million tonnes. In the same period, Egypt signed 108 agreements with international companies for the excavation of gas and petrol with a minimum investment value of $22 billion. Egypts production has reached 69.2 billion cu m in 2021/2022 compared to 41.6 billion cu m in 2015/2016, a growth of 66.3 percent, the report read. Relief, joy at airport as zero quarantine kicks in Relief, joy at airport as zero quarantine kicks in Travellers arriving in Hong Kong on Monday were heading straight to their homes or hotels, instead of a designated quarantine hotel, as a new "0+3" arrangement takes effect. The new measure only requires new arrivals to undergo three days of medical surveillance in which they will be banned from venues that actively check the vaccine pass. The first travellers who touched down at the airport on Monday morning were mostly residents returning home or to work, or coming to Hong Kong to visit their families. Some of them told RTHK that it only took them around 30 minutes to complete the clearance process, saying the governments move to drop a requirement for them to wait for their PCR test result upon arrival has saved a lot of time. A woman who flew in from Singapore, who gave her name as Victoria, also welcomed the administrations decision to scrap the need for a PCR test before departure, saying the new rapid test requirement is way more convenient. Travellers heading out for a vacation, meanwhile, were also thrilled that they could cancel their quarantine hotel bookings. "Our expense for our trip is less than before because the fee of the [quarantine] hotel is too expensive, I remember it was around HK$7,000 for both of us," said Robin, who was flying to Thailand with his friend. Nevertheless, many travellers said they hope to see all travel restrictions cancelled as soon as possible. Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], September 26 (ANI/PRNewswire): Woxsen University's 4th Annual Global HR Leadership Conclave brought together top brass of the HR fraternity and visionaries across industries. A unique opportunity for students and faculty of business to engage with the HR leaders on one platform, gain deep industry insights and understand the latest skillset required. The panel discussions unravelled invaluable insights on the evolution of HR. How the top HR professionals are reprioritizing function goals, be it mapping talent to value, creating a workforce resilient to future disruptors, strategic workforce planning, change management and DEI initiatives. The 4th edition saw a stellar & illustrious line-up of HR Leaders including: Manas Martha, Sr. VP-HR, TTK Prestige Amit Kataria, Ex-CHRO, Hanu SoftwareM Venkata Chalapathy, Sr. Director-HR, VirtusaIVS Ranganath, Head HR, Shriram Bioseed Dr Ankita Singh, Sr. VP-HR, CignexVeera Reddy, Head HR, Cigniti TechnologiesSharmila Thakur, Head HR, Bureau VeritasSubramanian S, India Lead-Campus Recruitment, Silicon LabsNarane Gundabathula, Head HR, CDK GlobalSrivatsa Nagarajaiah, Director HR, Thryve Digital. HR veteran, Manas Martha, Sr. VP-HR, TTK Prestige moderated the first panel. He quoted, "HR has evolved into becoming a strategic business partner and is playing a role in enabling people who are enabling businesses." The two important questions that the panelists focused on were the role of HR as culture custodian and role of HR as Strategic Business Partner. IVS Ranganath, Head HR, Shriram Bioseed sharing his views on cultural shift from industrial revolution to information revolution to social revolution, said, "The organisations of today has a mix up of employees from Gen X, Y & Z. So the culture of an organisation has to be adaptable to these various generations of people." Sharmila Thakur, Head HR, Bureau Veritas while expressing her views on how an organisation can measure if their employees are keeping up with its culture, exclaimed, "As an HR, you need to capture the voice of your employees, after which you arrive at certain dimensions and parameters of how aligned they are to your company's culture. They would never promote your culture unless they are aligned with you." Amit Kataria, Ex-CHRO, Hanu Software, moderated the second panel which elucidated on digital transformation and importance of futuristic skills to excel in today's world. Dr. Ankita Singh, Sr. VP-HR, Cignex quoted, "You may be the expert in a particular thing but if it's not the need of the market, then it has no value. Two important skills that can never be compromised to survive in an organisation are human skills & communication skills." Veera Reddy, Head HR, Cigniti Technologies sharing his thoughts on Digital Transformation & Digital Disruption said, "HR is getting technical in today's world. Digital transformation is not taking jobs away, instead it is creating more job opportunities." Talking about DEI, Srivatsa Nagarajaiah, Director HR, Thryve Digital added, "It is the responsibility of the organization to build an environment conducive to workforce from diverse backgrounds and physical abilities. HR plays a critical role to ensure inclusivity, helping attract and retain good talent to remain competitive in business." This year's Global HR Conclave acted as a platform where HR Veterans convened and expressed their individual perspectives on topics ranging from Human engineering, transformation from predictive analytics to prescriptive analytics of HR, Inclusivity, Ethical Code of Conduct & Sustainability among others. Woxsen University, located in Hyderabad, is one of the first private universities of the state of Telangana, India. Renowned for its 200-acre state-of-the-art campus and infrastructure, Woxsen University offers new-age, disruptive programs in the fields of Business, Technology, Arts & Design, Architecture, Law, Liberal Arts & Humanities. With 92+ Global Partner Universities and Strong Industry Connect, Woxsen is reckoned as one of the top universities for Academic Excellence and Global Edge. Woxsen is Ranked #13, All India Top 150 B-Schools by Times B-School Ranking 2022, Rank #16, All India Top Pvt. B-School, BusinessWorld 2021 and features in India's Best B-Schools beyond IIMs by Dalal Street Investment Journal. This story has been provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/PRNewswire) Bangalore (Karnataka) [India], September 26 (ANI/NewsVoir): CustomFit.ai is a robust, no-code website personalization platform created for marketing teams to display the best pitch for each visitor in order to maximize sales via increased conversions and engagement on websites with tailored, goal-oriented, and ever-changing content. CustomFit.ai's ability to identify visitors and map their traits from various sources, as well as understand visitor behavior from their journeys and actions, removes the guesswork and provides valuable insights to marketers, allowing them to plan and design their marketing campaigns and website optimization strategies effectively and effortlessly. The powerful visual editor in CustomFit.ai gives marketers the freedom to customize any aspect of the site as they see fit. The platform does not care what kind of frontend or backend technology is powering the website. Therefore, it can be easily integrated with ANY platform (WordPress, Webflow, Bubble, Wix, in-house/custom-built websites, etc.) in a matter of minutes. Now the business and marketing departments will be able to make changes, run trials, and optimize websites without involving the IT department. Teams who have used CustomFit.ai have found that they gain not just from an increase in lead conversion, but also from the value-addition that comes from upselling and cross-selling tactics. Why did CustomFit.ai decide to recognise and honour India's greatest marketing agencies? We at CustomFit.ai always had this concept that we should work toward developing a holistic community for Marketers, and we had done a lot of events in the past as well for this purpose, but they were on a modest scale. One of our goals going forward is to expand the size of those activities. This time, we made the conscious decision to take things to the next level, and the outcome of that decision is the #Top20IndianDigitalMarketingAgenciesAwards. In spite of the significant contributions they provide to the marketing profession, agencies are among the least respected players. As a result, we committed ourselves to the endeavor of identifying the top 20 agencies in India, despite the fact that it is a rather challenging feat. What is the procedure for selecting the winners? A series of rigorous procedures were taken. These are the steps we took. One of the first things we solicited nominations from all Indian agencies. In polling, anyone may come and vote for their favourite agency, and we held a poll for 10 days as a result. Second, we spoke with all of the shortlisted agencies' clients to get their input on the nominated agencies. Third, we evaluated the social evidence of each of these agencies by checking at their online customer reviews or product reviews. In the fourth step, we examined all of these agencies' social participation by examining their social media postings and interaction on these posts. We completed all of the preceding processes, and weightage was assigned to each of the previously obtained parameters. Winners were chosen based on the scores obtained with these parameters along with the jury feedback for each. Believe us, this is a difficult effort. What is the response from agencies? Agency cooperation and healthy rivalry have existed from the get-go. While still in the first stages of polling, we have had extensive interactions with all of the agencies involved. Most of the agencies submitted very insightful comments during the evaluation process. All of the awardees were visibly moved by the outpouring of support they received at the awards ceremony's conclusion. Words from Co-founder & CEO of CustomFit.ai - Ashwin Kumar "CustomFit.ai is a platform developed for marketers, and we have been in daily contact with the marketing community since our inception. We have observed that marketing agencies acquire new technologies quickly and make every effort to pass these technologies and their benefits on to their clients. Regardless of the hurdles, agencies strive extremely hard to accomplish the goals established by their customers. CustomFit.ai's award is social acknowledgment for their outstanding work and devotion to assisting their clients' businesses in growing. I am confident that this award will help organizations distinguish between excellent and outstanding. Congratulations to everyone who won!" - Ashwin Kumar Top 20 winners (not in any order) - Social Beat- RepIndia- SRV Media- PivotRoots- Pink Lemonade communication- BC Web Wise- Kenscio Digital Marketing- Pulp Strategy Communication- Eggfirst Advertising and Design- Adyogi- Technians- Saletancy Consulting- Blusteak Media- Growth Hackers Digital- Big Bang Social- Spinta Digital- Diquery Digital- Brandshark- The Go-To Guy!- XOR Labs Hall of Fame Winnerswww.customfit.ai/top20-marketing-agencies-of-india-award-winners CustomFit Contact detailsWebsite: www.customfit.aiLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/customfitai/Twitter: twitter.com/CustomFitAiEmail: reach@customfit.ai. This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) Mumbai (Maharashtra)/ New Delhi [India], September 26 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised Abrdn Investment Management Limited, a subsidiary of Abrdn Plc (formerly known as Standard Life Aberdeen Plc), in relation to the block trade by Abrdn Plc in HDFC Asset Management Company Limited (HDFC AMC). Abrdn Investment Management is one of the promoters of the HDFC AMC and had undertaken several rounds of secondary trade of equity shares of the HDFC AMC on the stock exchange in the past. The Capital Markets Practice of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised abrdn Group on the transaction documents. The transaction team was led by Yash Ashar, Partner & Head - Capital Markets; and Abhinav Kumar, Partner; with support from Parth Desai, Senior Associate. Tax advisory was led by SR Patnaik, Partner; with assistance from Bipluv Jhingan, Principal Associate. As a part of the transaction, Abrdn Investment Management, undertook the sale by way of one or more share sales on the screen-based trading of BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited for an aggregate consideration of Rs 2,477 crores (approx.). The transaction involved a sale of 12,800,000 equity shares of the face value of Rs. 5 each of HDFC AMC, representing 6.00 per cent of the paid-up equity share capital of HDFC AMC, by Abrdn Investment Management. Other Parties and Advisors to the transaction included Jefferies India Private Limited (acted as Broker). The aggregate value of the transaction is Rs 2,477 crore (approx.). The transaction was signed on August 15, 2022; and closing on September 18, 2022. This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said it has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 1 lakh on Surat-based Varachha Co-operative Bank for contravention of directions issued by RBI on loans and advances to directors. The RBI has issued an order in this regard dated September 16, 2022. Varachha Co-operative Bank has been found guilty of contravention of directions issued by RBI on 'Loans and advances to directors etc- directors as surety/guarantors- Clarification-UCBs'. This penalty has been imposed in exercise of powers vested in the RBI under the provisions of Section 47 A (1) (c) read with Sections 46 (4) (i) and 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, taking into account the failure of the bank to adhere to the aforesaid directions issued by RBI, the RBI said. This action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers, the central bank said. The statutory inspection of the bank conducted by RBI with reference to the bank's financial position as on March 31, 2021, and examination of the Risk Assessment Report and all related correspondence pertaining to the same revealed, inter alia, that the bank had sanctioned two credit facilities to individuals wherein a relative of one of its directors stood as the surety / guarantor, resulting in contravention of aforesaid directions issued by RBI. In furtherance to the same, a notice was issued to the bank advising it to show cause as to why penalty should not be imposed for contravention of the aforesaid directions issued by RBI. After considering the bank's reply to the notice, the RBI came to the conclusion that the aforesaid charge was substantiated and warranted imposition of monetary penalty, RBI said in a statement. (ANI) IDBI Capital and SMC Capitals are the lead managers to the issue. The IPO, the company informed, is a complete offer for sale (OFS) of up to 32,500,000 equity shares by the promoter, the Government of India, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP). Wapcos is a central public sector enterprise under the administrative control of the ministry of Jal Shakti. It engages in engineering consultancy and construction in the fields of water, power and infrastructure for businesses and communities in India and overseas. The state-run firm has projects in 30 countries and has provided engineering consultancy services to clients in over 50 countries in the last five decades. These countries are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Botswana, Cambodia, Cuba, the Central African Republic, DR Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, and Fiji Islands. The firm's consolidated order book position was Rs2,533.94 crore and construction contracts for Rs18,497.83 crore. Total outstanding borrowings are Rs722.10 crore. For the financial year 2021-22, the firm reported revenue of Rs2,797.99 crore versus Rs2,512.87 crore a year ago. Net profit was at Rs 68.77 crore versus Rs 60.15 crore last year. (ANI) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said it has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 5 lakh on Andaman and Nicobar State Co-operative Bank Ltd for non-compliance with certain provisions of the banking laws. The RBI said it has issued an order in this regard dated September 22, 2022. Andaman & Nicobar State Co-operative Bank Ltd has been penalised for contravention of/non-compliance with the provisions of Section 20 read with Section 56 of BR Act, 1949 (AACS). This penalty has been imposed in exercise of powers vested in RBI under the provisions of Section 47 A (1) (c) read with Section 46 (4) (i) and Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, taking into account the failure of the bank to adhere to the aforesaid directions issued by RBI. This action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers, the RBI said in a statement. The inspection report of the bank based on its financial position as on March 31, 2019, revealed, inter alia, violation/non-compliance with the provisions of Section 20 read with Section 56 of the BR Act, 1949 (AACS) as the bank sanctioned unsecured loans to its directors. Based on the same, a Notice was issued to the bank advising it to show cause as to why a penalty should not be imposed for non-compliance with the directions. After considering the bank's reply and additional submissions made by it, RBI came to the conclusion that the aforementioned charges of non-compliance with RBI directions were substantiated and warranted the imposition of a monetary penalty. (ANI) Excerpts from late British actor Alan Rickman's journal have shed light on his decade-long journey through the 'Harry Potter' franchise and why he decided to continue playing the anguished wizard and Professor Severus Snape in it. According to EW, in the excerpts published in a British newspaper, Rickman shared entries about his desire to exit Harry Potter as Snape in 2002, one month after the release of 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'. In an entry dated December 4, 2002, Rickman wrote, "Talking to [agent] Paul Lyon-Maris about HP exit, which he thinks will happen. But here we are in the project-collision area again. Reiterating no more HP. They don't want to hear it." Rickman's decision to remain in the franchise came in 2006, not too long after the actor was released from the hospital, where he received treatment for prostate cancer. Doctors later decided to remove his entire prostate, with surgery occurring at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. EW reports that in an entry dated January 30, 2006, following the surgery, Rickman wrote, "Finally, yes to HP 5. The sensation is neither up nor down. The argument that wins is the one that says: 'See it through. It's your story.'" He also penned his thoughts regarding Snape's death, "I have finished reading the last Harry Potter book. Snape dies heroically, Potter describes him to his children as one of the bravest men he ever knew and calls his son Albus Severus." Further, Rickman also noted that he had always known about his character's unrequited love for Harry's mother, Lily Potter. "This was a genuine rite of passage. One small piece of information from Jo Rowling seven years ago - Snape loved Lily - gave me a cliff edge to hang on to." The diary entries, which span 25 years of Rickman's life, will be published as a book, 'Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman', out on October 4. EW previously reported that publishing house Canongate would release the book, set to feature stories from the sets of some of Rickman's most significant films and stage productions. The actor died from pancreatic cancer in 2016. He was 69. (ANI) The news was confirmed by sources to The Hollywood Reporter. They said Winfrey and Apple TV+ would continue to work together on a project-by-project basis. This comes a couple of days after the debut of the documentary Sidney, a collaboration between Winfrey and Apple TV+ focusing on the life of Sidney Poitier. Reginald Hudlin directed the documentary, which debuted on Friday on the streaming service. Apart from that, they will continue their collaboration on 'Oprah's Book Club', which is available on Apple Books and OprahDaily.com. When the deal was signed in 2018, sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the pact encompassed film, TV, applications, books and other content that could easily be distributed on Apple's all-encompassing platform. The deal also was non-exclusive, allowing Winfrey will continue as chief of Discovery Communications-backed cable network OWN. Winfrey was said to have landed at Apple in a competitive situation, with other tech giants, likely including Netflix and Amazon, also pursuing a deal with Winfrey. Winfrey's deal with Apple has yielded the documentary series 'The Me You Can't See', a partnership with Prince Harry focusing on mental health, as well as 'The Oprah Conversation', a series of discussions with newsmakers, reported The Hollywood Reporter. Last year, Deadline revealed that Winfrey herself was getting the biographical documentary treatment with a two-part documentary feature from Kevin Macdonald. It's not clear if that project is still in the works. (ANI) Two persons were arrested for their involvement in hurling petrol bombs into the house of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu on September 24, said police on Sunday. The accused have been identified as Usain and Samsuddin. Two persons are still absconding and would be arrested soon. "Two persons were arrested for their involvements in hurling petrol bombs at the house of RSS functionary Krishnan on Sept 24. A total of four persons were involved in the incident. Two are absconding and would be arrested soon. RSS functionaries MS Krishnan house is still under inquiry," said T Senthil Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Madurai. He further said the police also registered against the petrol station owner for selling of 'loose' petrol in bottles, which was used for filling up petrol bombs. He also requested the petrol bulk owners to avoid giving loose petrol. "We have taken the list of vulnerable Hindu outfit persons and have been given protection," he said. As many as three petrol bombs were hurled into the house of a RSS member in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. The incident was captured in the CCTV footage which as per the timestamp took place around 7:38 pm on Saturday at Mel Anuppanadi housing board area in Madurai at the residence of MS Krishnan. The CCTV footage shows bike-borne men were seen approaching the house and hurling petrol bombs before the duo sped away. In this regard, RSS member Krishnan and BJP Madurai district president Suseendran had filed a petition to the Keerathurai police. "I have been working in an RSS organization for the last 45 years. Around 7 pm we did puja at my house with about 65 people. Then I heard a noise outside and when I came out, my car was on fire. Last year in 2014 police gave protection to me due to danger to my life but the police protection was withdrawn in 2021. More than 20 RSS workers like me have been attacked in Tamil Nadu alone. We have lodged a complaint with the police regarding the petrol bomb hurled at my house. They assured to arrest the accused by tonight," said Krishnan. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu BJP has written to Home Minister Amit shah highlighting the increasing attacks against BJP and RSS functionaries in recent times. The letter to Amit shah mentioned 19 attacks against those belonging to Hindu outfits (the incident include the damaging of houses, vehicles, hurling of petrol bombs etc.). Earlier, a petrol bomb was hurled at the house of an RSS leader near Tambaram near Chennai in the early hours of Saturday, said the police.(ANI) Enoc Group, a leading oil and gas player operating across the energy sector value chain, will showcase its key midstream and downstream projects at the Water, Energy, Technology, and Environment Exhibition (Wetex). Enoc Group, one of the Jubilee sponsors, will display its five milestone projects including Enoc Jet-Fuel Pipeline Network, HTLs Fuel Supply Management System, Enoc Links eLink Station, VitalyX and Yes Rewards. The 24th edition of the regions largest sustainability and clean energy technology exhibition is set to take place from September 27 to 29 at Dubais World Trade Centre. Sustainable future The industry event is in line with Dubais vision to build a sustainable future for the Emirate and is held annually under the directive of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai and under the patronage of Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy. Saif Humaid Al Falasi, Group CEO, Enoc, said: Every year Wetex brings together industry experts and leading players to showcase innovation and cutting-edge technologies while leading discussions on the latest energy trends, policies, and regulations. As a leading integrated global oil and gas player operating across the energy sector value chain, we believe that it is imperative to have a strong presence at such dynamic industry events. Through our participation at Wetex, we endeavour to shed light on some of the projects operating across our various business units. These projects showcase innovation and advanced solutions which will support Dubais position as a pioneering global hub for innovation and sustainable economy. We are proud to sponsor and participate in this years edition of Wetex and look forward to contributing to yet another successful edition. Jet fuel Enocs Jet-Fuel Pipeline Network links its Horizon Emirates Jebel Ali Petroleum (HEJP) storage terminal in Jebel Ali to Al Maktoum International Airport and will meet the demand for jet fuel at Dubai Airports up until 2050. Enocs Horizon Terminals has deployed the advanced Fuel Supply Management system, a digital solution that helps plan fuel supplies to retail stations based on their current stock while also forecasting demand. The eLink Station is a mobile fueling format that enables motorists and customers easy access and convenient fueling services. Vitaly X provides real time analysis for in-service lubricants monitoring with integrated data processing capabilities and transmittance via cloud-based system to end user and display the results via dashboard. This will enhance efficiency, reduce industrial downtime, and improve an assets lifespan. Yes Rewards is Enoc Groups fuel rewards programme that enables customers to earn points and rewards when paying for fuel, automotive services or for purchasing convenience store products and groceries; across Enocs and EPPCO service station network. Wetex and Dubai Solar Show are the perfect platforms to display the latest technological advancements and discuss the latest trends related to energy, water conservation, saving natural resources and building a sustainable environment. They provide an ideal opportunity for local and international companies and organisations to share and showcase their products and services, along with offering a forum to share best practices and experiences with exhibitors from around the world.-- TradeArabia News Service Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday said all people living in India are Hindus in terms of identity. Elaborating the RSS' philosophy, Bhagwat said that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. Addressing a gathering in Shillong, the RSS chief said all are Hindus as all Indians are the inhabitants of Hindustan, which, he said is in the south of the Himalayas, north of Indian Ocean, on the bank of the Indus river. "The habitants of this area are traditionally called Hindus. This is also called Bharat," said Bhagwat, who arrived here on Saturday on a two-day visit. He said that even before the Mughals who have spread Islam and the British rulers who spread Christianity, Hindus were already in existence. Highlighting the ideology of RSS, Bhagwat said the term 'Hindu' covers all those who are the sons of 'Bharat Mata', descendants of Indian ancestors and who live in accordance with Indian culture. Ruling out the fear of religious conversion, the RSS supremo said to become Hindu one does not have to change since everyone here is Hindu. "India is not a country with a western concept. It has been a cultural country since time immemorial; in fact, it is such a country, which has taught the world the lesson of humanity." Since Saturday, he has attended a series of events, including the meeting of RSS functionaries and workers across the hill state. Several BJP leaders, members of Hindu organisations attended the events organised by the Meghalaya unit of RSS. Bhagwat's visit to Meghalaya -- a Christian majority state, assumes significance as Assembly elections are scheduled to be held there in February next year. Elaborate security arrangements were made in the state in view of the visit of Bhagwat, who has a 'Z Plus' security cover. --IANS sc/pgh ( 316 Words) 2022-09-25-23:16:02 (IANS) This will be her first visit to any state as the President of India. According to a statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan, on September 26, the President will inaugurate the Mysuru Dasara Festival at Chamundi Hills, Mysuru. On the same day, she will attend the felicitation function 'Poura Sanmana' organized by the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation at Hubali. She will also inaugurate the new campus of the Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad at Dharwad. The president will inaugurate an Integrated Cryogenic Engines Manufacturing Facility of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bengaluru on Tuesday. During her visit to the state, President Murmu will also lay the foundation stone for the Zonal Institute of Virology (South Zone) virtually. She will further grace the inaugural function of St. Joseph's University on the same day and later attend a civic reception hosted by the Government of Karnataka in her honour in Bengaluru. President Murmu will then return to the national capital on Wednesday, September 28. (ANI) Professor Jagmohan Singh, nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh on Sunday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement to name the Chandigarh Airport after the great martyr and termed it as a victory of the people. In the 93rd episode of his monthly Mann ki Baat address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that Chandigarh airport will now be named after Shaheed Bhagat Singh as a tribute to the great freedom fighter. "We welcome the decision to honour the great freedom fighter but I think this was the long pending decision as the issue was raised in 2006 and a resolution was brought in the Punjab Assembly session on the 100th birth anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, demanding that Chandigarh airport be named after him. But the Haryana government started suggesting names of their own people and at that time a Central minister's statement came that the airport will not be named after any particular person and it will be named only after a city," said Singh. Professor Singh further said that later when under pressure of the people of the State, the Haryana government passed a resolution in the State Legislative Assembly in 2010 to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. He said that it is also necessary that the said airport should not be handed over to any corporate, which would be against the thinking of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. "However, photographs of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev should be put up inside the airport because Vidyavati ji, mother of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, believed that her son does not like standing alone, he should be allowed to stay with his companions. Similarly, it was officially accepted by the Prime Minister that Shaheed Bhagat Singh is the biggest martyr of the country and now Chandigarh airport will also be named after him," Singh added. PM Modi during his monthly address said, "As a tribute to the great freedom fighter, it has been decided that the Chandigarh airport will now be named after Shaheed Bhagat Singh." The renaming of the airport is seen as a victory for the efforts of the Bhagwant Mann government in Punjab. The AAP expressed that the continuous efforts of the Punjab government were successful. Mann tweeted, "We welcome the decision to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh Ji on behalf of entire Punjab...Thank you very much Prime Minister @narendramodi Ji...a big demand of Punjabis for a long time completed". The Punjab government was in talks with Haryana last month and raised the demand to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. The AAP government further claimed that the previous government in the state hadn't been able to take consent and change the name of the airport and thanked PM for accepting the Mann government's decision. (ANI) The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) saved the lives of five people stranded on an island in a river in Sahaspur, Dehradun on Sunday. A spokesperson said that the SDRF was informed by the Disaster Control Room Dehradun last night that the water level in the river of Sahaspur has increased exceedingly due to excessive rainfall, due to which some people are trapped on the island built on the river. After reaching the spot, the SDRF rescue teams brought five people trapped on the island back to the shore through rafts. According to the weather department's latest forecast, an intense spell of rainfall is likely to continue over parts of the plains of northwest India, Uttarakhand on September 25-26, and Himachal Pradesh and West Uttar Pradesh on September 25. A yellow alert has been sounded for Monday, with a forecast of thunderstorms, and lightning with intense showers at isolated places. The Gangotri highway remained shut for vehicular movement at Helgu Gad due to the continuous rock and boulder falls over the past week, leading pilgrims to make alternate arrangements to stay at Gangnani and Bhatwadi in the Uttarkashi district. The state received 9.6 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours between 8.30 am on Friday and 8.30 am on Saturday, recording nearly 72 per cent excess than the average, according to the weather bureau. Haridwar district reported a maximum of 29.6mm rainfall, recording a 449 per cent excess. Dehradun district received 16.9mm of rainfall, while Rudraprayag, where the Kedarnath shrine is located, reported 3.1mm of rain in the same period, registering a shortfall of 43 per cent from the normal. Uttarkashi, where Gangotri and Yamunotri are located, reported 9.3mm rainfall, registering a departure of 53 per cent from normal. Chamoli, where the Badrinath shrine is located, recorded 9.8mm rainfall, registering a departure of 35 per cent from normal. (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has instructed the officials to ensure "better law and order" in the state and also to keep a close watch on the anti-social elements who are "disturbing the peaceful environment". The Chief Minister gave the instructions during a review meeting with the officials on late Sunday evening in the state secretariat. The Chief Minister also asked them to take strict action against the criminals. This comes amid the protests in various parts of the state regarding the murder of a 19-year-old girl in Rishikesh, Ankita Bhandari, by expelled BJP leader Vinod Arya's son Pulkit Arya. "In the review meeting, the Chief Minister has directed the Chief Secretary, Director General of Police, all the Commissioners and District Magistrates to work responsibly in maintaining law and order and peace in the state," said a statement by the Chief Minister's Office. Earlier Dhami had said the Special Investigation Team is probing the Ankita murder case from every angle and the investigation will not be influenced. Speaking to ANI, CM Dhami said that all the evidence related to this murder is safe and that there will be no attempt to destroy it. CM Dhami also praised deceased Ankita Bhandari's father and said, "I salute Ankita Bhandari's father that after the heinous crime with his daughter, he is trying to move on with the investigation. I am in constant talks with the family and his father and the family members have agreed with the action. The Chief Minister said that all the evidence related to this murder is safe. He said he will ensure that there will be no attempt to destroy evidence. "This case will be heard by fast track court because the daughter of Uttarakhand should get justice at the earliest. He said that we will request the Hon'ble High Court that a separate court should be constituted for this so that the culprits get such severe punishment that it becomes a precedent in history," Dhami said. The body of 19-year-old Ankita Bhandari who was reported missing a few days ago was also recovered on September 24 from the Chilla canal in Rishikesh. Three persons, including Pulkit Arya, were arrested on Friday after they confessed to having pushed Ankita into the canal after an altercation. The SIT on Sunday told ANI that her Whatsapp chats were also being probed. The SIT in charge of Ankita Bhandari's murder case, DIG PR Devi, told ANI that Ankita's WhatsApp chats that have surfaced are also being probed. Earlier, anger over the horrific crime poured onto streets in other parts of Uttarakhand as well as locals jammed the bus station in Pauri. Protestors also gheraoed District Magistrate's office in Pauri. (ANI) Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Monday announced that his new political outfit will be named as 'Democratic Azad Party'. The development comes exactly a month after Azad resigned from the Congress party. Announcing the name of the new party at a press conference here, Azad said that the outfit will be secular, democratic and independent from any influence. Azad also unveiled the flag of the Democratic Azad Party. The flag has three colours - mustard, white and blue. Yesterday, Azad held meetings with his workers and leaders. Earlier, Azad, in his first public meeting in Jammu after quitting Congress, had announced to launch of his own political outfit that will focus on the restoration of full statehood. He had said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir would decide the party's name and flag."I've not decided upon a name for my party yet. The people of J-K will decide the party's name and flag. I'll give a Hindustani name to my party that everyone can understand," he said at the rally after breaking away from his five-decade-long association with the grand old party. "My party will focus on the restoration of full statehood, right to land, and employment to native domicile," he added then. Azad said that the first unit of his political outfit would be formed in Jammu and Kashmir in view of impending assembly polls. "My party will focus on the restoration of full statehood, right to land, and employment to native domicile," he added. He lashed out at Congress and said that people are trying to defame us (me and my supporters who left the party) but their reach is limited to computer tweets. Azad said, "Congress was made by us by our blood, not by computers, not by Twitter. People are trying to defame us but their reach is limited to computers and tweets. That is why Congress is nowhere to be seen on the ground." The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said in his first public meeting at Sainik Colony in Jammu. Azad has been Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir from 2005 to 2008. In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi, he had targeted party leadership, particularly Rahul Gandhi, over the way the party has been run in the past nearly nine years. In the hard-hitting five-page letter, Azad had claimed that a coterie runs the party while Sonia Gandhi was just "a nominal head" and all the major decisions were taken by "Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs". He was earlier Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha. Recounting his long association with the Congress, Azad had said the situation in the party has reached a point of "no return." While Azad took potshots at Sonia Gandhi in the letter, his sharpest attack was on Rahul Gandhi and he described the Wayand MP as a "non-serious individual" and "immature". (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate on the plea of former Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain challenging the order of transfer of his case, and asked ED to file a reply. The court will hear the matter on Wednesday. The bench comprising of Justice Yogesh Khanna posted the matter on September 28, after Additional Solicitor General SV Raju said to argue the case later. On the other hand, senior advocates N Hariharan and Rahul Mehra submitted that it is an urgent matter. Hariharan submitted that the hearing on bail application was going on from August. This transfer order is unwarranted and sends a wrong message to society. Mehra submitted that the order of the Supreme Court said that the bail matter should be decided in 14 days. This matter should be heard today or tomorrow. ASG SV Raju said that the notice has not been issued. "I am not available tomorrow, so please keep the matter on Wednesday," he added. At this point, Hariharan said, "there is an election on Wednesday. So please keep it for tomorrow." Satyendar Jain had on Friday moved the Delhi High Court seeking a transfer of his case to another judge. Jain moved Delhi High Court challenging the Principal District and Sessions Court order allowing ED petition to transfer his case to another judge. The Division Bench of Justice Satish Chander Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad allowed the mentioning and listed the matter for Monday after senior advocate Rahul Mehra appearing for Jain mentioned the matter to the bench. The move came hours after Rouse Avenue Court transferred the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case of Satyendar Jain to another court on Friday morning, after hearing a petition from the Enforcement Directorate (ED). On Friday, the Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta agreed to transfer the Satyendar Jain money laundering case to another judge and listed the matter afresh for hearing today itself. According to the order, the case was transferred to Special Judge Vikas Dhull. Earlier, it was heard in length by Special Judge Geetanjali Goel. Earlier on Thursday, during arguments of ED, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju submitted that there was an attempt to seek medical bail by using false medical reports. "Satyendar Jain was also the Jail Minister. He spent most of the time in the hospital during judicial custody, the medical report was fake. We gave all the documents to the court, but nothing happened. He has been handling the Delhi Prisons too as a Minister and can use power, money, and influence," ASG Raju added. Appearing for Satyendar Jain, senior advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that he was shifted to LNJP Hospital and as per the jail manual no violation was held. "When the same judge granted remand to Satyendar Jain then it was fine. The ED plea seeking the transfer of the case to another is clearly showing a malafide contention. The ground taken by the ED is totally vague," Sibal said. Earlier the court of District Judge had stayed Satyendar Jain's trial after ED plea had sought the transfer of the case and issued notices to all the accused persons. All three accused, Satyendra Jain and the co-accused Ankush Jain and Vaibhav Jain are currently in Judicial Custody. Senior Advocate N Hariharan, appearing for Satyendra Jain, expressed his displeasure with Special Judge Geetanjali Goel and submitted, "It's really unfair. Totally uncalled for. They are preempting things. We'll oppose it tooth and nail." The ED had arrested Satyendar Jain and two others in a money laundering case based on a CBI FIR lodged against the AAP leader in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The minister was accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him. On September 16, the ED quizzed Jain inside the Jail in relation to the Excise policy case. Special Judge Geetanjali Goel allowed the application moved by the ED seeking permission to question Satyendar Jain in the excise policy case. Recently the court also took cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the ED against Satyendra Jain, his wife, and eight others including four firms in connection with the money laundering case. The ED on June 6 claimed to have seized Rs 2.85 crore in cash and 133 gold coins weighing 1.80 kg from Satyendar Jain's aides during its day-long raid conducted at various places across Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). During these raids, the agency also seized various incriminating documents and digital records. The ED initiated the money-laundering investigation on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on August 24, 2017. The FIR was registered under Section 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 against Satyendar Jain, Poonam Jain, Ajit Prasad Jain, Sunil Kumar Jain, Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain. (ANI) The Border Security Force (BSF) on Monday started an eight-day 'Bharat Darshan' tour of children hailing from remote border areas of the Jammu region. The tour, which will commence from September 27 to October 4, includes 35 children-- 20 boys and 15 girls. These students belong to a humble background and were selected from remote border areas, said the BSF in a statement. "During the tour, children will get an opportunity to visit various monuments in Gujarat like Kamala Nehru Zoo, Sabarmati River Front, Sabarmati Ashram, Statue of Unity, Sardar Sarovar Dam, Akshardham Temple, Gujarat Science City, Amul Dairy and Narendra Modi Stadium. During this tour children will also get a chance to meet the Governor and Chief Minister of Gujarat," mentions the statement. The aim of organizing the tour is to give exposure to the children hailing from the border areas about the rich heritage, culture and grandeur of our nation and help them to understand the unity in diversity of India, it said. Inspector General, BSF Jammu, D K Boora flagged off the 'Bharat Darshan' tour. Boora interacted with children and said that it is a "great opportunity for these children, not only to enhance their knowledge but also to know about different culture and traditions of our country". He further added that besides guarding the borders, BSF Jammu is also playing an active role in national integration by way of conducting such types of tours for the children of remote areas. These tours have garnered huge popularity among the masses of remote border areas of the Jammu region. (ANI) The 7th edition of the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) Research and Innovation Conference has opened its doors to decision makers from private and public firms, value chain stakeholders, industry leaders and academia. GPCAs only event of its kind dedicated to chemical research and innovation opened at the Address Sky View Hotel, Dubai, UAE under the theme Catalysing A Sustainable Future with R&I. Delivering the welcome remarks in the morning today, Dr Bob Maughon, EVP, Sustainability, Technology & Innovation and Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer, Sabic, and Chairman, R&I Committee, GPCA, called on the industry to invest in research and innovation for a more sustainable future. Sustainable solutions You wont deliver sustainable solutions without what our industry produces. () Whatever solutions we deliver will have an impact on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, he said. Dr Maughon added that for the industry to achieve its goals by 2030, collaboration is going to be key. He concluded by calling upon industry players to work more closely with other stakeholders, their peers, and colleagues, to build cross-value chain relationships, and foster collaboration between areas that have not traditionally been an area of focus. Next on stage was Abdulmohsen Almajnouni, Advisor to the President, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and Member, Core Development Team, RDIA, who delivered a plenary address on the role of regulators in enabling a globally competitive chemical industry. Almajnouni presented on the recently formulated Research, Development and Innovation Authority (RDIA) and its roadmap to achieve the national research, development and innovation (RDI) targets set by Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. One of them is growing the kingdoms R&I expenditure from 0.6% currently to 2.5% by 2040. To achieve this, Almajnouni said, the kingdom needs to boost the availability of skilled people across the RDI value chain; it must create cohesive funding programs with world-class budgets; and break down pre-existing regulatory barriers in Saudi Arabia to promote and induce public and private innovation. University-industry collaboration In the second plenary address of the day, Dr Kevin Cullen, VP of Innovation, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), shared learnings from industry and academia collaboration. He urged better university-industry collaboration and engaging in more strategic partnerships. This, he said is the key to creating new jobs, developing new products and services, growing the R&I sectors contribution to GDP, and driving up the revenue and profit of companies in the region. Dr Abdulwahab Al-Sadoun, Secretary General, GPCA, commented: I was delighted to welcome the R&I community to Dubai this morning for another edition of the GPCA Research and Innovation Conference after a three-year pause following the outbreak of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The insights, case studies and lessons learned shared by the speakers and guests made this edition worthwhile attending for senior industry leaders from both the region and the world. I look forward to welcoming the GCCs knowledgeable community of chemical researchers, academia, industry experts and students for Day 2 tomorrow to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the industry and how to position it for a more profitable growth through R&I. Innovation competition The conference hosted the 2nd GPCA Innovation Competition which recognised three undergraduate and three postgraduate university students from the Arabian Gulf in first, second and third place for their innovative research project. The top five shortlisted students were provided with one-of-a-kind opportunity to present their innovative ideas in front of delegates comprising global and regional industry leaders, the jury members and academia. Now in its 2nd edition, the GPCA Innovation Competition was launched to bridge the gap between industry and academia in line with GPCAs efforts to foster an innovation culture in the Arabian Gulf.-- TradeArabia News Service The Congress high command has asked Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath to immediately come to Delhi amid the ongoing political crisis in Rajasthan, sources said on Monday. Following the crisis in the state, Kamal Nath is likely to mediate. The development came a day after a legislative party meeting was scheduled on Sunday evening at the residence of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in the presence of observers for the state which included Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken, and was attended by Sachin Pilot and his camp MLAs. However, the Gehlot loyalists had held a meeting with Cabinet Minister Shanti Dhariwal at his residence, following which over 90 MLAs had submitted their resignations to Speaker CP Joshi. Ajay Maken on Monday termed the "parallel" meeting called by state Minister Shanti Dhariwal at his residence on Sunday an "indisciplined move" while also stating that the party has never allowed "conditional resolutions" to take place, as against the demands by the group. "It is an act of indiscipline. When an official meeting has been called, and if a parallel unofficial meeting is conducted, it is an act of indiscipline. We will see what action to be taken," Maken said earlier today. The two observers will return to the national capital today after the Gehlot camp MLAs refused to meet them. Maken told reporters that three members from the Gehlot camp - Shanti Dhariwal, C.P. Joshi and Pratap Khachriyawas - had met them and put forward three proposals, which they did not accept as it raised conflict of interest. "Their first proposal was to announce the implementation of the resolution of handing over the final responsibility of appointing the chief minister to the Congress high command and to pass it after October 19. We told them that this raises conflict of interest, as if Gehlot is elected as the Congress president then this proposal will empower him further after October 19 and there can be no bigger conflict of interest than this so we did not do this," Maken said. Further, Maken said that their second condition was that they wanted to come in groups and when we said that we wanted to talk to each of them individually as it has been a practice of the Congress to take feedback from each leader. However, they did not accept this. "Their third condition was that the chief minister should be picked from the 102 MLAs loyal to CM Gehlot and not from the Pilot group," Maken said. Maken said that "the three Gehlot camp supporters insisted on us meeting their three conditions and we told them that their exact sentiments will be conveyed to Congress chief, who will take the decision after talking to CM Ashok Gehlot and everyone else." "We waited for more MLAs to come but they didn't come, Now Mallikarjun Kharge and I are going to Delhi to submit our report to the Congress president," said Maken. Nobody has any idea about the number and identities of the MLAs who have resigned or not, Maken said. Pilot, is being seen as the successor of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who is all set to contest the Congress president election scheduled on October 17. The Rajasthan deputy chief minister late last night conducted a second round of meeting with the AICC observers. The Gehlot loyalists want someone from their own camp to be chosen as the next Chief Minister, instead of Pilot, who, according to them, had revolted against his own party back in 2020. (ANI) The kingpin of the psychotropic tablet case was arrested by a narcotics team on September 23, informed the Delhi Police today. The accused has been identified as Vimlesh Das, a native of Bihar. He was apprehended from his rented residence in Delhi. In the instance of the accused total of 104.112 kgs Tramadol (worth Rs 50 lakhs) was recovered from his rented premises in Uttam Nagar. Earlier, two psychotropic drug peddlers with the recovery of a huge cache of psychotropic drugs worth Rs 25 lakh were arrested on September 14 and after an extensive search, the police were able to apprehend the kingpin. Commissioner of police Ghanshyam Bansal informed, "A total of 104.112 KGs (2,16,000 Tablets) Tramadol was recovered worth Rs 50 lakhs and a strip of 10 has MRP worth Rs. 192 and sold at the rate of Rs. 200-250". Further investigation is in progress. In another case, the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police recovered 51 kg of psychotropic substance (Ganja), one transport vehicle, and arrested two accused who were engaged in the illicit trade on Sunday. The accused have been identified as Salman and Talim, aged 27 and 24 years respectively. According to DCP Crime Amit Goel, "A raid was organised upon specific input about transportation of illegal Ganja supply. A team was formed and a trap was laid near Shamshan Ghat, Old Seemapuri, Delhi. Further, as per information the transportation vehicle having 51 kg Ganja was intercepted by the team along with the accused". "The Vehicle has been seized along with recovered illegal Ganja (51 KG) and both the accused persons were arrested under provisions of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPS) Act", added the DCP. As per the police earlier, a cache of 51 KG Ganja was recovered from this gang and 03 persons were arrested. The accused have been running in judicial custody since Feb 2022. On sustained interrogation, the duo disclosed that they smuggled the illegal Ganja from Ankapalli, Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh for supply at Delhi, NCR, and Meerut, UP. The accused was remanded to police custody remand for 10 days and further investigation at the source of the substance is on. (ANI) Airports Council International (ACI) World, representing nearly 2,000 of the worlds airports, has called on member states to adopt an ambitious environmental agreement at the 41st assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organizations (ICAO). ACI World Director General Luis Felipe de Oliveira said: The adoption of an ambitious environmental agreement at the ICAO 41st Triennial Assembly fully aligned with the Paris Agreement and the aviation industrys own commitments would demonstrate the leadership and commitment of ICAO and governments in taking bold measures to combat climate change. The entire aviation industry had agreed in October 2021, through the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), to a common goal of Net Zero CO2 emissions by 2050. This goal is ambitious and achievable, but requires strong support from governments, with a clear regulatory framework to support the changes, including investment in the development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). ACI calls on all ICAO member States to: Continue to support the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), as the single global market-based mechanism for international aviation emissions; and, Agree a collective long-term aspirational goal (LTAG) of Net Zero by 2050, and the associated measures; both in accordance with the revisions to the Assembly Resolutions presented by the ICAO Council to the Assembly for adoption. It is essential that the aviation industry and ICAO States work together to support the objectives of the Paris Agreement and build a sustainable framework for the long-term development of the aviation industry. ICAO has shown such leadership in the past, and it needs to demonstrate similar leadership for our collective future. ACI will work with all participants at the 41st Assembly to achieve an ambitious outcome the time is now, de Oliveira added. TradeArabia News Service A case was registered against him for allegedly misbehaving with a female anchor during an interview given to a YouTube channel. Last week, a journalist complained against Bhasi that the actor used abusive words against her and other crew members during an interview to promote his latest movie Chattambi. Police will further record statements of the complainant and witnesses and check the CCTV visuals of the hotel where the interview occurred. Reacting to the incident, the actor said on Saturday that he did not shout at anyone and it was his reaction as a normal human being. Following the incident, another clip of an earlier interview with a male radio jockey surfaced on the internet where Bhasi allegedly used abusive language. Sreenath Bhasi will be playing the lead role for the first time in the movie Chattambi. (ANI) Amid the ongoing political fracas in Rajasthan and speculations of resignations of 90 MLAs doing rounds, Congress MLAs including Ganga Devi, Indira Meena dismissed the reports and said that they reached the meeting on a lighter note and signed a paper which everyone else was signing with no knowledge of its content. Congress MLA Ganga Devi highlighted that she did not read the letter and aligned with the party high command's decision. "I have no idea about the letter. I reached there late. I did not read the letter. I did not resign. We are with the decision of the high command. We had talked about meeting the supervisor but we could not go," said Congress MLA Ganga Devi. On the other hand, Congress MLA Indira Meena confirmed her presence during the meet and stressed on her support for Congress leader Sachin Pilot. "I was present during the meeting at Cabinet Minister Shanti Dhariwal's residence. We didn't know why the letter was being signed. I want Sachin Pilot to become the Chief Minister because when I contested elections, I saw Sachin Pilot first as a leader. We have no problem," said Congress MLA Indira Meena. She further noted that before signing the resignation letter they were not told what was written in the letter and why it was being signed. Earlier a legislative party meeting was scheduled on Sunday evening at the residence of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in the presence of the observers, which was attended by Sachin Pilot and his camp MLAs. However, the Gehlot loyalists had held a meeting with Cabinet Minister Shanti Dhariwal at his residence, following which over 90 MLAs had submitted their resignations to Speaker CP Joshi, according to sources. Pilot is being seen as the successor of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who is all set to contest the Congress president election scheduled on October 17. The Rajasthan deputy chief minister late last night conducted a second round of meeting with the AICC observers. The Gehlot loyalists want someone from their own camp to be chosen as the next Chief Minister, instead of Pilot, who, according to them, had revolted against his own party back in 2020. (ANI) The Supreme Court on Monday expressed its discontent over the delay in hearing the bail plea of former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who was arrested in a money laundering case, and directed the Bombay High Court to hear and expeditiously decide the matter. A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli noted that Deshmukh's bail plea was pending in the high court since March 21, and said that a person who filed a bail application has a legitimate expectation that his plea will be disposed of by the court concerned at an early date. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Deshmukh, sought interim bail saying that the hearing on the bail plea is being deferred. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Enforcement Directorate, opposed Deshmukh's plea seeking interim bail, saying that he top court should not pass any such order. The top court noted that keeping a bail plea pending is not consistent with the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution. After hearing arguments, it said: "We issue a direction and permit the petitioner to apply before the judge, to whom the case has been assigned, tomorrow." The bench said the application should be taken up for hearing during this week and also decided expeditiously, and clarified that it has not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case. The ED had arrested Deshmukh in November 2021 and he is currently in judicial custody. The high court, in April, had adjourned the hearing on Deshmukh's bail application, criticising the practice of seeking urgent hearings on bail applications citing medical emergencies. Deshmukh had moved the high court after a special court rejected his bail plea earlier. He had termed the ED's case false and frivolous. According to ED, Deshmukh misused his official position and collected money from various bars in Mumbai through police officer Sachin Waze, who has been dismissed. --IANS ss/vd ( 331 Words) 2022-09-26-19:04:04 (IANS) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will hold a review meeting of public sector banks on Tuesday, where the focus would be on status and performance of their credit and other welfare schemes for Scheduled Castes (SCs). Public sector banks give credit to people belonging to the SC community for various Central schemes like Stand-Up India, credit enhancement guarantee scheme for SCs and venture capital funds for the community, among others. All these activities are expected to be reviewed during the meeting, official sources said. Apart from this, various loan schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM), the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) as well as education loan, will also be reviewed. Chairman of National Commission for SCs and heads of public sector banks as well as representatives of financial institutions like SIDBI and NABARD as well as officials of the Department of Financial Services would also be present in the meeting. The meeting would also review the measures undertaken for the welfare of SCs in public sector banks, reservation, backlog vacancies and action taken to fill them up and functioning of welfare and grievance redressal mechanisms, sources said. --IANS ans/vd ( 224 Words) 2022-09-26-19:06:05 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday welcomed a sanitation worker from Gujarat -- Harsh Solanki and his family members -- to his Delhi residence for lunch. Kejriwal had invited Solanki to Delhi during his townhall with sanitation workers in Gujarat recently. In a meeting with the Dalit community in Ahmedabad on Sunday, Solanki first invited Kejriwal to have dinner at his house. In response, CM Kejriwal had said: "I will definitely come to your home. But before that, I have a suggestion. Will you accept?" When Solanki agreed, Kejriwal said: "I have that seen ahead of elections, all leaders go to the home of Dalits and have food. But to date, no leader has invited a Dalit to his home. So, will you come to my home for a meal?" Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Gujarat president Gopal Italia accompanied his family to Delhi on Monday. AAP leaders received Solanki at the airport and escorted him to Kejriwal's place for lunch. Raghav Chadha, AAP's Gujarat co-in charge, also received Solanki and his family at the airport. On this occasion, Harsh Solanki gifted him Babasaheb's picture. After having lunch, CM Kejriwal said: "I had the honour of hosting Harsh Solanki and his family, our guests from Gujarat; our families had lunch together at my residence. We don't have time for petty politics, we work for the public, that's why the public likes us. "The people first made our government in Delhi, then in Punjab and now people of Gujarat are saying that AAP's government is going to be formed in Gujarat too." Talking to the media on the recent developments in Rajasthan, Kejriwal said that "we don't know politics but work for the public, build schools and hospitals". "We do politics of work. First, the government was formed in Delhi and then in Punjab. Now, people in Gujarat are saying that AAP government will be formed there too. "They (Congress) are not even able to control their own party, both the parties do manipulations. They keep saying that Kejriwal should stop giving freebies. Today, the hope of the entire country is from the Aam Aadmi Party. I don't understand the alternative, we have to take the country forward," said Kejriwal. --IANS avr/pgh ( 381 Words) 2022-09-26-19:52:02 (IANS) Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday called for further strengthening ties between his state and Canada, especially with its Saskatchewan province. Meeting a high-level delegation from Saskatchewan which called on him at his residence here, he advocated strong and cordial ties between Punjab and the Canadian province, noting that Punjabis have been playing a vanguard role in the social and economic progress of Canada. Mann also said it is a matter of great pride and satisfaction that a large number of Punjabis have also carved a niche for themselves in the political arena of Canada too. The Chief Minister also showcased Punjab as the most preferred industrial destination across the country. He invited the delegation from Saskatchewan to encourage the entrepreneurs to invest in Punjab which is having favourable atmosphere for industrial growth. Mann said the state government has already put the state on high growth trajectory of industrial growth which will benefit the investors. Batting for further streamlining the mechanism to ensure that Punjabis settled in Canada are able to get the branded products of state in a smooth and hassle-free manner, the Chief Minister said the renowned products of state like Sohna brand are acclaimed world over, adding that Punjabi diaspora have special liking for it. Likewise, he said Verka products like ghee, milk, butter, lassi, kheer, curd, ice-cream, sweets and others have already created a niche for themselves. Mann solicited support from Canadian delegation to enhance the supply of these goods to Punjabis sitting abroad. The Chief Minister also said that cooperation between both Punjab and Canada, especially province of Saskatchewan, can be mutually beneficially for them. He said this is need of the hour to give fillip to economic activity in Punjab and ensure the comprehensive development of the state. Mann also envisioned that mutual cooperation between both Punjab and Canada will transform the destiny of the youth of state by opening new vistas of employment for them. Meanwhile, the Canadian delegation comprising Saskatchewan Ministry of Trade and Export Development's ADM, International Engagement, Richelle Bourgoin, Saskatchewan India office MD Victor Lee, Consul General of Canada in Chandigarh Patrick Hebert, and Vice President of Research at University of Saskatchewan, Baljit Singh, thanked the Chief Minister for sparing his time. They also assured fulsome support and cooperation to the Chief Minister in every field. --IANS vg/vd ( 400 Words) 2022-09-26-19:54:02 (IANS) Fifth Iranian paramilitary volunteer group member died on Sunday in a clash with the anti- Hijab protesters as the country's President Ebrahim Raisi pledged to deal "decisively" with the demonstrators who came to the streets to protest against the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody. The Member of the paramilitary volunteer group, Basij, was injured on Thursday in Urmia city in northwest Iran during a clash with "rioters and thugs", Iranian state news agency IRNA said. The protest has been sparked after the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after her arrest for allegedly failing to comply with Iran's strict rules on women's dress by wearing an "improper hijab". Hundreds of protests were organized around the country. Iranian women were seen burning their hijabs and chopping their hair to mark their protest over Amini's death and against mandatory veiling. At least 41 people have been killed during the Iran protests, Al Jazeera reported citing state television. Earlier, the Iranian President pledged to deal "decisively" with the protests that have swept the country since the death of a woman who was detained by the Iranian morality police. Raisi's comments on Saturday came as protesters took to the streets for a ninth consecutive night. Iranian President on Saturday spoke to a relative of the Basij paramilitary member who had been killed while taking part in a crackdown in the northeastern city of Mashhad. It quoted the president as saying that Iran must "deal decisively with those who oppose the country's security and tranquillity", according to Al Jazeera citing State media. The president "stressed the necessity to distinguish between protest and disturbing public order and security, and called the events ... a riot," state media reported. As per Al Jazeera, Mahsa Amini, 22, was on a visit to Tehran with her family when she was detained by the specialist police unit. During detention after some time, she suffered a heart attack and was immediately taken to hospital with the cooperation of the emergency services. "Unfortunately, she died and her body was transferred to the medical examiner's office," state television said on Friday, reported Al Jazeera. The announcement came a day after Tehran police confirmed Amini had been detained with other women for "instruction" about the rules. Following the death of Mahsa Amini, several women protesters cut their hair and burnt hijabs to protest against the mandatory veiling of women. Amini fell into a coma at the detention centre and died in hospital on September 16. Iranian authorities said she died of a heart attack, and claimed her death was from natural causes. However, some reports suggested that Amini's death resulted from alleged torture and ill-treatment, the experts said. Amini's death comes amid growing controversy both inside and outside Iran over the conduct of the morality police, known formally as the Gasht-e Ershad (Guidance Patrol). The mandatory dress code, which applies to all nationalities and religions, not just Iranian Muslims, requires women to conceal their hair and neck with a headscarf, reported Al Jazeera. Her death has now become a symbol of the violent oppression women have faced in Iran for decades. Over the decades, women have increasingly pushed back, particularly in the big cities, wearing their headscarves far back on their heads to reveal their hair. (ANI) Pakistan Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb was heckled by overseas Pakistanis at a coffee shop in London. A video went viral on the internet where the overseas Pakistanis were seen circling Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb. The overseas Pakistani were criticising the minister for paying foreign visits amid flood devastation across Pakistan, reported ARY News. Pakistanis followed Marriyum, the daughter of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, out on the streets, shouting 'chorni, chorni (thief, thief)'. The video of the entire heckling incident went viral on the internet in small clips, shows that Aurangzeb did not react to the overseas nationals' protest and kept herself busy on her mobile phone. Meanwhile, the ministers came forward to defend the Marriyum and said she handled the situation with "grace and composure" in the face, reported Dawn. According to Dawn, Aurangzeb was harassed and heckled by former Pak PM Imran Khan's supporters in a shop. A woman in the video was seen saying Aurangzeb of "making grand claims on television there but here she does not carry a dupatta on her head." Replying to the video shared by Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain, Aurangzeb said she was "sad to see the toxic impact [PTI Chairman] Imran Khan's politics of hate and divisiveness have had on our brothers and sisters." Minister also said she had stayed and answered "each and every question" of the riled-up crowd, reported Dawn. Finance Minister Miftah Ismail saluted Aurangzeb for her "grace and composure" in the face of such harassment and baseless lies. "I salute my sister @Marriyum_A for her grace and composure in the face of such harassment and baseless lies from that uncouth woman (who can be heard but thankfully cannot be seen)," he said in a tweet. Taking to Twitter, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the times of some of the classes have not changed even after going to Britain, overseas Pakistanis are representing the lowest level of our society. "Giving this colour to political differences is a sign of bad training and a trend that is the height of intolerance. The violent trend in politics after Madhhab will destroy our society," he added. Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal termed the incident as the "most deplorable, condemnable and shameful act by PTI hooligans". He praised the information minister for showing grace and "boldly" facing the crowd. "Truly a lioness!" Iqbal added as quoted by Dawn. (ANI) For more than a week, mass protests are being held in more than 80 towns and cities across the 31 provinces of Iran over the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman called Mahsa Amini, who died shortly after she was arrested by the hated morality police of the Theocratic regime. At least 41 people, including members of the security forces, were so far killed in clashes between protesters and anti-riot police and militia in escalating street violence which may rapidly assume the dimensions of a social uprising. Mahsa Amini was arrested on September 13 as she was leaving a Tehran metro station with her brother and other relatives. She was arrested along with other women whose clothes did not comply with state regulations and taken away in a morality police van. Mahsa was in a coma for three days, then died "of natural causes," as the authorities claim, but according to activists, the cause of her death was a fatal blow to the head. The incident unleashed huge anger among ordinary Iranians, who find it extremely difficult to make ends meet, living under international sanctions, without seeing any visible sign of improvement in the economy of the country, which is badly mismanaged. Many Iranians realize that they have less and less to lose and feel strongly repressed by the strict rules imposed by the Iranian regime. Women in Iran are even more repressed as they must obey a strict dress code or risk being arrested and ill-treated by the morality police, known as Gasht-e Ershad, which means Islamic Guidance Patrol. The regulations mandate that women cover their hair, usually with a headscarf known as a hijab, and wear clothing that is loose-fitting and does not expose their chests. To enter some mosques, women are required to wear chadors - a large piece of cloth that leaves only the face or the eyes visible. Once more, following the death of Mahsa, women in Iran are at the forefront of the current protests, as they did back in 2009 during the Green Movement protests that demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office when hundreds were arrested and many died, and the brutally suppressed protests in November 2019 when the government ordered a 50 per cent increase in the subsidized price of gasoline. It is estimated that more than 1500 people were killed during the gasoline protests. After Mahsa Amina's death, some women publicly cut their hair and burned their headscarves, in defiance of the Iranian authorities. Immediately, Mahsa became a symbol of the protest movement. The incident has triggered angry protests not only by women but also by hundreds of thousands of men who had a woman relative insulted or mistreated by the morality police and who want to express their resentment for the repressive policies of the Iranian state. Initially protests concentrated in Iran's Kurdish populated regions, which have declared a general strike, but later spread like a wildfire to more than 80 cities and towns. Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian President, has promised a thorough investigation to be carried out into Mahsa's death. While blaming conspirators for inciting unrest, he called the events "a riot." Raisi pledged to crack down on "those who oppose the country's security and tranquillity" and said it was necessary to distinguish between protest and disturbing public order and security. According to Iranian state-backed news agency Tasmin, at least 1,200 people have been arrested. In southern Iran, protesters burned a huge portrait of General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in January 2020 by a US strike in Iraq. In Tehran and many other towns, protesters set fire to police stations and police cars and chanted anti-regime slogans, Irna news agency reported. Protesters express their deep resentment and anger that has been building over the years and they clash with the police and paramilitary groups sent to dispel them, torching police stations and shouting slogans against the "dictator", meaning Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Yalda Zarbakch, Head of Deutsche Welle Persian Service says: "Demonstrators are tearing down posters of the revolutionary leaders Khamenei and Khomeini, burning them, and loudly demanding the fall of the entire political system. More and more people have turned their backs on the regime, its ideology and even Islam as a whole. And this is now true even of people from more traditional classes of society." Last Thursday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) called on the judiciary to prosecute people who are circulating "false news and rumours." Trying to prevent protestors from gathering and stop images of the protests from reaching the outside world, the Iranian regime has imposed tough restrictions on the use of the internet and access to Instagram and WhatsApp, according to residents and internet watchdog NetBlocks. On Saturday one of the biggest mobile phone operators disrupted its service. SpaceX and Starlink owner Elon Musk said he would seek an exemption from sanctions to offer his company's Starlink satellite service, which has a network of 2200 satellites in orbit, to Iranian people. The US administration immediately responded by announcing that it was easing the relevant export restrictions. Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State said that Starlink will "help counter the Iranian government's efforts to surveil and censor its citizens" and pointedly added: " It is clear that the Iranian government is afraid of its own people." Iran's Theocracy is currently faced with a huge dilemma: Either relax the strict hijab rules that are a distinguishing feature of the Islamic Republic, calming in this way popular anger against it- but risking more protests demanding a change in the regime- or continue its relentless crackdown on dissent, increasing further popular anger- risking eventually a big social uprising that could bring about its final downfall. (ANI) US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan warned President Vladimir Putin of "catastrophic consequences" if Russia launches a nuclear attack on Ukraine and said that America will "respond decisively" to such an action. While speaking on NBS's "Meet the Press" show, Sullivan said, "Let me say it plainly: If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia," The Hill reported. "The United States will respond decisively," he continued. "Now, in private channels, we have spelt out in greater detail exactly what that would mean, but we want to be able to have the credibility of speaking directly to senior leadership in Russia and laying out for them what the consequences would be without getting into a rhetorical tit for tat publicly," he added. During the interview, Sullivan said the United States is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which sent representatives to the plant, and Ukrainian energy regulators to avoid a meltdown catastrophe. "It is actually still being operated by the Ukrainian operators who are essentially at gunpoint from the Russian occupying forces, and the Russians have been consistently implying that there may be some kind of accident at this plant," Sullivan said as quoted by The Hill. Talking about Moscow's referendum in the four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine where voting began on joining the country, Sullivan said that these referenda are not signs of strength or confidence. What you see inside Russia right now, this call-up of troops, the sham referenda that they're trying to run in the occupied territories, these are definitely not signs of strength or confidence," Sullivan said on ABC's "This Week." "Quite the opposite," Sullivan added. "They're signs that Russia and Putin are struggling badly." Ukrainian forces, in recent weeks, had regained thousands of square miles of territory, which is occupied by Russia since it started its military operation in Ukraine. Putin on Wednesday responded by calling up 300,000 reservists and warning the West about Russia's nuclear weapons, reported The Hill. "This is not a bluff," Putin said. "And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them." Meanwhile, on CBS's "Face the Nation," Zelensky warned that Putin's threat "could be a reality." (ANI) voco Riyadh, owned and operated by the InterContinental Hotels Group, has launched an electric vehicle charging station, as part of a series of new initiatives to protect and preserve the environment. With this, voco Riyadh has become the first hotel in the Saudi capital to offer an EV charging point. Green initiatives such as these have made voco hotels around the world popular among tourists and guests looking for environmentally-friendly accommodation options and those who wish to leave a smaller carbon footprint during their travel. M Allaf, regional general manager of IHG and general manager of voco Riyadh, said: voco aims to be the leading destination for sustainable tourism in the Kingdom, in line with Vision 2030 goals, which have placed sustainability among its most important pillars, as the Kingdom aims to reach zero-carbon neutrality by 2060. He added: voco is a brand built on sustainability, and it continues to take sustainable measures with regard to carbon, energy, waste and water. voco cares about our planet as much as it takes care of its guests. vocos care for the environment is seen in practices such as serving guests drinks and coffee in biodegradable glasses and cups or providing them with the opportunity to refresh and bathe under energy-efficient ventilated shower heads. The new EV charging station is also in line with the Saudi governments direction towards supporting and developing the electric car industry. In May, the Saudi Ministry of Investment announced an investment of more than SR12.3 billion to build a Lucid Motors electric vehicle factory in Saudi Arabia, with an annual production capacity of 155,000 cars. The move reflects the Kingdom's global commitment to promoting a green economy and reducing carbon emissions. With the launch of an EV charging station, voco affirms its commitment to being an eco-friendly hotel that implements environmental sustainability practices, uses energy-saving heating, cooling, and lighting systems, rationalizes water usage, and implements initiatives focused on protecting the environment, and achieving environmental and human sustainability. The overall aim is to improve human well-being and maintain the continuity of life by protecting natural resources, such as the atmosphere and soil. Allaf said that voco has taken several other pioneering proactive measures to reduce carbon emissions, save energy and water, and reduce waste. voco is a unique example of the green hotel model in the Kingdom, and it will continue to promote long-term sustainability and care for the planet in the communities where it operates, he added. TradeArabia News Service Myanmar's former diplomat Aung Soe Moe, who was dismissed by the military junta for his opposition to last year's coup, urged Tokyo to not invite Naypyidaw's embassy in Japan to former Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe's funeral. Aung Soe Moe said that inviting Myanmar's ambassador to Abe's funeral would be a de-facto recognition of the junta, The Japan Times reported. "We, Myanmar residents in Japan, have asked the Japanese Foreign Ministry not to invite anyone from the military to Abe's state funeral, a major international event," Aung Soe Moe, 53, told reporters Saturday in Tokyo. "What generals want is official recognition of their regime by the international community and to make the takeover of government a fait accompli," he said, speaking through an interpreter. Giving the example of Britain's decision to not allow Myanmar delegates to attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, Aung Soe Moe said that the Japanese Prime Minister and Foreign Minister should take a similarly firm and clear-cut stance against the junta led by the coup leader and army chief Min Aung Hlaing. "Japan did not invite Min Aung Hlaing, but it would not make much difference if the Kishida government allows the junta-appointed ambassador to attend this state-level event," he said. Since Aung Soe Moe was sacked from Myanmar's Foreign Ministry for joining the civil disobedience movement against military rule, the former first secretary of the Myanmar Embassy in Tokyo has devoted himself to activities in Japan to bring democracy back to his homeland, reported the Japan Times. Aung Soe Moe said he and other pro-democracy advocates do not understand why Kishida has invited a representative of a violent regime that has cracked down on opposition among its people, including targeting women and children, to the funeral of a former leader who was also a victim of violence. The state funeral of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on July 8 in the city of Nara during a campaign speech, will take place on September 27 and is expected to see thousands of attendees. Abe was shot on July 8 in the Japanese city of Nara. Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, approached the politician from behind and fired two shots from a distance of about 10 meters (33 feet). The attacker reportedly plotted the assassination of the 67-year-old former head of government for nearly a year. Abe sustained two gunshot wounds to the front of his neck and the bullet that killed him damaged his heart and a major artery, causing blood loss, Hidetada Fukushima, the head of emergency services at Nara Medical University Hospital said. Doctors attempted a blood transfusion after they were unable to stop the bleeding, Dr Fukushima said. Shinzo Abe arrived at a hospital without any vital signs after being shot during a campaign speech in western Japan. Abe, Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister, stepped down in 2020 citing health reasons. He was Prime Minister of Japan twice, from 2006-07 and again from 2012-20. He was succeeded by Yoshihide Suga and later by Fumio Kishida. (ANI) Israel's Ambassador to India, Naor Gilon who completes a year in office said that the two countries share wonderful government-to-government relations. Speaking to ANI on marking one year as his country's envoy to India, Gilon said, "It was a very intensive year. I fell in love with India from the first moment I landed here. Never saw such wide popular support. There are wonderful government-to-government relations. It's a great experience." "It was my first time ever to India. The popular appreciation, love and friendship towards Israel from India - diplomats and ambassadors never thought (will get such ) wide support - all in all, its a great experience," he added. Sharing his achievements and experience of living in India, Gilon said that he has overworked his staff to increase the bonhomie between the two nations, which recently celebrated 30 years of official diplomatic ties. "We have done so much in one year and am thinking that I have overworked my staff a little bit. We did here a lot of things around the 30 years of relations, starting with even lighting buildings, monuments in both countries and having special programmes - TV programmes about the relations," said the Israeli envoy to ANI. He also listed many projects conducted by the Israeli Embassy in the last one year. "We did public diplomacy, women empowerment - we brought here women doctors for the underprivileged neighbourhood for treatment and awareness, we did programmes in IIT for women entrepreneurs, a fashion show with the local designers, and the models were diplomats, my wife and some of the girls who were beneficiaries of this assistance - we have murals in Connaught Place to remind us of three very special actresses - first women Bollywood actresses who were Baghdadi Jews from Mumbai. We are very proud of vast activities," said Gilon. In April this year, the Israeli Embassy had unveiled a street-art mural in New Delhi to mark 30 years of India-Israel friendship and to highlight the contributions of Indian-Jewish actors Nadira (Florence Ezekiel), Sulochana (Ruby Myers) and Pramila (Esther Victoria Abraham) who made a mark in the early years of Indian cinema. Talking about agricultural cooperation between the two countries, Gilon said, "Also on the agricultural side, we are going to open soon the 30th Centre of Excellence in Agriculture and in the pipeline we have 12-13 more. We are doing a lot in the field of water, really the embassy is working. I have a good feeling when I look back at the first year." The programme aims to grow existing Centres of Excellence (CoE), establish new centres, increase CoE's value chain, bring the Centres of Excellence into the self-sufficient mode, and encourage private sector companies and collaboration. Though India officially recognised Israel in 1950, the two countries established full diplomatic ties only on 29th January 1992. As of December 2020, India was among 164 United Nations (UN) member states to have diplomatic ties with Israel. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi's historic visit to Israel in 2017 broke the ice between the two nations and the famous picture of him with ex-Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the pictures that will stay as a symbol of how things are done, said Israeli Ambassador to India Naor Gilon. "The famous picture of PM Modi with ex-Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the Olga beach is one of the pictures that will stay as a symbol of how things are done. The friendship they developed continued with other PMs also," Gilon told ANI while explainning the bond between India-Israel. Ambassador Gilon also said the big boost to change in our relationship came after a first-ever historic visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Israel followed by Netanyahu's visit to India. "We have to say that there were visits before that of Indian President and Israeli President, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but the visit of PM Modi and a few months later in 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to India on January 18 - this was a game changer to relations between the two countries," added Gilon. PM Modi was on a visit to Israel from July 4-6, 2017, at the invitation of former Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister had called the visit "ground-breaking" as he was received by Netanyahu at the airport. India established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992 and since then the relationship has evolved into a multi-dimensional partnership. "The relations started a little bit slower than hoped, but the big change in 1992 established full diplomatic relations between the two countries," said Gilon. The Israeli envoy explained how both countries upgraded relations to a strategic partnership and after that' several doors opened for cooperation. "Thanks to that change, push that was done - we call it de-hyphenation -- in a way India came and said- we have Palestinian issue and Pakistan, we have other issues - Israel will be dealt as Israel, the interest we have with Israel, not the interest we have with Palestine, we will deal with them or issues of Pakistan, other issues. I think this a very healthy approach which enabled a strong relationship between the two countries," he added. On External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar's comment that PM Modi changed the trajectory of the ties, the envoy said, "In October last year, I accompanied External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar to Israel and I would say it is one of the most intimate visits that I have experienced in friendship and gestures between people and leaders." Gilon also shared his views on terrorism and how India and Israel are helping each other to eliminate the problem that both nations have faced. He explained how terror is a disease and it's a complex problem because the idea of the terrorist is to disrupt the normal life of citizens of the countries. "Israel has been suffering, India has been suffering, and we are cooperating quite well together. All fields from intelligence are helping each other, if we have the knowledge, and information about terror attacks we are cooperating in all fields. We both feel very emotional, strong about the need to eradicate terrorism from this world," said the Israeli Ambassador. (ANI) Bandaru Wilsonbabu, presently Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), has been appointed as Indian Ambassador to Madagascar, the MEA said on Monday. He is expected to take up the assignment shortly. "Bandaru Wilsonbabu (IFS: 2004), presently Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to the Republic of Madagascar," the MEA said in a statement. Wilsonbabu, who has served as the joint Secretary in the Eurasia division, will be replacing ambassador Abhay Kumar. India and Madagascar enjoy cordial bilateral relations with cooperation on multiple fronts. Madagascar generally supports India's candidature in the multinational fora. Apart from UNSC, in recent past Madagascar has consistently supported India's candidature for various international organizations such as the UNSC non-permanent seat, India's entry as an observer at the Indian Ocean Commission, India's proposal to become an Observer at the Djibouti Code of Conduct among others. There are about 17 500 persons of Indian origin in Madagascar, including approximately 2500 Indian passport holders. Most of them are in trading but also in manufacturing and other businesses. In recent years a number of Indian professionals have been working in different companies including multi-national companies in Madagascar. The first Indian settlers, mostly from Gujarat, arrived in Madagascar in 1880. Most of them are in trading but some of them are also in manufacturing, real estate and other assorted businesses. According to African media sources, among the richest businessmen in Africa, four are from Madagascar and among whom three are PIOs. The role played by the Indian community and diaspora in the economic development of Madagascar is appreciated at all levels. Some of the Indian Diaspora is quite influential and their contribution to the total GDP of Madagascar is substantial. In recent years a number of Indian professionals have migrated and are working in different companies, including multi-national companies in Madagascar. The Indian Diaspora has been playing a significant role in preserving and promoting Indian culture and traditional values. (ANI) Almost 6 million Cubans (around 69% of eligible voters) voted in the referendum, according to electoral officials. Over 8 million Cubans over the age of 16 were eligible to vote "yes" or "no" for the proposal, which is supported by the communist government but criticized by Catholic and evangelical church leaders, reported DW News. More than 79,000 neighbourhood meetings were held earlier this year to debate the proposal, which is backed by the communist government. Church leaders have expressed opposition to the idea. The final week of campaigning saw the government flood TV, radio and social media with pro-equality messages, along with glitzy billboards, public rallies and tweets from President Miguel Diaz-Canel urging Cubans to vote yes "in favour of democracy," reported DW News. The official attitude toward homosexuality has changed significantly over the past 20 years after decades of persecution. In 2019, the government sought to include same-sex marriage in the country's new constitution but backed down after criticism from the Church. The Conference of Bishops has once again come out against the current proposal. Political scientist Rafael Hernandez said the referendum on same-sex marriage is the "most important human rights legislation" in Cuba since the 1959 revolution, reported DW News. However, the current economic unease may overshadow Cuba's historic vote. Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in 30 years due to a collapse in international tourism and ongoing US sanctions. (ANI) Japan has imposed tight security measures in the capital city Tokyo as it prepares to host foreign dignitaries for the state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which will be attended by several foreign dignitaries including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The state-funded event on Tuesday has encountered growing criticism as it is expected to cost more than USD 11 million, with a large portion attributed to security costs, Japan's Kyodo news reported. Top-level security measures will be deployed, equivalent to those adopted during the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, with the police presence exceeding 18,000 personnel. According to Kyodo, Police are taking extra precautions to ensure there is no gap in security given that Abe was shot down despite the presence of police while he was giving a public address. The state funeral of Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on July 8 in the city of Nara during a campaign speech, will take place on September 27. Thousands of people are expected to attend the funeral. Representatives from hundreds of countries and international organizations are expected to participate in the state funeral on Tuesday at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo, Japan Times reported. Abe's funeral will be the second state funeral for a former prime minister since World War 2. The first one was held in 1967 for Shigeru Yoshida. Other deceased prime ministers received a joint Cabinet Office and Liberal Democratic Party service. The state funeral ceremony will be the first major public event since new police security guidelines were implemented, including sniffer dogs at train stations and police patrols at Tokyo-area airports after Abe's assassination. Several foreign dignitaries are expected to attend the funeral service in Tokyo. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also attend Abe's funeral. He will also separately meet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The funeral service will likely last for approximately one-and-a-half hours following which the national anthem of the country will be played, according to Japan Times. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will deliver a commemorative speech followed by addresses from other high-level delegates. Japan's royal family will also pay tributes to Abe at his state funeral, however, maintaining the line of tradition, Emperor Naruhito will not be attending the funeral, and their imperial envoys will pay their respects. The funeral ceremony will finish with sending off Abe's remains and placing remembrance wreaths. Abe was shot on July 8 in the Japanese city of Nara. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be holding a bilateral meeting with his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida during his visit to the nation. In a special briefing of the Ministry of External Affairs, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said, "During the upcoming visit of PM Modi, he would, of course, have a greeting occasion with PM Kishida to convey his condolences in person but in addition to that PM Modi will also have a brief bilateral meeting with PM Kishida." "Naturally, the relevant people involved from the two sides will be available and participate in these discussions. It will take into account, a quick overview analysis of the overall relationship, its current status, its trajectory, its progress and the measures that both nations take it further. It will reaffirm our continued commitment and strong efforts that stakeholders on both sides continue to make - to promote and progress this relationship," added Kwatra. Modi will visit Tokyo, Japan on September 27, 2022, to attend the State Funeral of former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. During the visit, he will attend the State Funeral ceremony at Budokan, followed by a greeting occasion at Akasaka Palace. Responding to media queries on possible Quad bilateral meetings, he said, "At this stage no other bilateral meet scheduled, or any other meetings planned." Notably, Quad leaders will be present at the state funeral of former PM Abe. As per the Foreign Secretary, the total duration of PM Modi's visit to Japan is between 12-16 hours. Speaking about the deep respect ex-PM Abe had in India, he said, "We had declared a day of national mourning when former PM Abe departed this world. PM Modi holds former PM Abe a very dear friend, had also conveyed his sincerest condolences at that time." India had announced one-day national mourning on 09 July 2022 as a mark of respect for Abe Shinzo. The visit will be an opportunity for PM Modi to honour the memory of former PM Abe, who he considered a dear friend and a great champion of India-Japan ties. PM Modi and PM Abe developed a personal bond through their meetings and interactions spanning over a decade, beginning from PM Modi's visit to Japan in 2007 as Chief Minister of Gujarat. The two leaders elevated India-Japan relations to Special Strategic and Global Partnership status in 2014. "During this visit, PM Modi will have the opportunity to participate with representatives of 100 other countries, as I said, along with 20 Heads of States and Governments to participate in the state funeral. Also, along with that, PM Modi will have the opportunity to meet PM Kishida and Mrs Abe to convey his condolences in person to the country, to the leadership and Mrs Abe," he added. (ANI) Known as the "conscience of Hong Kong" among his supporters, Cardinal Joseph Zen, a 90-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong has gone on trial on Monday under the national security law. Zen, one of Asia's most senior Catholic clerics, was arrested by Hong Kong's national security police in May along with three other leading democracy activists, including Cantopop star Denis Ho, reported CNN. The four trustees of the protest fund were initially arrested on suspicion of "collusion with foreign forces," a charge under a sweeping national security law that carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. CNN reports that he is also charged over his role in a relief fund for the city's pro-democracy protests in 2019. He along with Cantopop star Denis Ho has been charged with a lesser offence for failing to register the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, set up in June 2019 to help pay the legal and medical fees for protesters under arrest. The fund ceased operations last year following an investigation by the national security police. The charge under the Societies Ordinance, a century-old colonial-era law, carries a fine of up to HKD 10,000 (USD1,274) but not jail time. All have pleaded not guilty. Zen's trial comes at a sensitive time for the Vatican, which is preparing to renew a controversial deal with Beijing over the appointment of bishops in China, reported CNN. Under the original deal struck in 2018, the Vatican recognized the legitimacy of seven bishops appointed by the Chinese government. The deal came at a time when China was doubling its crackdown on underground Christian groups as part of leader Xi Jinping's campaign to bring religion under the absolute control of the Communist Party. Zen has openly criticized the deal, calling it an "incredible betrayal" and accusing the Vatican of "giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves." In 2020, the Vatican said the deal was extended for another two years. Zen has long advocated for democracy, human rights and religious freedom. He has joined some of the city's most important protests, from the mass rally against national security legislation in 2003 to the "Umbrella Movement" demanding universal suffrage in 2014. Zen's prosecution is the latest in an ongoing crackdown on Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, which saw the Asian financial hub rocked by street protests throughout much of 2019 in resistance to Beijing's tightening grip. Beijing responded by imposing a controversial national security law in 2020, which critics say has been used to crush the city's opposition movement, overhaul its electoral system, silence its outspoken media and cripple its once-vibrant civil society. Most of Hong Kong's prominent pro-democracy figures have either been thrown in jail or gone into exile, reported CNN. The Hong Kong government has repeatedly denied the national security law is suppressing freedoms. Instead, it insists the law has ended chaos and restored stability to the city. (ANI) "President Putin deeply mourns the deaths of people, children at a school where there was a terrorist attack by a person, who apparently belongs to a neo-fascist group," Kremlin spokesman said, as quoted by Al Jazeera. "The president wishes for the recovery of those injured as a result of this inhuman terrorist attack," he added. An unidentified attacker opened fire in a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk in which at least 13 people were killed including seven children. While 21 others including 14 children were injured, TASS reported citing Russian Investigative Committee today. "According to preliminary reports, the crime claimed the lives of 13 people, including six adults and seven young children. Fourteen people and seven kids were wounded," the investigators said. Media reports said a young man reportedly started shooting at the military enlistment office in Irkutsk Region's Ust-Ilimsk. The 25-year-old shooter was immediately detained. A criminal case has been initiated against the suspect who is a resident of Ust-Ilimsk. According to Al Jazeera, school shootings are rare in Russia. In April this year, an armed man opened fire in a kindergarten in Russia's Ulyanovsk region, according to media reports. In May 2021, nine people - including seven children - were killed after a lone teenage gunman opened fire in Russia's southwestern city of Kazan. In 2018, a student at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea killed 20 people before turning his gun on himself, as per Aj Jazeera. (ANI) Four people were killed and five others sustained injuries in three separate attacks in two districts of the Balochistan province of Pakistan on Sunday, local media reported. According to a Pakistani publication, the Dawn, officials confirmed that the attacks took place in the Nasirabad and Washuk districts of Balochistan. In the first attack, a seven-year-old child and a man were killed after unidentified men broke into a house in the Goth Mundar area of Nasirabad's Chatar tehsil and opened fire at them. The assistants used automatic weapons, the official said. The deceased and injured were shifted to the district hospital in Dera Murad Jamali town of the Nasirabad district. The dead were identified as Shanela, (7) and Samandar Ali Banger, (35), whereas the injured included Noor Jahan, Akhtar Ali, Ahmed Ali, Shabila and Farhan, reported Dawn. In another similar incident, two people were killed in separate attacks in the Mashkel area of the Washuk district, reported Dawn. According to the Assistant Commissioner, Zahid Shahwani three armed men on a motorcycle opened fire at a man and ran away. "Three men were riding a motorbike when armed men opened fire and killed a person named Muhammad Bilal. A suspect was already in custody while the Levies force was searching for other attackers," he added. The other attack took place in the Bugg area where robbers killed truck driver Badr-i-Alam over resistance. They also took away his Iranian-made Zamyad vehicle loaded with Iranian oil. The driver, critically injured in the knife attack, later died of injuries while being moved to a hospital, reported Dawn. According to several reports, innocent Balochs are killed in fake encounters and their mutilated bodies are found in remote places. Forceful abductions are being carried out in Balochistan since the early 2000s. An annual report of the Human Rights Council of Balochistan, which is an organisation that documents human rights violations in the province, has said that students remain the main target of these kidnappings both in Balochistan as well as in other regions of Pakistan. The victims also include several political activists, journalists, teachers, doctors, poets, and lawyers. In July, Pakistani security forces forcibly abducted 45 persons including 10 students. Fifteen people were released later while the whereabouts of 35 people remain unknown.July witnessed an increase in the cases of killings as compared to the previous months. Human Rights Council of Balochistan documented 48 cases of killings, including five women while fourteen bodies remained unidentified. (ANI) The demonstration was organised by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) during the ongoing 51st session of the UN Human Rights Council. The participants, including the Afghan Pashtuns, raised slogans decrying Pakistan for supporting terror groups and carrying out atrocities on the Pashtuns. "The issues of Baloch, Pashtuns and Sindhis which are arising due to Punjabi domination in Pakistan will be raised at the United Nations. The representatives of PTM are forcibly disappeared and extra-judicially killed. The Pakistan army is helping the Taliban to regain in the region," Malik Barzai, the representative of PTM in Belgium said. Fazal-ur Rehman Afridi, a Pashtun human rights activist said: "Its important to raise awareness among the people, not only in Pakistan but around the world that the Pashtuns are the victims of state-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan is using terrorists for such activities". The Pashtuns also organised a conference inside the UN where experts and intellectuals make deliberations on the situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The people in Pakistan's Pashtun-dominated areas are facing persecution since Pakistan Army launched so-called war against terrorism. They targeted the innocent Pashtuns, including women and children. A large number of youth disappeared, and the Pakistan Army brutally killed many. The residents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are demanding peace and have rejected terrorism and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who enjoys Islamabad's support. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that he will leave tonight to attend the state funeral of former prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. The funeral will take place on Tuesday. Taking to Twitter, PM Modi wrote, "I am traveling to Tokyo tonight to participate in the State Funeral of former PM Shinzo Abe, a dear friend and a great champion of India-Japan friendship." "I will be conveying heartfelt condolences to Prime Minister Kishida and Mrs Abe on behalf of all Indians. We will continue working to further strengthen India-Japan relations as envisioned by Abe San," PM added. Earlier in the day, Foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said this trip is an opportunity for PM Modi to honour the memory of his dear friend and a champion of India-Japan ties. According to Foreign Secretary Kwatra, the total duration of PM Modi's visit to Japan is between 12-16 hours. During the visit, he will attend the state funeral ceremony at Budokan, followed by a greeting occasion at Akasaka Palace. "Prime Minister be leaving in a few hours for Japan to attend the state funeral of Abe. During this visit, the PM will attend the state funeral ceremony at Budokan," Kwatra said, while addressing a special briefing on Prime Minister's visit to Japan. Kwatra also said that PM Modi will have a greeting occasion with Japan PM Kishida to convey his condolences in person, but in addition to that PM Modi will also have a brief bilateral meeting with PM Kishida. "Naturally, the relevant people involved from the two sides will be available and participate in these discussions. It will take into account, a quick overview analysis of the overall relationship, its current status, its trajectory, its progress and the measures that both nations take it further. It will reaffirm our continued commitment and strong efforts that stakeholders on both sides continue to make - to promote and progress this relationship," added Kwatra. India had announced one-day national mourning on 09 July 2022 as a mark of respect for Abe Shinzo. Speaking about the deep respect ex-PM Abe had in India, Kwatra said, "We had declared a day of national mourning when former PM Abe departed this world. PM Modi holds former PM Abe a very dear friend, had also conveyed his sincerest condolences at that time." PM Modi and PM Abe developed a personal bond through their meetings and interactions spanning over a decade, beginning from PM Modi's visit to Japan in 2007 as Chief Minister of Gujarat. The two leaders elevated India-Japan relations to Special Strategic and Global Partnership status in 2014. "During this visit, PM Modi will have the opportunity to participate with representatives of 100 other countries, as I said, along with 20 Heads of States and Governments to participate in the state funeral. Also, along with that, PM Modi will have the opportunity to meet PM Kishida and Mrs Abe to convey his condolences in person to the country, to the leadership and Mrs Abe," he added. Meanwhile, Japan has imposed tight security measures in the capital city Tokyo as the state funeral of Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on July 8 in the city of Nara during a campaign speech, will take place on September 27. Thousands of people are expected to attend the funeral. Representatives from hundreds of countries and international organizations are expected to participate in the state funeral on Tuesday at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo, Japan Times reported. According to Japan's Kyodo News, Police are taking extra precautions to ensure there is no gap in security given that Abe was shot down despite the presence of police while he was giving a public address. (ANI) The World Sindhi Congress (WSC) on Sunday protested by holding a hunger strike in front of the Pakistan High Commission in London to protest against the negligence of the Pakistan government amid unprecedented floods that led to the virtual drowning of Sindh province. The speakers at the protest said that Pakistan was spreading a narrative that the extreme rains were caused by climate change but the fact is that it has not yet been scientifically established if it was due to climate change or an extreme weather event, local media reported. Though Pakistan received maximum rainfall and severe flooding, but the actions of the Pakistani government against the Sindh people are genocidal and criminal negligence, the WSC speaker alleged. The speaker went on to say that many International communities have extended help to Pakistan, but all that money will go to the army and those who are severely impacted continue to remain stranded and suffering, local media reported. "Pakistan is using the tragedy to get hard-needed cash and requested the International Community not to help directly to the Pakistan government but directly monitor and deliver aid to the victims of the floods," WSC alleged. There were numerous ways to reduce the minimise the loss and damage due to floods but numerous reports and evidence suggest that the rain waters were collected and then let loose on towns and villages to bring 89 per cent of Sindh under water and impact more than 20 million people and more than 10 million homeless. Post floods, Pakistan has received a lot of aid from the international community but the victims said that none is reaching the millions of stranded Sindhi people, in this hour of need, local media reported. In view of this, WSC requested the International Community to set up a high-powered committee to investigate the role of the Pakistani government in converting the severe rains into a grave human tragedy for millions of Sindhi people and remaining completely detached from providing any meaningful help. Pakistan has lost more than 1,000 people to floods, and about 33 million are displaced. Homes are inundated, roads and bridges swept away, and there are still many dead bodies that are missing. Sindh and Balochistan have suffered heavily, but Sindh is worse affected. Media reports from the country said that anywhere in the flood-affected areas of Sindh, affectees have similar stories to share and at the core of complaints is the fact that the state has done nothing. Instead, it treats people like trash. The condition of government camps is pathetic and people live in conditions that are worse even for animals to live. The rescue camps are filthy, with no water, washrooms, and health facilities, including the availability of doctors. Many of them have developed skin diseases. There is malaria, diarrhoea, and many complain of throat pain. Even pregnant women do not have any facilities to keep themselves healthy and get medical help, local media reported. Adding on to it, the treatment of the military and authorities for the flood affectees in these areas is worse as cases were reported where army officers slapped women and refused the distribution of rations to Shias and Hindus. Experts said that the Sindh province of Pakistan witnessed erratic rains and weather conditions, which added to the plight of Hindus, who have already been facing adversity and severe institutional discrimination in Pakistan. The flood victims have no other option but to manage survival without any help. (ANI) Experts and human rights activists discussed the proliferation of terrorist organizations in the region of South Asia during the 51th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The event was organized by the European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) Fazal Khan, a human rights activist and member of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) spoke with a reference to his son, who was killed alongside 146 others during the Peshawar school attack in 2014. He noted in a statement that "it is natural that such a devastating terrorist attack would have devastating effects of the families involved" and that the attack, perpetrated by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had been facilitated by Pakistani security agencies. The evidence of this involvement, however, has been ignored until now. The families affected by the attack have sought justice within Pakistan's judicial system, including through the filing of motions to the Pakistan High Court and the Supreme Court, leading to the Supreme Court ordering the formation of a commission investigating the attack. Khan stressed that the Pakistani military establishment has been "creating, harbouring, and sponsoring terrorist groups" that have targeted minorities throughout Pakistan and have been supported diplomatically and judicially by State authorities. "The security apparatus has further sought to equate Pashtuns with terrorists despite terrorist proxies killing up to 60,000 Pashtuns and bodies disappearing and extrajudicially killing Pashtuns", said Khan in the statement. He called on the international community to "stop the Pakistan Army and its proxies", further noting that the recent negotiations between state authorities and the TTP have been highly controversial in the tribal areas. Malaiz Daud, formerly Chief of Staff of Afghanistan's former President Ashraf Ghani has stressed that South Asian politics have become increasingly contentious in recent years, producing particularly perilous effects for minority populations in the region. "The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban's return to power have created major ripple effects that have been exacerbated by Imran Khan's removal from office in Pakistan and his subsequent political campaign, the growing clout of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Pakistan's tribal areas, and the countermobilization of anti-TTP groups," he said. He outlined that the growing presence of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan and Pakistan has challenged Pakistan's leverage over the Taliban. Daud additionally described the recent assassination of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul as a "major turning point in the relationship between the Western world and the Taliban". The political fractures South Asia witnessed in recent years, Daud suggested, foster opportunities for a variety of social movements, including non-violent movements such as the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). Contemporary challenges for the Pakistani state and the Taliban regime include Imran Khan's reelection campaign, violent and non-violent ethnic movements in Balochistan, the PTM, terrorist organizations targeting Pakistani state interests, female popular resistance in Afghanistan, and the anti-Taliban National Resistance Front (NRF). Bashir Gwakh, a journalist at Radio Free Europe and an expert on terrorism has extensively focused on the Pakistani tribal areas, specifically regarding questions of human rights and presence of terrorist organizations. Gwakh argued that the human rights of ethnic minorities in Pakistan are violated by both the military, whose abuses have become more visible over time, and terrorist groups such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan has emboldened Pakistan-based groups and has stoked the belief that other countries and regions could be 'conquered' in the way the Taliban has 'conquered' Afghanistan. Pakistan, Gwakh averred, has failed to criminalize torture in violation of its agreements under international law. "The Army's use of torture as a political tool has thus far prevented criminalization providing legal protection to journalists and human rights activists. Pakistan's legal framework has enabled widespread human rights abuses, including the enforced disappearance of 45,000 Baloch. In the Pashtun tribal areas, Islamist terrorists have started to enforce Taliban-inspired social norms, with Taliban control in Afghanistan consolidating the TTP's influence in tribal areas", he said at the event. The audience and speakers also exchanged views in a debate on dozens of issues including the future of peace in South Asia, the rise of terrorism, need of the strengthening democracy and state effectiveness in countries of South Asia, especially in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and the role of the Pakistani ISI in perpetrating terrorism as a state policy in the region. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday emplaned for Japan to attend the state funeral of his "dear friend" and former PM Shinzo Abe, which will be held on Tuesday. "PM @narendramodi emplanes for Tokyo to attend the State Funeral of former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe. India had announced one-day national mourning on 09 July 2022 as a mark of respect to former PM Abe. The visit will be an opportunity to honour his memory," tweeted the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi. Hours before departing, PM Modi tweeted that he would be travelling to Tokyo tonight to participate in the State Funeral of former PM Shinzo Abe, "a dear friend and a great champion of India-Japan friendship." "I will be conveying heartfelt condolences to Prime Minister Kishida and Mrs. Abe on behalf of all Indians. We will continue working to further strengthen India-Japan relations as envisioned by Abe San," he said. In a special media briefing today, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said that during this visit the prime minister will attend the state funeral ceremony at Budokan, which would be followed by a greeting occasion at the Akasaka palace in Tokyo. The total duration of PM Modi's visit to Japan is between 12-16 hours. He will also meet Prime Minister Kishida and Mrs Abe, during this visit. Besides having a greeting occasion with PM Kishida to convey his condolences in person, PM Modi will hold a bilateral meeting with his Japanese counterpart. "Naturally the relevant people involved from the two sides will be available and participating in these discussions. The discussions will take account and will take a very quick overview and assessment of the overall relationship, its current status, its trajectory, its progress, and the measures that they both need to take, to progress it further," Kwatra said. "The meeting between the two Prime Ministers will reaffirm their continuing commitment and the strong efforts that stakeholders on both sides continue to make, to promote and progress this relationship," he added. The State funeral of Abe will take place on Tuesday, and will be attended by thousands of dignitaries worldwide. Representatives from over a hundred countries, including more than 20 Heads of State and Heads of Government are expected to participate in the state funeral tomorrow. This visit by Prime Minister Modi will be an opportunity for him to honour the memory of former Prime Minister Abe, who he considered a dear friend and a great champion of India-Japan relationship. Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Abe had developed a personal bond of trust and friendship through their numerous meetings and interactions spanning over a decade beginning from Prime Minister Modi's visit to Japan in 2007 as the then Chief Minister of Gujarat. The two leaders made enormous contributions and were singularly responsible for elevating India-Japan relations to the status of Special Strategic and Global Partnership in 2014. Prime Minister Abe made significant contributions to deepening India-Japan relations, turning largely economic relationship into a broad, Comprehensive and Strategic Partnership, making it pivotal for the security of both our countries and also for regions security. Prime Minister Abe's famous "Confluence of two Seas" speech in the Indian parliament in 2007, laid the ground for the emergence of Indo-Pacific region as a contemporary political, strategic and economic reality. Prime Minister Abe's contribution to India-Japan relations was recognized by the conferment upon him of the prestigious Padma Vibhushan in 2021. Shinzo Abe was assassinated on July 8 in the city of Nara during a campaign speech. India had announced one-day national mourning on 09 July 2022 as a mark of respect for Abe Shinzo. Speaking about the deep respect ex-PM Abe had in India, Kwatra said, "We had declared a day of national mourning when former PM Abe departed this world. PM Modi holds former PM Abe a very dear friend, had also conveyed his sincerest condolences at that time."(ANI) The audio leak of the conversations of Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other leaders of the ruling coalition in the country have raised questions about national security and the flaws in the cyber security of the office of the Prime Minister. Pakistan Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Sunday said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has taken notice of audio leaks involving the prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and an inquiry has been initiated. Sanaullah said that the inquiry of leaked audio would involve high-level officials from all agencies. He further said that the inquiry will determine whether the PM's House's security was breached or not, ARY News reported. However, neither the Prime Minister nor the Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb denied or disputed the phone conversation, suggesting alarm bells have been sounded in all corridors of power, the Dawn reported. According to the publication, sources in the PM House said that the issue was "quite serious" and it was being investigated by the relevant quarters on the directives of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who was in London when the leaks were first reported. When asked whether the leaks featured in any conversations in London, a senior PML-N leader privy to the talks said that PM Shehbaz would handle the issue upon his return to Pakistan, the Dawn reported. This comes as Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhry claimed that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) office was not secured and the 115-hour-long leaked audio clip has been put on for auction on the dark web for USD 3.5 million. He said that the audio leak confirmed that decisions are being made in London. He added that the PMO audio leak was also a failure of the security agencies. Meanwhile, PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday alleged that the leaked audio clip had proved that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice-President Maryam Nawaz's son-in-law also made illegal money. In the clip, a voice - said to be that of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif - informs the government official about Maryam Nawaz looking to import machinery from India for a power plant, upon the request of her son-in-law Raheel. While the second audio clip leaked on Sunday is allegedly between the federal cabinet in which the final approval on the resignations of PTI members was taken from London. A day later, more purported audio clips featuring leaders of the Pakistan ruling coalition surfaced on Sunday. In the clips which were shared by several PTI leaders, the conversations between Pakistan Muslim League-N Vice President Maryam, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Law Minister Azam Tarar, Sanaullah and former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif were heard. The first clip purportedly features a conversation between PML-N Vice President Maryam and PM Shehbaz about the country's finance minister Miftah Ismail, who has reportedly faced criticism from within the party for taking tough economic measures, reported Dawn. The PML-N vice president has publicly stated that she does not agree with the decision to hike petrol and electricity prices, saying she did not own such decisions, whether her party was in government or not. The second clip allegedly features a conversation between the premier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Law Minister Azam Tarar, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq about the resignations of PTI lawmakers from the lower house of parliament. And the third clip was of a purported conversation between Maryam and PM Shehbaz regarding the return of Pakistan's former military leader Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf's family in June publicly confirmed that he was "going through a difficult stage" where recovery was not possible while Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar said Musharraf's family was in contact with the military regarding his planned return. The audio clip involved PM Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Law Minister Azam Tarar, Maryam Nawaz and former National Assembly speaker Ayaz Sadiq. (ANI) Celebrating 50 years of the India-Vietnam diplomatic relationship, Minister of State for External Affairs and Education, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh interacted with the Indian diaspora in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday. "Had a wonderful evening with Indian Diaspora in the Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam. Happy to note that the Indian investors are making commendable contributions in various fields and preserved our culture. I hope that you will continue to make us proud by your accomplishments," the state minister tweeted. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh is in Vietnam as the two countries this year mark 50 years of their diplomatic ties. On the occasion, State Minister Ranjan on Sunday attended the Horasis India Meeting 2022, to further escalate the bilateral ties between India and Vietnam. India Economic Cooperation Forum 2022 was held in Binh Duong, on the afternoon of Sunday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of India-Vietnamese relations. The discussion in the in-person gathering of the global business community with top leaders began with India's response to COVID-19 management and what the two countries have learnt as an outcome of the past two years of the pandemic. "Horasis India Meeting in-person gathering of the global business community with top leaders since Covid-19 pandemic at Bing Duong, Vietnam. My heartiest congratulations to Horasis India Business Community," said the State Minister Ranjan. "Pleasure to attend Horasis India Meeting 2022, Dien Dan Hop Tac Kinh Te An Do Horasis 2022, Binh Durong. Escalating bilateral economic engagement has been manifested as one of the essential pillars for future partnership and cooperation between the two countries," Ranjan tweeted, adding "Emphasized that over the past 50 years, the relationship between India and Vietnam has developed very well and is getting tighter and has the potential for further growth." Besides, he called upon the deputy prime ministers of Vietnam Vu Duc Dam as a part of the commemorative celebration. "Pleasure to meet H.E. Mr. Vu Duc Dam, Deputy Prime Ministers of Vietnam in this landmark year of 50th anniversary of our diplomatic relations and be part of commemorative celebrations. Our bilateral relations have grown from strength to strength with our collaborations," he said on Twitter.. On Sunday, he also met with the Party Secretary of Binh Duong Province, Nguyen Van Loi and exchanged views for further deepening of bilateral relationships including trade, investment and people-to-people exchanges. "Had a meaningful interaction with H.E. Mr. Nguyen Van Loi, Party Secretary of Binh Duong Province, Vietnam, celebrating #50thAnniversary of India Vietnam diplomatic relations. We look forward to continue advancing cooperation in the joint vision adopted in last 2 years back," Ranjan tweeted. (ANI) Russia on Monday granted citizenship to former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was given asylum in the country after he made sensational claims about a US mass surveillance program back in 2013, according to reports. President Vladimir Putin today signed a decree today granting Russian citizenship to him, according to CBS News. Similar reports also appeared in Russian media. The move comes at a time when there is tension between USA and Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. 39-year-old Snowden made headlines after making allegations about a US mass surveillance program back in 2013 claiming it was carried out by the NSA where he was a contractor. He fled America and was given asylum by Russia. US authorities have for years wanted Snowden returned to the United States to face a criminal trial on espionage charges. In 2016, US Congress released a report saying Snowden has been in contact with Russian intelligence officials since his arrival in Russia, a claim Snowden denied. In an interview in September in 2019, Snowden said he would be willing to return to the US if guaranteed a fair trial. "One of the big topics in Europe right now is should Germany and France invite me in to get asylum," he had said. "And of course I would like to return to the United States. That is the ultimate goal. But if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison, the one bottom-line demand that we all have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial. And that's the one thing the government has refused to guarantee because they won't provide access to what's called a public interest defense," Snowden had said, as quoted by CNN. (ANI) Responding to National Commission for Minorities' concerns over the reports of the abduction and forced conversion of a Sikh woman in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed the commission that India has raised the matter with the Pakistani counterpart through diplomatic channels. On August 22, National Commission for Minorities chairman Iqbal Singh Lalpura urged Jaishankar to take up the matter with his Pakistani counterpart so that this kind of incident can be prevented in future, an official statement read. While in a letter addressed to the NCM chairman on September 17, Jaishankar informed that the Government has taken note of the incident and as soon as the report of the incident was received, it also raised the matter with the Pakistani counterpart through diplomatic channels and conveyed "grave concerns" at the incident. "The Government has also shared the concern in Indian society at the continued persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in Pakistan. Pakistan has also been called upon to ensure safety, security and welfare of the members of the minority communities in Pakistan, including their places of worship," Jaishankar said in the letter, as per the statement issued by the National Commission for Minorities. Pakistan's dilemma of forced conversions and marriages put minority women at risk and the issue of securing rights for minority women has become particularly complex in the country. On the evening of August 20 in the Buner district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, Dina Kaur, a teacher belonging to the Sikh community, was forcibly abducted and converted to Islam. Despite massive protests by the Sikh community in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province over the incident, local police have failed to initiate any investigation into the abduction and forcible conversion of Dina Kaur. As Pakistan moves in an increasingly conservative Islamist direction, the situation for Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities, especially that of women, is worsening, reported International Forum for Right and Security (IFFRAS). Religious minority women and girls are abducted, forcibly converted, forcibly married and abused, and their families are unsuccessful in their attempts to challenge these crimes using legal avenues, reported IFFRAS. (ANI) Paramount+ In terms of unadulterated experiential terror, 11 Minutes has few non-fiction equals, utilizing an array of cellphone and bodycam videos to place viewers directly in the midst of the mass shooting at Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest country music festival on Oct. 1, 2017. Fifty-eight people died that evening and another 869 were injured, all due to the lethal actions of a lone gunman firing from a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. Boasting commentary from Jason Aldean, who was on stage as the event headliner when the madness erupted, director Jeff Zimbalists four-part docuseries (Sept. 27, Paramount+) immerses itself in the moment-to-moment chaos of that calamity with stunning urgency. Its a long-form portrait of hell that, figuratively speaking, never ends, both in its victims minds and in America, where massacres like this are now somehow accepted as par for the course. 11 Minutes makes an issue out of not naming the perpetrator of this heinous atrocity, contending that doing so only leads to glorification and copycatsand, also, that the individuals who truly deserve to be remembered are his innocent victims and the heroes who risked their lives to save as many as possible. Certainly, anyone curious about the mans identity can find it in a heartbeat online, and since authorities continue to have no comprehensive clue about why he did what he did, theres not a lot to be gleaned from focusing on him. A far bigger omission, however, is a serious discussion about our never-ending national infatuation with firearms. Except for a fleeting five-minute segment in episode 3 in which the debate over guns is presented via TV news clips, and the parents of victim Carrie Parsons argue against assault weapons and discuss their efforts to successfully outlaw bump stocks (which transform semi-automatic guns into fully automatic ones), the series avoids overtly addressing the most easily preventable element of this slaughter. Story continues The Real Bling Ring Spotlights the Teens Who Robbed Paris Hilton and the Hollywood Elite 11 Minutes is frustrating in its refusal to screamloudly, angrily, hystericallyover the blatant insanity of any person being able to legally purchase over 55 firearms in one year, including the fourteen AR-15 rifles, eight AR-10-type rifles, and single bolt-action rifle and revolver that were found in the shooters Mandalay Bay room. Nonetheless, if Zimbalists docuseries is deliberately subdued on this most important of points, its on-the-ground footage paints a deafening portrait of the carnage wrought from our status quo. In the sights and sounds of screaming men and women huddling for protection, racing through the venues grounds as bullets whiz through the air, hiding behind cars and walls, and frantically carrying the wounded past (and over) the dead to cops and EMTs on the scene, who themselves are taking heavy fire and suffering grave injuries, it affords an up-close-and-personal view of being in the thick of a mass shootingwhich, unsurprisingly, feels akin to a war zone. That material is harrowing, and edited together to provide a clear, chronological, multi-perspective snapshot of how things went down during the attack. Better still, 11 Minutes is driven by the recollections of a wide range of attendees, police officers and medical personnel who endured this horror, much of which is then accompanied by actual video and audio of the stories theyre telling. From twin sisters Gianna and Natalia Baca and the formers boyfriend Parker Max (whose father was part of the responding SWAT team) striving to make it out alive, to Kelly Pollard, who valiantly tried to get her friend Cassie to safety, Zimbalist presents a collection of heartrending accounts that take one from the stage to the street to nearby Sunrise Hospital, where doctors dealt with an overwhelming influx of critically injured patients, and where the white floors soon became covered in blood. Of those narratives, the most affecting is that of Jonathan Smith, a Black man who faced discrimination shortly before the shooting (when a guy stated that he was surprised your kind liked country music), heroically evacuated people from the area, took a bullet to the chest, and was ultimately rescued by white San Diego police officer Tom McGrath. In his ordeal, 11 Minutes captures the ugly and the inspiring of 21st-century America. Cops race toward danger in order to protect the powerless. Strangers put the welfare of others ahead of their own, at great periland with tremendous consequences. And civilians exhibit perseverance, courage and resilience despite unbelievable circumstancesnone more so than Natalie Grumet, a breast-cancer survivor whose jaw was shattered by a round from the shooters rifle. As for Aldean, he provides a few remarks about his own experience being ushered into a tour bus, as well as some platitudes about healing through togetherness; more intense is Dee Jay Silvers tale about discovering that his 1-year-old son was with a nanny on the same 32nd floor as the shooter. Though its outcome is now well-known, 11 Minutes thrums with anxious intensity as it charts concertgoers attempts to exit the venue (which was shadowed by the Mandalay Bay, making it a veritable shooting gallery), cops struggles to help others as well as their own, and everyone trying to make sense of the senseless. Meanwhile, CCTV snippets of the shooter arriving at the hotel and spending time playing video poker (which was apparently his primary profession) provide a haunting calm-before-the-storm counterpoint to the pandemonium he instigated, all for reasons that are as mysterious now as they were then. 11 Minutes value lies in its immediacy, which underscores the nightmarishness begat by our unwillingness to put systems in place to keep military-grade weapons out of civilians hands. Still, director Zimbalists decision to focus on you-are-there anarchyand, by extension, to let his material do the talkingalso comes across as a bit of an evasion. In the face of such calamitous monstrousness, the docuseries disinterest in more vocally confronting the source of this avertible suffering does a disservice to those who lost their lives that day, and to all the others who, as its in memoriam coda makes clear, died in the numerous similar tragedies that have followed in its wake. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. LONDON (AP) British police said Monday that 12 people were arrested and at least five police officers were seriously injured after violent disorder broke out during protests outside the Iranian Embassy in London. Large crowds had gathered all week outside the compound to protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody in Iran after she was detained by the country's morality police. The Metropolitan Police force said most protesters had been peaceful, but on Sunday a group of activists sought to confront police and other protesters with different views. Police said bottles and other items were thrown at officers trying to protect the embassy building, and that protesters also targeted the nearby Islamic Center of England. At least five officers were hospitalized with injuries including broken bones, police said. Amini was arrested for allegedly breaking headscarf rules and died on Sept. 16. The Iranian police said she died of a heart attack and wasn't mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account. The London clashes came as protests over her death spread across dozens of Iranian cities, towns and villages. Irans Foreign Ministry said Sunday it summoned Britains ambassador to protest what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets. The ministry alleged the news outlets have provoked disturbances and the spread of riots in Iran at the top of their programs. Worried parents at School No. 88 in Izhevsk, Russia. Maria Baklanova/Kommersant Photo/AFP via Getty Images At least 17 people were killed and 24 others injured during a shooting Monday at School No. 88 in Izhevsk, Russia. Authorities said 11 children were killed in the attack, as well as a school security guard and two teachers. The gunman has been identified as Artyom Kazantsev, 34, a former student at the school. Kazantsev was a patient at a local psychiatric facility, and arrived at the school wearing a black T-shirt with "Nazi symbols" on it, Russia's Investigative Committee said. After the attack, Kazantsev died by suicide. This was the act of a "terrorist," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. An investigation has been opened into how the suspect acquired two non-lethal handguns found at the scene that had been modified to fire bullets. Izhevsk is in central Russia, and is the capital of the Udmurt Republic. Compared to the United States, school shootings are rare in Russia, but "may be becoming more common, with three mass shootings at educational institutions since May last year," The Washington Post says. You may also like New Pacific island forms after underwater volcano erupts Former White House chief of staff texted voter fraud conspiracy theorist James Earl Jones steps back from voicing Darth Vader in Star Wars series Police are investigating after a 17-year-old from Hardeeville was injured in a shooting after a drug deal gone wrong, according to the Beaufort County Sheriffs Office. Police were called around 6:40 p.m. after people reported that there had been shots fired on Woodland Court in The Retreat at Grande Oaks, a Bluffton residential community. The teenager was sitting in a car outside of a home in the area for a drug transaction, said Maj. Angela Viens, a spokesperson for the sheriffs office. Several witnesses who were nearby and heard the gunshots told police they saw two men running away from the area. As of Monday, investigators are still looking for the two men for questioning. No description for the two was immediately available. Police are asking residents in The Retreat neighborhood to check their doorbell cameras to see if they caught anything suspicious from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday night. The teenager was taken to Savannah Memorial Hospital and was in stable condition, police said in the alert. No arrests have been made as of Monday. Anyone with information regarding this incident may call Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry at 843-554-1111 or Sgt. Dario Sosa with the sheriffs Office at 843-255-3435. Attacks at school bus stops in a south Georgia city left two students wounded Monday morning after one boy was stabbed during a fight and another got shot walking to the bus, police said. Valdosta Chief Leslie Manahan said the assaults, which were reported about 10 minutes apart, werent related. Police found the first victim when someone called 911 at about 7:17 a.m. to report children fighting at a bus stop, the Valdosta Daily Times reported. A 12-year-old boy had been stabbed in the abdomen with a knife, police said in a statement. The child was treated and released at a hospital. TRENDING STORIES: At 7:26 a.m., officers were dispatched to a second location where a school bus was heading to the hospital with a 17-year-old boy who had been shot. Police said the teenager had been shot in the torso while walking to the bus. He was hospitalized in stable condition, according to the police statement. Officers arrested a 15-year-old boy on aggravated assault charges in the stabbing, police said. No arrests were announced in the shooting, and police said the gunshot victim was not cooperating with investigators. IN OTHER NEWS: Three people were hospitalized early Monday morning after a car they were in crashed into a building in Seattles Phinney Ridge neighborhood, according to the Seattle Fire Department. Fire crews responded to the collision in the 5000 block of Phinney Avenue North, near Woodland Park Zoo, just before 1 a.m. No one was trapped in the vehicle as a result of the collision, according to SFD. The three people were treated at the scene before they were transported to a hospital in stable condition for further treatment. A tow truck also responded to the scene to remove the vehicle. Authorities have not yet shared details on the cause of the crash. Three men are behind bars after allegedly forcing a woman into a car at gunpoint then sexually assaulting her. On Sept. 23, Memphis Police (MPD) responded to a forcible rape, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated robbery in the 1200 block of College Street. According to an affidavit, a woman said she had been picked up in the 300 block of American Way by an unknown man in a gray Infiniti. When she attempted to get out of the vehicle, a man later identified as Robert Eason got out of the backseat and pointed a Draco-style weapon at her, the affidavit said. (L to R) Edward Hoof, Robert Eason and Devin Taylor Eason allegedly demanded the victim give him all of her belongings. When she told him she did not have any money, Eason and another man allegedly made her remove her clothes. According to police, Eason then forced the victim to perform oral sex before she was forced back inside the vehicle. While in the backseat, he allegedly had forcible sex with the woman while the unknown man drove them to a residence on College Street, where other men were inside. According to police, one of the men forcibly had oral sex with the victim with another man had sex with her. The victim said all the men bragged about what they were doing. She was able to secretly send a message, and her family contacted police, according to the affidavit. When police arrived, they found the woman and the three suspects, identified as Devin Taylor, 24; Robert Eason, 22; and Edward Hoof, 27 . The woman was held for approximately 11 hours, police said. She identified the suspects in a photo lineup. Investigators recovered a Draco rifle, an AR-15 rifle, and a shotgun inside the home. In a statement to police, Taylor denied involvement. Hes charged with aggravated kidnapping and attempted aggravated rape. Eason admitted to having a gun and having sex with the victim, records show. Eason has a previous felony conviction from 2021 for intentionally evading arrest in a vehicle, records show. Hes charged with 3 counts of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, possession of a firearm, convicted felon in possession of a handgun, and attempted aggravated robbery. Story continues Hoof is charged with aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, and possession of a firearm. Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Trending stories: BuzzFeed "I was surprised that food was a privilege or luxury not a given. My parents are fairly well-off, and I grew up in a house with an always-stocked pantry and refrigerator. If I was hungry, I ate without question. My wife grew up in relative poverty. If she was hungry, there was a strong likelihood there was no food in the house, and she would stay hungry."View Entire Post A 19-year-old Atlanta-area man is accused of stabbing his nephew in what police say may have been drug related incident. Officers arrived around 8 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 25, at a home in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where they found a 4-year-old child with a stab wound to his abdomen, Gwinnett County police said in a news release. Anatolii Balesta, identified as the childs uncle, was still inside the house when authorities arrived and was later arrested in connection with the attack. Police are now working to determine what led to the stabbing. Detectives believe narcotics to be the reason for the attack, but the investigation is ongoing, police said in a news release. The child, who authorities havent identified, was taken to a hospital in stable condition and is expected to be OK, according to authorities. Balesta was charged with aggravated assault and first-degree child cruelty, police said. He remained in the Gwinnett County Jail without bond as of Monday, Sept. 26, online records show. Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call Gwinnett County police detectives at 770-513-5300, or contact Crime Stoppers at 404-577-TIPS (8477). Lawrenceville is about 30 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. Attack at county fair leaves two hospitalized with stab wounds, North Carolina cops say Woman stabs sister with a screwdriver during fight over food, Alabama cops say Man grabs scissors and repeatedly stabs customer at store counter, Florida cops say Runners turned out to the Steel City Sunday to participate in the 45th Pittsburgh Great race. Participants could participate in a 5K or 10K race. Courses ran through Oakland and Frick Park. According to our partners at TribLIVE.com, more than 7,000 participants showed up for the event today. Runners came from 35 different states and six different countries. Nick Wolk and Jennifer Bigham from Squirrel Hill were the first to cross the finish line for the 10k race. Wolk finished with a time of 29:58 and Bigham finished at 34:37. Clay Burnett earned his fourth victory in the Pittsburgh Great Races 5K division, finishing at 15:11. Jordon Hasay finished first in the womens 5K at 16:56. Sunday marked her first victory. Some of the proceeds raised during the great race will support medical research through The Pittsburgh Foundation, an organization that has been in the city since 1945. The Pittsburgh Foundation said its mission is to improve the quality of life in the Pittsburgh region. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: LATEST UPDATES: 3 people, including 2 teens, shot inside Kennywood Park Saturday night Everyone started running: Woman recounts moment shots rang out at Kennywood Park PHOTOS: Police swarm Kennywood Park after multiple people shot inside park VIDEO: Local council member responds to death of inmate from Allegheny County Jail DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Other sniffling commuters could leave you battling a cold this autumn and winter. (Getty Images) Maybe you've already had a couple of colds this month... or perhaps you're still reeling from having back-to-back sniffles last year. But whether a cold tends to wipe you out or you've just learnt to put up with your symptoms, often feeling under the weather is no one's idea of fun. So, if you're someone who's 'cold-prone', here's what you need to know about avoiding the common virus this autumn and winter. Read more: How to spot if a cough is coronavirus or hay fever Why do I keep getting colds? Often struggle with a sore throat, headache, cough and raised temperature? While you might already be cautiously disinfecting your desk and turning away from coughing commuters, it can still be difficult to avoid infection. Even worse, cold and flu viruses can linger for up to 48 hours after being 'sneezed out' by a sufferer so you can't even spot the culprit who's left their pesky germs everywhere. A flu virus particle is just one 10,000th of a millimetre across, Dr Chris Smith, consultant virologist and head of The Naked Scientists at the University of Cambridge, told Yahoo UK. At this minuscule scale, the particles can readily bob about in the air, usually suspended inside small droplets of water coughed or sneezed out by an infected individual. That said, surfaces, such as door knobs, telephones, handrails and other people's hands themselves are also potential sources." So, in nursery settings, for example, the toy box is a major culprit, which may explain why your kids keep bringing back unwanted bugs. If 'caught' in fabric, i.e. a tissue, then cold and flu viruses survive for around eight hours, according to Dr Lisa Ackerley, chartered environmental health practitioner and spokesperson for Jakemans. However, if the pathogen (that can produce disease) lands on a hard surface, it could stick around for up to two days. If you touch something in a public place its quite possible for someone to have deposited viruses onto the surface, said Dr Ackerley. Story continues Supermarket trolleys are one of the top places cold and flu viruses linger. (Getty Images) Where am I picking up colds and how can I prevent them? Public transport As if gloomy mornings weren't off-putting enough, sharing a train with spluttering passengers can make commuting to work even tougher. You can pick up all sorts on your hands as you travel in; colds, flu, norovirus, said Dr Ackerley. This is exactly why the germaphobes among us are reluctant to to hold on to rails on buses, tubes or trams. Dr Ackerley reassures, however, the sniffles dont have to be inevitable. Germs that are just on your hands wont make you ill as there is no transfer into the body, she said. If the virus is on your finger and then you rub your eye, or put your finger up [your] nose, thats a route of infection. Assume your hands are dirty, and wash them with soap and warm water when you get to the office. So, to stay fighting fit, it really can be as a simple as a regular, thorough hand-washing technique. The rubbing action dislodges the microbes from your hands, down the plughole, explained Dr Ackerley. Do it for 20 seconds; sing happy birthday twice in your head. This might sound silly, but it's the official advice from the NHS (and you might remember the guidance used to help people prevent catching COVID-19). And, even if there is a queue for the hand dryer, Dr Ackerley stresses it is one extra process of preventing transmission. Wet hands can transfer viruses more effectively than dry hands, she explained. Read more: Flu jab: Who's eligible for the NHS vaccine rollout and how to book Supermarket trolley With thousands flocking to the shops every day, it's easy to come into contact with a virus while doing your weekly shop. Children may have been sitting in a trolley; there could be snot all over the place! Dr Ackerley said candidly. To stay fit and well, the medic recommends scrubbing your hands as soon as you get home. People often load the shopping in the car, arrive home hungry and open a bag of crisps, not realising their hands are dirty, she said. And when in the comfort of our own vehicle, it's easy to become complacent. When were in a car, were in our own bubble and may rub our eyes as we drive along, Dr Ackerley pointed out. So, again, just like with preventing Covid, you might want to arm yourself with some sanitiser to keep those hands clean. Mobile phone While we're all reliant on our phones, constantly scrolling, we may not appreciate that the hard surface is no different and can also be home to viruses for up to 48 hours. If your hand is dirty, you might then touch your phone and forget about it, said Dr Ackerley. You may then wash your hands, before touching your phone again, reinfecting yourself. Mobiles are unlikely to be a major source of contamination, as we tend not to pass our phone around apart from perhaps to our own children but you'll want to make sure you aren't putting yourself at risk without realising. Don't forget to clean your phone, as well as your hands. (Getty Images) Computer keyboards Modern offices often encourage workers to 'hotdesk' to reduce clutter, engage with colleagues and boost efficiency, but moving from desk-to-desk could leave an entire team sneezing. If you hot-desk and spray your germs all over the place, every surface in that zone will be contaminated," Dr Ackerley warned. To protect yourself, consider starting the day by disinfecting your desk with an antiviral product. Since the pandemic, the etiquette of going into the office when unwell has changed as many of us are more cautious about spreading germs. Plus, offices are usually kept extra-clean these days. Read more: Vitamin D supplements: When and why you should take them Lift buttons While it may seem extreme, think how many colleagues ride in that same lift every day, spreading their germs as they go. There is a lot to be said for being careful, said Dr Ackerley. If you know you fidget, try to wash your hands after touching things others have touched. Make sure your hands are clean before eating lunch or touching your face. The NHS also advises preventing catching a cold by washing your hands with warm water and soap; not sharing towels or household items with someone who has one; not touching your eyes or nose to avoid infection; and generally staying fit and healthy. While, in fact, some germs are good for us as they can help to boost immunity, hopefully these expert-approved tips will help you stay a little more cold-free in the coming months. You should see a GP if your symptoms haven't improved after three weeks, suddenly get worse, your temperature is very high or you feel hot and shivery, you're concerned about your child's symptoms, you're short of breath or have chest pain, you have a long-term medical condition, or a weakened immune system. Watch: Three ways to prevent colds from spreading at home Ridofranz / iStock.com According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently 6 million Americans who are unemployed. Though thats still less than pandemic levels, its not exactly breeding confidence in those workers who fear being laid off or fired. See: What Can Disqualify You From Unemployment Benefits? Find: What Is the Highest Income for Food Stamps in 2022? However, one sector of jobs seems to be ironclad: The U.S. government. Federal workers are very rarely fired or laid off and have more protections, according to a new article in the Washington Examiner. This is partially due to President Joe Biden putting a stronger push on hiring union workers for these jobs, more so than Trump did before him. The article noted recent data that shows just 4,000 of 1.6 million government workers lost their jobs in recent years just 1% of the population of people holding these positions. And for those who are dismissed from their gigs, they usually get the job back through the work of an arbitrator. The American First Policy Institute has reported that over 50% resume their roles after being let go, and usually with back pay. The combination of lengthy delays, followed by high reversal rates and back pay obligations makes attempting to dismiss unionized employees very risky for agencies, the study from the AFPI pointed out. In fact, Washington Business Journal reported that it can take up to 370 days (more than a year!) for any federal employee to be fired. This is because theres strict protocol with several key steps before dismissing a worker. It includes monitoring performance and providing feedback, documenting instances and bringing in other departments, a mandatory probationary period and drafting up dismissal paperwork that has to be signed off on. Take Our Poll: Are You Struggling To Keep Up With Your Utility Bills? On top of that, employees then have rights to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board. And during the whole dismissal process, they may make a request for reasonable accommodation, file a grievance or file an equal employment opportunity complaint that adds time to the process, the outlet elaborated. Story continues Given the amount of time it takes, as well as the high rate of termination reversal by the arbitrators, most higher ups in the departments skip the process altogether. Of course, that doesnt mean you can just slack off and have no consequences in these roles. According to Chron, you can still be fired, but it has to be for a just cause with proper procedures followed since unlike most private sector jobs federal employees are not at-will workers. The other benefit is there are a range of federal jobs people of all skill sets and levels of experience can apply for. According to FederalPay.org, the most common government gigs include nurses, compliance inspectors, information technology managers, social insurance administrators, general attorneys and border patrol enforcement officers, among many others. According to Indeed, the highest paying government jobs include physicians and anesthesiologists, political affair officers, mathematicians and mechanical engineers, which rank in the top five. Compare: 5 Best & Worst States for Unemployment in 2022 Expert Tips: How To Regain Confidence During Unemployment Indeed also touts the additional benefits (along with job security) that come with federal employment. Among them include comprehensive healthcare plans and pensions, competitive salaries including raises and promotions and work-life balance with every federal holiday a paid day off. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Afraid of Being Fired? Consider Working a Forever Job with the Federal Government Associated Press Russell M. Nelson, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told members of the faith on Saturday that abuse was a grievous sin that shouldn't be tolerated and would bring down the wrath of God on perpetrators. Let me be perfectly clear: Any kind of abuse of women, children or anyone is an abomination to the Lord, Nelson, who members of the faith believe is a prophet, said in Salt Lake City at a church conference. The AP's investigation found the hotline the church uses for abuse reporting can be misused by its leaders to divert accusations away from law enforcement and toward church attorneys. Alan Rickman as Severus Snape in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2." Warner Bros. Pictures "Harry Potter" star Alan Rickman wanted to quit the Wizarding World between 2002 and 2005. The Guardian published extracts from his diary, revealing his honest thoughts about the franchise. Rickman considered leaving during "Chamber of Secrets," "Prisoner of Azkaban," and "Goblet of Fire." Extracts from the diary of "Harry Potter" star Alan Rickman reveal that the actor behind Professor Snape wanted to quit the franchise in the mid-2000s, but stayed because the potion master's redemption arc was a "cliff edge to hang on to." Rickman starred in all eight "Harry Potter" movies from 2001 to 2011, with Snape starting out as an antagonistic teacher at Hogwarts, before transforming into a tragic antihero in later films. The Guardian recently published a series of eyeopening extracts from the British star's diary, which detail his experience working on the hugely successful franchise. Rickman wrote that he originally considered leaving around the time he was working on "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." In January 2002, the "Die Hard" alum said that working on a franchise felt neverending. He wrote: "Nice to see them all again but it's a dreamlike thing, as if it has never stopped. And in a way, it hasn't and won't " And later in December 2002, Rickman first mentions discussions of exiting the role. "Talking to [agent] Paul Lyon-Maris about HP exit, which he thinks will happen. But here we are in the project-collision area again. Reiterating no more HP. They don't want to hear it," he said. Rickman expressed how annoying it was to work within the studio system in a number of other entries, even recalling one moment when "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" director Alfonso Cuaron went "quietly ballistic" at him after an accident on set. After venting about the stresses of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Rickman eventually signed on for the fifth film, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" in January 2006 shortly after he was treated for prostate cancer. Story continues He wrote: "Finally, yes to HP 5. The sensation is neither up nor down. The argument that wins is the one that says: 'See it through. It's your story.'" Rickman star was equally honest about what kept him going while working on the franchise, revealing that "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling had told him about Snape's story arc involving his unrequited love for Lily Potter, played by Ellie Darcey-Alden and Geraldine Somerville. "I have finished reading the last Harry Potter book," he wrote. "Snape dies heroically, Potter describes him to his children as one of the bravest men he ever knew and calls his son Albus Severus. This was a genuine rite of passage. One small piece of information from Jo Rowling seven years ago Snape loved Lily gave me a cliff edge to hang on to." Audiences will remember that Snape has had feelings for Lily ever since meeting her as a young boy, and his love for her is what keeps him going even as the Order of the Phoenix's double agent in Voldemort's ranks. He ultimately redeems himself by protecting Harry on numerous occasions over the course of the franchise. Read the original article on Insider On Sept. 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov had overnight command of the top-secret Serpukhov-15 bunker where the Soviet military monitored early warning systems for a nuclear strike. An alarm sounded, The Washington Post reported in 1999. Satellites reported an inbound U.S. nuclear missile. Then another. And another. Five missiles in all. It was Petrovs job to alert his superiors for an immediate nuclear counter strike. All I had to do was reach for the phone, Petrov told BBC News in 2013. But I couldnt move. Distant early warning Both the United States and Soviet Union maintained early warning networks during the Cold War to try to detect incoming nuclear missiles in time to launch their own counter strikes. It was all part of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction deterring the enemy from attacking by the promise of nuclear annihilation in return, according to Brittanica.com. Early warning systems used and still use radar, satellites, computers and sophisticated communications to try to detect and react to possible nuclear launches. The distant early warning line, for example, covered the Arctic with radar installations tuned to pick up nuclear missiles launched at the U.S. over the North Pole, CBC News reported. (The name also inspired the title of a song on the 1984 Rush album Grace Under Pressure.) The network, now largely obsolete, has been replaced by the North Warning System. But despite all the high technology involved, the systems werent foolproof. The siren howled In fall 1983, tensions between the United States and Soviet Union were high. In September, a USSR fighter jet shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 after it entered Soviet airspace. All 269 passengers and crew aboard died, including 63 Americans among them U.S. Rep. Larry McDonald, D-Ga., the Associated Press reported. Next to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it may have been one of the most frightening periods of the Cold War, CNN reported. And now Petrov had a warning of an incoming U.S. nuclear strike on his monitor. Story continues But he couldnt make sense of the alert. Why would the U.S. initiate a nuclear war with only five missiles? It would be suicide. The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word launch on it, Petrov told BBC News. Nuclear missteps On Oct. 5, 1960, radar equipment in Thule, Greenland, reported an incoming large-scale Soviet nuclear strike, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported in 2015. Except a nuclear attack on the United States didnt make much sense with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in New York for a visit to the United Nations. The attack turned out to be the moon rise, which created radar reflections mistaken for a sky filled with missiles, the union said. And it was far from the last such error. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a Soviet submarine forced to dive by U.S. vessels blockading the island almost launched a nuclear torpedo after the captain became convinced war had broken out, PBS reported. But another officer, one of three aboard who had to agree, refused to authorize the launch, which would almost certainly have destroyed a U.S. aircraft carrier.. And in 1979, computer errors at several U.S. military headquarters warned that 2,200 Soviet ballistic missiles were inbound and due to strike within minutes, The National Security Archive reported. The U.S. prepared its nuclear bombers for launch before radar and satellite reports confirmed the supposed strike was a false alarm. Other glitches caused three more in the weeks to come. On a hot frying pan Now, on the other side of the world, Petrov faced a similar dilemma. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan, Petrov told BBC News. He was certain that if he notified his superiors of an incoming strike nobody would have said a word against it. As Petrov tried to juggle phones, intercoms and flashing electronic maps and consoles, another officer shouted at him to remain calm and do his job, he told The Washington Post. And then the 44-year-old lieutenant colonel made his decision. He would not notify his superiors of what seemed to him to be a false report. I had a funny feeling in my gut, Petrov told The Washington Post. When people start a war, they dont start it with only five missiles. Even so, it wasnt until after the supposed missiles would have hit, about 23 minutes later, that Petrov was able to relax. More nuclear mistakes In November 1983, just a few months later, NATO launched Operation Able Archer, a huge training exercise in Europe that included simulating preparations for nuclear attacks to halt a Soviet invasion, Smithsonian Magazine reported. But Soviet leaders feared the exercise was actually a ruse for a real U.S. nuclear attack. Nuclear-capable aircraft were fueled and armed, ready to launch, on Soviet runways. Soviet forces stood down after the exercise ended uneventfully, Smithsonian Magazine said. NATO didnt find out how close Able Archer had come to triggering an all-out nuclear war for years. Even after the demise of the USSR, Russia went on high alert in 1995 when radar detected the launch of what turned out to be a Norwegian rocket studying the Northern Lights, Frontline said. Fallout Petrov, who retired from the military to a suburb outside Moscow, where he died in 2017, never got much attention for his role in averting a possible nuclear war, National Public Radio said. Within the Soviet military, he was first praised for his actions, then repeatedly interrogated, The Washington Post said. He eventually received an official reprimand, not for failing to report the alert, but for errors in the logbook, BBC News reported. An investigation later traced the false alarm to a satellite that picked up the suns reflection off the tops of clouds and mistook it for a missile launch, The Washington Post reported. Thirty years later, Petrov told BBC News he was still convinced that any of his fellow officers would have reported the false alarm as a U.S. attack had they been on duty. Petrov said he didnt think of himself as a hero, though. That was my job, Petrov told BBC News. But they were lucky it was me on shift that night. Is bunker for sale in Arizona nice for the end of the world? Or cool place to live? Watch as spirited Ukrainians sing together in shelters as Russian invasion continues The murder trial of the man accused in the 2019 killing of Amanda Dabrowski is inching toward a December trial. But before the trial of Carlos Asencio is scheduled to begin, the lengthy examination of his mental health by his defense team is expected to be completed, as Asencio prepares to present an insanity defense in the murder. Dabrowski, 31, of Webster, was murdered at OConnors Restaurant on West Boylston Street in Worcester in July of 2019, allegedly at the hands of Asencio, a co-worker she dated briefly. Several customers jumped in to restrain Asencio who, police say, repeatedly stabbed Amanda in front of diners. The case has been delayed by pandemic-related court closures and the psychiatric evaluation Asencio is undergoing. The murder trial of the Carlos Asencio, the man accused in the 2019 killing of Amanda Dabrowski, is inching toward a December trial. In Worcester Superior Court on Monday, Asencios defense attorney said the results of that evaluation are due soon. My expert has examined my client a number of times, said Griffin. I expect to have his report in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Griffin said he would turn over the results of that exam to prosecutors, who are planning to have their own expert evaluate Asencio. Ed Dabrowski, the father of Amanda Dabrowski, released a statement after Mondays hearing. Through this process, weve learned to be patient, said Dabrowski. Hell get what he ultimately deserves. Both sides also agreed on Monday to allow prosecutors to inspect and copy some impounded materials at the district clerks office. The case returns to court in November. PREVIOUS: 25 Investigates: The Murder of Amanda Dabrowski 25 Investigates: man accused of murdering woman at Worcester restaurant seeking insanity defense 25 Investigates: Trial date set for the murder of Amanda Dabrowski 25 Investigates: Family of woman murdered in Worcester settles suit against her former employer Justice and answers on hold for parents of woman murdered at popular Worcester restaurant a year ago Woman stabbed inside Worcester restaurant has died; N.H. man charged with murder Story continues Man accused of killing woman at restaurant allegedly attacked her at home in April Man accused of murdering ex-girlfriend may have been tracking her location Man accused of killing ex-girlfriend fled, re-entered US before alleged murder Woman stabbed in Worcester restaurant sought help from police before murder 25 Investigates: Local woman fired 2 days after surviving domestic violence Man accused of killing ex-girlfriend to remain in hospital, judge rules Court docs: Suspect attacked ex at home, Worcester restaurant after breakup Mass. congressman frustrated by lack of answers from feds in Worcester murder Worcester murder victim attempted to protect herself from man accused of killing her Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW IRBIL, Iraq (AP) Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard on Monday unleashed a wave of drone and artillery strikes targeting what Tehran says are bases of Iranian Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, a semiofficial news agency reported. It was the second such cross-border assault since Saturday, at a time when Iran is convulsing with protests over the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who was detained by the nations morality police. A representative of one of the separatist groups in Iraq targeted in the attack which struck the Sidikan area in the northern Kurdish-run region said there were no casualties. "Today three times, the Islamic Republic (of Iran) bombed the Halgurd Mountain side where our forces are based, said Atta Nasir, a member of the central committee for Komala, a Kurdish opposition party that is exiled from Iran. He spoke to The Associated Press from the party's headquarters near the Iran-Iraq border. Each attack lasted two to three hours, he said, with artillery fire and Katyusha rockets. Thankfully we dont have any human losses until now, he said. On Saturday, the Guard said it targeted bases and training camps of Kurdish separatist groups in northern Iraq, claiming it inflicted serious damage. Protests over the death of Mahsa Amini have spread across at least 46 cities, towns and villages. Iranian state TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the protests began Sept. 17. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with more than 1,400 demonstrators arrested. Col. Ali Mirahmadi, deputy chief of police in Semnan province, said 155 protesters have been arrested since the crisis began, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Monday. It said the detained people were rioters or active on social media. In Monday's report, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said the Guards attacks were in response to the support that the separatists have allegedly provided for the unrest inside Iran, as well as their attempts to smuggle in weapons. Story continues Responding to the Iranian claims, Nasir said: We ... have shown our full support for the peoples demands. We supported these protests and will continue supporting them in every possible way. He said Komalas members did not participate directly in the protests but showed support through the participation of their followers and relatives in Iran. Last year, the Guard similarly attacked what it called bases of terrorist groups" in northern Iraq. There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi government. The two neighboring countries have close political and military ties, and Tehran had provided extensive military support for Baghdad, during its yearslong war against the extremist Islamic State group. Germany's Foreign Ministry said Monday it summoned Irans ambassador following the protests and especially regarding the brutal actions of police there. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for new sanctions against Iran following the violent crackdown. We will now have to talk very quickly in the EU about further consequences, which for me also includes sanctions against those responsible, she told German news agency dpa in Berlin. The attempt to now suppress peaceful protests with even more deadly force must not go unanswered, she added. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, meanwhile, said it documented the arrests of at least 20 journalists as the clashes between security forces and protesters heated up. CPJ in a Monday statement called on Iranian authorities to end its crackdown on journalists and release all arrested since the start of anti-government protests last week. Iranian authorities should be ashamed of themselves for orchestrating this brutal crackdown, said CPJs Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. ___ Associated Press writer Samya Kullab in Baghdad contributed. Mercury pollution was so intense it could pose a health hazard today, a thousand years later (Getty) Mayan cities of the Classic Period hide a dark and mysterious secret - pollution with the deadly heavy metal mercury . The pollution could even have played a part in the fall of Mayan civilisation, where cities were mysteriously depopulated in the ninth century . Researchers found that levels of mercury pollution within Mayan cities is so high that in some places it could pose a risk to researchers today. Lead author Dr. Duncan Cook, an associate professor of Geography at the Australian Catholic University, said: "Mercury pollution in the environment is usually found in contemporary urban areas and industrial landscapes. Discovering mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities is difficult to explain, until we begin to consider the archeology of the region which tells us that the Maya were using mercury for centuries." The researchers believe that this pollution isn't modern: it's due to the frequent use of mercury and mercury-containing products by the Maya of the Classic Period, between 250 and 1100 CE. This pollution is in places so heavy that even today, it pose a potential health hazard for unwary archeologists. Read more: Five mysterious abandoned cities - and why their occupants left Cook and colleagues here reviewed all data on mercury concentrations in soil and sediments at archeological sites across the ancient Maya world. They show that at sites from the Classical Period for which measurements are available Chunchumil in today's Mexico, Marco Gonzales, Chan b'i, and Actuncan in Belize, La Corona, Tikal, Peten Itza, Piedras Negras, and Cancuen in Guatemala, Palmarejo in Honduras, and Ceren, a Mesoamerican 'Pompeii', in El Salvador mercury pollution is detectable everywhere except at Chan b'i. Concentrations range from 0.016 ppm at Actuncan to an extraordinary 17.16 ppm at Tikal. The Toxic Effect Threshold (TET) for mercury in sediments is defined as 1 ppm. The researchers say sealed vessels filled with 'elemental' (ie, liquid) mercury have been found at several Maya sites, for example Quiriqua in Guatemala, El Paraiso in Honduras, and the former multi-ethnic megacity Teotihucan in Central Mexico. Story continues Read more: NASA imaging technology reveals hidden script in Dead Sea Scrolls Elsewhere in the Maya region, archeologists have found objects painted with mercury-containing paints, mainly made from the mineral cinnabar. The authors conclude that the ancient Maya frequently used cinnabar and mercury-containing paints and powders for decoration. This mercury could then have leached from patios, floor areas, walls, and ceramics, and subsequently spread into the soil and water. Co-author Dr. Nicholas Dunning, a professor at the University of Cincinnati said, "For the Maya, objects could contain ch'ulel, or soul-force, which resided in blood. Hence, the brilliant red pigment of cinnabar was an invaluable and sacred substance, but unbeknownst to them it was also deadly and its legacy persists in soils and sediments around ancient Maya sites. The researchers say elemental mercury and cinnabar found at Maya sites could have been originally mined from known deposits on the northern and southern confines of the ancient Maya world, and imported to the cities by traders. All this mercury would have posed a health hazard for the ancient Maya: for example, the effects of chronic mercury poisoning include damage to the central nervous system, kidneys, and liver, and cause tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, and mental health problems. One of the last Maya rulers of Tikal, Dark Sun, who ruled around 810 CE, is depicted in frescoes as pathologically obese. Obesity is a known effect of metabolic syndrome, which can be caused by chronic mercury poisoning. More research is needed to determine whether mercury exposure played a role in larger sociocultural change and trends in the Maya world, such as those towards the end of the Classic Period. Co-author Dr. Tim Beach, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said: "We conclude that even the ancient Maya, who barely used metals, caused mercury concentrations to be greatly elevated in their environment. This result is yet more evidence that just like we live today in the 'Anthropocene', there also was a 'Maya anthropocene' or 'Mayacene'. Metal contamination seems to have been effect of human activity through history." Watch: Mayan god sculpture is discovered in Mexico Roger Federer (left) retired from tennis at the 2022 Laver Cup (AFP via Getty Images) Andy Murray has said that he thinks he does not deserve the sort of send-off enjoyed by Roger Federer at the 2022 Laver Cup. The 41-year-old marked his playing retirement with a final doubles defeat alongside Rafael Nadal at the event as Team World came from behind to claim their first Laver Cup crown. Murray was also part of the Team Europe unit beaten in London, losing both of his matches as Team Europe missed out on a fifth consecutive win. It was an emotional weekend for Bjorn Borgs team as Federer waved goodbye, with the 20-time grand slam champion receiving a standing ovation after a farewell speech on Sunday evening. Murray has endured signficant injury torment over the last few years but insists he is not yet planning his own retirement. Im really not thinking about that right now, said Murray about his potential retirement, who has not been beyond the third round at a major since 2017. I certainly wont and dont deserve to have a send-off like [Federers]. Roger did deserve that night and it was super special having all of those guys there watching on the side of the court. I probably would announce when Im going to play my last event, but when that is I dont know. Im still playing competitive tennis and physically feeling good against top players. Team Europe had established a four-point lead over the first two days of competition in London, but three consecutive defeats on Sunday condemned them to a first Laver Cup loss, with wins worth three points on the final day of the event. Murray had partnered Matteo Berrettini in the opening doubles action, missing out to Felix Auger-Aliassime and Jack Sock in a deciding tie-break set. The event had reunited Murray with long-time rivals Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic, for a time a dominant quartet at the top of mens tennis, and the Scot admitted that the weekend had caused him to reflect on what he and his teammates had achieved during a special period. [In] the few days in the build-up to [Friday[, I found myself thinking a lot about these last sort of 10, 15 years more than I probably have done before, Murray said. Story continues When I was going through some of the injury problems, I didnt know if I was going to play, I was thinking about it from my own perspective. But maybe looking at it more in a broader perspective, like thinking about what Rogers done for the game and what Rafa and Novak [Djokovic have done], as well, and what this period has been like, it has been special. Were lucky to be here and [to have been] present for Friday night. Associated Press Alabama reclaimed No. 1 from Georgia in The Associated Press college football poll in one of the closest votes in the recent years, and six teams including Kansas made their season debut on Sunday. The Crimson Tide received 25 first-place votes and 1,523 points in the AP Top 25 presented by Regions Bank, two points more than the Bulldogs. Georgia received 28 first-place votes to become the first team since Alabama in November 2019 to have the most first-place votes but not be No. 1. SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia plans to toughen privacy rules to force companies to notify banks faster when they experience cyber attacks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday, after hackers targeted the country's second-largest telecoms firm. Optus, owned by Singapore Telecoms Ltd, said last week that home addresses, drivers' licences and passport numbers of up to 10 million customers, or about 40% of the population, were compromised in one of Australia's biggest data breaches. The attacker's IP address, or unique identifier of a computer, appeared to move between countries in Europe, the company said, but declined to detail how security was breached. Australian media reported an unidentified party had demanded $1 million in cryptocurrency for the data in an online forum but Optus has not commented on its authenticity. Albanese called the incident "a huge wake-up call" for the corporate sector, saying there were some state actors and criminal groups who wanted to access people's data. "We want to make sure ... that we change some of the privacy provisions there so that if people are caught up like this, the banks can be let know, so that they can protect their customers as well," he told radio station 4BC. Cybersecurity Minister Clare O'Neil said Optus was responsible for the breach and noted such lapses in other jurisdictions would be met with fines in the hundreds of millions of dollars, an apparent reference to European laws that penalise companies 4% of global revenue for privacy breaches. "One significant question is whether the cyber security requirements that we place on large telecommunications providers in this country are fit for purpose," O'Neil told parliament. Optus said it would offer the most affected customers free credit monitoring and identity protection with credit agency Equifax Inc for a year. It did not say how many customers the offer applied to. Story continues The telco has now alerted all customers whose driving licences or passport numbers were stolen, it said in an emailed statement. Payment details and account passwords were not compromised, it added. Australia has been looking to beef up cyber defences and pledged in 2020 to spend A$1.66 billion ($1.1 billion) over the decade to strengthen the network infrastructure of firms and homes. ($1=A$1.5309) (Reporting by Lewis Jackson, Renju Jose and Byron Kaye; Editing by Stephen Coates, Clarence Fernandez and Sam Holmes) PROVIDENCE One of Rhode Islands most prominent families is locked in a bitter legal dispute over the alleged mismanagement of a $70-million trust, and its pitting cousin against cousin. Malcolm Chace IV, his siblings and their children are seeking to have their cousin Arnold B. Buff Chace Jr. removed as trustee of a $70-plus-million trust that Malcolms father, Malcolm Kim Chace III, left his heirs upon his death in 2011. Malcolm IVs faction cites a climate of animus and distrust in requesting Buffs removal. They say they have been spurned for more than a decade in their attempts to get an accounting of how the trust has been managed. They accuse Buff of breaching their trust and his duties by engaging in self-dealing and using the fund for his own enrichment. Providence developer Arnold B. Buff Chace Jr. faces a legal challenge from a cousin over his performance as trustee of a $70-million family trust. I think some of the paperwork raises questions. Who got what, and who benefited? Those are the issues, said former U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, who is among the lawyers representing Malcolm IV and 12 other beneficiaries. Also at stake is whether a trustee can invest trust assets in an entity in which they hold an interest, particularly without notice to the beneficiaries, Corrente said. Federal lawsuit: Challenges denial of waterline tie-in for Jamestown homeowner Corrente said he believes unequivocally that trustees have an obligation to notify the beneficiaries about transactions. We think the law is clear on that, he said. Depositions in the case are underway. Dueling allegations of self-dealing Buff Chace and co-trustee William Saltonstall, Kims stepson, shot back in court documents that any charges of animus and distrust are a manufactured pretext for Malcolm IV to enrich himself and come in retaliation for Malcolm IV's father not naming him trustee. They accuse Malcolm IV, who goes by Malcolm Jr., of wanting to manage the trust to extract fees for himself and his own investment firm, Canton Hathaway LLC. Story continues The trustees say they have operated in good faith at all times and without conflict in their administration of the trust, in keeping with Kims wishes. Buff Chace, who has put his stamp on the city through his real estate development company Cornish Associates, did not respond to a message left at his 46 Aborn St. office. His lawyer, Matthew T. Oliverio, said his office has a policy not to offer comment on cases that have yet to be finally adjudicated in the courts, and we certainly have no interest in grandstanding in the media. Rather, we will litigate these matters in the proper forum the courtroom. We have full confidence that we will prevail in all respects, Oliverio said in an email. Cool Moose founder's legacy remains in legal limbo six years after his death Malcolm IVs stepmother, Elizabeth Zopfi Chace, the only beneficiary to be named a defendant in the case, echoed the trustees sentiments. Allegations of distrust and animus, she said, are merely a facade for the other 12 beneficiaries own avarice and self-interested desire to gain control of the trust, which encompasses more than $68 million in liquid assets and property valued at upwards of $2 million. She alleges the claims are at odds with the terms of the trust and her late husbands wishes. Zopfi Chace receives $800,000 annually from income from the trust through a codicil in her husbands will made days before his death from brain cancer at age 76. Zopfi Chace declined to comment, other than to say its a family issue, so its not so great. She is represented by Hannah Sfameni of DarrowEverett LLP. What started the Chace family battle? The storied Chace family made its fortune through a string of textile mills that spun a quarter of the countrys fine cotton in the 1930s and later merged to form Berkshire Hathaway. Their ancestors were renowned activists in the anti-slavery, women's-rights and prison-reform movements. Kim Chace ranked as one of the states wealthiest businessmen and philanthropists. He served for years on the Berkshire Hathaway board, forming a close alliance with billionaire Warren Buffett. Port of Providence vulnerable: What places in Providence are most at risk from climate change? The family's ownership of textile mills, ties with Berkshire Hathaway and other investments even landed Kim on Forbes' annual list of wealthiest Americans, placing him at 271 in 1999 and at 236 in 2001, with wealth estimated at more than $900 million. In 1996, he founded BankRI. The family acrimony traces to February 2020, when Malcolm IV and the other beneficiaries became aware that the trust made a $4-million investment in Downcity Phase II LLC, according to the complaint filed in Superior Court. Downcity Phase II LLC, is managed by Buff Chace and based at his Cornish Associates offices at 46 Aborn St., secretary of state records show. Malcolm G. "Kim" Chace, center, his wife, Elizabeth, and U.S. Sen. Jack Reed take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for Warwick's Elizabeth Buffum Chace Center, which opened in 2004. Records indicate that the trust holds a 30% stake in Downcity II, with Buff or an entity he controls owning the remaining 70%, the complaint said. Despite the 30% stake, none of the beneficiaries were provided notice of the investment or of Buff Chaces role in Downcity, nor has the trust reaped any economic benefits. The beneficiaries assert that Downcity, together with unknown investors, holds interests in various limited liability companies that own commercial buildings at 31 Aborn St., 290 Westminster St., 270 Westminster St., and 91 Clemence St. Other legal disputes: Judge orders halt to Rhode Island truck tolls, rules system is unconstitutional The beneficiaries also say they learned in February 2020 that the trust made a $530,000 investment in Gardner CA Member LLC, a limited liability company managed by Buff Chace and based at Cornish, the suit said. In that case, trust records indicate that it has a 50% interest, with Buff Chace and undisclosed investors holding the remaining 50% interest in a commercial building at 40 Fountain St., the suit said. Again, the beneficiaries allege they were not provided notice, nor has the trust benefited economically from the investment. Beneficiaries call for removal of trustees, voiding of transactions Malcolm Chace IV and the others argue that Buff Chace and Saltonstall are obligated to provide them with a meaningful accounting annually of the funds assets and liabilities and administration. Instead, the beneficiaries say, they have failed to hold annual meetings or detail the income and principal and have refused requests that they voluntarily step down. They accuse the trustees of breaching their duty to invest prudently and ask that they be removed to remedy their ongoing and willful breaches of their duty to loyalty. They ask, too, that the court void all self-dealing transactions entered into by the trustees and that any profits they received be disgorged. They want the court to order the trustees to provide an accounting of the trust and related personal real estate ventures dating to 2011. Malcolm Chace IV Buff Chace and Saltonstall responded that there is no legal requirement that they provide beneficiaries with prior notice of any investments the trustees are authorized to make under the trust terms and in keeping with Kims intent. Their actions, they say, were with the complete faith and confidence of Zopfi Chace and with guidance and legal advice of estate-planning lawyers for Zopfi Chace and her late husband. To the extent a response is necessary, the allegations are always denied and state that the trustees have exercised reasonable care, skill, diligence, prudence and caution in all their obligations in administering and managing the trust assets, their lawyer, Oliverio, wrote. They say the trust has experienced significant appreciation to the beneficiaries benefit. The climate future is now: Humans navigate a Perilous Course on the East Coast. The trustees insist they have at all times acted in accordance with the expressed intentions of Kim by investing a small fraction of the trust assets in rehabilitation and revitalization projects in historic buildings in downtown Providence. They charge that Malcolm IV and the other beneficiaries' claims are barred based on the concept of unclean hands, meaning the lawsuit was brought in bad faith, and that Malcolms claims, in particular, are precluded by his own desire to engage in self-dealing and self-enrichment. They ask Judge Brian P. Stern, who is hearing the case, to dismiss the complaint. Tax agreements under review for Buff Chace properties The lawsuit comes as the Providence City Council's Committee on Finance is set to review tax agreements for properties owned by Buff Chaces real estate interests. The city reached a consent agreement last year in which it agreed to assess several properties under a state law, referred to as 8-Law. Under the agreement, the city placed a 30-year restrictive covenant on the properties requiring that 25% of the residential units be dedicated to tenants who earn 100% of the area median income. In exchange for providing the restricted units, the city agreed that the property will be subject to a tax that equals 8% of the property's gross scheduled rental income in the previous year. The agreement, signed by Nicholas J. Hemond, of DarrowEverett, and City Solicitor Jeffrey Dana, resolved several court cases brought by Chaces interests challenging the assessments. The properties previously had been under tax stabilization agreements. 30-year tax breakfor Providence's 'Superman Building' faces City Council debate The properties set to go before the Finance Committee include 91 Clemence St., 210 Westminster St., 220 Westminster St. and 65 Eddy St., though others were incorporated into the deal. Those are 1 Fulton St. and 236, 290, 276, 270 and 326 Westminster St., according to a court filing. Melina Lodge, executive director of the Housing Network of Rhode Island, said 8-Law operates on the premise that affordable-housing units dont have the same value as those at market rate. The 8% calculation is intended to make the assessment fair and is typically applied to the restricted units, though it can be used more broadly by a municipality to incentivize developers to build affordable or workforce units, she said. Because its municipal taxation, it leaves a lot of wiggle room in how its used, Lodge said. A city or town can charge less than 8%, but not more. The units that fall under the consent agreement qualify as workforce housing, not low-income, she said. That means a one-person household could earn $68,320, or $78,080 for two people, she said. College students are generally not eligible, she said. There is a need for those rental units, for sure, Lodge said. The city stands by the agreement. The city is pleased to have reached a resolution on this lawsuit that the presiding judge determined to be acceptable. As part of the agreement, the city is gaining a significant number of affordable units downtown which is consistent with the citys work to prioritize affordable housing citywide, said Theresa Agonia, spokeswoman for Mayor Jorge Elorza. She added that the impact of the agreement on city revenue is a function of many variables, such as future property values and future tax rates, so there is no financial impact at this time. Affordable units are based on tenant income and the city does not retain information on how tenants identify, she said. Also to be considered is another settlement agreement reached last year with a Buff Chace-affiliated entity, Orchard Garage LLC, that owns 51 Washington St., the parking garage and retail shops behind the Graduate Providence hotel. That agreement settles five lawsuits brought by Orchard in Superior Court seeking to recover property taxes paid to the city for 2009 through 2011 and 2013 and 2014. The city agreed to reduce and credit Orchards account by $235,000, of which $184,083 is to be applied to 2020 and $50,916 to 2021. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Members of RI's Chace family, Buff Chace, feuding over $70M trust (Bloomberg) -- Binance, the worlds biggest cryptocurrency exchange, is seeking a license to operate in Japan, four years after retreating from the country as it didnt have a permit, according to people familiar with the matter. Most Read from Bloomberg The nations easing approach to crypto and substantial potential for user growth are the key reasons for Binances renewed interest in the worlds third-largest economy, one of the people said. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas agenda for reinvigorating the economy under the rubric of New Capitalism includes support the growth of so-called Web3 firms. The term Web3 refers to a vision of a decentralized internet built around blockchains, cryptos underlying technology. It would be inappropriate to comment on any conversations with regulators, a Binance spokesperson said in response to request for comments. Binance is committed to working with regulators and policymakers to shape policies that protect consumers, encourage innovation, and move our industry forward, the spokesperson added. An official at the Financial Services Agency declined to comment. Last month, Japans financial regulator proposed relaxing corporate tax rules for crypto assets. Lobbying groups have been calling for changes, saying high corporate taxes cause some firms to relocate to Singapore and elsewhere. Binance isnt the only foreign firm looking to push into Japans cryptocurrency market. Temasek-backed Amber Group this year acquired DeCurret Inc., a crypto exchange that has operated in the country since 2018. Japans steps are somewhat of a contrast to the tougher regulatory oversight emerging in a range of countries after a $2 trillion wipeout in digital assets from last years peak led to blowups at crypto hedge funds and lenders. Story continues Binances billionaire co-founder Changpeng CZ Zhao in 2018 ditched a plan to build a base in Japan, following inquiries from the securities regulator that led to an official notice to stop operating in the country without a license. It got a similar warning three years later for not complying with registration rules. In Asia, Binance is present in countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India through partnerships. Binance has been the target of regulatory probes in a variety of jurisdictions, including the US. In response, the firm has said it works with authorities and will continue to meet requirements set by officials. (Updates with Amber acquisition in sixth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. A Facebook post that Kassie Vaughan shared about her brother, Kastellio Vaughan, has captured the attention of advocacy groups for incarcerated people. The post has been shared over 18,000 times and shows the 32-year-old incarcerated man allegedly needing severe medical attention. The post included a photo of a healthy Vaughan accompanied by disturbing photos showing him emaciated. In one of the photos, Vaughans eyes appear to be rolling back into his head. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED, Vaughan captioned the post. MY BROTHER KASTELLIO VAUGHAN, she continued. Hes currently an inmate placed at Elmore Correctional Facility. Im coming to you right now based on my brothers health. My brothers health is rapidly declining. As you can see in these photos he is extremely malnourished. In these particular photos he cannot walk nor stand he is weak and vulnerable. My last visitation with my brother was July 24, 2022 he was in good condition. I am not a doctor but his health seems to be deteriorating. I received 2 pictures of him today saying GET HELP. Im asking for you to simply share and get these pictures out this is violating human rights. I dont see how you cannot get help when a individual is in this state. Tag all news stations please and anybody that can help with this issue. This is urgent and Im concerned and scared for my brothers health. According to The Birmingham News, Kastellio is an incarcerated man at Elmore Correctional Facility in central Alabama. He began serving a 20-year sentence for 2019 convictions of burglary and the unlawful breaking and entering of a vehicle. One of Vaughans past charges includes a 2013 home invasion where he was shot multiple times after allegedly attempting to burglarize a private residence. As reported by WBRC-6, Vaughans family said he was healthy when they last visited him in June of this year. But then, about three weeks ago, Vaughan called his family and told them he was experiencing stomach issues, and he informed them that he asked for medical treatment. Story continues The family said that days later, they received a call from another incarcerated man at the correctional facility who let them know their brother had been taken into surgery. The man allegedly informed the family that Vaughan had part of his small intestine removed. According to WBRC-6, Vaughans sister shared that the family wasnt even informed of the surgery, at all. The inmate said it was less than 32 hours he was back in there with 32 staples going down his abdomen, she continued. Upon learning of Vaughans condition, the family reached out to the Alabama Department of Corrections, which promised them Vaughan would be in good care. But after they received the disturbing images, they allegedly stopped responding. Thats when the family took to social media, calling for help. The Birmingham News reports that Vaughan and his family hired civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who provided more details about Vaughans medical state. According to Merritt, Vaughan reportedly had surgery in August to remove a part of his intestines because of gunshot injuries sustained before he was incarcerated. Merritt was referring to Vaughans gunshot wounds from the 2013 burglary attempt. Merritt stated, the family members report that following his surgery last month, Vaughan was immediately discharged from the hospital on the same day and placed back into the general population at Elmore Correctional Facility. Due to inadequate facilities, abuse, and medical neglect, Vaughans medical condition rapidly deteriorated, Merritt continued. Vaughan is believed to have lost 75 pounds in less than a month. In addition, Merritt revealed that Vaughans surgical scars were exposed to unsanitary conditions and possibly infected. Update on the condition of Kastellio Vaughan Lee Merritt (@MerrittForTexas) September 23, 2022 In a statement released to The Birmingham News, the Alabama Department of Corrections discussed Vaughans condition. ADOCs Office of Health Services has fully investigated his situation from a clinical perspective, and he has been offered all necessary treatment for his condition, the statement read. Also, he has been in touch with his family to update them on his situation. Vaughans family and lawyers state that this treatment violates his human rights and that the current help being provided by the ADOC is only because of social media backlash. As previously reported by WBRL, attorney Ben Crump called the events horrific. Lets be clear, the State of Alabama has tried to deflect any action or responsibility for Mr. Vaughans condition at every turn, he said. If it wasnt for these pictures, the media spotlight, and the resulting uproar, we might never have known about the neglect and Mr. Vaughan would have died before the public knew anything was happening. Despite ADOC reporting that Vaughan has been in contact with his family, the family has told WBRC-6 that they have not heard from him since his condition worsened and that they havent heard from the ADOC. The family informed WBRC-6 that they plan to have Vaughan transferred to another facility once he recovers. (Bloomberg) -- The Bank of Japan bought a larger-than-planned amount of bonds at its regular operation on Monday, as the benchmark yield climbed toward the upper end of the central banks tolerated trading range. Most Read from Bloomberg The BOJ purchased 550 billion yen ($3.8 billion) of five-to-10-year notes. This was a third time its purchases exceeded the original plan of 500 billion yen, and followed unscheduled buying of 150 billion of the same tenors last Wednesday. Purchase amounts for one-to-three and three-to-five year debt were left unchanged at 475 billion yen each. The BOJ also conducted a regular operation that offered to buy an unlimited quantity of 10-year bonds at a fixed yield of 0.25%. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note rose 1.5 basis points to 0.245%, close to the BOJs 0.25% ceiling. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kurodas insistence on a prolonged accommodative policy, while the US and other developed market peers tighten, has widened the yield differentials between Japan and other major economies. The yens slide prompted the government on Thursday last week to intervene and prop up the currency for the first time since 1998. Whats behind the BOJs increased bond buying is rising volatility across the curve,said Ataru Okumura, a strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. in Tokyo. Investors are probably focused on the possibility that the continued decline in the yen will boost inflation further and pressure the BOJ to tweak policy. (Adds strategist comment in last paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. WASHINGTON Booz Allen Hamilton, one of worlds largest defense contractors, disclosed in a court filing that its acquisition of struggling EverWatch values the supplier of artificial intelligence, cloud services, data science and insider-threat analysis at $440 million. The figure and characterization, included in documents filed Sept. 23 with a district court in Maryland, shed light on a defense industry transaction the federal government alleges is anticompetitive and potentially harmful to national security. An underlying contract, known as Optimal Decision, was unexpectedly released for bidding by the National Security Agency earlier this month and is worth less than $17 million in profit over five years, according to the filings. Booz Allen and EverWatch are thought to be the only serious contenders for the contract, which deals with simulation and signals intelligence. Booz Allens $440 million merger is not about [Optimal Decision]. It is about providing innovative solutions and improving competition for a wide array of procurements worth billions of dollars, many of which are currently dominated by larger entrenched incumbents, according to a brief from the companies, filed after a hearing. Put bluntly, EverWatch is struggling in the face of uncertainty, and Booz Allens $440 million investment in a transaction with EverWatch is being put at risk with every day of further delay. A spokesperson for Booz Allen confirmed the valuation Monday. Although we didnt disclose terms at signing, we have since sized the deal publicly as $440 million so that number is correct, Jessica Klenk, a company spokesperson, said in an email. A telephone message left with EverWatch seeking comment was not immediately returned. US urges speed in Booz Allen antitrust case as NSA intel contract nears The U.S. Department of Justice in June sued to prevent Booz Allen from acquiring EverWatch. In its complaint, the government alleged the merger would imperil market competition, ultimately harming taxpayers, and crimp services provided to the NSA. Attorneys for Booz Allen have told a federal court the merger, publicized in March, would accelerate technology development, among other benefits. Booz Allen has also previously said the revenue generated by Optimal Decision pales in comparison to its grander goals and the price it was willing to pay for EverWatch, which is owned by Maryland-based investment firm Enlightenment Capital. EverWatch is much smaller than Booz Allen, the 22nd largest defense contractor by revenue in the latest Defense News ranking. Protesters. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images At the end of a recent vacation trip to the Virginia and Maryland shore, my wife, Karla, and I made a brief detour to Washington, D.C. I felt an urge to make a pilgrimage to the National Archives to see the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. These blueprints for self-rule, liberty, and human flourishing created a flawed but resilient democracy that has endured through 246 years of sharp, often bloody disagreement, evolution, and struggle. The fragile parchments are now encased in inert argon gas under protective glass in a darkened room, where people file by in the hushed silence of a secular cathedral. It is with some awe that you inspect the familiar words in handwritten script and the signatures of George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and the rest. And you cannot help but wonder if the founding documents' design for "a more perfect union" might soon fade into irrelevance. As David Leonhardt of The New York Times documented in disturbing detail this week, we have entered an unprecedented era in which the losers of elections no longer feel obligated to accept defeat. (See The last word, p.40.) Democracy itself has fallen into ill repute among Trumpist Republicans, who insist that the country should be governed by "real Americans" with the right religious and political beliefs, not by those who get the most votes. In this coming term, an activist Supreme Court will rule on a claim that state legislatures should have unfettered control of elections, including the right to overturn them. It is possible that in 2024 one or more states' choice for president might be reversed, so that the loser of the election can be installed as president. America has survived many other grave crises, and "we, the people" may eventually survive this one. But the protective glass is cracked, and democracy's survival is uncertain. This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine. Story continues You may also like 7 cartoons about DeSantis and Abbott's migrant relocation New Pacific island forms after underwater volcano erupts Arizona judge bans abortion statewide by reinstating 1864 law NEW YORK A Brooklyn man who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 has been identified as the recipient of a mysterious nine-second phone call from the White House placed during the riot. Anton Lunyk, 26, of Midwood, Brooklyn, admitted joining the attack with two buddies and is the owner of the phone to which someone at the White House briefly called during the riot, CNN reported Monday. The mystery call was revealed by former Jan. 6 committee staffer and ex-Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., in an interview on CBS News 60 Minutes on Sunday. Riggleman, who is promoting his new book about the committees work, framed the call as a smoking gun that Trump or someone on his team was cheering on the attack in real time. Thats a big, pretty big aha moment, Riggleman, a Trump critic, told "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker. Was it an accidental call? Riggleman mused. When the White House just happened to (call) a rioter that day, on January 6th? Probably not. But investigators and members of the Jan. 6 committee reportedly downplayed that claim, noting that Lunyk says he doesnt know anything about the call and doesnt know Trump or anyone on his staff. The call was placed shortly after Trump tweeted a call for his supporters to leave peacefully. Federal prosecutors allege that Lunyk came to Washington, D.C., "for the chaos with his friends, Francis Connor and Antonio Ferrigno. The three exchanged violent messages about former Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., CNN reported. Our end goal was to brutally murder Pence and Pelosi, Connor wrote in an Instagram message to Ferrigno and Lunyk two days after the riot, CNN reported. And sadly, today theyre still breathing, therefore we must come back stronger and fiercely next time around. The call from the White House was not mentioned at the sentencing for Lunyk and his two friends, who received sentences of home confinement and small fines along with a tongue lashing from a federal judge. The three of you just come across as real knuckleheads, U.S. District Judge Rudy Contreras told them. You all could use a strong dose of maturity. A photo from Scott Robinson's Linkedin account. ASHEVILLE - A deputy who had been investigated by the SBI and who was part of a task force that did undercover drug operations has been fired - and a major trafficking case dismissed. The fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking case that had been heralded early this year by the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office was dismissed against Dennis Gates Miller "in the interest of justice," according to information from public case files obtained by the Citizen Times Sept. 23. A main reason for the dismissal was the inability of the prosecutors to use one or more witnesses, the file said. That was because it was now known there were reasons to call into question the integrity of a witness, it said. The court documents on Miller included files sealed to the public by a judge. More:Robinson, other deputies shoot man firing gun outside courthouse Scott Eugene Robinson, a 50-year-old executive lieutenant with the Buncombe County Anti-Crime Task Force, was fired Aug. 11, according to his personnel record obtained by the Citizen Times through a public records request. The record said the involuntary termination was for "discipline." Robinson, who was hired by the Sheriff's Office in 2014, was making $35.47 an hour. Spokespersons for Sheriff Quentin Miller and the county government declined Sept. 23 to elaborate on the reasons for the disciplinary measure. County spokesperson Lillian Govus said the reasons for the firing were "protected personnel information," the release of which is a crime under state law. Robinson could not be reached for comment. He had faced a State Bureau of Investigation excessive force probe after his involvement in a Feb. 17 arrest, an SBI spokesperson had said. SBI investigations are not public, and spokesperson Anjanette Grube declined to give more information. Dennis Gates Miller was arrested along with others Feb. 17 "on gun and numerous drug charges," according to a Sheriff's Office news release at the time. The arrests were part of the dismantling of a large fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking operation by the task force, the Sheriff's Office said. Story continues Bags containing what officials said was fentanyl seized Feb. 17 by the Buncombe County Anti-Crime Task Force. After receiving the SBI report, Buncombe District Attorney Todd Williams did not call for charges. In making such decisions, Williams has said they are based on finding evidence of a prosecutable violation of state law. Williams declined to comment Sept. 23. But the case file showed his office dismissed most charges brought against Miller during his February arrest, including four major trafficking charges. The state enters a voluntary dismissal in the interest of justice. Additionally, the state is entering a dismissal because the state is unable to call critical material witness(es) necessary to successfully prosecute this case per mandatory disclosures required by the North Carolina rules of professional conduct for lawyers," the DA's office said. The filing cited the court case Giglio v. U.S. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court said prosecutors must tell the defense about any information that might call into question the integrity of a witness. Prosecutors sometimes issue so-called "Giglio letters" for law enforcement officers whose misdeeds make them unusable as witnesses in some or all cases. Williams issued such a letter regarding former Asheville Police Department Officer Anthony Sorangelo after he was charged in 2020 with misdemeanor assault. A judge dismissed the charges, and Sorangelo is now suing Williams and APD Chief David Zack saying the letter hurt his career. Once part of BCAT, Zack pulled the Asheville Police Department out of the task force in 2020. Other attention for the task force came when member Jeff May was found in a federal civil trial to have fabricated drug evidence in order to get a warrant to strip search a man in 2018. May is still employed by the Sheriff's Office. While the trafficking charges were dismissed, Dennis Gates Miller remains in the Buncombe jail for other alleged crimes, including felony possession of cocaine and numerous felony probation violation charges, according to the detention facility website. His bond is set at $625,000 the site says. His attorney Ted Besen declined to comment. Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess at jburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter @AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Drug task force deputy fired, case dismissed 'in interest of justice' California residents can now acquire a state ID regardless of immigration status under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday. "Were a state of refuge a majority-minority state, where 27 percent of us are immigrants," Newsom said after signing the legislation. "Thats why Im proud to announce the signing of todays bills to further support our immigrant community, which makes our state stronger every single day." A law passed in 2013 allows California residents to obtain a driver's license, but the bill that was signed Friday will allow non-driving residents to acquire a government-issued ID, even if they are not a legal immigrant. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a bill signing ceremony on Feb. 9, 2022. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The bill's sponsors framed ID cards as "passports to economic and societal participation" that allow individuals to access banking services, obtain government benefits, and acquire health care. About 22% of California's nearly 11 million immigrants are in the United States illegally, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. GAVIN NEWSOM SAYS PEOPLE LEFT CALIFORNIA BECAUSE OF TRUMP'S VISA POLICIES One day after signing the bill, Newsom traveled to Texas, where he targeted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for bussing and flying migrants to blue cities, and despite California's 2017 ban on official travel to the Lone Star State. "The one thing that he did is he broke with precedent, any precedent of decency and honor, his lack of character on display," Newsom said at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin about DeSantis. "He comes into another state your state to try to find pawns in a political game, rounds them up, sends them to an island, and then fundraises off it. What does that say about his character, and the character of the Republican Party that celebrated that act of cruelty and dehumanization?" A California homeowner shot and killed an intruder Saturday to protect her husband, who was busy fighting the suspect off, authorities said. Deputies with the Patterson Police Services, a part of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office, received a called around 10:20 p.m. about shots fired in the 500 block of Ashwood Lane. The caller said they received a call from a female speaking Mandarian who said she had just shot and killed an intruder. Investigators said Angelo Santana, 22, was intoxicated and broke into the home belonging to 50-year-old Yuhui Zheng and her husband, 45-year-old Yang Luan. CALIFORNIA MAN ARRESTED AFTER PLANNING LAS-VEGAS-STYLE MASS SHOOTING, POLICE SAY Yang Luan attempted to restrain Santana and the pair got into a fight near the front door, authorities said. While the two men were fighting, Yuhui Zheng got a gun from upstairs and opened fire on Santana, Fox San Francisco reported. Her husband sustained minor injuries. Santana was armed but investigators believe the shooting was done in self-defense. No arrests have been made. "Other interviews with those familiar with Santana indicate he had a history of alcohol substance abuse, wherein he would regularly show-up unannounced trying to find friends and acquaintances of his in the same neighborhood," the sheriff's department said. The investigation is ongoing and the homeowners are cooperating with detectives, police said. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Parole Board has denied the early release of Joga Singh Sandher, the 58-year-old man who murdered Ajmer Singh Malhi inside a Sikh temple in 2000. The Board of Parole denied Sandher's early parole at Thursday's Parole Suitability Hearing after finding that if he were to be released, the "danger he posed to the community was far higher" than the information he presented claiming he was not a risk. The Contra Costa District Attorneys Office said in a statement on Friday that Sandher had become ineligible for parole for 10 years. Sandher was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Malhi during a Sunday service inside the El Sobrante Gurdwara Sahib, a Sikh center in the San Francisco Bay Area, on Jan. 23, 2000. Equipped with an M-16 assault rifle, Sandher chased after Malhi inside the Sikh center after screaming, I will kill you all. He eventually caught up to him and shot and killed the married father-of-three in front of the congregation, the court heard in Nov. 2001. More from NextShark: University of Wisconsin Hit With Anti-Chinese Graffiti Even in a world where mass shootings have become all too commonplace, Sandhers actions in January 2000 still shock the conscience, Deputy District Attorney Caleb Webster said Thursday. His spiteful, brazen killing did irreparable harm not only to those who knew and loved Mr. Malhi, but to the entire Sikh community. The panels well-considered finding of unsuitability ensures Sandher continues to serve the fair sentence that was imposed, which promotes community safety and builds public trust. At the time, Sandher said he was upset at the victim because he prevented him from addressing the congregation. More from NextShark: Group Caught on Video Sucker-Punching, Robbing Man in Philadelphia The Thursday ruling was the second time Sandher has been denied freedom due to public safety concerns. Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Joni T. Hiramoto denied lowering his sentencing in August after reviewing the CDCR reports, the testimony of a mental health expert and supporters statements. Story continues Featured Image via Coro (CC BY-SA 3.0) More from NextShark: Organizations Call on American CEOs to Address Anti-Asian Violence Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark! Man Who Threw Rocks at Asian Mother and Child in Fullerton Charged With Hate Crime OTTAWA Canada will end Covid measures at its border Oct. 1, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cautioned on Monday that doesn't signal the pandemic is over. The federal government announced on Monday that, starting Saturday, incoming travelers to Canada won't have to test, quarantine, declare their vaccination status or use ArriveCAN, a digital tool at the center of political debate. We will remove all border requirements for travelers entering Canada, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said on Parliament Hill. The federal government will also end masking requirements on planes and trains. Trudeau was asked if he, like U.S. President Joe Biden, wants to signal an end to the pandemic. Anyone who thinks the pandemic is over should visit our hospitals right now, where we still see the impact of people struggling with Covid-19, Trudeau replied. The prime minister said the decision to drop border restrictions was influenced by public health officials. There is the sense that these border measures were no longer effective, or no longer justified, he said. The mandatory ArriveCAN app required individuals to upload vaccination credentials and other travel information before arriving in Canada. It was made mandatory under the Quarantine Act measures set to expire Sept. 30. Duclos said the government reserves the right to reestablish certain measures should they be required against new variants of concern or other threats. Headline glitches: ArriveCan was blamed for the congestion in Canadas airports over the summer, though investigations revealed a myriad of problems at play. The tool misfired in June and July, sending automatic messages that directed some 10,000 Apple users into quarantine. In defense of ArriveCAN: In mid-August, amidst calls to scrap the app, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra was called to a summer meeting of the House transport committee. He told MPs that compliance rates among international arrivals was 99.5 percent. Story continues In fact, he warned MPs, If we suspend ArriveCAN today, it will add significant complications to the congestion we have at our airports. During the same meeting, Denis Vinette of the Travellers Branch at Canada Border Services Agency rejected accusations the app was behind border delays. Without ArriveCAN, it would take a far greater time to process individuals than it currently takes, he told MPs. Whats next: The House international trade committee has initiated a study of the impacts of the app on certain sectors of the Canadian economy. On Tuesday, MPs will hear from senior officials from Customs and Immigration Union and Frontier Duty Free Association. Canadian Deputy Health Minister Howard Njoo said Monday that vaccinations have changed Canadas scorecard. Still, Trudeau urged Canadians to stay on top of their shots. The more people get up to date in their shots, the more resilient we will be as a country to any future waves of Covid, he said. (Reuters) - Canada will impose sanctions on those responsible for the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, including Iran's so-called morality police and its leadership, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday. "We've seen Iran disregarding human rights time and time again, now we see it with the death of Mahsa Amini and the crackdown on protests," Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. "Today, I'm announcing that we will implement sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities, including Iran's so called morality police," Trudeau said, moments after similar remarks by his foreign minister, Melanie Joly, during her address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. (Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa) OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada will drop all COVID-19 restrictions for travelers from Oct. 1, including vaccination and masking requirements for flights and trains, the government said on Monday. The move is likely to boost the Canadian travel industry, already booming after months of lull during the pandemic. Canadian carriers were also pressing for an end to mask mandates on flights, citing thousands of incidents of non-compliance this year alone. "As Canadians and international visitors look to make travel plans, the long-awaited removal of all remaining measures effective Oct. 1, 2022 will further expedite recovery for our industry and the Canadian economy," Canada's second-largest carrier WestJet Airlines said in a statement. The decision to end restrictions was based on Canada's vaccination rate, availability of newer vaccines and treatments and data showing the country had passed the peak of the latest wave of coronavirus infections, the government said. More than 90% of Canadians over 12 have taken the primary series of a COVID vaccine. This month, Canada authorized Moderna Inc's bivalent COVID-19 shots for adults, the country's first Omicron-adapted vaccine. "Thanks largely to Canadians who have rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated, we have reached the point where we can safely lift the sanitary measures at the border," Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said. Duclos said the government was prepared to reinstate restrictions if needed. "Obviously we have no hope to reintroduce some of these measures but if we need to protect the safety of Canadians, we will have to," he told reporters in Ottawa. Travelers, regardless of citizenship, will not have to submit health information through the ArriveCAN app or provide proof of vaccination from Saturday. A requirement for travelers to wear masks on planes and trains would also be dropped. Cruise ship passengers and crew would also no longer be subject to vaccine requirements or COVID testing. (Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa and Allison Lampert in MontrealEditing by Alistair Bell and David Gregorio) The federal government said COVID-19 border measures will be lifted as of Saturday. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua via Getty Images) The federal government is lifting COVID-19 border measures as of Saturday, including mandatory vaccine requirements, masking on planes and trains and the use of the ArriveCan app, as concern about the pandemic subsides. Starting Oct. 1, any traveller entering Canada will no longer have to provide proof of vaccination, undergo COVID-19 testing, quarantine, or monitor and report symptoms of the virus if they develop. The government also said travellers will no longer have to undergo health checks for air and rail travel, or wear masks on planes or trains. Travellers will no longer be required to use ArriveCan to enter the country, however government officials said the use of the app will be optional and available for passengers to submit their customs declaration in advance at major airports. "We've always maintained that the extraordinary measures we introduced at our borders and on airplanes, trains and boats were temporary, and that we would adjust them as the situation changes," Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said at a press conference on Monday. "Today, we're doing just that." 'Measures were not justified by science' The travel industry has long been calling on the federal government to lift COVID-19 border restrictions, saying Canada was behind other nations around the world when it comes to easing travel rules. This summer saw Canada's major airports gripped by chaos amid a resurgence in travel demand that, combined with labour shortages and processing issues, led to a wave of cancellations and delays. Air Canada welcomed the lifting of restrictions, with chief operating officer Craig Landry saying the removal of the travel rules acknowledges that "air travel is safe and that the measures were not justified by science." "We believe it will greatly facilitate travel, help to continue stabilizing the country's air transport sector and support Canada's economy," Landry said in a statement, urging the government to "not lose momentum" and enact further reforms to streamline the air transport system in Canada. Story continues "This includes improving processes, such as security and customs at airports, developing new trusted traveller programs, deploying new technologies and, more fundamentally, re-examining the user-pay model that finances air transportation in Canada, whose weaknesses and interdependencies were exposed by COVID," Landry said. WestJet chief executive officer Alexis von Hoensbroech said in a statement on Monday that the company has been advocating for health and safety measures "that were grounded in science and data and were consistent with all consumer activities." "Today's announcement aligns with the travel policies of other major nations, reflects our industry's outstanding commitment to safety, and recognizes that air travel is no less safer than any other consumer activity," von Hoensbroech said. Jeff Morrison, the president of the National Airline Council of Canada (NACC), says lifting of the mask mandate will be especially beneficial for airline staff who have been facing growing abuse in recent months as they try to enforce masking rules. Morrison says there have been at least 3,200 incidents of abuse of airline staff since the start of the year at NACC airlines, which include Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transat and Jazz Aviation. "Because mask mandates have been lifted in virtually every other sector of the economy, it has led to a dramatic increase in the number of abuse incidents," Morrison said in an interview. "We're hopeful that, with the restriction removed, those will significantly decrease." Morrison also expects that the travel disruptions and long lineups seen at airports throughout the summer travel season will decrease with the lifting of restrictions as the process becomes more efficient. Pressure for Ottawa to drop the COVID-19 border restrictions has ramped up in recent months, with politicians on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border calling on the government to lift the remaining travel rules. New York Rep. Brian Higgins calls the government's decision "the right one" and says the U.S. should follow and lift its vaccine requirement on travellers entering the country. "It has been two-and-a-half long years of border restrictions between the United States and Canada. The extended measures have kept loved ones apart and kept border communities from reaching full economic recovery," Higgins said in a statement. "The end of restrictions is overdue." However, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos at the press conference said that COVID-19 measures may be reintroduced if they are necessary to protect the safety of Canadians. Duclos says there are between 4,000 and 5,000 people hospitalized on a daily basis for COVID-19, and urged Canadians to get an additional dose of the vaccine if they haven't received one in the last six months. "We have learned over the last (two-and-a-half years) the type of measures that can work," Duclos said. "Obviously we have no hope to reintroduce some of these measures, but if we need to protect the safety of Canadians, we will." Alicja Siekierska is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow her on Twitter @alicjawithaj. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. TORONTO (AP) The Canadian government announced Monday it will no longer require people to wear masks on planes to guard against COVID-19.. Transport Canada said the existing rules for masks will come off Oct. 1 We are able to do this because tens of millions of Canadians rolled up their sleeves and got vaccinated, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the negative attitudes of some passengers have made it hard for airlines and crews to enforce the mask mandate in recent months, and cited that as a factor in the decision. Government officials also confirmed Canada is dropping the vaccine requirement for people entering the country at the end of the month. The Associated Press reported last week that was likely. Canada, like the United States, requires foreign nationals to be vaccinated when entering the country. No change in the mandate is expected in the U.S. in the near term. Unvaccinated foreign travelers who are allowed to enter Canada are currently subject to mandatory arrival tests and a 14-day quarantine. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government has agreed to let a cabinet order enforcing mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements at the border expire Sept. 30. The government is also ending random COVID-19 testing at airports. Filling out information in what became an unpopular ArriveCan app will also no longer be required. Some blamed it for delays at airports. The government will also no longer be required passengers to have pre-board tests for cruise ships. The removal of border measures has been facilitated by a number of factors, including modelling that indicates that Canada has largely passed the peak of the Omicron BA.4- and BA.5-fuelled wave, Canadas high vaccination rates, lower hospitalization and death rates, as well as the availability and use of vaccine boosters (including new bivalent formulation), rapid tests, and treatments for COVID-19, the government said in a release. Story continues Removal of the vaccine mandate for non-citizens entering Canada means unvaccinated professional athletes like Major League Baseball players would be allowed to play in Toronto in the playoffs should the Blue Jays make the postseason. It would also apply to the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League. Unvaccinated players are currently not allowed to cross the border into Canada. The Public Health Agency of Canada still strongly recommends that people wear masks, particularly in crowded environments such as planes and trains. Photo credit: Michael Simari - Car and Driver California's governor signed legislation into effect today that will make it harder for catalytic-converter thieves to get away with selling them, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 2021, more than 18,000 catalytic converters were stolen from vehicles in California, according to National Insurance Crime Bureau statistics. The new law will require sellers of the valuable anti-smog equipment to prove they came by it legally or face stringent penalties, and the buyersgenerally scrap-metal recyclers or dealerswill also have to keep and show records of where they're getting catalytic converters. Governor Gavin Newsom of California today signed into effect a law that will impose strict penalties on people who illegally buy and sell catalytic converters. The anti-pollution devices are a frequent target for saw-and-grab thieves, with more than 18,000 reported stolen in California alone in 2021. The Los Angeles Times reported that the new rules originated with a pair of bills, one in the California State Senate and one in the state's Assembly. The legislation attaches a $1000 fine to a first conviction and $2000 for a second. The law would allow the additional penalty of a temporary suspension from operating as a recycler. Among the records required will be a written agreement with the seller, records of the amount paid and number of catalytic converters purchased, and descriptive information such as unique ID numbers or VINs etched into the parts. Recyclers would need to keep the records for at least two years. As Car and Driver reported earlier this year, popular car models are the most frequent targets of catalytic converter theft, including the Chevrolet Silverado and Ford F-series pickups, the Honda Accord and CR-V, and the Toyota Camry and Prius. The State Farm insurance company reported in mid-2021 that catalytic converters theft grew almost 293 percent nationwide during the year after making an initial leap as the COVID-19 pandemic got underway. The insurer gave the number-one ranking to California, where more than 30 percent of State Farm insurance claims for the thefts originated in 2021. Texas, Minnesota, Washington, and Illinois rounded out the top five, but the problem is nationwide. Story continues CA is taking action to stop catalytic converter theft by requiring recyclers to keep specific records & only allowing used catalytic converters to be sold by authorized parties. Together, these bills should remove incentives for theft and keep Californians & their cars safer. pic.twitter.com/gz44bxMzzA Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) September 25, 2022 Gov. Newsom appeared on video via social media today, trumpeting the new protection and explaining to Californians that a catalytic converter is "part of that exhaust system on your car, and it's full of valuable materials that thieves can resell." Under the new pair of laws, only licensed resellers with detailed records will be allowed to buy and sell catalytic converters. Of course, there will always be unscrupulous buyers and sellers already figuring out a way around the regulations, but other states will be likely to watch the situation in California with interest and possibly pass their own stricter laws. As of this summer, the NICB said, more than 150 pieces of legislation were already in the works around the U.S. You Might Also Like By Stephanie van den Berg THE HAGUE (Reuters) -A suspected leader of the Seleka militia groups in the Central African Republic, Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the opening of his trial at the International Criminal Court. Prosecutors said Said oversaw a prison in the capital Bangui where inmates were beaten and tortured. "I plead not guilty to all charges and all situations," Said, dressed in a dark grey suit, told the judges. The mostly Muslim Seleka militia groups seized power in 2013-2014 as part of the Central African Republic's long-running civil war, ousting then-President Francois Bozize. In the Central African Republic's capital Bangui a viewing of the live-stream of the opening of the trial was organized in a courtroom. For us victims, we can say that (the opening) is a great relief, and we are paying close attention to the trial at the ICC, " Francine Evodie Ndemade, president of an association for victims of military conflict in CAR, told Reuters. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan told judges at the start of the trial that the Seleka ruled "by fear, by terror". In the period of crimes charged, Khan said Said "wielded immense power" in the prison he ran. According to Khan, Said "actively hunted down civilians" and brought them to the prison knowing "what nightmare awaited them under his control" including torture, being held in "putrid conditions" in an underground cell known as the hole without food or water. The ICC has charged leaders of both the Seleka and opposing Christian militias known as "anti-balaka". Said is the first alleged Seleka member to go on trial. In Bangui a woman in her thirties who was captured and imprisoned by Seleka fighters in 2014 and asked to remain anonymous, said she welcomed the Said trial. She added that she hoped the ICC would also look into reparations "because we, the victims, have suffered too much. Story continues The Central African Republic has been mired in violence since a coalition of mostly northern and predominantly Muslim rebels known as Seleka, or "Alliance" in the Sango language, seized power in March 2013. Their rule gave rise to the opposing anti-balaka Christian militias. Monday's hearing was adjourned and the trial will continue on Tuesday with the defence opening statement. (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg and Judicael Yongo in Bangui; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Angus MacSwan, William Maclean) A 37-year-old man was arrested Sunday in Chico on suspicion of threatening to kill police officers and planning a "Las Vegas style" mass shooting, authorities said. The Chico Police Department's SWAT team took Dallas Marsh into custody about 9 a.m. at a Super 8 Motel where he was staying. Authorities obtained an arrest warrant after learning that Marsh was allegedly "making criminal threats to kill specific individuals, specified law enforcement officers, and was preparing to commit a Las Vegas style mass shooting with a specified deadline," the department said in a statement. Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds were wounded in Las Vegas in 2017 when a gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest music festival from a nearby hotel. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It is not clear how authorities were made aware of Marsh's alleged plot and how long they knew about it before his arrest. Officials could not immediately be reached to provide further information. Authorities allege that Marsh battered an officer with a table while he was being interviewed and threatened to kill other officers and their families. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. By Eduardo Baptista and Xiaoyu Yin GUILIN, China (Reuters) - For six months, home for Ms. Xu has been a room in a high-rise apartment in the southern Chinese city of Guilin that she bought three years ago, attracted by brochures touting its riverfront views and the city's clean air. Her living conditions, however, are far from those promised: unpainted walls, holes where electric sockets should be and no gas or running water. Every day she climbs up and down several flights of stairs carrying heavy water bottles filled with a hose outside. "All the family's savings were invested in this house," Xu, 55, told Reuters from the Xiulan County Mansion complex, her room bare except for a mosquito net-covered bed, a few necessities and empty bottles on the floor. She declined to give her full name, citing the sensitivity of the matter. Xu and about 20 other buyers living in Xiulan County Mansion share a makeshift outdoor toilet and gather during the day at a table and benches in the central courtyard area. They are part of a movement of home buyers around China who have moved into what they call "rotting" apartments, either to pressure developers and authorities to complete them or out of financial necessity, as numerous cash-strapped builders halt construction amid the country's deep real estate slump. Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute estimated in July that stalled projects accounted for 3.85% of China's housing market in the first half of 2022, equivalent to an area of 231 million square metres. While some local governments have taken steps to prop up the property market by setting up bailout funds, buyers like Xu, who paid deposits in advance and are on the hook for mortgages, remain in limbo. MORTGAGE STRIKES The proliferation of unfinished apartments has sparked unprecedented collective disobedience, fuelled by social media: in late June, thousands of home buyers in at least 100 cities threatened to halt mortgage payments to protest stalled construction. Story continues The overall property market is highly sensitive to cases of unfinished apartments because 90% of new houses bought in China are purchased "off plans" while still under construction, said Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai E-House. "If this issue is not resolved, it will affect property transactions, the government's credibility, and it could exacerbate the developers' debt problems," he said. China's deep property slump, along with disruptions caused by strict anti-COVID measures, are dragging on the world's second largest economy just as the ruling Communist Party gears up for its once-in-five-years Congress next month. 'CRASHING FROM PARADISE' Xu bought her two-bedroom, 70 square metre flat in early 2019, about a year after its developer, Jiadengbao Real Estate, started construction and began marketing apartments for around 6,000 yuan ($851) per square metre, which they said would come with facilities such as floor heating and a shared swimming pool. Work progressed quickly at first, with blocks in the planned 34 tower complex going up one after another. But in June 2020, Jiadengbao Real Estate hit the headlines after a court accused its parent company of illegal fund-raising and seized 340 million yuan worth of its properties, including a number of flats in Xiulan County Mansion. Construction stopped in mid-2020, which Xu found out months later, describing her feelings at the time as "crashing from paradise". Jiadengbao Real Estate did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Since the debt crisis erupted in 2021, thousands more home buyers have been caught in similar predicaments as cash-strapped developers went into bankruptcy or abandoned struggling projects. FENCING AND UNDERGROWTH On a recent day, the main block of buildings at Xiulan County Mansion was surrounded by a tall blue fence while the clubhouse, touted in promotional materials, was covered in a dense undergrowth. Cement mixers, iron poles, and piles of debris lay strewn around. Xu, who is unemployed, said she bought the apartment for her only son, with the hope that he would be able to raise a family there. She said her son and her husband, who live far away in the northern province of Hebei, blame her for their financial predicament, and no longer speak to her. "We don't know how long we will have to live here because the government has not said anything officially," she said. She hopes the Guilin government will step in to help. The city government did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Housing authorities in Baoding, the northern city where Xu is from and where Jiadengbao Real Estate's parent company is registered, said last November the city government and Communist Party committee had set up a group to resolve the issue. "If the government really wants to protect people's livelihoods, and resume construction, we will go back home," Xu said. ($1 = 7.0508 Chinese yuan renminbi) (This story corrects name of expert in paragraph 9 to Yuejin) (Reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Xiaoyu Yin; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom and Xihao Jiang; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) A Chinese American chef running for city council in Lexington, Kentucky, is speaking out against a campaign against his candidacy, which has called the new politician a communist. Dan Wu, 48, who finished second in the May primary, claims in an opinion piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader that two photos of him resurfaced on social media along with accusations he has communist ties. In a post Wu shared on Facebook, the first-time politician said, Things are heating up, just a few weeks before the midterm elections. More from NextShark: Human arm bone discovered under Japanese garden in Denver The first photo was reportedly taken seven years ago at an army surplus store where he saw a Soviet Union flag in-person for the first time. I had never seen one in real life, Wu, whose family immigrated from China to Fargo, North Dakota, and later to Lexington, wrote. I thought it would be funny juxtaposed with my t-shirt of the Lying Cat, which is a character from a graphic novel I really like. So as a goof I took what I thought was a silly picture. He says the second photo was taken nine years ago. More from NextShark: 'Nice Meeting You': Alleged Racist Changes Behavior as Asian Victim Starts to Record His Face I am wearing a shirt called the Video Game Revolution, Wu continued. It is an upraised fist composed of lots of small video game controllers, cause I like video games. The best part about this picture is that whoever took it, they cropped it out. As you can see from the full, unedited photo, I am on stilts. Its a silly picture and whoever cropped this picture knew it was silly. According to the Herald-Leader, the candidate with the most votes in the May primary becomes the vice mayor, while candidates in second and third place will serve as at-large members for the next four years. Wu, who is also an advocate for immigrants and refugees, says landing in the top three may have led to the photos and rumors making rounds online. Story continues More from NextShark: Dozens of protesters march against Seattles planned homeless shelter near International District He said in an interview that the photos resurfaced back in June, and the accusations came up again recently in an email sent to Mayor Linda Gorton and the 15-member council. I am not a communist, nor have I ever been a communist, Wu wrote on Facebook. This attempt to discredit and slander me is pretty ridiculous and pretty silly and pretty desperate. And its also offensive because my family and I came here from a communist country, we escaped a communist country. We came from China to the United States in the 80s when I was just a kid to make a better life for ourselves. So to now accuse me of being a communist is downright offensive to me and my family. NextShark has reached out to Wus campaign for further comment. More from NextShark: Arabic architecture of mosques in China are being altered in an effort to make them more 'Chinese' Featured Image via DanWuForLex Geng Quanrong, a Chinese man charged in Nigeria for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, will be served Chinese food in prison, authorities confirmed. The textile businessman, 47, made headlines in the past week after being arrested for the crime, which occurred in the victims shared home in Janbulo quarters, Kano state, on Sept. 16. Geng is accused of fatally stabbing his 22-year-old ex-lover, Ummukulsum Ummita Buhari, for allegedly breaking her promise to marry him even after he had spent so much money on her. Local reports say Buhari married another man who eventually divorced her. Buharis mother, who witnessed the attack, claimed that Geng forced his way into their home and repeatedly stabbed her daughter. Geng reportedly confessed to the crime after his arrest. More from NextShark: Fired restaurant manager who threw water at customer's face claims she used anti-Asian racial slurs Under Nigerian law, an imprisoned foreigner must be fed with their native food. Musbahu Kofar-Nassarawa, spokesman for the Kano Correctional Center, confirmed that Geng will not be fed gabza, which refers to local food for prisoners. People are asking which type of food the suspect is going to be eating. He is going to be served Chinese food, that is what law provides, Kofar-Nasarawa said. Kano police charged Geng with culpable homicide last Wednesday, but his plea was not taken due to the courts lack of jurisdiction in the case. As a result, he was ordered to remain in custody until Oct. 13 for arraignment before an appropriate court. More from NextShark: Chinese scientists successfully create worlds first mammal with fully reprogrammed genes Its unclear whether Geng has been receiving help from the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria. Kofar-Nasarawa said the law allows foreign inmates to contact their countrys embassy for assistance. Geng is expected to return to court on Oct. 13. More from NextShark: Gold House Unveils A100 List, Socioeconomic Ventures in Time for AAPI Heritage Month Featured Image via Facebook Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark! Sacramento Councilwoman Announces Plan to Fight Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Most of the migrants received humanitarian parole after entering the U.S. and plan to apply for asylum. Humanitarian parole allows people to remain in the U.S. temporarily for a compelling emergency. People can apply for asylum within one year of their arrival, regardless of how they entered the U.S. There is debate over whether people who cross the border to apply for asylum are entering the country illegally. However, once a person has an asylum application in process, they are allowed to remain in the U.S. as they await a decision. Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis used state taxpayers' money to relocate about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. DeSantis accuses President Joe Biden of not doing enough to secure the southern border. He said that many of the people who arrive there intend to go to Florida and aren't welcome. "Our message to them is we are not a sanctuary state, and it's better to be able to go to a sanctuary jurisdiction," DeSantis said Sept. 15, a day after two planes took Venezuelans to Martha's Vineyard. "And yes, we will help facilitate that transport for you to be able to go to greener pastures." Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference on Sept. 22, 2022, in Miami. The migrants were in San Antonio before being flown to Florida and then to Martha's Vineyard. DeSantis' move similar to what other Republican governors have done has drawn a lot of national attention, misinformation and confusion. Here, we'll sort out what we know about the immigrants at the center of this story and the related laws and policies. Venezuelans sent to Martha's Vineyard intend to apply for asylum Most of the migrants received humanitarian parole after entering the U.S. and plan to apply for asylum, lawyers representing the migrants told PolitiFact. Humanitarian parole allows people to remain in the U.S. temporarily for a compelling emergency. In general, the parole can be granted for any "urgent humanitarian reasons," including protection from targeted or individualized harm. The lawsuit said some of the migrants fled to the U.S. to protect themselves and their families from "state-sponsored violence." Story continues "We are still ascertaining the circumstances surrounding parole," said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, which represents 30 of the migrants. "I suspect the designation was made based on their hardship coupled with their nationality: the crisis in Venezuela is well-known and documented." Venezuela's authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, assumed office in 2013. The country has experienced rampant inflation, human rights abuses and dwindling food and supplies. Lawyers representing the migrants shared a brochure that they say Florida officials gave the migrants before they left Texas. The leaflet mentioned housing assistance, cash assistance, and other support. DeSantis' office confirmed the brochure's authenticity, which is about benefits available to refugees. (The Venezuelan migrants are not refugees under immigration law.) On Sept. 20, three of the migrants sued DeSantis, alleging that they were misled about the resources they'd be eligible for in Martha's Vineyard. People granted humanitarian parole are generally ineligible for public benefits. The Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides several federally funded benefits to refugees and people granted asylum, including cash assistance and short term medical coverage. Refugees are eligible for those benefits upon their arrival, but asylum seekers are not eligible until their application is approved, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, associate policy analyst for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. People granted asylum and refugees are legally allowed to work in the United States. The immigration process for refugees and asylum seekers is different Refugees, as defined by U.S. law, are people outside of the U.S. who fled their home countries because of persecution related to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a U.S. embassy or a designated nongovernmental organization can refer a person to the U.S. refugee program. Prospective refugees must pass biometric and biographical background checks and be interviewed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers overseas. "Asylum seekers similarly have to meet the legal definition of 'refugee,' but to be eligible for asylum one must already have made it to the United States," said Washington University law professor emeritus Stephen Legomsky, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services chief counsel. People can apply for asylum within one year of their arrival, whether they entered the country legally or illegally. Migrants who are apprehended or turn themselves into immigration officials are generally placed in removal proceedings. They can apply for asylum as a defense against that removal. Did the immigrants sent to Martha's Vineyard enter the U.S. illegally? There is a political debate over whether people who cross the border to apply for asylum are entering the country illegally. DeSantis and others say that people who come in without any prior authorization are doing so illegally, even if they ultimately apply for asylum. "America is apparently the only nation on earth where you can enter by violating our laws and then a week later sue the government whose laws you violated," Rubio said in a Sept. 21 Instagram post. Immigrant rights advocates argue that because physical presence in the U.S. is a requirement to apply for asylum, their entry should not be considered illegal, even if they were apprehended by or turned themselves into Border Patrol agents. Debate aside, immigration experts told PolitiFact that people have the legal right to seek asylum in the United States. "While people who present themselves at the border to claim asylum may not have status at the time of their arrival at the border, they are exercising their right to request asylum," said Bush-Joseph, from the Migration Policy Institute. One thing is clear: Once people have asylum applications in process, they are allowed to remain in the country as they await a resolution of their immigration case. The same law that provides for the removal of people who are found to be inadmissible carves out an explicit exception for asylum seekers, Legomsky said. That law requires immigration officers to refer applicants for asylum interviews, not remove them. Asylum seekers, he said, "have the unqualified right to remain in the United States unless and until their applications are denied." Staff writer Maria Ramirez Uribe contributed to this report. Our Sources Email interview with Stephen Legomsky, professor emeritus at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Sept. 20, 2022 Email interview with Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director for Lawyers for Civil Rights, Sept. 21, 2022 Email interview with Kathleen Bush-Joseph, associate policy analyst for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, Sept. 21, 2022 Lawyers for Civil Rights, Legal First Responders for Migrants in Martha's Vineyard, assessed Sept. 21, 2022 TRACImmigration, Asylum Decisions, assessed Sept. 20, 2022 PolitiFact, The Republican proposal to change the U.S. asylum system, explained, Jan. 23, 2019 PolitiFact, No, immigrants cannot apply for asylum at U.S. embassies or consulates abroad, July 10, 2018 PolitiFact, What is the Biden administration saying about the refugee admissions cap for 2021, April 20, 2021 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Refugees, assessed Sept. 20, 2022 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Asylum, assessed Sept. 20, 2022 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Refugees and Asylum, assessed Sept. 20, 2022 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Refugee Eligibility Determination, assessed Sept. 20, 2022 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Refugee Processing and Security Screening, assessed Sept. 20, 2022 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Obtaining Asylum in the United States, assessed Sept. 20, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Refugees and Asylees, assessed Sept. 20, 2022 Administration for Children and Families, Asylee Eligibility for Assistance and Services, July 12, 2012 Migration Policy Institute, Refugees and Asylees in the United States, May 13, 2021 Congressional Research Service, Immigration: U.S. Asylum Policy, Feb. 19, 2019 Congressional Research Service, The Law of Asylum Procedure at the Border: Statutes and Agency Implementation, April 9, 2021 Congressional Research Service, Refugee Admissions and Resettlement Policy, Dec. 18, 2018 This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: The nuances in immigration law after DeSantis sent migrants to Martha's Vineyard By Anggy Polanco SAN ANTONIO DE TACHIRA, Venezuela/CUCUTA, Colombia (Reuters) -Colombia and Venezuela reopened cargo transport at a major border crossing on Monday, potentially enabling billions of dollars in trade after years of icy bilateral relations and heavily-restricted economic ties. The re-opening - which will allow goods like coal, toilet paper and fruit to move through crossings between the Colombian city of Cucuta and the Venezuelan state of Tachira - was a key campaign promise of Colombia's new leftist President Gustavo Petro. Petro crossed the Simon Bolivar bridge on foot on Monday, standing on the Venezuelan side with his ambassador to Caracas Armando Benedetti, Venezuela's ambassador to Colombia Felix Plasencia, Venezuela's transport minister and other officials as they listened to military bands play each other's national anthems. "I want the first people who benefit to be those who live on either side of the border, those who risked (illegal crossings)...gangs of all kinds, multicriminals who could kill them, who could rape them," said Petro in later remarks, referring to dozens of irregular crossings controlled by crime gangs and home to smuggling and drug trafficking. "The result should be a qualitative jump in human rights all along the Colombian-Venezuelan border," he said. Petro told journalists there was no set date for his first meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. TRUCK CROSSINGS HAVE BEGUNA truck loaded with rolls of aluminum and festooned with flags and red, yellow and blue balloons was the first to cross the frontier from Tachira into Colombia. The first truck moving from Colombia to Venezuela, one of four belonging to company Transporte Condor, carried medical supplies. Four of the company's trucks were also set to move toilet paper, plastic glasses and textiles valued at some $80,000, manager Diego Bohorquez said. Cargo trucks can cross each day between 10 a.m. (1400 GMT)and 5 p.m., Venezuela's transport minister Ramon Velasquez told a separate briefing, while pedestrian crossings will begin earlier. Story continues The border was already open to pedestrians, with many Venezuelans crossing to buy basic goods as their country experiences a long-running economic crisis. Cargo transport had previously only been allowed through one northern crossing. A second road bridge near Cucuta will open within weeks, Petro said. Merchants on both sides of the 2,219-kilometer (1,380-mile) frontier have been eagerly awaiting the normalization, hopeful open trade will allow them access to raw materials and new customers. Bilateral trade totaled $7 billion in 2008, before Venezuela's then-president Hugo Chavez froze it to protest a Bogota-Washington military deal. Caracas broke off relations with Bogota in 2019 after Venezuelan opposition activists tried to send aid trucks from Colombia. Maduro's government said it was a front for an attempted coup. Previous governments in Bogota have accused Maduro of harboring Colombian rebel groups and criminals, accusations he has denied. The two countries had said flights between their capitals would also restart, but U.S. sanctions against Venezuela's state airline Conviasa have delayed them. (Reporting by Anggy Polanco in San Antonio de Tachira, Venezuela and Cucuta, Colombia; Additional reporting by Nelson BocanegraWriting by Julia Symmes CobbEditing by Alistair Bell and Josie Kao) Conor McMenamin is back in the Northern Ireland squad (Niall Carson/PA). (PA Wire) Ian Baraclough welcomed Conor McMenamin back into his Northern Ireland squad before revealing the video that led to Kyle Lafferty being sent home was believed to have been taken after a team-bonding dinner in Belfast last week. Both McMenamin and Lafferty were withdrawn from the squad ahead of Saturdays 2-1 win over Kosovo amid separate social media controversies. A video emerged last Wednesday appearing to show Lafferty using an alleged sectarian slur and, after the 35-year-old was sent home amid an investigation launched by his club Kilmarnock, an historical video showing McMenamin appearing to sing a pro-IRA slogan was also shared. Conor McMenamin (right) in action for Northern Ireland away to Kosovo (Valdrin Xhemaj/AP). (PA Wire) That video is thought to have been captured when the Glentoran winger, 27, was still a teenager, with the former Clifonville and Linfield player punished by his club at the time. In that context, on Monday he was cleared by an independent disciplinary panel to play in Tuesdays match. Lafferty remains out as he awaits the outcome of Kilmarnocks investigation. When asked if the incident involving Northern Irelands second-highest goal-scorer came after the squad went out for dinner on Tuesday night, Baraclough said: I believe so. He added: We all went out. We all went to the restaurant and we all came back. The players had a day off the next day. They are adults. They know they have got a responsibility and when they are on international duty they are still representing themselves, their clubs, their families and me Ian Baraclough They know they have got a responsibility and when they are on international duty they are still representing themselves, their clubs, their families and me. You cant keep them cooped up in a hotel and you give them a certain amount of trust. You hope that is the right thing to do going forward as well. We are talking about a team bonding session and people being themselves and seeing them in their natural state and at times you do have to learn from it. It might be something that we look at further down the line. It has always served Northern Irish teams really well when they have had that bit of time to themselves, so for me it was something we werent expecting to wake up to those sorts of headlines and that type of news. Im disappointed. Story continues Baraclough said McMenamin, who earned three caps after getting his first Northern Ireland call-up in June, had been distraught when first informed he was out of the squad at the weekend, but he is ready to play now back in the fold. I think its one thing to give him the bad news, its another then saying you want him to travel, you think everything is going to be cleared by then hopefully, and he had no hesitation at all, Baraclough said. To be able to give him that news is obviously a better conversation. Northern Ireland manager Ian Baraclough has sought to focus on on-pitch matters (Liam McBurney/PA). (PA Wire) The issues have been a distraction for Northern Ireland during an important international window. Saturdays win over Kosovo was their first in the Nations League in 15 attempts, but they are still not safe from relegation to League D with one game left to play. For a third press conference in four days, Baraclough was left facing questions about the Irish Football Associations handling of the situation. The announcement of Laffertys withdrawal left ambiguity as to the reason as the statement also mentioned a back injury which would have ruled him out of Saturdays game regardless, while many saw McMenamins exit as an over-reaction to historic footage. It is not for me to comment on that, Baraclough said when asked about the IFAs actions. For me it is about what happens on the pitch and trying to stay focused on the game. Fortunately we had a performance and we got the result as well. For me you move on to the next game. I look after the football side of things and take guidance on all the rest. By Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) -The United States, Britain and other countries are calling for a debate at the U.N. Human Rights Council to discuss China's treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslims in the far western region of Xinjiang, a document showed and diplomats said on Monday. The move, which needs a majority vote to pass in the deeply divided Geneva council, would be the first time that alleged abuses by China, a powerful permanent Security Council member, feature on the U.N. rights body's agenda in its 16-year history. Intense diplomatic discussions have been continuing on the sidelines of the council meeting since a much-anticipated U.N. report last month stipulated that "serious human rights violations have been committed" in Xinjiang that may amount to crimes against humanity. "We cannot ignore such severe and systematic breaches of human rights," Britain's ambassador Simon Manley told the U.N. body on Monday. "This council must not, cannot, stay silent." China vigorously denies any abuses and has sent a government delegation to Geneva to counter what it claims are erroneous findings by the U.N. rights office and says it is "ready for the fight" if action is taken against it. A spokesperson at China's diplomatic mission in Geneva did not respond to a request for comment. The so-called "draft decision" reviewed by Reuters is so far backed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Norway, diplomats said. It seeks a debate during the council's next session that begins in February. China might seek to dismiss it with a no action motion. The 47-member council is split over the allegations against China, which has deep economic ties with many developing countries and is seeking their support. The Western-led call for a debate falls short of a resolution which could have sought a Xinjiang probe, although this could be raised later. Story continues Uyghurs held protests outside the U.N. Geneva office last week calling for action next to the photographs of those they say are being detained. "My ask is clear to the international community I ask you to intervene," said Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a former Uyghur detainee who spent three years in internment camps. "I implore you to save us from this tyranny." China has been seeking to rally support against any Western-led action, although initial efforts fell short of expectations, with so far fewer than 10 voting members of the council backing a statement criticising the UN rights report. (Reporting by Emma Farge, editing by Rachel More, Christian Schmollinger, William Maclean) The Abilene-Taylor County Public Health District on Monday reported 29 new cases of COVID-19, six of which were confirmed via polymerase chain reaction tests. Active cases Monday totaled 787 (202 PCR cases and 585 based on antigen tests), down from 879 a week ago. The number of new COVID-19 cases in Texas continues to decline, with 1,179 reported Monday by state health officials, compared to about 10,600 daily cases at the mid-July peak of a surge that started in mid-April. The latest surge had a more gradual increase than the previous surge that started in mid-December and peaked a month later at more than 61,000 new daily cases. The percentage of COVID-19 inpatients in the 16-county Abilene trauma service area was 1.54% Sunday, compared to 1.87% a week ago, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services COVID-19 database. The Abilene trauma service area Sunday had 13 COVID-19 inpatients, three fewer than reported a week earlier. In the previous 24 hours, there were two COVID-19 admissions in the area, according to the state database. State officials are releasing county and trauma service area data on Mondays only. Coronavirus by the numbers Abilene/Taylor County (Monday data): New cases, 29; PCR cases, 14,454; active PCR cases, 202; total antigen probable cases, 25,883; total active antigen cases, 585; total PCR recoveries, 14,061; total antigen recoveries, 24,866; Total deaths, 654. Texas (updated Monday): Total cases, 6,344,258; New cases, 1,179; Hospitalized, 1,766; Fatalities, 89,123; New fatalities, 2; Total tests, 71,864,217. Big Country estimated new daily confirmed cases (Monday, as tracked by the state): Brown, 0; Callahan, 1; Coke, 0; Coleman, 0; Comanche, 0; Eastland, 0; Erath, 2; Fisher, 0; Haskell, 0; Howard, 0; Jones, 1; Kent, 0; Knox, 0; Mitchell, 0; Nolan, 0; Runnels, 0; Scurry, 1; Shackelford, 0; Stephens, 0; Stonewall, 0; and Throckmorton, 0. Sources: City of Abilene and Texas Department of State Health Services (counts PCR cases only) Story continues SELECT PRISONS (Friday update) Daniel (Snyder): Staff cases active, 0; Inmate cases active, 0, medical isolation, 0. Havins (Brownwood): Staff cases active, 0; Inmate cases active, 0, medical isolation, 0. Middleton (Abilene): Staff cases active, 0; Inmate cases active, 2, medical isolation, 2. Robertson (Abilene): Staff cases active, 1; Inmate cases active, 0, medical isolation, 0. Sayle (Breckenridge): Staff cases active, 0; Inmate cases active, 5, medical isolation, 5. Wallace (Colorado City): Staff cases active, 0; Inmate cases active, 0, medical isolation, 0. Source: Texas Department of Criminal Justice COVID-19 website. More:COVID-19: Cases for week decline for Taylor, Brown counties SCHOOLS Abilene ISD: Reported Monday zero new cases, for a total of 17 active cases (13 student cases and four staff cases). The total number of active cases is nine fewer than reported Friday. Wylie ISD: The district is reporting COVID-19 data directly to the health department only. This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: COVID-19: New cases continue to decline across Texas ZURICH (Reuters) -Credit Suisse Group is pressing ahead with its strategic review that includes potential divestitures and asset sales, the Swiss bank said on Monday, reiterating it would share more details with third-quarter results due on Oct. 27. "While there has been a heightened level of media and market speculation about the potential outcome over the past days, the bank is committed to providing further details on the progress of the strategic review...," it said in a statement. Citing people familiar with the situation, Reuters reported last week that Credit Suisse is sounding out investors for fresh cash as it attempts a radical overhaul of its investment bank. As the bank said in July, it was considering measures to strengthen its flagship wealth management franchise, scale back its investment bank into a "capital-light, advisory-led" business, evaluate strategic options for the Securitized Products business, and cut its cost base to below 15.5 billion Swiss francs ($15.75 billion). The board of directors and the executive board were considering alternatives that go beyond the conclusions of last year's strategic review, it said. "The bank is currently executing on a number of strategic initiatives including potential divestitures and asset sales," it added. Shares in Switzerland's second-biggest bank rose 2.7% in early trade after falling more than 12% to record lows on Friday. "Fundamental changes are needed at the ailing bank. It will be difficult to find the right balance between the necessary scaling back of business where the risk-reward ratio is not right and avoiding too big a cut into the bank's own flesh," Luzerner Kantonalbank analyst Daniel Bosshard wrote in a note. ($1 = 0.9839 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Michael Shields, editing by Rachel More, Maria Sheahan and Ed Osmond) Police officers responding to a shooting at a party were blocked from reaching two victims by a crowd of 60-70 people outside the building, according to a Maryland police department. Officers responded to the party, which was being held in a basement recording studio in Odenton, about 20 miles south of Baltimore, at around 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 25, according to the Anne Arundel County Police Department. The photograph is of the #homicide victim. pic.twitter.com/piRisGbS2x Anne Arundel County Police Department (@AACOPD) September 26, 2022 When they arrived, dozens of people were leaving the building and scattering around the parking lot and the road, police said. The crowd would not allow officers entry to the establishment, the police department said in a statement. Two shooting victims were at the party one in the parking lot trying to get away and another inside the doorway of the building, according to police. The crowd was actively impeding officers from rendering aid to either victim, the statement says. After more officers arrived, they made a line and pushed the crowd back, allowing paramedics from a local fire department to get to the victims. The victim who was in the parking lot, a 30-year-old man, was taken to a trauma center with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to the statement. The victim inside the doorway of the building, Alexander Leon Gray Jr., 38, was pronounced dead, police said. Police are investigating the shooting. Gunshots ring out during high school football homecoming game, Minnesota video shows Chaos at pop-up car rally resulted in 2 deaths along the Jersey Shore, officials say Cops crash filming of music video after reports of teens waving around guns in Texas Crypto trading platform Talos has announced three key hires for its global expansion, four months after it raised $105 million in a funding round. Talos is hiring Frank van Zegveld, who joins the firm as head of sales for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, Matt Houston as client success director and Hillary Conley as business development director, the company told CoinDesk in a statement. Zegveld will join the company in October, and will be based in Amsterdam. He previously worked in senior roles at Solid Trading and Lucera Financial Infrastructures. The hiring come after Talos raised $105 million in a Series B funding round in May, which valued the company at around $1.25 billion and which included investments from traditional finance giants Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo (WFC) and BNY Mellon (BK). Were excited to welcome these three talented individuals to the Talos team as we continue to expand our sales and business development presence worldwide, Talos founder and CEO Anton Katz said, adding that the extensive leadership and industry expertise of these new hires will enable us to build long-lasting relationships as we continue to build our global presence in EMEA and beyond. The hiring of seasoned TradFi veterans by crypto-linked companies has picked up in recent months as more institutional investors are expanding into the industry during the crypto winter. Most recently, three executives from JPMorgan & Chase left the bank to join crypto firms, defying the bear market. Yennys Hernandez Molina (left) and Annery Rivera Velasco got married in September (CNN) Cuba has legalized same-sex marriage after Cubans voted in favor of a family code that increased protections for minorities on the island, the country's National Electoral Council announced on Monday. The Electoral Council said 74.1 percent of those eligible to vote in Sunday's national referendum had turned out to cast their ballot. With 94 percent of the votes counted as of 9 a.m. ET on Monday morning, 3,936,790 had voted in favor and 1,950,090 against signaling an overwhelming support for the new law. The new family code extends greater protection to women, children, and the elderly, as well as allowing LGBTQ+ couples to marry and adopt children. For decades, LGBTQ people in Cuba faced official discrimination on the communist-run island. In the early 1960s, after Fidel Castro took power, many gay people were sent to government work camps alongside political dissidents. Though homosexuality was legalized in Cuba in 1979, many gay men and women said they still faced open discrimination. Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban president Raul Castro, has openly advocated through a government-funded center for improved rights for gays, lesbians, and transgender people. But the push for greater equality faced stiff opposition from both outside and from within the Cuban government. In 2018, Cuban legislators abandoned provisions that would have legalized same-sex marriage amid fears that a homophobic backlash would have lowered turnout for a referendum to approve a new constitution. The following year, Cuban police broke up a peaceful LGBTQ rights parade saying the marchers did not have permission to hold the rally. Cuba's growing evangelical community in particular had openly advocated against approving the family code. But in the weeks before the referendum, the Cuban government made a full court press in favor of the new family code across state-run media, arguing the new code is proof the island's now more than six-decades-old-revolution is capable of adapting to the times. The-CNN-Wire & 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Related: Setback for Marriage Equality in Cuba A man casts his ballot at a polling station during the new Family Code referendum in Havana, on September 25, 2022. Photo by YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images Cuba has voted to legalize same-sex marriage, election officials said on Monday. The country voted in a referendum to amend its Family Code, which is part of the constitution. Decades ago, LGBTQ people in Cuba were persecuted and sent to labor camps. Cubans voted to legalize same-sex marriage, election officials said on Monday, a significant move in a country that saw harsh persecution for its LGBTQ community decades ago. Millions of people across the country took to the polls Sunday to vote in a referendum that would amend the country's Family Code, which is a part of its constitution and has been in place since 1975. According to election results, around two-thirds of people who voted in the referendum did so in favor of the amendments. "With [66%] of votes for Yes #Cuba ratifies the new Families Code," Cuba's embassy to the UK wrote on Twitter shortly after 8:30 a.m. local time in Havana, Cuba's capital city. The result which needed 50% voter approval to pass also legalized same-sex adoption. It's a significant moment for the island country which, during the 1960s and 1970s, persecuted LGBTQ people and sent to labor camps. Cuba's government had backed the measure to legalize same-sex marriage, the BBC reported, and campaigned for people to vote in favor of the amendment. The country's president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, tweeted his congratulations on the vote passing Monday, and further praised the election results. And the official Twitter page for Cuba's presidential administration updated its bio to reflect the number of people who voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. Voting, meanwhile, took place as the US National Hurricane Center warned on Monday that portions of western Cuba could see "life-threatening storm surge," strong winds, flash floods, and possible mudslides because of Florida-bound Hurricane Ian. Read the original article on Business Insider PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech government will temporarily reinstate controls on the border with Slovakia on Thursday to respond to a rise in illegal migration, Czech government officials said on Monday. Illegal migration - mostly from Syria - rose by 1,200% this year, Interior Minister Vit Rakusan told news conference. "What we are going through this year is unprecedented. Since the beginning of 2022, police have detained 11,000 illegal migrants," Rakusan said. "This is transit migration, the vast majority of them aimed for Germany. This raised nervousness on the German side of the border as well," he added. The checks will initially last for 10 days, Rakusan said. Central European EU countries and the border check-free Schengen zone have given refugee status to more than 400,000 Ukrainians fleeing the war, of which around 300,000 are estimated to be staying in the country and are not included in the illegal migration data. Rakusan said Czech neighbours have been informed of the decision. (Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Bill Berkrot) A robbery took place at a Meridian Walgreens on Monday morning and police said they are still searching for a suspect. At 11:24 a.m., the Walgreens at the corner East Fairview Avenue and North Locust Grove Road reported the crime, the Meridian Police Department confirmed to the Idaho Statesman. Prescription items from the pharmacy were taken, according to spokesperson Stephany Galbreaith said. It was called into dispatch as an armed robbery, and Meridian police responded as such, Galbreaith said. No one was injured, Galbreaith said. Police said they had no one in custody Monday afternoon and the investigation was ongoing. DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) Rescuers recovered 17 more bodies on Monday from a boat that capsized while carrying about 100 Hindu pilgrims in northern Bangladesh, raising the confirmed death toll to 41, police and news reports said. Scores of people remained missing from the accident on Sunday, the largest Bengali-language newspaper Prothom Alo reported. The boat overturned while returning from a Hindu temple on the Karatoa River in Panchagarh district in northern Bangladesh, local police chief S.M. Sirajul Huda said. Twenty-four bodies were recovered on Sunday. Huda said many people were able to swim ashore. About 8% of the more than 160 million people in Muslim-majority Bangladesh are Hindu. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., traded compliments with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Monday, raising fresh questions about her political future. Speaking at an event sponsored by McConnells foundation, Sinema gushed about her relationship with the man despised by most Democrats as the most prominent roadblock to their domestic agenda. Sen. McConnell and I have forged a friendship, one that is rooted in our commonalities, including our pragmatic approach to legislating, our respect for the Senate as an institution, Sinema said. McConnell was equally unstinting in his praise for Sinema, a first-term moderate. She is, today, what we have too few of in the Democratic Party: a genuine moderate and a deal-maker, he said, adding that Sinema is the most effective first-term senator hes ever seen. The cross-the-aisle love fest raises fresh questions about Sinemas political future. The first-term senator is one of the most prominent moderate Democrats in the Senate along with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and has helped maintain the filibuster that prevents most legislation from passing without a super-majority of 60 votes. Sinema represents the fast-changing battleground state of Arizona, making her a prime target for a primary challenge when she faces reelection in 2024. Sinemas sky-high disapproval ratings, particularly among Democrats, have sparked some speculation that she could switch parties or perhaps declare herself an independent, even though she has vehemently denied it. Either move could have seismic repercussions in the evenly divided Senate. Monday afternoon demolition began on a former area primary school. The site at West Dayton Yellow Springs Road was the former home to Fairborn Primary School. >> RELATED: Fairborn City Schools welcomes students back with new intermediate building Back in 2016, voters approved a levy to build new primary and intermediate schools. Fairborns new intermediate school opened just a few weeks ago. On a social media post the district said they believe the schools will use once the demolition is complete for parking and playgrounds or play areas. Hundreds of people flooded the streets of Bellevue on Sunday to protest the Iranian government after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Amini died in police custody earlier this month after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly. Authorities say Amini died of a heart attack. But, her family is not convinced and holds the police responsible for her death. Now, protesters are speaking out across the globe. I came to support the Iranian people and find justice for Mahsa and all the people she represents, said Nilu Jenks, who attended one of Sundays protests. It is absolutely ridiculous for someone to die over a piece of cloth especially when theyre 22-years-old. Two different protests took place in Bellevue on Sunday: one near Downtown Park and another near Bellevue Way. Many protesters present on Sunday expressed that this is just the start of their movement and they hope to see more participation from those outside the Iranian community in the days and weeks to come. If you dont speak up, then a movement dies, said Jenks. Silence is violence is the very meaningful, but important phrase, and very true. So, thats our job. The Monroe County Sheriffs Office is searching for an inmate who they say stole a city work truck and escaped from a city work detail. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] A BOLO (be on the lookout) has been issued for Robert Jenkins. Deputies said Jenkins stole a white Ford F150 with the City of Forsyth logo on the side. TRENDING STORIES: Jenkins is from Columbus, Georgia. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Anyone who sees Jenkins or knows where he may be is asked to contact local law enforcement. Its unclear what crimes Jenkins is serving time for. NEW YORK (AP) Abigail E. Disney has been critical of the company that bears her name before. But for the first time, Disney, the granddaughter of co-founder Roy O. Disney, has put her views into the medium the Mouse House was built on: a movie. In the new documentary The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, Disney argues that the Walt Disney Co. has lost its moral compass. As one of the company's most prominent and outspoken critics one who happens to be from within the Disney family Disney lays out an unflattering portrait of the company, particularly in regard to pay inequity and the struggles of some theme park employees to sustain their families on minimum-wage salaries. They have gone the way of most every other company in this country. They started with a bigger idea of themselves than that," Disney said in an interview. The Walt Disney Co. was better. It was kinder, it was gentler. It was a human company. We have lost the plot," said Disney. The American Dream," which is playing in select theaters and debuts Friday on video-on-demand, is directed by Disney, an activist and film producer, and the filmmaker Kathleen Hughes. It was made on the heels of a series of tweets from Disney in 2019 in which she slammed Bob Iger, then-Disney chief executive, for compensation that in 2018 surpassed $65 million. Disney's siblings, Susan Disney Lord and Tim Disney, are also executive producers on the film, which was made without any interaction from the company. No ones reached out to me. Im a little mystified by it, frankly, said Disney. Im happy to talk if thats what they want to do. I am rooting for them. I love this company. This is a love letter to the company. But when you really, really love something and see it going off the rails, you cant be silent. The film follows four Disneyland custodians who on a salary of $15 an hour struggle to make ends meet in the high-priced Anaheim, California, area. Growing pay gaps between executives and low-rung workers is an issue Disney knows goes far beyond the company her film concerns. At one point in the film, she describes her hope for change as a little Disney. Story continues I know that people think Im just living out here in abstract land, Disney said. But the abstractions matter a lot, and the sensibilities must change. Wages for some Disney workers have been changing. Unions representing 9,500 workers at Disneyland averted a strike by ratifying a contact that raised pay from $15.45 an hour to $18. A union representing hotel workers at an Anaheim hotel also recently reached agreement on $23.50 an hour. (Anaheim's living wage ordinance, which is $23.50, was earlier ruled not to apply to Disneyland.) In response to The American Dream, a Disney spokesperson replied with a statement. Our amazing cast members, storytellers, and employees are the heart and soul of Disney, and their wellbeing is our top priority. We work hard to ensure that our team is supported in ways that enable them to grow their careers, care for their families, and thrive at work which is why so many people choose to spend their entire careers with us." The spokesperson also cited medical coverage, access to tuition-free higher education and subsidized child care as worker benefits. We are committed to building on these impactful programs by identifying new ways to support our cast members and communities around the world, said the spokesperson. When Roy E. Disney whose father, Roy O. Disney, founded the company with brother, Walt, in 1923 stepped down from the board in 2003, the family ceased participating in running the company. Since Abigail Disney made her documentary, which first premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, Iger has been succeeded by Bob Chapek, who had previously run parks for the company. In that period, prices have risen sharply at the company's theme parks another point of contention for Disney. I just dont think its a good idea for Disneyland to become a luxury vacation that most Americans cant access, she said. I dont know how much more the brand can take. Disney, though, was encouraged by workers who protested Chapeks response to Florida legislation that critics have dubbed the Dont Say Gay bill. To Disney, the situation reflected the corporation's struggle to maintain a role as any kind of moral authority amid such politically polarized times. There is no such thing as not having a position on this question, she said. "There is no neutral ground. To pretend you can stand still on a moving train is a terrible mistake." Ultimately, Disney increasingly doesn't recognize the company that for much of her life was the family business. Making a movie about her disapproval, she says, was exquisitely uncomfortable. But she hasn't given up a happily-ever-after ending. I really do mean well, Disney says. You can say a lot of things about me, but I mean well. ___ This story was first published on September 26, 2022. It was updated on September 30, 2022 to correct that Roy O. Disney co-founded the Disney company. ___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP A man found his dogs playing with a human skull in his yard as he was leaving for work, according to Alabama officials. The man, who lives in a neighborhood in western Birmingham, called police just after 10 a.m. on Sept. 23 when he found his dogs playing with the skull, according to a statement from Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates of the Jefferson County Coroners Office. The Birmingham Police Department responded to investigate. The man told detectives that his dogs often roam a large wooded area near his house. Authorities do not know where the dogs first found the skull. No other remains have been discovered. The skull was significantly weathered, Yates said, and the person likely died years before it was found. Bags full of animal heads and carcasses found near Georgia neighborhood, police say Man will pay thousands after headless bull elk are left to rot, Montana officials say 71-year-old found dead in hand-dug grave, Alabama cops say. Now kids face murder charges A domestic violence suspect was arrested Sunday after he allegedly fled from authorities and used his vehicle to ram Riverside County sheriff's vehicles during the pursuit. At about 1:25 a.m. Sunday, deputies from the sheriff's Thermal station were pursuing Jose Lopez Jr. in the 47-000 block of Indio Boulevard. Lopez was wanted for several felony charges, including stalking, domestic violence and criminal threats, according to authorities. The sheriff's department said Lopez used his vehicle to ram pursuing sheriff's vehicles. He subsequently lost control of his vehicle and collided with a fence, disabling his vehicle, they added. Lopez allegedly fled on foot and was apprehended with the assistance of a RCSD service dog. The suspect was booked at the John Benoit Detention Center on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, felony evading, stalking, domestic violence and criminal threats. Anyone with information on the investigation was urged to contact Deputy Martin of the Thermal station at 760-863-8990, or, to report tips anonymously, call 760-341-7867. This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Domestic violence suspect arrested after pursuit in Indio A woman who police say hit a teenager on her bike will now face charges 2 years after the crash. Channel 2s Dave Huddleston reports why it took so long. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] That gives me hope that eventually there will be justice, Pauline Osuegbu, the victims mother said. In August 2020 Pauline Osuegbus 17-year-old daughter, Obianuju Osuegbu, was hit and killed on Jefferson Highway in Winder, Barrow County. She was riding her bike from work. Pauline shared photos of the accident after she was hit. The driver was never charged with vehicular homicide. Until now, 2 years later. TRENDING STORIES: At least compared to before, no charges, nothing was done at all, but at least now somebodys doing something about it, Osuegbu said. The driver, Chrissy Rawlins, now faces 9 counts of misdemeanor charges including homicide by vehicle in the second degree and driving under the influence. Were very pleased to see after two years of trying to push the prosecution to do something here, that something was done, Osuegbu said. Investigators with the Georgia State Patrol said in the report the driver wasnt at fault because the teen didnt have lights on her bike and wasnt riding on the right side of the road even though she was turning left. Attorney Bruce Hagen says there were reflectors on the bike and you cant turn left from the right-side shoulder. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Both the solicitors office and the district attorneys office took a fresh look at the facts and were able to get beyond the errors in the police report, attorney Bruce Hagen said. Hagen says the 9 misdemeanor charges can be upgraded to felonies, something Osuegbu will push for after the death of her daughter, Obianuju. Story continues Im not going to give up, Im not going to give up until justice is served, Osuegbu said. During the time of the 2020 crash, Rawlins was charged with driving under the influence while high on meth and Valium and 2 counts of endangering the life of her two children who were in the car with her. Rawlins first court appearance is in the coming weeks. IN OTHER NEWS: Former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked extensive US intelligence surveillance operations, has been granted Russian citizenship. The decree was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Mr Snowden, 39, has been living in exile in Russia since exposing the National Security Agency (NSA) programme affecting millions of Americans in 2013. Mr Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the US, has made no public comments. In 2020, the NSA surveillance of millions of Americans' telephone records was ruled unlawful by the US Court of Appeals. Mr Snowden said afterwards that he felt vindicated by the ruling. Top US intelligence officials had publicly insisted the NSA had never knowingly collected data from private phone records, until Mr Snowden exposed evidence to the contrary. Following the revelation, officials said the NSA's surveillance program had played a crucial role in fighting domestic terrorism, including the convictions of Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh, of San Diego, for providing aid to al-Shabab militants in Somalia. Mr Snowden's lawyer Anatoliy Kucherena was on Monday quoted by Russian state-run news agencies as saying that his client has never served in the Russian army, and therefore would not be called up as part of a partial mobilisation announced by President Putin last week. The Russian authorities say they want to enlist 300,000 army reservists to fight in Ukraine, amid growing public opposition. Reports in opposition Russian media suggest that up to one million people could be called up. Video: Child heard crying as Russian men leave to fight J.R. Majewski at an August veterans event in Sandusky, Ohio Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Hello, and welcome back to The Election Recap, your one-stop shop for the last seven days of midterms news. Let's get into it: Charity clarity There is "scant" evidence that Herschel Walker the Republican Senate candidate in Georgia and owner of food distribution company Renaissance Man Food Services has actually matched his promise to donate 15 percent of his company's profits to charity, The New York Times reported Thursday. When the Times attempted to contact four of Renaissance Man's supposed longtime charitable beneficiaries which include the Boy Scouts of America and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS) regarding Walker's supposed donations, "one declined to comment and the other three said they had no record or recollection of any gifts from the company in the last decade." The Times analysis does not definitively prove that Walker failed to donate profits; it is also possible "his company donated to other charities without naming them in public," the Times notes. And at the NMSS, for instance, officials said Walker and Renaissance Man had donated previously, just not in the last 10 years. Still, the apparent discrepancy is yet another instance in which Walker has been "found to have given misleading or outright false details about his life story," including that he graduated in the top 1 percent of his class at the University of Georgia, and that he previously worked in law enforcement. "Herschel Walker has given millions of dollars to charities," campaign spokesman Will Kiley said in a brief statement on the matter, per the Times. Walker, who boasts the backing of former President Donald Trump, will face off against Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock in November. A Marist poll released Tuesday showed Warnock with a 5-point lead. A man with a plan House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) unveiled the GOP's so-called "Commitment to America" agenda on Friday, detailing on a macro level what House Republicans will attempt to pass should they regain control of the lower chamber in November. Skimpy on the specifics, McCarthy's plan focused less on controversial, third-rail election issues du jour and more on things like "cutting crime, lowering prices, and giving parents more influence over their schools," writes The Wall Street Journal. The minority leader who is angling to become speaker, should the GOP take back the House also went after Democratic plans to expand the Internal Revenue Service. Meanwhile, Democrats took the opportunity to criticize the to-do list. President Biden, for instance, called it a "thin series of policy goals with little or no detail," and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decried the plan as "an alarming new extreme MAGA platform." Story continues Bad service Ohio Republican House candidate J.R. Majewski on Friday pushed back on reports claiming he misrepresented his time in the Air Force, describing the allegations against him as "blatantly false." "Let me be clear. Anyone insinuating that I did not serve in Afghanistan is lying," Majewski said during a press conference, per ABC News. "I served in our United States of America, across multiple countries in many roles, but that didn't matter to the liberal media, who wrote a politically-motivated hit piece on me." Citing military documents obtained through a public records request, The Associated Press on Wednesday reported that Majewski "never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting." That narrative runs counter to Majewski's campaign, a significant portion of which has been focused on his time in Afghanistan specifically and his status as a "combat veteran." When asked in a subsequent interview why he does not have medals typically awarded to those who have served a certain number of days in Afghanistan, as was reported in the AP story, Majewski said he "did not apply" for the medals because he "exited the service honorably" before the awards were created, per ABC News. The candidate also said during the same interview that he "absolutely" set foot in Afghanistan and that he believes he is "entitled to call himself a combat veteran." During the Friday presser, Majewski claimed his work involved flying in and out of Afghanistan from Qatar, but did not share further documentation on the matter because he said it was "classified," AP summarizes. The outlet has stood by the story, even under the threat of litigation. The embattled Majewski is currently squaring off against longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who stands to lose the contest thanks to redistricting. The non-partisan Cook Political Report had classified the race as a "toss-up," but we'll see what happens now that the House GOP campaign arm has pulled almost $1 million in advertising intended to support Majewski in response to the scandal. Jokes aside Tough crowd? Republican nominee for Michigan governor Tudor Dixon stoked Democratic ire last week after reportedly mocking the 2020 kidnapping plot against her opponent, incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). "The sad thing is Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you are ready to talk. For someone so worried about getting kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom," Dixon said at a Friday event in Troy, Michigan. She issued a second jab later that same day: "The look on her face was like, 'Oh, my gosh, this is happening. I'd rather be kidnapped by the FBI,'" Dixon remarked, alluding to a recent moment of hand-holding between Whitmer and President Biden. The GOP nominee then claimed her earlier comment about "taking business hostage" was not a joke, and that "if you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you." Democrats quickly hit back Deputy Communications Director for the Democratic Governors Association Sam Newton, for example, called Dixon's jokes "dangerous, an insult to law enforcement who keep us safe, and utterly disqualifying for the role of Michigan governor." Whitmer's campaign agreed: "Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service," spokesperson Maeve Coyle told CNN, per The Hill. Hanging chads: "For the first time in at least 25 years, no Democrat has top grade from NRA." [NYT] Everyone wants the female vote this November. [Fox News] Liz Cheney says she "won't be a Republican" if Trump is the 2024 nominee, signals willingness to rally for Democrats. [CBS News] Jen Psaki: "If the election is about who is the most extreme ... then [Democrats are] going to win. If it is a referendum on the president, they will lose, and they know that." [Washington Examiner] Former campaign manager to Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Mike Franken accused the candidate of kissing her without her consent; police closed the case as "unfounded." [Politico, Des Moines Register] Voters are pretty evenly split on which party they want to control Congress and "both sides are highly motivated to turn out in November." [The Washington Post] Coming up The Jan. 6 Committee returns Wednesday with its first public hearing since July. Catch up on everything you've missed (and maybe even forgotten) with this helpful briefing from my colleague Catherine Garcia. You may also like 7 cartoons about DeSantis and Abbott's migrant relocation New Pacific island forms after underwater volcano erupts Arizona judge bans abortion statewide by reinstating 1864 law By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co was sued on Monday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which accused the drugmaker of illegally refusing to hire older workers for sales representative jobs because of their age. The complaint said Lilly's violations began after Stephen Fry, its senior vice president for human resources and diversity, lamented during an April 2017 "Leadership Town Hall" that its sales force was skewed toward older workers, with 20% fewer "millennials" than the American workforce. According to the EEOC, Fry suggested that the lack of millennials was a problem, and the Indianapolis-based company would target 40% "Early Career" hiring. Managers then changed their hiring practices for sales representatives, sometimes requiring greater review and approval before extending offers to older candidates, even after some recognized that the 40% goal was illegal, the EEOC said. The target remained through 2021, it added. Lilly, in a statement, denied the accusations and said it was "committed to fostering and promoting a culture of diversity and respect." The lawsuit filed in Indianapolis federal court accused Lilly of violating the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act. It seeks to permanently enjoin future discrimination, obtain back pay and other damages for people not hired because of their age, and improve training for supervisors and managers. "This case underscores the continued need for the EEOC to break down barriers to employment" for older Americans as they work longer and in larger numbers, Robert Weisberg, an EEOC lawyer who helped bring the case, said in a statement. Lilly's top-selling product is Trulicity, a treatment for type 2 diabetes. On Aug. 11, Lilly said Fry would retire at the end of 2022 after more than 35 years at the company. The case is EEOC v Lilly USA LLC, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Indiana, No. 22-01882. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Stephen Coates) Tesla chief Elon Musk is set to answer Twitters questions under oath in a deposition scheduled for the next few days. The deposition comes ahead of an October trial that will determine if the multibillionaire must carry through with his bid to buy the social media company for $44 billion. It has been planned for Monday and Tuesday, 26-27 September, and may extend to 28 September if necessary, Reuters reported, citing a filing at the Delaware Court of Chancery. This comes ahead of the trial between the worlds richest man and Twitter that will take place between 17 and 21 October. Since July, Mr Musk and Twitter have been engaged in a legal battle after the Tesla chief said he would pull out of the deal to buy the social media company for $44bn. The multibillionaire had cited Twitters bot problem as the reason for not going through with the deal. I hereby challenge [Twitter chief Parag Agrawal] to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage. Let him prove to the public that Twitter has This was also in line with what Twitters former security head and whistleblower Pieter Zatko had told US regulatory agencies. The former security head had flagged some of the platforms privacy issues and data security threats, and also that the company does not know how many bots are on its platform. However, Twitters lawyers accuse the Tesla chief of using Mr Zatkos claims as cover for failing to do customary due diligence to buy the company without proper risk assessment. Alleging that Mr Zatkos statements are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, Twitter said the former security heads claims are opportunistic, and appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be. Mr Musks deposition on Monday may reveal if the Tesla chief has any new information on Twitter that he likely has used to make his decision about the deal with the company. However, the deposition will not be public, and it is also unclear if the Tesla titan will appear in person or by video. A Fresno Target employee sustained a laceration to his head after a confrontation with a man inside the store at River Park on Sunday, police said. Officers from the Northeast Policing District arrived at the scene shortly after 9 a.m. following a report of an employee being assaulted, Fresno Police Lt. Bill Dooley said in a statement. Officers interviewed the victim, who had a laceration to his head as a result of the confrontation with the suspect. The suspect, unbeknownst to the victim, had a sharp object in his hand when he suddenly struck him in the face, Dooley said in the statement. The suspect then fled the scene. The victim was taken to Community Regional Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition, according to the statement. Fresno officers and detectives are continuing their investigation to identify the suspect. They are working with security personnel from Target and River Park. Kim, 51 (San Diego, Calif.) and Usman, 33 (Nigeria) TLC Kim and Usman from 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After Usman "Soja Boy" Umar may be ready to officially call it quits with Kim Menzies. Sunday night's episode of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? ended on another cliffhanger after an emotional conversation between the two following a blowout argument that ended with Kim throwing a milkshake at Usman in anger. Usman told Kim, 50, who had just arrived in Nigeria, "This is the second time. You did that in Zanzibar, now you do it here. Then you did the water, now you do the milk. That is not right." "If this is how it's going to go, fine, we don't have to be get married. We don't even have to be in a relationship. Just go on and live your life and I'll go on and live my life. I think it would be better," Usman added. The episode focused largely on Kim's behavior after she gets frustrated and how it has negatively impacted their relationship. "I threw the stuff because you never let me finish a thought. And I felt like you made me look stupid in front of your friend. That's how I felt," Kim said. RELATED: '90 Day Fiance's' Kim Admits Putting Relationship with Usman at Risk, Vows 'Never' to Date Again Kim also told Usman that she did not fly to Nigeria to be unhappy. "What am I here for? And I had every right to ask questions. I was more upset that I had to talk to someone who's in a totally different relationship than the one we would've been in. This guy [Usman's friend KB], his two wives live together that's crazy to me," she said. "I don't relate to that." 90 Day Fiance's Kim Reconsiders Letting Usman to Have a Second Wife: 'Your A-- Is Pissing Me Off' TLC Kim and Usman RELATED: '90 Day Fiance's' Kim Tells Usman to 'Go Look for 5,000 Wives' and Searches for Flights After Polygamy Fight As fans know, Usman's idea of taking a second wife is a belief that's important in his culture. Because of their age difference, Kim previously agreed to allow Usman to have one additional wife who could bear children, as long as he promised she'd never have to cross paths with the second wife. Story continues In a confessional, Usman said, "I took Kimberly to meet my friend KB and all that to talk about the second wife, and it is so unfortunate that became a fight between me and her. But right now, if I cannot calm her down, and she keeps acting the way she is, I will not just take her to Sokoto to meet my family." As Usman expressed his disappointment regarding Kim's behavior, she teared up and said, "This trip took me longer than Zanzibar took me, you know what I mean? I bought all new clothes. Got my hair done, got my nails redone. For what? Because believe it or not, in the past two years, I have made you my life. I have put everything on the back burner and you know this." RELATED VIDEO: 90 Day Fiance's Kim Hurls Milkshake at Usman During Conversation About Potential Second Wife He responded by saying their relationship could be in jeopardy. "I'm very sorry for whatever happened but this is not healthy for us. We can just forget about it, Kimberly," Usman said. "There's no point for someone to be in a relationship and start crying all the time. I never expected this to happen in this relationship. If this is how we are going to go, I want to end it, period." "I'm not going to continue this way," Usman ended up telling Kim by the end of the episode, to which she clarified, "You mean continue with me?" "I don't know," Usman replied. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET on TLC. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a new office focused on civil rights in an effort to take on environmental challenges in historically underserved communities. EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the creation of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on Saturday in Warren County, North Carolina. Warren County is the location of 1982 protests against a landfill that were seen as the spark behind the environmental justice movement, which aims to tackle racial disparities in environmental issues. Studies have shown that people of color face a disproportionate amount of pollution compared to their white counterparts. In his speech, Regan described the office as elevating environmental justice and civil rights issues and said it would put the issues on equal structural footing with those tackled by the agencys air and water offices. If were going to change how the system works, we have to change the structure of the system, he said. As part of the new office, 200 staffers will work toward solving environmental issues in underserved communities. These employees will work with other agency offices to incorporate environmental equity concerns into their programs and make sure funding recipients comply with civil rights laws. The office was created by merging three existing EPA programs: the Office of Environmental Justice, External Civil Rights Compliance Office and Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center. A similar effort took place earlier in the year inside a different Biden administration department: In May, the Justice Department announced the creation of its own environmental justice office. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Editor's note: A previous version of this story listed an incorrect date of death for Jose Rosario Jr. Jose Rosario Sr. took notice in late 2021 when Erie police announced that, following an exhaustive investigation, they had identified and charged five suspects in two homicides and some other violent crimes in the city from 2018. The killings that police said they resolved did not include the death of Rosario's son, 18-year-old Jose Rosario Jr., who was fatally shot inside his Reed Street apartment on Oct. 15, 2018. "It was very disappointing," Rosario said. It's been frustrating, he added, not having the case resolved and not knowing how the investigation into his son's death is advancing. More:Pair charged in Erie crime spree say 2018 killings fueled by search for cash, drugs Rosario has done everything he can to draw attention to, and keep the spotlight on, his son's murder, which remains unsolved. He has posted signs and distributed T-shirts, held memorial services and motorcycle rides, and posted information on social media in an effort to identify Jose Rosario Jr.'s killer and to bring that person to justice. Jose Rosario Sr., seen in this October 2020 photo, is still awaiting justice for his 18-year-old son, Jose Rosario Jr., who was fatally shot in Erie in October 2018. Erie police were recently awarded a state grant that the bureau will use to dedicate a full-time detective to work on unsolved homicides and other cold cases in the city. The case, which remains open and active by the Erie Bureau of Police, will likely get some extra attention in the coming months with the launching of a grant-funded program. City police recently received word that they are being awarded $249,966 through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to appoint one of its seasoned detectives as a cold case investigator. The grant will cover the detective's salary, benefits, vehicle and associated costs over two years, said Rick Lorah, an Erie police deputy chief who oversees the bureau's Criminal Investigation Division. Lorah said police plan to have the cold-case detective working by early October. The position will be posted and the person selected for it will be a veteran city police detective with a lot of major crimes experience, he said. A backlog of cases Lorah said Erie police applied for the grant in an effort to strategically reduce the number of old and unsolved crimes in the city. The bureau does not have anyone specifically dedicated to addressing unsolved homicides and other cold cases, he said. Story continues "Some of these cases have grown stale and, unfortunately, stay stale as new cases, new homicides, new shootings come in weekly, sometimes daily," Lorah said. "When an investigation finally stalls out, and an investigator gets overloaded with new investigations, that's when the backlog occurs." The Pennsylvania State Police have criminal investigation assessment officers assigned to each troop, including Troop E in Lawrence Park Township. The duties of those officers include working on cold cases, said Lt. Mark Weindorf, crime section supervisor for Troop E. Cold cases are also assigned to criminal investigators in areas of the troop where the crimes occurred, Weindorf added. Old homicides Lorah said Erie police have over 20 unsolved homicides that have occurred over the past 10 years and many others that are older than that. "These crimes merit a second look and the submittal of evidence, as well as re-interviewing witnesses. It's necessary to give the victims the justice they deserve," he said. Among the notable homicides in Erie in recent years that remain unsolved are: The fatal shooting of Nelson Irizarry , 42, on April 14, 2012. Irizarry left a card game before he was found shot to death inside his Dodge Caravan in the 300 block of West 19th Street. The fatal shooting of Travon D. Green 20, on July 11, 2014. Green, an Erie native who was living in Baltimore at the time, was found lying in bushes between two houses in the 700 block of East 10th Street. He died of a gunshot wound to the back. The fatal shooting of Antonio "Jay" Yarger , 31, on Sept. 16, 2016. Yarger was shot as he was entering the front door of a residence where he was staying in the 1200 block of East 21st Street. Yarger's son, 7-year-old Antonio Yarger Jr., was fatally shot while walking with friends at the intersection of Downing Avenue and Fairmount Parkway on April 14. Four people have been charged in the boy's death. The fatal stabbing of James Allen , 34, on April 27, 2019. Allen was stabbed and two other people were injured during an altercation inside a former nightclub called The Culture at 1023 State St. The fatal shooting of Deltwan Keyes , 29, and Donta Carson , 34, on Aug. 3, 2020. The two were among a small group of people who were standing in the 700 block of East Seventh Street when someone opened fire on them. The fatal shooting of Kalvin Davis, 18, on July 1, 2021. Investigators said someone fired numerous gunshots into a duplex in the 500 block of West 29th Street, and Davis was shot as he was sleeping in a bedroom of one of the units. The detective assigned to the new position in the Erie Bureau of Police won't work solely on homicides, according to police. Other cold cases that are expected to be a focus of the detective include the disappearance in June 2002 of Sabrina Kahler, then 20, who never returned to her family's eastside residence after going with a friend to swim in western Erie County. More:Sabrina Kahler's family pushes to keep spotlight on Erie woman's 20-year-old disappearance Cracking a cold case Erie's cold-case detective begins work on the heels of the recent solving of one of the city's older cold-case homicides. Erie police and Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz announced in July the filing of criminal charges against 55-year-old Jeremy C. Brock in the July 1988 murder of his grandmother, 76-year-old Helen Vogt. Vogt was stabbed more than 50 times in her townhouse on Zimmerman Road. Brock, who was apprehended in Texas, was linked to the crime through DNA evidence and advancements in DNA technology, officials said in announcing the arrest. Brock remains in custody in Texas, awaiting extradition to Erie to face charges in the homicide. More:Cold case resolved as grandson charged in 34-year-old murder of Erie's Helen Vogt Hirz said her office is excited about the new cold case position in the Erie Bureau of Police. "As we have already seen, new technology can be used to examine evidence and provide insight that was previously unavailable to investigators," she said. Authorities will also continue to seek assistance from the community, as the public also plays an important role in generating new leads in these cases, Hirz said. "We look forward to collaborating with the detective to reinvestigate these unsolved murders in an attempt to bring long awaited justice for crime victims and their families," she said. Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn. This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie police detective to focus on cold cases through grant funding As soon as President Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilisation" for the war in Ukraine former Russian army officer Alex jumped in his car and drove to Finland with a single suitcase. "I don't want to be killing my Slav people, my brothers, my sisters," the middle-aged man tells AFP from a modest hotel room in Finland, where he arrived on Thursday. "I am physically disgusted to be in the presence of our Russian citizens who support the war", the IT engineer says. The Crimea-born middle-aged man spoke to AFP on condition of not revealing his full identity, fearing for his wife and child left behind in Russia. "They are hostages, if I show my face they will be facing prison," he says. Because of his military background, Alex fears he is among those Russia wants to send to the frontlines. - 'First to be under threat' - "I was in the army for eight years ... I have an officer's rank. I am the first to be under threat." "Everything changed" for him when he participated in a protest in Saint Petersburg the day after the mobilisation and saw how few Russians joined in. He says he realised that there was "nothing left to do" for Russia and became convinced the country would fall apart. "I know what the Russian army is like from the inside, I am deeply convinced that Putin will lose. "Slaves who don't want to fight will never defeat anyone in their lives," he explained. Born in Sevastopol in Crimea during Soviet times, Alex once held a Ukrainian passport but could not hold onto the dual citizenship when he moved to Russia to pursue a military career. Alex says his parents consider him a "traitor" and he "would not be surprised" if his mother reported him to Russia's FSB intelligence service. As soon as Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and the border with Finland reopened for him in July, Alex started working with a network of volunteers called "Rubikus", helping forcefully evacuated Ukrainians to leave Russia. With this aim, he obtained a tourist visa to drive Ukrainians to Finland and Estonia. Story continues - 'Ukraine is my homeland' - Worried that Finland's decision to soon block Russians carrying Europe's Schengen tourist visa will also stop this activity, Alex tears up as he talks about Ukrainians he has helped escape. "Ukraine is my homeland. And Russia is my home, my home is now killing my homeland." After Finland saw an influx of Russians over its eastern border following Moscow's mobilisation orders, Helsinki announced Friday that it would "significantly restrict the entry of Russian citizens." Although Alex understands the concerns of the Finnish government, he believes the Nordic country is making a mistake. "Most people who are crossing the Russian border... do not want to kill... do not want to serve this regime," he says. For Alex, the West should not treat every Russian like they are responsible for the war. By closing the border, the West is "turning away" the Russians who "still believe in it". Trying everything in his power to get his family out of Russia, Alex is certain he never wants to live there again. ehu/bp The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, or FACE Act, is a law that ensures Americans' access to pro-life and pro-choice reproductive health services, and is now at the center of legal discussion since the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The FACE Act makes it a federal crime, with potentially steep fines and jail time, to use or threaten to use force to "injure, intimidate, or interfere" with a person seeking reproductive health services, or with a person lawfully trying to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. The FACE Act also prohibits intentional property damage to a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship. The measure, passed by Congress with 17 Republican votes and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, was introduced in reaction to the increasing violence in pro-life protests in the 1990s. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, the FACE Act is now a key focus for President Biden's Justice Department. PENNSYLVANIA PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST ARRESTED BY FBI, CHARGED WITH ASSAULTING CLINIC ESCORT On July 12, DOJ launched a reproductive rights task force, led by Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, which the department says was formed to "identify ways to protect access to reproductive health care in anticipation of the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey," according to DOJ. "The FACE Act is not about abortions," DOJ states on its website. "The statute protects all patients, providers, and facilities that provide reproductive health services, including pro-life pregnancy counseling services and any other pregnancy support facility providing reproductive health care." When a draft opinion of the Dobbs case, which ultimately decided the overturning of Roe, was leaked, several crisis pregnancy centers across the country were attacked. Many of those attacks included arson and vandalism and were carried out by a radical pro-choice group called "Janes Revenge." Story continues REPUBLICANS SLIGHTLY FAVORED OVER DEMOCRATS AS ABORTION FALLS TO SEVENTH IN IMPORTANCE TO VOTERS: POLL Fox News Digital recently reported that no FBI arrests have been made in at least 17 of the attacks on pregnancy centers by Janes Revenge. "The incidents are being investigated as potential acts of domestic violent extremism, FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act violations or violent crime matters, depending on the facts of each case," the FBI told Fox News Digital in an email. "The FBI takes all violence and threats of violence very seriously, and we are working closely with our law enforcement partners at the national, state and local levels to investigate these incidents." Pro-choice activists with Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights chant after marching to the home of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on June 18, 2022, in Falls Church, Virginia. Getty Images KAMALA HARRIS SUGGESTS 'YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR FAITH' TO AGREE WITH DEMOCRATS ON ABORTION On Sept. 23, pro-life activist Mark Houck was arrested and charged with FACE Act violations for allegedly assaulting a 72-year-old man in front of a Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia in October 2021. If convicted, Houck faces a maximum possible sentence of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000, according to the Justice Department. In addition to Houck, the Justice Department is also prosecuting an Oregon man, alleging FACE Act violations, "for twice breaking windows and destroying property at a Planned Parenthood clinic." LONDON (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin is preparing to formally annex around 15% of Ukrainian territory after referendums on joining Russia in areas controlled by Russian forces or Russian-backed separatists. CAN THE WEST STOP PUTIN? Neither the West nor Ukraine can stop Putin claiming the regions, though the United States and its allies say they want Ukraine to defeat Russia on the battlefield - and will help it do so by supplying weapons, but not NATO troops. The United States is prepared to impose additional economic costs on Russia in conjunction with U.S. allies if Moscow moves forward with annexing portions of Ukrainian territory, the White House said. After imposing severe sanctions on Russia, though, there is not a great deal of economic punishment left to inflict unless the United States could get China and India to agree to some sort of cap on the price of Russian energy. The West could send more advanced weapons to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine had received sophisticated air defence systems, known as National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), from the United States. Zelenskiy has repeatedly warned that "pseudo-referendums" on annexation by Russia would destroy any chance of peace talks. One of the senior figures in his administration, Mykhailo Podolyak, called on Tuesday for any referendums to be met by an increase in international economic sanctions on Russia and increased arms supplies to Ukraine, including Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, a guided missile with a range of 300 km. WHICH LAND WILL BE ANNEXED? Russia plans to annex around 15% of Ukraine that its forces control as well as about 3% of Ukraine that it does not control - including frontlines where Ukrainian soldiers are still fighting, for example in the Donetsk region. The areas include: * A big chunk of eastern Ukraine, known as Donbas, where high concentrations of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians live. Story continues The two parts of the Donbas now include the self-styled Donetsk (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republics (LPR), which Putin recognised as independent states just before the Feb. 24 invasion. A frontline runs through Donetsk. Referendums were held in 2014 in the two areas on secession from Ukraine. * Russian-controlled Kherson region. * Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia. Taken together, Russia would be annexing at least 90,000 square km of Ukrainian territory. That is an area around the same size of Hungary or Portugal. Russia, which recognised Ukraine's post-Soviet borders in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, annexed Crimea in 2014. With Crimea and the territory in the four other areas, Russia would have annexed at least one fifth of Ukrainian territory. HOW QUICKLY COULD FORMAL ANNEXATION HAPPEN? Fast. After the referendums, the Russian-backed leaders of the regions could ask to be included in Russia. Putin could swiftly approve and the legislation in Moscow would be passed fast. After Russian forces on Feb. 27, 2014 took control of Crimea, which has an ethnic Russian majority and was transferred to Ukraine in Soviet times, a referendum on joining Russia was held on March 16. Crimeas leaders declared a 97% vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Russia formally added Crimea on March 21, less than a month after invading it. WHAT DOES PUTIN SAY? Putin says the Russians and the Russian-speakers of Ukraine have been persecuted by Kyiv and that he will never give them up to "executioners". Ukraine denies it has persecuted the Russian speakers, many of whom look to Moscow. The Kremlin chief denies a distinct Ukrainian identity, saying it is an artificial construct partly the result of Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, who, after the Red Army took Kyiv, instituted the borders of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after the collapse of the Russian empire. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 17% of people identified themselves as Russian with 78% of people identifying as Ukrainian. Ukrainian is by far the most spoken language in the country followed by Russian. The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine's Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed forces fighting Ukraine's armed forces. About 14,000 people were killed in eastern Ukraine between 2014 and the end of 2021, according to the he UN Human Rights Office, including 3,106 civilians. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Angus MacSwan) PEORIA The Illinois Office of Tourism and state Department of Natural Resources have set up a Fall Colors Trip Planner that helps identify the best place to look at the fall foliage. The new online guide features an interactive state map that allows people to track fall colors by region within a specific time frame throughout the season. The best viewing for fall foliage in northern Illinois is in the second week of October. Peak viewing in central Illinois is the middle of October. Southern Illinois' peak viewing time is the end of October. Fall foliage viewing in Illinois The state also has planned a variety of fall travel trip itineraries created to highlight must-visit sights and attractions that are unique to Illinois. One such trip is dubbed Great Pumpkin Country and includes viewing spots in Arthur, Illinois, in a pumpkin patch as well as a stop to pick apples at Curtis Orchard and a visit to the states only Dark Sky Park, both located in Champaign. Another trip, dubbed "Frights and Delights in Illinois" is based in southeastern Illinois cities such as Alton and Edwardsville. The trip planner says to check out Pere Marquette State Park where fall foliage should be peaking around late October, just in time for Halloween. The state fall planner doesn't highlight anything in the Peoria area. Where is the best place to see fall colors in Peoria, Illinois? So where and when is the best time to travel about the state to see nature at its finest? It depends. Illinois is at its peak for fall foliage in October and the farther north you are, the earlier the leaves turn. The Peoria area offers many choices for people, said Mike Miller, the Peoria Park District's supervisor of environmental services. For those who want a scenic drive, there's Illinois River Road, a national scenic byway that follows the river from Ottawa to Havana. Driving along Illinois Routes 29 on the Peoria side or Illinois Route 26 on the Tazewell and Woodford county sides is another option. Story continues Of course, there's also Grandview Drive which overlooks the valley. There are benches that look out over the river or, Miller said, there's a "pretty rugged" 1.25 mile trail from the park down to Forest Park Nature Center where an easier and more level trail can get people into a wooded area for optimal viewing. Other areas around Peoria that offer up good foliage are Wildlife Prairie Park, Kinsey Park and Jubilee College State Park, all located just west of the city. But when is a good time go? That's the tough part. "Predicting fall colors is a bit like saying it's going to rain three months from now on a Wednesday," he joked. "I think that as we have had a fairly normal season of rainfall and if we get some cool nights and warm days, we'll have a good season. It tends to peak here around the week of Oct 15 to 20." But he also said go out and explore, because, as he put it, "there are never horrible fall colors. just different degrees." Where the fall colors burn brightestHere are prime spots for Peoria-area leaf peepers Leaf science Several factors influence why some trees turn a bright shade of orange or red before others. The U.S. Forest Service has a website that attempts to break that down, but in a nutshell, it's the weather and how long nights become. Temperature is one factor, but it's the "steadily increasing length of night during autumn" that plays a major role. "As days grow shorter, and nights grow longer and cooler, biochemical processes in the leaf begin to paint the landscape with Nature's autumn palette," the forest service said on their website. As the days get longer and the nights grow colder, plants stop producing as much chlorophyll, which is the chemical that is necessary for photosynthesis but also one that keeps the leaves green. Other chemicals within the plant that make yellow and red hues, carotenoids and anthocyanin, continue to be produced. "In early autumn, in response to the shortening days and declining intensity of sunlight, leaves begin the processes leading up to their fall. The veins that carry fluids into and out of the leaf gradually close off as a layer of cells forms at the base of each leaf. These clogged veins trap sugars in the leaf and promote production of anthocyanin. Once this separation layer is complete and the connecting tissues are sealed off, the leaf is ready to fall," the forest service website stated. In this Journal Star file photo from October 2012, foliage from a tree on Lorentz Avenue blankets the ground below with the promise of more to come. This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Want to see great fall colors in Illinois? Here's a guide The U.S. Army is facing a $25 million dollar malpractice claim from the family of U.S. Army Sergeant Elder Fernandes, of Brockton, who committed suicide in 2020. Only a few months before his death, Fernandes had reported a male superior for something he called inappropriate. His family claims that led to harassment. Fernandes body was found on August 25, 2020, several days after being released from the Darnall Army Medical Center in Fort Hood. The claim was first reported by The Boston Globe. The familys attorney confirmed the claim to Boston 25 on Sunday night and shared its claim letter. The claim alleges that Fernandes would be alive today if the military medical center hadnt discharged him without a treatment plan or supervision just days after he was admitted with suicidal thoughts. they failed him miserably and they failed us as a family as well, Isabel Fernandes told Boston 25. He gets discharged technically to the street.. on his own, and you dont do that to someone who is suicidal. In its formal notice of medical malpractice claim Fernandes family says he sought help because of the harassment he had been subjected to by his fellow soldiers after he had reported a sexual harassment incident had become intolerable. Instead of helping him, Darnall released him on August 17, 2020, with no meaningful plan for his support and he was left on a street in Killeen, Texas to fend for himself. As a result, Sgt. Fernandes died in despair, alone, and unsupported by the United States Army that he was serving. When he did not show up for duty the day after his release, no search was initiated and Darnall did little or nothing to search for him. It was not until his mother arrived in Texas and demanded action that a search was commenced. His body was found in such a horrible state that an open casket funeral was not possible. They absolutely ignored him. Hhe was just left to fend for himself on the sidewalk. My heart breaks every time I think of what his state of mind must have been, said the familys attorney Leonard Kesten. He told them he could not tolerate the army anymore if he was sent back to his unit he would kill himself. They told him he couldnt leave the army. Story continues He had always voiced a passion to serve his country and follow in his fathers footsteps. His family supported and encouraged his service. They expected that the Army would take care of their son, never imagining that it would end in his death by suicide caused by the actions of his fellow soldiers and the negligence of the health care provided by the Army. said the family in its letter. Sergeant Fernandes was sexually assaulted shortly after his arrival at Fort Hood, forever changing his outlook on the military, and his mental health. After only six months of being stationed at Fort Hood, on August 11, 2020, Fernandes became actively suicidal and was taken to Darnall by his wifes brother and best friend, as part of a concerted effort by his closest friends and family to ensure his safety and to protect him from any self-harm, according to the letter. Unfortunately, Darnall failed to adequately follow-through with its plan to safely separate Fernandes from the situation that was causing his suicidal ideation and suicidality, despite him reporting as follows: I would have to kill myself if I have to go back to work. said the family in its letter. It is with great sadness that we submit this demand. There is nothing that can bring Elder back to his loved ones. The hole that exists for all those that knew and loved him will always be there. We hope that Sergeant Fernandes death will not be in vain and that no other soldier will suffer as he did. The United States owes this much to his memory. This great country can and will do better, said the family. In a statement shared with Boston 25, US Army spokesman Sergeant First Class Anthony Hewitt called every suicide one tragedy too many. Every single suicide is one tragedy too many. We remain saddened by the loss of Sgt. Elder Fernandes and for his family, Hewitt said. The statute passed by Congress allows the filing of an administrative claim by the authorized representative of the deceased. The claim is being investigated by the U.S. Army Claims Service, but as a matter of policy, the Army does not disclose the particulars of ongoing claims investigations. We dont want any other families to go through what we went through, said Isabel Fernandes. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Tennessee IT worker Bradley Dawson returned to the Lautoka High Court in Fiji Monday as his defense contests unsigned statements he allegedly made to police after his July arrest in the murder of his new wife Christe Chen on their honeymoon. Dawson is accused of beating Chen to death at the five-star Turtle Island Resort, which is located on a scenic private island. Prosecutors allege he confessed to the crime in what Fiji authorities call a "caution interview." However, Dawson never signed the statement, and his attorney, Iqbal Khan, maintains his innocence and is asking the court to throw out the document. FIJI HONEYMOON MURDER: AMERICAN BRADLEY DAWSON NOT IN GOOD HEALTH,' ASKS FOR BAIL IN WIFE'S BRUTAL MURDER "An unsigned interview is not admissible," Khan argued in court. Judge Riyaz Hamdi grilled Khan on that stance and asked what would happen if a suspect admitted to a crime but was unable to sign the document. "What happens if all the accused in cases take up the position that they can't sign?" he asked. "It says that's not admissible?" "That's the law," Khan replied. TENNESSEE MAN ACCUSED IN FIJI MURDER OF WIFE CHRISTE CHEN CONFESSED TO KILLING BEFORE GETTING LAWYER: REPORTS The judge, however, did not hand down a ruling and scheduled the next hearing for Oct. 19. Hamdi ordered Dawson held without bail earlier this month, citing issues with his bail sponsors, including one who is currently facing pending sex crime charges, but Khan said Monday he planned to file a revised bail application. Dawson will remain in custody in the meantime. Prosecutor Alvin Singh has opposed bail for Dawson, whom he alleges is a flight risk. At the time of his arrest, police found him with more than $1,000 cash in his wallet, his passport, driver's license and credit cards belonging to both himself and his deceased wife. He had kayaked several miles to another island, where a witness said he encountered a disheveled Dawson who repeatedly asked him to call police. Story continues Manoa Ratulele, the witness, told Fox News Digital Dawson was wearing a brown T-shirt and shorts and "looked like he just woke up." According to authorities, a woman who was staying at Turtle Island at the same time as the couple, said Dawson and his wife appeared happy the evening of the alleged fight. The vacationer said she later heard "loud banging sounds" from the couple's room, according to the police report. Prosecutors said Chen suffered a "brain bleed" on July 9 and confirmed in court the claims of Chen's family attorney, who previously said she died of severe traumatic head injuries and multiple traumatic injuries to her body. The medical examiner found "multiple blunt force injuries around her head and face," Ronald Gordon, her familys lawyer, previously told Fox News Digital. When her parents visited her in the morgue, he added, her mother "was inconsolable because of the injuries." If released on bail, Khan had said Dawson would agree to stay in Legaaelga, Nadi, with an American family friend. Singh told the court that Dawson's American family friend is currently facing sex crime charges and said that the two "sureties," or sponsors, of his bond application have only loose ties to the defendant and only met him on the day of Chen's alleged murder. Timing for the revised bail application was not immediately clear. Tim Tava contributed to this report. Good morning. Heres whats happening: Prices: Bitcoin spent much of the weekend in the red and below $19,000; other cryptos also fall. Insights: The 'most profitable' mining GPU won't offer much of a payoff; investors would do better with a bitcoin mining stock. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. And sign up for First Mover, our daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Prices Bitcoin (BTC): $18,870 0.5% Ether (ETH): $1,307 1.1% CoinDesk Market Index (CMI): $941 0.8% S&P 500 daily close: 3,693.23 1.7% Gold: $1,652 per troy ounce +0.4% Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 3.70% 0.01 Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices. Bitcoin Sticks Near $19K as Most Cryptos Spend the Weekend in the Red By James Rubin With a couple of brief detours higher, bitcoin remained below $19,000 throughout the weekend. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading at about $18,800, down slightly less than a percentage point over the past 24 hours. The decline capped a turbulent week of steep interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks and shrinking economic indicators that point increasingly toward recession. "Bitcoin remained under pressure due to the macro economic environment, and we maintain that below $20,000 remains a strong accumulation opportunity for mid- to long-term horizons," said Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto fund manager BitBull Capital. Post Merge Ether spent a similarly dreary weekend almost entirely in the red. The second largest crypto in market value was recently changing hands at about $1,300, down more than a percentage point from the previous day, same time. ETH has been trading lower over the 10 days since the Merge, the technological shift of the Ethereum blockchain to a more energy efficient, proof-of-stake protocol. Other major cryptos were largely in the red with SOL and popular memecoin DOGE each down more than 2%. Story continues The CoinDesk Market Index, which tracks the performance of 20 major cryptocurrencies, remained largely unchanged at approximately 940. The crypto Fear & Greed Index measuring investor sentiment has inched down again from fear to extreme fear territory. Stocks Crypto price decreases dovetailed with equity markets and other assets riskier and more safe haven that closed down during a dismal Friday. The tech-focused Nasdaq and S&P 500, which has a strong technology component, tumbled 1.8% and 1.7%, respectively. Those indexes have plunged five of the past six weeks amid ongoing investor fears about inflation and the economy. Cryptos have largely tracked stocks this year. After chewing over the Fed's hawkish, 75 basis point rate increase and deteriorating housing numbers, markets will be scrutinizing U.S. durable goods orders for September, the U.S. Conference Board's latest consumer confidence index and August, new home sales. Economic observers widely expect durable goods orders to resemble last month's total, and a drop-off in new home sales. On Friday, the University of Michigan releases its next consumer sentiment index, which measures consumer attitudes about business conditions and personal finance, among other criteria. Meanwhile, the dollar's recent surge has suggested that cryptocurrency prices are likely to continue languishing, although CoinDesk's Lawrence Lewitinn also noted in a Sunday column that cryptos, similar to equities, have been more nuanced in their response to events. For example, in the seven days following the release earlier this month of a disappointing Consumer Price Index, the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Index (SMT), which includes ETH, ADA and SOL, plunged almost 20%, while the CoinDesk Culture & Entertainment Index (CNE) filled with NFT-related and metaverse coins like ApeCoins APE and The Sandboxs SAND slipped by only 6.9%. (Lewitinn noted that the Smart Contract Index's fall stemmed at least partly from ether's decline following the Merge) "Crypto is still in its nascent stages compared to other asset classes," Lewitinn wrote. "It has its own idiosyncrasies and prices move for reasons other than, say, dollar strength." He added: "For traders, thinking about crypto in terms of segments means, among other things, coming up with more sophisticated ways to trade in a rising-rate environment. Despite bitcoin's fretful behavior last week, BitBull's DiPasquale noted optimistically that "the $18,000 level has continued to provide decent support." "If BTC doesn't break down in the coming days, we could see upward movement in October with $24k and $26k being initial levels to watch," he wrote. Biggest Gainers Biggest Losers Insights Mining GPUs Won't Generate Much By Sam Reynolds Ethereums Merge happened 12 days ago, writing the obituary for GPU mining. Days after The Merge, one graphics card manufacturer took the coming glut of cards (which are already not that profitable to produce) to quit the business altogether. Despite this, there are still proof-of-work tokens on the market. These arent exactly blue-chip tokens on the front page of CoinGecko, but rather altcoins like BitcoinGold, Neoxa (which has a market cap of $4 million) or Cortex. AMD/Nvidia (Whattomine) But the numbers arent going to work for miners looking to snap up some now-plentiful, used GPUs for mining. The best case scenario, using the GeForce GTX 1060, which goes on the second-hand market for $100, sees the cards value being recovered in mined crypto in 35 months or almost three years. And thats based on a lot of assumptions. Theres not a rugpull with the token. The card doesnt break down a possibility with months of constant use and the tokens value stays the same or increases (thats asking a lot in the world of crypto). Absent from these assumptions are power costs. Adding them to the calculation is beyond the scope of the tool from 2cryptocalcs abilities. But what if you wanted to mine a semi-useful token?For that, consider WhattoMine, which gives us the ability to calculate mining profitability based on hashrate and power cost. Our trusty GeForce GTX 1060 has a hashrate of 23Mh/s for Etchash, the algorithm used for Ethereum Classic. ETC (Whattomine) Run the numbers, and it's pretty grim. Using one card, and the average cost per kilowatt hour in the U.S. of $0.17, the card makes $1.80 in profit per month. Meaning that it wont break even for 55.5 months, or 4.62 years. If this was scaled a hundred-fold, where the hash rate was now 2300 Mh/s, 100 of these cards would generate $182.6 per month in profit. ETC (Whattomine) Even with ASICs, specialized silicon thats built for mining, the math isnt much better unless you have extreme scale. Data now shows that the most profitable ASIC miner for retail miners, the Bitmain Antminer L7, generates $8 in profit per day as part of the Nicehash pool. Its more profitable to just own stocks of listed mining companies. Important events. 8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT(12:30 a.m. UTC): Jibun Bank Manufacturing PMI (Sept./preliminary) 1:35 p.m. HKT/SGT(5:35 a.m.): Speech by Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda 3:30 p.m. H1HKT/SGT(7:30 a.m. UTC): Speech by Luis De Guindos CoinDesk TV In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of "First Mover" on CoinDesk TV: Bitcoin Slips Below $19K; Coinbase Policy Chief on Cryptos Role Ahead of Midterms With the midterm elections around the corner, Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad joined "First Mover" to discuss why the crypto exchange wants to let U.S. users track how crypto-friendly their local politicians are through its app. Mark Connors, head of research at 3IQ, joined the markets discussion. Plus, Anne Fauvre-Willis of NFT marketplace OpenSea. Headlines Troubled Data Center Compute North Struggled With Crypto Winter. Then Its Relationship With a Major Lender Soured: The company was financed by Generate Capital, which seized the data-center operators assets. Bitcoin Miner Iris Energy Signs $100M Equity Deal With B. Riley: B. Riley previously signed a similar deal with Core Scientific in July. Ethereum Merge Vastly Increased Stakefishs Profile, but 25% of Its Employees Are Gone Anyway: Layoffs at stakefish took effect on the same day as the Ethereum Merge just as they were set to play a key role in securing the revamped blockchain. Celsius Shareholders File to Stake Their Claim for Bankruptcy Payouts: A motion filed by lawyers says the Celsius bankruptcy is all about the customers and without regard for the equity holders. What Cardanos Highly Anticipated Vasil Hard Fork Will Bring: Vasil delivers an updated version of Cardanos smart contract scripting language: Plutus v2. Daniel Gavin Couch (Monroe County Sheriffs Office) A boat captain in Florida has been accused of negligence for failing to prevent a Memorial Day parasailing accident that killed a woman and injured two children. Daniel Gavin Couch, 49, was charged with manslaughter and breaches of commercial parasailing laws for his alleged role in the death of Supraja Alaparthi and the injury of her son and nephew in May. Alaparthi, 33, from Elk Grove Village, Illinois, was killed when her parasail crashed into the Old Seven Mile Bridge just west of Marathon in the Florida Keys after Mr Couch cut the line that tethered her to his boat. The crash happened during a Memorial Day vacation with Alaparthis two children and other family members. Her 10-year-old son and nine-year-old nephew were also injured, while her six-year-old daughter and ten other family members allegedly watched from the boat. Supraja Alaparthi (second from right) was killed while parasailing in May (indiatoday.in) Now Florida authorities accuse Mr Couch of a string of safety failures leading up to the deadly accident, culminating in his decision to cut the family's tether when their parasail was caught by high winds and began to drag the boat behind it. "Daniel Couch had an utter disregard for the care of his passengers, who entrusted him with their lives by allowing them to fly [even] after he acknowledged that the weather was quickly deteriorating," states an arrest warrant obtained by Local 10 News. "Upon realising the parasail was no longer under his control, Daniel Crouch made a gross and flagrant decision to cut the tow line, the only means of the passengers' safe return to hte vessel, without taking into reasonable account any other available actions. "This indifference to the consequences of his decisions and actions resulted in the death and serious injuries to these parasailers." Ricky Patel, a lawyer for Alaparthi's family, told ABC 7: "They saved up for this vacation. They made it to the keys. This was a dream vacation for them that turned into a nightmare... for the families to have got on this ship when the weather was bad was horrific." Story continues Mr Couch had not yet entered a plea as of last Thursday, and was being held on a bail of $100,000. According to the warrant, Mr Couch told investigators that cutting Alaparthi loose was the only way to prevent his vessel from being dragged onto a nearby spit of land and potentially into the concrete pillars supporting the bridge. It details how Mr Couch and his crew attempted to rescue the three parasailers by taking his boat close to them and repeatedly trying to grab them with a boat hook and then with his hands. However, once the parasail crashed into the bridge, the warrant alleges that Mr Couch "did not manoeuvre his vessel under the bridge to offer aid even though the family members on the parasail vessel later reported they were begging him to help". The warrant further alleges that, prior to the crash, Mr Couch broke state safety laws by failing to keep his radio and weather forecasting device switched on, failing to monitor satellite images of the approaching storm, failing to heed a National Weather Service (NWS) bulletin predicting strong winds and thunderstorms. It says that he could not provide investigators with the captain's licence that must legally be displayed on his vessel, and that other evidence contradicted his claims to have checked the weather earlier in the afternoon and attempted to call 911. "Couch was unable to provide an explanation on why he did not attempt any other vessel manoeuvres... or any other preventative measures," the warrant says. "The only measure that Couch took was to cut the tow line." It adds that although Mr Couch sounded an airhorn to signal the three parasailers to activate their emergency stop system, other passengers told investigators that they had never been shown where the activation strap was, and the system itself had been installed incorrectly. The case continues. Mandatory evacuations have been issued for hundreds of thousands of people as Hurricane Ian charts a path towards the west coast of Florida with severe winds, flash flooding, storm surge and possible tornadoes. Governor Ron DeSantis warned Floridians to prepare but not panic during a Monday briefing after the storm was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane. This is a really, really big hurricane at this point, Governor DeSantis said. He added that the hurricanes path was still uncertain meaning that it could wobble in or away from the peninsula. Floridas Gulf Coast is forecast to be severely impacted with conditions worsening up to 36 hours before the peak. Meteorologists report than Ian will be supercharged by warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico and could hit Florida as a monster Category 4 hurricane with top winds of 140 mph (225 km/h). The National Hurricane Center warned of life-threatening storm surge which could reach up to 10 feet around Tampa. Some 300,000 people are being evacuated in Hillsborough county, which includes the city of Tampa, along with Manatee and Hernando counties. Pinellas County will begin mandatory evacuations on Monday evening at 6pm. Get out right now, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said on Monday. The county, which includes the cities of St Petersburg and Clearwater, is projected to experience some of the most severe impacts from the hurricane. At a press conference, the sheriff said that while residents will not be forced to leave, they were being urged to take the calls for mandatory evacuations seriously. What it means is, were not going to come help you. If you dont do it, youre on your own, he said Many more were being asked to leave voluntarily. The state had lifted toll charges on some major highways to make it easier for people to get out of harms way. More than a dozen school districts had canceled classes along with a handful of college systems and state universities, the Florida Department of Education said in a notice. Story continues Disney is closely monitoring Hurricane Ian as the storm is expected to hit the theme park. Other tourist favourites had already made the decision to close. Zoo Miami will close on Tuesday and Wednesday in an abundance of caution. Though the Florida city is not expected to experience the worst of the hurricane, the zoo said that staff wanted to focus on its residents and make sure they are prepared for any significant wind or rain. Some 5,000 National Guard had been mobilized in Florida with additional troops on hand in neighboring Georgia and Alabama. The hurricane will impact the Cayman Islands and hit western Cuba on Monday night into the early hours of Tuesday. Efforts to protect life and property should be rushed to completion, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned. Classes were suspended in Pinar del Rio province of Cuba and evacuations underway as the country shut down its train system. In the Cayman Islands, members of the government and opposition were working together to ensure that our people are made as safe as possible the supplies, plywood, in some cases sandbags, are distributed so that they can safely weather this storm, Premier Wayne Panton said in a video posted on Sunday. Gov DeSantis urged people not to panic buy, noting that essentials like water were making it to major grocery store chains in Florida and that gas stations were being topped off with fuel. He also urged any resident using a generator to keep it outside. In recent years, a number of deaths have been caused by carbon monoxide poisoning during storms after people used generators inside properties. The governor will speak again on Tuesday and may give an additional briefing late on Monday as the storm progresses. As Florida prepares, Atlantic Canada and parts of the Caribbean including Puerto Rico were still recovering from Hurricane Fiona last week. At least five deaths were reported in the Caribbean, and one death in Canada, authorities said. Fiona made landfall as a post-tropical cyclone in Nova Scotia early on Saturday. The body of a 73-year-old woman was dicovered in the water after she went missing in Channel-Port Aux Basques, a town on the southern coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland. Police said the woman was inside her residence moments before a wave struck the home on Saturday morning, tearing away a portion of the basement. The climate crisis is increasing average ocean and air temperatures globally, and supercharging hurricanes with more heavy rain and powerful winds. This article has been updated Police have charged a former Durham man with sexual assault of a child for an incident they say happened in 2017 and say he may have had contact with other underage girls around that time. John Emory Compton, 35, is charged with statutory sex offense with a child, indecent liberties with a child and distribution of tobacco to a minor, the Durham Police Department stated in a news release Monday. Police were notified in February of this year of a juvenile being assaulted in 2017, the release stated. Compton was arrested in Hertford, North Carolina, by the Perquimans County Sheriffs Office and was released from custody on a $100,000 bond, according to the release. Investigators believe that he lived in Durham from 2017 to 2020, the release stated. Investigators believe that he may have had contact with other juvenile females during this timeframe. Police ask that anyone with information on this case call Investigator R. Armstrong at 919-560-4440 ext. 29325 or CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200. The Durham Report Calling Bull City readers! We've launched The Durham Report, a free weekly digest of some of the top stories for and about Durham published in The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun. Get your newsletter delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday at 11 a.m. featuring links to stories by our local journalists. Sign up for our newsletter here. For even more Durham-focused news and conversation, join our Facebook group "The Story of my Street." PARIS (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the government would decide by the end of this week on how to move forward with plans to reform the country's pensions system - something that has faced fierce opposition in the past from trade unions. "We are looking for the best way forward," Borne told RMC Radio and BFM TV, adding that the government remained in consultations with trade unions over the matter. French President Emmanuel Macron has said that reforming the pensions system is a key priority for his government, but previous plans to change it have encountered major street protests. Macron wants to start implementing the reforms, which mainly consist of a progressive rise to 65 of the legal retirement age, next summer. Trade unions opposed to this reform say it will result in people having to work for longer, while the government says the reform will be better for the overall French economy. Borne reiterated that this progressive rise in the retirement age remained part of the government's plans. Borne added that in case the reforms were blocked in parliament, the government could in theory use the '49.3' clause - namely a French constitutional mechanism to allow a government to pass legislation even if lacks a majority in parliament. (Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta) PARIS (Reuters) -French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the European Union would closely follow the respect of certain human rights and values such as women's access to abortion, as she responded to Italy's election result. "In Europe, we have certain values and, obviously, we will be vigilant", Borne told RMC Radio and BFM TV. "It is a human rights value and the respect of others, namely the right to have access to abortion, should be upheld by all," Borne also said, while adding she did not want to comment on the "democratic choice of the Italian people". Giorgia Meloni looked set to become Italy's first woman prime minister at the head of its most right-wing government since World War Two. During the election campaign, Meloni has repeatedly denied suggestions she might roll back legislation on abortion or gay rights, while reaffirming her opposition to adoptions and surrogacy for LGBT couples. (Reporting by Tassilo Hummel;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta) Rosario Reilly didnt set out to be an educational publisher she just wanted to give her kids a classical education that respected their Catholic faith. In 2009, the mother of five in Manassas, Virginia, began assembling a homeschool curriculum eventually named Aquinas Learning. Thirteen years later, the program now serves about 160 area students in grades K-12, who show up in uniform to a local center one day a week. Students partake in a variety of classes, as well as P.E., lunch, and the like. But the other four days of the week they learn at home. No paywall. No pop-up ads. Keep the 74 free for everyone with a donation during our Fall Campaign. Reilly said Aquinas exploded amid COVID, after everybody saw what we saw back in the early 2000s. Rosario Reilly (Courtesy of Rosario Reilly) Since the start of the pandemic, public school enrollment has crashed between fall 2019 and 2020, it dropped by 1.4 million students, or 3 percent, the largest single-year decline since World War II, according to federal data released last spring. While educators are trying to figure out how to bring these families back, researchers are starting to find them persisting in unusual spaces. Many are relying on a type of homeschooling made popular when school closures became widespread in 2020. But as Reillys success suggests, hybrid homeschooling has been around for decades. Now the sector even has its own research center, based at Kennesaw State University, northwest of Atlanta. Eric Wearne, who founded it, began studying what he calls hybrid schools about seven years ago he defines hybrids differently than most observers, not as a mix of online and live instruction, but as programs that meet in-person for fewer than five full days per week, with students typically home-schooled the rest of the week. The schools also decide upon most or all of the curriculum, though varying levels of instruction and grading may be done by parents. And theyre more formal than learning pods or microschools. About 60 percent to 70 percent are private, according to Wearne. Story continues He says schools like Reillys in Virginia are now engaging middle-class families in a different kind of school choice thats more flexible, informal and at $4,158 for average tuition, according to Wearne more affordable than the typical private school. Students participate in an in-person class at a JCS hybrid school near San Diego. (Courtesy of Jennifer Cauzza) The biggest challenge, however, may be figuring out a way to make it work more broadly for families who got fed up with the kind of remote schooling that emerged during the pandemic and to persuade public school advocates that its not eroding support or trust in traditional schooling. A longtime school choice scholar, Wearne began getting curious about hybrid schools after he and his wife sent the oldest of their seven children to a small Catholic program. It served K-8 students, and when parents there began looking into starting a high school, Wearne and his wife, both high school teachers in a previous life, decided to help out. Eric Wearne (Courtesy of Eric Wearne) That was in 2012, and soon Wearne began writing about hybrid schools just because I thought it was kind of a niche or boutique kind of answer to school choice. He found that most hybrids were private and church-based, though a few charter and district schools were experimenting with the model. The earliest hybrid schools coincided roughly with the rise of charter laws in the early 1990s. By 2020, hed learned enough to compile his research into a book manuscript, which he handed to his publisher that March. Also in March 2020: The pandemic closed virtually every school in America. Over the course of just a few days, Wearne said, People sort of got very interested in different models of schooling. Non-classroom-based schools Among those Wearne has worked with is Jennifer Cauzza, a lifelong California educator who began dabbling in hybrid schooling as far back as the 1990s, nearly as soon as legislators there passed the states first charter school law. She remembers teaching in a rural high school that had a partnership with Palomar College one of its professors remotely taught a study skills class four days a week using what must have seemed a high-tech solution at the time: VCR tapes. Students would watch lessons all week, and on Fridays hed link up with the class via a videochat service called CU-SeeMe. Jennifer Cauzza (Courtesy of Jennifer Cauzza) Her original hybrid school met in a barn northeast of San Diego, with 400 students, most of them homeschoolers. They soon began leasing their own space, and her school has since expanded into a network of six schools. For Cauzzas families, March 2020 felt like business as usual. We were able, during the pandemic, to spin on a dime. We were able to transition to online opportunities overnight. As of this fall, a little over half of their students are traditional homeschoolers, and all of them hew to what Cauzza calls a collegiate format, expecting students to take a large portion of responsibility for their learning and be independent, self-directed learners. Related: An Experiment at the Crossroads: In Year Two, Pandemic Pods Find Their Legs and Face Their Limitations. Will They Endure Beyond COVID-19? Our goal is not to serve everybody, Cauzza said bluntly. Our goal is to find the students that learn best in this manner and to be able to serve them well. Wendy Schroeter and her husband sent both of their children to one of Cauzzas schools. They specifically work with them to make them self-directed learners, she said. Students become very self-reliant and able to not rely on mom, dad, or the teacher to nag them, because they just want to get it done. At home amid economists Wearne came to Kennesaw in 2020 to study the emerging landscape, and the Hybrid Schools Project now lives within the business schools Education Economics Center. Its scholars also study, more broadly, school choice, educational savings accounts, and parent engagement, among other topics. Students at one of the San Diego areas JCS hybrid charter schools work together. The schools grew out of a program that met in a barn northeast of the city with 400 students, most of them homeschoolers. (Courtesy of Jennifer Cauzza) His March 2022 survey found that the growth of hybrid programs seems concentrated in suburbs. He found that among those who responded to the survey, the typical hybrid school enrolls about 227 students, mostly focused on K-5 instruction. And the vast majority 83 percent say theyre religiously affiliated. Most rely heavily on part-time staff, with half employing 19 or fewer teachers. Nearly eight in 10 employed no full-time teachers at all. While hes just over two years into his tenure at Kennesaw, Wearne has already found that many hybrid schools fulfill the original aspirations of early charter schools, before they became, in his words, extraordinarily regulated. And compared to existing private schools, he said, hybrids dont have to go through as much of a fundraising lift to get up and running. An in-person class at one of the San Diego areas six JCS hybrid charter schools. (Courtesy of Jennifer Cauzza) Low tuition costs attract more middle-class families, he said. Theyre not populated with one-percenters. Theyre populated with large families or with people who are more middle-class than the normal private-school clientele,, he said. Many of these families chose hybrid schools in part because they simply cant afford a local five-day-per-week private school. Theyre also beginning to build track records. People are seeing their neighbors children are turning out O.K. when they leave the hybrids, he said. And so theyre willing to kind of give them a shot. But like most things in education, the centers connections could limit its reach among public school advocates who might otherwise support hybrid schooling. Kennesaw States business school is closely aligned with the school choice movement, and the Education Economics Centers research findings often appear on the right-leaning EdChoice.org website. Over the past few years Wearne has often found a home for his writings in several conservative outlets such as The Daily Signal. Related: The 74 Interview: Political Scientist Heath Brown on COVID-19 and the Politics of Homeschooling More to the point, public school advocates are wary of programs that could direct more taxpayer funding to private schools. Instead of boosting private schools with zero accountability for their learning outcomes, said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, we should direct all of our energy towards meeting childrens needs, dealing with teacher shortages and fulfilling the purpose, promise and potential of public education. Im still focused on my kids Many of the programs would say theyre doing just that: Wearnes center has already identified a preponderance of STEM and outdoor-education schools, as well as programs focused on traditional classical education, such as Reillys Aquinas Learning in Virginia. Thirteen years after she founded it, Reillys oldest child is now 22 and a graduate student in architecture at Notre Dame. Her others, all homeschooled, are either in college or making their way through high school. Students in Manassas, Va., show off their creations as part of a classical homeschooling curriculum that also relies on in-person lessons. (Rosario Reilly) Meanwhile, shes busy selling her own self-published version of the curriculum it doesnt make her much money, she confided, but that was never the point. My goal is that once they graduate, I can focus more on the business side of things and perhaps make it a nonprofit, she said. That could attract philanthropic donors to help spread it more widely to more families, even outside the U.S. Once her youngest, a high school sophomore, has graduated, perhaps shell begin enjoying a bit of Aquinas-related travel. But for now, she said, Im still focused on my kids. JAKARTA (Reuters) - Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia has requested that a court in New York recognise the airline's recent debt restructuring deal in a Jakarta court, under Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, its chief executive said on Monday. Garuda filed the Chapter 15 case late last week at a New York bankruptcy court, CEO Irfan Setiaputra told Reuters. Chapter 15 provides for cooperation between U.S. and foreign courts, if there is a U.S. financial interest in proceedings. Garuda and its creditors agreed to halve its debt to about $5 billion in a deal overseen by a bankruptcy court in Jakarta in June. However, the carrier's restructuring agreement is currently being challenged in the country's Supreme Court by an Ireland-based aircraft lessor, Greylag Goose Leasing and no decision has been made so far. The lessor has previously objected to the calculation of their claims at around 2.3 trillion rupiah ($152.07 million) in the restructuring agreement. In a parliamentary hearing on Monday, finance ministry senior official Rionald Silaban said one of Garuda's lessors Boeing had yet to participate in the restructuring plan, but said the U.S. planemaker "will eventually participate". Claims from Boeing to Garuda are estimated at $822 million. Boeing did not immediately respond to request for comment. ($1 = 15,125.0000 rupiah) (Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Martin Petty) Overnight and into the early morning hours, Ian strengthened and officially became a hurricane. Hurricane Ian is now on track to hit Florida later this week. As the storm continues moving into the U.S., it could barrel down on parts of Georgia, so many are bracing for the impact. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Governor Brian Kemp is activating the state emergency operations center on Monday to prepare for any potential impacts. We are leaving nothing to chance, Kemp said in a tweet on Sunday afternoon. As we prepare for whatever this storm may bring, I have ordered the activation of @GeorgiaEMAHS's State Operations Center, beginning tomorrow. We are leaving nothing to chance and will closely monitor the storm's evolution throughout the week. More: https://t.co/kGzOicHtLl https://t.co/rJAmlyT2F4 Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) September 25, 2022 Florida residents are already under a state of emergency as Hurricane Ian is expected to continue strengthening until it makes landfall. Bottled water and wood are among some of the most sought after items on shopping lists. TRENDING STORIES: I want to thank Director Stallings and his team, as well as our emergency management partners throughout the state who stand at the ready, ensuring Georgia is prepared for whatever this major storm system could bring, Governor Kemp told Channel 2. I urge my fellow Georgians to monitor this storm as it evolves and calmly take the necessary precautions to keep their families and neighbors safe, if the storm continues to intensify. Throughout the week, I will work closely with GEMA/HS, the weather service, public safety organizations, and others to ensure we leave nothing to chance. Those who find themselves in Ians eventual path can also consult this informational website provided by GEMA/HS that includes tips on storm preparedness before, during, and after a hurricane. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Fox News media personality and conservative Geraldo Rivera on Sunday scorched Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for his wildly outlandish claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. The claim by Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley (R- Missouri) and Trump is so wildly preposterous that it ranks with the claim that the Earth is flat, despite all conceivable evidence to the contrary, scoffed Rivera in a tweet. Because of the outlandish lie by the senators who Rivera is convinced should know better everything they say should jam the bullshit filter, he warned. Election Deniers-who really believe 2020 was stolen-are lost causes. I feel sorry for them, but theyve decided the world is flat. Much worse: those who know better but support the Big Lie anyway. Like TedCruz and Josh Hawley. Everything they say should jam the bullshit filter. Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) September 25, 2022 Some Twitter users complained that Rivera was missing the big picture, and is ultimately responsible for the rigged election lies. How about putting the blame squarely on your pal 45 who got this all whipped up? It is time for you to make much stronger stand Geraldo. Craig Silverman (@craigscolorado) September 25, 2022 As well as your colleagues. Hannity. Tucker. Ingraham. Tomi. Why not condemn them publicly? International Strategery (Ret.) (@IntlMergers) September 25, 2022 You do realize what channel you work for? Jan Gunther (@JanGunther1) September 25, 2022 Rivera generally appears to be done with Trumpworld and the incessant lies about a rigged election and has taken the former president to task. Story continues He tweeted earlier this month that he could never support longtime friend Donald Trump again. Rivera, a rotating co-host on Foxs The Five, said Trumps relentless, baseless claims of election fraud have destroyed his loyalty. Election Deniers depress me, Rivera wrote. I blame President Trump for his shameful campaign to slander and undermine American faith in our elections ... I could never support him again. Without fealty to the Constitution, were 2d rate. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Maryana Yaremchyshna (front left) is one of the leaders of the pro-Ukrainian movement in the city of Greifswald, next to which is Lubmin, the terminus of Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines. While their placards were destroyed, none of the women were seriously injured, in the incident, which occurred on Sept. 25 in the town of Lubmin in the north of Germany. The rally was in support of the relaunch of Russian gas supplies to Germany and the cancellation of sanctions against Russia. Lubmin is close to the point where the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipelines come ashore in Germany. About 3,500 people from various regions of Germany took part in the rally. When the leaders of the pro-Russian movement began to address rally attendees, three Ukrainian women activists approached the stage in a silent protest and displaying posters in support of Ukraine. The posters called for Russia to be declared a terrorist state and noted the price of blood gas from Russia. They included world-famous photos of the shelling of residential quarters and a maternity hospital in Mariupol, as well as a photo of a residential building in Borodyanka that was destroyed by a Russian bomb. This silent protest with photos and posters caused an extremely aggressive reaction from the rally attendees. Read also: Gazprom concocts new excuses to continue shutdown of Nord Stream-1 They grabbed the posters and photos from Ukrainian women, tore them, and pushed the Ukrainian women away from the stage. Rally participants with drums in their hands then confronted them with loud, mocking shouts. The stewards observing the rally had to stop overly aggressive behavior by some of the rally participants. The Ukrainian protest was organized by Maryana Yaremchyshna, who has been living in Greifswald, a town neighboring Lubmin, for several years, and who is one of the leaders of the local pro-Ukrainian movement, as well as two other Ukrainian women who were forced to leave Ukraine due to the war. All three women have been organizing monthly actions in support of Ukraine in the center of Greifswald since the beginning of Russias invasion of Ukraine. Story continues Yaremchyshna told NV that she was surprised by the absence of a German counter-protest at the rally in Lubmin on Sept. 25. According to her, many Germans supported the Ukrainian protest after the action, but only virtually. Our small action of a few minutes caused a great stir among Germans on the Internet: they are now writing comments, supporting us, reposting these videos, writing personal messages that are very grateful to us, says Yaremchyshna. Read also: Germany faces recession and double-digit inflation, forecast says But there were no (local) people who supported us at the rally itself. Usually, when right-wing radicals organize some kind of rally, it is imperative that at least, it used to be so a rally against is also registered. This time, no one registered anything like that. These people do not go out. And this also surprises me a bit they stay in their comfort zone, thank us for what we do, but do not come to our actions (in particular, other actions in support of Ukraine), they do not organize counter-rallies (against the far-right activists). The Ukrainian woman noted that this reminds her of the behavior of those Russian citizens in Russia who condemn the war, but just sit at home: they are afraid to protest and as a result, nothing changes, of course. The confrontation between Ukrainian activists and supporters of Russia and Russian gas attracted attention from many German media, in particular, broadcaster NDR and newspapers Ostsee Zeitung, Die Welt, etc. Die Welt mentions that its journalists were called dirty pigs by the right-wing extremists. Read also: Russian spokesperson blames western sanctions for Nord Stream-1 shutdown Martin Klein, a member of the Die Basis party, was the organizer of the rally. This party is based in Berlin and emerged in Germany in 2020 initially as a movement against coronavirus restrictions and vaccination against COVID-19. Now the political party calls itself the party of peace and calls for the appeasement of Russia. In addition, the German far-right activists were among the leading participants of the action in Lubmin. In particular, Andreas Kalbitz, a former member of the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party, took the stage among the speakers. Kalbitz was the head of the Brandenburg branch of this nationalist and right-wing populist party. According to the local media outlet Katapult, Kalbitz is currently under the supervision of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and is officially considered a right-wing extremist. Previously, Kalbitz was also a member of the currently banned neo-Nazi German youth organization Heimattreue. Radical German demonstrators who marched in a column through the streets of Lubmin on Sept. 25 and gathered at the summer stage held posters with anti-government and pro-Russian slogans (Open Nord Stream 2! Stop sanctions! Dont supply weapons!, Our government must resign, and Turn off the traffic lights Germanys ruling three-party coalition is called the traffic light coalition because its constituent parties colors are those of traffic lights). Read also: Europe can win Putins gas war but must learn Nord Stream lessons This is not the first such anti-government and pro-Russian action in Lubmin: about 1,800 participants gathered for a similar rally in early September. On Sept. 25, the organizers expected 5,000 participants, however, according to the police, they gathered only 3,500 people. Earlier Russian gas monopoly Gazprom announced a complete shutdown of gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, allegedly for technical reasons. Germany has frozen the Nord Stream 2 project since the beginning of Russias invasion of Ukraine. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador in Berlin on Monday in order to urge Tehran to stop its violent crackdown on nationwide protests over the death of a woman in police custody, the German foreign ministry said. "We call on the Iranian authorities to allow peaceful protests and to not deploy further violence - in particular not fatal violence - against protesters," the ministry said on Twitter. "We also communicated that directly to the Iranian ambassador in Berlin today." Asked about the possibility of further sanctions on Tehran in response to the violence, a ministry spokesperson had earlier said, "we will consider all options" with other European Union states. Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on Iran's morality police over allegations of abuse of Iranian women. Washington said it held the unit responsible for the Sept. 16 death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was detained by morality police enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict restrictions on women's dress. (Reporting by Rachel More and Sarah Marsh; editing by Grant McCool) Victoria Beckham has shared her amusing commentary of her husband, David Beckham, as he collected honey from the familys own beehives. The former Spice Girl star filmed herself for TikTok walking along a field at home while David examined the hives. So, here with David whilst he collects his sticky stuff, she announces in the video to her thousands of followers. Hes about to release... his sticky stuff. His new batch of sticky stuff, she continues, over a shot of David walking around the field. Hows it going? she then asks her husband. Think we have good flowage to be honest, he responds. Not sure its a word but... Doesnt matter, Victoria tells him. Look, its pouring out of that one. The clip then cuts to a shot of Victoria walking back to the house with a jar of honey, telling fans: So, Ive got the sticky stuff. Gonna go and sample it, let you know what Davids sticky stuff tastes like. Im gonna mark it out of 10 and Ill let you know. She captioned the video: The Beckham sticky stuff @DavidBeckham (or should I say David Attenborough). I rate it 10/10! Fans were delighted by the brief insight into life with the Beckhams, and praised Victoria for her sense of humour. She is too funny, one fan wrote in the comments while another said: Victoria doesnt get enough credit for how hilariously funny she is. I love her. At the time of writing, the video had received over 7 million views. Victoria, David and their son Brooklyn recently shared their own respective tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II, following her funeral on Monday 19 September. Victoria hailed the late monarch as the epitome of elegance and the ultimate icon in every way. The Daily Beast Lydia Zuraw/KHNBy Jay HancockI woke up in a strange bedroom with 24 electrodes glued all over my body and a plastic mask attached to a hose covering my face.The lab technician who watched me all night via video feed told me that I had wicked sleep apnea and that it was central sleep apneaa type that originates in the brain and fails to tell the muscles to inhale.As a journalistand one terrified by the diagnosisI set out to do my own research. After a few weeks of sleuthing and interviewin The way Google calculates the climate impact of your flights has changed, the BBC has discovered. Flights now appear to have much less impact on the environment than before. That's because the world's biggest search engine has taken a key driver of global warming out of its online carbon flight calculator. "Google has airbrushed a huge chunk of the aviation industry's climate impacts from its pages" says Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist of Greenpeace. With Google hosting nine out of every 10 online searches, this could have wide repercussions for people's travel decisions. The company said it made the change following consultations with its "industry partners". It affects the carbon calculator embedded in the company's "Google Flights" search tool. Google flight emission calculator If you have ever tried to find a flight on Google, you will have come across Google Flights. It appears towards the top of search results and allows you to scour the web for flights and fares. It also offers to calculate the emissions generated by your journey. Google says this feature is designed "to help you make more sustainable travel choices". Yet in July, Google decided to exclude all the global warming impacts of flying except CO2. Some experts say Google's calculations now represent just over half of the real impact on the climate of flights. "It now significantly understates the global impact of aviation on the climate", says Professor David Lee of Manchester Metropolitan University, the author of the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the contribution of air travel to global warming. Flying affects the climate in lots of ways in addition to the CO2 produced by burning aviation fuel. These include the creation of long thin clouds high up in the atmosphere - known as contrails - which trap heat radiated by the Earth, leading to a net warming effect on our planet. These additional warming impacts mean that although aviation is only responsible for around 2% of global CO2 emissions, the sector is actually responsible for around 3.5% of the warming caused by human activity. Story continues And it is a sector that is only going to get bigger. Since 2000 emissions have risen by 50%, and the industry is expected to grow by more than 4% every year for the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Contrails are produced by some planes as its exhaust fumes - mostly water vapour - mix with cold air and form ice crystals Google is open about its calculations for the tool - posting the methodology on a US software website called GitHub. The BBC was alerted to the fact that it had posted a note saying it was changing how it assesses the impact of aviation. It is a curious document. Google begins saying it has made the change following "recent discussions with academic and industry partners". It acknowledges these factors are "critical to include in the model" and cites the emphasis given to them in the latest report by the UN's climate science body, the IPCC. Google reiterated this point when approached by the BBC, saying it "strongly believes" that non-CO2 effects of aviation should be included in its calculations. Yet on Github Google says: "the details of how and when to include these factors requires more input from our stakeholders". The reason for this, Google said in reply to a request for comment, was that the company's priority was the "accuracy of the individual flight estimates" it provides to its consumers. It says it is working with academics to better understand how contrails and other warming impacts affect specific flights. The UK government takes a different approach. It recommends companies reflect the additional impacts of flying by multiplying the CO2 emissions a flight generates by a factor of 1.9 - effectively doubling their impact. In its guidance to companies, the UK's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy warns the value of this multiplier is "subject to significant uncertainty", but says "there is currently no better way of taking these effects into account". Transport and Environment, a group campaigning to reduce the environmental impact of travel, agrees. "Current scientific knowledge is sufficient to state that non-CO2 effects represent two thirds of the total climate impact of aviation", it says. "The industry has hidden this problem for decades... Google should show customers the non-CO2 effects for each flight, as the European Parliament has proposed to do." Google's changes are likely to have far-reaching effects. The company's carbon calculation methodology is widely recognised as the industry standard in aviation. It is used by Skyscanner, one of the biggest online travel agencies in the world with more than 100 million visitors a month. A number of other major online travel businesses including Booking.com, Expedia, Tripadvisor and Visa have said they intend to use it too. Google's chief sustainability officer, Kate Brandt, has said the company aims to "build tools that enable travellers and business around the world to prioritise sustainability". Industry experts say the decision to change its methodology will have the opposite effect. "I worry the impact of the equivalent of hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 will be ignored because it has become invisible to customers," says Kit Brennan, a founder of Thrust Carbon, a UK company specialising in helping businesses reduce the effect their travel has on the climate. He fears consumers could come to believe that non-CO2 impacts on the climate are not relevant in the longer-term, despite the science that contradicts this view. That would mean up to 1.5% of the warming caused by human activity would be being ignored and the pressure on airlines to reduce their emissions would be cut accordingly. Update 26 September 2022: The graphic "How Google's calculations have changed" was updated after Google provided the BBC with more information as to how it calculated emissions from flights before the change to its tool. Google provides 5,000 scholarships to Ukrainians Google is cooperating with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs to offer professional certifications to 1,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises to empower their businesses and create new opportunities for their employees. Read also: Zelenskyy calls on billionaires and philanthropists to invest money in Ukraine Upon completion of the program, participants can add their certifications to their CVs and LinkedIn profiles. Training is available online on the Coursera platform and covers the following areas: Digital Marketing and E-Commerce IT support Analytics data Project Management UX-design It is noted Google has allocated over EUR 3 million in grant funding for the implementation of the project. Read also: Ukrainian workers learning Polish to get higher-paid jobs research As reported earlier, Amazon Web Services will provide $820,000 in credits to Ukrainian start-ups for the use of its cloud technologies. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Google's head of public policy for India has resigned just five months after taking the job, two sources told Reuters, at a potentially critical time for the U.S. tech giant as it awaits the outcome of at least two antitrust cases in the country. The reasons for Archana Gulati's resignation were not immediately clear. Gulati, who previously worked at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's federal think-tank, declined to comment. A spokesperson for Alphabet Inc's Google also declined to comment. Google is facing a series of antitrust cases in India and stricter tech-sector regulations. India's competition watchdog is looking into Google's business conduct in the smart TVs market, its Android operating system, as well as its in-app payments system. The watchdog is close to announcing its decision in at least two antitrust cases against Google, people familiar with the process said. At Google, Gulati led a team of public policy executives who look at various regulatory implications for the company in India, one of its key growth markets. She was a long-time Indian government employee, having worked until March 2021 as a joint secretary for digital communications at Modi's federal think tank, Niti Aayog, a body that is critical to government's policy making across sectors. Before that, between 2014 and 2016, she worked as a senior official at the Competition Commission of India, in its Mergers & Acquisitions division, according to her LinkedIn profile. A number of Indian government officials have been hired by Big Tech companies as they face tighter data and privacy regulation, as well as competition law scrutiny, under Modi's federal government. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Mark Potter) Republicans may vote to impeach Joe Biden if they take the House in November, a South Carolina congresswoman revealed on Sunday. Nancy Mace said as much during an interview with NBCs Meet the Press, evoking a wow from a surprised Chuck Todd. I believe theres a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote, she said. I think that is something that some folks are considering, Ms Mace continued. The congresswoman did not, however, suggest that she would be supportive of such a measure. Ms Mace suggested the opposite, actually, telling Mr Todd that her focus under a GOP-controlled House would be waste, fraud, and abuse typical issues under Congresss oversight purview. WATCH: If Republicans flip the House, will they hold an impeachment vote against President Biden?@RepNancyMace (R-S.C.): Theres a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote I think that is something that some folks are considering. pic.twitter.com/YctdlrhbNZ Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 25, 2022 The South Carolina Republican survived a primary challenge backed by Donald Trump himself earlier this year after she admonished the former president for his role in the January 6 attack on Congress. She did not, however, support the 2021 House vote to impeach Mr Trump after the attack. Impeachment of Joe Biden has been largely floated by far-right members of the GOP including Marjorie Taylor Greene up to this point. The future of such a measure would be short-lived, given the nonexistant possibility that the Senate would vote to convict Mr Biden absent serious evidence of wrongdoing. Neither Republican leaders in the House nor the Senate have expressed interest or support for pursuing impeachment, at least publicly, so far. Story continues Tellingly, supporters of the issue have yet to even hone in on one supposed act of wrongdoing for which the president should supposedly be impeached. Some, like Ms Greene, have pointed to Hunter Bidens business dealings in Ukraine and elsewhere as reason for pursuing impeachment, arguing that Mr Biden was involved in a kickback scheme. Others, like Sen Ted Cruz, have raised border security as an issue that would lead to impeachment instead. Probably the most compelling is the utter lawlessness of President Bidens refusal to enforce the border. His decision to just defy federal immigration laws and allow 2 million people to come here unimpeded in direct contravention of his obligation under Article 2 of the Constitution to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, said Mr Cruz on a recent episode of his podcast. That is probably the strongest grounds right now for impeachment, but there may be others. Conservative lawmakers are voicing support for Giorgia Meloni, the leader of a right-wing alliance that came out victorious in Italys elections on Sunday. The new government is expected to maintain Italys support for Ukraine and NATO, but Meloni has taken a harder stance on issues like immigration, calling for a naval blockade to prevent migrant boats from coming to Europe from North Africa. Congratulations to Giorgia Meloni and the winners of the Italian elections, wrote Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). We look forward to working with her and other Italian leaders to advance our shared interests. America is stronger when Italy is strong, sovereign, prosperous, and free. Melonis coalition marks a major rightward shift for the country, the continents fourth-largest economy. She leads the hard-right Brothers of Italy party. Partners in her coalition include former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who leads the Forza Italia party, and Matteo Salvini of the League party. Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of State and Republican representative from Kansas, also congratulated Meloni. Italy deserves and needs strong conservative leadership, he said. Buona Fortuna! Melonis Brothers of Italy party won 26 percent of the vote, with other center-right coalition partners bringing the alliances total to 44 percent support, although the official formation of a government is still to come. Many Republicans reposted a video of Meloni shared by Greg Price, a strategist at a conservative political consulting firm, in which she says many are attacking religious and gender identities, turning the public into consumer slaves. Spectacular, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) responded to the video. God Speed to Italys incredible Prime Minister-elect @GiorgiaMeloni! Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake similarly wrote. The video also garnered positive responses from lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who described Melonis speech as beautifully said. Story continues Some Democrats, however, took the opposite view. Watch this. Its full of made up straw men (like the idea that the left is attacking family identity) and fake populism (the right isnt actually interested in fighting consumerism), but its good encapsulation of the international new right, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted about the video. Melonis alliances rise in Italy comes amid a wave of success for right-wing political movements across Europe. Right-wing parties in Sweden narrowly came to power earlier this month, and similarly aligned groups in France and Spain have also made gains. This month, Sweden voted for a right-wing government, wrote Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). Now, Italy voted for a strong right-wing government, she continued. The entire world is beginning to understand that the Woke Left does nothing but destroy. Nov 8 is coming soon & the USA will fix our House and Senate! Let freedom reign! For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. While signs of a recession and Fed rate hikes remain top stories for investors, this week's political headlines are also worth paying attention to as Congress faces a government funding deadline, unrest grows in Iran, and Vice President Kamala Harris lands in Japan. Here are three key stories to watch this week at the intersection of business and politics: Government funding Lawmakers must reach an agreement by Friday in order to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. A procedural vote in the Senate on Tuesday will test support for the funding bill. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has been pushing to include permitting reforms for energy projects as part of the negotiations, which he argues would loosen red tape to help the economy. Manchin is hoping to win some Republican support, but it's unclear whether he will as many Democrats are advocating to separate the permitting reforms from the continuing resolution. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks during a news conference Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib) Part of the continuing resolution will also likely include an additional $13 billion to aid Ukraine against Russia's invasion, as the New York Times reported earlier this month. But a deal reached this week is not likely to last long. Any vote ahead of Oct. 1 will likely just punt the government funding fight until after the midterm elections and ahead of the New Year. Lawmakers in both parties are hoping to avoid any political drama and get back to the campaign trail. Iran sanctions The U.S. Treasury Department relaxed some of its internet sanctions against Iran on Friday to counter some measures taken by Tehran to stifle ongoing protests in the country stemming from the death of a 22-year-old woman in the custody of Iran's morality police. As courageous Iranians take to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, the United States is redoubling its support for the free flow of information to the Iranian people," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement last week. "With these changes, we are helping the Iranian people be better equipped to counter the governments efforts to surveil and censor them." Story continues A woman shouts slogans next to an Iranian flag during a protest against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini, outside Iran's general consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) The move comes as the Biden administration has been exploring a new Iran nuclear disarmament deal after the Trump administration withdrew from the previous agreement. President Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS that the administration will continue the negotiations while speaking out against the repression of women. The Treasury's decision to ease sanctions shows how tech diplomacy has evolved in the geopolitical sphere over the last several years. As the unrest plays out in Iran, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plays a key role in deploying and lifting sanctions. Vice President Kamala Harris travels to Asia Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Japan to attend the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Reuters reported Friday that Harris will discuss Taiwan's security during her meetings with South Korea and Japanese officials. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the Yokota Air Base on 26 September 2022, in Fussa, Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images) The discussion over Taiwan has escalated recently after President Biden told CBS News's 60 Minutes that U.S. forces would defend Taiwan "if, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack." It was the most precise statement the president has made as it relates to potential U.S. military action in Taiwan. Meanwhile, China has continued to conduct military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, generating uncertainty over how it intends to handle the island. Kevin Cirilli is a visiting media at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue. Follow him on LinkedIn here. Click here for politics news related to business and money Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Download the Yahoo Finance app for Apple or Android Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube By Felix Light LONDON (Reuters) - A gunman was detained after opening fire at a military draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, the local governor said. The gunman, who in a video published on social media is seen identifying himself to police officers as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, opened fire at a draft office in the Siberian town of Ust-Ilimsk. A separate video of the shooting shows him firing at least one shot inside the draft office. Reuters was unable to verify the videos. Irkutsk regional governor Igor Kobzev wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the draft office head was in hospital in a critical condition, and that the detained shooter "will absolutely be punished". Separately, local media reported that a man attempted to set himself on fire at a bus station in the city of Ryazan, about 185 km (115 miles) southeast of Moscow, shouting that he did not want to fight in Ukraine. He was taken away in an ambulance. A number of draft offices have been attacked since Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilisation last Wednesday to bolster Russian forces in Ukraine. Protests against the draft took place over the weekend in the regions of Dagestan and Yakutia, both of which have supplied disproportionate numbers of soldiers for the war. Rights group OVD-Info said that at least 101 people were detained on Sunday in Dagestan's capital Makhachkala, in a rare example of mass dissent in the usually tightly controlled North Caucasian region. (This story refiles to amend distance conversion in para 5 and to remove pictures) (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) A gunman opened fire at a draft office in Russias Siberian region of Irkutsk on Monday amid a growing backlash against President Vladimir Putins chaotic efforts to mobilize more people to boost his troops in Ukraine. The man, whom officials have not identified, opened fire in the far-eastern city of Ust-Ilimsk, seriously injuring a recruiting officer, according to the regions governor, Igor Kobzev. A video circulating online, confirmed by NBC News to have been shot in the draft office, showed people inside running for cover and screaming as the gunman fired. The shooter has been taken into custody and an investigation has been launched, the Irkutsk division of Russia's top investigative body said in a release. While authorities have not commented on the gunmans possible motive, the incident highlights growing unease among the Russian public after Putin ordered a partial mobilization last week an unpopular move that Kyiv and its Western allies have said shows his desperation to bolster his faltering military campaign in Ukraine. It has led many to either flee the country or take to the streets in protest, resulting in more than 2,300 arrests to date, according to OVD-Info, a Russian independent protest monitoring group. At least a hundred people were arrested in anti-mobilization protests in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan, it said a rare example of dissent in a staunchly Kremlin-aligned region. Russia Partial Mobilisation (Alexandr Kryazhev / Sputnik via AP) Dozens of women chanted No to war! in a protest in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala on Sunday, according to The Associated Press. Russian media also reported that local police fired warning shots in the air after demonstrators from a local village blocked a major highway. NBC News was not able to independently verify these reports. In the eastern Siberian town of Yakutsk, local media said hundreds of protesters, mostly women, led a traditional dance in a protest against the mobilization Sunday. OVD-Info reported at least 24 arrests there. Story continues According to Neil Melvin, the director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based military think tank, the mobilization order has broken Putins implicit social contract with the Russian society in which the population ignored the war in Ukraine as long as the conflict did not directly affect them. The growing outpouring of discontent in dozens of cities since then is a direct response to that, he said. Im very skeptical that this mobilization will improve Russias fighting ability, Melvin added. These are people who will have very low motivation to fight in the war. Reacting to the backlash, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Tass state news agency as saying Monday that mistakes in how Putins order has been implemented, including cases of draft papers being served to those who shouldnt be mobilized, are being fixed. Even before the mobilization effort, wartime recruitment drew heavily from the countrys more remote and poorer ethnic regions, such as Dagestan, Chechnya and Buryatia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Sunday of a calculated imperial policy in what he said was a deliberate effort to mobilize its indigenous people in regions such as the Caucasus and Siberia. We see that people, in particular, in Dagestan, have begun to fight for their lives, he added. We see that they are beginning to understand that this is a question of their lives. Ukrainian army officials also said Sunday that the Russian command is sending newly mobilized arrivals to the front lines without much training, something that Putin promised wouldn't happen. NBC News could not independently verify the claim. But Melvin said it's further evidence of Russia's disorganized mobilization drive. It starts to look like almost a desperation of throwing bodies into Ukraine, rather than actually training up a fighting force thats capable of resisting Ukrainian advances, he said. Putins scramble to call up hundreds of thousands of people is not a sign of strength, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. He knew that as soon as he ordered mobilization, there would be some upheaval in the country, and we are seeing the images and scenes of that right now, the Biden administration official said. The unrest throughout Russia comes against the backdrop of a voting process underway in four Moscow-occupied regions of Ukraine. The referendums on whether they should join Russia started last week, and polls are due to run until Tuesday. Kyiv and its Western partners, including the United States, have decried the votes in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces as a sham, saying Moscow is likely to manipulate the outcome and use it as a pretext to annex Ukraines territory. Meanwhile, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church has said that Russian soldiers who die in the war against Ukraine will be cleansed of their sins. A Putin supporter, who has backed his invasion of Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill said dying on the battlefield can be seen as an act of sacrifice. We believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed, he said during a Sunday service. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Employees of the Russian Investigative Committee work at the scene of a shooting at school No. 88 in Izhevsk, Russia, on September 26, 2022. Russian Investigative Committee via AP A gunman killed at least seven children and six adults in a Russian school, officials said. Russia's Investigative Committee said the gunman wore all black with a red swastika. The adults who died included teachers and security guards, the committee said. A gunman opened fire in a Russian school on Monday, killing at least 13 people including seven children, Russian state officials said. Russia's Investigative Committee, the federal investigations authority, said 21 people were wounded. The gunman died by suicide, according to Reuters. Six adults, included teachers and security guards, were killed, the committee said. It is not clear what age the children injured or killed were. The shooting took place in Izhevsk, around 600 miles east of Moscow, Reuters reported. The gunman wore all black and a balaclava, and had a red swastika symbol on his t-shirt, officials said. The committee described it as a "Nazi symbol," the Associated Press reported. The swastika is an ancient symbol used by many cultures, but was adopted by Germany's Nazi party and is now used by many far-right and neo-Nazi individuals and groups. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the shooting "a terrorist act," the Associated Press reported. There is no indication that the shooting is connected to the panic in Russia over the war with Ukraine and Putin's recent mobilization of more troops. Read the original article on Business Insider If you're looking for a multi-bagger, there's a few things to keep an eye out for. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. So when we looked at GWR Group (ASX:GWR) and its trend of ROCE, we really liked what we saw. Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It? If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for GWR Group: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) 0.16 = AU$2.8m (AU$27m - AU$9.0m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021). Thus, GWR Group has an ROCE of 16%. In absolute terms, that's a satisfactory return, but compared to the Metals and Mining industry average of 8.4% it's much better. See our latest analysis for GWR Group roce While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you're interested in investigating GWR Group's past further, check out this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow. The Trend Of ROCE Shareholders will be relieved that GWR Group has broken into profitability. While the business was unprofitable in the past, it's now turned things around and is earning 16% on its capital. While returns have increased, the amount of capital employed by GWR Group has remained flat over the period. That being said, while an increase in efficiency is no doubt appealing, it'd be helpful to know if the company does have any investment plans going forward. After all, a company can only become a long term multi-bagger if it continually reinvests in itself at high rates of return. Story continues For the record though, there was a noticeable increase in the company's current liabilities over the period, so we would attribute some of the ROCE growth to that. The current liabilities has increased to 33% of total assets, so the business is now more funded by the likes of its suppliers or short-term creditors. Keep an eye out for future increases because when the ratio of current liabilities to total assets gets particularly high, this can introduce some new risks for the business. The Bottom Line On GWR Group's ROCE To bring it all together, GWR Group has done well to increase the returns it's generating from its capital employed. Investors may not be impressed by the favorable underlying trends yet because over the last five years the stock has only returned 2.4% to shareholders. So exploring more about this stock could uncover a good opportunity, if the valuation and other metrics stack up. On a final note, we found 5 warning signs for GWR Group (1 is a bit concerning) you should be aware of. While GWR Group may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here. 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. Join A Paid User Research Session Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here (Reuters) - Hammerhead Resources Inc plans to list on the Nasdaq by merging with blank check company Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation IV in a C$1.39 billion ($1.02 billion) deal, a rare U.S.-listing for a Canadian oil and gas producer. The listing for Hammerhead, focused on the Montney shale formation in Alberta, would be a litmus test for investor confidence in the Canadian oil and gas production business, as for years foreign private equity players and oil majors have been exiting the oil patch due to a myriad of issues. The merger also comes at a time when the frenzy around listings through the SPAC route have wound down after nearly two years of immense popularity. A SPAC typically raises money through an initial public offering, then looks for a company to buy. Special purpose acquisition company Decarbonization raised $275 million in August last year and said it was looking for a target focused on developing a platform that decarbonizes the most carbon-intensive sectors, including energy, agriculture, industrials and transportation. The deal with Hammerhead, backed by private equity firm Riverstone Holdings, is expected to close in the first quarter next year and generate gross proceeds of about $320 million, assuming minimal redemptions. Hammerhead intends to use the funds to accelerate its carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) program and deliver substantial production and cash flow growth over the next several years. Its decarbonization investment campaign across its asset base is estimated to require $240 million of capital between 2023 and 2029. The combined company, to be listed on Nasdaq and trade under "HHRS", will be managed by Hammerhead's current executive team led by Chief Executive Officer Scott Sobie. CIBC Capital Markets and Peters & Co. Limited are acting as financial and capital markets advisers to Hammerhead. ($1 = 1.3652 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) wrote a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland on Monday demanding answers after the FBI arrested a Catholic pro-life activist in Pennsylvania last week using SWAT-style tactics while letting actual terrorist acts like firebombings go unpunished. Mark Houcks wife, Ryan-Marie, told Catholic News Agency that a SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door on Friday to arrest her husband after he allegedly physically assaulted a 72-year-old Planned Parenthood clinic escort in October 2021. The Planned Parenthood clinic escort was attempting to escort two patients exiting the Philadelphia clinic when Houck allegedly forcefully shoved him to the ground, according to the Justice Department. On a separate occasion, Houck allegedly verbally confronted the escort and shoved him to the ground outside the clinic. The escort sustained injuries that required medical attention. However, Houcks wife told LifeSiteNews that her husband spoke outside of abortion clinics every Wednesday and sometimes brought their 12-year-old son. She said that her husband shoved the clinic escort after he invaded their sons personal space and said obscene things about her husband. I want to know from Merrick Garland directly why Bidens DOJ is arresting Catholic protestors like terrorists complete with SWAT-style tactics while letting actual terrorist acts like firebombings go unpunished pic.twitter.com/tU1Jwe4c7h Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 26, 2022 Not only did your office turn a local dispute into a national case, but the FBI reportedly executed the search warrant in as extreme a manner as one can imagine, Hawley wrote in his letter to Garland. Reports state that the FBI sent as many as 20 to 25 agents to conduct the arrest. And the FBI allegedly arrest Houck at gunpoint early in the morning in front of his seven children. Story continues He added: To say the least, using this kind of force to make an arrest for a single charge of simple assault is unprecedented. However, a spokesperson for the FBIs Philadelphia field office told Fox News that the SWAT claims are inaccurate. The spokesperson said: No SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved. FBI agents knocked on Mr. Houcks front door, identified themselves as FBI agents and asked him to exit the residence. He did so and was taken into custody without incident pursuant to an indictment. A senior FBI source reportedly told the outlet that there were not 25 agents at the arrest, but there may have been as many as 15 to 20 agents and that those who came to the familys door had guns out and at the ready, but they were never pointed at Houck or his family and were lowered or holstered after he was taken into custody. Houck has been charged with violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain or provide reproductive health services, according to the Department of Justice. Violating the FACE Act is federal offense. Houcks wife told LifeSiteNews that the Planned Parenthood escort previously tried to sue her husband but the District Court in Philadelphia dismissed the case this summer. Hawley called the reports of Houcks arrest especially shocking given that the DOJ has so far turned a blind eye to the epidemic of violence across the country by pro-abortion extremists against pregnancy resource centers, houses of worship, and pro-life Americans violent acts that are prohibited by the very same laws under which you are charging Mark Houck. The Missouri Republican notes that the Family Research Council has counted at least 104 incidents of extremist violence against pregnancy resource centers, churches, and pro-life Americans since the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion on May 2, including fire-bombings and arsons. Despite my repeated requests, you still have not identified a single prosecution the Department of Justice has taken in response to this epidemic of violence against pro-life Americans, Hawley wrote. He concludes his letter by calling on Garland to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his selective use and apparent political weaponization of the FACE Act. Hawley also gave Garland ten days to answer three questions: Why were 20-25 armed FBI agents sent to Mark Houcks home to execute an arrest for alleged simple assault, why did those agents have their guns drawn, and since May 3, 2022, how many charges has your department brought against pro-abortion extremists who have attacked pregnancy resource centers, churches, and pro-life Americans? More from National Review Authorities in New York have identified the remains of a headless torso discovered more than 40 years ago as Anna L. Papalardo-Blake (New York State Police) The identity of a headless, handless body found 42 years ago in New Yorks Hudson Valley has been identified by authorities. New York State Police announced they had identified the victim as Anna Papalardo-Blake, 44, who disappeared on 18 March 1980, thanks to advances in DNA forensic analysis. Police said Ms Papalardo-Blake left Vidal Sassoon on New York Citys 5th Avenue where she worked as a receptionist at around 6pm that evening. Investigators who have been trying to identify the headless corpse for more than four decades say it belongs to Anna Papalardo-Blake (New York State Police) Her remains were found in a travel trunk near a dumpster on the grounds of the Hudson View Apartment Complex in Fishkill, New York, two days later. For the past 42 years, investigators have followed hundreds of leads trying to identify the victim and the circumstances surrounding her death, the state police said in a release. Because of recent advances in genetic technology, an identifiable DNA sample was obtained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Investigative Genealogy Team, in partnership with Othram, a private lab that specialises in cutting edge forensic DNA analysis. Police did not say if they had identified a suspect in the case, but asked that anyone with information about the case contact them on 845-677-7300. When it comes to Jimmy Butler potentially playing power forward this season, the Miami Heats leading man said Monday that his team had better start considering Plan B. With power forward P.J. Tucker having left in free agency for the Philadelphia 76ers, and with the Heat not signing an outside replacement, Butler was asked at the teams media day at FTX Arena if he would be willing to play this season in a power role. If they absolutely wanted to have a conversation, Butler said of relenting to at least listen. But Im not going to play the four. The Heats other options at power forward include Caleb Martin, Haywood Highsmith, Max Strus, or one of the teams center types, such as Dewayne Dedmon or Omer Yurtseven, albeit with coach Erik Spoelstra rarely favoring big lineups. I could play the four, yes, if they absolutely needed me to play the four, yes, Butler said. Of Tucker leaving, Butler said with a smile, P.J.s a traitor. I tell him every single day. Butler, 33, said the Heat would find a way to make it work without the veteran power forward. There are going to be changes, he said. Everybody realizes roles are going to change. There are going to be a lot of changes that have nothing to do with me. As training camp comes along, its going to be exciting to see what this lineup is about. Butler also downplayed offseason workout video showing him spending significant time working on his 3-point game. He stressed that his focus remains getting into the paint and getting to the foul line. Scout me however you want, he said. Im still going to find a way to get into the paint. Of his offseason shift to a lengthier coif, Butler tried to insist that he hadnt added extensions. But he also said he did not know if he would continue with the look during the regular season. Im just messing with stuff to make the internet mad, he said of the long braids he continued to sport Monday. Adebayos attitude Following Butler in the interview room, center Bam Adebayo downplayed the Heat facing a power deficit without Tucker. Story continues We always find a way, he said. Thats the Miami Heat way. For his part, he said he plans to take a more proactive approach in the offense. Yeah, he said with a wide smile. We are a lot better when Im scoring. Heat President Pat Riley spoke at the end of last season of Adebayo getting up at least 15 shots a game. Adebayos response, 18, trying to get it up this year. You heard, Adebayo added of Riley, what the old man said about me. It is a big deal to me to come back better. The ongoing focus, though, he said, is to emerge with the NBAs Defensive Player of the Year award. I mean, at this point, its politics, he said of the annual media vote that went to Rudy Gobert and Marcus Smart the past two years. Herro ball Having said at the end of last season that he wanted to emerge as a starter, and with Riley saying shortly thereafter that such a role has to be earned, Tyler Herro somewhat softened the stance Monday. Im a team player, he said, whatever Spo and organization wants me to do. Herro, appreciative of the importance of a well-rounded rotation, said he would accept, whatever role fits me best. Eligible for an extension until the start of the regular season, Herro deferred such talk to his agent. Im focused this season on basketball, he said. But confidence remains firmly in place. My offensive skill set is one of the best in the league, he said. With room, he said, for growth, becoming more of a catch-and-shoot guy and attacking off the catch. Photo credit: PARK JI-HWAN - Getty Images Last week, a senior U.S. official stated that advanced tanks are on the table for Ukraine. The statement is a major change of policy, buoyed by Ukraines successful counteroffensive in the east. Tanks like the American M1 Abrams appear likelyas long as Ukrainian forces prove the ability to operate and maintain them. For the first time, U.S. officials stated last week that advanced, Western-style tanks are absolutely on the table for Ukraine. The statement is a reversal of policy that meant mostly defensive weapons would be provided to the beleaguered Eastern European country, now in its seventh month warding off a Russian invasion. Modern tanks, like the American M1 Abrams, would allow Ukraine to take back most (if not all) of its territory lost to Russian forces. Dont miss any of our best-in-class military and defense news. Join our squad with Pop Mech Pro. In a discussion on September 19 with Pentagon reporters, a reporter for NPR mentioned that a Ukrainian delegation had visited Washington D.C. and pushed for the U.S. government to provide tanks to Ukraine. A senior defense official replied that the Biden Administration was constantly looking at what Ukraine needed at that particular moment, and also what it would need further down the road. Tanks are absolutely on the table along with other areas, the unnamed official said. Photo credit: JANEK SKARZYNSKI - Getty Images Unlike the tanks already delivered, the official clearly hinted he or she was referring to Western-style tanks. This is a whole new level of aid, one that could provide Ukraine with some of the most lethal tanks in the world. The Pentagon is only contemplating such an escalation in aid due to Kyivs successful counteroffensive into Kharkiv and Kherson, which have freed more than 3,000 square miles of formerly occupied territory. NATO countries have heaped billions of dollars of aid onto Ukraine, including approximately 300 main battle tanks . These tanks, procured from Poland, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia, and Romania, are patterned on Soviet Cold War tanks, especially the T-72 series of main battle tanks. Ukrainian and Russian tanks are also patterned on the T-72 series, and to a lesser extent, the similar (but gas turbine-powered) T-80. This has allowed Ukrainian tankers and maintenance crews to quickly familiarize themselves with the donated tanks, pressing them into service faster. Story continues How Western Tanks Could Upend the Battlefield Photo credit: JUAN BARRETO - Getty Images There are some problems with the tanks provided so far. For one, they are largely obsolete by modern standards, though somelike the Polish PT-91 Twardy and the Romanian-provided T-55Shave seen modest improvements in firepower, fire control, sensors, and mobility. Second, the shared engineering DNA means that NATOs T-72s, like Russias frontline T-72, T-80, and T-90 tanks, have the same engineering tradeoff that means a penetration of the turret tends to send it hurtling some distance, with catastrophic consequences for the crew. Modern NATO-style tanks, which the Pentagon was clearly referring to, are decades more advanced than most tanks on the Ukrainian battlefield (the lone exception being a handful of Russian T-90M tanks.) NATO primarily fields the American M1A2 Abrams series of main battle tanks and German Leopard 2 tanks. These tanks include 120-millimeter main guns; advanced fire control and passive infrared night vision; and better engines, transmissions, and suspension systems. NATO tanks are faster, much more efficient killers than Ukraines existing tanks. All of that capability comes at a cost though, and not all of that cost is financial. Western tanks are complex fighting machines, and although an American and a Russian tank are designed to do the same thingprovide decisive firepower and mobility on the battlefield they are fundamentally different from the ground up. Despite the differences, the abrupt shift would well be worth it, because NATO tanks are decisively superior to Russian tanks, and their presence would be an earthquake on the Ukrainian battlefield. The Trouble With Operating NATO Tanks Photo credit: picture alliance - Getty Images Ukrainian tankers and tank maintainers, though they may have mastered their T-64 and T-64BM tanks , would have to relearn most tasks. They would also have to learn how to operate and repair a whole new level of electronics, including central computer systems, infrared sensors, ballistic computers, and digital communications equipment. It would take months to retrain even seasoned Ukrainian tank units with American tanks. There are also logistical considerations: NATO tanks use 120-millimeter tank ammunition and 7.62-millimeter machine gun ammunition, incompatible with current Ukrainian tank ammo. The American M1A2 Abrams tank also uses a gas turbine engine, which would require regular shipments of gasoline fuel to the front. Finally, a shift to NATO equipment would make Ukraine reliant on NATO for supplies, giving NATO a veto on Ukraines military actions. If NATO felt that Ukraines liberation of the Crimean peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, was too provocative, it could threaten to withhold supplies. That said, shipments of howitzers, drones, rockets, missiles, and other equipment over the last seven months means that ship probably sailed a long time ago. The Ukrainians have been here before, though. In June, the United States sent an initial shipment of four HIMARS rocket systems to Ukraine. The small consignment was both a response to an urgent request, but also a test to see if Ukraine would properly employ and maintain them. The Ukrainians used the first four rocket trucks to great effect, prompting the Pentagon to send 12 more. Which Western Tanks Could We See in Ukraine? Photo credit: DVIDS Of the two main NATO types, the Leopard 2 appears out of the running. Germanys ruling coalition has refused to provide modern, Western tanks, and even if another country decided to donate theirs, the Ukrainians would still be reliant on Germany for ammunition and spare parts. The United States would likely send the M1 Abrams tank. One option is to send older tanks, particularly the 200 M1A1 Abrams tanks recently retired by the U.S. Marine Corps . Another is to send more modern M1A2 tanks currently equipping U.S. Army and Army National Guard units. While this would leave American tankers sitting on their hands until replacements arrive, the argument is that the war is in Ukraine, and the tankers wont have to fight Russian forces if the Ukrainians destroy them first. The decision to send tanks to Ukraine is a major shift in NATO strategy and could open the alliance up to providing more advanced Western equipment, including fighter jets, infantry fighting vehicles, and more. It could also force Russia, which has suffered heavily from the deployment of just a handful of rocket launchers, to the negotiating table. The success of Ukraines September offensive strongly suggests that a Ukrainian Army properly outfitted with modern NATO equipment would completely rout the Russian Army. For Russia, the choices could be leaving Ukraine of its own accord ... or facing annihilation. You Might Also Like A U.K. agency said TikTok could face a fine equivalent of roughly $29 million over allegations of violating childrens data privacy protections. Meanwhile, NASAs scheduled launch of its Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis I mission was postponed again as a tropical storm moves toward the coast of Florida. This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hills Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here. TikTok could face $29 million fine TikTok could face a fine of 27 million pounds, or roughly $29 million, over allegations of violating the United Kingdoms childrens data privacy protection standards, a U.K. agency said Monday. TikTok allegedly breached the U.K.s protections for childrens data privacy between May 2018 and July 2020, in part by processing the data for children under 13 without appropriate parental consent, according to an investigation by the U.K.s Information Commissioners Office (ICO). The ICO also found that TikTok breached privacy protections by failing to provide proper information to users in a transparent way, and processing special category data without legal grounds to do so, according to the announcement. We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections. Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement, Information Commissioner John Edwards said in a statement. The announcement is a preliminary step, and the ICO will not impose any financial penalty before considering representations from TikTok. TikToks response: A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement, we disagree with the preliminary views expressed by the ICO and intend to formally respond to the ICO in due course. Story continues Read more here. NASA delays Artemis launch (again) NASA postponed the scheduled Tuesday launch of its Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis I mission as a major storm moves toward the coast of Florida. The space agency announced the delay in a statement after team members held a meeting Saturday. Officials will continue to watch the weather forecast coming with Hurricane Ian, which is expected to hit Florida as a major hurricane later this week, and are preparing for a rollback, in which the rocket would be taken off the launch platform to the vehicle assembly building. The delay is the third for the Artemis I mission that will see an unmanned spacecraft orbit the moon as the first step in a multiyear program through which people return to the moons surface for the first time in half a century. NASA delayed the launch first in late August and again earlier this month following technical problems. One of the rockets engines failed to condition to the correct temperature before the planned Aug. 29 launch, and engineers were unable to resolve a liquid hydrogen leak on Sept. 3. Read more here. MUSK ACTIVATES STARLINK SATELLITE IN IRAN SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced on Friday that he is activating the companys Starlink satellite internet service in Iran after U.S. officials eased sanctions to allow the Iranian people greater access to the internet. The Treasury Department announced the policy change earlier on Friday to let companies provide additional online services as the Iranian government has cut off internet access for most of the country as protests continue nationwide. Musk previously announced on Monday that he planned to request permission for Starlink to operate in Iran after the Treasury said it would welcome applications to support internet freedom in the country. We took action today to advance Internet freedom and the free flow of information for the Iranian people, issuing a General License to provide them greater access to digital communications to counter the Iranian governments censorship, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet. Read more here. BITS & PIECES An op-ed to chew on: NASAs flagship mission to Uranus should use nuclear propulsion Notable links from around the web: Whats that bag of white stuff? Some Uber drivers worry theyre drug mules (NBC News / David Ingram) TikTok Seen Moving Toward U.S. Security Deal, but Hurdles Remain (The New York Times / Lauren Hirsch, David McCabe, Katie Benner, Glenn Thrush) Lighter click: Its one of our favorites, too, Adam One more thing: Putin grants Snowden citizenship Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree granting citizenship to former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden fled the U.S. in 2013 after he leaked classified information about government surveillance programs and was charged with espionage. Hes been living in exile in Moscow for nearly a decade to avoid prosecution on American soil. He said in 2019 that he ultimately hoped to return home if the government guaranteed him a fair trial, but he contended the U.S. wasnt willing to let him defend his actions as having been made in the public interest. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Snowden requested an extended residency permit that would allow him to spend three more years in Russia. Later that year, Russia granted him an unlimited permit. Read more here. Thats it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hills Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. Well see you tomorrow. VIEW FULL VERSION HERE For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Courtesy Isabella Bower/Getty Ordering a hitman to kidnap your estranged wife, blackmail her, and inject her with heroin every day for a week isnt exactly the easiest way to find new love. But for Dr. Ronald Ilg, apparently, it worked. Ilg, a 56-year-old former neonatologist, is in the Spokane County Jail awaiting sentencing on two counts of threats in interstate commerce. The technical-sounding charge disguises the deviousness of what he recently copped to in court: messaging hitmen on the dark web to kidnap and torture his estranged wife in a bizarre plot to win her back. (The plot, thankfully, never worked; dark-web hitmen sites are notoriously unreliable.) Ilg has spent the last year in jail and last month struck a plea deal that could land him in prison for anywhere from five to eight years. But that hasnt stopped him from getting engagedto the wife of another inmate. I think hes one of the best people Ive ever met, the woman, Isabella Bower, told The Daily Beast. He was an amazing, amazing man... and pretty much lost it all over one mistake. Hitmen, Bunkers & Bondage: Inside the Case of Washington Baby Doctor Ronald Ilg Ilg and Bower met about nine months ago, after Bowers husbandwhom she is in the process of divorcingstarted talking to her incessantly about an enigmatic man locked up with him. Bower says her ex was convinced that Ilg was a good person caught in a bad situation and was so emphatic that Bower decided to look up the doctor. She immediately recognized him as the man whod worked out next to her years ago at the local YMCA and was so moved by the coincidence she decided to write him a letter. From there, she says, the sparks were instant. Bower says she included her phone number in the letter and that Ilg called her within days. He liked how docile and sweet she was; she liked how easy he was to talk to. Ilg accepted her eccentricities, her penchant for dressing up and wearing wigs, and seemed to keep a positive outlook despite his circumstances. Though calls from the jail are recorded and limited to 15 minutes each, the two have talked every day since, sometimes up to 10 times a day. Story continues Bower said the two plan to be married as soon as possible, even if it means getting hitched while Ilg is in prison. She never envisioned herself dating someone in prison, she said, but here I am in that situation, and I still don't know exactly how or why. It has to be a higher power or something that brought us together because we justwe equal each other out, she said. The only catch? Her true love might still be in love with another woman. When Ilg was charged in April 2021, it was the result of a remarkably messy love triangle. According to court documents, Ilg was attempting to add a second woman to his marriage with a local esthetician, who wasnt having it. His wife eventually filed for divorce, which Ilg protested by sending her hundreds of texts, bribing her to halt the divorce proceedings, and accidentally dropping lengthy letters next to her in a parking lot. Eventually, prosecutors said, he concocted a scheme to have a hitman kidnap her and inject her with heroin until she agreed to return to him. She is stubborn and will need lots of persuasion, he wrote in a message to the hitman site. On the day the diabolical scheme was scheduled to go down, Ilg was in Mexico with his mistress, who noticed him using his phone frequently and grew suspicious. The two fought, and the woman reached out to his estranged wife about her concerns. When Ilg and his mistress returned to Spokane, FBI agents greeted them at the airport. Once there, the mistress told the agents something they did not know: that she and Ilg were in a dominant/submissive, relationship in which the doctor allegedly forced her to call him sir and punished her by making her sit in an underground bunker outside his home. While in Mexico, she said, he forced her to sign a sex slave contract in blood. None of this particularly bothers Bower. When it comes to the hitman scheme, she says, she would have been flattered if someone went to those lengths to earn back her love. Plus, she says, no one actually got hurt in the process. He spent his life saving peoplebabies, at that, she said. You don't just get into that profession because you don't care. Baby Doctor Admits He Asked Hitmen to Kidnap and Drug His Wife As for the BDSM element, well, shes always been a little traditional, preferring to take a back seat and let men make decisions for her. In a moment of candor, she admitted that she had been physically abused in the past. At least Ilg, she said, was trying to be dominant in a positive way. What gives her pause is the fear that Ilg might still be in love with his mistress. After initial questioning by the FBI, Ilg attempted suicide and had to be hospitalized for four days. From his hospital bed, he called his wife and asked her to deliver a message to his mistress. Even from jail, he wrote letters to the womanin violation of a protective orderasking her to marry him and promising to pay for her childrens education if she did. Bower says she thinks Ilg has learned his lesson about seeing two women at once. (Obviously it backfired on him, she deadpanned.) But in the back of her mind, she still wonders whether hes truly over the other woman. Recently, she saw an article claiming that the mistress had been planning their wedding on Etsy before he was arrested. Bower didnt even know theyd been engaged. He does write about her to me a lot and still talks about her a lot, she said. When he gets out, I dont know how he will feel with that. He says one thing, but how will he really feel? It gives me a little bit of pause, she added. If he does love her and they do love each other, I dont want to be the person to interfere with that. But Im not going to be the third person in that either. For now, however, the two still plan on being wed as soon as possible. (Ilg confirmed as much to The Daily Beast in a call from jail.) Bower is working on a series of interviews with Ilg that she plans to post on YouTube so people can get a feeling for who he is. She hopes it will persuade the judge to go easier on him at his November sentencing. Her hope, she said, is that she and Ilg can have the normal picket-fence suburban life shes always dreamed of. I got the suburban life and I got the kids, she said. Whether anything about the union will be normal remains to be seen. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. By Farah Master and Joyce Zhou HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong is readying for a surge in travel after the global financial hub ended mandatory COVID-19 hotel quarantine for international arrivals on Monday, with travel companies reporting 10-fold jumps in requests. The curbs were lifted for the first time in more than 2-1/2 years after the city's leader, John Lee, said last week that such arrivals could return home or seek accommodation of their choice, but had to self-monitor for three days on entry. "I have been waiting for this for almost three years," said 58-year-old Hong Kong resident, Barbara Van Moppes, who arrived from Bangkok. "The rest of the world has opened up and so Hong Kong needs to open up now and return to normal, because its such a fantastic place to live." All international arrivals in the Chinese special administrative region had previously been forced to stay for as long as three weeks in hotel quarantine at their own expense, though the period was gradually cut to three days. But Monday's change still leaves Hong Kong far behind much of the world in dropping curbs. International arrivals are barred from bars and restaurants for three days. Athough allowed to go to work and school, they still need to do multiple COVID tests in the first week after arriving. Still, Hong Kong's Travel Industry Council expects outbound travel to surge as much as 50% for the next few months, executive director Fanny Yeung told public broadcaster RTHK. Growth would be capped by the number of outbound flights, however, Yeung cautioned, while inbound tourism was not likely to grow by much, inhibited by the existing curbs. Travel website Expedia Hong Kong said searches for Japan surged to 10 times last week while those for Taiwan almost doubled over the prior 14 days. Trip.com said flight searches surged 95 times and orders soared 50% on its Hong Kong site on the week, with Tokyo, Bangkok, Osaka and Singapore featuring as top destinations. International aviation body IATA said the next step would be for Hong Kong to scrap all COVID-19 measures. The former British colony had been a global outlier outside mainland China in imposing hotel quarantine for international arrivals, in line with the country's "dynamic zero" COVID strategy. Story continues Business groups, diplomats and many residents had slammed the COVID-19 rules saying they threatened Hong Kong's competitiveness and standing as a global financial centre. Stilll, residents landing at the city's airport were thrilled by Monday's easing. "Its now totally hassle-free, so I just came out within 30 minutes," said businessman Marjuk Mutahlif, 32. "I can go." (Additional reporting by Sophie Yu in Shanghai, Jamie Freed in Hong Kong and Twinnie Siu in Hong Kong; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Milly Alcock (left) and Emma D'Arcy (right) both play Rhaenyra Targaryen in the first season of "House of the Dragon." Ollie Upton / HBO "House of the Dragon" star Emma D'Arcy said they felt "conflicted" about Rhaenyra being recast. In the latest episode, D'Arcy takes over the role from Milly Alcock after a 10-year time jump. D'Arcy told the Independent that they're "well aware" of fans' love for Alcock as Rhaenyra. "House of the Dragon" star Emma D'Arcy said that they felt "conflicted" about their first appearance in the show following a time-jump recasting. In the first five episodes of the "Game of Thrones" prequel, the role of Rhaenyra Targaryen was played by 22-year-old Australian actress Milly Alcock. Alcock quickly became a fan favorite but, after a time jump in the latest episode, the actor is replaced by D'Arcy, 30, to portray an older version of Rhaenyra. In a new interview with the Independent, the "House of the Dragon" star reflected on seeing fans mourn Alcock leaving the series. "It's complicated, isn't it?" D'Arcy said. "It's a difficult point at which to meet an audience. They only get me when they lose Milly, so they meet me in a place of grief, of losing someone they just spent five hours with. I'm... I'm well aware of that." D'Arcy added that they spoke about it to their costar Matt Smith, who also had to follow a fan favorite actor when he took the lead in "Doctor Who" after David Tennant's time as the Doctor. "I had a nice chat with Matt the other day, and he said it's like the 'Doctor Who' curse. You've got to regenerate," they explained. "And yeah, unfortunately, Rhaenyra is going to completely change body and face in a couple of hours." In a previous interview, Smith, who plays Rhaenyra's uncle Daemon, praised the performance of the younger stars in the show. Alicent Hightower and twins Laenor and Laena Valeryon were also played by child actors before being recast in episode six. Daemon is played by Matt Smith, who was born on October 28, 1982. HBO and Getty Images "A lot of the young actors in it are going to emerge as stars I think," Smith said during a roundtable interview, which Insider attended, ahead of the series premiere of "House of the Dragon." Story continues During an interview with Nylon Magazine earlier this month, Alcock said that she is still getting used to her newfound fame. "It just makes me incredibly anxious. Me seeing my face constantly is straining," Alcock said. "No one should have to do that. It fuckin' sucks, man. I don't know how the socialites of the world can do that. It's kind of driving me off the wall. It's an incredibly difficult space to navigate." The actor explained that her friends and family are not celebrities so she doesn't really have many people to talk to in her life. She also said that she found filming the show "intimidating" because she had never done something on the scale of "House of the Dragon." "You quickly adapt and it all becomes quite normal," Alcock said. "But the first two, three months I just thought I was going to get fired constantly. It was incredibly intimidating." New episodes of "House of the Dragon" air Sundays on HBO at 9 p.m. ET. Read the original article on Insider *Spoilers for House of the Dragon below you have been warned* House of the Dragon stars Matt Smith and Paddy Considine both had positive words about the shows cast change, which fans have lamented since the series started. Episode five marked the end of the journey for actors Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, who played Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower. Episode six (released 25 September) saw time in the fictional world jump forward by 10 years and the two actors were replaced by Emma DArcy and Olivia Cooke, respectively. Laena and Laenor Valaryon actors Nova Fouellis-Mose and Theo Nate were also replaced by Nanna Blondell and John MacMillan. It was brilliant, actually, Smith, who plays Daemon Targaryen, E! News of the cast change, because I think theyve done brilliant work. Milly Alcock and Matt Smith in House of the Dragon (Ollie Upton / HBO) He added: It gave you a completely different context for the age thing to play off. Considine also praised the switch, saying: Yeah, I loved it. I loved it because they were the same character, but they [had] different energy. Under 22-year-old Alcocks stewardship, Rhaenyra was aged 15-17 in the show while 19-year-old Careys Alicent was supposed to be of a similar age. Fans were distraught over the stars departure, particularly Alcocks as she quickly won favour with fans for her performance as the young princess. Milly Alcock and Emily Carey in House of the Dragon (HBO) Milly Alcock as young Rhaenyra Targaryen is one of the most perfect castings ever, Ill never get over it, one complained. The change is made even more surprising due to the fact that Aegon II, who is supposed to be around 14 in the series, will be played by 27-year-old actor Tom Glynn-Carney. DArcy is eight years older than Alcock at 30 while Cooke is nine years older than Carey at 28. House of the Dragon airs weekly on Sundays in the US, with the UK premiere arriving 2am the following morning on Sky. The episodes are then repeated at 9pm on Mondays, and will be available to stream on Sky and NOW after their initial airing. In a video, a man is seen in the water with his hands raised. (Courtesy of the Outlaw Ocean Project) Crimes like this dont often happen on land. A 10-minute slow-motion slaughter captured by a cellphone camera shows a group of unarmed men at sea in an undisclosed location, possibly 15 of them, being killed one by one by a semiautomatic weapon, after which the culprits pose for celebratory selfies. This case shows the challenge of prosecuting crimes on the high seas. There were at least four ships on the scene, but no law required any of the dozens of witnesses to report the killings and no one did. Law enforcement in the open ocean is limited, and jurisdiction is complicated. Authorities learned of the killings only when the video turned up on a cellphone left in a taxi in Fiji in 2014. Listen and subscribe to "The Outlaw Ocean" podcast by clicking here. Its still unclear who the victims were or why they were shot. An unknown number of similar killings take place each year deckhands on the ship from which the video was shot later said they had witnessed a similar slaughter a week before. After receiving the video from a source at Interpol in an email with the subject line Brace yourself, the Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., started an investigation that resulted in the 2021 conviction of Wang Feng Yu, the captain of the Taiwanese-flagged Ping Shin 101, who was taken into custody by the Taiwanese coast guard in 2020. The details of this tireless investigation are chronicled in this first dramatic episode of the new podcast series The Outlaw Ocean from CBC Podcasts and the L.A. Times. Listen to it here: Trygg Mat Tracking, a Norwegian research firm that focuses on maritime crime, identified the Ping Shin 101 by comparing video footage with images in a maritime database. Former deckhands were identified through Facebook posts and on other social media platforms in which they had discussed their time onboard. Interviews with these former deckhands, some of whom said they had witnessed the killings captured in the video, revealed the name of the captain and details of the incident. Story continues Taiwanese officials, presented with the names of the men and ships in 2015 and 2016, said the victims appeared to be part of a failed pirate attack. But maritime security analysts cautioned that the claim of piracy had been used to justify attacks undertaken to counter a range of offenses, real or otherwise. The victims, they said, might have been crew members who had mutinied, thieves caught stealing or simply rival fishermen. Men in the video celebrating on the deck of a boat take selfies after the murders. (Courtesy of the Outlaw Ocean Project) Such killings will continue to go unchecked without better tracking of offshore violence, more transparency from flag registries and fishing companies, and more effort by governments to prosecute the perpetrators. And that matters because what occurs at sea affects everyone. By some estimates, upwards of 90% of international trade is moved by sea, and seafood is a major source of protein for much of the world. The Ping Shin 101 sank on July 7, 2014, less than two years after the shootings captured on the video. Wang, still the captain at the time, broadcast a distress signal citing a mechanical failure. The men who were murdered were apparently shot from the deck of the Taiwanese fishing vessel Ping Shin 101. (Courtesy of the Outlaw Ocean Project) Taiwanese authorities issued an arrest warrant for Wang in December 2018. In August 2020, prosecutors got their break. A tuna long-liner called the Indian Star, owned by a Taiwanese company and flagged to Seychelles, arrived in Kaohsiung, a city on Taiwans southwestern coast. The fishing ship had a history of violations, including using forged licenses and fishing in forbidden areas. More important to authorities, though, was the man who captained the vessel. Wang Feng Yu stepped ashore and, eight years after allegedly shouting the orders to kill in that grainy video, was finally arrested. The captain was shortly convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison for the killing, bringing a dramatic end to the seven-year investigation. Ian Urbina is the director of the Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on environmental and human rights concerns at sea globally. It was a little over a week ago that Iranian drones first began appearing in the skies over Ukraine. Andriana Arekhta, a junior sergeant with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said the drones flew from Crimea to attack her special forces unit fighting near the southern city of Kherson. The drones evaded the soldiers defenses and dropped bombs on their position, destroying two tanks with their crews inside. Its very difficult to see these drones on radars, said Arekhta, who traveled to Washington, D.C., last week as part of a delegation of female Ukrainian soldiers. Its a huge problem. Over the past week, Russia has deployed Shahed and Mohajer combat drones imported from Iran in greater numbers across Ukraine, with devastating results. Some hit combat positions, smashing tanks and armored vehicles, while others struck civilian infrastructure, including in the port city of Odesa. In his nightly address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his countrys anti-aircraft forces had shot down more than a dozen drones in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and Odesa. The Ukrainian Air Force identified them as Shahed-136 kamikaze drones and Mohajer-6 drones that carry munitions and can also be used for reconnaissance. But in interviews, a Ukrainian activist and three soldiers said the Iranian drones pose a major threat to both fighters and civilians. Their arrival on the battlefield makes the need for the West to send additional modern weaponry even more urgent, as Kyiv tries to seize on recent gains to retake as much territory as possible before winter sets in, they said. The Iranian drones appear to be a potential game-changer for the Russians. They are relatively small and fly at low altitude, evading Ukrainian radars. Arekhta said she could shoot them down with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, but only during the day because the U.S.-provided weapons do not come with a night-vision system. Ukraine needs modern air defenses, such as the Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar systems the U.S. used in Afghanistan, and 360-degree radar to counter the new threat, the visiting group said. Story continues I need to be in position against Russian helicopters on one side and Iranian drones came from another side, Arekhta said. Its very hard to close the huge area with Stingers, with other weapons that can hit these drones. Arekhta uses the Switchblade 300 drones provided by Washington, but they are essentially commercial systems that are not powerful enough to work against armored vehicles and artillery, she said. Ukraine needs the upgraded Switchblade 600 drones, a loitering munition she described as a flying Javelin. Washington has contracted with manufacturer AeroVironment to send the 600 version, but they likely wont arrive for many months. Ukrainian forces are now fighting the Russians on two fronts: advancing east from the Oskil River into the contested Donbas region, and south from Kherson. After an initial breakthrough at the beginning of the month during which Kyiv recaptured much of the Russian-occupied Kharkiv region, gains have slowed significantly. Ukrainian soldiers are now pushing into the entrenched Donbas, where the two sides have been essentially deadlocked since 2014. In the Donetsk oblast, the battle is now more difficult because Russian forces are fighting from trenches and shelters built years ago, said Ivanna Chobaniuk, a medic who was serving near Kharkiv before she traveled to D.C. last week. In the northeast, Ukrainian soldiers are trying to retake ground using Toyotas and other civilian cars which are particularly vulnerable to drone attack because their old armored vehicles were destroyed, Chobaniuk said. The old Soviet-era tanks Kyiv operates have a myriad of problems, Arekhta said. The soldiers frequently get error messages when using the aiming system and there is no fire protection system, forcing them to use a small fire extinguisher on the outside of the tank if they are hit. The tanks dont connect to the soldiers Western-provided radios, so Arekhta has to use her cell phone to communicate. In the winter, Soviet tank doesnt work at all, she said. Kyiv needs modern tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Humvees to help Ukraines forces advance in the face of heavy Russian artillery, the soldiers said. It is now when we have momentum, said Daria Kaleniuk, the head of the Ukrainian nonprofit the Anti-Corruption Action Center. We keep counterattacking and counterattacking in Toyotas, in civilian cars it is very inconvenient, especially if Iranian drones are flying over. Kyiv is trying to recapture as much ground as possible before winter sets in, the soldiers said. But now they have a new problem: in response to their counteroffensive, Vladimir Putin has mobilized 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine. While there are questions about the quality of the soldiers Putin has called up, Russia will use the colder months, when fighting typically slows, to train and equip them, the Ukrainian soldiers said. If we give them that time, in spring there will be an epic battle another epic battle, said Daria Zubenko, a senior sergeant who has served as a paramedic and sniper. Ukraine could use the winter to train its forces on more advanced weapons that the West has not yet greenlighted for instance, modern battle tanks and fighter jets, Kaleniuk said. The Ukrainian Armed Forces two weeks ago submitted an official letter of request asking for either used or new fighter jets, and its air force has identified a few dozen pilots who speak English and are prepared to begin training immediately, she said. But modern tanks and jets may be little more than a pipe dream , at least for now. Although Pentagon officials have left the door open to sending Kyiv the U.S.-made F-16 fighter jet, top generals said the planes wouldnt arrive for years after any political decision was made to donate them. Im really fed up of losing my friends, Arekhta said. Sometimes I just say happy birthday on social media, on Facebook, and the answer is: he is dead. By Krisztina Than and Anita Komuves BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Hungary should prepare for a prolonged war in neighbouring Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday, sharply criticising European Union sanctions imposed on Russia which he said have "backfired", driving up energy prices. Orban, long at odds with the EU over some of his policies seen in Brussels as anti-democratic, urged a ceasefire to end the war and said the sanctions against Russia were dealing a blow to Europe's economy. Orban, who was reelected for a fourth consecutive term in April, now faces surging inflation, plunging consumer confidence and the prospect of a recession next year. He told parliament it was no surprise that governments were falling in Europe, referring to the Italian election on Sunday following which Giorgia Meloni looks set to lead Italy's most right-wing government since World War Two. "We can safely say that as a result of the sanctions, European people have become poorer, while Russia has not fallen to its knees," Orban said. "This weapon has backfired, with the sanctions Europe has shot itself in the foot." "We are waiting for an answer, the entire Europe is waiting for an answer from Brussels on how long we will keep doing this," he said, adding it was also time to discuss the sanctions with the United States. Orban, whose government is in talks with the European Commission to secure billions of euros in EU funds blocked over rule-of-law concerns, said his government would launch a "national consultation" asking Hungarians about sanctions. Orban has previously used this campaign tool to shore up domestic support for his Fidesz party on policies such as gay rights or migration. Orban said his government had revised its long-term energy strategy and aims to overhaul the power system and extend the lifespan of the Paks nuclear power plant, with a total of 32 big investments planned to be financed using EU funding. "If the Brussels bureaucrats do not give us this money, which Hungary is eligible for, then we will get the necessary funds from other financial sources," Orban said, adding Hungary had started talks with the EU and "other international partners". He did not elaborate. (Reporting by Krisztina Than and Anita Komuves; Editing by Jon Boyle and Peter Graff) Republican Gov Ron DeSantis of Florida issued an emergency declaration for the state as Hurricane Ian prepares to make landfall. Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Hurricane Ian is set to hit Florida's Gulf Coast this week. Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued a state of emergency in Florida as the response kicks into high gear. Biden postponed a campaign event in the state. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is preparing to face what's projected to be his first major hurricane as governor just six weeks before Election Day. Hurricane Ian could become a Category 4 storm as early as Tuesday and into Wednesday. The designation means the hurricane is predicted to reach between 130 and 156 mph, and DeSantis warned in a press conference in Tallahassee on Monday morning that Ian would be 500 miles wide. "We know we are going to have some major impacts throughout the state of Florida," said DeSantis, a Republican. He warned about "significant flooding" in Tampa, as well as power outages, fuel interruptions, and traffic backups in areas that are being evacuated. Certain parts of Tampa have been evacuated as well as parts of Manatee County, which surrounds Bradenton. DeSantis declared a state of emergency for all of Florida on Saturday and activated 2,500 members of the Florida National Guard. The storm already delayed several campaign-related events. President Joe Biden had been scheduled to appear at a Democratic National Committee event in Orlando on Tuesday with Democrat Charlie Crist, a former congressman and gubernatorial candidate who's running to unseat DeSantis in November. The DNC postponed the event given the impending storm. Crist also canceled a rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with the multicultural organization Faith in Florida on Monday evening when he'd been scheduled to appear alongside Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who is running for the US Senate. Demings had not planned on campaigning with Biden in Orlando even though it's in her district, NBC News reported. Sen. Marco Rubio, who is Demings' GOP opponent in the Senate race, postponed a campaign event that was set to occur this week in rural Homestead, Florida, because of the impending hurricane. Story continues "Please take this storm seriously," Rubio tweeted Monday morning. His office said in a statement to Insider that his staff was prepared to assist with emergency measures. DNC guidance shows Biden had been set to discuss Medicare and Social Security at Tuesday's event. But the event could also have given the president a launching pad to criticize DeSantis in his own backyard for sending planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Biden declared a federal state of emergency on Saturday, allowing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to help with the response. DeSantis, who frequently criticizes the Biden administration, took a bipartisan tone in a press conference on Sunday during which he thanked the Biden administration for its assistance. "They stand by ready to help, so we appreciate that quick action," he said. A sign directs hurricane evacuees to safety. Darwin Brandis/Getty Images Florida prepares for the storm The storm is set to intensify before hitting Cuba's coast on Monday into Tuesday, and is set to head up Florida's Gulf Coast. It's still possible the storm will weaken. Parts of Florida that are not in the storm's direct path, such as Miami, could still face heavy winds and rain. The Florida Division of Emergency Management this weekend began assisting the state with trucks of food, water, generators, and water pumps. DeSantis' emergency declaration also allows Floridians to bypass typical time limits on prescriptions and stock up early. DeSantis cautioned that "there is no need to panic buy fuel" and said that some tolls had been suspended so that people who needed to evacuate their homes could navigate the roads more easily. In a press conference Monday afternoon in Largo, Florida, state Attorney General Ashley Moody reminded businesses that Florida law prohibits them from price gouging supplies people will need. She encouraged viewers to download an iPhone app called "No Scam" that will help Floridians report price increases. "You cannot take advantage of an emergency situation and drastically increase prices," Moody said. In 2019, DeSantis oversaw the response to Hurricane Dorian as it threatened Florida, but the storm ended up being far less devastating than projected. Five counties including in Hillsborough County, where Tampa is located, and Pinellas, which houses clearwater and St. Petersburg where Crist is from have implemented school closures. "Our entire county is going to feel some type of impact," Cathie Perkins, director of Pinellas County Emergency Management, said at the Largo press conference. The county was expecting between 10 to 15 feet surges, she said, and "widespread flooding," as well as a risk of tornadoes. The county is doing a mandatory evacuation order for certain sections of the county after 6 p.m., and others on Tuesday morning. Officials said people didn't necessarily need to travel to another state, given that shelters were being made available in the county, but needed to get out of harm's way. Mobile homes are part of the evacuation order. "This kind of storm is going to cause serious damages and widespread power outages," Perkins said. GOP Sen. Rick Scott urged Floridians to prepare for the storm through stocking up on food and water, and setting up an evacuation plan in case local officials advise people to vacate their area. The state determines evacuation zones based on flooding risk. Scott began tweeting about the storm last week and reported on Sunday that he spoke with director of National Weather Service Ken Graham, after which he warned on Twitter that Ian would be a "big & dangerous storm." "Every Floridian needs to stay alert and take this storm seriously," Scott said in a statement released through his office. "If a major hurricane hits Florida, it could be absolutely devastating." This story has been updated with additional comments from state and local officials, and the news that the Fort Lauderdale Democratic rally has now been postponed. Read the original article on Business Insider Yet another Florida insurance company, FedNet, is going belly up Monday as Hurricane Ian sets its sights on Floridas west coast. Floridas insurance market is on life support as it stands. If Ian hits heavily-populated Tampa Bay as expected, industry experts fear it could drive more insurers into bankruptcy and lead to double digit rate hikes for every policy holder in the state. Duval homeowner Agron Meci has property insurance now, but hes in the market for a new carrier. His current policy is set to expire next month because his insurance company is facing bankruptcy. Hes now looking at his annual bill doubling. The last one I had was around $1,200 and the one I got the other day was $2,500, said Meci. Six Florida insurance companies have gone belly up this year alone, leaving policyholders like Meci between a rock and a hard place. Read: Hurricane Ian: Northeast Florida school closure information Many have gone to Floridas state-backed insurer of last resort, Citizens, which now has over one million policies nearly twice as many as it had this time last year. State Senator Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg) has worked on Floridas property insurance problems for years. He described the threat posed by Hurricane Ian as the sum of all his fears. Youre talking about a 40 to $50 billion event, which is gonna potentially devastate some of the insurers we have currently in the market, said Brandes. Brandes anticipates policy holders in the private market can expect to see rate hikes of up to 40% next year as a result of Ian. He also noted Citizens holds about a quarter of the policies in Tampa Bay and estimated the company could see claims nearing $10 billion from Ian. If Citizens cant pay those claims or drains its reserves, every Floridian with a home or auto policy would be on the hook to pick up the tab through assessments essentially a hurricane tax levied on policy holders. Story continues Every policy holder in the state of Florida, home and auto, should be watching this storm very carefully because it could have a direct impact on their pocketbooks, said Brandes. Read: How to keep your puppies safe during the hurricane For policyholders like Meci, theres little they can do but eat the cost. It might be a little bit higher, but I have to have it, said Meci. We spoke with Citizens spokesperson Michael Peltier. Peltier couldnt say whether Ian will result in a hurricane tax, but he said a direct hit to Tampa Bay would be very different than if the storm makes landfall further north in the Panhandle. Thats the $64 million question, said Peltier. For those currently without an insurance policy, its too late to purchase one. Insurance companies dont write policies when a named storms landfall is imminent. Even if you could get a policy, it wouldnt kick in for at least 30 days. Whether you have coverage or not, make sure you photograph or video your property and valuable belongings before the storm hits. Read: Portable Generators and Hurricane Ian If you have renters insurance, those policies generally cover all the belongings within your home and there typically is not deductible on claims. Michael Barry with the Insurance Information Institute said if you dont have insurance that doesnt necessarily mean you cant get help if your home sustains damage. FEMA assistance can become available if the President issues a disaster declaration in your county. Again, its not as generous as a homeowners insurance policy or flood insurance policy is gonna be, but FEMA individual disaster assistance will probably be your best recourse if found yourself to be uninsured, said Barry. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. Major cruise lines have adjusted plans due to Hurricane Ian, in some cases changing nearly entire itineraries or canceling sailings altogether. Norwegian Cruise Line rerouted a Sept. 25 round-trip cruise from Miami with scheduled stops in George Town, Grand Cayman, Roatan, Honduras, and Harvest Caye, Belize, and Cozumel, Mexico, a spokesperson told USA TODAY in an email. The Norwegian Sky will instead visit San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and Nassau in the Bahamas. "The safety and security of our guests and crew is always our number one priority," the spokesperson said, adding that passengers with shore excursions booked through Norwegian at impacted ports would be refunded via their onboard accounts. The cruise line also canceled a 10-day Caribbean sailing on Norwegian Getaway scheduled to leave on Thursday from Orlando, Florida, according to a statement on its website. MSC Cruises also made major changes to MSC Seashore's Sept. 24 sailing from Miami, swapping its Western Caribbean itinerary for Eastern Caribbean stops, including the line's private island, Ocean Cay, Nassau in the Bahamas and Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. 'We are not OK': In Comerio, Puerto Rico, Hurricane Fiona has left people without water, food and medicine See the scope: Hurricane Fiona's damage in Puerto Rico in charts and graphics "Guests received a full refund of any shore excursion booked for destinations the ship will no longer be calling at, and shore excursions booked for Ocean Cay were automatically rescheduled for the new call date there," MSC spokesperson Field Sutton said in an email. MSC Divina also skipped a stop at Ocean Cay Tuesday, making its way to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, instead, and "tentatively plans" to head back to Florida's Port Canaveral on Friday, a day later than planned, Sutton said. A three-night sailing on the ship scheduled for Thursday has been canceled as well. Story continues The changes come after Hurricane Fiona disrupted cruise schedules, forcing Norwegian to reroute a cruise bound for Bermuda to Canada last week. Other major lines such as Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International have similarly altered itineraries as a result of Hurricane Ian. What other cruise lines have made changes? Carnival canceled three sailings due to port closures in Jacksonville, Tampa, and Port Canaveral in Florida. The cruise line called off four-day sailings on Carnival Elation and Carnival Paradise from Jacksonville and Tampa, respectively, and a three-day trip on Carnival Liberty from Port Canaveral, spokesperson Matt Lupoli said in an email. Carnival Elation and Carnival Paradise were scheduled to leave Thursday, with Carnival Liberty departing on Friday, and all passengers will get full refunds and 25% future cruise credits. The line delayed a Saturday sailing on Carnival Sunshine as well. The ship will now leave on Sunday, due to a port closure in Charleston, South Carolina, that has delayed its return. Passengers will "receive a one-day pro-rated refund of our cruise fare and a $50 onboard credit," and those who decide not to sail will get a full refund, according to Lupoli. Carnival Elation also swapped its scheduled visit to Princess Cays for a day at sea Tuesday and visited Freeport in the Bahamas Wednesday in place of a planned sea day, during a sailing from Jacksonville. The ship, which had been scheduled to come back on Thursday, is set to dock in Jacksonville when the port reopens, which Lupoli said is expected to take place Saturday. Carnival Liberty did not stop at Princess Cays Wednesday during a sailing from Port Canaveral, and Carnival Horizon did not stop at Grand Cayman on its sailing from Miami, opting for a sea day instead. The ship is expected to get back to Port Canaveral Saturday, one day later than scheduled. Carnival Paradise, which is on a sailing from Tampa, extended its Tuesday stop in Cozumel through Wednesday. The vessel is set to dock in Tampa when the port reopens. That is expected to take place Saturday, though the ship had been scheduled to return Thursday. Carnival Sunrise also skipped a stop in Bimini in the Bahamas Wednesday during a sailing from Miami, spending a day at sea instead. Lupoli said Carnival Ecstasy, which left from Mobile, Alabama, Monday, would reorder its visits to Cozumel and Progreso, Mexico, stopping in Progreso first. Another ship, Carnival Glory, departed New Orleans on Sept. 25 and was set to stop in Mahogany Bay and Roatan, Honduras, as well as Belize and Cozumel, rather than its previously planned stops, which included Key West, Florida, and Nassau. Royal Caribbean International has adjusted plans and its ships have skipped several ports as a result of the storm. Mariner of the Seas' Thursday sailing from Port Canaveral which is currently closed will now depart on Saturday, the cruise line said on its website. The ship will not visit Nassau, but will visit Perfect Day at CocoCay on Sunday. Independence of the Seas' Friday voyage will now leave on Saturday, as well, and will not visit Perfect Day at CocoCay, but will stop in Nassau on Sunday as scheduled. Those who sail will be compensated in on board credits, while passengers who decide to cancel can get a full refund. Mariner of the Seas also skipped a visit to Labadee, Haiti, Monday on a sailing from Florida's Port Canaveral, a Royal Caribbean Group spokesperson said in an email. The spokesperson said Allure of the Seas would skip its scheduled visit to Roatan Tuesday during its sailing from Fort Lauderdale, and Liberty of the Seas would not stop in Cozumel as planned Tuesday. Celebrity Cruises replaced stops in Belize and Cozumel on a Celebrity Infinity sailing from Fort Lauderdale Sept. 24 with visits to Nassau and Labadee, the Royal Caribbean Group spokesperson said. Disney Cruise Line canceled a Friday sailing on its Disney Wish ship, according to its website. Passengers booked on the cruise, which was scheduled to leave from Port Canaveral, "will automatically receive a full refund back to their original form of payment," a Disney Cruise Line spokesperson said in an email. "Additionally, were providing each guest with a 20% future cruise discount." Hurricane Fiona hurtles through Bermuda; Atlantic Canada braces for 'historic storm' Where is Hurricane Ian headed? The coasts of North and South Carolina could see "life-threatening storm-surge" Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center. The center also said hurricane-force winds "are expected along the coasts of South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina within the Hurricane Warning area soon," among other impacts. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hurricane Ian forces cruise lines to change itineraries hurricane ian AP/Shutterstock Satellite image of Hurricane Ian Hurricane Ian is continuing to gain strength as it barrels through the Gulf of Mexico and toward the United States. A Hurricane Watch is now in effect for a portion of Florida's west coast, including Tampa Bay and Sarasota, according to the National Weather Service, after Ian intensified into a hurricane overnight. Forecasters predict the storm will become a major hurricane late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, the National Hurricane Center said in an update shared Monday morning. Ian currently has maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, and is expected to "continue rapidly strengthening" until it makes landfall in the U.S. on Wednesday. RELATED: 6.8-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Mexico, 3 Days After Another Deadly Quake Hillsborough County has issued a mandatory evacuation order for Evacuation Zone A and a voluntary evacuation for Zone B. Manatee County issued the same orders on Monday. "This is a worst-case scenario with a very strong slow-moving storm just to the west of us," Manatee County Administrator Scott Hopes said, per the county's website. hurricane ian GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Floridians line up outside of a Sam's Club as they prepare for Hurricane Ian Forecasters believe Ian will maintain major hurricane status as it travels over the southeastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday before it hits Florida. Several parts of Florida including the lower Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas are under a Tropical Storm Warning ahead of Ian's landfall, according to the NWS. A Tropical Storm Watch is also in place for various locations from the Middle Keys to Orlando. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free weekly newsletter to get the biggest news of the week delivered to your inbox every Friday. Heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surge are expected to impact Florida by the middle of the week. Flooding is of particular concern "given already saturated conditions," the hurricane center said. Story continues hurricane ian ristobal Reyes/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty The Florida Keys are expected to receive four to six inches of rain while central west Florida may see eight to 10 inches, including some areas that could even receive upwards of 15 inches. Portions of the Peninsula, meanwhile, may see three to eight inches of rain. Portions of the Florida coast, including Tampa Bay, could also see a 10-foot storm surge, while other coastal communities may experience between two and eight feet. RELATED: At Least 1 Dead in Puerto Rico After Hurricane Fiona Creates 'Catastrophic' Floods and Power Outages On Sunday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned the entire state of Florida of the potential destruction that could result from Hurricane Ian, according to CNN. "Make preparations now," DeSantis said. "The things that you should be prepared with are things like food, water, batteries, medicine, fuel." Tropical Storm Ian strengthened into a hurricane Monday while racing across the Caribbean toward Cuba and threatening a big hit to Florida's west coast later in the week. At 5 a.m. EDT on Monday, Ian was moving northwest at 13 mph, about 90 miles southwest of Grand Cayman, according to the National Hurricane Center. It had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph. Ian was forecast to intensify rapidly and become a major hurricane as soon as late Monday. As Ian approaches Florida, Accuweather said the storm could reach Category 4 status, which means sustained winds between 130 mph and 156 mph. "In just a few days, Ian is likely to be a dangerous, major hurricane," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Adam Douty said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged residents to load up on food, water, medicine, batteries and fuel. He said it was too soon to determine when or even if Ian will make landfall, but that evacuations may be ordered in coming days. "Expect heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge and even isolated tornadoes. Make preparations now," he said Sunday. "Anticipate power outages. That is something that is likely to happen with a hurricane of this magnitude." The National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm watch for the lower Florida Keys Sunday. "Significant" wind and storm surge damage was expected across a wide swath of the Atlantic Basin, and the Cuban government upgraded the hurricane watch to warning. Such storms can cause "catastrophic" damage, with power outages that can last weeks or possibly months, according to the National Weather Service description. Areas can be uninhabitable for weeks or months, the weather service says. Even if youre not necessarily right in the eye of the path of the storm, theres going to be pretty broad impacts throughout the state," DeSantis said. IAN COULD BE MAJOR HURRICANE SOON: Statewide emergency in Florida declared Storm could drive heavy rains all week Heavy rainfall may affect north Florida, the Florida panhandle and the southeast United States through Saturday, the weather service update said. Flooding and rising area streams and rivers across the region "can't be ruled out" later this week, especially in central Florida due to already saturated conditions, the updated warned. Story continues Still no water or electricity: Voices from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona East coast of Florida not in the clear Though the track had shifted westward, parts of the state's east coast remained solidly within the edges of Ian's forecast cone Sunday. Melbourne resident Pat Alderman wasn't taking any changes, buying ten 50-pound bags of sand, along with 50 empty sandbags, at Lowe's in West Melbourne to fortify her back patio door against floodwaters. She has a backyard pond, and her soils are saturated with recent rainfall. Alderman, shopping at Lowe's on Sunday, said she had a generator and roll-down shutters no need to board her windows. "This is from decades of living in Florida," she said. 'If you've lived here for a while, you need to have all these things. Transplants don't understand." In Tampa, stocking up on water and sandbags John Cangialosi, a senior hurricane specialist at hurricane center, said Floridians should begin preparations, including gathering supplies for potential power outages, he said. "For those in Florida, its still time to prepare," he said. "Im not telling you to put up your shutters yet or do anything like that, but its still time to get your supplies." Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said city sandbag sites were open. She urged residents to shop for several days of necessities now and to check family disaster kits and plans. "Are you #TampaReady?" she tweeted. "Its never too early to prepare." Residents agreed. Shoppers at a Walmart Supercenter Tampa were stocking up on supplies and wiped out almost 1,000 cases of bottled water in a few hours Sunday, the Tampa Bay Times reported. NASA postpones launch, considers stashing rocket NASA said Sunday that it was monitoring Tropical Storm Ian, but had not determined whether it would roll back the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to the protection of the assembly building. The agency said it would "prioritize the agencys people and hardware." NASA managers, who canceled a launch set for Tuesday due to the storm, planned to meet Sunday night to evaluate whether to keep the vehicle at the launch pad to preserve an opportunity for a launch attempt on Oct. 2. The latest information provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Space Force, and the National Hurricane Center indicated a "slower moving and potentially more westerly track of the storm than yesterdays predictions showed, providing more time for the agencys decision making process," NASA said in a statement. Bethune-Cookman University orders evacuation Bethune-Cookman University canceled classes Monday and said they would reconvene remotely on Tuesday. "As a precaution, and in the interest of safety for members of our campus community, the university has issued a mandatory campus evacuation," the school said in a statement on its website. The school, a private, historically black university in Daytona Beach, has about 2,750 undergraduate students. The school told its students that their smartphones are computers and that they should continue to use their cellphones to keep up with their studies in the event they do not have access to a tablet, laptop or desktop technology. Florida's west coast could take rare hurricane hit AccuWeather meteorologists are warning that the storm could slam the west coast of Florida an often-missed target. The U.S. database shows that about 160 hurricanes, excluding tropical storms, have affected Florida. Only 17 have made landfall on the west coast north of the Florida Keys. Most storms typically travel northeast or northwest, not up the coast, AccuWeather senior weather editor Jesse Ferrell said. There is no record of a hurricane ever having tracked entirely up the west coast of Florida since records began in 1944. But Ian appears likely to take a "very unusual track," he said. Florida has had recent storms that were hurricanes, but were downgraded to tropical storms before landfall, Ferrell said. Elsa in 2021 made landfall west of Tampa, and Eta in 2020 made landfall north of Tampa in Cedar Key. Neither had the firepower close to a Category 3 storm, however. DeSantis declares statewide state of emergency Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a pre-landfall state of emergency for all 67 counties late Saturday. The declaration came a day after DeSantis' 24-county declaration.Florida National Guard members will be activated and on standby. "Floridians should remain vigilant and ensure their households are prepared for a potential impact," DeSantis said. Ian will then either move inland somewhere over the southeast U.S., or could track near or along parts of the Eastern Seaboard late this week, The Weather Channel said, adding that it's too soon to tell where Ian will end up, but there could be wind, flooding rain and other impacts extending into other parts of the East late next week. Biden authorizes FEMA to help President Joe Biden also declared an emergency for the state, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance to protect lives and property. Biden postponed a scheduled Sept. 27 trip to Florida due to the storm. Caymans, Cuba to see Ian's fury first But Ian will do damage even before reaching Cuba. Hurricane conditions are expected to reach Grand Cayman by early Monday, with tropical storm conditions expected by Sunday night, the weather service said. Significant wind and storm surges in western Cuba are expected as the storm strengthens Sunday night, according to the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane conditions are possible within the hurricane watch area in Cuba by Monday night or early Tuesday, with tropical storm conditions possible by late Monday. Tropical storm conditions are possible within the tropical storm watch area in Cuba Monday night and Tuesday. Contributing: Rick Neale, Florida Today; The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ian could become 'major' hurricane, targets Florida. What we know Funding sources for tech startups in Ukraine have gone off a cliff this year, with investors (and their LPs) wary of taking on the risk of backing potentially promising ideas and people who have stayed in the country amid the sustained, persistent and increasingly ugly onslaught from Russia. But just as there are glimmers that the tides might be changing in the wider war, an interesting story has developed on the funding front, too. Horizon Capital, an investment firm based out of Kyiv, is in the process of raising a $250 million fund that it plans to use to back tech startups in the country and neighboring Moldova. Horizon is today announcing its first close of $125 million for the fund, its fourth, with the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) pitching in $30 million as an anchor investor. Horizon and the IFC, which separately issued an oversubscribed $2 billion bond earlier this month to fund emerging markets investing, have been working together for nearly 15 years, but this is the IFC's first investment into Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February. Tellingly, others in the fund so far are not private VCs but foundations and state-backed investors who are pursuing this as an impact investing opportunity, aimed at reconstruction and soft diplomacy. They include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft, the Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets; the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank; the Western NIS Enterprise Fund; and the Zero Gap Fund, which is a partnership of the Rockefeller Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The fund is coming at an opportune time to shore up confidence in tech, an industry that had a strong grounding and appeared to be picking up a lot of momentum in Ukraine in the lead-up to the war. The tech sector's population saw a very immediate shake-down in the wake of Russia's invasion of the country. A number of western tech companies that had operations in the country mobilized quickly to evacuate their teams to safer areas in the western part of Ukraine -- or to remove them altogether to other countries. Those that stayed behind did so for a reason and that wasn't to keep working at their old jobs: it was to get involved in the defense and resistance efforts. (Some of those efforts had a very tech focus, as we have previously chronicled.) Story continues Ironically, that played out in a delayed way in terms of business output. In May, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) glowingly reported that the country's IT industry -- which had for years been working across a range of roles, covering homegrown tech companies and outsourced or satellite groups supporting companies from other markets -- posted $2 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2022, versus $1.44 billion the year before. Then in June, The New York Times reported on "Ukraine's Thriving Tech Sector", describing how the hundreds of thousands of engineers that were still in the country needed only internet and a laptop to continue to work, despite snap evacuations and other productivity disruptions. But signals for what is coming around the corner have not been strong, with a June survey of Ukrainian businesses by the NBU finding a generally gloomy outlook: a decline in productivity, pressures on workforces, layoffs, inflation, expected declines in investment and more. The startup ecosystem in Ukraine is, arguably, in an even more precarious state when considering all of the above. By its nature, a startup needs a degree of stability and support to get off the ground. Those that are bootstrapped need customers to survive; those that are building without a view of immediate revenue, as is so often the case in tech, need outside funding. And neither of those revenue sources have been particularly strong in Ukraine of late. Not all private investors have run away: New York-based ff Venture Capital wants to raise a $50 million fund specifically to back Ukrainian founders ($30 million has been raised as of the middle of this month). Its aim is to try to regain some of the momentum that Ukraine possessed before Russia invaded; ffVC notes that in 2020 it accounted for 57%, of total VC activity in the CEE region, which totaled $1 billion. Just one year later, in 2021, ffVC noted that CEE investment rose to $3.6 billion, and Ukraine accounted for $832 million of that, with BlackRock, ICONIQ, Lightspeed, Tiger Global, Insight, and Andreessen Horowitz among those backing Ukrainian founders (admittedly some outside of the country itself and some bootstrapped: the list of companies with Ukraine ties includes the likes of GitLab, Preply, Grammarly, MacPaw, People.AI, Petcube and Readdle). "Since the beginning of the invasion [investment] has significantly dropped off," it admitted, adding: "Where others see risk, we see opportunity." And that scenario is also, essentially, a calling card for organizations like the IFC to come into the picture. It's notable that William Sonneborn, the global director and chair of the IFC's investment committee, spent years previously at KKR, where he would have particular experience of the opportunity of investing in what appears to have promise precisely at what looks like the most inopportune and unpromising moment. This investment is a testament to a new generation of visionary entrepreneurs in Ukraine leading high-potential businesses that will help Ukraines economy enhance its resilience, said Makhtar Diop, IFC's MD in a statement. Together with partners, we aim to inject much-needed capital into Ukraines IT sector, bolstering innovation, creating jobs, and encouraging investors to return to the market despite the ongoing war. We thank IFC and all first close investors for taking this bold step alongside our team of dedicated professionals, ensuring that innovative entrepreneurs from Ukraine and Moldova have access to capital to fuel growth, to contribute to the renewal and revitalization of their countries, to create well-paying jobs, pay taxes, be socially responsible, and provide a strong signal to others that the time to invest is now," said Lenna Koszarny, Horizon Capitals founding partner and CEO, in a statement. "We are confident that this historic fund will be a resounding success, delivering both returns and impact. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Soutbank Centre chair Misan Harriman, and Sofia Mpanda and Grace Olanma Etigwe-Uwa, who were both part of Photo-Fantastic (Apple) In his first trip to Britain since 2019, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the Southbank Centre in London on Sunday as Apple announced a partnership to support Black creatives in Britain. Speaking exclusively to The Independent, he confirmed that this was the first partnership of its kind for the company in the UK, and is part of an initiative Apple calls its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI). Instrumental in setting up the partnership were Southbank Centre CEO Elaine Bedell and Apples vice president for environment, policy and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson. Both are part of the Apple tour of the Southbank Centre. Standing on the terrace where The Kinks are said to have composed Waterloo Sunset, and marvelling at the acoustics in the Royal Festival Hall, Cook is smiling and relaxed. As we pass a glass room called the Community Cube, a soundproofed space where musicians can practise, I remind Cook that he used to play the trombone. He comments that were he playing today, the soundproofing would be a useful benefit for anyone outside. Cook is accompanied by Misan Harriman, the chair of the Southbank Centre and a successful photographer whose work has ranged from British Vogue to the Black Lives Matter movement. So, its fitting that the tour sees them meeting the photographers who took part in the Photo-Fantastic accelerator programme. This was Apples first encounter with the Southbank Centre, earlier this year, when 15 London-based Black photographers spent an intense period shooting images and videos in seven days. The results have been exhibited through September. As the photographers talk about the value of the pre-flash for changing the finished picture, the importance of matte as opposed to gloss prints, and the stress of setting up so many photo shoots and hair and make-up!, their keenest passion is reserved for the process itself. One participant, Sofia Mpanda, says: The space that was created for us meant that this was the first time that the anxiety that I always experience could be broken down. I was in a safe space with people who looked like me, with people who I could fully trust and who I knew wouldnt judge me, so it really allowed me to push my work. Story continues Cook seems moved by this. I found that inspirational. The way the cameras, the photographic tools were used is incredible. Cook is a deeply socially engaged person, often quoting from his political heroes including Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. So, in setting up projects like REJI, what is Apples role in social change? Apple believes that we should be leaving the world better than we found it, improving peoples lives. It seeks to achieve this by providing products which help people create things more easily, more effectively, and by investing in projects like this. But many brands made a lot of promises at the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement. Is Apple living up to its promise? Cook is adamant that it is. Absolutely. We have blown right past our initial commitment of $100m, way beyond it. This was made in 2020 when REJI was first announced. Cook is right: Apple says it has already spent more that $150m and counting, with investments including an innovation and learning hub in Atlanta, a developer academy in Detroit and $25m invested into credit unions and local financial institutions for funds that will support communities of colour. The Southbank Centre partnership is the latest initiative and will provide training and development programmes to overcome barriers Black creatives can face, along with collaborations with local schools to spark a passion for creativity. These programmes will operate in London, Birmingham and Manchester. This kind of initiative could perhaps signify a moment of cultural transformation for business as well as the arts, perhaps, and the way companies are run. Cook doesnt directly comment on this, but stresses that what hes concerned with is making a difference in peoples lives, in empowering people. Youve seen how important a project like this has been for the photographers who took part. Not everybody gets the opportunities they should. Cook seems determined to change this, one way or another. Harriman is also passionate about what programmes like the current one can do. Youve just seen how important it is: being seen, doing a show at Southbank and having access to great teachers and photographers. This is just the beginning. With talk of creativity, the topic easily turns to Apples former CEO, Steve Jobs. Our job is to provide tools for that. When you think of how the camera, for instance, on the iPhone has changed from the first version to the 48-megapixel camera on the iPhone 14 Pro, the progress weve made is incredible, Cook says. Steve loved to see people harness their creativity, and he loved helping them to do things they didnt know they could do and show them their talent. Apple is a very different organisation now from when Jobs ran it, bigger and more successful, but this strand of passionately seeking a way to help people to realise their potential seems to remain the companys north star. A Ukrainian tank passes a former Russian checkpoint on Sept. 16 in the retaken city of Izyum. Credit - Evgeniy MaloletkaAP It would be easy to underestimate Valeriy Zaluzhny. When not in uniform, the general prefers T-shirts and shorts that match his easygoing sense of humor. When he first heard from aides to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late July 2021 that he was being tapped to lead the countrys armed forces, his stunned response was, What do you mean? As it sank in that he would become commander in chief, he tells TIME in his first interview since the Russian invasion began, he felt as if he had been punched not just below the belt but straight into a knockout. George Patton or Douglas MacArthur he is not. Yet when the history of the war in Ukraine is written, Zaluzhny is likely to occupy a prominent role. He was part of the Ukrainian brass who spent years transforming the countrys military from a clunky Soviet model into a modern fighting force. Hardened by years of battling Russia on the eastern front, he was among a new generation of Ukrainian leaders who learned to be flexible and delegate decisions to commanders on the ground. His dogged preparation in the run-up to the invasion and savvy battlefield tactics in the early phases of the war helped the nation fend off the Russian onslaught. Zaluzhny has emerged as the military mind his country needed, U.S. General Mark Milley wrote for TIME of his counterpart last May. His leadership enabled the Ukrainian armed forces to adapt quickly with battlefield initiative against the Russians. Photo illustration by Neil Jamieson for TIME (Source Photo: Gleb GaranichReuters Pool Photo/AP) That initiative has now taken a key turn in Ukraines favor. In Kyivs biggest gains since the war began in February, a lightning counteroffensive in the countrys northeast in early September stunned Russian troops, who fled in disarray and ceded vast swaths of occupied territory. Combined with a second operation in the south, Ukrainian forces say they wrested back more than 6,000 sq km from Russian control in less than two weeks, liberating dozens of towns and cities and cutting off enemy supply lines. The Ukrainian armys deft game of misdirection, touting a counter-offensive in the south before attacking in the northeast, caught Russia off guard. And it validated the Ukrainians arguments that intelligence collaboration and billions of dollars in weapons and materiel supplied by Western allies would yield results on the battlefield. The sudden victories came at a critical point in what had become a grinding war of attrition. As the economic pressures built across Europe and around the world, skeptics were beginning to doubt whether Ukraine could endure a protracted fight. The dramatic rout rattled Moscow, forcing Kremlin propagandists to admit the setback and upping the military and political pressures on Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Sept. 21 he responded by announcing the first mass conscription since World War II, a partial mobilization of up to 300,000 citizens. Ukrainian and U.S. officials alike believe the war will be longer and bloodier than most imagine. Putin has shown hes willing to sacrifice his troops and commit atrocities to exhaust his adversary. In a menacing speech, he warned that he was not bluffing when he threatened to use everything at his disposal to defend Russiaan allusion to nuclear weapons. The recent Ukrainian offensive may be a turning point, but it is not the decisive blow. In hindsight, well look at this like the Battle of Midway, says Dan Rice, a U.S. Army combat veteran and leadership executive at West Point who serves as a special adviser to Zaluzhny, referring to the pivotal 1942 clash that preceded three more years of war. A woman rides a bicycle on a street in Izyum, Sept. 14. Juan BarretoAFP/Getty Images Zaluzhny is just one of many Ukrainians responsible for the grit and progress of the nations outmanned army. Other key officers include General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraines ground forces, who led the defense of Kyiv and, more recently, the counteroffensive in the east, and Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraines military intelligence service. But after the President, Zaluzhny has become the face of the war effort. His persona is omnipresent on Ukrainian social media. One widely shared image shows the Iron General kneeling in front of the sobbing mother of one of his soldiers, head bowed in grief in front of a casket. In another he flashes a grin presiding over the wedding of one of his servicemen during a lull in the fighting. Fan channels on Telegram have hundreds of thousands of followers, with many changing their profiles to a photo of the general with his hands held in the shape of a heart. When Zaluzhny walks into a dark room he does not turn on the light, he turns off the darkness, one viral TikTok video jokes. Its hard to predict where the war is headed or the part Zaluzhny will play in the end. But perhaps for the first time, it now seems possible that the army he commands could achieve victory. Zaluzhny was drinking a beer at his wifes birthday party when he stepped outside to take a cell-phone call and learned about his new job. The 48-year-old generals rank and stature at the time were far below the position Zelensky was offering him. Commander in chief of the armed forces of Ukraine is the nations top military title, outranked only by the President himself. The height of that perch induced a feeling like vertigo. Ive often looked back and asked myself: How did I get myself into this? Zaluzhny told TIME in a June interview. To some, the choice seemed rash. While he had earned a reputation as an aggressive and ambitious commander, Zaluzhny was also considered a bit of a goofball, better known for clowning around with his troops than disciplining them. Born on a Soviet military garrison in northern Ukraine in 1973, he says he had dreams of becoming a comedian, much like Zelensky himself. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of his military family, entering the academy in Odessa in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine descended into crisis. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny attends a meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv on April 24, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters Zaluzhny rose through the ranks with a new generation of officers that bridged very different eras: raised in Soviet Ukraine, but eager to shed USSR military dogma. For a masters thesis, Zaluzhny analyzed U.S. military structure. Seeing how Ukrainian forces were still weighed down by the Soviet model that relied on rigid, top-heavy decision-making, he began to implement changes to mirror the forces of U.S. and NATO partners. Zaluzhny worked his way from commanding a platoon to leading the countrys forces on the eastern front following Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014. In that role, he developed junior officers and encouraged more agile decision-making, pushing down authority to commanders on the ground. Unlike in the Russian army, sergeants would not be scapegoats, but rather real deputies meant to create a pipeline of military talent, he said in a 2020 interview published by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. There is no going back, he said, to the army of 2013. But Zaluzhny also respected and admired the institutions of his Russian counterparts. In his office, he keeps the collected works of General Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian armed forces, who is 17 years his senior. I was raised on Russian military doctrine, and I still think that the science of war is all located in Russia, Zaluzhny says. I learned from Gerasimov. I read everything he ever wrote He is the smartest of men, and my expectations of him were enormous. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a flag hoisting ceremony in Izyum after the Ukrainian forces took back control of the city from the Russians. Metin AktasAnadolu Agency/Getty Images When Zelensky took office in 2019, the war in eastern Ukraine was already in its fifth year, and Zaluzhny was acting commander in the war zone. It fell to him to brief the new President on military operations and command structures. He knew Zelensky had never served in the military, and had no plans to school him in the tactical details of warfare. He doesnt need to understand military affairs any more than he needs to know about medicine or bridge building, Zaluzhny says. To his surprise, Zelensky seemed to agree. This has turned out to be one of [Zelenskys] strongest features, says Oleksiy Melnyk, a former Ukrainian Assistant Defense Minister. He has allowed his generals to run the show without direct interference into military business. In 2020, Zaluzhny oversaw an ambitious set of military exercises, which included a test of the Javelin anti-tank missile. With the President watching from the observation deck, the demonstration failed, and pundits went on Ukrainian TV to debate the bad omen for the nations military. Zaluzhny was sure he would be known in the Presidents office as the loser with the faulty Javelins. Yet Zelensky has shown a determination to jettison an older generation of officials in search of new blood, and a habit of elevating leaders with whom he feels a rapport, regardless of rank. In July 2021, with the Russians hauling tanks to the border and the Americans warning that Ukraine could soon face a full-scale attack, the President decided to put Zaluzhny in charge. I gave my opinion that he strikes me as a fairly professional, smart person, says Andriy Yermak, Zelenskys chief of staff. But the President made the call. Unlike Zelensky, who was skeptical of intelligence reports that a mass-scale Russian invasion was imminent, Zaluzhny was part of a corps of Ukrainian officers who viewed it as a matter of time. Within weeks of taking up his post, he began to implement key changes. Officers would be free to return fire with any available weapons if they came under attack, with no need for permission from senior commanders. We needed to knock down their desire to attack, Zaluzhny says. We also needed to show our teeth. Lon Tweeten By early February, the pressure of his new role was starting to show. The launch of an ambitious set of military exercises involving thousands of Ukrainian troops had been a disappointment, with basic maneuvers meant to simulate a Russian attack exposing cracks in Ukraines defenses. In Zaluzhnys view, the drills were a centerpiece of Ukraines defensive strategy, its best chance of survival, and the commanders were not taking them seriously enough. I spent an hour yelling, he recalls. I lost it. The men seated around the table were mostly older and more experienced than Zaluzhny, who did not have a reputation for losing his cool. I explained to them that if they cant pull this off, the consequences will not only cost us our lives, but also our country. After the outburst, the generals picked up their preparations. They relocated and camouflaged military hardware, moving troops and weapons out of their bases and sending them on tours around the country. This included aircraft, tanks, and armored vehicles, as well as the antiaircraft batteries Ukraine would soon need to maintain control of its skies. Theres no mistaking the smell of war, Zaluzhny says, and it was already in the air. But when it came to the details of his strategy, Zaluzhny held them close. I was afraid that we would lose the element of surprise, he says. We needed the adversary to think that we are all deployed in our usual bases, smoking grass, watching TV, and posting on Facebook. When the invasion started on the morning of Feb. 24, the general had two strategic goals for Ukraines defense. We could not allow Kyiv to fall, he said. And, on all the other vectors, we had to spill their blood, even if in some places it would require losing territory. The aim, in other words, was to allow the Russians to advance and then destroy their columns in the front and supply lines in the rear. By the sixth day of the invasion, he concluded it was working. The Russians had failed to take airports around Kyiv and had advanced deep enough to begin straining supply lines, leaving them exposed. Milley, Zaluzhnys U.S. counterpart, was in some ways astounded when he saw the Ukrainians holding out. He asked Zaluzhny whether he planned to evacuate to safer ground. I told him, I dont understand you, Zaluzhny says. For me the war started in 2014 I didnt run away then, and Im not going to run now. He too was surprised by Russias blunders. When the enemy faced heavy resistance or lost the ability to resupply, they did not retreat or shift to a different approach. They just herded their soldiers into the slaughter, Zaluzhny said. They chose the scenario that suited me best of all. Even as the U.S. and allies continued to flood the country with billions in military aid, the news was grim. Russia pounded the strategic port city of Mariupol, killing thousands of civilians. In May, hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who had defended the last stronghold in the city, the Azovstal steel plant, surrendered. (More than 150 were returned Sept. 21 in a prisoner swap, including five top Ukrainian commanders.) Mass graves were discovered in towns and villages occupied by Russian troops. Still, Ukrainian officials insisted they could win. We will fight until the last drop of blood, Zaluzhny told TIME. A few weeks later, Ukraine began to do something that struck military analysts as unusual. From the top of the government, Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, began to publicly tout their preparations for a large-scale operation to retake territory in the south. In anticipation of an attack, Russia began to reposition troops, including some of its most elite units from other regions to reinforce its positions in the south. On Aug. 29, the Ukrainian military announced that the long-anticipated southern offensive had begun. A Ukrainian soldier assists a wounded comrade on Sept. 12 in the Kharkiv region. Kostiantyn LiberovAP But there were indications something else was afoot. We have a war on, not only in the south, Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraines National Security and Defense Council, told TIME on Sept. 1. The front line is 2,500 km long. Many experts doubted that Ukraine would be capable of mounting a counter-offensive on one front, let alone two. Five days later, Ukrainian troops launched a surprise strike in the countrys northeast. The Russians were caught off guard. Many fled in disarray, leaving behind weapons and equipment. Local reports painted a humiliating picture of retreat, describing soldiers stealing civilians clothes, bicycles, and cars to escape. In six days, the Ukrainian military retook an estimated 3,000 sq km of Russian-held territory, including strategically important rail hubs used to resupply its forces. The strike stunned the Kremlin, U.S. officials, and even top Ukrainians. I taught myself to moderate my expectations, so as not to be disappointed later, Reznikov tells TIME. Some breakthroughs occurred a little faster than planned. Intelligence and advanced weaponry provided by the West also helped. They gave us the location of the enemy, how many of them are at that location, and what they have stored there, Reznikov says. Then we would strike. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) provided by the Pentagon allowed Ukraine to destroy warehouses of ammunition, fuel, and command posts. Lighter vehicles like U.S.-donated humvees, as well as trucks and tanks sent by the U.K., Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic, allowed them to outmaneuver the Russians. Ukrainians have demonstrated much better distributed tactical-level operations, says Jeffrey Edmonds, a former CIA analyst and Russia director on the National Security Council. Theyre much more disciplined. Also crucial, Ukrainian officials say, was the flexible command structure that allowed them to exploit the quick Russian collapse. The Ukrainian army has the freedom to make decisions at every level, Reznikov says, likening it to NATO standards. They do it quickly, unlike the Russians. A boy rides a bicycle near an armored tank with a Ukrainian flag in the town of Izyum on Sept. 19. Oleksii ChumachenkoSOPA Images/LightRocket/ Getty Images Ukrainian officials are careful to spread the credit for the military successes so far. Its not a story of one star, but a constellation of our military elite, Reznikov says, naming a long list of celebrated officers from the armed forcesthe infantry, navy, air force, medical corps and others. There are rumors of tensions between Zelensky and his top military commander, though the President and his aides have dismissed them. The so-called conflict with Zaluzhny was invented by our opposition from start to finish, says Oleksiy Arestovych, a Zelensky aide and veteran of Ukraines military intelligence service. On the one hand, its obviously made up. On the other, it has a painful effect, because stirring up conflict between the military commander and the commander in chief is a catastrophe. Hardened by war, Ukrainian leaders know the recent successes have only bought time. Russia has staked everything on this war, says Danilov, the head of Ukraines National Security and Defense Council. Putin cannot lose. The stakes are too high. Ukraines operations in the south have moved slowly. As winter approaches, Kyiv must take care not to overextend its forces. And there are forces at play outside Ukraines control. The looming energy crisis could sap Western military support, with Russia already cutting its gas supplies to Europe from 40% to 9%. For his part, Zaluzhny is girding for a long and bloody slog. Knowing what I know firsthand about the Russians, our victory will not be final, he told TIME. Our victory will be an opportunity to take a breath and prepare for the next war. With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Simmone Shah